Android 4.0 for Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note in Q1, Samsung Norway Says

Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note, two of the most popular Android-based devices from Samsung at the moment, are set to receive an update to the latest version of Google’s mobile OS before the end of this quarter. 

Samsung Norway has reiterated such plans once more, and posted on its Facebook page that the owners of one of these devices, living in the country, would get a taste of the Ice Cream Sandwich OS flavor in Q1 2012. 

Unfortunately, the company did not offer a specific release date for the new firmware update, yet it might not be too long before additional details on the matter are delivered. 

Norway is only one of the countries where Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note are bound to get a taste of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich in the coming weeks. Last year, Samsung promised the update for all of its users.

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AMD Launches Radeon HD 7950 Graphics Card

January 31, 2012 is finally here, so Advanced Micro Devices stepped up and made the genuine introduction of the second board from its Radeon HD 7000 series.

The Radeon HD 7950 graphics adapter is powered by the same graphics processing unit as the HD 7970 (the GPU codename is Tahiti).

Based on the 28nm manufacturing process technology, it is the latest and second greatest accomplishment, of the Sunnyvale, California-based company, on the video market.

The specifications are the ones that rumors, reports and early listings clearly spelled out a while ago.

With the GPU operating at 800 MHz, the memory, 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM, has a clock speed of 5 GHz.

That said, the board features two mini DisplayPort outputs, a DVI connector and, as is common at this point, an HDMI output as well.

Moving on, the hardware developer implemented AMD Graphics Core Next Architecture and the AMD PowerTune and AMD ZeroCore Power technologies.

What's more, HD 7950 supports the PCI Express Gen 3.0 interface and, naturally, CrossFire technology and HD3D as well.

All in all, AMD's card can achieve 2.8 TFLOPs of compute power and up to twice the base performance in dual-GPU configurations.

“With the arrival of the AMD Radeon HD 7950, AMD has set the bar exceedingly high for 28nm graphics technology and performance,” said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD. 

“From the wraparound immersion made possible by AMD Eyefinity multi-display technology and the AMD HD3D technology stereo 3D experience, to the incredible realism of today's DirectX 11 capable games, we're delivering an unrivaled experience for gamers. The AMD Radeon HD 7900 series products are in a class of their own.”

Naturally, with this release out of the way, AMD's various partners are revealing their own models, both custom-designed and not. Stay tuned for more.

The official price is $450, but Newegg listings start at $459. The European price should be around 420 Euro.

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Intel Core i7-3960X & i7-3930K C2 Revision CPUs Listed in Japan

Intel has finally started shipping the C2 revision of the Core i7-3960X and Core i7-3930K processors based on the Sandy Bridge-E architecture.

The first country to get them is not so surprisingly Japan, where Akiba-PC has spotted them in the wild listed for Yen 83970 (US $1095) and Yen 48980 (US $639).

For those of you who aren’t up to speed with Intel’s LGA 2011 CPUs, the chips based on this new revision feature the same specs as their predecessors, but Intel has now fixed the VT-d errata present in the C1 stepping, which is definitely good news for its workstation clients.

If you want to go for one of these two C2 processors, you should know that these can be identified using their S-Spec code, which should read either SR0KF or SR0KY.

Sadly, we don’t know when the C2 stepping Sandy Bridge-E parts will arrive in the rest of the world, but make sure to keep an eye out for those S-Spec numbers, if VT-d is important to you.

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Asus Details Workaround for Transformer Prime Android 4.0 Lockup Issues

Asus has recently published a workaround fix for those users who have been experiencing random lockups on their Transformer Prime tablets after upgrading the slate to Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich.

This is just one of a series of two solutions to this problem that the company is working on, the second one being expected to arrive in early February.

The workaround was detailed in a post on the XDA Developers forums by Asus US Technical Marketing Manager Gary Key, who wrote:

"One option to try is to revert back to the last Honeycomb image through the manual update process, set the unit power mode to balanced performance and screen brightness manually to 50%, and then manually update to the latest ICS build using these instructions – http://service.asus.com/TF201_fwupdate."

"You will need a fully charged battery and have the system plugged into AC power. This worked on a couple of returned units but not on all units."

In addition to these Android 4.0 random freezes, Asus is also working on a fix for the BT/WiFi fallout issue experienced by some Prime owners, which is also expected to arrive in early February.

Despite the good progress that Asus is apparently making with these two problems, those of you who have been trying to update their Prime to Android 4.0 and have encountered the “serial number not found” issue, seem to be out of luck since Asus still hasn’t found what is causing it.

An experimental fix is available, but this isn’t guaranteed to work. If you find yourself in this situation, Asus recommendation is to contact consumer support.

Made official in mid-November, the Transformer Prime is the first quad-core tablet to arrive to market, but despite this feat, the device has been plagued by a series of issues ranging from availability to software problems.

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Samsung May Launch 11.6-Inch 2560x1600 Tablet at MWC 2012

At this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) fair, Samsung is said to unveil a new tablet design that supposedly features an 11.6-inch screen and will run Google’s Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, operating system.

The existence of the tablet was mentioned for the first time in December last year, when BGR claimed the Korean giant planned to unveil the device during MWC 2012.

Now, a new report published by Android and Me comes to support these initial rumors by also claiming that the tablet will be released in Barcelona, Spain, at the Mobile World Congress.

The most striking feature of this new tablet will be its 11.6-inch display that Samsung has paired together with a high-resolution panel pushing out a stunning 2560x1600 pixels.

Despite the 11.6-inch display used, previous reports suggested that Samsung’s upcoming tablet would be barely larger than the current Galaxy Tab 10.1, since it used a much thinner bezel. 

Together with this new and impressive screen, Samsung will also install a 2.0GHz Exynos 5250 system-on-a-chip (SoC) device in its upcoming creation. 

Sporting dual ARM Cortex-A15 cores and a powerful Mali-T604 GPU, the Exynos 5250 is expected to become one of the fastest ARM-based chips around and is scheduled to enter mass production in the second quarter of this year.

Besides this powerful SoC, Samsung’s tablet will also feature Android Beam technology, for syncing media with the Galaxy Nexus and other NFC Android devices, as well as a special wireless docking mode for gaming on HDTVs, effectively turning it into a gaming console.

On the software side, the tablet will arrive with Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, which should become the standard for high-end tablets in 2012.

Other details are not available at this point in time, but we’ll keep you up to date with how things evolve once MWC 2012 opens its gates.

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This iWatch Concept Takes the Air out of the Room

ADR Studio is proud to unveil its latest iWatch concept - a companion to the Steve Jobs-inspired iPhone SJ, also created by the studio’s designers.

The amazing iWatch2 not only looks stunningly beautiful, but also boasts some incredible specs.

The designers envisioned it would have WiFi and Bluetooth, an integrated RSS reader, 32GB of storage (God knows for what), a weather forecast system, the possibility to connect to iPhone / iPad, an LCD projector, and a frontal camera (now that would be cool!).

According to its creators, “iWatch2 is like a jewel, in its black slide-to-open-box, with a new slim design like its brother iPhone SJ.”

The surreal accessory features a polycarbonate main body with an aluminum chassis, a PK2 Kevlar insert, and the bracelet would come in 5 colors with a polycarbonate insert. For those of you thinking there’s even a remote possibility the iWatch2 could come to light, keep dreaming.

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Windows Phone 8 Will Support Windows Phone 7 Apps

Applications built for the Windows Phone 7 operating system will work on the next generation mobile platform from Microsoft, Windows Phone 8. 

The company had announced before that it planned on making all apps built for Windows Phone compatible with future versions of the OS, and it has reiterated it. 

Windows Phone 8 is said to have been built on the Windows 8 kernel, which arose questions regarding the platform’s compatibility with software built for the current version of the mobile OS. 

However, Brandon Watson, director for Windows Phone 7, put these rumors to rest with a recent tweet, in which he reinforced Microsoft’s previous announcement on the matter. 

“We were pretty clear on this. Any app built today will run on next major Windows Phone version,” he stated. 

There are over 60,000 applications available in the Windows Phone Marketplace at the moment, and they will be available on the upcoming platform as well.

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AMD Radeon HD 7970 Graphics Card Now Available from AVADirect

With AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 now available in retail, system builders have started integrating this monster of a graphics card in their systems and one of the latest companies to do so is AVADirect, who has added AMD’s latest creation as an option for its gaming desktops.

Officially introduced in the second part of December 2011, AMD’s Radeon HD 7970 is based on the company’s Graphics Core Next architecture and is the first graphics card to be manufactured using the 28nm production process.

At its heart, the card packs 32 Compute Units for a total of 2048 stream cores that are joined by 128 texture units, 32 ROP units and a 384-bit wide memory bus.

This connects the GPU to 3GB of GDDR5 video buffer, which runs at 1.375GHz (5.5GHz effective), while the graphics core’s operating frequency is set at 925MHz.

In AVADirect’s desktops, the powerful AMD graphics card can be paired with Intel LGA 1155 or LGA 2011 processors, as well as with AMD’s own FX-Series CPUs, which can be either air- or water-cooled.

Furthermore, users can also choose to customize the system with up to 32GB of system memory, high-end power supplies, as well as with a second or third Radeon HD 7970 for CrossFireX operation (available only in select systems). 

Besides offering the Radeon HD 7970 as an upgrade in its custom desktops, AVADirect also sells AMD’s graphics card as a standalone product.

Three models are available right now, from Asus, Sapphire and XFX, with prices ranging from $651.92 to $691.76 (493 to 523 EUR).

AVADirect will continue to add new HD 7970 graphics cards, from various manufacturers, as they become available.

Since December last year, the Radeon HD 7970's have been quite scarce, but according to AMD we will now begin to see more cards make their way into retail in the coming weeks.

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BlackBerry DevCon Europe 2012 Kicks Off Next Week

Next week RIM will hold a new developers conference as part of its DevCon series, namely BlackBerry DevCon Europe 2012. The event is planned to take off on February 7 in Amsterdam and will run for two days. 

The company saw great interest in the event, and announced that BlackBerry DevCon Europe had sold out. 

At the event, developers will be able to learn some more info on what the building of applications for the BlackBerry operating system is all about. 

There will be hundreds of people present at the event, and they will have the chance to collaborate with platform experts from Europe and from other parts of the world. 

There will be various breakout and hands-on lab sessions aimed at focusing on various aspects of the BlackBerry development platform. 

Content categories that will get a spotlight at the event include: 

• Java Development for BlackBerry 7 OS
• WebKit and the BlackBerry WebWorks Platform Development
• BlackBerry PlayBook OS Development, including BlackBerry Native SDK for Tablet OS, Adobe AIR and Adobe Flash, and Android Player
• BlackBerry Application Platform Services and the BBM Social Platform
• Getting ready for the BlackBerry 10 Platform
• Tips and tools to help debug and optimize your apps
• User interface and user experience tools and best practices
• Developing quality enterprise applications
• Marketing and distributing your applications

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion also notes that attendees at BlackBerry DevCon Europe get the opportunity to take advantage of App Express, for fast tracking their apps through porting existing Android software to the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. 

Moreover, they will also have the possibility to transform existing web applications into full-fledged software for either the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet or the BlackBerry smartphones (OS 5.0 and up), or for both of them. 

Moreover, there will be BlackBerry platform experts present at the event, so that developers could pose questions on various issues they might have met. 

Those who will not attend the conference will be able to stay up to date with it, via the special website that RIM dedicated to the BlackBerry DevCon event in Europe.

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SanDisk Speaks of 19nm Technology, Bets Much on It

Though CPUs are still at the 32nm node, NAND Flash memory is actually further along, something SanDisk intends to make the best of.

SanDisk is one of the better known makers of NAND Flash products, such as memory cards, flash drives and SSDs.

It so happens that the company has begun production of memory based on the 19nm manufacturing process.

Both MLC (multi-level / 2 bits per cell) and TLC (three bits per cell) memory is being made, though the yields were not disclosed.

The company hopes to get more customers in both the consumer and enterprise fields, as the new type of Flash has better performance and lower costs, among other things.

The TLC NAND is going to be used mainly for PC storage, while MLC is good for both PCs and servers / data centers / etc.

"We will be looking at opportunities for 3bpc on the client SSD side. Enterprise SSD, I fully expect that to continue to be on 2bpc, given the high performance, the high reliability requirement of enterprise application," said Sanjay Mehrotra, chief executive officer of SanDisk, during a conversation with financial analysts.

19nm manufacture began back in the fourth quarter of 2011 and will grow in capacity each month during 2012.

“We began production of 19nm technology in Q4, and it will ramp throughout 2012. As we explained previously, NAND scaling is becoming more complex for the industry, resulting in a lower rate of cost reduction from technology transition,” said the CEO.

“The 19nm technology will generate a lower cost reduction rate compared to what we achieved with the 24nm transition.”

It is understandable that SanDisk would try to make the best of this manufacturing technology, even though it surely won't be alone on this node.

Though the mass production has begun recently, the first 19nm NAND Flash memory solution was demonstrated back in April 2011.

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RIM Debuts BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365

Owners of BlackBerry smartphones from the Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion can now take advantage of Microsoft Office 365 while on the go, courtesy of a new service from the handset vendor, called BlackBerry Business Cloud Services. 

The new product is aimed at business and government organizations and extends the Microsoft Exchange Online offering to BlackBerry smartphones, providing customers with the ability to manage deployments while on the go. 

The new service was made available for free for current medium-sized or enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite. Exchange Online customers can also enjoy it on their BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans.

“Microsoft’s partnership with RIM exemplifies our commitment to providing customers with the best productivity experience across the PC, browser and phone,” said Julia White, senior director of Microsoft's exchange product management group. 

“The availability of BlackBerry Business Cloud Services is great news for Office 365 and BlackBerry customers who want to get the maximum benefit from these two business collaboration services.”

Through the BlackBerry Business Cloud Services, customers can benefit from advanced administration features, as well as from flexible smartphone self-service capabilities to support the BlackBerry deployment in the cloud.

Customers will benefit from over-the-air synchronization with Microsoft Exchange Online email, calendar and organizer data straight from their BlackBerry smartphone, as well as from the features that RIM’s BlackBerry Balance technology has to offer. 

Moreover, they will enjoy an intuitive web-based console for managing and securing BlackBerry smartphones from anywhere, as well as from online access to employee self-service smartphone security functions. 

“RIM is pleased to launch BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365,” said Alan Panezic, vice president, enterprise product management and marketing at Research In Motion. 

“This new cloud-based option allows customers to cost-effectively support mobility across their organizations and easily manage and secure their BlackBerry deployments.

“We continue to build upon the end-to-end BlackBerry solution for our business and government customers with both on-premise and cloud-based solutions, a range of technical support options to suit any size organization, and a growing ecosystem of apps and services for users.” 

The service can prove a great option for managed service providers, as well as for systems integrators and wireless carriers, for resellers and other partners. They can use it to offer management of BlackBerry deployments on behalf of their customers.

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Samsung Offers Engraving Service for Galaxy Note Buyers in South Korea

Samsung Galaxy Note is already among the most popular Galaxy family smartphones available in the market. To make things even more worthy for those who purchase the Galaxy Note in South Korea, Samsung is offering an engraving service.

According to the folks over at SammyHub, starting this week and through March 31, customers who purchase the Samsung Galaxy Note can personalize their newly acquired devices with a special message at Samsung’s Digital Plaza stores.

Only the back cover can be engraved, but Samsung offers a wide range of fonts that can meet any user’s demands.

There’s no word whether or not this engraving service requires customers to pay some sort of fee, but this should be done free of any additional charges. Unfortunately, it’s highly unlikely to see this engraving service being offered in other countries as well.

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Samsung GALAXY S Advance Now Official

Today, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung Electronics announced the release of Samsung GALAXY S Advance, the latest addition to its popular GALAXY lineup of devices. 

The new mobile phone is expected to arrive on shelves in Russia in February, and should hit the market in CIS, Europe, Africa, Middle East, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Latin America and China afterwards. 

Packing a dual-core application processor, the new mobile phone brings along a balance of style and performance capabilities, Samsung announced. 

The handset sports a curved design and a 4-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display, while being powered by a fast 1GHz application processor. The new mobile phone also includes support for HSPA 14.4 Mbps connectivity. 

"The GALAXY S Advance adds to the successful track record of the GALAXY smartphone range with a phone that combines power and style with all the versatility of Samsung's Hub services," said JK Shin, president of IT & mobile communications division at Samsung Electronics.

The phone’s dual-core application processor can deliver great performance, and easy multitasking. There is also a highly responsive user interface to complement the features list of this device. 

“Application start-ups are faster with virtually no lag time, and the user experience is boosted with smoother screen transitions, faster image processing, and enhanced Web download and browsing performance,” Samsung notes. 

The specs list of the new device also includes a 5-megapixel photo snapper on the back, with support for HD video recording. 

Samsung GALAXY S Advance runs under Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, and offers support for applications and services that have been specifically designed for the platform. There are also the specific applications and services that Samsung designed for its devices. 

“Running on Android Gingerbread and featuring Samsung's TouchWiz user interface, the GALAXY S Advance enables users to stay connected through the Samsung Hubs and ChatON services,” Samsung notes. 

“Music Hub offers a full music store experience with access to over 11 million tracks and the ability to fully personalize users' own music catalogues. 

“Readers Hub offers access to over 2.3 million e-books, 3,500 magazine and 200 newspaper titles; while the hugely popular Game Hub offers access to thousands of catalogued games supplemented by gamer news feeds and news.”

The one thing that Samsung did not unveil on the new mobile phone was its price tag. Its specific release date remains shrouded in mystery as well.

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Scosche reVOLT c2 Dual-USB In-Car Charger Now Available

How often did you find yourself having to recharge two USB devices from a single charger when driving around in your car?

If the response to this question is something along the lines of “quite often,” then Scosche has just the solution for you.

The rather simple device pictured above is called the reVOLT c2 and is basically a shotgun shell sized car charger, designed to fit flush inside a car power socket. 

When installed, the reVOLT c2 provides each of the two USB ports with 2.1 Amps of current and paired with the special reVIVE app it can also inform users about how much time it will take to recharge their phone’s battery.

If all this sounds good to you, the Scosche reVOLT c2 is available now on the company’s website for $19.99 (15 EUR).

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Notion Ink Explains Why It Chose OMAP Over NVIDIA's Tegra for Adam II

If anyone was wondering how it is that Notion Ink's Adam Tablet II doesn't use an NVIDIA Tegra platform, the company actually took some time to clarify that.

It wasn't too long ago that the Adam II tablet from Notion Ink was officially introduced to the general public in all its glory.

What immediately followed was a bit of confusion amongst the people who surf the web often, as many had expected NVIDIA's Tegra platform to be chosen.

“We had a lot of similar questions while we wanted to opt for one. If you followed Kernel developments you’d know that OMAP was definitely the next SoC supported by Google, so this decision had to be made on our end and fast,” the company said on this blog.

Adam II will not use Tegra 2 or Tegra 3, despite the positive reputation they have amassed.

Instead, Notion Ink selected the Texas Instruments TI OMAP44xx with PowerVR SGX5xx graphics.

The company blog justified the choice by drawing attention to the matter of company expertise and available programmers.

Long story short, Notion Ink can make most of a Texas Instruments chip but not the other.

While the Tegra has a high theoretical performance, the power wasn't fully utilized in the original Adam, so the goal is to avoid a repeat of such a situation.

“Unless as an OEM you can’t get 100% out of these chips, all benchmarks, specifications and latest developments are useless,” the company said.

“So the answer wasn’t based on which chip can beat the other one, but which one can we leverage to the highest possible extent. And in this regard OMAP definitely beats any SoC out there w.r.t. documentation, number of use-case modeled, white papers, reference documents and much more. Bangalore also hosts a lot of Ex-TI professionals who helped build OMAP, so answers are not tough to find.”

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Asus G55 and G75 ROG Notebooks with Ivy Bridge CPUs Will Arrive in April

Asus has recently unveiled that the fifth generation of its Republic of Gamers (ROG) G55 and G75 notebooks are scheduled to arrive in April this year, featuring Intel’s upcoming mobile Ivy Bridge processors.

The two notebooks haven’t suffered too many changes compared to their predecessors as far as their outside design is concerned, but on the inside Asus will swap the previous Sandy Bridge processors with CPUs based on the Ivy Bridge architecture.

Asus hasn’t mentioned the specific models that it plans to use for these two ROG-series notebooks, but we do know that they will be paired with discrete GPUs based on the Nvidia Kepler design, the GTX 670M being a highly likely candidate.

As far as storage is concerned, Notebook Italia suggests that the two gaming laptops can be configured to feature both HDDs and solid state drives, to provide its users with up to 1.5TB of data capacity.

Other features will include up to 16GB of DDR3-1600MHz RAM, an optical drive (either a DVD burner or a Blu-ray combo), as well as a 5.1 audio system and an HD webcam.

Multiple display options will also be available. Depending on the notebook model this comes with a Full HD (1920x1080) or HD+ (1600x900) resolution screen that can also feature 3D support.

Just like their predecessors, the notebooks will also feature SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connectivity, an HDMI 1.4a port (as well as various other video outputs), Altec Lansing THX TruStudio speakers and S/PDIF digital audio out. 

Other features are not yet known at this point in time, but both of these Republic of Gamers notebooks are expected to be officially announced in April this year, most probably right after Intel makes its first batch of Ivy Bridge CPUs official.

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Nokia Belle Officially Confirmed for February 8

Nokia Belle has already been delayed once, but the Finnish company is determined to keep its promise and deliver the long-awaited update in February.

Shortly after the handset maker confirmed that some of its Symbian Anna smartphones, such as the N8, C6-01, C7 and other were already shipping with Nokia Belle on board in some regions, Nokia’s Vietnamese branch made it official on its website that the update would be released on February 8.

Obviously, the update will be released in stages and is expected to go live only in several countries at first, but Nokia plans to complete the roll-out process by the end of February.

No additional details have been unveiled by Nokia Vietnam, which is the only one that confirms plans to deploy Nokia Belle update in the first half of February.

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Sony LT22i Nypon Launching in April as Sony Xperia P

Earlier this month, Sony unveiled two new Android smartphones at the International Consumer Electronics Show, the Xperia S and Xperia ion. 

These are the first smartphones that will be released with Sony’s brand logo, after the Japanese company bought Ericsson’s share in the joint-venture.

However, Sony plans to launch more Android devices during 2012 and some of these smartphones will be announced next month at the Mobile World Congress, in Barcelona.

Sony’s Android roadmap for the Q2 and Q3 has already leaked online about two weeks ago, along with prices and release dates.

One of the smartphones that appear in this leaked document, Sony LT22i Nypon is expected to arrive in stores in April. The Android-powered smartphone is priced at 370 EUR (490 USD) outright, but this might be changed closer to the release date.

The folks over at GSMArena have just learned that the Sony LT22i Nypon will be available on the market as Sony Xperia P. It appears that the Japanese company decided to name its new Android smartphones using the alphabet’s letters and adding the ‘Xperia’ series name.

This is why we already have the Xperia S, which is expected to be launched in March, while the Xperia U, also known as Sony ST25i Kumquat is slated for an April release, just like the Xperia P (Sony LT22i Nypon).

When it comes to specs sheet, Sony Xperia P is positioned one tier lower than the Xperia S. The smartphone is based on NovaThor U8500 chipset and packs a dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of internal memory, as well as an 8-megapixel rear camera with full HD (1080p) video recording.

Sony Xperia P sports a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixels resolution, and a secondary 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video calls. Rumor has it that the Xperia P runs Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, but this has yet to be confirmed by Sony.

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KFA2 Officially Launches Quad-Display GTX 580 MDT Graphics Card

Almost a month after KFA2 made official the GTX 580 MDT X4 EX OC graphics card with quad-display support, the company announced the European launch of this flagship solution based on the GF110 core.

KFA2 was able to overcome Nvidia’s two monitors per card limitation by using a third-party IDT VMM1400 controller, a chip that is usually found in multi-display hub devices.

Despite this change, KFA2's latest creation somewhat resembles the company's previous GeForce GTX 580 Anarchy as it uses a similar tri-fan cooling solution, but which was now painted black together with the PCB for a more aggressive look.

However, unlike the other GTX 580 model in KFA2 lineup, the MDT version drops the usual dual-link DVI outputs in favor of three mini-HDMI and a single DisplayPort connector, which can support up to four monitors simultaneously, double than Nvidia's reference design.

Three of the displays attached to the card can be combined to form a single surface (for multi-monitor gaming or productivity) with a resolution of 5760x1080 pixels @ 50Hz.

The monitors attached to the graphics card can be controlled from the KFA2 EZY Display Setting Management software that is bundled together with the GTX 580 MDT X4.

As far as clock speeds are concerned, the GPU is factory overclocked to work at 840MHz (1680MHz shaders), while the memory frequency is set at the standard 1002MHz (4008MHz data rate).

"The GTX 580 MDT is highly over-clocked at 840MHz with a triple LED cooling systems and the option for Multi Display, all these features combine, has produced a new level to consider when looking at the GTX 580 range," said Graham Brown, European marketing manager.

KFA2 hasn’t provided us with any details regarding the price of the GTX 580 MDT, but a previous report revealed that the graphics card would hit retail in Sweden for 5,100 SEK including VAT (569 EUR or $743 US).

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Windows 8 on ARM Now Stable, Devs to Receive It in February

Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 operating system is bringing along support for ARM chipsets, among other great new features. 

The platform is increasingly stable on ARM configurations, and Microsoft is quite happy with the way things evolve. In fact, the company is so content, that it plans on pushing the platform to developers as soon as next month. 

Sources familiar with the matter confirmed this state of facts, CNet reports. People who had the chance to play with Windows 8 on ARM claim it is impressive and stable.

Apparently, Microsoft is working hard with its hardware partners on the release of Windows 8 devices that sport ARM chips, and will be able to deliver them to devs next month. 

ARM devices that run Windows 8 are expected to be much cheaper than those packing Intel processors. Rumor has it that the price difference might be of hundreds of dollars. 

Moreover, Windows 8 on ARM is expected to deliver the same level of performance as it would do on Intel configurations. 

Of course, it has been suggested that Intel tablets running Windows 8 will have the great advantage of supporting legacy applications, yet ARM devices will also have a lot to offer. 

And there will also be Metro applications available for their owners - apparently, these apps are based on HTML5. 

Previous reports suggested that, while the first Intel-based Windows 8 tablet PCs would arrive this year, ARM devices with support for the platform wouldn’t be here until 2013. 

However, it appears that Microsoft plans on pushing Windows 8 on both ARM and Intel at the same time. 

Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Nvidia will all want to have a piece of the market, and they will work closely with manufacturers to have tablets packing their chips and running Windows 8 available on shelves as soon as possible. 

Next month, Microsoft should make available for the public the Beta version of Windows 8, and additional details on ARM and Intel devices to support it might be unveiled at that time.

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