Hardware Post: 05/25/11

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Ubuntu Party, it's 27 to 29 May

Want to learn Ubuntu? From May 27 to 29 is held in the City of Science and Industry (Paris - Porte de la Villette) Ubuntu Party, an event dedicated to the discovery and learning of open source in general and this particular Linux distribution. Admission is free, of course, whether initiated or novice ...

On the menu: Installing Ubuntu on your machine, Ubuntu workshops addressing a concrete and practical courses to learn the ABC and improve your skills, conferences for info on Ubuntu in particular or in general, and free demos, more convincing than words. All information needed is available on the event website and on our forum.

3G and 4G: how we will pay more for the same service

Continue our momentum with the information we have obtained at Amdocs, a specialist in billing services for mobile operators. Today, talking about an interesting technology on the merits, but that poses problems in terms of privacy and how it will be implemented. We have already explained, by the admission of the unlimited operators died.

The idea, developed in a dedicated news, is to limit the offerings at speed or at the amount of data transferred. A problem quickly arose: if the connection up to 384 kilobits per second (for example), how to watch a video so comfortable? We had an answer to this question at Amdocs: operators will implement the DPI (Deep Packet Inspection), albeit not say so directly.

Record: 26 Tb / s over 50 km

Researchers KIT (Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe, Germany) recently announced having reached a speed of 26 terabits per second over a distance of 50 km using single laser beam, beating the record the world in this field. This DVD is 700 transferred in a second, or 400 million simultaneous phone calls.

Ironically, the difficulty lies in the encoding and decoding of information rather than transmitting the same data. No electronic device is indeed able to present to absorb this amount of data, and the researchers have developed a purely optical to "split" the data stream into smaller packets that will be processed and decoded them electrically.

Intel invests in cloud

Through his investment company "Intel Capital, the chipmaker has invested nearly $ 25 million in startups specializing in the Cloud, mobility and Smart TV ... Intel Capital is an investment company wholly owned the manufacturer of processors but operate independently. Nevertheless, the company invests only in areas that have strategic interest for Intel.

If the value of Intel's mobile revolution is well known, we particularly note that the 24.5 million invested in four start-ups yesterday are mainly in companies operating in the "Cloud" and social networks. The four companies and supported by Intel have very different profiles: If we find a common point of all these investments is likely to "Smart TV" that he must turn.

Logitech iPad tablet accessories and Android

The manufacturer Logitech already has new accessories for tabletasiPad and Android, these accessories can be expanded even further the capabilities of your Tablet PC. Logitech Keyboard Case Created in collaboration with ZAGG, features an aluminum housing and high density pad. The protective cover around the iPad 2 to cover the screen and both sides.

The Case Logitech Keyboard uses Bluetooth connectivity to connect the keyboard to quickly and easily. It also incorporates a more intuitive design and its keys have been improved to type more comfortably. It, too, with a slot just behind the keyboard that can sustain the iPad 2 in portrait or landscape mode.

Google wants to introduce mobile phone payment system

The mobile payment system is to start on smart phones with the operating system "Android" run. The idea is that customers need to keep at the box office only her cell phone from a terminal, reports, among them "." In the pilot phase, Google will test the service in five U.S. cities.

Google relies on wireless technology, NFC (Near Field Communication) to communicate with the devices to each other at close range. It is in such access cards and now being used more frequently in credit cards. Several years ago, was planning including Nokia, NFC chips on a broad front to bring in cell phones, but the push failed.

Laptop News: Dell XPS 15z: Ultra Compact Notebook

According to the manufacturer is the XPS 15z world to present one of the thinnest 15.6-inch notebooks. The housing is made of aluminum and magnesium, backlit keyboard - just like the display, the Dell with resolutions up to 1920x1080 pixels (HD) provides. As processors are used depending on the model "Core i5" - and "Core i7" chips.

Also on board: up to 750 gigabytes of disk space, DVD burner, eSATA port for external hard drives, up to eight gigabytes of memory, two USB 3.0 jacks, WLAN n, Bluetooth, Webcam, memory card reader. Two graphics chips are embedded, for demanding tasks (such as 3D animation or games) is the "Geforce GT 525-meter" charge with one or two gigabytes of memory.

DiRT 3 bundled with the Sapphire and HIS cards

As with the previous chapter in Codemasters DiRT 3 and AMD have worked together to develop and optimize the game in a DirectX 11 and Eyefinity. For this reason, the third episode of the famous video game series of the Rally Driving UK software house, which was released officially yesterday, will be bundled with video cards Radeon HD 6000-series of some AMD partners.

Asus Crosshair Formula V, extreme overclocking Socket AM3 +

Among the six models developed by ASUS mainboards for AMD socket AM3 + stands out for sure the top range solution Crosshair Formula V. This information has been developed by the Taiwanese giant in collaboration with the well-known overclocker Peter "Shamin" Tan thinking as the main purposes of use extreme overclocking.

The external power connector alongside the classic 24-pin connector and an 8-pin to 4 pin to support loads on the CPU up to 400W. The internal circuitry relies on technology design with Extreme Engine Digi + 8 +2 phase. The board uses the AMD 990FX chipset and is compatible with multi-GPU Quad Crossfire and 3-way SLI.

Mobile Internet Browser:Opera Mini 6 for iPhone and iPad

The browser from the Norwegian company scores points according to the manufacturer, especially with its speed: the Opera website content sent in compressed form to the mobile device. In addition to an accelerated presentation on the display from a wider user of a mobile contract with a fixed volume of data: the interrogation of smaller amounts of data need to slow down the package booked.

With the integrated "Send" button, the browser offers a special feature for fans of social networks: a click can be interesting Web content via Facebook or Twitter with your friends. The program is available free from Apple.

iPad (homepage) iPad (crunchbase) IPad (wikipedia) iPhone (homepage) IPhone (wikinvest) iPhone (crunchbase) IPhone (wikipedia) Opera Mini (homepage) Opera Mini (wikipedia)

AMD announces the FirePro V5900 and V7900 cards professional

AMD announced the availability of new professional graphics cards and AMD FirePro V5900 V7900, solutions can offer much higher performance and exploit the technology AMD PowerTune for the direct control of the power of the GPU and GeometryBoost, which allows two graphics processing primitive each clock cycle, in addition to the multi-display support for AMD Eyefinity.

The cards are available now at retailers around the world at a suggested retail price of $ 999 for the model AMD FirePro V7900 and $ 699 for the AMD FirePro V5900. More details in the official press release. AMD FirePro professional graphics cards offer improved performance and outperform the competition by 100% - The professional graphics cards, AMD AMD FirePro ™ V5900 and FirePro ™ V7900 provide better productivity with technology Eyefinity AMD, AMD and PowerTune GeometryBoost -

Detect the imperfections of a wafer faster

Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) and researchers at the University of Los Angeles (UCLA) presented a new technology for detecting a defective wafer faster. By installing the test structures during the early stages of manufacturing a die and then checking them immediately, it could save 15% on production costs and increase profits per chip by 12%, according to a statement published on the CBC website.

Qualcomm Completes Purchase Atheros

In January, Qualcomm announced the acquisition of Atheros. The transaction is now complete, for $ 3.1 billion in shares. With this acquisition, Qualcomm is able to handle the majority of current communication technologies: 3G, Wi-Fi, CPL. Indeed, if Qualcomm is a company specialized in 3G, it does not yet have the skills to offer Wi-Fi chips, unlike Marvell or Broadcom, two competitors.

And in the world of the CPL, Qualcomm became the de facto leader: the majority of cases using Intellon chip, which was acquired by Atheros some time ago. In practice, it is especially interesting for a new division Snapdragon: SoC Qualcomm is already one of the most comprehensive - it includes CPU, GPU, GPS chip and 3G - and the addition of Wi-Fi should make it even more interesting.

3 years later, Microsoft is appealing the fine

The history of legal troubles for Microsoft with the European Commission is complex, but you will recall that the software giant was convicted in February 2008 to a record fine of 899 million euros for abusing its dominant position. Microsoft had quickly appealed, arguing that the excessive and disproportionate to the amount that was in addition to two previous fines of 497 and 281 million euros.

Tom's Guide: the worst scams of the Web

Our colleagues and neighbors at Tom's Hardware recently put online a feature on the worst scam that can be encountered on the Internet. Inheritance of fake antivirus surprise through the beautiful Russian and miracle products, here is a selection of scams that can easily meet the web ...

World Wide Web (wikipedia) Eric Schmidt at Bloomberg on the Future of Technology (youtube)

Bulldozer late, launched in September?

2011 should be year of renewal of AMD. The perennial challenger to Intel has to replace its full range of processors in the entry-level fusion at Brazos upscale Bulldozer through the midrange Llano. But if the Fusion launch went smoothly at the beginning of the year, but Dozer is more difficult. The rumor originated with a delay and our colleagues Sweclockers.

According to sources, AMD will launch the bulldozer in August or September. The launch of Llano, himself, would know and no problem is imminent, what we do not doubt for a second. The Computex show in Taiwan that will open next Tuesday will certainly have the opportunity to learn because it is the showcase of the leading manufacturers of motherboards (ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI ...) all Taiwanese.

Alims two and two cases in Ecomaster

The manufacturer Ecomaster (and behind him Enermax) has launched several new products, namely two power supplies and two boxes: the B750 and B850 LEPA LEPA LPC301 and LPC302 and. 80Plus Certified Bronze, the LEPA B750 and V850 show a maximum efficiency of 88%. Both power supply, a power 750W and 850W respectively up, enjoy an active PFC and have multiple +12 V rails (two for B750, B850 for four) and a 135 mm PWM fan.

March II: the great Asus GeForce

At Computex, Asus will offer an exceptional graphics card, the Mars II. After Ares (based on the Radeon) and Mars (based on the GeForce GTX 285), March II will use two GeForce GTX 580 in parallel. This card will be close to a GeForce GTX 590 - which already uses two GPUs GF110 - but with a priori higher frequencies.

Indeed, the GeForce GTX 580 working 772/2004 MHz (GPU / memory), while the GTX 590 is simply 607/1707 MHz. We know that the Mars II will use a cooling system DirectCU II and it will offer 3 GB of GDDR5 memory (twice actually 1.5GB). Initial information is patchy and the frequency chips is not known, it is replaced by a classic "TBD" (To Be Determined).

Duke Nukem Forever goes gold

After almost 15 years of developments and twists, Duke Nukem Forever is finally finished. 2K Games and Gearbox announced that the title was passed in Gold, which means that the final version was sent to manufacturers of discs and boxes will be delivered to dealers. According to a statement posted on the site of Gearbox, the first demos will be released on June 3 and will be reserved for members of Duke Nukem First Access Club.

Makes electronic paper Bookeen fast

Electronic paper offers unparalleled ease of reading, but still suffers from a slow display that prevents truly competitive with LCDs. Thanks to the researches of the French company Bookeen, this fault will hopefully be soon history. Take a look at the video below: The scrolling of a webpage is almost fluid, although it is still far from the comfort of an LCD.

Bookeen had already shown last February of a video display on a screen eink Pearl, the latest generation of electronic paper. The company did not give details on the changes that allow it to make their screens so reactive compared to what exists on the market today. It remains only to hope to see such a screen soon sold.

Bookeen (homepage) Bookeen (wikipedia)

Fujitsu integrates a projector in a laptop

The dream of many mobile professionals recently conducted by Fujitsu: Japan has managed to integrate a projector into a laptop. The projector takes the place traditionally reserved for the DVD player. A hinge allows the lens to focus to position the image correctly. The projector offers a brightness of 40 lumens and a resolution of 800 x 600 pixels.

Bay pico is removable it can be replaced by an extra battery or optical drive. This option will be available from July on two laptops Fujitsu LifeBook LIFEBOOK P771 and S761. It still cost 499 exc.

Fujitsu (homepage) Fujitsu (wikipedia)

OCZ Talos, a new family of enterprise SSD 6Gbps SAS interface

OCZ has announced the launch of the new series of SSD called Talos, a line of albums with Serial Interface Attacked SCSI (SAS) designed for enterprise applications that require ultra fast solutions and high-capacity NAND equipped with multicellular. Talos gives further strength to the OCZ storage industry, expanding the availability of technology VAC (Virtualized Controller Architecture), which owns OCZ.

Cloud App: develop your mobile applications on the Cloud

Brightcove Launches App Cloud, a service that allows you to easily create applications for smartphones and touch pads. Brightcove, far more famous for its platform video streaming over the Web, launches a platform for applications in the cloud. " This platform not only allows to create cross-platform mobile applications (IOS, Android) and WEB applications tactile, but also to ensure the management and evolution over time.

6 enclosures silent under the microscope

Things are finally changing the side housings. We present images in the bowel walls and anti-noise of 6 boxes now silent in our laboratory: Antec Sonata IV BitFenix Colossus, Fractal Design Define XL, Lian-Li PC-B25S, H2 NZXT Classic SilverStone Raven 2 Evolution.

Cisco accused of helping China to block Internet

11 members of the religious movement Falun Gong filed a complaint against Cisco U.S. courts, according to the Associated Press. They accuse him of providing equipment that the Chinese government used to spy on them, which led to their arrests and torture. The complaint will even argue that Cisco offers technical support for this purpose and marketing presentations that tout the schools' Policenet ", a system able to track the Internet activities of members of this religious cult, according to Cnet.