Happy Birthday XSReviews! To celebrate our 3rd anniversary in the review game, we've got a shed load of prizes to give away to our forum members. The rules are simple, just sign up for an account if you haven't done so already, and post 5 times anywhere on the forums. That's it. We got gaming mice, mats, PSU, router and plenty of other bits. You don't want to miss this one.
Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, US, claim the Milky Way is bigger, faster and more massive than previously thought. By using the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), scientists discovered our galaxy has about 50 percent more mass than earlier productions, is about 15 percent wider than previously thought, and that it is moving 15 percent faster than earlier predictions. More info at BBC News.
Tiny shifts in the frequency of the radio emission that arise because the regions are moving gave the researchers an estimate of how quickly the Milky Way rotates around its centre.
They estimate this to be about 914,000km per hour, significantly higher than the widely accepted value of 792,000km per hour.
That speed, in turn, allowed the astronomers to calculate the total amount of dark matter in the Milky Way - the invisible component that makes up the majority of the galaxy's mass.
The researchers estimate that the Milky Way contains about 50% more mass than earlier predictions - putting it on a par with the Andromeda galaxy, previously thought to be our much bigger neighbour and the largest in our Local Group of galaxies.
"No longer will we think of the Milky Way as the little sister of the Andromeda Galaxy," Dr Reid said.
Dell announced a global restructuring plan that will unify the company's product offerings globally. The computer maker will realign its business divisions around major customer segments and aims to recapture lost marketshare from its rivals. From now on, Dell will have four major business units: customer business unit, large enterprise business unit, public business unit and small and medium business unit.
For many years large computer companies organized businesses around geographic regions, which was not particularly efficient when it comes to economies of scale, but allowed them to offer different product lines in different parts of the world. Differences in product lines offered in different countries are not only somewhat discriminating, but also slowdown adoption of new technologies. Dell decided to change that and from now on it will focus on creation of PCs that will be competitive globally, not just locally.
“In the past two years we have significantly improved our competitiveness, reengineered our supply chain, broadened our product portfolio and introduced Dell to more people in more places than ever before. We have laid the foundation for the transition from a global business that’s run regionally to businesses that are really globally organized,” said Michael Dell, chairman and chief executive officer.
Mr. Dell said the changes result from listening to customers and responding to their desire for faster innovation and globally standardized products and services.
“Customer requirements are increasingly being defined by how they use technology rather than where they use it. That’s why we won’t let ourselves be limited by geographic boundaries in solving their needs,” the founder and top exec of Dell added.
D-Link announced it will unveil a 7" D-Link SideStage LCD display at CES 2009, this screen will have a 800 x 480 pixel resolution.
The Fountain Valley, Calif.-based company is introducing the SideStage, a 7" monitor designed for multi-tasking computer users who prefer to have their main screen for viewing Windows applications, and another smaller screen for extending their desktop to display instant messaging, watch videos, conduct video conferencing via webcams, display Yahoo® Widgets™ and Microsoft® Gadgets™, or house common tools from programs such as Adobe® PhotoShop®.
The SideStage is a stylish and compact USB 2.0-powered monitor with a 7-inch liquid crystal display (LCD) screen featuring 800 by 480 resolution with both landscape and portrait modes. Weighing only 1.34 pounds and housed in a sleek black frame, it is 7 inches wide, 4.6 inches tall and only 3/4-inch thick.
It will be on display this week at CES 09 in the South Hall Meeting Room S218 of the Las Vegas Convention Center and by appointment at off-site demo hotel suites.
"This latest addition to our family of digital home solutions is designed to add productivity to PC users while providing a convenient and friendly way to view smaller applications," according to Steven Joe, president and CEO, D-Link Systems, Inc. "The SideStage solves the problem of needing a bit more screen space, providing quick access to commonly accessed applications hidden behind larger Windows on the desktop."
The SideStage is compatible with virtually all CRT and flat panel monitors, has standard and wide screen aspect ratios, 32-bit True Color depth for high-quality images and ultra low power consumption, consistent with the D-Link Green™ initiative.
D-Link says the SideStage display will ship later this year. Pricing or a picture of the device aren't available.
NEC introduced a new professional 30" LCD display, the MultiSync LCD3090WQXi. This IPS active matrix panel has a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels, 97% of AdobeRGB color gamut, 6ms gray-to-gray response time, 350 nits brightness, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 178° viewing angles, and DVI-D (HDCP) and DVI-I (digital/analog) inputs. Full specs over here.
Tackle even your most demanding color-critical applications from a wide perspective with the 30" (29.8" VIS) NEC MultiSync LCD3090WQXi, a widescreen display featuring the SpectraViewII Color Calibration Solution. This kit combines a customized wide color gamut measurement sensor with sophisticated software, resulting in a highly accurate, reliable, repeatable and feature-rich display calibration and profiling solution. This monitor also touts an ultra-wide color gamut, allowing you to view photographs and graphics in optimum color. With its multitude of leading-edge capabilities, combined with groundbreaking design, this display could easily be considered the most intelligent visual displays solution to date.
The display has a 4-year warranty and will be available for $2,449.
Leadtek introduced the second edition of its WinFast GTX 260 Extreme+ graphics card, the main difference seems to be a new packaging.
LEADTEK Research Inc., world acclaimed for its extreme visual graphics leading brand technology, proudly announces its latest WinFast GTX 260 EXTREME+ with a new graphics card packaging design. Based on the Best-in-class NVIDIA GTX 260 chipsets, this thoroughbred graphics card delivers advanced performance with the best cooling silent fansink. Its overclocking capability is sure to bring users a fantasy visual effect. Together with the launch of the graphics card, Leadtek debuts a new packaging design. The latter replaces the former robots with a series of top speed cars as the key visual. This original concept aims to vaunt Leadtek’s corporate spirit of “high quality & speedy performance” that gives users an altogether new visual impression.
WinFast GTX 260 EXTREME+ is powered up with 2nd Generation NVIDIA Unified Architecture and enables the rendering of multiple, true-to-life characters in complex and dynamic virtual worlds. In addition, the latest parallel computing architecture with massive independent processing cores enables GTX 260 EXTREME+ to execute the most intricate non-gaming applications via CUDA language. This includes acceleration of the art design application - science simulation application or transcoding of video to a personal video player up to 7X faster than the CPU.
And on top of all this, with WinFast GTX 260 EXTREME+, there’s the Hybrid SLI technology solution. The new technology is based on the SLI and Hybrid Power technology and increases graphics performance with GeForce Boost for intelligent power management with Hybrid Power.
The latest NVIDIA PhysX technology gives games a real lift with hugely destructible environments and ultra-realistic physical interaction. Gamers, one and all, get drawn convincingly, with sweating palms and racing hearts, into a virtual but realistic gaming environment as lifelike characters behave with incredible authenticity
And users are now able to experience the red-hot ‘zinging’ performance of WinFast GTX260 EXTREME+ with the bundled award-winning real-time strategy and RPG game – OverLord. In this highly rated game each decision directly affects the character and results in a quite unique climax, all to the accompaniment of superb music and, for the most part, voicing.
Just a quick update that I've published a review of the Logitech Comfort Lapdesk, this a great product to improve your comfort while working on your notebook at home.
G.Skill unveiled a new series of Titan SATA II 2.5" solid state disks with capacities of 128GB and 256GB. These drives feature a sequential read speed of 200MB/s and sequential write speed of 160MB/s.
G.SKILL 2.5" Solid State Drives are predominantly designed for mobile devices, and covered with strong metal alloy housing, G.SKILL SSDs protect valuable data from any accidents. Cutting edge NAND flash technology enables high capacities and efficient power consumption to boost battery life and minimise access time, while ensuring ultimate reliability, G.SKILL SSDs have 1.5 million hour mean time before failure (MTBF). With G.SKILL Lifetime Warranty and ever ready technical back-up, the Titan SSD is the total solution for all computing enthusiasts.
FUD Zilla had a chat with some of NVIDIA's add-in board partners and learned things are starting to look good. Last quarter was pretty rough due to heavy competition from ATI's RV770, but NVIDIA's partners are confident in the roadmap for 2009.
Some Nvidia only partners, such as XFX and Gainward, went to ATI in order to save some sales figures, and EVGA remains the only Nvidia exclusive partner, with the rather weak BFG as an exception.
The ones that want to make more money on Nvidia sales think that GT200b and new GTX 260 55nm, upcoming GTX 285 re launch and GTX 295 will make things better, and they all expect the sales to pick up.
The Q4 2008 was probably the worst quarter for Nvidia sales since we can remember and partners simply hope that Q1 2009 will put their minds at ease.
Phoenix Technologies has finally released HyperSpace, an instant-on computing environment for notebooks that runs independently alongside your primary Windows operating system. There are two versions: HyperSpace Dual and HyperSpace Hybrid. The difference is that the latter one runs side by side with Windows, and HyperSpace Dual doesn't.
With HyperSpace Hybrid, your one computer system can run both the Windows Vista and HyperSpace environments side by side. You have the unique ability to switch between the two in real time with one simple click. HyperSpace Hybrid runs on PCs with Intel Virtual Technology (VT).
If your system is not outfitted with Intel VT, you can still get HyperSpace. Most platforms and systems will support HyperSpace Dual. However, the two environments – HyperSpace and Windows – do not operate side by side with HyperSpace Dual. You must shut down HyperSpace Dual to launch Windows, and vice versa.
HyperSpace uses a subscription model and unfortunately it's rather expensive. HyperSpace Dual costs $39.95 per year ($99.95 for 3 years) and HyperSpace Hybrid has a price tag of $59.95 per year ($149.95 for 3 years).
"Stop waiting for Windows to boot or worrying about finding the best wireless connection. Instant-on computing with HyperSpace transforms the mobile experience by providing cell phone-like connectivity, ease-of-use and efficiency for key applications," said Woody Hobbs, president and CEO of Phoenix Technologies. "In less than a few seconds, you're up and running - browsing the Internet, emailing, instant messaging, and using other important applications. By utilizing the power of virtualization technology, HyperSpace can run side-by-side with Windows Vista(R) on certain systems, making your computer far more power efficient, secure and frustration-free."
Phoenix has been working with the world's leading silicon and software vendors to create an ecosystem for HyperSpace. HyperSpace is optimized for web applications like Google Apps and will include shortcuts to those applications so that consumers can easily access their favorite Google sites. Phoenix Technologies is also working with Yahoo's Zimbra division to add Zimbra Desktop email functionality to HyperSpace.
"Laptop and Netbook users typically surf the Web 90% of the time: instant access to the Internet, current information and online applications makes their time online more fun and productive. For over a decade many companies have tried to make virtualization ready for mainstream consumption. Phoenix Technologies has succeeded, and the consumer is the ultimate beneficiary," added consumer PC guru, Tim Bajarin, of Creative Strategies.
Recommended: Click Here to check your PC for common system errors
