General Gaming Article |
- Newegg Daily Deals: Seagate Hybrid Drive 1TB SSHD, BenQ 24-Inch Monitor, and More!
- Mionix Announces Castor Gaming Mouse for All Grip Styles
- White House Pshaws Petition to Pardon Edward Snowden
- Intel and Micron Develop Crazy Fast Memory to Replace NAND
- Windows 10 Graphics and Motherboard Drivers (Updating)
- Security Firm Warns of Texting Vulnerability
| Newegg Daily Deals: Seagate Hybrid Drive 1TB SSHD, BenQ 24-Inch Monitor, and More! Posted: 28 Jul 2015 01:08 PM PDT Top Deal: Remember when you had hair? And sanity? That's before you pulled it all out and lost your sanity trying to decide between the sweet performance of a solid state drive or the capacity and price-per-gigabyte of a mechanical hard drive. Tough decision, but if you can only choose one, why not choose both? Say what!? There's a possible solution in today's top deal for a 1TB Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive for $65 with free shipping (normally $80 - use coupon code: [ESCAVNW25]). It has 8GB of NAND flash memory to store frequently used data for fast access, and 1TB of HDD space for storing other bits. Oh, and there's also 64MB of cache, a SATA 6Gbps interface, and 3-year warranty. Granted, it's not as fast as a dedicated SSD, but it's faster than an HDD and cheaper than SSD. Other Deals: SanDisk Extreme Pro 2.5-inch 480GB SATA 6.0Gb/s Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) for $190 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: [EMCAVNW22]) G. Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory for $82 with free shipping (normally $92 - use coupon code: [EMCAVNW24]) Asus GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card for $190 with free shipping (normally $200 - use coupon code: [EMCAVNW94]; additional $10 Mail-in rebate) BenQ GL2460HM 24-inch TN Panel Monitor w/ Built-in Speakers for $130 with free shipping (normally $150 - use coupon code: [EMCAVNW38]) |
| Mionix Announces Castor Gaming Mouse for All Grip Styles Posted: 28 Jul 2015 12:46 PM PDT Get a grip! There's a new mouse that's about to be let out in the wild -- the Castor by Mionix. By who, you say? You get a pass if you haven't heard of Mionix. It's a Swedish company that was co-founded by Peter Nygren in 2007, and while it doesn't have the same brand recognition as, say, Logitech or Razer, I'm a big fan of their mice. I currently use the company's Naos 7000 gaming mouse on a daily basis, and prior to that, I was using the weight-adjustable Naos 5000 until my dog, Lady Morgan, chewed up the cord (she was a puppy at the time). The Castor is named after one of the brightest starts in the sky. More importantly, it sports six buttons, a 10,000 DPI that is supposedly the bees-knees, and a new lift-off- distance (LOD) calibration feature that combines the company's Surface Quality Analyzer Tool (S.Q.A.T.) to find the lowest possible LOD with optimized tracking. Here's what Mionix has to say about that the Castor's sensor: The PMW-3310 gaming grade optical sensor has no positive or negative hardware acceleration, amazing accuracy, smooth tracking, and a maximum speed of more than 5.45m/sec (215 IPS), all the way up to 10000DPI. It is the choice of the world's top pro-gamers and widely considered as the best gaming sensor currently available. Like many gaming mice, left-handers are left out in the cold here. This one's built specifically for right-handed gamers, complete with ring and pinky-finger grooves to comfortably place all five digits on the rodent. Mionix also claims its ideal for all grip types -- fingertip, palm, and claw. It has a four-layer rubber touch coating, which is one thing I really like about the other Mionix mice I've played with. It also features two customizable LEDs (up to 16.8 million colors) with various effects, three-step adjustable DPI, 32-bit ARM processor running at 32MHz, 128K built-in memory to store settings, large black PTFE mouse feet, and a gold plated USB connector at the end of a 2-meter long PVC cable. The Castor will be available in September for $70 MSRP. You can place your pre-order now |
| White House Pshaws Petition to Pardon Edward Snowden Posted: 28 Jul 2015 11:47 AM PDT No pardon for you! The Obama administration is not going to pardon Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor who went on the lam after disclosing thousands of classified documents to the media. That much was made clear by the White House's long awaited response to a petition seeking a "full, free, and absolute pardon" for Snowden, who it referred to as a "national hero." After seeing a surge in petitions at the end of 2012, the Obama administration raised the required number of signatures from 25,000 to 100,000 for a petition to merit a response. The petition for Snowden's pardon reached that threshold in less than a month when it was posted in June of 2013, but went ignored by the White House for more than two years. It's seen an increase in activity as of late, which is no doubt attributable to Snowden recently voicing his desire to come back home. The petition now stands at a little shy of 168,000 signatures. In its response to the petition, the White House urged Snowden to come back to the United States and stand trial by jury, "not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime." The White House accused him of running away from the consequences of his actions. "Instead of constructively addressing these issues, Mr. Snowden's dangerous decision to steal and disclose classified information had severe consequences for the security of our country and the people who work day in and day out to protect it," the White House wrote. Snowden's illegal disclosures detailed the extent to which the US government and cooperating agencies spy on citizens. Some view Snowden's actions as courageous and heroic, as outlined in the petition for his pardon, while others view them as dangerous and treasonous. While a full pardon appears to be off the table, there are reports that Snowden and his lawyer are in talks for him to return to the United States. Before he'd be willing to do that, Snowden wants assurances that he'd receive a "fair trial." "Unfortunately, the Department of Justice is unwilling to agree," Snowden said, according to NPR. "The only thing they have said at this point is that they would not execute me, which is not the same as a fair trial." Snowden currently resides in Russia, where he has been granted asylum. |
| Intel and Micron Develop Crazy Fast Memory to Replace NAND Posted: 28 Jul 2015 09:52 AM PDT New memory technology runs circles around NAND Few would argue against the notion that today's high performance solid state drives are blazing fast, especially compared to mechanical hard disk drives, but imagine what tomorrow's SSDs will be like. Before you do that, take into consideration that Intel and Micron just unveiled a new non-volatile memory technology that they claim is 1,000 times faster than NAND flash memory. Yes, 1,000 times! We'll give you a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor and clean the coffee off your monitor. This isn't a theoretical technology, either. Called 3D XPoint, wafers based on the memory breakthrough are now in production. "For decades, the industry has searched for ways to reduce the lag time between the processor and data to allow much faster analysis," said Rob Crooke, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. "This new class of non-volatile memory achieves this goal and brings game-changing performance to memory and storage solutions." The underlying architecture in 3D XPoint contains no transistors. Instead, perpendicular conductors connect 128 billion densely packed memory cells that are stacked in layers in a three-dimensional checkerboard pattern. Each memory cell stores a single bit of data. It looks like this: This allows data to be written and read in small sizes, which in turn leads to faster and more efficient read and write processes. And in addition to being 1,000 times faster than NAND flash memory, 3D XPoint also has up to 1,000 times the endurance of NAND, according to Intel and Micron. It's fun to think of what this could mean for the future of SSDs, though home computing isn't the only area Intel and Micron have in mind. "Retailers may use 3D XPoint technology to more quickly identify fraud detection patterns in financial transactions; healthcare researchers could process and analyze larger data sets in real time, accelerating complex tasks such as genetic analysis and disease tracking," Intel and Micron point out. At present, 3D XPoint can store 128Gb per die across two stacked memory layers. As the technology matures, future generations will be increase the number of layers and be able to use traditional lithographic pitch scaling to increase die capacity. |
| Windows 10 Graphics and Motherboard Drivers (Updating) Posted: 28 Jul 2015 12:23 AM PDT Getting ready for Windows 10So you've decided to upgrade to Windows 10, which is a good thing, because it's free. It's also faster than Windows 8.1 and comes with DirextX 12. The most important thing you can do is grab all the necessary drivers you'll need for your system. We've compiled a (huge) list of all the most recent products that have been blessed with new Windows 10 drivers. So what are you waiting for? Upgrade! Keep in mind: we are continually updating this list as manufacturers make their Windows 10 drivers available for their products, so check back often. Any products with a "NO" indicator means there aren't any manufacturer-released Windows 10 drivers at this time. They may arrive at a later date. However, this doesn't mean that a board listed as NO won't run perfectly on Windows 10. Your Windows 8.1 drivers for it may suffice, but upgrade with caution. Graphics DriversAMD Catalyst 15.7 (64-bit) (32-bit)Nvidia 353.30 (64-bit) (32-bit)MotherboardsASUS*Choose Windows 10 from drop-down menu Z99 Motherboards Z97 Motherboards H97 Motherboards Z87 Motherboards H87 Motherboards Q87 / B85 Motherboards H81 Motherboards Z77 Motherboards H77 Motherboards Q77 / B75 Motherboards X79 Motherboards Z68 Motherboards Q67 / H61 Motherboards X58 (X48) Motherboards P45/P43/(G45)/G43/G41 Motherboards 990FX/990X/970/760G (780L) Motherboards FCH A50/A50M/A85X/A75/A55 GIGABYTE*Choose Windows 10 from drop-down menu Z97 Motherboards H97 Motherboards Z87 Motherboards Q87 / B85 Motherboards H87 Motherboards H81 Motherboards X79 / C606 Motherboards Z77 Motherboards Q77 / B75 Motherboards H77 Motherboards Z68 Motherboards P67 / H67 Motherboards Q67 / B65 / H61 Motherboards X58 Motherboards NM70 / Bay Trail-D Motherboards 990FX / 990X / 970 Motherboards A88X / A85X Motherboards A78 / A75 Motherboards A68H / A58 / A55 Motherboards AM1 Motherboards MSIOVERCLOCKING GAMING ECO MORE MSI X99, X79 BOARDS MORE MSI Z97 BOARDS |
| Security Firm Warns of Texting Vulnerability Posted: 27 Jul 2015 11:16 AM PDT Major flaw in Android could affect 95 percent of devices A mobile security firm is sounding the alarm on a flaw in Android that could potentially allow an attacker to gain control of a smartphone simply by sending a text message. What's scary about the threat is that in many cases, it doesn't require any interaction on the part of the victim—in theory, an attacker could send a specially crafted media file by way of MMS to an Android phone while the owner is sleeping, take control, and delete the message before it can be seen. The user would continue to use his or her smartphone the next morning, not knowing that it's been compromised. That's according to Zimperium, which has dubbed the exploit Stagefright. The firm said its VP of Platform Research and Exploitation discovered the flaw deep in Android's code base, and while it hasn't been exploited yet, the firm says it affects 95 percent of Android devices. Pretty scary when you consider than nearly 80 percent of all the smartphones in the world run Android. "Android and derivative devices after and including version 2.2 are vulnerable. Devices running Android versions prior to Jelly Bean (roughly 11 percent of devices) are at the worst risk due to inadequate exploit mitigations. If 'Heartbleed' from the PC era sends chill down your spine, this is much worse," Zimperium stated in a blog post. Zimperium says it reported the vulnerability to Google along with patches, and that Google promptly applied those patches to internal code branches. However, it could take a long time before the majority of Android users are safe from the exploit. "For the mobile devices without zIPS protection, fixes for these issues require an OTA firmware update for all affected devices. Such updates for Android devices have traditionally taken a long time to reach users," Zimperium added. Furthermore, devices older than 18 months may never seen an update at all. Android device owners who use Google's Hangout app for text messaging are the most vulnerable. As Zimperium explained to NPR, an attacker could hide malware inside a short video and text it to an Android device. When it's received, Hangouts instantly and automatically processes the video so that it's ready for viewing in the phone's gallery. This is how malware can sneak in without any user interaction. For Android device owners using the default messaging app, they'd have to view the text message, though still wouldn't be required to play the video for the malware to be installed. |
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