56229359
submission
MojoKid writes:
Two events in the telecommunications and cable world this week have highlighted why, exactly, we need net neutrality and stronger protections for consumer rights. First, on the cable side of the business, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Eagle Communications, and Comcast have collectively introduced a bill into the Kansas legislature that prevents any city from rolling out any broadband infrastructure unless said area is completely cut off from the grid. It would bar the use of eminent domain for the purpose of providing better service to a city's citizens. And not incidentally, it makes Google Fiber effectively illegal. The bill would outlaw public/private partnerships, open access approaches, and the partnership that brought Google Fiber to Kansas City. It doesn't have a single sponsor, but was proposed by John Federico, president of the Kansas Cable Telecommunications Association. Meanwhile, AT&T has been quietly assembling a patent portfolio for itself that simultaneously attacks net neutrality and consumer rights. The company applied for a patent titled "Prevention Of Bandwidth Abuse Of A Communications System" in October 2012. The abstract reads, in part: "A user of a communications network is prevented from consuming an excessive amount of channel bandwidth by restricting use of the channel in accordance with the type of data being downloaded to the user. The user is provided an initial number of credits. As the user consumes the credits, the data being downloaded is checked to determine if is permissible or non-permissible."
56111283
submission
MojoKid writes:
AMD's Andrew Feldman announced today that the company is preparing to sample its new eight-core ARM SoC (codename: Seattle). Feldman gave a keynote presentation at the fifth annual Open Compute Summit. The Open Compute Project (OCP) is Facebook's effort to decentralize and unpack the datacenter, breaking the replication of resources and low volume, high-margin parts that have traditionally been Intel's bread-and-butter. AMD is claiming that the eight ARM cores offer 2-4x the compute performance of the Opteron X1250 — which isn't terribly surprising considering that the X1250 is a four-core chip based on the Jaguar CPU, with a relatively low clock speed of 1.1 — 1.9GHz. We still don't know the target clock speeds for the Seattle cores, but the embedded roadmaps AMD has released show the ARM embedded part actually targeting a higher level of CPU performance (and a higher TDP) than the Jaguar core itself.
56056525
submission
MojoKid writes:
Blizzard has released a powerful new suite of tools for Starcraft 2 modders and developers that fundamentally change the nature of what's possible in the popular RTS game. Now, players can use the same architectural and graphics design toolsets that Blizzard has used internally to build new units, tilesets, and models. Furthermore, these tools are now available even with the Starcraft 2: Starter Edition kit. Critically, artists will now be able to incorporate images and effects designed in programs like 3ds Max, Photoshop, or other high-end particle systems. The exciting thing about these releases is that Starcraft 2's modding list is as interesting as the primary game, if not moreso. Fans have faithfully created adaptations of famous Starcraft maps, implemented entirely new rulesets that blend the old, micro-friendly playstyle of Starcraft with the modern engine, and even gone total conversion with Warcraft ported over into the SC2 game.
56020281
submission
MojoKid writes:
News from gaming insider Pete Doss is that Microsoft is mulling significant changes to the restrictions it places on developers regarding the Xbox One's GPU. Reportedly, some 10% of total GPU horsepower is reserved for the Kinect — 8% for video and 2% for voice processing. Microsoft is apparently planning changes that would free up that 8% video entirely, leaving just 2% of the system's GPU dedicated to voice input. If Microsoft makes this change, it could have a significant uplift on system frame rates — and it's not clear that developers would necessarily need to patch the architecture to take advantage of the difference.
55973199
submission
MojoKid writes:
There's no disputing that Bill Gates is blessed with a brilliant mind. Sure, he dropped out of Harvard College, but he got accepted into the elite institution of higher learningin the first place. Leading into his college career, Gates scored 1,590 out of 1,600 on the SAT. The rest is history — he went on to co-found Microsoft, built a net worth that's in the billions ($76.8 billion at last count), and now spends his time on his philanthropic efforts. Regardless, it took 23-year-old Magnus Carlsen, a "grandmaster" Chess player since the age of 13 and new world Chess champion, just 71 seconds to defeat Gates in a friendly game of Chess on a Norwegian television show. It takes longer to heat up a cup of water in the microwave.
55697463
submission
MojoKid writes:
Of all the rumors that swirled around Kaveri before the APU debuted last week, one of the more interesting bits was that AMD might debut GDDR5 as a desktop option. GDDR5 isn't bonded in sticks for easy motherboard socketing, and motherboard OEMs were unlikely to be interested in paying to solder 4-8GB of RAM directly. Such a move would shift the RMA responsibilities for RAM failures back to the board manufacturer. It seemed unlikely that Sunnyvale would consider such an option but a deep dive into Kaveri's technical documentation shows that AMD did indeed consider a quad-channel GDDR5 interface. Future versions of the Kaveri APU could potentially also implement 2x 64-bit DDR3 channels alongside 2x 32-bit GDDR5 channels, with the latter serving as a framebuffer for graphics operations. The other document making the rounds is AMD's software optimization guide for Family 15h processors. This guide specifically shows an eight-core Kaveri-based variant attached to a multi-socket system. In fact, the guide goes so far as to say that these chips in particular contain five links for connection to I/O and other processors, whereas the older Family 15h chips (Bulldozer and Piledriver) only offer four Hypertransport links.
55234279
submission
MojoKid writes:
Plenty of OEMs have lifted the veil on their planned Steam Machine products but Dell really seems to want to brake free of the pack with their Alienware-designed small form factor machine that they unveiled at CES this week. It's surprisingly tiny, sleek and significantly smaller than the average game console, weighing only about 4 — 6 pounds fully configured. Dell had a prototype of the machine on hand that is mechanically exact, complete with IO ports and lighting accents. Dell also had a SteamOS driven system running, though and it was actually a modified Alienware system powering the action with Valve's innovative Steam Controller. In first person shooters like Metro Last Night, that Dell was demonstrating, the left circular pad can be setup for panning and aiming in traditional AWSD fashion, while the right pad can be used for forward and back movement with triggers setup for firing and aiming down site. You can, however, customize control bindings to your liking and share profiles and bindings with friends on the Steam network. What's notable about Dell's unveiling is that the Steam Machines initiative gained some critical mass with a major OEM like Dell behind the product offering, in addition to the handful of boutique PC builders that have announced products thus far.
55134921
submission
Deathspawner writes:
While Intel's had a slight piece of the Android pie already thanks to its use in select smartphones in Europe, the upcoming kid-targeted DreamWorks DreamTab becomes the first tablet to make use of Intel's hardware. And, this is no cut-down SoC as a kids' tablet would imply. In use will be Intel's quad-core Z3740, able to peak at 1.86GHz. Of course, there's a lot more than just the hardware that makes this an interesting tablet. With DreamWorks behind it, the DreamTab could very-well become the hottest kid-target tablet ever.
54960595
submission
Deathspawner writes:
If there's one thing Valve knows how to do well, it's make money, but sometimes, its methods are a little unusual, or unexpected. Take for example, its trading cards, which allows users to purchase virtual cards off of others to craft badges which increase their Steam level. Valve first made good use of this mechanic during last summer's sale, but with the holiday one just past, it's proven that it doesn't care how many cards people buy — even if the total spent runs into the thousands.
What made the badges for this holiday sale quite a bit different than last summer's is that they could be crafted seemingly forever. One user who goes by the name of PalmDesert took that fact to heart, and crafted the same badge a staggering 1,000 times — something that Techgage estimates cost the user about $1,500. Further, the same user crafted a level 100 foil version of the badge, which would have cost over $2,000.
One thing's clear, as menial as a digital item might appear, if it's being sold, someone will buy it.
54860153
submission
MojoKid writes:
NVIDIA officially took the wraps off of its Tegra Note mobile platform a few weeks back. If you’re unfamiliar with the Tegra Note, it’s a 7”, Android-based tablet, powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 4 SoC. The Tegra Note 7 also marks NVIDIA’s second foray into the consumer electronics market, with an in-house designed product; NVIDIA's SHIELD Android gaming device was the first out of the gate earlier this year. Though Tegra Note 7 on the surface may appear to be just another 7-inch slate, sporting a 1280X720 display, it does have NVIDIA's proprietary passive stylus technology on board, very good sounding speakers and an always on HDR camera. It's also one of the fastest Android tablets on the market currently, in the benchmarks. Unlike in NVIDIA's SHIELD device, the Tegra 4 SoC is passively cooled in Tegra Note 7 and is crammed into a thin and light 7" tablet form factor. As a result, the SoC can't hit peak frequencies quite as high as the SHIELD (1.8GHz vs. 1.9GHz), but that didn't hold the Tegra Note 7 back very much. In a few of the CPU-centric and system level tests, the Tegra Note 7 finished at or near the head of the pack, and in the graphics benchmarks, its 72-core GeForce GPU competed very well, and often allowed the $199 Tegra Note 7 to outpace much more expensive devices.
54755597
submission
Deathspawner writes:
Word’s out that Apple’s latest Mac Pro costs less than an equal-configured do-it-yourself PC, but as Techgage has discovered, there's more than meets the eye in this particular case. While it might seem at first that Apple has loosened up on its famed "Apple Tax", the reason the company's latest Mac Pro costs less than the DIY equivalent owes its thanks to AMD. The reason? The $3,200 GPUs required for a DIY 1:1 build cost just ~$750 to those who purchase one of the latest Mac Pros.
54618107
submission
MojoKid writes:
Mobile device displays continue to evolve and along with the advancements in technology, resolution continues to scale higher, from Apple's Retina Display line to high resolution IPS and OLED display in various Android and Windows phone products. Notebooks are now also starting to follow the trend, driving very high resolution panels approaching 4K UltraHD even in 13-inch ultrabook form factors. Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro, for example, is a three pound, .61-inch thick 13.3-inch ultrabook that sports a full QHD+ IPS display with a 3200X1800 native resolution. Samsung's ATIV 9 Plus also boast the same 3200X1800 13-inch panel, while other recent releases from ASUS and Toshiba are packing 2560X1440 displays as well. There's no question, machines like Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro are really nice and offer a ton of screen real estate for the money but just how useful is a 3 or 4K display in a 13 to 15-inch design? Things can get pretty tight at these high resolutions and you'll end up turning screen magnification up in many cases so fonts are clear and things are legible. Granted, you can fit a lot more on your desktop but it begs the question, isn't 1080p enough?
54241661
submission
MojoKid writes:
Back in September at a press event in Montreal, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang announced what he called “one of the most important works NVIDIA has done for computer graphics.” The technology was called G-SYNC. G-SYNC is an end-to-end graphics and display architecture that starts with a Kepler-based GPU and ends with a G-SYNC module within a monitor. The G-SYNC module is piece of hardware that replaces the scaler inside a monitor that essentially does away with the fixed vertical refresh rates of current displays. To put it simply, what G-SYNC does is keep a display and the output from a Kepler-based GPU in sync, regardless of frame rates or whether or not V-Sync is enabled. Instead of the monitor controlling the timing, and refreshing at say every 60Hz, with G-SYNC the timing control is transferred to the GPU. NVIDIA achieved this by developing the G-SYNC module, which will be featured in a number of new monitors starting next year. The G-SYNC module replaces the scaler and controller boards in current displays and allows for the dynamic refresh rates mentioned earlier. The module is comprised of an FPGA—programmed by NVIDIA—a bit of DRAM, and a DisplayPort input. At this time, G-SYNC requires a Kepler-based GPU, with a DP output, and obviously a G-SYNC enabled display. To fully appreciate the technology, a high-DPI gaming mouse is also recommended.
53852581
submission
MojoKid writes:
There's a great deal riding on the launch of AMD's next-generation Kaveri APU. The new chip will be the first processor from AMD to incorporate significant architectural changes to the Bulldozer core AMD launched two years ago and the first chip to use a graphics core derived from AMD's GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture. A strong Kaveri launch could give AMD back some momentum in the enthusiast business. Details are emerging that point to a Kaveri APU that's coming in hot — possibly a little hotter than some of us anticipated. Kaveri's Steamroller CPU core separates some of the core functions that Bulldozer unified and should substantially improve the chip's front-end execution. Unlike Piledriver, which could only decode four instructions per module per cycle (and topped out at eight instructions for a quad-core APU), Steamroller can decode four instructions per core or 16 instructions per quad-core module. The A10-7850K will offer a 512 core GPU while the A10-7700K will be a 384-core part. Again, GPU clock speeds have come down, from 844MHz on the A10-6800K to 720MHz on the new A10-7850K but should be offset by the gains from moving to AMD's GCN architecture.
53340559
submission
Deathspawner writes:
WD has today announced its breakthrough Black2 drive, one that combines a 120GB SSD with a 1TB mechanical drive — all within a 2.5-inch frame. The benefits here are obvious: Users of regular-sized notebooks can now have the best of both worlds, while those looking to build smaller desktop PCs can shave some room by sticking to a one small single drive solution. As Techgage notes, however, Black2 does carry with it some severe limitations. For starters, it cannot be used as a caching drive. Further, it's exclusive for Windows, as a bit of software is required to unlock the mechanical portion of the drive. Given the fact that a 120GB SSD and 4TB 3.5-inch desktop HDD can be had for about the same $300 pricepoint, WD is clearly targeting Black2 entirely at Windows notebook users.
