Tech News

Skype to Go Semi-Open-Sourced for Linux

As a long-time user of Linux, and full-time going on three-and-a-half years, I’ve been able to test out a variety of applications, with a core few that I use each and every day. Out of them all, though, few are closed-source, with the exceptions of VMware Workstation, Nero Linux and Skype (which I still don’t use often due to various issues). Skype is one of those applications, that while closed-source, works extremely well, and simply can’t be ignored, given the absolute lack of like applications for the OS.

One major problem with Skype under Linux is Skype’s lack of interest. For what it’s worth, judging my the Mac OS X screenshots on Skype’s site, I can say it looks like the company doesn’t focus on non-Windows platforms much at all, in terms of updates. The problem I have with Skype for Linux is primarily a technical issue with how it utilizes the sound system. I used to own a USB mic which I used for this very application, but for some reason, it simply stopped working due to what I believe was a sound configuration change on my machine. Because of how Skype coded its application, there wasn’t an easy fix, and no workarounds worked for me. So, I haven’t used Skype since.

But, with a new statement made by the company, it looks like whatever issues Linux and possibly Mac OS X users have about Skype now, the community might soon be able to fix. Yes, that’s right… Skype is going open-source in Linux. There’s of course a caveat, and that’s that the protocol itself is still locked down, so if there are issues with that for some people, there’s not going to be tweaks made. It also means that the protocol will not be able to be used in another application, such as Pidgin, Kopete or other ‘nix IM clients.

What this does essentially mean is that if the community should want to bother, a split project could be designed to allow a fully-revamped UI, to mimic more of the recent Windows clients, and perhaps add features only found in that version as well. The protocol is there, after all… it’s just the features themselves that Skype have never implemented. While I do think Skype should have shown more love to its alt-OS versions, this could very well work out for the better.

“We appreciate our user community’s enthusiasm and realize this is something they have been wanting for a while. We realize the potential of the open source community and believe that making Skype for Linux an open source application will help to speed up its development and enhance its compatibility with different versions of Linux. While it is our goal to make Skype for Linux source code available to the community in the nearest future, we are not at a point to disclose an exact release date yet.”

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Hector Ruiz Steps Down as Globalfoundries’ Chairman

Last week, the Wall Street Journal broke a story that a previous AMD executive had a case filed against them as a result of insider-trading. The executive was revealed as Hector Ruiz, who first joined AMD in 2000 as President and CEO and resigned last summer. When AMD’s spin-off foundry company, Globalfoundries, came to be, Ruiz was named as the Chairman of the board of directors, and has held that position until today. Due to the timing, we have to assume that this decision is a result of the on-going investigation.

Although Ruiz is still technically an employee of Globalfoundries until January 4, 2010, his stepping down today was apparently voluntary, and approved by the board of directors. Interestingly, even though Ruiz is stepping down today, he had actually submitted his resignation in September, long before the inside-trading case came to light. The question of whether he saw the lawsuit coming is something only he could answer, but likely won’t. It’s important to note that as of right now, no charges are laid against Ruiz, and when or if they do, it wouldn’t happen for a little while.

Replacing Ruiz in the interim is Alan E. Ross, best known as a former CEO of Broadcom, but has also had high-level positions with Fairchild Semiconductor and Worldwide Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation, among others.

Ruiz’s stepping-down shouldn’t have much effect on Globalfoundries’ business, and by some opinions, chances of the company’s success should prove even greater with him gone. Whether that’s true or not is up to you to decide, but one thing’s for sure, Ruiz didn’t exactly have the best reputation when he was the CEO at AMD, and few would disagree that some major mistakes were made along the way.

Hector Ruiz, chairman of the GLOBALFOUNDRIES board of directors, will take a voluntary leave of absence effective immediately before resigning from the company in January, the company’s board announced today. Dr. Ruiz had submitted his resignation in September with an effective date of January 4th, 2010. He will be replaced by Alan E. “Lanny” Ross, who will serve as interim chairman, effective immediately, until a permanent chairman has been appointed by the board.

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Windows 7 Usages Reaches 3% of Web-Connected PCs

Long before Windows 7’s launch, reaching the October 22 date seemed to take forever. This wasn’t helped by the insane amount of advertising for the new OS, and constant updates flowing around the Web. But, it’s been 10 days since that date was hit, and now we seem to be soaring past it fairly quickly. Windows 7 is here, it’s popular, and according to a new report by Net Applications, it’s already accounting for 3% of PCs which access the web.

This isn’t a major feat, but it’s definitely notable. When you consider that a vast number of Windows users are either non-techy or could care less what OS they’re using, in turn lessening the chance of an upgrade, seeing such quick adoption is a good sign for Microsoft – especially after such a rough Vista launch. I was hoping that our stats software of choice, Google Analytics, would have been updated to single out Windows 7 in our aggregated statistics, but unfortunately, it hasn’t been. Once it is updated, I’ll give updates here to give an idea of how many of our users have moved on up.

One thing’s for certain here… the Windows 7 launch has gone far smoother than Vista’s. I’ve seen some relatively minor hitches, such as an issue with student upgrade copies, but aside from that, the news I’ve seen has been generally positive. Whereas you couldn’t avoid news of Vista’s launch regarding incompatibilities, I’ve seen nothing of the sort over the past two weeks. So all in all, it looks like the Windows 7 launch was a success, and we should be able to tell within the next month or two if adoption is going to continue growing at the same or faster rate.

Microsoft has the recent launch to be happy about, but also according to Net Applications, there’s a potential reason for worry as well. During October, Mac OS X usage increased from 5.12% to 5.27%. While a minor bump, this is only a one-month change. At the rate of 0.15% per month, if it continued, Apple could potentially gain 1.8% or more within the next 12 months. 0.15% might be minor, but 1.8% certainly isn’t. It’s a little tough to judge things as they stand with initial Windows 7 data, so the next few months should be pretty interesting as we’ll likely see more telling trends.

“The early adoption of Windows 7 looks very strong and I don’t believe Vista enjoyed the same early success,” Net Applications’ Executive Vice President Vince Vizzaccaro. “Plus, we’ve seen surges the past two weekend days, and Windows has historically seen much higher usage market share on weekdays than on weekends.” However, weekends tend to see stronger usage by consumers. And consumers are more likely to move quickly to a new version of Windows than businesses, which tend to do extensive testing before adopting a new operating system.

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Unigine Releases DirectX 11 Benchmark

When thinking of a quality game engine, names that come to mind usually include Source, iD Tech, Unreal Engine, CryEngine and others, but rarely do you hear the name “Unigine”. The company started in 2005, and since then, have brought on well over twenty licensees who have either used the engine in a released product, or are currently using it in their development. By looking at how the company’s clients are using it, it’s easy to see that Unigine has huge potential, and might just become a big name in the near-future.

I’ve dabbled with Unigine’s benchmarks in the past, including the gorgeous “Tropics” which supports both DirectX, OpenGL and numerous other graphics features, and I’ve been impressed. But, a release the company made just over a week ago is even more impressive. Titled “Heaven”, it’s the world’s first benchmark that supports DirectX 11. This means it shows off the advanced tessellation technology, which seems to be a focal-point for any DX 11 argument. There’s also support for DirectCompute and Shader Model 5.0.

Also included are some key features from DirectX 10.1, such as SSAO (screen-space ambient occlusion), which has the potential to greatly enhance shadow quality for improved realism. Combined all together, the benchmark shows just what DX10.1 – 11 are capable of, and let me tell you… the results are outstanding. The company has posted a before and after video at YouTube that shows the improvements tessellation can make, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say, “Whoa!”.

One of the best features might be that this isn’t a benchmark that simply flies through a scene and lets you watch. Rather, it’s interactive, so you can see the before/after differences yourself, in real-time. “Heaven” is also completely free, and you can download it off the official site. I’ve yet to test it, but I plan to later today. Just be aware that if you want to take advantage of the DX11 features, you’ll need a capable card (ATI’s Radeon HD 5000 series are currently the only cards to support it), and also either Windows Vista or 7.

New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

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Asheron’s Call Turns 10

I don’t post much MMO-related news on the site, unless of course World of Warcraft sets yet another record, but today is special for a good reason, and I can’t go without saying anything. On November 2, 1999, Turbine Entertainment Software (now Turbine, Inc.) released its very first MMORPG called Asheron’s Call (Asheron Realaidain being the focused character), and ten years later, it’s still going strong. Where MMO’s are concerned, that’s a huge accomplishment.

When AC was first launched, the competition was slim. It was 1999, and MMO’s as a whole were barely beginning to catch on. Of the competition, Everquest, which was released six months earlier, was there and popular, and for the most part, most gamers considered EQ and AC to be the two main choices. So, it came down to a decision of the two. Given that MMO’s inherently act as time-sinks, you can’t very well play two at the same time and be successful in both. Back then, it wasn’t uncommon for players of either game to go to the opposite game’s forums and debate over which was better.

Today, AC has a much smaller community of players, but it’s still rich with activity. Without skipping much of a beat, the developers have continued to release monthly updates to the game which introduce new quests, items to collect, monsters to fight and once in a while, even a brand-new mechanic. Given the sheer number of updates since the game’s launch (over 100), I’d be hard-pressed to believe that another MMORPG could match AC in terms of raw content. Even as an eight-year player, I still stumble on content I haven’t touched before, and there’s a lot more out there that I haven’t partook in as well.

With current MMO’s such as Aion and Darkfall, it’s easy to look at AC and scoff. The game was released in 1999, and only had one graphics update, and even that wasn’t too major. But, the age-old saying that “Gameplay is more important than graphics” couldn’t be more true here. Even as players have moved onto other MMORPG’s over the years, the vast majority tend to agree that no game could match AC in terms of gameplay, storyline and overall depth. I’m of the same opinion.

As bizarre as it may sound, it was my playing Asheron’s Call that lead me to the events for me to start up Techgage, so in some regards, I feel I’m indebted to the game for those string of events and allowing me to today do what I love to do for a living. Here’s to another ten years, AC! *raises glass of Wah Chon’s Winter Lager*

Old-School Shot of Pre-Release AC

Asheron’s Call develops a heroic fantasy setting familiar enough to draw you in yet mysterious enough to draw you onward. A varied host of monsters populate the benighted, medieval terrain; mysterious artifacts of great power embellish vast treasure hoards; and sorcerers, fighters, and rogues plot both heroic alliances and base villainy. However, Asheron’s Call retains a strong flavor all its own, with an original backstory and creatures, and unparalleled flexibility in character creation and development.

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ScamVille: Social Networking Games Rich with Scams

Are you alive and breathing? Good. Chances are that you’re also a member of a site like Facebook or MySpace, and don’t feel bad… it seems like the vast majority is as well. My grandmother never uses her PC, and she finds most things about it complicated, but she’s on Facebook. Despite the fact that both MySpace and Facebook are relatively young in real-life terms, it certainly took no time at all for them to become such integral parts of our lives.

Some people use Facebook more than others. Myself, I check things out a couple of times a day, while others never close the tab in their browser. In fact, that’s how many people are, it seems, and one good reason might not be for the friend updates, but for the games. Who knew there would be such demand in these? Well, all of us probably, but not quite to such an extent. Some people are so addicted to these games, that I’ve actually had to block friends or associates because they spam their update feed with game-related speak. If you don’t play, it’s boring.

But I digress. With such a popular hobby taking over so many people’s lives, the chance for scamming is there, and as far as TechCrunch is concerned, it’s alive and well within gaming on various social networking sites. Michael Arrington goes into great detail about how the scams work, but to recap one example, imagine filling out a simple quiz to earn in-game cash for FarmVille, and without almost no notice whatsoever (it’s extremely hidden), you realize on your next phone bill that you’ve opted into a useless $9.99/month service.

Mike also exposes another related scam… Video Professor. I’ve seen commercials for this on TV for what seems like the past ten or fifteen years, but I didn’t realize how scammy it was, either. Even though the host of the commercial (and apparently the creator of the product) stresses that the sample is free (“only pay shipping”), what they try to hide is that you receive a disc that’s not free, and if you don’t contact them within ten days to state that you’re sending it back, you can expect a charge of near $200 to come to your door.

Scams like these seem simple to spot, but in fact, they’re not. The only way you’ll spot the scam is usually after you’ve already opted-into it, and by that time, it’s either too late, or you have some work to do to revert what’s happened. If you have a friend who either plays these games or are extremely addicted, help them out and warn them about such shadiness. I shudder to imagine how much money these companies are coining by ripping innocent gamers off.

Zynga may be spending $50 million a year on Facebook advertising alone, fueled partially by lead gen scams. Wonder how Facebook got to profitability way ahead of schedule? It was a surge in this kind of advertising. The money looks clean – it’s from Zynga, Playfish, Playdom and others. But a large portion of it is coming from users who’ve been tricked into one scam or another.

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VMware Workstation 7 Released

Just under three weeks ago, we posted that VMware had launched a release candidate to the general public for final testing, and it sure didn’t take too long before the final version was to hit the market. It’s available right now, and as a minor surprise, the retail value is $10 less than the previous version, making it $189 USD. For users of Workstation 5.x and 6.x, the upgrade fee is $99. If a 6.5 license was purchased within the previous 30 days, you qualify for a free upgrade.

As the final version is available, so are the release notes, so we can finally see all of what’s new or updated. As far as supported operating systems are concerned, supported hosts include Windows 7 (not Vista), Ubuntu 9.04, RHEL 5.3, OpenSUSE 11.x, Mandriva 2009 and SUSE Linux Enterprise 11.x. Guest support is available for those, and Windows 2008 R2 SP2, Vista SP2, Debian 5, CentOS 5.3 and Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.3.

Of all of the brand-new features, Windows 7 support is going to be the most paid attention to on the desktop side, especially given the fact that Workstation 7 also brings updated graphics capabilities to the table. Yes, that includes full Aero Glass support. In addition, Workstation 7 has the ability to completely override Windows 7’s Windows XP mode, which opens up important features such as 3D, support for additional processors and more RAM, along with improved file transfers.

For Windows guests, 3D support has been improved as mentioned, with added capabilities such as OpenGL 2.1 and Shader Model 3. From personal tests over the past few weeks, I’m pleased overall with the upgrades. I don’t find performance in general to be that much improved (although it could be), but I do find that 3D applications and games look a lot better, and have fewer glitches (originally discussed here). Applications such as 3DMark may even run, but that would be for no other reason than curiosity.

One feature that’s sure to please anyone who’s wanted to increase their virtual disk size in the past is the “Expand Virtual Disks” feature from within Workstation itself. You simply target the .vmdk you want to enlarge, then choose the option to expand, and put in the new value. It’s just that simple. Unfortunately, reducing the size of the virtual disks will require the command-line, unless you download a third-party tool. For Linux users, a new Fuse mounting feature has also been added, which allows you to mount virtual disks as a read-only hard drive in the OS.

As has been already known since the release candidate, Workstation 7 now allows up to 4 cores to be dedicated to a given VM, up from 2 in previous versions. Whether or not this is 4 literal cores, or 4 threads (which would be important on Core i with HyperThreading), I’m unsure, as I haven’t tested it out yet. Along with that support though comes the ability to dedicate up to 32GB of RAM to individual virtual machines. I’ll assume that few desktop users will be taking advantage of that capability anytime soon.

Three other features catch my eye from the list. As a Linux user, I appreciate the improvements made to the audio system, which now uses ALSA directly, meaning there’s no need for a second audio card in the machine. Another is virtual printing, which allows you to print to a real printer from within your guest OS, without the need to worry about mapping them through the network. Lastly, rather than sell Linux and Windows licenses separately as the company has in the past, going forward, one serial code will work for both versions, which is an “about time” move as far as I’m concerned.

As a whole, I’m enjoying Workstation 7 quite a bit, and there’s plenty here to warrant the major version bump. You can expect a more thorough look from us at the latest version and Workstation in general within the next month.

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Corsair Candy Corn Chassis Contest

This isn’t our contest, but it’s “sweet” enough for me to link to:

You can check out the contest page over at Tom’s Hardware.

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Intel Pulls 34nm SSD TRIM-enabled Firmware Due to Possible Bug

Earlier today, we posted a story which discussed both the TRIM command and also Intel’s new SSD Toolbox software, which is what issues the command for operating systems that don’t automatically support the feature. Today, however, Intel has pulled the firmware update due to initial reports that some users who upgrade have run into data corruption issues, which either renders the user’s OS inoperable, or in some cases, causes issue with the drive’s SMART information.

Intel’s official stance is as follows:

“We have been contacted by users with issues with the 34nm Intel SSD firmware upgrade and are investigating. We take all sightings and issues seriously and are working toward resolution. We have temporarily taken down the firmware link while we investigate.”

This isn’t the first time the 34nm “G2” drives have suffered data corruption issues, which isn’t helping the sales to say the least. The company’s drives already have far lower sequential write speeds when compared to the competition (in favor of faster random writes, which is arguably much more important), so many users are considering other solutions over Intel’s, such as Indilinx-based drives, which also support TRIM and haven’t suffered such data corruption bugs in the past.

We’re uncertain at the current time when the firmware will be re-posted, but if a bug is indeed found (and we expect that to be the case), then it may take a week or two before the latest version is posted. During our testing, we didn’t run into any issues, so like the previous data corruption bug, this one likely has to do with a very specific setting or configuration. If you downloaded the firmware before it was pulled, play it safe and hold off on the upgrade.

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R.I.P.: GeoCities

GeoCities. Chances are, if you’ve been on the Internet since the mid-to-late 1990’s, you have something to say about GeoCities. You might hate the service, as it resulted in thousands of useless websites, or you might have nothing but praise, since it was an outlet that allowed you to express your creativity in the form of a webpage. Regardless of your thoughts, GeoCities used to be a major part of the Internet, and there were few people who hadn’t heard of it.

GeoCities, which began out as “Beverly Hills Internet” (to think, this was at a time when there wasn’t a shortage of good names!), became a household name fast with those who had access to the Internet. There were few services that allowed regular Joe’s to create their own website for free, but GeoCities did, and they were one of the best (Tripod and Angelfire were also popular). So much so, that companies like Yahoo! invested in the company, and ended up purchasing them out-right in late 1999 for $3.57 billion in stock. Today, an acquisition like this isn’t even thought much of, but back then, that kind of transaction was major.

After that point, Yahoo! slowly shifted GeoCities away from the limelight, and eventually started focusing on its own venture called Yahoo! Web Hosting, a paid service that offered more robust service and webspace allowances, in addition to a personal web address (not something.geocities.com). Eventually, GeoCities  was becoming more of a burden than anything, and it was with that, that a few months ago, Yahoo! decided to pull the plug, with the final date for the site being today.

If you still had a site hosted with GeoCities, hopefully you already got all you needed from the site, as Yahoo! seems rather relentless in purging all of the data as soon as possible. The Internet Archive has been pushing its servers hard over the past few months to download as many GeoCities websites as possible, so if you happened to have lost yours, you can check there and see if it’s been backed up.

R.I.P. GeoCities, and thank you for some of my earliest moments of the web.

However, we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways. Beginning on October 26, 2009, you will no longer be able to use GeoCities to maintain a free presence online – but we’re excited about the other services we have designed to help you connect with friends and family and share your activities and interests.

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Apple’s Pricing Premiums Never Cease to Impress

Apple updated both its MacBook and iMac line-ups yesterday, and though I have little interest in the company’s products, I decided to head on over to its site and see what was new. At the same time, I also wanted to see what kind of “Apple tax” these new machines had, and whether or not the situation is as extreme as before. Well, I didn’t have to look too far to get an answer. In this case, my answer laid with the 21.5″ iMac’s.

As is typical of Apple, there are two models per size. One retails for $1,199, while the upgraded version sells for $1,499. Prices like these don’t seem so bad for an all-in-one machine, especially the $1,199 model, but when you consider the hardware under the hood, you might think twice. In both models, the CPU included is a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo. Yes, that’s a dual-core, not a quad. Oh, but you can upgrade it to a 3.33GHz for only $200 (give me the quad-core Q8200 at $150 any day).

The fact that Apple, and others, charge insane premiums on hardware is nothing new, but Apple takes things to the next level. I noted two different models, with the “higher-end” costing $300 more. After meticulously looking over the specs pages for both, I found only two differences. That $300 will get you an upgrade from a 500GB hard drive to a 1TB offering, and also upgrade the integrated graphics from the NVIDIA 9400M to an ATI HD 4670 256MB.

I use bold there because the 256MB version of the card isn’t even for sale anymore on any e-tailer I checked. Only the 512MB version is, and it sells for $60. The premium on the hard drive? Going from a 500GB to 1TB in the real marketplace is a $25 – $30 premium. So overall, Apple is charging $300 for $90 “upgrades”. I use the term upgrades loosely, because the HD 4670 is hardly a stellar GPU. For that premium, you’d expect to at least get a decent mid-range card capable of actually pushing graphics with the display’s native resolution of 1080p.

Yes, I’m aware that the iMac is an all-in-one, and that in itself rules out certain GPUs, but there are better options than the HD 4670. Even ATI’s brand-new HD 5750 would be a perfect drop-in. It not only uses less power and runs cool, it offers far better performance. Since those retail for just $109 to the end-consumer, Apple could have used it and still made a healthy profit.

The new iMac features stunning LED-backlit displays with a 16:9 aspect ratio, ideal for watching high definition movies and TV shows from iTunes, or editing and watching your own videos or photos using iLife. The new 21.5-inch iMac features a high resolution 1920-by-1080 pixel display. The 27-inch iMac features a beautiful 2560-by-1440 pixel display that offers 60 percent more pixels than the previous 24-inch model. Both 21.5 and 27-inch displays use IPS technology to deliver consistent color across an ultra wide 178 degree viewing angle.

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Upgrading to Windows 7? Run the Upgrade Advisor First!

In case you are somehow unaware, Microsoft launches its Windows 7 OS tomorrow, with immediate availability. You can of course “pre-order” it on various websites now, or simply walk into a brick and mortar store tomorrow and pick up a copy. If you want to take the OEM route (limited to a single computer, but far less expensive), you’ll likely have no choice but to go the online route, unless you either work at a computer shop, or know someone who does.

I’m willing to bet that the majority of you visiting our site have a computer capable of handling Windows 7, but do you either want to upgrade a family member’s machine, or a spare PC somewhere in your house? Before you commit to a purchase, the best idea is to run Microsoft’s own “Upgrade Advisor” tool that scans your current configuration and gives you a list of a-ok’s and caveats.

Because I’ve already upgraded my PCs to Windows 7, I didn’t have a proper PC to run this upgrade advisor on, so I just took to my Windows XP install inside of VMware to give it a shot. The process took about one minute to complete, and afterwards, it told me that I couldn’t do a typical upgrade, but rather have to conduct a fresh install (that will always be the case when upgrading from XP).

Because my graphics driver lacks proper acceleration (in VMware), it noted that I wouldn’t be able to run Windows Aero (I in fact can, but it’s understandable why it couldn’t tell the difference). It also told me that Outlook Express is no longer part of Windows, and recommended me to check out alternatives, such as Windows Live Mail. Overall, it did say I could upgrade to Windows 7, however. I don’t expect this test to be too hardcore, but for actual older machines, it’s likely capable of saving you both money and time.

The Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor scans your PC for potential compatibility issues and lets you know about your Windows 7 upgrade options. Within minutes, you’ll get a report that tells you if your PC meets the system requirements, if any known compatibility issues with your hardware, devices, and installed programs are found, and gives guidance on what to do to before installing Windows 7 on your PC.

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AMD Launches Eight Athlon II Processors

Just in time for the Windows 7 season, AMD has launched not one, not two, but eight new Athlon II processors. Ranging from the X2 235e at $69 to the X4 650e at $143, there’s a CPU to fit pretty-much any budget and requirement. Like the X4 620 we took a look at two weeks ago, none of these new Athlon II’s feature an L3 cache, so the performance will be effected in scenarios that can utilize it, such as video encoding, and in some cases, even gaming.

Given the overall price-range of these new models, though, it’s clear that AMD is trying hard to dominate the budget market, and with such a wide selection, the company has a good chance of doing it. Of these eight new CPUs, four are triple-core, two are dual-core and two are quad-core. You might notice that the new quads actually cost more than the X4 620 which debuted at $99, but that’s because these are “e” versions. “e” denotes a 45W part, which is roughly half the current non-“e” quad-core parts.

AMD states that these new models would be perfect for those looking to build an efficient PC, an HTPC, or anyone looking for solid performance at the right price. With quad-cores at or just above $100, the company is certainly doing all it can to stay in people’s minds. Although these CPUs are set to launch immediately, I haven’t found them listed on any e-tailer at the time of writing. I’d expect this to change very soon, however, as I’m sure AMD has made sure that consumers could acquire these right before the Windows 7 launch.

We’ll have a review of two of these CPUs in the coming week.

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Games to Look Forward to in 2010

Looking back at the PC gaming landscape of 2009, I can’t help but feel like I didn’t put in as much time as I should have to go through some of the great titles that came out. I have no excuse for it, considering I own most of them for benchmarking purposes, but… that will be a lesson to me. Some say that PC gaming is dying, but I disagree. Although the platform shares a lot of games with consoles, many titles simply play better, and look better on the PC.

As a quick recap, some well-received titles throughout the year included Batman: Arkham Asylum (this is one I am planning to review once time allows), Bionic Commando, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, Fuel, Resident Evil 5, Risen, Street Fighter IV, Wolfenstein (this is a fair bit of fun MP, as I found out this past weekend), and more. But I have to say, after taking a look towards gaming in 2010, I can’t help but feel really excited for some titles that are en route.

The folks at Digital Battle prepared a top 20 list of what to look forward to during 2010, and while only 11 are going to be available on the PC (two exclusive), all 11 have tons of promise. First, there’s Postal 3. Postal is a game series that’s been hailed as a cult classic, due to its incredibly controversial content and hilarious gameplay. Postal 2 wasn’t well-received, so hopefully 3 can deliver like the original. There’s also an interesting new urban MMO called APB (All Points Bulletin), which is lead by the creator of the original GTA and also Crackdown. So, that pretty much gives you an idea of what to expect.

Personally, I’m looking forward to a few games on the list, including S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (what is it with all these “Call of” titles?!), Deus Ex 3 and also Max Payne 3. The original titles for each game here were quite amazing as far as I’m concerned, with my overall nod going to Max Payne (the first two were simply incredible). There’s also Rage, of course, from id Software. I don’t know too much about the game, but id has never released a title that has really disappointed, so hopefully Rage will continue that tradition.

Id Software’s first original game in decades, Rage is a fusion between a first person shooter and a racing game set in a post-apocalyptic Mad Max styled world. It’s built on the brand new ID Tech 5 engine, and will ship on 3 DVDs for the Xbox 360 and PC versions, while the PS3 edition will ship on one Blu-ray disc. Id Software legend and Rage developer John Carmack revealed that the game takes up a whopping 1 TB in space when not compressed. 3 DVDs don’t seem that much of a big deal now.

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Logitech Announces G110 Gaming Keyboard

There’s a lot of competition in the gaming peripheral market, but one company that seems to stay on top in gamer’s hearts year after years is Logitech. Part of that could be the company’s reach, since they’ve sold more peripherals than anyone else, and are available in more countries than anyone else. But it also comes down to overall quality. I’ve been using Logitech peripherals for a while, and although I’m not what I’d consider a hardcore gamer, I do appreciate quality equipment with gamer-specific features.

One area where Logitech has always done well is with its gaming keyboard line-up, the G1x. One of the best reasons for that is the ease of implementing macros, and lots of them. Other reasons include general design, an LCD screen and even a scroll-wheel. Last last week, the company announced its first new gaming keyboard since the G19 earlier this year, called the G110.

This keyboard doesn’t have the LED/LCD screen that we’ve come to expect, but in its place comes features that the previous keyboard lacks. One of the most noticeable features is the LED back-lighting. Logitech implemented red and blue LEDs, and claim that you can create pretty much any shade of purple as you want, while also simply using red or blue if that’s what you want.

The G-keys make a return, allowing you to create up to 36 different macros at a time, per game. These can be simple multi-key macros, or macros created with the Lua scripting language. Other gamer-specific features include the ability to disable the Windows and context-menu keys, and also a scroll-wheel. The G110 also acts as a hub, and it’s designed to allow you to plug in your USB-based gaming mouse, headphones and microphone, all into the back.

The G110 will become available in late November in North America, and January in Europe, and will retail for $79.99.

For our previous G-Series keyboards, Hi-Speed USB, audio jacks, and customizable colors were very frequent requests. In order to add those features without exceeding the available power budget of the PC’s USB port, however, we were only able to include one USB hub port on the keyboard. Similarly, the 18 G-keys were a popular feature with many, but the fact that the keyboard didn’t fit into keyboard trays was just as big an issue for many others. In the research we’ve done and the conversations I’ve had with customers, 12 seemed to be the best compromise between functionality and product size.

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Why Can’t Sickness Be Undervolted?

Alright… I’m taking a big chance by posting another rant in our news section, because I believe I might be jinxing myself. Let’s recap the past few months. At the beginning of September, I whined about benchmarking gone wrong, which erased four days from my life. Not fun. A month later, the main OS hard drive in my PC crashed. Also not fun. Then last week, I mentioned that the secondary hard drive in our server’s RAID 1 array died. That admittedly isn’t such a big issue, but still not fun.

With all that had gone wrong over the course of the past few months, was I free and clear for a while? I’m not too sure, as I woke up last Wednesday feeling like, to keep this a technical post, like an overclocked processor on LN2. Yes, I felt like I was both hot and cold, on top of a sore throat, headache, nose problems and more. Whew. It’s not so much the cold that bothers me, but that it came in right when I was getting underway on some fun content… content that should have been posted last week.

I’m not quite 100% at the moment, but I’m feeling far, far better than I was last week and part of the weekend. So, this week will be great for content as I’ll be getting our “backlog” (content I planned to get posted) taken care of. Because one article in particular requires more than a day’s worth of time to prepare, I don’t expect to get content posted until mid-week, but it’s somewhat time-sensitive, so it’s a priority.

After that article is posted, we’ll soon follow-up with our review of AMD’s latest Athlon II dual-core and triple-core processors. AMD, in case you haven’t noticed, has been releasing new CPU models like there’s no tomorrow, so stay tuned to see if these new budget processors deliver the bang for the buck we’re all looking for.

You might have also noticed that we’re behind on our HD 5870, HD 5850 and HD 5750 reviews, but don’t worry, all are on their way. The HD 5870 is off a little ways, but you can expect the latter two to be posted within the next two weeks, with the first being the HD 5750. There’s more content than just this en route of course, so keep checking back as we’ll be getting some good stuff posted!

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Intel’s “Sponsors of Tomorrow” Commercials – Marketing Brilliance?

I’m a man who does not enjoy his commercials. Like the ads on our site, I understand why commercials, online of off, are necessary, but the truly good commercials are far too rare. Most are boring, repetitive, and grow old fast. There are special occasions when that’s not the case, such as during the Superbowl, but that’s because that’s a time when advertisers actually put real effort into creating a commercial that’s both informative and fun.

Some recent exceptions to my ad hatred would have to be Intel’s “Sponsors of Tomorrow” commercials. These ads are simple overall, and don’t push a particular product, but rather allow consumers to enter the minds of Intel engineers. I’m sure a lot of this is exaggerated, but it doesn’t make it less funny. Just how successful this ad campaign is, and whether or not it will result in higher revenues, I’m not sure, but it’s sure not going to hurt.

Over the past few months, there’s been a variety of Sponsors of Tomorrow commercials released, and all of them are available at YouTube from Intel’s “channelintel” erm… channel. One of the funniest (in my opinion) was released just two days ago, and is pictured below (click it to go straight to the video). This is the type of humor that, despite involving complex situations, comes off lightly to anyone.

I’ve showed these videos to a variety of people over the past few weeks, and the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. Even the tech illiterate could appreciate them, and that says something. As far as I’m concerned, this is what creative marketing should be, and I’d have little doubt that it has the potential to keep the  name “Intel” to stick in people’s minds. What do you think? Hit up the video below, and the others I have listed below it.

Intel “Oops” TV Ad
Our Co-Workers Aren’t Like Your Co-Workers
Our Doodles Aren’t Like Your Doodles
Our Parties Aren’t Like Your Parties
Our Perks Aren’t Like Your Perks
Our Team Players Aren’t Like Your Team Players

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Family Guy Set to Help Sell Windows 7

One of the hottest TV shows of the season, and even previous TV seasons, is Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy. I admit that I personally thought the episodes so far this season have been mediocre at best (and I’m a huge FG fan), but it seems like I’m one of the few who feel that way. It was reported just the other day that the show actually eclipsed ABC’s Desperate Housewives as being the Sunday night leader in terms of ratings.

Since Windows 7 is launching right in the middle of TV’s fall line-up, Microsoft had a unique advertising idea. What about sponsoring a Family Guy episode with the overall hint of recommending the company’s latest OS to consumers? That’s not just an idea, but a reality, as the show is currently in the works, and will be called, “Family Guy Presents: Seth & Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show”. It will air on Sunday, November 8 at 8:30PM ET (and PT).

The idea behind this unique advertisement is a throwback to “Texaco Star Theater”, which was a TV variety show that featured a main overall brand, although it didn’t entirely effect the programming itself. So in this Family Guy episode, it’s unlikely that the episode will bluntly force Windows 7 into the dialog. Rather, I see it as more of an overall sponsorship, which will be mentioned during the commercial breaks. I could be wrong, though. It’s going to be interesting. Here’s to hoping it’s actually a funny episode!

“While the way people watch TV has evolved, their desire to be entertained, and marketers’ need to deliver compelling content, hasn’t changed,” the companies said. “Microsoft and Fox are joining forces to showcase how the power and simplicity of Windows 7 can enhance the content Fox viewers enjoy most, whether it’s comedy, drama, sports, or reality programming on TV or on the Web.”

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Intel Posts Strong Third-Quarter Results

The harsh economy is making it harder than ever for companies to post profits, but Intel is one of the rarer exceptions. It isn’t only publishing impressive revenue reports, but is even exceeding its own expectations. So much so, that with the posted revenue of $9.4 billion for Q3, the company has experienced the strongest second-to-third-quarter growth in over 30 years. Now that’s impressive.

In addition to Q3 revenue, Intel also posted an operating income of $2.6 billion, net income of $1.9 billion, a gross margin increase from 51% to 58% and an earnings-per-share of $0.33. Thanks to these fantastic posted results, Intel’s stock (NASDAQ: INTC) closed yesterday at 20.49, which is the highest it’s been since last September. Between last fall and this past June, the stock has hovered between 12 – 16, but it’s been consistently on the rise since mid-June.

Intel’s CEO, Paul Otellini, states that the growth is proof of just how important computing is in people’s lives, especially during the recovery of a tough economy. He goes onto say that the company’s 32nm process technology will help usher in a new wave of innovation, with effected products ranging from Xeon to Atom. If this momentum continues, and signs are that it will, Intel’s Q4 reports may prove equally as impressive, if not more.

“Intel’s strong third-quarter results underscore that computing is essential to people’s lives, proving the importance of technology innovation in leading an economic recovery,” said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO. “This momentum in the current economic climate, plus our product leadership, gives us confidence about our business prospects going forward.

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Want “World of Goo”? Name Your Price!

If you’ve ever wanted to try the acclaimed indie hit, “World of Goo”, the time to do so is now. To help celebrate the game’s first birthday, the developers are allowing you to set the price. Simply pay for it what you think it’s worth. Sure sure… that’s kind of hard to do without having even played the game (there is a demo), but from what I have heard from friends, it’s quite a bit of fun… a silent smash hit, if you will.

World of Goo is developed by only two guys, who sought out to create a simple, yet incredibly fun, platformer game that took full advantage of physics to get players through the levels. Most of the game is comprised of goo… the objects, the characters, the buildings and more. Like any GOOd platformer, World of Goo features a variety of different goo types that you’ll need to get through specific parts of the game. And believe it or not, there’s even a multiplayer mode, which allows you to compete by building the biggest buildings in the gooniverse (I’m done with these dumb jokes).

Don’t want the game for yourself? You’re able to gift it to someone else. You can purchase, choose to gift it, and the friend will receive an e-mail with the download instructions, and also a note so they know who it’s from. I already own this game (but have never played it oddly enough), but if I didn’t, I’d be all over this like goo on… more goo.

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle / construction game. The millions of Goo Balls who live in the beautiful World of Goo don’t know that they are in a game, or that they are extremely delicious.

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Microsoft Looks to Many-Core Future: Windows 7 Supports up to 256 Cores

In the fall of 2006, the world saw the launch of the first desktop quad-core processor. It came from Intel in the form of the Core 2 Extreme QX6700, and although it wasn’t overly fast when compared to higher-clocked dual-cores, the fact that the chip contained two dual-cores put together (literally) got people talking. At that time, many people were still trying to find a use for dual-cores, so quad-cores were laughable for some.

Since that time, though, it’s become obvious where quad-cores and multi-core processors in general can shine. Today, it’s not unlikely that any computer user could take full advantage of a quad-core, because even mainstream applications today are being built with multi-threadedness in mind. Videos encode faster, audio encodes faster, alterations to images render faster, et cetera.

I think by now many people would give the nod to quad-core for having real use for a lot of people, but it’s when we go higher that the effectiveness of such a solution becomes hard to gauge. When we reviewed Intel’s octal-core Skulltrail system last spring, we really had a difficult time putting all eight cores to good use. So what has to be done? Well, more applications need to be written with multi-threaded goals, and companies like Microsoft need to make sure their OS can equally take advantage of the extra cores.

Fortunately, Windows 7 improves itself over Vista for making itself useful to multi-core, and part of that is new support for up to 256 cores total (compared to 64 for Vista). While those numbers seem astronomical at this point in time, who knows what the future’s going to bring. After all, if certain scenarios were truly multi-threaded and could take advantage of such a large number of cores, we might begin to see processors with dozens of slower-clocked cores, similar to Intel’s Larabee. Don’t quote me, but if Microsoft is taking multi-core so seriously with Windows 7, you’d imagine there might just be a reason for it.

The improvements that enabled the increased number of cores also will improve performance with standard consumer numbers of cores — typically 2 to 4 — via improvements in cache and workload balancing. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 also features greatly improved support for multi-threading and should allow Windows applications makers to make more efficient Windows 7 apps that leverage multiple cores.

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Conan O’Brien Interviews Intel’s Ajay Bhatt

As anyone who regularly watches The Tonight Show has probably already realized, Intel is a rather significant sponsor this season, and as part of the company’s benefits, Conan features interviews with Intel’s staff, and in the past, tours of the company’s headquarters, which we talked about this past summer. Conan isn’t exactly the biggest tech geek out there, but despite that, the segments have been continually hilarious.

In a segment that aired last week, Conan interviews Ajay Bhatt, one of Intel’s “Rockstars”. You might remember the commercial that featured him, with fellow employees screaming at the very sight of such genius. In addition to being the co-creator of the USB port, he also was responsible for AGP, PCI-Express, platform power management and various chipset enhancements. Simply put, he deserves his rockstar moniker.

I didn’t realize this until watching the clip, but the Ajay Bhatt in the commercial is not the real person (understandably, many engineers aren’t exactly actor-material), but he still seems like he has a great sense of humor (and you pretty much have to in order to survive an interview with Conan). Just watch the clip… it’s well worth it.

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NVIDIA Inside of Nintendo’s Next-Gen Handheld?

There have been a lot of doubters around NVIDIA’s Tegra architecture, and some of it might be for good reason. Last summer when the technology was first exposed, we were promised some huge things, and no current or upcoming Tegra device looks to live up to that initial hype. Things started to look up for the company when Microsoft jumped on board and decided to implement Tegra into its Zune HD device. Any way you look at it, that’s a nice win.

According to tech rumor site Bright Side of News*, NVIDIA has another design win that’s arguably far more impressive than the Zune HD. The site’s confidential source states that Tegra will be found inside of Nintendo’s next-generation handheld console, the follow-up to the Nintendo DS. If this proves true, then its just the boost NVIDIA needs to start proving to the industry that it’s supposed death is highly exaggerated.

When the Nintendo DS was first launched in the fall of 2004, I’m not sure who could have predicted just how well it would sell five years later. Since its launch, it has sold close to 110 million units. If Nintendo’s follow-up proves just as successful, that’s huge success for NVIDIA as well, and it might very well help bolster sales with other leading mobile vendors who might opt for Tegra.

What might be most interesting about the next-gen DS is that with Tegra, Nintendo might begin to take graphics a little more seriously. Though, it’s hard to predict such a thing when the release date is truly unknown. The original DS had a fun library, but compared to Sony’s PSP, its graphics were lackluster in all regards. Is Nintendo finally planning to compete with Sony where graphics are concerned? Hopefully. I’m all for fun gameplay over fancy graphics, but having both is rarely a bad thing.

The question of power consumption and performance is quite an interesting one. With Gen2 Tegra offering quite a graphics punch;GeForce 9 based hardware [CUDA-enabled design] should offer immense experience on small screens – we see no reason why you could not have 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic filtering on a dual-screen system. If Nintendo picked the current gen hardware, i.e. Tegra 600 or APX 2600- it will be getting 65nm chips.

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Snow Leopard Bug Could Result in Data Loss

When Apple’s “Snow Leopard” operating system hit the market in late August, it promised some big things, despite offering such a small feature-set. The goal wasn’t to bombard consumers with new features, but rather deliver a much faster OS experience, and that was pulled off thanks to the fact that it was almost completely re-written. Since its launch, however, Snow Leopard hasn’t been the most well-received, for a few reasons.

The most “minor” of them all was due to the lack of that new OS feeling… there just wasn’t much to savour. For those who purchased it thinking otherwise, no one could be blamed but themselves, because no one claimed it was to deliver numerous new features, and the price tag, at $29, proved it. That’s the minor issue… the major issue(s) come down to bugs, and a fair number of them. While most are mild in their overall effect, there’s one that lingers that has the ability to cause some major headaches for consumers.

In short, the bug can result in lost data, and from what I can tell, it’s specific to the user’s home folder. That’s the scary part… the even scarier part is knowing just how easy it is to pull it off. The process is as simple as logging into the guest account, and then back into your own. That’s all. According to Apple, the effect is rare, but there have been reports of it occurring ever since the OS’ launch. Apple is investigating deeper, and I’d assume that a patch to correct the issue will be released as soon as possible.

You have to appreciate the irony of such a bug, because Apple has been extremely vocal over the years of just how secure its OS is compared to the competition (Windows). Yet, here’s a bug that’s obscenely simple to pull off, and it could potentially render all data in your home folder vanished. I’m not familiar enough with Mac OS X’s file system to know if data could be easily recovered, but if it’s anything like most Linux file systems, the chances of recovery are ridiculously slim.

“When I logged into my MacBook Pro this morning, it was as if I had logged into my Guest Account and not my standard user profile,” user parshallnet said. “No icons on the desktop, the desktop wallpaper was the default ‘space’ photo and not the one I had assigned, no documents in the docs folder, apps behaved as if I’d never opened them before.” The issue was initially reported when Snow Leopard first launched, but complaints have grown as adoption of the platform has continued. Monday, Engadget highlighted the issue.

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Is Intel Cheating for Higher 3DMark Scores?

For as long as it’s been possible to write a graphics driver in such a way that it can inflate the results of popular benchmarking applications, it’s been done. NVIDIA is one company that’s been accused of it many times in the past, most recently when it changed its driver to allow the graphics card to utilize itself for CPU purposes, which inflated the end CPU score in 3DMark Vantage to unreachable levels by modern-day processors.

But it’s not NVIDIA on the hot-seat today, but rather Intel. As investigated by our friends at The Tech Report, Intel seems to be writing specific optimizations in its driver that ends up inflating the end 3DMark Vantage score. How it’s done is that when a supported application (as in, executable) is detected, the driver shifts some of the workload over to the processor, so as to improve the overall gaming performance.

That seems like a fair method of doing things to me, because if the CPU isn’t being used, then an extra boost of performance is going to be appreciated. But the problem is that the optimization in the driver actually lists 3DMark Vantage… it’s not a general optimization. With such “trickery”, Futuremark might not approve of Intel’s latest driver for use in published benchmark results. But, despite the naysayers, Intel states that it’s very confident that Futuremark will approve the driver.

It should be noted that 3DMark isn’t the only affected application. Actual games that will see the feature include Crysis, Lost Planet and Call of Juarez. To keep this fair, Intel should really remove these “profiles” and write the driver to take advantage of this functionality whenever needed… it should be completely application-agnostic. It’s not, though, so until Futuremark gives its final word, we’ll have to just speculate as to whether or not Intel is trying to cheat the system. What do you guys think?

Intel’s software-based vertex processing scheme improves in-game frame rates by nearly 50% when Crysis.exe is detected, at least in the first level of the game we used for testing. However, even 15 FPS is a long way from what we’d consider a playable frame rate. The game doesn’t exactly look like Crysis Warhead when running at such low detail levels, either. Our Warhead results do prove that Intel’s optimization can improve performance in actual games, though—if only in this game and perhaps the handful of others identified in the driver INF file.

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