General Gaming Article |
- 100W Power Delivery Spec Approved For USB 2.0 And 3.0
- European Commission Accuses 13 Optical Drive Suppliers And Two Major OEMs Of Price Fixing
- Toshiba Cuts NAND Flash Production By 30 Percent To Combat Plummeting Prices
- AMD's Console Liaison Jumps Ship, Washes Ashore at Nvidia
- Sharkoon Launches $15 Compact Keyboard for Gamers
- Researchers at UCLA Develop See Through Solar Cells for Windows
- College Students Great at Purchasing Technology, Poor at Researching Purchases, Survey Finds
| 100W Power Delivery Spec Approved For USB 2.0 And 3.0 Posted: 24 Jul 2012 10:47 AM PDT
"The USB Power Delivery specification enables a switchable source of power without changing cable direction," the groups' press release states. There's a slight catch; in order to deliver the full 100W, you'll need to pick up special, beefier USB Power Delivery-certified cables. The USB cords you have shoved into your junk drawer will still charge auxiliary devices, but they'll pack a less potent electrical wallop. "We believe USB Power Delivery is the next big step in the USB evolution to provide high bandwidth data and intelligent power over a simple, single, ubiquitous cable," Robert Hollingsworth, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the USB Products Group at SMSC, says in the press release. Thunderbolt lovers may disagree with that "One cord to rule them all" assessment, however; while USB 3.0 now moves a lot of juice, Thunderbolt still moves more data than its counterpart. |
| European Commission Accuses 13 Optical Drive Suppliers And Two Major OEMs Of Price Fixing Posted: 24 Jul 2012 10:38 AM PDT
In bid-rigging schemes, the bidders -- and in this case, apparently the OEMs offering the contracts, as well -- conspire to rig their offers to ensure a particular company wins the contract, often at a preset rate. The European Commission press release said bid-rigging is "one of the most serious breaches of EU antitrust rules," eligible for a fine that amounts to 10 percent of a guilty company's annual worldwide turnover -- not just a percentage of the products that sold in the EU alone. None of the companies were called out by name. Now that the EC has issued a Statement of Objections, it can begin formally charging the alleged conspirators and gathering additional evidence of the purported crime. Between the e-book antitrust case, the LCD price fixing settlement, DRAM price fixing, Intel's various antitrust fines, Microsoft's antitrust fine and now this, the kooks might be right -- maybe THEY really are out to get YOU. Do you think that's the case, or do you think the European Commission is just too zealous in its anti-competitive litigation? |
| Toshiba Cuts NAND Flash Production By 30 Percent To Combat Plummeting Prices Posted: 24 Jul 2012 10:08 AM PDT
The press release was fairly short and sweet, with most of the juicy info coming in a single paragraph: Oversupply of NAND flash memory in the retail market, for application in USB memories and memory cards, has resulted in continual price declines since the beginning of this year. Toshiba has responded by adjusting shipments to the retail market since June and from today will reduce the operating rate at the (Yokkaichi Operation plant in Mie Prefecture, Japan) in order to adjust output. This move will help to reduce inventory in the market and improve the overall balance between supply and demand. Toshiba expects things to pick back up later in the year thanks to a rise in demand for smartphones and SSDs, however. That being said, Toshiba's "balance between supply and demand" will likely drive up prices for NAND flash in the future. The funny part? According to a June report by IHS iSuppli, Toshiba had the best Q1 of any NAND supplier, with sales up 19.2 percent compared to the last quarter of 2011, to $1.71 billion. That industry-leading performance boosted the company's stake to over a third of the overall NAND flash market. "In contrast, the overall NAND flash market suffered a 1 percent sequential decline in revenue, and all the other suppliers experienced sales decreases, most by double-digit percentages," IHS iSuppli reports. Maybe the industry woes have caught up to Toshiba? |
| AMD's Console Liaison Jumps Ship, Washes Ashore at Nvidia Posted: 24 Jul 2012 07:22 AM PDT
A report in The Wall Street Journal details what can only be considered a coup for Nvidia, and yet another painful loss for AMD, which has seen an exodus of top level management in recent years. Mr. Feldstein's departure perhaps stings worse than most. It's because of him that AMD's hardware is, and will continue to be (at least for one more generation) prominent in modern game consoles, a sector Nvidia would very much like to rule. Nvidia didn't have much to say on the matter, telling WSJ it hired Mr. Feldstein "to help us think through current and possible future technology licensing products." While it was his decision to jump ship, Mr. Feldstein said he left AMD on "amicable terms." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Sharkoon Launches $15 Compact Keyboard for Gamers Posted: 24 Jul 2012 06:41 AM PDT
The keyboard measures 16.96 inches (L) by 5.35 inches (W) by 0.94 inches (W) and weighs 1.3 pounds. It has N-key rollover support, eight rubberized gaming keys (WASD and arrow keys), and special customization software. Sharkoon says all the keys are fully programmable via the software GUI, allowing gamers to record macros, macro loops, media functions, Internet functions, and more. It will also bind mouse functions and supports timing delays to help pull off that killer combo and aid with the daily grind of leveling up. No word on when or if Sharkoon plans on bringing the Tactix to the U.S. market. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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| Researchers at UCLA Develop See Through Solar Cells for Windows Posted: 24 Jul 2012 06:22 AM PDT
The team of researchers constructed a new kind of polymer solar cell (PSC) that collects mostly infrared light as opposed to visible light, and that little trick results in cells that are almost 70 percent transparent. "These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications," said study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering, who also is director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). It isn't quite the Holy Grail of solar technology, but it's definitely worth noting that past attempts at creating transparent solar cells have always fallen short in one way or another. Some were never very transparent to begin with, and others fell short on the efficiency scale due to the materials used. The team at UCLA figured a way around these types of problems by turning their attention to infrared light. They also claim a breakthrough in developing a transparent conductor made of a mixture of silver nanowire and titanium dioxide nanoparticles, which effectively replaces the opaque metal electrode common in past attempts. The upshot is that the composite electrode is economically viable to fabricate by way of solution processing. Image Credit: UCLA http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/ucla-researchers-create-highly-236698.aspx |
| College Students Great at Purchasing Technology, Poor at Researching Purchases, Survey Finds Posted: 24 Jul 2012 06:00 AM PDT
At 92 percent, an overwhelming majority of students view a laptop as a necessity, but over a third -- 36 percent -- said they're not completely happy with the one they bought. "While college students seem to agree that a laptop is critical for school, they may need to spend more time evaluating their options to ensure that they are purchasing the right one for their needs," Wakefield Research noted in its report. Perhaps not by coincidence, Wakefield Research found that one in three students own an item purchased by a parent that they don't like or use, and 36 percent of them indicated that item is a laptop. What about tablet PCs? One in four students surveyed said a tablet would help improve their grades. When pinged how they would use a tablet, 61 percent said it would be beneficial for research projects, and 60 percent indicated they would use one to read textbooks. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook
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One of the biggest pet peeves in a technology enthusiast's life is the plethora of proprietary power cables that plague the consumer market, each with a slightly different design. Can't we all just get along and charge via USB? That utopian vision took one step closer to becoming reality yesterday, as the USB 3.0/2.0 Promoter Groups announced a USB power delivery spec that makes the every-port capable of delivering up to 100W of pure power. Yep, your PC can now charge a notebook. Heck, a laptop could even theoretically charge another notebook.
Have you bought a preconfigured big-box type PC sometime in the last five years? If so, you might have been slightly screwed over. That's what the European Commission claims, at least. Today, the EC announced that it is investigating 13 optical drive suppliers and two major PC OEMs for antitrust violations as part of an alleged long-standing "worldwide cartel" that ran a "bid-rigging" scheme to get the best prices for the parties involved.
Have you noticed how cheap NAND-powered memory devices have gotten? Flash drives and SSDs aren't quite a dime a dozen these days, but they're significantly cheaper than they have been in the past. While you and I may appreciate the decline in costs, low pricing is putting the pinch on NAND manufacturers, and Toshiba is cutting its NAND production by about 30 percent to compensate. (And drive up prices, of course.)
Bob Feldstein, a name you're probably not familiar with, worked behind the scenes at Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) getting the company's chips into game consoles, including securing deals to use AMD hardware in all three next-generation console devices from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. He was a pretty important figure at AMD, joining the Sunnyvale company when it acquired ATI six years ago, and now he's taking his talents to Nvidia.
Sharkoon doesn't have a ginormous presence in the U.S. market, but if the company's going to make a habit of releasing ultra-affordable peripherals for gamers, stateside customers should ready the welcome mat. To wit, Sharkoon's new 
Imagine if the windows in your home or automobile weren't just windows, but transparent solar panels collecting light energy and converting it into electricity? Such a concept could have a monumental impact on future hybrid cars, and could potentially shave your monthly electricity bill. If transparent solar cells existed, of course. Well guess what? Not only do they exist, but researchers at UCLA say they've developed a new kind of transparent solar cell that's better than anything out there.
As we approach the back-to-school shopping season, your online neighborhood Newegg store went out and commissioned a study to determine which technology devices college students are most interested in these days. Not surprisingly, the study, conducted by Wakefield Research, found that college bound students put laptops and large screen televisions high on their wish lists. What's interesting, however, is that a large number of them end up unsatisfied with their purchase.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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