Apple Building Out Their Own CDN To Deliver Content To Consumers

Looks like it's bad news for Akamai's (and Level 3 to a lesser extent) business if Apple make a major shift away from them. It'll be interesting to see if Apple only go into the IPX's or if they take a Open Connect approach like Netflix have and deal with ISP's as well.

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/2014/02/apple-building-cdn-software-video-delivery.html

V-Ray 3.0 For 3ds Max by Chaos Group

The team at Chaos have made significant optimisations to the ray tracing core which has now enabled up to 5x performance increase for Brute Force CI, Progressive Path Tracing, Reflections and Refractions.

Artists will find that V-Ray 3.0 offers improved Subsurface Scattering (SSS) including options for object-based and ray traced illumination, faster hair rendering speeds (up to 15x), view-dependent tessellation that automatically smoothes hair curves, and a dedicated Skin Shader with layered reflections. Now with UDIM and UVTILE support, it’s even easier to move MARI and Autodesk® Mudbox® assets into V-Ray.

In addition, V-Ray 3.0 offers a number of additional workflow shortcuts, technical advances and support for open sources technologies, these include:

Render Mask – Users can define render regions using an object selection or image mask
Reflection/ Refraction Trace Sets – Provides more direct control in choosing whether reflections and refractions are visible in objects
Max Ray Intensity – Will easily fix artifacts from over-bright sources
Probabilistic Lights – Increases the speed of scenes with a high number of lights
V-Ray RT GPU – Improved with support for Render Elements
V-Ray Frame Buffer – Improved with added color correction controls
Open Source Technologies
Alembic integration with support for hair and particles
Deep Data output support including OpenEXR 2.0
Ptex object-space vector displacement support
Open Shading Language (OSL) support for programmable shaders
OpenColorIO support for advanced color management

rators EE and Three strike a deal to share 4G infrastructure

Cost savings and better coverage hopefully!

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2326622/rival-operators-ee-and-three-strike-a-deal-to-share-4g-infrastructure

Galaxy S5 rumours & thoughts

See link at the bottom. 

A 2k display on a 5in screen just seems a bit excessive to be honest! If the rumours are true and is LCD over AMOLED then I don't think that'll be great in daylight either... Still it's on course for an April release which is when I got my S4 last year so it's a decent option. I''d also be impressed if it doesn't kill the battery in just a few hours of gaming. 

Same goes for the 6 core 64bit processor. Although that does sound pretty cool and the idea of 'carrying' your desktop around in your pocket is pretty cool. I hope they give it a mini-HDMI / MHL out to plug straight into a display.

On a side note. I'd love for them to release the same spec as a Windows Phone and give the devs something to built towards! That OS needs more rapid development! Thats not to say Android won't for some of these features.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2317640/samsung-galaxy-s5-release-date-price-specs-and-features

Sky will be the only UK provider to offer 'Game of Thrones' and other HBO shows until 2020

A good move for Sky. The UK remains one of the most competitive markets with so many alternative options that the exclusives really are deciding factors for viewers a lot of the time. 

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/30/sky-hbo-epg-sport-deals-uk-record/

Chrome rendering engine will get faster, lighter, and better offline in 2014

So Webkit is being forked for Blink. I certainly hope Chrome gets lighter and faster as promised!

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/chrome-rendering-engine-will-get-faster-lighter-and-better-offline-in-2014/

http://www.chromium.org/blink/developer-faq

LibreOffice upgrade targets Windows integration and power users.

Key points: 

• the ability to centrally manage and lock-down the configuration with Group Policy Objects via Active Directory
• an optional new formula interpreter enables massively parallel calculation of formula cells using the GPU via OpenCL

I like this simple yet elegant part:

In addition to improving the desktop applications, LibreOffice is about to get an Impress Remote Control for iOS, letting iPhone users control presentations from their mobile devices. The app is awaiting review from Apple and should hit the App Store soon. Impress Remote is already available for Android.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/01/libreoffice-upgrade-targets-windows-integration-and-power-users/

LibreOffice 4.2 release notes

Are Apple planning a big surprise with the next Apple TV

http://m.t3.com/news/next-gen-apple-tv-to-include-tv-tuner

Verizon LTE now available in 35 NYC subway stations

London underground is falling behind. Admittedly, Virgin Media have done a good job with the Wifi rollout compared to hotspots such as TheCloud (It was poor when it was in Waterloo Station) but we need 3/4G!   

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/28/verizon-lte-nyc-subway/

Makerbot owner Stratasys launches multi-material colour 3D printer

There getting better. We've got chocolate 3d printers and now multi-material printers: 

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2014-01/27/multi-material-3d-printer

Sammy is making a few patent deals recently.

First Google and now this, looks like their aiming to dodge a fair few future issues and gadget creation becomes more and more of a minefield.
http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/27/samsung-ericsson-cross-licensing-agreement/

Ubuntu scores highest in UK Gov security assessment

UK Gov Report Summary

http://insights.ubuntu.com/resources/article/ubuntu-scores-highest-in-uk-gov-security-assessment/

7Gbps Capable Home WiFi Standard 802.11ac-2013 on the Way by 2015

Might wanna hold out for those 802.11ac-2013 devices...

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/01/ultrafast-7gbps-capable-802-11ac-2013-home-wifi-standard-way-2015.html

Apple: Random iOS 7 crashes to be remedied in “upcoming software update”

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/01/apple-random-ios-7-crashes-to-be-remedied-in-upcoming-software-update/

Google's reasonably priced Street View car tours Top Gear's test track

http://www.engadget.com/2014/01/23/google-street-view-top-gear-test-track-dunsfold-aerodrome/