engineoftech

Acer Launches a Pair Of 3D LCDs

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:37:00 -0700

8:50 PM - April 14, 2011 by Douglas Perry -
source: Acer

Acer announced two new 3D LCDs.
ZoomBoth monitors run at resolution of 1920x1080 and support 3D via HDMI or DVI-DL to PCs as well as Blu-ray players, game consoles, cameras and 3D TV programming via a set-top box.

The 27-incher (HN274H) supports Nvidia 3D Vision and comes with a pair of Nvidia's 3D vision glasses by default. The 23.6-inch model (HS244HQ) does not include Nvidia 3D vision support and instead ships with Acer's own 3D glasses. The Nvidia transmitter is not required as the transmitter is built into the displays. According to Acer, any other type of active shutter glasses works with its new displays.

The 27-inch version provides a dynamic contrast ratio of 100 million:1, while the smaller display is rated at 12 million:1. Both displays use LED backlights and offer a response time of 2 ms, Acer said. Prices start at $449 for the 23.6-inch LCD. the 27-inch version carries an MSRP of $689.

E3 Rumor: Powerful Wii HD with HD Controller

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 20:34:00 -0700

11:20 PM - April 15, 2011 by Jane McEntegart -
source: Tom's Hardware US

A deluge of Wii 2 rumors with your coffee, sir?
Zoom
Earlier in the week it was reported that Nintendo would be dropping the price of its motion-sensing Wii console to $150, bringing the cost down a full hundred dollars from the launch price. Though it was hard to argue with the logic (the Wii is five years old at this stage, and sales are declining), rumor had the price cut scheduled for May 15, just three weeks before E3. Many wondered why Nintendo would make that kind of announcement so close to E3. Why not just wait a few weeks and announce it at the convention?

Well, today’s rumors lend credence to reports of a price cut while also providing a reason for not waiting until E3 to announce it: Nintendo is planning a Wii 2 launch for E3. That’s the latest. According to sources from both IGN and Game Informer, the device will be revealed at or before E3 (which runs June 7 to 9), and will support HD. Though GI’s sources couldn’t agree on how the graphics would compare to that of the Xbox 360 or the PS3, IGN’s sources say "significantly more powerful than the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360." These same sources also revealed that the new Wii will be backwards compatible with older Wii games.

Throwing yet more turf on the Fire of Hope is a report from CVG claiming that 1080p is not the only thing the new Wii will have going for it. Nope, Computerandvideogames.com reports that the new Wii will also come with a new controller. Sources say the controller will be quite different to the original in that it will also feature an integrated HD display. CVG’s sources also confirmed IDG’s report regarding the power of the console and backwards compatibility.

"Nintendo's plans sound unreal," one source said. "Publishers are already planning launch titles and it's all very exciting.

"The hardware is even more powerful than current HD consoles and backwards compatible with Wii.”

All three publications are saying it’s going to be an E3 reveal but a 2012 launch.

So, who’s excited?

Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 3 GB Review: Firing Back With 1024 CUDA Cores

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:22:00 -0700

8:00 AM - March 24, 2011 by Chris Angelini

AMD shot for—and successfully achieved—the coveted “fastest graphics card in the world” title with its Radeon HD 6990. Now, Nvidia is gunning for that freshly-claimed honor with a dual-GF110-powered board that speaks softly and carries a big stick.
In this corner...
Today, the worst-kept secret in technology officially gets the spotlight. Hot on the heels of AMD’s Radeon HD 6990 4 GB introduction three weeks ago, Nvidia is following up with its GeForce GTX 590 3 GB. According to Nvidia, it could have introduced this card more than a month ago. However, we know it continued revising its plans for a new flagship well into March. The result is a board deliberately intended to emphasize elegance, immediately after the Radeon HD 6990 bludgeoned us over the head with abrasive acoustics.
Pursuing quietness might sound ironic, given that GPUs based on Nvidia’s Fermi architecture are notoriously hot and power-hungry. To think the company could put two on a single PCB and not out-scream AMD’s dual-Cayman-based card is almost ludicrous. And yet, that’s what Nvidia says it did.
It admits that getting there wasn’t an easy task, though. Compromises were made. For example, Nvidia uses the same mid-mounted fan design for which we chided AMD. It dropped the clocks on its GPUs to help keep thermals under control. And the card still uses more power than any graphics product we’ve ever tested.
And in the other corner...
But it’s quiet. Crazy-freaking quiet. The quietest dual-GPU board I’ve tested since ATI’s Rage Fury Maxx (how’s that for back-in-the-day?). Mission accomplished on that front. The question remains, though: was Nvidia forced to give up the farm just to show AMD that hot cards don't have to make lots of noise?
Under The Hood: Dual GF110s, Both Uncut
In my discussions with Nvidia, the company made it clear that it wanted to use two GF110 processors, and it didn’t want to hack them up. Uncut GF110s, as you probably already know from reading GeForce GTX 580 And GF110: The Way Nvidia Meant It To Be Played, employ four Graphics Processing Clusters, each with four Streaming Multiprocessors. You’ll find 32 CUDA cores in each SM, totaling 512 cores per GPU. Each SM also offers four texturing units, yielding 64 across the entire chip. Of course, there’s one Polymorph engine per SM as well, though as we’ve seen in the past, Nvidia’s approach to parallelizing geometry doesn’t necessarily scale very well.
As in our GTX 580 review, GF110 doesn't get cut-back here
The GPU’s back-end features six ROP partitions, each capable of outputting eight 32-bit integer pixels at a time, adding up to 48 pixels per clock. An aggregate 384-bit memory bus is divisible into a sextet of 64-bit interfaces, and you’ll find 256 MB of GDDR5 memory at all six stops. That adds up to 1.5 GB of memory per GPU, which is how you arrive at the GeForce GTX 590’s 3 GB.
Nvidia ties GTX 590’s GF110 processors together using its own NF200 bridge, which takes a single 16-lane PCI Express 2.0 interface and multiplexes it out to two 16-lane paths—one for each GPU.

	GeForce GTX 590	GeForce GTX 580	Radeon HD 6990	Radeon HD 6970	Radeon HD 6950
Manufacturing Process	40 nm TSMC	40 nm TSMC	40 nm TSMC	40 nm TSMC	40 nm TSMC
Die Size	2 x 520 mm²	520 mm²	2 x 389 mm²	389 mm²	389 mm²
Transistors	2 x 3 billion	3 billion	2 x 2.64 billion	2.64 billion	2.64 billion
Engine Clock	607 MHz	772 MHz	830 MHz	880 MHz	800 MHz
Stream Processors / CUDA Cores	1024	512	3072	1536	1408
Compute Performance	2.49 TFLOPS	1.58 TFLOPS	5.1 TFLOPS	2.7 TFLOPS	2.25 TFLOPS
Texture Units	128	64	192	96	88
Texture Fillrate	77.7 Gtex/s	49.4 Gtex/s	159.4 Gtex/s	84.5 Gtex/s	70.4 Gtex/s
ROPs	96	48	64	32	32
Pixel Fillrate	58.3 Gpix/s	37.1 Gpix/s	53.1 Gpix/s	28.2 Gpix/s	25.6 Gpix/s
Frame Buffer	2 x 1.5 GB GDDR5	1.5 GB GDDR5	2 x 2 GB GDDR5	2 GB GDDR5	2 GB GDDR5
Memory Clock	853 MHz	1002 MHz	1250 MHz	1375 MHz	1250 MHz
Memory Bandwidth	2 x 163.9 GB/s (384-bit)	192 GB/s (384-bit)	2 x 160 GB/s (256-bit)	176 GB/s (256-bit)	160 GB/s (256-bit)
Maximum Board Power	365 W	244 W	375 W	250 W	200 W

What changed from the ill-received GF100-based GeForce GTX 480 to GF110? From my GeForce GTX 580 review:
“The GPU itself is largely the same. This isn’t a GF100 to GF104 sort of change, where Shader Multiprocessors get reoriented to improve performance at mainstream price points (read: more texturing horsepower). The emphasis here remains compute muscle. Really, there are only two feature changes: full-speed FP16 filtering and improved Z-cull efficiency.
GF110 can perform FP16 texture filtering in one clock cycle (similar to GF104), while GF100 required two cycles. In texturing-limited applications, this speed-up may translate into performance gains. The culling improvements give GF110 an advantage in titles that suffer lots of overdraw, helping maximize available memory bandwidth. On a clock-for-clock basis, Nvidia claims these enhancements have up to a 14% impact (or so).”
That's a 12-layer PCB with 10-phase power, and NF200 in the middle
Other than that, we’re still talking about two pieces of silicon manufactured on TSMC’s 40 nm node and composed of roughly 3 billion transistors each. At 520 square millimeters, GF110 is substantially larger than AMD’s Cayman processor, which measures 389 mm² and is made up of 2.64 billion transistors.
Now, it’s great to get all of those resources (times two) on GeForce GTX 590. However, while the GeForce GTX 580 employs a 772 MHz graphics clock and 1002 MHz memory clock, the GPUs on GTX 590 slow things down to 607 MHz and 853 MHz, respectively.

As a result, this card’s performance isn’t anywhere near what you’d expect from two of Nvidia’s fastest single-GPU flagships. That might be alright, though. After all, AMD launched Radeon HD 6970 as a GeForce GTX 570-contender; the 580 sat in a league of its own. So, although AMD’s Radeon HD 6990 comes very close to doubling the performance of the company’s quickest single-GPU cards, GeForce GTX 590 doesn’t have to do the same thing in order to be competitive at the $700 price point AMD already established and Nvidia plans to match.
We already know what AMD had to do in order to deliver “the fastest graphics card in the world.” Now, how does Nvidia counter?

Read Full Here

AMD: DirectX Comments Taken Out of Context

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:18:00 -0700

3:50 PM - March 25, 2011 by Kevin Parrish -
source: CRN

AMD is performing damage control, announcing its full support for DirectX after last week's interview with Richard Huddy.

Just over a week after AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy, spoke out against DirectX and other APIs, the company now says that it supports DirectX and that the previous comments were taken out of context and exaggerated. While that may be true, Huddy's latest interview with CRN-- along with senior director of ISV relations at AMD Neal Robison--also comes across as damage control.
"The [Bit-tech] interview started off being about OpenGL, and the way APIs are developed," Huddy said. "Obviously there’s pressure from Microsoft on hardware vendors to develop DirectX in a variety of ways. We spend a great deal of time getting feedback from game developers in the early phase of our hardware development, for products that are two or three years away from going to market."
The previous interview claimed that developers want the API to "go away," that it's getting in the way of creating some truly amazing graphics. Huddy himself was even quoted saying that developers have admitted this in conversations. But in this latest interview, he said that only a handful of high-end gaming developers were looking to bypass DirectX and code directly to hardware.
"It’s not something most developers want," he said. "If you held a vote among developers, they would go for DirectX or OpenGL, because it's a great platform. It’s hard to crash a machine with Direct X, as there’s lots of protection to make sure the game isn’t taking down the machine, which is certainly rare especially compared to ten or fifteen years ago. Stability is the reason why you wouldn’t want to move away from Direct X, and differentiation is why you might want to."
"We saw some of the chaos before DirectX coalesced the industry,” Robison added. "In the past there were all kinds of APIs developers had to worry about."
Later on in the interview, Huddy revealed that there's a division starting to take place in the gaming industry: those that want to stick with DirectX and other APIs, and those that want to move on in another direction. He even provided an example, saying that developers like DICE have highly-tuned, efficient rendering machines that rely on DirectX. Then there are developers like Crytek who literally sell hardware because they seemingly develop for technologies in the future, and could actually bypass an API.
"Many people are still shipping DirectX 9 games, which is still a perfectly reasonable way to go," Huddy admitted. "As hardware vendors we want to keep bringing out new hardware that produces something visually exciting. We want to be able to innovate. In the feedback we’re getting, some say 'move on from Direct X' and some say 'DX is absolutely the right place to play.'"
He also said that the comment about developers wanting the API to "go away" shouldn't be taken literally. Instead, APIs and middleware need to be innovative and adapt with evolving software code as well as GPU hardware, essentially taking "a different form."
Unlike the first interview, Huddy's follow-up to the Bit-Tech interview is rather lengthy. To get the full four-page dose, head here.

Ubisoft: 3DS Can Handle Unreal Engine 2

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 19:13:00 -0700

5:30 PM - March 25, 2011 - By Kevin Parrish -
Source : Gamespot UK

Ubisoft is reportedly using Epic's Unreal Engine 2 for Splinter Cell 3DS.
So just how powerful is Nintendo's upcoming 3DS handheld gaming system? According to Epic Games' Mark Rein, there aren't enough horses under the hood to run the company’s more recent Unreal Engine 3. In fact, the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod Touch 3 and 4, and a number of recent Android smartpohnes can run the engine without a hitch. Nintendo's new 3DS system apparently cannot.
"There's nothing against Nintendo," he said during GDC 2011. "I hate that people somehow think that's the case. If we felt it could run [Unreal Engine] and deliver the kind of experience people license our technology to build, we'd be on [the 3DS]. There's only so much time in the day; our engine requires a certain level of hardware capabilities to make our pipeline, our tools work -- and we work on the ones that do. The second Nintendo releases a piece of hardware that can run our engine well, we'll be on it like water on fish."
However in an interview with Gamepot UK, Ubisoft's Fabrice Cuny claims that Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 3DS is running on the Nintendo 3DS via Epic's Unreal Engine 2. "The 3DS is powerful, and we are able to run the Unreal Engine on this console, which is pretty impressive for a handheld machine, and the 3D doesn’t affect the performance (thanks to my amazing programmers)," he told the site. "The architecture is different compared to a Wii or some other platforms that we had to work with here at Ubisoft Montreal."
Fabrice added that the 3DS can be much more comparable to a platform between a DSi and a Wii. "We are able to create games anywhere from a puzzle game to very high-end game such as Splinter Cell 3DS," he said. "The tools on the 3DS were brand new, and with every development phase, we had some tools with bugs and crashes. But with version after version, Nintendo provided us a set of tools and the support to help us debug and optimize the game."
So if the 3DS can't run games using the Unreal Engine 3, but can do so with the previous engine, what does that mean for gamers? Look at it this way: if Epic were to bring the Unreal Tournament franchise to Nintendo's handheld, the device may have the ability to support the original Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003 and Unreal Tournament 2004. It wouldn't be able to handle Unreal Tournament 3.
Of course, that's just an example, and doesn't mean any Unreal Tournament title will be ported to the 3DS. It's also currently unknown if the 3DS can handle the Unreal Engine in a first-person perspective (running at an acceptable frame rate). Even more, Epic has also tweaked its Unreal Engine 3 to work on iOS and Android platforms, so it's likely Ubisoft did the same for Unreal Engine 2.
The Nintendo 3DS launches here in the States this Sunday at 12 am EST. Various Best Buy locations will host a launch party starting Saturday at 9pm EST. Check your local store for details.

Crysis 2 Performance Previewed And Analyzed

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:41:00 -0700

12:00 AM - March 18, 2011 by Don Woligroski

A year is an eternity when it comes to the ever-changing world of PC graphics technology. It is, therefore, a testament to the developers at Crytek that the original Crysis, released November 2007 (more than three years ago), continues to set the bar for PC game graphics. This title created a standard so lofty that we continue to get requests for benchmarks in Crysis in our graphics card reviews, more than three years later.

Yet, this game is not without its faults. Despite some shining examples of free-form single-player arenas, as Crysis nears its conclusion, it sometimes feels muddled and rushed. The successful sandbox approach often gives way to on-rails shooting and racing sequences that feel out of place. Crysis’ multiplayer component is unique, but not as successful as it aspires to be, with colossal maps and a capture-the-building mechanic that never seems to reach its potential. The ‘Power Struggle’ mode seems better-suited for a large-scale army than a handful of super-soldiers. Simple standbys like team deathmatch aren’t included.
In the final analysis, Crysis was probably more successful at showing off what PC graphics can do than it was at being a great game.

But Crytek has been far from idle for the last three years, and Crysis 2 is about to hit store shelves on the 22^nd of March. Happily, the company gave us a chance to experiment with the game via a free multiplayer demo (that demo that is no longer playable, by the way; Crytek disabled it on March 16^th). Because of this, we’re able to provide you with detailed information regarding graphics card performance in Crysis 2.

The Crysis 2 Multiplayer Demo

Before we look at that data, let’s discuss the gameplay aspect. Crytek went back to the drawing board with the multiplayer component of Crysis 2, and it’s clear the company paid a lot of attention to the Call of Duty series. Crysis 2 tracks kills and unlocks ranks and achievements in a very similar fashion. Even the feel is similar.

But Crytek’s newest title is so much more than a Call of Duty clone. Of course, the nanosuit’s strength, speed, armor, and cloaking capabilities remain, but the addition of a new ‘nanovision’ mode helps you see other combatants and even cloaked enemies. And all of these wonderful abilities come with an associated energy cost. This adds a whole other dimension to the standard first-person shooter combat formula.

Yes, the controls have been streamlined, but not necessarily in a bad way. It’s easy to point a finger and say the game is dumbed-down for consoles. But in practice, the new scheme makes much more sense. The default mode is strength and speed, but these abilities don’t take any energy unless you use them by jumping or running. Armor and stealth modes can be toggled with the Q and E keys, respectively, but enabling either of these modes will constantly consume energy. Nanovision mode also eats energy, but at a much slower rate than armor or stealth. Energy management is key, and the most successful players are the ones who do that effectively. The simple-but-sensible control scheme helps with that.

The two maps included in the demo are Skyline and Pier 7, both of which are just the right size for a team deathmatch of eight to 12 players. But there’s also a new game mode called ‘capture the pod.’ an alien ship drops an item, and the team that occupies the area surrounding it gains points over time. After a couple minutes, the pod becomes unstable and explodes, and this sequence of events repeats until one of the teams has gained enough points to win. It’s a good metagame alternative to simple team deathmatch.

And that’s about it. Crysis 2 multiplayer might not sound groundbreaking, but it’s certainly very addicting. In this author’s opinion, it contains the best PvP elements of Call of Duty and Aliens vs. Predator, but ends up being more fun and challenging than both.

With no single-player demo for us to try, that’s as much as we can say about the game play until we get our hands on the full release. Now let’s talk about performance.

Read More

Half Of All Notebooks To Use gCPUs This Year

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:23:00 -0700

6:00 PM - March 18, 2011 by Douglas Perry -
source: Tom's Hardware US

he introduction of Intel's Sandy Bridge and AMD's Fusion processor will dramatically increase the penetration of graphics-enabled CPUs (gCPUs), market research firm IHS iSuppli said today.
ZoomAccording to a new forecast, 50% of notebooks and 45% of desktops will use gCPUs in 2011, up from 39% and 36%, respectively. By 2014, 83% of notebooks will use gCPUs with integrated graphics processors, the share of desktop PCs will hit 76%, the firm said. "With GEMs [graphics enabled microprocessors] capable of generating the total graphic output of a PC, no additional graphics processor or add-in graphics card is needed," said said Peter Lin, principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS. "Computers today are serving up ever-richer multimedia experiences, so the graphics capabilities of PCs have become more important, driving the rising penetration of GEMs."

The obvious question would be what the effect on discrete graphics cards may be, even if AMD is unlikely to torpedo the demand for its own products. IHS noted that "discrete graphics cards will remain the solution of choice for leading-edge graphics, providing high-end performance for applications such as games." GEMs, as far as their graphics capability is concerned, are likely to be targeted especially at mainstream and value PCs, IHS said.

Both AMD and Intel are positioning their gCPUs as a way to reduce the manufacturing cost of their chip solutions as well as a way to reduce the influence of third-party manufacturers within their platform environments as many users will perceive embedded graphics solutions as good enough for their purposes. While Intel is relying on a single general gCPU approach, AMD is expected to release five application platforms with five GEM microprocessor categories.

Via is also part of the game, but caters with its gCPU solutions to embedded and industrial applications, IHS iSuppli said.

AMD: DirectX Holding Back Game Performance

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:18:00 -0700

4:50 PM - March 18, 2011 by Kevin Parrish -
source: Bit-Tech

AMD claims that game developers actually want the API to go away.
ZoomWith all the hype surrounding DirectX 11 and how it's changing the face of PC gaming in regards to mind-blowing eye candy, AMD's worldwide developer relations manager of its GPU division, Richard Huddy, claims that developers actually want the API to go away, that it's getting in the way of creating some truly amazing graphics.
"I certainly hear this in my conversations with games developers," he told Bit-Tech in an interview. "And I guess it was actually the primary appeal of Larrabee to developers – not the hardware, which was hot and slow and unimpressive, but the software – being able to have total control over the machine, which is what the very best games developers want. By giving you access to the hardware at the very low level, you give games developers a chance to innovate, and that's going to put pressure on Microsoft – no doubt at all."
Outside a few current developers who have announced that PC game development will take priority over console versions, a good chunk of the gaming industry is developing titles for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 first and then porting them over to the PC thereafter. The result is that PC versions are only slightly superior to their console counterparts on a visual sense even though a high-end graphics card has at least ten times the horsepower of the Xbox 360's Xenos GPU and the PlayStation 3's GeForce 7-series architecture.
What this means is that-- although PC graphics are better than the console version-- developers can't tap into the PC's true potential because they can't program hardware directly at a low-level, forced to work through DirectX instead. But there are benefits to working with APIs including the ability to develop a game that will run on a wide range of hardware. Developers also get access to the latest shader technologies without having to work with low-level code.
But according to Huddy, the performance overhead of DirectX is a frustrating concern for developers. "Wrapping it up in a software layer gives you safety and security," he said. "But it unfortunately tends to rob you of quite a lot of the performance, and most importantly, it robs you of the opportunity to innovate."
He added that shaders, which were introduced back in 2002, were designed to allow developers to be more innovative, to create a more visual variety in games. But now many PC games have the same kind of look and feel because developers are using shaders "to converge visually."
"If we drop the API, then people really can render everything they can imagine, not what they can see – and we'll probably see more visual innovation in that kind of situation."
The interview goes on to define the performance overhead of DirectX, explaining that the actual amount depends on the type of game in development. Huddy also talks about the possible problems of developing for a multiple GPU architecture on a low-level if the API is ignored.
"The problem with the PC is that you ideally want a PC that doesn't crash too much, and if a games developer is over-enthusiastic about the way they program direct to the metal, they can produce all sorts of difficulties for us as a hardware company trying to keep the PC stable," he said.
The interview is definitely an awesome read, so head here to get the full scoop.

Watch the Next-Generation Unreal Graphics NOW

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:08:00 -0800

7:00 AM - March 11, 2011 by Marcus Yam -
source: Tom's Hardware US

Epic Games is now more than just a games developer – it's an engine technology maker that licenses its software to other developers to help designers make the games rather than the tools.

At GDC, Epic showed off the most bleeding-edge version of Unreal Engine 3. It was so advanced that it could be called Unreal Engine 4 -- except that it runs all on present-day hardware. Of course, it took no less than three GeForce GTX 580 in SLI to get this done, but it's amazing to think that something like this is possible with readily available hardware. Now all we need is the software.
You've seen the screenshots; now feast your eyes on it in motion:

Watch Epic's Mind Blowing Graphics in Video

And just in case you wanted to see some of the high-res stills, here are the screenshots once again:

Zoom

Toyota, Honda, Nissan Close Factories After Quake

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 22:00:00 -0800

4:00 AM - March 12, 2011 - By Jane McEntegart -
Source : Tom's Guide US

Zoom
Japan today experienced one of the most powerful earthquakes in its history. Though the extent of the damage is still not known, companies with factories based in the country are starting damage assessments and some have opted to shut down operations as a result of the destruction.
Bloomberg reports that Sony, Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Subaru (Fuji Heavy Industries) have stopped production in several of their factories after the 8.9 magnitude earthquake. Sony has stopped production and evacuated six of its facilities, Toyota has closed three, Honda has shut two, Nissan has closed four, and Fuji Heavy Industries, the maker of Subaru cars, has closed five factories.

Many other companies are still busy assessing the damage from the earthquake. Panasonic reports that several of its employees sustained minor injuries, while one man working for Honda was killed at the carmaker’s R&D facility when a wall fell on him. Two workers at Nissan suffered minor injuries. A Toyota spokesperson told Bloomberg that all workers were safe.
Google today launched a Person Finder to help people in Japan locate missing friends and relatives.

Read more about the effects of the eatherquake, the 7.1 magnitude aftershock and and tsunami on Bloomberg.

Gartner Cuts PC Sales Forecast, Blames Tablets

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sun, 6 Mar 2011 05:36:00 -0800

5:50 PM - March 4, 2011 by Douglas Perry -
source: Gartner

The company now believes that PC sales will grow only 10.5% in 2011, which is down from a 15.9% prediction from November 29 and 18.1% prior to that.
Instead of the initial forecast of 417 million PCs, Gartner now estimates 2011 unit sales to be in the 388 million range.
The primary reason is apparently a major slowdown in notebook sales. Instead of the 40% growth rates we have seen over the past few years, notebook shipments may only climb by about 10% this year, Gartner said. The reason for that slowdown, according to the market research firm, is that consumers could be delaying new notebook purchases and spend their money on media tablets instead. Gartner expects 54.8 million tablets to be sold this year, up from 19.5 million in 2010.
“We expect growing consumer enthusiasm for mobile PC alternatives, such as the iPad and other media tablets, to dramatically slow home mobile PC sales, especially in mature markets,” said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner. “We once thought that mobile PC growth would continue to be sustained by consumers buying second and third mobile PCs as personal devices. However, we now believe that consumers are not only likely to forgo additional mobile PC buys but are also likely to extend the lifetimes of the mobile PCs they retain as they adopt media tablets and other mobile PC alternatives as their primary mobile device."
There is the obvious question how this trend, if the estimate is somewhat accurate, will affect especially Intel as the company's growth heavily relied on notebook processor sales in the past. We get the sense that the company is still betting on notebook processors as a growth engine, but it is clear that the overall opportunity for increased chip shipments - which is the fundamental business approach of Intel - may be in smartphones and tablets these days.

AMD to Build 153,000sqft Data Center in Georgia

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sun, 6 Mar 2011 04:52:00 -0800

7:10 PM - March 4, 2011 by Douglas Perry -
source: DCK

AMD filed a permit to build a data center in Suwanee, Georgia.

The building will provide about 153,000 sqft of space and include, initially only one building module in a 10 year plan.
AMD built a similar strategy for its fab in Luther Forest, which is now operated by the spun off GlobalFoundries: GlobalFoundries is expanding its fabs in a module strategy as well. The data center is substantially cheaper than AMD's billion dollar fabs of the past. According to the company, the initial construction cost is estimated to be about $25 to $30 million and part of a data center consolidation approach.
Including the IT equipment, the total cost is estimated to be in the $100 million neighborhood. There was no roadmap that details the future expansion of the site. However, AMD hopes that the new datacenter will be able to help AMD "leverage changes in the business environment in terms of cost."

Sony Drops PSP Go Down to $150

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 5 Mar 2011 05:02:00 -0800

8:40 PM - March 4, 2011 - By Marcus Yam -
Source : Tom's Guide US

Get the PSP slider for less now.
Late last month, Sony announced a price drop for the PSP-3000 moving it down to $129.99. That left a few wondering what would happen to the PSP Go, which at the time kept its same price. Now, however, we find out that the PSP Go has dropped down to $149.99.
It's official now on the U.S. PlayStation site here, so the price should be in effect everywhere.
Budgets aside, with the Nintendo 3DS just around the corner and the NGP/PSP2 already a sure thing, these older systems seem more like older, quick fixes for portable gaming.
We would still lean towards the $129.99 PSP-3000, thanks to its UMD slot that opens up the door for many more games at budget prices.

E-Type concept to be built

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 5 Mar 2011 04:56:00 -0800

Jaguar ‘Growler’ rendering to become supercharged, 5.0-litre V8-powered reality

Posted by: Vijay Pattni,

Remember that rather delectable Jaguar E-Type concept we showed you last week?
Well, it's been scheduled for a limited production. And by limited, we mean very.
See more pics of the Growler E concept car
Each ‘Growler' will be hand-built and is expected to take six months to assemble, with no more than three or four cars done simultaneously.
The car is based on the Jaguar XKR and will be built on a composite body glued to a carbon fibre chassis. Two tubular frames will then be bolted at the front and rear, which hold the steering, transmission, suspension and engine.
And that engine will be a remapped version of Jag's supercharged 5.0-litre V8 producing 600bhp. The Growler is expected to weigh around 1,550kg and, says Palm, should hit 62mph in under four seconds.
"If demand is overwhelming we might contract specialists like Steyr in Austria or Valmet in Finland," says Palm.
Pricing is tricky, but if small series production is started, expect to pay around £420,000. If only a few are made, expect to pay upwards of £850,000. Let's just hope it gets a better name...

Source: TopGear

The Hottest Apps of 2011, Week 9!

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Thu, 3 Mar 2011 02:58:00 -0800

1:20 PM - March 2, 2011 by Rico Mossesgeld -
source: Tom's Hardware US

Looking for useful or fun programs? Here are some recommendations from the Tom's Guide community for the ninth week of 2011.
ZoomHot apps is a weekly rundown of the most popular apps according to our sister site, Tom's Guide. The following software are ranked from first to tenth by total downloads over the last week, making them community picks.
Unless otherwise specified, all featured apps are free, and run on Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, and XP.
Capture Fox. Here's a Firefox add-on that turns the web browser into a screencast tool. Capture Fox is great for recording video tutorials on websites, other Firefox add-ons, and even other programs. No updates for this beta app have been forthcoming since 2009 however, and it only works on Windows XP, Vista, and 7. New entry.
Horoscope. The astrology-driven app stays near the top of the list. This desktop gadget for Windows Vista and 7 provides regular updates on possible futures, based on what the user's Zodiac sign is. Remains at #2.
SkipScreen. A useful Firefox add-on designed for services like RapidShare and Megaupload, SkipScreen does as its named. It bypasses ad-filled web pages that file-sharing sites force their users to wait through. Great for surfers who are tired of seeing how a monthly fee leads to faster downloads. New entry.
WoW Explorer. Another desktop gadget for Windows Vista and 7, WoW Explorer keeps World of Warcraft players updated on the status of the different game servers they can log into and play their virtual character. Remains at #4.
FoxyTunes. At the very least, FoxyTunes lets you control music playback right from your web browser (Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox) or Yahoo Messenger. Supporting features include easy one-click access to lyrics, album covers, music videos, and artist bios. Users can also easily tell everyone else what they're listening to through Twitter or email. New entry.
UNetbootin. Need to create a flash drive or CD that can boot with a free OS or recovery environment like Ubuntu or Kaspersky's Rescue Disk? UNetbootin takes care of everything. A good internet connection is recommended for those who don't want to wait too long. Down from #5.
Evernote. This is the iPad client for the Evernote service. It lets users sync their notes and annotations—whether written or typed out—with an online database for easy access later on, and from other devices. Down from #6.
Omega Messenger. This app lets users manage multiple instant messaging accounts. Supported services include AIM, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, and even ICQ. Down from #7.
Angry Birds HD. The popular game is also available on the iPad. A bunch of colorful birds seek revenge on pigs who've stolen their eggs. Players launch the birds like catapult projectiles, so that the pig's fortresses come crashing down like a house of cards. Down from #8.
PstPassword. A utility designed to unlock Outlook PST (personal storage table) files, PstPassword is designed for forgetful users who've let their Outlook password slip away. Down from #9.
Staff Picks: Paint.NET is a worthy free Photoshop replacement. Foxit PDF Reader takes up minimal system resources. BurnAware Free is a burning app that's fully compatible with Blu-Ray burners and Windows 7. And of course, who wouldn't want to download the latest versions of Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird?

Battlefield 3 Shows Up At GDC, Looks Great

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Thu, 3 Mar 2011 02:55:00 -0800

8:20 PM - March 2, 2011 by Tuan Mai -
source: PCGamer

Next major installment of the Battlefield series shows up.
Tuesday night, at the Game Developer's Conference of 2011, a select few members of the press were given a sneak peak at the highly anticipated Battlefield 3.
EA revealed a bit of the single player campaign along with an in depth analysis and preview of the game's incredible engine. The Frostbite Engine 2, unlike the console-limited engine of the CoD franchise, is designed for PCs which makes Battlefield 3 a force to be reckoned with. Look out Crysis.

Here's a snippet from PCGamer's coverage of the revealing:

The demo opened with a precis of the tech. Frostbite 2 uses animation systems developed for sports games to give characters heft and weight. As the soldiers turn into doorways, you can see the weight shift on their feet. The destructability of the old Frostbite engine has been ramped up; bullets can chip away at masonry and concrete, while full bore explosives can tear down entire buildings. And when buildings collapse, they don’t vanish in a cloud of smoke and magically transform into burning husks – the destruction is more complex – signage wobbles and shakes, concrete awnings tumble down. The sound is as violent and deafening as Bad Company 2; bullets echo and snap with nightmarish cracks.
But it’s the sheer visual quality that’s the real star. I think it’s down to the lighting – the bright sunshine of the Iraq level was extremely impressive. When the demo transitioned to the indoors, shafts of sunlight shone through any open windows, creating gorgeous pillars of dust. It absolutely looked a step ahead of last year’s big shooters.

And if the screenshots aren't enough to give you chills, check out some video of in-game footage:

Battlefield 3 Footage

Battlefield 3 comes out in the fall and if you ask us, not nearly soon enough.

New Samsung DRAM Boasts of 12.8GB/s Transfers

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 04:02:00 -0800

2:30 AM - February 23, 2011 by Jane McEntegart -
source: via V3.co.uk

Samsung’s been pretty busy with its successful Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets, along with the Nexus S, but the company this morning reminded us all that it’s not been resting on its laurels when it comes to hardware.

Samsung today revealed that it’s developed a 1GB DRAM for mobile devices that boasts a wide I/O interface and low power consumption to boot. The new mobile DRAM is capable of transmitting data at 12.8GB per second, an eightfold increase in bandwidth when compared to mobile DDR DRAM, and it’s made possible by the use of 512 pins for data input and output compared to the last-gen mobile DRAMs’ 32 pins. All this comes with a reduction in power consumption amounting to roughly 87 percent.

"Following the development of 4Gb LPDDR2 DRAM (low-power DDR2 dynamic random access memory) last year, our new mobile DRAM solution with a wide I/O interface represents a significant contribution to the advancement of high-performance mobile products," said Byungse So, senior VP of memory product planning and application engineering at Samsung Electronics.
"We will continue to aggressively expand our high-performance mobile memory product line to further propel the growth of the mobile industry," he continued.

Samsung’s next move is to provide 20nm-class 4Gb wide I/O mobile DRAM sometime in 2013.

Windows 7 SP1 Released, Available for Download

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 03:59:00 -0800

9:20 PM - February 22, 2011 by Marcus Yam -

source: Tom's Hardware US

Ready for 7601?
It's been talked about since the very original release of Windows 7 and now it's finally here. That's right, if you've been holding off on Windows 7 until the first Service Pack, today is the day that you can finally step up.
Now available for direct download from Microsoft are Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. You can grab it from Microsoft at the links here, but if you're only updating one machine, then you are probably better off just running Windows Update.

"Smart Plane" Technology Could Help Damaged Craft Fly Right

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:20:00 -0800

John Roach
for National Geographic News

May 23, 2007

Airplane technology under development at NASA could bring a whole new meaning to the term "autopilot."

Called the Intelligent Flight Control System, the futuristic software is meant to help keep damaged planes flying right even in the face of catastrophic failure.

Fighter pilots could return to safety with a shot-up wing, for example, or a commercial jetliner could land with a busted stabilizer.
The software knows how the airplane should fly, said James Smolka, a test pilot at the Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, who has been working on the project.
If the plane starts to fly differently than it should, the system will adjust controls such as rudders, flaps, and engines to get it back on track.
"It measures the actual [flight patterns] and it knows what it prefers to have, and it tries to change the actual to fly more like the desired," Smolka said.
(Related news: "Self-Healing Spacecraft? Tiny Tubes Ooze Epoxy" [January 27, 2006].)
With this technology, even pilots who lack special training on how to make those adjustments themselves could stay in control of the plane, he added.
Crash Prevention
One example of where such technology could have been useful is Alaska Airlines Flight 261, which lost control of its horizontal stabilizer and spun into the Pacific Ocean off California on January 21, 2000.

Continue Reading

Demystifying the memristor:

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 17:49:00 -0800

Proof of fourth basic circuit element could transform computing

By Jamie Beckett, April 2008
Researchers at HP Labs have solved a decades-old mystery by proving the existence of a fourth basic element in integrated circuits that could make it possible to develop computers that turn on and off like an electric light.
The memristor — short for memory resistor - could make it possible to develop far more energy-efficient computing systems with memories that retain information even after the power is off, so there's no wait for the system to boot up after turning the computer on. It may even be possible to create systems with some of the pattern-matching abilities of the human brain.
A mathematical model and a physical example that prove the memristor's existence appear in a paper published in the April 30 issue of the journal Nature.

"To find something new and yet so fundamental in the very mature field of electrical engineering is a big surprise," said R. Stanley Williams, an HP Senior Fellow and director of the Information and Quantum Systems Lab (IQSL).

Fundamental circuit element

The memristor first appeared in a 1971 paper published by Professor Leon Chua, a distinguished faculty member in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department of the University of California Berkeley.
Chua described and named the memristor, arguing that it should be included along with the resistor, capacitor and inductor as the fourth fundamental circuit element. The memristor has properties that cannot be duplicated by any combination of the other three elements.
Although researchers had observed instances of memristance for more than 50 years, the proof of its existence remained elusive - in part because memristance is much more noticeable in nanoscale devices. The crucial issue for memristance is that the device' atoms need to change location when voltage is applied, and that happens much more easily at the nanoscale.

Proving memristor in the lab

Williams and co-authors Dmitri B. Strukov, Gregory S. Snider and Duncan R. Stewart were able to formulate a physics-based model of a memristor and build nanoscale devices in their lab that demonstrate all of the necessary operating characteristics to prove that the memristor was real.
"This is an amazing development," Chua says. "It took someone like Stan Williams with a multi-disciplinary background and deep insights to conceive of such a tiny memristor only a few atoms in thickness."
Williams has a background in physical chemistry. Strukov is a theoretical physicist, Snider is a computer architect and Stewart is an experimental physicist.

Possible replacement for D-RAM

By providing a mathematical model for the physics of a memristor, the team makes possible for engineers to develop integrated circuit designs that take advantage of its ability to retain information.
"This opens up a whole new door in thinking about how chips could be designed and operated," Williams says.
Engineers could, for example, develop a new kind of computer memory that would supplement and eventually replace today's commonly used dynamic random access memory (D-RAM). Computers using conventional D-RAM lack the ability to retain information once they are turned off. When power is restored to a D-RAM-based computer, a slow, energy-consuming "boot-up" process is necessary to retrieve data stored on a magnetic disk required to run the system.
Memristor-based computers wouldn't require that process, using less power and possibly increasing system resiliency and reliability. Chua believes the memristor could have applications for computing, cell phones, video games - anything that requires a lot of memory without a lot of battery-power drain.

Brain-like systems?

As for the human brain-like characteristics, memristor technology could one day lead to computer systems that can remember and associate patterns in a way similar to how people do.
This could be used to substantially improve facial recognition technology or to provide more complex biometric recognition systems that could more effectively restrict access to personal information.
These same pattern-matching capabilities could enable appliances that learn from experience and computers that can make decisions.

Nanoscale electronics experience

In the memristor work, the researchers built on their extensive experience - Williams founded the precursor lab to IQSL in 1995 - in building and studying nanoscale electronics and architectures.
One goal of this work has been to move computing beyond the physical and fiscal limits of conventional silicon chips. For decades, increases in chip performance have come about largely by putting more and more transistors on a circuit. Higher densities, however, increase the problems of heat generation and defects and affect the basic physics of the devices.
"Instead of increasing the number of transistors on a circuit, we could create a hybrid circuit with fewer transistors but the addition of memristors - and more functionality," Williams says. Alternately, memristor technologies could enable more energy-efficient high-density circuits.
In 2007, the team developed an architecture for such a hybrid chip using conventional CMOS technology and nanoscale switching devices.
"What we now know," Williams says, "is that these switches have a name - memristor."

Source: HP

Visions of a Future Chock-Full of Chips

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 17:38:00 -0800

By Richard Adhikari
TechNewsWorld

Twenty years from now, semiconductor chips will cost a penny apiece and will be in everything -- our clothing, our sunglasses, our contact lenses and even our toilets -- physicist Michio Kaku told an audience Thursday at the RSA 2011 convention.

They'll revolutionize warfare, manufacturing and the medical field, said Kaku, one of the co-founders of string field theory.
Kaku's talk was based on interviews he conducted with 300 of the world's top scientists about their views of the future. Those interviews have been published in his latest book, Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100.

Moore's Law, which posits that computing power doubles roughly every 18 months, also more or less applies to electricity, running water and paper, Kaku suggested.
Extrapolating this curve out into the future, some computer chips will eventually cost about a penny apiece, Kaku stated. "There will be millions scattered in our clothing, in the environment."
When computer chip prices fall to about a penny, chips will be ubiquitous. They'll be present in our clothing and in our eyeglasses, Kaku remarked.
Embedded chips will give our eyeglasses access to the Internet on the fly, Kaku predicted. Eyeglasses will then double as their owners' home offices or entertainment centers.
"In 10 years, we'll live in a world where we can identify people's faces, see their biographies, see subtitles as they speak in other languages and, if you're an artist, you'll be able to create any sculpture by waving your hands and see it develop," Kaku said.

The Technology of War

The United States military is using a version of smart glasses called "Land Warrior," which Kaku saw at demonstrated at Fort Benning. "It's the Internet of the battlefield -- you'll see friendly troops, enemy troops, everything on your glasses," he told his audience.
Augmented reality will be used to enhance the capability of smart glasses. "You've seen this before in the movies," Kaku said, showing a slide from the film "The Terminator."
The Chinese already have created an augmented reality version of the Summer Palace in Beijing, Kaku stated.
The U.S. Department of Defense began investing in augmented technology back in 2007.
One company, Tanagram, has worked on a DARPA project involving an augmented reality interface for F-35 fighter jets.
Two other companies announced products including augmented reality at the Mobile World Congress, being held in Barcelona, Spain.
Route 66 unveiled a new app for Android earlier this week that incorporates augmented reality. Meanwhile, Travel site TripAdvisor announced Thursday at MWC that it has added a virtual tours feature that uses augmented reality to its iPad app.

More Uses for the Ubiquitous Chip

Paper will be electronic, using organic LED (OLED) technology. "Your cellphone will scroll out paper which can be totally flexible," Kaku said.
The wallpaper of the future will be both flexible and intelligent, and it will consist of hundreds of computers on the wall. "When you want to redecorate your house, you talk to the walls and they'll change to whatever color you want," Kaku said.
Office files will follow people around in the cloud as they move from room to room, or between the home and office, Kaku forecast.
"Today your office is structured around your PC," Kaku said. "Why? The content is more important than your platform."
Cars of the future will drive themselves, Kaku said. "Google is already investing millions of dollars into this technology and predicts that, in eight or nine years, your car will drive itself," he pointed out.

Cars of the future will drive themselves, Michio Kaku stated. The research is already being undertaken.

Google (Nasdaq: GOOG), however, isn't hold too tightly to that time frame.
"We aren't going to put a hard number on when the car will be available on the road," Google spokesperson Jay Nancarrow told TechNewsWorld.
"The technology has made a lot of progress, but there are a lot of other external factors involved with putting cars on the road that make it more difficult to give an estimate," he explained. "The team is hard at work on some of the toughest computer science challenges in their field."

Reinventing Manufacturing

The ubiquity of chips will lead to mass customization, Kaku forecast.
For example, consumers will be able to walk into a store, select an item of clothing they want, and send a message to the manufacturer, who will create that item tailored exactly to them, Kaku said.
This is already happening now, Jake Sorofman, chief marketing officer at rPath, told TechNewsWorld.
"That's what Dell's (Nasdaq: DELL) doing," Sorofman elaborated. "They've outsourced manufacturing and they're just assemblers who configure their products to suit market needs. We see that at Ikea as well."

Eliminating Diseases

All medicine will be reduced to computer science, Kaku said.
"When Isaac Asimov did this in the movie 'Fantastic Voyage,' people laughed," Kaku elaborated. "In the future we'll do this. We've already done this with nanoparticles."
The California Institute of Technology has developed nanoparticles that can home in and destroy individual cancer cells, Kaku said. These have been up to 80 percent effective in trials.
Smart toilets will help eliminate cancer, Kaku suggested. "Your toilet will have DNA chips which can zoom in on individual cancer cells and can tell you if you have cancer," he explained. "It will tell you that there are 100 cancer cells in a colony in your body 10 years before that forms into a tumor."

Source: Technewsworld

Survey Surprise: Online Content Doesn't Have to Be Free

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 17:26:00 -0800

By Rob Spiegel
E-Commerce Times
Part of the ECT News Network

A hearty 65 percent of Internet users have paid to access or download online content, according to survey results released Thursday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The study focused on content such as music, articles and apps.

There were a number of surprises in the data. With the exception of software, which is a predominantly male interest, men and women bought content at roughly the same rate. The researchers also found it surprising that Internet users bought online content and subscription services at the same rate as physical products and travel.
The big categories of purchased content were software and online music. In both categories, 33 percent of online users have made purchases. Typical users pay about US$10 per month for content. As for methods of purchase, the majority of users pay for subscriptions services (23 percent) versus downloads of individual files (16 percent).
The survey data came from telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,023 adults in a mix of age groups during the period of October 28, 2010, through November 1, 2010.

The print publishing industry has taken a significant hit due to the migration of readers online. The newspaper industry has been hit particularly hard, with major decades-old papers folding during 2010. There's good news online, however, with 18 percent of Internet users paying for online content from newspaper and magazine sites.
"Eighteen percent is well above noise level, so it's a positive thing," Jim Jansen, the author of the report and senior fellow at Pew Internet & American Life Project, told the E-Commerce Times. "Whether all the print outlets will be able to switch to an online model is another story."
The type of business model that supports online paid content is still the subject of experimentation.
"I think it's an issue of working out a price structure and subscription model that works for online consumers," said Jansen. "If there is a good model, people are receptive to paying for things. Music is a good example."

An Online Path Back From Disaster

While the Internet has dealt print publishing a mighty blow in recent years, the Internet may also be the salvation of content publishing.
"Nearly a fifth of users have paid for articles. That did jump out at me," Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, told the E-Commerce Times. "While some online-only sites have been very successful -- like the "Huffington Post" -- most of their income is coming from advertising rather than premium subscriptions."
Those sites selling newspaper and magazine content tend to be print-based publishers that also have a Web presence.
"Most of the newspapers and magazines charging for content also have hard copies, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and others," said King. "I do think it portends potentially good news for the magazine and newspaper industry. There has been a lot of concern about how online content has impacted traditional newspapers. These numbers are higher than I would have expected."

Advertising Chases New Models

With so many sites selling subscription services, the future of Internet advertising could be challenged. "I think a lot of different business models are going to develop," said the Pew's Jansen.
The advertising model is still evolving online.
"Niche sites do well -- like car enthusiast sites. Advertising works well there. Other places where advertising works are at sites with high traffic," said Jansen. "I don't think the subscription model is a threat. There are just different advertising models for different verticals."

Trend Watching

The Pew study is the center's first survey of online content consumption. It may become an annual report.
"This is the first time we've asked these kinds of questions, and certainly there is a lot of interest in trend data," said Jansen. "It would be great to re-do in a year's time and see what the changes are. I would expect there would be some dramatic changes given the technology that's coming."

Source: Technewsworld

M1A1 / M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank, USA

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:59:00 -0800

Key Data

Crew

4 (driver, commander, gunner, loader)

Length With Gun Forward

387in

Turret Height

93.5in

Width

144in

Weight

69.54t

Ground Clearance

19in

Ground Pressure

15.4psi

Full specifications

The M1A1/2 Abrams main battle tank is manufactured by General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS). The first M1 tank was produced in 1978, the M1A1 in 1985 and the M1A2 in 1986.
The first M1 Abrams battle tanks were delivered to the US Army in 1980. 3,273 M1 tanks were produced for the US Army. 4,796 M1A1 tanks were built for the US Army, 221 for the US Marines and 880 co-produced with Egypt.

Approximately 77 M1A2 tanks have been built for the US Army, 315 for Saudi Arabia and 218 for Kuwait. For the M1A2 upgrade programme, over 600 M1 Abrams tanks are being upgraded to M1A2 configuration. Deliveries began in 1998.
Abrams orders and deliveries
In March 2004, the Australian Army announced the purchase of 59 US Army M1A1 tanks to enter service from 2007. The contract was signed in November 2005 and the first five were handed over in February 2006 at GDLS in Lima, Ohio. The first 18 tanks were delivered to the Australian Army at the School of Armour in Victoria in September 2006. The remaining 41, to be based in Darwin, were delivered in March 2007.
In June 2006, Saudi Arabia requested the foreign military sale of 58 M1A1 tanks and the upgrade of these and the 315 M1A2 already in the Saudi inventory to M1A2S configuration. The upgrade involves rebuilding to a 'like new' condition, similar to the US Army Abrams integrated management programme (AIM).

"The first M1 tank was produced in 1978, the M1A1 in 1985 and the M1A2 in 1986."

In August 2007, Egypt requested the foreign military sale of an additional 125 M1A1 tanks, which would bring the country's fleet to 1,005 M1A1 tanks.
GDLS was awarded a $349m contract in January 2008, for the production of 125 M1A1 tank kits under the tenth increment of the the Egyptian co-production programme. Deliveries began in April 2009 and will continue until July 2011.
In July 2008, the Iraqi Government requested the sale of 140 M1A1 tanks to be upgraded to M1A1M configuration.

In February 2009, the US Army TACOM Life-Cycle Management Command (TACOM LCMC) awarded GDLS a multiyear contract worth $81m to upgrade 30 M1 Abram tanks to M1A2 systems enhancement package version 2 (SEPv2) configuration. The deliveries are expected to be made by June 2012.
In March 2009, the TACOM LCMC awarded a $33m contract to GDLS for long-lead materials to produce 140 M1A1 SA (situational awareness) tanks for the Iraq programme. The tanks will be fitted with FLIR thermal site, tank urban survivability kit (TUSK) enhancements and a driver's vision-enhancing thermal viewer.
Under a $45m contract signed in July 2009 under the Egyptian tank co-production programme, GDLS will provide technical assistance and equipment to M1A1 tanks at the Egyptian tank plant. It is expected to be completed by December 2012.
Honeywell is improving the performance of the AGT 1500 engines of M1 Abrams tanks under a one-year extension contract awarded by the US Army in August 2009. The company will work with the army on the total integrated engine revitalisation (TIGER) programme of about 750 engines. The value of the fourth year contract is about $300m. The total contract value is $1.4bn.
In October 2009, GDLS was awarded a $58m contract by the US Army awarded for providing systems technical support (STS) for the Abrams tank. The work is expected to be complete by 31 December 2011.
In December 2009, GDLS received a $17.6m contract from Saudi Arabia for purchase of long-lead materials used for conversion of 15 M1A2 Abrams tanks to M1A2S tanks.
In March 2010, US Army TACOM LCMC awarded $37m contract to GDLS for providing STS services for the Abrams tanks. The work includes identifying improvements and replacement of obsolete parts of the tanks. It is expected to be completed in December 2011.
In February 2010, GDLS awarded $18m contract to Northrop Grumman to supply LRS-2000 rate sensor assembly units for the stabilised commander's weapon station (SCWS) on the US Army M1A1 Abrams tank. The sensors will increase soldier safety and effectiveness in urban areas attacks. Production of the units is underway and deliveries will begin in late 2010.

M1A2 system enhancement package (SEP)

In February 2001, GDLS were contracted to supply 240 M1A2 tanks with a system enhancement package (SEP) by 2004. The M1A2 SEP contains an embedded version of the US Army's Force XXI command and control architecture; new Raytheon commander's independent thermal viewer (CITV) with second-generation thermal imager; commander's display for digital colour terrain maps; DRS Techologies second-generation GEN II TIS thermal imaging gunner's sight with increased range; driver's integrated display and thermal management system.

"The army's force XXI battle command, brigade and below (FBCB2) programme is a digital battle command information system."

The US Army decided to cancel future production of the M1A2 SEP from FY2004, but in June 2005 ordered the upgraded of a further 60 M1A2 tanks to SEP configuration. A further 60 were ordered in August 2006, and 180 in November 2006.
Under the firepower enhancement package (FEP), DRS Techologies has also been awarded a contract for the GEN II TIS to upgrade US Marine Corps M1A1 tanks. GEN II TIS is based on the 480×4 SADA (standard advanced dewar assembly) detector.
The FEP also includes an eyesafe laser rangefinder, north-finding module and precision lightweight global positioning receiver which provide targeting solutions for the new far target locate (FTL) function.
FTL gives accurate targeting data to a range of 8,000m with a CEP (circular error of probability) of less than 35m.
In November 2007, General Dynamics was awarded a contract for the upgrade of 240 M1A2 SEP version one tanks to the version two configuration which has improved sights, displays and a tank-infantry phone. The first was ready in October 2008 and the work was completed in September 2009.
In 2008, Saudi Arabia awarded a $58m contract to GDLS to design, develop, convert, implement and test a hybrid configuration of the M1A1, M1A2 and M1A2 SEP tank variants. The work is expected to be complete in March 2012.
In February 2008, General Dynamics was awarded a multi-year contract to upgrade to SEP Version Two (V2) configuration the remaining 435 M1A1 tanks in the US Army inventory. A $614m contract to upgrade 235 M1A1 Abrams main battle tanks to the SEP V2 configuration was awarded in August 2008. The remaining 180 tanks will be upgraded at a later date.
FBCB2
In June 2004, DRS Technologies was awarded a contract to provide systems including rugged appliqué computers for the M1A2 Abrams tanks (and M2A3 Bradley fighting vehicles) as part of the US Army's Force XXI battle command, brigade and below (FBCB2) programme.
FBCB2 is a digital battle command information system which provides enhanced interoperability and situation awareness from brigade to individual soldier that will be used in conjunction with the Army's tactical internet.

M1 Abrams armament

The main armament is the 120mm M256 smoothbore gun, developed by Rheinmetall Waffe Munition GmbH of Germany. The 120mm gun fires the following ammunition: the M865 TPCSDS-T and M831 TP-T training rounds, the M8300 HEAT-MP-T and the M829 APFSDS-T which includes a depleted uranium penetrator. Textron Systems provides the Cadillac Gage gun turret drive stabilisation system.
The commander has a 12.7mm Browning M2 machine gun and the loader has a 7.62mm M240 machine gun. A 7.62mm M240 machine gun is also mounted coaxially on the right hand side of the main armament.

"The M1A1 tank incorporates steel-encased depleted uranium armour."

Depleted uranium armour

The M1A1 tank incorporates steel-encased depleted uranium armour. Armour bulkheads separate the crew compartment from the fuel tanks.
The top panels of the tank are designed to blow outwards in the event of penetration by a HEAT projectile. The tank is protected against nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) warfare.
One L8A1 six-barrelled smoke grenade discharger is fitted on each side of the turret. A smoke screen can also be laid by an engine-operated system.
In August 2006, General Dynamics Land Systems was awarded a contract to produce 505 tank urban survivability kits (TUSK) for the US Army Abrams tanks. TUSK includes add-on reactive armour tiles, loader's armour gun shield (LAGS), tank infantry phone (TIP), Raytheon loader's thermal weapon sight with Rockwell Collins head-mounted display and BAE Systems thermal driver's rear-view camera (DRVC). TUSK entered service on M1A1 / M1A2 tanks in late 2007 and has been deployed to Iraq.
Australian M1A1 tanks are being fitted with Saab Barracuda multispectral camouflage systems which reduce the tank's visual, radar and infrared signature.
Fire control and observation
The commander's station is equipped with six periscopes, providing a 360° view. The Raytheon commander's independent thermal viewer (CITV) provides the commander with independent stabilised day and night vision with a 360° view, automatic sector scanning, automatic target cueing of the gunner's sight and back-up fire control.
The M1A2 Abrams tank has a two-axis Raytheon gunner's primary sight - line of sight (GPS-LOS) which increases the first round hit probability by providing faster target acquisition and improved gun pointing. The thermal imaging system (TIS) has magnification ×10 narrow field of view and ×3 wide field of view. The thermal image is displayed in the eyepiece of the gunner's sight together with the range measurement from a laser rangefinder.
The Northrop Grumman (formerly Litton) Laser Systems eyesafe laser rangefinder (ELRF) has a range accuracy to within 10m and target discrimination of 20m. The gunner also has a Kollmorgen Model 939 auxiliary sight with magnification ×8 and field of view 8°.

"The commander's station of the Abrams M1A1 is equipped with six periscopes, providing a 360° view."

The digital fire control computer is supplied by General Dynamics - Canada (formerly Computing Devices Canada).
The fire control computer automatically calculates the fire control solution based on: lead angle measurement; bend of the gun measured by the muzzle reference system; velocity measurement from a wind sensor on the roof of the turret; data from a pendulum static cant sensor located at the centre of the turret roof.
The operator manually inputs data on ammunition type, temperature and barometric pressure.
The driver has either three observation periscopes or two periscopes on either side and a central image intensifying periscope for night vision. The periscopes provide 120° field of view. The DRS Technologies driver's vision enhancer (DVE), AN/VSS-5, is based on a 328×245 element uncooled infrared detector array, operating in the 7.5 to 13 micron waveband. A Raytheon driver's thermal viewer, AN/VAS-3, is installed on the M1A2 Abrams tanks for Kuwait.
Propulsion
The M1 is equipped with a Honeywell AGT 1500 gas turbine engine. The Allison X-1100-3B transmission provides four forward and two reverse gears.
The US Army has selected Honeywell International Engines and Systems and General Electric to develop a new LV100-5 gas turbine engine for the M1A2. The new engine is lighter and smaller with rapid acceleration, quieter running and no visible exhaust.

Source: Army-Technology

Bio Diesel

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 15:36:00 -0800

What is Biodiesel?
Biodiesel is the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with little or no modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

Is Biodiesel the same thing as raw vegetable oil?
No! Biodiesel is produced from any fat or oil such as soybean oil, through a refinery process called transesterification. This process is a reaction of the oil with an alcohol to remove the glycerin, which is a by-product of biodiesel production. Fuel-grade biodiesel must be produced to strict industry specifications (ASTM D6751) in order to insure proper performance. Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. Biodiesel that meets ASTM D6751 and is legally registered with the Environmental Protection Agency is a legal motor fuel for sale and distribution. Raw vegetable oil cannot meet biodiesel fuel specifications, it is not registered with the EPA, and it is not a legal motor fuel.
For entities seeking to adopt a definition of biodiesel for purposes such as federal or state statute, state or national divisions of weights and measures, or for any other purpose, the official definition consistent with other federal and state laws and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) guidelines is as follows:

Biodiesel is defined as mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids derived from vegetable oils or animal fats which conform to ASTM D6751 specifications for use in diesel engines. Biodiesel refers to the pure fuel before blending with diesel fuel. Biodiesel blends are denoted as, "BXX" with "XX" representing the percentage of biodiesel contained in the blend (ie: B20 is 20% biodiesel, 80% petroleum diesel).

Is biodiesel used as a pure fuel or is it blended with petroleum diesel?
Biodiesel can be used as a pure fuel or blended with petroleum in any percentage. B20 (a blend of 20 percent by volume biodiesel with 80 percent by volume petroleum diesel) has demonstrated significant environmental benefits with a minimum increase in cost for fleet operations and other consumers.

Is it approved for use in the US?
Biodiesel is registered as a fuel and fuel additive with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and meets clean diesel standards established by the California Air Resources Board (CARB). Neat (100 percent) biodiesel has been designated as an alternative fuel by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the US Department of Transportation (DOT).
How much biodiesel has been produced in the US?
The National Biodiesel Board has released the following production volume estimates for the US:
FY 2008 -- 700 million gallons
FY 2007 -- 450 million gallons
FY 2006 -- 250 million gallons
FY 2005 -- 75 million gallons
FY 2004 -- 25 million gallons
FY 2003 -- 20 million gallons
FY 2002 -- 15 million gallons
FY 2001 -- 5 million gallons
FY 2000 -- 2 million gallons
FY 1999 -- 500,000 gallons
How do biodiesel emissions compare to petroleum diesel?
Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the Clean Air Act. The use of biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter compared to emissions from diesel fuel. In addition, the exhaust emissions of sulfur oxides and sulfates (major components of acid rain) from biodiesel are essentially eliminated compared to diesel.

Of the major exhaust pollutants, both unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are ozone or smog forming precursors. The use of biodiesel results in a substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons. Emissions of nitrogen oxides are either slightly reduced or slightly increased depending on the duty cycle of the engine and testing methods used. Based on engine testing, using the most stringent emissions testing protocols
required by EPA for certification of fuels or fuel additives in the US, the overall ozone forming potential of the speciated hydrocarbon emissions from biodiesel was nearly 50 percent less than that measured for diesel fuel.

Can biodiesel help mitigate “global warming”?
A 1998 biodiesel lifecycle study, jointly sponsored by the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Agriculture, concluded biodiesel reduces net CO² emissions by 78 percent compared to petroleum diesel. This is due to biodiesel’s closed carbon cycle. The CO² released into the atmosphere when biodiesel is burned is recycled by growing plants, which are later processed into fuel..Is biodiesel safer than petroleum diesel? Scientific research confirms that biodiesel exhaust has a less harmful impact on human health than petroleum diesel fuel. Biodiesel emissions have decreased levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and nitrited PAH compounds that have been identified as potential cancer causing compounds. Test results indicate PAH compounds were reduced by 75 to 85 percent, with the exception of benzo(a)anthracene, which was reduced by roughly 50 percent. Targeted nPAH compounds were also reduced dramatically with biodiesel fuel, with 2-nitrofluorene and 1-nitropyrene reduced by 90 percent, and the rest of the nPAH compounds reduced to only trace levels.

Does biodiesel cost more than other alternative fuels?
When reviewing the high costs associated with other alternative fuel systems, many fleet managers have determined biodiesel is their least-cost-strategy to comply with state and federal regulations. Use of biodiesel does not require major engine modifications. That means operators keep their fleets, their spare parts inventories, their refueling stations and their skilled mechanics. The only thing that changes is air quality.

Do I need special storage facilities?
In general, the standard storage and handling procedures used for petroleum diesel can be used for biodiesel. The fuel should be stored in a clean, dry, dark environment. Acceptable storage tank materials include aluminum, steel, fluorinated polyethylene, fluorinated polypropylene and teflon. Copper, brass, lead, tin, and zinc should be avoided.

Can I use biodiesel in my existing diesel engine?
Biodiesel can be operated in any diesel engine with little or no modification to the engine or the fuel system. Biodiesel has a solvent effect that may release deposits accumulated on tank walls and pipes from previous diesel fuel storage. The release of deposits may clog filters initially and precautions should be taken. Ensure that only fuel meeting the biodiesel specification is used.

Where can I purchase biodiesel?
Biodiesel can be made available anywhere in the US. The National Biodiesel Board (NBB) maintains a list of registered fuel marketers. A current list is available on the biodiesel web site at www.biodiesel.org or by calling the NBB at (800) 841-5849.

Who can answer my questions about biodiesel?
The NBB maintains the largest library of biodiesel information in the US. Information can be requested by visiting the biodiesel web site at www.biodiesel.org, by emailing the NBB at info@nbb.org, or by calling NBB’s toll free number (800) 841-5849.

Source: Biodiesel.org

Adobe Photoshop Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (Nur Muhammad Abdurrahman) — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 01:46:00 -0800

Architectural lights

Start off with your render such as the one below there should be clear areas for lightning otential.

Using the polygon lasso tool with no feather select the area for lighting be sure to include any little jagged bits to add interest as below.

Then fill this layer with a good deep color slightly darker than the intended lighting color as shown below.

Then duplicate that previous layer and set this new layer to color dodge the result should be a brighter color something close to what you want.

The important bit go back to the original (orange) light layer and apply filter --> Blur --> gaussian blur radius 6 The result should be similar to below

Finally on a new layer, with the above brush settings and a deep red color brush around the top and particulartly the bottom below the light set this layer to soft light.
The result should be similar to that below.

Here is an example of it in use.

Important note: The author is not a natural English speaker and there is a high chance of mistakes in every way. Corrections and comments are welcome.