IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 17/05/2012

The Overclocker Issue 19 is now available
The Overclocker's latest issue is out, Issue 19. The latest read covers a bunch of hot topics such as a 'Z77 Battle Royal', a cover feature about the Ivy Bridge-based Core i7, and they also interview Brazil's finest overclocker, Rbuass.

Also covered is a review of GIGABYTE's GEFORCE GTX 680, Plextor's M3 256GB SSD, ASUS' Rampage IV Formula, ASUS Radeon vs. GIGABYTE HD7870, G.Skill Trident 2400MHz CL10 RAM, and finally, Intel's 520 Series SSD. There's much more to read, so don't miss out!

You can read the entire issue, all for free, here.

Diablo III launch was met with errors, but the game is oh-so-awesome
Diablo III launched last night, and for some, it was OK and working. For others, Error 37 plagued many. The various server load issues stopped people from creating characters, starting the game, joining others, or launching into the game at all.

My game launched with one issue where I couldn't create a character, I logged out, logged back in and I was ok. The game crashed a few times, but I put that down to my NVIDIA Surround setup, and requiring new NVIDIA drivers. The game is delicious. Sexy. Addictive. Awesome. It's PC gaming, and it's here, right now.

But there's a new error on the block, Error 3003 which says "Unable to connect to the service or the connection was interrupted". This is the problem with Internet-required games, is that if there are any server-side issues, like most people have experienced with Diablo III, then it pisses a lot of people off. Let's hope it only gets better from here, shall we?

Facebook updates mobile site and apps, should roll out shortly
Social networking site Facebook are currently in the midst of their IPO roadshow, and have just updated their mobile site and apps. This includes updated apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android apps.

Facebook have taken a leaf out of Instagram's book, which, they own now. Where the images on Facebook are significantly larger, which means the news feed shows one large post instead of two or three on the iPhone/iPod Facebook apps.

Pictures are now 300-percent larger than they were before, and Facebook haven't noted any other changes. Facebook haven't mentioned whether this will arrive to other mobile, or non-mobile devices, but it will most likely happen in good time.

Team Immunity smashes into Diablo III for 48 hours straight, all LIVE!
Diablo III is here, and whilst a lot of you probably aren't even reading this because you're raiding dungeons and levelling up characters, here's some very cool news. Team Immunity from Australia is live streaming their event in HD playing Diablo III non-stop.

There are a bunch of gamers at the RedBull HQ in Sydney, Australia, right this very second, who are taking shifts to get their time on the mouse and keyboard to slay baddies in Diablo III. Oh, what's that? You want to see it, sure - there's a live stream link, right here!

Samsung GALAXY S III battery life is quite impressive, holds its own against tablets
Samsung's GALAXY S III is nearly here, and whilst the phone sports a 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED screen, and an impressive 2,100 mAh battery, the battery life itself was questioned. But, GSM Arena have stepped in and thrown the quad-core smartphone through some tests, which are very surprising.

They started with 3G talk time, where the GALAXY S III beats out the iPhone 4S by a large margin, and also beats the HTC One V and S by just minutes. The iPhone 4S sports 7 hours and 41 minutes of 3G talk time, where the GALAXY S III smashes it with 10 hours and 20 minutes, impressive, Samsung. Next up we have web browsing.

During this test, the GALAXY S III only provides 5 hours and 17 minutes of web browsing, compared to the iPhone 4S' very impressive 6 hours and 56 minutes. I'm guessing this is down to the GALAXY S III's much larger screen. Video playback is something very important on smartphones these days, especially something with a 4.8-inch screen. How did the GALAXY S III go against the iPhone 4S?

10 hours and 1 minute for the GALAXY S III, and the iPhone 4S slightly behind with 9 hours and 24 minutes. GSM Arena rounds it up with an "endurance test", where they've given the GALAXY S III a 43 hour endurance rating. This means that you'll need to charge the S III once every 43 hours if you do an hour of 3G talking, video playback and web browsing per day. Quite the achievement! I can tell you I'll be grabbing one of these as soon as I can, I wonder if they'll be available in Taiwan when we're there for Computex...

Inno3D iChill GEFORCE GTX 670 2GB OC Video Card Review

Introduction

I found myself a little surprised that companies have come out so quickly with non-reference versions of the new GTX 670. At launch we found ourselves looking at the Palit offering which is part of the new Jetstream series.

Today we're looking at a version from Inno3D. This is a company we haven't heard from in ages and for the most part it's probably got to do with the fact that NVIDIA have been fairly quiet up until a month ago. Today, though, the GTX 670 we're looking is part of the iChill series, a line that's been around for a while and has always impressed us.

In the past, the iChill series tended to bring with it strong performing coolers that were always on the larger side of things. The low noise and low temperatures came at the cost of a big cooler. We'll see today if that's a trend we continue to see. For people who are only interested in going down the one video card path, a larger cooler can be a good option.

As always there are a few things we need to do before we take a look at the performance. The first is we need to take a closer look at the package. While we're lacking a proper box for the card, we've got the full bundle that we'll check out. Next we'll move onto the video card and also check out the specifications.

We're dealing with an overclocked video card here today so we'll see what Inno3D choose to do with the out of the box clocks. Finally we can get into the fun stuff and check out the performance side of things and see how the Inno3D offering compares to a bunch of other video cards including the stock clocked reference option.

Package

The bundle is fairly impressive. While we've got the standard pieces of kit like driver CD, manual, DVI to VGA connector and a dual Molex to 6-pin PCIe power connector, we've also got a key for 3DMark 11, a mouse pad and an Allen key that is used for the cooler.

In a time where we see more and more companies shrink the size of bundles, the Inno3D offering is pretty nice with those couple of little extras that we see most companies ignore.
... Read the rest in your browser!

ZOTAC announces ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series
ZOTAC International, a global innovator and channel manufacturer of graphics cards, mainboards and mini-PCs, today expands the successful ZOTAC GeForce 600 series with new value offerings. The ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series deliver a savory taste of Microsoft DirectX 11 technologies for an outstanding visual computing experience.

"ZOTAC is pleased to bring the GeForce 600 series to value shoppers seeking a superior visual experience discrete graphics brings to computing," said Carsten Berger, marketing director, ZOTAC International. "By installing one of our ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 or GT 610 series graphics cards, users can experience faster video and image processing and perfect high-definition video playback with a simple upgrade."

The ZOTAC GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series are available in a variety configurations with 512MB, 1GB, 2GB and 4GB memory options in PCI Express 2.0 x16, PCI Express x1 or PCI interfaces, and active or passive cooling configurations to cater exclusively to all user computing needs.

It's time to play with ZOTAC and the GeForce GT 630, GT 620 and GT 610 series.

General details

ZOTAC Expands successful GeForce 600 series

ZOTAC GeForce GT 630 series

96 processor cores

1GB, 2GB and 4GB memory configurations

128-bit memory interface

ZOTAC GeForce GT 620 series

96 processor cores

1GB & 2GB memory configurations

64-bit memory interface

ZOTAC GeForce GT 610 series

48 processor cores

512MB, 1GB & 2GB memory configurations

64-bit memory interface

NVIDIA 3D Vision capable

NVIDIA Adaptive Vertical Sync

DirectX 11 technology & Shader Model 5.0

OpenGL 4.2 compatible

Hardware-accelerated Full HD video playback

Blu-ray 3D ready

Loss-less audio bitstream capable

HGST SHIPS A NEW FAMILY OF 2.5-INCH CINEMASTAR HARD DRIVES
HGST (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and now a Western Digital company, NYSE: WDC) today announced a new family of CinemaStar 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDDs) for the growing traditional and small form factor audio/video (A/V) and consumer electronics (CE) HDD markets. With continued technological advancements and increased capacities, 2.5-inch hard drives are satisfying the needs of both the traditional 3.5-inch CE market as well as the small form factor market, while allowing OEMs to design smaller, more compact A/V streaming devices.

From slim 7mm z-height 500GB HDDs to high-capacity, 2.5-inch, 9.5mm 1TB HDDs, HGST's new CinemaStar family targets the vast majority of CE capacity needs, while providing the right balance of performance, low power and quiet acoustics for multi-stream digital video recorders (DVRs) and set-top-boxes (STBs). Now in its sixth generation, each CinemaStar drive is fine-tuned with advanced streaming technology to efficiently optimize the 24/7 recording and playback of A/V content.

The new CinemaStar family includes:

CinemaStar Z7K500 Family for High Performance A/V Streaming - The CinemaStar Z7K500 family is the industry's first one-disk, 7mm, 7200 RPM, 2.5-inch drive designed for high-performance A/V streaming. It delivers blazing speed, power-efficiency and design flexibility for uninterrupted content delivery and storage. The 7mm CinemaStar Z7K500 drive can be a direct replacement for standard 9.5mm harddrives and is well suited for slim TV integration, and high-performance multi-tuner DVRs and STBs that let you stream, record and watch programming at the sametime. The CinemaStar Z7K500 family comes with a 6Gb/s SATA interface and a 32MB cache buffer, and is available in 500GB, 320GB and 250GB capacities.

CinemaStar C5K1000 Family Delivers Massive Capacity in a Small Footprint - The new CinemaStar C5K1000 drive delivers a generous 1TB capacity in a 2.5-inch form factor, meeting the needs of a growing number of CE OEMs who wish to offer video recording and playback features in a compact design, while still offering massive capacity and functionality as seen in much larger units in households today. The new 5,400 RPM, 9.5mm, 2.5-inch CinemaStar C5K1000 family delivers read/write power as low as 1.5 watts (W) and a quiet operation at 2.4 bels idle. The drive family is available in 1TB, 750GB and 640GB capacities.

CinemaStar Z5K500 Family Offers Mainstream Performance and Capacity - The CinemaStar Z5K500 offering is HGST's second-generation, 7mm, 5400 RPM, 2.5-inch CE HDD family, featuring a one-disk design with 500GB, 320GB and 250GB capacities. With its slim 7mm HDD design, power as low as 1.4W during read/write operations and a barely audible sound at 1.9 idle bels, OEMs can easily design smaller, quieter and more power-efficient DVR solutions with enough streaming performance and capacity to store 185¹ hours of HD video or television shows.

With design wins in virtually all major markets, HGST's CinemaStar hard drive family is the storage muscle behind A/V streaming devices today. HGST CinemaStar drives offer specialized advanced features and integrated technology for high-definition multi-stream DVRs, tuner-based STBs as well as IPTV set-top boxes, DVR-enabled TVs, audio systems and video surveillance systems.

All CinemaStar drives feature HGST's patented and innovative SmoothStream technology, which enables the drives to perform efficiently and provide the best viewing experience possible. The HGST SmoothStream technology supports the industry-standard ATA‑7 streaming command set, and SMART command transport (SCT) provides time-limited error recovery and thermal monitoring capabilities for a longer system life. Together, the SCT protocol and HGST SmoothStream technology minimizedisruptions in stream delivery by adapting buffer management behavior and error recovery timing to match the characteristics of typical streaming applications.

"Increasingly, set-top-box, DVR, and game console manufacturers are leveraging smaller 2.5-inch form factor HDDs instead of traditional 3.5-inch drives in more compact CE product designs," said John Rydning, IDC's HDD research vice president. "With 2.5-inch HDDs able to offer the capacity sweet spot for set top boxes and DVRs, IDC expects 2.5-inch HDD shipments into these applications will grow at a worldwide 2011-2016 compound annual growth rate of 21.8%."²

"The ever increasing appetite for on-demand entertainment is driving the adoption of high-capacity 2.5-inch hard disk drives into a growing number of CE applications," said Brendan Collins, vice president of product marketing, HGST. "Not only is there a desire to increase the storage capacity in these devices to hold more programs, but they must deliver predictable A/V streaming performance. With our broad new family of 2.5-inch CinemaStar drives, we continue to give our customers the flexibility to select a variety of reliable and robust drives to meet their cost, performance, power or capacity requirements, while helping them to deliver smaller, more aesthetically appealing designs."

The new 2.5-inch CinemaStar family is now shipping in limited quantities. CE OEM samples are now available.

WD® Completes Divestiture Of Assets To Toshiba Corporation
Western Digital Corp. (NYSE: WDC) today announced that it has completed its divestiture of certain 3.5-inch hard drive assets to Toshiba Corporation, as required by regulatory agencies that conditionally approved the company's completed acquisition of Viviti Technologies Ltd. (formerly Hitachi Global Storage Technologies).

The assets will enable Toshiba to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for the desktop and consumer electronics markets and will enhance its ability to manufacture and sell 3.5-inch hard drives for near-line (business critical) applications.

As part of its deal with Toshiba, WD® also completed its purchase of Toshiba Storage Device (Thailand) Company Limited (TSDT), which manufactured hard drives prior to the recent Thailand flooding. The principal assets of TSDT are its Thailand property, facilities and employees, which WD plans to integrate into its Thailand operations. The financial terms of the two agreements were not disclosed.

ViewSonic's New Ultra-Slim 24" VX2460h-LED Offers Super Thin Profile
ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, today announced its latest LED backlit monitor solution - the VX2460h-LED - offering the thinnest profile available for its size and class category.

Ideal for consumers, gamers, enthusiasts and discerning buyers alike, the VX2460h-LED is a sleek and stylish 24" (23.6" Vis.) ultra-slim widescreen display that pairs a ¼" ultra-slim thickness with advanced imaging technologies to reduce eye fatigue after extended viewing.
With a Full HD 1080p resolution, 2ms video response time provided by ClearMotiv® II imaging technology and ultra-high 40,000,000 : 1 dynamic contrast ratio, the VX2460h-LED delivers superior pixel performance. Paired with dual HDMI inputs for multiple media device connections, Windows® 7 certification and touch sensitive keys for convenient on-screen display setting adjustments, the VX2460h-LED delivers stunning visual performance. Additionally, this mercury-free, Energy Star® 5.1 certified display is equipped with ViewSonic's ECO-mode feature which extends the lifetime of the display, while delivering energy savings of up to 40% when compared to a regular 24" monitor.

"With nearly 25 years of expertise, we are continually pushing ourselves to achieve the next level of excellence in our displays. At just a 1/4-inch, the VX2460h-LED has one of the world's thinnest profile designs. Partnered with a fast response time and high contrast ratio, this truly is a state-of-the-art machine for any consumer demanding both world class performance and style," commented Erik Willey, LCD monitor and PC product marketing director at ViewSonic.

The VX2460h-LED comes standard with a 3-year warranty, and the industry's best pixel performance policy. The VX2460h-LED will be available in North America in late May for an ESP of $199. For further information, visit ViewSonic.com or follow ViewSonic on the Company blog, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

NVIDIA and Intellectual Ventures Partner to Acquire Portfolio of Wireless Patent Assets
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Intellectual Ventures (IV®) today announced that they have jointly acquired a set of patents developed and owned by IPWireless.

The portfolio comprises approximately 500 patents granted and pending in the wireless communications area, including essential concepts in LTE, LTE-Advanced and 3G/4G technologies.

Terms of the acquisition, which closed on April 30, 2012, were not disclosed. Ownership of the patents was split between NVIDIA and IV, with NVIDIA licensing the rights to those patents that it did not acquire. As part of the acquisition, IPWireless retains perpetual, royalty-free access to these patents.

"This acquisition complements our ownership of extensive fundamental patents in graphics, visual and mobile computing," said David Shannon, executive vice president and general counsel at NVIDIA. "These patents, acquired in collaboration with Intellectual Ventures, will help support our rapidly expanding efforts in the mobile business."

"Through this acquisition, IV was able to acquire a portfolio that is both strategic and relevant in a variety of technology areas," said Loria Yeadon, executive vice president of the Invention Investment Fund (IIF) at Intellectual Ventures. "It was a pleasure working with NVIDIA to develop a customized structure to complete this deal in a relatively short period of time, while also helping NVIDIA to meet its strategic goals. This investment provides efficient access to important inventions and standards-essential patents and reinforces our leadership role in building an active market for invention."

"Retaining access to this patent portfolio allows IPWireless to continue developing its market-leading products and serving its customers now and in the future. In addition, IPWireless will continue investing and innovating in 4G LTE and other areas of wireless IP," said Bill Jones, CEO of IPWireless.

IPWireless is a pioneer in wireless broadband and broadcast and its inventions are on the cutting edge of wireless technologies. Intellectual Ventures is building an active market for invention that allows buyers, sellers and inventors to realize value for their ideas. GCA Savvian Advisors acted as exclusive financial advisor to IPWireless on this transaction.

Available Tags:Facebook , Samsung , GALAXY , GEFORCE , GTX , ZOTAC , ZOTAC , Toshiba , NVIDIA , Wireless ,

Thursday, May 17, 2012

IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 17/05/2012

Introduction

Package

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