ASUS Eee Pad Transformer shows up wearing Honeycomb to CeBIT (video)

Here's a trend we can get behind: ASUS and others are remixing existing, yet-to-be-released Android tablets with Honeycomb where it makes sense to do so. The Eee Pad MeMO, for instance, is now being promised with a Qualcomm port of the platform in time for its June launch -- and along those same lines, the company is showing its Eee Pad Transformer here at CeBIT with a Honeycomb upgrade. Unlike the MeMO, the Transformer is just a straight Tegra 2 setup like the already-launched Xoom, which is likely why they were able to get it loaded on here and functioning relatively well in time for the show. The build ASUS has here doesn't appear to be final -- the Android Market is missing, for example -- but what was there seemed to be running smoothly; considering the internals, we'd expect no less. Follow the break for video (pardon the lack of audio -- there was some talking going on that we found distracting).
Article From: Engadget

Radeon HD 6990 pictured, GeForce GTX 590 rumored for PAX East 2011 reveal

Multiple cores are old hat, particularly in the GPU world where you can have hundreds of simultaneous processing units working in concert, but multiple GPUs on the same PCB, that's still exciting territory (not least because of the crazy thermal and power requirements that go with it). AMD and NVIDIA are set to clash horns on this field of battle once again, fishing for mindshare as much as they are for high premium sales, with the Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590, respectively. The former has already slipped out of the shadows of mystery to reveal a size slightly longer than an A4 sheet of paper, while the latter is being rumored for an unveiling at the PAX East 2011 gamer gathering. Expected GTX 590 specs include 1024 total CUDA cores, 3GB of onboard RAM with dual 384-bit memory controllers, and three DVI outputs for some single-card 3D Vision Surround gaming. This year's PAX East is kicking off on March 11th and AMD is also looking very close to launching its part, so you should need no more than a couple of weeks' worth of patience before everything about the latest and greatest from both camps is known.

Bright Side Of News Hexus, Donanim Haber

Article From: Engadget

AMD Radeon HD 6970M reviewed: major leap from HD 5870M, not quite a GTX 485M

What has 960 shaders, two gigabytes of dedicated GDDR5 memory with throughput of 115.2GBps, and the ability to churn 680 million polygons each and every second? Yes, the Radeon HD 6970M. AMD's fastest mobile chip to date has been doing the review rounds recently and the response has been unsurprisingly positive. Most modern games failed to trip up the 6970M even at 1920 x 1080 resolution, though the usual suspects of Crysis and Metro 2033 did give it a little bit of grief. All in all, the leap from the HD 5870M was significant, although NVIDIA's still relatively new GeForce GTX 485M has managed to hold on to its crown as the most powerful GPU on the mobile front. Benchmarks, architectural details, battery life tests (what battery life?), and value-adding enhancements await at the links below.

Hot Hardware, Notebook Check, Tom's Hardware

Article From:  Engadget

NVIDIA and AMD To Battle For Dual-GPU Supremacy Starting March?

Even though there are only a small number of users that are able to afford high-end graphic cards - let alone dual-GPU cards - but they are still precious customers or both NVIDIA and AMD. So, things should be interesting very soon for these elite customers and general graphic cards enthusiasts alike as it has been rumoured that both companies will be launching their dual-GPU cards very close to each other starting from next month onwards.

According to the rumour, NVIDIA will be leading the pack by launching the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 590Radeon HD 6990 – that made a surprise appearance at AMD Asia Pacific Fusion Tech Day event last month - one month after that. The NVIDIA GTX 590 is rumoured to come with dual NVIDIA’s GF110 GPU with a total of 1024 CUDA cores and 3027GB of GDDR5 memory while the AMD Radeon 580 is expected come with 3840 stream processors and 4GB of GDDR5 memory that is clocked at 4.80GHz. sometime in mid-March which is to be followed by AMD with

The source also claimed that the reason AMD choose to launch their new card later than NVIDIA is because to avoid from giving NVIDIA room to tweak their GTX 590 to match AMD’s HD 6990 performances. Sounds like AMD are really confident of their upcoming dual-GPU card, eh? Like I said earlier, interesting times up ahead.

[Source: DigiTimes,Techspot and TweakTown] 

Article From: Lowyat

iPad 2 Not Getting High-Resolution Display Or SD Card Slot?

Ahead of the much anticipated iPad 2 event on Wednesday, the guys over at engadget have managed to obtain a brief description of the specs (or lack thereof) for the successor to the wildly popular Apple tablet. Apparently, at the 11th hour, Apple made some cuts to what we thought would be default features in the iPad 2, namely the higher resolution display and the SD Card Slot. The reason for this has been attributed to "engineering issues" and not much more is known at this time.

So what we're left with is most likely a thinner, lighter iPad with more RAM and a more powerful CPU. This new device will also have the same resolution as its predecessor and will probably have a camera or two on it. Underwhelming? Yup I think so. The big thing I was looking forward to is a better screen and better battery life, but looks like that's not going to happen.

Anyway, this news is all hearsay at the moment, but Engadget usually has some pretty reliable sources so we'll keep our fingers crossed for now. If only Apple would now bring their iOS up to date and not have it trailing in the wake of all the other OS'. Well that's a different story for a different time.

(Source: Engadget)
Article From: Lowyat 

LaCie Previewed Thunderbolt-Based Little Big Disk

With a high transfer speed of 10Gb/s, it is obvious that storage devices are going to benefit tremendously from Intel’s new I/O technology, the Thunderbolt. While it is not in the market yet, LaCie has already unveiled quite a number of details from their Thunderbolt variant of Little Big Disk external hard drive.

Featuring an aluminium body shell designed by their long-time collaborator Neil Poulton, the Thunderbolt-based Little Big Disk body also works as a heat sink to dissipate heat generated by its internal parts. Inside, it contains two 250GB solid state drives (SSDs) from the upcoming Intel 510 Series which reads at 450MB/s and writes at 300MB/s. These two drives are also preconfigured in RAID 0 for better performance, according to LaCie.

No pricing details are available yet but since the 250GB Intel 510 Series SSD itself is priced around RM 1768 (USD 579) per unit, expect to pay top money for LaCie’s upcoming Thunderbolt solution. The LaCie Thunderbolt-based Little Big Disk is expected to meet users sometime in the second half of this year.

[Source: LaCie and Fudzilla] 

Article From: Lowyat

Google Gmail Accounts Vanished, Google is Fixing Problem

If you haven’t already checked your email then do so right away, right now. See any mails inside? If you do, then you’re lucky and you might want to consider backing up all your important mails because it has been reported that some users have lost all their mails including chat logs, folders and well, basically everything; they’re being treated like a new user greeted with welcome messages and all.

Of course Google is aware of the problem. They said that only less than 0.29% of Gmail users were hit by that bug that went on erasing account contents but knowing how huge Gmail is, that’s a very big number; it was reported that 500,000 Gmail users lost access to their inboxes. Not too long ago, the company has just reported their new estimate of only 0.08% of users encountering such problem so that’s about 150,000 individuals.

If your email is missing, don’t worry, the engineers at Google are working to fix the issues right now and all missing messages will be restored as soon as possible if not already.

(Source: Engadget)

Article From:Lowyat  

Intel promises native USB 3.0 support someday

So, now that Intel's fully revealed its proprietary high-speed interface technology and shoehorned it into Apple's new MacBook Pro, wither the fate of barely-incumbent USB 3.0? Intel says the two ports will co-exist in the market, and not just because third parties will obviously continue to roll SuperSpeed devices out -- Chipzilla's actually pursuing a native solution itself. "Intel fully supports USB 3 and plans to integrate it in the future," said the company's Jason Ziller, which sounds like a fairly potent promise to us. Still, considering how long Intel's been dragging its heels, we have to wonder if eventual support will be more than a token move -- Intel could wait until Thunderbolt not only has a foothold, but also a dozen pitons and a nice big rope securing it to a mountain of peripherals. 

Article From: Engadget

Sources: iPad 2 lands in thinner body with spec bump and cameras, SD slot and higher resolution display are out

The Apple rumors game can be a volatile thing. Just as we'd heard about last minute alterations to the Apple TV before it hit the market, we've gotten word from sources that the iPad 2 slated to be announced next Wednesday will be sans a few of the features we'd previously reported. Notably, that SD card slot and higher resolution display won't make it into the new model (the latter we'd been hearing rumblings about for a little while). What's the cause of the switch? Well our sources weren't crystal clear on the exact reasons, but the gist of what was explained to us centered around vague "engineering issues" which may have forced some changes at the eleventh hour. It's worth noting once again that these sources have been dead right on specific Apple plans and specifications for unannounced products in the past, and we have no reason to believe these changes are due to anything more than legitimate engineering decisions made close to launch.

Intel Thunderbolt: a closer look (updated with video)

So what's this Thunderbolt stuff, and why is it in your new MacBook Pro? Intel just broke it down for us, and now we'll do the same for you. Simply put, Thunderbolt's a familiar-looking port, a brand-new chip, and a cord, which allows devices to pipe two data streams simultaneously -- in both directions -- over a single cable at up to 10 gigabits per second to start, primarily using PCI Express x4 for data and DisplayPort for video. The Thunderbolt controller chip -- required for the system, but Intel says it's hardware-agnostic and doesn't require an Intel processor or chipset to use -- acts as a miniature router of sorts that rapidly switches between the two bidirectional channels of data.