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As you head into the new year, why not do it with some great new deals? We've collected several powerful computing options for you across a range of specs and form factors, all at great sale prices.



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Car of the Year Hyundai Genesis brings luxury and tech to more affordable levels. As Dell did with PCs, Hyundai hastens the day of the commodity car.



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After crashing Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network, Lizard Squad is making its DDoS tool available as a service, but totally just a stress testing tool with no malicious intent. Promise!



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The last few years have been very kind to electric cars, mostly thanks to the ice-breaking carried out by the Toyota Prius hybrid, and then the runaway success of Tesla's Model S. Despite their surge in popularity, however, one question has never really been answered properly: What exactly is the range of an electric vehicle? Is it really 350 miles as Tesla claims, or is that some kind of miraculous edge-case that can only be obtained if you're coasting down hill with the windows closed on a sunny day?



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Next week, at CES 2015, LG will introduce what it calls the world's first ultra-wide (21:9) gaming monitor with AMD's FreeSync technology -- AMD's alternative to Nvidia's proprietary and expensive G-Sync. I say 'world's first,' but considering LG hasn't yet released the monitor, nor given us an expected release date or price, that seems a little bit rich.



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We've seen Doom on dozens of various devices, but few people have tried similar tricks with Quake. If you've ever wanted to play one of the most influential FPS games in history on 1960s state-of-the-art technology, now's your chance.



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It's almost 18 years since IBM's Deep Blue famously beat Garry Kasparov at chess, becoming the first computer to defeat a human world champion. Since then, as you can probably imagine, computers have firmly cemented their lead over puny, fallible meatbags. Today, following the completion of TCEC Season 7, we have a new computer chess world champion called Komodo.



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It's a pretty good time to shop for a mid-range laptop, as it's easier than ever to get solid Core i3 performance for a wallet-friendly price. A prime example is today's deal on the professional quality Dell Latitude 14, on sale for just $400 after 44% in total savings.



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Nvidia is rumored to be prepping a new graphics card release -- probably the GTX 960 -- and bringing the Maxwell GPU to the mainstream market in the process. Discussions on what the card actually is, however, are currently confused.



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Two and a half days ago, at around 6:15am local time on December 28, AirAsia flight 8501 (QZ8501) disappeared en route from Indonesia to Singapore. There were 162 passengers and crew on-board, and no survivors have yet been found at the plane's crash site in the Java Sea. Why, in 2014, can we still lose vehicles that are responsible shuttling millions of passengers across the skies every day? Why don't we have real-time tracking of aircraft?



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We've just caught wind of another great deal from FreedomPop, which is offering up a certified pre-owned Spot Overdrive Pro hotspot for a mere Andrew Jackson. They're bundling it with a free trial of their Premium 3G/4G plan, giving you plenty of mobile data to try out - and as always with FreedomPop, opt for their completely free plan and you'll continue receiving 4G data without ever paying another dime.



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According to a few sources from within Microsoft, it appears that the company is working on a new web browser -- codenamed Spartan -- that will debut with Windows 10. Spartan will reportedly look like a mix of Firefox and Chrome, with tabs above the address bar -- and, perhaps most excitingly, Spartan will apparently support real browser extensions. (Extensions/add-ons in current versions of Internet Explorer are a bit of a joke.)



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A member of the Chaos Computer Club has shown that it's possible to reproduce someone's fingerprint, and thus break into systems protected by biometric fingerprint scanners, using just a photo of someone's finger. In this case, the member of the CCC managed to get the fingerprint of Germany's defense minister Ursula von der Leyen from a photo taken a press conference -- which, if the German government uses biometric access control systems, could be a bit of a security breach.



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Here's our list of the most innovative work done in the PC space this year, both in terms of complete systems and at the component level -- with a dishonorable mention thrown in for good measure. Note that 'innovative' doesn't always mean practical -- some of these systems are fairly specialized, but they still display a willingness to think outside the box.



from ExtremeTech http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/196470-the-best-worst-and-most-innovative-pcs-and-components-of-2014

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Sony is about to take your so-called "Smart" TV back to school. Starting next year, the PlayStation Now game streaming service will be making its way to Samsung Smart TVs. Select models will support Sony's cloud-powered gaming service, and will mark the first time that PS Now has been made available on anything other than Sony's own hardware platforms.



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It is exceedingly hard to find an angle that presents The Interview in a positive light -- and yet, of course, Sony Pictures' marketing department has managed to do just that. Yesterday, four days after the film's release on YouTube, Google Play Movies, and Xbox Video, The Interview became Sony's '#1 online film of all time,' grossing $15 million from sales and rentals. In other news, however, it would appear, rather ironically, that Sony used a popular K-pop song without permission of artist.



from ExtremeTech http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/196478-the-interview-breaks-online-movie-sales-records-a-case-for-simultaneous-releases

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With a little bit of effort, anyone can stream and capture console video without an elaborate or expensive set-up.



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Shortly after Apollo 11, Wernher von Braun, one of the fathers of rocket science, proposed that we develop a reusable Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) rocket to colonize the Moon. Today, NASA engineers are still struggling to pick up where he left off. An interesting technical report that NASA prepared for the Space 2013 Conference and Exposition has recently been released. In it, we can find some of the latest, and oldest, ideas for a NASA-made nuclear thermal rocket that would take us back to the Moon.



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When it comes to gaming, higher frame rates are often perceived as better, even if it's not always clear why. New theoretical work from a member of Microsoft's Xbox team explores how certain elements of the human retina may tie in to the reason why 30 FPS isn't fast enough for smooth gaming.



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After years of relentless litigation, it seems the mobile/smartphone patent war might be drawing to a close. Rockstar, a patent trolling company owned by Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Ericsson, and BlackBerry, has agreed to cancel the lawsuits it had filed against Google and most Android device makers. This follows on from news this summer that Apple and Google had agreed to drop all lawsuits between the two companies, and Apple and Samsung agreed to drop all lawsuits outside the US.



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Since the world of TVs went to flat panels there has been a hunt for the next technology that people will want to adopt.



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One of the pros of owning a large form factor desktop is how easy it is to upgrade components at will. Start off with a great set of base specs and enjoy ample room to grow with Lenovo's performance focused K450e desktop, on sale now for just $699.99 after a helpful $300 in savings.



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What has a beautiful transparent-gold chassis, a fairly big screen, decent innards, and almost no chance of getting you to switch from your Apple or Android smartphone? The new Fx0, made by LG, which runs Firefox OS.



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Apple has pushed out its first ever automatic security update to Mac OS X users, fixing a vulnerability in NTP that would've allowed hackers to turn Macs into DDoS zombies. In some ways, this finally brings Apple up to parity with Microsoft: Windows has technically had the ability to do automatic updates for a long time. Rather impressively, the OS X security patch should install transparently, with no need to restart.



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Google has unveiled the first fully working road-legal prototype of its self-driving car. If all goes to plan, Google hopes to partner with a real car maker to bring a self-driving vehicle to market in the next five years. Whether the commercialized driverless car will look like the overly cutesy Google prototype remains to be seen.



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Yesterday evening, North Korea was unceremoniously knocked off the internet by a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This comes shortly after the US government promised a 'proportional response' to the Sony Pictures hack, which the FBI believes was carried out by North Korea. While it would be rather funny if the US government was responsible for taking North Korea off the internet, it's more likely to be the actions of some disgruntled hacktivists such as Anonymous or Lizard Squad.



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Crossbar has announced that its next-generation resistive RAM (ReRAM or RRAM) memory is ready for commercialization with products expected in 2015. This could be the successor to NAND flash in the long-term with substantially better overall performance and power consumption.



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Dell's Optiplex 3020 micro is a versatile little desktop, capable of being mounted pretty much anywhere and staying out of the way while you work. Grab it now for the lowest price we've seen, and we've also spotted some great deals on monitors to pair with it.



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AMOLED screens don't work like LCDs. There's no agreed upon way to measure the peak brightness because it varies based on what is being displayed on the screen. This has led to some confusion, but no one's numbers are wrong. They just lack context.



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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to look out the window of a spacecraft that's returning to Earth? Well, wonder no more: NASA has released some video footage captured out of the windows of the Orion capsule as it returned to Earth during its test flight a couple of weeks ago. Yes, it's sensational.



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Way back in the summer of 2013, Elon Musk showed off a new piece of tech that could swap the battery of a Tesla Model S in 90 seconds. In one simple move, these battery swap machines made electric cars almost as convenient as their petrol- and diesel-powered brethren. The original plan was to roll out the tech to Supercharger stations in the second half of 2013, but they never emerged. Now, a single Supercharger station in Harris Ranch California has been equipped with the battery swap tech, and Tesla has started inviting some Model S owners to come try it out.



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After securing both the Xbox One and PS4, it would appear that an AMD SoC will also be powering Nintendo's next console. Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that Nintendo is working on a possible new gaming system, and AMD has confirmed that it's got another major design win. Are they one and the same thing? Probably.



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A new material from Cornell University researchers promises breakthroughs in device power consumption by dramatically cutting memory power. Will this achievement finally pan out?



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Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 is one of the few tablets that can probably genuinely replace your laptop for everyday use, but it's rarely discounted. Pick one up today and you can score a $100 credit and free sleeve (up to $40 value) - plus if you have a valid .edu address, you can save even more with a student discount.



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A Johns Hopkins and DARPA-funded limb has been adapted to give a double amputee control over two bionic arms at once.



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If you're still lamenting the loss of The Pirate Bay, which was shut down last week by Swedish police, you now have an intriguing new option: If you have some web hosting, a small amount of tech savvy, and you're located in a country where it's legal, you can now easily host your own Pirate Bay.



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Way back in the summer of 2013, SpaceX's Elon Musk proposed a new transportation system that was equal parts awesome and insane: The Hyperloop. Unfortunately, that was the extent of Musk's involvement: He gave us his plans in the form of a 57-page white paper, and then told the world to go ahead and build it. Now, a group of 100-odd engineers have banded together to try and actually create a Hyperloop -- and they seem to be making pretty solid progress.



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NASA's Kepler has successfully detected planets once again, despite the failure of two of its reaction wheels. Our premiere planet-finder is back in action.



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Sometimes you don't want to give up anything when shopping for a laptop. With a powerful processor, portable design, 1080p touchscreen and great specs, Dell's latest Inspiron 14 is quite the versatile machine, and on sale right now for just $750.



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If you're a PS4 user, your media streaming needs are finally being met. Plex has announced that native media streaming clients are being released on both the PS3 and PS4, so the existing in-browser and DLNA solutions are no longer the only options.



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Prosthetics researchers from the University of Pittsburg have now been able to finesse an additional three degrees of freedom out of an improved implant-to-arm pipeline by swapping by additional finger motions where previously Jan had only a crude pincer grip.



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For the past five years, Microsoft has been forced to offer first-time Windows users in Europe a choice of web browser. This was a result of an EU ruling in 2009, which found that Microsoft had been unfairly abusing its operating system monopoly to push Internet Explorer into the hands of millions of unwitting, unfortunate users. Now, however, Microsoft is once again free to make Internet Explorer the default web browser in Windows.



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Netflix has once again killed any hope of an eventual offline version of its service -- but as near as we can tell, there's no technical reason the company couldn't offer this kind of feature.



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North Korea was indeed responsible for the massive hack on Sony Pictures, according to officials from within the US government. The problem is, there is very little evidence that North Korea was actually behind the attack -- which makes me wonder, a) Why is the US government fingering North Korea? and b) If it wasn't North Korea, who hacked Sony Pictures?



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NASA's Langley Research Center proposes exploring Venus with an airship first before mankind sets foot on Mars. It's not as crazy as it sounds.



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Take control of your car's diagnostics with today's deal on a ScanTool OBDLink MX Bluetooth scanner. On sale now for 49% off, it can save you money at the garage as well as compile a wealth of data about your vehicle's performance.



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The more we use devices to store and access sensitive data, the more layers of protection are needed. In this case, Symantec, makers of the famed Norton brand, are adding a physical layer of protection: pants.



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Steam, one of the sole bastions of sanity when it comes to digital games distribution, has enabled region locking on games. This means if you buy a game in one territory, you can no longer use it in another territory -- much like DVD region locking (but more effective, as Steam's region locking hasn't been cracked). While this might look like oppressive behavior by Valve, there's actually a very good reason behind the locks: Unstable currencies, like the Russian ruble, caused by the crashing price of crude oil. Or maybe Valve (and publishers) are just sick of people buying games cheaply in other territories, then redeeming them in their (more expensive) home countries.



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The long running class action lawsuit, which just concluded in Apple's favor, alleged that Apple acted as an illegal monopolist, artificially keeping iPod prices high by limiting its interoperability with content purchased from other music stores. Is there any basis to these claims, or were Apple's moves simply a case of good, solid business sense?



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New details from the Sony hack have shown that the MPAA hasn't learned from years of defeat over DNS blocking. The organization is still investigating whether it can compel this kind of action -- despite technical opinions that doing so would compromise the Internet's function.



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