Pivos Aios HD Media Centre Review
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Rocket Launches Chinese Space Lab
A rocket carrying the Tiangong-1 space lab was launched in the Gobi desert, ascending over the Pacific for a destination 350km above the Earth. Initially unmanned, the 10.5 meter space module will be visited by Chinese astronauts sometime next year. The self-operating module will be supported by another spacecraft named Shenzhou 8, which will launch after a few weeks. The Tiangong, which translates as Heavenly Palace in Chinese, will then attempt to link up to the Shenzhou 8, to start what is going to be China's very own space station. If the procedure is successful, two manned space expeditions by Shenzhou 9 and 10 are expected in 2012. The Chinese astronauts aboard will then spend a maximum of two weeks within the space module.
Described as the second step in what Beijing officials report as as a three step strategy, the Tiangong project will culminate in the construction of the space station, which is expected to weigh around 60 tonnes. Upon completion, the station would likely be dwarfed in size by the 400-tonne International Space Station, but it's still a significant accomplishment. The core module is estimated to weigh between 20-22 tons, bolstered by two smaller laboratory facilities. Supplies such as basic necessities and fuel will be transported by space freighters, similar to how the ISS is restocked by robotic cargo ships. With billions of dollars of funding poured in by China, its foray into space includes two lunar satellites launched into the Moon's orbit, with another space voyage intended to place a rover on to the lunar surface. Rockets with greater lift capabilities will be deployed eventually, such as the Long March 5, which has a 20-tonne capacity. This massive rocket will be essential in completing the space station.
After two years, the Tiangong-1 will be replaced and then decommissioned into the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
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Corsair Adds 8GB Sticks to Two Memory Lines
Corsair has announced additions to two of its memory lines in the form of 8GB memory sticks. The Vengeance and Value Select DDR3 memory lines are geared towards enthusiasts and casual users, respectively. Gamers and overclockers will now find it easy to have 32GB of memory in their high end systems for a great price. The Vengeance series takes 1.5V and will operate at 1600MHz out of the package. The jet black heat spreaders will keep your memory looking and running cool. The Value Select series will allow your casual desktop and laptop users to easily expand their memory to better handle whatever they may throw at their computer. Value Select memory will also take 1.5V, but will operate at 1333MHz. The memory is now available for both lines, though no price was available.
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Kindle Touch 3G Still Dependent on Wi-Fi
The recently announced Kindle Touch 3G from Amazon will feature some basic web browsing capabilities. However, the 3G aspect will only be good for downloading purchased books and documents and browsing Wikipedia. This is likely due to the fact that Amazon subsidizes the 3G access, and any further capability would likely cost them more. Anyone that is looking to do any further browsing on their new Kindle will need to be on Wi-Fi. The 3G version of the Kindle Touch will set you back $149, while the Wi-Fi only version costs only $99. Potential buyers will have to decide if the ability to download books anywhere they have 3G is worth the price premium before the November 21 release date.
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New Portal 2 Co-Op DLC is Live, Full Game on Sale on Steam
Last week, word came that Valve would finally be releasing new DLC for Portal 2. Well, that day has come and the new DLC, titled "Peer Review," is out now on Steam, Xbox Live, and PlayStation Network. If you have Portal 2 installed on your PC or Mac, the DLC should automatically download whenever you start up Steam. XBL should have the DLC now, while the PSN should get it as soon as the PS Store updates. The DLC is entirely free, even on the consoles, so you really have no excuse to not pick it up and continue the story of Atlas and P-Body as they explore a new test track. There are also new single player and co-op leaderboards included in the DLC, so you can see how quickly you finish a level compared to the rest of the world. If you don't happen to own Portal 2, you can pick it up on Steam for the low price of $14.99. The game is 50% until October 6th, so you better hurry to pick up one of the best games of the year.
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Bethesda Working to Fix Issues with RAGE
One of the biggest titles of the year, RAGE, just launched today. Some of you, myself included, probably started playing the game when it was unlocked late last night. The game is technically brilliant with a wonderful game engine that is highly detailed, but the problem lies with a plethora of bugs. RAGE suffers from texture pop-in, artifacting, poor mouse control, audio crackles, and more. The texture pop-in is particularly annoying, as it happens whenever you move the mouse quickly to look around. The game uses id Tech 5, which is a gorgeous game engine, but the textures do not load up until you are actually looking in that area on screen. Due to that, whenever you quickly look around, the textures have a noticeable delay before they show. Bethesda Softworks, publisher of RAGE, knows the issues affecting the PC version of the game and is working closely with AMD, NVIDIA, and developer id Software to fix these issues. Last night while playing, I experienced the texture pop-in as well as some missing audio whenever I was driving the first vehicle around. It also appeared that multiple graphics cards did not help, since only one of mine was being used anywhere close to capacity.
AMD is working on an optimized driver for RAGE, which should be released shortly. NVIDIA's latest beta driver should help, though it is possible a new one will be developed. Id Software is hopefully working on a patch to correct the texture pop-in, audo crackles, and other issues. We'll just have to see when any of these fixes come out and just how much of a help any of them are.
Update: The AMD video driver has been released, and you can download it here.
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Apple iPhone Press Conference Reveals the iPhone 4S
In September, Apple announced it would be holding a press conference on October 4th. Well, today is that day and that means the Apple press conference is going strong, with new CEO Tim Cook handling the announcement duties. Cook started off by talking about the Mac, the iPod, the iPhone, and the iPad. The Mac userbase has grown by 23% since last year, with 60 million people worldwide using a Mac. For the iPod, over 300 million iPods have been sold since it launched in 2001. The iPad is the number one tablet in the world, with 74% of the time a tablet is looked at, an iPad is purchased. For all iOS devices, Apple has sold over 250 million of them. That is a ton of market share.
This event, however, is all about the iPhone. The iPhone holds 43% of the US share of smartphone sales, plus customers have downloaded over 18 billion apps from the App Store. Yes, 18 billion apps and now the number sits at about one billion downloads a month. Next up was talk of iOS 5, which finally adds a notification system that allows new messages to appear in the upper left, similar to Android. There are several new features also announced for it, like iMessage, which is similar to BlackBerry Messenger, and new camera abilities. iOS 5 drops on October 12th, something I am sure many are looking forward to. Finally, we come to the heart of the announcement, and that is a new iPhone.
The new iPhone will be called the iPhone 4S, and it is twice as fast as the iPhone 4 thanks in part to the new A5 chip. It even has dual-core graphics that are said to be seven times faster than the previous iPhone. To illustrate how powerful the new graphics are, Epic Games' president Mike Capps was on stage to demo Infinity Blade II. The game is using several new enhancements that were first seen in the God of War series on the PS3, and Capps said that Infinity Blade II will only be playable on the iPhone 4S. The game will be available on December 1st. Back to the hardware, the iPhone 4S will feature eight hours of 3G talk time, six hours of 3G browsing or nine on WiFi, ten hours for video playback and 40 hours for music playback. The antennas have been improved, now featuring download speeds that are theoritically twice as fast as the iPhone 4. It has both a CDMA and GSM chip, meaning it will work on any cellular network in the US and the world.
The camera on the iPhone 4S has been improved and it is now an eight megapixel sensor. That enables it to compete with other recent phones as well as some digital cameras. It features a backside illuminated CMOS to allow in 73% more light, a hybrid IR filter for better colors, and a five element lens for sharper pictures. It features a mere 1.1 seconds to take your first photo and 0.5 seconds in between shots, making it the fastest smartphone camera around. The iPhone 4S can even shoot 1080p video with image stabilization. The iPhone 4S also features AirPlay Mirroring, letting you use an HDTV to view the action during a game. The iPhone 4S also features a much improved voice control system dubbed Siri. It basically lets you control and access content on your iPhone 4S just by speaking.
The Apple iPhone 4S seems like it will be an impressive device when it launches later this month. The iPhone 4S will be available on October 14th, with pre-orders starting on the 7th. US carriers receiving the iPhone 4S will be AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Even though those three carriers all have a 4G network in some way, the iPhone 4S is still just a 3G device.
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