BlackBerry 10 L-Series Next to Galaxy Note, Lumia 820 and iPhone 5

Canadian mobile phone maker Research In Motion still has to officially launch its BlackBerry 10 platform and devices running under it, yet new photos with the first such handsets offer us an idea of what it might look like. A BlackBerry 10 L-Series smartphone, which is said to be the first smartphone that RIM will unveil with the new platform loaded on it, has been recently photographed next to popular devices already available on shelves. The smartphone can be seen in the photo above, available courtesy of BBin, next to a Samsung Galaxy Note, a Nokia Lumia 820 smartphone, and an Apple iPhone 5. We have already seen it next to a Lumia 820 device, but now we can see how it stacks up against other top players on the smartphone...

Read more »

Nokia City Lens 1.5 Beta Arrives to WP7 Lumia Devices

A new flavor of the Nokia City Lens application is now available for download for the owners of Windows Phone 7-powered Lumia handsets. The new release takes advantage of the newly introduced LiveSight technology to deliver a more precise and intuitive augmented reality experience to users. Nokia City Lens, the application that Nokia has developed exclusively for its users, is the first in the world to take advantage of the capability. The new Nokia City Lens 1.5 Beta app is the first step that Nokia takes towards delivering a mobile application that fully takes advantage of the power of this technology. Following the testing period, Nokia plans on bringing the app in its final flavor to even more devices running...

Read more »

Biostar Hi-Fi A85W Ready for AMD FM2 APUs

FM2 is the socket that AMD's Trinity accelerated processing units use (APUs), which means that the new mainboard from Biostar is the sort of platform that mid- to high-end PCs will use. Advanced Micro Devices has come a long way in its quest to include all possible instructions and interfaces inside a single processor. Currently, its APUs pack not just the x86 cores and GPU (graphics processing unit), but also the memory controller. That leaves the A85X chipset with the minor role of making the connections between the features above and the rest of the things on the mainboard. This is one of the main reasons why motherboard makers don't always mind adding special features to their products. Indeed, if they didn't,...

Read more »

Xen Cloud Platform 1.6 Now Available for Download

The Xen Cloud Platform, a turnkey open source virtualization solution that provides out-of-the box virtualization and cloud computing, is now at version 1.6. Xen Cloud Platform 1.6 also features the Xen Hypervisor, an API toolstack for cloud, storage and networking solutions. Highlights of Xen Cloud Platform 1.6: XCP now has Storage XenMotion technology which allows users to freely move running virtual machines, without the need for shared storage; User can now relocate a VM's Virtual Disk Image (VDI) without shutting down the VM; Support for Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) has been added; VLAN Scalability improvements have been implemented; Support for Emergency Network Reset and IPv6 Guest function has been added. Check...

Read more »

New Intel Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs Spotted

As odd as it sounds, most of the central processing units from Intel never get more than a passing mention in the press. The Core i3-2348M and i5-3230M CPUs are examples of this. One might say these two don't count, since they have yet to be formally launched. The only reason we know of them is Fujitsu's product listings for Lifebook AH532, N532, NH532 and LH532 notebooks. That is beside the point though. While Intel does have a history of causing a press uproar over its best and brightest chips, the vast majority of them only get discovered by curious tech websites that comb through product spec lists deep within Intel's website. The Core i3-2348M and i5-3230M CPUs were probably never going to get special press releases...

Read more »

Gigabyte GA-C847N and GA-C807N, Two New Mini-ITX Motherboards

Most of the big motherboard announcements were made over the past two months, so now we are left with smaller models, many of which are best suited for HTPCs and other small PCs. Gigabyte has just revealed two such motherboards, called GA-C807N and GA-C847N. Both of them ship with a central processing unit (CPU) already installed. The former features the 1.5 GHz Celeron 807 single-core processor, while the latter gets a 1.1 GHz Celeron 847 dual-core CPU. Both platforms possess two DDR3-1333 memory slots, some SATA ports (four and three, respectively, one with SATA 6.0 Gbps support), Gigabit Ethernet a PCI slot, UEFI dual BIOS, 5.1 channel audio and Ultra Durable 4 Classic.  Prices haven't been revealed, unfortunately....

Read more »

Raspberry Pi Minecraft Edition Runs at a Blazing 40 fps [Video]

Minecraft: Pi Edition was announced a few days ago, at the MineCon convention in Disneyland, Paris, and the first videos are starting to pop-up. This is not your ordinary Minecraft, it's actually the Pocket Edition ported for Raspberry Pi. It was ported a while ago for Android and it already runs on a large number of devices. Minecraft: Pi Edition comes with an extra feature. Users can program the world. The process is quite simple: set up a network connection to the running game and then send text commands to control the world. This means that users can program the game in any language that supports network connections and they can access the game from any computer connected to the Pi. Daniel and Aron from Mojang,...

Read more »

Gigabyte HD Motherboard Family Line

One would think that HDMI and DVI are fairly common sights on the mainboard market now, even together, but Gigabyte does not agree. In fact, the company feels that it is so rare to see the two together that there is enough cause to name an entire series of motherboards after them. Still, since “motherboard featuring both HDMI and DVI” is a chore to blurt out in one breath, Gigabyte chose something simpler. Thus, it was that the HD Series of motherboards came to be. Basically, Gigabyte wants to put an end to the time when HDMI+DVI support is restricted to the high-end market. Given the advanced graphics capabilities of CPUs and APUs, it makes sense for the digital interfaces to become more common. That the company...

Read more »

Rumor: Microsoft to Release Windows Blue, the First Free Windows Ever

Although Windows 8 was launched last month, Microsoft is already giving the final touches to Windows Blue, the new Windows iteration that’s apparently supposed to come with some really huge surprises. Citing sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans, The Verge reports that Windows Blue is going to be released in mid-2013 and will comprise significant UI changes, most likely supposed to address the controversial Windows 8 features. The Redmondians are reportedly planning to make Windows Blue a low-cost or even free operating system, just to make sure all users will make the move to the new OS. The Windows SDK would also be updated to the new release, while Microsoft would encourage developers to create apps for Windows Blue, with...

Read more »