IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 05/04/2013

Thursday, April 4, 2013

IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 05/04/2013

TweakTown

RumorTT: Doom 4 to be released on next-gen consoles, Rage 2 gets cancelled Around six years ago, a rumored sequel to Doom was talked about, but it didn't excite id and Bethesda envisioned according to Bethesda vice president of marketing and publications, Pete Hines.

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Kotaku have reported that the game was then thrown in the bin, with Hines backing up this claim stating that id Software refocused their efforts into a new version of Doom 4 that promises to meet the uber high expectations of the game and the Doom franchise. Hines has said that when they're ready to talk about it, they'll let people know. The problems reportedly lie within id Software itself, which is described as a company that was once full of the world's best talent, but lacks direction. Politics and mismanagement all played a negative role at the company, with executives more focused on getting Rage shipped in 2011 rather than pay attention to what was happening with Doom 4 - how that happens, I just don't know. When the company saw what Doom 4 was shaping up to be, they scraped it and demanded big changes. This has led to the Doom 4 reboot, which has pushed Rage 2 to be cancelled since the first game was not received well from both consumers and critics. There's no ETA on Doom 4, but sources have said it will be released on next-gen consoles.

Google Maps extends to 9 new countries across Europe and Africa The Google Maps team have just unveiled the latest update to Google Maps for Android, where the addition of voice navigation for 9 more countries went live earlier today. Users in the below countries will now be able to use the Google Maps app on their Android device with the new features starting now:

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Ghana

Kenya

Cote d'Ivoire

Senegal

Estonia

Bulgaria

Latvia

Lithuania

Slovakia

There's no news on when we should expect more countries to gain the navigation abilities to Maps for Android, but its good to see the Mountain View-based company at least beginning to stretch their navigation legs.

Google Now learns new abilities, is now capable of real-time package tracking and more Google has given their awesome Android app, Google Now, some new abilities, with the updated version now capable of real-time package tracking from certain carriers.

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This new trick is only going to work if a tracking number has hit your inbox of course. The other improvements to Now include a new information option that shows some basic settings, as well as faster Google search results. These new abilities can be found in the updated Google Now app on the Google Play store, if your device hasn't already alerted you of the update.

Skype now connects users for a total of 2 billion minutes every day Microsoft has announced a major milestone for the video and instant messaging platform Skype. They say that Skype users now use the service for a total of two billion minutes every day. To celebrate and explain just how large two billion minutes is, Microsoft provided the following infographic:

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Two billion minutes is a testament to our users who are making Skype the everyday communications hub that brings people together. This massive amount of connection - enough time to watch 1.6 million movies - is also a testament to the hard work of our product teams who have enabled these great experiences. Whether making a voice or video call, sending an instant message, sharing a file or connecting with a group of friends, now more than ever before, Skype brings people together whenever they are apart

Twitter updates iOS app, now allows app installs and launches from tweets Twitter has released an update to its iOS app, bringing the version count to 5.5. With the new update, Twitter has added the ability to launch and install apps linked in a tweet. These feature is a direct result of Twitter's updated Cards feature.

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Apps which support Twitter's Card functions will be able to be installed from the Twitter iOS app. Twitter has also included the usual performance increases, bug fixes, and improvements:

Twitter for iPhone now helps you discover, install and launch your favorite apps from Tweets. This update also includes the following improvements: -Faster launch times and general performance upgrades -"Retweeted by" in Tweet detail is now tappable -Fix for reply-to-self in conversations -Fix for bug that prevented undoing retweets in some cases

You can download the Twitter app from the Apple App Store.

SimCity gets in-game advertising courtesy of Nissan SimCity has a new DLC available for free that adds the Nissian LEAF and LEAF charging station to the game. But nothing in life is ever free--the DLC essentially comes at the cost of having advertising inside of your SimCity gaming experience. We're pretty sure Nissan is paying Maxis/EA to provide this DLC.

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For users who install a Nissan LEAF charging station, nearby businesses get a onetime increase of happiness and Sims who use the charging station gain happiness. In-game advertising isn't anything new. Looking back, the first examples of in-game advertisements showed up as early as 1991. Of course, over the years, some in-game advertising has been done better than others. What are your thoughts on this DLC sponsored by Nissan? Will you download and use it?

AMD says NVIDIA bitter over Sony using AMD in PlayStation 4 AMD's representitive believes that NVIDIA may be bitter over Sony's choice to go with AMD in the PlayStation 4. His reasoning? A statement by NVIDIA's Tony Tamasi saying how the GTX 680 outperforms the PlayStation 4. He added that the 680 had been out for a year and a half.

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If the PS4 ships in December as Sony indicated, it will only offer about half the performance of a GTX 680 GPU, which launched in March 2012, more than a year and a half ago.

AMD's director of ISV relations Neal Robinson responded:

Well, of course they're going to do that. They're a little bitter. For us, really by looking at the APU that we designed, you can't pull out individual components off it and hold up and say, 'Yea, this compares to X or Y.' It's more than just a CPU doing all these amazing calculations and a GPU doing calculations. We are now going to be able to move certain tasks between the two.

It's true that the hardware being used in the PlayStation 4 isn't the latest and greatest. But AMD is able to offer both the CPU and GPU as a package, allowing certain optimizations that can work in the PlayStation 4's favor. We'll have to wait and see what Microsoft brings to the table with the Xbox 720.

Stinky Footboard controller hits Kickstarter with $75,000 goal If you haven't heard of the Stinky Footboard, don't feel bad. Until earlier today, neither had I. Now that I've seen the Kickstarter video, I'm rather impressed and thought I'd pass it along. The Stinky Footboard is a gaming controller designed to be used in conjunction with a mouse and keyboard.

The Kickstarter campaign is offering the Stinky Footboard package for cheaper than it will be when it hits stores this June. You can check out their Kickstarter campaign if you're interested in learning more or supporting this innovative gaming product.

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2013 World Championship for StarCraft II announced by Blizzard A World Championship Series 2013 for StarCraft II is coming, Blizzard announced today. The World Championship Series will be run in conjunction with top eSports organisations, including Korea eSports Association, Ongamenet, GomTV, Major League Gaming, Turtle Entertainment, and Twitch.

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There will be three different leagues in the sereis: one in Korea, one in America, and one in Europe. Each league will feature three sessions and three global season finals. Players will earn points from each of these events that will be used when deciding the World Champion. Blizzard will be hosting the final match during their yearly BlizzCon event this Novemeber.

The structure of the StarCraft II World Championship Series is the result of an ongoing collaborative effort between Blizzard and our partners. Our collective goal was to make StarCraft II eSports even more exciting and easier to follow for fans than ever before. On the heels of the successful launch of StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, we're all very excited about the present and future of StarCraft II eSports.

Samsung and Mozilla working together on new Android browser tech Samsung and Mozilla have teamed up to develop new Android browser technology. Specifically, the team will be working on developing a new browser engine for Android and the ARM architecture. The new engine is said to be called Servo and will make use of Mozilla's Rust programming language.

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Mozilla and Samsung are optimizing the browser for multi-core processors since that seems to be the way mobile devices are heading. It seems somewhat of an unlikely partnership, but it does make sense on some levels for Samsung. The Korean giant currently relies heavily on the Android operating system, a system that Samsung does not own. Samsung is looking to have alternative options going into the future. Working with Mozilla could help get them in on the ground level of Mozilla's upcoming mobile operating system.

Not sure if BB10 is the correct mobile device for you? Check it out in your browser! BlackBerry has unveiled a method to allow users to give BlackBerry 10 OS a test run before shelling out for a new Z10. BlackBerry has put together a mobile website that demos the features of BB10 and allows you to test out various aspects of the new operating system.

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Potential customers can check out the interface, test the predictive keyboard, BlackBerry Messenger, BlackBerry Hub, and other BB10 programs. The demo doesn't operate as smoothly as it would on the actual device, but it at least conveys the idea of the new OS. You can check it out on your iPhone or Android device by heading to BlackBerry.com.

Unreal Engine 4: Elemental demo PlayStation 4 vs PC comparison video posted on YouTube Thanks to a video just posted on YouTube, you can check out the difference between Unreal Engine 4 on the PC and on the upcoming PlayStation 4:

In my own opinion, the PC version of the benchmark appears to feature better graphics, though not by as much as you would expect. Both versions of the Elemental demo are impressive, to say the least. I am looking forward to Unreal Engine 4 and the games that will be created. It appears that particle effects have been toned down in the PlayStation 4 version of Unreal Engine 4. Watch the video and let us know what you think of the demo!

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Disney closes LucasArts, upcoming Star Wars games canceled Famous game studio LucasArts has been closed by Disney as a result of Disney trying to minimize risk. LucasArts is responsible for two decades of classic games, including such favorites of The Secret of Monkey Island, Full Throttle, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

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After evaluating our position in the games market, we've decided to shift LucasArts from an internal development to a licensing model, minimizing the company's risk while achieving a broader portfolio of quality Star Wars games. As a result of this change, we've had layoffs across the organization. We are incredibly appreciative and proud of the talented teams who have been developing our new titles.

Any current games in development have been scrapped. This means that Star Wars 1313 will not be seeing the light of day. Instead, Disney plans to license the right to make games based upon the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises to other developers.

Pictures of Facebook Home UI leak ahead of tomorrow's unveiling Pictures of the upcoming Android-powered Facebook phone have surfaced showing off what the purported Facebook Home will look like. The UI clearly has design inspirations from Apple in that the design is minimal, clean, and simple.

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The design is definitely pleasing and features Facebook integration into nearly every menu. We'll get to see more and know more tomorrow at 10a.m. Pacific when Facebook holds its event. You'll be able to read all about it right here on TweakTown.

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Seagate begins shipping world's first 4TB hard drive with 1TB platters Seagate has begun to ship the world's first 4TB hard drives that feature 1TB platters. Seagate says that the four platter design is one that allows for the highest performance possible, while doubling capacity and reducing cost.

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The drives are said to also feature the highest average data rate of any desktop hard drive that is currently sold on the market today. The new design consumes 35-percent less power than competing drives, and features 64MB of total cache space. To put things into perspective, a 4TB HDD can house 450 hours of HD video, 1 million+ songs and 800,000 DSLR quality photos. The 4TB model has more than 800,000 times the storage capacity of the first Seagate HDD introduced in 1979 and is hundreds of times smaller in physical size.

Amazon to expand its Auto Rip service to include vinyl records Today Amazon announced that it will be adding vinyl records to its AutoRip service. AutoRip is a service by Amazon that offers purchasers of music on physical storage, free MP3 downloads of the same album.

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From now on, any physical disc purchased on Amazon will include a free digital copy of the same album, which is placed in your free Amazon Cloud Player. In addition, digital copies of purchased tracks will not count against your storage total on the cloud service. Amazon says the service is available now for "thousands of records," including titles from every major label with more titles being added daily.

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"We're thrilled to extend this experience to vinyl records," said Steve Boom, Vice President of Digital Music for Amazon "Many of our music customers are vinyl fans and it's traditionally been very difficult to make digital versions of vinyl records-now customers can enjoy the albums they buy wherever they are, not just when they have access to a record player."

RumorTT: Google to launch revised Nexus 7 this July A new Nexus 7 from Google could arrive as soon as this coming July, if rumors we are hearing are true. Reuters is citing two separate sources that claim that Google is preparing to ship roughly eight million new tablets by the end of the year.

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The sources say that the new Nexus 7 will feature a Qualcomm Snapdragon instead of an NVIDIA Tegra 4. One source says that we could see a the new Nexus 7 drop down to the $150 price point, while the other stated that $200 was the magic number. If these rumors are true, then we will most likely see the device surface at next month's Google I/O event, which has been sold out for months. Last year's event saw the original Nexus 7 unveiled as well as a demo of Google Glass.

BlackBerry offers Android and iOS users a BB10 demo via a web app BlackBerry is hoping to convince Android and iOS users to switch over to the dark side by offering up a demo of key BlackBerry 10 features through a new HTML5 web app. Dubbed BlackBerry Glimpse, the app walks users through 10 demonstrations that include the BlackBerry Hub, Screen Share, Time Shift and the unique BB10 predictive keyboard.

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I tried out Glimpse on my very dated Sprint Motorola Photon 4G and the "demo" felt more like a slideshow that used gestures to control rather than a true interactive demonstration. The keyboard demo was so fast that I barely caught what it was trying to illustrate. Not all was bad though, I actually do like the UI that BlackBerry has created. It does have a very Android feel to it which is something that I prefer. Will this "demo" cause a mass migration to BlackBerry 10? I doubt it, but it is a pretty cool marketing idea. If you would like to try it out for yourself head over to the Source #2 link below.

SEC revises its stance on the corporate use of social media to inform investors This morning the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it has revised the way it believes companies should use social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook to inform their investors about company information.

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The revision comes after the commission investigated Netflix CEO Reed Hastings over a post on Facebook about his personal holdings in the company, which caused the company's stock value to rise. The revision requires companies to notify investors that their social media accounts could post information that could affect stock values.

"Personal social media sites of individuals employed by a public company would not ordinarily be assumed to be channels through which the company would disclose material corporate information. Companies should review the Commission's existing guidance - it is flexible enough to address questions that arise for companies that choose to communicate through social media, and the guidance does so in a straightforward manner."

Today is the 40th anniversary of the very first cellular phone call Forty years ago today, then Motorola exec Marty Cooper walked out of his office, met with a reporter on the sidewalk in front of his office building and proceeded to make a world-changing phone call to the CEO of Bell Labs (a division of AT&T).

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This event was most likely one of the top 3 most significant phone calls in the history of the world, as it was the very first cellular phone call ever made. Sure there were car phones at the time, but this was a completely mobile, hand held all-in-one device. The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X that Cooper used went on to be known in pop culture as "The Brick" because it resembled one in both size and weight. The 2.5lb device would set you back a cool $3,995 and featured a single line LED text display. Fast forward 40 years and Google now owns Motorola's mobile division and modern smartphones are tens of thousands of times more powerful. Instead of being limited to the uber rich, now even the poorest people communicate via cellular phones. If you were wondering, in the first cellular call Cooper said to the Bell Labs CEO "I'm ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end."

Quickoffice now free on iOS and Android for Google Apps for Business users Quickoffice is definitely one of the better office suite apps out there at the moment and now users of Google's Apps for Business subscribers can now download the productivity suite for free.

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This morning Google announced that Android and iOS users of its Apps for Business service would be able to download Quickoffice for free. This is something the iPad version has had for some time now, and Google felt that it needed to be extended to the full range of devices used in the business environment. Quickoffice has also received a few improvements in preparation of the announcement. The software now shows Google Drive folders such as Recent, Shared With Me, and Starred. Subfolders are also visible and there is an option to zip folders.

Nokia need to make a 'phablet' or be at risk of falling behind It looks like Nokia need to make a bigger smartphone if they want to succeed in the increasingly sharp smartphone market, according to analysts. During an interview with Bloomberg, IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said that big-screen devices are "a trend that can't be missed" because "people are using smartphones in different ways now, consuming media by streaming over faster mobile networks."

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CSS Insight research director, Ben Wood, chimed in with a similar opinion stating that phablets are an important trend and he has told Bloomberg that "Nokia needs to make sure they don't miss the boat" by not building one of their own.

Anonymous begin "Operation Free Korea," hacks North Korea and steals 15,000 passwords If you haven't been keeping up with the current affairs of the world, North Korea are testing the waters of war at the moment - all while South Korea and their very tight and even more capable ally, the United States, play their war games with B2 Stealth Bombers, among other expensive military toys.

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All while this is happening, Anonymous are jumping into the ring where the hacking collective are said to have started an initiative called "Operation Free Korea" and they're demanding that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un resign and install free democracy in the country. Anonymous have also demanded that North Korea abandon their nuclear ambitions, and for the NK government to give universal and uncensored Internet access to their citizens. The hacking collective have claimed they've hacked into the North Korean intranet, mail servers and Web servers, threatening to wage war if their demands aren't met. The group has written:

We got all over 15k membership records of Uriminzokkiri.com and many more. First we gonna wipe your data, then we gonna wipe your badass dictatorship 'government.'

Hybrid Memory Cube teases 320GB per second bandwidth Get ready for some serious bandwidth to hit us in the near future, with the Hybrid Memory Cube Consortium publishing their HMC Specification 1.0. This will allow companies to build platforms and RAM with 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB chips baking in the stacked, power-efficient technology all without those pesky compatibility issues.

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The HMC Specification 1.0 has some impressive potential with eight links, a memory cube can push a peak 320GB/sec of aggregate bandwidth - opening up a can of whoop ass on the current 11GB/sec that DDR3 gives us. The Consortium have decided to lift the dress a little higher on HMC, saying that the next-gen blueprint is already getting scribbled on, and that it is due early 2014. This should give us double the individual data link speeds - pushing the 15Gbps to 28Gbps. Let's hope this isn't some pipe dream, and we see actual consumer products with even close to these insane speeds in the near future.

Microsoft BUILD conference registrations are now open Registrations for Microsoft's upcoming BUILD conference are now open, with the first 500 registrations scoring a nice $500 off of the price of admission. The BUILD conference will take place on June 26-28 at The Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.

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The three-day event will see sessions held on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, Windows Blue and a bunch of other topics. The Redmond-based software giant are also hosting a hackathon that starts the night before, at 7pm. Attendees can work by themselves, or team up to build apps from scratch using Windows, Windows Phone or Windows Azure, where they can win prizes. We should also see the Windows 8 update codenamed Windows Blue to be shown off at BUILD, with the unveiling of the update to Windows 8 reportedly set to be the only public preview of the OS before it is ready for public consumption later in the year. Tickets to Microsoft's BUILD conference start at $2095 for the three-day event and should sell out quite quick.

Intel 525 Series mSATA SSD Review: Five Capacities Tested

Introduction

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When we went notebook shopping for a model that accepted both SATA III and mSATA, we had a difficult time. Many of the major notebook manufacturers use mSATA in their popular models, but don't list the open slot as a feature or even its existence. We finally choose the Lenovo W530 for its ability to handle two SATA III 2.5" form factor drives and the presence of an onboard mSATA slot under the keyboard. I have a long time love affair with Lenovo notebooks as well, so that played a role as well. The Lenovo W530 and its consumer counterpart T530 are not advertised with mSATA. The product specifications don't mention mSATA, the official videos don't comment on mSATA, but you can configure the unit with a cache drive and often times that is code for an mSATA slot. That said, just mentioning a SSD/HDD cache arrangement doesn't always mean the presence of mSATA, as I found out two weeks ago. Now that I have a number of mSATA drives on hand and one of my daily use notebooks is getting up there in age, I went shopping at the local big box retailers for a new notebook. I actually went out to look at $500 - $700 models and came home with a Samsung 7-Series 17" ultrabook. As advertised in the store, the 7-Series comes with a 500GB HDD and an 8GB cache drive. The advertised specs worked out well because my plan was to replace the HDD with an Intel DC S3700 800GB SSD and replace the mSATA drive with the Mushkin 480GB mSATA. After returning home, I found the mSATA drive was actually an iSSD from SanDisk. A controller and NAND flash combined on a single chip and soldered to the motherboard. Lesson learned, just because a notebook says cache doesn't always mean mSATA. Over time we'll see an increase in both of these solutions and the inclusion of another, m.2 also known as NGFF. Until Haswell hits the market, NGFF is on the back burner, but till then mSATA leads the performance category, and will expand into even more areas. A number of desktop motherboards already have mSATA slots, with GIGABYTE leading the way with the most mSATA equipped models. Intel's new NUC platform uses mSATA as well. The mSATA drive in the NUC is the new 525 Series that we're looking at today. Let's take a look at the specifications and the features of Intel's new 525 Series. ... Read the rest in your browser!

Sleeping Dogs Benchmarked with AMD EyeFinity at 5760x1080

Introduction

Our third outing in our EyeFinity benchmarks, this time we have Sleeping Dogs on the benchmarking table. Sleeping Dogs has been available for a while now, and features some great graphics and a beautiful built-in benchmark.

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Let's get into it shall we? For your information, I'm running: - Intel Core i7 3770K @ 4.8GHz - Corsair H100 Hydro Cooler - Corsair Force Series GT 240GB SSD - ASRock Z77 Extreme 9 motherboard - Sapphire AMD Radeon HD 7970 Dual-X OC Edition (x2) - Lian Li PC-T60 Pitstop - Corsair Dominator Platinum - 16GB kit of 2133MHz DDR3 RAM - Windows 7 Ultimate Edition x64 - AMD Catalyst 13.2 beta 4 drivers I'd like to extend a big thank you to Sapphire, Corsair and ASRock for supplying the parts for this machine, I couldn't write this article or any future articles without this hardware! It's a seriously nice machine, and really powers through what I do each day. I've got the CPU clocked up to remove any potential CPU-based bottlenecks, the RAM is at stock as it doesn't really help gaming performance all that much and everything else is at out-of-the-box settings.

Benchmark Results

What we've done with Sleeping Dogs is run it at the Extreme quality preset, with both 'Normal' and 'Extreme' AA settings. We've run this at 1080p with a single GPU stock, overclocked GPU stock at both Normal and Extreme AA settings. We ran this again with CrossFire enabled at both stock/overclocked and Normal/Extreme AA settings. We've run this same test yet again, at 5760x1080 with single/CF GPU, stock/overclocked and Normal/Extreme.

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It takes some time, but it gives us a better idea of what stresses the cards out and where potential usefulness with CrossFire comes into play.

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A single Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 at 1920x1080 can provide us with some great performance. We saw 125.4 FPS at stock, with an overclock giving a nice increase, pushing the frame rate up to 134.3 FPS at 'Normal' AA settings. Enabling 'Extreme' AA dropped the frame rate considerably, where at stock settings we saw 57.4 FPS and the OC on the single HD 7970 helped out by around 15% bumping the frame rate up to 65.1 FPS. Enabling the second GPU for some CrossFire action provided some interesting results - at 1080p under Normal AA, we saw 126.7 FPS - a single frame faster than our single GPU test. Overclocking provided us with something weird - less average FPS than a single GPU! Let's get into what we're all here for today - EyeFinity. First off, let's talk about the single GPU performance, where we respectively saw 57.4 and 65.1 FPS for the Normal and Extreme AA settings at 5760x1080. These are definitely playable frame rates, hitting that sweet 60 FPS average number for what we consider to be able to offer a solid gaming experience.

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AA always kills multi-monitor setups, and this is no different - enabling the Extreme AA setting saw a drastic drop in performance under our single Sapphire HD 7970 setup - dropping the frame rate to sub-20 FPS with 16.3 and 18.6 FPS for stock and overclocked settings, respectively. Enabling the second GPU provided some huge increases in performance under EyeFinity, which we expected and were happy to see. Under the Normal AA settings at 5760x1080, we respectively saw 100.8 and 108.8 FPS for stock and overclocked on our HD 7970. This is around 80% extra performance over our single GPU results at 5760x1080 - some great results. CrossFire with AA is always a great thing to see on EyeFinity, where we saw 32.7 and 37.7 FPS for stock and overclocked GPU, respectively. This is nearly double the single HD 7970 results, so there's some nice scaling with the Radeon HD 7970's in EyeFinity mode on Sleeping Dogs with Extreme AA enabled. So there you have it, a bunch of numbers on EyeFinity with Sleeping Dogs. Our next adventure with Sapphire and their great HD 7970 video cards will be EyeFinity with Metro 2033 and BioShock Infinite - check back in a couple of days! ... Read the rest in your browser!

SteelSeries APEX [RAW] Gaming Keyboard Review

Introduction

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For some reason or another, I'm not sure if I missed the release of it, or if it was a bit before my time, but as I look now, the APEX keyboard was quite the full featured offering, even in today's market. With the APEX, there were things like 88 Macro keys over four levels of the software and five LED color zones with full RGB options with 16.8 million colors. While it is based on rubber dome switches, it offers anti-ghosting of up to 20 keys, and it even offered a dual port USB hub built into the keyboard to allow users to keep the mouse and headset all tied right into the keyboard. While this version of the APEX is super full in its feature list, it may have been too much for most users to even need or really even use. That leads us to why we are here with SteelSeries today. They have taken a look at what the APEX offered and stripped it down to the essentials without giving up what honestly matters to most gamers out there. While fully customizable LEDs in various sections are cool, one color is just fine for most users. Most users will have a hard time programming, using, or even remembering the sheer amount of Macro potential, so that was slimmed down along with the amount of layers you can add more Macros to. One last major change to the new version is that SteelSeries has done away with the USB ports on the keyboard and has users plugging additional peripherals directly into the rear I/O of the PC now. I know I pretty much spilled the beans as to what the new APEX [RAW] gaming keyboard we are about to look at brings to the table, but there is still more to come in the review. There are quite a few things I have yet to cover about this new submission, but as I say, with the [RAW] naming, the idea is to deliver the basics of the original without overwhelming the user with a bunch of fluff that everyone may not be able to take advantage of in normal usage. Along with this idea comes a good reduction in price as well, so if your interest is piqued at this point, continue reading as I show you what the new APEX [RAW] offers and if it is worth the price. ... Read the rest in your browser!

ZOWIE GEAR Announces the ZOWIE CAMADE Cable Management Device ZOWIE GEAR's product line expands into cable management devices with the introduction of the CAMADE. ZOWIE GEAR understands that there are users who experience inconveniences with their mouse cable; whether it's due to space constraints, caught cable, or cable entanglement. The CAMADE is our solution to those issues. It manages the cable ensuring that this does not happen by allowing gamers to have a set cable length available to make quick and unobstructed movements.

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Furthermore, the unique adjustable spring design enables the user to choose a comfortable height and its solid design allows convenient mobility without any necessary assembly. CAMADE is equipped with a rubber clip that fits mouse cables of different thicknesses. ZOWIE CAMADE will be available in May with 3 different color option. Features:

Guarantees that the cable does not get caught or entangled while moving the mouse.

Unique adjustable spring allows users to select a comfortable height

Rubber feet provides stability and a solid grip

Unique design allowing for convenient mobility

Rubber clip compatible with all types of mice cables

MSRP: 24.99 euros / $24.99 (Plus tax) Product available in May, Please check below for participating launch partner shops: America:

USA: GameJava.com

Europe:

Denmark: Webdanes

Finland: Jimm's PC

Germany: Caseking

Norway: MAXFPS

Poland: NEOGEAR

Spain: VERSUS GAMERS

Sweden: MAXFPS

Sweden: Inet

United Kingdom: Kustom PC

Russia : Cyberlife

Asia:

Kazakhstan : Goodgame

Malaysia : Extreme Gear

IEEE Launches Study Group to Explore 400 Gb/s Ethernet IEEE, the world's largest professional organization advancing technology for humanity, today announced the launch of an IEEE 802.3 "Standard for Ethernet" study group to explore development of a 400 Gb/s Ethernet standard to efficiently support ever-increasing, exponential network bandwidth growth. "Traffic is growing everywhere-more Internet users, more ways to access the Internet more quickly, higher-bandwidth content, new applications enabled, etc.-and it's critical that we move now to create a plan for the Ethernet ecosystem to evolve beyond today's capabilities, in order to accommodate the burgeoning bandwidth tsunami," said John D'Ambrosia, chair of the new IEEE 802.3 400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group and chief Ethernet evangelist, CTO office, Dell. "The launch of this study group is the next critical step in evolving the IEEE 802.3 standard to stay ahead of industry's needs. It builds on two years of open efforts around inviting Ethernet's vast array of stakeholders into the work of assessing and tackling the market's emerging application requirements." The IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Bandwidth Assessment report, which precipitated the launch of the IEEE 802.3 Industry Connections Higher Speed Ethernet Consensus group in August 2012, forecasted that networks will need to support 58 percent compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) on average. Driven by simultaneous increases in users, access methodologies, access rates and services (such as video on demand and social media), the report said, networks would need to support capacity requirements of 1 terabit per second in 2015 and 10 terabit per second by 2020 if current trends continue. These open Industry Connections efforts helped build consensus on the need for an Ethernet solution beyond 100 Gb/s and to launch a "call for interest" within IEEE for a study group to explore development of a 400 Gb/s Ethernet standard. "Ethernet is an arena of constant innovation, driven by the market demand for support of new ever-increasing bandwidth speeds, as well as new protocols, applications and media types," said Alan Weckel, vice president enterprise and data center market research at Dell'Oro Group. "Global bandwidth requirements are continuing to grow exponentially, and that makes it so important that the IEEE 802.3 standards community take proactive steps such as assessing needs and launching this study group. Standards-based solutions are integral to maintaining business growth across the Ethernet ecosystem." Individuals interested in the future of IEEE 802.3 Ethernet wireline standards are invited to contribute to the IEEE 802.3 400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group, which is scheduled to meet during the IEEE 802.1/802.3 May 2013 Joint Interim, scheduled for 14-17 May 2013 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. For more information about the meeting, please visit this page. "An IEEE 802.3 study group is formed when there is interest in developing a request to initiate an IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standards-development project," said David Law, chair of the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet Working Group and distinguished engineer with HP Networking. "The IEEE 802.3 400 Gb/s Ethernet Study Group will provide an opportunity for expertise from across application spaces and geographic regions worldwide to collaborate on a proposal for development of a 400 Gb/s Ethernet standard, and I look forward to its work in further galvanizing the Ethernet ecosystem around next steps and accelerating potential future standards-development activities." Ethernet is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. Deployment of technology defined by the IEEE 802.3 standard is already globally pervasive, driven by the ever-growing needs of local area, access and metropolitan area networks around the world. Beyond traditional networks, new application areas such as networking for industrial, automotive and other industries are looking to expand their reliance on Ethernet in their networks. To better address the needs of all of these areas, the IEEE 802.3 Ethernet standard is constantly evolving and expanding. The success of the standard-from its inception through today-has been its open and transparent development process, which is an example of the "OpenStand" principles (http://open-stand.org). These principles encapsulate a modern paradigm for global, open standards that can be extended broadly to other technology spaces.

TSMC and ARM Tape-Out First ARM Cortex-A57 Processor on 16 nm FinFET Technology TSMC and ARM today announced the first tape-out of an ARM Cortex-A57 processor on FinFET process technology. The Cortex-A57 processor is ARM's highest performing processor, designed to further extend the capabilities of future mobile and enterprise computing, including compute intensive applications such as high-end computer, tablet and server products. This is the first milestone in the collaboration between ARM and TSMC to jointly optimize the 64-bit ARMv8 processor series on TSMC FinFET process technologies. The two companies cooperated in the implementation from RTL to tape-out in six months using ARM Artisan physical IP, TSMC memory macros, and EDA technologies enabled by TSMC's Open Innovation Platform (OIP) design ecosystem.

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ARM and TSMC's collaboration produces optimized, power-efficient Cortex-A57 processors and libraries to support early customer implementations on 16 nm FinFET for high-performance, ARM technology-based SoCs. "This first ARM Cortex-A57 processor implementation paves the way for our mutual customers to leverage the performance and power efficiency of 16nm FinFET technology," said Tom Cronk , executive vice president and general manager, Processor Division, ARM. "The joint effort of ARM, TSMC, and TSMC's OIP design ecosystem partners demonstrates the strong commitment to provide industry-leading technology for customer designs to benefit from our latest 64-bit ARMv8 architecture, big.LITTLE processing and ARM POP IP across a wide variety of market segments." "Our multi-year, multi-node collaboration with ARM continues to deliver advanced technologies to enable market-leading SoCs across mobile, server, and enterprise infrastructure applications," said Dr. Cliff Hou , TSMC Vice President of R&D. "This achievement demonstrates that the next-generation ARMv8 processor is FinFET-ready for TSMC's advanced technology." This announcement highlights the enhanced and intensified collaboration between ARM and TSMC. The test chip was implemented using a commercially available 16nm FinFET tool chain and design services provided by the OIP ecosystem and ARM Connected Community partners. This successful collaborative milestone is confirmation of the roles that TSMC's OIP and ARM's Connected Community play in promoting innovation for the semiconductor design industry.

EK Launches First Ever AMD FirePro Water Cooling Solution EK Water Blocks, Ljubljana based premium water cooling gear manufacturer, is proud to introduce world's first water cooling solution for both AMD FirePro W9000 and S10000 graphics cards. EK Water Blocks' versatible and fully flexible solution allows for virtually any configuration to be used and expanded when necassery. Both solutions provide a single-slot design thus doubling the computing power per unit compared to factory heatsink fan (HSF) cooling solution. Same footprint - twice the power!

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EK-FCS10000 is a high performance full-cover water block for AMD FirePro S10000 series dual-processor professional/server graphics cards. This water block directly cools both GPUs, RAM as well as both VRMs (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain 100% stable under any given workload. EK-FCS10000 water block also features a high flow design therefore it can be easily used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps.

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EK-FCW9000 is a high performance full-cover water block for AMD FirePro W9000 series professional workstation CAD/CAM graphics cards. This water block directly cools GPU, RAM as well as VRM (voltage regulation module) as water flows directly over these critical areas thus allowing the graphics card and it's VRM to remain 100% stable under any given workload. EK-FCW9000 water block also features a very high flow design therefore it can be easily used in liquid cooling systems using weaker water pumps. Base of both water blocks is made of C110 grade electrolytic copper while the top is made of laser cut stainless steel metal plate. EK-FCS10000 also comes with single-slot I/O bracket which frees adjacent PCI/PCI-Express slot. The sealing is performed by quality NBR rubber washers. Screw-in brass standoffs are pre-installed and allow for safe, painless installation procedure. Both water blocks are - just like any EK Water Blocks product - factory pressure tested and come with 1g packaging of Arctic Cooling MX-2 thermal grease (TIM). EK-FCS10000 comes with the MSRP of 139.95 euros (incl. VAT) while the EK-FCW9000 comes with MSRP of 119.95 euros (incl. VAT). Both product will be available for purchase through EK Webshop and Partner Reseller Network on Friday, April 5th 2013.

ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini Launched ASUS today announced the GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini, a compact high-performance graphics card designed primarily for small form factor PCs with mini ITX motherboards. The dual-slot card measures just 17cm and features the NVIDIA GTX 670 GPU for DirectX 11.1-compatible gaming. The reference GTX 670 measures 24.13cm, for comparison.

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Small form factor PCs based on mini ITX motherboards are a popular choice for gamers and home users. Their compact cases are much easier to transport to LAN parties than a standard desktop PC, and stylish designs with comparatively low power requirements make them a natural choice for home theater PCs. The ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini is designed to maximize the potential offered by mini ITX motherboards by delivering high performance graphics. It uses an exclusive DirectCU thermal design that combines a heat-spreading vapor chamber and the CoolTech Fan, which provides wide-angle airflow and venting to cool critical graphics card components.

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New DirectCU Mini with vapor chamber and CoolTech Fan ASUS has re-engineered the DirectCU cooler to fit small form factor cases. While shorter, it introduces a copper vapor chamber placed directly on top of the GPU for faster heat spreading and dispersal with 20% (or 7.5âˆ˜C) lower temperatures than reference GTX 670. Also new is the CoolTech Fan, a blower/axial crossover. Its inclusion translates into wide-angle and powerful airflow that keeps vital card components cool, with heat vented through the back and top of the card. It also provides three times quieter operation, all within a limited space. Direct Power and Super Alloy Power for stable and durable performance Taking advantage of its smaller form factor, the ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini uses Direct Power technology, which bridges power delivery components and the GPU for clean and efficient power supply, delivering 56% lower impedance and a 15% cooler PCB. Super Alloy Power capacitors, chokes, and MOSFETs are hardened against heat and stress, averaging 2.5 times the lifespan of generic parts. GPU Tweak quick and easy graphics tuning Exclusive graphics card tuning utility GPU Tweak is bundled with the ASUS GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU Mini. An intuitive interface makes changing core and clock frequencies, fan speeds, voltages, and power consumption targets easy, helping get more performance out of the graphics card. Game-specific profiles can be created, which combined with effortless overclocking help LAN party goers maximize performance for competitive engagements.

Thermaltake Announces the Urban S71 PC Chassis As one leading brand in the computer chassis, thermal solution, and power supply unit, Thermaltake continues launching the most expecting member in Urban Series, Urban S71 mainstream full-tower, categorized in windowed and non window version. The Urban Series has a sophisticated and cutting-edge look; designed for users who looks for powerful performance and high expandability but a flamboyantly appearance or more simple and sophisticated look. [img]01[/img] [img]02[/img] Urban S71 built with brushed aluminum finish front door panel to mask the extrusive drive devices (3 ODD and 6 HDD drive bays), not only unify the appearance, but also provide a simple yet elegant aesthetic; the sophisticated look can also be part of decoration at home to enhance living quality. Furthermore, the preinstalled sound-damping foams for extreme silence purpose on both side panels of Urban S71 non window version reduce noise and acoustic levels within the chassis. [img]03[/img] [img]04[/img] Convenient Platform & Easy Installation The front-top panel has implemented two of latest data transfer SuperSpeed USB 3.0 ports along with two USB 2.0 ports, a HD microphone and headset jacks, to grand direct access when needed. Top-mounted 2.5" or 3.5" HDD Docking Station enables blazing fast file transfer and effortless hot-swap drive replacement design for easy setup or removal of HDD. Extreme Ventilation Preinstalled two of 200 mm speed control fans at the front and top plus a rear 120 mm turbo fan optimize system ventilation. In order to keep the interior dust free, all intake ventilation holes come with dust protection including removable dust filters at the top, front and bottom of the chassis. Greater Spacious Interior Urban S71 enables user to build up a complete high-end solution with a 240 mm radiator liquid cooling system, support motherboard up to Extend ATX and extra long graphic card with ease which helps to protect user's hardware and increase the CPU's overclocking potential, most importantly while delivering outstanding performance and efficiency from within the case. The complete Urban Series namely Urban S21, S31, S41, and S71 had been officially introduced by Thermaltake respectively. This entire series allows users to have more options to get an elite enclosure that will last you for builds to come. For more details on the Thermaltake Urban S71 information please visit: Classic: http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002050 Windowed: http://www.thermaltake.com/products-model.aspx?id=C_00002049

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