Computex 2011 Coverage
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G.Skill Sniper Series PC312800 Cas 7 Review
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Google Plans Major NFC Growth
Paying with a smartphone seems to be getting more popular with consumers as well as businesses, as the simplistic payment system seems like a revolution when compared to plastic cards that are still being used all across the world. Google has put much if its time and efforts into pushing the NFC system and they are reporting that many manufacturers are getting more and more NFC chips built in. These chips can not only communicate with government systems, but can also transfer data and credentials to banks and retailers too. With the technology here, and the adoption rate picking up, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt is stating that consumers can expect to use this technology in most places that they go within the next twelve months. Though just an estimate on the current rate of the NFC system, Google is certainly hoping for a timeframe that is close to this particular prediction.
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4G Marketing May Soon Become Accurate
The biggest commotion in the world of mobile phones has got to be the switch to 4G. All four major carriers are talking about it and rolling out 4G networks, but not everything being labeled as 4G is actually that. Every carrier is talking about its own version of 4G but not all actually pan out to be 4G. As such, there is some confusion among consumers about whether their new device is actually a 4G device. To combat this, Representative Anna Eshoo is proposing a "Next Generation Wireless Disclosure Act," which requires all carriers to list the realistic capabilities of its 4G network. The bill requires the carrier to list the minimum data speeds, network reliability, technology being used, and provide an accessible coverage map. Basically, the bill would ensure consumers know exactly whether or not Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile are actually rolling out a 4G network or something that is just slightly faster than 3G. It will probably be some time before the bill goes into effect, if at all, but hopefully it does to finally clear up all the 4G marketing.
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PowerColor Announces the HD6870X2
PowerColor has announced the first dual GPU solution based on the BART XT graphics engine, the PowerColor HD6870X2. The new card features 2240 stream processors with a 900MHz core speed. The 2GB of GDDR5 memory runs at a clock speed of 1050MHz. The combination of these two provides for computing power of 4.03 teraflops. To keep everything cool, PowerColor has opted for Heat Pipe Direct Touch technology, placing six heat pipes in direct contact with the GPU core. This allows for cooling performance up to 50 times greater than a simple copper base according to the company. Gamers will also find DiRT3 bundled with the card, giving them something to test the card with right out of the box.
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Sprint: AT&T Could Boost Network Capacity Six-Fold
In wake of AT&T’s decision to acquire T-Mobile, citing a “spectrum crisis”, Sprint has offered up a solution to AT&T’s problem. Sprint claims that AT&T can make better use of its current network resources to increase its capacity by 600% in less than 4 years. The GSM carrier currently has a large chunk of unused 4G spectrum that Sprint estimates could boost capacity by 250% by itself. Sprint also says that network resources could be upped another 300% by introducing a mixed network, consisting of both large and small cells. AT&T has insisted it needs the currently unused 4G spectrum space for a planned national rollout of the service, and that the acquisition of T-Mobile is mainly a method to get 4G service into rural areas of the country. AT&T is currently undergoing the process to acquire T-Mobile, for the price of $39 billion. Sprint insists that money could be better spent to not only accelerate the rolling out of new technologies like LTE, but could increase capacity better than the merger, with the added benefit of not having to go through the approval and integration process.
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Beyond Good & Evil HD Finally Coming to the PSN
Beyond Good & Evil was released back in 2003 for the PC, PS2, Xbox, and GameCube. People who played the game loved it, but for whatever reason it did not sell all that well. Ubisoft released an updated version of the classic earlier this year for Xbox Live and promised the PSN would get it as well. Then, the PSN outage occured and it appeared that Beyond Good & Evil HD would be lost to PlayStation owners. However, all of that is going to change as Beyond Good & Evil HD has gotten a release date for the PSN version, and we will get it next Tuesday the 28th. The game features updated visuals and audio that gives gamers the best possible version of the game to date. If you purchase it within the first two weeks on the PSN, you will get two free avatars to go with it. There is no word on whether or not there will be an HD version for the PC, but at least PS3 and 360 gamers get a chance at it.
Beyond Good & Evil HD releases on the PSN on June 28th for $9.99.
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Verizon Pushes More LTE Coverage
Everyone in the world seems to desire more speed than they currently have, whether it be on a work connection, home Internet connection, or cell phone data connection. Verizon has been one of the main leaders in the 4G push across the United States, and it has just announced that it will be setting out to bring the speed to more cities around the nation. Though good news for both the competition market as well as consumers, this announcement comes around the time of data woes and the death of totally unlimited plans. Generally with a better connection comes a higher use of data, and Verizon seems to know this with their timely releases of both tiered data plans as well as their broader coverage of the company's 4G LTE network. As the connection speeds grow higher and higher, so do limitations and costs it seems.
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Heroes of Newerth Suffers a 'Catastrophic Hardware Failure'
This is bad news for fans of the game, but it appears that Heroes of Newerth has suffered a "catastrophic hardware failure." The game's developer, S2 Games, said that the game suffered the failure during a scheduled maintenance period. While S2 Games can recover from it, it did not provide a timetable as to when the game will be back online. Backup systems were also affected by the failure, which seemed to occur during a processor upgrade for the server. Both servers were taken offline so the upgrade could be performed, and then something happened causing all the information to be lost. S2 Games says that while this seems improbable, it assures its fans that it did happen and that it will be some time before everything is back up. The team is working to get something up on a temporary basis so that gamers can still enjoy Heroes of Newerth, but new hardware to run everything is needed for the main servers.
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New Website Will Help You Determine Whether to Buy or Not
When it comes to buying technology, it is almost impossible to know when to buy and when to wait. If you buy now, the product might be near useless the next week. There is now help to be found at Decide.com. Decide.com is a website, which will tell you to either “wait for a new model”, “buy” or “wait for price drop”. So far there are only three categories, laptops, TVs and cameras, but that will hopefully change as the site gains popularity and the team behind the website gets to develop it further. It is very simple to use as you just put the specific product name in the search bar and press Enter. Then there is also the possibility to use filters to be even more specific. If you then decide to buy a certain product, the website will redirect you to a partner store (e.g. Newegg). Right next to the search bar, there is a “Vote for New Category” link, where you can vote for the next category to be added as searchable.
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Mozilla Recieves Another Cake From Microsoft
Mozilla has released its fifth version of Firefox, and as the tradition goes, Mozilla has also received a cake from Microsoft this time. Since the release of Firefox 2, Microsoft has sent a cake every time Mozilla released a new version of Firefox. When the tradition began in 2006, many joked with the cake being poisoned, while others suggested that Mozilla reply by sending a cake to Microsft with the recipe, in reference to Firefox being open-source. This time the cake is smaller than usual, and some believe it is to make fun of the many releases Mozilla is promising of Firefox, thus making it less of a big deal than it used to be. Mozilla is planning to release both Firefox 6.0 and 7.0 before the end of 2011. And if we are to believe what Mozilla promised, then we will be seeing a new stable build every six weeks.
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Would You Buy A Razor That Costs $100,000?
The Zafirro Iridium Razor could be yours for $100,000, at roughly the same price as a brand new Porsche 911 Carrera S Cabriolet 2011 model. But why should high-rollers splurge on this sapphire-bladed extravagance? Consider this: the Zaffiro Iridium Razor's solid white sapphire blades are said to be 5,000 times thinner than a human hair, immune to corrosion or oxidation, hypoallergenic, and supported by a handle encased in iridium, thought to be among the strongest of metals, and certainly among the rarest, being primarily acquired from meteorites. Razors from the gods then, with only 99 Limited Editions in existence. At such an astronomical price, it might just be the closest possible shave you will ever get on earth.
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Gunman Stalls Police While Updating Facebook
You'd think that if you were surrounded by police in a tense standoff, the last thing on your mind would be to post a Facebook status update of your ordeal. Then again, if you didn't think you'd make it out alive, letting your Facebook friends know how you were doing probably would make a sliver of sense. Repeat offender Jason Valdez, on the run from a felony drug charge after a missed court appearance, holed up in a Salt Lake City hotel in a determined attempt to forestall getting arrested. Along with an apparently willing woman as a hostage, Valdez withstood a 16-hour confrontation with the authorities, and managed to provide a firsthand account of his exploits to his Facebook friends.
Some of the suspect's contacts even offered assistance to him. A sympathetic Facebook friend from outside gave the troubled Valdez the position of a SWAT officer hiding in a nearby bush, to which the grateful suspect replied: Thank you homie, good looking out. The SWAT team eventually overwhelmed the armed Valdez without any shots fired from their weapons. The desperate suspect however fired his gun to his own chest, in a last ditch effort to escape custody. Valdez survived his gunshot wound, but remains in critical condition. The hostage came out unscathed. Police are still determining whether they should press charges against those who gave assistance to Valdez on Facebook.
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Making Self-driving Cars Safer
With so many people involved in car accidents and dying each year, there is naturally great interest in improving the safety of our vehicles. One way to achieve this is to give the car the ability to control the driving, as needed. Having an adaptive cruise control or automatic breaking system that prevents you from hitting another car is an example. Before larger scale and more intricate self-driving systems can be implemented though, they must first be proven to not be a cause of problems themselves. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found a way to analyze self-driving systems and determine if they are indeed safe. This is not an easy accomplishment as the systems are distributed amongst the cars and not centralized to a single computer. To compensate for that, their analysis method simplifies the problem into modular pieces and organizes them into a hierarchy. The result was to prove their adaptive cruise control system would safely work for any number of cars on a single lane and then for any number of lanes. The system was even shown to be able to safely merge in and out of a single lane or across multi-lane highways.
There is one catch to this method though; it currently only proves a self-driving system's safety on straight highways. The method the researchers developed can be generalized to the more complicated systems or turns, but what was developed is just a stepping stone.
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City of Heroes Turning Free-to-Play
In what seems to be a growing trend among MMOs, NCsoft has announced that City of Heroes will become a free-to-play game. The superhero MMORPG will become a free-to-play game when NCsoft rolls out City of Heroes Freedom later this year, which will give gamers access to the game free of charge. Current subscribers to the game will have a VIP status that grants them access to various rewards and services. Free players will have access to certain features and upgrades, but those will be part of a micro-transaction model. While the F2P game launches later this year, NCsoft is encouraging current subscribers to re-up to enjoy the VIP status when the game rolls out. If you use to play City of Heroes and stopped for whatever reason, rejoining will let you become a Premium Player that lets you retain everything you had access to previously, but not all of the features VIP players get. For a full list of the variations between free, premium, and VIP, check out the chart here.
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