ROCCAT Kone[+] gaming mouse unveiled
ROCCAT has unveiled the Kone[+] gaming mouse, with a 'revolutionary' 6,000 DPI Pro-Aim sensor.
The ROCCAT Kone[+] max customization gaming mouse boasts a 1,000Hz polling and some nifty tech to pick up what it terms 'lightning fast' mouse movements.
"Thanks to the Tracking & Distance Control Unit (TDCU), which is now integrated in the laser sensor, the ROCCAT Kone[+] can also control lift-off distance as well as fine tune the sensor to suit the mousepad, resulting in optimal tracking," says the German company's release.
The mouse utilises an EasyShift[+] Button, which works a little like a shift key on a keyboard and allows you to trigger different functions with the same buttons.
EasyAim
There is also a button that, when held, switches the mouse to a pre-set DPI – making that tricky sniper shot all the easier.
Last up, ROCCAT has kept its popular 4 multicolour LED system to let your mouse pulsate and embarrass all its less colourful friends.
The mouse will be unveiled at IFA and will cost €79.99, with a UK price likely to be around £56.
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Updated: BBC's homepage suffers outage
UPDATED The main page of the BBC suffered a notable outage today, with the problem quickly becoming a popular discussion on social networking sites. BBC.co.uk is one of the mainstays of the UK internet and, although the rest of the BBC news sites remained up, the main page was unavailable for 15 minutes.
Commenters on Twitter immediately began to ask if Armageddon had happened (we don't think so), if the site had been hacked or if major changes to the page were scheduled.
Surprising
But the general consensus was of surprise that the service was unavailable, with the BBC priding itself on dealing with major traffic spikes.
Commenting on the story on TechRadar, Matt Phillips from the BBC comms team explained that the outage was quarter of an hour long and caused by a "failed service upgrade".
In Twitter terms, however, 15 minutes is a lifetime. Sort of...
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Updated: BBC's homepage suffers outage
UPDATED The main page of the BBC suffered a notable outage today, with the problem quickly becoming a popular discussion on social networking sites. BBC.co.uk is one of the mainstays of the UK internet and, although the rest of the BBC news sites remained up, the main page was unavailable for 15 minutes.
Commenters on Twitter immediately began to ask if Armageddon had happened (we don't think so), if the site had been hacked or if major changes to the page were scheduled.
Surprising
But the general consensus was of surprise that the service was unavailable, with the BBC priding itself on dealing with major traffic spikes.
Commenting on the story on TechRadar, Matt Phillips from the BBC comms team explained that the outage was quarter of an hour long and caused by a "failed service upgrade".
In Twitter terms, however, 15 minutes is a lifetime. Sort of...
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Yahoo brings Premier League football highlights to the web
Yahoo has announced the launch of its Premier League highlights service in the UK, offering around five minutes' worth of video clips for every game played.Yahoo is going big with the new service, putting a multi-million pound advertising campaign behind the online footie highlights reel.
The highlights will go online just after midnight every Monday and there will also be 'best-of' packages available, offering things like the best goals of the league and best saves – something which won't be featuring either Manuel Almunia or Pepe Reina.
Online footie
"The way fans access Barclays Premier League action is growing ever more diverse and sophisticated," explained Richard Scudamore, CEO of the Premier League.
"The online highlights package is an important medium for supporters of all our clubs to be able to follow match action.
"Yahoo has a great reputation and presence in new media and we are pleased to welcome them as a Premier League rights holder.
"I am sure they will do a fantastic job in reaching the widest possible online audience over the next three seasons."
To see the highlights for yourself, point your browser to http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/premier-league/video.
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Apple planning cool new tech for iPhone 5?
Apple has hired a new chap to deal with Mobile Commerce, and it just so happens that he has years of near field communications experience.For the uninitiated, NFC is used in swipe cards and can be used for anything from paying for goods (like the Barclaycard PayWave) to tickets (Oyster cards) and even to open your car.
The fact Apple has employed Benjamin Vigier as Product Manager of Mobile Commerce doesn't necessarily mean the iPhone 5 will have the technology in, but he's well placed to implement it should that come about.
Patent
The reason for the conjecture of his role comes as earlier this year Apple applied for a patent on a device that would contain NFC technology, highlighted by Engadget.
Vigier was product manager at mFoundry, where he developed applications like the PayPal Mobile service and a mobile payments system for Starbucks.
So even if he doesn't make your iPhone 5 the cool new way to beep around town, fingers crossed Apple will be working on even more ways to use your iPhone to make life easier.
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In Depth: Why is my CPU running at 100%?
The average Windows PC is permanently busy, constantly juggling system resources between the 50 or more processes it's running at any one time. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, a rogue application will demand all your processor's attention, and before you know it the process is running your processor at 100% all of the time.
This will feel like a major disaster, especially if you've unsaved work in other applications. They will be very unresponsive, it'll be difficult to switch to them, and even if you manage it then little will seem to happen. Just redrawing the screen may take an age. So your first step should be to try and regain control over your system, reducing the impact of the resource-hogging app and allowing access to other programs again.
CHECK TASKS: Task Manager will quickly highlight the resource-grabbing application
Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to launch Task Manager, then, click the Processes tab and choose "Show processes from all users". You should now see everything running on your PC at the moment. Then click the CPU column header to sort by CPU usage, and look for the process that's the most demanding. (No CPU column? Click View > Select Columns, check the "CPU Usage" box and click OK.)
Once you've discovered the offending process, right-click it and select Set Priority > Low. This tells Windows that just about everything else you're running is more deserving of CPU attention, and may make a very small difference in system responsiveness.
Now right-click the process again, select Set Affinity, and clear all but one of the CPU boxes. The "Processor Affinity" setting tells Windows which CPU cores are allowed to run a particular application, and so by restricting it to one you'll free up the others for the rest of your programs.
BRING IT ROUND: Blocking your rogue process from all but one CPU will quickly bring it into line
The results should be visible immediately, with CPU usage dropping and other programs becoming usable again. Switch to any applications that contain unsaved work, or that you need to be sure are closed properly (your email client, say), save any documents and close them down. And then close everything else non-essential, to simplify your system: all running applications, any system tray icons that are surplus to requirements, the lot.
Malware hunt
One common cause of high CPU utilisation is a malware infection, and so it's important to rule that out first. Run a full system scan with your antivirus package, right now, to see what it turns up. (You don't have one? Download something like AVG Free [free.avg.com] - this isn't going away on its own.)
Your antivirus tool may give you a clean bill of health, but be careful - you can't trust this entirely. It could be that you've been infected by something brand new. This happened to us recently, an instance of svchost.exe began using way too much CPU time, our antivirus package found nothing but we uncovered the malware ourselves. And you may be able to do the same.
To assist in your malware hunting, download and install a copy of Process Hacker [processhacker.sourceforge.net]. Launch the program and you'll see it's basically a more powerful version of Task Manager. Locate the process that's using all your CPU time, and make a note of its Process ID (PID).
HEAVY LOAD: Process Manager provides in-depth data about everything running on your PC
Now click the Network tab, which shows all the network and internet connections that may be open right now. Pay particular attention to any with an entry in the Remote Address column that looks like an internet address (that is, not something local like "127.0.0.1"). If you find your buggy process has a connection open to an address that you don't recognise, and you're not sure why, then that could mean it's malware.
Switch back to the Processes tab, double-click the dubious process and click the Memory tab. Now click String Scan, and Process Hacker will scan every byte of the processes' RAM, looking for text strings: web addresses, file names, messages, whatever they might be. Scroll down the list of everything it finds, looking for anything suspicious. We can't tell you exactly what this might be, but in the case of our svchost.exe infection, for instance, we found a URL something like "www.site.ru/newbot.php": fairly conclusive evidence that we'd been hit by a brand new specimen of malware.
FIND MALWARE: Process Hacker can search a process's RAM, helping to identify malware
If, at the end of this, you also find signs of malware, then you've probably found the cause of your "CPU 100% problem". And the priority is to get it cleaned up.
Try your antivirus package again in a day or two, when maybe an update will help to recognise it, or perhaps download the trial versions of some other packages (though don't install more than one at a time). And in the meantime, treat this PC as compromised: disconnect it from the web, and don't use it to access banking sites or do anything else faintly sensitive.
If there's no hint of viruses or bots, though, you'll need to look elsewhere. And there are plenty of routes you might take.
Bug fixes
If your process problems are the result of a bug, then someone has almost certainly experienced, and probably solved it before. Head off to Google, enter your process name, and keywords like CPU 100, just to see what comes up. And check Device Manager and the Windows Event Viewer for errors that might reveal an underlying issue.
It's also a good idea to identify the author of your troublesome process, too, if you've not done so already. If you discover it belongs to a particular application you've installed, visit the author's website looking for answers, or perhaps try uninstalling, reinstalling or updating the program. Or, if it's a Windows component, try searching at support.microsoft.com.
If none of this produces an answer then Process Hacker may again be able to help. The next time the process goes rogue, reduce its priority and affinity settings, as we recommended earlier, then launch Process Hacker, and locate and double-click the errant application for a closer look.
Click the Threads tab. This shows you every thread the program has open, everything that's actually running some code, along with the number of CPU cycles they're using. Look at the most active threads, then check the "Start Address" to see what they're doing. Now this area of Process Hacker is aimed at programmers, so there are no concessions to ease of use here, but as long as you know the basic rules then you may still be able to extract some useful information.
DRIVER PROBLEMS: Could your 100% CPU issue be caused by a buggy driver? DriverEasy will help you find updates
An Outlook thread start address might look like this, for instance: "iTunesOutlookAddIn.dll!DllUnregisterServer+0x1a6c2". The first part of this address, everything up to the !, tells us the file containing the code that the thread is running. The name here very obviously tells us where it's come from, so if this thread were causing problems then we might disable the addin, or uninstall iTunes. But if you don't recognise the file name, Google it for more information.
And the second part of the address, everything between ! and +, tells us the function that the thread is calling. This is generally more technical, less useful, but may at least give you some clues: if the function name seems related to printing, for instance, then you might go looking at your printer driver and print-related Windows services.
If the very best that Google and Process Hacker have to offer still tell you nothing,though, the best you can do is resort to some more generic solutions.
Update your drivers, for example - a tool like DriverEasy will help identify available upgrades.
You might try updating Windows and your applications, too. Check Windows Update for optional updates it recommends for your PC.
Then simplify your system by ruthlessly uninstalling anything you don't need. Use UpdateStar to highlight available updates for everything else. And if all else fails, reinstalling Windows should at least fix Windows components, freeing up your valuable CPU time and getting your PC back to normal.
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Windows 7 MSI WindPad 100: pictures emerge
The hotly anticipated MSI WindPad 100 that surfaced in prototype form at Computex is another step closer to making its expected debut at IFA 2010, with the Windows 7 tablet design reportedly now finalised. The world, and particularly Microsoft, is waiting for the arrival of a credible Windows 7 tablet to take on Apple's astute iPad.
With a number of manufacturers readying their versions, MSI's WindPad 100 is among those that has caught the attention with a 1.66 Atom processor from Intel, a 32GB solid state drive and 2GB of RAM.
More specs
Other specs include HDMI out, 2 USB ports and the WindTouch overlay on top of Windows 7 – which is already set up for touch.
German site mini-notebook-laptops.com has pictures of the WindPad 100, including the first glimpse of a dock, albeit not one with a keyboard.
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Vodafone nabs Samsung Galaxy Tab for UK?
The Samsung Galaxy tab, a rival to the Apple iPad, looks like it is coming to the UK soon, with Vodafone accidently slipping out details that it is to carry the device.Engadget has had an anonymous tip that the Samsung Galaxy Tab is on Vodafone's upcoming roster of devices, alongside the 'nearly new' BlackBerry 9105 (Pearl 3G) and the BlackBerry 9300 (Curve 3G).
Tab clear
The Samsung Galaxy Tab will make its debut at IFA 2010, where TechRadar will be in attendance to get one of the first hands-ons with the device.
Packing Android, an ARM11 CPU with a 1GHz processing speed and the possibility of an Super AMOLED screen, the Tab looks like it will be a true contender to the iPad's tablet throne.
The Vodafone leak doesn't contain a UK release date but we will update as soon as we get word.
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iPad users prefer screens to printed books
A new British consumer usage study of 1,034 iPad-toting Brits confirms that most iPad owners prefer reading books and newspapers on their Apple tablet than reading old-fashioned printed ink on paper.The new survey of UK iPad owners has been carried out by copywriters Cooper Murphy Webb, who went to the trouble of polling the 1,034 iPad owners via telephone between July 28th and August 10th.
Usage case
The other interesting stats that come out of the research show that 43 per cent of iPad users use their Apple tablet for over 10 hours a week, with most of this usage taking place in the safety of the home environment.
43% use the iPad for more than 10 hours per week, with most of those usage hours taking place in home.
In fact, few owners seem to want to take the iPad out and about with them.
When asked "do you take your iPad with you when you leave your home?" 27 per cent said never, while 35 per cent said 'rarely'.
Reading on iPad
31 per cent of iPad users prefer their iPad to their laptop, mobile phone, e-reader or just old-fashioned print media for reading newspapers and magazines.
An impressive 41 per cent of those iPad owners polled prefer the iPad for reading books, hence the popularity of reading apps such as iBooks, Kindle for iPad, and Barnes and Noble.
38 per cent prefer to use the iPad for web browsing among UK owners at 38 per cent for gaming.
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Review: Seagate Momentus XT 500GB
Seagate's magniloquently monikered Momentous XT has finally arrived in the TechRadar lab, sporting both traditional spinning platters and a chunk of flash memory, resurrecting a concept we'd long dismissed as vapourware. It's the first hybrid drive we've seen for years: a statement which will make younger readers ask, what's a hybrid drive?
Back before solid state drives became the preferred option for every laptop from the ASUS EeePC to the Alienware M11x, hybrid storage was the Next Big Thing that everyone was excited about.
Drives made entirely of flash memory, like the Kingston V+ series, had been conceived and generally approved of, but everyone assumed they'd be too expensive to be of any practical use for quite some time to come.
While we waited for NAND flash prices to come down, so the theory went, hybrid drives like the Seagate Momentous XT would help sate demand for more performance. Hybrids have both spinning platters for large amounts of cheap storage, and a chunk of solid state memory for speedy access and a performance boost.
Theoretically, they are the best of both worlds, with all the advatanges of both SSDs and traditional disks.
But their time never came.
Before a decent hybrid ever went on sale, solid state prices crashed and the public decided that they didn't really care about the performance difference between traditional and SSD storage anyway.
Or did they?
Even without its hybrid status, the Momentous XT is unusually well specced for a 2.5inch notebook drive.
It has 500GB of space on its silvered platters, which rotate at 7200rpm. That puts it straight into the top tier of notebook performance, because most 2.5inch drives spin at 5400rpm.
In fact, it's much more akin to a desktop drive, because coupled with the large, fast magnetic design is a healthy 32MB DRAM cache for queuing up data operations.
The only vaguely disappointing part of the specs sheet as far as standard design goes is that the Momentous XT supports 3GB/s SATA transfers, rather than the newer, faster standard of 6GB/s.
This is not a traditional drive, though, and as well as the 32MB cache there's a 4GB NAND chip which is the hybrid part of the set-up.
That might sound like a stingy space allocation, but it's built with very fast single layer cell (SLC) technology rather than the more common but slower multi layer cell (MLC) chips which are used to create enough space in pure-bred SSDs.
The NAND storage is used only for read operations, but unlike previous hybrid drives, the Momentous XT doesn't need any extra drivers.
Seagate calls its controller 'Adaptive Memory' because like Windows Superfetch technology it learns which files you access most often and moves them into the solid state area to speed up common tasks.
This does mean that the magnetic platters are going to be in use most of the time, so you lose out on two of the major advantages of solid state drives: low power consumption and silence. The Momentous XT is no different to a normal laptop drive in either of these two metrics.
It is, however, good value for money.
At the time of writing, it's available for just £10 more than a 500GB 7200rpm notebook drive, and less than half the price of Intel's 80GB X25-M SSD.
We've pitted the Momentous XT against one of the best traditional desktop drives around, a 1TB Hitachi Deskstar with 16MB cache, and OCZ's supremely powerful 120GB Vertex 2 SSD.
We didn't expect the Momentous XT to win any of the tests against these two leaders in their respective fields, rather we wanted to show how close it is to the top despite its hybrid nature.
It's worth pointing out that the Vertex 2 currently costs £258, so we've also included a more realistic SSD, the Kingston V+ for comparison.
Sequential maximum read speeds
Sequential maximum write speeds
Burst speed
Random access timing
Judging the performance of this drive is tough, and the benchmarks can be very, very deceptive. You have to add a bit of common sense to their interpretation.
For a start, it's important to re-iterate that the fast NAND memory is used exclusively for read operations.
In terms of data writes, there's no point expecting the Momentous XT to be faster than a normal HDD, because in these conditions that's exactly what it is.
Then there's the Adaptive Memory controller.
Theoretical benchmarks, especially the ATTO test, don't play particularly well with the Momentous XT. Often, it's clear from the benchmarks that the flash memory isn't being touched at all even after a few runs.
Other times, performance is a little erratic, to say the least. Random access times ranged from 18ms to 0.2ms and back again, regardless of the adaptive process.
Getting the SSD section to kick in means running the same benchmark a few times in order for the Adaptive Memory to shift the relevant bits and bytes in to 4GB of cache. Our biggest reservation here was the constrictive size.
How much of an effect can 4GB have on, say, the 17GB of a typical World of Warcraft installation?
The answer is quite a lot.
We cut a full third off of a low population area level load compared to a 7200RPM desktop drive, making the first daily boot of the game almost as quick as if you warm start it having logged out with the game files and textures still in the system RAM and video card buffer.
Windows boot times dropped by up to 50%.
There is one problem with the small SSD space, though, and that's that performance won't be consistent over time if you regularly run more than one or two applications.
Just like Windows' Superfetch, Adaptive Memory will have to start passing some files back off to the magnetic storage area once it realises you need more space.
Also, defragging the drive will clear out anything that's in the NAND cache too.
That still leaves us with the Momentous XT performing more or less as well as the best desktop drives in its worst case scenario, and best case giving you near SSD performance.
For the tiny premium it's currently commanding over its nearest spinning notebook drive competitor, we can live with the occasional unreliability.
We liked:
We wouldn't swap a 5.4inch desktop drive for Seagate's Momentous XT, but if you're after a high performance, high capacity replacement for your notebook drive this comes with the highest recommendation there is.It's expensive compared to a 500GB 5400rpm speed competitor, but when pitched against other 7200rpm drives or SSDs, it's excellent value for money. It may not look it from the theoretical tests, but in practice Adaptive Memory makes a real difference.
We disliked:
There are a couple of reservations, namely noise and battery life. Here pure SSD drives clearly win out, because the traditional tech holds it back. Likewise any application that involves a lot of write operations, like HD video editing, isn't going to get much of a boost either.Final word:
It may be best to think of it as the nitro boost button in a driving game. An awesome power up, but one you probably shouldn't rely on to win the race. Especially as you have no control over when it's used.Related Links
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DualPlex Display ready to take on the 3D giants
Forget active shutter or polarised 3D, a new technology is set to enter the AV market which is said to improve the quality and brightness of a 3D image.Called Dualplex Display, the technology has been created by German and Swiss researchers and uses a similar idea to the anaglyph 3D tech of old, according to Gizmag.
Before you baulk at the idea of going back to the rubbish red and blues lensed specs of old, the technology developed by Infitec uses coloured LEDs – two red, green and blue for the right eye and different wavelengths of the these colours for the left eye.
Any direction
A 3D LCD monitor and glasses have been developed to handle this by a company called Optics Balzers.
The 23-inch monitor can apparently be viewed by all angles and the colour reproduction is a lot higher than the 3D on the market at the moment.
Speaking about the 3D setup, Arnold Simon, CTO at Infitec said: "Viewers will be able to lie down on the sofa to watch the screen, they can turn their heads in any direction and the image won't change."
3D over priced?
The announcement of a possible new format war comes at a time when the whole viability of the 3D industry looks a little uncertain.
The Financial Times is reporting that there is already a slump in revenue of 3D films at the cinema, pointing to Step Up 3D and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore being 3D flops.
The reason? Richard Greenfield, an analyst with BTIG Research, believes it's because of over-pricing, saying: "The studios and theatres are overpricing 3D films and there's too much of it out there.
"They are converting all of their movies into 3D without any regard to quality."
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Virgin Media to write to customers with malware
Virgin Media is offering what it terms as a 'proactive stance' over malware, and will trial writing to customers whose computers are showing signs of a virus.The broadband operator has noted that installing anti-malware protection still seems beyond some people, and is hoping that it can stem the flow of cybercrime, spam and botnets by helping its customers.
The cable giant will be working with a 'number of independent, not-for-profit organisations' and will be hoping to educate those who have been infected in how to clear the malware from their computer and keep it free of problems going forward.
Affect lives
Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media, said: "Malware doesn't just affect computers – it can affect lives.
"It's time for ISPs to go beyond the basics and do whatever they can to help protect their customers from this growing problem.
"Customers may think they are protected, but with the ease by which malware can infect a computer – even just by visiting a innocent-looking website – we're going to do whatever we can to help defend our customers from serious consequences such as identity theft, and even banking fraud.
"We're writing to customers we've been told may be infected by malware, encouraging them to check their computers have an up to date security package."
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Review: Square Enix Crystal Defenders
Crystal Defenders is a straightforward tower defence game not unlike a million other tower defence games on the internet and on mobile devices right across the planet. The difference here, of course is that it takes place in the Final Fantasy universe and you're defending crystals rather than towers. There are three levels of difficulty but in each the aim is the same: to stop hordes of enemies getting from one side of each single-screen map to the other. You do this by placing military units alongside the pathways of the level so that they attack the enemies as they pass by.
Some units, archers for example, can attack enemies from a distance whereas warriors have to leap into an enemy's path and get stuck in. Magical characters can launch devastating attacks, but take a while to recover so need to be used carefully.
Also, some enemies are resistant to magical attacks so you'll need to level up the regular units to compensate. The further you get, the more complex the strategic options.
Final Fantasy fans will love the familiarity of the multitude of characters and creatures that inhabit the game. What they won't be so keen on is the fact that it's prone to frequent crashes and graphically looks little better than the iPhone iteration of the game.
Instability and lacklustre looks are two faults that we're not used to levelling at Square Enix games.
One last word of warning: as you progress the game becomes relentlessly tough and you will always, always fail at some point.
But if you're into open-ended, points-based challenges, this is a pretty good tower defence game… just not a particularly good Final Fantasy release.
Related Links
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BlackBerry 9670 clamshell outed on simulator
RIM's next new crazy-shaped phone looks like it will be the BlackBerry 9670, a clamshell handset.Running BlackBerry 6 OS, this new phone has appeared on a development simulator and has since been shared around the internet on a variety of torrent sites, according to BB Leaks.
From the simulator we can see a handset that has 4GB of onboard memory (thanks to running BlackBerry 6 OS) and a 5MP camera, as well as a full QWERTY keyboard.
To touch or not to touch?
We're not sure where it's packing a touchscreen, but given the clamshell form that seems unlikely. Also we're hoping it has got at least 512MB of RAM on board, otherwise BB 6 is going to be a slow runner.
We've no idea on a UK release date for the new BlackBerry 9670, but given the BlackBerry Torch and the BlackBerry Curve 3G are coming soon, we'd hope it would be in the near future.
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In Depth: Intel Sandy Bridge: what you need to know
Intel's annual IDF techfest in San Francisco kicks off in a few weeks and that means rumours regarding Sandy Bridge specs are reaching a crescendo.Sandy Bridge is Intel's next-generation PC processor architecture.
That's right, Intel is tooling up for yet another major update of its CPU tech. Frankly, Intel's current Nehalem-class processors are more than powerful enough for most people's needs. More to the point, they're still much faster than anything Intel's main rival AMD can manage.
But Intel's relentless "Tick Tock" strategy demands either a new architecture or a new production node each year. The end of 2009 saw the first 32nm chips rolling out of the fabs. Thus, the dying days of 2010 will see Sandy Bridge kick in.
Sandy Bridge roadmap
Intel hasn't released full details of the Sandy Bridge product family. But putting the hard info Intel has given us together with some of the more solid rumours, it looks certain the first Sandy Bridge chips out of the gate will be dual and quad-core models.
We also know that Sandy Bridge processors will retain Intel's existing Core i3, i5 and i7 branding but will dump the existing three-digit model suffix in favour of a new four-digit "2000" series indicator.
Thus the entry level chip will be the dual-core 3.1 GHz Core i3-2100, with the quad-core 3.1GHz-Core i5 2400 slotting into the midrange and the 3.4GHz Core i7-2600 quad topping things out at launch. Further dual and quad-core chips will fill in the gaps
Sandy Bridge performance
Six and eight-core chips will also follow later in 2011. But all this talk of core counts and clockspeeds doesn't necessarily tell us much about Sandy Bridge performance. It is an all-new architecture, after all, and that could mean a big boost in core-for-core and clock-for-clock performance.
Problem is, Intel snagged all the low hanging fruit in terms of easy performance gains with the Nehalem architecture. You can only bring features like the memory controller on-die once, for instance. Moreover, we know that Sandy Bridge is not a radical new architecture in the mould of AMD's upcoming Bulldozer [link: ]. Instead, it's a major overhaul of Nehalem.
Sandy Bridge benchmarks
With that in mind, you might not expect any fireworks when the first official benchmark results are published. However, when it comes to floating point performance Sandy Bridge has a trick up its sleeve. Intel has cooked up a new set of instructions known as Advanced Vector Extensions or AVX. Think of AVX as a supercharged version of SSE with data width doubled to 256-bit and you'll get an idea of the potential processing power.
As for all-round CPU performance, reliable numbers are currently hard to come by. However, early engineering samples have begun to leak into the wild. If the handful of benchmarks posted on web forums can be believed, a 2.5GHz quad-core Sandy Bridge processor delivers performance equivalent to a quad-core Nehalem-class chip running north of 3GHz. If true, Intel will have worked some serious magic.
Sandy Bridge graphics
The final major piece of the Sandy Bridge puzzle is graphics. Both dual and quad-core flavours of Sandy Bridge will be available with a graphics core integrated into the CPU die itself. Early die shots indicate the core is compact, only occupying a small proportion of the overall die. That's in contrast to AMD's first CPU-GPU "fusion" processor, which purportedly packs a massive graphics core.
What's more, Intel has been up front about the fact that the new core is derived from Intel's existing integrated graphics technology. We'll have to wait for the next major architectural shift before the influence of Intel's stillborn Larrabee graphics project can be detected in its integrated graphics cores. Despite all that, TechRadar's spies inside the Intel mothership tell us to expect something a little bit special from Sandy Bridge's graphics performance. Time will tell.
Sandy Bridge release date
Intel has yet to ink in a firm release date. No doubt we'll get a better idea of the launch schedule at IDF in September. However, Intel's rough plan is to begin shipping chips to customers before the end of the year with retail sales beginning either in very late 2010 or early 2011. Look out for our full Sandy Bridge review then.
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Samsung Android iPod touch rival pops up in photos
The new Samsung Galaxy Player, likely to be the Koreans' next answer to the iPod touch, has been shown off in pictures.The new device, which has apparently been given the model number YP-MB2, is set to take a similar shape to the Samsung Galaxy S.
In our Samsung Galaxy S review we noted that this phone is one of the best for media, so it makes sense that it should be extended to become a standalone PMP (as well as the fact it pretty much looks exactly like an iPod touch/iPhone).
A Galaxy of fun
This means the key specs that make it so great will transfer across: 4-inch Super AMOLED screen, 1GHz processor, Android OS (likely 2.1 but fingers crossed Froyo 2.2, as that's supposed to be coming in September for the Galaxy S) and Wi-Fi connectivity.
Differences? It will only be a 3MP camera on the back, and the rear of the phone will be white, rather than black.
Given Samsung will be putting on a big show at IFA, we'd hope this would poke its nose out the door, and TechRadar will be on hand to get a close look with it.
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Review: Flipboard
The industry has been working itself into a lather about the idea of personalised newspapers and magazines for so long that it's frankly rather surprising it's taken this long to come up with something that's more than just a series of concept sketches. Yet while Flipboard is imperfect (and certainly won't supplant more traditional media delivery systems such as RSS, nor be a good idea for everyone) it's fascinating, fun and free.
It hooks into feeds of information and pulls it out – some preset, some added yourself from Twitter names and lists (the 'personal' bit comes from the fact that it'll scrape information from your Facebook and Twitter streams).
If a friend tweets a link to an article, for example, it will present the article headline itself, with a small subhead telling you who shared it; tap the headline and you can see the context of the link in the original tweet or Facebook message, and read the first part of the article.
You need to tap into the source site in an embedded browser to read the full thing though. It's a similar thing with pictures on Facebook and popular hosting services on Twitter; Flipboard follows the link, scrapes the picture, and presents it.
You can 'like' an article you see, send it on or see activity around it; replies to Facebook postings show alongside, though this comments box only seems to show a welter of old-style retweets for Twitter stories, rather than replies.
Flipboard shows a lot of promise, but it's just not quite there yet.
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Review: Konami Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 (iPhone)
After their World Cup victory, now is a particularly great time to be a Spanish football fan. But things are looking brighter for footy fanatics everywhere thanks to the debut of Konami's beautiful Pro Evolution Soccer franchise on the iPhone platform. Always the preferred choice among critics in its console incarnations, PES on the iPhone also delivers a slightly superior game to EA's rival FIFA franchise – but only just.
As well as the flowing passing and shooting gameplay you'd expect from a PES game, this version is also notable for the implementation of the control systems. A directional pad and simplified single tap for passing and shooting is the preferred option, but even the accelerometer control works remarkably well.
Chuck in UEFA tournaments, league games, quick matches and proper player names and you have a pretty pleasing footy experience.
It lacks the finesse of its console counterparts but as a pick-upand- play footy fix, it's unbeatable.
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WikiLeaks: We will not be threatened by the Pentagon
Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks is standing firm in its fight against the Pentagon, with spokesperson Julian Assange saying that the site will not tolerate threats from the US' department of defense.Speaking to the Associated Press at an event in Stockholm, Assange said that the remaining 15,000 war documents the site has in its possession will be released.
"This organisation will not be threatened by the Pentagon or any other group," said Assange.
"We proceed cautiously and safely with this material."
Innocents taken out
Assange did, however, explain that some of the documents would be redacted, with names of "innocent parties who are under reasonable threat" taken out.
This was one of the main criticisms of the release of the first batch of 76,000 war reports, that the documents were said to contain information that could put informants at risk.
As for when the documents will be released, Assange explained: "It should be approximately two weeks before that process is complete.
"There will then be a journalistic review, so you're talking two weeks to a month."
The release of war documents by WikiLeaks has been seen as one of the worst ever breaches of military information for the US.
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Pink Floyd pull classic albums off the internet
Key Pink Floyd albums have been dropped from the digital market this month, with versions of The Wall, Wish You Were Here, The Final Cut and Animals pulled off the internet.Music fans can no longer find these classic Floyd cuts online at iTunes, 7digital or Amazon's MP3 store.
The reason why you can no longer buy the albums is down to the fact that EMI's contract that covered those albums expired 30 June this year.
EMI still has stock of copies of the albums on CD, which it is still allowed to sell off.
Will Pink Floyd drop EMI?
Pink Floyd's earlier albums such as the classic The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and gazillion-sellin Dark Side of the Moon are still available as digital downloads via EMI.
Sources close to the band say that Pink Floyd's management has been looking for a licensing deal to cover off the entire back catalogue for some time.
EMI has so far refused to comment on the rumours that the band may well be looking to 'defect' to another label, following the likes of Radiohead and Paul McCartney.
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Samsung lets slip full specs of Galaxy Tab
Samsung has released firmware for the forthcoming Galaxy Tab Android iPad rival, with some interesting tech specs revealed.We don't know if it's going to be a Super AMOLED or just a regular OLED powering the device (or even an LCD) but we do now know it will have only WVGA (480x800) resolution.
This would mean it would have a lower resolution than the iPad, although at seven inch screen size it might not look too bad.
ARM-ing up
Other specs include an ARM11 CPU with a 1GHz processing speed, the ability to playback Flash video and Wi-Fi and GPS, which we'd expect for an Android-powered device.
It will also come complete with Samsung's favourite new trick: Swype keyboard support, so you can swirl your finger around the screen to enter text.
We're still waiting for confirmation the P1000XXJH3 firmware is actually the real deal but given the Galaxy Tab is set to launch at IFA in three weeks time, it seems distinctly likely.
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Review: Apple iMovie (iPhone app)
Before we begin, can we say: you can now shoot HD video, edit the clips into a slick movie with titles, transitions and a soundtrack, and publish it to the internet… on a phone. Amazing. It's a shame then, that this Apple iMovie app, technically only available for the iPhone 4 (though some have hacked it to run on previous models), is so basic.
It reminds us of iLife '08; the revamped iMovie app was commendably fast and easy to use, but it wasn't until an enriched version appeared in iLife '09 that it became sufficiently capable for all but the simplest movie projects.
And we suspect that this will be the case with this app; what we have here is a great basic movie-editing engine, but it will only become compelling with future updates.
Limited scope
You can import video clips and still photos from your camera roll, or shoot directly into the app, and then arrange them on a timeline. Tap a clip to bring up handles that you can use to trim it, and double-tap to bring up the option of adding a title and removing the audio from a clip.
Clips can be rearranged on the timeline, and you can add a soundtrack from your iPod library (copyright nightmare!). You can apply one of the themes with some cool transitions.
Finished projects can be exported to your camera roll from where you can upload to YouTube, for example.
Frustratingly, even though the videos are in 720p, they get downsampled to 568x320 pixels when published.
There's no option to split a clip – though you could import it twice and trim – and while soundtrack audio ducks when clips contain audio, there's no control over levels, fading or looping.
Also, it has a baffling interface; many reviews on the App Store criticise it for lacking features that are actually present…
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Google HQ target for net neutrality protesters
A group of net neutrality protestors gathered outside Google's California headquarters earlier this month to complain about the company's recently announced plans to alter access to a free and open internet.Protesters holding 'Don't Be Evil' banners were chanting slogans such as "net neutrality is under attack, stand up and fight back outside Google's HQ and aiming to deliver over 300,000 signatures protesting the latest moves.
In bed with the devil
"Google is about to cut a deal with Verizon that would end the Internet as we know it. It would allow Google and Verizon to pick which websites will get priority over others and kill Net Neutrality on the mobile Web," reads a 'call to arms' post on the 'Save The Internet' blog, put together by one group of protesters.
"Google's motto is supposed to be 'Don't Be Evil'. But this deal puts the company in bed with the devil."
Google and Verizon have suggested that wireless services could be treated differently to fixed-line services, which might give priority to some 'paid for' online traffic.
Protesters claims that this will lead to a "pay-to-play" online service.
"Companies like Google have benefited from a free and open internet and their plan will destroy that," James Rucker of ColorofChange.org told BBC News.
"They are talking about producing a fast lane, essentially a higher tier, for premium content that means if you want to play in the 21st Century internet you will have to pay.
"Whether you are a blogger, an entrepreneur, a journalist or someone trying to organise a community, the internet is precious," added Mr Rucker.
"We all want to stand together to ensure it is protected for the future. We would expect Google to take leadership in making that happen, not be on the front line of undoing that."
Google responds to protestors
Google's Head of Public Policy, Nicklas Lundblad told reporters at the scene: "This is an important issue, a complex issue and it deserves to be discussed.
"Google is a fierce supporter of an open internet and we see that we have a couple of key enforceable protections in our proposal with Verizon and that is much better than no protections at all.
"This issue has been at a standstill for quite some time and we think this proposal is a way to advance that discussion."
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Apple manager indicted for accepting $1 million in kickbacks
An Apple manager in charge of component manufacturers and contractors in Asia has been charged with accepting kickbacks to the tune of over $1 million (£640,000).Paul Shin Device, a Global Supply Manager at Apple, along with Singapore resident Andrew Ang are accused of soliciting payments from suppliers in exchange for information that would help them secure lucrative contracts from Apple.
Shin Devine has been indicted on 23 counts of money laundering, wire fraud and accepting kickback payments.
iPad kickbacks
Devine had companies that were bidding to supply iPad and iPod components wire payments to a number of offshore and US bank accounts.
Devine is being held in currently in custody in California. It is not yet clear if Ang is also being held, with an IRS agent not giving that information to The Mercury News , which initially broke the story.
Apple certainly doesn't need any further PR nightmares right now, following the recent debacles surrounding 'Antennagate'.
The company has issued a statement relating to Devine's alleged kickback fraud, noting:
"Apple is committed to the highest ethical standards in the way we do business," spokesperson Steve Dowling said.
"We have zero tolerance for dishonest behavior inside or outside the company."
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