Samsung Galaxy S III Official Accessories Press Shots Emerge

Made official earlier this month, Samsung Galaxy S III is expected to arrive in Europe at the end of the month. North American will also have their own version of Galaxy S III, which is slated for a summer release. Although the South Korean handset maker was a bit vague on the North American launch, there's no doubt about the fact that the Galaxy S III will hit shelves in Europe on May 30. However, the Galaxy S III was not the only device launched by Samsung on May 3. It appears that the third generation Galaxy smartphone will come with a slew of accessories, which are meant to make users' life easier while taking advantage of the phone's new features, apps and services. It's not yet clear how many official accessories for...

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Intel’s Thunderbolt Explained - Part I

Back when Intel’s Thunderbolt was announced we had enough insider knowledge to know it was Intel’s attempt to practically expand a system’s add-on capabilities using PCI-Express. The Thunderbolt technology was not a connectivity endeavor. It was a system extension. With USB or FireWire you get a logic connection through a HUB or controller that’s visible to the operating system and has a special BUS through which the data is being transmitted. The data transfer can be just as fast as the BUS would allow it to be and the controller itself would perform just as good as the PCIe lane it’s connected on. This is generally a problem with the fast USB 3.0 controllers of our days. A fast controller might be able to handle four...

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LTE-Enabled Samsung SHV-E170K Coming Soon to South Korea

South Korean carrier KT has just announced the upcoming availability of three LTE-enabled smartphones. Among them, KT mentioned a certain Samsung SHV-E170K handset, which we never heard before. According to the folks over at SammyHub, the SHV-E170K is an Android top-tier smartphone that runs the latest Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Although KT did not reveal the phone’s specs sheet, it appears that the handset is equipped with a dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor clocked at 1.5 GHz.  In addition, the SHV-E170K boasts a larger 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display that supports 540 x 960 pixels resolution. Samsung SHV-E170K comes with dual camera, 5-megapixel rear photo snapper and 1.3-megapixel...

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NVIDIA Releases GeForce 405M GPU

NVIDIA has been weaving a nice spell over the past few months, releasing the GeForce GTX 680 and, more recently, the GTX 670, so it is with great bemusement that we report on the company's newest action. To its credit, the company knew it would leave people confused, if not baffled, when it sent out the newest GPU, so it kept things more or less quiet. Still, this was bound to come out eventually. It just so happens that “eventually” came around faster than anyone had expected this once. We may as well stop beating around the bush and just say it: NVIDIA has released the GeForce 405M graphics processing unit. That's right, even though any Advanced Micro Devices APU, Llano or Trinity, can wipe the floor with any entry-level...

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Micron Confirms Plan to Buy Elpida for $3.75 Billion

It was only a few days ago that we reported on who was left to bid for Elpida and, now, we finally have confirmation: Micron will acquire the company entirely.  From being one of the prime suppliers of semiconductors, Elpida has somehow fallen to the level of bankruptcy very quickly over the past year and a half.  Truly, many people didn't expect the company to ever reach such dire straits, but here we are. Back on February 27, 2012, it filed a petition for commencement of Corporate Reorganization Proceedings with the Tokyo District Court under the Corporate Reorganization Act of Japan.  A bidding process followed, meant to secure a so-called sponsor that would acquire the business and help during the period...

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Tizen-Based Samsung GT-I9500 Boasts Super AMOLED HD Plus Display

With the Galaxy S III announcement, we thought that Samsung will stop releasing top tier phones for a short while. However, it appears that the South Korean company is about to launch a brand new Tizen smartphone. The so-called Samsung GT-I9500 smartphone is the first of its kind to run Tizen OS. The device was offered for free to Tizen devs at a recent event that took place in San Francisco, United States. Although details on the phone’s specs sheet are scarce for the moment, the folks over at Sammobile have learned that the Tizen-based GT-I9500 boasts an impressive Super AMOLED HD Plus capacitive touchscreen display of unknown size (4.6 or 4.8-inch). This is the same kind of display that was rumored for Galaxy S III, but...

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Nokia 305 and 311 Full Touch S40 Feature-Phones Leak

We have been expecting news about Nokia’s first full touch S40 mobile phone for a few days. The first details on the unannounced device emerged last week via a Nokia invitation, which was sent to some Pakistani bloggers. A certain Nokia 306 full-touch S40 mobile phone also leaked a month ago, but details on the configuration were scarce as well: microSD card slot, 1100 mAh Li-Ion battery, rear camera, 2 soft keys, FM Radio, GPRS support and microUSB. Today, the folks over Chinese site Mobile01 got their hands on several live pictures of two feature-phones, which are dubbed Nokia 305 and 311. We expect more details to be unveiled next week at Nokia’s “Next Billion” event, which is set to kick off on May 15, in Pakistan. Stay...

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Apple’s iOS 6 Maps Application Detailed - 3D Street View

Thanks to the acquisition of three companies specializing in mapping technologies, Apple can finally unleash its proprietary Maps application in iOS 6, trusted sources have revealed. Speaking to the people at 9to5mac, a reliable source in and of itself, these sources said the application design is fairly similar to the current Google Maps app running on all iPhones and iPads in iOS 5. Apple’s Maps, however, is described as “a much cleaner, faster, and more reliable experience.” The service is the brainchild of three mapping companies strategically acquired by Apple with intentions to ditch Google’s mapping service. Apple’s will not only be proprietary, and therefore more reliable with respect to iOS, but it will also have...

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Giada Presents the Mini PC Giada A51 Powered by AMD’s Brazos

Mini IT component manufacturer SHENZHEN JIEHE TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT CO., LTD. or just JEHE, better known as Giada, has just launched the Mini PC Giada A51 micro system, on its official website. The Mini PC Giada A51 is using AMD’s Brazos family member E450. This is a low power dual core CPU using two Bobcat cores and a AMD Radeon HD 6320 iGPU. It is manufactured at TSMC using the mature 40 nm manufacturing process and works at a default 1650 MHz frequency in a BGA413 FT1–type socket. To understand just how small Brazos is, it is enough to say that the whole processor is just 19 by 19 millimeters. It comes with just 1 MB or Level 2 cache that’s being split between the two cores, but it is well-endowed with 80 VLIW5 shades...

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ASUS ZenBook UX32VD Officially Priced at $799 USD

The official pricing of Asustek’s highly-anticipated ZenBook UX32VD has reportedly been revealed to be 799 USD. The price is a little bit higher than the desired 599 to 699 USD mark, but the ZenBook tried to compensate with a high quality build and innovative features, such as a 24 GB SSD. The 24 GB SSD is very close to the 20:1 ratio that Intel and WD agree will achieve over 95% cache hit rate. This should prove much better results than Seagate’s overpriced and unimpressive hybrid drives. Overall, using Nvidia’s measly GT620, the new ZenBook is put at disadvantage when compared with traditional notebooks sold at lower price points, but we must state again that the ZenBook UX32VD is a unique product with very good design, along...

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Raspberry Pi Firmware Updater Will Make Your Life Easier

The Raspberry Pi credit-card-sized Linux-loaded ARM computer has been shipping for a little while, and it was enough for developers to see just how frustrating it can be to have to constantly reinstall the firmware.  Since the small device is primarily meant for teaching and experimenting with programming, mishaps can happen, which means that the core software doesn't always come out scot-free.  Developer Hexxeh decided it was time to simplify the reinstall and update process, so he released a small tool that does just that. He doesn't even want anything in exchange for it, so go here and download it if you have one of those critters.  If you still haven't received your order, all we can say is hold on because...

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Nokia Lumia 850 Concept Phone Emerges

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has already released a handful of Windows Phone devices, but some more of them should make it to the shelves in the not too distant future.  Among them, we might see one that closely resembles the Nokia Lumia 850 handsets in the photos attached to this post.  It is only a concept handset for the time being, but it is a good looking one, and could win the hearts of many if indeed manufactured and released.  The concept phone packs a 3.8–inch curved display, while featuring a polycarbonate unibody with edgeless design. Of course, the handset runs under Windows Phone, just as all devices in Nokia’s Lumia series.  The concept comes from BrianMFB, a designer from Luxembourg...

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Intel's Sub-Par Ivy Bridge Cooling Busted

For some reason or other, Intel chose to use common thermal grease between the Ivy Bridge CPUs and their integrated heatspreader (IHS). What people didn't realize was that said grease was of a fairly low quality too.  We should first mention that the temperature Ivy Bridge works at isn't really a hazard, but we have to wonder why Intel allowed this situation to happen. These are high-end, expensive chips, not cheap models where every cut corner counts.  It was back in late April when we reported on that intentional design change that has been acknowledged as the cause behind the operational temperature of Ivy Bridge CPUs. It might not have even been noticed if Sandy Bridge hadn’t run cooler.  Rather than fluxless...

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Gigabyte’s WindForce 3x GeForce GTX670 Video Card Is Official

Well-known Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte has just announced the GeForce GTX 670 WindForce 3X custom video card on its official website. We’ve already seen and talked about the design here. It’s called GV-N670OC-2GD and comes with the company’s quality UltraDurable VGA+ PCB. The PCB has two oz copper layers, along with electrical ripple control, ferrite core chokes, low RDS MOSFETs and Japanese solid-state capacitors. Right form the factory, the card comes moderately pre-overclocked to 980 MHz core, 1058 MHz GPU Boost and the usual 6.00 GHz effective GDDR5 memory frequency. The three fans have a 90-millimeter diameter, and the connectivity side comes with two dual-link DVI ports along with a HDMI and a DisplayPort...

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Windows 8 on ARM Is Flawed, Intel Believes

Windows 8, the next-generation operating system from Microsoft, will be the first to arrive with support for ARM architectures as well, in addition to the x86 architecture that it already runs on.  Dubbed Windows RT, Windows on ARM will pack most of the features that the rest of Windows 8 flavors will include, but it will still lack some important functions.  For example, it won’t bring along support for legacy applications, which will be a bit of a problem for ARM devices, Intel claims.  During a meeting with investors at Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Intel CEO Paul Otellini reportedly suggested that Windows 8 is flawed on ARM devices.  The issue with these ARM PCs is that they won’t...

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LG LS970 (Eclipse 4G LTE) Leaks Online with 2GB of RAM

Last week, South Korean mobile phone maker LG Electronics unveiled to the world a new smartphone powered by Android, the LG Optimus LTE2, the first in the world to pack 2GB of RAM inside.  The handset was made official only for the South Korean market, and LG did not unveil plans to have it available on other markets around the world as well.  However, it appears that the handset vendor might have another smartphone coming to shelves soon with the same amount of RAM, and that it could prove an international device.  Sporting model number LS970, this device is said to arrive on shelves as the LG Eclipse 4G LTE, yet nothing has been confirmed on this for the time being.  However, the guys over at BriefMobile...

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Intel Haswell Mobile Chipsets Revealed

Intel's third-generation of central processing units hasn't even been fully launched yet, but already there is information on the next generation of processors and accompanying chipsets.  For those who haven't guessed it yet, by “next-generation” CPUs we mean the Haswell series, the ones that will even introduce DDR4 support eventually.  Sure, the first Haswell, bound for 2013 release, won't have that asset, but the Haswell-EX series will, starting in 2014.  We've seen the web uncover quite a few other bits and pieces of information about Haswell, down to DirectX 1.1 support and 4th-Level On-Package cache for the GPU.  Most recently though, VR-Zone claims to have learned the names of the chipsets that...

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