Sola joins the ranks in Sony Xperia family

The new Sony Xperia sola claims to incorporate the companys proprietary technology to offer users premium entertainment they want. It features a unique "floating touch" navigation that allows users to browse the web, and their home screens by hovering their finger above the screen, without actually touching it. The smartphone is also NFC-enabled and comes with two NFC Xperia SmartTags in the box, which can be personalized with up to 10 commands. Powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor, the Xperia sola sports a crisp 3.7-inch Reality Display with Mobile BRAVIA Engine, xLOUD and 3D surround sound audio technology to deliver superb multimedia experiences. It also comes with fast capture that allows the phones built-in camera to activate from sleep in just over a second with a single key press.

Comes in black, white and red, the Sony Xperia sola will be available in Q2 this year, initially with Android 2.3 Gingerbread. And upgradeable to Android 4.0 ICS during summer 2012. Pricing details not available at press time.

XGI Volari 8300 For Desktop amp; Mobile

XGI Technology Inc., the world's third largest graphics chipset designcompany, today launched a new member of its graphics family, the Volari™ 8300,with a press event held in Beijing, inviting over 100 IT journalists to theaffair. The new PCI-Express based Volari™ 8300 graphics chipset is designed withXGI's flagship video processing technology, TrueVideo™ Engine, to satisfy theincreasing demand of video processing power for home PCs.

“The Volari™ 8300 has raised the bar for what we called an entry level graphicssolution” said Ralph Cheng, the Vice President of Marketing of XGI. “With thehigher demand in video quality, the Volari™ 8300 supports various videoenhancing features that can only be found in high-end competitor products.Moreover, Volari™ 8300 provides sufficient support for 3D gaming, making thisundoubtedly the most economical investment for everyday user.”

Volari™ 8300 is designed with 0.13 um processing that supports DirectX 9.0, andshader model 2.0 with 64 bit DRAM memory interface. XGI introduced a new conceptwith Volari™ 8300, the eXtreme Cache™, an advanced technology that dynamicallyallocates system memory to support graphics processing. With the additionalbandwidth of PCI Express, eXtreme Cache™ is able to reach higher levels ofgraphics performance and effectively support up to 256MB of memory for graphicsprocessing. This flexible design ultimately enhances the cinematic graphicexperience from XGI™ graphic hardware and is a more cost-effective solution forthe intensive graphics support required from time-to-time.

As high definition contents are on the rise, the Volari™ 8300 has taken a stepfurther with their built-in true hardware video enhancement technology, theTrueVideo™ Engine, to satisfy the tough requirements from MCE. Thiscomprehensive video enhancement features the support for HDTV content up to1280x720p; inverse 3:2 Pull-down to convert movies back to its original form andDe-Interlacing, to remove the jaggy lines in motion graphics. Furthermore, theCoolPower II low power consumption design allows Volari™ 8300 to be built into afan-less graphics solution, making it the ideal solution for digital homeentertainment.

XGI™ continues to co-operate with industry leading content providers for bettersupport on Games and Software Applications. This year, XGI has worked closelywith US game vendor and top online game vendors in Asia, all in the efforts toensure top game play quality and stability on Volari™ 8300. Nonetheless, it hasalso qualified for the requirement of Microsoft® MCE, making XGI™ Volari™ 8300the Number 1 graphics solution for Entertainment on the PC.

Specifications

Native PCI Express Bus Interface

Ultra high-speed x16 (16-lane) PCI Express buses Revision 1.0aSupport x1/x8/x16 PCI Express Bus

Performance

Up to 300MHz engine and 300MHz memory clockPixel fill rate: 600 million PS-shaded pixels per second and 1.2 billionflat-shaded pixels per secondTexel processing rate: 4.8 billion texels per second5.6GB per second memory bandwidth

TruShader™ SE Graphics Engine

Hierarchical pixel tiling for page based rendering2x2 pixel pipelines and 4 independent Pixel Shaders2 pixels/clock with 8 texel/pixelTexture size up to 8Kx8K and non-power of 2Bi-linear, tri-linear and anisotropic texture filteringHigh order texture filtering up to 8x8 kernelLinear sRGB color formatMET and MRTFloating color buffer (up to 32 bit)Floating texture formats (up to 32 bit)Full anti-aliasing support for texts, lines, scenesSpecial multi-resolution depth bufferSpecial bandwidth reduction hardware via compressionMulti-level cachesFully OpenGL-compliant blending including fog & depth cueing

CoolPower™ II

Unified software & hardware architecture for power managementDynamic clock gating, frequency scaling, work load balancingSupports INTEL-defined Device Performance States (DPS)Supports PCI Express Active State Power Management (ASPM)Optional battery optimizer under user control

TrueVideo™ Engine

State-of-the-art pixel based motion and edge adaptive de-interlaceInverse 3:2 pull downMotion and object based adaptive edge smoothingOverdrive technology for Ultra Clear TFT LCD image qualitySupports HDTV resolution up to 1280x720pProvides cubical interpolation with edge recovery

DVD Support

Microsoft's DirectX Video Acceleration (DXVA)Includes both Motion Compensation and IDCT hardwareReal-time playback (30 fps) of 9.8 Mbps MPEG-2 video bit stream

Output Displays

Three simultaneous outputs: CRT, DVI and TV outIntegrated TMDS for interface to DVI up to 1600x1200Integrated NTSC/PAL encoder up to 1024x768350 MHz RAMDAC for CRT up to 2048x153690° and 180° HW rotation support

Graphics Standard

MICROSOFT® graphics standard for Windows® XP and 2000DX9.0 Vertex Shader 2.0 Extended and Pixel Shader 2.0DX9.0c software compatibleOpenGL 1.5 compatible

Software

Windows® XP, 64-Bit Edition, 2000Windows® Vista (Longhorn)DirectX 9.0, 8.1 and 7.0OpenGL ICD 1.4 and 1.5LINUX (Red Hat and SuSE)

Quad Core Opteron Series Unveiled

Quad Core Opteron FamilySeriesQ3 2007Q4 2007Q1 2008Q2 2008

Opteron 8xxx"Barcelona"
(4x512KB L2, 2MB Shared L3, HT 1.0, DDR2-667)8000 SE
(120W)8270 SE(2.5GHz)
8268 SE (2.4GHz)8272SE (2.6GHz)8000
(95W)8266 (2.3GHz)
8264 (2.2GHz)
8262 (2.1GHz)8268 (2.4GHz)8000 HE
(68W)8260 HE(2.0GHz)
8258 HE (1.9GHz)Opteron 2xxx"Barcelona"
(4x512KB L2, 2MB Shared L3, HT 1.0, DDR2-667)2000 SE
(120W)2270 SE(2.5GHz)
2268 SE (2.4GHz)2272 SE(2.6GHz)2000
(95W)2266 (2.3GHz)
2264 (2.2GHz)
2262 (2.1GHz)2268 (2.4GHz)2000 HE
(68W)2260 HE(2.0GHz)
2258 HE (1.9GHz)Opteron 1xxx"Budapest"
(4x512KB L2, 2MB Shared L3, HT 3.0, DDR2-667)1000 SE
(120W)1270SE (2.5GHz)
1268SE (2.4GHz)1000
(95W)1266 (2.3GHz)
1264 (2.2GHz)
1262 (2.1GHz)

Sony Ericsson Unveils C510

Sony Ericsson unveils the C510 Cyber-shot™ and introduces Smile Shutter™ technology

Sony Ericsson today announces its first mobile phone with Smile Shutter™ technology,wrapped up in its most affordable Cyber-shot™ phone to date; the C510 Cyber-shot™. The Smile Shutter™ technology will also be added to the 8.1 megapixel camera phone C905 Cyber-shot™, launched in November 2008.

Singapore – January 8, 2009 – Sony Ericsson today introduces the beautifully simple
C510 Cyber-shot™, its most affordable Cyber-shot™ phone to date, and an application
upgrade to the C905 Cyber-shot™ phone, currently at the top of the charts across the
globe.

The Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot™ portfolio has topped 32 million handsets sales worldwide demonstrating Sony Ericsson’s market leadership in bringing exciting new camera phone technology to consumers around the world.

The C510 Cyber-shot™ will make Sony Ericsson’s camera phone experience accessible to even more consumers and markets worldwide.

C510 Cyber-shot™
More consumers can now enjoy the Cyber-shot™ experience, without compromising on quality at an affordable price. Sony Ericsson continues to push design and innovation, as well as work with the best partners in the industry, to provide existing consumers and consumers in new markets the chance to enjoy the benefits of mobile photography.

The C510 Cyber-shot™ phone was rated “best imaging experience,” in the 3-megapixel range of camera phones, according to a research conducted in Germany by TESTfactory.

The accessible C510 Cyber-shot™ handset is jammed packed with the highest quality
imaging technology and encased in a stylish handset design expected from Sony Ericsson.

Beautifully simple C510 Cyber-shot™ features include:
• Reliable 3.2 megapixel Cyber-shot™ camera with protective slide-in lens cover
• Smile Shutter™ – clever technology that detects a person’s smile and immediately takes the photo!
• Face Detection – focusing technology of up to three faces at a time
• Auto-rotation – alter the landscape and portrait view by rotating the mobile phone
• Illuminated imaging shortcut keys for fast access to camera functions
• Snapfish by HP – pre-installed application allows users to send print orders from the
phone to Snapfish and have quality photo prints delivered to their homes.
• YouTube™ enabled – upload your videos and images straight to the web
• Photo Fix – adjust light balance, brightness and contrast simultaneously
• SMS conversation style – see your entire SMS conversation history at a glance
• Auto focus – take the best shot

“We have been leaders and innovators in the camera phone segment since the company was started,” said Jack Tan, General Manager, Singapore at Sony Ericsson. “Now we are delighted to unveil the C510 Cyber-shot™, our most accessible Cyber-shot™ phone to date which includes a host of new features normally found on more premium phones.

Features like Smile-Shutter™, YouTube integration and Snapfish by HP integration make
the C510 Cyber-shot™ a really fun mobile phone to use. This phone will enable us to
engage new markets and consumers to our Cyber-shot™ phone experience.”

C905 Cyber-shot™upgrade
The fantastic C905 Cyber-shot™ phone is now even better thanks to new software
announced today by Sony Ericsson. The 8.1 megapixel camera phone has received
tremendous feedback across the globe. According to TESTfactory*, the C905 Cybershot
™ phone delivered the “best imaging experience,” in the 8-megapixel class of camera
phones.

This upgrade is designed to add extra value to a consumer’s camera phone experience,
and make a fantastic product even better. Consumers who already own a C905 Cybershot ™ phone can easily download the new applications from mid-February 2009 at http://www.sonyericsson.com/.

Capture the spontaneous moments in life with the C905 Cyber-shot™ upgrade, which features:
• Smile Shutter™
• YouTube™
• WayFinder 8
• Snapfish by HP – high quality, best value prints. Place print orders directly from the mobile phone – no memory cards, cables or offload needed
• SMS/MMS conversation style - users can switch between the generic inbox or conservation chat where the entire message chain is presented at a glance.

Also announced today is a new colour of C905 Cyber-shot™, Tender Rose, available from March 2009 in Singapore and IM502, a new camera phone tripod, available in stores soon.

The C510 Cyber-shot™ supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE 900/1800/1900 and UMTS/HSPA
2100. C510 Cyber-shot™ will be available in Singapore from Q1 2009 in the colours
Future Black and Radiation Silver.

PowerVR SGX Shader Cores

Imagination Technologies – a leader in silicon IP cores – debuts its PowerVRSGX Shader Graphics Accelerator family, the future of wireless mobile embeddedgraphics and video technology.

The PowerVR SGX cores for wireless applications are part of Imagination’sPowerVR Series5 scalable and fully programmable unified shader graphics andvideo core family, previously codenamed Eurasia. The first cores from thisfamily target mainstream and performance mobile graphics with state-of-the-artsupport for 2D and 3D and an industry leading feature set that exceeds OGL 2.0shader and Microsoft Vertex and Pixel Shader Model 3 requirements.

PowerVR SGX is available for licensing in three scaled variants (PowerVR SGX510,SGX520, SGX530) with sizes ranging from less than 2mm2 to 8mm2 in 90nmtechnology. These variants will enable a wide range of mobile devices from basicphones and entry-level feature phones to mainstream feature phones and advancedfeature and smart phones.

“Despite its very small size PowerVR SGX will set a tough benchmark that anycompetitors will have to stretch to compare with and, with advancedprogrammability and state-of-the-art shader features, will enable contentdevelopers to create a distinct new generation of mobile games andapplications,” says Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies.

PowerVR SGX enables the highest performance, most efficient and lowest powerconsumption solution for handheld 3D graphics and video. Each scalable PowerVRSGX variant provides highly flexible support for video codecs with zero siliconoverhead, using the advanced programmability of the core.

PowerVR SGX builds on the architectural benefits found in Imagination’s PowerVRMBX family, which is already the de facto standard for mobile graphics withlicensees including six of the world’s top 10 semiconductor manufacturers. Thefirst PowerVR SGX deliverables will be available for shipping to lead partnersfrom next quarter.

The PowerVR SGX family will co-exist alongside PowerVR MBX, which is currentlyintegrated in a variety of devices including mobile handhelds, car navigationand entertainment systems.

PowerVR SGX510, SGX520 and SGX530 are compatible with content created forPowerVR MBX. PowerVR SGX is backwardly compatible with key features from thePowerVR MBX family like the vertex shader programs and 2 and 4-bit PVR-TC™texture compression. These compatibilities, and continued support for allexisting PowerVR extensions to OpenGL ES 1.1, allow comprehensive softwaresupport developed on the PowerVR MBX platform to be carried forward to PowerVRSGX.

The PowerVR SGX Difference
The new-generation PowerVR SGX offers all the advantages of PowerVR’s highlyefficient tile based architecture. Unlike traditional graphics solutions thatdemand expensive memory or very large silicon areas, PowerVR's unique, patentedtile-based rendering and deferred pixel shading architecture allows a very smallsilicon die to deliver higher performance and higher image quality, at lowerpower consumption, than competing technologies.

PowerVR SGX takes the PowerVR architecture to the next level with a unifiedscalable shader engine (USSE™), which combines vertex shader and pixel shaderfeatures in a single scalable processing unit, enabling mobile semiconductor anddevice manufacturers to plan a roadmap where PowerVR will continue to enable thebest performance in the most efficient architecture for the mobile industry.

Shader technology enables superior realism and advanced features when rendering3D objects and, by making 3D effects more programmable, gives freedom to contentdevelopers to create more visually compelling and unique games and applications.

Continues Yassaie: “With its PowerVR deferred pixel shading architecture thePowerVR SGX family has the lowest core and system power demands. It’s ideal forunified memory systems plus integrated CPU designs in mobile and cost sensitiveapplications. Couple that with wide standards compatibility, high scalabilityfrom a unified shader architecture, pipeline scalability from 1x to 8x andbeyond and video encode and decode for free, and you have a solution that isdemonstrably superior to any other offering on the market.


“With PowerVR SGX we expect to maintain our hard-won leadership position onsize, power and performance – and its scalability means it’s suitable for a widerange of end-user products. The specification says it all: this is the premierwireless graphics solution and will enable our partners to continue thereshaping of the mobile multimedia market they have already begun using ourtechnology.”

Says Dr. Jon Peddie, the leading market researcher in graphics: “The mobilephone is advancing in functionality at a 3X pace compared to the PC, and futurehigh-end phones will incorporate the OpenGL ES 2.0 API with shader capabilities,similar to features found on high-end PCs. Imagination Technologies, with designwins in most of the major handsets, continues its lead by being the first tointroduce a design with support for this new API and we expect this newtechnology to fuel the next wave in modern advanced mobile phones.”

Inside PowerVR SGX
The PowerVR SGX family features the USSE™ unified scalable shader engine, whichcombines vertex shader and pixel shader features in a single programmable andhighly scalable processing unit. Maximum gate utilisation is achieved by sharingthe unit for both vertex and pixel processing with optimal automatic loadbalancing of vertex and pixel throughput, which are often different fromapplication to application.

PowerVR SGX’s USSE supports advanced geometry and pixel processing capabilitiessuch as procedural geometry (e.g. higher order surfaces, data instancing, pathbased geometry, point-sprite expansion etc.) and textures, advanced per pixeland vertex lighting effects (e.g. parallax bump mapping, refraction andreflection etc). Further, the highly flexible nature of the USSE architectureallows this programmability to be applied to many other tasks such as othermultimedia related activities (e.g. physical modelling), flexible video andimage processing and many more. This unified approach to processing also has thebenefit of requiring a single unified programming model with one compiler,reducing hardware and software qualification time.

PowerVR SGX’s latency tolerant architecture provides geometry processing andrasterisation decoupled to achieve minimal stalling as well as no pixel shadingof non-visible pixels and on-chip support for multiple render targets (MRT). Alarge proportion of PowerVR SGX’s peak throughput is achievable in realapplications and the architecture has the lowest bandwidth requirements asPowerVR SGX’s deferred pixel shading gives 2x - 3x fill rate compared to othersolutions at the same bandwidth. Across the wireless PowerVR SGX family partseffective fillrate performance is from 200Mpix/sec to 1200Mpix/sec @ 200MHz(with even higher Z and stencil rates) and polygon throughput is from 2Mpoly/secto 13.5Mpoly/sec @ 200Mhz.

Z and Stencil tests are performed on-chip requiring no external stencil orZ-buffer memory or bandwidth. Pixel shading and blending are also performedon-chip and compressed texture support is just part of an industry leadingfeature set which also supports OpenGL ES 2.0, OGL 2.0 and Microsoft ShaderModel 3.0 capable shaders, procedural geometry and MRTs.

PowerVR SGX enables compelling image quality via Internal True Colour™ -enabling colour operations to be performed on-chip using high precisionmathematics at arbitrary pixel colour precision up to 128bit/IEEE32 floatingpoint - combined with comprehensive programmable multi-sampling imageanti-aliasing for free.

A key benefit of PowerVR SGX’s tiling architecture is on-chip multiple rendertargets (MRT). This technology is unique to PowerVR tile based rendering andcannot be replicated by an immediate mode renderer (IMR) in a cost-effectivemanner. IMRs use conventional external MRTs with huge external memory storageand bandwidth. PowerVR’s on-chip MRTs result in low geometry processing with noadditional external memory cost and no additional memory bandwidth cost.

All major 2D operations are accelerated, including: BLTs, Alpha Blend BLTs, ROP2, 3 & 4s, lines and surface rotation.

PowerVR SGX fully supports the broadest range of mobile standards includingOpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 1.X, D3D Mobile, OpenVG, JSR184 and JSR239, DX9+ andOpen GL 2.0 APIs running under Linux, Symbian, WinCE and Windows Mobile OS.

Video For Free
Because of PowerVR SGX’s fully programmable architecture it can support videoacceleration for free, without increasing the size and complexity of the core.

Video is a core competence of handheld graphics processors and is increasingly amust-have feature, not just in Personal Media Player products, but also othermobile devices. PowerVR SGX provides outstanding image quality and frame rates,offloading video codec processing (including MPEG-4 and H.264) from the mainCPU. For video operations the host CPU load is minimal and the PowerVR SGX partcan perform motion estimation, motion compensation and transform, residualgeneration, transform, quantisation, inverse quantisation, inverse transform,image reconstruction, and deblocking (H.264), making it possible to efficientlyoff load the tasks associated with video compression/decompression from the hostCPU.

As well as enabling the playback of users own personal media content, PowerVRSGX’s advanced video capabilities will enable mobile services such asTV/video-on-demand and video messaging. PowerVR SGX also supports still imagestandards including JPEG and JPEG2000.

Report AMD Radeon HD 6970 priced $450; releasing December 15th

Fudzilla reports that AMD's upcoming Radeon HD 6970 is set to retail at$450, effectively bisecting the GTX 570 and GTX 580 on price. Therelease date is scheduled for December 15th, with decent availabilityexpected. Radeon HD 6950 is also schedules for December 15th, although with lesser quantities.

The Radeon HD 6950's price is suggested to be under $330. However, with the HD 6870's prices now inflated to on average of $260, and considering the possibility of excess demand at release, the launch prices may be closer to $350.

While the rumour mill is working overtime, performance indications are fairly divided. The pricing does seem to suggest that the Radeon HD 6970 will end up slightly slower or on par with GTX 580, but then, the Radeon HD 4870 was similarly expected to end up slower than the $100 pricier GTX 260 (HD 4870 was faster) back in 2008.

One of the reasons for the delay from the original November 22nd launch is suggested to be driver tweaking. Being a new architecture, and AMD's most major revision since 2007, driver optimizations will undoubtedly result in significant benefits.

Reference: Fudzilla, Fudzilla

Sparkle Released PCIe x1 8400GS Card

SPARKLE Computer Co., Ltd., the professional VGA card manufacturer and supplier, today presents the SPARKLE GeForce 8400 GS PCI Express x1 Graphics Cards, the first PCI Express x1 solution on SPARKLE family product. SPARKLE GeForce 8400 GS PCI Express x1 Graphics Cards create upgrade possibility on your generic PC, bringing advanced SM 4.0 and 2nd PureVideo HD technology, promising the best HDTV video, the best office and the best multimedia experience to non-mainstream users.

PayPal announces NFC Android-to-Android payments

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology may have been incorporated into many smartphones these days such as the Samsung Nexus S and Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc, but it has not taken off due to the varying competing standardsand existing technologies,as well asthe lack ofusagesuch ascontactless mobile payments. However, online payment gateway Paypal looks to be taking a step to push the mobile payment with their recent announcement of NFC Android phone-to-phone payment. According to sources, the transaction works through aPayPal widget which users can use to send or request money. The user needs to enter the transaction details and tap his or her phone against another phone that also has the same app installed. The phones will buzz together and recipient can then choose to accept the transaction by keying in the PIN number.

The PayPal new mobile payment serviceis currently slated to workonlyin the U.S. and with the Samsung Nexus S from Sprint and T-Mobile. However, the company said that it willalso expand to other Android phoneswith NFC functionality in the near future.

Source: Reuters

Video Reveals How to Enable Hidden, DLC-only Character in Mass Effect 3

Without any doubt, Mass Effect 3 is one of most controversial games that came out in the past couple of years. This is not due to the content which is inside the game which would cause mainstream media to spasm - but rather due to the content which was deliberately left out.

The decision to make a key character in the game accessible as a DLC-only (DownLoadable Content) caused quite a backlash and even a boycott from several reputable gaming journalists and media. Additional issues for BioWare and EA were premature ejaculation i.e. publication of SDPS i.e. "Standard Defensive PR Statements" where game producers claimed that character was a part of DLC pack and is not located on the DVD.

Unfortunately for BioWares credibility and EA as a publisher, that too turned to be untrue. In a simple one minute video, an angry gamer showed how to enable the character. Thus, if you have a PC, youre all good. If you have a console - tough luck.

Instructions for those that are too unpatient to watch the video:

Open Coalesced.bin with this http://wenchy.net/me3-coalesced-utilitySearch for this: MemberValidCID=22, MemberAvailablePlotLabel=IsSelectableProthean,Replace with this: MemberValidCID=, MemberAvailablePlotLabel=,Thats it. Javik the Prothean is now unlocked. "From Ashes" not required.

Super Talent introduces ShuttleCraft SAS SSD

San Jose, California - June 22, 2010 - Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced a new line of SAS Solid State Disks, the ShuttleCraft Series SAS SSD.

Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) is a new interface standard designed to meet the storage needs of the Enterprise market. SAS features key benefits required by enterprise servers including: high performance, strong reliability and advanced management features.

Already known for extreme reliability, Solid State Disk (SSD) technology can be improved to meet the needs of the enterprise by implementing advanced: Wear Leveling, Bad Block Management, Error Correction and Power Failure Management features. These new features are the cornerstones of our ShuttleCraft Series SAS drive products.

The ShuttleCraft S will be available using SLC flash in 60GB and 120GB capacities, and the ShuttleCraft M will be available using MLC flash to achieve 120GB and 240GB capacities.

"We at SuperTalent are committed to meeting the changing storage needs of our customers. With this, our first SAS interface solution we are now well poised to expand into the enterprise storage market." said Super Talent COO, C.H. Lee.

Measuring 10.5 x 69.85 x 100.2 mm, the new SAS SSD is compliant with most 2.5" drive bays.

ShuttleCraft SSDs will be available in July from Super Talent.

(The press release is also available on Super Talent's website.)

Pentium D 805 Discontinued

Market demand for the Desktop Intel® Pentium® D processor 805 has shifted toother Intel® processors. The products identified in this notification will bediscontinued and unavailable for additional orders after the "Last ProductDiscontinuance Order Date" (see "Key Milestones" above).

QMax To Offer Creative inPerson Conferencing Service In SG

Creative Technology Ltd. and QMax Communications Pte Ltd today announced thatCreative, inventor of Creative inPerson™, a wireless video conferencing system,has unveiled the revolutionary Creative inPerson Conferencing Service andappointed QMax as a service partner in Singapore. This joint partnership bringstogether a worldwide leader in audio and video innovations and the premiumservice provider of wireless Internet access in Singapore.

Creative introduced Creative inPerson, a breakthrough in video conferencingtechnology, design, price and ease-of-use at the Consumer Electronics Show inJanuary 2008 in Las Vegas, USA. The portable, wireless Creative inPerson systemenables business executives to enjoy a high resolution video and audiomulti-party call with multiple offices participating from around the world at afraction of the cost of other video conferencing systems - bringing expensivevideo conferencing outside the corporate boardroom. Each party can join aCreative inPerson conference from a Creative inPerson system, through a PC withthe Creative inPerson inVite, and even from a cell phone for voice call.Business executives can experience high resolution video display on the system'sseven-inch screen with high quality audio on its built-in speaker, or output toa large screen LCD or plasma display. With its breakthrough price and ease ofuse, all of the employees in a company can communicate via Creative inPerson,dramatically reducing the need for travel, increasing productivity, saving cost,and at the same time, reducing their carbon footprint.

As part of the collaboration, QMax will provide the support and service elementsof Creative inPerson Conferencing. The unique and cutting-edge infrastructureand technology behind Creative inPerson is brought together by Creative andInnoMedia Pte Ltd in a joint technology partnership announced today. QMax willbe using the infrastructure and technology to provide the Creative inPersonConferencing Service in Singapore. Through this relationship, Creative inPersoncustomers will benefit from QMax's excellent customer service and itsexperienced round-the-clock helpdesk support. In addition, onsite servicesprovided by the QMax team will also be rendered to corporate customers who mayrequire a higher level of quality assistance.

"QMax has a strong and credible track record in providing services toenterprises in Singapore. By leveraging on its close relationship and intimateknowledge of the business enterprises' needs in Singapore as well as keyelements of QMax's highly successful support network, we are confident that ourcustomers will enjoy the service level which they so truly deserve when usingCreative inPerson, the premium product in video conferencing today," said WilliePng, Vice President of Video & Imaging for Creative. "Partnering QMax gives usthe assurance that our Creative inPerson customers in Singapore will be wellsupported with a quality Internet network as well as a perfect platform todifferentiate our premium products and services in the video conferencingarena."

Creative will continue to develop Creative inPerson which will revolutionise theway people communicate, while QMax will build on its core expertise and itscommitment in enhancing the service component of this new product by leveragingon its understanding of business enterprises in Singapore and their diverseneeds.

"Creative is the ideal partner for QMax, sharing our vision in providing anaffordable and uncomplicated wireless conferencing solution that meets businesscommunication needs in Singapore," said Alex Tan, Director of QMax. "Creative isa worldwide leader in innovative audio and video technology and we are proud tohave them as a strategic partner in delivering this breakthrough in videoconferencing."

Pricing and Availability
Creative inPerson and Creative inPerson Conferencing Service provided by QMax inSingapore will be available on 17 March 2008. Creative inPerson is available atthe suggested retail price of S$ 1,200.00 with QMax monthly service fee atS$ 25.00.

Nexus Announces LOW-7000 R2 CPU Cooler

Nexus LOW-7000 R2 CPU Cooler

Nexus has launched the LOW-7000 R2,its latest version of the low-profile LOW-7000 CPU Cooler with supportfor AM2/3 sockets. Measuring 138x123x70.3mm and weighing 475gm, theLOW-7000 R2 is designed for use in a HPTC.


Nexus LOW-7000 R2 CPU Cooler - Top


4 6mm Pure Copper Heat Pipes with “Heatpipe-On-Core” Technology

Featuring 4 6mm pure copper heat pipes with “Heatpipe-On-Core”technology and ultra-thin aluminum fins, the pure aluminum cooler (madeusing SkiveTek technology) is able to dissipate the heat built-upefficiently. Equipped with a silent 120mm PWM fan running at speeds of500 to 2000 RPM depending on the actual CPU load, the LOW-7000 R2 CPUCooler is barely audible at 24 dBa during operation. Pricing andshipping date has not been announced yet so users who want an efficientthermal solution for their new/upcoming Intel/AMD HPTC can keep an eyeout for the LOW-7000 R2 CPU cooler.

Features
Fully compatible with Intel Socket LGA1366/1156/775 and AMD AM2/34 x 6mm pure copper heatpipes with “Heatpipe-On-Core” TechnologyPure aluminum heat sink with SkiveTek-TechnologyPush-pin mounting for IntelPWM controlled 120mm Sleeve Bearing fan at 500-2000 RPM7cm high – ideal for HTPCsNews via [Nexus]

No New Single-core Athlon 64 This Year

Despite introducing Athlon 64 X2 desktop PC and dual-core Opteron server processors, AMD will continue to tout single-core processors for certain applications. AMD plans to continue offering single-core Athlon 64 FX chips such as 2.6GHz Athlon 64 FX-57 (San Diego based) that will arrive within weeks for gaming desktops. However, AMD no longer intends to deliver new, single-core Athlon 64s this year originally expected to launch Athlon 64 4200+. AMD will tout the Athlon 64 X2's multimedia aptitude and will position its current and future single-core Athlon 64 FX chips as having the highest performance on games.

NVIDIA GeForce GTS 450 Release Slides leaked

Chinese website IT168 has leaked slides from the release presentation ofNVIDIA's upcoming GeForce GTS 450. While there are no major surprises,the slides confirm several rumours. The reference design of the GeForceGTS 450's body is identical to the reference GTX 460. It features 4 SMor PolyMorph Engines with 48 SP or CUDA Cores each (much like GF104,unlike GF100), for a total of 192 SP. The core is clocked at 783 MHz,with the shaders at 1566 MHz. 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 memory clocked at 900MHz mean a low bandwidth of 57.6 GB/s, well below the likes of the HD5770 and predecessor GTS 250. The GTS 450 features 32 TMUs, and lookslike a fully enabled GF106 part. In essence, GF106 is GF104 cut in half.



The GTS 450's power consumption is decent, with TDP listed at 106W. However, we have seen actual TDP and NVIDIA's figures vary in the past. Performance wise, the GTS 450 is expected to be somewhere between the Radeon HD 5750 and Radeon HD 5770. The HD 5770 has a near identical TDP of 108W, but the HD 5750 consumes only 86W. All three cards, as expected, use a single 6-pin PCIe connector.



NVIDIA's key selling points will be similar to the GTX 460 - excellent price/performance and high overclocking potential. Expected to retail at $130, the GeForce GTS 450 is slightly cheaper than the Radeon HD 5750, despite performing approximately 10% better. Heavily factory overclocked versions will be available, upto 900+ MHz. In fact, the some GTS 450 may hit 1 GHz. From a stock speed of 783 MHz, this is incredible overclocking potential. Sporting a GTX 460-like cooler, the GTS 450 provides ample cooling performance, with Furmark load temperatures only 72C at default fan settings.

Overall, the GeForce GTS 450 is looking like a strong product. One might suggest that the card could do better with more memory bandwidth, but as it stands, it is still extremely competitive against the Radeon HD 5750. However, the problem for NVIDIA is that the GTS 450 won't be competing against the HD 5700 series for long. Being 11 months late means AMD's Radeon HD 6700 series is set to release in one month's time, on October 12th. At the same time, the GTS 450's likely direct competitor will be the Radeon HD 6600 series, though we are not sure when it will release. Till then, we hope AMD drops the price for the Radeon HD 5700 series to finally ignite some life into the mainstream ~$150 segment.

Reference: IT168.com, Donanimhaber

NVIDIA 28nm Kepler production in Q4 2011, release in 2012

In a talk with Fudzilla, NVIDIAs PR Representative Ken Brown revealed that next-gen 28nm Kepler is on track to hit production by the end of this year. However, the release of retail SKUs, will only be in 2012, presumably Q1. This roadmap is no surprise and has been rumoured even before Keplertaped out.

Interestingly, in the mobile arena, rumours suggest NVIDIA has opted to release Fermi 28nm shrinksfirst. As these chips follow a similar schedule to Kepler, it is unlikely that these shrinks will be available on the desktop, except for maybe entry level GPUs. As is usual, the top Kepler part (GF110 replacement) will release first for the desktop. However, it might be too power hungry for a notebook release and the performance chip (i.e. GF114 replacement) will only release later. Hence, Kepler parts on the notebook will probably follow later in 2012.

The rumour mill has been grinding away on the AMD side of the fence. In the last financial call, then interim CEO Thomas Seifert confirmed that next-gen 28nm GPUs were on track for 2011. AMD/GloFo have also indirectly confirmed the AMD Radeon HD 7000 branding. However, as we head closer to Q4, little in the way of solid information has surfaced on to the internet about the Radeon HD 7000 series.

Source: Fudzilla

NVIDIA Demos PCI Express Technology

NVIDIA is demonstrating its PCI Expressarchitecture at the Consumer Electronics Show. PCI Express is the nextrevolution in I/O interconnect standard that NVIDIA will deploy in futuregraphics solutions as the next step in delivering the bandwidth and featuresrequired for high-resolution graphics, games, and other graphically-intensiveapplications.

PCI Express significantly increases bandwidthbetween the central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) byenabling a balanced distribution of bandwidth to those applications that requireit the most. NVIDIA's PCI Express bridge chip, an industry first, affords theflexibility to instantly adapt a variety of the Company's award-winning GPUs tothe new PCI Express bus technology with the full capabilities and throughputoffered by PCI Express.

"To create a sixteen lane PCI Express bridge chip that works without performancedegradation is a huge technological advancement," said Dan Vivoli, executivevice president of marketing at NVIDIA. "The use of a PCI Express bridge chipgives NVIDIA a decisive competitive advantage in what is the most excitinggraphics bus transition in recent history."

"Intel has been working with PCI Express validation collaborators such as NVIDIAto implement this exciting new I/O interconnect standard," said Randy Wilhelm,vice president, Desktop Platforms Group and general manager, Client PlatformDivision at Intel Corporation. "The validation of NVIDIA products with PCIExpress will help ensure interoperability with future leading-edge Intelplatforms."

NC State researcher develops quot;clickjacking rootkits quot;

Android has seen increasing numbers of threats from malwares and viruses recently. As the popular open sourced platform becomes even more widespread, so will the threats. Researchers at NC State have found a hole in the Android GUI and services that allows malwares to disguise itself as a normal app. The team developed a “clickjacking rootkit” that allows malwares to hijack a phone’s regular icon and replaces it with its own user-information-theft software.

The clickjacking rootkit allows people to disguise their malwares in the form of legitimate Android software. What this means is that icons of a normal (non-harmful) software gets replaced with a malware, and when a user clicks on the seemingly “normal” icon he will launch an application that may seem to function normally, but underneath it are hijacking codes that steals user information.

This vulnerability, as you will see in the video demonstration, is apparent in Android ICS 4.0.4. The rootkit hasn’t been tested on previous Androids, but the chances of this vulnerability existing on previous platforms are high. Android Jelly Bean 4.1 is still being investigated, and until then we cannot assume that any Android OS is secured.

The rootkit exposes how various malwares can infect an Android phone and steal user information. Even harmful apps can pass as being “normal” and un-harmful can still be downloaded from Google Play. All this is possible because the vulnerability doesn’t require root access.

Source: ncsu.edu via androidauthority.com

Intel Regained Some Market Share From AMD

Intel is reclaiming some market share for semiconductors used in data-server networks, but the chip industry's leader still lost overall share to smaller rival AMD for microprocessors used in PCs and servers in 2006. Intel controlled 74.4% of the microprocessor market at the end of the fourth quarter, down from 76% in the prior quarter. AMD owned 25.3% of the total market, up from 23.3% a year ago. It ended the year with 77.7% share, up from 76.3%. AMD slipped to 22.3%, down from 23.7%. Helped by a chip offering based on a new architecture released in mid-2006, Intel reported its second straight quarter of share gains. In the desktop market, Intel had a 70.4% share, down from 72.4%. AMD had 29.1%, up from 26.6%. In the laptop market, Intel had an 80.6% share, down from 83.2%, while AMD had 19.4%, up from 16.8%.