Ladybird GTX 285 Review
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Comic Books Coming to the iPad
With the successful launch of the iPad in the books, news will now be centered around the apps that will find themselves on the iPad. One such app will allow users to read comic books from 50 publishers, including Marvel. That app is being developed by Panelfly. Publishers will receive a large portion of the money obtained through this app, which will sell comics from $1-$10. However, Marvel Comics has already released its own app on April 3, which is free to download. There are currently 500 comics available to be purchased through the app, at the price of $1.99 each. DC Comics currently has no plans for the iPad, but is said to be looking into it. The comic book industry hopes that the iPad will help revive a once strong selling product that has seen sales decline in recent history. Marvel is also looking into developing an app for upcoming tablets based on Android.
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ASUS Xonar Xense Gaming Soundcard Looks Promising
The guys over at VR-Zone have had the opportunity to take a closer look at the Xonar Xense soundcard from ASUS, a joint venture between the company and Sennheiser that will come as part of a soundcard/headset (PC350) kit. The fact that Sennheiser have been involved with the project means will be the expectation of a certain quality of sound. If the hardware is anything to go by it could deliver something special for gamers.
The card takes a different approach from some previous ASUS cards (such as the Essence STX that impressed us so much when reviewed last year). Rather than RCA connectors, there is a DVI port that will drive multi-channel audio (7.1) via a dongle, though you still get 6.3mm audio jacks for headphones and microphones. The board boasts separate power for its analog circuitry and low ESR capacitors. Also present are Texas Instruments and Cirrus Logic DACs and a Texas Instruments headphone driver. There are two socketed DIP OPAMPs (JRC 24110s), which allows them to be easily swapped out for upgrades / user preference. As with the STX, relays are also employed and the whole thing is based on a C-Media Chipset (model not specified).
This is one card I am looking forward to hitting review benches. Pricing and release date are currently unknown.
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Updated WD VelociRaptor Coming Later this Quarter
Western Digital's VelociRaptor replaced its Raptor series of HDDs in 2008. It cut the form factor down to 2.5" and pushed the capacity up to 300GB and still gives you about the closest thing you can get to SSD performance from a traditional hard drive today (at least in terms of access times).
The updated VelociRaptor will be launching later this quarter and keeps the 10,00RPM motor and 2.5" form factor. You will also still have the option of the "IcePack" 3.5" mounting frame (which may again prove redundant unless you haven't got somewhere to mount 2.5" drives) and have capacity options of 150, 300, 450 and 600GB. The interface gets bumped to SATA 6.0Gbps, along with a claimed latency of 3ms and sustained transfer speeds of 145MB/s. There is currently no word on what you can expect to pay for the drives once they hit retail (VR-Zone is claiming that will be by June).
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Prefab Gives the Sourceless Source Codes, Kind Of
If you've ever modified the source code of an open source program, you know that it is possible to make the program work better for you, or perform better with certain systems. Unfortunately this is not possible with most programs as the designers do not want their competitors to plagiarize their hard work. Programmers at the University of Washington have announced that they have found away around this problem, and have given details about what it can and will do.
Prefab, as this program is called, does not actually give you full access to the source code itself, but rather hijacks the pixels displayed on the screen for your use. When a user is typing a document on Microsoft Word, they may want to listen to a couple of songs from their iTunes library. Without Prefab, the user would have to click back and forth between the two windows and generally slow down the work being done. If the user is using Prefab, they could simply add a couple of iTunes control buttons to the Word toolbar and continue on with their work. While Prefab can be used without breaking copyright laws on ones computer, the user would be unable to lawfully share the edited version with friends or other people online, or in disk format.
The creators of Prefab have not announced when or even if the program will be released to the public, and it does not yet have a set price.
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iPad Launches; Sells an Estimated 700,000 on First Day
As we have seen time and again, the hype surrounding Apple product launches starts months before any hardware hits stores. In the case of the iPad, we had been hearing rumors and supposed specifications long before the device even had a name (and before it was confirmed as even existing). Launch day finally hit over the weekend, with many people queueing at Apple stores to get their hands on an iPad, while many others pre-ordered online to have them shipped out on April 3rd. Certain analysts are now predicting that as many as 700,000 iPads could have been sold during the launch on Saturday, while iSuppli reckons Apple could shift upwards of 7 million devices this year alone.
There has been a case of iPad fever in the tech media (as well as plenty more from mainstream sources) and now that the dust is beginning to settle, it seems like a good time to pick out some of the more interesting articles from the sea that have been written. Check out the links below, or if you have been finding the whole furore rather tiresome, then ignore them and be thankful our newsfeed hasn't been chock full of this stuff.
- Gizmodo's iPad App Review Marathon
- iFixit's iPad Tear Down
- Crysis running on iPad.. Sort Of
- iPad Jailbreak action already
- PC World's iPad Stress Tests
iPad Reviews:
Update: Looks like that 700,000 estimate was a little (or a lot) overboard, with Apple itself saying that it moved "over 300,000" iPads up to midnight on Saturday.
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