|  |  |  | | | | | Maximum PC - All Articles | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Despite the skepticism, of the commentariat, I believe that 3D television is inevitable. Within a few years, all television sets and all Blu-Ray players and all gaming consoles will be 3D capable. And because the capability is there, studios and networks will continue to use it as an audience magnet for important events. But… I also believe that the current implementation of 3D technology—using polarized or active shutter glasses is only an intermediate stage. The ideal 3D system—the one we really want—will be some form of wall-sized holographic projection that does not require any special glasses at all. And while that technology was seemingly impossible only a few short years ago, I think we're on the threshold of a breakthrough. I'll explain. 
Image courtesy dj-design.com The history of photography, from the first pinhole cameras to the present has been about focusing light onto a flat image-sensitive surface. Whether that surface was film or an electronic sensor, the key element was the lens and its ability to focus light onto a flat plane. All of photography is about the relationship of the lens to the recording surface. Current 3D imagery is still about the lens—two lenses. Stereoscopy is a carefully constructed illusion, produced by two images photographed about 2.25 inches apart. When it's well done, the illusion is wonderful. But it's still an illusion, and as some critics have pointed out, the illusion sometimes contradicts itself. The eyes are focusing on a flat plane that is often at a contradictory distance from the illusory depth of the stereoscopic image. (There are other issues as well. The lenses used, the depth of field, and the amount of separation also complicate the creation of the illusion.) Holography, on the other hand, is a lensless process. It's not about capturing an image on a flat plane, it's about capturing a wave-form map of the light passing through a plane. With laser holography, you shoot a laser at a beam-splitter. Half the beam reflects off the object, the other half is the reference beam. When the two beams are reintegrated, you get an interference pattern. A laser hologram is the recording of that interference pattern onto a light-sensitive surface, a large piece of film. When light is aimed through the interference pattern, the original wave forms are reconstructed and the viewer perceives that as a true three-dimensional image. A hologram presents the same wave forms to the eyes as the original image. It's as if you're looking through a window. You can move your head, tilt your head, stand on your head. It doesn't matter. You're not focusing on the static plane of the film or the screen. You're focusing on what appears to be the actual object. Unfortunately, laser-holography does not lend itself easily to capturing color or moving images. It can be done. I've seen color holograms and they're so realistic that the image defies comparison with any other form of three-dimensional reproduction—with or without glasses. But projecting such a holographic image so that it can be viewed by an audience is another technological hurdle.
As I said above, I think we're on the threshold of solving both parts of the problem—recording the image and projecting it. Up till now, the creation of a hologram required a carefully calibrated beam-splitter and laser. Not practical for a point-and-shoot situation at the park or a wedding or a vacation. But the laser may no longer be necessary. We finally have the processing power to change the entire nature of photography. We can synthesize a holographic interference pattern from a digital model of an object. All we need is the digital model of the scene, real or constructed, and the computer can create a color hologram. How do we get that digital model in real time without the laser? Multiple simultaneous photographs. Let me speculate. Imagine a camera the size of a small saucer. The rear is an electronic viewfinder. The front is an array of lenses. Two might be sufficient, but I suspect a dozen, set in a circle, might be even more efficient. The lenses need only have image-sensors of 2 megapixels each. But for sharpness and detail, you could put a 20-megapixel lens in the center. The little sensors record placement information. The one big sensor records texture, color, and detail. When you take a picture, the camera records 44 megapixels of information. 20 megapixels of actual photograph and another 24 megapixels of difference information. A multi-core processor in the camera constructs a 3D model of the scene and maps the 20-megapixel data onto it. Data can be interpolated as needed to fill in things missed by the central sensor, but picked up by the lesser quality edge sensors. Perhaps the professional models would have three 20-megapixel sensors spaced equidistantly around the edge of the saucer to capture even more detail. Or some other arrangement. The point is that we don't need a laser. If we have multiple views of the same scene, we have enough information for the software to construct a digital model and extrapolate an interference pattern for a color hologram viewable in white light. If we can record images at 30fps, we'll have holographic video. (BTW, all those multiple sensors can give you real-time High Dynamic Range video too. And probably a lot of other nifty exposure effects, like synthesizing an amazingly high ISO.) Existing 3D movies might also be translatable into a holographic format for viewing without glasses. 
Presenting the synthesized interference pattern on a video panel might require greater resolution than our video displays are currently capable of. 1900x1080 might be insufficient for the kind of clarity and crispness we've gotten used to. We might have to go up to 4K resolution. Or more. But screens of that resolution have already been demonstrated in the lab and could become consumer products in the foreseeable future. If and when we can put an interference pattern on a video panel, one that will allow white light shone through it to construct the digitally-synthesized waveform, we will have true 3D television. If we can find a way to recreate that waveform on a theater-sized screen, we'll have 3D movies that don't require glasses. There are still going to be technical issues. If the photographic window is the size of a saucer, then how do you expand that window to the size of a home theater, or for that matter an Imax installation? Part of the image processing will have to address that issue. You don't want Beverly Hills Chihuahua to turn into Bel Air St. Bernard. But I think that problem could be solvable too. It'll take some experimentation, some engineering, a lot of testing and tweaking, but if we're construct a digital model of the scene when we photograph it, we can also reconstruct that digital model for whatever size screen it's going to be presented on, whether it's your laptop, your home theater, or the local multiplex. (The bandwidth problems could be horrendous, of course. It all depends on how much information actually needs to be transmitted and where the bulk of the processing is done—maybe most of it can be done in the receiver. I'm sure that Scotty will figure it out just before the last commercial.) Some of what I've described here has already been demonstrated in the lab. Adobe has shown some very sophisticated technology for mapping detailed textures onto 3D surfaces, other companies have produced computer generated interference patterns for credit cards and driver's licenses. Those are the two front-end issues. The last piece of the puzzle is the presentation window. If it all comes together, I suspect we could see the first experimental units before the decade is over. And if I'm right, then the current generation of 3D televisions will be obsolete right on schedule. Ten years. What do you think? ————— David Gerrold is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. He has written more than 50 books, including "The Man Who Folded Himself" and "When HARLIE Was One," as well as hundreds of short stories and articles. His autobiographical story "The Martian Child" was the basis of the 2007 movie starring John Cusack and Amanda Peet. He has also written for television, including episodes of Star Trek, Babylon 5, Twilight Zone, and Land Of The Lost. He is best known for creating tribbles, sleestaks, and Chtorrans. In his spare time, he redesigns his website, www.gerrold.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Most things become so unremarkable through frequent use that we begin to take them for granted. Take for instance media synchronization, a trivial task that most of you probably perform across your panoply of devices several times a day with your eyes shut. But I am sure most of you don't even know something as rudimentary as the name of the company that owns the patent for the intricate technology behind it. Any guesses? In any case, the correct answer is media server maker ReQuest. The New York-based firm is running a campaign to educate media companies about one of its most precious intellectual properties: couple of patents (No. 7,577,757 and 7,136,934) that broadly cover all that there is to multimedia synchronization.
According to CNET, ReQuest is busy sending missives to various online entertainment outlets to inform them that it owns the patent for media syncing. The tech site claims to be in possession of a copy of the letter that has already been delivered to a number of companies. The letter focuses on a proprietary ReQuest technology called NetSync and describes it as "a system for synchronizing devices in a multimedia environment." Back in 2007, the company issued a press release to announce that it had secured the "patent for music, photo, and video synchronization." It also stressed the fact that it had filed the patent several months before the first iPod became available in late 2001. This is how it described the technology back then: "NetSync is ReQuest's proprietary, key enabling technology that allows its music servers and other audio-video component designs to share and exchange audio-video entertainment, setup and operations data, and to interact under the control of external "clients" including personal computers and personal wireless devices." Though CNET's source accused ReQuest of making concealed threats of legal action in the letter, the company's CEO Peter Cholnoky denied the same in a phone interview with the tech site. As per Cholnoky, his company only intends "to open up the patents to the market, especially as the patent market has heated up." "Google just offered to pay $900 million for (6,000 patents belonging to Nortel, the bankrupt Canadian telecom-equipment company). Nortel is auctioning them off. So, companies like Google are interested in acquiring patents and I sent the letters to people who might have some interest...we've received lots of calls," Cholnoky told CNET. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  If you're the owner of a shiny new HTC Thunderbolt or LTE modem on Verizon Wireless, you're probably wondering where that extra G went. Big Red has reportedly been experiencing an outage in its nationwide 4G network for most of the day. Users have had no choice but to drop down to 3G connectivity. What is this, 2008?
Some unfortunate users have also been reporting issues with their 3G connectivity, but Verizon has not confirmed that. They have confirmed the LTE issues, though. As of about 4PM Pacific the Verizon Twitter account claimed the cause had been identified, and they were working to restore service. No exact time frame was given for the restoration of LTE data. The carrier's 4G service produces speeds well over 10Mbps in most conditions, so going back to 3G might be a little jarring for users. Still, Verizon is probably saved from much of the customer outrage by the relative robustness of their 3G network. Have you been affected by the outage? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Google sure took its time, but an official Google Docs app is now available for Google's own Android platform. Users can now get quicker access to their cloud-based documents with the aid of this (mostly) native application. While the editing could be better, the Docs app has some interesting features around sharing and optical character recognition (OCR).
The new Docs app is not tied to a single Google account. Users can switch accounts from within the app. Documents can be shared easily with any contact from right on the phone. Of course, you can create new documents, and Docs will even let you use the camera to do it. Using the Document from Photo option, Docs will use OCR to turn a snapshot of text into editable text. The document editing is probably the weakest part of this experience. All it does is pull up the same old web interface as a frame inside the app. Docs does offer a home screen widget with quick access to starred docs, the camera capture features, and new doc creation. The app is free in the Android Market. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Ladies, here comes the big confession: I'm a space geek. There's a ton of cool stuff out there in the night sky, it does cool things, and it really makes me feel like an ant in a humongous vacuum–er, tank– whenever I turn my face to the night sky and gaze at the big, shining, millions-of-years-old flickering lights. I've previously turned to a freeware app called Celestia for all my non-TIE-Fighter-based space needs (the irony being that you can actually import Star Wars ships into the space-simulationg app, but I digress). A newcomer has since entered the playing field and, minus the fact that you'll have to practically buy a new hard drive for the 366-megabyte download, it's a pretty awesome looking voyage through the universe! The app, dubbed "Space Engine," allows you to fly through the cosmos and gaze upon various celestial bodies as if you were an astronaut with a warp drive attached to his or her back. Selecting new locations to visit—like good ol' Mother Earth—is as easy as slapping F3 on your keyboard and typing in your location of choice. If you're within a solar system, you can use F2 to pull up a picture-in-picture-like display of the various planets and moons located within. Switching your voyage is as easy as clicking on one and hitting "g"—Space Engine's shortcut for its hyperdrive. I say that as I do, for the app borrows a page from the Star Wars school of thought in its starry motion blur as you careen around the galaxy. While I can't promise that this app is as cool as an angry wookie, the planets in our solar system do seem faithfully rendered—let me know how the rest of the galaxy looks. And don't forget your towel, traveler. 
Download it here! Have an awesome suggestion for a freeware or open-source application that you'd like to see profiled? Leave a note in the comments or contact David Murphy directly! | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | We remember a time when "back up" meant hitting the "clone drive" button—and that was about as hard as it got. Unfortunately, things have changed. Now that we measure our digital lives in terabytes instead of megabytes, it's just impractical to copy the entire contents of one drive over to another as part of a routine backup schedule. That's why we like 2BrightSparks' SyncBack program. With but a few clicks of a mouse you can ensure that only the files you care about most are either backed up on a regular basis or, better yet, automatically synchronized between two locations at once. These are just a couple of the powers promised by the freeware version of SyncBack. In the following guide, we'll show you how to use this simple application to transform your normal backup procedures (or lack thereof) from time-consuming, self-starting routines into precise, automated awesomeness. 1. Set Up Your Profile After installing the free version of SyncBack, available at www.2brightsparks.com, you'll be prompted to set up a profile. A profile is simply this: Which folders do you want to back up, where do you want to put them, and how do you want the backup to happen? In the freeware version of SyncBack, you get one of two options to choose from: backup or synchronization (below). Which one you choose is entirely up to you. The backup option works just like every other backup you've ever run: Files are copied from one location to another at a given interval you schedule or, for the lazy user, whenever you open SyncBack and run the profile. 
A synchronization, on the other hand, is like a Star Trek replicator for your files. The second you make a change within a folder that SyncBack is scanning, the program will automatically perform the same operation on a target folder you specify. This includes adding files, deleting files, changing the contents of files—anything. For the purposes of this article, we're going to work with the backup option. So select that, hit OK, and we'll keep going! 2. Define the Basics Once you've named your profile, you'll see SyncBack's default, basic mode for configuring the ins and outs of your backup profile (below), but you don't need that. You're hardcore. Click the Expert button on the bottom of the window. 
Whoa! A ton of new tabs and options open up before your very eyes (below). We'll deal with them in a bit. For now, start your trip down backup lane by selecting which of the three options in the Simple tab best fits your file-copying needs. We're going to use the app to back up our specific Windows user folder, so we've selected the option that throws all subfolders of a target folder into the mix. 
And while we're on the topic, be sure to select the source folder you'll be backing up at the top of SyncBack's Profile Setup window. Yes, you'll want to select the destination folder as well. Leave the subdirectories option just as it is for now: We'll customize our folder selections in a bit. 3. Manage Your Overwrites One of the most important configuration screens within SyncBack's Profile Setup window can be found on its Advanced tab (below), for it's here where you'll set the specific rules that govern the various what-if situations that come up during a typical backup. Unlike a conventional backup application, SyncBack dumps your files into one folder, period. There's no way to maintain multiple backups over a given time period, per se. 
What should SyncBack do if a file is on your source drive but not on your target? Send it on over! What should SyncBack do if it finds the same file on both? This is a backup: Overwrite the contents on the destination drive with the source file (either always, or only if the file is newer than the older version on the destination drive). And, our favorite, what should SyncBack do with all the files on the destination drive that are no longer matched on the source? We live dangerously—and we appreciate an uncluttered backup drive—so we say delete these. If you want to keep these legacy files around, however, you can certainly tell SyncBack to do so. The power is yours, backupateer. Again, we need to stress that we're selecting the options that make the most sense to us for our own backup profile: Your choices may—and will—vary, especially if you want to synchronize your folders instead. 4. Set Up Filters Tied for importance alongside SyncBack's Advanced tab is its Filter tab (below) and, to a lesser degree, its Sub-directories tab. You'll use the former to select the specific files and folders you want to exclude from your backups. It seems counterintuitive—that you'd want to remove subfolders and files from the primary directory to be backed up—but hear us out. 
In our case, we have a whole ton of information within our Windows user folder that we really don't need to duplicate. Links and Favorites? Unnecessary. Folders that have been created by third-party programs? Unchecked—we only want to back up the primary data that is otherwise irreplaceable on our drive. Those are just a couple examples. As for files, do we really need to back up anything that ends in .tmp, .htm, or .html? Nope. What about .bak or .log files? Gone. To eliminate these, we merely need to introduce them into the "Files NOT to copy" screen by using a wildcard—*.tmp, for example—to remove them from our main backup. It's a lot easier in our example—copying our Windows user folder—to go in and select only the direct folders within the Windows\Users\[our name] directory that we care about. You can do this in one of two ways: In the Sub-directories tab (after selecting the "Let me choose what sub-directories to include" option in the Sub-Dirs drop-down menu at the top of the Profile Setup window), or by adding these directories within the related option in the Filter tab. The first choice only excludes the specific folders you have not checked on the screen: Any new directories in the parent Source folder, created after the fact, will be added to the backup by default. 5. Set Up Scheduling Confession time: You'll have to use Windows Task Manager to schedule SyncBack backups if you want them to happen when the program isn't running in the background of your operating system. That's a ton of work, and we actually don't mind having super-quick access to our backup profiles with a background-running SyncBack (accessed via an icon in the Windows taskbar).
So, we much prefer SyncBack's simple, "Run this profile every..." option, to be found within the Background tab of the Profile Setup screen (below). Set the time interval in seconds, minutes, hours, or days, and SyncBack will automatically process your backup profile at whatever Windows priority level you set. 
If you've used our previous tips to exclude folders and files that don't need to be backed up, you'll find that SyncBack's "every [interval]" backup scheduling is hardly irritating. But more importantly, you'll find a fresh version of your files on your backup location each and every time you need to access them—which, we hope, is quite rarely. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  We're a bit skeptical when it comes to concept keyboards shipping on time. That's what happens when you get strung along with numerous delays and excuses, as was the case with Art Lebedev Studio's Optimus Maximums OLED keyboard, which finally shipped long after its original promised launch date. Now we're being told that a company called Minebea is prepping its totally flat "Cool Leaf" concept keyboard for a May 13, 2011 release. With all due respect, we'll believe it when we see it.
What makes the Cool Leaf keyboard different from all ther rest is that it utilizes flat mirror panels across the plank. Lighted keys mean you can use it in the dark, and because there aren't any crevices to worry about, you won't ever have to flip it over and shake out Hot Pocket or potato chip remnants from in between the keys. For this reason, Minebea says it's an ideal plank for places that require cleanliness, such as medical and food plants, and other clean room areas. No price has yet been announced, though we do know that it will ship in a Japanese language edition at launch. Minebea also said it plans to ship a U.S. version later this summer. Image Credit: Minebea | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The numbers are in and once again, they favor Intel in a big way. According to industry analyst firm Mercury Research, Intel continues to dominate the competition in the x86 space and controls an 81 percent share of the market. Rival AMD, meanwhile, held on to an 18.2 percent share, and like Intel, showed little change from the same time period in 2010.
According to an eWeek report, Mercury Research's x86 market share numbers include both PC and server processors. There hasn't been a whole lot of movement among the major chip makers, with Intel claiming an 81.2 percent share in the first quarter of 2010 and 81 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. AMD also stayed flat, claiming an 18.1 percent share in the first quarter of 2010. Neither company has budged more than 0.2 percent within the past year. The same holds true for VIA, which bumped up its share from 0.7 percent during the first quarter of 2010 to 0.9 percent in Q1 2011. Overall, x86 chip revenues in Q1 grew 1.1 percent, well above the seasonal average of an 8.6 percent decline, but that number is deceiving. There are usually 13 weeks in the first quarter, but this time there were 14 weeks. When adjusted for 13 weeks, Mercury Research noted that revenue was down 6.2 percent, still above the seasonal average. "This is the third quarter in a row of significantly below normal year-on-year growth," McCarron said in a release. "However, the decline in the yearly comparable growth appears to have stopped this quarter, hinting at a possible resumption of on-year growth in the coming quarters of 2011." Image Credit: Intel | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Amazon earlier this month announced a new addition to the Kindle family, "Kindle with Special Offers," and said the device would ship on May 3, 2011 for $114, a $25 savings over the regular third-generation Kindle. Well, it looks as though Amazon and its affiliates are eager to get the ball rolling, because we just got word that the ad-enabled Kindle is in-stock and ready to ship immediately, about a week ahead of schedule.
Kindle with Special Offers is the same eBook reader as the $139 version, only this one comes with sponsored screensavers, ads, and special savings in exchange for a lower price tag. Amazon is gambling that electronic book worms will be willing to save a few bucks up front in exchange for ads, and to sweeten the pot, users can expect exclusive deals like $10 for a $20 Amazon.com gift card, 50 percent off a Roku streaming player, and other special offers to rolled out in the following weeks. Amazon's accelerated launch might also have been prompted by the recent Android 2.2 (Froyo) update for Barnes & Noble's Nook Color device, which added built-in email, enhanced Web browsing, and a dedicated app store. Kindle with Special Offers Homepage Image Credit: Amazon | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The Citizen Kane of shooting guys in the face Bulletstorm is a big-armed, bigger-brained contradiction. On one hand, it's about a band of hulking space pirates who can't go two sentences without shouting some (admittedly hilarious) variation on a certain male organ. The game is juvenile and ridiculous, so it only makes sense that it'd have game mechanics to match, right? Wrong. Behind Bulletstorm's barrel-chested bravado is a quiet brilliance—a reinvention of the FPS genre as we know it. It's just a shame that—despite what its title may imply— Bulletstorm doesn't quite manage to completely pull the trigger. 
Console port or not, this game is absurdly gorgeous. See, Bulletstorm's contradictory nature doesn't stop with its dual personalities. The game's central selling point—the creativity- fueled "skillshot" system—is an amazing idea on paper, but its tremendous potential is only able to leak out in tiny drips precisely because it's in Bulletstorm. Here's how it works: Each time you kill an enemy, you're assigned a certain number of points. The amount you gain, however, depends on how you introduce your enemy to his maker. So let's say you get a headshot. Well, the skillshot system's going to be about as impressed with that as Simon Cowell is with anything in the world, so why not mix things up a little? Let's reel the guy in with your leash, give him a nice boot to the face, chain a mine to his torso, and then slide-kick him into some open electrical wiring. And if it makes it easier on you, let's pretend he's Simon Cowell. The end result is comically brutal, wonderfully satisfying, and—most importantly—tons of fun. There are hundreds of creatively named skillshots, too, so it's like Pokemon, only thousands of times more disturbing. Here's the problem, though: Bulletstorm's levels are extremely linear and scripted—sometimes literally forcing you to aim and shoot exactly where the developers want. Other times, the game serves you the optimal skillshot on a silver platter, allowing you to kick off an obvious chain reaction in the name of scripted spectacle. In those cases, it's actually to your disadvantage to be creative, which defeats the purpose of the skillshot system altogether. 
Normally, if your screen looks like this, you're doing something very, very right. Most troubling, however, is the fact that many levels—while visually stunning and interestingly themed—simply aren't very inventive. Your options for skillshots, then, often boil down to "kick that guy into a spiky/electrical object," "kick an explosive barrel at a bunch of guys," or "send that guy plummeting into an abyss," over and over and over. Multiplayer, meanwhile, isn't quite what you'd expect, but it's much better for it. Basically, it's horde mode, but with a focus on brain-bending, head-exploding team skillshots. After all, considering the amount of havoc one Bulletstorm player can wreak, imagine what'll happen with three. It is, however, surprisingly tactical, stopping you dead in your tracks if your score's not high enough.
At the end of the day, then, Bulletstorm's definitely not a bad game. Far from it, in fact; it's a gore-spattered blast of a time. Unlike many of today's grim, gray shooters, it aims for pure, unfiltered fun and nails it right between the eyes. However, it falls a few steps short of greatness—a problem compounded by the fact that the campaign's only about seven hours long. Of course, it's supposed to be replayable in pursuit of better skillshots, but the aforementioned stifling linearity and run-of-the-mill level design mean you probably won't be chomping at the bit for a second helping.
$60, www.bulletstorm.com, ESRB: M | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Over the course of the next four weeks, the U.S. Department of Justice will put into effect an initiative to remotely uninstall the Corefloo botnet Trojan from infected Windows PCs. The way it will go down is the DOJ will identify owners of infected rigs and then submit an authorization form to the FBI. It's the latest step in an effort to stomp out the botnet that's managed to seize control of some 2 million PCs.
According to ComputerWorld, the DOJ and FBI convinced a judge to grant them a restraining order to seize five command-and-control (C&C) servers that managed Coreflood. The unprecedented decision has led to Coreflood being reduced by 90 percent in the U.S., and 75 percent in other countries. "Additional time is needed, however, both to allow more antivirus vendors to release virus signatures for Coreflood and to complete the process of notifying Coreflood victims," the DOJ said in a memorandum filed Saturday. That request was also granted, and in the meantime, the government will uninstall Coreflood from identified victims' PCs who provide written consent. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Now's not a particularly good time to be working for Nokia, not unless you can handle the stress of wondering if you'll still have a job once the company eliminates 12 percent of its workers. As part of a new strategy to "align its global workforce and consolidate site operations," Nokia said it plans to hand out about 7,000 pink slips, including laying off 3,000 staff and transferring 3,000 more to Accenture, which will take over Nokia's legacy Symbian software division.
"At Nokia, we have new clarity around our path forward, which is focused on our leadership across smart devices, mobile phones, and future disruptions," said Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO. "However, with this new focus, we also will face reductions in our workforce. This is a difficult reality, and we are working closely with our employees and partners to identify long-term re-employment programs for the talented people of Nokia." The job cuts come as Nokia looks to shave expenses by 1 billion euros (around $1.47 billion USD) for the full year 2013 compared to the full year 2010, Nokia said. They're also in preparation for Nokia's partnership with Microsoft, as the company winds down its Symbian strategy and migrates future smartphones over to Windows Phone 7. "This is about keeping focus with Nokia on Windows Phone. It helps to get rid of any doubts on where this company is going," Reuters quotes Gartner analyst Caronlina Milanesi as saying. "For Accenture this opens up opportunities in mobile application development." Nokia said the job cuts will be completed by the end of 2012. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  It's no secret that News Corp. wants to wipe its hands of MySpace, the once popular digital playground that's seen all the cool kids pick up their gear and head over to that other social networking website, the one with over 500 million members. The question is, how much can News Corp. get for MySpace? That will depend on whether or not there are any buyers to begin with, which News Corp. will reportedly find out later this week as it puts MySpace up on the auction block.
According to The Wall Street Journal, which is owned by News Corp., an un-named potential buyer said News Corp. is looking to get at least $100 million for MySpace, after having purchased the social networking site for $580 million back in 2005. Still too steep? We won't know until the bidding begins, but working against News Corp. is the fact that MySpace is posting its lowest numbers since February 2006. Despite a recent restructuring that has MySpace pitching itself as a sort of music and entertainment hub, MySpace's traffic is way down, dropping nearly 50 percent from a year ago to 36.1 million unique U.S. visitors, according to data obtained from comScore. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  News flash: Angry Birds is a huge hit. Alright, so maybe that isn't much of a news flash, but if you're curious as to just how popular it has become to fling birds at green pigs, castles, and other objects, then check this out. According to Rovio, Angry Birds has notched over 140 million downloads, which is higher than the population of Japan. And according to Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka, a big reason for the game's success is the iPhone.
"Apple brought out the iPhone and it changed everything," Vesterbacka said at a conference in Beijing, according to Apple Insider. "Apple created the distribution for us that we didn't have before. All of a sudden, great games mattered. We are seeing smartphone growth explode, and we are riding the wave. And what about Android? Vesterbacka noted that "fragmentation of the [Android] ecosystem" is an issue, adding that "the carriers [are] messing with the experience again. [Android] is open, but not really open, [it's] a very Google centric ecosystem." The anti-Apple crowd may instinctively want to dismiss Vesterbacka's comments, but Google would be wise to take note. Vesterbacka points out that the popularity of Angry Birds wasn't simply an "overnight success," noting that the Finnish company had kicked out 51 games since its inception back in 2003. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Acer today announced its newest all-in-one 3D entertainment center built around Intel's Sandy Bridge platform, the Aspire Z5763. This latest AIO PC sports an integrated IR emitter and Nvidia 3D Vision technology to serve up 3D visuals on its 23-inch, Full HD 1080p 16:9 display. Audio duties are handled by an integrated 5W stereo speaker system and Dolby support.
3D isn't the only bandwagon Acer is jumping on. The Aspire Z5763 is the first to feature Acer's AirControl motion control technology, which utilizes built-in cameras to detect movements of your hand of fingers to control the computer. Waving your hand in front the machine fires up the media control interface, after which you can move your hand over media controls, like volume, rewind, forward, play, pause, or stop. On the hardware front, the Aspire Z5763 is configurable with the following: - Intel Core i5 2400s/2500s or i7 2600s processor
- Up to 16GB of DDR3-1333
- Up to 2TB SATA HDD
- Optional 3D Blu-ray
- Intel HD graphics; Nvidia GeForce GT4440; Nvidia GeForce GT435M
- 2MP webcam
- 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
- Multi-card reader
- Eight USB 2.0 ports; headphone/mic jacks; D-Sub VGA
The Aspire Z5673 will ship in the U.K. starting mid-May for around $1,650. No word on when it will ship stateside. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Hewlett-Packard is bringing an enterprise version of its competitively priced Pavilion dm1z ultraportable to the market. Dubbed a "mini executive" by the company, the HP 3105m is essentially the dm1z with different branding save for a couple of trivial differences.
The 11.6-inch 3105m is powered by an AMD E-350 Zacate APU with two CPU cores running at 1.6GHz and an integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics core. Other specs include 2GB of RAM, a 320GB hard drive and a six-cell battery. Does that remind you of the dm1z? What's more, it even shares the same $449 price tag as the dm1z. The only difference is that the 3105m comes with Windows 7 Professional and Computrace LoJack anti-theft software.
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  LG Electronics is looking to be on the move and has turned to ARM to help get them going. A new licensing agreement between the two firms provides LG with access to ARM's Cortex A15 and A9 processors, as well as ARM's Mali T604 GPU and CoreLink interconnect and system IP. Look for LG to use these parts in a whole host of devices, including digital TVs, set-top boxes, smartphones, tablet PCs, and smart grids.
"LG's relationship with ARM over a number of years has provided significant value to our overall business. In addition, the ARM ecosystem has provided LG with partners to help differentiate our product offering," said Boik Sohn, VP and Head of System IC Center, LG Electronics. "The scalability of ARM processing solutions combined with the software ecosystem will enable smart, open platform systems, and drive connectivity and Web enabled interactions. This new licensing agreement will provide LG with the next generation processor technology that will allow us to maintain leadership in display enabled connected devices,such as smart digital TV's and smart phones, and drive our platform strategy." LG's been tapping into Nvidia's IP for some of its latest products, including the Tegra 2 powered Optimus 2X and Optimus Pad. Texas Instruments provides processing hardware for LG's Optimus 3D. With this new license, LG can now take advantage of ARM's high-end mobile hardware to build its own chips in volume, and is a win-win for both sides, particularly as Intel looks to enter the mobile market. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Everyone knows that sequels are (almost) never as good as the original, but luckily this trend doesn't extend into the world of smartphone hardware. Hoping to drive this point home, Verizon on Tuesday announced the Droid Incredible 2 by HTC will start shipping April 28, 2011, which is tomorrow. It will be available in stores and online for $200 with a new two-year service agreement, but should you look to upgrade?
Depends on what you have. Here's what you get with the Droid Incredible 2: - Android 2.2 platform
- 4-inch super LCD display
- 1GHz Snapdragon processor
- 8MP rear facing camera with dual LED flash
- 1GB internal storage (16GB microSD included)
- 1.3MP front facing camera
- 720p HD video capture plus DLNA support
- Adobe Flash support
- SRS WOWHD surround sound
- Automatic face detection
- Integrated noise-cancellation technology
- 3G Mobile Hotspot
- HTC Sense
That's not incredibly different than the original, though you do get a slightly larger screen (up from 3.7 inches), a front facing camera, Android 2.2 (original shipped with Android 2.1, now boasts Android 2.2), and Verizon's 3G Mobile Hotspot app, which allows you to connect up to five Wi-Fi enabled devices for $20/month. On paper, the second generation Incredible looks like a decent upgrade, but it's not HTC's flagship smartphone, not even for Verizon. Let's not forget that Verizon recently launched HTC's Thunderbolt device, which features a 1GHz Snapdragon chip, 8GB internal storage (32GB microSD included), 4.3-inch display, 8MP front facing camera, 1.3MP rear facing camera, 4G, and a $250 price tag (with two year service agreement). | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Looking for an Android phone that isn't like nearly every other one on the market? One that marches to the beat of its own drum? Then perhaps you've been waiting for Casio's new G'zOne Commando for Verizon Wireless. The Android-powered Commando is the latest entry to the rugged wireless category and is aimed in particular at workers who toil in hazardous environments, such as construction sites, warehouses, and factory floors.
The G'zOne Commando meets Military Standards 810G for immersion, rain, shock, dust resistance, vibration, salt fog, humidity, solar radiation, altitude, and low and high temperature storage. It includes a 5MP camera with LED flash, 3.5-inch WVGA display, high-security encryption for corporate email, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, GPS, XT9 and T9 trace input, and a snap-out menu for customized access to high-use applications. "Designed to withstand the most extreme conditions, the Casio G'zOne Commando easily transitions from work to play with advanced G'zGEAR software," Casio says. "As the ultimate outdoor tool in a mobile device, G'zGEAR operates in eight modes to enhance the active, adventure-driven lifestyle. With the help of its Triple Sensor technology utilizing direction, acceleration and temperature, G'zGEAR enables adventurers to perform at their peak." The Commando will be available online starting April 28 for $200 with a new two-year service agreement. G'zOne Commando Homepage Image Credit: Verizon | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  For what feels like years, people have been trying to figure out why Sony's elected to take PSN offline for nearly a week. The good news: You can stop wondering. The bad news: Do you value, say, your credit card info, address, birthdate, and PSN login? Well, Sony now "believes" that some sticky fingered ne'erdowell has made off with all that and more.
"Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained," the console-maker wrote in a recent PlayStation Blog update. "While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained." Sony then went on to caution customers against mail scams and things of the like, noting that it's not in the business of dressing up like a Nigerian prince and slyly coaxing your personal information out from its hidden aclove. So yes, everyone wave to the nice Worst-Case Scenario. At the very least, Sony's desperation to mop up this mess is now understandable, but this is the type of ugly red mark few brands could survive. PlayStation, of course, will live to fight another day, but brand loyalty's a hard thing to keep when trust is out of the equation. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | We get a boatload of questions here at Maximum PC, on everything ranging from "Why is my PC crashing?" to "What video card should I buy?" so when we recently got a question from a reader about refresh rates and HDTVs we turned to our favorite expert, Dr. Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate. He gave us a boatload of information in response - and because there's such an incredible amount of misinformation about displays, and specs, we've decided to print his response here so that you can all reap the benefits. Never again will you be fooled by LCD refresh rates, or stymied when trying to explain interlacing! Read on for the break down of six common display tech specs - and what they really mean. You can also check out the Displaymate website for more comprehensive analysis and explanation. 
1. Frame rate: Frame rate refers to the number of images or frames transmitted per second (fps). Almost all commercial content in the US runs at 60 fps or Hz, although in some games it may be possible to increase the frame rate for faster and smoother action to 85, 100, or 120 fps or Hz. While this made a lot of sense for CRTs because they could follow whatever video rate they were being fed, all current commercial flat panel displays only operate at a single fixed rate, typically 60 Hz. Although some high-end displays can operate at 120 Hz, or 240 Hz or above, it is very important to drive the display EXACTLY at its native rate, or an exact sub-multiple like 60 Hz for 120 Hz and above. If you supply video at some other rate, like 85 or 100 Hz, the display electronics will convert it to its native internal rate, which will produce images with frame tearing or other artifacts. 
2. Refresh Rate: Refresh rate is a term that refers to the number of times per second that a display updates the screen image. This is fixed by the manufacturer, and is generally 60 Hz as described above. With CRTs 60 Hz often produced visible flicker, but essentially all modern commercial flat panel displays and projectors do not product any flicker. For LCDs this is accomplished by using an Active Matrix of transistors that hold the image steady between screen updates. Many CRTs also operated with interlacing (discussed below), however, all commercial modern displays operate internally in non-interlaced progressive scan mode, even when you supply an interlaced video signal. 
3. Interlacing: All broadcast video is transmitted using interlaced scanning - where the odd lines are transmitted in one frame (which is called a field), and then a 60th of a second later the even lines are transmitted in a second field. A complete image is actually transmitted only once every 30th of a second. This cuts the bandwidth needed to transmit the signal by a factor of 2. While CRTs can display interlaced even then odd line video signals, all modern commercial displays need the screen to be updated in a linear progressive top to bottom fashion. This means that all broadcast video needs to be deinterlaced and converted to progressive images. These signals are referred to as "i" and "p" video respectively, so HD broadcast video (over the air, satellite, or cable) is 1080i and needs to be converted to 1080p. One easy way to do this is to use a frame buffer and just store the two most recent fields and drive the screen progressively that way. The problem with this is that the odd and even lines are taken a 60th of a second apart in time, so a moving object appears with alternating field content, which is particularly noticeable on leading edges - it's called "combing" because of the repeating in-out appearance of the image but this can be fixed with motion interpolation. 
4. Deinterlacing: Sophisticated computer processing can be used to compare the sequence of video images and quantitatively analyze how all of the content within the image is moving. One application is deinterlacing - the processor can time the sequence of interlaced fields and reconstruct with good accuracy what the image would look like at a single instant of time - this gets rid of the "combing" and effectively produces a proper progressive 1080p image. To get good motion interpolation, the processor may look at up to 6 successive fields before generating an interpolated image which means the displayed image can be delayed up to one tenth of a second before appearing on-screen. That is normally not a problem unless you are involved in an action game where reaction time and hand-eye coordination matters. In that case you'll need to reduce or eliminate motion interpolation processing. 
5. Motion Interpolation for Film: All content shot on film is recorded at 24 fps - which is a really low rate, especially for objects moving quickly across the screen -which will cause the eye to detect discontinuous jumps or "Hopping" in the image. Another problem is that the 24 fps must be converted to 60 fps (or higher) for video. That is a factor of 2.5 in the frame rate. One easy way to do this is to show one film frame twice and the next frame 3 times - this is called 3:2 Pull Down processing. This 3 then 2 progression produces a visually irregularity in motion called Judder. It isn't always noticeable but it can be annoying. There are two ways to fix this: increase the refresh rate to 120 Hz and repeat every film frame 5 times - this gets rid of the Judder but still leaves the Hopping. Better yet, use motion interpolation to analyze the motion and build intermediate frames at the native refresh rate of the display. This will get rid of both the Hopping and the Judder. 
6. Motion Interpolation to Reduce Motion Blur: In LCDs, the optical liquid (the L in LCD) may not respond quickly enough when there is fast motion in a video image. This produces Motion Blur that is sometimes noticeable in fast moving objects. One approach that manufacturers have taken is to use motion interpolation to drive the panel at much higher refresh rates, which is claimed to improve the Response Time and reduce Motion Blur. It's a fabulous marketing concept that has convinced lots of consumers to buy more expensive 120 Hz, 240 Hz, and even 480 Hz refresh rate LCDs. But predictive Motion Interpolation has only a minor effect on motion blur. By far the best way to improve Response Time is with signal over driving of the display panel, and this is not improved by increasing the refresh rate. In objective side-by-side objective testing documented with high-speed screen shots I have demonstrated that there is no noticeable visual difference between 60 Hz and 120 Hz LCDs. This effect is explained in exactly the same way as the classic story of "The Emperor's New Cloths" - the principle is that people frequently see what that have been told they should see. For an objective explanation and analysis see my article on LCD Response Time and Motion Blur, with lots of high-speed screen shots to prove my point. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Say what you will about Twitter, but it's ubiquity is startling. Consider the following statistics: • An average of a billion tweets are sent each week. That amounts to approximately 140 million tweets per day. Per day! • When Michael Jackson died back in June 2009, Twitter saw 456 tweets per second. Almost two years later, the record stands at6,939 tweets per second. (That occurred in Japan on New Year's day.) • Twitter is seeing almost half a million accounts being created each day. The most interesting thing about Twitter is that it's simultaneously entertaining, informative, connective, distracting, and (potentially) destructive. As with all things multi-dimensional, the key to making the most of Twitter is understanding how to use it. With this in mind, we present a litany of tips. Feel free to chime in with your own (or disparage ours) in the comments section below. 
Disable Third-Party Tracking Rockin' Chrome? Of course you are. If so, check out the extension Disconnect, which allows you to disable third-party tracking on Twitter with but a few simple clicks of your mouse button in Disconnect's options menu. You'll see exactly the kinds of requests you've blocked within the extension itself (like your search history and other personal information), which will give you a bit of peace of mind when you realize just how much your browsing attention is surreptitiously demanded by other web services. Twitter to Google Reader You can use the application GTweet to bounce all of your Twitter-based information to your Google Reader account. This Web app is useful for those who would otherwise like to keep their information all in one place. It mimics Twitter's default functionality to a "T," and a premium version of the free Web app offers even more interesting features to check out. Find it at gtweetapp.appspot.com. Automatic Twitter Updates The trust path to popularity involves spacing one's witticisms out throughout the day, which is where Web app CoTweet comes into play. The standard edition of the app allows you to schedule your updates throughout the day. Get it at www.cotweet.com. Twitter Meets Firefox? Fear not, Firefox users—you are not forgotten. Twitterbar's Firefox add-on is a pretty unique extension, in that it allows you to send messages directly via Firefox's address bar. Even better, the extension tells you just how many characters you have left in said address bar message, which is just as good as the functionality offered by Twitter itself. Encrypt Thy Tweeting Firefox users, do you want a method for ensuring that you're always connecting up to an https-based version of Twitter whenever you type the address into your browser (or, conversely, select it via a browser bookmark?) Check out the extension HTTPS Anywhere, which will force your browser to use HTTP Secure whenever you browser over to one of the extension's supported sites. Information security is important, yo. Analyze Your Followers One of the more annoying elements of Twitter is that all these completely random users decide to latch on to your every word and typed interest. Instead of pulling your hair out in trying to decide whether to follow said users or not, check out the Web app Twerpscan (www.twerpscan.com). Not only does the app give you a bevy of detailed information about those following you, but you can elect to follow back your fans directly through the app itself. Twitter and… Powerpoint? You can add the power of Twitter to any Powerpoint thanks to the helpful tools at www.sapweb20.com. Grab Timo Elliott's Powerpoint add-ons and you'll be able to generate real-time slides based on information pulled right out Twitter. Backup your Tweets We like the Web app Tweetake for two reasons: One, it's a super-easy way to save all of your Twitter posts, direct messages, and @ messages (amongst other items) without having to fuss with complicated backup techniques or any of that. Two, it dumps all of said information into a handy excel file, which gives you Excel wizards a chance to parse the data even further—way more useful than, say, an .html dump of your 140-character messages! Gauge Thy Popularity 
The Web app Mentionmap is great for seeing just how much your small life updates have made an effect on your general body of followers. Fire up the app and you'll see just how many people have @mentioned you in response to one of your Twitter updates. Now, click on their information, and you can repeat the process through a huge chain of people to see, without a shadow of a doubt, just who's talking about whom. Grab Mentionmap at www.asterisq.com. Dump Your Mind Need to go longer than Twitter's default 140-character limit per Tweet? Check out JumboTweet, a service that allows you to literally dump your mind into a given Web field. The online app will convert convert said chit-chat into a clickable link before automatically posting a snipped of your thoughts to Twitter itself. Automated verbosity—it's what Twitter was born to do! Block Your Drunk Tweets Oh, Social Media Sobriety Test, where have you been all our lives? In all seriousness, there are times when your state of mind—impaired or otherwise—is such that posting your thoughts to Twitter might not be the best of ideas. Thus enters the Social Media Sobriety Test website, which literally administers an online test you must pass whenever you try to post something to Twitter between a set period of hours (which you can customize yourself). The app comes as an add-on to both Chrome and Firefox. Privatize your Shared URLs Let's be honest—there are some site links that you'd love to share with your closer Twitter friends, but not necessarily the world at-large. Well, the website Trick.ly has an answer to your woes—it allows you to set up a password-locked URL shortening service . You can then give said password to your friends, who will need it to access any link you convert to a shortened URL via Trick.ly. Check URL Shortening Speeds Interested in the website that will provide your Twitter followers with the fastest possible redirection speed when converting a shortened URL to the full hyperlink? Check out Watchmouse's URL Shorteners Availability page, which lists out a huge number of URL shorteners and their speed as tracked by Watchmouse's numerous global monitoring stations. As of this article's writing, goo.go took top place for reliability and performance. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  In perhaps another sign the economy is recovering, popular internet brand Yelp is looking to make an initial public offering (IPO). CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told the Wall Street Journal in an interview the an IPO was back on the table. Stoppelman didn't say when the company would make the move, but indicated they were looking to bring a new CFO on board before moving forward.
Back in late 2009 Google was in talks to buy the user reviews company for somewhere around $500 million. The deal fell apart, and Yelp fell back on private funding. At the time, the word was that an IPO was off the table. Despite apparently finding solid backers, Yelp feels the public market is ready for another internet start up now. Companies like Pandora and Linkedin have recently taken steps to join the publically traded market. All these smaller IPOs could eventually lure out the great white whale that is Facebook, but for the time being, we'll have to make do with what we've got. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  The browser world loses one of its alternative comrades today. Representing the Web 2.0 world with a heavy emphasis on integrated social networking, the Flock browser was a popular choice for those who wished to stay connected with their various digital playgrounds scattered across the Web. Sadly for Flock fans, that all ends today as the self-proclaimed "social Web browser" issued an official end of support notice.
"Support for Flock browsers will be discontinued as of April 26th, 2011," a message on Flock's website reads. "We would like to thank our loyal users around the world for their support, and we encourage the Flock community to migrate in the coming weeks to one of the recommended browsers listed below." Those browsers include Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, both of which provided the engine for Flock at one point or another. Early versions of Flock were built around Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine before Flock switched over to Chrome's WebKit engine in version 3. In a strange twist of events for a social Web browser, online and social gaming company Zynga purchased Flock in January of this year, only to discontinue it three months later. It appears that Zynga was only after the talent, and not the browser itself. "The Flock team joined Zynga in January, 2011 and is now working to assist Zynga in achieving their goal of building the most fun, social games available to anyone, anytime -- on any platform," Flock stated on its FAQ page in response to why it's shutting down. Those who wish to keep using older versions of Flock can still do so, however certain key features will stop working after today, as the servers are being shut down. Security is another concern since updates and upgrades are no longer being pushed out. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Frankly, if someone had told us that MySpace was just going to be shuttered, we would not have been surprised. But it looks like the sale is going ahead and bids from no fewer than half a dozen potential suitors are expected this week. If that wasn't shocking enough, the value News Corp. insists on getting out of the faltering social site is something else.
According to a source involved in the deal who spoke to the Wall Street Journal, News Corp. is seeking bids of $100 million or more. We understand their desire to make up a little ground considering MySpace was bought for $580 million just six years ago. However, the site's traffic is spiraling downward quickly. Unique visitors are down nearly 50% in the last year and the site is hemorrhaging cash. The structure of the potential deals vary, with some requiring News Corp to maintain a small stake in the company. Others might simply want to dismantle the site as it currently exists and start over. Observers claim a deal could be finalized as early as June. Do you think MySpace has a future with a new owner? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Sprint has made it official. The Google Nexus S 4G will be launching on the carrier on May 8th. Customers will be able to pick up the device for $200 on a 2-year contract. The Nexus S 4G is much like its T-Mobile based sibling, but with the addition of a 4G WiMAX radio for faster data where available.
The Nexus S phones are based on Samsung's Galaxy S line of devices. Much of the internal hardware is the same. The Nexus S 4G has a 1GHz Hummingbird processor, 512MB of RAM, a 5MP rear camera, and a VGA front-facing sensor. The screen is a Samsung Super AMOLED panel, but has a curved glass covering. This has been dubbed the "contour display". It also has a NFC chip for short-range wireless communication. The thing that makes the Nexus S so interesting is that it runs an unmolested version of Google's latest Android 2.3 operating system, known as Gingerbread. The updates are handled by Google, meaning this device won't languish for months on end to get the latest and greatest. Any Sprint customers out there planning to pick one up? | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  OCZ Technology ditched the DRAM business in order to focus on the more profitable solid state drive sector, and that's exactly what they've done. Adding to an already crowded lineup of SSDs, OCZ today unveiled a new addition to its Vertex 3 SATA III Series, the Vertex 3 Max IOPS edition. Compared to other Vertex 3 drives, this latest entry brings higher write speeds to the table.
"Following the successful launch of our Vertex 3 SATA III 6Gbps solid state drives we are pleased to introduce the new Max IOPS edition," said Ryan Petersen, CEO of OCZ Technology Group. "Vertex 3 Max IOPS drives increase random write performance, and are the ideal storage solution for applications that require high aggregate workloads and increased IO throughput." The Vertex 3 Max IOPS SSD is built around SandForce's new SF-2200 controller and contains "premium NAND flash components." This combination allows the drive to churn out 4KB random writes with up to 75,000 IOPS, OCZ says. That's up from 40,000 (480GB model) to 60,000 (120GB and 240GB) IOPS on the original Vertex 3 drives. There are two capacities available, 120GB and 240GB, the larger one topping out at 65,000 IOPS and the 120GB model rated at 75,000 IOPS. Image Credit: OCZ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Asus is trying to do what others so far haven't been able to, which is to knock the iPad off its perch as the most popular tablet PC. Samsung's Galaxy Tab wasn't able to do it, and neither could Motorola's Xoom. RIM's PlayBook held promise, but the lack of email and contacts support for non BlackBerry owners are major omissions. Will the Eee Pad Transformer present the first real challenge to the iPad?
It's too early to tell, but it at least appears that Asus' convertible tablet is off to a heck of a start. The Eee Pad Transformer went on sale in the U.S. today, and according to Engadget, Amazon.com sold out of the device within minutes of listing it. Orders were being fulfilled by Target, which also lists the device as unavailable. If you head over to Asus' "Where to Buy" page, you'll find several vendors listed, but none of them turn up an in-stock Eee Pad Transformer. That means one of two things. Either the convertible tablet sold out hella fast, or there wasn't much supply to begin with. As a refresher, the Eee Pad Transformer comes with a 10.1-inch display, Nvidia Tegra 2 processor clocked at 1GHz, 1GB of DDR2 memory, 16GB of internal storage, 1.2MP webcam, 5MP rear facing camera, 4-in-1 media card reader, a pair of USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1, and a 40-pin docking port for an optional keyboard/docking station, transforming the tablet into a bona fide netbook. All this comes wrapped in Google's Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) platform. What's more, Asus is bucking the trend of $500+ tablets by selling the Eee Pad Transformer for $400, sans keyboard. Image Credit: Asus via Amazon.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 
A fun side-effect of the iOS secret-tracking fiasco is that a lot of other different types of location data and transmissions to and from your smartphone are being conflated into a huge pile of fevered paranoia. But! Don't freak out. To simplify all this (hopefully), here's a chart that lays out what's happening on three of the major platforms. 
Update: Let's be clear here (because apparently I wasn't): We're talking about two completely separate issues when it comes to your phone and location data. The first issue is the location data collected by your phone and transmitted to Apple, Google or Microsoft about nearby cell towers, Wi-Fi hotspot and potentially GPS coordinates. Every company is basically on the same page here: The location services are opt-in and your data is anonymized. The second, totally different issue is the location data your phone is storing locally on the phone itself. That's where Apple's on the wrong page. The reason your phone beams a bundle of location data back home every so often is so that when your phone asks where it's at—like when you're using an app—it can be located pretty quickly using the database of known cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots (crowdsourced by you and your phone). No bigs. Apple and Google, further, collect anonymous data about traffic conditions when you're using GPS. Microsoft hasn't confirmed for us how it gathers traffic data, but we'd bet it's the same way. Also, NBD. Every so often, if—and only if—you've turned on location services, your phone will hit up homebase with the package of information it's collected about cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots it's passed by. That data is anonymized, though everybody does assign a unique ID to the data. Microsoft explains it's so they can "can tell difference between one person going back to a location 15 times or 15 people going to a location once." This all happens in the background. And again, if you turn off location services, you opt out of all of this. The difference between all of the platforms comes down to how they store data locally. Microsoft says Windows Phone only locally caches the single most recent location entry. Android apparently stores the 200 most recent Wi-Fi hotspots and 50 most recent cell towers it's seen. As it stands, iOS maintains a persistent record tracking your location—based on cell towers—in a database that's on your phone and on your computer, going back to whenever you installed iOS4, in a way that's fairly easily accessed if someone gains physical control of your phone or machine. There's no way to opt out. It may be a bug or "oversight." The best you can do right now, if you're concerned about it, is to encrypt your iPhone backups. And that's way, way different from what anybody else is doing with location data and services. There's no opting out, there's no knowledge, there's just creepiness. All in all, though, the next time you wonder how much your phone or the company that made it knows about where you've been, don't freak out. Not too much, anyway. Imagery by Contributing Illustrator Sam Spratt. Become a fan of his Facebook Artist's Page and follow Sam on Twitter 
Gizmodo is the world's most fun technology website, focused on gadgets and how they make our lives better, worse, and more absurd. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  How many times have you been called to fix a PC that was invested with malware, only to discover that the user fell for one of the oldest tricks in the malware Bible, fake AV and utility programs? It's a common occurrence because, well, it simply works. Fake AV programs disguised as legitimate security software is getting tougher to discern from the real deal, and that's bad news for less savvy computer users. Security vendor McAfee put together a "Dirty Dozen" list of the most common fake AV software and utilities, and some of the entries might just surprise you.
McAfee's Dirty Dozen list, according to the security firm's Virus Removal Service, is as follows: - AntiVirus Scan
- Anti Vira AV
- System Tool
- Smart Internet Protection 2011
- Fast Disk
- Good Memory
- Disk Optimizer
- AVG AntiVirus
- Palladium Pro
- Windows System Optimizer
- Windows Security & Control
- Windows Utility Tool
McAfee Labs identified more than 20 million new pieces of malware in 2010, and if you punch that into a calculator, it breaks down to almost 55,000 new malware threats every day. "More specifically, McAfee Labs discovered approximately 200,000 unique fake alert samples in December 2010 alone," a McAfee spokesperson told Maximum PC in an email. "Cybercriminals prey on consumers' fears that their computer will become infected by creating malware in the form of fake security products with extremely generic names like 'AntiVirus Scan' or 'System Tool,' and even exploit real brand names like Windows, AVG, and Avira." McAfee's preaching to the choir when it comes to Maximum PC readers, but hey, if nothing else, it wouldn't hurt to pass this list along to your own 'Dirty Dozen,' those being the ones you most frequently find yourself fixing their PC. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Imagine you got a letter that said you had to take down your blog or Facebook page, or spend thousands lawyering up. That sensation running down your spine? It has a name in the legal world. It's called a chilling effect. A legal threat doesn't have to go to court to be effective. Most would-be defendants don't want the hassle and expense of going to court, and so capitulate to threats, even invalid ones. In 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act opened a whole new field of legal nastygrams. The DMCA takedown is particularly easy to send—it allows people who can fake vague legalese to take down just about anything on the U.S. Internet that's unguarded by a phalanx of lawyers, giving the trolls that discover it unprecedented power. With international treaties like ACTA, we're trying to bring this feature to everyone else's Internet. 
After the DMCA passed, law professor Wendy Seltzer (then of the Electronic Frontier Foundation) decided to make a home for these nastygrams, and called it the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse. It was to help people understand the impact of legal threats, and help those who got them to understand their rights. "We've now posted more than 20,000 cease-and-desists, almost all of them DMCA complaints to Google," says Seltzer. In 10 years it's created a rich dataset, through which people can study how the law gets used. "Chilling Effects the project doesn't make value judgments about the letters it posts. Some of them target speech that's clearly lawful. Others, wholesale reproductions of copyrighted works; many others, something in between." The archive is available at http://chillingeffects.org/. She'd like to get more letters, in particular from companies like Facebook and Bing, where takedown isn't transparent. Researchers working on the Clearinghouse data have found many takedowns aimed at hobbling business competitors, silencing critics, or in some cases, ranting nonsensically. But because we only get notices from Google, we can't really know how widespread fake-o ranty takedowns are. We don't know how effective they've been at scaring ideas and businesses out of existence—probably too effective. Quinn Norton writes about copyright for Wired News and other publications. Her work has ranged from legal journalism to the inner life of pirate organizations. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  You might already be familiar with Facebook's Check-In Deals, a service the social networking site launched a few months back and designed to help users take advantage of special offers when checking in at a local business from a mobile device. Deals on Facebook is different. This newly launched service is more akin to what Groupon is doing, in that it serves up discounts to select establishments that you purchase online and redeem offline.
"While many Deals on Facebook offer discounts, it's more important to us that you find interesting experiences around you to do with friends," Facebook said in a blog post. "We've worked with partners and local businesses to help deliver the best social activities in your area. And once you've found a deal you like, having the deal on Facebook makes it easy to share, buy, and plan with your friends." Initially, Deals on Facebook only applies to users living in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, and San Francisco, though Facebook says it hopes to expand the service to other cities in the future. So what kind of deals can you get? If you live in Atlanta, you can buy two hours of horseback riding lessons and a guided trail ride for $25, down from $100, or order $20 worth of menu items for $8 at Hottie Hawg's Smokin' BBQ, to name just two examples. Facebook's obvious advantage here is its huge social element, something Groupon can't replicate to the same extent that the world's largest social networking site can. "It is not about mimicking an existing business model and force fitting it into Facebook," Facebook's director of local initiatives Emily White, told The Wall Street Journal. "The premise here is that people come to Facebook to have social experiences with one another." You can check out Deals on Facebook here, as well as sign up to receive updates when deals become available in your area. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Self-contained liquid cooling units are all the rage these days, especially when you shop a prebuilt rig from a boutique system builder. Underscoring this fact, Maingear, the high-end custom PC builder from New Jersey, just announced the release of its "EPIC" (Enhanced Performance InterCooler) liquid cooling setups by CoolIT for the company's entire line of desktops.
According to Maingear, the EPIC line of CPU cooling systems are the first of their kind. Designed to tackle performance, loudness, and durability, the Maingear EPIC 180 liquid cooling system comes with a gigantic 180mm radiator that purportedly offers 20 percent cooler temperatures than that of a 120mm radiator. "It outperforms all high end air coolers on the market today and goes toe to toe with hand build liquid cooling solutions," Maingear says. More than just a big radiator, CoolIT equipped the EPIC 180 with a redesigned cold plate and pump for quieter operation. "By increasing fin density, the development of the split flow liquid path allowed the flow rate to stay up while keeping the pumping power low and the overall size of the pump/cold plate module extremely compact," Maingear says. "And more efficient cooling means better overclocks, and we like that." Sounds groovy, but you'll have to buy an entire system to get your hands on one. The EPIC 180 is only available on Maingear's Shift desktop, which starts at $1,970 (with EPIC 180). Image Credit: Maingear | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Sony has simply blamed the ongoing PSN outage on an "external intrusion" without going into the exact cause and nature of this unrelenting crisis - equal parts technical disaster and public relations fiasco. According to a Redditor named chesh 420, who only identified himself as a PSX-Scene.com moderator, the current PSN outage could be the result of a new custom firmware (CFW) named Rebug that "essentially turns a retail console into a dev console (not fully, but gives you a lot of the same options that usually dev's only have access to)."
Soon after its launch on March 31, 2011, CFW users began using Rebug to get their hacked consoles back onto PSN. But the real problem began when some people discovered that Rebug also enabled them to download PSN content using fake credit card information. Apparently, Sony did not feel the need of authenticating credit card information sent over its private developer network. "What happened next was extreme piracy of PSN content. Sony realizing the issue here shut down the network.," wrote chesh420 in a post on Reddit. However, he later reminded everyone to take his explanation of the outage with a grain of salt as, no matter how reasonable, "this is all speculation and information gathered from various devs in the PS3 scene." | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Following a nearly week long outage, Amazon said it ironed out most of the technical glitches that brought down its Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) data centers. The data centers took a nosedive last Thursday, wreaking havoc on companies that rent Web services and storage from Amazon, including websites like Reddit, Quoora, and Foursquare, but now everything is back to normal, or as normal as they're going to get.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, Amazon said it has completed its recovery efforts, though was unable to restore a tiny percentage of lost data. "We're in the process of contacting these customers," Amazon said on its website, adding that it was "digging deeply" into the root causes behind the shutdown. Perhaps the bigger issue Amazon now faces is that of user confidence. "This outage will force companies to step back and really educate themselves on what they are purchasing from cloud vendors," said Joseph Coyle, chief technology officer in North America for IT consulting firm Capgemini. Smaller companies and startups drawn to Amazon for its cost-friendly packages may decide to suck it up and spend more money on data centers in different locations. Image Credit: a11news.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Google is ready to take the next step with YouTube and will launch an on-demand video rental service in which viewers will be able to stream Hollywood flicks, according to reports. The service could launch as early as next week, providing instant competition to Netflix and Apple's iTunes, and give Hollywood studios yet another revenue stream.
According to TheWrap.com, major studios including Sony, Warner Brothers, and Universal are on board with the idea and have licensed their movies to YouTube, and so have a number of independent studios, one of the bigger ones being Lionsgate. It's unclear how much YouTube would charge per flick, though it would probably vary by movie. But whatever the cost, the end result is that 130 million monthly users would have the option of paying to watch movies as they're released. The question is, will this really happen? "We've steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago, and now have thousands of titles available," a YouTube spokesperson told TheWrap. "Outside of that, we don't comment on rumor or speculation." Maybe YouTube isn't willing to address rumors or speculation, but at least one un-named studio head is. "We think it will start with VOD, but broaden to include sell-through over time," TheWrap quotes a senior executive at a Hollywood studio that has signed the new deal with YouTube as saying. "We are pretty excited because we are happy to see new entrants come in transactionally rather than a subscription model." Google recently announced it was shutting down its Google Videos servers and is in the process of migrating user uploaded videos over to YouTube, which the sultan of search purchased back in October 2006 for $1.65 billion. Image Credit: bealoud.com | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Here's how most memory kits work: You plug them into your system's DIMM slots, fire up your machine, and begin doing whatever it is you use your PC for. There's an optional extra step for power users who might want to jump into the BIOS and tweak the timings or overclock, but otherwise it's the same process. That being the case, what in the world is Kingston getting at with its new 'HyperX Plug and Play' series of high-performance memory?
"The memory is programmed with faster frequencies and when 'plugged' into a system using the Sandy Bridge chipset, will automatically 'play' at either 1600MHz or 1866MHz in both desktop and notebook PCs," Kingston explains. Kingston says the new modules are programmed using JEDEC-compliant settings and that "it is as simple as plugging in the memory and turning on the machine," meaning you don't have to muck around in the BIOS if you're sporting Intel's Sandy Bridge platform. "The HyperX engineering team has been thoroughly innovative in designing a memory module that automatically raises performance with no overclocking steps required," said Mark Tekunoff, senior technology manager, Kingston. "By using JEDEC-compliant settings to create performance timings, enthusiasts can max out native frequencies on current Sandy Bridge systems and older DDR3 machines." In short, it's a bit of fancy pants marketing for the built-in SPD profiles. The new kits are available in the following capacities: - 4GB DDR3-1866MHz, (KHX1866C11S3P1K2/4G), CL11-11-11, $88
- 8GB DDR3-1866MHz, (KHX1866C11S3P1K2/8G), CL11-11-11, $163
- 4GB DDR3-1600MHz, (KHX1600C9S3P1K2/4G), CL9-9-9, $67
- 8GB DDR3-1600MHz, (KHX1600C9S3P1K2/8G), CL9-9-9, $122
- 4GB DDR3-1600MHz, (KHX1600C9D3P1K2/4G), CL9-9-9, $67
- 8GB DDR3-1600MHz, (KHX1600C9D3P1K2/8G), CL9-9-9, $122
Image Credit: Kingston Technology | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  We had a feeling Dell might soon be releasing its Precision M4600 and M6600 laptops when a leaked product manual made waves on the Web, and it turns out we were right. Dell today officially announced these two new models, which the OEM is pitching as the world's most powerful 15.6-inch (M4600) and 17.3-inch (M6600) mobile workstations. Let's take a peek at the specs.
Dell Precision M4600 - 2nd generation Intel Core i5 or i7 processor, up to a Core i7 Extreme Edition
- Up to 32GB of DDR3-1333 or 16GB of DDR3-1600 RAM
- AMD FirePro M5950; Nvidia Quadro 1000M; or Nvidia Quadro 2000M
- Up to 750GB 7200RPM HDD or up to 256GB SSD (512GB coming soon)
- 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi
- DVD writer (optional Blu-ray)
- 6-cell battery
- Windows 7 Professional/Ultimate; Windows Vista Business/Ultimate; Red Hat Linux; Ubuntu
The Dell Precision M6600 offers many of the same specs in a bigger form factor, with the following differentiating hardware options: Dell Precision M6600 - AMD FirePro M8900; Nvidia Quadro 3000M; Nvidia Quadro 4000M; Nvidia Quadro 5010M (coming soon)
- Up to two 2.5-inch storage drives
- 9-cell battery
Both models sport a redesigned chassis made with rigid and durable aluminum and magnesium alloy, and MIL-STD 810G tested for extreme temperatures, vibration, dust, altitude, and shock. Also included are plenty of connectivity options, such as two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, combo eSATA/USB 2.0, DisplayPort, VGA, and HDMI. In addition to new mobile workstations, Dell also ported its Precision R5500 into a dual-socket rack form factor. Features of the new R5500 include up to two Intel Xeon 5600 series processors, up to 192GB of 1066MHz or 1333MHz ECC memory, one or two PCI-E x16 discrete graphics cards, up to five 2.5-inch SATA hard drives, and a tray-load DVD or Blu-ray drive. The Dell Precision M4600 starts at $1,678, the M6600 at $2,158, and the R5500 at $2,551. Both the M4600 and M6600 will be available globally starting May 10, and the R5500 in the U.S. on May 3. Image Credit: Dell | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  Woe is the home user in need of a new router. We say this because it's easy to be overwhelmed with all the choices out there, and if you go by specs alone, almost all of them are winners. Of course, we know better than that, and our current 'Best of the Best' pick for a Wi-Fi router is Netgear's Rangemax WNDR3700, which has held the top spot for a long while. The WNDR3700 has been able to deflect numerous attempts to pluck the performance crown from its head, and ironically enough, the one that finally does it might be from Netgear itself.
We'll be careful not to jump to any early conclusions, but do note that Netgear on Monday announced the worldwide availability of its new flagship router, the N750 Wireless Dual Band Gigabit Router (we'll call it the WNDR4000 from here on out). The WNDR4000 is capable of an aggregate combined data rate of up to 750Mbps while operating simultaneously in both the 5GHz (up to 450Mbps) and 2.4GHz (up to 300Mbps) bands, Netgear says. More than just a purported speed demon, the WNDR4000 offers a host of features, including parental controls, a broadband usage meter (an increasingly important feature with data caps all the rage), DLNA Media Server support, Guest network access, Netgear's ReadyShare technology for connecting a standard USB hard drive to the router to share storage and a media library across the home network, and IPv6 support. The WNDR4000 is shipping now for $180. Image Credit: Netgear | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
