By… not doing things at E3.

This is of course not too much of a surprise, as Nintendo did tell us it wouldn’t be doing a big reveal at this year’s E3 and would instead by hosting a lot of smaller events, but this one is a pretty smart one. Instead of doing much at the E3 expo at all, trying to compete with other companies on the same floor, it’s going to make several of its unreleased Wii U games playable at 100 Best Buy locations around America during the show.

You don’t need a ticket to play these, you don’t need to be a journalist and you don’t need to worry about paying for flights and accommodation, as your local Best Buy may well just have the same kind of stuff at years past you’d have had to make a special effort to get a hands on go with. Of course depending on the popularity of the stores, actually getting to play might not be too easy, but that would  be the same with the actual show anyway.

“See you guys at BestBuy”

As Kotaku points out, this is doubly good of Nintendo, as it lets average gamers in on the action, which is where it needs a real popularity boost. Many journalists – the kind set to visit E3 – have been giving the company glowing reviews for its products, but it’s not shifting consoles. Giving people a hands on go with the system is much more likely to do that.

At E3, Nintendo is showing off the next Mario game, new Mario Kart and the newest rendition of Smash Bros, but whether these will appear in the Best Buy stores is unknown.

KitGuru Says: This is actually pretty smart. It’s a consumer winner, but whether that will counter the bad press from the Youtube attack, I’m not so sure. 

When the name Yahoo pops up I have to do a double take, because I always forget it still exists. Every time someone emails me from a @yahoo.com account or there’s some talk of the company doing something, business like, I’m reminded that it’s still around and not only that, but it’s worth billions and makes a killing every year. Well today I had that same realisation again, as apparently Yahoo is sniffing out Tumblr for a potential buyout.

The figures are big too, as the rumoured acquisition talks have apparently been whispering that it’s over a billion dollars, which puts it in the region of £660 million.

However, as Venturebeat suggests, the problem with such a lofty valuation, is that Tumblr, despite having a large userbase, doesn’t really make much money. Last year it pulled in only $13 million; though admittedly it did only begin an advertising campaign last year, so that figure is expected to rise throughout 2013.

From Yahoo’s end, another buyout isn’t too surprising, since the relatively new CEO, Marissa Mayer, has been buying up companies left and right since she joined in June last year. Granted none of the acquisitions have been to quite the same scale as Tumblr, but they’re noteworthy. What’s interesting though is Yahoo isn’t continuing with much of the services it’s buying up, suggesting that it’s either taking out startup competition, or working on a nice patent catalogue, so it can take other tech firms to task with patent suits.

CEO Smiley was a horrible businessman

With Tumblr however, it seems unlikely that Yahoo would splash out such a wad of cash, only to shut the site down. However, Yahoo could bring its own advertising network to bear, which could see it fall from grace with the user base, even if revenue would no doubt skyrocket.

KitGuru Says: Any Tumblr fans reading? Would you be annoyed if Yahoo took over the site?

Nvidia has told several people that got in touch with the graphics card maker, that it’s currently not looking to bring the Shield to the EU. Chances are, that will all depend on how many of our US based cousins pick up the device and they can now do so too, since today saw the Shield go up for pre-order on Newegg, Gamestop and Canada Computer.

While speculation is varied on how well Nvidia Shield will actually do – a large part of which is to do with the price tag being $350 (£230) – it has received praise for its ability to offer the Android gaming platform a decent controller scheme – as opposed to touch – and for its powerful internal hardware: a Tegra 4 SoC and 2GB of RAM. The ability to stream PC games to the little screen and then through to a big screen TV could also be a game changer in some respects.

Is it a real game changer though, or just a niche product for hardcore phone gamers?

It certainly seems like more of a viable purchase right now that Nintendo’s Wii U, which is still seeing lacklustre sales and a poor games line up.

KitGuru Says: What would you guys rather have right now? A Nvidia Shield, letting you play your hi-def PC games around your house, or a Wii U, where you can play games that are available on every other platform – save for a couple? Let us know below or on the Facebook page. 

Ever wondered how far the Curiosity rover has driven in its short time on the red planet? Or perhaps the distance that any of the Apollo Lunar Rovers covered while piloted across the dusty surface of our moon? Well now you can find out, thanks to NASA.

Charting the miles (well, kilometers) covered by some of mankind’s greatest vehicular achievements, the space organisation has created a nice infographic to show just how far we’ve come and gone in the past forty years. Of course, only being on Mars for a few months, Curiosity hasn’t had much time to get up to speed, so it’s only traveled 0.7KM. Travel up the list to some of the Lunar Rovers though and we’re getting into the tens of kilometres.

Still, while the USA supposedly won the space race, that’s not the case if you consider it all about distance.

That’s right, since 1973 the Russian’s have been kicking the world’s ass all over the place, when it comes to the distance race, in space. However, Opportunity is slowly closing in. Despite it’s initial lifespan expectation being just 90 days, it’s endured for almost ten years and it’s still trundling along. At this rate, it won’t be long before it becomes the crowned king of land racing on another world.

As long as nothing goes wrong though, Curiosity could one day take poll position, as its batteries should easily last over a decade.

KitGuru Says: Impressive stuff from the old Opportunity. In all fairness though, the champion Lunokhod would have gotten further had a load of dust not clogged up its radiators, overheating the thing, in space. Never let the Russian’s build your CPU cooler.

[Thanks Wired]

Along with writing this news piece, I’ll be winging an email off to our fearless leader Zardon, in a hope that he’ll be able to secure one of the Foc.us headsets for review. It looks crazy, it sounds crazy and I bet it doesn’t work, but I still want to see one in action and feel the electricity coursing through my brain, making me a better gamer… somehow.

Not much is known about the Foc.us at the moment, as it’s not out yet and the creators are being somewhat cagey. However as with every other firm selling something, they’re keen to talk up its benefits. Apparently it’s designed to make you game faster by “overclock[ing] your head.”

Of course that sounds ridiculous, but there is some science behind it. The Foc.us headset uses something called Transcranial direct-current stimulation, that essentially pumps minute currents through certain parts of your brain, stimulating the neurons into firing faster and more frequently. This works by – and I quote the great Wikipedia here -  ”When positive stimulation (anodal tDCS) is delivered, the current causes a depolarization of the resting membrane potential, which increases neuronal excitability and allows for more spontaneous cell firing.”

Not sure Foc.us really understand gaming. You don’t tend to do it at an abandoned shipyard. 

This isn’t magic science mubmo jumbo either. There have been uses of this tech throughout the last few decades that purport to have helped conditions like Parkinson’s Disease, stroke based motor deficits and tinnitus. However the fact that this isn’t seeing widespread usage could mean that a lot of the effects are placebo related. There just hasn’t been that much study performed on it.

When co-founder of Foc.us Michael Oxley doesn’t even sound like he knows it’ll work, you do have to wonder: “I built foc.us because I was frustrated that however much I read about tDCS there was no easy way to try it. Now there is,” his quote reads on the official site.

The impressive part of tDCS “treatment” is that the increased neural activity appears to continue even after treatment ends. So theoretically you could have the Foc.us headset on for an hour and continue gaming for another 45 minutes afterwards and continue to receive the benefits – if they manifest at all.

You can even control the whole thing via Bluetooth. No Android app yet, but iOS users go to town!

Some side effects of tDCS can be nausea, itching (under the electrode) dizziness and phosphene when the electrode begins firing.

Pre-ordering the Foc.us headset now, will set you back £180 + £6 for shipping and it’ll arrive sometime in July.

KitGuru Says: Any brave readers going to trump up the cash to give it a try? In the mean time, I’ll see if I can get a review sample. I have to see if this thing works.

[Cheers PCGamesN]

Rupert Murdoch has compared Facebook to Myspace, suggesting the fall from grace for the social network could be already beginning, poking fun at the falling time spent by the average user through his Twitter account.

“Look out Facebook!” begins the Tweet by the BSKYB owner. “Hour’s spent participating per member dropping seriously. First really bad sign as seen by crappy MySpace years ago.”

Of course he should know about MySpace, since his corporation bought it up in 2006, managing it through its peak value of $12 billion and into its decline, where it was eventually sold for $35 million in 2011 – a substantial loss from the $580 million that was paid for it.

Chances are Murdoch was simply trying to make a gag at the expensive of Facebook, but his warning has some truth to it. If Zuckerberg and others at Facebook were to leave now, they’d be getting out with billions of dollars. I think everyone would be surprised if they did, specifically the top dog himself, but if Facebook is indeed in decline, it may never again reach its peak.

If you look are share prices alone however, Zuckberg should have left right after the initial Facebook IPO. It was initially floated on the stock exchange at $38 a share, valuing the entire company at $104 billion. Since then shares have fallen quite far, hitting a record low of $17.73 in September last year before making its way back up to around $26 recently.

KitGuru Says: What do you guys think the future of Facebook is? Will it fall from grace like so many websites have done before? Or will it soldier on forever, like a Google or Amazon?

[Thanks Telegraph]

Sony has secured the international distribution rights to the animated feature film adaption of crush-the-castle-avian-edition, Angry Birds. It’s not wasting time either, announcing that the movie will debut worldwide on 1st July 2016.

It’s not handing off to some large studio though, but keeping it all in-house. Rovio, the developer of what became the biggest game series ever made until Candy Crush came along, will handle the production and financing for the movie. Two other names have been confirmed for involvement, including John Cohen, who produced Despicable Me and David Maisel, who was chairman of Marvel Studios for a while, helping to produce Iron Man.

Imagine this but with a big studio polish. 

“Every studio in town would love to add Angry Birds to their slate,” said Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton. ”There are few titles out there that bring this kind of excitement, brand awareness and built-in audience to the table. We’re thrilled to be distributing this film and we hope this is just the beginning of what will be a long relationship with Rovio as we look for ways to work on future projects together.”

A movie for the little animated critters was only a matter of time. The game has already been adapted into so many different mediums. There’s a cartoon series, child’s playgrounds modeled around the game world and ‘characters’, plushies, toys and loads more.

KitGuru Says: Something tells me that like the Pokemon Animated movies, we could see regular releases in the Angry Bird movie lineup. Would you go watch one? It’s unlikely to be on the level of a Pixar movie. Maybe a Cars 2.

[Cheers MCV]

There doesn’t seem a day without Google Glass being in the news and now eight members of Congress are demanding that Google address a range of privacy concerns over their Google Glass product.

The letter was sent to Larry Page, Google’s CEO and they asked eight questions, demanding a response by June 14th.

The letter said “We are curious whether this new technology could infringe on the privacy of the average American. Because Google Glass has not yet been released and we are uncertain of Google’s plans to incorporate privacy protections into the device, there are still a number of unanswered questions.”

The glasses may be high profile news already, but they are not yet on sale to members of the public. They connect to the internet and let people record videos and take photographs, send text messages and post directly to social networking websites. This isn’t the first time the video functionality has raised concerns in regards to people’s privacy.

The NYTIMES add “The request, from the Bipartisan Congressional Privacy Caucus, came as Google held its annual I/O developers conference in San Francisco, where it showed off Glass, gave software developers information about how to build apps for the device and introduced seven new apps, including ones from Facebook, Twitter and CNN.

The group, for which Representative Joe Barton, Republican of Texas, is a co-chairman, asked questions including how Google would collect and store data from the devices, how it would ensure that it did not unintentionally collect private data, how Google would protect the privacy of people not using Glass when they are with people using it and whether the device would have facial recognition technology.”

Steve Lee, who is the director of product management for Google Glass has addressed the facial recognition question in a statement. He said “We’ve consistently said that we won’t add new face recognition features to our services unless we have strong privacy protections in place.”

This isn’t the first time Google have been in the media spotlight over privacy concerns. They have been punished over a social networking tool and more for Street View mapping.

Mr Lee has said that Google follow all the privacy and data collection policies with the Glass product and have incorporated social cues into the device to help prevent certain privacy violations. Users have to press a button or speak to Glass to take a photograph or record video and then look directly at whatever they are recording.

Kitguru says: It will be interesting to see how congress respond to Google’s answers in the coming month.

3D printers are hot property right now and if you are in the market for one that can handle larger objects then you may want to hold fire on the new Lulzbot TAZ 3D printer – it claims to have the largest print volume for desktop printers in its price range.

The TAZ takes up 680mm x 520 mm x 515mm space when assembled and can print objects 298 mm x 275 mm x 250 mm. The developers say that this is  the largest print volume for 3D printers under $5,000.

Another benefit of the TAZ printer is the tool free assembly and pre calibration system. Aleph Objects Inc, the company behind the model say that TAZ users can switch tool heads or even swap out for a completely different one, if they want. The company issued a statement saying that the hardware and software will ‘not be locked down, become obsolete, or require licensed upgrades over time’.

The printer is able to build objects with a layer height of 75 to 300 microns at a speed up to 200 mm/sec. The company have announced the Budaschnozzle hot end which can handle a smoother surface on objects and a finer resolution. The TAZ can also accept various print materials such as PLA, ABS, PVA, HIPS and wood filaments.

You can read more about this printer, over here.

Kitguru says: The Lulzbot TAZ 3D printer costs $2,195, which includes tools and manuals and a 90 day warranty.

Many people are using services such as Dropbox and Google Cloud to share and protect important files. A new service has hit the Kickstarter website and the aim is to offer cloud based storage, but back in the home of the user.

Solutions such as Dropbox put the actual data into a data center in a remote location. Space Monkey is unlike other cloud services because they ship you a piece of hardware to place in your home. The hardware is offered at $10 a month, which compares well against Dropbox for instance, which is $9.99 a month for 100gb.

When the data is uploaded through Space Monkey, it is encrypted and then spread out to different drives on the network. This is to protect the data in event of failures. It also creates redundant copies which helps to make sure no files are lost. All of the files are also available on the internet thanks to the software.

A folder is added to the user desktop and anything added here will be uploaded to the service for access anywhere. The company also want to release an iOS and Android program to support mobile devices.

Obviously this ‘cloud’ system is much faster than traditional systems as it is based around a local network. If you are outside the range of the local network, then the company say the speeds are similar to traditional cloud storage services.

Space Monkey is seeking funding for the new storage system via Kickstarter. The Kickstarter campaign is due to end later today and it has already met $328,359 of its $100,000 initial goal. If you pledge $119 then you get the Space Monkey device itself and one year of access.

Kitguru says: An unusual idea, but based on the Kickstarter funding amount of over $300,000, a lot of people want it.

To celebrate the announcement of its Z87 motherboard line-up, Asus has launched a competition offering a chance to win 3 of these ‘next generation’ products.

To enter the competition, simply visit Asus United Kingdom’s Facebook page, answer an easy question and supply the relevant information. The page can be accessed via this link.

For a hint to the answer and coverage of what to expect from Asus’ Z87 range of motherboards, head over to our article here.

Asus is allowing UK residents aged 16 and over to enter for the chance to win. The competition’s closing date is 10th June 2013.

KitGuru says: Fancy the chance to be one of the first to get your hands on the latest Z87 kit, thanks to Asus? Head on over to Asus UK’s Facebook page and enter. Good luck!

We’ve all done it at some point, got caught up in the atmosphere at a gig or event and decided we’d film a segment to show friends and family. Before you know it though you’re watching the whole thing through your phone, making short clips you’ll never watch again. Fortunately people are beginning to realise how dumb this is, but for those that haven’t yet (read: anyone that owns an iPad, it seems) Soundhalo might convince them otherwise.

The tech is being trialed tonight at the Brixton Academy with a couple of shows and will roll out elsewhere if it’s successful. At the moment it’s still in beta, but the idea behind Soundhalo, is to provide high quality downloads of songs, as soon as they’re finished, letting those with the Soundhalo app get hold of them straight away.

The app itself is free, but you’ll need to pay for each song, which could be the programs downfall, since as crappy as they are, smartphone videos are free.

Gus Unger-Hamilton from Alt-J, one of the band’s trialing the app, said (via Wired): “I think the future of music and technology as an artist, and looking at how artists and fans interact, is really exciting. Artistic output no longer has to be be dictated by the things it used to be. It used to be how much music can you fit on a vinyl record? And how long is a video cassette? Now that no longer has to be the case.”

At the moment, the app is Android only, but an iOS version is in the works.

Kitguru Says: Sounds like a decent enough idea. The paying part is going to be a stumbling block though I think.

We were given the opportunity to interview Roy Taylor, Corporate Vice President Global Channel Sales for AMD. Roy is a busy man, but he still found time to sit down and chat with Kitguru.

First, a little background history – before Roy joined AMD on January 2nd this year, he had been working with Nvidia since the late 90′s. Roy may be in a very high profile position, but he hasn’t forgotten his roots, the simple pleasures in life and his passion for gaming. Yes, even top executives like to play games on their computer, its not just for teenage geeks.

Before we got down to the business side of the interview we first chatted about life, food and the early days of technology. Roy also tells a scary story about his webcam being hacked at home. Yes, we kid you not.

Roy Taylor: Corporate Vice President Global Channel Sales for AMD.

My first computer was the Commodore 64 … Roy’s first computer was actually the Amstrad 286 lug book. He laughed about the weight and said it was certainly not that easy to ‘lug’ about. Roy likes to cook, and if he has to impress some important guests then a couple of Salmon Wellington’s would be top of the list, why? Well ‘the pastry takes ages, but it looks spectacular when it comes out of the oven’. He would rather eat his favourite Singapore Noodles at a restaurant however. We all need our comfort food.

When I asked him what invention he would like to be responsible for, he issued a counterpart to his previous food related comments “The DNA string for staying slim. In the future, no one will be fat, ever. Sadly I won’t be here for it!”. The middle age spread hits us all, sadly.

You can genuinely feel the excitement when you chat with Roy about his favourite games. We talked about gaming in the early days and he said “I started working with Nvidia immediately after playing Doom with the Open GL patch and a Voodoo card. I have been hooked on games and the PC business ever since.” Headshots certainly are a good way to unwind, we can’t disagree.

I asked Roy about the recent announcements from companies (such as Microsoft) detailing phone calls across the globe. We can have our voices translated into any language we choose, in real time. It certainly shows the power of the web when it comes to augmenting traditional ways of working/playing. I asked him about AMD’s take on how the cloud can create a revolution in online gaming?

He said “The truth is that none of us really yet knows the answer to this.  The idea that we can have pre-rendered, GOD (Gaming On Demand) available gaming via the cloud is deeply appealing and we believe that Radeon Sky is going to be an exciting development here.  Where the computation will take place is going to ebb and flow depending on the granularity of the experience. More simply put, if the game and the experience is set then we (the industry) can deliver it via the sky.  But if the pace of graphical innovation escapes the sky, then the computation will stay local.”

I asked Roy about R&D funding for advanced projects. nVidia’s cash cow for future graphics seems to come from Quadro. Can AMD create a genuine challenge in the workstation arena and, if that’s not possible, how else can ‘king of the mountain’ graphics development be funded 5 years down the road?

Roy said “There are really two questions being asked here.  The first is; can we compete in professional graphics. The second is, does a company need a professional graphics business to fund/lead its consumer graphics. OK let’s take the first.  That’s a yes.  Our current Fire Pro products, as measured by many current benchmarks, are considerably better than our competitors in real world professional apps.  Not only can we compete but we are faster at less power, than our competition. We have had three record revenue quarters in a row for our Professional Graphics – I believe they are the best products available.  It’s time the world knew.”

He added “Now the second question which is do we need powerful workstation GPUs to develop a roadmap? We believe that large, parallel processor GPUs for mission critical and large scale computation have proven their validity and value.  But what makes a really good device for finding shale gas in Brittany isn’t always a good product for running Battlefield 4.  We do believe in powerful GPU architectures, both for their own sake and as part of our APU and HSA plans. So yes, developments in workstation do lead to better GPU roadmaps but they are not always the same devices. This is an area we continue to focus on and expect to have more to say in the future.”

KitGuru recently carried a story about Intel extending beyond DX. They were quite realistic in saying that it will be a few more years before their APU catches up with the one AMD will be offering in consoles. To get around the lack of sheer horsepower, they seem focused on finding game developer problems that have not been solved yet – then creating an Intel-friendly solution. In this case it is for Order Independent Transparency, which they reckon is an 80% overhead on traditional systems and 10-15% for them. It’s easy to imagine a situation in the near future where an enormous Intel spend will back up a game that relies heavily on these techniques – drastically reducing the gap between Intel and AMD/nVidia.  Question: In your opinion, are these ‘solutions’ genuine – solving a real issue which faces developers all the time – or are they ‘fixes looking for a problem’?

Roy took a moment and said “It’s interesting that “Sandybridge” committed 17% of its die size to GPU, Ivybridge 27% and we estimate that Haswell commits in excess of 30% in an apparent attempt to make their APUs more balanced (see slide below.) Building efficient graphics processors is a difficult and complex task involving a large variety of skillsets. AMD has market-leading experience and expertise in this area allowing us to repeatedly deliver power-friendly and high-performance discrete Graphics Processing Units (GPU) and Accelerated Processing Units (APU) for both the PC and console markets.”

Roy continued “Now your question is do these APUs solve real issues.  The answer is yes.  There is a need for a new kind of processor which is able to both support serial and parallel processing.  The success of Open CL, html 5 and Open Compute proves this.  This is why the APU has been invented.”

I asked Roy about Intel extending DX. Is there anything he could share about AMD’s plans to move beyond DX?

Roy had a quick reply to this one. He said “DirectX has been great for the industry, providing a natural refresh to the market. But there is now an imperative to look for new ways to refresh our industry.  Fortunately, the gaming industry retains an enormous pool of graphical and design talent.  As we showed with TressFX Hair and Tomb Raider there is a ton of room for new development. And we at AMD believe that genuine innovation should be shared and innovation in PC gaming should extend and expand the genre to the benefit of consumers. That is our plan here and we expect to maintain that focus in future.”

It might be a delicate subject to broach, but I wanted to ask about Nvidia’s ‘The Way Its Meant To Be Played’ (TWIMTBP). Roy was one of the key figures behind this when he worked with Nvidia. If we’re right, and AMD has a clean sweep of the next gen consoles, then that ‘early access’ would seem to negate the benefits nVidia might get from having the TWIMTBP programme in the future. Is that an accurate assessment?

Roy smiled and said “Whilst at nvidia I immensely enjoyed running and driving TWIMTBP.  But TWIMTBP no longer seems to be around.  At AMD we believe that PC gaming is vibrant, alive, fun and perfectly able to sit alongside console gaming.  To us PC gaming is the scalable upside of any console development and we are not only committed to it but enormously excited at its opportunities.  Proof of that is our commitment to ‘Never Settle’.

On the run into Xmas (pre-Taylor days), we were hearing from the UK channel that some major distis like Enta were carrying anything up to 80% nVidia stock. Given that consumers can only buy what resellers have in stock – and resellers show what the distis have available – that would automatically create a situation where Q4 2012 would skew toward GeForce. We’re now hearing that this has changed. By a large amount. Can you give us an overview of whether this is true, how much of a swing you’re seeing from nVidia to AMD and how you see the balance of power for channel sales going in the future?

Roy quickly said “It’s true that consumers want to buy from stock.  If a part is not available then consumers will buy what’s ‘on the shelf’.  Our success in the channel has given our partners and distributors confidence and now they are stocking and selling more Radeon products.  This has helped fuel a move of the market over to AMD.”

When KitGuru covered the Unreal University event last year, we spent time chatting with Mike Gamble. One of the things Mike touched on was the fact that in the immediate future (2011 to 2014 or so), graphics in the mobile phone market will be ‘The Wild West’ all over again. Specifically that there will be huge jumps in performance/standard features (much like the days from the Ti200/4600 to the Radeon 9700 etc…), but that – after a while – we would see the market settle down as ‘almost every phone can play games and do cool stuff’. Do you see AMD being a force in the mobile gaming space?  Either inside phones or tablets?

Roy was quick to jump into this one “I am going to admit to a personal bias.  As you know I am myself a gamer. At home I have 9 desktop PCs (I connect them to TV’s in each bedroom) and I have an MSI G60 gaming notebook, I have 4 smartphones (HTC One, Galaxy SII, SIII and Blackberry).  I also have an Asus Transformer and an Amazon Kindle HD.   I love them all and want to see AMD in every space.  Now when I look at where the most hours are spent gaming, over the long term (years) for myself and my game playing wife (she killed Diablo inside 10 days) and my 3 sons – it’s still the desktop PC.  Sure we can all take a dip into Angry Birds and other such games but none of them require a clock/timer to warn you that just played all night and ought to go to bed, do they?”

There was a splurge of action around AMD memory last year – and now there are more images online of everything from new modules through to SSDs with your brand on them.
How many products are we likely to see ‘AMD branded’ by the end of the year?

Roy said “A brand makes sense where it enhances the user experience.  Just ask Richard Branson.  If a business can enter a field, improve it, make it great, make it marvellous then it can extend itself.  I am a huge fan of what Western Digital is doing in this way.  They rock (to me) in understanding the value extension for home media streaming.  If we at AMD can extend the computational experience in a similar fashion then we owe it to our fans, employees and shareholders to do the same.”

Intel has been talking about the Computing Continuum for a while – and we now have ex-AMD folks like Patrick Moorhead discussing the Internet of Everything and the shocking pace of change.
Given we’re voluntarily moving to an Orwellian future with screens, tracking and cameras everywhere – how aware should people be about security?
If we’re not careful, are we inviting crooks into our homes by simply having too much technology ‘open’ around the house?
Can AMD do anything to combat security?

Roy’s demeanour changed, clearly this subject meant a lot to him. He said “Recently my wife walked into the study and found a guy on the end of her webcam.  He had managed to crack her webcam.  It was frightening for her and for me.  Fortunately we shut everything down and locked him out.  AMD has some outstanding technology and we are hiring and motivating some really wonderful people.  We want to do more than excite consumers, we want to give something back.  That includes security.  Watch this space too.”

With APU13 ready to kick off in San Jose this November, how significant is it than attendance for AMD’s event is increasing by almost 40% year on year?”

Roy added “It’s enormously significant.  Our introduction to the world of a new product category called APU is going to have a profound and long lasting effect on the entire IT industry.  Indeed it is the reason that I joined AMD.  Most people see the APU today as a CPU that has integrated graphics.  This is not entirely correct.  An APU is in fact the coming together of a serial processor (the CPU) and a parallel processor (the GPU). HSA is the technology that will be powering the next generation of APUs in second half of 2013, that will remove the bottlenecks between the CPU and GPU and unlock the GPU to mainstream programmers. This will enable them to write HSA-accelerated applications using standard programming languages. More programmers will result in more applications and more compelling end user experiences.”

Just before I left, I asked Roy what would the ‘perfect day’ be for him?

He said ” Well since this happened just two weeks ago its an easy one to answer. I was driving an Aston Martin Vantage In Hollywood, listening to ‘Angel on my Shoulder’ by Kaskade and was with Berrin, my wife.” Clearly a romantic at heart, with fantastic taste in high performance cars!

We said goodbye to Roy and wished him well in his position within AMD this year. Thanks Roy for taking the time to talk to us, and happy gaming!

Yesterday we talked about the new leveling system that Steam profiles are getting, but apparently that’s not the only shake up Valve is introducing. Another new feature which is now in beta, is a Steam trading card system.

This isn’t a game though, but more like achievements, that aren’t just achievements, if that makes sense. You earn some of them by playing a game but the others will need to be earned through trading with other players, since presumably gamers earn different cards when they play.

But why would you want to collect theml? Well apparently once you get all of them (there’s a set number for each game), you can combine them into a badge, which will earn you experience towards your Steam level. You also get a new emoticon (for use where, I don’t know) and a new background for your profile page. Wallpapers are unlockables now guys, are you excited?

Achievement whores just entered a whole new world of addiction

The big reason people might take part in this convoluted scheme however, is because you also have the chance of unlocking a discount code for a certain game when you complete the badge.

However, if you were thinking you’d just earn a couple of cards and swap them with friends, you’d be wrong. You have to buy these cards, with real money. You can sell them too of course, but you can never take that money out of Steam, so don’t think you’ll be making thousands like those Steam Workshop guys.

Thanks to PCGamesN research too, we know that the cards can range from 50p to £2 each. Who’s buying that?

Apparently people already are, often times to finish off their collection, but still, paying money to get a discount code seems redundant doesn’t it?

Obviously Valve is attempting to make its achievement system a bit more than its currently quite pointless setup, and the cards make things more interesting, but it’s the trading aspect that seems out of place.

If you want to take part in the beta you can sign up here, but you’ll need to be lucky enough to get an invite. Alternatively some people are selling them, because they’re nice like that.

KitGuru Says: I can’t say I’m particularly fussed about what “level” I am on Steam, are you guys?

Google is looking to make your Google + page that bit better looking, by helping sift through all your awful photos to find the best ones. Using a new algorithm, the search giant is now able to highlight the “best” photos that you upload to make a collage of great shots.

This all came from the mouth of senior vice president of engineering at Google, Vic Gundotra, who was speaking at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco over the past couple of days. He said that because of Android phones often uploading photos automatically, people were adding way more photos than before to their Google + accounts. This means there’s often a lot of blurry snaps along with a few great ones. Google just wants to highlight the latter.

If you choose to enable the new “auto highlight,” feature, it’ll ignore blurry shots, duplicates and highlight those with people you care about smiling, famous landmarks and other specific choices.

Google Highlight in action

As part of this move, Google has also added the ability to automatically tweak the photos to add more contrast or brighten them up. Other enhancements are available and you can specify them yourself, or again let Google do everything for you. It was described as ”a new way to improve brightness, contrast, saturation, structure, noise, focus… and dozens of other factors automatically. Simply upload some photos, then open the lightbox to see Google’s enhancements.”

KitGuru Says: What do you guys think of this? Are you happy for Google to say which is your best side? Or would you rather make your own online albums?

[Thanks Telegraph]

3D printers might be hitting headlines for their new ability to make guns, negating all real fears of a future zombie apocalypse, but they have other uses too. According to one designer, they can also be used to make fashion items – that are inspired by a parasitic fungus, Cordyceps.

There are several different species of Cordyceps fungus, each one targeting a different species of insect. Upon infecting an ant or similarly sized arthropod, the fungus infects the brain of the little critter, driving it seemingly mad and controlling like an insect segway, to climb as high as possible. At this point the fungus kills the host and uses its bodily nutrients to grow a fruiting body and disperse the spores from there.

Designer Xuedi Chen believes this would be a great inspiration for fashionable garments that grow upon contacting each other and would therefore change over time depending on who you came in contact with.

Just the kind of thing you’d use as fashion inspiration

After failing to achieve the desired result with a chia seeded, lattice design, he said (via Wired) that he: ”tried ‘ growing’ forms in processing using the toxiclibs library. Those gave me some interesting results that were semi-random. I’d like to send some of those to Shapeways [an online store for 3D printing designs] for printing at some point in the future.”

The end result. Would you wear this?

The Ophiocordyceps fungus has been showing up all over recently. First you have the game The Last of Us, which sees infected humans gunning for two of the last remaining people and then you have my book, “The Medicine“, which features the fungus as a major antagonist and catalyst for the story.

KitGuru Says: Self plug I know, but how often does an obscure plot point in a book you spent years writing show up in a day to day news story? 

Haswell is just around the corner and many of the motherboard manufacturers are teasing the public with some details and images of their upcoming products.

We have some great high resolution pictures of the upcoming Gigabyte boards which show the layout and colour schemes. I do think these look fantastic, but let us know what you think here and over on our Facebook page.

If you want to analyse the boards in detail then at the bottom of the page are some super high resolution quality images which may take a while to open (so depending on your connection, be patient!)

Below are the G1.Sniper M5 Rev 1.0. The G1. Sniper5 Rev 1.0, the Z87 D3HP Rev 1.0, Z87X OC Force B and the Z87 UD4H Rev 1.0.

SUPER HIGH RES GALLERY! (Below)

A Youtube user by the name of Zack Scott, who runs Let’s Play videos on the site, has been targeted by Nintendo for using its games in his videos and the video game giant is now claiming advertising revenue from him, despite the fact that his commentary of the games is covered by fair use law.

Using the content ID match system that is often automatically implemented on videos where people use copyright protected music, Nintendo is now claiming all ad revenue from videos that Scott has featured its games in.

However Scott wasn’t going to take this lying down. He headed over to Facebook to complain:

“I’m a Nintendo fan. I waited in the cold overnight to get a Wii. I’m a 3DS ambassador. I got a Wii U at midnight when I already had one in the mail. I’ve been a Nintendo fan since the NES, and I’ve owned all of their systems.” Obviously the guy is a big, big fan, though why he ended up buying two Wii Us is anyone’s guess.

“With that said, I think filing claims against LPers is backwards. Video games aren’t like movies or TV. Each play-through is a unique audiovisual experience,” he said (via Gamefront). “When I see a film that someone else is also watching, I don’t need to see it again. When I see a game that someone else is playing, I want to play that game for myself! Sure, there may be some people who watch games rather than play them, but are those people even gamers?”

What were they thinking?!

He goes on to point out that the reason people watch his videos, is to hear and see his reaction to game stimuli, whether for educational gameplay or entertainment purposes. Nintendo’s actions seem to suggest that it believes those people then won’t play the game themselves because Scott has showed them what happens.

He’s not the only one either. There are tens of Let’s Play video makers getting hit with notices. Fortunately Nintendo has a response for those affected:

“As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database. For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips. We continually want our fans to enjoy sharing Nintendo content on YouTube, and that is why, unlike other entertainment companies, we have chosen not to block people using our intellectual property.”

How kind of Nintendo to stop people from monetising their own content, by doing it for them and taking all the profit.

This not only shows how out of touch Nintendo is, but it is horrific timing. Nintendo needs as much support as possible to get its horribly poorly selling console, the Wii U to attract gamers. This is not the way to go about it.

KitGuru Says:  No word from the AVGN’s youtube channel, JamesNintendoNerd, though it hardly seems like it’ll take long before Nintendo goes after him too.

Thank god.

EA Games has announced that due to its player base not really taking it up on the offer of paying for games’ multiplayer content, after they bought the game second hand or borrowed it from a friend, that it was dropping the much hated Online Pass system.

“We’re discontinuing Online Pass,” EA senior director of corporate communications John Reseburg said while speaking with VentureBeat. “None of our new EA titles will include that feature.” This does however mean that previously Online Pass enabled games will still continue to use them, but all future games will not.

Remember the sickening feeling you felt when you first saw this?

If you were never on the receiving end of Online Pass woes, here’s how it worked. If you bought the game new, you had a code bundled with the game that you put in to play online features like multiplayer. However if you got the game second hand, rented it or borrowed it, then the code would likely already have been used, so you’d have to make a point of buying another one, which usually cost between £5 and £10 depending on the title.

Of course just because EA is ridding its future games of online passes, doesn’t mean everyone else will. However, we’ve seen publishers lead the way with the introduction of DRM like this, so maybe EA can help lead the way to its disuse too.

KitGuru Says: People are always very quick to jump on EA when it makes a mistake or does something dumb, so you have to give it props here. This is a good move, as it removes one of the most insulting forms of DRM in existence from EA’s library. 

Without doubt, one of the biggest problem areas for the environment is the professional segment of the market. It’s a huge consumer of all things elec-tricky. While a regular user might accept a small issue with a system – and wait patiently while repairs etc are effected by the store that supplied – mission critical installations have never heard of patience. KitGuru considers a new release from Arctic that aims to keep the polar caps covered in snow and ice.

It’s not often a cooler will come with a 6 year warranty, but the Arctic Alpine 20 PLUS CO has exactly that – and it’s being offered through a variety of resellers like eBuyer and Amazon at just over £10.

So what’s the deal?

Well the Alpine 20 PLUS CO is a low profile CPU cooler with specially selected Japanese bearings – designed specifically for the 24×7 processing environment found in modern server and workstation environments, the 92mm PMW fan supplied will provide a significant improvement over stock LGA-2011 coolers – according to Arctic marketing guru Brice Vandervoorde.

For speed and ease of fitting, the cooler comes pre-coated with multi-award winning Arctic MX-4 thermal compound.

Arctic is doing its bit to try and improve cooling, noise and power consumption for servers and workstations

According to Arctic, it is also quieter than Intel’s stock cooler – but we’re not sure how much of a benefit that will be in most situations.

If you need to run a server or workstation hard, and feel that Intel’s stock cooler isn’t up to par, then Brice suggests that you take a look at the Arctic Alpine 20 PLUS CO.

KitGuru says: Even if it’s just a few degrees, keeping your critical systems cooler and/or using less mains juice, has to be a good thing, right?

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join us online at Facebook.

With Intel’s fourth generation chips knocking on the door of release day, KitGuru was invited to a technical seminar held by Asus to outline the company’s products, features and plans for its range of Z87 motherboards.

As has been the case with Asus’ recent motherboard line-ups for both the Intel and AMD platforms, the company will be putting three main series onto the market.

Comprised of entry-level all the way up to high-end motherboards, the ‘Z87-’ models will form the largest proportion of Asus’ product catalogue. Expect these models to target identical audiences to those of their current Z77 variants, such as the entry-level ‘P8Z77-V LX2‘, mid-range ‘-V’, and high-end ‘-V Deluxe‘.

Now common place to Intel’s and AMD’s main platforms, TUF, or The Ultimate Force, series boards will be making an appearance for Z87. As with previous generations of the company’s uniquely-designed and well-respected motherboards, the Z87 TUF products will be optimised for system stability and thermal performance.

Where would a mainstream Intel platform launch be without Asus’ Republic of Gamers (ROG) set of motherboards? Gamers and all-round enthusiasts continue to comprise the target audience for Asus’ highest-calibre consumer motherboards. Maintaining the red and black colour scheme and highly-optimised features, the enthusiast segment of the market continues to be a clear target for what is now Asus’ sixth iteration of the ‘Maximus’ product line.

Read on for an in-depth look at some of the new features that Asus’ Z87 motherboards are equipped with, and the surprise that the Taiwanese-based company has up its sleeve.

In what is sure to be a massive flood of new mainboard products into the market, Asrock has wasted no time in delivering a special board with some very cool features that’s looking to stand out from the crowd. KitGuru takes a peak and reports the latest Haswell news.

Thunderbolt is a way to connect technologies together at a rate that makes USB 3.0 look like it needs a Zimmerframe.

Traditional transfers have tended to be for a single device and measured in megabytes a second.

The new system will daisy chain up to 6 devices with speeds around the 1GB/sec mark.

Now that technology has been certified on Asrock’s brand new Z87 Extreme9/ac – which is good news for any geeks who want to blast data here, there and everywhere across a brand new system in, let’s guess, June.

Alongside the promise of silky smooth transfers, Asrock will be loading its new Z87 boards with a heap of goodies under the heading of A-Style.

Armed with Thunderbolt connectivity, Asrock’s latest range of boards also promise a host of other goodies

.
KitGuru says: In just a few short days, the world will seem like a better place for geeks. Whether it’s new graphic cards, new mainboards or new processors – there’s a lot of cool stuff coming.

Comment below, in the KitGuru forums or join us over at Facebook.

If you’re a Raspberry Pi user and you’ve been hankering to use the mini-PC to make something that’ll snap pictures, then you’re in luck, as the module to give it photographic capabilities, has now gone on sale via official Pi suppliers: RS Components and Element14.

You’ll have to be fast if you want one however, as at the time of writing it looks like RS might be already out of stock. Each camera module costs £17, mirroring the affordable price of the original Pi.

But what do you get for your money? A five megapixel sensor hooked up to a fixed focus lens. As well as pretty big stills, it can also output video at a variety of resolution, going from 640×480 all the way up to 1080p. If weight is a consideration, don’t fret, as the camera module comes in at just 3g, measuring 2.5 x 2.0 x 0.9 centimetres.

The Pi foundation also released a breakdown video, to show you exactly what you get for your money and how it works.

KitGuru Says: What applications have you guys used with your Pi? If you haven’t got your hands on one but are thinking about it, considering getting my pal Gareth’s user guide, it’s official and everything.

[Cheers TechCrunch]

Ruby Underboob and Bro-sie the Riveter now sit side by side in the lobby of Hawken publisher Meteor Entertainment, thanks to a brilliantly intuitive way of addressing sexual representation in not only the office environment, but in games too.

Initially, CEO Mark Long, had a comic art inspired poster of Ruby Underboob, placed in the company lobby. It features a scantily clad female, standing in-front of a Hawken mech, holding aloft a flame spouting blow torch. Her name is self explanatory.

While some no doubt enjoyed the image, one female employee at the studio did not and resolved to do something about it. She didn’t complain to HR though, she didn’t file a lawsuit of sexual discrimination  instead she fought fire with fire: and had her own poster made, of Bro-sie the Riveter. A man, so unperturbed by the hot oil, grease and live ammunition surrounding the mechs, that he’s happy to go to work wearing nothing but a hard hat and a pair of tight fitting, slimline boxers.

All the best mechanics work in the near-nude.

According to RPS report, the boss took it in good faith, despite the female employee and her anonymous helper being slightly worried after replacing Ruby with Bro-Sie in the lobby. However, instead of threatening the future of her career, it helped it. When Long eventually confronted her on it, he said:

“That was a brilliant prank. You called me on exactly the bulls**t I need to be called on. I put up pictures of half-naked girls around the office all the time and I never think about it. I’m taking you and [the artist who made the poster] to lunch. And after that, we’re going to hang both prints, side by side.”

KitGuru Says: All’s well that ends well. This is a great way to highlight a bit of sexual inequality in the office and in gaming in general, without making it combative. Too often feminism comes across as anti-men, which is just the pot calling the kettle black. 

The British Phonographic Industry is continuing to parade its abilities for the world to see, showing that its number one talent, the singular thing it does better than almost any middle manager from Office Space, is appear to be doing something while systematically doing nothing at all. The group, sponsored and funded by some of the world’s biggest media conglomerates in the world, has announced a new wave of website blocks of torrent search sites – despite the fact that the ones it already has in place, do almost nothing to hinder traffic.

The BPI famously sought out the blocking of the world’s most well known torrent site, The Pirate Bay, last year. The court ordered, ISP implemented block did nothing to halt traffic and in-fact, the media attention surrounding the story led to a huge increase in user numbers. Since then the group, headed by Geoff Taylor, has pushed for more blocks, getting them every time and now he’s gunning for more.

Yea… I’m gonna have to go ahead and ask you to, stop blocking websites ineffectually, mmkay? That’d be greaaaat.

The list of sites being targeted this time, is extensive. It includes:

• 1337x
• BitSnoop
• ExtraTorrent
• TorrentReactor
• Torrenthound
• Torrentz
• Filestube
• Grooveshark
• BeeMP3
• Dislandau
• MP3Juices
• MP3lemon
• MP3raid
• MP3skull
• Abmp3
• Bomb-mp3
• Emp3world
• Newalbumreleases

Currently the BPI is at the stage where it’s simply asking music licensing group, PPL, if it has granted licensed to these sites to provide links to copyright protected music. Obviously this is a formality and it won’t take long for it to receive a response.

A spokesperson for the BPI suggested the following in its communication to the PPL (via TorrentFreak): “Over the past years, UK music labels have innovated to build one of the most vibrant digital music sectors in the world. However, the growth of digital music in the UK is held back by a raft of illegal businesses commercially exploiting music without a licence from the copyright holders.”

Dan Bull said it best along with a raft of other artists in “Bye Bye BPI”, where it was made clear, that many, many artists aren’t held back by torrents and other free downloads, often times they’re helped by it. It’s the labels that are struggling in the new climate of music sharing where artists don’t need that middle management. They can simply connect directly to the fans.

KitGuru Says: While it’s always a good idea to support artists you like by buying their work, freely distributing it is a great way to get new fans. The BPI has zero understanding of this and is just trying to justify its sponsored funding by looking busy. 

Google Music could be the first real competitor for streaming music service Spotify, after the search giant signing several high profile deals with three major labels to distribute their songs through its platform. A dominant music service would give Google one more notch in its belt in the mobile computing world.

As it stands, the Android operating system is dominating in smartphone uptake and of course it already has a virtual monopoly in the search game. Then there’s the popularity of Chrome, Gmail and other Google app services; a dominance in music would just further cement Google as the top dog in most major software tech markets – especially in the handheld device game.

Google already has a music service running on its Google + social network

However, while this rumour – reported by Telegraph – would give Google a nice boost to start itself off, it will need to do a lot more to become a true rival to Spotify, which at this time boasts over six million paying subscribers and when combined with the non-paying users, there’s nearly 30 million of them. It also has a much more stacked song library, making Google’s fledgling service seem a little ropey in comparison.

Google is set to unveil its music service this week during the I/O developers conference being held this week in San Francisco.

KitGuru Says: Personally, I’ve been using the Torch browser music service we talked about a few days ago. What do you guys use for music?

Sony has had some famous taglines for its consoles over the years, often with several significant ones landing with each generation. Often though there’s one that sticks in your memory a little more. With the PS One it was “Do not underestimate the power of PlayStation,” while the PS2 had the ever creepy “Third Place” adverts. The PS3 has a long list of them according to its Wikipedia, “The Wait is Over,” and the generic, “This is Living.” Now though Sony has patented a new phrase, which many believe is the slogan for the next PlayStation, the PS4. It reads: “Greatness Awaits.”

How about… “PS4… show us the damn hardware already.”

According to Siliconera, Greatness Awaits, will also make an appearance in an upcoming PS4 advert that will feature both the new Killzone game and Destiny. Like many great console related adverts, this one is set to be ridiculous in its gravity. Some of the leaked script purportedly has a narrator talking to the viewer, “who are you to be afraid?,” and “who are you to be ordinary? You could get away with murder, or raise the dead,” it says.

KitGuru Says: I remember the PS2 “Third Place” adverts being very creepy when I was a young-un. Any of you guys have memories of favourite console adverts? 

Valve has added a new feature to Steam profiles, making it possible for people to gain levels for community actions, alongside the traditional badge system which rewards certain tasks being completed. Not every territory has it just yet, as Valve is rolling it out slowly over the next few days, but soon enough, all of us should be able to level up, in Steam.

As you complete tasks, like adding a profile picture, or linking up social networking accounts with your Steam profile, you’ll earn experience. Once you reach the threshold, you level up. You’ve played an RPG before, you know how it works.

British profiles have yet to gain the leveling feature, but some US users have begun posting screenshots of their newly updated profiles over at Reddit (via PCGamesN). However, once it is implemented I don’t think I’ll be getting much in the way of a level. My badge collection at the moment is woefully unimpressive. I have one for five years long service (Rimmer still has me beat) and another for taking part in a Winter 2011 sale.

KitGuru Says: Hardly level 10 material. How many badges have the rest of you got? I bet you’re all veritable generals, aren’t you?

Today we are looking at the Fractal Design Tesla R2 1000W, a high output power supply which achieves a very competitive price point in the United Kingdom, around £130 inc vat. While this unit isn’t modular, it does achieve 80 Plus Gold Certification and has a full 3 year warranty. Is it worth the modest outlay?

The Tesla R2 utilises a single +12V rail and has a large 135mm fan inside which is temperature controlled. There are three other models in the Tesla R2 range, a 500W, a 650W and a 800W unit. We looked at the Newton R3 1000W back in March, although it is more expensive, modular and 80 Plus Platinum certified.

In the UK the Newton R3 1000W ships with a £35-£40 price premium over the Tesla R2 1000W.

Key features

• 80PLUS® Gold
• Single, powerful 12V rail
• SLI (650W and up) and CrossFireX Certified
• Long-life ball-bearing fan

80 PLUS® Gold certified efficiency
Tesla R2 Series PSUs meet the 80 PLUS® Gold specification for providing power with an efficiency that surpasses most power supplies available today. This efficiency produces positive environmental impact, as well as reduces electricity bills. Additionally, because Tesla R2 PSUs generate less heat, they provide power at lower fan speeds, which results in reduced noise levels.

Excellent electrical performance
Tesla R2 Series PSUs feature excellent DC voltage regulation and ripple suppression; they can deliver their full-rated wattage continuously even with an intake temperature as high as 40°C (80% of maximum load at 50°C).

SLI and CrossFireX support
Tesla R2 Series PSUs (650W and up) are tested and certified compatible with the latest graphics cards.

Compliant with the latest standard
Tesla R2 Series PSUs is compliant with the latest PC PSU standard: ATX12V 2.31.

Silent, temperature-controlled 135mm fan
Generally, larger fans move more air with less noise than smaller fans: Tesla R2 Series PSUs are equipped with a large, low-speed, 135 mm fan, which keeps noise level down.

Single powerful 12V rail
To provide maximum support for modern components, Tesla R2 Series PSUs deliver their full power from a single 12V rail.

Extra-Long ATX12V cable
Tesla R2 Series PSUs are equipped with a 700mm long 12V (“P4″) connector cable, which accommodates bottom-mounted-PSU computer cases.

Long-life Ball-bearing fan
Tesla R2 Series PSUs are equipped with ball-bearing fans, which provide the longest expected fan life available on the market.

Nokia have announced a new series of products this week, including the new flagship Lumia 925.

The new smartphone runs the latest version of Microsoft Windows Phone 8 software, available from T-Mobile in America and from other carriers around the world. Nokia have also introduced new camera focused software features, which will soon be incorporated into the Lumia line of Windows 8 phones.

The Lumia 925 has a large 4.5 inch AMOLED screen with a 1280×768 resolution touchscreen. It will house a dual core Snapdragon processor along with 1GB of memory and a 8.7 MP camera. The camera body is made entirely from metal.

Picture credit: CNET/ Andrew Hoyle

Nokia have used a metal frame to house the antenna, but surprisingly the weight of the 925 is less than other Lumia phones, weighing only 139 grams. Unlike the Lumia 920 it doesn’t have wireless charging built into the back cover, a popular feature with the geeky audience. Nokia do plan on selling ‘charging cases’ if you want this feature back.

Like the Lumia 920, a lot of the strength of the 925 will be based on the high grade camera inside. Ifi Magid, director of Nokia’s Smart Devices team spoke to ABC news and said “We are really planning to market this around the imaging and camera capabilities and some new smart camera capabilities.”

Nokia will be releasing new software called ‘Smart Camera’ to support the 8.7 megapixel model in the new 925 but it will trickle out to other models in the range. It has a new feature to capture 10 images at once of a moving subject for instance. There is also a ‘best shot’ option for the camera to automatically choose the best image.

Magid says the camera is very important in their phones and says they are beating competitors in regards to camera performance, even Apple.

He added “We compare the iPhone 5 to our portfolio and we believe we are better in low-light conditions, for sure. When you see the images on a laptop, our images are crisper and sharper than what you get with an iPhone 5 images, and with this technology we have we think we are going a step further.”

You can watch a video with Stephen Elop, over here on ABC news.

Kitguru says: Another stunning looking model from the Nokia lineup this year.