Technology News

XBOX Integration Packs on Nokia Lumia 800

2011-11-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

The new Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone from Nokia is not capable only to keep you connected at all time to Facebook, or to offer fast access to documents via Office. It will also keep you entertained both when on the go and when at home, courtesy of great gaming capabilities and integration with Xbox LIVE.

To make a better idea on the extent to which Nokia Lumia 800 can communicate to XBOX 360 Kinect, for example, you should have a look at the video above.

Games that are being played on the small screen of the device can be easily transferred to a larger screen, so that users can benefit from a better experience when they have some free time to spend playing a game.

“In this film, we look at XBOX integration and demonstrate the connectivity between the Nokia Lumia 800 XBOX gaming service and the XBOX 360 Kinect,” the clip's description reads.

Download BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) v6.1 Beta Now

2011-11-20T18:54:00.000-08:00

Canadian mobile phone maker RIM has just announced the availability of a new flavor of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) application, namely 6.1 Beta.

The new application release has been made available for download via the BlackBerry Beta Zone, with a new set of personalization options for message, so that users would have even more fun than before when chatting with friends.

The new BBM v6.1 Beta comes with animated avatars, fun new emoticons, as well as with increased character count for personal messages, and with customized colored chat bubbles and display picture

integration.

There are three new animated avatars available for users who will choose to install the new BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) v6.1 Beta, including “smile,” “laughter” and “in love.”

“We’re planning to add a larger selection of animated avatars after the beta trial is completed. You can access these avatars when changing your display picture within the Avatars folder. (Note: Animated avatars are only supported on BlackBerry smartphone OS 5.0 and higher.),” RIM notes in a blog post.

At the same time, the BBM emoticons have been updated with 12 new entries, so that users can enjoy new ways of expressing themselves.

“These new emoticons were created based on suggestions from customers participating in beta trials – look for more to come in future releases,” RIM notes.

The new app flavor also comes with increased character count for personal messages, offering users the possibility to enjoy 160 characters now, more than double than before.

Moreover, BBM 6.1 beta brings along the possibility to customize the color of chat bubbles for contacts, with a number of 10 colors for users to choose from.

“This feature is great for organizing the many BBM contacts you have and makes it easier to recognize types of conversations (I’m assigning colors to work, friends, and family. My boss is blue, my family is yellow, and colleagues and friends will get their own color-coding, too.),” RIM continues.

Another enhancement in the new flavor of BBM is Camera/Display Picture Integration, which enables users to snap a picture and have it displayed immediately.

Low Profile Radeon HD 6670 for HTPC Use Developed by Sapphire

2011-11-17T20:02:00.000-08:00

Since HTPC users are always on the lookout for new graphics cards that can deliver both quiet operation and a low profile, Sapphire has thought that it's just about time to introduce such a solution into the market and came out with the Sapphire HD 6670 Low Profile.

The resulting card is one of the most compact HD 6670 solutions that we have seen to date as it takes up just a single slot inside the system case while carrying a half-height PCB.

Cooling for the whole card is provided by a single low diameter fan placed all the way in the back of the HD 6670 Low Profile.

Like most other graphics cards built for HTPC duties, Sapphire's latest creation is also equipped with both a standard and a low profile back plate.

The rest of the card's specs include an AMD Turks GPU with 480 stream processors, 24 texture units and 8 ROP units that are linked to the installed video buffer via a 128-bit wide memory bus.

The memory used by Sapphire is GDDR5 and is clocked at 1GHz (4GHz GDDR5 data rate), while the GPU has an operating frequency of 800MHz.

These values correspond to AMD's recommended frequencies for the Radeon HD 6670, so Sapphire's latest creation will surly be able to surpass most other low-profile HD 6670 graphics cards that come factory underclocked.

The rest of the HD 6670 Low Profile specs are nothing out of the ordinary as the graphics card features the usual VGA, dual-link DVI-D and HDMI video outputs, but a DisplayPort connector is sadly missing.

Unfortunately, Sapphire hasn't provided us with any information regarding the release date or the price of the HD 6670 Low Profile but we're expecting it to be listed at about $80 (about 60 EUR) when it hits retailer shelves.

KFA2 Nvidia GTX 570 Can Simultaneously Drive Four Displays

2011-11-17T19:09:00.000-08:00

KFA2 continues to expand its lineup of Nvidia GeForce solutions with multi-display support as the company has just announced a new GTX 570 graphics card which can drive up to four displays simultaneously.

KFA2 was able to overcome the limitations imposed by Nvidia's hardware by using a third-party IDT VMM1400 controller, a chip that is usually found in multi-display hub devices.

Going for a quick look, KFA2's latest creation seems to resemble the company's previous GeForce GTX 570 design as it uses the same same custom cooling solution, but which was now painted black together with the PCB for a more aggressive look.

However, unlike the other GTX 570 model in KFA2 lineup, the MDT version comes with a dual-link DVI output, a mini-HDMI port and three other DVI-D connectors, which can support up to four monitors simultaneously, double than Nvidia's reference design.

Three of the displays attached to the card can be combined to form a single surface (for multi-monitor gaming or productivity) with a resolution of 5760x1080 pixels.

Another new feature included by KFA2 in the GTX 570 MDT X4 is the so called KFA2 HT-Engine, which is a dedicated chip that can monitor the graphics card's power consumption and modify its voltage settings while also coming with a Dual BIOS feature.

“One GTX 570 – four monitors, 1080p surround gaming, Extreme over-clocked edition with a black PCB and a black matt finished quad heat-pipe cooler – say no more” said Graham Brown, European Marketing Manager.

Sadly, KFA2 hasn't provided us with any details regarding the clock speeds or the pricing of the GTX 570 MDT X4, but the card should become available later this month throughout Europe.

The GeForce GTX 570 is based on Nvidia's GF110 GPU and it packs 480 stream processors, 60 texture units, 40 ROP units and a 320-bit wide memory bus that is usually connected to 1.25GB of GDDR5 video buffer.

Nvidia's default operating frequencies are rated at 732MHz for the GPU and 950MHz (3800MHz data rate) for the memory.

Sparkle Calibre X550 and X560 Graphics Cards Bundled with 3D Glasses

2011-11-16T22:45:00.000-08:00

Sparkle has just announced that its Calibre X560 and X550 graphics cards based on Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 and GTX 550 designs come now in a special version that is bundled together with a pair of 3D glasses built by AP.

The bundle will be available in limited quantities and the 3D glasses included are not active shutter glasses as most of us would expect from an Nvidia-based solution, but rather polarized glasses.

Both the Calibre X550 and X560 use cooling solutions custom designed by Sparkle in order to deliver improved cooling and overclocking performance.

In the case of the Calibre X560 this relies on two 8mm thick copper heatpipes to draw the heat away from the GPU and into an aluminum fin array covered by two 9cm ball bearing fans.

According to the Taiwanese company, this approach should deliver 7% lower temperatures than the cooling design used for the GeForce GTX 560 Ti reference board, while it also allowed the outfit to increase the frequencies of the card over those recommended by Nvidia.

Sparkle's GTX 550 Ti creation features a similar design with that of the company's X560 graphics card, but its cooling has been simplified a bit as the GF116 core utilized produces less heat than the GTX 560 Ti.

These changes however haven't stopped Sparkle from increasing the operating frequencies of the card over's Nvidia reference values, which enabled the X550 Ti DF to surpass the stock GTX 550 Ti by 12% in 3DMark 11, according to the company's internal tests.

Sparkle's two Caliber graphics cards include 1GB of video buffer and are equipped with a pair of dual-link DVI video outputs and a mini-HDMI port.

Sadly, the Taiwanese company hasn't provided us with any information regarding the price of these two solutions.

Windows 8 will be Loaded on Nokia Tablet in June 2012

2011-11-16T22:43:00.000-08:00

Windows 8 will certainly look great on tablet PCs when they become available for purchase in 2012 (in fact, it already appears to be great on the Samsung tablet that was showcased earlier this year) especially with a larger number of vendors committing to the launch of such devices.

One of them appears to be Nokia, a company that has just put up for sale its first device running under Windows Phone, and which reportedly confirmed plans to launch a Windows 8 tablet PC as well next year.

In a recent interview with LesEchos, Nokia France head, Paul Amsellem, confirmed that the company was working on a tablet PC that would run under Windows 8 when made available for purchase in June next year.

No specific details on the device itself have been delivered, but the mentioning along was good enough to fire up a series of rumors on the matter.

Based on Amsellem's sayings, some concluded that Windows 8 might be officially released in mid-2012, though no specific confirmation on this has emerged so far.

Nokia is certainly the most important partner that Microsoft has at the moment on the mobile space, considering the fact that the Finnish giant is committed to bring to shelves only smartphons running under Windows Phone in a few years' time.

Their agreement on the mobile space extends beyond the simple licensing of Windows Phone for being loaded on the handset vendor's smartphones, and the release of a tablet PC seems only a natural step in the evolution of their relation.

The touch-optimized client will be powering tablets and other devices from a wider range of vendors, that's for sure.

Ballmer himself confirmed not too long ago that the Windows 8 platform would be loaded on a wider array of devices than before, including there everything from desktop PCs to tablets and phones.

Update: BGR reports that, when asked about the said tablet, Nokia responded the following: "We haven’t announced any plans anywhere in the world at this point regarding a potential tablet strategy."

Nvidia's Upcoming GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores Performance Unveiled

2011-11-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

Nvidia has just unveiled the first benchmark of the company's upcoming 448 Cores GTX 560 Ti graphics card which is expected to arrive on November 29 and should take the place of the current GTX 560 Ti in the company's lineup.

The Santa Clara-based chips maker has published on its website a graph that compares its upcoming graphics card with its current offerings while running Battlefield 3 at Full HD resolution in DirectX 11 mode.

According to this graph, which was also posted on the XtremeSystems forum, the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores is a great deal faster than its predecessor, almost reaching the performance of the more expensive GTX 570.

This is hardly surprising considering that the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores is basically a slightly less powerful version of the GTX 570 as they both share the same GF110 core.

In the case of the Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores however one of the 15 streaming modules included in this core were disabled.

The rest of the GPU includes 56 texture units, 40 ROP units and a 320-bit memory bus connected to 1.25GB of video buffer, just as is the case with the GeForce GTX 570.

The card's operating frequencies will also mimic those of its older brother as it will work at 732MHz, while the GDDR5 video buffer is clocked at 950MHz (3.80GHz effective).

Together with the increased performance offered by the new graphics core, the power consumption of the card has also grown since the GTX 560 Ti 448 uses the same 0.950V to 1.100V voltage range as the GTX 570.

Other features of the Nvidia GTX 560 Ti (448 Core) include support for 3-way SLI, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort video outputs.

As mentioned just a bit earlier, the GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores will be officially launched on November 29, and its recommended price is expected to be on par with that of the original GTX 560 Ti.

Memory Overclocking World Record Set by ADATA DDR3 and AMD FX-8150 CPU

2011-11-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

AMD's FX-8150 processor has another world record to show for itself, as it has just managed to achieve the world's highest memory frequency so far, namely 3311MHz, with the help of an ADATA DDR3 dual-channel kit.

The record was achieved by Matthias Zronek, an overclocker that is known in enthusiast circles by the name of Mat.

In order to achieve this high frequency he used an AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer processor installed on an Asus Crosshair V motherboard and a pair of retail ADATA XPG Gaming Series V2.0 memory modules.

The system was of course cooled by liquid nitrogen, which has become increasingly popular in the last few years among overclockers.

The official validation screenshot of the world record memory result is available here, and a video of a Super Pi 1M run with 3000MHz memory is enclosed right above this article.