Latest News - Page 3103

First off, Happy New Year! I hope you're all enjoying your festivities, while here in South Australia it has been a blistering 41C (over 104F) for the past 2 days straight and it is currently 43C right now. Joy! Onto the news! Our GPU editor sent this to me, and at first I thought it was tease, because he loves to do that to me. But, it was not, it was news that had floated onto the great world wide web.

Sapphire's leaked document, which reveals their non-reference AMD Radeon HD 7970's that they are currently baking in Sapphire ovens. Sapphire have an amazing six cards that will be non-reference, all ranging in features, speeds and more. One of them is the "Atomic RX" which goes from the original 1000MHz Core speed to a whopping 1335MHz. It sports the usual 3GB of RAM up from the 5500MHz stock speed, to 5735MHz. Output-wise, we have 2 x MiniDisplayPort, 1 x HDMI 1.4a and 1 x Single Link DVI.

There is also an "Atomic WC" which seems to be identical, but a water-cooled version. The other models include "Toxic 3G" which has a GPU clock of 1125MHz and 5600MHz RAM, "FLEX 6G" which as you guessed, has 6GB of RAM and 6 x MiniDisplayPort outputs with GPU clocks of just 925MHz and 5500MHz RAM, "VaporX 3G" which should have Sapphire's awesome VaporX cooler, with GPU clocks of 1010MHz and 5500MHz RAM. The final two are the Dual-Fan 3G with 925MHz Core and 5500MHz RAM and finally, the stock "Da Original" with 925MHz GPU clocks and 5500MHz RAM.

This is one game I hope doesn't get affected by consolitis, where Gearbox have shared some information about the next Borderlands title. It has already been reported that the four playable characters would be either replaced, or drastically altered, but one of them was already teased: a bearded dwarf named "Salvador" is a "Gunzerker" who can dual-wield any two weapons, and acts like Brick the Berserker from the original Borderlands.

Back in August, two of his abilities were teased. The first one increases the fire rate of any gun the longer the trigger is held, while the second boosts accuracy when dual-wielding same class weapons or doubles damage with mixed class weapons.

But now, we have some backstory to this character, with Gearbox saying:

Microsoft have released a rare out-of-band update to fix a vulnerability in the .NET Framework. The update comes weeks before the next regularly scheduled "Patch Tuesday" in mid-January, and addresses a flaw that could allow attackers to exploit hash tables to perform a denial-of-service (DoS) attack against a website built with Microsoft's ASP.NET application framework.

DoS attacks usually require thousands of malware-controlled systems in a botnet to overwhelm a site with requests. This opening would allow an attacker to cripple a vulnerable site by sending a certain type of HTTP request. Each of these requests would consume 100-percent of one CPU core. As you can imagine, the more of these requests, the more CPU power that is zapped away.

Microsoft says "Attacks targeting this type of vulnerability are generically known as hash collision attacks." They also added that the problem is not specific to Microsoft's Web services as it affects PHP 5, Java, .NET, v8 and even PHP 4, Ruby and Python. The people behind these platforms will release updates soon, but the holidays will dampen these efforts.

Samsung's Galaxy Note, the uber-large, but curvaceously sexy Galaxy Note, which sports a 5.3-inch screen is a kind of tabletphone hybrid. This hasn't stopped the device from shipping more than 1 million in Europe and Asia, before it even hits the shores of the U.S.

The rapid sales of the device show Samsung that creating a new market for something between a smartphone and tablet PC. Samsung says that the speed of sales should accelerate even further going into the new year when it becomes available in the U.S.

Samsung also note that the Financial Times reviewed the Galaxy Note highly, commenting it as:

Earlier this week we attended a Thecus lunch here in Taipei where we were served up an exclusive look at its upcoming N4800 NAS.

You can think of the N4800 as a refresher of the N4200 PRO NAS which did very well for Thecus this year. It has been upgraded with a faster Intel Atom processor that includes with it a faster GPU as well as chipset and USB 3.0.

Vincent from Thecus was kind enough to go on video as you can see above where he also introduced us to the dual bay N2800 NAS. Both new NAS as we've mentioned come with HDMI output which is able to output HD video at 1080p as well as allow you to use the NAS admin interface and other NAS applications directly on your television.

DigiTimes are reporting that Apple is going to unveil its next-generation iPad in January, where it will also unveil two different versions of the iPad. DigiTimes' sources claim that it is scheduled for iWorld which is being held on January 26, 2012.

The new models are set to join the existing iPad 2 to demonstrate Apple's iPad series targeting the entry-level, mid-range, and high-end market segments, the sources claimed. The sources said:

Amazon have had a very Merry Christmas when it comes to Amazon Kindle sales over the holiday season. Amazon customers purchased millions of Kindle Fires and millions of Kindle e-readers. 2011 was the best holiday ever for the Kindle family, with one million Kindle devices sold each week.

Amazon CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, says "We are grateful to our customers worldwide for making this the best holiday ever for Kindle." He continues pointing out the fact that the #1 and #4 best-selling Kindle books released in 2011 were both published independently by their authors using Kindle Direct Publishing.

Three Kindle-based products took the top three spots on Amazon's best seller list, with the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch and Kindle taking out the top three spots, respectively. Amazon's latest, Kindle Fire, was the most gifted and wished for product on Amazon this season, and was also the top selling product in the UK, France, Spain and Italy. Kindle Fire also took out the best selling product on Amazon's mobile site.

QNAP Systems, Ind. have just announced V3.6 Beta NAS management software for its Turbo NAS series, which provides some highly anticipated features such as a VPN Server, LDAP Server, and Proxy Server, cloud music and photo sharing with a web browser, enhanced backup features, and more. Firmware V3.6 beta also includes a new version of MyCloudNAS 1.2, QPKG center and more compatible IP camera.

Firmware V3.6 beta also bakes in some new business-class features, such as VPN Server. VPN Server offers businesses with a cost-saving way to create a secure and private network. LDAP Server simplifies mass account management and saves business' IT hardware expenditure, time, and stress. The Proxy Server provided with the "Squid" QPKG provides the IT administrator a great solution to manage network loading, yet maintain network security.

Jason Hsu, product manager for QNAP says:

Biostar have officially launched their first Sandy Bridge-E (LGA2011) motherboard, after the previously-leaked TPower X79 made the rounds a few weeks ago. We posted about it last month and now the board has been made official.

The Biostar TPower X79 has the standard ATX form-factor and features support for Intel's latest LGA 2011 socket Sandy Bridge-E processors, a 9-phase power design, an 8-layer, 2 oz Copper PCB, four DDR3-2400 memory slots, and three PCI-Express x16 3.0 slots which enable Quad CrossFireX and 3-way SLI setups.

The TPower X79 also sports dual 8-pin EPS connectors, one PCI and two PCIe x1 slots, three SATA 3.0 Gbps and four SATA 6Gbps ports, one eSATA connector, Gigabit Ethernet, six USB 3.0 ports on the back plate, 7.1-channel audio, a debug LED, UEFI BIOS, and on-board Power, Reset and Clear CMOS buttons. The board is aimed at the enthusiast/overclocking market and should be available next month.

With Newegg in one corner as the second-largest online retailer in the U.S. and the number one destination for tech-savvy shoppers, with Amazon the top U.S. e-tailer in the other corner, both releasing their holiday best-selling item reports.

Neweggs list contains:

Laptops/Notebooks: 15.6" Asus A53E-EH91

Apple's biggest competitor, Samsung, will reportedly launch the Galaxy S III, the successor to the most popular Android smartphone on the market, Galaxy S II, at Mobile World Congress in February. At the same time they're said to be launching a new 3D-capable range of devices in the first quarter of 2012.

Almost a year after they launched the Galaxy S II, could Samsung really do it again? How could it be much better than the Galaxy S II? Well, it's expected to sport a quad-core processor and possibly even include 3D technology as Samsung look to differentiate their phone from the iPhone.

With 3D photo and video recording capabilities being baked into additional Samsung-branded smartphones next year, coming to a device being referred to as Galaxy S 3D, which helps users deliver 3D content to their 3D TVs. This device could be launched in Q2 2012. Right now, of course, the usual pinch of salt is required.

We all know the next Grand Theft Auto outing is going to be huge, but when EEDAR's Jesse Divnich spoke to IndustryGamers as part of his feature on the top five predictions for 2012 (other than the world ending), he noted that GTA V will generate the most sales next year. and not the next Call of Duty game.

He's been quoted:

It feels as though there's a launch from Intel every few months now, but I guess that's the benefits of a tick, tock-based release schedule. The latest news from Digitimes' Taiwanese sources is that the first batch of Ivy Bridge gear coming will include no less than 25 processors.

Out of these 25 processors, 17 of them will be desktop models and the remaining 8 will be notebook/ultrabook chips. 8 chipsets will also launch, (Z77, H77, Z75 and B75 for desktops, HM77, UM77, HM76 and HM75 for mobile PCs. More Ivy Bridge-based products will also launch, including the Core i5-3470T CPU and the A77, Q75, QS77 and QM77 chipsets, which are said to be launching in May.

Let's talk dollars, the upcoming CPUs should cover the same spectrum as the current Sandy Bridge-based Core models, ranging from $184 to $332, while chipsets will go from $37 for the B75 to $53 for the QS77 (the Z77 desktop 'flagship' is supposed to cost $48). If you don't already know, the Ivy Bridge CPUs are manufactured on a 22nm process technology which sports Intel's 3D Tri-Gate transistors. They'll feature DirectX 11 graphics, sport the current LGA 1155 packaging which allows them to work on current, 6-Series-based motherboards.

Intel's upcoming LGA2011 server board product, S4600LG (codenamed "Lizard Head Pass") which will be capable of handling 1TB of RAM. Yes, that's 1024GB of RAM. The board is designed mainly for high-performance computing and math-intensive server applications, such as video streaming sites using it for transcoding, etc.

The board is capable of achieving such large memory expansion room by providing three DIMM slots per memory channel, with each socket giving four memory channels. The S4600LG supports the 8-core Xeon E5-4600 series Sandy Bridge-EP processors. The S4600LH is driven by an Intel C600 "Patsburg" chipset with up to 8 SCU ports and 2 SATA 6 Gb/s ports. One of the downsides is the board doesn't have any standard expansion slots, with only two PCI-Express 3.0 x48 risers, which daughterboards with three x16 slots each, can be attached (as shown in the picture above).

The board also sports dual Intel LAN with VT support, KVM and BMT logic is in-built and the board should be available in Q2 2012. 1TB of RAM, doesn't that just sound insane to others? I really think we'll see a shrink in personal machines over the future as Windows becomes much better on resources, but for a server build, this thing is a beast and a half.

LG have announced that they will be throwing an 84-inch TV into their truck when they drive over to CES next year. 84-inch may sound impressive, but that's not all that is coming to Las Vegas next year. The new 84-inch TV is 'ultra definition' sporting a resolution of 3840x2160.

It includes LG's usual Cinema 3D and Smart TV features built-in, including support for the upgraded Magic Motion remote and voice control. At the moment it's just a tease, with no information like pricing, or availability. There are also no easy sources of 4K-res video content, not even games. One of the biggest pushes by LG for this new set is 3D.

LG's Cinema 3D technology uses a Film Pattern Retarder screen and passive glasses that result in lowered resolution, but with the plentiful amount of pixels, there's no question about whether viewers are still getting at least an HD picture. What I want now, is 3 of these screens, in portrait, an new hover-chair for my PC, and eleventy-million AMD Radeon HD 7970's in CrossFire. Battlefield 3 would never be the same...

It sure has been a busy holiday season this year! So many announcements and releases with todays release from Danger Den. They've announced the latest CPU cooling block - DD-M6 CPU Block, which is the highest performing CPU block to date from Danger Den.

The DD-M6 replaces the long-running MC-TDX block improving upon both reliability and performance. Thermal performance has also received an upgrade, while maintaining low-flow restriction design. The CPU block is available in solid copper and brass parts that are non-plated or nickel plated. A new and improved mounting system is also included in the DD-M6 CPU block package allowing reliable mounting pressure in an attractive package.

Danger Den's president, Jeremy Burnett says:

There have been plenty of people who have worked for ATI, that have moved onto bigger and better things by packing up their brown box, throwing their personal items inside like a plant or a family portrait (ok, ok, that sounds like a Hollywood cliche, but it's how I imagine it as an Australian) and moving to a better job.

Now former AMD employee, Richard Huddy, has moved onto Intel. His goal with the red team was to form stronger relations with the game developers themselves. Big news, eh? Huddy has pushed through plenty of things for not only the technological industry, but the gaming industry. He worked with one of my favorite games, Max Payne, and ended up with a starring role as the mad professor in the lab. From there, he has helped a tonne of huge games hit the market.

These include Harry Potter, Just Cause, Battlefield 2 and Burnout Paradise. He also was a big player in pushing HDR with AA into a bunch of games over the years. Why would Intel want Huddy? Well, they want their GPU business to fly. Intel's Haswell architecture, due in 2013, will reportedly establish Intel as some form of leader in the mass-market graphics space.

[update] I've been informed by Gigabyte that it was not an actual build issue, but a BIOS-related problem. Gigabyte recommend that users who own the below boards update their BIOS immediately, or contact Gigabyte directly (details on this link). Gigabyte have stated it was an isolated case and can be fixed with the use of the F7 BIOS.

I do apologise greatly for the mistake, to both our readers and Gigabyte.

Last week, YouTube user "japan0827" uploaded a video of his overclocked testbed releasing a plume of smoke. Of course, being upset, posted on various Asian message boards with detailed pictures of the board that failed: a Gigabyte X79-UD3, and more specifically, a MOSFET in its CPU VRM.

Google has just passed the 62 million user mark in their social networking site Google+. They're also seeing a very tidy 625,000 new users each day and Paul Allen has a prediction for 2012: Google+ will have 400 million users by the end of next year.

Paul Allen says that the huge growth in support for Google+ could be:

In a surprising move, The Pentagon have just officially certified an Android-powered device, alongside Android 2.2 for use on the Defense Department networks, which marks the first move away from RIM's BlackBerry. This is the first smartphone since the BlackBerry to receive approval.

The approval went to Dell's Venue, with Dell's now discontinued Streak tablet being the previously approved device. Other Android-based manufacturers such as Samsung, Motorola, HTC and others were not covered in the recently published document. DoD employees only have limited access to the device's feature set, of course.

The Android Market will be banned, and all web browsing must be done through a DoD proxy server. On top of these restrictions, classified information cannot be sent, received or accessed using the Android handsets. On the fruity side of things, Apple's iPhones and iPads are currently being tested for use on DoD networks, but the DoD are not making any comments on when the iOS-powered devices might get approval.