sexta-feira, 29 de abril de 2011
Intel's Next-Generation High-End Core-Logic to Feature SSD Caching Technology
Intel Readies Larsen Creek SSD, SSD Caching Technology for Z68 Platforms
OCZ Introduces Enterprise-Class VeloDrive PCIe SSD
URL: http://www.storagereview.com/ocz_introduces_enterpriseclass_velodrive_pcie_ssd
Today OCZ announced the new VeloDrive PCI-Express SSD, powered by four SandForce SF-1565 processors. The VeloDrive is aimed at enterprise users who demand very fast speeds and scalability, which this product delivers on in all counts. The VeloDrive supports both hardware and software RAID modes and can be deployed in most servers with its low-profile design. It also has minimal system resource hit and a very small DRAM footprint.
Plextor Announces New External 12X Blu-ray Writer
URL: http://www.storagereview.com/plextor_announces_new_external_12x_bluray_writer
Plextor has announced a new Blu-ray burner with write speeds up to 12X, the highest speed available today. The PX-LB950UE has USB 3.0 and eSATA connections and includes Blu-ray playback software, including support for 3D.
Toshiba lança cartão SD de gravação única
A Toshiba lançou um cartão de memória SD que permite apenas uma gravação. Depois de gravados pela primeira vez, os dados não podem ser apagados nem modificados.
| Divulgação | ||
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| Cartão de memória da Toshiba impede que dados sejam alterados após gravação |
Google Talk para Android ganha suporte a conversas com vídeo
Finalmente será possível ter conversas com vídeo pelo Google Talk usando aparelhos com o sistema operacional Android. O novo recurso permite o uso de vídeo não apenas nas conversas entre donos de dispositivos com Android, mas entre esses e usuários do Gmail (que conta com sua própria versão do Google Talk). As chamadas podem ser feitas via redes 3G, 4G ou Wi-Fi.
| Divulgação | ||
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| Nova lista de contatos do Google Talk mostra ícones com formato de câmera |
Android já tem mais aplicativos grátis que iPhone
Em março, o número de aplicativos gratuitos no Android Market, do Google, superou o total de programas grátis para iPhone disponíveis na App Store, da Apple
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Intel touts 50Gbps interconnect by 2015, will make it work with tablets and smartphones too
URL: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/29/intel-touts-50gbps-interconnect-by-2015-will-make-it-work-with/
Intel touts 50Gbps interconnect by 2015, will make it work with tablets and smartphones too originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 29 Apr 2011 06:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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quarta-feira, 27 de abril de 2011
Best SSDs For The Money: April 2011
URL: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=0e1db0e0954d98964d9e456de5568121
This is the first installment in a new series recommending the best solid-state drives you can buy at any given budget level. With so many SSDs piling up, all based on the same few controllers, it's time for us to start identifying the real winners.
High-End P67 Express: Five $200-250 Motherboards
URL: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=f4d1a6c45522e80c6ef6b3d93fcaa9b9
With mainstream boards based on Intel's P67 Express chipset now priced well beyond $150, we reached into the $200-250 range to see what kinds of enhancements high-end buyers could expect just ahead of the anticipated Z68 Express launch. Carregador Eólico para iPhone
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/HitechLive/~3/HQmYnu1Ao0U/
Já pensou em ter um carregador que dê carga em seu iPhone através do vento? O iFan, desenhado pelo designer Tjeerd Veenhoven, é um dispositivo que aproveita a energia eólica para carregar o iPhone da Apple.
Se você for do tipo pró-meio-ambiente, o carregar é perfeito.
Empresa brasileira anuncia tablet por 799 reais
Enquanto o iPad 2 não vem, mais uma empresa brasileira, a Moove, anuncia um tablet montado no país. O Win Tab vai rodar o sistema Android e deverá custar 799 reais
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Televisores Bravia, da Sony, vão exibir conteúdo do portal Terra
Os televisores, players de Blu-ray e home theaters com acesso à internet da Sony passarão a exibir conteúdo do portal Terra
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Telefônica amplia acesso à internet por fibra óptica
URL: http://exame.abril.com.br/tecnologia/noticias/telefonica-amplia-acesso-a-internet-por-fibra-optica
A Telefônica está ampliando a área de abrangência do seu serviço de acesso à internet por fibra óptica, que oferece velocidade de até 100 megabits por segundo
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Óculos Transforma Cinema 3D em 2D!
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/digitaldrops/~3/l29y_G1Qa_4/oculos-transforma-cinema-3d-em-2d.html
Como no mundo tem louco para tudo, deve ter alguém que se interesse por este par de óculos que transforma o cinema 3D de volta em 2D!
Os óculos 2d-Glasses são indicados para quem fica com dor de cabeça ou enjoo assistindo aos novo filmes em três dimensões, que ficam cada vez mais populares nos cinemas do mundo todo. Aparentemente existem muitas pessoas que não se sentem bem ao assistir filmes em 3D, então fica a dica!
Cada par de óculos 2d-Glasses custa US$7,99 na Amazon.com.
Veja mais óculos aqui no Digital Drops.
Via DVICE.
Additional Details on Sandy Bridge-E Processors, X79, and LGA2011
URL: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4291/additional-details-on-sandy-bridgee-processors-x79-and-lga2011
The latest Intel roadmap has come out, and it's already being discussed elsewhere, so we're going to weigh in with our own analysis of the content as there's plenty of interesting bits of information to sift through. We’ll be looking at other areas over the coming days, but today we’re going to start with the Sandy Bridge-E (SNB-E) processors. Sporting a new socket and chipset, the SNB-E CPUs will start showing up in Q4 this year. None of this is new, as we’ve known the general timeframe for the launch since our Sandy Bridge review, but we can now add some concrete specs. According to the roadmap, the initial SNB-E lineup will consist of three CPUs: two hex-core processors and one quad-core. We don’t have model numbers yet, but we do have most of the other pieces of information.
| The Sandy Bridge-E Lineup | |||
| Family | Core i7 Extreme | Core i7 | Core i7 |
| Core/Thread Count | 6/12 | 6/12 | 4/8 |
| Frequency | 3.3GHz | 3.2GHz | 3.6GHz |
| Max SC Turbo | 3.9GHz | 3.8GHz | 3.9GHz |
| L3 Cache | 15MB | 12MB | 10MB |
| Overclocking | Fully unlocked | Fully unlocked | Limited unlock |
The new chips will all use the LGA2011 socket with Intel’s X79 chipset, scheduled for simultaneous release with the CPUs. The platform replaces the current LGA1366 with X58 chipset, providing an upgrade path for high-end enthusiasts and workstation users. Memory support will move up to quad-channel DDR3-1333, so where the current Bloomfield can provide up to 25.6GB/s of bandwidth at the specified tri-channel DDR3-1066, LGA2011 kicks that figure up to 42.7GB/s—a 66% increase. The additional memory bandwidth should be particularly useful with certain workloads on the hex-core chips.
One interesting piece of information is that the roadmaps make no mention of integrated graphics or Quick Sync, suggesting the platform will be for discrete graphics only. That makes perfect sense on one level, as users likely to upgrade to such high-end systems are almost sure to have discrete GPUs. On the other hand, Quick Sync has proven very effective for video transcoding, providing up to a four-fold increase over CPU-based encoding, so the loss of the feature is unfortunate.
Intel hasn’t disclosed all of the various Turbo modes yet, but they have listed the maximum single-core Turbo speeds. Both the hex-core 3.3GHz and quad-core 3.6GHz top out at a maximum speed of 3.9GHz, and likely the hex-core chip can do 3.6GHz on QC workloads making it equal to or better than the QC chip on every potential workload. The 3.2GHz hex-core steps the maximum clocks speeds down 100MHz, along with cutting the L3 cache size. As with other i7 processors, all the new chips support Hyper-Threading, and while the hex-core chips will be fully multiplier unlocked the quad-core offering will be a “limited unlock”. The roadmap states that the limited unlock will allow up to six bins of overclocking above the maximum Turbo frequencies, which means that even that chip should be able to hit up to 4.5GHz (with appropriate cooling, motherboard, etc.)
Intel makes no mention of pricing at this time, but the new chips should follow familiar patterns. The i7 Extreme will replace the current i7-990X and target the familiar $1000 price point. Moving down, the 3.2GHz hex-core replaces the current i7-980 (which is set to replace the i7-970 in the near future), taking over the $550~$600 range. At the bottom of the SNB-E lineup is the quad-core 3.6GHz chip, which will take over from the i7-960 as well as providing a competitor to the i7-2600 in the sub-$300 market.
| Chipset Comparison | ||
| X58 | X79 | |
| Processor Support | LGA1366 | LGA2011 |
| PCIe Graphics | 2x16 or 4x8 (chipset) | 2x16 or 4x8 (CPU) |
| PCIe Based Uplink to CPU for Storage | No | Yes (x4) |
| USB 2.0 Ports | 12 | 14 |
| SATA Total (6Gbps) | 6 (0) | 14 (10) |
One final area to discuss is the chipset. We’ve included X58 in the above table as a reference point, and we can see that X79 improves a few areas but still fails to support a few newer technologies. While the X79 chipset will include native support for SATA 6Gbps (up to 10 ports, with four additional SATA 3Gbps ports), USB 3.0 support is still missing, similar to the current 5- and 6-series chipsets. X79 natively supports dual x16 PCIe graphics, or quad x8 graphics, but this time the PCIe lanes come directly from the CPU instead of from the chipset, providing lower latency GPU access. There’s another extra, as the CPU (chipset) has the option to use four additional PCIe lanes from the PCH dedicated to storage bandwidth, presumably to help with performance on fast SATA 6Gbps devices (e.g. SSDs).
Given the 2x16 PCIe lanes for graphics and quad-channel memory, we can account for most of the pinout increase relative to LGA1366 and LGA1155, and adding in these remaining storage PCIe lanes with a DMI link to the chipset should take care of the rest. Intel doesn't state whether they're using DMI or QPI, but DMI 2.0 only provides up to 20Gbps between the CPU and chipset, so supporting 10 SATA 6Gbps ports with fast SSDs would certainly saturate that.
That wraps up the consumer side of the SNB-E platform. Note that Intel will also have SNB-E Xeons launching in a similar timeframe. The bigger concern for us is that SNB-E continues the strengths of the Bloomfield/Gulftown processors but doesn’t address some of the weaknesses (i.e. lack of Quick Sync). SNB-E looks like a very capable processor, but if you’re willing to forego the current SNB lineup and wait for SNB-E, you’ll then have to contend with Ivy Bridge. That will be Intel’s first 22nm CPU and it’s scheduled for release in the first half of 2012, but that’s a story for a separate article. We’ll also have additional information on Atom CPUs and Intel SSDs in the near future.
The Ten Deadly Sins of Mobile Video Calling - Sins 1-5: Technology
URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SkypeGarage/~3/47jnLHJL5tg/the_ten_deadly_sins_of_mobile.html
Since the dawn of humanity, mankind has always sought to communicate. Back in the beginning, things were simple. Grunts, pointing of fingers, clubbing on the head. Primitive, but it got the message across.
Mankind quickly discovered that it needed a way to communicate when the other person isn't right next to you. And so began a long series of inventions over centuries of time. Cave drawings, the written word, paper, the postal system and finally the arrival of electronic communications: The telegraph, the telephone. The telephone network was virtually transformed from the inside out when it went digital in the middle of the 20th century.
The next big revolution, of course, was mobile calling and the arrival of cellular networks. Ultimately it still provided the same old service as the wired telephone network did, but you could take it with you. With the Internet, a whole host of new communications services emerged - most notably email and IM. Ultimately though, these were just different manifestations of an old idea - sending text from one person to another. The telegraph had that too, decades prior. It just wasn't quite as easy to use. The Internet also brought the arrival of Voice over IP. In many ways, Voice over IP has been hugely successful. But when we look at it closely, it is also - to a large degree - another repackaging of what we have already been doing - voice, communicated over a distance. It got cheaper, and it got easier to use. But, was it really more - was it really better?
Not really. And that's what's startling here. When we look at communications, especially in modern times, what we find is that there have been huge advances in the things that surround real-time communications, but not the communications itself. Look at the mobile phone. This is a technology whose change over the last 20 years - even the last decade - is nothing short of phenomenal. Compare the original Motorola brick phone to the iPhone 4 - astounding. But as a phone - as a service for communications - you get almost the same experience. 20 years ago, we dialed numbers and we got tinny voice conversations. Today I get the same experience.
One of the things Skype is doing is trying to make this calling experience better.
With the SILK codec, we've introduced super-wideband voice calling to mobile devices around the world, enabling crisper conversations, easier interpretation of accents and an overall high quality voice experience. But voice is just the first step. To more fundamentally transform the communications experience, we needed to add video. And so we did.
The idea of video calling is certainly not new. The first videophone was shown at the World's Fair in 1964 - ages ago. The technology wasn't there yet, and it is only in recent years that video communications has gone mainstream. How mainstream? Well - let me share some of our statistics.
On average, 42% of Skype-to-Skype calls include video* and the number is probably even higher at peak times - around New Year celebrations, for example. And, Skype-to-Skype calling minutes are equivalent to approximately 20% of all global international PSTN and Skype-to-Skype calling minutes.**
Where video is going next is mobile. 2010 was undoubtedly the year that video calling arrived on mobile. Mobile video calling is also not new - we've seen a long line of failed mobile video products over many years. But we're still at the beginning of mobile video. Getting mobile video right is actually really hard. Indeed, there are - in essence - ten deadly sins of mobile video, each of which, if not adequately addressed, can stop the technology dead in its tracks.
They fall into three categories, which I'll explore in this blog post and two more later this week.
The first bunch of them are related to technology.
Sin 1: No cameras
Simple, but a big deal. Without a camera in the front of the phone, you are simply not going to have a video conference call. You might have a see-what-I-see experience using the rear camera - and Qik is great for this - but you really want both. Though phones with front facing cameras have been available outside of the US, they were never mainstream and never made their way stateside. That changed (finally) last year with the iPhone4 and iPod touch, which brought front facing cameras mainstream. Android phones have caught on now too, and we're seeing a bunch of them roll out now with front facing cameras. Great - and fortunately for us, advancements in technology are squashing this sin.
Sin 2: Lousy screens
Video needs screen real estate. Until recently, we just didn't have it. Prior to the arrival of devices like the iPhone and the Motorola DROID, screens were generally small and had meager resolutions too. Now, we finally have what we need - screens which are the size of the phone with resolutions that can show video crisp enough to see the smile on someone's face.
And so, once again, general advancements in technology have addressed this problem too.
Sin 3: Slow networks
Video needs a lot more bandwidth than voice. Our iPhone app needs about 600Kb/s to make a decent video call. Until a few years ago, you just couldn't get that kind of speed on a mobile phone. Two things have addressed this:
- The arrival of 3G cellular networks, which often (but not always) have enough bandwidth to carry a mobile video call.
- The widespread availabiity of WiFi on smartphones. WiFi is not without problems, but at least it tends to provide the bandwidth needed for a video call. Fortunately, many calls - video or otherwise - happen in either the home or the workplace. Those are the two places many users have WiFi enabled on their phones.
Put together, WiFi and 3G cellular networks mean that bandwidth is available in many more locations, making video calls possible.
Sin 4: Slow processors
Video not only requires more bandwidth than voice; it requires more CPU resources too. Encoding a QVGA video stream on a typical smartphone consumes a sizeable percentage of the CPU resources when performed in the main processor. Higher resolutions are out of reach of the CPU, and require hardware assistance from dedicated encoding chips.
To be fair, this isn't just a problem for mobile phones - it's still a problem for PCs. The typical modern PC is still not powerful enough to encode an HD video stream in realtime. Even VGA doesn't work on many PCs yet. No surprise that it is barely possible on the majority of mobile devices.
The situation around hardware acceleration of video encoding and decoding is also a big problem right now. On some platforms, there is hardware accelerated functionality, but it is not available to third-party applications like Skype, and iOS is an example of this. Facetime uses hardware acceleration to improve quality, but those improvements are not available through the iOS API.
The problem isn't just about raw CPU horsepower. It's also about latency. Realtime communications - both voice and video - are really sensitive to delays. For an ideal experience, you want the amount of time it takes between when one person speaks to when the other person hears to be under 150 milliseconds.
Think about it like this: In order to have a mobile video call, video frames must be captured from the camera, sent through the phone hardware, and processed by the software on the phone - on both sides, all in a timely fashion.
Unfortunately, the video camera systems on many phones were designed for streaming video and recording, which has much more relaxed delay requirements. As a result, many phones on the market today have hundreds of milliseconds of delay just for capturing a video frame and making it available to the software on the phone. The problem is even more complex on Android, where the variety of different phones, each with differing hardware and designs, make life even harder for developers like Skype.
Sin 5: Poor UI
It's amazing how easy it is to design a bad UI. The UI for mobile video has to make it dead simple to use. It's easy to focus on the obvious stuff - selecting contacts, making the call, hanging up the call. But the harder stuff has to be handled too.
The biggest hurdle is figuring out whether the person you want to call has the right equipment in the first place. This isn't specific to video - it has been a major complaint of users in adoption of online communication products in general. For video, we now have to factor in the question of whether the person you want to call has a camera or not. Does the device they are on even support video? How do you let the person you want to call know that everything is 'ready' in intuitive ways? How do you identify and find people who you can call?
Then there are other complexities - do you allow people to make voice-only calls? What about shutting off video? How does the other side know that a video shut-off is not a consequence of a problem? Should you let them know that the sender cancelled their video or does that complicate the UI? How do you let the other side know that your video is being received?
These problems are surmountable, but will require time and investment in UI.
These items - the cameras, the screens, the processors, the networks, and the UI - all of them are likely to improve over time with the never-ending improvements in technology. However, even if we eliminate all of these problems, there are others which technology itself is unlikely to solve. Those are the problems I'll be covering in my next posts.
* For the fourth quarter 2010
** TeleGeography, January 2011
domingo, 24 de abril de 2011
Three-Way 23" LED LCD Roundup: Dell, HP, And Samsung
URL: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=5e41a060ffb4f23e5a2379901d4edcdf
We've spent a lot of time evaluating the performance of graphics cards and processors, but a good monitor is almost every bit as important to gamers and professionals alike. For our first look at monitors in 2011, we are starting out with three 23" LCDs. Best Graphics Cards For The Money: April 2011
URL: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=9317268e4ef811748663a90ed5827c06
With six new graphics cards released since our last update, this month's column sees recommendations all switched around and prices shifting in a big way. Learn all about the latest products and where they fit into the price/performance equation here!
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