NFC Capable Yale Door Locks : Future Of Automated Locking Systems

With widespread support for Near field communication (NFC) on all future smartphones and mobile operating-systems like iOS, Android and Symbian - the technology is soon going to be the next big innovation apart from the "Mobile Wallet" it was was originally developed for. Thanks to NFC technology a leading door-lock manufacture "Yale" has already unveiled there automated locks, soon users will be able to open their locks simply by holding a smartphone near the lock.  Yale has developed the technology named "Mobile Keys" allowing users to load electronic keys onto their smartphones securely, allowing them to unlock these NFC locks with right permissions. A video demonstration of these smart-locks is available after the jump...

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Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 2 Released, Synaptic Removed

A few minutes ago, the second and last Beta version, as well as the last development release, of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system was made available for testing by the Ubuntu developers. As usual, we've grabbed a copy of it in order to keep you up-to-date with the latest changes in the Ubuntu 11.10 development. What's new in Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 2? Well, Ubuntu 11.10 Beta 2 includes newer kernel packages based on the stable Linux kernel 3.0.4 upstream release, the newly released GNOME 3.2 Release Candidate desktop environment, LibreOffice 3.4.3, Mozilla Firefox 7.0 Beta 6, and Mozilla Thunderbird 7.0 Beta 3. Starting with Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot), Canonical will provide a DVD ISO image that will be considered an...

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Xperia arc S Coming Soon at Three UK

Sony Ericsson Xperia arc S, one of the latest smartphones that Sony Ericsson unveiled to the world with the Google Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system on board, is expected to arrive on shelves at Three UK in the near future.  The mobile phone carrier has already added the new device to its coming soon page, with an October release window attached to it, offering users the possibility to register for receiving updates on when the new handset will become available.  The new smartphone builds on the success of this year's Xperia arc, which was unveiled to the world at CES in January with a large 4.2-inch touchscreen display, and with one of the slimmest bodies a mobile phone packs.  The new device features a series of improvements...

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Intel Sandy Bridge-E Overclocking Detailed

In mid-November, Intel is expected to launch its first desktop chips based on the high-performance Sandy Bridge-E architecture, which are expected to bring a boost in CPU power but also improved overclocking capabilities when compared to today's second generation Core processors. From the information available at this point in time, Intel's initial lineup will be comprised of three processors, dubbed the Core i7-3820, i7-3930K, and i7-3960X. We already detailed the specs of these CPUs in a series of previous articles, so we are not going to focus our attention on this aspect right now, but what's important to note is that the two latter chips come with an unlocked CPU multiplier, while the former lacks such a feature. In the case of LGA 1155...

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BlackBerry Curve 9360 at T-Mobile on September 28th

Wireless services provider T-Mobile has just announced that they will be releasing the BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphone before the end of this month in a black flavor, and that a merlot version of the device will be made available starting with October 12th.  T-Mobile business customers can already pre-order the new mobile phone, yet the handset will not go for sale via T-Mobile retail stores until September 28th, when it will also arrive at select dealers and national retailers nationwide.  The wireless carrier did not offer info on the price tag the new device will sport when made available, but it is expected to go for around $79.99 (around 60 Euros) with the signing of a two-year contract and after a $50 mail-in rebate. “Today,...

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Gigabyte Has Its Own Mini-ITX AMD Llano Motherboard to Show

Announced together with the rest of the company's FM1 solutions for AMD A-Series accelerated processing units, the Gigabyte A75N-USB3 motherboard is getting ready to reach retail as a near final version of the board was just pictured on a Japanese Website. Just as its name implies, the board is built around the high-end AMD's A75 fusion controller hub (FCH). This is paired together with two full-size DIMM sockets supporting up to 16GB of system memory as well as with a PCI Express x16 expansion slot. On Gigabyte's board. the PCIe slot is seconded by four SATA 6Gbps ports, that are driven by the A75 FCH, which also provides native support for quad USB 3.0 ports. Gigabyte has decided to route these to the rear I/O bracket. This means that an...

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Windows 8 PCs with UEFI Secure Boot Could Lock Linux Out

Although he acknowledges that there’s nothing to panic about yet, Matthew Garrett, mobile Linux developer at Red Hat, posted a blog post designed to raise some concerns over the possibility that Linux might be locked out from Windows 8 PCs because of the new UEFI secure boot feature.  One of the new security mitigations introduced into Windows 8 involves bulletproofing the startup process, in an effort to fend off threats such as rootkits, and similar malware.  This is done by only loading components that are correctly signed by Microsoft as Windows 8 is booting. Here is how Microsoft details the secured boot feature of the next major iteration of Windows: “Secured boot stops malware in its tracks and makes Windows 8 significantly...

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Eee Pad Slider ASUS Tablet Finally Starts Selling

ASUS had a great success with the Eee Pad Transformer tablet, and it might or might not see a similar level of orders for the Eee Pad Slider, an even newer tablet that finally arrived. The Eee Pad Slider tablet from ASUS is one of those items that sparked many discussions and reports over the past few months. Even the way it got delayed only served to add fuel to the fire, so there is little doubt that availability will now cause great ripples. Indeed, the tablet has become available for order, as made clear by the official promo page that ASUS set up here. The main characteristic of the slate is the fact that, unlike most of its peers, it does not lack the physical keyboard component. Instead, it most certainly has a slide-out model, which...

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Apple iPhone 5 Event Scheduled Tuesday, October 4, Sources Say

Apple is set to unveil its next-generation iPhone early next month, in a typical Apple event that will see Tim Cook take the stage for his first product launch as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. Sources familiar with the situation are telling All Things D that Tuesday, October 4 is the day Apple plans to hold its next media event. These sources specifically said that the company had chosen October 4 for the launch of the iPhone 5. To be noted that the WSJ-owned blog previously reported Apple would hold a press event in October, not in September as originally rumored. Sources close to the blog also said that although Apple will be unveiling its fifth-generation iPhone at the event, it will not be available physically for another few...

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Nvidia Tapes Out Its First 28nm Kepler GPUs – Report

Nvidia is getting ready for the introduction of its first graphics cards based on the 28nm Kepler architecture and the company has recently taped out its first SKUs to be based on this design, according to a recent report to hit the Web. The two cores are known under the code names of GK117 and GK107, and SemiAccurate reports these are both entry-level graphics chips. The GK117 was the first of the two to arrive and, according to sources cited by the above-mentioned Website, is described as a hybrid between Fermi and Kepler which lacks an integrated display controller. This is a rather odd occurrence as the code-name Nvidia used points out to a rather small core, so this can't be a Tesla GPGPU solution. The most likely explanation is that GK117...

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Intel Sandy Bridge-E Xeon E5 CPU Prices Unveiled

About two months back, we published the specifications of three new Xeon E5 processor models Intel is expected to release in the not so distant future, and recently we have come to find out the prices of these Sandy Bridge-E chips targeting the server market. The specifications of these CPUs will be nearly identical with those of the Core i7 consumer models that Intel is expected to launch in mid-November, so the retail prices are also quite similar. As usually, there is a small increase associated with server processors, but this isn't as large as expected, topping out at just $81 (roughly 59 Euros) with the Intel E5-1660, which is priced at $1080 compared to the $999 Core i7-3960X (789 vs 730 Euros). Despite the different markets targeted,...

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Intel's Upcoming Core i7-3960X CPU Gets Overclocked to 5.5GHz

If rumors are true, in a little less than two months time Intel will launch its first desktop processors based on the high-performance Sandy Bridge-E architecture and recently an overclocker has taken an engineering sample of such a CPU to 5.5GHz from the stock 3.3GHz. The chip used for these overclocking tests was none other than Intel's top of the range LGA 2011 processor, the Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition. When working at its default settings, this six-core chip with 15MB of Level 3 cache has a base clock of 3.3GHz and a maximum Turbo Boost speed of 3.9GHz, so going to 5.5MHz represents quite a significant frequency increase. In order to achieve this feat, the overclocker had to use dry ice for cooling the Intel CPU and to increase the core...

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How to Remove the Hated Blogger Lightbox

A couple of days ago, Blogger introduced a Lightbox style feature for blog photos. While it may be a few years after Lightbox was trendy, it's an attempt to modernize the aging blogging service. However, Blogger first rolled out the feature and then made the announcement. Blogger has tens of millions of blogs, so this alone was guaranteed to cause outrage. But the feature was also rather buggy. Some photos failed to load at all. For some blogs, it broke existing Lightbox scripts or other customizations. Yet another complaint was that users had no simple way of viewing photos at their full resolution, a bad move especially for dedicated photo blogs. "Thanks everyone for the feedback, I'll take this discussion back to the team and see what we...

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Windows 8 Dual Boot and Advanced Options Demo

Boot has evolved considerably in Windows 8 compared to the traditional Windows startup process, delivering a new level of performance, an enhanced user experience as well as a new set of options.  In the video embedded at the bottom of this article, Billie Sue Chafins, senior program manager lead, Windows User Experience Team, demonstrates what dual boot looks like on a next-generation NUI form factor, and goes on to showcase a number of advanced options.  Since Windows 8 was built with natural user interfaces in mind, it was only fit to equip the operating system with touch interaction capabilities, enabling users to leverage the soft keyboard even before during the boot process.  “We know that some of you love to customize your machines by changing OS settings, booting from...

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Google Earth 6.1 and Google Earth Pro 6.1 Are Now Available

Google has announced the release of the latest update to Google Earth. The latest version, Google Earth 6.1 comes with a few new features that should make managing saved maps easier and also enhance the Street View experience. The professional version of Google Earth 6.1 comes with a longer list of updates and new features. "If you’re like me, your growing collection of maps in the My Places panel is getting a bit unwieldy. Every time I find a great new map or upload a new GPS track, it gets a little harder to find things," Peter Birch, product manager at Google, explained a common problem. "With this release, we’ve added a couple of new features to help you clean house a bit and find things more easily," he explained. It's nothing groundbreaking,...

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AMD FX-Series Prices Leaked, FX-8150 Sells for $245 (178 Euros)

With less than a month to go until the release of AMD's FX-Series processors, all the secrets surrounding these CPUs have now been unveiled, as the pricing of these chips was recently leaked together with their official release date. Just as other rumors have announced, the AMD FX-Series processors will arrive in about a month from now, on October 12 to be more exact. The initial processor lineup will include at least three models, the highest performing of these being the FX-8150, which Donanim Haber has found out will retail for $245 US, or about 178 Euros. This places the high-end Bulldozer CPU right between the $216 Intel Core i5 2500K and the $317 Core i7 2600K.  Specs wise, the FX-8150 packs eight computing cores with a base clock...

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