60662253
submission
Lucas123 writes:
It appears an Idaho-based company that created prototype panels for constructing roads that (among other features) gather solar power, will be going into production after it exceeded it's crowdfunding goal of $1M. With two days left to go, Solar Roadways' Indiegogo project has already exceeded $1.6 million. The hexagonal-shaped solar panels consist of four layers, including photovoltaic cells, LED lights, an electronic support structure (circuit board) and a base layer made of recyclable materials. The panels plug together to form circuits that can then use LED lights to create any number of traffic patterns, as well as issue lighted warnings for drivers. The panels also have the ability to melt snow and ice. Along with the crowdfunding money, Solar Roadways received federal grant money for development.
60660711
submission
MojoKid writes:
Last week, Microsoft unveiled the third iteration of its Surface Pro tablet, the aptly named Surface Pro 3. Unlike previous revisions to the product, the new Surface Pro 3 can be considered a major overhaul. Not only does the new device feature more powerful internal components and offer a handful of new features, but its form factor is a complete departure from the previous version, thanks to its screen's 3:2 aspect ratio. The particular model tested here is built around an Intel Core i5-4300U processor with integrated Intel HD 4400 series graphics, 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, and a 256GB SSD. For users that care about performance, the Surface Pro 3's unique cooling solution with its cylindrical-shaped fansink could be what sets this device apart, offering up to a an Intel Core i7 processor in a tablet form factor but with near silent acoustics and comfortable exterior temperatures. Performance-wise, even the Core i5-based Surface Pro 3 competes or sometimes exceeds the performance of some full-sized Ultrabooks on the market.
60544303
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA recently announced that it would offer a free 24-hour test drive of NVIDIA GRID to anyone who wanted to see what the technology could do. Taking the company up on its offer, it turns out to be pretty impressive technology. NVIDIA's GRID is a virtual GPU technology that allows for hardware acceleration in a virtual environment. It's designed to run in concert with products from Citrix, VMWare, and Microsoft, and to address some of the weaknesses of these applications. The problem with many conventional Virtual Desktop Interfaces (VDIs) is that they're often either too slow for advanced graphics work or unable to handle 3D workloads at all. Now, with GRID, NVIDIA is claiming that it can offer a vGPU passthrough solution that allows remote users to access a virtualized desktop environment built around a high-end CPU and GPU. The test systems the company is using for these 24-hour test drives all use a GRID K520. That's essentially two GK104 GPUs on a single PCB with 8GB of RAM.NVIDIA's Test Drive is designed to give anyone a chance to see how the program works generally, but GRID is designed for corporate deployments across high-speed networks, not for cross-country Internet connectivity from a home account. The TD program is still in beta, the deployment range is considerable, and the test drives themselves are configured for a 1366x768 display at 30 FPS and a maximum available bandwidth cap of 10Mbit.
60377283
submission
MojoKid writes:
The PC market is changing rapidly as tablets supplant some laptops, new players such as the Chromebook disrupt the old WIntel model, and innovations in processors and graphics allow for ever-smaller PCs such as Intel's NUC (Next Unit of Computing) PC. Gigabyte recently introduced a rather unique product that combines the tiny 4.5-inch square form factor of Intel's NUC PC platform together with a mini DLP projector. The Gigabyte Brix Projector measures 4.24 x 4.5 x 1.93 inches (WxLxD) but manages to fit in an Intel Core i3-4010U (1.7GHz) processor with built-in Intel HD 4400 graphics and support for up to 16GB of 1600MHz RAM. Finally, an mSATA slot inside the chassis also supports up to a 256GB SSD. The system's DLP (LED backlight) projector itself offers a resolution of 864x480 with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a purported image size of 7 to 85 inches. It promises 75 ANSI lumen brightness, a contrast ratio of around 900:1, and 3LED (RGB) technology. It's not an HD setup but the potential use cases are interesting. A follow-on version capable of 1080p output would be even more useful for gaming and HD video.
60334267
submission
MojoKid writes:
Valve has today pushed out a new update to its Steam client on all three of the major OSes that finally takes In-home Game-Streaming out of beta. Similar to NVIDIA's GameStream, which streams native gameplay from a GeForce-equipped PC to the NVIDIA SHIELD, Valve's solution lets you stream from one PC to another, regardless of which OS it's running. What this means, is, you could have a SteamOS-based PC in your living-room, which is of course Linux-based, and stream games from your Windows PC in another room which ordinarily would never run under Linux. Likewise, you could stream a game from a Windows PC to an OS X machine, or vice versa.
60093361
submission
MojoKid writes:
OCZ was recently acquired by Toshiba and has been going through its product stack, revamping its SSD portfolio with fresh re-designs based on Toshiba NAND Flash memory for not only increased performance but better cost structure as well. OCZ has now replaced their RevoDrive family of PCIe SSD cards with an almost complete re-designed of the product. The RevoDrive 350 is based on the same OCZ VCA 2.0 (Virtualized Controller Architecture) technology as the previous generation but is now enabled with a PCI Express X8 card interface and up to 4 LSI SandForce SD-2282 SSD processors, along with 19nm Toshiba NAND Flash. The good news is, not only is the new RevoDrive 350 faster at 1.8GB/sec claimed bandwidth for sequential reads and 1.7GB/sec for sequential writes, but it's also significantly more affordable, at literally half the price of the previous gen RevoDrive 3 when it first launched. In the benchmarks, the new PCIe card excels at read throughput, regularly hitting its 1.8GB/sec claimed bandwidth, especially with sequential workloads. Write performance is solid as well and the drive competes with the likes of some higher-end and more expensive SLC NAND-based PCIe cards like LSI's WarpDrive and Intel's SSD 910.
59977137
submission
MojoKid writes:
Over the past nine months, we've seen the beginnings of a revolution in how video games are displayed. First, Nvidia demoed G-Sync, its proprietary technology for ensuring smooth frame delivery. Then AMD demoed its own free standard, dubbed FreeSync, that showed a similar technology. Now, VESA (Video Electronics Standard Association) has announced support for "Adaptive Sync," as an addition to DisplayPort. The new capability will debut with DisplayPort 1.2a. The goal of these technologies is to synchronize output from the GPU and the display to ensure smooth output. When this doesn't happen, the display will either stutter due to a mismatch of frames (if V-Sync is enabled) or may visibly tear if V-Sync is disabled. Adaptive Sync is the capability that will allow a DisplayPort 1.2a-compatible monitor and video card to perform FreeSync without needing the expensive ASIC that characterizes G-Sync. You'll still need a DP1.2a cable, monitor, and video card (DP1.2a monitors are expected to ship year end). Unlike G-Sync, a DP1.2a monitor shouldn't cost any additional money, however. The updated ASICs being developed by various vendors will bake the capability in by default.
59929077
submission
MojoKid writes:
Although Intel isn't quite ready to take the wraps off of its updated Haswell-based processors (codenamed Devil's Canyon) or its next-gen Broadwell-based processors, the company is at the ready with a brand new chipset that ups the ante in terms of features and overall performance. The Z97 Express chipset was designed to be an updated platform for Intel's high-end Haswell-based desktop processors, that adds more high speed SATA ports and M.2 / SATA Express SSD support, but it is also ready for next-gen Broadwell-based processors, which we should be hearing about from Intel shortly. There is another 9-series chipset planned as well, namely the H97. The main differences between the two 9-series chipsets lie in their support for things like overclocking, Intel Smart Response Technology, and vPro management-related features. Z97 chipset motherboards offer similar, though perhaps ever-so-slightly better performance than legacy Z87 boards. There are only a few percentage points here and there that separate the two families in the benchmarks. However, overall system performance will likely improve significantly when using a higher-bandwidth M.2 SSD.
59894115
submission
MojoKid writes:
A big shout out goes to Amazon for forever changing the way we think about photography. You see, Amazon was recently granted a patent that, in short, describes taking photos of subjects and/or or objects against a white background. Brilliant! Wait, what's that? Photographers far and wide have long known about this technique and used it extensively in the past? Well, it appears Amazon's legal team somehow worded the patent application in such a way that the USPTO thought this was a brand new idea worthy of patent No. 8,676,045. "A subject can be photographed and/or filmed on the elevated platform to achieve a desired effect of a substantially seamless background where a rear edge of the elevated platform is imperceptible to an image capture device positioned at the image capture position," part of the patent's abstract reads.
59825005
submission
MojoKid writes:
The upcoming PS4 game Driveclub is making waves for reasons that have nothing to do with its gameplay or development status. In a new video, the company has spelled out its free trial and upgrade policies, and the requirements are a doozy. First, the good news — PlayStation Plus subscribers will be able to download a demo of the game that contains a few maps and one trial area, India. If you choose to upgrade that version, the full title will cost you $50. Here's the catch — that purchase is tied to your Playstation Plus subscription. In other words, if you stop paying Sony the official $49.95 a year for PlayStation Plus, you lose your $50 game. This is completely at odds with how PlayStation Plus membership is supposed to work. It contradicts Sony's official FAQ, which states that: "Any content you purchase with a Plus discount is yours to keep, regardless of you membership status."
59750541
submission
MojoKid writes:
ARM recently held a tech day in Austin, TX and during the three-day session, the company covered a wide range of topics, with a primary focus on server ecosystems and next-generation mobile hardware. ARM gave an in-depth exploration of its new CCN-508 server interconnect. AMD and Intel don't really have an analogous chip to this. Think of the CCN-508 as the hub that all other CPUs, GPUs, ethernet, CPU cache, and other components connect to. The "cache coherent network" architecture ARM is introducing here offers a 128-bit bus that provides a total of 230GB/s of sustained bandwidth with up to 360GB/s burst bandwidth available. Representatives from Red Hat and Canonical also discussed their respective efforts in bringing up the software stacks required to make ARM an equal player with x86 in the server world, and HP was on-hand to discuss Project Moonshot, its initiative to build a dense server product around ARM and x86 cores. Finally, ARM also noted that 2014 will be the year that Android starts to seriously make an effort in 64-bit evolution as well. Benchmark data was offered, claiming impressive boosts for various workloads in tests like Geekbench, with the Cortex-A57 expected to deliver between 12 — 33% faster performance in 64-bit mode.
59722309
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD just offered a major update on its product roadmap, which now includes ARM-based core technology. This year, AMD will debut its first Cortex-A57 based server platform (codenamed Seattle), which leverages technology from their SeaMicro acquisition. In 2015, AMD will launch a 20nm SoC family around the new Puma+ core and a second-gen Cortex-A57 chip. Those two CPUs will be drop-in compatible with each other (codenamed Project Skybridge). In 2016, AMD will follow up with its own custom ARM architecture implementation. One of the major changes coming next year is that both the ARM and x86 chips will apparently be HSA-compatible. Right now, AMD's Puma+ SoC on 28nm isn't. These changes imply that AMD will do some major fabric upgrades in-between the 28nm and 20nm dies to integrate HSA functions and standardize the GPU IP across both chips. As for the 16nm ARM core, codenamed K12, AMD was cagey about its benefits or capabilities beyond noting that it's a clean, ground-up design based on the ARM architecture. The company's custom architecture will be ready by 2016, and will likely debut on either TSMC's 16nm FinFET or GlobalFoundries' 14nm process nodes. Finally, there's word that AMD has also built a new x86 architecture under Jim Keller. Keller stated that the new architecture will be "from scratch," but gave no other details on its design.
59636035
submission
MojoKid writes:
The address bar in a Web browser has been a standard feature for as long as Web browsers have been around — and that's not going to be changing. What could be, though, is exactly what sort of information is displayed in them. In December, Google began rolling-out a limited test of a feature in Chrome called "Origin Chip", a UI element situated to the left of the address bar. What this "chip" does is show the name of the website you're currently on, while also showing the base URL. To the right, the actual address bar shows nothing, except a prompt to "Search Google or type URL". With this implementation, a descriptive URL would not be seen in the URL bar. Instead, only the root domain would be seen, but to the left of the actual address bar. This effectively means that no matter which page you're on in a given website, all you'll ever see when looking at the address bar is the base URL in the origin chip. What helps here is that the URL is never going to be completely hidden. You'll still be able to hit Ctrl + L to select it, and hopefully be able to click on the origin chip in order to reveal the entire URL. Google could never get rid of the URL entirely, because it's required in order to link someone to a direct location, obviously.
59547719
submission
MojoKid writes:
Google's open source Android platform has the distinction of being the most popular mobile operating system in the world. That's great in terms of dominating the market and reaping the rewards that come with it, but it's also for that very reason that Android finds itself the target of virtually every new mobile malware threat that emerges. According to data published in F-Secure's latest Mobile Threat Report, over 99 percent of the new mobile threats it discovered in the first quarter of 2014 targeted Android users. To be fair, we're not taking about hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands, or thousands of malware threats — F-Secure detected 277 new threat families, of which 275 honed in on Android.
59546941
submission
Lucas123 writes:
As 3D printing moves from creating prototypes to products, the market is expected to grow by four times over the next 10 years to $12 billion, a new study finds. 3D printing is not expected to ever produce thousands of the same product, but it can more quickly produce intricate and complex designs for use in healthcare, automotive, architecture, electronics and aerospace. 3D printing is already being used for everything from customized orthopedics to manufacturing jet engines. For example, General Electric this year plans to use 3D printing to create complex metal parts for its next generation next-generation GE9X and Leap models engine.
