7 Is a Lucky Number!

Tomorrow is my science modal exam but I stole a few seconds so that I could finally announce this-
INTEL HAS LAUNCHED IT'S FIRST REAL CONSUMER QUAD-CORE DESKTOP PROCESSOR!!!!!!!!!
The new 'i7' series of processors are real quad-core processors!
It ranges from 2.66 to 2.93Ghz..............and that is just for the 'normal' i7[ie-not the extreme version!!!]
It features 8MB cache.Each core is made of 45-nm transistors, like the Core2 Quad.The difference is-unlike the core2 quad, which uses 2 dual core processors in a single package, the i7 is a real quad-core processor, with 4 cores on a single block of silicon.
Think the regular i7's speed is cool?Guess what?
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The extreme edition speed is- 3.2 Ghz!X4!!!!
All i7s feature HT technology!!
Yes, makes your computer think it has 8 cores!!!
HT technology also improves performance by letting more applications connect to the same core, keeping the cores well occupied.
This will be some Phenomenal competition for AMD's-well, Phenom!!!
This processor has more than enough to satisfy any gamer out there.You video editors should be especially happy, it encodes video like lightning, faster than any other processor in the market.
Lets see it keep coming!

'i'ronic to the iPhone

I apologise for my earlier post about the iPhone, I guess some factors have managed to change my opinion about the iphone- for worse.
Yes, the iPhone looks like its got almost every feature imaginable in a high-end, expensive phone but all its features are pretty elementary.
Take the camera for example, that's what is most upsetting on the 'upgraded' iPhone 3G, since it first of all retains the predecessor's 2 megapixel sensor, which is nothing much considering the fact that most smartphones come with atleast 3.2MP.The worst part-it still cannot even record video!?
The iPhone 3G got GPS but even this is basic since it does not have voice navigation.
Even though it has got 3G, it has no secondary video call camera in front.
All these features are absolutely necessary in a good phone.I still love the multitouch facility, accelerometer and all that though....!!!
Hope Apple would fix all this by introducing an iPhone 3.5G or something, 3.5G technology should hit the world soon!
Just keep waiting till then....I guess!

Sorry For The Delays!

I've been encountering all sorts of fancy problems lately-both my 128MB RAMs failed, got 512MB [2x 256MB],one of those too failed, some weird internet problems prevented me from logging in to my account, then my exams began, the list goes on.My blogs most probably will be few and far between till my 10th gets over.:'(
I'll keep this thing up to date on pretty important or groundbreaking info anyway.Hope I get the time!

ATI doesn't 'Flop' these Radeons!

Just six months ago, I would have rolled my eyes on hearing the name 'ATI'.Now however, it raises my eyebrow, to say the least!
ATI's latest offering, the Radeon HD 4850 and 4870 touches speeds of teraflops!
What is a teraflop?Basically a measure of a computer's performance.If you think your calculator is fast, it operates at just about 1o FLOPS[FLoating Operations Per Second].1 teraflop =1000000000000FLOPS!!!Really fast!
The HD 4870 uses DDR5 interface, which is three times better than DDR3!!!
This is made possible thanks to ATI's tie up with AMD.ATi can now consume AMD's resources- money, processors, all.
These GPUs come in pretty cheap too, best of all!They handle DirectX 10.1.
Intel's larrabee too should be coming around soon, we have to see what that offers.........
Till then, these monsters of the HD 4 series should give some sleepless nights for rivals....if any!
Games never looked this good!!!

$200 iPhone!!!

Two things I didn't like about the iPhone initially were- 1)it's asking price and 2) lack of 3G despite it's high price.
Apple is all set to change all that, with the latest iPhone- the 3G.The new iPhone is priced at just $199!!Remarkable!
The new iPhone '3G' is half the price of the previous 2.5G entry-level one.As its name suggests-it even has 3G [Third-Generation] capabilities, allowing ultra-fast Internet surfing, downloads chatting, just to mention a few!!!
It's battery life.Best of all- it even comes with GPS!
It's going to be brought to India by Airtel and Vodafone.You won't get it's full potential till someone introduces 3G to India though.One slight let-down is the fact that it still doesn't have a front-facing secondary camera for easier 3G chatting, unlike it's rival- the Nokia N95 etc.
The 8 GB model is the one selling for $199, while the 16 GB is $299 [essentially-$200 and $300].
This is great news, considering how expensive it was when it was just launched.You'll have to wait till July 11 to go grab one though.
Now we can say- 'I phone, You Phone, We All Phone!!!'[cheaply, most importantly!].

No Dangerous Wild Cat This!

AMD has released their 'Puma' range of notebook processors.The all familiar AMD Turion was pretty hopeless against the really powerful Centrino Duo.
Strangely, I've heard that the puma range will not be able to match the Centrino range anyway?!?!Whats the use of bringing out a new range of processors then, if it can't even beat what its rival already has?!This doesn't even save power compared to the Turion range either!It uses 65-nm transistors, which was offered by Intel ages ago.This means it doesn't stand a chance against Intel, who now uses 45-nm ones.Speed, energy efficiency all go to Centrino.
Then again, the Puma does have better graphics capabilities than Centrino's current 'Santa-Rosa' platform, with better Direct X 10 capabilities.
All in all, I still think Centrino is better.

HD? Full HD?? XHD???All described here!

You must be going nuts, hearing all these terms everywhere-TVs, GPUs, Disk players and so on.
What does all this mean?Read on.
When you watch your regular cable TV or VCD, the quality of picture that you see is in SD or Standard Defenition.This has 640 vertical 'lines' of small dots called 'pixels' and 480 horizontal ones[The number of such lines is the called the resolution of the TV,in this case-640x480].This makes a good quality picture but not as well defined as what we see around us.Let us keep this as the basis for comparing the others listed below-
HDTV [also-HD ready]
This has more lines- 1080 vertical lines and 768 horizontal ones[1080x768].This provides more detail in what you watch, about 3.5 times more detailed than what SDTV offers.This is still not as good as what our eyes can see.
Full HD
This comes with 1920 vertical lines and 1080 horizontal ones[1920x1080].This can show images that are 5 times more detailed than SDTV.You can see snowflakes, grains of sand and other fine things much more clearly.This is very close to all the eye can see, but still is not all.
Extreme High Defenition[XHD][2560x1600]
This is THE best available right now.This has 2560 vertical lines and 1600 horizontal lines for, true to its name, extreme detail!This offers about 7.5 times the detail of SDTV!!!As of now, this is mainly for over-the-top computers with latest graphics cards, software etc.

Its just like using a thick tipped felt pen and a fine tipped pen or pencil for a drawing, the pencil's demarcations will be a lot more clearer than that made by a felt pen.The pencil image will be sharper and clearer.
Basically what all this means is your pixel size will be different.the smaller the pixels, the finer the image you see.
Higher resolutions enable better contrast between colours, sharper, more precise images and better detail.Movies and games appear more realistic, engrossing etc.
I hope you got an idea of what all this means now!

Core2 Quad....x2!!

Yeah!Intel's latest motherboard has arrived, with slots for two quad-core processors like the Core2 Quad and multiple GPU capbilities as well!
I dont really like the idea though, at least not for Core2 Quad processors, which are not even really quad-core.You will have 8 cores on your PC, but not 8 core performance.It would be best to wait for a real quad-core proc to arrive and then you may consider using two of them on a Skulltrail but otherwise it's gonna be a waste.If you think you will really put all the cores to good use, then go ahead but I dont recommend it otherwise.Read about the Tyan motherboard for AMD[16 cores?overdrive! ] which I wrote for further reasons not to go for this.
This could be so that Intel could compete with some of AMD's latest processors.This could be interesting to be future ready though!

Blu-Ray Reigns Supreme!

Yep, the winner of the format war has been announced, Blu-ray has won over HD-DVD.

This occured when Toshiba, the backbone of HD-DVD called it quits, obviously leaving Blu-ray to nab it all.Some movie company also stopped production of movie titles on HD-DVD too, I forget which one though, sorry!

The Blu-ray[25GB] is better in terms of storage, having about 10GB more than HD-DVD[approx 15Gb] and then there's the ultimate- the dual-layer Blu-ray disk, with a whopping 50 GB worth of storage!!!!!Naturally, Blu-ray is more expensive than HD-DVD though.All that extra space will be needed, considering the size of todays HD movies.

Chances are though, it'll be a while before Blu-rays become common.BD players are priced pretty high for now.The Sony PS3 is a good bet, it even comes with a bluetooth remote, i.e.- you don't have to point it directly at the PS3 to give a command!!!Typical of Sony to come up with such outta-this-world ideas! PS3 aside, there are others like LG, Samsung, Pioneer Etc, Etc.Most probably, people are going to take a while to get accustomed to BDs.

This makes the path into the HD era more straightforward & confusion free finally!

Nvidia 9-series has landed!

It has memory ranging from 256MB all the way upto 1GB!The prformance gains are marginal, I hear.Only the top-end 9800GX2 is slightly better than the all familiar 8800.It is somewhat faster too.Its also capable of XHD, or Extreme High Defenition, which is even more detailed than Full-HD.I still feel they could make it a lot better.It is a lot like a rebadged 8-series.It is kind of upsetting as I expected a lot more than this.Not GDDR4 or anything, this.
So dont jump to get one....yet.
I guess we could wait for a better 9900 GTX to come up soon....!

Intel Centrino 45nm unveiled!

Centrino now takes advantage of Intel's 45-nano meter transistors, with pretty cool results!!
Most importantly, power consumption has gone down.It features slightly higher clock rates and more Level 2 cache[upto 6MB!].These are labelled the 8[T8100,T8300] and 9 series[T9300,T9500].Best part is-high clock processors are cheaper than before.

Nvidia's 8800 goes mobile!

Nvidia's flagship GPU, the 8800 is gonna be available for laptops now!
This doesn't come with the 768 MB that its desktop counterpart offers, but still offers a really modest 512 MB.Also, companies like Dell offers SLI too on their XPS M1730 gaming laptop, giving a total of 1 whole GB of graphics memory, on a portable notebook!!!Coupled with some powerful Centrino duo processors, your games will look simply AWEsome!!
This is SO cool isn't it?

PS3 'Becomes' 40!The Big Daddy-120!!

No, not 40 years old, I'm talking about the new 40GB version of the PS3!
This is simply awesome.The always powerful but pricey PS3 has finally gone low enough for shallow-pocket buyers to consider.This could easily make it one of the most value-for-money multimedia entertainment solutions available right now, considering it has a Blu-Ray drive and HD capabilities.
The price has gone down from [approx, for 60GB] Rs 32,000 to Rs 24,990!
Also since Blu-Ray has won the format war, I might just say Microsoft's Xbox 360 is gonna take a pretty decent hit...
The PS3 when compared to the Xbox or Nintendo Wii, is good value taking into consideration the stuff you get by spending the extra money.
ALSO, it seems there is a 120GB PS3 also coming up!That is much needed, since 60GB [that too a hard disk] for a multimedia device is nothing to brag about.I honestly feel it could use 320GB, if not more!
The 40GB is a great buy right now.
What PS3 now needs the most I feel, is-A SLIMLINE VERSION!A low profile PS3 would look just deadly.
Till then, lets just enjoy what is already available!

45 nm Core2 Extreme!

It used to be 'Extreme'ly powerful, now its extremely small as well!!
The Core2 Extreme QX9650 has arrived, now with 45 nm transistors.
This means better energy efficiency, more power and in general-better utilisation of space, as a lot more of 45nm transistors can be embedded on a given silicon wafer than 65nm ones, thus contributing to better performance on the same space.
Intel hasn't done this too early, since AMD is hot on their heels with the Phenom 9000 series, the real quad-core chip.
There is also a QX9770 and QX9775,the former having a 3.2Ghz clock, and an earth shattering 1600Mhz FSB!!!Too cool isn't it?Hope they bring out another with 2000Mhz FSB next!!!
Lets hope they keep it coming!

Long time, no see......

You will not see much of me in the coming months, I've got my final exams comin up.I know I am a bad blogger, and I apologize.I just dont have much time.I like a blog to be neat, which of course, takes time!So I'll give it my best shot.
Stay tuned!

"voici'n the Phenom"!!

Not poison and venom, here its the new AMD Phenom range!
AMD has unveiled their quad-core on a single die solution!The quad-core is the '9-series'.This will pose some serious competition for the Intel Core2 Quad and Extreme line up.It will have great energy efficiency, and excellent performance too.It's clock rate is suprising, for a single die solution-upto 2.5Ghz!Cache is low, just 512 kb X 4.
There is also the 8-series, consisting of-triple core processors?!?!? :-o
That's novel, albeit crazy!Usually, we put the number of cores just like RAM, in designs of 2,4,8,16,32 etc so this is weird!Wonder if Intel also decides to introduce something like this soon...
I get a feeling of deja vu here... Pentium D and AMD's real dual-core Athlon 64 X2, remember?
So where could Intel's "Core4 Quad" be????!!!!

Silent night, Startling night.....

I was all alone.My parents had gone out to buy provisions.It was relatively cool so no fans were on.I was completing a school project, while listening to music on my iPod connected to a 5.1 channel home theatre.The home theatre is not a high end model or anything but has 4000W P.M.P.O, which is more than enough for me.I attached no external amplifiers or such.
I was listening to Daddy Yankee's song 'Rompe'.For those who don't know the song-towards the end, it fades with some people saying 'who's this?'.I knew the next song was gonna be bad so I went near the iPod, ready to change it.The song faded completely, or so I thought.
Suddenly, I heard someone say 'who's this!' distinctly to my left behind me!!
I spun around, REALLY startled.I thought someone was outside and said that to scare me!Nonetheless, I cautiosly opened the window and looked outside with my flashlight.Nothing.I thought about it, and decided to play the last few seconds of the song.The usual 'who's this' played and faded.Then, distinctly louder but not enough to be heard if any other noises are present, was the real culprit-the last 'who's this' in the recording.It was placed SO strategically- right behind me!!!
I was so focussed on completing my project that I did'nt even consider that the speakers could have played it!!!

Digicam corrupted?Do not fear!

I had this digital camera which got messed up pretty bad, to say the least.I tried many apps to try and get the pictures out.One was a stupid demo version of a software that costs $69.It located the pics, but said I could only retreive them once I buy the full version!
I was furious.I later looked out for good freeware.
Thats when I got PhotoRec.
I downloaded the thing easily[just some 1.2 or 1.5MB!]I scanned the camera with it.It not only found the same photos as the demo one, but also more than the other!!![Ones that I had erased on purpose!]
PhotoRec is good.I give it my recommendation.In case you're planning to search for a download on Google though, it may take some time.Most links are just descriptions of it.So I decided to give u the link to the site which I got it from-
www.artplus.hr/adapps/eng/downloads.htm
If something goes wrong though, DONT put the blame on me!Read other reviews about it, then decide whether it will suits your needs or not.
Happy recovering!!!