52637403
submission
MojoKid writes:
Apple's new A7 SoC that sits at the heart of the iPad Air and iPhone 5S is a fast chip. Benchmarks and analysis have shown that it picks up its additional performance over the older A6 thanks to a mixture of architectural tweaks and, in some cases, its new 64-bit architecture. On average, the gains are split about 60/40 between the two areas, with more performance gains from the microarchitecture enhancements. But in one notable case — the popular 3DMark, cross-platform benchmark — this hasn't been true at all. In 3DMark Ice Storm, the iPhone 5S is significantly faster in GPU workloads — almost 3x as fast in fact but its CPU performance is actually slightly slower than the A6, as measured in the Physics test. The iPad Air shows exactly the same performance issue, only its CPU is clocked faster than the iPhone 5/5S, and shows a small improvement as a result. Moving the code to 64-bit improved the A7's performance by about seven percent. What it doesn't answer, however, is why there's no performance delta between the two CPUs in 32-bit code. The difference, it turns out, is tied to the open source Bullet physics library that 3DMark Ice Storm relies upon for testing CPU performance. While this doesn't dramatically change how the iPhone 5S ranks in 3DMark, it shows how the advantage of a big change (32-bit to 64-bit) can actually be much smaller than the impact of a low-level optimization that better matches how a CPU best performs a task.
52632051
submission
Dputiger writes:
When AMD announced the FX-9590 this past summer, it was an obvious move to win back support from enthusiasts. With a 4.7GHz base clock and 5GHz Turbo, can the AMD CPU challenge Intel in high-end gaming with either the brand-new R9 290X or the older dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990?
52631999
submission
Lasrick writes:
This is an excellent, thoughtful piece by Ted Trainer on how the very core to a market-oriented, consumer society is unable to tackle the problem of climate change. The numbers here are pretty staggering. Here's an excerpt: 'These kinds of figures show that major global problems cannot be solved unless the wealthiest countries face up to enormous reductions in per-capita resource use. However, these countries are obsessed with raising levels of production and consumption as fast as possible, and without any upper limit. The supreme, never-questioned goal is continuous economic growth. But for the world’s population to achieve Australian living standards by 2050, given an annual economic growth rate of 3 percent, total world production and consumption would have to be more than 30 times as great in 2050 as they are now.'
52631363
submission
cold fjord writes:
The new insurance mandates in the Affordable Care Act are resulting in the cancellation of millions of insurance policies due to changes in the law and regulations, forcing people to get new policies, often at a higher price. That obviously has the potential to ruffle some feathers. And how do people protest these days? Twitter is one popular forum. Unfortunately it appears there is a problem with that. The Daily Caller reports that, "Twitter has repeatedly suspended an account critical of the Affordable Care Act. The account, @mycancellation, was just getting started when Twitter suspended it—twice—before reinstating the account late Saturday night. The purpose of @mycancellation or mycancellation.com was to allow some of the millions of Americans who are losing their health insurance to post pictures of themselves with their cancellation letters. ... Late Saturday night Heather Higgins, CEO and president of the Independent Women’s Voice, announced on Facebook that the account was suspended again. ... Kohn managed to get the account reinstated. “Tonight shortly before 11:30pm ET the handle was canceled again,” Coley told TheDC. “We are looking into the issue now to see whether Twitter can give us a reason.”" — This is reminiscent of a previous protest. — More at Hot Air.
52631253
submission
billcarson writes:
Even though for most of us the recession is far from over, analysts are worried the technology sector might be heading for its next bubble. Technology stocks are at records highs at the moment. Companies that have no sound business plan have no difficulty in raising capital to fund their crazy dreams. Even Yahoo is again buying companies without real profit (Tumblr). Andreessen Horowitz, a major venture capitalist in Silicon Valley is already pulling up the ladder. Might this be an indicator for more woe to come?
52630879
submission
Daniel_Stuckey writes:
Reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, who shared a Pulitzer last year as part of the Associated Press team covering the NYPD’s surveillance activity, have summed it up perfectly: The NYPD doesn't answer document requests.
“For the most part, they don’t respond,” Apuzzo told the Huffington Post. "Even the NSA responds.”
It's not just reporters who've noticed. New York City Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio gave the police department a failing grade in an April report based on its dismal response rate to Freedom of Information requests. By de Blasio’s analysis, nearly a third of requests submitted to NYPD go unanswered.
52630857
submission
mikejuk writes:
Bribe.io announces itself as:
A super easy way to bribe developers to fix bugs and add features in the software you're using.
Recognizing the fact that a lot of open source projects are maintained by developers working alone and in their spare time, the idea is to encourage other developers to by specifying a monetary value to a bug report or feature enhancement. Once an initial "Bribe" has been posted others can "chip in" and add to the financial incentive.
Obviously there are problems to overcome — will it lead to devs introducing bugs at the same time as new features just to get paid to fix them? Also how does this fit with the underlying ethos of open source software? I Can hear RMS already....
52630451
submission
mcgrew writes:
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Captain Kirk will be commanding the U.S. Navy’s most advanced destroyer.On screen, the newest Capt. Kirk is a brash, headstrong, rebellious commander who gets in bar brawls, defies orders from his superiors, and temporarily loses command of the Enterprise.
The real life Capt. Kirk is expected to have a much more sedate command.
“No stories of him kissing green aliens or yelling ‘KAAHHHNNN!’ on the bridge of his ship,” said Mr. Servello. “No worry over him stealing his own ship to chase after Spock, although I am told he is looking for a chief engineer named Scotty.”
52597067
submission
MojoKid writes:
Microsoft has several valid reasons why you should upgrade to Windows 8.1, which is free if you already own Windows 8. However, there's a known issue that might give some gamers pause before clicking through in the Windows Store. There have been complaints of mouse problems after applying the Windows 8.1 update, most of which have been related to lag in video games, though Microsoft confirmed there are other potential quirks. Acknowledging the problem, Microsoft says it's also actively investigating the issues and working on a patch.
52590807
submission
MojoKid writes:
Frank Sinatra was one of the coolest singers singers to have ever lived and I refuse to debate this. Megan Fox is a 27-year-old actress who's easy on the eyes and may have a fine career ahead of her if she picks more movies like Transformers and less flicks like Johah Hex. What happens when you pair the two with a live action trailer for Call of Duty: Ghosts? You get a catchy video tease with Megan Fox shoving aside suitors to shoot down drones with a handgun and Frank Sintra's classic "Ol' Blue Eyes is Back" providing the suave soundtrack. It's a triple dose of cool (Frank Sinatra's voice, Megan's beauty, and CoD: Ghosts' action) all wrapped neatly in a 1 minute and 44 second video clip. CoD: Ghosts is the tenth main installment in the wildly popular CoD franchise and the sixth developed by Infinity Ward. It comes out in two days (November 5, 2013) for PC (with better graphics), PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U. It will also be the first CoD game available for the upcoming PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles later this month.
52480605
submission
MojoKid writes:
The PS4 and Xbox One aren't out yet, but that's not stopping them from facing off in Battlefield 4, the next-generation, just-launched title from EA/DICE. Now that the title has launched, what do we see? Quite a bit — some of it good, some not so much. The first thing that's going to jump out at you is that the contrast ratio and coloring is different — very different. The Xbox One version looks, at times, like the characters or objects have taken a hefty dose of spray-on tan, with oversaturated yellow-red tints that make colors pop in certain wavelengths, but also leaves the game looking oddly washed in places. The Xbox One variant is running at 1280x720, while the PS4 pushes 1600x900. Also it seems that the Xbox One version, on occasion, goes for tamped-down effects in comparison to the PS4. But we also can see that Microsoft's aggressive post-processing produces contradictory results when it comes to evaluating which console delivers the most detail. The Xbox One version of the characters looks better, with sharper textures and more visible detail. The same elements, on the PS4, are rather washed out and faded. Rock looks better on the Xbox One, but camo patterns on players are much more detailed on the PS4. The PS4 appears to using ambient occlusion for shadowing, while the Xbox One isn't. On the other hand, the use of ambient occlusion leaves certain parts of chartacters looking rather odd, with a light outline. The PS4 seems to have an advantage overall. Is it going to be big enough to tilt sales results? We'll find out shortly.
52465303
submission
MojoKid writes:
The PS4 and Xbox One aren't out yet, but that's not stopping them from facing off in Battlefield 4, the next-generation, just-launched title from EA/DICE. Now that the title has launched, what do we see? Quite a bit — some of it good, some not so much. The first thing that's going to jump out at you is that the contrast ratio and coloring is different — very different. The Xbox One version looks, at times, like the characters or objects have taken a hefty dose of spray-on tan, with oversaturated yellow-red tints that make colors pop in certain wavelengths, but also leaves the game looking oddly washed in places. The Xbox One variant is running at 1280x720, while the PS4 pushes 1600x900. Also it seems that the Xbox One version, on occasion, goes for tamped-down effects in comparison to the PS4. But we also can see that Microsoft's aggressive post-processing produces some rather odd, even contradictory results when it comes to evaluating which console delivers the most detail. The Xbox One version of the characters looks better, with sharper textures and more visible detail. The same elements, on the PS4, are rather washed out and faded. Rock looks better on the Xbox One, but camo patterns on players are much more detailed on the PS4. The PS4 appears to using ambient occlusion for shadowing, while the Xbox One isn't. On the other hand, the use of ambient occlusion leaves certain parts of chartacters looking rather odd, with a light outline. The PS4 seems to have an advantage overall. Is it going to be big enough to tilt sales results? We'll find out shortly.
52455581
submission
MojoKid writes:
For the past few years, ARM has been steadily chipping away at rival PowerVR's domination of the Android and tablet GPU space. While Imagination Technologies dominated the early days of the industry, we've seen a number of competitors emerge since, thanks to aggressive products from Nvidia at the high end and companies like Vivante in the lower-end and midrange spaces. With Mali, ARM is trying to offer a comprehensive solution that can span the entire market, from budget products aimed at Eastern nations to high-end hardware suitable for a next-generation smartphone or tablet. Today, ARM is announcing two new GPU core products — the Mali-T760 and the Mali-T720. The T760 is the upper-end part, that's aimed at more powerful devices, while the T720 is meant for smaller phones, cheaper products, and systems that require a decent GPU, but don't have the power budget or price point to pack in a high-end part. The Mali-T760 can use up to 16 cores with two banks of L2 (512K cache each) and a clock speed of 600MHz for 9.6GPixels/s of fill rate and 326.4 GFLOPS worth of performance. The T720 is an eight-core chip with a significantly smaller L2 cache (2x128K), but the same clock speed. Pixel fill rate is halved (4.8GB/s) and floating point performance is sharply reduced, down to 81GFLOPS.
52430187
submission
MojoKid writes:
Apple's late 2013 edition iMacs are largely unchanged in external form, though they're upgraded in function with a revamped foundation that now pairs Intel's Haswell 4th Generation Core processors with NVIDIA's GeForce 700 Series graphics. The Cupertino company also outfitted these latest models with faster flash storage options, including support for PCI-E based storage, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi technology, all wrapped in a 21.5-inch (1920x1080) or 27-inch IPS displays with a 2560x1440 resolution. As configured, the 27-inch iMac reviewed here bolted through benchmarks with relative ease and posted especially solid figures in gaming tests, including a 3DMark 11 score of 3,068 in Windows 7 (via Boot Camp). Running Cinebench 11.5 in Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks also helped showcase the CPU and GPU combination. Storage benchmarks weren't nearly as impressive though, for iMacs based on standard spinning media. For real IO throughput, it's advisable to go with Apple's Flash storage options.
52429733
submission
Philip Ross writes:
Astronomers have warned that our planet is long overdue for a defense plan against catastrophic asteroid collisions. When it comes to deflecting Earth-obliterating celestial bodies, short of a superhero capable of punching the approaching rock back into outer space, there is no single force dedicated to stopping cosmic bullies from striking our little blue planet straight in the eye. That’s why the United Nations said it will establish an International Asteroid Warning Group to intercept and divert dangerous asteroids.
