General Gaming Article |
- Maximum PC Is Hiring an Online Editor
- Anonymous Hacks Department Of Justice! But Does It Really Matter?
- Microsoft Expects To Ship Over 350 Million Windows 7 Devices In 2012
- Dell Adds Gamer-Friendly Killer Wireless-N 1202 Wi-Fi Card To Alienware Notebooks
- Nvidia's WHQL-Certified 301.42 Drivers Bring Gameplay Enhancements And GeForce 600 Series Support
- ViewSonic Launches Full HD 1080p Pro8300 Projector in Europe
- Graphics Shipments on the Decline, Jon Peddie Says
- Microsoft Enters the Social Networking Scuffle, Doesn't Want a Fight with Facebook
- Rapid Release Fraps Updates Fixes a Flurry of Issues
- Raspberry Pi Team Developing Camera Module
| Maximum PC Is Hiring an Online Editor Posted: 22 May 2012 02:14 PM PDT
Alex Castle, our Online Managing Editor, is moving out of the state, which means that we're on the lookout for a new online editor. If you think you've got the editorial and technical chops for the job, and you don't mind relocating to the San Francisco Bay Area, check out the job posting at the Future US website! |
| Anonymous Hacks Department Of Justice! But Does It Really Matter? Posted: 22 May 2012 11:36 AM PDT
Reuters made some calls and found out that the hack only breached a single Bureau of Justice Statistics web server. You're probably wondering the same thing we were: what the heck is the Bureau of Justice Statistics? It's a relatively low-profile segment of the DoJ that aggregates and analyzes data about crime. It doesn't exactly seem like an ideal target for the high-profile juicy tidbits Anon is always on the hunt for -- and as it turns out, it wasn't. The data security experts at Identity Finder downloaded the torrent and examined its contents. (At least, they did so as soon as they could -- the file lacked seeders until late this morning, East Coast Time.) The leaked info, while definitely from a DOJ server, was less than earth-shattering. The torrent contained:
None of the files in the torrent contain any sort of critically sensitive personal data, Identity Finder reports. It just goes to show, folks, that many of the electronic boogeymen propped up by the media (cough, cough, myself included) tend to be full of hot air -- and anyone can say they're an Anonymous hacker. Obviously, any breach of a government agency is a bad thing, but most of the truly dangerous hacks -- the ones that actually put your personal information in the hands of cybercriminals -- never get reported on because they just aren't "sexy" enough to print. "Due to the fact this attack affected the Department of Justice, this breach received more attention than other more significant breaches of late, including the billing and customer support tech company, WHMCS, which was ransacked and taken offline by hackers, and their entire customer database exposed online," Identity Finder notes at the end of its report. Just a little something to chew on. |
| Microsoft Expects To Ship Over 350 Million Windows 7 Devices In 2012 Posted: 22 May 2012 11:00 AM PDT
Speaking in a forum from Seoul, Steve Ballmer said that the giant from Redmond is on pace to ship a whopping 350 million Windows 7 devices in 2012. That's right, over a quarter of a billion pieces of hardware -- and that number doesn't even take Windows 8 forecasts into account. "It makes Windows the most popular single system," Bloomberg quotes Ballmer as saying. By contrast, "only" 103 million tablets will ship this year, with two-thirds of those carrying the iconic Apple logo. So what's driving the demand? Bloomberg says enterprise firms contributed a big chunk. Only time will tell if the corporate IT customers are upgrading to Windows 7 now to avoid the headache of teaching norms how to use the Metro UI later. |
| Dell Adds Gamer-Friendly Killer Wireless-N 1202 Wi-Fi Card To Alienware Notebooks Posted: 22 May 2012 10:29 AM PDT
"Gamers everywhere depend on Alienware to deliver superior experiences that help them achieve that 'epic win'," Alienware general manager Frank Azor said in the press release, though we're not sure why "epic win" is bracketed by quotation marks. "Integrating the Killer Wireless N-1202 technology—another first from Alienware—allows gamers to experience exceptional online gaming." The card combines Bluetooth capabilities with a 2x2 MIMO Wi-Fi module capable of up to 300Mbps throughput and both 2.4GHz and 5GHz spectrum functionality, while the card's Killer Network Manager graphical UI lets you tinker with bandwidth and priorities on an application level. The Killer Wireless-N 1202 also packs in Wi-Fi Direct capabilities and Qualcomm Atheros' Advanced Stream Detection technology, which can "automatically classify and prioritize latency-sensitive network traffic for online games, HD video and high-quality audio to maximize your online experience." Have you played around with a Killer Wireless card? What were your experiences with it? Does it bring much to the table gaming traffic-wise? Follow Brad on Google+ or Twitter Image credit: hd-tecnologia.com |
| Nvidia's WHQL-Certified 301.42 Drivers Bring Gameplay Enhancements And GeForce 600 Series Support Posted: 22 May 2012 10:04 AM PDT Good news for early GeForce/Verde 600 series adopters: Nvidia's just released a set of WHQL-certified drivers for desktop and notebook gamers alike, one welcomes all the new entries to the Nvidia graphics family with open arms and gives them a big ol' group hug. GeForce 400 and 500 series owners will feel the love, too, thanks to a performance boost of up to 20 percent in a host of top-tier games.
The actual frame rate improvements depend on both the game being played and your particular setup, of course; the benchmarks examining systems with a single GTX 560 Ti and the new drivers showed a roughly 3 to 10 percent frame rate increase, for example. Skyrim nabbed a big boost from the 301.42 update, as you can see above. The new drivers also place the mini-controversy surrounding the GTX 670 and its 3-way SLI support to rest by boosting the card up to full 4-way capabilities. The 301.42 drivers also bring updates for Nvidia Surround, PhysX and OpenCL, along with a ton of new 3D Vision and SLI profiles. Finally, 301.42 adds Adaptive Vsync and FXAA antialiasing to all GeForce 8-series and later GPUs. Check out Nvidia's blog post for a full list of updates, including the various SLI and 3D Vision profile updates, or download the 301.42 drivers here. |
| ViewSonic Launches Full HD 1080p Pro8300 Projector in Europe Posted: 22 May 2012 06:40 AM PDT
ViewSonic also envisions its Pro8300 being used by teachers for multimedia, and of course there's nothing stopping you from plopping the projector in your home and firing up The Grey, provided you live in Europe, where this thing is being launched. "ViewSonic understands business applications and launches the Pro8300 with an abundance of features that are capable of delivering outstanding presentations to partners and clients," ViewSonic says. "Pro8300 effectively elevates brainstorming meetings and commercial briefing by projecting information with 3000lm high brightness and a superior 1.5X optical zoom lens design to provide vibrant images with more 35 percent of additional zooming capability. The amazing clarity in 1080p Full HD resolution and detailed projection, allows the Pro8300 to dynamically enhance presentation quality and audience interaction." The Pro8300 features dual HDMI and VGA inputs, a 10-bit image color processor, and a pair of 10W speakers. It will be available in Europe later this month for £999.00 inc VAT (around $1,577). No word on when or if ViewSonic plans to bring the Pro8300 to U.S. shores. Image Credit: ViewSonic |
| Graphics Shipments on the Decline, Jon Peddie Says Posted: 22 May 2012 06:24 AM PDT
According to data from Jon Peddie Research, combined graphics shipments declined 0.8 percent in the first quarter of 2012 when compared to the previous quarter, and slipped 3.38 percent from one year ago. No need to hit the panic button, JPR says. "Although this did not shape up to be a great quarter for the suppliers, it actually wasn't as bad as it could have been. We found that shipments during the first quarter of 2012 behaved according to past years with regard to seasonality, declining from the previous quarter; however, this quarter's decline (of 0.8 percent) was less than the ten-year average of 3.1 percent," JPR points out. "If we use graphics as an indicator, the industry seems to be recovering from the floods in Thailand." AMD actually grew its graphics shipments in Q1, by 0.3 percent, while Intel slipped 1.3 percent and Nvidia tumbled by 4.5 percent sequentially. How did AMD do it? According to JPR, "AMD had a gigantic increase of its desktop APUs of 84 percent," which more than made up for a "modest 2.6 percent decline in notebook APUs." JPR's findings include both discrete and integrate graphics for desktops, notebooks, netbooks, and industrial systems. Handhelds, x86 servers ,and ARM-based tablets, smartbooks, and servers are excluded. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Microsoft Enters the Social Networking Scuffle, Doesn't Want a Fight with Facebook Posted: 22 May 2012 06:07 AM PDT
"With So.cl, you can share your search and help others discover what they might be looking for," Microsoft explains on So.cl's homepage. "Fun commentary and discussions usually follow." It's an experimental research project for students from Microsoft's FUSE Labs, and though some of So.cl's features are similar to Facebook, Microsoft doesn't envision the two competing. Instead, So.cl actually ties into Facebook, if you want it to. "We expect students to continue using products such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other existing social networks, as well as Bing, Google and other search tools," Microsoft mentions on So.cl's FAQ page. "We hope to encourage students to reimagine how our everyday communication and learning tools can be improved, by researching, learning and sharing in their everyday lives." You can kick So.cl's tires here. |
| Rapid Release Fraps Updates Fixes a Flurry of Issues Posted: 22 May 2012 05:42 AM PDT
Fraps 3.5.2, the newest and most up to date version, is all about bug fixes, including:
The above fixes were preceded by a handful of others in the previous two versions, along with support for large AVI movie files (more than 4GB) on NTFS drives and support for exFAT drives writing larger than 4GB. Starting with version 3.5.0, Beepa switched up the minimum system requirements to include a CPU with SSE2 (Pentium 4 or above) and dropped Windows 2000 support. A limited version of Fraps is available to download and use for free, or you can fork over $37 for a completely unrestricted version that removes watermarks and recording time limits, and allows you to capture screenshots to BMP, JPG, PNG, and TGA file formats instead of just BMP. |
| Raspberry Pi Team Developing Camera Module Posted: 22 May 2012 05:41 AM PDT
Last week, Liz Upton, who handles the Raspberry Pi Foundation's PR, posted a few images of a prototype camera add-on board for the Pi. This prototype features a 14 megapixels sensor, according to Upton's blog post. But don't get your hopes too high, for the actual camera module is most likely to have something "around the 5 megapixel class" owing to pricing concerns. That said, Lipton did not rule out the possibility of a more expensive, higher-resolution module being made available at a later stage. "The module is pretty small, which makes it ideal for some of the robotics and home automation applications people have been wanting to build," Upton wrote. "The mechanical design still isn't complete, but the final version will attach to the Raspberry Pi with ribbon cable, like this prototype." The Foundation expects to release a working camera module for the Pi sometime later this year. Image Credit: Raspberry Pi Foundation |
Do you like Maximum PC? Would you like to become a part of Maximum PC? No, we're not talking about a Borg-like assimilation of all mankind (that's scheduled for fiscal 2013), we're talking about a chance to join the team that makes Maximum PC and MaximumPC.com. 
Here's the problem with breathlessly reporting on every purported Anonymous hack the second it happens: most of the time, the breaches don't turn out to be a big deal. Take yesterday for example; after a 
With the rapid rise of tablets, analysts have been arguing over which PC hardware company is the biggest in all the land: 
When Qualcomm Atheros launched its gaming-optimized Killer Wireless-N 1202 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo card about a month ago, the silence was deafening; the component launched without a single OEM manufacturer on board, meaning you couldn't actually, you know, find it inside any laptops. That changes today, as the company announced that Dell's Alienware gaming notebooks will sport the Killer Wireless-N 1202 heading into the future.
Home theater buffs looking to replicate the big screen experience in their living rooms or man caves aren't the only ones who can benefit from a Full HD 1080p projector, at least not as far as ViewSonic is concerned. ViewSonic's new Pro8300 is just such a projector, boasting a 1920x1080 resolution, 3000 lumen rating, and "precise color performance and sharpness" that business users can take advantage of to pitch presentations.
You can't hardly buy a processor any more without also purchasing a graphics chip. That's because many of today's CPUs sport integrated graphics, a relatively new development as both AMD and Intel push their respective CPU+GPU solutions onto the masses. But despite each company's efforts, along with a constant flow of discrete GPU solutions from AMD and Nvidia, graphics shipments are down overall.
If there's one thing the Web isn't lacking, it's social networks. Between Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, and a host of others, there are plenty of options for sharing your personal, professional, and even private life with others, if you so choose. Microsoft apparently feels there's room for at least one more and has quietly launched So.cl (pronounced 'Social'), a supplementary social networking service of sorts.
For the third time in less than a month, Beepa has released an update to its Fraps utility for real-time video capture and benchmarking. Beepa's been unusually active in updating its popular program, whereas prior to version 3.5.0, which was released on April 26, 2012, updates would typically roll out only every 6 months or so. Since then, Beepa has released builds 3.5.1 on May 18 and 3.5.2 earlier this week.
The much talked-about Raspberry Pi, which started shipping last month after a string of delays, is quite capable for small size and price. As some of you may know, this diminutive single-board computer also features a 15-pin MIPI Camera interface (CSI) connector. However, according to | 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 |
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