Microsoft issues apology over employee's disrespectful Twitter rants
This
morning we covered a back and forth between Microsoft's Adam Orth and Xbox fans over Always-on DRM. Orth was quite disrespectful and in my opinion, very unprofessional. This afternoon, Microsoft issued an official apology to Xbox fans over the tirade.
The statement from Microsoft reads:
We apologize for the inappropriate comments made by an employee on Twitter yesterday. This person is not a spokesperson for Microsoft, and his personal views do not reflect the customer-centric approach we take to our products or how we would communicate directly with our loyal consumers. We are very sorry if this offended anyone, however we have not made any announcements about our product road map, and have no further comment on this matter.
It is worth noting that they did make a point to deny any conformation of any form of DRM on the next generation Xbox. While we still believe that the new Xbox will feature Always-on DRM, we understand why Microsoft is reluctant to release any details at this point.
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Could Austin, TX be getting Google Fiber? We'll find out April 9
It looks as though the Austin, Texas could be getting Google Fiber. Google and the City of Austin have an announcement planned for this Tuesday, April 9. Sources in the city seem to think that the announcement relates to broadband, most likely meaning Austin will be getting Google Fiber.
You are a leader here in Austin. Every day, your work and contributions help make our community better and stronger. That's why we want you to be one of the first to hear about something new coming to Austin. Please join Google and the City of Austin for an announcement on Tuesday.
There are definitely other explanations than Google Fiber. Google could be planning to test out same-day delivery, open a new office, or any number of things. But Google Fiber is somewhat likely. Austin did fairly well in the original contest for Google Fiber and Google has contemplated expanding outside of Kansas City.
We'll know more April 9 and will let you know the full details.
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LOLTT: Copyright holders asking Google to take down their takedown notices
Every now and then a story comes along that makes you laugh out loud. For me, this is certainly one of those stories. Google has started receiving takedown requests of pages that contain a copyright holder's original takedown request. These robotically-generated requests are submitted because the original takedown request features the URL that was originally taken down.
It's rather hilarious and also ironic. In the picture above, you can see one of the takedown requests submitted by Fox asking for a ChillingEffects.org link to be removed. That link points to a
previous Fox takedown request.
The system is clearly broken. Google is now handling over 20 million takedown requests per month and it shows no sign of slowing down. But just how we fix the DMCA isn't clear. Both Google and the movie studios have their own ideas and they are, of course, mostly contrary to each other.
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RumorTT: Microsoft working on Google Glass competitor
Rumor has it Microsoft is working on a competitor to Google's Project Glass. According to a rumor posted by Apple Insider, Microsoft will be introducing a Google Glass competitor sometime in 2014. This rumor comes courtesy of Analyst Brian White who predicted Microsoft's move in a investor note yesterday.
It wouldn't be surprising that Microsoft would want to develop some sort of augmented reality device to compete with Google. The way things are going, augmented reality and wearable computing appear to be the way of the future with many companies jumping on board.
It appears to us that Google has made significant breakthroughs around software applications as it relates to this new product. As such, we believe this initiative will kick off a major push into the field of wearable electronics and therefore will be closely scrutinized.
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Audi and T-Mobile introduce new data plans to bring prices down to as little as $15/month
Audi's Connect Infotainment system utilizes the T-Mobile network for its data needs. The companies have released a joint statement introducing new data plans that bring the price as low as $15 per month. The data plan would have previously set you back $30 per month on a month-to-month basis.
The new plans include unlimited data for $30 per month, a yearly contract, a two-year contract, or a 30 month contract. These will set you back a total of $324, $600, or $450, respectively. Cars are often long-term purchases, so getting a two-year contract probably isn't a problem for most.
One thing that I would like to see is the ability to sell the contract with the car, if for some reason you need to sell the car right away. It's not clear whether or not Audi and T-Mobile currently offer this.
Customers want to have the wireless experience they want when they want it - at home, at work, or in their car. Through our partnership with Audi, customers can now access award-winning in-vehicle service and virtually unlimited data access for as little as $15 per month.
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RumorTT: Are these pictures of the upcoming iPhone 5S?
GSMAreana has received some pictures from a tipster that are allegedly of the upcoming iPhone 5S. The pictures depict a radical departure from the current iPhone 5. They actually line up with a patent application approved by the US Patent Office last week, which could indicate they are real. Or the "tipster" could have crafted some pictures to match the application. First, the application picture:
As you can see, the patent application features a curved screen and curved back. Noticeable absent is the typical Home button. Now, take a look at the pictures sent in:
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We encourage you to not take these pictures as the iPhone 5S that will be launched this summer. This could be a prototype or it could be the real thing. It could also be a render that someone has made from the patent image.
There is one thing to note. The back of the panel appears to feature the same regulatory markings as the current iPhone 5. This could indicate that this is a render using a picture of the back of the current iPhone 5 as the texture, or it could indicate this is a final product.
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Skype malware turns victim's machine into Bitcoin miner
A new malware has been discovered by
Kaspersky labs. The new malware spreads through Skype and turns the victim's computer into a Bitcoin miner. The victim's machine is then fully loaded to mine Bitcoins which is how the malware author makes money from the software.
The malware currently has a low detection rate. Kaspersky now identifies the malware as Trojan.Win32.Jorik.IRCbot.xkt. The malware is downloaded from a server in India. Once on the victim's machine, it pulls down more files from Hotfile, one of which is a Bitcoin mining application.
Bitcoin mining,
explained more in-depth by Bitcoin, is a processor intensive task. The victim's CPU will be fully loaded mining Bitcoins, which are then given to the author of the malware. These Bitcoins are then used to turn a profit.
To stay safe, be sure to update your anti-virus software often and don't click any random links received via Skype.
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ITC judge issues ruling that Samsung infringes upon key part of Apple patent
An International Trade Commission judge has ruled that Samsung infringes upon a key part of an Apple patent that deals with text-selection on smartphones and tablets. The ITC judge also ruled that Samsung did not infringe upon parts of a second patent owned by Apple dealing with detecting if a microphone is plugged into the microphone jack.
Now that a ruling has been issued, the full ITC commission will convene and decide whether or not to uphold the judge's ruling. We are told to expect the final decision sometime in August. If the decision is upheld, it will not work out well for Samsung. The ITC can decide to bar importation of any device found to be infringing on the patent.
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T-Mobile starts roll out of software update for existing unlocked iPhones on the network
T-Mobile has started the roll out of software updates for the scores of unlocked iPhones already running on the carrier's network. If you're using an unlocked iPhone 5 on T-Mobile's network, this update will enable LTE and Visual Voicemail as well as fix minor bugs and optimizations.
We
previously reported that this roll out would start today. You can easily update your device over the air or by connecting up to iTunes. The update details what it brings to the table:
Enables the following:
Visual Voicemail
4G network indicator
Commercial Mobile Alert System (CMAS)
AWS LTE (T-Mobile and officially unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 only)
HD Voice (T-Mobile and officially unlocked AT&T iPhone 5 only)
AWS HSPA+ (T-Mobile and new 2013 AT&T iPhone 5 only)
Auto configures:
MMS Settings
Personal Hotspot Settings (Smartphone Mobile Hotspot)
APN settings for LTE connectivity
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SpaceTT: ISS experiment may have discovered dark matter, and Saturn begins rising in the night sky
The International Space Station (ISS) may have detected the elusive so-called dark matter, which is believed to be the glue that holds the universe together. The discovery comes from the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on-board the ISS, which has detected about 400,000 positrons.
Positrons are the antimatter partner particle of electrons. Positrons have been detected before, but these are a little different in composition. They have an energy signature that suggest they might have been formed when particles of dark matter collided with other particles of dark matter.
In other space news, Saturn has once again returned to the northern hemispheres nighttime skies. Saturn has always been my favorite object to view, not just because of its beauty, but because it's easy to find and view with minimal equipment. A decent set of binoculars as well as cheap department store telescopes can all resolve Saturn and its rings and you might even be able to notice some color in the rings if the skies are clear enough.
Head over to Source #3 and #4 for some info on how to find and observe Saturn.
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Tech giants descend on Washington to talk patent trolls with the FTC and DoJ
Four of the tech industries largest companies are in Washington today to appeal to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in an effort to put a stop to patent trolling from firms like Lodsys and Intellectual Ventures.
Patent trolling has become a sort of industry all of its own in the last few years with firms headed up by lawyers buying up tech patents from failing companies or sell-offs. These firms have no original IP of their own and only exist to extort exorbitant licensing fees and lawsuit wins over everything from individual app developers to giants, such as Google.
The "patent assertion industry" has gotten so big that in 2012 it ate up roughly $30 billion in funds from large tech companies. Google has teamed up with BlackBerry, EarthLink and Red Hat and compiled a 22-page report explaining how Patent Assertion Entities have slowed innovation, decreased jobs, and overall hurt the US economy in the last decade.
The report noted that since 2007, these so called PAE lawsuits have made up over 65-percent of all patent lawsuits in the country.
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Nintendo apologizes for availability shortage of Monster Hunter Ultimate
Nintendo has officially issued an apology for low supply numbers for its most popular WiiU game to date. The rehashed Monster Hunter Ultimate is one of the highest rated games available on the console, and Nintendo just cannot keep it in stock.
"I'd like to apologize for the current stock shortage due to high demand of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate at retail. New #MH3U stock will hopefully be available in shops next week for Wii U and mid-April for Nintendo 3DS", read the tweet on the Nintendo UK Twitter account.
The shortage is only affecting physical copies of the game. Users can still visit the Nintendo eShop and purchase a digital copy of the game. They will need to have an external HDD though as the fully HD game is quite large.
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Chrome will transition from WebKit to Blink in ten weeks, says Google
All week we have been covering
Google's decision to drop and fork WebKit to build its own web rendering engine called Blink. Today we are learning when the transition will begin taking place.
Google has confirmed that Blink will make its first official appearance in Chrome 28, which should release in this summer. In a Q&A session with the Chrome Development Community, Chrome developer advocate Paul Irish explained that
"Blink is already integrated in Chrome Canary builds, and we can expect to see it in stable versions of the browser in about 10 weeks."
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Patch Tuesday is coming and Microsoft has two releases you need to know about
Microsoft will release two critical patches this coming Tuesday April the 9th. The pair of patches are both for Windows and one for Internet Explorer.
One of the patches is a critical update to Windows 8, Vista, 7, XP and RT. The other patch is deemed "important" and is for Vista, 7 and XP. There is also patches for Windows Server 2012, 2008, and Server Core. An update of Microsoft's Windows Malicious Software Removal tool is also expected.
Keep an eye out for the updates next Tuesday.
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iPhone 5 goes on pre-order at T-Mobile for $99
T-Mobile has begun pre-orders of the iPhone seven days ahead of its release with the "Unplan" carrier. While the iPhone 5 has been out for some time, T-Mobile will be the only carrier offering the smartphone without a service contract.
T-Mobile recently abandoned service contracts which effectively put an end to the carrier offering contract-subsidized phones. In a sort of ironic twist, you can now buy phones at full price or enter into a
Pre-orders are now open on the $99 + $20/month for 24 months 16GB iPhone 5 in black or white. The 32GB and 64GB versions are also both available under the same $20/month for 24 months terms, but will cost you $199 and $299 respectively. How do you feel about the new contract-less plans that T-Mobile has switched to? Let us know in the comments.
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Microsoft's Adam Orth goes on the offensive regarding always on DRM on Twitter, in regards to next-gen Xbox
Microsoft's next generation Xbox has long been rumored to feature Always On DRM protection, and after recent events with SimCity and Diablo 3, many gamers are seeking to put an end to that sort of DRM. Yesterday Microsoft Employee Adam Orth took to Twitter to vent his frustrations with the anti-DRM crowd.
Orth, a Creative Director at Microsoft, went on a tirade blasting opponents of Always On DRM saying "Sorry, I don't get the drama around having an "always on" console. Every device is now "always on" that is the world we live in, ending the tweet with the hashtag, #dealwithit. This led some people to point out the debacle that EA recently went through with SimCity and asking what happens when the internet goes out.
Orth replied, "Electricity goes out too." This led to a follow up reminding Orth that some locales such as rural areas are often not well connected and do not have internet connections at all. One tweeter said: "You've lived in LA, SF, Seattle... Very Connected places. Try living in Janesville, WI or Blackberg VA." This prompted a kind of insulting reply from Orth of, Why on earth would I live there? He then set his Twitter account to private.
Despite the lack of thought Orth put into his post, could he have been confirming that the next generation Xbox will indeed require an Always On connection to the internet? DRM is big business for large studios like EA, but some smaller developers are choosing to release their games without any form of DRM. Recently the developers of The Witcher 3 issued a patch that removed all DRM from the game, making good on a promise they made before launch.
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Google posts Google Glass explainer video for those who couldn't attend SXSW
For those interested in learning more about Google Glass, Google has posted up an explainer video that was filmed at the SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. The video runs for roughly an hour and talks about the abilities of Google Glass and explains the Mirror API for the developers among you.
Project glass is about our relationship to technology. It's about technology that's there when you want it but out of the way when you don't. It feels like technology is getting in the way more than it needs to. And, that's what we are addressing with project glass. It's so that you can still have access to the technology that you love but it doesn't take you out of the moment.
Google is still aiming to have a consumer-ready version of Glass on the market by year's end, though Timothy Jordan, Google's developer advocate, says Glass is still in the beginning stages.
If you've ever wondered what it's like to look through the lens of Glass, what the video above as Jordan shows a video looking through the lens. "By bringing technology closer, we can get it more out of the way."
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Images of BlackBerry R-Series device leak out
Images to go with the sketch we posted earlier have leaked out on to the internet. These images supposedly show an upcoming BlackBerry 10-powered device known currently as the R-Series. The device features side-mounted SD and SIM card slots and feature a hardware QWERTY keyboard for the true BlackBerry addict.
This device appears to be a successor to the BlackBerry Curve, a lower-end device designed for people on a budget. The R-Series device will likely feature less RAM, processing power, and screen real estate than the more expensive BlackBerry 10 devices.
What are your thoughts on the R-Series BlackBerry? Glad BlackBerry brought back a physical QWERTY keyboard?
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ASUS' GTX Titan used to set 4 3DMark world records
ASUS has announced that its GTX Titan, the fastest single GPU card on the market, has broken four 3DMark world records. The cards were assisted by the expertise of ASUS' in-house overclocking experts, Andre Yang and Shamino.
With the Titan, ASUS was able to achieve a 3DMark11 entry preset score of 36658, performance preset score of 37263, and extreme preset score of 22076. It also set a new world record for 3DMark's Fire Strike benchmark with a score of 21818.
The system consisted of four ASUS GTX Titan cards overclocked and cooled with liquid nitrogen, an ROG Rampage IV Extreme motherboard, and an Intel Core i7-3970X processor. To learn more about the records or system, you can check out Futuremark's Hall of Fame.
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Samsung expecting $7.7B in profits for Q1, up 53%
Samsung has announced an expected first-quarter profit of $7.7 billion, an impressive feat to say the least. While this estimate is higher than analyst predictions, it breaks Samsung's string of five quarters of record profits. This projection is down slightly from Q4 of 2012 when Samsung posted $8.3 billion in profit.
Part of the explanation of lower profits comes from the fact Samsung is on the cusp of releasing the next Galaxy device. Similar to how Apple always suffers the quarter before a new iPhone, Samsung has customers who are likely waiting for the latest and greatest to come out.
We'll know the actual numbers for the first quarter on April 26. That happens to be three days before Apple reports its earnings.
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Indiegogo suffers DDOS over YourAnonymousNews campaign
Crowd funding website Indiegogo was hit by a DDOS attack by an unknown source after YourAnonNews posted up a fundraising campaign. YourAnonNews (YAN) is attempting to raise funds to develop and host a new website that is similar to a newswire for Anonymous news. Apparently someone didn't like the idea.
Over the past two years Your Anon News (YAN) has been many things to many people and has continuously evolved under the guidance of numerous contributors. Since our humble beginnings as a new account we have always resisted being held to the constraints placed upon mainstream media outlets, but were limited to the tools available to us via Twitter and Tumblr. Those of us contributing to YAN have always desired to expand our capabilities and to report, not just aggregate, the news.
It's not clear where the DDOS attack originated from and Indiegogo hasn't been exactly forthcoming about the attack. Slava Rubin, founder of Indiegogo, apologized for the outage and offered an extension to any campaigns ending this week: "Any campaigns scheduled to conclude this week will have the option of extending until Sunday by contacting our 24-7 Customer Happiness team."
You can check out the YAN Indiegogo campaign on the Indiegogo site.
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Jurassic Park 3D Blu-ray to hatch in Australia in June
Universal Pictures Australia which launched Steven Spielberg's 1993 action/adventure Jurassic Park 3D in select cinemas across most of Australia yesterday (but not my home state of Tasmania) have announced to retailers the impending home video release of the movie on 3D Blu-ray.
The movie, which has received a new transfer and full restoration before 3D conversion by Burbank studio StereoD, will be released in Australia on June 6th, some five weeks after the U.S. Blu-ray release. The sole new additional feature, an eight minute featurette entitled "The World of Jurassic Park" is joined by the film in 2D on the second disc, along with an Ultraviolet digital copy.
Based on the best-selling book by Michael Crichton, the production ushered in the digital age, with dinosaurs convincingly brought to life by George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic facility which was sold to Disney at the end of last year. The movie, once the highest grossing picture of all time before being surpassed by James Cameron's Titanicin 1998. Whilst ticket pre-sales have been strong, the first grosses are yet to come in.
This week, Ludia have also released an update to their free to play Jurassic Park Builder app for both iOS and Google Play platforms.
The trailer for Jurassic Park 3D can be viewed above and will continue to play in cinemas for roughly the next fortnight.
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Sketches of BlackBerry R-Series surface, could this be an entry-level BB10 device?
Sketches of a BlackBerry device have surfaced online. In the sketches, you can clearly see an external SIM and SD card slot on the left side of the device where buttons would normally be placed. See for yourself in the sketch below:
The rumor that is coming along with the sketch is that it is of an upcoming entry-level device that will be running BlackBerry 10 OS. It's said to feature the same 1800mAh battery as the Z10, but will retail for much cheaper. It's said to have 8GB of internal storage. MSRP should be between $300 and $400 without a two-year contract.
Arrival time is pegged at end of Q3 beginning of Q4.
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Scribd was hacked this week, says 'less than 1%' of accounts affected
Scribd has announced that it suffered a minor hack earlier this week. The hack seems to have targeted just user login information, meaning only e-mails and passwords were at risk. Scribd adds that they believe less than 1 percent of users were affected by the attack and that they have contacted every account asking them to reset their password.
Because of the way Scribd securely stores passwords, we believe that the passwords of less than 1% of our users were potentially compromised by this attack...We have now emailed every user whose password was potentially compromised with details of the situation and instructions for resetting their password...Our investigation indicates that no content, payment and sales-related data, or other information were accessed or compromised. We believe the information accessed was limited to general user information, which includes usernames, emails, and encrypted passwords.
If you didn't receive an e-mail, you're probably not affected. If you're still concerned, Scribd has set up a website to allow you to check if your account was one of the affected accounts.
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Nokia closes flagship store in Shanghai
Nokia has announced that it will be closing its flagship store in Shanghai, China. Nokia is working on saving money and shutting down its failing retail stores should be a good way for the company to conserve its limited cash.
Nokia posted the closure announcement on Sina Weibo and only garnered 938 reposts in three days. The store originally opened in 2007 and outlived Nokia's London store, which closed in 2009. On the other hand, Apple continues to open Apple Stores across China, with three in Shanghai alone.
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Plextor M5 Pro 128GB with Xtreme Firmware SSD Review
Introduction
We started testing 128GB class drives again a couple of months ago and the Plextor M5 Pro was the drive we really wanted to get in the ring. Plextor has always manufactured excellent 128GB capacity drives, some of the best on the market. So, when we decided to take a deeper look at this capacity size, we had to bring Plextor into the mix.
The problem was, a couple of months ago was a crossover period for Plextor. The M5 Pro that we are looking at today received a firmware update to Plextor's Xtreme Firmware. Plextor was also in the middle of a hardware change, also Xtreme. The M5 Pro can be flashed to the new M5 Pro Xtreme, but the full on M5 Pro Xtreme has a hardware change as well. It's all a bit confusing, but the breakdown is like this, M5 Pro uses 8K page sizes in the 19nm NAND flash. M5 Pro Xtreme uses new 19nm NAND flash with 16K page sizes.
Today we'll look at the Plextor M5 Pro 128GB, with 8K page size 19nm NAND flash, flashed with the new Xtreme firmware update. This isn't Plextor's newest M5 offering, but it gives us a model to look at until a Xtreme drive with new 16K page size hits the lab.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost Video Cards in SLI
Introduction
Recently we looked at the new NVIDIA GTX 650 Ti Boost and a few days after that launched we received a second card. With two reference NVIDIA video cards on hand we knew there was only one thing to do. That was of course throw both into our testbed and see just what kind of performance we could get out of the new budget orientated SLI setup.
It's been a while since we've seen two NVIDIA cards of the same model that would us allow to test in SLI. After I installed the two cards into the testbed and looked down at them sitting together with no SLI bridge, I then discovered I had to actually go find an SLI bridge, something that we haven't used in quite a long time.
Fortunately it didn't take me too long to find one and I found the machine up and running quite quickly. Because we've already looked at the GTX 650 Ti Boost in a fair bit of detail in our original launch article, we won't be covering too much extra today.
From here we'll move onto the testbed system setup and also quickly take a look at our GPU-Z screenshot to make sure that SLI is of course enabled and working. From there we'll simply just get straight into the benchmark side of things to see just what kind of performance we're able to get out of this new setup.
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Ineo NA216U2 Plus External USB 3.0 Enclosure
Ineo Technology is not one of the most well-known companies, but they have been producing high quality storage devices for many years. You will find products ranging from NAS appliances to external storage solutions like the NA216U2 Plus we are reviewing today, in their portfolio.
The NA216U2 Plus is a simplistic USB 3.0 enclosure that Ineo has designed so that you can quickly swap drives for an on demand super speed storage solution to fit anyone's budget. The NA216U2 Plus is compatible with Windows XP/Vista/7 and 8.
The Ineo NA216U2 Plus as stated before is a simple enclosure. The driving force behind this is the small SATA II to USB 3.0 adapter that comes packaged inside the plastic shell.
Looking over the adapter we see Ineo has included a blue LED off to the right as an activity indicator. The USB 3.0 cable for the adapter is directly attached with no possibility of removal, which I found to be somewhat annoying, as it leaves your drive hanging off the back of your PC.
Popping of the plastics we get to the meat of the adapter and stumbled upon an ASMedia 1051 controller, which does not support UASP.
After installing our Corsair Neutron SSD we can see the plastic enclosure fits our drive securely inside.
Everything was going great with our Ineo until I dropped it on the floor. That being said it was a fairly decent drop onto a hardwood floor.
Benchmarking external enclosures will consist of three pieces of software all using the same drive or drives in the case of a RAID device, Corsair Neutron SSD(s). The first benchmark is ATTO for marketing performance followed up by CrystalDiskMark to test NCQ at QD32 keeping in mind that for an external storage device to support NCQ it must also have UASP support. The last is DiskBench for the real world aspect of things.
Taking a peek at our results from ATTO, we find the INEO was capable of 259MB/s write and 271MB/s read.
Running CDM on our Ineo NA216U2 Plus we found the results to be similar to ATTO. At QD32 the enclosure was capable of 19MB/s read and 27MB/s write, which is comparable to most enclosure you will find on the market today.
DiskBench showed us the INEO was a pretty capable device as far as real-world transfers are concerned. Seen above the enclosure was able to transfer our test data at 217MB/s taking just 51 seconds to do so.
As I have stated many times in this review the INEO NA216U2 Plus is a simple enclosure. The case that fits your drive is made with the same type of plastics found in your tackle box for fishing, which surprised me when it shattered hitting the floor. The adapter itself uses a controller that does not support UASP, the ASMedia 1051. Personally I feel INEO should have opted for the ASMedia 1053, giving the end user higher performance with only a marginal increase in price.
However, as you seen in the review, the NA216U2 Plus does have decent performance. We were able to hit the higher end of the 200MB/s spectrum at 271MB/s read in ATTO again using our Corsair Neutron SSD.
Pricing of this enclosure at the time of review is $14.99 in the United States. With a price this low this enclosure should bring the option of USB 3.0 storage to the masses, just don't drop it.
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Corsair Vengeance M95 Performance MMO & RTS Laser Gaming Mouse Review
Introduction
Just a week shy of a year ago was when the M90 review went live on the pages of TweakTown, and while the M90 was a great concept on paper, some of its features held it back a bit in my opinion. The mouse was contoured correctly, even if it was made for those with larger hands. With more of a medium sized hand, I found that some of the programmable buttons on the side were just slightly out of reach for my thumb, and the fact that the activation pressure needed to use them was so high, even if you could get to the buttons, they were still tough to use. When I first jumped into the Vengeance Series of mice, there was also a LOD issue that would pretty much make the mouse dysfunctional if set to the lowest setting. While that issue was corrected in later software, sometimes little things can be overlooked when taking your first leap into a market, and I think that is exactly what happened then, I just hope everything is tended to this time around.
With a year of time passing, Corsair decided it was time to refresh the entire peripherals lineup. They are now offering revised versions, or soon will, of both keyboards and both mice. This time, simply changing zeros to fives in the naming scheme, they took a serious look at the customers comments and have adapted these new products to what the customers felt the originals may have been lacking or needed changed in internal components to make things work and feel better. Specifically in the product to hit our desk most recently, the sensor and some of the switches have been changed, but the design keeps almost everything else aesthetically that everyone loved about the first released series of products.
Today we will be looking at the Corsair Vengeance M95 laser gaming mouse, and yes it is still designed with MMO & RTS gamers in mind. There are things like the ability to keep many profiles in the mouse, and the 15 button layout of the original to allow for as much programming of the mouse as one thumb can handle. They did address the sensor, and this time it has been upgraded to the current top of the line offering in laser sensors. The other major change was to the buttons on the side as I had mentioned. They used to be super tough to press, and while it made accidental clicks a non-issue, they would fatigue the thumb quite a bit. This time around they are only need about half of the activation pressure to use them, so even if you have to stretch a bit to hit the "sniper" key, it is much easier when the button is half as tough to press.
With new things to look out for, and some software to tinker with, let's see if the Vengeance M95 is better than the original, and more importantly, if it is worth your investment.
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NZXT Kraken X40 140mm AIO CPU Cooler Review
Introduction
While it does say right on the Kraken box that NZXT was first in the world to deliver a 140mm AIO cooling solution, we were not sent this cooler upon release. While everyone else was taking a look at what these new larger AIO coolers had to offer users, I was given the pair of Respire coolers that almost seemed like some sort of a bad joke. In the mean time I reviewed the pair of worse than average, budget air cooling solutions; the rest of the world was looking at why we are here today. In the meantime, while NZXT was trying to find me samples, Corsair snuck in and delivered a pair of 140mm cooling solutions to have a look at, so at bare minimum, at least we have a similar setup to compare the Kraken to.
We will be starting with the smaller of the two offerings from NZXT. They have released a more standard solution with a single 140mm radiator, based on an Asetek cooler design. What came to mind as soon as I got my hands on these units were the older Antec 620 and 920 coolers. Why I say this is based on two things. One is the light up head unit, but it is more than what Corsair offers with their standalone units. The Kraken series works with a USB cable connected and offers software control of all sorts of things, and unlike with Corsair, you do not have to buy the Link to obtain this level of control. The software is the second reason, as it not only gives you fan speed control, pump speed control, and lighting control, but you also have readouts for all of these things, plus you can keep an eye on the internal liquids temperature to see just how efficient these coolers are, or how close to saturation you really are with a wild overclock.
Today, we are going to start off the series with the Kraken X40 from NZXT. This is a single 140mm radiator AIO that uses high FPI count in the radiator, and match the system with a decent fan to cool the tight nit area. With an increase of 36 percent of surface area, the 140mm solutions seem very good for this application, and as we saw with the H90 and H110, these larger units do offer better cooling than most 120mm solutions, even some of the dual radiator setups. With the bar already set from Corsair, we can now have a look at NZXT's offerings and see if the first in the world means best in the world.
On paper things seem to be leaning to the NZXT solutions, but we have hit the point to where we will see for ourselves what NZXT has brought to the table, and see if there are any reasons to choose these over the Corsair solutions.
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Leetgion El'Druin "Optimized for Diablo" Gaming Mouse Review
Introduction
Last time a Leetgion product ran across my desk for testing, I took a look at the Leetgion Hellion mouse. While oddly shaped for my personal taste, it was very functional and offered many features that I thought should bring buyers to Leetgion, specifically those who play a lot of StarCraft II. It sports an Avago ADNS 9500 laser sensor, has full RGB color options for the LED lighting, comes equipped with Omron switches inside, and was the first mouse to offer a Cherry MX Blue mechanical switch on the side for the "attack" key command. The downfall of this mouse for me was the large profile switch under the mouse that made you have to flip the mouse over to select said profiles, but at least Leetgion was trying to innovate and incorporate new ideas, and with the latest submission, I can see innovation is something that Leetgion is sticking with again.
As with the Hellion, this newest mouse I am testing also adds a bit of innovation, and definitely stays in the unique category of designs and overall aesthetics. Leetgion is smart though, and kept things that made the Hellion a success. The Avago sensor is kept, the Omron switches are kept, and they deliver very simple to use software with it. Since this mouse isn't designed for StarCraft II players, but rather those out there that can't get enough of Diablo III, the design this time is more of feel towards a very short sword with a gold shield on either flank. The "shields" aren't just there to be pretty either, with this latest submission, there are quite a few programmable buttons that are designed into them to give the users plenty of control all within reach of the fingers of your right hand.
If you haven't figured it out by the title, today we are going to be taking a look at the El'Druin from Leetgion. As I said, this mouse has quite a few, 12 in fact, programmable buttons on the mouse, it offers four profiles, and will allow for any Macro you can think to program as well. Considering they use top of the line components with the sensor and switches, there should be no issues with tracking, and the longevity of this mouse should offer users reliable and accurate usage to a long time to come.
I say we pull out this "sword of justice", swing it around a bit, and see what Leetgion really has to offer with the El'Druin laser mouse.
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New USB 3.0 Flash Drives from Sharkoon
Sharkoon is expanding their range of affordable flash drives and introduces the new "Flexi-Drive GO" series. Additionally, the existing USB flash drive series was revised and now offers an improved read/write performance. Also new: The Flexi-Drive Ultimate is now available with 256 gigabytes.
The "Flexi-Drive GO" is a downwards compatible USB 3.0 flash drive, which replaces the manufacturer's previous USB 2.0 drives. Sharkoon thus focuses exclusively on the latest transfer standard and consequently removes USB 2.0 drives out of their program. The drives offer the latest transfer performance but are priced the same as the USB 2.0 standard of the previous series. They are available in 8, 16, 32 and 64 gigabytes. The Flexi-Drive GO, through USB 3.0, reaches a read rate of up to 80 MB/s and a write rate of up to 10 MB/s. The 8 GB version achieves a write rate of up to 5 MB/s. They support the operating systems Windows XP/Vista/7/8, Mac OS 10.x and Linux from Kernel 2.4. Dimensions are 55 x 18 x 8 mm (L x W x H) and weighs around 7 grams.
Also newly available is the "Flexi-Drive Sprint Plus" series, which has been technically upgraded and now offers a better write/read performance than its "Sprint" predecessor. With USB 3.0, its reaches a maximum read speed of 190 MB/s and a write speed of 40 MB/s. The 16 GB version achieves a maximum write speed of up to 20 MB/s. The Flexi-Drive Sprint Plus is available from 16 GB to 64 GB.
Already on the market, the Flexi-Drive Ultimate is now available for purchase with 256 gigabytes. With its USB 3.0 transfer speed, it reaches a maximum read speed of up to 250 MB/s and a write speed of up to150 MB/s. The suggested retail price is 279 euros.
End customers will find the Sharkoon Flexi-Drive flash sticks available for the suggested retail price starting at 9.99 euros from authorized retailers.
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