Yesterday the creative mind behind SKYRIM and Fallout 3, Adam Adamowicz fell in his battle with cancer. Mr. Adamowicz was the lead artist behind the entire artistic concept of the two modern day gaming masterpieces Fallout 3 and SKYRIM, giving those worlds life and personality. Everything from coin operated fallout shelters to dragons atop snowy peaks was first visualized and created in the mind of Adam Adamowicz.

To finish off the week in style Thermalright announced the Silver Arrow SB-E, a new, high-end CPU cooler based on the Silver Arrow model introduced back in 2010.

The Silver Arrow SB-E features a dual tower/dual fan design and has eight (nickel-plated) 6 mm copper heatpipes (the old Arrow comes with four 8 mm pipes), a tweaked heatsink, two TY PWM fans - one 140 mm and one 150 mm (the SA packs two 140 mm spinners), and a mounting kit offering support for Intel LGA 2011 / 1366 / 1156 / 1155 / 775 and AMD AM2(+) / AM3(+) / FM1 processors.

The Silver Arrow SB-E also makes use of some more 'discrete' fan clips that won't interfere with taller memory modules. The cooler is expected to become available at the end of this month. No price tag was announced but we found it on pre-order at about $103 / 78 Euro.

TUL Corporation, a leading manufacturer of AMD graphic cards, today added a new HD7970 graphics solution with dual cooling fan design: the PowerColor HD7970. Equipped with PowerColor exclusive cooling solution, the latest HD7970 lowers down 10% temperature through 92 mm ultra big fan and unique SSU-shape heat pipe design; while dissipates the excessive heat efficiently, it delivers low noisy level up to 15% quieter than reference version, providing no-compromise cooling effect with silent gaming environment.

The PowerColor HD7970 has core clock at 925 MHz and memory clock at 1375 MHz; with compatible with PCI Express 3.0, enabling unprecedented gaming performance by doubling the bandwidth per lane of previous generation. With 3GB GDDR5 onboard memory, the latest HD7970 allows the highest bandwidth for demanding DirectX 11.1 gaming title, delivering the astonishing image quality up to six displays by utilizing AMD Eyefinity technology.

In November 2011, Valve admitted that its Steam forums were hacked, and some user data including encrypted credit card information and hashed passwords were stolen, and that pending investigation, it asked users to change their Steam passwords. Valve noted that at that time, it had not seen any evidence of encrypted data being hacked. Today, Valve issued an update to all its Steam members via e-mail, where it notified them that investigation is still in progress, that Valve is taking help of external agencies to investigate, and that it still sees no evidence of encrypted credit card data being tampered with. As a note of caution, though, it asked users to keep an eye on their credit card activity and statements.

The transcript of Valve's email to Steam users follows.

Apple closed the chapter on the white MacBook (base), after it ended its distribution to educational institutions (schools, universities, students). The company had discontinued its sale to consumers back in July, 2011, but it continued shipping it to educational customers to honor its supply commitments, which has just been met. The relatively affordable white MacBook ran out of shelf space on Apple, as it got replaced by the MacBook Air, the products in the new series cater to both affordable price-points and more premium ones.


Source: MacRumors

Macronix International Co., Ltd., a world leading supplier in NOR Flash memory, today formally launches the first generation Single-Level Cell (SLC) NAND Flash family, the MX30LF family. An extension of Macronix's existing Serial and Parallel NOR Flash product portfolio, the new MX30LF SLC NAND family will facilitate Macronix serving embedded code and data storage markets as a total Flash memory provider.

As a leader in embedded non-volatile memories, Macronix fulfills the memory requirements of these applications ranging from consumer electronic applications like set-top box (STB), TV, digital cameras, Customer-premises equipment(CPE) and high end networking, through to industrial PC and automotive applications. Macronix has begun sampling SLC NAND products and will start trial production in 2012 Q1.

Once Company of The Year by Forbes, NVIDIA is now having a hard time convincing 111-year old investment firm Sterne Agee that it is as much of a company to look out for. The firm downgraded NVIDIA from its coveted "Catalyst Driven Idea List," claiming that NVIDIA lacks the kind of innovation looking into the foreseeable future, to remain in that list. Says Sterne Agee:

"We had put NVDA on our Catalyst Driven Idea list on January 3 ahead of anticipated catalysts at CES and Mobile World Congress (MWC). While there were some catalysts at CES with the quad-core Tegra 3 integrating Touch on its Ninja 5th core, CES also saw a Win8 Tablet prototype running an NVDA Tegra. While we believe there could be more catalysts with MWC February 27, we believe NVDA shares are fairly valued here. MWC catalysts could include Tegra 3 handsets with Icera baseband and some 7-10 tablets running Android Ice Cream Sandwich.

Sterne Agee's commentary continues.

Micron Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq:MU), today announced details involving the public memorial service and memorial funds for Steven R. Appleton, longtime Micron Chairman and CEO, who passed away Feb. 3. The public memorial service will be held Feb. 23 beginning at 10 a.m. MT at Taco Bell Arena on the campus of Boise State University.

Memorial funds have also been established in Mr. Appleton's name with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and the Boise State University Foundation. The Micron Foundation has donated $25,000 to each of the funds in honor of Mr. Appleton.

This is arguably every copyright enforcement group's worst nightmare, The Pirate Bay, which calls itself "the most resilient bit-torrent site in the galaxy", unveiled what is known as its "portable version", meaning, when taken down by an enforcement agency, any person, in any part of the world can restore the site, because it now weighs just 90 megabytes. That's right, the 90 MB copy of the site itself contains all its HTML, script and static images, and Magnet Links to over 1,643,194 torrents spread across all its categories.

A little earlier this year, The Pirate Bay transitioned from being a host for .torrent files to a host for magnet:// links. This transition means that each torrent consisted of a typically 50 KB .torrent file, is now reduced to a <1 KB Magnet link in the resource. The copy of the site itself is there for anyone to copy. Enforcement agencies' worst nightmare indeed weighs just 90 MB.


Sources: The Verge, TorrentFreak

AMD is pushing on with a desktop product lineup that's leveraging its Piledriver CPU and Graphics CoreNext GPU architectures in 2012. Apparently, the company will have a faster product development cycle to catch up with Intel's "Tick-Tock", as revealed in a roadmap slide scored by DonanimHaber. The current product lineup will remain unchanged in the first quarter of 2012. Then in the second quarter, AMD will launch a few more socket AM3+ FX-8000, FX-6000, and FX-4000 series eight, six, and four-core processors; along with the much talked about "Trinity" accelerated processing unit.

The fastest "Trinity" APUs will get a new brand identifier, the A10-5000 series. These APUs will pack next-generation "Piledriver" modular cores and Radeon HD 7600D series graphics. Around this time, AMD will also launch the Brazos 2.0 low-power APU for netbooks, nettops, and embedded computing devices. Brazos 2.0 will get the E2-1000 series branding. The big change is reserved for the third quarter of 2012, when AMD launches the successor of its less-than-lucky AMD FX "Bulldozer" processor family.

Reviewers who have probably received their AMD Radeon HD 7700 series samples by now, were taken aback when they found a prescription medication bottle in their packages. No NVIDIA-styled Press Deck booklet, or even former-ATI styled Ruby doll, but a medicine bottle, which reads "Verdetrol". The label directed them to insert the blue capsules inside it to the heat vents of the graphics card, when benchmarking, so it "acts as a performance enhancement".

The point in all this? Apparently AMD's Radeon HD 7770 features 1 GHz core clock speed out of the box, making it the first GPU ever to do so, and AMD wants to make a song and dance about it. What's more, AMD will use a special branding called "GHz Edition" to mark all its future SKUs that come with 1 GHz (or more) GPU core clock speed, indicating that AMD has more SKUs in the pipeline with ≥1 GHz core clock speed. It doesn't stop with this hysterical medicine bottle thingie, no sir, AMD even set up a teaser site dedicated to "Verdetrol".


Source: LegitReviews

Japanese PC maker FaithPC unveiled the GXT P170HBD-G580 TWIN-Drive SSR2, a 17.3-inch performance notebook that features three star attractions: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M 2 GB graphics, two Intel SSD 520 Series 180 GB SSDs in RAID 0, and an Intel Core i7-2960XM Extreme Edition quad-core processor. The notebook packs 16 GB (2x 8 GB) DDR3-1333 MHz memory. The 17.3-inch display sports 1920x1080 pixels resolution.

Apart from the lightning fast storage, the notebook packs a Blu-ray writer drive. Connectivity includes wireless b/g/n, gigabit Ethernet, and Bluetooth. The keyboard is specifically designed for gaming, with heightened W,A,S,D keys. Measuring 412 x 276 x 32 ~ 49 mm (WxDxH), it measures about 3.9 kg. Windows 7 Home Premium x64 is the OS of choice. The GXT P170HBD-G580 TWIN-Drive SSR2 from FaithPC is priced at 299,800 JPY (US $3,857).


Source: Hermitage Akihabara

In the coming week, AMD will release its Radeon HD 7700 series, which aims to increase its competitiveness in the sub-$200 market. The latest specifications exposé reveals AMD's new design strategy: Instead of increasing components such as stream processors and ROPs, which would increase transistor counts, and unnecessarily increase power draw, AMD is counting on a lesser number of better-configured Graphics CoreNext stream processors. While the previous-generation HD 5770/6770 "Juniper" GPU featured VLIW5 stream processors, the new "Cape Verde" GPU, which will go into making up Radeon HD 7770 and 7750, will feature GCN stream processors. Apart from architectural performance improvements, AMD is counting on increased clock speeds to do the trick. The specifications are listed below.

Cape Verde Physical

• Built on TSMC 28 nm process, ~1.5 billion transistors
  
• 10 Graphics CoreNext Compute Units (CUs)
  
• 640 stream processors
  
• 40 TMUs, 16 ROPs
  
• 128-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface
  

A leading brand of graphics card maker - VTX3D, today introduces the most well-known X series of VTX3D, HD7970/HD7950 X Edition. The X series is designed to deliver extraordinary performance with factory overclocked setting and unique cooling design.

VTX3D HD7970/HD7950 X Edition incorporates the latest PCI-E Gen 3 to get the maximum performance from your GPU. Both fitted with 3 GB of GDDR5 memory connected via a new high speed 384 bit memory interface. VTX3D HD7970/HD7950 X Edition is clocked at 1050 MHz and 880 MHz respectively, also together with 1425 MHz and 1250 MHz for each memory, fulfilling those who thirst for extreme performance. The HD7970/HD7950 X Edition also features ultra cooling design. With two 92 mm ultra big fan and SSU-shape heat pipe design, this efficient cooling solution maximizes the speed of heat dissipation, but minimizes the noisy level, creating most pleasing environment for gaming.

Under the stimulation of the sales upsurge of smartphone and tablet computer, the audio-visual experience has extended from home to anywhere, anytime and hence promotes mobile digital storage upgrade. Leading memory storage brand, SP/Silicon Power today announces to expand the microSDHC memory card product line and launch the super massive 32 GB microSDHC Class6 memory card. Its high capacity, high transmission speed and mini size make carrying large amounts of audio-visual data storage more portable than ever!

32 GB microSDHC Class 6 memory card adopts the specification of SD 2.0 and is suitable to apply to handheld mobile devices including high level digital camera or digital video camera of SD 2.0 specification. Its massive high speed transmission rate with minimum reading speed of 6 MB per second is in particular suitable for Full-HD video recording. Moreover, while its size is smaller than a finger nail, microSDHC Class6 memory card can store over 9000 digital photos, 500 minutes of full HD videos, more than 6000 songs and thousands of electronic files. This memory card is all you need for a portable streaming life!

Cooler Master has just announced the European arrival of the GeminII SF524 CPU cooler. This model features the same specs as the GeminII S524 released in August except it comes equipped with a different fan, one that operates at 1300 RPM or 900 RPM when using the silent mode adapter (the S524 has a PWM fan going at 800 to 1800 RPM).

The GeminII SF524 measures 144 x 144 x 105 mm, it weights 592 grams, has five 6 mm copper heatpipes, and offers support for Intel LGA 1366 / 1156 / 1155 / 775 and AMD FM1 / AM3+ / AM3 / AM2+ / AM2 processors. The cooler can be found selling for 37 Euro.

According to comScore, the month of January has seen all major players in the US Internet search market keep the positions held at the end of 2012. Still, there have been small changes as Google increased its share to 66.2% (66.1% in the previous month) while Yahoo dropped a little, from 16.2% in December to 16.0%.

Following Google and Yahoo was Microsoft with a 13.8% market share, while on the fourth and fifth places in January's top we have Ask and AOL with 2.6% and 1.4%, respectively. Almost 20 billion core search queries were conducted in the US in January.

NVIDIA is bound to kickstart its competitive graphics processor lineup to AMD's Southern Islands Radeon HD 7000 series with GeForce Kepler 104 (GK104). We are learning through reliable sources that NVIDIA will implement a radically different design (by NVIDIA's standards anyway) for its CUDA core machinery, while retaining the basic hierarchy of components in its GPU similar to Fermi. The new design would ensure greater parallelism. The latest version of GK104's specifications looks like this:

SIMD Hierarchy

• 4 Graphics Processing Clusters (GPC)
• 4 Streaming Multiprocessors (SM) per GPC = 16 SM
• 96 Stream Processors (SP) per SM = 1536 CUDA cores

The ASUS O!Play TV Pro upgrades living room TV viewing to a completely digital HD and live experience, enabling easy content consumption and distribution. Features open up playback and recording of digital programs, as well as almost any multimedia file currently available with over 50 formats supported, including 3D. Exclusive O!Easy technology adds specific one-click functions that cover file streaming, sharing, and replay, while an always-on design affords direct access to many major online entertainment and content services, all from a single user-friendly device.

Intel Corporation and the New York Attorney General have agreed to terminate the lawsuit alleging violation of U.S. and state antitrust laws that was filed by the New York Attorney General in November 2009.

The agreement, which follows a December 2011 court ruling that greatly reduced the scope of the New York Attorney General's lawsuit, expressly states that Intel does not admit either any violation of law or that the allegations in the complaint are true, and it calls for no changes to the way Intel does business. The agreement includes a payment of $6.5 million from Intel that is intended only to cover some of the costs incurred by the New York Attorney General in the litigation.

AMD released its latest Catalyst Application Profile update for AMD Catalyst, version 12.1 CAP 2, as it's called, adds application-specific CrossfireX optimizations to the driver, which lets the driver effectively use two or more AMD Radeon GPUs working in tandem optimally. It also fixes any bugs that exist with current optimizations. 12.1 CAP 2 includes profiles for the following applications:

• Star Wars: The old republic : Improves CrossFire performance and resolves flickering seen on Map
• Unigine Tropics – Resolves flashing shadow reflections with CrossFire enabled
• Wargame: European Escalation: Improves CrossFire performance

DOWNLOAD: AMD Catalyst Application Profiles 12.1 CAP 2

Turtle Beach, pioneers of the game audio category, announced today that based on year-ending NPD data for 2011, Turtle Beach was the number one gaming headsets/headphones company with 50% of the market for the year and the number one third party console video gaming accessories company, based on 2011 dollar volume.

The strong growth for the category has led NPD to create a dedicated Headsets category, splitting off from the general Audio category. Headsets continue to be the strongest growing segment in the gaming industry and is expanding rapidly. Turtle Beach led the field with 12 of the top 25 Gaming Headset SKUS in 2011. Overall, Turtle Beach dominated the market, taking an average of 50% market share for 2011, with a 58% share in December alone, a high for the year.

February's Patch Tuesday is closing in fast and, according to Microsoft, it's going to see the arrival of no less than nine updates - four rated 'Critical' and nine 'Important', that will crush 21 vulnerabilities.

The incoming patches tackle bugs that could lead to remote code execution and privilege elevation. As (almost) always, Microsoft didn't go into specifics but it did say the vulnerabilities affect Windows, Office, Internet Explorer, and .NET/Silverlight. All the updates will be made available on Valentine's Day (February 14th) at about 10 am PST (6 pm GMT).

The wait for Cedar Trail is pretty much over, at least from Acer's perspective as the company has begun shipping its first netbook based on the platform, the Aspire One D270. The model on sale is equipped with a 1.6 GHz Atom N2600 processor, it runs Linux, and has a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) LED backlit display, Intel GMA 3600 integrated graphics, 2 GB of RAM, a 320 GB hard drive, LAN, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a 5-in-1 card reader, a 0.3-megapixel webcam, a multi-touch trackpad, a HDMI output, and a 6-cell battery enabling up to 8 hours of operation.

The Aspire One D270 comes in several color versions (black, white, blue, red, candy), is backed by a one-year warranty, and can be bought for 259 Euro.

Micron Technology, Inc. is extending its legacy of memory leadership by introducing a new product category of low-power DDR3 solutions targeted at the tablet and ultrathin markets. These 2-gigabit (Gb) and 4 Gb "DDR3Lm" solutions focus on low self-refresh power (IDD6) for longer battery life, while maintaining the high performance and cost effectiveness of PC DRAM.

The first 2 Gb DDR3Lm will provide up to 50 percent self-refresh power savings versus standard 2 Gb DDR3L while driving performance up to -1600 MT/s when needed. Micron's 4 Gb DDR3Lm product delivers the same optimized power efficiency as the 2 Gb part, with a reduced chip count that is ideally suited for ultrathin and tablet customers. Both 2 Gb and 4 Gb DDR3Lm will be adopted into Micron's 30-nanometer (nm) class to further optimize the power and performance features, with the 4 Gb device hitting a 3.7mA IDD6 target in standby mode, yet still supporting speeds up to -1866 MT/s.

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the VIA EPIA-M910 Mini-ITX board, the latest dual core Mini-ITX board featuring one of the richest I/O sets available for a wide range of embedded applications including ATM, kiosks, POS, digital signage, healthcare and digital media applications.

The VIA EPIA-M910 is available in both active and passive cooling configurations with the choice of either a performance oriented 1.6 GHz VIA Nano X2 dual core processor or a fanless 1.0 GHz VIA Eden X2 dual core processor and is paired with the VIA VX900 media system processor, which provides the ideal platform for today's HD-intensive applications.

Among the sea of tower-type CPU coolers which are the same old tripe packaged and colored differently, few companies are actually investing in innovation, one of them is Prolimatech. The company is working on two new yet-unnamed CPU coolers specifically designed for socket LGA2011 motherboards, one has already taken shape, the other is still in its CGI form.

The first one (first two images below), appears to be an leaner, fitter evolution of the Prolimatech Genesis. While the Genesis uses a dual-independent fin-stack design in which one stack propagates perpendicular to the plane of the motherboard while the other propagates parallel to the plane, on this new design, both stacks propagate parallel to the plane, in opposite directions, and both being dissimilar in size.

Enermax offers a wide range of power supplies for various applications and target groups, starting with the entry-level series NAXN right through to the flagship series MaxRevo and Platimax. Following the demands of partners and end users, the premium manufacturer now adds two new models to its offer:

While the MaxRevo 1200W (EMR1200EWT) is designed to meet highest performance and efficiency standards of hardware enthusiasts, the 80 PLUS Bronze certified NAXN 650W (ENM650AWT-B) will strengthen Enermax' position in the competitive segment of budget power supplies for gamers.

Shacknews is reporting a new adventure game from Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, and the rest of the Double Fine Productions gang is on its way, having hit its funding goal of $400,000 only eight hours after launching a crowd-funding plan. What's more, Double Fine is now having "a lovely chat" with Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson about his offer to fund a Psychonauts sequel.

"If I were to go to a publisher right now and pitch an adventure game, they'd laugh in my face," Schafer said in a video for the KickStarter project. So Double Fine turned to its fans, seeking $300,000 to fund a new adventure game and $100,000 for video game documentary team 2 Player Productions to record its progress. The project launched at 6pm Pacific on Wednesday, and reached the $400,000 mark a touch over eight hours later.

As Intel's tick-tock CPU development Juggernaut rolls on, things seem very much on track, looking into the near future. Intel will launch its new "Ivy Bridge" 3rd Generation Core processor family in early-April 2012, which is a miniaturization of what is essentially the "Sandy Bridge" to the new 22 nm process, with IPC and instruction-set improvements, along with a faster graphics controller. The new process will also up clock speeds and overclocking headroom for chips that support it. What's more interesting, though, is that the architecture that succeeds Ivy Bridge, codenamed "Haswell", will be less than an year away in April...well almost.

A roadmap slide sourced by DonanimHaber pins the launch of Haswell to March-June, 2013. Haswell is a brand new CPU architecture that will succeed Ivy Bridge. According to the conventional idea of Intel's tick-tock CPU development strategy, it will be built on the 22 nm fab process, which will have gained some maturity by then. Intel follows a "tick-tock" product development model. Every year, Intel's product lineup sees either of the two. A "tock" brings in a new x86 architecture, a "tick" miniaturizes it to a newer silicon fabrication process. Earlier reports indicated that Haswell Core processors will be based on a newer socket, the LGA1150, and hence it will not be compatible with LGA1155 platforms.


Source: DonanimHaber

A market scout at Tokyo's Akihabara electronics goods shopping district spotted this tasty-looking rodent for all you chocolate-lovers. Called the ChocoMouse, the device is shaped like a bar of chocolate (a chocolate ice-cream sandwich?), with a corner bitten off (which ends up making it ergonomic for right-handers, in a creepy way). Its catchy shape aside, the ChocoMouse is your average 3-button scroll mouse with an 800 dpi optical sensor. The mouse uses standard USB interface, its cord can be wrapped around its grooves and its connector locked into one of them. What could make for a very nerdy February 14 gift, is priced at 1,680 JPY (US $21.7).


Source: PCWatch

With Windows 8, Microsoft is introducing a new OS feature that works to improve performance and battery-life, called App Suspension. Simply put, it is a kernel optimization that "suspends" applications that are running in the background without much activity. This is done by freezing the machine to them, when suspended, an application no longer uses any CPU cycles, freeing up the CPU for other applications, and potentially reducing power consumption due to lower CPU activity.

The Windows NTOS kernel is a client-server type kernel, where processes and services function in a hierarchy as clients to the "server", which dispenses system resources to them. One would imagine a suspended process to be that which has no CPU time allocated by the kernel, which is probably told that the system is sleeping. This feature will be particularly handy for Metro applets, which in typical usage scenarios, will be running in the background most of the time. The feature could also come handy in scenarios such as gaming, where the OS could freeze supply of resources to useless processes.


Source: Hexus.net

Taiwan-based Aerocool Advanced Technologies has just announced the European release of two new Strike-X Series mid-tower PC cases, the Strike-X One and Strike-X One Advance. Both models feature a steel structure, are painted black both inside and out, and have support for ATX and micro ATX motherboards, four 5.25-inch drive bays (with tool-free mounting systems), six 3.5-inch internal bays, a PSU dust filter, and pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubes and cables.

The Strike-X One has an I/O panel with two USB 2.0 ports, and is equipped with one 120 mm rear fan, while the Strike-X One Advance comes with two USB 3.0 ports, a 120 mm rear fan, and a front 120 mm fan with red LEDs. The Strike-X One and Strike-X One Advance cost 34.99 Euro and 39.99 Euro, respectively.

Google is going to monetize its ocean of data storage and bandwidth by starting a new service that will rival the likes of DropBox. Called Google Drive, the service could allow people to make use of their G-Mail storage quota (like G-Mail Drive once did) for free, and probably offer additional storage at a cost. According to Wall Street Journal, the service is expected to be launched "soon" (in the next few weeks or months). To compete with other similar service providers, Google could come up with attractive prices. Unlike services such as MegaUpload, Google Drive would be strictly personal storage. The Drive service will be inter-twined with Google Docs, and facilitate better remote collaboration between co-workers.


Sources: The Verge, Wall Street Journal

Lenovo Group reported results for its third fiscal quarter ended December 31, 2011, highlighted by record highs in quarterly sales, pre-tax income and market share, and the 11th quarter in a row that Lenovo has grown faster than the industry as a whole. For the ninth quarter in a row, the Company grew faster than any of the top four PC manufacturers, a result of Lenovo’s continued focus on balanced growth across all geographies, customer segments and product lines. During the third quarter, Lenovo recorded its highest-ever worldwide market share of 14.0* percent, and its highest-ever market share in China of 35.3 percent, an increase of 3.7 and 3.1 share points year-over-year respectively.

During the third fiscal quarter Lenovo’s pre-tax income increased 59 percent year-over-year, to a record high of US$192 million.

For the end of this month I-O Data has planned the release of a new widescreen monitor, a 23-inch model called LCD-MF234XPGBR which features LED backlighting, an IPS panel with 178/178 degree viewing angles, and a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels.

I-O Data's upcoming display also has a 14 ms response time (8 ms when overdrive is activated), a maximum brightness of 250 cd/m2, a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 (80,000:1 DCR), two 1.5W speakers, an ECO mode that saves power, and D-Sub, DVI, and HDMI (x 2) connectors. The LCD-MF234XPGBR is set to cost about $347.

Japanese built-to-order gaming PC maker Ark PC unveiled an AMD-powered variant of its Tathlum Gaming PC desktop (model: CY-AF8A99A-C2). The machine is built into a Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced chassis, and is accompanied by a 23-inch full-HD monitor. In the driver's seat is AMD FX-8150 processor, seated on an ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX motherboard, with 8 GB dual-channel DDR3-1333 MHz memory, and AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB graphics. The processor is cooled by a Zalman CNPS9900MAX Red. Other components of interest include a Hitachi DeskStar 1 TB 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s hard drive, onboard HD audio, and gigabit Ethernet. A SilverStone ST75F-SST-P 750W 80 Plus Silver PSU powers it all. Windows 7 Home Premium x64 is the OS of choice. The Tanthum CY-AF8A99A-C2 is priced at 167,800 JPY (US $2,175).


Source: Hermitage Akihabara

AverMedia, specialists in video encoding and archival hardware, introduced the Live Gamer HD addon card. This product solves the problem of gameplay streaming/recording software introducing lag because the software syncs the framerate to match the framerate of the encoded video/stream, not to mention the additional burden on the CPU and hard drive. The addon card acts as an intermediate between the graphics/audio cards and the display/headset, encodes gameplay at resolutions up to full-HD, that's 1920 x 1080 @60 FPS, without affecting the framerate the gamer experiences (the display stream and the recording stream needn't be at sync). The card packs a hardware H.264 encoder, which then works with a software to either stream it online (via streaming services such as Livestream), or records it onto local storage (since it's writing a pre-encoded video, HDD activity will be much lower compared to screencapture programs that write heavy lossless video). AverMedia did not give out pricing information.


A video presentation by AverMedia follows.

HP's posterboy Ultrabook, the Envy 14 Spectre, was announced last month amidst some fanfare, though it wasn't immediately available. As announced it is now available via HP's online store for US $1,399.99 for the base-configuration, and 1,899.99 for HP's "recommended configuration", which includes a 256 GB SSD, and a Core i7-2770M processor instead of a 128 GB SSD and Core i5-2467M on the base-configuration, among other HP-exclusives. The 14-incher measures 12.88" (W) x 8.7" (D) x 0.79" (H), weighing 1.8 kg, packs a 1366x768 pixel screen; two of its most notable features, apart from its size, include solid-state storage and near-field communication (NFC).

If you are trying to play Might and Magic: Heroes VI, The Settlers 7 and Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2 or are trying to activate Assassin’s Creed Revelations, Anno 2070 and or Driver: San Francisco don't bother. Ubisoft has announced a server migration this week that will block all access from players validating their legitimate purchases via Ubisofts DRM "always on" model. The original plan was to allow some of these games to remain playable. However it didn't seem to work. Some DRM schemes are more intrusive then others but the Ubisoft "always on" DRM has come under heavy fire this week from players turned critics via Twitter. One is quoted as saying, “Dear @Ubisoft I am totally unimpressed with your server upgrade strategy."

Ubisoft has yet to give a specified time when the servers will be re-launched and players can regain access to their games.

Source: PC Gamer

The highly anticipated first person shooter/Mech simulator Hawken is stated to be released on the 12th of December this year. 12-12-12. What makes this an interesting development is the game will be released under the a free-to-play model. Normally a free-to-play model is really just a pay for extended content model. How Adhesive Games the Hawken developer is going to set this up is unknown. What is known is the game looks to be quite beautiful with a slight Quake 3 feel to it. Luckily for the Mech junkies in the PC community we will have access to a beta before we make the plunge in December. If you sign up three friends Adhesive Games will reserve your call sign when the game finally debuts. Open enrollment has already started. You can sign up here.

So what are you waiting for? Get to blasting!

Source: Shacknews

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new technique that allows graphics processing units (GPUs) and central processing units (CPUs) on a single chip to collaborate – boosting processor performance by an average of more than 20 percent.

“Chip manufacturers are now creating processors that have a ‘fused architecture,’ meaning that they include CPUs and GPUs on a single chip,” says Dr. Huiyang Zhou, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering who co-authored a paper on the research. “This approach decreases manufacturing costs and makes computers more energy efficient. However, the CPU cores and GPU cores still work almost exclusively on separate functions. They rarely collaborate to execute any given program, so they aren’t as efficient as they could be. That’s the issue we’re trying to resolve.”

On the sidelines of mobile computing's biggest annual international event, the Mobile World Congress (MWC), held in the end of February, Microsoft will hold a special event, titled Windows 8 Consumer Preview. The company sent out invites to the event, to its industry partners. The event will be held on the 29th of this month, and will be a two hour event in late-afternoon (3 PM - 5 PM). The synchrony of this event with MWC speaks volumes about the direction in which Microsoft is steering its OS business. Microsoft clearly wants to go big on operating systems for portable computing devices, and as such is converging this kind of OS with those for more powerful PCs. The convergence will at first be functional (similar UI, some inter-compatibility), and later structural (Windows-on-Windows ARM)?


Sources: Engadget, ZDNet

As if two custom Radeon HD 7970s (the Vortex and LCS models) aren't enough, PowerColor has today revealed another HD 7970 card that goes beyond AMD's reference design. Seen below, this third custom Radeon HD 7970, likely part of the PCS Series, comes equipped with a dual-slot cooler boasting two fans and (at least) three copper heatpipes, and features 2048 Stream Processors, a 384-bit memory interface, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, CrossFireX support, and five display outputs (dual DVI, dual mini DisplayPort, one HDMI).

PowerColor hasn't said anything about the card's clocks or price tag but hopefully those will be revealed later this month.

After going through a month-long beta stage, Chrome 17 has now been promoted and is available as a Stable release for Windows, Mac OS and Linux. Chrome 17 (build 17.0.963.46) features new Extension APIs, updated Omnibox Prerendering, download scanning protection, various tweaks and fixes for about 20 vulnerabilities.

Chrome 17 Stable can be downloaded via this page.

ProView has the last laugh, while Apple gets a taste of its own medicine, in a remarkable turn of events that unfolded in China. Apple and ProView have been locked in a tussle over the brand name "iPad", which the latter claimed Apple dubiously acquired rights to use in 2006, by floating a shell company called IP Application Development and using it to deal with ProView. ProView had no idea it was dealing with Apple at the time (it was not shared that information), or that Apple would go on to use the name for one of its biggest selling products. A Chinese court ruled in favor of ProView. Apple now has to cough up US $38 million in fines, and sit down with ProView to work out a fresh agreement to using the brand name "iPad", or face a sales ban.


Sources: China Daily, Global Times, DailyTech

While Intel and AMD are making efforts to come up with low-power x86 processor platforms to compete with the plethora of ARM processor vendors, manufacturers of the target devices of these low-power x86 processors - tablets, netbooks, and smartphones; note that the architecture simply isn't competitive due to its prices. ARM processors are manufactured by a variety of companies, in a variety of different SoC configurations, and as such the tough competition among these companies ensure ARM processor platforms are comparatively cheaper to low-power x86 ones.

Intel recently debuted its 32 nm "Medfield" Atom processors, with power consumption as low as 11W for the platform. In the second half of 2012, it will launch another line of processors with under 10W power consumption, for high-end smartphones. AMD, on the other hand, will unveil "Hondo", which combines its x86 architecture with Radeon graphics IP, and a power consumption target of less than 5W. In 2013, it plans to launch the "Temash" APU, with power consumption under 2W, and built on the 28 nm process.

Source: DigiTimes

Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components, announces the One, the latest addition to their Gaming Series. The One is an excellent option for mainstream gamers, new PC builders and seasoned system integrators alike, as it provides user-friendly cooling and convenient features at an affordable price.

Performance Cooling Advantages – The One’s cooling system includes top & rear 120 mm exhaust fans with four additional 120 mm fan mounts. Perforated mesh construction yields additional airflow through the front of the chassis.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies, announced today it has signed a patent license agreement with NVIDIA.

The agreement covers the use of Rambus patented innovations in a broad range of integrated circuit (IC) products offered by NVIDIA. In addition, the two companies have settled all outstanding claims, including resolution of past use of Rambus' patented innovations. The term of this agreement is five years; other details are confidential.

Japanese cooling expert Scythe expands the product portfolio of fan controllers by a brand new model. Scythe chose a different path when designing the new Kaze Master Flat fan controller. Previously announced fan controller models utilized rotating knobs (potentiometer) as control system. Kaze Master Flat comes with a front panel, which is covering the buttons used for operating the fan controller.

Kaze Master Flat combines both a tidy and clean front panel design with Scythe's usual variety of functions. Hence allows it to match almost every on market PC Chassis. With only one finger tip users are able to open the front panel, which grants access to six buttons used as control system. Four of the buttons are being used to adjust the fan speed of the individual fan channel. The other two located on the both sided of Kaze Master Flat allow shutting down of the alarm signal and activating or deactivating of the built-in VF-Display (Vacuum Fluorescent Display).

Buffalo Japan announced a new DriveStation external hard drive with the ability to record TV, the HD-LS1.5U2J. The drive provides 1.5 TB of storage, and can be programmed by a PC to perform scheduled TV recording with the PC turned off. When not recording or serving a PC, the drive enters into a low-power state that cuts power draw by 97%. When connected to PC and idling, the eCOManager software takes over, and spins down the hard drive while keeping other electronics awake. The drive connects to a PC over USB 2.0. Measuring 39 x 189 x 123 mm, the drive weighs about 1 kg. Slated for market release in mid-February, the DriveStation HD-LS1.5U2J will be priced at 18,690 JPY (US $242).


Source: Hermitage Akihabara

One of Europe's biggest retailers of enthusiast PC parts, Caseking.de, has reportedly struck a deal that will see it take over Overclockers UK (OCUK). OCUK has been among Britain's biggest retailers of interest to PC enthusiasts, dealing with performance computer hardware apart from enthusiast parts (cooling, casing, accessories, etc.). This takeover will affect 40 members of staff at OCUK. The value of the final deal has not been disclosed by either side. eTeknix estimates it to be "less than €50 million". The Caseking staff we contacted refused to comment, saying they cannot comment on such internal operations. The deal is said to have been struck in early February, though both companies are keeping mum about it, perhaps waiting for the right moment to make the big announcement.


Source: eTeknix

ATP Electronics, a leading flash memory manufacturer known for its high quality, durable flash and DRAM memory modules, announced the launch of its industrial grade SLC (Single Level Cell) Solid State Drive (SSD). The ATP Velocity SI Pro 2.5" SATA III SSD is ideal for Industrial PC and high end computing devices in which extreme performance and reliability are required. With a stable performance read speed of up to 500 MB/s, a write speed of up to 500 MB/s, and 4K random read IOPS of up to 60, 000, the Velocity SSD SI pro is also the ideal solution for enterprise and industrial grade applications.

Today Logitech, the world's leading manufacturer of mice, unveiled the Logitech Touch Mouse M600, a mouse featuring a touch surface that lets you navigate intuitively with your fingers.

"People are growing accustomed to using fingertip gestures to navigate on their smartphones and tablets," said Todd Walker, brand manager for Logitech. "In fact, for many people these gestures have become second nature. The Logitech Touch Mouse M600 reflects this evolution in how we interact with the digital world and extends to the computer what have become natural, intuitive motions."

Demonstrating its commitment to delivering leading-edge technologies and solutions for enterprise-class servers and storage systems, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that its Ultrastar enterprise-class solid state drive (SSD) family is the industry's first to use 25-nanometer (nm) single-level cell (SLC) NAND flash.

The Ultrastar SSD400S.B family combines Hitachi's proven enterprise hard disk drive (HDD) expertise with Intel's extensive capabilities in developing high-endurance SLC NAND flash memory and advanced SSD technology. The drives also conform to the Trusted Computing Group's Enterprise A Security Subsystem Class encryption specification, helping customers protect sensitive data, and reduce the costs associated with drive retirement and reuse.

AMD may be busy building up hype for its Trinity-generation APUs (accelerated processing units) but it's still churning out new chips, the latest releases being the rather low-profile Athlon II X4 641 and X4 638. Both of these models are made on 32 nm technology, have an FM1 packaging, and boast four 'Stars' x86 cores just like those found in Llano APUs (but unlike Llano, these Athlons don't have integrated graphics).

The Athlon II X4 641 comes with a core clock of 2.8 GHz, 4 MB of L2 cache, and a 100 W TDP, while the Athlon II X4 638 features a 2.7 GHz clock, 4 MB of L2 cache, and a TDP of 65 W. Both CPUs are priced at $81 (pricing is for 1000-unit tray quantities).

Source: CPU World

G.Skill, the worldwide leading high performance memory designer and manufacturer, has announced the brand new Ares series low profile performance DDR3 memory. Featured with low profile heat spreader design (3.2cm in height), G.Skill Ares series DDR3 memory modules are the perfect choices for building high performance PCs with large CPU coolers, small form factor desktop computers or any other systems with more restricted space.

Microsoft is ready with a new limited edition Xbox 360 Kinect system bundle for all you Star Wars fans out there. The bundle includes a copy of Star Wars Kinect, which lets you take advantage of Kinect to slash your lightsaber away. The hardware itself is themed around two of the most lovable characters of the franchise, the console is R2-D2 themed, and the main controller C-3P0. The Kinect module is white colored. The system packs 320 GB of local storage. The special bundle is listed on Amazon for US $449, and is up for pre-orders. It will start shipping on April 3.


Source: Major Nelson

AMD today announced the departure of Emilio Ghilardi as senior vice president and chief sales officer, effective immediately. Rory Read, AMD president and chief executive officer, will serve as interim chief sales officer while the company actively seeks a replacement.

"I'd like to thank Emilio for his contributions to the business and wish him well in his future endeavors," said Read. "Developing relationships with our customers that are grounded in a foundation of trust through consistently delivering on our commitments is critical, and we are making progress toward that goal. AMD enters 2012 with significant momentum, and we are building upon that momentum by embracing the shifts occurring in the industry and marrying market needs with innovative technologies to become a consistent growth engine."

Mr. Ghilardi joined AMD from Hewlett Packard in 2008.

Back in the 1990's, when the software industry knew the 32-bit x86 address-space limitation was closing in, they geared up for transition to another machine architecture, then came AMD64 and EM64T, which allowed an x86 processor to perform in both 64-bit and 32-bit modes. Microsoft didn't want users of its 64-bit Windows to be deprived of using software coded for 32-bit Windows, which was infinitely more in number than 64-bit software. Hence it developed what is known as Windows-on-Windows 64 (WOW64), a translation layer that interfaces 32-bit software and drivers to the 64-bit OS and drivers. With its next major Windows version, Windows 8, Microsoft wants to give the ARM architecture a big push, with a Windows 8 version for ARM computing devices (such as tablets and netbooks). Guess what?

A latest bulletin at MSDN hints at the possibility of Microsoft working on a x86-to-ARM translation layer, which allows you to run desktop windows (Win32) software on Windows 8 ARM, effectively "Windows-on-Windows ARM". Without specifically pointing out the ability to run Win32 software on ARM, the bulletin mentions the ability to run non-metro applications (native Windows) on SoC (system-on-a-chip) architectures. It could also just be a reference to Intel's single-chip SoCs such as Medfield, which are x86-based. If Microsoft pulls off a "WOWARM", it could spell terrible news to Intel, because something such as the hypothetical WOWARM is all that stands between ARM and high-performance desktop PCs. In a market that only has two other competitors (AMD and VIA), dozens more could join in overnight, including NVIDIA's karmic entry after being shunned off an x86 license.

Sources: ZDNet, Engadget

Eurocom, a developer of long lifespan, fully upgradable Notebooks, high performance Mobile Workstations and Mobile Servers, introduced the EUROCOM Panther 4.0 Mobile Workstation, Mobile Server and Gaming Station powered by Intel’s newest line of 6 core, 12 thread, 130W desktop Intel Core i7-3960X Processor Extreme edition based on the Intel X79 Express Chipset Sandy Bridge-E architecture.

EUROCOM PANTHER 4.0 provides workstation-calibre performance, powerful graphics capabilities and high performance storage with four physical storage drives, two being SATA 600, two being SATA 300 and RAID 0/1/5/10. Super powerful Intel Core i7, i7 Extreme and next generation Intel Xeon processors are supported for high-end computing wherever work takes place.

Physicists have discovered a new method of recording data on hard drives that could potentially make mechanical hard drives hundreds of times faster (in terms of performance). Heat holds the key. A hard disk drive is a magnetic storage device, which, unlike magnetic tapes, allows random access. Its recording surfaces consist of hundreds of billions of tiny portions that can be magnetized in a particular polar direction to represent 0s or 1s. To create meaningful arrangements of these portions (bytes), the recording heads apply an external magnetic field to flip their polarities.

A team of researchers led by Thomas Ostler at the University of York, UK concluded that the process of flipping the polarities of these tiny portions can be greatly expedited using short bursts of heat. It has been believed that heat could only assist in remagnetization, when used in conjunction with a magnetic field. Research shows that this can also be achieved using a very, very precise amount of heat generated by beaming a fine laser for less than a trillionth of a second, which momentarily raises its temperature by 800 °C. The results of this study was published here.

Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer today unveils the Elite 361 rotatable chassis. A formidable Mini-Tower contender, Elite 361 focuses on versatility and expandability within a compact enclosure.

Touting a modern minimalist design, Elite 361 is engineered to be accommodating in space restricted work zones. Given its unique structure and airflow design, Elite 361 can be placed either horizontally or vertically within a space. A rotatable Cooler Master logo and four user attachable rubber feet assist in making these transitions. Front panel ports are positioned to be easily accessible in either orientation.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder offering custom desktops, notebooks, and workstations, has updated the TITAN 17 high performance desktop replacement solution with all new aesthetic features while still maintaining top of the line performance for PC gamers who want to harness desktop-like power wherever they go and creative professionals that can work on site with no loss in productivity.

The TITAN 17 features support for both the latest Intel Core i7-3930K and the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. With fast, intelligent multi-core technology that accelerates performance to match your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance. For both gamers and demanding users, the Titan 17 capitalizes on a dramatic leap forward in processing technology to provide all the power you need for even the most advanced games and applications.

Announced one month ago, the Solution PC chassis made by Cougar is set to become available in European stores next week. Pictured below, this case measures 198 (W) x 425 (H) x 484 (D) mm, and features an all-black paint job, a front I/O panel with USB 2.0 (x 1) and USB 3.0 (x 1) ports, three exposed 5.25-inch bays and six internal 3.5-inch bays (all with tool-free mounting systems), two pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubing and a single 120 mm fan (found at the rear).

Cougar's Solution will cost 55 Euro.

Security software maker Symantec confirmed to the press that the group of hackers that obtained source code of its pcAnywhere software were holding it to ransom. The group claims to be linked to Anonymous. The group allegedly demanded US $50,000 from Symantec in return for destroying the source code it stole, on failing to pay it, the group threatened it would leak the source code to the public, which would expose the software to malware writers and competitors.

Symantec has apparently been in negotiations with the hacker group over preventing the leak, it even agreed to pay the group its "ransom", provided it could do so in monthly installments. The group declined, and the negotiations fell through. A transcript of this email conversation was posted on Pastebin (can be accessed here). The hackers claimed to have posted the source code of pcAnywhere (in a 2.3 GB RAR archive), on a popular bit-torrent site. In our opinion, extorting money is very un-Anonymous. Anonymous, being the self-proclaimed hacktivist group that it is, would post the source code "just for the lulz", without even getting into negotiations with Symantec.


Source: Hexus.net

In its CeBIT invitation circular, Patriot Memory unveiled names of three new client SSD product lines, which it will launch in Hanover. These include new high-performance client SSD lines, the Wildfire Pro, and Wildfire SE; and a new mainstream client SSD line called Magma. With no other details, we're left to only speculate. Patriot's flagship SandForce SF-2281 driven Wildfire series features among some of the highest performing SATA 6 Gb/s client SSDs. The Wildfire Pro and SE, in all probability, could be higher-performing parts, with higher sequential speeds, and random access performance. With Magma, Patriot could design a client SSD using a controller of another make than SandForce; probably Marvell, or even OCZ-Indilinx.

Gaming peripherals major Roccat Studios released a teaser picture of its latest gaming mouse, the Roccat Savu. This mouse is designed to strike a functional balance between that makes it fit for various gaming styles (FPS thru RPG), and a size-balance that makes it perfect for various gripping styles. Entry-level gaming mice already accomplish some of that, but Roccat probably sensed that as you move up the price ladder, gaming mice tend to get more specialized in size and style. The Savu probably converges high-end features (such as a high-resolution sensor, high-quality switches, weight/balance adjustments?) with an balanced design. Roccat will unveil its newest rodent at CeBIT (early March).

Spatial View Inc., a pioneer in stereo 3D content delivery and auto-stereoscopic display technologies, today announced that the 3DeeScreen, a lens that enables a person with a standard 15.6" laptop to view 3D content without glasses, is available for purchase.

Once the 3DeeScreen is snapped onto a laptop display, and the software is installed, viewers can watch 3D videos and photos with the included software and Blu-ray movies using third party players. The playback uses eye-tracking software to automatically track the user's viewing position and adjust the 3D image projection to maintain optimal viewing quality, reducing the possibility of crosstalk and ghosting.

Adobe is working on a new sandboxed version of the Flash Player browser plugin for Firefox. The move will make it tougher to compromise a system's security using malicious Shockwave Flash objects. The new plugin for Firefox (and other browsers like Opera, which rely on the common Netscape Plugin Wrapper model of browser plugins), will work essentially similar to the Flash Player Google Chrome ships with, which works in a "Protected Mode". When "sandboxed" Shockwave Flash objects in webpages will work as separate processes, with much lower privileges than the actual user, the user's machine environment will be kept abstract to it. Adobe has already redesigned the browser plugin of its Reader X (PDF viewer) to work this way, and hasn't seen a significant successful exploit since November, last year.


Source: Adobe Asset Blog

Zalman unveiled a trio of entry-thru-mid range PSUs for gaming PC builds, the 500W ZM500-GT, the 600W ZM600-GT, and the 700W ZM700-GT. The three feature uneventful fixed cabling, but offer 80 Plus efficiency. These PSUs feature two-forward switching circuit designs, are ATX v2.3 compliant, and conform to ErP 2010 Lot 6 power-draw standards (<1W standby power).

The ZM500-GT features a dual +12V rail design (each rail 18A), while the ZM500-GT and ZM600-GT feature quad +12V rail (each 18A) design. Internally, the GT series PSUs feature +5Vsb green IC, active PFC, and a secondary protection IC. The units are cooled by a 120 mm temperature-controlled fan. The ZM500-GT is 80 Plus compliant, while the ZM600-GT and ZM700-GT are 80 Plus Bronze compliant. According to the source, the ZM500-GT will be priced around $80, the ZM600-GT around $100, and the ZM700-GT around $125.


Source: Overclockers Ukraine

Amulet Hotkey takes the proven data center grade server platform of the Dell PowerEdge M-Series Blade Servers and reconfigures it as a high-performance graphics workstation, building in custom components to provide superior, high-end desktop graphics and PC-over-IP (PCoIP) hardware. The M610X blade, is the first PCoIP workstation blade focused on providing the computing and graphics performance required by state of the art 3D design and CAD/CAM software. This PCoIP multi-monitor blade architecture was pioneered by Amulet Hotkey in 2009 when it brought the first DXM600 quad-head workstation blade to market. As one of the longest standing UK-based Dell OEM Solutions Partners, it is the only PCoIP solutions provider to offer a true tier-one blade platform. The DXM610X joins a growing range of PCoIP and VMware blade solutions that include the DXM610, DXM710 and M910.

Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, power supply, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer, offers a very special gift to celebrate its twenty years of existence. Read the text below for more info; this gift only applies to European countries.

One of our most popular cases the last few years has without a doubt been the HAF X. As most people know, HAF stands for ‘High Air Flow’ and this case totally lives up to this name. With dual 200mm top fans, a front 230mm red LED on/off fan and an additional 200mm fan with dedicated air duct for VGA card cooling this massive case will keep any system running cool. As a special gift to Cooler Master’s loyal customers, we will reduce the price from €159,- to €139.

Verbatim Europe has now started delivering the SATA 6.0 Gbps solid state drives it announced last month. These SSDs have a 2.5-inch form factor, a SandForce SF-2281 controller, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips, TRIM support, and deliver sequential read and write speeds of up to 550 MB/s and 510 MB/s, respectively.

Verbatim's 120 GB and 240 GB SATA 6.0 Gbps drives are backed by a two-year warranty and cost 199 Euro and 399 Euro, respectively.

Although the current generation of "Ultrabooks" don't really conform to a rigid specification apart from being really slim, unlike the next-generation Ivy Bridge-based ones which will have to conform to a specification laid down by Intel, the name "Ultrabooks" (short for ultra-portable/slim notebooks) has stuck. With Intel's newest processing platform just a couple of months away, notebooks manufacturers are reportedly lowering prices of current-generation Ultrabooks.

The move to lower prices of Ultrabooks is simply to clear inventories and pave the way for the next-generation. The prices will be cut significantly. Acer's Ultrabook S3 already saw its price drop to US $799 from $999; while HP's Ultrabooks will see prices cut by as much as 25 percent. Price of Lenovo's Ultrabook will go down by up to 21 percent. In short, every $999-ish Ultrabook will see its price go down to $749-799.


Source: DigiTimes

Following reports that Kingston is reducing prices of its NAND flash-based products by up to 15%, SanDisk too is reportedly preparing price-cuts of its own. Unlike Kingston, SanDisk's entire product portfolio is connected with NAND flash memory, it is the world's largest vendor of memory cards, and also has a vast lineup of USB flash drives. SanDisk will lower its prices just enough to maintain competitiveness with Kingston's products. The company maintains that initiating a price-cutting strategy is intended to boost sales volume and maintain the company's leading market share. According to DRAMeXchange, major NAND flash vendors are initiating price cuts to clear inventories, to make way for flash memory built on newer fabrication technologies.


Source: DigiTimes

Major Japanese OEM Mouse Computer announced a trio of high-end desktop PCs that are built specifically around Intel's SSD 520 solid-state drives, launched a little earlier this week. These include the MDV-ASG8310B-SSD, the MDV-ASG8250B, and the MDV-AGG9320S-SSD. The MDV-ASG8310B-SSD and MDV-ASG8250B are both driven by Intel Core i7-2700K processor, based on Intel Z68 motherboard, with 8 GB (2x 4 GB) memory; while the former features NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550 Ti graphics, the latter has GeForce GTX 560. The MDV-AGG9320S-SSD is driven by six-core Intel Core i7-3930K processor, with 16 GB (4x 4 GB) memory, and GeForce GTX 570 graphics.

All three are built into the same chassis, featuring the same 23-inch full-HD display and peripherals. All three feature Intel's newly-launched SSD 520 solid-state drive with 120 GB capacity, the SSD is configured to hold the OS and program files, while all three further feature a slower 1 TB hard drive that handles documents and storage. DVD-RW, gigabit Ethernet, and Windows 7 Home Premium x64 make for the rest of the commonalities. The MDV-ASG8310B-SSD is priced at 99,750 JPY (US $1,300); the MDV-ASG8250B at 109,830 JPY ($1,432); and the MDV-AGG9320S-SSD at 159,600 JPY ($2,081).


Source: Hermitage Akihabara

AMD today launched the AMD FirePro V3900, which enables best-in-class workstation experiences at an entry-level price point. By leveraging AMD's latest graphics features, including AMD Eyefinity technology, the AMD FirePro V3900 provides up to 95% better application performance than the competition. The AMD FirePro V3900 will be available in select workstation systems today and will be sold for USD$119 MSRP at select online resellers.

"The AMD FirePro V3900 is the most powerful entry-level professional graphics card on the market today," says Sandeep Gupte, general manager of Professional Graphics, AMD. "Armed with advanced multi-display capability of AMD Eyefinity technology, extensive certifications for professional applications and blazing fast performance, it offers best-in-class value for our technical and business customers."

The future is here, and AVADirect is readily expanding its offerings with hardware to prepare for it. For those who need ultimate performance on the go, AVADirect can feed your need for mobile speed with the Clevo P270WM. Based off of the Intel X79 chipset and Sandy Bridge-E processors, end-users can expect performance increases as much as 35-50 percent while keeping current and ahead of the curve for their much needed productivity, efficiency, and entertainment. Promising new features give the Clevo P270WM a name and reputation that is surely to leave a lasting impression for those who have it at their fingertips. The industry rookie, relative to age rather than experience, has no limits to its depth of functionality.

The P270WM's design shapes the ground we stand on by creating new standards for mobile desktop replacements. The revolutionary X79-fueled P270WM, being the successor of the world renowned Clevo X7200, supports all of the functionality provided by its older brother. Three 9.5 inch hard drives, with optional RAID, two USB 3.0 ports, SLI support, HD LED screen, HDMI 1.4a support, and the recently re-designed express card slot for third-party expansion are still key features of the newly offered Clevo P270WM Gaming Notebook.

Gigabyte introduced a new value socket AM3+ motherboard designed for AMD FX processors, the 970A-DS3. Based on the AMD 970 + SB950 chipset, this board is a product of some clever cost-balancing by its designers, which will spice-up both its specs-sheet, and price-tag, compared to the 970A-UD3. To begin with, the 970A-DS3 uses a much lighter component loadout compared to the UD3. The 970A-UD3's Ultra Durable 3 Classic component loadout makes way for Ultra Durable 4 Classic on the 970A-DS3, which includes a better weaved fiberglass PCB that's better resistant to humidity; features high ESD-resistance ICs located in key circuits; anti-surge ICs that prevent installed processors and memory from getting fried if something goes terribly wrong with the VRM; and of course low-RDS (on) MOSFETs and 100% solid-state capacitor design.

The CPU is powered by a simple 5-phase VRM. It is wired to four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB of dual-channel DDR3-1866+ MHz memory. Expansion slots include one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (wired to the 970), one PCIe 2.0 x16 (electrical 2.0 x4, wired to the SB950), three PCIe x1, and two legacy PCI. Gigabyte didn't cheap-out on the southbridge (by opting for SB710), and so we have a full-fledged SB950, complete with six SATA 6 Gb/s ports supporting RAID5. There are two USB 3.0 ports on the rear-panel, driven by an Etron EJ168 controller. The audio is driven by Realtek ALC887, wired to just a 5.1-channel analog output cluster, apart from the front-panel header. Gigabit Ethernet driven by Realtek 8111E tops it up. Gigabyte included its DualBIOS (AwardBIOS) with the board. Expect this one to be priced around US $100 (or below), making it a nice buy for single-GPU budget gaming-PC builds.

IPC and JEDEC have released the C revision of IPC/JEDEC J-STD-033, Handling, Packing, Shipping and Use of Moisture/Reflow and/or Process Sensitive Components. With an expanded scope, the document now covers the handling, packing and shipping of non-IC electronic components that have been classified per EIA/IPC/JEDEC J-STD-075, Classification of Non-IC Electronic Components for Assembly Processes. J-STD-033C effectively provides guidance for this category of electronic components that has not been covered by any standard in the past.

IPC/JEDEC J-STD-033C provides surface mount device (SMD) manufacturers and users with standardized methods for handling, packing, shipping and use of moisture/reflow sensitive SMDs. These methods help avoid damage from moisture absorption and exposure to solder reflow temperatures that can result in yield and reliability degradation. Use of the standard helps achieve safe and damage-free reflow with the dry-packing process and provides a minimum shelf life of 12 months from the seal date when using sealed dry bags.

Intel Corporation announced today its fastest, most robust client/consumer solid-state drive (SSD) to date, the Intel Solid-State Drive 520 Series (Intel SSD 520), a 6 gigabit-per-second (gbps) SATA III SSD produced using Intel compute-quality 25-nanometer (nm) NAND memory process technology. Aimed at delivering world-class performance for even the most demanding PC enthusiasts, gamers, professionals or small-medium businesses (SMBs), the Intel SSD 520 has fast throughput performance, new security features and unmatched reliability to meet even the most intensive user requirements.

Any consumer application requiring high throughput and bandwidth, low latencies and accelerated speed will benefit from the Intel SSD 520. Software developers, architects, accountants, engineers, musicians, media creators and artists are just some of the professionals that will find that the Intel SSD 520's full package of features can make a dramatic impact on their productivity. With faster performance for graphic renderings, compiling, data transfers and system boot-ups, users can speed through multi-tasking or once-cumbersome application wait times with an Intel SSD 520 Series.

Here are the first pictures of MSI's Z77A-GD55 motherboard. The GD55 is a notch below the GD65 in terms of its feature-set, and will likely hold a cost-benefit sweetspot. The motherboard is designed to support today's "Sandy Bridge", and tomorrow's "Ivy Bridge" Core processors in the LGA1155 package, and is based on Intel's Z77 "Panther Point" chipset. The CPU is powered by a lighter 9-phase VRM compared to the 12-phase VRM on the GD65. It retains the expansion slot layout of its elder brother, consisting of two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC or x8/x8), four PCIe x1, and one PCIe 2.0 x4 (physical x16).

The Z77A-GD55 has two fewer SATA 6 Gb/s ports compared to the GD65, all its internal ports are wired to the PCH. That's two SATA 6 Gb/s and four SATA 3 Gb/s. There are no eSATA ports. Further, there are no third-party USB 3.0 controllers, either. All four of the USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear panel, two via front-panel header) are wired to the PCH. Display connectivity includes DVI, D-Sub, and HDMI. 8-channel HD audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs, and gigabit Ethernet make for the rest of its connectivity.

ORIGIN PC announced today the exclusive availability of their new FROSTBYTE 360 liquid cooling system. With the FROSTBYTE 360 ORIGIN's professional overclocking teams are reaching speeds up to 5.2 GHz allowing them to routinely set new benchmark records and stay on top of the competition. Featuring silent pumps, a high efficiency triple 120 mm radiator, and zero maintenance, the FROSTBYTE 360 liquid cooling system allows for extreme overclocking in a more affordable solution. The award winning ORIGIN PC GENESIS configured with the FROSTBYTE 360 starts at $1,599.

Toshiba launched the Satellite U840 Ultrabook in Singapore. This 14-inch Ultrabook is Toshiba's first. It is 19.9 mm thin, and weighs as low as 1.59 kg. It uses an aluminum body with a silvery brushed-metal finish. The metal body also adds rigidity. It is driven by 2nd generation Core ULV "Sandy Bridge" processor, backed by DDR3 memory, and storage options that include either 128 GB SSD or a HybridHDD that has a 16 GB SSD subunit that caches hot data on the rest of the drive.

Toshiba's proprietary Hi-Speed Start technology works to reduce start-up time. The 14-inch display offers "HD resolution", we're guessing it's 1600 x 900 pixels. Network connectivity includes gigabit Ethernet, WiFi b/g/n, and Bluetooth. The lone display output is a full-size HDMI. Other connectivity includes USB 3.0, and USB 2.0. The SleepCharge technology allows you to charge your smartphone even with the notebook powered down. Slated for later this Q1, 2012, the Satellite U840 is priced at SGD $1,399 (US $1,125).


Source: VR-Zone

Thermaltake, being the industry pioneer brand with expertise in PC power and thermal solutions, carrying the corporate vision of "building Thermaltake Technology into a cultural brand for the enjoyment of entertainment, e-Sports, technology, and lifestyle" and continues to drive toward the corporate mission of "delivering the perfect user experience" in all segment of the market. This January [they probably mean February], Thermaltake is expanding both Toughpower and SMART PSU product line, by adding Toughpower 550 W, 650 W and 750 W 80Plus Gold certified as well as SMART 750 W and 850 W 80Plus Bronze certified PSUs to fulfill mainstream users' and enthusiasts' requirement.

Rambus Inc., one of the world's premier technology licensing companies, today announced it has acquired privately-held Unity Semiconductor, an innovative memory technology company for an aggregate of $35 million in cash. As part of this acquisition, the Unity team members have joined Rambus to continue developing innovations and solutions for next-generation non-volatile memory. This acquisition will expand the breadth of Rambus' breakthrough memory technologies and will open up new markets for licensing. The boards of directors of both companies have approved the acquisition and it has closed.

May good fortune come to you in the Year of Dragon 2012! Team Group Inc. presents Team C121 Lucky Dragon USB Disk to make another auspicious and lucky year! C121 Lucky Dragon integrates chic technology and Chinese totems and adopts the brilliant one-finger push-based mechanism. It is compact and attractive as a popular 3C product in 2012, specially crafted to create unique personal styles for personal use or as gifts.

Team C121 Lucky Dragon is compact with push-based mechanism to prevent cap loss and to ensure outstanding protection and simple operation. The item is compatible with USB 2.0 transfer interface, offering 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB capacities to choose from. Meanwhile, it supports hot plug and plug-and-play, also compatible with USB 1.1 transfer interface to store and read information anytime, anywhere. In addition, its brilliant and user friendly strap holes to allow users to easily connect with other everyday mobile belongings to increase its convenience. Team C121 is the best assistant for carrying documents and running multi-media or digital photos.

Announced back in October, Raidmax's Seiran mid-tower chassis has now finally made its way into European stores. Coming in three color versions - black, red and white, this case measures 490 (L) x 205 (W) x 485 (H) mm and features ATX and micro ATX motherboard support, a front I/O panel with USB 2.0 (x 2), USB 3.0 (x 1) and audio (x 2) ports, and a built-in fan controller.

Raidmax's creation also has six internal 3.5-inch bays, tool-free drive mounting systems, three pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubing, and two 120 mm fans - one equipped with LEDs (red LEDs for the black and red versions, blue LEDs for the white model) in front and one without lights at the back.

The Seiran bears a recommended price tag of 69.90 Euro but it can already be found on sale @ 62 Euro.

In a significant development, AMD reportedly disclosed at the Financial Analyst Day event that it has begun manufacturing its "Trinity" accelerated processing units (APUs) at IBM's foundries. With the creation of Global Foundries, AMD went fabless, relying on Global Foundries (its former manufacturing division) and the likes of TSMC to manufacture its products. Till date, Global Foundries has handled manufacture of most of AMD's CPU products, and socket FM1 APUs, while BGA APUs and chipset have been manufactured at TSMC.

What makes AMD's partnership with IBM for manufacturing a significant development is the fact that IBM can handle high-volume production, and has a proven track-record with semiconductor manufacturing process R&D, it also holds a wide range of silicon fabrication IP, rivaled only by Intel. Chips manufactured at IBM will only add to the volumes created by Global Foundries, Big Blue won't completely replace it as AMD's foundry partner. The ability to ship in greater volumes plays a significant role in scoring design wins, apart from pure performance of the product. For example, Lenovo would want to be absolutely sure you can ship in large quantities before designing a major product around your chip.

Source: Xbit Labs

Singapore-based company Artivision Technologies has announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary ArtiMedia Pte signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with chip titan Intel Corp. This MOU will allow Artimedia's front-end in-video advertising platform and back-end advertisement serving technology to be incorporated into Intel's Software Development Kit (SDK) that has Intel's "Wi-Fi Direct" technology (Wi-Fi Direct enables mobile and other devices to connect directly with each other and to transfer and share content like images, pictures and videos).

A definitive agreement between Intel and Artimedia is expected to be inked once "the first working SDK with Artimedia's front-end and back-end technology is deployed on a demo mobile device." The final agreement will cover the license fee per installation in each Intel platform, an equally-split revenue sharing model and a non-competition commitment. Moreover, Intel Capital will be given the first opportunity to invest in Artimedia.

A scamster has managed to pull off a fake "Intel Core i7-990X" processor. An unsuspecting buyer paid hundreds of dollars for a Core i7-990X six-core LGA1366 processor, only to end up with a badly-done fake. The fake chip is a worthless LGA775 Pentium, on which the IHS markings of a Core i7-990X have been etched. Intel and AMD put tiny windows on their retail processor boxes so buyers could see these markings before breaking open the company seal. At least in the case of Intel's product boxes, the windows aren't big enough to let you see the entire CPU package. In case of this chip, the buyer couldn't have spotted that the chip was an LGA775 (and not LGA1366), and couldn't spot the 3D hologram and serial number sticker that's found on the obverse side of the package, under the IHS. The thread where this fake was reported can be read here.


Source: CPU World

Micron Technology, Inc., today announced the appointment of D. Mark Durcan as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the company. Mr. Durcan will also serve as a Director on Micron's Board of Directors. The appointments come after the company reported that Steven R. Appleton, longtime Micron Chairman and CEO, passed away in a Feb. 3 airplane accident in Boise.

The Board of Directors also announced the appointment of Director Robert E. Switz as Chairman of the Board and Mark W. Adams as President. Mr. Switz has served as a Director since 2006 and is the former Chairman and CEO of ADC Telecommunications. He has previously served as chair of the Micron Board's Audit and Governance committees. Mr. Adams joined the company in 2006 and served most recently as Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

Donya Japan unveiled a new value mechanical gaming keyboard, the N-YKB-F2139L. Although the manufacturer of the switches is not known, it appears similar to those made by ALPS Electronics. The keyboard has a standard 109-key QWERTY layout with English and Japanese hybrid keyset. The keyboard includes special orange-colored replacement keys for the W, A, S, D, and arrow keys. These keys have rubberized surfaces with bumps that improve tactile location and comfort in extended gaming sessions. The keyboard measures 465 x 165 x 35 mm (WxDxH), weighing 1 kg (mechanical keyboards tend to weigh more, 1 kg is Kosher). The keyboard uses USB interface with electronics that increase NKRO. The cable is 1.3 meters long. The N-YKB-F2139L is priced at 4,999 JPY (US $65.2).

As notebooks get slimmer with the advent of Intel's Ultrabook specification, designers will be faced with hurdles when it comes to choosing the right materials that give their products the sturdiness of conventional notebooks, while not adding to the weight much. ABS plastic might not cut it anymore, and designers might be forced to follow the footsteps of Apple, by designing chassis similar to its Apple Unibody, which is milled out of a single block of aluminum, and offers better structural rigidity and heat dissipation compared to ABS, at those extremely compact dimensions.

Major notebook ODM Quanta Computer is making large scale purchases of CNC machines to gear up for an influx of designs (mostly Ultrabook), that employ metal uni-bodies. Quanta is a contract-manufacturer to some of the biggest notebook brands. With the increasing labor costs in China possibly set to affect ODMs' 3-5% gross margins, ODMs are becoming more aggressive about controlling their costs, and vertical integration has become a major tactic to help reduce costs. What this means to the end-user is that a good proportion of Ultrabooks will employ metal uni-bodies.


Source: DigiTimes

Memory industry major Kingston is working towards reducing prices of its products that are based on NAND flash memory. This includes a large chunk of Kingston's product portfolio, as the only products excluded would be DRAM. NAND flash-based products include memory cards, USB flash drives, and SSDs. Kingston will reportedly cut prices by as much as 15 percent. Responding to a DigiTimes report, Kingston said that it is adjusting its NAND flash product pricing to coordinate with the rest of the industry to shift towards more advanced processes, and that it wants to enhance its presence in the NAND flash market. In other words, Kingston is clearing its inventory to make way for newer, more advanced technology.


Source: DigiTimes

PlayStation Vita (PS Vita) hits shelves this month and GameStop (NYSE: GME) is giving consumers a first glimpse at the highly anticipated new handheld system. More than 3,300 U.S. GameStop stores now have playable demo units that provide a first-hand look at PS Vita's exciting new technology. In addition to the five-inch OLED multi-touch screen, front and rear touch pads, dual analog sticks, dual cameras and six-axis motion sensing system, players can experience a variety of games, including:

Creative Technology Ltd today announced the new Creative HN-900 headphones, which utilize active noise cancellation to reduce ambient noise by up to 85 percent. The Creative HN-900 headphones also feature an in-line microphone and switch for convenient one-click voice communication on the iPhone, and 40 mm Neodymium drivers and gold-plated plugs for outstanding audio playback. Dual-mode usage allows active noise-cancellation for up to 40 hours by a single AAA alkaline battery or in passive mode without power.

Creative today also introduced the Aurvana X-Fi 2 Noise-Canceling Headphones, which utilize active noise cancellation to reduce ambient noise by up to 90 percent, and feature X-Fi audio technology for improved sound quality and a virtual surround sound effect that is ideal for watching in-flight entertainment.

Don't worry if you just installed Firefox 10.0 cause there's a new Foxxy browser craving your attention, the Firefox 11.0 beta. This fresh build comes with an updated migration tool that can also import Chrome bookmarks, history, and cookies, and features add-on syncing capabilities, redesigned media controls for HTML5 video, and support for the CSS text-size-adjust property and the outerHTML property.

Firefox 11.0 also brings some goodies for devs like the Page Inspector 3D View, the new Style Editor tool, SPDY Support and more.

To download the Firefox 11.0 beta (for Windows, Mac OS or Linux) see this page.

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash solutions, today announces their Quadra series, overclocked, quad-channel DDR3 memory kits, targeted at the extreme enthusiast market.

Gamers and enthusiasts already know about Intel’s i7-3960X 6-Core processors and now they are scrambling to find DRAM worthy of their new rig. The Quadra, DDR3 Quad-kits, come in 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz and pairs perfectly with the i7 processors, which now handles 4 channels of memory. By fully populating all 8 slots of memory with Super Talent’s 4GB DIMMs, users will experience reduced loading times with all their high-system-requirement programs. Now more time can be spent using a computer than waiting on it.

CNN is reporting Micron CEO Steve Appleton has died in a small-plane crash in Boise this morning. According to CNN, 'Appleton was flying a Lancair fixed-wing single-engine plane that crashed at 8:58 a.m. local time at Boise Airport' Said a spokeswoman for the airport. She could not confirm whether the accident took place at takeoff, landing or during flight.' No other details are currently known.

Micron was founded in Boise in October 1978, and it became a public company in June 1984. The company ranked No. 287 on the 2011 Fortune 500 list. At the end of 2011, Micron employed about 20,000 full-time staffers. Mr. Appleton is survived by his wife and children.

Source: CNN

Xigmatek is celebrating a first with the Gigas Micro-ATX Cube, as it is their first Aluminum chassis. Even with its compact dimensions, the Gigas Cube manages to fit high-end Hardware, allowing one to easily build a potent HTPC or Gaming system. USB 3.0, space for up to 4 fans, along with a fan controller round up the list of features.

The word "Gigas" is part of the Greek language and means "giant". In the modern language, the prefix "giga" can be found in many different areas to quantify the sheer size. Gigabyte or Gigawatt are such examples and the new chassis from Xigmatek carries the name "Gigas" for good reason.

Dell today announced the appointment of John Swainson to serve as President, Software Group, effective March 5, 2012. Mr. Swainson will report to Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Dell.

The Software Group will build on Dell’s software capabilities and provide greater innovation and organizational support to create a more competitive position in delivering end-to-end IT solutions to customers. The organization will add to Dell’s enterprise solutions capability, accelerate profitable growth and further differentiate the company from competitors by increasing its solutions portfolio with Dell-owned intellectual property.

In a footnote of a slide detailing AMD's Trinity A6 APU for Ultrathin notebooks at the company's Financial Analyst Day event, the new chip's 3DMark performance was revealed. The company was talking about the 17W ULV (ultra-low voltage) variant of the "Trinity" APU in the slide, that's designed for compact notebooks. The 3DMark Vantage performance of the APU was measured to be 2,355 points, in the same test, an Intel Core i5-2537M ULV 17W "Sandy Bridge" processor scored 1,158 points. The AMD chip, hence, emerged with a 103% graphics performance lead.

The slide notes that with an assumed performance increase of 30% by the upcoming "Ivy Bridge" architecture, its 3DMark performance is projected to be 1,505 points. The 17W Trinity chip would still end up with a 56% performance lead. Moving on, AMD even revealed the performance of the high-performance A10 "Trinity" APU with 25W TDP, designed for slightly thicker notebooks. This chip scored 3,600 points in 3DMark, which would effectively make it 136% faster than Ivy Bridge at graphics.

Still not officially announced by Dell, the Alienware-branded M18x R2 gaming laptop is rumored to come with some fresh and powerful graphics options from both NVIDIA and AMD. The Santa Clara team (NVIDIA) is said to be supplying two cards for the M18x R2 - the GeForce GTX 660M and GTX 675M (the latter will be available in a SLI configuration), while the Sunnyvale squad (AMD) will deliver the Radeon HD 7970M, in a CrossFireX setup.

Beside the GPU goodies mentioned, the M18x R2 (18.4-inch) laptop is expected to feature an Intel Ivy Bridge CPU, black and red color choices, an optional Wireless HD card, and more. Stay tuned (and save up?).


Source: dell-lab.posterous.com

While it may be working away on 7 Series motherboards, Gigabyte still has some love for the 'old' 6 Series chipsets and is preparing more products based on them. One such product is the MSH61QI, a Mini-ITX board powered by the H61 Express Chipset.

Targeting embedded markets, the MSH61QI offers support for LGA 1155 processors, and features two DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM slots, two SATA 3.0 Gbps ports, one PCI-Express x16 and two (one full size, one half size) Mini-PCIe slots, Gigabit Ethernet, two USB 3.0 ports, Line-In and SPDIF connectors, and a HDMI output. The board’s availability and price tag have not been announced, yet.

At its annual Financial Analyst Day, AMD (NYSE: AMD) detailed a new “ambidextrous” strategy that builds on the company’s long history of x86 and graphics innovation while embracing other technologies and intellectual property to deliver differentiated products.

AMD is adopting an SoC-centric roadmap designed to speed time-to-market, drive sustained execution, and enable the development of more tailored customer solutions. SoC design methodology is advantageous because it is a modular approach to processor design, leveraging best practice tools and microprocessor design flows with the ability to easily re-use IP and design blocks across a range of products.

StarTech.com, a leading manufacturer of hard-to-find connectivity parts has announced the release of two new Video over IP Extenders – the IPUSB2VGA VGA over IP Extender and the IPUSB2HD2 HDMI over IP Extender, which enable users to extend video and the accompanying audio signals from a PC to remote locations over an IP-based network connection. The IP video extenders/adapters support display resolutions up to 1080p (1920x1080) and can extend video signals and the accompanying audio over a network connection by distances of up to 100m (330ft).

“The IPUSB2VGA and IPUSB2HD2 are perfect solutions for video distribution in boardrooms or office environments where multiple users may need to connect to a projector” said John Mardinly, Senior Product Manager for StarTech.com’s Audio-Video and Digital Signage products lines. “Simply install the software on the computers you want to connect to the unit and users will be able to connect to the projector or display over a network connection.”

Announced late last year together with the HS-W1 Wireless Headset, ASUS' MS-100 USB speakers have now went their separate way to be the focus of an unboxing/preview piece. Pictured below, the stereo speakers target mobile users and feature a cone design, a glossy black coating, a rubber stand that reduces vibration, and only USB connectivity (no need for a separate power cord).

The MS-100 makes use of 54 mm drivers, it has a frequency response of 100 Hz to 20 KHz, and delivers a total output of 3 W RMS. Still no word on pricing or availability but it’s likely the speakers will be out very soon.


Source: Techinstyle.tv

Ushering the finest and most capable graphics card based on new AMD "Tahiti" 28nm GPUs, the ASUS HD 7970 DirectCU II TOP uses a factory-overclocked core and 3 GB of GDDR5. It is cooled by the exclusive DirectCU II, a dual fan thermal design with six copper heatpipes and a large dissipation area that leads to the lowest temperatures and quietest operation of any HD 7970 card.

ASUS DIGI+ VRM 12-phase digital power delivery comes to graphics cards improved with Super Alloy Power components, while overclockers are bound to appreciate the inclusion of exclusive VGA Hotwire hardware overvolting and GPU Tweak software tuning. The new cards further support adapter-free AMD Eyefinity 6.

Acer has recently rolled out a new Revo series nettop/mini PC, a model called Revo RL70 which measures 209.89 (W) x 209.89 (D) x 35.35 (H) mm and makes use of AMD’s E-450 APU boasting two Bobcat cores @ 1.65 GHz and Radeon HD 6320 graphics.

Acer's compact system also has 2 GB of RAM, a 500 GB hard drive, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, a multi-in-one card reader, six USB 2.0 ports, plus D-Sub and HDMI outputs. The Revo RL70(-UR10P) runs Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit and is selling for $329.99.

Responding to increasing prices of key raw materials such as copper, and spiraling labor costs, motherboard manufacturers are planning price-hikes of their products by as much as 10%, which will take effect by the end of Q1, 2012. Vendors adopting these increased prices include major players such as ASUS and Gigabyte. Motherboard prices were earlier raised by 5-10% in early-2011 to tune in with increased material costs and the impact of labor shortages, and by 3-8% in April 2011 due to shortages and increased prices of components sourced from Japan, in the wake of the earthquake/tsunami disaster of 2011.


Source: DigiTimes

The Ivy Bridge LGA1155 processors inbound for April are mom and pop PC chips in front of the monstrosities Intel has planned for the enterprise (and possibly high-end desktop/HEDT) markets, based on the architecture. An 10-core Ivy Bridge-EP engineering sample, made it to the right hands in Taiwan (wrong hands for Intel), that wasted no time in putting them through some tests.

The 10-core Ivy Bridge-EP/EX chip (LGA2011, 2P-capable) features 10 next-generation cores clocked at 2.80 GHz, with 256 KB L2 cache per core, 30 MB shared L3 cache, and HyperThreading technology that enables 20 logical CPUs. This chip crunched WPrime 1024M in 158.5 seconds, and scores 41.78X relative speed in Fritz chess when just 8 of its 20 threads are put to use. You can also find some pretty screen shots of CPU-Z with its long processor selection list and Windows 8 task manager.


Sources: Coolaler, ComputerBase.de

Here are the first pictures of BitFenix Prodigy with compatible hardware installed. These pictures show that despite being designed for compact motherboard form-factors such as the mini-ITX, the Prodigy has plenty of room for a long graphics card (even the likes of Radeon HD 6990 will fit), and water-cooling hardware such as a 2x 120 mm radiator, pump, tubing, to support water-cooling of both the CPU and graphics card installed. Regardless, there's still room for large-sized tower-type CPU air cooler and dual-slot graphics card cooler, as the pictures below reveal.

LG Electronics has just announced the European arrival of its slim and curvy BP40NS20 optical drive which is capable of writing Blu-ray discs at up to 6x speeds. Seen below, LG's external Blu burner features 3D Blu-ray and BDXL support, an anti-scratch UV coating, a USB 2.0 interface, 4 MB of buffer memory, the Silent Play technology for reducing noise during movie playback, and the Jamless Play function which smoothes out playback of damaged discs.

The BP40NS20 also has LightScribe support and offers writer speeds of up to 6x for BD-R, 2x for BD-RE, 8x for DVD-R/+R/+RW, 6x for DVD-RW, 5x for DVD-RAM,, and 24x for CD-R/CD-RW. The drive can be found on sale at 109 Euro.

At the AMD Financial Analyst Day event, Engadget got to take a look at a reference design notebook made by Compal, a high-volume notebook ODM, that's based on AMD's next-generation "Trinity" accelerated processing unit. This reference design is what Compal will send to its downstream OEMs to sample its architecture, features, and performance. The pictures reveal the notebook to be typically-sized, with a thickness of 18 mm, packing a low-voltage variant of the Trinity silicon. It is targeting the $500-600 market, and will be feature-rich, including four "Piledriver" architecture x86-64 cores, Radeon HD 7000M graphics, and the latest-generation connectivity, including USB 3.0, HDMI, and mini-DisplayPort (could this be LightningBolt?).


Source: Engadget

Pioneer is working on a new Blu-ray disc writer, the BDR-S07, capable of writing 100 GB Blu-ray XL (BDXL) discs at speeds of up to 6X. The drive burns more conventional BD-R double-layer and single-layer discs at speeds up to 12X. BD-R LtH are written at 6X; single, double, and triple-layer BD-RE discs are written at 2X. The drive is built in the conventional tray-loading 5.25" form-factor, supporting the SATA interface. It comes in three variants that differ only with their bezels: BDR-S07-BK has a piano-black bezel, the BDR-S07-KR has a matte-black bezel, and the BDR-S07-W has a matte-white bezel. These drives will be priced at 25,000 JPY (US $328).


Source: AkihabaraNews

Super Flower launched its new value 430W PSU that's 80Plus Gold-certified, at an introductory price of 369 RMB (US $58.5). Rated at 430W, the PSU features active-PFC, and can handle up to 10% overload while maintaining over 89% efficiency. It is non-modular, and features Japanese-made capacitors and MOSFETs. It is cooled by a 120 mm fan. Its connector loadout is not revealed yet, though with its NVIDIA SLI certification, one can assume it has at least two PCIe power connectors.


Source: Expreview

TRENDnet a best-in-class wired and wireless networking hardware brand, today announces the addition of the 'Silver Tier' to TRENDnet's upTREND Partner Program, providing increased benefits and support to North American Channel Partners.

The upTREND Partner Program previously featured a 3-tiered classification system: Valued Partner, Gold Partner, and Platinum Partner; with each successive tier extending additional partner rewards. TRENDnet is pleased to launch a fourth 'Silver Partner' tier, which extends increased benefits to additional partners.

Next week, Ubisoft will be performing large-scale server maintenance, which could see its DRM-handling go offline. It would directly impact some games that are designed to work with Ubisoft's infamous "Always-Online" DRM, which requires gamers to be connected to the internet when playing games enabled with it. Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2, Might & Magic: Heroes 6 and The Settlers 7 will be unplayable during the course of maintenance. Bigger titles such as Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco, however, will stay online for the duration of the switch-over. Ubisoft is loathed for its hyper-strict DRM that requires you to ping their DRM servers every few moments to reassure them you're not a pirate. It is even known to limit activations to your graphics card. This is yet another example where DRM only ends up hurting legitimate users more than piracy.


Source: PC Gamer

Today at its annual Financial Analyst Day, AMD has presented an updated roadmap detailing the hardware it plans to bring to the table during 2012 and 2013. For this year, the Sunnyvale-based company is preparing a processor quarter which includes the Trinity, Brazos 2.0 and Hondo APUs (accelerated processing units) and the Vishera CPU.

Set to be the main weapon in AMD's x86 arsenal, the Trinity APU (aka the 2nd gen A Series) is made on 32 nm process technology, and features DirectX 11 graphics, two/four Piledriver cores (Piledrive is said to deliver 25% better performance than the Stars cores found in Llano APUs), and a TDP that can go as low as 17 W on mobile parts. Trinity is expected to debut in Q2 and already has close to 100 design wins (more than Llano had before its release).

The Wind U180, meticulously crafted by MSI for 2012, marks a new zenith in computer technology, offering both performance and an esthetically pleasing looks. It comes in minimalist black, angel white or lavender, is less than one-inch thin, tips the scales at just 1 kg, and is sheathed in MSI's own attractive IMR color film print to prevent scratches and smudges. Let this highly mobile piece of computer technology add color to your life.

Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, points out that the MSI Wind U180, a new generation netbook characterized by painstaking attention to craftsmanship and innovation, not only packs significantly more power, it is the ideal solution to meet today's mobile multimedia needs. Its display is some three times more powerful than that of the previous generation, enabling the high resolution LED screen to show much more detail and color. What's more, the HDMI slot allows you to connect the U180 netbook to a large HDTV to maximize multimedia entertainment.

ViewSonic has today released the VX2336s-LED, a 23-inch monitor which features LED backlighting and utilizes the SuperClear IPS technology enabling 'brilliant image quality' and viewing angles of up to 178/178 degrees (vertical/horizontal).

This new display also has a curved frame with piano-black mirrored surface, a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 (20,000,000:1 DCR), a 14 ms response time, 250 cd/m2 typical brightness, D-Sub and DVI connectors, and the Eco-mode function for lower power consumption.

The VX2336s-LED is backed by a three-year warranty and costs £159 / $299.99.

Apricorn (www.apricorn.com), a leading designer and manufacturer of data security products for business, has expanded their award winning Aegis Secure Drives to the desktop environment with the announcement of a new, powerful desktop edition, the Aegis Padlock DT.

Sporting a spacious capacity of up to 3 TB with a Super Speed USB 3.0 interface, the Aegis Padlock DT not only provides immense storage and lightning fast access speeds, but also protects its data with seamless AES-XTS hardware encryption and secure PIN access. With its software free design, simple setup and starting price of $229, the Aegis Padlock DT provides a complete data storage solution that is affordable, secure and effortless to deploy in a demanding office environment.

More Tahiti goodness is coming up as PowerColor has confirmed with a nice clear photo that it's working on a watercooled Radeon HD 7970 card. Dubbed LCS (Liquid Cooling System) HD7970, the card comes equipped with a (single-slot) waterblock from Slovenia's own EK team.

PowerColor's watercooled card also features 2048 Stream Processors, a 384-bit memory interface, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, DVI, HDMI and dual mini DisplayPort outputs, plus DirectX 11.1 capabilities, CrossFireX support, and a PCI-Express 3.0 interface. No word on the card's clocks (yet) but they should be higher than on stock models. Expect more info later this month.

With more than 9.3 million registered users and partnerships now with 21 different publishers, Origin, the direct-to-consumer gaming platform from Electronic Arts (EA) Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) has quickly become one of the industry’s leading online game services in just over two quarters since launch.

Origin announced today that seven more publishers have agreed to offer their games for purchase and download. Led by Remedy Entertainment who will bring Alan Wake to Origin, additional publishers include Focus Home Interactive, Iceberg Interactive, Strategy First, Macro Games, Selectsoft and Legendo Entertainment. These publishers join 14 previously announced Origin partners, including Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, THQ, Capcom, Trion Worlds and Robot Entertainment.

Chinese storage and peripherals major Orico unveiled the X-Gear modular storage system, which consists of three products: the XG-2501p, which is a 2.5-inch SATA HDD/SSD enclosure; the XG-3502i, which is a slot-in docking-station for the XG-2501p that fits into an exposed 3.5-inch drive bay; and the XG-2516s, which is a combo-package of these two products (an enclosure of your choice, and the slot-in dock).

The XG-2501p enclosure sports a brushed-aluminum exterior, and is available in a variety of colors. The XG-3502i has a slot-in tray for the enclosure, with a mechanical eject button for any inserted XG-2501p, and an activity indicator. The XG-2501p is priced at 28 RMB (US $5), the XG-3502i at 49 RMB ($7.8), and XG-2516s at 69 RMB ($11).


Source: Expreview

Optical disc drive major Lite-On opined that its SSD sales will see huge growth in 2012. The company is not new to SSDs, as it entered the SSD business about three years ago, yet it is not a major player. In 2011, the SSD business generated about NT$1 billion (US $33.9 million) in revenues for the company, which the company expects will jump 600~700% (NT$6-7 billion) in 2012. Tablets and Ultrabooks, according to Lite-On, will be the prime-movers of this growth.


Source: DigiTimes

Intel Corporation today announced that its board of directors has promoted Mooly Eden and Richard Taylor to the position of senior vice president. The promotions recognize outstanding performance.

Eden, 60, is senior vice president and was recently named president and general manager of Intel Israel. In this role, Eden is responsible for Intel Israel’s operations and strategy, including the Israel Development Centers and Intel’s Fab 28 manufacturing facility. In his 30 years at Intel, Eden has held many management and technical positions in microprocessor design, including the Intel Pentium processor with MMX technology. He also was responsible for the development of Intel’s mobile PC microprocessors and chipsets, including Intel Centrino Processor Technology, which included a low-power processor and bundle of chips that offered WiFi. This product helped make WiFi a standard, integrated feature on laptops worldwide and is considered a key driver of the mobile revolution. Eden most recently led the PC Client Group, Intel’s largest product group.

RunCore, a leading manufacturer of high-performance and rugged solid state drives (SSDs) today announced the availability of its latest SATA 3 SSD.

"The new 2.5" SATA3, 6Gbs, drive is the nice addition to our existing portfolio of SSD products. The Pro-V MAX is based on the SF-2281 controller with the optimized firmware (the Golden FW). With Read and Write transfer rate at 560 MB/s and 520 MB/s, respectively, and the burst IOPS at 87K while sustained IOPS over 60K, has a super score of over 770 in AS SSD Benchmark, the drive is designed to deliver exceptional performance over the life of it with no performance degradation over time. The Pro-V MAX is ideal for use in gaming machines, HPC & datacenter servers," said Amy Wang, VP of Strategies and Business Product Development of RunCore.

Seagate started shipping its GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter accessory. The gadget lets you connect a SATA drive (HDD or SSD) to a host machine over 10 Gbps Thunderbolt interface, completely eliminating any bottleneck (USB 3.0 bottlenecks SATA 6 Gb/s). It works by simply sliding and locking in a SATA device to its industry-standard SATA power+data interface, and plugging the adapter to the host using a Thunderbolt cable. The Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter is priced at US $99.99.

At CES, we got to check out MSI's Z77A-GD65 motherboard in its baby-suit, with just basic heatsinks, as the production ones were getting finalized. At the IT Partners show, we got to see the production model of this board, complete with its final VRM and PCH heatsink design.

The Z77A-GD65 uses a 9-phase VRM to power the CPU. Expansion slots include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC or x8/x8, depending on the second slot being populated), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4, wired to the PCH), and four PCIe x1. Storage connectivity include four SATA 6 Gb/s (two from the PCH, two from a third-party controller), and four SATA 3 Gb/s ports. Display connectivity includes D-Sub, DVI, and HDMI. Other features include a number of USB 3.0, USB 2.0 ports, 8-channel HD audio, and features for overclockers such as consolidated voltage measurement points, redundant UEFI BIOS, and OC Genie. It is slated for April.

Fresh news from the IT Partners event in France, PNY is preparing the release of a couple of new, speedy solid state drives, the enterprise-grade Optima Pro models which make use of SandForce's SF-2582 controller. These 2.5-inch drives also have a metal casing, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory chips, and a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface.

The Optima Pro SSDs come in 120 GB and 240 GB capacities and should deliver sequential read/write speeds of over 500 MB/s. Unfortunately their prices are not yet known.

Peripherals major Targus introduced the ACA039US, a USB display adapter that takes advantage of the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface, and provides two display outputs, supporting two displays. Based on DisplayLink DL-3900 chipset, the ACA039US relies on USB 3.0 for both host connectivity and power. It gives out two display outputs: DVI-I (single link) and HDMI 1.3. Each connector supports display heads at resolutions up to 2048 x 1152 pixels, even though the DL-3900 chipset supports 2560 x 1600 (over dual-link DVI). The HDMI 1.3 connection gives out 5.1-channel audio, and is HDCP 2.0-compliant. The ACA039US from Targus will be released to market soon, at a price of US $99.99, a single-port variant is also planned, at US$79.99. Let's hope it has dual-link DVI.


Source: VR-Zone

Titan Technology unveiled its latest Siberia CPU Cooler, the TTC-NC55TZ(RB). The cooler has an asymmetric aluminum fin tower design, which cools other hot components on the motherboard along with the CPU. The design consists of a nickel-plated copper base, from which five copper heat pipes pass. One end of these heat pipes pass through an aluminum fin stack that propagates along the plane of the motherboard, while the other passes though a stack that propagates perpendicular to this plane.

The stack that's along the plane of the motherboard is the larger of the two, and is ventilated by a 140 mm fan. The perpendicular stack is ventilated by a smaller 120 mm fan. The 140 mm fan spins at 700 ~ 1,800 RPM, pushing 34.78 ~ 89.43 CFM of air, with a noise output of 8.3 ~ 28.8 dBA. The 120 mm fan, on the other hand, spins at 800 ~ 2,200 RPM; pushing 24.23 ~ 66.2 CFM, with 15.0 ~ 35.0 dBA noise output. Both fans have 4-pin plugs and support PWM control. The heatsink itself measures 200 x 130 x 162 mm (WxDxH), weighing 755 g. All current sockets, including LGA2011, LGA1366, LGA1155/LGA1156, AM3+/AM3/AM2+/AM2, and FM1 are supported. It is priced at 6,980 JPY (US $91.6).


Source: Hermitage Akihabara

South Korean company Zalman has now introduced two new 'high performance' PC cases, the Z11 and Z11 Plus mid-towers. These models measure 260 (W) x 498 (H) x 525 (D) mm, they weight 7.3 kg, and have a steel structure, a black paint job, and support for ATX and micro ATX motherboards, as well as for graphics cards up to 290 mm long.

Zalman's cases feature four exposed 5.25-inch bays, one 2.5-inch bay, five 3.5-inch drive trays with tool-free mounting, an acrylic side window, an anti-vibration rubber stand for the PSU, two pre-drilled holes for watercooling tubes, and four fans - one 120 mm spinner with blue LEDs in front, another one on top, a LED-less 120 mm model at the back, and two 80 mm fans on the side.

The Zalman Z11 includes an I/O panel with four USB 2.0 ports and has a recommended price tag of 69.90 Euro, while the Z11 Plus offers two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 ports, and costs 79.90 Euro. Both are expected to become available in about two weeks.

Overclocker "Christian Ney" of the HWBOT community claims to have cracked the 6 GHz clock speed mark with an AMD A8-3870K APU, with all four of its cores enabled. The feat consisted of a clock speed of 6067.7 MHz achieved using a base clock of 258.2 MHz and multiplier of 47.0x. The memory was clocked at 3505 MHz, just 95 MHz short of a world-record. The chip was put through a scorching core voltage of 2V. Supporting components included GIGABYTE A75-UD4H motherboard, and GeIL EVO Corsa DDR3 memory. The setup was cooled sub-zero. CPU-Z Validator rejected this submission, probably because like us, it finds 2V vCore and 258.2 MHz base clock unreal for Llano, since it uses a common 100 MHz clock domain for BClk and PCIe.


Source: MyDrivers.com

Facebook Inc., has finally filed to go public with its IPO, with plans to raise US $5 billion, according to a figure used to calculate the registration fee. The company seeks to trade under the ticker symbol "FB", although it did not list an exchange. It is speculated by those close to the company that Facebook is aiming at a far greater offering that will value to the company close to $100 billion. Facebook also provided some interesting stats about its operations in its filing. The EDGAR filing documents can be accessed here.


Source: Engadget

Microsoft today launched Kinect for Windows, a unique gesture-recognizing input device it launched for the Xbox 360. Kinect for Windows enables a whole new kind of interaction with the software that's three dimensional and spatial, compared to the two dimensional input of mice, tablets, and trackballs.

Along with it, version 1.0 of the Kinect for Windows SDK (stable) was launched, enabling organized software developers to start working on applications right away. The new SDK also features several feature additions and improvements over previous beta versions. The general pricing of Kinect for Windows device is US $249, but it is also available at US $149 for qualified educational users.


Source: Kinect for Windows Blog

Cooler Master, an industry leading chassis, thermal solution, peripheral, and accessory manufacturer today announces an exciting new offering as part of its ongoing 20th anniversary celebration.

As a part of Cooler Master’s continued effort to thank its various stakeholders for 20 years of loyalty, a flagship chassis will receive a special pricing for a limited time that is available through all of our U.S. and Canadian channel partners. Effective immediately, the CM Storm Trooper will now be available for $149.99 MSRP, making it a top tier case with unmatched value.

Eurocom Corporation (www.eurocom.com), a developer of long lifespan, fully upgradable Notebooks, high performance Mobile Workstations and Mobile Servers is now offering the EUROCOM Leopard 2.0, a high performance 18.4” notebook with support for dual GPU operation.

The EUROCOM Leopard 2.0 supports dual GPU technology from NVIDIA, as well as AMD. NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M and AMD Radeon HD 6990M and HD 6970M GPU’s power the Leopard 2.0.

Later this year, Google will adopt a single privacy-policy system for all its services. Some of Google's most popular services, as some might recall, are built from acquisitions of other equally genius start-ups as itself (eg: YouTube), many of these services were allowed to retain the essential part of their old privacy policies. The unified policy, effective March 1, 2012, allows sharing of usage statistics between services, to provide a user experience that's consistent between all its services. It doesn't sound harmful enough, yet it has generated public paranoia that it would, in some way, make Google more invasive on people's privacy than it already is, by, you know...owning YouTube?

Microsoft was quick put on an angel's robe and cash in on this paranoia. In a newspaper ad (first image below is down-scaled, the second is original), Microsoft talked about how Google's One Policy, One Google, One Experience is designed to be invasive to people's privacy, and how it allows Google to connect the dots between everything you do or say, across Google's various services. Fair enough, but what should have concluded as a PSA by Microsoft, ended up in being an advertisement for its own portfolio of services that are "better for users", as they're not as invasive as Google's.



A video detailing Google's One Policy update (by Google), follows.

Last year, ARCTIC revealed the underlying potential of all-in-one home entertainment centers. Our first notable MC001 entertainment center was successfully launched and remarkably praised by numerous media in USA (CPU, TechPowerUp, TomsHardware, Europe (KitGuru, Madshrimps, ProHardver, PC Tuning, HW Legend, InformaticaEasy, 59 Hardware, Cowcotland) and Canada (Overclockers Online) etc.

This year, ARCTIC continues with its spirit of innovation by creating a new generation of powerful home entertainment centers - the MC101 Series which will keep you entertained - always. We design our innovative technologies around you so that you can enjoy more with less effort. In addition to its cost-effective, multi-functional, and high level of accessibility, our MC101 Series deliver fast, compact and feather-light home entertainment solutions that are humbly perfect.

Antec, Inc., the global leader in high-performance computer components, announces the High Current Gamer M series, a mid-range wattage class of hybrid modular power supplies. The High Current Gamer M series is an extension of the HCG PSU line issued in late 2010 but features hybrid modularity, allowing for cleaner systems by reducing cable clutter behind the motherboard.

Antec's new desktop PSU series provides quiet, efficient power in 400W, 520W, and 620W models, accommodating casual gamers, home office and corporate consumers. The High Current Gamer M Series is the perfect combination of power and cabling that supply extreme levels of power and superb efficiency.

Sweden's Supreme Court decided not to grant leave to appeal in the long-running Pirate Bay criminal trial. This translates to the earlier judgement of the Swedish Court of Appeal being upheld. In November 2010, the lower court had found four of the founders of The Pirate Bay, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, and Carl Lundström, guilty of criminal copyright infringement. Although Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström all had their prison sentences decreased from the levels ordered at their original 2009 trial, they were ordered to pay increased damages amounting to millions of dollars to the plaintiffs in the entertainment industry.

Peter Sunde, AKA Brokep, faces 8 months in prison. Fredrik Neij, AKA TiAMO, faces 10 months. Businessman Carl Lundström has the lightest sentence of 4 months. All will have to pay their share of a combined 46 million Kronor (US $6.8 million) in damages. In related news, the operators of Pirate Bay changed the domain name of their site from *.org to *.se to prevent seizure by the US Government.


Source: TorrentFreak 1, 2

Former hard drive maker (it sold the HDD business to Toshiba in 2009) Fujitsu has finally decided to give SSDs (solid state drives) a try and so it developed and released such a storage solution. Codenamed HLACC2031A-G1, Fujitsu's SSD has a 2.5-inch form factor, a SATA 6.0 Gbps interface, a SandForce SF-2281 controller, MLC (multi-level cell) NAND Flash memory, and is capable of read/write speeds of up to 550/500 MB/s, and of a random read/write performance of 55,000/40,000 IOPS.

The HLACC2031A-G1 is first being shipped to APAC (Asia-Pacific) markets in two capacities - 120 GB (~ US$202) and 240 GB (~ US$427). Both models will come with a three-year warranty.


Source: The SSD Review

NEC Display Solutions of America, a leading provider of commercial LCD display and projector solutions, announced today the 24-inch AS241W to its AccuSync Series of value-driven desktop monitors. This series is ideal for small-to-medium-sized businesses, schools and government offices.

The LED-backlit AS241W, which joins the AS171, AS192, AS191WM and AS221WM displays, offers a full range of environmental compliance, including EPEAT Silver, ENERGY STAR 5.1 and TCO 5.2 ratings. This full HD display boasts a quick 5ms Rapid Response time that delivers virtually uninterrupted, undistorted viewing of high-speed, full-motion video. Energy-saving ECO Mode enables users to toggle between pre-configured brightness settings that reduce power consumption, heat generation and extend the life of the AS241W.

Thermaltake Group with the most avant-garde innovation and creativity in delivering the corporate mission of the “perfect user experiences” is prepared to exhibit “Taipei Game Show 2012” from February 2nd to 6th. Together with Tt eSPORTS and Thermaltake, the 5-day event will host a series of exciting programmes to introduce an array of conceptual and technical innovations and offers an exciting glimpse of the brands’ future design language with amazing stage shows, and well-known players － our own professional e-Sports Team - Tt APOLLOS and it’s StarCraft2 player – SoftBall, the world-famous StarCraft2 players –Aleksey “White-Ra” Krupnyk from Ukraine, and MarineKing eSports Team from South Korea, together to present entirely new and creative innovations that comprehensively adapt to the cultures of “enjoyment of entertainment, e-Sports, technology, and lifestyle”.

Japan-based Green House Co. has today announced a new addition to its flash drive offering, the PicoDrive Secure family of drives with hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption. These drives measure 55 (W) x 23.5 (D) x 8.5 (H) mm, weight just 11 grams, have a USB 2.0 interface, and a capless design (retractable USB connector), and offer protection against autorun malware, and a read-only mode to prevent accidental data loss.

The PicoDrive Secure line will debut in mid-February with 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB models priced at about $85, $157, $226 and $298, respectively.

Genius, a leading maker of computer peripherals, today announces DeathTaker, a professional laser gaming mouse designed for MMO and RTS gamers. The DeathTaker is the debut product of the GX Gaming Series which will be unveiling throughout the coming months.

With nine buttons DeathTaker gives gamers the ability to customize their gaming experience. Genius' included “Scorpion” UI lets gamers manage macros for up to 55 keys in 5 profiles, as well as a selection of up to 16 million backlight colors. The on-board memory design prevents game block and stores preferred macro settings for ready-to-play action on any computer.

Earlier this year, we got to see the first implementations of the IEEE 802.11ac specification take stage at CES, which promised wireless networking at speeds as high as 1.3 Gbps. On the sidelines, consumer electronics major Panasonic has been developing a gigabit speed wireless networking technology of its own. Called the WiGig, this technology provides up to 1 Gbps network bandwidth, but to achieve that, devices need to be within a range of 3 meters. The technology uses 60 GHz high-frequency band to transmit and receive data.

While its low 3 meter range might look self-defeating to the idea of wireless networking, Panasonic thinks there are some good ways to put the technology to use. These include transmission of HD video between a car's entertainment system unit tucked away into the dashboard to the screens behind the headrests for passengers in the back seats, without wires. Ad-hoc networks using this could also greatly speed up data transfer between two devices in close range. Panasonic packed the hardware for this technology into SD cards, which can communicate with host devices over SDIO.

A related video follows.

With the ever-shrinking laptops of today, space constrains mean that each component on the logic board has lesser board space, as is the case with audio. The cylindrical capacitors and FETs on PC motherboards are reduced to weaker surface-mount ones to conserve board space, on laptop logic boards. Audio quality takes a beating. Hence there's a sizable market for USB audio devices that provide better audio for laptops. Enermax' entry into it is the DreamBass AP001, a 2-channel USB audio device. It is designed to look like a vacuum tube that gives it a classy analog amp look.

In reality, it is completely digital. At the heart of it is a VIA VT1620A USB 2.0 2-channel HD audio CODEC, which provides stereo output with 24-bit resolution and 96 kHz sample-rate. It has a signal-noise ratio of 80~90 dBA, which is not much of a departure from most laptops' HDA CODECs, if it isn't for the MOSFET-based amplifier circuit packed into the DreamBass AP001, that's capable of 80Hz/+6dB Bass. The device features a 3.5 mm stereo jack and mic input. Enermax also has a variant called the AP001E, which includes earphones that have 10 mm drivers, 95 dBA SNR, and 32 ohm impedance. The DreamBass AP001 is priced at 3,280 JPY (US $43); the AP001E goes for 3,980 ($52.2). It could be a good investment if you think your laptop's audio sounds like a greeting card.


Source: Hermitage Akihabara

Transcend Information, Inc. (Transcend), a worldwide leader in storage and multimedia products, today announced the launch of its new next generation SSD720 SATA III 6Gb/s solid state drive (SSD) that delivers significantly improved computer performance over standard rotating hard drives. Designed with multitasking power users in mind, the productivity-enhancing SSD720 is the ideal solution for demanding system applications, such as specialized multimedia computing and advanced gaming.

Sony Corporation ("Sony") today announced that Kazuo Hirai has been appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective April 1, 2012. Sir Howard Stringer, currently Chairman, CEO and President, will become Chairman of the Board of Directors in June, 2012. Mr. Stringer recommended to the Sony Board of Directors that Mr. Hirai, currently Executive Deputy President, be his successor as President and CEO. Mr. Stringer will continue as Chairman of Sony Corporation until his ascension to the Board Chairmanship, which will become effective upon Board approval following the annual meeting of shareholders in June, when the current Chairman, Yotaro Kobayashi, will retire. Mr. Hirai is also expected to be appointed to the Board at the June shareholders meeting.

Xilence Technology has now introduced the SSD-/HDD-Dock, an all-black device that fits into a 5.25-inch bay and offers space for two 2.5-inch SATA drives as well as two USB 3.0 ports (ports which can be connected to the motherboard via a 19-pin plug). This internal dock features Hot Swap capabilities and is shipping in Europe bearing a recommended price tag of 27.90 Euro.

ADATA Technology, a leading manufacturer of high-performance DRAM modules and NAND Flash application products, today introduced new industry-leading, single piece 8 GB DDR3-1600 high-density memory modules. Known for industry-high standards of quality control and meticulous device engineering, the new modules will meet and exceed expectations of customers who seek performance and quality in DRAM products.

With this launch ADATA is continuing its tradition as an industry leader in DRAM product line-up. These 8 GB Premier Series DDR3-1600 single piece memory modules allow users to boost system performance over the limitations of memory slot availability.

Today LaCie announced the 5big Office Series, its latest five-bay network attached storage solutions. With easy setup, collaboration and total data protection, the 5big Office Series is a solid long-term investment for any small business. They feature the industry-trusted Windows Server operating systems and a powerful Intel Atom processor.

POWERED BY WINDOWS

The 5big Office, powered by Windows Home Server 2011, is perfect for backing up as many as 10 PCs. The 5big Office+, powered by Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Essentials, backs up as many as 25. Get up and running in a flash on either system with a straightforward setup process and a familiar Windows environment. The 5big Office Series helps business groups collaborate like no comparable NAS.

MAINGEAR, an award-winning PC system builder offering custom desktops, notebooks and workstations has just added AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics card solution to their award winning up desktop offerings.

Similar to the AMD Radeon HD 7970 graphics, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 series graphics takes your game to new levels for the no-compromise gamer at a more affordable price point. With AMD Radeon 7900 series graphics, the gaming experience is perfected with the new GCN Architecture engineered to deliver jaw-dropping performance and unprecedented image quality. For those gamers looking to get an added advantage, they can add up to six displays with AMD Eyefinity technology and enable unrivalled HD video quality to see every move and make the kill. Those who are not so much into gaming will appreciate the astonishing performance in everyday applications with AMD App Acceleration that allows for faster video encoding, transcoding and decoding.

Seagate Technology plc today reported financial results for the quarter ended December 30, 2011. The company shipped 47 million disk drives and reported revenue of $3.2 billion, gross margin of 31.6%, net income of $563 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.28. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of certain items, Seagate reported net income of $581 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.32 for the quarter ended December 30, 2011.

For the six months ended December 30, 2011, the company reported revenue of $6.0 billion, gross margin of 26.0%, net income of $703 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.61. On a non-GAAP basis, which excludes the net impact of certain items, Seagate reported net income of $727 million and diluted earnings per share of $1.67. Seagate returned $151 million to shareholders in the form of a dividend and repurchased $191 million of Seagate ordinary shares which equates to approximately 13 million ordinary shares.

Matrox Graphics Inc. today announced its partnership with Wyse Technology, the global leader in cloud client computing, and the Wyse validation of its Matrox Epica Series graphics cards for the new Wyse Z90DE7 thin client. The Matrox Epica TC20+ dual-monitor and Matrox Epica TC48 quad-monitor add-in boards bring enhanced functionality across a wider range of multi-display configurations to the high-performance Wyse Z90DE7 thin client while maintaining energy efficiency and key thermal requirements. The new co-validated solution provides users with an optimal on-screen workspace experience for unprecedented productivity and workspace real-estate gains in demanding virtual desktop environments.

DVDO, an award-winning provider of high-quality, high-definition (HD) video processing, switching and connectivity solutions, today announced the availability of the DVDO Air WirelessHD solution for the wireless transmission of uncompressed HD content from HD source units to a HDTV and/or display. The WirelessHD-compliant DVDO Air operates at 60GHz to deliver 1080p video, and 7.1 surround sound audio for 2D and 3D formats. DVDO Air also transmits HDMI signals, including commands from the Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) protocol.

DVDO Air consists of a wireless transmitter, a wireless receiver, and a receiver-mounting clip that easily secures to the wall or to the top of the HDTV. The solution offers a clean, wall-mountable alternative to long cable runs and provides flexibility in positioning HD equipment anywhere in the room without the placement restrictions of a wired connection. DVDO Air works seamlessly with other professional-class DVDO switching and processing products such as iScan Duo and EDGE Green for full HD interoperability across multi-manufacturer HD devices.