IT-Code-News: IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 11/11/2013

Sunday, November 10, 2013

IT News Head Lines (TweakTown) 11/11/2013

TweakTown

Motorola's Moto Maker for the Moto X to arrive on all carriers soon
When Motorola released its flagship, Moto X smartphone, one of the most talked about features was the ability to order a fully customized version of the device. Unfortunately, that feature has been limited to AT&T since the phone's release and for the most part, only AT&T customers have been able to get their hands on a customized Moto X.

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It appears that Motorola is about to change that if a leak by @evleaks is true. This morning a Twitter post by the infamous mobile device leakster was posted that suggest that Motorola will release Moto Maker to Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile by the beginning of next week. This opens up some pretty cool customization options for the handset on all of the major US carriers at a unprecedentedly low price of $149 for the top end model.

Microsoft unveils full list of day-one apps for Xbox One by country
Microsoft's Xbox One is just two weeks away from launch and today we are learning more about what entertainment apps will be available for the device on day one. Today Microsoft released a list of all of the entertainment apps that will be available for download to the Xbox One as soon as you open it up and run the day one update patch.

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The US will see most of the largest hitters such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Redbox Instant, TED, The NFL, Twitch, and Crackle, and many more. The UK will see Crackle, Eurosport, Netflix, Twitch, TED, NOW TV, and more, while Australia gets much of the same including SBS On Demand. No information was provided for the Asian markets, but we can assume that some of the same major players will be there as well, and regional powerhouses should be arriving soon too. Below is the entire list of entertainment apps that have signed up for day one, although HBO GO will be delayed by a few weeks.

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AMD releases driver update that fixes fan speed issues on Hawaii GPUs
Ever since AMD released its new Hawaii-based R9 290X and R9 290 graphics cards, users and reviewers have been reporting slower than advertised performance. This is mainly due to the way the new cards handle performance scaling. Normally a GPU will boost the clock speed to a guarantee a minimum level of performance, but the new R9 cards actually scale back the clock based on CPU temperature.

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The fluctuating performance numbers is partially caused by variability in fan speeds when the card starts heating up. The reference speed is 2650 RPM for the R9 290 and 2200 RPM for the 290X in quiet mode. These speed's are enough to provide adequate cooling for the CPUs, but R9 290 and R9 290X cards from AMD's partners are varying in how fast their fans spin. Since all R9 290 and R9 290x cards on the market are reference design, this is a bit odd, but AMD has taken care of the issue in a new driver update.
A recent update to AMD's Catalyst Control Center has apparently fixed the fan speed issue and performance numbers are said to be back up to promised levels. The latest AMD CCC update can be downloaded right here at TweakTown by heading over to the downloads section. We want to know if your Radeon R9 290 or 290X have experienced slower than advertised performance, and if the driver update fixed this issue for you. Leave a comment below to let us know.

Nokia's Lumia 1520 will arrive at AT&T on November 22nd for $199
Phablets are all the rage today, and for users who crave that ultra-large screen but have been limited to their standard-sized Lumia device, life is about to get better. Customers on AT&T can purchase Nokia's Lumia 1520 phablet beginning on November 22nd for just $200 on-contract, with pre-orders beginning today.

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For that $200 you get a 6-inch device running Windows Phone 8, a 2.2 GHZ, quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 Processor, and a 20-megapixel PureView camera. Users who purchase the device through the Windows Store will receive an additional $70 app credit, a copy of Halo Spartan Assault, and a free flip cover. Purchasing through AT&T will land you a $20 credit and 50GB of free cloud storage, with Halo Spartan Assault tossed in as well. For those looking to pick up a larger Windows Phone device, this may not be a bad deal!

HP's Omni 10 tab arrives with full Windows 8.1 for just $400
HP has just released what is widely considered the most budget friendly, fully featured Windows tablets on the market today. The all new HP Omni 10 runs the full version (not RT) of Microsoft's Windows 8.1, and does not cut corners when it comes to hardware. Infact, the Omni 10 features better hardware than its competitors costing much more.

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The Omni 10 features a 10.1-inch Gorilla Glass 3 display that features a full 1920x1200 resolution with a pixel density of 224 pixels per inch. An Intel Atom Z3770 powers the Omni 10 with 2GB of RAM onboard to keep things running nice and smooth. Storage is a little small at just 32GB, but that is easily augmented by a microSD slot on the side of the device. Additionally the Omni 10 features up to 8.5 hours of battery life, for an all day productivity on-the-go experience. HP said that the Omni 10 is available now and will retail at an MSRP of $399.

Twitter shares down 4-percent on day 2, OCZ back up to $0.85
After a first day of trading that can only be called a smashing success, Twitters stock price has saw a slight dip in trading on Friday. Yesterday the stock opened at $45.10 per share with an initial transaction for more than 11 million shares, but the market has been less kind to Twitter today with the stock hovering around $42 per share all day.

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While a five percent drop in price on the second day of trading may seem like a big deal, this was actually expected by many market analyst, and is not an uncommon event for newly listed companies. The real tell tell signs will come next Thursday and if the stock has managed to stay in the $40-45 or higher range.

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While we are on the subject of the financial markets, you might remember that earlier this week, OCZ, saw its stock take a nosedive towards the bottom. With the release of a new SSD that has been met with good reviews, it appears that some investors have renewed confidence in the SSD manufacturer. Today the stock is up around $0.85 per share which represents a rebound of over 90-percent since Tuesday.

Microsoft's new video takes us on a 12-minute walkthrough of Xbox One
With the Microsoft launching the Xbox One on November 22nd, the company is beginning its big marketing push in hopes of generating record day one sales. With recent revelations about game resolutions, and patches that need to be installed before customers can begin playing games, the company is working on highlighting the console as more than just a gaming box.

Today Microsoft released a 12-minute walkthrough video of the Xbox One, and includes a full featured look at the consoles new dashboard. The video also goes in-depth with the Xbox One's multitasking, app-switching, voice commands, kinect features, and automatic sign-in. Todays video is the most thorough tour we have had of the Xbox Once since its unveiling event earlier this year. We want to know what console you will be buying this year, will you buy the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, or will you hold out for a Steam Machine? Are all 3 going to wind up in your living room? Let us know in the comments.

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Xbox One will require a day one patch before it will play any games
If Microsoft does not already have enough bad PR about its upcoming next-gen console, today even more bad news has arrived for the Xbox One. Today the company revealed that users will be required to download and install a patch on day one before they are even allowed to play any games on the device.

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"Functionally, you will be able to do very little without taking the day one update," says Microsoft's senior director of Xbox product management Albert Penello. "You're gonna need to take this update. It's not gonna be really an optional thing," he went on to say. "An initial, one-time system update is required for your Xbox One to function," confirmed another Microsoft spokesperson.
The patch is said to take only 15-20 minutes to download on a moderate broadband internet connection, and will update the consoles dashboard system. Microsoft is not alone in a required day one update though as Sony's PlayStation 4 will require a similar patch to play Blu-ray disc or DVDs. Games are still expected to work on the PlayStation 4 however.

Apple iPad Air burst into flames in Vodafone store in Australia
Mobile devices that utilize Lithium-ion or Lithium-polymer batteries are always at risk of catching fire or even exploding if they are overcharged, or if their battery pack gets damaged. Usually the culprit is the result of using a cheap charger that was not approved by the manufacturer.

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Unfortunately for Apple, neither were the case in a recent incident involving the company's new iPad Air. The tablet in question was sitting idle on a display stand at a Vodafone store in Australia when it suddenly exploded and burst into flames. No one was injured in the incident, but firefighters had to be called to extinguish the flames and extract the smoke from the store. In true form Apple is staying silent on the matter and had sent a team to collect the iPad Air for analysis.
While this very well may be a one-off incident, I would not leave an iPad Air laying on something like a couch, bed or pillow until Apple releases a statement on the matter. After personally witnessing an iPhone 4 catch fire while on an official apple vehicle charger, I know how quickly the devices can go from functioning fine, to going up in smoke.

McDonalds could use 3D printers in-store to make Happy Meals toys
One day in the future, you'll walk into your local McDonalds and pick your son or daughter a Happy Meal, the person serving you will ask you which one, and you'll be able to watch it made, in-store, thanks to a 3D printer.

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This is the latest news coming from the burger corporation's UK IT director, Mark Fabes, who said he was looking into the potential application of 3D printing for producing toys for Happy Meals. We might not see this for quite sometime, as Fabes was only talking on a panel on emerging technologies at a Fujitsu customer event in Munich. Right now, there's no concrete plans for 3D printed Happy Meal toys, with Fabes telling El Reg: "it's just a thought."
One of the hurdles would be the plastic smelting machines being an appropriate fixture of a food outlet, but 3D printing will only continue to improve, so this issue could soon disappear. What do you think of 3D printed Happy Meal toys?

Microsoft is making a cool $2 billion per year from Android
Microsoft doesn't really need Windows Phone sales to explode overnight when its generating an estimated $2 billion from Android sales, for, well, doing nothing. Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund has estimated that Microsoft is pulling in all that revenue each year from Google thanks to patent royalties from Android vendors.

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The analyst adds that Microsoft's margin on Android-based patent royalties is a hefty 95%, which would mean that Microsoft's truck load of billions of dollars each year is pure, golden profit. Sherlund also says that Microsoft is using the cash piles it's making from Google's mobile OS to patch up the massive losses that its Xbox division creates each year, which is around $2 billion per year according to Sherlund.

Samsung teases its upcoming 64-bit SoC, will use ARM technology
It looks like Samsung is prepared to brag about its upcoming 64-bit SoC, considering the South Korean giant is the company that manufactures Apple's 64-bit A7 processor that is baked into the iPhone 5S and iPad Air.

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Well, there's a new SoC the company is working on, but it won't be based on its own technology, instead it will use ARM-based tech. Stephen Woo, President of System LSI at Samsung Electronics said: "Many people were thinking, why did we need 64-bit for mobile devices? People were asking that question until three months ago. And now I think no one is asking that question. They're asking, when can we have that?"
We will see Samsung release an ARM-based 64-bit SoC, which will be followed by a new SoC that will use in-house technology at a later date. Woo continued: "We are marching on schedule. We will offer the first 64-bit [processor] based on ARM's own core. After that, we will offer an even more optimized 64-bit [processor] based on our own optimizations." We should expect the new 64-bit SoC to be baked into the company's upcoming Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Note 4 devices that will be released in 2014.

Microsoft opens a new facility in Germany, wants startup action
Is this yet another step in the right direction for Microsoft? It would seem so: Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, is in Germany at the moment, where he joined Christian P. Illek, chairman of Microsoft Germany's managing board, where they opened up a new facility in Germany.

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The new facility is built in the historic building "Unter den Linden 17," which is a massive 3,000 square meter building that has been converted into a technology hub that is primed at getting customers, businesses partners, the media, startups, and the community better acquainted. The new facility includes a "Digital Eatery" which is a consumer lounge on the first floor that invites visitors to come in and try out Microsoft's latest and greatest products.
Ballmer said: "We've always believed that technology creates opportunities for people and organizations to achieve their dreams. Right now, we are incredibly passionate about delivering the next generation of high value activities through devices and services that people love and organizations need all over the world. The Microsoft Berlin Innovation Center provides a unique environment to foster innovation, forge new partnerships with entrepreneurs and exchange ideas with our customers."

Google begins the rollout of Hangouts 2.0 with SMS support
Google is now pushing out a new version of Hangouts, the one that we reported that would be capable of sending and receiving SMS with. The update to Hangouts makes it equal to the one that ships with the Nexus 5 smartphone, which is the default SMS app on the device.

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Once you've received the updated Hangouts app, you'll be asked to enable SMS support - something you can decline - but if you turn it on, you'll do all of your text messaging through Hangouts from now on. This is great for those who don't already use a third-party SMS client, as it keeps all of your messaging in one place, up in the cloud, and on your device. The update is going out gradually, but here in Australia, I'm not enjoying the new app yet unfortunately.

Apple grabs back its most valuable brand crown
Apple may have lost hundreds of billions of dollars from its market cap, but that doesn't stop them from continuing on to be one of the strongest brands on the planet. Forbes has rated Apple as the world's most valuable brand, above some of the biggest names in the world.

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Apple beat Google, Microsoft, IBM and Coca-Cola to be the world's most valuable brand, with Forbes stating that Apple's brand is worth $104.3 billion, double that of second place, which happens to be Microsoft. Forbes does note that Samsung is rising quite quickly up the chart, which "had the strongest one-year gain of any brand in the top 100" which is up 53% from last year. Nokia has sunk, by a massive 55% since last year, with BlackBerry disappearing off the top 100 list completely.

GE is playing with '3D painting' that would repair metal parts
3D printing is all the rage these days, it seems to be capable of pretty much everything, but what about 3D painting? Yeah, GE is experimenting with the technology that it is calling "cold spray" which is capable of slowly building up layers of metal by spraying metal powder at very high velocities.

The process is used to repair worn metal components, which would add years or even decades to their lifespan. 3D printing has limits of the size of the objects it can create, but 3D painting only has one limitation: the spread of its spray. This means that the technology, or spray, could be used to create or repair very large structures, or cars. The process is being looked at as one possible way to repair parts used in oil and gas drilling, which would be perfect as there's no heat involved.
No heat involved means that the chance of a fire or explosion are reduced much closer to 0%.

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Lenovo sells a record 29 million devices, $9.8 billion in revenue
Lenovo has posted up its results for its second fiscal quarter, which ended on September 30. Revenue for the three-month period sat at $9.8 billion, which is a 13% increase year-over-year. Lenovo also saw its second quarter profit grow very quickly, with pre-tax income growing up 30% year-over-year to $265 million.

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Earnings also increased, a nice 36% year-over-year to around $220 million. The biggest news here is just how many devices Lenovo sold in the quarter, which was a hefty 29 million devices, which equates to around 4 devices sold, every single second. This has helped Lenovo keep its 'world's largest PC vendor' statement for the second quarter running, with the highest-ever quarterly market share of 17.7%, which is up 2% year-over-year.

PS4 teardown treatment reveals next-gen innards
We are so close to the PS4's release, I can almost smell that fresh electronic smell from here. Well, Wired has a nice exclusive, the teardown of the PlayStation 4. Sony's next-gen console gets torn down by Sony's Engineering Director, Yasuhiro Ootori.

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Ootori both unboxes the PS4 and then tears it apart, showing off its innards to the world. We can see there's a gigantic heatsink that cools the AMD-powered APU down, but a smallish fan, which is a surprise. We have an integrated power supply, which we had with the PS3, and the usual circuit boards and components in and around the center of the console. Up until now, we didn't really get an up close and personal shot of the power and eject buttons, but they're here, and they're small.

Third Tesla Model S goes up in flames after minor damage
Elon Musk publicly called the Tesla Model S "the safest car in America," but those claims may not be as true as everyone originally hoped. The Tennessee Highway Patrol has recently reported that a Tesla Model S was involved in a single vehicle fire yesterday in which the car was damaged after running over a piece of debris in the road.

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The Model S hit what is rumored to be a "trailer hitch" that was laying in the road way, which could have damaged the cars lithium battery packs. While unlikely this scenario is not that far fetched as the Model S' battery pack is contained in the floor of the vehicle and is protected from below by a thin armor plate. Earlier this fall, another Model S burst into flames after its battery pack was punctured as well.
Tesla said that it has teams on the way to Tennessee to investigate the fire, and hopes to pinpoint the cause. This marks the third Model S to catch fire this year and as a result of the fires, Tesla's stock is down more than 27-percent from its high earlier this year of $193.37. News of the fire cause the stock to fall by more than 7-percent today alone.

Quake Live to go standalone before the end of the year
Until now, Quake Live has lived within our browsers, but before the new year arrives, it will be a standalone game. Not only that, but the first-person shooter will also drop native support for both Linux and Mac, which is an unfortunate consequence.

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The developer explained that Quake Live will be playable through emulation or virtualization software, for those who have paid subscriptions for the Mac- or Linux-based versions of the game. A news post on the game's official forum states: "Over the past few years, browser support for plugins such as Quake Live have dropped off significantly, causing problems for plugins to operate in a consistent and working manner. With the recent announcement of Google Chrome's roadmap to turning off plugin support and the upcoming changes in Firefox, it seems that now is the time to make the transition."

Google is pissed with the NSA, starts encrypting its traffic
We all know that the NSA isn't trying to protect your privacy, nor is it even trying to spy in secret anymore now that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden blew the lid on PRISM, and GCHQ. Well, it has forced Google to start encrypting its internal traffic, which should make the NSA's job even harder now.

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This will effect the NSA, as the US spy agency pulls in countless gigabytes of data per day, with up to one-third of this data coming from Google, well, until Google told the NSA to "F*** off." The news is rolling from the MUSCULAR program, which is a joint program between the NSA and GCHQ that cracks into the networks of Google and Yahoo's overseas datacenters, as we reported a few days ago now.
Even worse, the data that was grabbed, was given to President Obama during his daily intelligence briefing. The slides revealed that the NSA had become quite proficient with the internal workings of these networks, suggesting that the US spy agency either launched a significant reverse-engineering operation to look further into Google's and Yahoo's secrets, or it had gotten its hands on this information from people who work for the two search giants.
It doesn't matter which way you look at it, it is clear that the NSA has intimate knowledge of the inner workings of two massive American companies. It will be interesting to see - not that we'd ever find out as we're simply peasants to the NSA - if this actually effects the NSA and GCHQ's data mining projects.

Facebook redesigns its Like and Share buttons
Facebook's Like buttons have become a cultural icon for the internet age, and today the company released updates to the iconic button. The like button is not alone though, as the Share button has been updated as well, with both now appearing more flat in appearance.

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Gone is the heavy gradient and overly rounded corners which gives the buttons a more refined and elegant look. Additionally, less emphasis has been placed on the iconic "thumbs up" icon which now only appears in 2 of the button models. The new buttons employ the Helvetica typeface which is actually quite pleasing to the eye. What do you think about the new buttons? Let me know in the comments.

AMD to host Fan Day with BF4 Tournament in San Francisco on Nov 13th
On Wednesday, November 13th AMD will host a "Fan Day" at the San Jose Convention Center that will be open to the public and will include what they claim to be the worlds first Battlefield 4 Tournament. The Tournament will feature 16 teams of five players each that will be pitted against each other with the ultimate prize being five high-end AMD based PCs.

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Additionally, AMD will have 100 machines set up for attendees to play Battlefield 4 in free tournaments and singleplayer modes. AMD says that it will have partners onsite as well that will be giving away more than $50k in prizes via contest and raffles. Early birds who arrive at the event could also score a "Never Settle" voucher that will land them two free games. The event is free to all, and only those participating in the tournament need to register. Doors open at 9AM and close at 8PM.

Return to a galaxy far, far away on Christmas 2015
LucasFilm and its new owners at Disney have confirmed recent speculation that Star Wars Episode VII (still feels weird writing that) will forego the traditional May launch, to be released theatrically on December 18th 2015.

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Despite talk of delays and screenwriter Michael Arndt (Toy Story 3) being removed from the project, Disney CEO Bob Iger has been adamant that the film would not miss its 2015 release date as announced last year, following LucasFilm being acquired from Star Wars creator George Lucas for the princely sum of $7 billion dollars in cash and Disney stock.

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Precious little is known about the plot other than it will be a direct sequel to 1983's Return of the Jedi, with a return to original stars Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford.
The as-yet untitled Episode VII is directed by Star Trek reboot director JJ Abrams and produced by Kathleen Kennedy, J.J. Abrams, and Bryan Burk., with music by original composer John Williams.

LeakedTT: HTC One's successor gets spotted in leaked photos
The HTC One is arguably the highest quality Android-based smartphone ever made, and it looks like its maker is wasting no time in developing its successor. Known by the codename, M8, the phone has just seen its alloy unibody chassis leaked by the Taiwanese site ePrice.

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The images are a little blurry, and the lighting is atrocious, but judging from the rounded corners, this does appear to be a legitimate chassis for something other than current generation models. Interestingly enough, the chassis does appear to be machined to fit in a fingerprint sensor above the rear camera. Other rumors are suggesting that HTC will increase the screen size from 5.0 to 5.2 inches as well as bumping the resolution up to 2K. I am sure that we will see many more leaks, and rumors on specs as the Mobile World Congress conference approaches in Q1 2014.

Mushkin Ventura Ultra 240GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Review

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When it comes right down to it, high performance flash drives are more of a niche product than anything. The standard consumer just wants something that looks good and does the job. As high performance flash drives proliferate in the market, we tend to see a couple drives released here and there that offer down right amazing read performance with a trade-off of poor write performance. Today, though, we have one drive that stands out in the pack and offers tremendous performance on both sides, the Mushkin Ventura Ultra.
The Ventura Ultra was first spoke about at CES 2013, and at that time it was more of a paper launch than anything else, but now we have a real drive in our hands and testing has completed.
The Mushkin Ventura Ultra is the first real consumer flash drive to offer a SandForce FSP in tune with high quality MLC NAND. Capacities of this drive range from 60GB and 120GB all the way up to 240GB. Additionally, if marketing numbers are true, the Mushkin Ventura Ultra offers 450 MB/s reads and 445 MB/s writes. Warranty is listed at two years.

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Right off the bat, the Ventura Ultra brings back memories. The days of DFI motherboards and Mushkin Ridgeback memory.

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The Ventura Ultra uses aircraft grade aluminium in a single-piece design, apart from the rubber cap.

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Here we have the blue USB 3.0 port and right above the activity LED.

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As stated in the introduction, the Mushkin Ventura Ultra uses a SandForce FSP at its heart. With the SandForce FSP, Mushkin is able to incorporate an 8-channel design.
One of the lesser-known features of running Microsoft's new operating system Windows 8 is the native capability of USB Attached SCSI or UASP. In benchmarking flash drives, we utilize ATTO Disk Benchmark followed by DiskBench and our custom set of real-world data, and is by far the most important comparison when looking for a flash drive for everyday use.
Recently we have added our very own Price vs. Performance charts for both read and write performance of each drive, for these charts we take the average sequential performance over five runs and divide it by the price per GB. All pricing information is updated before a new drive is added and is taken from certified channel retailers such as Newegg or Amazon.

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The Mushkin Ventura Ultra is factory formatted with the NTFS file system. The usable capacity after formatting is 223GB.

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In ATTO, we were quite astonished with the performance. In fact, this is the first drive we have tested that maximizes that bandwidth of the USB 3.0 bus in both read and write speeds.

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In our real-world testing, the Mushkin Ventura Ultra arrives in the fourth spot in our charts, right behind the HyperX and SanDisk Extreme.

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As far as price vs. performance goes, the Mushkin again lands itself near the top of our charts.
The Mushkin Ventura Ultra carries all the design cues and durability that made me fall in love with the Ridgeback DRAM back in the day. So, it's no surprise that I too love this drive. The durability of the unit is top notch, thanks to its aircraft grade aluminium and single-piece design and the performance - well, it's top notch as well.
Within our testing, I was able to cap the available bandwidth of the USB 3.0 spec, where the drive offered 452 MB/s read and 456 MB/s write. Throwing around some real-world data, the Mushkin did quite well too. DiskBench put the drive in the fourth spot in our charts, and again in price vs. performance, the Ventura Ultra landed near the top.
Now there is one drawback, or rather something I feel I should mention. The Mushkin Ventura Ultra, because of its performance and actually being a real SSD in a USB 3.0 overcoat, does get a bit warm after extensive file activity. Now, I'm not saying hot enough to burn you, but you will notice the warmth when you pull it from your PC after a day's use.
Pricing at this time for the 240GB capacity tested here today is set at $259.99 and comes with a two-year warranty.

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Seagate Turbo SSHD Enterprise SSHD Review

Introduction

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The HDD has been a work in progress since its inception in 1956. The evolution of the HDD has been fundamental in many aspects, with the same basic spinning platter design being further refined to produce more storage capacity and increase efficiency. Shrinking the size of the HDD has been the principal goal, and we have come from massive drives weighing hundreds of pounds, down to devices in 2.5" and 3.5" form factors.
The evolution of the HDD has focused on increases in areal density, and a whole slew of technologies have managed to pack more data onto the platter. SMR, along with helium-based drives, have made their way to the forefront in the density war. The near-term future might hold TDMR, while longer-term HAMR and MAMR technologies will likely provide tremendous increases in density.
There is no doubt that density has a clear path forward due to intense focus from manufacturers, but the real problem lies on the performance front. The spindle speed of the common HDD has settled at a top speed of 15,000 RPM, and there are no plans to increase this speed in the future. This stagnation leaves only incremental speed increases, borne of increased density, on the horizon. SSDs, on the other hand, have brought massive increases in speed and efficiency. Even the fastest of HDD's cannot hold a candle to the sheer speed of an enterprise SSD. This has led to a continuing assault in the performance segment of the enterprise HDD market, with SSD's gaining market share at a rapid pace.
Even with the evolution of the SSD leading to lower prices, they are still many orders of magnitude more expensive to deploy than HDD's. For years, the only method to increase storage performance was short-stroking the drive. This sacrifices a large portion of available capacity to force an HDD to operate on the outer tracks, where speed is highest. This also increases the price of the storage solution considerably.
Seagate's answer to the performance problem is the introduction of SSHD's (Solid State Hybrid Drive). SSHD's are only a fraction of the cost of an SSD, yet provide some of the same workload acceleration benefits by storing hot data in a NAND cache buffer. Seagate's first foray into caching HDD's was in the client market, and the lessons learned were applied to the new Enterprise Turbo SSHD.
The Seagate Enterprise Turbo SSHD is geared for use in a multitude of mission-critical environments, such as OLTP, VDI and SAP HANA. The drive comes in capacities of 300GB, 450GB and 600GB in a 2.5" form factor with a 15mm z-height. The Turbo SSHD features a 6Gb/s SAS connection and 128MB of multi-segmented DRAM cache, though this is only the first level of caching.
The Turbo SSHD is built upon the same 15,000 RPM HDD used in the Enterprise Performance 15K v4 HDD's, and sports the same design with three platters and six heads. The real ingenious aspect of the drive lies in the NAND caching, handled by 32GB of eMLC and an additional 8MB of NVC (Non-Volatile Cache). Hot data is held in the NAND and served to the host system at a much faster rate than the platters can provide, in many cases providing up to a three times improvement in application performance. The drive itself delivers up to 800 IOPS, a SDR (Sustained Data Rate) of 247 MB/s, and an average latency of 2.0ms.
The hardest part of testing an SSHD is quantifying the massive speed increases brought out by the cache. We have developed specialized tests that isolate and explore the performance of the NAND components. First, we examine the way an SSHD operates.
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OCZ Technology Vector 150 120GB SSD Review

Introduction

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Earlier today we published our first Vector 150 product review, the 240GB capacity size. We found that OCZ managed to include nice features in this second incarnation of Vector, but in the 240GB capacity size, the performance was about the same as the original.
With performance nearly the same, our focus shifted to the new features. 256-bit AES encryption debuts on Vector 150, but at this time it doesn't support eDrive. Vector 150, now with 19nm Toshiba Toggle flash gets a boost in the writes per day category, up to 50GB writes per day for five years - up from 20GB per day.

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The accessory package received a change. OCZ now includes an updated version of Acronis drive cloning software that supports Windows 8 and 8.1. The software is very nice to have and has several functions that include drive cloning and data backup / recover.
Let's take a look at the full specifications and then see the performance of the 120GB model.
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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Reference Video Card Review

Introduction

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There's no denying that the last one or two months have been all AMD. While AMD has only been launching their video cards over the last month, the month leading up to the GPU 14 Hawaii event saw leaks and talk of the upcoming models on almost a daily basis. With so much focus on what's going on with AMD, we can't deny that NVIDIA has fallen out of the limelight a little.
The whole situation is then made even worse by the fact that AMD has released their products at such a competitive price point. The only time that NVIDIA all of a sudden popped up was when we heard that they were bringing a price drop to a large number of models to compete with the new AMD Radeon R series video cards.
While all this talk was happening, though, we got wind of a new model from NVIDIA being released at their recent Montreal event - the GTX 780 Ti. As the name suggests, it's obviously designed to come out ahead of the GTX 780. That was the only answer we had, though. How much faster was the model going to be? What price point was it going to hit at? How's it going to look against the new R9 290X 4GB?
These are of course questions that we're asking ourselves and questions that we intend to answer today. Since we're dealing with a reference card today, we'll simply be moving on from here straight into the card and the specifications.
It will be really interesting to see just what NVIDIA has done with this model today. Let's dive in and take a close look now.
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OCZ Technology Vector 150 240GB SSD Review

Introduction

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OCZ Technology tipped its hand on Vector 150 when we reviewed the Vertex 450 a few months ago. At the time we didn't speculate on it, but privately I figured this signaled OCZ's move to IMFT 20nm flash. We rang the 20nm flash warning bell since Computex 2012, when we first discovered it was much slower than IMFT 25nm, as used on the original Vector, and Toshiba 19nm Toggle NAND.
It's no real secret OCZ is struggling to purchase flash. In a recent earnings call, the company CEO stated as much, but didn't say who OCZ was having trouble purchasing flash from. With 25nm production ending some time ago, it wouldn't be a stretch to say Micron caused a disturbance in the OCZ supply chain, especially since we know early 20nm yields weren't that great. It's a tough loss, but if you want a performance SSD in 2013, you use Toshiba / SanDisk Toggle2 flash or Samsung... and Samsung are being stingy.

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It may taste like a bitter pill, but OCZ's move to Toshiba Toggle2, either by choice or force, is a good thing for the company. Toggle2 not only increases performance on the Vector 150, but it also increases the endurance compared to the original IMFT 25nm Vector.
OCZ made other improvements as well with Vector 150. The new version includes support for AES-256 encryption and an updated version of Acronis that supports Windows 8.
Let's take a look at the full specifications.
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GamerStorm Lucifer CPU Cooler Review

Introduction

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One very important thing mentioned in our CPU cooler methodology article was that as processors get smaller and smaller, the concentration of heat is tough for many coolers out there to control. Coolers with moderate TDP ratings will do better than the stock cooler of course, but in the world of overclocking, better than stock only goes so far. With quite a few coolers tested recently, the new test system really stresses coolers like no other system I have tested on, even the hot box method. This handily whoops the mediocre submissions, justly glorifies coolers with superior designs, and leaves a defined line in the sand of appropriate solutions to choose from in today's market.
So, how does that apply to the latest cooler to hit our labs for testing? Well this cooler, while hiding a certain specification only found on their site, GamerStorm specifies this cooler on the packaging to have a 100 to 130W TCP when it is run passively. Right out of the gate, we realize that we won't even have a chance of not throttling the 4770K with this level of a TDP. The range of TDP in a passive situation is completely based off of the chassis airflow and is why there is a range rather than a set figure.
Now back to that hidden specification, though. On the GamerStorm site, they openly state that with the 140mm fan that comes inside of the box, this new submission takes the TDP level to extreme levels. With the fan on the cooler, the new TDP rating is set to 300W of heat dissipation capabilities, and should be more than enough cooler for the new test system.
GamerStorm has sent us the Lucifer CPU cooler to have a look at today, and even while designed as a large single tower cooler, there is a lot of style that comes along with it too. The main idea behind the Lucifer is to allow basic cooling needs in passive mode, but for those that want to go further, strap on the fan, and now enjoy the massive jump in performance, without much audible noise coming from the cooler when the fan is running either.
GamerStorm delivers a large cooler that on paper looks like it should be able to kick ass and take names, so why don't we get right to it and see if the Lucifer from GamerStorm should be your next choice in air coolers.
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Infortrend Deduplication in Action - Creating more NAS storage space

Introduction

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The last time we saw the Infortrend EonNAS Pro 510 was in our review that covered the layout and the performance under traditional tests. What we didn't manage to test was the performance with deduplication, a feature unique to the EonNAS Pro Series at these price points.
Deduplication or dedupe is a compression technique that removes bits of repeating data. The more often a string is repeated, the smaller the overall file and files can become. While dedupe is a form of compression, Infortrend's NAS also has LZJB algorithm data compression that can be used in conjunction with dedupe. Together, you can put more data on your NAS than what you might not normally be able to.
In most cases, that means more data than your HDDs can normally hold. Here at TweakTown, that means we're going to use solid state drives and take a run at building a flash storage NAS that, with dedupe and compression, would be viable for storing data long term.
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Battlefield 4 PlayStation 3 Review

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When it comes to large scale combat games, there aren't many that hold a candle to the Battlefield series. Starting off with Codename Eagle back in the day, DICE struck upon a magic formula that enticed gamers in. Two years ago we had Battlefield 3, the first real attempt to knock down the Call of Duty formula and that game had mixed results. An uninteresting campaign was paired with some of the best multiplayer gameplay around. This time around we are being promised that the campaign has had some TLC applied to it and the multiplayer is good as ever. At least one of those statements is true, and you can probably guess which one.
The campaign mode in Battlefield 4 is not a bad experience, at least not as bad as the previous game. However, yet again, we get the feeling that DICE felt pressured to go after the Call of Duty style scripted gameplay and campaign style when it really isn't the game's strength. Battlefield 4 tells the story of Tombstone, a specialist ops unit within the US Army who become caught behind enemy lines and have to escape to warn commanders of an impending disaster.
Battlefield 4 is a lot closer to the traditional console style of Battlefield Bad Company and this isn't a bad thing. Unlike Battlefield 3, you stick with the same characters throughout, allowing the story to develop and expand as you go along, and there is an overall single narrative, whilst Battlefield 3 felt more like a series of short stories.

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However, we still think that the campaign is a letdown and there are a few reasons for this. First of all, DICE really does not take advantage of what makes its game different. The vehicles. Throughout the campaign, you will pilot a grand total of two vehicles and not for very long. For a game which is so focused on vehicular gameplay in the multiplayer side, and one that does it so well, this is baffling to say the least.
The campaign could be so good if DICE decided to step away from the scripted nonsense that has come to define Call of Duty, and now Battlefield. They have a major scale combat game engine in multiplayer that could be used much better in the single player campaign. It really is a travesty that in the single player campaign you do not touch helicopters or aircraft once. That said, the campaign is significantly better than Battlefield 3, so improvements are happening.
Once you finish the campaign (or choose to ignore it), you get to the meat of the game and that is multiplayer. There hasn't been much changed this time around (and why would it, when it's so popular?) yet the improvements which have been made have successfully made the game feel even more epic in scale than its predecessor.

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One of the best new additions to this game is the training field mode. In this mode, you are placed on an island with all the vehicles available to you and no enemies. This allows you to learn how to pilot helicopters, aircraft and other vehicles so that in multiplayer that you can actually be useful and not be the guy that jumps out of a fully loaded helicopter. An additional improvement to this mode could be to require that gamers pass a licence test within the training mode, before being able to pilot vehicles on the 'hardcore' servers.
When it comes to the mode most people will buy the game for, multiplayer, the game shines, but with one exception. During our playtest, the PS3 server browser just did not work at all and we found it difficult to find games. In fact, the only way we could find a game was to select quick match. Having asked around, this was not unique to us and seems like a problem systemic to the PlayStation 3 release right now. As well as this, it's quite difficult to pair up with friends because you cannot make a party or group before joining sessions, which for such a multiplayer focused game, is quite hard to understand.
Moving away from the peripheral problems, the game is impressive and a heck of a lot of fun to play. The tried and tested modes are back including conquest where you battle to remove reinforcements from the enemy by removing tickets from their score. Once the tickets reach zero, no more reinforcements can be had. The game also now has an obliteration mode where tickets are removed and it is just full scale warfare where you have to gather a bomb and take out enemy targets with it.
In a surprise, one of our favourite modes was domination, where vehicles are removed and the combat becomes a lot tighter. On the console systems, the player count is much lower than next generation and PC, so on the larger maps, they can seem a bit barren. Other modes include rush, typical death match style games as well as defuse and obliteration.
Obliteration is a mode that plays right into the Levolution feature of the game where instead of taking out enemy units, the aim is to destroy areas within the map. This can completely change the gameplay and also is a welcome addition. This is one of the better new modes within Battlefield 4 because it shows off the technology that DICE has employed for the game so well and specifically the Levolution feature.

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One of the more interesting additions this time around is commander mode. However, this is not the first time that this mode has appeared in a Battlefield game with it first appearing in the often forgotten 2142 and Battlefield 2. In this mode, you are taken away from the Battlefield and instead become the commander of forces. In a top down view, you can order in reinforcements including vehicles and weapons for the men on the ground to use. You can attack the enemy with weapons such as missiles, for example, or give supply drops to your troops. The main difference in Battlefield 4 is that if you play as the commander, you do not participate in the actual battle or even count against the server number, so you are a silent player, so to speak.
One of the major surprises this time around is that the real star of the show is the environments the game is set in. Not the levels themselves because they are the typical fare of urban and desolate war torn environments, but more what can occur within those levels. Termed 'Levolution', basically at any time, particular structures within the levels can be taken down and smashed to the ground with enough weaponry. You can be running through the level minding your own business and all of a sudden an attack helicopter will destroy a building, sending debris and rubble everywhere.
This can completely turn a game in an instant. One team might be completely dominating a map only for the other team to get a lucky shot off that takes out a large building and chaos ensues, especially if people are caught camping, for example, in that area of the map. There was a fear that Battlefield 4 could turn out to be nothing more than a large expansion pack, but Levolution certainly changes the game in a way that you cannot experience in Battlefield 3 - and that is a good thing.

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The main problem some people will find with Battlefield 4 is again the unlock system. It still works fine and encourages lengthy game sessions, but again for those without much time to play, you will get left behind. This can lead to people having far superior weaponry and options than that on offer to you and that makes it a very difficult game to get into for new players and this will only get worse as time goes on. It is hard to see how DICE can fix this, but one change that could improve it is having some servers locked to lower level players, for example.
Visually the game impresses on the PS3, despite the game being designed for next-gen consoles and the PC platform. There are some moments in the game where it's a mixed bag, but others where it looks absolutely stunning and the key factor in this appears to be whether the current gameplay is indoors or not. When taken to wide expanses and open areas, the graphics level drops down significantly to maintain frame rate, but in close quarters, there are areas where the PS3 build compares very nicely to what has been seen of next generation and PC versions. For those of you who may have issues with colour blindness, then is also some friendly graphical options to help with this.
There was a chance that Battlefield 4 was going to be a mega expansion pack as opposed to push the franchise forward, but the two years DICE spent on this game has been well worth it. Levolution completely changes the game in many ways and the campaign whilst short, does its job. We'd really like DICE to go and have a think about how the single player can be improved, because that's really the only let down in this whole package. With the chances being that next time around DICE won't have to deal with current gen technology, the sky could be the limit for this now formidable franchise.

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New SDXC And SDHC Memory Cards Support 4K2K Video
The SD Association today announced a new high-performance option and symbol specifically designed to support a wide array of 4K2K television and video products. A new Ultra High Speed (UHS) Speed Class 3 (U3) symbol will indicate products capable of recording 4K2K video and will operate exclusively on SDXC UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards and devices and SDHC UHS-I and UHS-II memory cards and devices.

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The UHS Speed Class 3 defines a sizzling fast 30 Megabytes per second constant minimum write speed to ensure high-quality video recordings. This means 4K2K video, live broadcasts and content can be recorded on high-performance cameras such as Digital Single Lens Reflex (D-SLR), Digital Single Lens Mirrorless (D-SLM), camcorders and video cameras and then played back smoothly. Consumers will benefit from a single card that is capable of meeting all of their video, photo, music, document and data storage needs.
"The world's favorite SD memory card continues to evolve and meet shifting industry needs," said Brian Kumagai, president of the SD Association. "Our new UHS Speed Class 3 standard will give consumers and businesses more flexibility and capability as the market shifts to 4K2K video formats. Both SDXC and SDHC memory card standards already offer the massive storage needed to support 4K2k video with enough room to store photos, music, documents and other data on a single portable card."
New devices offering the UHS Speed Class 3 will be backwards compatible and will work with existing SD memory cards. The SD Association continually meets the challenge of providing a comprehensive menu of standards to meet the needs of a wide variety of devices with different capabilities. Selected features are marked with performance symbols that appear on products to help users identify feature functionality.
UHS Bus Symbols:
UHS-I and UHS-II symbols indicate bus interface for data transfer. UHS Speed Class symbols, such as U1 and U3, indicate minimum write speeds for real-time video recording.
UHS- I bus speed makes the massive storage found on SDXC and SDHC memory cards manageable and even more portable. This symbol is used on SDXC and SDHC products capable of supporting data transfer speeds between the memory card and the device of up to 104 Megabytes per second. Users should pair their devices with memory cards having the same symbol for optimum performance.
UHS-II bus speed makes the massive storage found on SDXC and SDHC manageable and even more portable. This symbol is found on SDXC and SDHC products capable of supporting data transfer speeds between the memory card and the device of up to 312 Megabytes per second. Users should pair their devices with memory cards having the same symbol for optimum performance.
UHS Speed Class Symbols:
UHS Speed Class symbols are found on SDXC and SDHC products with either UHS- I or UHS-II symbols. The U1 denotes a 10 Megabytes per second minimum write speed, and U3 denotes 30 Megabytes per second minimum write speed. Users will achieve optimum video recording performance by pairing their devices with the appropriate SDXC or SDHC memory cards with the same marks.
Legacy Speed Class Symbols:
The existing Speed Class symbols for non-UHS SD bus mode (this includes non-UHS bus mode operation of UHS memory cards) are Class 2, Class 4, Class 6 and Class 10. They refer to the minimum write speed performance of the memory card for video recording. The symbols are found on SD, SDHC or SDXC memory cards and devices.

Intel Forms Group to Accelerate Internet of Things Market
Intel has created a new organization to accelerate and broaden its reach into market segments and applications commonly referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). Called the IoT Solutions Group, this new organization will combine the Intelligent Systems Group and Wind River organizations, bringing together the intelligent systems hardware, software, services and platform elements together into one organization.

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This is the next step in the company's ongoing activities supporting the proliferation of IoT implementations across the industry. Intel will deliver solutions for companies that are investing in technologies to both drive operating efficiencies and create new services by connecting devices to each other and the cloud to transform their businesses. The new organization will be led by Vice President and General Manager, Doug Davis, a long-time Intel leader and embedded industry veteran and will report directly to the executive office (President and CEO).

Seagate's Samsung HDD Division Ships World's Thinnest 2TB Storage Solution
Seagate Technology plc (NASDAQ: STX) today announced that its Samsung HDD division is shipping the new 2.5-inch Spinpoint M9T, which at 9.5 mm thin is the world's thinnest 2TB hard drive. Offered in capacities of 1.5TB and 2TB, the Spinpoint M9T mobile drive gives OEMs, channel system integrators and consumers a thin, high-capacity storage solution ideal for external storage, notebook integration and upgrades, desktop, and gaming system applications.

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"The M9T combines the highest areal density shipping in a single storage device with an innovative design that fits into mainstream notebook applications. While other 2TB are solutions on the market are 15 mm thick, the vast majority of mobile devices are designed to use a 9.5 mm drive; with the M9T, those devices can now have 2TB of storage, enabling a richer computing experience," said Dave Frankovich, senior product line manager, Samsung HDD.
"Samsung HDD with the new Spinpoint M9T continues to lead the effort in aerial density in a small form factor to supply our channel partners and customers with the highest-capacity and thinnest storage solution in the market," said Doug DeHaan, general manager, Samsung HDD division. "With consumer demand for storage capacity continuing to grow in mobile applications, the M9T answers this demand and is positioned to fulfill capacity needs in virtually any application."
Spinpoint M9T includes a SATA 6Gb/s interface and microactuation to ensure fast, consistent hard drive performance, along with NoiseGuard and SilentSeek technologies to deliver ultra-quiet operation.
Availability
The Spinpoint M9T hard drive is currently available in the Samsung Portable product line, which includes the M3 Portable and P3 Portable external drives, as well as with select partners.

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