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AMD

Submission + - Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti Benchmarked! (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 Ti has finally arrived. This graphics card is the follow-up to the Fermi-based GTX 560 Ti, an enthusiast favorite from the last generation of graphics cards. At $300, the GTX 660 Ti occupies a price gap that Nvidia has so far been unable to fill with Kepler silicon. The same GK104 processor as the higher-end GTX 670 ($400) is inside the GTX 660 Ti, but with a 192-bit memory bus as opposed to the more expensive card's 256-bit bus. The GTX 660 Ti also has one of the GPU's four render back-end clusters disabled. The new card was benchmarked against a handful of cards from both Nvidia and AMD in the latest PC games and OpenCL tests. While the GTX 660 Ti is only slightly slower than the AMD Radeon HD 7870 (also $300) in gaming, like all Kepler-based graphics cards, the GTX 660 Ti cannot compete with AMD's lineup in general compute workloads. On the bright side, Nvidia's latest Ti runs cool, stays quiet, and sips power for its class.
Graphics

Submission + - GeForce GTX 680 2 GB Review: Kepler Sends Tahiti On Vacation (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by
wesbascas
wesbascas writes: "The Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 launches today. As the first card to sport the new Kepler architecture, the GTX 680 is a highly-anticipated release for PC gamers everywhere. After running the reference design through Battlefield 3, Crysis 2, Metro 2033, DiRT 3, Skyrim, HAWX 2, and WoW: Cataclysm, this $500 dual-slot card proves to be the fastest single-GPU gaming solution on the planet right now. And by comfortable margins versus the Radeon HD 7970, AMD's Tahiti-based flagship. However, if you're looking to replace that GTX 480 or Quadro, the GTX 680 isn't the answer. It simply cannot compete in general-purpose computing benchmarks, where the AMD Radeon HD 7970 shines. If it's low power consumption you're after, the GTX 680 provides fantastic performance per Watt, although the $360 AMD Radeon HD 7950 is still where it's at for a low ceiling. Overall, the GTX 680 is a gamers delight, and the shortcomings it has in general-purpose computing only hint at yet an even higher-end card coming down the pike. Look for Kepler to flip the script on AMD in 2012."
Chrome

Submission + - Web Browser Grand Prix 9: Chrome 17, Firefox 10, And Ubuntu (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest Web browser benchmarks from Tom's Hardware are out. Last month TH ran these tests in OS X on a MacBook, this time they ran the top five Windows 7 browsers against the top three for Linux (on Ubuntu 11.10). Testing includes page load time, start time, memory, reliability, JavaScript, CSS, DOM, Flash, HTML5, hardware acceleration, WebGL, Java, and standards conformance. The Windows 7 standings are pretty much the same as last month, but now have IE9 solidly in last place, and Chrome almost stealing first. Chrome did manage to steal the show on Ubuntu, while Firefox actually performs the worst of the three Linux browsers. In contrast to a recent cross-platform benchmarks of Ubuntu 11.10 and Windows 7 (where Ubuntu actually wins a majority of the tests), the Linux browsers just didn't stand up to their Windows versions. The author calls the combo "a meaningless victory and a defeat" for Linux.

Submission + - Pico Projector That Adapts to Surface, Can Use Random Objects as Input Devices (engadget.com)

Submitted by jpwilliams
jpwilliams writes: This tiny projector can use random surfaces to project an image. Using a webcam, it adapts to the surface, not just by adjusting keystone, but also following that surface and displaying different amounts of information (in certain cases). The guy in the video also uses a coffee mug as an app changer.
Open Source

Submission + - Canonical puts Ubuntu on Android smartphones (pcpro.co.uk) 1

Submitted by
nk497
nk497 writes: "Canonical has revealed Ubuntu running on a smartphone — but the open source developer hasn't squashed the full desktop onto a tiny screen. Instead, the Ubuntu for Android system runs both OSes side by side, picking which to surface depending on the form factor. When a device — in the demo, it was a Motorola Atrix — is being used as a smartphone, it uses Android. When it's docked into a laptop or desktop setup, the full version of Ubuntu is used. Files, apps and other functionality such as voice calls and texting are shared between the two — for example, if a text message is sent to the phone when it's docked, the SMS pops up in Ubuntu, while calls can be received or made from the desktop."
Idle

Submission + - Mathematical parrot reveals his genius with posthumous paper (nature.com)

Submitted by ananyo
ananyo writes: Even in death, the world’s most accomplished parrot continues to amaze. The final experiments involving Alex – a grey parrot trained to count objects – have just been published. They show that Alex could accurately add together Arabic numerals to a sum of eight and three sets of objects, putting his mathematical abilities on par with (and maybe beyond) those of chimpanzees and other non-human primates (abstract http://www.springerlink.com/content/q08n44457x236ln6/).
AMD

Submission + - AMD Radeon HD 7770 & 7750: Cape Verde Unveiled (tomshardware.com)

Submitted by wesbascas
wesbascas writes: The veil has lifted on Cape Verde, AMD's latest entry-level GPU. Cape Verde is the low-end follow-up to December's high-end 28nm Tahiti GPU. The first two cards will be available later on today: the Radeon HD 7770 runs $160, and the Radeon HD 7750 is $110. While both cards are aimed at the budget-oriented gamer, the 7770 and 7750 are two vastly different products. The 8.5-inch 7770 is a dual-slot card requiring 80W and an extra 6-pin power connector. The 7750 is a 6.5-inch single-slot card which only needs 50W (no extra power connections). The 7770 has the distinction of being the first GPU to run 1 GHz stock (the 7750 is throttled down to 800 MHz), and both cards carry 1 GB of 1,125 MHz GDDR5. After testing, both cards deliver on the promise of better power efficiency, but the price/performance ratio is where the other show drops for the $160 Radeon HD 7770. The author pans the larger card for running akin to the Nvidia GeForce GTX 460 — a year and a half old card! The smaller, cheaper Radeon HD 7750 receives the Tom's Hardware Recommended Buy for nearly matching the performance of Nvidia’s larger and more expensive GeForce GTX 550 Ti. At $110, the Cape Verde-based Radeon HD 7750 is a top pick for new HTPC builds.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Scientists leave out data to produce bogus finding (naturalnews.com)

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "Clinical trials of drugs and other medical therapies are carefully carried out and are the very gold standard of scientific proof, right? According to an in-depth review of this question just published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ,) the answer is no. In fact, the BMJ is sounding the alarm that data reported by scientists is too often not the truth — because the researchers leave out inconvenient evidence. The result of facts-gone-missing could well be harming patients, spiking up healthcare costs by the selling of medical treatments based on bogus findings, and threatening the very integrity of medicine.

These warnings come from multiple papers released by the BMJ. The whistle-blowing authors of these articles examined the extent, causes, consequences of hidden facts, figures, and other data scientists discover as they do human trials. It turns out this is no "once in a while" kind of problem, either. The BMJ claims a "large proportion of evidence from human trials is unreported, and much of what is reported is done so inadequately.""
Chrome

Submission + - Web Browser Grand Prix VIII: Chrome 16, Firefox 9, (tomshardware.com) 1

Submitted by
CortezCarza
CortezCarza writes: "This article, the latest in a recurring browser benchmarking series, is a follow-up to last August's Mac vs. PC browser showdown which tested the top 5 web browsers in Windows 7 and Mac OS X Lion on a Core i5 Hackintosh PC. This time they used a genuine Core i7 MacBook Air.
Areas of testing include: JavaScript, DOM, CSS, Flash, Java, Silverlight, HTML5, hardware acceleration, WebGL, memory efficiency, proper page loads, and standards conformance, plus a new differentiation between cold and hot startup times, as well as cached and uncached page loads.
Due to its old school release schedule IE9 finally winds up back where it belongs, at the bottom. Meanwhile Firefox makes a serious comeback, and Safari is only worth a damn on OS X. But the kicker is that the OS X browsers performed significantly better in relation to the Windows browsers on the Hackintosh versus the real deal MacBook."
User Journal

Journal Journal: General Relativity Trumps Quantum Mechanics Twice.

Journal by mburns

The predictions by quantum mechanics of net vacuum energy and of slowing of ultrashort wave radiation by a quantum foam do not work out. This is because general relativity has theorems to the contrary. But why would those theorems win out? General relativity wins within the domain of its axioms, because a lockin theorem applies, namely the Bianchi identities that follow simply from the existence of the metric. It prevents the subject matter, spacetime, from experiencing alternatives to govern
IT

Submission + - IT salaries edge up back to 2008 levels (infoworld.com) 1

Submitted by
tsamsoniw
tsamsoniw writes: "A soon-to-be released salary survey finds that the average salary for IT professionals in the U.S. is $78,299, putting overall compensation back at January 2008 levels. More heartening: Midsize and large companies are both aiming to hire more IT pros. The midsize are seeking IT executives (such as VPs of information services and technical services), as well as programmers, database specialists, systems analysts, and voice/wireless communication pros. Enterprises are moving IT and data center operations back in-house, which means greater demand for data center managers and supervisors."
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft Patents "Avoid Ghetto" GPS Feature (ibtimes.com) 2

Submitted by
redletterdave
redletterdave writes: "Microsoft won a patent for a GPS feature that helps the user avoid bad neighborhoods, weather systems, and dangerous terrain; many are already calling this technology the "avoid ghetto" feature. Created specifically for mobile phones that leverage GPS technology, Microsoft's feature considers weather data, terrain and local crime statistics before offering the user a specific route. According to the patent filing, the GPS feature will retain "pedestrian history from a plurality of pedestrians and addresses of at least one information source that has a history of providing reliable information," and discounts "low quality" sources. Once the device has obtained the information, "an artificial intelligence component makes at least one inference regarding a route based on previous pedestrian behavior." Microsoft also included an "analysis component that determines an importance of the information to the user," so if a user doesn't mind going through an unsafe neighborhood if that route is faster or more direct, the GPS can take that into account. Microsoft's feature works in real-time, so if crime or weather changes, the system can adapt dynamically to provide the user with the safest and most personalized directions at all times."
Government

Submission + - Lawmakers Intent On Approving SOPA, PIPA (infoworld.com)

Submitted by
snydeq
snydeq writes: "U.S. Congress appears likely to move forward with SOPA and PIPA, despite widespread opposition, IDGNS reports. The U.S. Senate is expected to begin floor debate on PIPA shortly after senators return to D.C. on Jan. 23, and supporters appear to have the votes to override a threatened filibuster. Some opponents of the bills hold out hope: 'We're optimistic that if members really understood the Internet architecture and cybersecurity measures, they would not support SOPA as written. Instead, members who are really committed to combatting online piracy would look for effective ways to do that without compromising cybersecurity or the open architecture of the Internet,' said a CCIA spokesperson. Others remain doubtful that Congress will come to this understanding."

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