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  • Another Final Fantasy XIV Failure Could ‘Destroy’ Square Enix Says Director

    Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn director Noaki Yoshida talking with Kotaku went raw and talked about how they would never make a mistake like Final Fantasy XIV ever again.

    We won’t make a mistake like FF14 again – if we did, it would be like at the level of destroying the company,

    Yoshida talked about how many of the Square Enix employees themselves were worried about the game’s launch in that state.

    When I heard that it was going to go on sale as planned, I thought, that will probably be a big mistake

    Yoshida also talked about how some of Final Fantasy XIV’s problems stemmed from its design approach. Square Enix’s most profitable Final Fantasy yet – Final Fantasy XI was initially designed to look like Everquest, but Final Fantasy XIV was made to be different and not be a competitor. Check out the full interview via the link above.

  • Apple Wins Injunction Against Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

    Apple has been busy lately filing patents against many manufacturers for infringing their patents. The company is in legal battles with HTC, Motorola and more particularly against Samsung. The legal battle with Samsung started last year in April 2011 when the company filed a lawsuit against Samsung, Apple accused Samsung of copying their design of the Ipad and the Iphone with Samsung’s Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab. Obviously Samsung wouldn’t keep quiet for long and counter-sued Apple. The legal battles continued in many countries like Germany, Netherlands and Australia.

    P1000129.jpg Apple Wins Injunction Against Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1

    Apple filed against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 a year ago and they won. According to The Verge, US District Court Judge Lucy Koh ruled out against Samsung and ordered a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 unless Samsung can prove disprove Apple’s design patent. Her order will take perfect once Apple agrees to pay Samsung $2.6 million bond if Samsung can disprove Apple’s patent so Samsung can compensate for the losses. Somehow we doubt Samsung can disprove Apple’s patent, the German court also ruled against Samsung and banned the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Koh took an even harder stance on Samsung.

    Samsung isn’t really going to face significant losses, Galaxy Tab 10.1 may still be on sale but it’s old and it has been succeeded by the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 and a bunch of other tablets which have designs different than the Ipad and are not infringing Apple’s design patent. Well Galaxy Tab 10.1 shouldn’t have been Apple’s target, Apple would have preferred winning against the hot selling Galaxy SIII but something is better than nothing. After a long battle in the court it bore fruit for Apple. Just like Germany, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is banned and facing a temporary ban in the EU and Australia. Although it did not stop Samsung from selling their products otherwise.

    Samsung has worked on their design since the lawsuit and the newly released Galaxy SIII is a fine example of Samsung’s work.

    For those interested in reading the document from Koh regarding her ruling, go here.

    I’m not a big fan of lawsuits in the tech world but this was hard to miss as this is Apple’s win over Samsung after a long time.

  • Various PS VIta Titles To Be Discounted In Next US Playstation Store Update

    Great news for gamers who grabbed a PS Vita on Black Friday as looks like Sony is planning on discounting a few PS Vita titles in the next US Playstation Store update.

    Resistance Burning Skies Sony PS Vita Various PS VIta Titles To Be Discounted In Next US Playstation Store Update

    CVG reports that Little Deviants, Reality Fighters, Hot Shot Golf: World Invitational, MLB 12: The Show, Reality Fighters, Wipeout 2048 and ModNation Racers will be available for $17.99 while Unit 13, Resistance Burning Skies and Smart As will be discounted to $26.99, while Uncharted: Golden Abyss will go down to $35.99.

    We don’t know if these discounts are permanent on just temporary, guess we’ll know more tomorrow (Tuesday) when the US PS Store updates.

  • Update Galaxy Note N7000 to DDLRB Android 4.0.4 ICS Official Firmware

    Despite being a year old Galaxy Note N7000 is still one of the most powerful phones available. It also happens to be 1 of the 2 smartphones with a gigantic screen size of over 5 inch. If you happen to own this monster then you’d be glad to know Samsung just released a new firmware DDLRB for India which updates the phablet to Android 4.0.4. Follow the steps below for the update.

    Before proceeding make sure your data is backed up and your phone is fully charged.

    Firmware Details

    • PDA: N7000DDLRB
    • CSC: N7000ODDLR4
    • Version: 4.0.4
    • Date: 2012-11-19
    • Regions: India

    Step1- Download the 4.0.4 firmware

    Step 2- Download ODIN

    Step 3- Boot your phone into download mode. Do this by switching it off and then pressing and holding the Volume Down + Home buttons together, and then pressing the Power button. You’ll see a triangle and an Android logo. Press the power button to enter download mode

    Step 4- Open ODIN on your PC. Make sure USB drivers for the tablet are installed. Upon successful connection one of the ID:COM boxes will turn yellow with the COM port number.

    Step 5- Select all files you downloaded in step 1.

    • Click the PDA button. Select the file which has CODE in its name
    • Click the Phone button and select the file which has MODEM in its name
    • Click on the CSC button and select the file which has CSC in its name
    • Click the PIT button and select the .pit file

    Step 6- In ODIN select Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time options. Select repartition only if your selected the PIT file

    Step 7- Click the start button. Installation process will take a few minutes. After that your phone will reboot with Android 4.0.4 DDLRB official firmware

    If you want to root your phone after this, follow this guide to do so.

  • Root DDLRB Android 4.0.4 Galaxy Note N7000 ICS Official Firmware

    We recently covered the steps you can follow to update Galaxy Note N7000 to DDLRB Android 4.0.1. Now we’ll guide you on how you can root this firmware. The advantages of rooting are countless. Rooting allows you tinker with phone settings otherwise not possible. This includes apps that can alter CPU speed, voltage as well as other advance tasks.

    Be sure to backup all your important data before commencing and make sure your phone battery is fully charged.

    You will notice that this is not the regular CF-Root method but instead uses a custom kernel.

    Step 1- Download the root kernel

    Step 2- Download ODIN (if you have not downloaded it already)

    Step 3- Boot your phone into download mode. Do this by switching it off and then pressing and holding the Volume Down + Home buttons together, and then pressing the Power button. You’ll see a triangle and an Android logo. Press the power button to enter download mode

    Step 4- Open ODIN on your PC. Make sure USB drivers for the phone are installed. Upon successful connection one of the ID:COM boxes will turn yellow with the COM port number.

    Step 5- Select the file you downloaded in step 1. You will find these once you extract the package. Click on ‘PDA’ and select the file GL_NOTECORE_v13_OC.tar

    Step 6-  In ODIN, check the Auto Reboot and F. Reset Time options.

    Step 7- Click Start button in ODIN. Installation process will start which takes a few minutes to complete. After this your phone will restart and your phone running DDLRB will be rooted.

  • iPad tops kids and teenagers most wanted list for Christmas

    The holiday season is perhaps the most lucrative season of them all for manufacturers. Hanukkah, Christmas, you name it, December’s got it all. It’s a time when people shop for their loved ones. Children are one of the biggest demographics in USA. And this survey conducted by Nielsen pretty much sums up what kids want from their parents as a Christmas present.

    kids1 iPad tops kids and teenagers most wanted list for Christmas

    Children aged between 6 and 12 want an iPad for the holidays. And not the small one, but surprisingly it’s the bigger iPad 4 that tops the list. Apparently kids these days can tell the difference between A5 and A6x or a Retina and non-Retina Display. 48% kids want an iPad, Nintendo Wii U is a distant second with 39%. The new iPad Mini is at fourth with 36%, tied with the iPod Touch. 29% want a tablet ‘other than the iPad’ which could be anything from Android to Windows 8.

    teens iPad tops kids and teenagers most wanted list for Christmas

    Even amongst teenagers (13 year and above) the iPad tops the list with 21% but is followed closely with a Computer at 19%.

    It doesn’t really come as a surprise. Despite competition from low cost Android tablets, the iPad is still in a league of its own thanks to an incredibly strong and diverse eco-system of over 275,000 apps.

  • iOS 6 fixes iMessage ‘stolen phone’ bug

    One of the biggest new features Apple has introduced in the last year or so has been the iMessaging service. Like the BlackBerry messaging service, iMessage connects iOS users through a convenient messaging service that works over WiFi or cellular data. iMessage has largely been trouble free apart from the occasional outages, but last December a nasty bug was discovered in the system.

    What happened was that if your iPhone was stolen, and you did a remote wipe and deactivated it from your carrier, and changed your Apple ID, it would still receive iMessages to your ID. Needless to say this was a huge privacy concern. Having your stolen phone still receive your iMessages was not a situation you’d want to find yourself in.

    With iOS 6 Apple has fixed this long standing problem by placing new security measures. Now if your phone is stolen, all you need to do is change your Apple ID password. Changing the password will force the stolen device to prompt for a password in order to continue receiving and sending iMessages from your account. In addition to this if you remote wipe your device, it will no longer receive iMessages. Can’t believe it took this long, but at least the agony is over.

  • Kindle Fire for £99 on Amazon UK for Black Friday

    We covered the Black Friday deals for Apple products in the US and Australia. And while UK isn’t traditionally a place where Black Friday is celebrated, some international retailers are now catching on the trend and have started offering some great deals. One such retailer is Amazon. How does Amazon let the Brits enjoy Black Friday? By discounting one of their own products of course.

    For Black Friday Amazon has discounted the Kindle Fire. The 7-inch tablet with 8GB internal memory normally retails for £129 but for today Amazon has slashed £30 of its price which means the tablet can be yours for an impressive £99. Even at £129 the Kindle Fire is a steal but with this price it’s almost a no brainer for anyone looking to buy their tech-geek friends or spouses a great gift. Do note that this is the ad-supported version of Kindle Fire.

    Also included in the deal for UK customers is a months free trial of the LOVEFiLM streaming service. Also included is a months free trial of Amazon Prime through which Kindle device owners can choose from more than 200,000 books to borrow for free with no due dates, including current and former top sellers in the Amazon.co.uk Kindle Store. For more information head over to the Kindle Fire product page at Amazon UK.

     

  • Black Friday deals on Apple USA store are now live

    The real joy of Black Friday sales is to be physically present in a retail store and risking life and limb to get the product you desire. However that is not the best of practises if the product in question is an expensive gadget. Also, brick and mortal shopping is so last decade. Fortunately for us there are online stores with great Black Friday deals. We covered the Australian Apple Store that went all Black Friday. Now it’s time for the US store.

    And just like other Apple stores, discounts here can be found on pretty much every Apple product and accessory. The highest is the $100 off on select MacBooks. Head over to the online store for more details.

    • iPad with Retina display | From $458 (Save $41)
    • -iPad 2 | From $368 (Save $31)
    • -iPod touch | From $268 (Save $31)
    • -iPod touch 4th generation | From $178  (Save $21 )
    • -iPod nano | From $138 (Save $11)
    • -MacBook Pro with Retina Display | From $1,598 (Save $101)
    • -MacBook Pro | From $1,098 (Save $101)
    • -MacBook Air | From $898 (Save $101)
    • -AirPort Express Base Station | $88 (Save $11)
    • -AirPort Extreme Base Station | $158 (Save  $21)
    • -Time Capsule | $278 (Save $21)-Magic Mouse | $58 (Save $11)
    • -Magic Trackpad | $58 (Save $11)
    • -Apple Wireless Keyboard | $58 (Save $11)
    • iPad Smart Case $34 (Save $15)
    • -iPad Smart Cover– Polyurethane | $28 (Save $11)
    • -iPad Smart Cover– Leather | $48 (Save $21)
    • -Apple In-Ear Headphones with Remote and Mic | $68 (Save $11)
    • -Apple EarPods with Remote and Mic | $22 (Save $7)


    Deal list via 9to5Mac

     

  • GTA V For Wii U And PC Are ‘Up For Consideration’

    Just a few days after releasing the second trailer for their much awaited title – GTA V, Rockstar via Vice President Dan Houser let fans of the game know that the PC and Wii U version are still ‘up for consideration’ and very much possible.

    gta v screen 528x320 GTA V For Wii U And PC Are Up For Consideration

    IGN asked Houser about GTA V coming to the Wii U and PC:

    Everything else is up for consideration,

    That’s all I can give you. The main thing is we are not…we are a third-party publisher. We’re not Nintendo, we’re not Sony, we’re not Microsoft.

    We love all of them in different ways. But we can do what we want wherever there’s the appropriate business opportunity and chance to find a market. If that’s on Apple we put something on Apple.

    Wherever it might be. I think that’s the fun in what we do. We see ourselves as a content company that uses technology. We don’t make it; we use it to make the most fun stuff.

    GTA V is confirmed for release for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in Spring 2013.

    What platform are you getting GTA V for? Let us know in the comments below.