We might all be flailing wildly at our laptops to open documents soon as at least two prototype Asus laptops exist that incorporate Microsoft Kinect sensors.
The Daily was lucky enough to snag some time with what a Microsoft insider confirmed were two official Microsoft prototypes running Windows 8.
The gesture control sensors sit where the webcam would normally be (in the centre of the panel above the screen), with what looked to The Daily like LEDs beneath the display.
The Daily Flail
Unfortunately the Murdoch-owned iPad newspaper didn’t manage to grab any pictures nor use the gesture control, but it does seem to confirm that we’ll see Kinect functionality baked into portable hardware at some point in the near future.
Kinect is already compatible with Windows, with the necessary hardware being released in February 2012 after developers were given access to the SDK late last year.
The motion-sensing peripherals have been a massive success for Microsoft on the Xbox 360, bagging well over 10 million sales and a T3 Gadget of the Year award to boot.
NZXT is a well known provider of "eye-catching" cases and peripherals, but like many other brands they offer power supplies as well. These include the HALE90 series, their first 80 Plus Gold product to hit the market. While the HALE90 targets the high-end audience, NZXT also wants to cater to midrange users, and for that market they have their new HALE82 series that covers wattages from 650W to 850W. The rated output makes these models good for high-end single GPUs as well as moderate SLI and CrossFire systems. Features such as 80 Plus Bronze certification and modular cables are common these days, but such features say little about how good a PSU really is. Today, we're testing the 650W and 750W models, with our usual results on the following pages.
With bills arriving from all the holiday shopping for Christmas, we are very budget-conscious here at MobilePhones.org.uk – both our personal budgets and those of our readers, so we’re bringing you another inexpensive mobile phone, but this one is available without a contract. The pre-pay model to which we refer is the LG Extravert, a model name we just loved.
Overview
This slider smartphone presents a full QWERTY keyboard for easy texting and emailing and posting to your favourite social networks.
The compact, cheap mobile phone has a rather stylish appearance with decent resolution and colour sharpness. We like the distinctive function buttons at the bottom: There’s no mistaking the Talk button for the Home button, et all. Good contrast and isolated areas help prevent the “oops” factor from slipping in.
Specifications
MobilePhones.org.uk staff try our best to find accurate information on your behalf, but the information provided may not be current or accurate. Whenever possible, we mention if its based on rumours or unofficial information.
Dimensions: 105 x 53 x 15.7 mm / 122 g
Display: 2.8 inches / TFT touchscreen / 240 x 400 pixels at 167 ppi / Slide QWERTY keyboard.
Operating System: um…Good question. We forgot to ask. Sorry.
Speed: Let’s just say it’s not made with surfing and downloading in mind.
Memory: RAM and Internal specs not found. Does have external card slot for up to 32 GB microSD.
Battery: 1000 mAh / talk: roughly 5.5 hours; standby: about 550 hours.
Camera: 2 MP / 1600 x 1200 pixels. / Video recording: QVGA or QCIF quality.
Connectivity: 2G: CDMA 800 and 1900 / 3G: CDMA2000 1x / Data: CDMA2000 1x, 153 kbs.
Features: Only rear camera. Stereo FM with RDS. MP4 / H.264 video player; MP3 / WMA / eAAC+ audio player. Document viewer. SNS applications. Camera has night mode, self-timer and digital zoom.
Additional comments: This is not a GSM device; it will not work on any GSM network in the world. WiFi potential unknown.
Overall opinion: Tagged as a messaging mobile phone, its designation is ideal for its design. This might be a perfect younger-user model or a smartphone newbie’s starter model. Either way, it’s a decent, cheap mobile phone that is geared for communication and networking for those who want to text over surf.
SAP is to accelerate plans to migrate customers away from Oracle databases by introducing in-memory computing support for its ERP product in 2012.
ComputerWeekly: IT hardware
Will three fans enable Gigabyte to capture the single-GPU performance crown?
We found the Asus Matrix GTX 580 Platinum that we reviewed in the November 2011 issue to be pretty badass: It’s a solid, factory-overclocked card that’s impressively easy to push even harder. But it’s also three slots wide and requires two 8-pin PCIe power connectors. Gigabyte’s GTX 580 Super Overclock (model GV-N580SO-15L) takes Nvidia’s GPU even further, pumping the core from a stock 772MHz all the way to 855MHz, and the card’s 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory from a stock 1,002MHz to 1,025MHz (the Matrix GTX 580 comes out of the box with its GPU running at 816MHz and its memory at 1,002MHz). And the Gigabyte takes up only two slots and uses just a single 8-pin power connector.
Gigabyte, like Asus, provides software to help you overclock the card even more, but Gigabyte’s card lacks the other engineering amenities that Asus provides, including voltage control, insta-max fan speed, and reset-to-factory-settings buttons. This renders Gigabyte’s offering less forgiving when it comes to pushing the envelope. The Super OC ships with three cooling fans, which must be better than the two on the Matrix, right? Well, the card remained cool enough during our benchmarks, but we also found it to be noisier under load than the Matrix card.
Gigabyte’s GTX 580 Super Overclock requires just two expansion slots and one 8-pin PCIe power connection.
With those thoughts in mind, let’s discuss performance: Gigabyte’s card edged out Asus’s, but it was by no means a clean sweep: the Asus Matrix card won several benchmark categories, with Unigine Heaven being the most notable. Several other results—including Just Cause 2 and Metro 2033—were essentially ties. So the Gigabyte’s performance is pretty good, but it’s not quite as over-the-top as we had expected. Also, take a look at the difference in power consumption. This is where Asus’s careful binning of GTX 580 GPUs comes in: The Matrix consumes much less juice than the Super Overclock, which likely will leave you more headroom for overclocking.
All these factors are reflected in the card’s street price, which is less than the Asus (and Gigabyte was offering a rebate at press time). So the Super Overclock delivers fewer features and a little less performance and headroom, but also a lower price tag. You’ll need to decide which factors are most important to you.
Recent Comments