| Colorful's Working On A Massive, Passively Cooled GTX 680 Graphics Card Posted: 29 Jun 2012 11:18 AM PDT If you're building a silent PC, nothing beats a passively cooled GPU. Ditching all those spinning fans works wonders for noise levels! Unfortunately, most passively cooled video cards tend to be less-powerful models; with great power comes greater thermals, after all. Colorful, a Chinese graphics card maker, is bucking that trend and working hard to bring a fanless GTX 680 to the market. 
The iGame GTX 680 trades in the traditional fan for two massive aluminum heatsinks, each of which sports seven 6mm copper heatpipes and 140 cooling fins. Six 8mm copper heatpipes handle the heat exchange between the two heatsinks, bringing the grand total up to two heatsinks, 20 heatpipes and 280 cooling fins with over 200 square meters of combined cooling area. Yep, it's big. We don't know quite how big, though: Colorful hasn't come clean with any final specs or measurements for the passively cooled iGame GTX 680, nor pricing or release information. The prospect of a dead-silent GTX 680 is mighty intriguing, though, and we hope to hear more in the near future. Check out all a bunch more pics in the gallery below, all of which come courtesy of EXPreview. Via Geek.com and EXPreview |
| Gigabyte Outs The Aivia Xenon, A Mouse/Touchpad Hybrid Posted: 29 Jun 2012 10:48 AM PDT Have you ever looked down at your mouse and said to yourself, "You know, I wish this doubled as a touchpad"? If so, your days of peculiar self-musing are over, as Gigabyte recently launched an intriguing new device called the Aivia Xenon dual-mode touchpad mouse. (Try saying that three times fast!) It's like the input equivalent of a mullet, except this bad boy's all business in the front and the back. 
A handy-dandy switch on the side lets you switch between the two modes. It looks a bit oddly shaped (and probably uncomfortable) for a mouse -- in fact, the pictures make it look more like an itty bitty router than anything else -- but the Aivia Xenon sports a 1000dpi resolution and supports several multi-touch gestures when it's in touchpad mode. If you're the presenting type of person, the mouse/touchpad/whatever can operate up to 30 feet away from its base computer and packs in "Aivia Painter software" that allows you to mark up any document you have open. Check out more info over on the Aivia Xenon page at the Gigabyte website. |
| Rumor: HP Ditching Windows RT Tablet Plans Due To Microsoft Surface, Others May Follow Posted: 29 Jun 2012 10:23 AM PDT  Microsoft's Surface tablet sure looks nifty, but will it cost the company the support of its OEM partners? Several sources have said that OEMs are mighty, mighty displeased that Microsoft took a heavily hands-on role in the design approval of other companies' Windows tablets, only to soon thereafter introduce a kick ass-looking Windows tablet of its own. LG bowed out of the tablet game the very night that the Surface was announced, and a new report says the shenanigans may cause HP to yank its Windows RT plans, too.
TechCrunch pointed us towards SemiAccurate -- not the most confidence-inspiring name, there, though it refers to the semiconductor industry -- whose multiple sources say that HP is scrapping its Qualcomm-based Windows RT tablet in response to Microsoft's questionable antics and the rumored sky-high $85 price tag for licensing Windows RT. "With Microsoft mandated awful designs and a $90 OS tax that Microsoft doesn't have to pay, that would be about 15% of the rumored $600 MSRP, OEMs can't hope to be competitive," SemiAccurate's Charlie Demerjian writes. The site's sources claim that other OEMs are considering jumping off the Windows RT ship before it even makes its maiden voyage. No technology partners have come public with complaints about the way Microsoft handled Surface, but when AllThingsD asked Steve Ballmer what OEMs thought of the surprise announcement, all he would say is "No Comment." "If Microsoft had access to its OEM designs and knew what they were going to ship and how they were to be priced and marketed, can PC OEMs ever trust Microsoft?" industry analyst Patrick Moorhead -- a longtime AMD exec and OEM partner -- asked on Forbes. What do you think: can they? UPDATE: HP has confirmed they'll be skipping Windows RT to focus on x86-based tablets, though an HP spokesman told Bloomberg that the company reached that decision prior to Surface's unveiling. He didn't say why the company waited until today to make the decision public. |
| This week's hottest reviews on TechRadar Posted: 29 Jun 2012 07:43 AM PDT 
It's been a week dominated by Google. The Nexus 7 tablet looks to finally be the product that we've all been waiting for – a decent Android tablet for under £200. We've had a play with it and can report that we like it very much…. Hands on: Google Nexus 7 review Ever since Android starting making its way onto tablets the market has been crying out for an aggressively priced product. So it's not before time that Google finally launches its own device, a 7-inch, 8GB tablet for just £159. The Nexus 7, which weighs in at just 340g, packs a 7-inch screen with 1280x800 resolution and is powered by a quad core Nvidia Tegra 3 CPU, is also available in 16GB flavour for £199. For the money you're getting so, so much: a quad core Tegra 3-powered device with a 12-core GPU and a HD screen. Then there's the most advanced version of Google's Android, and the fact you can get a wealth of new content in the shape of magazines and an ever-growing library of content in the video department. 
Hands on: Google Nexus Q review Along with the Nexus 7, Google also just announced an Android-powered media streamer named the Nexus Q. Think Apple TV with open standards but an even higher price. The idea is that you marry the Nexus Q with your Android smartphone or your Nexus 7 tablet, and stream music or movies through it to your TV. Google is obviously taking shots at Apple and its iOS and Apple TV setup. That said, the Nexus Q is a whopping $299 (through the Google Play store). That's a lot to pay for a device that essentially does less than competing solutions, and offers a confusing counter to the Nexus 7's reasonable pricing. We look forward to giving the Nexus Q a proper test, but for the time being that price looks a little bit too high. 
MacBook Air 2012 review While Apple doesn't own the exclusive rights to the super-skinny notebook guest list any longer, it is still the market leader. But while the latest MacBook Air impressed us greatly, the wow-factor has worn off slightly, due to this being the third iteration of the current design. In a market becoming densely populated with slim-line laptops from a massive range of manufacturers, Apple still holds the trump card with the MacBook Air - but only just. And as such, we fully expect a design overhaul from the Cupertino-based tech giant in 2013. 
LG Optimus L7 review The LG Optimus L7 may have style, but it doesn't quite hit the mark compared to the competition, with too much thought put into the design making the user experience feel forgotten and rushed. It does have a decent 4.3-inch display which provides strong, vivid colours and smooth video playback. The inclusion of NFC is a nice feature, along with the programmable Tag+ sticker included in the box, which makes the technology more useful than just having NFC alone on the handset. We were also impressed with the battery in the Optimus L7, which can easily last a couple of days with moderate use. But all these useful features are sadly put on the back burner thanks to the incredibly slow processor and user experience. This week's other reviews... Camera lenses Hands on: Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens review Cases Corsair Vengeance C70 review Enermax Fulmo GT review Compact Cameras Nikon Coolpix S4300 review Hands on: Olympus TG-1 review Desktops Chillblast Fusion Cosmos review DSLR/Hybrids Nikon D3200 review Flash memory cards Lexar Professional 133x SDXC 64GB review Graphics cards AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition review Laptops Toshiba Satellite P875-102 review Samsung Series 5 550P review MSI GT70 review Acer Aspire V3 review Advent Monza N2 review Hands on: Dell XPS 14 review Hands on: Dell XPS 15 review Media streaming Hands on: Google Nexus Q review Mobile phones Samsung Galaxy SIII (AT&T) review Operating systems Hands on: Windows Phone 8 review Hands on: Android 4.1 review Printers Epson Stylus Photo 1500W review Software Serif PhotoPlus X5 review Tablets Storage Options Scroll Extreme 9.7-inch tablet review |
| AMD Catalyst 12.6 Drivers Now Available to Download Posted: 29 Jun 2012 07:17 AM PDT  A new Catalyst software suite, version 12.6, is available from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) for Radeon and FireStream graphics card owners. The new driver packages, which play nice with Windows XP on up to Windows 7, offer up additional Dual Graphics Technology profiles for a handful of DirectX 9 games, and also stomp out a series of bugs that are mostly applicable to Windows 7.
Otherwise, there isn't a ton going on with the new drivers, which is somewhat disappointing now that AMD has moved away from a monthly Catalyst release schedule. At the same time, those seeking performance boosts are free to give AMD's Catalyst 12.7 beta drive suite a spin. The 12.7 beta release improves performance by up to 25 percent in Skyrim, up to 20 percent in Total War: Shogun 2, and up to 12 percent in Wolfenstein MP, as well as improvrd performance by single-digit percentages in more than half a dozen other titles. AMD Catalyst 12.6 Release Notes
AMD Catalyst 12.7 Beta Release Notes Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| RIM CEO "Not Satisfied" with Financial Results; Neither are Investors Posted: 29 Jun 2012 06:54 AM PDT  Research In Motion (RIM) on Thursday evening posted a $518 million net loss for its first fiscal quarter of 2012, representing a 33 percent drop in revenue over the previous quarter and 43 percent decline from one year ago. It was not the financial picture RIM wanted to paint, but certainly the one many were expecting, at least to an extent. Nevertheless, RIM's stock is taking a beating, trading for around 15 percent less than prior to the announcement.
The straight up numbers weren't the only sad story the Canadian company told investors. RIM, which is hedging its bets on BlackBerry 10, said that the first smartphones to run on the upcoming platform won't see the light of day until next year, thus missing the all-important holiday shopping season. "Our first quarter results reflect the market challenges I have outlined since my appointment as CEO at the end of January. I am not satisfied with these results and continue to work aggressively with all areas of the organization and the Board to implement meaningful changes to address the challenges, including a thoughtful realignment of resources and honing focus within the Company on areas that have the greatest opportunities," said Thorsten Heins (PDF), President and CEO. "Our top priority going forward is the successful launch of our first BlackBerry 10 device, which we now anticipate will occur in the first quarter of calendar 2013." Mr. Heins expects BlackBerry 10 to deliver a "ground-breaking next generation smartphone user experience," and those lofty expectations are part of the reason for the delay. "RIM's development teams are relentlessly focused on ensuring the quality and reliability of the platform and I will not compromise the product by delivering it before it is ready," Heins added. The late late launch may sting investors, who are stinging back by offloading RIM's stock at discounted prices, but in the long run, it's probably better that RIM flush away any bugs rather than repeat the launch of a half-baked product, as many viewed the PlayBook tablet when it first came out. Image Credit: Research In Motion Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Adobe Not Developing Flash Player for Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) Posted: 29 Jun 2012 06:31 AM PDT  Upcoming Android 4.1 Jelly Bean devices, starting with Google's recently unveiled Nexus 7 tablet, will not receive official Flash Player support from Adobe. Moreover, Adobe announced plans to pull Flash Player from the Google Play Store on August 15 for unsupported devices, and while you can expect Flash updates to roll out for older hardware running Android 4.0 or earlier, it's clear the future lies in HTML5.
"Devices that don't have the Flash Player provided by the manufacturer typically are uncertified, meaning the manufacturer has not completed the certification testing requirements. In many cases users of uncertified devices have been able to download the Flash Player from the Google Play Store, and in most cases it worked. However, with Android 4.1 this is no longer going to be the case, as we have not continued developing and testing Flash Player for this new version of Android and its available browser options. There will be no certified implementations of Flash Player for Android 4.1," Adobe confirmed in a blog post. If Flash Player already exists on a device prior to upgrading to Android 4.1, Adobe recommends uninstalling it after jumping to Jelly Bean. Otherwise, you can expect "unpredictable behavior," Adobe said. This isn't as sudden as it might seem. In reality, Adobe waved the white flag with Flash on mobile devices some time ago, announcing in November 2011 that it "will no longer continue to develop Flash Player in the browser to work with new mobile device configurations," choosing instead to "increase investment in HTML5." Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Offline Editing Returns to Google Docs Posted: 29 Jun 2012 06:09 AM PDT  After being absent for over a year, offline functionality finally returned to Google Docs in September 2011. This time, though, things were slightly different as the feature was powered by HTML5 and not Google Gears, and offline access was restricted to viewing alone. On Thursday, the second day of Google's annual I/O developer conference, Google made things much better by announcing the return of offline document editing for Chrome and Chrome OS.
"No internet connection? No big deal. With offline editing, you can create and edit Google documents and leave comments. Any changes you make will be automatically synced when you get back online," Clay Bavor, director of product management for Google Apps, on the official Google Docs blog. "You can enable offline editing from the gear icon in Google Drive and find more detailed instructions for getting set up in the Help Center. Note that you'll need the latest versions of Chrome or ChromeOS to edit offline. We're also working hard to make offline editing for spreadsheets and presentations available in the future." But Google did not stop there. It also announced another highly sought-after feature: Drive for iOS. The Google Drive app is now available in the App store for iDevices running iOS 5.0+. |
| Rice University Showcase Spray-Paintable Battery Technology on Lighted Bathroom Tiles Posted: 29 Jun 2012 06:01 AM PDT  Researchers from Rice University have cooked up a rather interesting and promising battery technology capable of turning any surface into a lithium-ion battery. The technology consists of five spray-painted layers that make up all the components of a traditional battery, including two current collectors, a cathode, an anode, and a polymer separator in the middle. All that remains is a power source, and as the researchers demonstrated, spray-paintable batteries can be combined with solar cells.
"This means traditional packaging for batteries has given way to a much more flexible approach that allows all kinds of new design and integration possibilities for storage devices," said scientist Pullickel Ajayan, Rice's Benjamin M. and Mary Greenwood Anderson Professor in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and of chemistry. "There has been lot of interest in recent times in creating power sources with an improved form factor, and this is a big step forward in that direction." The researchers describe each layer as an "optimized stew." It starts with a current collector as the base, which is a mixture of purified single-wall carbon nanotubes with carbon black particles dispersed in N-methylpyrrolidone. A second cathode layer is made with lithium cobalt oxide, carbon, and ultrafine graphite (UFG) powder in a binder solution. The third layer is a polymer separator paint of Kynar Flex resin, PMMA, and silicon dioxide dispersed in a solvent mixture. On top of that sits an anode made of a mixture of lithium titanium oxide and UFG in a binder, and the last layer consists of a negative collector constructed with conductive copper paint diluted with ethanol. To demonstrate the technology, the researchers applied spray-paintable batteries to a number of surfaces, including a series of bathroom tiles connected in parallel. It was topped off with a solar cell to convert white laboratory light into power, which the spray-paintable batteries used to illuminate a set of LEDs that spelled "RICE" for six hours with a steady stream of 2.4V. An extensive examination of the science behind it all appears in Nature's online, open-access journal Scientific Reports. Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook |
| Microsoft's Windows 8 Upgrade Plans Surface Posted: 28 Jun 2012 10:20 PM PDT  At the time of the Windows 8 Release Preview's release last month, Microsoft spilled the beans on a special upgrade offer for those who buy eligible Windows 7-based PCs between June 2, 2012 and January 31, 2013. It did not reveal anything regarding the upgrade path for existing Windows users, though. But you may no longer have to wait until an official announcement from Redmond to know where you stand on the road to Windows 8, as a veteran Microsoft watcher claims to have the scoop on Microsoft's Windows 8 upgrade plans.
According to ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley, Microsoft has already made some of its partners aware of its Windows 8 upgrade plans. The information Foley received from her "contacts" points to a large number of upgrade paths to Windows 8, starting all the way back from Windows XP. As per the report, the only users who will be able to keep their settings, personal files, and applications intact are: those upgrading to Windows 8 from Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, and Windows 7 Home Premium; those upgrading to Windows 8 Pro from Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, and Windows 7 Ultimate; and those upgrading to Windows 8 Enterprise from Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise. While Windows Vista users with SP1 installed will reportedly be able to retain their personal data and system settings, users upgrading from Windows Vista without SP1 installed and Windows XP( SP3 or higher) will have to be content with retaining just their personal data. |
