- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
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Secret Android SDK Seeded to Select Developers, Concern Raises About Open Platform
When the Open Handset Alliance debuted, Google made the promise that the platform would be open source and free to developers. The community assumed at the time, and rightfully so, that the SDK would be available to everyone, without bias. However, at time went on and the dated beta development kit made more onlookers question the overall tangibility of the endeavour, many were left wondering what fate was left to the still unreleased mobile operating system. Unfortunately for those left to question, news broke today that will surely break some developers’ hearts.
For whatever reason, Google has been giving out newer versions of the SDK to 50 developers who were finalists in the Android Developer Challenge under NDA. The dealing, which had been unearthed by accident as a Google employee mistakenly sent out a message about build 84853 of the SDK to a pubic mailing list, was awknowledged, but ultimately ignored by both Google and the developers involved.
I believe what most outraged developers are seeking is an explanation. The simple fact that no one was publicly notified of the existence of the newer builds, as Ars Technica points out, did a lot to crush developers’ trust, and perhaps faith, in the platform.
Google vowed that its Linux-based Android mobile platform would empower enthusiasts and amateur developers, but today we have seen compelling evidence that this is an empty promise. Third-party Android application developers, who have grown increasingly frustrated with the lack of SDK updates, were shocked to discover that Google has been secretly making new versions of the Android SDK available to the Android Developer Challenge (ADC) finalists under non-disclosure agreements.
Intel Launches Centrino 2 Mobile Platform
Intel today has announced a major upgrade to their Centrino platform, which first debuted in 2003. Hard to believe it was that long ago, isn’t it? Between then and now, countless technology advancements have been made, so we were in huge need of such an upgrade. What’s new? Faster and more power efficient 45nm processors, upgraded WiFi connectivity and a whole lot more.
Let’s start with the six new processors. On the low-end, there is the P8400 2.26GHz, which features 3MB of L2 cache. It shares the same specs and TDP of 25W as the P8600, at 2.40GHz. For the higher-end mid-range (contradiction? nah) parts, there is the T9400 and T9600, at 2.53GHz and 2.80GHz, respectively. Both feature 6MB of L2 cache and a 35W TDP.
The biggest processor launch is the X9100, a 3.06GHz Dual-Core offering, featuring the same general specs as the others, but with an unlocked multiplier. All six of the processors have (finally) been upgraded to a 1066MHz front-side bus.
Processors is not the lone upgrade, of course. DDR3 support has been added, which is not-so-surprising since we’ve seen announcements from memory companies for well over a month now. S-ATA 3.0Gbps, eSATA and even ATI Crossfire support is added. Wait… Crossfire support? Yes, Crossfire support. Found deep within the press materials is mention of this, and given recent performance from the latest ATI GPUs, this is worth getting excited over.
Also on the graphics front, “switchable graphics” is a technology similar to Hybrid Crossfire, where one integrated GPU can be paired with a discrete one. This isn’t only to provide increased gaming performance, but also add to the power-saving aspect. This should really come in handy on large notebooks that generally eat up a battery like there is no tomorrow.
On top of all that, vPro has also been updated, along with the WiFi (450Mbps!) and products will be available soon. What we have to look forward to later this year are both Quad-Core offerings (though in small doses at first) and also a dual WiMAX/WiFi support, which would provide both kinds of support from the same module. The notebook forecast is looking good. Very good.
Microsoft’s E3 Event Showcases Major Improvements
Microsoft’s E3 conference just ended, and the company dished out a lot of new information. First and foremost, they showed off new footage of Gears of War 2, Fable II, Fallout 3, Rock Band 2, Guitar Hero On Tour, Resident Evil 5 and, in a much more surprising note, Final Fantasy XIII (!), which was unveiled at the end of the event.
Along with the major games, partners also showed off Geometry Wars 2, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Portal: Still Alive, Galaga Legion (a sequel to the famous arcade game), as well as others. Microsoft also announced their plans to include NBC, Universal, MGM and Constantin’s content in their HD video marketpalce (which is available now) and integrate Netflix’s Instant Queue feature to the new version of the dashboard.
Finally, the redesigned dashboard features Avatars, a digital replication of yourself, and “Primetime,” featuring a virtual gameshow which will offer real prizes. All of this thrown into a new user interface. Games will finally be allowed to run off the hard drive, and the Xbox 360 will add support for 16:10 resolutions over HDMI and VGA.
AMD’s HD 4870 X2 Gets Early Testing
When AMD launched their HD 4000 series last month, good things happened. Both cards (HD 4850, HD 4870) debuted at fantastic prices, and competed severely with NVIDIA’s recent offerings. It was the first time in a while we saw such a thing. Well, what could top that launch might be the X2 cards, starting off with the HD 4870 X2.
Our friends at the Tech Report have scored themselves an engineering sample and put it to some early tests. Compared to the older HD 3000 X2 cards, not much has changed in way of board layout, so it all lays with the performance now. Not surprisingly, the card delivers.
Interestingly, the card not only manages to out-perform SLI’d GTX 280’s in many tests, the performance between the X2 and dual HD 4870’s in Crossfire deliver almost identical performance. I might have to change my opinions from last week on the GeForce GTX 280, with new performance numbers like these. By the looks of things, it will all come down to price. Too bad we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see what those will be.
 Credit: Tech Report |
Although this product’s code name, R700, follows a naming convention similar to past high-end Radeon GPUs, it’s not really a new GPU at all. Instead, it’s just two RV770 graphics processors having a party together on one PCB, pretty much like the Radeon HD 3870 X2 was in the last generation. In fact, the new X2 looks an awful lot like the old one at first glance.
Albatron Refuses to Give Up on PCI
When the PCI-Express standard began to overshadow AGP, some people were upset. Sure, AGP was still capable, but PCI-E was pushing things towards the future. Faster bus speeds, lower latencies… perfect for the ultra-powerful GPUs we see today. So with AGP pretty-well phased out almost entirely now, who could even consider using a PCI slot for a GPU?
Apparently, Albatron. They have released three brand-new GPUs for PCI, those being the 8400 GS, 8500 GT and 8600 GT. Obviously, these are not meant to offer compelling gameplay experiences, but neither of these cards are that bad considering they should prove more powerful than many late-gen mid-range AGP cards.
Most interesting might be the fact that both the 8500 GT and 8600 GT feature HDMI output. The site doesn’t mention HDCP support, however, so I’m led to believe it’s not going to be suitable for HD video (no surprise, I guess). Pricing and availability is also not known, but if you just so happen to be in or around China, chances are these are readily available.
Albatron Technology has unveiled three new NVIDIA GeForce 8-series graphics cards that use the practically outdated PCI slot. While the appeal of the PCI8600GT-256X, the PCI8500GT-256X and the PCI8400GS-256 may not be obvious for anyone who has a PCI Express or even AGP slot on their motherboard, there are still quite a few systems (particularly small form factor or HTPC ones) where expansion options are limited, creating an niche market for these cards.
Microsoft Officially Drops Price of Premium Xbox 360, Adds 60GB Model
In a case of “we all saw that coming,” Microsoft officially announced their plans to drop the price of their Premium ( or “Pro”) console to $299 and release a new 60GB version at the old 20GB’s price point. What we weren’t so sure about was their intention to discontinue the 20GB model altogether, so this price cut is really a clearance sale in disguise. The remaining SKUs were left unaltered.
Even though the Xbox 360 Elite is sticking to it’s original price of $449, Amazon.com is offering a seemingly limited-time discount, which brings the price down to $399, presumably to better fit with Microsoft’s other offerings. Hopefully this price will follow the Elite to other outlets as well.
It seems that with the growing sales of the PS3, Microsoft is looking for a way to increase adoption of its console in an already saturated market, as well as increase its ground with more casual gamers. With prices this low and many of the quality control problems stamped out, its hard to resist.
Redmond, Washington—Microsoft is giving consumers more gigabytes for their buck. The company today announced an Xbox 360® console with triple the storage space of the original console, but for the same price of $349 (U.S.) estimated retail price.
Available in retail stores in the U.S. and Canada starting in early August, the upgraded Xbox 360 will include a 60GB hard drive for storing the growing wealth of digital entertainment available for the console, including music, movies, television shows, and game content. In addition, Microsoft today dropped the price of its 20GB Xbox 360 console in the U.S. and Canada to just $299 (U.S.) (ERP) while supplies last, a savings of $50.
Apple Having Issues with iPhone Activation and Upgrades, MobileMe
The massive global iPhone launch has left many unfortunate customers without a phone a phone at all. Soon after the iPhone launch in the USA and Canada, Apple’s iTunes activation servers failed, and stumbling AT&T, Rogers and Apple employees were left in confusion. Some people were reportedly sent home with their phones to activate on their own, while others were kept in the store in hopes that the problems would be resolved. General reports around the major news sites indicate that activation from iTunes seems to be a hit or miss. As you may remember, Apple and AT&T had similar problems last year, and the issues were eventually resolved.
Also, for some reason, the new iPhone 2.0 software upgrade automatically pushed through iTunes seems to be rendering some units unusable. The scale of the totally amount of people having problems is not clear, but the interesting thing is that the leaked update found yesterday doesn’t seem to be the cause of the issues other than possible instability, because it is a different build.
Finally, as if things couldn’t get any worse, Apple had a tough time rolling out the MobileMe update, with the site going up and down throughout the day. At the time of writing, the site is up, but new users aren’t allowed to register, and the service is slow for those able to log in. Apple’s online services have been noted for their uptime, but the launch is just underway and there are bound to be problems with the amount of curious users wanting to try out the new features.
Overall, I think Apple was ill prepared tried to do too much in such a short time frame. Since they are partnered so closely with other companies for the iPhone, there is obviously a weak link somewhere along the chain. Still, I’m confident the issues will be resolved eventually, with the question of when being the only one remaining.
Update: According to Engadget, the iTunes activation servers are back online, and the major stores seem to have more phones in stock.
OCZ Introduces Elixir Gamers Keyboard
OCZ has today announced their first-ever gaming keyboard, the Elixir, which falls into the also-new Alchemy line of gaming products. The Elixir is the very first product under that line, but future products will follow, such as mice, keyboards other than this one and whatever else their labs feel like conjuring up.
I had a chance to see this keyboard at Computex last month and from what I saw, it’s a solid product. It looks good, has “gamer” colors, a soft arm rest and ten bright blue keys used for your macros. I believe the software included with the keyboard will have been built in-house at OCZ, just like the software for their Neural Impulse Actuator, so you know it should work well.
The keyboard also features seven Internet-related keys and another eight for multi-media. Happily enough, it also includes a space bar, which should come in handy. The absolutely best part? Well, it could be the $29.99US price tag. Seriously. My $25 Logitech keyboard will soon be getting a nice upgrade once these become available.
The Elixir is a high-quality keyboard featuring the necessary features such as 10 tri-mode programmable macro keys, mode selection, a pop-up menu shortcut, and Windows Media Players optical controller. The sleek design of the Alchemy Elixir Series will maintain your comfort throughout long gaming sessions with its membrane tactical keys made from 100% rubber-coating for no-slip comfort and ergonomic design.
Hackers On Planet Earth Conference Next Weekend in NYC
For our readers in the New York area who are still not aware of the HOPE conference happening next weekend, take this as one of your last reminders! The ‘Hackers On Planet Earth’ conference will be happening between July 18 – 20th and will be the seventh of its kind. Sadly, it also appears to be the last. As the 2600 staff seems to be cryptic with their answers, it’s unknown if this is truly the last one, or if there will be a successor under a different name. We’ll have to wait and see.
I’ll be attending the conference, and invite any of our readers to come along. We could meet up, have some laughs, drink too much… all the good stuff that should happen during a trip to NYC. Our own Matt Serrano will be attending one day as well. Since the last post I made, the entire list of speakers has been made, all divided by day, time and room.
The three primary rooms are named after notable technology-enthusiasts throughout the ages, including Grace Hopper, the creator of the first computer compiler, Alan Turing, another computer scientist who was responsible for the concept behind computer algorithms and Joe “Joybubbles” Engressia, a blind phone phreaker who could actually whistle the 2600 Hz tone with his mouth. Each room has a story behind it, and many more stories will be shared during the conference.
Pre-registration is done with, but you can still register at the door, for $75. Seems expensive, but it’s not really that possible to leave the event and not feel like it was fully worth it. You can check out the full talks list here and here.
There will be three days and nights of speakers along with all sorts of activities to keep you entertained and enlightened. We have a tremendous amount of space for us to make use of and it’s all right in the middle of the city, across the street from Penn Station. You still have time to get involved in this historic event, whether by attending, volunteering, speaking, or creating something new that none of us have thought of yet.
Voodoo “Unboxes” the Envy 133
It was only the other day that the veil was taken off of Voodoo’s new Envy 133, and now Rahul Sood, CTO for HP’s Gaming Business, has posted numerous “unboxing” pictures on his blog. You may just want to grab a towel to wipe off any potential drool.
This thing is gorgeous, and even the packaging is well-thought-out. The experience is designed to mimic one like opening a luxurious box of chocolates, or jewelry, or a Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano, and I have little doubt that whoever purchases one will get a serious tingly feeling all over during the process. Aside from the box, other close-up shots are included as well, including the one below.
The only thing to really confuse me is the fact that the power button is inline with the rest of the keyboard, near where the DEL key usually sits. I could see this causing some potential issue, so I’m curious how they decided to prevent against accidental shutdowns. But, this is undoubtedly the best-looking 13″ notebook on the market, and yes, I do want one.
The lesser-known fact about this notebook is that it takes advantage of DeviceVM’s SplashTop, the instant-on Linux environment. As it seems, Voodoo’s attempt looks far better than anything to date, which makes sense given the notebook it’s to appear on.
Since we’re taking orders on the new Envy 133 now, we thought it would be a good time to demonstrate the packaging and the contents that come inside the box. Our packaging expert Allison worked with our ID folks to design the Envy 133 presentation box to look somewhat like a Tiffany box. It lifts up like a hat box to reveal a wonderful presentation, including the Envy 133 wrapped in a microfiber polish sleeve.
Centrino 2 Launches Monday
Intel’s newest mobile platform, Centrino 2, will launch on Monday, July 11. Among the improvements, the new platform will include support for 802.11n, WiMAX and DDR3 RAM, as well as faster 45nm processors which reach speeds of up to 2.8GHz.
One thing to note is that the first available chipsets will only include nVidia and ATI’s dedicated graphics, not Intel’s integrated systems. The new platform should increase performance and battery life across the board compared to the older generation of notebooks.
As notebook shipments have begun to significantly outpace the sales of desktop computers, each new notebook platform launched by Intel becomes more important to the company. This Monday July 14 marks the launch of Intel’s Centrino 2 platform, previously known by the code-name Montevina. The launch comes weeks after Intel had planned due to a problem with Intel’s own integrated graphics for the platform.
Seagate Announces First 1.5TB Desktop HDD, Mobile 500GB 7200RPM
It hasn’t even been long since we first saw 1TB drives hit the market, but here Seagate goes and throws 50% more storage into the same amount of space. Seagate claims that this bump is the largest ever, in the over fifty years that hard drives have been around. Of course, this is all thanks to the much-touted perpendicular magnetic recording.
The new Barracuda 7200.11 features four platters (at what would be 375GB each) and promises a sustained data rate of up to 120MB/s. We’ll have to wait for the reviews to see just how accurate this measure is. Like Seagate’s other higher-end drives, this one will feature 32MB of cache, which I actually have found to make a reasonable difference in my personal machine for copying smaller sets of files.
In addition to the new Barracuda 7200.11, Seagate also announced a new flagship Momentus 7200.4 500GB, a mobile offering that offers both lots of storage space, in addition to fast 7200RPM speeds that we are used to on the desktop. It took a while to happen, but you can now be a mobile warrior and actually have the storage and speed you’d like. Neither of these two products have suggested prices, but we’ll find out next month when they are launched into the market.
Update: Seagate tells us that the 1.5TB Barracuda 7200.11 will carry an SRP of $450. No pricing information available for the Momentus drive yet, however.
The debut of the Barracuda 7200.11 1.5TB, the eleventh generation of Seagate’s flagship drive for desktop PCs, marks the single largest capacity hard drive jump in the more than half-century history of hard drives – a half-terabyte increase from the previous highest capacity of 1TB, thanks to the capacity-boosting power of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology.
Xbox 360 Price Drop Gallery
If you had any doubt whatsoever that the Xbox 360 wasn’t in fact going to drop in price, you’ll have some hard arguments to make. Joystiq has compiled a photo gallery of all of the previous $299 rumor sources that almost make you wonder why Microsoft hasn’t admitted to the decrease in price already.
The new price-point puts the premium Xbox 360 in an interesting place between the Wii and the PS3. Consumers faced with the option of a $250 Wii and a $300 Xbox 360 with a hard drive, component cables and wireless controllers make the Wii and even harder option to consider, especially with the growing popularity of Xbox Live Arcade. The PS3 still has its advantage of being a Blu-Ray player, but the extra $100 can still serve to dissuade potential buyers.
Although there isn’t any news of the Arcade model decreasing in price, I would have to imagine that it will soon be continued in favor of the hard drive-equiped model. We may get more information from Microsoft during the week of E3.
As we patiently wait for Microsoft to acknowledge the $299 Xbox 360 price drop, we’d like to thank everyone who helped by sending us information. We’ve put together the gallery below to store all the (non-duplicate) images we’ve received about the markdown.
Xbox 360 Price Drop Gallery
If you had any doubt whatsoever that the Xbox 360 wasn’t in fact going to drop in price, you’ll have some hard arguments to make. Joystiq has compiled a photo gallery of all of the previous $299 rumor sources that almost make you wonder why Microsoft hasn’t admitted to the decrease in price already.
The new price-point puts the premium Xbox 360 in an interesting place between the Wii and the PS3. Consumers faced with the option of a $250 Wii and a $300 Xbox 360 with a hard drive, component cables and wireless controllers make the Wii and even harder option to consider, especially with the growing popularity of Xbox Live Arcade. The PS3 still has its advantage of being a Blu-Ray player, but the extra $100 can still serve to dissuade potential buyers.
Although there isn’t any news of the Arcade model decreasing in price, I would have to imagine that it will soon be continued in favor of the hard drive-equiped model. We may get more information from Microsoft during the week of E3.
As we patiently wait for Microsoft to acknowledge the $299 Xbox 360 price drop, we’d like to thank everyone who helped by sending us information. We’ve put together the gallery below to store all the (non-duplicate) images we’ve received about the markdown.
Amarok 2.0 Alpha 1 Released
It’s been a relatively long-time coming, but the first 2.0 alpha release for the popular Linux audio player, Amarok, has now been released. Since 2.x is highly dependant on KDE 4 libraries, that desktop environment is required in order to run it. Those of you, like me, who would rather stick with 3.5.x for the time-being, will have to miss out. The good news in all of this, though, is that the future player will work on Windows and OS X.
What’s new though is brand-new graphics and ‘innovative user interface’. At first look, I’m really skeptical, but I’m going to hold off on my opinions until I get a chance to spend some good time with it. I’ve been using Amarok 1.x for so long now, I’m almost scared about taking such a leap forward, because there’s definitely a noticable difference here.
But I digress. Also new is a nice Internet service framework, allowing fantastic integration with popular music services, like Last.fm, Magnatune and others. I assume that these will simply run better and be easier to navigate than 1.x, since those services were available there. There’s lots of good stuff though, so you will need to either read through the news post or get on downloading and testing it out. I’m so tempted to finally install KDE 4 just for this reason…
Don’t miss several UI innovations like the Plasma powered Context View, new space efficient playlist, and amazing PopUp Dropper! The new Context View allows you to show all the context information you care about. We expect a lot of Plasmoids to be provided by the community in the first months after the release of Amarok 2.
New Technology Could Make the Internet 100x Faster
A group of Australian scientists at the University of Sydney have developed a new technology that could hopefully one day speed the Internet up without costing a dime. They use photonic integrated circuit boosts instead of fiber optic cables which can guide data in one picosecond, which the researchers describe as “a small scratch on a piece of glass.”
The main issue with the claim of hoping to speed up existing networks is the fact that ISPs have a much slower data backbone, and there is a cost investment to replacing existing equipment. Realistically, the future is there, it’s just a matter of getting to it, which takes more time and money initially conceived.
As of right now, the technology has been proven to achieve speeds of up to 60x faster than Australia’s Telstra network. If it continues to improve, hopefully we’ll hear more good news about it.
University of Sydney scientists say they have developed a new technology that could speed up the internet – and not cost users an extra cent.
NVIDIA Supporting PhysX-on-Radeon Effort
NVIDIA’s PhysX technology has been getting a lot of attention lately, and in case you happened to miss our coverage from two weeks ago, be sure not to skip it as we take a hard look at the performance factor, and also see where the technology stands today. But where does ATI fall into the PhysX scheme of things? Well if Eran Badit has his way, ATI cards will soon join NVIDIA’s own and utilize the technology to its full potential.
Around the same time we posted our article, Eran leaked a screenshot that showed PhysX running on an HD 3850, and I immediately assumed NVIDIA was going to jump in and ask for him to remove it. It wouldn’t be the first time the company has asked him to remove certain NVIDIA-related material off of his site, after all, so what’s so surprising now is that the company is actually supporting his endeavour. Impressive.
What’s not impressive is the blatant lack of support from ATI, who likely wishes this would just go away. After all, they recently signed into a cooperation with Intel using their Havok technology, essentially the leading competitor to PhysX, although currently more successful. A software package to support PhysX on ATI is inevitable though, and I’m glad to see it. PhysX can be accelerated using hardware, whereas Havok currently has no such functionality. That in itself puts PhysX in a good place, and adding support to ATI cards is only going to improve the technology and help it grow.
The tone at Nvidia has changed quite a bit over the past week. It appears that Nvidia does not mind running PhysX on ATI Radeon (or just about any other GPU) cards. In fact, Nvidia has opened access to Developer Relations and is providing assistance to Badit, including access to documentation, SDKs and more importantly, hardware and actual engineers.
Mega Man 9 to Resemble Old-School NES Title
If you consider yourself to be a true gamer, then chances are that you fully believe that gameplay should always come before graphics. There is no shortage of great-looking games on the market today, but many of them fall far short in the gameplay department. I won’t name examples, but the sad fact is that it’s difficult to get a game that excels in both. Half-Life 2 is one recent example of where this was accomplished, but I’m sure each one of us would agree on a different game that really blew us away.
So what am I getting at? As it turns out, popular developer Capcom is revisiting its roots with Mega Man 9, a brand-new game designed to mimic one for the original NES. That means the graphics, sound and gameplay should closely resemble what we saw with Mega Man 2 – 6, which is no doubt going to please many diehard MM fans. The best part might be the price of $10 upon release. The downside? It will only become available on the Wii’s download store. At least for now.
The release is likely nowhere soon, but you could probably expect it sometime Q4. For now, you can check out a few other “simpler” games I recommend, such as Within a Deep Forest, Everyday Shooter and Gumboy Crazy Adventures.
iPhone Reviews Start to Trickle Out
The first batch of iPhone reviews started to come out late last night from the big three Apple reviewers: Walt Mossberg, David Pogue and Edward Baig. The verdict? It’s what we all expected. The hardware and software have been long revealed to us all, which leaves little surprise when the on-hand experiences hit.
Walt takes jabs at the new phone’s battery life and AT&T’s spotty 3G service. Pogue takes aim at the iPhone’s GPS antenna being “too small” (wait, what?) and the fact that there is no turn-by-turn navigation, and the lack of “voice dialing, video recording, copy-and-paste, memory-card slot, Bluetooth stereo audio [and] phone-to-phone photo sending (MMS).” Finally, Baig wishes for Flash, Windows Media and Java support.
Overall, the three reviews complement the iPhone for having faster speeds, improved audio quality and GPS. The fact remains though, if you want one, you probably know whether or not it’s going to be in your pocket in a few week’s time.
Source: All Things Digital , Source: The New York Times , Source: USA Today
Rogers Actually Listens to Customers; Hell Freezes Over
In a way, I’m speechless. Maybe, just maybe those thousands of unhappy Canadian voices finally got through to the folks at Rogers. Or, I’m seriously hallucinating. I’ll take it as the former until someone pinches me.
According to a press release from Rogers, the company will offer a promotional deal that will include 6GB of data for $30 a month that can be tacked on to any voice plan. This promotion is only going to last until August 31, so this is definitely a bid to try to pursuade people already on the fence about buying an iPhone.
Granted, it isn’t the best deal around, but it’s way better than the company’s previous offering. 6GB of data should be enough for anyone, especially since there is no tethering option (unless you plan to watch tons of videos over the air on the device, but even that’s a stretch). Hopefully the demand will encourage Rogers to keep the deal around for the long haul, but time will tell.
Effective July 11, and as a limited time promotional offer for customers who activate by August 31 on a three year contract, a data-only offering of 6GB of data for $30 per month is being made available that can be added to any in-market voice plan. For example, with 6GB of data, iPhone 3G users can visit 35,952 web pages, or send and receive 157,286 emails, or watch 6,292 minutes of YouTube videos each and every month.
Upcoming Budget Intel E5200 Dual-Core Overclocks to 4.0GHz
Popular overclocker coolaler has gone and acquired himself an Intel E5200 processor, due out sometime this quarter, and pushed the humble chip to its breaking point. The processor itself comes in at 2.5GHz with an 800MHz bus and scales back to 2MB of L2 cache. It uses a 12.5x multiplier and sticks to the 65W thermal envelope. Though pricing and release information has not yet been announced, the chip is rumored to cost around $84 per 1,000 units.
Now, I thought the 4.0GHz+ I hit in our E8400 Core 2 Duo review was impressive, but coolaler took his E5200 all the way up to 4.0GHz on what seems to be air cooling, given the relatively warm temperatures. That is impressive, and might just make this chip a serious option for those who don’t need the extra cache.
What I find most interesting though, is the fact that the CPUID information in the CPU-Z shot labels the chip as a “Pentium(R) Dual-Core CPU”, so that’s likely exactly what it will appear as on the store shelves. In addition to the lower FSB and lesser cache, it appears the chip also lacks the SSE4 instruction set. This won’t matter to people who don’t render multimedia with applications that use it, but it’s a notable loss regardless. Still, 4.0GHz for >$100? Try complaining about that!
Running Linux Applications Under Windows
There wouldn’t be too many Linux users out there who haven’t thought about running a Windows application on the OS. Chances are many of them have done it as well, and why not? Wine is so sophisticated nowadays, that many Windows applications run without much of an issue. I personally use it for Steam, to play the odd simple game from time to time.
How about the other way around? A new entry in Wired’s How-To Wiki has a few great ideas on how to accomplish just that, and quite easily. The most interesting to me is a solution called ‘andLinux’, an Ubuntu-based distribution that runs in Windows. ‘In’ is bold because it literally does run in Windows, alongside Windows’ own kernel.
I haven’t tested it out myself, but I plan to as it’s a very interesting concept. It shows the ability to run many Linux applications from an icon in the systray, and they appear using Windows’ own theme. Other ideas on the wiki include Ubuntu’s Wubi and Cygwin. Well worth a look if you are just dying to have a kick-ass Linux application (like Amarok, featured below) in Windows.
AndLinux isn’t quite the same thing as WINE, since andLinux actually loads the full Linux kernel, but andLinux does make Linux apps look like they’re running natively on Windows. In other words, they behave somewhat like Windows apps running in the “Coherence Mode” of Parallels or “Unity mode” of VMWare on the Mac.
ASUS Eee Box Specs & Pricing Unveiled
It’s now been over a month since ASUS first unveiled their Eee Box mini-PC, and now the specs are starting to slowly trickle out. According to Stuff.tv, the unit will retail for £199 ($392 USD) and include Windows XP Home, two USB ports, a card reader, DVI video output, Ethernet and an 80GB hard drive. All in all, a modest rig, but given its overall size, we didn’t expect much more.
Any way you look at it, though, this PC looks to be a relative steal. It comes in an ultra-portable size, like the Eee PC, and though I haven’t seen the two side-by-side, I would assume the Nintendo Wii is actually bulkier. In addition to its elegance, the Eee box even includes a keyboard and mouse. Now that seems like a good deal.
Although I don’t recall the exact specs sheet that I saw at Computex last month, I do know that the Eee Box is fully capable of churning out 720p content, which is helped by the latest Intel Atom processor. So, despite it’s small frame, this is one capable little machine. Add a wireless keyboard and mouse to the package and you have one heck of a stylish system that might actually be the focal point of your room for all the right reasons.
Backing Up Windows Drivers with DriverMax
Formatting your PC and starting from scratch can give you a great feeling. Months or even years worth of junk buildup is gone, and you can start your computing journeys anew. One of the least fun aspects of the task is re-installing everything, including your system drivers. If you have ever found yourself becoming frustrated with this chore, then DriverMax might be worth a look.
The name implies that it works with your drivers, and that’s exactly what it does. You will still need to re-install all of your applications, but at least this helps out a bit, right? After installation, you will be able to scan your PC for currently installed drivers, then have the ability to export them into a folder of your choosing. Once you are on the new machine, you can simply import them and be on your merry way.
The program is free, but you’ll need to fill out your e-mail address in order to get a registration code. Why? Who knows, but hopefully it will result in absolutely no spam. Worth a look, though, especially if you happen to reformat quite often.
After installing DriverMax, go into Driver Operations and click on Export drivers. A list of all your installed drivers will be displayed and you can pick and choose which ones to export, or simply export the whole lot in one go. Once you’ve reinstalled Windows, go back into Driver Operations, click on Import drivers, and point to the folder containing your saved drivers.
Voodoo Envy 133 is Expensive, but Gorgeous
Big notebooks are out and small notebooks are in. I personally didn’t realize how great smaller notebooks could be until I first took a look at a Hypersonic offering back in May, then proceeded by an ASUS offering which shared the same form-factor. I don’t recall a time when my opinion on things has ever shifted so fast. I am now such a fan of smaller notebooks, I almost scoff at anything larger!
With the smaller size, however, higher prices will be seen. Although the ASUS and Hypersonic I took a look at before hover around $1,500, “luxury” models exist that cost much more. Take Lenovo’s X300, for example, or the MacBook AIR, which retail for over $2,500. But then we have the Voodoo Envy 133, which easily becomes the best-looking ‘small’ notebook on the market, and comes in at 13.3″.
The prices are not that subtle either, with most of the best models sitting at over $3,000. The basic model which includes a 1.6GHz Intel SP7500 CPU and 80GB HDD retails for $2,099, which isn’t too bad, given the gorgeous design. The $3,399 model will bump up the processors speed, give you some software to deal with and also give you a 64GB SSD. Expensive, but wow, is it easy to look at.
Developed by the HP Voodoo Business Unit, the Voodoo Envy 133 delivers critical features such as wireless(2) and Ethernet connectivity, USB and HDMI ports, and a 13.3-inch diagonal backlit LED display. All of the features are wrapped in a visually stunning package that consumers can customize via a full pallet of Voodoo Allure paint finishes.
Source: Voodoo Envy 133