Sapphire HD6670 Ultimate, HD6750 & HD6770 Review
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A Virtual Reality Star is Born
Meet Aimi Eguchi: the newest member of the Japanese girl group AKB48. She's that girl you're seeing front and center in the group's latest candy commercial for Glico. Beautiful, isn't she? In fact, if you look at her closer, it's almost like she's too perfect: those luscious lips, dreamy big eyes and rosy pink cheeks. It's easy to assume that she's too attractive to be anything other than an illusion. But don't tell that to her legions of die-hard fans. Despite seeing her only on TV, she's gathered quite a massive following. Now they want her to perform live, with her AKB48 teammates. And Aimi would, if she could. You see, she isn't real. Not completely. Every part of her face, from her cute nose, those kissable lips, big eyes and flawless smile were all literally taken from Aimi's fellow AKB48 group members. This stunning angel is an artificial construct, her perfect features a computer composite, all 150 gigabytes of her. You can imagine the horror of Aimi's fans upon learning that digital truth early this week.
Watching the Japanese bubblegum-pop coated making-of video, I couldn't help but feel that there was something mildly sinister lurking underneath all that cuteness. That's probably brought on by reading too many Vonnegut stories, but what we're looking at here is something that we've only seen in science-fiction previously: real people interacting with something so lifelike, they become emotionally affected by a lovely synthetic being. But that's not to say I won't be looking forward to seeing more of this beautiful lie. Welcome to the real world, Aimi Eguchi.
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Enermax Unveils MaxRevo Series Power Supplies
Enermax today unveiled its new MaxRevo series of power supplies, targeted at enthusiasts with power-hungry computers. The MaxRevo series consists of 1350W and 1500W variants, both passing the 80PLUS Gold standard. Other features include a modular cable management system, Japanese capacitors and Copper-Bridge Array transmission technology, which Enermax claims will produce a cleaner DC output. Both power supplies have six 12V rails coupled with octuple protection circuitry. Cooling is provided by one 139mm Twister-bearing fan running between 900 and 2000RPM featuring HeatGuard, which keeps the fan on after shutdown to dissipate excess heat. The MaxRevo series PSU will retail at around US$493 (€344.90) and US$543 (€379.90) for the 1350W and 1500W models respectively.
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Team Fortress 2 Now Free to Play
As I mentioned earlier this week, today is the day that the Uber Update is being released for Team Fortress 2. As promised, Valve has released the Meet the Medic video, which is awesome. If you watch through the whole video, you can see even greater news. Team Fortress 2 is the free to play game that Valve has been working on. Add me on Steam as I will probably be playing this all weekend.
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NVIDIA Unveils Duke Nukem Forever Case Mod
NVIDIA made a splash at the Duke Nukem Forever launch event in Dallas, bringing a great looking case mod with them. The mod was created with the help of Richard “DarthBeavis” Surroz, and features two 3D screens, two GTX580 GPUs, and a custom cooling solution. NVIDIA presented the mod to Randy Pitchford, the CEO of Gearbox, which developed the game. Check out the video interview with Randy below.
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ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Turns Tablets Into Desktops
The ASUS Eee Pad Transformer TF101 hopes to bridge the gap between the emerging tablet market and the notebook market. The TF101 does this with the help of an interesting docking station, resembling the keyboard half of a notebook. It provides the ability to take a tablet with you when you need something mobile, and gives the ability to attach a keyboard when more productivity is needed. In addition to the keyboard, the docking station also provides extended battery life, USB 2.0 ports, and a touchpad, and is available for $149. The tablet itself features a 10.1 inch screen powered by an NVIDIA Tegra 2, allowing for support of 1080p content. The tablet features the latest iteration of the Android operating system, version 3.1, also known as Honeycomb.
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U.S. Patent Reform Bill Passes the House
A quick look at technology news over the past few months will have you reading about Microsoft losing a patent infringement suit and Samsung being sued by Apple for products alleged to be visually based off the iPhone and iOS, amongst many other topics. Patents are of very great importance to the field of technology as a means to protect innovation and are used as leverage in negotiations, though occasionally there is alleged abuse of them too. Earlier today the House of Representatives passed H.R. 1249, the America Invents Act (the link is to a pdf of the bill). This bill contains language to change the system of granting a patent to the person who first successfully applies for the patent, instead of who first conceived the invention, as it is now. This change is meant to simplify procedure and reduce litigation. The funding of the U.S. Patent Office is also changed in the bill to keep them from running short of money, a reason some give for why patent reviews take, on average 3 years.
The Senate passed a similar bill in March, so now negotiations between the two bodies will begin, to arrive at a final bill.
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L.A. Noire Coming to the PC
Rockstar's latest game, L.A. Noire, has been a huge hit with the console crowd. In it, you play a detective who has to solve a series of crimes in 1940s Los Angeles. You scan a crime scene for evidence, interrogate suspects, and figure out how to solve the various crimes. L.A. Noire features a new technology which scans in the actor's and actresses' faces to capture every movement, from the up turn of lips to a nervous glance or smug appearance, everything is captured in perfect detail. You have to use those visual clues during the interrogations to determine whether the suspect is telling you the truth or lying, and then you have to present evidence to back up your assertion of a lie. The game is pretty remarkable, but came out last month just for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. However, all of that is changing as Rockstar is announcing that L.A. Noire will be coming out for the PC this fall. The game is being handled by Rockstar Leeds and will support keyboard remapping, controller support, and is promised to run on a variety of PCs. The game will be improved graphically to take advantage of the more powerful computer hardware and will even include 3D support.
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Study Examines Source of Cybercrime in Youth
Previously when researchers wanted to examine when and why people become cybercriminals they would look to college aged persons. This left questions of cybercrime amongst the youth unanswered. Researchers at Michigan State University decided to study 435 students of a suburban Kentucky school district to determine why middle school and high school students would partake in digital piracy, viewing online pornography (illegal if under age), online bullying and harassment, and cyber-trespassing (example: hacking). Their study reports that the two largest influences are peer influence and low self-control. When one has friends partaking in cybercrime, they are more likely to do so as well and those children that are impulsive and will act on opportunity were more likely to commit a cybercrime.
Their recommendation is for parents to be more aware of what their children are doing online and who they associate with. Parental-control software can prove useful in this endeavor, but as the researchers point out, “many kids today can work around these programs.” They also suggest a proactive effort on the parents’ part, to make sure their child or children understand it is wrong to download something without paying for it.
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NACHO 2011 at Neoseeker - Chance to Compete and Win Prizes
Overclocking competitions always seem to bring out the best and brightest, and when one of our sister sites sponsors a contest, you know it is going to be good. Neoseeker will be holding an overclocking competition throughout the month of July and the sign up deadline is fast approaching. The Neoseeker Annual Computer Hardware Overclocking Contest, or NACHO for short, is about to get under way and if you want to compete, you need to sign up soon. There are a series of benchmarks you will run, ones like Geekbench, 3DMark, PCMark, and Unigine, and then you post your scores to the contest thread at Neoseeker's forum. There are certain rules, like needing to use official drivers, using only off-the-shelf products, and no upgrading once you submit your stock score, but it seems to be fairly easy stuff to follow. There are also some sweet prizes, like a Phantom case from NZXT, various PC and PS3 games, and even a video card cooler. Companies like AMD and THQ may also offer products as prizes depending on the turn out, so go get registered and compete!
Feel free to sign up for NACHO 2011 here.
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Will EA Buy PopCap For $1 Billion?
PopCap Games, creator of mega gaming hits like Plants vs Zombies and Bejeweled, is up for sale. The big news here is PopCap's asking price: a cool $1 billion. Who could be crazy enough to even consider buying at that price? There were reportedly several interested parties in the running like social game developer Zynga, but it appears that the company backed off when told just how much money it had to pony up. Electronic Arts, on the other hand, seemed to have weighed in on the $1 billion asking price and just how badly it wants to dominate the mobile and casual gaming market. From the looks of it the video gaming behemoth just might push through with the deal. This is obviously a huge gamble for EA, considering that its market cap is around $7.49 billion. But this bold move shows that EA wants to reach out beyond its hardcore gaming audience, and into the mobile and casual gaming arena, to which it currently plays second fiddle. If this sale happens PopCap is looking at a tenfold profit, more than its $100-150 million revenue.
PopCap Games certainly has more than enough credibility to command such a towering price. Every game it's released from Zuma, Bejeweled, to Plants vs Zombies, are blockbuster hits with the casual gaming masses. And to think that almost nine years ago, Microsoft tried to buy PopCap for what the software giant thought was an apparently fair price of $5 million. The once up-and-coming startup shrugged this off as a laughable offer, knowing even then that it was worth more than that. You've certainly come a long way, PopCap.
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iPhone 5 Rumored for September Announcement
The newest iPhone rumored to be unveiled this September is said to include the iPad 2's more powerful A5 1GHz processor as well as an 8-megapixel camera, as disclosed by two anonymous sources to Bloomberg. This contradicts earlier supposition that the iPhone 5 will still sport a 5-megapixel camera. The new phone is also reported to be markedly similar to the iPhone 4 in its case design, as opposed to previous speculation. In addition, it is slated to be equipped with the iOS 5 operating system, code named Telluride, whose features such as photo-sharing, Twitter integration, possible 1080p support and improved messaging, were previously announced in a recent developer conference. The sources also indicate that a more affordable version of the iPhone is in the works, targeting phone users from emerging markets. This version of the iPhone would have specifications similar to the iPhone 4, although it may be scaled back somewhat to keep in line with its cheaper price. While Bloomberg's iPhone 5 information appear to differ greatly from other references, they all seem to agree to the same conclusion that the yet-to-be announced phone is in line for a release this fall.
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