IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TweakTown) 29/01/2011

Corsair F120 120GB SandForce SSD breaks under 200 USD
Like many of you we are always looking for a hot deal on SSDs. Newegg just filled my inbox with what looks to be the best deal I've seen so far on a SandForce 120GB SSD. For the next 48 hours Newegg will have the Corsair F120 for sale at 194.99 USD. If that price isn't hot enough for you then taking advantage of the 20 Dollar mail in rebate makes it a no brainer.

Read our review of the Corsair F120 here at TweakTown and then get over to Newegg to stake your claim before they all sell out.

Windows misses sales mark; tablets and mobile devices possibly to blame
After reporting a net income of $6.63 billion in their reports of the second fiscal quarter, not too many companies would be able to say that they had not hit their goals. But when you're Microsoft there's a different standard, even that amount of loot has a few things on the inside that could show downward trends.

The biggest winner for Microsoft was their Entertainment Division, which handles the Xbox 360 and the Kinect which helped that division grow its earning by 55%. The downward trend for Microsoft was actually their Windows OS, which missed their forecasts by nearly $300 million despite selling over 300 million licenses for Windows 7. The emergence of tablets and smartphones are cutting into the sales of products like netbooks and even PCs along with the Windows licenses that go with them.
While Windows grossed over $5 billion in revenue, there was a 30% drop in sales compared to a year ago. Then again, Windows 7 was a lot fresher product then. Microsoft is banking on Windows Phone 7, which is reporting high customer satisfaction rates, continuing to grow and products like Office which saw a 24% rise in revenue over last year, to pick up some of the slack that Windows is leaving.

"Super Wi-Fi" spectrum access granted to Google and eight other companies
The so called "Super Wi-Fi" has gotten a few mentions here and there; coming up with a new standard is a slow and harrowing process. Another step was taken today with the FCC opening up the "white space" wireless spectrum and giving nine companies, including Google, permission to begin managing and administrating this spectrum which was used to provide a buffer between TV channels when analog was king.

With the complete move to digital TV, this buffer is no longer necessary and this white space can be put to use in other ways. Testing still needs to be done to make sure that the new wireless tech doesn't interfere with what's currently in place. The white space spectrum has the possibility of longer wavelengths, better penetration, and further reach than current Wi-Fi standards.
Google, Comsearch, Frequency Finder, KB Enterprises, LS Telecom, Key Bridge, Neustar, Spectrum Bridge, Telcordia Technology and WSdb are the nine companies that were given permission to work within the spectrum, including managing databases and building and managing devices. Many companies believe the possibility of a nationwide Wi-Fi network using this spectrum is possible if all goes well.

Biometric Bluetooth enabled wallet looks to ward off pickpockets
Do you live in the inner city where pickpockets run rampant? Do you manage to leave your wallet randomly lying around? The Dunhill Biometric Wallet is a unique, if expensive, solution to thieves and forgetfulness.

Boasting a carbon fiber shell that makes it nearly impossible to safely open without using the integrated fingerprint reader, this wallet also has a Bluetooth alarm that will go off if it is ever more than five feet from your phone. This sounds seriously annoying, but I guess it's better than leaving your wallet on the table at the restaurant; you'll soon be trained to never forget it. At $825, it's an awfully expensive training tool as well.

Verizon possibly trading mail in rebates in for instant rebates
One of the things that keeps more people from joining the smartphone revolution is the fairly stout upfront cost. Even with mail in rebates, a lot of people can't fork out 300-400 dollars and wait around for 8-12 weeks for the rebate to come; if it ever does. Verizon apparently feels your pain and is according to AndroidCentral may be considering doing away with mail-in rebates for all phones over the $150 price tag.

Phones at or below the $150 cutoff would have $50 rebates. With the standard new smartphone being around $200 after rebate, this is great news for those who want to score a top of the line phone without having to wait for a rebate. Instant rebates would take the place of mail-in rebates; to the happiness of customers everywhere. That is, as long as the prices stay the same and don't take a serious jump due to the new policy.

Nook Color gets a Honeycomb makeover
The new Honeycomb build for Android 3.0 has been out in the wild for a couple of days now, and we all knew it wouldn't be long until the modding community tried their hand at putting it on as many devices as possible. The folks at xda-developers are usually one of the first to release goodies like this, and their shots of Honeycomb running on the Nook Color are pretty sweet.

The Nook Color is quickly becoming a favorite in the tablet modding community, mostly because of its reasonable price and reasonable ease of use. This emulator is a bit like the original release: slow moving and hard to work with. Still it's something new to play with while the world waits for the official release. Then again, quite a few Android freaks are still seeing Froyo as a pipe dream.

NewerTech offers new eSATA to USB 3.0 adapter
NewerTechnology is one of the companies that seems to have an adapter to make just about anything fit into the USB port. The latest adapter from the company is one that will let you take your eSATA external HDD and adapt it to fit into a USB 3.0 or USB 2.0 port. The USB 3.0 use will make the data transfers much faster than eSATA is capable of. The adapter is called the eSATA to USB 3.0 Adapter.

This thing will be great if you have an external HDD that you use for backing up lots of data that has only eSATA connectivity. You can hook the HDD and adapter to your USB 3.0 port and get much faster transfer of data. You can also use the adapter to plug that eSATA only external HDD into a USB 2.0 drive in a pinch.
The adapter doesn't provide power for your eSATA HDD so you will need to plug it into the wall outlet. The adapter kit does ship with the USB 3.0 cable you need, but you will have to provide your own eSATA cable. You should have the cable for eSATA and power already. The adapter is shipping right now for $29.95.

Sonance shows off new outdoor speakers for music lovers
Sonance makes a wide range of speakers for different uses. Most of its speaker offerings are designed to be hidden away inside the walls or ceiling inside your home so you can hear your music without having to see speakers. Sonance has announced a new line of outdoor speakers called the Landscape Series. The line includes satellite speakers and a subwoofer.

The satellites include very similar LS67SAT and LS47SAT offerings. They both have 0.75" tweeters and up to 25W of power handling. The difference in the two offerings is in price and woofer size. The LS67 has a 6" woofer and the LS47 has a 3.5" woofer. The speakers have several mounting options.
They are designed to be mounted in a tree and they can be stuck in the yard with stakes as well. The company has also unveiled the LS10SUB with a 10" woofer and 100W of power handling. It is designed to be buried or covered with a brown canopy that is included to hide it in the yard. The LS47SAT sells for $380, the LS67SAT sells for $720, and the LS10SUB sells for $2500.

USB flash drives from Bader Models give your notebook wings
Your notebook doesn't need any Red Bull to give it wings. All it needs are these odd little wing flash drives from a company called Bader Models. The things have the normal USB port on the side and honestly, they aren't really wings, but tailfins from commercial aircraft.

The tailfin has the logos and colors of the companies they represent on them. This would be the perfect thing for the pilot that needs some storage to take on the go. Geeks that like to collect odd flash drives will also appreciate these things.
The draw here is the novelty more than anything, and as such, the company offers no indication of what sort of tech is inside. You can bet they use the slowest and cheapest tech around and be safe. Each of the tailfins measures about 2-inches tall. You can get them in 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities. Prices are $53, $63, $79, and $120 respectively.

Gun accessory for iPhone augmented reality shooter rocks!
When the Wii hit the market it didn't take long for accessory makers to flood the market with a hoard of accessories that made the games you played a bit more realistic. You could get steering wheels for Mario Kart, gun controllers for shooters, and sports gear for golfing and other games. It's was pretty cool really. That same sort of controller to increase the realism is coming to the iPhone.

A cool new gun accessory has turned up for a company called Apptoyz. It is a plastic gun that has a case to hold your iPhone on it and a trigger. The gun and associated app turns your iPhone into an augmented reality shooter.
Everywhere you point the gun the iPhone camera puts little aliens into the real world for you to shoot. It appears that the trigger pulls on the gun actually make a couple plungers that touch the iPhone screen activate to fire. The app for the gun is free, but the gun will set you back Â£20. This is a really cool setup.

Intel purchase of McAfee gets approval by EU regulators
It's hard to keep up with all the goings on in the tech world. The proposed purchase of security firm McAfee by Intel first surfaced back in the summer of 2010. The deal didn't get the nod in the US until December. While the US was eyeing the purchase, the EU was as well.

Intel has now received the approval it needs in the EU to complete the purchase. The deal will cost Intel $7.68 billion and will let the chipmaker integrate its processors much more tightly with security software. Before the EU would approve the deal, Intel had to put some commitments in writing.
The commitments included an agreement to allow other security software makers access to the same hardware McAfee has access to, and to allow other hardware makers to be supported by McAfee. Specifically AMD is to have access. The deal is expected to complete this quarter.
"The commitments submitted by Intel strike the right balance, as they allow preserving both competition and the beneficial effects of the merger," Joaquin Almunia, commission VP in charge of competition policy, said in a statement. "These changes will ensure that vigorous competition is maintained and that consumers get the best result in terms of price, choice, and quality of the IT security products."

ASRock and Fatal1ty Taipei launch event video
Earlier on today ASRock and Fatal1ty held a joint launch event in Taipei at the at Y17 Taipei Youth Center to officially launch their relationship as well as the P67 Professional gaming motherboard to local press.

We already went over in detail about Fatal1ty's P67 motherboard in an exclusive interview with the man himself back in early December last year. You can watch that here to refresh your memory if it needs, err refreshing.
After some presentations by ASRock, Intel and others as well as a highlight of some of the top features of Fatal1ty's P67 motherboard by Johnathan himself, we got down to the business end of the show. The business we are talking about here is of course gaming. ASRock gathered together four top Taiwanese gamers (I think they were from what I gathered) and put them up against Fatal1ty playing Counter-Strike 1.6.

ASRock and Fatal1ty Taipei launch event video

If I recall, most gamers only managed to get one kill against Fatal1ty and it was first to five kills. I am sure if I got the chance to get up there on stage, I would have easily got to five kills before Fatal1ty.......... right? Well, we'll never know. Hah!

Later Johnathan congratulated the gamers and each won a prize for their efforts. The forth gamer to compete against Fatal1ty won one of his new motherboards based on his performance. The local Taiwanese gamer was thrilled by the whole experience.

Download of the Day: Any Video Converter 3.18
Our Download of the Day today is Any Video Converter 3.18.
Any Video Converter is an All-in-One video converting tool with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed and excellent video quality. It allows you to effortlessly convert video files between every format! It can convert almost all video formats including DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, AVI to MPEG-4 movie format for iPod/PSP or other portable video device, MP4 player or smart phone. It also supports any user defined video file formats as the output. Any Video Converter makes it easy for anyone to enjoy the any format video with your iPod, PSP, mobile phone or MP4 player.
Â• User-friendly interface that is easy to use.
Â• Converts all video formats to Apple iPod Video, Sony PSP and more
Â• Batch convert any video formats including avi, wmv, asf, mpg, mp4, etc.
Â• Support DivX and Xvid avi format as importing and exporting video
Â• Support default video/audio settings or user customized parameters for video and audio.
Â• Has the option to preview the video in real-time before conversion .
Â• World's fastest video conversion speed with stunning video and audio quality.
Â• Supports adjust many video/audio options for MP4 files. For example, video/audio sample rate, bit rate, video size...

Download Now - TweakTown Download of the Day

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Skype 5.0 for Mac loses the beta label and goes official
It's now time to remove the beta tag from Skype for Mac. Now able to match it's PC counterpart, Skype for Mac version 5.0 has a few new features in its first official release, as well as a catch.

First, the catch. Group video calling is no longer free; you'll have to pony up either $4.99 per day or take on a monthly subscription for $8.99 a month after a one week free period. Other than that, Skype 5.0 is free to download and use for voice chat, instant messaging, and video messaging with a single user. A couple new features have also been added, including a tighter user interface that erases some of the wasted white space as well as the ability to hide Skype until you receive a call.

Paperback books taking a backseat to Kindle Books on Amazon
It wasn't so long ago that some were wondering whether e-books would be able to stick around for the longterm as a viable alternative to the books we know and love. Amazon's sales numbers seem to be putting that question to rest. According to their latest reports, Amazon is stating that 115 Kindle books are being sold for every 100 paperbacks on their site.

Kindle books have been outrunning hardbacks for a while, with the Kindle books now outselling hardbacks by 43%. This makes sense considering the severe difference in costs. Overtaking the most cost-friendly paperbacks is quite a feather in the cap for the ebook and has helped Amazon have its first ever quarter with over $10 billion in sales. With over 810,000 titles in the Kindle Store, you're sure to find something for anyone without having to lug around a ton of books.

Heavy Rain film to be "fast-tracked"
A film based on the PlayStation 3-exclusive title Heavy Rain is coming to a theatre near you soon. The Warner Bros. production is being prepped by NYPD Blue and Deadwood creator David Milch.

Milch is in charge of making the film from David Cage's Heavy Rain and it said to be named "Rain". Milch will get his hands dirty with production once he has completed work on the first season of HBO's new series based on horse-racing, Luck. No release date has been mentioned.

Sidekick to make a comeback?
Ah the Sidekick, I had one of those with the super-awesome unlimited txt messaging plans and pumped through it like there was no tomorrow. But, it seems the Sidekick is making a comeback and it's included some new superpowers.

It looks to include 4G and also seems to be Android-powered. Gone is the swivel-based screen, the keyboard looks quite spaced out for your text-messaging goodness, a large enough screen and it is now being made by Samsung.

AMD Radeon HD6990 to include 3072 stream processors, ability to blow socks off at a 30ft radius
Some news has leaked in the form of AMD's upcoming pwn-them-all GPU, the Radeon HD6990 dual-Cayman GPU based powerhouse card. Rumor says it'll include 3072 stream processors alongside 4GB of GDDR5 memory which spans across a 2 x 256-bit memory interface.

The fan is placed in the centre of the card between the two cores with a dual-slot cooler. Rumor also has it that the HD6990 will feature a dual vapor chamber design. Pictures have shown a 6 pin and 8 pin power setup, but this might change to a dual 8-pin power requirement. The HD6990 also features dual crossfire connectors and also includes a single DVI output backed up by four mini-DisplayPort outputs.

HTC's newest Android flagship handset spotted
Fans of HTC might be waiting for the Mobile World Congress to see some of that fresh HTC gear, but why wait? Take a look at the newest HTC flagship phone below in all it's glory.

The handset is an obvious prototype by the serial number being planted right below the handsets face, the handset was spotted by a person waiting for the Taipei metro system (ya know, that's how most phones are spotted). This is definitely an Android-powered handset, so apologies to the WP7 fans.

Microsoft sells 8 million Kinects in 60 days
Microsoft earnings have been released showing a 5% increase in revenues to $19.9 billion, impressive growth in their Entertainment and Devices division which has seen $3.7 billion in revenue this quarter versus last quarters $2.4 billion.

8 million Kinects sold, just two months from launch! All up division revenue is up 55% this quarter, contributing to this success are sales of the Xbox 360, Kinect, Zune and Windows Phone 7. Xbox Live memberships grew by 30% and Xbox 360 console unit sales were up 21% making it "the world's fastest growing game console" according the Microsoft.
Microsoft CFO Peter Klein talked about the division's success saying, "We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect. The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations. The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth."

SAVANT introduces 16-Channel class D amp for multi-room audio
If you are setting up a multi-room audio solution, you may need an amp of some sort. What sort of amp you need really depends on the complexity of the system you are designing. If you have a big home or a business that you want music in with a bunch of rooms, SAVANT has the amp for your system and it's called the AMP-1640.

The 1640 has 16-channels of sound and provides 40 wpc at 8 ohms or 50 wpc at 4 ohms. The amp is a big unit that is rack mountable and takes up three slots in the rack. SAVANT designed it to work with any of its whole room audio systems. The frequency response of the amp is 20H to 20kHz.
Each of the channels has its own level control and has inputs for RCA and screw terminal jacks for speaker wire. The amp has no fans and has an overload protection circuit on the front panel. Configuration options allow the amp to support stereo and mono applications. The device is available now at an undisclosed price.

Scythe Universal Retention kit 3 holds aftermarket coolers to your CPU
Scythe has all sorts of cooling gear and accessories in its line that will work for AMD or Intel machines. The company makes cooling products that are more efficient than the factory cooling products allowing the computer users to overclock their processor to higher levels that factory air-cooling will allow. Scythe has announced a new mounting solution called the Universal Retention Kit 3.

The kit attaches your aftermarket cooling solution to your mainboard and is designed to support larger and heavier than factory cooling solutions. It uses a solid backplate mounting system and has multi-socket support allowing it to work with Intel Socket T / LGA775, LGA1156 LGA1366 as well as the new LGA1155 and AMD Socket 754, 939, AM2, AM2+, AM3 and 940.
The kit also ships with a pushpin removal tool to make removing CPU coolers quicker and easier. The kit will work with all Scythe CPU coolers to replace lost brackets and to upgrade the coolers to newer sockets if needed.

Despicable Me (2010) Blu-ray Movie Review

When Pixar produced the first Toy Story in 1995, they must have known that whilst they got in first, there would be a rush of computer generated animated films that would follow in their wake. Some would be good and some would be bad, so the only way they could stand out from the crowd was to retain the hallmark of quality, in much the same way that Walt Disney fashioned his fledgling animation company.
As it came to pass, there have been many computer generated films since 1995. Very few have quality to the standard of Pixar productions, and many leave a bad taste in the mouth (I'm thinking of Bolt and the later Shrek films). But every so often comes a well produced film such as How to Train Your Dragon and Over The Hedge. I'm very happy to add Despicable Me to that short list.
When Super Villain Gru (Steve Carrell) adopts three children to do his evil work for him, he finds his heart being slowly melted by them, but he soon has to make a choice between his evil side, and his new found humanity.
With fairly middling expectations, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Despicable Me, especially the voice acting by Steve Carrell and Russell Brand, neither of whom sound like their normal selves.
Of note is there are three separate Blu-ray releases of the film in Australia; a one disc edition, a three disc edition (with a DVD and a useless digital copy) and a three disc 3D edition (with the standard Blu-ray, a 3D Blu-ray and the DVD).
Despite the ability to now review 3D movies, Universal sent the 1 disc version only.
Finally, Blu-ray fans will be sure to notice the nice Blu-ray joke in the movie. You'll not miss itÂ…

Video
Despicable Me is presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with AVC MPEG-4 compression.
I think at this stage we all know what to expect with computer generated films; pretty much perfection. And that's what we get here.
Colours are bright and vibrant and pop off the screen impressively. The encode is sharp and as detailed and revealing as the animators intended.
There are of course no film artifacts (it has never touched film), and I noticed no encoding errors or compression artifacts.
Beautiful. Perfection. Whatever superlative you want to use, this is benchmark stuff.

Audio
The main audio track is encoded in lossless DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, at 24 bits.
A worthy companion to a stellar video track, Despicable Me features a rocking audio mix which translates well to the home theatre.
The voice artists have done a great job with their roles and reminds me of a time when you didn't need to have major stars doing voice work. Whilst Steve Carrell and Russell Brand are big names, unless you knew it was them, you wouldn't.
Audio mixers haven't restrained themselves in the LFE department; every vehicle and weapon roars with bass when appropriate.
The soundtrack provided by Heitor Pereira and Pharrell Williams is appropriate, but a little different than would normally be provided for a CG animated film.
Overall, a pleasing soundtrack and a worthy accompaniment to the stellar video track.

Extras
Universal have assembled a decent enough collection of extra features for Despicable Me, some for the adults and some for the kids and all of them for the fans.
First up is the feature length Gru-Control Picture in Picture Video track which is really aimed at a younger audience. Older fans will enjoy for a few minutes, but will quickly tire of the format, and I highly doubt younger audiences will sit through the whole thing ("I just want to watch the film, Dad!") so I'm not really sure why this is hereÂ…
The Audio Commentary is provided by Directors Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin. It's typical commentary fair and a bit of a slog to get through with Coffins French accent, but it's interesting nonetheless.
The three Mini-movies are certainly the highlight of the extras package. Two of the three focus on the cute yellow minions and their fascination for fruit (which is a good thing for the kids to see) and bombs (not so good), and the final features a visit by the child protection agency to the Gru residence. These are genuinely funny little shorts and kinda what Warner Bros. would do now if they still made Looney Tunes shorts. As a nice touch, these feature all the production values of the film, and are presented in HD with a 5.1 soundtrack. Nice work.
Next up are a few featurettes which are pretty self explanatory; The voices and world of Despicable Me look at the vocal work and design of the film, Despicable Beats takes a behind the scenes look at the 'rapper' laying down some 'sick beats' for the movie, A Global Effort looks at what is involved in turning a French production into a film suitable for all cultures and Miss Hattie's Top Secret Cookie Recipes are easy enough for the kids to make at home.
I'll be honest; I steered clear of the Interactive games section, but the kiddies will no doubt like this for 5 minutes before they get tired of the remote control.
Finally, while the Theatrical Trailer is missing in action, we do have two Videogame trailers. Hmm.

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Gainward GeForce GTX 560 Ti Golden Sample Video Card
Introduction

Another GTX 560 Ti arrives and in this case it's from Gainward. Like the other two we've looked at, it carries with it the two things we love; an overclock and a new cooler. This also won't be the last GTX 560 Ti we look at, because like the GTX 460 when it was released, companies are hitting the model hard and fast.
It's actually been a while since we've had a look at a Golden Sample model from Gainward, as over the recent months the "Goes Like Hell" editions have been showing up a lot, so it will be nice to have a look at the much loved Golden Sample series which has been around for as long as we can remember.
With a full package on hand, we'll see what Gainward are offering us before we get stuck into the card, the overclock it carries and then of course the most important thing, the performance of the model.

Package

Inside there's not heaps going on with a driver CD, manual, discount coupon for some software and a single Dual-Molex to 6-Pin PCI-E power connector.
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AMD Catalyst 11.1 Windows 7 Driver Analysis

Introduction
As we roll into another year and the first month comes to a close, it comes as no surprise that we begin to see a new iteration of the Catalyst driver suite. As you would've guessed, we're dealing now with the 11 series driver and being both the first one and the January one, the exact name is the 11.1 driver.
This has been a little weird this time around, as AMD actually released a hot fix version of the driver before the official WHQL one. This is something we're seeing more and more from them and it will be interesting if over time we continue to see "monthly" WHQL drivers, instead of just "monthly" driver updates.
The thing is, over the recent months we've seen the official WHQL driver come followed by a bunch of non WHQL hot fix versions. We know the WHQL process takes time, and we would assume it also costs money, so it will be interesting to see if anything changes in 2011.
With that said, it's almost time to look at the performance the new drivers offer, but let's first just check out some of the highlights from the release notes.

Performance Improvements
F1 2010
- Performance increases up to 12% on AMD Radeon HD 6900 and AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
- Performance increases up to 10% on ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series single card configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
Left 4 Dead 2
- Performance increases up to 17% on AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series single and Crossfire configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
- Performance increases up to 8% on AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series single configurations with anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing disabled.
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Thortech Announces Thunderbolt Plus and Thunderbolt 80 Plus Gold Modular PSUs
Thortech Announces Thunderbolt Plus and Thunderbolt 80 Plus Gold Modular PSUs
THORTECH announces the launch of the all new Thunderbolt & Thunderbolt PLUS Series high efficiency gaming performance power supply. The Thunderbolt PLUS Series is equipped with the patented innovative iPower Meter interactive PSU control panel which allows the user to monitor the actual efficiency, wattage, temperature and control the fan speed mode of the PSU, just to name a few. Thunderbolt & Thunderbolt PLUS Series are 80 Plus Gold and NVIDIA SLI certified, as well as compliance with the latest Intel and AMD CPU.

Key features of Thunderbolt Plus with iPower Meter - 800W, 1000W, and 1200W

Â• Efficiency performance of up to > 90% with 80Plus Gold certification
Â• Single +12V rail design providing up to 65A (800W), 80A(1000W), 100A (1200W)
Â• iPower Meter, industry's 1st interactive PSU control panel, chassis panel mounting 5.25"
Â• Modular Cable Management
Â• Complies with all the latest Intel and AMD CPU
Â• Designed to sustain at 50Â°C ambient with full wattage output
Â• Interleave Active PFC circuit helps to provide perfect PF value > 0.99
Â• Supports ATX 12V V2.3 and EPS 12V V2.91 standards
Â• 135mm Ball Bearing Fan with smart fan control circuit
Â• Smart Fan Control Technology Ready
Â• Support NVIDIA SLI & ATI Crossfire multiple graphic cards platform
Â• Low ESR 105Â°C solid state capacitors
Â• Multi-Protection as OCP/ OVP/ OPP/ UVP/ SCP/ OTP
Â• MTBF: 120,000 hours
Â• Safety Approvals: CUL, TÃœV, CB, CE, FCC, CCC, C'TICK, GOST-R, PSE
Â• Five Year Warranty

Key Features of Thunderbolt 650W, 850W, 1000W, and 1200W

Â• Efficiency performance > 90% with 80Plus Gold certification
Â• Quad +12V rail design providing up to 52A (650W), 70A (850W), 80A (1000W), 100A (1200W)
Â• Modular Cable Management
Â• Complies with all the latest Intel and AMD CPU
Â• Designed to sustain at 50Â°C ambient with full wattage output
Â• Active PFC circuit helps to provide perfect PF value > 0.99
Â• Supports ATX 12V V2.3 and EPS 12V V2.91 standards.
Â• 135mm Ball Bearing Fan with smart fan control circuit to provide better system airflow
Â• Smart Fan Control Technology Ready
Â• Support NVIDIA SLI & ATI Crossfire multiple graphic cards platform
Â• Low ESR 105Â°C solid state capacitors
Â• Multi-protection design includes OCP/ OVP/ OPP/ UVP/ SCP/ OTP
Â• MTBF: 120,000 hours
Â• Safety Approvals: CUL, TÃœV, CB, CE, FCC, C'TICK, GOST-R, PSE
Â• Five Year Warranty

AVADirect Now Offers NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Graphics Cards
AVADirect Now Offers NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Graphics Cards

We at AVADirect have recently added the newly released Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Graphics card line from manufacturers such as: ASUS, MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte, and Zotac. Though each card offers relatively the same performance, there has been documented proof that each specific brand card harnesses different performance results from another. This is directly affected by the cooling method per card. Obviously, each manufacturer has a preference as to how they decide to cool the cards. Some are loud, and some are quiet but it will depend on the type of end-user you are to determine which is right for you. Performance the GTX 560 provides is the same medium of performance as it's little brother the GTX 460, when comparing it to the Nvidia 500 series cards. In most benchmarks, the GTX 560 competes very closely with ATI's 6970 & 5870 graphics cards at a lower price. Nvidia has once again gained +1 in the midst of the price-to-performance race with ATI. I sure hope the competitiveness between two companies gets more aggressive, as end-users will certainly reap the benefits.
To view all Nvidia GTX 560 cards we carry click GeForce GTX 560 at AVADirect

Gigabyte Announces GreenMax Power Supply Series
Gigabyte Announces GreenMax Power Supply Series
As people nowadays care more about our environment, GreenMax, the new lineup of GIGABYTE power supply, is built for energy saving and performance. It strikes a perfect balance between environmental caring and your expectations for a high performance power supply.
GreenMax power supply features 80 Plus Bronze Certification with 87% efficiency at best. The efficient circuit design not only reduces power loss but also enhances the performance of the power supply, which makes GreenMax the best supporting component for your PC system. Meanwhile, the Japan made main capacitor, which costs much higher than the ordinary ones, prolongs the product life of each GreenMax power supply unit and provides a more steady output.

The uniquely designed sleeved cables further induce the air convection within the system and also provide protection to sensitive main connector wirings. With a life-time of 120,000 hours, protection for OVP/OCP/OPP/OTP/SCP and complying with the latest Intel ATX 12V V2.3 design guide, GreenMax ensures its users a long-lasting power supply.
GreenMax also complies with the latest EuP/ ErP and RoHS regulations, referring that all GreenMax power supplies are produced in an environmental-friendly way to protect our planet. GreenMax, with 750W/ 650W/ 550W/ 450W four different choices and 5 years warranty, will truly amaze you.

HIS Announces Radeon HD 6900 Turbo Fan Series Graphics Cards
HIS Announces Radeon HD 6900 Turbo Fan Series Graphics Cards
Hightech Information System Limited launches its HIS 6970 & 6950 Fan Turbo 2GB GDDR5 graphics card. Offering the latest and greatest features like AMD Eyefinity technology,
AMD HD3D technology and DirectX 11 support, the new 6900 Turbo Series provides flawless image quality and unbelievable performance to the gamers at every advantages. The HIS 6950 Turbo has over-clocked its core clock speed to 840MHz and memory clock at 5,120MHz, delivering serious high-definition gaming frame rates.

The HIS 6970 Turbo supplies the same 2GB GDDR5 but at a maximum core clock speed of 900MHz and memory clock of 5,600MHz. The utmost speed will let you enjoy the high resolution and fast frame rates which directly translate into superior performance and ultra-high bandwidth.

TURBO

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Point of View and TGT Announces POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC SeriesPoint of View and TGT Announces POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC Series
Point of View, the leading European manufacturer of an exclusive range NVIDIA based 3D processor boards, advanced netbooks as well as fancy 7" and 10" Tegra tablet computers, and additional enthusiast PC products, announces today that it is first to market with a high performance NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 3D processor board family, the POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC Seies (TFC stands for triple fan cooling).
The complete POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC series consisting of the three performance levels: Charged, UltraCharged and "BEAST", is based on proprietary high-performance/wide-bandwidth hardware design. The high-frequency/low noise 12-layer PCB (printed circuit board) and the advanced 8-pin plus 6-pin power supply are derived from NVIDIA's advanced GeForce GTX 580 design guidelines.

Frankly speaking, the POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC series is that "damn fast", because the Ge-Force GTX 560Ti GPU is running on a larger PCB in a GeForce GTX 580 "power environment" to guarantee rock solid signal stability even beyond the guaranteed clock rates.
In addition, the POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC series features both, an extremely silent Triple-Fan-Cooler from Arctic Cooling plus an additional full-cover heat-sink on the back side, so called "back-plate" for optimized heat dissipation on both sides of the high performance product family.
Hand-selected and carefully tuned by TGT in Germany, the POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560Ti TFC series offers an optimized balance of enhanced core clock settings and supreme stability even beyond shipping specifications.
Core clocked 860 MHz, 1721 MHz shader clock and 4008 MHz memory clock, the advanced POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560 TFC Charged already exceeds the specifications of most of the recently announced competitive products.
The POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560 TFC Charged is topped by the POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560 TFC UltraChargedTM core clocked 911 MHz, 1822 MHz shader clock and 4224 MHz memory clock.
The top of the range is the POV/TGT GeForce GTX 560 TFC "BEAST" is specified 954 MHz core clock, 1909 MHz shader clock and 4224 MHz memory clock.
All models offer significant head room for individual over-clocking.

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Microsoft Reports Record $0.77 Earnings Per Share in Second QuarterMicrosoft Reports Record $0.77 Earnings Per Share in Second Quarter
Holiday sales and business demand drive record revenue.

REDMOND, Wash. Â— Jan. 27, 2011 Â— Microsoft Corp. today announced record second-quarter revenue of $19.95 billion for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2010. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $8.17 billion, $6.63 billion and $0.77 per share, respectively.
Prior year results reflect the recognition of $1.71 billion of deferred revenue relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 before general availability in October 2009. Second-quarter growth rates for revenue and earnings per share were 5% and 4%, respectively. Without the deferred recognition in the prior year, second-quarter growth rates for revenue and earnings per share were 15% and 28%, respectively.

"We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect. The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations," said Peter Klein, chief financial officer at Microsoft. "The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth."
Among the factors driving Microsoft's record revenues and earnings per share was the 55% growth in revenue for the Entertainment & Devices Division, as the success of the Kinect sensor boosted sales of Xbox 360 consoles, Xbox Live subscriptions and Xbox games.
Microsoft Business Division revenue grew 24% year-over-year. Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history, with license sales over 50% ahead of Office 2007 over an equivalent period following launch.
"Business demand for our productivity and infrastructure products and cloud solutions is strong. Office had a huge quarter, exceeding everyone's expectations, and our roadmap for cloud productivity with Office 365 makes products like SharePoint, Exchange, Lync and Dynamics CRM even more attractive to our customers," said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. "Windows 7 continues to be the fastest-growing operating system in history, and our recent System on a Chip announcement demonstrates our commitment that Windows will have the power and flexibility to run everywhere and on every device."
Â• Among the other product and business highlights Microsoft reported in the quarter:

Â• Microsoft announced it has now sold over 300 million Windows 7 licenses, and Windows 7 is now running on over 20% of Internet-connected PCs.

Â• Windows Phone 7 launched during the quarter in 30 countries and on 60 operators and nine different devices. Microsoft announced developers are adding Windows Phone 7 applications to the marketplace at a rate of over 100 per day.

Â• Bing completed the integration of Yahoo! search in the U.S. and Canada and continues to gain share.

Â• Windows Azure developer momentum continued this quarter, with Pixar Animation Studios, ADP with NVoicePay and others demonstrating compelling uses of the platform.

Â• Internet Explorer 9 is Microsoft's fastest downloaded beta browser of all time with over 20 million downloads to date.

Â• At International CES 2011 in early January, Microsoft announced that the next version of Windows will support System on a Chip architectures.

Â• The company announced that during the quarter, it bought back $5 billion in stock and declared $1.3 billion in dividends.

Business Outlook
Microsoft reaffirms operating expense guidance of $26.9 billion to $27.3 billion for the full year ending June 30, 2011.
Webcast Details
Peter Klein, chief financial officer, Frank Brod, chief accounting officer, and Bill Koefoed, general manager of Investor Relations, will host a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. PST (5:30 p.m. EST) today to discuss details of the company's performance for the quarter and certain forward-looking information. The session may be accessed at http://www.microsoft.com/investor. The webcast will be available for replay through the close of business on Jan. 27, 2012.
Adjusted Financial Results and Non-GAAP Measures
In addition to financial results reported in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), we have provided certain non-GAAP financial information to aid investors in better understanding the company's performance. For revenue, operating income and earnings per share growth, we excluded the impact of deferred revenue recognized in the prior year fiscal quarter relating to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program and sales of Windows 7 before general availability in October 2009. Presenting these measures without the impact of this item gives additional insight into operational performance and helps clarify trends affecting the company's business. For comparability of reporting, management considers this information in conjunction with GAAP amounts in evaluating business performance. These non-GAAP financial measures provided should not be considered as a substitute for, or superior to, the measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP.
To aid comparability of prior results, we have also recast certain prior period amounts within our Form 10-Q that conforms to the way we internally managed and monitored segment performance during the current fiscal year. In addition to the reconciliation in this release, our supplementary earnings slide deck at http://www.microsoft.com/investor contains a reconciliation of adjusted financial results and a reconciliation between reported and recast segment results.

About Microsoft
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide leader in software, services and solutions that help people and businesses realize their full potential.

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Sunday, January 30, 2011

IT News HeadLines (TweakTown) 29/01/2011

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