IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (Tech Report) 22/07/2012

Deal of the week: Games, games, games—and some hardware, too
The Steam Summer Sale has been running all week, slowly impoverishing PC gamers everywhere. There are still some great deals to be found among today's picks, including:
Not one to be one-upped, Amazon also has a number of games on sale on its digital distribution ...
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Asus, HTC commit to Android 4.1 updates
Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is out, but the number of devices running Google's latest OS is relatively small. Only a handful of the company's own products—the Nexus 7 tablet and Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S smartphones—have received official updates. PC World says the old Motorola Xoom tablet will also get a Jelly Bean update, and HTC has confirmed that its One X, One XL, and One S smartphones will get a taste of the new OS.
Just a few minutes ago, Asus made an official statement clarifying its plans for Jelly Bean updates. The Transformer Prime, Transformer Pad Infinity, and Transformer Pad 300 will ...
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Report: Haswell chipsets add 6Gbps SATA, USB 3.0 ports
Intel typically releases fresh platform hubs, otherwise known as chipsets, with new CPUs. According to DigiTimes, Haswell and its accompanying 8-series platform hubs are due in April 2013, about a year after Ivy Bridge arrived with its 7-series chipsets. The site says this transition will also include a new LGA1150 socket that won't be backward compatible with existing CPUs.
Code-named Lynx, the 8-series platform hubs will reportedly be much more power-efficient than the current generation. Fudzilla claims the new chips are projected to consume 50% less power on average than 7-series products. They'll offer more connectivity, too. The site says we ...
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Microsoft posts first quarterly loss—ever
If you read through Microsoft's latest earnings release, you'll see the company gloat about record revenue for both its fourth fiscal quarter and its 2012 fiscal year (both of which ended on June 30). Indeed, Microsoft's quarterly revenue climbed from $17.37 billion a year ago to $18.06 billion last quarter, and full-year revenue inched up from $69.94 billion to $73.72 billion.
The thing is, Microsoft also posted a $492 million net loss for the quarter—the first ever loss in Microsoft's entire 26-year history as a publicly traded company, according to the ...
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AMD revenues, profits down, but still in the black
Well, AMD has some good news and some bad news in its freshly released quarterly results announcement. The good news: AMD didn't lose any money in the second quarter. And the bad news: the company's revenue, profits, and gross margin were all down compared to the same quarter a year ago. See for yourself:
This shouldn't come as a surprise if you've kept up with AMD news, of course—the chipmaker announced last week that Q2 revenue would ...
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Friday Shortbread
Eight is Enough

DigiTimes: PC players need to consider selling smart

services in the post-PC era, says Quanta chairman
CNNMoney: Apple granted 'the mother of all smartphone software patents'
DigiTimes: Intel to release 8 series chipsets in April 2013 (thanks localCitizen)
Fudzilla: Intel Lynx chipset features 25% lower TDP

and AMD Richland 28nm chipset is Bolton
X-bit labs: Market observers predict increase of DRAM prices in coming

quarters and Crucial starts to sell m4 SSDs for ultrathin laptops
TechRadar on Windows 8 security: How next-gen Windows will be even more secure
Message from Mike Morhaime about Diablo III
VentureBeat: Taiwanese gamer dies after 40-hour Diablo III session

A couple of months with Corsair's Vengeance M60 mouse
It all started with a failing microswitch.
It was the spring of 2011, and I was a perfectly contented MX1100 user. Logitech's latest high-end mouse had treated me well for the previous 12 months, and I was looking forward to many more years of happy use. I loved the shape of the thing. I was enthralled by its ...
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Release roundup: Fast DRAM, mini SSDs, and a big tower
Every week, we gather press releases that slipped through the net of our daily coverage, and we post them in the release roundup. This week, we've got news from Adata, Crucial, and Lian Li:

BF3: Armored Kill trailer showcases vehicle combat
Lest you think next year's BF4 beta is the only new content in store for Battlefield players, BF3 is due to receive a number of DLC updates. The next one is called Armored Kill, and it's scheduled for release in September. EA has unveiled a new trailer showing gameplay footage from the expansion. Check it out:
...
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ASRock UEFI grabs updates over the Internet
Motherboard firmware has come a long way. We used to be confined to text-only interfaces, keyboard input, and flashing via bootable floppy disks. Modern implementations are much better, offering graphical interfaces, mouse support, and integrated flashing utilities that can apply updates stored on USB drives. Now, ASRock has made the flashing process even easier. According to EXPreview, the motherboard maker's latest UEFI firmware is capable of updating itself over the Internet.
Obviously, you'll need a working network connection. The firmware reportedly supports DHCP and PPPoE setups. Users can also choose between four different firmware servers based on their geographic location. The whole process, which EXPreview lays out in a series ...
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Apple hires Trinity platform architect John Bruno

One of the brains behind AMD's Trinity APU has a new job—and no, he wasn't promoted within the chipmaker. According to SemiAccurate, Bruno was actually fired last November as part of AMD's most recent workforce decimation. Since then, Bruno has taken up a new position... at Apple.
SemiAccurate says Bruno now holds the title of System Architect at the Mac maker. The folks at SlashGear tracked down his LinkedIn profile, which you can find here , and the information checks out. It looks like Bruno was an ASIC Design Manager at ATI before joining AMD as Senior ASIC Design ...
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Pictures of early iPad prototype turn up
Little-known fact: the iPad came out after the iPhone, but Apple actually started work on the tablet first. Steve Jobs said so a couple of years back at AllThingsD's D8 Conference. Now, we have photographic evidence, courtesy of Apple's never-ending legal battle with Samsung.
Court filings snatched up by NetworkWorld and BuzzFeed show a very early iPad prototype, dubbed simply "035," that purportedly dates back to 2002-2004. ...
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Available Tags:HTC , Android , USB 3.0 , USB , Microsoft , AMD , profits , ASRock , Apple , iPad ,

Sunday, July 22, 2012

IT News Head Lines (Tech Report) 22/07/2012

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