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Fujitsu Says New Rig with "German Ultra Clocking" Will be "Fastest Ever"

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:31:31 -0500

Fujitsu is said to be working on the “fastest rig on the planet.” While it is very common for car ads to heap praise on German engineering, the same is not true when it comes to PCs. But a slide (see below) related to the upcoming “fastest rig on the planet” is a laconic ode to German engineering.

The slide credits “German ultra clocking” for making Fujitsu’s mysterious gaming rig the fastest in the world. It also mentions that the rig features the very best “hand selected components”. Fujitsu posted a link to a teaser video - which miraculously doesn’t make even a thickly veiled reference to the gaming rig – on Twitter.

Image Credit: PC Launches

MSI Launches New AMD-Based Motherboard

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:17:56 -0500

MSI has unfurled a couple of AMD-based products. One of those two products is its 760GTM-P33 motherboard based on the AMD 760G chipset. The motherboard features an integrated ATI Radeon HD 3000 graphics core and supports DirectX 10 and Hybrid CrossFireX. To boot, MSI has packed the motherboard with some proprietary technologies: Active Phase Switching (APS) for managing power usage, Easy OC Switch technology for one-click overclocking and TPM for data encryption and storage. The other AMD-based product that MSI introduced is the R4890 Cyclone series graphics card – the fastest clocked HD 4890 hitherto, which was covered in a previous article.

Takeover Talks between Fujitsu, WD Fail

Pulkit Chandna — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:03:12 -0600

Fujitsu will have to wait longer to get rid of its blighted hard disk drive business as talks between the Japanese company and Western Digital failed to bear any results. Kuniaki Nozoe, Fujitsu’s President, stated in the most unequivocal fashion possible that the deal is off. According to him, the talks fell off after Western Digital refused to accede to Fujitsu’s demands.

Fujitsu was keen on selling its Japanese plants and the ones abroad as a bundle. It even insisted upon most of the people employed in its hard drive business retaining their jobs. According to a Japanese newspaper, the asking price was $550 million.

Is Blu-ray Doomed?

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:43:23 -0600

Doubts have been cast on the success of the Blu-ray format ever since it debuted. Initially, the format appeared to be doomed due to a poor adoption rate, thanks mainly to a host of factors, including the PS3’s initial tribulations, popularity of the DVD format, and the steady rise in the popularity of digital downloads.

However, it soon appeared that the tide had turned as PS3’s sales picked up and the rival HD DVD format ran out of steam and met its sorry fate. The latest good news has come in the form of sales data released by research firm Futuresource, which indicates that Blu-ray sales during the ongoing holiday season have been promising.

Futuresource expects 2.5 million Blu-ray players will be sold next year in Europe. But all this good news might just mark the end of the format’s halcyon days. Has the Blu-ray flattered to deceive?

According to Cnet’s Don Reisinger, the Blu-ray will never scale the heights of popularity that the DVD has managed. Like numerous other pundits – bona fide and self-proclaimed – before him, Reisinger is convinced that digital downloads will eventually deliver the Blu-ray to its grave.

Another sinister portent for the Blu-ray format happens to be the grim sales picture of the PS3; strong sales of the console surely could have gone a long way in popularizing the format. I expect Blu-ray to share the same mediocre fortunes as the PS3 during the remainder of its lifetime.

Image Credit: CinemaRetro

Greenpeace Unimpressed by "World's Greenest Family of Notebooks"

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:32:15 -0600

Apple is finding it extremely difficult to avoid being in Greenpeace’s cross hairs. Nearly a year ago, Greenpeace branded the iPhone as “toxic”. Now, the organization has flayed Apple’s pompous claim that its Macbook line of notebooks are the greenest there are.

The Macbook range of notebooks scored a highly disappointing 4.3 out of a possible 10 points on the organization’s green index. Greenpeace did laud Apple, though very frugally, for doing away with bromide flame-retardants and other toxic plastics. But it clearly believes that Apple should take more steps to substantiate its towering claims.

Greenpeace has put the ball in Apple’s court by asking it “to commit to phasing out additional substances with timelines, improve its policy on chemicals and its reporting on chemicals management.”

Psystar Shipping Mac Clone with Blu-ray, 9800GT

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:33:43 -0500

Psystar, a leading Mac clone manufacturer, has stolen a march on Apple by launching the very first OS X-compatible PCs outfitted with Blu-ray drives and GeForce 9800GT graphics cards. Psystar president Rudy Pedraza lampooned Apple, in a press release, for having still not embraced Blu-ray despite the fact that it has already won the HD format war.

He heavily extolled Blu-ray, which he believes is a huge asset for media editing professionals and enterprises - a demographic that Psystar can now serve.

Psystar is certainly trying its best to get under the skin of Apple whose patience must be wearing thin. Around a fortnight ago, Apple and Psystar agreed to an “Alternative Dispute Resolution”. Prior to that, in July, Apple had slapped a lawsuit against Psystar. The latter soon returned the favor by filing a lawsuit of its own against Apple.

Multi-GPU Startup Lands $18 Million in Funding

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 16:02:44 -0500

Israeli system-on-chip (SoC) manufacturer LucidLogix Technologies has received $18 million in Series C venture funds from Rho Ventures, the company announced in a press release on Wednesday.

Lucid has now raised $32 million in all. It intends to use the funds to propagate its multi-GPU HYDRA technology, which is an alternative to Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire multi-GPU solutions.

“Our recent announcements and engagements with major partners have demonstrated that we can deliver and commercialize our technology,” said an optimistic Offir Remez Hydra, Lucid’s founder and VP of business development. Hydra scores over SLI and Crossfire due its unique ability to extract 100% linear performance from each of the GPUs – it supports up to four GPUs from the same manufacturer.

Lucid can pat its back for having secured fresh funding when most venture capitalists have pulled in their horns as the global economy wades through a turbulent storm.

Asus Eee Box PC Begins Shipping

Pulkit Chandna — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:52:36 -0500

Asustek’s Eee PC mini-desktop has arrived on U.S shores. Its launch follows closely on the heels of Dell’s Studio Hybrid's arrival, which came out less than two weeks ago. The Eee PC box comes with Windows XP pre-installed, a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom, 1GB memory, 80 gigs of hard drive capacity, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Ethernet, built-in card reader, four USB 2.0 ports, a microphone-in and DVI-out.

Available in jet black or immaculate white, the box has an asking price of $399 and is available at major online and offline stores. The white box bears more than a passing resemblance to the Wii.

Image Credit: Geeky Gadgets