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Samsung GALAXY S III gets thrown into benchmarks, hints at huge speed increases
According to some leaked benchmarks that were spotted by an eagle-eyed reader of Phone Arena, show the GALAXY S III sporting a quad-core Exynos 4412 chip that looks like it smashes all previous Android-based devices, and probably the iPhone 4S, not by a bit, but considerably.
In GLBenchmark 2.1.4 Egypt Offscreen, Samsung's GALAXY S II scores around 30fps, with HTC's One X which sports NVIDIA's quad-core Tegra 3 SoC scoring around 65fps, but the GALAXY S III just looks at those in disgust and spits out 90fps or so. An insane feat for Samsung, if it's true. This would mean that Samsung's GSIII would be nearly three times faster than its predecessor.
Whilst performance and fps is all well and good, battery life is good, too. Apple's iPhone 4S will most likely beat this phone with battery life thanks to Apple's closed-off ecosystem, but Samsung's GALAXY S III should sport the ability the GALAXY S II did, a removable cover. As good as the iPhone is, you can't replace its battery for any reason, without voiding warranty. Where with the GSIII, you could just rip the back off and have a new, fully-charged battery placed, turned back on and back into ICS within 30 seconds or so.
AMD won't be supporting Radeon HD 4000 series and older in Windows 8
AMD have now announced that they won't be supporting Radeon HD 4000 series and below in Windows 8. Most people will read this and be shocked, but the GPUs are old now and Windows 8 by the time it comes out, will be considered a 2013 release.
Windows should ship with some form of support for legacy Radeon cards, but AMD themselves won't be providing future driver updates for those GPUs. AMD have made this quite clear in their press release:
Continue reading: AMD won't be supporting Radeon HD 4000 series and older in Windows 8 (full post)
20% of Macs house Windows malware
Most people think Macs are safe, and it's definitely a decision that sways some people when purchasing their latest kit. But, according to Sophos, one in five Macs actually harbors some kind of Windows-orientated malware.
The company looked at results over seven days from 100,000 Apple machines using its free anti-virus program, with 20-percent having one or more instances of Windows-based malware. Sophos have warned of this before, where last year they tested 50 USB drives lost in public. To their surprise, as well as mine, two thirds of these were infected. That's 33-percent! Seven of these owners of lost USB flash drives owned a Mac.
In their latest study, Sophos found that just 2.7-percent of the infected Macs actually contained harmful malware, with 75-percent of it being Flashback variants. Of the 20-percent harboring Windows malware, 12.2-percent carried Bredo, a three-year-old Trojan. Sophos does note that some machines contain malware samples that go back to 2007. Sophos have said the following:
Continue reading: 20% of Macs house Windows malware (full post)
HP has announced six Ivy Bridge-powered desktops, will start from $699
Ok, ok, sit back down. Intel's Ivy Bridge is here, and so far it has been ho-hum for everything I've read. Intel don't really need to try that much when the competition needs to pick up a dictionary and find out what the word 'competition' actually means. But, this isn't stopping the Ivy Bridge train from gaining some serious steam and where it's perfections lie is in its new 22nm design.
HP are now baking Ivy Bridge-based processors into their new desktop line-up which has been refreshed. The new line-up sports six quad-core models that will be made available directly from HP as of the 29th of April. Three of these offerings will be all-in-one systems, including the Omni 220qd which sports Beats Audio and a cantilever design that starts from $999.
On top of this, the Omni 27qd which features a 27-inch display and a $1,199 price tag. The third all-in-one model will be a refresh to the TouchSmart 520xt, which sports a 23-inch touch-enabled display and retails for $999. Not bad.
Continue reading: HP has announced six Ivy Bridge-powered desktops, will start from $699 (full post)
Valve's new employee handbook will make you want to work for them so much more
Valve are successful because they don't run their company in a traditional sense, in more ways than one. Valve attract the best talent from across the world, and this talent produces some of the best product in the form of Steam, games and more.
A PDF of Valve's Handbook for New Employees has made its way onto the Internet, and you can take a read at just how awesome it is to work at the company. A traditional job would have you go in, take a job title, a desk and start your job. You work a normal 9-5, Mon-Fri, at your desk, with someone higher than you telling you what to do, and not do.
This can work well, if everyone is treated equally, but we all know this doesn't generally work. Valve's way is that they give you a desk, on wheels, so that if you're not liking the department, or area where you start, and you feel you'd be more efficient in another area, you can move freely. You're not stuck into a single "X" position. You're just 'working at Valve'.
RumorTT: AMD Radeon HD 7990 to be unveiled at Computex in June
We know Team Green are ready to launch their dual-GPU Kepler card, the GEFORCE GTX 690, but where are Team Red and their Radeon HD 7990? If current rumblings are to be believed, we should expect AMD to unveil the Radeon HD 7990 at Computex 2012 in Taipei.
This is only 6 weeks away, which means if NVIDIA drop the GTX 690 ball in between now and then, NVIDIA will have four weeks of people talking about their product, building hype and what not. But, it gives AMD four weeks to re-tweak their GPU and have it ready to open up a can of red whoop ass on NVIDIA, hopefully.
The HD 7990 is expected to sport two full HD 7970 GPUs onto a single PCB. It should also have 6GB of GDDR5 baked into it, as well as 4096 GCN cores, and the ability to run 6-screen Eyefinity setups right out of the box. We will be at Computex in force this year, and will have as much news as we can of this new Red Beast. Hopefully it'll punch all other GPUs in the nuts, again.
Continue reading: RumorTT: AMD Radeon HD 7990 to be unveiled at Computex in June (full post)
Facebook IPO could be delayed, is said to be due to recent acquisitions and distractions
We were staring down the barrel of Facebook's initial public offering (IPO) which is two weeks from now, but according to people "familiar with the matter", the social networking companies recent acquisitions and other business distractions are threatening to delay the IPO, reports CNBC.
Management at Facebook have been looking at a May offering, with a roadshow launch somewhere around May 7, and the start of trading late the week of the 14th, people with knowledge of the deal said. But recently, founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, has been focusing more on running the business and acquiring other companies such as Instagram, than preparing for the share sale.
This is according to the same people leaking this information, which is reportedly making it hard for him and other managers to focus 100-percent on the IPO preparations. Facebook is now looking to delay their roadshow a week from May 7 to May 14, or possibly the very end of May. This would delay initial trading until mid-June.
Apple's insane growth: 125 million iCloud users, iTunes offers over 28 million songs and 45,000 movies
Apple only just released their quarterly earnings report, which showed some stellar numbers and growth for the Cupertino-based company. Apple saw an insane 35 million iPhones sold, $39.2 billion in revenue with $11.6 billion of that in pure profit. Apple also saw 11.8 million iPads sold, 4 million Macs, and 7.7 million iPods. I'd call this a very successful quarter.
On top of these numbers, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer announced that the company now has over 125 million iCloud users, which is a massive growth of 25 million users in a little over two months. How many iOS devices would you say Apple sold? Well, if you said 365 million, you'd be right. More than 50 million in the last quarter alone. The App Store has hit 600,000 apps in total with more than 200,000 of those available for the iPad.
Let's talk iTunes: there are now more than 28 million songs and 45,000 movies to choose from, which goes to show just how much muscle Apple have to flex in the media department. If we consider this growth now, where could Apple be in 3, 6 or even 12 months time? Another stellar release like an iPhone 5 or proper next-gen iPad would just be insane. The sales numbers and user stats would swell, considerably.
ASUS' internal overclocking team breaks 5 world records with Ivy Bridge and Z77
ASUS is known for making some incredible products including motherboards. Their internal overclocking team has used an ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE motherboard along with an Intel i7-3770K to smash 5 world records. This required extreme cooling which came in the way of liquid nitrogen. The records are for benchmark scores and additionally managed 7Ghz on the new Ivy Bridge chip.
The records, as follows, attest to the quality components and engineering that go into ASUS products.
Crysis 3 gameplay trailer released, graphics look incredible
EA has graced us with another Crysis trailer. This one is much longer than the teaser that was released last week and has actual gameplay included in it. We also learn some more of the backstory with this trailer and get to see that the graphics are as incredible as one would expect from the Crysis series.
As previously reported, the game will take place in New York City just like Crysis 2 did. However, this time the city has been covered by a Nanodome created by the now-corrupt Cell Corporation. Because of this Nanodome, the city will feature 7 unique districts which are called the Seven Wonders. Each will provide a different, treacherous environment.
Watch the video above and start to get excited like I am. I love the first Crysis game, so I'm excited to see it, at least somewhat, return to the jungle. Prophet will have an updated Nanosuit, composite bow, and alien tech to help him in his quest. The game will be released sometime in 2013 and be available on PC, Xbox 360, and Playstation 3.
Continue reading: Crysis 3 gameplay trailer released, graphics look incredible (full post)