IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 15/08/2009

Catalyst 9.8 released
As promised, AMD has brought the Catalyst 9.8 drivers at QuakeCon and delivered them three days ahead of the 'official schedule'. Set to become available on game.amd.com on Monday, the Catalyst 9.8 comes with support for the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000 and HD 4000 series cards, provides OpenGL 3.1 extension support, and features the following performance updates:

- Battleforge DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 performance improves of up to 50% with the largest gains in configurations using ATI CrossFireX technology.
- Company of Heroes DirectX 10 performance improves of up to 77%.
- Crysis DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 10% and quad mode performance improves of up to 34%.
- Crysis Warhead DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 7% and quad mode performance improves of up to 69%.
- Far Cry 2 DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 50% and quad mode performance improves of up to 88%.
- Tom Clancyأ¢آ€آ™s H.A.W.X. DirectX 10/DirectX 10.1 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in dual mode improves of up to 40% and with quad mode performance improving of up to 60%.
- UnigineTropics OpenGL performance improvements of up to 20%.
- UnigineTropics DirectX 10 performance of ATI CrossFireX technology in quad mode improvements of up to 20%.
- World in Conflict DirectX 10 performance improvements of up to by 10%.

To download Catalyst 9.8 simply follow the links below.

- Catalyst 9.8 (Windows XP 32bit)
- Catalyst 9.8 (Windows XP 64bit)
- Catalyst 9.8 (Windows Vista/7 32bit)
- Catalyst 9.8 (Windows Vista/7 64bit)

AMD to launch its first DirectX 11 cards on September 10
Currently being showcased to some lucky few at QuakeCon, AMD's Evergreen family of DirectX 11-supporting graphics cards will finally make its debut next month. According to the reddish slide below the Sunnyvale-based company launch its first DX11 hardware on Thursday, September 10, more than a month before the commercial release of the DirectX 11-equipped Windows 7.

Not many details are given about the event so it may only be an announcement (soft launch), with actual cards hitting stores later in September or in early October. Still, pretty much whatever happens, AMD should be the first to deliver DX11-compliant hardware, leaving Nvidia to catch up later in Q4 or in early 2010.

Picture courtesy of TechPulse 360.

Scythe unveils the Kro Craft speakers and Kama Bay AMP Kro amplifier
Scythe EU has now revealed the latest addition to its offer, the Kro Craft 2.0 speaker system, the Kama Bay AMP Kro amplifier and the Kro Craft Speaker PLUS which includes both the speakers and the amp. Aimed at those looking for an affordable speaker system for music listening, the Kro Craft features two speakers enclosed in a black wood chassis - each with a 100 mm aluminum concave woofer and a 25mm tweeter, that have gold-plated connectors, a maximum input of (2x)20W, an impedance of 8 Ohms, and are able to cover a frequency range between 58 Hz and 20 kHz.

The Kama Bay AMP Kro measures 152 x 113 x 41 mm and weights 2.9kg, packs a a Yamaha YDA138(D-3) IC, also comes with gold-plated connectors and has a maximum output of 2 x 10W.

Set to start shipping next week (from August 19), the Kro Craft Speaker and Bay Amp Kro are expected to cost $55 / 42 Euro, while the Kro Craft Speaker PLUS will go for $100 / 79 Euro (prices without VAT).

French teen attacked by exploding iPhone
In France a teenager has been injured by an explosive variety of Apples incredibly popular world-over iPhone 3G handset. A little over a week ago Apple was accused of attempting to suppress a story about an exploding iPod Touch, but now according to the AFP, a French woman contacted Apple after her son was hit by flying shards of iPhone glass, which exploded from the iPhone following an odd hissing sound that had been building up.

"My son was frightened but he did not lose an eye" she said to the AFP.

Just earlier this month a man in Liverpool in the United Kingdom reported to The Times of London that he had contacted Apple regarding his daughter's exploding iPod Touch, and that they had offered to refund the price of the device as long as he signed a waving confidentiality agreement to prevent him from discussing the issue.

At the same time, a recent investigation has shown that at very least 15 people have complained of fire and burns from iPods and iPhones alike - information that was culled from an 800-page Consumer Product Safety Commission document - a document that Apple's lawyers also attempted to suppress.

Twitter updates to bring easy re-tweet process
Twitter's blog states that they are now working on an innovative automation process to make re-tweeting easier and smoother than before - enabling more comprehensive access to information spanning over the micro-blogging site.

Co-founder and owner of the website, Biz Stone, wrote yesterday that they intend to "formalise" the whole process of a repeat tweet so that users don't need to copy and paste information.

"Retweeting is a great example of Twitter teaching us what it wants to be," he says. "The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact and the more efficient dissemination of information across the entire Twitter ecosystem is something we very much want to support. That's why we're planning to formalise retweeting by officially adding it to our platform and Twitter.com."

The new system, which is still being finalised, is designed to basically offer users a 're-tweet' button to click, and to counter the spam that the easy to use system might generate, the ability to turn off re-tweets from people that they are following.

"Sharing our thoughts before launching means developers will have the opportunity to prepare their applications," he added in closing. "In a few weeks or so we'll launch the feature on our web site and because app developers had a chance to prepare, it should become available across most of the Twitter ecosystem about the same time."

FileZilla version 3.2.7 software update
FileZilla is an FTP program for file uploading and downloading to and from your FTP site, server, or host. The program lets you transfer files and navigate among folders, Web sites, and your computer. This software enables you to perform multiple file transfers simultaneously.

Changes include:
- Make external address resolver IPv6 aware, resolve correct address type on hosts both with working IPv4 as well as IPv6
- Bumped minimum required GnuTLS version to 2.8.3
- Keep URLs copied to clipboard even after FZ gets close

Website: Filezilla Project
Download: FileZilla 3.2.7

Apple directors meeting to discuss Schmidt's replacement?
The replacement of Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, on Apple's board has yet to be decided, but it has been reported that the directors are likely to discuss the matter at the start of the coming week.

The Wall Street Journal are reporting, citing a source familiar with the matter, that the Apple's directors have scheduled a meeting on Tuesday, although noone at the company will respond to requests to confirm the details.

Schmidt has stepped down from Apple's board as government regulators had expressed concern that the two companies could be colluding, especially with the revelation that Google is now producing both phone and desktop operating system software.

The Federal Trade Commission were still not quite satisfied with Schmidt's departure, and are continuing to scrutinize the relationship between the two companies.

One more Opera 10 snapshot up for grabs
Keeping up well stocked on Opera 10 builds, the Desktop Team has now released a new snapshot of their upcoming desktop browser. This super-fresh version includes:

User Interface

- Improved margins and padding in the Turbo dialog
- Minor changes to Visual Tabs
- Minor changes to opera:x, error and fraud pages look
- Improvements to tab states and positioning for Standard Skin
- Fixed an issue with toolbar updates
- Spelling checker: Make sure the language ID is printed in the brackets on the auto install dictionary dialog
- Fixed a number of voice related crashers on exit
- Fixed Bug DSK-213883 (Crash on opening address bar dropdown)
- Fixed Bug DSK-252622 (Opera crashes when navigating back and forth to a form with open input suggester)
- Fixed Bug DSK-258403 (Links not disabled on Navigation bar)
- Fixed Bug DSK-261105 (Insufficient space for translations in Turbo dialog)
- Fixed Bug DSK-261155 (Gradient background image behind close button on tabs no longer needed)

Core

- Fixed some deficiencies in the EcmaScript allocator/garbage collector
- Fixed Bug DSK-259154 (Crash when closing tab)
- Fixed Bug DSK-252291 (Crash when opening the HTML5 spec page)

Opera Mail

- Fixed Bug DSK-233373 (Marking message as read before body is downloaded does not show body)
- Fixed Bug DSK-258118 (Unchecking "import messages" in mail import dialog still causes the messages to be processed)
- Fixed Bug DSK-260934 (Opera does not fetch all e-mail addresses from a header using iso-8859-15 encoding)
- Fixed Bug DSK-261112 (Resetting HTML compose toolbar makes font list unusable)

Opera Unite

- New Home Service design
- Change to status message in Home Service
- Improved the flexibility of the reconnection strategy
- Fixes to Home service and ASD
- Fixed styling for the status message on the non-admin page and added a message when there is no status set by the owner
- Fixed Bug CORE-21620 (Webserver crash)
- Further fix to Fixed Bug DSK-257931 (Add visibility of Unite users on the local network)
- Fixed Bug DSK-261243 (UPnP requests even though Unite and service discovery is turned off)

Windows

- Fixed Bug DSK-173244 (Cannot print selection, printer not accessible)
- Fixed Bug DSK-260452 (Alt+Shift focuses menu bar instead of switching languages)

Mac

- Updates to Unite dock icon
- Improvements to tabs states and positions on Mac Native skin
- Fixed Bug DSK-259542 (Plugin crash)

Unix

- Fixed Bug DSK-256020 (The leading '/' is stripped when draging and droping files from UNIX file managers with Qt4 builds)
- Fixed Bug DSK-259412 (Crash on closing undocked Dragonfly window)
- Fixed Bug DSK-259949 (Crash related to menus)
- Fixed Bug DSK-260901 (Unable to edit source after detaching Source View tab in Qt4 builds)
- Fixed Bug DSK-261040 (Lock tab locks active tab no matter which one you rightclick)
- Fixed Bug DSK-261262 (A large box shows as the background for Opera's tray icon when the systray is hidden or unavailable)

... and is available for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Next Office for Mac coming in 2010, to include Outlook
Good news for Mac users as Microsoft plans to release a new version of the Office suite for them by the end of 2010, less than a year after the next Office for PCs comes about. Office 2008 for Mac debuted on January 15, 2008 so Microsoft is moving at a higher pace with the new version's development but that doesn't mean it is rushing it, quite on the contrary actually, as quite a few interesting updates are prepared for the upcoming release.

From what's known, the upcoming Office suite is set to include Visual Basic support, something that was missing when Office 2008 for Mac came about, and, more importantly, it will feature the Outlook "personal information manager." Outlook for Mac is set to take Entourage's place in next year's release but users shouldn't see any loss in functionality from this switch.

As for PC users, they will be getting Office 2010 sometime in the first half of the coming year.

Saturday, August 15, 2009

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 15/08/2009

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