Hardware Post: 06/06/11

Monday, June 6, 2011

Tomb Raider: Release date announced

1996 Lara Croft celebrated her video game debut. And the Briton was not only what their female dimensions absolute terms than women. Daring climbing and jumping sections or a fight against a full-grown Tyrannosaurus Rex mastered the grave robber, without batting an eyelash. Now the carefree days of the British nobility are gone.

For the next reboot of the series announces developer Crystal Dynamics a more sensitive - of Lara - and younger. As a survivor of a shipwreck is found, the freshly baked university graduate again on a mysterious island. Instead of looking for artifacts is the survival in the foreground.

Toshiba shows Android Tablet

The Thrive comes in three variants with eight, 16 and 32 internal memory. It features a 10.1-inch touch screen display that is 1280x800. On board is a Tegra-2 chip from Nvidia. Two camera lenses (two and five megapixels) are integrated. USB ports, HDMI, SD card reader, Bluetooth and WLAN standard. Practical: The battery is replaceable and can be recharged in a half hour to 90 percent.

A charge is then sufficient for up to seven hours of HD video playback, so Toshiba. Furthermore, various changeable covers are available to customize the device color. Mid-July, the Thrive available in the U.S. If and when the Toshiba Trive comes to Europe, is still unclear.

Microsoft: Xbox Live Diamond: Internet TV via Xbox 360

When it comes to Microsoft, the Xbox 360 more than a game console. Rather it should be the center of multimedia Keep the fun in the living room. Photos, listen to music, watching movies - that everything is already possible with the console. Rumor is the U.S. company before at E3 2011 as the new venue: television.

After a working Microsoft from offering Internet TV via Xbox Live. Diamond members may therefore look on the Xbox 360 TV. The fact that Microsoft will make the Xbox 360 a full, is nothing new. In some regions of the U.S. U-verse "customers of the communications company AT & T has now the opportunity to watch television with the Xbox 360.

Star Wars Kinect: Information on controllerless star war

For Microsoft Kinect is a complete success. Only beginning of March 2011 announced the Redmond company sold ten million copies of the motion control. From the other hand, was player circles since the start of the hardware in November 2010, the louder criticism: too many mini-games and no so-called hardcore games - so the allegation.

Microsoft wants to make these prophecies of doom on the E3 2011 Date and presented in advance "Kinect Star Wars". As you walk through the Jedi "Star Wars" universe and teach among other battle droids to fear, who made pod race in space or fight against the Trade Federation ships. The plot is based roughly on it the first three parts of the saga.

TDJ: LEPA LPC302, Gigabyte Z68X-DU4-B3

Our fellow Cowcotland recently posted a review of the LEPA LPC302, developed by a housing subsidiary of Enermax manufacturer. Showing the dimensions of 520 x 221 x 450 mm Weight 9.1 kg, this case is rather seen Gamer, with a sober style, the mesh of Full Black, chassis updates and free assembly screws.

Verdict? For its part, our fellow 59Hardware just put online a test Z68X DU4-B3-Gigabyte motherboard which as its name suggests is based on an Intel chipset Z68 ...

A USB "secure" from Green House

The Green House builder has announced the launch of the PicoDrive Secure, a USB (2.0!) Receiving a compact data encoding (AES 256bit). Showing the dimensions of 65 x 19 x 8 mm and weighs only 11 grams on the scale, this USB stick can also be locked by a password, or be configured as "read only". Available in capacities of 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB, Secure PicoDrive should be given to respective rates of $ 160, $ 230, $ 300 and $ 355.

How could restrain SFR's competitors Neufbox

Interesting point in the battle for the connected TV, SFR (and other ...) might "encourage" the TV connected and therefore de facto limited competition. Currently, ISPs are increasing their ARPU (average revenue per subscriber) with - particularly - the VoD and TV offerings. In the future, with major deals on the web (Google and Google TV, Apple and Apple TV) and TV manufacturers (Sony, LG, Samsung, etc..), This windfall could disappear, what worries operators .

Asus presents its new products at Computex 2011

Asus presents its new products at Computex 2011, Asus giant certainly want to surprise everyone with its developments unveil below. The new ASUS Padfone tablet and smartphone combines in one device. The Computex 2011 trade show was the venue chosen by the world president of ASUS, Jonney Shih, to introduce the public and media expected Padfone, the union between the tablet and smartphone user multiply the possibilities, offering a choice between various screen sizes, according to its intended use.

Virgin will have its "Neufbox" ADSL

Virgin, the fourth French operator, will become a broadband operator. As in mobile telephony, the company Omea Telecom (which markets the offerings from Virgin Mobile) will not deploy its network, but will become a virtual operator. For now, Virgin Mobile uses the network of Orange, but ADSL will be the SFR network is used.

In 2012, Virgin should launch regular "Quadruple Play" with a "Vrigin Box", based - as Prixtel - Neufbox on SFR. Hopefully something other than Virgin shoed change the color of the Box (Prixtel simply changes the color of the V4) and that bids will be competitive, as often with the operator.

Zalman CNPS12X: circular tower CPU heatsink

Zalman has publicly shown Computex 2011 its new CPU cooler CNPS12X: This incorporates the typical design ring with omega-shaped fins, but in effect must be considered a double sink tower. The first photos published by Tech Power Up, show that the heat pipes are put in direct contact with the CPU and through both sections of the radiator.

The manufacturer provides this model with three fans pre-installed. The overall dimensions are equal to 151x132x153 mm and weighing about 1 kg.

Central processing unit (wikipedia)

6 Dual-VGA slot installed in the homes of SilverStone Temjin TJ12

Taiwan's Computex SilverStone has shown a particular concept to homes equipped with as many as 19 PCIe expansion slots. Temjin TJ12 is the name of the case, it uses the tried and tested design SilverStone "stack" with the slot on the motherboard rotated 90 degrees to facilitate the expulsion of the heat produced by the hardware components directly on top and can accommodate up to two power supplies.

Icy Vision 2, VGA cooler with two 120mm fans

Frozen Solution at Computex 2011 have shown the prototype of a new heat sink for VGA. Shown with the provisional name "VGA-14", the new cooler is designed to take the place of the current model Icy Vision. Compared to the latter is larger, high performance, while maintaining a similar basic design with two cooling fans, radiators and two independents.

Instead of two 92mm fans and the 5 heatpipes connection now there are 2 120mm fans and 6 Heatpipes LP. The overall size has grown in height, length and width, while compatibility is assured with AMD and Nvidia video cards-end performance and high-end next generation. The bundle includes various sizes of heatsinks to cool the chip VRAM / MOSFET and a syringe of thermal paste GC.

Video Graphics Array (wikipedia)

Role-playing game. Dark Souls: Playful torture begins in the fall of 2011

Good news for fans of hard touring: Publisher Namco Bandai announced that "Dark Souls" on 7 October 2011 goes on sale. The makers promise to offer hardcore gamers an even greater challenge than the previous album "Demon's Souls." This time, torture and Xbox 360 gamers;. Part 1 was still PS3-exclusive "drive player in June 2010 to the brink of despair.

Instead of checkpoints after each step and help you at every turn was the role-play in the rain. The title punished mistakes with the death, the simultaneous loss of items and rebooting of a section. Because the games are fair, despite the challenge remained, was "Demon's Souls," a delightful counterpoint to the softly flushed Games shaft.

Expicula: Alternative to Windows Explore

"Expicula" is a free file manager that helps you manage, find and delete folders, directories and files. The tool offers different views, so that the contents of multiple folders is visible at the same time in separate windows. This makes such sorting or moving files. Expicula has a detailed search function with various filters.

Windows Explorer (wikipedia)

Afterburner for Android, overclock the GPU via smartphone

MSI has announced the availability of Afterburner for mobile devices based on Android operating system. The monitoring & GPU overclocking tool developed by Alexey Nicolaychuk, creator of the famous Rivatuner, then landed on Android for smartphones and Tablet PCs allow the user to modify and control remotely (via WiFi) the main operating parameters of the video card installed in your PC.

Of course work is required for the presence of Afterburner "server side" and the module for WiFi connectivity to PC, or you can use the direct USB connection. Press Release: The leading graphics card and mainboard manufacturer, MSI, today display the Android version of the ITS Afterburner popular overclocking utility for graphics cards at Computex 2011.

XM11: SSD "bar" A-DATA

The UX21 from Asus, the first "Ultrabook" is a clone of the MacBook Air in terms of appearance, but at some hardware solutions. Indeed, the SSD of the machine is close enough to the format used by Apple Asus chose to use a "bar" instead of a standard such as the MSAT. Currently, there are SSDs in traditional formats, legacy hard drives, but the market tends to gradually adapt the format to the technology.

Action game. Xcom, it'sTime for Alien Invasion

Take-Two is expressed in a press release on the release date of "Xcom": According to the alien invasion started in March 2012. The exact date does not name the publisher. In the new edition reject the developer's classic isometric perspective of the "X-Com" games from the 90's. The action switches to the first person view.

The tactical impact should remain the same. In the predecessors They protected the earth in turn-based tactical combat against the alien invasion.

Xbox (crunchbase) Xbox (wikipedia) Personal computer (wikipedia)

icloud, tonight on Twitter. Rumors of the moment

Tonight, Steve Jobs will introduce iOS 5.0, Mac OS X Lion (which we already know many things) and icloud. We will comment live information distilled during the conference on Twitter, via our account TomsHardware_fr. Few rumors iOS 5.0, outside information about the notifications that should evolve as management is archaic.

By cons, icloud unfolds gradually and Apple could offer an interesting thing: a icloud home. Explain. What is known icloud is that it is linked to music and he is expected to hear his music online without physically storing on his computer. But this poses a problem: we need a permanent connection.

OMAP 4470: response Tegra 2 and Apple A5

Texas Instrument, very present in the SoC ARM, today announced a new version of its chip OMAP4. We had already introduced the 4440 version of the chip a few months ago, but needed a little reminder before moving to the new version, 4470. The OMAP4440, used for example by RIM in its tablet, is a SoC (System on a Chip, a chip that integrates all components) that contains two CPU type Cortex A9 (with NEON), a DSP and CPU help PowerVR GPU type SGX540 clocked at 304 MHz.

From 27 inches to play at Philips

The manufacturer Philips has recently announced will launch in Europe of a new model of LCD for gamers: the E-line 273E3LSB. With a slab 27 inches diagonal viewing Full HD resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, this screen has a backlight LED. The response time reached 1 ms (gray to gray, 3.5 ms "typical"), brightness peaked at 300 cd / m² and contrast ratio is 1200: 1 (20 million: 1 dynamic).

The viewing angles reaches 178 degrees on the other horizontally and 170 degrees vertically. Equipped with VGA and DVI (but presumably not HDMI or DisplayPort) and an adjustable stand tilt (-5 ° / +20 °), the E-line 273E3LSB Eventually, a typical consumption rather low of 19.6 watts. This LCD monitor is available at a recommended retail price of 339 euros.

Philips (homepage) NYSE: PHG (googlefinance) LSE: PHPE (googlefinance) Koninklijke Philips Electronics (PHG) (wikinvest) Philips (wikipedia)

A microSD to bring NFC compatibility

Netcom, a Chinese company, has introduced a microSD interesting: in addition to a capacity of 8 GB, she joined the NFC. NFC (Near Field Contact) can send and receive information at a short distance more and more phones integrate this technology, used in particular for electronic payment. The solution still has some drawbacks: it requires that the microSD slot is not behind metal, to avoid interference and the integration of the antenna in the card limits the scope of the technology, already very short in basis.

Corsair announces the expansion of their Professional Series Power Supply

Corsair has announced it is expanding its range of high-power performance with the addition of models and HX1050 Series Professional Series Professional Gold X650. The Professional Series HX1050 provides 1050W of continuous power, and joins her sisters HX1000, HX850, HX750 and HX650 in the Professional Series.

This new source has 80Plus Silver certification, with an efficiency of 88% to 50% load. The Professional Series Gold ZX650 provides 650W of continuous power, and joins the AX750, AX850 and AX1200 in the font family maximum performance Professional Series Gold. Like the rest of her sisters, 80Plus Certified Gold account, providing more than 90% efficiency at 50% load.

Intel Z68: 3 motherboards compared

Backbone, the Z68 chipset abrogate the limitations of two previous Intel chipsets and is now particularly enticing for those who wish to move to Sandy Bridge. Provided it is well implemented. We compared three motherboards particularly interesting signed ASRock, Asus and Gigabyte.

IBM Launches SmartCloud dedicated to education

IBM Expands Cloud Public "with dedicated services to the world of education. Last April, IBM joined Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Salesforce. com and Rackspace in the clan of the major suppliers of public clouds. The U.S. giant announced in the cloud services specifically for the world of education and who intended to simplify the creation of private clouds in universities and colleges.

Regarded as an offer essentially "IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), it has several components SaaS (Software as a Service). The offer is essentially built around two elements: Offer "IBM SmartCloud for Education" is currently intended that the U.S. market. Its extension to Europe, especially France, is not yet considered.

LSE: IBM (googlefinance) NYSE: IBM (googlefinance) IBM (homepage) International Business Machines (IBM) (wikinvest) IBM (crunchbase) IBM (wikipedia)

Kingston HyperX SandForce of SF-2281

Kingston showed a SSD at Computex HyperX shipping the new controller of SandForce SF-2281. It has a read speed of 525 Mb / s. This is the first time that Kingston uses a controller SandForce. The range is the high end market and will be split into version 120 GB and 240 GB are writing speeds of 480 Mb / s according to the statement.

SSDs use Intel NAND etched into 25 nm that provide 5000 cycles of writing - crash. Compatible with SATA 6Gb / s, the new HyperX is guaranteed for three years and will be sold July 11 next United States at a price still unknown. With this new controller, Kingston joined Corsair has already unveiled its SSDs using the same controller (see "From SandForce SF-2281 for Corsair Force 3).

Nintendo LulzSec attacked by the blackmailer?

Nintendo has confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that had been hacked, but no important information has been stolen or compromised. The video game maker says it does not know the identity of the attackers, but the group claimed the attack LulzSec. The Pirates have just published LulzSec configuration file servers Nintendo.

They claim however that it is mainly because they like the Nintendo 64 and they do not want to hurt the firm. They therefore call on to fill the flaw they exploited. The group is becoming more of him. The identity of its members and so far unknown, but they caused a stir by hacking PBS.