*** Our GEFORCE GTX 670 review has been posted! ***

AnandTech described the beasty and impressive new NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 690 dual-GPU video card rather well with just three adjectives in its review yesterday - Expensive, Rare and Fast. They along with a bunch of other websites like ours got a review sample directly from NVIDIA. We didn't, but that was no surprise to us at all.

We have attempted for years to work with NVIDIA, but it hasn't worked. Some years ago we started breaking NVIDIA GEFORCE launch dates and posting our reviews early on purpose because NVIDIA would not support us properly. We didn't expect any more or less than the treatment that other media get. They would never send us review samples of new video cards. Our response was simple - you don't play nice with us, we won't play nice with you. We posted many GPU reviews well ahead of the launch time. Some will say you broke the NDA, but let's make it very clear - you have to have an NDA to begin with to break it. We haven't signed an NVIDIA NDA for a very long time. They'd have to firstly communicate with us for that to even happen...

Microsoft and Dolby have just inked a new deal which will see Dolby Digital Plus' audio technology introduced to Windows 8 tablets and PCs. This will allow Windows 8-based devices to play Dolby-encoded content without an issue.

Microsoft have previously used Dolby encoding since Windows Vista in 2007, but in 2008, Dolby raised the possibility that we might not see Windows 8 with Dolby technology. It's incredibly exciting as Dolby Digital Plus 5.1-channel decoding and two-channel encoding will now be incorporated into all PCs and tablets that are licensed to run Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows 8 RT.

This new partnership also allows for both x86- and ARM-based Windows 8 machines to access Dolby's high-quality audio standard.

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We all know Samsung and Apple pretty much dominate the smartphone industry, but just how much have they been dominating it in the last year or so? Quite well, it seems. Apple and Samsung secure 99-percent of the profits, according to Asymco's Horace Dediu and his recently released data.

Out of this 99-percent, Apple take 73-percent, with Samsung taking 26-percent in Q1 2012. Comparing the previous quarter, Q4 2011, Apple were enjoying a nice 75-percent, with Samsung having 16-percent. This means that Samsung has pretty much absorbed the rest of the market share from the other mobile phone vendors such as HTC, Research in Motion, LG, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and Nokia.

What's more surprising is the 1-percent that is left. HTC managed to scoop that up, leaving the other vendors RIM, LG, SE, Motorola and Nokia failing to make a profit on their handset businesses. Surprising to say the least, and quite shocking. I wonder what 2012 has in store for the eight vendors.

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If you thought the dual-core processor in your smart device was fast, I bet you thought the quad-core processors we're seeing in smart devices like the Samsung GALAXY S III which sports the Exynos 4 Quad is impressive, well, not so much.

TSMC have just announced a 28nm ARM Cortex-A9 dual-core processor which can run at over 3GHz. These processors are from the high performance for mobile applications (HPM) process node, but will also be made to operate at lower speeds between 1.5GHz and 2.0GHz, for less demanding user markets. The high performance chips are to be baked into tablets, mobile products and networking applications.

TSMC has said that the resulting SoC designs will have the lowest PPA landmark (which is a ratio measure of power to area) available in the market. When compared to the 40nm TSMC-made ARM chips, Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President of R&D has said:

At 3.1 GHz this 28HPM dual-core processor implementation is twice as fast as its counterpart at TSMC 40nm under the same operating conditions. This work demonstrates how ARM and TSMC can satisfy high performance market demands. With other implementation options, 28 HPM is also highly suited for a wide range of markets that prize performance and power efficiency.

Activision aren't letting themselves get kicked down by claims by EA that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 looks like a "tired" game, where they've promised it will be "groundbreaking and visceral" and will feature "disruptive innovation".

With both companies going head-to-head for the Christmas season sales, EA with their Medal of Honor: Warfighter launching weeks before COD:BLOPS 2, Activision is putting up a fight. Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision says:

Hands down, this is the most ambitious Call of Duty ever. We are bringing disruptive innovation to the franchise and we are doing it on several fronts. We're pushing the boundaries technologically, graphically, and from a narrative and gameplay perspective.

Activision are promising "an experience that Call of Duty fans have never seen before", where they also add that it is challenging assumptions in relation to the single player campaign and its multiple setting, where the multiplayer side of things will sport zombies and more ways to play. Activision tap their storyline, which is set to feature multiple branches and meaningful choices that will impact the narrative, which is something that will set it apart from the competition.

Amazon were once able to stand proud bragging that their Kindle Fire was "the #1 bestselling, most gifted, and most wished for product", but never gave out any real sales numbers. This should've been a flashing red light in our faces, really.

Kindle Fire sales have been impressive, initially, but have reportedly started to die down. According to IDC's review of worldwide tablet shipments for Q1 2012, Kindle Fire shipments dropped from 4.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011, to less than 750,000 units last quarter. Quite the drop, isn't it?

This represents a drop from 16.8-percent to "just over 4-percent" global market share, and is enough to cost Amazon its second-place in IDC's ranking of tablet vendors. Samsung have now replaced Amazon as #2, with Amazon taking the #3 position. Who's #1? Wow, surprisingly, Apple. But so they should be: the company shipped 11.8 million iPads in the first quarter, but this is down from the 15.4 million units in Q4 2011.

Apple now stake claim to 55-percent of the market, down from 68-percent in Q4 2011.

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Microsoft are really wanting to make Windows 8 stand out, bigger than most operating systems they've released before. Today, the Redmond-based company have announced that Windows Media Center is not going to be included with Windows 8.

If you'd like to have access to Windows Media Center, you'll need to pay for it. You're thinking this is bad, ridiculous, how could they? Well, Microsoft are promising that Windows 8 will "deliver a world-class video and audio entertainment experience", and they've made it clear that DVDs are not part of this. Windows Media Player will continue to be included with Windows 8, but the ability to play DVDs, will not.

ZDNet's Ed Bott has noted:

There will, of course, be plenty of decoders included with Windows 8. The goal is to "cover all key playback scenarios for mainstream content such as YouTube video, Netflix video, Amazon audio/video, H.264 web browsing/streaming, Hulu video, MP4 video, AVCHD video from camcorders, Ultraviolet video, and the HTML5 video tag."

 

Decoders for H.264, VC-1 (WMV), and MP4 video are included, as are audio codecs for MP3, WMA, AAC, PCM (Wave), and DD+. Metro style apps are free to add their own decoders, the post says, using FLAC, MKV, and OGG as examples.

There's always VLC.

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According to the latest reports and numbers from Jon Peddie Research, predictions are being made for PC gaming hardware sales, where the research group are predicting total sales of $23.6 billion and by the end of 2015, this should grow to $32 billion.

They cite strong demand which will fuel growth over the coming years, especially in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries where systems, accessories and upgrades are expected to get close to $4.7 billion this year, and $7.7 billion by 2015.

JPR also expects to see the average selling price for some components to drop in 2013, as competition heats up. This is always good news for end users, with unit shipments expected to rise, which will smash any dip that would otherwise show up as a result of the lowered prices. These numbers should have confidence in them, as this year we're expecting some truly kick-ass titles such as Diablo III, Max Payne 3, and more.

By next year, we should have Crysis 3, Far Cry 3, World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, and Borderlands 2. We shouldn't forget Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, either.

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The Expendables was an all-out 90s action star lover's wet dream, it featured a bunch of muscled-up, washed-up action stars, together again, kicking ass on the big screen. The Expendables 2 amps this up by putting more stars in it, for longer, and introducing more 90s old-school action.

The Expendables 2 features Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Liam Hemsworth, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, all in the same movie. Yes, I'm out of breath too from excitement.

The trailer doesn't show much, but the bit with Willis and Schwarzenegger in the hybrid, bitching, is hilarious. This movie has nothing to do with technology, but what tech fan doesn't want to see a movie like this? It's the opposite of movies like Transformers, and has some great 90s action stars. The Expendables 2 opens on August 17.

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iLounge are reporting they've received information for the next-generation iPhone, that it would sport a 4-inch display by increasing height of the device. In order to accomodate the tallet screen, the body of the next iPhone will also become slightly taller. We should also see a 20-percent (or so) reduction in thickness. They go on, adding:

What we've learned: the new iPhone will indeed be longer and thinner than the iPhone 4 and 4S. Approximate measurements are 125mm by 58.5mm by 7.4mm-a 10mm jump in height, nearly 2mm reduction in thickness, and virtually identical width. According to our source, Apple will make one major change to the rear casing, adding a metal panel to the central back of the new iPhone. This panel will be flat, not curved, and metal, not ceramic. Our artist's rendition provides a rough idea of what this change will look like; it echoes the current-generation iMac design, to be sure.

Samsung have proudly announced that their tablet/smartphone mash-up, the GALAXY Note, has sold two million units since its launch five months ago. The GALAXY Note smashed past the two million mark in the shortest period of time for any Korean LTE phone to date.

Samsung's GALAXY Note is set to receive an Ice Cream Sandwich update shortly, where it'll bring a slew of new features to the 5.3-inch tablet/smartphone mash-up device. Before it was released, most people thought it was a gamble pushing a device of this size onto the market. It was met with mixed reactions when it was announced, as it walks a fine line between smartphone and tablet. But, the huge reception it was received not only in South Korea, but the world, has shown that Samsung were right to gamble on a device like this.

Worldwide numbers are also quite impressive, where back in March, Samsung had announced it sold two million GALAXY Note's, as well as shipping over five million units across the world. These numbers would've grown by now, and should continue to do so when the ICS update hits.

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Microsoft's next-generation operating system, Windows 8 is nearly here and with it will bring changes to Microsoft's "Windows Live" platform. The Redmond-based company has decided to retire the "Windows Live" brand once Windows 8 arrives.

This means that Windows Live-based services such as Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Calendar, and Windows Live Mail will be known as Messenger, Calendar and Mail, respectively. Services such as Hotmail will continue to run normally, but Microsoft wants to unify their services under a singular "Microsoft account". This seems like a wise idea.

What happens to @live.com accounts? Well, it seems like they'll be merged over onto the new system, with the same Microsoft account capable of being used for signing into Windows 8 and will be used for Xbox Live, Zune, and more. This is what Microsoft wants its services and products to look like under Windows 8:

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It has been a long time coming, but we're finally hearing about The Elder Scrolls Online, which will be unveiled in the June issue of Game Informer. The Elder Scrolls Online is being developed by the team at Zenimax Online Studios, where the game merges the exploration of rich worlds that the Elder Scrolls franchise is known for, with the scale and social aspects of an MMORPG.

The Elder Scrolls Online is set 1000 years before the events in Skyrim take place, as daedric prince Molag Bal tries to pull of Tamriel into his demonic realm. Game director and MMO veteram Matt Firor says:

It will be extremely rewarding finally to unveil what we have been developing the last several years. The entire team is committed to creating the best MMO ever made - and one that is worthy of The Elder Scrolls franchise.

Samsung released their flagship GALAXY S III smartphone today, and while we can perve at the pics, drool over the specs, and shout "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY" at the screen, it's still nice to see how the smartphone compares to its predecessor, the GALAXY S II.

Our friends over at Netbook News have done this in the form of a video comparison of the two GALAXY-branded smartphones. Netbook News throw a GALAXY S II up against the GALAXY S III and give their quick impressions, showing us the screen, how thick it is, and heavy it is versus each other.

We should see more of these videos over the coming weeks, and I've already reached out to SamsungMobileUS via Twitter to see if I can one for myself personally before I fly off to Computex this time next month. I wouldn't mind using the camera on the phone while I'm there, and I would feel like a hipster having the latest gear in my pocket and hands.

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While there's been yet another Call of Duty announced in the form of Black Ops 2, but Battlefield 3 is still pumping away. We should receive Battlefield 3's first expansion in June which will begin an entire new world of Battlefield 3 fun.

During a recent interview, DICE's Patrick Bach said that the studio is focusing on giving players between 12 and 18 months of value in Battlefield 3 through DLC and expansions. Whilst speaking to VG24/7 regarding Battlefield 3's upcoming DLC, Close Quarters, Bach said:

We make sure that if you're a Battlefield player, there should be plenty of Battlefield for you to spend your days on. And again, we are focusing on giving you 12-18 months of value for Battlefield 3 and the expansion packs we're releasing.

Are you excited? I'm sure this is great news for Battlefield 3 fans.

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As I reported yesterday, users of the iOS Rock Band app received a message that they would no longer be able to play the game and thanked them for 'rocking out with us.' Users, of course, flipped out and started posting bad reviews on the app and demanding their money back across a plethora of online communities.

The developers of Rock Band were caught off guard by the message, so they redirected all questions to EA Mobile. Apple additionally directed questions to EA, who remained quiet in the face of it all. EA has finally come out with a statement blaming the message on an error and that the game would still be playable.

Rock Band for iOS will remain live-the in-app message users received yesterday was sent in error. We apologize for the confusion this caused. We're working to clarify the issue that caused the error and will share additional information as soon as possible.

The app itself has also received a similar message in the same manner of the last message. If you're confused how the message got in there by error, you're not alone. I'd like to take this moment to throw out the possibility that EA was indeed shutting the game down, but has reversed the decision due to all of the public outcry.

Overclocking guru K|ngp|n has managed another incredible feat. It wasn't too long ago that he managed to take an NVIDIA GTX 680 up to 1957MHz with the help of some extreme cooling. This time he has managed to push an EVGA GTX 680 up to 1442MHz on basic air cooling alone. That is quite the feat and proves just how great the Kepler architecture is.

K|ngp|n used an EVGA GTX 680 SC, which features a default frequency of 1058MHz (1124MHz at Boost). He pushed 1.212V through the core of the GPU to achieve this feat. That voltage is at the very top of the voltage limit set by NVIDIA. The memory was also overclocked to 1812MHz which is also a big improvement.

Of course when you are running a card like that, especially at those clocks, you need a strong system to run with it so that it doesn't bottleneck. In this case, K|ngp|n used i7-3960X CPU (overclocked to 4.98GHz)and memory clocked at 1245.7MHz (2490MHz effective). This achieved a 3DMark 11 scoring of P12745.

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The Samsung Galaxy S III comes with a load of new features, with many of them as suspected prior to launch. Several new things have also been added to the phone are extremely cool. For one, the front-facing camera tracks the user's gaze so that the screen will not lock while the user is looking at the screen.

The device features the new Exynos 4 Quad-Core 1.4GHz CPU, 1GB of RAM, 16, 32, or 64GB of storage, and radios for Bluetooth 4.0, WiFi, and NFC connectivity. The front side features a 1.9MP camera which is used in the above described feature. The backside features an 8MP camera which can take HD video along with burst photos.

The screen is a 4.8-inch 720p Super AMOLED display. The device seems capable of accepting voice commands and also senses when you pick it up to make a call. It can also wake on a voice command. It is available in two colors: "Pebble Blue" and "Marble White."

Wireless charging is also available without an additional case. This phone has more features than you can shake a stick at or than I can list. The Galaxy S III will be available in Europe by the end of May and is looking at a summer launch for the United States. This phone very well could beat the iPhone. More as it comes.

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On May 29, Arctic Cooling will release a new product that the market has never seen. This product combines air cooling and liquid cooling for graphics cards in a self-contained system. The idea here is to lower the heat and noise that is often produced by a high-performance graphics card.

Arctic Cooling is billing the new product as a graphics card cooler for enthusiasts. Arctic Cooling says the following:

• Unmatched cooling performance
• Active Cooling Unit and thermal adhesive for lower RAM and VR temperatures
• Maintenance-free closed-loop liquid system
• Lightest high-end graphics card cooler (363g)
• All fans PWM-controlled by graphics card
• Virtually-silent operation

The graphics cooler supports almost every graphics card going all the way back to the NVIDIA GTX 4XX series and the AMD HD 4XXX series. However, for some reason, it seems to miss supporting the HD 7970 and 7950 for some reason. Why someone would leave that out of support is beyond me, as it is the high performance GPUs that need cooling.

NVIDIA, not content with the performance of the GTX 680, has decided to bake two GK104s together in the form of the GTX 690. The GTX 690 provides near the same performance as two GTX 680s SLI'd together while reducing power consumption and noise. It comes at a hefty price, however, of $999 MSRP.

Reviewers of the new 28nm GPU were given only 3 days to review this beast of a card, so many put in long hours putting it through its paces. What they found is that this card is a beast. As it stands, no other GPU can compete with the GTX 690, nor can they compete with its price tag. We have gone around the web and compiled a list of reviews for you.

Video cards:

GTX 690 - Hi Tech Legion

GTX 690 - HardwareHeaven.com

GTX 690 - Hardware Canucks

GTX 690 - PC Perspective

More in full story.