News

Adobe Shifts to Subscription-only Model with Creative Cloud Desktop Apps

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:06:41 +0000

Despite opposition, company abandons pay-once, use-forever Creative Suite

The Creative Cloud desktops apps Adobe announced at Adobe MAX back in May are now here. With the company halting the development of its Creative Suite applications, the subscription-based Creative Cloud desktop apps will now be the only way for people to access the company’s latest flagship creativity apps.

Only available to paying Creative Cloud members, the CC desktop apps, which include Photoshop CC, Illustrator CC, InDesign CC, Adobe Muse CC, Dreamweaver CC, Edge Animate CC, Adobe Premiere Pro CC, After Effects CC and many more, pack hundreds of new features not found in the CS6 versions and allow you to keep everything “synced and organized across your desktop, website, and mobile device.”

Despite Adobe offering a wide range of subscription plans that cater to everyone from individuals interested in single apps to businesses and creative teams with much larger appetites, not everyone is enthused at having a subscription-based model shoved down their throat. While the company is unlikely to go back to the pay-once, use-forever model, it remains open to the idea of making Creative Cloud membership plans a lot more affordable in order to assuage those unhappy with current pricing.

For individuals, subscription costs $19.99 per month for a single app and $49.99 per month for the entire suite ($74.99 without annual commitment), with existing Creative Suite (CS3 or later) customers eligible for discounts on both as long as they are willing to make an annual commitment. Likewise, for a limited period only, Adobe is offering the “Complete” plan to student and teachers at discounted prices: $19.99 per month for individual users and $39.99 per month per user for teams. Where teams and businesses are concerned, the Complete plan costs $69.99 per month per user ($39.99/month per user for existing CS users).

“We’ve added a ton of new innovation to all our CC desktop apps like Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. These apps include new features that increase productivity, streamline the effort to build mobile content and showcase some stunning new imaging and video science. And in addition to the traditional areas of innovation these apps are now connected to the powerful publishing and community features integral to the Creative Cloud experience,” said David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Media, Adobe. “And with even more great updates coming to Creative Cloud throughout the year, we can’t wait to see the incredible work our customers are going to deliver.”

Those who can do without all the latest features can stick to Creative Suite 6, which the company currently intends to continue selling “indefinitely.”

Follow Pulkit on Google+

The Humble Bundle Returns with 7 DRM-Free Games

Chris Zele — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 22:35:22 +0000

Six of the seven titles are cross-platform games

This week’s Humble Bundle features games that are compatible with Android, Windows, Linux, and OSX. If you're unfamiliar with Humble Bundles, they essentially ask you what you'd like to pay for the package. Games included in the Humble Bundle this week are Aquaria, Fractal, Organ Trail: Director’s Cut, Stealth Bastard Deluxe, and Pulse* (Android Exclusive) which you can all get for as little as one dollar, though you can of course donate more.

If you donate above the current average ($4.75 at the time of this writing) then you’ll receive Frozen Synapse and Broken Sword Director’s Cut.

You can select where your donation to the Humble Bundle goes to, be it to the developers who put their games on the service or to charity (Child’s Play Charity and the Electronic).

AMD Lays Out Server Strategy and Processor Roadmap

Paul Lilly — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:25:16 +0000

AMD is intent on recapturing the enterprise market.

Roadmaps have a way of leaking onto the web, so rather than fight the inevitable, AMD this week decided to publicly disclose its server strategy and related processor roadmap as it attempts to gain back market share in enterprise and data center server markets. The chip designer also disclosed details of its 2014 server portfolio, including "Warsaw," "Berlin," and "Seattle" parts due out next year.

"Our strategy is to differentiate ourselves by using our unique IP to build server processors that are particularly well matched to a target workload and thereby drive down the total cost of owning servers. This strategy unfolds across both the enterprise and data centers and includes leveraging our graphics processing capabilities and embracing both x86 and ARM instruction sets," said Andrew Feldman, general manager of the Server Business Unit, AMD. "AMD led the world in the transition to multicore processors and 64-bit computing, and we intend to do it again with our next-generation AMD Opteron families."

AMD's Seattle architecture will rank as the industry's only 64-bit ARM-based server System-on-Chip (SoC) "from a proven server processor supplier," the Sunnyvale chip designer said. It's an 8- and then 16-core CPU based on the ARM Cortex-A57 architecture and is expected to run faster than 2GHz. AMD plans to sample Seattle in the first quarter of 2014 with production to follow in the second half of the year.

Berlin is an x86 part that will be available both as a CPU and APU. It has four next-generation Steamroller cores and will offer nearly 8X the gigaflops per watt of AMD's current Opteron 6386SE processors. The chip will be available in the first half of 2014.

Finally, AMD talked a little about Warsaw, an enterprise server CPU designed to reduce the total cost of ownership for two-and four-socket servers. Like Berlin, Warsaw is expected to be available in the first half of 2014.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

EVGA Announces Supernova 1300 G2 Power Supply with 10 Year Warranty

Paul Lilly — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:05:54 +0000

EVGA goes for the gold.

Could you take full advantage of a 1,300 watt power supply (PSU)? Talk about making others totally envious! Assuming you need a herculean PSU, EVGA aims to deliver with its new Supernova 1300 G2, a monster unit that's 80 Plus Gold certified to deliver up to 90 efficiency under "typical loads" and backed by a generous 10 year warranty to boot. This could be the last PSU you buy for a long, long time.

Most of the available power is piped through a single +12V rail capable of carrying up to 108.3 amps. This is in contrast to some power supply makers who choose to break up the +12V rail into multiple lines.

It's a fully modular unit with a vertical double layer main transformer (increases power output), "highest quality" Japanese solid state capacitors, and a quiet 14cm double ball bearing fan.

No word yet on price or availability.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Next Generation Consoles Needed to Save Slumping Game Sales

Paul Lilly — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:49:12 +0000

Decline In game sales just par for course.

Another month is in the books, and yet again, NPD Group noted a drop in overall game sales compared to the same period a year ago. No minor decline, total game related sales dropped 25 percent to $386.3 million from May of last year when hardwre, software, and accessories totaled $517 million, according to NPD Group's data. Breaking it down by category, software sales fell 31 percent to $175.1 million and system sales declined by the same percentage, raking in just $96 million.

"Softness in new physical entertainment software sales stemmed from a decline in the number of new launches, with over 30 percent fewer new SKUs, as well as poor performance of the new SKUs that were released," said NPD analyst Liam Callahan, according to USA Today.

The numbers were somehwat bolstered by consumer spending on digital sales, micro-transactions, and used game sales and rentals, all of which combined to drive total spending to around $787 million, but as impressive as that sounds, it too was the lowest of 2013.

Both Microsoft (Xbox One) and Sony (PlayStation 4) plan to launch new consoles in time for the holiday shopping season, and it's likely the new hardware, along with developer and consumer excitement, will reverse the recent trend in consumer game spending.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Acer's Upgraded C7 Chromebook Revs Into Retail, Available at Walmart for $199

Paul Lilly — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:30:03 +0000

Faster and more widely available.

Acer clearly got the memo indicating that the best way to sell a Chromebook is to undercut the competition with the lowest price, and then hammer out a deal with Walmart to carry the cloud-based laptop. Enter Acer's C710-2856, the latest version of the company's C7 Chromebook line that's available at 2,800 Walmart stores for just $199. Not only is it cheaper than other Chromebooks and widely available, it's also faster than Acer's previous SKU.

That's because Acer dumped the 320GB mechanical hard drive in favor of a 16GB solid state drive (SSD). Obviously there's a huge storage discrepancy there, but since Google's Chrome OS -- the heart and soul of any Chromebook -- is largely based on cloud computing, Acer figured users would prefer to have faster boot times and quick access to apps versus more local storage.

"The expansion of our Acer C7 Chromebook line to Walmart is a clear indication of its growing popularity for anyone who wants a new or second mobile PC for web-based computing," said Sumit Agnihotry, vice president of product marketing, Acer America. "The new configuration with a speedy and responsive SSD at only $199 is an especially notable value."

According to Acer, the upgraded C7 boots in just 8 seconds and resumes from sleep almost instantly. Other features include an 11.6-inch HD display, Intel Celeron 847 processor, 2GB of DDR3 memory, and a 1.3MP webcam.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Google Expanding Retail Availability of Chromebooks

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 14:05:28 +0000

Walmart, Staples and many other retailers jump on the Chromebook bandwagon

In a major shot in the arm for Google’s cloud OS ambitions, Walmart and Staples have agreed to carry laptops running Chrome OS. What’s more, they aren’t the only ones, as several other retailers around the U.S. and 10 other countries where Chromebooks are already available will also be part of this massive retail push.

Beginning with Walmart on Monday and Staples over the coming weekend, Chromebooks will now be available in “over 3 times more stores than before, or more than 6,600 stores around the world,” the search engine giant has announced. For good measure, select Office Depot, OfficeMax, Fry’s and TigerDirect outlets will also be jumping on the Chromebook bandwagon over the next few months.

Retail availability is also set to expand in the 10 other international markets where Chromebooks are currently sold. “In addition to Dixons in the UK, now 116 Tesco stores are selling Chromebooks, as well as all Mediamarket and Saturn stores in the Netherlands, FNAC stores in France and Elgiganten stores in Sweden,” David Shapiro, director of Chromebook marketing, wrote in a blog post Monday “In Australia, all JB Hi-Fi and Harvey Norman stores will be carrying Chromebooks for their customers as well. We’re working hard to bring Chromebooks to even more countries later this year.”

While the increase in retail availability is definitely great news for Chrome OS, the platform has a long way to go before its market share statistics are respectable enough to warrant a mention.

Follow Pulkit on Google+

60 E3 2013 Pictures

Jimmy Thang — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 21:40:01 +0000

E3 booth babes, booth tours, and more!

We had the chance to check out E3 2013 in Los Angeles, California last week. As expected, the gaming/tech event was a big one with Microsoft and Sony showing off their new Xbox One and PS4 consoles. But it wasn't all about the next-generation consoles. PC vendors such as Nvidia, AMD, Alienware, and Razer were at the expo showing off their latest gaming toys and there were a bunch of PC-exclusive titles at the event.

In our E3 2013 picture gallery below, we'll provide a look at some of this hottest tech, booth babes, and much more. What did you think was the coolest thing at the show this year? Let us know in the comments!

It's Official: China Owns the Supercomputing Crown

Paul Lilly — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:24:03 +0000

We saw this coming.

Earlier this month we said that China was poised to sit atop the supercomputing summit with its Tianhe-2, a system built by the Chinese National University of Defense Technology (NUDT). Armed with over 3 million physical processing cores and 1 petabyte of memory, there was no way this thing wouldn't shoot right to the top, and so it did, taking pole position on the TOP500 chart.

Tianhe-2 became the world's fastest supercomputer with a performance metric of 33.86 petaflop per second on the Linkpack benchmark, according to the 41st edition of the twice-yearly TOP500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers. What's more, Tianhe-2's ascent to the top came far earlier than expected.

"The surprise appearance of Tianhe-2, two years ahead of the expected deployment, marks China’s first return to the No. 1 position since November 2010, when Tianhe-1A was the top system," TOP500 said. "Tianhe-2 has 16,000 nodes, each with two Intel Xeon Ivy Bridge processors and three Xeon Phi processors for a combined total of 3,120,000 computing cores."

It's an incredible machine equipped with 32,000 Xeon processors and 48,000 Xeon Phi accelerator processors. The machine also has 12.4 petabytes of storage and consumes 17.8MW of power. It's cooled by a closed air cooling system.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Were Xbox One E3 Demos Powered by Windows 7 and Nvidia Graphics?

Paul Lilly — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 15:36:08 +0000

Things that make you go hmmm.

Microsoft made a splash at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) last week by showing off a number of fantastic looking games for its upcoming Xbox One console. It was hard not to get excited by some of the titles, including Dead Rising 3 and Forza Motorsport 5, but as it turns out, the game demos we saw might have actually been running on Hewlett-Packard PCs running Windows 7.

Before we go any further, let's be clear that it's not all that unusual for game developers to use PC hardware to show off future titles, so that in and of itself isn't reason to rake Microsoft over the coals. However, it's at least a little bit interesting that these tech demos were being run on Windows 7 rather than Windows 8, which the Xbox One's OS is partly based on.

Secondly, it was discovered that the HP PCs were equipped with Nvidia GeForce GTX 700 Series graphics cards. Given the risk of exposure, it would have made more sense to use machines running AMD graphics cards since the GPU in the Xbox One is an AMD part that's comparable to a mid-range Radeon HD 7790.

All of this came to light when Julian Rignail from U.S. Gamers posted to Twitter a message saying, "I just played an Xbox One game using an Xbox One controller that crashed... to a Windows 7, Hewlett Packard-branded desktop. Magic!" The Internet demanded pics, and lo and behold, there are a couple shots of Windows 7 PCs tucked inside Xbox One cabinets.

Again, using PCs to show off console games isn't unusual, but the choice of OS and GPU certainly raise an inquisitive eyebrow. And according to Cinema Blend, which first broke the story, developers have confirmed that PlayStation 4 game demos shown off at E3 were running on PS4 Dev kits, not PC hardware.

File this under "T" for "Things that make you go hmmm."

Update 12:30 PM

Or maybe not. A developer for Twisted Pixel's LocoCycle claims that his game was the only one of the bunch running on a PC, and that the choice of hardware was "solely [Twisted Pixel's] decision," not Microsoft's. That would certainly explain a few things, and hopefully blunt those pitchforks and douse the torches.

Kudos to "dracx619" for the update in our comments section.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Samsung Starts Mass Producing World's First PCI-Express SSDs for Skinny Laptops

Paul Lilly — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:38:21 +0000

Slim design, big performance.

Samsung has ramped up production of what it claims is the industry's first PCI-Express solid state drive (SSD) for next generation ultra-slim notebooks. Dubbed XP941, these new drives come in the new M.2 form factor and measure just 80mm by 20mm. They weigh a scant 6g, which is about 9 times less than a standard 2.5-inch SSD, Samsung says. Though they're small and light, these drives kick out some heavy-hitting performance numbers.

Sequential read performance is as high as 1,400MB/s. To put that into perspective, Samsung says its new drive can read 500GB of data or 100 HD movies as large as 5GB in just 6 minutes, or 10 HD movies at 5GB in 36 seconds. A typical hard drive would need 40 minutes to perform the same task.

"With the Samsung XP941, we have become the first to provide the highest performance PCIe SSD to global PC makers so that they can launch leading-edge ultra-slim notebook PCs this year," said Young-Hyun Jun, executive vice president, memory sales & marketing, Samsung Electronics. "Samsung plans to continue timely delivery of the most advanced PCIe SSD solutions with higher density and performance, and support global IT companies providing an extremely robust computing environment to consumers."

While the drives are just now going into mass production, Samsung said it's been supplying the parts to major notebook players with 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB capacity SSDs since earlier this quarter. New and thinner laptops that use these drives should start showing up soon.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Patriot Memory and Meteor Tag Team Hawken Themed Rage XT USB 3.0 Thumb Drive

Paul Lilly — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:14:49 +0000

Free in-game bonus with purchase.

Patriot Memory on Monday announced that it's teamed up with Meteor Entertainment to launch a "one-of-a-kind" SuperSonice Rage XT promotional bundle with Meteor's online mech action game, Hawken. The bundle pairs Patriot's 64GB USB 3.0 Supersonic Rage XT NAND flash memory drive with a game changing 7-day Hawken Double XP Boost, allowing gamers to level up faster in the multiplayer mech title.

Hawken is a free-to-play first person shooter built around Unreal Engine 3. It uses a freemium model, though up until June 25, gamers can test drive the Scout and Rocketeer mechs at no cost.

As for the flash drive, the Supersonic Rage XT sports an "extra tough" rubberized housing. It's rated to read data at up to 180MB/s and write at up to 50MB/s when plugged into a USB 3.0 port. It's available in bundled form exclusively at Newegg for $60.

In semi-related news, Patriot recently launched new Intel Extreme Masters Limited Edition DDR3 memory. Built for gamers and intended for 2nd and 3rd Generation Intel core processors, the Limited Edition RAM is certified for Intel XMP 1.3 delivering frequencies of 1600MHz, 1866MHz, and 2133MHz. It's available in dual- and quad-channel kits in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB capacities.

Follow Paul on Google+, Twitter, and Facebook

Google and Twitter Take a Pass on new FISA Disclosure Deal Adopted by Facebook and Microsoft

Justin Kerr — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 17:12:46 +0000

They might not have a choice, but they are fighting it anyway.

Privacy concerns are front and center in the online world these days, and a deal taken by Facebook and Microsoft on government transparency doesn’t pass the Google sniff test. Google claims the offer comes with strings attached they can’t live with, and they appear to be holding out for a better offer.

The current deal forces companies who wish to disclose FISA requests to lump in those coming from the NSA with that of U.S. local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies. This restriction alone makes it pretty much impossible to know where our information is going, and is further complicated by another rule that forces them to only report request in bands of 1,000.

Google has taken a hard stance on the matter, and has released a pretty clear statement with what they hope to accomplish.

We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests. We already publish criminal requests separately from National Security Letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately.

We have no idea if Google will get its way, but at the very least they should be applauded for sticking up for the rights of their users. Twitter’s legal director Benjamin Lee has also sided with the search giant, paving the way for a standoff that will play out over the coming weeks.

We agree with @Google: It's important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests—including FISA disclosures—separately.

— Benjamin Lee (@BenL) June 15, 2013

Follow Justin on Twitter or on Google+

Microsoft is Paying Upwards of $100,000 To Secure Key Windows Phone 8 Apps

Justin Kerr — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 16:22:41 +0000

Microsoft throws money at the problem.

Sources close to Microsoft have confirmed that the tech giant is determined to prop up its Windows Phone 8 App Store, and it’s willing to bust out the big boy checkbook to do it. According to Business Insider, Microsoft has offered several top tier developers upwards of $100,000 to bring key apps to its mobile platform, and that’s in addition to smaller incentives currently open to anyone.

For the month of June Microsoft is also offering developers of any size a cool $100 for any app that gets published to the store up to a maximum of $2,000. This could certainly help Microsoft pad the numbers a bit on paper, but it won’t help with the quality vs. quantity argument. That’s where the big payouts come into play. If Microsoft can write a check to convince just a few more key developers to join the platform, Windows Phone could end up being the only viable alternative to Apple and Google in the mobile space.

Buying your way into a market is a questionable and expensive strategy, but it also shows Microsoft’s commitment to the platform. Will throwing money at the app problem make it go away? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Follow Justin on Twitter or on Google+

System76 Jumps on the Haswell Bandwagon with Two New Ubuntu Laptops

Pulkit Chandna — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:15:22 +0000

The Gazelle Professional and the Galago UltraPro both come pre-loaded with Ubuntu 13.04

System76 may not exactly be a household name, but the Ubuntu system builder has been in business for over seven years now, apparently long enough to have launched nine iterations of a single product. The ninth generation of the Gazelle Professional laptop has, in fact, just come out, as has the all new Galago UltraPro, “the world's first and only ultra thin laptop to feature Intel's new Iris Pro Graphics with 128MB of eDRAM.”

Both the 15.6-inch Gazelle Professional and the 14.1-inch Galago UltraPro are built around Intel’s 4th generation Core i7 processors, run Ubuntu 13.04 (64 bit), and rock full HD displays. While the former is available now starting at $799, the UltraPro starts at $995 and is only up for pre-order at the moment, with “shipments estimated to begin in mid to late July.”

At 5.40 lbs, the 9th generation Gazelle weighs exactly the same as its Ivy Bridge-based predecessor, but despite their fair share of similarities, a lot has changed, right from the processor to the webcam. In its most basic form, the highly configurable Gazelle packs a full HD LED-backlit display (glossy surface),2.4GHz Core i7 4700-MQ processor (up to Core i7-4900MQ), 4GB DDR3 SDRAM (up to 16GB), 500GB HDD (up to 2x1GB HDDs plus 1x256GB mSATA SSD), DVD-Super Multi drive, 2MP webcam, 802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN + Bluetooth combo, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, eSata/USB 3.0 Combo, 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, headphone jack, microphone jack and SD card reader.

Here’s what the Galago UltraPro is packing under the hood: full HD LED-backlit IPS display (matte surface), 2GHz Core i7-4750HQ Processor, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM (up to 16GB), 500GB HD (up to 1.256TB storage), 802.11 b/g/n Wireless LAN + Bluetooth combo, 1MP webcam, HDMI, Display Port, Ethernet, 3 x USB 3.0, headphone jack, microphone jack and SD card reader.

“Wait, that's not it! One more – smaller, but still awesome – bit of news,” the company said on its Facebook page. “All System76 laptops based on 4th Generation Intel Processors now include color calibrated profiles created with ColorHug installed by default. The new profiles significantly improve color reproduction on our new professional grade LCD's.”

Follow Pulkit on Google+