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+ - Intel's DC S3500 Series SSD, More Affordable Option For The Data Center Tested->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Intel is updating its line of enterprise-class solid state storage offerings today, with a new more cost-effective drive that targets datacenter and cloud-computing applications. The Intel SSD DC S3500 as it is known, is similar in a number of ways to the SSD DC S3700, though it's built on more affordable NAND flash memory than the previously released DC S3700-series drives. Regardless, data integrity and consistent performance across varying workloads remain key design goals for Intel’s datacenter-targeted “DC”-branded drives, but the new SSD DC S3500 will do so at much more mainstream price points than the higher-end DC S3700-series. The Intel SSD DC S3500 will be offered in 80GB — 800GB capacities in both 2.5” and 1.8” form factors. The drive is rated at a maximum of 500MB/s read and 450MB/s write bandwidth at 85K IOPS. In the benchmarks, read performance was competitive with most any high-end SATA SSD on the market now. Write performance, while good, wasn’t quite as high as some competing offerings in the majority of tests."
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+ - And the Winner of Next-Gen is: PlayStation 4 (Unless Microsoft Fixes Things)->

Submitted by Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes "With both Microsoft and Sony having laid everything out on the table at E3, there’s no better time than the present to peruse it all and see which one comes out ahead. If you've loaded up a Web browser lately, you likely already know the answer. Techgage takes a look at the highlights of the next-gen consoles, and the numerous downfalls that could easily be fixed."
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+ - Apple Updates MacBooks and Mac Pro Desktop with Haswell, "Unified Thermal Core"->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "On the hardware side, Apple is updating its two MacBook Air devices; both the 11-inch and 13-inch versions will enjoy better battery life (up to 9 hours and 12 hours, respectively), thanks in no small part to having Intel’s new Haswell processors inside. They’ll also have 802.11ac WiFi on board. Both models have 1.3GHz Intel Core i5 or i7 (Haswell) processors, Intel HD Graphics 5000, 4GB of RAM, and has 128GB or 256GB of flash storage. Arguably the scene stealer on the desktop side of things is a completely redesigned Mac Pro. The 9.9-inch tall cylindrical computer boasts a new “unified thermal core” which is designed to conduct heat away from the CPU and GPU while distributing it uniformly and using a single bottom-mounted intake fan. It rocks a 12-core Intel Xeon (256-bit) processor, dual AMD FirePro GPUs (standard), 1866MHz DDR3 ECC memory (60GBps), and PCIe flash storage with up to 1.25GBps read speeds. The system promises 7 teraflops of graphics performance, supports 4k displays, and has a host of ports including four USB 3.0, two gigabit Ethernet ports, HDMI 1.4, six Thunderbolt 2 ports that offer super-fast (20Gbps) external connectivity."
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+ - Dell XPS 18 Portable All-In-One: 18-Inch Windows 8 Tablet or Desktop, You Decide->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Dell recently combined two trending PC design styles into a single system and called it the XPS 18 Portable All-In-One Desktop. The machine has all the power of an AIO desktop system and some of the portability of a tablet. To be clear, Dell isn't suggesting you'll want to tote this thing across town in ways that you might use an iPad. It's portable in that you can snatch up the 18.4-inch Full HD display from your home office and take it to the living room to switch gears from Google Docs to gaming with the kids, or take it upstairs for some late night surfing before bed. The system is powered by an Intel Core i5 3337U dual-core 1.8GHz CPU that can Turbo to 2.7GHz, 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory, and a 500GB HDD / 32GB mSATA SSD hybrid storage subsystem for faster response times. The main attraction, however, is that the PC itself is a portable display featuring an 18.4-inch IPS panel with a 1920x1080 resolution and full touch support. Performance-wise the XPS 18 holds its own versus mainstream all-in-one touch PCs, but with added ability to pick the 5 pound system up go virtually anywhere with it on a moment's notice."
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+ - Intel's Haswell Optimized For Mobility, New Design Power Metric->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "If Haswell's debut on the desktop has left you feeling a bit flat, the company's mobile efforts may be the pick-me-up you've been hoping for. Intel's major mobile push with ultrabooks is meant to simultaneously beef up design capabilities while cutting rated power consumption in two types of designs — those that put processors in the base of the product (traditional laptops), and those that drop the CPU behind the screen (tablets and convertibles). To make this happen, the company is introducing its new low-power Y-series with a Scenario Design Power (SDP) of 6W. SDP is a new metric that measures platform power consumption in tablet workloads and uses different metrics to establish a lower figure. Intel is also expanding ultrabook requirements and baseline capabilities. WiDi (Intel Wireless Display) is now a requirement, as are longer stand-by times, faster wake, mandatory antivirus protection, and a higher emphasis on ultra-thin designs."
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+ - Intel Haswell Desktop Core i7-4770K Launched, Tested->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Intel is officially launching Haswell today, their 4th Generation Core processor technology for the desktop market, with a follow-on release of dual core and mobile Haswell offerings coming up quickly on June 3rd. Haswell marks a number of firsts for Intel, including leading-edge technologies like on-chip voltage regulators, eDRAM, and their first graphics engine that fully supports the DX11.1 specification and OpenGL 4.0. With these new features alone, Haswell is primed to offer significant performance and feature enhancements. That said, Intel's 4th Generation quad-core desktop variant, the Core i7-4770K that Intel showcased today honestly feels a little tepid, in terms of its modest gains over previous generation Ivy Bridge performance. Haswell currently feels like its biggest play will be in the mobile space, at least until higher-end Haswell desktop CPUs come to market. Haswell mobile CPUs with Iris and Iris Pro Graphics engines, will undoubtedly shine even brighter, especially when you look at performance-per-watt and battery life metrics. That said, Haswell is the proverbial foundation for Intel's next round of products and product life cycle. Intel's 4th Generation Core processor technology has been enabled with new functional blocks and features that will provide much-needed platform hooks for future generation enhancements and performance gains."
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+ - HOT Raspberry Pi: A DIY Mini Desktop PC Build Project->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Hot Hardware recently set out to design a custom mini desktop system with the popular Raspberry Pi single board computer. The Raspberry Pi is a Linux-driven, ARM processor-based micro computer that is known for its low cost and small size. People use the device for a variety of projects, from micro-servers to low cost media players. Basically, the goal was to turn what is currently one of the cheapest bare-bones computer boards into a fully enclosed mini desktop computer that could be taken anywhere without the need for cabling or setup. This small DIY project is just one of many examples of the flexibility of Raspberry Pi's open architecture. And to think you can even run Quake and Minecraft on it."
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+ - AMD Launches 2013 A & E-Series Kabini and Temash APUs->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "AMD has lifted the veil on its next-gen, low-power APUs targeted at mobile and ultra-mobile form factors. Kabini and Temash are not simple updates to existing products, however. They feature newly-designed CPU cores fused to a Graphics Core Next-based GPU, and they're designed to considerably improve performance while also operating at lower power. Kabini is the follow-up product to AMD’s very successful Brazos line of products. Temash and Kabini are based on the same microarchitecture and share essentially the same feature set, but Temash targets small form factor notebooks, tablets, and hybrids 13-inches and smaller. AMD puts Temash-based products under the “2013 AMD Elite Mobility APU” umbrella, and the SoCs will come in dual (A4) and quad-core (A6) configurations. Performance-wise, the A4-5000 matches up well versus similar clock speed Core i3 CPUs from Intel but with a significantly stronger integrated graphics engine."
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+ - HOT Raspberry Pi: A DIY Mini Desktop PC Build Project->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "Hot Hardware recently set out to design a mini desktop computer with the popular Raspberry Pi single board computer. The Raspberry Pi is a Linux-driven, ARM processor-based micro computer that is known for its low cost and small size. People use the device for a variety of projects, from micro-servers to low cost media players. Basically, the goal was to turn what is currently one of the cheapest bare-bones computer boards into a fully enclosed mini desktop computer that could be taken anywhere without the need for cabling or setup. This small DIY project is just one of many examples of the flexibility of Raspberry Pi's open architecture. And to think you can even run Quake and Minecraft on a self-contained little device like this."
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+ - Former Amazon cloud engineer spills to Reddit audience->

Submitted by Brandon Butler
Brandon Butler writes "Amazon is usually pretty hush-hush about the internal workings of its cloud. But, an anonymous engineer recently did a Reddit IAmA and spilled the beans about the company's cloud and what it's like to work there.

Some highlights:
-Amazon uses a lot of secreet sauce in both hardware and software, including multiple flavors of "Amazon Linux"
-Pay and benefits aren't that great, but having AWS on the resume is worth it
-How VPCs work and what the best way to deal with "noisy neighbors" is

Read the full IAmA post here http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1e5o4p/iaman_exaws_engineer_ask_me_anything_about_the/

And a summary here http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/051713-amazon-reddit-269890.html?page=1"
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+ - The Often Overlooked Downsides of Our Apps Moving to the Cloud->

Submitted by Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes "Whether you like it or not, companies have proven that they want our heads in the cloud. Adobe’s recent move to shift its entire Creative Suite there and make it subscription-only solidifies that fact. While there are some downsides to this movement that are blatantly obvious, the biggest devil may be hiding quietly in the details. Techgage explores these oft-overlooked downsides."
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+ - Intel's Haswell Represents Major Advancement with Integrated Voltage Regulator->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "For the past decade, AMD and Intel have been racing each other to incorporate more components into the CPU die. Memory controllers, integrated GPUs, northbridges, and southbridges have all moved closer to a single package, known as SoCs (system-on-a-chip). Now, with Haswell, Intel is set to integrate another important piece of circuitry. When it launches next month, Haswell will be the first x86 CPU to include an on-die voltage regulator module, or VRM. Haswell incorporates a refined VRM on-die that allows for multiple voltage rails and controls voltage for the CPU, on-die GPU, system I/O, integrated memory controller, as well as several other functions. Intel refers to this as a FIVR (Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator), and it apparently eliminates voltage ripple and is significantly more efficient than your traditional motherboard VRM. Added bonus? It's 1/50th the size."
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+ - Competition For The iPhone 5 and Galaxy S4, HTC's One Scores Well Testing->

Submitted by MojoKid
MojoKid writes "After some delays in manufacturing, the highly anticipated HTC One smartphone is officially here. Although this high-end smartphone has not received the same buzz that Samsung’s much-hyped Galaxy S 4 enjoyed, the One has many compelling features that will give Samsung and Apple some serious competition among savvy consumers. The HTC One features a full-metal, zero-gap unibody design along with a number of features that set the phone apart, including HTC "BoomSound" which combines front-facing stereo speakers with dedicated amplifiers and Beats Audio integration. The phone's "UltraPixel Camera" only sports a 4 megapixel sensor but according to HTC, this sensor is capable of capturing 300% more light than most leading 13 megapixel cameras. As the flagship smartphone in HTC’s line-up, the One features a 1.7GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor along with 2GB of RAM. The phone is available in both 32GB and 64GB models, depending on your carrier. In the benchmarks, the One scores right up there with the likes of the Galaxy S4 but in certain graphics tests, can't quite catch the iPhone 5."
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+ - Windows Activation Still a Piece of Junk After All These Years->

Submitted by Deathspawner
Deathspawner writes "There's little that's more frustrating than being a legal customer and getting screwed over by the company you're supporting. If there's a perfect example of this, it's with Microsoft's OS and its millions of customers that have had to ring its tech support lines for activation help. Recently, a Techgage writer got bit by an issue with Windows 8 — caused by Microsoft itself — and wasn't even able to call to fix it. Microsoft has two problems to solve here: it needs online chat support (like most large companies in 2013) and it definitely needs an activation system that doesn't make things difficult for its legal customers on a too-regular basis."
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