The PlaySurface is collapsible which a feature well-thought off by developers. When you think of it, it’s really hard to move tables in offices. The device takes 30 minutes to set up while dismantling is about 10 minutes. The table connects to a PC via VGA and USB. A CPU running on Windows 7 also powers it (based on the demo made for Engadget). On the inside, one can find a standard consumer projector, mirror and camera. What enables the touch feature is the ARM-based solution that was transferred to the camera (this is the reason why it was on KickStarter to get funding on developing such solution) and this lessened the workload of the PC. Functionality is not that perfect yet as it takes a while to get used to. Overall, it is still not ripe as enhancements are still needed. One impressive feature of the PlaySurface is that it detect 100 touches all at once which will enable playing as a group.

The PlaySurface retails for $1,250 and would be owner gets the box itself plus the insides. The only catch is that user must provide or use his/her own PC. See demo below.

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More specifically, the FBI is asking communication and internet providers to reconfigure their system and allow the police backdoor access to information exchange contents via the net.

In a parallel issue, the FBI is still having problems with the legal back-ups since there is no precedence yet of a court order allowing for them to force companies to betray the First Amendment. A decades long ruling of the court has stated that exchange of information over the net is offered blanket protection by the freedom of speech.

If everything goes the way FBI has planned, the existing method of surveillance over suspected felons will be a lot easier but a spokesperson of the Bureau stressed that they are not seeking expansion of authority but only seeking to strengthen already existing authority. She is probably talking about the already existing means of the authorities to obtain a court order to install surveillance gadgets and softwares to homes of suspected criminals.

The main reason for this move is that technology has grown faster than the legal means to aid the government in prosecuting criminals. Meaning, when the law caught up with wiretaps and other telephone-related surveillance systems, the crooks promptly switched to the internet and wireless comms for exchanging information; a means of communication not covered by the law on wiretaps.

The FBI has already posted job openings with regards to DCAC and the main requirement is a deep knowledge of surveillance systems.

It is good to know that the government is pursuing new means to keep illegal activities from happening or if they do, they want to limit the damage done by practically crippling unlawful elements from communicating. It is easier said than done however. They still have a lot to hurdle since getting a court order to this effect might be damaging to people’s rights.

In this initiative, however, the technology will be ready whenever the legal system deemed it the right time to employ such technology.

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Yes, Diablo 3 has set the record for the fastest selling PC game of all time with more than 3.5 million copies sold on its first day. Not included in this tally are more than 1.2 million gamers who got the highly anticipated Blizzard action role playing game after signing up for the World of Warcraft Annual Pass promo, which makes more than 4.7 million copies of the game installed in PCs worldwide on day 1.

Also impressive is the fact that it sold 6.3 million copies on the first week. This also does not include Korean internet game room players who made Diablo 3 achieve more than 39% record share in that same week, making it the top-played game today. It even broke the record for the most preordered PC game of all-time on Amazon.com.

Perhaps what makes this third installment of the action RPG series popular includes its epic storyline which focuses around the fight between good and evil coupled with a simple and intuitive gameplay. Developers also incorporated players’ opinions and suggestions to its improvements. Diablo 3 is also designed to fully function on the Battle.net platform where players can join forces for coop play.

Diable 3 is available on more than 8,000 retailers around the globe, or you can also purchase it via its official website for a digital copy.

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Reportedly, the Galaxy Note 10.1 will not have a dual-core chip, but a quad-core Exynos instead, something which Samsung denied before when related rumors popped up. Aside from that, a stylus will be included in the tablet’s final package- an S Pen made a lot slimmer than the original so that it could fit into its specifically-made holster within the chassis of the tablet. For those who are more used to holding larger pens, there’s also a choice for an S Pen Holder Kit, which would let users slide the S Pen into a slightly larger body for a little more girth to grip onto.

The tablet itself is reported to have lost a little thickness, but its new dimensions are still unknown. Meanwhile, the rest of its specs, such as the RAM and camera, haven’t been remarked upon, which would mean that they haven’t been changed.

The updated Galaxy Note was shown off during an event in Europe, and there are three pictures featured by the report to prove it. It’s also been said that a June release can be expected for the tablet, but so far Samsung hasn’t made any announcements, whether it be about the date or the new details of its upcoming slate.

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Why is this so? HP plans on making itself more efficient and productive because it’s not doing so well in a market dominated by its rival electronics makers. It also admits that it has a lot of work to do, especially when one of the goals of the restructuring program is to increase its annual profits to about $3 to $3.5 billion by the end of 2014. Granted, its revenue for the second quarter of the year is at $30.7 billion instead of the expected $29.9 billion by Wall Street analysts, it doesn’t change the fact that profits have been dropping steadily. In fact, it’s gone down about 3% since last year.

How will HP restructure itself? As mentioned above, it wont be a good time to be an employee, as the company is planning on reducing its workforce by 8%, or about 27,000 people. This is at least lenient, as HP will be introducing an early retirement program, but there’s no telling who will be losing their jobs and who will stay, as the job cuts will be different depending on the country’s legal requirements and other details. HP also failed to outline just what the retirement plans would entail, which could be cause for nervousness for some.

HP also plans on reinvesting in savings of different sectors to improve on their efficiency. For R&D, innovation and creating better systems will be the main focus, and for marketing and sales, the company plans on making sure that doing business with it will be easier and that the customers have a better experience doing so. Meanwhile, Services will be focusing on cloud, security and information-based services, Software will increase capabilities in data and management, and Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking will work more on storage, networking capabilities and an infrastructure that will make sure all of the important aspects such as media and cloud will be able to work properly.

It seems the fiscal year 2014 is the goal for some of HP’s plans in the restructuring program, as it’s expecting to record $1.8 billion in pre-tax charges in that year, following the $1.7 billion that it will be recording this year.

Will the world see a better, more successful Hewlett Packard by 2014? It’s still too early to tell, and the company itself admits that the restructuring program is a big risk to undertake, and that certain plans can be changed at any given moment. We will just have to wait and see what its next move will be. Meanwhile, those who are nervous of being laid off may want to start searching for a new job, or improving their work ethic to be able to keep their position.

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Tech enthusiasts and consumers alike have always tried to imagine what the next gadgets are going to look like. This time, the device on the spotlight is the next generation ipod, the iPod Touch 5G. Instead of mock ups surfacing the net, rumors of the next gen iPod is allegedly based on verifiable albeit arbitrary evidences like the front panel that is rumored to be used in the upcoming iPhone.

Based on images that is now flooding the net, the next iPod touch will have at least 4 inches screen size contrary to popular claims of 3.95 inch display for the next iPhone prototype.

This difference of a couple of millimeters sparked off two differing conjecture paths;

• This is a baseless rumor and would be marked off as hoax or misinformation.
• This discrepancy is acceptable since the viewable portion is smaller than the front panel.

Still, rumors are rumors however logically viable they are. Rumored parts of the upcoming device point to a presumably better specs and bigger display for the iPhone 5 so the excitement felt by fans are not entirely groundless. However, let’s just all wait for the final product to lay these exciting rumors to rest. iPod sizes being identical to iPhones’ in the past is the best indicator that the next gen iPod will grow taller as well so let’s just keep all our fingers crossed on this one.

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Down 8.5% since Nasdaq offered it at $38 apiece (now @ $31), FB shares are hurting more than young billionaire Mark Zuckerberg or the horde of millionaire wanna-bes that grabbed a slice of this virtual money machine.

Across a wider spectrum, this plummet of stock shares are engendering cascades of repercussions. One particular entity that could be hurt a lot by this drop is the state of California herself. According to reports, expected tax generated by the sales of FB stock which could go as high as $1.9 billion could throw budget estimates off the mark.

Reasons for the negative changes are plenty but with the absence of an official statement from FB HQ, these remain just fodders for rumor-mongers and analysts. Could it be the delay caused by Nasdaq glitches? Some would point to that but Nasdaq bigwigs are quick to deny these connections. It could be due to a whole lot of reasons ranging from forecast discrepancies to legal battles looming in the background amid the IPO launch.

Still, a lot pray that this is not a continuous plummet and that it could rebound at anytime (for sure, they are also doing it with their fingers crossed) and it still could. As they say, the game is still not far off from the opening bell and a lot can still happen.

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Today, the Denver-based company officially revealed the mid-level camera marketed for travelers and casual photographers who are on the go. Specswise, the outfit upgraded its sensor from the usual 12.X MP to 16MP, high-speed burst shooting with a max-speed of 6 images per second, 1080p video recording at 30FPS, ISO 100 to 25,600 for shooting objects in lowlight and, a shutter speed of 1/6000 second. Since this is a mid-end DSLR, expect its hardware jump to be minimal compared with its predecessors two years ago. Still, that doesn’t mean it’s anorexic especially when you check out its more compact and lightweight body along with its weatherproofing feature making its resistant to dust, cold and other elements. Other goodies also include a glass prism optical viewfinder, autofocus, 100% field of view so you can take more precise shots on your objects and, an electronic dial giving you access to scene modes plus other automatic presets.

Interested customers will be able to get their hands over the device on July with an SRP of $850 for its body, while its kit including the DA L 18-55mm zoom lens will fork out $900.

This is newsworthy because Diablo 3 is a fairly new game, having come out on May 13, showing that these hackers are fast. In addition, the amount of hijacking reports worldwide has been growing at an alarming rate, which shows that the privacy measures Blizzard put into effect aren’t working. Not even the Battle.net Authenticator, specifically designed to add another level of security to accounts by generating a unique 8-digit code, helps with the problem, as several reports from the community show that this is no problem for the hackers.

To make things even more frustrating, some of the older responses from Blizzard say that the team cant detect a problem with the hacked accounts, and therefore the player cant be compensated for their loss. It’s only after the complaints swamped the Diablo forums that Blizzard managed to admit that there may be a problem with the game’s security.

So far, Diablo staff members have mentioned a new service called SMS Protect that will send account details to users’ phones, but they still stress that the Authenticator is still working properly and that it should be a good way to be protected from being hijacked. Unfortunately, this isn’t an answer as to why Blizzard’s logs aren’t recording account-related problems, nor have the victims been compensated for their losses, so gamers need to change their passwords and avoid interacting with people they don’t know until the game developer fixes this properly.

The Apple Campus is like most of Apple’s projects, starting out as an idea of the late Steve Jobs as an extension of the original Apple campus Infinite Loop because of how many employees the company has. His vision was to house about 12,000 people in a circular building of four stories that has all the essentials and more, including a research facility, an auditorium, a cafe and even a fitness center. He had presented the plan to the Cupertino City council just last year.

The campus will be situated at the grounds of an old Hewlett Packard facility which is bounded by Interstate-280 to the south, North Tantau to the east, Homestead road to the north and Wolfe road to the west, as it had carried some important memories for Jobs as a young man. According to Jobs at the council hearing, HP offered the land up to him and he willingly bought it.

Clearly Jobs’ company hasn’t forgotten this plan despite his death and now plans to use that extra area to get started with the long process of building, starting with a package on the doorstep of every resident in the city. The package contains a simple yet detailed brochure on how Apple plans on changing the neighborhood, how long construction may take, and if the public will be interested in supporting the project. Supporters have the choice of either writing a letter to Apple or participating in one of the future meetings concerning the project. Unfortunately, the campus wont be open to the public, so no one can simply come in and make use of the amenities.

To change the 300,000-some square feet of land, the company is planning on replacing all the 26 abandoned buildings in the area with the massive circular one in Jobs’ proposal, but instead of the expected 12,000, Apple claims that the campus will be able to contain 13,000 people. For the rest of the area, several research facilities will be constructed as well, so nothing goes to waste. However, Apple will keep most of the trees as is and even replace about 120 acres of asphalt with soil and green life in an effort to preserve the environment. Most importantly, there will be no heavy industrial work, so their neighbors wont be disturbed.

The city council is expected to consider the plans that were submitted last August and should it be approved, Apple will start working immediately with 2015 as the target finishing date.

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