The G Surge

Electronic Arts has announced  Need for Speed Rivals , the next iteration of the popular racing game, for the upcoming  Xbox One  and  PlayStation 4  consoles. The game will also be available for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and the PC The new game throws players into an open world-style gameplay, in which they can choose to become racers or cops, with each side offering its own set of challenges and rewards Players can work together or against one another — or they can independently engage virtual challenges in the same game world. Ferrari lovers will be happy to know that the brand has returned to the Need for Speed franchise, and that includes the prestigious F12berlinetta  Read more...

     Following the footsteps of last year's  Batman themed Nokia Lumia 900 , the Finnish company is about to release another superhero themed Windows Phone flagship. The freshly announced  Nokia Lumia 925  Superman Limited Edition will land on the Chinese market a day after the Man of Steel movie's official June 14 launch. The Nokia Lumia 925 Superman Limited Edition will be available in an initial run of 925 devices. The Nokia flagship will feature a Superman livery on its back. A wireless charging cover, gone through the same visual treatment will also be available for purchase as a separate accessory when the smartphone becomes available.

     A  Nexus 4  running build number JWR45B was spotted at the Thailand Mobile Expo recently labeled as Android version 4.3, suggesting the update to the OS could be right around the corner. While the validity of the sighting remains unconfirmed, we do get three shots of what could be the next version of Android: the Jelly Bean easter egg (confirming the update won’t be Key Lime Pie), the About Phone screen, and a slightly tweaked camera UI. It appears that Android 4.3 won’t come with a major design overhaul in tow and rather will be the sort of incremental update that was the move from 4.1 to 4.2. Major platform changes aren’t expected until Android 5.0, which could still be on track for a release this year, though closer to the holiday season. [via  XDA ]

            Jif's tweet came less than a day after the creator of the Graphics Interchange Format (ie GIF)  revealed  that GIF is actually pronounced "Jif." This simple declaration set off countless tweets and much self-doubt among the GIF-faithful.

     Just when you thought display technology could hardly get any better, along come quantum dots, making screens more colorful while consuming less power This is not just some pie-in-the-sky dream of scientists and geeks. Nanosys and 3M have put this  Star Trek -like tech to work, and it's gone way beyond the experimental stage, to where it's now almost ready to be built into smartphones, tablets and TVs. The two companies said in a  press release  they'll have samples available to manufacturers by the "late second quarter of this year," which means companies interested in using this technology in their screens might be getting their hands on it within five weeks or so.

     With Computex just around the corner,  MSI  has taken the wraps of what can truly be described as a next-gen gaming laptop. According to  CNET , the 17.3-inch GT70 Dragon Edition 2 will pack a yet-to-be-announced  Haswell  chip alongside an equally mysterious NVIDIA GTX780M GPU that is claimed to deliver a 3DMark Vantage score of 36,000 -- in other words, roughly equivalent to the benchmark stat you'd get from a desktop rig containing an Ivy Bridge Core-i5 and a full-size GTX670, if the boast happens to be true. A  SteelSeries -branded keyboard is attendance, alongside multiple SSDs in Raid 0 config and three video outputs, all contained within a 21.8mm-thick package that weighs 2.9kg (6.4 pounds). Lesser variations will bring the weight down to 2kg (4.4 pounds) by reducing screen size to 14 inches and switching to a less frenetic GTX760M. Expect pricing and availability details once the big Taiwanese expo gets underway.

Google I/O 2013 recently wrapped up, and I’ve been spending some time ingesting all the information from sessions during the event, including ones I couldn’t directly attend. While Google didn’t announce a new version of Android at the event, something nearly everyone speculated would happen, it did directly allude to new upcoming features that will be implemented in this still unnamed upcoming version. Google allegedly assigns version numbers late in the process, but what is known is that this next release will implement upcoming API level 18. If you  follow the progression  there’s a likelihood this will be Jelly Bean MR2 (Management Release 2), where Android 4.2 was management release 1. Based on some other discussions and sources I also suspect this might be Jelly Bean MR2. All of that is really just semantics however, what really matters are what specific features are coming and which of those Google touched on during I/O.

    Think your network is fast? Getting a gigagbyte-sized movie over your local wireless network to your hard drive in a few seconds is old hat. Now there's a network that can push a 2-hour, high-definition movie to a computer a mile away in less time than it takes to read a single word. At the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, a new record has been set: 40GB per second over a distance of about .6 of a mile. That's like sending 10 high-def feature films. What makes this possible is a combination of better hardware and the use of higher radio frequencies, in this case, 240 gigahertz. That hardware is a set of chips developed at Karlsruhe that can process signals at higher frequencies. Higher frequencies mean smaller components, since a shorter wavelength can be picked up by a smaller antenna (which is why FM and AM radios need relatively large antennas, while Wi-Fi receivers can use small ones). These chips were only a few millimeters on a side.

                                  Google plans t o unveil Android 4.3, an updated version of its popular mobile operating system, at the Google I/O confere as much of a surprise to those who follow the mobile industry onfirmed, however, as a Google search result discovered by Verge references the new Android build in a page that will soon go live on the Android developer website. Google’s I/O keynote is scheduled to begin at 12:00 p.m. EDT, and we will be bringing you all the news as it breaks. A screenshot of the Google search result mentioning Android 4.3 follows below.  

  Google I/O 2013 brings together thousands of developers for three days of deep technical content focused on building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications with Google and open web technologies such as Android, Google Chrome, Google APIs, Google Web Toolkit, App Engine, and more. 

Sony Xperia ZR lets you dive underwater to take photos [VIDEO] Sony has just announced a new smartphone for those who like to capture underwater memories every now and then. It’s the Sony Xperia ZR, and its claim to fame will come from its ability to take photos while submerged in up to 5 feet of water (for up to 30 minutes) thanks to its IP55 and IP58 compliant build. That won’t be useful for you deep sea divers, but you can get by with it at a day at the pool if you don’t have a better underwater camera to take long with you. Of course, there’s a lot more to a smartphone than its durability in water. The Sony Xperia ZR features a 4.6 inch HD Reality display, a 13 megapixel Exmor RS sensor that can do HDR in both still images and video, Qualcomm’s quad-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 Pro, 2GB of RAM, NFC, and 4G LTE connectivity. The device will be available starting in Q2 in various markets around the globe, though pricing details and exact shipping dates will vary region-to-reg

White Nexus 4 breaks cover again — will we see it at Google I/O? Ever since the  Nexus 4  launched in November we’ve wondered whether or not Google would ever introduce a white color option. Rumors suggested one was in the works, with leaks from retailers and carriers tipping us off to its existence. Six months later and we still haven’t the slightest idea of where it is, but it is still floating around and has reared its beautiful head again. Google+ user Ervin Sue bravely posted pictures  of the pearly-white Nexus 4 online, and we were given a bit of context. The user used the hashtags #io13 and #io, suggesting Google might be bringing this thing to San Francisco with them. From what we can tell from the images, only the rear and sides of the device will be white — the front will still sport a black bezel. A couple of different possibilities exist. The first is that this could be a special edition of the Nexus 4 that Google might give away to I/O attendees. If you haven’t

Samsung developing 5G technology, hopes to hit 1 gigabit speeds by 2020 Samsung, one of the mobile industry’s biggest players in network and infrastructure, has revealed that it has started work in developing 5G data technology. While a standard for “5G” doesn’t exactly exist, we would naturally expect it to be a vast evolution from what we know to be 4G right now. Even though  4G didn’t quite start off as 4G , the standards were tweaked to allow carriers to claim as much. Indeed, the speeds we get now far surpass what 3G afforded us, giving us double digit downstream numbers (in megabits) compared to the single digits 3G (HSPA+ not withstanding) was capable of. We can’t even imagine what the next plateau for mobile data speeds will be, but Samsung believes it can deliver throughput speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second to a device by the end of the year 2020, with a single sub-station able to handle 10 gigabits of bandwidth. We’re not sure if said numbers would hold up after

The World's First Entirely 3D Printed Gun That's 3D printed. Yes, printed. It's the firs t entirely 3D printed gun, previous 3D printed weapons have just been specific parts. Welcome to the future. The 3D printed gun, called 'The Liberator', was made by Cody Wilson, the 25-year-old University of Texas law student who was the star of  Motherboard's documentary Click. Print. Gun.  Wilson has built the prototype weapon above and plans to release the CAD files for the gun next week to the public. Basically, anyone will then be able to print the weapon with no background checks or serial numbers. Forbes says  that the Liberator is made from sixteen different pieces and uses interchangeable barrels for different calibers. All those pieces are made from ABS plastic and formed from a Stratasys Dimension SST printer. The gun also uses a nail to act as its firing pin and Wilson added a six ounce piece of steel to the gun so it can be recognized by metal dete

It has the makings of a film but the fallout from one of the world's most sophisticated  ATM heists  is very real.  The New York Times  is reporting that a massive team of criminals worked in concert in order to grab some $45 million in a matter of hours over the course of two operations. The sheer scope of the project is hard to wrap one's mind around, involving trained personnel positioned in over  two dozen  countries. Earlier today, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn "unsealed an indictment charging eight members of the New York crew, offering a glimpse into what the authorities said was one of the most sophisticated and effective cybercrime attacks ever uncovered." In essence, the hackers were able to infiltrate various credit card processing companies and raise withdrawal limits on prepaid accounts -- from there,  cashing crews  hit thousands of ATMs, socking away millions in the process. Hit up the source link for the full read; it's a wild one, for sure.