We don't advocate real-world violence, but if you catch someone claiming PC gaming is dead, feel free to give them a wedgie, especially if he's quoting numbers that don't include online game sales. Take Steam for example. The ultra popular online PC (and Mac) gaming platform increased its year-over-year sales by 100 percent in 2011, and lest anyone chalk that up as an anomaly based on a rash of hit titles, this is the seventh straight year Steam has doubled its sales figures. [......]
Archive for the ‘Software’ Category
Nokia has acquired Oslo, Norway-based Smarterphone , a company that builds a mobile operating system for so-called feature phones. The news of the purchase, which was actually completed last November, comes straight from investment firm Ferd Capital , which pumped 6.5 million euros into Smarterphone since 2007. Other backers of Smarterphone – which was formerly known as Kvaleberg AG, after founder Egil Kvaleberg – include Innovation Norway, Trolltech founder Haavard Nord and management consultant Lars Øberg. [......]
Someone check Trendnet's engineers for whiplash because the speed geeks in lab coats just unveiled a pair of super fast networking products, including a 1300Mbps dual band wireless router built around the new 802.11ac standard (TEW-811DR), and a 500Mbps Compact Powerline AV Adapter (TPL-406E and TPL-406E2K). [......]
There were doubters last time . They said a 1300 foot drop wasn’t all that much. It wasn’t a true test. [......]
Google’s Chrome browser has had a feature for the last few months that pre-loads web pages when you are searching on Google. [......]
Though a deeply divided Congress is currently considering Internet website censorship legislation, the US has no such official policy—not even for child porn, which is voluntarily blocked by some ISPs. Nor does the US have a government-backed "three strikes" or "graduated response" system of escalating warnings to particular users accused of downloading music and movies from file-sharing networks. Yet here was the ultimatum that the US Embassy in Madrid gave the Spanish government in February 2008: adopt such measures or we will punish you[......]
We just wrote up Fujifilm’s CES lineup of normal point-and-shoots , and I noted that there was no sign of the interchangeable-lens X-series camera we saw leaked in prototype form a while back. I expected it to show at CES proper, but it seems that Fuji didn’t want to spoil the surprise by putting the news out early. Luckily for us, someone else did! French photo magazine Réponses Photo has gone to press with an article on the new camera, called the X-Pro1, and a few sweet new lenses[......]
Last month we highlighted some work by SuVolta , a startup in tech that is not involved with the web or social media, but rather is taking aim at the foundational technologies of computing. The small team has reportedly put together a new process for manufacturing transistors that reduces their power requirements dramatically, making the resultant chips especially good for devices like handsets and tablets. They caught the eye of Fujitsu, which has helped them execute the technology, and now they’ve drawn a hefty second funding round, raising $17.6 million from new and old investors[......]
If someone asked us what the most important aspect of computing was, we’d answer: back up your data! But unless you have an automated system, backing up your data is likely one of the first things to get dropped by the wayside when your schedule fills up. Western Digital’s got your back: its newly announced My Book Live Duo NAS features dual hard drives that can be placed in RAID 1 for redundancy, so your precious data lives on if one of the drives goes kaput. [......]
There’s no denying that SSDs are blazing fast and an all-around pleasure to have in your system, but for many folks, being limited to 128GB or 256GB just isn’t going to cut it. Enter Crucial: today, the memory maker announced the “Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution,” which hopes to solve that problem (as the name implies)[......]
Microsoft may be pushing touchscreen control as the wave of the future with Windows 8’s tiled Metro interface, but Tobii Technology thinks just swiping and pointing your way around an operating system is so, like, 2011. Tobii says its novel new "Tobii Gaze" control scheme, which mixes eye-tracking technology with a touchpad and is being shown off at CES next week, delivers superior control compared to both mice and touchscreens. [......]
Most of the hot new products you hear about this early in a new year come out of the desert at the CES electronics convention – which takes place next week – but Broadcom decided to kick things off early and unveil its new line of “5G Wi-Fi” chips based on the still-in-development 802.11ac standard. Yes, they push Wi-Fi faster and farther than before, and no, “5G” has nothing to do with cellular networks. It’s just Broadcom’s catchphrase for the fifth generation of Wi-Fi[......]
Samsung, like almost everyone else, is tipping its hand ahead of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week, or at least is willing to show some of the cards it's holding. Revealed today is the company's high-end SA27A950 monitor, the newest entry to its Series 9 LED-backlit LCD display line and featuring Plane Line Switching (PLS) technology. [......]
Elan Microelectronics Corp, a Taiwan-based technology company, announced on Thursday that it has settled its pending litigation with Apple over touch technology patents. [......]
The folks over at Lenovo have been busy unwrapping a bunch of new notebook models for its business customers, and two of the more interesting units are the new ThinkPad X1 Hybrid and ThinkPad T430u Ultrabook. Both will be demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week before shipping off to retail later this year[......]
