Intel is using the Computex trade show taking place in Taipei this week to outline the company’s vision for the mobile space in the coming years. Intel has stated that it is making changes to its roadmap in an attempt to accelerate a new class of ultra-thin and light mobile products dubbed “ultrabooks”. Intel’s plan...
A few weeks back, NVIDIA broke the news that official SLI support was coming to some future AMD chipset-based motherboards. And the first of those ‘boards has arrived in the HH labs, the Asus CrossHair V Formula. The Asus CrossHair line of motherboards for AMD processors has long been a favorite amongst enthusiast and this latest addition...
If Intel's impending march into the mobile space is supposed to intimidate ARM, it isn't working, at least not publicly. Just a day before Computex 2011 kicked off, the current leader in mobile processors for handheld devices like smartphones and tablets declared that it intends to grab half of the mobile PC market by 2015. According to ARM...
A few months back, NVIDIA demoed its upcoming quad-core SoC for future tablets and related mobile devices, dubbed Kal-El. At the time, NVIDIA claimed that Kal-El would deliver 5x the performance of current Tegra 2 solutions and ship with a 12-core GeForce GPU as well. And now, NVIDIA is showing off Kal-El again, but this time with an impressive...
NVIDIA has just announced that a new, more affordable, wired 3D Vision kit will soon hit the market. The NVIDIA 3D Vision wired glasses will arrive with an MSRP of only $99 and allow compatible GeForce owners to enjoy the benefits of NVIDIA’s 3D technologies with a pair of active shutter glasses connected to a single USB port. Full details...
As promised, Microsoft has aired the first single-player campaign trailer for Gears of War 3. It aired, as expected, at the end of the Champions League final between Barcelona and Manchester United (won by Barcelona). This first full trailer opens by basically re-hashing the earlier released teaser trailer featuring protagonist Marcus Fenix...
It looks like Samsung is one company that doesn't have any intention of singing the summertime blues. Instead, Samsung announced plans to ramp up its Android efforts to stay competitive in the growing tablet and smartphone markets, which includes releasing new Galaxy Tab models this summer. The new versions of the Galaxy Tab will come in two...
In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and a Half Geeks Dave, Iyaz and Marco discuss Android 3.1 becoming available for the Asus Eee Pad Transformer, AMD's new FirePro V7900 and V5900 Professional workstation-class Graphics cards, the Asus ET2400 all-in-one touchscreen desktop system, and how HTC has opened their bootloader back up to...
We've seen some fairly unusual motherboards, and some fairly advanced ones as well. But what about a mainboard with an SSD infused onto it? It's true, and it's real. Gigabyte has just announced a new mainboard with an SSD on it, the Z68XP-UD3-iSSD. The board has a 20GB Intel SSD 311 built right onto it, which enables users to take advantage...
Among the myriad of other products, like the Padfone, Asus has just unveiled and will likely continue to unveil at Computex this week were a pair of exciting ultraportable notebooks and netbooks that are sure to pique the interest of the discerning road-warriors out there. The just announced Asus UX Series ultraportable notebooks...
Asus has dropped news this morning of what could be considered the showstopper of Computex 2011 in Taipei Taiwan. With all the buzz this past year has brought to the smartphone and tablet space, it's actually surprising it took this long for a major player to step up with the almost too obvious innovation of combining both products together. ...
Android gamers have made emulators such as N64oid, Ataroid, Gearoid, Nesoid, Snesoid, Gensoid, and Gameboid popular on the Android Market. However, that seems to be past tense, at least for now, as all of those emulators, written by Yong Zhang (yongzh) have been pulled from the Market. According to Zhang, his developer account has been removed...
Wow. Big numbers out of the AMD camp, and we have to think that Intel is taking them seriously. Reportedly, AMD has sold through five million Fusion chips. For a company that just started shipping these things in volume at the start of this year, that's a mega milestone -- particularly in an economy where netbook sales are flagging. But with...
Like it or not, 3D has sunk its teeth into the industry, and it's not going anywhere soon. RealD and Samsung are the latest to link up surrounding 3D; the companies have just announced a license agreement for full resolution 3D panels to be used in PC and TV monitors. You may know RealD from those 3D flicks you've seen in the cinema, and Samsung...well,...
NAS adapters, or dongles that allow people to create their own Network and Cloud Storage networks, aren't totally new. But throwing USB 3.0 into the mix? That is! Addonics Technologies has done exactly that with their new 3rd-generation NAS adapter, which offers 30% faster performance, added support of NTFS and exFAT file systems, a WebDAV...
Gaming desktops, by and large, are large. Ahem, or should we say, "towering?" Either way, the bulk of hardcore gaming desktops on the market today ship in massive cases, with plenty of room for extra PCIe cards, hard drives, and pretty much anything else you'd want to toss in there. But small form factor systems have a place in all of this...
Media players are popping out every week or so it seems, so we shouldn't be surprised to see Habey USA popping out another. The company's been pushing smaller form factor machines for some while now, and their latest is the most attractive yet...at least for consumers. The new Low Profile Media Player is equipped with a Mac Mini-esque form...
NVIDIA just took the wraps off of a couple of new mobile GPUs at Computex and announced a slew of notebooks designs that will feature the new chips. The new GeForce GTX 560M and GT 520MX will be arriving very soon, in notebooks from Asus, Alienware, Clevo, Toshiba, MSI, and Samsung, among others. The GeForce GT 520MX is an entry level DirectX...
It's no iPhone killer. In fact, it's not even a smartphone. But these days, in a world seemingly saturated with slate-styled handsets that require a $30/month+ data plan to keep active, it's somewhat refreshing to see a simple alternative that gets back to the basics. For those in need of a phone that does little more than make/receive calls...
Your average coach airline seat won't have a power outlet, but you can bet the pilots have access to a couple of them. At least, we sure hope they do over at Alaska Airlines, because the company just green-lit a new program that will allow their aircraft to use iPad flight manuals instead of bulky, wasteful paper ones. They're claiming to...
It's a pretty big week for releases over on Verizon Wireless. The largest carrier in America just recently shipped the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, and a couple of big names will be joining that guy. LG's Revolution, HTC's Trophy and Motorola's Droid X2 also ship this week. That's a pretty stout lineup of phones, and we'll confess -- not too...
Symbian's dead. Long live Symbian? It seems to be the case these days, as Nokia's long-lived operating system may not be completely paralyzed just yet. In a very interesting twist and turn of events, newly instated CEO Stephen Elop has come out and proclaimed that Nokia will continue to support Symbian through 2016. When the company first...
We'll hand it to the major U.S. Carriers; for as much flack as they take on a daily basis, they have done a commendable job responding to disasters. Months back, all four of the major operators allowed Americans to phone Japan for free in the wake of the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami, and now Sprint is doing something similar for...
Are you a fan of television? A big, big fan of television? If so, we have to ask: when is the last time you watched a full commercial? For years now, media companies have been running around with great concern that viewers were using DVRs to simply bypass commercials, making those pricey advertisements that much less valuable. But is the DVR...
There's a lot of talk these days surrounding 3D. It's obviously the hottest topic around in the cinema business, but it's also getting a lot of attention in the consumer universe. Sales of 3DTVs has analysts and companies alike buzzing, and while many suggest that the adoption has been relatively slow and lackluster, much of that is blamed...
Samsung still isn't coming clean with a release date for the new and improved Galaxy Tab 10.1, but we have a pretty good indication that it'll be shipping sooner rather than later. Why? Because the GT-P7310 just landed in the FCC. If you aren't familiar with the process of FCC clearance, it generally works as such. A product that clears the...
Video: PowerColor HD6950 PCS+ Review @ OCC XFX's Triple Display Monitor Stand @ The Tech Report AMD FirePro V7900 @ Phoronix Gigabyte GTX 580 Super Overclock Review @ Hardware Canucks XFX Radeon HD 6790 Review by Ultimate Hardware AMD FirePro V5900 @ Phoronix Motherboards and Chipsets: GIGABYTE Z68X-UD7-B3 (Intel Z68) Motherboard Review @...
Looking to expand your home network? Love streaming media? You're in luck. D-Link has just announced their new Wireless N Dual Band MediaBridge, also known as the DAP-1513. The device is meant to bridge a wireless signal from either a 2.4GHz o a 5GHz network quicky and easily, enabling consumers to expand their wireless home network by connecting...
Mozilla on Friday flipped what's to become its Firefox 6 browser over to the Aurora channel where it's now available for download and testing. The Aurora channel is where Mozilla offers up early builds with the "newest innovations" before they make the jump to beta, and then eventually released as a final build. This early version of Firefox...
The integration of car and technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace, and while we can't really understand why this didn't happen sooner, we're taking late over never given that we don't really have a choice. As SYNC and other in-car infotainment technologies continue to spread like wildfire, Pioneer isn't missing their chance to do something...
It took long enough, but Sony Ericsson's long-awaited Xperia PLAY smartphone is finally available from a U.S. carrier. That carrier would be Verizon Wireless, the exclusive home to this handset in the United States. It seems like an eternity ago when we first heard about this phone, and now, the actual launch of it just seems to be a forgotten...
Earlier in the week, The Boston Globe reported that some cinemas were not using Sony's 4K projectors properly when showing 2D content, noting that the amount of light and color could be drastically reduced if a 3D projector were not tuned for 2D performance. Boy, that made Sony all kinds of angry. The company wasted no time responding to the...
It's not often that major electronics companies really listen to consumer complains and suggestions. Far too often, customers are left to feel as if they're just being ignored, even when addressing things like warranty work. But it's pretty obvious that HTC isn't one of those companies. The phone maker made a surprise move this week, announcing...
The tablet wars, in some minds, are over. The iPad and iPad 2 have shot to stardom, and every tablet that has arrived to try and topple either of them has largely failed. Not that other tablets haven't sold, but there are no tablets that come anywhere close to the iPad in terms of market share and mind share. But could that change with the...
The upside to having Netflix on Android? Well, that's pretty obvious. The downside? It's only available on select phones. At first, it looked like the LG Revolution may be the only phone of the season to support Netflix, but a recent update to the app within the Android Market has added support for three additional phones. The new kids? That...
In our recent detailed coverage of Asus' ever-fab, Editor's Choice-winning Eee Pad Transformer tablet, we told you that even better things lie ahead as Google rolls out their 3.1 release of Android Honeycomb. Little did we know that roll-out would be coming sooner than later. Today, a buzzy, fuzzy little Bumble Bee floated a new Transformer...
Google today announced a new flight search feature that makes it easy to look up specific flight schedules. If you have the urge to march on down to the the airport on your lunch break and hightail it out of town -- maybe to the Bahamas? -- you can easily see a list of all the flights going where you want to go, as well as other helpful information....
Start-up BlueStacks has emerged from stealth mode to wow the world with software that lets Windows PCs dual boot with Android. The Campbell, Calif. company was thrown into the spotlight this week when Citrix announced during its Synergy 2011 user conference that it would be embedding BlueStacks into its desktop virtualization software, Citrix...
Well, it had to happen at some point, right? When things are just too good to be true, they rarely last. That's what has happened with Verizon Wireless' unlimited data plans. At the launch of LTE, it was possible to buy a smartphone and get unlimited 4G for the same price as 3G. Clearly, that was simply an introductory offer. Now, Verizon...
On the same day that Google unveiled its mobile payment service, Google Wallet, it was sued by PayPal. The suit claims trade secret misappropriation related to (what else) mobile payment systems. Reportedly, the timing of the lawsuit was coincidental, in terms of Google's announcement. The Google executives targeted in the lawsuit were not:...
There used to be a season for laptop launches. Now, it's just one right after the other. Sony is launching yet another new one this week with the VAIO S Series, a revamped version of a classic that packs a thinner chassis and an optional sheet battery that doubles battery life (up to 15 hours). Select S Series models sport elegant design in...
If there's one thing that's for certain in the mobile space, it's this: creating a new wireless network from scratch is difficult. Really difficult. Clearwire has had their fair share of hurdles to leap over, and even though they have tons of funding, creating a 4G nationwide network is no easy task. If you've been following wireless developments...
As expected, Google unveiled its mobile payments service on Thursday. Google Wallet will launch in trials this summer in New York, Portland, and San Francisco, with other cities to follow. Google Wallet requires an NFC-equipped smartphone, and the trials will begin using Sprint's Nexus S 4G. If for no other reason than that the phone is CDMA...
What's that you say, there's a weakening in demand for PCs? Blame it on the tablets! Netbook sales are slowing down too? Darn you, iPad! Slumping hard drive sales? It has to be due to slates and their oh-so-fancy solid state storage! Suffering from jock itch? TMI dude, and for the record, that's one thing you can't blame on tablets; we should...
One thing you can't really say about Intel's Atom processors is that they're expensive. If they were, netbooks would cost a lot more than they do, people would stop buying them, and the market would cease to exist, as least as we know it. Be that as it may, Intel's next generation of Atom chips will cost even less than they already do, and...
Soon, Verizon Wireless customers will have a third smartphone option that supports 4G LTE speeds. The Revolution by LG will be available in Verizon Wireless Stores and online on May 26. This phone will be the first Android smartphone preloaded with the Netflix application. Key features of the Revolution include a 4.3-inch touchscreen, 1 GHz...
Corsair introduced a new memory kit that it is calling “the world’s fastest production 8GB PC memory kit.” The new Dominator GTX 8GB dual-channel DDR3 kit will operate at 2400MHz with latency settings of 9-11-10-30, at a memory voltage of 1.65V. Qualification is performed on an Intel P55 motherboard. The Dominator GTX 8GB...
During Microsoft's recent "Mango" launch event in New York City, a number of new faces were shown off. Microsoft's partner list for Windows Phone 7 is growing, and while Nokia is obviously "the new face" of the operating system, HTC is also a huge name that the company's trying to court. And now, it seems like it's a date. HTC has in the past...
NVIDIA has just announced that YouTube is now hosting 3D Vision video, so users can access, view, and share stereoscopic 3D videos worldwide. To view the videos in proper 3D, you’ll obviously need an NVIDIA 3D Vision or compatible 3DTV Play setup as well as a new version of FireFox with the requisite plug-in. There are already a ton...
AOC recently introduced the Aire Black LED monitor line. Featuring a razor-thin profile and an attractive glossy-black finish, these new monitors are aimed at business professionals and home users looking for an affordable display that doesn't look cheap. The one we're looking at today is AOC's 22-inch model, the $149 E2243FWK, though the...
AT&T has announced the first cities that will get its 4G LTE service. These cities, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Atlanta and San Antonio, will see AT&T's version of of LTE this summer. Verizon's LTE service, which launched in real (non-beta testing) form late last year, though sans handsets, has vowed to get its LTE service into 175 markets...
Apple has finally responded to the Mac Defender malware that has infected a number of Mac users, but while Apple took considerable time before it took any action, the malware writer did not: he already has a new variant available that is more dangerous than the original. The new malware has a new name for its fake antivirus component: MacGuard....
Yet another punch is being thrown in the e-reader war. With Kobo and B&N both launching new e-readers this week, Amazon just had to step in with news of their own. And they did. The company introduced an ad-supported version of the 3G Kindle, a $164 version that costs $25 less than the non-ad-supported variant. It still includes free 3G...
Desktops? Digital Storm's got 'em by the truckload. The company's newest, however, is a real eye-catcher. It's the ODE, a so-called "perfect gaming PC," according to the company. It's a highly configurable pre-built gaming rig, with a crazy liquid cooled 5.0GHz extreme overclocked Intel i7 2600K processor, dual SLI configuration of two NVIDIA...
MicroSD cards. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. Okay, so that's definitely a stretch, and definitely doesn't genuinely apply to microSD cards, but if you're an Android user with loads of media, there's no doubt that these things are super important in your daily life. And just in case the 8GB or 16GB card that shipped with your...
We'll admit it, the Internet's a better place because of YouTube, the online video sharing site acquired by Google in 2006 for a cool $1.65 billion. YouTube, which turns six today, has its flaws -- what six-year-old doesn't? -- but for the most part, we still find ourselves watching the occasional video. We're far from alone. In celebration...
Aren't desktop replacements supposed to look big, bad, and aggressive? Apparently not all of them do, that is if you consider Sony's new Vaio F Series laptop to be one of them. Dressed in nearly all white (or all black, if you prefer), the sophisticated looking Vaio F Series is a 16.4-inch notebook built for multimedia chores. The least expensive...
Boutique, ultra high-end, desktop and laptop gaming systems are sexy, but they aren't where OEMs make the majority of their money. More modest systems, like the one we'll show you here, drive bulk purchases; today we're reviewing Asus' ET2400IGTS. It's one of the nicer all-in-one systems Asus manufactures and it ships with a number of interesting...
In mid-April, Apple sued Samsung over the design of several of its devices, alleging that the Korean electronics firm copied its designs from the iPhone and iPad. Now, a federal court is forcing Samsung to hand over samples of new phones for Apple to pore over. While naturally some of these phones have been released (the list of devices Apple...
In addition to new 4G plans, T-Mobile also introduced new family and individual plans w a variety of price points that will provide unlimited talk, unlimited text, and data without overage fees. The new plans offer between 200MB and 10GB of data, depending on the plan you choose. T-Mobile’s plans include an entry-level data plan for...
Are you a Comcast subscriber? Judging by their massive customer base, there's a pretty good chance you are, or at least that someone you know is. And if so, you've probably ventured out to try the new Xfinity TV app, which aims to extend the Pay-TV universe into the world of the iPad and iPhone. For Comcast subscribers, this is the easiest...
Dell is adding to its desktop virtualization solutions portfolio with an enhanced Dell Virtual Lab 2.0 solution and new Dell OptiPlex FX170 and FX130 thin clients. The new Virtual Lab 2.0 solution is designed for colleges and universities. It comes with validation testing on six of the most popular applications and Dell anticipates that seven...
HDTVs may be the hot "thing," but let's not forget about the real display hero. The one you enjoy each time you take the seat in a cinema. Yes, the projector. BenQ's W1100 and W1200 Full HD projectors have been revealed today, built around TI's DLP technology and supporting a native 1080p resolution. The W1100 has a twelve-lens optical system,...
What's gold, rounded, and has a built-in cell radio? Nokia's new Oro, of course! This is easily one of the most unexpected phones to ever surface, particularly with Nokia slashing staff, focusing on hardware and shifting to Windows Phone 7. Something about the Oro just doesn't "fit." Of course, this phone was probably prototyping months and...
On the same day that Microsoft introduced a ton of new features within the upcoming "Mango" build of Windows Phone 7, Barnes & Noble introduced something of their own: an all-new NOOK. It's a new touch-sensitive reader with improved battery life (up to 2 months on a single charge), an ultra-light frame, full touchscreen, a 6" E Ink Pearl...
While lots of attention are being flung in the direction of Firefox and Chrome these days (and the newest installment of Internet Explorer, to some extent), Opera is also making headway in the crowded browser market. Opera Mini 6 has just launched today for iOS; specifically, iPhone and iPad. It's available to download right now for free in...
Do we really need two more eReaders to choose from? Oh, of course we do! Competition's good for the soul, and Aluratek is bringing just that with the addition of the Libre Air and Libre Touch. The company has just announced two new Wi-Fi eReaders into their Libre lineup, with both of them shipping now, providing 100 free eBooks and boasting...
NZXT is a little late in trying to capitalize on the Avatar hype, and entirely way to early to pitch a branded product as being based off of a classic (like Star Wars, for example). But whatever, we'll cut NZXT some slack here because, well, the company's new Avatar S gaming mice look really cool. These rodents inspired by James Cameron's...
While we wait on official word from Apple. unofficially, the App Store is now home to more than 500,000 applications for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. That's an incredible milestone, especially given Apple's often tight restrictions for what passes muster as an allowable app. That half a million figure is according to Chomp (application...
Dell has made the XPS 15z official. The new ultra-thin laptop, a MacBook Pro competitor in a 15.6-inch package, wasn't exactly a secret, but now those looking to buy one can start pricing and customizing them, on Dell's website, as of May 24. The Dell XPS 15z is, as expected, priced at $999.99 to start. The highest-end models start at $1922.99....
T-Mobile announced two new 4G data plans that don’t require an annual contract. With the new Monthly4G plans customers will get unlimited Talk, unlimited Text and Web service on their smartphone. For $50 per month, users will get unlimited talk, unlimited text and 100 MB of data at up to 4G speeds. For $70 per month, another plan provides...
T-Mobile is doubling the speed of its 4G network in more than 50 markets throughout the country. With the increase, customers will now enjoy speeds up to 42Mbps. Going along with this speed increase, T-Mobile also announced its first 42 Mbps-capable 4G product, the T-Mobile Rocket 3.0 laptop stick. The Rocket 3.0 will be available at select...
In the on-again, off-again rumors about Apple lining up retail space in Grand Central Terminal (often incorrectly dubbed "Station"), it appears its on again. According to The Wall Street Journal, Apple is indeed in discussions 15,000 sq. ft. space in the terminal, which would be a fairly large retail outlet, although not the Cupertino, CA...
Xbox 360 gamers have had relatively little choice when it comes to control methods. There's the official controller, a few joysticks, and a handful of third-party controllers that usually weren't up to snuff with Microsoft's own. But this is something radically different. Not quite "Kinect radical," but as far as controllers go, this is pretty...
The full, Gold-master release of Firefox 4 is still behind held close to the chest, but already Mozilla is thinking about Firefox 5. The next major iteration of the browser is destined to bring about some fairly serious upgrades, and the company managed to ship the beta of FF5 last Friday, right on time. It's also proof that the company is...
We've known that technology and automobiles have been growing closer for some time now, and Toyota is clearly riding that bandwagon for as long as it's going. The company just announced a new cloud computing initiative with Salesforce.com that will result in a new social network service, enabling owners to become "friends" with their cars,...
One reason to stick with Android, particularly for avid travelers, has been Google Maps Navigation. It's a built-in turn-by-turn navigation system that comes free with Android, and isn't available on iOS. But Google may be shooting themselves in the foot somewhat here. The company recently reported that 40% of all Maps usage is on mobile devices...
Video: MSI P67A-GD80 @ LanOC Reviews Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 1GB Vapor-X Video Card Review @ Tweaktown PowerColor PCS+ AX6950 Vortex II @ Benchmark Reviews Motherboards and Chipsets: Zotac H55ITX-C-E Motherboard at Modders-Inc ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe H67 mITX Motherboard Review @ APH Networks ECS H67H2-M H67 Motherboard Review @ eTeknix.com Memory...
Nokia and Microsoft obviously belong in the same sentence together, but Qualcomm? That's a new one. The company is reportedly getting set to join the Nokia/WP7 party in a big way, with Reuters reporting that Nokia is negotiating with "several chipset suppliers" for future Windows Phone handsets after selecting Qualcomm for use in their first...
Today we'll be looking at a couple of new AMD FirePro workstation-class graphics cards, the FirePro V7900 and FirePro V5900. With the AMD FirePro V7900, professional users are treated to 1280 stream processors, 2GB of GDDR5 memory, and 160GB/s of peak memory bandwidth. The AMD FirePro V5900 provides 512 stream processors, a 2GB frame buffer,...
On paper, Intel's Thunderbolt looks like an easy winner over the relatively new USB 3 standard. The USB extension offers 10x the bandwidth of USB 2 and supports full duplex operation, but is limited to 'just' 5Gbps. Thunderbolt—even the cut-back, copper-wire version that's standard on new Macbook Pros—offers 10Gbps of bi-directional...
Amazon and Barnes & Noble may be the current e-reader kings, but that doesn't mean that there's no room for rivals. Kobo has been giving them a (small) run for their money for years now, and today they've launched the Kobo eReader Touch Edition. This new device touts a new "Real Touch" experience, a new design, built-in Wi-Fi, and it's...
Embedded systems may not be the sexiest to talk about, but they're becoming increasingly powerful (and increasingly important). AMD has just announced the immediate availability of two new AMD Embedded G-Series APUs (Accelerated Processing Units) with thermal design power (TDP) ratings of 5.5 and 6.4 watts, up to a 39 percent power savings...
Hulu Plus continues to expand to additional Internet-connected devices. Now, the Hulu Plus subscription service is available on TiVo Premiere retail boxes. With this announcement, TiVo Premiere users will be able to access Hulu Plus content for a subscription fee of $7.99 per month. Until August 30, TiVo is offering a 6-month free trial of...
Are tablets that are tied to cellular networks and service plans less appealing than Wi-Fi only versions? Some people seem to think so. Although carriers such as AT&T and Verizon Wireless would like to use tablets such as Apple's iPad and the Motorola Xoom as key revenue makers, the high price of these tablets combined with additional...
It's the second such "pocket dialing leads to arrest" story in less than a month, and you have to admit, it makes one wonder a) what kind of cell phones these criminals are using, and b) why they don't use a belt holster. Authorities say a Georgia man "pocket-dialed" 911. The dispatcher on the other end of the line overheard people discussing...
When RIM Revealed the BlackBerry PlayBook in September 2010, the tablet was met with great excitement and hype, particularly from the professional, die-hard BlackBerry crowd. After what seemed like more than its fair share of delays, the Wi-Fi version of the BlackBerry PlayBook is now available at various retailers. Versions of the tablet...
You don't want to be the one everybody points and laughs at for using a reference cooler on a high end graphics card, do you? Maybe that's a little melodramatic; realistically, reference coolers aren't all that bad. But if you dream of a cooler running GPU and faster clocks, third-party cooling solutions are the way to go. HIS Digital announced...
The Android Market now has movie rentals. One problem for those who take the popular step of rooting their devices: those devices can stay home, as they won't be able to view any of the movies. End users attempting to rent a movie from the Android Market even get a clue as to why, based on the specific error message they receive: "Failed to...
The marketing gurus at Apple sure know how to generate some buzz, don't they? Early last week, word leaked out that Apple was planning something special for its Apple Store's 10th retail anniversary. Around 10-15 employees from each Apple Store were called in to work an overnight shift on Saturday through mid-Sunday, and were shut off from...
Heads-up, MeeGo fanatics! While the OS obviously has less support from major companies now than ever before, there's still a large amount of fans out there, and developers as well. The Meego Conference kicks off in San Francisco this week, and there's a new MeeGo release to go along with it. MeeGo 1.2 has just been revealed, with the new release...
Lady Gaga uses Chrome, would you have known? Or, at least she claims to in a new Google ad. Airing first during this weekend's episode of Saturday Night Live, the latest Chrome ad is likely the longest yet, and undoubtedly the most starstruck. It's a 1.5 minute ad, which is wildly long for a TV spot. It's an ad that showcases Chrome and Chrome...
Augmented reality has a long way to go before it's widely used in mainstream homes, but it's already progressing to a point where technology lovers are taking notice. The Nintendo 3DS makes great use of AR, and clearly Sony doesn't want to be left behind in the race. The company has recently revealed a new kind of AR, called SmartAR. In typical...
New portable hard drives seem to be popping up today at a blistering pace, but one thing most of 'em can't handle is severe drop. That's where Clickfree's newest drive comes in. The company's auto-backup line is gaining a new member this week, with the introduction of the C2 Rugged. This toughened-up drive claims to be the planet's only rugged...
Intel's Sandy Bridge is definitely the platform of the moment. Every notebook maker in existence is doing everything they can to get the newer chipsets into their machines, and while HP has already rolled SB out in a number of units, what's not to love about one more? The company has just made official the Pavilion G6s, a colorful new machine...
Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 1GB Graphics Card Review @ eTeknix.com ASUS Radeon HD 6870 Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews MSI N560GTX Ti Hawk Video Card @ Benchmark Reviews ASUS GeForce GTX 560 1GB DirectCU II TOP Video Card Review @ Tweaktown Mobile Monitor Field Monitor Pro 15.4-Inch Portable LCD Monitor Review @ Tweaktown Motherboards...
We've often wondered how long it would take companies to finally start adopting USB 3.0 en masse. It's been a couple of years now, and SuperSpeed ports are still few and far between. It's not like the USB standard stands any chance of being neglected, so what's the holdup? Well, these things always take time, and implementation is always easier...
Recently, Sprint and Google teamed up for tight integration between Sprint handsets and Google Voice. While this was seen as a great idea, perhaps it's not such a great deal if you take into account the gotcha. There are two ways to integrate Google Voice on a Sprint handset. They are: Option 1: Keep your Sprint number: Your Sprint number...
Last fall, Walmart launched a test to see how well a Walmart Wireless Shop would perform. The test launched in about 20 flagship stores. Each of the Walmart Wireless Shops is about 2,000 square feet in size. They carry a range of smartphones and cell phones and offer a variety of pre- and post-paid service plans. Since the initial test of...
More Angry Birds? Of course! Who could be tired of Rovio's runaway hit? There's no question that the company is definitely milking this hit for all that it's worth, but every instance of Angry Birds is so good that we're forgiving them for this one. In fact, we're celebrating it. Windows Phone 7 remains one of the only platforms that Angry...
Verizon Wireless will soon get its first Windows Phone 7 smartphone in the form of the HTC Trophy. The Trophy will feature a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 3.8-inch touchscreen, 5-megapixel camera, 16GB of storage, and global connectivity capabilities. In addition to the mobile gaming features that come with the Windows Phone platform, customers...
You won't be buying one of these for your home PC, but those in the enterprise world are probably licking their chops. Texas Memory Systems is right up there with Fusion-io in the insanely-fast Flash NAND space, and the company has just launched a new high-performance RamSan-70, a 900GB half-length PCIe card that sports Toshiba's latest 32nm...
At Google I/O earlier this month, Google introduced (briefly) a Samsung-labeled Chrome desktop box. But while it looked a lot like the Mac Mini, there still aren't any true details to show people what it may be capable of. Google also stated that they'd continue to push Chromium for those who want a taste of Chrome on a non-sanctioned machine,...
Picked up a new Intel SSD lately? If it's the SSD 320, you're in for some good news. While solid state drives are best known for being more reliable and durable than HDDs, there have been some fragmenting issues and performance-related issues along the way. Now, those who purchase an SSD 320 will have a little less to worry over. Intel has...
Verizon Wireless continues to expand its 4G LTE network. Recently, the carrier added nine new metropolitan areas to its growing list of LTE coverage areas. The new markets include Mobile and Montgomery Ala.; Greater Fairfield and New Haven, Conn.; Gainesville, Pensacola and Tallahassee, Fla.; Fayetteville-Lumberton, N.C.; and Bryan-College...
Most powerful? Most amazing? We hear it all the time, but what does it really mean? In the case of Maingear's newest machine, it means that the mega gaming laptop makers of the world have even more competition. The company has just announced that they're launching the "most powerful 17" 3D gaming notebook" on the market, with their machine...
Origin's EON line of gaming PCs was never a slow one. In fact, it was one of the most blazing lines around, with wicked customization options and a sky-is-the-limit vibe to it. Now, there's even more wow-factor packed in. The company has just upgraded the EON17-S with a 1080p 3D panel and overclocking options that push the CPU to 4.8GHz! Yes,...
It's back! No, not the McRib, Virgin Mobile USA's $20 no-contract broadband plan! The company has just announced a new expansion to their Broadband2Go offerings, with the triumphant return of the $20 plan leading the charge. This joins the current $10 and $50 plans, and provides 500MB with one month expiration for $20, offering another option...
Is big ever really big enough? Not in our world! LaCie knows that as well as anyone, and that's why they're announcing the 5big Storage Server in a new, expanded model. The company's pro-level sharing appliance is now offered in a 1TB model for user expandability, and you can order one with up to 10TB of expandable capacity. You'll also get...
The nascent tablet market segment has already strained the Wintel alliance; both Microsoft and Intel have made marketing/strategic decisions that the other isn't fond of. Intel's recent financial analyst day has only made things worse; Microsoft is quite unhappy with the CPU manufacturer's remarks regarding Windows 8. Microsoft's declaration...
Microsoft offers student discounts on a range of software products, but the company's announcement today is a first. Writing for the Windows Team Blog, Kristina Libby notes that the company "come up with a way to help you succeed in the coming year, while building on the fun and friendships that are key to your life. Starting May 22, when...
Don't tell your HDTV this, but Sharp, along with NHK (a Japanese broadcaster) developed an 85-inch LCD TV that's the first direct-view display to support a native 7680x4320 resolution (33-megapixels). That renders the set compatible with Super Hi-Vision, a next generation broadcast format NHK has been working on for more than a decade. Talk...
At its financial analyst meeting earlier this week, Intel unveiled a series of strategic changes to its roadmap and gave investors a peek at the company's general strategy for the next few years. We've already touched on the company's decision to ramp more powerful Atom processors and its new, 15W mainstream notebook TDP target, but the company...
A large explosion blasted parts of Foxconn's Chengdu manufacturing plant in southwestern China earlier today, leaving behind 2 dead and at least 14 more injured. According to reports, scores of fire engines, ambulances, and police cars rushed to the scene. The cause of the explosion, is still being investigated, but as of this moment, no one...
Verizon Wireless Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo has confirmed what was already known, that Verizon will be ending its smartphone unlimited data plans later this year, replacing them with tiered data plans, similar to those already on Android tablets such as the Motorola Xoom. However, the company says it hopes the advent of "family data...
It's hard to understand the black eye unions have been given of late. In fact, a new study by the Center for American Progress confirms that without unions, the middle class withers. Thus, is it surprising to see that finally, after 10 years of Apple retail stores, they may unionize? Several media outlets were contacted by an organization...
In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and a Half Geeks, Dave, Iyaz and Marco discuss Samsung's Droid Charge 4G Verizon LTE smartphone, NVIDIA's new GeForce GTX 560 GPU, the MSI Slim X370 AMD Fusion Powered Notebook, Nintendo's draconian EULA for the Gameboy 3DS and hints about our next contest and killer gaming rig give-away... Show...
Clearwire and Ericsson, sitting in a tree? They probably aren't kissing, but they are in cahoots now. Clearwire just announced plans to leverage Ericsson's global best practices, tools, and processors in order to "maximize effeicients, provide continued network quality and reduce operating costs." That's a mouthful, but it boils down to something...
There's a new non-profit lobbying group in town, the Download Fairness Coalition, and it wants to stop double or triple taxation practices that states charge on digitally downloaded purchases, like music, movies or books. The group has pushed for, and gotten, a new bill dubbed the Digital Goods and Services Tax Fairness Act. The bill was introduced...
T-Mobile USA has done a fantastic job convincing the world that HSPA+ really is 4G, and now, they're willing to pay you to test out their claims. The company just launched a trade-in program for used handsets, enabling customers to save on new device purchases so long as they toss an old one in T-Mob's direction. Of course, all trade-in programs...
Will Google's Music Beta change the music industry? That remains to be seen, but having room for 20,000 tracks in the cloud is certainly interesting. And free? Yeah, free. For now, but still, it's free. Google is now sending out Beta invites to the general public, just a week after giving them out to Google I/O attendees and a day after providing...
LCDs are nice and all, but are they the future? Probably not. Sony is pushing towards a future filled with glasses-free 3D, and one that's flexible. At the SID Display Week conference this week in California, the company revealed a new flexible color e-paper display, which is one of the thinnest (and largest, by screen size) flexible displays...
These days, it's not enough to just give users the ability to listen to music on their handheld. Any 'ole iPod or phone can do that. It's about bringing that same functionality to the car. XtremeMac is an accessory company that has been doing just that for years now, and their latest product extends that with power and Bluetooth. The new InCharge...
You know what the greatest thing about owning a USB 3.0 thumb drive is? You get to point at all your USB 2.0 toting friends and laugh. So maybe that wouldn't be very nice, which leads us to the second best thing about a SuperSpeed drive: the transfer rates! Corsair today gave its Flash Voyager USB 3.0 thumb drive the green light to land on...
We remember being told growing up not to stare because it's rude and impolite, but we were never warned how difficult this one of many life's rules would prove to be. It's hard not to ogle over something as sleek and sexy as Toshiba's Qosmio X770 laptop, and if the real deal ends up looking anything like the pictures, this particular Qosmio...
Corsair announced the availability of the Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T mid-tower PC case. The special edition features a white chassis with black the ventilation grilles, drive bay covers, and other accents. Other new features include an impact-resistant acrylic plastic clear window on the side panel. Users can opt to replace...
Microsoft recently released a firmware update for the XBox 360, but has since found that it prevents a handful of older consoles from running disc-based games. (XBox Live Arcade downloads are presumably unaffected). The company states: "Following a recent update to our system software, we have become aware of an issue that is preventing...
Kingston is launching its DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 (DTU30G2) flash drive. As you can guess from its name, this drive uses a USB 3.0 controller. The new DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Generation 2 supports read speeds up to 100MB/s, and writes speed up to 70 MB/s. When plugged into a USB 2.0 port, the drive offers read and write speeds...
MSI's X-Slim lineup garnered industry-wide praise when launched a couple of years ago, and now the line-up is stepping up to Fusion. The X-Slim X370 is the company's newest ultraslim machine, and while it doesn't look too different than X-Slim machines of the past, the internals are definitely deserving of a closer look. The X370 is powered...
All it takes is a little bad publicity. Google is rolling out a fix to remedy the authToken security flaw we wrote about earlier. While Google early rolled out a client-side fix for Android 2.3.4 and higher, that left 99 percent of Android users still vulnerable. Considering how hard it is to get a new version of Android out to devices, Google...
A new blood test that will come on the market later this year in over-the-counter form is raising questions about just how much we should know, and what will be done with that knowledge. The test will, the maker says, be able to predict your life expectancy to within a decade. The test, by the company Life Length, is to come on the market...
Convergence is the word, and it's happening more and more each day. Western Digital has just launched their Photo View App, which pushes HD videos from iOS and Android devices wirelessly to the company's WD TV Live Hub for playback on one's HDTV. It's a new smartphone-to-HDTV video sharing feature, and so long as you have your phone around...
No one really thought this was unexpected, right? With every new Android release, a slew of devices gets the upgrade. And with the revealing of Android 3.1 at Google I/O, we figured it was only a matter of time before a whole host of Android tablets received the 3.1 update. Sure enough, the first major point release following Honeycomb is...
U-verse users -- look out, you've got upgrades! AT&T has just upgraded the U-verse Total Home DVR to control live TV on any television in your house, with the new service rolling out first to customers in Mobile, Alabama and Grand Rapids, Michigan. All other markets are expected to follow soon over the next few months, and we're guessing...
Going somewhere? Going somewhere where you'll need a rugged navigation system to get you there? Garmin's new Montana handheld offers just that, and the company's calling it the most advanced of its kind. It offers a rugged exterior, with multiple mounting and battery options, dual-orientation and screen layout options and support for a wide...
SIM cards are pretty small. The Micro-SIM within the iPhone 4 and iPad is even smaller. But is there a need to go even smaller? One could argue that you could never actually have an electronic component that's small enough; the world of tech is constantly evolving, and having smaller SIM cards would allow for smaller phones in the future....
In early 2010, a brand-new company named Righthaven began cutting deals with newspapers by promising to safeguard their content online. Said protection consists of suing anyone and everything for so-called copyright infringement, even in situations where no sane judge would rule infringement had taken place. Now the tables have turned; Righthaven...
Nintendo has taken a page from Sony's playbook, even as the video game giant struggles to recover from the impact of its decision to remove Other OS support. The Free Software Foundation recently examined* the EULA and privacy policy Nintendo attaches to the 3DS; both are far more draconian than corresponding agreements for the DSi, DSi XL,...
If we're going by market share numbers alone, then Intel rules the desktop world, and all but owns the netbook and nettop landscapes. But when it comes to mobile handheld devices like smartphones and tablets, well, ARM is the one flexing its muscle. It's no secret that Intel wants to make its presence known in this space, but how can it compete...
The Droid family on Verizon Wireless’ network continues to expand. Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to order the new Droid X2 from Motorola through www.verizonwireless.com. The phone will hit stores on May 26 for $199.99 with a two-year contract. The Droid X2 is the first smartphone in the Verizon Wireless lineup to offer a dual-core...
iBUYPOWER’s new flagship gaming desktop known as Erebus is now available. This system was designed with liquid cooling and overclocking in mind and features four radiators and 13mm high flow tubing that is capable of pumping 4.5 gallons per minute of cooling liquid to keep the system cool. The Erebus can be configured with up to six...
Facebook and Bing are making your searches smarter. As long as your friends are smart, anyway. Microsoft has just announced that Bing is undergoing a rather impressive update, where search will be driven by friends rather than "facts and links" solely. Research has shown the company that 90% of people seek advice from friends and family as...
The bad news: Google's Android platform has a vulnerability that could allow the credentials used to access Google Calendar, Contacts and possibly other accounts to be stolen. The good news: Google fixed this in Android 2.3.4. More bad news: Android 2.3.4 is only on 1 percent of Android handsets (it's that fragmentation thing). The problem...
The times are a-changing, and so is Nokia. Nokia isn't and never will be the company we've grown to know and love. With the Windows Phone 7 link, the company is remarking itself day by day, and one of the ways it's doing just that is by shedding Symbian as well as other mainstays to the OS. Like Ovi. The company just announced that Nokia will...
We knew HTC's Thunderbolt wouldn't be the only 4G LTE smartphone available on Verizon Wireless' network for long. Less than two months after the Thunderbolt made its debut, the Droid Charge by Samsung joined Verizon Wireless' lineup of 4G LTE smartphones. This smartphone boasts of a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display, 1GHz application processor,...
BMW has announced that it is working on a left-turn / u-turn assistant to assist in ensuring that drivers of their cars aren't going to hit oncoming cars while making a left or u-turn. Collisions caused by drivers making left turns are a major cause of accidents and motorcycle fatalities. The left-turn assistant will work at speeds up to 10...
There's no question that Barnes & Noble is just grasping for some press here, but hey, one million isn't anything to scoff at! The company has just reaching one million NOOK Apps downloads by NOOK Color customers, with the milestone being reached a week after NOOK App shopping was made available to all Color customers. Of course, Angry...
If the only thing preventing you from picking up a MacBook Air is the Core 2 Duo foundation, hang tight, things are about to get better (and significantly faster). According to reports, Apple is getting ready to refresh its MacBook Air line with Intel's Sandy Bridge platform and Thunderbolt interface. New models will be ready to launch in...
Last week was a huge coming-out party for Chrome OS, and now, even Microsoft is joining the festivities. How so? The company just added Chrome support for online Office apps, and they'll officially support apps running from SharePoint in SP1 (coming in June). That's all coming in the first major service pack for Office 2010, which is also...
Computex was heavily focused on tablet introductions last year, and it looks like some things actually don't change with time. This year, the June event will be home to over 10 new tablets that run on Intel chips; that's according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal. The show, which is held annually in Taiwan, could be a major launch...
There's plenty of drama and suspense leading up to the Apple Store's 10th retail anniversary, which will take place this Thursday, May 19th. It's a significant milestone, and if all the online chatter is to be believed, Apple might be planning seize the day by launching a new product. According to Boy Genius Report, around 10-15 employees...
SanDisk, a player in the flash memory storage business, just announced a definitive agreement to acquire Pliant Technology, a leading developer of enterprise solid state drives, for a cool $327 million in cash. The deal has already been approved by the board of directors of both companies and is now just pending regulatory review and approval....
Nvidia's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang has given his opinion on the Tegra 2 products currently for sale, and he's not particularly pleased. Glancing at the market, it's hard to blame him. Motorola's Xoom—easily the highest-profile Tegra 2 tablet launch thus far—launched without Flash support, a functional microSD slot, or support for Verizon's...
A few weeks back, we took a look at the Asus PA246Q ProArt 24-Inch LCD Monitor and came away thoroughly impressed. In our conclusion we said, “To say that this is a better display than your average, or even above average TN panel is like saying Ray Allen has an above average jump shot. The truth is the PA246Q is worlds apart from most...
Heather Mackey of Nvdia has written a new blog post discussing the company's hardware emulation equipment, thus affording us an opportunity to discuss a little-mentioned aspect of microprocessor development. Although we'll be discussing Nvidia products in particular, both software tools (aka, simulation) and hardware emulation are vital...
Lenovo announced the new ThinkCentre Edge 91z all-in-one desktop. As the first PC in the ThinkCentre Edge family, the new Edge 91z promises power in a compact design. Features for the ThinkCentre Edge 91z include up to Intel i7 Quad Core processors, 8 GB of DDR3 memory, 80 GB solid state drive storage or 1 TB hard drive, and optional ATI discrete...
Verizon Wireless will be the exclusive carrier for the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY, at least for a little while. This gaming-friendly smartphone comes preloaded with seven game titles. The smartphone will run on Android 2.3. Other key specs include a 1GHz Snapdragon II processor with Adreno 205 GPU, 4-inch multi-touch display, 5 megapixel rear-facing...
Do you remember that cheesy video we showed you that featured the ThinkPad X1? As expected, Lenovo has formally announced its latest addition to the ThinkPad line. The new ThinkPad X1 measures less than 17 mm, which makes it the thinnest ThinkPad. The laptop also offers choices of second generation Intel Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. This...
Apple is offering those customers with Apple hardware directly damaged as a result of the Japan earthquake and tsunami chance to possibly receive free repairs. The offer was posted on the company's Japanese website. It only applies to customers living in areas covered by Japan's Ministry of Health's Disaster Relief Act. It excludes...
The days of saying "the Amazon Appstore requires sideloading and thus can't be used on AT&T phones" may be ending. AT&T is reportedly beginning to push out updates to some older devices to enable sideloading functionality on them. Sideloading is a term that means the ability to install builds from non-Android Market sources. That could...
NVIDIA continues to flesh out their DirectX 11 GPU line-up, this time with a relatively affordable offering that drops in right between the GeForce GTX 560 Ti and GeForce GTX 550. The aptly named GeForce GTX 560 (sans Ti) launching today is essentially a replacement for the popular GeForce GTX 460 1GB. It’s outfitted with a similar number...
Elgato's doing it again. The company, which tends to focus on video-related gear for Mac users, has just released a dual network tuner that enables users to watch HDTV wirelessly on either a Mac or PC. The HDHomeRun box connects to a TV antenna or digital cable and wirelessly streams live television in full HD to any Mac or PC in the house,...
Samsung's Series 5 Chromebook stole the show last week, but it's clear that the Series 9 is a more premium machine. Samsung's new ultraportable flagship is finally on sale in America, with a stiff starting price of $1160. The company just launched pre-orders on the device last month, and now they're shipping. Great news for those who pre-ordered!...
Tablets in school? Man, where were these when we were back in 8th grade? Brainchild (an awesomely named company) has just revealed the Kineo, a 7" tablet and eBook reader that has just shipped to ten states in the U.S. in order to provide students with an all-new learning platform. Textbooks are so last century; with devices like the Kindle...
Is it a hard drive? Or is it a media streamer? Or is it both? The answer, believe it or not, is "C." Seagate has just created a totally wild new portable hard drive, which not only holds 500GB of storage and ships with a GoFlex adapter and a USB 3.0 cable, but also has a built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi module that enables it to serve media (photos,...
The Dell XPS 15z. You better get ready, because your next gaming laptop is coming, and coming soon. Dell's CEO has just tweeted that the company will have the XPS 15z coming soon, and while it's anyone's guess as to when "soon" is, it has to be sooner rather than later. Is that enough "soon" for you? The company has release a new teaser video...
PSN's back! PSN's back! Tell the world! Most of the world has known that Sony's PlayStation Network has been back online in most areas for a day now, but Sony's not satisfied with just bringing things back online. Now, the company's detailing a new plan to hook customers up who are forgiving the company and sticking with 'em. It's a "Welcome...
Today, Microsoft released its detailed security report covering the latter half of 2010. Industry tends in general are positive—vulnerability disclosures in 2010 fell 16.5 percent from their 2009 levels and approximately 35 percent from 2006. Microsoft's own share of the vulnerability pie rose from 4.5 percent in 2009 to 7.2 percent...
PopCap Games, makers of the highly popular (and super fun) Plants vs Zombies defense game, just signed an agreement with Amazon to offer its first Android games to the U.S. market, exclusively on the Amazon Appstore for Android during two different two-week periods. Pay attention and you can score both Chuzzle and PvZ for free. Part of the...
Here's the thing about motion controlled gaming. It's fun, in a gee-whiz sort of way, but once the newness wears off, you're left with what some (many?) gamers would consider nothing more than a gimmick. Is that the case with Microsoft's Kinect platform? It's too early to tell. Initial sales have been promising, and it certainly helped that...
Samsung is taking pity on Android developers who may feel overwhelmed or lost on where to start or are in need of technical support. The solution? A new Android Developer Forum tacked onto the existing Samsung Developers website. Samsung's grand idea is to create a one-stop shop for all things Android, things like the latest SDKS, tutorial...
Today, HP announced a notable development in its efforts to design memristor technology. The company has managed to map the chemical changes and basic structures of its own prototypes. The startling implication is accurate—HP managed to build a memristor before it fully understood how its own design functioned. The memristor was theorized...
Video: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 1GB SOC Graphics Card Review @ APH Networks Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Xtreme Review by Ultimate Hardware Motherboards and Chipsets: MSI Z68A-GD80 (Intel Z68) Motherboard Review @ Tweaktown ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Motherboard Review @ OCWORKBENCH MSI P67A-G43 LGA 1155 Motherboard Review @ ReviewDesk.com Processors:...
At a glance, the Venue Pro looks just like the Venue. And specifications-wise, they're largely the same as well. The Venue Pro has the same 4.1" AMOLED display (800 x 480 resolution), 1GHz QSD8250 Snapdragon processor, 8GB of internal storage, 512MB of RAM, 1GB of ROM and no extra microSD card slot -- an unfortunate staple of numerous WP7...
Corsair announced the Force Series 3 family of solid-state drives. The newly Force Series 3 models use the new SATA 6.0 Gb/s (SATA 3) interface to deliver high speed for a reasonable price. The Force Series 3 features the highest performance version of the latest-generation SandForce SF-2281 SSD Processor with out-of-box read and write speeds...
Western Digital added 2.5 TB and 3 TB versions to its family of WD AV-GP SATA hard drives for the audio-video (AV) market. These 3.5-inch hard drives offer 24x7 reliability as well as low power consumption for storage-intensive AV applications such as digital video recorders, video surveillance, single-drive media servers and external multimedia...
In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and a Half Geeks, Dave, Iyaz and Marco discuss Intel's new Z68 Express chipset with Smart Response Technology for Sandy Bridge processors, Samsung’s hot new 4.5-inch Infuse 4G Android smartphone, an ASRock Vision 3D HTPC with NVIDIA’s 3DTV Play technology and why consumers experience...
E-readers are nothing new. At this point, they're actually kind of old. And for those who have following their progress, you may remember that Microsoft was reportedly working up a "Courier" project that was eventually scraped altogether. But it seems that Microsoft may not have forgotten completely about their e-reader aspirations. While...
Did you know that Clearwire was considering making a smartphone, or cellphone? The same Clearwire that provides 4G (WiMAX) services to consumers and carriers like Sprint. Yeah, probably not. You know why? Among other things, Sony Ericsson was picking a bone with the company, suggesting that their logo was too similar and would inevitably end...
If you're wondering if the paid apps turned free that Amazon.com distributes every day in its Amazon Appstore are getting much uptake, the answer is yes. How do we know? Via Appbrain's daily hot list of apps. Appbrain, which used to be the only way to browse the Android Market via the Web before Google opened its Android Market on the web...
Earlier in the month, HP announced a number of new business and consumer notebooks. Now, it's time for the company's desktop line to get a bump of their own. This evening, HP has revealed a newly refreshed line of desktop PCs, including redesigned Pavilion consumer desktops that have seriously stepped up in the style department. These machines...
For a time, there were rumors that the iPad 2 would have a front-facing camera, but no rear-facing camera. After all, the thought was, who'd really want to lift up a tablet to take an image? That thought appears to have been correct. We can extrapolate that fact by using Flickr's stats on the average number of daily users uploading images...
It certainly isn't the sort of press that RIM wants: more than 900 of its brand-new BlackBerry PlayBook tablets have been recalled. The good thing is that the faulty batch of tablets was shipped to one vendor: Staples. If you didn't buy your PlayBook from Staples you have nothing to worry about. The bad thing is there's been no official announcement...
When we gave you our take on the Motorola Xoom Android Honeycomb-powered tablet, we shared our disappointment that Verizon 4G LTE network service was currently not enabled on the device but would be coming in the months ahead. The process, as described by Verizon, consisted of sending the unit back to Verizon for an LTE upgrade and customers...
A new platform is only as good as the support surrounding it, and now Gigabyte is giving Intel a little of that with a new Z68 motherboard. But it's not just "yet another Z68 mainboard." This is being called the world's first Z68 motherboard with onboard mSATA for Intel SLC SSDs as well as Smart Response technology. These new motherboards...
Great news this weekend for avid PlayStation gamers. After having the PSN service go down for an unprecedented amount of time following a credit card breach, Sony has finally flipped services back online in the states and internationally. It requires a mandatory System Update, bringing consoles to v3.61, which enables your machine to connect...
Ah, Boxee Box. The little media streaming box that could. The D-Link box, which has officially been on sale for a few months now, has been improved on a fairly regular basis. A ton of new features have been added in recent months, and this month's no different. Version 1.1 of the Boxee Box firmware has just shipped, revamping a lot of stuff...
Got a heck of a lot of overclocked components to keep cool? No, you aren't sick nor twisted, you just need the help of NZXT. The peripheral company has just debuted their new Sentry Mesh Fan Controller, a five-fan controller that is said to deliver "maximum airflow customization with a simplistic design." The newest Sentry’s black, mesh...
Never heard of E FUN? You aren't alone. The company's hardly a household name, but they're one of the many "little guys" popping out e-readers, tablets and handhelds in a bid to fend off those mega-corporations like Apple, LG and Samsung. The company is this week announcing that their Next6 capacitive touchscreen Android tablet is now shipping,...
The long-awaited Netflix app for Android is finally available. Unfortunately, all Android users won’t be able to take advantage of the app. You see, as of right now, the app will only run on the following five phones: HTC Incredible with Android 2.2, HTC Nexus One with Android 2.2, 2.3, HTC Evo 4G with Android 2.2, HTC G2 with Android...
There's no question that Apple's AirPlay has taken wireless multi-media streaming to a new place. Before, that type of streaming was generally reserved for enthusiasts, or those with oodles of money to spend on something as trivial as cutting the cord. But as Apple tends to do, they've taken it mainstream. Now, a lot of applications are popping...
There may not seem like an immediate connection is there, but we suspect that last week's Android @ Home announcement could help to restart, or kickstart, home automation and powerline networking. Powerline utilities have been kicking around for years now, but they never have truly taken off in any serious fashion. Outside of a few hardcore...
There's no question that pixel density is one of the hot new things. Ever since Apple introduced the Retina Display on the iPhone 4, companies have been pushing the pixel envelope, so to speak. In general, the more pixels you fit onto a space, the higher the pixel density. Too high, and fonts are hard to read, but images and multi-media appear...
In yet another confirmation of what we already predicted, Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek said in a Friday research note that Apple‘s iPhone 5 isn't likely to include LTE. It will launch in September, and won't be the iPhone 5, but the iPhone 4S, he said. Misek said that “According to our industry checks, the device should...
The fact, or at least poorly hidden rumor, that Amazon.com is going to unveil an Android tablet "sometime," and probably sooner, rather than later. That's pretty exciting to many. How would you feel if you were to learn that the company is planning a line of Android tablets? That's what a tipster has told Android and Me. The source is apparently...
Tablet users read too! Right? Barnes & Noble sure thinks so, as the company responsible for the Kindle's most serious competition to date (the NOOK) has just announced an updated version of the free NOOK For Android e-reading application. With the update, customers using 7" or larger tablets can access over 140 NOOK Newsstand titles, and...
World records are fun, aren't they? Particularly when you're talking about the world record for something as awe-inspiring as the planet's largest high-definition video board. Those that have watched a Cowboys game recently know just how giant the HD video display is that hangs within the confines of the new Cowboys Stadium, but it'll be NASCAR...
MSI announced the new CR460 multimedia laptop, compete with an Intel 2nd generation Core i5-2410 processor (2.30GHz), HD (720p) webcam, SRS PC Sound wrap-around sound, and an SDXC memory card slot. MSI also offers a Bluetooth 3.0 optional upgrade for this notebook. Additional MSI features include the MSI S-Bar, facial recognition, photo management...
Eager to get an app store for the Nintendo 3DS? You'll have to wait a little longer. Nintendo has just announced that the 3DS eShop is still coming, but it'll be early June before it launches. Not too big a delay, and just look at things this way: it'll give you more time to master those augmented reality titles. According to the press release,...
Traffic's a huge pain, is it not? Anyone who has to dodge traffic jams on a daily or weekly basis is undoubtedly tired of it, and so is TomTom. Thankfully, a GPS company wants to work with you on making your life easier. The company has just announced that TomTom HD Traffic Service is now available on every single TomTom LIVE GPS unit. That...
We had no illusions that the earthquake in Japan earlier this year was truly tragic, and aside from disrupting and ruining the lives of thousands of individuals, it has also caused tons of problems for companies operating out of the island nation. To our surprise, it seems that most companies have managed to pick up the pieces and forge ahead...
Here we are going on week 4 of the well documented PlayStation Network outage, and as it turns out, some PSN gamers would rather throw in the towel than wait for Sony to restore its network. According to Edge Magazine, PlayStation 3 owners are trading in their consoles for cash or Xbox 360 consoles. In addition, sales of PSN points cards are...
A high-five is in order for Corsair for more than doubling the warranty period on its Hydra Series H60 CPU cooler from two years to five years, ensuring that there's at least one component you won't have to worry about for the life of your system (unless you keep your systems for more than five years, in which, it's time to upgrade, playa!)....
Samung's Infuse 4G smartphone for the AT&T network is built upon a gorgeous 4.5-inch Super AMOLED Plus display with superb viewing angles, brightness, color saturation and a ton of screen real estate to get your geek on. The Infuse is powered by Samsung's new 1.2GHz Hummingbird processor and offers a robust multimedia experience...
A few days ago, we told you the Droid Charge was still unavailable for purchase due to unknown delays. We just got word from Verizon Wireless and Samsung that the Droid Charge will go on sale in Verizon Wireless stores tomorrow, and online at www.verizonwireless.com at midnight Eastern. As expected, the phone will be available for $299.99...
Google's Android Market has grown tremendously and has surpassed the 200,000-application mark recently. With the vast number of applications available, however, it's becoming harder and harder for consumers to sort through these apps to find the best of the best. Google understands this and has plans to help applications stand out in the crowd...
You've heard of corded USB mice, and you've heard of Bluetooth mice. But a Wi-Fi mouse? Could it be? HP's calling this device the industry's first Wi-Fi mouse, using Link-5 technology to pipe in mouse commands over a standard Wi-Fi connection. No dongles, no nubs, and no Bluetooth module required. Also, the battery is expected to last an astonishing...
Is Apple planning to go toe-to-toe with yet another company in the tablet business? There's nothing confirming as much just yet, but it sounds like Amazon may be next in line. The company's Kindle has done well in the e-reader market, very well, in fact. But that might not be enough. Amazon's reportedly thinking of doing yet another piece...
iBUYPOWER announced the availability of Intel Z68 Core i5 and Core i7 powered systems. The systems will come in a NZXT Gama gaming case and will feature a liquid cooled Intel Core i7-2600K processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, NVIDIA GeForce GT 520 graphics card, 450W power supply, and a 500GB hard drive. With the Z68 chipset, users will get the...
If reports from "reliable sources" are to be believed, pocket-lint is claiming ViewSonic will introduce the world's first 7-inch Honeycomb tablet at Computex at the end of this month. The ViewSonic ViewPad 7x will be a new Android tablet in the company's lineup. It will sit above the current 7-inch ViewPad 7 but it won't replace it....
Start-up Brass Monkey is having a good year. Two games have now been released that use its technology to turn an iPhone/iPod Touch or Android phone into a game controller over any WiFi network. Plus, this week it was selected as a finalist in the Best Customer Engagement Driver category at the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology...
Faster, denser RAM may seem a bit boring at first glance, but it's hardly so. Faster memories make for faster computers, and new introductions in this sector lead to lower overall rates. Samsung has just revealed their newest product: 64Gb toggle DDR 2.0 NAND flash memory with a whopping 400Mbps transfer rate. The best part is that this isn't...
Flash drives are a dime a dozen these days, and finding one is as simple as looking hard enough. But finding one with robust security features is a bit tougher. Aleratec has made that a bit easier with the introduction of the PortaStor secure 256-bit AES Encrypted USB Flash Drive, which feature encryption on a hardware level. The device provides...
VIA introduced its dual-core Nano just four months ago, but the company is already demonstrating that processor's big brother. The newly minted VIA QuadCore is--you guessed it--a quad-core processor that connects two dual-core Nano cores in an MCM (multi-chip module). The new chip won't actually ship for some months, but it may become a higher-performance...
It seems like we've been waiting since the dawn of time for this one, but PCMark 7, Futuremark's latest benchmark for evaluating system performance in Windows 7, is now live and ready for download and/or purchase. As we've stated before, most users will likely opt for the free version, which offers unlimited benchmark runs of the main test,...
Video: AMD Radeon HD 6790 Graphics Card Review @ X-bitLabs MSI Radeon HD 6950 2GB Twin Frozr III PE OC'ed Video Card Review @ Tweaktown Motherboards and Chipsets: Gigabyte Z68X UD5 B3 Motherboard Review @ eTeknix.com ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Z68 Sandy Bridge Motherboard Review @ Hardware Canucks Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 @ techPowerUp Intel Z68 Chipset...
Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold the boat a minute, young fella. We like to fancy ourselves an intelligent bunch, but something just isn't adding up. According to market research firm The Nielsen Company, music sales in the U.S. are up 1.6 percent in 2011. The reason, Nielsen says, has a lot to do with the explosive growth of digital album and track...
Take a sigh of relief Hollywood studios, it doesn't appear as though Lenovo is going to come swooping in and steal anyone's thunder on the big screen, or even the computer screen via YouTube. But that's okay, we're not interested in Lenovo's movie-making chops, it just so happens that the OEM chose to reveal its new ThinkPad X1 in a cheesy...
We have heard of rugged SSDs, but this is really taking things to a new level. Emphase, which is a company providing Industrial and Military solid state storage for embedded systems, has launched a new series of rugged Military-grade storage with MIL-STD-810F compliance. But not only that; these new SSDs can "self-destruct" with the push of...
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet is a more complete Android-based tablet PC with a companion docking station that affords it the ability to act as an Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based netbook as well. It's based on NVIDIA's powerful dual core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor with 1GB of RAM and 16 - 32GB of internal storage. If you were waiting...
Well, this is crazy. The case shown here just might be the most strangely designed PC chassis that we have ever seen, and we have definitely seen some strange ones in our day. It's designed by Lian Li, which is a company that's well known for putting together some pretty intense designs. The company calls this "a piece of art," and we guess...
AT&T sold more than 5.5 million smartphones in Q1 2011, the most it ever sold in any first quarter. During the same period, it added 2 million more wireless subscribers to its roster (now counting 97.5 million). Today it pledged to spend $1 million combating the menace known as texting while driving. AT&T will spend the $1...
When you think "new CPU," names like AMD and Intel pop to mind. But VIA is a huge player in the processor game, particularly on smaller, lower-cost devices where power draw is a major concern. The company's newest chip is radically different than past chips, though, and the words "quad-core" should tell you a lot. The newest chip is the world's...
New mainboards? Check! New machines based on those motherboards? You bet! CyberPower has just revealed a new gaming desktop and workstation line based on Intel's next-gen Z68 chipset with SSD caching as well as LucidLogix Virtu Software. The new platform obviously supports Intel's 2nd-gen Sandy Bridge processors, and opens up a new level of...
Display technologies have stalled. There, we said it. A few years ago, we were seriously seeing tons of innovation with display technologies -- everything from color e-ink to Mirasol. But hardly any of those technologies ever grew into a product that could be shipped to consumers, and thus, we're left with normal B&W e-paper and LCDs,...
The big news this week in the motherboard world? Z68! Tons of companies introduced new Z68 mainboards, including MSI. MSI's never one to wait around to release a new board once a platform is launched, and this week's no different. The company's newest device features OC Genie II, which enables insane performance boosts at the user's command....
Updates, updates, updates. That's the name of the game these days. Google's talking updates, iOS has updates, and starting May 19th, Xbox 360 will have updates. At least, that's the word. A leaked presentation slide over at Joystiq confirms that May 19th is the day where the company's Sprint 2011 update will launch, adding PayPal and other...
We're not even trying to think about what our lives would be like without GPS. We'd be back to maps, struggling to determine which direction will take us from point A to point B. Thankfully, the world we live in is filled with navigation options, including the Magellan RoadMate 9055-LM. This large vehicle nav solution is now being equipped...
They've now been announced and they have a date and a price: the first production-versions of Google's Chrome OS-powered Chromebooks are coming as soon as mid-June, from Samsung and Acer. The announcement was on Google's blog, but also at the Google I/O conference running this week and via press releases from Samsung and Google. The Chromebooks...
Intel today officially launched its Z68 Express chipset, and right on cue, Maingear announced you can now configure desktops around Intel's latest silicon. The boutique system builder from New Jersey said it will offer motherboards using the updated chipset across its entire desktop line. "The new Intel Z68 chipset is a great update to the...
According to a recent study commissioned by Crucial.com, consumers frequently replace their personal computers after four and a half years of use. Although replacing a PC as often as three years may be common, 58% of survey respondents thought their computer should last much longer than three years. Despite wanting to use their PCs for longer,...
Solid State Drives are popular among power users and are commonly used in high-end machines but by and large, they're absent from the average Joe's computer due to their higher price tag. Gartner expects this could change in 2012 however as the price of SSDs decreases. By the second half of 2012, Gartner predicts that mainstream PC SSDs will...
Although Android has clearly overtaken iOS in terms of smartphone uptake, it is partially because of the number of handsets and former factors that are available to customers. That also means that no one Android handset can match the iPhone, and that's made even more clear by an analyst's report which indicates that even previous-generation...
On the same day that Google unveiled its new Cloud-based music service, it also advanced its Android Market further into iTunes territory: movie rentals. In order to play movies from the new service, you need to have the new Movies App (coming to Honeycomb in Android 3.1 to Motorola Xooms, starting today, and to Android 2.2+ smartphones in...
Ice Cream Sandwich may be the talk of the future, but Android 3.1 is the talk of now. Google announced that Android 3.1 would be available as early as today for existing Xoom owners with Verizon Wireless, with the first major step to the company's tablet OS happening in lockstep with the I/O conference in San Francisco. Xoom 3G customers are...
Ever since Honeycomb was launched for Android tablets, consumers and tech media alike have wondered what the next major build would be. Now, we know. Google announced during their I/O keynote this week that "Ice Cream Sandwich" was the next major iteration on deck, but strangely no build number was associated with it. We're guessing it'll...
Microsoft's Steve Ballmer may be credited with the "developers, developers, developers" chant, but those devs are just as important to Google. Without them, the devices based on Android would be gutted from an applications standpoint. But it seems that Google is ready to move beyond software. At Google I/O this week, the company introduced...
Google revealed a startling amount of new information at Google I/O this week, but there was no bigger announcement than the one everyone expected: Music. The company's new Music Beta has beaten Apple's rumored iCloud service to the punch, but unlike many streaming services, there's no actual way to buy music via this method. The labels were...
This week marks the fourth annual Google I/O conference held in San Francisco, and the show just keeps getting bigger, more dazzling, and more important. As Google's growth in the consumer realm continues to skyrocket, so does the mind share. And with that, comes a ton of support from OEMs and manufacturers of tablets and smartphones. But...
If you look back to our coverage of the Sandy Bridge launch, we tested the two premiere chipsets in the 6-series, the enthusiast-targeted P67 and mainstream H67. Fundamentally, the two chipsets were very similar (and are based on the same piece of silicon), but each had a specific feature set designed for its target audience. For example,...
At the end of last month, Verizon Wireless experienced an outage with its 4G LTE network that caused the wireless carrier to postpone the launch of the latest member of the Droid family, the Droid Charge by Samsung. The Droid Charge is slated to be the second LTE smartphone in the Verizon Wireless lineup. Although Verizon Wireless fixed the...
We knew the Nexus S 4G was coming to Sprint, and as planned, the phone has arrived. The Nexus S 4G from Sprint is essentially the same phone we reviewed back in March, but with a WiMAX chip and EVDO connectivity. The Nexus S 4G is also the first phone to run Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread. As you may recall, key specs for the Nexus S 4G include...
OCZ announced the new Agility 3 and Solid 3 SATA III SSD product lines. By using the latest technology, OCZ is able to deliver almost double the performance with these new series of drives compared to the previous generation. Agility 3 and Solid 3 SSDs utilize the SandForce SF-2200 SSD processor. The Agility 3 delivers up to 525MB/s reads,...
If you think things are tough when it comes to lining up for Apple products in the U.S., here's a tale from the Far East. China received its first batch of iPad 2s when the device launched last Friday, and on Saturday, fisticuffs ensued. Four people were injured and a glass door shattered. According to a witness, Wang Ming, 30, an alleged...
Netbooks might not be the trendy option anymore, not with tablet PCs trotting about with their fancy pants touchscreen panels and light weight designs, but have you have tried hammering out anything longer than a short email on one? There are just some things that are better suited for a netbook, which is the reason why manufacturers keep...
Hewlett Packard reckons if you're a business user, your desk is probably cluttered enough as it is with TPS reports, stacks of papers, your custom name plate, pictures of the family, and whatever other knick nacks lay strewn about. Why add a bulky monitor to the mix? To help make the most out of your desktop real estate, HP is getting ready...
Following reports circulating since last week that both Facebook and Microsoft were looking into buying the popular VOIP service Skype, Microsoft has apparently emerged the winner, although it remains to be seen if the Redmond giant really won. Skype is yet to be profitable, and lost nearly $7 million last year alone. At $8.5 billion, this...
Tablets are starting to become one big blur. If you've seen one, you have almost seen them all. The iPad and Galaxy Tab have managed to create a niche for themselves, but otherwise, a tablet is starting to become "just another tablet." But even as the line starts to go mainstream and become more of a commodity, Xplore Technologies is maintaining...
Is 3D ready for primetime? Does it have staying power? Is it here to stay, and will it really be the next meaningful revolution in television technology? That all remains to be seen, of course, but there's no doubt that 3D has made a material impact in things. You can't go a day in the consumer electronics world without hearing of 3D, and...
As with most "firsts," there are a lot of names floating out around there when it comes to the true Father Of The Cellphone. But Martin Cooper is a name that has stuck around for years, and definitely gets credit for creating the world's first cellular phone while working for Motorola in 1973. Now, he's the CEO of ArrayComm, a wireless software...
Is your mom telling you what you can and can't look at on the Internet? Do you have Web surfing restrictions? Back in the day, these restrictions were seemingly everywhere, and the media made it a priority to inform parents about the kinds of trouble their kids could get into online. Now, that has died down somewhat, and despite age restrictions...
One of the bigger issues with solid state drives is size. Not form factor size, but capacity size. Other World Computing has been producing large SSDs and SSD upgrade kits for notebooks for some time, and now, they're really going above and beyond the call of duty. The company has just released the Mercury Aura Pro Express 480GB, a monster...
The state of California is currently considering a bill (SB761) that, if passed in its current form, would require websites to ask visitors for permission before tracking them via cookies. While there are already apps and add-ons that allow web surfers to manually control what cookies they accept or refuse, the new bill would require companies...
We're actually starting to feel a little sorry for Sony. The gaming console giant is reeling on the ropes from the network hacks that exposed the personal data of some 70 million subscribers, and the hits just keep on coming. Sony had initially planned to begin the process of bringing the PlayStation Network back online today, but those plans...
Futuremark reached out to us today to let us know its upcoming PCMark 7 benchmark suite will be dropping into download queues later this week, and for reals this time. The new launch date is set for this Thursday, May 12th, at 12:00 GMT. Futuremark has been accepting pre-orders for PCMark 7 since March 22, 2011, and it was supposed to have...
In terms of brand value, Apple is apparently worth more than Microsoft and Coca-Cola combined, or so says a new survey. BrandZ, which is a brand equity database with data from over 650,000 consumers and professionals across 31 countries comparing over 23,000 brands, has Apple taking the No. 1 spot in its "Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands"...
There may not be a ‘one size fits all’ HTPC, but there are some HTPC features that are universally (well, almost universally) desired. For one, it’s our opinion that an HTPC should be as quiet as possible. It should also be capable of any multimedia related task, it should be easy to install and use and it should look like...
Novel Concepts introduced a new heat sink that it is calling the “world’s thinnest air-cooled heat sink.” The new ThinSink is thinner than a credit card. It is capable of cooling 25 times more heat per cubic centimeter than today's best microprocessor heat sinks. ThinSink was designed to fit inside small electronic devices,...
Nvidia announced today that it's acquiring the fabless semiconductor design firm Icera. The UK-based company specializes in soft modem chipsets for a variety of devices, including laptops, netbooks, tablets, and smartphones. The two companies have a history of cooperation; Icera announced Tegra-compatible wireless chipsets back in 2009. Nvidia's...
In addition to the new laptops HP announced today, the company also introduced a pre-paid 3G mobile broadband service. The new service, known as DataPass is available in the US on HP’s business notebooks. With DataPass, users will be able to purchase wireless broadband data using major mobile carriers without being tied to a contract....
Navigating around in a car is one thing, but now that the summer is upon us, it's time to think about renting that RV you've been dreaming about, packing up, and driving across the country. Rand McNally has just introduced their newest PND, the RVND 5510, which is described as the first navigation device designed specifically for RVers. The...
More 4G? We'll take it! And we're talking about real 4G, not this HSPA+ stuff that T-Mobile USA and AT&T seem to be tooting their horns about. U.S. Cellular, one of the larger regional carriers in America, has recently announced that they'll soon be delivering high-speed LTE services and LTE devices to more than 25 percent of its customers...
In a development that's glad news for any AT&T customer stuck with the company's new 150GB broadband cap, the New America Foundation and the Public Knowledge group have jointly asked the FCC to examine data caps. While they admit that such caps are not prima facie evidence of monopolistic abuse, they note: "they [broadband caps] carry...
Tachyon has been battling with GoPro and numerous others in the head-mounted camera game, which has suddenly become a lot more popular in the world's of extreme sports. Now, the company is introducing two more cameras, the world's smallest and lightest SD and HD helmet cameras. The Tachyon OPS and OPS HD are slated to be available this summer,...
Looking to bring faster transfer rates to your notebook or USB-enabled PC? TrendNet has a new option, the TEW-684UB. This is the world's first ultra-high performance 450Mbps wireless USB adapter, a dual-band Wireless N affair that outperforms the generic 150Mbps or 54Mbps adapters that ship with most computers. This won't be needed for those...
When Amazon.com first unveiled its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player service, iDevices were left out. Attempting to play music from your Cloud Drive with an iDevice's browser simply wouldn't work. That's changed, all of a sudden, and quietly. If you visit Amazon’s Cloud Player through the Safari web browser on an iDevice, it will now work....
More new gear from Creative? Yep! The company has gone quite some time without really introducing any new equipment in the consumer universe, but that all changed over the past week. Perhaps the most interesting of the new additions is the ZEN Style M300, which is a music, photo and video player with Bluetooth wireless audio playback. It measures...
We know you just purchased your last laptop, but already HP's giving you a reason to ponder an upgrade. The company's launching a major stash of new gear today, and we'll start with the new consumer machines. As part of a major notebook expansion, the gamer-centric HP Envy 14 is seeing an update. While the exterior is basically the same, the...
Agreeing to Apple's Terms of Service without reading them has been lampooned twice in different places recently, but it's really no joke: you should know that you are agreeing to a lot when you click the Agree button without reading the Terms of Service. First, South Park's premiere episode this year set up Kyle as the fall guy: he didn't...
HP's new consumer machines aren't the only ones being introduced today; the company is also revealing a few new business machines, but as is the case with other EliteBook and ProBook machines, these are also fully capable of doling out a little fun after-hours. The company has forged ahead with their FORGE design framework, by refreshing the...
Video: XFX HD Radeon 6790 Review @ OCC Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 and HD 5830 1GB Xtreme Video Cards Review @ Tweaktown Motherboards and Chipsets: ASUS Sabertooth P67 B3 TUF Motherboard Review @ Benchmark Reviews Sapphire Pure Black P67 Hydra @ Phoronix Zotac Mini ITX M880G Review - XSReviews Processors: AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition AM3...
It's been years since Nicholas Negroponte unveiled his plans to develop a $100 laptop that would be made available to anyone in the developing world. While Negroponte's price point remains out of reach, a new, independent UK organization has released a prototype of its own computer—a $25 USB key that packs a full machine into a form...
A recent study may show another reason why AT&T is interested in purchasing T-Mobile: According to research, AT&T stands to get a more loyal customer base with the purchase of T-Mobile. The survey from Vocal Laboratories shows that T-Mobile customers are 11% more likely to resubscribe than AT&T customers. Vocal Laboratories cited...
Creative is on a serious roll this week. First, the D80 Bluetooth speaker, and now a line of new BT headphones. The new WP series is comprised of the 450, 350, and 250, ANC all three feature support for Bluetooth calling and music listening. The company is really playing up the invisible mic angle, and they're insinuating that these were specifically...
Razer's been focused on peripherals for gamers over the years, and while a good mouse is important, it's not much without a good mouse pad. Razer's able to help out in that regard, as well, and this week they're introducing the Goliathus precision gaming board, and this one's designed for those who prefer soft mats. It's still still and rigid,...
The Mobile HotSpot shown here isn't new. It's a device that has kicked around on a few carriers in its day, but now, one of America's most prominent cable companies is taking a major step toward becoming an all-in-one service provider. Comcast has just launched this 3G/4G device as a part of their Xfinity Internet2go lineup, enabling pay-TV...
Think that Intel's newest processors are fit only for consumer machines? Think again! Logic Supply makes systems that few average consumers ever see, but those in the enterprise (and those who go on field missions) will recognize the brand. Now, the company's small form factor AU912 has been updated with new CPUs, the updated Core i5 and Core...
Wireless speakers are a dime a dozen these days, and even Bluetooth versions have grown increasingly popular of late. Creative, which has made a name for themselves in audio, is joining the fray this week with the introduction of the D80 Bluetooth one-piece speaker. The company calls this their most affordable Bluetooth speaker ever in this...
Video: PowerColor HD 6950 Vortex II 2 GB @ techPowerUp Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti AMP! Edition 1GB Video Card Review @ ThinkComputers.org Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 Review by Ultimate Hardware Motherboards and Chipsets: Intel DP67BG: LGA1155 Mainboard from the Extreme Series @ X-BitLabs Asus P8P67 Pro Revision 3 Review @ OverclockersHQ Processors:...
Sony Ericsson is adding to its smartphone lineup with the introduction of the new Xperia mini and the Xperia mini pro. Sony's goal with the Xperia family is to offer entertaining smartphones while still giving users a choice. To that end, the new Xperia mini and the Xperia mini pro offer many of the hottest multimedia features such as HD-video...
San Francisco, home of the Giants and land of sometimes questionable mandates, like the one passed last year that would require cell phone retailers to slap a label on their devices indicating radiation levels. The measure created a bit of a firestorm on the Internet over whether such a label was really needed or simply ridiculous. For now,...
In this latest episode of HotHardware's Two and a Half Geeks, Dave, Iyaz and Marco discuss Intel's new 3D Tri-gate transistor technology, AMD's new 3.7GHz Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition processor, the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Honeycomb-based tablet, the Digital Storm Enix small form-factor gaming PC, and details of how to win tickets...
Guess where you can find a Kindle now? Wal-mart! While Amazon sold their famed e-reader for years without any retail prescence, that has changed recently. Now, Wally World will be stocking the Kobo Wireless Reader, the NOOK and the Kindle, giving digital readers plenty of choice should they wander into a store. This is obviously a huge move...
The world of e-readers has grown tremendously in recent years, and there's a reason: people love them, and the Kindle and NOOK have led the charge. But a lot of smaller companies have cropped up as well, offering cheaper alternatives for those unconcerned with brand name or certain luxury features. The Kobo Wireless Reader is one of those...
Earlier in the year, 50 Cent and Sleek Audio decided to partner on a set of wireless over-the-head headphones, and while the company had traditionally stuck to earbuds, this seemed like a great opportunity to brand out. After all, Beats by Dre are as popular as ever, so why not try to steal a piece of that market? Evidently the plan hasn't...
Wondering why it's so hard to find an Eee Transformer these days? It's not because there's not enough parts to make things, or that there's a problem with the quality. According to Netbook News, who contacted Asus spokesperson David Chang, it's just because the device is a great deal, and people love it. He stated that around 100,000 of the...
To us, it's still pretty hard to believe that expensive hotel chains have the nerve to charge for Internet access, even after charging you $200+ per night to stay there, and $25+ per morning just to eat breakfast. It's totally out of hand, and throwing in Wi-Fi would be a nice gesture, at least. As it stands, there are only a few chains that...
Foxconn, the company that builds both the iPhone and the iPad, came under fire last year after a string of suicides led to an investigation of the company's conditions. Both Apple and Foxconn promised to make certain that reforms were enacted to improve working conditions. A new report, released today, is the first detailed investigation on...
While the company has diversified into a range of products and services, Windows and Office remain Microsoft's major cash earners; the revenue from these massive areas is used to cover losses in segments like Internet use.This helps to explain why MS recently published a story on the hidden cost of migrating to Google Apps. The company's assurances...
Pocket dialing is when a cell phone stuffed in someone's pocket accidentally dials an actual number. In perhaps the worst example of pocket dialing ever, three larceny suspects were arrested after police overheard planning break-ins in upstate New York when one of the pocket dialed "911." Onondaga County Sheriff Kevin Walsh said that after...
We've seen a number of hot smartphones hit the market recently, including the HTC Thunderbolt, Droid Charge, and others. Although each phone has its own appeal, there are also a lot of similarities among today's hottest smartphones—most have a 1GHz processor, at least 16GB of storage in one form or another, at least a 4-inch display,...
Powercolor's looking to make a splash in the graphics card market by announcing what it claims is the world's first and only liquid cooling Radeon HD 6990 graphics card. For those of you rocking a water cooled rig, the LCS HD6990 will slide right in and comes with both 3/8-inch and 1/2-inch barbs with captured o-rings to prevent leakage. As...
Google recently launched Google Earth for Android tablets. With this announcement, Google Earth is now optimized for use on Android 3.0 aka “Honeycomb” tablets. This tablet-friendly version of Google Earth takes advantage of the tablet’s larger screen. It adds a new action bar on the top for access to functions such as search...
AT&T and Samsung announced the upcoming availability of the Samsung Infuse 4G smartphone. Touted as the nation’s thinnest 4G smartphone, the Infuse 4G measures just 8.9mm at its thinnest. The phone also offers a large, 4.5-inch display that features next-generation Super AMOLED Plus technology. The Samsung Infuse 4G is powered by...
Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity servers were apparently running obsolete, unpatched software, and had no firewall in place, both no-nos for any company, but definitely for a company as large as Sony, trying to run a cloud-based service. In testimony in front of Congress on Wednesday, Dr. Gene Spafford of Purdue University said that...
Internet in cars? What a novel idea! It's actually not as far-fetched as you may have thought; in fact, it's widely offered as a third-party solution from AutoNet by many dealers. But Ford's thinking about something a little different, and a little more first-party. The company that has made the SYNC system famous is getting ready to offer...
Skype sure has hit it big. While there are dozens and dozens of VoIP calling applications, for some reason Skype's is the one that people flock to. Possibly being the first major one was what did it, but either way, the company seems to be growing in leaps and bounds, and the attention that they are getting doesn't seem to be slowing down....
Microsoft's Surface never really became the next generation of tables. But it's 2011, and people are not only not flying around in Jetsons vehicles, but they're still driving the same cars they did a decade ago. Sometimes things move fast, and other times, well, you get the Surface. There's no question that the Surface is an amazing idea --...
Luxury audio has always demanded a hefty price premium, and Harman Kardon has consistently been a major audio player in the upper-end of the conventional mid-range. For the average consumer H/K equipment is rather expensive, but there's obviously far more expensive gear out there if you go searching. At any rate, the company's new MAS 102...
When we published our analysis of JPR's Q1 2011 GPU market share yesterday, we noted that Nvidia's share of the entire market had dropped significantly due to declining sales in their integrated graphics business. We also discussed how the rise of 'Fusion' hardware from both AMD and Intel will inevitably squeeze NV's share of the lower-end...
Sprint has just introduced two new Android smartphones that are suited more for those out in the field than on the red carpet, but that's totally fine by us -- we've seen a lot of sexy superphones lately, so having a couple of rugged ones helps to balance things out. First up is the Motorola XPRT, which is the Sprint version of the Droid Pro...
Well, guess what? Clearwire has some positive news to share. The company has taken somewhat of a beating in recent quarters, which is expected for a startup trying to build out a national network of WiMAX with hardly any carrier support outside of Sprint. But now, the company's Q1 2011 earnings report shows that they recorded quarterly net...
Sony has sent an open letter to Congress detailing and defending its actions in the wake of multiple (successful) hack attempts over the past two weeks. The company previously declined to attend a hearing scheduled in the wake of its data theft debacle. The head of that hearing, Mary Bono Mack, tore the company up one side and down the other...
It seems that devices keep getting thinner and thinner, which makes us think about just how thin our smartphones and other devices can really get. If a development by engineers at Queen's University Human Media Lab is any indication, our future phones may be a lot thinner than you might think. The engineers have created a "PaperPhone." As...
The Guinness Book of World Records has proclaimed the LG Optimus 2X "the world's first dual-core smartphone." Although there are plenty of dual-core smartphones now, that can never be taken away, and it makes the proclamation official. something LG has been trumpeting for some time. The details of the announcement say that: The first mobile...
If all the cool kids are running Intel's Sandy Bridge platform, then consider HP's revamped Pavilion dm4x laptop line a sub-$800 hipster. This spunky 14-inch notebook boasts an Intel Core i5 2410M (2.3GHz) processor as its baseline chip, plus a handful of other goodies starting at $730. Here's what else a base configuration comes with: AMD...
On Tuesday at BlackBerry World 2011, RIM showed off the upcoming Android functionality for its PlayBook. The functionality will require a yet to be released "player," however. In addition, the apps will be curated by RIM, so not just any Android app will run on the PlayBook. The "Android Player" simulates a Gingerbread (Android 2.3) smartphone....
The big news coming out of Cupertino is all about the release of Apple's refreshed iMac all-in-one (AIO) desktop line, now with quad-core processors, faster graphics, a FaceTime HD camera, and Intel's Thunderbolt interface. That's all well and good, but what about the 2011 MacBook Pro models? It hasn't exactly been smooth sailing for newer...
On May 15, AT&T will be getting the HP Veer 4G smartphone. This smartphone runs on webOS 2.1 and comes in black and white. With a footprint that is about the size of a credit card and a thickness that's roughly equivalent to a deck of cards, the HP Veer 4G is the smallest full-featured HP webOS smartphone to date. The Veer features a Qualcomm...
A group of high-powered tech companies has been slapped with a class action suit for conspiring to artificially keep employee wages low. The companies being sued are Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. Sound familiar? It should. These companies, with the exception of Lucasfilm, were investigated by the Department of...
Consolidation seems to be the theme of the year. Western Digital bought up Hitachi's HDD unit, and now Seagate is snapping up a big chunk of Samsung. IHS iSuppli has broken down Seagate's recent buyout of Sasung's HDD business, and they're accurately pointed out just how high the new entity will rank in terms of global hard disc drive clout....
Partners. What would life be without them? Not something we really want to find out, to be honest. Partnerships in the consumer electronics world are becoming more and more common, but we can't say that we expected Origin PC to be locking down one so early in the company's life. The custom PC builder has just teamed with Complexity Gaming,...
PSUs may not be as exciting as a new GPU or a new CPU , but you know where your tower would be without a solid, reliable power supply? In the trash. Corsair's well known for their memory products, but their power supplies are well-built, too. The company has just launched the new CX C2 range, which offer longer warranties and better efficiency...
It's been a few months since we covered AOL's controversial new business strategy and surprising purchase of The Huffington Post. The company released its first quarter results earlier this week—is there any good news underneath the bad? A little, as it turns out. Global display advertising revenue (this refers to large, flashy ads)...
Jon Peddie Research has released its Q1 2011 estimates, and the figures don't favor Nvidia. The research firm tracked strong gains for Intel and AMD (in terms of volume). AMD's total share of the GPU market rose to 24.8 percent, up from 21.5 percent a year ago (a gain of 24.8 percent total). Intel came in at 54.4 percent, 9.7 percent...
We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but if you're an Apple fan patiently waiting the release of the iPhone 5, you may be in for a surprise. Historically speaking, you would expect a new iPhone announcement at the upcoming Wordwide Developers Conference in early June, just as Apple has done in recent years. But according to reports, there...
Intel announced a major technology shift today in a move that fundamentally changes how the company will build transistors in the years to come. Starting with Ivy Bridge, Intel is adopting what it calls Tri-Gate (3D) transistors. Up to this point, Intel has relied on conventional bulk silicon, but its ability to scale this base technology...
State Farm has just released an iOS application called Driver Feedback. The app uses your iDevice's accelerometer and GPS to "grade" your driving. It monitors the three driving behaviors that are the riskiest, and thus need to be tracked are hard acceleration, hard braking, and hard cornering. Since we know that iPhone is very good at tracking...
It's been a busy spring for OEMs, and Digital Storm is no exception. Earlier this year, Intel was forced to suspend shipments of Sandy Bridge's accompanying Cougar Point chipset while it fixed a design flaw. This, in turn, left both system OEMs and retail motherboard vendors no choice but to suspend/delay their own Sandy Bridge-based products....
AT&T is adding two new enhancements to its Smart Limits for Wireless parental control offering. With the updates, parents will now be able to block up to 30 numbers to prevent unwanted or harassing calls and text messages on their child’s phone. To help prevent bill shock, AT&T is also adding 411 calls to a restricted list of...
Proving that patience is a virtue, Nintendo today confirmed earlier rumors of a Wii price cut by slashing the price of its flagship console to $150, but it doesn't stop there. Available in either black or white, the lower priced Wii is part of a new bundle that also includes the Mario Kart game and a matching colored Wii Wheel, replacing the...
The Droid Charge by Samsung is the second 4G smartphone to come to Verizon's 4G LTE network. It has a gorgeous 4.3-inch Super AMOLED display, an 8MP camera with flash and Samsung's slick custom skin for Android 2.2. We're running this pocket rocket through its paces here in the HH Test Lab but we thought you'd like a quick glimpse of...
Altec Lansing has been cranking out speaker systems for years on end, and it doesn't look like that flow is slowing anytime soon. This week, they announced the ltra-portable Orbit USB Stereo (iML247), a USB powered speaker system engineered for the multimedia user who needs an on-the-go audio solution with plug and play functionality. It uses...
There’s no doubt RIM has a strong corporate following. That doesn’t mean the company isn’t interested in what is popular among the average consumer, however. RIM’s PlayBook tablet will be getting Facebook later this month, but that’s not the only consumer-friendly app coming to the tablet. Recently, RIM also announced...
Need a case for your 11", 13" or 15" laptop that can seriously take a beating? Look no further than the newest offering from G-Form. The company has just announced a product expansion, branching out from their typical athletic gear to make the Extreme Sleeve for for Laptop. The company already had such a sleeve for the iPad, but this marks...
It should come as no surprise, but travelers are traveling with tablets more and more. While smartphones still dominate, the casual and business traveler is way more likely these days to carry around a tablet than just two years ago. TripIt, a well-regarded mobile app for managing upcoming schedules on various smartphones, has just broke into...
The iPad 2 has made a huge mark in the tablet industry, despite being largely similar to the original iPad. And with every major flagship product, in comes ColorWare to really splash things up. The company is well-known for decorating popular gadgets with wild color schemes, and now that the iPad 2 is finally shipping in some quantity, they're...
ViewSonic recently announced an update for its ViewPad 10 tablet. After updating, users of this 10.1-inch tablet will enjoy Android 2.2. The update is free and ViewSonic says it’s easy to install. This dual-OS tablet also runs Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional, depending on your chosen configuration. The ViewPad 10 is...
Thunderbolts aren't reserved for the midnight sky and HTC's smartphone lineup anymore. Apple has turned Thunderbolt into somewhat of a household name already overnight, and while the newest iMac machines are hogging the spotlight this week, the Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Pro machines that shipped earlier in the year are the star of this...
Video: XFX Radeon HD 6870 Black Edition Review @ OCC MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti HAWK Video Card Review @ Tweaktown Sapphire Radeon 6570 and 6670 @ PureOverclock MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning Review @ Hardware Canucks Motherboards and Chipsets: MSI P67A-GD80 (B3) Intel P67 Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org Memory and Storage: Funky Kit Review:...
New desktops? Acer's got 'em by the truckload. The company has just rolled out a new line of Veriton desktops for the U.S. professional market, with Intel's newest Core i5 CPUs and NVIDIA's GeForce 6150 graphics leading things up. They pack a lot of punch in a small form factor, as these are ideally designed to slip under desks and generally...
Rumors regarding Nintendo's second-generation Wii have been circulating following news that the console would be demo'd at this year's E3. Unlike the Playstation or XBox 360, the Wii has never been significantly updated, which is part of why fans and gamers are curious to see what Nintendo has come up with. Although Nintendo has yet to formally...
While SSDs are obviously the future, HDDs aren't anywhere near the end of their rope. Seagate has been pushing the boundaries of hard drives for some time now, with areal density barriers expanding by the month it seems. As these densities increase, the capacity for HDDs also increases. Just a few years ago, the mere thought of a 1TB HDD was...
It's only been two weeks since Apple and Samsung jointly sued each other for alleged patent infringement, but relations between the two companies have apparently already turned ice cold. Rumors in April suggested that Apple was discussing an arrangement with TSMC (there's been no official confirmation on either side). Gus Richard, an analyst...
Yesterday, at the Embedded Systems Conference, AMD announced a new embedded Radeon GPU, the E6760. Unlike its previous offerings in this segment, the E6760 is capable of driving up to six displays and supports OpenCL. "The AMD Radeon E6760 GPU provides customers with superior business economics through long lifecycle management and product...
As we mentioned earlier, RIM's BlackBerry World 2011 kicked off this week in Orlando, and the two new BlackBerry smartphones aren’t the only news coming from RIM. The company also announced BlackBerry Balance, a new technology that will let you use a single BlackBerry smartphone for both work and personal use without compromising the...
Sony hardly needs any more negative PR. This is the same company that got caught installing rootkits on computers, and more recently, released a bevy of legal hounds on notorious PlayStation modder George Hotz. But folks, what Sony needs is hardly of concern at this point. Much more pressing is the fact that hackers who broke into Sony Online...
The rumors were right, Apple was getting ready to refresh its iMac all-in-one (AIO) desktop line, and that refresh is now official. Announced today, Apple injected a healthy dose of current and next-generation technologies into its updated iMac series, including Intel's 2nd generation quad-core processors, beefed up graphics, Thunderbolt I/O...
Apple is readying iOS 4.3.3 to fix the iOS location tracking "bug," where an unencrypted consolidated.db file continues to grow, and grow, and grow on the device. Apple will release the update within the next two weeks, or possibly sooner. This isn't a major release, so Apple can spring it on end users at any time. According to the sources,...
Consumer Reports has (unexpectedly) come to Apple's rescue in the so-called "Thickness-gate" issue. Blogs and sites, including CNN, had been reporting that the white iPhone 4 was 0.2mm thicker than the black version, which isn't really an issue, unless the case you were using was a particularly form-fitting one. Meanwhile, Phil Schiller, in...
While much attention is focused on Facebook scams and trojans involving Osama bin Laden's death, Facebook users should be aware of another new way scammers are spreading links to rogue sites. They have begun to circulate convincing links claiming to be stories from Wired News about the iPhone 5. This scam takes advantage of Facebook’s...
RIM's BlackBerry World 2011 kicked off this week in Orlando, and with the opening of the doors came the introduction of two new handsets. The Bold line is expanding, with the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones being officially revealed. Both of these phones have been leaked in recent weeks, but now, RIM's dishing out the official details...
External webcams aren't nearly the rage they used to be. Perhaps that's because every notebook that ships today includes on, and a slew of new LCDs do as well. But if you're still stuck with an older monitor, or you just want something a bit more detailed than the 1.3MP embedded webcam, Logitech has a new option for you to consider. The TV...
Well, it's not exactly the ideal way to add cash to the coffers, but given TiVo's struggles, they'll take it. A release was put out this week noting that TiVo would soon be taking home $500 million courtesy of Dish Network and EchoStar, who have agreed to pony up half a billion dollars to settle ongoing patent litigation. Under the terms of...
These days, having a Facebook app is essential to success in the mobile OS marketplace. It's really strange that the iPad still doesn't have a native Facebook app that scales to the tablet's full potential, and even more strange is this: RIM's newly launched BlackBerry PlayBook may beat the iPad to the punch. At the company's annual BlackBerry...
This shouldn't really come as a surprise, but thin is in. Particularly in the laptop space. LG knows it, and they're introducing two new machines this week that are aiming to be amongst the thinnest notebooks out right now. The P430 and P530 are being revealed as the first two in the company's new "Blade" range, which will be launched in earnest...
Although much of the scuttlebutt lately has revolved around AMD’s upcoming Llano and Bulldozer-based APUs, the company isn’t done pushing the envelope with their existing processor designs. In case you haven’t noticed, over the last few months AMD has continued to ramp up frequencies on their current bread-and-butter Phenom...
Security firms have issued fresh warnings against malicious trojans in the wake of Osama bin Laden's death and the wedding of England's Prince William. Malware authors have already seized on both events as bait for their own malware hooks and are using the promise of unseen photos/video to snare the unwary. This type of attack and the speed...
A new service known as Mundu TV recently launched that will let you view live and archived TV and other video content from a range of mobile devices including your phone, netbook, laptop, and more. With Mundu TV, you’ll be able to watch prime-time TV and movie content from top channels in a variety of genres. Perhaps one of the more...
The Asus Eee Pad Transformer tablet is one of the more interesting Android tablets on the market in that it has a keyboard docking station that essentially allows it to convert to an Android 3.0 Honeycomb-based netbook on the fly. Add to that a powerful dual-core 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra 2 processor and a reasonable MSRP of $399 (just the tablet,...
This summer, you’ll be able to visit your local Redbox to get your hands on some of the latest video game titles. Beginning June 17, 2011, Redbox will offer Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Nintendo Wii titles at more than 21,000 Redbox locations nationwide. Top video games will be available for $2 a day. As you may recall, Redbox began...
The news magazine Time and Apple announced a deal today that will give print subscribers full access to the iPad versions of its magazines for free, including publications like Fortune, Sports Illustrated, and Time itself. The deal is a potent demonstration of how disappointed most publications have been over the growth of iPad subscriptions....
The Motorola Xoom tablet has been met with plenty of hype, and perhaps rightfully so since it is the first tablet to ship with Android 3.0 (aka Honeycomb), the first version of Android designed specifically for tablets. Although there are a number of tablets slated to hit the market this year, Motorola has the benefit of being the first company...
Now's not a fun time to be working at Panasonic, not when you're constantly looking over your shoulder wondering if the corporate axe will come crashing down. Over the next two years, Panasonic said it plans to hand out another 17,000 pink slips and turn out the lights at up to 70 factories in order to trim costs and remain competitive. This...
Online data tracker Net Applications published data yesterday that shows IE9 coming on strong, but not necessarily the way Microsoft would like. Adoption trends show that much of IE9's gain was offset by fewer people using Internet Explorer 8. This implies that while customers see the advantages of IE9, they're not turning to Microsoft to...
Word on the Web is that Intel's Sandy Bridge platform is making a mad dash for Apple's iMac line of all-in-one (AIO) desktops. If the leaked information turns out to be true, Apple will introduce these new models tomorrow, May 3rd. The pairing of Intel's Sandy Bridge processors with the recently introduced Thunderbolt (Light Peak) interface...
Thickness-gate is a fake. That's what Apple SVP of worldwide product marketing Phil Schiller has said via Twitter. Thickness-gate is the nickname given by some over the discovery that the white iPhone 4 appears to be about 0.2mm thicker than the black one. Ernesto Barron sent a public Tweet to Apple Senior Vice President of Product Marketing...
Does the world really have machines that are still actively being used...without Wi-Fi? It may seem hard to believe if you're living in a society that's eternally connected, but the niche still exists in some places. To solve that problem, and provide connectivity to machines that were born without, IOGEAR has unveiled their universal Wi-Fi...
Blu-ray burners aren't nearly as uncommon as they once were, but that doesn't make Plextor's new PX-LB950UE 12X external Blu-ray writer any less attractive. It's tough to find legitimate 12x BD burning options, and this one is bolstered by the addition of eSATA and USB 3.0. It won't handle BDXL, but discs having a capacity of 25GB or 50GB...
Looking to start your own personal studio? Your own podcasting network? No need to spend a fortune -- Samson's got your back. The company has just revealed the Studio GT Pro, which will be sold exclusively at Best Buy. The package includes studio monitors, condenser mic, and music production software, which sounds like just about everything...
Now that Flip Video is out, other companies are swooping in to take over where Cisco left off. If you're still in the market for a new pocket camcorder, Sony has an interesting new option up for sale: the Bloggie 3D. Though announced already, the 3D-enabled device has just gone on sale in recent days, giving those in the U.S. the opportunity...
If the iPod touch is the iPhone without a phone, the Galaxy S WiFi is the same device over on the Android side of things. The company has just launched two incredibly sleek players in Korea, the Galaxy S WiFi 4.0 and WiFi 5.0. The only major difference is the screen size; the 4.0 has a 4" panel, while the 5.0 has a 5" panel. Both will have...
Sony Corporation's Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai held a press conference on Sunday to address the PlayStation Network (PSN) hacking. During the event, Hirai apologized to gamers worldwide, and detailed a "recovery plan" for both the PSN and Qriocity services, which have been offline since hackers attacked them on April 19. Coming...
Back in early March, we covered news that AT&T was instituting broadband meters after years of providing unlimited service. For standard DSL customers, 'unlimited' now means 150GB per month, while U-verse subscribers have a higher cap of 250GB/s. AT&T claims that these caps are necessary due to the fact that a small number of customers...
One of the features that AMD, Intel, Nvidia, and ARM have all pushed in the last six years is the evolution of their various power saving technologies. This allows chips to draw much less power, but it leaves increasingly large amounts of the processor unpowered the majority of the time. As process technologies shrink, this so-called 'dark...
Video: PowerColor Radeon 6670 1GB @ PureOverclock Processors: AMD Athlon II X2 265 Processor Review by Ultimate Hardware Memory and Storage: Mach Extreme MX-GX 16GB USB 3.0 Review at Overclockers Online Legion Hardware - (Synology DiskStation DS411+) [Tech ARP] Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex 1 TB Portable (USB 3.0) Hard Disk Drive Review Power:...
Previously, we told you that analysts were expecting Motorola to report weak sales of its new Xoom tablet. Now, the official numbers are out, and they're not as bad as some analysts predicted. In fact, during its first-quarter earnings report, Motorola said it shipped 250,000 Xoom tablets in the first month the device was available....
Trying to cut cables these days? It's time for Spring Cleaning in your network rack, and D-Link knows it. This week they announced the DIR-651, a Wireless N 300 Gigabit router that's geared for speed. It'll handle 802.11n connections as well as provide four Gigabit Ethernet ports on the rear. The Intelligent Quality of Service (QoS) allows...
My, how the times have changed. Just a few years ago, the vast majority of tablets shipped with resistive touch panels and a stylus to control input. These days, it's all about capacitive and multi-touch. If you can't do it with your fingers, it's not worth doing...or something like that. But E FUN (hardly a household name) is putting the...
It's not quite as sophisticated or complex as some of the liquid cooling options we've seen lately, but there's still a monster market out there for standard case fans. NZXT knows a thing or two about the hardcore gaming PC sect, and they're introducing this week a new FS-200 LED fan lineup to provide powerful gusts with no noise. And in order...
Keyboards have been around a long, long time. And come to think of it, so have Bluetooth keyboards and flexible keyboards. But that said, we haven't seen a good option combining both of those in quite some time, and that's where Scosche comes in. The accessory maker has just revealed their new freeKEY, a flexible / wireless keyboard that's...
No real surprises here, but the Motorola Xoom will soon have a second U.S. carrier to call home. Sprint has this week announced that they'll also be stocking the world's first Honeycomb tablet, but instead of having 3G / 4G support, it'll sell the Wi-Fi only model. The specs remains the same otherwise: there's a 10.1" display, 1GHz dual-core...