Written by John Ponio
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Wednesday, 16 May 2012 18:10 |
Web and Industry News
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Back around the time when Windows 7 was coming out, Microsoft announced a plan that would upgrade the operating system on computers purchased from a certain date from Windows Vista to the version of Windows 7 most closely matching the version of Windows Vista, e.g. Vista Home Premium would be upgraded to 7 Home Premium. The reason for this is obvious: it kept people from holding off on buying a computer until the new operating system comes out. Well this time around Microsoft is still going to have a similar upgrade plan, but this time it will be a little different. Read on for more.
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Written by John Ponio
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Tuesday, 15 May 2012 14:37 |
Web and Industry News
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Good news for you AMD-lovers out there, Trinity has been released. For those of you who don't know, Trinity it's AMD's next generation of APUs featuring "Piledriver" (the next generation after Bulldozer) 32nm architecture. The Trinity APUs also come with Radeon HD 7000 series integrated graphics, which are supposed to increase performance by over 50% compared to the last generation, which is quite a bit considering how powerful the last generation's integrated graphics were. CPU performance is up, according to AMD, by 29% over the last generation of APUs. While 29% isn't a bad upgrade, the last generation wasn't very powerful, so 29% of not very powerful is still not very powerful. We'll see exactly how Trinity fairs in benchmarks once the chips get a chance to be reviewed. Sadly, the only Trinity chips released today were for mobile applications, like ultrathins and notebooks. Desktop parts will be released in the ambiguous "later this year." Read on for the APU lineup.
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Written by John Ponio
on
Tuesday, 15 May 2012 13:50 |
Web and Industry News
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If you didn't remember and didn't happen to drive past lines and lines of people waiting for the midnight release, Diablo III was released today. Blizzard stuck to their release date that they gave back in March, and for a cool $60 the game can be yours. If you don't feel like getting a physical copy, you can buy it directly from Blizzard as a digital download. Links to that are in the announcement. If you're a big fan of the Diablo series, you may want to look into the Collector's Edition. For $100, you get quite a bit. For one, you get the game, obviously. You also get a 4GB "Soulstone" USB flash drive with full copies of Diablo II and Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. You also get in-game items for Diablo III, World of Warcraft, and Starcraft II. For Diablo III, you'll get glowing angel wings, an exclusive banner sigil, and Bottled Cloud or Bottled Smoke dye for your armor sets. For World of Warcraft, you'll get a fetish shaman pet to follow you around. For Starcraft II, you'll get three Diablo-themed Battle.net portraits as well as a special army logo. Other things you get with the collector's edition are a behind-the-scenes Blu-ray/DVD set, an art book for Diablo III, and the Diablo III soundtrack.
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Written by John Ponio
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Monday, 14 May 2012 11:02 |
Web and Industry News
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Back in April, there came out a report from Overclockers.net claiming that Intel used thermal paste instead of solder in Ivy Bridge, which explains why the chips run so much hotter than Sandy Bridge processors do. Overclockers didn't do any testing, though, they just shared the fact that Intel uses thermal paste instead of solder. Well, a Japanese website decided to do some testing, and they have confirmed that the thermal paste is indeed the issue. The Japanese-to-English translation is pretty rough, but I'll give you the run-down and the link if you read on.
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Written by John Ponio
on
Monday, 14 May 2012 10:41 |
Web and Industry News
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Ivy Bridge just barely came out, and Intel has already announced what they're working on next. If you didn't know, Ivy Bridge uses a 22nm lithography, which is ridiculously small. The next major processor series that Intel will release will be a 14nm chip, and that's going to happen next year. From 2015 to beyond, we're going to see 10nm, 7nm, and as small as 5nm chips on the market. In order to make processors with a smaller lithography, Intel has to re-fit its fabrication plants to support it. Fabrication plants in Arizona, Oregon, and Ireland will be re-fitted to support 14nm production. Intel also plans on updating plants in Arizona (a different plant than the one that will be re-fitted), Oregon (a different one than the one that will be re-fitted), and Israel to support 22nm production. 
source and image credit
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Written by John Ponio
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Friday, 11 May 2012 12:43 |
Web and Industry News
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A mechanical engineering student out of Penn. State made a working Portal turret for his senior project in Advanced Mechatronics. It uses an IP-camera for motion tracking, USB-powered rocket launchers, an Arduino processor, his own code, and some sounds from Portal. Read on for the video.
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Written by John Ponio
on
Friday, 11 May 2012 12:38 |
Web and Industry News
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If you're like me, you're a big fan of ultrabooks. The mixing of the extremely thin and light form factor, pretty-good performance, and fantastic battery life makes for a wonderful laptop for use when you're away from your desktop. Today, Asus announced the next in their line of ultrabooks, the UX32 series. A successor to their UX31 ultabooks, the UX32 series packs a punch with Ivy Bridge processors. One of the UX32 models even has a dedicated graphics card. Read on for more.
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Written by John Ponio
on
Thursday, 10 May 2012 15:55 |
Web and Industry News
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NVIDIA announced today their release of the GeForce GTX 670 card, based off of the 28nm Kepler architecture that the already-announced GTX 680 and GTX 690 are based off of. There wasn't much doubt that it was going to be released, but the big question was when they'd release it. The lineup leak I posted about months ago had the GTX 670 coming out this month, but no specific release date was leaked. Read on for more.
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Written by John Ponio
on
Thursday, 10 May 2012 15:35 |
Web and Industry News
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Back in March, Irrational Games announced the release date for Bioshock Infinite, setting it for October 16 of this year. Well, they announced yesterday that the game has been delayed until next year. Luckily they did set a new release date. Read on for more.
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Written by John Ponio
on
Wednesday, 09 May 2012 16:19 |
Web and Industry News
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If you've been trying to buy one of NVIDIA's new GTX 6xx series cards, you probably haven't been able to. They've been out of stock probably since day 1. Luckily, NVIDIA was just bumped to the front of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC) line, meaning their 28nm chips for the Kepler (6xx series) video cards will be manufactured soon. Read on for more.
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