Latest News - Page 3058

Where's Vin Diesel? Because the fast, and the furious just arrived in the form of a new SSD from Texas Memory Systems (TMS). The company has announced the world's fastest PCI Express-connected, flash-powered solid-state drive, the RamSan-70.

TMS' RamSan-70 uses 685GB of single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash parts, which only 450GB of usable. The rest is given to overprovisioning and RAID parity storage for reliability and performance purposes, as well as sporting a pretty decent PowerPC CPU.

TMS also claim that the RamSan-70 can reach an astounding 2,500MB/sec sustained read, with anywhere between 300K-1,200K read input/output operations per second (IOPS). This is all backed up with a write latency of 30 microseconds,with bandwidth being sustained through a PCI Express 2.0 x8 slot. Isn't that the hottest few lines of text you've ever heard regarding storage? I think so.

Zynga didn't have high estimates from analysts, but the company didn't even meet those. The company releases their Q2 earnings report, which showed revenue of $332 million, and lost $22.8 million, or 3 cents per share. Analysts predicted Zynga would pull in 5 cents per share on revenue of $344 million.

Zynga have said they have 72 million daily active users, up from 59 million in the previous quarter, and 306 million monthly active users, up from 228 million. Bookings on the other hand, were $302 million, up 12-percent from the same time last year, but a sequential decline of around 9-percent from the previous quarter.

The company has now lowered its outlook going into the rest of 2012 based on delays in launching new games, a faster decline in existing web games due in part to a more challenging environment on the Facebook web platform, and reduced expectations for Draw Something." Zynga are projecting $1.15 billion to $1.225 billion in bookings for the remainder of 2012.

Today, Apple has released the latest version of its Mac OSX operating system in the form of Mountain Lion. This is the ninth major release of the OSX operating system. The latest operating system is available as an upgrade from the Mac App Store for just $19.99.

Birmingham City University students, get ready. Sony Computer Entertainment Europe has once again teamed up with that university to offer the chance to students to win a scholarship. The scholarship, if won, will see the student having half of the fees paid to attend the Gamer Camp Pro, which is a master's degree program with a gaming focus.

Furthermore, the students will then get a six-month placement in one of Sony's UK development studios. They'll even be paid for that, too! In order to have a chance to win, students must be signed up for Gamer Camp by August 9 and be automatically entered. The cheaper Nano version will work. Winners will be selected by interview from the initial pool of perspective candidates.

"We are delighted to offer PlayStation Academic Scholarships in partnership with Gamer Camp: Pro for the second year running." said SCEE's Dr. Maria Stukoff. "It's a great opportunity for the next generation of British videogame talent to acquire professional development skills before they embark into a competitive industry."

If you've been saving your money patiently waiting for the next big thing to come out of AMD, you may just get a chance to save a bit longer. Reports are coming in that the dual-GPU card based upon the 7970 silicon may not be released until late-August. This is directly opposed to other reports that it could be available this month.

It's not fully clear why the card has been delayed. AMD certainly needs to challenge the GTX 690's performance and hopefully win the performance crown back, so it's not like AMD is liking having this delay. If they were ahead, then a delay like this could be the result of them trying to keep it in reserve as a later challenge to NVIDIA.

One possible reason for the delay could be due to a shortage of PEX8747 PCIe bridge chips by PLX. These chips have been reported to be experiencing a shortage and are needed at the heart of every dual-GPU card, including the GTX 690. Another issue could be AMD is trying to work out how to provide the best price-performance and performance-Watt ratios.

ARM Holdings, who supplies microchips to Apple for their iPhone and iPads, Samsung's Galaxy line of smart devices, and now Microsoft's Windows 8 devices, has reported strong earnings for Q2.

The company had reported $213 million in earnings, which beat analysts' estimates of $206 million. Net profits was up 48-percent to $61.2 million, compared to $41.3 million this time last year. Next quarter's profits should be even better, as the company has said they have a "record order backlog", but have warned that macroeconomic uncertainties may impact what happens in Q4.

ARM noted in a statement that "Macroeconomic uncertainty may impact consumer confidence, and some analysts have become less confident in the semiconductor industry outlook in the second half". ARM did note that they expect overall revenues for 2012 to be in line with market expectations. They are heading for full-year revenues of $860 million.

Qualcomm have shown off their first tablet, which is powered by the companies Snapdragon S4 Pro APQ8064 SoC, backed up by an ADreno 320 GPU. It's a quad-core processor clocked in at 1.5GHz.

It's also very fast, and beats Samsung's Exynos 4 Quad which is found in the Galaxy S III, as well as HTC One X's NVIDIA Tegra 3 chip. Of course, it also beats Qualcomm's own Snapdragon S4 processor in a bunch of synthetic benchmarks. But, what is this beast priced at?

$1,300. Considering that Google's Nexus 7 is just $199, and Apple's iPad is a shave under $500, $1,300 is a huge price to pay for a tablet. But, if you want the best performing tablet on the market, this seems to be it. After the quad-core 1.5GHz chip, we find 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, and a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera.

Comcast have just confirmed that they are set to offer 305Mbps cable broadband, which they have called "Xfinity Platinum". Xfinity Platinum is currently being rolled out to "many major markets" according to the company.

Comcast have also said they'll be doubling the speeds of their current 25Mbps and 50Mbps offerings for existing subscribers, best of all, at no additional cost. The new Xfinity Platinum services come at an insane (well, to me) 305Mbps down and 65Mbps up, but at the time of writing there is no pricing details.

Verizon currently offers its 300Mbps FiOS service for about $210, so there's expectations that Comcast should float somewhere near that price. "Blast" and "Extreme" subscribers who have been up until now enjoying their respective 25Mbps and 50Mbps speeds, will be doubled to 50Mbps and 105Mbps at no cost.

Apple have been hit again, with security firm Intego and their virus team identifying yet another Trojan horse that attacks Apple's Mac platform. The new Trojan called "Crisis", hasn't been seen in the wild yet, but Intego says that the Trojan is engineered to make analysis of the malware difficult for security experts.

Intego have stressed alertness regarding Crisis, as it appears to be quite smart, having the ability to bypass OS X security features and install itself, all without any user interaction.

Crisis has been tracked, back to the IP address of 176.58.100.37, which it then calls back to every five minutes for instructions. There's only two OS X versions that are said to be susceptible to Crisis, OS X 10.6 and 10.7. Crisis can install and run itself without the need for the user to enter in their password. It's also resistant to reboots, and will run until it is detected and removed.

A feature requested by many Twitter users, and partially offered by other services, will finally be offered directly by Twitter some time in the future. "We're working on a tool to let users export all of their tweets," Mr. Costolo said in a meeting with reporters and editors at The New York Times on Monday. "You'll be able to download a file of them."

However, while users will be able to go through their own Tweets, as of right now, there are no plans for a feature to allow users to dig through all of the Tweets on the site. He explained that the search problems are very different and you "can't just put three engineers on it." As of right now, there is no timeline for when a search or download feature would be available.

EU law already provides this option for users who really want to have a copy of their Tweets and several users have taken advantage of it. EU law requires Twitter to provide a copy of all data they have stored about a user. Those who have exercised that right have found that it includes your account, tweets, favorites, direct messages, saved searches and more information about you, delivered in a ZIP file.

Apple has reported its third quarter earnings and sales numbers and they are pretty darn promising. In the last three months, Apple managed to push a large number of iDevices. The iPad fared the best with 17 million units sold, up from 11.8 million last quarter. The iPhone didn't do as well, but still managed an impressive 26 million.

The iPhone's 26 million was down from last quarters 35.1 million, but was up 28% from last year's Q3 numbers. These numbers confirm analysts expectations that the iPhone would see a decline while the iPad would see significant growth. The decrease in iPhone sales is a bit troublesome for the company as that is where the majority of their revenue and profit are.

The iPad managed an impressive 83% increase year-over-year and a 44% increase over the second quarter. iPod sales were down again and it appears to be quickly becoming a niche product as more and more users snap up smartphones and use them as an MP3 player. With 6.8 million sales, it most likely is still the most popular MP3/MP4 player on the market.

A word of warning to our readers: next time you check into a hotel room, realize you're probably not the only one that can get in. Take a moment to run your fingers along the bottom of the keycard lock and check for a power port. If you find one, it means a hacker with a couple of cheap hardware parts could gain access to your room without leaving a trace.

24-year-old Mozilla software developer and self-described hacker Cody Brocious has issued this warning after he found the vulnerability while reverse engineering Onity-manufactured locks. By connecting $50 in hardware to the DC port, the door will supposedly unlock and provide access. However, in practice, it's not quite that reliable.

While demonstrating it to a Forbe's journalist, it only worked on one of the three doors they tried and only on the second try after Brocious tweaked his software. Still, with a bit of time, a hacker could perfect the software and technique and somewhere around 4 million doors would immediately be able to be opened.

TP-LINK has announced a new pocket-sized wireless router that is affordable and useful. Measuring up at just 2.5" square and a depth of less than 3/4", the micro-sized router really can be taken with you while on the go, whether that be traveling or just running across town. The device is smaller than a credit card.

The device is said to provide 150Mbps wireless access speed and can be powered by a USB or external power supply. It is said to be powerful enough to deliver that speed inside an average-sized room. While you won't be winning any performance awards, it's perfect to get a smartphone, tablet, or other device onto a single, wired internet connection.

Seagate Australia today announced their new range of external hard drives targeted to the consumer market. The new Backup Plus external hard drives come in both 2.5-inch (Portable/Slim) and 3.5-inch (Desktop) form factors with the same Universal Storage Module (USM) adopted in 2010 by Seagate. USM allows the user to switch between USB 3.0 (included), Firewire 800 (purchased separately) or Thunderbolt (also purchased separately) input connections with a modular connector attached to the hard drive. These USM connectors work interchangeably with the previous GoFlex line from Seagate.

A lot of people do not backup their data regularly, data that may hold a lot of value to us. According to Seagate's research on the average Australian's backup strategy; 69% do not regularly back up content from home computers and notebooks, 77% of consumers do not backup the data on their phones & tablets and a huge 93% of Australians do not backup their photos and videos from social media websites.

The reasons behind these statistics are varied and explaining these reasons will probably call for another article. However, the biggest obstacle is probably the lack of knowledge from the public and also, the notion that backing up data is complicated to do.

A new report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo outlines his estimates to Apple's product launch schedule for the second half of 2012, where he notes we should see an all-new iPod touch and iPod nano models, as well as a new iPhone and iPad mini models, and tweaked internals for the full-sized iPad.

Kuo's report also mentions Apple's Mac range, where he believes Apple will launch their 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro in the Sept-Oct time frame. He notes that the launch of this 13-inch Retina MBP would be a little on the quiet side, because it would launch close to the new iPhone and iPad mini models:

NVIDIA have released the tech demo for their latest and greatest GeForce GTX 600 series of GPUs dubbed 'A New Dawn'. It features the ever-so-gorgeous Dawn, looking (or is that rendered?) better than ever.

I don't have any GTX 600 series cards myself, but if I did you'd be hearing my personal thoughts on it. But, The Tech Report, er, reports that that on their test rig, which is powered by SLI GTX 680's at 2560x1600 looks "incredible".

You can check it out yourself by downloading it here (a shave under 800MB). I've heard it runs on GTX 500 series cards, so let us know how you go, and what you think of NVIDIA's 'A New Dawn'.

It looks like Research in Motion (RIM) are getting into the news today with something positive, instead of job losses, negative finance reports, or delays on BB10.

Mobile Syrup is reporting that they've been informed that the 4G LTE BlackBerry PlayBook is set to launch via Bell, and most likely on other Canadian carriers, next Tuesday, the 31st of July. According to an internal Bell document, the price of the 4G-capable PlayBook will be $549.95.

Spec-wise, we're looking at the usual 7-inch display with a 1024x600 resolution, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 4G LTE (and HSPA+), OS 2.0, 1GB of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear-facing cam capable of shooting 1080p video, 3-megapixel front-facer, 4800 mAh battery and only comes in one size: 32GB.

Thunderbolt may not be everywhere yet, but we are still waiting on mechanically-driven hard disk drives to die their mainstream death, for speed reason anyway, but it looks like Thunderbolt has a future filled with speed.

Intel isn't slowing down their rampage of Thunderbolt, with the company already planning more than one new controller, including a Falcon Ridge part that is said to double the current throughput from 10Gbps per channel, to 20Gbps per channel.

Current-generation controllers, codenamed "Cactus Ridge", arrived earlier this year starting with Apple's latest Mac products. Cactus Ridge-based parts combined DisplayPort and either two or four PCI Express lanes (depending on the chip used) over a single cable, with 10Gbps of bidirectional bandwidth per channel.

All three next-gen consoles: Nintendo's Wii U, Microsoft's Xbox Next/720 (or whatever they end up calling it) and Sony's PlayStation 4 will all sport AMD GPUs, CPUs or APUs, or a mixture. This is thanks to Bob Feldstein, who up until just recently worked for AMD.

Feldstein has just changed his flag colors, from red, to green. He's joined the ranks of NVIDIA as their vice president of technology licensing at NVIDIA. His position at AMD was as their corporate vice president of business development, as well as leading the company's Botson Design Center, which focused on design engineering for various AMD chips.

Feldstein's work has been said to be instrumental in helping AMD grow into new markets, especially with their tech being in the three next-gen consoles. This means that Feldstein and his work has been a big reason as to how AMD won big contracts away from NVIDIA. NVIDIA spokesman Bob Sherbin said in a statement that Feldstein is "an experienced technology licensing person" and that NVIDIA hired him "to help us think through current and possible future technology licensing projects".

Madfinger Games has said they have been forced into relaunching their Android game at a lower price point due to piracy rates. Even though the app only cost $0.99, Madfinger Games has said that piracy rates were "unbelievably high" and that is why they have relaunched the game for the low price of free.

The game is available for Android users on the Google Play store for users who would like to download it. Of course users who purchased the app are not exactly happy that it is now free and as such have started posting angry one-star reviews. Madfinger Games has released a statement regarding the change, although it's doubtful to relieve much anger: