General Gaming Article

General Gaming Article

BitTorrent Announces P2P-Based File-Sharing App

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 02:50 PM PST

btA new service from BitTorrent Inc. is looking to challenge established cloud storage and sharing services like Dropbox. Share is a p2p-based system that uses the BitTorrent protocol to share files of any size with an unlimited number of contacts. Share will leverage Amazon's EC2 and S3 infrastructure to cache files so users don't even have to online at the same time to share files.

The problem with file sharing services is that bandwidth and hosting costs tend to eat up the budget. With Share, files will be taken off the cloud as soon as they are cached by a sufficient number of peers. Essentially, the network becomes its own cloud that costs BitTorrent nothing in the way of storage. 

The Share app will initially only be available on Windows, but a beta of uTorrent for Mac will have the functionality built in soon. The plan is to have the Share service integrated with the Windows version of uTorrent at some point as well. The service is expected to be free when it launches. Users will just have to share a little hard drive space to keep the cloud alive.

New Chrome Beta Pre-Loads Web Pages

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 02:31 PM PST

chromeGoogle's Chrome browser has had a feature for the last few months that pre-loads web pages when you are searching on Google. Now that feature has been expanded in the new Chrome beta to include pages typed into the omnibox. Sites that Chrome auto-completes will load in the background before you press enter. The result is what appears to be blisteringly-fast page loads.

Pages are not actually loading faster, of course. It's just a subtle psychological trick that hides most of the loading from the user until they are expecting to see the browser spring into action. Google and users have the same interests in the ever increasing speed of Chrome. Google wants us to see more pages, and thus more ads. Users just don't want to wait around for pages to load. It's a go, go world these days.

The new Chrome beta also added a new security measure that will scan downloaded EXE and MSI files to determine if they are known threats. Users will be alerted if things seem fishy. Faster and more secure; can't argue with that. The new beta should be installed automatically for those on the beta channel. 

Majority of Photos Flagged on Facebook are Not Offensive, Just Unflattering

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 02:18 PM PST

dislikeFacebook has revealed much about the human condition, and now it's reminding us how vain we humans can be sometimes. According to a recent interview with Facebook's engineering director Arturo Bejar, the majority of photos flagged by users as inappropriate are actually just unflattering images of the user that reported it.

Facebook has a whole raft of content that it does not allow. Nudity, drug use, harassment, and spam are all reasons to report a photo on Facebook. After noticing the trend of unflattering photos in the filter, Facebook engineers added an option in Spetember to the reporting dialog that simply states, "I don't like this photo of me." The social network does not remove images in this case, but will message the user who posted it to give them the opportunity to remove it voluntarily. 

This isn't just a blip in the data; Facebook gets over 250 million photo uploads per-day. There's no mistaking people's narcissism in this case. Perhaps a more logical course of action than flagging images that don't catch you at the right angle could be to just disable tagging. 

Future Tense: Life With Kindle

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 02:02 PM PST

Before it shipped, a friend of mine expressed a great deal of skepticism—even hostility—about the Kindle Fire. This was right after HP had dropped their remaining stock of Touchpads onto the market for $200 each.

My buddy failed to understand two things—first, HP was abandoning the Touchpad and cleaning out their warehouses. And second, the Kindle Fire is not a tablet—it's a low-cost content-delivery system. This is critical to understanding what the Kindle can and can't do.

I'd had the previous model Kindle for just about a year when the Kindle Fire was announced. As much as I loved the convenience of the device, I have to admit that I had also been experiencing Nook-envy. The Barnes & Noble Nook had a color touch screen. Color makes a big difference—especially for magazines. And a touch screen is essential for any tablet device.

But as tempting as the Nook might have been, I have enough content purchased for the Kindle that I just didn't want to switch to a new platform. So the announcement of the Kindle Fire was a welcome surprise. I studied the specs for a few days, decided I liked what I read, then placed my order.

My Kindle Fire arrived a day early and the out-of-box-experience was exceptional. The device is handsome and rugged. It's simple and it's scratch resistant. On the downside, the on-off button is on the bottom and that's inconvenient for holding it or propping it up on your lap, because you can accidentally turn the device off while you're reading. Fortunately, you can flip it over and use it upside down, but not every application reorients to how you're holding it.

The Kindle Fire is about as heavy as a hardcover book, so you're either going to lay it flat or prop it up against something or purchase a stand for it. It simply is not convenient for holding unsupported for long periods of time. The same is true of every other tablet I've looked at. I expect that at some point in the future, these devices will be a lot lighter and slimmer, but we're not there yet.

Now, my buddy was right that the Kindle is not a complete tablet, but it was never meant to be. But as a content-delivery system, it's exceptionally convenient. I can't tell you if Amazon's Silk browser is faster than browsers on other tablets because I don't have another tablet handy to compare.

Unlike my previous Kindle, the Kindle Fire does not have 3G, so access to the internet or even to Amazon's "whispernet" delivery system requires a wi-fi connection. This means sitting in Starbucks or McDonalds or tethering your Kindle Fire to your phone.

If you buy a tablet from one of the cellphone companies and you want web access, then you have to buy a contract so your device can connect via cellphone towers. This averages around $40 a month. On the other hand, if you have a newer model smartphone—I have a Galaxy SII—then you can tether multiple devices to your phone. My carrier provides tethering ability for only $15 extra per month. Tethering does use up battery life in the phone, but for the most part, I keep my phone in a powered stand, and I always carry a spare battery with me.

When the Kindle Fire is tethered, web access is fast enough to be useful. Downloading books or magazines is near-instantaneous. Web-surfing is almost as fast, but it depends on the connection. If I'm too far away from my phone or if I'm logged onto a public source, web pages will slow down a bit. Not enough to be impractical, but enough to be noticeable.

The Kindle Fire's speakers aren't loud enough for listening except in a very quiet environment. Headphones or earbuds are a necessity. Watching a video on the Kindle Fire is a lot better than trying to watch it on a Zune or a smartphone. You can actually see what's happening on the screen. But due to the Kindle Fire's limited—8gb—memory, you're not going to store a lot of your own videos on the device.

And this is why the Kindle Fire isn't a tablet, it's a content-delivery system. Most of your books and magazines, music and videos, are going to remain in the cloud and Amazon will stream them as you desire. This is practical if you're sitting in Starbucks. It's impractical if your 30,000 feet over Kansas and want to catch up on back episodes of Dexter. Unless you've previously downloaded them, you're out of luck. Unless you're flying on a plane with internet access.

The Kindle Fire does not have a slot for a memory card. I consider this to be the device's biggest flaw. An SD-slot would allow users to add as much as 128gb of memory—yes, there really are cards that big, Lexar sells them. That's multiple libraries of music and videos.

The Kindle Fire does not have a camera, it cannot be used for Skype or video chat. It does not have GPS, so you cannot use it for real-time guidance. You can access Mapquest, but as of this writing, there's no app for Google Maps. I wish it had all these capabilities.

I wish it had all the capabilities of my Android smartphone so I could use it for taking stills and videos and making video calls via Skype. I wish it had GPS for real-time traffic alerts and 4G for fast internet access. I wish it had the Swype keyboard that makes texting a lot faster on my phone. And I wish it had a built-in kickstand on the back so it could stand up by itself. (You know those cheap picture frames that can be propped up portrait or landscape? The Kindle should do that too.)

But the Kindle Fire is not a phone and it's not a full tablet—not yet. I expect that eventually the Kindle will evolve to include all those other features. And I expect that Amazon will keep the price as low as possible so that they can own the market for content-delivery. I expect Amazon to eat Apple's lunch—and probably everyone else's too.

Despite its current limitations, I remain enthusiastic about the Kindle Fire. I bought it for reading books and magazines and watching the occasional video. It has a very readable screen for books. Magazines look great. Videos are clear and crisp. Music sounds great on good headphones. Web pages are clearly readable—much more accessible than on the 4.3 inch screen of even the best smartphone. You can magnify pages if you need to.

There are a number of exceptional applications available for the Kindle Fire, including IMDB, Netflix, WiFi Analyzer, HuffingtonPost, Evernote, Angry Birds (of course), Pandora, and QuickOffice Pro, an office suite that can access Microsoft Office files. You can download documents, spreadsheets, and powerpoint presentations to the device and have important files easily available and even do some quick editing.

I take the Kindle Fire with me almost everywhere, because I never know when I'm going to be stuck in line or waiting for someone. I've also downloaded the .pdf manuals of all my various electronics onto the Kindle so I have those references always available. This is especially handy when I'm away from home and need to check some feature on my camera or other piece of gear.

My buddy was right that the Kindle Fire is not a full tablet. We're still a few generations away from that. But when I showed him what it was capable of today, he admitted he was impressed enough to consider getting one for himself.

Now it's your turn. What features would you like to see in a 7-inch form factor device?

 

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David Gerrold is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. He has written more than 50 books, including "The Man Who Folded Himself" and "When HARLIE Was One," as well as hundreds of short stories and articles. His autobiographical story "The Martian Child" was the basis of the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet. He has also written for television, including episodes of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, and Land Of The Lost. He is best known for creating tribbles, sleestaks, and Chtorrans. In his spare time, he redesigns his website, www.gerrold.com

Western Digital's My Book Live Duo NAS Supports RAID 1 And Lives In The Cloud

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 11:37 AM PST

If someone asked us what the most important aspect of computing was, we'd answer: back up your data! But unless you have an automated system, backing up your data is likely one of the first things to get dropped by the wayside when your schedule fills up. Western Digital's got your back: its newly announced My Book Live Duo NAS features dual hard drives that can be placed in RAID 1 for redundancy, so your precious data lives on if one of the drives goes kaput.

Not enough for you? WD's pushing the rig as a "personal cloud storage system" that can be accessed anywhere there's an Internet connection. Remote access is achieved either via www.WD2go.com or with the various WD mobile apps for iOS/Android.  In the here-and-now, the My Book Live Duo includes an Ethernet port, an undisclosed 800 MHz CPU, DLNA capabilities and full support for both Windows PCs and Macs. There's a 4TB option for $400 that sports a pair of 2TB drives, or a $500 model that includes a pair of 3TB HDDs.  By default, RAID 1 is turned off and you have access to the full storage capabilities of the My Book Live Duo; the box supports both WD SmartWare and Apple's Timeline automatic backup in case you want to leave RAID 1 off.

Check out the product page for the full details and marketing schpiel.

Crucial's Newly Announced Drive Aims To Mix SSD Speeds With HDD Storage Capabilities

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 11:08 AM PST

There's no denying that SSDs are blazing fast and an all-around pleasure to have in your system, but for many folks, being limited to 128GB or 256GB just isn't going to cut it. Enter Crucial: today, the memory maker announced the "Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution," which hopes to solve that problem (as the name implies). It could've been called the "SSD Band-Aid;" it's basically an itty-bitty SSD that teams up with your HDD to deliver quick access speeds while keeping the high storage capabilities of traditional drives intact.

The Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution is a 50GB Crucial m4 SSD that ships with a 3.5-inch adapter bracket and some cache software. Setup sounds pretty easy: connect the SSD to your mobo with a SATA cable, then install the software and get to work. The clever-sounding software tricks your computer into thinking both drives are a single storage system and automatically drops your most-used files onto the SSD. The things you use most often get the full SSD speed boosting treatment, while everything else stays sitting on your HDD, still fully accessible.

Robert Wheadon, Crucial's worldwide product manager, calls the product "a compelling and affordable upgrade solution." We'd be inclined to agree, except, um, Crucial left pricing details out of its press release. The Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution is expected to start shipping sometime in the first quarter.

At first glance, it certainly seems like an intriguing little product for those who can't abide the abysmally small storage space found in current SSDs and don't want to swap out their current HDD for a pricey hybrid drive. Is this something you would pick up assuming the price is right?

Browser Extension of the Week: Lazarus

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 10:45 AM PST

lazarusWhether you're making a purchase from an online store, signing up for a new service or renewing an old one, when online forms work, they work very well... until your web browser crashes and the burning rage of one thousand suns eats all that was once good in your life as a result. Fortunately, for Chrome and Firefox users, the days of form-related hissy fits may soon be nothing more than an ugly memory, thanks to Lazarus, our Browser Extension of the Week.

Designed to save your form-related bacon in the event of a browser crash, error message or network time out, Lazarus preserves the data you've entered into a given form, encrypts and saves it to your rig just in case you wind up needing it. What's more, Lazarus can even be tweaked to suit your particular needs with options such as the ability to decide how many days form data is preserved by the extension, password protection and the ability to disable form preservation on selected sites. 

For all that Lazarus can do, it's worth mentioning that there are some things still doesn't handle very well: Chiefly, preserving the information entered into WYSIWYG editors of the sort employed by many popular Content Management Systems. That said, the extension's developer is hard at work trying to solve this issue.

 

 

Tobii's Gaze Interface Lets You Navigate Windows 8 With Your Peepers

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 10:35 AM PST

Microsoft may be pushing touchscreen control as the wave of the future with Windows 8's tiled Metro interface, but Tobii Technology thinks just swiping and pointing your way around an operating system is so, like, 2011. Tobii says its novel new "Tobii Gaze" control scheme, which mixes eye-tracking technology with a touchpad and is being shown off at CES next week, delivers superior control compared to both mice and touchscreens. Big words indeed!

Check out the video above to see Gaze in action. Basically, Tobii's eye-tracking technology takes control of the on-screen cursor; it points to whatever you look at. Clicking the Gaze's touchpad operates like your standard left-click. Tobii claims that its scheme feels much more natural than traditional touchscreen methods – especially when the touchscreen in question is vertical – and the interface leaves no question as to what's being clicked, unlike touchscreens, which can have troubles navigating tightly-packed links when controlled by fat fingered individuals (like myself).

Quote time: "Pointing at something by looking at it is intuitive, natural and immediate. Using a mouse to do the same thing is less so, as it involves an intermediate step of moving a mouse-pointer around," Henrik Eskilsson, CEO, said in Tobii's press release. "Gaze is as natural and intuitive as touch, as precise as the mouse and more ergonomic and effortless than both. Once you have experienced Gaze, a laptop without it feels just as ancient as a laptop without a touch pad."

It's nifty, and Tobii has plenty of experience with eye-tracking tech. But can they pull this off cheaply enough for Joe and Jill Consumer to care? What are your first impressions of the Gaze?

Broadcom Unveils Next-Gen "5G Wi-Fi" Chips Capable Of Up To 1.3Gbps

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 10:03 AM PST

Most of the hot new products you hear about this early in a new year come out of the desert at the CES electronics convention – which takes place next week – but Broadcom decided to kick things off early and unveil its new line of "5G Wi-Fi" chips based on the still-in-development 802.11ac standard. Yes, they push Wi-Fi faster and farther than before, and no, "5G" has nothing to do with cellular networks. It's just Broadcom's catchphrase for the fifth generation of Wi-Fi. But hey, marketing tricks aside, how do up to 1.3Gbps wireless speeds sound?

Only one of the four new chips – the PCI-e supported, three-stream BCM4360 – actually reaches that ridiculously fast speed. Two dual-stream chips, the BCM4352 (PCI-e) and BCM43526 (USB) deliver up to 867Mbps, while the single-stream BCM43516 tops out at 433Mbps, which still ain't too shabby. All four work on the 80 MHz channel. The USB products are targeted more for consumer electronics, while the PCI-e powered models were obviously designed with PC-related uses in mind.

Broadcom's 5G chips use "beamforming" technology to target specific receivers with and increase the operational range of the signal. Plus, they're based on a new 40nm manufacturing process, which makes them more energy efficient to boot.

So what could you use those faster speeds for? Why not let Broadcom itself tell you? From the company's press release: "Broadcom's 5G WiFi dramatically improves the wireless range in the home, allowing consumers to watch HD-quality video from more devices, in more places, simultaneously. The increased speed enables consumers to download web content from a mobile device faster and quickly synch large files, such as videos, in a fraction of the time it would take on a similar 802.11n device."

Broadcom will be showing off its 5G chips to potential partners and OEMs at CES next week.

Samsung Prepares Super Stylish 27-inch Plane Line Switching Monitor

Posted: 05 Jan 2012 09:35 AM PST

Samsung, like almost everyone else, is tipping its hand ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, or at least is willing to show some of the cards it's holding. Revealed today is the company's high-end SA27A950 monitor, the newest entry to its Series 9 LED-backlit LCD display line and featuring Plane Line Switching (PLS) technology.

The SA27A950 features a 2560x1440 resolution, edge-to-edge glass coated with anti-glare gunk, and an adjustable aluminum stand that will slip right into a modern art deco setup without skipping a beat. Connectivity options consist of USB, DisplayPort, dual-link DVI, and HDMI ports. Other features include a 1,000:1 typical contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness, a pair of 7W built-in speakers, and Mobile High Definition Link (MHL) support.

Plane Line Switching, or Plane to Line Switching as it's sometimes called, is Samsung's take on IPS displays. It's supposed to offer stellar viewing angles, better brightness, and cost less to produce.

The Series 9 S27A970 will be available in March for $1,200.

Image Credit: Samsung
Posted by Shri Krishna

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