Dr. Augustine Fou's Online Scrapbook

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Early NVIDIA GTX 295 benchmarks impress, raise suspicions

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/17/early-nvidia-gtx-295-benchmarks-impress-raise-suspicions/

NVIDIA still hasn't gotten official with the less-than-secret card, but it looks like China's IT168 website has already gotten its hands on an actual GTX 295 and gone ahead and published some early benchmarks, which now seem to have not so mysteriously disappeared. This being the internet, however, there's already been screenshots taken, and while the benchmarks certainly impress, they're also rightfully leading folks to wait for some slightly more official numbers. If they are accurate, however, it looks like the GTX 295 will trounce ATI's top-end HD 4870 X2 in a number of tests, including a stunning 100% boost in performance in Dead Space, all while boasting a considerably lower power consumption too boot (hence the suspicion). We won't have to wait too much longer to put things to rest, however, as the card is expected to be officially unveiled at CES, with a whole slew of benchmarks inevitably set to follow shortly thereafter.

[Via The Inquirer]

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming

Early NVIDIA GTX 295 benchmarks impress, raise suspicions originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fujitsu LifeBook U820 gets reviewed

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/17/fujitsu-lifebook-u820-gets-reviewed/

At $1,000, Fujitsu's netbook-esque LifeBook U820 is nothing if not a tough sell, but NotebookReview.com seems to think that the category-defying device will appeal to at least a few folks out there, even if they are aware that they can get a similarly equipped netbook for less than half the price. As you might have guessed, they found the device's form factor to be its biggest selling point, with them going so far as to describe it as "the smallest and most feature packed mini tablet" they've reviewed. They were also especially impressed with the device's "incredible" battery life (over eight hours in "balanced" mode), and its overall build quality, which certainly seems to be a step above your average netbook or mini tablet. On the downside, it is still basically an average Atom-powered netbook on the inside, which is easy to accept at $300-$500, but a whole other matter when you hit four digits.

Filed under: Laptops, Tablet PCs

Fujitsu LifeBook U820 gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry goes beta at long last on December 30

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/slingplayer-mobile-for-blackberry-goes-beta-at-long-last-on-dece/

Great googly moogly, we wrote about this very application like fifty weeks ago. Fifty, people! Of course, with the drawn-out SlingCatcher drama, lengthy Sling product cycles aren't a terribly big surprise, so we should just all thank our lucky stars we're going to be getting our hands on SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry before the year's out. The app officially enters its public beta cycle come December 30 for the Bold, the Curve 8320 / 8900, the Pearl 8120 / 8220, and the venerable 8820, piping your home teevee right to your handset and usurping any semblance of productivity your BlackBerry otherwise stands for. A 3G or WiFi connection is "strongly recommended" -- which we take to mean "go ahead, give EDGE a whirl" -- but BlackBerry OS 4.5 is a hard and fast requirement, so make sure you come equipped with the goods if you want to waste some quality time in front of the small screen when this goes live.

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Video

SlingPlayer Mobile for BlackBerry goes beta at long last on December 30 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 00:57:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba announces 512GB SSD, other smaller SSDs

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/toshiba-announces-512gb-ssd-other-smaller-ssds/

We'd heard Toshiba was working on 512GB SSDs back in April, and the company's delivering right before CES. The industry-first half-terabyte drive is the highlight of Tosh's new line of 43nm MLC drives, which also includes 64GB, 128GB and 256GB units in both 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch form factors -- just right to pudge out your laptops and netbooks. No word on price, but you've got plenty of time to save up, as these won't hit mass production until at least April.

Filed under: Storage

Toshiba announces 512GB SSD, other smaller SSDs originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Eee Top ET1602 touchscreen all-in-one gets reviewed

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/asus-touchscreen-eee-top-et1602-gets-reviewed/

ASUS's touchscreen Eee Top ET1602 all-in-one was certainly adored in a pre-staged way by small children when it launched last month, but Slashgear's taken it for a spin and found that it actually deserves the love. The 15.6-inch resistive touchscreen wasn't on par with the capacitive screen in HP's TouchSmart or the active digitizer in newer tablet PCs, but it did the job, and ASUS's Windows XP "Easy Mode" launcher and bundled touch apps were intuitive and friendly, although certain apps would drop back into XP's mouse-oriented interface at times. Under the hood, the netbook-class 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM, and GMA950 graphics didn't rock anyone's world, but they managed general browsing and 720p video playback without issue. All in all, it seems like ASUS has built an interesting little AIO for the expected US price of $450 -- now if they'd just start shipping them here, we'd find out for ourselves. Hit the read link for the full review.

Filed under: Desktops

ASUS Eee Top ET1602 touchscreen all-in-one gets reviewed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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More of Motorola's 2009 Verizon lineup leaked

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/more-of-motorolas-2009-verizon-lineup-leaked/

Apparently the Motorola leak-fest begun yesterday hasn't come to a halt. After witnessing some compelling renders of smartphones the company has headed to Verizon, we're now privy to a set of featurephone / dumbphone mockups -- all courtesy of the Boy Genius Report. The new images show off a device supposedly called the "Niagra" (pictured), a slider in the vein of yesterday's "Calgary" QWERTY phone, a dowdy looking number called the "Fairbanks" (a PTT device), and a clamshell called the "Harmony." The latter two phones could hardly stoke much excitement, but the Niagra definitely gives us some hope for Moto's big comeback. Now -- these will all be powered by Android, right?

More of Motorola's 2009 Verizon lineup leaked originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung BlackJack II tops Consumer Reports' list of best smartphones

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/samsung-blackjack-ii-tops-consumer-reports-list-of-best-smartph/

Sometimes it's the unsung workhorses that deserve the lion's share of the praise, and that might just be the case with the aging Samsung BlackJack II -- a phone that you probably wouldn't expect to top Consumer Reports' January 2009 ratings of popular smartphones. Sure, it may not be the shiniest device on the market these days, but you've got to admit it's just about as functional as you'd ever need a business-class handset to be with GPS, HSDPA, and WinMo 6.1, which gladly sucks up Exchange accounts until you're blue in the face. When you factor in the fact that it runs just $80 these days on an AT&T contract in a choice of four colors... okay, yeah, we can kinda see it. The iPhone 3G and T-Mobile G1 don't play second fiddle terribly often these days (they were way down in the middle of the Consumer Reports pack in this testing cycle, in fact), so let's just let this old dog have one more moment in the spotlight, shall we?

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

Samsung BlackJack II tops Consumer Reports' list of best smartphones originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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IBM's prototype STT MRAM device spins your bits right round, baby, right round

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/ibms-prototype-stt-mram-device-spins-your-bits-right-round-bab/

IBM's prototype STT MRAM device spins your bits right round, baby, right round

If you're a frequent reader you're surely well aware of the potential of spin torque transfer memory, or STT-MRAM, and how spin-polarized magnetic currents (and the electrons they love to caress) might hold the potential to revolutionize storage as we know it. If you can't get your noggin around the concepts, know the potential: a new type of memory that will be cheaper, faster, and more efficient than current RAM, while also having the flash-like ability to retain data without power. IBM, who first floated the idea last year, is now sharing some more details about its prototype device that, while only able to store 4Kb of data (roughly half the text of this post in ASCII), is said to be able to retain that for 10 years. There's still no word on when we might be able to buy some of the stuff for our home computers, or when it'll be able to hold something a little more impressive (like maybe a whole post), but we're guessing it'll be well into the next decade before your Three 6 Mafia MP3 collection starts ridin' spinning electrons that don't stop.

[Via MRAM-Info]

Filed under: Storage

IBM's prototype STT MRAM device spins your bits right round, baby, right round originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec ! 2008 09: 49:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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VIA's Trinity Platform brings much-needed religious imagery to small form factor media acceleration

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/vias-trinity-platform-brings-much-needed-religious-imagery-to-s/

Not to be outdone by NVIDIA's move to accelerate netbook graphics with its new Ion platform, VIA just debuted its "Trinity" platform, which pairs a VIA Nano chip with a Media System Processor like the VIA VX800 and a discrete S3 Graphics PCI Express GPU. VIA is aiming this lineup at netbooks and mini-PCs, and are planning to power DirectX 10.1, HD video, Blu-ray playback and Windows Vista. Sounds fine and dandy to us, but unfortunately, like with NVIDIA, we're at the mercy of the manufacturers who will actually be stuffing this into their product -- and they've sure seemed gun-shy with Nano so far. Hopefully this can change some of that, Christian Bale is only half as badass at 15 fps QVGA.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, HDTV, Laptops

VIA's Trinity Platform brings much-needed religious imagery to small form factor media acceleration originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ASUS Galaxy 7 touchphone gets manhandled

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/asus-galaxy-7-touchphone-gets-manhandled/

Photos of the ASUS Galaxy 7 touchscreen phone have been popping up for months now, and due to a resemblance a certain Samsung device, it's been referred to more than once as an "Omnia-killer" (of course, we understand the urge, but we have to ask if it's even worth the effort). Now it looks like the folks over at Mobile Review have their hands on the thing, and they've been kind enough to share their thoughts. Right off the bat, they were disappointed to learn that plans for a 800 MHz processor had been scrapped in lieu of the far less exciting 528 MHz Qualcom MS7200A, but they then go on to give props to the phone's Glide interface (on par with TouchFlo3D, it seems) and its build quality -- the handset itself seems sturdy, well considered, and it even integrates some leather for that touch of "class" that only a dead animal can bring. Other than that, it's pretty much what you were expecting: a WinMob phone with a 5 megapixel camera, a 3.5-inch (800 x 480) display, 512MB memory, 4GB storage and a microSD slot. The phone should be available early next year.

[Via Wmpoweruser]

Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds

ASUS Galaxy 7 touchphone gets manhandled originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 gets (mostly) official

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/nvidia-geforce-gtx-295-gets-mostly-official/

Well, here's a bit of a surprise. While most folks were only expecting NVIDIA to announce its GeForce GTX 295 graphics card at CES, the company has now come out and gotten official with it today, although it's still holding back on a few details until the big show. As rumored earlier this month, the card packs two 55-nanometer GT200 GPUs, a staggering 1,792MB of video memory, a total of 480 stream processors, and a not-too-ridiculous TDP rating of 289 watts. What's more, while they faced some restrictions from NVIDIA, the folks at bit-tech were able to run a few benchmarks on the card and found that it does indeed seem to live up to its promise of besting ATI's top-end Radeon HD 4870 X2. That appears to partly back up those early numbers that leaked out yesterday, although bit-tech is quick to point out that the card doesn't deliver the same performance leap seen when AMD rolled out its card. Still, they do seem to think that NVIDIA has a winner on its hands, assuming that it actually manages to meet (or even beat) the 4870 in terms of price. Hit up the link below for bit-tech's complete numbers, plus a few more.

Read - HotHardware, "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Specifications Unveiled"
Read - bit-tech.net, "First Look: Nvidia's GeForce GTX 295 graphics card"
Read - Guru 3D, "GeForce GTX 295 Preview"
Read - PC Perspective, "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 Preview - Performance King Returns"

Filed under: Gaming

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 gets (mostly) official originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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BlackBerry Storm buyer's remorse? You're not alone!

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/blackberry-storm-buyers-remorse-youre-not-alone/

We tried to warn you, but you just didn't want to hear it. "How bad could it be?" you muttered to yourself, as you handed over a summer's worth of lawn mowing money for a shiny new BlackBerry Storm. Pretty bad, as it turns out. Based on a pile of anecdotal evidence and hearsay, numbers as high as a 50% return rate have been bandied about. The software update certainly helped the situation, but there are still a lot of disappointed thumbs out there. So, how'd it go down on your end?

Update: So Verizon has hit up Boy Genius Report to clarify (well, maybe clarify) the situation: "The Storm has the lowest return rate of any of our PDAs and at this point in its life cycle, it has the lowest return rate of any PDA we currently sell." That kinda sounds like doublespeak to us -- if the Storm was really so thoroughly un-returned, couldn't they have said it in simpler terms? -- but that's about all we've got to go on at the moment.

Filed under: Cellphones

BlackBerry Storm buyer's remorse? You're not alone! originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 11:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Parrot intros Philippe Starck-designed Zimku wireless speakers

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/18/parrot-intros-philippe-starck-designed-zimku-wireless-speakers/

We're not sure if he's been taking notes from fellow countryman Jean-Michel Jarre or not, but it looks like prolific designer Philippe Starck now has a tower-style speaker system to call his own. Considering that Starck has paired up with the wireless-minded folks at Parrot, however, there's a few more surprises in store with these -- namely, built-in WiFi and Bluetooth to accommodate your laptop or cellphone of choice. You will still get an iPod / iPhone dock, of course, along with a remote control (also designed by Starck), and some newfangled NXT technology that apparently "revolutionizes traditional acoustic design." All that comes at an expectedly premium price, however, with the speakers set to run $1,500 when they're released sometime in the spring.

[Via Phone Arena]

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Parrot intros Philippe Starck-designed Zimku wireless speakers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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intel i7 vdimm topics collection

http://www.augustinefou.com/search?q=vdimm

vdimm - voltage of the RAM memory modules, usually tweaked by overclockers to achieve higher speed and performance

i7 - the brand name of the new Intel microprocessors. The microarchitecture of this new generation of processors has the memory controller built into the processor.

the "Core i7 vdimm issue" talks about the fact that the voltage of the RAM modules cannot (and should not) be tweaked independently of the CPU voltage (vcore). Otherwise if the vdimm is raised too high and the RAM is "fried" the CPU will be "fried" too. This was not the case in previous microarchitectures because the memory controller was NOT built into the CPU itself.

AirSet Creates "Cloud Computers" for Your Data [Screenshot Tour]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/_ZES3StaLNU/airset-creates-cloud-computers-for-your-data

Free web desktop AirSet probably fits into your working habits better than most other desktops, because it runs like a multi-tasking computer and hooks into your existing data pretty tightly.

Our ingenious (and Firefox-obsessed) intern AsianAngel loves AirSet, and let us know that it recently rolled out new features and updates to the "cloud computer," so we signed up, took some screenshots, and shared them below.

While you're signing up for AirSet, you'll be encouraged to not only make one for yourself, but create multiple "web computers" for sharing. AirSet lets you fling open the doors to other AirSet users, or the whole web, on almost all of your documents and published items. So if you want to create a landing page for your corporate softball team, complete with music, pictures, a calendar, and links to league rules, it's totally possible with AirSet. You can also collaborate on documents and share notes with friends by adding their email addresses into the group—all your own AirSet correspondence goes to whatever email you signed up with.

Once you get through signing up, you'll arrive at a (mostly) blank desktop. You launch apps by clicking any icons/"favorites" you might have placed there already, or from the Start-Menu-like launcher in the lower left. Here's what your desktop looks like with the "Albums" tool running to view and share photos (click for full-size image):

Take a look at the bottom-left corner, where the AirSet menu (pictured as open at left) and a taskbar-like switcher are located. AirSet moves surprisingly quickly between the windows you keep open, so if you want to swing over to editing your calendar while waiting for some photos to upload, you can do it. The whole thing seems to load in as a Java applet, or at least a heavily designed JavaScript/Java combination, so your mileage will vary with your available memory. Hitting the button in the bottom left-most corner switches you between your "computers," so you can keep your private work data and shared materials separate.

One of the really neat features, familiar to any fan of Firefox 3, is that almost anything around your "web" computer can be bookmarked for your "Favorites" menu (the star icon next to your AirSet button), or placed on your desktop and re-arranged however you'd like. In its interface alone, in face, AirSet is fairly advanced on its competitors—each window gets its own Windows-like minimize/close buttons.

AirSet can also be set up to send alerts, timers, and notifications for calendar events, document changes, or other events to your email or mobile phone. Speaking of calendars, I had no problem importing three of my four Google Calendar subscriptions into AirSet (the failure was a group-shared calendar I don't own, so somewhat understandable). Here's a typical calendar layout:

Finally, the "lists" function adds a little GTD-ish task management into AirSet. The Quick Add box works fine for creating new lists and items, and each can get their own alert, notes, or be bookmarked to your star menu.

As I'm getting ready to spend a holiday week working away from my home office, AirSet seems like a pretty neat solution for getting productive without having to hijack a relative's computer. But tell us what you think of this free "cloud computer" in the comments.

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