Today KitGuru TV's Leo Waldock talks about some of the more interesting news stories posted on Kitguru.net in the last week. [yframe url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSCOOcSiA_U'] Watch on our Vimeo channel HERE. Foxconn reportedly wants to buy Sharp for $5.3 billion – read HERE. GCHQ shot down encryption standard because it was too …
Read More »Google to be quizzed over HMRC back-tax deal
Google is set to be questioned by a parliamentary committee about a back-tax deal it struck with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC), where it agreed to pay £130 million to cover claims of under-taxation from the past 10 years. Several MPs have since called the deal “cosy,” and want …
Read More »Bezos confirms Blue Origin has touched down again
Even without the billionaire sarcasm war between Space X CEO Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, there's no denying that Blue Origin's efforts to get people into space are still exciting. That's doubly so when launches can be repeated with the same hardware too, as it brings costs down …
Read More »Netflix has begun its assault on proxies and VPNs
A couple of weeks back, Netflix formally announced for the first time that it would be actively going after and blocking proxy/VPN services in an effort to stop users getting passed region blocks on content and now, we are starting to see the results of that. Over in Australia, a …
Read More »Google paid Apple $1 billion to remain default search on iOS
Back at the end of 2014, Apple was considering dropping Google as its default search engine provider for Safari on iOS. The company was even meeting up with the heads behind Yahoo and Bing at the time to strike a new deal but in the end, Google won out and …
Read More »Hideo Kojima teases new ‘HideoTube’ program coming soon
To say Hideo Kojima is a popular game developer would be an understatement. With his name attached to some people's most beloved titles from gaming history and considering his poor treatment at the hands of Konami in recent months, people like him a lot. So it will be interesting to …
Read More »Foxconn reportedly wants to buy Sharp for $5.3 billion
Foxconn, the massive assembly line responsible for the manufacturing of a lot of Apple products, amongst other electronic devices, is apparently making a $5.3 billion bid to buy display maker Sharp. Sharp has faced some troubles financially over the last few years so a buyout would be feasible at this …
Read More »Google Chrome is getting a significant speed boost soon
Google has been working on optimizing the Chrome browser for a while now. Last year the Chrome team announced that it would be trying to reduce RAM usage and now the browser is set to be up to 25 percent faster thanks to an upcoming update that targets performance improvements. …
Read More »Facebook’s Sports Stadium puts all your sports talk in one place
Although Facebook and Twitter definitely target different social networking activities, the latter certainly has the live-commenting on events down. Facebook may be looking to offer a competing service now though with its Sports Stadium, which brings together all of your friends and family, journalists and analysts to talk about sporting …
Read More »There might be nine planets in our solar system after all
No Pluto, it's not you. Go back to being the marvel of our recent far-flung photographic efforts. Astronomers do think there might be a ninth planet in our solar system though, but way beyond even the bounds of our dwarf-planet friend. We haven't seen it yet, but evidence in the …
Read More »Court rules lawsuit against Oculus founder to go ahead
Today a US judge ruled that a lawsuit filed against Oculus co-founder, Palmer Luckey, will go ahead. The lawsuit comes from a company known as Total Recall Technologies, which employed Luckey in 2011 to build a head-mounted display, prior to the Oculus Rift Kickstarter in 2012. Total Recall Technologies claims …
Read More »Vladimir Putin’s internet adviser runs his own torrent site
Even if movie studios might like to paint the world as unanimous in their hatred of piracy, cultures and politicians have different opinions depending where you look. In Russia for example, Vladimir Putin's recently appointed internet advisor has strong links with a torrent site and has a much more relaxed attitude …
Read More »Kim Dotcom releases $24 million music video, ‘Good Life’
Kim Dotcom might not be living the good life so much these days, having moved out of his mansion and facing extradition, but he did once. Back before his arrest in 2012, he did just about whatever he wanted, when he wanted, as his recently re-released song, ‘Good Life' attests to. Featuring …
Read More »Appeals court rules human rights breached by Terrorism Act
The UK's Master of Rolls, John Dyson has in a court of appeals ruled that the Terrorism Act 2000 is not compatible with the European human rights convention. This comes as part of a case against David Miranda, who was arrested at Heathrow airport in 2013 for carrying files related …
Read More »Cheap Oil sees electric vehicle sales slide in 2015
Although there is still some debate over whether we'll use hydrogen, electricity or perhaps not even own cars at all in the future, there has been a big push for electric vehicles (EV) in recent years. Unfortunately for their proponents though, falling oil prices have seen sales of EVs fall …
Read More »Amazon’s 30 minute drone delivery has distance, weight limits
As advanced as the drones of the future which deliver our online purchases to us sooner than ever before are, there will be some limitations. Despite Amazon's drones being designed to operate efficiently in various environments, chances are they won't be able to travel much more than 10 miles from …
Read More »A law firm is trying to stop Sony from trademarking ‘Let’s Play’
We recently heard that Sony is currently trying to trademark the term ‘Let's Play', a fairly common phrase used by YouTubers and streamers. Now, a law firm specializing in video games/entertainment is formally protesting this, arguing that the term is now ‘generic' and should not be trademarked. The US Patent and Trademark …
Read More »Accused movie pirates in U.S. can receive free legal counsel
Although its much less of a common tactic today than it once was, some movie distributors still like to target individual downloaders and attempt to have them pay through the nose for pirating a single movie. Considering defending yourself can be an expensive practice, one judge in the U.S. has …
Read More »New study predicts robots to take five million jobs by 2020
The race is on it seems to find a career that won't be taken over by a robot in years to come. A new study from economic forum, Davos (not Seaworth), has suggested as many as five million jobs in developed countries around the world will be lost over the next five …
Read More »Space X Falcon rocket touches down… and then falls over
Space X has once again narrowly missed out on a successful drone-ship landing of its Falcon 9 first stage booster rocket. Although the orbital launch vehicle did manage to touch back down on the automated platform, it only stood upright for a few seconds before toppling over and exploding on …
Read More »Microsoft’s Hololens lasts up to 5.5 hours on battery, FOV may improve
Microsoft began allowing developers to experience its augmented reality headset, the HoloLens in the company's flagship store in New York City recently. While developers can experiment with different tools, Microsoft has been tight-lipped on details such as retail, pricing, and battery life. However, at a recent event in Tel Aviv, …
Read More »Kitguru Tech News recap 15th January 2016
Today KitGuru TV's Leo Waldock talks about some of the more interesting news stories posted on Kitguru.net in the last week. EK Waterblocks is recalling its Predator 240 and 360 AIO Coolers – read HERE. The world's first 13TB SSD has arrived – read HERE. Microsoft ends support for Windows …
Read More »Netflix confirms plans to shut off proxy access
Netflix is a decent enough service but due to geographic content restrictions and licensing issues, the US tends to have the best overall library of content, causing many subscribers across the world to use VPNs or proxy services to spoof their location. In the past, Netflix hasn't really done much …
Read More »Forget passenger drones, what about a drone ambulance?
Although drones have promised lots of interesting developments in film making, surveillance and delivery, they are getting powerful enough to transport people, as we saw recently. But forget making travel easy for the rich, transporting injured people between the scene of an accident and a hospital quickly and without disturbance …
Read More »U.S. government to invest $4 billion in autonomous cars
President Obama's secretary of transportation, Anthony Foxx, announced this week that the government had pledged to spend $4 billion over the next 10 years to help advanced autonomous vehicle technology. It's currently thought that partially self-piloted vehicles will be available by 2020 and fully autonomous ones by 2025, but this …
Read More »NBC executive not concerned about Netflix, Amazon, Youtube
If you look back to the late '90s, early '00s, there were a lot of people claiming that the internet wasn't a threat to their business and wouldn't change the way we do things. That's why it feels like deja vu when head of NBC's research and media development, Alan Wurtzel, claims …
Read More »Razer is selling its peripherals at half-price for 24 hours
Razer is running a pretty big sale over on its store today, offering Razer Insider members 50 percent off all products on its store aside from the Blade systems to celebrate CES 2016, which just ended. This means mice, keyboards and headsets will be had for significantly cheaper if you …
Read More »Ultra-HD Blu-rays are going to be a bit pricey
With TV manufacturers giving 4K TVs a huge push to consumers right now it is about time we started actually getting some ultra-HD content available. Several studios have plans to launch UHD Blu-rays this year but it looks like we can expect prices of UHD movies to be fairly high …
Read More »UK public doesn’t want 10 year piracy prison sentences
The British public has almost unanimously rejected a call from the government to extend the maximum prison sentence for media pirates from two years to ten, following a consultation on the matter. The results suggest that the public just doesn't see piracy in the same way the government does. To …
Read More »PewDiePie launches game dev, promo firm with other Youtubers
Felix Kjelberg, more famously known as the most popular Youtuber Pewdiepie, is launching a new promotional firm and production company in one, called Revelmode. He's bringing some friends with him too, signing on other big Youtubers like Mark “Markiplier” Fishbach, Sean “JackSepticEye” McLoughlin and Emma Blackery. The idea behind Revelmode …
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