Tech NEWS: 2010

~ TOP 10 Gadgets 2010 ~

10:23 AM | by Prabhath

No 10. Polk HitMaster Gaming Audio System

Sing-along games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are immensely popular among the masses and you won’t be doing justice to them by playing on an age-old speaker system. This is why Polk made this high-end audio speaker and amplifier system provides the right way to game and it can be comfortably plugged into every gaming system. This gadget from Polk throws out an awesome 80 watts of powerful neat sound.

No 9. Panasonic 3D Camcorder AG-3DA1

It is the world’s first professional and fully integrated full HD camcorder. Equipped with dual lenses and 2 full 1920×1080 2.07 megapixel imagers, it can record everything from 24p to 1080/60i. The price is, well, $21000. It is scheduled to unleash for fall.

No 8. WD TV Live Plus HD media player

A device from Western Digital that allows you to watch movies, listen to music as well as view images on your big screen TV, all from a USB drive. This baby can play almost any format you can throw at it. The latest model also allows you to connect to the internet and stream live content from many sites such as Youtube, Flickr, Live365 or even from your own home network. Streaming over Wi-Fi is also possible with this model. Furthermore, this model also supports streaming from Netflix, and that too on HD. Whoa!

It is available now for around $120.

No 7. EnTourage eDGe

This tablet PC slash e-book reader device runs Google Android 1.6 and is world’s first dualbook; its one screen is touch sensitive e-Ink, while the other is full color LCD touch screen. In addition to boasting access to e-books, it will also allow for most of notebook computing functions, such as USB data transfer and normal web surfing. This gadget is rather absurdly priced at $499.

No 6. 4G Phones

Set to be released in 2010, these 4g devices are really going to set the wireless world ablaze. With data transfer rate of 100 Mbps that could also reach upto 1 gigabit per second when static, downloading a DVD movie will be only a half minute task.

No 5. Skiff Reader – The electric newspaper

It is being predicted that this gadget might be one of the top 10 “newspaper” in the market by the end of 2010. This e-book reader is said to be one of the thinnest readers around, although it is quite big, but that’s what makes it compatible with newspaper journalism.

No 4. 3M’s M2256PW – The ten finger touch screen

Although not intended for home usage (judging atleast from a price of $1500), this multi-touch beauty is sure to futurize your office. This 22-inch monitor can detect upto 20 simultaneous inputs through the screen. There is no specified release date till now though.

No 3. Alienware M11x

With a starting price of only $799, this is one gadget of 2010 that you really cannot afford to miss! It truly is ultra-portable with a weight of less than 5 pounds and an 11-inch screen. It uses processors from Intel’s latest line of low-voltage processors. The main feature of this laptop though is its twin graphics cards; one is a low power chip that gives you almost 6 hours of computing and the other one, the GeForce 335M is for games. And this one can certainly play the top titles with high details as it runs COD – Modern Warfare 2 at exceptional frame rates (with highest details). It looks like Alienware had been developing this awesome technology for more than four years behind closed doors, while they even had to wait for technology to catch up with their ambitions. This piece of technology was held so secret that when it was finally revealed at CES 2010, there wasn’t a single competitor around. This can mean some serious revolution in laptop gaming.

No 2. Xbox Natal

Now known as Kinect, it was known as Project Natal before this year’s E3. This peripheral for the Xbox360 is set to launch in November this year. There is hardly anyone who games and doesn’t know about Natal, unless he has been living under a rock. Sony and Nintendo revealed similar peripherals for the first time in this year’s E3 too, but Kinect looks way more cooler. It’s currently available for pre-order at various websites for $150.

No 1. 82-inch 3-D Readrt DLP TV

3D has taken the world by storm, as it looks and fittingly the number one gadget in our 2010 list is a 82-inch 3D TV from Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America. It will cost around $4499 when released. Well, you will still have to wear special glasses for this one, but Mitsubishi plans to bring out TVs that work both with 2D and 3D programming. That’s a talk of the future though. This 82 incher is a sure winner for Mitsubishi with its price expected to be dropping to around $3000 by the end of 2010.

Google Street View

10:07 PM | by Prabhath

Most of you have heard of this Google street view & some may not. So this thread is for all of you.
What is Google street view?
Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world. It was launched on May 25, 2007, originally only in several cities in the United States, and has since gradually expanded to include more cities and rural areas worldwide.

Google street view images appear after zooming in beyond the highest zooming level in maps and satellite images, and also by dragging a "pegman" icon onto a location on a map. Using the keyboard or mouse the horizontal and vertical viewing direction and the zoom level can be selected. A solid or broken line in the photo shows the approximate path followed by the camera car, and arrows link to the next photo in each direction. At junctions and crossings of camera car routes, more arrows are shown.

Where Google street view is available?

Google earth is presently available in the countries that have been highlighted in dark blue. And the countries that have been highlighted in light blue they are still planing to introduce the Google street view.

The cameras they used to develop the Google street view.

Google has used three types of car-mounted cameras in the past to take Street View photographs. Generations 1-3 were used to take photographs in the United States. The first generation was quickly superseded and images were replaced with images taken with 2nd and 3rd generation cameras. Second generation cameras were used to take photographs in Australia. The shadows caused by the 1st, 2nd and 4th generation cameras are occasionally viewable in images taken in mornings and evenings. The new 4th generation cameras will be used to completely replace all images taken with earlier generation cameras. 4th generation cameras take near-HD images and deliver much better quality than earlier cameras.

In October 2009, Google introduced the Street View Trike, a pedal tricycle with a 4th generation camera mounted to take images where cars cannot reach. All streetview images taken now will be taken with the 4th Generation streetview cameras.

In February 2010, Google introduced the Street View Snowmobile, a snowmobile with a 4th generation camera mounted to take images on the Whistler Blackcomb Ski Slopes in preparation for the winter olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Google plans to re shoot areas with pre-4th generation cameras with 4th generation cameras.

Google's first street view van camera

Google's second street view camera

Google's third streetview camera, similar to the second but with 3D mapping

Google's latest camera, which takes near HD imagery as well as 3D mapping.

Google celebrates 12th birthday with a cake doodle

9:56 AM | by Prabhath

pular search engine, Google is celebrated its 12th birthday on 27 September with a new doodle involving a simple picture of a cake and the the letter ‘L’ in Google replaced with a candle.

The doodle has been created by Wayne Thiebaud who is a 89-year-old Los Angeles painter from the field of pop art. The image was used with the permission from the Visual Artists and Galleries Association.

Google, which went on to become the leader in internet search and is now expanding into other sectors likesmartphones, was established as a privately held corporation on 27 September 1998. In December 1998, only months after its incorporation Google succeeded in gaining a reputation of a respected search engine providing relevant search results.

In 2001, Google launched Image Search and came out with Google Labs and Google News in the next year. In 2005, it launched Google Maps while Gtalk was launched six months later. The company also unveiled Google Reader, Google Analytics, and Gmail for mobile that year, even as Gmail went public only in 2007.

Now the company has expanded further with the release of Android platform for mobile phones and other features like Google Buzz, and Google Voice.

The company usually celebrates various occasions with doodles. The first doodle was designed by its founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page for the Burning Man Festival and it appeared in August 1998. The company now celebrates events including Halloween, Christmas, Mother's and Father's Day along with birthday’s of famous persons through doodles.

Introducing the Google Chrome OS

3:16 AM | by Prabhath

It's been an exciting nine months since we launched the Google Chrome browser. Already, over 30 million people use it regularly. We designed Google Chrome for people who live on the web — searching for information, checking email, catching up on the news, shopping or just staying in touch with friends. However, the operating systems that browsers run on were designed in an era where there was no web. So today, we're announcing a new project that's a natural extension of Google Chrome — the Google Chrome Operating System. It's our attempt to re-think what operating systems should be.

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we're already talking to partners about the project, and we'll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We're designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google.

We hear a lot from our users and their message is clear — computers need to get better. People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up. They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files. Even more importantly, they don't want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates. And any time our users have a better computing experience, Google benefits as well by having happier users who are more likely to spend time on the Internet.

We have a lot of work to do, and we're definitely going to need a lot of help from the open source community to accomplish this vision. We're excited for what's to come and we hope you are too. Stay tuned for more updates in the fall and have a great summer.

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/introducing-google-chrome-os.html

WD Scorpio Blue

9:11 AM | by Prabhath

Mobile Hard Drives
320 GB, SATA 3 Gb/s, 8 MB Cache, 5400 RPM

With available SATA or PATA interfaces, WD Scorpio Blue drives offer high-performance, low power consumption, and cool operation, perfect for notebooks and other portable devices. Pick the drive that suits your needs with the confidence in knowing that all WD Scorpio Blue drives are built to the highest standards of quality and reliability.

Key Features

Massive capacity - Whether they are in an external drive or a notebook computer, WD Scorpio Blue SATA drives continue to offer the highest capacity for space-hungry operating systems with plenty of room left over for photos, music, and video. A slight increase in overall drive height (750 GB and 1 TB only) has driven storage capacity for 2.5-inch form factor drives upwards to a realm once thought to be impossible.*
Quiet - In a notebook drive, silence is golden. WD's exclusive WhisperDrive™ combines state-of-the-art seeking algorithms to yield one of the quietest 2.5-inch hard drives on the market. These algorithms also optimize the way a drive seeks for data, which significantly improves power consumption. So now silence (and longer battery life) is golden.
Reliable and rugged - WD's ShockGuard technology protects the drive mechanics and platter surfaces from shocks. WD's SecurePark™ parks the recording heads off the disk surface during spin up, spin down, and when the drive is off. This ensures the recording head never touches the disk surface resulting in improved long term reliability due to less head wear, and improved non-operational shock tolerance.
Fast and efficient - Ultra-fast 3 Gb/s SATA interface speed yields performance fit for demanding mobile applications.
Tested for compatibility - We perform tests on hundreds of systems and a multitude of platforms in our FIT Lab™ and Mobile Compatibility Lab to give our customers confidence that our drives will work in their systems.
*750 GB and 1 TB models are 12.5 mm high and may not be compatible with all notebook systems. Consult system specifications for maximum allowable drive height before attempting to install.

Ideal For

Portable digital devices of all kinds including notebook computers, external storage, and digital media players.

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.asp?driveid=377

Settlers of Catan on Microsoft Surface: Yes Please

5:55 PM | by Prabhath

I still prefer the real-deal version of board games like Settlers of Catan and Carcassonneover the Xbox Live/iPhone versions because real board games are social. But the officialMicrosoft Surface version? It might be the perfect way to play.

By using the Surface Table, this version of the classic German board game features the best of both worlds. On the one hand, you've got four people sitting around a physical table, talking, laughing, whining in order to secure a resource cards trade. But on the other hand, you've got the slickness and convenience of a video game, with nothing to put away or organize and everything slickly organized and set up.

And yes, this is an official project with the Catan license, not just a tech demo to show off what could be. So in theory, gaming cafes could have a surface set up with this for people to come in and play. Or, you know, you could spring for one in your living room. Which doesn't seem like that crazy an idea after watching this video.

Adobe Gets Its Say on Microsoft's MAPP Security Channel

12:35 AM | by Prabhath

Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) has joined Microsoft's (Nasdaq: MSFT) MAPP program, which provides members with information about security

vulnerabilities before Microsoft releases its monthly patches.

This will let Adobe, which has been plagued by security flaws, notify MAPP members about vulnerabilities in its apps so they can fix those problems more quickly.

Separately, Microsoft has announced a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program which will let anyone who discovers security flaws report them directly to a CERT-CC or other coordinator so vendors of the affected products get the information in time to fix the problem.

Microsoft also released several resources to help customers make informed decisions about security and manage their risk.

Gimme Shelter

Microsoft announced the tie-in with Adobe on Wednesday at the Black Hat USA 2010 conference.

Joining the Microsoft Active Protections Program (MAPP) lets Adobe piggyback on the bulletins Microsoft sends out about newly discovered vulnerabilities in its own applications to the program's 65 global members, which are security vendors. These bulletins are sent out far enough ahead so MAPP members can fix those vulnerabilities before Microsoft issues its regular monthly patches.

"By sharing Adobe vulnerability information with MAPP members prior to the public release of a security update, we give security providers an early start over exploit code writers, enabling them to offer protection to our mutual customers in a timely manner," Adobe's Wiebke Lips wrote about the tie-in.

"Adobe is the first company to publish security information on their own products through what, until now, has been an exclusively Microsoft program," Andrew Storms, director of operations at nCircle, told TechNewsWorld.

MAPP members include Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Symantec (Nasdaq: SYMC) and McAfee, Dave Forstrom, director of Microsoft's trustworthy computing group, told TechNewsWorld. However, Adobe won't exactly be a member of the program.

"Adobe is not part of that group of 65, as it's partnering with Microsoft to share early warning details of vulnerabilities with them," Forstrom pointed out.

The Road to Rehabilitation

Adobe has been plagued by security vulnerabilities, and its Flash Player is among the favorite vectors of attack used by hackers and malware developers because it's so widespread. Hackers also like attacking through PDF files for the same reason.

Flash has been exploited enough by cybercriminals that Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs publicly mentioned its security vulnerabilities in an open letter earlier this year.

"I think only Adobe has been as popular as Microsoft with cybercriminals," Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher with Kaspersky Lab Americas, said.

Teaming up with Microsoft to provide advance warning of security flaws may help Adobe restore its reputation.

"This is a smart move on Adobe's part, and it may eventually help them rehabilitate their tattered security reputation," nCircle's Storms pointed out.

"The advantage for Adobe is that this move will make it much easier for security companies to create reliable detection and mitigation strategies for flaws in its products," Schouwenberg told TechNewsWorld.

The team-up with MAPP is Adobe's second major security move this month. A week ago, Adobe introduced Adobe Reader Protected Mode. This is based on Microsoft's Practical Windows Sandboxing technique, and prevents hackers from accessing a user's computer through PDF files.

One Big Happy Anti-Cybercriminal Family

At the Black Hat conference, Microsoft also pushed its coordinated vulnerability disclosureapproach to fighting cybercrime.

This calls for anyone who discovers new vulnerabilities to disclose the information directly to the vendors of the affected products or to a CERT coordination center or other coordinator.

The CERT coordination center, or CERT/CC, identifies and addresses existing and potential security threats; notifies system administrators and other technical personnel of those threats; and coordinates with vendors and incident response team worldwide to address those threats.

This early disclosure will give the affected vendor enough time to diagnose and offer fully tested updates, workarounds or other corrective measures before detailed vulnerability or exploit information is made public, Forstrom said.

Who's to Blame?

Perhaps the move is a response to Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) researcher Tavis Ormandy's public disclosure in June of a security flaw in Microsoft's Help and Support Center in Windows XP and Windows server 2003. Microsoft suggested workarounds that drew criticism from the security community because they led to other problems.

"Microsoft is attempting to get a broader consensus in responsible disclosure by eliminating the hot button of calling irresponsible people like Tavis Ormandy irresponsible," opined Randy Abrams, director of technical education at ESET. "Ormandy's recent irresponsible disclosure put millions at risk for the sole purpose of inflating his ego while helping a few good guys, a ton of bad guys, and putting many in harm's way."

However, Redmond has to share part of the blame for people publicly disclosing information about vulnerabilities and exploits before the affected vendors have addressed these, Abrams told TechNewsWorld.

"The responsible disclosure process is, to a large degree, a problem Microsoft participated in creating with years of irresponsible reactions to responsible disclosure," Abrams pointed out. "Microsoft has dramatically improved the appropriateness of its responses to vulnerabilities, but it takes a lot longer to rebuild than to tear down."

Dell upgrades the Studio XPS Desktop line

1:40 AM | by Prabhath

New Dell Studio XPS desktop delivers latest technology at sub-$1,000 mainstream price
Features new Intel Core i7 processor with the power to take on the most demanding digital duties today – and tomorrow

New Studio XPS brand spotlights premium products, featuring state-of-the-art technology, stylish design

Dell has shifted its season of design and discovery into high gear with the launch of the Studio XPS desktop, a premium PC that features the new ultra fast Intel® CoreTM i7 processor. This is the first Studio XPS PC which represents the best of the Studio product portfolio: premium products that combine state-of-the-art technology, great performance and stylish design.

Available today on www.dell.com/Studioxps, the Studio XPS desktop starts at $949 (without monitor) and can be customized with a variety of complementary high-performance components. Technology enthusiasts will appreciate that the Studio XPS desktop with a Core i7 processor can deliver up to 44 percent faster video editing and encoding, plus outstanding performance on applications like image rendering, photo retouching and editing.1

The Studio XPS desktop packs a lot of the same performance and features found in full-size high-performance gaming rigs, like the Alienware Area-51 X-58 and the XPS 730x, into a smaller, more compact mini-tower featuring glossy black finish that looks sharp in the home office or the entertainment center. All systems share the new Hyper-Threading and Turbo Boost technology of Intel’s new Core i7 processor. This technology provides dynamic speed increases on demand and results in up to 65 percent performance improvement for the latest multithreaded applications.2

Holiday shoppers can purchase a Dell Studio XPS desktop with Intel’s new Core i7 processor for $949. For the next 48 hours they can purchase the new Studio XPS desktop for the special introductory price of $999, including 4GB of memory and a 20-inch flat panel monitor. See www.dell.com/xpsevent for more information.
The Studio XPS desktop configured with an optional TV tuner is an ideal choice as the center of a home entertainment system:

All graphics options include a built-in HDMI port for easy connection to most LCD TVs.
Support for up to 1TB of hard drive space to store music libraries, favorite movies and TV shows.
Optional Blu-ray DiscTM drive can alleviate the need to purchase, make room for and set up a separate Blu-ray player.

Compact size fits easily in smaller spaces: 14.2-inches x 6.7-inches x 17.1-inches.
The Studio XPS desktop features 64-bit versions of Microsoft® Windows Vista® so it can take advantage of up to 12GB tri-channel DDR3 memory, which can improve performance in multitasking and memory-intensive applications like photo and video editing software.

A plethora of ports on the Studio XPS desktop make it easy to connect accessories and peripherals: eight USB 2.0 (four front, four back), two IEEE 1394 (4-pin front, 6-pin back), microphone/line in (front and back), built- in 7.1 audio support (six connectors), S/PDIF, eSata (all back).

Robot Touchscreen Analysis

6:06 AM | by Prabhath

Robot Touchscreen Analysis from MOTO Development Group on Vimeo.

A touchscreen is a touchscreen, right? Hardly! As MOTO pointed out in our recent Do-It-Yourself Touchscreen Analysispost, “All touchscreens are not created equal.”

With our simple test technique — which basically consists of using a basic drawing application and a finger to slowly trace straight lines on the screen of each device — it’s easy to see the difference in touchscreen resolution from one phone to the next. Results with straight lines indicate a high degree of sensor accuracy; less-precise sensors show the lines with wavy patterns, stair-steps, or both.

After we published our first comparison of four touchscreen smartphones, a few critics found fault with our DIY testing technique. Many of of these comments centered around the idea that our human-finger methodology is prone to inconsistency, due to variables in finger pressure, line-straightness, or tracing speed.

Human Error?

Our response to these arguments is pretty simple: These are all fair points. Nevertheless, we’re confident that such inconsistencies do not distort the basic results of our touchscreen shootout. In other words, the inconsistencies are real, but they don’t make much difference.

Nevertheless, to satisfy the critics, we decided to give them exactly what they asked for: We wrote a script for MOTO’s laboratory robot and then re-ran the comparison to see how the touchscreens stack up when the lines are drawn by our robot’s slow and precise “finger.” (See the robot in action, in video below.)

Add Some New Contenders

Before running the robot test, we also decided to satisfy the many requests we received to add the Palm Pre and the Blackberry Storm 2 to the mix. How did the new phones perform? The Blackberry and the Palm touchscreens both performed fairly well. The iPhone still retains its crown as King of the smartphone touchscreens, with the Nexus One in a distant second. Take a look:

Understanding the Results

Touchscreen performance variation occurs because there is no out-of-the-box solution for manufacturers that hope to install multi-touch screens in consumer electronic devices.

To get it right, gadget-makers have to assemble a variety of critical elements — screen hardware, software algorithms, sensor tuning, and user-interface design, to name but a few — and then refine each component of the stack to deliver the best touchscreen experience possible. It’s a complex and laborious process that requires extremely close collaboration between multidisciplinary teams, as well as a high-level vision for a quality end-user experience.

Indeed, from a consumer perspective, what matters most isn’t the performance of the touchscreen itself, but how well a touchscreen performs in combination with its operating system and user-interface to deliver an experience that is satisfying overall.

Still, it’s useful to look at touchscreen performance in isolation, because it is a central ingredient in the mix and a good indicator of how satisfying a touchscreen experience is likely to be.

Watch the video for the full story. (Mobile viewers click here.)

Does the Drawing App Make a Difference?

Some readers who saw our last DIY Touchscreen Analysis post wondered what drawing applications we used, and if the drawing application could influence the results by either compensating for or distortng hardware performance.

Developers who create drawing apps sometimes add smoothing algorithms to make the input look more natural. However, the artifacts of these algorithms are fairly easy to identify with casual exploration. We chose drawing applications which we found not to do minimal (if any) smoothing of the input data.

In any case, smoothing is most effective only if you are moving quickly – with the snail-like pace of the test robot, you can see that the data, as captured, appears immediately on the screen and never changes to a “smoothed” version.

Of course you don’t have to take our word for it – try it yourself! Here are the apps we used:

Blackberry Storm: Canvas
iPhone: SimpleDraw
Droid Eris, Droid: DrawNoteK
Palm Pre: Super Paint
Google Nexus One: SimplyDraw

Human v. Robot

Finally, as predicted, the lineup below shows how our simple finger-test correlates quite closely with the more formal results when we got when we used our ultra-precise, ultra-consistent robot in MOTO’s laboratories:

Indeed, notice that by and large, the results look even worse in the robot tests. That’s because the robot drew lines at only a quarter-inch per second — much more slowly than our ” DIY test.

And as we we’ve explained previously, low speed is crucial to testing the true performance of the screen, because tracing high speeds skips over the many data points captured at slow speed, causing lines to look straighter than they actually are. Because the robotic finger is somewhat less compliant than a human finger, it is a little harder to detect. This confuses poor screens even more than when humans attempt the test.

A Prediction

In the long run, however, we don’t expect this high degree of touchscreen variation between handset manufacturers to continue in such dramatic form.

Right now, capacitive touchscreens are a relatively new feature to appear in consumer electronics products. And as we’ve pointed out several times before, creating a seamless touchscreen experience is hard work that requires a high level of commitment to technology integration and interdisciplinary teamwork. Over time more brand-name manufacturers will acquire the expertise required to deliver excellent touchscreen products.

We know for a fact that the solutions in these phones (other than the iPhone) are all last-generation silicon and touch panel components – the other touch screen makers are hard at work perfecting their new solutions, and they may just leapfrog Apple in some areas when they arrive on the market over the next year.

Just consider the “door slam test” that’s often used to evaluate the build-quality of automobiles. Like touchscreen devices, cars are complex machines that require a high level of system integration. A decade ago, the difference in quality between established manufacturers like BMW or Mercedes and a relative newcomer like Hyundai was dramatic. A door-slam on the former felt solid and precise; the latter felt loose and tinny. Yet today Hyundai has closed the gap, and many of the company’s cars pass the door-slam test in world-class style.

In other words, practice can help make perfect. It’ll be interesting to re-run our touchscreen test a year or two from now to see how the playing field starts to even-up.

When Four Cores Aren't Enough: Intel's Core i7-980X Extreme Edition

8:48 AM | by Prabhath

Intel has announced its latest Extreme Edition processor, the Core i7-980X. Like the recently released 2010 Clarkdale lineup, the i7-980X (previouslycode-named Gulftown) brings Intel's turbo boost and hyperthreading technologies to the 32nm process. The i7-980X is also Intel's first processor with six physical cores, offering increased system performance in applications optimized to take advantage of them.

The Core i7-980X will essentially replace Intel's current performance king, the 45nm Core i7-975 Extreme Edition. While the Core i7-975 will still be available, the new six-core processor will be offered at the same $999 price point--that's six cores for the price of four! But how much of a difference can two extra cores make?

At a glance, the Core i7-975 and the Core i7-980X are identical. Both sport a base clock speed of 3.33GHz, report a TDP rated at 130W, and support three channels of DDR3-1066 memory. But two additional cores means that the processor has 12 threads for an application to work with, versus four cores and 8 threads in the i7-975.

Intel Gulftown You'll also find a 12MB L3 cache shared across all six of those cores, as opposed to the 8MB cache in the i7-975. A processor's cache functions as a memory storage area, where frequently accessed data remains readily accessible. A larger L3 cache shared across all six cores allows data to be exchanged among them far more readily, improving performance in multithreaded applications. With a large cache and four extra virtual threads, you'd expect to find the greatest appreciable performance difference between the two chips in applications designed to take advantage of multiple cores--and our test results reflected as much.

For our tests, Intel provided a pair of DX58SO motherboards. Serial upgraders should be pleased to note that the Core i7-980X is compatible with existing X58 chipsets. Just drop it into your existing motherboard, and you're (almost) ready to go; we had to perform a required, but painless, BIOS update. Our second test bed was equipped with the aforementioned Core i7-975 Extreme Edition processor. Both test beds also carried 6GB of RAM, 1TB hard drives, ATI Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards, and optical drives for loading software. We ran all of our tests on Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (64-bit).

Intel Core i7-980X Intel is pitching the Core i7-980X as the the premier part for the enthusiast gaming crowd. In our tests, we did see some improvements over the Core i7-975, but they were marginal. In Unreal Tournament 3 (1920-by-1200 resolution, high settings), the Core i7-980X cranked out 159.9 frames per second as compared to the Core i7-975's 155.4 fps, a 2.8 percent improvement. In Dirt 2, the Core i7-980X offered 73.3 fps, against the Core i7-975's 71.7 fps--a 2.2 percent increase.

Those results are hardly surprising. Despite the proliferation of multicore processors, many modern video games have yet to take full advantage of multithreading. Sega's recently released Napoleon: Total War and Ubisoft's upcoming R.U.S.E. have both touted their Core i7-980X optimization, claiming greater detail and realism thanks to simply having more physical cores to work with.

Other games boasting optimization for more than four processor threads include Ubisoft's Far Cry 2, Capcom's Resident Evil 5, and Activision's Ghostbusters. That being said, if you recently sprang for a Core i7-975 and are strictly a gamer, there's no need to curse your poor timing--at least, not until more developers fully commit to the multithreaded bandwagon.

If, on the other hand, you spend much of your time working with multithreaded applications--including Blender, Adobe Photoshop, and Sony Vegas Pro--coughing up $1000 for your workstation's processor might not necessarily be a bad idea.

The most tangible results will be apparent in applications designed to sprawl across as many cores as possible. Take Maxon's Cinema 4D, 3D animation software used by professionals in numerous industries. In Maxon's Cinebench CPU benchmark--which can utilize up to 64 processor threads--the six-core i7-980X saw a 40 percent improvement in performance over the quad-core i7-975.

When considering a processor with a 130W TDP, there's a good chance that saving a few bucks on your energy bill isn't your chief concern. Nevertheless, the Core i7-980X does offer perceptible gains over the i7-975. With all power-saving features disabled, power utilization at peak levels for the i7-980X was 210 watts, versus the i7-975's 231 watts. That's a 10 percent difference in what seems like the wrong direction, indicative of the potential power savings of the smaller 32nm process.

There's a lot to like here, but that's to be expected--this is a $1000 piece of silicon, after all. As far as gamers are concerned, the i7-980X may not blow the i7-975 out of the water currently, but in this case the performance bottleneck lies in the lack of available multithreaded offerings--a trend that's already begun to change. If this chip is in your price bracket, it's well worth the cost of entry provided that you haven't plunked down for an Extreme Edition processor too recently. And as multicore processors and multicore-optimized applications become increasingly common, you'll be able to put all six of those cores to good use--for work and play.

Google Goes Social with Google Buzz

10:35 AM | by Prabhath

It’s official: Google has just announced Google Buzz, its newest push into the social media foray. This confirms earlier reports of Gmail integrating a social status feature.

On stage revealing the new product was Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president for product management. While introducing the product, Mr. Horowitz focused on the human penchant for sharing experiences and the social media phenomenon of wanting to share it in real time. These two key themes were core philosophies behind Google Buzz.

“It’s becoming harder and harder to find signal in the noise,” Bradley stated before introducing the product manager for Google Buzz, Todd Jackson.

Here are the details:

Google Buzz: The Details

- Mr. Jackson introduced “a new way to communicate within Gmail.” It’s “an entire new world within Gmail.” Then he introduced the five key features that define Google Buzz:

- Key feature #1: Auto-following
- Key feature #2: Rich, fast sharing experience
- Key feature #3: Public and private sharing
- Key feature #4: Inbox integration
- Key feature #5: Just the good stuff

- Google then began the demo. Once you log into Gmail, you’ll be greeted wiht a splash page introducing Google Buzz.

- There is a tab right under the inbox, labeled “Buzz”

- It provides links to websites, content from around the web. Picasa, Twitter, Flickr and other sites are aggregated.

- It shows thumbnails when linked to photos from sites like Picasa and Flickr. Clicking on an image will blow up the images to almost the entire browser, making them easier to see.

- It uses the same keyboard shortcuts as Gmail. This makes sense. Hitting “R” allows you to comment/reply to a buzz post, for example.

- There are public and private settings for different posts. You can post updates to specific contact groups. This is a lot like Facebook friend lists.

- Google wants to make sure you don’t miss comments, so it has a system to send you an e-mail letting you know about updates. However, the e-mail will actually show you the Buzz you’ve created and all of the comments and images associated with it.

- Comments update in real time.

- @replies are supported, just like Twitter. If you @reply someone, it will send a buzz toward an individual’s inbox.

- Google Buzz has a “recommended” feature that will show buzzes from people you don’t follow if your friends are sharing or commenting on that person’s buzz. You can remove it or change this in settings.

- Google is now speaking about using algorithms to help filter conversations, as well as mobile devices related to Buzz.

The Mobile Aspect

- Google buzz will be accessible via mobile in three ways: from Google Mobile’s website, from Buzz.Google.com (iPhone and Android), and from Google Mobile Maps.

- Buzz knows wher you are. It will figure out what building you are and ask you if it’s right.

- Buzz has voice recognition and posts it right onto your buzz in real-time. It also geotags your buzz posts.

- Place pages integrate Buzz.

- In the mobile interface, you can click “nearby” and see what people are saying nearby. NIFTY, if I say so myself.

- You can layer Google Maps with Buzz. You can also associate pictures with buzz within Google Maps.

- Conversation bubbles will appear on your Google Maps. They are geotagged buzz posts, which lets you see what people are saying nearby.

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