Sprint Launches Eco-Friendly LG Optimus Elite Android Phone with NFC Support

LG Optimus Elite is the fourth eco-friendly handset launched by Sprint in the last two year. The first “green” handset released by the carrier was the LG Remarq, followed by LG Rumor Reflex and LG Viper 4G LTE. The Optimus Elite is expected to arrive in Titan Silver and White on Earth Day, April 22. It will be exclusively available from Sprint's online store for only $29.99 USD with a new two-year agreement and $50 mail-in rebate via reward card. Beginning May 18 the smartphone will be available in additional channels, including Sprint retail.  In addition, Sprint confirmed that the LG Optimus Elite will be released through Virgin Mobile as well, but timing and pricing options will be announced closer to launch. Aside...

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Samsung GALAXY S Advance and GALAXY Pocket Officially Introduced in India

South Korean handset maker Samsung has just announced the upcoming availability of Galaxy S Advance and Galaxy Pocket phones in India. Samsung Galaxy S Advance and Galaxy Pocket will be available via major retailers across the country for a suggested retail price of Rs 26,900 (520 USD or 395 EUR) and Rs 8,150 (160 USD or 120 EUR), respectively. According to IBNLive, with the launch of these two devices Samsung has a portfolio of 19 smartphones available in India. Samsung Galaxy S Advance is a mid-range phone, which is powered by Google’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system integrated with the company’s TouchWiz 4.0 user interface. The smartphone packs a dual-core processor clocked at 1 GHz and 768 MB of RAM, which should be...

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ASUS U32U 13.3-Inch Ultraportable Up for Sale in the US

Amazon has listed the ASUS U32U ultraportable as available for order and shipment. The price is $449.99, or 342.64 Euro, according to exchange rates, although it is more likely that, should the notebook reach the old continent, the price will be closer to 400, or even the full 450 Euro. Anyway, the 13.3-inch laptop (LED-backlit HD panel, 1,366 x 768 pixels resolution) has an AMD E-450 APU at the heart. That means that two 1.65 GHz cores are backed by a Radeon HD 6320 GPU. Other specs include 4 GB RAM, an HDD (320 GB), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a 3-in-1 card reader, HDMI, Altec Lansing speakers, an aluminum case and an 8-cell battery that lasts for up to 10 hours. All in all, it is actually a nice and strong computer. It makes...

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EVGA Releases GeForce GTX 680 SC Signature Cards

As NVIDIA has ceased manufacturing GeForce GTX 580 graphics cards, the GTX 680 collection continues to grow, in no small part thanks to the company's OEMs, in this case EVGA.  One would think that there are already more than sufficient versions of the GeForce GTX 680 graphics card to go around.  Alas, EVGA does not share this view, or at least doesn't think “enough” necessarily means that there is no room for more.  What the company did was launch the GeForce GTX 680 SC Signature and Signature+ video controllers.  Like all their peers/rivals, they rely on the GK104 Kepler graphics processing unit (GPU).  The clock speeds are as follows: 1,084 MHz for the base GPU clock (instead of 1,006 MHz),...

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$249 "iPad mini" to Ship By the Millions in Q3, Says Chinese Report

Chinese web portal NetEase is dishing out details regarding a potential 8-inch Apple iPad launching later this year, with initial shipping estimated at 6 million units. The report may seem fairly credible, considering that NetEase also weighs in on the actual number of shipping units in the first batch of these unconfirmed 8-inch tablets. The Chinese web portal, quoted by gaming site Kotaku, stresses that Apple is releasing a 7.85-inch iPad in order to “counter attack” the army of Windows tablets about to be released. Apple’s “iPad mini”, as some analysts have come to name this rumored Apple product, will reportedly cost somewhere between US$249 and $299 (189 to 227 EUR). MacRumors chimes in to support the speculative...

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Google Chrome Adds Support for the HTML5 Date Input Type

It seems that Chrome is making progress with HTML5 input types lately. It recently added support for the "color" input, which enables users to visually pick a color rather than write a HTML color code, and has now added support for the "date" input field which, well, enables users to pick a date via a calendar rather than typing it. The new feature only works in Chromium and possibly in Chrome Canary, but should trickle down to Chrome 20 dev soon enough. "By specifying type='date', input element shows little triangle next to its input box. By clicking it, users can now use date picker to fulfill the date parameter far easier than ever without any JavaScript!," Chrome's Eiji Kitamura announced. You can try out the new feature...

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NVIDIA Looking For Other 28nm Chip Makers

Despite repeated claims to the contrary, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company has been stated (again) to be having trouble coping with 28nm chip orders. That is to say, it cannot produce enough 28nm-based graphics processing units (GPUs) and system-on-chip devices. That means that Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) can't make as many Radeon HD 7000 cards as it would like, NVIDIA is similarly limited in regards to the GeForce GTX 680 and Qualcomm has a strained flow of chips too. The last time we covered this perceived shortage was less than a week into the ongoing month (April, 2012). Now, Digitimes says that NVIDIA and Qualcomm are seriously considering other potential manufacturers, as their main (and only) one cannot...

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Microsoft to Enable Windows Phone Apps Launch Faster

For some Windows Phone users, applications loaded on their devices might seem very sluggish, making the phone itself appear slow and unappealing. If the latest technology that Microsoft Research is looking into will arrive on devices, this problem could easily be solved in users' advantage.  In fact, apps and games on Windows Phone could soon become the fastest loading software on a mobile operating system.  This technology will keep applications pre-loaded in the background, and will make them instantly accessible when people need to use them.  Dubbed Falcon: Fast App Launching with Context, the new pre-loading system can be seen at work in the video embedded at the bottom of this article. “We have identified...

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Western Digital Releases VelociRaptor 1 TB HDD

HDDs are the name of Western Digital's game, and there never passes too much time without some new storage device making its way out of its labs. What we mean to say is that a new hard drive unit has appeared, called WD VelociRaptor and featuring a capacity of 1 TB. Long story short, it is a magnetic platter-based storage device that has enterprise-grade specifications, but isn't solely restricted to that field. In fact, not only can Apple Mac systems benefit from the drive, but so can high-performance personal computers, assuming owners figure it is worth paying the price. Speaking of which, the 1 TB VelociRaptor has a MSRP of $319.99, which is pretty much the same thing as 244 Euro. There are 500 GB and 250 GB versions...

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Script: Chive

Chive is a PHP web-based GUI for managing MySQL databases. Chive is just another great solution if you got tired of phpMyAdmin, SQL Buddy, MyWebSql or trueDAT, and would like to spice up your database work. Unlike the aforementioned utilities, Chive also boasts an SQL query runner with syntax highlighting, inline editing of all displayable content (rows and cells), support for foreign keys and direct database authentication. Also, time-constraint developers will be glad to know that it also runs out of the box. Unzip it, move it to a web folder and access it, logging in with one of the MySQL username / password combos. To keep up with updates or contribute to the project, go to Chive's Launchpad page. Download Chive he...

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AMD’s New Steamroller Architecture to Bring Significant Performance

AMD is reportedly concentrating on their Fusion promise they’ve made six years ago when they’ve acquired the GPU design company, ATI. Therefore, their next radically new processor architecture will first be introduced in the company’s APUs during the next year. AMD’s Bulldozer has been a huge disappointment for the CPU and computer enthusiasts around the world. All the main characteristics of Bulldozer are basically logical good ideas and seem to synergically be able to bring serious performance improvements over the Stars architecture. The only problem is that this synergy that we’re all been talking about simply is not happening in AMD’s new FX processors. The problem seems to be the significant latencies that occur around...

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Rugged Samsung Memory Card Shrugs Off 2-Ton Roller

Reviewing a piece of technology usually involves benchmarks and other software tests, but things have to change when looking at the physical side of things.  In fact, when examining so-called “rugged” products, people sometimes get creative.  It so happens that the folks at German site Smartphonetech went quite a bit beyond the norm when playing with a rugged Samsung Plus Extreme Speed Series microSD memory card.  Not only did they toss it in a washing machine, but they even put it in the middle of the road (red X and everything) and ran it over with a 2-ton roller.  Of course, it's not like all that weight bore down on just the card, but still.  You can find the card put through such torment here. Well, it's not precisely that card, but still...

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Intel Gives All Ivy Bridge Laptops Anti-Theft Protection

Since laptops tend to get lost or misplaced, Intel has a certain service/feature called Anti-Theft, one that will be part of all Ivy Bridge laptops and is already found on many notebooks.  VR-Zone is where the news came out that all Ivy Bridge Ultrabooks would have Anti-theft.  Long story short, if you've lost your laptop or had it stolen, you just need to call the customer service hotline or find another computer, or just use the smartphone, to access the Anti-Theft service website and do it from there.  Assuming the notebook is web-connected, a hardware-level security failsafe will be triggered, preventing the machine from booting.  You can also program an auto lockdown timer when you first set up...

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RIM Releases BlackBerry PlayBook OS v2.0.1.358

Today, Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion announced the availability of BlackBerry PlayBook OS v2.0.1.358 for all owners of the tablet PC.  The new software was made available for download over-the-air and is now up for grabs for free. The update brings along a series of enhancements to the tablet PC’s browser, which are meant to improve the performance users benefit from when accessing specific websites.  Additionally, the new OS flavor brings better support for Android applications, and optimizations for the Video Chat, PIM and BlackBerry Bridge applications loaded on the tablet PC.  Various other changes were also included in the new software update, the Canadian smartphone designer announced. Additionally,...

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ARM Announces the Quad Core Cortex A15 Design

After the success it enjoyed with the dual core Cortex A15 designs, ARM is announcing today the Cortex-A15 quad core design on its official blog. The introduction of highly efficient CPU designs based on the Cortex A15 architecture caught everybody by surprise. The surprise wasn’t in the fact that the CPU was more advanced or better performing, but in the level of performance it was able to attain. A dual core Cortex A15 design is generally just as fast, if not faster than a quad core Cortex A9 without having the downside of requiring a highly multi-threaded application, specially optimized, to show its full potential. Using a dual core Cortex-A15 will yield much better results than a quad core Cortex A9, especially in single...

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SONY Presents the 1.5TB Optical Disc Archive

Less than a year after renouncing the MiniDisc Walkman products and after a less than successful twenty-year long campaign for the wide adoption of the MiniDisc format, SONY reportedly announces another custom storage format. It is called the Optical Disc Archive and it is likely that it uses some sort of cassette with a great number of Blu-ray discs crammed inside. A single layer BD-R can store up to 25 GB of data, while a double-layer BD-R will fit up to 50 GB of data. The newer, more advanced formats like the triple-layer BDXL-R discs can hold up to 100 GB of data, while the BD-RE XL or XL4 discs with four layers will fit 128 GB. SONY says that the cassettes will be available in capacities ranging between 300 GB and 1.5TB. This...

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Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs Get Price Cut Ahead of Launch

For some reason or other, Intel has decided to set lower prices than originally planned for its upcoming collection of central processing units, or so it is said.  The folks at VR-Zone claim to have found some information regarding the price tags of the upcoming Intel Ivy Bridge CPUs.  Apparently, the Santa Clara, California-based company cut between $7 and $8 off the tags of each.  That's 5.32 Euro and 6.08 Euro, respectively, according to exchange rates anyway.  The 3.4 GHz Core i5-3570K, for instance, was expected to be tagged at $225 or so (171 Euro, give or take), but now it is set to cost $212 (161 Euro).  Another relevant example is the Core i7-3770K, the high-end chip. Previously expected...

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Windows Phone Tango Update for Nokia Lumia 710 Spotted in China

Nokia has almost finished deploying Windows Phone Mango CR1 (8107) and CR2 (8112) updates for its Lumia phone and is now readying a new major upgrade that will improve its smartphones even further. Windows Phone Tango CR3 (8773+) is almost ready to go live as the update has just been spotted on Nokia’s Care Suite servers. However, it looks like the update will go live in China, followed by a global rollout soon after. According to the folks over at WPCentral, the ROM build that has just popped up on Navifirm is 1600.3029.8773.12111 and will soon be pushed to Nokia Lumia 710 units in China. Also known as Windows Phone Tango, this update brings support for 256 MB devices, MMS enhancements and a few bug fixes and overall...

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AMD and PTC Work Together to Boost AMD FirePro Performance

Professional graphics designers now have, or will soon have, an extra reason to consider buying AMD FirePro professional graphics cards when making a workstation. Advanced Micro Devices and product development software maker PTC have announced a partnership for improving Creo performance. More precisely, they intend to make 3D transparency in PTC Creo Parametric 2.0 run up to 900% faster. Similarly, they believe that it is possible to boost shaded 3D frame rates and interactivity by over four times. Coupled with the optimizations in the Catalyst Pro drivers, this should lead to better workflow, performance and reliability on all FirePro adapters. "PTC and the AMD FirePro team have collaborated to deliver Creo graphics...

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Asus Padfone, Transformer Pad Infinity and Transformer Pad 300 Get Priced in Europe

Asus Padfone has been previously launched in Taiwan and is expected to go on sale on April 20 for prices ranging between 465 EUR (610 USD) and 745 EUR (980 USD). Early this week, Asus launched its Padfone, Transformer Pad 300 and Transformer Pad Infinity 700 in Italy and put a price on all three devices, which will probably be similar in all European countries. According to the folks over at NotebookItalia, Asus Padfone will be available for purchase for 700 EUR (915 USD), but the deal also included the tablet dock (Padfone station).  However, the keyboard dock will be retailed as a separate accessory for 149 EUR (195 USD). There’s no word on the headset stylus yet, but there’s a high chance this one will be sold separately...

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14nm “Broadwell” Intel SoC Coming in 2014-2015

We've spoken about 14nm-based chips before, but now we get to look at a “true” Intel system-on-chip device, one that will further integrate the platform-controller hub (PCH) with the CPU.  According to ComputerBase.de, Intel is definitely approaching the time when it can launch a system-on-chip device which routs over 90% of the system I/O through the CPU socket.  In other words, the product will be a “true” SoC, although it will demand a socket change.  Broadwell will be the follow-up to the Haswell architecture, which will have already implemented support for DDR4 memory and better graphics (Crystalwell Technology).  That said, the 14nm-based chip will have a multi-chip module design, which means that...

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Microsoft Unveils Four Windows 8 SKUs

Windows 8, the next version of Microsoft’s popular operating system, will arrive on shelves with increased flexibility to fit user’s needs, and this applies to its various editions as well.  Following a long series of rumors on the number and variety of Windows 8 SKUs that Microsoft will make available later this year, the Redmond-based software giant stepped up and provided us with all the necessary details on the matter.  First, we should note that Windows 8 has been confirmed as the official product name for the upcoming x86/64 editions of Windows. There will be two Windows flavors loaded on all PCs and tablets that are powered by x86 processors (both 32 and 64 bit), namely Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. The...

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