Feb 9, 2011

MSI’s Big Bang Marshal motherboard nearly ready for launch

Intel’s SATA issue most likely holding it back

THE INSANELY FEATURE packed Big Bang Marshal motherboard from MSI is nearly ready, at least judging by pictures of what should be the final revision of the board that we got our hands on. However, thanks to Intel’s SATA snafu we’re fairly certain that MSI will sit on this model until it can get its hands on the B3 stepping of the P67 chipset to avoid any returns of what is likely going to be a very expensive motherboard.
Read more ▶


Feb 9, 2011

Acer launches Nvidia HDMI 3D compatible monitor

Has built in IR transmitter

TO DATE MOST, if not all 3D computer displays have relied on  dual-link DVI connectivity to display the 3D image, but Acer has announced a new model in its line-up called the GN245HQ which will offer 3D Vision support over HDMI, a first for a computer monitor. Acer has also cleverly embedded the IR emitter into the screen bezel which means that the problem of position the USB IR emitter that Nvidia supplies with its 3D glasses is no longer an issue.
Read more ▶


Feb 8, 2011

Renesas announces single chip triple-mode LTE modem

A speedy solution for both LTE and 3G

MOBILE DATA IS a fast growing market space and despite many network providers being unable to keep up when it comes to deploying the latest technology on their networks, consumers and business users alike continue to crave faster connection speeds. As such, Renesas latest announcement should at least appease some of these users, as its new single chip triple-mode LTE modem platform offers fast download and upload speeds for both LTE and 3G connected devices.
Read more ▶


Feb 8, 2011

Nokia looks set to change its strategy this week

But what will change?

THERE’S NO SECRET that Nokia hasn’t been doing as well over the past couple of years as it has in the past and according to research by IDC the company has gone from 38.6 percent market share in Q4 2009 to a mere 28 percent in Q4 2010, that’s a 10.6 percent decline. At the same time Android has grown to become one of the most popular smartphone platforms alongside Apple’s iOS while Nokia’s Symbian platform has dwindled in popularity.
Read more ▶


Feb 7, 2011

Sprint launches dual-screen Kyocera Echo

A truly unique Android smartphone

SMARTPHONES COME IN all shapes and sizes, although Kyocera’s new Echo smartphone, that has just been announced as an exclusive device on Sprint offers a truly unique feature never before seen in the smartphone market, dual screens. The really neat trick here is that you can choose to use either one or two screens, something that could be very handy depending on how you use your smartphone.
Read more ▶


Feb 7, 2011

Texas Instruments unveils the OMAP 5 platform

The ultimate smartphone SoC?

WE’RE STILL WAITING for the first retail devices to arrive powered by TI’s OMAP 4 series of SoC’s but that hasn’t stopped TI from unveiling details about its next generation OMAP 5 family of SoC’s which are set to be manufactured using a 28nm fabrication process and feature not only multi-core processors, but also multi-core graphics. The OMAP 5 series of SoC’s are based on ARMs Cortex A15 MPCore and the PowerVR SGX544-MPx graphics which should offer some very impressive overall performance in the mobile market space.
Read more ▶


Feb 4, 2011

AMD drops Phenom II CPU prices

To make space for recently launched models

AMD’S MAIN WEAPON in its fight against Intel has been pricing and it seems like AMD has decided to further lower its prices, at least for its Phenom II processors which all have been given a price cut recently. Some of it appears to have been done to slot in three recently launched models, while some of the price drops appear to indicate that some models might be phased out sooner rather than later.
Read more ▶


Feb 4, 2011

LG set to launch its new tablet on T-Mobile’s network

Will it be a game changer for Android tablets?

LG ELECTRONICS HAS announced that it will be launching its Android 3.0 tablet which is currently known as the G-slate on T-Mobile’s network in the US sometime in March. The tablet is expected to be officially unveiled at the Mobile World Congress which kicks off on the 14th of this month, but LG has kindly shared plenty of details about the new tablet ahead of the launch.
Read more ▶


Feb 3, 2011
1

Verizon to start bandwidth throttling top 5 percent bandwidth users

Will automagically transcode your streaming media

IF YOU’RE A HEAVY bandwidth users with Verizon you might want to re-think your choice of network, as the company has issued some changes to its data usage policies as of today that allows them to throttle the top five percent of its users. On top this, the cellular network operator has decided that streaming media uses up too much of its bandwidth and will from now on transcode all streaming video passing through its network.
Read more ▶


Feb 3, 2011

Intel’s Romley platform will be available for LGA-1356 and LGA-2011

Main difference will be memory support and PCI Express lane count

INTEL’S ROMLEY PLATFORM is set to launch sometime in the second half of this year and it will bring with it a world of confusion in the Xeon market space as Intel will be offering both LGA-1356 and LGA-2011 solutions to its partners. The main difference is that the LGA-1356 platform will support triple channel memory while the LGA-2011 platform will support quad channel memory, but it doesn’t stop there.
Read more ▶


Feb 3, 2011
1

IE9 gets H.264 and WebM support

Microsoft’s attempt at clawing back some of the browser market?

MICROSOFTS INTERNET EXPLORER web browser have been losing a lot of ground to its competitors for quite some time now, but IE9 has gained some favourable press and it seems like Microsoft is willing to add some features to make its browser more appealing. According to an MSDN blog post Microsoft has released details about future video support in IE9 and it might very well be the browser with the widest native video support when it goes out of beta.
Read more ▶