Google+ Games Launches with Angry Birds, Zynga Poker, Dragon Age Legends

Google has made the inevitable announcement, Google+ is getting a Games section. There have been plenty or rumors about this and the feature was pretty much a given, but Google has only now made it official. It's rolling out the Games section of Google+ to all users gradually, but it may be a few days, at least, until you see the Games button next to the Circles one on Google+. "Today we’re adding games to Google+. With the Google+ project, we want to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to the web. But sharing is about more than just conversations," Google+ head Vic Gundotra writes.  "The experiences we have together are just as important to our relationships. We want to make playing games online just as fun, and just as...

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Apple iPhone 5 Event Kicks Off September 7th, Claims Japanese Source

A Japanese source that has previously pinpointed Apple product announcements with accuracy claims to have learned of a special Apple event scheduled for September 7th (the report said September 8th for Japan time), with the highly anticipated iPhone 5 being the centerpiece of the show. The report in question was picked up by rumor site MacRumors which “confirmed” with Japanese site Kodawarisan that the September 7 date was not a guess.  Rather, the intel came from “a source in the know”, according to the Mac-centric site reporting heavily on rumors and speculation. To further add credibility to the Japanese report, they note that Kodawarisan correctly pinpointed the launch date of a new Mac mini computer in 2009. However, it should be worth noting that Apple generally invests few resources...

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Apple Threatened Intel to Abandon Their Chips If Power Consumption Wasn't Improved

Apple has reportedly threatened Intel to move away from using their processors in future ultra-portable notebook designs, such as the MacBook Air, if the chip giant doesn't do anything about decreasing the power consumption of their processors. According to the Mac Rumors website, which cites Greg Welch, director of Intel's Ultrabook group, this threat was a real wake-up call for the company. To make sure that it doesn't loses Apple's business, Intel has recently announced a sharp revision in its product roadmap and outlined that future mobile processors will be built to fit inside a 15W TDP. This is a dramatic change when compared to today's mobile CPU as the regular voltage models usually have a thermal design power of 35W. To put things in perspective, the 15W TDP announced is even lower...

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New Windows 8 “Revealed” Video Released

A new video boasting to reveal Windows 8 to the public, but actually failing to deliver on that promise, is now available on YouTube.  As the hunger for Windows 8 details grows to insatiable levels, Microsoft continues to keep mum on the next major iteration of the Windows client.  The software giant has pointed to the BUILD Windows conference in mid-September 2011 for the first deep insight into Windows 8.  Michael Palermo, Microsoft Developer Evangelist, which is featured in the new Windows 8 Revealed video, provides no actual information of the successor of Windows 7.  All his answers to Windows 8 questions do nothing more but mention the upcoming BUILD event. In fact, the entire Windows 8 “bait and switch” video is more of an advertisement for InterfaceTT than anything...

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Fix Windows 7 SP1 Intermittent Crashes "0x0000007E"

A fix from Microsoft Support is designed to resolve an issue that causes Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 computers to crash intermittently.  The software giant has confirmed the problem, and revealed that affected customers get the following stop error message: "0x0000007E."  Not only the plain vanilla, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 platforms can experience this glitch. It appears, that Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 can also crash intermittently. According to the Redmond company, the full error message reads: “Stop 0x0000007E (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) - SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED” “The parameters in this Stop error message vary, depending on the configuration of the computer,” Microsoft explained.  The...

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Improve Windows 7 SP1 and Vista SP2 Compatibility with Advanced Format Disks

Microsoft has been offering an update designed to improve the compatibility of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Advanced Format Disks for some time now, and it appears that the company is now offering something similar for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.  Well, not an actual update, but a hotfix designed to kick up a notch Vista and Windows Server 2008 compatibility with Advanced Format disks.  In the case of KB 982018, the update is available for Windows 7 RTM and Service Pack 1, as well as for Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM and SP1.  The KB 2553708 hotfix, which went live today, August 12, 2011, comes with support only for Vista SP2 and Windows Server 2008 SP2.  “Advanced Format disks have a 4-KB physical sector size. This hotfix is only for Advanced Format...

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