http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/ PC Doctors Online Technical Support en-gb This site is powered by e107, which is released under the terms of the GNU GPL License. it@nospam.com (Christo) it@nospam.com (Christo) Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:43:40 +0200 Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:43:40 +0200 http://backend.userland.com/rss e107 (http://e107.org) 60 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/e107_images/logo.png http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/ 88 31 PC Doctors Online Technical Support http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.603.1
The promise of superfast access speeds has been fulfilled by solid state drives using NAND flash memory, but it comes at a high monetary cost. Many enthusiasts, prosumers, and corporate users have already adopted SSDs as hard drives are typically the primary bottlenecks in a computer system. While CPUs and RAM measure their access speeds in nanoseconds, traditional magnetic-based hard disk drives are still measured in milliseconds.

The primary advantage for HDDs is the low cost of production, even for faster 7200 and 10k RPM drives. Samsung and Seagate tried before to bridge the gap between low-cost HDDs and fast SSDs using a hybrid hard drive, combining a single magnetic platter with a small amount of NAND flash memory. The NAND would act as a cache, similar in theory to a small scale tiered storage solution like that used by many corporations for their datacenters.

However, the experiment failed. NAND was still too expensive in 2007, and the small amount that was used proved insufficient. Performance turned out to be worse in some situations, and the capacity of Seagate's sole model was soon overtaken by other products with higher areal density.

Now, three years later, Seagate has learned its lesson with its all new Momentus XT. The company calls it a Solid State Hybrid Drive, and it will be available exclusively in a 2.5-inch form factor. There are 250, 320, and 500GB models, all of which feature 32MB of DRAM cache and a 4GB single-layer cell NAND flash cache. There will unfortunately not be any 6Gbps SATA support, despite the XT moniker.

The secret sauce this time is what Seagate calls "Adaptive Memory". The firm has developed new algorithms based on their years of research and producing firmware for regular drives. These algorithms monitor data access transactions over time, and will place a copy of the most frequently accessed data (such as Windows system files) onto flash storage. A table also keeps track and counts of how frequently data is used in order to prioritize it for retention and caching.

This is similar in concept to Microsoft's ReadyBoost, but uses much faster SLC rather than the sluggish commodity NAND that ended up being used in USB flash drives and SD cards. The algorithms are also much more advanced, as is the garbage collection and firmware. Seagate developed its own proprietary NAND flash controller specifically for the Momentus XT.

This also means that the Momentus XT is also operating system agnostic, and can be used with Unix/Linux environments and MacBooks.

Seagate insisted on using the flash as a cache instead of primary storage for additional reliability. Their tests show that over 250GB of data a day could be written to the NAND for 5 years and it would still function.

Although the Momentus XT isn't as fast as an SSD, Seagate thinks that it will be close enough that its customers won't be able to notice the difference qualitatively. While most consumers will notice the difference between a 5400RPM drive and a 7200RPM drive, they might not necessarily notice the difference between a 7200RPM and 10k RPM drive, an argument that the company has used before as a justification for not producing a 10k RPM consumer drive.

To continue the example, Seagate likens the Momentus XT to a 7200RPM drive and SSDs as 10k RPM drives; while the SSDs are much faster, qualitatively consumers won't notice the difference. The company expects that it will be able to hold off the SSD onslaught for a couple of years with this strategy, despite the lowering cost of NAND flash memory. In fact, as NAND flash prices drop due to the introduction of new process nodes, Seagate will be able to fit more NAND into the same space and offer even greater performance.

The first OEM to adopt the Momentus XT will be ASUS for their ROG G73JH gaming laptop, which will feature two of the drives. Seagate will also be shipping Momentus XT drives out to the channel this week for retail distribution.

Two reviews of the new Momentus XT can be found here and here.
[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Mon, 24 May 2010 20:23:51 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.603.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.602.1
"We've been looking forward to revisiting the StarCraft universe for many years, and we're excited that the time for that is almost here," said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. "Thanks to our beta testers, we're making great progress on the final stages of development, and we'll be ready to welcome players all over the world to StarCraft II and the new Battle.net(R) in just a few months."

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is the sequel to Blizzard Entertainment's 1998 hit StarCraft, which has been hailed by players and critics worldwide as one of the top real-time strategy games of all time. Sporting a vibrant 3D-graphics engine, StarCraft II will once again center on the clash between the protoss, terrans, and zerg, with each side deploying legions of veteran, upgraded, and new unit types. Unparalleled online play for StarCraft II will be available through a new version of Battle.net, Blizzard Entertainment's world-renowned gaming service. Battle.net has been redesigned from the ground up to be the premier online gaming destination for Blizzard gamers, with several enhancements and new features, such as voice communication, cloud file storage, leagues and ladders, achievements, stat-tracking, and more.

The solo campaign for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty will continue the epic saga where it left off in StarCraft: Brood War(R). The story line chronicles the exploits of marshal-turned-rebel-leader Jim Raynor and features both familiar faces and new heroes. Players will be able to tailor the experience, choosing their own mission path and selecting technology and research upgrades to suit their playing style throughout the 29-mission campaign. Several challenge-mode mini-games will also be included, with focused goals designed to ease players into the basics of multiplayer strategies.

For more information on StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, visit the official website at www.starcraft2.com.Further details about the game, including the alternative pricing options previously mentioned for certain regions, will be announced in the coming weeks. With multiple games in development, Blizzard Entertainment has numerous positions currently available -- visit www.blizzard.com/jobs for more information and to learn how to apply.
[Submitted by Synthetic_Darkness]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Mon, 24 May 2010 20:20:08 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.602.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.601.1 ambitious and innovative version of Need for Speed is on the horizon. EA is working on a free-to-play massively multiplayer online racer, exclusive to the PC. Joystiq notes that an MMO version of the game could be the last Need for Speed title EA will have to make, offering a potential platform for "limitless updates."

Called Need for Speed World, the title has only just reached beta but already boasts over 150 miles of open road. Joystiq says the game follows the arcade-inspired mechanics of previous NFS entries, and should be widely accessible with hardware requirements including a 2.0GHz processor, 2GB of RAM, and a 512MB graphics card.

While Need for Speed World is free to play, dedicated racers can use real money to buy in-game goods, such as improved vehicles and skills. This is only speculation based on Joystiq's article, but it sounds like much of that content is open to anyone willing to grind for it. Regardless, you can't go wrong with a free game, even if you don't spend 30 hours a week playing.

EA will supposedly introduce new areas, driving abilities and more to the game every few months, but it sounds like there's already plenty to see. The game will debut this summer but it's officially in open beta, and you can take it for a spin by applying here. Watch a gameplay video after the break.
[Submitted by Synthetic_Darkness]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Tue, 06 Apr 2010 20:29:15 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.601.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.597.1
While Google was driving its tanks into Apple retail territory this week with its new smartphone, Steve Jobs quietly bought a mobile advertising company, potentially pitching the group that he founded into the online ad sales business.

Google’s Nexus One “superphone” is a direct competitor to Apple’s iPhone and, according to some, a worthy rival. In buying Quattro Wireless for a reported $275 million (£170 million), Apple is following Google’s acquisition of AdMob, a mobile advertising network that competed with Quattro, for $750 million.

The ground they are both trying to conquer is the mobile internet; both see it as essential to growth. Analysts suggest that new internet connections — and web page views and advertising clicks — are much more likely to come from the 4 billion mobile users worldwide than the 1 billion PC users.

The key to that growth is likely to be smartphones, which are set to dominate the way in which we access the web on the move. In the US, for example, smartphone adoption grew from 11 per cent of the mobile market at the end of 2008 to 17 per cent at the end of 2009, according to Forrester Research. Both technology powerhouses want as much control over this new gateway as possible as they move beyond their traditional markets. Rob Enderle, technology analyst of the Enderle Group, the consultancy, said: “I think Google might be more focused on Apple than Microsoft.”

Apple is likely to use Quattro to make the iPhone platform still more attractive to the thousands of software developers who have turned its App Store into such a success. If Apple can offer a way to sell ads in the applications, it can help those developers make more money. Apple is keenly aware that the iPhone’s App Store is a big selling point for consumers; just as Google was launching the Nexus One, Apple put out a press release declaring that more than 3 billion applications had been downloaded for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. Mr Jobs said: “We see no signs of the competition catching up any time soon.”

The iPhone is a goldmine, with more than 30 million handsets sold in the past two and a half years. And demand is still growing, thanks to international launches and carefully planned hardware updates. The device helped to boost Apple’s annual revenue from $24 billion in the 2007 financial year to $36.5 billion in its most recent financial year, which ended in September.

Google’s revenues have also soared, from $1.5 billion in 2003 to more than $22 billion last year, the vast bulk of the money coming from the internet search ad business. Google wants AdMob to help it to dominate mobile search advertising similarly.

But it also wants its Android operating system for mobiles to be used by as many devices as possible. So it has taken the logical step of selling its own phone.

Google is looking to become a big-volume retailer, too, through its phone webstore. At the launch of the Nexus One this week, it said the smartphone was simply the first of many Android handsets that it planned to sell directly online to the public. Even if the Nexus is not an “iPhone killer”, as some had expected before its launch, many see the Android operating system as the only true rival to the dominance of the iPhone.

The Google/Apple collision has been coming for more than a year. It was the potential clash over Google’s increasing mobile ambitions that led last August to the resignation of Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, from the Apple board.

The move came three days after the US Federal Communications Commission, the US industry regulator, said it was looking into why Apple rejected a Google software application for the iPhone. Mr Jobs cited Google’s expansion into “Apple’s core businesses” as the main reason for the departure.

In the past, the two companies have been close, with Apple board members Bill Campbell and Al Gore, the former US Vice-President, serving as advisers to Google in its early days.

Now Google’s acquisition of AdMob is mired in a regulatory review, though it is expected to be approved. This may explain why Google went out of its way to welcome Apple’s acquisition of Quattro. Paul Feng, Google’s group product manager, wrote that “investments and acquisitions” ... were “a sign that vigorous growth and competition will continue”. Analysts noted that Google’s warm response may have been motivated by a desire to persuade the authorities that the AdMob deal should go through.

Beyond the politics, both companies know there is much at stake. The business of placing ads on smartphone screens is small but growing fast. Advertisers spent just $416 million on mobile ads last year, compared with $22 billion on websites, according to eMarketer, the research firm. However, the mobile spend is expected to grow to $1.6 billion by 2013 as smartphones and other mobile computing devices become increasingly popular.

In hardware and in software, Google and Apple are set to slug it out.

SOURCE: Times Online



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Sat, 09 Jan 2010 14:31:37 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.597.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.596.1
Just 24 hours later Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, will address the annual International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The best three years lie ahead, Mr Ballmer told The Times in a recent interview. The idea is that as fields such as television, computing, music, video, telephony, video gaming and photography mature their digital formats, fewer devices will be needed to store and play content.

Portable devices — the MP3 players, digital cameras and mobile phones of the mid-Noughties — have already merged to become today’s smartphones. At this year’s electronics show we can expect digital convergence to invade our living-rooms. Manufacturers are working on internet-capable television sets that can be switched from broadcast to internet catch-up services such as the BBC iPlayer as easily as changing channels. By the end of the decade, many experts predict, internet TV viewing will overtake broadcast viewing as the primary means of television consumption.

The jury is out on domestic 3D TV, which requires special glasses as well as special sets. It may be revolutionary — but having just replaced their old TV with a flat-screen, consumers may not be keen to fork out for a 3D set.

Great things are expected in eBooks. Electronic publishing and e-ink reached the mainstream last year. Now there is a race to produce a colour eBook device with go-anywhere wireless and maybe internet, video or games-playing ability.

The big story of last year, however, was the netbook, and we will see smaller, lighter, and more powerful models at the show. The netbook’s biggest competitor is the smartphone. This year, experts say, smartphone sales will overtake sales of traditional mobiles.

SOURCE: Times Online

Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> matic4@nospam.com (MaTiCa) Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:28:25 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.596.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.595.1
While South Korea has faced many cyberwarfare attacks in the past, the most recent attack has been successful in extracting classified intelligence.

South Korea announced on December 18 that it was investigating a hacking attack that netted secret defense plans with the United States and may have been carried out by North Korea.

The suspected hacking occurred late last month when a South Korean officer failed to remove a USB device when he switched a military computer from a restricted-access intranet to the Internet.

The plans are said to include an out­line of Seoul’s and Washington’s strat­egy in the event of war on the Korean Peninsula housed in an 11-page document called OPLAN 5027 used to brief military officials.

This doc­u­ment included details of mil­i­tary oper­a­tions involv­ing South Korean and U.S. troops should North Korea con­duct a pre-emptive strike or attempt to invade South Korea. One source stated that the doc­u­ment included details about the 700,000 US troops that would be used in the event of a full-scale war. It is also thought to include a list of tar­gets in North Korea.

"Eleven pages of Powerpoint slides explaining the war plan for visiting military officers have been hacked, not the whole content of the contingency plan," a South Korean military official was quoted as saying.

Sources close to the event say that the sys­tems secu­rity soft­ware should have issued a warn­ing mes­sage if an exter­nal mem­ory device is inserted into a mil­i­tary com­puter, but hack­ers may have been able to steal the mil­i­tary secrets because a mil­i­tary offi­cer neglected these warn­ing mes­sages and broke regulations.


[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:54:10 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.595.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.594.1
Over the last five years, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project has sought to develop and distribute a low-cost and rugged computer to children around the world in a bid to raise global standards of living. The non-profit organization successfully developed the XO-1, and has distributed over 1.4 million of the netbooks for less than $200 each.

“The first version of OLPC’s child-centric laptop, the XO, is a revolution in low-cost, low-power computing. The XO has been distributed to more than 1.4 million children in 35 countries and in 25 languages,” said Nicholas Negroponte, the founder and Chairman of One Laptop per Child.

Mass production of the XO-1 first started in November 2007. Computer technology has made significant advances over the last two years, and the XO-1 is getting long in the tooth. The XO-1 features an AMD Geode CPU running at 433MHz, 256MB of DDR DRAM, and 1GB of SLC NAND flash memory for storage. A 7.5-inch screen with a 1200x900 resolution is used. Wireless networking is enabled by a chip from Marvell, while a built-in camera, microphone, and speakers add functionality. A variety of battery choices are available. The XO-1 only uses 2W to run.

The OLPC project will introduce a new XO-1.5 in January 2010 using the same basic design. However, it will drop AMD in favor of a VIA C7-M Ultra Low Voltage CPU which will double operating speed. DRAM will be increased to 1GB, while 4GB of flash memory will be the standard, with an option for 8GB. It will be capable of running Windows and Linux, and is targeted for a $200 price.

Two other designs have been added to the OLPC roadmap. The XO-1.75 is currently targeted for the $150 mark and an early 2011 launch. The design will be updated, with rubber-bumpers on the outside for added shock protection. A new 8.9-inch touch-sensitive display will be used. The project is working with Marvell on integrating a new ARM processor that will double speeds while cutting power consumption by 75%. This ARM-based system will complement the x86-based XO-1.5, which will continue to remain in production to give deployments a choice of processor platform.

The XO-3.0 is being developed for 2012 at a target price of less than $100. It will feature a new tablet design using a single sheet of flexible plastic, and will supposedly be unbreakable. The XO 3.0 will leapfrog the XO-2.0, a concept approach that the OLPC project decide not to pursue.

“To fulfill our mission of reaching 500 million children in all remote corners of the planet, OLPC will continue to innovate in design and performance. Because we are a non-profit, we hope that industry will copy us,” Negroponte added.

The XO-1 helped to establish that low-cost netbooks could be functional and affordable, and helped push Intel into developing the Atom. Former OLPC CTO Mary Lou Jepsen left the project to form Pixel Qi, a fabless firm which designs and and markets energy-saving screens that are readable in daylight. There is no word yet on which OLPC netbooks will use the technology, but Pixel Qi just entered mass production of its first 10.1 screens for use with new Pine Trail netbooks, and its future screens are rumored to be used in Apple's tablet computer.

Walter Bender's Sugar interface has also been spun off. Originally designed for the OLPC project, it is now being developed by Sugar Labs and is available for free under a GNU General Public License.

The XO-3 tablet concept promises a different vision of computing (Source: OLPC)


[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:53:37 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.594.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.588.1
The market for Solid State Drives (SSDs) continues to expand. While SSDs first started off being outrageously expensive due to the use of SLC NAND memory, cheaper MLC NAND technology has brought SSDs to a more mainstream audience.

Traditionally, SSDs have been offered in a 2.5" or 1.8" form-factor which is most popular with notebooks, ultra-portable notebooks, and netbooks. 2.5" SSDs can be easily added to desktop systems using 3.5" mounting brackets, but OCZ Technology is looking to cut out the middleman altogether.

OCZ today formally announced its new Colossus Series SSDs which use the 3.5" form-factor that desktop users are familiar with. The additional room within the 3.5” casing also allows OCZ to offer Colossus SSDs in capacities of up to 1TB whereas most mainstream 2.5" SSDs top out at around 256GB.

The drives use an internal RAID-0 architecture (Indilinx SSD controllers plus a Silicon Image RAID controller) to boost performance -- reads, writes, and sustained writes are listed at 260MB/sec, 260MB/sec, and 220MB/sec respectively for the 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB Colossus drives. The 120GB Colossus shares its larger brothers read and write speeds, but its sustained writes are only listed at 140MB/sec.

“The new Colossus Series is designed to boost desktop and workstation performance and is for high power users that put a premium on speed, reliability and maximum storage capacity,” noted Eugene Chang, VP of Product Management at the OCZ Technology Group. “The Colossus core-architecture is also available to enterprise clients with locked BOMs (build of materials) and customized firmware to match their unique applications.”

OCZ provides all of its Colossus drives with a 3-year warranty. Amazon lists the prices of the 120GB, 250GB, and 500GB, and 1TB Colossus drives at $609, $1,123, $1,770, and $3,572 respectively. ZipZoomFly has slightly more sane pricing at $438, $827, and $1,531 respectively – the retailer doesn't have pricing for the massive 1TB model.

Updated 11/23/2009
PC Perspective has posted a review of OCZ's Colossus SSD


[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:15:17 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.588.1 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.587.1
Like Apple's campaign against iPhone unlocking, Microsoft has justified trying to kill Xbox 360 modding with claims that it supports piracy or other foul activity. And like Apple, it has gone to the length of damaging its own customer's legitimately purchased products to try to stomp out modding.

Microsoft, like Apple, is also tightening its control on the hardware, disallowing third party memory units for the Xbox 360. While its bricking of modded consoles hasn't earned it a lawsuit -- yet -- its decision to kill third party memory units apparently has.

UK-based Datel, which manufactures a third-party memory unit, has filed suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, accusing Microsoft of unfairly favoring its own Xbox 360 accessories by disabling the functionality of competing technologies.

A hard drive or memory unit is necessary to store saves, Gamertag information, or software purchased on Xbox Live, though newer units have a limited amount of internal Flash (512 MB) that can be used for these purposes.

Datel's complaint states, "Microsoft's purpose in disabling Datel's memory cards is to prevent consumers from choosing a Datel product that offers far better value for the price. There is no benefit to consumers from Microsoft's decision to target and disable Datel's memory cards. To the contrary, Microsoft's actions will leave approximately 50,000 consumers with useless memory cards and (without the ability to access their data on the cards), forestall innovation, and deprive future consumers of the benefits of competition."

The company is seeking unspecified monetary damages and an injunction banning Microsoft from "disabling or erecting technological barriers to Datel accessories."

While Microsoft claims it killed the third-party memory units to protect consumers against cheating, it may have had other motivations, as it stands to bump its own profits by eliminating the third party competition. Whereas Microsoft's unit is only 512 MB and retails for $29.99, Datel offers a much larger 2 GB unit for only $39.99 and the unit comes with expandable/swappable capacity, via an SD slot. The company's complaint can be found here (PDF).

Microsoft experienced previous class lawsuits when its consoles damaged discs or failed with the iconic Red Ring of Death (RROD) failure which has reportedly claimed 54.2 percent of the company's consoles over their lifetimes. Microsoft has also been sued in the past for bricking its customers consoles.

Datel's no-longer-allowed memory unit retails for $39.99 and offers 2 GB of storage. Microsoft claims it has disallowed it as it "promotes cheating." (Source: Amazon.com)



[Submitted by Christo [PCD]]



Click to discuss this news item in the forums]]> it@nospam.com (Christo [PCD]) Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:14:49 +0200 http://www.pcdoctors.co.za/news.php?item.587.1