| Gogo In-Flight Wi-Fi Gets Ready to Fly to 60Mbps and Beyond Posted: 12 Sep 2013 11:11 AM PDT  Wi-Fi above the skies to hit high speeds soon
Gogo is the leading provider of in-flight Wi-Fi service when you're traveling by plane, but depending on how many people are saturating the connection, you may have found speed to be less than ideal. Get ready for an upgrade. Gogo today announced a new service called Gogo GTO, or Ground to Orbit, which is a proprietary technology that will ultimately result in an increase in speed by more than six times the current performance. The technology will pull receive transmissions to the plane from satellite and use Gogo's Air to Ground network for the return link (transmission to the ground). In doing so, Gogo says it can deliver Wi-Fi speeds of more than 60Mpbs to the aircraft. That's a tremendous increase over the 3.1Mbps the service debuted at five years ago, and well above current peak speeds of 9.8Mbps. "The advantages of using satellite for reception only and Gogo's ATG Network for the return link are unprecedented. Existing two-way satellite antennas in the commercial aviation market have limited power for transmissions so they don't interfere with other satellites," Gogo explains. "This dynamic makes the connection from the aircraft to the ground using two-way satellite an inefficient and expensive return link compared to Gogo's ATG Network. Gogo's receive only antenna will be two times more spectrally efficient and half the height of other antennas in the commercial aviation market. The low profile of the antenna will result in much less drag and therefore fuel burn on the aircraft and, ultimately, greater operational efficiencies for airlines." 
Virgin America is calling dibs on the service and will be Gogo's launch partner when the new speeds go into effect in the second half of 2014, pending FAA approval. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Corsair's Ultra-Quiet RM Series Power Supplies Help Quell Noisy Systems Posted: 12 Sep 2013 10:10 AM PDT  Silence is golden, or in this case, 80 Plus Gold certified
Corsair on Thursday added a new line of quiet power supplies (PSUs) dubbed RM Series to its product portfolio. These are intended to replace the TX Series of PSUs while adding 80 Plus Gold level energy efficiency, whisper-quiet operation, and monitoring capabilities, Corsair said. Even when delivering high levels of power, Corsair claims you'll hardly hear a peep out of its RM Series. "Built with low-noise capacitors and transformers, the PSUs feature a Zero RPM Fan Mode which only spins the PSU fan under the heaviest loads, allowing near silent operation in most everyday usage," Corsair explains. "The custom designed fan is extremely quiet at all speeds, allowing the PSU to remain remarkably quiet even while the fan is running. Like all Corsair PSUs, the RM Series power supplies are designed with high-quality components and are guaranteed to deliver clean, stable, continuous power." 
Using a Corsair Digital Bridge cable, which is included with the RM1000 SKU (optional add-on with the other models), you can connect the PSU to your motherboard or Corsair Link hub to monitor fan speed and power delivery in real-time with Corsair Link software. The RM Series is fully modular and comes in variety of wattage options, including 450W ($90), 550W ($100), 650W ($120), 750W ($130), 850W ($150), and 1,000W ($165). They willl be available at the end of October. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| ASRock Z87 Extreme 11 Motherboard Sports a Whopping 22 SATA 6Gbps Ports Posted: 12 Sep 2013 09:49 AM PDT  Flagship board also features dual Thunderbolt ports
At times an unsung hero in the motherboard market, ASRock has picked up its game in the past year or so and has begun kicking out some high-end silicon at tempting price points. Clearly ASRock is interested in the enthusiast sector these days, and if you need proof of that, just spy a glance at its new Z87 Extreme 11 /TB20 motherboard that it's showing off at IDF 2013 in San Francisco. The board, which was spotted and photographed by VR-Zone's Chinese-language website , boasts a 12-phase VRM with high-end features and components. You'll notice there are two 8-pin power connectors on the motherboard. Why two? To allow for LN2 overclocking and to provide greater stability when cranking those virtual knobs and dials in the BIOS. There are plenty of ports on and around the board. For you storage junkies and/or RAID fanatics, there are a staggering 22 SATA 6Gbps ports (plus three SATA 3Gbps ports). Need more? There's also three mSATA ports to play with. That paves the say for a lot of storage. Other features include a trio of PCI-E 3.0 x1 slots, four PCI-E x16 slots, an A-Style Purity Sound chip driving 8.1-channel audio, dual Intel Thunderbolt ports, a bevy of USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, dual GbE LAN ports, PS/2 connector, and other odds and ends spread out over the large size XL-ATX board. Image Credit: VR-Zone Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Dell Shareholders Approve $24.9 Billion Sale to Michael Dell and Silver Lake, What's Next? Posted: 12 Sep 2013 08:51 AM PDT  Michael Dell regains control of the company he founded
Dude, Michael Dell's getting a Dell. After months of negotiations and public bickering over the value of Dell, company shareholders voted on Thursday to approve the $24.9 billion sale to Michael, finally putting an end to what turned into a mini soap opera primarily starring Dell's founder and billionaire businessman Carl Icahn, who was one of the most outspoken opponents of the deal. Icahn contended that Michael's original offer of $24.4 billion severely undervalued the company. He then proposed an alternative offer that would have paid Dell shareholders a significant dividend, thus allowing them to retain their stock while also receiving immediate compensation. At one point, Icahn also threatened to drag the deal through years of litigation, though he finally backed down last week, conceding that "it would be impossible to win the battle" "While we of course are saddened at our losing the battle to control Dell, it certainly makes the loss a lot more tolerable in that as a result of our involvement, Michael Dell/Silver Lake increased what they said was their 'best and final offer'," Icahn wrote in an open letter to shareholders. That's all old news now. Going forward, Dell shareholders will each receive $13.75 per share in cash along with a special $0.13 dividend, The New York Times reports. As for the company, which is currently the world's third largest PC maker, Michael and his partners plan to take it private. "As a private enterprise, with a strong private-equity partner, we`ll serve our customers with a single-minded purpose and drive the innovations that will help them achieve their goals," Michael said in a statement. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Intel and Google Collaborate on Next Generation Chromebooks Powered by Haswell Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:56 AM PDT  Chromebooks are about to get a shot in the arm
It took some time for consumers to warm to the idea of Chromebooks, probably because netbooks hadn't completely died out when they first emerged. Today, however, Samsung's Chromebook is the best selling laptop on Amazon with a 4/5 star rating from over 3,000 user reviews. It's fair to say that Chromebooks have grown on a segment of PC shoppers, and in the coming months, these cloud-oriented devices will become a bit more powerful. At the Intel Developer Forum in San Fransisco, Intel and Google jointly announced a new lineup of Chromebooks based on Haswell. "Intel's latest processors sip less power to improve battery life by more than 2X over previous generations, while offering increased performance. This means these new Chromebooks last almost all day so you can focus on getting things done," Google stated in a blog post. Acer and HP, along with newcomers to the Chromebook scene Asus and Toshiba, will launch newly designed models, Google says. Acer's already offered up a preview of its third-generation Chromebook at IDF. It's an 11.6-inch machine measuring around 0.75 inches thick and weighing around 2.76 pounds. It has HDMI output, two USB ports (one USB 3.0), SD card clot, and up to 8.5 hours of battery life. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Intel Core i7 4820K Ivy Bridge-E, Asus Rampage IV Extreme, and More! Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:35 AM PDT |
| Microsoft Exec Tries to Defend Xbox One Hardware, Stirs Up Controversy Posted: 12 Sep 2013 06:25 AM PDT 
First downplays the importance of hardware comparisons, only to later diss the PS4 spec by spec With Sony abandoning the PS3's Cell architecture in favor of a more conventional x86 setup and Microsoft also opting for something similar, it is far more easy to compare the specs of the Xbox One and the PS4 than was the case with their greatly disparate predecessors. Despite Microsoft bumping up the Xbox One's specs recently, the PS4 still seems to be the stronger of the two (at least on paper), with reports putting the gulf between the two at between 30-50 percent. But what does Microsoft have to say about all this? Microsoft's director of product planning Albert Penello is not overly concerned. When Rev3Games' Adam Sessler broached the topic of the Xbox One's specs during a recent interview (video), he responded by dismissing this whole practice of comparing hardware specs as being "meaningless." "They [Sony] are doing things in their hardware to make it the best that they can, we're doing things in our hardware to make it the best that we can," he said. "I don't believe the difference between these two platforms is significant as comparing individual components." He later took to NeoGAF to make his point: "People do understand that Microsoft has some of the smartest graphics programmers in the world. We created DirectX, the standard API's that everyone programs against. So while people laude [sic] Sony for their HW [sic] skills, do you really think we don't know how to build a system optimized for maximizing graphics for programmers? Seriously? There is no way we're giving up a 30%+ advantage to Sony. And anyone who has seen both systems running could say there are great looking games on both systems. If there was really huge performance difference – it would be obvious." According to Penello, despite the fact that Sony has claimed to have the more powerful machine during each of the last two console generations, games on Microsoft's systems have "looked the same or better." Penello's post on the forum caused quite a stir, with the discussion, as he put it in a subsequent post, quickly devolving into one about his credibility rather than the consoles. This forced him to return to the site a few days later with some further clarification: "So, here are couple of points about some of the individual parts for people to consider:
- 18 CU's vs. 12 CU's =/= 50% more performance. Multi-core processors have inherent inefficiency with more CU's, so it's simply incorrect to say 50% more GPU.
- Adding to that, each of our CU's is running 6% faster. It's not simply a 6% clock speed increase overall.
- We have more memory bandwidth. 176gb/sec is peak on paper for GDDR5. Our peak on paper is 272gb/sec. (68gb/sec DDR3 + 204gb/sec on ESRAM). ESRAM can do read/write cycles simultaneously so I see this number mis-quoted.
- We have at least 10% more CPU. Not only a faster processor, but a better audio chip also offloading CPU cycles.
- We understand GPGPU and its importance very well. Microsoft invented Direct Compute, and have been using GPGPU in a shipping product since 2010 - it's called Kinect.
- Speaking of GPGPU - we have 3X the coherent bandwidth for GPGPU at 30gb/sec which significantly improves our ability for the CPU to efficiently read data generated by the GPU."
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