Video Previews of Optimus 4X HD, Optimus 3D Cube, and Optimus Vu Available

LG has unveiled to the world a range of appealing new devices during the past week, including the LG Optimus 4X HD, Optimus 3D Cube, and Optimus Vu.  All three run under Google’s Android operating system and all of them will hit shelves as high-end smartphones.  For example, we should note that Optimus 4X HD was made official with a quad-core application processor inside, while the Optimus Vu is the largest Android device from LG to date.  As for the Optimus 3D Cube, LG launched it as the successor of last year’s Optimus 3D, and packed it with slightly better hardware.  Today, you can have a look at each of these devices, courtesy of a series of videos that Italian website Telefonino has published recently. The videos are in Italian, but the images speak for themsel...

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Zotac Has a Micro-ATX Board Nearly Ready

We've seen many announcements pertaining to high-end motherboards recently, but Zotac is offering a different flavor, or will do so once its ZT-H67D3 actually reaches stores.  The reason why there is so much talk about high-end motherboards right now is the impending arrival of Intel's Ivy Bridge CPUs.  Since they promise a massive boost in performance, motherboard makers, like MSI and Intel itself, are all too eager to offer support for them.  Zotac has now changed gears, or will do so sooner or later, according to Expreview.  What the company has prepared is the ZT-H67D3, a micro-ATX motherboard for small form factor PCs and other, low-end and low-cost systems.  The company is quite likely aimed at emerging markets...

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Nokia Belle Gets a Taste of Microsoft Apps

Following the release of the new Nokia Belle operating system for Nokia’s Symbian Anna devices, more applications with support for the new platform version have started to emerge.  Among them, we can count the Microsoft Apps (aka a set of productivity apps from Microsoft), which are now up for download for Nokia’s Belle-powered handsets.  These apps are meant mainly for business users who own Belle devices, and come as the result of the collaboration between Microsoft and Nokia.  With Nokia Belle, anyone can easily stay productive when using these apps. Not to mention that users will also be able to easily connect to their work environment from just about anywhere. “The idea of IT consumerisation is no longer just an idea...

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ViewSonic Unveils ViewPhone 4s, 4e and 5e with Android 4.0

This year’s Mobile World Congress will certainly be dominated by Google’s Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. The platform has already been announced as being set to land on shelves on a variety of devices, including three new phones from ViewSonic, called ViewPhone 4s, 4e and 5e.  ViewPhone 4s will arrive on shelves with a 3.5-inch 960 x 640 Super Clear IPS LCD screen, 1GHz CPU, a 5MP snapper on the back, and a VGA camera on the front.  ViewPhone 4e will arrive on shelves with a 3.5-inch 480 x 320 LCD, along with a 650MHz application processor, and a three-megapixel camera on the back.  ViewPhone 5e will be much larger, featuring a 5-inch touchscreen display, capable of delivering an 800 × 480 screen resolution....

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Robot Manipulates Truss Structures

Another day, another blog about robots. This time, though, we've got something less about human interaction and more about automation.  Some folks over at the Cornell Creative Machines Lab built a robot that can not only navigate trusses, but it can also work with them.  That is to say, it can unscrew beams, move them around and screw them in place at the end of other sections.  As the video shows, the weird thing is a sort of two-section caterpillar. Ok, maybe it's a stretch to make that comparison, but it's the only one that comes to mind.  We aren't exactly sure what practical implementations this could have, but people will definitely come up with some if they think hard enough. Maybe some role will be found in architecture and construction work at some poin...

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Samsung GT-N8000, Galaxy Note Successor, Receives Bluetooth Certification

With only a few days left until Mobile World Congress 2012 opens, Samsung’s mysterious GT-N8000 received Bluetooth SIG’s approval. The device is said to be Galaxy Note’s successor, but it is listed as “End Product” under “Samsung Mobile Tablet” category.  This might hint to a recently leaked Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, as the model number follows the same pattern as the original Galaxy Note, which was codenamed GT-N7000. The device will probably be announced after Mobile World Congress 2012, as Samsung has yet to confirm any major launch events for this trade fair. For the time being, there are no other details regarding this mysterious device, but it shouldn’t take too long for more info to emerge in the following weeks. It’s also possible...

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PQI Air Drive Adds 32GB of Wireless Storage to Smartphones and Tablets

Showcased for the first time at the beginning of the year during the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, PQI’s Air Drive wireless storage device has just been made official by the company. PQI’s latest creation has the same functionality as Kingston’s Wi-Drive, but it features improved compatibility, which enables it to work even with Android-powered smartphones. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Wi-Drive, this is basically an external storage solution that can connect to various devices through an ad-hoc wireless network. In the case of the PQI Air Drive, this connection can support up to five devices simultaneously. For storage purposes, the drive relies on an SD card slot, which is compatible with SDHC memory cards sporting capacities...

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ADATA’s Energy Efficient DDR3L RDIMM Server Memory Runs at 1600MHz

Memory maker ADATA has recently announced the introduction of a new line of high performance RDIMM memory for cloud business solutions, which was designed to deliver improved levels of energy efficiency. The new DDR3L DIMMs require just 1.35V in order to operate and are available as 4GB or 8GB modules supporting speeds starting at 1066/1333MHz and going up to 1600MHz. According to ADATA, these RDIMMs (registered DIMMs) were tested to operate with a wide range of Intel and AMD processors, including Sandy Bridge, Ivy Bridge and Interlagos chips. Furthermore, customers who require improved data reliability can opt for ADATA’s 8GB memory modules which are also available with ECC error correction. As far as timings are concerned, these depend...

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Intel's Xeon E5 CPUs Set for March, Itanium Gets Updated

Intel's central processing units are making the news again, only this time it is the server line that is getting attention instead of the oft discussed Ivy Bridge series.  Yet again, Digitimes has provided some information that may or may not be completely valid, but chances are it is in this case.  The report published here deals with Intel's upcoming collection of server processing units.  This extends to more than the Xeon E5 series, which people have known about for months and even saw in action at CES 2012, albeit in an unexpected type of system.  Despite being a processor meant for servers, it was used to make and demo a LAN party computer.  That said, according to the new rumor, the first wave of Xeon E5 chip...

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Microsoft to Pack Office 15 with a Touch Mode

Microsoft’s upcoming Office 15 suite of applications is expected to become available with a so-called touch mode, which will be enabled only on devices featuring touch capabilities. The suite will arrive with support for touch, but desktop users won’t be forced to have it enabled if their computers lack touch, it seems. Basically, Microsoft will make the Office 15 applications desktop apps, but will also pack them with a button to enable touch capabilities, ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley notes.  Office 15 applications were promised with touch-optimizations, to fit the needs of upcoming devices running under the Windows 8 platform.  Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote will be loaded on Windows on ARM devices as well, as desktop applications...

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iPhone 5 Makes Room Inside for LTE Radios - Report

Word on the web is that Apple is preparing to make the iPhone 5’s dock connector smaller so that the handset has room for LTE radios and a bigger battery inside. While the dock connector is hardly a part that takes up a lot of room inside Apple’s handsets, anything that can be shrunk leads to a bigger something else, or an extra something else - in this case, an LTE chip. iMore claims to have heard from its own sources that “Apple is getting ready to ditch the dock connector as it’s currently sized and implemented on iPods, iPhones, and iPads.” The reason: “to save space inside the iPhone 5 for what are now more important components […] like battery and LTE radios.” The blog appropriately points out to similar scenarios in the past, such...

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Asus Dual-Socket Z9PE-D8-WS LGA 2011 Motherboard Up for Pre-Order

Showcased for the first time at this year’s CES fair, Asus’ Z9PE-D8-WS dual-socket workstation motherboard for LGA 2011 processors has just been made available for pre-order by a Canadian retailer for the equivalent of $634.56 US (474 EUR). NCIX hasn’t mentioned when the board will start shipping, but this shouldn’t take long as Intel’s launch of the Sandy Bridge-EP Xeon E5-series processors is just around the corner. Just like its SR-X counterpart built by EVGA, the Z9PE-D8-WS features dual LGA 2011 sockets which, in this case, are paired together with four DIMM slots each, in order to enable the motherboard to hold up to 256GB of RAM. Seven PCI Express x16 slots are also available, driven by the 80 PCIe lanes available in the Xeon E5-series...

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Scythe Katana 4 CPU Cooler Stars at CeBIT 2012

Unlike ASUS, Scythe will definitely attend this year's CeBIT trade show, with a whole slew of products, the main attraction being the Katana 4 CPU cooler. Given that Scythe is, essentially, a cooling product specialist, it was obvious that it would have some sort of high-tier CPU cooling module on display at the event. The Katana 4 is the so-called star attraction, even though the company has other things to show, like a pair of D-class digital amplifiers. Showing that Scythe is just as eager to sell audio products as it is on the cooling market, the exhibition will include the Kama Bay Amp Pro (SDAR-3000) and Kama Bay Amp Mini Pro (SDA35-2000). The former relies on the Toshiba TB2924AFG IC (integrated circuit) and can output 16 watts per...

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Nokia Carla to Arrive on Nokia 801

Nokia Carla, the next flavor of the Symbian platform, is expected to arrive on shelves later this year. The first handset to feature it is now said to be the previously rumored Nokia 801.  The phone maker made it to the headlines a few times before, but was recently suggested to have been scrapped, along with the whole future range of new Symbian phones from Nokia, except for one flagship device. A few days ago, this phone was said to be the Nokia PureView 808, and not the Nokia 801, as many might have expected. However, a recent article on smartphonegeeks suggests that Nokia’s next OS flavor will make it on shelves on the 801, which might be the handset in the photo above.  We’ll take this rumor with a big grain of salt, but there...

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World's First Quad-Core Mini-ITX Motherboards Launched by VIA

VIA doesn't get to brag about much on the CPU and motherboard markets anymore, but it still has its moments, like this one owed to the VIA EPIA-M900 and VIA EPIA-M910.  The VIA EPIA-M900 and VIA EPIA-M910 are two mini-ITX motherboards designed to be used in the embedded market.  This much is not enough to make them stand out, but the processors they bear manage to do that in their stead.  VIA has chosen to outfit them with the 1.2 GHz VIA QuadCore E-Series processor.  In other words, the VIA EPIA-M900 and VIA EPIA-M910 are the industry's first mini-ITX motherboards with quad-core CPUs.  The thermal design power of the processor is 27.5W, but the chip still handles video quality of up to HD, even in multi-display...

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Quad-Core Intel Core i7-3820 Overclocked to 5.666 GHz

Overclocking goes on all the time, but one user or another sometimes performs a feat impressive enough that the Internet can't help but take note of. This time, it is GUN'G'STAR of TeamRussia that has managed to push a central processing unit to its limits. In fact, one might say that the overclocker went beyond the limits altogether, since the chip it chose to experiment on wasn't the most overclocking-ready one. The chip in question, Intel's Core i7-3820, is one of the so-called “Limited unlocked” central processing units. What this means is that, while the clock multiplier is not disabled, it is not unlocked all the way either. In other words, the BClk multiplier is unlocked only to a few steps above the clock settings, so it should not...

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Samsung’s New Quad-Core Exynos CPU Demoed Ahead of MWC 2012

Korean handset maker confirmed earlier this month that it won’t have any major launch events at the Mobile World Congress 2012. However, it looks like there is at least one important announcement that the company is expected to make next week. It appears that the company has shown its new mobile processor masterpiece the Samsung Exynos, at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. The new CPU is based on the 32nm manufacturing process, unlike the older version that was built using a 45nm process. Samsung is expected to announce dual-core and quad-core processors based on this technology, next week at the MWC 2012. Both types of processors, dual-core and quad-core will come in various configurations and will be clocked...

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CyanogenMod 9 Nightly Builds on Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and XOOM

The Android 4.0-powered CyanogenMod 9 is advancing nicely, and the team behind it has just shared some more info on what users can download and install on their devices.  For example, they can now download CM9 nightly builds on handsets such as Galaxy Nexus (GSM and CMDA) and Nexus S (GSM and CDMA), as well as on the Motorola XOOM tablet PC (Wifi and 3G). Only a few days ago, the team asked the community to offer help through donations, and they have managed to purchase three top of the line build servers, which help them continue their work.  “We'll be setting up an automatic build schedule soon once we have all the kinks worked out. CM7 nightlies will also resume shortly as well,” Koushik Dutta, notes in a recent post on Google...

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