VR-Zone Tech News for the Geeks Dec 2011 Issue by VR Media Pte. Ltd.

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

Dentist fines customer for posting negative review online Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/dentist-fines-customer-for-postingnegative-review-online/14116.html December 1st, 2011

That would have been all well and good were it not for the fact that the dentist then overcharged him, sent his records to the wrong insurance company, and refused to provide a new copy of those records so he could give them to his actual insurance company. The incident was so bad for Lee that he decided to post a negative review of Makhnevich's practice on both Yelp and DoctorBase, saying: “Avoid at all cost! Scamming their customers!” Of course, the anti-defamation agreement meant that he was required to never say a bad word about his dentist, no matter how poorly he had been treated.

A New York dentist has fined a customer for posting a negative review online, highlighting the underhanded nature of antidefamation contracts and how they are being abused to ensure a company's good reputation in spite of poor treatment.

Makhnevich then sent Lee a number of $100 fines, alleging he had infringed her copyright. It is not exactly clear why the dentist went with this argument, as the case appears to be one of contract violation rather than copyright infringement. The case raises significant questions over the rampant use of anti-defamation contracts among certain businesses, which employ underhanded legal wrestling to ensure that their reputation remains intact, regardless of the actual treatment of customers. Lee filed a lawsuit against Makhnevich, which has resulted in the medical law agency Medical Justice Services, which wrote the contract in question, cancelling it and telling all of its clients to stop using it. Lee's lawyer, Paul Alan Levy, said: “It is outrageous that a patient would have to sign away his constitutionally protected right to get treatment for a toothache.”

A New York dentist has fined a disgruntled customer for posting a negative review online after it was revealed that he had inadvertantly signed an anti-defamation contract before having a toothache addressed. The bizarre case began when 42-year-old Robert Lee visited Stacy Makhnevich's dental practice to deal with a bad toothache and tooth infection. Lee claims he was given a contract to sign, the terms of which included an antidefamation clause, which he said he questioned, but ultimately agreed to in order for Makhnevich to treat his pain.

Safari was fastest then, now the slowest according to Futuremark's Peacekeeper Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/safari-was-fastest-then-now-theslowest-according-to-futuremark-s-peacekeeper/14112.html

December 1st, 2011 December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

• Firefox is most popular with Peacekeeper users, accounting for almost 30% of all results. • Chrome has held the title of fastest browser since May 2009 but Opera is closing the gap.

Futuremark has released a new version of the Peacekeeper, which is a web browser benchmarking program to keep upto-date with the increasingly recognized HTML5 standards. Along with this new release, Futuremark also reveals some interesting data on how the browsers landscape has changed over the last two and a half years. Read on to find out more.

According to Futuremark, with the updated Peacekeeper, even the most outdated of hardware will have a proper place in benchmarking.

Samsung announces PM830 series of mSATA SSD's for Ultrabooks Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-announces-pm830-series-ofmsata-ssd-s-for-ultrabooks/14115.html December 1st, 2011

Leader of performance benchmarking software Futuremark has just released their latest version of the Peacekeeper, a freeware to measure and compare web browser operation speeds. The Peacekeeper is completely reconstructed to support HTML5 standards, and can accurately compare any browsers on a large variety of hardware configurations. It utilizes JavaScript functionality to assess the speed of the browser, which is a good thing, as it is one of the most common programming languages for websites today. Through this method, Internet connection speeds and latencies will not affect scores for each comparison. Hardware comparisons can be made with the Peacekeeper via a control browser used across all devices to be benchmarked. This is due to the fact that the power of the processor is highly associated with the browser performance.

Samsung has been a long time OEM/ODM of notebook SSD's, least not to Apple, but not the company has announced that it's about to break into the Ultrabook market with its new PM830 series of mSATA SSD's. The company also has a model for hard drive caching, suitable for Ultrabooks, notebooks and desktops. Samsung has been a long time OEM/ODM of notebook SSD's, least not to Apple, but not the company has announced that it's about to break into the Ultrabook market with its new PM830 series of mSATA SSD's. The company also has a model for hard drive caching, suitable for Ultrabooks, notebooks and desktops. The PM830 series will be available in capacities of 64, 128 and 256GB, with a 32GB version for hard drive caching. The drive uses Samsung's latest 20nm class toggle mode DDR NAND flash and Samsung is promising read speeds of up to 500MB/s and write speeds of up to 260MB/s over a SATA 6Gbps interface. The press release didn't mention which SSD controller was being used and the picture below doesn't reveal any details beyond the Samsung NAND flash.

Here are some interesting facts that have surfaced through data collected from Peacekeeper over two and a half years period: • 2.6 million results submitted since Peacekeeper launched in March 2009. • 3140 different browser versions tested. • Safari was fastest when Peacekeeper launched. It is now the slowest on Windows and Mac. • IE has shown the greatest improvement with an average score increase of almost 450%. • Safari has shown the least improvement, just 160% faster in two years on Windows systems. 2

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The revelation came at the Reuters Global Media Summit, where Antoine Brachet, marketing chief of Total Immersion, said that his company is working closely with Intel on its chipset to introduce some augmented reality features like gesture recognition. This is a highly significant move, as it means that augmented reality technology would come as part of the hardware itself and not require software downloads to work, which will help with the growth and adoption of the technology.

In addition to that, Samsung has also included 256-bit AEI encryption to keep the data safe for government people that leave their notebooks in the back seat of taxis. Samsung is only planning on selling the PM830 to OEM partners which is a shame, as it looks like it could prove to be a nice upgrade option for some Ultrabooks and what not. It looks like the future of notebooks SSDs is mSATA, for better or worse.

Intel and Total Immersion plan augmented reality chips Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-and-total-immersion-planaugmented-reality-chips/14114.html December 1st, 2011

Chip giant Intel is teaming up with Total Immersion to introduce augmented reality features into its upcoming computer chips, potentially giving it a further edge over the competition.

Intel invested in Total Immersion in March, signalling a vote of confidence in the relatively new augmented reality sector. That investment might pay off with a new feature that Intel can tout over competitors, but Total Immersion has not limited itself to Intel, as it also inked a recent deal with rival chipmaker Texas Instruments. Augmented reality works by overlaying real life images and videos with digital information, including text and graphics. For example, check out this magician's use of augmented reality to enhance a card trick. Augmented reality has yet to expand to become a major consumer technology, but it has shown a lot of potential, with UK supermarket chain Tesco introducing it to help people see products before they buy them online. It is not yet clear when we will see the new Intel chips, but Brachet suggested that it would be between two and three years, depending on how well consumers accept the technology.

ZiiLABS to showcase Android 4.0 based JAGUAR tablet at CES 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ziilabs-to-showcase-android-4.0based-jaguar-tablet-at-ces-2012/14111.html December 1st, 2011

Chip giant Intel is teaming up with Total Immersion to introduce augmented reality features into its upcoming computer chips.

ZiiLABS, a wholly owned subsidiary of Creative Technology Ltd. is ready to break the ground at CES 2011 with their JAGUAR reference tablet based on the latest Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). Equipped with quad-core Cortex-A9 based ZMS-40 media processor, it is touted to possess Blu-ray quality high-profile 1080P H.264 and WebM support. Read on to find out what it is capable of.

December 1st, 2011

Media processor and platform company, ZiiLABS has announced that they will be showcasing their JAGUAR reference tablet with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show 2012 which will start from 10th of January. The JAGUAR is said to â&#x20AC;&#x153;deliver a comprehensive range of OEM ready 7-inch and 10-inch tablet solutions that combine excellent performance, battery life and industrial designâ&#x20AC;?. It features two variants of the Cortex-A9 processor which is the ZMS-20 Dual-Core and the ZMS-40 Quad-Core processors.

Published by: VR-Zone

Corsair Vengeance SO-DIMM modules make use of high layer count PCBs (higher number of PCB layers contribute to greater electrical and signalling stability), the PCBs are colored black, to give them a premium feel. There's no room for a thick heatsink, but Corsair used millimeter-thick metal plates to serve as heatspreaders.

ZiiLABS is confident of the new tablet's media capabilities, thanks to its Blu-ray quality 1080p High-Profile H.264 video capabilities and WebM support. It also provides high quality video conferencing capabilities via its dual camera system, and uses standard APIs such as OpenCL and Renderscript to perform real-time image processing.

Corsair Intros Vengeance SODIMM Memory Modules Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/corsair-intros-vengeance-so-dimmmemory-modules/14110.html December 1st, 2011

Corsair introduced a new line of DDR3 memory modules in the SO-DIMM form-factor, targeting high-performance notebooks, gaming notebooks, and mobile workstations. Corsair's new modules promise to bring a similar level of tuning headroom as their bigger standard DIMM cousins. Corsair's Vengeance family struck a fine middle-ground between the overclockability of its high-performance yet expensive Dominator series, and the affordability of its XMS3 series. For obvious reasons of space and electrical constraints, Corsair couldn't port the design ideology of Dominator to the SO-DIMM form-factor, but doing so for Vengeance seemed possible. Hence, Vengeance SO-DIMM family.

Corsair will be launching three kits consisting of these modules, two of which are 8 GB (2x 4 GB), and one being a single 4 GB module kit. Among the two module kits, there's a DDR3-1866 MHz kit, and a DDR3-1600 MHz one. The lone module kit consists of a DDR3-1866 MHz stick. The modules don't require more than 1.5 volts DRAM voltage, though achieve their rated speeds at rather loose timings, by desktop standards of course. Part numbers and specifications are tabled below. Size 8GB

8GB 4GB

Speed 1866MHz, 10-10-10-27, 1.5V 1600MHz, 9-9-9-24, 1.5V 1866MHz, 10-10-10-27, 1.5V

# of DIMMs 2

Part Number CMSX8GX3M2A1866

CMSX8GX3M2A1600

CMSX4GX3M1A11866

Thi La, Vice President of Memory Products at Corsair, says "As more complex applications and games are available in the market, many laptop users are looking for an easy way to improve their system performance in order to have the best experience.Our new Vengeance high-performance laptop 4

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

memory kits allow performance-minded customers to boost their memory performance and capacity in an instant."

Although launched, we don't have prices of these kits at hand, as they are not listed on popular stores just as yet.

Cubitek Has Big Aluminum Case Plans for 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/cubitek-has-big-aluminum-case-plansfor-2012/14109.html December 1st, 2011

Pictured above is the main facade. You can find four exposed 5.25-inch drive bays, and a dust-protected inlet for the 200 mm intake fan. You can also get an idea of the outer texture of the aluminum body, dark brushed aluminum. Cubitek wants to play in the big league of premium allaluminum PC cases, targeting almost every consumer formfactor: ATX mid-tower, EATX full-tower, HPATX, micro-ATX, and even mini-ITX. All part of the company's new ICE series, these cases will be fabricated with extruded aluminum that's as much as 3 mm thick in some parts, making the cases both sturdy, and radiate heat better. We got to take a peak at each of these. The series starts off with the most common PC form-factor, the ATX mid-tower. The ATX Ice is larger than most midtowers, treading very close to being categorized a full-tower. It measures 230 x 508.5 x 513 mm (WxHxD), weighing in at 7.1 kg (net.). As mentioned earlier, Cubitek designed these cases with aluminum sheets as thick as 3 mm to give them the sturdiness of 1 mm thick SECC steel. The internals don't used anodized aluminum, rather exposed. This helps with radiating heat. Although some cable management holes are rubber-valved, there are some wide open holes, such as the one next to the PSU bay, a cutout over the CPU socket area (to help with handling coolers with backplates), and one on the top-left corner of the motherboard tray (for CPU power capbles. You can immediately tell that Cubitek's Ice cases are not tool-free. 5

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

South Korean scientists Hyun Gyu Park and Byoung Yeon Won have found a way where by people can place a sample of their own saliva on their touchscreen for analysis of their health. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Since these touchscreens can detect very small capacitance changes, we thought they could serve as highly sensitive detection platforms for disease biomarkers,â&#x20AC;? the scientists mentioned. Through the demonstration of a prototype screen, they managed to show that the detection of various concentrations of bacteria is possible.Improvements still have to be made to allow the system to sense different kinds of bacteria, and giving a more accurate assessment of the disease involved. Perhaps we can hope that when the technology is ready, people with severe or prolonged illness can monitor their own health status comfortably from home, as well as diagnose a serious issue early enough to receive help with this kind of convenience. There's nothing "loud" about the rear panel. You find the usual PSU bay at the bottom, a 120 mm grilled fan exhaust, two rubber-valved holes for water cooling tubing, and the expansion slot bays. Beating the ATX specification, there are eight bays instead of seven. This should help with multi-graphics card setups in which one of the graphics cards occupies the bottom-most expansion slot of an ATX motherboard.

Spit on your phone for good health Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/spit-on-your-phone-for-goodhealth/14108.html December 1st, 2011

Apple iPhone 4 on fire, twice Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-iphone-4-on-firetwice/14106.html December 1st, 2011

In two bizarre accounts, two separate Apple iPhone 4 ignited themselves in dangerous proximity to users, but ultimately causing nothing more than the inconvenience of losing the phone and some disruptions of the moment. Will Apple find out if this is just a duo of accidents or a flaw in manufacture process?

Technological advancements empower our phones to do so many things, but soon you can spit on your phone to know if you're down with flu, quite literally. A new developement from Korean utilizes capacitative screens like those on smartphones to detect the presence of bacteria.

December 1st, 2011

Apple’s iPhone 4 is hot, by every sense of the word. In one week, two iPhone 4 have been reported to combust spontaneously, but luckily no one was hurt. In the latest incident, a lady by the name of Ayla Mota had her iPhone charging as she slept, when the phone suddenly released sparks and smoke. While the phone was dangerously close to her, she was awakened quickly enough and resolved the situation before any harm came to her. Just a few days before, a similar situation occurred onboard a flight in Australia, which was dealt with by the flight attendant promptly, ensuring that no one was hurt. It seems a little too close to be taken as coincidence, but it is good to keep in mind that Apple’s iPhone 4 has one of the largest market share in the world, so this statistics amount to nothing more than oneoff incidents. While the Cupertino company has yet to make a public statement about the incidents, it can be expected that thorough investigation and compensation be carried out.

Project Homecoming, Singapore's first joint recycling initiative, launched Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/project-homecoming-singapore-s-firstjoint-recycling-initiative-launched/14107.html December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Andrew Koh, senior director and general manager, consumer imaging and information products division, Canon Singapore, who is also the lead spokesperson for Project Homecoming, gave an insight on the background of the recycling initiative. Started in Japan in 2008, six printer brands (Epson, Canon, Brother, Dell, HP and Lexmark) came together, with cooperation from Japan Post Office, to provide convenient location for public to recycle their cartridges. The project was called "Ink Cartridge Satogaeri" (which directly translated to Homecoming). In Singapore, Project Homecoming is an expansion to this similar scheme and is first in the region to launch. Public simply needs to go to one of the 13 designated libraries - Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Bishan, Bukit Merah, Geylang East, Jurong Regional, Jurong West, Marine Parade, National Library @ Victioria Street, Queenstown, Tampies Regional, Toa Payoh and Woodlands Regional - and dispose their ink cartridges or toners into the recycling box (picture below). In case you are wondering why HP has been left out from the original recycling intiative, that is only because the company has their own Planet Partners program. HP has also introduced the industry’s first “closed loop” ink cartridge recycling process, combining plastic from post-consumer recycled original HP ink cartridges and other sources, such as recycled water and soda bottles, in the manufacturing of new original HP ink cartridges.

This afternoon, five major printer companies - Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson and Lexmark; with support of National Library Board and National Environment Agency, jointly announced the launch of Project Homecoming, Singapore's first joint brand ink and toner cartridge recycling initiative.

December 1st, 2011

According to Elaine Ng, chief executive officer of National Library Board (NLB), at least one recycling bin can be found at 13 designated libraries. There are plans to introduce the recycling bin to the remaining 10 libraries in Singapore, though that would be the next phase of the project.

Published by: VR-Zone December 1st, 2011

Increasingly, our phones are becoming our best assistants. A recent discovery, however, begins to question just how much of our privacy is compromised as a factory-installed program is found to reveal every infomation from our phone to the respective companies that made it. Are our personal infomation as safe as we think it is?

Recently a program has been unveiled to be embedded deep into some Android phones which records just about every single thing a user can do with his or her phone. All the data goes back to the hardware manufacturers of the phone, which includes account passwords, credit card numbers and other sensitive infomation. There is also no way to opt out of being monitored. This discovery was first made when an Android developer Trevor Eckhart used a packet sniffer program to track all data that enter and exit his HTC EVO 4G smartphone. At the center of all this is the software developer Carrier IQ, the company that created this monitoring method for almost all mobile device manufacturer. Upon realizing that Trevor had branded their software as a â&#x20AC;&#x153;rootkitâ&#x20AC;? (a term equivalent to malware) in community sites, Carrier IQ promptly sued him, only to back off when an International digital rights advocacy organization Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped in to help Trevor. In their apology letter to Trevor, Carrier IQ mentioned that their software does not record keystrokes, amongst other inputs, but a video circulated by Trevor shows that this is not true.

You may be spied on by your own phone

As of now, there is no easy way to remove the program other than to install a new operating system on your phone. That, of course, generally involves removing the warranty from the phone, so it is not a good solution for most people. For now, much remains to be seen from the response of various companies responsible for the implementation of such a program.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/you-may-be-spied-on-by-your-ownphone/14105.html

December 1st, 2011

Lenovo storms China with three new mobile devices Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lenovo-storms-china-with-three-newmobile-devices/14096.html December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

and larger battery capacities ascending with screen sizes. The Android Honeycomb 3.2 mobile platform completes the package for these two tablets. While the prices are not known yet, Chinese sources state that the LePad S2005 may be for sale within the week.

Intel planning wireless dock for Ultrabooks using WiGig Lenovo has announced three new mobile devices for the Chinese market. The LePad S2005, S2007 and S2010 are the new tablets and phones to represent the Chinese company, but will they meet the mark of their fellow countrymen?

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-planning-wireless-dock-forultrabooks-using-wigig/14104.html December 1st, 2011

It looks like Intel is having big plans for Ultrabooks, at least as far as docking stations are concerned as beyond the wired Thunderbolt docking stations we've already reported about, it appears that Intel is also working on a wire-free option. The peculiar thing here though is that Intel is planning on using WiGig technology courtesy of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance. It looks like Intel is having big plans for Ultrabooks, at least as far as docking stations are concerned as beyond the wired Thunderbolt docking stations we've already reported about, it appears that Intel is also working on a wire-free option. The peculiar thing here though is that Intel is planning on using WiGig technology courtesy of the Wireless Gigabit Alliance.

Lenovo has recently unleashed a trio of tablets in China. The LePad S2007, LePad S2010 and LePad S2005 are set to help the Chinese company gain grounds in their own country. In accordance to the data network available in China, all the tablets are WCDMA enabled to access data network via Chinese telco Unicom. The LePad S2005 is a worthy mention as it belongs to the emerging category of devices that comes between a phone and a tablet, owing to its 5-inch screen, which is similar to Dell's Streak 5 and Samsung's Galaxy Note. It has a Low Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon Display with a resolution of 800 by 480, featuring a 178-degree viewing angle. This phone is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1GB of memory, giving it processing capabilities on par with most high-end smartphones. Other specifications include a 1.3megapixel front camera, a 5-megapixel rear camera, WiFi connectivity, High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) support and a 1650mAh battery. It is said to come with Android Gingerbread. The LePad S2007 and S2010 are tablets with 7-inch and 10inch screens respectively. Each of them possesses a 1280 by 800 resolution In-Plane Switching display with a contrast ratio of 1500 to 1. They run on 1.5GHz dual-core processors and 1GB of memory, with other similar hardware to that of LePad S2005 except for the 8-megapixel rear cameras

Never heard of WiGig before? Let us give you a quick introduction as to what WiGig is. The Wireless Gigabit Alliance consists of a wide range of technology company's including among others, Intel, AMD, Broadcom, Cisco, NEC, Marvell, MediaTek and Qualcomm to mention a few of the key hardware manufacturers, although many others such as Microsoft, Nvidia, Dell, Samsung, Nokia, Panasonic and Toshiba are also involved. What these companies are working on is an extension of the 802.11 standard that will allow for wireless speed of an expected 7Gbps in the end, some then times faster than what 802.11n is expected to peak at. WiGig is transmitting at 60GHz, otherwise known as Ultra Wide Band, although it's also backwards compatible with the 5GHz and 2.4GHz bands, but the highest speeds are only expected at very short range using the 60GHz band. So what does this have to do with a docking station for Ultabooks? Well, to keep things simple, it allows for a high-speed, short range wireless signal to be used to connect the Ultrabook to the dock sans any kind of wires. There are some limitations though, as you'd still have to plug in power to the Ultrabook sooner or later and in Intel's specification you still have to plug in the Ethernet cable into the Ultrabook itself if you want to take advantage of Intel's network features such as vPro.

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

going to start to see some serious competition in the entrylevel notebook segment once Microsoft launches Windows 8 for ARM. The Exynos 5250 is but a stepping stone for Samsung, yet the company claims that it offers twice the processing power over one of its Cortex-A9 based Exynos chips clocked at 1.5GHz, or some 14,000 DMIPS compared to 7,500 DMIPS. Beyond that, Samsung has doubled the memory bandwidth to 12.8GB/s, twice than not only of current dual core CortexA9 ARM processors, but also twice that of Intel's latest Atom processors. The upside of going wireless is of course the fact that you don't need to plug anything in to the system to dock it. WiGig should also provide enough bandwidth to cope with just about everything you'd need from a dock including display interfaces, USB connectivity and audio. The downside is increased cost, as not only do you need a WiGig compatible chip in the Ultrabook, but also in the dock. Of course in the future we might see displays with built in WiGig support into which you'd plug an external mouse and a keyboard and that would be all you'd need, rather than having to connect it all to yet another device. Considering that the WiGig standard has anything but launched as yet, it seems like this solution is one for the future, but it's nonetheless interesting to see where things might be heading. One thing appears fairly certain though, Intel is set to make Ultrabooks succeed, one way or another and if consumers don't want them, then business users will have to take them as a replacement for sub-notebooks which have been quite popular with people that travel a lot.

Samsung didn't specify the graphics core in the press release but the company did mention that the GPU used is more than four times faster than what we presume is the ARM Mali-400 MP used in its current Cortex-A9 based processors. That said, we're not sure that's going to be good enough as Samsung is making some bold claims of WQVGA or 2,560x1,600 resolution support and you're going to need one beefy GPU to run 3D stuff at that kind of resolution. Samsung also claims that the extra memory bandwidth is needed to be able to handle these kinds of resolutions. That said, on devices with 3D displays, we're still expecting to see resolutions of 1,280x800 as that would be exactly half of WQVGA, ideal for 3D displays in other words.

Samsung announces the first ARM Cortex-A15 based SoC Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-announces-the-first-armcortex-a15-based-soc/14101.html December 1st, 2011

If there was every any doubt that ARM based processors were going to be limited in terms of performance, Samsung's new 32nm Exynos 5250 Cortex-A15 based 2GHz dual core SoC should put a lot of doubters minds at rest. This is but a first step of what we can expect over the next couple of years from the ARM camp and we have a feeling that the x86 guys are going to start to see some serious competition in the entrylevel notebook segment once Microsoft launches Windows 8 for ARM. If there was every any doubt that ARM based processors were going to be limited in terms of performance, Samsung's new 32nm Exynos 5250 Cortex-A15 based 2GHz dual core SoC should put a lot of doubters minds at rest. This is but a first step of what we can expect over the next couple of years from the ARM camp and we have a feeling that the x86 guys are

But wait, there's more, a lot more. The Exynos 5250 also sports an embedded DisplayPort interface that supports panel selfrefresh technology which in simple terms means that static pages doesn't require the GPU to be powered up so that they can be displayed, instead this is handled by the frame buffer in the timing controller. Shall we keep going? For those interesting in snapping pictures and video the Exynos 5250 should impressive with the ability to shoot 8Megapixel stills at 30fps and 1080p video at 60fps. There's also a hardware video codec, HDMI 1.4, USB 3.0 connectivity (finally!) and SATA, eMMC4.5 and eSD3.0 support so there's no shortage of storage options available for the device makers. Although Samsung claims that the Exynos 5250 was designed specifically for high-end tablets, we can easily see this chip ending up in some Android or Linux based notebooks in the not too distant future, especially when you consider the SATA support as it makes it easy for the notebook makers to use standard components. The Exynos 5250 is currently sampling to Samsung's customers and is expected to go into massproduction in Q2 next year which means that by this time next year we should have products in the market sporting the new 10

December 1st, 2011

processor. It will be interesting to see how much better the ARM Cortex-A15 core performs and what kind of device the hardware makers can come up with.

Creative announces additional Sound Blaster Recon3D cards in Japan

Published by: VR-Zone

same shield as the Fatal1ty cards, but with a blue tinted window. We're not entirely sure what else has changed, but Creative Japan is touting this as a mid-range model. It comes bundled with a 3.5mm to dual RCA cable and an optical Toslink cable as well as Creative's Media Toolbox software, something you don't get with the basic Recon3D model.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/creative-announces-additional-soundblaster-recon3d-cards-in-japan/14100.html December 1st, 2011

We've already seen the Sound Blaster Recon3D and Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional, but it looks like Japan is getting an exclusive on no less than two additional models, the Sound Blaster Recon3D Professional Audio and the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion edition. Both cards are of course based on the new Sound Core3D chip from Creative which the company was touting as a quad core audio processor a little while ago. We've already seen the Sound Blaster Recon3D and Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional, but it looks like Japan is getting an exclusive on no less than two additional models, the Sound Blaster Recon3D Professional Audio and the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Champion edition. Both cards are of course based on the new Sound Core3D chip from Creative which the company was touting as a quad core audio processor a little while ago. The Fatal1ty Champion is quite similar to the Fatal1ty Professional and the main difference as far as we can tell is the inclusion of a front mounted I/O bay that appears to be identical to the one supplied with the older Sound Blaster XFi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion series. Apart from that the two cards appear to be identical.

It also appears that all the two new models will be bundled with a "beamforming microphone array" in Japan which is meant to allow for clearer sound during things like voice calls or video conferencing. The two new cards aren't expect to arrive until January, so we might see them in other regions as well by then and sadly Creative Japan didn't provide any pricing for the two new addiotions.

Report: Production of AMD's desktop Trinity APUs from March 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-production-of-amd-s-desktoptrinity-apus-from-march-2012/14099.html December 1st, 2011

AMD's next-generation A-Series APUs for desktops are set to enter mass production in March 2012. First to production will be 65W APUs, to be branded A10-5700, A8-5500, A6-5400 and A4-5300 series. Higher performance 100W APUs will be produced two months later, from May 2012, branded as A10-5800 and A8-5600 series. Considering the 65W APUs go into production with a two months headstart, we can expect the 65W Trinity SKUs to release before their 100W counterparts. However, AMD may choose to hold out for a simultaneous release. Previous rumours suggested that Trinity may release before Ivy Bridge, but this report concludes a release around the same timeframe, if not later, than Ivy Bridge. The Professional Audio version on the other hand ends up somewhere between the Sound Blaster Recon3D and the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional, as it has the

New to the A-Series will be a new segment - A10, while the A8, A6 and A4 segments from Llano will continue. AMD expects improved supply for Trinity thanks to higher yields and greater 11

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

number of wafer starts at GloFo's 32nm. The report did not mention details about Trinity's notebook release - arguably the most important market for Trinity. All information thus far suggests the market maintaining status-quo, with Intel retaining CPU performance leadership abd AMD continuing to offer far superior graphics and good price/performance ratio. Before Trinity releases, AMD's Llano range will see a final refresh with A8-3870K, A6-3670K, A8-3820, A6-3620 and A4-3420 set to release in January 2012.

Cedar Trail-M In December After All? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/cedar-trail-m-in-december-afterall-/14098.html December 1st, 2011

Faced with increasingly tough competition from ARMpowered tablets, mediocre Q3 2011 sales (-32% YoY), and other difficulties, launch of 32 nm "Cedar Tail-M" Atom processors has so far been a troubled affair. At one point this month, there were even strong indications that the new Atom chips won't make it before Christmas. A fresh report, however, comes brings back some hope for a December 2011 launch. Faced with increasingly tough competition from ARMpowered tablets, mediocre Q3 2011 sales (-32% YoY), and other difficulties, launch of 32 nm "Cedar Tail-M" Atom processors has so far been a troubled affair. At one point this month, there were even strong indications that the new Atom chips won't make it before Christmas. A fresh report, however, comes brings back some hope for a December 2011 launch. Intel's Atom N2800 and N2600 processors designed for netbooks and ultraportable mobile PCs might still be launched by Intel in December 2011, according to a recent report by DigiTimes. Sources told the industry observer that any delays in the launch of the new chips could have only been because of weak demand for Atom processors and chipsets, since the target platforms of these chips are reeling with intense competition from tablets and other mobile computing devices running ARM processors.

Sources in the industry are still optimistic about Atom's future. Despite dwindling netbook sales, there is still room for it, particularly in the emerging markets. The Atom netbook ecosystem suffered a huge setback earlier this year, with Samsung deciding to discontinue selling netbooks. The development left netbook at the hands of only two notable companies who can deliver in large volumes, Acer and ASUStek. In December 2011, ASUS will unveil 10-inch netbook models based on Cedar Trail Atom processors, the Eee PC 1025C and Eee PC 1025CE. By the end of this year, ASUS will have shipped an estimated 4.6-4.8 netbooks, and is expected to ship 4-4.2 in 2012. Acer's volumes will be similar to ASUS', sources note.

Australian court overturns Samsung Galaxy Tab ban Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/australian-court-overturns-samsunggalaxy-tab-ban/14097.html December 1st, 2011

An Australian court has overturned a preliminary injunction that banned the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab in the country, but Apple has indicated that it will appeal the decision, which could lead to further difficulties for Samsung. An Australian court has overturned a ruling that banned the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab in the country, giving the Korean consumer electronics giant some relief in a hotly contested patent battle. The Federal Court ruling said that there was little evidence to suggest that Samsung's tablet computer infringed a touchscreen patent that Apple had secured a preliminary injunction on.

December 1st, 2011

The court went further by dismissing the original ruling as “clearly wrong”, according to a report by the Associated Press. The full bench argued against Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett's October ruling, stating that she failed to properly assess Apple's case, which the court now believes would be unlikely to win if the matter went to trial.

Published by: VR-Zone

Berg Little Printer prints in a big way Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/berg-little-printer-prints-in-a-bigway/14095.html December 1st, 2011

Berg Little Printer doesn't produce a whole lot of photographic prints in a minute, but it can bring concise news to you by your bedside, along with some social gossips, if you want. Check out how this small box can pack a big surprise.

Bennett's preliminary ruling banned the sale of the 10.1-inch version of the Galaxy Tab, based on Apple's long-standing claims that it “slavishly copied” its design for the iPad. Today's decision comes just in time for the lucrative Christmas shopping season, which Samsung will be keen to take advantage of. However, Apple said that it will appeal the ruling at the Australian High Court, so the injunction will remain standing until Friday to allow time for that to take place. The Galaxy Tab is largely seen as the primary competitor to the iPad, leading some, including the European Union's Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia, to question the potentially anti-competitive nature of these kinds of injunctions, which have also resulted in a sales ban of the Galaxy Tab in Germany. Samsung indicated that it was happy with this latest turn of events, claiming that it proves Apple's case lacked any legal merit.

Berg, a design studio based in London, has recently unveiled a new printer. No, it is not your typical consumer fare that shows off its infinitely dense dots-per-inch rating or its ultrafast print speeds for the fast-paced and impatient workforce. The Berg Little Printer is a lifestyle product which may attract people with its fun and personal take on printed matters. No bigger than a Rubik's cube, it serves up your daily subscription of various contents such as news, puzzles, social updates, messages sent from friends, and much more, with the press of a button. All of them will be neatly styled into receipt-sized prints. Management of the subscription can be carried out easily with its included smartphone app, while contents are distributed to the printer via wireless connection and Cloud technology. The printer itself comes in a minimalist package bearing urban-style design, a rising trend in design-oriented communities. Inside, an inkless thermal printer head does the work and takes away the need to replace cartridges. The prints produced take after the style of graphic design which includes “visual cues from traditional halftone lithography and modern pixel art”. Berg’s product does seem like an elegant marriage of advanced technology and modern styling primarily motivated by human intuition. While it may not be the thing for every geek out there, it is likely to have a fair amount of market appeal, especially to ladies. Unfortunately, pricing and availability details have yet to be revealed, but you can sign up on their mailing list to get the latest updates.

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel delays Ivy Bridge to Q2 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-delays-ivy-bridge-toq2-2012/14088.html December 1st, 2011

Few months ago, rumors due to process problems appeared that Intel is going to delay the launch of their 22nm Ivy Bridge processors from January to March 2012. Ultimately, even the rumors of that March delay came untrue: Intel pushed the launch into the second quarter of 2012. Intel processors for 2012 carry the codename Ivy Bridge. These 22nm processors will be known as the 3000 series, for example Core i3-3200, i5-3330 or the i7-3770 (regular and K, S, T editions). The clock speeds will vary from 3 to 3.5GHz, while the models now officially support the prevailing DDR3-1600 memory standard.

Furthermore, the platform just needed development time to complete the complete 2012 platform (Maho Bay) and processor (Ivy Bridge). This wasn't helped by a wave of and process problems and retirements that recently started to happen at Intel, as the original baby boomers (joined Intel in 1970 and 1980s) are beginning to leave the company. Additionally, the company needs time to develop drivers for the graphics part. After all is said and done, the new Ivy Bridge processors should debut in April-May 2012 timeframe alongside Maho Bay platform i.e. B75, Q75 and Q77 chipsets.

Android Ice Cream Sandwich coming to LG phones Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/android-ice-cream-sandwich-comingto-lg-phones/14087.html December 1st, 2011

The parts were scheduled to debut in January 2012, but as the time passed by, Intel wanted to extract as much money as possible from the existing Sugar Bay platform and the Sandy Bridge architecture, with both bringing record profits for the company. Bear in mind that Sandy Bridge lost almost a quarter after the infamous chipset recall at the beginning of 2011. Intel marked a billion dollar loss with the recall costs and obviously decided to milk the existing products for as long as possible. The fact that AMD's Bulldozer processors failed to light up the market only increased that reason. Ivy Bridge will come to market only when necessary to do so.

LG has promised updates of Android Ice Cream Sandwich to their top-tier phones, but will they fail to meet the mark again as they had with Android Gingerbread? Read on to find out which of your phones will be blessed with the new OS.

A good number of smartphones from the LG Optimus series released in 2011 have been promised upgrades to Android 4.0 14

December 1st, 2011

Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). The release dates of the updates are not known yet, but the Korean company has said that they will unveil their upgrade schedule by December, along with a list of additional phones that will be receiving the new OS. Amongst the family of Android elite models, it was mentioned that the Optimus 2X, Optimus Black, Optimus 3D and the Optimus LTE will be graced by the highly anticipated software from Google. LG will also follow up with updates for as many phones as they can, which is good news for owners of older phones. LG’s Facebook page mentions: “We are also continuing to evaluate the ICS OS to determine whether it is compatible with the functionality, features and performance of other LG smartphones to make the ICS OS available on as many LG smartphones as possible.”

Published by: VR-Zone

noise-canceling headphones that reduce ambient noise and comes with a detachable cable with in-line microphone for voice communication on the iPhone. The concealed microphones in the ear-cups pick up surrounding noises and these are electronically negated, effectively reducing the noise by up to 85%. With the absence of unwanted sound, the finelytuned 40mm Neodymium drivers offers great details of music or entertainment. The Creative HN-900's audio cable also comes with an in-line microphone and switch for a convenient one-click call function for voice communication on the iPhone. If the headphones run out of battery power, they can still be used in the passive mode without the noise-cancellation function.

These are big promises to be kept, as the owner responses following the annoncement show that previous update cycles of Android Gingerbread for many of their phones are either slow or lacking. Hopefully, LG would take this opportunity to fulfil their promises and regain more customer confidence.

The Creative HN-900 noise-canceling headphones are currently available at the Creative online store at sg.store.creative.com and The CREATIVE Stores outlets at International Business Park, Marina Square and authorised dealers in Singapore from end Nov 2011 onwards at the suggested retail price of S$129.

Creative announces HN-900 headphones with active noisecanceling for clear voice calls

Celebrate Christmas with Limited Edition SOUL by Ludacris SL-150CS headphones

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/creative-announces-hn-900headphones-with-active-noise-canceling-for-clear-voice-calls/14094.html December 1st, 2011

Creative Technology has recently announced their new HN-900 headphones with active noise-canceling technology and full-size ear-cups that can reduce ambient noise by up to 85%, offering superb audip experience anc clear voice communications.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/celebrate-christmas-with-limitededition-soul-by-ludacris-sl-150cs-headphones/14093.html December 1st, 2011

Looking for a new headphones this festive season? Check out the limited edition SOUL by Ludacris SL-150CS headphones in chrome finish.

Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, the person behind the brand "SOUL by Ludacris" personal audio products, together with his design team, has created a Limited Edition of the SL-150CS headphone in chrome. Creative Technology has recently announced the new Creative HN-900 noise-canceling headphones, a set of full-size active

This beautiful SL-150CS headphone comes with two different detachable 3.5mm headphone cables. The standard 3.5mm 15

December 1st, 2011

headphone cable with two ring sleeves allows the user to use the SL-150CS as a stereophonic headphone for audio playback, compatible with all 3.5mm jack audio devices. The additional in-line 3.5mm headphone cable with three ring sleeves comes with a built-in remote control and microphone, and allows the user to enjoy heart-thumping stereophonic bass to his or her favorite music and audio tracks, while providing the capability to answer phone calls on Apple iOS devices such as iPhone, iPad and iPod as well. The SL-150CS is a headphone that folds down easily, and comes with a semi-rigid pouch for portability and protection.

Published by: VR-Zone

the primary graphics interface. Results will be comparable through Futuremark's ORB database.

Seagate announces secondgen Momentus XT Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/seagate-announces-second-genmomentus-xt/14092.html December 1st, 2011

3DMark 2012: Android devices invade a Windows world Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/3dmark-2012-android-devices-invadea-windows-world/14089.html December 1st, 2011

Following on the footsteps of the recently announced "3DMark for Windows 8" benchmark, Futuremark has revealed that the company is developing a new 3D benchmark called "3DMark for Android". You've guessed it right, Futuremark is developing one 3D benchmark to rule them all. We have received press release stating that Futuremark Corporation is announcing the foundation of its Benchmark Development Program for tablets powered by Android operating system. The first product coming out of that BDP is a next-generation benchmark "3DMark for Android" (working title), with the goal of becoming an industry standard gaming benchmark for tablets. With this announcement, its official that the targeted platforms for 3DMark 2012 are both Android 4 tablets and Windows 8 devices - an interesting prospect. Futuremark wants to attract "companies involved in the manufacture of Android powered devices are invited to join Futuremark's Benchmark Development Program to play a critical role in the development of 3DMark for Android, from initial specification to final delivery."

For Seagate's sake we hope that the second time is the charm, as its first generation of Momentus XT hard drives with a small SLC SSD cache didn't exactly take the world by storm. Currently the new Momentus XT is only available in a single size of 750GB, plus 8GB of SLC NAND flash of course, although the real change is actually the software part and here Seagate has spent a lot of time optimizing things. For Seagate's sake we hope that the second time is the charm, as its first generation of Momentus XT hard drives with a small SLC SSD cache didn't exactly take the world by storm. Currently the new Momentus XT is only available in a single size of 750GB, plus 8GB of SLC NAND flash of course, although the real change is actually the software part and here Seagate has spent a lot of time optimizing things. Seagate claims that the new Momentus XT is close to 70 percent faster than its predecessor and up to three times faster than a comparable hard drive of the same size. That said, at the moment the caching only applies to read performance and even in this case only under ideal scenarios where the SSD part of the drive has a chance to cache the data. Even so it's no slouch compared to other mechanical drives, although it's no match for an SSD. For a few benchmarks of the Momentus XT, head over to StorageReview.com.

Jukka M채kinen, CEO of Futuremark said, "in 2012 we will bring 3DMark to the Android platform with a professional grade benchmark that can be trusted by manufacturers, suppliers and vendors to provide the definitive measure of gaming performance on Android while showcasing the very best in real-time graphics and effects." We also caught up with Oliver Baltuch, President of Futuremark about the promised result compatibility between the two. While the benchmark development is in very early stages, the company wants to have comparable results between the two platforms and in about a year from now, the traditional "AMD vs. Intel" or "AMD vs. NVIDIA" debates might take a backseat to "3DMark Android 4 vs. 3DMark Windows 8". The benchmark will measure gaming performance using CPU, GPU rendering and physics tests, using OpenGL ES API as 16

December 1st, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The Momentus XT does have one upside compared to most SSD caching solutions, it's platform agnostic thanks to all the software being stored in the drive firmware. Apparently Seagate will be offering future upgrades for the Momentus XT that will allow for write caching as well, although 8GB of flash is still a fairly small amount even compared to Intel's Smart Response which requires a minimum of 18GB of SSD storage space. Beyond all this, the current price point is all wrong, as Seagate is asking for US$245 (S$320) for the Momentus XT, money that would easily buy you a fast 120GB SSD these days. Ok, so there's a trade off in terms of storage space, but overall you'll get vastly better performance.

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

Australians use Facebook in the bathroom, in church, and during sex Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/australians-use-facebook-in-thebathroom-in-church-and-during-sex/14154.html December 6th, 2011

Australians use Facebook during some of the most intimate moments of life, according to a recent survey, suggesting that social networking is becoming a growing obsession. Australians use Facebook and other social networks while in the bathroom, in church, and during sex, according to a recent survey, suggesting that social networking is an obsession for some. Social media marketing firm Tick Yes conducted the survey of close to 900 people and found out some surprising things about people's online habits. We all know that people check social networks at work, and this was confirmed in the report, with 51.6 percent logging on during office hours. 41.9 per cent check status updates and tweets while watching TV, which is probably driving television advertisers crazy. 33.8 percent use social media while in bed and 23.3 per cent use it during meals. We might also see the shopping lists of 14.8 per cent of people, who might be better off browsing price comparison websites instead.

Somehwat surprisingly, however, 21.5 percent of people use social networks while in the bathroom, which might make you think twice about borrowing someone's phone to make a call. Even more shocking is that 3.2 percent log onto Facebook, Twitter and other social networks in a place of worship, such as a church, synagogue or mosque. This will probably be the next big faux pas instead of snoring during a sermon. And finally 2.8 percent of those asked said they used social networks while having sex. Out of those, nearly two thirds were men. We can only imagine what they were tweeting about. It is not surprising then that 4.9 percent admitted that they were addicted to social media. We expect the real number is probably much higher than that. “The survey confirms a number of things,” said Peter Applebaum, managing director of Tick Yes. “We weren’t surprised that Facebook is far and away the most popular social media site, nor that almost half of those surveyed said that their social media usage has increased in the last year. But what did raise a few eyebrows is the extent to which Australians will stop what they’re doing – however enjoyable it may be – to respond to a tweet or post or update.” 1

December 6th, 2011

Source: Press Release

Published by: VR-Zone

$10 billion factory in South Korea. It hopes to have its Chinese plant open by 2013.

Image Credit: Wiki Commons

Samsung to build Flash memory chip factory in China Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-to-build-flash-memory-chipfactory-in-china/14153.html December 6th, 2011

Bose announces SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/bose-announces-soundlink-wirelessmobile-speaker-in-singapore/14149.html December 6th, 2011

Samsung has revealed plans to build a Flash memory chip factory in China as the lucrative smartphone and tablet computer markets continue to grow. Samsung has revealed plans to build a Flash memory chip factory in China as the smartphone and tablet computer markets continue to grow. The Korean electronics giant will spend upwards of 5 trillion won ($4.5 billion) on the new plant, which will produce 20nm Flash memory chips. The exact location of the facility has yet to be decided.

Bose and Atlast Sound & Vision, Singapore's premium audio visual retailer and distributor, have launched the SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker in Singapore. The SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker Bluetooth speaker that claims to offer superb audio performance, mobility and durability in a compact form factor.

The move signals a vote of confidence in the Chinese market, which many see as an increasingly pivotal region for electronic goods. Samsung is already investing in China with plans to build a factory that will produce flat-screen TVs, one of its strongest industries.

The plans will need to be approved by the South Korean government, which monitors foreign investment made by Korean firms. However, it appears likely that it will be given the go-ahead. Samsung is a major player in the memory market, producing Flash chips for a number of portable devices, including Apple's highly successful iPhone and iPad ranges. The expansion into China will help secure deals with Huawei and ZTE, both of which are increasing tablet and smartphone output. Samsung has also increased chip production at its other plants, including its only foreign facility in Austin, Texas, and a new

December 6th, 2011

With the Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker, you can connect wirelessly with your Bluetooth-enabled smartphone, tablet or other devices and stream music at the touch of a button. It measures two-inches thick, and can fit easily in your bag or briefcase. It is equipped with a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery that provides power for more than three hours at high volume, and more than eight hours at typical listening levels. It has an integrated cover that unfolds easily into a stand for instant setup, and once opened, the system is ready to be played. Close the cover and the system shuts off automatically. At the top are buttons including volume controls, mute, Bluetooth (for pairing), Aux and power. The Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker also comes with Auxiliary input, micro USB port for firmware upgrades and power connector. The Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker with the standard trim level and dark gray Cordura nylon cover is selling at S$549, while the LX model with a premium trim level and a dark brown leather cover is retailing at S$639. Accessory covers in nylon (bright red or royal purple) and leather (burgundy or tan) are available separately at S$59 and S$99 though the color options are not available yet at press time. The SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker can be purchased from selected partners and the Atlas Experience Audio Visual Boutique @ TripleOne Somerset, and Bose @ Millenia Walk. For more information, go to www.bose.com or www.atlasexperience.com

Published by: VR-Zone

According to Dr. Michael Tien, CEO of Atlas Sound & Vision, introduced the Bose SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker and said that the Bluetooth connectivity works even up to 10m away. "There are three key benefits that Bose has focused on and put their effort to, on the SoundLink Wireless Mobile speaker. First, it's quality sound to enjoy your music wherever you go; second is spontaneous mobility to take your music anywhere and easy to set up; and third is elegant durability whereby it looks great, works well and lasts for a long time," Tien said.

Patent Wars: HTC phones to face ban in USA? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/patent-wars-htc-phones-to-face-banin-usa-/14150.html December 6th, 2011

HTC smartphones may soon be barred from being imported into the US due to a patent infringement dispute with Apple. This is a big problem for the Taiwanese based handset maker and will send shockwaves throughout the entire Android ecosystem. The patent war between electronics giants Samsung and Apple have dominated headlines for quite a while now, but it seems that a new development might cause a big impact to the entire Android ecosystem - Taiwanese handset maker HTC may face a import ban in the US market due to technologies which infringe on Apple’s patents. Specifically, the said patent states of a “system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data”. An example is the ability to search and highlight a contact number on a website which is opened from the web browser of the mobile device, which can then be followed by a tap to make a phone call to that number.

December 6th, 2011

Another infringement details a “real-time signal processing system for serially transmitted data”, which is frankly, all encompassing in modern day tele-communications. If the ban is passed by a six-member panel at the International Trade Commission in Washington next week, HTC will take a big beating of its holiday sales, which will hit the company’s market share. The rest of the (Android) industry can only hope for a major patent reform movement by the Obama administration soon...

Published by: VR-Zone

to the moon, where it will utilize Martin's patterns running on NVIDIA Tegra 3 hardware. There is still a lot of work to be done, but seems like NVIDIApowered hardware just might win the $30 million prize.

Apple iTV in three sizes Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-itv-in-three-sizes/14140.html December 6th, 2011

NVIDIA Goes to the Moon with CUDA and Tegra 3 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-goes-to-the-moon-with-cudaand-tegra-3/14146.html December 6th, 2011

With a long trail of speculations following the possible emergence of an Apple branded television, a new insider infomation suggests that it will come in three sizes, including a 32-inch and 55-inch model. Will this be enough to go headto-head against Microsoft's recent television-oriented updates for Xbox 360?

Semiconductor products are used on numerous scientific and military projects. However, this is the story we just had to share with you. NVIDIA Tegra 3 is heading where no contemporary semiconductor chip has gone before - to the Moon. While there is a lot of discussion on forums what manufacturer does what, regardless of if we talk about cars or soccer teams, there is no denying that sometimes, something magical is happening with the semiconductor products. A privateer team called Synergy Moon is getting ready for their entrance for the Google Lunar X-Prize challenge, a $30 million competition of privateer teams who are working on launching a rocket into space putting human crew in an orbiter around Earth. This is followed by a sending a rover to land on the Moon.

In order to develop the lunar rover, Team Synergy Moon was joined by Martin Peniak, young scientist famous for his work on the Mars Rover Simulator developed in conjunction with ESA (European Space Agency). Impressed with an article about neural network using NVIDIA's GPU acceleration, Martin selected CUDA to be the base of all future work. One of his projects is the Tesla Lunar Rover and Tesla Surveyor, both of which are going to utilize multiple Tegra systems to achieve autonomy of movement while Currently, the launch is scheduled for December of next year, consisted out of Earth orbiter inhabited by astronauts such as team leader Mr. Miroslav Ambrus-Kis and documentary producer Nebojsa Stanojevic, while the autonomous Lander packing several Lunar Rover will be launched from the orbiter

An insider report originating from Japan suggests that Apple will be producing three sizes for the Apple iTV, which includes a 32-inch and 55-inch model. Much of the speculations are aligned with another separate piece of unconfirmed information that Japanese electronics maker Sharp is now in charge of making LCD screens for Apple. It is also possible that they will introduce their IGZO (Indium Gallium Zinc Oxide) screen eventually, which is capable of competing against OLED screen technology. With the existence of Siri as a viable candidate for the Apple iTV's primary input interface, it is easy to see how the pieces of the puzzle are nearly complete for it to come forth and dominate living room spaces. Rumours are still rumours, however, as it is not the first time that Apple had revealed a product that is different to what the associated speculations had suggested. The truth will be revealed next year as it is said that the Apple iTV will go on sales then. Looks like the flames of another television war is about to be fuelled, just when we thought the platform was becoming obsolete.

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel's mobile Ivy Bridge CPU line-up revealed Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s-mobile-ivy-bridge-cpu-line-uprevealed/14148.html December 6th, 2011

We've already seen what Intel has for us as far as desktop systems are concerned for most of 2012, Ivy Bridge-E not being part of that roadmap, but what about the mobile market space? Well, we have plenty of details for you with regards to what Intel has in store, ranging from high-end Extreme Edition models to new Ultrabook processors. We've already seen what Intel has for us as far as desktop systems are concerned for most of 2012, Ivy Bridge-E not being part of that roadmap, but what about the mobile market space? Well, we have plenty of details for you with regards to what Intel has in store, ranging from high-end Extreme Edition models to new Ultrabook processors.

So what about the CPUs? Well, Intel is planning a wide range of new models and starting at the top we have the 2.9GHz quad core Core i7-3920XM, a part which is 200MHz faster than the current Core i7-2960XM, although the top turbo frequency is only 100MHz higher. Not much else appears to have changed, although the IGP is now of course based on the new Intel HD Graphics 4000 architecture.

Let's start with a brief overview and then go into more details. As with the current mobile product range, Intel will offer standard Voltage CPUs and low power models, although at least for the time being it appears that the company has killed its line of Low Voltage or LV processors that were rated at 25W and instead we'll only see Ultra Low Voltage or ULV processors rated at 17W, now simply known as Ultra or Useries processors. The standard Voltage processors will be the M-series from now on and will come with 35, 45 and 55W TDP. Do remember that Intel now offers programmable TDP on its mobile CPUs and this is likely part of the reason as to why Intel has killed of the 25W TDP models. Dropping down one step we have two more quad cores, the 2.7GHz Core i7-3820QM and the 2.6GHz Core i7-3720QM, both models have been given a decent clock speed bump compared to the fastest Sandy Bridge quad cores and a 400MHz increase compared to the Sandy Bridge launch models. As with Sandy Bridge there's also a dual core Core i7, namely the Core i7-3520M which is a 2.9GHz. When it comes to the Chief River platform we're moving from three to four consumer chipsets with some new peculiarities kudos to Intel and its product differentiation schemes. There are three main chipsets now, the HM75, the HM76 and the HM77, with the UM77 being specifically for low power notebooks. The HM75 and HM76 are nearly identical, the big difference being the HM75 lacking USB 3.0 support, an omission we don't really understand as it's integrated into the chipset. The HM77 gains RAID support â&#x20AC;&#x201C; something neither of the two lesser models offer â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as well as Smart Response and for some reason support for two extra USB 2.0 ports. The UM77 is fairly similar to the HM77, except it only has four SATA ports of which only one is SATA 6Gbps and it drops four PCI Express lanes and four USB 2.0 ports.

That takes us to a pair of Core i5's, the 3360M and the 3320M clocked at 2.8 and 2.6GHz respectively, not a huge step up from the current Core i5 models. What should be pointed out is that all the dual cores now support DDR3 memory speeds 5

December 6th, 2011

of 1600MHz; something that isn't the case for Sandy Bridge based mobile CPUs. It's also interesting to note that all the mobile processors so far have higher max graphics clocks than their desktop equivalents.

Published by: VR-Zone

info coming on the Chief River platform, so stay tuned if you're planning on getting a new notebook next year.

LG announces the X-Note Z330 in Korea Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-announces-the-x-note-z330-inkorea/14147.html December 6th, 2011

It looks like Intel will only offer two U-series CPUs at launch, the 2GHz Core i7-3667U and the 1.8GHz Core i5-3427U. The core i7 model will turbo to 3GHz in dual core mode and 3.2GHz in single core mode whereas the Core i5 will top out at 2.6GHz in dual core mode and 2.8GHz in single core mode. Both models feature a base GPU clock of a mere 350MHz, but it will go all the way to 1150MHz. Note that the Low Voltage CPUs are missing from Q2'12 as Intel no longer produces any CPUs in this range.

LG Electronics has joined the Ultrabook crowd – if you can call a handful of companies a crowd that is – with its X-Note Z330 which appears to be limited to the Korean market for now. At first glance LG's X-Note Z330 could easily be mistaken for an Asus Zenbook, as the general design is quite similar, but not identical. LG Electronics has joined the Ultrabook crowd – if you can call a handful of companies a crowd that is – with its X-Note Z330 which appears to be limited to the Korean market for now. At first glance LG's X-Note Z330 could easily be mistaken for an Asus Zenbook, as the general design is quite similar, but not identical.

While we're talking about graphics, as with the desktop Ivy Bridge processors, the mobile processors also support up to three independent displays, although one of these will be the built in display in the notebook, but hopefully we'll see notebooks with a DisplayPort connector as standard come next year. As you've noticed there's nary a mention of lower-end Core i3 and Pentium processors and the reason for this is simple, they weren't included in the roadmaps we've seen. As for the Celerons, well Intel is keeping Sandy Bridge here, but we'll see a couple of faster SKUs come early next year, at least in the ultra-low power segment with the introduction of the dual core Celeron 867 which is a 1.3GHz part, but otherwise identical to the current Celeron 857 as well as the single core 797 which is a 1.4GHz part which is otherwise identical to the current Celeron 787. As for a tentative launch date we're hearing May for the mobile platform and as you can see from the slides, this is also what all but the quad cores are being earmarked for. We're not quite sure why the quad cores are listed as being available in April, but it's possible that Intel is doing a staggered launch which the high-end models being pushed out earlier. We've got some

The Z330 has a very similar brushed aluminium finish to the Zenbooks, although in LG's case the finish extends out from the top corner with the rings spreading from the corner out, rather than from the middle out as per Asus' Zenbooks. As with most Ultrabooks the Z330 is a wedge shape and this means LG has the same limitations as everyone else in terms of ports, although we're not entirely sold by LG's combination here, as you get a single USB 2.0 port, a single USB 3.0 port, an HDMI port, a combined headphone/mic jack and a micro SD card slot, not exactly an ideal range of options.

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Head of RIM Indonesia faces possible jail time over promotion stampede Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/head-of-rim-indonesia-faces-possiblejail-time-over-promotion-stampede/14145.html December 6th, 2011

That said, LG has also managed to cram 802.11b/g/n WiFi (although sadly only at 150Mbps) with WiDi support and Bluetooth 3.0 + HS into the Z330. As the name implies the Z330 has a 13.3-inch screen, although it sports the typical 1366x768 notebook resolution unlike Asus' 13-inch Zenbook which has a 1600x900 resolution display. LG claims to have slimmed down the screen bezel to a mere 8mm and as such the company claims the Z330 is the size of a 12-inch notebook. LG has managed to get the weight down to a mere 1.21kg, that's 90g lighter than Asus' 13-inch Zenbook.

There will be two SKUs of the Z330 both featuring 4GB of RAM, where the first one comes with a Core i5-2456M (1.6GHz with turbo to 2.3GHz) and a 120GB SATA 6Gbps SSD and the second one with a Core i7-2637M (1.7GHz with turbo to 2.8GHz) and a 256GB SATA 6Gbps SSD. LG claims a sub 10 second boot time for either model running Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Cost wise the Z330 is expected to retail for 1.7million Won (S$1,936) for the Core i5 model, with the Core i7 model coming in at 2.6million Won (S$2,962) making it one of the most expensive Ultrabooks out there. Check out the video below for some additional details. Unprintable Content (Video, Flash, etc.)

The head of Research In Motion (RIM) in Indonesia faces possible jail time after a BlackBerry promotion turned into a disastrous stampede that left many people injured. The head of Research In Motion (RIM) in Indonesia faces possible jail time after a BlackBerry promotion turned into a disastrous stampede that left many people injured. Andrew Cobham, president director for RIM Indonesia, has been named a suspect for negligence by the Indonesian police, and he could face up to five years in prison if found guilty. The move follows a promotion in Jakarta just over a week ago where the first 1,000 customers of the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 would get the device at half price. 5,000 people showed up in hopes to grab a bargain, but most were left waiting for hours, some overnight, as RIM struggled to cope with the numbers.

Eventually frustration turned to anger and a stampede broke out, resulting in many people being crushed and trampled by the advancing crowd. Over 40 people were injured and 20 were knocked unconscious, making it one of the most disastrous product launches in history. Cobham is only one of a number of suspects, including security consultant Terry Burkey and two unnamed individuals, all of 7

December 6th, 2011

whom have not yet been detained, but are not permitted to leave the country and are required to report to the police on a regular basis. The idea that RIM might have been negligent in this case comes from the belief that it ignored proper safety protocols, a matter that even the Indonesian government expressed concern over before the promotion went ahead.

India wants Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook to censor internet Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/india-wants-google-microsoft-yahooand-facebook-to-censor-internet/14144.html December 6th, 2011

India wants search engine and social networking firms to censor the internet, claiming that it is “unacceptable” that offensive content is allowed to remain on their websites. India wants search engine and social networking firms to censor the internet, claiming that it is “unacceptable” that offensive content is allowed to remain on their websites. India's acting minister of telecommunications, Kapil Sibal, is meeting officials from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook today to discuss the proposed censorship.

Published by: VR-Zone

The internet firms were reluctant to comment on the issue, but indicated that they would follow any laws on the subject, but could not decide on what is or is not legal to post online. This suggests that they are staunchly against the idea of monitoring content and would rather remove illegal material when complaints are made, as is currently the case. India has been stepping up efforts this year to monitor and control the transmission of data online, with new rules for ISPs that require them to delete offensive material, and a plan for a government-run monitoring unit for websites and social networks. The country also tightened controls last year on encrypted calls and messages over phone networks like that supplied by RIM's Blackberry. This level of censorship has given the country a negative image abroad, particularly considering the complaints focus on comments made about political figures, which raises questions about the possible violation of the right to free speech.

AOC and DisplayLink launch 15.6-inch portable monitor Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/aoc-and-displaylink-launch-15.6-inchportable-monitor/14142.html December 6th, 2011

Sibal cited examples where political leaders were, in his view, unfairly maligned by people online, and he asked that Google and the others properly monitor what is posted online. The monitoring suggestions go so far as to include special people with the responsibility to approve or reject content before it goes online, instead of the existing monitoring technology already in place, which Sibal clearly believes is failing to do the job.

AOC and DisplayLink have launched a 15.6-inch USB 2.0 portable monitor, designed to help anyone running multiple applications on their PC or laptop. AOC and DisplayLink have launched a 15.6-inch USB 2.0 portable monitor, designed to help anyone running multiple applications on their PC or laptop. The monitor, codenamed e1649fwu, employs a DL-125 chip supplied by DisplayLink and display technology by AOC. The screen has a maxmum resolution of 1366x768 at 60Hz. It does not need to be plugged into a mains, as it is powered directly through the USB port, which means it can feed off a laptop's battery power when out and about.

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Notebooks with AMD Radeon HD 7600M Listed Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/notebooks-with-amd-radeonhd-7600m-listed/14141.html December 6th, 2011

The monitor is also very light at just over two pounds, making it not much heavier than a typical tablet computer. It also looks very similar to an iPad or Galaxy Tab, with a sleek design and a fold out and rotatable stand that makes it operate like a picture frame. The monitor can be used in both landscape and portrait forms, with the image adjusting to the orientation of the device thanks to a built-in accelerometer.

The first 28nm GPUs have been listed by HP and Asus, to feature in their upcoming notebooks. The listed GPUs are Radeon HD 7670 and Radeon HD 7690 - both based on the Thames XT chip. HP has also listed drivers for Radeon HD 7470 on their website, on the eve of the London media event for AMD's London series of Radeon HD 7000M GPUs. The Thames XT chip features 128-bit GDDR5 memory. PCGamesHardware suggests it utilizes the VLIW-4 architecture, while other rumours point to a GCN based London series. HP Envy 17-3030ew features Radeon HD 7690M with 1GB GDDR5, working with a Core i7 Sandy Bridge based quad-core CPU. The Asus X53TK-SX058V is a more budget oriented notebook, featuring Radeon HD 7670M in addition to a Llano APU. AMD is expected to officially announce the London - branded Radeon HD 7000M - series today at a media event in London. All evidence point to the London series to be the first 28nm GPUs to launch, and also sets the scene for their desktop counterparts - Southern Islands - in early 2012.

Xbox 360 updates will focus on TV Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/xbox-360-updates-will-focus-ontv/14139.html December 6th, 2011

The display will work on most operating systems, including XP, Vista, Windows 7, OSX Tiger, Leopard and Lion, and many versions of Linux. It should be a simple case of plug and play. “With DisplayLink technology, AOC was able to rapidly bring to market this productivity-enhancing, versatile monitor for both mobile professionals and the home office user,” said Robert Velez, head of marketing at AOC. “The market for extended displays is growing rapidly, and this offering with its low power consumption, cord-independence and value price makes multi-screen computing more practical than ever.”

The new Microsoft Xbox 360 update is yet another step towards the company's vision of an integrated entertainment solution. Now, the Xbox Kinect lets you control your television with voice and gesture too. A slew of new content providers will bring a new lease of life to the aging system.

Currently the monitor is only available in the US, with a price tag of $139.

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Microsoft has announced the much anticipated update to their Xbox 360 dashboard interface which allows users to use voice commands and evoke actions such as ‘pause’ or ‘play’ on the television, as well as voice search on the Internet for relevant videos, music, and games, amongst other content. The upgrade also enables gesture control which allows scrolling across options with the wave of the hand. These new capabilities come with refreshing visual layout, inspired by Windows Phone. With a new range of 40 over content providers supporting Xbox 360 such as online movie rental portal LOVEFiLM and Internet television Sky Go, consumers will find it hard to be at a lack of entertainment options despite the ommision of live television. Microsoft says: “a new technological era in live TV in the home where the user becomes the remote control through voice and gesture control”, and added that “the new software update will create the biggest interactive TV service in the world”.

Plantronics launches Marque M155 headset in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/plantronics-launches-marque-m155headset-in-singapore/14138.html December 6th, 2011

The Plantronics Marque M155 claims to be the company's smallest headset ever and offers superior audio quality for hands-free calls. Available in Jet Black and Artic White, the Marque M155 weighs just 7g and is compatible with both iPhone and Android smartphones. It boasts a talk time of up to five hours, standby time of up to nine days and features Bluetooth 3.0 wireless for pairing with your phone.

This afternoon, Plantronics has announced the launch of the Marque M155 in Singapore. Designed for iPhone and Android smartphones, the compact headset offers voice-guided pairing as well as voice recognition for answering or ignoring calls hands-free.

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

and seamless experience. "Smartphones have now become the de facto standard when you buy a headset communication device. The message behind the Marque M155 is - just as we are being introduced the technology in a certain way, and because you need to look at the phone in order to retrieve information required, you need a way to enable your smartphone to get hands-free. So that you can communicate via voice while still being able to refer to your smartphone. And there is no way to do it without using an external audio device" Kiew said. A fact you may not know about Plantronics: The words spoken by U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong as he stepped on the moon were transmitted through a Plantronics headset.

The Plantronics Marque M155 recharges via a micro USB connector at the top, while on the sides are the power switch and volume/mute button. On the front is the call button whereby you can take a call with either a tap, or say "Answer"; reject call with a one second press, or say "Ignore"; redial with two taps; initiate phone's voice dialing with two-second press; and even reconnect lost Bluetooth connection with a tap if the headset cannot automatically reconnect. According to the company, there are also various apps available on Android Market and Apple App Store, which do sound checks, familiarize you with added functionality of the headset including streaming of music etc. The Plantronics Marque M155 will be available from mid December at S$119 at Apple Stores (EpiCentre, iStudio, Infinite, Juzz1, Macshop, Nubox), Challenger, Harvey Norman (Funan, Millennia Walk, Suntec City), Newstead, Sprint-Cass (Changi International Airport T1, T2, T3), Stereo (ION, Plaza Singapura, Causeway Point), Funan DigitalLife Mall (AAAs Com, DIGIVUE, Inforcom Technologies, PK Computers, South Asia) and Sim Lim Square (AAAs Com, idt Gallery, Million Mobile, Million Tech, Song Brothers, Vision 1).

Tablet to help elderly remember the pills, and more Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/tablet-to-help-elderly-remember-thepills-and-more/14132.html December 6th, 2011

Good news for the elderly and memory-challenged has arrived in the form of the Memo Touch tablet, a repackaged version of Archos 101. The new tablet allows family members to assist and guide their elderly family members across the day with reminders and daily task updates from the Internet.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve seen tablets for specific groups of people from businessoriented users to children, but it seems a new flavor has just emerged. The Memo Touch, a device derived from the Archos 101, is a new tablet for the elderly.

Alvin Kiew, senior regional manager, south-east Asia, Plantronics Singapore, introduced the Marque M155 and said that it is designed as an entry-level headset that is not for the road warriors, but for people who want simplicity

Our senior citizens will be able to benefit from its ability to keep track of their daily lives through consistent but gentle reminders to visit the doctor or consume medicine, amongst other medically related tasks or appointments, while family members can update the calendar, phone numbers, to-do notes and share photos or messages remotely from a browserbased interface which is connected to the company website. It is available at US$299 (S$384) but requires a subscription to the website which comes in a six-month plan of US$174 (S$223) or a twelve-month package of US$300 (S$385). 11

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Luckily, an inclusive three month satisfaction policy ensures that customer can choose to refund the tablet or restore it to the default Google Android platform.

social network, because so far it will not let her enter it onto her profile.

While it appears a little pricey, this system is a good step into discovering ways to take better care of our parents with maximum convenience.

Facebook is also censoring her attempts to raise awareness about the issue, as it refused to create the “Please get my hometown Effin recognised” page, telling her that it was “offensive”. Perhaps what is more offensive is Facebook's insistence that a genuine name is in some way profane.

No Effin! - Facebook bans Irish town name for being "offensive" Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/no-effin--facebook-bans-irish-townname-for-being-offensive-/14137.html December 6th, 2011

There are many unusual place names around the world, some of which mean different things in different languages. While Facebook is obviously trying to avoid people using swear words on its website, the process can be taken so far that it becomes more of an obstacle than an asset. What is particularly ironic about this incident is that Facebook's European headquarters is in Ireland and has been since 2008, but we suppose it has yet to get used to the weird and wonderful names for certain parts of the Emerald Isle.

Facebook has banned the name of an Irish town, labelling it as “offensive”, which raises questions over whether or not profanity filters are causing more problems than they solve. Facebook has banned the name of an Irish town, labeling it as “offensive”, which raises questions over whether or not profanity filters are causing more problems than they solve. The town, Effin, bears the same spelling as a common alternative to using a certain “F” word, but it is actually a real place in County Limerick in Ireland that has existed for hundreds of years.

All we can say about this incident is: what an Effin joke. Source and Photo Credit: Limerick Leader

Think Different: Apple's Social Media Guidelines leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/think-different-apple-s-social-mediaguidelines-leaked/14136.html December 6th, 2011

In fact, the name comes from the Irish pronunciation of Saint Eimhin, a Bishop from early Irish Christian history.

Apple's internal social media guidelines have been leaked, revealing that it can sack any of its staff for posting on social networks, websites, and other online communities. Apple's internal social media guidelines have been leaked, revealing that it can sack any of its staff for posting on social networks, websites, and other online communities. The document shows that working at Apple means that certain things are off the table when it comes to sharing your views online. For example, staff can have their own personal websites, but none of them are allowed to discuss Apple on those websites, despite the so-called right to freedom of speech. A University of Limerick employee, Ann Marie Kennedy, has been campaigning to get her home town recognised by the

Apple will not permit employees to comment on speculation or rumours, including confirmations or denials regarding new 12

December 6th, 2011

products and services. This is in line with Apple's tendency to not respond to media inquiries.

Published by: VR-Zone

A US judge has rejected an attempt by Apple to get Samsung's Galaxy Tab and several smartphones banned in the United States, signalling a major setback in Apple's legal dispute. A US judge has rejected an attempt by Apple to get Samsung's Galaxy Tab and several smartphones banned in the United States, signalling a major setback in Apple's legal dispute. District Judge Lucy Koh decided that a ban against the Galaxy Tab and three Samsung smartphones was not appropriate, adding that she failed to see how it would stop Apple from being irrepairably harmed, as the latter claimed in its lawsuit. The US lawsuit, which was filed in April, is just one of numerous cases Apple has filed throughout several countries around the world, most of which have yet to return a verdict.

In case any Apple staff want to participate in Apple fan communities, that is not permited either, even if they never reveal that they work for Apple. So no discussing their iPhone or Mac, even if they want to sing praises about them. The rules are so strict that Apple said it â&#x20AC;&#x153;retains the right to discipline (up to termination of employment), or cut ties of any that do not comply with these regulations.â&#x20AC;? There are also guidelines for how employees should conduct themselves on social networks like Facebook and Twitter. This landed one Apple worker in deep trouble last month when he posted negative comments about the company on Facebook, ultimately leading to his dismissal. While it is easy to see why Apple does not want its staff giving it a bad name through their words or actions, this level of censorship has to be bad for morale, not to mention the company's public image. Picture Credits: Cult of Mac

US judge rejects Apple attempt to ban Samsung Galaxy Tab Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/us-judge-rejects-apple-attempt-to-bansamsung-galaxy-tab/14135.html December 6th, 2011

There is still potential for a ban in the US, however, as Koh indicated that Apple was likely to prove patent infringement for the Galaxy Tab and at least one of the smartphones in question. However, in a vouch of confidence for Samsung, she also said that Apple needs to demonstrate that the patents are actually valid, which she believes it has so far failed to prove in the face of Samsung's legal challenges. The patent battle between the two technology giants appeared to initially be going in Apple's favour, with bans secured in Germany and Australia. However, recent rulings have sided with Samsung, ending the preliminary injunction in Australia and now preventing an injunction in the US. The EU's Competition Commissioner has also expressed concerns over the German ban.

December 6th, 2011

Europe proposes global data protection laws Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/europe-proposes-global-dataprotection-laws/14129.html December 6th, 2011

The Council of Europe has proposed a revised convention on data protection, which the majority of European countries will be obliged to follow. We interviewed Sophie Kwasny, secretary to the Consultative Committee of the Council of Europe data protection convention, about the proposals, the difficulties faced, and the potential impact on national sovereignty. The Council of Europe has proposed a revised convention on data protection, which the majority of European countries will be obliged to follow. We interviewed Sophie Kwasny, secretary to the Consultative Committee of the Council of Europe data protection convention, about the proposals, the obstacles Europe faces to data protection, and the potential impact of pan-European laws on national sovereignty.

Published by: VR-Zone

store user search data, and no Sony Computer Entertainment to hack. Kwasny was quite clear that Europe has a good data protection reputation and that the proposals are not designed to replace the existing convention, but rather to keep the current framework and update it for the modern world. She said that the old Convention was “not fully relevant” anymore, but qualified this by saying that “it's still up to date in the sense that the formulations and the principles are not out of date, so it's still matching the reality, but nevertheless ... we can strengthen the individual rights, ... we can increase the pro-active actions of the private sector on this, so let's do it. This will increase the protection in a way it wasn't foreseen 30 years ago, but now that we're tackling this we definitely think it's necessary to complement the current text with those points.” So far 43 countries employ the existing convention, including all 27 European Union Member States. A number of other countries have also expressed interest, such as Uruguay, which would be the first non-European country to accede to the convention. The United States, Japan, Canada, and Mexico were also present for talks. However, Kwasny told us that the United States made it clear that it would be an observer to the committee, but would not be party to the convention itself, due to major differences in the way it approaches data protection. We asked if part of the reason why the Council of Europe is proposing an update to its convention on data protection is the fact that there have been so many incidents of privacy abuse by companies with access to people's information, not to mention the numerous data breaches of companies throughout the world by groups like Anonymous.

Bringing things up to date The Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data is a somewhat dated international treaty aimed at addressing the right of individuals to the protection of their personal data. It was originally drafted in 1981, making this year the thirtieth anniversary, and Kwasny said that the Council decided that it would be appropriate to check if the principles of the convention are still fully in line with the modern use of data. When the original convention was written the internet did not really exist, nor did the majority of the problems people face in terms of the proper use of their data. For example, there was no Facebook to house personal information, no Google to

“I think that certainly the fact that you have more and more privacy issues on the news, it's raised first general public opinion on those issues, but indeed also the fact that we know that we have a protective framework which is there, but maybe we need to make sure that those cases are not repeated,” Kwasny said. “All those cases have definitely raised awareness ... of the fact that some of the legislations in place did not sufficiently cover some of the new threats to privacy.”

Micron teams up with IBM for Hybrid Memory Cube manufacturing Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/micron-teams-up-with-ibm-for-hybridmemory-cube-manufacturing/14131.html

December 6th, 2011 December 6th, 2011

If anyone thought the memory industry couldn't get any worse, it looks like Micron is about to obliterate the competition with its Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) technology that is built using through-silicon vias (TSVs) and Micron has now signed an agreement with IBM to start manufacturing. This technology if proven successful in mass production would easily be the biggest leap in memory technology for the past decade and maybe even for the next decade. If anyone thought the memory industry couldn't get any worse, it looks like Micron is about to obliterate the competition with its Hybrid Memory Cube (HMC) technology that is built using through-silicon vias (TSVs) and Micron has now signed an agreement with IBM to start manufacturing. This technology if proven successful in mass production would easily be the biggest leap in memory technology for the past decade and maybe even for the next decade. The advantage of stacking the memory chips using TSVs is not only that it takes up one-tenth of the space of a traditional memory chip if you compare how much memory you get in a set amount of PCB space. Thanks to some built in logic, we're also looking at reduced latencies, up to a 70 percent reduction in power usage compared to standard DDR3 and a claimed 15 times performance improvement or more for a DDR3 module built using HMC technology.

The gold layers consist of DRAM with the blue part at the bottom being the logic In all fairness we're not there yet and prototypes made by Micron have "only" had a bandwidth of 128GB/s, about 10 times faster than high-end DDR3 memory. Production will kick off using IBM's 32nm high-K metal gate process in the company's facility in East Fishkill, New York; although no specific date was giving as to when production will start.

Published by: VR-Zone

we see this technology being used in all sorts of consumer devices. The traditional DIMM might very well be a dying species in the PC ecosystem in the not too distant future, replaced by something far smaller with much higher capacity.

Acer announces the Iconia Tab A200 Tegra 2 tablet Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/acer-announces-the-iconia-tab-a200tegra-2-tablet/14128.html December 6th, 2011

Just in time for the holidays, Acer has announced its Iconia Tab A200 tablet powered by Nvidia's Tegra 2 processors. The 10.1-inch tablet is a more affordable sibling to the A500, although the specifications are in fact quite similar. Just in time for the holidays, Acer has announced its Iconia Tab A200 tablet powered by Nvidia's Tegra 2 processors. The 10.1-inch tablet is a more affordable sibling to the A500, although the specifications are in fact quite similar. The Iconia Tab A200 will ship with Android 3.2 initially, although Acer is expecting to start shipping Android 4.0 in January as well as providing an update for those that got the tablet with Android 3.2. The Tegra 2 processor is a standard 1GHz dual core model and it has been paired up with 1GB of RAM and eight or 16GB of eMMC memory for storage.

Other features include 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, GPS, a 2Megapixel front camera, a micro SD card slot, a micro USB port and a USB port for USB OTG, a headphone jack, a G-sensor and a gyrometer. The battery is said to be good for about 8h of usage, the same as the A500. The A200 measures 260x175x12.4mm and weighs in at 720g. We're not entirely sure how much more affordable it'll be compared to the A500, as Acer didn't provide any pricing.

The bad news you ask? Well, at least initially it looks like HMC is destined for the server market, where large amounts of DRAM is often needed, but we can see it taking too long before 15

December 6th, 2011

Global external disk storage market grows 10.8 per cent in Q3 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/global-external-disk-storage-marketgrows-10.8-per-cent-in-q3/14127.html December 6th, 2011

The global external disk storage systems market has seen revenue growth of 10.8 per cent in the third quarter, according to an IDC report, as businesses return to spending on IT upgrades. The global external disk storage market has seen revenue growth of 10.8 per cent in the third quarter of this year, according to a report by the International Data Corporation (IDC). The external disk storage systems industry made roughly $5.8 billion in revenue for the third quarter, making up the largest chunk of the $7.6 billion in revenue made in the overall disk storage sector. Much of the strong growth was attributed to increasing demand for external storage amongst businesses, which IDC believes marks a return to a business as normal scenario for companies that were previously struggling to cope financially. However, it said that this high growth is likely to slow and return to the same levels seen before the global economic crisis.

Published by: VR-Zone

IBM saw a slight decline in market share from 12.8 per cent in the third quarter of 2010 to 12.7 per cent this year, but revenue was up from $667 million to $735 million. NetApp was in joint second place with a 16.5 per cent increase in revenue in the third quarter, up from $601 million to $700 million. Its market share grew from 11.5 percent to 12.1 percent. HP was next with a 13.1 percent increase in year on year revenue for the third quarter, up from $575 million to $651 million. It also saw a marginal increase in market share from 11 percent to 11.3 percent. Hitachi and Dell were almost neck and neck in terms of revenue and market share, which were $505 million and $459 million, and 8.8 percent and eight percent respectively. However, revenue growth was significantly different, as Hitachi saw an increase of 22.1 per cent, while Dell saw a 2.6 per cent drop instead. Market shares also differeed, with Hitachi gaining 0.8 percent, while Dell dropped a whole percentage point compared to this time last year. Source: Press Release

NVIDIA Reaches 7,000 Employees, Wants (at least) 475 More Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-reaches-7-000-employeeswants-at-least-475-more/14117.html December 6th, 2011

Yesterday we posted news about AMD hiring top talent with the focus on SOC (System-On-a-Chip) engineering team. We got an email from NVIDIA employee saying they're hiring too... If you are in the business of creating and manufacturing great technology and products, there is no doubt that you need top people to make it happen. After publishing the news about AMD hiring top talent in order to deliver on the new product strategy, we got interested in how other companies are doing. One of our readers got back to us and said that while AMD is hiring about 60 job positions (through LinkedIn), his company is hiring almost 500 people. Given that company was NVIDIA, we asked around and learned several interesting things.

EMC experienced third quarter growth of 22 per cent year on year, with revenue up from $1.351 billion to $1.649 billion. Its market share also grew from 25.9 percent to 28.6 percent.

First and foremost, the company just reached a 7,000 employee milestone. This is the first time in history of NVIDIA to have 7,000 employees at the same time and they want to hire at least additional 7%. At the time of writing, there are no less 475 job openings at NVIDIA on LinkedIn Jobs Search, with positions in marketing, engineering, support -

December 6th, 2011

the company is evenly hiring across the board and across continents. Jobs are located in Santa Clara (California), Theale (UK), Shenzen (China), Moscow (Russia), Berlin, Taipei and many other locations. NVIDIA has offices in 20 countries, so its no wonder they need continuous influx of fresh brains. For example, here are the jobs which we consider most interesting: Exascale Program Director, Santa Clara, CA - "NVIDIA is searching for a world-class Program Director for an exciting role helping NVIDIA deliver the next generation of supercomputing solutions. This position requires deep experience and expertise in the management of large and complex US government funded programs. " Tesla GPU Computing General Manager, Santa Clara, CA "You will the primary leader for the Tesla business unit at NVIDIA including business strategy, product development and cross functional leadership of multiple groups within NVIDIA." WW Tegra Community Manager, Santa Clara, CA - "The WW Tegra Community Manager serves as the primary point of contact for the Tegra community to provide initiatives that use community, social networking, advertising and other technologies to increase community participation." GPU Infrastructure Architect, Shanghai, China - "The GPU Infrastructure Architecture group is looking for top programmers to drive the development of our core infrastructure for modeling, analysis and debugging in the development of GPU products. A key part of NVIDIA's strength is our proprietary internal tools & flows for the modeling, analysis, debug and verification of applications on various functional and performance simulations of future chips. "

Published by: VR-Zone December 6th, 2011

Western Digital has begun producing hard drives after months of halted production due to extensive flooding in Thailand. The announcement has sent shares skyrocketing as the company gears up for the Christmas shopping season. Western Digital has begun making hard drives again after months of halted production due to disastrous flooding in Thailand. The data storage company said it had begun partial production of hard drives a week ahead of schedule at one of its plants in the Bang Pa-in district. This facility had been flooded since October. Other Western Digital facilities in Bang Pa-in and Navanakorn, which were also damaged, are still being worked on at the moment and may not reopen until March of next year or later.

The Thailand floods, which began in July, have had a major impact on the storage market, with many of the major hard drive makers operating from the country. Supply plummeted, sending prices through the roof, with many hard drives doubling in price.

Field Application Engineer - Automotive, Munich, Germany "RESPONSIBILITIES: - Pre & Post customer sales support for focused embedded customers (Europe) * Product testing and qualification at customer premises * Weekly and monthly project and product reviews - Milestone updates * Weekly top 5 issues to management - Product roadmap reviews" If you are interested, head to LinkedIn Job Search page and see what you can find for yourself. If AMD or NVIDIA aren't your cup of tea, there is always... Intel or Apple. But don't expect big bucks at Apple, as our sources tend to say. At Apple, you cash out with your next job.

Western Digital partially recovers from Thailand floods Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/western-digital-partially-recoversfrom-thailand-floods/14125.html

The timing of Western Digital's renewed production is important, as many people will want to buy new hard drives over the Christmas shopping season. The company revised its gross margin forecast for its fiscal second quarter, which includes the month of December, up from 18 percent to 23 percent, with an expected revenue of $1.8 billion. â&#x20AC;&#x153;The passion, perseverance, ingenuity and execution exhibited by the WD team has been extraordinary and enabled us to 17

December 6th, 2011

make substantial progress in partially restoring our operations in Thailand, well in advance of our earliest expectations when the floods hit,” said John Coyne, president and CEO of Western Digital. “Much work remains to be done but we couldn't be more pleased with the effort and results thus far, including tremendous support from our supply partners and strategic customers.”

Published by: VR-Zone

Slim 12.1-megapixel sensor to dominate mobile markets Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/slim-12.1-megapixel-sensor-todominate-mobile-markets/14121.html December 6th, 2011

Western Digital's early return to operation could even give it an edge over rivals like Seagate, which are still experiencing significant supply issues due to the flooding. At the time of writing Western Digital's shares were up 8.38 percent to $31.70. Source: Press Release

A 12.1-megapixel camera module was revealed by Japanese manufacturer Sharp recently, sporting a series of features packaged into a very slim form, suitable for use on compact smartphones, which have dominated the mobile market recently.

Rumour: AMD preparing Radeon HD 6930 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rumour-amd-preparing-radeonhd-6930/14122.html December 6th, 2011

Not to be outdone by NVIDIA's recent GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Core release, AMD is preparing a salvaged GPU of their own. According to reports from Chinese forums, the new card will be branded Radeon HD 6930, and based on Cayman. The HD 6930 will fill in the gap between HD 6870 and HD 6950, and will retail in the $180-$200 price range. HD 6930 cuts down 2 more SIMDs over HD 6950, leaving only 20 of 24 Cayman's SIMDs ienabled. This translates to 1280 SP and 80 TMU. ROPs and memory are left untouched to 32 and 256-bit respectively. The 6930 features a downclock to 750 MHz, with 1GB or 2GB GDDR5 clocked at 4.8 GHz. The TDP is not mentioned, but should requires 2x PCI-e connectors, suggesting a TDP of over 150W. Both pice and performance are expected to fill the gap between HD 6870 and HD 6950. In doing so, it will also fill in the gap between GTX 560 and GTX 560 Ti. HD 6930 will surely be the last HD 6000 series product to release, with HD 7000 series rumoured to be announced on ecember 5th. Like the GTX 560 Ti 448, the 6930 is most likely to be a limited edition SKU. Judging by AMD's past history, there's a good chance that the HD 6930 will be China-exclusive or otherwise available in limited regions.

The megapixel firefight between phone cameras is about to heat up. In the latest report, electronics giant Sharp has announced a 12.1-megapixel CMOS camera sensor in the form of an 11 by 11 by 5.47 millimeter module, pushing the limits of mobile camera technologies. The system is capable of imagestabilization and possesses a backlit sensor, standard autofocus, and full 1080p High Definition video capture. The new camera module, also known by its designation RJ63YC100, is currently ready for mass production by January. This means that we can expect to see wonderful imaging solutions packaged with newer phones but retaining their slim lines in the near future. This is good news, as it is increasingly often to find people taking pictures with their phone cameras than with their point-and-shoot. When camera technologies become more advanced while maintaining a small form, mobile imaging solution becomes a viable option that may be able to replace traditional cameras in certain market segments. After all who would want to carry two devices when they can use one to achieve the same tasks?

December 6th, 2011

Phone on fire again. Culprit: Samsung GALAXY S II Skyrocket Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/phone-on-fire-again.-culprit-samsunggalaxy-s-ii-skyrocket/14120.html December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The cause of the malfunction is believed to be similar to the kind which caused the iPhones to self-combust. This involves faulty Lithium-ion batteries that accumulate heat to the point where surrounding material could melt or burn. While it takes quite a dent to cause a Lithium-ion battery to fail in this manner, it is also noted that both iPhones had previously visited areas of high altitude before being showing signs of severe problems. Until the problems have been fully rectified, perhaps it is wiser to keep the phone at more common operation elevations.

A Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket nearly burnt the owner in his pocket due to a malfunction. Is this just seemingly humorous collection of incidents of very hot phones, or is there a serious flaw which smartphone makers should look at?

BlackBerry Bold 9790 coming to Singapore on 8 December Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/blackberry-bold-9790-coming-tosingapore-on-8-december/14119.html December 6th, 2011

For those of you who are waiting for the new BlackBerry Bold 9790, well, the wait is over. Research in Motion has announced the launch of the BlackBerry smartphone in Singapore and will be available from 8 December.

We recently saw a fair share of drama where Samsung was allegedly copying various Apple's technology and design from their iPhone and iPad on Samsung's GALAXY series of mobile devices, but it seems one GALAXY S II Skyrocket even mimicked the recent string of events where Apple iPhones caught fire spontaneously. It was reported that the Long Term Evolution (LTE) enabled smartphone heated up and emitted smoke while still in the pockets of an independent developer associated to mobile developer website and forum XDA.

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced the launch of the new BlackBerry Bold 9790 smartphone in Singapore. Featuring a compact design, high resolution touch display and tactile keyboard, the smartphone will be available in Singapore on 8 December through authorized partners. Built with premium materials and finishes, the full-featured BlackBerry Bold 9790 smartphone is equipped with BlackBerry 7 OS and powerful 1GHz processor for fast performance when surfing the web, running apps, working with documents, and enjoying multimedia content. It comes with 8GB onboard memory and

December 6th, 2011

an expandable memory card slot that supports up to 32GB additional storage. The BlackBerry Bold 9790 also features built-in support for Augmented Reality and NFC. With the Wikitude Augmented Reality application, you can find nearby BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) contacts, read reviews on restaurants near them, or get information of interesting landmarks and points of interest. NFC alows you to make mobile payments, pair accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the smartphone. For pricing information, the company advised checking with the individual carriers.

Published by: VR-Zone

178-degree. The tablet also comes with built-in SRS Sound technology for dynamic 3D stereo audio experience, with superb bass response and wide sound field. And in case you didn't know, it won our VR-Zone Editor's Choice. Price: S$1,099 (32GB 3G model), S$898 (16GB Wi-Fi) Where to buy - AAAs Com Solution, IT Harvest, Microware, Newstead Technologies, @notebook.com, MC2, Digital Asia, Microware, South Asia, Matrix IT Gallery, Netpro, Best Denki, Challenger, Courts, Harvey Norman, Carrefour, Gain City Toshiba AT100

VR-Zone Christmas Gift Guide - Tablets Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/vr-zone-christmas-gift-guide-tablets/14029.html December 6th, 2011

Ever since the Apple iPad was introduced to the market, tablets have become one of the popular technology gadgets for content consumption; you can use it to surf your favorite web sites, watch videos or play some games. Well, besides the iPad, there are other choices that run Google Android as well as Microsoft Windows 7 operating systems. This week, we look at some of the tablet offerings which you could consider getting for your loved ones this Christmas. ASUS Eee Pad Transformer

Enjoy a unique multimedia experience with the new Toshiba AT100 Android tablet. Available in six colorful back covers Blue Moon, Raspberry Fusion, Lavender Bliss, Silver Sky and Green Apple - the tablet features a powerful NVIDIA Tegra 2 dual-core processor and 10.1-inch high definition touchscreen that offers seamless multitasking and superb graphics. The AT100 also comes with full-sized HDMI, two USB ports and a SD card reader, and boasts up to seven hours of battery life for your enjoyment. Price: S$699 Where to buy: Toshiba authorized retailers Apple iPad 2

The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer was launched in Singapore few months back, and is able to transform into a full-fledged notebook with full QWERTY keyboard with the optional docking station. Powered by NVIDIA Tegra 2 dualcore processor, the Eee Pad Transformer lets you browses your favorite webpages at blazing speeds, with fast response time and superb performance during multi-tasking. It uses an IPS panel with durable scratch-resistant glass and offers crisp and vibrant images, as well as viewing angles of up to

Based on the success of the iPad, Apple unveiled the iPad 2 earlier this year which is 33% thinner than its predecessor and comes equipped with a more powerful dual-core A5 processor 20

December 6th, 2011

for user to surf the web, check emails, watch movies and multitask quickly and easily. It boasts 10-hour battery life and features two cameras (front and rear) that lets you do FaceTime video calls, as well as capture images and high definition videos. If you do not want the black-bordered version, the iPad 2 is also available in white, which suits the festive season. Price: S$668 (16GB Wi-Fi), S$798 (32GB Wi-Fi), S$848 (16GB Wi-Fi+3G) Where to buy: Apple Online Store

AMD starts hiring world class SoC engineers Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-starts-hiring-world-class-socengineers/14113.html December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

behind the scenes. Bear in mind that some of these ads are searching not just for one job position, rather several talented engineers at the same time (depending on interview results). Engineers are even looked for on Twitter. So, who is AMD looking for? The positions are mostly located in Austin (TX), Sunnyvale (CA), Boxborough (MA) and Fort Collins (CO) and we have to say that job descriptions are intriguing. This is just a small sample of jobs available: Video Architect, Sunnyvale CA - "Responsible for the design and development of x86/SSE and GPU-based Software video codecs, such as MPEG-2, H.264 and SVC" SOC Integration Engineer, Austin TX "Own floor planning (estimates & actual), C4 planning, packaging requirements, top level interconnects, implement overlays, full chip assembly along with associated physical verification of assembled chip for next generation AMD Server and Fusion microprocessors." SOC Design Verification Engineer, Austin TX "This position is for an experienced verification engineer in AMD's SoC verification group working on next generation high performance x86 client and server microprocessors. The location is the Lone Star Design Center in southwest Austin."

After all the doom and gloom of recent cleanup operation that culled 12% of its workforce, AMD has started to open job positions for engineers, especially ones in the field of SoC design (System-on-a-Chip). In order to go forward, AMD executives know that Wall Street investors won't be impressed with the 1400 layoffs - if the market success of Apple, Nokia, Intel, BMW, Audi, Airbus (and the list goes on) show anything is that engineering excellence is what is required for success. AMD's Rory P. Read will announce his Project WIN strategy at Financial Analyst Day in February 2012, but until then, some serious head hunting is taking place. Bear in mind that AMD did not just lay people off, the company had internal reorganization and it was good to hear that several former "directors of engineering" (GPU, CPU, Memory architects) were promoted to VP, CVP and C-level executives.

System Software Development Engineer, Austin TX - "System Optimization Engineering team is seeking an experienced system-software developer to join AMD's modeling team for software-based simulation of AMD's future server, notebook, tablet and desktop platforms." Learning and Development Manager, Austin TX - "The L&D Manager (Finance Transformation) position will support us in the transformation of our global Finance team. Engaging our employees globally, you will support the transformation of the Finance organization through the project management, facilitation, and coaching of the team via process and culture change specifically through training development, delivery, and sustainment." The list goes on, and if you want to check it out, hit this link. As far as AMD goes, we can only hope that the new faces in AMD will make their products even more competitive on the market.

Intel's desktop roadmap for the next 12 months leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s-desktop-roadmap-for-thenext-12-months-leaked/14118.html December 6th, 2011

Thus, it comes as no surprise that AMD's LinkedIn page is now filled with job posts and there is active recruiting taking place

Generally roadmap leaks tend to entail various snippets here and there or a few slides, but as it happens, Intel's desktop roadmap for the next 12 months have turned up online and although it's far from complete, it gives us a really good look at what Intel is working on. We've tried to sum up the

December 6th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

most important parts here, although there's far too much information to cover in a single post. Generally roadmap leaks tend to entail various snippets here and there or a few slides, but as it happens, Intel's desktop roadmap for the next 12 months have turned up online and although it's far from complete, it gives us a really good look at what Intel is working on. We've tried to sum up the most important parts here, although there's far too much information to cover in a single post. The roadmap appeared over at HWbot and it's already a couple of weeks old, but stretches all the way until Q4 of next year. That said it's not covering every single product Intel has planned for the desktop space until then and in general the information should be good for at least the next two quarters. We've already posted the specifics regarding the Ivy Bridge processors, but there are some things we'd still like to highlight that the full roadmap has made clear.

The Ivy Bridge launch in Q2'12 will not consist of the entire line-up of CPUs, as a few of the models we're already aware of won't arrive until Q3, more specifically the Core i5-3570 and 3470. As such, if you want the fastest Core i5 at launch, you have to go with the K SKU. What wasn't part of the earlier leaks were the lower-end processors and it looks like Intel will introduce a few Ivy Bridge based models in Q2, with more arriving in Q3, although no specifics are detailed in this roadmap. As for the Pentiums we have to wait until Q3 and only a single SKU appears to be launched then.

The only thing we know for sure is that Intel is set to release the Celeron G460 come the 11th of December which is Intel's first Sandy Bridge based Celeron processor with Hyper Threading support. It's a 1.8GHz part with a peculiar 1.5MB of cache; otherwise it appears to be identical to the Celeron G440. Moving on to the Atom processors Intel has come up with a tweaked version of the D2500 called the D2550. It's something of a hybrid between the D2500 and D2700 with the same core clock speeds as the D2500 (1.86GHz) but the same GPU as the D2700 which is clocked at 640MHz rather than 400MHz for the D2500. The simple reason this model even exists is because the D2500's GPU is apparently too slow to handle Bluray playback. There appears to have been some confusion as to what will launch when as well and we did some asking around to try and clear things up. The consumer desktop parts will arrive in April as suggested for quite some time by now, with the Z77, Z75 and H77 chipsets. It looks as if it'll be a slightly limited launch with Intel focusing on the K SKU CPUs. The business chipsets, the Q77, Q75 and B75 alongside with the standard Wattage mobile parts aren't expected to arrive until May though, but it's possible that we'll see the ULV parts for Ultrabooks arrive earlier due to Intel seeing this as the future of notebooks.

As for Sandy Bridge, it looks like Intel will phase out its highend Core i7 and Core i5 parts almost immediately after the launch of Ivy Bridge with the Core i5-2300 being the first one to go, whereas when it comes to the Core i3 market segment they get to live on until Q3. As for the Pentiums and Celeron's Sandy Bridge looks set to be around until at least the end of next year. Intel should be launcher higher clocked iterations of many of these CPUs before then, although the roadmap once again doesn't provide any specifics as to what to expect.

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

AMD Southern Islands (Tahiti / HD 7900) Pictured Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-southern-islands-tahiti-hd-7900pictured/14183.html December 8th, 2011

A mysterious picture has been posted by a member of Beyond3D forums, capturing two next-gen AMD graphics cards in Crossfire. These new graphics cards are certainly enthusiast (and power hungry) products of the upcoming Southern Islands family, most likely to be Tahiti XT - expected to be branded Radeon HD 7970. A mysterious picture has been posted by a member of Beyond3D forums, capturing two next-gen AMD graphics cards in Crossfire. These new graphics cards are certainly enthusiast (and power hungry) products of the upcoming Southern Islands family, most likely to be Tahiti XT - expected to be branded Radeon HD 7970.

PCI-e power connectors on the PCB - or upto 375W power. However, both cards are powered by the SIG approved 6-pin + 8-pin configuration, powering upto 300W. The two cards are powered by a 850W power supply. This is no doubt a power hungry card, and all this power seems to be fed through a mammoth 20 phase VRM. The first Southern Islands / AMD Radeon HD 7000 series 28nm GPUs are set to release in January 2012, most likely around CES 2012 time. Whether it will be the above pictured enthusiast Tahiti / HD 7900 or the performance Pitcairn / HD 7800, as previously rumoured, remains to be seen.

Microsoft's Bill Gates in talks with China for safer nuclear reactors Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-s-bill-gates-in-talks-withchina-for-safer-nuclear-reactors/14182.html December 8th, 2011

Bill Gates, former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, is in talks with China on how to build a safer and more efficient nuclear reactor. Bill Gates, former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, is in talks with China on how to build a safer and more efficient nuclear reactor. Gates announced the venture at a talk at the Ministry of Science and Technology in China, where he said that he is helping Chinese scientists to come up with a design for a fourth generation reactor that will be both cost effective, extremely safe, and generate very little waste, addressing three of the biggest concerns with existing nuclear reactors. Gates' involvement comes through his company Terrapower, which attempts to find new solutions to energy problems. He said that Terrapower was still in the early stage of talks with China's National Nuclear Corporation.

The first visual observation is that these cards are hefty and approximately 10 inches long - or around the same length as HD 6970. They contain 12 memory chips (as demarkated on the picture - the 12th being at the edge of the PCI-e connector), which suggests a memory interface of 384-bit - a novelty for AMD/ATI GPUs. There seems to be a provision for 2x8-pin 1

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

and asking if they wanted to report any of these. This led to a situation where the reporting feature could be abused deliberately to expose private photos.

He expects that that research into the new reactor will cost upwards of $1 billion, but the payoff could be significant, as countries around the world struggle to cope with energy demand, the environmental concern of high carbon emissions, and the safety concerns of nuclear reactors, demonstrated by the disaster in Japan earlier this year. Part of the new design will involve building the reactor to withstand tidal waves and earthquakes, to help avoid a repeat scenario of the Fukushima incident. “All these new designs are going to be incredibly safe,” said Gates. “They require no human action to remain safe at all times.”

Facebook fixes private photo bug Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/facebook-fixes-private-photobug/14181.html December 8th, 2011

Facebook has fixed an embarassing bug that allowed private photos, including those of founder Mark Zuckerberg, to be accessed by anyone using the website. Facebook has fixed an embarassing bug that allowed private photos, including those of founder Mark Zuckerberg, to be accessed by anyone using the website. The bug, which was first discovered by users of a bodybuilding forum, allowed people to access a number of recently uploaded photos, even if the user had set them to private or shared them only with a select group of friends.

“This was the result of one of our recent code pushes and was live for a limited period of time,” Facebook said in a statement. “Upon discovering the bug, we immediately disabled the system, and will only return functionality once we can confirm the bug has been fixed” The most ironic thing about this bug is that it was used to gain access to 14 pictures of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, who has frequently attempted to dismiss privacy concerns about his social network. Maybe he will push for bigger privacy changes after this latest mishap.

Google to invest $300 million in Hong Kong data centre Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-to-invest-300-million-in-hongkong-data-centre/14180.html December 8th, 2011

Google is to invest $300 million in a data centre in Hong Kong, as the company launches plans to expand to a number of Asian countries. Google is to invest $300 million in a data centre in Hong Kong, as the company launches plans to expand to a number of Asian countries. The Hong Kong data centre will employ 25 full-time staff and is expected to be operational by early 2013. The investment will cover the cost of land, construction and technical equipment.

The glitch worked only if people reported a picture, showing them additional pictures, which should not have been seen, 2

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Hong Kong is a major technology centre in the region and represents a move into China without having to face the stricter rules and regulations imposed on the mainland. Google already has strained relations with the Chinese government over an alleged hacking of its email servers and Google's vocal concerns about censorship in the country. This led to Google redirecting users of the Google.cn search engine to Google.hk instead.

Google also announced plans in September to build data centres in Singapore and Taiwan, which are expected to take one to two years to complete. It has not yet revealed what kind of money it will pump into these. “We're working as quickly as we can to get this facility operational so we can keep up with rapid growth in capacity demand across the region,” said Simon Chang, head of hardware operations at Google Asia.

Luxury phone label Vertu may be sold by Nokia soon as the Finnish company intends to focus on smartphones and devices for budget consumers. After more than ten years in operation, Nokia’s luxury division is up for sale, with various private equity firms and luxury brands already indicating interest. Vertu phones are known for their use of expensive materials together with daring and luxurious design language, and the devices also feature exclusive ‘concierge’ service which allows owners to make various requests such as making restaurant reservations and booking hotel rooms, which is the center piece to the phone’s appeal. Hopefully, we will be able to see more innovations from them in the face of the burgeoning and fickle smartphone market even when Vertu lands in the hands of another company.

Compact Flash Association unveils new XQD format Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/compact-flash-association-unveilsnew-xqd-format/14177.html December 8th, 2011

Nokia puts Vertu up for sale Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nokia-puts-vertu-up-forsale/14179.html December 8th, 2011

A new Compact Flash format, dubbed “XQD”, is in the pipework and will be available for licensing soon. The XQD claims to improve almost every aspect of media recording, primarily with faster write speeds, larger capacity, and flawless high definition video recording.

Smartphone manufacturer Nokia is currently seeking buyers for their luxury phone division, Vertu, after more than a decade since its creation. Amidst the Finnish company’s restructuring efforts, it seems that Nokia is planning to dedicate its resources toward the smartphone and devices for budget users.

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Compact Flash Association (CFA) has announced a new line of storage solutions under the moniker XQD. The new format is said to be slightly smaller than the current Compact Flash (CF) cards but still thicker than the Secure Digital (SD) cards. The current CF card we know is fairly large, though it is more robust and faster than SD cards; the CF card has only managed to dominate the professional market segment. CFA intends to refine these advantages by giving the new format a transfer speed of around 125 megabytes per second (MBps), which is a 25% improvement, via its PCI Express data pathway technology. Initial suggestion of XQD include the capability to go up to six terabytes in capacity and transfer speeds of 600MBps.

barrier. The only existing APU to not receive a direct refresh is the A8-3510MX clocked at 1.8/2.5 GHz, which presumably will continue to fill in the void left between A8-3520M @ 1.6/2.5 GHZ and A8-3550MX @ 2/2.7 GHz.

Adding to the prospects of improvements, XQD seeks to be Video Performance Guarantee (VPG) certified, which means that they can capture perfect high definition video without missing any frames, all done with a write speed of at least 20MBps. With camera giants such as Nikon being involved in the development and Canon endorsing the system, professionals using high-end DSLR cameras can expect the performance boost from the next generation format in a matter of months.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-windows-8-public-betascheduled-for-february-2012-release/14176.html December 8th, 2011

AMD refreshes Notebook Llano A-Series range

A similar refresh is expected for A-series Desktop APUs in early Q1 2012. Following these, the next stop for AMD's ASeries will be Trinity, releasing in first half 2012.

Microsoft Windows 8 public beta scheduled for February 2012 release

Microsoft has announced the release of Windows 8 public beta in February next year. The software giant has recently revealed this during a developer’s conference, and adds that their app portal, dubbed the “Windows Store”, will also launch together with the beta, and offers free Metro-styled apps.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-refreshes-notebook-llano-aseries-range/14178.html December 8th, 2011

AMD has quietly rolled out incremental upgrades to the ASeries APU line-up for notebooks. This refresh will be the last for Llano before Trinity ships in H1 2012. In general, most of the new models increment CPU clock speed by 100 MHz for both base and turbo, while the GPU part remains unchanged.

The first refresh, A4-3305M, is the only one which does not follow the general pattern. It features the same clock speed as the A4-3300M, but with only 1MB L2 cache. While branded HD 6480G, the GPU is different from that in other A4 APUs. Instead of 240 SP @ 444 MHz, A4-3305M features 160 SP @ 593 MHz. This suggests that unlike other A4 APUs, which are quad-cores with 2 cores disabled, A4-3305M is based on the native dual-core Llano die, which features only 160 SP. The remaining new models follow a similar pattern - one model for 35W and 45W APUs each, for A4, A6 and A8 series, each advancing clock speed by 100 MHz over exisiting Llano APUs. The top 35W APU will be A8-3520M, with the 45W flagship being A8-3550MX - finally breaking the 2 GHz

Microsoft has announced during a developers’ meeting on 6 December at San Francisco that a public beta version of Windows 8 operating software will be released in late February. Based on the announced date, it appears that Windows 8 should be on schedule to launch near the end of 2012. Since last year in September, some 13 million copies of Windows 8 Developer Preview had been distributed, which is a considerably large fraction in the entire market of Windowspowered PC, given its infant stage of release. While news of the beta release is certainly delighting, most of the limelight during the conference falls on Microsoft’s new app portal called the "Windows Store", which will launch on the same day as the Windows 8 beta. If there is one thing to be happy about, it will be the fact that all the apps are free, at least for now, though it is reported that all of it will cater to the tablet-oriented Metro-styled application, while legacy

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

applications for Windows 7 or earlier will be sold through the developers on their own websites.

ASUS Rampage IV Gene Looking Good Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-rampage-iv-gene-lookinggood/14175.html December 8th, 2011

Last month, ASUS went all guns blazing with its socket LGA2011 "Sandy Bridge-E" motherboard lineup, with all three of its major brands: ROG Rampage, TUF Sabertooth, and its mainline P9X79 series. The ROG Rampage series included just one model, the top-end Rampage IV Extreme, with Rampage IV Formula and a then 'possible' Rampage IV Gene slated for later. We now know the Gene is not just possible, but a reality. It was detailed in a channel partner presentation by ASUS. The Rampage IV Gene is a micro-ATX form-factor motherboard based on the Intel X79 chipset, supporting Core i7 processors in the LGA2011 package. It aims to give you everything the X79 platform can, 3-way SLI and CrossfireX included. The top half of the board is laid out like any other X79 motherboard. The LGA2011 socket sits in between two sets of DDR3 DIMM slots with two slots each, supporting quadchannel DDR3 memory, with speeds of up to DDR3-2400 MHz by overclocking.

Despite severe space constrains of the micro-ATX form-factor, ASUS did not compromise on the power delivery one bit. The CPU is powered by an 8-phase Extreme Engine Digi+ II VRM with at least 8 phases, and 4-phase memory VRM, cooled by a robust heatsink set that makes use of a heat pipe to spread the heat around. To the right side of the socket is the OC Zone, which gives you consolidated voltage measurement points, onboard OC control buttons; phase LEDs, and POST code readout.

The expansion slot area completely does away with ye olde PCI slots, it consists of three PCI-Express Gen 3.0 x16 slots, and an open-ended PCI-Express 2.0 x4 slot wired to the X79 PCH. Among the long slots, the top two are x16 capable, while the bottommost one runs at x8 speed at all times. In terms of SATA connectivity, the Rampage IV Gene gives you a total of 7 internal ports and one eSATA. Among these six internal ports (red) are SATA 6 Gb/s, two from the X79 PCH and two from an ASMedia-made SATA 6G controller; three internal ports (black) are SATA 3 Gb/s wired to the PCH. The eSATA port is wired to the PCH, and runs at 3 Gb/s speed.

ASUS implemented its SupremeFX III audio solution, which can also be found on the Rampage IV Formula. It uses a highSNR HD audio CODEC (probably ALC898 for all we know), sitting on a tiny PCB that's laid on top of the board's main PCB. This isolates the CODEC from the ground layer of the main PCB. In conjunction with a 1500 uF capacitor, this design eliminates background electrical noises typically associated with onboard audio solutions. To top it all off, the 8+2 channel CODEC is backed by Creative X-Fi MB software that provides EAX 5.0 HD, X-Fi Crystalizer, CMSS-3D, and THX TruStudio Pro.

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

generally more intuitive. There's also a new notification bar at the top which shows when you have new messages and notifications and you can respond to these without leaving the Facebook page you're on.

Other connectivity features include an Intel-made GbE connection, four USB 3.0 ports (two on the rear-panel, two via standard USB 3.0 header), a number of USB 2.0 ports, and a PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port. PS/2 is still indispensable, as PS/2 keyboards are free from ghosting and rollback flaws associated with USB keyboards. This board includes several ROG exclusive features such as ROG Connect, ROG GameFirst, USB BIOS Flashback, etc. The board is driven by ASUS UEFI BIOS firmware. Unfortunately, we don't have a specific release date.

Facebook announces new Android app Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/facebook-announces-new-android-

Last but not least the photo albums have been given an overhaul and Facebook is claiming up twice the performance compared to the current photo album, which is quite sluggish to put things in a nice way. It's also meant to be easier to share pictures, read comments and edit captions from mobile devices and we hope that it'll also be able to rotate pictures in the photo album, something that's been missing in the Android version.

Convertible Ultrabooks are in the pipeline Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/convertible-ultrabooks-are-in-thepipeline/14173.html December 8th, 2011

app/14174.html December 8th, 2011

If you're one of the millions of users that are running into all sorts of problems with Facebook's Android app we've got some good news, Facebook has announced a new app for Android that should be available by the time you're reading this, or not long thereafter. The app is a total re-design in many ways, although it's hard to see what Facebook has done from the scarce selection of screenshots provided. If you're one of the millions of users that are running into all sorts of problems with Facebook's Android app we've got some good news, Facebook has announced a new app for Android that should be available by the time you're reading this, or not long thereafter. The app is a total re-design in many ways, although it's hard to see what Facebook has done from the scarce selection of screenshots provided. Improvements to the new app includes a new menu which is located on the side that is meant to allow for quicker access to the news feed, groups, games and apps and to make things

Intel and partners are said to be showing off some 50 Ultrabooks at CES early next year and some of those are likely to feature a convertible form fact that allows for them to be used both as notebooks and tablets. This is by no means a new development in the notebook world, but it wasn't a form factor that was expected for Ultrabooks. Intel and partners are said to be showing off some 50 Ultrabooks at CES early next year and some of those are likely to feature a convertible form fact that allows for them to be used both as notebooks and tablets. This is by no means a new development in the notebook world, but it wasn't a form factor that was expected for Ultrabooks. One problem with building a convertible notebook is that the hinge mechanism and the touch panel in the screen adds to the overall thickness to the system and Intel has some pretty strict restrictions in terms of what qualifies as an Ultrabook. Anything with a screen below 14-inches in size can't be thicker than 18mm and for models 14-incher or larger the thickness is 6

December 8th, 2011

limited to 21mm in Intel's books. As such Intel has generously allowed for an extra 2mm of additional thickness regardless of the screen size for convertible Ultrabooks. Further to our own findings, Digitimes has corroborated the fact that there will be Ultrabooks with touch screens, although the publication didn't specify convertibles, but went as far as saying that this is expected to be done in preparation for Windows 8 which will come with the touch friendly metro UI. Samples of touch modules are apparently already sampling to notebook makers, although we're not expecting touch enabled Ultrabooks to be part of the first Ivy Bridge based models since without Windows 8 it would be hard to convince consumers and business users alike to go for a convertible Ultrabook.

Corsair AX650 PSU review Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/corsair-ax650-psu-review/14171.html December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

·Active Power Factor Correction (PFC) with PF value of 0.99 ·Universal AC input from 90~264V ·No more hassle of flipping that tiny red switch to select the voltage input! ·A dedicated single +12V rail offers maximum compatibility with the latest components ·Over-voltage and over-current protection, under-voltage protection, and short circuit protection provide maximum safety to your critical system components ·High-quality Japanese capacitors provide uncompromised performance and reliability ·Completely modular cable system allows you to use only the cables you need ·Power supply upgrade and replacement is easy, as the cables only need to be disconnected at the power supply ·Low-profile, flat cable design reduces air friction and helps maximize airflow through your computer's chassis ·A seven year warranty and lifetime access to Corsair's legendary technical support and customer service

Corsair might have started off as a RAM manufacturer but today they diversified into several other market areas. One of those areas is the power supply market, with the company today offering tens of products divided into five different product series. Today we are having a look at a product from their best series, the AX650, a 650W 80Plus Gold certified power supply of fully modular design. The AX650 is the least powerful unit of the series, with Corsair pointing out that it was designed for enthusiasts requiring a medium wattage power supply but will settle for nothing less than top performance. Let us see if the AX650 can deliver what Corsair promises. Corsair might have started off as a RAM manufacturer but today they diversified into several other market areas. One of those areas is the power supply market, with the company today offering tens of products divided into five different product series. Today we are having a look at a product from their best series, the AX650, a 650W 80Plus Gold certified power supply of fully modular design. The AX650 is the least powerful unit of the series, with Corsair pointing out that it was designed for enthusiasts requiring a medium wattage power supply but will settle for nothing less than top performance. Let us see if the AX650 can deliver what Corsair promises.

·Dimensions: 150mm(W) x 86mm(H) x 160mm(L) ·MTBF: 100,000 hours ·Safety Approvals: UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TÜV, CCC, C-tick C orsair AX650 AC INPUT

90-264V ~ 15A 50/60Hz +5V +3.3V

DC OUTPUT MAX 25A 25A CURRENT MAX 125W 648W COMBINED WATTAGE TOTAL POWER: 650W @ 50°C ambient temperature

+12V

-12V

+5Vsb

54A

0.5A

15W

Manufacturer’s features and specifications ·Supports the latest ATX12V v2.31 and EPS 2.92 standards and is backward compatible with ATX12V 2.2 and ATX12V 2.01 systems ·An ultra-quiet 120mm double ball-bearing fan delivers excellent airflow at an exceptionally low noise level by varying fan speed in response to temperature ·80 Plus Gold certified to deliver at least 90% efficiency at 50% load

New SiSoft Sandra 2012 SP1 brings Optimizations for AMD Bulldozer, Intel SNB-E and Ivy Bridge Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/new-sisoft-sandra-2012-sp1-bringsoptimizations-for-amd-bulldozer-intel-snb-e-and-ivy-bridge/14152.html

December 8th, 2011 December 8th, 2011

Prior to taking a Holiday break, we received word from Adrian Silasi about the first Service Pack for SiSoft Sandra 2012. Needless to say, the SP1 brings a lot of improvements to the popular benchmark / system utility. No doubt about it, the past couple of months were quite exciting for the benchmarking community, with new products debuting from AMD and Intel, as well as next generation products getting ready to launch in first quarter of 2012. In order to keep up, SiSoftware released the first Service Pack for Sandra 2012, and the SP1 brings important improvements, fixes and performance optimizations. Probably the most important fixes belong to Cryptography and Memory Bandwidth tests for contemporary AMD Bulldozer and Intel Sandy Bridge-E processors, as well as upcoming Piledriver and Ivy Bridge based processors. Furthermore, all benchmarks now show IPC (Instructions Per Clock) in addition to standard aggregate score. This will certainly help to see what are the benefits and pitfalls of tested architectures, as well as how more cores or threads influence the achieved IPC (for example, dual versus quad-core Sandy Bridge with and without Hyper-Threading).

Published by: VR-Zone

Samsung has launched a concept demo for a flexible, translucent AMOLED display that can run 3D, potentially becoming the next big thing since the iPad. The Korean electronics giant has already demonstrated flexible display technology, some as thin as 0.3mm, but this latest project shows just how far the company could go. While this is still in the early conceptual stage and may never become reality, the demonstration is pretty impressive. Samsung shows how a user can bend the screen, which looks like a thin piece of plastic. It can be seen through, which means no more walking into lamp posts while staring at a tablet screen.

It can also display glasses-free 3D that is vastly superior to 3D technology that currently exists. In the demonstration it initially looks like augmented reality, and this might also be a proposed feature, but since people on the street appear to react to the projected image it seems to be much more than that. It may be years before we see anything like this, but with fierce competition in the tablet computer sector, Samsung might be willing to invest a lot of money to make this a reality. Samsung suggested we could see the first flexible smartphones and tablets next year.

The rest of improvements include: * AVX2 and further FMA3/FMA4 support: Dhrystone AVX2, Multi-Media FMA3/FMA4/AVX2, Memory/Cache Bandwidth AVX2. * Export all User Benchmark Results with 1 click (thanks Michael S @ Lost Circuits). * AMD GP(GPU) Bandwidth fix for Catalyst 11.9+ drivers (not sure reason for change but not getting fixed so worked around it).

Chinese court rejects Apple iPad trademark claims Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/chinese-court-rejects-apple-ipadtrademark-claims/14168.html December 8th, 2011

You can download SiSoft Sandra 2012 SP1 from here.

Samsung launches concept demo for flexible translucent 3D display Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-launches-concept-demo-forflexible-translucent-3d-display/14169.html December 8th, 2011

A Chinese court has rejected a lawsuit filed by Apple, which alleges that Proview Technology is infringing its iPad trademark, spelling potentially disastrous news for the iPad in the country. A Chinese court has rejected a lawsuit filed by Apple, which alleges that Proview Technology is infringing its iPad trademark. The Intermediate People's Court in Shenzhen said that Proview had legally registered the iPad trademark in 2000, ten years before Apple's tablet launch.

Samsung has launched a concept demo for a flexible, translucent AMOLED display that can run 3D, potentially becoming the next big thing since the iPad.

The ruling is disastrous for Apple, as it could mean it will be forced to change the name of the product in China if Proview counters the lawsuit with a trademark infringement case of its 8

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

own. Currently Proview wants 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) for infringement and may seek a licensing deal with Apple worth several billion more.

Apple has suffered numerous problems in China relating to counterfeit goods. A number of fake Apple shops were closed down in July, but iPhones and iPads remain extremely popular on the black market. China is also seen as a pivotal emerging market for smartphone and tablet sales, with many people in the country still using the increasingly less popular feature phones. Failure to tap into this market could have a negative impact on Apple's revenue growth. Apple is involved in countless lawsuits around the world over copyright, trademark and patent infringement, including numerous cases against rivals HTC and Samsung, but many of these cases are starting to turn against the company.

Huawei unveils Honor and Vision in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/huawei-unveils-honor-and-vision-insingapore/14163.html December 8th, 2011

Huawei has introduced their new Android smartphones in Singapore - Huawei Honor and Huawei Vision. Both phones are running Android 2.3 Gingerbread and are available this month. The Huawei Vision claims to be the company's most stylish smartphone yet, and features 3D user interface and carousel animation display. It has an aluminium alloy uni-body in silver and crystal sculptural curve lens, and a 3.7-inch capacitive touchscreen. The Vision measures 9.9mm at the thinnest point and weighs a mere 135g. Powered by 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, the phone runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread OS, features 5-megapixel auto focus camera with LED flash and supports 720p video recording. The 9

December 8th, 2011

Huawei Vision also comes pre-installed with Shazam and "Order & Chaos" 3D online game. It is available from selected carriers and retail stores at S$438 (w/GST) without contract.

Published by: VR-Zone

US court bans Research in Motion (BlackBerry) from using BBX trademark Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/us-court-bans-research-in-motionblackberry-from-using-bbx-trademark/14167.html December 8th, 2011

A US court has banned BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) from using the name BBX for the latest version of its mobile operating system after BASIS International filed a trademark lawsuit against it. A US court has banned BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) from using the name BBX for the latest version of its mobile operating system after BASIS International filed a trademark lawsuit against it. The Federal Court of Albuquerque granted a temporary restraining order against RIM, barring it from using the trademark at its DevCon event in Singapore, and signalling an end to RIM's marketing of the BBX name. The court ruled that while RIM and BASIS are not direct competitors, their products are “highly related and target the same class of consumers”.

The sleek and slim Huawei Honor is equipped with 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and 8-megapixel HDRenabled camera for capturing good quality images and videos. The smartphone run Android 2.3 Gingerbread and features 4-inch full Wide VGA capacitive touchscreen. Powered by a 1,900mAh battery, the Huawei Honor offers up to three days of normal usage on a single charge. The Huawei Honor is also DLNA-certified, which means it can interoperate with other DLNA-certified devices including game consoles, TVs and digital cameras. Owners of Huawei Honor will also have access to Huawei CloudDrive (free 16GB) which allows users to share their files seamlessly; the CloudDrive will be available by end Q1 next year. The Huawei Honor will retail on 16 December at S$528 (w/ GST) at selected carriers and retail stores. According to the company, the Honor is upgradeable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich next year. Unfortunately, no specific dates have been announced yet.

One of the major reasons for the ruling was that consumers might be led to wrongly believe that BASIS's software will only run on RIM's BBX operating system. The Court said that “all factors weigh in favour of BASIS”. BASIS had previously asked RIM to stop using its trademark, but RIM refused, leading to a bitter legal dispute.

December 8th, 2011

BASIS owns the BBX trademark, which represents its Business BASIC eXtended software products. These run on a number of platforms, including the BlackBerry OS. After the judgement RIM announced that it will now call its BBX platform BlackBerry 10.

Published by: VR-Zone

The opening keynote speech by Dr Marek Michalewicz, Director of A*CRC, as well as technical brief by Stephen Wong, the Deputy Director, focused on supercomputing in Singapore as well as next generation large computer challenges respectively, in a broad sweep from visualising when Singapore should have its first petaflop system to the new platforms that we may see in such machines this coming year.

Image Credit: Techonzo

Event Overview: Next Generation Computing Experience Forum 2011 by VR Media and A*STAR Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/event-overview-next-generationcomputing-experience-forum-2011-by-vr-media-and-a-star/14164.html December 8th, 2011

Last Tuesday, VR-Media and A*STAR A*CRC held their inaugural event, the first in a series focused on various aspects of high end computing. Here we bring the summary and key highlights. After a long lull in the processor and system field, where the usual was just happening, i.e. yet another generation of Intel Core XX processors taking over the performance lead from one another, and AMD vs Nvidia on the GPU front, this past year brought along some refreshing news. AMD Fusion APU approach is one of them, whose tight integration of CPU and GPU will likely be followed by other processor vendors in the 2012 as well. And, since that year is to see stronger market entry by Chinese RISC CPU vendors as well, the multiplatform excitement of the years long gone by is likely to come back again. Such innovations often find their first home in scientific and research High Performance Computing centre sites - in Singapore and this region, A*STAR's A*CRC is the leader in the field, both in the variety of large systems they have, as well as the expert staff strength. VR Media, the parent company of VR-Zone now presents the new development in system level technologies together with A*CRC through a series of events, the first of which was sponsored by AMD, HP and Kingston to coincide with the launch of 'Interlagos', the server version of the famed Bulldozer CPU platform.

On the other hand, the two AMD evangelists, Sasa Marinkovic and Terry Makedon, both themselves GPU gurus from their ATI days, described the usage and programming benefits of the Fusion approach to a great detail. Their coverage also touched on how the end users and everyday consumers would benefit from the new approach. Other speakers from AMD and HP covered the new server CPUs as well as the systems using them.

December 8th, 2011

The event saw over 80 HPC experts from Singapore, and a few more from the region, gather at A*Star's Biopolis in this first of our joint events. After the event, the feedback from the attendees, especially those involved in system design or programming, was that the new programming approaches like OpenCL for Fusion Systems Architecture open up a lot of latent unused performance in current systems, enabling some supercomputing code to even run on laptops, but the challenges are quite high still on how to extract that performance in the most efficient way until fully shared memory between CPU and GPU is enabled - something the next generation of GPUs and accelerators should enable. Also, the heterogeneous computing idea, where the application can efficiently use the different types of CPUs, GPUs, in clusters of hundreds of them both locally and in some kind of 'HPC cloud' where the different latencies, performance and architecture types have to be handled, can be a dream from the point of literally unlimited performance pool available, yet a very stressful exercise in actually getting to use all that capacity.

Published by: VR-Zone

Overall, in the course of a few days after this inaugural event, the feedback was excellent and we are on course for more such events. Our readers are welcome to suggest, from your point of view, what could be interesting topics for the future forums - we are listening.

Creative's new sound cards and headphones - a stage for grand comeback? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/creative-s-new-sound-cards-andheadphones--a-stage-for-grand-comeback-/14165.html December 8th, 2011

After its roughest times in years, Creative seems to be coming back to what created it, pun intended - the most advanced sound cards around. The already powerful X-Fi chippery is now supplanted by their Sound Core3D multicore audio processor under the new Sound Blaster Recon3D line, and yes there are matching headphones - all mostly focused on gamers and movie watchers tis time Creative went ahead with just two new cards this time, one a Fatal1ty branded gamer model with metal shield, another 12

December 8th, 2011

the base feature card - the HD Audio versions, a follow on to X-Fi Titanium HD, will wait for a later release I guess. The new audio processor has THX hardware acceleration plus a host of voice enhancement (CrystalVoice) and noise reduction technoligies implemented. Interestingly, the card's raw signal to noise ratio is 102 dB, more than good enough for gamers and movies, but a little less than the music oriented 109 dB on the X-Fi Titanium cards.

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel stuffs 'Centerton' Atom in servers - Repelling the ARM threat Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-stuffs-centerton-atom-inservers--repelling-the-arm-threat/14166.html December 8th, 2011

While ARM started in desktops many years ago, it's mainstay is now in mobile devices. However, it is aiming at higher ground, including wrestling away a part of server market from the X86 vendors. What is Intel doing to keep them at bay, and what impact will it have?

Another interesting observation, looking at the cards themselves, is far higher level of integration in the audio processor itself. There are noticeably less ICs and other electronic circuitry on the board. This may lend the new chip even more attractive to mainboard vendors for integration on the top-end boards as the choice sound chip, directly on the chipset's PCIe links. This could in a way be another grand comeback for Creative, providing the company an alternative lifeline as high end IC provider for PC system boards.

Anyone of the old guard still remembers the 1985 Acorn Risc Machine, or, in shortform, ARM? From my teenage days, it was a memory of an exciting new processor architecture, completely different from its contemporary complex instruction set competitors - just like in modern buildings, simplicity was the answer, and complexity was left to the compilers. The first ARM was 32-bit, just like its followons 26 years ago now. After staging a grand revival through the smartphone and tablet markets, and becoming the definite No. 2 CPU platform in the world, ARM has now set its sights higher, to the mainstream mobile, desktop and yes, even server markets. And that's where it hits the X86 leaders, Intel and AMD, spot on. Now, ARM has no software base to speak of in the server field, and its architecture not only is still 32-bit, but also lacks all those error correction, reliability and durability features expected in servers. However, the application specific 'green' micro servers, used just for serving web page accesses, don't need any of these. They just require the ability to put hundreds of energy-saving simple CPUs in a single rack, each serving a group of web requests in a small local memory, 2 GB - the 32bit direct addressing limit after I/O space is taken - being more than enough for it.

The headphones in this range are also seemingly focused on the ultimate gaming and video experience, with noise cancellation, bass amplification and other enhancements usually reserved for this user base. More on the new hardware as we get our hands on it soon...

This a relatively small part of server market, and a low-margin one, an equivalent of generic corporate desktop in the PC market. But an entry is still an entry, very worthy for ARM CPU vendors to get a foothold before they are ready for more, once the Windows 8 and, then, the 64-bit ARM arrive. So, the danger is there - remember that X86 core consumes more power and die size than an equivalent performance RISC, so it needs to be compensated through system design. On the other hand, Atom is 64-bit from the start, keep in mind - an enormous benefit when handling any sort of shared 13

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

memory mapping between hundreds of processors in a single server, something impossible for ARM for another 2 years or so. Not to mention all the X86 software support built over the years, something ARM will not have in foreseeable future. And that's where Intel's 2012 answer to ARM comes, in the form of 'Bordenville' Atom microserver platform around the 'Centerton' chip, optimised from ground up for this segment, especially at the system level. The quadruple density compared to even the lowest voltage Xeon, with over 2,000 processors in one rack, and the simplest ever system design of any X86 processor, are aimed at creating a formidable wall against the ARM entry into this market.

What impact would this launch have? Well, it hits ARM in the two weakest spots: lack of 64-bitness and software support. The extra server features like RAS and virtualisation, which ARM takes time to implement, are also native here. And, despite the complexity of the clumsy x86 core, the overall power consumption per node will be similar to the best ARMs in class - and this is a 32 nm chip, mind you. Also, for dense 'green' supercomputing, this chip may have some allure, as it can even allow tight interconnecting of many of them together via PCIe switches on local boards, then further via InfiniBand or Ethernet. The Centerton chip itself is a simple dual-core 32 nm 64-bit CPU. It contains just two 'Saltwell' multithreaded 1.6 GHz Atom cores with 512 KB L2 cache each, a single-channel DDR3-1333 ECC low voltage memory controller for up to 8 GB on a single SO-DIMM, and 8 PCIe v2 lanes, with legacy I/O and SMbus included on-die as well. This removes the need for any sort of chipset. Simply, just use PCIe v2 lanes to attach what you really wish, like a Gigabit Ethernet, storage controllers like SAS, InfiniBand or even one of those PLX PCIe v2 switches to let multiple processors talk to each other directly over PCIe itself at ultra low latency! With this kind of compact footprint, we are talking about just 5W to 8W total TDP for the whole system on a chip (SoC), and an enormously efficient footprint with CPU modules just about the size of a credit card! And this is a chip with full memory RAS features including scrubbing; with full virtualisation implemented as well, and 64-bit address space.

On the other hand, the vendors like HP and Dell are anyway waiting to diversify their offerings a bit, and not just depend on X86. HP is already promoting such microservers, and ARM will have some foothold, like it or not. Either way, the 2012 microserver market will be the first battle of the larger upcoming high end market war between X86 and ARM.

Lenovo launches IdeaPad Tablet A1 in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lenovo-launches-ideapad-tablet-a1-insingapore/14162.html December 8th, 2011

Computer maker Lenovo has just released their new IdeaPad Tablet A1 in Singapore with a very attractive price tag. With a integrated offline GPS Navigation system, this new tablet may well be a big bang for bucks.

December 8th, 2011

Laptop and computer manufacturer Lenovo has just announced the launch of the IdeaPad Tablet A1, an 11.95mm thin slate weighing just 400g. The new tablet sports a 7inch 1024 by 600 resolution LCD screen with an integrated 0.3-megapixel front and back camera. It comes pre-loaded with various apps including the full version of Documents To Go, and is also supplemented with Lenovo App Shop, a dedicated portal for a variety of country-oriented apps as well as other special selections. One special feature of the IdeaPad Tablet A1 is the ability to carry out offline GPS navigation, which allows it to pinpoint its own location without needing to depend on the Internet. This makes it a great item to have when traveling in areas without any network coverage. The Lenovo IdeaPad Tablet A1 is now available in selected stores for S$299.

BlackBerry DevCon Asia 2011 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/blackberry-devconasia-2011/14159.html December 8th, 2011

The BlackBerry Dev Con Asia 2011 was supposed to be held in Bangkok, Thailand this year, but due to the serious impact of rain and floods, the conference has thus been relocated to Singapore. This morning. Research in Motion had made some announcements at Dev Con Asia 2011 which include the next generation BlackBerry 10 platform.

Published by: VR-Zone

At the event, George Staikos, VP of web technologies, Research in Motion, said that the BlackBerry App World has reached over one billion downloads, with over five million happening everyday. And with BlackBerry OS 7 on seven handhelds including the BlackBerry Bold 9790, BlackBerry Curve 9380 which were launched first in Asia. Staikos said that in BlackBerry 7.1, the company will continue to evolve the platform with the addition of powerful new APIs including Near Field Communications (NFC). The APIs will open up more rich capabilities of the BlackBerry 7 platform and handheld and application developers. "BlackBerry 10 is the official brand name of our next generation platform. Initially previewed at DevCon San Francisco just two months ago, it will power the future generation of BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. Our vision is a single, converged next generation BlackBerry platform built from the core up, and it will enable most powerful mobile social communication experiences the world has ever seen. This is BlackBerry 10." The BlackBerry 10 platform is based on three fundamental components. The first is the BlackBerry 10 operating system software that powers phones, tablets, automobiles and more; connecting people, devices, content and platform together. The second element the BlackBerry 10 services that extends the BlackBerry DNA, collaboration and communication, and enable full access to BBM, enterprise server and BlackBerry Internet service, from push to payment, security and beyond. And thirdly, BlackBerry 10 is a transformational new application developmental bundle. The native software development kit allows developers to build high performance BlackBerry experience with best-inclass HTML 5 implementations. As the company moves to BlackBerry 10, HTML 5 will be the technology that can rapidly deliver rich, connected applications across a range of devices. According to Staikos, HTML 5 is something BlackBerry has embraced since day one.

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

NVIDIA's new products include GeForce GT 635M, GT 630M and 610M. There are no changes whatsoever and are direct rebrands of GeForce 500M GPUs. The GT 635M replaces all the variants of GT 555M, GT 540M is rebranded as GT 630M and GeForce 520MX is now GeForce 610M. For everyone expecting true next-gen 28nm GPUs with new architectures, this will be a disappointment. However, due to greater risk and higher costs with a new and risky process like TSMC's 28nm, both AMD and NVIDIA have opted to play it safe for the entry-level and mainstream segments. The true next-gen will most likely find its way as HD 7700M, 7800M and 7900M, as well as GT 635M to GTX 690M, in 2012.

Senseg reveals textured touch screen prototype Alec Saunders, VP of developer relations and ecosystems development, Research in Motion, introduced the BlackBerry Jam, which isdesigned to help developers thrive and build businesses on the BlackBerry platform. Saunders also gave some statistics about the BlackBerry App World, which is supported by over 148 markets and growing, with over five million average daily downloads. There are over 50,000 apps available, with over a billion downloads reached in June 2011. Carrier Billing is also available with 20 carriers worldwide, and 26 currencies supported.

AMD Radeon HD 7000M / NVIDIA GeForce 600M mainstream GPUs announced

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/senseg-reveals-textured-touch-screenprototype/14160.html December 8th, 2011

Soon, our favourite smart phones may not just be good at displaying sharp photos; they may even feel like the object represented in the photos too. Touch screen technology company Senseg has just unveiled its prototype “Feel Screen”, a hint that we may soon experience the display with our finger tips as well.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7000m-nvidiageforce-600m-mainstream-gpus-announced/14161.html December 8th, 2011

AMD and NVIDIA have both introduced their first next-gen products - mainstream GPUs for the Radeon HD 7000M and GeForce 600M. However, they are next-gen only in branding - they continue to be 40nm GPUs based on HD 6000M and GeForce 500M, with the true next-gen reserved for higher end products. The AMD refreshes include Radeon HD 7600M, 7500M and 7400M. The HD 7400M series is based on the same Seymour XT chip powering HD 6400M. The same applies for HD 7600M, based on Whistler, which powered HD 6600M/6700M. However, in both cases, the HD 7000M parts should end up faster due to higher clocks. HD 7600M should end up performing more like HD 6700M. HD 7500M is now based on 480SP Whistler, over 400SP Capilano for the HD 6500M, and also introducing GDDR5 memory albeit with a 64-bit memory bus (net effect should be similar memory bandwidth). However, some SKUs in the HD 7500M series will continue to utilize DDR3.

Touch technology company Senseg has just revealed a prototype touchscreen which is capable of creating a variety of physical impressions on the skin, and in essence, applying different textures to the same surface. Dubbed the “Feel Screen”, it utilizes electrostatic fields which can be felt by our fingers to induce a tactile response. According to Senseg, this is done by creating and controlling a small attractive force between the screen and the finger generated from this field, thus producing a range of effects such as rough textures, edges and vibrations, just to name a few. We can expect to have this experience across devices of various screen sizes as the company states that the system is scalable. The technology has promising applications in enhancing user interfaces such as creating a touchscreen keyboard that has a perceptible separation between each key as depicted visually 16

December 8th, 2011

on-screen. It may also become an important piece in bridging tablet technologies to the blind. While the technology is ready to be mass produced by 2012, devices incorporating such screens will probably appear in 2013 or later.

Canon launches new Powershot S100 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/canon-launches-new-powershots100/14158.html December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

records at 240fps in Quarter Video Graphics Array (QVGA) quality or 120fps in VGA quality. As a final touch, an integrated GPS system logs the location of each photo produced, as well as the journey taken between the shots, which is a great feature for travellers. The Canon Powershot S100 will be available in stores today (7 December 2011) at justS$699.

Meizu officially joins the fray with the MX smartphone Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/meizu-officially-joins-the-fray-withthe-mx-smartphone/14151.html December 8th, 2011

After a long wait, the new Canon Powershot S100 is officially launched in Singapore. With a slew of upgraded features from its predecessor, the Powershot S100 will represent yet another step closer to professional photography in a pocket-sized form. Chinese electronic manufacturer Meizu has officially announced the release of their MX smartphone. Prior to this, the Meizu MX had its share of rumours and leaked photos unveiled on the Internet. It is now confirmed that the smartphone will feature a 1.4GHz processor and penta-band network support.

Electronics giant Canon has launched the new Powershot S100 compact camera for photography enthusiasts in Singapore. The new pocket-sized powerhouse will feature a high performance lens with an ultra-wide coverage of 24mm, a 5x optical zoom, and a maximum aperture of f/2.0. The Canon boasts excellent low-light performance together with its DIGIC 5 image processor and High-Sensitivity (HS) system. Users can expect increased details, reduced image noise, and better color accuracy from the Powershot S100. The Multiarea White Balance function will also contribute to a natural appearance of the image when area-specific corrections are applied for a scene with multiple light sources. The Intelligent Image Stabilization (IS) system is an impressive feature which includes a group of seven IS modes, all of which can be automatically selected by the system when a suitable scene is detected. The Powershot S100 is also able to record full High Definition (HD) 1080p videos at 24 frames per second (fps) while being zoom-capable across the session. It also comes with the Super Slow Motion Movie mode which

Meizu has officially unveiled their new MX smartphone which will add another member to the Google Android army. Arriving in 2012, the 10.3mm thick Meizu MX will come equipped with 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4210 dual-core processor, 1GB LPDDR2 memory, 16GB of storage, a front facing camera, and a built-in noise cancellation system, all of which is powered by a 1600mAh battery. Contrary to previous rumours, the MX will not feature an optical track pad. Instead, a physical home button will take its place. The smartphone will serve the needs of frequent travelers with its pentaband 3G and HSPA plus network support, eliminating the need for different phones for different networks. The MX will don a highly modified version of Android 2.3.5 Gingerbread

December 8th, 2011

software, though the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update is en route.

Report: AMD Radeon HD 7000 Prices Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-amd-radeon-hd-7000prices/14157.html December 8th, 2011

DonanimHaber has leaked preliminary pricing information for AMD's upcoming Southern Islands / Radeon HD 7000 series. The pricing covers Radeon HD 7650 at $119 to the dualGPU 7990 flagship at over $700. In general, pricing for the entire HD 7000 range will be above the equivalent HD 6000 parts they are succeeding. The flagship will be HD 7990, a dual-GPU product based on two Tahiti chips. The pricing is expected to be above $700. The fastest single-GPU HD 7970 will be $499, with performance exceeding GTX 580 but below today's dual-GPU flagships - HD 6990 and GTX 590. HD 7950 rounds up the Tahiti range at $399. The most popular series is expected to be HD 7800, with HD 7870 at $299 and HD 7850 at $199. These price points are identical to the very popular HD 4800 series back in 2008. The mainstream HD 7600 series will be priced at $119 and $179 for HD 7650 and HD 7670 respectively. DonanimHaber suggests only Tahiti will use the GCN architecture, while all/most other HD 7000 GPUs will be based on VLIW-4. Tahiti will feature 384-bit memory - a novelty for AMD/ATI GPUs - tied to 3GB GDDR5. It will also support DirectX 11.1, which will release with Windows 8. However, there's no mention of whether the other HD 7000 GPUs will support DX 11.1.

Published by: VR-Zone

Don't you just hate when your wireless peripherals run out of battery? And there's never a spare set around when you need them either. Well, this may soon just be a bad memory, at last if Broadcom has anything to do with it, as the company has developed a new Bluetooth low energy based chip for keyboards that the company claims will enable up to 10 years battery life. Don't you just hate when your wireless peripherals run out of battery? And there's never a spare set around when you need them either. Well, this may soon just be a bad memory, at last if Broadcom has anything to do with it, as the company has developed a new Bluetooth low energy based chip for keyboards that the company claims will enable up to 10 years battery life. The chip in question is called the BCM20730 and Broadcom claims that it's backwards compatible with previous Bluetooth standards, although presumably at increased power drain. The BCM20730 is one of the first implementations of Bluetooth 4.0, a standard that so far has only shown up in a few mobile devices, but which is promising greatly increased battery performance at the cost of data transfer speeds. The BCM20730 emulates a USB HID device and Broadcom claims that thanks to its ZeroTouch configuration technology there shouldn't be any need for pairing up a device built around the chip to the computer it's being used with. Another benefit of Bluetooth 4.0 is a vastly reduced latency from idle to an active state. This should make Bluetooth 4.0 peripherals feel much more responsive than older Bluetooth devices. One concern we have though is the vastly reduced data rate, as Bluetooth low energy is limited to a mere 260Kbps, which doesn't seem ideal for a wireless keyboard, but we'd have to try a device out before we can say for certain.

The first HD 7000 products are expected to be announced at CeBIT 2012, with availability some time in January. Needless to mention, such reports contain preliminary information and a lot of the details are likely to change before the final release.

Beyond being used for keyboards, Broadcom is suggesting that the BCM20730 would work well with 3D glasses, mice, game controllers and just about any other kind of wireless device controller. Broadcom has even built in an ARM Cortex M3 SoC to remove the need for any additional processing being done by a third party chip in wireless devices. With a bit of luck it shouldn't take too long until we see some Bluetooth low power devices in the market and we'll hopefully get our hands on some for testing to see if they're better than older Bluetooth 2.1 devices in terms of responsiveness and power usage.

Broadcom promises 10 year battery life for Bluetooth keyboards

Intel and Micron announces world's first 20nm 128Gbit NAND flash

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/broadcom-promises-10-year-batterylife-for-bluetooth-keyboards/14156.html December 8th, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-and-micron-announces-world-sfirst-20nm-128gbit-nand-flash/14155.html December 8th, 2011

December 8th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

If all goes well, then we can look forward to much larger SSDs come the second half of next year as Intel and Micron has announced that their joint venture IM Flash Technologies will be launching 128Gbit NAND flash sometime in the second half of next year. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with IMFT's 20nm 64Gbit NAND flash which the two companies announced has gone into mass production. If all goes well, then we can look forward to much larger SSDs come the second half of next year as Intel and Micron has announced that their joint venture IM Flash Technologies will be launching 128Gbit NAND flash sometime in the second half of next year. In the meantime, we'll have to make do with IMFT's 20nm 64Gbit NAND flash which the two companies announced has gone into mass production. The 64Gbit parts are built using IMFT's brand new 20nm process which should for the time being, be the most advanced flash memory manufacturing process. However, this is merely a stepping stone to the 128Gbit parts which are made using the same process, but with quite a few technical advances in terms of everything else.

It looks like the latter half of 2012 will be an interesting time for SSDs and the good news is that IMFT is expecting to sample 128Gbit devices to its partners as early as January. We're fairly certain that Intel and Micron will get first dibs on these parts, but as long as production quantities ramp as expected, IMFT is going to bring some serious competition to Samsung and the other NAND flash makers. Who's up for a smartphone or a tablet with 128GB of built in storage?

For starters, IMFT is promising terabit storage in a chip using eight 128Gbit NAND flash devices in a single package and if you don't know your bits from your bytes, then that is 128GB, i.e. a standard size SSD on a chip. The 128Gbit chips will also feature ONFI 3.0 which will boost the interface speed to 333 megatransfers per second which should see SSDs gain further performance next year as multiple chips are used to make up SSDs. With a move to more storage capacity per chip it should become more affordable to create larger size SSDs for the drive makers, as you could make a 1TB SSD out of a mere eight chips. As for concerns about data retention and product life, IMFT has developed what they call "planar cell structure" that is meant to make the 20nm chips as reliable as current 25nm chip if we're reading the press release correct. The new NAND flash devices are also made using Hi-K metal gate, which is apparently another first in NAND flash production.

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

Exclusive: Mobile quad core OEM Ivy Bridge processors unveiled Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/exclusive-mobile-quad-core-oem-ivybridge-processors-unveiled/14210.html December 12th, 2011

A week ago we gave you Intel's mobile Ivy Bridge roadmap, but it seemed to be missing a few CPUs, specifically the much expected 35W quad cores. Well, today we bring exclusive details of a few additional mobile quad core Ivy Bridge processors destined for OEMs, the kind of CPUs that Intel doesn't put in its official price list. A week ago we gave you Intel's mobile Ivy Bridge roadmap, but it seemed to be missing a few CPUs, specifically the much expected 35W quad cores. Well, today we bring exclusive details of a few additional mobile quad core Ivy Bridge processors destined for OEMs, the kind of CPUs that Intel doesn't put in its official price list. The additional quad core models are similar to the lowerend Sandy Bridge quad cores such as the Core i7-2630QM all the way up to the 2675QM, models you'll find in notebooks from big brand name players such as Dell, HP, and Lenovo etc. The OEM Ivy Bridge models are the Core i7-3615QM, Core i7-3612QM and Core i7-3610QM, all of which sports 6MB L2 cache, support for DDR3 1600MHz memory and a base graphics clock of 650MHz which for reference is very similar to the Core i7-3720QM. Intel seems to have gone and made things all confusing with its model numbering scheme here though, as the Core i7-3615QM is a 2.3GHz part with a top turbo boost speed of 3.3GHz and unless there's a typo or two in the information we've seen, then this CPU is identical to the Core i7-3610QM. The Core i7-3612QM on the other hand is slower with a base clock of 2.1GHz with a top turbo boost speed of 3.1GHz. That makes these by far the lowest clocked Ivy Bridge processors and although we don't have any TDP specifics, we have a feeling that these are the 35W parts Intel has mentioned in the past.

There should be more OEM models coming and we'll keep you posted as we find out more details.

AMD Radeon HD 7900 series to launch January 9th 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7900-series-to-launchjanuary-9th-2012/14209.html December 12th, 2011

Turkish website DonanimHaber have received confirmation for final release date of the much anticipated Radeon HD 7900 series - January 9th 2012. This puts the big release one day before CES 2012 commences. Turkish website DonanimHaber have received confirmation for final release date of the much anticipated Radeon HD 7900 series - January 9th 2012. This puts the big release one day before CES 2012 commences. The previous rumoured date, Jan 10th, co-incided with CES 2012. However, AMD has decided to release on Monday, instead of the traditional Tuesday/Thursday release days. More details about AMD Radeon HD 7900 / Tahiti can be found in our speculation round-up.

Intel lowers Q4 financial outlook over HDD shortage Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-lowers-q4-financial-outlook-overhdd-shortage/14208.html December 12th, 2011

Intel has announced that its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011 will be lower than expected due to the hard disk drive (HDD) shortage. Intel has announced that its financial results for the fourth quarter of 2011 will be lower than expected due to the hard disk drive (HDD) shortage. The chip giant revised its fourth quarter revenue expectations down from $14.7 billion to $13.7 billion, showing the monumental impact the flooding in Thailand has had on its business. 1

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel said that PC sales are expected to be higher in the fourth quarter compared to the third, but added that the entire global PC supply chain is reducing inventories and microprocessor purchases due to the HDD shortage, which Intel predicts will continue into the first quarter of next year.

Last week IHS iSuppli forecast that there would be by 3.8 million fewer PCs in the first quarter of 2012 due to the HDD supply issue, despite some recovery in the industry by companies like Western Digital. With Intel feeling the impact of the Thailand floods, we can likely expect other chip makers and companies dependent on hard drive supply to also lower their revenue expectations. Intel will announce its fourth quarter results on 19 January, 2012.

VR-Zone Christmas Gift Guide - Mobile Phones

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S is an upgrade version of the popular Xperia Arc with similar form factor and hardware components, except that this one is powered by a faster 1.4GHz processor (to 1GHz of the Xperia Arc). Measuring 8.7mm slim, the smartphone runs Android Gingerbread 2.3.4, though the company has said that the phone will be upgradeable to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in future. It sports a 4.2-inch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine, 8.1megapixel camera with high definition (HD) video capability, and features Sony's Exmor R mobile image sensor that enhances still images and videos even in low light conditions. Comes in Pure White, Midnight Blue and Sakura Pink, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S is available now from all three telco operators and Sony Ericsson Concept stores. Price: S$788 (before telco subsidies) Where to buy - All three telco operators - SingTel, M1 and StarHub, and Sony Ericsson Concept stores at Junction 8, Ang Mo Kio Hub and Parkway Parade Shopping Centre.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/vr-zone-christmas-gift-guide--mobilephones/14143.html December 12th, 2011

Stand a chance to win a Sony Ericsson Xperia ray The mobile phone has evolved from being a device to make and receive calls, as well as send SMS (short message service), to one packed with a wide range of features - built-in camera for capturing videos and pictures, gaming, accessing the Internet and email etc. On top of that, the phone manufacturers are also competing in making their devices slimmer, lighter and with a decently huge display. Well, if you are looking to upgrade your phone or planning to get your loved ones a new phone this Christmas, read on.

Sony Ericsson Xperia ray

Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc S

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

RIM met with the Indonesian government on Thursday about progress made since January, but the government claims that while it fulfilled some requests, it did not go far enough, especially in regards to its main demands. Indonesia wants RIM to establish an aggregator and customer care centres in the country, block pornography on devices, and give the government access to encrypted data that is being transmitted on the network.

Designed for youths and especially the ladies, the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray features a unique quality design, and claims to offer great ease of use. Measuring a mere 9.4mm thin, the compact smartphone comes in a stylish and durable aluminum frame, and sports a 3.3-inch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine for superb visuals. The Xperia ray also packs a powerful 1GHz processor, 8.1megapixel camera with Exmor R image sensor for mobile and high definition video functionality, and runs the latest Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system. If black isn't your favorite color, the Sony Ericsson Xperia ray is also available in Gold and Pink. Price: S$598 (before telco subsidies) Where to buy - All three telco operators - SingTel, M1 and StarHub, and Sony Ericsson Concept stores at Junction 8, Ang Mo Kio Hub and Parkway Parade Shopping Centre.

Indonesia threatens to shut down BlackBerry service Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/indonesia-threatens-to-shut-downblackberry-service/14206.html December 12th, 2011

The Indonesian government has threatened to shut down the BlackBerry service in the country as it continues a disputre with Research In Motion (RIM) over access to encrypted call and text data. The Indonesian government has threatened to shut down the BlackBerry service in the country as it continues a disputre with Research In Motion (RIM) over access to encrypted call and text data. The Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Body said that it will cut RIM's BlackBerry data services if it does not fulfill the government's demands.

RIM said it was receiving mixed messages from Indonesia, claiming it was never formally asked to build a centre in the country. It said it complied with all of the government's requests, including a router in Indonesia which acts as an aggregator. As for access to encrypted data, an issue that arose in other regions like India, RIM is working with law enforcement agencies, but the Indonesian goverment indicated that it was unhappy that the company won't reveal exactly who it is working with. Indonesia is one the biggest markets for BlackBerry devices, making this ban potentially disastrous to RIM's revenue. RIM also got into trouble in the country recently after a botched promotion led to a stampede.

Samsung breaks record with 300 million mobile phone sales Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-breaks-record-with-300million-mobile-phone-sales/14205.html

December 12th, 2011 December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

NVIDIA Project Denver "Lost in Rockies", to Debut in 2014-15 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-project-denver-lost-in-rockies-to-debut-in-2014-15/14204.html December 12th, 2011

Samsung sold over 300 million mobile phones this year, breaking its company record. The Galaxy S smartphones are primary contributors to the achievement. Samsung sold over 300 million mobile phones this year, a record figure in the company's entire history. The Korean electronics giant issued a statement on Sunday saying that it had broken its sales record at the end of last month, which means that the total number for 2011 will be even bigger, thanks to the strong Christmas shopping period. The figure is significantly higher than the 280 million sales Samsung recorded in 2010, which was a positive year for the smartphone industry. It claims that its Galaxy S series of smartphones were primary contributors to the achievement, with the Galaxy S II selling 10 million units alone since its April launch, another record for the company.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We look forward to extending this success going into 2012,â&#x20AC;? said J.K. Shin, President and Head of Mobile Communications at Samsung. Samsung is the second largest handset maker in the world, behind Nokia, which has been losing market share as smartphones overtook feature phones. A decade ago Samsung was in fourth place, and if Nokia fails to recover sufficiently with its planned Windows Phone 7 smartphone range, Samsung could end up creeping into the top spot.

There is a lot of virtual ink spilled over the upcoming NVIDIA CPU architecture which company calls "Project Denver". Not a lot is known though, on when the design is expected to debut. There is a lot of virtual ink spilled over the upcoming NVIDIA CPU architecture which company calls "Project Denver". Not a lot is known though, when the design is expected to debut. According to Jen-Hsun's talk at the third quarter financial results conference call, NVIDIA is working on Project Denver to "supplement, add to ARM's capabilities by extending the ARM's architecture to segments in a marketplace that they are not themselves focused on". It is no secret that NVIDIA sees Project Denver as a processor not oriented towards tablets and netbooks, but rather desktops and high-performance computing. According to information available, the first product based on the 64-bit Denver architecture will be Stark, i.e. Iron Man - Tegra SOC set for introduction in late 2014, with real availability in 2015.

Prior to the debut of NVIDIA's own 64-bit architecture, the company will launch Kal-El and Kal-El+ (28nm die-shrink), both based on 32-bit ARM Cortex-A9 architecture, followed by Wayne (Cortex-A15) and Logan, all before Stark comes alive. NVIDIA is developing Project Denver for better part of the past decade. The company acquired Colorado-based Stexar in 2006, with a plan to develop a binary compatible architecture with the x86 instruction set, with or without Intel's permission/license. The original architecture called for a similar approach used by Transmeta with a translation layer being the core part of the architecture. However, luckily for NVIDIA, then tiny ARM started its ascent into the contemporary computing with the new generation of smartphones. As such, NVIDIA's R&D shifted focus from being binary compatible with x86 into an extended ARM architecture. Needless to say, this practically required starting from scratch.

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Given that NVIDIA takes four years to develop a new GPU and that typically, CPU requires five years of development, the first silicon coming out of Stexar will only come after eight years of development. One of terms we heard about Project Denver from a highly ranked executive in a competing firm was "Lost in Rockies". Yet, NVIDIA cannot take any chances and needs a proprietary, ARM-compatible architecture to extract X86 out of their GPGPU servers. Project Denver is expected to bridge the performance gap between Tegras oriented towards smartphones and other mobile devices with the desktop and server performance requirements. According to Jen-Hsun, ARM currently has no plans to do that in mid-to-long term. The project shares similar fate to Intel's own Haswell, which changed its description and architecture for about four times, first being on the map as a NetBu(r)st architecture, only to launch half a decade later as a completely new architecture. In any case, Stexar team has full support of NVIDIA management, and Stark should arrive on the market only after the market accepts 64-bit ARM as a mainstream computing architecture.

Hitachi Makes 4TB Deskstar and Touro HDDs Official Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hitachi-makes-4tb-deskstar-and-tourohdds-official/14203.html December 12th, 2011

The Deskstar 4 TB (model number: HDS5C4040ALE630) is part of the 5K4000 series. It is based on the standard 3.5inch form-factor, and features a SATA 6 Gbps interface. It is designed more with storage in mind, with a spindle-speed in the range of 5400 RPM. As the picture might show you, it packs 5 platters and 10 recording surfaces. The 5400 RPM design brings about energy efficiency of about 28 percent compared to a hypothetical similarly-specc'd 7200 RPM drive. Naturally lower spindle speeds also contribute to lower noise. The Deskstar 5K4000 4 TB packs 32 MB of fast cache, which should take advantage of the 6 Gb/s interface bandwidth for high burst speeds.

First spotted in the bylanes of the Akihabara district of Tokyo last week, Hitachi's uber-capacious Deskstar 4 Terabyte internal hard drives were finally announced to the world today. Along with it, Hitachi also announced its Touro avatar, a portable HDD that makes use of one of these drives. Increasing hard drive capacities are inevitable, but these are turbulent times in the hard drive industry, with a huge chunk of it gone for a swim in the recent Thailand floods. Hitachi got ahead of bigger players Western Digital and Seagate in being the first HDD vendor with an internal hard drive with 4 TB of unformatted capacity. Incidentally, Hitachi was also the first to market with a 1 TB HDD.

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

the high-end Core i7-3770K that's been put through its paces in a somewhat limited selection of benchmarks, but if the results are anything close to the final CPU revision, then we can look forward to a decent performance boost over Sandy Bridge. If you, like us, have eagerly been awaiting the first Ivy Bridge benchmark numbers then we have good news for you, they've arrived as an early Christmas present courtesy of Chiphell. It's the high-end Core i7-3770K that's been put through its paces in a somewhat limited selection of benchmarks, but if the results are anything close to the final CPU revision, then we can look forward to a decent performance boost over Sandy Bridge. The CPU was fitted to an un-named Z77 chipset motherboard –an early revision with an early BIOS/UEFI – and paired up with 8GB of DDR3 1600MHz memory. As we know, the Core i7-3770K sports Intel HD Graphics 4000 and the integrated graphics was being used for the tests, so we're looking at early graphics drivers here too, in best case we're looking at an Alpha driver here, at least according to information we have at hand with regards to Intel's driver release schedule and judging by the driver revision used.

The next launch from Hitachi is the Touro 4 TB, a portable hard drive that packs the Deskstar 5K4000 launched today. Measuring 129mm (W) x 183mm (H) x 60mm (D), this drive provides you capacities that could only be achieved by portable HDDs twice its volume, because they needed two internal drives to achieve its capacity. The new drive takes advantage of the new USB 3.0 SuperSpeed interface to ensure there are no interface bottlenecks, and that its performance is nearly on par with that of the Deskstar running inside your computer. The Deskstar 5K4000 4 TB is priced at US $399.99, and is released to retail markets in limited quantities (go figure!). It will be released to OEMs in early 2012. The Touro 4 TB, on the other hand, will be released to the retail channel in January 2012, and will be priced at $419.99.

Ivy Bridge benchmarks brought early by Santa Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ivy-bridge-benchmarks-brought-earlyby-santa/14202.html December 12th, 2011

If you, like us, have eagerly been awaiting the first Ivy Bridge benchmark numbers then we have good news for you, they've arrived as an early Christmas present courtesy of Chiphell. It's

Let's start with 3DMark06, not really the most taxing benchmark these days, but as you can see from the screenshot below, we got a score of 6841, a respectable improvement in performance compared to the Core i7-2600K which ends up somewhere around 5000 points, although we had a bit of a hard time tracking down some comparable figures, especially using recent drivers. Looking at the CPU score for 3DMark06 the Core i7-3770K scored 7170 which should be compared to about 6700-6800 for a Core i7-2600K, so only a minor performance increase here. Moving on we have a couple of runs of Cinebench 11.5 where in single core mode the 3.5GHz Core i7-3770K scored 1.65 easily besting a Core i7-2600K which scores 1.53 – co-incidentally the 2700K is barely any faster at 1.54 points here – although moving on to using all available cores we're looking at a score of 7.52 for the Core i7-3770K which is a decent performance bump over the 2600K which scores just under 7 points whereas the 2700K scores just over 7 points. Ivy Bridge is by no means a Sandy Bridge-E beater here where the Core i7-3960X manages 11.44 points with all cores enabled at stock clock, although due to the lower clock it only manages 1.58 points in single core mode.

December 12th, 2011

The third and final benchmark is Fritz Chess and here the Core i7-3770K scores 13869 points whereas a Core i7-2600K scores around 1000 points slower. None of these numbers are that 20 percent performance advantage Intel suggested Ivy Bridge was going to offer over Sandy Bridge earlier this year, but it does seem to line up with the lower end of the spectrum that we saw from Intel's own benchmark figures that were part of the leaked roadmap from a couple of weeks ago. The publisher of the benchmarks over at Chiphell is expecting Ivy Bridge to hit 5GHz quite easily, although none of the benchmarks are at anything but stock clock speeds. We've still got another four months to wait until we'll know how final silicon behaves alongside final BIOS/UEFI and drivers, but we'd expect a small performance increase between now and then. Hit the source link below for some additional screen shots.

Pioneer introduces STEEZ Dance Gears audio solutions Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/pioneer-introduces-steez-dance-gears-

Published by: VR-Zone

Dancers can now rejoice as Pioneer releases STEEZ Dance Gears series, a line-up of portable audio equipment to power their groove. The term â&#x20AC;&#x153;boomboxâ&#x20AC;? is given a new definition with the STEEZ Audio series, consisting of the Type S, Type T, and Type Z portable speakers. Featuring an in-built 4GB storage capacity and connections for iPod dock, USB and auxiliary 3.5mm jack, the STEEZ Audio series plays your MP3, WMA, AAC and WAV music files loud and proud. The real shine comes from a nice mix of play functions, such as Auto Battle Mode, which automatically plays a list of your favorite music of the same genre, accompanied by a countdown timer to signal the end of the session. Other play mode features include Tempo Control Function, Dance CUE function, and Eight-beat Skip to fast forward or reverse by eight counts in the music for choreographic practices. STEEZ Portable

audio-solutions/14200.html December 12th, 2011

A new dedicated line of audio equipment made specially for dancers has been unveiled by Pioneer. The attention grabbing series of speakers, music players and headphones celebrate this urban youth culture by empowering street dancers with the beat to match theirs skills. STEEZ Audio

The STEEZ Portable is a music player with a 4GB storage capacity and touch panel interface. It is equipped with play functions such as Non-Stop Mix Play for automatic queuing of similar tracks; Tempo Control Search which queues tracks of similar temp; Tempo Control; and Bookmark function to add tracks to the current playlist while listening to music. Pumping continuous music becomes fast and hassle-free for seamless dance sessions. STEEZ Headphone 7

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Last week, we visited EVGA's headquarters in chilly Taipei to check out the latest and greatest creations from Vince "k|ngp|n" Lucido and crew. It turned out to be a fruitful affair as new 3DMark 11 world records were being made on their new Classified range of X79 motherboard and GTX580 Graphics Card. We also snagged a preview of a pre-production overclocking mammoth Super Record X (Dual Xeon Socket 2011) motherboard. 3DMark Overclocking Legend Vince "k|ngp|n" Lucido doing what he does best - breaking records at work

The STEEZ Headphone delivers crisp sound with rich lowpass bass, bringing out dance beats effortlessly. It is easy to store in your bag with its foldable design, along with a variety of monitoring styles thanks to its housing reversal and swivel mechanism built around the drivers. MIXTRAX Pioneer brings their experience in producing DJ equipment by offering the MIXTRAX music management application. Analysis technology gathers information of all kinds of music such as melody, beat positions and chorus blocks, thus placing all music into various relevant categories and enabling the execution advance play functions. The user-friendly interface makes sure import of your library is a breeze. The good news is itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s free, right here.

The 3DMark 11 WR LN2 Setup - Intel SNB-E 3960X, X79 Classified, 4 X GTX580 Classified

Pricing: STEEZ Audio TYPE S - S$399 STEEZ Audio TYPE T - S$499 STEEZ Audio TYPE Z - S$699 STEEZ Portable - S$199 STEEZ Headphone - S$99

A Visit to EVGA Labs - X79 Classified 3DMark WR Setup and SR-X Preview Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/a-visit-to-evga-labs--x79classified-3dmark-wr-setup-and-sr-x-preview/14198.html December 12th, 2011

X79 Classified Motherboard - it will be coming to stores soon after a slight delay due to Japanese earthquake induced component shortage.

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

A sensible and practical UEFI bios layout and design for overclockers

EVBot for useful Voltage/Temp readouts and control

The GTX580 Classified has a reworked PCB and features 14+3 Phase power design that can deliver over 1000W of power.

kingpincooling.com LN2 pots

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

memory interface, tied to GDDR5 memory. This should lead to memory bandwidth around 250 GB/s. Based on the PCB shots of Tahiti, forum members have used Photoshop to estimate the die size. As we speculated previously, the die size is now reported to be similar to Cayman - around 380 mm2. Considering Tahiti will be manufactured at TSMC's 28nm process, this puts the estimated transistor count at a whopping 4.5 billion transistors. Here's another die size estimate from Beyond3D forum :

Rumour: AMD Tahiti / HD 7900 Specifications & Details Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rumour-amd-tahiti-hd-7900specifications--details/14199.html December 12th, 2011

To conclude one of the quietest years for the GPU industry, the rumour mill has been working overtime, fueled by speculation about AMD's upcoming HD 7900 series, codenamed Tahiti. 3DCenter has compiled expected and rumoured specifications, and also mention a tentative release date - 10th January 2012. The Tahiti chip is rumoured to debut the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture, featuring 32 Compute Units with a total of 2048 shaders. TMU count could be 128. The clock speed is likely to be under 1 GHz, providing a theoretical compute potential of around 4 single precision GFlops. Performance for Tahiti XT / HD 7970 could be close to today's dual-GPUs flagships, and considerably faster than GTX 580 and HD 6970.

AMD's Radeon HD 7900 series has been heavily rumoured for a release during CES 2012. The release date is now being pegged at 10th January 2012, Tuesday, and also the day CES 2012 commences. HD 7800 series is expected to release in February, with the dual-Tahiti New Zealand / HD 7990 flagship in March. The rest of the HD 7000 series will be rounded up by Q2 2012.

Turbo overclocking on High TDP CPUs; the 8-core Intel Sandy Bridge EP example Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/turbo-overclocking-on-high-tdp-cpusthe-8-core-intel-sandy-bridge-ep-example/14197.html December 12th, 2011

Both Intel and AMD now include automatic overclocking-style 'Turbo' performance enhancements in their CPUs. Once you reach the very high TDP territory, like what it is with the Bulldozer or will be with the upcoming 8 core Sandy Bridge EP, what would make best sense? Turbo, Overdrive, call it whatever you want - Intel and AMD alike figured out the potential of that built in 'headroom' that is available in most of their CPUs well beyond the stock clock. The overclocking enthusiast community used it for years now to achieve some incredible results.

While most of the above information should be considered as rumours, what we do know is that Tahiti features a 384-bit

However, we should distinguish between 'suicidal overclocking' including some LN2 and other exotic deeds, where the dies become pretty much unusable after sustained exposure to such stresses, and so called 'productive overclocking' where a measurable performance enhancement 10

December 12th, 2011

is achieved by upping the clocks and tightening other parameters without major voltage increases or other stresses on the CPU or system, leading to expected long term productive usage at that higher speed. Obviously, the vendors are interested in the latter one.

Published by: VR-Zone

application users; and high-frequency traders - will want even more. After all, let's not forget who bought most of the EVGA SR2 mainboards over the past year or so. When we have such high TDP figures at default, is it better to just leave things as they are and rely on Turbo, or get an unlocked version and reach into the overclocking realms with TDP going beyond 250W per socket? Remember, here you'll also have a 4-socket version, the E5 4600, which would then mean a kilowatt just for the four overclocked CPUs... Based on what could be done with the Core i7 3960X, which after all is just a reduced 6-cores-out-of-8 version of this same die, and assuming progressively better cooling and power delivery to be provided for the full 8-core version, there is no reason why there can't be 4 GHz 'productive overclocking' dual-socket Sandy Bridge-EP systems at very reasonable minimal voltage and system tweaks, providing 25% performance above the baseline. With further cooling and tweaks, even 4.3 GHz should be OK for medium to long term use. Anything beyond that, we need to wait for D-stepping, I guess.

Of course, they have to be far more careful with Turbo, since it, unlike overclocking, falls within the warranty specs. Its automatic adjustments also vary depending on the cooling efficiency, power delivery from the mainboard, and of course the compute load on the CPU. What happens once your TDP at default state reaches 150W, like the upcoming high end of the Xeon E5 2600 'Sandy Bridge EP' line? At that point, the default speed is already 'hot' in every sense of the word. Sandy Bridge already implements power spike control in its Turbo mode management to avoid breaching the Icc_max value, and ensures that everything is ran within thermal capacity of the CPU die, packaging and voltage regulation circuitry - all in 1 millisecond sampling intervals. It can also use transient thermal headroom to exceed the performance further for a limited time. With all these enhancements, Intel is expected to provide substantial Turbo power and thermal headroom limits for its upcoming flagship processors of the Sandy Bridge EP line. If we look at the 150W top end part, the one that enthusiasts would like to see unlocked in mainboards such as EVGA SRX, it by default allows for constant usage at 180W TDP, and maximum usage at 230W TDP - not to say that, with the right mainboard and cooling, it couldn't run consistently at 230W as well.

In summary, Turbo will provide a decent performance hop even on super high TDP CPU like the Xeon E5 top of the range in the 150W range, however, the cooling and mainboard design choices have progressed so far now, together with the overclocking experience, that it would be a pity not to open up the headroom to those willing to make the best use of it whether to reach new records in suicidal overclocking of 16 full cores at one go, or 'productive enhancement' to monetize the extra GHz for those who need it - engineers, designers, gamers or traders alike.

HP makes webOS open-source Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hp-makes-webos-opensource/14195.html December 12th, 2011

Hewlett Packard has finally come to a conclusion for the fate of their ailing WebOS. In the footsteps of rivaling software Android, the company have decided to make WebOS an opensource project. While developer communities are celebrating the decision, much remains to be seen if HP will carry out their commitments as promised.

If we assume the starting frequency is, say, 3.1 GHz , and we can go all the way to 3.5 GHz when using all the cores if the system power and cooling allow, this by itself is not bad improvement over the base line. However, three categories of uses - enthusiasts including gamers; workstation 3-D & HPC 11

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Sony Ericsson's rumoured upcoming flagship was sighted yet again, and this time it is from a Chinese source. The amazingly thin profile and a mysterious illumination strip along the bottom of the phone certainly leads one to wonder what the phone manufacturer is up to this time.

In a surprising turn of events, computer manufacturer Hewlett Packard (HP) has officially declared their mobile platform webOS released for for open-source development. This means that they are taking a similar approach to rivaling operating system (OS) Android, whereby the entire source code of the OS is available to consumers and developers to be modified and improved on. The webOS feature various benefits to different segment of its market. Developers will find applications easy to construct from standard web technologies, while device manufacturers will enjoy the seamless integration to multiple devices with its web-centric platform. “WebOS is the only platform designed from the ground up to be mobile, cloud-connected and scalable,” said Meg Whitman, HP's president and chief executive officer. “By contributing this innovation, HP unleashes the creativity of the open source community to advance a new generation of applications and devices.” It is also mentioned that the resulting developments and new versions of the software can be released in the marketplace, suggesting the level at which HP is supporting distributions of open-source enhancements. HP promises to deliver ENYO soon, a Javascript app framework with native hardware acceleration and fast app loading speed, and the rest of the user space elements after that. With yet another opensource program, a healthy dose of competition and consistent innovation will hopefully arise and bring progress to the entire OS ecosystem.

Yet another image of Sony Ericsson’s smartphone-indevelopment, the Xperia Arc HD (codenamed “Nozomi”), has surfaced. It is reported to be undergoing carrier tests in Hong Kong. From the image, it can be seen that the Xperia UI has been tweaked considerably, while the phone remains true to its predecessor’s slimness. The seemingly illuminated strip around the phone near the bottom looks like an interesting decoration but perhaps there is more than meets the eye. The source of this leak also claims that the phone will be announced during the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January. Reports state that the specification of the new phone include a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of memory, a 4.3-inch 720p resolution screen, and a 12megapixel camera, in line with previous rumours. If all the information turns out to be true, Sony Ericsson might just have a winner in their hands.

OCZ ZS Series 650W PSU Review Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ocz-zs-series-650w-psureview/14172.html December 12th, 2011

Sony Ericsson "Xperia Arc HD" images surfaced again Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-ericsson-xperia-arc-hd-imagessurfaced-again/14189.html December 12th, 2011

It has been over half a decade since OCZ has begun marketing performance power supplies. The company turned into a major player in the PSU market after they acquired PC Power & Cooling, a company which specialized on the field. OCZ currently markets three series: The premium ZX series, the modular ZT series and the value range ZS series. A few weeks ago we had a look at the ZT 550, a high performance modular power supply designed to please hardcore enthusiasts and modders. Today we are going to put to the test the 650W 12

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

version of a ZS series power supply and see what the value range of OCZ’s power supplies can offer. It has been over half a decade since OCZ has begun marketing performance power supplies. The company turned into a major player in the PSU market after they acquired PC Power & Cooling, a company which specialized on the field. OCZ currently markets three series: The premium ZX series, the modular ZT series and the value range ZS series. A few weeks ago we had a look at the ZT 550, a high performance modular power supply designed to please hardcore enthusiasts and modders. Today we are going to put to the test the 650W version of a ZS series power supply and see what the value range of OCZ’s power supplies can offer.

550W, 650W, and 750W Configurations

Single +12V Rail

Continuous output rated at 40°C

150 x 160 x 86mm (W x L x H)

ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V

Non-Modular

80 Plus® Bronze Certified

High Efficiency: 85% at typical load

Overvoltage/Overcurrent/Short-Circuit protection

Active PFC

MTBF:100,000 hours

There will be 3.8 million fewer PC shipments in the first quarter of 2012 due to the disastrous flooding in Thailand over the last few months, according to a report by market analysis firm IHS iSuppli.

· 135mm temperature and load controlled double ballbearing fan ·

3 year warranty backed by OCZ's exclusive

PowerSwap Warranty replacement program.

230V ~ 10A 50Hz +5V

DC +3.3V OUTPUT MAX 22A 22A CURRENT MAX 130W 552W COMBINED WATTAGE TOTAL POWER: 650W Continuous

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/thailand-floods-lead-to-3.8-millionfewer-pcs-in-q1-of-2012/14194.html December 12th, 2011

Manufacturer features and specifications

OCZ ZS 650W AC INPUT

Thailand floods lead to 3.8 million fewer PCs in Q1 of 2012

+12V

-12V

+5Vsb

46A

0.3A

3.6W

15W

IHS had previously predicted that there would be 88 million shipments of PCs around the world in the first quarter, but it has revised this figure downward to just 84.2 million. 2012's overall shipments have also been lowered from the previous expectation of 399 million to 376 million. As a result, global growth in the PC market will drop from 9.5 per cent to 6.8 per cent next year. The primary reason for the drop is a severe shortage in hard drisk drives (HDD) caused by the Thailand flood. Without this storage it is impossible to ship ready-made computers to consumers and businesses. The shortage has led to existing HDD prices doubling at most shops.

“The PC supply chain says it has sufficient HDD inventory for the fourth quarter of 2011. However, those stockpiles will run out in the first quarter of 2012, impacting PC production during that period,” said Matthew Wilkins, senior principal analyst of compute platforms at IHS.

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

There is some hope for the HDD market, however, with Western Digital recently announcing a return to production at one of its previously flooded plants, but it will still take a number of months to restore supply. IHS expects that by the end of 2012 HDD supply will have returned to normal or could even surpass normal capacity, leading to an inventory surplus, which would be an ironic twist of fate compared to the world's current predicament.

More AMD Tahiti / HD 7900 Pictures Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-amd-tahiti-hd-7900pictures/14193.html December 12th, 2011

Not long after the first pictures of AMD's Tahiti leaked, we have a detailed shot of Tahiti's PCB, which reveals more details. The 12 memory chips are clearly visible, confirming the 384-bit memory bus. It also offers a first glimpse at the Tahiti die. Not long after the first pictures of AMD's Tahiti leaked , we have a detailed shot of Tahiti's PCB, which reveals more details. The 12 memory chips are clearly visible, confirming the 384-bit memory bus. It also offers a first glimpse at the Tahiti die.

There is a crucial difference from the previous leak - this sample consists of 2 x 6-pin PCI-e connectors, as opposed to the 8-pin + 6-pin configuration previously captured. This could suggest that this is either an advanced production ready sample, or Tahiti Pro, or HD 7950, which should feature a lower TDP than Tahiti XT / HD 7970. This card thus has a TDP somewhere between 150W and 225W.

Hackers threaten world's oil supply Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hackers-threaten-world-s-oilsupply/14192.html December 12th, 2011

Hackers are threatening the world's oil supply in an increasing wave of cyber attacks, according to top oil company executives, spelling potential devastation for the economy and the environment. Hackers are threatening the world's oil supply in an increasing wave of cyber attacks, according to top oil company executives.

The card most likely features 1.5 GB GDDR5. The 5+1 phase PWM is also visible. Most importantly, we get the first glimpse of the Tahiti die. It is rotated by 45 degrees and covered by a partial heatspreader. However, the die itself is exposed to the heatsink. Tahiti is a big chip - at first glance a similar size to Cayman. However, it is still visibly much smaller than NVIDIA's previous flagships, GF100/GF110 or GT200/ GT200b, so AMD continues to dismiss NVIDIA's big die strategy.

Oil companies are warning that they are facing more and more attacks on their systems, which could lead to a situation where valves are accessed. This could result in a scenario where oil rigs are set on fire, people are killed, the environment is damaged, production is halted, and oil supply to industrial nations is cut, which in turned would have a monumentally negative financial impact. “We see an increasing number of attacks on our IT systems and information and there are various motivations behind it - criminal and commercial,” said Ludolf Luehmann, manager of IT at Shell, Europe's largest oil company. “We see an increasing number of attacks with clear commercial interests, focusing on research and development, to gain the competitive advantage.”

The card features 2x CF connectors as well as the dual BIOS switched introduced with the HD 6900 series.

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

A French court has refused Samsung's request to ban Apple's iPhone 4S in the country, the latest twist in an ongoing legal dispute between the two companies. A French court has refused Samsung's request to ban Apple's iPhone 4S in the country, the latest twist in an ongoing legal dispute between the two companies. The court said it would not impose a preliminary sales ban on the latest iPhone, but Samsung can still pursue a normal lawsuit against Apple over the alleged patent infringement. Samsung was ordered to pay â&#x201A;Ź100,000 in legal fees, but it escaped a fine, despite Apple asking for the court to award damages in its favour.

This might sound like science-fiction to some, but the reality is that most industries operate on computers that are vulnerable to attack, and hackers are increasing in numbers, becoming more knowledgeable, and making more daring attacks on systems. The Stuxnet worm, which crippled Iran's nuclear reactors, showed the potential devastation that could be caused by cyber warfare. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, this kind of attack can be replicated on many essential infrastructures systems, including water supplies, electricity grids, and oil production and distribution. Riemer Brower, head of IT security at Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, said that the oil industry has so far avoided any major incidents, but qualified this by saying that the companies in charge are no longer really in control.

French court denies Samsung request to ban Apple's iPhone 4S Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/french-court-denies-samsung-requestto-ban-apple-s-iphone-4s/14190.html December 12th, 2011

This is the latest decision in the bitter patent war, with Apple alleging that the Galaxy Tab is a rip-off of its iPad and that several of Samsung's smartphones infringe its patents. Samsung has responded in kind by claiming that the iPhone 4S uses some of its patented technology. Even if Samsung had won its case in France, it could have easily been overturned, just as Apple's injunction against sales of the Galaxy Tab was overturned in Australia last week. That case was further affirmed today with the formal lifting of the ban. Samsung is awaiting the decisions for other injunction motions against Apple in Australia, Japan, France, and Italy.

December 12th, 2011

Report: AMD Radeon HD 7800 (Pitcairn) in February 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-amd-radeon-hd-7800-pitcairnin-february-2012/14191.html December 12th, 2011

AMD is planning to introduce their next-gen performance part, replacing the HD 6800 / Barts series, in February 2012. The rumoured date is the week of February 20th, the week after Chinese New Year. Codenamed Pitcairn, there will be two SKUs at launch - Pitcairn Pro and Pitcairn XT, expected to be branded Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon HD 7870 respectively. AMD is planning to introduce their next-gen performance part, replacing the HD 6800 / Barts series, in February 2012. The rumoured date is the week of February 20th, the week after Chinese New Year. Codenamed Pitcairn, there will be two SKUs at launch - Pitcairn Pro and Pitcairn XT, expected to be branded Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon HD 7870 respectively. Pitcairn Pro is rumoured to cost $199, with Pitcairn XT at $299. These are the same price points at launch as the immensely popular Radeon HD 4800 series, hitting the price/ performance sweet-spots. The first Southern Islands cards are still expected to be Tahiti / HD 7900 series, to release at CES 2012. They will be followed by Pitcairn, with the dual-GPU flagship New Zealand (possibly HD 7990) releasing at CeBIT 2012, in the early March. The first Kepler GPUs from NVIDIA are also expected to show up in March, although rumours suggest NVIDIA might release mainstream GPUs first, with performance parts coming later in Q2.

Published by: VR-Zone

cores. The report from Fudzilla also mentions that Vishera will be compatible with the AM3+ platform and 900 series chipsets. AMD's earlier Zambezi successor, Komodo, which is reportedly canceled, was planned to fit into the FM2 platform, shared with Trinity. AMD is also preparing 1000 series chipsets, with 1090FX and 1070, which will likely be the chipset of choice for Vishera. Trinity will be the first AMD product to feature Piledriver cores, releasing in Q2 2012, and will give a good indication to Vishera's performance characteristics. Vishera will continue to be manufactured at GloFo's 32nm process, which should hopefully be mature by Q3 2012. Rumours indicate Vishera will continue to contain 4 Piledriver modules, although the canceled Komodo it replaces was said to feature 5 Piledriver modules. Intel's Ivy Bridge-E enthusiast CPUs are also slated to launch around the same time, although AMD's Vishera will most likely battle Intel's Ivy Bridge quad-core CPUs, particularly Core i7 3770K, unless Piledriver brings unexpectedly massive improvements over Bulldozer.

Samsung to launch monster tablet in 2012? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-to-launch-monster-tabletin-2012-/14187.html December 12th, 2011

Korean manufacturer Samsung may be unveilng a new tablet with improved specification next year at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. Along with a recent announcement of the Exynos 5250 processor and its whooping 2560 by 1600 screen resolution, the pieces for a new beast of a tablet seems to be in place.

Report: AMD Vishera (next-gen FX) in Q3 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-amd-vishera-next-gen-fx-inq3-2012/14188.html December 12th, 2011

AMD is planning to release their next-gen FX CPUs in Q3 2012. Codenamed Vishera, these CPUs will feature Piledriver cores, and today's FX-Series Zambezi CPUs with Bulldozer cores. The report from Fudzilla also mentions that Vishera will be compatible with the AM3+ platform and 900 series chipsets. AMD is planning to release their next-gen FX CPUs in Q3 2012. Codenamed Vishera, these CPUs will feature Piledriver cores, and today's FX-Series Zambezi CPUs with Bulldozer

The recent patent war has not dampened the spirits of electronics giant Samsung as they are reported to be readying an 11.6-inch tablet for announcement at the Mobile World Congress in February 2012. The tablet is said to have a resolution of 2560 by 1600 with a 16:10 wide aspect ratio, which will position itself to compete effectively with Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s upcoming tablet device, which is rumored to incorporate a 16

December 12th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Retina Display. Despite the bigger screen, a thinner bezel will help to keep the overall size of the tablet within the familiarity of 10.1-inch tablet users. From Samsung's recent announcement about their new Exynos 5250, it is no doubt that the 2GHz processor will be capable of supporting high screen resolutions, including this 11.6-inch impressive display. Other features of the monster tablet may include Android Beam for convenient media syncing and a wireless docking mode for gaming in conjunction with a HDTVs, which will probably help Samsung to compete against the upcoming television race.

Garena launches League of Legends Dominion in Singapore and Malaysia Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/garena-launches-league-of-legendsdominion-in-singapore-and-malaysia/14186.html December 12th, 2011

Game publisher Garena has launched Dominion, a new game mode for the popular multiplayer game, League of Legends, in Singapore and Malaysia. The refreshing game mode will be released together with limited-edition boxed sets containing various character boosts and other goodies.

To celebrate the launch, Garena will also promote a special boxed game set for fans and collectors. Only 3000 sets are available in selected stores (including Comic Connections branches) across Singapore and Malaysia, and it costs S$4.90. It comes with a comprehensive Dominion handbook and a bundle of premium in-game items worth over S$20, such as the Champion Ranmus the Armordillo, a 10-win experience boost, a four-win Influence points boost, and 100 Riot point boost. Players can get their hands on these goodies from 16December.

MIPS Architecture Crashes ARM, X86 Party: 28nm chips to operate at 1.5GHz, Run Android 4.0 ICS Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/mips-architecture-crashes-arm-x86party-28nm-chips-to-operate-at-1.5ghz-run-android-4.0-ics/14170.html December 12th, 2011

The debate between "PC Everywhere" and "Post PC" is currently raging in the boardrooms and between consumers and there are mostly two bases everybody discusses: X86 or ARM architecture. Well, not anymore…

Asian online game publisher Garena has launched a new game mode “Dominion” for their multiplayer game League of Legends for Singaporean and Malaysian players. The player versus player (PvP) mode takes place on the “Crystal Scar” map in which five strategic nodes in a circular formation must be taken over by two opposing teams. The objective is to secure as many of these nodes than the opponent. When this is achieved, it will reduce the opponent’s base points over time. If the base point of any team reduces to zero, from a start of 500, they will lose the game. Opposing teams can attack and take away these nodes to turn the tides of war.

December 12th, 2011

After spending most of their time outside the limelight, MIPS Technologies marked a very strong week by announcing that the company successfully started the manufacturing of the brand new high-performance, three-way microprocessor chip using 28nm-SLP (Super Low Power) process node at GlobalFoundries Fab 1 in Dresden, Germany. The chip was a development between MIPS Technologies and eSilicon Corporation, with the expected clock between 1GHz as worst-case scenario, while the optimal clock target is 1.5GHz. Given that the chip is in manufacturing right now, it will take about three months to deliver first chips to customers. Still, bear in mind the 1GHz minimum, 1.5GHz optimal figure. The week continued with MIPS Technologies making another joint announcement, this time with Chinese manufacturer Aionovo (no relationship to Lenovo). Aionovo debuted NOVO7, world's first android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" tablet for the non-subsidized price of $100, i.e. you can expect that carriers will be offering them for free with subscription. This tablet is powered by Ingenic Semiconductor JZ4770 SoC, containing a single MIPS32-based processor core operating at 1GHz, paired with Vivante GC860 GPU featuring complete Full HD acceleration (video processing engine). While this 7" tablet won't be sold out of China until at least spring-to-summer period, the magnitude of this announcement speaks volumes. Our industry sources working at companies that manufacture x86 and ARM-based solutions almost unanimously expressed their concern. If Ice Cream Sandwich ends up working smooth on a tablet for $100, all it takes is a decent CPU upgrade, capacitive touch-screen instead of the ultra-cheap resistive one and voila, a competitor for the current and future ARM and X86 based designs is born. MIPS is not a small player either. While ARM likes to boast that the company ships billions of devices per year, MIPS also powers numerous set-top-boxes, TVs, network switches, automotive and avionics systems - competing against ARM. MIPS Technologies had management issues through their long history but things started to change last year, after Sandeep Vij was named CEO. The company went through reorganization and the result is a more nimble competitor.

Published by: VR-Zone

products next year, and 64-bit is only expected in 2013-2014 timeframe. While MIPS originally worked with their own licensors using less advanced processing nodes, the launch of 28nm part which targets as high clock as the fastest clocked CortexA9 speaks volumes. While SOC needs to be bundled with a powerful graphics, image processing and connectivity systems, ARM just might find themselves in dead heat with MIPS Technologies. Also, bear in mind that Qualcomm already heavily modifies Cortex architecture and flat out refuses to specifically name ARM in their marketing materials, NVIDIA is developing its own 64-bit ARM-based architectureâ&#x20AC;Ś the number of companies using future reference Cortex cores in high end parts might drop to just a few players. Good Enough Computing coming back to haunt ARM? By launching the already mentioned Aionovo NOVO7 tablet, the 32-bit JZ4770 is already operating at 1GHz, while the upcoming 28nm parts are expected to scale to 1.5GHz and beyond. Should the company optimize their 32-bit and 64-bit MIPS architecture alongside 28nm-SLP and introduce 20nmLP and -SLP nodes at GlobalFoundries and TSMC, MIPS Technologies just might have a ticket to ride to pressure ARM and their gigantic ecosystem. Naturally, Intel is also coming to the mix with 22nm based Silvermont, who is set to debut in 2013. Power consumption also seems to be the strong side of the MIPS architecture. The JZ4770 SOC consumes only 0.25W under 100% CPU and video engine load (1080p playback), which is significantly less than ARM competitors. Naturally, as you beef up the GPU and add a second core, the power consumption will go up, but still below ARMbased products. And when ARM posed a question of "good enough" computing to counter Intel and AMD claims of high-performance requirements for desktop computing, did the company thought that a competitor might say the same question to them? Is MIPS making lower power consuming parts than ARM for "good enough computing"? While we won't know the answer for this for quite some time, but the battle is on. MIPS vs. ARM vs. AMD vs. Intel.

One of people giving thumbs up to MIPS is Andy Rubin, Senior VP of Mobile, Google Inc. He stated that he is "thrilled to see the entrance of MIPS-Based Android 4.0 tablets into the market". Furthermore, Andy stated that Google wants to see more high-performance MIPS solutions, as "low cost, high performance tablets are a big win for mobile consumers and a strong illustration of how Android's openness drives innovation and competition for the benefit of consumers around the world." MIPS already speaks 64-bit Unlike ARM, MIPS developed a 64-bit architecture quite some time ago, with the products based on MIPS64 shipping inside networking equipment. According to information available, Cavium Networks, NetLogic Microsystems and even CISCO are either shipping or evaluating MIPS64 architecture for their network products. In comparison, ARM is now talking about 64-bit but the company did not announce 64-bit part as of today. 32-bit Cortex-A15 and derived products will debut in 18

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

AMD Brings the Launch of Radeon HD 7900 Series Forward: December 22nd, 2011 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-brings-the-launch-of-radeonhd-7900-series-forward-december-22nd-2011/14255.html December 15th, 2011

According to conversations with fellow journalists and AIB partners, AMD brought forward the launch of HD 7970, while the availability and HD 7950 should launch on January 9, 2012 - one day before CES. Last minute decisions can turn in quite a mess when people involved aren't afraid to speak up and voice out their concerns. Yesterday, there was flurry of activity on various chat boards between board vendors and journalists, all trying to figure out what happened.

a very limited launch, with the real availability only coming on January 9, 2012 - which should be the launch date for the Radeon HD 7950. The interesting bit about the Radeon HD 7950 is that the board is coming out as a custom part, and AMD gave freedom to partners to clock the part anyway they want, there is flexibility in terms of amount of memory, 3rd party cooling - just like GeForce GTX 560 launch, expect a lot of different parts coming from all the usual suspects. As far as HD 7950 availability is concerned, several sources in the know gave out conflicting information. One information floating around claims a limited launch on December 22 for HD7970 only, with widespread availability of HD7970 and HD7950 coming on January 9, 2012, and another rumor is that both HD7970 and 7950 are coming on December 22, 2011, albeit in very limited quantities. Again, both sides of the coin revolve around Dec 22nd and Jan 9th. The truth will be known on next Thursday, December 22nd.

Microsoft signs up to US and EU cloud standards for Office 365 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-signs-up-to-us-and-eucloud-standards-for-office-365/14253.html December 15th, 2011

According to the information at hand, AMD wishes to end the 2011 year by winning the accolades for the best microprocessor and the best graphics processor in the world. In order to do that, the company brought forward the launch of Radeon HD 7970, which was revealed here. As you know, AMD's CEO Rory P. Read proudly announced that the company started to ship the 28nm GPUs for revenue, and there are numerous leaked pictures, pricing rumors and an alleged specifications slide leak. Now, it looks like the Radeon HD 7970 will launch on December 22, 2011, bringing a Christmas gift to all the current AMD users and those that want to become one. This will be

Microsoft has signed up to US and EU cloud standards with its Office 365 software suite, making it one of a small handful of companies that meet data protection and security requirements for cloud computing in both regions. The company has received compliance with the Data Protection Directive established by the European Commission. It has also previously agreed to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act in the US, addressing concerns by some about moving healthcare data to the cloud. The ISO/IEC 27001 certification means that Microsoft will have to agree to yearly audits of its information security policy 1

December 15th, 2011

by an independent expert and share the results of these with customers.

The move will also result in increased safeguards for its online services, both on a physical, administrative and technical level, in order to meet the US requirements. “Developing cloud-based productivity tools that meet the needs of European businesses means more than simply building apps in a browser,” said Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft International. “Microsoft has a more complete approach to European data protection and security laws than any other company, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done to ensure the widest range of organizations can move to the cloud with confidence — or choose an equally functional on-premises option.” Microsoft also announced the launch of its new Office 365 Trust Centre, a website which provides detailed information about the privacy and security policies relating to the latest Office software.

Scientists break data speed record with 186Gb/s transfers Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/scientists-break-data-speed-recordwith-186gbs-transfers/14251.html December 15th, 2011

Scientists have broken the world record for data speed over a long distance with a transfer of a whopping 186Gb/s, the equivalent of sending over 4,000 Blu-ray discs worth of data in just one hour. Scientists have broken the world record for data speed over a long distance with a transfer of a whopping 186Gb/s, the equivalent of sending over 4,000 Blu-ray discs worth of data in just one hour. The achievement was made by researchers at the University of Victoria in British Columbia and the Washington State Convention Centre in Seattle, who transfered data back and forth over a 131 mile distance at speeds of 186Gb/s, significantly faster than the previous 2009 record of 119Gb/s.

Published by: VR-Zone

Transfers were also sent from Seattle to other US locations and even Brazil and South Korea, showing that vast distances are not an issue with this latest discovery.

The technology used included highly tuned servers running over a 100Gb/s circuit set up by Canada's Advanced Research and Innovation Network (CANARIE). The California Institue of Technology, University of Michigan, Florida Internatonal University, and the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) also participated. The breakthrough will affect scientific research, big businesses and consumer life, as the technology could be used by the Large Hadron Collider for physics developments, by companies like Google and Amazon that depend on high speed transfers, and by broadband customers who are still struggling with paltry speeds in the low Megabits. To put the speeds into perspective, the highest speed available in the UK is 1.5Gb/s, and that is only a limited trial by Virgin Media in East London. Some people are lucky to get 1.5Mb/ s, with the average speed throughout the UK being just under 7Mb/s. Within a few years we could all be downloading files at speeds over 100Gb/s.

Apple to sell 190 million iPhones in 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-to-sell-190-million-iphonesin-2012/14252.html December 15th, 2011

Apple could sell upwards of 190 million iPhones next year, according to a report by financial services firm Morgan Stanley.

December 15th, 2011

Apple could sell upwards of 190 million iPhones next year, according to a report by financial services firm Morgan Stanley.

Published by: VR-Zone December 15th, 2011

The Cupertino, California-based company is expected to ship between 31 and 36 million iPhones in the final quarter of this year, up to 30 per cent more than other analysts project. That figure is projected to jump to 41 million in the first quarter of 2012, with up to 190 million sales predicted for the entire year, showing that demand is increasing, rather than falling, for iPhones, despite strong competition from rival Android smartphones.

Special anniversary edition GTA 3 now available on Android and iOS Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/special-anniversary-edition-gta-3-nowavailable-on-android-and-ios/14249.html December 15th, 2011

The popular Grand Theft Auto III, by game developer Rockstar, is now available as a special anniversary edition on both Android Market and Apple iTunes App Store. The game offers high definition graphics with some improvements from the original, and is priced at an affordable US$4.99. Apple is also enjoying high sales for its iPad range, with forecasts that the company will sell 52 million iPads in 2012. This figure could almost double to 90 million if Apple is willing to cut $100 off the price-tag, particularly considering the entry of Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet will present people with a choice that is significantly cheaper. Whether or not Apple is willing to reduce its profit margin remains to be seen, but it might be forced to do so if Amazon steals a large chunk of its market share.

3DMark and PCMark Graphics and Synthetic Benchmark Files mirrored by VR-Zone.com Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/3dmark-and-pcmark-graphics-andsynthetic-benchmark-files-mirrored-by-vr-zone.com/14250.html

Fans of popular Grand Theft Auto (GTA) games could now get their hands on this special anniversary edition of GTA III which is now available on both Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. The special anniversary edition of the Rockstar game is almost identical to the original, except that the controls are all touchscreen, with graphics enhanced to high definition, and improvements on the game play including mission retry and autosave modes. You can purchase the game at US$4.99 on Android Market or Apple iTunes App Store. According to the game developer, Galaxy Nexus owners can also expect to get a version of the game in the near future. 3

December 15th, 2011

The list of support devices include:Apple - iPad 1, iPad 2, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S and iPod Touch 4th Generation Android Phones - HTC Rezound, LG Optimus 2x, Motorola Atrix 4G, Motorola Droid X2, Motorola Photon 4G, Samsung Galaxy R and T-Mobile G2x

Published by: VR-Zone

Celebrate Christmas with Atlas Sound & Vision Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/celebrate-christmas-with-atlas-sound-vision/14245.html December 15th, 2011

Android Tablets - Acer Iconia, Asus Eee Pad Transformer, Dell Streak 7, LG Optimus Pad, Motorola Xoom, Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, Sony Tablet S and Toshiba Thrive

Join Now! GIGABYTE Battlefield 3 Cup Asia Season 1 Online Competition Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/join-now-gigabyte-battlefield-3-cupasia-season-1-online-competition/14247.html December 15th, 2011

If you are planning to get some superb quality audio products for your loved ones this Christmas, check out the offerings from Bose, brought to you by Singapore distributor, Atlas Sound & Vision. Bose Companion 5 multimedia speaker system

Everything in a nutshell: Battlefield 3 Online Competition, 8v8 Conquest Format, USD$3,400 Prize Pool, 8 x GTX580 SOC Graphics Cards, and Premium GIGABYTE gaming peripherals to be won! More details can be found at http://battlefield.gigabyte.asia

AMD: 28nm GPUs shipping for revenue Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-28nm-gpus-shipping-forrevenue/14246.html December 15th, 2011

At the IT Supply Chain conference, AMD CEO Rory Read confirmed that AMD has begun shipping 28nm GPUs, fabbed at TSMC, for revenue. This should come as no surprise, as the release for Radeon HD 7900 - on 9th January 2012 - is just over 3 weeks away. At the IT Supply Chain conference, AMD CEO Rory Read confirmed that AMD has begun shipping 28nm GPUs, fabbed at TSMC, for revenue. This should come as no surprise, as the release for Radeon HD 7900 - on 9th January 2012 - is just over 3 weeks away.

Make your music, games and movies come to life with the surround sound performance of the Bose Companion 5 multimedia speaker system. Featuring a simple, elegant design, the Companion 5 is easy to use. Users simply have to connect it to their computers through a single USB port â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no adaptors, no complicated wiring and no sound card upgrade required. Usual price: S$749 Christmas promo: S$639 Bose MIE2 / MIE2i mobile headset

CEO Rory Read stated, "We are ramping 28nm [products] with TSMC in Taiwan and shipping the products here and now. We are very excited about the products". At this point we have some information about the Radeon HD 7900 series - some concrete, some speculation. We have seen pictures, speculatory specifications, pricing rumours and a purported specifications slide leak. However, as usual, little information has been publicly announced by AMD.

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Christmas promo: S$199 Bose SoundDock 10

Enjoy music and make calls on your mobile phone with high-quality audio with the Bose MIE2 mobile headset. Featuring proprietary Bose StayHear tips for comfort and stability on the go, the MIE2 mobile headset ensures a comfortable fit for hours of listening or phone calls. The MIE2 is compatible with any mobile phone, while the MIE2i is designed exclusively for listening to and control of select Apple products, including the iPhone, iPod, iPad and MacBook Pro. Its in-line microphone provides access to certain voice applications in Apple products, and the in-line remote lets users adjust volume and navigate through stored music directly from the headset. Usual price: S$199 Christmas promo: S$169

Featuring new and existing Bose technologies, the Bose SoundDock 10 is a digital music system that delivers audio performance previously unattainable from a one-piece speaker system for the iPod. Boasting a small, elegant design, the SoundDock 10 maintains dock-and-play simplicity, yet plays from the iPod or iPhone with exceptional clarity across the full musical range, while at the same time delivering the low-note performance and volume levels of much larger sound systems. Usual price: S$1,249 Christmas promo: S$999

Bose On Ear headphones

Video of Samsung GALAXY S II with Google Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/video-of-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-withgoogle-android-4.0.1-ice-cream-sandwich-leaked/14243.html December 15th, 2011

Featuring a comfortable design with the added convenience of fold-flat earcups and a collapsible headband for increased portability and easy storage, the Bose On Ear headphone is the perfect accessory for music lovers on the move. Earcups rotate front to back and top to bottom, resulting in uniform pressure on the ears that enhances audio performance and comfortable fit of the headphones. Usual price: S$225

A leaked video of a Samsung GALAXY S II running the latest Google Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich indicates that development for integration is underway. And needless to say, the Korean company will incorporate their proprietary TouchWiz user interface onto the operating system to provide a unique user experience. An insider report reveals that Samsung is currently working to integrate the Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich mobile platform on their GALAXY S II smartphone. The video reveals 5

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

that Samsung is still inclined to layer most of their TouchWiz user interface (UI) over the Android 4.0.1 OS at this point, which may be a little disappointing to those who prefer the stock Android experience. Some nice features were demonstrated such as the lock screen which now conjures a lock icon at the very spot where the finger has contact with the screen. The improvement is mostly cosmetic, however, as unlocking still utilizes the current method of sliding the finger across the screen. While the home screen generally looks the same as the current Google Android Gingerbread version, a new multitasking interface, call forth by a long-pressing of the home button, appears to make scrolling and closing running programs more intuitive and visually pleasant. Face unlock was also unveiled with its setup option present in the video, although demonstrations of the setup and usage were not shown. It may appear that most of the TouchWiz UI in Android 4.0.1 resembles the current one, but it should be noted that the system is still in development.

New-generation GPU memory bandwidth increases: more for compute than for graphics? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/new-generation-gpu-memorybandwidth-increases-more-for-compute-than-for-graphics-/14244.html December 15th, 2011

New GPUs will have even wider and faster memory buses than their predecessors, with AMD moving to 384 bits from 256 bits, and Nvidia hopping even further, to 512 bits, in their high end SKUs. But is it more beneficial in the usual graphics tasks, or for the future vector FP math jobs in GPGPU operations? You must have noticed by now how the next generation of high end GPUs, both AMD 'Tahiti' 7900 series and Nvidia 'Kepler' GK100 processors, have further increased their memory bandwidth and even bus width as well. AMD is now one step up from the 6900 series, with its 256 bit GDDR5 memory bus being widened to 384 bits in the 7900 series coming early next month. The Nvidia GK100, a quarter or two later, will have a 512 bit wide memory bus, a hop from 384 bits seen now in the GTX580 and its Quadro & Tesla brethren. Now, this doesn't seem as complicated a job as widening the CTE over and over again for our LTA here in Singapore, but it is still quite a work, as those wider buses require more pins, power drive and present board layout challenges to get both the speed and width.

Now, the obvious use in graphics, with - hopefully finally 4K resolution displays coming to the PC world, and the extra refresh loads of stereoscopic 3D, comes to mind. However, the current memory subsystems on high end GPUs actually take quite a good care of that, aside from of course getting higher frame rates with faster memory. What's then the other use then for this width increase? Well, GPUs have very very high peak FP compute rates, but the real performance in FP-heavy code is greatly affected by the available memory bandwidth. While a game may get a 5% FPS boost from a 33% memory bus width jump, a vector FP run may gain over 20% from the same enhancement, all other things staying the same. So, whatever the vendor's primary intentions are for widening the graphics local memory buses on new GPUs, the extra bandwidth - and yes, extra capacity headroom from being able to add more chips and keep things in local RAM - will have the greatest benefit exactly for GPU compute apps. The impact? More HPC-like stuff running oh so fast on your PC, and more true HPC apps running faster on GPGPU arrays.

Globalfoundries and ARM announce 2.5GHz 28nm SoC success Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/globalfoundries-and-armannounce-2.5ghz-28nm-soc-success/14241.html December 15th, 2011

We've already reported about Globalfoundries and ARM's relationship when we visited GTC Taiwan back in September and back then the two companies had 2GHz Cortex-A9 test chips up and running. Fast forward three months and the two have achieved speeds of 2.5GHz, again on test chips, but they've also announced that they've taped out 20nm technology qualification vehicles based around the Cortex-A9 architecture. We've already reported about Globalfoundries and ARM's relationship when we visited GTC Taiwan back in September and back then the two companies had 2GHz Cortex-A9 test 6

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

chips up and running. Fast forward three months and the two have achieved speeds of 2.5GHz, again on test chips, but they've also announced that they've taped out 20nm technology qualification vehicles based around the Cortex-A9 architecture. The big news here is that we should be able to expect both 32nm and 28nm ARM based processors to be manufactured by Globalfoundries in large quantities come next year, at least as long as there are customers. It should be noted that the current chips are based on Globalfoundries 28nm high performance technology and the company is expecting further performance improvements one it moves to its high performance plus (HPP) platform. The press release talks about the HPP parts to be for “wired networking applications” rather than smartphones, although the 2.5GHz chips that were announced should be suitable for a wide range of mobile consumer devices. As for the 20nm technology qualification vehicle or TQV, well, Globalfoundries is expecting a 35 percent increase in performance and nearly half the power consumption compared to a 28nm counterpart, much higher than what was said back in September. This isn't likely to be something we'll see until 2013 of Globalfoundries roadmaps are anything to go by. We're still curious about the fact that the two companies hasn't mentioned the Cortex-A15 architecture at all, as we're expecting the first SoC's based on ARMs next generation core to arrive towards the end of next year, but maybe it's not that different to manufacture from the CortexA9, or the two aren't willing to give away too many details at the moment. The good news for Globalfoundries is that the company should be able to find a few additional customers this way, as we're fairly certain that ARM would recommend to go with Globalfoundries over say TSMC due to the closer relationship between Globalfoundries and ARM.

LG and PRADA unveil PRADA phone by LG 3.0 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-and-prada-unveil-prada-phone-bylg-3.0/14239.html December 15th, 2011

Last month, PRADA and LG announced the renewal of their collaboration to develop the new PRADA phone by LG 3.0, as well as released a teaser picture of the phone. Today, the two companies unveiled the highly anticipated smartphone, which is the third model from the partnership.

The PRADA phone by LG 3.0, finished in classic black, features a glossy touchscreen on the front and PRADA’s signature Saffiano pattern at the rear. Measuring just 8.5mm thin, the phone incorporates LG’s NOVA high brightness display, which claims to be one of the biggest and brightest screen at 4.3-inch and 800-nit brightness. Powered by dual-core 1GHz processor with dual-channel architecture for superb performance, it also comes with dual-band Wi-Fi for highspeed mobile surfing. The PRADA phone by LG 3.0 also features an 8-megapixel camera that is capable of 1080p high definition video recording, and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. According to the manufacturer, the phone is also upgradeable to Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich when the update becomes available. The PRADA phone by LG 3.0 will be available for preorder in January 2012. Consumers who purchase the phone through pre-order will also receive a PRADA-branded accessory with the phone. Details on the pre-order will be made available via the LG Singapore homepage and the LG Mobile Singapore Facebook page. Specifications: Network

HSPA+ 21

Chipset

900/1900/2100 Application Processor

Memory ROM User External Slot Display Size (Inch) Resolution Brightness Camera Connectivity USB

GSM / GPRS / EDGE 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

OMAP4430 1.0GHz Dual Core / Channel 8Gb LP DDR2

RAM 1Gb + 512MB 8GB eMMC Micro SD (up to 32GB) Type TFT 4.3 inches WVGA (800 x 480) 800nit Main 8MP AF Bluetooth 3.0+HS 2.0

December 15th, 2011

Wi-Fi A-GPS SW Spec Codec Video: MPEG4/ H.264/DivX Video Playback: 1080P@30fps Browser Features Battery Speaker Receiver Audio 3.5mm Headset Jack Color

Published by: VR-Zone

802.11 a / b / g / n Yes OS / UI Android 2.3 Gingerbread / P UI Audio: MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+

which will accept either a 2.5-inch internal SATA hard drive or one of Seagate's GoFlex 2.5-inch hard drives. There's also a USB 2.0 port hidden in here somewhere.

Recording: 1080P@30fps

Web-kit based Dimension 127.5 x 69 x 8.5 mm 1,540mAh / Li-Ion 1810 1208 FM Radio

Black

Pogoplug launches Series 4, ads USB 3.0 connectivity and USM Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/pogoplug-launches-series-4-adsusb-3.0-connectivity-and-usm/14240.html December 15th, 2011

As with the Pogoplug Mobile the Series 4 sports Gigabit Ethernet and an SD card slot, but it also adds a pair of rear USB 3.0 ports for further storage expansion. We're not sure if the ARM processor inside the Series 4 has received an upgrade as well, but it's entirely possible that Pogoplug is using the same PLX NAS7820 SoC as it did in the Pogoplug Video, a product that is now discontinued and that sold for twice that of the Series 4, especially as this dual core ARM11 SoC (ARMv6 architecture) has a PCI Express interface which would allow it to connect to a USB 3.0 host controller. It's also entirely possible that we're looking at the same Marvell 88F6192 Kirkwood ARMv5 SoC as found in the Pogoplug Mobile, as this two has SATA and PCI Express support, although it's only a single core SoC.

The latest addition to Pogoplugs growing family of devices is adding quite a few new features and it looks like the company wants to take a serious slice out of the home storage/home cloud market with the Series 4. That said, the price has also gone up and you still have to add your own hard drives, but at least the Series 4 comes with a little twist to make this a lot tidier. The latest addition to Pogoplugs growing family of devices is adding quite a few new features and it looks like the company wants to take a serious slice out of the home storage/home cloud market with the Series 4. That said, the price has also gone up and you still have to add your own hard drives, but at least the Series 4 comes with a little twist to make this a lot tidier. The Series 4 Pogoplug appears to be the same as the recently announced Pogoplug Mobile, but with a few additional features. However, the two are only sharing the same look and basic features as the company has made quite a few changes. First of all we're looking at a larger device, as the top comes off to reveal a SATA/USM (Universal Storage Module) connector

Pogoplug is making a big deal out of the fact that its products features infinite storage expansion, although this is only true in as far as you can plug in additional storage devices until you run out of ports. As with previous products, the Series 4 comes with 5GB of cloud storage, something that was announced last month by the company. We're not sure why you need to use another could service when the Pogoplug is meant to be a cloud storage device, but such is life and not all things make sense. In as much as we think the Pogoplug Series 4 is a neat device, especially as it allows you to stream media around your home or share it over the internet as well as use it as a simple NAS, we can't but wonder why anyone would be willing to spend US $99.95 (S$130) on one when you can pick up a two bay NAS for little more. The ability to share files might be better than 8

December 15th, 2011

with a basic NAS, but there's no data redundancy and we doubt the performance will be as good as that of even a cheap NAS.

Investment firm claims Intel Q4 cut is not due to HDD shortage Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/investment-firm-claims-intel-q4-cut-isnot-due-to-hdd-shortage/14237.html December 15th, 2011

Investment firm Normura Equity Research claims that Intel's decision to revise its fourth quarter sales revenue downwards was not just due to the hard drive shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand, but due to a general lack of demand for Intel chips. An investment firm claims that Intel's decision to revise its fourth quarter sales revenue downwards was not just due to the hard drive shortage caused by the flooding in Thailand, but due to a general lack of demand for Intel chips. Nomura Equity Research believes that Intel's downgrade from $14.7 billion to $13.7 billion is due to â&#x20AC;&#x153;weak sell-throughâ&#x20AC;? caused by poor performance in the Chinese market, low overall demand compared to ARM chips, and low volumes of ultrabooks. This contradicts Intel's statement on Monday that the $1 billion shortfall for the last three months of this year is primarily due to the lack of hard disk drives, which is causing an overall supply issue for the entire PC chain.

Published by: VR-Zone

0.4 billion below its estimate for 2011. This means that 2012 could see a decline in growth for Intel as it continues to struggle with falling demand and other external issues.

IDT announces low-power timing solution for Intel Romley server platform Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/idt-announces-low-power-timingsolution-for-intel-romley-server-platform/14236.html December 15th, 2011

Integrated Device Technology (IDT) has announced what it claims is the industry's most complete and lowest-power timing solution for the Intel Romley server platform. Integrated Device Technology (IDT) has announced what it claims is the industry's most complete and lowest-power timing solution for the Intel Romley server platform, due for release next year. The system consists of three chips: a main clock (932SQ4xx), a peripheral clock (9FGP20x), and a Z-buffer (9ZXxxxxx), all of which feature a number of configuration options to help optimise a motherboard's bill-of-materials to suit the varying sizes and power requirements of cloud computing, enterprise servers, blade servers, workstations, storage and security appliances. The main clock is available in 64-pin, 56-pin, and 48-pin versions, while the peripheral clock has an option to come with wake-on-LAN support. The Z-buffer is available in 19-output, 15-output, or 12-output versions, with an option for a lowpower model.

Nomura admitted that hard drive shortages are a concern, but it believes that the real issue has nothing to do with that. It was particularly critical of Intel's failure to compete with ARM, which it said delivers more power-efficient processors. Nomura likewise cut its estimate of Intel's fourth quarter growth to $13.7 billion and also shaved off $3 billion from its estimated growth for 2012, which is now set at $53.4 billion, 9

December 15th, 2011

All three chips enable PCIe Gen3, SAS 12G and QPI 9.6 Gb/s. The Z-buffers also meet the low-drift requirement of Intel's Romley platform, while the low-power version reduces consumption by up to 1 watt and cuts out 40 discrete components, making it more efficient. “Our new family of timing devices provides OEMs the options and flexibility they need to develop the best-performance and cost-optimized motherboards,” said Ram Iyer, VP and GM of the Computing and Multimedia Division at IDT. “These new products complement IDT’s extensive lineup of industryleading PCI Express switches, bridges, flash controllers, and signal integrity products to complete their Romley platform designs.” The chips are now available for sampling via the IDT website or sales representatives.

Google buys Clever Sense to compete with Apple's Siri personal assistant Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-buys-clever-sense-to-competewith-apple-s-siri-personal-assistant/14235.html December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

as a standard feature in the next version of Android – while pulling support for it from iOS. “The journey has been nothing short of incredible,” said Babak Pahlavan, co-founder and CEO of Clever Sense. “Our vision has only become bigger, and our commitment stronger. With Google and Clever Sense working together, our entire team looks forward to building more intelligent, serendipitous and magical services!” The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.

AMD Radeon HD 7970 specifications slide leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-specificationsslide-leaked/14238.html December 15th, 2011

A slide purportedly to be part of the press deck, detailing Radeon HD 7970, has leaked online. As previously rumoured, the HD 7970 features the GCN architecture with 32 CUs. A slide purportedly detailing Radeon HD 7970 has leaked online. The slide resembles AMD's standard presentation design, and is seemingly part of the press deck held. As previously rumoured , the HD 7970 features the GCN architecture.

Google has bought Clever Sense, the developer of personal assistant software Alfred, a move that will likely see Android competing directly with Apple's Siri. Google has bought Clever Sense, the developer of personal assistant software Alfred, a move that will likely see Android competing directly with Apple's Siri. Alfred is a free mobile app for Android and iOS built on the Clever Sense Platform. It acts very similary to Siri in that it can find places, such as restaurants and shops, in the real world and learns more about user taste over time, becoming more personalised and more accurate. The software features a score based on how good it is at making a match, and it also provides reviews, directions, and other things you would expect from a personal assistant.

Google's decision to buy Clever Sense is clearly a reaction to Siri, one of the selling points of the iPhone 4S. Alfred is not quite as broad in scope as Siri, but it shows great potential for development under Google, which could roll out the software

The HD 7970 features 32 CU containing 2048 ALUs, clocked at 925 MHz. This amounts to 3.5 TFLOPS (Single Precision). TMUs are upped to 128, as expected. However, ROPs remain at 32 compared to Cayman, which is odd considering the memory bus, as we have observed, is 384-bit. Memory speed remains unchanged at 5.5 GHz, meaning a 50% boost in memory bandwidth. The TDP is rated under 300W, while the idle power is incredibly only 3W. This means a 8-pin + 6-pin power connector configuration. HD 7970 features 4 display outs - 1x DVI, 2xmini-DisplayPort and 1x HDMI. Finally, the slide mentions the embargo release date - 9th January 2012. Needless to say, faked slides are nothing new for the rumour mill, so the information contained within this slide must 10

December 15th, 2011

be considered with caution. However, most of the details contained are realistic, and the image of the shroud looks identical to the leaked pictures.

Futuremark Launches Powermark: Good Bye to MobileMark? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/futuremark-launches-powermarkgood-bye-to-mobilemark-/14234.html December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

consumption by providing a consistent, accurate and reliable testing and measurement tool created with Futuremark's deep experience in quality benchmarking software." The test consists out of complex suite of benchmark routines which emulate the operations performed by various applications, such as Windows startup etc. For the first time since we follow Futuremark, the end result is not an index of some kind, but rather a runtime of the tested product.

Nokia to launch 4G-capable Lumia 900 in February 2012? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nokia-to-launch-4g-capablelumia-900-in-february-2012-/14233.html December 15th, 2011

After year and a half of work in complete silence, Futuremark released Powermark 1.0.0. This is the first generation battery testing benchmark based on PCMark7. With the advancements of notebooks, reviewers often felt left out in terms of software choice for benchmarking. If you need to benchmark a processor, graphics card or even a whole system such as a desktop or a workstation - the choice of benchmarks is nearly endless.

However, selecting benchmark applications for testing notebooks is always a challengeâ&#x20AC;Ś what benchmark is the best for testing the battery life? For years, the only realistic solution was to use MobileMark by BAPCo, which solely focused on business applications performance and is not without controversy. Alternative method was to manually create a benchmark by running infinite loop of 3DMark or a movie or some sorts and use the chronometer until the battery expires, but this method was quite tough on testers. Luckily, after months of development, Futuremark came out with another benchmark of their own: after having 3DMark as a reference 3D benchmark and PCMark as a overall system benchmark - Powermark is a PCMark7-based benchmark that measures complete system performance on a notebook.

The Lumia 800 Windows Phone was announced at Nokia World in October, and was only recently launched in Singapore. And from online sources, it looks like the Finnish company could be announcing a 4G-capable Lumia 900 in February next year with a larger touchscreen display.

LG introduces Optimus LTE smartphone in Japan Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-introduces-optimus-lte-smartphonein-japan/14232.html December 15th, 2011

The LG Optimus LTE was recently launched in USA and Korea. And now, the company, in collaboration with NTT Docomo, has brought the Android smartphone to Japan.

According to Jukka Makinen, CEO of Futuremark, "Battery life is critical to delivering a positive user experience. Powermark helps PC industry OEMs and their suppliers strike a balance between performance and power 11

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The Blackberry Bold 9900 smartphone claims to be the thinnest BlackBerry smartphone when it was launched a few months ago. And it looks like Research in Motion has announced the launch of the white version of the Bold 9900 which would be available in stores this weekend.

Research In Motion (RIM) has announced the Pure White BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone in Singapore. It claims to be the slimmest BlackBerry smartphone yet at only 10.5mm, and the first to offer QWERTY keyboard and touchscreen display. It is also the first BlackBerry smartphone to include built-in support for Near Field Communications (NFC) that can pair with NFC-enabled accessories or read SmartPoster tags with a simple tap of the phone. Korean manufacturer LG, in collaboration with NTT Docomo, has introduced the Optimus LTE smartphone (model:L-01D) in Japan, following the launches in North America and Korea. Both LG and NTT Docomo have collaborated to make the Japanese Optimus LTE unique, with a red color available on the Japanese edition of LG Optimus LTE that would only be exclusive to Docomo customers, including the 1seg Digital TV and Near Field Communication (NFC) features. The LG Optimus LTE sports a 4.5-inch True HD IPS touchscreen (1280x720) that is capable of displaying sharp and crisp images, is equipped with 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 1024MB RAM and 4GB built-in storage, supports up to 32GB micro-SD card, and runs Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

It runs the latest BlackBerry 7 operating system with next generation BlackBerry browser that provides significantly faster, more fluid web browsing experience. Other enhancements to the browser include optimized zooming and panning for smoother web navigation and optimized HTML5 performance for incredible gaming and video experiences. The Pure White BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone is expected to be available from all RIMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s authorized partners on 17 December 2011. For pricing details, please check with respective operators. Twitter for BlackBerry updates now available on BlackBerry App World

RIM launches white BlackBerry Bold 9900 smartphone in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rim-launches-white-blackberrybold-9900-smartphone-in-singapore/14231.html December 15th, 2011

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

bandwidth requirements does affect the component choices at the board level, especially when it comes to the memory modules. Right now, entry-level Brazos and mid-range Llano APU families form the current spread of AMD Fusion offerings. In short, they each offer a balanced CPU-GPU combination, with Brazos combining a very low power dual-core CPU with an entry level GPU, and Llano having a quad-core Phenom-class CPU with a mid-range Radeon 6500-class GPU.

Twitter for BlackBerry update v2.1 is now available on BlackBerry App World. Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones v2.1updates include: - Multi-Account Support - Have up to five accounts on your Twitter for BlackBerry smartphones app. Switch between accounts and cross-post Tweets and Retweets from one account to another without switching the current account view. - Enhanced “Share with BBM™” functionality - Easily share Tweets with BBM Contacts and Groups. - View multiple Twitter accounts in a single timeline - View a stream of Tweets from up to five Twitter accounts in the Social Feeds timeline, or opt to filter individual Twitter accounts. - Post a Tweet to multiple Twitter Accounts – Publish a Tweet to one or more Twitter accounts simultaneously using Social Feeds.

Fusion APUs to continue to be memory speed-sensitive? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/fusion-apus-to-continue-to-bememory-speed-sensitive-/14230.html December 15th, 2011

The current AMD Fusion APUs, Brazos and Llano, do provide a good balance of integrated CPU and GPU performance, although the system designers, or the PC assemblers using them, should note that there is quite high performance dependence on the memory speed used, especially for the quad-core Llano. This is expected to be even more the case for the upcoming 'Trinity' successor to Llano The AMD Fusion philosophy has come to its initial fruition this past year, with the first two generations, the entry level Brazos and midrange Llano, having successfully been unveiled by now. The challenge of putting together two distinctly different processing unit types with nearly opposite performance and

From the system architecture point of view, both Brazos and Llano are not very demanding parts, fitting well within the expected limitations of their respective target markets. Since Llano doesn’t have a L3 cache, the benchmark in the reviews up to now showed quite a bit more load on the memory system from the combined CPU and GPU access pattern, so you will very likely notice more substantial overall performance improvements when integrating faster memory – both lower latency for the CPU-bound apps, and higher bandwidth where CPU and GPU parts share the access paths. Think of it as a 20% or more performance headroom when moving from DDR3-1333 CL7 to DDR3-1866 CL8. As the first Bulldozer core for the desktop doesn't seem to have the impact on the market as expected due to its performance issues, the next Fusion APU from AMD will have an updated ‘Piledriver’ core which, hopefully, will address some of the problems that the initial Bulldozer has. If we do get some 20% extra performance there over the current Bulldozer, the Trinity CPU portion should show good performance jump vs the current Llano one. Else, we may have a problem... The more critical aspect of Trinity APU is the higher bandwidth with the CPU portion, as well as tighter interconnect to the GPU portion, which by itself should be up to 50% faster than the one in the Llano. At the same time, the socket compatibility with Llano requires the dependence on the very same dual-channel memory system, restricting any performance improvements there to the usage of faster DDR3 modules above DDR3-2000 to provide the extra bandwidth needed especially to the GPU portion. I would in fact recommend supporting as fast as DDR3-2400 CL10 memory speeds on this platform to maximise the graphics performance gains in particular. Why? Well, since the socket compatibility limits us there to just two memory channels, speeding that memory up is the only way to obtain more juice. The same bandwidth issue would even more affect the eventual future Bulldozer based high end APUs for server and HPC markets, although those are still far, likely not before 2014 - an eternity in the computer world. Fusion approach key benefit, where it will ultimately make the graphics processor just a tightly attached coprocessors with in-line standard programming and shared main memory space, just like any other execution unit within the CPU, results in both CPU and GPU having one single main memory pool at the physical level and, if you have both a fast multi-core CPU and a many-core GPU on the same die, with a common memory 13

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

management unit and memory accesses, how fast do you have to go to maximise the performance? I guess, if it was, say, a 4-module Piledriver core setup, plus an equivalent of Radeon HD7700 graphics (with double precision FP extra) on a single die, as a speculative assumption, we would need sixchannel DDR3-2000 memory for a truly good performance maximising the execution resources potential. If an efficient and large - not an AMD strength recently, though - L3 cache was in place, handling both random CPU accesses and buffering of GPU streaming loads, then fourchannel DDR3-2400 could still do a fair job. However, either way, new sockets are the must for AMD to prepare for such future high end APU infrastructure upfront. Else, we get stuck like right now with AM3 generation dual-channel memory due to socket compatibility pressure.

Intel's Core i7-3612QM verified as 35W part Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s-core-i7-3612qm-verifiedas-35w-part/14229.html December 15th, 2011

Yesterday we broke the news about Intel's mobile quad core OEM Ivy Bridge processors and we now have confirmation that the Core i7-3612QM is a 35W part. Oddly enough the Core i7-3615QM and the Core i7-3610QM are not despite being a mere 200MHz faster. Yesterday we broke the news about Intel's mobile quad core OEM Ivy Bridge processors and we now have confirmation that the Core i7-3612QM is a 35W part. Oddly enough the Core i7-3615QM and the Core i7-3610QM are not despite being a mere 200MHz faster. The only difference between the Core i7-3615QM and the Core i7-3610QM appears to be the packaging, usually something Intel doesn't have different model numbers for, but it seems like the company has decided to change things for Ivy Bridge. The Core i7-3610QM is a socketed part whereas the Core i7-3615QM and Core i7-3612QM are BGA parts that are soldered onto the notebook PCB, much like the Core i7-3720QM and Core i7-3820QM.

The GPU clock for the Core i7-3612QM will also have a lower max dynamic frequency of 1100MHz, whereas the Core i7-3615QM and most likely the Core i7-3610QM will come in at 1200MHz, 50MHz slower than their retail siblings. Other differences between the retail CPUs and the OEM CPUs include lack of support for vPro, Intel TXT and VT-d, just like some OEM Sandy Bridge parts. All the other features appear to remain mostly the same, but it's clear that there's a disadvantage for some users to get a notebook with an OEM CPU.

Intel's DX79TO motherboard finally arrives, disappoints Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s-dx79to-motherboard-finallyarrives-disappoints/14228.html December 15th, 2011

We don't quite know what to say, but Intel's Extreme motherboards are getting less and less extreme by every iteration and after a slight delay Intel's more affordable X79 motherboard, the DX79TO has arrived, but it fits more into Intel's lower-end motherboard ranges than in the extreme category in our opinion. In fact, the DX79TO is a feature stripped DX79SI, something we didn't quite expect, especially as the DX79SI wasn't exactly breaking new territory so to say. We don't quite know what to say, but Intel's Extreme motherboards are getting less and less extreme by every iteration and after a slight delay Intel's more affordable X79 motherboard, the DX79TO has arrived, but it fits more into Intel's lower-end motherboard ranges than in the extreme category in our opinion. In fact, the DX79TO is a feature stripped DX79SI, something we didn't quite expect, especially as the DX79SI wasn't exactly breaking new territory so to say. So what are we looking at here? Well, for starters Intel has gotten rid of the x8 PCI Express slot and in lieu of that you get a x1 slot. Gone is also the front USB 3.0 ports, the secondary 14

December 15th, 2011

Gigabit Ethernet port, two audio jacks and the optical S/PDIF out. The two lower heatinks appear to no longer be connected via a heatpipe, instead a piece of metal connects them and it's possible that Intel has removed the top PWM heatsink as it's missing in the manual, but still present in the product brief. Also missing is the bundled Wi-Fi/Bluetooth ad adapter that comes with the DX79SI.

Stripping out all of those features makes the Intel DX79TO a really poor purchase, especially as it's listed for a retail price of around US$230 (S$300), i.e. not much cheaper than the DX79SI which retails for around US$260 (S $340), not to mention plenty of much more feature rich motherboards from Intel's motherboard partners. It looks like Intel decided it wasn't worth putting too much effort into its X79 motherboards, possibly due to the fact that Intel isn't expecting to sell a ton of them, but the DX79TO really is a lame duck that should never have been put into production. Apologies for the poor resolution picture of the board, but it was the best we could find.

Published by: VR-Zone

additional motherboards alongside with pictures, all of which we're expecting should arrive before the end of the year from Sapphire.

The Pure Black 990FX may be late, but at least is has some competitive features such as six x16 PCI Express slot – in a dual x16 or four x8 configuration with two x4 slots – and nine internal SATA 6Gbps ports. Other features include two front USB 3.0 ports – bracket included – a Molex connector for extra power to the PCI Express slots, a POST80 debug LED, manually selectable BIOS and a power and reset button.

Sapphire readying three new motherboards, AM3+ launched Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sapphire-readying-three-newmotherboards-am3-launched/14227.html December 15th, 2011

When it comes to its range of motherboard products, Sapphire has been quite slow to bring new products to market and today the company finally announced its AM3+ motherboard, the Pure Black 990FX. However, we have details of three additional motherboards alongside with pictures, all of which we're expecting should arrive before the end of the year from Sapphire.

Around the back the board has a PS/2 port, six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, a Bluetooth 2.1 dongle, a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports via Marvell chips and 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF out. The downside is that the board is quite expensive at around €160 (S $275/US$210) which makes it fairly uncompetitive unless you really want a board with the specific slot layout on offer here.

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone December 15th, 2011

Apple is in talks to buy flash storage company Anobit for upwards of $500 million in a move that could give it more control over the storage element of its successful iPhone and iPad ranges. Apple is in talks to buy flash storage company Anobit for upwards of $500 million in a move that could give it more control over the storage element of its successful iPhone and iPad ranges. The Cupertino, California-based company is allegedly in â&#x20AC;&#x153;advanced negotiationsâ&#x20AC;? with Israeli company Anobit to acquire the firm for between $400 million and $500 million, according to a report in Israel's financial newspaper The Calcalist.

So what about the other three models? Well, continuing on the AMD theme we have the Pure White A55M which unlike what the name suggests is another black and blue motherboard (noone's beaten it up as far as we're aware). This is set to be Sapphire's budget FM1 motherboard, but at least Sapphire hasn't skimped on all the features here. The board is a mATX model and it has a single x16 PCI Express slot, two x1 PCI Express slots and a PCI slot. Add six SATA 3Gbps ports, dual BIOS, power and reset buttons and a feature Sapphire calls Memory Free which appears to be some kind of push button memory configuration solution and things aren't looking too bad.

Around the back we find a PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, a pair of USB 3.0 ports via an ASMedia host controller, a Gigabit Ethernet port, three audio jacks for 5.1-channel audio, a D-Sub, DVI and HDMI port. Note that the DVI and HDMI ports on this board can most likely not be used at the same time. One thing that did catch our attention was a pin-header labelled FUSB3 which appears to be for front USB 3.0 ports, but it doesn't look like the standard USB 3.0 pin-headers, nor does there appear to be a second USB 3.0 host controller on the board. That said, the silk screening on the board reads PW-A8A75M so it's possible that Sapphire is/was planning an AMD A75 chipset version of this board and it's possible that some things will change before launch.

Apple in talks to buy flash storage firm Anobit

Anobit develops flash chips that enhance performance via signal processing. These are already used by Apple in its iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air devices.

Apple is apparently looking to buy Anobit in order to increase the memory volume and performance of its devices, which could double with the use of Anobit chips. This marks an unusual departure for Apple, which traditionally has bought software firms instead of hardware. It may mean a shift in direction following the death of Apple's iconic leader Steve Jobs in October. Anobit also supplies chips to companies like Hynix and Samsung, the former of which makes flash memory for the iPhone 4S and the latter of which manufactures the A4 processor chips for Apple. If the Anobit acquisition goes ahead it would mean that Apple would become a supplier to Samsung, a move which could either strengthen or worsen relations between the two companies.

Google launches Street View for tsunami-stricken Japan regions Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-launches-street-view-fortsunami-stricken-japan-regions/14225.html December 15th, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-in-talks-to-buy-flash-storagefirm-anobit/14226.html

December 15th, 2011

Google has launched Street View for the tsunami-stricken parts of Japan, providing a digital archive of the effects of the disaster that hit earlier this year.

Published by: VR-Zone December 15th, 2011

Google has launched Street View for the tsunami-stricken parts of Japan, providing a digital archive of the effects of the disaster that hit earlier this year. The project involved over 44,000 kilometers of driving in Googlemobiles to map the affected areas, delivering on a promise the search giant made in July to deliver a record of events called Build the Memory, a special website that displays before and after images of destroyed towns. Users can check Street View via Google Maps for a 360-degree panoramic view of destroyed buildings and landscape left in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami that hit the country in March.

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced the launch of its Ultrastar C10K900 enterprise storage device, which it claims is the industry's fastest 10K hard drive, touting high capacity and strong encryption features. Hitachi Global Storage Technologies has announced the launch of its Ultrastar C10K900 enterprise storage device, which it claims is the industry's fastest 10K hard drive. The Ultrastar C10K900 is up to 17 percent faster in random performance and 18 percent faster sequentially when compared to competitors. It also touts a high-performance SAS 6Gb/s interface, a 64MB cache buffer, and average seek times and latency times of 3.8 milliseconds and 3.0 milliseconds respectively. The 2.5-inch hard drive is available in 900GB, 600GB, 450GB and 300GB capacities, with the 900GB being one of the highest for a 10K hard drive.

The images display a month and year from when they were taken, which could prove valuable for historical work in documenting the effects of the tsunami. The timestamp feature, which Google said was much requested, has also been rolled out to other Street View images across the world. Some people might see this as an insensitive move by Google, but the company believes that this digital archive will be of value to researchers and scientists studying the effects of natural disasters. It also ensures that the devastation and loss of life will not be forgotten, and it will hopefully go a long way to helping prevent such destruction in the event of future natural disasters.

Hitachi launches fastest 10K RPM enterprise hard drives (Ultrastar C10K900)

The device also boasts of good power efficiency, utilising 28 percent less power than other hard drives, thanks to Hitachi Advanced Power Management technology. This results in an operating power specification of 5.8 watts and an idle mode of 3.0 watts. The hard drive also comes with Bulk Data Encryption, which gives the user the option to turn on self-encryption for enhanced data security. This meets the Trusted Computing Group Enterprise A Security Subsystem Class encryption specification.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hitachi-launches-fastest-10k-rpmenterprise-hard-drives-ultrastar-c10k900-/14223.html

December 15th, 2011

Xiaomi M1 smartphone running Android 4.0 ICS spotted Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/xiaomi-m1-smartphone-runningandroid-4.0-ics-spotted/14220.html December 15th, 2011

Chinese company Xiaomi is reportedly preparing their M1 smartphone for an update with Google Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Initial reports claim that the phone runs well with the new software, while a video shows some exciting interface enhancements are in the works.

Published by: VR-Zone December 15th, 2011

Turkish website DonanimHaber has revealed the European pricing of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7970. As per reliable sources, the current pricing for the HD 7970 stands at just over 500 Euros. Turkish website DonanimHaber has revealed the European pricing of AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7970. As per reliable sources, the current pricing for the HD 7970 stands at just over 500 Euros. Given European pricing trends, this could equate to a US retail price of upto $550. If so, the HD 7970 could be the most expensive single GPU Radeon ever, and certainly the most expensive since the ATI Radeon X1800 XT launched at $500. This also a heavy upswing from HD 5870 and HD 6970 the previous fastest single GPU cards - which launched at $379 and $369 respectively. The Radeon HD 7970 will release on 9th January 2012 with 3GB GDDR5 memory. The HD 7000 series will also bring a 3D version of Eyefinity to take on NVIDIA's 3D Vision Surround.

Rumour: NVIDIA GK104 Specifications, release in Q1 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rumour-nvidia-gk104-specificationsrelease-in-q1-2012/14222.html December 15th, 2011

Chinese company Xiaomi has been tinkering with their recently launched M1 smartphone and has produced images and a video of the phone running on Google Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich mobile software. Initial reports claim that the phone runs very well with Googleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s latest operating system (OS), and would be due to be released very soon. It is also apparent from the video that most of the user interactions are smooth, with advancements in the rendering of cascading gallery animations in the home screen and a more elaborated widget resizing animation. It will also include MIUI V4 user interface, an Android launcher layout created by a Chinese developer. If the upgrade arrives soon enough, Xiaomi M1 may become the first smartphone in China to be powered by Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich, and quite possibly the second in the world, just after Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Pricing Revealed Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-pricingrevealed/14224.html

Not long after the rumour mill at 3DCenter came up with specifications and details for AMD's Tahiti, they have now moved onto NVIDIA's first next-gen 28nm chip - rumoured to be GK104. Succeeding GF114 and the GeForce GTX 560 cards (except the 448 Core version), GK104 is rumoured to release in Q1 2012 with a smaller die than GF114. Not long after the rumour mill at 3DCenter came up with specifications and details for AMD's Tahiti , they have now moved onto NVIDIA's first next-gen 28nm chip - rumoured to be GK104. Succeeding GF114 and the GeForce GTX 560 cards (except the 448 Core version), GK104 is rumoured to release in Q1 2012 with a smaller die than GF114. GK104 is reported features between 640 and 768 SP, 80-96 TMU and either 256-bit or 384-bit memory interface. The performance is likely to be a bit faster than GeForce GTX 580. To make an early launch possible, the speculation mentions GK104 could be a hybrid between Fermi and Kepler, with the first true Kepler part coming with GK100. GK104 also aims at a die size smaller than GF114, presumably to undercut AMD's Tahiti and increase yields for an early release. If GK104 does release in early-mid Q1 2012, as rumoured, it will go up directly against Radeon HD 7800 series / Pitcairn, also releasing around the same time. Meanwhile, the flagship GK100 chip could release in Q2 2012, with early speculation pointing towards estimated 18

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

specifcations of 1024 SP, 128 TMU, 64 ROP and a 512-bit memory interface, and performance closing in on GTX 590. Much of the information coming from 3DCenter is contrary to the previously leaked roadmap by 4Gamers. At this early stage such contradictory speculation is the norm, and all such rumours must be taken with a grain of salt.

NVIDIA: Kepler on track, 28nm samples in house Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-kepler-on-track-28nm-samplesin-house/14221.html December 15th, 2011

In a conversation with Fudzilla, a Senior Product PR Manager confirmed that NVIDIA's next-gen 28nm Kepler GPUs were on track, and samples were in house. However, there was no specific information as to a timeline of "on track". In a conversation with Fudzilla, a Senior Product PR Manager confirmed that NVIDIA's next-gen 28nm Kepler GPUs were on track, and samples were in house. However, there was no specific information as to a timeline of "on track". The PR Manager said, "We are on track with our Kepler roadmap. We have 28nm silicon in house now. Our transition to 28nm is going better than 40nm, and yields are better than our original plan." However, it is worth noting that Kepler wasn't specifcally mentioned as sampling - the in house samples were simply described as "28nm silicon". While AMD's Southern Islands / Radeon HD 7000 series releases first in January, the delay to NVIDIA's competitor is likely to be shorter than the 40nm HD 5000 vs GTX 400 generation where AMD beat NVIDIA by 6 months. Fudzilla suggests that NVIDIA could have its first Kepler GPUs out some time in Q2 2012. Also, more information may be presented at CES 2012 - also the time for AMD's big release.

Dell launches Alienware Aurora gaming desktop PC Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/dell-launches-alienware-auroragaming-desktop-pc/14219.html December 15th, 2011

Dell has unveiled their new Alienware Aurora gaming desktop computer today, which is said to be the company’s most advanced desktop to deliver extreme gaming performance and experience that game developers intended for their players. In a sleek, stylish and compact form factor, the Alienware Aurora’s chassis houses the new second generation Intel Core i7-3000 series six-core CPUs, factory overclocked with high performance CPU Liquid Cooling and Active Venting system that provides additional heat dissipation during heavy gaming; Intel X79 Express Chipset, Quad Channel DDR32 memory and the latest SATA technology. The desktop also supports AMD CrossFireX technology, and is capable of housing two graphics cards to offer beyond 1080p high definition resolution with immersive multi-display and 3D gaming experience. All Aurora graphics cards use GDDR5 graphics memory, and combined with Microsoft’s DirectX 11 graphics API, complex virtual worlds look to come alive. The Alienware Aurora, like its laptops and desktops siblings, comes complete with the Alienware Command Center, which provides intuitive, user?friendly access to exclusive applications and controls, including AlienFX lighting effects, Thermal Controls and AlienFusion power management system. AlienFX allows users to customize the exterior lighting zones on the chassis with over 25 billion color combinations for a one-of-a-kind personalized experience. Pricing and Availability Alienware Aurora is available now on Dell.com.sg with a starting price of S$3,499. Detailed information

Today, Dell launched their most advanced desktop, the Alienware Aurora, which claims to deliver extreme gaming performance and immersive experience to users. In a stylish compact form factor, the gaming machine supports AMD CrossFireX technology and is capable of housing two graphics cards for maximum graphics performance.

2nd Generation 3000 series Intel Core i7 Six Core Processor Options - New Intel X79 Express Chipset with Unlocked BIOS for Overclocking - Single and Dual Graphics Options: 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 68702 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 69502 19

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

1.25GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti2 1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 5802 3GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 5902 Dual 1GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6870 - AMD CrossFireX2 Dual 2GB GDDR5 AMD Radeon HD 6950 - AMD CrossFireX2 - 4GB Dual Channel 1600MHz up to 32GB Quad Channel 1600MHz DDR3 Memory Options2 - Up to 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive with Native Command Queuing4 (Standard is 1TB) - Single and Dual Optical Drive Options; Including Blu-ray Disc Reader and Burner - High Quality Audio Options: Internal High-Definition 7.1 Performance Audio with Waves MAXX Audio Software (Standard) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio (Optional) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium (Optional) - System Dimensions: height: 16.77” (426mm), depth: 25.39” (645mm), width: 9.85” (250mm); weight: starting at 45lbs (20.41kg)

AMD Enthusiasts Dinner Event (29th November 2011) Report Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-enthusiasts-dinner-event-29thnovember-2011-report/14217.html December 15th, 2011

Hands-on Battlefield 3 Eyefinity Setup on display with ASUS and Kingston hardware

A few weeks ago, 60 VRForums power users and Sim Lim Square retailers were invited to our inaugural AMD Enthusiast Dinner which was held at IBIS Hotel Bencoolen. Along with the mandatory sumptuous buffet spread, the event was graced by senior AMD evangelists Sasa Marinkovic and Terry Makedon, and also attractive lucky draw prizes generously sponsored by ASUS Singapore and Kingston. Registration Booth

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Personal robot for you, expertise not required Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/personal-robot-for-you-expertise-notrequired/14216.html December 15th, 2011

Ez-Robot from Canada has recently released a complete DoIt-Yourself (DIY) robot kit which is suitable for anyone to assemble and manipulate via an easy-to-use software. The small but versatile kit has more sensor functions than meets the eye and will surely give hours of tinkering fun.

Lucky Draw Prizes - ASUS HD6970 DirectCU II Graphics Cards, Kingston HyperX SSDs and Memory, AMD Water Cooler

EZ-Robot, a Canadian start-up company, has recently released a complete modular Do-It-Yourself (DIY) robot kit capable of supporting various modifications easily. The kit is suitable to all users, from typical consumers with no programming background, to the most hardcore tinkerers. Arduino and iRobot Roomba users will be glad to know that the kit also supports elements from their systems. The complete setup comprises of a Bluetooth-enabled wireless robot controller, EZ-Builder control software, tracking camera, ultrasonic distance sensor, five servos, a battery pack and other essentials. The advantage about having this robot kit is the wide variety of modification options that are open when building from it. The fundamental components allow users to add various parts to create a robot that will look and respond the way they want. A range of tutorials for these modifications are present here, and the website also includes some famous robot characters such as Wall-E and Dalek from television show â&#x20AC;&#x153;Doctor Whoâ&#x20AC;?.

High End CPU Battle in 2012: Back to the Future Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/high-end-cpu-battle-in-2012-back-tothe-future/14215.html

December 15th, 2011 December 15th, 2011

Intel, AMD and, at the very top, IBM, had the total performance and feature lead in high end general purpose microprocessors for a decade now. However, few 'strategic mistakes' that the US microprocessor and system vendors made a decade ago now haunt them back, as China and Japan embraced the superior technologies that the US discarded for short-term interests of the time. By now, you are almost certainly used to hear the words Intel and AMD, and sometimes IBM, if talking about big machines, when it comes to high end microprocessors. These 10 past years, the general purpose X86 CPU leadership was with Intel for 7 years, and with AMD for 3 years. On the other hand, IBM firmly had the RISC - and overall - microprocessor performance lead per socket with its POWER 4, 5, 6 and Power7 CPU families, of course at the matching prices. Do not confuse these with much lower performance PowerPC CPUs used in PowerMac systems of the past. Looking at the current roadmaps, that domination is expected to continue, with all the Intel Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge, Haswell and so on microarchitectures being followed by AMD Bulldozer, Piledriver and so on, and IBM keeping the performance lead with Power8 and beyond. Aside the now very common delays - as you can see in our stories nearly daily things sound pretty simple. Or, do they? Let's rewind the clock back some 13 years ago, to 1998, when yours truly was busy creating systems based on the 64-bit Alpha microprocessor, the Formula 1 of CPUs for the whole of late '90s. Being much faster than not just Intel, but also other processors at the time, yet offering extremely compact and elegant RISC architecture - simpler than Power or Sparc or ARM - with comparatively small but fast cores and high system bandwidth, coupled with excellent compilers, Alpha was popular in the high end computing circles - and also in the nascent 64-bit PC community, since it had native Windows NT without all the X86 viruses - around the world. Even Samsung and Mitsubishi were making the Alpha CPUs, including their own derivatives. Do note that one of the most interested parties in the Alpha was, of course, China. It even officially licensed the complete Digital-Compaq Tru64 UNIX OS, one of the best at the time, and the associated software stack. The Chinese saw the benefit of a superb architecture and its programming model, and, I was told at the time in the internal meetings, would have loved it to continue the development at a maximum pace. That was not to be then, unfortunately. The US corporate shenanigans surrounding the buyout of Compaq by HP and its nasty boss at the time, the political pretendent Carly Fiorina,

Published by: VR-Zone

and the seeming need to diminish the company's value before it's bought, saw Alpha literally murdered at the peak of its prime, for HP to justify its - later proven foolish - Itanium move, which also killed its own HP-PA RISC architecture. That reminded everyone of an equally foolish move a few years earlier by Silicon Graphics, today known as SGI, killing the MIPS RISC architecture it helped create to subscribe to the Itanium story - which we all know how is ending now, and I advised everyone on that outcome exactly ten years prior to now. For the sake of the later read, do note that MIPS architecture was the close second best to Alpha in performance, simplicity, intra-core and, see today, inter-core scaling, and it was truly 64-bit since 1989!! Alpha was, of course, 64-bit only, without any 32-bit modes, since 1991, and, guess what, ARM will only be 64-bit in shipping products in 2013... tells you something, doesn't it? Add that MIPS cores are faster and smaller yet than ARM, and have vector FP for ages already... Fast forward to 2011: China, which saw the true goodness of what were the best CPU architectures of the time, and without the 'software support pressures' of companies like Microsoft, or the corporate plays that saw the best things go, continued to develop both MIPS - read: Loongson - and Alpha - read: Shenwei - all this while. With the ground-up approach, and (fast shrinking) semiconductor process gap, it took them a decade, over multiple generations, to perfect things up. I have seen what Shenwei and Loongson can do, and the commitment of their teams with the huge resources of central government behind them. Even at the 65 nm process, the FP power per socket of each of these CPUs is matching or exceeding that of current Intel and AMD high end processors. What do you think they will do at 32 nm, and then 22 nm? The 8-core and 16-core Loongson and Shenwei CPUs may not have catchy marketing names as their US counterparts, but they have the performance, low power consumption - the Jinan Petaflop Shenwei system consumes less than 1/3 power per teraflop compared to its US counterpart Jaguar - and clean (both technically and legally, IP-wise) vector-enhanced RISC architecture that can ultimately scale well from smartphone to supercomputer. Add to this the indigenous Chinese ARM architecture design companies, and you'll see that, despite its low starting position, China is managing to catch up with the US on the 'trophy prize' high end microprocessor front. Japan is not giving up, either - Fujitsu, which for years designed faster SPARC RISC CPUs than Sun Micro (now Oracle) the original SPARC creator, used a vector version of its SPARC64 to make a 10 PFLOPs K-system in Kobe, the world's fastest this year. The incredibly fast memory and interconnect systems come along as well. Interestingly, the design approach is similar to the vector-enhanced units that Chinese develop as well. Some common thinking there... Now, as far as I understand from the people in charge, the 2012 may be the year when China starts more aggressively marketing the fruits of its design. Isn't it an irony that the best that US design long ago, and then foolishly discarded, now, many years later and IP rights expired, appears new, enhanced and sped-up, from China, to compete at the global level? Well, 22

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

maybe it is about time for some more variety in this business, or "back to the future".

Next Generation Computing Experience Forum 2011 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/next-generation-computingexperience-forum-2011/14201.html December 15th, 2011

Have you ever wondered how science has those breakthroughs, like the sequencing of dna or computing weather patterns? Well, it takes a little more than just science it takes raw computing power and that power doesn't come cheap as it requires a lot of resources in terms of manpower and actual electrical power. Imagine the next leap in computing power, the Petaflop may require power from a dedicated nuclear power plant.

What do you get when you put six high profile speakers in the same room to talk about high performance computing? You get a heterogeneous group of minds each with their own ideas on how to make heterogeneous computing work. Each of the six speakers will undoubtedly have their own thoughts on pushing the performance envelope. Would any one of them be right or wrong or is it one of those cases of any answer could be the right one. The first part of the morning was graced by Dr Marek Michalewicz, Director A*STAR Computational Resource Centre (A*CRC). Dr Marek Michalewicz spoke a little of the history of computing showing off some interesting virtual models from the past and fast forward to the now with a conceptual image rendering of the Next-Generation Supercomputer with 705,024 Cores and requires a whopping 12,659 Kilowatts of power. The computer is the K computer at RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science.

Dr Marek Michalewicz commented that most Super Computing needs are driven by nationalistic requirements and since Singapore does not really have a need driven by Mission Critical Research, Simulation modeling or Complex computations, it is probably the reason why Singapore does not have a Super Computer.

Leica unveils V-Lux 3 compact digital camera Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/leica-unveils-v-lux-3-compact-digitalcamera/14213.html December 15th, 2011

Leica has announced a new compact digital camera, Leica VLux 3, which claims to be a versatile all-in-one camera for creative stills and videos, and an ideal companion to take with wherever you go. The V-Lux 3 will be available early next year.

December 15th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel gets Panther Point USB 3.0 certified Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-gets-panther-point-usb-3.0certified/14212.html December 15th, 2011

Leica Camera AG, Solms, have introduced the Leica V-Lux 3 compact digital camera that comes with an extensive range of features. The V-Lux 3 features a Leica DC Vario-Elmarit 4.5-108 mm f/2.8 - 5.2 ASPH. 24-fold super-telephoto zoom lens with a wide range of focal lengths equivalent to 25â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 600 mm in 35 mm format, which is ideal for photographers who enjoy shooting landscapes, architecture, sport, travel, portraits or wildlife. It also incorporates a newly developed 12.1-megapixel CMOS image sensor that promises exceptional image quality for all applications. On top of that, the V-Lux 3 also has an extensive range of video options and video quality comparable with that delivered by premium-range video camcorders. The Leica V-Lux 3 can capture full High Definition (HD) video in AVCHD format at 1920Ă&#x2014;1080 pixels and 60 full frames per second. It is also capable of 24-fold zoom range during video recording and has an integrated stereo microphone with electronic wind noise filter to provide a clear audio. Another highlight of the V-Lux 3 is its high-speed burstshooting capability - burst mode of 12 frames per second at full resolution, or 60 frames per second at a resolution of 3.5megapixel. The camera is compact, lightweight and offers simple handling. It has a 3-inch LCD display (460,000 pixel resolution) that can be twisted and turned in almost any direction, even in the most unusual angles, and an integrated handgrip that keeps your shot steady. All its controls are clearly laid out and simple to use; for example, video recording can be started quickly and easily at the touch of a button on the top deck of the camera. Bundled with the V-Lux 3 includes a comprehensive software package. The image-processing software Adobe Photoshop Elements offers users options for viewing, organisation and administration in addition to a wide range of image-processing solutions. The high-quality software Adobe Premiere Elements is especially designed for video processing. Both programs are available as free downloads from the Leica website after registration of the camera.

Look at that, the USB-IF has issued a press release about four months early, well at least if you're Intel and don't want details of your upcoming products out in the open. The press release is merely an announcement that Intel has passed the USB-IF certification for USB 3.0, although it's with regards to Intel's upcoming 7-series chipsets as well as the Xeon friendly C216 chipset which has not been announced as yet. Look at that, the USB-IF has issued a press release about four months early, well at least if you're Intel and don't want details of your upcoming products out in the open. The press release is merely an announcement that Intel has passed the USB-IF certification for USB 3.0, although it's with regards to Intel's upcoming 7-series chipsets as well as the Xeon friendly C216 chipset which has not been announced as yet. The actual USB-IF database lists Intel's single entry by its code name, Panther Point, but as we all know by now, this is Intel's 7-series chipsets, although the specific model for Intel's next generation of entry level Xeon processors will be known as the C216, something that as far as we're aware, have been under wraps so far. The press release detailed the C216 chipset, but didn't point out any specific 7-series chipsets which is a little bit strange, as we know that one of the models in the Intel 7series of chipsets doesn't support USB 3.0. This pretty much makes Intel the last company to receive USB-IF certification for a USB 3.0 host controller, although we're expecting second generation products from many of the host controller makers come next year, especially if a x2 PCI Express interface becomes reality. There are still a lot of unknowns with regards to Intel's USB 3.0 implementation as well and we're still hearing rumours about it being a two port solution with an internal hub/splitter for a total of four ports, although this is something Intel is officially refuting to be the case. We also heard rumours that Intel had some performance issues about five months ago and didn't follow the USB 3.0 specification to the letter, but again, it's not something we have seen first-hand. That said, we should find out soon enough how well Intel's USB 3.0 implementation compares to third party solutions.

The Leica V-Lux 3 will be available from authorised Leica dealers from January 2012.

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

Seagate and Western Digital cut HDD warranties Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/seagate-and-western-digital-cut-hddwarranties/14290.html December 19th, 2011

down in their next batches of hard drives in order to bump up production to deal with the supply crisis, and that this is why the warranties are being butchered. However, it is far more likely that they simply don't want to have to replace old hard drives right now when they desperately need to provide new ones to consumers and PC manufacturers to address the market drought. The question, of course, is whether or not they will increase the warranty periods to what they were when supply returns to normal, and if this could become a selling point for some rival brands that keep their warranty periods intact.

Seagate and Western Digital are cutting their warranties for hard disk drives as demand and prices soar following extensive flooding for months in Thailand. Seagate and Western Digital are cutting their warranties for hard disk drives as demand and prices soar following extensive flooding for months in Thailand. Seagate is chopping its warranty period from five years to three years on its Nearline, Baraccuda XT and Momentus XT drives, from five years to two years on consumer electronics, and from five years to just one paltry year on a number of desktop and notebook bare drives.

The lower warranties will likely only add to the problems facing the HDD market and push more people to buy SSDs instead.

Nvidia selects low-power LVDS transmitters for Tegra 3 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nvidia-selects-low-power-lvdstransmitters-for-tegra-3/14289.html December 19th, 2011

Western Digital is cutting its warranty from three years to two for its Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue drives. The Seagate changes will take effect from 31 December, while the Western Digital ones will come into play on 2 January.

Nvidia will use THine Electronics' low-power LVDS transmitters on the Tegra 3 platform, making the processor an even better fit for power-hungry mobile devices. Nvidia will use THine Electronics' low-power LVDS transmitters on the Tegra 3 platform, making the processor an even better fit for power-hungry mobile devices. The THC63LVD827 and THC63LVDM87 transmitters come in small form at 7mm x 7mm and 5mm x 5mm, in 72pin and 49pin models respectively. Power consumption is 83mW for the former and 43mW for the latter. They also tout a flexible input/output mode, power down mode, and the input clock triggering edge can be selectable by an R/F pin.

The cynical among us might wonder if the manufacturers intend to put inferior components that are more likely to break

The partnership represents a union of world records, as the Tegra 3 is the first quad-core mobile processor and THine's LVDS transmitters consume the lowest amount of power, up to 1

December 19th, 2011

two thirds less, compared to similar products, enhancing the existing low power features of Nvidia's mobile platform.

Published by: VR-Zone

We're still about four months away from the actual launch, but now we have one of the last pieces to the Ivy Bridge puzzle, pricing. The good news is that Intel seems to be pretty much sticking to its current pricing structure for Sandy Bridge with a few minor changes compared to the Sandy Bridge launch pricing. According to CPU World we're looking at identical pricing as for Sandy Bridge for most of the models, with the K SKUs being the exception from the rule here. The upcoming Core i5-3570K is US$9 more than the current Core i5-2500K; although it might be priced the same as the expected Core i5-2550K suggesting that Intel is trying to squeeze out some more cash from high-end consumers that want to overclock their system.

"THine has accumulated its high-speed interface technologies and has achieved the world lowest power consumption of LVDS transmitters," said Mr. Fumitaka Nishikawa, CTO and MD of THine. "We are proud that Nvidia recognizes THine's low power technologies and know-how in high-speed interfaces for mobile devices. Nvidia has unveiled Tegra 3's record-breaking performance and energy efficiency. By collaborating with such terrific technologies, THine would like to contribute consumers' exciting experiences with convenient battery life." The technology is significant as mobile devices are becoming increasingly powerful at a rapid rate, while batteries are struggling to keep up. Until we get to a stage where batteries are capable of powering quad-core mobile devices for a long time, we will need to rely on manufacturers of the other components to make them as energy efficient as possible. Volume production of the new transmitters will begin in the first quarter of 2012. THine also plans to work on further energy-saving developments for the tablet and smartphone industry.

Expected Ivy Bridge pricing leaked, stays mostly the same as Sandy Bridge

The other model that gets more price is the Core i7-3770K, at least if you compare it to the Core i7-2600K launch price of $317, but it's in fact priced the same as the recently launched Core i7-2700K at $332. As for the rest of the range, well, no big surprises are expected although the pricing only cover the initial launch models and as such we'll have to wait and see how Intel prices the rest of the range which is expected to launch later next year.

Apple supplier hit by explosion in China Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-supplier-hit-by-explosion-inchina/14287.html December 19th, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/expected-ivy-bridge-pricing-leakedstays-mostly-the-same-as-sandy-bridge/14288.html December 19th, 2011

Pegatron Corp, a supplier of iPad 2 back panel parts to Apple, has reported an explosion at its plant in China, which left 61 employees injured, 23 of which needed to be hospitalised. The incident could affect Apple's supply chain. Pegatron Corp, a supplier of iPad 2 back panel parts to Apple, has reported an explosion at its plant in China, which left 61 employees injured, 23 of which needed to be hospitalised. The company's CFO Charles Lin said that the plant is currently closed to production while it carries out preoperation inspection. Both Pegatron and Apple indicated that they were investigating the incident.

December 19th, 2011

The plant, which belongs to Pegatron subsidiary Riteng Computer Accessory Co, is in the Songjiang industrial park in Shanghai. Some machinery is reported to have been damaged, but it is believed to be minimal. This could cause supply problems for Apple in the next quarter if the plant does not go back into production very quickly, but it will also have a knock-on effect on Apple's image, which has become increasingly tarnished by association with poor safety and working conditions in Chinese factories.

This is the latest in a series of accidents at plants in China, which has raised safety concerns and questions over whether or not big businesses like Apple should be outsourcing production to the region. Apple has particularly been criticised for employing Hon Hai Precision Industry, better known as Foxconn, to assemble its iPhone and iPad ranges. Foxconn has gained notoriety for its poor working conditions, which led to a series of suicides over the last few years. There were explosions at two of Foxconn's plants in May and September, adding possible safety negligence to the list of concerns about the company and others like it. Pegatron will not want to gain as poor a reputation as Foxconn has over this latest incident.

Massive giveaways for ASUS New Year Facebook celebration Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/massive-giveaways-for-asus-new-yearfacebook-celebration/14284.html

Published by: VR-Zone December 19th, 2011

This festive season, ASUS is giving away some great prizes to their Facebook fans. A top prize stand to be won every week with prizes including the recently launched ASUS ZENBOOK and ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime. So, what are you waiting for?

To celebrate the Christmas and New Year holidays, as well as to thank fans, ASUS has recently launched a massive giveaway on their official Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/ ASUS). Fans who joined will be automatically included in eight weekly draws starting from December 12, 2011 to February 5, 2012. Fans who share this giveaway with friends stand a chance to win Super Prizes as well. Prizes include a wide range of ASUS products including the highly anticipated Eee Pad Transformer Prime, ZENBOOK, and the PA238Q Pro Series display. In addition to the main prize giveaway each week, ASUS is also giving away a more valuable Super Prize. To win the Super Prize, the participating fan must invite his or her friends to join. If any one of the friends wins the main prize for the week, the participating fan will automatically win the Super Prize.* Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t miss the chance to win some exciting prizes from ASUS during the holiday season.

ASUS Transformer Prime to launch in Italy with Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-transformer-prime-to-launch-initaly-with-android-4.0-ice-cream-sandwich/14283.html

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

December 19th, 2011

ASUS has stated that their Italian release for the Eee Pad Transformer Prime will be delayed, but the tablet will be preinstalled with the highly anticipated Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Only the Wi-Fi capable version of the tablet will be available, however.

2K Games has announced that as of today in Singapore, all pre-orders of "The Darkness II", the sequel to the million unitselling "The Darkness" in 2007, will receive a free upgrade to the Asia exclusive steel book with lenticular sleeve limited edition.

ASUS has just announced that the Italian release of Eee Pad Transformer Prime will be delayed to the end of January next year, but for good reason. Sources state that the release will come with Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), which gives credibility to the recent reports of ASUS readying Android 4.0 upgrades for existing tablets in the coming months. Thus far, the only device that is officially known to be running Android ICS is the Samsung GALAXY Nexus smartphone. The release will probably make the Transformer Prime one of the first tablets with the new mobile operating system. It has also been confirmed by ASUS that that WiFionly version will be launched, which shadows the release strategy of Germany, in view of the redundancy of mobile data capabilities on tablets whereby smartphones and their tethering technology can cater adequately.

Free upgrade to exclusive Asia limited steel book edition of The Darkness II for all preorders in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/free-upgrade-to-exclusive-asialimited-steel-book-edition-of-the-darkness-ii-for-all-pre-orders-insingapore/14282.html December 19th, 2011

Inspired by the supernatural horror comic book series created by Top Cow Productions, and developed by Digital Extremes, "The Darkness II" takes players down a brutal and personal path as Jackie Estacado, wielder of "The Darkness" â&#x20AC;&#x201C; an ancient and ruthless force of chaos and destruction. The Darkness II is a well of dark and imaginative violence that breaks from the traditional first person shooter conventions with its uniquely stylized gameplay. The fervid Quad-Wielding gameplay empowers players to slash, grab, and throw objects at enemies using ruthless Demon Arms, while simultaneously firing two weapons. It has been two years since Jackie Estacado, now the Don of the Estacado crime family, used The Darkness to kill the men responsible for the murder of his girlfriend. Estacado continues to have haunting visions of his beloved Jenny since her death and tried to cope by bottling up his supernatural power, and now The Darkness wants out. A sudden, unprovoked attack on Jackieâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life heralds the start of a full-scale mob war, which has clearly been orchestrated by some outside force. The botched attempt opens the door for The Darkness to re-emerge, and sets Jackie on a journey to hell and worse, as he unravels the mystery behind the attack and the motivations of The Darkness itself. The Darkness II Asia exclusive limited edition box set will include: - Asia exclusive steel book with lenticular sleeve packaging - Poster illustrated by Marc Silvestri (co-creator and original artist of The Darkness) - Free digital download of The Darkness Origins Volume 1 and 2 trade paperbacks via comiXology (can be read on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Android, and web provided via redemption code in-box) - Exclusive alternate darkling outfit

Have you pre-ordered The Darkness II yet? 2K Games has announced that all pre-orders in Singapore will be entitled to a free upgrade to exclusive Asia limited steel book edition of the first-person shooter game.

- Exclusive talent pack: Gourmet Hearts (provides essence bonus for eating hearts), Relic Hunter (locates relics within the world)

December 19th, 2011

The Darkness II will be available on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3and Windows PC on 10 February 2012 in Singapore. The game can be pre-ordered from leading gaming outlets in Singapore from December 19, 2011 at the following retail prices: Xbox 360: S$69.90 PlayStation 3: S$79.90 Windows PC: S$59.90

Sharp plans to sell 90-inch LCD TV in US, 80-inch in China and Japan Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sharp-plans-to-sell-90-inch-lcd-tv-inus-80-inch-in-china-and-japan/14281.html December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

last year, and about 1.1 million of the total are 60-inch LCD TVs.

Jabra Christmas Gift Ideas Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/jabra-christmas-gift-ideas/14280.html December 19th, 2011

Go hands-free this festive season with these wireless Jabra headsets - Jabra Halo2, Jabra Supreme and Jabra BT2090. The headsets give clear conversations as well as let you enjoy superb multimedia and music from your smartphone and tablet.

LCD TVs are getting bigger by the months. Japanese manufacturer Sharp has recently announced plans to sell the 90-inch LCD TV in US, and 80-inch LCD TV in China and Japan.

Jabra Halo2

According to Japanese media report on a recent interview with Sharp's president, Mikio Katayama, the company is planning to push their 90-inch LCD TVs in USA next year 2012. The model will be Sharp's largest LCD TV product to date. Sharp is already selling their 80-inch products in USA, and is currently the market leader in the country on large-size LCD TVs. Katayama said that the company is planning to introduce their 80-inch LCD TVs in China and Japan, in the first half of 2012; Sharp is already retailing their 70-inch in both countries. The Sharp president also expressed that the company intends to use the AQUOS branding for large-size LCD TVs.

Rock out in style to holiday tunes with Jabra Halo2 where the sound is even more divine now with Virtual Surround Sound and Power Bass. Never miss a call or beat: this wireless headband-style headset seamlessly switches between phone calls and music and offers up to 8 hours of talk time and/ or playtime. Control your music experience directly from the headset through touch sensors. Usual price: S$148 Christmas special: S$133.20

On December 8, Kozo Takahashi, executive managing officer of Sharp, North and South America Group, said that it was thanks to the 60-inch LCD TVs that the company's sales have exceeded expectations. This year, the sales in US has reached 1.9 million units, which is almost a 40% growth compared to 5

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Bluetooth technology headsets but sense it’s time to cut the cords and go wireless. Usual price: S$68 Christmas special: S$48

Expensive hard disks boosting SSD sales? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/expensive-hard-disks-boosting-ssdsales-/14279.html December 19th, 2011

Jabra Supreme Got to make calls in between the feasting, partying or chilling with loud-talking pals? Top-of-the-line Jabra Supreme has active noise cancellation technology that cuts out the din – so you hear your caller better, almost as if you’re in a quiet room. With Noise Blackout and Wind Noise reduction to cater to noisy outdoor conditions, your caller also hears you loud and clear. Use your voice to issue the commands, such as making, answering, ending, redialing or rejecting calls, all without having to touch your phone. HD Voice-ready, Jabra Supreme also boasts a 24mm speaker and an advanced design patented boom arm that “flips” to power on/off. Usual price: S$198 Christmas special: S$178.20

The effect of last month's Thailand floods is still felt far and wide in the storage industry as well as the computer market in general. Prices triple that of usual are still not uncommon for many hard disk drive types, as the componentry for them was coming from flood-affected areas - even then, it's hard to find them. Now, SSDs don't suffer from the same problem, it seems, so what to make out of it? Yes, it does seem that there is benefit for SSD sales, even the biggies like Intel have privately acknowledged that. The immediate benefit for them is that, coupled with some SSD price reductions and X'mas period promotions, having a 120 GB-class SSD is now not exactly unaffordable even for a mainstream PC. A 240 GB one may still feel a little pricey, but not nearly as much as it was a quarter ago when the priceper-GB vs hard disk was like five times higher. And, when you take into account that exponentially higher read performance - writes can still be a bit of problem sometimes depending on the controller you're using - and the 'cool' factor of having a solid state drive to show off, the sales would improve surely. With the differential being much lower now, having the first system drive as SSD, and using your old - no extra price to pay HDD as the second drive for the paging file and often-rewritten documents or data, means good sense. However, keep in mind that, within a quarter, the HDD supply situation should come back to normal, so SSD vendors better figure out the way to maximise the use of the current hard disk supply doldrum before their comparative price benefit diminishes again.

AMD Radeon HD 7770 Pictures Leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7770-picturesleaked/14278.html December 19th, 2011

Jabra BT2090 Need more time to talk even while on the road? Now it's easier than ever to keep those two hands on the wheel while taking a phone call. Jabra BT2090 is designed to be the most user friendly, cost-effective, quality headset in town, providing all the basic functionality and comfort you need with ease of use. With BT2090, it’s never the wrong moment for an incoming call. BT2090 is an excellent gift for those unfamiliar with

A forum member at Rage3D has leaked the first pictures of AMD's performance GPU - Cape Verde XT - to be branded Radeon HD 7770. Cape Verde is the direct replacement to Juniper - first sold as Radeon HD 5770 and then rebranded to HD 6770. AMD will finally give its mainstream performance class products an performance upgrade for the first time in over 2 years. 6

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone December 19th, 2011

The Radeon HD 7770 reference design inherits its overall design cues from the HD 7970. The standard cooling design for AMD GPUs in this range - blower fan at one end - has been replaced by a large diameter fan pushing air down vertically. This design is very similar to the one first introduced with GeForce GTX 460. The length of HD 7770 is also similar to the GTX 460 - and by extension HD 5770/6770 - around 8.25".

A month has passed since the relatively uneventful launch of the Socket 2011 based Sandy Bridge-E and X79 Patsberg platform. We gave our Editor's Choice award to the madcap enthusiast oriented ASUS Rampage IV Extreme for its outstanding engineering and overclocking ability, which is a tad expensive for most buyers. Fret not though, because if you're not into setting world records, then the ASUS P9X79 Pro we have here today is the next best thing. Introduction We have previously did a preview of the P9X79 Pro and its more feature-filled Deluxe brother. Still we'll take a quick look again... Don't we just love the ASUS boxes? They never fail to use hyperactivity-inducing colours and graphics

HD 7770 features 3 display outputs - DVI, HDMI and miniDisplayPort. Like Juniper XT, it is requires a single 6-pin PCI-e connector, with a power consumption somewhere in the early-100s Watts. A single Crossfire connector enables multiGPU with a maximum of 2 GPUs. The reference PCB features 4 memory chips - which indicates a 128-bit memory interface, as in HD 5700/6700. Of course, we can expect the GDDR5 memory to run at a higher frequency. Finally, the Cape Verde die itself is relatively small for this

Back of box

segment. While Juniper XT weighs in at 166 mm2 and GF116 at 230 mm2, Cape Verde at first glance appears to be well under 150 mm2. Cape Verde is expected to be the cheapest GCN based product. Everything below HD 7700 series - from HD 7600 and down is expected to be rebrands with minor tweaks from HD 6000 series featuring the VLIW-5 architecture.

ASUS P9X79 Pro Motherboard Review - The Next Best X79 Choice Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-p9x79-pro-motherboard-review-the-next-best-x79-choice/13953.html

December 19th, 2011

The Board - Despite being an entry level model, the P9X79 Pro retains the full 8-dimm memory slot configuration that the platform can support. We particularly liked the large heatpipe coolers over the VRMs and X79 PCH, which can get toasty during full load.

Published by: VR-Zone

Accessories and Manual

Specifications Table Behind

Specifications CPU Chipset Memory

P9X79 PRO Supports Intel LGA2011 Processors Intel X79(Patsburg) 8 x DIMM, Max. 64GB Quad Channel Memory Architecture * Due to OS limitation, when installing total memory of 4GB capacity or more, Windows速 32-bit operation system may only recognize less than 3GB. Install a 64bit Windows速 OS when you 8

December 19th, 2011

Multi-GPU Support

Expansion Slots

Storage

Published by: VR-Zone

want to install 4GB or more memory on the motherboard. Supports AMD CrossFireX™ Technology, nVidia SLI Technology 2 x PCIe 3.0 x16 2 x PCIe 3.0 x8

Two months ago, we previewed an engineering sample of the much anticipated RT-N66U Dual Band Gigabit Router from ASUS which was first spotted at COMPUTEX 2011. After going through some hardware and software changes, we finally have the final version in our labs to be stripped bare again, and it is expected to hit local retail shelves soon.

2 x PCIe 2.0 x1 Intel X79 chipset : 2 x SATA 6Gb/s ports, white 4 x SATA 3Gb/s ports, blue Support Raid 0, 1, 10, JBOD

LAN Audio

Marvell: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s, white Intel 82579V Gigabit LAN Controller(s) Realtek® ALC898 8-Channel High Definition Audio CODEC - Supports : Jack-detection, Multi-streaming, Front Panel Jack-retasking Audio Feature : - DTS Surround Sensation UltraPC

USB Ports

Form Factor

- Optical S/PDIF out port(s) at back panel USB 3.0 - 6( 2 front, 4 rear) via 2x ASMedia USB 3.0 controller + 1x VIA USB 3.0 Hub USB 2.0 – 12 ( 8 front ; 4 rear; 1 white port shared with USB BIOS Flashback) ATX Form Factor 12 inch x 9.6 inch ( 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm )

ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Gigabit Router Preview (Final Retail Revision) Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-rt-n66u-dual-band-gigabit-routerpreview-final-retail-revision-/14242.html December 19th, 2011

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

A stand is bundled with the router so that it can operate upright.

3 Reversed BNC connectors for the antennas, Power Button, 2 USB ports, config reset button, WPS setup button, Gigabit WAN and LAN RJ-45 ports

A shot of the power adapter, capable of up to 30W of output

Back view - the screws for disassembly are under the 4 rubber feet

Report: AMD to rebrand Lowend Radeon HD 7000 for OEMs Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-amd-to-rebrand-low-endradeon-hd-7000-for-oems/14276.html

December 19th, 2011 December 19th, 2011

AMD is planning to rebrand their low-end Radeon HD 7000 products, for OEMs only. Every AMD product from Radeon HD 7600 down will essentially be using GPUs from Northern Islands and even Evergreen families. As expected, a large factor behind this significant restructuring is the rise of APUs. AMD is planning to rebrand their low-end Radeon HD 7000 products, for OEMs only. Every AMD product from Radeon HD 7600 down will essentially be using GPUs from Northern Islands and even Evergreen families. As expected, a large factor behind this significant restructuring is the rise of APUs. AMD and NVIDIA have both announced their low-end "nextgen" mobile parts - Radeon HD 7000M and GeForce 600M. Both featured rebrands. While AMD slightly re-specced the HD 7000M parts, the 600M GPUs were direct rebrands from the 500M series. The rumour mill had strongly suggested that the 7000M/600M rebrands were largely foreshadowing a similar fate for the desktop market - so it is not as surprising that AMD is making this move.

Published by: VR-Zone

AMD products have built a dubious reputation to be supply constrained most of the times. By splitting the range between 28nm and 40nm, AMD is distributing resources and ensuring greater wafer starts at 28nm dedicated to the high-end GPUs. Another reason could be the costly nature of a cutting-edge process, and low-end GPUs are better off at 40nm. With Fusion APUs effectively replacing the lower end, the demand is decreasing as well. In addition, AMD is also moving these parts to OEMs, and retail availability of the same is unknown.

Cascading the reschedules: If Sandy Bridge EP comes later, so will Ivy Bridge EP Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/cascading-the-reschedules-if-sandybridge-ep-comes-later-so-will-ivy-bridge-ep/14275.html December 19th, 2011

Now that the cream of the crop of the Sandy Bridge generation moves towards the end of Q1 2012, what's the point of rushing its socket-compatible follow-on? After all, time has to be given for the platform to run its course and the only real competition is Intel themselves... Happy with your current Dual 'Westmere' Xeons - especially if running overclocked above 4 GHz on EVGA SR-2 maybe - but hungry for more power? Well, you may have to wait a while longer, since it is still roughly three months till their successors, the Xeon E5 class Sandy Bridge EP chips in the Socket 2011 platform appear. These are, as we wrote countless times here, the true fully enabled 8-core 20 MB L3 cache chips, unlike their early desktop brethren with some1/4 of the chip disabled to allow high core speeds with adequate desktop TDP. To make the platform surely available at that point in time, Intel is also expected to allow the Patsburg chipset versions without 6 GBps SAS support to stay on permanently available and endorsed during the Sandy Bridge EP generation, and the full feature versions later in 2012. All would support the 10core, 25 MB L3 cache follow on Ivy Bridge EP as well.

The performance and enthusiast end still continue to feature brand new, GCN-based, 28nm GPUs. From Radeon HD 7900 down to HD 7700. However, the rebrands begin with HD 7600. Replacing the HD 6670 will be HD 7670 - both based on Turks XT while Turks Pro will feature in HD 7570. HD 7450 will be based on Caicos. The lowest-end HD 7300 series will reprise Cedar - first released as HD 5400 nearly two years ago. We can expect some minor clock boosts to slightly differentiate them from their predecessors. The line-up looks sparse with lots of empty spaces for a good reason - it will be filled by Trinity APUs. One of AMD's main problems in recent years has been supply, rather than demand. From GPUs, APUs to CPUs,

Talking about Ivy Bridge EP, should we expect it earlier then, since it shouldn't be affected by the Sandy Bridge EP delays? Well, the deep throats tell us a firm 'no', suggesting roughly a firm year or even a bit more space between the two. If, say, Sandy Bridge EP is 'officially' with us three months from now, the Ivy Bridge EP may take as much as 18 months from today to publicly appear on the shelves - yes, we're talking of close to mid of 2013 here, about the same as Haswell desktop platform. The implications? Well, when purchasing that Xeon E5, go ahead and get the speed bin you really need for a long time, don't just get the cheapest bin to save money, and then wait in hope for the Ivy Bridge EP replacement in the same socket. 11

December 19th, 2011

After all, once the Ivy Bridge EP does appear, the newer chipset revisions as well as newer boards with optimised memory layout to support DDR3-1866 support by Ivy Bridge will be out there, so may as well just replace it all. Also, count on at least two stepping-based clock-boost updates to Xeon E5 within the Sandy Bridge EP generation itself. One would obviously be the mid-year 'D stepping' as usual, and the other one - especially if pigs can fly and somehow the competition churns out something truly competitive - would be the 'last breath' stepping like the Core i7 990 or Xeon 5690 from the Westmere generation. That one, as we all know, provided extra one-step clock boost and also further improved overclocking capabilities. In this case, who knows, the PCIe v3 validations could also benefit with further steppings, although - officially - there may never be anything stated to that extent. And, yes, the 'unlocked' version for OC on boards like EVGA SR-X too.

Published by: VR-Zone

Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 device, the Lumia 800 smartphone, has failed to impress European consumers, according to a report by investment research firm Exane BNP Paribas. Of those surveyed only a paltry 2.2 percent of people said they were interested in getting the Lumia, a figure that can't be reassuring for Microsoft and Nokia, which joined forces earlier this year in a deal worth $1 billion. Exane cut its prediction of Lumia sales from two million to just 800,000 for its launch quarter, a huge drop from the four million sales of the N8, Nokia's previous flagship model, in its first three months. The N8 was powered by Nokia's now retired Symbian operating system.

Finally, for the desktop user populace, it is almost definite that one of these two likely future major steppings will now enable a true fully enabled 8-core 20 MB L3 desktop Core i7 39XX of a sort, once the yields and TDP at the top allow that. The current LGA2011 high end cooling solutions can handle 200W+ of TDP without much problems, and the top mainboards from Asus, Gigabyte and EVGA provide the power drive needed as well. So, a 4.5 GHz 8 core Sandy Bridge E desktop should be a reality by mid-2012. Either way, Intel doesn't really lose anything, as more time will be there for the Sandy Bridge EP to recoup the investment, and those chips aren't cheap anyway. Yes, they'll sell for thousands of bucks per socket at the high end, but then this platform was one of the most complex and troublesome in the recent history for Intel, it seems - both the behemoth of a die for the microprocessor itself, stretched across multiple usage markets, and then the chipset platform with its own set of issues. If AMD had their 'Piledriver' core updated products to fill in the competitive void faster, maybe then things would speed up, though...

Nokia Lumia 800 fails to impress in Europe Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nokia-lumia-800-fails-to-impress-ineurope/14273.html December 19th, 2011

Nokia's first Windows Phone 7 device, the Lumia 800 smartphone, has failed to impress European consumers, according to a report by investment research firm Exane BNP Paribas.

Exane also trimmed its price target for Nokia shares from €3.70 to €3.30. It classes Nokia as “underperforming”, suggesting that 2012 won't be too much better for the company than 2011 was. Of the close to 500 people in the survey who intend to buy a smartphone within the next month, most were drawn by the big names like Apple and Samsung. Nokia's previous dominance in the phone market is quickly fading and it doesn't seem that Microsoft's mobile operating system is going to help.

RIM delays BlackBerry 10 lineup Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rim-delays-blackberry-10lineup/14272.html December 19th, 2011

Research In Motion (RIM) is delaying the launch of its new lineup of BlackBerry smartphones until late 2012, a year after they were expected to hit shelves and help put the company back into a prominent market position. Research In Motion (RIM) is delaying the launch of its new lineup of BlackBerry smartphones until late 2012, a year after

December 19th, 2011

they were expected to hit shelves and help put the company back into a prominent market position. “We ask for your patience and confidence,” said Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, at an investor meeting. “We realize we've not met expectations.” RIM reported a 70 percent drop in profit last quarter, making this delay even worse timing. Many were looking forward to devices with the BlackBerry 10 operating system, previously called BBX, and some analysts projected that it would set the company on the road to recovery.

Published by: VR-Zone

Microsoft to automatically upgrade old versions of Internet Explorer Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-to-automatically-upgradeold-versions-of-internet-explorer/14271.html December 19th, 2011

Microsoft has announced that it will automatically upgrade old versions of its Internet Explorer web browser, addressing one of the big security problems facing many business users. Microsoft has announced that it will automatically upgrade old versions of its Internet Explorer web browser, addressing one of the big security problems facing many business users. The plan will involve a trial run in Australia and Brazil in January, where obsolete versions of Internet Explorer will be upgraded to the latest version that will work on their computer, which will be IE9 for Vista and Windows 7 users, and IE8 for XP users. Microsoft has been trying for years to get people to upgrade to the latest version, but many people are still using IE6 and IE7, the former of which even Microsoft has labelled as a security threat, due to the fact that it is no longer providing updates for it.

RIM claims that its huge loss in market share is due to poor marketing and advertising, which it plans to overhaul in the new year. However, it is far more likely that the plummeting demand is because people are buying iPhones and Android phones instead, both of which have dominated the consumer market and are beginning to eat into the business market, where RIM previously reigned supreme. By the time the new BlackBerrys are out Nokia will have produced a full lineup of Windows Phone 7 devices, adding further competition to the smartphone arena. While RIM might have started off as one of the leaders in this sector, it will now be playing catchup, which could mean game over for the company if BlackBerry 10 doesn't take the world by storm. At the time of writing RIM's shares were down $1.64, or 10.84 percent, to $13.49. It's no wonder shareholders are furious with the poor performance of the company.

IE6 is used by 8.6 percent of internet users, a shockingly high number considering it's over a decade old. This is down 5.9 percentage points compared to 2010, however, thanks to an initiative by Microsoft to get people to upgrade, including a countdown website. Automatic upgrades for those who have Windows Updates enabled is the next logical step in killing off the zombie web browser altogether. “Automatic updates are a very good idea based on every piece of security research I've seen,” said Jeremiah Grossman, CTO and founder of WhiteHat Security. “Keeping software up to date - particularly Web browsers - is critical for online security. With that in mind, I'm pleased that Microsoft is moving toward an automatic update model, particularly since their approach balances the needs of enterprise customers who still need a mechanism to manage software updates.” For individuals and companies who are crazy enough to want to stick with an outdated browser, Microsoft is providing an Automatic Update Blocker. Those who have already refused 13

December 19th, 2011

to update to IE8 or IE9 via Windows Update will not be upgraded. Considering the significant benefits to security, it would probably be better if these users were also forced to upgrade, but Microsoft's approach is, at least, a step in the right direction.

Report: Intel preparing Core i5 2550K Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/report-intel-preparing-corei5-2550k/14270.html December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

"An update to optimize the performance of AMD Bulldozer CPUs that are used by Windows 7-based or Windows Server 2008 R2-based computers is available" As we reported previously, this kernel hotfix properly detects the Bulldozer processing cores, which was not the case since the product launched. Bulldozer CPU architecture is closely tied to optimizing the Turbo mode as much as possible, and Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 don't recognize the FX and Opteron processors as they are supposed to. Do note that 2012 operating systems such as Windows 8 and Windows 8 Server already built-in the proper threading scheduler. According to Microsoft, this patch increases performance anywhere between 2-7%, which is not bad for a software update. However, upon releasing the update into the wild, there were users that reported problems and even performance decrease. In order to address the matter, Microsoft pulled down the patch.

Intel is reportedly preparing a refresh for its popular Core i5 2500K. Branded Core i5 2550K, it features a 100 MHz speed bump over 2500K - up to 3.4 GHz base and 3.8 GHz turbo. Intel is reportedly preparing a refresh for its popular Core i5 2500K. Branded Core i5 2550K, it features a 100 MHz speed bump over 2500K - up to 3.4 GHz base and 3.8 GHz turbo. In every other way, the features and specifications are identical to the Core i5 2500K - 4 cores without HyperThreading, 6MB L3 cache, HD 3000 graphics, unlocked multiplier 95W TDP. However, it is not known whether this is a direct replacement to the Core i5 2500K or a new complementary product at a higher price point (similar to the relationship between Core i7 2600K and 2700K.

The KB2592546 page is still live on Microsoft Support, and it states that there is a "hotfix download available." If you try to download the patch, you will be taken to the EULA page in which you give permission to "sell your soul" and proceed. Unfortunately, the next page is not going to give you what you came for. As you can see on our screenshot - the patch simply isn't there anymore.

Interestingly, the Core i5 2550K did not feature in the latest official roadmaps and has only recently been conceived. A possible explanation is that it is a last minute response to AMD's FX-series refresh, due in Q1 2012. We can expect the i5 2550K release around the same time. Core i5 2550K will surely be the last Sandy Bridge CPU before Ivy Bridge / Core ix 3000 releases in April 2012.

Microsoft Pulls Down the AMD Bulldozer Multi-Threaded Patch Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-pulls-down-the-amdbulldozer-multi-threaded-patch/14267.html December 19th, 2011

Win a Club3D Radeon HD 6870X2! (VR-Zone.com Exclusive) Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/win-a-club3d-radeon-hd-6870x2--vrzone.com-exclusive-/14268.html

Yesterday, Microsoft released a hotfix download under the code KB2592546. Not 24 hours passed, and Microsoft pulled down the patch due to unforseen problems.

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

December 19th, 2011

This holiday season, we have partnered with Netherlands based graphics card maker Club3D to give away their cool and innovative Radeon HD6870x2! Read more for details... The Club 3D Radeon™ HD 6870 Dual GPU graphic processor harnesses the power of dual GPUs to unleash unrivaled performance and flawless image quality, making it the definitive solution for those who refuse to compromise. Featuring 2 GB of high-speed GDDR5 memory, the Club 3D Radeon™ HD 6870 Dual GPU is the definite solution for ultrahigh resolution gaming across up to six simultaneous displays. Play the most advanced DirectX® 11 capable games in uncompromising "Eye-Definition" with the Club 3D Radeon™ HD 6870 Dual GPU.

Product Page: http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/products/ reader.en/product/radeon-hd-6870-dual-gpu.html

Custom CoolStream cooler with 6 heatpipes for increased performance.

ASUS X79 OC Challenge! Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-x79-oc-challenge-/14266.html December 19th, 2011

Club3D Radeon HD 6870X2

Winners of the "ASUS X79 OC Challenge!" will walk away with high end motherboards from ASUS such as the Rampage IV Extreme with Battlefield 3, Sabertooth X79 and P9X79. First Prize: ASUS Rampage IV Extreme with Battlefield 3 Full Game

Second Prize: ASUS Sabertooth X79

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

For more details, please refer to the forum thread: ASUS X79 OC Challenge

Enjoy your music with the new Philips DJ-Style headband headphones Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/enjoy-your-music-with-the-newphilips-dj-style-headband-headphones/14265.html December 19th, 2011

Lucky Draw Prize: ASUS P9X79

ASUS and VR-Zone will be having another online competition before the year ends. ASUS X79 OC Challenge is already on-going and will end on 8 January 2012. Participants are required to make a submission each week. The ASUS X79 OC Challenge is divided into 4 weeks. • 1st week: 12th December 2011 - 18th December 2011 • 2nd week: 19th December 2011 - 25th December 2011 • 3rd week: 26th December 2011 - 1st January 2012 • 4th week: 2nd January 2012 - 8th January 2012 Points are awarded at the end of each week! The deadline for the 1st week's submission is 18th December 2011, 2359H. Be sure to make a submission before the deadline to be eligible for the Lucky Draw!

Targeted at deejays and music lovers, the Philips headband headphones SHL9700/10 claim to offer superb audio quality with comfortable ear cushions for long hours of enjoyment. It comes with 1.2m optimal cable and is available at all major electronics retail outlets in Singapore.

The new Philips Headband Headphones SHL9700/10 features a sleek and subtle over-the-head design with soft ear cushions that provide comfortable usage even after long hours. Whether you are listening to house music or trance, the headphones claim to provide deep bass and clear treble for deejays and audiophiles. The Philips SHL9700/10 incorporate studiograde 40mm speakers and superior drivers that can deliver precised and enhanced audio quality. With its foldable design makes them extremely convenient to bring along for travelling, and comes with a 1.2m optimal cable length that gives you the freedom of movement. The Philips SHL9700/10 Headband Headphones are available at all leading electronics retail outlets in Singapore with a recommended retail price of S$119.

Key Radeon HD 7970 Slides Leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/key-radeon-hd-7970-slidesleaked/14259.html

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

December 19th, 2011

A little earlier this week, AMD conducted its usual press briefing of the upcoming Radeon HD 7900 series, across various market regions. DonanimHaber scored and posted key slides from that presentation, with information that matters the most to enthusiasts. To begin with, specifications. AMD's Radeon HD 7900 family will make use of a brand new high-performance GPU built on the 28 nm fabrication process, codenamed "Tahiti". This chip is said to pack no less than 4.3 billion transistors. With Tahiti, AMD makes its first big architecture change since Radeon HD 2000 series, a change from scalar VLIWbased computing GCN Quad SIMD, which is said to improve performance per mm2 die-area (a fascinating new way of measuring architecture efficiency). Tahiti packs 2,048 stream processors, all of which are enabled on the Radeon HD 7970. These stream processors are arranged along 32 computing units, each holding 64 SPs. AMD gave Tahiti a wide memory bus. This chip has a 384bit wide memory interface, which is said to dole out memory bandwidth upwards of 260 GB/s. It is populated with 3 GB of GDDR5 memory using twelve 2 Mbit memory chips. Radeon HD 7970 draws power from two PCIe power connectors, an 8pin connector, and a 6-pin one.

The cooler uses an aluminum channel design, to which heat is fed by a vapor chamber plate that draws heat from the GPU, memory chips, and VRM. The aluminum channels are then ventilated by a blower. AMD improved its blower design to have higher air-flow and better acoustics. Reference HD 7970 will feature dual-BIOS, much like reference HD 6900 series did. The two BIOS ROMs can be toggled using a small switch. The first BIOS ROM can be flashed, the second one is "locked', and packs a fail-safe reference BIOS.

Radeon HD 7970 will have a core clock speed of 925 MHz, which AMD claims can easily be overclocked to 1 GHz, "and beyond". We'll see about that.

AMD reference board design retains the black + red color scheme, and will use black colored PCB. The cooler shroud design is a bit more curvy, compared to the boxy HD 6900 board design. Display connectors include one each of DVI and HDMI; and two mini-DisplayPort connectors. All four connectors are confined to a single expansion slot area, leaving the second slot area dedicated to the cooler's hot-air vent. Board partners are required to include HDMI to DVI and active-DP dongles.

Dell kills off Mini 10 netbooks Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/dell-kills-off-mini-10netbooks/14261.html December 19th, 2011

Looks like Dell has quietly killed their Mini 10 netbooks. If you go to Dell Online Store and try to search for it, you would either not find it, or find that the product is still listed, but no longer available for purchase. 17

December 19th, 2011

Just a few years ago, netbooks dominated the portable computer market with their small form factor and affordable price tags. But that has changed with the increasing popularity of tablet devices, and the slim and stylish Ultrabooks which were launched recently. The netbooks have gone quiet and slowly becoming non-existent. According to a Dell's spokesperson, the product line is finished and the focus would be shifted to "thin and powerful" notebooks, which may mean that the company is also releasing their own line of Ultrabooks. With the entry-level netbook product line being killed off, it leaves the question on what would occupy in that place. Well, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is just weeks away, and perhaps the company would have some announcements on that.

Published by: VR-Zone

Better cooling seems to be the primary objective around HD 7970's reference design. Unlike HD 5870 and HD 6970, which had the second slot's exhaust vent partially taken up by a DVI connector, HD 7970 dedicates the second slot completely to cooling. This results in improved airflow. The card continues to feature 4 outputs, in HDMI + DVI + 2xminiDP configuration. HDMI-to-DVI and Active miniDisplayPort adapters (which enable 6 outputs in total) are included so there's no compromise. The fan is noticeably wider, with new blades. This results not only in a higher CFM, but also quieter acoustics. Finally, an improved vapour chamber heatsink further improves cooling and acoustics.

More AMD Radeon HD 7970 Details Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-amd-radeon-hd-7970details/14263.html December 19th, 2011

Turkish website DonanimHaber has leaked more official slides from AMD's Radeon HD 7900 press deck. These slides detail HD 7970's reference design and also presents its overclocking capabilities.

AMD is actively pushing overclocking for HD 7970. The base clock is indicated to be 925 MHz - making it the highest clocked GPU. It should be no surprise then that it will overclock to "1 GHz and beyond", as AMD puts it. As previously glimpsed, HD 7970 continues to feature the dual-BIOS feature introduced with HD 6900 series - for safe BIOS overclocking. The reference design will feature 3GB GDDR5 and require 6-pin + 8-pin power connectors. AMD Radeon HD 7970's launch has now been moved forward to December 22nd. However, this will be a limited release with wide availability only in January. The HD 7950 could still launch on the original release date - January 9th. Interestingly, the HD 7950 will not feature a reference design, and there will be great variety from AIB partners, which could be a reason for its later release.

December 19th, 2011

Plextor announces PC free DVD burner Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/plextor-announces-pc-free-dvdburner/14262.html December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

all your gadgets to it and back up the data directly from the device and/or memory card. Plextor claims that the PlexEasy is compatible with most digital cameras as well as Android, iOS and Blackberry devices, but the press release doesn't mention Windows Phone or other mobile operating systems, but they're most likely going to be supported. However, there's a catch, the PlexEasy only works with mass storage devices, so if you don't have a mass storage setting on your phone, it's not going to work.

When it comes to backing up data, most of us aren't doing nearly as good job as we should and these days we have so many different devices that needs to be backed up that most of us just don't bother. Plextor has come up with a somewhat interesting solution to the problem of backing up files on smartphones, tablets, digital cameras and just about anything else, without the need of a PC, namely the PlexEasy PC free DVD burner. When it comes to backing up data, most of us aren't doing nearly as good job as we should and these days we have so many different devices that needs to be backed up that most of us just don't bother. Plextor has come up with a somewhat interesting solution to the problem of backing up files on smartphones, tablets, digital cameras and just about anything else, without the need of a PC, namely the PlexEasy PC free DVD burner.

As an added bonus the PlexEasy can be used as an optical drive for your notebook, although it apparently requires two USB port for power which might not be ideal when it comes to Ultrabooks which tend to have one USB port on each side of the notebook. We're not sure DVD media is the way forward for backing up data though, as even your average SD card these days is about 8GB and most higher-end phones comes with at least as much internal storage memory making the not so old silver disc feel quite dated with its 4.7GB. However, as an easy way to archive photos directly from a camera or a phone/ tablet it might not be such a bad solution. One critical piece of information is missing though, price and knowing Plextor it's not going to be cheap.

MSI releases second X79 motherboard with 8 DIMMs Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-releases-second-x79-motherboardwith-8-dimms/14260.html December 19th, 2011

We're not sure if Intel's X79 motherboards and accompanying processors have taken the high-end PC world by storm, but apparently there's still room for more motherboard models, at least MSI seems to think so. The company has announced a new eight DIMM model called the X79A-GD45 and you'd be forgiven for thinking it's simply a slightly changed version of the four DIMM version, but that isn't the case.

The Plexeasy is in essence a laptop size optical drive with a couple of USB ports, an SD card slot, an LCD display and a couple of buttons. What it allows you to do is to connect up

December 19th, 2011

forgiven for thinking it's simply a slightly changed version of the four DIMM version, but that isn't the case. The X79A-GD45 8D as the board is officially known is MSI's fifth X79 motherboard to launch and it actually seems to have more in common with the higher-end X79A-GD65 8D than the X79A-GD45. For starters, the two eight DIMM boards share the same slot layout with a total of five x16 PCI Express slots and a single x1 PCI Express slot. It should be noted that two of the x16 slots only have one lane worth of bandwidth each which doesn't really impress. Both of the eight DIMM boards also have an additional power connector for extra power for the PCI Express slots, something the four DIMM version lacks.

The GD45 models lack tantalum capacitors and features like debug LEDs and FireWire are missing alongside with the bus speed adjustment buttons, although the power button and OC Genie buttons are present alongside a pair of front USB 3.0 ports. For what is a fairly high-end board it's a poor show from MSI side to only include the standard six SATA ports provided by the chipset, as most competing products have at least a pair of extra ports. Around the back things are fairly spartan with two PS/2 ports, six USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port (Intel chip), 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF and a clear CMOS button.

Published by: VR-Zone

when 16GB DIMMs become readily available. As such you're “limited” to a mere 64GB for the time being if you fill all the DIMM slots, although keep in mind that you'll limit the speed of the memory to 1333MHz with all eight slots populated due to the way Intel has designed its memory controller. That is of course without overclocking the memory, but it's also the reason why most X79 motherboards only have four DIMMS. No word on pricing as yet, but we'd expect it to retail close to the same as the two DIMM version, as the two GD65 models retail for close to the same price and the overall difference between the two boards aren't that big, especially considering that the four DIMM version has some additional features that the eight DIMM version lacks.

MSI has also keeps teasing its upcoming Big Bang XPower II on its Facebook page and this will be MSI's third model with eight DIMMs. The only additional piece of information provided by the new picture is that MSI is going for a pair of Intel Gigabit Ethernet controllers. However, we did find some pricing for the Big Bang XPower II and if it proves to be correct then we're looking at the most expensive X79 motherboard to date as a pair of European online stores are asking for about €450 (S$775/US$595) for it, which is a horrendous amount of money to spend on a motherboard and only just cheaper than a Core i7-3930K processor in Europe.

Google patents technology for self-driving car Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-patents-technology-for-selfdriving-car/14258.html December 19th, 2011

Google has recently patented a "landing strip" technology for its self-driving cars, which allows the vehicles to go into autonomous mode and find parking spots.

MSI is making a big deal about the fact that the X79A-GD45 8D supports up to 128GB of DDR3 memory, but that is only 20

December 19th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

extract more performance out of it, Microsoft now has a kernel patch for for its client and server OS. Ever wondered why some benchmark results on Bulldozer and its server version, Interlagos, look not just too low but outright weird? Part of the explanation was that the fancy modular architecture, where two integer and one FP block share one L2 cache and instruction scheduler, wasn't really supported that well by the current operating systems. Add to it the Pentium 4style long pipeline and high latencies, and you got a problem.

Google first unveiled its self-driving car in Oct 2010 and the company has applied for a patent on a "landing strip" technology which allow the cars to go into auto mode as well as to find parking spots. The patent has been approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on 13 December. According to sources, the "landing strip" is more than an embedded sensor in the ground, be it radio, QR code, or some other means of transferring information to the car. The key is the information and how the car uses it. Although Google's self-driving cars use GPS technology to orient themselves, but in certain situations a GPS signal may not be obtainable. The patent also suggests that user could give a set of instruction to the vehicle that commands it to drive itself to specific location.

Microsoft now has a kernel update solution that solves one part of the problem, at least - if you go to http:// support.microsoft.com/kb/2592546/ knowledge base page, you'll notice that there is a patch for Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2. This patch updates the thread management logic in the OS at the kernel level for the Bulldozer, and - interestingly - proclaims it as a multithreading feature. With this update, Windows sees each BD dual core block as A SINGLE MULTITHREADED CORE, contrary to AMD's official positioning. Therefore, BD is seen as a 4-core, 8thread chip, rather than a fully 8-core processors. This update, nevertheless, brings a definite single-digit % performance jump in lightly threaded applications, but it is still good though as it helps the CPU fight higher speed grades of Intel processors in benchmarks. So, naming or no naming confusion, go ahead and have it, if you're one of the early Bulldozer users.

Microsoft comes to AMD Bulldozer rescue: Windows Update speeds up things Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-comes-to-amd-bulldozerrescue-windows-update-speeds-up-things/14256.html December 19th, 2011

AMD Bulldozer is, to say so, unusual in its modular dual-core block architecture compared to the current X86 processors. To

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

Silicon Image team up with Onkyo to deliver MHL equipped A/V receiver Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/silicon-image-team-up-with-onkyo-todeliver-mhl-equipped-av-receiver/14331.html December 22nd, 2011

The question is how much life MHL has now since the USBIF announced the audio/video devices class, as this allows you to do everything that MHL does, but presumably without the need of extra chips on the mobile device side. That said, MHL is already a somewhat established standard, but as we know, it's never clear cut which standard will end up being the dominant one and it's not always the best one that's the winner.

Intel said to be dropping Sandy Bridge CPU prices Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-said-to-be-dropping-sandybridge-cpu-prices/14330.html December 22nd, 2011

New connectors and interfaces always cause problems when it comes to hardware compatibility and the Mobile Highdefinition Link or MHL is one of those interfaces that is far from widely adopted on anything but smartphones to date. That seems to be set to change, as Silicon Image, one of the driving forces behind the MHL standard has teamed up with Onkyo to deliver A/V receivers with MHL support. New connectors and interfaces always cause problems when it comes to hardware compatibility and the Mobile Highdefinition Link or MHL is one of those interfaces that is far from widely adopted on anything but smartphones to date. That seems to be set to change, as Silicon Image, one of the driving forces behind the MHL standard has teamed up with Onkyo to deliver A/V receivers with MHL support. In practical terms the MHL interface is a combination of HDMI and USB 2.0 and the advantage it has over a pure HDMI interface is that the device you connect up a smartphone equipped with MHL to can power your smartphone. So far it's mainly HTC, LG and Samsung that has adopted the MHL interface while Samsung and Toshiba have a handful of TV models that supports it. The downside is of course that you need a dongle to connect your phone to an HDMI port, but it looks like this might just start to become less of an issue. Onkyo didn't reveal a lot of details in the press release about its new receivers as the company is planning on unveiling them at CES in a few weeks' time. What we do know though is that Onkyo is using Silicon Image's latest MHL chipset with supports something called InstaPrevue. This is a picture-inpicture solution for HDMI and MHL which allows a small preview window of other attached devices to be overlaid over whatever is being displayed on the TV, must as you can do channel previewing on some TV sets.

With Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processors expected to launch in April of next year, it appears that Intel is already concerned about having too much stock of its current Sandy Bridge processors and is as such planning on reducing the price on at least is mobile Core i3 and Core i5 processors. What isn't clear is if Intel is planning on doing the same for the desktop parts or not. With Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processors expected to launch in April of next year, it appears that Intel is already concerned about having too much stock of its current Sandy Bridge processors and is as such planning on reducing the price on at least is mobile Core i3 and Core i5 processors. What isn't clear is if Intel is planning on doing the same for the desktop parts or not. Digitimes is reporting that Intel has apparently told its notebook partners that the company is about to drop the processor pricing by some 10 to 15 percent depending on model, although for some reason the high-end Core i7's are apparently not part of this discount deal. As to how much of an impact this will have on the final product is a different matter, as many notebook makers are already offering very cheap notebooks with Core i3 and Core i5 processors and although we're expecting that some of this discount will be passed on to consumers, we don't think we'll see an equal reduction in price of the final product. Even so, it might be worth hanging on for Ivy Bridge if you're not in a rush to get a new notebook, as the new processors do offer some advantage over Sandy Bridge, although most are not CPU performance related. As we've seen in the many leaks 1

December 22nd, 2011

to date, the overall platform as a whole is better than Sandy Bridge and the cost isn't expected to be any higher than what a Sandy Bridge equivalent product costs today.

AMD marketing chief steps down, offers predictions for 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-marketing-chief-steps-downoffers-predictions-for-2012/14329.html December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

consumer boom in the cloud led by Apple, high consumer demand for natural user interfaces, and potential microsegmentation of the industry that will lead the way to more individualised marketing strategies.

ASUS sued over "Transformer Prime" trademark infringement Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-sued-over-transformer-primetrademark-infringement/14325.html December 22nd, 2011

AMD's Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Nigel Dessau is leaving the chipmaker to work on a book, but he has made some interesting predictions for the year ahead. AMD's Chief Marketing Officer and Senior Vice President Nigel Dessau is leaving the chipmaker to work on a book, but he has made some interesting predictions for the year ahead.

ASUS is now in trouble for using the name "Transformer" and "Transformer Prime". Toy maker Hasbro has filed a lawsuit against the Taiwanese company over the trademark on the name that are more known for the toys, cartoons and movies.

Dessau said that he is excited about the prospects for AMD, and with the upcoming Radeon HD 7970 and its all-star reviews we are just as excited. However, he said that he had reached a crossroads and decided to pursue the next phase of his career outside of the company. This next step will focus on a book based on his website, the 3 Minute Mentor, where he delivers career advice in three minute podcasts.

The new ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime Android tablet was showcased at the AsiaD: All Things Digital event in Hong Kong, and has garnered great popularity from the name it bears, but this has apparently also brought along some troubles. Toy manufacturer Hasbro has sued ASUS for the use of the name which they had trademarked, and stated that they will defend their brand. While the two companies and their products may be targeting different market, Hasbro does have a series of video games and accessories for PC and Xbox 360 game console which are under the name â&#x20AC;&#x153;Transformerâ&#x20AC;?, thereby providing the toy company with adequate relevancy to be concerned that consumers may be misled into thinking Hasbro had endorsed the ASUS product. As for now, Hasbro is requesting for an injunction against ASUS, and a 21 day period for them to respond. Dessau has worked at AMD for four years, leading the marketing team that has helped keep AMD in a prominent position within the industry. He will stay on to help in the transition to a new head of marketing.

Elpida to begin merger talks with Nanya Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/elpida-to-begin-merger-talks-withnanya/14328.html

Before he departs from the company he made a number of predictions about what will happen in 2012, including a 2

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

December 22nd, 2011

Elpida Memory is to begin talks in January with rival DRAM maker Nanya Technology on a possible merger as the companies struggle to cope with falling prices and tough competition.

Sony has developed a battery prototype that generates electricity from shredded paper, an achievement that could lead to more environmentally-friendly electronic products.

Elpida Memory is to begin talks in January with rival DRAM maker Nanya Technology on a possible merger as the companies struggle to cope with falling prices and tough competition. The Japanese and Taiwanese chipmakers have been losing substantial market share to larger rivals like Samsung, which now rules 45 percent of the market, making it difficult for the smaller companies to survive, particularly with DDR3 DRAM prices dropping from $1.50 in July to just $0.90 in October. A report in the Nikkei Business Daily suggested that the two companies would begin merger talks next month in a bid to restore profitability and curb their shrinking market share. Elpida denied it had made any formal announcement in this regard, however, and said it was considering multiple options, including refinancing debt and requiring advance payment for product orders.

Elpida is in third place in the DRAM market with a 12.1 percent market share, behind Hynix' 21.5 percent, while Nanya is in fifth place with just 3.6 percent. Elpida saw a revenue decline of 29.8 percent in the third quarter, while Nanya experienced an even larger revenue drop of 36.7 percent. However, the possibility of a merger could be held up by legal battles between the two companies over the alleged infringement of patents, not to mention a partnership between Nanya and Micron, another rival to Elpida.

Sony develops paper-powered battery prototype

Sony has developed a battery prototype that generates electricity from shredded paper, an achievement that could lead to more environmentally-friendly electronic products. Sony unveiled the technology at the Eco-Products exhibition in Tokyo, where a fan was powered by scrap paper and cardboard dropped into a mixture of water and enzymes, which was then shaken. The bio-batteries turn waste paper into sugar by using the enzyme cellulase, and when the resulting glucose sugar is combined with oxygen and other enzymes it turns it into electrons and hydrogen ions, which are used to generate electricity.

"Using a 'fuel' as simple as old greetings cards - the sort of cards that millions of us will be receiving this Christmas - the bio battery can deliver enough energy to power a small fan," said Yuichi Tokita, senior researcher at the Sony Advanced Material Research Lab. "Of course, this is still at the very early stages of its development, but when you imagine the possibilities that this technology could deliver, it becomes very exciting indeed." The technology could give people another incentive to recycle paper, cut down electricity costs, and help move the industry towards renewable and sustainable power, but it will likely be years before a powerful enough bio-battery is developed for use with, for example, mobile phones. However, the potential to recharge your smartphone with a bit of newspaper while on the go is an interesting and useful possibility.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-develops-paper-powered-batteryprototype/14327.html

December 22nd, 2011

Scientists make self-repairing chip breakthrough Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/scientists-make-self-repairing-chipbreakthrough/14326.html December 22nd, 2011

Researchers are close to developing self-repairing electronic chips, which could revolutionise the technology industry and even lead to safer space travel. Researchers are close to developing self-repairing electronic chips, which could revolutionise the technology industry and even lead to safer space travel. Scientists and engineers at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign succeeded in creating a circuit that, when cracked, heals itself by releasing a conductivity-restoring liquid metal, which brings the circuit back online in less than a second.

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel Shows Its Atom-based Android Smartphone and Tablet Prototypes Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-shows-its-atom-based-androidsmartphone-and-tablet-prototypes/14321.html December 22nd, 2011

Faced with continuous decline of its Atom series of processors, the semiconductor giant from Santa Clara is showcasing concept smartphone and tablet designs for 2012. By all standards, Intel had a dream year - the company achieved record revenue and record profits. However, there was one dark spot on otherwise, a spotless record: Atom line of products.

The technology works by housing the healing liquid within the chip, and if the chip is damaged it should also damage the liquid container, releasing the liquid so that it can fill in any gaps and restore the flow of electricity.

Tests using gold and glass circuits with microcapsules containing the metallic liquid eutectic gallium-indium showed a drop of voltage to zero when cracked and a return to almost full voltage within one millisecond. These devices retained their conductivity for months after the damage and repair. The breakthrough could affect every sector of technology, resulting in super long-lasting products. The scientists also believe it can help with satellites and space travel, since this is an area where manually repairing and replacing electronics is extremely difficult, expensive and time-consuming.

Intel Atom was introduced in 2008 as a byproduct of Intel receiving back the P55C core from US Army. The second byproduct of that heavily modified and optimized core was Larrabee graphics core, which got canceled and is now known as a HPC-accelerator Knights Bridge / Knights Corner. Intel Atom enjoyed a lot of success in 2008-2010, with a lot of analysts writing stories about the rise of netbooks and how netbooks will mark the end of PC as we know it. Sounds familiar, right? Fast forward to third quarter of 2011: Intel posted excellent sales and profit results, but the company also marked a 32% decline in sales of Intel Atom platform. Indeed, when we look at Atom as a whole, the product actually declined by over 60% during 2011 alone - as tablets took over the hearts and minds of consumers, sales of netbooks came to a screeching halt. Intel's answer to tablets is known for quite some time: Intel's second SoC design codenamed Medfield (first one being Cedarview, D2x00 Series). Medfield is manufactured in 32nm process node and is consisted out of single Atom core operating up to 1.9GHz clock, integrated graphics subsystem (it is not known which one, but current Atoms utilize PowerVR SGX545), Image Signal Processor, memory controller and 4

December 22nd, 2011

chipset features. Do note that SGX545 is more powerful than SGX543MP2 used inside the Apple's A5 Dual-core chip.

On IDF Fall 2011, Intel showed its prototypes of smartphone and tablet designs, but the Android operating system was not ready for the limelight. Few months after, Android 2.x and 3.x long gone and the company is optimizing for Android 4.x Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. You can expect the first smartphone and tablet designs coming in the first half of 2012. Second half of 2012 will see the appearance of Windows 8 tablets, where Intel will argue compatibility with full set of applications on Windows 8. Bear in mind that ARM-based tablets won't be able to run software compiled for the X86 instruction set.

Still, Medfield is just the introductionary part and we're not surprised ARM vendors are sound asleep at the market acceptance. Real headache for every member of ARM ecosystem is coming on CES 2013, the 22nm Silvermont completely new Atom architecture, which will go hand in hand with the next-generation 22nm Haswell architecture for highperformance computers.

The Bluetooth SIG leaks Sony Ericsson LT28at details Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/the-bluetooth-sig-leaks-sony-ericssonlt28at-details/14324.html December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

year, even ahead of its move to killing off the Ericsson part of its brand name. Details of an upcoming model called the LT28at have leaked courtesy of the Bluetooth SIG and it looks like Sony Ericsson is planning to launch at least one seriously high-end handset next year. Sony Ericsson has had its fair share of troubles this past year, but it looks like the company is about to rebound come next year, even ahead of its move to killing off the Ericsson part of its brand name. Details of an upcoming model called the LT28at have leaked courtesy of the Bluetooth SIG and it looks like Sony Ericsson is planning to launch at least one seriously high-end handset next year. The expected spec of what will be an as yet un-named Xperia handset targeted for AT&T in the US includes a 4.55inch Reality display with 1280x720 pixel resolution, LTE, a 13Megapixel backside illuminated camera sensor and a 720p front facing camera for video calls. Other features include 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, although only 2.1 + EDR and strangely enough support for the Chinese TD-SCDMA standard.

According to the Xperiablog we can expect to see a 1.5GHz dual core processor of unknown origin. The Xperiablog also managed to track down a few photos snapped in what appears to be San Francisco by the LT28at and although they’re not at full resolution, they’ll give you a good idea of the kind of quality you can expect from the 13Megapixel BSI camera. Hopefully there will be a non US version of the LT28at and there’s really no reason as to why Sony Ericsson wouldn’t have a version with similar spec without LTE. The Xperiablog is expecting the LT28at to be unveiled at CES, so we’ll just have to wait and see what will happen in a few weeks’ time. In related news, Sony Ericsson has announced that it’ll be rolling out its Android 4.0 updates for this year’s Xperia handsets from late March next year with some models getting the updates a bit later in April or May. Full details can be found on the Sony Ericsson product blog.

Canon Singapore announces CanonSGLens, free iOS app for digital SLR photographers Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/canon-singapore-announcescanonsglens-free-ios-app-for-digital-slr-photographers/14323.html December 22nd, 2011

Sony Ericsson has had its fair share of troubles this past year, but it looks like the company is about to rebound come next 5

December 22nd, 2011

With this iOS app, Canon photographers can now access all the information including specifications on digital SLR lens, learn about the physics behind capturing an picture etc. The CanonSGLens app is free to download and is available on the Apple iTunes App store.

Published by: VR-Zone

- Depth of Field calculator - In-depth topic with interactive simulators explaining how aperture and shutter speed affect exposure, depth of field, and motion blur in the various exposure modes CanonSGLens is available on the Apple iTunes App store - http://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/canonsglens/ id490527073?ls=1&mt=8

Nikon Singapore launches two new Facebook applications Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nikon-singapore-launches-two-newfacebook-applications/14322.html December 22nd, 2011

Canon Singapore has unveiled CanonSGLens, the company's free iOS app for digital SLR camera users. Available from today on the Apple iTunes App store, the app features detailed lens specifications of all Canon digital SLR lenses that are sold in Singapore. The application also contains a unique interactive simulator that allows users to compare the field of view between two camera-lens combinations, using the current list of Canon EOS digital SLR cameras and lenses. The CanonSGLens is designed to help beginners and professional photographers. Beginners can learn more about the physics behind capturing an photo, while professionals can make use of features like the depth-of-field calculator to help them achieve optimum focus.

Nikon Singapore has announced the launch of two Facebook applications “Where’s the 1?” and "Psych'd by Nikon” contests whereby users stand to win attractive prizes including Nikon COOLPIX camera and Nikon 1 J1 with the 1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f3.5-5.6 lens.

App Features - Highly visual interactive simulators - Bookmark your favourite pages - Add your own notes to any page - Content optimized for both portrait and landscape orientations - No Internet connection required Featured Content - Detailed lens specifications of all Canon EF and EF-S lenses sold in Singapore - Compare lens specifications side by side, with differences indicated - Compare high resolution MTF charts - Compare high resolution lens construction diagrams - Field of View simulator featuring multiple photos taken of the same scene in Singapore using different camera-lens combinations - Depth of Field simulator

“Where’s the 1?” is a contest whereby you only have to answer four questions correctly by looking for the hidden Nikon 1 in the picture. If you have spotted all four cameras correctly, you stand a chance to win the Nikon 1 J1 and 1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f3.5-5.6 lens. However, note that there is no lifeline in this game, and you can only play it once a day. There will be a new set of questions and cameras for you to search every week, and you can play up to once a day to increase your chances to win the Nikon 1 J1 camera. The contest runs now till 19 January 2012. "Psych'd by Nikon" was launched in the beginning of December, and the app is an easy-to-play contest to find out which Nikon COOLPIX suits you. Just answer a few simple questions and you can discover the Nikon COOLPIX camera that best suits your needs and lifestyle, and find out if it is true to your personality. One lucky winner with the most referrals 6

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

via share will stand to walk away with a Nikon COOLPIX camera.

Does PCIe 3.0 matter for today's GPUs? We test with the Radeon HD 7970 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/does-pcie-3.0-matter-for-today-s-gpuswe-test-with-the-radeon-hd-7970/14306.html December 22nd, 2011

For months now, certain smaller motherboard manufacturers have been hyping up PCI Express 3.0 compatibility and benefits to ignorant users, even going to the point of bashing one another with libelous advertisements (lol hammer smash motherboards into bits). Since the latest Intel's Sandy BridgeE processors and AMD's Radeon HD 7970 officially supports the new signalling standard, we put that to the test to see if it does improve things. The following is rephrased and quoted from Wikipedia's PCI Express entry: The much delayed PCIe 3.0 standard is supposed to bring signal transfer bitrates to 8GT/s (double that of PCIe 2.0) and a number of optimizations for enhanced signaling and data integrity, including transmitter and receiver equalization, PLL improvements, clock data recovery, and channel enhancements for currently supported topologies The BIOS on our favourite ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (X79) allowed us to select the PCIe signalling standard for our tests (Editor's note: yes we did use the latest 1004 bios which has the CPU Microcode and PCIe 3.0 fixes) PCIe 2.0 Benchmarks:

PCIe 3.0 Benchmarks:

December 22nd, 2011

Our conclusions? Only a <1% miniscule benefit thanks to tighter clock timings and PLL improvements - today's high end GPU like the HD7970 and GTX590 barely even saturate PCIe x8 lanes (4GB/s). Perhaps we might see a different story with decent solid state storage setups and CPU interconnects.

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Review [Part 3/3]: Overclocking, Benchmarks and Conclusion

Published by: VR-Zone

Testing with FurMark - with the fan left at auto, it was still spinning silently and temperatures maxed out at a comfortable 86 degrees celcius

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-part-33-overclocking-benchmarks-and-conclusion/14308.html December 22nd, 2011

In the final part of our review, we look into the overclocking abilities of the 28nm 'Tahiti XT' GPU, run extensive but relevant performance tests, and give an objective conclusion of the AMD Radeon HD 7970.

The updated GPU-Z 0.5.7 allows you to read card information off the 7970's SMBIOS

Overclocking The overclocking potential of the Radeon HD 7970 has been much vaunted in the recent leaks and it certainly didn't disappoint. Even without any software or hardware voltage mods, we managed to bring the CPU core from the default 925MHz up to the maximum 1125MHz that CCC would allow. We also turned memory up to 1500MHz and Power Control to +20% to prevent throttling.

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

PCI-SIG approved 8+6 pin power connectors for up to 300W of power consumption

Every increment on the way, we went the extra mile to ensure that there was actually scaling (and not bs throttling). With clocks like these on stock voltages and cooling, you'll wonder how much higher it can go when software or hardware voltage modifications together with better cooling are applied to this card. Looks like the 28nm process die shrink did pay off...

Check also

No PCB Backplate on this reference card - hopefully the actual retail units will have them as they do provide some shielding against accidental metal contact short circuits

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Review [Part 2/3]: The Card Design (Hardware Components and Cooling) Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-part-23-the-card-design-hardware-components-and-cooling-/14286.html December 22nd, 2011

The AMD Radeon HD 'Tahiti XT' 7970 features a redesigned PCB, 3GB of GDDR5 384bit memory ring bus configuration and an optimized heatsink design. The dashing looking Radeon HD 7970 measures 11.5 inches long (29.21cm), which should fit in most modern day gaming cases

More than a dozen screws binding the card to the heatsink which was a nuisance when we disassembled it

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone December 22nd, 2011

3-way Crossfire connectors are still present, as are the dual BIOS Switch for flash experiments

After a year of less than stellar CPU launches (Bulldozer) and the fallout from the massive company-wide layoffs and manufacturing delays, AMD and their fans finally have something to cheer about this holiday season. Built on the radical 28nm 'Graphics Core Next' architecture and numerous another innovations, the US$549 Radeon HD 7970 flexes it considerable muscles in the high end enthusiast GPU market. In the first of a three part review, supercomputing expert and in-house Serbian Nebojsa Novakovic gives his take on what the new architecture will bring.. When AMD unveiled its GCN - Graphics Core Next - new generation graphics processor architecture as a part of its FSA - Fusion System Architecture - at the last June's Fusion Developer Summit in Seattle, it was quite a surprise: the next-in-line future GPU was to be transformed into a general purpose compute coprocessor, with far more flexibility and aim at wider range of applications well beyond graphics only - and, not to forget, easier memory space sharing with the CPU. Half a year later, the first implementation of this new architecture already sees the light.

Dual-link DVI, HDMI and Mini-DP ports for up to 6 displays. The half-height exhaust grill design from 58xx/69xx cards is gone and replaced with a full height panel, which should help reduce air turbulance.

Check also

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Review [Part 1/3]: Meet Tahiti XT from the Southern Islands Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-part-13-meet-tahiti-xt-from-the-southern-islands/14307.html

The Radeon HD7970 is the fastest single GPU card today in most of 3-D graphics runs, but its compute power impresses, too: 3.8 TFLOPs peak single precision FP and, more importantly, 947 GFLOPs double precision FP at the defauly 925 MHz clock. Since the card overclocks easily by another 10% or so without even changing any voltages, you can, for the first time, easily have a true (peak) Teraflop DP FP engine in the PC. The 384-bit GDDR5 memory path with 3 GB RAM gives some 260 GB/s bandwidth to feed all that performance, with sufficient local memory for larger datasets than before. And, in those moments when the GPU does nothing, the idle power drops to below 3 Watts - not bad at all.

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

In addition to compute units, there are still dedicated processing elements for 3-D graphics. Dual Geometry Units, as well as eight render back ends, plus the usual video acceleration hardware, complete the chip here. And yes, the system interface is PCIe x16 v3, finally.

How did it achieve all this performance? The first implementation of GCN is based on the same 'Compute Units' that we described post-AMD Summit in June, 32 of them in this chip. Each compute unit, able to execute code from multiple kernels at once, is a processor by itself, in a sense a full-fledged 'core', the way we describe cores in general purpose processors. So, each compute unit has a vector and standard scalar processor core, plus a texture block with filtering and fetch units, all this with local registers, 64 KB data share memory and 16 KB L1 cache with 64 bytes/clock bandwidth. The branching and scheduling units complete the picture.

Now, how does GCN in HD7970 achieve, as AMD claims, much better actual use of the underlying resources compared to the previous generation? First, you'll notice that the chip architecture looks far more symmetric and simpler to understand than the GPUs of the past, which should translate to the programs being able to use it more efficently. Also, the separate dual asynchronous compute engines help schedule multiple tasks in parallel with the graphics command processor, while dual direct memory access (DMA) engines help in fetching and sending data fast, able to saturate 16 GB/ s over PCIe 3 to the system itself. In some tests, like AES256, the resulting improvements in actual performance are over four times, but even many others have speed jumps higher than the theoretical FP speed boost from the 6970 to the 7970. Two times is a regular occurence in many GPU compute benchmarks here. And, very critical for the computing usage, the FP here is fully IEEE754 compliant while, if aiming for workstation or compute server use, you have ECC protection all the way, for both DRAM and SRAM memory. The new architecture should finally enable easy GPU multitasking, not just many processes on one GPU, but also one task being spread across multiple GPUs, something that HPC users would welcome a lot - and high end PC users as well, since, say, 4 GPUs in Quad CrossFire could be used for more than just gaming FPS.

The cache hierarchy is intriguing here: each set of four compute units shares an extra 32 KB scalar data cache plus 16 KB instruction cache, backed by a common L2 cache, which totals 768 KB in the HD7970 chip across all compute units. This L2 then interfaces to the memory controller. A Global Data Share unit is there to enable sync among all compute units at the L1 cache level. This is far more complex cache architecture than what you'll see in today's general purpose CPUs, by the way.

In summary, GCN in AMD Radeon HD7970 went a step further than Nvidia did in its current 'Fermi' GeForce generation in getting the GPU to become a more versatile system compute coprocessor. There are still further steps to take in getting the GPU even closer to the CPU, including the memory sharing and interconnect, however the improvements seen in this brand new chip should be a good note to both Nvidia and Intel, the latter with its Knights Corner accelerators, on the way forward. Check also

ASRock launches Atom D2700 and D2500 mini-ITX motherboards Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asrock-launches-atom-d2700-andd2500-mini-itx-motherboards/14316.html December 22nd, 2011

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The ASRock related news aren't over quite yet, as alongside its high-end boards, the company has also unveiled three new entry level Atom mini-ITX motherboards, all with Intel's new D2x00-series of Atom processors. One of the new models sports the 1.86GHz Atom D2500, while the other two comes with the 2.13GHz Atom D2700. The ASRock related news aren't over quite yet, as alongside its high-end boards, the company has also unveiled three new entry level Atom mini-ITX motherboards, all with Intel's new D2x00-series of Atom processors. One of the new models sports the 1.86GHz Atom D2500, while the other two comes with the 2.13GHz Atom D2700. Starting at the bottom we have the AD2500B-ITX which is a rather plain, almost dull looking board with a large passive heatsink covering the CPU and a really tiny one covering the NM10 chipset. The board has, rather unusually a pair of SODIMM slots, although as the new Atoms can accept up to 4GB of RAM, albeit in single channel mode, the two slots are at least somewhat useful.

The third and final board is the most interesting of the three and it's called the AD2700-ITX, a confusing similar name, but an entirely different board in many ways. Although you'd be forgiven for thinking it's yet more of the same if you take a quick glance at the top down view of the board, ASRock has overhauled the rear I/O entirely. Here we're looking at a single PS/2 port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out and a D-sub, DVI and HDMI port. The general board layout is otherwise mostly the same, although there's a pin-header for a parallel port and a serial port not present on the first two models, but that's the only difference we can spot. We checked the manual quickly as we wanted to find out about the display connectivity and the good news is that both the DVI and HDMI port can be used simultaneously. The manual also suggested that there might be a version with the Atom D2500 of this board, although without USB 3.0 and with slower 10/100Mbit Ethernet.

There's also a pair of SATA 3Gbps ports, a single PCI slot and a pair of headers for four USB 2.0 ports. The rear I/O consists of a range or ports that feel more like 1991 than 2011 with two PS/2 ports, a serial port, a parallel port, a D-sub connector, four USB 2.0 ports, a 10/100Mbit Ethernet port and 5.1-channel audio via three jacks. Overall not the most impressive board we've seen recently. Moving up we have the AD2700B-ITX which swaps in the Atom D2700 over the D2500, but it's not the only change. Although the board layout remains identical to the AD2500BITX, the AD2700B-ITX was upgraded with both Gigabit Ethernet and a pair of USB 3.0 ports making it an interesting board for a home server.

One funny thing in ASRock's specifications is with regards to the GPU which ASRock lists as â&#x20AC;&#x153;Built-in Intel PowerVR SGX545â&#x20AC;? which isn't entirely true as the GPU is by Imagination Technologies and Intel calls it the GMA 3650 or GMA 3600 depending on which processors we're talking about. If nothing else, ASRock has at least triple confirmed things for us. Once again we don't have any word on availability and pricing, but we'd expect these boards to be out shortly.

December 22nd, 2011

ASRock does more affordable 8-DIMM X79 motherboard Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asrock-does-more-affordable-8-dimmx79-motherboard/14315.html December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

get two front USB 3.0 ports rather than four, again a non-issue for most people. Looking at the rear I/O we have two PS/2 ports, four USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a FireWire port, an eSATA port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF out and a clear CMOS button. The difference here is very minor as the only missing feature is the secondary Gigabit Ethernet port compared to the X79 Extreme7. However, because the X79 Extreme6/GB come bundled with the Game Blaster, you get a second Gigabit Ethernet port through it, if you chose to install it.

We're not quite sure we're following ASRock's X79 motherboard line-up as the company has introduced the X79 Extreme6/GB, a model inferior to the X79 Extreme7, yet somehow packing more features and a bundle. The bundle is ASRock Game Blaster, the same card that comes with the X79 Extreme9. We're not quite sure we're following ASRock's X79 motherboard line-up as the company has introduced the X79 Extreme6/GB, a model inferior to the X79 Extreme7, yet somehow packing more features and a bundle. The bundle is ASRock Game Blaster, the same card that comes with the X79 Extreme9. The X79 Extreme6/GB is a peculiar board and we're not quite sure what ASRock was thinking about when the company designed the board. So ok, it "only" has three x16 PCI Express slots compared to five for the X79 Extreme7, but at least all of the ones on the X79 Extreme6/GB are usable. There are also a single x1 PCI Express slot and two PCI slots, although strictly speaking, only one of the PCI slots can be used if you have a pair of graphics cards with dual slot coolers fitted to them.

It might sound stupid to suggest that you shouldn't, but due to the slightly moronic slot layout of the X79 Extreme6/GB, if you're using all three x16 PCI Express slots, then it's very likely that you won't be able to use the Game Blaster card, as it requires a x1 PCI Express slot. That said, not that many people are running three way SLI or CrossFireX, so this is most likely not going to affect that many buyers of this board, but it's still a peculiar omission in the design by ASRock. Beyond the additional Gigabit Ethernet controller, the Game Blaster also features a Creative Sound Core3D audio chip which adds duplicate set of 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF out, which once more makes us wonder about what ASRock was thinking about when they designed this board. We don't know when the X79 Extreme6/GB will be available, nor how much it'll cost, but in theory it should end up being similarly priced to the X79 Extreme7 due to the closeness in features and the additional cost of the bundled card.

ASRock set to launch Fatal1ty X79 Professional motherboard Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asrock-set-to-launch-fatal1ty-x79professional-motherboard/14314.html December 22nd, 2011

Moving on we're missing a couple of extra SATA 6Gbps ports, but the X79 Extreme6/GB still manages four SATA 3Gbps and five SATA 6Gbps ports, more than enough for most users. The VRM heatsink is smaller, but the phase count is the same and the X79 Extreme6/GB still sports tantalum capacitors. It also has two extra DIMM slots over the X79 Extreme7, but you only 13

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

We're still not sold on the whole Fatal1ty branding from ASRock, but the upcoming Fatal1ty X79 Professional motherboard from the company is definitely a competitor when it comes to high-end X79 motherboards. It's by far not the most feature rich X79 motherboard out there, but it still has enough features to make it an attractive choice for those that are digging the colour scheme and branding. We're still not sold on the whole Fatal1ty branding from ASRock, but the upcoming Fatal1ty X79 Professional motherboard from the company is definitely a competitor when it comes to high-end X79 motherboards. It's by far not the most feature rich X79 motherboard out there, but it still has enough features to make it an attractive choice for those that are digging the colour scheme and branding. The board hasn't been officially unveiled as yet, but pictures of the Fatal1ty X79 Professional appeared over at TechPowerUp giving us a good idea as to what to expect. The good news is that the active cooling fan on the chipset is gone, although unlike other high-end X79 boards, ASRock didn't bother with a heatpipe connecting the chipset heatsink to the VRM heatsinks. Speaking of the VRM, we're looking at tantalum capacitors, although we don't know much else about the design of it for now.

Around the rear we have a PS/2 port, four USB 3.0 ports, five USB 2.0 ports, a Fatal1ty USB mouse port, two eSATA ports, a FireWire port, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF out and a clear CMOS button. A bracket for the front USB 3.0 ports is supplied with the board, but the rest of the bundle isn't clear at this point. No word on pricing or availability, but we wouldn't expect it to be too long.

SSD prices are falling faster than HDD Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ssd-prices-are-falling-faster-thanhdd/14312.html December 22nd, 2011

Solid state drives (SSDs) are dropping in price much faster than hard disk drives (HDD), according to figures released by website uptime monitoring firm Pingdom. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are dropping in price much faster than hard disk drives (HDD), according to figures released by website uptime monitoring firm Pingdom.

The board has four x16 PCI Express slots in a dual x16 or quad x8 configuration and there's also a single x1 PCI Express slot and two PCI slots. ASRock went with a standard four DIMM layout on this board and there are four additional SATA 6Gbps ports in addition to the two from the chipset, as well as four SATA 3Gbps ports. Other features includes a header for two front USB 3.0 ports, a FireWire header, a Post80 debug LED and power and reset buttons.

The report shows that average HDD prices fell from $56.30/ GB in 1998 to $0.075/GB in 2011, while average SSD prices fell from $40/GB in 2007 to $2.42 this year. The lowest prices recorded this year are $0.053/GB for HDD and $1.50/GB for SSD. While SSDs remain very expensive, the difference between them and HDD prices has dropped considerably over the last number of years. For example, in 2007 SSDs cost 120 times the equivalent HDD storage, whereas that number has dropped to just 32 times more expensive in 2011.

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

RIM's co-CEOs, Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, do not want the company to be bought, however, despite facing plummeting market share as Apple and Android devices continue to grow. They want to sort out RIM's problems internally, including focusing on BlackBerry Messaging and restructuring the company, rather than relying on a more successful company like Amazon to do the job for them.

That trend is set to continue, with SSD prices likely to follow HDD ones in a downward plummet, likely helped by the shortage of HDDs on the market at the moment. For example, SSD prices are currently the same on a per GB level as HDD prices were in 2002, suggesting we're only a few years away from an affordable alternative to HDD. Pingdom predicts that in 2012 the average price for HDDs will fall to $0.54/GB, a drop of around 28 percent, though it could be artificially bloated by the current market drought. SSD prices should drop to $1/GB, a significant decrease of around 33 percent on this year's prices. While SSD prices are unlikely to ever match that of HDD, it looks like SSDs are as much party to Moore's Law as anything else is in the technology industry.

BlackBerry maker RIM refused Amazon acquisition offer Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/blackberry-maker-rim-refusedamazon-acquisition-offer/14311.html December 22nd, 2011

RIM did not rule out licensing deals or commercial partnerships, however, and this could be an area where RIM benefits from the growth of other companies. Apparently Amazon is still in talks with RIM over this. If Amazon was able to push a BlackBerry Kindle for businesses, or some other combination of their assets, both firms could reap significant rewards. Samsung and Microsoft have also considered bids for RIM at some point, but interest is likely waning as the company struggles to stay relevant, particularly with the lengthy delay of its BlackBerry 10 platform.

Microsoft wins patent case against Motorola Mobility Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/microsoft-wins-patent-case-againstmotorola-mobility/14310.html December 22nd, 2011

Amazon attempted to buy BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM), but the latter turned down the offer and similar ones made by other companies, it has been revealed. Amazon attempted to buy BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM), but the latter turned down the offer and similar ones made by other companies, it has been revealed. The online bookstore turned tablet computer maker hired an investment bank during the Summer to review a potential merger with RIM, according to Reuters, but it ultimately failed to make a formal offer.

Microsoft has won a patent battle against Motorola Mobility over the infringement of a patent used in its smartphone products, which could result in a sales ban in the US. Microsoft has won a patent battle against Motorola Mobility over the infringement of a patent used in its smartphone products.

December 22nd, 2011

An International Trade Commission (ITC) judge gave a preliminary ruling that Motorola had infringed one of seven patents that Microsoft made claims for. The ruling will have to be confirmed in April of next year, but generally speaking most ITC preliminary verdicts are given the green-light by a full ITC panel. The patent in question relates to several techniques to schedule meetings and synchronise group calendars, a particularly useful feature for the mobile enterprise sector, which Android has been expanding into. Microsoft had previously filed a similar complaint with the European Patent Office, but the latter dismissed the case as it deemed that the technology in question was 'obvious'. Microsoft is appealing that decision, and the ITC ruling could impact on that appeal.

Published by: VR-Zone

Rambus settles stockholder lawsuit for $10.85 million Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rambus-settles-stockholder-lawsuitfor-10.85-million/14309.html December 22nd, 2011

Rambus has settled a lawsuit taken against it by a stockholder for $10.85 million, marking a rare turning of the tables in the company's frequent legal battles. Rambus has settled a lawsuit taken against it by a stockholder for $10.85 million, marking a rare turning of the tables in the company's frequent legal battles. The lawsuit was originally filed in 2008 by investor Stuart J. Steele, who claimed that Rambus had not correctly dated and accounted for stock option grants prior to 2006, with the majority of these occuring between 1998 and 2001. The case would have went to court in March 2012, but Rambus decided to settle out of court for $10.85 million instead, suggesting it was not confident of winning.

The ruling follows a similar verdict by the ITC yesterday which will result in a sales ban on HTC products found to infringe an Apple patent. While both Motorola and HTC have technically lost their cases, they will be pleased that only one of the multiple claims was validated.

This is an ironic twist of fate for the intellectual property company, which is usually on the other end of lawsuits. It has gained notoriety for its numerous lawsuits against a number of chipmakers, primarily over patents relating to memory technology like DRAM. These included Micron and Hynix, as well as high profile cases against Samsung and Nvidia, which have usually gone in favour of Rambus.

Microsoft already licenses technology to HTC, Samsung and other Android supporters, but the case against Motorola has potentially huge repercussions for the rest of the smartphone industry using Google's operating system, particularly since Google bought the mobile division of Motorola earlier this year.

The payout today is relatively minor in the grand scheme of things, but it will likely put a smile on the faces of those who believe Rambus is abusing its extensive patent collection to secure lucrative licensing deals.

Microsoft is attempting to get a sales ban put in place against a number of infringing Motorola phones, including the Droid 2, Droixd X and Backflip. However, Motorola could escape such a ban by dropping the feature from its devices.

AMD launching new A-series APUs for desktop and mobile Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-launching-new-a-series-apus-fordesktop-and-mobile/14305.html

December 22nd, 2011 December 22nd, 2011

Not quite in time for the holiday shopping season, AMD has announced that it will be launching no less than 13 new APUs, of which five are new desktop models and the rest are mobile. Most of the new models are slight speed bumps, but the long awaited unlocked K SKU for desktop is finally here. Not quite in time for the holiday shopping season, AMD has announced that it will be launching no less than 13 new APUs, of which five are new desktop models and the rest are mobile. Most of the new models are slight speed bumps, but the long awaited unlocked K SKU for desktop is finally here. The potentially two most interesting models for consumers on the desktop side are the A8-3870K and the A6-3670K, both being the first multiplier unlocked APUs from AMD. We should point out that the GPU core is also unlocked on these models and we're of course looking at a pair of 100W TDP chips here. Neither apparently have a turbo frequency, so it's up to the user to overclock these two APUs if more than stock clock performance is wanted. These models will only be sold in retail box as far as we can tell.

The other three desktop models, the A8-3820, A6-3620 and A4-3420 are all 100MHz speed bumps over the current models and nothing else appears to have changed. Much the same applies to the new mobile APUs, with the only exception being the A4-3305M which appears to only have a higher clocked GPU at 593MHz compared to 444MHz for the A4-3300M, although for some reason it has a lower Radeon core (read shader) count at 160 compared to 240, so it's likely to have a slower GPU regardless of the higher clock speed.

As for pricing, well, AMD didn't provide any, but the A8-3870K is meant to have an MSRP of US$135 and the A6-3670K should retail for around US$115. That said, both models are listed for pre-order on Amazon where the A8-3870K is going for US $160 and the A6-3670K for US$137 with a list price of US $149.99 for the A8-3870K and US$129.99 for the A6-3670K, so in other words, both models are currently retailing for more than the list price which is fairly unusual for processors. Both models are expected to arrive on the 26th of December, with the rest of the desktop line-up to follow. The mobile models are already shipping in various notebook products.

Published by: VR-Zone

MSI announces GT780DX gaming laptop Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-announces-gt780dx-gaminglaptop/14304.html December 22nd, 2011

MSI has recently unveiled their new powerful gaming laptop, which comes in the form GT780DX. The gaming powerhouse claims to pack second generation Intel Core i7 quad core processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 570M discrete graphics card with 3GB GDDR5 memory, as well as SteelSeries keyboard and high-end Dynaudio and THX TruStudio Pro for superb system, video and audio performance.

The MSI GT780DX gaming laptop features the latest Intel Core i7 quad core processor and latest Nvidia's top-end GeForce GTX 570M discrete graphics card with 3GB GDDR5 memory, which boast superior gaming experience, even when running the latest games in high resolution and high detail settings. On top of that, the MSI gaming notebook also sports four DDR3 memory slots that can provide an unprecedented 32GB memory. It also comes with RAID 0 accelerated dual hard disk architecture which doubles hard disk storage capacity, while increasing read-write speed by 70%. Incorporating the company's proprietary Turbo Drive Engine (TDE) technology, just one touch of the luminescent Turbo hotkey located above the keyboard instantly revs up the system performance. The GT780DX also features MSI's own powerful Cooler Boost technology to rapidly reduce system temp to enhance system stability. The GT780DX is equipped with 17.3-inch full high definition display and comes with Cinema Pro technology for a rich, vibrant colors, as well as high quality Dynaudio and THX TruStudio Pro to provide crisp, and cinematic-quality audio. In addition, MSI has collaborated with gaming equipment manufacturer Steelseries to create a keyboard for the GT780DX that is rugged with LED backlighting. No word as to the pricing and availability for this gaming monster at press time.

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

StarHub to offer free preview of over 140 TV channels for the New Year

Chinese high end CPUs are now in the game - details: Part 1

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/starhub-to-offer-free-preview-ofover-140-tv-channels-for-the-new-year/14303.html December 22nd, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/chinese-high-end-cpus-are-now-in-thegame--details-part-1/14302.html December 22nd, 2011

Good news to those of you who are staying at home this festive season, and has a StarHub cable TV box at home. The Singapore info-communications provider is offering free previews of over 140 TV channels for customers and their families.

Last week's report on CPUs, mentioning the Chinese newgeneration entries, did raise some waves on various online forums. Here's a bit more on some of those processors.

From 30 December 2011 (12pm) to 3 January 2012 (6am), StarHub customers will have free access to over 140 channels ranging from world news, Chinese infotainment, sports, movies to education, entertainment, kids, lifestyle and international programmes. During this period, StarHub TV will carry exclusive countdown events such as the Taipei 2012 Countdown Party on TVBS Asia (StarHub TVChannel 828) that let viewers usher into the New Year. Other key highlights include Kim Jong-Il: The Forbidden Biography on HISTORY (StarHub TV Channel 501), Korean boy band 2AM Concert on E City (StarHub TV Channel 825), blockbuster movies such as Inception on HBO (StarHub TV Channel 601) and Let The Bullets Fl on STAR Chinese Movies (StarHub TV Channel 866). Nickelodeon (StarHub TV Channel314) will also be featuring a Spongebob Squarepants 48 hours Marathon Special for the young viewers. In addition, all 32 channels on StarHub TV on Mobile will be available to StarHub Mobile postpaid and prepaid customers. StarHub TV on Mobile customers with the supported handsets can simply sms <LIVETV> to 6757 for postpaid and <SHTV> to 6757 for prepaid to access the 32 free channels. Viewers can refer to www.starhub.com/freepreview for more details. Note: The free preview is not extended to STAR Chinese Movies 2, STAR Chinese Movies HD, Cricket Group, RediGold, Horse Racing Channel, On-Demand Channels and Video-OnDemand titles.

China has now officially gone deep into the core of high end computing, way to the deepest level - designing and manufacturing its own CPUs - to complete the whole vertical stack from the processor to the application. That includes having own designs covering everything from smartphone to supercomputer, based on three main architectural families: ARM, MIPS and Alpha. Our last week's report, and its coverage of the Chinese CPUs, has sparked quite a few online comments on various forums, from those of encouragement and seeking more diversified CPU futures, to outright dismissal of these chips as copies or inferior designs, or not having, out of all things, X86 architecture - widely regarded as the worst ever CPU architecture from a design point of view - as a 'proof of true capability'. Well, let's take a look at the three chosen main architectures here. ARM, MIPS and Alpha are all native RISC architectures - meaning simple, symmetric, orthogonal instruction sets with only a few addressing modes and options, uniform instruction format and easy scalability to both wide cores, multi-cores and a range of speeds from low power to top performance, with much lower gate count required than any X86. Since China doesn't want to depend on Western software stack for its public and, especially, government use, it doesn't need to rely on X86 as this architecture's winning chip is software compatibility with hundreds of thousands of past applications. So, why bother with the X86 complexities - both technical and legal - then? The internal market is more than good enough to, coupled with Linux and other open source stacks, provide complete solutions and the volumes required to justify these processors even commercially over long run. Talking about legality: No, these are not fakes or illegal copies right now. The ARM and MIPS processors made in China are fully licensed by the relevant ARM and MIPS IP owning consortia, while the Shenwei Alpha-compatible chip is based on Digital (DEC) IP that is well over 15 years old now - quite ironic for a CPU that matches the best current X86 processors based on 2010 IP and in 2 generations later process. MIPS - Dragon's Progeny 18

December 22nd, 2011

Loongson (Godson) is the name for the Chinese MIPS processors, developed by Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) at Beijing's Chinese Academy of Sciences, with Prof Hu Weiwu being the design leader. Prof Hu also happens to be a deputy at National People's Congress, which surely is helpful in gaining support for the overall project. For the past 9 years, the effort is run as a joint venture between the government and private enterprises through a company called BLX, a partnership between CAS and Jiangsu Zhongyi Group. There were 3 major generations of these processors up to now, with the latest one - Loongson 3B - being an 8-core 1.05 GHz CPU, with each CPU having a 256-bit vector FP unit as well. Despite the low clock and 65 nm process, the efficient 4-way out-of-order cores and vector units with dual 256-bit FP ops per core per cycle, allow Loongson 3B to reach 16 GFLOPs per core at 1 GHz, some 130 GFLOPs peak FP rate in double precision at 1.05 GHz clock. For a comparison, the 3.3GHz Core i7 3960X with AVX would achieve some 160 GFLOPs peak in DP, while the Westmere (Core i7 990X) and Bulldozer CPUs would be at not more than two-thirds of this - Core i7 990X is at 90 GFLOPs peak, and AMD FX8150 at some 110 GFLOPs peak, all in DP. And, oh yes, the Loongson 3B achieves this performance at just 40 watts TDP, less than one third of the above competing CPUs. Something even more interesting is that Loongson 3B has over 200 extra instructions in a separate box, which doesn't affect the main core integrity, that speed up execution of X86 software when using QEMU translator. The benefit of this, at a 5% die area cost, is running lots of X86 software at near native speeds - an approach that Alpha perfected over a decade ago with FX!32 software that enabled Alpha Windows NT to run many X86 titles at the time at high speed. Anyway, since the core is reasonably efficient already, the next step for Loongson 3 is a 16-core version in 28 nm process, expected sometime in min 2012. The minor core improvements will be there in addition to a much higher clock rate, around 1.6 GHz, as well as larger L2 cache, greater than the current 4 MB. The 2 x 64 KB per core L1 caches are expected to stay on. What about the software? Several major Linux distros do run - including Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva and China's own Red Flag. The BSD OS ports are done quite a while ago, as well as Windows CE port. Since there are quite a few consumer devices based on the previous Loongson / Godson processors, who knows, one day we may even see Android and Windows 8 ports, although there doesn't seem to be much pressure felt on the Chinese about it. In the second part, we cover Alpha, ARM and China's own instruction set attempts.

Published by: VR-Zone

Be Quiet Straight Power E9 CM 580W PSU Review Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/be-quiet-straight-power-e9-cm-580wpsu-review/14301.html December 22nd, 2011

Be Quiet is company originating from Germany and for the past several years has been creating computer related products for enthusiasts. The company offers a very long list of products, yet their primary focus lies on high quality and silent power supply units. It is a power supply unit that we will put to the test today, the 580W version of the highly popular Straight Power E9 CM series. Be Quiet is company originating from Germany and for the past several years has been creating computer related products for enthusiasts. The company offers a very long list of products, yet their primary focus lies on high quality and silent power supply units. It is a power supply unit that we will put to the test today, the 580W version of the highly popular Straight Power E9 CM series. Manufacturer features and specifications · Extremely quiet operation thanks to SilentWings Technology · Extremely efficient and economical operation - 80PLUS Gold certification for top efficiency of up to 93%. ·

ErP ready. Stand-by energy consumption <0.3W.

· Active clamp + SR technology for highly efficient and stable operation. ·

Four independent 12V rails.

· Modular cable management system with numerous connection options. · Maximum protection of components (OCP, OVP, UVP, OPP, OTP and SCP). ·

5 years manufacturer‘s warranty.

Continuous power (W) Peak power 500 ms (W) Form factor ATX 12V Form factor EPS 12V Modular cable management Special technology Voltage (Vac) Frequency (Hz) Input current (A) PFC PF Power factor at 100% load

580 650 ATX12V Version 2.31 EPS12V Version 2.92 Yes Active Clamp + SR 100 - 240 50 - 60 8-5 Active 0.99 19

December 22nd, 2011

Compliant to Intel C6 mode Power consumption in standby (W) Average life time (h / 25°C) Operating temperature (up to - °C)

Published by: VR-Zone

Yes <0.3 300.000 40°C

Kindle Fire has higher ad impression growth than Apple iPad

Another reason for the rapid growth is because the Kindle Fire is extremely new and launched in the run up to the busy Christmas shopping season, but the figures are still very impressive and suggest it could really give the iPad a run for its money. Android still has the largest market share for ad impressions, taking up 50 percent. iOS is at 30 percent, while RIM's BlackBerry is at 17 percent. If Amazon keeps up with its high growth pace, however, it could become a major contender to both RIM and Apple.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/kindle-fire-has-higher-ad-impressiongrowth-than-apple-ipad/14300.html December 22nd, 2011

Star Wars: The Old Republic launches Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet, a rival to the iPad, has seen ad impression growth of 19 per cent per day, a higher growth rate than that experienced by Apple's device following its launch. Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet, a rival to the iPad, has seen ad impression growth of 19 per cent per day, a higher growth rate than that experienced by Apple's device following its launch. Apple currently sees ad impression monthly growth on its iOS platform of just seven percent, significantly lower than Amazon's tablet, according to mobile ad network Millennial Media. Even the higher figures experienced by Apple in its launch days were not as high as that seen by the Kindle Fire. A major factor in the growth is the fact that Amazon is selling ad-subsidised versions of the tablet and other Kindle devices, which cuts back the upfront costs, but brings in plenty of advertising revenue. This likely more than makes up for the slight loss Amazon is experiencing on the Kindle Fire in terms of manufacturing costs.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republiclaunches/14299.html December 22nd, 2011

Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) launches today, delivering an MMO (massively multiplayer online) experience made by renowned game developer BioWare set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) launches today, delivering an MMO (massively multiplayer online) experience made by renowned game developer BioWare set a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The game, which is BioWare's first venture into the world of MMOs, has been in development for five years and is rumoured to have cost a whopping $130 million, making it one of the most expensive computer games to date. The pivotal feature that differentiates SWTOR from other MMOs, such as World of Warcraft, is story, the “fourth pillar” to the progression, exploration and combat pillars found in other games. While some games like Lord of the Rings Online go very far to deliver a compelling storyline, they pale in comparison to the sheer scope, complexity and immersion factor of BioWare's effort, which is fully voice-acted.

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Sony has sold 321,400 units of its PlayStation Vita handheld gaming device in the first two days of its Japanese launch, making it a strong contender to Nintendo's 3DS. Sony has sold 321,400 units of its PlayStation Vita handheld gaming device in the first two days of its Japanese launch, making it a strong contender to Nintendo's 3DS. The healthy launch figures come from research firm Enterbrain, which said that the 3DS sold 371,00 units in its first two days, nearly 50,000 more than Sony's latest effort. Sony is still doing well, however, particularly considering the fact that Nintendo is the market leader in this sector. BioWare is not ignoring the other three pillars, however, as there is plenty of progression to be found in the 50 levels, eight classes, 16 advanced classes, three skill trees per advanced class, multiple companions, starships, crafting, group content and raids, to name but a few of the numerous features.

Sony is hoping to beat the 3DS sales overall, however, particularly since Nintendo suffered from sharp drops in sales as the initial launch hype died down. This is likely due to the shift to mobile gaming as smartphone sales boomed and the fact that 3D is more of a gimmick feature than something that everyone is interested in.

There's lots to explore too, with 19 worlds to visit and plans to have upwards of 500 worlds by 2025. Combat is the bread and butter of the game, with most of it taking place on the ground against artificial enemies or reallife people in player-versus-player (PVP) warzones and in open world PVP, but there's also space combat to break up the monotony. “Today represents an amazing milestone for BioWare, EA and Star Wars fans everywhere and we are confident it has been worth the wait,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare. “The support and resources going into Star Wars: The Old Republic are not ending today. The innovations we’re bringing to the category are just the start of a journey and ongoing investment in our players that will grow, evolve and transform based on player feedback over the weeks, months and years ahead.” The game comes with 30 days of access to the servers, after which a subscription is required, costing $14.99 (€12.99/ £8.99) per month, $41.97 (€35.97/£25.17) for three months, or $77.94 (€65.94/£46.14) for six months. May the Force be with you.

Sony sells 321,400 units of PlayStation Vita in two days

The Vita is the successor to the PlayStation Portable (PSP) and is backwards-compatible with PSP games, a feature that will help secure it some additional sales. Sony has sold 73 million PSPs to date, a number it will likely be very happy with for the Vita. The device will launch in Hong Kong and Taiwan within the next few days and in the US, Europe and Australia in late February.

HTC phone ban in US as Apple wins patent battle Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/htc-phone-ban-in-us-as-apple-winspatent-battle/14297.html December 22nd, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-sells-321-400-units-ofplaystation-vita-in-two-days/14298.html December 22nd, 2011

December 22nd, 2011

Apple has won a legal battle against HTC over the infringement of a mobile phone patent, which will result in a sales ban of a number of HTC devices in the United States of America.

Published by: VR-Zone December 22nd, 2011

Apple has won a legal battle against HTC over the infringement of a mobile phone patent, which will result in a sales ban of a number of HTC devices in the US. The International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled that HTC had infringed one of the 10 patents that Apple claimed it was using without permission. The patent in question relates to a data tapping user interface feature, which lets users make use of embedded data. Despite the loss, HTC said it was â&#x20AC;&#x153;very pleasedâ&#x20AC;? with the result and intends to respect it. This surprising reaction comes from the fact that HTC sees the overall verdict as being made in its favour, since nine of the patent claims were dismissed.

One thing is clear, we're not far from the official unveiling of AMD's next generation of graphics cards, as more and more details are appearing on a wide range of websites and we've now gotten the first indication on performance, in normalized figures courtesy of AMD. There are no actual numbers and we'd take this with a grain of salt, but if this is anywhere even close to the real deal, then it's good news for AMD. One thing is clear, we're not far from the official unveiling of AMD's next generation of graphics cards, as more and more details are appearing on a wide range of websites and we've now gotten the first indication on performance, in normalized figures courtesy of AMD. There are no actual numbers and we'd take this with a grain of salt, but if this is anywhere even close to the real deal, then it's good news for AMD. Alongside with the normalised performance figures we have more slides that covers the Radeon HD 7970 in as much detail as AMD has been willing to share, many of which we've already seen. AMD has come up with some novel new features such as DDM audio or discrete digital multi-point audio which allows the HDMI and DisplayPort's to simultaneously output multiple independent audio streams. With the ability to stream dual HD video streams from one graphics card, this could potentially be used for watching two videos at once on two different displays where each screen had its own audio.

HTC said that the ban will cause minimal disruption for the company, as it would simply remove the feature from all of its phones. It also suggested that it might develop a workaround to achieve the same effect of the feature within the next four months. This result is the latest in a series of legal conflicts between Apple and rival smartphone and tablet manufacturers, most notably Samsung, which recently secured a reversal to an earlier ban of its Galaxy Tab in Australia. The HTC ban will come into effect in the US from 19 April, 2012, which is plenty of time for the company to alter its existing phones.

Could the Radeon HD 7970 be up to 60 percent faster than a GTX 580?

For gamers we'll be seeing support for HD3D, i.e. 3D glasses combined with AMD's Eyefinity multi-screen technology with support for up to three screens running in 3D. AMD has also added several tweaks to Eyefinity itself and we'll no see support for combined resolutions of up to 16k x 16k. On top of that AMD has added customizable bezel compensation and various new grid configurations to allow for easier customization for the user.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/could-the-radeon-hd-7970-be-upto-60-percent-faster-than-a-gtx-580-/14296.html

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

It appears that the much rumoured Radeon HD 6930 is the real deal, as at least one manufacturer has announced a card based on the budget high-end GPU from AMD. HIS has announced its version of the Radeon HD 6930 called the 6930 IceQ X and it appears to be identical to HIS' 6950 card with the same cooling in terms of overall design.

But the most interesting slide is one that's really blurry and hard to read, although thankfully someone cleaned it up and made it comprehensible and hopefully also still correct. AMD is expecting a performance lead of somewhere between 25 and 60 percent compared to Nvidia's GTX 580 which is no small claim to make, especially when one of the games with 60 percent performance improvement happens to be Civilization 5 which isn't exactly beating Nvidia's hardware using current AMD graphics cards. Games like Alien versus Predator and Crysis 2 should see about 25 to 35 percent increased performance and as we said at the beginning of this article, we'd take these numbers with a sprinkle of salt or two, as they are after all AMD's own normalized numbers. Even so, if AMD can come close to what the company seems to be promising, then the Radeon HD 7970 is going to be an interesting, albeit expensive graphics card and something to give Nvidia a challenge for its next generation cards to battle it out with. It's only a couple of days to go until we know how close these numbers really are, but considering the major changes AMD has done to its GPU architecture we'd be surprised if we didn't see a major performance boost, but you can read more about that in our previous piece.

HIS announces the Radeon HD 6930, kits it out with IceQ X cooling Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/his-announces-the-radeon-hd-6930kits-it-out-with-iceq-x-cooling/14295.html December 22nd, 2011

The main difference is of course a lower shader count (or Stream Processors in AMD speak), although HIS doesn't specify the exact number, it is believed to be 1280, down from 1408 in the Radeon HD 6950. The 6930 also loses out on eight texture units compared to the 6950, but retains all of the ROPs. Unlike the Radeon HD 5830 which had a higher clock speed than the Radeon HD 5850, the 6930 is actually clocked marginally slower than the 6950 with the GPU core at 750MHz versus 800MHz. The memory is also clocked 200MHz slower at 4.8GHz (effectively) compared to 5GHz. AMD has apparently placed an upper clock limit for partner cards as well where the GPU cannot be pre-overclocked to anything higher than 790MHz, although the memory clock is allowed to go up to 5.1GHz (effectively).

There have been some questions as to where this card fits into AMD's line-up of cards and judging by some slides posted over at Expreview, AMD is targeting the Radeon HD 6930 as a more feature rich version of the Radeon HD 6870, going as far as stating that it gives Cayman level features at Barts level pricing. We have yet to see any pricing of Radeon HD 6930 cards, but as luck has it, Expreview did get their hands on a PowerColor card and ran it through some benchmarks at least. Compared to the Radeon HD 6950 we're looking at an average of about six percent slower with 3DMark 11 and Dirt 3 showing the biggest performance difference of close to 10 percent, with Left 4 Dead 2 showing the least at about 1.5 percent.

December 22nd, 2011

Compared to Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti the difference is slightly higher at about seven percent advantage to Nvidia, or almost 10 percent on average with PhysX enabled. Here some benchmarks actually show a minor performance advantage for AMD when PhysX is disabled, but in the worst case scenarios such as Batman Arkham Asylum the 6930 is over 30 percent behind, or some 14fps. According to Expreview the PowerColor card they looked at is meant to be some 20 percent cheaper than an equivalent Radeon HD 6950, so if you must have a VLIW4 card with EQAA, dual BIOS and AMD PowerTune, but can't afford a Radeon HD 6950, then this might be what you've been waiting for. That said, we wouldn't bother with this card at all if you're looking at buying a new graphics card now, as AMD is coming out with the 7000-series shortly which is expected to deliver vastly superior performance, although once again the price is an unknown factor that might make this a good budget buy for gamers.

SingTel launches LTE mobile broadband service for consumer and business users Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/singtel-launches-lte-mobilebroadband-service-for-consumer-and-business-users/14294.html December 22nd, 2011

This afternoon, SingTel announced the launch of their commercial Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile broadband which claims to be the first LTE service in Singapore to be made available for consumer and business customers.

Published by: VR-Zone

Today, SingTel announced the launch of their LTE mobile broadband service for consumers and business users. Called Broadband on Mobile Prestige 75, the LTE service claims to offer theoretical download speeds of up to 75Mbps and typical download speeds between 3.4Mbps and 12Mbps. The mobile Internet access is said to be more than three times faster than existing 3G-based services, with one-fifth of the network latency. At launch, the outdoor coverage in the central financial district and other areas that experience high data usage include - Shenton Way, Orchard, City Hall, Marina Bay, River Valley, Tanglin, Newton, Novena, Kallang, Rochor, Outram, Tanjong Pagar, Jurong West, Boon Lay, Bukit Panjang, Bedok and Changi. In-building coverage is available in major shopping malls such as Ngee Ann City, Plaza Singapura, Ang Mo Kio Hub, Tampines Mall, West Mall, Parkway Parade and Jurong IMM. Office buildings such as Republic Plaza and Temasek Tower are also covered. The service will fall back to SingTelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 3Gbased service when users roam outside the LTE coverage area. Broadband on Mobile Prestige 75 will initially be available for USB dongle modems only, and will be enhanced in the near future to support LTE-enabled smartphones and tablets. Existing 21Mbps 3G Broadband on Mobile Premium 21 customers can upgrade to LTE with a top-up of S$10 per month. According to SingTel, the operator is progressively expanding the network, and it expects to provide LTE coverage for 80 per cent of mobile data users by end of 2012. SingTelBroadband on Mobile Prestige 75 LTE Price Plan Price (including GST) S$69.90/month Data Bundle 50GB 3G data (21Mbps) + 10GB LTE data Excess Charges $0.512/MB, Capped at $94.16/month Download Speed Theoretical: 75Mbps Typical range: 3.4Mbps to 12Mbps

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Comes with free LTE dongle and free Wireless@SG (3Mbps) 3G Mobile broadband plan Classic 3.6

Theoretical speed 3.6Mbps

Priority 7.2 7.2Mbps (with Priority Pass) Premium 21 21Mbps (with Priority Pass)

Typical download speed range 0.8Mbps to 2.1Mbps 1.4Mbps to 3.7Mbps 1.7Mbps to 4.8Mbps

Price

S$29.90 S$40

S$59.90

Oppo to launch Find 2 with 10-megapixel camera and Android 4.0 ICS?

with slide-out keyboard, was launched in August and was endorsed by famous actor Leonardo DiCaprio. According to online sources, the company is developing a new smartphone called Find 2, which may incorporate Qualcomm 1.5GHz dualcore processor, 1GB RAM and 4GB internal storage, 4-inch IPS touchscreen, 10-megapixel rear and 1-megapixel front cameras, and run Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. No details as to how much the OPPO Find 2 will retail, and its availability, though it is expected to be about the same price tag as the Meizu MX's range of smartphones of similar specifications - 2,999 yuan (or approximately US $472).

AMD named one of 10 most trustworthy companies in America Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-named-one-of-10-mosttrustworthy-companies-in-america/14285.html December 22nd, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/oppo-to-launch-find-2-with-10megapixel-camera-and-android-4.0-ics-/14293.html December 22nd, 2011

AMD certainly had quite a turbulent year. The year started with Dirk Meyer being ousted as the CEO, Thomas Seifert consolidating the company as interim-CEO and Rory P. Read sweeping the broom, firing off 12% of the company. That kind of approach has its benefits. Chinese electronics company Oppo may not be a well-known name, but their Find X903 is a stylish phone with slideout keyboard and endorsed by famous actor Leonardo DiCaprio. The company may be planning to launch a new smartphone, supposedly called Find 2, which has a 10-megapixel built-in camera and runs the latest Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Following the big sweep, which resulted in 12% of the company being let go, Samsung jumping through the air with joy of getting several brilliant CPU architects (former Fusion APU heads) and radical moves such as firing a Chief Marketing Officer, the company is looking up and about. Next Decate Inc, a company behind Trust Across America, self-pronounced "think tank dedicated to unraveling the complexities of trustworthy business behavior" announced the results of their second annual study, in which semiconductor companies played a big role. The Top 10 Most Trustworthy Companies in America in 2011 are: 1. Smithfield Foods (SFD), a global food company (http:// www.smithfieldfoods.com) 2. Xcel Energy (XEL), a regional supplier of electric power and natural gas (http://www.xcelenergy.com) 3. Nike, Inc. (NKE), a global marketer of athletic footwear, apparel and equipment (http://www.nikeinc.com) 4. Dole Food Company (DOLE), the world's largest producer of high quality fruits and vegetables (http:// www.dole.com)

OPPO Electronics Corp., Ltd is an electronics manufacturer based in China with product lines including MP3 players, portable media players, LCD TVs, DVD and Blu-ray Disc players, as well as mobile phones. The stylish Oppo Find X903

5. Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), a semiconductor design innovator (http://www.amd.com)

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

6. Allergan (AGN), a global technology-driven multi-specialty healthcare company (http:// www.allergan.com) 7. Temple-Inland (TIN), a low-cost corrugated packaging and building products company (http:// www.templeinland.com) 8. Herman Miller (MLHR), a designer and manufacturer of furniture (http://www.hermanmiller.com) 9. Texas Instruments (TXN), a developer of analog, digital signal processing, and semiconductor technologies (http://www.ti.com) 10. Lexmark International (LXK), a provider of printing and imaging products and software solutions (http:// www.lexmark.com) Two semiconductor giants, Lexmark and Texas Instruments appeared in 2010 as well, while AMD makes a debut appearance on the impressive fifth spot, only two spots below Nike. The companies are ranked using the FAST method, and according to the researcher, no company achieved the perfect score of "100", though. In fact, majority of companies didn't manage to achieve 90. Trust Across America the companies have no say in the process, and aren’t even informed they're in the running. FACTS method is split in "Financial Stability and Strength, Accounting Conservativeness, Corporate Integrity, Transparency, Sustainability". Then again, a question ponders in our heads… if FACTS is really a valid method of calculation, where in the world are cash cow companies such as Intel, Apple, Microsoft, Vodafone, Verizon and others? The answer to that question is very simple - they failed in one or more segments of FACTS.

Atlas Sound & Vision, distributor of Bose, has introduced the first soundbar systems from Bose - the Lifestyle 135 home entertainment system and the CineMate 1 SR digital home theater speaker system. Incorporating proprietary Bose technologies, both system claim to offer a new level of audio performance and placement flexibility for soundbar solutions, delivering home theater sound from one elegant speaker array, and a new wireless Acoustimass module. The Lifestyle 135 system includes a media console for up to six high definition sources (four HDMI inputs), an AM/FM tuner, and a dock for the Apple iPod or iPhone. Featuring the proprietary Bose Unify intelligent integration system, the media console acts as a central hub and makes connecting devices to the console convenient. The CineMate 1 SR system attaches directly to the TV with just a cable. Both soundbar set-ups feature a programmable remote that controls the system and nearly any connected source, from a Blu-ray Disc player to a cable box.

Or... we'll simply leave you to be the judge.

PhaseGuide Technology: Immersive Sound From One Visible Speaker

Bose launches first soundbar systems in Singapore

The Lifestyle 135 system and CineMate 1 SR system represent the first Bose speakers to feature breakthrough PhaseGuide sound radiator technology, originally used in the company’s revolutionary VideoWave entertainment system – the industry’s first high-definition television that integrates a complete home theater sound system behind a 46” 1080p LCD display. Combined with proprietary TrueSpace digital processing circuitry, PhaseGuide technology transforms the listening experience: discrete sound can be heard in places where there are no speakers. The new Acoustimass module delivers low notes with cinematic impact. Smaller than previous Bose Acoustimass modules, its wireless link allows it to be hidden,completely out of sight.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/bose-launches-first-soundbar-systemsin-singapore/13747.html December 22nd, 2011

Bose is renowned for their headphones, speaker systems and TVs. Today, the company announced the launch of their first soundbar systems in Singapore - the Lifestyle 135 home entertainment system and the CineMate 1 SR digital home theater speaker system.

Soundbar Setup: Horizontal, Vertical, Anywhere in the Room Unlike conventional soundbars, the Lifestyle135 and CineMate 1 SR systems have true placement flexibility - they can be positioned near the TV, and in two orientations. Bose FlexMount automatic placement compensation senses whether the speaker has been placed horizontally on a table, or mounted vertically on a wall. It then automatically adjusts the sound, offering users two choices for soundbar setup with the same assurance of spacious, natural sound. The media console included with the Lifestyle135 system serves as the 26

December 22nd, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

hub for home entertainment sources. The exclusive Bose Unify intelligent integration system makes connecting devices to the console effectively mistake-proof. With Bose ADAPTiQ audio calibration technology, the system can deliver optimal sound in any room. It first recognises where the system is located, then compensates for how the acoustics of the space affect its audio quality â&#x20AC;&#x201C; customising the sound for the roomâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique size, shape, even furnishings. Pricing and Availability The Bose Lifestyle 135 home entertainment system and the Bose CineMate1 SR digital home theater speaker system are available for S$4,999 and S$2,999 respectively. They can be purchased from the Atlas Experience Audio Visual Boutique @ TripleOne Somerset, and Bose @ Millenia Walk.

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

First Looks: MSI Big BangXPower II (X79) Motherboard Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/first-looks-msi-big-bang-xpower-iix79-motherboard/14361.html December 27th, 2011

One of the most belated X79 motherboard has finally arrived in our labs! MSI's Big Bang-XPower II (MS-7737) is a military themed and feature packed monster, designed to be the ultimate board for both extreme overclockers and gamers. We take a first look before our full review next month...

MSI Big Bang-XPower II (X79) Motherboard - XL-ATX, 7 PCIe slots, 8 DIMMs

Front of what is a VERY glossy and rainbow coloured box

Back of motherboard. Notice the solder points of the PCIe slots - only the 1st and 5th slot will get full x16 PCIe lanes connectivity, while the rest get x8 lanes Back End

December 27th, 2011

I/O Panel - PS/2 port, 6 USB 2.0, 4 USB 3.0 (NEC D720200AF1), Firewire-800 (VIA VT6315N), Dual Gigabit LAN (Intel 82579V and Intel 82574L) and 7.1 Channel Audio Ports (more on this later)

Published by: VR-Zone

GIGABYTE Issues Recall Notice On X79 UD3, UD5, G1.Assassin 2 Motherboards Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/gigabyte-issues-recall-notice-on-x79ud3-ud5-g1.assassin-2-motherboards/14360.html December 27th, 2011

Documentation and O/C Guide

Gigabyte announced a general recall of three of its frontline socket LGA2011 motherboards from the markets, the X79-UD3, X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2, following increasing complaints of burnt CPU VRM even under stress applied relatively-moderately overclocked setups. In a move that puts a large chunk of its socket LGA2011 motherboard lineup in jeopardy, Gigabyte announced a general recall of the GA-X79-UD3, GA-X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2 X79 motherboards, responding to an increasing number of complaints from overclockers that their boards' VRM weren't able to keep up with the stress they're supposed to cope with. Last week, an overclocker from Taiwan "japan0827" from the XFastest community posted a video on YouTube showing how the CPU VRM of his X79-UD3 motherboard popped up in smoke when subjected to stress.

SLi bridges, SATA Cables, Extenders for voltage monitoring and other common stuff 2

December 27th, 2011

This issue could have been caused by bad firmware to complement the board's CPU VRM, and bad-quality VRM components in general. In its latest press release issued on its Chinese site, Gigabyte offered two remedies. First, it issued a BIOS update for existing owners, which prevents this from happening. It does so, however, by thottling the CPU when it's under extreme stress, making these boards practically useless to overclockers, and is only recommended for those who run their setups with mild overclocking that isn't voltage-assisted. The second remedy, of course, is an unconditional return for replacement. Overclockers can send their burnt boards, as well as healthy ones that are prone to this issue, for a free replacement, when corrected boards are available. Meanwhile, Gigabyte will be pulling its affected X79 motherboards off shelves worldwide, and replace them with corrected boards that will most likely be revisions of existing models that will sufficiently advertise the issue as being corrected.

LG Fantasy Windows Mango Phone with 4-inch IPS touchscreen leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-fantasy-windows-mango-phonewith-4-inch-ips-touchscreen-leaked/14359.html December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The LG Spectrum Android 4G "world phone" may be launching soon, but news of the Korean manufacturer having a Windows Phone in development has been leaked. Called LG Fantasy, the Windows Phone will feature a 4-inch IPS touchscreen display and is the company's third Windows Phone; sibling to the LG Optimus 7 and LG Quantum. From the leaked photo, the LG Fantasy has the standard button layout below the display - back, home and search - and will run the latest Windows Mango operating system. According to sources, the LG Fantasy could show its face at the upcoming CES 2012, and launched in Q1 next year.

LG showcases 55-inch OLED display Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-showcases-55-inch-oleddisplay/14358.html December 27th, 2011

LG has announced the development of a 55-inch OLED display which claims to be less than 5mm thin, consumes less power and has higher than 100,000:1 contrast ratio compared to the conventional LCD panels.

Even though Microsoft has announced the new Windows Mango operating system, it seems that only Samsung and HTC have came up with the new smartphones at launch. However, a new LG Windows Phone has recently been leaked and is reported to sport a 4-inch IPS display.

December 27th, 2011

LG has come up with a new 55-inch OLED display which claims to less than 5mm slim, consumes less power and has higher than 100,000:1 contrast ratio as well as 1,000 times faster response speed than LCD panels. The LG OLED panel incorporates color filters for the light-emitting elements of white OLEDs to provide accurate color display, while competitor Samsung uses a method in which red, green and blue light-emitting elements are applied. The company plans to showcase the new 55-inch OLED panel at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 at Las Vegas next month.

Intel's 32nm "Medfield" Mobile Chip Surprising Performance, Power Consumption Leaked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-s-32nm-medfield-mobile-chipsurprising-performance-power-consumption-leaked/14355.html December 27th, 2011

As the launch of next-generation Atom mobile platform looms, Intel is making more and more semi-public and public noise about the new, first true SoC (System-on-a-Chip) from their labs. According to our conversations with various sources inside Intel, the company is taking the task of "becoming mobile" very seriously. First and foremost, Intel went through an internal reorganization and merged four distinctive business units into one: Mobile Communications, Mobile Wireless, Netbook & Tablet PC and Ultra-Mobility.

Published by: VR-Zone

Known as "Mobile and Communications", this new business unit is headed by Mike Bell and Hermann Eul. The first product coming out of this newly formed division is a 32nm chip called Medfield. Medfield is the codename for Intel's first true SoC and first true highly-integrated-solution, since old Intel mentality liked to speak about "vertically integrated platforms" without explicitly mentioning just how much chips you need in order to have a functional platform (we all remember two-chip "platforms" that require 4-5 chips to work). Be that as it may, Intel's "Medfield" chip is the first true SoC which will compete against Apple's A-Series, NVIDIA Tegra, Qualcomm Snapdragon, Samsung Exynos, Texas Instruments OMAP and the likes. Out of all the chips mentioned above, only Samsung's Exynos is currently manufactured in 32nm process, just like Medfield. Few weeks ahead of the official launch, we now have first performance numbers of "Medfield Tablet Platform". The actual development has an x86 processing core operating at 1.6GHz, 1GB LP-DDR2, WLAN/Bluetooth/FM Radio chip of unnamed manufacturer, 10.1", 1280x800 resolution screen and eMMC/micro-SD card for removable storage. The benchmarks were performed on Honeycomb (Android 3.x) while the shipping products will utilize the Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.x) operating system. So, what the performance is? Intel Medfield 1.6GHz currently scores around 10,500 in Caffeinemark 3. For comparison, NVIDIA Tegra 2 scores around 7500, while Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8260 scores 8000. Samsung Exynos is the current king of the crop, scoring 8500. True - we're waiting for the first Tegra 3 results to come through. There are more tests being mentioned to us, but needless to say - Intel should have a competitive part... at least as far as performance goes. The second and more important part is how much power does it actually consumes. As it stands right now, the prototype version is consuming 2.6W in idle with the target being 2W, while the worst case scenarios are video playback: watching the video at 720p in Adobe Flash format will consume 3.6W, while the target for shipping parts should be 1W less (2.6W).

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Can Intel achieve these performance targets in shipping parts with all the limitations that mass-manufactured parts have only time will tell.

Upcoming Dual Xeon E5 Socket 2011 boards: How about 4 x 16 PCIe slots, native? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/upcoming-dual-xeon-e5-socket-2011boards-how-about-4-x-16-pcie-slots-native-/14357.html December 27th, 2011

Some 3 months from now, the new-generation Dual Socket 2011 Xeon platform will be out now. What to do with the 80 PCIe 3.0 lanes on it? Sometime in March, after the widely known delays, the Dual Socket 2011 processors and boards - the Xeon E5 'Romley' platform - should finally be out. One interesting new feature is, of course, 80 PCIe 3.0 lanes in total on each of those boards, as each chip has 40 of them. That is, of course, in addition to PCIe 2.0 lanes going to the I/O chips. Now, you could obviously have four full x16 v3 PCIe slots there for quad graphics card setups, as well as an extra pair of x8 slots for, say, superfast SSD enterprise card and an interconnect board, but will any boards actually implement that, and what can be supported on them if you want to set up a parallel graphics rig? The EVGA SR-X mainboard is the only one known up to now to have the support for both SLI and CrossFire among the Dual Socket 2011 offerings expected at launch, including of course quad-GPU modes of both parallel graphics combinations. Other boards expected, such as Intel 'Crown Pass' , have even more slots than the SR-X, but, as of now, are only expected to support CrossFire from AMD - including the quad mode - at launch. Intel's mobo is, in a way, more flexible slot-wise than the EVGA one as you can put in four full double-width GPUs at their own x16 slots, and still have one more PCIe slot available for other things such as DSP sound or SSD or whatever. And, it has full 16 DIMM slots for DDR3-1600+ memory. Either way, both boards are gigantic size wise, Intel is also there this time with the 14 x 15 inch format.

Worried about GPUs that are on PCIe lanes from different CPUs communicating slowly? Well, don't worry so much. Remember there are TWO QPI links between those Xeon E5's? Each running at 8 GT/s, the same raw lane speed as PCIe v3, for better sync? The 64 GB/s interprocessor bandwidth provided by these two links should support a fair bit of interGPU communication in this case, in parallel with the intercore comms from both CPUs. Anyway, can't wait to see the new stuff - especially if Intel does come out with the unlocked SKUs of these Xeon E5's at launch...

Creative's Sound Core3D gets nekkid in front of the camera Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/creative-s-sound-core3d-gets-nekkidin-front-of-the-camera/14353.html December 27th, 2011

Remember that "quad core" sound chip Creative announced back in September? Well, the first reviews are starting to come in now and we're finally getting a look at the actual chip. It turns out that we were almost right in suspecting that the Sound Core3D wasn't quite what Creative made it sound like. Remember that "quad core" sound chip Creative announced back in September? Well, the first reviews are starting to come in now and we're finally getting a look at the actual chip. It turns out that we were almost right in suspecting that the Sound Core3D wasn't quite what Creative made it sound like.

December 27th, 2011

The chip is in fact nestling underneath the "heatsink" on the boards, but it's a rather tiny chip as unveiled by Impress PC Watch. The model name is CA0132 and for those that care, it's made in Taiwan. The chip we initially presumed was the Sound Core3D is labelled CA0113 and is made in Korea, although we're not quite certain what the functionality of it is, especially as this chip is missing from ASRock's Game Blaster card, which co-incidentally was also torn down. ASRock also seems to be using higher quality capacitors than Creative.

Published by: VR-Zone December 27th, 2011

We've already reported on Intel's upcoming Centerton Atom SoCs that are expected to arrive around Q2 next year, but it seems like this might be the saviour of Intel's Atom processors in the long run. This is one of the few market spaces where Intel can really compete with ARM, as an ARM processor in a NAS doesn't generally offer the kind of performance an x86 chip can, not even that of an Atom processor. We've already reported on Intel's upcoming Centerton Atom SoCs that are expected to arrive around Q2 next year, but it seems like this might be the saviour of Intel's Atom processors in the long run. This is one of the few market spaces where Intel can really compete with ARM, as an ARM processor in a NAS doesn't generally offer the kind of performance an x86 chip can, not even that of an Atom processor.

What's more is that the Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional is using exactly the same PCB as the standard Recon3D, with the only addition that we could spot being a pair of red LED lights. You do of course get a red rather than blue "heatsink" and that shielding with a window in it. It's actually quite amusing to see that ASRock has managed to squeeze in a lot more on its card, yet the PCB is about half the size. Sadly our Japanese is more than lacking, but our gist of the article on Impress PC Watch seems to suggest that anyone that has an X-Fi card should hang on to it, as the Sound Core3D is not a step up. Apparently for voice chat/calls the Sound Core3D is the better choice, but in terms of audio quality and for gaming it can't keep up with the older X-Fi based cards. It's not hard to see why when you take into consideration that we're talking about a far simpler chip here judging it solely on its size and packaging. Considering the pricing â&#x20AC;&#x201C; at least in Singapore â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is identical between the new Sound Core3D cards and their older X-Fi siblings, we know what we'd get. Source: Impress PC Watch (in Japanese)

Intel hoping that the NAS market will save Atom, if all else fails Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-hoping-that-the-nas-market-willsave-atom-if-all-else-fails/14352.html

Digitimes is reporting that Intel is shifting a lot more of its focus towards Centerton which is designed for the NAS and entry-level server market. As a single chip SoC this is an ideal chip for this market space, although an external storage controller is still needed. At least Intel has been smart this time around and offered plenty of PCI Express lanes so a wide range of add-in storage controllers could be added for various market segments. Intel already holds a fair share of the NAS market with its Atom processors, but most are far from ideal as we're looking at two or three chip solutions with poor support for anything but software RAID. This is something Centerton would address by allowing third party storage controllers to be used and we have a feeling Intel will have some solutions of its own to pair of up with the new Atom chips. It's a logical move as there has been a sharp drop in the sales of netbooks, even though Intel will have a new platform ready before the end of the year which should be more appealing to consumers thanks to full HD video playback and HDMI connectivity to mention a couple of key features Intel has finally added. We'll see how things unfold for Intel, as the company should finally be making a big push into the tablet and smartphone market come next year, but the company is going to have a rough time staying competitive here against the latest generation of ARM processors which are also expected to arrive next year.

Samsung is hoping for 2012 to be the year of transparent LCDs Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-is-hoping-for-2012-to-be-theyear-of-transparent-lcds/14351.html

December 27th, 2011 December 27th, 2011

Ahead of CES Samsung has been busy pimping all sorts of technologies, but it seems like the company is very serious about transparent LCDs and in this case we're looking at large screen applications. We're not sure if the world is ready for this technology as yet and it looks like we've got a while to go until it's anywhere near to become mainstream. Ahead of CES Samsung has been busy pimping all sorts of technologies, but it seems like the company is very serious about transparent LCDs and in this case we're looking at large screen applications. We're not sure if the world is ready for this technology as yet and it looks like we've got a while to go until it's anywhere near to become mainstream. Samsung is trying to convince the world that it needs to implements its LTI460AP01 transparent LCD into various movie like solutions, although so far it seems like most of the applications are in fact for the advertising industry. The LTI460AP01 isn't quite on par with your average 46-inch LCD display in terms of resolution either, as it only manages 1366x768 compared to 1920x1080 for your average LCD TV these days, but that's kind of beside the point here.

Published by: VR-Zone

that replaces the windows in mass transit trains for some large screen browsing, although we're most likely having slightly too high hopes here.

Sony and Samsung part ways on LCD partnership Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-and-samsung-part-ways-on-lcdpartnership/14350.html December 27th, 2011

The two consumer electronics giants Sony and Samsung has decided to part ways on their joint LCD manufacturing business, S-LCD with Samsung taking the reins. This doesn't come free for Samsung though, as the company is paying a fair amount of cash up front to Sony to take over the LCD manufacturing business on its own. The two consumer electronics giants Sony and Samsung has decided to part ways on their joint LCD manufacturing business, S-LCD with Samsung taking the reins. This doesn't come free for Samsung though, as the company is paying a fair amount of cash up front to Sony to take over the LCD manufacturing business on its own. Samsung has agreed to pay Sony a cash lump sum of around US$940 million for Sony's 50 percent in the joint venture; not exactly a small sum of money, but this is only part of the agreement between the two companies. As it happens, the two companies have signed a strategic agreement where Sony will source LCD panels from Samsung, although at market price. Sony's press release suggests that this is a good thing for Sony, as the company no longer needs to be worried about the actual manufacturing process or the cost of running the factories.

One of the selling points according to Samsung is the fact that as long as there's enough daylight/artificial light, there's no need to switch on any kind of backlight. As you might've figured out by now, the backlight is the most power hungry component in an LCD screen and Samsung claims that the LTI460AP01 uses only 10 percent of the electricity of a comparable LCD panel with backlight. That said, the LTI460AP01 isn't void of backlight, as it can be switched on when there isn't enough light coming from behind the panel. So far we've seen mostly what we feel is fairly tacky attempts at selling and promoting transparent LCDs where objects are put behind the panel in a way that they can be seen as a part of what is usually some kind of advertisement being displayed on the screen and Samsung's demo pictures are more of the same. Now we're sure that there are applications where a transparent LCD would indeed be useful and we're hoping for a day when you can connect your smartphone wirelessly to such a display

Sony will still be working with Samsung on the research and engineering side of things to bring out better and more advanced LCD panels and as such Sony will still have some level of control in terms of the products that Samsung will be manufacturing. The deal is set to be closed by the end of January as long as it passes the approval procedures by the various regulatory authorities.

Club3D Radeon HD 6870 X2 Review - Two Barts XT go against the big boys Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/club3d-radeon-hd-6870-x2-review-two-barts-xt-go-against-the-big-boys/14349.html December 27th, 2011

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

What happens when you slap two mid-range Barts XT (Radeon 6870) GPUs on a single board? Not too shabby at all... Netherlands based Club3D products are mainly distributed and sold in Europe and Indonesia - so our predominently American and Singapore readers won't find them on local shelves.

Needs 2 x 8 pin PCIe power connectors

2 Mini-DP, a DVI-D and DVI-I and a single HDMI port.

The 12 inch (30.48cm) long Radeon HD 6870 X2. Its cooling solution, dubbed "CoolStream", uses 6 heatpipes and 2 silent fans to dissipate heat

Accessories and Documentation. The card also comes with a free copy of the DiRT3 racing game

December 27th, 2011

Chinese high end CPUs are now in the game - details: Part 3 - ARM and others

Published by: VR-Zone

The Hangzhou-based NationalChip licensed the ARM over 3 years ago, with specific focus on derivatives for digital entertainment, mainly digital TV sets and set-top boxes. Considered as one of top ten Chinese IC design companies by EETimes China, the company offers GX1100, 1200, 1500, and 3000 families of integrated SoC-approach components for digital entertainment.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/chinese-high-end-cpus-are-now-in-thegame--details-part-3--arm-and-others/14348.html December 27th, 2011

In this final part of the Chinese CPU development coverage, we look at the local ARM processor flavours, as well as China's own instruction set attempts aimed at the general market. While MIPS and Alpha were at the forefront of RISC high end architecture development, the sole Europe-developed surviving instruction set architecture, ARM, was from the very start in 1985 aimed at the entry level - whether it was the BBC micro home computer successor then, or the myriad of smartphones and netbooks today. The Chinese have embraced ARM architecture as well for this part of the market, with several licenses up to now. These cover the full spectrum of consumer devices, from smartphones and tablets to netbooks, DTV settop boxes and car gadgets. The Fuzhou-based RockChip offers Cortex A8-based custom ARM CPUs and SoC chips for personal entertainment devices. Their newest RK29xx is the first chip to decode Google's WebM VP8 in hardware. The 1.2 GHz CPU with 512 KB L2 cache also has an integrated 60 million polygons/s GPU as well as DSP-accelerated 1080p playback and encoding in most formats. It supports tablets and smartphones with up to 1280x800 displays. A dual-core version is supposedly under development as well.

Then, the Shanghai-based Leadcore Technology, the chip design arm of Chinese communications equipment company Datang Group, is working on custom ARM processors based on the Cortex-A9 MPCore, the ARM Mali-400 MP graphics core and Cortex-A9 optimization pack for the TSMC 40 nm low power process technology. Their focus is putting together uni and dual-core versions of such chips with its own baseband chip to target high-end smartphones based on the China's 3G standard, TD-SCDMA.

Another Shanghai company, Brite Semiconductor Corp., a fabless startup founded in 2008, has licensed most major ARM processor cores, including Cortex, ARM9, ARM11 and Mali on a long term arrangement. The license also covers Coresight debug and trace technology and peripherals that are compliant with the AMBA on-chip bus. Brite provides design services to electronics companies and works with SMIC, the 9

December 27th, 2011

local foundry, on the manufacturing side. They have already successfully output 40 nm chips from this foundry earlier this year. Yet another company from 'New New York' of Asia, Shanghai InfoTM Micro-electronics, has licences the ARM11 processor core, Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A9 processor cores and the Mali300 and Mali400 GPUs for 3-D enabled mobile computing devices to be manufactured by Shuoying Digital Science & Technology (China) Co. Ltd. which is its both owner and main customer. They also have multicore ICs ready as of now. In Zhuhai , AllWinner, focusing on HD media semiconductors, took the ARM Cortex-A8 processor and the Mali-400 MP GPU for their own HD-enabed procssors to be used with a range of Android OS-based tablets, smart TVs, personal media players, eBooks, smart media boxes, IP cameras and automotive multimedia gadgets. The Allwinner Technology SoC designs are available since this past summer. Finally, we look at the ultimate approach - designing your own instruction set from ground up, a venture few dare to try, especially these days since X86 is pre dominant for the past decade across the board. ICube, a Shenzhen company, created the Harmony Unified Processor Technology, which is supposed to tightly integrate two different processor types, CPU and GPU, into one unified core - sounds somewhat like AMD Fusion approach, but with a fresh instruction set optimised from scratch for the purpose. This technology consists of the Multi-Thread Virtual Pipeline parallel computing core (MVP), an independent instruction set architecture (ISA), an optimizing compiler and the Agile Switch dynamic load balancer.

Published by: VR-Zone

GPU support for Data parallel, Task parallel, and Function parallel computing with minimised interrupt and context switch overhead due to multithreading, and heterogeneous GPGPU applications with both OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenCL support. Each core has 64KB I-Cache , 64KB D-Cache, 64KB SRAM and 32-bit GPR file, 8-channel DMA and 16-source interrupt controller. Each core only takes 3.0 mm2, including memory, with operating power of about 300mw. The built in support both homogeneous (OpenMP and such) and heterogeneous (OpenCL and such) parallel programming APIs through native compiler and MVP drivers is quite a good news here, as a new ISA needs the easiest possible programming enablement to ensure software support. In summary, China is covering the ground well at the mainstream level as well, ensuring a well varied supply of CPUs for all classes of consumer devices, having ARM compatibility yet local cost, design and manufacturing control. At the same time, going for its own instruction sets is the next frontier. Images Credits to Products of Respective Vendors

Chinese high end CPUs are now in the game - details: Part 2, Alpha Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/chinese-high-end-cpus-are-now-in-thegame--details--part-2-alpha/14347.html December 27th, 2011

Earlier, we looked at the background of Chinese high end microprocessor effort, as well as the most widely known of them, the Loongson MIPS family. In this second part, we cover Alpha.

Even though these are big-named things reminiscent of what you see in servers, ICube's technology is actually used in small SoC solutions for the hand-held computing and communication market, with a focus on the Android OS. The initial product, ICube IC1, is a 600 MHz dual core 32-bit SoC with 8 threads (4 per core) in parallel and 5160 DMIPs declared throughput, a 70 million polygon/s, 600 Mpixel/s GPU, and a host of integrated features such as FullHD display driver up to 1920x1200 with HDMI/DVI, a camera interface, 720p video acceleration, 5.1 audio, memory card, USB, 3G and Wifi connectivity. What's interesting here is not only the fine grained CPU multithreading with OpenMP and Pthread (both used in HPC and general SMP apps a lot) support , but also the

Alpha was, for the long time around the turn of the century, the Formula 1 of microprocessors with its very simple, elegant yet extremely scalable RISC architecture focused on raw speed, and pure 64-bitness without any 32-bit modes or compatibility baggage. Between 1993 and 2001, the time of its untimely murder, it owned the majority of performance records, especially when it came to the processor performance - DEC (Digital Equipment Corp) system designers were sometimes too stingy with the memory and I/O systems, allowing other vendors to occassionally win the accolades in those tests. The most well known of those cores, the one that had the highest comparative performance advantage vs the competition, was 21164 a.k.a EV 5 family, which span three semicon process generations - 0.50, 0.35 and 0.25 microns. The most widely spread volume-wise was the 0.35 micron 21164A in 1996-7, reaching up to 667 MHz, and beating the contemporary 266 MHz Pentium II by over two times in most benchmark tests of the time. The 21164 core, a simple but very 10

December 27th, 2011

high clock-optimised four-issue in-order design with two FP ops per clock, was also the most performance efficient of all Alphas, taking some 25 Watts at 667 MHz vs 75 Watts for the 600 MHz Pentium III 'Katmai' which followed few years later, still at lesser performance. The subsequent Alpha cores, such as 21264 EV6, brought up to double the performance per-clock, however at three times the power consumption per clock, a point very important when looking at the choices made later in this story. The 21264 out-of order core was also scaled across three processes, including derivatives made by Samsung, the major Alpha architecture licensee. It, and its successor 21364 EV7, carried the performance torch until 2002 or so, well after Alpha's further public development was stopped. Do note the memory and I/O interconnect revolution with the EV7 - while the core was basically the same EV6 type, the on-chip 1.75 MB L2 cache, a 10-channel integrated Rambus memory controller with humongous memory bandwidth basically matching that of the L2 cache and enabling that cache to act as a low latency buffer for the memory system, and four parallel 6.4 GB/s coherent interconnect links to other 4 processors, scaling up to 512 sockets with directory support, were a revolution for year 2000 computing. Such things were only seen in PCs 5 years later with HyperTransport from AMD first, later followed by QPI from Intel. BOTH THESE INTERCONNECTS ARE DERIVED FROM OVER A DECADE-OLD ALPHA EV7.

Published by: VR-Zone

such as Jack Dongarra, the man behing TOP500 list and Linpack FP benchmark. SW3 aka SW1600 is a 16-core, 64-bit RISC processor, with each core looking a lot like an improved version of the 21164A EV56 Alpha core, plus vector FP unit extension added to each core. While the initial speed range was 1 to 1.2 GHz in the 65nm process, the standard speed grade is a 1.1 GHz chip with 141 GFLOPs DP FP performance. The speed set for the Bluelight Petaflop machine's Top 500 run was 975 MHz, though. The quad-channel 128-bit DDR3 on-chip memory controller offers 68 GB/s bandwidth - yes, equivalent to 8 channels of DDR3-1066 server RAM. The L1 and L2 cache sizes are still rather minuscule for modern CPUs, being kept at the original 21164 sizes of 2 x 8 KB L1 and 96 KB L2, however it has enabled both very small cores and also very, very low cache latencies, down to two clock cycles for L1. You can see the CPU block diagram here.

Add to that more. The 21464 EV8, aimed for release in 2002 if things continued as originally planned, was to be the first processor with eight-issue wide superscalar out-oforder symmetrically multithreaded core, and we mean four threads out of each core here. The 'EV9' 21564 design was expected to add multi-core and huge, wide vector unit - up to 1 KILOBYTE wide - capability to the mix, enabling well over 100 GFLOPS DP floating point performance per core for 2004 timeframe. Remember, we are only now reaching such capabilities in late 2011, and need 6 to 8 cores for that. Anyway, the multithreading and vector enhancements designed well ahead of their time into the EV8 and EV9, never saw the light of the day in the open market. In the late nineties, China saw the value and capability of Alpha, and built a number of Alpha systems, some of them very large for the time. It also fully licenced the Digital / Tru64 UNIX and related software stack, including getting the full source code, from Compaq after the latter bought DEC then, giving China the critical software control part. At the same time, having seen the business instabilities linked to the Digital-Compaq-HP transition, China seems to have been working on having its own Alpha flavour. After over a decade of work and three generations of CPUs, Jiangnan Reseach Lab has shown the ShenWei (Sunway) SW-3 processor, the Chinese flavour of Alpha, not in a small workstation, not in a server, but in no less than a huge petaflop-class supercomputer machine in Jinan, Shandong the Sunway BlueLight MPP, this past October. The CPU itself runs for over a year in a variety of systems, but displaying it running a petaflop machine was probably the best PR one could get, especially since foreign supercomputing dignitaries

As mentioned before, 21164 core was the most power efficient of all Alphas, and also one of the most power/performance 64bit high end CPU cores of all time, excluding the mainstream, entry level or embedded processors. So, the choice of that core for all these years by the Chinese, although they obviously - as the Loongson case shows - had plenty of resources to improve 11

December 27th, 2011

the EV6 or even EV8 cores if they wanted to - seems to prove right at this point. Remember Intel's Knights Corner, or the AMD GCN GPU architecture for compute? The Knights Corner, being a compute version of the abandoned Larrabee project, uses a core even simpler - and slower - than Alpha 21164, basically a 64-bit version of the old Pentium, enhanced with much higher bandwidth, to act as a feeder to a vector unit behing it that provides very very fast FP. Stick a 50-odd of those on one chip, with the right cache and interconnect in between, and you got a good accelerator. The Compute Units in the AMD 7970 aren't that much different, although they are based on a native optimised architecture, rather than cumbersome X86. So, in the Shenwei SW3, you have a simple, well proven 4way (still double the issue of Pentium or Atom per cycle) superscalar in-order core with very small die footprint for today's processes, yet improved and with enhanced bandwidth to feed a simple, AVX-like throughput vector unit. What's the vector unit's speed then? If you normalise the speed to 1 GHz, it'd give you 8 GFLOPs DP per core, or 8 flops per cycle - not bad at all for a 2010 chip using an enhanced 1995 core! All that at very low, below 40 watts (official figures not available) per socket power consumption despite the old 65 nm process. And, the sustained performance and power consumption in the Sunway Bluelight petaflop system were the proof of the pudding: the water-cooled 9-rack machine has 8,704 ShenWei SW1600 processors (only 8,575 of them ran the Top100 bench at 975 MHz each) organized as 34 Super Nodes (each consisting of 256 compute nodes), 150TB main memory, 2PB external storage, peak performance of 1.07 PFLOPS, sustained performance of 796 TFLOPS, efficiency 74.37%, and total power consumption 1074KW, figures that compare very well against competitive US supercomputer systems such as X86based Jaguar. What does the future hold for Shenwei? Well, it can either confinue where the Alpha was stopped, moving to 8-issue cores (even in-order architecture can do it these days since the compiler and scheduling evolved a lot over the past decade) and much faster FP per core, with fresh cache and memory architectures , or just tweak the current core and pack more of them in a single die at higher clock speeds as well, with wider vector units and more memory bandwidth to feed all that, a bit like RISC cousin of Knights Corner, but a true CPU here, instead of just an accelerator. Either can lead to teraflop-on-chip soon too, and either will require a rapid jump in semiconductor process used, down to 32 nm or 28 nm nodes - just like Loongson is expected to do this coming year.

Published by: VR-Zone

resources to confinue developing Shenwei on its own, with sufficient internal market. However, when it decides to go fully commercial with the effort, there will be plenty of interested partners worldwide to embrace the old-new Formula 1 of microprocessors yet again, this time with a far more stable supplier, business wise, than DECompaq was. The Part 3 will look at the ARM and native CPUs of China. Photo Credits: it168.com

First Looks: Cooler Master Silent Pro M2 1000W Power Supply Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/first-looks-cooler-master-silent-prom2-1000w-power-supply/14345.html December 27th, 2011

The original Silent Pro M series of power supplies from Cooler Master was a cult hit with overclockers, thanks to its attractive pricing, decent efficiency and single 12V rail modular cable design. It is also the power supply that we feature in most of our motherboard and graphic card reviews. We take an exclusive look at its 80+ Silver rated successor which will be coming out next year - Silent Pro M2 1000W. Front of Box. The

Back of Box

Keep in mind that Alpha left behind a strong software library, not forgetting the Alpha-based Cray T3 system series here as well, and this includes one of the best UNIXes ever, as well as great compilers, optimised libraries, and much more. Coupled with its own software base, China has sufficient 12

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Specifications and ratings - 80A on a single 12v rail!

Corsair Force 3 90GB SSD drive review Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/corsair-force-3-90gb-ssd-drivereview/14346.html December 27th, 2011

Corsair started off as one of the biggest RAM manufacturers but today the company has diversified into several other critical segments of the market. Lately the company has been a very big player in the SSD segment of the technology market, offering a very wide range of products and with ever increasing sales; especially after the Thailand catastrophe which tripled the prices of mechanical drives. A month ago we reviewed the fastest consumer SSD drive Corsair currently produces, the Force GT 180GB drive. Today we are going to thoroughly test and review the 90GB version of the considerably cheaper Force 3 mainstream series the company offers, the Force 3 90GB SSD, a product primarily designed to be used as a standalone very fast OS/boot drive. Modular PCIe/SATA molex cables

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Interface: SATA 3 6Gb/s

Storage technology: Asynchronous NAND

Operating temperature: 0° C to +70° C

Storage temperature: -20° C to +85° C

Operating Humidity: 10% to 90% RH (0° to +40° C)

Maximum Operating Altitude: 3,048 m (up to 10,000 ft.)

· Maximum Non-Operative Altitude: 12,192 m (up to 40,000 ft.) Unformatted Capacity Read Performance (max sequential) Write Performance (max sequential) Random Write 4k (max) Form Factor Interface Type Onboard cache Operating Temperature Storage Temperature Operating Humidity

90 GB 550 MB/s

ECS Wi-Bridge does what Intel's WiDi does on the cheap

500 MB/s

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ecs-wi-bridge-does-what-intel-s-wididoes-on-the-cheap/14344.html December 27th, 2011

85,000 IOPS (4k aligned) 2.5” SATA 3 6Gb/s NA 0C to +70C -20C to +85C 10% to 90% RH (0° to +40° C) Storage Humidity 5% to 90% RH (-10° to +60° C) Maximum Operating Altitude 3,048 m (up to 10,000 ft.) Maximum Non-Operating 12,192 m (up to 40,000 ft.) Altitude

Star Wars: The Old Republic PC MMORPG Review Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/star-wars-the-old-republic-pcmmorpg-review/14343.html December 27th, 2011

Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) launched this week and we spent some time in game exploring what it has to offer and whether or not you should free up some time to play in a galaxy far, far away. Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) launched this week and we spent some time in game exploring what it has to offer and whether or not you should free up some time to play in a galaxy far, far away.

Intel has been pushing its WiDi/Wireless Display video streaming over Wi-Fi technology for a while now, but the technology has to caveats, as not only does your notebook need to have one of a somewhat limited range of Intel Wi-Fi cards, but you also need to have a fairly costly receiver. ECS seems to have solved both of these problems at once with its Wi-Bridge which appears to do everything that WiDi does, just without the limitations. Intel has been pushing its WiDi/Wireless Display video streaming over Wi-Fi technology for a while now, but the technology has to caveats, as not only does your notebook need to have one of a somewhat limited range of Intel Wi-Fi cards, but you also need to have a fairly costly receiver. ECS seems to have solved both of these problems at once with its Wi-Bridge which appears to do everything that WiDi does, just without the limitations. The Wi-Bridge itself might not be the most stylish piece of hardware we've ever seen, but it's a rather unobtrusive looking wedge of plastic with a small Wi-Fi antenna at the back. There are only three physical connectors, a power connector, an HDMI port and a side mounted USB 2.0 port. Details as to what technology or even what chips are inside the Wi-Bridge are things that ECS has conveniently left out at the moment, but it could be based on the Broadcom hardware we saw back in June at Computex which relies on Wi-Fi Direct.

BioWare's online game is like many other MMOs, particularly the leader in the field, World of Warcraft, but it also adds a lot to the table that other games lack, not to mention adding little time-saving features throughout that make for a more pleasant gaming experience. 14

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Sony's PS Vita arrives in Taiwan, lacks 3G, costs less Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sony-s-ps-vita-arrives-in-taiwanlacks-3g-costs-less/14342.html December 27th, 2011

In an unusual turn of events, Taiwan will get Sony's new portable games console – the PlayStation Vita – ahead of the US, something of a rare occasion as Taiwan is rarely seen as a key market for gaming consoles. Although Taiwan is only getting the Wi-Fi version for the time being units are available for purchase now and are expected to ship on Monday. That said, ECS claims that the Wi-Bridge works with not only notebooks, but also desktops, smartphones, tablets and even USB flash drives, although presumably it doesn't stream from the latter over Wi-Fi. What we do know with regards to the specifications is that the Wi-Bridge has 256MB of DDR2 memory and 256MB of NAND flash and it currently supports English and Chinese. The details on ECS' website are sadly in somewhat incomprehensible Chinglish, but as far as we can make it, the Wi-Bridge is meant to work with some kind of remote control and/or wireless mouse to control the playback and it comes with some kind of PC software that we presume is intended for this purpose. As with Intel's WiDi, the WiBridge supports 1080p video playcak and ECS claims a range of 10-30m depending on the usual limitations of Wi-Fi.

The Wi-Bridge doesn't just allow you to stream video, but it can also be used to either mirror or extend your desktop wirelessly to a second display. ECS is suggesting that it's an ideal solution for presentations and we'd say as much as it could be an interesting solution for ceiling mounted projectors if nothing else, especially if it works as well as ECS claims with a wide range of devices. No word on pricing or availability, but we'd presume that ECS will be demoing the Wi-Bridge at CES in a few weeks' time and it should be a more affordable solution than Intel's WiDi either which way.

However, buying a games console without games doesn't make a lot of sense, so you can also pick up various bundles that come with a selection of games (one per bundle), a 4GB memory card and an accessory pack for NT$11,350 (US$374/ S$485). Oddly enough, the bundle with Dynasty Warriors: Next is an additional NT$300 (US$10/S$13) than the other bundles.

Radeon HD 7990 coming in Q1, sports 6GB of GDDR5 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/radeon-hd-7990-coming-in-q1sports-6gb-of-gddr5/14341.html

December 27th, 2011 December 27th, 2011

If the Radeon HD 7970 just didn’t cut it for you, it seems like you won’t have to wait long for AMD’s dual GPU card which should be known as the Radeon HD 7990, as it’s expected to arrive in Q1. So far not much is known about the specs, apart from the fact that the card will have two "Tahiti" GPUs and apparently 6GB of GDDR5 memory. If the Radeon HD 7970 just didn’t cut it for you, it seems like you won’t have to wait long for AMD’s dual GPU card which should be known as the Radeon HD 7990, as it’s expected to arrive in Q1. So far not much is known about the specs, apart from the fact that the card will have two "Tahiti" GPUs and apparently 6GB of GDDR5 memory. The Radeon HD 7990 has so far been known as the "New Zealand" and will as the Radeon HD 6990 sport a pair of GPUs on a single card. The clock speeds will most likely be slightly lower for each GPU than that of a single GPU card, as despite the die shrink to 28nm we’re not exactly looking at a halving of the heat output by the new GPUs.

Published by: VR-Zone

Targus first with DisplayLink USB 3.0 based notebook dock Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/targus-first-with-displaylink-usb-3.0based-notebook-dock/14340.html December 27th, 2011

If you're looking to add some more connectivity options to your USB 3.0 equipped notebook, then Targus might have what you've been looking for in the same of its USB 3.0 dual video docking station. The key feature here is that it sports DisplayLink's new USB 3.0 touting chipset which enables support for much higher resolutions than its USB 2.0 offerings If you're looking to add some more connectivity options to your USB 3.0 equipped notebook, then Targus might have what you've been looking for in the same of its USB 3.0 dual video docking station. The key feature here is that it sports DisplayLink's new USB 3.0 touting chipset which enables support for much higher resolutions than its USB 2.0 offerings. The USB 3.0 dual video docking station has – as the name suggests – a pair of display connectors, in this case a DVI and an HDMI port and Targus claim support for resolutions of up to 2560x1600, the highest possible from DisplayLink's DL-3900 series of chips. The DL-3900 also sports built in support for Gigabit Ethernet and audio, two features Targus has taken advantage of by adding an Ethernet port around the back and a pair of audio jacks on the right hand side of the docking wedge.

The for AMD new 384-bit memory interface should have 6GB of GDDR5 memory attached to it, as it’s hard to see AMD going for half the memory per GPU compared to the Radeon HD 7970. This adds up to more memory dedicated to a single graphics card than what you get in the average PC today. Another interesting aspect is of course AMD’s new ZeroCore power saving technology which should hopefully allow one of the GPUs on the card to be powered down entirely when it’s not needed. This should allow for a significant power saving when non GPU intensive tasks are being performed on the computer a Radeon HD 7990 card would be fitted to. We’ll just have to wait and see how things develop, but it looks like we don’t have too long to wait and if nothing else, AMD seems to be timing Intel’s Ivy Bridge platform pretty well here too, as there should hopefully be a decent amount of cards in the retail market by then. Source: TechPowerUp

The dock also gives you a pair of USB 3.0 ports and a total of four USB 2.0 ports. We should point out that the bandwidth is of course shared between all the various ports on the dock, so don't expect full speed out of the USB 3.0 ports. Still, this is a compromise we're sure a lot of users are willing to live with. There's also a security lock slot and a power connector to be found on the dock. Targus supplies a 6A power adapter with the dock and two of the USB ports provides extra power and can be used for charging devices without the need of a notebook being connected to the dock. The only downside is that Targus is hoping that you'll be willing to shell out US$199 on the dock, not exactly cheap for what's on offer, but at least it's a convenient solution for those that need it. In all fairness there are very few options and this is as far as we're aware, the first product based on DisplayLink's 16

December 27th, 2011

DL-3900 chip and as such the first USB 3.0 based "graphics card" to support resolutions up to 2560x1600.

Vietnamese store makes Christmas tree from 2,500 mobile phones Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/vietnamese-store-makes-christmastree-from-2-500-mobile-phones/14339.html December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

It took 10 staff to build the tree over a two week period, which makes for a significant investment, but it appears to be paying off, as upwards of 800 people visit the site on a daily basis, which is both good news for the environmental campaign and the store's publicity. The tree will be auctioned off in 2012, with the proceeds going to charity. A larger mobile phone Christmas tree is being planned for next year. Source & Image Credit: Associated Press

GIGABYTE X79-UD7 Overclocking Review A Vietnamese electronics store is getting in the festive mood with a 15-foot Christmas tree made from 2,500 old mobile phones.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/gigabyte-x79-ud7-overclockingreview/14332.html December 27th, 2011

A Vietnamese electronics store is getting in the festive mood with a 15-foot Christmas tree made from 2,500 old mobile phones. Westcom Electronics, in the city of My Tho in the Tien Giang province, erected the tree not just to celebrate the holiday season, but to raise awareness about environmental issues, including the disposal of hazardous waste materials like mobile phones. With new phones coming out on a regular basis and many people getting one for Christmas, old phones can often end up in a dump, rather than being recycled. These devices usually contain toxic heavy metals that can cause significant harm to people, wildlife, and the environment, making it increasingly important that they are disposed of in a safe manner.

Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take a look at GIGABYTE's latest top dog overclocking LGA2011 motherboard, the X79-UD7. It is equipped with slot configuration for quad SLI, a new IR digital PWM with a 16 phase VRM, tons of cool overclocking features all in an XLATX form factor. Follow us as we go over every single feature, test out GIGABYTE's new UEFI BIOS, and overclock this bad boy. We will do a comparison of stock VS a typical high end overclock for 24/7and see how much performance we gain. So letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take a look at what GIGABYTE has dished out as their new OC board! Introduction:

Today we venture into the world of GIGABYTE's LGA2011 top overclocking board, the X79-UD7. With all the dazzle of their X58A-OC GIGABYTE has produced a quite similar beast in terms of features and specs. The X58A-OC was a board targeted towards overclockers and only overclockers, since then we heard that GIGABYTE sales decided that a board with the -OC moniker wouldn't sell well. So now it looks like GIGABYTE has replaced their traditional UD7 with a sort 17

December 27th, 2011

of hybrid. The X79-UD7 doesn't carry many more features than the other boards when it comes to connectivity, but it is unique in its own right. Equipped with only 4-DIMMs compared to the UD5's 8, and with the ability to run quad GPU configurations in an XL-ATX (1 expansion slot more than regular ATX) package, the UD7 is an overclocker's dream or so it seems. If you owned or saw the original X58A-OC you've witnessed GIGABYTE's finest OC board with the exception of the X58A-UD9. When you look at the X79-UD7 you see an uncanny resemblance to the X58A-OC. It might be because of the orange/black color scheme, or the frequency buttons and read points, or maybe the hefty VRM and dual 8-pin power connectors that give it away but the X79-UD7 is an X79-OC in disguise.

Published by: VR-Zone

CPU Support

1. Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors in the LGA2011 package 2. L3 cache varies with CPU

Chipset Memory

Intel ® X79 Express Chipset 1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory * Due to Windows 32bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB. 2. 4 channel memory architecture 3. Support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules 4. Support for non-ECC memory modules 5. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

The X79 chipset has all the goodies one could ever imagine, except for a few things. First off it is missing USB 3.0, something we hope to see with Intel's Z77 chipset. Second it is missing all of those SAS/SATA6GB/s ports we saw at IDF! That was a lot of SATA/SAS and now we have none of it, we basically have a redo of the Z68 chipset just without SSD Caching and iGPU support. What is more interesting about the LGA2011 platform is what is the CPU has in store for us. Even though the current LGA2011 CPU's lack virtualization and PCI-E 3.0 certification, they still have many features. Quad channel memory controller with supreme overclocking abilities is a plus as is PCI-E 3.0 which can't be claimed until the second stepping gets PCI-SIG certification. We seem to take for granted the 40 PCI-E lanes and native Quad SLI/CF support. With LGA2011 we have Intel moving back to satisfy the overclocker, of course not how we would like, but BLCK straps are nothing to push to the side. Today we will take a look at GIGABYTE’s top LGA2011 board for overclockers, let’s see how it does. Specifications:

Multi-GPU Support

Expansion Slots

(Please refer "Memory Support List" for more information.) Support for 4-Way/3-Way/2Way AMD CrossFireX™/ NVIDIA SLI technology 1. 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2) * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. 2. 2 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2) * The PCIEX8_2 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_2 slot. When the PCIEX8_2 slot is populated, the PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode. 18

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

1. Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)

(All PCI Express x16 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)

Storage

3. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots (All PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.) Chipset:

FireWire GIGABYTE Unique Features

4. Support for Download Center 5. Support for Xpress Install

2. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2/3/4/5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices

6. Support for Xpress Recovery2 7. Support for EasyTune * Available functions in EasyTune may differ by motherboard model.

3. Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 * When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.

8. Support for Smart 6™ 9. Support for eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D) 10. Support for ON/OFF Charge 11. Support for Cloud OC 12. Support for 3TB+ Unlock

2 x Marvell 88SE9172 chips:

LAN Audio

13. Support for TouchBIOS Back Panel I/O Ports

2. Support for SATA RAID 0 and RAID 1 1 x Intel GbE LAN (10/100/1000 Mbit) 1. Realtek ALC898 codec

3. 1 x BIOS switch button 4. 1 x Clear CMOS button 5. 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports

3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel

6. 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports

4. Support for

7. 1 x RJ-45 port

Dolby® Home Theater

8. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector

5. Support for S/PDIF Out Chipset: 1. Up to 14 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (8 ports on the back panel, 6 ports available through the internal USB headers) 2 x Fresco FL1009 chips:

14. Support for Q-Share 1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/ mouse port 2. 1 x CPU overclocking button

2. High Definition Audio

USB

2. Support for Q-Flash 3. Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue

1. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices

1. 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3 6/7/8/9) supporting up to 4 SATA 6Gb/s devices

1. Support for @BIOS

Internal I/O Connectors

9. 5 x audio jacks (Center/ Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In, Mic In, Line Out) 1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 2. 2 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connectors

December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

3. 2 x PCIe power connectors

December 27th, 2011

4. 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 5. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors 6. 1 x CPU fan header 7. 6 x system fan headers 8. 1 x front panel header 9. 1 x front panel audio header 10. 1 x S/PDIF Out header 11. 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers

Siemens has revealed that it is developing security fixes for a number of vulnerabilities in its industrial control products, which could be used by hackers to knock out critical infrastructure like electricity grids, water supplies, oil rigs, hospitals and nuclear facilities. Siemens has revealed that it is developing security fixes for a number of vulnerabilities in its industrial control products, which could be used by hackers to knock out critical infrastructure like electricity grids, water supplies, oil rigs, hospitals and nuclear facilities.

12. 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header 13. 1 x Clear CMOS jumper 14. 1 x power button 15. 1 x reset button 16. 1 x onboard voltage measurement module

One of the vulnerabilities, exposed by security researcher Billy Rios, allows hackers to bypass password protections on web interfaces, breaking down the most basic layer of security on the control systems. Rios said that this authentication bypass could be used by anyone with basic skills, not just experienced hackers.

17. 1 x Gear button 18. 1 x CPU BCLK Down button 19. 1 x CPU BCLK Up button

Siemens industrial control systems are used throughout the world in a wide variety of industries. The potential risks associated with them were first highlighted in 2010 when the Stuxnet virus infected Siemens control systems used by Iran, crippling its nuclear facilities.

20. 1 x CPU Ratio Down button 21. 1 x CPU Ratio Up button

BIOS

22. 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) heade 1. 2 x 64 Mbit flash 2. Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS 3. Support for DualBIOSâ&#x201E;˘

Support Disc

Form Factor

4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a Drivers GIGABYTE Utilities Norton Anti-Virus XL-ATX Form Factor; 32.4cm x 25.3cm

Siemens to fix vulnerabilities in industrial control systems

While the Stuxnet incident is believed to have been orchestrated by a government, security researchers are becoming increasingly concerned that hacker groups could target essential infrastructure and cause significant damage, such as a potential threat to the world's oil supply. Siemens said that it has not yet seen any exploits of these vulnerabilities, but it has developed some fixes for them and will release a security update in January.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/siemens-to-fix-vulnerabilities-inindustrial-control-systems/14338.html

December 27th, 2011

G.Skill RipjawsX DDR3-1600 8GB CL9 Dual Channel Memory Kit Review Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/g.skill-ripjawsx-ddr3-1600-8gb-cl9dual-channel-memory-kit-review/14336.html December 27th, 2011

Today we take a look at a very well priced 8GB dual channel memory kit from G.Skill. This kit has decent timings for an 8GB kit, and we will put it through its paces in terms of overclocking and tweaking. Follow us as we test this memory and see how it does.

Published by: VR-Zone

Rambus has secured a patent licensing agreement with Broadcom over the use of integrated circuit (IC) technology, marking yet another of the company's lucrative deals. Broadcom, which makes semiconductors for the wireless and broadband communications industry, agreed to pay intellectual property holder Rambus to use its patented IC technology for the next five years. The deal also resolves all outstanding claims between the two companies, including a lawsuit Rambus filed against Broadcom for alleged patent infringement last December.

G.Skill is well known for making great memory, not only some of the best overclocking memory, but also memory at a great price. They are a company that prides themselves in the quality of their product, from their high-end to the mainstream products they don't fail to please their customers. Today is no different as this sub $50 8GB memory kit has some decent characteristics, timings of 9-9-9-24 1T and an operating voltage of only 1.5v.

“We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Broadcom, a global leader in the semiconductor industry,” said Sharon Holt, senior vice president and general manager of the Semiconductor Business Group at Rambus. “We are committed to continuing the development of innovative technologies to help our licensees deliver great products to the market.” Rambus has gained a questionable reputation in the industry for its numerous lawsuits against chipmakers, including Samsung and Nvidia. In a rare twist of fate Rambus was forced to pay out $10.85 million earlier this week over incorrectly dated and accounted for stock option grants.

Rambus and Broadcom sign patent licensing agreement Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/rambus-and-broadcom-sign-patentlicensing-agreement/14337.html December 27th, 2011

The financial details of the Broadcom deal were not disclosed, but it likely involved a large up front payment to settle the outstanding legal dispute and a yearly fee to continue using the technology.

Does PCIe 3.0 matter for today's GPUs? We test with the Radeon HD 7970 Rambus has secured a patent licensing agreement with Broadcom over the use of integrated circuit (IC) technology, marking yet another of the company's lucrative deals.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/does-pcie-3.0-matter-for-today-s-gpuswe-test-with-the-radeon-hd-7970/14306.html

December 27th, 2011 December 27th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

The BIOS on our favourite ASUS Rampage IV Extreme (X79) allowed us to select the PCIe signalling standard for our tests (Editor's note: yes we did use the latest 1004 bios which has the CPU Microcode and PCIe 3.0 fixes)

Update 23/12: We updated our original article from yesterday with more background information and included LuxMark (OpenCL) for completeness. Doesn't change the conclusions though... For months now, certain smaller motherboard manufacturers have been hyping up PCI Express 3.0 compatibility and benefits to ignorant users, even going to the point of bashing one another with libelous advertisements (lol hammer smash motherboards into bits). Since the latest Intel's Sandy Bridge-E processors and AMD's Radeon HD 7970 officially supports the new signalling standard, we put that to the test to see if it does improve things. The following is rephrased and quoted from Wikipedia's PCI Express entry: The much delayed PCIe 3.0 standard is supposed to bring signal transfer bitrates to 8GT/s (double that of PCIe 2.0) and a number of optimizations for enhanced signaling and data integrity, including transmitter and receiver equalization, PLL improvements, clock data recovery, and channel enhancements for currently supported topologies

PCIe 3.0 Benchmarks:

Updated Notes: • Sandy Bridge-E/X79 does support PCIe 3.0, but it is not officially validated by PCI-SIG yet • We did use the latest 1004/1005 BIOS for the Rampage IV Extreme which has latest CPU Microcode and PCIe 3.0 fixes • We've now thrown in LuxMark (OpenCL transfer intensive benchmark) in the screenshots below, which still shows the same results (minicule difference). • For our upcoming Crossfire review, we will include F@H and Bitcoin benchmarks. If there are any other compute heavy benchmarks you would like to see, put them in the comments section below • An AMD rep got in touch with us - to verify the active PCIe signalling standard, simply run a PCI Configuration Space Viewer like R/W and look for the 0x88 offset. Values are 0x1 = 1.0 speed, 0x2 = 2.0 speed, 0x3 = 3.0, speed 0x0 = undefined

December 27th, 2011

PCIe 2.0 Benchmarks:

Published by: VR-Zone

Our conclusions? Only a <1% miniscule benefit thanks to tighter clock timings and PLL improvements - today's high end GPU like the HD7970 and GTX590 barely even saturate PCIe x8 lanes (4GT/s). Perhaps we might see a different story with decent solid state storage setups and CPU interconnects.

Western Digital announces WD TV remote control app for improved media player navigation Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/western-digital-announces-wd-tvremote-control-app-for-improved-media-player-navigation/14334.html December 27th, 2011

Western Digital has announced a WD TV remote control app for Apple iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Android mobile devices, which offers WD users improved media player navigation.

Western Digital has introduced the WD TV Remote app that is designed to improve the navigation experience for WD TV Live and WD TV Live Hub users by turning their Apple iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or Android compatible mobile device into 23

December 27th, 2011

an advanced feature remote control for their WD TV. The WD TV Remote allow users to navigate the wide variety of digital media easily, from entertainment services such as Vimeo, Dailymotion, TuneIn Radio, Deezer, Facebook and YouTube, as well as personal videos, photos or music. The app also provides all the features of the standard WD TV remote control along with several advanced features, including a gesture pad to help navigate menu screens and services, as well as QWERTY keyboard support for text entry and search functionality. The Remote app is available in multiple languages, including English, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Korean, Japanese, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, and Portuguese. The WD TV Remote app is free to download from the Apple iTunes App store, and will soon be available on the Android Market. It works with WD TV Live with firmware release version 1.05.18 or WD TV Live Hub updated with firmware release version 3.01.19.

LG to introduce new IPS monitors at upcoming CES 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

CINEMA SCREEN that comes with the lustrous chrome stand. The 27-inch display is great for users who want to access files on their PC, play some games or watch their favorite movies. Incorporating an IPS panel, the DM92 series enables greater depth, consistent color and brightness at wider viewing angles compared to conventional 3D displays. The 23-inch DM82 series exhibits a chic and futuristic design, with a metallic neck supported by a square, slim base. It claims to offer superb 3D display quality, with accurate color tones from almost any viewing angle. The monitor also comes with 7watt built-in speakers to provide great multimedia enjoyment. The 27- and 23-inch DM52 series offers versatility and efficiency in a flexible package. In addition to the IPS panel and immersive 3D experience, the DM52 series provides a range of connectivity options including HDMI and USB for contentsharing with external devices. The LG D43 monitor claims to be optimized for 3D. It incorporates SUPER Resolution and vivid colors through the 3D effect mode for amazing picture quality. The D43 can convert 2D content into 3D without any additional software and with a 3D hot key, users can easily adjust and control the depth of 3D images. The LG 2012 IPS monitor line-up will be available globally starting February 2012.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-to-introduce-new-ips-monitors-atupcoming-ces-2012/14333.html December 27th, 2011

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2012 at Las Vegas is about two weeks away, and LG will be there to introduce their new IPS monitors with high resolution, wide viewing angles as well as 3D viewing capabilities. The models include the DM92, DM82 and DM52 series, and the D43 3D monitor.

LG will be showcasing their 2012 IPS monitor line-up at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next month. The new IPS monitors which include the DM92, DM82 and DM52 series, and the D43 3D monitorclaim to offer high resolution, wide viewing angles and immersive 3D viewing experience. The DM92 series features a premium design by employing the slim bezel of LGâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s technology and design-driven 24

December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

AMD's next-gen GPU family codenamed Sea Islands Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-s-next-gen-gpu-familycodenamed-sea-islands/14391.html December 30th, 2011

December 30th, 2011

Apple developed a prototype for a touchscreen phone as far back as 1983, but decided not to go through with it, a decision that ultimately led to the iPhone's release many years later in 2007. Apple developed a prototype for a touchscreen phone as far back as 1983, but decided not to go through with it, a decision that ultimately led to the iPhone's release many years later in 2007.

While Southern Islands is only just beginning to roll out, a recently ex-AMD ASIC designer's Linkedin profile reveals the possible codename for AMD's next-gen GPU family - Sea Islands. While Southern Islands is only just beginning to roll out, a recently ex-AMD ASIC designer's Linkedin profile reveals the possible codename for AMD's next-gen GPU family - Sea Islands. During his tenure as MTS Design Engineer at AMD, Alexander Shternshain worked on Evergreen and Northern Islands branded HD 5000 and HD 6000 families, Fusion APUs Ontario (C/E Series), Llano (A-Series) as well as Krishna, whose fate is unknown. The final two GPU families mentioned are Southern Islands - which we already have come to know as Radeon HD 7000 family - and the future family, Sea Islands.

The prototype was developed by Hartmut Esslinger, founder of Frogdesign, which helped design numerous Apple products, including the IIc computer, the first Apple product to feature the snow white colour that became iconic of the company's design principles. The phone looks like a traditional landline, with a built-in tablet screen that is operated by a stylus, a feature that Steve Jobs dropped from the original iPhone design. It looks pretty dated and the screen is particularly dull and unimpressive, but the fact that the technology could have been released so long ago opens a lot of 'what if' questions.

Unlike the rather vague codenames of Northern Islands and Southern Islands, Sea Islands directly refers to the chain of islands on the USA's Atlantic coast. We can thus expect the individual chips from the family codenamed along the lines of the prominent islands in the region. Sea Islands, if that is indeed the final codename, is still a long way away - possibly late 2012/early 2013 at the earliest - while the rumour mill is still digesting Southern Islands. We can expect AMD to build on the GCN architecture with Sea Islands as TSMC's 28nm process matures.

Apple developed touchscreen phone prototype in 1983 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-developed-touchscreen-phoneprototype-in-1983/14390.html

The phone industry could have been a very different place if Apple released this product in the 1980s, but it was probably a wise decision to hold off, as the market was likely not ready for it. It would have almost definitely have been expensive, which is no surprise for Apple, but likely a lot more so than

December 30th, 2011

the iPhone, given the general lack of availability of such technology at the time. With such a potential high price tag, and the lack of consumer loyalty built by the success of the iPod, this device could have been a major flop, which could have made Apple think twice about developing the iPhone. Source and Image Credit: Ubergizmo

US telcos given immunity to aid government eavesdropping Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/us-telcos-given-immunity-to-aidgovernment-eavesdropping/14389.html December 30th, 2011

US telecommunications companies have been given legal immunity to help the government eavesdrop on citizens' telephone conversations and emails, raising major concerns over the impact on user privacy. US telecommunications companies have been given legal immunity to help the government eavesdrop on citizens' telephone conversations and emails, raising major concerns over the impact on user privacy. A three-judge panel at the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision made by a lower court in relation to a surveillance law passed in 2008 after 33 lawsuits were filed against telecommunications companies like AT&T, Sprint Nextel, Verizon and BellSouth. The consolidated case was taken by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, which claimed that the firms in question were violating the law and customers' right to privacy. They expressed disappointment at the court's decision.

Published by: VR-Zone

The judges said they were concerned that allowing litigation would encourage companies not to help the government in lawful intelligence gathering requests, which the government claims it needs to make in other to protect national security. The decision could have repercussions for similar proposals in other countries throughout the world, which will likely meet with staunch opposition from increasingly privacy aware citizens.

PlayStation Vita sales plummet after one week Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/playstation-vita-sales-plummet-afterone-week/14388.html December 30th, 2011

Sales of Sony's PlayStation Vita handheld gaming console have plummeted from 321,400 in week one to just 72,000 in week two, significantly less than rival Nintendo's 3DS. Sales of Sony's PlayStation Vita handheld gaming console have plummeted from 321,400 in week one to just 72,000 in week two, significantly less than rival Nintendo's 3DS. Sony enjoyed healthy sales for the initial two days following its launch in Japan, but the following week saw a sharp decline, suggesting the Vita might not have much staying power. To put the figures into perspective, 371,000 3DS units were sold in its launch week, dropping to 210,000 in week two. A drop is to be expected after the initial flurry of sales, but the Vita sales decline is much sharper than that of the 3DS.

The solution will likely involve following in Nintendo's footsteps. When it saw a big sales drop it cut the price of the 3DS from $249.99 to $169.99, only a few months after the initial release. Sony has priced the Vita at $250 for its February release in the US, which means it will need to drop the price

December 30th, 2011

considerably if it is to drum up sales, particularly when its rival is significantly cheaper. Nintendo also released some major game titles like Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, which helped the 3DS recover some sales. The 3DS sold 484,000 units in the past week compared to the Vita's 72,000, which raises significant questions about how well Sony's latest handheld console effort will do.

Published by: VR-Zone

the P SKUs to be priced slightly lower than models with built in graphics, but we're not sure where Intel is planning on positioning the 2550K, as in reality it's a lesser version to the 2500K, so we'll see how Intel prices it and explains the lack of integrated graphics as a selling point.

AMD Radeon HD 7770, Core i5 3550K Benchmarked Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7770-core-i5-3550kbenchmarked/14386.html December 30th, 2011

Intel to launch graphics-less Sandy Bridge CPUs Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-to-launch-graphics-less-sandybridge-cpus/14387.html December 30th, 2011

In a last minute attempt at getting rid of some more Sandy Bridge processors, Intel will be launching three new SKUs, one of which will be the rumoured Core i5-2550K. The big news here isn't actually the new models themselves, but the fact that none of the three new models feature built in graphics. In a last minute attempt at getting rid of some more Sandy Bridge processors, Intel will be launching three new SKUs, one of which will be the rumoured Core i5-2550K. The big news here isn't actually the new models themselves, but the fact that none of the three new models feature built in graphics. Besides the Core i5-2550K Intel is also planning on launching the Core i5-2380P and the Core i5-2450P where we presume the P has something to do with the lack of an active graphics core. We'd guess that these are parts where the graphics core wasn't working properly, but where the rest of the chips were fully functional and as such Intel decided to launch a few models without graphics. Although a lot of users don't use the Intel graphics that is now part of every single Sandy Bridge processor to date, there are some downsides to this move as for example you can no longer take advantage of Intel's Quick Sync technology.

A forum poster at Chiphell has released benchmarks for a system featuring two anticipated next-gen products - AMD's Radeon HD 7770 and Intel's Ivy Bridge Core i5 3550K. The HD 7770 featured is the reference design - identical to the previous pictures leaked. While the i5 3550K is as much part of the system, the benchmarks performed are 3D Mark and reveal HD 7770's performance most. A forum poster at Chiphell has released benchmarks for a system featuring two anticipated next-gen products - AMD's Radeon HD 7770 and Intel's Ivy Bridge Core i5 3550K. The HD 7770 featured is the reference design - identical to the previous pictures leaked. While the i5 3550K is as much part of the system, the benchmarks performed are 3D Mark and reveal HD 7770's performance most. The system scores P3421 and X1077 in 3D Mark 11 using beta drivers. This puts HD 7770's performance well ahead of GTX 550 Ti and even HD 6790 and just under HD 6850. HD 7770 features the Cape Verde chip, with 896 SP or 14 CUs. Based on the GCN architecture, HD 7770 is DX11.1 and PCIe 3.0 compliant, and as we had previously seen, powered by a single 6-pin PCIe connector. The poster suggests a TDP as low as 90W-100W.

The Core i5-2380P is clocked at 3.1GHz, the same as the Core i5-2400 and it has the same Turbo Boost frequency of 3.4GHz. The Core i5-2450P is the odd one out here, as it's clocked at 3.2GHz with a top Turbo Boost frequency of 3.5GHz, in other words 100MHz slower than the Core i5-2500. The Core i5-2550K on the other hand is 100MHz faster than the Core i5-2500K at 3.4GHz with a top Turbo Boost clock speed of 3.8GHz. All three models have 6MB cache, but none of them have VT-d or TXT support, a feature all previous non-K SKUs have had in the Core i5 family. Sadly we don't know when these models will launch, but we'd expect them to arrive sometime early next year. We'd expect

What we had not seen before is the reverse side of the PCB, which reveals 4 more memory modules. This suggests the 3

December 30th, 2011

HD 7770 might sport upto 2GB of GDDR5 memory - an unprecedented amount for a mainstream GPU. The memory will be tied to a 128-bit memory interface, clocked at 1.125 GHz. The core clock is a startling 1 GHz - the first commercial GPU to break the magic number in reference guise. The expected price is $150 with release in February 2012. Meanwhile, the Core i5 3550K will succeed the popular Core i5 2500K in the >$200 market. It scores roughly 6500 in the 3D Mark 11 Physics test which stresses the CPU. This pegs it just ahead of FX-8150 and Core i5 2500K, while behind Core i7 2600K thanks to its lack of HyperThreading. However, actual games tend to be much less threaded than 3D Mark 11 so the Core i5 3550K will continue to be the best value for gaming. Recent reports point to a release on April 8th 2012.

Interconnection dilemma: should Socket 2011 successor get one more QPI to spare? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/interconnection-dilemma-shouldsocket-2011-successor-get-one-more-qpi-to-spare-/14385.html December 30th, 2011

The full-blooded Socket 2011 CPUs have two QPI links on each socket, to connect either doubly to another CPU, or each connect to one neighbouring processor. With so many pins available, is there use for, say, one more QPI channel? Yes! As mentioned here before, the dual-QPI Socket 2011 CPUs will have two flavours: the dual-socket Xeon E5 2600 one will use the two QPI channels in parallel to link the two processors at double bandwidth, while the otherwise identical quad-socket E5 4600 series will allow each of the two channels to connect to a different neighbouring processor, for a total of 4 processors in a square layout config. You notice here that, with only two QPI channels, there will be no direct connections between the processors in opposite corners of the quad CPU configuration, so any information between will have to pass through the in-between CPUs, resulting in both added latency - up to 50 ns extra - as well as the risk of congesting the QPI lanes if there is a lot of inter-processor traffic. The Xeon E7 series in the Socket 1567, which in the current 10-core Westmere-EX generation has 4 QPI links per chip, doesn't have that problem even in 8-socket configurations. However, it has much higher memory latency and somewhat lower memory bandwidth per CPU due to its use of memory bridge/hub chips between the CPU and DDR3 channels to maximise the capacity. On the other hand, the E7 has - besides much higher price - also more RAS features not required for workstations or supercomputing, but critical for servers.

Published by: VR-Zone

So, if wanting a good quad-socket system based on Intel stuff in mid-2012, the user will have to decide between the E5 with fast cores and good memory bandwidth with low latency, but potentially lacking sufficient interprocessor bandwidth for heavy duty SMP jobs; and the E7 with more and slower cores and somewhat slower memory system, but darn good interprocessor bandwidth and more RAS features. I haven't yet seen the Xeon E5 Socket 2011 dual-QPI processor pin-out, but it was bugging me a bit whether there's enough pin count left there non-connected - if any, remember power and ground pin counts go into many hundreds these days easily to fit just one, one more QPI channel in some successor CPU. It actually may not matter, since a Haswell-based midrange Xeon would probably have yet another new socket, but again, since Haswell desktop parts will still use DDR3 memory, and Haswell server & workstation parts may continue to do the same rather than move to DDR4 yet, the justification to keep the Socket 2011 may still be there. Either way, the addition of third QPI channel would accomplish two good things: first, for the midrange quadsocket parts, it would enable full proper direct point-topoint connectivity between all four processors, ensuring good interprocessor bandwidth no matter what. Then, for the tightly coupled dual-socket systems in workstation and HPC use, where heavy inter-core communication is likely with new generation finely multithreaded software, an option of all three QPI channels connecting the two CPUs together may be put to good use. Think it's an overkill? Think again - even Ivy Bridge EP Xeon E5 series chips will have 10 cores, and the Haswell ones will obviously have no less than that. A total of 20 cores wanting to talk to each other a lot, and frequently, will use all those channels, especially if you also have a multi-GPU workstation or HPC node where GPUs attached to either CPU communicate across the QPI between themselves. There's actually one more important usage model potential, even in those dual-socket systems. This third benefit is obvious - Intel is likely to have a QPI-based successor to its Knights Corner accelerator processor someday soon, for true coherent shared memory processing between the multi-core CPU and many-core accelerator. The accelerator would then be able to address all the CPU's system memory directly and at low latency as if it is another CPU then, assuming it has a compatible memory management hardware, of course. In this case, the third QPI link would be used for that purpose, so each CPU would have one direct QPI connection to the accelerator, in the same fashion as Xeon 5500 and 5600 dualsocket 1366 processors have separate parallel, direct QPI links to the north bridge. At the same time, the other two QPI links would still link the two CPUs in parallel at high bandwidth. In the end, such addition wouldn't impair the sales of the top-end enterprise E7 CPUs, as those have their commercial market anyway, and, well, they could also have even more QPI channels in the future if need be... but, for the workstations 4

December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

and supercomputing nodes using mostly the E5 series chips and their successors, it may be beneficial, as we have bseen here.

helping avoid glare and eye strain associated with traditional screens.

Tablets and e-readers signal end of real books

Price appears to be a dominant factor in the move to ebooks, with digital versions of a book costing a fraction of their realworld price. Normal paperbacks can cost several dollars to print, even moreso for print on demand titles, which drives up prices. Tack on warehouse storage costs and delivery charges, and it is no surprise that both companies and consumers are beginning to prefer ebook versions, which often cost as little as $0.99.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/tablets-and-e-readers-signal-end-ofreal-books/14384.html December 30th, 2011

Tablet computers and e-readers may put an end to real paper-based books, according to a number of studies on the continuing growth of the ebook market. Tablet computers and e-readers may put an end to real paper-based books, according to a number of studies on the continuing growth of the ebook market. The US Book Industry Study Group (BISG) found that close to half of those who bought both print and digital books would abandon the hard copies for just the ebook versions, provided they were released within three months of the physical version. Juniper Research projected that ebooks would make $3.2 billion this year, and that this figure would more than triple to $9.7 billion by 2016. Much of the success of the ebook market can be attributed to the tablet and e-reader boom in 2010 and 2011, largely due to companies like Apple and Amazon, with the latter enjoying its best Christmas for Kindle sales this year.

Analysts at both Gartner and Creative Strategies believe that it is only a matter of time before ebooks replace ink-andpaper books completely, though the shift might only apply to younger generations. While ebooks are certainly set to boom further, and will likely become the dominant form of reading, it is unlikely that traditional hard copies will die out altogether. In many cases they will remain a collector's item, while there will also be a large number of people who prefer the touch and smell of the genuine article.

Google adds SVG and CSS GPU acceleration to Chrome Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-adds-svg-and-css-gpuacceleration-to-chrome/14383.html December 30th, 2011

Google has added new GPU acceleration features to its Chrome web browser, following in the footsteps of Microsoft and Internet Explorer 9. Google has added new GPU acceleration features to its Chrome web browser, following in the footsteps of Microsoft and Internet Explorer 9. The Chromium 18 build features a flag that enables hardware acceleration for vector-based SVG graphics and CSS filters, opening the doors for potentially amazing visuals at groundbreaking speeds on websites in the future. The SVG and CSS GPU acceleration support works on Windows, Mac, Linux and Google's Chrome OS, but it is still considered largely experimental, with few websites supporting the feature.

Initial concerns over reading books on a digital device have largely dissipated, particularly with the Kindle E Ink display, which does a relatively good job at imitating real paper,

December 30th, 2011

Unfortunately this addition does not appear to offer any noticeable increase in browser performance, with Tom's Hardware reporting instability and crashes in some of its WebViz HTML5 benchmarks. While it is still early days for the technology, it is likely that we will see further hardware acceleration added to popular web browsers as competition between Google, Mozilla, Microsoft and others continues to push the boundaries of browser speeds.

GoDaddy boycotted over SOPA anti-piracy stance Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/godaddy-boycotted-over-sopa-antipiracy-stance/14382.html December 30th, 2011

Thousands of website owners, including Wikipedia, have pledged to boycott web hosting firm GoDaddy over its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), despite the company changing its mind on the controversial anti-piracy law. Thousands of website owners, including Wikipedia, have pledged to boycott webhosting firm GoDaddy over its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), despite the company changing its mind on the controversial anti-piracy law. GoDaddy, which is the largest hosting service in the world, initially gave its support for SOPA, but u-turned after mounting pressure from users and other companies. Many high-profile internet-based companies, including Google, Facebook, Yahoo and eBay, are staunchly opposed to the Act, citing fears that it will lead to widespread internet censorship. A boycott organised for today on Reddit is set to go ahead regardless of GoDaddy's decision, with the service already losing over 37,000 domains in a two-day period. That number could skyrocket as the official boycott gets underway, but GoDaddy is hoping to halt its losses by offering domain discounts.

Published by: VR-Zone

Among those who are withdrawing their domains from GoDaddy are Wikipedia, Lolcats owner the Cheezburger Network, and image hosting service Imgur. "Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why GoDaddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation - but we can clearly do better,â&#x20AC;? said Warren Adelman, CEO of GoDaddy. GoDaddy previously lost numerous users after its founder and former CEO, Bob Parsons, posted a video of him killing an elephant while on holiday in Zimbabwe.

Amazon Kindle enjoys record Christmas sales Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amazon-kindle-enjoys-recordchristmas-sales/14381.html December 30th, 2011

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet computer and Kindle e-readers enjoyed record Christmas sales, with over a million sold each week throughout December. Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet computer and Kindle e-readers enjoyed record Christmas sales, with over a million sold each week throughout December. Kindle devices sold so well that they took the top three slots on Amazon's best seller charts, with the Kindle Fire in first place, Kindle Touch in second place, and the classic Kindle coming in third. Of course, Amazon was able to aggressively advertise the devices on its website, in addition to offering substantial discounts for ad-subsidised models, which kept them as affordable as possible. Kindle sales were not limited to the US version of Amazon either, as they were also the best-selling products on the UK, German, French, Spanish and Italian websites.

December 30th, 2011

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are grateful to our customers worldwide for making this the best holiday ever for Kindle,â&#x20AC;? said Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. The Kindle Fire, Amazon's significantly cheaper alternative to Apple's iPad, was the best-selling product on Amazon's mobile website and through Amazon's mobile apps, which is not altogether surprising given that mobile users will likely be looking to buy portable devices. Kindle book gifts were up 175 percent over the period from Black Friday to Christmas Day compared to the same period in 2010, with Christmas Day itself being a record day for Kindle book downloads, showing that ebook sales are continuing to threaten the long-term survivability of paper books.

Published by: VR-Zone

In the event, XFastest compared the ECS X79R-AX, MSI X79A-GD45, ASRock X79 Extreme4, ASUS P9X79, and Gigabyte X79-UD3. Earlier this week, Gigabyte issued a pressrelease in which it acknowledged that some of its X79-UD3 motherboards may have got damaged by users as a result of bad firmware. It offered free replacements to affected users, and strongly recommended others to update the BIOS of their X79-UD3, X79-UD5, and G1.Assassin 2 motherboards to the latest one available on the company's support website. It is with this on the backdrops, that XFastest ran this public test. It recieved quite some attention from the local media, some company representatives were also present to witness the event.

Mid-Range X79 Boards' VRM Tested, Equally Stable, Equally Flawed Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/mid-range-x79-boards-vrm-testedequally-stable-equally-flawed/14380.html December 30th, 2011

On Wednesday, Taiwanese tech community site XFastest ran a public event where it tested five similarly-priced mid-range socket LGA2011 motherboards for CPU VRM performance and stability. This comes at a particularly-important time for Gigabyte, when it's faced with CPU VRM problems that it's dealing with. The results are in.

XFastest set a common test bench with common components, which included Intel Core i7-3930K processor, Kingston HyperX memory, Antec PSU and high-performance CPU cooler. The test itself involved subjecting the motherboards' VRM to extreme stress, and measuring stability, performance, and VRM temperatures. This was done by setting CPU core voltage to 1.4V, maxing out the motherboards' loadline calibration (aggressive V-droop correction), and running multi-threaded Prime95 stress test.

December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

Amazon's Kindle Fire in the price-sensitive market segment, while the new tablets are designed for the mid- and highend segments. The upcoming iPad models will feature 9.7inch screens with QXGA resolution (1,536 x 2,048 pixels) and dual-LED light bars for improved brightness. Apple would also continue to contract Samsung to manufacture its quad-core A6 processors, which will be used in the next-generation iPads.

Traffic simulation systems of the future: a special kind of supercomputer? The parameters on which the motherboards were evaluated on were:

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/traffic-simulation-systems-of-thefuture-a-special-kind-of-supercomputer-/14378.html December 30th, 2011

• CPU VRM temperature, measured using a thermal probe attached to the VRM heatsink • CPU Speed • CPU voltage, effectiveness of the load-line calibration • CPU temperature, measured using software

Apple set to announce two new versions of iPad in January? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-set-to-announce-two-newversions-of-ipad-in-january-/14379.html December 30th, 2011

The worst-ever MRT metro line disruption in Singapore affected hundreds of thousands; can custom supercomputer simulation systems cushion the impact of such disasters in real time? This month's massive disruption of Singapore's two main - and oldest - metro lines, the North-South and East-West MRT, was the worst in the city's metro system history. The compounding of smaller disruptions on the other two lines in the same week didn't help either. Whether the two old lines should be re-dug and replaced with underground maglev metro, where the wear and tear like the one with 'claws' and 'sleepers' stops happening, or the signalling systems need change too, is another issue beyond our scope here. But, is there a way for high performance computing to help manage such disruptions in real time, and analyse the possible passenger impacts down to the minute detail?

Apple may be planning to announce two new iPads at the iWorld (formerly MacWorld) on 26 January next year. According to online sources, the two tablet devices are said to be designed for the mid- and high-end markets.

Apple is planning to unveil two new iPads at iWorld next year. According to sources, the iPad 2 is competing directly with

Here's a simple scenario: in a city of 5 million like Singapore, suddenly, really, suddenly, the two main metro lines stop working. Say, half of the population which is around the two lines' corridors is affected. How to avert the chaos and have the extra bus or other resources deployed exactly there where the traffic needs it, to avert the total transport collapse? Let's go back to that number of 5 million inhabitants. Let's say that each inhabitant, as a person, is an entry in a giant database - the Big Brother datacentres, like the Google or Facebook ones, already do it anyway on a global scale. In the case of Singapore's EZ Link, or Malaysia's Touch'N'go, that database can easily be filled with the transport history of each card holder across a long period of time. Same for the car registration plates tracked via electronic road pricing gantries and such. Add to it the age, income, car ownership and house & work/study location, and you can perfectly well estimate a person's traffic movement during a weekday or weekend on any given day or time. That draws a sort of 'movement diagram' for each of 5 million persons on a given day.

December 30th, 2011

Such database entry for each person can grow up to 100 kilobytes in size, and, since we got to keep such stuff in memory for full-speed analysis and modeling, it means roughly 500 GB of main memory, times 2 for space to create alternate models, and we talk about a terabyte RAM machine with as many cores as you can throw at them, since it is highly parallel work. That little slim 4-CPU terabyte Xeon E5 mainboard from yesterday's story comes to mind here... Now, with such system, containing the movement data of all the population and their vehicles, and where they want to go next, we can automatically identify any hot spots in the case of any specific malfunction or shutdown and, in real time, divert the extra resources exactly to these 'hot spots of the moment'. No, it doesn't replace the extra metro lines that, maybe, Singapore should have built much earlier when it was way cheaper to construct - rather than pouring money into Western investment banks or assets - but, anyway, a fast computer for a quick fix, when the problems arise, is always welcome.

Windows Phone updates, Tango and Apollo, coming soon Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/windows-phone-updates-tango-andapollo-coming-soon/14377.html December 30th, 2011

After the launch of Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system in October, the company is already planning for the new update next year. And it seems that details of the new updates have been leaked, codenamed Tango and Apollo.

Published by: VR-Zone

Windows Phone users can look forward to more features and improvements next year. According to a leaked roadmap (which is accurate as of October), Microsoft has been planning for its upcoming Tango and Apollo updates 2012. The Tango update, targeted in Q2 2012, is said to be focused on delivering low-cost Windows Phone to go against iPhone and Android phones. However, this could also mean that Tango could be a removable of features that most budget users would probably not require. Apollo, on the other hand, claims to be a major update for smartphones that could include support for LTE, high resolution displays and even dual-core processors. But the Apollo update won't be coming so soon; it is expected to be available in Q4 2012.

Intel changes configurable TDP specs of Ultrabook Ivy Bridge processors Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-changes-configurable-tdp-specsof-ultrabook-ivy-bridge-processors/14376.html December 30th, 2011

Although good news in a way for Intel, it seems that the demand for its Ultrabook specific Ivy Bridge processors have been much higher than Intel initially anticipated and the company has as such had to make some changes to the configurable TDP of said processors. It appears that the company can't meet its earlier targets, at least not if it's going to be able to provide large enough quantities of the CPUs. Although good news in a way for Intel, it seems that the demand for its Ultrabook specific Ivy Bridge processors have been much higher than Intel initially anticipated and the company has as such had to make some changes to the configurable TDP of said processors. It appears that the company can't meet its earlier targets, at least not if it's going to be able to provide large enough quantities of the CPUs. The changes aren't big and the nominal TDP remains at 17W and the same goes for the highest configurable TDP for these chips which stays at 25W. However, the lowest configurable TDP has been increased from 13W to 14W and the same goes for the low frequency mode. In addition the low power mode has increased from 11W to 12.5W. This might seem trivial, but for some notebook makers this could potentially mean a re-design of the cooling system, not exactly a non-trivial change. It's likely that Intel has picked chips that would otherwise have been binned differently, but due to the high demand the company had to bin them as Useries processors. Currently Intel is planning on launching its Ivy Bridge Ultrabook platform sometime in May and the new TDP changes aren't likely to have a huge effect for most of its partners as there's still plenty of time to make any changes that might be needed.

December 30th, 2011

Genesys Logic launches USB 3.0 webcam controller Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/genesys-logic-launches-usb-3.0webcam-controller/14375.html December 30th, 2011

USB 3.0 adoption might be moving slowly forward in the PC industry, but more and more peripherals are starting to appear in the market and if Taiwanese Genesys has anything to do with it, then we'll all be using USB 3.0 webcams soon enough. The company has announced its new GL3620 USB 3.0 webcam controller and it looking at demoing it at CES in early January. USB 3.0 adoption might be moving slowly forward in the PC industry, but more and more peripherals are starting to appear in the market and if Taiwanese Genesys has anything to do with it, then we'll all be using USB 3.0 webcams soon enough. The company has announced its new GL3620 USB 3.0 webcam controller and it looking at demoing it at CES in early January. We have in fact seen a very early prototype demo but this was using an FPGA instead of the actual finished silicon and to be frank, we weren't impressed. However, Genesys wasn't using the best of sensors for the tech demo and it'll be down to the wecam manufacturers to pick a suitable sensor to show of the capabilities of the GL3620. The chip is capable of delivering uncompressed 1080p video at 30fps, something that shouldn't put too much strain on the USB 3.0 bus. Apparently a key feature is that the GL3620 supports isochronous transfer mode which apparently guarantees the bandwidth between the webcam and the host controller. Thanks to a built-in motion JPEG encoder the GL3620 is also backwards compatible with USB 2.0. The built in HISP or hardware image signal processor as Genesys calls it, allows the GL3620 to turn the raw RGB data into interpolated YUV video and it can also do things like bad pixel correction, image scaling, gamma correction and image quality enhancement among other things. The GL3620 won't go into mass production until the second quarter of next year, but Genesys will be demoing it at CES alongside its GL3520 USB 3.0 hub, its GL3321 USB 3.0 to SATA 3Gbps bridge and its GL3220 USB 3.0 memory card reader, all of which are already available.

Ivy Bridge reportedly launching on the 8th of April

Published by: VR-Zone December 30th, 2011

As we've already reported, Intel is about to launch Ivy Bridge in early April and although we didn't specify a date in our earlier stories, Digitimes has now confirmed the April 8th launch date that we'd previously heard. This information is apparently coming from Taiwanese PC makers and we'd say it's pretty much spot on, unless Intel makes some last minute changes to the launch schedule. As we've already reported, Intel is about to launch Ivy Bridge in early April and although we didn't specify a date in our earlier stories, Digitimes has now confirmed the April 8th launch date that we'd previously heard. This information is apparently coming from Taiwanese PC makers and we'd say it's pretty much spot on, unless Intel makes some last minute changes to the launch schedule. Not all CPUs and chipsets will launch on the 8th of April, as some models alongside with the business chipsets are expected on the 13th of May according to Digitimes. Most of the desktop CPUs will be available in April, although on the mobile side only the quad core Core i7 models are expected to arrive in April, with all other models launching at a yet unspecified date. It's not entirely clear why Intel is staggering the launch like this, but as we know, Intel is trying to empty its Sandy Bridge inventory and this might very well be part of the reason. One interesting piece of information that Digitimes did provide is the cost of the chipsets, with the Z77, HM77 and UM77 coming in at US$48, followed by the H77 and HM76 at US$43, the Z75 and HM75 at US$40 and finally the business orientated B75 at US$37. The corporate level chipsets start at US$53 with the QS77 followed by Q77 and QM77 at US$48 and the Q75 at US $40. This puts the chipset pricing at a similar level to the 6-series where the Z68 chipsets has a list price of US$48 with the H67 at US$43, the P67 at US$40 and the B65 at US$37. The same goes for the mobile parts where the HM67 is listed at US$48 and HM65 at US$40, although the UM67 is actually a bit pricier at US$50. That said, these are all list prices and may not reflect what the actual motherboard and notebook manufacturers are paying Intel.

As expected, Intel launches Cedar Trail-M Atom's Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/as-expected-intel-launches-cedar-trailm-atom-s/14373.html December 30th, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ivy-bridge-reportedly-launching-onthe-8th-of-april/14374.html

December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

We're fairly certain that none of our regular readers are surprised to see the arrival of Intel's Atom N2600 and N2800 Cedar Trail-M based Atom processors today, as we reported about it launching at the very end of the year over a month ago. That said, no products will be available for at least a couple of weeks, although we'd expect that the first Cedar Trail-M netbooks will be shown off at CES. We're fairly certain that none of our regular readers are surprised to see the arrival of Intel's Atom N2600 and N2800 Cedar Trail-M based Atom processors today, as we reported about it launching at the very end of the year over a month ago. That said, no products will be available for at least a couple of weeks, although we'd expect that the first Cedar Trail-M netbooks will be shown off at CES. We've also covered most of the specifications of the N2600 and N2800 Atom processors in the past, but we'll do a brief recap here. The N2800 is a 1.86GHz part with its graphics core clocked at 640MHz and it supports DDR3 memory at speeds of up to 1066MHz. The N2600 on the other hand is clocked at 1.6GHz with a 400MHz graphics clock and it only supports slower 800MHz DDR3 memory. One other major difference is that the N2600 can be cooled passively thanks to its 5W peak TDP, although Intel is apparently claiming an average power consumption of the processor and the NM10 chipset of under 2W, whereas the N2800 has a TDP of 8W, although average power is meant to be less than 2.7W.

According to Anandtech we can expect to see Cedar Trail-M netbooks with a starting price point of as little as US$199-229 and part of the reason for this is that Intel itself has reduced the price of the Atom processors compared to the previous generation. That said, these machines are likely to be very basic and lack features such as WiDi. Intel's partners are apparently Acer, Asus, HP, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba and we've already seen examples of models from Asus and Samsung, despite the latter promising to pull out of the netbook market in 2012.

As we've already reported, Intel only managed to concoct DX9 drivers for the platform, at least as far as Windows 7 is concerned, but we can apparently still expect a doubling of the 3D graphics performance over the previous generation of Atom processors. Not that this is going to make a huge difference for most netbook users, but at least there should be a decent increase in performance for casual gamers. More interesting then is hardware decode support for H.264 video and support for Intel's WiDi, albeit only at 600p.

Still, we'd rather pay a little bit more for an AMD Brazos powered machine, despite not having seen final hardware based on Cedar Trail-M, as AMD is likely to have the upper hand in terms of performance even though Intel has finally 11

December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

gotten Atom to the kind of level where it should have been from the beginning. Intel might have a more power efficient option on offer, but there simply are too many things missing to make Cedar Trail-M a competitive platform.

Other companies accused of price-fixing, including AU Optronics, LG Display and Toshiba, have yet to reach a settlement, but will likely be forced to pay out millions of dollars.

Samsung and others settle LCD price-fixing case for $553 million

Chinese LG Display staff strike over alleged pay racism

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-and-others-settle-lcd-pricefixing-case-for-553-million/14372.html December 30th, 2011

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/chinese-lg-display-staff-strike-overalleged-pay-racism/14371.html December 30th, 2011

Samsung and a number of other LCD display makers have settled a price-fixing case for $553 million. The seven firms involved in the settlement include Samsung, Sharp, Chimei Innolux, Hitachi, HannStar, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Epson Imaging Devices, all of which are accused of conspiring to fix LCD panel prices between the years 1999 and 2006.

Staff at an LG Display factory in China have gone on strike over a dispute relating to alleged racism in the payment of end of year bonuses.

Over $890 million has already been paid out by the companies to settle previous antitrust cases, but the latest payment is aimed at resolving claims by indirect purchasers and eight US states.

Reports suggest that upwards of 8,000 Chinese workers have joined the strike at the Nanjing facility, accusing the South Korean electronics company of paying higher bonuses to Korean staff compared to local Chinese employees.

"This price-fixing scheme manipulated the playing field for businesses that abide by the rules, and left consumers to pay artificially higher costs for televisions, computers and other electronics," said New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Samsung will pay $240 million, Sharp will fork out $115.5 million, and Chimei Innolux will hand over $110.3 million. Smaller payments are demanded of Hitachi, HannStar, Chunghwa and Epson, with the companies paying $39 million, $25.7 million, $5.3 million and $2.9 million respectively. A number of state penalties, up to $6 million per company, were also applied.

Staff at an LG Display factory in China have gone on strike over a dispute relating to alleged racism in the payment of end of year bonuses.

"We and the Nanjing city government are jointly negotiating with workers to smoothly reach an agreement and we expect the problems to be resolved soon," said LG spokesperson Claire Ohm, according to Reuters. "Some of our production has been suspended." This the latest worker dispute in China, where the rising cost of living has prompted numerous protests and demands for higher pay. Universally low salaries is one thing, but alleged favouritism towards certain nationalities will unlikely go over well with staff or customers.

Apple iOS and Android tied in Christmas sales Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-ios-and-android-tied-inchristmas-sales/14370.html

December 30th, 2011 December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone December 30th, 2011

AT&T has completed its acquisition of wireless spectrum from Qualcomm in a deal worth roughly $1.9 billion.

Apple iOS and Android devices were popular Christmas gifts throughout the world, with the two rivals virtually tied in the heated battle for holiday sales. Apple iOS and Android devices were popular Christmas gifts throughout the world, with the two rivals virtually tied in the heated battle for holiday sales. There were 12 times more new devices using the mobile operating systems form Apple and Google over the Christmas weekend compared to previous weekends, according to mobile app analytics firm Localytics.

The telecommunications company expressed interest in buying the spectrum in December 2010, but was held up by an investigation by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Approval was granted last week after AT&T withdrew its controversial bid to buy T-Mobile. The 700 MHz spectrum was previously used by Qualcomm for its FLO TV system, a mobile TV broadcasting technology that flopped and was eventually discontinued.

Despite the two platforms being roughly neck and neck, their popularity differed greatly from region to region. For example, Apple devices sold best in the US and Germany, while Android devices did better in South Korea and Sweden.

The spectrum will cover over 300 million people, giving AT&T a significant boost to its Long Term Evolution (LTE) business.

iOS devices were up 12.5 times, with a 14 times increase in iPhone sales, but a massive 21 times increase in iPods, showing that Apple's classic music player still has some life in it. Android's increase was not far behind at 12 times more sales, but Android now leads in more markets than Apple, ruling 14 of the top 20 global markets, which will likely see it become the overall market leader in the months and years to come.

This is particularly important given the general lack of spectrum telecommunications providers have been experiencing in recent years, resulting in numerous bidding wars and acquisitions. The continuing popularity of smartphones and tablet computers will ensure that spectrum demand remains strong in years to come.

Spire hack allows Siri to run on jailbroken iOS 5 devices Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/spire-hack-allows-siri-to-run-onjailbroken-ios-5-devices/14368.html December 30th, 2011

South Korea was a particularly strong victory for Android, with a lead of over 80 percent compared to iOS. Sweden and Japan also saw huge gaps between the two, with Android leading by 45 percent and 50 percent respectively.

AT&T buys Qualcomm wireless spectrum

A new hack, called Spire, is said to allow Siri voice assistant to run on almost all jailbroken iPhone or iPad on iOS 5. And the best thing is, that is legal.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/at-t-buys-qualcomm-wirelessspectrum/14369.html

Siri is one of the popular features of the latest Apple iPhone 4S, and it seems that a fully functioning port of the voice assistant is available on almost all jailbroken iOS 5 devices. 13

December 30th, 2011

Developed by Chpwn and Ryan Petrich, the new hack known as Spire, allows Siri to run on jailbroken iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, third-gen iPod touch, fourth-generation iPod touch and firstgeneration iPad. And it seems like it is legal. The Spire app is free and available to download from the Cydia app store and takes about 100MB of space, and users are advised to connect to a Wi-Fi network when downloading the app.

Samsung to debut GALAXY S III at Mobile World Congress 2012? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-to-debut-galaxy-s-iii-atmobile-world-congress-2012-/14367.html December 30th, 2011

News of the next-generation GALAXY smartphone is out, and it is likely to be the Samsung GALAXY S III. And the Quadcore phone may be showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona next year.

Published by: VR-Zone

and see when Mobile World Congress arrived in February next year.

More on Xeon E5: Terabyte of RAM even at midrange? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-on-xeon-e5-terabyte-of-rameven-at-midrange-/14366.html December 30th, 2011

There will also be a quad-CPU enabled Xeon E5 Socket 2011 version, a quarter later from now. How much memory can it take? How about a terabyte? Two QPI links on Socket 2011 CPUs do enable connecting each processor to TWO other ones, if you accept lesser interprocessor bandwidth compared to just dual-link pairing of two CPUs alone. There will be a separate Xeon E5-4600 series covering that particular market segment, which sits between the high end dual-socket E5-2600 and the enterprise RASenhanced even higher end E7 series (those fancy 10-core 30 MB L3 cache Westmere-EX chips and their followons). These are good for uber-rendering workstations with many threads, as well as SMP server jobs where high per-core performance is more important than RAS capability or huge interprocessor bandwidth - E7 series have, after all, four QPI links on each CPU for that purpose.

According to Korean media ETNews, the new Samsung smartphone, GALAXY S III, will be equipped with a Quad-core processor; possibly the Samsung's Exynos 4412 processor, a 32nm quad-core chip based on the ARM Cortex A9 architecture. Other specifications include 4.6-inch Super AMOLED Plus touchscreen display (1280x720), supports LTE network, 12-megapixel rear camera that can capture full high definition 1080p video, and runs Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It was also reported that Samsung is developing 3D capabilities on the smartphone, though there's no details as to what extent will the new phone be equipped with the technology. The company could come up with a separate smartphone, rather than incorporate it to the GALAXY S III, and called it the Samsung GALAXY S 3D. We can only wait

Now, since the maximum memory load on each Socket 2011 processor is three DIMMs per channel, or 12 in total, it would allow for 48 DIMMs altogether on a quad processor board, as you can see here on the 'Lizard Head Pass' S4600LH board expected from Intel. A truly lovely platform which, if good liquid cooling system was there, could actually fit into 1U platform! Else, it's 2U, still not bad at all. Now, remember those fancy Samsung - and other vendors' 32 GB LR-DIMMs at DDR3-1333 speeds and taking just like 5 watts? Well, put 48 of them into this 'little' mobo, and you got... umm... 1.5 TB RAM, yes. Now, inexpensive large memory 14

December 30th, 2011

data mining and analysis ops, not to mention simulations like, for instance, impact of MRT line failure on all the car and bus traffic in Singapore down to every person, vehicle and path - an increasingly more often required app here, it seems become very real, especially when coupled with the current low memory pricing. And, oh yes, there are 160 PCIe v3 lanes in total on such platform. Now, how about an extender box for an 8 x dualGPU setup as an accelerator? A eight-set of liquid-cooled OC AMD HD7990 dual GPU cards could give you up to 15 TFLOPs of double precision power to assist those Xeons on board...

More Wi-Fi mice coming thanks to Wi-Fi Direct Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-wi-fi-mice-coming-thanks-to-wifi-direct/14365.html December 30th, 2011

We've already seen a few Wi-Fi mice from HP, although these weren't as far as we're aware using Wi-Fi Direct to connect. A company called Ozmo has announced that it has had its OZMO2000 wireless mouse reference design certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance as a Wi-Fi Direct enabled solution onto which its partners can base their own Wi-Fi Direct mice upon. We've already seen a few Wi-Fi mice from HP, although these weren't as far as we're aware using Wi-Fi Direct to connect. A company called Ozmo has announced that it has had its OZMO2000 wireless mouse reference design certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance as a Wi-Fi Direct enabled solution onto which its partners can base their own Wi-Fi Direct mice upon.

Published by: VR-Zone

we've seen a fair few users reports complaining about the mice disconnecting at random. Source: Ozmo

MSI launches MultiConnect panel and Voice Genie Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-launches-multiconnect-panel-andvoice-genie/14364.html December 30th, 2011

A couple of new motherboard peripherals have been launched by MSI, one of which we’d say is far more useful than the other. First up we have the MultiConnect panel which is a 5.25inch drive bay unit that sports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth among its features, with the second one being MSI’s Voice Genie card which allows you to control your PC by yelling at it. A couple of new motherboard peripherals have been launched by MSI, one of which we’d say is far more useful than the other. First up we have the MultiConnect panel which is a 5.25inch drive bay unit that sports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth among its features, with the second one being MSI’s Voice Genie card which allows you to control your PC by yelling at it. The MultiConnect panel is an interesting spin on things as although it’s a chunky piece of plastic that slots into a spare 5.25-inch drive bay in your case, it not only adds 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi connectivity, but also Bluetooth 3.0+HS, a pair of USB 2.0 ports and if you have the right motherboard, an OC Genie II button. For one we’re not quite sure why MSI had to make it so big, as it seems to waste a lot of space.

One feature that stands outs with the Ozmo solution is the fact that the company supports both 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi. The company has also added support for WPA2 and WPS to make pairing easy. Ozmo doesn't actually make any retail products though, but its OZMO2000 chip is ready to ship to its potential partners for implementation into Wi-Fi mice. Interestingly Ozmo claims that its Wi-Fi solution offers two to three times the battery life for the mouse compared to Bluetooth mice and a much higher data rate – up to 24Mbps – if needed. The range should in theory be longer as well, but we can't imagine too many scenarios where you need to be able to use a mouse 200-300m away from a computer. One problem we can see though is that Ozmo charges US$3 per OZMO2000 chip even in fairly large quantities, something that's likely to put off potential partners, although surprisingly the company issues a press release back in October stating it had shipped one million chips back then. Apparently HP is one of Ozmo's partners, alongside with Intel, Logitech and Targus. As such it's likely we'll see a driver upgrade for HP's Wi-Fi mice in the near future with some Wi-Fi Direct support which should hopefully make HP's Wi-Fi mice a bit more reliable, as

Secondly MSI missed a major trick here, the USB ports are only 2.0, not 3.0 and considering that many chassis out there shipped pre-USB 3.0 this would’ve been a much more useful addition. The Wi-Fi is also limited to 150Mbps and is a simple USB dongle hidden behind the plastic fascia. Admittedly it’s neater to have two dongles inside a drive bay than having a pair of dongles sticking out the back of your PC, but we’re not sold on MSI’s overall implementation.

December 30th, 2011

Published by: VR-Zone

As for the Voice Genie, well, this is a small PCB that slots into a PCI Express x1 slot (or any other PCI Express slot at that), but it doesn’t actually interface with the slots electrical connectors. Instead the Voice Genie card connects to a special pin-header available on a selected few MSI motherboards which include most of MSI’s Z68A models, the Big Bang Marshal and all of MSI’s X79 motherboards.

Luckily MSI has added an option to make your own custom voice commands, but this is limited to a mere eight commands in total. In as much as we think this is an amusing piece of kit and potentially something very useful for handicapped people, we can’t see it being a huge seller for MSI. We’d also hope that MSI comes to its senses and bundles a better microphone than the one in the pictures of the card, as it looks like a terrible piece of kit.

Intel said to be letting Thunderbolt loose in April Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-said-to-be-letting-thunderboltloose-in-april/14363.html December 30th, 2011

There's no secret that Intel wasn't going to let Apple keep its Thunderbolt technology as an exclusive forever, but no reports are coming out stating that we can expect Thunderbolt equipped PCs, notebooks and motherboards in April of next year. We've been hearing rumours for a while, but this is the first solid lead on an actual launch date. At the rear of the card there’s a microphone connector, a passthrough to the mic connector of the onboard audio or sound card and a small, sliding on/off switch. Once installed the Voice Genie allows you to issue voice commands to your PC in either English or “traditional” Chinese, although we’re not quite sure what the latter is in terms of a spoken language. It supports commands even if the system is powered down, so in other words you can now make your PC start without having to touch it. MSI also claims that you can overclock the system, make it start applications and do a wide range of other things by simply issuing voice commands.

There's no secret that Intel wasn't going to let Apple keep its Thunderbolt technology as an exclusive forever, but no reports are coming out stating that we can expect Thunderbolt equipped PCs, notebooks and motherboards in April of next year. We've been hearing rumours for a while, but this is the first solid lead on an actual launch date. As we already know, Intel is planning on launching Ivy Bridge around this point in time and it's not a co-incident that the company is also trying to get some Thunderbolt equipped devices out in the market at the same time. Digitimes is reporting that we'll see notebooks from Asus, various devices from Sony and motherboard from Gigabyte with Thunderbolt connectivity. Somewhat erroneously Digitimes is quoting Thunderbolt chip cost of more than US$20 a pop, a price that as far as we're aware only applies to Intel's most expensive Thunderbolt chip know as Light Ridge. This should be replaced at some point next year by Cactus Ridge which should prove to be a fair bit more affordable. Cactus Ridge was meant to be ready in time 16

December 30th, 2011

for Ivy Bridge, but Intel appears to have run into a few snags and as such it has been delayed until sometime in Q2 of next year.

Published by: VR-Zone

of memory on board and only left a single DIMM slot for expansion, one of the not so good changes.

As such notebook manufacturers only has the choice of using Intel's Light Ridge or the version of Eagle Ridge that Apple uses for the MacBook Air, but this chip only has half the Thunderbolt channels of Light Ridge. For some reason Intel has discontinued its standard version of Eagle Ridge already, so on the host side there's little other choice for the time being. The good news in terms of growth of Tunderbolt device is that Intel has finally finished off its Port Ridge peripheral chip, an affordable two PCI Express lane solution that draws a mere 0.7W (compared to 2-3.8W for its other Thunderbolt chips) and which will be far more affordable than previous options. This should hopefully see a growth in devices that use Thunderbolt as an interconnect, although we still doubt it'll be price competitive with USB 3.0 in many scenarios. There are of course usage cases where Thunderbolt excels compared to USB 3.0, least not for adding desktop expansion cards to a notebook, be it via a notebook docking station or some kind of external enclosure. However, Thunderbolt is not the most affordable route and we doubt there will be the same growth in Thunderbolt peripherals as there have been with USB 3.0 peripherals, as the need for the kind of speeds offered by the interface just isn't there for the majority of computer users, yet.

Asus outs the Eee PC 1225B Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-outs-the-eeepc-1225b/14362.html December 30th, 2011

You still get 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0+HS (apparently optional on some models), a crummy 0.3Megapixel webcam, an HDMI port, a D-sub connector, Ethernet, a pair of audio jacks and a card reader. However, Asus has now upgraded at least some models with a pair of USB 3.0 ports and rather than offering three USB 2.0 ports you know get one to go with the two USB 3.0 ports. Oddly enough Asus is now rating the battery life at 7h instead of 8h, despite offering what appears to be the same 6-cell 56Wh battery pack. The weight has gone down slightly thanks to the smaller display, although this apparently only shaves off a mere 10g if the specs on Asus' website are correct.The Eee PC 1225B is expected to launch in January and it'll be available in either glossy black and white or matte grey, red or silver, although we have a feeling the screen will be glossy either which way.

Intel's Atom based netbooks might not be overly popular these days and to some degree AMD appears to have something to do with it thanks to the introduction of its Brazos platform. Asus is getting ready to launch a refresh of its 12-inch Brazos powered Eee PC 1215B with a slightly updated model called the 1225B, although the differences are fairly small. Intel's Atom based netbooks might not be overly popular these days and to some degree AMD appears to have something to do with it thanks to the introduction of its Brazos platform. Asus is getting ready to launch a refresh of its 12-inch Brazos powered Eee PC 1215B with a slightly updated model called the 1225B, although the differences are fairly small. The Eee PC 1225B comes with a choice of either an E450 or a C60 APU, something latter models of the 1215B also offered. The biggest change is the screen which has been shrunk slightly from 12.1-inches to 11.6-inches, although the resolution has remained the same at 1366x768. Almost everything else has stayed the same, but some minor changes have been done and apparently Asus has fitted 2 or 4GB 17

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

MSI launches Big BangXPower II overclocking motherboard Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-launches-big-bang-xpower-iioverclocking-motherboard/14419.html January 3rd, 2012

Overclocking is the name of the game for this motherboard, with the ability to run 4-way SLI or CrossFire via four PCI Express Gen3 slots. Renowned overclocker Jon “Elmor” Sandström helped MSI bump up the overclocking abilities of the Big Bang-XPower II. The board includes 8 DIMM slots, with support for up 128GB of RAM, significantly more than most people will ever need or use, but helping to make the motherboard that little bit more future-proof. Other features include Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 7.1 highdefinition audio, six USB 3.0 slots, 10 USB 2.0 slots, two Intel SATA 6Gb/s and four 3Gb/s slots with RAID support, two ASMedia SATA 6GB/s slots, a multi-BIOS UEFI interface, and several buttons for easy overclocking and resetting.

MSI has launched its latest motherboard, the Big BangXPower II, offering plenty of overclocking goodness for the Intel X79 chipset. MSI has launched its latest motherboard, the Big BangXPower II, offering plenty of overclocking goodness for the Intel X79 chipset. The company claims that this board is its most powerful to date, building on the record achievements of the original Big Bang-XPower, supporting Intel's latest second generation i7 processors. It is built with Military Class III components, such as DrMOS II, Super Ferrite Choke, Hi-c CAP and Solid CAP, allowing heavy duty use with an extended lifetime. An enhanced thermal design also ensures that no active cooling is required.

LG unveils world's largest OLED TV Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lg-unveils-world-s-largest-oledtv/14418.html January 3rd, 2012

LG will unveil a 55-inch OLED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, touting it as the largest of its kind and the “future of TV technology”. LG will unveil a 55-inch OLED TV at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, touting it as the largest of its kind and the “future of TV technology”. The TV features a huge organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel that is only 4mm thick and weighs just 7.5kg, utilising the technology used by many smartphones at a much larger scale. With an infinite contrast ratio and speeds that are 1,000 times faster than LCD displays, it looks like OLED technology is definitely the way forward for the TV manufacturing industry. It also comes with LG's 4-Colour Pixels, adding white to the traditional RGB mix, and Colour Refiner, which enhances

January 3rd, 2012

colour consistency across multiple viewing angles to improve hues and tones.

Published by: VR-Zone

expected to be lower than supply for the first quarter of the year. The companies saw their ratings cut from 'overweight' to 'equal weight', market lingo for Barclays' belief that these companies are no longer outperforming and are pretty much on neutral territory, seeing negligible growth or remaining flat. "First quarter should be the trough for semis given the ongoing inventory correction, coupled with supply chain constraints, due to muted end demand visibility," said C J Muse, an analyst at Barclays, whom Reuters cited as being highly reliable.

“Working closely with LG Display, we have a product which not only delivers on all the advantages of OLED over LCD but at a significantly lower cost than what could be achieved using existing OLED manufacturing technologies,” said Havis Kwon, president and CEO of LG Electronics Home Entertainment Company. “OLED is clearly the future of home TV entertainment and LG is very focused on making this exciting technology as easy as possible for consumers to embrace.” LG previously released 15-inch and 31-inch OLED TV models, but those sizes won't satisfy many home entertainment enthusiasts who will want something larger than 40 inches. We can likely expect something in the 60 to 70 inch range within the next year or two, in addition to other sizes between the existing ranges. Price will be an obstacle, however, even with LG's cheaper production method.

Barclays cuts Intel and other chipmakers' ratings Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/barclays-cuts-intel-and-otherchipmakers-ratings/14417.html January 3rd, 2012

Investment firm Barclays Capital has downgraded a number of semiconductor companies, including Intel, Freescale, Microchip, Applied Materials and Spansion, as demand is expected to be lower than supply for the first quarter of the year.

Intel cut its fourth quarter forecast last month by $1 billion, blaming the shortage of hard disk drives (HDD) for plummeting demand in the entire PC industry, but Nomura Equity Research claims there is more to Intel's revised financial outlook than the HDD problem. It was not all bad news for chipmakers, however, as Micron, LSI and Cymer were all upgraded from 'equal weight' to 'overweight'. Market recovery is expected in the second half of the year, with end of year growth of five percent, followed by six to eight percent growth in 2013.

ASUS to launch the second Jay Chou edition laptop N45J Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-to-launch-the-second-jay-chouedition-laptop-n45j/14416.html January 3rd, 2012

Investment firm Barclays Capital has downgraded a number of semiconductor companies, including Intel, Freescale, Microchip, Applied Materials and Spansion, as demand is

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

It was about six months ago when ASUS announced the Jay Chou edition laptop N43SL, and it looks like the company is planning to launch a second laptop endorsed by the Taiwanese celebrity.

Last year, ASUS announced the Jay Chou Edition N43SL laptop and very soon we would see the second Taiwanese celebrity-endorsed notebook PC in the market. Unlike the first model with a piano black finish, the new laptop N45J will be white with similar artistic designs printed at the back of the display. The new design is said to be related to his upcoming album. The ASUS N45J will feature a 1600x800 resolution screen, second generation Intel Core i7/i5/i3 processor, 8GB memory, Nvidia GT555M graphics with choice of either 1GB or 2GB VRAM, SSD or hard disk storage options and Bang & Olufsen ICEpower audio technology that is found on the N45SF. Specifications would vary depending on country, although it is likely that this new laptop will be focused for the Asia market. According to sources, the ASUS N45J Jay Chou edition laptop is scheduled to launch in mid January this month. No details on the pricing yet.

SmartDevices unveils SmartQ Ten2 Plus T13 9.7-inch Android tablet Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/smartdevices-unveils-smartq-ten2plus-t13-9.7-inch-android-tablet/14415.html January 3rd, 2012

SmartDevices has recently unveiled their new SmartQ Ten2 Plus T13 Android tablet. The touchscreen is said to be similar to that of the Apple iPad - 9.7-inch capacitive, IPS panel and has a pixel resolution of 1024Ă&#x2014;768. Internally, the T13 is powered by a 1GHz ARM Cortex A9 processor with 512MB DDR2 RAM and 8GB built-in Flash memory. It also has a microSD card slot for expansion, and supports up to 32GB. Other features include 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, 3G support, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and 2-megapixel front camera. The tablet also comes with a 7500mAh Lithium-ion battery and runs Android 2.3 Gingerbread. (Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is said to be in the works). But the most impressive thing about the SmartQ Ten2 Plus T13 is its incredible price tag; it is selling at RMB998 (or approximately US$160) which is value for what it offers.

Klipsch Mode M40 headphones with active noise-cancelling, lands in Singapore Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/klipsch-mode-m40-headphones-withactive-noise-cancelling-lands-in-singapore/14414.html January 3rd, 2012

Tat Chuan Acoustic, distributor for Klipsch products in Singapore, has announced the availability of the Klipsch Mode M40 headphones. The stylish M40 claims to incorporate active noise-cancelling technology and provides superb quality sound for audiophiles.

Chinese manufacturer SmartDevices has announced their new Ten2 Plus Android tablet. The tablet sports a 9.7-inch touchscreen, runs Android 2.3 and retails at an unbeatable RMB999 (approximately US$160).

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

Digital cameras might very well be on the decline, especially as Smartphones are getting better and better cameras, but that doesn't stop the camera makers from shoving more and more features into cameras. Samsung has announced an updated version of its DualView cameras and its latest model, the DV300F has gained Wi-Fi support for instant uploading of your pictures.

The Klipsch Mode M40 is said to be the company's first active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones, designed to provide superior audio performance. It claims to offer 45 hours of ANC on a single triple AAA battery, which is almost double the time offered by other ANC headphone models currently in the market, as well as serves as a high-quality stereo headphone if you choose not to put in the batteries. Each of the Mode M40 lightweight ear cups are made of premium leather and a special high-density memory foam for long hours of listening comfort, and has an adjustable headband for secure fit. The M40 comes with two detachable cloth cables, with one of them having a three-button remote and built-in microphone with echo cancellation; users can make clear conversations and control the music on their iPhone, iPad or iPhone devices conveniently. Priced at S$599 (inclusive of GST), the Klipsch Mode M40 is available at all Apple Premium Resellers, and comes with a two-year warranty, AAA battery, microfiber carrying case, airline adaptor and 1/4-inch adaptor.

Samsung adds a dash of Wi-Fi to new DualView camera Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-adds-a-dash-of-wi-fi-to-newdualview-camera/14413.html January 3rd, 2012

Samsung is so far the only company so slap an LCD display on the front of one of its cameras for self-portraits, a clever enough idea, although we're not sure if it's taken the world by storm. To give consumers easier access to their pictures, Samsung has kitted out the new DV300F with Wi-Fi which in turn allows you to connect the camera directly to the internet and upload your pictures and videos to websites such as Facebook, Picasa and YouTube. You can also email pictures directly as well and luckily the camera appears to have some basic editing options built in.

A much neater advantage that the Wi-Fi connectivity brings in our opinion is that Samsung has an auto backup feature which will upload the pictures to cloud storage services, although only Microsoft's SkyDrive and Samsung's own AllShare Play services are mentioned. In either case you would of course need to be connected to a Wi-Fi network, although hopefully a smartphone with a Wi-Fi enabled hotspot would do the job. The camera itself doesn't really stand out as such with a 16Megapixel sensor, 5x optical zoom with a 25mm wide angle lens, but it should be vastly superior to any camera equipped phone we can think of. The DV300F will come in black, silver, navy and red, although Samsung didn't announce any pricing or launch date.

HP's Envy Spectre gets teaser video, almost here Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hp-s-envy-spectre-gets-teaser-videoalmost-here/14412.html January 3rd, 2012

January 3rd, 2012

Apart from its Folio 13 it appears that HP has a second, somewhat larger Ultrabook coming which may or may not be known as the Envy 14 Spectre. HP has released a short teaser video of something simply called the HP Spectre. Apart from its Folio 13 it appears that HP has a second, somewhat larger Ultrabook coming which may or may not be known as the Envy 14 Spectre. HP has released a short teaser video of something simply called the HP Spectre. So far next to nothing is known about the new notebook, or possibly Ultrabook as it may be and as you can see by yourself from the video below, HP doesn't exactly give away a lot of details. Some details with regards to the bottom design leaked just before Christmas, but even in that case it's not clear if it's of the actual model that will be known as the Spectre or not and by now HP has had the FCC remove even those details.

It's clear that the Spectre will be a high-end product and we'd expect something out of the ordinary from HP. The only thing that seems to be agreed upon is that it should be a 14-inch notebook of some kind and that it should arrive soon, maybe even ahead of CES. We'll just have to wait and see what HP manages to conjure up, but it's about time that HP brings out a high-end ultraportable notebook.

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel's partners aren't meant to be showing off any 7series motherboards for a few days yet, but Chinese Wibtek apparently doesn't care much for Intel's restrictions and has shown off its first Z77 based motherboard. For something from a smaller Chinese motherboard maker it's actually not a half bad board, but it's not up there with the Taiwanese board makers in some areas. The pictures got posted on Expreview and they're not exactly high-resolution, but plenty of details can be seen nonetheless. The board is called the Hacker Z77 and apparently Wibtek has jumped on-board the whole gun heatsink theme, albeit in a little bit more discrete way. The heatsink is meant to be of a â&#x20AC;&#x153;desert eagleâ&#x20AC;? design, although it looks more like some ray gun from a Sci-Fi movie to us. Heatsink design apart, Wibtek has gone for a black on dark brown PCB in terms of slot and PCB colours and everything looks quite well polished.

The board has 16 power phases for the CPU, although the CPU socket area is quite crowded due in part to the large heatsink. The slot configuration consists of a pair of x16 slots where the second slot operates in x8 mode, a pair of x1 PCI Express slots and two PCI slots. There's also a half-size mini PCI Express slot located at the rear of the board which will accept a Wi-Fi card or similar. There are no less than 10 SATA ports in total, six of them SATA 6Gbps (four via two Marvell controllers) and four are thus SATA 3Gbps.

Wibtek first to show off alleged Z77 motherboard Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/wibtek-first-to-show-off-alleged-z77motherboard/14411.html January 3rd, 2012

Around the back of the board we find six USB 3.0 ports of which four should be native ports to the Z77 chipset, a FireWire port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/ PDIF out, an HDMI, DVI and D-sub connector and something else that we didn't manage to identify above the first pair of USB 3.0 ports. The additional USB 3.0 ports appear to be courtesy of a VLI host controller and there are pin headers for what appears to be four front USB 3.0 ports as well as four USB 5

January 3rd, 2012

2.0 ports and a FireWire port. The board also has power, reset and clear CMOS button located at the front.

Published by: VR-Zone

emissions, only remains to be seen (since there are no reliable data on carbon emissions from datacenters). Enter Asetek. The company known for its legendary VapoChill phase-change system and the LCLC (Low Cost Liquid Cooling) OEM design that today ships in numerous computers such as HP Z800 workstations or retail products such as Corsair H series, Antec Kuhler and many more is now entering the enterprise segment. In order to satisfy the needs and worries of the datacenter designers the company launched not one but three liquid cooling products.

There are markings on the board suggesting SLI and CoressFireX support and with the right CPU the board should support PCI Express 3.0. We should be seeing more 7-series motherboards at CES next week and hopefully we'll see something a bit more exciting than the Hacker 77, even though on a whole it's not a terrible board. Hit up the source for a few additional pictures.

Can Asetek's Technology Save Billions of Dollars and Reduce Carbon Emissions? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/can-asetek-s-technology-save-billionsof-dollars-and-reduce-carbon-emissions-/14409.html January 3rd, 2012

First and foremost, Asetek now offers closed liquid cooling for single 1U rackable server, including cooling for both CPU and the GPU, as demonstrated on Supermicro GPU server. Named Internal Loop Liquid Cooling (ILLC), Asetek created a compact radiator cooled by eight low profile fans. This design does not require any adjustments to the datacenter, so it can be retrofit into any server environment.

Asetek launched their concept of liquid cooling for high density servers to be used in datacenters. The idea of server liquid cooling in datacenters is as old as the datacenter itself, but this time we're approaching the tipping point. Every time we mention liquid cooling in datacenters, there is a string of skepticism about the durability of hardware and alleged danger of leaks. At the same time, server hardware is the cheapest investment from the whole datacenter budget sheet, since building a cooling system will eat up 40% of total build cost. Furthermore, largest portion of the monthly power bill will come from running the cooling subsystem. How big is this cost? Well, thanks to air cooling the server CPUs and GPUs, datacenters are now single largest consumer of electricity in the United States, with the situation not being exactly "great" in other countries around the globe. What this does to carbon

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

All of this solutions mean only one thing - death to the power consumer of the datacenter, CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning). Liquid cooling significantly reduces the current need for heavy investing in the cooling infrastructure, leaving room for significant computing density improvements. When it comes to redundancy, it is interesting to know that liquid cooling actually continues to work even if fans fail (most common situation for server technicians). Back to 2003, I started to experiment with liquid cooling for the first time, using components from German Innovatek AG. One of things that I forgot was to switch two 120mm fans on, so the system worked for three months (throughout the whole summer) without the active exchange of heat. Yet, Pentium 4 2.4@3.3GHz and two liquid cooled Gainward GeForce FX 5900 boards operated at 60C without hassle. Once this "genius" figured the fans were off, the temperature dropped to 32C for the CPU and 42C for the GPUs. You all remember the temperatures on those parts if they were air cooled.

If you are designing a new datacenter or remodeling the old one, Rack CDU (RCDU, Coolant Distribution Unit) is a multistage system which either connects high-performance 1U and 2U servers with the delivery of fresh coolant to be chilled by the rack itself, or by using additional blade chassis system called Sealed Server Liquid Cooling (SSLC). The Sealed Server Liquid Cooling blade chassis fits 10 blades with quad-socket motherboards. Since liquid cooling is much more efficient than air, you can forget about the common 95W TDP limitation for the Blade CPUs and go with fully fledged 130W, 150W TDP processors in the same space, increasing the computing power density by up to 58.7%, as calculated by Asetek.

If you're a computer enthusiast, and run liquid cooling for as long as you can remember - today is the day to celebrate since you were right. Liquid cooling is better than air, and now enterprise management can select best performing cooling solutions for the datacenter.

Asus Eee Pad 7-inch tablet expected at CES Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-eee-pad-7-inch-tablet-expectedat-ces/14410.html January 3rd, 2012

Back at CES last year, Asus showed off a device called the Eee Pad MeMo which later got a 3D suffix tucked onto its name at Computex, however the device itself never made a retail appearance. Now rumour has it that Asus will be launching it, or rather a pair of reworked versions of it at CES. Back at CES last year, Asus showed off a device called the Eee Pad MeMo which later got a 3D suffix tucked onto its name at Computex, however the device itself never made a retail appearance. Now rumour has it that Asus will be launching it, or rather a pair of reworked versions of it at CES. Notebook Italia has not only managed to dig out some brief specifications, but also a picture of what is said to possibly be the new device. We're still looking at a 7-inch display and we can apparently expect a resolution of 1280x800 pixels. The source claims that there will be a 3D and a non 3D version of what might still be known as the Eee Pad MeMo.

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

An unnamed former member of the WebOS app development team said the main problem was not WebOS itself, but a leadership and engineering failure to secure outside programmers to develop apps for it.

The processors is rumoured to be a 1.2GHz Qualcomm chip and it should be paired with 16 to 64GB of flash memory. Other features include Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity, although this is hardly surprising. Apparently we can look forward to a 7-inch Transformer tablet as well (of which the picture could be of), at least if we're to believe Notebook Italia, although the site has something of a track record when it comes to Asus leaks and their authenticity. It's not long to wait, so we'll just have to see what happens next week.

WebOS developers say HP TouchPad was doomed from start Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/webos-developers-say-hp-touchpadwas-doomed-from-start/14408.html January 3rd, 2012

Developers who worked on WebOS have revealed that HP's rival to Apple's iPad, the TouchPad, was doomed from the start, thanks to a number of design flaws. Developers who worked on WebOS have revealed that HP's rival to Apple's iPad, the TouchPad, was doomed from the start, thanks to a number of design flaws. Paul Mercer, the former senior director of software at Palm, which HP acquired for $1.2 billion in 2010, said that his company was ahead of its time and just was not able to achieve the ambitious outcome it aimed for with the mobile operating system. According to Mercer, who previously worked on a number of Apple products, one of the fatal mistakes of WebOS was its reliance on the open-source software engine WebKit, which ultimately slowed down apps, making it less appealing to opt for WebOS over faster rivals like iOS and Android.

Another issue was the numerous shortcuts taken over the nine month development period it took to give life to WebOS, including leaving app development kits until the last minute, which were then overhauled twice, which meant programmers had to relearn how to make apps for the platform several times. Other problems included a lack of staff to appropriately deal with such a large-scale project, with particular difficulties finding programmers who really understood WebKit. This shortage led to a situation where the initial launch was achieved, but updates and bug fixes could not be developed at a quick enough pace. When HP bought Palm many of the core team left, leaving the company with an even bigger manpower problem on its hands. Given these blunders with the software it is no surprise that the TouchPad failed to compete with Apple and Google based products. Mercer said that as long as WebOS depends on WebKit it will continue to linger far behind its rivals.

Google's Chrome browser to overtake Internet Explorer this year Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-s-chrome-browser-to-overtakeinternet-explorer-this-year/14407.html January 3rd, 2012

Google's Chrome web browser will overtake Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) this year, becoming the most used browser across the world, according to figures by StatCounter.

January 3rd, 2012

Google's Chrome web browser will overtake Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) this year, becoming the most used browser across the world, according to figures by StatCounter.

Published by: VR-Zone

the memory. We also flashed the R4E's latest 0001 bios, which has further PCIe 3.0 signal tweaks for the HD7970.

Currently Chrome has a market share of 27 percent, putting it in second place behind IE, which still rules a healthy 38 percent of the industry. By June or July of 2012, however, Chrome is expected to outgrow Microsoft's former glory. This will be particularly bad considering the year Chrome launched in, 2008, saw IE dominate the market with a 70 percent market share.

Mozilla's Firefox, which was once the most popular alternative to IE, has dropped more than five percent since last year to 25.27 percent, putting it in third place behind Chrome. The remaining web browsers are significantly behind the others, with Safari gaining a small increase from 4.79 percent to over six percent, and Opera coming in fifth place with nearly two percent. The figures show how quickly and easily the market can change when new competition enters, especially if the established companies fail to adapt and push out better products.

Results: 3DMark 11 v1.03 Performance Preset (single card scores P9532)

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Tri-Fire Results Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-tri-fireresults/14406.html January 3rd, 2012

We are still missing one card for quadfire (Kim Jong-un aides probably hijacked the package for his Christmas present), but till then, here are some 3-way Crossfire results...

3DMark 11 v1.03 Extreme Preset (single card scores X3219)

Test Setup: As the software voltage tool we used for our 1.26GHz core overclock yesterday didn't work with multiple cards, we clocked all the cards to 1100Mhz on the core and 1500Mhz on 9

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

Unigine Heaven 2.5 (single card scores 78.3fps)

Battlefield 3 (DX11) 1080p Ultra Preset Going Hunting Single Player Level Fraps Runthrough

Computemark (single card scores 6951)

Verdict: With such stellar performance already on 3 cards, we really can't wait for our 4th card to arrive and extended voltage options to be available for multiple cards! A quick check on our power meter showed around 900W power usage while in Battlefield 3 (quite the GPU waller) - which again outclasses previous generation cards. AMD have really shut the door on its competitiors this time...

AMD Postpones Radeon HD 7950 Until February Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-postpones-radeon-hd-7950-untilfebruary/14404.html

January 3rd, 2012 January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

Front of Box - one of the nicer boxes around

When AMD pushed the introduction of the Radeon HD 7970 from January 9, 2012 to December 22, 2011, the only that actually launched were the reviews by selected press. Now, AMD is making sure the same thing does not happen with 7950. By all standards, the introduction of Southern Islands GPU architecture is proving to be a success: the first card, Radeon HD 7970 launched on December 22, 2011 with the worldwide availability coming next week (on the original launch date: January 9, 2012). However, while the Radeon HD 7970 is delighting us with the performance achieved and fantastic overclocks on air (we cannot wait to see the water-blocks and LN2 cooling results), this was the first paper launch in ages. For reasons unknown, AMD introduced the part without actual hardware availability. Knowing that this came from the company that openly criticized its competitors in the past for doing so, we wondered is AMD planning another paper launch in the form of value part, the Radeon HD 7950.

Back of Box - Jonathan 'Fatal1ty' Wendel's face only appears once here and his endorsement message. We also noticed an alarming lack of any technical specs like DAC/ADC SNR rating or sample rate/resolution - which even Taiwanese motherboard makers are eager to boast about on their Realtek based implementations.

Not anymore: according to an e-mail from AMD, the company is making sure that Radeon HD 7950 launches on the same date as the retail availability, which is 1st week of February. That's right, no 7950 coming on January 9, 2012. In a way, this is an appropriate delay as well since NVIDIA is widely expected to introduce its GK104, its first part based on 28nm Kepler architecture in the last week of January or in early February. From the looks of it, even though we're still going through the hangover of New Years' party, 2012 is looking even more exciting on the GPU front. It looks like 28nm process from TSMC is nothing short of brilliant.

Quick Look: Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional

Quick Start leaflet and Driver CD

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/quick-look-sound-blaster-recon3dfatal1ty-professional/14401.html January 3rd, 2012

Almost three months ago back in September of 2011, Creative announced their Sound Core3Dâ&#x201E;˘ "quad core" chipset, and it has since featured in their latest gaming focused sound cards and headsets as well as on motherboards like the ASRock X79 Extreme9. We got the Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional PCIe sound card in our labs today to see if it pleases the audiophilles or the hardcore gamer groups.

Beamforming Microphone Array 11

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

Hackers are working on sending their own satellites into orbit around the Earth as part of an effort to combat the rising threat of internet censorship, and are also planning to put an amateur astronaut on the moon. Hackers are working on sending their own satellites into orbit around the Earth as part of an effort to combat the rising threat of internet censorship.

The Card - Metal housing with a plastic window. Uses a PCIe x1 interface, which is good as legacy PCI slots are almost extinct

The Hackerspace Global Grid was revealed at the Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin. The proposals include developing and launching satellites in addition to a grid of ground stations for tracking them. The idea is to have the ground stations built by individuals or small groups, dividing the cost and control. "The first goal is an uncensorable internet in space. Let's take the internet out of the control of terrestrial entities," said hacktivist Nick Farr, who put out a call for contributions to the project in August. The major obstacle to this endeavour is funding. Hobbyists have previously managed to get small satellites into orbit, but they are usually unreliable and difficult to track, which would be no good for the internet. Other obstacles include the technical difficulties of low-orbit versus geostationary satellites and the potential for governments to interfere with and disable satellites.

Colour coded outputs for 5.1 audio, 600ohm amped headphone jack and TOSLINK Optical In/Out ports

Hackers to build satellites to combat internet censorship Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hackers-to-build-satellites-to-combatinternet-censorship/14405.html January 3rd, 2012

Three prototype ground stations are being planned for the first half of 2012. The group also hopes to give away working models at the next Chaos Communication Congress, with the aim to keep ground station costs around â&#x201A;Ź100, making it affordable for many people to participate in this space project. The hackers suggested they would even like to put an amateur astronaut on the moon within the next 23 years, though how feasible this is remains in question, particularly given the technical and monetary barriers, as well as the potential safety threat.

January 3rd, 2012

The idea of making space open to more than just government agencies is an interesting and welcome thought, however, and could pave the way to some of humanity's greatest triumphs and discoveries.

Haswell graphics expectations: A quantum leap or just another small step forward? Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/haswell-graphics-expectations-aquantum-leap-or-just-another-small-step-forward-/14399.html January 3rd, 2012

As the Ivy Bridge processors from Intel comes out four months from now, its graphics, with reportedly double the Sandy Bridge GPU performance, would have an impact on entry level discrete GPUs. Will Haswell continue with the same major performance jump, or just some moderate improvements? By now, we know that Ivy Bridge graphics, integrated in the CPU, will be quite a refresh compared to the current Sandy Bridge capabilities. The performance, DX11 compatibility, and high resolution multi-display capability should satisfy most mainstream users' needs, somewhat reducing the entry-level discrete GPU market at that point. A year later, in early 2013, the next generation Haswell platform should see the light of the day, again first in the mainstream PC and mobile arena. Haswell will again include grapghics enhancements, but how far are those likely to go? Here we share some insights on the graphics side of Intel's next major X86 PC microarchitecture revision.

Published by: VR-Zone

The 'Generation 7.5' graphics core in Haswell is, as the naming convention hints, a 'point upgrade' of the seventh generation Ivy Bridge graphics engine. Up to 20 execution units, each 128 bits wide, are to be supported, and these are supposedly enhanced with a new GPU compute architecture. The other major additions include a new internal GPU cache, hierarchical Z, as well as improved encode & decode pipelines for more hardware formats. A very interesting productivity enhancement is the processor's ability to simultaneously manage external display connection both by its own integrated graphics and the external PCIe GPU over up to two displays, avoiding the need for external switching hardware. How about the performance? It seems that the initial performance expectations aren't that high - compared to each matching Ivy Bridge graphics level, we're talking of maybe 20% average performance improvement. Two possible explanations come to mind, one being that Intel team is happy enough with the Ivy Bridge graphics speed-up, and focuses instead on features and power saving in Haswell (remember the power-focus on Haswell from their IDF keynote?), while the other one is that the actual speed-up is to be way higher, especially in the high-graphics GT3 version, and that future driver improvements should help as well. We'll look more into the possible additional features and capabilities expected from Haswell generation graphics over time, however we also have to keep in mind that graphics is one capability where AMD has very strong credentials, including integrating it on the CPU. If, say, Llano graphics is roughly 2x that of Sandy Bridge (i.e. similar performance as Ivy Bridge), yet Haswell is another 20% or 70%, depending on the version, that would roughly match the performance of AMD 'Trinity' graphics, which is, however, due much earlier - at about the same time as the Ivy Bridge itself. On the other hand, AMD is unlikely to have a Fusion integration with a Bulldozer follow-on on the high end desktop yet by early 2013, so the only competition that would beat Haswell at the time in the GPU department is another mainstream follow-on to 'Trinity', maybe in 20 nm GloFo process?

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Voltage Mod - 1.26GHz flying on air Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-voltagemod--1.26ghz-flying-on-air/14398.html January 3rd, 2012

One week ago, Santa Claus brought us the red themed AMD Radeon HD 7970, which practically smoked previous generation cards and showed great overclocking headroom. 13

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

For our first feature in 2012, we sacrificed our holiday weekend to bring you an exclusive look at some benchmark results achieved with a slight voltage bump and core clocks raised to nearly 1.26GHz. Stay tuned also for our record breaking 4-way Crossfire tests which should be done this upcoming week! Update: "Lousy" Furmark Results (settings: http://imgur.com/WAuyP) spotted by sharp eyed viewers - even on the other benchies and BF3 (which walls the CPU to 99%), didn't see the temps go above the magical 66 degrees (toasty Singapore ambient), measured by onboard i2c sensor and ma fingers. If you recall our Radeon HD 7970 reference board review not too long ago, we got our card to overclock to 1125MHz core and 1500Mhz memory, limited by a bios controlled clock ceiling and lack of voltage mod tools. Things changed on this New Year's weekend though... With core voltage bumped from 1.15v to 1.25v using publicly available software and a special bios (9th Jan reveal), we got the core clock speed up to 1267MHz

At 100% fan speed and overvolted, the GPU temps were still only a lukewarm 66 degrees celcius - which implies that the reference cooling solution could probably handle a lot more voltage

Test Setup:

Update 2/1/12: These were the latest Furmark 1.9.2 Xtreme burn-in settings used (http://imgur.com/WAuyP) - different card but same settings. Even on the other benchies and BF3 (which walls the CPU to 99%), didn't see the temps go above the magical 66 degrees (toasty Singapore ambient), measured by onboard i2c sensor and ma fingers. 3DMark 11 1.03 Performance Preset (stock is P8227)

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

ComputeMark (stock is 5920 marks)

3DMark 11 1.03 Extreme Preset (stock is X2764)

Unigine Heaven 2.5 (stock is 69.6fps)

The 28nm process and new GCN architecture have really done wonders for the performance and frequency headroom (VRZone Legend Shamino has achieved way better - 1.7GHz+ on LN2). Considering that the the temperatures were still in the 60s on full load, we simply can't wait for the software controlled voltage ceiling (currently 1.25v on the software we used) to be raised to push our clocks higher!. If you have a 7970 and good soldering skills, visit Shamino's Lair at kingpincooling forums for his guide on the HD 7970 measuring points and hardware vmods. STAY TUNED FOR OUR POTENTIALLY RECORD BREAKING HD7970 4-WAY CROSSFIRE FEATURE THIS UPCOMING WEEK!

Collins Dictionary now available online Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/collins-dictionary-now-availableonline/14396.html January 3rd, 2012

Famous English dictionary by Collins is now avaliable online. The new beta website is designed to facilitate your referencing needs. Updates are on the way to expand the range of definitions and translated languages. Collins English Dictionary is the first dictionary to publish their contents online. Previously available with a major publisher, the beta website allows user to search for words to match some 120,000 entries available for free, including a list of possible leads for misspelled words. It supports 15

January 3rd, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

translations to French, German and Spanish, available via the tabs above the entry field. With an expanding range of the word definitions, the online dictionary will be adding another 100,000 entries by March, along with translations to 35 different languages. For a year and a half, the Scotlandbased team had been preparing the online publication. Head of digital at HarperCollins, Alex Brown, said: “We’ve brought together the web designers’ creativity with our own experience of language and how it’s used to create a really nice, user friendly but sharply designed website.”

Sapphire Readies HD 7970 with 1335 MHz GPU Clock Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sapphire-readies-hd-7970-with-1335mhz-gpu-clock/14397.html January 3rd, 2012

We tend to be skeptical about AMD or NVIDIA claiming stellar overclocking capabilities of their upcoming GPUs, but this time, it seems AMD wasn't playing the same old PR games. Sapphire is readying a non-reference design HD 7970 graphics card that boasts of 1335 MHz GPU clock speed. Out of the box! You read that right, 1335 MHz GPU core clock speed, out of the box! A leaked company document belonging to AMD's biggest add-in board (AIB) partner, Sapphire, disclosed details such as clock-speeds, of pretty much every non-reference design Radeon HD 7970 graphics card that company has, in the works. These include Sapphire's using brand markers Atomic, Toxic, FLEX, Vapor, and Dual-Fan. The cards that caught our eyes are "Atomic RX" and "Atomic WC".

Both "Atomic RX" and "Atomic WC" have the same exact clock speeds - 1335 MHz core, 5735 MHz (1433 MHz actual) memory. The "Atomic RX" could be an air-cooled model, while the "Atomic WC" could be a liquid-cooled one. Sapphire will most likely use a closed-loop, pre-fitted water-cooling solution. Other variants include Toxic 3G, with 1125 MHz core, 5600 MHz (1400 MHz actual) memory; FLEX 6G, with a flexible display output configuration of six mini-DisplayPort connectors, AMD reference clock speeds of 925/5500 MHz (core/memory effective), but with a whopping 6 GB of memory on board; VaporX 3G with 1010/5500 MHz (core/memory effective), Dual-Fan 3G, with a cost-effective double-fan cooler and AMD reference speeds; and "Da Original", which is the vanilla card that sticks completely to AMD reference board design. Boy, are we excited.

Intel to offer seventh mobile 7series chipset Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-to-offer-seventh-mobile-7-serieschipset/14395.html January 3rd, 2012

January 3rd, 2012

Quite unexpectedly we got our hands on details of a seventh mobile chipset for Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processors, a model that has us wondering what Intel is playing at. The chipset appears to be another budget model, yet it offers some additional features compared to chipsets with higher model numbers. Quite unexpectedly we got our hands on details of a seventh mobile chipset for Intel's upcoming Ivy Bridge processors, a model that has us wondering what Intel is playing at. The chipset appears to be another budget model, yet it offers some additional features compared to chipsets with higher model numbers. The chipset in question is the HM70 and it appears to be something of a request from OEMs as it's something of a mix between the UM77 and the HM75. For starters it only has four lanes of PCI Express 2.0, the same as the UM77 chipset, yet it has support for two USB 3.0 ports, a feature lacking entirely from the HM75. That said, it still only has half the USB 3.0 ports of the other 7-series chipsets. Intel has also cut the total number of USB 2.0 ports down to a mere six, again the same as the UM77 chipset.

Published by: VR-Zone

for the notebook makers than Anti-Theft technology and additional SATA ports and PCI Express lanes.

Elpida samples 4Gbit Wide IO Mobile RAM Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/elpida-samples-4gbit-wide-io-mobileram/14394.html January 3rd, 2012

2012 is so far looking like it'll be a great year for mobile devices with plenty of quad core ARM implementations arriving, higher resolution screens expected, faster flash storage memory at ever increasing capacities and now, superfast, low power memory, at least if Elpida has anything to do with it. The company has announced that it has started to ship samples of its new Wide IO Mobile RAM as well as its Mobile DDR3 RAM in 4Gbit capacities. 2012 is so far looking like it'll be a great year for mobile devices with plenty of quad core ARM implementations arriving, higher resolution screens expected, faster flash storage memory at ever increasing capacities and now, superfast, low power memory, at least if Elpida has anything to do with it. The company has announced that it has started to ship samples of its new Wide IO Mobile RAM as well as its Mobile DDR3 RAM in 4Gbit capacities. Let's start with the Mobile DDR3 or LPDDR3 as it's also known as (not to be confused with Low Voltage DDR3) which is the next generation of "standard" DRAM to be used in mobile devices and it's a simple evolution from LPDDR2. We're looking at a doubling in the data rate from 800MHz to 1600MHz, or from 3.2GB/s to 6.4GB/s if you prefer. LPDDR3 still uses a fairly narrow 32-bit bus and it will be available in sizes of 512, 1024 and 2048MB down the line, although initial sample shipments will be 512MB. LPDDR3 can of course be configured in dual-channel which effectively doubles the bandwidth and this is something we'd expect to see in some high-end tablets where PCB space restrictions aren't as much of a concern as they are in smartphones.

As we move down the feature list we find that the HM70 only sports four SATA ports of which only one is SATA 6Gbps, once more mimicking the UM77. However, there's no support for RAID or Smart Response, something it shares with the HM75 and HM76. Almost other features are present though with the exception of Anti-Theft technology and the ones intended for corporate and business notebooks. We're not sure why Intel would do a chipset without support for its Anti-Theft technology as this seems rather backwards. What we don't know if package size or cost, but we'd guess that we're looking at pricing similar to the HM75, so somewhere around the US$40 mark. A very peculiar addition indeed, but a chipset we have a feeling we'll be seeing in a lot more notebooks than the HM75, despite its omissions as we have a feeling that USB 3.0 will be a more appealing selling point

So what about Wide IO Mobile RAM? Well, as the name suggests it has a much wider bus than regular DRAM, in fact its 512-bit wide, that's 16 times wider than that of LPDDR3 in single channel mode. However, the operating speed is a mere 200MHz, but thanks to the wide interface data transfer speeds still hit 12.8GB/s. Elpida claims that the vastly lower clock speed of Wide IO Mobile RAM allows for up to a 50 percent power saving compared to today's LPDDR2. Just as with its LPDDR3, we'll see capacities of 512, 1024 and 2048MB, but with initial shipments being limited to 512MB modules. The interesting thing here will be once clock speeds increase, as even fairly minor increases in the speed of Wide IO Mobile RAM (they really need to come up with a catchier name though) should result in big performance improvements. Hopefully we'll see a widespread adoption of Wide IO Mobile RAM, but it's not clear how easy it is to add support for it for 17

January 3rd, 2012

the SoC manufacturers, but it's clear that it would require a different memory interface than what is widely used today.

Lenovo gives us a sneak peek of its upcoming IdeaPad S110 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lenovo-gives-us-a-sneak-peek-of-itsupcoming-ideapad-s110/14393.html January 3rd, 2012

If a teaser video posted by Lenovo on YouTube is anything to go by, Lenovo should be one of the first companies to launch a Cedar Trail-M netbook, although Lenovo seems to have ditched the term netbook in favour of "mini notebook". The IdeaPad S110 should feature the new Atom N2600 processor as well as a few other additions that most netbooks don't have. If a teaser video posted by Lenovo on YouTube is anything to go by, Lenovo should be one of the first companies to launch a Cedar Trail-M netbook, although Lenovo seems to have ditched the term netbook in favour of "mini notebook". The IdeaPad S110 should feature the new Atom N2600 processor as well as a few other additions that most netbooks don't have. The video gives away the fact that the IdeaPad S110 will come in a choice of red, blue, white or black. It has a 10.1-inch screen, but this is apparently an HD resolution screen, although by this we presume Lenovo means 1366x768 at the most. It also comes with an optional 720p webcam, USB 3.0 connectivity, Wi-Fi and optional 3G connectivity. A few other features were also dug out thanks to some helpful online retailers that have already listed the IdeaPad S110 for sale and as such we know we can expect 1GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive as standard. A bit sting in our opinion especially considering how cheap RAM is these days, but typical for a netbook. Lenovo also claims that the IdeaPad S110 weighs in at 1.15kg and measures in at 16mm thick/thin and that it comes with "long battery life for extended use" without going into any details. We managed to dig up some official pricing and at least in Canada the list price excluding tax is CAD$299.99 (S$382) which isn't terrible, but one should take into consideration that Intel is offering its Cedar Trail Atom processors at a much more affordable price than the previous generation with an Atom N2600 having an Intel list price of a mere US$42 which should be compared to US$86 for either of the Atom N550 or N570, a US$46 price difference that would be directly reflected in the price of the actual device.

Published by: VR-Zone January 3rd, 2012

We've managed to dig out a few details of an upcoming miniITX motherboard from Asus featuring Intel's Atom D2500 processor and although this isn't the most exciting platform in the world, Asus has created something a little bit different. In fact, anyone looking at building a home server with some fancy features might just want to consider this board. We've managed to dig out a few details of an upcoming miniITX motherboard from Asus featuring Intel's Atom D2500 processor and although this isn't the most exciting platform in the world, Asus has created something a little bit different. In fact, anyone looking at building a home server with some fancy features might just want to consider this board. The model name is D25NM10-I/CSM and it's quite different from the boards we've seen from ASRock, as Asus is targeting quite a different market segment. In reality this ought to be an industrial PC motherboard judging by the fact that it has an LVDS connector, five serial ports (of which two are RS422/485 compatible) and even a pin header for a parallel port. However, Asus has also included a PCI Express x1 and a mini PCI Express expansion slot, a DVI port and a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports making this an interesting solution for a home server. Other features include an on-board DC-DC converter, 5.1channel audio, a pair of SATA ports, a total of eight USB 2.0 ports (four via two headers), a PS/2 port, a D-sub connector and a pin header for S/PDIF out. Sadly we don't have a picture of the board, but we can imagine it being a fairly cramped board considering the amount of features Asus has squeezed in. Intel has finally allowed for up to 4GB of 1066MHz DDR3 RAM to be supported by its Atom processors and this further makes this a decent little server board. The CPU is passively cooled and with an external power adapter there's no noise from the PSU either. The only limitation as far as a server is concerned is the two SATA ports, but at least a PCI Express RAID card could be connected to the PCI Express slot if need be. The question is how much Asus is planning on charging for this board, as we have a feeling it'll be quite expensive due to all the industrial PC features, but we might be wrong here. No word on when it'll be available, but we'd expect it to arrive shortly.

Asus to launch Atom D2500 mini-ITX motherboard Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-to-launch-atom-d2500-mini-itxmotherboard/14392.html

January 5th, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

VR-Zone.com | Stuff for the Geeks! VR-Zone | Stuff for the Geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks.

SATA-IO announces DevSleep for reduced power draw of SATA devices Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/sata-io-announces-devsleep-forreduced-power-draw-of-sata-devices/14451.html January 5th, 2012

in terms of what the user would notice in terms of delay, yet big in terms of power saved. An added bonus is that the host controller PHY would also be powered down, saving further power. The problem here is that it wouldn't work with today's SATA controller, as a DevSleep side-band signal would be needed to allow the host and device to communicate as to when to go to sleep and when to wake up. As such it's not likely that we'll see DevSleep support in any SATA devices this year, although the information provided by the SATA-IO doesn't really explain what is needed to add the extra side-band signalling, so it's entirely possible that this is a very minor addition that could easily be implemented in current SATA hardware.

Google drops Intel in favour of ARM for Google TV We seem to be living in the age of power frugality when it comes to mobile computing devices and although this is by no means a bad thing in most cases, we're starting to wonder if the technology companies aren't looking in the wrong direction sometimes. Now the SATA-IO is the latest organization to join with a new power saving feature called DevSleep which is meant to help reduce the power of SATA devices. We seem to be living in the age of power frugality when it comes to mobile computing devices and although this is by no means a bad thing in most cases, we're starting to wonder if the technology companies aren't looking in the wrong direction sometimes. Now the SATA-IO is the latest organization to join with a new power saving feature called DevSleep which is meant to help reduce the power of SATA devices. According to Microsoft and Intel the two most power hungry devices in a notebook is the hard drive and the display and it's clear that the SATA-IO is trying to address the first one of these two categories. What DevSleep enables is the ability for a SATA device such as an SSD or hard drive to more or less power itself off entirely when not in use. This is quite different from the various slumber modes currently available for SATA devices. One problem with DevSleep is that new device and host controllers would need to be made that supports DevSleep, as the PHY and other parts of the storage device would be completely powered off when the device is in DevSleep mode. In DevSleep mode a SATA device is meant to draw less than 5mW, yet have a response time of less than 20ms. This is a lot quicker than resuming a notebook from standby and should equate to a similar power draw. A SATA device today would draw in the region of 50-100mW in its lowest slumber mode, yet still take 10ms to respond, so the trade-off here is very small

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-drops-intel-in-favour-of-armfor-google-tv/14450.html January 5th, 2012

In a surprise to no-one move, Google or rather Marvell has come clean on the fact that Google TV will be moving away from Intel and onto ARM. The first new Google TV boxes should be based on the Marvell Armada 1500 HD media SoC and should make a debut at CES next week. In a surprise to no-one move, Google or rather Marvell has come clean on the fact that Google TV will be moving away from Intel and onto ARM. The first new Google TV boxes should be based on the Marvell Armada 1500 HD media SoC and should make a debut at CES next week. The Armada 1500 (also known as the 88DE3100) is a brand new SoC from Marvell and an up to date version of the older Armada 1000, a chip that found its way into some Blu-ray players among other things. The Armada 1500 sports a custom PJ4B dual core ARM v6/7 processor designed by Marvell which is said to be Cortex-A9 compatible. Marvell claims 2.61 DMIPS per MHz per core, somewhat faster than the 2.5 DMIPS for a standard Cortex-A9 implementation. According to the spec sheet, each core is clocked at 1.2GHz which gives us a performance of just over 6200 DMIPS. Marvell has also included Neon support and support for Intel WMMX in the Armada 1500. Marvell has also added a 3D graphics core to the Armada 1500, although this is not an in-house design, as Marvell has licensed the GC1000 from Vivante. According to Anandtech this is an OpenGL-ES 1.1/2.0 port with a core clock of 750MHz, but 1

January 5th, 2012

the details are fairly thin with regards to how this GPU core compares to that seen in other Cortex-A9 SoC's. Marvell has of course also included its own Qdeo post processing engine with supports per-pixel 3D noise reduction and de-interlacing, scaling and a wide range of other post processing features.

Other hardware features include support for 32-bit DDR3 800MHz memory, support for various types of Flash memory, HDMI 1.4 support, SATA 3.0 (we're not sure if Marvell refers to 3Gbps or 6Gbps here), 10/100Mbit Ethernet, SDIO, USB 2.0 connectivity and interestingly support for digital video input. In the latter case it seems like Marvell is hoping for its Armada 1500 to end up in some TVs and as such it would need to have HDMI inputs, although it will be interesting to see if anyone will create a device that will allow for recording from the digital input.

Published by: VR-Zone

A file-sharing organisation has gained official recognition in Sweden as a religion, an unusual move that could have repercussions on the debate about the illegal downloading of files. A file-sharing organisation has gained official recognition in Sweden as a religion, an unusual move that could have repercussions on the debate about the illegal downloading of files. The Church of Kopimism considers â&#x20AC;&#x153;kopyactingâ&#x20AC;?, or filesharing, to be a religious service, despite most people seeing it as little more than a digital act. Kopimism gained recognition as a religion just before Christmas after applying three times to the Swedish government agency Kammarkollegiet. Not only is file-sharing considered its central sacrament, the CTRL+C and CTRL +V shortcuts for copying and pasting are viewed as sacred symbols.

Marvell has also included support for a ton of codecs in its VMeta video engine and it can decode two streams at once. It handles just about every format out there including High Profile H.264, VC-1 Advanced profile, DivX-HD, VP6/8 in HD, Real Video 9/10 up to 1080p and a bunch of other formats. We should point out that there's support for Blu-ray 3D video, although we don't expect this to be a feature of any new Google TV products, but it should as such also handle 3D TV broadcasts. On the audio side of things the Armada 1500 will handle multi-channel Dolby and DTS up to 7.1-channels. Beyond Google TV, Marvell is also claiming support for Android and various Linux operating systems. The planned implementations are as we've mentioned Google TV, smart TVs, set top boxes of various kinds, Blu-ray players and all kinds of media players. Marvell appears to have a well featured solution here, albeit maybe not quite as flexible as an x86 setup, but vastly cheaper. Marvell's own demo system that you can see pictured above might not look that impressive, but remember that this isn't what Google's partners' products will look like. Time will tell of Google TV 2.0 will be a success or not, but if the price can be brought down to something much more reasonable than the first generation hardware and if Google can put together slightly better software, then we see no reason bar that of Google being shut out by the content providers that the new Google TV boxes shouldn't be a success.

Swedish file-sharing group recognised as a religion Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/swedish-file-sharing-group-recognisedas-a-religion/14449.html January 5th, 2012

The group is run by Isak Gerson, a 19-year-old student of philosophy, who is now the spiritual leader of Kopimi, the people who follow the tenets of this new religion, which does not explicitly support illegal file-sharing, but the general free exchange of information. There are likely millions of unknowing adherents of Kopimism throughout the world. While this might sound like something akin to the idea of the Jedi religion, it could have a monumental effect on the legality of various laws against illegal file-sharing, as internet cuts and website blocks could be seen as religious persecution, a violation of a fundamental human right. File-sharing remains one of the big debates of modern society, with widespread opposition to various proposed laws that many see as internet censorship. Political groups like the Pirate Party have formed in recent years, and now advocates of file-sharing can add the divine to their list of supporters.

January 5th, 2012

Apple hires Adobe executive for iAd position Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/apple-hires-adobe-executive-for-iadposition/14447.html January 5th, 2012

Reports suggest that Apple has hired Todd Teresi, an Adobe executive, for its iAd advertising platform, an ironic move considering the companies' past rivalry. Reports suggest that Apple has hired Todd Teresi, an Adobe executive, for its iAd advertising platform, an ironic move considering the companies' past rivalry. Teresi previously held the role of vice-president of Adobe's media solutions group and is now working as vice-president of iAd, despite the lack of a formal announcement of the employment shift. The position opened up after the founder of Quattro Wireless, the firm Apple acquired and turned into iAd, stepped down, suggesting all was not well in Apple's mobile advertising division.

Published by: VR-Zone

AMD Radeon HD 7970 Quad CrossfireX: The Stock Air Cooling Champion Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-radeon-hd-7970-quad-crossfirexthe-stock-air-cooling-champion/14444.html January 5th, 2012

Armed with only our fists, we slayed the murderous fire breathing dragon and rescued the princess (actually the last HD 7970 to complete our 4-way quadfire feature). This time, we have also included 5760x1080 Eyefinity tests in Battlefield 3 and DiRT3, complete with videos! Test Setup: This time we've upgraded our CPU cooling to a XSPC RX360 kit and clocked it higher at 4.8GHz (LinX 4gb 10 runs stable). Unfortunately we still couldn't get any of the available overclocking tools to set voltages or core clocks beyond 1125MHz on simultaneously all 4 cards without running into BSODs or weird artifacts, so we were forced to use the restrictive AMD Overdrive to run our cards @ 1100/1500MHz

The move is particularly interesting given strained relations between the two companies after Steve Jobs dismissed Flash as outdated and insecure.

Apple launched iAd in 2010 in an attempt to monopolise on the potential ad revenue that could be made from the booming smartphone and tablet sectors, an area that Google has been quite successful in. Some believe iAd has failed to achieve what Apple set out to do, however, with criticisms over its high cost and limited exposure. “Charging premium prices and reaching only Apple devices is a much harder sell,” said EMarket analyst Noah Elkin, according to Bloomberg. “That has been a huge stumbling block.” This might explain why Apple brought Teresi on board, as he has extensive experience in the media and advertising sector, working for both Adobe's digital publishing business and Yahoo's publishing sales. Whether or not he can turn iAd into the number one mobile advertising business remains to be seen.

January 5th, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

3DMark Vantage Performance (http://3dmark.com/3dmv/3788612)

Preset

Unigine Heaven Benchmark (hwbot.org Submission)

The Tests: 3DMark 11 v1.03 Extreme (http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2480832)

Preset

LuxMark OpenCL Benchmark Tool (single card scores 19238)

3DMark 11 v1.03 Performance (http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2480813)

Preset

January 5th, 2012

Lenovo announces ThinkPad Hybrid laptop and business ultrabook Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/lenovo-announces-thinkpad-hybridlaptop-and-business-ultrabook/14446.html January 5th, 2012

Lenovo has announced its first ThinkPad Hybrid laptop and first business ultrabook, combining portability with enterprise-class features and power-saving options. Lenovo has announced its first ThinkPad Hybrid laptop and first business ultrabook.

Published by: VR-Zone

The 14-inch ThinkPad T430u offers the portability of an ultrabook with a number of useful business features, such as Intel's Small Business Advantage productivity and security tools. Users can choose from a variety of Intel Core processors, Intel integrated or Nvidia graphics, and an SSD or HDD. It also has a fast boot and resume feature and a battery life of up to six hours. The X1 Hybrid will be available in the second quarter for around $1,599, while the T430u will come out in the third quarter for roughly $849.

Broadcom launches its first 802.11ac Gigabit 5G WiFi chips Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/broadcom-launches-its-first-802.11acgigabit-5g-wifi-chips/14445.html January 5th, 2012

The 13.3-inch ThinkPad X1 Hybrid features many improvements over its predecessor, the X1, such as double the CPU speed and quadruple the GPU performance. One of the more interesting elements of the X1 Hybrid is its instant media mode, which doubles the battery life to 10 hours and effectively gives the laptop some PC functionality, explaining the 'Hybrid' name. This mode, which can be accessed instantly by clicking an icon on the homescreen, utilises a Qualcomm dual-core processor, up to 16GB of RAM, and a custom Linux-based operating system. The battery can also be charged up to 80 percent in half an hour. The X1 Hybrid comes with some business features like encrypted hard drives, remote management support, and a fingerprint reader, in addition to having everything required for voice and video conferencing.

It's already been five years since 802.11n arrived, although back then in its draft standard and things have progressed slowly since then, although some 450Mbps hardware started to show up last year. This year looks set to be the launch for the 802.11ac standard, also known as 5G WiFi which promises Gigabit speeds, better coverage, improved reliability and lower power usage and Broadcom looks set to be one of the first chip makers for the new standard. It's already been five years since 802.11n arrived, although back then in its draft standard and things have progressed slowly since then, although some 450Mbps hardware started to show up last year. This year looks set to be the launch for the 802.11ac standard, also known as 5G WiFi which promises Gigabit speeds, better coverage, improved reliability and lower 5

January 5th, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

power usage and Broadcom looks set to be one of the first chip makers for the new standard. We've already written about the 802.11ac standard, although that was nearly a year ago and things seem to have progressed quicker than originally anticipated. To do a quick recap and catch-up 802.11ac will operate on the 5GHz band, although originally it was said to operate at 6GHz and below, although no specific frequency was given. By now it's clear that 802.11ac will be using the same 5GHz band as 802.11a/n, although with some significant differences. For starters 802.11ac will use 80 and 160MHz channel width compared to a maximum of 40MHz for 802.11n.

802.11ac also supports twice as many MIMO spatial streams as 802.11n (8 vs. 4), an increase of the QAM (Quadrature amplitude modulation) count from 64 to 256 and it will support multi-user MIMO which allows for further increased performance depending on the configuration of the transmitting and receiving end. Not all devices will support Gigabit speed, as smaller devices are likely to end up much slower than that due to the inability to fit enough antennas. This is one of the downsides of 802.11ac, as to reach really high speeds, at least two, preferably three or four antennas need to be used, although eight antenna configurations are also planned. Broadcom has announced four new chipsets starting with the BCM43516 which is intended for PCs and other consumer electronics devices. It's a single chip solution that offers speeds of up to 433Mbps using 80MHz channel width, dual-band support with current Wi-Fi networks and a USB 2.0 interface. We'd say Broadcom is pushing it a bit here, as USB 2.0 has a theoretical peak bandwidth of 480Mbps and although we wouldn't expect to see wireless speeds of 433Mbps, there isn't much life left in the old USB 2.0 standard when it comes to new high-speed wireless technologies.

Next up we have the BCM4352 and BCM43526 which supports two streams and speeds of up to 867Mbps. The feature set is the same here, although the BCM4352 has a PCI Express 2.0 interface, while the BCM43526 gets to make do with USB 2.0 and clearly will never reach its advertised speeds due to the USB 2.0 bottle neck. That said, it's possible that the BCM43526 will still perform better than the BCM43516 in some environments thanks to its dual antenna configuration. The BCM43526 is intended for use in PCs, TVs and other A/V products according to Broadcom, while the BCM4352 is intended for PCs, access points, routers and internet gateways. The fourth and final product is the BCM4360 which supports three streams and speeds of up to 1.3Gbps. Interestingly it's still only using 80MHz per channel, so it appears that we'll have to wait for 160MHz per channel to make an appearance either from one of Broadcom's competitors, or at a later point in time. The BCM4360 uses a PCI Express 2.0 interface and is intended for use in PCs, access points, routers and gateways. Broadcom will be demoing partner products at CES and judging by the quotes in Broadcom's press release we can expect products from Asus, Belkin, Buffalo, D-Link, Huawei, Lenovo, Motorola, Netgear, Ubee and ZTE that supports 802.11ac. As to how many will actually use Broadcom's solutions is a different matter, but it looks like wireless networking is set to get a significant speed boost this year, even if wired Ethernet isn't likely to be disappearing any time soon.

More Cedar Trail Atom's on the way Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/more-cedar-trail-atom-s-on-theway/14443.html January 5th, 2012

January 5th, 2012

Intel has only just gotten its Cedar Trail-M processors out of the door, but the company is already planning new, slightly faster models in the mobile space, as well as a new desktop part. Intel has kindly leaked all the details of the three upcoming models in a spec sheet that recently got updated and if you were considering getting a new netbook, it might very well be worth holding off a little bit if you can wait. Intel has only just gotten its Cedar Trail-M processors out of the door, but the company is already planning new, slightly faster models in the mobile space, as well as a new desktop part. Intel has kindly leaked all the details of the three upcoming models in a spec sheet that recently got updated and if you were considering getting a new netbook, it might very well be worth holding off a little bit if you can wait.

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel Prepares for Ivy Bridge: EOLs 25 Desktop Processors Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-prepares-for-ivy-bridge-eols-25desktop-processors/14439.html January 5th, 2012

The company is getting ready to unleash the 22nm Ivy Bridge processors to the world by choosing to kill a lot of 32nm processors which currently make the desktop mix.

The three new models are the D2550, N2650 and N2850. The desktop focused D2550 is clocked at the same 1.86GHz as the D2500, but Intel bumped the GPU clock speed from 400 to 640MHz giving the D2550 the same GPU spec as the D2700. The increased GPU clock means that the D2550 will support Blu-ray playback, something the D2500 doesn't. The overall TDP hasn't increased for the D2550, although according to Intel's spec sheet, the idle TDP is up, albeit a mere 0.02W.

As for the mobile parts, the N2650 has been given a fairly nominal speed bump of 100MHz, something that increased the TDP by 0.1W compared to the N2600. We should point out that the N26x0 parts only supports 2GB of memory and as such only a single DIMM, a move by Intel that we don't quite understand. The N2850 got bumped 140MHz, again a very small performance increase and as with the N2650 the TDP increased by 0.1W, although in this case over the N2800. Interestingly Intel is listing the average power draw as 0.11W less than the N2800 despite the higher clock speed. Both of the new N models also supports DDR3L, something we're not sure if the first two models do and the spec sheet isn't clear here as it mentions the refreshed SKU which we presume is the N2650 and N2850.

In order to prepare for the launch, the company announced the discontinuation (EOL, End of Life product status) for 25 various desktop models based on LGA1155, LGA1156 and LGA1366 sockets. All of the EOL'ed models are based of 32nm Westmere and Sandy Bridge architectures: As you can see, this is a thorough cleanup of all sockets, with LGA1156 and LGA1366 essentially being terminated (i7 970, 980, 980X were all EOLâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ed during 2011), simplifying the lineup to only feature the LGA1155 and LGA2011 sockets.

Arctic Comes Out with a new High-Performance Cooler for Radeon HD 7970 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/arctic-comes-out-with-a-new-highperformance-cooler-for-radeon-hd-7970/14438.html

January 5th, 2012 January 5th, 2012

As the retail launch of Radeon HD 7970 approaches (January 9, 2012), the ecosystem is forming around the product: liquid and air cooling solutions. As the retail launch of Radeon HD 7970 approaches (January 9, 2012), the ecosystem is forming around the product: while we already saw waterblocks from Slovenian EK and German Aqua Computer, Far East is waking up with the highperformance air cooling: this time around, news are coming from Hong Kong.

Arctic launched Accelero Xtreme 7970, a high-performance cooler featuring a combination of copper base, six copper heatpipes (6mm diameter), 84 aluminum fins and three 92mm fans that operate from 900 to 2000 rpm, depending on the mode selected. The copper base features a MX-4 thermal compound, so you don’t need to look for additional highperformance TIM (Thermal Interface Material).

True, the potential show stopper is massive weight of the heatsink - at 653 grams or almost 1.5 pounds this triple-slot heatsink definitely requires to be mounted inside the case. If you’re interested in getting a 3rd party cooling for your precious new 7970, this beast comes to market just before Chinese New Year (shipping as of week starting January 30) for a price just below USD100 mark - $97.95 in the US, €73.83 in European Union and 126 SGD in Singapore.

Published by: VR-Zone

MSI announces new powerful GT685 gaming laptop Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/msi-announces-new-powerful-gt685gaming-laptop/14442.html January 5th, 2012

MSI has announced their new ultimate gaming laptop, the GT685, which features the second generation Intel Core i7 quad processor, 32GB DDR3 memory, and Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M, the world's fastest discrete graphics card in a laptop.

This latest MSI gaming laptop features top-of-the-line hardware, including Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M, which claims to be the most powerful discrete graphics card in a laptop that provides superb display performance. The graphics card boasts 384 more CUDAs than the previous generation, giving it 256-bit memory bandwdith and 2GB GDDR5 VRAM. This translates to seamless experience with crisp and clear graphics and more detailed 3D images, and you can enjoy serious gaming without worrying that your laptop can’t keep up. Powered by second generation Intel Core i7 quad-core processor with support of Intel Turbo Boost 2.0, the GT685 offers superb computing performance. On top of that, it comes equipped with four DDR3 memory slots to give a total of 32GB memory, as well as RAID 0 accelerated dual hard drive architecture that can increase hard drive read speeds by 70%. Other features include Dynaudio sound technology for faithful stereo reproduction, THX TruStudio Pro technology that provides cinematic-quality audio, and full high definition 16:9 widescreen display. The MSI GT685 also comes with an HDMI port for your to output your videos on any large-screen LCD televisions.

HP unveils new consumer PCs, including Omni27, the company's first 27-inch all-inone PC Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/hp-unveils-new-consumer-pcsincluding-omni27-the-company-s-first-27-inch-all-in-one-pc/14440.html

January 5th, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

January 5th, 2012

Just few days into 2012, HP has recently announced their new line of consumer PCs and a notebook docking monitor that offer stylish design and superb performance. Among the products is the HP Omni27, which is the company's first 27inch all-in-one PC.

HP Pavilion HPE Phoenix h9

HP Omni27 all-in-one PC HP has announced their new line-up of consumer PCs, as well as notebook docking monitor with enhanced design, performance and convenience for consumers and professionals. The HP Omni27 all-in-one PC is designed specifically for users who want stylish design, simplicity and performance. It has a brilliant 27-inch high-definition flat panel display with edge-to-edge glass and can tilt up to 25-degree to suit users' viewing preference. The all-in-one claims to be the company's first non-touch PC to feature HP’s Magic Canvas software, which allows the desktop to expand horizontally and accommodate photos, videos as well as applications.

The HP Pavilion HPE Phoenix h9 is the company’s most powerful Pavilion PC to date, with futuristic design and superb performance for users who enjoy content creation and immersive gaming. It has an armor plating that extends across the top and front of the bezel and attention-grabbing lighting in red, which makes the HPE Phoenix stand out among today’s desktop PCs. The HPE Phoenix has room for up to 16GB of DDR3 memory and three internal hard drives, as well as optional liquid cooling system to draw heat away from high-performance processors. It also comes equipped with high-end discrete graphics cards that can support multiple displays, while delivering amazing video performance and picture quality. Gamers can enjoy RIFT Digital Collector’s Edition, the latest massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) from Trion. With every purchase of HP Pavilion HPE Phoenix, users can download and enjoy free access to RIFT for sixty days, and following that a monthly subscription of around US$15 for continuous access to the game. The HP Pavilion HPE Phoenix h9 PCs are expected to be available from end January 2012 in APJ at a starting price of approximately US$1,599.

With convenient features such as HP LinkUp Technology, users can easily access and edit content from a notebook PC on the Omni27’s large display with little hassles. The HP Omni27 offers multi-core processors, advanced high definition (HD) graphics and up to 2TB of storage, and standard features including Beats Audio, Blu-Ray disc drive and optional TV tuner. The HP Omni27 All-in-One PCs are expected to retail in APJ at a starting price of approximately US$1,199.

January 5th, 2012

HP Compaq L2311c The HP Compaq L2311c 23-inch Notebook Docking Monitor is targeted at mobile professionals who wants a desktop experience via an easy connection with a USB cable to their notebook PC with a USB 2.0 or 3.0 port. The Notebook Docking Monitor sports a full high-definition (HD) LED backlit LCD display and features HP Smart AC Technology that powers and charges HP notebook PCs while also detecting and regulating the capacity of the electrical current. It also features a built-in 720p HD webcam and is equipped with HP MyRoom business edition software and Cyberlink YouCam, a productive webcam tool that eases communication with co-workers and clients in any location. The HP Compaq L2311c is expected to be available in APJ at a starting price of approximately US$319. The availability date will be announced at a later stage. The HP LV1911 and LV2011 are the latest LED backlit LCD monitors that claim to provide business performance at budget-friendly prices. The monitors come in attractive, slim form factors, and consumes lesser power compared to CCFL panel monitors. The HP LV1911 and LV2011 have a 18.5- and 19.5-inch respectively, offer VGA inputs, 3,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratios and 5ms response times. Both monitors are expected to be available in APJ at a starting price of approximately US$125 and US$135, respectively.

Published by: VR-Zone

Of course this rebrand was expected considering previous reports and HD 7000M announcements. In addition OEM versions of HD 7500, 7400 and 7300 are all expected to be rebrands, while HD 7700 up will feature GCN 28nm GPUs. Of course, the gap between HD 7600 and HD 7700 will be disproportionate, and might create a gap in AMD's Radeon HD 7000 line-up. Judging by NVIDIA's strategy wih GeForce 600M it is likely NVIDIA will also follow a similar strategy - rebrands for entry-level to mainstream GeForce 600M products. For now, the HD 7670 remains an OEM only product. However, it may eventually make it to the retail market - as HD 6700 did.

Nakamichi introduces cubesized "My Mini Plus" for music on the go Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nakamichi-introduces-cube-sized-mymini-plus-for-music-on-the-go/14437.html January 5th, 2012

Availability date for all HP products will be announced later.

AMD releases OEM Radeon HD 7670 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-releases-oem-radeon-

Small, portable speakers looked to be the in-thing these days. Japanese audio company Nakamichi has launched "My Mini Plus", a new range of stylish looking mini speakers with builtin radio in Singapore.

hd-7670/14441.html January 5th, 2012

AMD has quietly announced the second desktop product in its Radeon HD 7000 range - HD 7670 for OEMs. There's nothing new about the 7670 OEM however - it is simply a rebranded HD 6670. AMD has quietly announced the second desktop product in its Radeon HD 7000 range - HD 7670 for OEMs. There's nothing new about the 7670 OEM however - it is simply a rebranded HD 6670. The specifications and performance are identical to HD 6670. Both are based on Turks XT, featuring 480 VLIW-5 SP, 24 TMU and 8 ROPs running at 800 MHz. Upto 1GB GDDR5 at 4 GHz is mated to a 128-bit interface. HD 6670 held the distinction of being the fastest graphics card not requiring an addition PCIe connector (i.e. it draws all its power from the PCIe slot) which is what made it popular with OEMs. The HD 7670 powers HP's upcoming Phoenix products and is likely to show up in a few OEM desktops around CES 2012 time.

Renowned Japanese high fidelity audio company, Nakamichi, has launched a collection of stylish mini speakers with radio for music lovers on the go. The cube-sized speaker, which measures 5cm on every side and weighs 139g, claims to offer exceptional audio quality. The Nakamichi "My Mini Plus" fits easily into your bag, charges via a USB connection to your PC or laptop and on full charge, it can provide up to five hours of non-stop music playback. The speaker can also play music from microSD card and it has built-in FM radio function for you to listen to your favorite channel. Available in eight colors Light Pink, Fuchsia, Purple, Red, Blue, Black, Lime Green, and Silver; The "My Mini Plus" by Nakamichi will be available at CK Tang, Technobay level 3, epi lifestyle, and other premium 10

January 5th, 2012

Nakamichi authorized reseller stores from mid January 2012 at S$69.90 (inclusive of GST)

Published by: VR-Zone January 5th, 2012

Nokia plans to launch Lumia 900 at CES 2012 Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/nokia-plans-to-launch-lumia-900-atces-2012/14436.html January 5th, 2012

The Nokia Lumia 900 Ace was recently spotted on Nokia Pulse website which has the capacitive touch buttons that are placed closer to the edge, compared to the Lumia 800. It was also reported that the Finnish company would be launching the phone at the Consumer Electronics Show 2012 in Las Vegas next week.

It's hard not to get a bit frustrated with Intel and its many proprietary technologies, although at least a few things seems to be changing slowly but surely when it comes to WiDi, Intel's video streaming technology over Wi-Fi. We've managed to dig up a fair bit of news as to what to expect in 2012 from WiDi and some things are being improved while others remain the same. It's hard not to get a bit frustrated with Intel and its many proprietary technologies, although at least a few things seems to be changing slowly but surely when it comes to WiDi, Intel's video streaming technology over Wi-Fi. We've managed to dig up a fair bit of news as to what to expect in 2012 from WiDi and some things are being improved while others remain the same. For starters Intel has decided to take advantage of Wi-Fi Direct for the discover, pairing and connect part of WiDi which should make it easier for its partners that built the receivers. Intel will also be supporting Wi-Fi Display, but only for basic features. If you want to be able to play back 1080p video, especially copy protected content, then you need full-on WiDi support on the receiving end. This year Intel is also adding support for 3D video and 24fps video such as certain Blu-ray discs. It will also be possible to set up an extended display over WiDi, something that could actually be quite handy in certain situations.

According to sources, Nokia will be announcing the new Lumia 900 Ace (codenamed Eloko) at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next week. Weighing 160g, the phone is said to be equipped with a 1.4GHz processor, 512MB memory and 8-megapixel rear camera. The Lumia 900 will feature a 4.3inch WVGA Nokia ClearBlack AMOLED display, which is slightly bigger than the 3.7-inch of the Lumia 800, although the resolution is the same as its older sibling. It will also come with 1830mAh battery, and runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango operating system. No word on the pricing or availability yet, though all could be revealed at CES next week. The company is also expected to announce a mid-range device, the Lumia 719.

Intel WiDi to get cheaper, better and maybe inside TVs Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-widi-to-get-cheaper-better-andmaybe-inside-tvs/14435.html

One interesting thing is that Intel is planning on offering WiDi support on desktops, a feature we can see at least a few people wanting. That said, if you were hoping for WiDi support in the upcoming Windows 8 tablets, then it looks like you're out of luck, as this isn't likely to happen this year at least. Beyond the small adapters you've had to connect to your TV so far to get WiDi support, Intel is apparently hoping to get its technology into TVs, game consoles, Blu-ray players (really?) and various other devices of which some will simply be able to have a piece of software loaded to enable WiDi support. We're still not sold on Intel's WiDi technology, mostly because so few notebooks in the grand scheme of things are sold with Intel Wi-Fi cards that support WiDi and this is one of the biggest failings of the technology. We fully understand Intel's argument here, but many notebook vendors would simply not put Intel Wi-Fi cards in their notebooks due to the cost difference compared to the many other options available to them. Still, if more Wi-Fi enabled devices will start to support WiDi there's a chance that things will change, but we're hoping for a more open standard to take over what Intel has started.

Roku goes tiny with its upcoming Streaming Stick Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/roku-goes-tiny-with-its-upcomingstreaming-stick/14434.html

January 5th, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

January 5th, 2012

It's really a shame that Roku's products are only available in the US due to the technicalities of streaming content over the internet, something the traditional TV companies obviously are very much against even though they are allowing for it to a degree. The company has come up with a simple and elegant solution that would turn any TV into a smart TV, without the need of a clunky box. It's really a shame that Roku's products are only available in the US due to the technicalities of streaming content over the internet, something the traditional TV companies obviously are very much against even though they are allowing for it to a degree. The company has come up with a simple and elegant solution that would turn any TV into a smart TV, without the need of a clunky box. The device in question is called the Roku Streaming Stick which is said to be about the size of a USB flash drive, yet it packs so much more inside. Roku hasn't gone into too much with regards to the specific hardware, but the Streaming Stick will feature an SoC, memory and Wi-Fi as well as some software of course. However, unlike a USB flash drive the Streaming Stick sports an HDMI port, or rather an MHL port. If you remember, MHL or Mobile High-definition Link is a combo port that offers HDMI and USB in one.

Roku is expecting the Streaming Stick to retail for somewhere between US$50-100 (S$65-130) when it arrives later this year, although Roku is also hoping to bundle it with some TVs. One problem Roku has though is the small install base of MHL equipped TV's, but it shouldn't be too hard to make some kind of power adapter. We can see a lot of companies coming up with their own versions of this, as if the technology can be compacted down to this size, why would you want a larger box sitting around next to your TV?

Broadcom announces smart TV chips Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/broadcom-announces-smart-tvchips/14433.html January 5th, 2012

In the case of TV's it appears that this port is a standard size HDMI port judging by the pictures from Roku and not a micro USB port as it is on smartphones. Plonk the Roku Streaming Stick into a TV with one of these ports and you've got all the functionality of a Roku box without having to find space for the box itself. The only problem we see with this is how you actually control the Streaming Stick unless it's done over WiFi or some other wireless technology, as it would be hidden behind the TV and as such an IR remote wouldn't work.

Just ahead of CES, Broadcom has announced four new solutions related to Smart TVs which will be displayed at the show. Some of the chips are intended for integration inside the TV unit while others are destined for media streamers or what Broadcom calls Over-the-Top media players. Just ahead of CES, Broadcom has announced four new solutions related to Smart TVs which will be displayed at the show. Some of the chips are intended for integration inside the TV unit while others are destined for media streamers or what Broadcom calls Over-the-Top media players. It would seem that smart TV is not a sexy word any more as Broadcom is using the term hybrid TV instead, although for what it's worth, it's pretty much the same thing. What is 12

January 5th, 2012

common between all three of the new SoC's from Broadcom is support for Broadcom's own Web 2.0 application framework, Adobe AIR, Qt and Android. This should allow for some varied implementations from the device makers at least. The most basic SoC is called the BCM7219 and as with its higher-end siblings this is a 40nm chip (yes, SoC's are getting smaller and smaller too), although it lacks any really cool features. That said, it'll handle 1080p HD video, both decoding and encoding which means that we should hopefully be seeing more devices capable of recording HD video in the future. Moving up a step we have the BCM7220 which gains OpenGL ES 2.0 support for 3D UI's and maybe even some casual gaming. The third and final model is the BCM7221 which supports 3D TV MVC (Multiview Video Coding) which means that it can handle 3D TV broadcasts/streams. It can also be set up to support video conferencing if the TV has a built in camera. The three chips have been designed to support a wide range of other technologies such as DLNA, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Display, NFC, HomePlug and bog standard Ethernet. Apparently Netgear is one of the first companies that are ready to get on board as soon as the new chips hit mass production as the company is already working with Broadcom. As for other partners we'll just have to wait until CES, although half of the time you wouldn't know what chip is inside these type of devices anyhow.

Published by: VR-Zone

pretty clear from the small sizes of the SSDs that they weren't intended as a main storage option. The Deneva 2 drives sports a SandForce 2141 or 2181 controller (OCZ's website lists both options) and are as such SATA 3Gbps drives. The max read speed is rated at up to 280MB/s with the write speed following closely behind at up to 260MB/s. OCZ apparently has a 120GB model as well as the company is also targeting the Deneva 2 series for embedded applications in the enterprise, industrial and automotive industry. We've already seen Asus utilize mSATA SSDs from Adata, although these weren't intended for caching, but are in fact the main SSD of Asus' Ultrabooks. We're still not convinced that Intel's Smart Response technology is the way forward though, especially as SSDs continue to come down in price whereas at the same time pricing for hard drives are likely to remain quite high for much of this year. So far SSDs seem favourable in Ultrabooks, but as prices come down, we'd expect to see more hard drive equipped models and maybe this is when SSD caching will come into play.

Samsung secures approval for Chinese Flash memory plant Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-secures-approval-for-chineseflash-memory-plant/14431.html January 5th, 2012

OCZ announces mSATA SSD for Ultrabook hard drive caching Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/ocz-announces-msata-ssd-forultrabook-hard-drive-caching/14432.html January 5th, 2012

Samsung has been granted permission to build a Flash memory chip plant in China worth in the region of 5 trillion won ($4.5 billion) as the smartphone and tablet computer markets continue to boom. Samsung has been granted permission to build a Flash memory chip plant in China worth in the region of 5 trillion won ($4.5 billion) as the smartphone and tablet computer markets continue to boom.

Being in the retail SSD market isn't a money maker and OCZ has been trying to work its way into the OEM market space for some time. Now the company has announced a new mSATA SSD under its Deneva 2 brand that the company is targeting towards Ultrabooks for some Intel Smart Response caching action. Being in the retail SSD market isn't a money maker and OCZ has been trying to work its way into the OEM market space for some time. Now the company has announced a new mSATA SSD under its Deneva 2 brand that the company is targeting towards Ultrabooks for some Intel Smart Response caching action.

The Korean electronics giant announced the plan early last month, but was forced to seek approval from the South Korean government, which regulates foreign investment. The goahead was given this week on the provision that Samsung set up a committee to prevent potential leaks of its technology. The location of the factory has yet to be decided. It will produce NAND chips using 20nm processing technology and will serve the growing Chinese market, which many see as a lucrative region for smartphone and tablet sales.

The mSATA version of the Deneva 2 (OCZ is already offering standard 2.5-inch SATA drives in the Deneva 2 series) is available in 30 or 60GB and OCZ claims that the drives have been optimized for Intel's Smart Response technology. It's 13

January 5th, 2012

Published by: VR-Zone

It is not yet clear how much Google paid for these, but we can likely expect it to be hundreds of millions of dollars. The move might also signal plans to buy further patent stashes from other companies, and perhaps more from IBM, throughout 2012. Google previously bought over 1,000 patents from IBM last year and a huge portfolio of around 25,000 patents in an acquisition deal with Motorola Mobility worth $12.5 billion. The company is still awaiting final approval from regulators before that acquisition can go ahead.

Samsung dominates the NAND Flash market with a 40 percent share, with many of the major players in the industry, such as Apple, relying on it for memory chips. Mass production at the Chinese factory is expected to begin in late 2013, with plans to produce 100,000 wafers every month.

Google buys more IBM patents Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/google-buys-more-ibmpatents/14430.html January 5th, 2012

Google's patent spending spree is largely seen as an effort to protect its interests, which have been threatened by a number of lawsuits taken by Apple against its partners, such as HTC and Samsung. Google is quickly putting itself in a position where it cannot be sued for technology it uses or can at least counter-sue or offer a trade with some of its valuable collection.

Official Launch of VR-Zone Chinese Edition - Attractive prizes to be won! Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/official-launch-of-vr-zone-chineseedition--attractive-prizes-to-be-won-/14429.html January 5th, 2012

Google has bought another 187 patents and 36 patent applications from IBM in efforts to remain ahead of rivals like Apple in the bitter legal wars engulfing the industry. Google has bought another 187 patents and 36 patent applications from IBM in efforts to remain ahead of rivals like Apple in the bitter legal wars engulfing the industry.

VR-Zone is excited to announce the launch of our official chinese edition @ http://chinese.vr-zone.com. To mark this watershed moment, we will be giving away to some lucky readers an ECS X79 motherboard, Corsair power supply and SteelSeries products!

The patents include several related to social networks, such as a system for using semantic networks and a method to identify common interests between users of a communication network. This is particularly interesting, as it means Google is preparing new things for its social network Google+, which launched last year and became a viable alternative to Facebook. There are also patents related to web applications and mobile technology, areas that Google has had major success in with its Chrome web browser and Android operating system.

VR-Zone is excited to announce the launch our official chinese edition @ http://chinese.vr-zone.com, which will have its own 14

January 5th, 2012

editorial team (headed by industry veteran Chris Low) to produce quality original content and translate selected pieces from our main site. Based in Taiwan where most of the groundbreaking tech stories and product launches are at, the team aspires to serve the rapidly growing North Asian market, and provide exclusive stories for our international readers.

Samsung announces launch of new smartphones and tablets in Singapore

Published by: VR-Zone

The Samsung GALAXY Nexus was announced in October to be the world's first smartphone to run Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Equipped with a 1.2GHz processor, the phone features a 4.65-inch high definition Super AMOLED display and comes with various new innovations including Face Unlock, photo taking with zero shutter lag as well as Near Field Communication (NFC). However, for those who are eagerly waiting for the Samsung GALAXY Nexus will have to wait a while longer. The company said that Android smartphone is expected to be available in February next month.

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-announces-launch-of-newsmartphones-and-tablets-in-singapore/14425.html January 5th, 2012

On the first week of 2012, Samsung has announced their new lineup of smartphone and tablets which include the GALAXY Nexus, Omnia W, GALAXY W, GALAXY Tab 7.0 Plus and GALAXY Tab 7.7.

While the GALAXY Nexus touts itself as the world's first smartphone with Android 4.0, this new Samsung GALAXY Tab 7.7 claims to be the world's first tablet to feature the Super AMOLED Plus display. The tablet is extremely slim and portable, measuring 7.89mm in thickness and weighing 335g. It is powered by 1.4GHz processor with 1GB RAM and 16GB storage. If that's not enough, the GALAXY Tab 7.7 has a microSD card slot for expansion. The tablet runs Google Android 3.2 Honeycomb and has a 5,100mAh battery that can provide up to 10 hours of video playback. Like the GALAXY Nexus, the Samsung GALAXY Nexus will be available in February.

January 5th, 2012

Samsung releases audiophilegrade dock speakers

Published by: VR-Zone January 5th, 2012

Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-releases-audiophile-gradedock-speakers/14426.html January 5th, 2012

We have seen smartphones and tablet devices running Google Android mobile operating system. And apparently SiriusXM has recently introduced their new Android portable satellite radio called Lynx. An audiophile-worthy speaker dock for iOS devices and GALAXY S smartphones will be joining the ranks of Samsung products soon. The Samsung DA-E750 may sport a hybrid vacuum tube system akin to high-end audio equipment, but will it make the cut amongst audiophiles?

Audiophiles will be glad to know that Korean company Samsung is offering a new speaker dock, the DA-E750, with a hybrid vacuum tube amplifier technology that will interface with both iOS devices and GALAXY S smartphones while charging their batteries. For those not certain of audiophile jargons, a vacuum tube amplification system is usually present only in premium audio systems, which is said to produce one of the richest sound and has the best audio representation in clarity, despite the technology’s age. Sangchul Lee, senior vice president, Samsung Electronics says “As the leader in home entertainment, we wanted to create products that are unique, highly-functional and beautifully designed, yet offer the crystal clear, rich sound that consumers can enjoy, regardless of the portable device they store their music on.” The 2.1-channel speaker supports analog (composite) and USB inputs, as well as wireless and Bluetooth audio playback, while thumping away with its built-in 100-watt subwoofer. More details may be released at the upcoming Consumer Electronic Show.

SiriusXM unveils Lynx, Android portable satellite radio Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/siriusxm-unveils-lynx-androidportable-satellite-radio/14424.html

The SiriusXM Lynx claims to do everything you want it to - you can use it as satellite radio in the car or at home, or turn it into a portable player via a 3.5mm audio or Bluetooth headphone. It supports Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity and can record up to 200 hours of your favorite music. With "Show Finder" electronic programming guide, you can access the complete list of what’s on over the next seven days by channel, with the ability to set reminder alerts when favorite shows are being broadcast. The SiriusXM Lynx will be available soon and priced at US$250.

Fuji's mirrorless camera leaks again ahead of next week's unveiling Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/fuji-s-mirrorless-camera-leaks-againahead-of-next-week-s-unveiling/14423.html January 5th, 2012

We've already seen what was meant to be some picture of an unfinished version of Fuju's upcoming mirrorless digital camera and now additional pictures have appeared, including a full-on frontal shot of the camera. There are still a lot of things that aren't known about the camera, but one thing is certain, Fuji is really digging retro styling on its high-end cameras. We've already seen what was meant to be some picture of an unfinished version of Fuju's upcoming mirrorless digital 16

January 5th, 2012

camera and now additional pictures have appeared, including a full-on frontal shot of the camera. There are still a lot of things that aren't known about the camera, but one thing is certain, Fuji is really digging retro styling on its high-end cameras. The camera which is expected to be called the X1 or LX10 should be officially unveiled next week at the PMA show which takes place at the same time as CES, although it won't actually be launched until sometime in February according to Photorumours. The camera looks set to be something quite special, at least as long as you don't mind the retro rangefinder styling.

In the single picture of the camera we can see the 35mm f/1.4 lens which was rumoured, something which should please many a photographer. Fuji has included a viewfinder as we reported previously, although this is apparently not a hybrid viewfinder as seen on the X100. We're also curious about the inclusion of what appears to be an LED light which might be intended for when you're shooting video with the camera. We could be wrong, but the picture seems to suggest that there is a pair of built-in microphones for stereo audio on each side of the LED. There's also what appears to be an auto focus light just below the viewfinder. We'll have to wait a few more days to see what the official word is. Update: The picture above is apparently not the real deal, but rather a mockup of what the camera might look like. Photorumors has a blurry picture from an odd angle of the real deal.

Published by: VR-Zone

Intel's slim-ITX motherboard incentive appears to have spilled over into other markets than the all-in-ones that Intel targeted the standard for initially. Tranquil PC, a UK company that specializes in low-noise media centers and home media servers has taken advantage of the form factor in its new 4cm thin MMC-12 system. The system specifications aren't what we'd call mind blowing, but the MMC-12 should be more than capable at doing its job. The motherboard in question is Intel's own DH61AG and as the name implies this is based on the Intel H61 chipset. In terms of connectivity you'll find a pair of USB 2.0 ports (both high current), two USB 3.0 ports, an eSATA port, a Gigabit Ethernet jack, a pair of audio jacks, a DVI port and an HDMI port. Oddly enough there's no S/PDIF connector on the board which spoils things a little bit when it comes to media center usage.

To the board, Tranquil has added a 35W Core i3-2100T processor which is a 2.5GHz part, a single 4GB SO-DIMM and an 80GB mSATA SSD which we presume is also an Intel made product. The system also sports a slot loaded DVD drive and there's space for one internal 2.5-inch drive for a larger internal drive to compliment the SSD. The entire system is powered by an external power adapter and it's passively cooled, so this is a true zero noise system, despite its low profile. The downside you ask? Well, Tranquil wants a fairly steep ÂŁ649 (S$1,300) for the MMC-12, a steep price for what in reality is a very basic PC, but in this case you're paying for the custom chassis which you won't find elsewhere.

Asus promises Android 4.0 for Transformer Prime from next week Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/asus-promises-android-4.0-fortransformer-prime-from-next-week/14421.html January 5th, 2012

Tranquil launches 4cm thin media center PC Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/tranquil-launches-4cm-thin-mediacenter-pc/14422.html January 5th, 2012

For those lucky few that has managed to get their hands on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime the company has announced that it will start rolling out Android 4.0 also known as Ice Cream Sandwich beginning on the 12th of January. On top of that, the company is working on a solution that will allow users to unlock the bootloader, with one small caveat. For those lucky few that has managed to get their hands on an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime the company has announced 17

January 5th, 2012

that it will start rolling out Android 4.0 also known as Ice Cream Sandwich beginning on the 12th of January. On top of that, the company is working on a solution that will allow users to unlock the bootloader, with one small caveat. The details were posted on Asus' Facebook page and contain some confusion as it mentions an over the air update with a version number of 8.8.3.33 which will apparently improve the auto focusing of the camera, the fluidity of the touch experience and the APK capabilities in the Android market. Then it goes on to talk about the Android 4.0 upgrade which is also an over the air update, but it's not clear if this contains the aforementioned fixes or not, or if that's a separate update for those not wishing to move on to Android 4.0 as yet. The post also contains a disclaimer about the GPS and the fact that it's not as good as people expected it to be. Asus is making some excuse about the metal chassis of the tablet blocking the signal as well as the usual excuses as to why you wouldn't get a good GPS signal. Either which way it appears that the company has removed the GPS from the spec and it's now a feature that is included but may not work to everyone's satisfaction. Odd to say the least. As for the bootloader and the complaints about Asus locking it down, Asus is making some fairly lame excuse about Google DRM, yet Google's own phones aren't locked down as tightly as the Transformer Prime. Asus is also claiming that bricking is one of the reasons why Asus decided to lock down the Transformer Prime, but anyone that has tried to flash a recent Android device knows that it's relatively hard to brick it. Even so, Asus will apparently be offering a tool that unlocks the bootloader, but this means that you can no longer watch Google video rentals and other similar DRM'ed content on your tablet. Not a big loss in our opinion, but it might be for some.

Published by: VR-Zone

Toshiba's press release didn't reveal too much about the specific devices, but we can apparently expect tablets, laptops and smartphones featuring TransferJet. As you'd expect, Toshiba is one of the driving forces behind TransferJet alongside Sony, but many other companies are standing behind the technology including Canon, JVC, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung and Sony Ericsson to mention a few of the promoters of the standard. So far most of the companies are Japanese and this is part of the reason why the technology hasn't taken off. Another reason is the relatively high cost and this is what Toshiba is hoping to address with its new LSI, the TC35420 which is a single chip solution for TransferJet that incorporates bot the IC and the RF part. This should not only help simplify the implementation, but also help drive down cost, although at US$5 a pop in sample quantities one can hardly accuse Toshiba for selling the chips on the cheap. Compare this to a USB 3.0 host controller which by now we'd expect to be below US$2 in large quantities and you can see why TransferJet is struggling a bit. Actual transfer speeds of TransferJet are close to that of USB 2.0 at 375Mbps (USB 2.0 has a theoretical data speed of 480Mbps), so as long as you don't mind plugging in a cable, there are much faster alternatives. In as much as we're all for ease of use, it's hard to justify the extra cost and getting slower speed than a wired connection can offer at lower cost. Still, it'll be interesting to see what Toshiba and the TransferJet consortium will demo at the show.

Toshiba to promote TransferJet at CES Source: http://vr-zone.com/articles/toshiba-to-promote-transferjet-atces/14420.html January 5th, 2012

You may or may not be familiar with TransferJet, a technology that allows for short range wireless data transfer speeds of up to 560Mbps using the 4.5GHz band. So far there isn't much in terms of devices that supports the standard, but Toshiba and the TransferJet consortium are set to change this at CES where they will be showing off a range of new devices that supports the technology. You may or may not be familiar with TransferJet, a technology that allows for short range wireless data transfer speeds of up to 560Mbps using the 4.5GHz band. So far there isn't much in terms of devices that supports the standard, but Toshiba and the TransferJet consortium are set to change this at CES where they will be showing off a range of new devices that supports the technology. 18