As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. TweakTown may also earn commissions from other affiliate partners at no extra cost to you.
Zalman to enter the GPU market
This is a bit unexpected, but a good move for Zalman. They have just announced their entry into the GPU market with the shipping of Zalman-branded GPUs to start shipping on December 13.
Zalman's first entry will be AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series GPUs, in three different models: Zalman HD6870-H , H-Zalman HD6850 and HD6770 Zalman-H. As you can tell from the model numbers, they are HD 6870, HD 6850 and HD 6770 GPUs. Nothing high-end yet, but I'm sure Zalman are just putting their toes into the water, for now.
All cards will feature two DVI outputs, one HDMI output and one DisplayPort output. All cards are dual-slot with the fan located in the center of the card. The PCB is a wicked blue color.
Continue reading: Zalman to enter the GPU market (full post)
Razer's Blade gaming laptop will be on Santa's sleigh, Rudolph can get some mobile gaming happening
Razer's gaming-themed and feature-packed gaming laptop, Blade, is said to hit shelves and customers hands before Christmas. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan also explains what has changed since the "world's first true gaming laptop" was unveiled in August, and talks about the Army origins of the laptop's sleek and sexy design.
Something I did not know, is that Tan served in the Army, and is quoted:
OnLive is bringing AAA gaming to smartphones, tablets and media players
OnLive have released a new update to its Android and iOS app which allows PC-quality high-definition gameplay to a very wide range of smartphones, tablets and media players. This includes the iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and Kindle Fire.
The app is available on Thursday, December 8 and will add complete gameplay support for any game offered through the OnLive service, which includes some of the latest AAA games on the market right now such as Batman: Arkham City, L.A. Noire, Assassin's Creed: Revelations and more.
The previous version of the OnLive app only allowed users to use the OnLive marketplace and access the social features of the service, but after tomorrow, you'll be able to play any game as long as you're connected to Wi-Fi, and if not, it'll also work over 3G and 4G LTE connections with a minimum speed of just 1Mbps.
Amazon wants to pay you $5 to walk out of stores without buying anything
You may think theres some form of trickery to my title there, but there is not. Quite simply put, Amazing are offering consumers up to $5 off on purchases if they are to compare prices using Amazon's mobile phone application in-store.
The promotion is for one day only, this Saturday, and is a sneaky way of Amazon to increase the usage of its bar-code-scanning application, while also collecting intel on prices in the stores. Mobile commerce is a booming market right now, with more and more customers more than happy to use applications on their smartphones to either shop, or compare prices not just at home, but at work, in the shop itself, or while in the toilet.
Thanksgiving and Black Friday sales were enormous, and I'm sure Amazon want a repeat of that success when Santa comes visiting in a few weeks. Amazon's Price Check app is available on both the Apple App Store and the Android Market, the app allows shoppers to scan a bar code, take a picture of an item or conduct a text search to find the lowest prices.
Red Cross says that six hundred million gamers could be war criminals
I could sum this news up in just four letters: ROFL. But, I'll explain what is going on here... the Red Cross are investigating whether 600 million gamers are violating the Hague and Geneva conventions when they kill and blow stuff up for fun.
Delegates at the 31st International Conference of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Red Crescent raised their concerts over the potential "International Humanitarian Law" violations, which can constitute war crimes - during a workshop in Geneva.
The Red Cross wrote in its daily bulletin:
Continue reading: Red Cross says that six hundred million gamers could be war criminals (full post)
Samsung's Galaxy Nexus to slide into Verizon stores on Friday, just $199 on contract
Samsung's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich phone may be available internationally, but U.S.-based fans are still waiting on the subsidized CDMA version to be sold by none other than Verizon and made available this Friday.
The Galaxy Nexus will be available for $199 on a two-year contract, which is something that has now been confirmed. The smartphone will also be the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone to officially arrive in the U.S. market. If you don't already know, the Galaxy Nexus sports the beautiful AMOLED display which comes in at 4.65-inches with a high-density resolution of 1280x720.
[edit] I have received some e-mails and comments on this article, after some more digging around - there are conflicting reports of a $199 figure, which could've been a Black Friday sale amount, and there is a $299 figure floating around too. It could all be a marketing stunt too, as the Galaxy Nexus is most likely going to be the biggest competitor against the iPhone 4S. I guess we'll see in just over a days time.
Michael Bay in talks to direct Transformers 4
Michael Bay did say he was done with Transformers after Dark of the Moon, the third outing in franchise. Shia LeBeouf has said the same thing multiple times, but the old saying goes "money talks," and I'm sure a lot of the green has been waved under Bay's nose.
Bay's next movie is a "low budget" flick called "Pain and Gain," after which would leave him open to direct a fourth Transformers movie in late 2012. Bay has had a long-held desire to make Pain and Gain and is reportedly one of the major road blocks in a fourth Transformer movie being made. If a deal is finalized, Pain and Gain will begin filming early next year to keep Bay happy, and then get him back behind the camera for Transformers 4 directly after Pain and Gain.
Bay has made a comment or two regarding another Transformers movie, he was quoted at the grand opening of Transformers: The Ride:
Continue reading: Michael Bay in talks to direct Transformers 4 (full post)
Facebook rollout Timeline to NZ first, starts today
Facebook have just clicked the 'start ignition' button on their Timeline feature today, where it will eventually rollout to everyone on Facebook. New Zealand is the first place to get it, with other regions will get it in the "near future."
If you don't remember what Timeline is, it's a way to illustrate your entire life, in a graphical way. Some people criticize Facebook for just being made up of "here and now", where major life events are pushed to the bottom of a person's feed and thus, forgotten over time. Timeline doesn't do that, Timeline brings those events back, mapping them on a graphic that tells the story of a user's life, from birth to the present day.
It's an exciting new feature, although what happens to the users who don't use Facebook that much? Log in for a bit of a copy/paste spam status update... or to water their crops in FarmVille? This will be an amazing feature for those who share most of their life with the social networking site. I know I do, that's the deal with living in the 21st century, right?
Continue reading: Facebook rollout Timeline to NZ first, starts today (full post)
Microsoft's Windows Store will offer "a bigger bite of the apple"
AllThingsD have some live coverage from a just-held Microsoft event, where they talked about their upcoming Windows Store that features in their next OS, Windows 8. Windows President Steven Sinofsky was on hand, as well as Windows Web Services VP Antoine Leblond.
Both took the stage and talked up the Windows Store, where a fair amount of information was unleashed onto the public. First off, Microsoft are promising the best economics of any app store by saying "we're going to give you a bigger bite of the apple". I don't know if that could be put in better words, but I love it.
Leblond recapped that Microsoft is proud to have Windows 8 working on ARM and x86 chips, small and big computers, with "it's the biggest and most significant developer opportunity ever", he promised. Windows Store is set to offer some differences to what the Apple App Store and Google Android Market offer, by giving free trial versions of apps, Leblond says "the best advertisement for your app will be the app itself," and I totally agree.
Continue reading: Microsoft's Windows Store will offer "a bigger bite of the apple" (full post)
Ainol's $100 tablet surfaces, is seen licking an Ice Cream Sandwich
China, where all things like this seem to start, has done it again. A first-of-its-kind tablet, which sports Google's latest Android 4.0 OS is priced under $100 and for sale right now. It will reach the shores of other countries in the coming weeks and months.
The tablet comes from a company called Ainol, and is called the "Novo7". Novo7 sports a 7-inch capacitive screen and runs on just a 1GHz single-core MIPS processor. Battery life seems good, with claims of eight hours whilst watching video, seven hours if you're just browsing the web and six hours when playing games.
Software wise, Android 4.0 is the joy of this unit. For $100 its feature list is quite good: front and rear-facing cameras, 3D graphics capabilities, 1080p video decoding and an HDMI port.
Continue reading: Ainol's $100 tablet surfaces, is seen licking an Ice Cream Sandwich (full post)