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Intel and Micron unveiled a novel new kind of non-volatile data storage device during a press conference on Tuesday. The chips, dubbed "3D XPoint" (pronounced "cross-point"), are being touted as the first new class of "mainstream memory" to hit the m...

Nokia has just revealed a new camera for filmmakers called OZO that can capture virtual reality videos. But unlike similar devices from GoPro and Samsung unveiled in the past months, it's not a flattened circle with cameras but a spherical ball-like ...

Today's the day! Windows 10 is now available in 190 countries as a free upgrade to Windows 7 or 8.1 owners. Replacing an OS is no one's idea of fun, but we're actually looking forward to this one. First off, we'll be leaving behind the most hated ver...

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Photo credit: YouTube / Colton Moore Lorries are good at many things. Lugging your groceries across the country, restocking Argos warehouses and carting fuel to petrol stations to name just a few. continue reading

It has been a busy time in Redmond. Three hundred and two days ago, on September 30, 2014, Windows 10 was announced by Microsoft. The name, at the time, was a bit of a surprise, and Windows 10 was born out of the ashes of Windows 8.1. Over the last three hundred days, we have seen a pronounced change in how Microsoft develops software. Windows 8 was the crowning achievement of Steven Sinofsky, and his sudden departure from the Redmond company only weeks after Windows 8 shipped perhaps signaled that Microsoft knew out of the gate that Windows 8 would be controversial and difficult to adopt for their core user group. A new direction was necessary.

And so we have Windows 10. Separated from Windows 8 by more than just a number, it was also forged by a Microsoft who was more open about the development process than I can ever recall. The day after Windows 10 was announced, Microsoft opened up the Windows Insider program, to give anyone who wanted a look at the new take on Windows to give it a spin, and not only that, they could offer feedback and suggestions for apps and features. The changes made to Windows 10 over the last three hundred odd days, have been dramatic, which is a testament to how the new Microsoft takes and processes the huge amount of feedback it received.

Windows 10 Start Menu and Desktop in October 2014

The Windows Insider program was very successful. Very quickly the number of people who had signed up was over a million, and the last count that I saw was that there are over five million people in the Windows Insider program. The response has certainly been enthusiastic.

Windows 10 Start Menu and Desktop at release

Of course it helps that the software being tested showed that Microsoft was listening well before the Insider Program even began. Windows 8’s biggest pain points, such as the Start Screen, full screen apps, and the Charms bar, were not going to be tweaked in this release, but completely done away with. Back was the Start Menu, back was windowed apps, and back was what made Windows, well, Windows. Where Windows 8 was promoted as touch-first, Windows 10 was created as productivity first, with the OS trying to assist you with things like Snap Assist rather than get in your way.

There is a lot of changes and features to go over, and in typical AnandTech style, we are going to provide as much information about each as we can. I wanted to ensure that we did the review with the final code, to ensure any of our tests would be accurate and real-world results. Hopefully the full review is worth the wait.

With Windows 10 being the first ever free upgrade, here is a quick look at what to expect if you signed up to get the upgrade on day one.

Windows 10 gains a personal assistant in Cortana. What originally launched on Windows Phone has been brought to the PC, and it can now work across all of your Windows devices. One of the key benefits of Windows 10 over Windows 8 is that features like Cortana are easily discoverable. Cortana now lives in a search box right beside the start button, and it can keep track of your travel plans, set up reminders, and perform searches for you.

Microsoft is also adding a new browser to Windows 10, with Microsoft Edge. Although based on Internet Explorer under the hood, huge chunks of code have been taken out to improve security, and the rendering and scripting engines have been optimized to make Edge one of the fastest browsers around. It adds support for new features like being able to markup web pages and share them, and Cortana is built in to provide contextual search results right in the page. It is a big step up from Internet Explorer in standards compliance, and while it’s not quite finished yet, Microsoft has promised to update it often through the Windows Store.

With Windows 8, Microsoft basically built a tablet operating system, and stuck the desktop inside of it. I actually quite liked the design when using Windows 8 with touch, but using it on a large screen desktop could be frustrating. Windows 10 is still designed for both systems, but they have added Continuum to Windows 10 to automatically prompt to switch from one mode to the other. Optimizing Windows for what you are doing is a much better approach than optimizing for what you’re not doing, and Continuum finally bridges the gap between desktop and tablet on one device.

Gaming is getting a big boost on Windows 10, with support for DirectX 12 which is the biggest change to their gaming APIs since DirectX 10 launched with Windows Vista way back in 2006. DirectX 12’s most important feature is likely its low-level API, which can provide much better performance in a lot of scenarios where developers had been CPU bound before. Graphics Processing Units are massively parallel devices, but could be bottlenecked by the API being CPU bound. DirectX 12 makes some big changes to the API to give the developers the chance to get around these bottlenecks, and the upcoming DirectX 12 games can add a level of detail that was unattainable before.

Gaming doesn’t stop there though. Windows 10 brings some other cool things to gaming on the PC. The built in Xbox app will support Game DVR, allowing you to record game sessions, edit them, and share them, all within the Xbox app. One of the coolest features coming is game streaming from an Xbox One to any Windows 10 PC, allowing you to use any PC or tablet as the display for the Xbox, as long as it is on the LAN. This isn’t new tech, but it will be built into every Windows 10 PC. Windows 10 is also going to offer cross-device gameplay, allowing you to play against people on Xbox One or Windows 10. Some games will even support starting a game on one device and finishing on the other.

The built in apps have all gotten major overhauls with Windows 10, and now work a lot better on a desktop but equally well on a touch device. Photos has gone from an almost unusable application on Windows 8 to a very nicely executed app in Windows 10. Mail has seen a huge change, and has taken cues from their purchase of Acompli, which had one of the best email apps on iOS. Maps has also gotten a big facelift, and it can sync information among all of your Windows devices. Xbox Music has been rebranded to Groove Music, and the movies app is now a movie player with the Windows Store being unified to include all purchases including movies and TV.

On the security side, Windows 10 brings a lot of features here as well. One I am very much looking forward to is Windows Hello, which will allow you to log in with supported facial recognition hardware, or fingerprint readers. Once logged in, Passport will be available as a service to allow authentication to external services, if they add support. This will leverage public-private key technology, so if a third party was able to obtain the database of passwords from a web service, they would just have your public key which is useless to them. I’ve said it before, and will say it again. Passwords have outlived their usefulness and any work to move this technology forward should be a huge benefit to everyone.

And these features are really just the tip of the iceberg, with far more available including virtual desktops, drop shadows, a new dark theme, and more. Windows 10 is a big step up from Windows 8, but also from those that hung back on Windows 7. With the free upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 being offered for a year, adoption should be strong, but time will tell. I have been running Windows 10 since October, and as my daily computer since January. It has been worth the wait.

This KLM pilot nails it at Schipol airport in Amsterdam—and any passengers who refused to stash their stuff were likely nailed by their iPads during rapid corrections in 60MPH cross-winds. Read the rest

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Despite finishing fourth in the Hungarian Grand Prix this season, 17-year-old Max Verstappen has yet to pass his driving test, and will be completing a four-week intensive course to get his licence. continue reading

German scientists have confirmed that an Electromagnetic Propulsion Engine, claimed by some to be 'impossible', actually works.

The EM Drive breaks the conservation of momentum law of physics, which is why it was originally widely ridiculed by the scientific community. However after repeated testing, it appears that the engine is actually producing thrust. Claims earlier in the year that it was creating a warp field have now been refuted.

It is propelled forward by microwaves bouncing around inside a closed chamber. It will supposedly be able to get us to Mars in just 70 days, without using expensive rocket fuel.

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Note: Full spoilers for the episode follow.

Just when you think you're close to seeing a big change, Mr. Robot pulls the rug out from under you. "3xpl0its.wmv" was meta in that way. FSociety was poised to take down Steel Mountain and deal significant damage to Evil Corp, but they were tripped up by losing Dark Army. Their disappointment was tangible, especially because I couldn't help but feel the same. We were making progress! The leisurely plot needs a boost.

The episode was helped by the bite-your-nails scenes where Elliot was nearly busted. Actually, the use of silence as Elliot toured Steel Mountain with Bill was as effective as the strained interactions with Trudy and then Tyrell. Rami Malek, as usual, did an incredible job communicating how out of step Elliot is compared to everyone else. You can always tell how uncomfortable (or not) Elliot is and since Elliot isn't the most verbose of characters, his body language is key to getting to know and read him. Malek is doing a lot of heavy lifting between that and Elliot's monologues.

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Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow...

Humans began twisting and tearing apart the Hawkins family in wonderful ways this week as Joe discovered that Toby falsely admitted to sleeping with Anita, essentially covering for him just so Anita wouldn't be shipped off. In the end, out of everyone, and after several shifting debates about whether or not to send Anita back to her makers, it was Joe who was shuttled away from his own house. A really fun, crushing turn.

The larger story involving the A.I. code hidden among Elster's special Synths shuffled along, though now with the interesting pairing of George and Niska. Now George actually had someone "human" he could speak to for more than a few minutes. Someone formidable and who could go toe-to-toe with him on a philosophical level. And with Niska residing/hiding in his home came a look back into his own story and the reveal that he left Elster's original project because of his partner's A.I. aspirations. Also, we discovered that the grim, grand-standing Hobb was also one of the Elster's original think-tank buddies.

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Dozens of high-profile scientists, businessmen, and other dignitaries, including the likes of Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak, and Elon Musk, have signed an open letter appealing to the UN to ban AI-based weaponry.

The letter, published by The Future of Life Institute, states that AI-controlled weapons with capabilities of searching for and eliminating people autonomously will likely be available "within years, not decades," and describes autonomous weapons as a potential "third revolution in warfare, after gunpowder and nuclear arms."

"If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development," the letter continues, "a global arms race is virtually inevitable... autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow." It warns that while these weapons may reduce human casualties, it will also lower the threshold for states to go to war, as the materials needed to create these machines are so cheap and readily available.

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Android users should be on the lookout for any video messages they receive that suddenly disappear. Why? Because it could mean that particular device has been compromised.

A group of researchers from Zimperium Mobile Security revealed the flaw in the mobile OS, now going by the name "Stagefright," along with the news that around 950 million Android devices are actively vulnerable to being attacked.

An attack on an affected Android device is so simple that it only requires the attacker to know their victim's mobile number. Even more troubling, however, is the fact that no action needs to be taken on the device itself for the effects to take hold. And after sending a multimedia message containing the exploit, different parts of the device, including the microphone, camera and Bluetooth, can be accessed.

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Zimperium researchers found a security vulnerability in all versions of Android (starting with 2.2) that would allow attackers to infect their targets without any user action by simply sending them an MMS message.

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Photo credit: News TV 2015 003 News TV 2015 003 We all know how tempting it can be to re-enact the flamboyant car stunts from the latest action movies but, just as Terry Cole used to say, don't try this at home. As a 56-year-old Dutch man recently found out, these moments of confidence (and incompetence) don't always go to plan. The man in question attempted to jump a... continue reading

Multiple Steam accounts have been hijacked over the last week, thanks to a bug.

The Steam Store and website were briefly unavailable this morning, but it is unclear whether this is related to any security issues.

Last week, a security "loophole" allowed anyone in the world to access your account using the Lost Password function on Steam, as long as they had your username. From there they could change your password and gain access to your account with no verification needed.

The security issue has now been fixed, however the bug could have been impacting the Steam service all of last week from July 21-25. Valve told Kotaku that it is "resetting passwords on accounts with suspicious password changes during that period."

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You might think that legislation should be freely accessible as a matter of course, but the state of Georgia begs to differ. It's suing Public.Resource.Org owner Carl Malamud for allegedly violating copyright by publishing the annotated versions of G...

During Thursday night's season finale of "Wayward Pines," Fox debuted a new teaser for the "X-Files" revival. But wait, isn't it exactly the same footage from the last short teaser Fox released? Yes, but this time Mulder and Scully finally have a little dialogue.

In the 17-second teaser, David Duchovny's Mulder asks, "Are you ready for this, Scully?" Gillian Anderson replies by saying she doesn't know if there's a choice.

 Be prepared, "X-Files" fans, the new revival premieres on Jan. 24 whether or not you're ready, either.

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Photo credit: YouTube / rmitchell248 If you think you can't get the most from a supercar on the road, think again. Provided you have access to Germany's high-speed derestricted autobahns, that is. continue reading

Hang around Twitter for long enough and there's a good chance that you'll see people rehashing jokes that clearly aren't theirs, whether they're spam bots or less-than-original friends. You might not see that copy-pasted humor for much longer, though...

FX has released a new trailer for Fargo: Season 2 ahead of its premiere this September. The new preview is our biggest look yet at the new season.

Give it a look below.

Just last week, a brief 30-second trailer was released, providing Fargo fans with their first look at the show's 1979 Sioux Falls, South Dakota setting outside of a couple of character-specific teasers.

According to series showrunner Noah Halway, Fargo's second season will be "a lot bigger" than the first, with "more of an epic feel."

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Fox's upcoming revival of The X-Files has added fan-favorite actors Robbie Amell (The Flash) and Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) to its cast.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Amell is playing the "smart" and "smooth" Agent Miller, while Ambrose is set to portray the "sharp" and "confident" Agent Einstein. We'll reportedly see both characters in the fourth episode of the revival.

Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose.

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In 2010, French filmmaker Patrick Jean released an ingenious short film about classic video game characters attacking -- and pixelating -- New York City. Featuring gorgeous visuals and a winning premise, the short quickly went viral. Of course, Hollywood wasn't going to sit by and not cash in on a feature-length version, so Sony picked up the rights to Jean's creation, adapted it for the big screen and put a bunch of funny people in it -- namely Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Josh Gad, Peter Dinklage and Michelle Monaghan. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, Pixels makes a much better YouTube video than it does a full-length movie.

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When Michael Douglas shows up in Ant-Man's opening as a young Hank Pym in 1989, the Oscar-winning actor looks like he shot the scene just after filming Wall Street.

So how did Marvel rewind time with Douglas? According to Vulture, it was a company called Lola VFX that de-aged the 70-year-old actor. The company actually broke out onto the scene of de-aging with X-Men: The Last Stand (remember the opening scene with Professor X and Magneto?), but Lola VFX has worked with Marvel before, as when they created the skinny version of Steve Rogers in Captain America: The First Avenger.

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On the heels of the news that Michael Chiklis has joined Gotham as a series regular comes two new Season 2 promos.

Gotham: Season 1 Review

One features Jim Gordon swearing to take down Peter Scolari's Commissioner Loeb, The Penguin as Gotham's new crime lord, and a glimpse of Cameron Monaghan's "Joker," while the other shows young Bruce's descent down to his father's secret "cave" lair. All while a slowed down cover version (are there any other type of trailer songs these days?) of Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" plays.

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It's a good year for Pixar fans: Inside Out was one of the studio's best films in years, and we also have another to look forward to on November 25, The Good Dinosaur. Now we've got our best look at the film yet with its first official trailer, which...

If you're a big fan of Bethesda's Fallout franchise, or you just like collecting things, you'll soon be able to nab a nuke. Not a real one, of course, but a miniature bomb case (complete with sound!) that houses all of the Fallout titles for PC that ...

The first teaser trailer for Spectre, the 25th James Bond film, dropped a few stunning plot hints, including the suggestion that Bond (played once again by Daniel Craig) has some direct link to the organization Spectre, and perhaps more than one link at that. The first extended TV spot had many flashes of action.

Now we’ve got the new Spectre trailer — the first full-length trailer for the movie, in fact — with a lot more footage, and even more info for Bond fans to chew on. There’s action in Mexico, a few cheeky lines, some new gear courtesy of Q, and a lot more mystery around that evil organization, Spectre, which turns out to have deep roots in Bond’s own past. Check it out below!

 

Seeing Christoph Waltz claim to be the author of all James Bond’s pain is pretty great, even if he is still denying that he plays Blofeld. Add all that to what we learned earlier this week about roles played by three women new to the Bond series, and one returning player:

• Naomie Harris is back as Eve Moneypenny, reprising her role from Skyfall, who is a bit more desk bound in this film after the events of the last.
• Monica Bellucci (The Matrix Reloaded, Irreversible) is Lucia Sciarra, a new widow after the murder of her Mafia husband.
• Léa Seydoux (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, Blue Is the Warmest Color) is Madeleine Swann, a doctor and daughter of a professional assassin.
• Stephanie Sigman (The Bridge) is Estrella, a mysterious woman whose path Bond crosses while in Mexico.

Sam Mendes directs. Spectre also stars Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Andrew Scott, and Dave Bautista.

Spectre is set for release in the UK on October 26, 2015, and in the US on November 6, 2015. Trailer via Sony.

In SPECTRE, a cryptic message from Bond’s past sends him on a trail to uncover a sinister organization. While M battles political forces to keep the secret service alive, Bond peels back the layers of deceit to reveal the terrible truth behind SPECTRE. Sam Mendes returns to direct SPECTRE, with Daniel Craig reprising his role as 007 for the fourth time. SPECTRE is produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, from a script by John Logan and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade.

The post ‘Spectre’ Trailer: James Bond Battles Shadows appeared first on /Film.

Ant-Man wouldn’t be a Marvel movie if it didn’t contain a bunch of fun easter eggs and references to comic book creators, storylines and side characters. We’ve chronicled many of the references and hidden details in previous Marvel movies (like this in-depth dissection of Guardians of the Galaxy’s many easter eggs), and now its time to take a look at Peyton Reed‘s Ant-Man. After the jump you will find over 20 easter eggs for the latest Marvel superhero movie starring Paul Rudd.

Ant-Man Easter Eggs

Spider-Man Reference

At one point in the film, we’re told that”we’ve got one that jumps, we’ve got one that swings, we’ve got one that crawls up the walls.” This is clearly a reference to Spider-Man, right? Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige claims that the line was written before Marvel made their deal with Sony and was just meant to be a generic line and not a reference directly to Spider-Man. He told io9:

“When that was shot, that was before the whole [Spider-Man] thing had happened. It really was just her listing relatively generic powers leading into Falcon saying, ‘I’m looking for someone who shrinks.’ Now that the Spider-Man deal has been announced, it takes on a different connotation.”

However, director Peyton Reed plays it off very differently, claiming that the line was added very late in the game after the Spider-Man deal happened.

“Well, as everything the Marvel Universe, things are constantly changing and evolving,” he said. “It was something that very late in the game happened. We had those conversations about, ‘Are we going to deal with it in our movie? Should we deal with it in our movie and if so, how?’ We liked the idea of just dropping a little, tiny reference toward the end of the movie. That excited me. Just to have that connection with a character I grew up loving – it was great.”

Janet Van Dyne Stuck in the Quantum Realm

In the film, Hank Pym explains the danger of shrinking too small is that you could fall into the Quantum Realm, a subatomic place where time and space are irrelevant. In the comics, it’s also known as the Microverse. In a flashback, we learn that Janet Van Dyne’s version of the Wasp (Hayley Lovitt) disappears into the Quantum Realm in an effort to save the world. We never see her again… or so you thought.

Peyton Reed has teased that we might see Janet Van Dyne again if you look hard enough. The easter egg can be seen during the sequence when Scott Lang goes into the Quantum Realm.

“I don’t know if you caught any of the imagery as Scott is going down into the quantum realm, you might be able, on repeat viewing and definitely when you get the Blu-ray, there’s something the audience can see down there that Scott doesn’t see, that, may play a larger role.”

Fans have also spotted a small winged creature on the right hand side of the screen during the moment when “we’re falling into the Quantum Realm.” If Janet is actually seen on screen, this means that she could one day be saved.  And since time does not matter at the sub atomic level, she could possibly return in a future Marvel movie not having aged a day since her “death”.

Also, the Quantum Realm kind of sets up Doctor Strange. Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige explained to CinemaBlend:

“If you look up the study of quantum mechanics, when you get down that small, as Hank Pym says, space time is meaningless, and there’s a lot of that stuff that applies to ‘Doctor Strange, So this is sort of an appetizer for, ‘If you think this is weird … ‘”

Also revealed in the film is that Dr. Hank Pym was studying the Quantum Realm pretty heavily between 1987 (after Janet disappeared) to 1997. This could also tie into Doctor Strange.

“Tales To Astonish”

As Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) reveals old classified footage of Hank Pym’s Ant-Man technology in action, he admits that the stories of the tiny hero were written off, calling them “tales to astonish.” The phrase got a huge laugh at my screening of Ant-Man. Tales to Astonish was the name of a real Marvel comic series published from January 1959 to March 1968. It began as a science-fiction anthology to showcase artists such as Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, but later featured Silver Age superheroes. The series also featured the first appearance of Hank Pym in issue #27, his transformation into Ant-Man in issue #35, and the Wasp’s debut in issue #44. Tales To Astonish was turned into The Incredible Hulk with issue #102, published in April 1968.

Mandarin References

When the Ant-Man trailers were released, many fans were speculating that Scott Lang would be locked up at Seagate Prison, the same facility where Ben Kingsley’s Mandarin was put at the conclusion of Iron Man 3. But it turns out Lang served his time at San Quentin in the more story-fitting location of Northern California. And while he didn’t share a cell with the Mandarin, there’s a reference to that villain’s organization the Ten Rings. While it may not be visible in the final film, one of the characters on set for the scene had a “10 Rings of the Mandarin” tattoo on the left side of his neck.

Former /Film writer Germain Lussier theorized that since the actor was hanging out with Martin Donovan’s character, maybe Martin Donovan is being set-up to be the real Mandarin? Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige seems to turn down that reading of the situation:

“I guess anything is possible but that’s not necessarily what we were currently thinking,” Feige said. Then he jokingly added “But now that you said it…”

Stan Lee Cameo

I feel like at this point even the non comic book audience mostly recognizes Stan Lee’s cameos in Marvel movies. The legendary comic book creator can be seen in this movie during the second convoluted story told by Luis (Michael Peña), towards the end of the movie. Luis explains that his friend told him she was “Super fine!” and that the bartender, portrayed by Stan Lee, agreed that zshe was, “Super fine!” Of course, all of the story is voiced over by Michael Peña’s character. Above, you can watch a supercut of all of Stan Lee’s cameos up until 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

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The post Ant-Man Easter Eggs: The Ultimate Guide to References, Trivia, Cameos and More appeared first on /Film.