We all love the idea of using an SSD to replace our hard drives but there are just situations where it's just too expensive, like say in a server. Let's imagine that we can speed up our servers and make our hard drives seem as fast as if we'd replace them all with SSDs. Let's take a look at a hybrid array of HDDs and SSDs specifically the demo we saw put on by Adaptec MaxIQ at IDF Beijing 2011.

The increased speed and performance are achieved by automatic storage acceleration, which is facilitated using MaxIQ SSD Caching. The storage controller is in a unique position to monitor storage traffic and make decisions regarding "hot" data areas that can be copied to SSDs, automatically and dramatically increasing the speed of any system. Analysis of traffic patterns is made and copies frequently-read "hot" data are made to the SSD cache pool. This automatically increases performance without adding any management issues. The data in the SSD cache pool is simply a copy of the hot data residing on the HDD, eliminating many of the data migration concerns that get involved in placement algorithms.

This is the basic overview of what is explained in depth by Neil Cameron field engineer at Adaptec PMC, it's a very interesting interview in which I felt I learned a lot... and trust me when I say that SSD caching isn't usually something that I would cover, unless it was REALLY interesting!!

Telstra have revamped their website in yet another move to get customers to deal online with them more. The move might work as the site is much less text-heavy now and feels slightly less bloated.

Gerd Schenkel, executive director of Telstra Digital says:

A screenshot of the new Task Manager for Windows 8 has been leaked from Windows 8 build 7850. The new Task Manager is obviously not fully functional at this early stage in the Windows 8 game but we can still tell from the leaked screenshot that is is far different to the previous Task Managers in Windows 7, Vista and XP.

There are now three tabs: Programs, Startup and Users (compared to current Task Managers which are made up of Applications, Processes, Performance and Networking). This is probably set to change but for now it's great to see Microsoft changing up the Task Manager with a new fresh look.

Microsoft has also decided to categorize Programs into Windows System-Critical Programs, Background Programs and Applications. This will obviously make it easier to find the task that a user wishes to kill. Also included is an Advanced Task Manager that allows users to see more information about running processes and services, again this will most likely change but it's good to see Microsoft tweaking under the hood.

Hey hey hey, remember when I was just talking about how amazing the SNES was? Well instead of waiting on Nintendo to ponderously release amazing retro games amidst a sea of irrelevance, why not just check out Hyperkin's SupaBoy instead?

It looks like an SNES controller! And it plays SNES games! If you're going to start whining about the 3.5" screen, you probably didn't read the part about how it has Video Out and controller ports for actual SNES controllers. Yeah that's right, you can play any SNES game (that you own or can find) on your flatscreen or, you know, anywhere else you take the SupaBoy with you. It's coming out Summer of 2011, so stay tuned for more information.

Check out the press release for more info.

In case any of you forgot, the Beta for Gears of War 3 is available next Monday, and all you have to do is to use Gamestop to pre-order this bad-ass game you want to play anyway (pending you have an Xbox 360- otherwise you're kinda out of luck). If you were smart enough to grab the Epic edition of Bulletstorm (kinda redudndant, that game is pretty epic as is), you got access to the Beta today! Congratulations for loving hardcore FPS's.

Here's a video of some of the Beta, which begins April 27 and lasts until May 15, brought to you by Canada's Console Creatures:

Also, after the break, a list of all the awesome stuff that comes with it from the Gears of War 3 blog.

Munich-based Augmented Reality Solutions firm metaio GmbH and Vuzix of Rochester, NY have announced a development and marketing partnership to collaborate on identifying and delivering improved and enhanced solutions for their customers. Roman Hasenbeck, Director of Business Development for metaio San Francisco, commented:

If you're new to the Augmented Reality industry you probably don't realize the significance of this last statement. AR exists chiefly on two different platforms at the moment: web-contained and mobile. You may have seen examples and use cases in marketing promotions, such as those by Hallmark or Home Depot, that launch from the webcam of your desktop or laptop. Otherwise, AR lives in your phone, in the form of reality browsers like Layar or metaio's junaio application. Take a moment and consider the Yelp application's "monocle" function, and imagine you could perceive something like that through your sunglasses. That is the kind of thing that Vuzix wants to do. Together, metaio and Vuzix hope to address common AR implementations in advertising, entertainment, on-site and factory floor training and education, and pretty much anything else!

I've been posting quite a bit about Battlefield 3 lately but there's two reasons behind this. One, DICE/EA are pushing out new content showing off various pieces of the game every week or so and secondly the game just looks absolutely fabulous. Mind-blowing. Orgasmic. And finally, we have a 12 minute video to get all excited over.

The above video shows off the three Fault Line Gameplay videos and there's a bit of extras in-between and at the end. The videos are just amazing and are really setting Battlefield 3 up to be one of the best-looking FPS games ever. This is all thanks to Frostbite 2.0 and the fact that DICE are developing BF3 for the PC first and then scaling down - which sounds like a few of the keyboard-warrior attempts I've personally said on various forums and TweakTown-based news bits and editorials.

A developer who is making a game on PC first and scaling down for consoles instead of making the game for the low-powered majority and trying to scale up (which never works) to the super-powered PC gamers. Look at the result: Battlefield 3 versus any other game on the market now.

Eleven defendants, including the founders of online gambling sites PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker are the subject of a United States Department of Justice indictment, unsealed today. The indictment charges the defendants with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses. Authorities in New York also issued restraining orders against more than 75 bank accounts, and seized five different internet domain names. Damn, that's cold.

Evidently, Manhattan U.S. attorney Preet Bharara has charged Isai Scheinberg and Raymond Bitar, founders of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, respectively, and nine other defendants with fraudulently scheming to thwart a 2006 antigaming litigation that prevents US banks from processing online poker payments. Bharara said in a statement:

If only you got to kill the entire cast of the third movie. Damn, that was brutal. Film production house The Weinstein Company as promised, is making mobile games based on current films. In this case, we get a mobile game to get us excited for the release of fourth installment in the Scream franchise, originally started by Wes Craven back in the 90's. We got some screen shots from the mobile game, available on iOS, which looks to be pretty cool.

The movie starts playing tonight, April 15th! What's your favorite scary movie?

If any of you have been playing the button mashing extravaganza that is Marvel Vs. Capcom 3, you may have noticed some strange things. That is to say, strange things other than the crazy assortment of flashing lights, colors, and the fact that you manage to pull off all sorts of combos and super moves without ever really knowing how.

Is your Ryu floating randomly? Snapping out Zero momentarily disabling your characters? Is your opponent's Captain America randomly performing combos on you? And my personal favorite, is your opponent's Amaterasu carrying out frustratingly infinite combos? I'd actually love to see the look on the person's face on the receiving end of that.

If you're like most MvC 3 players, you probably haven't noticed and/or just assumed that your button mashing had come together in some sort of harmonius wonder, but all of the above are bugs, and are in no circumstances supposed to be happening. In a blog post today, Capcom announced that they've fixed all of these problems and more.