Sharkoon adds Gigabit Ethernet to QuickPort Pro HDD Dock

Steve Dougherty | Storage | Oct 18, 2011 11:17 AM CDT

You'd think there's only so much that can be done with a desktop HDD docking station and if anyone has managed to provide a feature filled line of them that covers all bases, it's Sharkoon with their QuickPort series. But the company has just found reason to introduce yet another into its QuickPort family - the QuickPort Pro LAN Giga HDD/SSD Docking Station.

As the model name hints, the primary feature of this particular model launched today is its Gigabit ethernet port allowing it to be tied directly into a network for easy sharing between multiple computers. Of course, Sharkoon has included alternative choices for connectivity as well, with both USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces at its base (no doubt the next QuickPort will be both Gigabit and USB 3.0 equipped).

As per previous iterations of the QuickPort family of docking stations, the LAN Giga supports both 2.5 and 3.5-inch sized SSDs/HDDs. There's also a couple USB 2.0 ports easily accessible on the front of the base for plugging in additional flash drives or other storage devices and there's an SD/MMS/MS card reader resident as well.

Continue reading: Sharkoon adds Gigabit Ethernet to QuickPort Pro HDD Dock (full post)

First official photo of Motorola's carbon fiber Droid RAZR smartphone

Scheduled for an imminent launch today, the first official photo of Motorola's Droid RAZR has popped up on the web ahead of the official unveiling in a matter of hours from now. The phone, codenamed Spyder runs Android 2.3 and that fancy looking, sleek casing you see in the picture is in fact made of a mixture of metal and carbon fiber.

The phone sports a qHD (960 x 540) Super AMOLED touchscreen which has been further strengthened using Gorilla Glass, while inside lurks a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB RAM and 4G LTE support. It has an 8MP rear-facing camera which is also capable of recording in 1080p as well as a front facing HD camera.

It's been confirmed that the Droid RAZR will be offered by Verizon in the states. We'll cover more details on that post launch folks.

Continue reading: First official photo of Motorola's carbon fiber Droid RAZR smartphone (full post)

Fresh Ivy Bridge Roadmap indicates 77W Max TDP

Steve Dougherty | CPU, APU & Chipsets | Oct 18, 2011 9:03 AM CDT

Thanks to a chunky roadmap leak via a Chinese forum earlier today, we can gather up some more spicey details on Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs and associating platforms; also removing some of the haze thats still been surrounding it in terms of TDP ratings and backward/forward compatibility characteristics.

If said roadmaps are the real mcCoy, we can look forward to a maximum TDP of just 77W for the high-end models which is a good drop lower than the 95W peak for Sandy Bridge thanks to the brand new 22nm fab process. The diagram above seems like a bit of a dogs breakfast at first, but if you focus primarily on the upper region that's where the more interesting tid bits lie.

We can ascertain from this chart that just like Sandy Bridge, there will be unlocked 'K' series SKUs for Ivy Bridge as well; these of which top out at the aforementioned TDP of just 77W. Looking further down the chart, there are entries for quad core 65W 'S' and 45W 'T' SKUs not unlike Sandy Bridge, and also an SKU entry for a 35W dual core.

Continue reading: Fresh Ivy Bridge Roadmap indicates 77W Max TDP (full post)

Google rolls out Google Wallet to more merchants, shop and save in a single tap

Google have announced more Google Wallet merchants have gone live, but not only that, they've announced that various partners are rolling out an even better Google Wallet Experience. The partners involved in this even better rollout include American Eagle Outfitters, The Container Store, Foot Locker, Guess, Jamba Juice, Macy's, OfficeMax and Toys"R"Us. For the first time ever in the U.S., at these select stores, you can only only pay with Google Wallet, but you can redeem coupons and/or earn reward points, all with a single tap of your phone. This is what Google calls the Google Wallet SingleTap experience.

At any of these stores, you can walk in rocking your Google Wallet-capable Android handset, walk up to the counter and tap your phone to pay and save. That's it. No need to find the coupon, credit card, cash, count the cash, or anything - tap, done. Within Google Wallet lies "The Offers" tab, which has been updated to include a new "Featured Offers" section with discounts that are exclusive to Google Wallet.

Today, these exclusive discounts to Google Wallet include 15-percent off at American Eagle Outfitters, 10-percent off at The Container Store, 15-percent off at Macy's and an all-fruit smoothie for just $2 at Jamba Juice. There are many more Google Wallet exclusive discounts to arrive in the future, and you can save your favourites in Google Wallet so they'll be automatically applied to your bill when you tap to check out.

Continue reading: Google rolls out Google Wallet to more merchants, shop and save in a single tap (full post)

Samsung to produce quad-core A6 chips for future Apple iOS devices

Anthony Garreffa | CPU, APU & Chipsets | Oct 18, 2011 2:28 AM CDT

Even amongst all the lawsuits, bitching and injunctions, Samsung are still producing the A6 quad-core mobile chip for future Apple iOS-based devices. It was previously reported that Apple had signed a deal with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) last month to supply A6 chips, but that deal seems to be on shaky grounds now. The Korean Times is now reporting that Apple and Samsung have maintained their buyer and supplier relationship and will do so going forward for the foreseeable future.

The Korean Times cites an executive from an Apple parts supplier in Korea, where it says Apple have concluded that Samsung is a critical business partner and can't sever times with them just yet. Samsung is already producing the A6 processor for future iOS devices at a manufacturing plant based in Austin, Texas which opened back in 2007. TSMC will still manufacturer chips for Apple, but the volume is expected to be very low.

The reason behind this is that TSMC haven't stabilized their manufacturing process and Apple isn't willing to take the risk of switching suppliers under such circumstances. What of the legal issues between Apple and Samsung? The article does point out that during an interview with Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung, in which he told reporters that Samsung is handling legal issues with Apple independently of their business relationship with Apple.

Continue reading: Samsung to produce quad-core A6 chips for future Apple iOS devices (full post)

Twitter hits 100 million monthly active users, with 50% logging in daily

Anthony Garreffa | Internet & Websites | Oct 18, 2011 1:44 AM CDT

CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo has revealed some statistics about Twitter's insane growth. Twitter now has over 100 million active users and that signups via iOS have tripled since the launch of iOS 5. It was only back in June that Twitter was hitting 200 million tweets per day, but this number has expanded out to 250 million tweets per day. If we rewind back to January 2011, there were around 100 million tweets per day.

Quite the growth, huh? Costolo revealed the stats during an interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. With those 100 million active users, half of them login daily. Costolo says:

We had 30% of our monthly active users loggin in every day at the beginning of the year. Now it's over 50%.

Continue reading: Twitter hits 100 million monthly active users, with 50% logging in daily (full post)

AMD's 28nm GPUs to hit in December, Santa Claus possibly leaving one in your stocking?

Anthony Garreffa | Video Cards & GPUs | Oct 18, 2011 12:26 AM CDT

AMD know when you are sleeping, they know when you're awake, they also know if you've been bad or good, so for 28nm GPUs, be good for goodness sake. If you want a 28nm Radeon GPU before the end of the year, in time for Christmas and just after the launch of the pillars of the FPS genre, Battlefield 3 and COD: Modern Warfare 3, then this is a great time to be a PC fan. We've reported before that AMD would launch their next-gen, 28nm-based Radeon GPUs sometime this year, but whether it would be low or mid-range GPUs is the question.

Another fact is that they could be notebook parts, with high-end parts hitting early next year. German website heise.de who claims multiple industry sources have pointed toward a December launch with one source specifically pointing to December 6. The new launch could be a desktop or notebook part, but I very much doubt it will be a high-end GPU. Another industry source is convinced that this is more of a symbolic launch, to beat out green-team rivals, NVIDIA.

That is my opinion too, I really think we're just going to see a launch, in general. Nothing special, no high-end parts.. it'll just be something launched on their 28nm process to stick it in NVIDIA's green-with-envy face. Whatever it is, we're within 3 - 4 months of seeing next-gen parts from AMD, with NVIDIA trailing behind. Whatever happens, I'm just excited to receive new GPUs again!

Continue reading: AMD's 28nm GPUs to hit in December, Santa Claus possibly leaving one in your stocking? (full post)

Drop test: Samsung's Galaxy S II beats out the iPhone 4S

We've seen the performance analysis, benchmarks, thoughts, features and much more talk when it comes to Apple's latest and greatest; the iPhone 4S. But what about dropping them from shoulder height to see which one would break first? It may sound stupid, but there are so many people who drop their phones, whether it be accidentally, when drunk, or they're just clumsy. My wife dropped her Galaxy S II from hip height a fortnight ago, and it just scraped the side and did not break; to me, that is great workmanship from Samsung.

SquareTrade, who sell insurance for all manner of electronics, have obtained the iPhone 4S and a Galaxy S II and have done a drop test. The test consisted of dropping the phones at shoulder-height,and a face-down fall. The Galaxy S II survived both drops, where the iPhone took considerable damage even at a waist-heigh drop and its screen was completely wrecked when dropped face down on concrete.

The tests are aimed at making users take out insurance on their handsets, but it would also pay to have a protective cover if you're an iPhone 4S user. The amount of friends I with the iPhone 4 who have cracked screens is nuts, where I've recommended my personal handset (HTC Desire) to many more friends and none of them have cracked screens. Apple, improve this in your phones, now.

Continue reading: Drop test: Samsung's Galaxy S II beats out the iPhone 4S (full post)

AMD's shares bulldozed by over 5-percent in the past week, over 50-percent in 6 months, thanks, Bulldozer?

Anthony Garreffa | Business, Financial & Legal | Oct 17, 2011 10:22 PM CDT

Well, AMD's Bulldozer launched last week to much of the publics dismay. It did not really cause the ruckus that AMD probably expected, unable to trip up the current CPU champion, Intel's Core i7. AMD's shares have since seen quite the dip, with Friday, October 14 seeing their share price hovering at $4.90 per share, and now they've experienced a sharp decline of 5-percent down to the $4.70 or so per share mark.

Thought that was bad? Well, I clicked on the 12-month period for AMD's shares and on Feb 25th, 2011 they peaked (for the 12-month period) at $9.29 per share... quite the slump they've seen. The point of this complete decline in shares saw it starting on Sep 16th, 2011 where it was sitting at $7.20, and has declined virtually everyday until Bulldozer's lacklustre launch. Did the industry know what was going to happen?

We can see that the shares over the past 6 or so months, have dropped by nearly 50-percent. This is not good, not good at all.

Continue reading: AMD's shares bulldozed by over 5-percent in the past week, over 50-percent in 6 months, thanks, Bulldozer? (full post)

SandForce acknowledges Firmware bug causing BSOD issues, fix available today

Anthony Garreffa | Storage | Oct 17, 2011 9:17 PM CDT

After months of complaints from users worldwide, SandForce has duplicated, verified and provided a fix for the infamous BSOD/disconnect issue that affected SF-2200-based SSDs. What was the exact problem? Well, specifics are scarce, but it seems the root cause was a bug in the firmware. OCZ has been testing the fix in-house for the past three weeks and believes that it is fit for public release.

SandForce is also simultaneously releasing the new sturdy firmware to partners, so if you have a non-OCZ drive with these issues, you should contact your drive manufacturer for an availability update. The new OCZ firmware is version 2.15 and 3.3.2 for drives that use SF's standard numbering system. Of course, this is a bug to fix a specific issue, and might not fix all of issues on your drive.

As with anything new, we would suggest waiting it out and seeing the reports from others as they go through their testing. If you want to don your blast suit and try it out, then go for it.

Continue reading: SandForce acknowledges Firmware bug causing BSOD issues, fix available today (full post)