Hardware Post: 03/28/11

Monday, March 28, 2011

Social Networking for Peace: Report: MySpace will lose millions of users

As the British newspaper ", citing figures from the U.S. market research institute" ComScore "reports, left alone in the first two months of this year about ten million users of the platform. Reasons for this could continue the confusing design of the site and the realignment to be restarted after nearly a year ago.

At that time, the leaders went for the first time the emergency brake and tried to talk to a relaunch of the membership. But the attempt failed, apparently: while rival Facebook is gaining friends, MySpace coasting, no brakes, contrary to the abyss. MySpace is currently the News Corp.-group of the Australian media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Dirt 3: Fresh pictures to rally hope

No question, "is a great racing game. Graphics, sound, physics are the usual high-level Codemasters. But some design decisions encountered during long-term supporters of the series on misunderstandings: the X-Games-setting number of players was too American, the share of screw-back stage race was the series roots fade.

With "Dirt 3" The developers want to find in the track: the battle against the clock is more of a focus than in the predecessor. New are the gymkhana events, where you push your driving skills and the car to the limit. Provide a taste of the new pictures.

Xbox (crunchbase) Xbox (wikipedia) Personal computer (wikipedia) Dirt 3 (wikipedia)

Models with four and eight gigabytes: i.Beat veo: Multimedia Player from TrekStor

The display of the i veo Beat has a resolution of 400x240 pixels. Delivery is the player with four and eight gigabytes of storage that you add using microSD card for another 32 gigabyte. Voice recording and FM radio are also on board as an equalizer for improved sound quality. The Trekstor i. Beat veo can handle all popular audio, video and photo formats.

Its battery lasts for up to eight hours of continuous operation. The 51-ounce device is available from the end of March for 69,99 € (four gigabytes of memory) and 89.99 euros (eight gigabytes).

TrekStor (homepage) TrekStor (wikipedia)

Life simulation game for PC: The Sims 3 - Barnacle Bay: EA brings the expansion in trade

In "The Sims 3" store became the extension "Barnacle Bay" after the launch in March 2010 as the most popular content. Therefore, Electronic Arts brings the add-on on 25 March 2011 trade. But the package is a DVD - you will find in it only a download code. For "Sims" players without an Internet connection that is of course not an option.

All others need to download the new code with the game world. The offers maritime atmosphere with sweeping beaches and suitable venues: A restaurant in the hull, a galleon gallery and other places are one of the party. In the bay you explore ancient seafaring secrets and hold legendary treasures.

Batteries that charge in 2 minutes

Researchers have found a way to accelerate battery charging, and interesting proportions: about 2 minutes to charge a lithium ion battery to 90%. The principle is simple: reduce the distance for the electrons. Overall, the loading rate is related to distance, and time increases exponentially with distance.

The new structure, which uses tiny polystyrene spheres (1.8 microns) coated nickel cathode and anode to approach, therefore serves to reduce the distance for the electrons. Earnings are sensitive to lithium ion batteries, with a 90% load in less than two minutes and a loading of 75% in 1 minute.

Pay by radio transmission: NFC: Google makes smartphone credit card

How "(WSJ) reports are brought to the Internet Group potent partners on board: among other things, the credit card institutions Citigroup and MasterCard involved in the project. How it works: If you buy at the store pull out something, not your credit or debit card, but keep your phone against a sensor.

The registered your account information - and trigger a debit. Soon be installed in the U.S. test terminals. When the technology market ready - unknown. Makes possible the payment function on "Near Field Communication Chip (NFC). Coming in the future more and more smartphones are used. Google will soon bring about the "" (made by Samsung) out, that has the NFC technology.

Bitkom survey: online fashion store established in women's hands

The online fashion houses often have lady visitors: At 41 percent almost every second woman clothing purchases via the internet. Other hand, use only 17 percent of men questioned this kind of shopping. Striking is the almost uniform distribution of all age groups: about one third of the 14 - to 29-year-olds, but also one in four seniors clothing purchases on the Internet.

Only one population is outside the Social Movement: Non-working women seem to prefer shopping locally. In addition to the traditional mail houses, there are increasingly other store offers. The big fashion chains are on the Internet now represented as well as specialty items for which the buyer can make his desired such as T-shirt.

Freebox: NAS or not to tax?

Interestingly, when the output of the Freebox Revolution, the company has avoided tax on the private copying by playing on a point of the legislation: as "storage systems qualified and certified to operate simultaneously with 3 operating systems "are not subject to tax on private copying, storage space of the Freebox, which is sold as a NAS, is exempt from tax.

One thing that denies SFR: the company believes that Free is offering is nothing more than a hard disk storage for the "TV" from the Freebox, which is indeed the case, the Freebox Player using the hard disk to store data. SFR, only part of the 250 GB hard drive is accessible: offer customers free 40 GB, with the option to "activate" 80 GB or 160 GB by paying a lump sum, close to the value of tax private copying, 15 or 30 €.

Hard drives, faster than the monks

Our British colleagues in The Register have engaged in an amusing historical year-geek: estimate the amount of information contained in the famous Bayeux Tapestry. Quick reminder for those who skipped school history: the embroidery tells the conquest of England by William the Conqueror, which ended with the defeat of Hastings in 1066.

The canvas support for the embroidery is 70 meters long and 50 cm high. The fineness of the embroidery would be about 47 points per inch on a range of 8 colors. Assuming a coding of 1-bit color, the amount of information contained in the embroidery would be to 2.429 Mb A little less than two 3.5 "floppy.

Samsung Improves Mobile RAM

RAM "mobile" Samsung improves. The company has launched production of chips with 4 Gigabit (512 MB) DDR2-LP. The LP-DDR2 memory LP (Low Power) able to work in equivalent 1066 MHz. Attention, as buses are less wide on mobile devices than on PCs (32-bit against 64 bit), flows are lower. With its new memory, Samsung will be able to offer 1 GB of memory smaller than before: indeed, the manufacturers generally use of memory "stack" (multiple stacked chips) and the new memory in 30 nm allows the use two chips instead of four to get 1 GB of memory.

Processor: Intel again and again before

If one believes the latest figures published by the institute iSuppli, Intel would still (and always) to AMD on the processor market, with 81% market share in all of 2010 against 11, 4% for its eternal rival. Intel seems to consolidate its leading position, its market share rising 0.4% in one year. Over the same period, AMD saw its market share fall by 0.8%.

ARM and VIA Technologies, particularly in the market for mobile devices, share the rest of the cake. Finally, note that with a market estimated at $ 40 billion, the market for microprocessors in 2010 posted a growth of 25%. Remains to be hoped that this recovery was confirmed in 2011 ...

Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 Edition FleX

Sapphire Technology has unveiled a new video card Radeon HD-series belong to the family FleX. This is the HD 6950 FleX Edition, a solution that combines the power of 3D processing architecture AMD Cayman offer the opportunity to drive three monitors in DVI mode Eyefinity active without having to buy separate adapters.

Normally, the supporting technology to Eyefinity 3 displays require the purchase of an active DisplayPort to DVI adapter or requires that at least one monitor is equipped with a DisplayPort connection, the solution developed by the manufacturer in Hong Kong can use two monitors connected to 2 DVI and a third monitor connected to the HDMI with the DVI adapter.

Android 3.0 open source? Still too soon to Google

In an interview with BusinessWeek by Andy Rubin, VP Engineer at Google, says that it is still too early to release the source code for Android 3.0 licensed open source and to ensure, therefore, customization and / or use outside those expected. The project was specifically designed to run well on systems and tablet may work slightly underperforming on a smartphone: "We Did not Want to Think About What It Would Take the Same for software to run on phones," said Rubin.

MSI N580GTX R6970 and Lightning

MSI updates the series with the Lightning and new models N580GTX R6970. As per tradition, these two proposals by the Taiwanese manufacturer, based on the fastest single-GPU nVidia and AMD, are destined to the world of overclocking enthusiasts. Both have a fully custom PCB, a particularly efficient cooling system and off-specification operating frequencies.

The phases of power for the GPU are 12 and 14 on the N580GTX Lightning Lightning R6970, plus another 3 for memory and one for the generator / controller PLL / VDDCI. The entire section is supported by PWM and MOSFET CopperMOS Proadlizers stabilizers. The PCB contains only the electronic components of high stability and durability, defined MSI Military Class II, with Solid Capacitors CAPs / Hi-c CAPs Super Ferrite Chokes and inductors (SFC).

Two waterblock for the GeForce GTX 590

While NVIDIA has just formalized its GeForce GTX 590, the first waterblock dedicated to this dual-GPU graphics card are already appearing. Manufacturers and EK Dangerden offer several waterblock indeed capable of dissipating the heat generated by components of the GTX 590. EK side, we are entitled to two models, depending on whether the top is transparent or not.

In both cases, the part in contact with the chipset and graphics memory chips is copper plated. Dangerden has in turn chosen to propose only one model waterblock with a copper base and an upper opaque. These models are available at similar rates: EUR 124.96 EK-FC590 GTX "transparent", 129.95 euros for the model "opaque" and 119.95 dollars for the waterblock Dangerden.

GeForce (wikipedia)

SGI Altix UV: 256 Xeon in a server

The race for server density has reached a new milestone: the SGI Altix UV1000 can earn 256 Intel Xeon 7500 or a maximum of 2048 physical hearts. These CPUs are mounted in 128 dual-processor blades in 4 cabinets. They provide a theoretical power aggregated $ 18.5 TFlops. SGI associate them to 16 TB of RAM and up to 16 hard drives 2.5 "SAS (1.2 TB maximum).

SGI is proud to compare its Altix 1000 UV competitive offerings from HP or IBM servers, HP x86 embark up to 64 CPUs, IBM's 96.

Altix (wikipedia) Ultraviolet (wikipedia) Xeon (wikipedia)

Blu-ray "3D" external

Samsung has announced the SE-406A, a Blu-ray burner "3D". The method of 3D and its use as a marketing argument does not weaken: PC, all drives can read Blu-ray at a speed of 2x (simplifying, all) are compatible 3D. Indeed, the MVC codec - used in Blu-ray 3D - increases the maximum throughput of the Blu-ray to store two versions of the pictures, but the players themselves do not change, apart from the higher data rates than the 36 megabits / s classics.

OLEDs blue, bluer

The good news about the successive OLEDs. After rumors that LG is launching OLED TVs of 55 "late 2011 and Samsung OLED 65" in 2012, now that researchers at the University of Michigan managed to double the light output and longevity of blue OLED. The researchers used the power of computer simulations to try many variations of the molecules already employed.

They were able to identify the mechanisms that control the efficiency of light emission of OLEDs. The simulation results were confirmed in practice: the new compounds have a blue OLED luminous efficiency (defined as the ratio between the amount of electric current supplied to the OLED and the amount of emitted light) of 9.4% is almost twice the previously accepted limits.

TDJ: IB-B-318STU3, ThermoLab TRINITY

Our fellow Cowcotland recently posted a review of ThermoLab Trinity, a cooling system for processors in LGA and 775/115x/1366 AMx ... Our fellow Cowcotland recently posted a review of ThermoLab Trinity, a cooling system for processors in LGA 775/115x/1366 and AMX. Relatively compact, cooler consists of an aluminum radiator crossed by several copper heat pipes and a fan of 135 mm, while weighing up to 735 grams on the scale.

GIGABYTE 3TB + Unlock: Available for download.

Gigabyte, one of the leading manufacturers of motherboards, graphics cards and other devices has GigaByte tool 3TB + Unlock. This tool allows motherboards that do not have the EFI Hybrid recognize and use unallocated space on hard drives or over 3TB. GigaByte 3TB + Unlock will optimize the storage space allowing the user to create a virtual drive with a larger than 2048GB, which is the maximum capacity that can recognize a 32bit operating system like Windows XP.

Intel launches Atom Z670 "Oak Trail

While the first quarter of the year draws to a close, Intel has decided to launch its first model of Atom "Oak Trail, the Z670. Aimed at netbooks and touch pads, this includes Lincroft Atom single-core processor (but dual-threaded) running at 1.5GHz, GMA 600 graphics chipset, a memory controller and 512 KB of L2 cache.

Featuring a 3-watt TDP, the Atom Z670 is capable of playing videos properly in 1080p. Many manufacturers such as Samsung and Fujitsu, have already announced they would launch various products based on this platform. But by proposing - a priori - the chip at a rate of 75 million, three times the price of NVIDIA Tegra 2, we can not really say that Intel targets the "low-cost ...

Intel Atom (wikipedia)

PCI Express 16x is it necessary?

Introduced a long time but steadily undermined by the news (including P67 and Crossfire), we wanted to determine if the PCI Express 16x always prove necessary or if it was feasible to use an interface 4x 8x see that with either one or two cards in Crossfire.

PCI Express (wikipedia)

Mac OS X would be Golden Lion Master

One month after the release of the Preview of Mac OS X 10.7, developers argue that Apple is preparing to leave the Golden Master 1 or GM1. If confirmed, marketing at WWDC (June) would more than likely. For more information on Mac OS X 10.7, please read our photo essay "What we reserve Mac OS X Lion." With Snow Leopard, Apple had released the Golden Masters a few weeks prior to marketing, which we were encouraged to compare it to the RTM version of Windows (Release to Manufacturer) (see "Mac OS X Snow Leopard on sale August 28? ").

Your smartphone just weaken your bones

Argentine researchers conducted a study concluding that cell phone signals reduced bone mineral density of people using them frequently, undermining the most exposed to the phone. Research has measured the bone mineral density of 24 men not using mobile phones and other 24 smarpthones wearing their belt, on the right side.

After a year, scientists have noticed that the subjects had a cell phone with bone density at femoral neck right below the left side. A systematic difference which was not present in subjects without wireless device. The differences were not dramatic, but still visible and seems to prove the harmful effects of electromagnetic waves but limited to the body, especially bones.