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Blackberry

Submission + - RIM Submits New BlackBerry Device To FCC: BlackBerry 10 Cometh? (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "It doesn't appear there will be any delaying Research In Motion's plans to launch at least one BlackBerry 10 device at the end of the month, as scheduled. In addition to the numerous leaked photos of RIM's upcoming products, a new BlackBerry device is now listed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The FCC listing identifies the model number as RFH121LW. An official BlackBerry 10 launch event is scheduled for January 30, 2013 in New York."
Businesses

Submission + - Foxconn Invests In $200 Million in GoPro, Founder Nicholas Woodman Billionaire (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Nick Woodman was inspired to create what would eventually become today’s GoPro wearable cameras after a surfing trip to Australia in 2002. He wanted to capture some close-up action shots and wasn’t able to with amateur camera gears. So he did what any enterprising entrepreneur would do and figured out his own solution to the problem. The initial wearable cameras Woodman created to capture action shots as they happened used 35mm film, but his company’s cameras have evolved into highly durable, HD vid-cams that are sought after by amateurs and extreme sports stars alike. It turns out Foxconn digs what GoPro has designed as well. The giant Taiwanese manufacturer just bought a significant stake in Woodman Labs, making Nick Woodman a billionaire in the processes. Taiwan-headquartered electronics manufacturer Foxconn (also known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co.), purchased an 8.88% stake in Woodman Labs for $200 million, valuing the San Mateo, Calif. company at $2.25 billion."

Submission + - Makerbot Cracks Down On 3D-Printable Gun Parts (forbes.com) 1

Submitted by Sparrowvsrevolution
Sparrowvsrevolution writes: In the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut shootings, the 3D-printing firm Makerbot has deleted a collection of blueprints for gun components from Thingiverse, its popular user-generated content website that hosts 3D-printable files. Though Thingiverse has long banned designs for weapons and their components in its terms of service, it rarely enforced the rule until the last few days, when the company’s lawyer sent notices to users that their software models for gun parts were being purged from the site.

Gun control advocates were especially concerned about the appearance of lower receivers for semi-automatic weapons that have appeared on Thingiverse. The lower receiver is the the “body” of a gun, and its most regulated component. So 3D-printing that piece at home and attaching other parts ordered by mail might allow a lethal weapon to be obtained without any legal barriers or identification.

Makerbot’s move to delete those files may have been inspired in part by a group calling itself Defense Distributed, which announced its intention to create an entirely 3D-printable gun in August and planned to potentially upload it to Thingiverse. Defense Distributed says it's not deterred by Makerbot's move and will host the plans on its own site.
Technology

Submission + - 3D Printer Round-up: Cube 3D, Up! and Solidoodle (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "3D printing is a fascinating new technology and an exploding new market. The process involved is pretty basic actually. Heat up some plastic, and sort of like that Play-Doh Fun Factory you were so fond of as a kid, you extrude the melted plastic out to create objects. It all started back in 2007 when the first RepRap machine was built. The idea behind RepRap was to design a machine that could build complex parts in three dimensions using extruded molten plastic and that machine could also "self-replicate" or build a copy of itself. Since then, 3D printers of all types have emerged from the community and this round-up of machines covers a few of the more prominent names in 3D printing systems. The Cube 3D, the Up! Mini and the Solidoodle 2 can all get you into 3D printing at retail consumer price points with precision down to 100 microns. The technology has very much come of age and it's going to be interesting to see where these machines can take us."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Unveils Preliminary Radeon HD 8000M Series Mobile GPU Details (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "AMD has just released some preliminary information regarding the company’s upcoming Radeon HD 8000M series of mobile GPUs. Based on the naming convention alone, it may obvious that the Radeon HD 8000M series is AMD’s second generation of products featuring the GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture, which debuted in the Radeon HD 7000 series. Like its predecessors, the Radeon HD 8000M series targets gamers with full DirectX 11.1 support and improved gaming performance over the previous-gen, but the architecture also lends itself to GPU compute applications as well. The Radeon HD 8500M sports 384 Stream Processors with an Engine Clock up to 650MHz. Memory clocks will vary based on the use of GDDR3 or GDDR5 memory. The Radeon HD 8600M is essentially the same, but with a slightly higher Engine Clock up to 775MHz. The Radeon HD 8700M is also based on the same GPU, but will be clocked at up to 850MHz, for a further increase in performance over the 8600M. The Radeon HD 8800M series, however, is based on a larger, more powerful chip and will sport 640 Stream Processors with an engine clock of up to 700MHz. GDDR5 memory will be used exclusively with 8800M, at speeds up to 1125MHz. It will be interesting to see how these new GPUs stack up versus NVIDIA's latest GeForce 600M series of mobile chips."
Games

Submission + - Digital Obsession: The Most Addictive PC Games of All Time (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Addictive games aren't necessarily the top sellers, or record-smashing behemoths. Sometimes, their appeal is measured in near-perfect execution of a narrow concept, while other games keep us up 'til 3 AM because, despite their flaws, they offer a compelling, challenging experience. Most beloved classic computer game franchises are now dust. Space Quest, Quest for Glory, Wing Commander, and Ultima are all relics of another age. Sid Meier's Civilization is a notable exception, however. The original game that was first played on a 386 is long gone, but the sequels have endured the intervening years in remarkable form. There are other titles that have enjoyed this level of stickiness over the years and have logged millions of hours of game play as a result. Counter Strike, Diablo II, Minecraft, and of course World of Warcraft all share a common addictive game play thread that keeps their shelf life seemingly timeless."
Intel

Submission + - Intel Announces Atom S1200 SoC For High Density Servers (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Intel has been promising it for months, and now the company has officially announced the Intel Atom S1200 SoC. The ultra low power chip is designed for the datacenter and provides a high-density solution designed to lower TCO and improve scalability. The 64-bit, dual-core (four total threads with Hyper-Threading technology) Atom S1200 underpins the third generation of Intel’s commercial microservers and feature a mere 6W TDP that allows a density of over 1,000 nodes per rack. The chip also includes ECC and supports Intel Virtualization technology. Intel saw a need for a processor that can handle many simultaneous lightweight workloads, such as dedicated web hosting for sites that individually have minimal requirements, basic L2 switching, and low-end storage needs. Intel did not divulge pricing, but regardless, this device will provide direct competition for AMD's SeaMicro server platform."
Graphics

Submission + - NVIDIA GeForce Experience App To Simplify Game Settings, Get You Playing Faster (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "PC gaming has long had a reputation for being more difficult to get into than consoles, due to the plethora of potential hardware combinations and the pitfalls of bargain-basement OEM systems. PC gamers are used to seeing minimum game specs that occasionally imply the marketing department lives in an alternate dimension. NVIDIA wants to improve the end result of this process, without requiring gamers to spend time in configuration menus they don't understand. The company is launching the GeForce Experience closed beta today. NVIDIA gathers an enormous amount of performance data from widely disparate sources. Reviewers often test brand-new games under a variety of scenarios. The company works with game developers to optimize both game engines and its own drivers before a title hits the market using a farm of systems with different configurations. Games are internally tested for driver compatibility, and customers provide feedback via public forums. The net result is a comprehensive database of how any given game will perform on a wide range of hardware."

Submission + - Startup Company GreenThrottle Turns Your Android Smartphone Into a Game Console (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Time we spend making calls on smartphones pales in comparison to the other activities we use it for, like surfing the web, logging into Facebook, streaming music and video, and of course playing games. It's that latter functionality that a startup called Green Throttle wants to tap into, and given the horsepower of today's smartphones, it makes a lot of sense. The company envisions harnessing the power of today's well-equipped Android smartphones and tablets in order to play console-like games on your HDTV. Right now the concept is limited to select devices — Google Nexus, Samsung Galaxy S II and S III, HTC One X, Kindle Fire HD, and Asus Transformer — though the company says it's adding to the list quickly. The system is fairly simple. You load Green Throttle's Arena app on your compatible device and start gaming using the company's Bluetooth-enabled Atlas controller, which looks a lot like an Xbox 360 controller, then push your phone's HDMI output to an HDTV."
Advertising

Submission + - Verizon Patent Helps Deliver Relevant Ads By Eavesdropping On Conversations (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "It's a patent that sounds like a plot description for a science-fiction movie or the result of Apple's Siri and Google's AdSense mating. With it, Verizon could program its set-top boxes to survey a room to determine relevant ads to display either on your television or mobile phone. Sound a bit scary? It kind of is. Verizon's new technology can work a variety of ways. For starters, it can listen in on conversations — whether it be with someone else in the room or on the phone — and pick out keywords that would aide it in its duties. In reality, it's simple stuff in this day and age, but that doesn't make it any less off-putting. Imagine arguing with your significant other and then seeing marriage counseling ads on the TV — or better, cuddling and then seeing ads for contraceptives."
AMD

Submission + - For The Last Time, Tablets Didn't Catch AMD or Intel "Flat-Footed" (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "There's a bit of quoted wisdom that's been making the rounds in tech news, recently. Up until now, I've ignored it, in the hopes that it would die out and go away. Instead, it seems to be showing up with greater frequency. It looks something like this: "Like Intel, AMD was caught flat-footed in recent years with the emergence and fast growth of mobile devices..." Putting the blame on Intel and AMD's failure to see tablets coming obscures the complex, changing relationship between Microsoft, Intel, and the various OEMs. Apple established itself as a tablet vendor because it was willing to take enormous risk and had rich multimedia content to sell. Amazon won accolades by launching a tablet at a rock bottom price and its own content farm. Right now, there is no clear winner between Windows Surface and x86 Windows 8. There's no standout, must-have product from any manufacturer; a whole lot of mud is being slung at the proverbial wall to see what sticks. This is absolutely normal. But tablets are more than just an SoC from any vendor. They're a user experience, a price point, and the value-added capabilities that an OEM brings to the equation. Painting the issue as simply a matter of Intel or AMD being caught off-guard is a drastic oversimplification."
Graphics

Submission + - But Can it Run Crysis 3? Crysis 3 Minimum System Specs Revealed (hothardware.com)

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes: We’ve been tracking Crysis 3 for a while, from the trailer a few months ago to the recent alpha multiplayer preview. The game is available for preorder and it will launch in February. Crytek has now listed the minimum system requirements for Crysis 3 and they’re as follows: Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8, DirectX 11 graphics card with 1GB Video RAM, Dual core CPU, 2GB Memory (3GB on Vista). Those aren’t particularly stringent parameters by any means, but as we all know, “minimum requirements” rarely are. Crytek suggests upgrading to a quad-core CPU, 4GB of RAM, with examples of CPU/GPU combinations that include Intel Core i5-750/NVIDIA GTX 560 and AMD Phenom II X4 805/AMD Radeon HD5870.
Nintendo

Submission + - Hackers Discover Wii U's Processor Design and Clock Speed (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "Early, off-the-record comments from game developers indicated that the Nintendo's Wii U console horsepower was on par with, or a bit behind the Xbox 360 and PS3, which raised questions about just how "next-generation" the Wii U would be. Now, Wii and PS3 hacker Hector Martin (aka Marcan) has answered some of these questions and raised a few others. According to his findings, the Wii U's CPU is a triple-core design clocked at 1.24GHz. Marcan identifies the base design as a PowerPC 750, which makes sense. Nintendo used PowerPC 750-derived processors in both the GameCube and the Wii. Retaining that architecture for the Wii U would simplify backwards compatibility and game development. Now factor in the GPU, which is reportedly clocked at 550MHz. Some have favored the Radeon HD 4000 series as a basis for the part; I still think a low-end Radeon 5000, like Redwood Pro, makes more sense. That GPU was built on 40nm, measured 104mm sq, clocked in at 649MHz, and had a 39W TDP. The die size discrepancy between the Wii U and Redwood Pro would account for the 32MB of EDRAM cache we know the Wii U offers. Nintendo may have propped up a relatively weak CPU with considerably more GPU horsepower."
Government

Submission + - Investigation Reveals Electronic Health Records Program Lacks Oversight (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: An investigation by the Inspector General's office of the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that billions of dollars dispersed to physicians and hospitals for their deployment of the electronic health records was based on a self-reporting system that lacks oversight. To date, $4 billion has been dispersed to 82,535 healthcare professionals and 1,474 hospitals, which reported they deployed EHRs and are meeting criteria for the "meaningful use" of those systems. Federal investigators suggested in their reportthat healthcare providers be subjected to prepayment audits to ensure they're using the technology for which they're being reimbursed.

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