72022863
submission
MojoKid writes:
It has been a tremendous week for Star Wars fans. First we got to see Han Solo and Chewbacca make an emotional reappearance in the newest Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer (the second official trailer Disney has put out). Now, Electronic Arts is treating us to a visual smorgasbord of cinema-quality footage showing the forthcoming Star Wars Battlefront game. Battlefront will support to up 40 players divided between the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire, all shooting it out and playing with some of the coolest Star Wars vehicles and weapons around. We're talking jetpacks, AT-AT war machines, AT-STs, TIE Fighters, X-wings, and more. Though the trailer allegedly shows actually "game engine footage," it's questionable whether or not it's actual gameplay or just pre-rendered cut scenes from the game engine. Either way, it's still pretty impressive.
71976147
submission
MojoKid writes:
Kingston recently launched their HyperX Predator PCIe SSD that is targeted at performance-minded PC enthusiasts but is much less expensive than enterprise-class PCIe offerings that are currently in market. Kits are available in a couple of capacities and from factors at 240GB and 480GB. All of the drives adhere to the 80mm M.2 2280 "gumstick" form factor and have PCIe 2.0 x4 connections, but are sold both with and without a half-height, half-length adapter card if you'd like to drop it into a standard PCI Express slot. At the heart of the Kingston HyperX Predator in Marvel's latest Marvell 88SS9293 controller. The Marvell 88SS9293 is paired to a gigabyte of DDR3 memory and Toshiba A19 Toggle NAND. The drives are rated for read speeds up to 1.4GB/s and writes of 1GB/s and 130 – 160K random 4K IOPS. In the benchmarks, the 480GB model put up strong numbers. At roughly $1 per GiB, the HyperX Predator is about on par with Intel's faster SSD 750 but unlike Intel's new NVMe solution, the Kingston drive will work in all legacy platforms as well, not just Z97 and X99 boards with a compatible UEFI BIOS.
71974915
submission
Lucas123 writes:
The NFL recently completed the rollout of an electronic medical record (EMR) system and picture archiving and communication system (PACS) that allows mobile access for teams to player's health information at the swipe of a finger — radiological images, GPS tracking information, and detailed health evaluation data back to grade school. But as NFL football players are on the road a lot, often they're not being treated at hospitals or by specialists whose own EMRs are integrated with the NFL's; it's a microcosm of the industry-wide healthcare interoperability issue facing the U.S. today. The NFL, however, found achieving EMR interoperability isn't so much a technological issue as a political one, and if you have publicity on your side, it's not that difficult. NFL CIO Michelle McKenna-Doyle, who led the NFL's EMR rollout, said a call from a team owner to a hospital administrator typically does the trick. Even NFL Commissioner Roger Godell once made the call to a hospital CEO, "and things started moving in the next couple of days," McKenna-Doyle said. "They're very aware of the publicity."
71946969
submission
MojoKid writes:
How does one go from laying on the floor drunk, attempting to eat a cheeseburger, to appearing in one of the most glorious achievements in cinematography ever seen? We don't know, but David Hasselhoff definitely has the secret sauce to send the world into a collective fit with a music video that far surpasses even his rendition of "Hooked On A Feeling." Ooga chaka indeed my friends. "True Survivor" is the lead track for the upcoming Kickstarter-backed short film "Kung Fury." Hasselhoff takes on the lead vocals and stars in this glorious homage to retro 1980s awesomeness. The video has everything from crude 1980s computer graphics to a Nintendo Power Glove, a Lamborghini Countach, fighting robots, awesome stunts straight out of Bollywood flick, hordes of Nazis, Hitler, and did we mention dinosaurs? Oh and flamethrowers...
71890779
submission
MojoKid writes:
When it comes to outright speed, NVMe PCIe SSDs are hard to beat. Samsung has just announced its new SM951-NVMe SSD, the industry's first NVMe SSD to employ an M.2 form-factor. Samsung says the new gumstick style drive is capable of sequential read and write speeds of 2,260 MB/sec and 1,600 MB/sec respectively. Comparable SATA-based M.2 SSDs typically can only push read/write speeds of 540 MB/sec and 500 MB/sec, while most standard PCIe versions muster just north of 1GB/sec. The Samsung SM951-NVMe's performance is actually very comparable to the Intel SSD 750 Series PCIe x4 card but should help kick notebook performance up a notch in this common platform configuration.
71874903
submission
MojoKid writes:
HGST, a Western Digital company, just announced a new NVMe PCI Express SSD that is rated faster than even Intel's new blistering-fast SSD 750. To be fair, the Intel SSD 750 Series is aimed at the consumer/prosumer market whereas HGST's new Ultrastar SN100 is aimed squarely at the enterprise market. The HGST Ultrastar SN100 Series will be offered in both HH-HL PCIe card and SFF 2.5-inch form-factors in capacities up to 3.2 Terabytes. Naturally, these SSDs support UEFI boot, PCIe Gen 3.0, and feature power fail protection, "enterprise-grade reliability," and secure erase. HGST is targeting the Ultrastar SN100 series at a number of applications including virtualized computing, high frequency trading, and cloud/hyperscale or enterprise/high performance computing. Max reads speeds of 3,000 MB/sec and writes of 1,600 MB/sec have been specified and Read/Write random 4k IOPs are listed at 743,000 and 160,000 IOPS respectively. All drives come with a 5-year warranty.
71828677
submission
MojoKid writes:
Last night Robert Downey Jr. turned up at the MTV Movie Awards with an extended heretofore mostly unseen clip from Marvel Studios' cannot-get-here-fast enough Avengers: Age of Ultron. It's a let 'er rip 90 seconds of the Iron Man versus Hulk battle that the film trailers, promos, and television commercials have only teased up until now. Throughout the scene Downey Jr.'s Iron Man is bedecked in the "Hulkbuster" armor that has had fans all a-tizzy since the first trailer for the film debuted back in October. And Mark Ruffalo's Hulk is, well, wearing his timeless and always-fashionable purple pants.
71732021
submission
MojoKid writes:
Today, Microsoft has let it slip that it is taking things a step further with Windows 10 and a single, unified app and media Store. That means that the new Microsoft Store will serve not only as a home for apps, but also as a repository for music, movies, and TV shows. The new Store Beta, which will roll out to customers currently test driving the newest build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview over the next 24 hours, will populate the Movies & TV section within the Store. This option was previously available, but you couldn't access the content within.
71693959
submission
MojoKid writes:
Dell unveiled a new Android 2-in-1 today, the Venue 10 7000, which brings with it many of the same hardware features that we saw with their popular Venue 8 7000 8-inch tablet. It's powered by a quad-core Intel Atom Z3580 processor with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of internal storage, and a 2560x1600 10-inch display. You'll also find a microSD slot that supports up to 512GB of additional storage, 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0, Miracast, front-facing stereo speakers, a 2MP front-facing camera, and an 8MP Intel RealSense 3D camera on the rear. Where things get more interesting, perhaps, is with the design of the tablet. Whereas the Venue 8 7000 features a more traditional tablet form-factor, the Venue 10 7000 features a cylindrical "barrel edge" which Dell says makes the tablet easier to hold and carry. It's reminiscent of Lenovo's Android-powered Yoga Tablet family. In addition to providing a handy place for your hand to grip the tablet, the cylindrical spine also serves as an attachment point for an optional keyboard that transforms the Venue 10 7000 into a laptop. The keyboard accessory allows the tablet to be used in five different configurations: Tablet Mode (w/o keyboard), Tablet Mode (w/ keyboard), Laptop Mode, Tablet Stand Mode, and Tent Mode.
71657761
submission
MojoKid writes:
Windows 10 isn't even out the door yet, so what better time than now to talk about its successor? Believe it or not, there's a fair bit of information on it floating around already, with its codename being particularly interesting: Redstone. Following in the footsteps of 'Blue' and 'Threshold', Redstone is an obvious tie-in to Microsoft's purchase of Minecraft, which it snagged from Mojang last year. Redstone is an integral material in the game, used to create simple items like a map or compass as well as logic gates for building electronic devices, like a calculator or automatic doors. The really important news is that we could see Windows Redstone sometime in 2016.
71566021
submission
MojoKid writes:
Wondering if Apple Watch is going to be worth the money? Well, that depends on several factors, including price, features, and how eager you are to jump into the smartwatch category at this point. To help tackle the latter two, Apple has posted a handful of videos that demonstrate what an Apple Watch can do. They play out like tutorial videos and are labeled "Guided Tour," followed by what specifically the video is showcasing. Currently, there are four Guided Tour videos available, one of which is a general introduction to Apple Watch labeled "Guided Tour: Welcome." It's the longest video of the bunch at 4 minutes and 45 seconds.
71511051
submission
MojoKid writes:
Today, Intel took the wraps off new NVMe PCI Express Solid State Drives, which are the first products with these high speed interfaces, that the company has launched specifically for the enthusiast computing and workstation market. Historically, Intel's PCI Express-based offerings, like the SSD DC P3700 Series, have been targeted for datacenter or enterprise applications, with price tags to match. However, the Intel SSD 750 Series PCI Express SSD, though based on the same custom NVMe controller technology as the company's expensive P3700 drive, will drop in at less than a dollar per GiB, while offering performance almost on par with its enterprise-class sibling. Available in 400GB and 1.2TB capacities, the Intel SSD 750 is able to hit peak read and write bandwidth numbers of 2.4GB/sec and 1.2GB/sec, respectively. In the benchmarks, it takes many of the top PCIe SSD cards to task easily and at $389 for a 400GB model, you won't have to sell an organ to afford one.
71448643
submission
MojoKid writes:
Samsung is introducing a number of new members to their SSD 850 EVO line-up of Solid State Drives today, based on different form factors than their standard 2.5-inch drives. Samsung's new mSATA and M.2 Samsung SSD 850 EVO drives that were just announced, however, leverage all of the same technology. The last few generations of Samsung's 2.5" Solid State Drive utilized PCBs that barley filled up half of their encloses, and a large portion of those PCBs were dedicated to the standard SATA power and data cable connectors, so it's no surprise to see these new, smaller variants arrive with mSATA and M.2 support. Samsung will be offering SSD 850 EVO series drives with capacities ranging from 120GB all the way up to 1TB in mSATA flavors, but the M.2 models top out at 500GB. The 120GB, 250GB and 500GB models feature dual-core Samsung MGX controllers. The controller is fundamentally similar to the triple-core MEX controller used in the recently released 850 Pro series, though a core has been removed. Samsung claims it made this move in order to save power, because the extra core didn't help performance on the lower capacity drives. Note, however, that the 1TB mSATA drive has the original MEX controller. Performance-wise, the 500GB drive tested here performed well throughout a battery of tests, whether large sequential transfers, or small file random workloads. It also offered very low access times. The compressibility of the data being transferred across the Samsung SSD 850 EVO had no impact on performance as well.
71391989
submission
MojoKid writes:
Late last week, Google quietly began inviting people to opt into the beta channel for ChromeOS to help the company "shape the future" of the OS. Some betas can be riskier than others, but Google says that opting into this one is just a "little risk", one that will pay off handsomely for those who crave new features. New in this version is Chrome Launcher 2.0, which gives you quick access to a number of common features, including the apps you use most often (examples are Hangouts, Calculator, and Files). Some apps have also received a fresh coat of paint, such as the file manager. Google notes that this is just the start, so there will be more updates rolling out to the beta OS as time goes on. Other key features available in this beta include the ability to extract pass protected Zip archives, as well as a perk for travelers. ChromeOS will now automatically detect your new timezone, and then update the time and date accordingly.
71386009
submission
MojoKid writes:
Since Intel started pushing its NUC (Next Unit of Computing) platform, manufacturers have been designing various versions of these tiny computers that serve as solid Home Theater PCs, public kiosks, etc. One difference between these Ultra small form factor PCs and traditional PCs is that these little boxes are mostly sold as barebones solutions. The basic load-out consists of a CPU, power supply, motherboard, chassis, and wireless card; so it's up to you to install your own memory and storage. Gigabyte just refreshed their Brix line of these tiny PCs with Intel's latest 14nm Broadwell architecture that is perfect for the form factor. The Gigabyte Brix S is powered by a Core i7-5500U, which is a 15 Watt dual-core Broadwell variant that turbos up to 3GHz, though it still manages to stay cool and quiet even under heavy loads. The little fella holds its own in the benchmarks but none of these systems will ever blow you away with its performance. It's just the nature of the beast as they're essentially like putting an ultrabook in a palm-sized box, although it's absolutely silent, and you can still upgrade storage capacity and RAM down the road.