Google Maps Gets Updated High Resolution Satellite Imagery in Over 100 Countries

Google has updated satellite and aerial imagery in Google Maps for quite a few locations. There is new high-resolution satellite imagery in more than 100 countries as well as aerial images in the US and a few elsewhere. If you've got photographic memory or the update just happens to be for a place you check out a lot or recently, you may be able to spot the changes in Google Maps and Google Earth, but don't beat yourself up if you don't. Even though there is new imagery for pretty much every corner of the Earth, the update is a usual one covering only a portion of the planet's surface, all of which is available in Google Maps. To check out exactly where the new images are, you can download the KML file provided for Google...

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AMD Powers ASUS Laptop, K53TK

For some reason, Advanced Micro Devices didn't score many design wins with its Fusion architecture, even though the Llano accelerated processing units weren't half bad. Now, everyone seems to be anticipating the Trinity APUs, as if the Llano barely had any significance. It goes to show how something can go through life without getting the recognition it deserves. Fortunately, not all companies have turned their backs on the APUs. In fact, ASUS has only just finished preparing the K53TK-SX0A8 laptop, or so PC Watch says. The notebook measures 15.5 inches and relies on the AMD A8-3520M quad-core, whose base clock is 1.6 GHz and which boasts the Radeon HD 6620G graphics. As if the integrated GPU wasn't enough on its own,...

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Script: Mosaiqy

Mosaiqy is a new jQuery plugin for creating grid layout image galleries. But unlike other grid image albums, instead of showcasing the image inside the modal, Mosaiqy shifts images around and presents the chosen photo right under the thumbnail. The plugin supports static images and photos retrieved from online services like Flickr, Instagram and Panoramio. Mosaiqy also supports image captions, shown for both the thumbnail state and the full image version. Developers can follow Mosaiqy's development via its GitHub project page here. And to get them started on their own implementations, a variety of demos are included with the download package. Download Mosaiqy here. ...

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Fist AMD “Trinity” and “Brazos 2.0” Chip Shipment Pictured

Now that Diablo III is getting ever so close, Blizzard fans everywhere will have something that will definitely play the game at, probably, the best value on the market. AMD’s Senior PR Manage Phil Hughes has recently posted a picture of AMD’s first shipment of “Trinity” and “Brazos 2.0” CPUs, on AMD’s official blog. “Trinity” is AMD’s not-so-secret weapon against Intel’s HD4000 and especially against Nvidia’s new GeForce 620M GPU. From a meeting we had with Nvidia last evening, we think that AMD’s iGPU in “Trinity” will likely overpower Nvidia’s lowest-end mobile Kepler GPU.  While the 600M series are performing wonderfully and are very efficient, even if they’ve managed to get so many design wins, AMD’s “Trinity” will...

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Rumor Mill: Windows Phone 8 Will Come to Lumia Phones

Some of the latest reports around the web suggested that Microsoft was testing the upcoming Windows Phone 8 platform on devices provided by Nokia.  Additionally, there are also those who suggest that Microsoft and Nokia are planning to deliver an OS upgrade for the company’s Windows Phones, and some new reports on this have just emerged.  Apparently, all of Nokia’s existing Windows Phones will receive an upgrade to Windows Phone 8 Apollo, even if nothing has been officially announced on the matter for the time being.  Owners of Lumia 800, 710, 610 and 900 certainly rejoice learning this, though they should take the news with a grain of salt for now.  João Luis, Nokia evangelist & developer, is confident...

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Gigabyte WindForce 5X, Five-Fan Mayhem

We thought N-Control's gamepad would be enough for us to gawk today, but Gigabyte trumped that, and more.  If you want a GeForce GTX 680 and have a big windows on your case, it makes sense that you'd look for one that stands out.  Gigabyte may have gone a little overboard when it made the WindForce 5X cooler though.  That's right, the beast has five fans. Five 40 mm fans that sit on the top edge of the card instead of the side.  The goal is to ventilate hot air in a single direction, but we can't help but wonder at the higher chances of the board getting defective (five fans means five times the chance of the fan to burn out).  Then again, we can't argue with results, and nothing screams “hardcore...

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Lenovo ThinkPad X230 Pictured, AccuType Keyboard

Lenovo will release a successor to the Thinkpad X220 at some point, one that bears the name of X230 and a chiclet AccuType keyboard.  Opinions might be divided on whether or not the keyboard is a good thing, but we like it.  Some of us also like the clickpad with the buttons “at the top” instead of the bottom, although we understand if some would find it awkward after getting used to the regular type.  Anyway, the ultraportable laptop will probably measure 12.5 inches in screen diagonal, like the X220.  There may also be a touchscreen involved, although the highest likelihood is for Lenovo to have such a panel as an optional feature.  A ThinkPad X230T will appear at some point too, sporting a...

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MSI GE60 and GE70 Gaming Laptops Launched

Today, MSI has announced the company’s new line of gaming notebooks, on its official website. The two models unveiled are the 15” GE60 and the 17.3” GE70. Both laptops feature Intel’s yet unreleased Ivy Bridge CPU and Nvidia’s GeForce GT650M discrete graphics card that is part of the Kepler-based, 600M series. While we cannot give out too many details about the CPU, we think that, by now, most of you know that the Ivy Bridge architecture will bring significant power consumption reductions, next to the expected performance improvements. On the 3D side, Nvidia’s GeForce GT650M has 2 GB of dedicate graphics memory and can reach a score greater than 10,000 in 3D Mark Vantage benchmark using the Performance setting of Futuremark’s...

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Microsoft Enables Management of Windows on ARM for “BYO” Scenarios

One of the challenges that IT pros face today is the increasing number of personal devices that employees are bringing to the enterprise environment.  Ranging from smartphones to tablets and other portable PC form factors, these devices are being used more and more at the workplace, and require access to sensitive corporate data.  Thus, managers need to find solutions that would offer them the possibility to efficiently overview the extent to which they can control these devices.  This is one of the main focuses in the development of Windows 8 and, specifically, the designing of Windows on ARM, Jeffrey Sutherland, a program manager lead in our Management Systems group, explains in a recent blog post.  “Our...

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Team Group's Xtreem Memory Line Works Well with Ivy Bridge

Team Group has made it more than clear (not that we didn't see it coming) that motherboard makers are not the only ones set to benefit from the arrival of new CPUs.  It is expected that people will buy H77, Z75 and Z77 motherboards en masse as soon as the launch happens (on April 23, probably).  Still, while there is no shortage of motherboard announcements, memory makers are taking a stand too.  Team Group has taken its turn, but instead of revealing some specific product, it announced that all its modules and kits would work with the new chipsets.  Of course, it went without saying that there would be backwards compatibility, so there was hardly a need to shout this from the rooftops.  The...

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ASUS Intros GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP Graphics Card

Just because we know the GeForce GTX 690 dual-GPU card is approaching doesn't mean that there aren't going to be more single-GPU announcements.  After all, custom card builders seem to have fallen into a sort of pattern where they first launch reference models and then get more and more creative.  ASUS is in one of its most creative stages right now, having brought forth the GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP.  As is easy enough to guess, it is a factory-overclocked version of NVIDIA's Kepler-based adapter, one that has a new cooler too, among other things.  We'll get the frequencies out of the way first, since they are enough to cement this thing's status as overpowered beast.  The GPU works at...

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ASUS TUF Sabertooth Z77 Motherboard Formally Launched

ASUS has unveiled one of its highest-end motherboards, part of the established TUF series and outfitted with the Thermal Armor cooling technology that seldom gets called upon. Thermal Armor is a military-grade cooling solution that uses a convection hole design and optimizes VRM cooling, as well as pretty much everything else. Thus, on the Sabertooth Z77, only the CPU socket is left bare, since CPUs have their own coolers and it makes sense that there would be as much space as possible, knowing how huge some air coolers are. In addition to the heat dissipating traits, the Thermal Armor is backed by a Thermal Radar, whose Fan Overtime feature keeps a pair of turbo fans running for a while after system shutdown. Moving on,...

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Nokia Shoots 808 PureView Promo Video with the Phone Itself

Soon, a new Symbian-based mobile phone will become available for purchase with Nokia’s logo on it, namely the 808 PureView.  Announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, the handset packs a 41-megapixel photo snapper on the back, the most advanced camera on a smartphone.  To show some of the most important capabilities of this device, Nokia came up with a special promo video, which has been shot using the phone itself and which can be seen embedded above.  Not only does the device offer fast photo shooting capabilities, but it can also record high-resolution videos and deliver an impressive level of detail in each image.  “Watch this video to learn more out about this ground-breaking smartphone and its 41MP image sensor. Zoom. Shoot....

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Google Street View Live Now in Israel

Google has started rolling out Street View in Israel, a couple of days before it was set to. Imagery is now live in several cities in Google Maps. Despite setbacks, Google has been expanding Street View to more places. It took longer to get Israel online as the approval process was a bit tougher than in other places. Google got approval to shoot in the country last summer and the first imagery is now live online. Places like Jerusalem, Haifa, Tel Aviv and others can now be visited in Google Maps. Google announced intentions to shoot in Israel early last year, and it was engaged in several months of negotiations to get to this point. The company agreed to blur faces and number plates as well as remove images on request, but...

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Record Number of AMD Trinity Laptops on the Way

AMD has recently held its conference call with financial analysts and has given some indication of where it stands in regard to its upcoming series of accelerated processing units.  Advanced Micro Devices could certainly do with some more interest on the part of those companies known for making PCs, especially mobile ones.  Despite the fact that the Llano series of accelerated processing units (APUs) weren't bad at all, they weren’t used in many notebooks.  Even the ASUS K53TK that we have only just spotted is more of an indication of how few AMD-based laptops there are.  Granted, AMD didn't really have its sights seriously set on the mobile segment before Fusion, but still.  It is with budding...

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iPhone 5 to Feature In-Cell Touch Panels, Sources Say

Japan-based part suppliers are scrambling to meet the demands of Apple Inc. whose next iPhone is said to employ in-cell touch panels manufactured by Sharp and Toshiba Mobile Display. Sources in Apple’s supply chain are telling Digitimes that “Apple's new iPhone, which is expected to be released in the third quarter of 2012, is likely to adopt in-cell touch panels rolled out by Sharp and Toshiba Mobile Display (TMD).” Apple seemingly put its orders on hold until it became convinced that both Sharp and TMD would improve their yield rates in mass manufacturing of iPhone touch panels. The sources reportedly indicated that “Sharp will produce the in-cell panels at its 5.5G lines, while TMD will utilize its 6G lines for production,”...

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Samsung Galaxy S III Shows Up in Vietnam (Video)

Although Samsung is strictly safeguarding the Galaxy S III’s design, most of its specs are not a secret anymore. Leaks and rumors from sources in the industry that already tested the device offered us a pretty good idea on Galaxy S III’s specs sheet. We already know that Samsung is trying to conceal the final product’s design by putting the Galaxy S III components in generic cases. This is why the alleged Galaxy S III photos that leaked online in the past few weeks look a bit different. Vietnamese site Tinhte, known for previously leaking the Samsung Galaxy Tab, has just posted a short video and some photos of the Samsung Galaxy S III in action. If you don’t know Vietnamese, have no fear as the video has English subtitles...

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SAMSUNG Announces New "Mirrorless" High Quality Digital Cameras

South Korean company SAMSUNG has sent out a press release about its new line of high-quality D-SLR like cameras. These cameras offer a very good image quality, that’s most likely better than NIKON’s D3100 and rival the recently announced D3200. They are smaller than the usual D-SLR camera and benefit from the “mirrorless” design. In fact, these are basically MILC type of cameras, meaning Mirrorless Interchangeable-Lens Camera, but SAMSUNG likes to call them CSC cameras, as in Compact System Camera. The lenses are interchangeable, but different manufacturers use different mounting types. Leica uses the M mount, Olympus and Panasonic use the Micro Four Thirds type, SONY has the E-mount, NIKON uses Nikon 1, Fujitsu uses the X-mount,...

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Nokia to Bring Popular Symbian Features to Lumia Devices

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia had a disastrous first quarter financial performance, influenced by its transition to Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system and by an increasingly competitive smartphone landscape.  The company sold fewer Windows Phones than it originally expected, and experienced a significant drop in sales of Symbian devices as well.  Nokia announced sales of 11.9 million smart devices in the first three months of the year, a drop of 51 percent when compared to the 24.2 million units it sold in the first quarter of the last year and a 39 percent decrease compared to the 19.6 million devices it moved in Q4 2011.  “We are navigating through a significant company transition in an industry...

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AMD Is OK with Current 28nm Chip Supply

At this point, we've written about the supposed state of TSMC's 28nm process so many times that we may as well see what those directly affected think of the matter.  Truth be told, we've already done this, as far as NVIDIA is concerned anyway, hence the general impression that TSMC is not doing as well as it should.  After all, if there were no shortages of 28nm chips (GPUs in this case), NVIDIA would not need to be looking for other manufacturers.  Still, there are parties who keep claiming that TSMC's 28nm chip yields are just fine, and Advanced Micro Devices might be one of them.  Based on the words of a company executive during the conference call with financial analysts, AMD has all the 28nm graphics...

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NVIDIA's Teaser Really Is of the GeForce GTX 690

We mentioned that NVIDIA had posted a teaser on its Facebook page and, now, we know what product is on the way.  Then again, it is not as if we did not have our suspicions. Everyone did. After all, leaks and rumors haven't been hard to trip over in the past few months.  The folks at SweClockers are the ones who got the closest thing to a confirmation: NVIDIA is getting ready to release the GeForce GTX 690 graphics card.  That's right, the first Kepler-based dual-GPU graphics adapter will be here soon.  And by soon we mean around two weeks. According to the newest report, the formal launch will take place by May 5, 2012.  That doesn't necessarily mean the event will occur on that day and no other,...

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