Latest News - Page 3074

ASUS have introduced a new all-in-one PC featuring Intel's third-generation Core processors. The new ASUS ET2411 is a 23.6-inch Full HD multi-touch LED-backlit beast, sporting Windows 7, HDMI, and much more.

The touch-screen alone is something that makes the ET2411 standout. The ET2411 also comes with ASUS' SonicMaster Technology which boasts louder volumes, and improved clarity. The all-in-one PC can also be used as a secondary display on another PC by connecting other PCs, laptops or tablets through its HDMI input.

ASUS' ET2411 is also wall-mountable for those with a smaller apartment or house, or those wanting to have it look stylish. It can be specced with a Core i5 or i7, comes with 2GB of RAM (expandable to 8GB), 500GB HDD, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, DVD/Blu-ray drive, two USB 3.0 ports on the side, 3 USB 3.0 ports on the rear, HDMI-in and out, VGA, card reader, GbE connectivity, and a Kensington lock.

Could those words be any more mysterious? Apple CEO Time Cook when questioned about the lack of Facebook integration on iOS, said "Stay tuned". Considering that Facebook have nearly 1 billion users, and Apple's handshake with Twitter and its integration with iOS, we have to wonder, 'why not Facebook?'

Cook adds "Facebook is a great company, and the relationship is solid. I saw Sheryl (Sandberg) earlier outside. We have great respect for each other."

When Swisher reffered to Jobs calling Facebook "onerous", Cook responded with:

Google Nexus 7, get to know it, because it's going to be something quite big over the coming months. Nexus 7 is a 7-inch tablet with a 'HD Ready' 1280x800-pixel screen, NVIDIA's 4-PLUS-1 Tegra 3 SoC which clocked in at 1.3GHz and is manufactured by ASUS.

It features a five-point multi-touch hardware-accelerated screen, which takes advantage of Tegra's fifth 'companion' core and Synamptics IP. Pixel density on the Nexus 7 is a little higher than 215 pixels per inch.

Being a Google device, it sports the very latest version of their mobile OS, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. It has been previously reported that Android 5.0 would be Jelly Bean, but it seems Google is outfitting their $199 tablet with the latest deliciously-named OS. Android 4.1 is the next step from Google, with Android 4.2 being the step after.

Windows 8 Release Preview is out a little early, and whilst it's just a Chinese version, it's been said that users have been able to install an English language pack through Windows Update. The leaked ISO has been confirmed and tested by a few websites such as PCBeta (Chinese) and WinUnleaked (English) and is available right now various torrent sites. Personally, I'll be waiting for the official version of the OS, which is expected sometime next week, right in the middle of Computex.

Build 8400 does include some goodies, such as improved multi-monitor support, a new boot screen, as well as updated wallpapers and cursors. The final version of Windows 8 is expected to not include the translucent Aero Glass, but is present in the current build of Windows 8, including build 8400.

Build 8400 improves upon Metro, where we see News, Travel and Sports apps have been added. Also, DigiTimes is reporting that sources have told them Microsoft may increase the price of OEM versions of Windows 8, which could make it harder on system builders to keep their prices sharp, especially on the Ultrabooks.

Intel has inked a deal with Devicescape which could see the inclusion of Devicescape's virtual network into Intel-powered Ultrabooks and tablets. While Intel doesn't actually build these devices, they provide the silicon and software to manufacturers who design and assemble them and then sell them to the general public.

Devicescape has crowdsourced an entire network of open access points around the globe. However, not every access point gets added to Devicescape's network. First, the access point has to pass Devicescpe's standards for speed, reliability and availability. Only then will it be added. Of the 100 million or so access points seen, only 8 million have made the cut.

"Smart Connect will work on lid open and lid closed scenarios," Devicescape CEO David Fraser said via email. "So, you'll be automatically connected no-matter the state of your PC." The connection is completely automatic and works even with the lid closed. Imagine walking into a store and sitting down to find all of your email and RSS feeds synced. The future looks great.

Attorneys representing the now defunct upload site MegaUpload have filed a motion with the court to dismiss criminal piracy charges due to the fact the US had no jurisdiction. "Megaupload does not have an office in the United States, nor has it had one previously," MegaUpload's lawyers wrote in their motion to dismiss. "Service of a criminal summons on Megaupload is therefore impossible."

The filing came today and is just the latest in a long drawn out court battle between MegaUpload and the United States. The sad part is that millions of legitimate users have been affected and their files, some the only copy, have been put into jeopardy at the hands of the US government. The issue at hand is that MegaUpload has never had a US-based agent or office:

According to Sony's market research and general common sense, water proof smartphones are something that everyone wants. Finally enough people have sounded off that Sony has decided to appease them. The Sony Xperia Go appears to replace last year's Xperia Active and the Xperia arco S appears to be an international Xperia arco HD.

Sony Xperia go specifications:

Sony Xperia arco S specifications:

A new discovery has been made by a Cambridge University researcher that a chip used by the US military features a security backdoor which could have massive implications on on national security. The chip, which was built in China, cannot simply be reprogrammed as the security backdoor is physically present on the silicon.

Sergei Skorobogatov of Quo Vadis Labs at Cambridge University said:

Solid state drives are becoming a dime a dozen as more manufacturers intro models at lower and lower prices. These drives often don't sacrifice any performance to save costs. Today OCZ has introduced a new set of Agility 4 SSDs "for Mainstream Users Requiring the Best Price-to-Performance Ratio." We haven't tested that claim quite yet.

The newest line of solid state drives by OCZ is powered by an Everest 2 controller platform and "excels in real-world compressible and incompressible workload performance." OCZ is claiming the drives consistently exceed transfer rates of up to 400MB/s, and up to 85,000 random write IOPS. The press release says: "The dual core controller architecture also includes an advanced error correction code (ECC) engine, dynamic wear-leveling, auto encryption, and Indilinx Ndurance 2.0 technology that addresses and overcomes specific shortcomings of NAND flash memory to extend flash life well beyond the manufacturer's rated program and erase cycle specifications."

"For mainstream storage applications, there is no product better suited in the industry than our Agility 4 SSDs, providing the ultimate in access speed, application performance, endurance and reliability, at price points that most cost-conscious users will find appealing," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology. "As mobile users and applications continue to grow, adding to the deluge of data being generated on a daily basis, our Agility 4 SSD series provide great IOPS performance at a reasonable price enabling the user experience to be heightened especially for video streaming, music, photos, gaming, and online transaction processing (OLTP)."

The producers of Far Cry have released a trailer ahead of E3 so that they could advertise the live stream of their press conference. In the video, it shows some pretty good graphics, but these could be pre-rendered which would give them an advantage over actual in-game footage. It doesn't give much of the story away and contains some NSFW language.

Overall, the upcoming game looks pretty good. If you are a Far Cry fan, then you should watch Ubisoft's press conference. It will start June 4 at 3PM PDT and is available on www.youtube.com/ubisoft or www.uplay.com. This means 6PM for NY, 11PM for London, and June 5 for Paris, Moscow, Tokyo, and Sydney.

We will do our best to bring you the latest Far Cry information from E3 while we are there covering the show. Let us know what you think of the trailer in the comments!

During a speech at the AllThingsD Conference yesterday, Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about various things, one of these topics was the Apple TV. Cook revealed that Apple was on track to double the sales of the Apple TV this year, where they've already racked up 2.7 million sold. Considering that 3 million were sold throughout the entire of 2011, this is not bad at all.

Cook added that staying in the Apple TV market was uncharacteristic for Apple:

Google and Samsung sitting in a tree, C-H-R-O-M-I-N-G. Yeah, you get the point. Samsung have released two new Chrome OS-based products today, the Samsung Series 5 Chromebook and the Series 3 Chromebox. What makes these products stand out from the crowd? The cloud-based OS UI has been updated, and now sports multitouch trackpad support.

Coinciding with the new OS update, are Samsung's two products. The updates OS now sports an app-focused user interface that lets you select which programs you use the most, for easier access. Google Drive is now the data storage system, and deeper integration should come through in the coming weeks.

A revamped media player peeks its head up, too, as well as a brand new photo editor and uploader, as well as remote desktop support for both Windows and Mac. What hardware is inside the new system? According to The Verge's review on the units, the Chromebook sports a 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Celeron 867 processor, 4GB of RAM, a 12.1-inch screen, 1200x800 resolution, multitouch trackpad, Wi-Fi and 3G, two USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 card reader and more than eight hours of battery life.

Twitter has announced updates to its website which they claim has decreased page load times down to 20% of what they were previously. The old system used the browser to render JavaScript which was groundbreaking at the time. It does have a disadvantage, however, in that it misses out on optimizations only available to the server.

As such, Twitter is bringing some of the front-end grunt work back onto the servers in order to speed up load times. As Twitter says, "To connect you to information in real time, it's important for Twitter to be fast." Part of the change is not using # (hashbang) in the permalink URLs to improve initial load times.

Another update is to decrease the "time to first Tweet." This is where Twitter has managed to decrease page load times to 1/5 of what they were previously. The general, watered down version of how this works is to take the JavaScript out of the equation and render the content on the server. This removes the slowdown from old browsers or slow machines. Twitter explains in more detail:

That small little project being worked on by Google is gathering more publicity. In a recent interview with California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, Sergey allowed Newsom to put the glasses on to see a picture that Sergey had taken with the glasses. When asked, Sergey wouldn't say how the picture was taken, but we do now know that there is a touchpad on the side behind the display.

In the picture above, you can see Mr. Brin operating the touchpad with his finger while looking for the picture he had taken previously. After being found, Newsom got to wear the glasses and commented on them: "You can easily forget you have them on, and sense the capacity of use in the future."

Newsom expressed that he was impressed with the quality of the image taken, especially since the stage isn't ideal for demoing a display. He even commented that the "image was remarkably clear." Brin also let everyone know that those are a rough prototype: "I have some hopes to maybe get it out sometime next year, but that's still a little bit of a hope."

With Windows 8 Zune is out and Xbox is in. Zune will be no more, that Microsoft has made abundantly clear. We finally have an answer as to what is replacing it: Xbox. Increasing from its humble roots as a gaming platform, the large brand will become an entire entertainment center for Windows 8 on phones, PCs, tablets, and TVs.

From Microsoft:

Let me qualify this with the following: While these appear to be legitimate, valid pictures of the upcoming iPhone case, I am still skeptical due to the fact Apple is ridiculously tight-lipped about products and slips like these don't usually happen. However, with a new CEO the secrecy of Apple could be in decline. If that is the case, I would have so many fewer rumors to post.

The first picture is courtesy of 9to5Mac. In it are two shells, which appear to be larger than the iPhone 4S. The casings show the smaller dock connector along the bottom of the phone along with what appear to be speaker grills and a headphone jack. The larger speaker grills are to accommodate better, larger speakers.

Also, the provider of the picture has said that there are two additional colors that the iPhone will be available in. What those colors are are not known. Again, I would attribute the new colors to the new CEO and the change that comes with a new leader. Engadget has supplied additional photos which depict a device which looks identical to the first set in the first picture. The higher quality pictures indicate that the device is not two-tone but rather just covered in a protective plastic covering.

Microsoft has left an unpatched exploit in Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The exploit works on Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 8 Consumer Preview and has been documented and known for a while. The details of the exploit are pretty simple and can be done in under a minute if one is a fast typist.

The general idea behind the exploit is to be able to run an elevated command prompt without even being logged in. It works by making a simple change in the registry so that when sticky keys is activated it launches the command prompt instead. The hack is virtually undetectable as all it is is a simple change in registry value.

To do the exploit one only needs to open command prompt once on the target PC and enter the code below. Once done, the hacker can return to the workstation at any point later in time and launch an administrator level command prompt just by pressing shift 5 times in a row. This could be of a serious nature for many different people, especially a business.

AMD's new APUs are pretty awesome. They combine great graphics with pretty good compute performance into a single chip. They are ideal for laptops, desktops, and embedded solutions. Today's award announcement, which brings them to their second consecutive win, is given by Taipei Computer Association after being judged by a panel of esteemed government officials, academics, research analysts, editors-in-chief of key media outlets and industry experts.

"We are honored to receive this prestigious award from the Taipei Computer Association for the second consecutive year," said Chris Cloran, corporate vice president, AMD Client Products. "The overwhelming market reception and industry accolades for the AMD A-Series APUs demonstrate that AMD is uniquely meeting the needs of our customers and a new generation of PC buyers."

According to the press release:

Some of the hardware in the Apple MacBook Air is designed specifically for the MacBook Air so that everything would fit inside that tiny chassis. An example of that is the solid state drive which doesn't follow a traditional 2.5-inch form factor. Thankfully there are companies out there like RunCore who will build to such a niche market.

The drive itself is small. According to the RunCore press release it is "almost a half-size of conventional 2.5" SSDs without case." Usually when a device is shrunk down performance and storage capabilities take a hit, but that is not the case here. In this instance, this SSD offers up to 4 times the original storage amount of the MacBook Air.

It manages to have all that storage while performing better. Testing shows that the SSD is capable of over 500MB/s transfer thanks to its SATA III interface. It also offers Tier 1 Toggle Synchronous NAND which adds to its performance. The key features, as RunCore says, are as follows:

The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) have just become my new best friends as they have "agreed a draft new Recommendation on the technical details for 'Ultra High Definition Television'", but have decided something for UHDTV, that both 3840x2160 and future 7860x4320 screens keep the same UHDTV moniker.

While that sounds simplistic, it is confusing. Because 4K is not 8K, and vica versa, yet they share the same 'UHDTV' name. 4K sports eight megapixels, where 8K features an eye-busting 32 megapixels.

What are your thoughts on this? Why would they name UHDTV and jam both 4K and 8K standards into it? Why not have UHDTV 4K and UHDTV 8K? How hard would that be? Adopting two ultra-high def TV specs into a single moniker is just confusing, and annoying. "Hey, what UHDTV do you have?", "Oh, I have an HDTV". Hopefully this gets changed, but I highly doubt it will.