IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 08/01/2009

OCZ shows off Apex series SSDs at CES
Already a serious player in the solid state drive market, considering the number of models it offers, OCZ is promising more flashy fun with its new Apex series SSDs. Said to be replacing the Core line-up of drives, the Apex family will come in 30, 60, 120 and 250GB capacities, provide read and write speeds of up to 230 MB/s and 160 MB/s, have SATA 3.0 Gbps interfaces and a MTBF (mean time before failure) of 1.5 million hours.

While the Apex drives have not been priced, they should be quite attractive when they reach stores. Unfortunately, the retail date is also unknown.

Picture courtes of DailyTech.

Phenom II reviews start flooding the web
Later today AMD is expected to make the officially announcement regarding its first 45nm desktop processor, the Phenom II but, since it gave the green light, reviews of the new CPUs have already begun to go online. Part of the Dragon platform, the AM2+ (AM3 coming soon too) Phenom II CPUs launched today are the 3.0 GHz Phenom II X4 940 Black Edition (priced at $275) and the 2.8 GHz X4 920 ($235) quad-cores. Both featuring a 125W TDP, the chips have 6MB of L3 cache and quite a few enhancements (in addition to the 45nm process) other their predecessors which are aimed at taking the fight back to Intel.

To find out whether or not the Phenom II delivers check out the articles posted

@ [H] Enthusiast
@ TweakTown
@ Guru3D
@ The Tech Report
@ Neoseeker
@ Hexus
@ Hardware Canucks
@ bit-tech
@ HotHardware
@ Tom's Hardware
@ Elite Bastards
@ ExtremeTech

Photo courtesy of The Tech Report.

Sony officially introduces the VAIO P 8-inch notebook
Teased up and leaked in the last few weeks, Sony's newest creation, the uber-portable VAIO P notebook has finally been announced. Weighting some 635 grams, the P notebook features an 8-inch LED backlit LCD screen with a resolution of 1600 x 768 pixels, and comes in five colors - onyx black, classic black, crystal white, garnet red and emerald green.

Equipped with a 1.33 GHz CPU, the portable PC boasts 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, GPS, a webcam, and a battery life of up to 4 hours with the standard battery (8 hours with a larger capacity battery). Pre-loaded with Windows Vista, the VAIO P is also provided with instant-mode that will enable users to access music, video, photos and the web in a matter of seconds.

"The VAIO P Series Lifestyle PC is your portal to the world, delivering entertainment and computing in a head-turning device that's small enough to put in your pocket," said Mike Abary, senior vice president of VAIO product marketing at Sony Electronics. "Designed for the fashionista in all of us, it's the ideal companion."

Starting out at $900, the VAIO P is now available for pre-order and will hit stores next month.

AMD provides new Catalyst hotfix, Windows 7 driver
AMD has yesterday added two new graphics drivers to its Radeon support page. The first is an updated released for Windows 7, most likely for the Beta version, which comes with support for the Radeon HD 2000, 3000 and 4000 series cards and the AMD 780G, 780V and 790GX chipset. It is available here in both 32 and 64bit flavors.

The second addition is yet another hotfix based on the Catalyst 8.12 which is supposed to improve DirectX 10 performance of systems with multi-core CPUs and resolve a blue screen problem which appeared when using two Radeon HD 4850 cards in CrossFireX. This one is here and is only for Windows Vista (32 and 64bit).

First SATA 6 Gbps drives to come in Q2
Developed by the Serial ATA International Organization (SATA-IO) for quite a bit, the third-generation SATA standard is expected to be introduced as soon as Q2 when its final specifications and the first products that support it are set to arrive. The main plus of the update will be the doubling of the maximum supported transfer speed, from the 3.0 Gbps of the currently standard revision, to 6.0 Gbps.

Backwards compatible, SATA 6 Gbps is expected to first be adopted by solid state drives, with hard drives set to get it just a bit later. Those who want 6 Gbps now can pick up a Seagate Savvio 15K.2 HDD which comes with a SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) 2.0 interface.

Eye-Fi to add YouTube upload feature to its WiFi SD cards
While not bringing any new product with it at CES, Eye-Fi is attending the Las Vegas show so as to demo the a new functionality for its wireless SD cards, video uploading directly to YouTube. Enabling users to put their SD and HD videos online right after making them, the feature has been encouraged by the fact that a lot of clips are made with point-and-shoot cameras.

"We're aiming to do for video what weأ¢آ€آ™ve already done for photos: provide the easiest, simplest way to save and share your digital memories," said Jef Holove, CEO for Eye-Fi. "Our wireless technology makes it effortless to upload videos to YouTube using the digital camera you already have, without the fuss of special software. You won't need to find a USB cable or even turn on your computer to get your memories in front of one of the largest audiences on the Web."

Unfortunately, Eye-Fi has not provided a timeline regarding the introduction of the video upload feature.

Toshiba delivers new Qosmio gaming laptop
Ready to show off a heap of products at CES, Toshiba has now introduced a new 17-inch Qosmio-branded gaming laptop. Featuring a reddish theme, the Qosmio X305-Q725 has a 17-inch TruBrite display with a top resolution of 1680 x 1050 pixels and can be equipped with a Core 2 Quad processor, a GeForce 9800M GTX graphics card with 1GB of dedicated memory, 4GB of RAM, plus a 64GB solid state drive and a 320GB HDD.

Also boasting premium Harman Kardon stereo speakers, and a DVD writer the X305-Q725 comes with Windows Vista and has a recommended price tag of $2,699.99.

DivX 7 makes its debut
Still going strong, the well-known video software DivX has now reached a new milestone with the release of its seventh version. Based on the H.264 video compression standard, the new DivX baby will let you play and create (only for Pro version) for high-quality digital video at a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Available to Windows users, the DivX 7 package includes the DivX Player, the DivX Community Codec, the DivX Web Player, the DivX Converter and the DivX Pro Codec, the last two components being provided as 15-day trials for the DivX for Windows versions and in full in DivX Pro.

"The release of DivX 7 for Windows marks a true milestone for digital video users everywhere," said Kevin Hell, CEO of DivX, Inc. "Eight years ago, the first DivX video software helped create the market for high-quality video on the PC. We then worked with a global ecosystem of licensees to extend that support beyond the PC to a variety of devices so that consumers all over the world could enjoy their videos anytime and anywhere."

To get DivX 7 for free, or DivX Pro 7 for $19.99 visit this page.

SDXC card format promises 2TB in storage, 300 MB/s transfer speeds
While we think the number of memory card standards available today is large enough, we can't refrain from getting excited over the SD Association's announcement of the SDXC (eXtended Capacity) specification. According to the SDA, the SDXC open standard has been developed in response to both storage and speeds needs and, because of that, it will see to the release of cards that provide up to 2TB of space and read/write speeds of 104 MB/s (later this year), with future models being planned to reach a maximum of 300 MB/s.

"SDXC combines a higher capacity roadmap with faster transfer speeds as a means to exploit NAND flash memory technology as a compelling choice for portable memory storage and interoperability," said Joseph Unsworth, research director, NAND Flash Semiconductors, at Gartner. "With industry support, SDXC presents manufacturers with the opportunity to kindle consumer demand for more advanced handset features and functionality in consumer electronics behind the ubiquitous SD interface."

Making use of Microsoft's exFAT file system, the SDXC will have its 1.0 specs released later this quarter. No word on when the first cards will arrive but we're hoping it will be sooner rather than later.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 08/01/2009

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