Latest News - Page 3220

Years ago, it wasn't that uncommon for new computers or notebooks running Windows to have a FireWire port but as the years went by Mac computers are the only brand that really continued to support FireWire. If you need FireWire and more eSATA ports a new host card called the NitroAV fusion pro is available that will be perfect for you.

The card slips into a PCIe x4 slot and adds two external FireWire 800 ports and one internal FireWire 800 port. The host card also has an optional internal power connector to offer power over the FireWire ports as well.

The host adapter also adds two external eSATA 3Gbps ports for connecting external storage devices. The host card supports Mac, Windows, and Linux computers and is available now for $129.95. Until November 18, you can get $10 off the host card with the coupon code FUSIONPRO.

Wow there is so much spin out right now about Fermi/GT300/G100 that it is not funny. From the Anti-Green side we hear of delays and yield issues. We hear rumblings of problems with the actual design, that NVIDIA knows and is stalling, and that somehow they are pulling the wool over consumers' eyes on their DX11 parts. All in an attempt to undermine poor put upon AMD.

But what is really going on? The truthful answer to that one is, no one but NV (and maybe a few OEMs and TSMC) really knows. But still we do know that recent rumors and rumblings have some root in truth. The problem is with presentation and spin. For example we hear that Fermi is being delayed until Q1 2010. When you read this you automatically hear that everything related to the Fermi/GT300/G100 is being delayed. You think that this means no DX11 GeForce cards from NV this year, time to pull out the wallet and look to AMD right?

Well you would only be partially right.

There is a lot of talk today about AT&T's new USBConect Lightning 7.2Mbps Cellular wireless device. For the most part the only thing of note is the 7.2Mbps speed. The rest is a pretty boring USB device. It is powered by a Sierra Wireless Chip.

The thing that many are missing though is that, although the new product will hit the streets on November 22nd, the network to support it is not there yet. In fact by the end of 2009 there will only be a handful of cities with support for the new speed. AT&T hopes to have the new 7.2M wireless service rolled out in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami.

Another interesting thing to note is that there is no mention of the iPhone 3G S. This device was touted at one time as being ready for AT&T's next network upgrade. With the lack of mention it does make you wonder if it really will be able to take advantage of the new speeds or if it will still have to rely on the current spotty 3G network. Hmmm, now that I come to think on that; why doesn't AT&T fix their current network before spending money on a new one? Well, I suppose they may think that they will try and kill two birds with one stone. I just hope that the coverage of the new network ends up better than the current one.

The Atom has been an amazing product for Intel. It has become the de facto CPU under the hood of almost every netbook and in fact has become part of the definition of a netbook for most consumers. But as with many things it has reached the point of stagnation. Consumers are fickle and really do want change. Although many will complain about new products and how much they cost, etc. They will still get bored unless those new items are dangled in front of them from time to time.

Well, Intel has that new bait. As we have told you before the Pinetrail CPU (Atom Plus one package GPU) will be launching soon. Probably in the middle of December (that is just a guess but we think it is close to the mark) to get some interest built up. We will see products with this new technology under the hood being displayed by the time CES 2010 rolls around.

But with the new Pinetrail you are not just getting a new (well old) GPU shoehorned onto the packaging but also a built-in memory controller and a few new speed and multi-core offerings. These will be the N450 1.66GHz Atom Pineview and the Dual Core 1.66GHz D510 and D410. The last two are probably earmarked for nettops and not likely to show up in your garden variety netbook.

We managed to get hold of exclusive pictures of the upcoming GIGABYTE P55A-UD7 motherboard. It's labeled as "EXTREME" at the moment, but that's because it's not the final shipping product.

From what we heard from our source, "UD7" is the new name to replace the "EXTREME Series" that GIGABYTE used with a couple of its recent products. Without knowing for sure, we would say that "UD7" is the new name because of the tremendous popularity of the new Windows 7 operating system. It's all about the number seven right now.

So, what's new here and why do we need yet another extreme high-end motherboard from GIGABYTE? Presently the P55A-UD6 is the top dog from the Taiwanese motherboard maker, but the UD7 will introduce some important features for those looking to get full performance out of their Intel P55 Express based Core i5 or i7 Lynnfield system.

MSI, together with HWBOT's support are hosting the Xtreme Speeder MSI P55 Online Overclocking Competition from November 15 through December 13 and MSI are being mighty generous with the prizes on offer.

MSI breaks the competition into three categories for overclockers to attempt domination in; these being CPU-Z, SuperPi 32M and Wprime 32M. The top three overall overclockers will walk away with USD 2000, 1500 and 1000 respectively, whilst the champion from each category will earn him/herself USD 1000 plus the chance to pick up another 500 if the world record is broken.

Further information about the competition and other prizes up for grabs can be found within the official PR here. The official competition page with further information and details on how to enter can be found here.

Just yesterday we told you that we felt the news of NVIDIA grabbing up ex-Transmeta employees was all about Tegra and not about an x86 CPU. Well today we hear some more interesting news about Tegra, well more to the point its successor Tegra 2.

With news flying around that NV has a major design win by getting the Tegra into the next Nintendo DS we now hear more about what will be under the hood of the Tegra 2. Of course we have been told a little about the new Tegra 2 and have talked about it before. So the news that there will be at least one ARM Cortex 9 under stuffed inside is nothing new. Where things get interesting is the information we have on the GPU side of things.

As NV pushes Cuda and PhysX we are hearing that Tegra 2 will have Dual GPUs (GeForce 9 based). This will either be for "SLI-Like" performance or as PPU to allow for a mobile PhysX library to be utilized. We feel that latter is more likely. Remember the GF9 series was the first to support Cuda and PhysX on the GPU. In fact at the last press briefing in back in August we were told that Tegra 2 would be capable of 4x the processing power at the same power draw! At the same time the Tegra 2 was listed as launching in 2010 so it looks like things are right on track there.

The Xbox 360's aging and overpriced 802.11g based wireless adapter is about to be widely replaced by a new 802.11n capable model, as discovered on Costco's online store in which it is currently at a slightly discounted price of $88.

The new model has two antennas for superior signal quality and transfer speeds. Also, the wireless N speeds should give users the ability to wirelessly stream 1080p content from the upgraded Zune movies collection without a hitch.

Costco has said the adapter is scheduled for shipment as of November 10.

You know, NVIDIA is a funny company. It was only a couple of days ago that they were complaining that Intel is being anti-competitive with their chipsets and are purposely holding out on putting USB 3.0 in them until 2011 and even claiming that Intel is preventing others from putting it in theirs (NVIDIA and AMD). Yet at the same time they are doing this they are blocking the use of AA by AMD based GPUs through the use of Vendor IDs and now we hear they are going to block the use of the Lucid Logic Hydra chip.

This new chip was set to set the world of multi-GPU technology on its ear. Lucid had developed a chip that would enable multi-GPU performance on any combination of GPUs; even different brands. MSI was going to be the first to have this out of the gate on their Big Bang board.

All of this is in the past now as we hear that NV will block the Hydra Chip at the driver level on their GPUs. They also appear to have exerted some pressure on MSI to delay the launch of the Hydra Sporting Big Bang boards. Considering that there are rumors that MSI has laid off a large number of employees they probably do not want to push NVIDIA too far on this. AMD has not commented on the Lucid and its use with their cards.

Ah the x86 rumor mill has begun to rumble again. It seems that people are talking of NVIDIA making an x86 CPU of their own. This time the rumor centers around the hiring of some of the staff from the now gone Transmeta . Now while this hiring of the brains capable of creating an x86 CPU from the makers of Crusoe might be true, there is one nagging problem.

NVIDIA has no x86 license. They could have all the x86 talent in the world and not be able to produce anything. So while the information about NVIDIA hiring Transmeta staff is very interesting we do not feel it is x86 related. More likely this staff would go into the Tegra SoC section. Remember that one of the biggest things about Crusoe was that it has amazing power management. The Crusoe was more power efficient than just about any other CPU available at the time. So it would be this talent and expertise that NVIDIA is probably after.

Remember NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has already made it clear they want Tegra to be 50% of NVIDIA's revenue in the coming years. This means they need to continually offer more performance with a lower power envelope to make Tegra more attractive than it already is. So far Tegra has a small market penetration with a grand total of two devices available for consumers (the US only Zune HD and an EU only MID) at the time of this writing. There are at least four more in the pipe and coming soon with more companies waiting until they see success with the current products before they sign on.

When it comes to ultraportables, GIGABYTE like to make sure they're offering something different to capture one's attention. Not unlike their Booktop M1022, the new 1305 also comes with a desktop docking station which gives the notebook a GeForce GT 220 GPU to play with and 1GB of DDR3 memory.

The netbook itself sports a 13.3-inch screen running a res of 1,366 x 768 and uses Intel's CULV processor. Up to 4GB of RAM can be added to the machine, a 500GB HDD and an optical drive. The full feature set is quite wholesome with a combo eSATA/USB port, two USB, HDMI, Gigabit ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and WiFi b/g/n, vGA out, multi-format card reader, 1.3 megapixel webcam and fingerprint reader.

As for the included docking station, that gets six USB 2.0 ports, VGA, HDMI and DVI video outputs, gigabit ethernet and audio in/out, along with that NVIDIA graphics card of course. The standard M1305 battery is a 6-cell 3,800mAh pack which Gigabyte claim is good for up to 6.5hrs of runtime; you can also swap out the optical drive for a secondary battery adding another 4hrs.

There is a new batch of information out on Intel and USB 3.0. Today it is an e-mail that was sent to TG Daily. Somehow the line "We [have also] learned that Intel is postponing USB 3 introduction until 2011" has become a confirmation of a delay of USB 3.0 by Intel.

We contacted Intel to ask them and were told they have not announced any delay and that the delay talked about on TGDaily was a rumor. Now that does not always cover the issue, just because a company has not announced a delay does not mean there is not going to be one.

There are a couple of issues behind this one. Intel was one of the authors behind the XHCI specification and need USB 3.0 for LightPeak. On the surface it would seem to show that there would be no reason to delay the release of USB 3.0 in a chipset. The other is that NVIDIA is currently in a legal battle with Intel over their manufacture of chipset for Nehalem, Lynnfield and future CPUs that do not use FSB.

There's a bit of a stir happening over at the Hexus forums at the moment between NVIDIA spokesperson Lars Weinand and AMD's Richard Huddy, responsible as Worldwide Developer Relations Manager for AMD's GPU Division.

The discussion relates to Eidos' game title Batman Arkham Asylum in which AA support using ATI based graphics cards is not possible. NVIDIA's Lars Weinand says :-

"Batman AA is not our property. It is owned by Eidos. It is up to Eidos to decide the fate of a feature that AMD refused to contribute too and QA for their customers, not NVIDIA.

When I am not up to my ears in netbooks to review, I like to peruse YouTube looking for video of morons hurting themselves in embarrassing ways. I am particularly fond of the videos where someone gets their gonads smashed whilst showing off in one way or another. That's quality entertainment in my book. If you are the sort who likes to film yourself doing extreme sports or generally questionable behavior Tachyon has the camcorder for you.

The thing is called the Tachyon XC Micro and it claims to be the world's smallest helmet camera. The thing has a wide-angle lens and can connect to a helmet, dashboard, or goggles for recording. The camera is water and shock resistant and weighs only 3.7 ounces.

It measures in at 3.8" x 1.4" x 1.8" and records at a resolution of 640 x 480. The pair of AAA batteries that powers the camera is good for four hours of continuous shooting. Video is stored to microSDHC cards up to 32GB in capacity. The little camcorder is available now until the end of the month for $99.99 and will ship mid-December.

Quickly following on from the launch of Windows 7 last week, details have already begun to surface regarding its first service pack. Microsoft's engineers are said to be already working on hot fixes galore for application compatibility and reported bugs.

A chap going by the name of Wzor has learned that the first beta of Windows 7 SP1 will be released sometime in January of next year, with the full schedule being two beta releases and two release candidates prior to announcing the final build for OEMs sometime during the summer months (June/July/August) 2010, and making its way to end users in the Autumn (September/October/November).

What you see above is apparently an internal folder structure for all the W7 SP1 builds.

Futuremark is known for its benchmarking software. If you were to ask the average computer user they have heard of Futuremark and can tell you about 3Dmark and PCMark. But what many do not know is that Futuremark has entered the game arena. They did this a while ago under the name Futuremark Game Studios (FGS).

With the formation of this independent company they embarked on an ambitious project. They wanted to create a game that took place almost entirely in zero gravity. The game was to take place in a future setting where the moon has exploded and sent millions of tons of debris into earth orbit. In this zone clans fight for resources. The challenge for FGS was to implement the complexities of Zero G compat while making sure players were not overwhelmed by the environment and controls.

We had the chance to play with the BETA version and can say FGS was and is more than up to the task. The Zero G combat system was very well done indeed. The atmosphere is immersive and makes for compelling and captivating gameplay. Futuremark has pushed out a few more videos of how this system will look once it is out and in the hands of consumers.

Global IP Solutions (or GIPS for short) has today announced an agreement made with a global plug-n-talk mobile solutions provider which allows mobile operators in developing countries to expand their reach beyond their home country.

The device itself comes from Israel's Outsmart company and is a preloaded USB memory stick, which together with SIM card transforms any PC into a mobile phone. One such provider to take this technology aboard is SMART, the Philippines' largest wireless operator at this time.

"Global IP Solutions has set the standard for voice and video quality over the last decade and Outsmart is confident to offer telecom operators worldwide the best communication platform with GIPS technology as the basis of our voice quality," said Jacob Bros, CEO of Outsmart. "Outsmart offers telecom operators additional revenue streams with the Plug 'n Talk solution allowing their users to enjoy all the advantages of a mobile phone on a computer with services such as voice, video, SMS, MMS and access to voicemail."

A headsup for Crucial M225 Solid-State drive owners; firmware 1819 has just been released which brings support for the TRIM command under Windows 7. The new firmware can be downloaded from Crucial's support page here.

It needs to be mentioned that if your M225 is currently running firmware 1711, you need to revert back to firmware 1571 prior to flashing to 1819. Both the instructions and the 1571 firmware can be obtained from the support page linked above as well.

Additionally, on the support page we have a boot from CD option that is an ISO image. The ISO image contains the Firmware update and FreeDOS, which works when updating Mac systems.

When we reviewed the original ASRock ION 330-BD Nettop after we saw it displayed at Computex, we were suitably impressed by a solid little computer that could smoothly playback Blu-ray HD movies and impress with a good price and stunning looks and build quality.

The good news for fans of these type of small, yet capable home theater computers is that ASRock is preparing its second generation ION nettop, called the ION330-HT-BD. We were contacted recently about getting a review done for them, but thought we would cut in early and give you some early details about the product.

Visually, the device looks almost the same as the first ION 330-BD, but it adds in a few important features that were missing from the first device such as WiFi, DTS, powered eSATA port, MCE remote control and EuP 2.0.

It's been discovered that Google's new Wave service will get its own App Store. For those of you that don't know, Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.

What is a wave?

A wave is equal parts conversation and document.