In Other News: 02/05/2013.

• Call of Duty: Ghosts has gone straight to the top of the most popular chart on Amazon despite the game only being a pre-order! It seems that CoD hasn't quite lost its appeal just yet !
  Via Slashgear.

• According to rumours today there's meant to be a whole host of new Windows Phones coming out this summer. Phones from Huawei, Nokia, Samsung and HTC are rumoured, while we don't doubt that this is possible, we want something more concrete than Reddit before we report this in a big way, if you're interested check out the source link below!
  Via PhoneArena.

• iOS 6.1.4 is landing on iPhone 5's at the moment, the update features an updated audio profile for the speakerphone, it appears to only be rolling out on that device and there was no beta test period, so we can assume that it will only be affecting iPhone 5's!
  Via MacRumors.

• The guys at Modaco have found a helpful use for that Wii Fit balance board which you haven't used quite as much as you planned to! Well it turns out that if you download an Android app and follow the steps on their website you can have some handy internet connected scales in no time! It's pretty sweet, head here to check it out!

• Talking of Nintendo kit, a group of hackers claimed to have manipulated the Wii U system sufficiently to allow for games to be played for a USB stick or hard disk drive. Nintendo deny the claims at the moment, we'll have to wait and see which way this one goes!
  Via PocketLint.

• Facebook has been awarded nearly $2.8 million because numerous groups have taken urls which are misspellings of their facebook.com domain name. Basically because it's such an easy thing to misspell certain sites the US government stopped people using addresses which attract traffic from misspellings in a bit to make money off of them. The ruling punished the owners of over 100 domain names, things such as fadebook.com, rfacebook.com and wwwfaceboobs.com were all found guilty.
  Via TheVerge.

• Dreamworks have splashed a cool $33 million on a YouTube channel called AwesomenessTV. The channels has over 14 million subscribers and has had 800 million views so far! Is this the first high profile buyout of a YouTube channel?
  Via Slashgear.

And finally, we're not sure if you've seen this before but Paul O'Brian tweeted about the Nexus 4 wired headset! We'd never seen it before, but it looks pretty sweet! If you're interested head over to Google Play to check it out!

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Call of Duty Ghosts trailer released!

   Call of Duty is one of the biggest and most lucrative gaming franchises in the world. For whatever reason all of us gamers just enjoy running around killing each other through our console of choice! It seems as thought it's that time of year again folks; people start getting bored of the last Call of Duty and we're now looking forward to the next one!

   It's a good job then that Activision have released the first teaser for the new game which confirms the new title! The next game will be called Call of Duty Ghosts and will, as expected, be made by Infinity Ward, the guys behind the Modern Warfare series!

   As it stands we have very little information on the game, the only thing is the teaser below which was released today! The video confirms that we will hear more on May the 21st when Microsoft give us some details on the new Xbox too!

   In the meantime check out the video below and then let us know in the comments if you're looking forward to the new game? Don't forget to let us know if you want a MOAB or Nuke killstreak back and what you think is missing, if anything, from Black Ops 2!
Via MajorNelson.

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01/02/2013: Windows 8 market share after 3 months. The impact of war games on gun sales, PS4 news and much more!

Microsoft's Windows 8 only has 2.2% of the market?

   Since the release of Windows 8 we have seen a complete barrage of devices! There have been literally hundreds released running the new operating system, but there's not been too much of a big dent made on the market share front.

    The new OS has exactly 2.26% of the OS market share, which after three months doesn't compare too favourably with the market shares which Windows 7, at 44.48% and Windows XP at 39.51% hold.

   To be fair we are only three months after the release of the platform so we can only learn so much from these figures, but it's safe to conclude that Windows 8 hasn't taken the world by storm, perhaps because Windows 7 is such a good platform already people just haven't felt the need to upgrade.

NetMarketShare Via Slashgear.

The impact of war games on gun sales!

   Apparently Call of Duty, Medal of Honour, Battlefield and any other war and shooting game series you can think of may well be having more of an impact on you than you think! According to an interview conducted by Eurogamer gun brands are very happy to have their guns included in the game because this will sooner or later transfer into actual sales of the weapons.

   It's somewhat surprising, from a British perspective, that playing video games can actually make you more inclined to buy guns from certain brands in real life. Although, it is in effect in game advertising and the real impact of this in-game exposure has been highlighted by Ralph Vaughn, the man charged with negotiating deals for the inclusion of Barrett branded weapons in games. He said:

   "It is hard to qualify to what extent rifle sales have increased as a result of being in games... But video games expose our brand to a young audience who are considered possible future owners."

   If you're interested in this subject we cannot recommend this article from Simon Parkin on Eurogamer, the source of this news, highly enough. It goes into fantastic depth and some of the reactions from games makers are somewhat concerning!

In other news:

• HP will be closing down their site in Ruesselsheim, south-west of Frankfurt, Germany by the end of October this year. This is reportedly part of a multi-year restructuring plan and it will unfortunately see the loss of around 850 jobs.
  Via Reuters.

• Sony's controller for the upcoming PS4 console will reportedly have a little touchscreen area for you to control certain games with. The whole thing will reportedly add in more social features too!
  Via TheVerge.

• Evasion are reportedly going to be releasing the first untethered jailbreak for iOS since May 2012 on Sunday! Check out their website on Sunday here and you can have full control of your device again!
  Via Slashgear.

• The Gamestick has had an insanely successful Kickstart and the funding wrapped up today with $647,658 raised in total. If you backed the project and everything goes nice and smoothly then you the first batch of units will be in people's hands at some point next month!
  Via Slashgear.

• Amazon have locked down an exclusive on the TV show Downton Abbey! This comes as Amazon and Netflix really try to step up their offerings!
  Via TheVerge.

And finally, the WSJ is reporting that Sony will unveil their plans for the next generation of Playstations on the 20th of February. Visitors will reportedly "see the future" at the event. The people the WSJ thinks are familiar with the matter believe the Playstation 4 will debut on February the 20th. We're not entirely convinced it will, but they will probably show off some details. It's only because the current PS3 debuted nearly two years after the Xbox 360, so it would be strange of Sony to shorten their product cycle so much compared to their nearest competitor! But, we'll have to wait and see!

Via WSJ.

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17/07/2012

It's that time of year again: iPhone5 rumours ramp up.

      So we've already heard stories suggesting that the next iPhone will move to a larger 4" screen but naturally  that's not the end of the rumours.

    Instead there's been more focus on what sort of screen technology Apple will deploy. But, now the Wall Street Journal has reported the Cupertino company will be utilizing a new technique that makes the screen notably thinner. Sharp, Japan Display, and LG are all set to produce the in-cell touch panels for the next iPhone.

   This In-cell technology integrates the touch sensors directly into the LCD, which removes the need for any additional touch layer. Having a separate touch layer adds additional thickness to the screen. The difference is only minor, at around 0.5mm, but the removal of that layer will also result in improved screen quality. The Wall Street Journal says that Apple’s supply chain would be simplified, and that the company would ultimately cut costs as a result of the move. This is something which is bound to please shareholders as every saving means more profits!

   But the changes go further than the screen; there's widespread expectation that the next iPhone will include Apple's new Nanosim standard. European carriers have reportedly been ordering large quantities of the new sim cards to ensure that there are enough to go around when the new iPhone is release. Again the reality is that this will only save a few Millimeters but this saving will help to get cram in a slightly bigger battery which is always a requirement in a new device.

In other news: 

• Samsung has acquire a little company called CSR is a UK technology company that deals in single-chip Bluetooth solutions, with Samsung’s $310 million purchase of the phone connectivity technologies allowing the South Korean company to make use of various patents and ultimately compete with Qualcomm with an offering of SoC's. 
• The European Commission has been looking into issues Microsoft has been facing with their 'choose a browser' screen on Windows 7 Service Pack 1 when it was released in early 2011. The issue has reportedly affected millions of customers and it's probably something Microsoft will be punished quite heavily, to the tune of $7billion (yes billion!), despite the company saying today it was a bug and it will be fixed immediately!
• The T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy Note is finally official, although we're slightly disappointed with the Qualcomm S3 processor and the lack of a definite date of availability. On the plus side it'll be launching with ICS and the premium suite other Galaxy Notes have been treated to.
• EA has promised Battlefield 4 beta access to all of the people out there who choose to pre-order or have already pre-ordered a copy of Medal of Honour Warfighter. This is quite clearly a bid to drive sales of the Medal of Honour game but it might be worth it, you're essentially getting two games for the price of one!
• AT&T has suggested that they will be charging subscription fees for Facetime over 3G for their iPhone customers.
• Skype has patched their messaging bug that we reported yesterday, so download your updates! 
• Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 users will soon be able to enjoy the map Terminal from Modern Warfare 2. It's available today (June 17th) for Elite subscribers on Xbox and it'll be available to everyone, for free, tomorrow (June 18th).

Terminal is coming to MW3!

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