I have had my eye on a nettop for years to put in my entertainment center for watching things like Hulu on the big screen. I'm cheap though and have been waiting for the machines to get cheaper before I buy one. A new nettop from Asus has been detailed and it sounds really good. The thing is called the Asus S1-AT5NM10E and it is a small rig that packs in NVIDIA Ion2 hardware.
The machine has a WiFi adapter, Bluetooth, IR remote control sensor, and a memory card reader. It also packs in a pair of USB 3.0 port for speedy backups and media transmission and Firewire. It's been a while since I have seen Firewire on a machine in my house, I would rather see eSATA. The machine doesn't ship with a MCE remote control. The nettop can be powered on and off using the remote if you add one.
The hard specs of the little beastie include an Atom D525 CPU, Ion2 graphics, Intel NM10 chipset, 4GB of RAM max with a pair of SODIMM slots and the machine has a single mini PCIe slot that is packed with the WiFi/Bluetooth card. The nettop has 7.1channel HD sound and has four USB 2.0 ports along with the pair of USB 3.0 ports. Video outputs include HDMI and VGA out and the little rig has an optical drive. Pricing and availability are the only key specs we don't know.
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Download of the Day: uTorrent 2.2.0 Build 23703
Our Download of the Day today is uTorrent 2.2.0 Build 23703.
µTorrent is a small and incredibly popular BitTorrent client.
Micro-Sized Yet Feature Filled
Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, µTorrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange.
Resource-Friendly
µTorrent was written with efficiency in mind. Unlike many torrent clients, it does not hog valuable system resources - typically using less than 6MB of memory, allowing you to use the computer as if it weren't there at all. Additionally, the program itself is contained within a single executable less than 220 KB in size.
Skinnable and Localized
Various icon, toolbar graphic and status icon replacements are available, and creating your own is very simple. µTorrent also has support for localization, and with a language file present, will automatically switch to your system language. If your language isn't available, you can easily add your own, or edit other existing translations to improve them!
Actively Developed and Improved
The developer puts in a lot of time working on features and making things more user-friendly. Releases only come out when they're ready, with no schedule pressures, so the few bugs that appear are quickly addressed and fixed.
The latest version includes the following changes:
Changes in Version 2.2.0 Build 23703
• Apps for µTorrent
• New skinning format*
• Password-protected boss key
• Global run-command feature on torrent completion/state change
• UDP proxying for SOCKS5
• Proxy privacy features
• Improved set download location/relocate feature (now moves files for you)
• Show add torrent dialog for magnet links
• Add option to pause torrents when user activity is detected on the computer
- Change: minor installer changes
- Fix: speed test sometimes closed sockets twice
- Fix: Ctrl+C copy in files tab
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Deal of the Day: 2TB Cavalry CAUM Series USB 2.0 7200RPM 32MB External Hard Drive for $90.99 after Rebate with FREE Shipping
Our Deal of the Day today is the Buy.com - 2TB Cavalry CAUM Series USB 2.0 7200RPM 32MB External Hard Drive for $90.99 after Rebate with FREE Shipping!.
Offer: This 2TB, 7200RPM, external USB 2.0 hard drive with 32MB buffer and 2 year warranty is just $90.99 after $20 rebate (expiring 12/16/10). Shipping is FREE.
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Navy builds prototype Rail Gun - wants to play Quake 3 for real
Whoever is behind this is a huge fan of Quake 3 or the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Eraser. The Navy has been doing some serious upgrades to it's hardware, 3 years ago they were pushing 8 megajoule blasts and now, that number has improved somewhat to 33 megajoules accelerating them using magnets (as you do).
With this power, it can push at speeds of up to Mach 7 for the slug and a current range of 100 miles - with the hope of doubling that by the time these Rail Guns get mounted on decks of battleships by 2025. By that time they won't have such a large power draw and the dangers of exploding shells.
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CityVille hits 6 million daily active users in a week
Zynga's new game, CityVille is officially the fastest growing game in the company's history. It had just on 300, 000 users in the first 24 hours and 3 million daily in it's first week.
Thought that was impressive? Well, two days after it broke through the 3 million user mark it is hitting the 6 million daily active users, a fact that Zynga is proud of. To put this into perspective - this achievement is four times quicker than FrontierVille and more than five times faster than FarmVille.
A break down in the games hitting the 6 million daily active users:
FarmVille: 46 days
FrontierVille: 32 days
CityVille: 8 days
Why is CityVille so big? It was the first game Zynga did an international launch of in five languages (English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian) and also included a large marketing push and localized games in different countries.
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Weta Workshop build a Sentry Gun from TF2
Keeping the large group of Team Fortress 2 fans happy is no easy task, constant tweaks and updates to TF2 is a weekly thing and has been for years now. Now the guys at Weta Workshop have created a life-sized build of the Sentry Gun that the Engineer uses.
[sorry, videos not supported]
It's only the Level 1 Sentry Gun, so there'll be no remote control goodness - but it does feature a motion sensor for tracking anyone in front of it. Where can I buy one of these things?
Just don't whack a wrench into it...
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Quick Review: Corsair Vengeance Series PC3-12800 12GB Kit
While we see a fair bit of memory from Corsair, something we haven't seen in a while is a new series from the company with most kits being part of the high end Dominator line-up. Recently we checked out a new addition to the XMS line, but today we're checking out a kit from the newly launched Vengeance series.
While the Vengeance series is designed with overclockers in mind, they say the added bonus of a lower price tag leaves room in your system build budget for other items. In the technical department, though, the key point to the series is the lower voltage requirement. While most kits carry a need for 1.65v, the Vengeance line up which currently consists of seven kits requires only 1.5v.
While a nice feature for everyone, the clear optimization is intended for the compatibility of the upcoming P67 Sandy Bridge chipset which will take advantage of dual channel memory in January.
The package as you would expect doesn't hold any surprises; there's no active cooling and we figure that's not present for two reasons. One, it would just add to the price, and Two, it's not needed for these kits which require such low voltage as it is.
Part of the main specification is that voltage requirement of only 1.5v; as for the timings, though, we've got a 9-9-9-24-1T setup at 1600MHz DDR, which as you can see here, we had no problems getting by simply using XMP Profile 1.
Firing up Everest Ultimate Edition and testing the memory, we ended up with a Read / Write number of 15,890MB/s / 15,009MB/s. Sandra offered us Integer / Float of 21,850MB/s / 25,850MB/s.
With some good performance coming out of the kit at stock, it was time to go back to the BIOS and see if we could get some more MHz without changing the voltage or the 9-9-9-24-1T setup. With very little effort we ended up with 1773MHz DDR, which is a nice overclock and can be seen here.
Firing up for the second time Everest Ultimate Edition and testing the memory at its overclocked speed, we ended up with a Read / Write number of 17,111MB/s / 16,503MB/s. Sandra offered us Integer / Float of 24,110MB/s / 24,000MB/s.
Like the XM3 kit we looked at recently along with others, the appeal behind the kit is not just its performance and low voltage requirement, but the massive 12GB of system memory it offers.
Priced at $229.99 over at Newegg right now, the PC3-12800 12GB Vengeance kit is a great buy for people who want more memory. The added bonus of dealing with a new series is nice and it feels fresh. Considering we're going to have Sandy Bridge in the coming weeks it's nice to have a new series of memory from one of the most respected companies to play with.
If you're after some new RAM and wanting 12GB, this is a great kit from Corsair that carries with it a lower price tag than others, a good quality heatsink and really low voltage which is all brought together with some good performance. Sure, the Vengeance lacks some of the high speed kits that we see in the Dominator series, but it's clear that Corsair has a different point of focus with this line up.
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Thermaltake Element Q Mini-ITX Chassis w/ 220W Power Supply
Introduction
First off, I need to apologize to Thermaltake, as this product got set behind some others and I should have had this done earlier. Secondly, I would like to apologize to my readers for not showing you this in a more timely fashion, leaving you without seeing the benefits of the chassis I am about to show you.
If you are even slightly computer savvy and have been shopping for anything PC related, I'm sure you have run across the name Thermaltake in your travels. Everything from power supplies, chassis', and cooling has been handled for years by them, and they did quite well making a name for themselves. A while back we did get the opportunity to look at a couple of the mid and full tower chassis' in the Element series designed for gamers and having cooling and wire management being of utmost importance.
Today the Element series is taking a turn, or a reduction to be more precise. The chassis we are about to look at is quite Spartan compared to its much larger brethren, as this chassis isn't exactly directed at gaming as the others were. This time the chassis gets dropped to about the height of your favorite 12 oz. beverage, and is designed to go in a HTPC environment or a low power web surfing and email machine if you don't want to include this to your home theater.
Today we are looking at the Element Q from Thermaltake, and it is what they call a Mini case - Keeping some styling cues from the Elements we have seen previously along with some nice design features on the inside that I am not used to seeing in chassis' of this size. So what exactly is a mini case, and what does it have to offer? Keep reading as I am about to show you a chassis that has won me over!
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Seagate Delivers First One Terabyte 2.5-Inch Enterprise HDD
Seagate Delivers First One Terabyte 2.5-Inch Enterprise HDD
Second-generation Constellation.2 family delivers highest capacity enterprise storage with the lowest power consumption in its class; optimized for IT data centers and the cloud
SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Seagate (NASDAQ:STX) today introduced Constellation.2™, the industry's first 2.5-inch enterprise-class hard drive to reach a record 1TB capacity. The Constellation.2 drive is designed for server storage applications and offers a solid combination of high capacity, leading 6Gb/s performance, superior data integrity, and best-in-class low power consumption.
The Constellation.2 drive is designed for system builders and OEMs who want to offer competitive, feature-rich, bulk storage solutions for a sustainable future. The Constellation.2 drive is fit for use in a range of applications in Directed Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) environments, from small-to-midsized businesses to the largest enterprise data centers storing and hosting data to the cloud.
"Data center managers continue to seek out more efficient storage technologies without sacrificing performance, while still meeting capacity growth requirements," said John Rydning, research director for IDC. "Reaching the 1TB capacity in a small form factor design gives IT managers more options to meet capacity requirements with efficient storage platforms. IDC expects the use of capacity-optimized drives like Seagate's 1TB Constellation.2™ to increase by more than 50% from 2010 to 2014."
The Constellation.2 drive is offered in capacity choices of 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB, and with 6Gb/s SATA or 6Gb/s SAS interface options. Its advanced second-generation design provides improved data integrity with the new T10 Protection Information standard and an increase in reliability (1.4 million hours MTBF). With a Self Encrypting Drive (SED) option, data security is covered throughout the entire drive lifecycle.
"The Constellation.2™ underscores Seagate's commitment to its customers to deliver industry-leading solutions that meet the demands of IT professionals today and tomorrow," said Carla Kennedy, vice president of Product Line Management, Seagate. "With its class-leading reliability, record-breaking capacity, and improvements made along its entire range of features, Constellation.2™ drive is a perfect solution for dense server and storage systems."
"The enhanced capacity and reliability of the Seagate Constellation.2™ drives will help deliver even greater value to Dell's customers focused on their ever-increasing storage needs," said Lewie Newcomb, executive director, Storage Core Technologies, Dell. "The Dell PowerVault storage enclosures and PowerEdge servers are being enabled for even more powerful storage alternatives using these energy-efficient, capacity-optimized, and performance-enhanced 2.5-inch drives."
Dell expects to ship systems with this drive starting in late December.
Seagate Unified Storage architecture delivers long-term business sustainability
Constellation.2 family fits within the Seagate Unified Storage architecture, which converges best-of-breed technologies (Serial Attached SCSI, Small Form Factor and Self-Encrypting Drives) into a foundation for flexible, powerful and simple storage that boosts business and operational efficiency while reducing cost and complexity. Historically, the variety of drive interfaces, form factors and now, security solutions, can add complexity and cost for both IT professionals and OEMs - all which the Seagate Unified Storage architecture model resolves.
Constellation.2 drives are currently shipping to OEMs and the worldwide distribution channel. For more information about the Constellation® family of drives, in addition to Seagate's other enterprise storage solutions, visit www.seagate.com.
Visit the Seagate Inside IT Storage blog or follow us on the Seagate Enterprise IT Twitter page for regular updates about enterprise storage.
About Seagate
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Three and Opera introduce faster, more efficient mobile browsingThree and Opera introduce faster, more efficient mobile browsing
Oslo, Norway and London, UK - December 13, 2010
From today Three's customers have a great new way to experience the Web on their phones, following a deal with the makers of the Opera Mini web browser.
Three's customers are just a download away from getting Opera Mini installed on their mobile phones, with the software now available on Three's portal. There is no fee for the application.
With the Opera Mini browser, Three's customers can surf the same webpages as on a PC and save up to 90 percent of the data they would otherwise use, as the Opera Mini browser compresses pages before sending them through to phones.
Customers with older phones will find the Opera Mini browser especially useful, and with support for more than 3000 mobile phones of all sorts, there is a good chance Opera Mini can take your old mobile into the web future. This will mean faster surfing and more efficient data use.
"We want to bring the benefits of a great mobile Internet experience to all handsets, whether smartphones or not," said Charlotte Blanchard, Three UK's Director of Products and Services. "Opera Mini helps us extend that experience to an even greater range of devices."
"We are excited to join forces with Three to make sure even more people get online with their mobile phones and make use of the full Web even on the go," said Dag Olav Norem, VP of Mobile Products, Opera Software.
About Three UK
Three is a communications company focused on bringing the benefits of the Internet to mobile communications. We offer attractive pricing and give our customers the widest choice of ways to stay connected at home or abroad. To do this we've built the UK's biggest high-speed mobile broadband network. Three UK is a member of the HWL group of 3G companies, which include 3G operations in Austria, Denmark, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Macau and Sweden.
About Opera Software ASA
Opera Software ASA has redefined web browsing for PCs, mobile phones and other networked devices. Opera's cross-platform web-browser technology is renowned for its performance, standards compliance and small size, while giving users a faster, safer and more dynamic online experience. Opera Software is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, with offices around the world. The company is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol OPERA. Learn more about Opera at http://www.opera.com/.
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Scythe Announces Kro Craft Rev. B SpeakersScythe Announces Kro Craft Rev. B Speakers
The Japanese cooling specialist Scythe EU GmbH hereby officially announces the launch of an improved version of the Kro Craft Speaker. This revised version of speakers will be available either individually or in different sets. The combination of a well aligned aluminum concave bass / mid-range speaker together with a soft dome tweeter are perfectly matched and cover a frequency range between 58 Hz and 20 kHz with up to 2*20 W input. In the new revision B the bass / midrange driver is equipped with a larger magnet. This upgrade results in a crystal-clear midrange and richer and more precise bass. To especially cover the low frequency range Scythe developed the "Flow Guided Bass Reflex Structure" which allows a more authentic reproduction of low notes. The rigid gold plated connectors are improving the signal quality and can be used with "Banana Connectors". This set was tuned to provide high musical enjoyment for a low budget.
As with the previous model, the Kro Craft Speaker Rev. B will also be offered in different sets together with the Scythe Kama Bay Amp Class D amplifiers. Customers have the choice between a low-priced version including the Kama Bay AMP Kro (SDA-1100) and the high-quality sets, including the Kama Bay AMP 2000 (SDA 2000). Both amplifiers are equipped with the powerful Yamaha YDA138 (D-3) chip which is rated at 88% maximum efficiency whereas the S/N Ratio is specified at 103 dB (Headphones with AB class output at 95 dB). Two stereo channels allow maximum Output of 2 x 10 Watt (8 Ohm). Due to the space-saving design both amplifiers can be accommodated in a free 13.34 cm (5.25 in.) slot of a PC. The Kama Bay Amp 2000 (SDA 2000) is equipped with knobs in the front which allows switching among the 4 sources as well as individual adjustment of bass and treble separately. Overall design is completed by the two analog meters which are illuminated in blue backlight.
Kro Craft Speaker (SCBKS-1000) will be available for a MSRP of 42.00 EUR (excluding VAT). The Kro Craft Speaker Plus (SCBKS-1100-P) bundle including the Kama Bay AMP Kro costs 79,00 EUR (excluding VAT). Furthermore there will be two sets called Kro Craft Speaker Extra. The customer has the choice between two alternatives, either including the black (SCBKS EXB-1100) or silver (SCBKS-1100-EXS) version of the Kama Bay Amp 2000. Both versions are available for a suggested retail price of 88.00 EUR (excluding VAT).
Product Details
• Model Name: Kro Craft Speaker Rev.B
• Model Number: SCBKS-1100
• Frequency: 58 Hz - 20 kHz (85 dBa)
• Impedance: 8 Ohm
• Maximum Input: 20 W
• Tweeter: 25 mm Soft Dome Tweeter
• Woofer: 100 mm Concave Woofer
• System: Flow Guided Bass-Reflex Structure
• Weight: 3.1 kg / 6.83 lb per Speaker
• Accessories: 2 x 2 m Speaker Cable
For more information, visit the product page.
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MSI to Unveil New Laptops at CES 2011MSI to Unveil New Laptops at CES 2011
Taipei—MSI will be displaying its new generation of notebook creations from 6-9 January at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the USA. Its booth number 30559, will be located in Convention Center South Hall 3. Laptops to be shown will include machines from the G Series of gaming computers, F Series ultimate performance NBs, the C Series of stylish multimedia notebooks, the X-Slim Series which features ultra-thin, ultra-light laptops, Wind U netbooks, and WindPad tablets. Worth noting, MSI will be showing the GT680—the fastest notebook computer on the planet. It smashed speed records in PC MARK Vantage tests.
The fastest gaming notebook ever to be unveiled at CES 2011
Driven by a desire to "insist on the best," MSI will be exhibiting a number of powerful G Series gaming notebooks at 2011 CES, including the top end GT680—the "fastest notebook on the planet." When tested with PC MARK Vantage tools, it attained a speed of 18,162 points. It has the fastest operating system in the world, performing some three times faster than the average speed of high end gaming books currently on the market.
Eric Kuo, associate vice president for global sales, MSI Notebook, points out that the GT680 is the world's most powerful laptop. It features Intel's latest four core CPU, nVidia GeForce's newest generation high end discrete graphics card, and four DDR3 memory slots expandable to 16GB of memory. It also supports accelerated dual hard disk architecture, which not only doubles storage capacity, but also kicks up read-write speed by approximately 70%.
Kuo added that another reason that the GT680 is the fastest NB in the world is the fact that it uses MSI's own TDE+ (Turbo Drive Engine+ technology) which allows both the CPU and GPU to turbo simultaneously. Just one touch of the luminescent Turbo hot key located above the keyboard throttles up performance, making the MSI GT680 the king of gaming books.
New platforms in MSI F, C, U, X Series to debut at CES
In addition to the G Series, MSI will be showing the F Series of ultimate performance notebooks and C Series of classic multimedia notebooks at CES. The F Series, which boasts Intel latest generation processing platform, offers ultimate performance and highly responsive systems software. What's more, the F Series NBs to be shown at CES are all equipped with THX TruStudio Pro smart wrap around sound which up until now was only available in cinemas, providing faithful sound regardless of music type or frequency band. In addition to Intel's high performance CPUs, the all new MSI C laptop series comes equipped with SRS PC Sound for a rich, realistic cinematic experience.
In the area of light, easy-to-carry computers, MSI will be unveiling the U270 and U160DX from the U Series and the X370 from the X-Slim Series. The U160DX comes with the Intel Atom N550 duo core processor, while the U270 and X370 will sport AMD's new generation processing platform, greatly enhancing system computing performance for those who want power in a small package. In addition, in an era in which multimedia devices, such as mobile phones, tablet notebooks, and portable music players, are becoming increasingly common, all MSI products being displayed at CES 2011 will come equipped with MSI's exclusive i-Charger technology, which pumps more current through USB ports to greatly enhance recharge efficiency. Furthermore, MSI NBs with USB 3.0 can recharge as much as three times faster, giving your multimedia devices less down time.
New generation MSI WindPads to make appearance at CES
At next year's CES, MSI will be showing off its WindPads, its newest generation tablets with Win-Tel and Android platforms. These two tablets come equipped with a G-Sensor gravity detecting device, an ALS light sensor, and Wi-Fi. These two chic machines, which will be making their debuts at CES 2011, are testimony to MSI's industry-leading capabilities in terms of innovative R&D and stylish design.
MSI's booth info for CES 2011:
Time: 6-9 January 2011
Venue: Las Vegas Convention Center, South Hall 3, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
Booth no: 30559
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