Console smackdown! PlayStation 4 vs. Xbox One- The last time a new PlayStation or Xbox hit the market, Facebook had fewer than 12 million users, a tablet was a pill and nobody outside of Apple had heard of a gadget called the iPhone.

That was more than seven years ago. It's a vastly different technology landscape that will greet Sony and Microsoft in the coming days when the two old rivals go head to head again with splashy new consoles.

Sony's PlayStation 4 hits stores on Friday, with Microsoft's Xbox One coming a week later, on November 22.

Between them, they account for two of the gaming world's Big Three (Nintendo, which rolled out the Wii U last year, casts a wider net to draw children, families and more casual players). The venerable PlayStation and Xbox remain the fiercest rivals for the hearts and minds of so-called hardcore gamers -- the diehards who stand in line for intense, intricate titles like "Call of Duty" that pull in more cash than Hollywood blockbusters.

But it was 2005 when the Xbox 360 hit the market, and a year later when the PlayStation 3 debuted. Now, the two platforms will be competing for holiday dollars in a world where anyone can boot up a video game instantly on a phone or tablet, and in which streaming and cloud technology mean most major video-game titles can be played as easily on souped-up PCs.

Even the now-ubiquitous Facebook, which now has 1.1 billion users, plays a role. Tens of millions of people play games on the site daily (athough few of the faithful who will line up for the new consoles may consider crushing candy or farming virtual cows "real" gaming).

So which of the two rivals, if either, will cut through the clutter and prevail? It remains to be seen, though the fight has already begun.

Earlier this year, Microsoft reversed course on poorly received plans to require Xbox One users to be online while playing and to limit how much digital games could be shared or resold. But that wasn't before Sony got in some shots of its own.

Early reviews of the PS4 have been positive, with Time.com's Matt Peckham praising it as "everything Sony's learned about platform design, honed and polished to something just shy of perfection."

The Xbox One will get its chance to shine next week. And the debate over which platform is better will continue, long after the new consoles start landing in homes.

Until then, here's a "tale of the tape"

Researchers develop new cloaking technology There are a lot of reasons to want to make things invisible, other than it just being incredibly cool. There are the many potential military uses of cloaking technology, of course, but it could also help improve cellular signals by hiding objects that would normally block and weaken signal strength.

Cloaking technology is popular science fiction trope, but real scientists have been researching and developing new ways to make cloaking objects a reality for years. Most recently, two researchers at the University of Toronto have found a new way to cloak an object using tiny antennas.

In a paper published this week in the journal Physical Review X, they describe their new take on cloaking. They're not making objects invisible to the human eye but making them undetectable by radar. They can even control the signals bouncing back to make objects seem larger or smaller than they really are.

Radar works by sending out electromagnetic waves that reflect off objects and bounce back to the detector. In the past, researchers have made things invisible to radar by redirecting the waves around the object. University of Toronto researchers Dr. George Eleftheriades and Michael Selvanayagam took a different approach more suited to large objects.

The nanoantennas they used radiate an electromagnetic field that prevents waves from reflecting back to the radar detector. The small antennas can be even printed flat to create a flexible skin for the desired object. While the technology only works for radio waves at the moment, the researchers say the same principals could be applied to other waves such as light waves, which could potentially hide an object from the human eye.

In their demonstration, Eleftheriades and Selvanayagam tested the antennas on an aluminum cylinder. Currently, the antennas need to be manually set to the proper frequency they're blocking, but in a more advanced set up, they could detect the different waves and adjust accordingly.

There have been numerous other attempts to make things disappear.

In March, researchers at the University of Texas in Austin created a material that could be used to cancel out the microwaves bouncing off an object. Researchers at Michigan Technological University have experimented with cloaking objects from microwave and infrared frequency waves using shells of nonconductive materials such as ceramics and glass metamaterial to distort waves.

A professor in Japan used cameras to film a scene and then project it on an object in front of that area onto a special reflective material, creating a visual camouflage.

It's going to a long while before we're picking up our own personal cloaking devices at the local Best Buy. But new research in this field is constantly tacking new, wider bandwidths and experimenting with less cumbersome technology that can be used on larger devices.

Google launches Nexus 5 handset with Android Kitkat

Google has officially unveiled the latest incarnation of its flagship Nexus smartphone.

Made by LG, the handset is smaller, slimmer and lighter than the Nexus 4 but its 4.96in (126mm) touchscreen is bigger.
The Nexus 5 has been developed to show off the capabilities of the new version of the Android operating system.
Called Kitkat, the software has been designed to work well on both high-end smartphones and cheaper feature phones.
The alliance with Google has helped bolster LG's fortunes even though, according to statistics from Gartner, it is still a long way behind rivals Samsung and Apple.
In the April-to-June quarter, the consultancy indicated 3.8% of all smartphones sold were LG handsets putting the South Korean firm in third place.
By contrast, Apple accounted for 18.8% of all sales and Samsung 29.7%.
Memory cut The specifications for the new phone were widely leaked before it was announced on the official Google blog.
The gadget shares some of the hardware from LG's G2 handset and can record and play back HD video at the full 1080p resolution. Its camera also has a rapid burst system that captures several photographs at the same time so owners can pick the best shot.
The handset is due to go on sale on 1 November in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan and Korea.
"Nexus devices serve an important function for Google," said Ben Wood, head of research at analyst firm CCS Insight.
"The company collaborates closely with the chosen phone maker as it rolls out a new version of the Android operating system and this results in a 'vanilla' version of the software that acts as a reference platform for developers and tech enthusiasts."
Google said a base 16GB version of the device would cost $349 in the US (£299 in the UK), unlocked and without a contract. The 32GB version should cost $399 (£339 in the UK).
With Android Kitkat, Google said it had made the software use less memory so it could be used on handsets with much lower specifications than top end smartphones.
In addition, Google has begun moving some services off Android's core software and onto its app store. Many see this as a way for it to maintain more control over the security of the software and its associated applications.

Samsung profit rises 26% on smartphone boost

 

 

 

 The success of its Galaxy range of smartphones has seen Samsung become the world's biggest smartphone maker

Samsung Electronics has reported a 26% jump in profit in the third quarter driven by strong smartphone sales and a recovery in its memory chip business.

It made a net profit of 8.24 trillion won ($7.6bn; £4.7bn) in the July-to-September quarter, up from 6.56tn won during the same period a year earlier.
Operating profit rose to a record 10.2 trillion won during the quarter.
The firm said sales of smartphones, a key driver of its growth, are expected to rise further in coming months.
It said that sales "will gain momentum due to year-end promotions over the holiday season and an improved line-up of mass-market smartphones".
Increased competition Samsung has posted record operating profit in six of the past seven quarters, mostly due to the growth of its smartphone division.

Like Nokia, Samsung may hit a limit in increasing market share”

Kim Sung-soo LS Asset Management

The firm has enjoyed success in both the top-end as well as lower end of the smartphone market, giving it an edge over rivals such as Apple which makes only top-end phones.

Its growth in the sector has seen it become the world's biggest smartphone maker.
However, there have been concerns over whether Samsung can continue to grow at such a strong pace, not least because of increased competition and saturation of some key markets.
"Samsung has done well, having rapidly caught up with Apple in the smartphone market. But I'm concerned whether Samsung would be able to do better," said Kim Sung-soo, a fund manager at LS Asset Management.
"Like Nokia, Samsung may hit a limit in increasing market share. Apple is also fighting back, signalling an uphill battle for Samsung."
Analysts said that the company needed to come up with more innovative products to help sustain its growth rate.
For its part, Samsung has been taking steps in that direction.
Earlier this month, it launched a smartphone with a curved display screen, beating its rival LG by at least a few months to offer a handset featuring flexible-screen tech.
In September, it unveiled a smartwatch with a colour screen that can show alerts, be used for voice calls and run apps. Again, it edged firms such as Microsoft, Apple and Google to unveil such a device.

For decades futurists have prophesied that all your home's gadgets will talk to one another. This year a host of players, from communications providers AT&T and Comcast to hardware makers Sony and Samsung to startups like Nest and Quirky, are launching Internet-powered products and services that could help fuel the long-awaited machine-to-machine movement. Consider the Dropcam Pro, a surveillance camera that began selling at Apple Stores on Oct. 22. Using a low-energy version of Bluetooth, the camera's radio chip could allow it to communicate with other Internet-enabled devices in your home. Dropcam is betting that in the future its product might serve as an Internet hub, allowing you to manage other devices from the same smartphone app that lets you remotely peer inside your home. Here are some other companies pursuing similar strategies:

Facebook shares soared 15% Wednesday on blowout quarterly results -- but the stock lost steam after the company admitted young teens are losing interest in the site.

"We did see a decrease in [teenage] daily users [during the quarter], especially younger teens," Facebook chief financial officer David Ebersman said Wednesday, during the company's third-quarter earnings conference call with analysts. He said Facebook usage among overall U.S. teens was "stable," however.

Previously, Facebook had defended itself against multiple recent studies and articles proposing that teens don't find Facebook cool anymore. Last quarter, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it "just isn't true" that the company has a problem with the teen market.
Ebersman's admission -- coupled with other bits from Wednesday's call, including the fact that Facebook isn't planning to ramp up the number of ads in users' feeds -- sent Facebook shares slightly lower in after-hours trading.
That was a big disappointment given that Facebook (FB, Fortune 500) shares had been up as much as 15% earlier in the evening, after blowing away Wall Street's sales and profit expectations for the third quarter.
Facebook's sales jumped 60% over the year to more than $2 billion. Excluding one-time charges, Facebook earned $621 million -- double the company's profit during the same quarter last year.
Strong mobile results: Perhaps even more pleasing to investors was that Facebook's mobile business in particular came in very strong. Mobile ads now account for 49% of all Facebook ad revenue, up from 41% last quarter and easily beating analysts' expectations.
That's impressively rapid growth, considering that Facebook began serving mobile ads just last summer.

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Google on Thursday released its latest candy-themed mobile operating system: Android 4.4, more deliciously known as Kit Kat.

The system will launch immediately on Google's new Nexus 5 phone and then roll out to other Nexus devices, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One, in the next few weeks.

Nexus devices are Google's flagship line of phones and tablets, running the newest and purest form of Android and available without contracts. The Nexus 5, manufactured by LG, is built to work internationally on a variety of bands and with whatever local SIM card you pick up, though Verizon's band is still not supported.

Physically, the 5-inch Nexus is a bit thinner and lighter than the previous generation, while packing a faster Snapdragon 800 processor. It has optical image stabilization and a new HDR camera feature for combining multiple exposures into a single photo, lightening up dark areas and bringing details back to images blown out by a flash.

The Nexus 5 is available online today in 10 countries and will be available in retail stores like Best Buy. It's a wider rollout than for previous generations of Nexus phones. The 16 GB version will cost $349 without a contract and the 32 GB version will go for $399, also without a contract.

The phone also will be the first to have the new Kit Kat features, many of which attempt to break down the walls between web, search, apps and communication tools.

The phone app -- widely neglected since Android smartphones first came out -- gets more search power in Kit Kat, pulling in search results for business as well as your usual roster of contacts. Incoming calls from business are recognized automatically in caller ID, while pulling data from the same database that powers Google Maps.

Kit Kat also adds support for third-party cloud services like Box so you can see files stored on the device and in the cloud. Google Hangouts absorbs SMS and MMS messages, so your chats, video calls and texts are all together in one place.

Google Now, the company's app for serving up answers to questions you haven't even asked yet, is adding new categories. It can deduce your interests based on your web searches -- say, "The Walking Dead," or corgis -- and add a card to Google Now with the latest information about those interests. If there's a specific site you check a lot that is only sporadically updated, Google Now might alert you to new posts when they happen.

It's also tapping the power of crowds. Google Now knows your location, and Google knows what people at that exact spot during that time are most likely to search. For example, someone standing in front of Old Faithful at Yellowstone might search for a schedule of when the geyser is going to erupt. Google Now will automatically show you the times without your searching.

Google Search on Kit Kat is not limited to content from the web. Google is starting to index content deep inside of individual apps, so if you search for a recipe it might show a web page and a link to a cooking app you already have installed. For now, it will only work with installed apps, but Google says its working on adding support for apps in the Google Play store, which could be a clever way to sell more apps.

Kit Kat is also Google's attempt to address one the bigger problems plaguing Android: OS fragmentation. Low-end Android devices are big sellers in emerging markets like China and India, but because of their limited memories and pokey processors, they typically run older versions of the Android operating system, like Gingerbread.

The decision of what version of Android to ship on these devices is up the manufacturers. But Google is trying hard to make its newest OS more appealing for these markets by upgrading it to use less processor power and memory.

Facebook is relaxing its rules for teenagers. The 13- to 17-year-old set now has the option to share photos, updates and comments with the general public on Facebook. That means strangers, and companies collecting data for advertisers and marketing companies, will be able to see select posts. Teenagers will also be able to turn on the Follow feature for their profiles, which would allow anyone they're not friends with to see their public posts in the main news feed.

The changes will take effect immediately, the company announced in a blog post. The new setting might help Facebook compete against other social networks that skew younger, and having public data on teens will also help the company appeal to advertisers.

The social network is trying to balance the less strict settings with two other privacy protections. When new underage users sign up for a Facebook account, their posts will be shown to a more limited audience by default -- only to friends instead of friends of friends. If a teen decides to change the setting to Public, she or he will see a pair of pop-up warnings explaining what "public" means. One warns they could end up "getting friend requests and messages from people they don't know personally." Default settings for existing teens with profiles won't change or affect past posts.