AMD's latest best - Phenom II X6 1090T processor and 890FX chipset

To let users make full use of its new Thuban processors, AMD has released the new 890FX chipset for the AM3 socket. In combination with ATI’s Radeon HD 5000 series of GPUs and the just released Phenom II 1090T Black Edition processor (priced at Rs.16,200), the platform is what AMD calls its “most powerful desktop platform ever”. This is to be expected of course, when you put together the company’s new flagship products. How they rack up against Intel’s offerings though, remains much the same story, where a little performance is traded for a lot of price...

So, while Intel’s Core i7 980X 32-nm six-core offering is much more powerful than the 45-nm Phenom II 1090T – with a faster core clock (3.33GHz vs 3.2GHz), twice the shared cache (12MB vs 6MB), and twice the threads (12 vs 6) – it remains more than three times as expensive (Rs. 53,000 and Rs. 16,200 respectively). So while you will get an approximate performance boost of 25% across the board and power savings of 12% with the 980X, you will have to shell out a very heavy premium to buy it, as well as for the expensive X58 chipset motherboards that are required to run it.

As we've seen earlier, AMD’s answer to Intel’s Turbo Boost technology is its Turbo Core technology, first introduced with its 1055T processor and 890GX chipset, which auto overclocks the 3.2 GHz 1090T to 3.6GHz, achieving a higher overclocking percentage than its counterpart on the 980X, which automatically ups the clock speed from 3.33GHz to 3.59GHz. These can of course be further overclocked manually.

The 890FX/SB850 chipset doesn’t differ too much from the slightly older 890GX, offering the same core unlocking properties between manufacturers, along with SATA 6GB/s Southbridge support, HyperTransport 3.0, and no native USB 3.0 support (motherboard manufacturers still offer it though, using host controllers). Where it differs is that it does not provide integrated graphics options, but instead, has nearly twice the PCI lanes, with 42 as opposed to 22, offering much better hardware bandwidth, allowing you to run up to four graphics cards on its two PCIe x16 slots, as four x8 slots.

Several motherboard manufacturers, like Asus, MSI, and Gigabyte have released 890FX boards, with prices ranging from Rs. 13,000 to 21,000, each with their own overclocking tools and special features, such as “military class server grade” capacitors and inductors from MSI, and RoG Connect enthusiast tweaking technology from Asus.

Mozilla Labs releases new Firefox Contacts add-on for web contact & browser integration

Fully utilizing Firefox's well-designed XUL framework and add-on system, Mozilla Labs continually releases new add-ons for its very popular browser, helping enhance its user experience.

The latest batch of add-ons are related to the contacts and identity of the user, and how to integrate them completely into the browser. One of these add-ons was released by Mozilla Labs recently, and it is an experimental add-on called Contacts that helps the user import contact and address book information from a variety of Web sources. Not only can the add-on make it very easy for the user to access this information, it will also help insert/send it to various remote applications, as well as provide auto-completion features within the browser itself (such as when you are typing an email address into a Web dialog).

The experimental Contacts add-on can at present import data from Gmail, Twitter, and the local system address book on OS X, apart from using the Gravatar service to compile contact avatars. After being imported and archived, the user's contact data is available in address book form that is actually a contact management tool. Considered to be more secure than the present add-contacts mechanisms of social networking sites, the content management tool only makes information available to Web services with the user's explicit permission, and can also selectively provide limited details about specific groups of contacts.

The Contacts add-on conforms to W3C Contacts API specification, a standard developed by Nokia that is quickly becoming widely accepted, and is compatible with innumerable web applications, allowing them in turn to synchronise with the browser's address book. The experimental add-on also supports Plaxo's Portable Contacts standard, which is associated with the OpenSocial initiative, and Mozilla hopes to integrate it with Raindrop - an experimental communication platform being developed by Mozilla Messaging. Another use of the Contacts add-on includes contact synchronization support integrated in to Weave.

source:thinkdigit

New Classic Controller for Nintendo Wii

While the controller has been available in Japan since January, American (and lets hope global soon) customers can now buy the Wii Classic Controller Pro in white and black, for as little as $19.99. It can be plugged into the Wii Remote Controller for wireless connectivity with the console. It will apparently work with over 450 Wii, WiiWare, and Virtual Console game titles. It will also come bundled with copies of the newly released game, Monster Hunter Tri.

source:thinkdigit

Watchdog Wants Google's Head as Google's Lobbying Spend Jumps 57%

There was a time a couple years ago when we pundits tracked Google's lobbying spend by year. No longer, because that spend is growing at a fat clip.

Consumer groups and privacy watchdogs suspicious of Google Creep -- its growing size and extension on the Web -- are looking at Google's moves in Washington, D.C. with the flinty enthusiasm of fire and brimstone preachers.

To that end, Consumer Watchdog has noted that Google increased its lobbying spending in the first quarter by 57 percent over the first quarter 2009.

Google paid $1.38 million to sway politicos compared to $880,000 in Q1 2009, according to data from the Senate Office of Public Affairs. Google is on pace to spend $5.6 million on schmoozing the government this year.

For perspective, note that Google spent $4 million on lobbying in 2009, up from $2.84 million in 2008 and almost three times the $1.52 million it spent in 2007.

Google's lobbying spending includes money it spent itself and money paid to outside firms to lobby for the search engine, according to Consumer Watchdog advocate John Simpson, who first reported the data.

Google last year spent on lobbying for privacy and competition issues related to online advertising, copyright laws and its Google Book Search settlement. Google spent money to lobby on those trends in Q1, too, but added other things to its agenda.

The company shelled out cash to influence legislators for patent reform; network neutrality, and "legislation intended to prevent U.S. technology companies from cooperating with repressive foreign governments that restrict free speech and violate human rights," according to the Associated Press.

Google shuttered its search engine in China after a cyber attack on its Gmail accounts, vowing to no longer support China's censorship rules. The move was popular in the U.S. government, which appreciated the company taking a bold stand against a world power.

Reuters said Google lobbied the usual suspects, including House of Representatives, the Senate, the Commerce Department and the Federal Trade Commission.

More interesting is that Simpson and his Google hawking agency is expected to do some lobbying of their own.

They plan to ask the U.S. government to investigate Google for antitrust violations. They will announce this at a press conference in Washington, D.C. April 21.

This is nothing new, but now the group wants to break the company up. This is untenable. How do you break up a company whose Web services are so tightly coupled together?

What would you do? Offer search separate from YouTube and Google Apps? I don't think so. I enjoy the single sign-on to Gmail, Google Docs, et al. I would not support such a break-up.

What about you? Do you want to see Google regulated? Why or why not?

source:google news

Cyber attack on Google hit its password system....

Ever since Google disclosed in january that internet intruders had stolen information about its computers, the exact nature and extent of theft has been a closely guarded company secret.But the person with the direct investigation now says the losses included one of the google's crown jewels,a password system that controls acess by millions of users worldwide to almost all of the company's web services, including email and business applications.
The programme, code named Gaia for the greek goddess of earth, was attacked in a lightning raid taking less than two days last december. It was described publicly only once at conference four year ago that the software is intended to enable users and employees to sign in with password just once to operate a range of services.
The intruders do not appear to have stolen password s of gmail users , and the company quickly started making significant changes to security of its networks after the instrusions. But the theft leaves open the possibility, however faint ,that the intrunders may find weaknesses that Google might not even be aware of.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 in 3-way SLI versus ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5970 in Crossfire

Nvidia 480 GTX - 3-way SLI

Finally, the clash of the graphic card giants has gained momentum in the form of Nvidia's GTX 480 (3-way SLI) pitted against the formidable Radeon HD5870 (3-way Crossfire) and the monstrous Radeon HD5970 (2-way Crossfire). It is not a question of one man's guess to pick the right choice among these power hungry monsters. Rather, it is a question of who came out trumps in the Clash of the Titans that would matter for most users (though looking at how much the required processor, 3 GPUs, and power supply would cost, this is almost in the realm of abstraction, or only relevant to those with very deep pockets).

Radeon HD 5970 (2-way Crossfire)

In the preliminary rounds of qualification, it is reported that a 1 Kilowatt power supply provided insufficient power for Nvidia's hardware while the mighty Core i7-965 test bench CPU caused a bottleneck in some cases. The testers then suitably upgraded their test systems with a six-core Core i7-980X processor and a 1,200W power supply for benchmarking these power hungry monsters.

With all the setup in place, it is reported that the benchmarking yielded a mixed bag of results indicating insurmountable wins on either sides in particular games and tests. However, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480's (3-way SLI) TDP ratings were still through the roof when compared to its Radeon counterparts, even when you consider that the HD5970 in 2-way Crossfire is actually 4 GPUs, as opposed to the 3 GPUs of the GTX 480 (3-way SLI). But as mentioned before, power consumption would not be factor to those who can afford the setup in the first place.

source:thinkdigit

5 Inventions that will "SAVE THE EARTH...".

From harnessing the power that fuels yhe sun, to little black boxes of wonder; we look at 5 inventions from the cutting edge of green technology that could one day "save our planet"

*Bloombox
let's take a look how it works....Unlike energy produced by combustion,fuel cell produce energy by chemical reaction.A fuel(usually hydrogen) and an oxidant is pumped into a fuel cell which contains an electrolyte.A chemical reaction occurs that results into creation of electricity,water and some amount of carbon dioxide as byproducts."eBay is reportedly using the 100 kilowatt boxes for powering 15% of its headquarters".

*Solar power water desalination"People can live without lights on air conditioner or an ipod but they can't survive without water".
97% of all water on earth is sea water and unusable for drinking. The company named "Saltwork technologies" fron vancouer, canada come up with Thermo-ionic technology that can make cheap drinking water from sea using evaporation and ionic conductance,powered mainly by sunlight.


*High altitude wind generation
One of the most promising source and relatively untapped is Wind.Magenn Power is making strides in this sphere.
Magenn Power is has developed a high altitude wind turbine system called MARS-short for Magenn Air Rotor System. It's essentially a flying turbine in form of large baloon which spins high altitudes generating power. The electrical energy is transferred 100 foot tether for immediate use.


*Laser fusion possibilitiesInertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a process where nuclear fusion reactions are initiated by heating and compressing a fuel target, typically in the form of a pellet that most often contains a mixture of deuterium and tritium.ICF is one of two major branches of fusion energy research, the other being magnetic confinement fusion.

*Cold fusion to heat things up
Cold fusion refers to nuclear fusion of atoms at conditions close to room temperature, in contrast to the conditions of well-understood fusion reactions such as those inside stars and high energy experiments.Cold fusion remains that unattainable goal.

Do people like understanding computer technology this way....???

what do you feel after watching this pic..???

Youtube vs Viacom courtroom drama

This is about as strange as it can get, and it is not some hack company claiming rights over some obscure pieces of code this time around.Two of the biggest, and most powerful companies in the world are fighting it out court,and the things are getting ugly. Viacom field a US $1 billion suite against google's video uploading and sharing services.Youtube ,alleging that a number of video present on youtube were infringing the copyright of the content that belong to Viacom. The case has been going on since 2007, and there is a fresh twist to the tale. The YouTube representative in the court alleged that the copyright was infringed by the copyright owners themselves . They claim that Viacom has been paying people to take content that belonged to Viacon, change the quality of the content to make it look amateurish, and then upload the content on youtube. YouTube alleges that there were a number of marketing agencies put to work in this manner, as it would help Viacom win the case. May be someone should inform both Viacom and YouTube about ISOhunt.

Tips to increase your notebook battery life

*Change power settings for maximum battery life *Reduce the brightness of the display
*Charge the battery,use it up completely, and repeat the cycle for longer battery life
*Minimise use of peripherals
*Don't tax the machine,work on application at a time, and regularly defragment
*Turn off the wireless and bluetooth services

Tips to increase your camera battery life

*Turn off camera when not in use
*Don't review many images at once, instead carry along extra memory
*If you have a view finder don't use LCD screen at all *Use lower resolution for taking images
*Don't store batteries in the body of camera
*Plan your shot well, before even turning on camera *Don't use flash unless necessary,you may use flash gun instead

Tips to increase your mobile phone battery life

*Think of faster ways to navigate
*Minimise use of flash memory,try to use internal memory
*Stop charging the phones when battery is full
*Turn off your mobile when you know you won't use it
*Decrease the brightness of display
*Disable extras,such as Bluetooth, keypad sounds, viberate alert along with ringtone alert etc
*Use a low volume for alerts

Tips to increase your PMP battery life

*Listen music at the lowest audible volume
*Turn off backlighting if possible
*Use extra memory only if you need it
*Use short tracks, or files with smaller sizes
*Turn off album art display and equiliser
*Keep the firmware updated regularly.

google tv cooming soon..

if you are a google fan, you may have reason to celebrate in coming months,as three giants-intel,sony,and logitech have proposed to team up with google and launch google tv and set-top boxes on a Android-based platform.
The platform intends to seamlessly integrate web content and online services like twitter , youtube,online games,web application and the formidable google search. it will also integrate a lightweight browser for light surfing activities.
this tv will run on set up boxes built with intel atom processor running the Android operating system .
Google Tv technology will also be implemented on on blue ray drives and Sony Tvs along with keyboard equiped remote control feature in partnership with Logitech.
The times has indicated that Intel and Logitech have advertised job listings for programmers with Android operating experience.Google plans to deliver a fully functional technology product rather than a product with cosmetic design value. The field of television is an uncharted frontier for Google. but, Google sounds optimistic about its project plans and let's hope they deliver the integrated power of the web and television as a part of this project.
source: thinkdigit

Is your usb drive protected from threats and worms??

We often use public computers which are homes for viruses, threats and worms.
The first thing you do when you plug in your usb drive in public computer is to identify a malicious processes running on host computer. A great utility for doing this thing is process explorer.It can disable undesirable processes.
The most useful feature in process explorer is that, if there is any process that restarts when you stop it, you can suspend in and leave it hanging while you continue with your work.
Some experience with the process manager is required before you can identify harmful process right away. There are many websites which lists all harmful process and most common threats.

getting started..

this is the first post of this blog.....i wish people to join this blog and be updated with the latest technology..

i assure you people can find entertainment stuff too here in this blog...
the thing i need from you is your cooperation.
thanx