All the games are available for free but Zune HD users will have to sit through a small ad before getting into the thick of the action. The game’s are designed to leverage much more than just the latest firmware update, namely the Zune HD’s accelerometer, multi-touch OLED screen and the NVIDIA Tegra chip.
With that much storage on offer, it just sounds like the cloud storage solution that NASA has been waiting for to store its satellite imagery. “While the cost of hard drive storage has continued to drop in these two years, we've also been working hard to improve our infrastructure to reduce your costs even further. Today we're dramatically lowering our prices to make extra storage even more affordable,” Google engineer Elvin Lee wrote in a post on the official Google Photos Blog.
YouTube has launched what it terms as “a small test of skippable pre-rolls.” But don’t be misled by YouTube’s humble choice of words for describing its latest experiment. After all, it is something that could shape the advertising strategy of one of the most popular sites on the internet.
YouTube wants to test the viability of optional pre-roll ads. Such ads will not only give more freedom to the viewers but also force those responsible for creating the ads to come up with more informative, entertaining and compelling ads.
“We've learned from Promoted Videos that advertisers are often willing to pay more money for an engaged opt-in view, as opposed to a forced view like an in-stream ad, so this also has the potential to increase CPMs,” the company said in a post on the YouTube Biz Blog, which it uses to make advertising and business related announcements.
YouTube first flirted with in-stream ads in 2007. But that experience proved to be far from perfect as it found the abandonment rate to be as high as 70%. It then went on to realize that in-stream ads work best with longer videos.
The retailer is hoping that the $249 will appeal to “value-conscious consumers.” But don’t expect the laptop to set any new performance benchmarks, for it features an insipid cocktail containing an Intel Celeron 900 CPU, 2GB memory, and a 160GB hard drive. The $249 Acer notebook will go on sale tomorrow, along with the rest of Best Buy’s holiday computing lineup.
All said, hardware incompatibility may prove to be a major issue as not all phones, TV sets and notebooks feature a full-size SD cardslot. The kiosks will be built and managed by NCR Corporation, the very company that manages Blockbuster’s DVD-rental kiosks.
The site also claims to have been tipped about some of the tablet's specs. According to Engadget's "credible" sources, the tablet currently runs Windows CE and features a resistive touchscreen. It went on to add that an Android-based variant, also featuring a capacitive touchscreen, is in the works. Apparently, the plan is to have the tablet ready for a March 2010 launch. The site even named T-Mobile as a likely carrier.
The SDK contains all the necessary samples, controls, templates and help documentation to help developers hit their stride. Using the SDK, it is possible to develop Facebook apps in Silverlight, WPF, ASP.NET, ASP.NET MVC, and Windows Forms. The SDK can be downloaded for free here.
AT&T plans to deploy HSPA 7.2 in six US cities by the end of the year. Today, it took a small step towards that launch by announcing a new 3G LaptopConnect device from Sierra Wireless. Compatible with HSPA 7.2 and called the AT&T USBConnect Lightning, the USB stick will become available on November 22. It will be available for free with a data plan of at least $35 a month. AT&T will be upgrading its existing 3G network to HSPA 7.2 in Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami before the end of this year, with further plans "to reach about 90 percent of its existing 3G network footprint with HSPA 7.2 by the end of 2011."
The PC processor market seems to be on a comeback trail. According to a fresh report by IDC, CPU shipments in the third quarter of 2009 increased 23 percent from the previous quarter, which is a new record for sequential growth. The increase in shipments was accompanied by a 14 percent sequential increase in revenue. The sales of PC processors in the quarter helped generate $7.4 billion in revenue.
Mobile CPU shipments grew 35.7 percent in 3Q09 to bail the industry out from what is now a receding crisis. The Intel Atom processor merits a special mention as it led the industry's comeback during the quarter. But the low average selling price of Atom processors meant that the record growth in shipments did not quite translate into record revenue.
"While Atom processors led the PC processor market to reach record unit shipments, on the revenue side, their low average selling price led to notable price erosion, more than 7 percent." said Shane Rau, director of semiconductors for personal computing research at IDC.
"The market's growth has been due to shipments of inexpensive Atom processors being sold into markets like China, which is being stimulated by government incentives there," said Rau.
Microsoft has time and again dismissed the possibility of Windows 7 finding its way onto ARM-based smartbook PCs. It remains reluctant to budge from its stand. Mike Nash, corporate vice president for Windows Platform Strategy at Microsoft, reiterated the company's stance on offering support for ARM-based processors in an interview with Digitimes. According to Nash, Microsoft will continue to honor its long-standing commitment to Intel and will not add support for ARM processors.
He went on to add that an increasing number of netbook users are opting for Windows 7 ahead of cheaper alternatives. After having slammed the door on a Windows 7 ARM port, he left a small window open by suggesting that smartbook vendors can use the ARM-compatible Windows CE instead. Microsoft's current reluctance to offer a Windows 7 ARM port probably stems from potential technical bottlenecks as much as its commitment to Intel.
A few days after Asus announced the world's first USB 3.0 /SATA 6.0 PCI-E card, ECS is also said to be ready to launch similar add-on cards. According to reports, it will release two separate PCI-E expansion cards, with one equipped with USB 3.0 and the other armed with SATA 6 Gb/s.
The USB 3.0 card features two ports on the rear panel. The SATA 6 Gb/s card on the other hand features one internal port and a lone eSATA 6 Gb/s connection. There is no word on the price or availability of the cards.
Samsung has announced a new breakthrough that could lead to mobile devices with greater storage space than before. The company says it has developed a new multi-chip memory package that is 40% thinner and lighter than a normal memory package. The 0.6mm-thick package is said to contain eight 30-nanometer NAND Flash chips.
The new package owes its lean figure to a “bare” die that is just half as thick as a conventional die. The ultra-thin package contains a “bare” die that is only 15 micrometers thick. This is quite an achievement on Samsung’s part as it has managed to overcome “the conventional technology limits of a chip's resistance to external pressure when under 30um in height.” Chips based on this new technology seem tailor-made for SSDs and mobile devices.
Asus has extended its O!Play HD media player family to include the Air HDP-R3, the first model in the series to feature WiFi connectivity and a multimedia card reader. Nothing else has changed apart from these two additions. The O! Play AIR HDP-R3, as the new media player model is called, features 802.11n WiFi, HDMI 1.3, a multimedia card reader, a USB 2.0 port, one eSATA/USB2.0 combo port and a RJ-45 LAN port. The Air HDP-R3 retains the aesthetics and the dimensions (181x125.3x47.7mm) of the original O! Play player - one without WiFi. The only departure from the original's design is in the form of the WiFi indicator on the player's front. Its price hasn't been revealed.
"It has been quite amazing to watch the global excitement build around Windows 7, especially during a tough economic climate. It was just a few short weeks ago that we learned about Windows 7 outselling the UK's "own" Harry Potter. In Japan, anxious PC users waited in line to be one of the first to get their hands on Windows 7," a clearly ecstatic Le Blanc wrote on the official Windows Team Blog.
According to NPD's weekly tracking service, Windows 7 software unit sales in the US surpassed VIstas by 234 percent during the first few days. However, revenue generated by Windows 7 sales was only 82 percent higher than Vista's during the tracking period. NPD imputed the rather lackluster revenue growth to the discounts offered on pre-sales and Microsoft's failure to plug the Ultimate version in a manner its due. Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade with an average selling price of $76 was the top-selling Windows 7 SKU during the week ending October 24, 2009.
The shortage of the 40nm ATI Radeon HD 5000 series is being blamed on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's inability to keep pace with the demand due to low yields. On the other hand, the dearth of 55nm GPUs is due to the fact that they no longer figure prominently in AMD’s plans.
The report further claims that AMD has delayed the shipment of “its ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series (Manhattan) GPUs for notebooks to the first quarter of 2010 from the originally planned fourth quarter of 2009.”
According to a Digitimes report, Chou is confident that his company’s handset shipments and revenues will both grow sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2009. His confidence stems from the strong demand for the HTC HD2 phone. In fact, the demand is so strong that the handset maker is finding it difficult to keep up with it. Chou said that the HD2 will be available in North America in the first quarter of 2010.
No Adamo announcement can be complete without pitting the upcoming Dell ultraportable against Apple’s MacBook Air, a rival that also serves as a yardstick. Both our contestants weigh just over 3 lbs. While the Adamo XPS is thinner of the two and features 4GB memory compared to the Air’s 2GB, Apple’s ultraportable boasts more power and a longer battery life. Dell plans to have the Adamo XPS ready for action in time for the holidays.
OWC has introduced a quad-interface Blu-ray burner that uses a Pioneer BDR-205. You will never be short of options with the Mercury Pro 12x Blu-ray burner as it supports four different interfaces: FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and eSATA. It ships with a cable each four all the interfaces that it supports. It is capable of writing to BD-R media ( single or double layer) at 12x speed, BD-RE media at 2x speed, DVD±R at 16X, DVD±R DL at 8X, and CD-R at 40X. The Mercury Pro 12x Blu-ray burner can be yours for $350. The burner is also available along with Roxio's Toast 10 Titanium Pro for $450, though the bundle is only meant for Mac users.
The DRAM market slumped to a 15-year nadir last year. But it is now moving briskly on the road to recovery. According to DRAMeXchange, contract prices for 1Gb DDR2 and 1Gb DDR3 chips shot up by 15.7% and 10.9%, respectively, in the late part of October. Nanya Technology's vice president and spokesperson Pai Pei-Lin expects an encore from the DRAM market in November. He believes November will bring yet another double-digit rise in contract quotes for DRAM memory.
The Leo will reportedly combine a 45nm Phenom II series processor with either the 890FX or 890GX (RD890) northbridge and SB850 southbridge chipsets and an ATI Radeon HD 5000 series graphics card. This high-end desktop platform will also support AMD's upcoming six-core Thuban CPU, as per the report.
Moving on to the other platform, the sources said that the Dorado will bring together an Athlon II CPU, 880G (RS880P) northbridge and SB810 southbridge and HD 5000 series GPU. AMD refused to comment when contacted by Digitimes, saying that it cannot comment on unannounced products.
© 2009 Future US, Inc. All Rights Reserved.