Tahiti LE comes on November 27th

No reference design

 

According to the latest round of Radeon rumors, AMD plans to release new graphics cards based on the Tahiti LE GPU on November 27th

HT4U.net also noted that AIB partners will have a green light to make its own versions of the graphics card, as there is no need for AMD-reference reference design. This way AIB partners will be able to use existing Radeon HD 7900 series designs

As rumored earlier, AMD decided to market the Tahiti LE as a part of the HD 7800 series rather than the HD 7900 series graphics card. The new SKU should be priced somewhere between the Radeon HD 7870 and the Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards

The new SKU will be a limited edition product aimed at certain markets and the upcoming Christmas shopping season

More here

Everspin comes up with non-volatile magnetic RAM

500 times faster than NAND

Everspin has announced that it’s shipping the first 64Mb ST-MRAM in a DDR3-compatible module

According to its press release the MRAM (Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory) transfer data at DDR3-1600 clock rates, but access latencies are much lower than flash RAM. This means that they can manage 500 times the performance of  conventional NAND. It works by using a single magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) and one transistor. When power comes on spin-polarized electrons tunnel through the dielectric barrier. The angular momentum of the electrons is transferred to the magnetic layer, “flipping” the polarisation. The cell is read by measuring its resistance

The advantage is that the spin-torque technology uses much less power for writes than conventional MRAM and can be scaled. Once the data has been written, cells don’t need to be refreshed. MRAM retains its data if the power is turned off, and it doesn’t draw power to retain data during active system operation

You can check out the geeky details here

Cooler Master announces HAF XB case

LAN box and test bench combo case

Cooler Master has announced a new and rather interesting case that combines the LAN box form factor in order to create a case that can double as a test bench. The HAF XB, as Cooler Master decided to call it, supports full ATX motherboards, provides excellent cooling coupled with portability and modular features

The HAF XB is a rather strange part of the HAF lineup, but considering that it has quite an impressive cooling features including two 120mm front, 200mm top and 120mm and two 80mm fans in the rear, it more than justifies the High Air Flow (HAF) name. The HAF XB also comes with steel reinforced handles on the side panels that are a must if you are talking about LAN Box type case

As noted, the HAF XB also doubles as a test bench and features removable motherboard tray. The spec list includes seven expansion slots, enough space for multiple graphics card setups, large HDD/SSD tray with support for up to six 2.5-inch drives with dual X-Dock hot-swap slots, large and featured packed front I/O panel with two USB 3.0 ports, and a bunch of other features that are quite unique to the case industry

Unfortunately, the price hasn't been announced as it will vary by region, but a quick check at Newegg.com reveals that it is sold in the USA for US $99.99.

AMD releases Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7

Improves Crossfire for COD: Black Ops 2

 

Following the launch of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2, AMD has released its new AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7 driver

The new "beta 7" driver includes all of the fixes found in previous versions of the Catalyst 12.11 Beta driver and brings Crossfire improvements for Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 game, especially at higher resolutions, according to AMD

The new driver supports AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5000, 6000M, 7000M series graphics cards as well as AMD Radeon HD 5000, 6000, 7700, 7800 and HD 7900 series graphics cards

You can find the new Catalyst 12.11 Beta 7 driver here

Nvidia rolls out Geforce 310.54 Beta driver

Brings impressive performance improvements

 

Nvidia has released the new Geforce 310.54 Beta driver that brings performance improvements for 21 different game titles over the old 306.97 WHQL driver

The new 310.54 Beta driver brings up to 26 percent improvement in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and up to 18 percent in Assassin's Creed III game, all on the Geforce GTX 680. The GTX 660 got boosted to up to 24 percent in Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 and up to 5 percent in Assassin's Creed III. The new beta driver also brings improvements in Battlefield 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Medal Of Honor: Warfighter, Starcraft II, Dragon Age II, Batman: Arkham City and Stalker: Call of Pripyat games

In addition to performance improvements the new beta driver also brings updated SLI, 3D Vision and Nvidia Control Panel ambient occlusion profiles for various game titles

The new beta driver supports all products since Geforce 8 series although we are pretty sure that these performance improvements are probably only limited to Geforce 600 series

You can find the driver, as well as the full release notes here

MSI announces GX60 gaming notebook

Quad-core APU, Radeon HD 7970M and Windows 8

 

MSI has announced the world-wide availability of its latest GX-series gaming notebook. Based on AMD's quad-core A10 APU backed by HD 7970M graphics, the 15.6-inch GX60 sounds like a pretty nice beast

The new GX60 features a 15.6-inch 1920x1080p display, quad-core Trinity A10-4600M APU clocked at 2.3GHz (3.2GHz Turbo) and discrete AMD Radeon HD 7970M graphics card with 2GB of memory. The rest of the spec includes up to 16GB of RAM memory, dual HDD or SSD option and Blu-ray optical drive

Since we are talking about a gaming notebook here, MSI decided to go with SteelSeries designed keyboard and Killer E2200 WiFi. It also comes with Bluetooth 4.0, Windows 8 OS, nine-cell battery and a decent audio system

The price of this beast starts at US $1,300 in the US and around €1200 in the EU, depending on the SKU

New Intel ULV CPUs show up

Intel Core i3-3227U and Core i5-3337U

 

There has been a lot of talk regarding Intel's ULV lineup refresh scheduled for Q1 2013, and although we already heard about the 35W TDP Core i7-3540M, Core i5-3340M and Core i5-3380M as well as the ULV Core i7-3687U and Core i5-3437U parts for the Ultrabook segment, it appears that the refresh will also include two additional ULV CPUs, the Core i3-3227U and the Core i5-3337U

The Core i3-3227U and the Core i5-3337UI are both expected to have the same 17W TDP. Both of them will also feature 3MB of L3 cache, Intel's HD 4000 graphics part and most likely, will support Intel's Hyper-threading technology. The Core i3-3227U will have a slightly higher (100MHz) clock when compared to the 1.8GHz clocked Core i3-3217U CPU released back in June. As a part of the cheaper ULV lineup, the Core i3-3227U will lack Intel's Turbo Boost feature and will most likely replace the previously noted Core i3-3217 CPU

The Core i5-3337U will have a slightly lower 1.8GHz base clock, but will feature Intel's Turbo Boost that will take it as high as 2.7GHz when needed

Both CPUs have appeared in recent specification pages for Toshiba Satellite notebooks

You can check out more info over at CPU-World.com

Windows Phone 8 gets Skype

Brings a few new features

 

Windows Phone 8 is getting its first taste of Skype, as of Monday

Microsoft claims Skype for WP 8 brings a range of new features and it does seem to be vastly superior to Skype on WP 7.5.

Skype can now run in the background, so users won’t miss a message while playing around with other apps. Also, Skype contacts are now visible in People Hub, making everything a little more straightforward

Hardware requirements are minimal. Skype for WP 8 requires 512MB of RAM, which is a non-issue on WP 8 devices. It can work on 3G, but Microsoft still recommends wifi

Microsoft invents universal translator

Boldly making the world more like Star Trek

 

Microsoft has come up with a voice translation project which appears to have come straight from a Star Trek script

In a video the company’s chief research officer Rick Rashid speaks before an audience in Tianjin, China, as a computer translator spits out his words in Mandarin in his own voice. This is exactly like the “universal translator” that enabled everyone to hear their native language no matter what dialect was being spoken

Writing in his bog, Rashid wrote that the results are still not perfect, and there is still much work to be done, but the technology is very promising. He thinks that in a few years we will have systems that can completely break down language barriers. This means that the world might not have to wait until the 22nd century for a usable equivalent of Star Trek’s universal translator

The technology learns the nuances of an individual’s speech and builds a profile. Using that data, it combines with properties from native Chinese speakers. In the case of Rashid, the system’s profile then took his words, found the Chinese equivalents and reordered them to be grammatically correct Chinese. Klingon is a little harder as it is a bit difficult to translate punch in the face

Black Ops 2 Street date broken

Not really surprising these days

 

We have talked about retailers breaking street dates before, and it really comes as little surprise that we have received a number reports that Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 appears to be popping up as available from a number of sources

We have sources reporting from North America, Europe and Asia that they have been able to obtain Black Ops 2 early.  In the case of Simply Games, the retailer apparently just delivered all copies of Black Ops 2 three days ahead of the global release. In fact, it was telling potential customers on its Facebook page that they could order it today and have it tomorrow; but that since has been removed

We have told you before about independent retailers who have played it “fast and loose” with street dates in order to gain pre-orders and keep customers from shopping with the big boys. The reality is (as we saw with Halo 4) the publishers don’t like it and will act on reports of retailers breaking the street dates

We are not sure what Activision might be up to as far as dealing with this, but you can bet that they will address the issue.  It is hard to say if that is going to filter down to customers at this point

China blocks Google services

Party congress in progress, quiet please

 

Google is reporting an “unusual” drop in traffic in mainland China and it appears that the drop is a result of a (temporary) censorship drive

Gmail, maps and Google Drive have been blocked, but it is unclear whether all Google services are affected. The Great Firewall of China has apparently been pressed into service to keep a lid on the 18th Communist Party Congress, which is a rather big deal in China

Searches for Google sites in China are apparently being rerouted to a site in Korea through DNS poisoning. Of course, there’s a chance users can get around it with a VPN connection, but most average users will probably have to wait for the congress to name the next generation of Chinese leaders before they can access their mail

Now imagine if someone cut internet access in Florida until they sort out their election results? Come to think of it, that’s a brilliant idea

Foxconn denies plans to open US plant

Sorry Detroit

 

Manufacturing giant Foxconn has denied reports that it plans to establish a plant in the US, possibly in Detroit or LA

Foxconn stated that it already has multiple facilities based in the US and that it has no plans to expand at this time

However, Foxconn is planning to offer training for US engineers in its facilities in China, provided they don’t bring along up unionization or any other crazy ideas with them

Acer shows its new REVO mini-PC

The Acer REVO RL80

Acer has announced a new addition to its REVO line of mini PCs, the REVO RL80.

Based on Intel's Sandy Bridge Core i3-2377M CPU, the new REVO RL80 also comes with the Windows 8 OS, 4GB of memory, a 500GB HDD and a DVD drive. The rest of the features include two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, DVI, HDMI, S/PDIF outputs, card reader, 802.11bgn WiFi, Gigabit Ethernet and Bluetooth connectivity

The entire unit measures 8.3x8.3x2.1-inches (21x21x5.3cm) and since it is based on older Sandy Bridge CPU with quite obsolete Intel HD 3000 graphics, it is hard to expect any performance miracles out of this mini PC

According to various other reports, Acer will apparently also offer SKUs with Celeron and Pentium CPUs at lower price and even an optional Blu-Ray drive

You can check out more here

AMD Tahiti LE to be Radeon HD 7890

Still no precise specs

 

There have already been a couple of rumors regarding yet another GPU from AMD based on the 28nm Tahiti chip, and according to Expreview.com, it appears that AMD will indeed push this GPU in the Radeon HD 7800 series rather than the Radeon HD 7900 series

AMD plans to brand the SKU as the Radeon HD 7890. Unfortunately, there are still no precise details regarding the clock speeds or any precise specifications for that matter, but Expreview noted that it should end up around 15 percent faster than the Geforce GTX 660 graphics card. Of course, the new AMD Radeon HD 7890 SKU aims the GTX 660 as its primary competition as it should hit the marker with a similar price tag

The new SKU is specifically aimed at the upcoming Christmas shopping spree and should fill the gap that AMD currently has in that price range

You can check out more here

Zotac launches ZBOX AD06 mini-PC

Pairs the ZBOX with E2-1800 APU

 

Zotac has announced yet another member of its vast ZBOX mini-PC lineup, the ZBOX AD06.

Featuring AMD's E2-1800 APU, the new ZBOX, according to Zotac, updates the form factor with greater graphics and processing capabilities without sacrificing energy-efficiency or the flexibility of the form factor

The full specs include the AMD E2-1800 dual-core APU clocked at 1.7GHz clocked, with AMD Radeon HD 7340 graphics, DVI and HDMI outputs, two USB 3.0 and four USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11bgn WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity options and high-amp yellow USB ports for quick power charging of tablets and smartphones

The new ZBOX AD06 ships with a VESA 75/100 mount and MCE-compatible remote with USB IR receiver. As was the case with previous ZBOX mini-PCs, the ZBOX AD06 also will be sold as a barebone or equipped with 2GB of DDR3-1333 memory and a 320GB 2.5-inch HDD ZBOX AD06 Plus

Unfortunately, the price was not announced but a quick check of our favorite price search engine puts the barebone version at around €210 while the ZBOX AD06 Plus goes for around €320.

You can find them listed here

Intel delays 1272 process

Sends workers home early

 

Intel is sending up to 600 Irish staff home early from training in the US after deciding to delay its next generation 14 nanometer microchips, known within the group as the 1272 process

According to the Irish press the move has sparked fears among the 4,500 workers at Intel’s Irish plant for the long-term future of their jobs. Intel chief executive Paul Otellini announced the Leixlip factory was one of three selected to produce its next generation 14 nanometer microchips

The move was critical to securing the Irish plant and its jobs. Intel is refitting two plants at its Leixlip site in preparation for the new technology. Intel said that the slowdown in demand has prompted Intel to delay the introduction of 1272 manufacturing to its Irish subsidiary by six months, pushing it out to late next year

Intel recently spent $3.5 billion on a new plant in Oregon, prompting speculation that the 1272 chip will only be made in the US

Foxconn wants Americans to train in Chinese factories

We need more third world labour

 

Foxconn Technology Group wants to invite dozens of American engineers to his factories in China to learn about manufacturing

Terry Gou said that the US had no chance of of getting production lines back to the US because Americans have outsourced those jobs for too long. But he added that Americans can learn how factories are operated so they can return home to set up facilities with automated equipment to resolve the lack of skilled labourers

Foxconn employs 1.2 million people in China to assemble products for Apple. It has introduced more robots in China over the past two years as it faces soaring wages there. Foxconn likes the idea of robots because these do not have a tendency to want to kill themselves and do not kick up a stink when they are pulled from their school's because the company has a big project on

Power Color Devil 13 HD 7990 6GB reviewed

Review: The Beast

 

Strangely enough, although we expected this from AMD first, it’s actually Power Color who first strapped a PCB with two Tahiti XT GPUs. In fact, the company offers two versions of the card, one of which is our today’s test card - the Devil 13, whereas the other is clocked lower and simply named the HD 7990.

Club 3D and VTX 3D followed up with their own HD 7990 cards, but it’s actually the same card with slightly lower clocks. It appears that some other AMD partners will jump aboard the HD 7990 train, which is always a good thing. We know HIS is working on the card, but they call it the HD 7970 X2.

Power Color’s HD 7990, the slower one, is clocked at 900MHz (with turbo BIOS at 925MHz), while the Devil 13’s GPU runs at 925MHz (turbo BIOS at 1000MHz). Note that the company didn’t use AMD’s recently launched Tahiti XT 1GHz Edition chips. Apart from higher clocks, the new Tahiti XT chips come with PowerTune and Boost, which is similar to Nvidia’s auto-overclocking once there’s thermal and power headroom. Luckily, the Devil 13’s turbo BIOS means 1000MHz, so users won’t really notice any more meaningful difference

The Devil 13 HD 7990 card comes in special packaging with a few gifts thrown in, which we’ll discuss in more detail next

GPUZ confirmed the Devil 13 runs at 925MHz and that loading turbo BIOS ups it to 1000MHz. Unfortunately, loading the BIOS can’t be done on the fly and although the Turbo can be switched whenever you wish, the new BIOS will load only after you restart your computer. The turbo BIOS switch is placed on the I/O panel for accessibility reasons

 Inside the pretty large box are a few standard items you’ll need, as well as a few surprises

You will receive
  - instruction manuals
  - driver CD
  - three 6-pin to 8-pin power cables
  - adapters:  1x mini-DP-to-DVI
                    1x active mini-DP-to-DVI
                    1x DVI-to-VGA
  - CrossFire Bridge
  - 11-piece Wiha Screwdriver set
  - PowerJack card supporter that’s maximum 235mm long, and will prevent warping and/or bending of the 1.77kg 
    heavy Devil 13 card under its weight

The package has no pictures of the card, but does it really need to – it’s sleek and modern, while hinting at the beast inside. The Devil 13 HD 7990 comes with a three year warranty

 

The Devil 13 HD 7990 looks powerful. It’s huge though, measuring 31.75cm (12.5 inches) in length, 13.8cm in height. It takes up three slots and weighs in at 1.77kg, believe it or not. It goes without saying that the card will have to be secured well, which is why the company bundles the PowerJack

The fans take up one slot, while the heatsink takes up two. In between the two 85mm fans is a single 75mm one. Fan RPM can be regulated via Catalyst Overdrive. All the fans are connected via a single 4-pin connector

The PCB carries two Tahiti XT graphics processors. We’re talking about first generation chips that run at 925MHz, rather than the 1GHz Edition versions. The internal bridge (PEX 8747 from PLX) is in charge of communication between GPUs and comes with its own little heatsink

Close to the CrossFire connector is another that resembles a fan connector, but it’s actually the BIOS connector that’s routed to the turbo switch on the I/O panel. The turbo switch will overclock the GPU by 8 percent, i.e. from 925MHz to 1000MHz, and will glow once pressed. Note that the new BIOS will not load until you’ve restarted the machine

The card packs 6GB of GDDR5, so each GPU has 3GB at its disposal. The memory is Hynix’ and runs at 1375MHz. However, it’s specified to run at 1500MHz, so we expect to boost it with some overclocking

Considering it’s a three slot cooler, we expected the heatsink to be bigger. Taking the cooler apart will require a lot of screwdriver work and patience. The screws that keep the cooler attached to the card are on the back of the card. Each of these screws has four washers for better grip

 

The Devil 13 HD 7990 needs three 8-pin power connectors, which, coupled with PCI-Express power, provides up to 525W. Both GPUs have 6-phase power. On the back of the card are 6 LEDs that display power status

The rest of the HD 7900 series cards have similar connector layout, i.e. two DVIs, two mini-DisplayPorts and one HDMI. The Devil 13 however comes with an active mini-DisplayPort-to-DVI dongle, which means the card can drive three displays via DVIs, but also you may use all the outputs at the same time

The backplate covers the back of the card and its main functions are to secure the card and make it stable, while looking good in the process. Some of the memory chips ended up on the back as well

Testbed

Motherboard: EVGA X79 FTW
CPU: Sandy Bridge-E Core i7 3820  3.6GHz
CPU Cooler: Thermalright HR-02 Thermalright-Europa Distri www.PC-Cooling.de
Memory: 8GB ADATA DDR3 1600 XPG Gaming series
Harddisk:   OCZ Vertex 2 100 GB
Power Supply: CoolerMaster Silent Pro 1000W
Case: CoolerMaster Cosmos II Ultra Tower
Operating System: Win7 64-bit

Nvidia 306.38-desktop-win7-winvista-64bit-english-beta
AMD 12-9_vista_win7_64_dd_ccc
GTX 690 4GB driver-310.33-beta
Devil 13 HD 7990 12-11_beta4

Crysis 2 is one of those games that usually aren’t great with CrossFire. Luckily, AMD addressed this with the latest driver update and it ran well

Aliens vs Predator loves them Radeons. The HD 7990 Devil 13 scored 33 percent higher than the GTX 690.

AMD has done plenty of work on drivers lately, so its cards do quite well in many games that previously favored Nvidia

AMD’s cards aren’t slouches in tessellation either, and aren’t far behind Nvidia

Dual GPU Devil 13 HD 7990 comes with a turbo switch that overclocks the GPU from 925MHz to 1000MHz. The switch doesn’t affect memory, which will remain at 1375MHz 5500MHz GDDR5 effectively

Note that the memory is specified at 1500MHz and we had no trouble upping the clock from 1375MHz to this number. The GPU cooperated quite well too, and we easily overclocked it to 1125MHz without any voltage or fan RPM changes

PowerColor has its own overclocking tool dubbed the Powerup Tuner, which offers basic options to overclock the GPU, memory or manage fan RPM

The Devil 13 HD 7990 we received had no issues with GPU thermals, unlike the first batch of these cards that was sent out to reviewers. It’s strange how the problem went largely unnoticed at first, but thankfully it didn’t require redesigning the cooler. Namely, the GPU overheated because the cooler wasn’t tightened enough, but the company solved this by adding extra washers, so retail versions of the card have normal thermals. You can check out the washers below

When idle, the Devil 13 isn’t fully inaudible, but you won’t hear it much either. Once the GPU is loaded, the fans will be noticeably loud, but still far from unpleasant because the noise isn’t high pitched. The GTX 690 is quieter although it has dual slot cooling with a single fan. Note that Devil 13 cooler takes up three slots and has three fans. You can manage fan RPM via most popular tools

If there’s anything good about loud fans, it’s quality thermals. Namely, GPU temperatures didn’t exceed 76°C. After we overclocked the card to 1125MHz GPU and 1500MHz memory, the figure increased by two 78°C

Power Color Devil 13 HD 7990 graphics card quickly took the top spot when it comes to power consumption. Nvidia’s GTX 690 ended up on average some 50W better than the Devil 13. Once the turbo BIOS switch is activated, the card will consume 10 to 15W more, but this is to be expected as it also involves an 8 percent GPU clock boost

Power Color HD 7990 Devil 13 is the first card to combine two Tahiti XT graphics processors onto a single PCB. We must say we expected AMD to come up with the card first, but it wasn’t the case and many partners are already preparing to launch their own HD 7990 cards. In fact, HIS’ HD 7970 X2 is almost done, so Power Color’s Devil 13 will soon get a worthy opponent from its own family

The Devil 13’s fiercest adversary though is the GTX 690, which turned out superior in quite a few fields. When it comes to performance, there are no clear cut winners, at least not as decisively as we used to see. The Devil 13 HD 7990 will wipe the floor with the GTX 690 in some games, but the GTX 690 repays the “favor” in others. Nvidia’s champ leads when it comes to silence, consumption and driver stability

We got the impression that the GTX 690’s SLI runs better than the HD 7990’s CrossFire. However, the latest application profile solves certain CrossFire issues in some games, most notable of which in our case was Crysis 2.

The Devil 13 HD 7990 runs at 925MHz for the GPU and 1375MHz for GDDR5 memory, but switching on turbo BIOS will overclock the GPU to 1000MHz. We didn’t expect much when it comes to further overclocking potential, but overclocking the GPU to 1125MHz was a breeze

Of course, all that muscle comes at a price and the Devil 13 HD 7990 is the hungriest card we’ve had on our test lately. Due to high power demands, the Devil 13 has three 8-pin power connectors

The triple-slot cooler looks powerful and does a pretty good job, but we were slightly disappointed with noise levels. The fans, three of them to be exact, are noticeably louder than the GTX 690’s single fan

The Devil 13 HD 7990 can drive five monitors up to three DVI displays thanks to bundled active mini-DP-to-DVI dongle

Power Color’s HD 7990 that runs at 900MHz (slower than the Devil 13) costs around €880, which is what the cheapest GTX 690 goes for. The Devil 13 HD 7990, with its turbo overclocking, is priced €50 higher

Power Color made and launched the HD 7990 on its own and this effort should not go unrewarded. It is thanks to this company that we got to see a Radeon with two Tahiti XT graphics processors, while the GTX 690 got itself a worthy opponent

 

Microsoft starts developer campaign

Needs to sort out lack of Windows 8 apps

 

Microsoft is mounting a strong campaign to win over the software developers to provide apps for Windows 8. Although the software has appeared with good reviews, it is weakened by the lack of mobile software apps

Windows 8, the new Surface tablet and a range of Windows-based phones needs to convince more developers to sign up to create the thriving 'ecosystem' that made PCs so successful. Microsoft has been running an event called 'Build,' is the equivalent of Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference and Google's I/O event

Microsoft gave each paying attendee one of its Surface tablets and 100 gigabytes of free space on its SkyDrive online storage service. Nokia threw in a free Lumia 920 smartphone running Windows Phone 8. It has an uphill battle even big names such as Facebook and Twitter were missing from Windows 8 when it launched

Twitter announcing that a native Windows app would be rolled out "in the months ahead." Dropbox, a fast-growing cloud storage service, also announced it would soon have a Windows app, as did online payment firm PayPal and sports network ESPN
Facebook has not got a Windows 8 app, despite the fact Microsoft is a minor shareholder

Sutter wants a SOA video game

Asks Rockstar to make it happen

 

Sons of Anarchy creator Kurt Sutter is never one afraid to speak his mind. While Rockstar has a lot on its plate at the moment with GTA 5, he suggested in a recent Tweet that the studio should make a Sons of Anarchy video game based on the popular TV series

Sutter admits in his Tweet that he knows that it is an expensive and complicated process, but he invites the folks at Rockstar to chat with him about making it happen

This isn’t the first time that Sutter has talked about the possibility of a video game. Back in May, Sutter apparently had a meeting with a big distributor who he did not mention by name about producing a Sons of Anarchy video game, but later in August he announced that the project was not going to get off the ground and was not a priority for the FX network

Rockstar is one of the few developer that we feel could do proper justice to a property like the Sons of Anarchy and being big fans of the show we do think it provides a lot of good material for an excellent game. We a glimpse of what might be possible with the Lost and the Damned add-on for GTA 4 and a full game for this material could be excellent, the question is if Rockstar has the interest and bandwidth to tackle such a project

Windows 8 doing rather well... in India

Surprise sales

 

While some of us are wondering if there is any point upgrading to Windows 8, Microsoft says the operating system is making a killing in India

Microsoft said response in India to the recently-launched Windows 8 has been overwhelming. Microsoft Corporation India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik said the figures were high not just in terms of downloads but in terms of foot-falls we have seen in all its stores, all across the country

Some of this is due to the high Indian content with Windows 8. There were a large number of Indian apps built in the country for Windows 8. At last month's AppFest developers built, designed and tested apps for the Windows platform. Pramanik said that they created nearly 700 apps, of which 300 are in the process of getting into the Windows Store

Nvidia driver is killing my Windows 8 Pro

Moving right along

 

I played with Windows 8 from the first public preview version all the way to the final release. I never trusted the thing completely and it was always installed on as a dual-boot option

As of October 26th we got our hands on the final Windows 8 Pro release and decided to replace the candidate preview with the official version and a clean installation. The first thing we noticed was that the installation on a Samsung 256GB SSD from a USB 2.0 stick takes some 10 minutes, if that. It is really fast and it needs only a few clicks of interaction

As of October 25th Alienware offers drivers and a new bios for the MX11 R3 with Optimus and Nvidia Geforce 540M graphics. Of course, we downloaded the necessary files and started installing them

The first thing that caught our eye was that Nvidia’s driver, provided by Alienware, failed to install. Alienware offers 267.21, A01 that dates April 20th 2011 and Beta of 285.62 dated October 31st 2011. You get the picture how old these drivers really are

Luckily Nvidia offers a new driver at Nvidia.com and we downloaded the GeForce 306.97 driver, dated October 10. Despite the fact that this driver worked flawlessly on the release candidate version of Windows 8 Pro, as well as on RTM version, it started to show us a brand new BSOD. Microsoft kept blaming Nvidia’s driver for the continuous reboots and crashes. When we took the driver down the machine regained stability, but HD 3000 graphics from Intel were the only choice
We don’t know if this is an isolated case, but for us Nvidia 306.97 takes Windows 8 Pro down almost immediately after boot.  Use the comments below to share your experience and we will update the article once we get to the bottom of this issue

It is starting to look as if Microsoft wants you to buy a new PC – notebooks with preinstalled Windows 8 - as this is the way to get the guarantee that everything will work like advertised. Not much luck for people with ancient notebooks it seems

Analyst claims Apple will sell 102 million iPads

In 2013

 

That Apple could flog a dead horse with just them ordinary retinas to its followers is no secret, but latest analyst reports claim the fruit themed master of all things shiny and overpriced will rake in some serious dough on tablets and phones

Canaccord Genuity’s analyst Michael Walkley apparently thinks Apple will flog 101.6 million iPads in 2013. Furthermore, he thinks the company will also sell 194 million iPhones

In comparison, Walkley claims Amazon will sell 10.7 million tablets in the same year, while Apple’s bitter rival Samsung will sell 8.4 million. Additionally, Samsung is expected to sell 303.6 million handsets in 2013.

Interestingly enough, adding up the iPhone figures with those of Samsung, the two will control more than half of the smartphone market. Yes, that’s on top of the higher than 100 percent operating profits the two managed for two quarters in a row

More here

Book not closed on GTA 5 release for PC

No details to share or announce at this time

 

With the announcements from Rockstar now confirming that we will see Grand Theft Auto 5 coming for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, it would seem that their failure to confirm the title’s release for the PC platform has made big news

Rockstar announced via its web site that it had no details to share at this time about the release of GTA 5 for the PC platform. Rockstar, however, did indicate that they were surprised by the enthusiasm of the possibility of a PC release. The developer indicated that currently they are focused on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of the game, and based on how cleverly worded the information was from Rockstar, we have to believe that the book isn’t closed yet on the possibility of a PC version

While we never really thought we were going to see a Wii U version of GTA 5, we suspect that we will see a PC version that will arrive in the fall or winter after the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions are released in the spring. That is only a guess; but we suspect (based on talk from our sources) it is likely that it will play out that way in the end

Intel working on 48-core mobile chip

And we thought Tegra 3 was overkill

 

Intel boffins are working on a 48-core chip for smartphones and tablets, but don’t expect to see it anytime soon. The development could take between five and ten years

Anaylsts reckon the superchip could have a profound effect on our computing habits. Analyst Pat Moorhead said the chip could finally allow the industry to do things that take too much processing power today

"This could really open up our concept of what is a computer... The phone would be smart enough to not just be a computer but it could be my computer," he said

The trouble is coming up with the best way to utilize multiple cores on a single device. Intel researcher Tanausu Ramirez said the 48-chip should be able to use different cores to decode video at the same time, resulting in a more seamless video experience. Also, a multicore design could improve efficiency, as the chip could use a bunch of cores in parallel rather than one core running at high clocks

"The chip also can take the energy and split it up and distribute it between different applications," he added

Intel CTO Justin Rattner believes the new chip could be ready much sooner than the researchers think. Let’s hope he is right

More here

AMD FX-8350 hits 8.17GHz

Firing on all eight cylinders

 

AMD’s new flagship FX-8350 processor seems to have a thing for record setting overclocking feats. A few weeks ago enthusiasts pushed the new chip to 7.44GHz and now it managed to break the 8GHz barrier

The new processor hit 8.176.5GHz, with all eight cores active. The voltage was 1.932V and the multiplier was 29x. Of course, the extreme clock was achieved with liquid nitrogen

So there you have it, the FX-8350 appears to be the Lance Armstrong of the CPU world. Turn up the juice, pump it full of nasty chemicals and it goes like stink

More here

Ubisoft breaks own pre-order record

Assassin’s Creed III new champion

 

People are excited about Assassin’s Creed III, apparently, because Ubisoft has confirmed that Assassin’s Creed III has become the most pre-ordered title in Ubisoft history. The pre-orders globally have already eclipsed double the numbers that Assassin’s Creed Revelations did in pre-orders. Assassin’s Creed Revelations was the former record pre-order record holder for Ubisoft

The numbers that Ubisoft is seeing in pre-orders means that Assassin’s Creed III is on track to be one of the top dog titles for 2012. The title is coming on October 31st for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It will then arrive on November 23rd for the PC. While the exact date has yet to be confirmed, the Wii U version will arrive during the console’s launch window

Ubisoft is also banking heavily on the Season Pass offering for Assassin’s Creed III, which will help boost the bottom line for the title with high quality DLC; and that should help extend the life of the title

Tim Cook: Apple would never make 7-inch tablet

But 7.9 inches is just right

 

Apple Grand Ayatollah Tim Cook is trying to clarify some comments made about 7-inch tablets two years ago, using a little math and very little common sense

Back in 2010, Cook backed Steve Jobs’ view that 7-inch tablets would be dead on arrival. However, now that Apple has actually launched a 7.9-inch tablet, you would expect Cook to say that there’s hope for 7-inchers. Of course, he did not

Cook doubled down on his previous claims, saying that Apple would not make a 7-inch tablet

“We don’t think they’re good products, and we would never make one. The iPad mini is not a compromised product like the 7-inch tablets,” said Cook

It’s in whole different league

So, Cook argues that the additional 0.9 inches place the iPad mini in a league of its own, as it ends up with 35% more screen acreage than a 7-inch tablet. Well, it does, but the whole point of miniaturizing devices is to make them a tad more portable. It is a bit like arguing that a 15-inch MacBook is better than a 13-incher by virtue of a somewhat bigger screen. It is a stretch that would make logic curl up in a fetal position and weep

Besides, last I heard Apple was making some top notch 9.7-inch tablets. They are a lot faster than the mini and have wonderful hi-res screens. So why buy a mini then

More here

PS3 hacked again

Custom firmware & security keys released

 

It is not a good day to be in the Sony PlayStation 3 security department, as a new nightmare hack has apparently been released for the PS3. This time around it will feature custom PS3 firmware, along with publication of the LV0 decryption keys, which some in the hacking community speculate blows the entire system wide open for more hacking and development

We have seen a number of PS3 hacks since the system’s release and we have seen Sony’s attempts at plugging the holes, which have met with mixed results. The fact that the LV0 decryption keys have been released presents a serious problem for Sony, as this means that the 4.30 update can be decrypted with no problem

Sony’s options to battle these developments are limited. We do expect Sony to respond quickly, but they will want to think about what is the best way to deal with this latest hack

Skype 6.0 is out

Speaks Retina, Facebook and Messenger

 

Skype 6.0 is out and Microsoft has a few new things up its sleeve. First thing we noticed is that Skype doesn’t let you upgrade from 5.5 to 6.0, at least it didn’t in our case. We went to Skype website, downloaded a little setup file and voila, Skype installed the 6.0.0.120 version

The new version is available for both Mac and Windows and when it comes to Mac it supports Retina displays right now. It’s not that too many people have one, but this will change in a heartbeat

Skype 6.0 brings integration with Facebook or Microsoft (Live, Hotmail, MSN or whatever is called nowadays Ed.) and going forward you can use these accounts. You can now use Skype to talk to people on Windows Live Messenger, Hotmail and Outlook.com calling your messenger friends will also be available both video and audio, but it’s coming in a few weeks

There is a support for six more languages Thai, Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Catalan and Slovak, bringing the total languages Skype supports to 38. There is a lengthy list of additional languages done by volunteers across the globe, if yours is missing
It’s out and it’s supposed to be better, so if you are one of the people who enjoy updates, go for it