MSI launches Enjoy 71 Android 7-inch tablet in Europe, no details on US launch yet

Charles Gantt | Mobile Devices, Tablets & Phones | Jan 22, 2013 12:31 PM CST

MSI, following suit of other hardware manufacturers this year, has released a new budget 7-inch class Android tablet that will cost roughly 129 euros ($172 USD). Named Enjoy 71, the new tablet is no slouch when it comes to performance while running Ice Cream Sandwich.

Under the hood, the Enjoy 71 sports a dual-core 1.5GHz ARM Cortex M9 8726 processor, Mali-400 GPU, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. A micro SD slot supporting up to 32GB cards, 2MP rear and 0.3MP front cameras, USB and HDMI ports round out the features.

The display is a 1024 x 600 IPS type that is on par with the Nexus 7. A 3200mAh battery gives the device a decent run-time as well as keeping things light weight. Unlike other cheap 7-inch tablets, the Enjoy 71 is housed in a metal frame. No information has been released on when the tablet will be available in the US.

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Micron announces new P400m 25nm MLC enterprise SSD

Paul Alcorn | IT/Datacenter & Super Computing | Jan 22, 2013 8:36 AM CST

Today Micron is unveiling their new P400m SSD. This SSD is designed for data center servers and storage platforms and increases Microns impressive enterprise SSD portfolio. This 25nm MLC NAND SSD provides surprising endurance from standard MLC, with up to 10 full drive writes per day for five years.

This provides an overall endurance of up to 7PB of lifetime data written to the drive depending upon the capacity utilized. Micron is backing up this endurance promise with a five-year warranty for this new product. The P400m is geared for a multitude of applications including Cloud, VDI, bootstorm management, social media and logging applications.

This terrific endurance is due to Microns implementation of their proprietary XPERT (eXtended Performance and Enhanced Reliability Technology) drive management. This suite of highly optimized firmware algorithms and hardware enhancements increase the endurance of MLC NAND and provides full data path protection. As part of their approach Micron utilizes the same RAIN (Redundant Array of Independent NAND) technology that we have seen utilized in their P320h PCIe SSD. Additional facets of the XPERT approach include Adaptive Read Management/Optimize Read (ARM/OR) and DataSAFE technology.

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LG's Optimus G Pro unveiled, features 5-inch 1080p display

We just heard that LG's Optimus G will be finally reaching the rest of the world, which we think is a little late, but now we're hearing about a new device from LG which is slightly bigger, and slightly better.

The LG Optimus G Pro sports a 5-inch, 1080p-capable display and was unveiled by Japanese carrier NTT DoCoMo. The 5-inch screen has a 440 pixel per inch (ppi) display, compared to the older version which featured a 4.7-inch display and 312 ppi. The market is beginning to get crowded with large, high-res smartphones, and I'm not hearing anyone complain.

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LG set to roll out Optimus G across the world, is probably too late to matter

LG have begun their 2013 smartphone campaign by announcing that their Optimus G handset will launch in 50 new countries. The Optimus G is currently available to people in the US, Canada, Korea and Japan, and has been for many months now.

It will first land in Singapore, then start floating over to other countries in the weeks following. This model of the Optimus G will sport LTE connectivity in any country that includes LTE. LG is pushing the fact that their LTE technology and knowledge is great, and hopes that the impact of launching the same device with the fastest network capabilities will be huge. The Optimus G will include Jelly Bean out of the box, with LG stating it will be running "the latest Jelly Bean OS and improved software".

Now let's get onto the serious talk - why? Why now LG? The also LG-made Nexus 4 is a phenomenal device, sporting virtually identical specs to the Optimus G sans LTE capabilities. I don't see how LG are going to make any impact with the Optimus G, as most retailers and telcos are going to be selling this at the usual pricing. Considering you can get a Nexus 4 for under $300... LG will have to make the Optimus G seriously cheap if they want it to be popular.

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THQ's bankruptcy proves good for gamers, get 19 games for just $25

Trace Hagan | Gaming | Jan 21, 2013 8:31 PM CST

Every cloud has a silver lining and for gamers, that silver lining in THQ's bankruptcy is the THQ Mega Pack. Bankrupt THQ is selling a THQ Mega Pack for just $25. The THQ Mega Pack is available on Amazon and comes with a large selection of THQ's games. Nearly every major game released by THQ is part of the pack.

All of the above games come in the THQ Mega Pack. Noticeably absent from the list above is the line of wrestling titles produced by THQ. This is likely due to licensing deals with the WWE. Saints Row The Third is worth the $25 alone, so you're basically getting 18 games for free.

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Atari files for bankruptcy in US, selling off logo, assets

Trace Hagan | Business, Financial & Legal | Jan 21, 2013 7:07 PM CST

Atari, a pioneer in the video game industry, has filed bankruptcy in the US. Unfortunately, it seems that the parent company, Atari SA, is debt-laden and this move is a way to free the company from the parent. By doing this, Atari is looking to continue as a company, just on its own.

Atari is selling off assets in the next three to four months, including its iconic logo. The company that emerges from the other side of bankruptcy is slated to be a company focused on the digital and mobile platforms. Atari has already been gearing up towards Android and iOS development since 2010.

Atari has reportedly received a debtor-in-possession investment of $5.25 million so that the company is capable of continuing to operate during the bankruptcy process. The plan is to seek a private buyer after the bankruptcy process, though that could be hard if they have sold off their iconic franchises and logo.

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Google-commissioned survey shows that US P2P users buy 30 % more music, another study showing P2P users not bad

Trace Hagan | Business, Financial & Legal | Jan 21, 2013 4:31 PM CST

As much as the RIAA and MPAA would like to convince lawmakers and citizens that pirates and people who illegally download movies and music are harming the industry, study after study suggest quite the opposite. Take, for example, a study commissioned by Google, which shows that US P2P users buy 30 percent more music.

Google commissioned Columbia University's American Assembly research center to survey Americans on file sharing and copyright enforcement. In the survey, data suggests that Americans are generally against the use of bandwidth throttling and disconnection as punishment for illegal downloading.

The most important piece of information to come from the study is the finding that US P2P users tend to buy 30 percent more music than their non-sharing brethren. More studies are needed, however, but this study can join the pile of others that show file-sharing doesn't harm sales.

Continue reading: Google-commissioned survey shows that US P2P users buy 30 % more music, another study showing P2P users not bad (full post)

Dotcom's Mega launch crippled by overwhelming popularity

Charles Gantt | Internet & Websites | Jan 21, 2013 11:05 AM CST

If you happened to be living under a rock over the weekend, you might have missed the small news story about Kim Dotcom's launch of the new file sharing service Mega. For the rest of the world, you did not miss it - you were just unable to use it.

Mega, the replacement of Megaupload, has been long anticipated, and has been expected to be a major success from the beginning. On Saturday the service went live worldwide, and users were able to sign up for an account, which included 50GB of free cloud storage to get you started. That is about all that most were able to do as the service has for the most part, been extremely slow and plagued with outages.

All of this is of course due to is wide, err... mega popularity. Everyone is flocking at once to check out the new encrypted file sharing service, and that is killing the servers. Dotcom has announced that over one million accounts were created in the first 24 hours alone. We expect that things will cool down in the next week or so as the initial rush begins to settle down. Did you sign up for Mega on launch day? What has your experience been like so far? Let us know in the comments below.

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University student kicked out of school after exposing security flaw

Charles Gantt | Current Affairs | Jan 21, 2013 10:03 AM CST

Ahmed Al-Khabaz, a 20 year old computer science student at Montreal's Dawson College, recently identified a major security flaw in the universities computer system. Instead of being thanked, or given a pat on the back, the student was expelled from the school.

Al-Khabaz was working on a mobile app that would gain students easier access to their college account, when he discovered what he described as "sloppy coding". The coding flaw allowed easy access to anyone wishing to find student's personal information stored in the system.

When brought to the attention of university officials, Al-Khabaz was promised that he would work with Skytech, the creators of the software in which the flaw was found, to resolve the issue. That call never came however. Two days later, Al-Khabaz ran another security check to see if the flaw had been fixed. It hadn't. A few minutes later he got a call from Edouard Teza, the president of Skytech. It was then that Al-Khabaz was accused of a cyber-attack and threatened with legal action.

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OWC announces Mercury Viper 3.5-inch 6G SSD and Jupiter mini-SAS DAS/SAN

Paul Alcorn | IT/Datacenter & Super Computing | Jan 21, 2013 7:57 AM CST

OWC has announced their newest SSD in their venerable Mercury line, the OWC Mercury Viper SSD. This 3.5" behemoth sports impressive specifications of up to 600MB/s. This SSD bucks the current 2.5" trend by going with the 3.5" form factor, relegating it to desktop and server applications.

The truly impressive 600MB/s in sequential throughput will place this SSD firmly at the top of the SSD heap, with no other single SSD on the market able to match this top speed. 600MB/s is bumping up against the limits of the 6GB/s interface, and further numbers, such as random performance, will be released in the coming weeks. This large form factor also allows for huge capacity, with the range starting out at 240GB and topping out at a massive 2TB. This large capacity will be well suited to professional usage models.

OWC is also announcing the Jupiter mini-SAS DAS/SAN Scalable Storage Solution, which would be a great pairing with the above mentioned Mercury Viper. This series of enterprise class storage solutions continues OWCs expansion into the enterprise space. The series consist of JBOD and expansion racks, PCIe HBA cards and switches. The attraction of using the mini-SAS specification lies in its high performance, up to 48GB/s, and its relatively low cost when compared to competing fibre channel solutions.

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