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ECS Releases A790GXM-AD3 For Phenom II

2008-12-24T09:33:00.001-08:00

With innovative products that span multiple target market, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), the world’s leading motherboard, graphics card, barebone system and notebook manufacturer, today releases the A790GXM-AD3 Black Series motherboard disclosing the extraordinary gaming performance of AMD’s latest Dragon platform. Supporting the latest AMD Phenom™ II processors, ATI CrossFireX™ technology, and the dual channel DDR3 memory architecture, ECS A790GXM-AD3 unleashes the full potential of hardware components that gamers are always eager for. With its upscale capability, the A790GXM-AD3 motherboard brings a spectacular gaming platform delivering the irrefutable performance to satisfy the gaming desire of extreme gamers.

Evolution in Structure, Revolution in Performance

Inheriting the advantages of AMD 790GX chipset, the A790GXM-AD3 Black Series motherboard incorporates the support for the latest 45nm AMD Phenom™ II processors to deliver the next generation computing capabilities. In addition, ECS A790GXM-AD3 comes with the feature of dual channel memory architecture that supports DDR3 1333MHz memory up to the capacity of 32GB which is capable to provide faster data throughput for memory-intensive applications. To meet hardcore overclockers’ requirements, the latest exclusive BIOS utility, M.I.B. II, is included to provide various detailed tweaking options. Paired with AMD SB750 south bridge controller supporting the function of ACC (Advanced Clock Calibration), ECS A790GXM-AD3 allows users to push the overall system performance to another higher scale. As the key factors that eventually decide the stability while overclocking, the 5 phase power design with unique cooling system leads users to reach the limit without suffering any issues of overheating. With all these innovations of evolution in structure, ECS A790GXM-AD3 is capable of bringing a revolutionarily optimized gaming platform to every extreme gamer.

Superior Scalability for Gamers’ Needs

Leveraging the power of ATI Radeon™ HD3300 integrated graphics core which fully supports Microsoft® DirectX® 10.0, ECS A790GXM-AD3 allows gamers to enjoy the gaming pleasure even without any add-on graphics cards. In addition, the innovative design of ATI Hybrid Graphics technology is capable to provide up to 75% performance increase by enabling both of the integrated graphics core and the add-on graphics card simultaneously. For extreme gamers that are always pursuing the best gaming experience, the dual x16 PCI Express 2.0 expansion slots supporting ATI CrossFireX™ technology reveal the hope that sparkles in their eyes. Being well equipped with the most powerful ATI Radeon™ HD3300 integrated graphics core, the support for ATI Hybrid Graphics technology as well as ATI CrossFireX™ technology, the A790GXM-AD3 Black Series motherboard multiplies gamers’ choices with superior scalability of gaming performance.

Great Motherboard with Well-Considered Details

Meeting the sophisticated demands from the market, ECS A790GXM-AD3 provides not only a perfect gaming platform focusing on the performance, but also with rich features in details such as ECS Ultra I/O Rear panel for connecting peripherals conveniently, all-solid-capacitor design for better durability, and the on-board HDMI connector as well as the design of Easy button (Power Button & Reset Button) and Easy Clear (Clear CMOS button on the rear panel). With all details well considered, ECS A790GXM-AD3 is meant to be the excellent choice for gamers in the market.

ASUS Unveils High End Triton 88 Cooler For Core i7

2008-12-24T09:29:00.000-08:00

To keep up with the latest trends in processor technologies, ASUS has been constantly launching powerful CPU coolers to cater to the demands of gaming enthusiasts worldwide. However, one of the most eagerly-awaited would no doubt be the latest ASUS Triton 88 CPU cooler. This “fierce-looking” exterior of the Triton 88 comprises of an exclusive twin-pillared heatsink design, a 120mm inner-fan with a Diamond blue LED, and 6 copper heatpipes. With this ensemble of thermal features, it is able to deliver ultimate cooling performances for up to 180W and can support multiple applications—including the latest Intel® Core™ i7 processor (LGA1366).

Exclusive Twin-pillared Design and 120mm Inner-fan for 180W Overclocking Support
The Triton 88 utilizes an exclusive twin-pillared heatsink design that; when combined with the 120mm inner-fan, will help in lowering temperatures and create powerful air-cooled performance for extreme overclocking of up to 180W. Furthermore, with the fan positioned within the heatsink, VRM can be protected against high temperatures with the guiding of cool air to critical components near the CPU—ensuring system stability.

Massive Heat Dissipation Area of up to 8000cm2 for Optimal Cooling
To provide the best heat dissipation, the Triton 88 is also equipped with a massive heat dissipation area of up to 8000cm2; while 6 high conductive copper heatpipes and the 120mm LED fan provides maximum airflow and optimal cooling performance. This will ensure that enthusiasts worldwide will be able to enjoy overclocking of up to 180W without an inkling of concern. Furthermore, the Triton 88 is equipped with a PWM function that is able to automatically adjust the fan speed according to the CPU’s temperature—providing low acoustics during operation.

Up-to-date Application
To keep up with future gaming and processor technologies, the Triton 88 not only supports multiple applications, and but also the latest Intel® Core™ i7 processor (LGA1366). DIY and gaming enthusiasts worldwide can now easily utilize this top-notch cooler to help ensure that their own PC systems can run faster and more stable than ever before.

RoverPC intros Pro G7 smartphone

2008-12-02T09:39:00.000-08:00

Russia's RoverPC recently introduced a business-oriented smartphone, the Pro G7. The handset includes a 2.8-inch, 640x480 touchscreen complemented by a scroll wheel. Processing power comes from a 624MHz CPU and 128MB of RAM that run Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional particularly smoothly. The quad-band GSM device can connect to the Internet over 3G data networks or hotspots thanks to its built-in Wi-Fi module. Built-in memory is fixed at 256MB but expandable via a microSDHC card slot. A pair of cameras, including a 3-megapixel shooter on the backside and a 0.3-megapixel cam for chatting, is built in. RoverPC will reportedly offer options for the handset, including a position sensor that can rotate the screen into a landscape orientation to make watching videos and surfing the web. Curiously, an HTML browser, email client, organizer and PC syncing are listed as options as well, along with an FM radio tuner and GPS capabilities. Bluetooth 2.0 support will allow wireless headsets to communicate with the G7.

The GPS function, combined with a service that downloads locations of traffic cameras in Russia, will alert users when they are approaching the locations. The same feature can warn of traffic jams and redirect drivers as necessary.

Otherwise, the handset has a speakerphone and support polyphonic ringtones, in addition to acting as an MP3 player. The handset is due to ship in December in Russia, with an equivalent price tag of about $616.

Microsoft intros cloud-based Azure Services Platform

2008-10-28T08:02:00.002-07:00

Microsoft has introduced Windows Azure, the foundation to its cloud-computing architecture that will allow companies to create software and services that can be accessed from centralized data centers. The platform will directly compete with similar ventures from competitors, including Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Google's library of internet tools. Developers can create applications that exist "in the cloud," accessible from anywhere in the world. The release marks a transition for Microsoft from the reliance on desktop software and further into the realm of Web-based technologies.

The key component of the architecture will be Windows Azure, an operating system that is designed for the cloud environment, providing developers a way to manage their Web applications on the Internet through the data centers. For some businesses that are facing the costs of building and maintaining on-site systems, using Azure-based cloud services on a subscription basis could present another option. The primary storage, computing, and networking tools would be hosted in Microsoft's data centers.

The Azure Services Platform will bring together several of the company's developer services including SQL, .NET, Live, SharePoint, and Dynamics CRM. Applications can be created using the .NET framework, Visual Studio, or other technologies and open source standards such as Eclipse, Ruby, PHP, Python, XML, HTTP, representational state transfer (REST), and Atom Publishing Protocol (AtomPub).

Customers can integrate any existing systems with Azure, spreading the applications across both platforms to suit particular needs. Some potential clients could steer clear of Web-based technology because of concerns with potential down-time. Microsoft claims its Azure Fabric Controller technology is designed to distribute the workload evenly across servers, while instantly rerouting work in the event of a failure.

Microsoft is aiming to jump into the Web-based software-as-a-service segment and take market share from power-players such as Google. As the sales of Vista stagnate, showing just a two percent income growth for the recent quarter, the company could be looking to extend its reach, with products such as Azure, into new areas that could be more profitable in the near future.

Toshiba to ship 43nm SLC-speed chips in 2009

2008-10-28T08:02:00.001-07:00

Toshiba has announced higher density, faster memory chips in a new lineup of 43nm single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash memory, featuring 2GB, 4GB and 8GB individual chips. The 43 nanometer process allows Toshiba to deliver double the density of its previous 56nm process, while also delivering SLC speeds, which are approximately 2.5x faster than the more common, denser but historically slower MLC (Multi-Level Cell) memory.

The new chipsets will be geared toward embedded memory in mobile products that call for large quantities of fast memory, such as mobile phones, flat panel HDTVs, and servers, as well as mobile audio-video devices. The new chipsets are planned for market in the first quarter of 2009.

Toshiba hasn't named customers but supplies both itself as well as Apple's handheld devices; multiple chips are often stacked together in a single package and should enable capacities of 16GB and higher depending on the hardware.

Walmart MP3 hits 74 cents, gains Mac support

2008-10-28T08:01:00.001-07:00

Walmart today made an aggressive move against Amazon and Apple by lowering the prices of its MP3 Music Downloads store. The service now offers per-track downloads as low as 74 cents versus the 89-cent minimum of Amazon MP3 and iTunes' fixed 99-cent price. Normal tracks are 94 cents, Wal-Mart says. The retailer also plans to drive users to the store through a tie-in with CD sales: starting from mid-November, those who order physical copies of albums either online or in stores get a free MP3 song from any artist or album.

The company has also made key moves to open its previously Windows- and Internet Explorer-centric web store to more platforms. The new version works with any operating system, including Linux and Mac OS X, and supports more standardized browsers such as Firefox and Safari. It also synchronizes more directly with users' collections and will copy both the songs and their artwork to Windows editions of iTunes or Windows Media Player.

Walmart's initiative comes as the big-box chain has struggled to compete in the online space. The company lost its lead in total music sales to iTunes earlier in 2008 and has less than half the catalog, holding just three million songs versus Apple's 8 million. While Walmart has the advantage of unprotected music from all four major labels, Amazon MP3 has a similar advantage but also more than 4.5 million tracks.

Analyst: NVIDIA to exit chipsets in 2009

2008-10-08T00:41:00.001-07:00

According to an analyst with the Pacific Crest Securities, chipset manufacturer NVIDIA will stop making media and communications chipsets in 2009, representing 21 percent of the company‘s current revenue. While the Tuesday report notes that NVIDIA had flat-out denied similar rumors back in August, its partners AMD and Intel are both are breaking into the mainboard chipset business themselves, Intel with in-house efforts and AMD with the recent purchase of chipmaker ATI.

Further hints as to NVIDIA’s role as supplier allegedly come from VIA’s marketing chief, Richard Brown, back in August. VIA has made it clear it plans to stop making chipsets for PCs and instead continue system-logic development for its own processors. “We believed that ultimately the third-party chipset market would disappear,” Brown said at the time.

Also earlier this year, NVIDIA has posted losses related to its failing GeForce graphics cards, which overheated in systems and hurt the company's ability to stay in more than just the graphics industry.

Partly countering the claim is a rumor this weekend that NVIDIA is involved with Apple and may have a new nForce mobile chipset in MacBooks, though these reports have quickly countered that NVIDIA may simply be supplying graphics to these portables.

Logitech launches Cordless Vantage Microphone

2008-10-08T00:39:00.000-07:00

Peripheral maker Logitech on Tuesday announced it will soon release the Cordless Vantage Microphone for avid gamers. The microphone connects to PCs and is compatible with the Sony PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 as well as the Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming systems thanks to a USB port. The microphone relies on the 2.4GHz frequency to provide the wireless connection to its USB base which doubles as a holder, with range of up to 30 feet. Logitech claims the two included AA batteries will last more than 20 hours. Supported game titles for the entertainment systems include Boogie, Encore, High School Musical, Karaoke Revolution Presents: American Idol and Rock Band. The Logitech Cordless Vantage Microphone will be available for purchase in the US and Europe this December, with pricing set at nearly $80.

Kingston teams up with Intel to supply SSD drives

2008-10-06T01:49:00.001-07:00

Memory maker Kingston has joined up with chipmaker Intel to produce flash-memory based drives for popular-brand notebooks and servers, according to a Thursday report. Traditionally, Kingston has made flash memory cards for consumer electronics devices such as digital cameras, which make up a quarter of the company’s business. Under the deal with Intel, Kingston will resell drives made by Intel, providing technical support and testing to buyers at Dell, HP and IBM, among others.

Flash, or solid state drives (SSD), are becoming more common in today’s computers, and especially notebooks, thanks to their superior shock resistance, faster speeds, and lower power consumption compared to traditional rotating hard disk drives (HDDs).

The Kingston-branded drives will begin shipping before the end of 2008, and will include products made for use in business notebooks and corporate network servers. It is not known if Kingston will eventually sell SSD drives directly to consumers, though Intel has promoted its own drives as replacements for home users.

Microsoft XP downgrades extended to July?

2008-10-06T01:48:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has extended its Windows XP downgrade program for six months past its original cutoff date, according to an email reportedly circulating among system builders. Though the company had originally set the XP pre-install option to shut down as of January 31st 2009, the new message is said to extend that deadline to July 31st. The official goal is to transition businesses, which were the original targets of the extension, over to Windows 7 by allowing them to buy new XP-based systems up to a point where the subsequent upgrade would demand Windows 7.

The delay if accurate would draw out the availability of XP for non-budget PCs until just months before the release of the next-generation Windows operating system expected in early 2010. The remaining window would be the smallest in recent memory where the current version of Windows was available exclusively.

Although Vista adoption has accelerated since computer makers have had to discontinue XP sales for consumer systems earlier in June, Microsoft has routinely struggled to counter negative perceptions formed early in Vista's history and has seen stiffer resistance from businesses whose software and hardware is more likely to be incompatible with the more recent Windows platform.

The original extension is commonly known to have stemmed from pressure by PC assemblers concerned that business sales would draw to a halt without guarantees of XP availability for some systems.

LG to launch 10-inch MOMO netbook with 3G

2008-09-30T07:51:00.000-07:00

LG is promising its customers a 10-inch netbook that includes built-in access to HSPA-based 3G data networks, calling it the X110 MOMO (for More Mobile) and listing it on its website. A variant of the regular X110 and its Korean equivalent the Xnote Mini, the MOMO includes the same 1.6GHz Atom chip, 512MB of memory upgradeable to 1GB, a 1.3-megapixel webcam and optional Bluetooth module. Hard drive capacity is more customizable and will include an 80GB, 120GB or 160GB hard disk drive. A 4-in-1 memory card reader will be built into the netbook, and Windows Vista Home Basic will be preloaded rather than XP or Linux. An Ethernet jack and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi will act as connections to the Internet and networks. The X110 MOMO will be available in white, black or pink and LG claims that with the standard 3-cell battery (a 6-cell battery is optional), it will tip the scales at 2.6lbs. The keyboard of the X110 MOMO is allegedly large enough for comfortable typing and touts a full-sized Shift key.

No other information has been released by LG, including which network carrier, if any, the hardware manufacturer will team up with to offer the subscription to 3G data networks. Pricing is expected to range between $500 and $600.

AMD intros budget Radeon HD 4550, 4350

2008-09-30T07:50:00.000-07:00

AMD early Tuesday took its Radeon HD 4000-series chipsets into ultra budget territory with two video cards that promise better performance than their prices would suggest. The Radeon HD 4550 and Radeon HD 4350 have just 80 stream (effects) processors versus as much as 800 for the Radeon 4800 series but are still capable of full DirectX 10.1 and current OpenGL 2.x effects, rendering them some of the least expensive cards capable of their more advanced visuals. The new chipsets are also some of the only ones of their type to have 7.1-channel audio pass-through over HDMI and the option of DisplayPort.

Power consumption and noise are also treated as staple features of the new hardware and turn them into low-cost options for home theater PCs looking for full Blu-ray hardware decoding. Either consumes less than 20 watts even under strain and optionally use passive cooling that renders them completely silent.

Both the 4550 and 4350 should be available in October and will primarily come from third-party card makers such as ASUS, GigaByte and Sapphire. AMD plans to undercut much of NVIDIA's present-day lineup and will sell the 4350 for as little as $39 for a 256MB version. The 4550 costs only slightly more at $55 and doubles the onboard video memory to 512MB.

The Guardian toasts your hard drive in 30 Seconds

2008-09-25T10:56:00.001-07:00

Chicago (IL) - You got a hot tip the Feds will be knocking your door in a few hours with warrants to bust your illegal data operation. You've got a lot of hard drives to demolish and little time to do it. What do you turn to? One option (though not advertised as the end solution for the previously mentioned scenario) is to turn to the the Guardian Hard Drive Destroyer.

The Guardian Hard Drive Destroyer is said to pulverize your hard drives in under 30 seconds flat. It delivers 12,000 pounds of force to that drive, only requiring a standard 120v AC adapter. It destroys the read and write abilities of the drive, making the remains effectively useless. As the demo video on the product's Web site states, it makes the drive "clearly unusable." The Guardian is said to be portable enough, weighing just 140 pounds, that you can take it and put it about anywhere.

There's no specific price posted for this beast of a machine, but if you are trying to save your you-know-what from the Feds is there anything not worth the cost?

PDC 2008 sheds light on Windows 7 features, promises pre-beta software

2008-09-25T10:54:00.000-07:00

Redmond (WA) – Microsoft is beginning to build up interest in its next-generation operating system. The company confirmed that it will be handing out a pre-beta software at the PDC 2008 event next month and if the conference scheduled is any indication, Windows 7 will focus on five key areas: Graphics, communications, energy-efficient applications, multi-touch and a first step into Web 3.0.

It appears that Microsoft is well on track with the development of Windows 7. Barely 10 months after the company handed out its first “Milestone 1” version of the software to its closest partners, the company is now ready to share what it has been working on with a much larger developer crowd. In a post published on the website of the Professional Developers Conference 2008 (PDC 2008), Microsoft said that “keynote attendees will be among the first to receive the pre-beta build of Windows 7.”

Microsoft is referring to the keynote of Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group. Sinofsky has led most of Microsoft’s public outreach relating to Windows 7. Following a rather lukewarm reception of the demonstration of Windows multi-touch features by Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer at this year’s All Things Digital conference, Sinofsky squashed all rumors that Windows 7 would be an entirely different operating system in May of this year. According to the executive, Windows 7 will be based on the kernel of Windows Server 2008 kernel, which is an evolution of the Windows Vista kernel. The executive highlighted driver compatibility, saying that Windows 7 will not come with a new driver model. “We're very clear that drivers and software that work on Windows Vista are going to work really well on Windows 7,” he said.

Since then, Windows 7 has largely been expected to become a Windows Vista on steroids, or, if you will, a Vista SE that will bridge the gap between Vista and completely new operating system that may be released in the late 2011 or 2012 timeframe. And the PDC 2008 scheduled appears to support these expectations – there will be some new features, but no surprises. Microsoft has dedicated a substantial portion of the conference to the new operating system: 22 out of 155 sessions will directly new features in Windows 7 – which makes the software the second-most covered topic (behind cloud services with 26 sessions) during the event.

The lion’s share of all Windows 7 sessions is dedicated to graphics - the appearance of Windows 7 and applications. Four tracks will provide information on the Windows 7 graphics architecture, new API’s to find, organize and visualize, new text and graphic API’s and Windows 7 taskbar integration. There is lots of content that will deal with Direct3D and how developers can take greater advantage of GPUs, but we know that these sessions will be restricted to graphics and that Windows 7 will not support the use of GPGPUs.

Two sessions focus exclusively on performance (of background processes) and energy efficiency of applications under Windows 7, and other major tracks will zero in on communications applications, native web services and how developers can develop applications that will take advantage on Windows 7’s multi-touch support. A look at new Shell user experience APIs also looks to be an interesting briefing.

If there is a surprise, then it surely is a touch of Web 3.0 in Windows 3: Software development engineer Dan Polivy will lead a session entitled “Windows 7: New APIs for Building Context-Aware Applications” targeted at experienced Windows developers. There is no information on this session available at this time, but if Microsoft is putting a greater focus on context-aware applications, Windows 7 may have a secret killer feature in store for us.

Dell, HP look to slash R&D costs for 2009

2008-09-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

Worldwide economic crises are beginning to have serious impact within PC builders Dell and HP, claims DigiTimes. The publication cites sources inside Taiwanese channel distributors, who say that both companies are looking to cut back on research and development for notebooks, which usually entails testing the performance and endurance of new parts. Because this is also done by the actual manufacturers (ODMs), sources say, Dell and HP believe they can scale back without hurting future products. Details such as any possible job losses are unclear, but it is thought that ODMs will begin buying many of the parts needed on their own, choosing which suppliers to use. The number of ODM purchases could jump from 10 percent now to 20 percent in 2009, the sources suggest.

The situation contrasts starkly with Apple, whose Mac sales have been brisk, pointing to continually expanding profits. Apple is also known to pick virtually every component in a computer itself, down to processors and optical drives.

Samsung intros 14.1-inch X460 slim notebook

2008-09-24T00:55:00.001-07:00

Samsung on Tuesday introduced a new notebook computer, the X460, which combines a 14.1-inch, 1280x800 LCD screen with a weight that is just under 4.2lbs. Other key specs of the X460 include a 45nm Intel Centrino 2 CPU of various processing speeds and support for up to 4GB of RAM memory. The smallest hard drive is sized at 120GB, while the largest optional HDD is 320GB in capacity. Samsung is trying to position the X460 as a stylish offering users would want to be seen with, and to this end, included a magnesium alloy casing offset with a brushed aluminum panel on the lid that is available in a choice of colors. The laptop also include NVIDIA‘s GeForce 9200M GS graphics chipset with DirectX 10 support. A slim Light Scribe optical drive is standard fare, as are five USB ports for expandability. Bluetooth 2.0+EDR or the integrated multi-card reader allow users to quickly transfer files to and from the notebook, while connecting to the Internet is done via an Ethernet jack or the built-in Wi-Fi connection.

Samsung also deemed it fit to include a fingerprint scanner for security, along with a 1.3-megapixel webcam for video conferencing. An antibacterial keyboard is meant to minimize the build-up of bacteria and thus decrease the likelihood of users getting sick. Other connections the notebook sports include eSATA, DVI, SIO and an HDMI port. The removable 6-cell battery promises to deliver five hours of life when fully charged.

The X460 will launch in October in certain European and Asian countries, with no word on a US release. No pricing information has been released.

Sony prepping VAIO TT ultraportable for Monday?

2008-09-22T02:12:00.001-07:00

Sony is gearing up to launch a likely Centrino 2-based update to its VAIO TZ ultraportable notebooks, according to evidence from an FCC filing and a string of forum posts. Called the VAIO TT, the computer would be one of the last remaining systems to launch with Sony's design update and is known to be too powerful to represent Sony's upcoming netbook; most specifications are unavailable, but the notebook will have 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and optional 3G access over EVDO. A listing at online retailer B&H for a privacy filter which supports both the TZ and TT also pushes the system into the ultraportable class with an 11.1-inch display.

While yet to be confirmed, claims have been made that the new VAIO would be introduced on Monday, lining up roughly with wider availability of ultra-low voltage Core 2 Duo processors that will be necessary for the update. Exact configurations are unknown but will likely include carry-over options from the TZ, such as solid-state drives.

Firefox mobile web browser scheduled for 2010

2008-09-20T03:17:00.000-07:00

Chicago (IL) – Mitchell Baker, chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, recently outlined the goals for Mozilla for the next two years. This list includes a somewhat surprising but long overdue product: Firefox for mobile devices code-named Fennec.

The post divides the proposals for Mozilla’s 2010 goals into four main areas – deepen Mozilla’s role on the Internet, assume “leadership” in helping people control their data and making anonymous, aggregate “usage data” more of a public resource, increase Firefox market share and focus on mobile devices.

By 2010, Baker said, there should be an “effective [Firefox] product in the mobile market”, which should “demonstrate that ‘mobile’ is part of one, unified, open web.”

Following Baker’s post, Mozilla explained on its developer blog that it has begun working on getting its upcoming TraceMonkey engine to run on ARM processors. First results of this work have been published on Vladimir Vukicevic’s blog. Users will be able to get a first-hand look at TraceMonkey for ARM in the next alpha release of Fennec, which is the code-name of Firefox Mobile.

There was no information when Fennec will become available for download.

Pentax leaks info on new DSLR, lenses

2008-09-20T03:16:00.001-07:00

Camera builder Pentax has accidentally leaked information on a new camera, according to reports. Thought to be called the K-m (not pictured), the camera would allegedly be an entry-level DSLR, similar to Nikon's D60 or Canon's Rebel XS. Specifications pulled from Amazon UK point to a 10-megapixel CCD sensor with sensor-shift stabilization, and ISO sensitivity up to 3200. It is expected to shoot in PEF or DNG RAW formats at up to 3.5fps, and come equipped with a 2.7-inch LCD. Unlike most DSLRs, it is also believed to be powered by four AA batteries, not a proprietary lithium-ion design.

Pentax is further said to be preparing two new L-series lenses, with plastic mounts and weight reductions made with the K-m in mind. A kit with a single bundled lens would cost €500, while one with two lenses would be priced at €600. A November release date is anticipated.

Other Pentax gear rumored to be in development include DA 15 f/4, 60-250, and "super-telephoto" lenses, as well as an SDM 1.4x converter, and a ring flash dubbed the AF160 FC.

BenQ intros slimmest 10MP camera with 3-inch LCD

2008-09-20T03:15:00.001-07:00

BenQ on Friday unveiled the thinnest digital camera, at less than 0.7 inches (16.8mm) thick at its slimmest point, to have a 3-inch LCD screen, the 10-megapixel E1050. The E1050 has 32 distinct still image or video shooting modes as well as a red eye remover feature. The 3x optical zoom lens and the E1050’s software allows 16:9 aspect ratio, 848x480 videos to be captured for a proper fit on today’s HDTVs. Another setting sizes videos for direct YouTube uploads. A maximum ISO rating of 3200 is available only with 3MP images or smaller and otherwise, at full 10MP resolution, tops out at 1600. The BenQ E1050 comes with 10MB of usable built-in memory with expansion coming courtesy of an SD card slot, expanding it by as much as 16GB. The camera’s self-time can be set to 2- or 10-second delays, or into a burst and double modes.

The BenQ E1050 will be available in metallic grey only, although prices or release dates have not been announced.

NVIDIA announces worldwide job cuts

2008-09-20T03:14:00.001-07:00

NVIDIA on Thursday announced that it would cut 360 jobs across its worldwide operations, which accounts for nearly 6.5 percent of its entire workforce. The company officially announced the cuts are being made to let it invest in key areas of growth, though they are likely related to the company’s recent financial trouble stemming from faulty graphics chips, the resulting lawsuit, and increased competition from the Radeon HD 4000-series graphics card. The job cuts are expected to take effect by October 26, with employees receiving severance packages, counseling and job placement services. Despite the cutbacks, NVIDIA representatives said the company would continue to pour resources into its CUDA parallel computing technology and Tegra mobile single-chip computer. As a direct result of the job cuts, NVIDIA is expected to take a charge of between $7 and $10 million in the third quarter of the 2009 fiscal year. The pre-tax amount will be charged against the company’s operating expenses.

The graphics chipmaker wrote down a near $121 million dollar loss in the second quarter of 2008, the first one in five years, due to graphics cards that would overheat in users’ systems.

Canon signals DSLR smackdown with 21.1-megapixel EOS 5D

2008-09-18T12:07:00.001-07:00

Chicago (IL) - Think the Canon EOS 50D DSLR announced a few weeks ago was a big deal? Canon pulled out a even bigger rabbit today with the announcement of the EOS 5D Mark II Digital SLR camera. This 21.1-megapixel monster, out by the end of November, will set you back around $2700 for body only or around $3500 with an accompanying EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM zoom lens.

The highlight of top level features from Canon of the new EOS 5D include "the ability to capture full HD video clips at 1920 x 1080 resolution ... a 21.1-megapixel full frame 24 x 36mm CMOS sensor, DIGIC 4 imaging processor and significantly lower noise, with an expanded sensitivity range from ISO 50 to ISO 25,600." Need some fast, continuous shooting? Try this on for size - "continuous shooting at 3.9 frames per second (fps) for an unlimited number of full-resolution JPEGs to the capacity of the memory card or up to 14 RAW images in a single burst when using a UDMA CF card."

What else do we have? Canon says the EOS 5D includes "a 15-point Autofocus (AF) sensor with nine selectable AF points plus six additional Assist AF points (three center AF points sensitive to f/2.8 lenses) with enhanced light source detection and AF microadjustment." This is on top of a high-magnification optical viewfinder providing 98 percent coverage, 150,000-cycle shutter durability, three Live View AF modes and "peripheral illumination correction when shooting JPEG images." This latter feature is said to even "brightness across the image field, making an image of a blue sky even toned throughout and reducing light fall-off at image edges."

There's a lot more obviously to this camera, but you get the idea it is really loaded. The proof is in the pudding, of course, but I think the EOS 5D Mark II might be enough to get Canon lovers to at long last put down their 2005 EOS 5Ds.

Update: FBI investigates Palin email hack

2008-09-18T12:06:00.001-07:00

Chicago (IL) - Rick Davis, lobbyist in chief for John McCain, described the hacking of Sarah Palin’s Yahoo email account as “shocking invasion” in the Governor’s privacy. The FBI confirmed that it is looking into the matter, while Palin cannot prevent the events from turning into a huge mess as it appears that the Governor of Alaska conducted state business using her private email account.

"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law," Davis said in a statement and noted that "the matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."

Yesterday, a hacker group named Anonymous took credit for hacking into the email account and publicizing screenshots, picturesd and other data from Palin’s Yahoo account. An index of the e-mails contained in Sarah Palin’s inbox include the sender, the subject line, and the date and time the e-mail was sent also indicates that Palin was in fact receiving e-mail from her aides and some of them indicated that she in fact used the account for certain messages relating to official business.

FBI spokesman Brian Hale today said that "the FBI is aware of the alleged hacking incident involving Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and is coordinating with the United States Secret Service on the matter."

Among the emails were an e-mail from her press secretary Meghan Stapleton, with the subject line “Motor Fuel Tax Suspension”. Additionally, an e-mail from Randall Ruaro, Palin’s deputy chief of staff was titled “Draft letter to Governor Schwarzenegger”; another from Ruaro also said “Please approve” and a third had the subject line “Court of Appeals Nominations”.

There were e-mails in her inbox that are believed to be about different budget and employee issues with the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

There were e-mails from Janice Mason, Palin’s schedule coordinator that indicated they were in regards to Palin’s schedule during the week of August 10th.

Michael Nizich, Palin’s chief of staff sent her e-mails on August 22, using the subject “Using Royalty Oil to Lower the Cost of Fuel for Alaskans”, and on another date sent her an e-mail titled “Confidential Ethics Matter”.

The fact that Governor Plain used her private email account to discuss state matters, will obviously raise eyebrows and questions whether there was the need to hide any information from the public. Whether this was or was not the case, it is somewhat obvious that the hackers may not remain the only ones being investigated. It is already a PR disaster and somehow we believe that this mess cannot be cleaned up anytime soon.

Canon SX1 IS adds CMOS sensor, 1080p video

2008-09-18T12:05:00.000-07:00

As a counterpart to its SX10 IS, Canon has announced the SX1 IS, a version with some performance enhancements. While both cameras have DIGIC 4 processors, 20x image-stabilization lenses and a 10-megapixel ceiling resolution, the SX1 uses a CMOS sensor instead of CCD, something which Canon claims will let it shoot at up to 4fps in full resolution. The camera also uses a slightly larger LCD, measuring 2.8 inches instead of 2.5. Also included is 30fps, 1080p video recording, a feature borrowed from the EOS 5D Mk. II. An HDMI output is provided for displaying images on TVs. Pricing and release dates have not been announced, but it is believed that the camera is unlikely to appear in North America.

MSI prepping U91, U120 Wind netbooks

2008-09-18T12:02:00.000-07:00

MSI has plans to expand its Wind netbook range past the U100, according to an interview. Beyond the current system, the company says it is developing the U91, a new 8.9-inch computer whose other specifications are as yet unknown. Also in development is the U120, a system with a 10-inch screen and built-in HSDPA reception.

The company says it eventually intends to adopt dual-core Atom processors into its netbooks, but due to the extra power consumption, this will not happen in the near future. MSI is similarly hesitant to switch from Windows XP to Vista, primarily because it is thought to consume too much RAM for a netbook.

Casio FH20 brings low-cost 40FPS shooting [U]

2008-09-16T08:11:00.000-07:00

Casio on Tuesday unveiled the Exilim EX-FH20, a lower-end alternative for the Pro EX-F1. It offers users a higher-resolution 9.1 Megapixel, 1/2.3-inch CMOS sensor focused through a 20x lens but also makes a slight degradation in continuous frame rate, dropping from 60 frames per second for the F1 to 40 (at seven megapixels) in the FH20. The ultra-quick burst movie mode has likewise dropped from 1200 frames per second to 1000. The EX-FH20 nonetheless keeps sensor-shift image stabilization and a pre-shot buffering ability to capture the moment just before the shutter press. The change in design also has the upside of shrinking the camera and rendering it more portable overall. Size has dropped by 27 percent from the F1 while weight has dropped almost proportionately, by 28 percent.

Casio has announced US shipping details and puts the FH20 well below the price of the flagship Exilim Pro EX model, with a $600 price tag accompanying the camera when it ships to stores in October.

100 Tesla magnet being constructed, biggest reusable magnet in the world

2008-09-13T04:54:00.001-07:00

Tallahassee (FL) - Researchers working at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (MHMFL) in Florida are putting the final touches on what will be the largest reusable magnet ever constructed. It's a nearly six foot diameter outer case with an 8" center core. Capable of producing magnetic fields roughly 100 times more powerful than an MRI or two million times more powerful than a refrigerator magnet, each $20,000 core will withstand around 100 1200-megajoule pulses, with the $8 million outter case withstanding around 10,000. Previous "big magnet" research efforts like this have lead to the creation of neodymium magnets which enable our cell phones and cordless hand tools.

The world's most powerful magnets ever constructed have been approximately 2x to 10x more powerful than this magnet. However, those were called "one use magnets" as they destroyed themselves while in use. In fact, this magnet will also destroy itself during testing, although it's being designed to withstand as many tests (pulses) as possible. The pressures exerted on a 90-100 Tesla field strength magnet are enormous, roughly 30x greater than those experienced at the bottom of the ocean, or the equivalent of 200 sticks of dynamite going off simultaneously.

The wires used in the center core are comprised of copper and silver, a chemical mix design to act like concrete. While the copper is very strong it cracks easily, just like concrete. The silver acts as reinforcement to keep the copper intact for a longer time, but even with the reinforcing, it's only a matter of time until the magnet core explodes. In fact, the explosion will be so massive that the whole buidling has to be evacuated when the magnet is in use to protect nearby researchers from teh expected deafening sound.

The magnet's reusable design consists of two parts, an outer section, or outsert cylinder, that is nearly six feet wide and five feet tall, and an 8" diameter insert comprised of nine separate coils. Together, they weigh nearly 18,000 lbs. The wires used within the coils are as small as 100 atoms in diameter. The entire device will be supercooled to "high-temperature superconductor" levels when in use, drawing 7% of Tallahassee's available power supply.

It is believed the research will ultimately enable the creation of some unexpected products, such as high-tension power lines that do not generate heat using materials achieving high-temperature superconductivity, as well as more obvious products like higher definition MRI scans and better cellphones.

In truth, the concept of having a reusable magnet of this strength is very exciting to the researchers. The ability to have a controlled, scientific approach to reproducible experiments in this field at these levels is unprecedented.

Notes

One Tesla is a very large gauge of magnetic strength, named after physicist Nikola Tesla . A typical MRI would only use around 1 Tesla. The Earth's magnetic field is about 0.00005 Teslas (though it is slowly decreasing over time for reasons not yet known). Another perhaps more well known gauge of magnetic strength is Gauss, named after the German mathematician Karl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855). The 100 Tesla magnet would represent about 1,000,000 Gauss. Typical handheld bar magnets are about 100 Gauss. Cordless drills are around 25 Gauss. Very strong laboratory magnets are 100,000 Gauss. And just to show that mankind does not outdo nature, the surfaces of Neutron stars are believed to be 100 million Teslas.

The MHMFL builds on a history of previous high density magnets. In 1994, for example, the operation of a 27 Tesla magnet was first achieved on their site. It was built atop a DC facility with a 1 meter thick concrete base. After that, the lab achieved additional records over time of 30, 33, 35, then hybrid magnets of 45 and pulsed magnets of 60 for long-pulse; 77.8 tesla short pulse and ultimately the 85 Tesla multi-shot magnet. Construction of this magnet is not yet completed, though it is currently in operation at around 90 Teslas.

UC Irvine given $100,000 to study WoW players

2008-09-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

Irvine (CA) – The National Science Foundation has given $100,000 to the University of California at Irvine for a study on World of Warcraft players. Bonnie Nardi, a UCI informatics professor, will examine the differences in play habits and culture between WoW players in the United States and China. She already has some interesting observations.

Nardi observed Chinese WoW players mainly in Internet gaming cafes while visiting China. She told the Orange County Register that the Chinese tend to play a “more challenging” version of the game and also use less modifications and add-ons to the WoW interface. According to Nardi, 95% of the Chinese play on this version of Wow versus 50% in the United States.

While we don’t know exactly what Nardi meant by a more challenging version of Wow, she’s probably referring to Player versus Player or PvP servers which allow players to kill each other without warning. PvE or Player versus Environment servers lets players battle each other only upon agreement.

Nardi also says the Chinese WoW players are basically regular people and are unjustly stereotyped by the media. “The vast majority of Chinese players are not gold farmers,” she told the OC Register.

There are approximately five million Chinese WoW players compared to 2.5 million players in the United States. Blizzard manages the game servers in the USA and contracts out to a Chinese company for the servers in China. Chinese players pay mostly on a per hour basis, while Americans either subscribe monthly or pay with store-bought game cards.

Windows 7 Beta delayed until mid-December

2008-09-13T04:52:00.001-07:00

A blog entry by Mary-Jo Foley posted on Thursday suggests Microsoft will not make the Beta version of its Windows 7 operating system available to testers at either its October Professional Developers Conference or November’s Windows Hardware Engineering Conference, as expected by many in the industry. While the software giant is likely to unveil new information about the new operating system that is to be Vista’s successor, the actual Beta 1 versions aren’t likely to be released until the middle of December, Foley claims, citing industry sources familiar with the schedule who do not want to be named.

Foley goes on to say small groups of testers who are sworn to secrecy got M-designated (for Milestone) builds and interim updates, and the Windows team is working on an M3 build as well. There are no indications of a pre-beta version, such as a Community Technology Preview build, and instead Foley's sources suggest a wider distribution of Windows 7 bits aren’t likely until the OS is nearly complete with features.

What the delay means is that Microsoft will have less than one year if its promises of a late 2009 release for the final Windows 7 release are accurate, which may be too short a time to get all the bugs worked out, but are not unprecedented in the history of the Office team, Foley suggests.

Back in September, Microsoft promised to release the Windows 7 beta via its usual method, via the Connect site.

The delay suggests a small amount of initial trouble for Microsoft's replacement for Windows Vista, which itself was delayed by three years after security worries pushed the company to effectively restart development of the OS from scratch in 2004. Microsoft officially doesn't expect to launch Windows 7 until sometime in 2010.

More specs on Canon 5D Mark II revealed

2008-09-13T04:51:00.001-07:00

A French Canon DSLR news site claims to have the newest updates on the specifications of the upcoming Canon 5D Mark II. The new report has the camera using a 24MP, 24x36mm CMOS sensor and a new grip making up the magnesium alloy case. Like the recently unveiled D90 from competitor Nikon, the 5D Mark II allegedly offers a similar movie recording mode, previously reported as being capable of recording HD content. The same DIGIC IV sensor that debuted on the 50D, which was unveiled in late August, will also be used on the 5D MkII.

Other tidbits include a maximum light sensitivity ISO setting of 25,600 and a new battery that recognizes the automatic operation of the camera. The Live View functionality that allows users to compose a shot via the LCD and is standard fare on other new Canon DSLR is also present, as is an integrated cleaning system. Lenses from Canon’s EF-series and Speedlite EX will bolt up to the new body.

Finally, the report confirmed the camera will debut on September 17, which would have it out about one week before the start of the Photokina 2008 show, where plenty of demos of the new shooter are expected.

Earlier reports also said the new DSLR will be fully sealed against the weather and sport a 3.2-inch high-resolution LCD. An HDMI output is also likely to be accounted for.

3 new colors coming for Blackberry Pearl 8120

2008-09-13T04:50:00.001-07:00

RIM will be introducing three new color options for its Blackberry Pearl 8120 device, according to TmoNews. Customers will be able to choose from Black Emerald, Indigo, or Frost. With the bridging capabilities of the 8120, T-Mobile users can drift between cell networks and Wi-Fi connections (T-Mobile HotSpots or HotSpot@Home) without dropping the call. The trio of new colors is scheduled to launch on October 15.

Toshiba intros Satellite NB105 as its first netbook

2008-09-13T04:49:00.001-07:00

Toshiba has jumped onto the netbook bandwagon with its surprise entry, the 8.9-inch Satellite NB105, according to a Friday report. Thus far, the netbook is only linked to Toshiba Mexico, and features Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom CPU that is widely used in competing products. Backed by 1GB of RAM, the netbook will eschew costly flash drives in favor of a traditional HDD with a 120GB capacity. Other cost-cutting measures include the limited spec, giving users the basics such as Wi-Fi connectivity and an Ethernet LAN controller, but no Bluetooth or 3G connection options. What is included is an SD card slot and three USB 2.0 ports. A webcam will allow for video chats, while Windows XP Home will be the sole interface on the 1024x600 resolution screen. While official prices or release dates have not been announced, the netbook is expected to ship in Mexico at the start of November.

6-core Intel ‘Dunnington’ could be released next week

2008-09-12T05:11:00.002-07:00

Santa Clara (CA) – Intel’s six-core ‘Dunnington’ processor could be released next week’s at the VMWorld conference in Las Vegas. The chip, officially known as the Xeon 7400, is manufactured on the 45 nm process and will be the last chip in the Penryn line. The six cores share 16 MB of L3 cache and each pair of cores will share 3 MB of L2 cache (9 MB total). Intel promises that chip will have a TDP rating of approximately 130 watts.

Like current generation Intel processors, the Dunnington will still require an external memory controller, but Intel hopes the large cache sizes in Dunnington will more than make up for any memory bottlenecks. The upcoming Nehalem processors, which should be available in the fourth quarter, will solve this problem with an integrated memory controller.

The Dunnington, like other future Intel processors, will have all the cores in a single piece of silicon. This is in contrast to the current generation of processors which are multiple cores fashioned into one package. While some detractors say this technology is less elegant than AMD’s monolithic processors, it has allowed Intel to get to market faster. In the end most consumers probably don’t care how the chip is made; they just want something that works.

It makes sense that Intel would release Dunnington at VMWare’s VMWorld conference as the chip is aimed at the blade/server market. Virtualization of operating systems, the running of an OS inside of another OS, is a big thing these days and the system admins attending the show would most likely wet themselves over this new processor.

AMD upgrades workstation graphics portfolio

2008-09-12T05:11:00.001-07:00

Markham (ON) – AMD’s GPG unit today introduced two new workstation graphics cards – one high-end version based on the 4800-series with 800 stream processors and one entry-level card based on the 4600-series with 320 processors.

AMD’s new flagship workstation graphics card, called the FirePro V8700, is promised to about 40% faster than the company’s previously fastest card. The new model runs all 800 stream processors, comes with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory and a total bandwidth of 108.8 GB/s, two Displayport and one dual link DVI interface and support for DirectX 10.1. MSRP is set at $1499.

The FirePro V3750 runs only 320 stream processors and integrates only 256 MB of GDDR3 for a bandwidth of 22.4 GB/s, but can be yours for substantially less money - $199.

AMD said both the V8700 and V3750 will begin shipping in the fourth quarter.

Why the SSD will kill the HDD

2008-09-12T05:10:00.001-07:00

Opinion – The days of the hard drive are numbered. I recently chatted with Samsung on their opinion of the state solid state disk drive (SSD) market and while Samsung seems to be very careful comparing their SSDs and their ability to replace traditional hard drives, it is now clear to me that there is no way out for the hard drive. Over the next few years, the hard drive may keep the edge in capacity and price, but it inevitably will be driven into shrinking niches. While the advantages of the technology are visibly melting away, it is obvious that the hard drive may not just die because of its inferior performance or higher power consumption – but simply because of its form factor.

When you read about SSDs today, or if you are considering the purchase of an SSD or a new computer that simply comes with a SSD pre-installed, you are every likely to be among the most educated users and you may have read the same messages about SSDs again. When comparing them to either performance hard drives in desktop PCs or to power saving hard drives in mobile computers, you are currently confronted with a difficult balancing act that depends on your priorities.

On the one hand, an SSD is likely to provide you with more data transfer bandwidth, less power consumption (=more battery time) and less heat. On the other, an SSD is likely to cost you 10 times as much as a hard drive with a similar capacity and you can get much more capacity with hard drives than with SSDs in 1.8” (up to 240 GB) and 2.5” (up to 500 GB) anyway (yes, there are 512 GB SSDs, but these can hardly be considered consumer products.) So, do you buy the faster SSD and take the price hit or do you go with a hard drive with more capacity, which – depending on the model you choose – could be plenty fast (WD Velociraptor) or power efficient (many 1.8” drives consume less than 2 watts today)?

Most consumers are choosing the hard drive path today and even Samsung admits that the SSD market is still in its infancy: By far the most important SSD market today is the low-cost notebook segment, which gobbles up most 4, 8 and 16 GB SSDs. The traditional PC market as we know it is separated into the configure-to-order (CTO) and pre-configured markets. Both markets are in their very early stages, according to Samsung. While there are more and more SSD pre-configured models, such as Lenovo’s Thinkpad X300, growth takes time. On the CTO side, educated consumers are leading the way for the SSD.

Broad market acceptance is usually tied to a phase when a technology enters the mainstream. Depending on the company you talk to, you may get a different answer what mainstream may mean for the SSD and when the mainstream PC market will be affected by the SSD. Intel, for example, thinks its recently announced $595 80 GB SSD is in the mainstream – which is a statement I would disagree with. Samsung says that mainstream SSDs will be enabled with multi-level cell (MLC) flash technology (also used by Intel’s SSDs), which should bring prices down dramatically. Prior to writing this article, I found 32 GB SSDs for less than $100 and 64 GB versions for less than $200. More 128 GB (MLC) models will become more available in Q4 and we should be seeing 256 GB versions (1.8”, 2.5”) in H1 2009 for prices of less than $1000.

No question, that is not mainstream yet. But SSDs are getting closer and are doubling their capacity every 12 months, while traditional hard drives currently show a capacity growth of about 50% per year. Conceivably, there will be a time when consumers will perceive SSDs as large enough for their needs in their primary computing devices. At least for now, market researchers say that the hard drive market is driven by an insatiable demand for storage – in Q1 of this year, 137 million hard drives were shipped, up 21% from the year ago-quarter, according to iSuppli. But that trend may start to reverse as SSDs are closing in on HDDs over time, similar to how flash memory has driven hard drives almost completely out of MP3 players.

But the fate of the hard drive may eventually be sealed by a factor many of us do not see yet. The hard drive is certainly a moving market in price and capacity, but there is a critical disadvantage that will seal the hard drive’s fate: Flash memory devices can be manufactured in any shape you a customer needs – squares, rectangles, L-shapes, or triangles. Thick or thin. Small or large. The size of the hard drive is set at 1.8”, 2.5” and 3.5” (and if you look really hard 1” and 0.85”). While product designers have to design their product around a hard drive, future flash memory devices will be able to be designed around a product’s requirements.

Imagine what a company like Apple can do with such freedom (well, they already do it with the iPod) – imagine future handheld devices that don’t have to accommodate a standard 1.8” or 2.5” drives, but can house drives that may be custom-designed for a specific device. Of course, economies of scale play into such a scenario, but Samsung says that custom flash memory products will make a whole lot of sense for products with a certain volume. Put into the equation a mainstream price point and “enough” storage space and you have to wonder why you would use a hard drive in any mobile product. In an increasingly mobile world, the hard drive suddenly like a really old and may be pushed back into niches and application areas with archiving purposes.

Clearly, the hard drive won’t disappear tomorrow. And it is very likely that the hard drive is likely to outlive flash, which is reportedly reaching is scaling limits at around 22 nm. IBM recently said that it will remove the hard drive from its products around 2018, which would mean that it may be pretty difficult to purchase any computing device with a hard drive by 2020. I am convinced that the SSD may bring the most dramatic shifts in mainstream computing we aren’t aware of yet.

Computer geeks get reality television show on MTV

2008-09-12T05:09:00.001-07:00

New York (NY) - MTV practically pioneered reality television, by bringing together the first group of young adults to reside together in a series titled “The Real World”. With the help of a major technology company MTV has joined together 16 young, creative, tech geeks to live together in a loft in Brooklyn. These kids will compete in a contest that can be watched either online or on television.

On Monday, MTV and the mtvU channel, that is geared towards university and college aged individuals will work closely with Hewlett-Packard and present to the world “Engine Room”. The series will document the lives of 16 contestants split up into four different teams. The teams will be responsible for designing and producing digital artwork using products that were manufactured and sold by Hewlett-Packard.

Engine Room will not be a long winded drama like the Real World; instead, episodes will be quick five to seven minute clips that will last over a period of seven weeks. At the end of the competition, one of the teams will walk away with a prize package that includes $400,000 and an opportunity to program the giant MTV screen that is located in Times Square for an entire night.

Previously, Hewlett Packard and Broadband Enterprises sponsored a video series with MTV called “Meet or Delete”, and also “Dorm Storm”. These series showed that video campaigns are great marketing strategies that really catch the attention of younger consumers who are subscribing to and watching video clips from their cell phones, computers and other mobile devices.

“We don’t want it to be advertising; we want it to be real,” said David Roman, vice president for worldwide marketing communications at the personal systems group of HP, in a prepared statement.

“We’re learning as we go not to do so much talking about what we do but rather let people do things with the product,” Mr. Roman said. “That’s where the ‘wow factor’ comes from.”

The spending by HP for the “Engine Room” has been estimated by David Roman as being in “the tens of millions of dollars” - and spending began months ago as recruiting for started utilizing a Web site mtvengineroom.com.

The site received a tremendous response with over 2000 individuals residing in 122 countries submitting over 20,000 original pieces of artwork with the hopes of being able to participate in the contest.

The four individual teams of contestants have been divided based on the regions that they come from. Among the regions are Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and North America. Throughout the competition the contestants will be visited by guests such as movie director Kevin Smith, musician Moby, and even the British pop singers the Ting Tings.

ASUS intros heat-efficient, screwless PC case

2008-09-12T05:07:00.001-07:00

ASUS recently introduced the VENTO TA-M1 chassis designed with thermal efficiency and ease of use in mind. The PC case can accommodate a front-mounted fan, another one on the rear and two more on the sides, all up to 4.7 inches (120mm) in diameter. Additionally, the side-mounted fans attach to a movable plate, which can then be slid to adjust their output where it is necessary, with an emphasis on the CPU and graphics cards. The front, top and side panels are made with an all-mesh design for maximum ventilation while venting holes in the HDD rack free up more space for air to move around in.

The case can accommodate a larger high-end PCI-E VGA up to 15 inches (380mm) in size or an SLI/Crossfire card up to 11 inches (280mm). Adding flexibility is the inclusion of a 5.25-inch rack that can be converted into a 3.5-inch version in order to hold card readers and floppy disc drives. Otherwise, the case has space for four external 5.25-inch optical drive bays and four 3.5-inch floppy disk drive bays, all attaching via a screwless design. The front panel sports two USB 2.0 ports along with a pair of audio outputs. There are also seven PCI card expansion slots.

ASUS has not announced a price or release date for the VENTO TA-M1.

Nokia Comes With Music may demand $150 premium

2008-09-12T05:06:00.001-07:00

A recent report hazards some educated guesses at the price of Nokia’s recently announced Comes with Music audio track download service. While a direct conversion has the 5310 and N95 8GB phones bundled with the Comes with Music service cost $120 and $150 more than the handsets themselves, the actual price difference in North America is likely to be closer to $100, as Nokia devices traditionally sell for less stateside. The numbers come from UK smartphone retailer Expansys, which has published pre-order pricing for the Nokia handsets.

The Comes with Music service does not carry a monthly subscription rate, but the cost is instead built into the purchase price of a handset. Users can then download unlimited audio tracks from Nokia for one year and keep them once that year is up. While the prices are not official and may change closer to the October 2 release date in the UK, they are competitive with similar services from other providers and in line with earlier suggestions that pegged the cost of the music service at about £100 ($175).

Expansys is offering the Nokia N95 8GB for nearly £395 (about $693) while the handset with the music service is priced at about £480 ($842). The 5310 ranges from £133 to £145 ($233 and $254), while Comes with Music option and the phone are listed at £215 ($377). Nokia first announced Comes with Music and the Nokia World show last December.

Apple patent would lock Nike+iPod, add GPS

2008-09-12T05:05:00.001-07:00

Apple is investigating putting more stringent controls on the Nike+iPod system used for the iPod nano and now the iPod touch, according to a new US patent filing. Expressing concern that customers might buy the Nike+iPod kit but use it with non-Nike shoes or in different locations, the patent describes using RFID tags and similar sensors built into shoes or other clothing to pair the transmitter with its intended destination. The device would refuse to work unless close to authorized clothes.

The company partly defends the patent by claiming that it would provide added security, preventing the transmitter from collecting or sending data if the device is stolen independently of the shoes. RFID devices could also store a small amount of information and create backups in case the Nike+iPod device is ever lost; this would be helped along by a means of generating a small amount of energy to power an active tag that would restore the necessary data.

Also proposed in the system is the addition of more tracking data in the sensor and in shoes themselves. While the current Nike+iPod kit is essentially a pedometer, a GPS receiver could add extra information about a runner's movement and also trigger certain conditions, such as outlining runs specific to a given location or popping up places of interest that appear near the run, such as restaurants.

The in-shoe invention would include multiple force sensors that could detect the pressure at each point of the foot and determine a runner's style either from run to run or with a new pair of shoes to compare the new footwear's effect on performance; voice feedback from the iPod could advise the user to change their stride or their foot placement to run faster or avoid undue stress.

Apple is under no obligation to use all of the patent's inventions and would likely introduce controversy by requiring that customers use Nike shoes or clothes for its exercise system to work, as a number of companies have developed cases and other enclosures that fit the sensor to third-party shoes.
However, the filing unusually credits the invention to Apple's Senior Director of Product Marketing for the iPhone line, Bob Borchers, as well as company patent attorney Brett Alten; the connection points to research into incorporating such changes in the iPhone or iPod touch.

The second-generation iPod touch introduced this week is the first from Borchers' division that supports Nike+iPod, but so far has no new features aside from its new interface and a built-in receiver.

Panasonic intros 1st Micro Four Thirds camera

2008-09-12T05:04:00.001-07:00

Panasonic chose Friday to break new ground with the launch of the Lumix G1, the first known production camera based on the Micro Four Thirds pseudo-SLR system. The absence of the traditional mirror and a smaller lens mount produce a 12.1-megapixel camera which is both the smallest and lightest to carry swappable lenses but which still has the sensor size and focusing abilities of a more typical DSLR. The lenses themselves are often half the size and weight of a regular SLR parallel.

A live electronic viewfinder makes up for the lack of an optical preview with a more than 1.4-megapixel, 0.7X equivalent look at the camera's target. For more casual or off-angle, the camera maker supplies a three-inch swiveling LCD.

The new imaging system and the G1's focus also give Panasonic free reign to implement software features to accommodate those graduating from strict point-and-shoot cameras as well as more experienced photographers. The camera takes control out of the issue with autofocus tracking, auto scene selection, face detection and a new contrast-based autofocus mode; all of the above can be combined into a full Intelligent Auto mode for absolute novices. Experienced users have a 23-point autofocus system with manual focus points and an adjustable focus point size.

Panasonic's camera further touts optical image stabilization, a dust removal system and HDMI video out for previews. The home user focus becomes evident with the new Lumix arriving in both a professional black as well as blue and red colors; the company hasn't announced pricing but says so far that it will first ship the G1 only as a kit camera, with a 14-45mm, f/3.5-5.6 lens bundled in the box to get users started on Micro Four Thirds. More details should be available in October and will include pricing for a 45-200mm, f/4.0-5.6 optional lens for distance shots.

LG Lotus, Moto i576 land at Sprint

2008-09-11T05:42:00.001-07:00

Wrapping up its phone introductions, Sprint today launched one LG and one Motorola phone for different audiences. The LG Lotus appears targeted at the Verizon Blitz and has a short, squat design built for messaging. In place of the Blitz's slider, the Lotus uses a flip phone layout. LG's device is also pitched as a designer model with an ornate textured pattern and comes with more advanced features than the budget Verizon model, including a two-megapixel camera, full 3G data and stereo Bluetooth audio. External music controls are also part of the design. The Lotus is further one of Sprint's first phones to have its in-house, simplified interface for access to common features that include the company's music and video services. The carrier launches the new LG cellphone sometime in October and will ship it in black and purple versions for $150 when joined to a two-year contract.

Leading off what's promised as a series of new phones for the iDEN push-to-talk network, the Motorola i576 is designed to be equal parts stylized and rugged with a manhole cover-like faceplate and RAZR influences but US military-grade dust- and shock-proofing for hikers and field workers. A camera is absent but is replaced with both Bluetooth and real GPS mapping. It has a specific October 19th debut and will cost $70 with two years of service.

Get Ready For F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin

2008-09-10T05:52:00.001-07:00

Chicago (IL) - We first took a very brief look at the chilling video game F.E.A.R. For the Xbox 360 back at E3 in 2006. The popular title's sequel, now in development, has just spawned a name from developer Monolith Productions – it will be called F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.

F.E.A.R. 2 is being developed for the Xbox 360, Windows PC and PlayStation 3. It is set to be published by Warner Bros. Interactive on Feb. 10 of next year in North America and February 3 in Europe. The game is said to "continue the legacy of the original F.E.A.R. game with story and combat while adding new twists, gameplay and graphics to expand the players’ experience."

Monolith says the sequel begins shortly before the ending of the original title. The plot line is roughly described as follows: "A Special Forces squad is on a routine mission when the city of Auburn is rocked by a supernatural explosion. Alma, a girl with immense power and a thirst for revenge, has unleashed her wrath upon the city and thrown it into chaos. The squad must combat enemy forces and the supernatural as they struggle to find a way to stop Alma and uncover the mysterious forces arrayed against them before it’s too late."

Sony launches full-frame Alpha DSLR

2008-09-10T05:50:00.001-07:00

Sony today at last branched into full-frame digital SLRs with the Alpha A900. The camera aims to outsize both Canon and Nikon with a 24.6-megapixel full-frame sensor, the company's first, that Sony claims is also extra-flat and has on-chip DACs that minimize noise as early as possible in the shot. The electronics maker also outfits the A900 with a 100 percent optical viewfinder and dual BIONZ imaging processors that keep the frame rate up during shooting: it can manage up to five frames per second at full resolution. A new mirror box design for the SLR mechanism makes sure these features don't swell the camera's size.

The camera doesn't support live previews but finds a unique method of previewing shots before committing to the final photo: the camera can sample the scene in RAW and lets users choose the depth of field, dynamic range, white balance and other settings based on the reference image on the three-inch LCD.

Sony promises image stabilization built into the camera body, nine focusing sensors with 11 assist points and +/- 2EV bracketing to get proper exposure even in dark scenes. HDMI provides previews of images and lets users adjust the image output independently for the TV itself.

Sony starts taking preorders for the A900 on Wednesday and ships it in November at the same $3,000 price as the Nikon D700 and similar-class cameras. It will be followed in January by a Vario Sonnar 16-35mm, f/2.8 lens at $1,800 whose focus and fixed aperture suit it to wide angle and low-light shots; a second, 70-400mm f/4-5.6 lens at $1,500 is suited more to telephoto-style shooting for nature and sports.

Lexar intros 16GB ultra-fast UDMA 300x CF card

2008-09-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

Portable storage device maker Lexar on Tuesday announced it has doubled the storage capacity of its current 8GB UDMA CF card with the upcoming release of a higher capacity Compact Flash memory card, the 16GB Professional UDMA 300x. The 300x speed rating translates to sustained write speeds of 45MBps, which is quick enough to keep up with most modern digital SLR cameras’ burst shooting modes. Meant for professional photographers, the Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) interface allows time savings in post-production time when used in conjunction with another UDMA-enabled device. No prices have yet been announced, but with the 8GB UDMA 300x CF card listed at nearly $270 on Lexar’s webstore, a price north of $300 is likely. The card will be available later this month.

Dell slams MacBook Air with E4200 video

2008-09-10T05:47:00.000-07:00

Dell on Tuesday broadsided Apple's famous manila envelope commercial with its own tongue-in-cheek version, removing the Latitude E4200 from the sleeve and comparing it to the MacBook Air. A shiny Dell logo crosses the screen as the notebook is removed from the envelope, set down, and opened in the same manner as the Air in Apple's commercial. Dell highlights the E4200's thinner width and length, but negates to compare the notebook's height, which is known to be taller than the MacBook Air.

The end of the video boasts that the E4200 offers "more substance" and "less air" than its Apple counterpart.

AMD puts out budget Radeon HD 4600

2008-09-10T05:46:00.000-07:00

AMD started off Wednesday by setting a new relative ground floor for performance and hoping to beat NVIDIA's GeForce 9500 cards. The Radeon HD 4600 series is claimed to outperform both the 9500 GT and AMD's own earlier Radeon HD 3650 by including all the hardware optimizations of the 4800 series and still keeping 320 stream (visual effects) processors. It's also one of the least expensive graphics chipsets to support DirectX 10.1 and newer OpenGL 2.x visual effects, such as more precise lighting.

All of the chipsets in the launch lineup are made on a 55nm manufacturing process and so consume relatively little power, according to AMD: neither needs a secondary power connection, and the fastest edition consumes no more than 60 watts of power. The improvement is both more environmentally friendly and also convenient for very thin or small cases.

They also support full hardware HD video decoding and 7.1-channel audio pass-through on cards that have HDMI output.

A basic Radeon HD 4650 is estimated to cost as little as $69 and does so by using 512MB of GDDR2 memory; a Radeon HD 4670 is only slightly more expensive at $79 and switches to faster GDDR3. Both ship now, while the company also plans to enable a 4670 version with 1GB of memory for card makers later this month. In addition to supplying the new Radeons to PC builders that need custom cards, AMD also expects third-party boards from ASUS, Diamond, MSI and several other manufacturers.

HP one-ups Dell, others with 24h battery

2008-09-09T01:22:00.002-07:00

HP today heated up competition against Dell by announcing a special trim level of the EliteBook 6930p that it believes sets a new record in battery life. Through new firmware and graphics drivers, an Ultra Capacity battery pack, an LED-backlit display and Intel's just-launched 80GB SSD, the 14-inch notebook can last for as much as 24 hours on one charge. The figure if accurate would beat Dell's claimed 19-hour record and would be enough to last an entire Newark-to-Singapore flight with extra power left.

The SSD in particular is said to also add a level of shock-proofing that wasn't present in earlier models and also speeds it up in very disk-intensive tasks, in some cases by as much as 57 percent versus an EliteBook with a rotating hard drive.

HP doesn't price this special configuration of the 6930p but says it should be available soon. Dell also hasn't responded to the claims, which would give HP's battery life about seven hours more power than the best performance of HP's previous best portable and multiple times the battery performance of most normally configured notebooks.

Dual-core Atom set to launch in T7-HSG home server?

2008-09-09T01:22:00.001-07:00

The dual-core Atom CPU from Intel will make its debut in a special edition of system builder Tranquil PC's T7 Home Server, the T7-HSG, easily identifiable by its blue body. Another product from the company, a media center PC, will also use the 1.6GHz Z330 chip, though detailed specs, prices and release information on this system was not revealed. The 64-bit CPU will be paired with a Gigabit LAN port in both the T7-HSG and the media center PC. Other details on the T7-HSG are scarce, though it will come with a 500GB drive as standard equipment. It is fan-less and should thus be quiet, and will be available with wall mounts for out-of-the-way installations. Four USB 2.0 ports will allow for hooking up USB devices and expansion via external hard disk drives.

All that is known about the media center PC is that it will have dual DVB-T tuners with at least one HDTV output along with an S-video out. Multi-channel (5.1) HD Audio will be supported thanks to Realtek's ALC662 codec, while the GbE LAN connection will come courtesy of Realtek's RTL8111C controller. The PC’s Maximum capacity will be 2TB.

The 500GB T7-HSG will start shipping on September 30, priced at an equivalent of about $520. Options will include larger-capacity drives, including a 1TB version for about $148, two 250GB 2.5-inch drives for $113 and two 320GB 2.5-inch drives for $173. No such information is available for the unnamed and unseen media center PC.

Vimpelcom: unlocked iPhones due to Russian law

2008-09-09T01:21:00.001-07:00

Although pricing information was not mentioned, Russia-based Vimpelcom on Monday announced it would offer the iPhone with no subsidy, since Russian law dictates that locked phone are illegal. Reuters reveals that Vimpelcom CEO Alexander Izosimov confirmed the move at the Reuters Russia Investment Summit, continuing upon an official launch confirmation in late August. An estimated half-million unlocked iPhone handsets already see use by Russians. "The earlier we start working with it, the better we will be prepared. It is not technologies that will change, but the business model," said Izosimov. "Our research shows that when the iPhone falls into the hands of a customer, the use of data services increases by four to five times." Izosimov made the observation, echoing hopes in the telecommunications industry that have computing technology merging with the rapidly-growing field.

A specific release date was also not mentioned, with the company mentioning an official unveiling "later this year."

New Zunes to get Wi-Fi store, FM tagging

2008-09-08T01:34:00.001-07:00

Microsoft's third-generation Zune players will be the first to support true wireless updating and purchasing, retailer Fry's has unintentionally revealed in an online store listing for a blue 8GB Zune. In addition to confirming both blue and silver as new colors for the flash player, the entry exposes a "Device to Cloud" feature that will let users update their song mix from most Wi-Fi hotspots, including purchasing tracks directly from the Zune Marketplace. The remote access feature will also improve a pair of additional features. The FM radio now supports tagging songs identified by the player that can later be purchased, either directly from the Zune or when it returns to its host PC. Microsoft's Zune Marketplace also has hand-picked playlists dubbed Channels that are updated over time and can be refreshed on the player over the wireless link.

Two important features include Microsoft's promised Zune games, two of which (Texas Hold'em and a port of Hexic) are preloaded on the player and have Xbox 360-like support for custom soundtracks, as well as the ability to share audio podcasts and Channels over the Zune's trademark Zune-to-Zune feature.

As with a recent Amazon leak, Fry's lists the device as in stock, hinting that Microsoft plans to launch the new Zunes the same week as Apple introduces new iPods and two months earlier than Microsoft's usual November updates. Pricing is $150 and should be matched by a 16GB model likely priced at $200.

The upgrades help Microsoft regain some parity with Apple. Although no Zunes are so far expected to support web browsing or third-party apps outside of games, Zunes will now have similar over-the-air purchasing and may have an edge in the ability to update at least some of the player's collection in similar fashion. Apple is known to be readying its iPhone and iPod touch 2.1 firmware for this month and should reveal any potential hidden features at its "Let's Rock" special event on Tuesday.

Intel boosts quad-core Xeons to 3.4GHz

2008-09-08T01:32:00.000-07:00

Intel today set a pair of new speed records for its Xeon 5000 processors ahead of the introduction of their eventual Core i7 successors. The update pushes the quad-core Xeon 5400 series from its previous 3.2GHz limit up to 3.4GHz with the new Xeon X5492; the new flagship also climbs up to the maximum 1.6GHz front side system bus speed. Intel characterizes the processor as intended for performance-driven, full size workstations and servers with a peak 150W of power.

Other introductions trade speed for power savings. A next step down, the X5470, drops to 3.33GHz and a slower 1.33GHz bus while using a more modest 120W of power; a single low-power L5430 entry is aimed at very small-profile desktops and servers and consumes just 50W at its 2.66GHz clock speed, or just a fraction of what a 2.66GHz Xeon processor consumed two years ago. One dual-core Xeon 5200 update has also been added and sees the X5270 set a new high of 3.5GHz with a 1.33GHz bus and 80W of power.

All of the quad-core processors are shipping now and will be available in systems through several large PC makers, including Dell and HP, and range in large-batch prices from $562 for the 2.66GHz part to $1,493 for the 3.4GHz Xeon. The dual-core 3.5GHz chip sells for $1,172 but will be available later this fall.

Intel claims SSD superiority, tries to dispel myths

2008-09-07T02:23:00.000-07:00

San Francisco (CA) – Our love/hate relationship with hard drives may be coming to an end … that is if Intel has its way. For more than a year, Intel has been touting their upcoming solid state drives and at the recent Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel basically trumpeted the end of the spinning magnetic platter era. Lower power consumption, faster speeds and longer life were the reasons people would be buying SSDs in the coming months and Intel engineers gave plenty of numbers to back up their claims. The engineers also claimed that not all solid state drives are created equal and, you guessed it, Intel SSDs were at the top of the dog pile.

At IDF we sat in on an interesting talk given about SSDs in extreme gaming applications. Chris Saleski, an Initiatives Manger at Intel’s Storage Technologies Group, and Jack Weast, Architect with Intel’s Consumer PC Group, showed slide after slide of performance numbers of the upcoming X18 and X25 mainstream SSDs. These drives will come in 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors (as the model numbers imply) and will start with 80 GB capacities that will scale up to 160 GB in the fourth quarter.

Compared to what Intel called “competitor A” and “competitor B”, the X18/25 drives were four to five times faster in some benchmarks. Saleski and Weast touted the drive’s transfer rate which was up to 250 megabytes a second for sequential reads and 75 MB/sec for writes of 4KB and above. All drives aren’t created equal and Weast added, “the manufacturer of the SSD makes a huge difference.”

At another talk give by Intel Fellow Al Fazio, Intel touted SSDs longevity and tried to dispel the myth that SSDs wear out quickly. Fazio’s slides showed that the X-18/25 SSDs have a mean time before failure (MTBF) rating of 1.2 million hours, which is on par with modern server hard drives. In addition, he claimed that the drives can withstand a workload of 100 GB worth of writes a day for five years.

But is this enough? Intel’s spokesperson for the storage group, Deb Paquin, told us that most people only write a few gigabytes worth of data each day, so hitting 100 GB/day would be difficult. “During onsite tests with our own employees, we found that most people used about 2GB to 3 GB a day, and the highest power user we had was much less than 20GB,” Paquin said.

So if you extrapolate Intel’s data, then at 2-3 GB a day an SSD should outlast our frail human bodies, but what if the drive was under heavy load, like that of a server or perhaps even a rogue or poorly written program?

Intel’s claim of 100 GB/day for five years totals approximately 182500 GB worth of writes or 182.5 terabytes. Let’s make a big assumption that we can max out the 70 MB/sec max transfer rate until the SSD dies, this gives us 19 minutes to write the entire 80 GB disk and 30 days to hit 182.5 terabytes. Now I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t look too shabby considering most people would notice something bad was happening after an hour or two, let alone 30 days.

Paquin tells us that engineers in the Intel labs have actually completely worn out an SSD, but unlike regular hard drives that fail catastrophically (gotta love that thunk or high-pitched whine of a head crash), you probably won’t know if your SSD is actually failing. Flash memory has a limited number of write and erase cycles, but modern SSDs perform wear leveling which spreads out the writes throughout the disk. Essentially the drive wears uniformly and without the user knowing any better. If some blocks are getting close to being worn out, the drive controller rewrites the data to spare blocks and then remaps the logical address to the new location, so basically your operating system doesn’t know any better. In fact, modern SSDs contain extra capacity just for this purpose.

Paquin adds that a drive that has completely worn out (meaning no more spare blocks) will become read-only, so you shouldn’t lose any data. But she cautioned that SSDs really shouldn’t be used for long-term storage. “No flash SSD should be thought of as an archival storage, but it is important that the drive remain reliable over the serviceable life, which our SATA drive does by the means just described,” she said.

But ok, so if SSDs are so much better than hard drives, why aren’t our computers full of them by now? Cost is definitely one factor as a decent 64 GB SSD will set you back several hundred dollars these days, but beyond cost the slow adoption of SSDs can be summed up in one word ‘fear’.

Most computer users have lived with hard drives for decades and I personally remember my wonderfully huge Commodore 64 hard drive that I bought in my high school days. And while we know a hard drive can crash at any moment, we’re comfortable in the fact that we’ll definitely know that something is wrong and we’re ok with that compared to the “silent” death of an SSD.

But on the enterprise level, Paquin argues that SSD drive death doesn’t have to be silent and that SMART technology (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) will test for and diagnose drive problems before they become a problem. SMART actively monitors drive blocks and warns the user of faulty sectors, read/write errors and temperature variations. Proponents of the technology say this could help operating systems predict when an SSD is about to fail, but according to some people the technology doesn’t always work as advertised.

John Christopher, a Senior Data Recovery Engineer at DriveSavers - company that has made a name for itself in recovering hard drive data – told us that DriveSavers has been performing an increasing number of data recoveries on flash devices with most of the problems being data corruption and accidental deletion and formatting. Christopher said SMART didn’t work as advertised in the hard drive arena and we can infer that it might not do such a great job in SSDs as well.

“S.M.A.R.T. technology showed a lot of promise when it was introduced but hasn't really panned out as a method of providing an early warning system to identify potential hard drive failure,” said Christopher.

Christopher agrees that some type of early warning system should be implemented for SSDs and indeed all types of storage media. “Carmakers build systems into vehicles they manufacture that monitor oil levels, brake wear and so forth, so it would make sense to have something similar to future storage devices that we rely on daily to hold critical data,” he told us, but he adds that so far it’s “probably too early to predict how reliable these devices will be in the long term.”

And that pretty much sums it up… it’s still too early and most people are taking a wait and see approach to SSDs. Logically we know they’re probably better, but emotionally the story is different.

Concept art for Intel’s Larrabee launch title released

2008-09-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

Exclusive – In February of this year, Intel acquired game developer Offset Software and its game engine technology with the obvious goal to deliver a game that can show off the capabilities of its upcoming discrete graphics card, code-named Larrabee. Late Friday we got our hands on new concept art, revealing some of the work that has been done over the past six months and received word that Offset will also be launching a new community to collect feedback from gamers on Monday.

It is a bit early to get excited about Intel’s Larrabee graphics chip and even if you are a PC enthusiast, you may want to be thinking about purchasing another “regular” graphics card, before you can get a better idea of at what Intel’s “many-x86 core” graphics card may be capable of. But Intel is aiming high and we don’t expect Intel to throw out anything that can’t compete with the best there is once Larrabee will be available in 2009 and 2010.

To demonstrate its horsepower, Intel will have to have at least one compelling launch title – and to make sure that it will exploit everything Larrabee has to offer, the company purchased Offset Software in early 2008. There have been a few screens available so far and today we received two more that showcase the direction Offset is thinking. Still images can’t tell the whole story and we are careful voicing any opinion how capable Project Offset will be. Instead, click into our gallery below and see for yourself.

The other piece of news Offset and Intel will announce on Monday is the relaunch of Offset’s community forum at 10 AM PST. We hear the Offset team is “excited” to be back online and touch base with users again. That is, of course, because Offset hopes to get user feedback on the game title it is developing.

Project Offset, developed as a first person shooter based on the Offset engine, has been a little known effort until a video leaked to the web in July 2007. The visuals received praise, but the company almost disappeared from the surface of the earth when Intel announced that it had acquired the studio. No further information about Project Offset has been provided since then and as far as the game engine is concerned, we only know that it has been licensed by Red5 Studios. Project Offset was rumored to be a PC only game before the Intel acquisition and now we are certain that this in fact will be the case. Intel would not pour money into a game that may look better on a game console than on a PC.

That said, keep in mind that video gaming is Intel’s strategy to drive mass-market adoption of Larrabee. The technology is foremost a many-core x86 product that is being built to do much more than render games, but is spearheading Intel’s visual computing strategy, which will also include floating point acceleration. If Intel’s strategy works out and it can sell enough Larrabee products to convince software developers not to write highly threaded code for Nvidia and AMD graphics cards, it may be able to keep programmers on the x86 track and may decide the many-core technology race for the CPU and against the GPU.

MS readying cross-device Zune service?

2008-09-07T02:20:00.000-07:00

Microsoft is finally hoping to unify its Zune Marketplace and services with other devices, the company reveals in a recent job posting for a Software Development Engineer. The firm hopes to develop a new, "unified entertainment service" that would work on not just the company's music player and PCs but also on Windows Mobile devices and the Xbox console lineup as well. At present, Microsoft's storefronts are balkanized and don't allow Xbox Video Marketplace content to be transferred outside of the game system, while protected Zune Marketplace content refuses to play on the Xbox even when the player is directly connected.

The listing makes it clear that the project is just starting and thus that Microsoft doesn't expect to have a unified service for a significant amount of time, suggesting that the company is aiming for an iTunes level of integration between different device types but is significantly delayed versus Apple's services, which rely on a common OS X operating system core for most devices to ensure that they can all recognize the same music and videos.

AMD to launch 45nm quad-core Phenoms on 8 January 2009

2008-09-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

What desktop processors are AMD planning to release during the final three months of the year? A leaked roadmap slide reveals all. And its first 'Deneb' desktops will debut in January 2009.

The slide, sent to Spanish-language site ChileHardware, highlights 8 October as the next entry on AMD's calendar. On that day it'll launch the 2.5GHz, 95W Phenom X3 8850 and the 2.6GHz, 45W Athlon X2 5050e.

The following month, we'll see the arrival of the 1.6GHz Athlon 2650, a chip that consumes a mere 15W, though it's only a single core part. However, it'll be accompanied by the dual-core Athlon X2 3250e, a 1.5GHz chip that consumes up to 22W.

December will see the launch of a second, clock-unlocked version of the Phenon X3 8850.

AMD's 'Deneb' core: launching in January 2009

The December section of the roadmap also lists a pair of quad-core Phenom X4s, one clocked at 3GHz, the other at 2.8GHz. Neither has a model number, but they're Deneb 45nm chips said to be "under embargo until Jan 8th".

That's the second day of next year's Consumer Electronics Show, so AMD's clearly out to make a big splash at the show with its first so-called 'Stars' desktop CPUs, both 125W beasts, despite the

So while Deneb will launch next January, AMD seems to be gearing up to get them out the door before the end of 2008, allowing it to rightfully claim the part shipped in H2 2008, as it promised in March this year.

The roadmap also refers to a November release for "AMD Ultra-Value Client (UVC)" processors. These are almost certainly Geode parts, suggesting AMD's preparing to tackle Intel's desktop Atom processors in the 'nettop' market.

Silent Hill: Homecoming ‘First Hours’ Impressions

2008-09-04T07:41:00.000-07:00

A considerable number of naysayers in the Silent Hill fan community are – perhaps justifiably, perhaps not – up in arms over the coming release of the series’ sixth iteration, subtitled Homecoming. The reasons are two-fold. First, more and more fans have come to question the value of perpetual sequels for a series which has increasingly replaced innovation with derivation.

Second, Homecoming marks the first Silent Hill console release to be developed not by Konami’s Team Silent but by an external developer instead, Double Helix Studios. And a Western developer at that. Of course, Silent Hill: Origins was ported from PlayStation Portable to PlayStation 2 and both of those were developed here in the States by Climax Studios. However, Homecoming is planned for a late-September release on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Windows PC platforms which officially makes it a big-ticket, AAA item. And we’ve spent the past week absorbing the first several hours of a preview build. Naysayer or not, you know you want to hear our impressions.

So click through for the goods.

By now, fans know the basic story of Silent Hill: Homecoming. Army vet Alex Shepherd is on his way home for the first time in a number of years, drawn there by disturbing dreams concerning his younger brother Josh. The game proper actually opens within one of those nightmares, with Alex following his always just out of reach brother through the halls of a dilapidated hospital, presumably Silent Hill’s (the town, not the game) Alchemilla.

The effort Double Helix has put into carrying the series into the current console generation is instantly apparent. The hospital itself looks like a war zone, a lightless, crumbling wasteland which is completely at odds with the house of healing it clearly once was. Alex “awakens” in his dream strapped to a metal gurney. Breaking free of the restraints, he grabs a nearby flashlight and sets off to locate his younger sibling.

This section of the game is pure Silent Hill, introducing players to the basics of the series’ puzzles and combat. The first problem that presents itself is a locked door controlled by a keypad, behind which young Josh is clearly visible. In the next room is a working X-ray viewer where Alex finds three numbers scrawled on half of an X-ray. Unfortunately, the keypad requires six numbers meaning that Alex is going to have to find the other half of that X-ray.

As Silent Hill puzzles go, this is a fairly simple one. It is important for introducing players to the game’s basic approach to puzzles: present players with a clue and then send them off into the murky, frightful unknown where everything they’ll need to piece together a solution awaits. Even in the space of the four or so hours we logged with the preview build, we found that puzzles begin to get more complex rather quickly.

During his travels, Alex also comes across and retrieves a combat knife stabbed through a mirror in one of the hospital’s bathrooms. Picking up the blade sets of a sourceless siren, at which point the room transforms into the rust-colored, blood-soaked environs of Silent Hill’s Otherworld. It is here that players are introduced to combat, when one of the series’ ever-present nurses emerges from a stall and attacks.

Unlike most of the previous Silent Hill protagonists, Alex is combat-trained and downright deadly when he needs to be. Weapons – which become permanent fixtures in the inventory once they’re found – can be swung in either a fast attack or a chargeable power attack. Alex can even string together some fairly damaging, if simple, fast->power combos.

Unfortunately, button-mashing won’t exactly get the job done. The nurses prove to be pretty simple – lone ones, at least – but later enemies, particularly a freakish spider-beast with four bladed legs, are given to blocks, dodges and stun attacks. Thankfully, Alex is trained enough to know how to avoid an incoming blow. Whenever an enemy prepares to strike, players can hit the dodge button to slide out of the way and move into prime position for a counter combo. In a nice touch, Alex and enemies alike also show real-time battle damage; as Alex slashes at that initial nurse, an increasing number of bloody lacerations become visible on her body.

In fact, the attention paid by Double Helix to minor details such as that really elevate the experience as a whole. The by-default HUD-free presentation is just a starting point. Insects are constantly seen skittering along the walls and floors at the periphery of Alex’s vision; shine a light in their direction and watch as they scatter. The hospital is also filled with all manner of loose detritus: IV stands, empty gurneys, boxes and so on. All of it is interactive to the point that Alex can bump into things and move them about; not only does this create a bigger mess, the noise also alerts any nearby enemies to Alex’s presence. So step lightly.

Some of the level designs are also fairly inspired. Our favorite was the Shepherd’s Glen cemetery, which Alex visits fairly early in the story. Rather than just send players through an open field filled with gravestones, Double Helix instead turned the burial ground into a maze of twisting, narrow corridors and rundown open courtyards. It’s not a wholesale change of course. Other locations, such as Silent Hill’s Grand Hotel, are more in keeping with the environments players have come to know from past games. But the new locations, such as the aforementioned graveyard and even the surprisingly expansive surroundings of Alex’s childhood home, add some welcome variety to the proceedings.

There are of course still major questions to be answered about the story. Is it at all significant that Alex’s last name – Shepherd – also happens to be part of his hometown’s name, not to mention the maiden name of Silent Hill 2 protagonist James Sunderland’s deceased wife? And what is the deal with Alex’s father/town sheriff, Adam Shepherd, and that locked “hunting room” of his?

Players will get the opportunity to mine for answers thanks to a new branching dialogue mechanic. As Alex encounters faces from his past in the nearly deserted town of Shepherd’s Glen, players will be able to guide the course of his conversations by selecting dialogue options mapped to the different face buttons. While running through the same encounter using a different set of options led us to a uniform conclusion each time, it seems reasonable to expect that the tone Alex takes with others will in some way influence the game’s final outcome (Double Helix has already stated that Homecoming will at least feature a series-standard “UFO” ending).

The only real complaint we have – one which almost certainly will not be addressed in these final pre-release weeks – is that the save points are far too scattered for a game which doesn’t employ checkpoint saves or offer retry options. In all other ways, Homecoming feels pretty polished and fun to play. The focus is more on combat in this outing – in the early going anyway – but at least that focus is justified by Alex’s previous training.

After digging into the first hours of Silent Hill: Homecoming, we walk away encouraged for the game’s coming September 30 release. The jump-scares are at a minimum from what we’ve seen so far, but the general ambience is highly effective in creating and maintaining a constant sense of impending disaster. Yes Pyramid Head is present and yes he looks more like his film-adapted counterpart than he does like the Silent Hill 2 original, but don’t discount his presence and other seemingly out-of-place elements until you know the full story. Based on what we’ve played so far, the entertaining, well-designed gameplay will make it a story worth unfolding.

Chrome is a security nightmare, indexes your bank accounts

2008-09-04T07:37:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles (CA) – Can a browser’s search function work too well? After playing around with Google’s brand new Chrome browser, we’ve discovered that its history search box will fetch all types of data - even text from HTTPS-protected financial sites like Washington Mutual and Capital One. With a few utterly simple keywords like balance, account and Sept., everything from balance information, account numbers and even how much you spent at Costco can be pulled up.

To see all of this in action, just open up Chrome and log in to your favorite financial website. Like most important sites, it should be protected with HTTPS/SSL encryption and that should be evident in the address bar of the browser. Do the stuff you would normally do like look at your balances and gawk at your latest transactions and then open up a new tab in Chrome by clicking the “+” symbol. In the right-hand history search box, enter a few keywords and see what they get you. Surprised? I bet you are. No luck? Then try something simple like oh Visa, Mastercard, balance and account. Also try out the names and abbreviations of months like September, Sept and Sep.

If you’re like me, you probably saw account balances and some transaction details, but if you further refine your keywords you’d be able to see a lot more. We first discovered this “problem” by browsing the forensicfocus.com forums. “Problem” is in quotes because we’re not sure if this is a true vulnerability or Google Chrome’s search function working as intended – in this case, just too damn good. While playing around with the forensic implications of Chrome, “Jelle” on the forums posted that he and his partner noticed the browser was indexing information from HTTPS sites.

“One interesting finding is that in the regular browsing mode, Chrome creates a search index of the contents of a lot of the pages you visit. This allows you to do keyword searching in your own web history. On some of our tests, we found that content of https pages had been indexed as well, allowing us to retrieve our bank account details using a keyword search,” Jelle posted.

Of course after reading this I just had to give it a try and logged into my Washington Mutual and Capital One credit card accounts. I looked at my pathetically low bank account balances along with my insanely high outstanding credit card balances. Then I pulled up a recent list of transactions for the month (damn you gas prices) - on many financial websites this information is usually shown on the very first page after logging in. Then I opened up a new tab and started playing around with keywords.

Thinking like a hacker, my first plan of attack was to enumerate or list the financial services. After enumeration, I could drill down into the exact accounts and transactions. By simply typing in Visa, Mastercard, account and the names of popular banks you can find the types of accounts and which institution they belong to. In my case, Capital and Washington worked just fine. To get my account balance, I just typed in “balance” and to get transaction information I entered “transaction”. Typing in “costco” pulled up how much I spent on my last trip.

Is there a way to protect your financial information from being indexed? Google Chrome does have an incognito mode that promises to not cache anything. This can be accessed from the file menu in the upper-right corner of the window or by using the keyboard shortcut (Control Shift N). You can also clear your browser data after surfing to a financial website by going to the tools menu that’s also in the upper-right corner.

It was just yesterday that I wrote about Chrome’s security as being “not bad”, but I personally don’t get a warm and fuzzy feeling if Chrome is indexing all of my financial information. Search and indexing is what Google is good at and the company has made my life a whole lot easier in many ways, but indexing financial info is crossing the line.

On the programming level, I can’t really blame Google’s developers though because HTTPS was never meant to provide any protection anyways on the desktop itself. The protection was developed to protect traffic as it travelled through the “Wild West” Internet. But while this distinction is clear to most of our readers – the regular person probably believes HTTPS/SSL traffic is and should be protected on the desktop.

So is this all a big deal? Well anyone who wants to search your financial information would need local access to your machine and if a person is sitting at your computer, you have a lot more things to worry about than him/her using Chrome’s history search. Conceivably a hacker could develop an app to pull the cache and index files off your computer and examine them later on another machine – these files reside in the “C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default” folder.

But on a simpler level, if ALL of the sites I visit are being keyworded and indexed locally, then how do I know that this information will stay local. I guess that depends on how much you trust Google.

Sony recalls 73,000 Vaio TZ notebooks

2008-09-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

Washington, D.C. – The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission Sony issued a recall for about 73,000 Sony Vaio TZ-series notebooks, which include a manufacturing defect that can cause a short circuit and overheating. Buyers these notebooks should stop using the devices “immediately”.

Last year, more than 10 million Sony-manufactured notebook batteries carrying a potential fire hazard a potential were recalled. This time, the fire hazard is not due to batteries, but due to “irregularly positioned wires near the computer’s hinge and/or a dislodged screw inside the hinge,” which can cause a “short circuit and overheating”.

Affected are about 73,000 11.1” Vaio VGN-TZ100, VGN-TZ200, VGN-TZ300 and VGN-TZ2000 notebooks that were sold from July 2007 through August 2008 for prices between $1700 and $4000.

Sony said that it has received 15 reports of such cases - including one customer who suffered a minor burn - so far and is concerned enough to tell its customers to “stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.” Sony advised customers to contact Sony at (888) 526-6219 or via web at www.sony.com/support to determine if their notebook is affected. The firm will arrange for an inspection and repair, if needed.

The 2007 battery call cost Sony more than $430 million in recalls and affected every major notebook manufacturer worldwide – including Dell, which recalled 4.2 million computers, 526,000 Lenovo systems 340,000 Toshiba laptops, 287,000 Fujitsu notebooks, 90,000 Sony Vaio systems and 1.8 million Apple notebooks.

Sony to recall TZ ultraportables due to burn risk

2008-09-04T07:35:00.001-07:00

Sony on Thursday joined up with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to issue a product recall for its VAIO TZ series notebooks. The PC builder explains that some of the 11.1-inch ultraportable systems have unusually positioned wires or loose screws in and near the display hinge that can trigger overheating or a short circuit, either of which is potentially dangerous. As many as 15 known incidents have been reported, including one with minor burns, the Commission says.

The recall affects about 440,000 systems and allows users to keep running the TZ until it's repaired. Sony is fronting the cost of the repairs and will fix the systems for free at the user's home or office if they prefer, though at the moment it declines to replace systems outright without first trying the repair.

Sony's new program is the second in as many years for its notebook technology and follows a global battery recall that affected itself, Apple and several other major PC builders. It subsequently triggered a Japanese lawsuit and investigations into battery fires.

The reliability issue also hurts Sony's ultraportable business, which is considered successful but has been hurt in recent months by the emergence of more ultraportables from companies with historically better reliability records, such as Apple and Lenovo.

Pioneer intros Blu-ray 2.0 player, ships KUROs

2008-09-04T07:34:00.000-07:00

Pioneer's efforts at the CEDIA show were unveiled today and focused on updates to its Elite Blu-ray and plasma lines. The releases are led by an addition to its Elite Blu-ray players of the BDP-09FD, its new top-end reader. The device is claimed as a first in the category and adds a new 16-bit imaging engine that it says improves video decoding, particularly for upscaling; most high-end readers still use 14-bit hardware. It also stands as Pioneer's first Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player with the option of Internet features as well as upgrading the player's firmware online.

The player is similarly committed to audio with a separate power supply just for the audio as well as individual DACs for each component of the 7.1 audio channels; it natively handles Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio with supporting movies and speakers.

The 09FD further supports 24 frames per second titles natively and carries two HDMI 1.3a inputs. Pioneer is hesistant to announce a ship date but will sell its new flagship for $2,199.

Matching the custom-install focus of CEDIA, Pioneer also said that it has begun shipping its two latest Elite KURO plasma TVs built for these specialized home theaters. The 50-inch PRO-101FD and 60-inch PRO-141FD both produce deep blacks but also have a thinner profile designed to be embedded into or hung on a wall. Their color calibration is also advanced and lets owners or home theater installers learn the white balance specific to the exact set, allowing them to adjust colors relative to the exact set.

The plasmas sell for $5,500 and $7,000 at their respective sizes.

Refreshed PSP to launch in Japan for $180

2008-09-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

Tokyo (Japan) – Sony’s Playstation Portable (PSP) will see its first major feature update next month: Scheduled for an October 16 launch in Japan, the new PSP-3000 is positioned to challenge Nintendo’s DS console, which currently outsells the PSP by almost 3:1 and has a substantial lead in total units sold.

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan (SCEJ) today said that it will begin shipping the PSP-3000 on October 16 in Japan. Priced at about $180, or roughly the same as the original PSP in March 2005, the new device will come with an advanced high contrast LCD and a built-in microphone. As previously reported, Sony will sell the device in three colors - black, white and silver - initially.

For a premium of about 20% or $40, the company will also offer a higher a “value pack” that includes a 4 GB memory stick, a PSP pouch, a hand strap and a cloth. There will be plenty of opportunity to order extras, such as a $35 accessory pack for and a $50 battery pack. A cradle will sell for $40 and “Cradle and D terminal AV cable” for $60. If Japanese users want to, they can spend close to $400 for their new PSP, excluding any new games.

Speaking of games, Sony will bundle the new PSP with several games, including Mobile Suit Gundam vs. Gundam (launch November 20, Patapon 2 Donchaka (November 27) and Dissida Final Fantasy (December 18).

PSP users will soon be able to acquire new games through the Playstation Store through a PS3 and without the need for a PC. There will also be a new free online service which enables users to play PSP software titles featuring ad-hoc mode over the Internet through PS3 with other online players, Sony said.

Sony is still trying to crack the market power of Nintendo’s DS, which sold 608,400 units in July, while the PSP sold only 221,700 units in the same time frame, according to market research firm NPD. Sony sold 40.69 million PSPs between March 2005 and April 2008; Nintendo sold 77.54 million DS consoles between the November 2004 launch and July 31, 2008.

Why Chrome is a fantastic browser

2008-09-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

First Look - We have had a chance to have a thorough look at Google’s new Chrome and run the browser to range of usability tests. Our initial conclusion is that the Chrome beta reveals a much more ergonomic and useful browser than what the available versions of today's established browsers can offer. Yes, it is very rough around the edges, but we are officially impressed with what we've seen so far. Here are our top five observations of features we believe are proof that Chrome is here to stay.

People say that the first impression often is key to make you love or hate a product. In the case of Chrome, it took only a few minutes to convince me that Google’s latest product is an amazing browser and a new type of browser that takes this software category to the next level. At first sight, Chrome may look like it has bypassed all graphic designers, but it is very consistent with all other Google software in a way you would expect it to look and feel – in a similar way how you expect Apple software to look and how you expect Microsoft software to feel.

In Chrome’s case, the GUI is extremely thin and lightweight. Instead of showing shiny buttons, it is focused on usability and speed. Performance, search and browsing are its top three unique selling points that leave any other browser in the dust at this time.

Most importantly, Chrome impressed me with its responsiveness when dozens of tabs were loaded at once. When a site crashes, you simply close a tab to kill all associated processes and reclaim the occupied memory without fragmentation. This is possible because Google actually developed a cloud operating system of its own that just happens to accommodate a browser as well. I am convinced that Chrome is a big step towards what may evolve into an operating system from Google aimed at thin clients.

A fresh user interface

Google user interfaces take time getting used to. Remember the first time you saw Google Search and compared it to Yahoo? It felt a bit empty to me. You may have the same impression with Chrome. A simple, uncluttered user interface gets - a trademark of Google product design – can take you quickly to the feature you need – once you are familiar with Chrome’s workflow and a few shortcuts. The main window is slightly rounded with the standard minimize, maximize and close buttons. There's no window title, no icons or menu bar to obscure your view. Tabs sit on top followed by the toolbar below - that's it. A light blue window background frames the browsing area, tabs and the toolbar.

Consider the UI the opposite extreme of IE8, which occasionally feels overloaded and may overwhelm some users. Chrome is reduced to the minimum, which can speed up your daily browsing tasks. On the downside, you will have to explore the deeper feature set and learn some shortcuts to reveal Chrome’s productivity potential.

Dynamic tabs

Chrome nails the task of window and tab management with useful keyboard shortcuts that simplify navigation patterns. Drag a tab to a new slot and others get out of the way smoothly. Close a few tabs and the remaining extend to the width of your entire after a brief pause – there’s a bit of Apple design philosophy in this feature. You can drag a tab out of the Chrome window (it will turn into a large site thumbnail) onto your desktop to create a new window. You can move tabs between windows effortlessly, without any slowdown or delay. You can also close all tabs associated with the current tab with a single option.

When you open a new tab, the window will show a grid of nine websites you have visited the most. Unlike Opera, Chrome doesn't let you assign your own set of sites to the nine slots. Boxes with search engines you use the most, links to three recently closed tabs and your most recent bookmarks are placed in a right column. You can also access your full browsing history by choosing a small "Show full history" option at the bottom of the “home” page.

Tabs have become one of most important features within a modern browser and Chrome does a great job handling multiple web pages. There is just one annoying omission that spoils the experience - Tabs shrink to an extremely small width when you open lots of them – which means that you can read the window titles anymore. Google should consider the Firefox solution of a scrolled tabs area. Also, there is no drop down menu to view all your tabs and select the one you want.

I also have to say that I like Microsoft’s idea to create groups of tabs – for example for pages you open from one website into multiple tabs. Microsoft color-codes these tab groups, which, in our opinion, is a must-have feature for a modern browser.

Navigation and search/address bar

The main toolbar with navigation options is positioned below your tabs. It has just seven buttons and the dominant URL box. There are forward and backward arrows reload and go buttons, two buttons that open page and settings menus and a star symbol to bookmark a page. The pictograms on buttons should be recognized by anyone who has used a browser before. In fact, Chrome's toolbar combines the best of Firefox 3 (bookmark star, back/forward buttons) and IE7 (buttons with drop-down menus for page options and settings), but it differs in two important details. There is no home button or search bar.

Eliminating these two input options is one of the “strange” new features that will require you to adjust your browsing behavior. But if your homepage is a search engine anyway, then Chrome has eliminated the need for a home page. Here’s why.

The lack of a home button guiding you to a certain website may be a matter of personal preference. It is one of those original features of a web browser that acts as a door to the web and provides you with a starting point. However, Google was able to eliminate the two input options since the most popular websites are listed right on the front page, effectively giving you multiple start options (a fixed configuration option would be nice) and if you are using Google Search as your home page, you can now use the address bar for your searches - no matter where you are.

When you start typing in the address bar, it will suggest popular sites, searches and pages you already visited that contain your search term. You can choose a suggested item from the drop-down list or simply hit ENTER to send your query to the default search provider (which you can set in Chrome's preferences). You can also use common search operators. Additionally, there is a handy Paste-and-Search option - simply mark a word, right-click and search for the selection. But searches in Chrome are much more intelligent than that.

Other, site-integrated search engines are accessible directly from the address bar in an innovative way. Start typing a search engine's URL or name (for example “YouTube”). If Chrome finds it in its internal search engine list, it auto-completes the address and offers you to hit TAB to select that site’s engine for search (if supported by that site.) Simply enter your search term and hit ENTER to be taken directly to that search engine's results page, in this case YouTube's.

Chrome shines when you want to reach previously visited pages. Just start typing any piece of content you can remember, such as a headline, parts of text, or a combination of words you may remember. Since your search provider has cached all the pages you visited before, Chrome can ping it to bring up the appropriate page based on the partial content you provided. If your search provider is Google, then Google Suggest service will be used to provide auto-suggestions. You can turn off the auto-suggestion in Chrome’s settings.

Save web applications to the desktop

You can create desktop, start menu and quick launch shortcuts to a site to run web applications in their own streamlined window with maximum working space without tabs, bars, menus or an address bar – which may be useful for social networking sites, map or weather services. Simply select the "Create application shortcut" option under the Page button to create shortcut to any site. Chrome even assigns site's icon to the shortcut. The shortcut actually launches a site in Chrome window without UI controls, which creates the look and feel of a desktop application.

If the web application is Gears-enabled, a local copy of your online data will be made so that you can continue to work on your online documents even while offline. Next time you are online, Gears synchronizes the changes with the cloud. Mozilla Prism technology also brings this capability to Firefox, but Gears (formerly known as Google Gears) has been on the market longer and has gained traction with web developers.

Under the hood

Although Chrome uses some components from Apple's WebKit and Mozilla's Firefox, Google says it developed Chrome from scratch with no legacy code to limit its creativity. Chrome may look and act like a web browser, but it really is a mini operating system that accommodates a web browser. The browser itself has the highest priority and everything else runs in a sandboxed, protected environment so that Chrome's security can't be easily compromised by malware or misbehaving web applications.

Everything that runs inside tabs operates independently of the browser. Each tab runs in its own protected process so no tab can affect other tabs, freeze Chrome or impact its responsiveness. Every Firefox user who runs a couple dozen tabs at once will appreciate this feature. Although it takes up a bit more memory upfront, Chrome is extremely efficient when multiple tabs are opened. What is most important, it doesn't fragment memory over time as you open and close many tabs. I was surprised how responsive Chrome remains no matter how much I threw at it.

In case something goes wrong, Chrome has its own task manager (Shift + ESC), which is similar to Windows task manager. It enables you to see how much resources each browsing process consumes and enables you to kill those you find inappropriate. The same is achieved when you close a tab. You can even click on an amusing "Stats for nerds" option in task manager to reveal detailed statistics of every process, script and even plug-ins that run in Chrome. If you run multiple browsers, you can see their memory usage as well.

The new V8 scripting engine runs web applications at incredible speed, thanks to the compiler that turns JavaScript programs into executable machine code that runs directly on your computer's processor. Byte-code JavaScript interpreters used in other browsers cannot compete with Chrome's V8 technology at this time.

Useful links
Chrome keyboard shortcuts
How to find search engine URLs
How to manually add, edit or remove your search providers

Samsung offers own take on DSLR miniaturization

2008-09-03T10:56:00.001-07:00

Following almost a month behind Olympus' and Panasonic's Micro Four Thirds camera system announcement, Samsung unveiled plans for a similar system with interchangeable lenses and its internally-manufactured 14MP APS-C sensor. Amateur Photographer reveals that Samsung's project is allegedly dissimilar from the Micro Four Thirds system, with the company claiming to have been working on this system for some time. The aim of the project is the same: to reduce overall lens and camera body size, while maintaining a professional level of quality for the images it produces. Prototypes of Samsung-manufactured lenses are currently being tested.

Samsung will reportedly not abandon its current GX DSLR cameras, but will look to compliment them with the "hybrid" system instead. The company expects to release the new models in 2010.

Sony reveals PS3 Bluetooth Headset for Japan

2008-09-02T09:01:00.001-07:00

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan announced on Tuesday the specs and launch information for its Bluetooth Wireless Headset designed for gaming use on Sony's PlayStation 3 console. As reported earlier, the headset will launch at the same time as SOCOM: Confrontation and will also be available as a bundle with the online first-person shooting game. The headset will fit on either ear, and automatically pairs with the PS3 via Bluetooth 2.1+EDR thanks to the included USB cable, provided the host system has the latest software update installed. A noise-cancelling feature can be activated when the headset is set to a high quality mode. The headset also incorporates a mute button and Sony says its built-in lithium ion battery life is rated at eight hours of talk time. Charging is done via the included cradle, which connects to the PS3 or computers via a USB cable. Like Sony's wireless controllers, the headset's status can be brought up on the screen.

The HSP and HFP hands-free Bluetooth profiles are supported by the headset, which lets it serve as a full-fledged cellphone earpiece up to its maximum range of 33 feet.

The headset will debut in Japan on October 30, priced at the equivalent of about $46. Bundled with the newest SOCOM title, the price will be set at about $74. An announcement regarding the headset's release for North America is expected in the near future.

Intel launches three budget desktop processors

2008-09-02T09:00:00.001-07:00

Chipmaker Intel has quietly released three new desktop processors, according to a Monday report. The new quad-core Q8200 and dual-core E5200 share a more modern 45 nanometer architecture, while the Celeron D 450 is made on the older 65nm topology. The new quad-core chip is meant as a true entry-level quad-core chip and runs at 2.33GHz with a simpler 4MB of L2 cache along with a 1,333MHz front system bus. The dual-core E5200 will trade the extra cores for a 2.5GHz processing speed, also halving its Level 2 cache to 2MB and reducing the system bus to 800MHz. The 65nm Celeron D 450 shares the same-speed bus but uses a 2.2GHz core frequency and just 512KB of L2 cache.

In bulk, 1,000-unit quantities, the chips will be priced at $224 for the Q8200, $84 for the E5200 and $53 for the 450. No word has been given of price cuts to faster models.

Open-source Google Chrome browser based on Webkit

2008-09-02T08:59:00.001-07:00

Google this weekend accidentaly leaked details -- via an online comic book -- on its upcoming cross-platform open-source browser: Google Chrome -- which it claims will deliver a streamlined and improved interface along with performance improvements and security enhancements; the new browser is based on both Apple's Webkit, the core of the Safari browser, and Firefox, the rapidly growing alternative browser, but will square off against Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which dominates the internet, but continues to play catch up with security flaws and compatibility. The beta version of Google Chrome, only for for PCs initially, is expected to ship on Tuesday in more than 100 countries, while Mac and Linux versions are in development.

"On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the web," the company wrote in its blog. "Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go."

The company claims that it separates each tab or visited website in its own "sandbox," a private secure environment that keeps information from other sites: it not only protects privacy, but also offers better stability and performance, the search giant claimed. The user interface will allow a tab to be created "incognito," a privacy mode that will not log any of the activity onto the computer, cookies are wiped out and history is not saved when it is closed.

The company will "sandbox" plugins into their own process and also focus on improving JavaScript, which is used to build and deploy a variety of advanced features on. Google plans on using a separate JavaScript virtual machine that generates machine code, directly using the capabilities of the CPU for optimal performance.

Another benefit of sandboxing, according to the comic, is that the rights for each process are reduced, not allowing malware to install itself on a computer or affect what is happening in another tab. According to the engineers, the processes "can compute but they can't write files to your hard drive or read files from sensitive areas like your documents or desktop." The user must give explicit permission for high level access.

"We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers," Google said.

Google's comic pointed out that current browsers can be affected by fragmented memory, pushing the browser closer to a crash as the user opens new tabs and closes old tabs, even though they might only have a few open at one time. Without the ability to separate the processes, if one thing goes wrong, the whole browser is liable to crash. Chrome's multi-process approach will allow each tab to run individual independent processes- if one tab fails, the browser recognizes the problem, ends the process in that tab, but the others retain function.

Even within one tab, when the user switches from site to site, Chrome will completely switch the process and reclaim the memory. If a slow-down occurs, a task manager can be opened to see exactly what pages or even what plugins are hogging memory, CPU power, or bandwidth.

Google also hoped that its efforts will begin to address the lingering performance and compatibility issues that face a wide variety of cross-platform browsers by using an automatic testing -- an internet "bot" -- to check and test millions of the most popular pages each week (based on Google PageRank).

During the testing thus far, Google has used Webkit to run page layout tests. When the project began it was only passing 23 percent of the tests. "Moving from there to 99 percent has been a fun challenge and an interesting example of test-driven design" said Pam Greene, one of the project software engineers.

The choice of Apple's Webkit was no coincidence. Google claimed they were attracted to the speed potential. When the Chrome team consulted the Android engineers and asked them why they chose Webkit, they responded "it uses memory efficiently, was easily adapted to embedded devices, and it was easy for new browser developers to learn to make the code base work."

Much like Apple did with Safari on the iPhone, Google will use Chrome as part of its Android mobile platform and hopes that its use of Google Gears, a plug-in that extends the standard browser experience, will help developers deliver native-app like performance over the Web with cross-platform compatibility.

Microsoft slashes Xbox 360 price in Japan

2008-09-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

Microsoft today dropped the price of the Xbox 360 in Japan in a bid to capitalize on a sudden surge in console demand that triggered a console shortage. The Japanese system is now the least expensive of all and sees an entry Arcade model selling for the equivalent of $180, or a full $100 less than its current US pricing. The 60GB Pro model also now sells for much less at $275, while the top-end 120GB Elite system now sells for the equivalent of $367.

The introduction is timed with the launch of Infinite Undiscovery, a Japanese-style RPG title that is expected to spike sales of the Xbox 360 in the country.

Microsoft hasn't commented on the price cuts but has effectively confirmed
plans for US price cuts through its Japanese move, all of which would reach pricing only slightly higher than for the price drops revealed today.

Although Microsoft has typically fared poorly in Japan and so has needed its most aggressive pricing in the country, the American company is widely thought to be making worldwide price cuts to distance the Xbox 360 from the more expensive PlayStation 3, which starts at the $399 price Microsoft will use as its high end.

YouTube adds closed captioning

2008-08-30T02:59:00.000-07:00

Mountain View (CA) – Tired of watching your YouTube videos and not understanding what the heck the people are saying? Well now YouTube has added closed captioning and is allowing video uploaders to add captions in more than a hundred languages. The captions also have a nice benefit of allowing YouTube to potentially better embed ads into the videos.

The captions are added in the “Captions and Subtitles” menu in the editing page during the video upload process. You can set multiple captions by uploading a separate file and captions can be in up to 120 different languages.

Video viewers simply click in the bottom right-corner to enable the captions. If a video has multiple languages worth of captions, they can be toggled without leaving the video. Captions show up as white on black text centered in the bottom-middle of the video clip.

Samsung confirms Q1, U4 players

2008-08-30T02:58:00.000-07:00

Samsung this morning expanded its MP3 player range with two devices previously hinted at in the past. Standing as the mid-range device, the YP-Q1 (shown) is the first player from Samsung with the company's in-house DNSe 3 audio engine, which like Creative's X-Fi is said to restore missing detail from compressed songs. It also claims a simple, illuminated D-pad interface and a 2.4-inch LCD comparatively large for flash-based players.

The Q1 carries either 4GB, 8GB or 16GB of storage and has an FM tuner in addition to its normal music, photo and video support. Samsung plans an October launch with three different color shades and pricing that will be set later.

The YP-U4 replaces the U3 and earlier incarnations of Samsung's stick-shaped players and uses a unique, graduated two-tone shell that recalls the company's TV sets. It has a full directional pad controller and a monochrome OLED display that gives proper music control and extends the battery life out to 16 hours of music. The U4 should already be available in some areas.

YP-Q1

YP-U4

Microsoft, Sony, and Ford CEOs to keynote CES 2009

2008-08-30T02:57:00.001-07:00

The Consumer Electronics Association today announced the lineup of keynote address speakers for the 2009 CES tradeshow to be held in Las Vegas from January 8-11; Microsoft's Steve Ballmer, Sony's Sir Howard Stringer, and Ford's Alan Mulally.The change of Microsoft's representative speaker is symbolic of Gate's retirement, announced at his 11th and final keynote address at the 2008 CES. The torch has been officially handed to Ballmer as Gates continues his two year transition from full time participation.

“Steve Ballmer and Sir Howard Stringer are driving forces behind the continued growth of the consumer technology industry,"said CEA President/CEO Gary Shapiro. "Alan Mulally is a true visionary spurring technology innovation in the automotive market."

More information regarding the CES event is available at the CES Web Site.

IE8 Beta 2 has a surprise for Windows XP SP3 users

2008-08-29T02:10:00.000-07:00

Opinion – Ok, I get it: Beta software isn’t software that should be run on computers you rely on every day. Betas are merely previews of products we can use to get a glimpse of the future and should be treated with care as bugs and hiccups are almost certainly part of the deal. Microsoft’s latest IE8 Beta surely has bugs as well, but there is one surprise that is a bit beyond my comfort level: Some users may actually not be able to uninstall this beta anymore.

Microsoft and beta software is a story all by itself. In fact, Microsoft treats beta software very differently than most software companies do. While betas are typically developer-only packages elsewhere, Microsoft betas are a fixed and important part of the software release and marketing process that began with Windows 95 and IE4: Microsoft gave away thousands of Windows 95 Betas in prize drawings back in 1994 and the actual IE4 launch was initiated with the IE4 beta – I still have my beta T-shirt given out at a launch party back then.

IE8 continues that tradition. It is only the second beta, but Microsoft’s IE8 pages treat the software like a final release. Yes, it is still called beta, but Microsoft has set up a fully-fledged product page with videos and flashy product demonstrations. Microsoft tells visitors on its site to “Get Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, the latest version of Microsoft's free web browser.”The download buttons for the “latest browser” clearly point to this beta 2, while “older versions” are mentioned at the very bottom of the page. There is not a single warning that this software may have bugs and should be treated carefully. If you are new to this game, you surely have the impression that this is a version close to the final (it actually is) and that this is the IE you should download.

With that in mind, especially one bug that was pointed out this morning by Gregg Keizer at Computerworld, is a bit strong in my mind.

Users of Windows XP SP3 who simply install IE8 Beta 2 may actually find the browser being locked into their system without any chance to remove the browser without a full reinstallation of the operation system. According to a Microsoft IEBlog post, this scenario will be in place if you installed Windows XP SP3 after installing IE8 Beta 1 and you now choose to install IE8 Beta 2 on top of Beta 1 - and ignore a window with a warning. Microsoft said that you will be able to install Internet Explorer 8 Beta2, but once installed, you will not be able to uninstall either IE8 or Windows XP SP3 later.

“If you chose to continue, Windows XP SP3 and IE8 Beta2 will become permanent. You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won’t be able to uninstall them,” program manager Jane Maliouta wrote in her blog post.

So, if you are using XP SP3 you may want to follow Maliouta’s advice. But I believe it wouldn’t hurt either if Microsoft published such issues on its IE8 product page and not just in a blog, which not everyone will read. In the end, it is a beta and it should be treated this way - by users and Microsoft.

Scientists expect new record low of Arctic ice coverage

2008-08-29T02:08:00.000-07:00

Chicago (IL) – Sea-ice coverage levels in the Arctic are approaching the record low of September 2007. Since the melting season has not reached its end yet, scientists of the European Space Agency are expecting to see a record low in 2008 and two passages being completely ice free by mid-September.

Nortwest Passage (top) and Amundsen Northwest Passage

The trend of shrinking sea-ice coverage will continue this year, according to Heinrich Miller from the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) in Bremerhaven, Germany. Analyzing data collected by the Envisat satellite between early June and mid-August 2008 showed that current ice coverage has already reached the second absolute minimum since observations from space began 30 years ago and a new record low could be achieved by mid-September, when the ice coverage is expected to be increasing again.

The scientists noted that an ice area the size of Europe melts away every summer reaching a minimum in September. Since satellites began surveying the Arctic in 1978, there has been a regular decrease in the area covered by ice in summer. The ice cover dropped to its lowest level on record in 2007 and opened up the most direct route through the Northwest Passage in September 2007.

The direct route through the Northwest Passage is currently almost free of ice, Miller said. The indirect route, called the Amundsen Northwest Passage, has been passable for almost a month. The scientists confirmed the satellite data by sending their ice breaking vessel “Polarstern” from Iceland to the Canadian Basin through the Northwest Passage this year.

ESA said it will provide more data and propose its Initiative on Climate Change to the ESA Member States at its Ministerial Conference in November 2008. The proposal aims to ensure delivery of appropriate information on climate variables derived from satellites, ESA said. In 2009, ESA will increase its research effort with the launch of CryoSat-2, which will be able to measure the rates at which ice thickness and cover is melting.

Scientists generally believe that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in the summer months by 2070. Recent research, however, suggests that the ice is melting at a much more rapid pace, resulting in an ice-free Arctic by 2040, Miller said.

Motorola's updated Q Global adds WM 6.1

2008-08-29T02:07:00.001-07:00

Motorola has announced the latest version of the Q Global, now including Windows Media 6.1. With the new capabilities of WM 6.1, Motorola is developing its Q line to compete with the variety of smartphones being released by companies like RIM, Apple, and HTC. The operating system was refined, adding capabilities, streamlining functions, and improving security. The Q Global works in 6 modes-- GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 850/1900. CrystalTalk technology is included, claimed by Motorola to reduce unwanted noise. The updated operating system now allows use of ATT&T's video share service and uploading to Windows Live Space. The camera takes 2.0MP pictures, and TV-out is now included in the OS. Content from Internet Explorer can now be cut and pasted, or the browser window zoomed in/out.

The looks have been changed to silver and chrome with gray accents. Assisted GPS capability is included for location based services. Motorola is clearly pricing the new phone to compete with Apple's $200 release of the iPhone 3G. AT&T will be selling the phone for $150 with a 2-year contract, $100 less than the previous version.

XPERIA X1 delayed until January?

2008-08-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

While Sony is expected to ship its XPERIA X1 touchscreen phone in October, new information seen on the UK Sony Style website hints that the release could be pushed back to January 2009. The Register reveals that a menu selection graphic contains a "January" tag, with the product page itself claiming the launch date is undecided. The information comes after conflicting news that Sony Ericsson already mistakenly delayed the device, and retailer Expansys claiming it had receive demonstration units of the phone already. Sony Ericsson is releasing the Windows Mobile-based XPERIA X1 to combat a growing presence from Apple's iPhone, which has recently proven to counter words from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. The Microsoft chief recently blasted the device, saying that any shortage from its 20 million license estimate would be from a rounding error, not from increased competition from the Cupertino-based Apple.

Sony also hopes to recover its sagging financials, which it cites the Sony Ericsson mobile division's poor sales as being the primary reason for a 47-percent loss.

IE8 Beta 2: Great new features, old annoyances

2008-08-28T03:39:00.001-07:00

First Look – Microsoft today released the second beta of its upcoming Internet Explorer 8 web browser with a boatload of new functionality compared to the first beta that made its debut in March of this year. The company highlights 50 features that address usability, security, compatibility, manageability and a couple tools that are unique to IE. The outcome is a browser which engineers clearly designed with innovation in mind. In some parts that works, in others it does not. Expect a browser that is vastly more complex than its predecessor and that offers a completely different browsing experience than Firefox.

Microsoft kept its promise and delivered the second beta of IE8 before the end of this month to give us a taste of what Microsoft believes users expect from a modern web browser. There is a lengthy new feature list, which you can access here and which is nearly impossible (and boring) to cover in this article. The question most people will have is – how does it stack up to the best in the market – Firefox, Safari and, in some instances, Opera? Will it be faster than the painfully slow IE7, is it easier and more secure to use? There is one simple answer: Yes.

Speed

The page load speed is often a very subjective impression and even if you measure it scientifically, there are substantial hurdles - such as varying connection issues – to allow for a fair result. At least subjectively, this author found that IE8 loads about three times as fast as IE7 and loads pages about twice as fast as its predecessor. The performance gains are also significant when compared to IE8.

It is obvious that Microsoft, just like Mozilla, has made huge progress to accelerate the browser engine, while the company surprisingly forgets to highlight this progress in its browser feature list. Subjectively, it appears that Firefox 3 has lost its page load time advantage.

Useful new features

It is obvious that Microsoft’s IE engineers had some innovation pressure from some management levels above and there are, in fact, a few interesting features. First, there is finally a “Find on this Page” feature you can actually use, since it is placed in its own field below the address bar. Searching web pages for certain words or phrases is also enhanced through search result highlighting and search result count.

Just like Firefox, IE8 can also store a browsing session and reopen it when the software is restarted.

The “Smart Address Bar, which offers a neatly structured, instant search feature when you are entering a URL, is also new. Similar to the Firefox idea, the Address options are very organized, easy to read and in most cases actually useful – especially when you are looking for a certain section on a website and simply don’t know its sub-level address.

The best new feature, hands down, is Tab grouping. At least I tend to have countless tabs open and once you exceed ten or more tabs, it gets confusing and you have to start reorganizing those tabs. IE8 does that for you in a color-coded fashion. The colors themselves are a matter of taste, but as long as you are opening tabs through the context menu (right mouse click), a new tab will appear in the color of the originating website. This feature is a perfect example how simple ideas can have a huge impact.

Tabs now also come with “crash recovery”, which means that the content in a tabbed window is automatically restored and reloaded - and any information the user may have already entered on the page (such as when writing an e-mail or filling out a form) is restored.

Under the hood, there are new features you won’t see in the user interface - which, however, are milestones for Microsoft. First, the browser is much closer to common web standards than any other version before (Microsoft says it passes the Acid2 browser test), CSS 2.1 will be implemented in the final version of the browser, there are Document object model (DOM) and HTML 4.01 improvements and there is support for W3C’s HTML 5 Draft DOM Storage standard and the Web API Working Group’s Selectors API.

Useless new features

Microsoft would not be Microsoft if there wasn’t an overload of features that in fact make the browser (12.7 MB download) appear bulky. Each user may have a different opinion what these features may be, but at least in this version it seems to be Microsoft’s Web Slices and Accelerators (renamed from “Activities”). On one side, Microsoft promises to stay within general HTML guidelines and on the other the company cannot resist to create proprietary features that are not part of any standard and are not supported by any other browser. Is it just me or does this sound strange?

Both Web Slices (a way to subscribe to certain content) and Accelerators (quick access to maps, for example) are obviously a try to standardize certain features and convince web developers and other browser developers to adopt this functionality. To me, both features are nice and may be certainly useful in some cases, but will they improve your browsing experience in general? No. In some scenarios, IE8 feels too heavy. The browser interface clearly needs another workout to trim some of the fat it has gained over the years.

Security

IE8’s new “over the shoulder privacy” features were revealed two days ago. “InPrivate” appears to be a new word under which Microsoft will combine a range of security configuration options, with the first ones being InPrivate Browsing, InPrivate Blocking and InPrivate Subscriptions. All three add another layer of flexibility and complexity, which may be welcomed by some and may confuse others.

12 additional big security improvements include per-user and per-site ActiveX rules, domain warnings and highlighting, enhancements to IE7’s phishing filter and data execution prevention:

Old Microsoft habits

The installation process of the browser remains unacceptable and one big annoyance. Even on my relatively speedy PC, the installation process took 28 minutes from beginning to end. For 17 minutes, the PC was unusable, since the PC needs to be restarted and updates need to be reconfigured.

Why is it that Firefox can be downloaded and installed on the go without the need for a restart of the PC and Microsoft takes my PC hostage for 17 minutes for a simple browser update? I may be picky here, but iE8 is not particularly convenient (and transparent) to install.

You can download IE8 Beta 2 here.

SanDisk intros 30MB/sec SDHC cards

2008-08-28T03:37:00.001-07:00

SanDisk on Wednesday helped push a transition to SDHC cards for pro and high-end amateur photographers by launching an update to its Extreme III SDHC lineup. The new 30MB/s Edition is about 50 percent faster in both reads and writes than previous Extreme III cards and is deliberately launching alongside cameras such as the Nikon D90, which virtually demand the extra transfer speed for burst shooting. With one of the newer cards, a D90 can shoot at its peak 4.5 frames per second for up to 39 JPEG photos before the SDHC card can no longer keep up. The extra transfer speed is also useful for offloading a large number of shots from a camera to a computer, SanDisk says. The transfer speed should also assist with recording HD video, which is possible through cameras like the D90 as well as through more recent HD camcorders that use SDHC as their preferred format.

The 30MB/s Edition is a capacity boost for SanDisk's Extreme SDHC series and bumps the maximum storage up to 16GB, which sells for $180. Versions with 4GB and 8GB of storage will sell for $65 and $110 respectively. All three should be in shops sometime in September.

NVIDIA reveals low-end GeForce 9400 GT

2008-08-28T03:36:00.002-07:00

NVIDIA has quietly bolstered the rear guard of its GPU line with the addition of the GeForce 9400 GT. Sharing the same optimizations as the rest of the 9 series, the chipset has just 16 visual effects cores but is fast enough to double the performance of its GeForce 8400 equivalent from just a year ago, according to the graphics card maker's estimates. A 550MHz main clock speed and 800MHz effective memory clock also keep it relatively cool and let NVIDIA's reference design use a small cooling fan. The improved budget card also supports NVIDIA's CUDA language for running some general-purpose computing on the video card and is one of the least expensive ways to add the feature for in-game physics or more professional tasks such as 3D modeling.

While configurations are liable to vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, a stock 9400 GT should carry 512MB of memory as well as single dual-link DVI and VGA connections for digital and analog sources respectively. NVIDIA hopes to set a new floor for graphics and is targeting the new GeForce card's average asking price at about $59. Third parties should already have cards available now or in the near future, though PC vendors should also bundle their own cards with future desktops.

5D Mark II specs, 50D sensor technology discussed

2008-08-28T03:36:00.001-07:00

Following closely on Wednesday morning's D90 announcement, specifications were leaked about Canon's new, but as-of-yet unofficial, full-frame sensor 5D Mark II DSLR, with additional details of the 50D's image processing capabilities revealed as well. An anonymous source tells Canon Rumors that the 5D Mark II will offer a 21.1 megapixel full-frame DIGIC IV sensor, with full weather sealing, a 3.2-inch high resolution LCD, HD Movie capabilities and HDMI out. Canon is also reportedly examining a "for her" model of the 5D Mark II. No details were readily available.

Canon staff were also overheard discussing the new 50D, specifically the sensor that will be used in the camera. The 50D will allegedly offer users better noise management than the 40D – up to 1.5 stops-worth – with noise reduction also stemming from a "colder" low-voltage CMOS sensor and the DIGIC IV technology.

The 50D will also bring a progressive step between using a physical anti-aliasing filter versus using a potential future DIGIC chip. Canon claims that by decreasing the distance between the sensor and the filter, it can increase overall image quality and resolution, without suffering pixilation problems.

Canon will also enhance the RAW image capture to 14 bits for an improved dynamic range, with 16 bits to come in future sensor generations. Building on the 40D's highlight tone preservation, the 50D offers new automatic brightness options, which independently change areas of the sensor to enhance image capture capabilities in mixed lighting situations.

Microsoft, Nikon sign patent license agreement

2008-08-28T03:35:00.001-07:00

Microsoft and Nikon on Thursday announced that they have signed a cross-licensing patent agreement on Nikon's digital camera patents as well as consumer electronics patents from each company. The details of the agreement, which covers a "broad range" of consumer products from each company, does include some (undisclosed) compensation by Nikon. Looking to innovate on each other's technologies, the companies have previously collaborated on bringing wireless cameras and RAW processing and said that that the new patent cross-licensing agreement will "substantially benefit customers of consumer products including digital cameras."

On the heels of the release of its much-anticipated D90 digital camera with HD video functions, Nikon suggested that the the licensing agreement with the world's largest software maker could bring some "exciting" new products to Nikon's portfolio.

"At Nikon, we want to continue to lead the industry in pioneering photography solutions and give our customers access to innovative technology," said Naoki Tomino, director, member of the board and General Manager of Intellectual Property Headquarters at Nikon. "This agreement is a natural extension of our long-standing relationship with Microsoft, and we look forward to collaborating and bringing exciting new products to the market."

Microsoft said its IP licensing program has inked over 500 licensing agreements in nearly 5 years, with companies such as Fuji Xerox, LG Electronics, Samsung, Epson, and Nikon's competitors Olympus and Pentax.

Gigabyte's monstrous 6 TFlops Core i7 prototype motherboard pictured

2008-08-27T04:48:00.000-07:00

San Jose (CA) - Believe it or not, NVISION 08 is not just about Nvidia. Earlier today we met with Gigabyte to see what we can expect from the Taiwanese manufacturer – and got a glimpse at an upcoming motherboard for Intel’s Core i7 processors with Nehalem core. The board, called Extreme Edition, sets several highlights, including the ability to transform your PC in a true deskside supercomputer that offers the processing horsepower of thousands of processors ten years ago.

The prototype board on display was based on Intel's X58 chipset and supports up to six graphics cards, four PCIe Gen2 x16 slots and two wide-open Gen 2 x4 slots. Due to space constraints there is only Crossfire and no SLI support. So, what can you do with six graphics cards – for example six Radeon 4850 or six Nvidia 9800 GT models?

You could run up to 12 monitors, which should be a dream for any flight simulator enthusiast. While you can run up to four cards in Crossfire (graphics) mode, you can employ all six cards for GPGPU applications and floating point acceleration. The theoretical performance potential of such an environment would be in the 6 TFlops neighborhood for single-precision applications (double precision will cause the performance to drop by 80 – 90%.) To put this performance into perspective, consider the fact that Intel’s 1997 Pentium Pro supercomputer with 10,000 CPUs was rated at 1 TFlops.

The actual performance advantage of supercomputers is not entirely based on pure processing horsepower, but also memory capacity, which GPUs cannot match. But the simple thought that you can add six graphics cards with 4800 processors for about $1200 to rival the performance of supercomputers that cost billions of dollars a decade ago (at least in some applications) is stunning.

On the power side, Gigabyte’s engineers developed a separated 12-phase power supply for the CPU; a 2-Phase structure is in place for the memory and a separate 2-Phase regulation for the PCI Express slots. The company indicated that there will be room for overclocking and special attention was paid to ensure “workstation-class stability under any conditions”.

The board can support up to 24 GB DDR3-1333, or 6 GB of DDR3-1900/2000 memory (using overclocked 2 GB DIMMs). Thanks to the 2-Phase regulation, there should be enough juice to hold future 4 GB DDR3-1333 modules.

The board is still being worked on and the prototype will undergo significant modifications in the storage and cooling department, we were told. The combined air/water-cooling block will be modified so that the six graphics cards can fit. All six SATA ports will be rotated to support extend-length PCIe cards.

Nikon unveils D90 with movie mode, more

2008-08-27T04:43:00.000-07:00

Nikon brought rumors to a head Wednesday with an official release of the D90, confirming the 12.3 megapixel camera, and its accompanying AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm lens with VR function. The camera also introduces an alleged world-first for DSLR cameras, offering users the ability to shoot D-Movie video footage in resolutions up to 720p, with an included HDMI-out port for simplified viewing. Nikon notes that the larger DX-format sensor will allow for lower-noise video than a conventional camcorder.

In addition, the D90 includes EXPEED image processing for speed and quality, complimenting the presence of Live View and the new Face Detection System. Live View allows users to view their subject on the 3-inch, 920,000 pixel LCD, while the D90 can also recognize human faces and scene composition to optimize image quality.

Nikon also includes a new enhanced Active D-Lighting, offering four levels of tone control, with additional options for retouching images on-camera, and many advanced scene modes.

Coupled with the D90 release is the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm lens, which offers Nikon's Silent Wave Motor and Vibration Reduction technologies. It offers a maximum aperture range of f/3.5-5.6.

Photographer Chase Jarvis and his team were recently given a set of D90s to field test, and were able to test out how the camera functions with his professional lenses, equipment, and workflow. Jarvis was impressed, especially with the new D-Movie mode and professional features, as well as compiling a video project and images of the experience.

Nikon ships the D90 in September for $1,000 in a body-only version and a $1,300 kit that includes the 18-105mm VR lens. A GPS add-on that allows users to geotag shots with their position will be available as of November and should receive its pricing closer to the actual ship date.

10 ways to modify your Xbox 360

2008-08-26T03:25:00.000-07:00

Feature - As a self-proclaimed tech-nerd I do not believe I own one piece of technology that I haven't taken apart, modified or hacked into. The Internet is booming with hacks, cracks, and mods, I try as many as possible on my gadgets. Here are my top 10 recommendations for the Xbox 360.

1. Simplify your online gaming: You can play your Xbox online without using Xbox Live for free. Xlink Kai allows players to join multiplayer LAN games online for free. Microsoft has placed a 30 ms ping limit on your Xbox 360, so closing all other Internet applications prior to playing is key. Optimized compressed tunnels in Xlink Kai allows for lag free (for the most part) online gaming. Additionally, though illegal and not recommended, if you do choose to play pirated games, you can play these online with friends. Xlink Kai is not console specific, meaning you will be able to network and play with users that own all different consoles. Xlink Kai has an extremely friendly and helpful community, making the gaming environment comfortable and fun.

2. Turn your Xbox 360 into a laptop: Engadget kindly takes individuals through a step by step process of turning your Xbox 360 into a portable laptop. Obviously, there are major disadvantages to this - such as completely voiding any warranty you might still have and running the risk of ruining your system completely. On the flip side, you'd be easily able to carry your console around.

3. Adding Storage to your Xbox 360: Microsoft limits what you can store on your Xbox 360, but installing a separate USB hard drive to your Xbox allows you to be in control of any and all content you store. Additionally, when you are accessing your photos and files from your portable device using the “portable device applet” on the Xbox, you have a file view, which means you can view your files that are stored on an external hard drive in the format you are familiar with.

4. Use your laptop as a free Xbox 360 Wi-Fi Adapter: You can utilize Internet connection sharing to get your Xbox 360 to the Internet, rather than buying the adapter that costs $80. This is a huge benefit to individuals who do not own a router, or who are traveling somewhere in which they won't have a router.

5. Stream Netflix Movies using your Xbox 360: Though this was a huge issue when previously posted on the site, it is still one of my favorite hacks for the Xbox 360. Utilizing freeware, and Windows Vista Home Premium or Ultimate you can be streaming Netflix in less than 20 minutes with no fees. This was announced over two months ago by Adam Pash of Lifehacker.com.

6. Modify your Xbox 360 case: Face it, for most individuals the look of their Xbox 360 is generic and plain, and sometimes boring. There are countless ways and methods of modifying your Xbox 360 case. The benefit of case modification is simply personalization and making your console your own. Or, you could be a bit more extreme and solve the Xbox’ cooling problems with a custom case.

7. Use your own personal HDMI cable to save $40: Chad Ledford teaches gamers how to fit the A/V adapter into the Xbox 360 while using your own HDMI cable rather than purchasing the “Official Microsoft” cable. The benefit of this modification? Save money, of course.

8. Flash your DVD firmware to play game backups: You can flash the firmware on the DVD drive to play game backups. However, be aware of the fact that this could ban you from Xbox Live. Only use this tool to play your own game backups!

9. Turn Your Xbox A/V cable into a VGA Cable for $7: Engadget takes us, once again, through the step by step process of turning your standard Xbox 360 A/V cable into a VGA cable at an extremely low price. The benefit of this modification is saving money, and improving your graphics display.

10. Backup your games via hotswap: This Youtube video teaches individuals how to back up their games utilizing the hotswap method. Hotswapping games and DVDs allows you to be able to make a copy of your original DVD that is flawless, and acts as an original in another system.

There are many other Xbox 360 modifications available. I prefer to keep it simple, and keep it legal. I also haven't had the opportunity to try them all. Maybe you have ideas I'm not yet aware of? Let me know by writing a comment below.

Olympus intros new ultrazoom, Stylus, FE cams

2008-08-26T03:23:00.000-07:00

Olympus on Monday swept through its camera line with several updates ahead of the Photokina expo. The SP-565UZ ultra-zoom keeps the 20X, 26-520mm equivalent lens range of the 570UZ but is both smaller and lighter than the earlier camera. It makes a few minor sacrifices to reach this goal, including a smaller 2.5-inch preview LCD (down from 2.7); in exchange, the camera gains a microSD adapter to use the normally cellphone-oriented cards to store photos.

The camera continues to shoot at a native 10 megapixels and will drop to three megapixels in return for a fast 13.5 frames per second mode. Olympus doesn't plan to ship the 565UZ until October but will sell it for $400, or a full $100 less than the 570UZ.

Two Stylus updates front the compact camera updates. The 10-megapixel 1050SW is Olympus' rugged entry and meets US military-grade durability levels with the ability to handle five-foot drops, temperatures as low as 14F, and complete submersion underwater as far down as ten feet. A new accelerometer also adds tap control: users can hit the back, top, or sides of the camera to take photos and make basic changes even when gloves would make normal button presses impossible. The camera supports both face detection and microSD storage and should be ready in October at a $300 price point.

The simpler Stylus 1040 shares an identical resolution but removes the extra protection in favor of a slimmer body that measures 0.65 inches thick. Its features are otherwise identical to the 1050SW but see a reduced price to $200 for the 1040's October shipping timeframe.

A pair of FE models round out the update. Both the FE-360 and FE-370 shoot at eight megapixels and offer face detection. The FE-360 produces just basic shots with a 3X zoom lens and ISO-based stabilization, while the FE-370 shoots further with a 5X lens, adds sensor-shift stabilization, and adds a smarter sensor with smile detection and a full automatic scene adjustment mode for beginners. The differences result in a $150 price for the FE-360 and $200 for the FE-370 when the two go on sale before the end of August.

SP-565UZ

Stylus 1050SW

Stylus 1040

FE-360/FE-370

D90 official specs, new gallery of pictures leaked

2008-08-26T03:22:00.001-07:00

In addition to preliminary sales information spotted at retailers Circuit City and Best Buy, details of the next-generation Nikon entry-level DSLR system have been revealed. According to Digital Photography Review, pictures of the new D90 were temporarily leaked on Target.com. Additional details regarding the final specs were posted on Nikon Rumors. The camera is said to capture 12.3 Megapixels with a standard ISO range of 200-3200 and additional single ISO modes of 100 or 6400. Live-view is supported from a 900,000 pixel 3" LCD used for the rear display, quite an upgrade in resolution from the 230,000 pixel display of the D80. The D90 will feature 11 autofocus points, AF contrast, and face detection. White balance can be adjusted manually or automatically using a 420 pixel RGB matrix sensor. The camera can capture video and includes a speaker for sound output during video playback.

The lens to be initially included with the starter kit is a DX 18mm - 105mm f/3.5-5.6G with vibration reduction, AF-S from a silent wave motor, and made with Nikon's extra-low dispersion glass. Construction consists of 11 groups and 15 elements including one aspherical and one hybrid aspherical. Minimum focus will be 0.45m and the lens contains seven diaphragm blades. An official shipping date was not given but, given the current evidence, a formal announcement from Nikon seems imminent.

Firefox 3.1 to see speed bump with TraceMonkey

2008-08-26T03:21:00.001-07:00

Firefox developers have been working on a new project, labeled TraceMonkey, that is poised to push JavaScript speeds even faster, according to team member Mike Shaver. By including improved JavaScript engines, most browsers have seen significant performance gains. Speed of certain processes in Firefox jumped two or three fold just between v2.x and v3.x. The new project, although new, has shown increases of 20 percent over v2.x already.

Shaver explained the goal of the project "is to take JavaScript performance to another level, where instead of competing against other interpreters, we start to compete against native code." Commands such as "for loop" are running very close to speeds only attainable through unoptimized GCC. TraceMonkey has been added to the FF 3.1 development tree.

Some of the tested benchmarks included Sunspider (and its "ubench" test), image manipulation demo, and Sylvester 3D matrix multiplication, all comparing TraceMonkey to FF3. The results ranged from being around 80 percent faster for the first Sunspider test to an amazing 22 fold increase in speed for the ubench test.

Mike noted the room for even more improvement in each category by developing "better code generation, more efficient guards, improvements to some data structures, parallel compilation, use of specific processor features, new optimization passes, tracing more code patterns, and many more." Performance across the board will increase steadily through FireFox 3.1 and future releases.

Sony PS3 Wireless Keyboard priced, dated

2008-08-26T03:20:00.000-07:00

Sony has released a wireless keypad for the Playstation 3, available for pre-order now and due to ship in november. The device is designed to mount directly onto a DualShock 3 or Sixaxis controller and offers two shortcut buttons for switching quickly to message boxes or other communication fields with less interruption of gameplay. The surface of the keyboard can be switched to become a touchpad with the press of a button, enabling a finger moving across the keys to direct the pointer on the screen.

Bluetooth 2.0 is used to for communication with the console, and a Li-ion rechargeable battery is built into the keypad. The wireless keypad for Playstation 3 can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com for $50.

Photoshop, Premiere Elements 7 unveiled

2008-08-26T03:19:00.000-07:00

Adobe on Tuesday unveiled Photoshop Elements 7, and Premiere Elements 7, two major version upgrades to its consumer photo and video editing applications, including Photoshop.com memberships with either app. Photoshop Elements 7 introduces several new tools and utilities, including several one-step Quick Fix tools. Quick Fix allows users to remedy common problems with sky color, or teeth whitening, while the Smart Brush can quickly improve lighting, add textures, or apply over fifty effects to a specific area. Photoshop Elements 7 also includes a new Scene Cleaner, which can remove obstructions that clutter the object of a photograph. In addition, Adobe introduced several new Online Albums, which are based on the company's Flash technology.

Premiere Elements 7 adds in-depth functionality for the AVCHD format, allowing users to quickly find, tag, and use video clips based on quality, number of faces in the scene, and other scenarios. Users can also opt to create InstantMovies, which will add music, titles, transitions, and arrange clips to fit a particular theme – such as a birthday or wedding.

Videomerge offers users simplified green screening, and projects can be optimized for Blu-ray, mobile phones, or YouTube, right from within the application.

Both applications offer a free one-year membership to Photoshop.com, giving users access to templates, special effects, tutorials, and more, as well as 20GB of storage for their finished projects or mobile media.

Photoshop Elements 7 and Premiere Elements 7 will be available in October for $100 each, or together as a bundle for $150.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest hands-on impressions

2008-08-25T02:29:00.000-07:00

Although Pandemic Studios’ Saboteur was sadly absent from this year’s E3 convention, the developer did show their upcoming return to the Star Wars: Battlefront formula, a sort of Battlefield-style, third-person multiplayer action feast. Only this time, Star Wars has been traded in for The Lord of the Rings and Battlefront for Conquest. The lasers, X-Wings and Force-enabled heroes are gone, replaced with bows, arrow quivers, tank-like trolls high fantasy adventurers. But the action, seemingly for better and for worse, remains the same in The Lord of the Rings: Conquest.

Click through for the goods.

Ending the Third Age in The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

Unlike the previous Battlefront games, single player action is front-and-center in The Lord of the Rings: Conquest. Divided into two campaigns, players first control the forces of good in Middle-Earth, defying Sauron as Frodo and Sam draw ever-closer to their goal in the heart of Mordor’s Mount Doom. Running through such familiar settings as Moria, Helm’s Deep, Isengard and Pelannor Fields, the battles eventually lead to the Black Gate where the land’s most powerful heroes buy time for their Hobbit friend to destroy the One Ring once and for all.

That is, until you start the second campaign. In this alternate storyline players take control of the Nazgul, who arrive at Mount Doom just in time to kill Frodo and claim the Ring for their master. You read it right – the bastards kill Frodo. And then proceed to march across Middle-Earth as an unstoppable force, crushing the forces of good in pitched battle after pitched battle. In what is surely a fan-servicing nod, the campaign ends with stops at Weathertop, Rivendell and the Hobbit-infested Shire. And players will get to Scour them all clean.

While we didn’t get to see any of those endgame levels at Electronic Arts’ Studio Showcase last week, we did get some hands-on time with both armies, in theaters as diverse as Mordor, Pelannor Fields, Rohan and Isengard. Those who are familiar with the Battlefront games will be right at home with Conquest’s map style and class selection. The big difference is that in the absence of lasers, combat is made much more personal.

Fighting the Wars of the Ring in The Lord of the Rings: Conquest

No longer is combat a target and fire affair. Even Conquest’s ranged characters are fully equipped to fight in close, though somewhat less competently of course. The X, Y and B buttons and an Xbox 360 gamepad deliver light, medium and heavy attacks, respectively. Pressing these buttons in different sequences leads to a variety of combo attacks. The LB button serves as a modifier; whenever an on-screen meter has some juice in it, press LB in conjunction with any attack buttons to deliver even more powerful attacks. For close-combat fighters, at least.

For ranged and magic classes, LB allows access to special ranged strikes and magic spells. Archers can fire endless volleys of arrows or they can access their special attacks with LB, allowing them to channel Legolas and let fly multiple arrows in a single shot. Mages have a chargeable lightning-based basic attack; LB lets them unleash other spells, such as fireball or heal. It’s not exactly true to Tolkien’s ideas concerning magic and Middle-Earth, but it sure is fun to fry the noble Riders of Rohan.

We also got to mess around with the more agile Scout class. While not a proper close-range fighter, Scouts excel at slipping around the outskirts of the battlefield and quietly bringing down targets one at a time. For this class, LB activates a stealth mode which renders the fighter invisible. Sneaking up to an enemy and pressing RB results in a quiet strike insta-kill.

Perform well with any of the classes, and you’ll unlock the ability to use a hero character. We saw Legolas, Gandalf and Aragorn for the forces of good and the Witch King for Sauron’s army, but there are surely others (the Balrog was mentioned as a hero). Heroes remain on the battlefield for as long as they are kept alive.

Some missions, such as the evil campaign’s Ring rescue in the bowels of Mount Doom, are relatively straightforward and linear. Following the on-screen pointers, kill whomever gets in the way and complete the goal. Others, such as the memorable battle on Pelannor Fields at the base of Minas Tirith, are multi-stage affairs which offer a variety of approaches to each objective.

At Pelannor, the first task is to take down a group of siege towers before the trolls pushing them forward reach the front lines. A fighter character has no problem withdrawing to the rear lines, where catapults sit waiting to be manned. A scout, on the other hand, can create a diversion to draw the troll away from the tower. Once that’s done, he can use his special ability to set the Middle-Earth equivalent of C4 on it, bringing the siege weapon down.

Next up is the Oliphaunts. Close-combat characters can run in, climb up the great beastie’s leg and engage in a good, old QTE to bring the thing down. It sounds easy, but climbing up a moving Oliphaunt’s leg and along its body is no cakewalk. We didn’t actually witness any alternate methods for killing the Oliphaunts, but ranged attackers are apparently not without their options. Legolas can also be unlocked during this battle, though he takes the close combat approach. He just gets it done a lot quicker.

The Lord of the Rings: Conquest looks like it will definitely appeal to fans of Battlefront, especially those who also appreciate Tolkien’s fantasy world. We can’t quite shake the feeling that the game is just a couple years too late – there doesn’t seem to be any real incentive to keep players playing online (ie no persistent elements) – but the single player campaigns ought to give the offline experience more mileage than the average Battlefront game had. The Lord of the Rings: Conquest seems to be very much an iteration on older ideas, but even now, months shy of the game’s November release, it looks decent, plays well and offers plenty of fan service for the Tolkien-loving gamers out there.

ASUS leaks N10 ultra-portable with HDD, HDMI-out

2008-08-24T03:45:00.000-07:00

Images and external specifications for the so-called ASUS N10 leaked Friday, confirming rumors of the hard drive-bearing, non-Eee branded micro laptop. The simply-detailed N10 offers users a 10.2 inch widescreen monitor (rated at 1024 by 600 pixels), encased in a sandy colored shell, with a chrome polished hinge – Blogeee.net observes that the result is a very sturdy overall design. Confirmed are storage capacities up to 320GB, with supposed options for Windows Vista or Linux.

The keyboard is said to be vastly improved over previous models, with split function keys, as well as nicely proportioned modifier keys. It also features a sizeable track pad, with two chromed buttons, and a fingerprint reader at the bottom-center.

In terms of ports, the N10 features three USB 2.0 ports, WiFi, Ethernet, HDMI, headphone/mic ports,VGA, Ethernet, and what seems to be an ExpressCard slot. A card reader, web cam, and wireless power switches are also prominent.

Pricing for the unit is expected to be between €330 and €430. Detailed internal specifications were not readily available.

[images courtesy of Blogeee.net]

NVIDIA finalizes CUDA 2.0, Photoshop plugin

2008-08-24T03:44:00.001-07:00

NVIDIA today formally released the finished version of CUDA 2.0. The second generation of the company's general-purpose programming language for its video chipsets supports 64-bit versions of Mac OS X and Windows Vista and adds support for instructions that can help offload more specific tasks from the main processor to the video card, such as 3D textures and hardware-accelerated interpolation of information.

These advancements are particularly useful for volume reconstruction in medicine or for seismic computing in the oil industry, NVIDIA says.

The Santa Clara, California firm also hopes to use CUDA 2.0 as a motivator for creative teams with the inclusion of a reference plugin for Adobe's Photoshop. The blank slate allows developers to create filters and other effects of their own that use CUDA to process images more quickly than would be possible relying on the system CPU alone.

Apps written with CUDA require a card with one of NVIDIA's chipsets built with its unified shader architecture, including all GeForce 8- and 9-series cards as well as newer Quadro FX cards. Its Tesla and Quadro Plex general-purpose acceleration cards also support the feature.

Apple quietly posted CUDA 2.0 to its website but at the time didn't indicate itself that the release was the final version for Mac OS X.

U.S.-based company builds military-grade simulator for Ferrari F1 team

2008-08-22T09:51:00.001-07:00

Maranello (Italy) and East Aurora (NY) - Formula One teams spend tens of millions of dollars on air-tunnels, super-computers and simulators to improve the features of its cars, engines components and the abilities of its drivers. Ferrari has always been a bit ahead of the competition with new technology and pioneers a new technology for the racing series once again: The team has contracted a company to build the most realistic driving simulator in Formula One’s history.

Moog is typically dealing with the aerospace and defense industry and builds various aircraft, spacecraft, weapon and missile controls as well as simulators. We were told that the company will now develop a "next-generation" simulator that will be installed in one of the new buildings in Ferrari’s headquarter in Maranello. According to our sources, U.S.-based Moog will use specialized versions of AMD-ATI hardware for the system. Apparently, it was AMD who brought Moog and Ferrari together on one table.

Both Moog and Ferrari confirmed that an agreement was signed. In a short statement, Ferarri’s Marco Fainello saidK "The dynamic driving simulator is a new step for us in developing virtual tests that give drivers the true feel of a real environment and direct feedback on their actions".

Ferrari's F1 drivers had a different reaction. While Felipe Massa welcomes the simulator, the current world champion Kimi Raikkonen showed some skepticism: "To be honest, that is something I do not like," he said. "I've always been able to get to know a new race track very fast."

The simulator will be available for the 2009 season.

Intel imagines wireless power for your laptop

2008-08-22T09:50:00.001-07:00

San Francisco (CA) – Intel traditionally closes its Developer Forum with a visionary keynote that provides a glimpse into Intel’s labs and how the company’s engineers think about how technology could shape the world in five, ten or - in this case - 40 years.

The fact that the Intel Developer Forum turned just (or already, depending on your view) 11 years old today makes it a bit difficult to come up with a track record how well Intel’s engineers can predict the future of technology, but if my memory serves me right, we haven’t seen too many of the company’s ideas make it into production yet. In fact, most of them disappeared and no one really noticed or cared.

One reason for that may be that many of these ideas are a bit wacky and could be, in a best case scenario, a bit ahead of our time. For example, about ten years ago I was fascinated by a proposal to combine the audio and visuals for almost perfect voice recognition – like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, a PC camera would track your lips and coordinate it with audio data to improve the rate of recognized words. I never heard about the idea again, but believe that stream processors may revive the idea at some point in the future.

This year, Intel was not short of big ideas for the future either, throwing out predictions I personally do not really look forward to and others that could easily be imagined as technologies that can truly enhance our everyday life. For example, Intel CTO Justin Rattner believes that the reasoning gap between machines and humans could close by the year 2050 and “machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason in the not so distant future."

Rattner said that Intel's research labs are already looking at human-machine interfaces and examining future implications to computing with “some promising changes coming much sooner than expected.” This vision seems to fit in a timeline that Intel began creating a few years ago with ideas such as user-aware computing. While the concept of user-aware computing and computers that better understand certain actions and intentions of a user is a great approach, it appears to be rather controversial to pitch computers that are superior in their reasoning abilities.

A technology that is much more in reach, however, is wireless power. Concepts, possibilities and dangers have been discussed numerous times in the past and there is certainly no shortage of research projects dedicated to this topic. Intel said it is working on wireless power as well and uses principles developed by MIT scientists as a foundation. Rattner demonstrated a Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL) to power a 60-watt light bulb without the use of a plug or wire of any kind, which is more than is needed for a typical laptop.

WREL technology employs strongly coupled resonators, a principle similar to the way a trained singer can shatter a glass using her voice, Intel said. At the receiving resonator's natural frequency, energy is absorbed efficiently, just as a glass absorbs acoustic energy at its natural frequency. With this technology enabled in a laptop, for example, batteries could be recharged when the laptop gets within several feet of the transmit resonator, the company explained.

Wireless power is far from being ready for prime time and “many engineering challenges remain,” Intel said. But the company hopes “to find a way to cut the last cord in mobile devices and someday enable wireless power in Intel-based platforms.”

Another idea presented by Rattner involved the thought that millions of tiny micro-robots, called catoms, could be the source of shape-shifting materials. As a replacement for a PC case, this would allow a user to instantly change the shape of a pocket computer to a cellphone or to a flat and wide form factor for web browsing purposes. Yes, that sounds very much like science fiction and even Rattner admitted that this idea has “a difficult exploratory research agenda.”

A bit more realistic, at least for the 10 or 15 years ahead of us, is Intel’s note that Moore’s Law, which predicts a doubling of the transistor count on an integrated circuit every 18-24 months, is alive and well “through the next decade and beyond.” Rattner brought up again the idea of a transition from planar to 3D (stacked) transistors (Rattner talked about this concept for the first time back in 2005) and possibly using compound semiconductors to replace silicon in the transistor channel. Looking further out, Intel said it looking “into a variety of non-charge-based technologies that could one day replace CMOS altogether.”

Intel shows off 16 GB DDR3 DIMMs at IDF

2008-08-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

San Francisco (CA) – You can’t have enough RAM, as is often said in the computer world, and Intel has demoed 16 GB RAM sticks at its Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco. The RAM is made by Hynix and uses technology from MetaRAM to stack all the individual DRAMs onto the stick. Intel reps showed off the memory inside a number crunching server that was populated with 10 of these sticks for a total capacity of 160 GB of memory – heck some people don’t even have hard drives this big.

The server was running dual Nehalem EP processors and was churning through a massive 100 GB for the top ten customers of a company. An Intel rep told us the program had loaded the file into RAM and this gave approximately a 1000 times speedup versus doing the same computation from the hard drive.

The upcoming Nehalem processor will use triple channel DDR3 memory so you’ll need to fill three memory slots for maximum memory bandwidth.

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“SuperSpeed” USB 3.0 demoed at IDF

2008-08-22T09:48:00.000-07:00

San Francisco (CA) – We’re drowning in data and sometimes USB 2.0 just isn’t fast enough to move all those bits around. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, we were shown prototype USB 3.0 boards and cables that were transferring at 307+ megabytes per second. On paper USB 3.0 promises to be ten times faster than 2.0 and has the potential to transfer 600 MB/sec. The USB 3.0 coalition proclaims this is fast enough to transfer a 27 GB HD in just 60 to 70 seconds.

The USB 3.0 port is backwards compatible with USB 2.0 devices meaning you’ll be able to plug old devices into the new hubs/ports. Several companies were showing off their protocol analyzers which help test the signal integrity and speeds of end-user products.

A rep from ellisys said flash memory and hard drive storage capacities are outstripping USB 2.0 transfer speeds. Case in point, I often fill up 4 and 8 GB Compact Flash cards while photographing car shows and these things take forever to empty on a USB 2.0 card reader.

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Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates to star in anti-Apple ads

2008-08-22T09:47:00.000-07:00

Redmond (WA) - If we didn’t know that Bill Gates will dedicate much of his future time to his charity, we would say that he could be enjoying his retirement from Microsoft as a part time actor, showcasing the talent he acted in commercials with Steve Ballmer and John Heder (at least he may have more talent than most IT executives). And even if that may not become reality, Gates will make his TV debut in September alongside Jerry Seinfeld, spearheading a gigantic anti-Apple campaign.

Microsoft will begin firing its marketing artillery against Apple starting September 4 in an effort to derail Apple’s campaign to create of Mac computers as being cool and Vista PCs being failures. The ads will feature a "Windows, Not Walls" tagline and are expected to highlight Vista's openness and criticize Apple's integrated business model approach that leaves very little room for user requests. Jerry Seinfeld will add a touch of Hollywood, for which Microsoft reportedly paid $10 million.

The new ads are part of Microsoft's $300 million advertising campaign created to repair a damaged public image of the Windows Vista operating system. It is considered to be one of the largest marketing campaigns in Microsoft's history, which is believed to have been brought up by CEO Steve Ballmer. In a leaked memo, Ballmer informed his troops that the release of Vista SP1 enabled Microsoft to launch a new campaign. "Now it's time to tell our story," he wrote to Microsoft employees. "In the weeks ahead, we'll launch a campaign to address any lingering doubts our customers may have about Windows Vista."

According to the Wall Street Journal, the campaign will stress "breaking down barriers that prevent people and ideas from connecting." It is also expected to address the Zune music player and the perception that it is a failure. Apparently, Microsoft was considering many celebrity comedians, among them Chris Rock and Will Ferrell, but choose Jerry Seinfeld who is best-known for his sitcom.

We can’t wait see what a $10 million pay and many more millions in marketing funds can deliver and hope that we don’t see simply payback in the fashion of Apple’s Mac vs. PC commercials (a compilation can be found here) that, admittedly, can be considered to be insulting. We still remember the fantastic Windows 95 commercial and while we believe that Microsoft taking aim at Apple will not hurt, it surely would be nice to see Microsoft choosing that path again as well.

Intel G45 motherboards get quad-display support

2008-08-22T09:46:00.002-07:00

Palo Alto (CA) – Multi-monitor capability is slowly, but surely becoming a mainstream trend, especially in business environments. And if two monitors are just not enough, then there is a new convenient solution coming your way very soon.

The number of monitors supported by one system is typically limited by the number of graphics card outputs, which is a nice for Nvidia and ATI, as it enables both companies to sell their low-end GPUs as more expensive Quadro NVS and FirePro models with four display interfaces. The other alternative, of course, is DisplayLink, a company that specializes in transmitting visual data through a USB link. So far, DisplayLink support was only provided to displays that included the firm’s DP-120/160 chips.

DisplayLink has decided to provide its technology through a license model and it appears that the first major customer is Intel. According to DisplayLink, Intel's 4 Series chipset for desktop and notebook displays will support four displays at the same time: Two displays are supported through conventional outputs, while two more displays can be connected via USB 2.0.

To get an idea what performance you can expect from USB displays, read our review here.

Nvidia CUDA 2.0 delivers Photoshop plug-in acceleration

2008-08-22T09:46:00.001-07:00

Santa Clara (CA) – Nvidia today released the second generation of CUDA, the company’s C-based programming environment that enables developers to tap into GPUs to accelerate their applications. There are several new features included, most interestingly a Photoshop plug-in example that provides guidelines how to design plug-ins that run on the GPU.

While we expect Intel’s discrete graphics card and accelerator board Larrabee to be release in 2009 or in 2010, we see Nvidia expanding its CUDA strategy to push GPU acceleration into the mainstream market. The company today released CUDA 2.0, which includes support for 32 and 64-bit Windows Vista and Mac OS X as well as 3D textures and hardware interpolation.

What caught our attention however, is Nvidia’s note the developer kit also includes “an Adobe Photoshop plug-in example for both PC and Mac versions of the software.” According to the Nvidia, that plug-in “allows developers to design plug-ins that move the most compute-intensive functions of Adobe Photoshop to the GPU”, which could deliver “dramatic performance improvements” and enable “advanced filters and imaging techniques that are available directly within Adobe Photoshop.”

Could it be that the collaboration between Nvidia and Adobe is much further along than we think? Some time ago, we quoted an Adobe employee and reported that the next Photoshop, will include GPU acceleration, which got Adobe extremely upset. Adobe later retracted a bit and said that it simply does not want to promise any features that may be included in the alpha version of its software (code-named “Stonehenge”) to also be available in the final version.

Today we know that this software in fact will be named CS4 and industry sources have reiterated in conversations with us that the October 1 release date in fact is still in place. Now we hear that CUDA can run features that are “directly” available in Photoshop, we wonder: Why wouldn’t Adobe include GPU acceleration in CS4?

Microsoft Photosynth offers 3D photo compositing

2008-08-22T09:45:00.001-07:00

Microsoft on Wednesday unveiled a new technology for viewing and relating photographs called Photosynth, offering users a three-dimensional, 360-degree view of almost any environment. Microsoft claims the software provides users with the ability to share "the places and things [they] love using the cinematic quality of a movie, the control of a video game, and the mind-blowing detail of the real world." Photosynth can assemble three-dimensional scene compositions of rooms or landscapes by detecting similarities in photographs, adding perspective based on the camera's vantage point.

While Microsoft is excited about the technology, it says that Photosynth is available as a preview release of sorts, adding that there are many features and platforms it has yet to support.

Among the unsupported platforms are both Apple's Mac OS X and Safari web browser. Windows XP (SP2 or SP3) or Windows Vista are required, running Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2, or Firefox 3.

"Unfortunately, we're not cool enough to run on your OS yet," reads a note on the installation page. "We really wish we had a version of Photosynth that worked cross platform, but for now it only runs on Windows."

"Trust us, as soon as we have a Mac version ready, it will be up and available on our site."

Sony Ericsson intros its first T-Mobile USA phone

2008-08-22T09:44:00.001-07:00

Sony Ericsson today broke newer ground with the launch of the TM506, the company's first ever cellphone for T-Mobile's US branch. The clamshell is pitched as a fashion device but is also one of T-Mobile's few 3G phones, supporting faster UMTS data speeds and better call quality over the 1,700MHz band. Faster-still HSDPA access is also promised, though whether this applies to T-Mobile's network or only on the 2,100MHz band is unknown. Outside of its connection rates, the TM506 is considered a mid-range media phone with a two-megapixel camera, Sony Ericsson's normal media software suite and a Memory Stick Micro slot to hold content. Assisted GPS is built-in and can use TeleNav or similarly-designed services for its mapping.

Unusually for such a launch, neither Sony Ericsson nor T-Mobile has revealed a price for the handset, which goes on sale in early September with support for T-Mobile's MyFaves service.

Canon China leaks details of EOS 50D

2008-08-22T09:43:00.001-07:00

Canon's Chinese branch has leaked details for the EOS 50D, the latest in the company's sport and high-speed photography camera line, offering user anti-shake technology in the camera hardware, among other features. The new model is based around 15.4 Megapixel DIGIC 4 sensor, but experiences a miniscule drop in framerate (6.3 frames per second, versus a former 6.5). Light sensitivity should also be enhanced, running from ISO 100 to an extremely high ISO 12800, while the 50D's buffer is able to store up to 16 RAW images, or 60 JPEGs.

In addition, the 50D offers dust reduction, automatic brightness processing, autofocus fine tuning, a nine-point autofocus viewfinder and a 3 inch LCD monitor with almost a million pixels on screen. Canon houses the finished product in a magnesium alloy chassis.

A release date isn't included with the leak, though the information is surfacing just weeks before Germany's Photokina expo, which is regularly used as the venue for high-profile camera introductions. [via Photography Bay]