Hardware on Omid Farhang

WD Introduces 6TB External HDD for HD Content Creation

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 23:48:00 +0000

IRVINE, Calif., March 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Western Digital® (NYSE: WDC), the world’s leader in external storage solutions, today introduced its My Book® Studio Edition™ II dual-drive storage system with a massive 6 terabytes (TB) of storage to meet the capacity needs of today’s creative pros and Mac® enthusiasts who create, store, edit and archive large HD video and photo files. The new capacity provides users 33 percent more storage than the previous capacity, while maintaining the same footprint.

Google may have told Logitech to stop the Revue

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 16:44:00 +0000

Google really isn’t happy with its TV operating system. In addition to telling companies not to mention their Google TV products at CES next month, now it looks like the search company is actively stopping production on a device that’s already been released.

According to a report on Digitimes.com, Logitech has ordered a suspension of all Logitech Revue components from its supplier, Gigabyte Technology. The Revue is Logitech’s set-top box that turns any TV into a Google TV.

Google announces Chrome OS hardware and first pilot program

Wed, 08 Dec 2010 00:09:00 +0000

BetaNews: One year ago, Google gave the world its first look at Chrome OS, a project taking a new approach to thin clients and terminal computing. The long and the short of Chrome OS is: if the browser is the most-used application on a PC, why would you load it down with anything else?

Chrome OS focuses on computers that are permanently connected, where all apps, data, and user identities and desktops are stored in the cloud. The computers running the OS are designed to be as unencumbered by software as possible, so they can run quickly and reliably. Businesses can run them in secure private clouds just as well as consumers can run them on the public Web.

The Google Cr-48 Chrome OS Notebook Is All About the Web

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 23:59:00 +0000

Mashable: Google just launched artillery deep into territories held by Microsoft and Apple by making one of the biggest announcements in its history: The reveal of Chrome OS. And in doing so, it has declared war on the traditional desktop model.

The Cr-48 Chrome Notebook will be the first official device featuring Chrome OS. Although it’s only being released in a pilot program to beta testers, it’s very much an emissary to consumers (Google’s hopeful allies in the fight). Those of you interested in enlisting can sign up to test the device, but we’re guessing selection will be — well — selective.

Amazon to Unveil New Kindle Web App Tomorrow

Tue, 07 Dec 2010 15:30:00 +0000

Mashable: After launching its own incredibly successful, single-purpose hardware and a slew of free apps for mobile and PC devices, Amazon is getting ready to launch a new web app version of Kindle.

Amazon’s timing is impeccable, particularly if the tech giant is trying to take the wind out of Google’s sails; Google just launched its own e-reading, e-bookstore platform today.

An Amazon rep said in an e-mail to ComputerWorld that the new version of the web app is intended to “enable users to read full books in the browser and any website to become a bookstore offering Kindle books” — exactly what Google E-books aims to do with its own platform. The previous version of Kindle for Web, as the app is properly called, was not nearly as noteworthy, allowing users to read only first-chapter previews of books online.

Oficla downloads MBR Ransomware

Wed, 01 Dec 2010 17:32:00 +0000

Avira TechBlog: We discovered a new ransomware threat which is downloaded by a Trojan of the Oficla family. This downloaded threat replaces the MBR (master boot record) of the hard disk with its own MBR which asks the user for a password and thus blocks the loading of the operating system.

Upon starting the Oficla Trojan and successive execution of the downloaded payload the system will be rebooted and the user will be presented the ransom notice.

Apple forces PhotoFast to abandon 256GB upgrade kit for MacBook Airs

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:26:00 +0000

Remember that peppy aftermarket 256GB SSD upgrade from PhotoFast that easily smoked (on paper anyway) the SSD found in Apple’s latest MacBook Air? It’s been halted upon Apple’s request before it ever went on sale, similarly to those HyperMac batteries before it. 9to5Mac first reported the news based on a source close to the company and we just confirmed it directly with the PhotoFast GM2_SFV1_Air product manager. The risk of losing access to Apple’s product licensing program was just too grave a threat to ignore. So, enjoy your 160MBps max SSD transfer rate and 128GB top-end capacity MBA 11 owners, you’ll get your storage and 250MBps sequential read/write speed bumps only when Apple’s good and ready to provide it themselves — possibly sooner, we’re told, if PhotoFast is given the green light to start sales after Toshiba’s SSD modules (Apple’s MBA partner) are available for purchase.

Hidden second Wi-Fi network with the Thomson TWG870U router

Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:01:00 +0000

Righard Zwienenberg from Norman Security Center Blog posted something interesting, Thanks to Mr. Fagerlid for Sharing:

There is some commotion in The Netherlands. Telecom/ISP provider UPC is providing its customers with the Thomson TWG870U router, a Docsis 3.0 router. On the tweakers.net forum (Dutch language), a user discovered that the router, which is also providing Wireless Access, has a second hidden wireless network. Problem here is that:

With the Jack PC, the computer's in the wall!

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 17:39:00 +0000

The Jack PC from Chip PC Technologies offers a neat and novel thin-client desktop computing solution where the computer doesn’t just plug into the wall, it is the plug in the wall. Running on power provided by the Ethernet cable that also connects it to the data center server, the computer-in-a-wall-socket supports wireless connectivity, has dual display capabilities and runs on the RISC processor architecture – which gives the solution the equivalent of 1.2GHz of x86 processing power… Continue Reading With the Jack PC, the computer’s in the wall!

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 TDP is 244W, includes 128 TMU, Benchmarks Leaked

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 23:11:00 +0000

Chinese website eNet has filled in some missing information – notably TDP and TMU count. The TDP of GeForce GTX 580 is at 244W, slightly lower than the GeForce GTX 480. The texture fillrate had been viewed by many as one of the bottlenecks for GF100, and eNet reports that GF110 effectively doubles the TMU count to 128 TMUs. Apart from this substantial improvement in TMU, the GF110 is a “full revision” and fixed version of GF100.

Intel Core i3 2100T details leak

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 20:35:00 +0000

Details of Intel’s upcoming Sandy Bridge-based i3 processors have leaked out, and there’s one particular model that has caught people’s interest: it features a tiny TDP.

Specifications for the Core i3 2100T chip were obtained by Fudzilla from an unnamed source, and reveal an interesting chip for Intel’s lower-end range: featuring two 2.5GHz processing cores and HyperThreading support for up to four simultaneous threads, the Core i3 2100T also packs a beefy 3MB of shared cache.

Western Digital Caviar Green 3TB Hard Drive

Fri, 22 Oct 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Rules were made to be broken; that whole 55 MPH thing happens to be my favorite. Western Digital had larger aspirations; the kinds that considered milestones. Reaching the 750GB per platter mark is definitely in the milestone category and that is what Western Digital is releasing today.

On the surface 750GB per platter doesn’t really sound all that impressive unless you are really into the whole storage technology scene. Those on the outside will be more excited to hear about the milestone this way; 3TB hard drives that upon launch cost just a little over 200 USD. Do I have your attention now?

Radeon HD 6870, 6850 break cover

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 12:03:00 +0000

The time for rumors and speculations is drawing to a close—as far as AMD’s upcoming Radeon HD 6850 and 6870 are concerned, at least. These two next-generation graphics cards are churning away in Damage Labs as we speak, and for the first time, we can bring you official, genuine pictures of them. Here’s the 6870…

…and its little brother, the Radeon HD 6850:

and More pictures:

Intel quietly lowers prices on Core i3-550, others

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:46:00 +0000

Intel regularly tweaks its price list with nary a word to the masses, but the Tech Report caught chipzilla red-handed this time. The site reports that Intel has lowered prices on four desktop and two mobile processors. Looking at the latest price sheet (PDF), Intel cut 15% off its 3.2GHz i3-550, putting it at $117. That’s identical to the 3.06GHz i3-540 and only $4 more than the 2.93GHz i3-530 — the company’s cheapest i3 desktop offering.

NVidia launches GT440 cards

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 11:39:00 +0000

While NVidia’s big news may have been its upcoming budget-range GeForce GT 430 1GB cards which leaked out earlier this month, it seems that the company has been hiding another secret: the GeForce GT 440 range.

Quietly detailed on the company’s website, the NVidia GeForce GT 440 range of cards is designed to offer OEMs a DirectX 11-compatible card for adding in to their mid-range machines.

According to the reference specifications, the GT440 cards feature a 594MHz graphics clock, 1,189MHz processor clock, and either 800 or 900MHz memory clock, along with 144 CUDA cores. Interestingly, NVidia will be offering at least two different models: a budget-friendly version featuring 1.5GB of GDDR3, or a high-end model with 3GB of GDDR3.

Samsung Tries Organizing the World’s Biggest Dodgeball Game

Mon, 03 May 2010 21:36:00 +0000

Ah, cellphones and dodgeball, they go together like… well… they don’t really go together at all, but that’s not stopping Samsung Mobile from organizing what will purportedly be the world’s largest dodgeball game on May 12.

The practice of launching a stunt to herald the advent of a new product is nothing new — remember when the Droid took over Times Square? And Samsung is no stranger to the record realm; it attempted to make the World Record for collecting the largest donation of mobile phones in one location in April at the Samsung Mobile 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, TX (the company failed). And managed to set the World Record for the fastest text message sent using Swype technology on the Samsung Omnia II.