General Gaming Article |
- MegaUpload Users Planning to Sue FBI Over Lost Data
- Google Music Now Lets U.S. Users Download All Their Uploaded Songs
- XFX Silently Strips New Radeon Cards of 'Double Lifetime Warranty'
- Is Google+ Hip Enough for Teens? Google Aims to Find Out
- Android Tablets Catching Up to iPad's Market Share
- Blizzard Auctions World Of Warcraft Server Blades For Charity
- AMD Radeon HD 7950 Graphics Cards Trickle into Pre-Order Status
- KDE 4.8 Released
- Gigabyte GTX 580 Super Overclock Review
- AT&T Earnings Battered by T-Mobile Breakup Fee, Otherwise All is Hunky Dory
| MegaUpload Users Planning to Sue FBI Over Lost Data Posted: 26 Jan 2012 02:58 PM PST
When MegaUpload vanished, users lost access to their peronal files without any chance to retrieve them. "The widespread damage caused by the sudden closure of Megaupload is unjustified and completely disproportionate to the aim intended," the Pirates of Catalonia said in a statement. Along with Pirate Parties International, potential breaches of US law are being explored for use in the case. Of course, MegaUpload was a shady business by all accounts, and users should not have left anything irreplaceable on its servers. This does bring up the question of what a company's responsibility is when you store your files. If they lose it, should you be compensated? |
| Google Music Now Lets U.S. Users Download All Their Uploaded Songs Posted: 26 Jan 2012 02:35 PM PST
An updated version of Google's Music manager desktop application will need to be installed to allow this new functionality. This could be a boon to users, many of whom spent days uploading all their tracks to Google's servers. The Music Manager software is an all or nothing approach that imports all the unprotected MP3s in a user's library. This change means that Google Music has instantly become a legitimate backup solution for your music collection. Google also added a new feature that lets you share the official YouTube video for any Google Music song on Google+. Click the drop down next to a track to share the video to your circles. This is cool, but we're more amped about the full library downloads. What about you? |
| XFX Silently Strips New Radeon Cards of 'Double Lifetime Warranty' Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:58 AM PST
Hardware Canucks claims it received reports of XFX including "Warranty Void if Removed" stickers over the top of screws holding the heatsink in place, seemingly indicating the cards are no longer modder friendly. According to Hardware Canucks, you can ignore the warning if you live in the U.S., but not in other parts of the world. More troubling are the revised warranty terms, which ditches the Double Lifetime Warranty in favor of a two-year guarantee. It's a little confusing, but here's XFX's stance: Regarding our revised warranty policy: 1) XFX will transition to a Two-Year Limited Warranty for all new XFX Radeon HD 7000 series models. The standard two-year limited warranty is on par or better than warranties offered by other brands in the industry. While we have had an increasingly small percentage of warranty related occurrences after the two-year mark, we have eliminated the extension and transferable options for these models. Simplifying the operational requirements will allow XFX to commit our resources on developing and manufacturing the highest caliber and best selection of graphics cards available. 2) For the new XFX Radeon HD 7000 series Double D models, we will continue to provide an option to extend as these products are geared for our top-tiered enthusiasts and XFX will continue to offer this benefit on our top products. 3) Most importantly, all XFX Radeon HD 6000, 5000, and 4000 series models also offer the two-year limited warranty as standard, and will continue to be supported by the optional Double Lifetime Limited Warranty (with registration within 30 days of purchase). Restrictions and limitations may apply and specific details are available on our website. The landscape is changing, folks, and XFX went from havng arguably the best warranty terms in the business to being an also-ran, especially after BFG went out of business. EVGA and VisionTek also have true lifetime warranty options, though theirs aren't transferable either. |
| Is Google+ Hip Enough for Teens? Google Aims to Find Out Posted: 26 Jan 2012 11:21 AM PST
Google promises to put forth an honest effort to keep teens engaged. "Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet. And surprise, surprise: they're also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family," Google VP of Product Bradley Horowitz said in a Google+ post. "Put these two things together and it's clear that teens will increasingly connect online. Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group... " With Google+, we want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Today we're doing both, for everyone who's old enough for a Google Account (13+ in most countries). Horowitz emphasized the importance of circles to separate friends, acquaintances, and strangers. Google will do a little extra to drive this point home among teens, such as encouraging them to "think before post" with people outside their circles. In addition, by default only people in teens' circles can say hello, and blocking someone will always be a click or two away, Horowitz said. There are other restrictions. If a stranger outside a teen's circles joins in, "we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin." More details can be found in Google's Safety Center. Image Credit: Google |
| Android Tablets Catching Up to iPad's Market Share Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:48 AM PST
The percentage of Android tablets grew from 29 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 39.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, a slightly greater than 10 percent rise, according to data published by market research firm Strategy Analytics. Apple's iPad, meanwhile, conceded 10.5 percentage points, dropping from 68.2 percent to 57.6 percent during the same time period. The two platforms are now separated by 18.5 percent, compared to 39.2 percent one year prior. "Global tablet shipments reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010," said Peter King, Director at Strategy Analytics. "Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains strong. Apple shipped a robust 15.4 million iPads worldwide and maintained its strong market leadership with 58 percent share during the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter." Just as with smartphones, Google's Android platform benefits from the number of players involved, and it's also getting a boost by an emerging trend towards lower cost devices initiated by Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's Nook Tablet. Microsoft is also looking to make a splash, and though it only claims a 1.5 percent share of the overall tablet market, that number could spike once Windows 8 is released. |
| Blizzard Auctions World Of Warcraft Server Blades For Charity Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:39 AM PST
Blizzard waxed poetic in its description of the server blades: For a time, these servers were doorways into a universe of magic, mystery, and unlimited adventure. People vanquished mighty foes, they formed bonds of friendship, and some even found love in the game worlds that ran on these servers. If you listen closely on a starry night, you can still hear the ghosts of the past running through their circuit boards, recounting tales of epic conquest. You're even be able to pick out which familiar ghosts you're hearing, as Blizzard is identifying which realm the servers housed. If you have strong memories of your posse rolling five deep to stop Al'Akir, you can pick up an Al'Akir server. The vast majority of the 347 blades being auctioned seem to come from Europe or Russia rather than U.S. data centers, but hey, this is still super cool.
Details from the product listings:
Go check out the server listings at eBay if you have a couple hundred bucks to spare. It's for a good cause! |
| AMD Radeon HD 7950 Graphics Cards Trickle into Pre-Order Status Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:23 AM PST
There are a couple of 7950 graphics cards already available for pre-order. Provantage is selling Gigabyte's GV-R795WF3-3GD for $481.58 and Bottom Line Telecommunications has XFX's listed for $514.96, the latter of which is estimating a February 16, 2012 release date. Prices seem a little high, which isn't unusual for upcoming graphics cards on pre-order, and we suspect things will level out when more vendors jump in. This is purely speculation, but it seems likely 7950 cards will go for around $450, and maybe much lower with a mail-in-rebate. The listings don't reveal much about the specs. Gigabyte's card is said to have 3GB of GDDR5 memory on a 384-bit bus, a DVI port, HDMI, and a pair of mini DisplayPorts. |
| Posted: 26 Jan 2012 10:06 AM PST Looking for some hot new O.S. action but skeptical of the volcabularific new HUD interface being introduced to Ubuntu? That's the open-sourced beauty of Linux -- there are plenty of flavors available for the picky types out there. And now there's a new one, or rather, a new update of an old hand. KDE 4.8 has hit the Web, complete with a host of fresh features and abilities.
The Windows Switcher found in Plasma Workspaces has been tweaked to include six possible layouts, the KDE Power Management System Settings received an overhaul, and as usual, stability has been increased and bugs squashed with wild abandon. New touch-screen friendly features have begun being added to KDE Platform 4.8 for the pinch-and-zoom fans in the House That Linus Built. A bevy of KDE Applications also nabbed a spit-shine, most notably the Dolphin file manager, which has a new display engine that makes digging around a hard drive speedier than ever before. Sound good? Check out the official announcement for more details about all the new stuff. |
| Gigabyte GTX 580 Super Overclock Review Posted: 26 Jan 2012 09:32 AM PST Will three fans enable Gigabyte to capture the single-GPU performance crown?We found the Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum that we reviewed in the November 2011 issue to be pretty badass: It's a solid, factory-overclocked card that's impressively easy to push even harder. But it's also three slots wide and requires two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Gigabyte's GTX 580 Super Overclock (model GV-N580SO-15L) takes Nvidia's GPU even further, pumping the core from a stock 772MHz all the way to 855MHz, and the card's 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory from a stock 1,002MHz to 1,025MHz (the Matrix GTX 580 comes out of the box with its GPU running at 816MHz and its memory at 1,002MHz). And the Gigabyte takes up only two slots and uses just a single 8-pin power connector. Gigabyte, like Asus, provides software to help you overclock the card even more, but Gigabyte's card lacks the other engineering amenities that Asus provides, including voltage control, insta-max fan speed, and reset-to-factory-settings buttons. This renders Gigabyte's offering less forgiving when it comes to pushing the envelope. The Super OC ships with three cooling fans, which must be better than the two on the Matrix, right? Well, the card remained cool enough during our benchmarks, but we also found it to be noisier under load than the Matrix card.
With those thoughts in mind, let's discuss performance: Gigabyte's card edged out Asus's, but it was by no means a clean sweep: the Asus Matrix card won several benchmark categories, with Unigine Heaven being the most notable. Several other results—including Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033—were essentially ties. So the Gigabyte's performance is pretty good, but it's not quite as over-the-top as we had expected. Also, take a look at the difference in power consumption. This is where Asus's careful binning of GTX 580 GPUs comes in: The Matrix consumes much less juice than the Super Overclock, which likely will leave you more headroom for overclocking. All these factors are reflected in the card's street price, which is $10 less than the Asus (and Gigabyte was offering a $20 rebate at press time). So the Super Overclock delivers fewer features and a little less performance and headroom, but also a lower price tag. You'll need to decide which factors are most important to you. $520, www.gigabyte.com |
| AT&T Earnings Battered by T-Mobile Breakup Fee, Otherwise All is Hunky Dory Posted: 26 Jan 2012 09:31 AM PST
Botched acquisition aside, AT&T performed relatively well. It sold a record 9.4 million smartphones in the fourth quarter, up 50 percent from its previous quarterly record and double the number it sold in Q3 2011. AT&T added 717,000 wireless postpaid subscribers, the largest increase in five quarters, and recorded its best-ever quarter for Android and Apple smartphones, including 7.6 million iPhone activations. "We had a tremendous year in terms of execution, and we have excellent momentum across our growth platforms," said Randall Stephenson, AT&T chairman and chief executive officer. "This was a blowout quarter for sales. Our network performance is at a high level on voice quality and best-in-class mobile download speeds. Sales continue to be strong and business revenue trends are on a good track. "Looking ahead, we start 2012 with the best visibility we've had in some time, and we're well positioned to deliver solid results — including continued revenue growth with margin expansion, solid earnings per share growth and strong cash flow." In short order, we will begin share repurchases to deliver significant value to our owners." AT&T feels it's well positioned to deliver solid revenue and earnings growth in 2012. |
All the fire and brimstone rhetoric following the MegaUpload shutdown makes it seem like there was no legitimate use for the site. Despite that image, thousands of users were using MegaUpload to store and share their own files, which have now been lost. In response, Pirate Parties in several countries are putting together a list of affected users in preparation for a 
Google Music has allowed users to upload as many as 20,000 songs since it launched last year, but those tracks were stuck in the cloud. Only purchased songs could easily be downloaded to a local PC. Well, today that has changed, and U.S. users of Google Music are now able to pull down their 
One of the big draws to buying an XFX brand videocard is the modder friendly warranty that lets users swap heatsinks and overclock ther GPUs without voiding the so-called 'Double Lifetime Warranty,' which is marketing speak for a lifetime guarantee that's transferable to a second owner (provided you registere your card within 30 days of purchase). Now we're hearing that this awesome backing won't apply to AMD's new Radeon HD 7000 series.
Google+ grew to over 90 million members in short order, and for the most part, it did it without the benefit of teenagers flocking from Facebook (not counting the ones who slipped through the cracks and were previously able to open an account). A change in policy now allows teens age 13 and over to join Google's social networking service, but will they find it fun enough to stick around?
In terms of market share numbers, Apple's iPad has been dominating ever it came out nearly two years ago, and it still does right at this very moment. Give it a few more quarters, however, and the sheer number of Android tablets could thrust Google's open source platform into the No. 1 spot, overtaking Apple just as it did in the smartphone sector.
While Blizzard may taketh away with one hand, it giveth away with the other: disappointed Blizzcon fans are still smarting from news of the convention's 2012 cancellation, but hardcore WoW-heads now have reason to rejoice. Through the 30th, Blizzard is auctioning off hundreds of server blades used to house World of Warcraft in its infancy. All of the proceeds will be donated to the St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital.
If every PC gamer had $550+ to spend on a graphics card, AMD's Radeon HD 7970 would be the hottest selling GPU around. Not everyone does, however, and for some people, AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 7950 presents a compelling compromise between owning a card based on Santa Clara's next-generation GPU architecture and pocketing a few extra bucks in the process. Your time is coming.
The words of Neil Sedaka singing about how "Breaking Up is Hard to Do" must be ringing in AT&T's ears. The wireless carrier reported a substantial $6.7 billion loss for the quarter ended December 31, 2011, which is mostly attributable to breakup fees resulting from AT&T's failed attempt to acquire T-Mobile. That's a nearly $8 billion swing from one year prior when AT&T posted a profit of $1.09 billion.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
