Announced on 8 November 2013 with a teaser trailer, the new studio album Hydra by the Dutch symphonic metal band Within Temptation is released today.

Before the official announcement of the album, the band revealed on September 27 one of the singles from the album, "Paradise (What About Us?)", with the duo Sharon den Adel-Tarja Turunen, followed by "Dangerous" (December 20) and "Whole World Is Watching" (January 28, 2014).

The day of its release, the album hit on iTunes and took first place in charts in Europe (Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, France). The U.S. will have to wait February 4th to see probably Hydra #1 in their iTunes charts.

The premium version of the album contains cover songs whose "Radioactive" (Imagine Dragons) and "Let Her Go" (Passenger). You can order the album on their official website : tinyurl.com/kyqpquc

If you didn't watch the single "Paradise (What About Us?)", we invite you to discover it below.


Source : Within Temptation's Facebook Page (for iTunes charts see pictures posted on January 29)...
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Three years after their great debut album Torches, Foster The People come back in 2014 with a new single "Coming Of Age" from their new album Supermodel which will be released on March 18.

On January 13, the band premiered on YouTube "Coming Of Age" whose the single released the next day. The video shows a time-lapse the full creation of the artwork for Supermodel (designed by Young & Sick) on a wall of a building in Los Angeles (CA), painted from December 29 to January 9, in about 190 hours.
About the song, still Indie-pop and alternative rock like in the first album, even if there's a bit more rock in "Coming Of Age".

Supermodel contains 11 songs, plus a 12th included in pre-order edition. The album will be released in the US on March 18, in Australia and New Zealand on March 14 and in the UK on March 24. You can pre-order the album here : http://smarturl.it/Supermodel

Discover now Foster The People's new single "Coming Of Age" :


Source : Foster The People website...
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Even if this is a concept, fans of gaming will love it. Razer revealed on CES 2014 a modular PC called Christine. Its slogan : "Extreme PC Performance for Everyone".

The great advantage of this PC is its design. Of course, our eyes are first fixed on the green-illuminated base and the cooling central tower. However, the PC is divided into several modules that can be connected with drip-free connectors between modules and the central tower, and this in a few seconds. The modules could be hard drives, CD/DVD drives, differents ports for audio, video, USB, etc. You can upgrade and customize it very easily, such as GPU, CPU, RAM Memory ...

But how are these modules work ? Thanks to oil. Actually oil is circulating inside the modules and exchange heat with water running the central tower, here where you insert the modules.

Gavin Gear from Extreme Windows Blog was with Young Bae from Razer PC to speak about the performances of Project Christine, whose the video is below.



Notice that the PC has got a touch screen with UI, showing performances, CPU/GPU and also what OS you want to use (Windows as main example).

As a fan of gaming, like you, probably, I'll follow the news of the project, if a release will be announced or not. So the question is : do you want to have this kind of great PC ?

Sources : Extreme Windows Blog and razerzone.com...
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It is definitively an other level for Tablet PCs : Panasonic revealed world's first 4K tablet, the High-Performance 20” Toughpad 4K Tablet PC, whose the Performance model announced at CES 2014 in Las Vegas.

Available in Spring 2014, the Toughpad 4K Tablet Performance model is a big update of the Standard model. The Operating System used is still Windows 8.1 Pro, with the same display (3840x2560 / 10 million pixels LCD with LED backlightning and 10-point capacitive multi touch). Standard and Performance models have both Wi-Fi + Bluetooth, a HD 720p webcam with microphone, 2GB dedicated VRAM and 256GB SSD.


Performance model has several differences with the Standard :

- Intel Core i7 Processor, 2.1GHz with Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz (Standard has Intel Core i5 Processor, 1.9GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.9GHz) ;

- NVIDIA Quadro K1000M GPU (NVIDIA GeForce GT745M for Standard) ;
- 16GB RAM (8GB for Standard) ;
- Upgraded ports : 10/100/1000 Ethernet, mini-DisplayPort, USB 3.0, card reader and headphones ;
- Increased internal battery volume ;
- 5 MP rear camera added.

Windows revealed on Youtube a video in which Gavin Gear (from Extreme Windows Blog) and Kip Walls (director of product management at Panasonic) were at CES 2014 to present the two models of Panasonic 4K tablets and revealed the key differences between the two models.


Panasonic revealed on their official website all infos about Toughpad 4K tablet, with a page to compare speficications for Standard and Performance models. Full specifications for Performance model are available in PDF format here.

We don't know the price for the Performance model, however the Standard, announced in November 2013 and available this month in the US, costs $ 5,999.

Sources : Extreme Windows Blog, Panasonic and The Verge

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Phillip Taylor, Josh Swinney and Ryan Drever from rock band Paws announced their dates for their UK Tour this February, plus a second album which will be released in May.

For their UK Tour, 9 dates have been announced whose London, Glasgow and Leeds. The February UK Tour Poster posted on Facebook also revealed a "Secret Show Filming" on February 19 ; a video could be unveiled soon then.

February 6 : Dundee, GB - Beat Generator
February 7 : Glasgow, GB - Mono
February 12 : Sheffield, GB - Harley
February 13 : London, GB - Shacklewell Arms
February 14 : Cardiff, GB - Dempsey’s Bar
February 15 : Bristol, GB - Start The Bus
February 17 : Brighton, GB - Sticky Mikes
February 20 : Liverpool, GB - Maguires Pizza
February 21 : Leeds, GB - Belgrave Music Hall

Paws also announced that their second album (after Cokefloat! in 2012), recorded in New York, will be released on May 2014 at FatCat Records. The band could reveal new songs from the album during their tour. By the way, tickets for UK Tour are available here.



Sources : Facebook and Paws Official Website

UPDATE : Paws revealed on January 22 their performance at KEXP Studio at Seattle. 4 songs have been revealed : "Catherine 1956" from the album Cokefloat! and "Tongues", "Let's All Let Go" & "Owls Talons Clenching My Heart" from the new album out May 2014.
Watch the full performance here (YouTube) : http://tinyurl.com/lyrgy73...
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English architect Norman Foster revealed a huge futuristic project called "SkyCycle", in which cyclists could traverse London on elevated roads.

This project has as goal to build above UK's capital several roads which would connect with other roads, and build road exits to main places and streets in London. The network, which would have 221 km (136 miles) of roads and 200 entrances, could welcome 6 million people, each road would be able to accomodate 12,000 cyclists per hour, and cyclists won't encounter cars or pedestrians on these routes, so they will go faster from a place to and other in London.

The most interesting is its cost : £ 220 million (about $ 362 million). And thanks to rail infrastructure already present, this price is not too high for Network Rail, responsible for transport in London, so the project could be feasible. If it is the network construction could last about twenty years.

By the way, by seeing the picture, we could think that Foster has been inspired by the blue roads of Neo Seoul in 'Cloud Atlas' movie. "SkyCycle" project could be a first step before elevated highways for cars, motorcycles, trucks, and high-speed trains. But here, we have to wait a few decades to have all that in our cities.


Sources : The Verge and Huffington Post (french)...
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It's true that the picture you see above is not in high quality. However this real image, taken by the Gemini Planet Imager, shows an exoplanet orbiting around its giant star, at 63 light-years from the Sun.

The exoplanet you see in white is Beta Pictoris b (β Pic b). Discovered in 2008, it has 1.65 times Jupiter's size and between 4 and 11 times its mass. The planet orbits at 1.2-1.3 billion km around its host star (about 2 times bigger than the Sun) in between 17 and 21 years.

The Gemini Planet Imager is actually a high contrast imaging instrument being built for the 8-meter GST (Gemini South Telescope) in Chile, whose development took about a decade. Its goal is to image faint planets next to bright stars, probe their atmospheres and see planet-forming disks around young stars.
To see Beta Pictoris b, astronomers blocked (in the image) the star by a mask so its light doesn’t interfere with the light of the planet. Adding to this, the GPI obtains a spectrum from every pixel element in the field of view to allow scientists to study the planet in detail.

Actually the GPI posted several images, whose one of light scattered by a disk of dust orbiting the star HR 4796 A (one of the two stars of binary star system HR 4796) and an other of Jupiter's moon Europa. For the next years, GPI will study 600 young stars for creating a survey of their orbiting planets, and naturally, the data from the GPI will give infos about planet's formation, atmospheric composition, orbital period and temperature.

Sources : The Verge and Gemini Observatory...
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Coachella music festival revealed official and compete Line-up for April 2014, and this year headliners are Muse, OutKast and Arcade Fire.

After their huge summer stadium tour for their album The 2nd Law, Muse announced that they will do a few concerts before go back in studio for the seventh album, planned for 2015. They previously released on 29 December 2013 a live album and video Live at Rome Olympic Stadium, and it was the first concert filmed in 4K, using 16 Sony PMW-F55 CineAlta 4K cameras.

Almost nobody expected them for the festival, but OutKast are back. André 3000 and Big Boi reunite while they were separated in 2007 for solo careers. However, we don't know if they will prepare a new album for the coming months.

Arcade Fire will play new songs from their album Reflektor released on 28 October 2013. They also will be back on touring from 17 January at Big Day Out, Westmere (New Zealand).

The festival will take place from April 11 to 13 and from April 18 to 20. A lot of bands will come, whose MGMT, Empire of the Sun, Carbon Airways, Zedd, Lorde, Skrillex, Motörhead, Foster The People ...
See the full Line-up here : http://tinyurl.com/qehn8sw

Source : Coachella and The Verge...
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Warner Music Japan Inc. announced that "100%KPP World Tour 2013" official documentary about Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's World Tour will be released on Blu-Ray Disc and on DVD.

You probably don't know who she is. But Japan knows her well : Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, Japanese singer, became internationally known with her first single "Pon Pon Pon" released in 2011. And in just three years, she became one of the queens of J-Pop, releasing several singles ("CANDY CANDY", "Fashion Monster", "Mottai Night Land") and two albums, Pamyu Pamyu Revolution and Nanda Collection. A third album is to be announced in the next weeks.

The documentary about "100%KPP World Tour" includes videos of Kyary's concerts in Belgium, France, UK, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, U.S. and Singapore. It will be released on DVD on January 29 and on Blu-Ray Disc on February 12.
You can order the documentary in english at the web store "CDJapan.co.jp" :
- DVD Format : http://tinyurl.com/ko5c3b9
- Blu-Ray Disc : http://tinyurl.com/pl68ql9

Watch Kyary Pamyu Pamyu video "CANDY CANDY" (released in 2012) :



Source : Facebook

UPDATE : Kyary announced lately that her 8th single "Yume no Hajimarinrin" will be out February 26. The cover for the single, in the theme of the "Dream World", has been revealed in Harajuku Kawaii website. The single could be on Kyary's third album with "Mottai Night Land".
More info : asbs.jp/english/news.php?id=867 ...
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Astronomers found the first exoplanet having the same mass as Earth, named KOI-314c. It is the lightest exoplanet ever found, whose the second lightest is Kepler-78b, with 1.7 times Earth's mass.

Located at 200 light-years from the Sun, KOI-314c has a surface temperature of 100°C orbits around its star in only 23 days. Its host star is less massive and cooler than the Sun. The planet has the same mass as Earth's, but is 1.6 times bigger than our planet.

The fact that the orbital period is only 23 days shows that the planet is close to the host star, and so it couldn't contain liquid water, and life. However, according to David Kipping from Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who is the main author of the discover, the exoplanet would have a very thick atmosphere containing hydrogen and helium. The beginning of its life could be the same as Neptune's, then the planet would have lost some of its atmospheric gases over time.

However, Kipping's team of astronomers who participated at HEK Project (Hunt for Exomoons with Kepler) thought that KOI-314c was in the beginning an exomoon orbiting around KOI-314b, an exoplanet having same size as KOI-314c but with 4 times Earth's mass, and orbiting around its host star in only 13 days. The team of astronomers saw then that KOI-314c was finally a planet and not an exomoon.

Sources : Sciences et Avenir (french) and Slate.com

Read also : Exomoon research could start at 1800 light-years from the Sun...
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"It started." Filming for Series 8 of 'Doctor Who' has begun today. A great day for Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) and Peter Capaldi who is now the Doctor.

In "The Time of the Doctor" (broadcast on December 25 and watched by around 10.2 million fans) we saw Doctor's 13th regeneration and the first 30 seconds of Capaldi on the series. "Kidneys ! I've got new kidneys ! I don't like the color. [...] Do you happen to know how to fly this thing ?" A funny sentence as the Eleventh made with his "And still not ginger !".

Filming for Series 8 begins today in Cardiff Studios, and first picture shows Capaldi with Eleventh's clothes, apparently for preparing a scene of the first episode (written by Steven Moffat) where the Doctor and Clara, both in the TARDIS, are crashing. Other pictures posted on Twitter revealed that Neve McIntosh (Madame Vastra), Catrin Stewart (Jenny) and Dan Starkey (Strax) are also in filming. By the way they will appear in the first episode.



"New job, first day, slightly nervous", Peter Capaldi said. "Just like the Doctor, I'm emerging from the TARDIS into a whole other world."

The Series 8 whose Doctor Who fans wait would contain 13 episodes and would be broadcast in the second half of 2014, according to Steven Moffat. A long wait before we'll know more infos about the episodes, but we already know the new goal of the Doctor : come back to Gallifrey ...

Sources : BBC and Cultbox...
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