World’s First Dual Mode Touchpad Mouse by Gigabyte

Well-known mainboard manufacturer Gigabyte has just announced the world’s first dual mode touchpad mouse, on its official website.

The company’s novel pointing device is called Xenon and can act both as a touchpad and as a mouse. It comes with Aivia’s Painter software bundles and it uses Gigabyte’s Free-Scrolling Technology. Gigabyte’s Xenon is a wireless mouse with a large touch surface on the upper side. Pushing one of the side buttons will activate Xenon’s touchpad function. The radio signal is specified to work up to a distance of 10 meters and the mouse uses two AAA batteries to power it.

The resolution is a very decent 1000 dpi and report rate is 125 reports per second. Gigabyte’s Xenon dual mode touchpad mouse is covered by a two year warranty and it is compatible with all Microsoft operating systems beginning with Windows 98 and ending with Windows 7.

Gigabyte Xenon Dual Mode Touchpad Wireless Mouse
Images credits to Gigabyte

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Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with 5.5" screen, narrower body confirmed to arrive September

We reported earlier this month that Samsung is currently working on a Galaxy Note sequel, which should be announced and/or released sometime this fall.

According to the first rumors on the unannounced Galaxy Note 2, Samsung plans to put one of its newest Exynos system-on-a-chip (SoC) solution inside this smartphone. In addition, the device should boast a large 5.5-inch Super AMOLED touchscreen display, which might be of the same quality as Galaxy S III's PenTile screen. It's been also rumored that Galaxy Note 2 will be equipped with 1.5GB of RAM, but given the fact that some Galaxy S III models are already shipping with 2GB of RAM onboard, this won't make it stand out. Today, GSMArena claims that the 5.5-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display has been confirmed by a trusted source close to the matter.

Moreover, the cited source also claims that the Galaxy Note 2 will come with 2GB of RAM instead of the previously rumored 1.5GB of RAM. Apparently, the next Galaxy Note device will be a bit narrower than the original model and will feature a Galaxy S III-like form factor and design. The smartphone will be powered by Samsung's Exynos 5250 chipset with dual-core ARM 15 processor, but this information has yet to be confirmed. No word on the amount of megapixels of the main camera, but rumor has it that Galaxy Note 2 will boast an 8-megapixel photo snapper on the back with improved sensor. More importantly, Samsung decided to move the release date of the Galaxy Note 2 to September, though previous rumors claimed the smartphone will arrive in October.

The reason behind the South Korean handset maker's decision seems to be the fact that Apple plans to launch the iPhone 5 in October, so Samsung want to grab as many customers as possible before the Cupertino-based company comes forward with its latest product.

Samsung Galaxy Note

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AMD to Sell Intel Servers with Red Hat Certification

Some months ago, AMD finalized the acquisition deal regarding SeaMicro, a company building ultra-dense servers using Intel’s Atom and Xeon processors. Now, AMD will use SeaMicro’s technology and experience in different servers based on its own processors.

It is quite obvious why AMD invested in SeaMicro and why Intel was not happy about the deal. On the other hand, SeaMicro, now part of AMD, already has serious products designed with Intel’s processors, and it also has related contracts on which it has to deliver.

Therefore, AMD is in a strange situation now where it puts out press releases about Red Hat certifications for servers containing Intel processors. Obviously, the words “Intel”, “Xeon” or “Sandy Bridge” are nowhere to be found in AMD’s press release.

Future AMD Server Based on SeaMicro Technology
Image credits to AMD

Future AMD Server Based on SeaMicro Technology Presentation
Image credits to AMD

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PowerColor Single-Slot AMD Radeon HD 7750 Video Card

Traditional AMD video card manufacturer PowerColor has just launched the new Radeon HD 7750 video card on its official website. The new graphics adapter features a LowProfile PCB and a modest single-slot cooling system.

The card is built on AMD’s “Cape Verde” graphics processing unit that comes with a very small 123-square millimeter die size, containing 1.5 billion transistors. The default GPU speed is 800 MHz when working in full load 3D mode. In 2D mode, the frequency of the GPU will drop to a low 300 MHz. The 1024 MB of GDDR5 memory is clocked at 4500 MHz when in 3D mode, but it drops to 600 MHz when working in 2D.  The memory and the GPU work on a tight 128 bit BUS, so playing games with very high resolutions will be a little tricky. The “Cape Verde XT” GPU is part of AMD’s GCN architecture and comes with much improved GPU compute performance. The GPU has 512 unified shader processors, 32 texturing units and 16 ROPs.

Compared with the AMD Radeon HD 7770 GHz edition, this is a cut-down “Cape Verde” GPU, with two of its 10 CUs (compute units) disabled and a 20% lower clock speed. In our opinion, it would have been better if the cooling system were completely fanless, but we have a feeling that a larger copper heatsink would have been more expensive to make than the use of a 40-millimeter fan. On the other hand, fanless cooling designs usually come with a modest price premium, as they do offer increased acoustic comfort and must also provide an extra charge, as these cards are more likely to come in RMA. Pricing has not been made available yet.

PowerColor Radeon HD 7750 Single Slot LowProfile Video Card
Image credits to PowerColor

PowerColor Radeon HD 7750 Single Slot LowProfile Video Card box
Image credits to PowerColor

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