Vringo Facetones Now Available with Nokia Belle Support

Vringo, developer of mobile social and video apps, has just announced it released a new version of Facetones, its popular mobile app, for Nokia handsets. The new iteration of Facetones is now compatible with Symbian^3, Symbian Anna, as well as Nokia Belle operating systems. Those unfamiliar with Facetones should know that this is a Facebook-integrated app that provides users with a more appealing display of their photos and other social content.   Furthermore, the devs also confirmed that the new version of Facetones would be released to the Nokia Store, as well as other important app stores worldwide.  The new version of Facetones for Nokia mobile phones is meant to improve users' experience on Facebook and other social accounts.  It...

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HTC Ville Caught on Video with Ice Cream Sandwich and Sense 4.0

The unannounced HTC Ville leaked about two months ago, along with the press shoot and specs sheet. Today, the first video showing the phone’s capabilities surfaced online, which points to an imminent announcement at Mobile World Congress 2012, next month.  The video was published by the French site HTC Hub and shows the HTC Ville in all its glory. Even though this is not the quad-core smartphone that everyone was expecting, HTC Ville is still among the powerful Android devices that will be available on the market this year. Codenamed HTC Ville, the smartphone may be launched under a different name next month at the MWC 2012. According to the video leaked recently, the Ville is powered by Google’s Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich operating...

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Sony Tablet S 3G and Tablet P Now Available in India

Unveiled back in August, Sony’s Android tablets have showcased for the first time at IFA trade fair in September 2011. While the Sony Tablet S made its debut in September, the other Sony slate, Tablet P hit shelves one month later.  Sony India officially introduced the tablets last month, but neither was available for purchase until today. Without further notice, major retailer Flipkart put both Sony Tablet P and Tablet S 3G on sale for Rs 36,750 (745 USD or 565 EUR) and Rs 33,750 (680 USD or 520 EUR), respectively. Flipkart’s prices seem to be very close to Sony’s suggested retail prices. However, customers who want to purchase any of the two tablets will have to pay a small fortune. Hopefully, their prices will drop, as soon as Sony...

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NEC Launches 6.7-mm Thin Android Phone in Japan via NTT Docomo

NEC is one of the new Japanese companies that entered the Android smartphone market. After launching the world’s thinnest Android phone a few months ago, NEC is back with yet another amazingly thin smartphone, the MEDIAS ES N-05D.  The smartphone is only 6.7mm thin and will be released in February or March via Japanese carrier NTT Docomo for a price that will be disclosed closer to the release date. For the time being, MEDIAS ES N-05D will be exclusively available in Japan, but there’s a slight chance that we will see this one outside the country in case NEC decides to expand its presence in other regions as well. Aside from the slim and stylish design, MEDIAS ES N-05D’s selling points seem to be the powerful 1.5 GHz dual-core processor...

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AMD Radeon HD 7800 GPUs to Hit March 2012, Says Leaked Roadmap

Besides the Radeon HD 7700 series, AMD’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) video card lineup also includes the HD 7800 range that is expected to arrive into the retail space in March of this year, according to a leaked MSI roadmap. AMD’s initial Radeon HD 7800 series will include two video cards featuring the same Pitcarin core paired together with 2GB of GDDR5 video buffer memory. Starting with the more powerful Radeon HD 7870, previous leaks have revealed that the Pitcairn XT GPU used for this card will includes 1408 streaming processors, 88 texture units and 24 ROP units that will all be connected to the memory via a 256-bit wide bus. Thanks to the 1,375MHz (5.5GHz data rate) VRAM operating clock, this configuration should be able to deliver 176GB/s...

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AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series to Launch on February 15

On February 15, AMD seems set to introduce its next series of graphics cards based on the Generation Core Next (GCN) architecture, which will be released into the Radeon HD 7700 series and target the mainstream market. For starters, the Radeon HD 7700 lineup will include two video cards, the HD 7770 and the HD7750, both of these using AMD’s Cape Verde graphics core. Sadly, MSI roadmap isn’t all that informative when it comes to detailing the specs of these two cards, but it does however reveal that both of AMD’s solutions will pack 1GB of GDDR5 memory. In order to learn more about the two Cape Verde GPUs, we have to turn our attention to some older leaks that were published at the end of last year. According to this info, the Cape Verde...

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Panasonic Outs Lumix DMC-TS4 and DMC-TS20 Ruggedized Cameras

Panasonic’s well known TS-series of ruggedized cameras has just received the addition of the Lumix DMC-TS4 and DMC-TS20 point-and-shoots, which can stand the same abuse as their predecessors, but feature improved specifications.  The new Lumix DMC-TS4 will take the place of the TS3 in the Panasonic’s lineup, to become the company’s most advanced rugged camera to date. Compared to its predecessor, the TS4 received a new 12.1MP CCD sensor, 1080/60i HD video capture, a 28-128mm optical zoom lens and 2.7-inch LCD, as well as a new manual mode which allows users to have full control over their camera settings. The rest of the features list also includes GPS, compass, altimeter and barometer functionality, all the data recorded by these sensors...

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Windows 8 Will Resume Copy on Wake, Bring Less Operation Interruptions

The process of copying files in Windows 8 will be much improved starting with the beta release, when compared to the developer preview and with other flavors of Windows.  Microsoft designed the platform to handle duplicate files differently than before and to eliminate the need of copying identical files from a location to another.  But there’s more to it, as Windows 8 will also allow for copy operations to be paused when a system sleeps or hibernates, and to be resumed when the machine is awake again. However, users will need to click the depressed pause button to resume the operation.  “We decided not to have copies automatically resume on wake, as the system environment may have changed significantly in the interim and...

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Apple Rolls Out Compressor 4.0.2 with Enhanced Transcoding

Compressor, the FCP sidekick that enhances exportation with customizing options for output settings, has been promoted to version 4.0.2 today. Delivering powerful encoding for Final Cut Pro, Compressor 4.0.2 improves overall stability and performance, according to Apple. The specifics are detailed in the release notes published on the Mac App Store where Final Cut Pro fans can grab the software for $49.99 (39.99 EUR): markers are now set as chapter markers by default; Apple has added uncompressed 8-bit and 10-bit 4:2:2 to export settings list; and the speed of transcoding from Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2 to ProRes has been improved. As with the Motion 5.0.2 release earlier today, Apple encourages every Compressor 4 users to update to the new...

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Gigabyte WindForce 3 Radeon HD 7950 Reaches Retail

Just like most other AMD add-in board partners, Gigabyte also announced earlier today a Radeon HD 7950 graphics card of its own, that uses the company’s proprietary WindForce 3 design in order to deliver faster than stock performance. The most distinctive feature of the Gigabyte video card, which carries the model number GV-R795WF3-3GD, is, of course, the in-house developed cooling system installed by Gigabyte. The WindForce 3 cooler, as this is called, gets its name from the fact that is uses three 80mm fans in order to blow fresh air over a massive aluminum heatsink that covers most of the card’s PCB. These are tilted in a way that Gigabyte says helps maximizing the amount of hot air that is pushed out of the rear panel, as well as through...

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Motorola DEFY MINI Spotted at FCC, Possibly Headed to AT&T

Motorola announced the smaller successor of the DEFY Android-based smartphone earlier this month. Dubbed Motorola DEFY MINI, the handset is expected to hit shelves in the UK sometime in February for around $225 (170 EUR) outright.  Motorola Mobility is trying to take on the budget-friendly smartphone market with the DEFY MINI and MOTOLUXE Android devices. The handset maker plans to release both smartphones in the following regions: Europe, South America, and China. Although the DEFY MINI is the less-featured version of the original Motorola DEFY, the smartphone comes with the same rugged features. The phone is dust and water resistant. In addition, the phone’s display features Corning Gorilla Glass coating. Motorola DEFY MINI is powered...

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Panasonic Entry-Level Lumix Point-and-Shoots Get Priced

Since Panasonic’s slew of entry-level point-and-shoots hasn’t received all that much attention during CES 201, the Japanese camera maker is now back with another announcement trying to get these into the spotlight. This time, the press release comes packed full of pricing and availability details, since this sort of info was missing from the official announcement. To make a long story short, all of the cameras, five in total, are set to ship this March with pricing starting at $109.99 (about 83 EUR) for the Lumix DMC-S2, while the high-end Lumix DMC-SZ7 is priced at $199.99 (151 EUR). The other three point-and-shoots are the Lumix DMC-FH6, FH8 and the DMC-SZ1, which will hit the streets for $129.99, $149.99 and $179.99, respectively. Specs...

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Samsung Slapped with Antitrust Investigation by European Commission

If anyone thought Samsung's global clashes with Apple were bad, they were probably right, but they might be nothing compared to what the company just got slammed with. Long story short, the European Commission has launched an antitrust investigation against Samsung. The goal is to see if the company tried to stifle competition in the European Union and if its ongoing patent battles are against the terms of the irrevocable commitment given in 1998 to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Back then, Samsung promised to “license any standard essential patents relating to European mobile telephony standards on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.” “Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position...

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Samsung GT-i9300 (Galaxy S III) Receives WiFi Certification

Samsung has been long rumored to plan the release of a successor for its Galaxy S II smartphone, and that handset appears to have just received the necessary approvals from the WiFi Alliance.  A certain Samsung GT-i9300 device just passed through the WiFi certification program, and it is said to be none other than the next Android flagship model from the South Korean handset vendor.  Unfortunately, the certification page does not offer too many details about the mobile phone.  However, the device was previously spotted on Samsung’s UAE website, and the company’s Head of Marketing, Younghee Lee, confirmed its existence.  Samsung was initially expected to launch the mobile phone at MWC 2012 next month, but it has postponed...

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Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA Cooler for Radeon HD 7900/7800 GPUs Now Available

Just as it promised at the beginning of the month, Arctic has made official today the Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA Cooler, designed to be used in conjunction with AMD’s recently released Radeon HD 7970 and 7950 graphics cards, but also with the upcoming HD 7800 series. Despite its newly found compatibility with AMD’s GCN graphics cards, the Accelero Xtreme features pretty much the same design as the previous Arctic solutions launched in this range. This means that Arctic Cooling still relies on three 92mm fans for dissipating the heat produced by the GPU. These sit on top of a large aluminum heatsink covering most of the card underneath it.  All throughout this massive aluminum fin array run five 6mm thick heat pipes that are connected...

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Windows 8 Will Handle Duplicate Files and Copy Actions Differently

As soon as Windows 8 arrives on shelves, users will have a new experience when it comes to copying files around.  The platform has been designed to handle duplicate files a bit differently than before, mainly based on the feedback that Microsoft has been receiving lately from users.  Usually, two files on a computer have the same name because they are duplicates. Clearly, if they are identical, there is no need to copy or move one of them.  However, it is important to be able to determine whether the files are indeed identical. Windows 8 will perform this operation through checking the file name, file size and date modified attributes.  These parameters “can be used to identify the vast majority of duplicate files quickly,...

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Panasonic Debuts Lumix DMC-ZS20 and ZS15 Compact Super Zoom Cameras

Panasonic continues its tradition of releasing Super Zoom cameras no larger than a regular point-and-shoot, with the introduction of the Lumix DMC-ZS20 and ZS15 compact “Traveler Zooms” that were announced earlier today.  Both of these cameras are built around a 1/2.3-inch High Sensitivity MOS sensor, which in the ZS20 has a resolution of 14.1MP, while in its less powerful sibling is limited to 12.1MP. This is however only one of the differences between the DMC-ZS20 and ZS15, as the former also comes equipped with a 20x (24-480mm) zoom lens and 1080/60p video shooting support, while the ZS15 sports “only” a 16x (24-384mm) lens and 1080/60i video recording. A built-in GPS and noise-canceling stereo mic make up the rest of the ZS20 specs...

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AMD Opteron 6200 CPUs Start to Use Inphi Memory

Inphi Corporation has just announced that AMD's Opteron 6200 series of processors is ready to use its load-reduced dual-inline memory modules (LRDIMMs) featuring Inphi's Isolation Memory Buffer (iMB). Of course, it would be much more accurate to say that Inphi's memory is finally ready to work in servers and other large installations powered by AMD's Opteron 6200 chips. After passing several rigorous validation tests by AMD, Inphi iMBGS02A was found satisfactory in terms of frequency, voltage, temperature and process parameters. “With the AMD Opteron 6200 Series, AMD has created a tremendous platform for the next-generation of powerful yet cost-efficient servers, for which LRDIMM technology provides the ideal memory-management solution,”...

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MSI Also Builds Twin Frozr III Radeon HD 7950 Cards

We may have already written about two MSI Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards, but that does not mean that the company has only that particular pair up for grabs.  In fact, the official announcement on the part of Micro-Star International spoke of four boards in total, two of which were covered here.  The other two adapters are the stronger duo and boast the Twin Frozr II cooling technology for good measure.  Their names are R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5 and R7950 Twin Frozr 3GD5/OC.  As was the case with the R7950-2PMD3GD5 and R7950-2PMD3GD5/OC, the former sticks to the reference clock speeds, while the latter moves faster.  Unlike them, though, the Twin Frozr cards also have different memory clock speeds.  For the R7950...

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Jetway Reveals Two Mini-ITX Motherboards Bearing Atom CPUs

It looks like mini-ITX motherboards are still getting built, with Jetway being, this time, the company eager to reveal its latest creations powered by the Cedar Trail CPU platform. If anyone thought the Atom series of CPUs (central processing units) from Intel was in dire straits, they may be somewhat wrong. After all, there has been no shortage of mini-ITX motherboards released based on the Cedar Trail series of Atom units. As it happens, one such pair of products has come to light, courtesy of Jetway, a company based in Taiwan. What the company did was launch the NF9C-2600 and NF9D-2700 mini-ITX motherboards. Both of them feature the NM10 Express chipset and use of the members of the N2000 Atom series. To be more specific, the NF9D-2700,...

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MSI Releases Its Own Radeon HD 7950 Graphics Cards

Micro-Star International seems to have been one of the first companies to unleash its custom-built Radeon HD 7950 graphics adapters, as part of two series.  Two of the graphics cards that MSI has revealed are called R7950-2PMD3GD5 and R7950-2PMD3GD5/OC.  As their names imply, the first one sticks to the reference specifications dictated by AMD, while the second goes a bit higher than the norm.  To elaborate, the former has the Tahiti graphics processing unit (GPU) working at 800 MHz and the 3 GB of GDDR5 VRAM memory operating at 5 GHz.  Meanwhile, the latter is set at 830 MHz for the GPU, while the memory clock was left untouched.  Moving on, the cards feature a memory interface of 384 bits and are compatible with...

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Windows 8's Explorer Promises Better Performance

Apparently, Microsoft does plan on making sure that Windows 8 will deliver from all points of view. In this regard, the company took a better look at Windows Explorer and decided it needed some upgrades.  For example, Windows 8 Beta will no longer suffer from the navigation pane scrolling bug that Windows 7 was affected by.  Moreover, Windows 8 will come with a series of overlay changes that should result in better performance. Previously, Explorer suffered from lag due to icon overlays, and Microsoft took the opportunity to make improvements in this area.  A padlock icon overlay was present in Windows 7 to indicate a private file. The checking for these overlays was slowing down the Explorer by about 120 milliseconds at launch. Since...

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Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC Edition Graphics Card Now Official

Sapphire, one of AMD’s closest add-in board partners, has just announced the release of two new graphics cards based on the Radeon HD 7950 design, including one factory overclocked model with a 900MHz GPU clock. Both of these cards use a cooling system developed in-house by Sapphire, the standard clocked version coming with a single centrally placed fan, while the OC edition sports a dual-fan setup. Right beneath these two fans, Sapphire has placed a large aluminum fin array that draws the heat away from the Radeon HD 7950 GPU, via five large copper heatpipes. This powerful cooling assembly enabled Sapphire to increase the operating frequency of the GPU to 900MHz, 100MHz more than AMD’s recommended clock for the HD 7950, while the memory...

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Explorer with Ribbon in Windows 8

Windows 8 will deliver a series of changes affecting the Windows Explorer too, but few of them will relate to the interface the file manager sports at the moment.  Windows Explorer will feature the ribbon interface that Microsoft adopted for Office a few years ago, though it will be minimized by default.  Not everybody likes the ribbon interface or the idea of having it around in Windows Explorer as well, and Microsoft is aware of that. However, the company says that those who are against the ribbon are few, while the many approve it.  Moreover, the company suggests that there are third-party tools designed to enable them to set new interfaces to their Windows PCs.  “We do embrace the notion that third-party tools play...

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