| World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Announced At Blizzcon 2013 Posted: 08 Nov 2013 06:11 PM PST  More raids, new zones to explore, and level cap of 100
Blizzcon is off to a rousing start this year, having kicked off with an exciting announcement: a brand new expansion for MMO juggernaut World of Warcraft. It's called Warlords of Draenor, and it's set to finally raise the level cap to 100, with brand new raids across seven different zones, additional rewards, and a new PvP zone for your player-slaughtering pleasure. Aside from brand new content to traverse, Draenor is introducing a brand new mechanic that will allow players to build and maintain their own garrison, as well as recruit NPCs to gather up resources and complete quests. With WoW's gradual loss of subscribers, this might be the jumpstart it needs to recover after a shaky period after the release of Mists of Pandaria. Check out the Draenor trailer below and tell us what you think! |
| Stephen Elop Mulls Selling Xbox Business and Bing if Chosen CEO of Microsoft Posted: 08 Nov 2013 10:06 AM PST  A candidate for Microsoft's CEO position is already thinking about big changes
Former Nokia chief Stephen Elop is reportedly on Microsoft's short list of candidates to take over as Chief Executive Officer of the Redmond software giant. He faces some stiff competition -- most notably, Ford CEO Alan Mulally, who has a history of turning around big companies -- but if Microsoft ultimately chooses Elop to replace Steve Ballmer, it doesn't appear he would be afraid to make some big, controversial changes. According to a Bloomberg report, Elop's first order of business would be to emphasize Microsoft's lucrative Office business. Beyond that, however, he would also consider killing or selling off Microsoft's Bing search engine, as well as sell the company's Xbox business. It's not set in stone that he would do that, but according to Bloomberg, he would certainly consider both options if he deemed them non-critical to the company's overall strategy. These are pretty drastic changes, making Elop a sort of wild card if he takes over. Assuming Bloomberg's information is solid, it will be interesting to see if it has any influence on Microsoft's decision. No doubt some big changes are needed and Microsoft is in the midst of a restructuring effort, but selling off its Xbox business and bidding farewell to Bing may not be what Ballmer and company had in mind. Image Credit: Flickr (j_baer) Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| AMD Issues Round of Price Cuts to Select A6 and A8 Series APUs Posted: 08 Nov 2013 09:24 AM PST  Save around 13 percent on certain APUs
Following up last week's unveiling of AMD's A10 6790K APU, the Sunnyvale chip designer has settled on a suggested price point for the new part. In addition, AMD added prices for its FX-9370 and FX-9590 processors for the AM3+ platform, plus shaved in the neighborhood of 13 percent off the price of three existing A6 and A8 Series APUs, bringing each one down to below $100. Starting at the higher end, the A10 6790K is a quad-core chip clocked at 4GHz, and up to 4.3GHz via Turbo. It has 4MB of L2 cache, integrated HD 8670D graphics, and a 100W TDP. It's a "Black Edition" processor (unlocked multiplier) and is now priced at $122, according to CPU-World. Up above are the FX-9370 and FX-9590 processors, a couple of Extreme-level chips that initially sold for $350+ and $800+, respectively, when they debuted back in June. Both chips have dropped in price since then and are now listed at $224 (FX-9370) and $306 (FX-9590). As for the A6 and A8 Series APUs, here's a look: - A6 6400K: $62 (down from $71, 12.7 percent savings)
- A8 6500: $97 (down from $112, 13.4 percent savings)
- A8 6600K: $97 (down from $112, 13.4 percent savings)
With the exception of the A8 6500, every chip mentioned here is a Black Edition part. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Lenovo Sold 4 Devices Per Second Last Quarter, PC Plus Strategy is Working Posted: 08 Nov 2013 08:55 AM PST  Another solid quarter from Lenovo proves there's still a market for PCs
There's little doubt tablet PCs and smartphones are cannibalizing traditional PC sales. It's not the only factor that's caused a slump in PC sales, but the infatuation with mobile devices has certainly played a role. What's an OEM system builder to do? Well, in the case of Lenovo, the OEM adopted a "PC Plus" strategy, allowing it to cash in on the mobile craze while simultaneously making money on traditional PCs. This strategy has led to a record number of device sales, and if you're worried Lenovo is turning its back on desktops and laptops, check out these stats. During Lenovo's second fiscal quarter, the OEM's laptop business was the largest contributor to the company's bottom line, generating 51 percent of its worldwide revenue. That translates into $5 billion from laptop sales, up 8 percent year-over-year, giving the company an 18.5 percent share of the market. Meanwhile, Lenovo's desktop PC shipments grew -- yes, GREW! -- by 1 percent. Don't scoff, 1 percent growth is pretty good compared an overall industry average of a 6 percent decline. Sales of Lenovo's desktops did decrease by 3 percent year-over-year, but it still collected $2.7 billion from those sales, which works out to 28 percent of its total revenue. "Lenovo not only remains the top PC company in the world, but is also already the number four player in both smartphones and tablets worldwide and continues growing rapidly. At the same time, we have achieved record revenue and record profit, and improved profitability significantly." said Yang Yuanqing, Chairman and CEO of Lenovo." We are optimistic about the industry's outlook. Benefiting from corporate refresh and China market improvement, the PC market is recovering, and tablet growth continues shifting to mainstream and entry-level segments, as well as emerging markets. These are Lenovo's strength areas. We are confident that we will capture these opportunities and continue our strong growth." Combining all of its products, Lenovo sold a record 29 million units last quarter, or about 4 devices per second. Just as important, Lenovo once again has proven there's plenty of revenue to be generated by serving both traditional PC and mobile markets. In other words, the sky isn't falling on PCs, it's simply expanding to include new kinds of devices. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Gigabyte Goes for the Kill with G1.Sniper Z87 Motherboard Posted: 08 Nov 2013 08:22 AM PST  A killer board for gamers and overclockers
Heading into the weekend, Gigabyte announced the launch of its latest gaming motherboard, the G1.Sniper Z87. Gigabyte made the announcement at Blizzcon 2013, one of the biggest U.S. gaming events of the year. It's a fitting place to unveil the G1.Sniper Z87, which combines aggressive looks with high-end hardware like an AMP-UP audio feature and Killer E2200 networking. Gigabyte paid a lot of attention to its board's audio scheme. It has an upgradeable on-board OP-Amp, USB DAC-UP for clean, noise-free power delivery to any DAC, gain boost with onboard switches to select between 2.5x and 6x amplification, integrated Creative Sound Core3D audio processor, audio noise guard to protect against EMI, and a few other odds and ends. Outside of audio, the G1.Sniper Z87 sports four DDR3 DIMM slots with support for up to 32GB of memory, two PCI-E x16 slots, three PCI-E x1 slots, two regular PCI slots, half a dozen SATA 6Gbps ports with RAID support, 6 USB 3.0 ports, 7 USB 2.0 ports, and more. No word yet on when the Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 will be available or for how much. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Data Survives Roaring Fire at Internet Archive's San Francisco Scanning Center Posted: 08 Nov 2013 08:00 AM PST  Damage estimated at $600,000, group asks for donations
A fire damaged the Internet Archive's scanning center located in San Francisco late last night, though luckily no one was hurt and no existing data was lost, the organization said. The Internet Archive is the non-profit group responsible for the Wayback Machine, a digital archive of the web spanning 364 billion webpages, allowing visitors to see what sites looked like several years ago. While no existing data was damaged, some physical materials that were in the process of being digitized went up in flames. Most of the materials being scanned were in a separate locked room and not lost, and of those that did catch fire, around half had already been archived. That's the extent of the good news. Unfortunately, the fire did about $600,000 worth of damage to high end digitization equipment. To keep expanding the project, that equipment will need to be replaced, and the Internet Archive is reaching out the community for donations. "This episode has reminded us that digitizing and making copies are good strategies for both access and preservation," the Internet Archive stated in a blog post. "We have copies of the data in the Internet Archive in multiple locations, so even if our main building had been involved in the fire we still would not have lost the amazing content we have all worked so hard to collect." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Newegg Daily Deals: Max Payne 3, MSI Z87-G45 Gaming Motherboard, and More! Posted: 08 Nov 2013 06:15 AM PST |
