Posts

When Intel isn’t busy rejuvenating its foundry business and battling AMD for the CPU performance crown, the company is exploring various technologies and how they may be used. For instance, Intel’s research arm has a fascination with drones, which can be used to replace fireworks and create interesting visual spectacles during big events. Over the past few years, Intel has put out several dazzling light shows using drones, whether it was during its 50th anniversary or Walmart’s Holiday Drone Light Show....

The Intel Core i7 2600K and Core i5 2500K processors perform particularly well in the SPECviewperf v11 SolidWorks test. Here the Core i7 2600K was 4% faster than the Intel Core i7 975 Extreme Edition, while the Core i5 2500K was 21% faster than the Core i5 750. The Maya Viewset was created from traces of the graphics workload generated by the SPECapc for Maya 2009 benchmark. The models used in the tests range in size from 6- to 66-million vertices, and are tested with and without vertex and fragment shaders....

As a result I did not get to spend as much time as I would have liked playing around with the overclocking side of things, but we do have some results for you. Intel supplied us with two processors for testing, the Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K, both of which are special unlocked editions. Like the Intel Extreme Edition or AMD Black Edition processors, Sandy Bridge members of the K-series (the letter at the end of the model number) also offer unlocked overclocking support....

The HyperX 3K’s sequential reads were again exceptionally strong, surpassing every drive tested except the Crucial m4, which claimed the top position by a meager 0.1MB/s. Disappointingly, SSDNow V+200 slipped behind the SSDNow V+100. Both of Kingston’s new arrivals performed well when measuring sequential writes, with the consumer-oriented unit taking second place and the business-oriented drive distancing itself from the V+100 and Pyro. The HyperX 3K’s 4K-64 thread performance was weaker than expected, landing behind the 520 Series and original HyperX....

Starting in the Steam survey processor section, July was one of the best months for AMD in recent memory. Team red saw a rare decline in the number of participants using its CPUs in June, falling -1.28%, but it rebounded last month by +2.22%. That gives AMD a record-high share of 33.73%. It’s not the news Intel wanted to hear, especially after its disastrous quarterly report caused Chipzilla’s market cap to fall below its rival’s....

While the G Flex 2’s skin is mostly identical to its predecessor, there are a few tweaks that have been included with the update to Android 5.0. The notification panel has been simplified, as it now uses the carded layout for notifications that Google introduced with Lollipop. Notifications can now be seen on the lockscreen as well, like most other Android 5.0 devices. The Recent Apps menu has also been tweaked, making it fall more in line with the style of Lollipop....

The Snapdragon 820 with its Adreno 530 establishes itself as the fastest smartphone SoC for graphics. This SoC takes the crown from the Apple A9 with a narrow margin in GPU benchmarks of around 15%. Compared to the Nexus 6P, which used a Snapdragon 810 and a 1440p display, the Snapdragon 820 delivers 70% better GPU performance overall, which is a huge margin. We’re also seeing 35% better GPU performance than the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, which indicates the Adreno 530 is a good bit faster than the Mali-T880 MP12....

Microsoft Defender for Individuals is a security suite for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, offering protection across all of a family’s devices. In addition to the well-rated antivirus and malware protection that Windows 10 and 11 already include, subscribers also get certain defenses on Android, macOS, and iOS. Android and macOS receive antimalware protection, while Android also gets web protection. There isn’t much need for antimalware on iOS due to Apple’s strict control over all of the platform’s software, so it only gets web protection....

Microsoft today launched a new webcam that’s designed for the hybrid workplace and works well with the company’s Surface Hub 2 and its slimmer and lighter brother, the Surface Hub 2S. The new Surface Hub 2 Smart Camera sounds like a mouthful, but the Redmond giant says it’s a great upgrade to the Surface Hub’s camera capabilities. The whole idea behind Microsoft’s first AI-powered webcam is to ensure that all participants in a conference room can be seen and heard properly, so the upgraded hardware has a wider field of view and supports things like image correction and automatic reframing to keep everyone in view and focus....

The jailbreak allows users to access a debug menu in the PS5 dashboard and install PKG files for PS4 and PS5 games. In its current state, the jailbreak can install backups but not actually run said games. This allowed fellow Twitter user Lance McDonald to install – but not run – P.T., the interactive teaser for Konami’s canceled Silent Hill horror game. The hack is far from a definitive jailbreak, but it does serve as an entry point and inspiration for others to continue tinkering and trying to find a more well-rounded solution....

As reported by The Information, data from analytics firm Antenna shows that 3.6 million people canceled their Netflix subscriptions last quarter. That’s over a million more than the previous five quarters, which had seen cancellations hover around the 2.5 million mark. What’s likely to concern Netflix is the type of customers it is losing: 13% of cancellations in the first quarter of this year were from those who had been subscribers for three years or more....

That’s because after the official announcement 3 weeks ago, there’s basically no stock to be had, and the very few you can find at retail are grossly overpriced, even when compared to the 6GB models (!). As of writing, it’s possible to purchase a 6GB RTX 2060 from retailers like Newegg for $620, which is nearly a 80% premium over the $350 they sold for back in 2019. We could find a single 12GB model on offer for $830....

In general the battery performance of the Moto G4 Plus is impressive, particularly considering the use of just a 3,000 mAh battery. Users should expect to see all-day battery life in all but the heaviest use cases, with this handset posting better battery life than its predecessor. Motorola has also included capable fast charging for the first time in their Moto G line, which can charge the phone fully in under two hours and has very good burst performance....

There’s a lot to like about this display. With peak brightness of over 600 nits, Motorola has added nearly 100 nits to the brightness of their Moto G panel, which makes it even more visible outdoors. The contrast ratio has also improved thanks to deeper blacks, and this goes a long way to making colors and highlights ‘pop’ more than before. By default, the Moto G4 Plus is set to use its ‘vibrant’ display mode, which experiences some oddities in color processing....

For 2017, Motorola has launched the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus. The G5 is a typical budget handset, with features like a 5.0-inch 1080p display, 13-megapixel camera, and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 430 SoC. The G5 Plus ups the game, providing a slightly larger 5.2-inch display, a better 12-megapixel camera with dual-pixel autofocus, and a faster Snapdragon 625 SoC. Both phones are loaded with key features like fingerprint sensors, dual-SIM functionality, microSD card slots, and Android 7....

On Tuesday, as part of Gamescom 2022, TaleWorlds Entertainment released a trailer announcing the impending full release of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. The open-world medieval-themed RPG and battle simulator leaves Steam Early Access and launches for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series consoles on October 25. Pre-orders are available on consoles starting today at $49.99. Turkish developer TaleWorlds first turned heads when it released the original Mount & Blade on PC in 2008....

We will start with the latter which is the successor to the wildly popular MX Revolution Mouse that was released several years ago. At first glance, these two look very similar and I suppose for the most part they are. The upper surface of the Performance mouse is covered in a hard gray plastic while the right side has a smooth rubber coating. The left side of the mouse features a black textured rubber surface that is surrounded by a silver accent piece....

Recently, however, gaming notebooks like the Razer Blade have helped steer the industry towards slimmer form factors. Case in point is the MSI GS70 Stealth Pro notebook we’ll be looking at today, a descendant of the hefty GX60 we looked at early last year. MSI’s GS line consists of portable gaming notebooks with a focus on performance and portability. They’re generally very slim, very sleek and lightweight compared to the GT series, MSI’s most powerful (and big and heavy) line....

MSI’s latest notebook certainly harkens back to those days, but underneath the hood it’s far more modern. It’s powered by a top-tier GeForce RTX 3080 Ti laptop GPU and a Core i9-12900HX, one of the fastest mobile CPUs that Intel has ever designed – and its 17.3" display deploys a high resolution and rapid refresh rate. On paper, there’s lots to like about this laptop – but you’re going to need plenty of paper to pay for it, too....

At the end of 2021, Next Games had roughly 120 employees on payroll and generated approximately $30.2 million in revenue the year prior, 95 percent of which came from in-game purchases. Michael Verdu, VP of games at Netflix, said they are just getting started in games but are confident that together with Next Games, they will be able to build a portfolio of world class games to delight members worldwide....