While it may not be an official standard; and is drawing ire from standards bodies such as the International Telecommunications Union-Radio communications sector – which wrote the 4G Standard – as well as many independent technology reviewers, Broadcom is insistent on establishing “5G” as the official term for the new 802.11ac WiFi standard, which uses higher frequencies for better penetration through walls.

Having been the first to release WiFi Chips capable of using the new standard, Broadcom is now making waves again by announcing the imminent release of all new chips which they hope will make connectivity more reliable than ever. The company announced today at CES 2014 two new WiFi client system-on-a-chips (SoCs), models BCM43569 and BCM43602, designed to offer Wi-Fi speed and range while reducing the Wi-Fi processing power of the host device.

In general, the typical household using WiFi is sharing it across numerous devices. Just in one room for example, you may have a WiFi-enabled Game Console connected to your TV, with Bluetooth controllers for wirelessly connecting to the console to game; and perhaps also to control the TV itself. You may even have Bluetooth speakers. The problem with this is, when multiple devices use the same wireless technology and they’re closely bunched together, they create interference, which reduces the available WiFi bandwidth and can slow down the connections as well as hurt the signal strength for devices further away. Broadcom says the new BCM43569 and BCM43602 are designed to tackle this problem.

With the BCM43569 chip, Broadcom’s solution is to allow smart TVs to receive both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth (4.1) signals simultaneously, allowing the TV to change its wireless output to whatever would give it the best performance. With a USB 3.0 Interface on board – though USB 2.0 adaptors will also be supported – the company claims it’s the first chip to include a common USB port for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and integrated Power Amplifiers (iPA) across both bands. It’s designed to deliver up to three times the bandwidth of its peers, and it comes with a separate Bluetooth low-noise amplifier (LNA) as well as customized Wi-Fi and Bluetooth coexistence algorithms.

Meanwhile, the BCM43602 is designed for the PCIe interface; and is capable of receiving 802.11ac speeds up to 900Mbps. Here, the performance gains come from allowing the host device – for example, a computer – to utilise more of its CPU Power itself without wasting so much on the WiFi connection. This is because, says Broadcom, the chip has the entire WLAN software driver running on itself; so the chip does the hard work instead.

Samples of both chips have already made their way to OEMs, ready to incorporate into their own products. That means we should expect to see the final products that will be first to use Broadcom’s new and improved “5G WiFi” standard by the end of the year.

CES 2014 kicks off this week and you can expect to see a plethora of Steam Box related news.

Up until now we have received a good amount of information pertaining to Box’s specs but very little has been known as to whom would be selling the machines.

iBuyPower will be showing off their machine fitted with a multi-core AMD Cpu, 500GB hard drive (we are not sure if this is SSD), WiFi, Bluetooth, and an AMD Radeon R9 270 graphics card.

The size if the unit is said to be around the same size as a PS4 and a tad smaller then an Xbox One.

It’s the kind of run Nintendo’s been on lately, that even the company’s one piece of good news – the growing success of the 3DS – has to get a little gloomier.

With the Wii U a disaster, it’s 3DS sales that are making Nintendo’s money right now, but from here on in the Japanese company is going to have to give up a percentage of every wholesale sale of the handheld to another company.

That company is Tomita. A US judge declared last month that Nintendo has been using Tomita’s patented camera technology without permission, so from now until the end of the handheld’s life, “Nintendo must pay Tomita 1.82 percent of the wholesale price” on every 3DS sold.

That may not sound like much, but if the 3DS goes on to sell 100 million units, it all adds up. To a lot of lost money.

Original article here

Many months ago, Square – a company that helps merchants do their business by providing business tools and equipment to take payments, etc. – made waves with their combination Square Reader and free Square Register App, which offers merchants an easy way to accept credit card payments via mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets by plugging a tiny card reader to the phone’s headphone port and then running the app. However, it’s not been possible to keep the iPhone in a case while using the Reader as no case has room to accommodate it – until now, that is.

Revealed today at CES 2014, Griffin’s $19.99 “Merchant case” is a protective iPhone Case that incorporates a compartment on the back for storing the detachable Square Reader when you’re not using it; and a moulded slot at the bottom to insert the Reader while you are, allowing you to keep the case on and keep the Square Register app running – so you can take card payments while keeping the phone safely protected. Griffin state it is the “first protective iPhone case optimised for Square”; and note the case also features “a groove in the bottom of the case [that] aligns with the Square Reader to guide a credit card to an easy, consistent swipe time after time.”

The Merchant Case + Square Reader is available to order now at Griffin’s online store; and plans to ship in the next two weeks. Its debut coincides with Square’s launch of Works with Square, a program that allows developers to build accessories for Square businesses.

Blizzard has announced that they are planning to roll out changes to Battle.net accounts that have parental controls switched on: all purchases made using real-life money will be prevented.

In a forum post Support Forum Agent Vrakthris gives notice of the upcoming change, laying out what the e-mails Blizzard is sending out in the next few days to the parent and child accounts will say. He says that “We wanted to let everyone know this was coming and, considering how many phishing emails are out there, that it is indeed from us.”

The text of the e-mail sets out what the change will mean to the accounts in question, preventing any purchases in World of Warcraft, Hearthstone and Diablo III’s soon-to-close auction house as a default setting. It also lists how to change this option (a process that requires an e-mail to be sent to the parent account) and that Blizzard is “making this change to ensure that Parental Controls users will have more control over real-money purchases in Blizzard games.”

Although surprised that this wasn’t already a process that was in place, this is a good move on Blizzard’s part to support parents and alleviate any worries they might have of companies taking advantage of their children in a grab for more profits. Safeguards like this can only be a positive thing.

Mentioned forum post is here