Latest News - Page 3106

As the launch of AMD's next-generation Radeon cards gets closer, we have some exciting leaked specs to share with you. From some leaked slides, the specs of AMD's first Graphics Core Next (GCN) chip, the Tahiti XT, which goes under the suave name of the AMD Radeon HD 7970, will sport 3GB of GDDR5 (and not the rumored XDR2 memory), 3.5 TFLOPS of power, 2048 stream processors, 384bit memory width at 5.5Gbps, total load consumption of up to 300W and an less than 3W for idle.

Display outputs include 1 x DVI, 2 x miniDisplayPort and HDMI, in terms of power connectors, it should have one 8-pin and one 6-pin. If these specs are true, we should expect the single-GPU Radeon HD 7970 to keep up with, and most likely beat in some games, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 6990 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590. It seems to be about 30-percent faster than the single-GPU Radeon HD 6970.

Once some great drivers are released for it, we should see more performance sucked out of the new cards. Two of these should see a game like Battlefield 3 run at Ultra quality, 1920x1080 at 120Hz absolutely maxed out with AA/AF at 120fps minimum, or 2560x1xx0 at 60Hz, minimum 60fps.

Space Travel. Microsoft. Skynet. The steps are there, and we're hitting them at a nice pace. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has announced new plans to create a business for commercial space travel. It should take roughly five years to develop.

With the U.S. government slicing space flight, Allen has sensed a gap in the market for investment. Yesterday, Allen showcased designs for a new craft that would eventually have the ability of taking human passengers into the vast space that is, well, space.

Allen has previously funded spaceflight, as he was behind SpaceShipOne, which was the first manned private journey. Stratolaunch System are the ones behind the building of the new craft, which is a company founded by Paul Allen.

GlobalFoundaries will be a name that will be commonly mentioned in 2012, which is something they'll be easily doing if they continue at this pace. They've announced a dual-core Cortex A9 test chip that is built on a 28nm HPP (High Performance Plus) process.

This test chip clocks in at 2.5GHz and is said to be capable of higher frequencies. It operating voltage is just 0.85V. Both the frequency and voltage targets are good for a Cortex A9 implementation, but remember, this is just a test chip.

Most companies are expecting to pass the 2GHz mark next year on high-performance 28nm processes, so we should see this by the end of 2012, if not early 2013. We should see these designs in tablets and netbook replacements, with ARM being Windows 8-compatible now.

RightWare, who are behind BrowserMark and the very popular Basemark ES 2.0, have announced the latest in their smartphone testing software: Basemark Halti, an OpenGL ES 3.0 benchmark.

Basemark Halti contains two primary benchmarking scenes, in the same fashion that Basemark ES 2.0 had two scenes. This time they're named Rush and Car Race. The two tests will have triangle counts of roughly 100,000 triangles per frame, and be rendered front to back where possible.

First up, Rush is an action scene based on a city rooftop and its aim is to bring PC-quality game rendering. Character animation with skinning and bones, dynamic shadows and reflections, per-pixel lighting with 3 point lights, depth of field, light bloom, and SSAO are all featured in Rush.

Hitachi have only just unleashed some 4TB consumer hard drives, and throughout the the Thailand flood crisis, one would think we wouldn't see any new hard-drive announcements, well, you were wrong.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies have just unveiled something for the enterprise market, the Ultrastar C10K900 series. This new series comes in 300, 450, 600 and 900GB sizes, which all feature a 2.5-inch form factor, a SAS 6Gbps interface, 64MB of cache, an average seek time of 3.8 milliseconds, an average latency of 3.0ms, and an operating/idle power draw of just 5.8/3.0W. A Bulk Data Encryption option will also be available on specific models.

According to Hitachi, the new Ultrastar drives deliver 18-percent higher sequential and up to 17-percent higher random performance than their nearest competitor, and are said to be perfect for Tier 1 enterprise networked storage arrays, or for blades and other rack-mounted servers.

Duke Nukem Forever is still cranking along, and a second DLC pack is now out called "The Doctor Who Cloned Me". It's available through Steam for $9.99 US and includes a bunch of new material including four new multiplayer maps, a full new single player campaign which includes brand new weapons, all-new enemy types and bosses, more Achievements, and brand new interactive items within the DNF world.

A detailed run down of what is included is below (or in the full story):

Sky-High: The alien-infested corporate offices of Pooty, Inc. near the center of Las Vegas. This map includes three indoor floors taken over by the aliens and two rooftops, jump pads, stairwells, and building-to-building combat.

Usually when in a plane, all electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets and the like, are required to be turned off. Including the cockpit and its pilots. Not for American Airlines pilots in the cockpit, who have now been approved by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use electronics, and more specifically, iPads in the cockpit.

The FAA announced on Tuesday that American Airlines pilots in the cockpit will no longer require the use of paper-based flight manuals during those times, and could now use Apple iPads instead.The FAA came to this decision after they conducting a test of the use of electronics in the cockpit, in an effort to potentially replace the use of paper manuals and charts.

Some are left wondering why the FAA didn't run the same tests for passengers, which would see passengers having the ability to use their electronic devices before and after takeoff, instead of having to wait until the plane reaches an altitude of 10,000 feet before the use of electronics is allowed. The New York Times called the rule that passengers needed to wait until the plane reached 10,000 feet "outdated," and even bought up the idea that the rule may just be used to keep passengers' attention during takeoff and landing announcements.

Why didn't OCZ use the line high-octane in this new SSD... feel free to use that line, OCZ. OCZ have released yet another SSD onto the market, a new range line called "Petrol." Petrol is based on a 6Gbps SATA interface and comes in the usual 2.5-inch form factor. Ryan Peterson, CEO of OCZ Technology says:

The Petrol SSD is based on the Indilinx Everest SSD processor, which is capable of 400MB/sec bandwidth and 35,000 IOPS. The chip also features advanced features for longevity like proprietary page mapping algorithms. Those allow for more stable mixed-workload environment. Latency in the SSD is reduced to as low as 0.6ms.

Three Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) workers, Young Keun Park, Sang Hun Kim and Sik "Daniel" Hur will face jail time after pleading guilty to fixing optical disk drive prices, according to the US Department of Justice. Throughout 2005 to 2009, the three employees suppressed competition by rigging bids for optical disk drives sold to both Dell and HP, in addition to fixing prices for devices sold to Microsoft.

Under the plea agreement, Park and Kim will serve eight months in prison, while Hur will experience seven months in jail. All there will have to pay a $25,000 fine. The three executives will also be charged with multiple violations of the Sherman Act, which covers antitrust and anticompetitive activities. Each count of the Sherman Act comes with a statutory fine of up to $1 million, (and more if the damages are large enough), and up to 10-years behind bars.

This is the first ruling against individual workers, but is the second round of charges against the join Hitachi-LG venture. Last month, HLDS itself pleaded guilty to 14 counts of violating federal antitrust laws between the June 2004 and September 2009. Hitachi-LG were sentenced to pay a $21.1 million fine and is said to be helping the DoJ with its investigation.

"Siri, what is your competition?" "Nothing, I'm the best thing out," says Siri. Well, not for long. Google's response to Apple's voice assistant looked to be codenamed Majel, which stems from Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, who is better known as the voice of the Federation Computer from Star Trek.

Google already have Voice Actions, and Majel would be an evolution of this with the addition of natural language processing. Voice Actions require voice prompts such as "sent text to..." or "navigate to..." Majel will allow you to perform actions in your natural language, similar to how Siri functions.

At the initial launch, Majel will only be able to do Google search enquiries, which could see the light of day in 2011. Google X engineers are reportedly working around the clock on finishing the first release, as the NYTime has reported previously that at least one product would make it out of the Google X labs before the end of the year.

Ah, Nokia. Your days of being the king of the mountain are behind you, for now. Nokia's director of Portfolio, Product Marketing & Sales, Niels Munksgaard, has come out and said in an interview that young people are baffled by Android and are fed-up with iPhone's.

Here's a direct quote:

Android owner? Malware victim? Like free stuff? Well, all you'll need to do is tell Microsoft about the problems you've had with malware on your Android-based phone.

Microsoft's latest social media marketing intiative, is not to push their own Windows Phone-based products, but to take a stab at Google and their malware woes. Ben Rudolph, Microsoft Windows Phone "evanglist", is behind the scheme, which uses the hashtag "#droidrage" on Twitter.

Linking followers to current news articles about Android malware, Rudolph says he will give an "upgrade" to a Windows Phone to the "5 best" stories of being a victim of Android malware.

We know it's coming, but building the excitement is part of the ride, isn't it? Apple's Asian part supplier believe that Apple is gearing up to release another iPad in just 3-4 months time. According to DigiTimes' sources, iPad 2 production is already beginning to wind down, to allow parts for a new tablet to begin making their way through the supply chain.

If it were to hit in 3-4 months time, it would launch perfectly in the spring time set by the two previous iPad launches. This news does come with an included pinch of salt, as Apple is quite the sneaky company when it comes to this type of news.

According to Apple's supply chain partners, production of the iPad 3 is expected to include just under 10 million units during Q1 2012. This is an expanded number, that has increased as its thought that most first-generation iPad owners will upgrade to the new iPad when it hits. iPad 2 production is said to drop to 4-5 million for Q1 2012, with the iPad 3 the reason of its declined production.

G.Skill hot on the heels of their RipjawsZ series quad-channel DDR3 memory announcement, have again staked their claim of pushing the boundary with RAM. Today brings the announcement of their insanely hot looking 64GB kit of DDR3 memory built specifically for Intel's X79 platform.

The 64GB kit comes at DDR3 2400MHz CL10 speeds, with 8GBx8 sticks to build up to an amazing 64GB of RAM. G.Skill have tested every single memory module, with each stick being hand-tested, hand-picked by G.Skill's legendary R&D team. All the chips in this range are highly selected and tested with G.Skill's rigorous internal validation process that ensures maximum stability, while maintaining a decent overclocking headroom.

As always, G.Skill memory comes with a lifetime warranty, as well as the G.Skill technical team always at your fingertips through online forums, telephone and e-mail.

Earlier on today we attended a Qualcomm media roundtable in Taipei where we were introduced to a partner product of theirs from a Korean bookstore company called Kyobo.

Kyobo is famous in Korea and its digital catalog includes some 90,000 titles including regular ebooks, children's books, video books and video lectures. With almost a 100% literacy rate and an aggressive government very keen on high levels of education and parents with enough deposable income for youth learning gadgets, Korea is a perfect market for Qualcomm to spread its wings and work with its partners to bundle its mirasol display technology on mobile products.

The result of said above is the launch of the first color e-reader featuring Qualcomm's mirasol display tech. Mirasol is different to that of LCD, LED or plasma in that there are no harmful chemicals used in the production of the display and there is no back light, which some consider harmful to human eyes over extended periods of use. Mirasol reflects natural ambient light in your surrounding and uses it to create the color display. So, you aren't going to get the same quality display as LCD, but Qualcomm are not trying to compete with LCD and mirasol displays use less power. This is only going to result in a device with longer battery life at the end of the day.

AMD have released two new drivers, the AMD Catalyst 11.12 and the AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview drivers. Highlights of the Catalyst 11.12 driver are: AMD OpenGL 4.2 production support, where it includes official support for the OpenGL 4.2 specification. Enhancements for Eyefinity are included, with support for AMD HD3D technology when using 3x1 Landscape Eyefinity display group, on supported DisplayPort 3D monitors.

Also included is AMD Vision Engine Control Center enhancements for Dual Graphics, where AMD have implemented to better facilitate the enabling and control of the Dual Graphics within the Vision Engine Control Center. Next up, we have the gem that is the AMD Catalyst 12.1 Preview, which includes multiple improvements and new features such as:

AMD HD3D technology support enhancement

Microsoft have unveiled SkyDrive for both Windows Phone and iPhone today, with Microsoft releasing it as people are increasingly needing access to their files on-the-go. Microsoft's Mike Torres has said:

Windows Phone's latest update, Mango, has deep integration with SkyDrive through its hubs Pictures and Office, which allows sharing of text, e-mail or IM. Users, as always, wanted more. Torres adds:

To look, or not to look. Ah, come on. You know you're going to take a peek. What does it include? Well, the gist of it, there's not much exciting happening for CPUs (in my opinion) for 2012. The roadmap shows that Intel's superhero, the Core i7-3960K, won't be replaced any time throughout 2012. So, if you have one, you'll feel safe knowing you have the knees that are on those bees throughout the year.

But, there will be shifts in all other segments: premium (Core i7), mainstream (Core i5), transactional (Core i3), legacy (Pentium) and value (Celeron and Atom). The biggest change we'll see from Intel in 2012 is the launch of the 22nm-based Socket 1155. There will be a bunch of CPUs released under this new fabrication.

These chips include the Core i7-3770K which will sit at the top of the hill, clocked at 3.50GHz, sporting 8MB of cache, 8 threads, and a Turbo Boost speed of 3.90GHz. TDP sits at 77W and does so throughout the entire 22nm-based range. This is down from the 32nm-based chips with TDP's at a max of 95.

AMD have had quite the trouble lately with drivers, a botched RAGE driver, no CrossFire support in Battlefield 3 without micro-stuttering for most users, and Skyrim took nearly a month to get going for HD 5000-Series owners with CrossFire.

But, 2012 is a new year, and AMD have their Graphics Core Next (GCN) debuting, which is their first architectural change since the R600 (2900XT). With it, AMD have added some herbs and spices to their drivers, to not propel the new series of GPUs, but to revamp their old ones, too.

AnandTech really cover the Preview drivers well, but a rundown is that they're heavily modified, and have tonnes of new features baked in that should impress pretty much everyone. One thing most people are going to love: custom application profiles. Hooray! This new feature allows users to create new application profiles and to modify the application profiles that are distributed through drivers and CAP updates.

Valve have always been masters of secrets, as we all know Gabe has been playing Half-Life 3 for a few years now and just wants to master it completely in every way possible before releasing it. Until, that is, the Spike Video Game Awards over the weekend.

The VGA's saw quite the number of teases, and announcements and this nugget of info is no different. Steam's message boards have been going absolutely crazy trying to figure out if Valve actually teased the upcoming game, with theories heavily relying on a half-speed YouTube video of Portal 2's AI "Wheatley" giving a speech.

The center of attention lies on a line of text at the top of the video, which is written in Greek. The translation for this text, according to the Steam message boards, is "OBSERVATION SATELLITE "LANTHANUM."