| Gaming Companies Quietly End Official Support for SOPA Posted: 30 Dec 2011 02:56 PM PST  With each revision, the list of SOPA supporters seems to be shrinking. In the most recent silent update, gaming companies seem to be the ones pulling back. Sony, EA, and Nintendo are no longer listed as supporters of the bill, but were on the list in November. None of the companies has acknowledged the change in position.
SOPA and its companion Senate bill Protect IP, would place much more power in the hands of copyright holders. The broad wording of the bill could label many sites with user-generated content as "rogue sites," and expose them to domain blocking by US ISPs. Experts on internet infrastructure are concerned that modifying the DNS system in this way could damage internet reliability and security. All three gaming companies have an interest in limiting piracy of their games, but with SOPA becoming toxic withing their target demographic, it's no surprise we are seeing pull-back. Sony, EA, and Nintendo have joined GoDaddy in no-longer supporting SOPA, but we should note that none of these companies have actually come out against the bill. |
| After Meltdown, Former N-Control PR Rep Attempting to Extort Company Posted: 30 Dec 2011 02:28 PM PST  The saga of PR failure from Paul Christoforo, the now former PR man for N-Control, is not over. After his verbal abuse of a customer led to some good old fashioned Internet justice, N-Control's new PR guy has let slip some details of how Christoforo is conducting himself and attempting to extort money from N-Control.
According to new PR rep Moisés Chiullan, Christoforo has been claiming via email that his tantrum was the best thing that ever happened to the delayed Avenger Controller. He says the attention will make the company a success, and he wants compensation. Chiullan claims that Christoforo has been holding various email and social media accounts for N-Control hostage in an effort to get a favorable contract drawn up. Christoforo reportedly wants an upfront bonus, and ongoing compensation for the foreseeable future. N-Control is not backing down, and is evaluating its options for dealing with Christoforo. The new representative has clarified that the Avenger Controller website is not under Christoforo's control, so mail sent there should be answered properly. |
| Success: Verizon Wireless Drops $2 Convenience Fee Posted: 30 Dec 2011 02:09 PM PST  Let it never be said that the Internet can't be used for good as well as evil. After a huge online backlash, Verizon Wireless has backed away from plans to begin charging a $2 "convenience fee" to customers for paying their bills online, or by the phone. The change was supposed to go into effect on January 15th.
If Verizon thought they were going to sneak this one by the Internet, they were clearly mistaken. The outcry rang loudly from every blog in the world almost immediately when the change in terms was discovered. Verizon claims that the fee was going to support the aforementioned payment methods in the future. The only way to circumvent the charge would have been auto-billing, electronic check, paper check, or in-store payment. As if the negative customer feedback wasn't enough. the FCC started making noises about getting involved this morning, urged on by consumer complaints. Verizon folded faster than we expected. Do you think they're going to try to make up the difference elsewhere? |
| Cool Site of the Week: Anti-Resolution Posted: 30 Dec 2011 11:27 AM PST  With Christmas and Chanukkah in the bag, the leftovers eaten and the relatives pushed out the door for another year, New Years Eve is the next big event you'll have to deal with. Between now and then, you'll no doubt reflect upon the last year's triumphs and failures, and then like as with years before, foolishly resolve to change your ways knowing full well that you'll never live up to your self-imposed pact in the weeks and months to come. This year, why not break the cycle of broken self-imposed promises with Anti-Resolution, our Cool Site of the Week.
Anti-Resolution isn't against personal growth--far from it. Rather, the site is against broken big-picture New Year's Eve promises to improve out health and well-being, which, while made with the best of intentions, often end up being broken. Instead, Anti-Resolution suggests that you make smaller, easily doable personal pacts: To lose weight, save money, reduce your stress level, break an ugly habit or spend more time with your loved ones. Once you've selected one of these paths to self-improvement, the site will provide you with a few modest suggestions on how you could follow through. 
You'll find no difficult life changing courses of action here. Small acts that anyone has the willpower to follow through on are the name of the game with Anti-Resolution. Given the number of promises to ourselves most of us break on a regular basis, who couldn't do with an easy win? Be sure to check back every Friday for another edition of Maximum PC's Cool Site of the Week. |
| Aqua Computing Shows Off World's First Radeon 7970 Water Block Posted: 30 Dec 2011 11:08 AM PST Did you read our write-up of the spiffy new AMD Radeon 7970 earlier this week and find yourself getting all hot and bothered at the thought of kick-ass custom rigs built around the beast? Well, one company can help you cool down. The new graphics cards aren't even available in stores yet but that hasn't stopped the Germany-based Aqua Computer from putting the AquagrATIx 7900 up for preorder. What's that, you might ask? Only the first 7970 water block available on the market. 
Aqua Computter claims the water block should fit Radeon 7950 cards when they're released, too. There's not really all that much to say about the water block other than that. It's made out of what looks to be a single piece of copper with a stainless steel cover. It uses standard G 1/4" threads, though the fittings don't come included. Early adopters can preorder one now for roughly $116. |
| Two Drool-Inducing Overclocked Setups: One Break Records, One Hits 96% CPU Overclock Posted: 30 Dec 2011 10:39 AM PST Few computer-related acts bring the full Maximum PC ethos to bear as much as extreme overclocking. Damn the torpedoes; give 'er MOAR POWER! and so on. Fridays are always slow news days, and the Friday between Christmas and New Year's seems to be doubly so, so why not take advantage of the lull and shine on a spotlight on a pair of overclocking feats that showed up on the radar over the past couple of days?
First up, Gigabyte. The company hit a bit of a rough patch this week when faulty firmware started burning up overclockers' motherboards. To their credit, the dust hadn't even settled when Gigabyte announced they would swap out any damaged mobos and released a patch to fix the software problem. To show the world that the F7 BIOS update was no mere band-aid, Gigabyte had an overclocker named "Hicookie" take an updated GA-X79-UD3 for a spin with an Intel Core i7-3930K, Kingston HyperX Genesis memory, a Corsair AX1200 PSU and some liquid nitrogen. Hicookie nailed a 5643.3 MHz clock speed with a base clock of 99 MHz and a 57x multiplier. Tom's Hardware reports that the setup killed the previous Super Pi 1M and 32M and PiFast benchmarks. Check out the video above to see it in action. AMD's no slouch in the overclocking department, either, and TechPowerUp is reporting that OverclockWorks (a Japanese specialty shop) achieved an even higher 5,875.5 MHz clock speed in a "suicide run" with an AMD A8-3870K Black Edition processor. The feat was accomplished with a 125 MHz base with a 47x multiplier and a 1.872V core voltage. The Radeon HD 6550D GPU built into the processor hit 1327 MHz, which is more than twice is 600 MHz rating. Number-wise, those turn out to be a 96 percent CPU increase and a 121 percent GPU increase -- not too shabby. Unfortunately, the turbo-charged setup was too volatile to run more advanced benchmark tests, but OverclockWorks thinks this may just be the world's best A8-3870K overclocking attempt. Check out this link for pictures. |
| Lenovo Ditches 'Netbook' Moniker, Dubs IdeaPad S110 a 'Mini Notebook' Posted: 30 Dec 2011 09:46 AM PST  Shakespeare once wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a netbook by any other name would smell as sweet," or something like that. Or maybe Juliet was rambling about a rose when she was justifying her secret relationship with Romeo. In any event, Lenovo's upcoming IdeaPad S110 is a netbook even if the OEM insists on calling it a "mini notebook" instead.
The IdeaPad S110 mini notebook appeared in a promotional YouTube video pimping a handful of specs, including a 10.1-inch HD display, 98 percent full-size Accutype keyboard, USB 3.0, optioanl 2MP webcam, integrated Wi-Fi and optional 3G, and 16mm frame. So what makes us so sure this is a netbook in disguise? If you head over to Provantage, you'll find the IdeaPad S110 listed for $321 and change. In addition to a 10.1-inch screen and other netbook-like specs, this thing's rocking an Intel Atom N2600 processor, 1GB of RAM, 320GB hard drive, and Windows 7. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you can bet your lunch money it's a duck, even if someone wants to call it a mini Anatidae. |
| AMD HD 7950 Launch Date Reportedly in Limbo Posted: 30 Dec 2011 09:19 AM PST  Every PC gamer who doesn't have an aversion to AMD would love to own a dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 when it ships in March 2012, but not everyone can afford (or justify) an $849 investment on a graphics card. By that same token, $549 for a Radeon HD 7970 is also beyond some people's budgets, which is why AMD will also release a Radeon HD 7950 based on its Tahiti Pro chipset. Two questions come to mind: How much and when will it launch?
Unfortunately, we're still waiting on answers to both. We can speculate that the HD 7950 will be priced in the neighborhood of $400, which will still be out of reach of some gamers' budgets, but certainly more affordable than the HD 7990. A bigger question mark is its release. According to Fudzilla, the scheduled January 9, 2011 release date is shaping up to be a paper launch, and "there is no way that this one will be available" for purchase on that day. Some major players in the add-in board (AIB) business tell Fudzilla the 7950 will still launch on January 9th, and you'll probably see reviews pop up on the Web, but those review samples will be coming directly from AMD. Based on leaked info, the HD 7950 will sport 1,792 stream processors, 28 compute units, 112 texture units, 32 full color ROPs, and 3GB of GDDR5 on a 384-bit memory bus, and support up to six displays. Clockspeeds and power draw are still unknown. |
| Android Retains Pole Position in U.S. Mobile Market, comScore Says Posted: 30 Dec 2011 09:00 AM PST  Google's Android platform is having little trouble holding onto its No. 1 spot in the U.S. in terms of the number of mobile subscribers. According to comScore's mobile subscriber market share report for the month of November 2011, there were 234 million Americas age 13 and older who used mobile devices for the three-month average period ending in November, many of which are turning to Android.
There were 91.4 million smartphone owners in the U.S. during the three months ending in November 2011, and of those, 46.9 percent were using Android, according to comScore. That's an increase of 3.1 percentage points over the three-month period ended in August 2011, enough to extend its lead over Apple's iOS platform, which accounted for 28.7 percent of all U.S. smartphone subscribers, an increase of 1.4 percentage points. All other mobile platforms struggled to compete with Android and iOS during the past three months. Research In Motion gave up the most U.S. smartphone market share, dropping 3.1 percentage points to 16.6 percent, though still enough for a commanding third place finish. Behind RIM was Microsoft with a 5.2 percent share (down 0.5 percent) and Symbian at 1.5 percent (down 0.3 percent). |
| PlayStation Vita Sales Slump One Week Post Launch Posted: 30 Dec 2011 08:40 AM PST  Sony found itself scrambling to explain away early complaints lodged against its PlayStation Vita handheld console and quickly denied there exists a widespread issue of any kind. Not quickly enough. Following a flurry of sales during its first two days of sales in Japan, interest in the PlayStation Vita appears to have dropped sharply.
The console maker racked up 324,859 Vita sales in the first 48 hours after launch on December 17, 2011, but sales through the week ended December 25, 2011 fell to just 72,479, according to data released by Media Create, a Japanese company that analyzes the digital entertainment industry, and in particular the Japanese console gaming market. For the sake of comparison, Nintendo's 3DS console notched 482,200 unit sales during the same period, up 31 percent from a week prior. Part of the discrepancy is undoubtedly due to the price difference between the two consoles, but even still, Sony can't be happy with the sharp decline in PS Vita sales so quickly after launch. Image Credit: Sony |
