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Submission + - SHIELD Tablet $299 Android Gaming Tablet Reviewed (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: Last week NVIDIA announced the SHIELD Tablet and SHIELD Controller but reviews are finally hitting of the devices this morning. Based on the high performance Tegra K1 SoC that integrates 192 Kepler architecture CUDA cores, benchmarks reveal that that the SHIELD Tablet is basically unmatched by any other mobile device on the market when it comes to graphics performance — it is more than 2.5x the performance of the Apple A7 in some instances. With that power NVIDIA is able to showcase full OpenGL versions of games like Portal and Half-Life 2 running at 1080p locally on the 19x12 display or output to a TV in a "console mode." PC Perspective has impressions of that experience as well as using the NVIDIA Game Stream technology to play your PC games on the SHIELD Tablet and controller. To go even further down the rabbit hole, you can stream your PC games from your desktop to your tablet, output them to the TV in console mode, stream your game play to Twitch from the tablet while overlaying your image through the front facing camera AND record your sessions locally via ShadowPlay and using the Wi-Fi Direct powered controller to send and receive audio. It is incredibly impressive hardware but the question remains as to whether or not there is, or will be, a market for Android based gaming devices, even those with the power and performance that NVIDIA has built.

Submission + - Microsoft takes down NOIP claiming cybercrime

Submitted by GoodNewsJimDotCom
GoodNewsJimDotCom writes: Hello,

I just released a game yesterday that used NOIP and today people can't use the cloud saves because Microsoft took down NOIP.

Cybercrime on Microsoft windows wouldn't be a problem if Microsoft just designed their Operating System to be virus resistant.

From what I can tell, Microsoft acted without a court order.

Submission + - Samsung release first SSD with 3D NAND (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: As SSD controllers continue to evolve, so does the world of flash memory. With the release of the Samsung 850 Pro SSD announced today, Samsung is the first company to introduce 3D NAND technology to the consumer. By using 30nm process technology that might seem dated in some applications, Samsung has been reliably able to stack lithography and essentially "tunnel holes" in the silicon while coating the inside with the material necessary to hold a charge. The VNAND being used with the Samsung 850 Pro is now 32 layers deep, and though it lowers the total capacity per die, it allows Samsung to lower manufacturer costs with more usable die per wafer. This results in more sustainable and reliable performance as well as a longer life span, allowing Samsung to offer a 10 year warranty on the new drives. PC Perspective has a full review with performance results and usage over time that shows Samsung's innovation is leading the pack.

Submission + - New Permission System Potentially Makes Android Much Less Secure 1

Submitted by capedgirardeau
capedgirardeau writes: An update to the Google Play store now groups app permissions into collections of related permissions making them much less fine grained and potentially misleading for users. For example the SMS permissions group would allow an app access to both reading and sending SMS messages. The problem is that once an app has access to the group of permissions, it can make use of any of the allowed actions at anytime without ever informing the user. As Google explains: "It’s a good idea to review permissions groups before downloading an app. Once you’ve allowed an app to access a permissions group, the app may use any of the individual permissions that are part of that group. You won’t need to manually approve individual permissions updates that belong to a permissions group you’ve already accepted."

Submission + - Amazon Dispute Now Making Movies Harder To Order (cnn.com)

Submitted by trazom28
trazom28 writes: Hachette books aren't the only products that are now harder to order on Amazon — the online retailer is going after movies, too. Amazon has turned off the preorder function for DVDs of prominent Warner Bros. films as it seeks to raise pressure on the company during negotiations.
"The Lego Movie," for example, is listed as "currently unavailable" on Amazon. Set for release in the home video marketplace on June 17, there is no option to place a preorder.

Submission + - Gecko feet inspire hand-held Spider-Man paddles

Submitted by ygslash
ygslash writes: DARPA is developing hand-held paddles that can be used to scale vertical walls. The adhesion technology employed in the paddles is based on Van der Waals force, inspired by the feet of certain species of geckos known for their excellent climbing ability. In a recent test, a man weighing almost 100 kg (220 lbs) and carrying a heavy pack that added about 23 kg (50 lbs) of additional weight, was able to scale a vertical glass wall almost 8 m (25 ft) high using the paddles. However, the paddles are reported to be 'not battlefield-ready yet'. Apparently, smooth glass walls are not usually what you need to climb in real battlefield conditions.

Submission + - $3000 GeForce GTX TITAN Z Tested, Less Perf than $1500 R9 295X2 (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: NVIDIA announced its latest dual-GPU flagship card, the GeForce GTX Titan Z, at the GPU Technology Conference in late March with a staggering price point of $2999. Since that time, AMD announced and released the Radeon R9 295X2, its own dual-GPU card with a price tag of $1499. PC Perspective finally put the GTX Titan Z to the test and found that from a PC gamers view, the card is way overpriced for the performance it offers. At both 2560x1440 and 3840x2160 (4K) the R9 295X2 offered higher and more consistent frame rates sometimes by as much as 30%. The AMD card also only takes up two slots (though it does have a water cooling radiator to worry about) while the NVIDIA GTX Titan Z is a three-slot design. The Titan Z is quieter and uses much less power, but gamers considering a $1500 or $3000 graphics card selection are likely not overly concerned with power efficiency.

Submission + - Intel Core i7-4790K Devil's Canyon Increases Clocks by 500 MHz, Lowers Temps (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: Since the introduction of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors there was a subset of users that complained about the company's change of thermal interface material between the die and the heat spreader. With the release of the Core i7-4790K, Intel is moving to a polymer thermal interface material that claims to improve cooling on the Haswell architecture, along with the help of some added capacitors on the back of the CPU. Code named Devil's Canyon, this processor boosts stock clocks by 500 MHz over the i7-4770K all for the same price ($339) and lowers load temperatures as well. Unfortunately, in this first review at PC Perspective, overclocking doesn't appear to be improved much.

Submission + - New Intel SSD 730 Is Overclocked. Yes, Overclocked. (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: When Intel jumped on to the scene of the SSD market with the X25 series, they made a lot of waves with a custom built controller and performance levels not seen previously. In recent years, Intel has turned away from custom controllers and used third party ones from SandForce. This permitted easy product line management but took away the differentiation of the Intel SSD line. Today's release of the Intel SSD 730 returns Intel to the role of controller designer for consumer hardware. Taking the same 6 Gbps controller found on the Intel DC S3500 and overclocking it, running the bus at 100 MHz rather than 83 MHz, results in improved performance but not faster transfer speeds than many other, less expensive SSDs on the market. Intel's controller shows its strength in IOps testing. The overclocked state of this SSD also means more power and heat — PC Perspective read surface temperatures of 122F on their test unit.

Submission + - NVIDIA Launches GTX 750 Ti with New Maxwell Architecture (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: NVIDIA is launching the GeForce GTX 750 Ti today which would normally just be a passing mention for a new $150 mainstream graphics card. But the fact that the company is using this as the starting point for its Maxwell architecture is actually pretty interesting. With a new GPU design that reorganizes the compute structure into smaller blocks, Maxwell is able to provide 66% more CUDA cores with a die size that is just 25% bigger than the previous generation all while continuing to use the same 28nm process technology we have today. Power and area efficiency were the target design points for Maxwell as it will eventually be integrated into NVIDIA's Tegra line too. As a result the GeForce GTX 750 Ti is able to outperform AMD's Radeon R7 260X by 5-10% while using 35 watts less power at the same time.

Submission + - New WD Black2 Dual Drive Combines Full SSD and HDD in Same 2.5-in Package (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: Hybrid drives are not new to the computing world as the benefits of a hard drive with a large(-ish) NAND cache are well known. But desktop users will likely agree that having a full capacity SSD as a primary drive with a secondary, spindle based hard drive for mass storage is the most popular solution. For many notebook users that simply isn't an option as space is limited in most laptop chassis but today's brand new Dual Drive, the Black2 from Western Digital, mixes things up. In a single 2.5-in hard drive form factor, WD has packed a 120GB SSD in addition to a 1TB hard drive that share a single SATA connection and that can be installed in systems with a single drive bay. This isn't a hybrid, Windows sees two different partitions. There are some interesting software quirks and the SSD performance is middle of the road based on PC Perspective's testing, but the Black2 performs well enough in both SSD and HDD testing to get their full recommendation.

Submission + - NVIDIA Brings Own Tablet to Market, Tegra Note 7 (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: What do you do when you can't find many partners willing to put the work into your product that you think it deserves? Well if you are NVIDIA, you build your own and sell it. The first product that is part of NVIDIA's Tegra Note platform is being released, a 7-in form factor stock Android tablet called the Tegra Note 7. Based on the Tegra 4 SoC with its 4+1 Cortex-A15 CPU and 72-core GPU design, the Note 7 is among the fastest small tablets on the market and also includes features like DirectStylus support, front facing speakers and a $199 price tag. It does lag behind the Nexus 7 in battery life and screen resolution, but otherwise in PC Perspective's testing the Tegra Note 7 is able to compete in a crowded market quite strongly.

Submission + - NVIDIA Releases Full GK110 GPU, GTX 780 Ti for $699 (pcper.com)

Submitted by Vigile
Vigile writes: The battle over the discrete graphics card space continues to stay heated. AMD started releasing its new set of graphics cards, culminated with the R9 290X Hawaii flagship just before Halloween. That left a large performance and pricing gap between the $499 GeForce GTX 780 and the $999 GTX TITAN (that was clearly overpriced for gaming). Today's release of the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti starts with a $699 price tag and offers performance that is 10-15% higher than the AMD 290X at 2560x1440 and 4K resolutions. This also marks the first consumer part to enable the entire GK110 Kepler GPU which now includes 2,880 cores (25% more than the original GTX 780) running at an 875 MHz base clock, 240 texture units, 48 ROPs and 3GB of GDDR5 running at 7.0 Gbps.

Submission + - Limo Company Hack Exposes Juicy Targets, 850k Credit Card Numbers (krebsonsecurity.com)

Submitted by tsu doh nimh
tsu doh nimh writes: A compromise at a U.S. company that brokers reservations for limousine and Town Car services nationwide has exposed the personal and financial information on more than 850,000 well-heeled customers, including Fortune 500 CEOs, lawmakers, and A-list celebrities. Krebsonsecurity.com writes about the break-in, which involved the theft of information on celebrities like Tom Hanks and LeBron James, as well as lawmakers such as the chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. The story also examines the potential value of this database for spies, drawing a connection between recent personalized malware attacks against Kevin Mandia, the CEO of incident response firm Mandiant. In an interview last month with Foreign Policy magazine, Mandia described receiving spear phishing attacks that spoofed receipts for recent limo rides; according to Krebs, the info for Mandia and two other Mandiant employees was in the stolen limo company database.

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