| James Bond Never Wore Wi-Fi Enabled Cufflinks, But You Can Posted: 20 Jan 2012 11:37 AM PST  James Bond is a badass because he's always prepared for whatever situation arises. The guy's had gadgets for everything, from exploding keychains to to a stun-gun cigarette, along with just about anything you can imagine. That is, unless you imagine USB cufflinks that double as a Wi-Fi hotspot dongle in a pinch. Unlike most of James Bonds' gadgets, Wi-Fi cufflinks actually exist.
Kudos to our friends at Engadget for turning us on to these things. Playing the part of Q, Brookstone has available polished silver oval Wi-Fi and 2GB USB combination cufflinks that allow you keep data on your person and remedy a bad router in a pinch. Just plug one of your cufflinks into a PC wired directly to the modem and you have an instant high-speed hotspot to work with. Unfortunately, these things run $250, which borders on the ridiculous, especially since they don't triple as an explosive device. Ah well, file this one under 'cool, but not worth price.' Image Credit: Brookstone |
| Asus P9X79 Deluxe Review Posted: 20 Jan 2012 11:26 AM PST A deluxe board with an enthusiast price tag Let's be frank: If you're even thinking about buying into Intel's deliciously fast LGA2011 platform this early, you are an enthusiast—Enthusiast with a capital-freaking-E, since you can't even look at LGA2011 without buying a $550 chip. So if you're jumping in, you might as well use both feet. Asus's P9X79 Deluxe certainly fits that bill, delivering cool features and a stout price tag: This X79-based board will set you back a cool $400. "Deluxe" features on board include digital VRMs, Asus's trademark UEFI, and built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, with a bundled smartphone app that enables you to remotely overclock and monitor your system. This board also has an all-new feature that lets you use a particular USB port to update its BIOS without a processor installed. 
The P9X79 Deluxe offers top-notch performance and all the needed amenities.
The P9X79 is an eight-DIMM-slot board, not one of the weaker four-slot boards that limit your upgrade path. The eight-DIMM design will let you build a 32GB PC for less than $200 in memory cost. Doing that on any four-slot board will set you back more than $1,000. What do you do with 32GB? You set up a RAM drive, of course! We set up a RAM drive on this board using eight 4GB sticks of Corsair Vengeance RAM and saw read speeds of 4GB/s. Take that, SSDs! But what you get in RAM, you lose in storage. The PCH in the X79 has the circuitry to support many more SAS and SATA 6Gb/s ports, but compatibility concerns caused board makers to "de-feature" it at the last minute. So instead of a board bristling with 10 SATA 6Gb/s ports, we get the standard Z68 layout of two SATA 6Gb/s and four SATA 3Gb/s. Asus tries to beef up the board's six standard ports (four 3Gb/s and two 6Gb/s) with a Marvell 6Gb/s controller that also does SSD caching. Few of us could afford to install that many HDDs given today's prices, of course, but that doesn't render the lack of native support any less of a letdown—this is a $400 motherboard, after all. We fired up Intel's new DX79SI mobo to compare its performance to that of the P9X79. While we don't normally expect to see big performance deltas between boards based on the same chipsets, the Asus board generally produced better benchmark numbers, with one significant exception: Intel's board delivered much faster SATA 6Gb/s write speeds. We normally use OCZ's Enyo external drive to test USB 3.0 performance, but the P9X79's USB controller uses the new and speedier UASP protocol, so we also used an OWC SATA 6Gb/s drive inside a new Asus enclosure. With UASP, we saw USB 3.0 speeds climb to a nice 225MB/s read and 217MB/write. We would have liked to compare this to a USB 3.0 enclosure that doesn't support UASP, but our generic USB 3.0 enclosures don't seem to like any SATA 6Gb/s drives. In the end, The P9X79 Deluxe gives you just about everything an enthusiast would truly want: SLI, tri-SLI, CrossFire X, PCIe 3.0, tons of overclocking features, lots of USB 3.0 ports, and truly fast performance (albeit only in comparison to the limited number of X79 boards we've seen so far). Now if only it had more SATA 6Gb/s ports and the price wasn't so painful. $400, www.asus.com |
| So Long And Thanks For All The Fish, VGA/DVI Posted: 20 Jan 2012 10:57 AM PST  Alas, poor VGA and DVI; we knew ye well. If those increasingly obsolete connection technologies hold a place near and dear to your heart, you might want to make it a point of going out and picking up a laptop or desktop sometime soon. It's looking like five years from now, DVI and VGA ports will join dinosaurs, VCRs and the Dodo in the pages of the history books, smothered by the more widespread HDMI and DisplayPort interfaces.
In a study cited by Techworld, NPD In-Stat says that both AMD and Intel will start phasing out support for VGA in 2015, and AMD plans on phasing out DVI at the same time. Why are HDMI and DisplayPort sticking around while their counterparts shuffle off into the sunset? It's all about the upgrade path, according to In-Stat's Brian O-Rourke. "DVI has no roadmap to upgrade the specification; it is essentially the same as it was upon its launch in 1999. HDMI and DisplayPort, on the other hand, have made significant strides in a number of markets." DVI isn't going quietly, though: In-Stat expects over 19 million DVI-sporting desktops to ship in 2012. Will you crack open a 40 for the dead ports walking, or have you already made the leap to HDMI and DisplayPort? Image credit: monoteizem.com |
| SOPA And PIPA Shelved Indefinitely Posted: 20 Jan 2012 10:30 AM PST  Remember when your mom said whining never helped anything? Turns out she was wrong! Ever since the day the 'Net went dark, politicians -- ranging from Congressmen to presidential candidates to European Internet czars -- have been tripping over themselves backing away from the political hot potato. This morning, even more heartening events occurred: the lead sponsors behind the bills announced that both PIPA and SOPA have been shelved indefinitely.
Now, that doesn't quite mean they're dead -- SOPA and PIPA may just be sleeping until the collective herd forgets about the uproar -- but it definitely puts a damper on their odds of passage. Even if SOPA and PIPA die on the political vine due to widespread opposition and upcoming elections, don't expect this to be the end of things. IP theft is still a real issue and one that the government and big business alike take seriously, as evidenced by the closing line in an announcement released by the MPAA this morning: "It is incumbent that (SOPA/PIPA critics) now sincerely work with all of us to achieve a meaningful solution to this critically important goal." (Of course, he also took time to signal the shelving as a hammer-blow to the knee of America's interests. "As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves; American jobs will continue to be lost; and consumers will continue to be exposed to fraudulent and dangerous products peddled by foreign criminals.") The sponsors of both bills still hope to reach a political tenable compromise with the 'Net in upcoming days: if we hear of SOPA stirring from its new-found slumber, we'll let you know. |
| AMD Gives First Person Shooters A Boost With New Radeon HD 7900 Driver Posted: 20 Jan 2012 10:12 AM PST  Are you one of those cutting-edge gamers who snatched up a Radeon HD 7970 graphics card the day they hit the street? If so, AMD's sending a little "Thank You" gift your way in the form of the new 8.921.2 RC11 AMD Radeon HD 7900 driver, an update that adds DX10 and DX11 Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing to the Catalyst Control Center, ups performance for quite a few titles, and fixes bugs in yet a few more.
Here's a list of improvements and fixes taken directly from the driver's page (which also includes a download link, so head over there if you want to install it): Performance highlights of the 8.921.2 RC11 AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 driver - 8% (up to) performance improvement in Aliens vs. Predator
- 15% (up to) performance improvement in Battleforge with Anti-Aliasing enabled
- 3% (up to) performance improvement in Battlefield 3
- 3% (up to) performance improvement in Crysis 2
- 6% (up to) performance improvement in Crysis Warhead
- 10% (up to) performance improvement in F1 2010
- 5% (up to) performance improvement in Unigine with Anti-Aliasing enabled
- 250% (up to) performance improvement in TessMark (OpenGL) when set to "insane" levels
Resolved issues: highlights of the 8.921.2 RC11 AMD Radeon™ HD 7900 driver
- Folding@Home: intermittent stability issues have been resolved for the OpenCL version of Folding@Home
- Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 no longer experiences minor flickering with Tri CrossFireX™ configurations
- Dragon Age 2 no longer experiences minor flickering with Tri CrossFireX™ configurations
- StarCraft 2 no longer encounters issues when quitting campaign with Tri and Quad CrossFireX™ configurations
- BattleForge stability has been improved with Tri CrossFireX™ configurations
- Improved stability when enabling / disabling CrossFireX™ and installing the AMD graphics driver on AMD CrossfireX™ configurations
Known Issues:
- Just Cause 2 - Launching the application will cause a hang for single GPU and CrossfireX™ configurations
|
| Feds Take Down MegaUpload, Anonymous Nukes Everybody Posted: 20 Jan 2012 10:02 AM PST  No one likes having their failures rubbed in their faces, and it looks like the U.S. government and the Hollywood lobbyist groups aren't any different. With the SOPA/PIPA blackouts barely over with, the government -- in collaboration with New Zealand -- shut down MegaUpload.com and arrested four of its employees on charges of copyright infringement and conspiracy to commit racketeering. Bad timing, eh? Anonymous sure thought so -- after the crackdown, the hacktivist went on a major DDoS binge that shutdown a whole host of major government and industry websites. Apparently, Anon doesn't like things rubbed in their face, either.
According to a statement by the group (and backed up by tons of publications, tweets and Facebook chatter), the websites for the Department of Justice, the U.S. Copyright Office, the RIAA, the MPAA, Universal Music, EMI, Warner Music, the FBI and French copyright authority HADOPI all bit the dust under a withering barrage from Anon's Low Orbit Ion Cannon and #OpMegaUpload. At times, Akamai's real-time Web monitor reported global Internet traffic spiked up to 14 percent above normal levels. The sites are back up now, but TechCrunch is reporting that the files users stored on MegaUpload have all been taken down and are currently irretrievable, regardless of whether or not the files infringed any copyrights. Meanwhile, CNET's Molly Wood speculates that the government intentionally timed the MegaUpload takedown specifically to spit in Anon's face and get them riled up -- thereby erasing the goodwill generated by the SOPA/PIPA protests. As a .com site, MegaUpload falls under U.S. jurisdiction, so the government can legally seize the domain. (Same with .org and .net sites.) Another interesting twist highlighted yesterday: MegaUpload's acting CEO is none other than hip-hop megaproducer Swizz Beatz. WTF? He wasn't one of the four arrested or the seven charged, however. Thoughts? Image credit: thegamefanatics.com |
| Longtime Nvidia Critics Says Kepler is "Clear Winner" Against AMD's Tahiti Architecture Posted: 20 Jan 2012 09:52 AM PST  AMD might be in for a dogfight when Nvidia's Kepler architecture leaves the porch. Early reports suggest Nvidia has a real winner on its hands and that Kepler is such a strong performer, even Nvidia's mid-range cards will give AMD's high-end GPUs a run for their money. The information available is vague and scattered, but it all points to Nvidia stealing back the performance crown.
Charlie Demerjian, who has a long history of being critical of all things Nvidia, sang some high praise for Kepler over at SemiAccurate. According to Demerjian, Nvidia is going to "win this round on just about every metric" with its Kepler architecture, which will trump AMD's Tahiti "handily." Those remarks come after spending hands-on time with a pair of Kepler-based graphics cards and collecting "hard information," though he isn't allowed to share specific benchmarks just yet. Demerjian's reveal jibes with information information leaked by Chinese website Inpai.com.cn, which is claiming Nvidia's mid-range cards will have the moxie to challenge AMD's higher end GPUs. According to Inpai, Kepler's GK104 architecture will sport a 256-bit interface, 2GB of onboard memory, and have a 225W TDP. |
| Sapphire's Overclocked Radeon HD 7950 Card Tipped Online Posted: 20 Jan 2012 09:24 AM PST  AMD is expected to launch its Radeon HD 7950 graphics card in a little less than two weeks from now on January 31, 2012, for around $400 to $450, if the Internet rumors prove true. In the meantime, Sapphire apparently has an overclocked version in the works, with several official looking picture having been leaked to the Web.
Guru3D forum member "asder00" posted nearly half a dozen photos of Sapphire's overclocked card, and they appear to be legitimate press photos, including two that show the retail box. Unfortunately, eye candy is the only treat we're given; no word on specs, price, or release date for this particular model. To help with the speculation, Turkish website Donanimhaber.com posted rumored specifications of the HD 7950. According to Donanimhaber, there will be two versions available, one with 1.5GB of onboard memory and one with 3GB. The stock clocked GPU will run at 800MHz and the memory at up to 1250MHz. Image Credit: guru3d (asder00) |
| Computer Programmer Faces 10 Years in Prison for Alleged Source Code Theft Posted: 20 Jan 2012 08:59 AM PST  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a computer programmer for allegedly stealing proprietary software code from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (FRBNY). Bo Zhang, the man accused of stealing the source code, worked at the bank as a contract employee assigned to work on further developing a specific portion of the Government-Wide Accounting and Reporting Program (GWA), software which is owned by the Department of Treasury to track government spending.
"As today's case demonstrates, our cyber infrastructure is vulnerable not only to cybercriminals and hackers, but also alleged thieves like Bo Zhang who used his position as a contract employee to steal government intellectual property. Fighting cyber crime is one of the top priorities of this office and we will aggressively pursue anyone who puts our computer security at risk," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. According to the complaint. Zhang admitted to copying the GWA source code onto an FRBNY-owned external hard drive, and then connected the external HDD to his private office computer, his home computer, and his laptop. He used the code in connection with a private business he ran training individuals in computer programming. FBI Assistant Director in Charge Janice K. Fedarcyk said his intentions were "immaterial." "Stealing it and copying it threatened the security of vitally important source code," Fedarcyk said. If convicted, Zhang, 32 years old, faces a maximum term of 10 years in prison, a maximum term of three years of supervised release, and a fine of whichever is greatest: $250,000, twice the pecuniary gain derived from the offense, or twice the gross pecuniary loss to the victims. |
| Notebook Makers Ready to Strike with Thunderbolt Posted: 20 Jan 2012 08:36 AM PST  In May 2011, Hewlett-Packard said it hadn't found a "value proposition" in Intel's Thunderbolt (formerly known as Light Peak) interface, and come to find out, Thunderbolt controllers are 10 times more expensive than USB 3.0 chips. Big whoop, HP's stance isn't getting in the way of other system makers jumping on the high-speed interface.
Acer, Asus, and Lenovo are all planning to launch Ultrabooks based on Intel's Ivy Bridge platform with Thunderbolt support in the second quarter of 2012, DigiTimes reports. In fact, Acer's already announced its Aspire S5 Ultrabook, supposedly the thinnest the world has ever seen, and the first to implement a Thunderbolt port. It's not just for notebooks. DigiTimes claims to have heard from "industry sources" that Gigabyte will roll out a line of motherboards supporting Intel's high-speed interface around the same time as the next wave of Ultrabooks appear. Ivy Bridge also natively supports the SuperSpeed USB 3.0 spec, so it will be interesting to see if Thunderbolt can thrive alongside it. |
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the puzzle rooms become increasingly intimidating, but the feeling of accomplishment once you triumph is immensely satisfying.
