LG Develops World's First Full HD LCD Smartphone Panel

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/monitors/display/20120528195947_LG_Develops_World_s_First_Full_HD_LCD_Smartphone_Panel.html

LG Creates 5" LCD Display with 1920*1080 Resolution, 440ppi Pixel Density

Noctua to use Active Noise Cancellation in new Fan

URL: http://www.silentpcreview.com/news1264.html

Noctua, noted Austrian heatsink & fan company, just announced a partnership with a noise reduction specialist called RotoSub to develop PC fans with integrated Active Noise Cancellation. This is not the first time that ANC technology is being used to combat computer noise, but as yet, no ANC products for computers that you can buy have materialized. This project seems more concrete; a specific goal is to improve Noctua's NF-F12 FocusedFlow fan: "Our performance target is to achieve about 80% more airflow and 120% higher static pressure at the same noise level as the original NF-F12... within the next 12 to 18 months." Noctua says a prototype ANC NF-F12 fan will be publicy demonstrated at Computex in Taipei. Look for my report next week. * Discuss this news *

Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H Review – Z77 and MicroATX

URL: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5850/gigabyte-gaz77mxd3h-review-z77-and-microatx

In the first of our non-full-size Z77 motherboard reviews, we are today getting to grips with the Gigabyte GA-Z77MX-D3H.  Currently retailing at $135, the Z77MX-D3H offers more performance in the microATX factor than some motherboards do in full-fat ATX mode.  This motherboard took high-powered memory in its stride, and on the latest F10 BIOS (at time of testing) Gigabyte claim full compatibility with Xeon E3-12xx processors.  The Z77MX-D3H represents a great crack at a smaller form factor combined with a dual GPU gaming machine.  Read on for the full review.

Hard Disk Drives' Densities to Double by 2016 - Analysts

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/display/20120521214010_Hard_Disk_Drives_Densities_to_Double_by_2016_Analysts.html

60TB Hard Disk Drives Imminent This Decade

Intel Previews World's First 1Gb/s Internet Modem

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/networking/display/20120521195936_Intel_Previews_World_s_First_1Gb_s_Internet_Modem.html

Intel Shows DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem with 1Gb/s Speed

Quad-Channel DDR3 Memory Round-Up

URL: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/QuadChannel-DDR3-Memory-RoundUp/

To coincide with the release of Intel's current flagship Sandy Bridge-E processor and companion X79 chipset, a number of Intel’s memory partners released new quad-channel memory kits optimized for the platform. Previous Intel platforms were designed to offer optimal performance with two or three-channel memory configurations; Sandy Bridge-E...

How a Smartphone Knows Up from Down (accelerometer)

Thunderbolt onboard two new Asus Z77 boards

URL: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techreport/articles/~3/TMSqY_6ykOg/22966

Adding Thunderbolt support to a desktop PC isn't as easy as dropping in an expansion card. Current Thunderbolt chipsets need to see a motherboard's display outputs, and they can't do that over PCI Express. A number of Asus' current Z77 motherboards provide a special header to make that connection possible. Now, the company has introduced a couple of new models with native Thunderbolt support: the P8Z77-V Premium and P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt. The latter adds Thunderbolt to the existing Pro model, while the Premium is a little more upscale.

...

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Hitachi Deskstar 7K4000 Review

URL: http://www.storagereview.com/hitachi_deskstar_7k4000_review

Hitachi continues to innovate in large-capacity hard drives, and it is easy to see from products like the Deskstar 7K4000 why Western Digital found Hitachi's hard drive division an attractive acquisition. The 7K4000 provides four terabytes (TB) of storage at 7200RPM, and like the Deskstar 5K4000 which we recently reviewed, the 7K4000 uses a five platter design, paired with 800GB platters and 4KB sectors to increase maximum capacity and improve error correction. Compared to the 5K4000, The Deskstar 7K4000’s specs emphasize performance, so we’ll see some key differences emerge between the drives during benchmarks.

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Intel Begins Work on 7nm, 5nm Process Technologies

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/other/display/20120513115821_Intel_Begins_Work_on_7nm_5nm_Process_Technologies.html

Intel Discloses Fab Transition Plans

Core i7-3720QM: Ivy Bridge Makes Its Mark On Mobility

URL: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=bf2af15be83298735b4e72d62457b949

We've already seen that Ivy Bridge doesn't make much of a splash in the desktop space. But we collected notebooks based on Ivy Bridge, Sandy Bridge, Arrandale, and AMD's mobile Llano, and found that the new architecture's effect on mobility is profound.

ASUS P8Z77-V Deluxe Review - Know Your SKU

URL: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5833/asus-p8z77v-deluxe-review-know-your-sku

Now that Panther Point is in full swing, and perhaps Sandy Bridge processor stocks may start to dwindle in favor of Ivy Bridge, market segmentation of motherboards is all too critical.  We have gamers (budget and enthusiast), casual users, audio enthusiasts, HTPC users, storage users, power users, enthusiasts, modders, silent users, overclockers, extreme users or perhaps a combination of many.  Therefore, when it comes to designing a range of boards, a motherboard manufacturer has priority targets.  They can design either a product to go for one target, or a product to cover several.  ASUS have a minimum of 13 boards in their current Z77 lineup (not covering H77), with a few more still to be released.  One of those 13 is the P8Z77-V Deluxe, a high end product focused on power users who want extremes of functionality and the best of most worlds - an Intel NIC (+Realtek), more SATA, dual band WiFi, fan control, provision for Thunderbolt as well as regular ASUS features such as BIOS Flashback, Q-LED, the BIOS itself and AI Suite software.  Even with all of this, it also transpires that the Deluxe is quite good at throughput and IO as well.

Read on for our review.

The death of plasma? Panasonic sales drop by 41 per cent

URL: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/45627/panasonic-plasma-sales-drop-41-per-cent

Posts ?6.3 billion loss

Panasonic has posted its annual financial results and, like many other Japanese consumer electronics brands, the last fiscal year has not been kind. The firm has posted a loss of 812.8 billion Yen (?6.3 billion).

In addition, the results show an alarming drop in sales of plasma televisions, with Panasonic selling 41 per cent fewer sets from April 2011 to the end of March 2012 than it did the previous financial year. Its smaller screen LCD TVs have fared slightly better, but also saw a dip in sales of 28 per cent.

The posted losses are 30 billion Yen (?233 million) more than the company predicted in February this year, and the report states that the overall sum is partly attributable to several key factors, including the Japanese earthquake and resulting tsunami, and the flooding in Thailand. The depreciation of the Yen has also been a major factor.

However, it is those TV sales, or lack of, that are of utmost importance to the company. It has stuck by plasma TV technologies for its large-screen flatpanel displays through thick and thin, but it now seems that consumer trend is heavily swaying towards LED back-lit televisions. It's going to be a struggle for Panasonic to win them back, so the question is, will it bother?

Read

Tags: PanasonicHome CinemaTelevisionsPlasma televisions

 

The death of plasma? Panasonic sales drop by 41 per cent originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Fri, 11 May 2012 14:29:00 +0100

NHK shrinks its 8K Super Hi-Vision-ready camcorder to the size of HD cameras

URL: http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/11/nhk-smaller-8k-super-hi-vision-camcorder/

We may still be years away from watching the sweet, sweet 33MP resolution video promised by Super Hi-Vision in our own homes, but over in Japan, NHK engineers are slowly working out the various kinks keeping it from us. Their latest development is this camera seen above on the left, capable of recording 8K in a camera head that is smaller and lighter than the previous unit (the new one weighs 4kg, about 1/5th the weight) shown on the right, and is more comparable to the size of a standard HDTV camera. According to the NHK the savings were achieved by developing a new single plate color imaging mechanism and eliminating the need for a prism to separate the colors beforehand, so it's small enough to be used with standard SLR camera lenses. Sure, it's not quite ready to go on your next vacation, but if you're in Japan you can get a peek at it (and that 145-inch 8K Panasonic plasma) at the broadcaster's open house later this month.

NHK shrinks its 8K Super Hi-Vision-ready camcorder to the size of HD cameras originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 May 2012 05:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dell UltraSharp U3011 30-inch Monitor Review

URL: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/Dell-UltraSharp-U3011-30inch-Monitor-Review/

There are two types of power users on this planet, and they consist of those who use a 30-inch monitor, and those who don't. The latter far outnumber the former, but thanks to a number of factors, this particular digital divide is growing smaller by the day. For one, 30-inch monitors are somewhat more affordable compared to a few years ago,...

Linus Torvalds: EFI sucks

URL: http://www.linuxtoday.com/infrastructure/linus-torvalds-efi-sucks.html

Linus Torvalds: I had an old Mac Mini that simply absolutely would not install any of the newer Linux distributions, because they now support that abomination called EFI -

New Wi-Fi 802.11-2012 Standard to Enable Faster, More Secure Wireless Communications

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/networking/display/20120507222610_New_Wi_Fi_802_11_2012_Standard_to_Enable_Faster_More_Secure_Wireless_Communications.html

Wi-Fi 802.11-2012 Expands Spec to Support 600Mb/s Speed, New Bands

Asus P8Z77-V Pro: Xpert Fan Control for LGA1155

URL: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Asus_P8Z77-V_Pro

The Asus P8Z77-V Pro is a full-featured Sandy/Ivy Bridge motherboard with five independently controllable fan headers and Asus' new FAN Xpert 2 utility.

Intel Z77 Motherboard Review with Ivy Bridge - ASRock, ASUS, Gigabyte, and MSI

URL: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5793/intel-z77-motherboard-review-with-ivy-bridge-asrock-asus-gigabyte-and-msi

So we have survived one of the biggest days of the year for all things computer performance related - the release of Intel's new Ivy Bridge processor.  It replaces Sandy Bridge in the landscape of all things processor related, with Ivy Bridge boasting better single threaded performance at lower power usage when at stock speeds.  Despite Ivy Bridge being in the same socket as Sandy Bridge, we have a new trio of chipsets to tackle.  As in my previous chipset and motherboard preview, AnandTech has of a series of boards ready to put through their paces with the glory of Ivy Bridge.

Today our first set of reviews begin with the ASRock Z77 Extreme4, the ASUS P8Z77-V Pro, the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H, and the MSI Z77A-GD65.  Read on for the full review.

A super TV 8K Super Hi-Vision de 145 polegadas da Panasonic e NHK em ação, em vídeo

URL: http://targethd.net/2012/05/04/a-super-tv-8k-super-hi-vision-de-145-polegadas-da-panasonic-e-nhk-em-acao-em-video/

A Panasonic e a NHK decidiram mostrar do que a sua monstruosa TV de de plasma 8K de 145 polegadas é capaz de fazer (mesmo porque é a maior do mundo em seu segmento). No vídeo abaixo registrado pelo pessoal da DigInfo, você pode ver a sua apresentação, além de ficar por dentro de algumas [...]

Does Samsung’s Galaxy S III Smartphone Even Need Quad-Core Power?

URL: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/quad-core-vs-dual-core-phones-tablets-nvidia-samsung-galaxy/

Samsung

Ready or not, quad-core processors are coming to smartphones and tablets. In fact, the next mobile gadget you buy – particularly if it’s running Google’s Android operating system — will likely pack four CPU cores instead of two.

The latest gadget in this trend, Samsung’s Galaxy S III, was announced in London Thursday. It includes a 1.4GHz quad-core chip, the Exynos 4 Quad, that’s supposed to be more power-efficient — and therefore kinder to battery life — than the rival Tegra 3 quad-core CPU from Nvidia.

The benefits of a quad-core design sound great on paper. But while both Samsung and Nvidia are promising that their respective quad-core chips will turn our gadgets into power-sipping, high-performing computational beasts, industry experts are saying that it will take months, and maybe even years, for the silicon to realize its full potential.

The benefits that can be seen today – speediness in navigating through an operating system, better battery life and improved multitasking stability — are quad-core advantages that most consumers might not even notice without directly comparing dual-core devices and quad-core devices side-by-side. And, so far, very few apps are being built with quad-core processors in mind.

“The key thing for quad-core is that you need the software to make it work,” said Linley Gwennap, principal analyst at the Linley Group research firm. “If the software is optimized for dual-core processors and not quad-core, you won’t see the benefit.”

Single-Core vs. Multi-Core: The Whys and Hows

In their mission to build the perfect processor, chip designers basically have two main goals: stellar number-crunching performance, and battery-preserving power efficiency. To reach their performance goals, the chip makers can increase a processor’s clock speed — but this will reduce battery life.

Perhaps even worse, clock-speed bumps can fry precious CPU circuits if a chip’s design simply can’t handle the load. So how do chip designers reach ever-higher performance goals if they’ve hit a clock-speed barrier?

Simple: They add multiple processing engines, or cores, to a single silicon die. That die might run at a relatively conservative clock speed, but it will have multiple processing engines executing software instructions. And battery life, more or less, is none the worse for wear.

The first multi-core mobile chips featured two processing cores. The new ones feature four cores, allowing for four different operations to be executed in parallel. But having more than one processor core is just part of the equation. Software — whether an app, a game or an operating system — needs to be expressly coded to share its workload among multiple cores at the same time.

Most smartphone and tablet apps currently available are built for devices that run on single- or dual-core processors, and therefore can’t leverage the extra processing power of quad-core chips such as Samsung’s Exynos 4 Quad or Nvidia’s Tegra 3.

The Asus Transformer Prime tablet features a quad-core Tegra 3 chip that helps speed up OS-level operations.

Operating systems, however, are a different matter. Google’s Android 4.0 operating system is coded to leverage four CPU cores, and this can pay off in multiple ways. The entire interface is fluid and zippy, and that can be an important benefit for an OS running home screens packed with visually rich widgets that update in real-time.

Just as importantly, Android can tap into quad-core for OS-level multitasking: While one core loads a browser page, another core can download an app from Android Market, and yet another core can run the OS itself.

But, in general, quad-core support isn’t leveraged by most individual Android apps, which means the chipmaker’s fancy technology often goes to waste.

Nvidia, for one, is well aware that quad-core remains a question mark for consumers, so to promote apps that can highlight the unique talents of quad-core devices, the company has curated Tegra 3-optimized games in its TegraZone website. Going one step further, Nvidia also works deals to pre-load its TegraZone app on devices using the Tegra 3 CPU — an easy prompt that pushes consumers toward Tegra-optimized games

Nonetheless, the majority of smartphones sold worldwide still make use of single-core processors, while dual-core has largely been a feature reserved for mid- to high-end phones, Gwenapp noted.

“Dual-core is still the high-end and single-core, at this point, is still the mid-range, the mainstream,” Gwennap told Wired. “Unless Apple really gets aggressive and puts a quad-core processor in the iPhone 5, I think you still won’t see quad-core becoming more common for another couple years.”

Apple and Research In Motion haven’t announced any plans to deploy quad-core processors in iPhones, iPads or BlackBerry devices — though quad-core iPhones and iPads have been rumored. Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system confines phones to single-core CPUs, though the next version of the OS will be compatible with multi-core devices of some sort.

But on the Android side of the mobile market, quad-core is the trend. And this trend isn’t fueled by apps, app makers or even consumer demand. It’s fueled by the companies that make the processors, as well as the smartphone and tablet manufacturers that are looking to wow nerd-caliber consumers with impressive specs.

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Buying an SSD - The Top 10 Brands That Matter

URL: http://www.storagereview.com/buying_ssd_brand_matters

When evaluating SSDs in the consumer space, the buyer can get easily confused with the dizzying array of options. Rather than consolidating in the last year, the client SSD space continues to explode. Well, that's not entirely accurate, the number of manufacturers selling SSDs has increased, though the variation in solutions has not. To put a finer point on it, there are manufacturers who are innovating or otherwise adding value, and there are those who are simply slapping a brand on an SSD, without providing consumers with much of a support network or adding even incremental value along the way.

read more

1Gbps Wireless Network Made With Red and Green Laser Pointers

URL: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/VPMxp6SzD5s/1gbps-wireless-network-made-with-red-and-green-laser-pointers

MrSeb writes "Back in the olden days, when WiFi and Bluetooth were just a glimmer in the eye of IEEE, another short-range wireless communications technology ruled supreme: Infrared Data Association, or IrDA for short. IrDA was awful; early versions were only capable of kilobit-per-second speeds, and only over a distance of a few feet. Trying to get my laptop and mobile phone to link up via IrDA was, to date, one of the worst tech experiences I've ever had. There's a lot to be said for light-based communications, though. For a start, visible (and invisible) light has a frequency of between 400 and 800THz (800 and 375nm), which is unlicensed spectrum worldwide. Second, in cases where you really don't want radio interference, such as hospitals, airplanes, and other sensitive environments, visible light communication (VLC), or free-space optical communication, is really rather desirable. Now researchers at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan have transmitted data using lasers — not high-powered, laboratory-dwelling lasers; handheld, AAA-battery laser pointers. A red and green laser pointer were used, each transmitting a stream of data at 500Mbps, which is then multiplexed at the receiver for a grand total of 1Gbps."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MSI X79A-GD65 (8D): Almost Ideal LGA 2011 Mainboard

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/msi-x79a-gd65-8d.html

This is a mainboard with good accessories bundle, convenient layout, efficient cooling system, wide functionality and low power consumption. It is really close to becoming a leader as soon as some minor issues are successfully resolved.

Six $160-220 Z77 Motherboards, Benchmarked And Reviewed

URL: http://www.pheedcontent.com/click.phdo?i=0552789769ff344717ec57ea8bf42854

Combining the newest features with moderate expandability, Intel's mainstream platforms provide high value to most gaming and overclocking enthusiasts. We compare six examples with Z77 Express to find the best features, overclocking, and efficiency.