Xbox 720 to copy Wii U touchscreen controller

Microsoft looks set to copy some of the features of Nintendo's Wii U, with plans to use a touchscreen controller in its Xbox 720 next-generation game console.

 

Sources cited by Xbox World magazine said that Microsoft is experimenting with a tablet controller with touchscreen capability, but that it will be closer in shape and size to the PlayStation Vita than the Wii U's somewhat larger controller.

 

Gamers might immediately accuse Microsoft of being a copycat, but it likely learned its lesson when the Wii released with features completely different to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. While some are not sure about Nintendo's new controller, Microsoft appears to recognise its potential, which takes advantage of the tablet craze since the launch of the original iPad in 2010.

 

 

Samsung unveils Ivy Bridge powered notebook too early

Unless Intel has decided to move the launch of its Ivy Bridge processors forward, Samsung is getting way ahead of itself as the company had put up one of its Ivy Bridge powered notebooks – the NP700G7C – on its US website yesterday. Beyond having an Ivy Bridge processor, the 17.3-inch notebook also sports Nvidia 600-series mobile graphics.

The product page has since then been pulled, but thanks to Google's cache the details are still available. As for the notebook, it's part of Samsung's 7-series, although there seems to either be a mistake in the specifications, or Samsung posted the wrong pictures as the key count for the keyboard doesn't add up. That aside, we're looking at a fully loaded notebook here with a Core i7-3610QM quad core CPU clocked at 2.3GHz with 6MB of L3 cache, 16GB of RAM (using four 4GB modules) and a pair of 1TB hard drives in RAID with the addition of Samsung's ExpressCache which adds 8GB of on-board flash memory as an SSD caching solution.

Apple files another US patent suit against Samsung

Apple has filed another U.S. patent lawsuit against Samsung Electronics and is seeking a preliminary injunction asking a federal judge to halt sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone while the case makes its way through the court.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, with a redacted copy of the case made publicly available Friday night. The lawsuit involves four Apple patents for technology that allows users to touch a phone number on a Web page to dial the number, word placement, Siri voice recognition and unified search, and the ability to unlock a smartphone by sliding an image from one location to another.

"Sales of the Galaxy Nexus during this litigation will cause irreparable harm to Apple," the company said in the lawsuit. "The smartphone market is at a critical juncture, as the overwhelming majority of consumers move to smartphones, and the consumers' long-term preferences and purchases may be determined to a great extent by the operating system on their first smartphone." The importance of that initial purchase "is precisely why Samsung copies Apple's products and incorporates Apple's patented features, i.e., in order to lure crucial first-time purchasers away from Apple."

Samsung's decision to sell the Galaxy Nexus in the U.S. "is all the more egregious considering that Samsung did so in the face of this Court's prior determination that Samsung's earlier devices likely infringe certain Apple patents and that sales of such devices would likely cause Apple 'to lose market share to Samsung' that 'could support a finding of irreparable harm'," the latest lawsuit says.

Amazon Might Launch New 7-inch and 9-inch Kindle Fire Tablets Mid-Year

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet continue to sell like hotcakes, assuming hotcakes sell like, well, Kindle Fire devices. The point is Amazon successfully launched a 7-inch competitor to the iPad and all the also-rans in the tablet space, so if you're Amazon, what do you do for a second act? Launch a bigger version, of course.

According to Pacific Crest analyst Chad Bartley, Amazon is indeed getting ready to launch a larger size Kindle Fire device, along with a refreshed 7-inch model.

"We are raising our 2012 sales forecasts to 14.9 million from 12.7 million. But we believe there is an upward bias, particularly from the new 7- and 9-inch models, which we expect to launch in mid-2012," Bartley wrote in a note to investors.

A full-size or nearly full-size tablet version of the Kindle Fire could spice things up, especially if Amazon is again aggressive with pricing. To do that, however, it would probably have to omit certain features. The existing Kindle Fire, for example, sells for just $199 but doesn't have a microSD card slot, front- or rear-facing cameras, a microphone, 3G connectivity, HDMI output, or even Bluetooth. Some of these may find their way onto second generation Fire devices, but it's hard to imagine all of them will.

Plantronics BackBeat 216 and BackBeat 116 headphones promise superb audio quality at amazing prices

Plantronics has announced the two new BackBeat stereo headphones with microphone for smartphones with multimedia capabilities. Compatible with iPhone and Android phones, the BackBeat 216 and BackBeat 116 headphones deliver high-quality audio performance and easy switching between music and calls. The Plantronics BackBeat 216 is a certified headphone with microphone for the Apple iPod, iPhone and iPad. The corded stereo headphones provide plug-and-play simplicity and feature noise-isolating ear buds with neodymium micro-speakers that boost bass levels and deliver well-balanced high and mid ranges. The BackBeat 216 also features a discreet inline controller with built-in microphone for convenient calling plus volume and music track control.

Rumour: NVIDIA GK104 Specifications

Needless to say, such reports should be taken with fair amounts of salt. However, 3D Center's previous such compilation for Tahiti turned out to be fairly accurate.

Kepler introduces a radical new architecture but the overall structure may be somewhat similar to Fermi. GK104 features 4 overall Graphics Processing Clusters (GPC) - twice that of GF114. Each GPC has 4 SMs - same as GF114. However, each SM now consists of 96 SP or CUDA cores - again twice that of GF114. Each SM features 8 TMU. The end resut is 16 SMs, 1536 SP and 128 TMU. GK104 continues to feature 32 ROP and 256-bit memory interface like GF114.

Windows 8 Consumer Preview to debut on February 29

On February 29, the third day of Mobile World Congress 2012 which takes place in Barcelona, Spain - Microsoft will host an event between 15-17h (3-5PM) Central European Time.

 

Titled "Windows 8 Consumer Preview", the official name of publicly available Windows 8 Beta (current development releases are Builds 8220 and 8224), the new version of operating system will be the first to target the conventional PC market as well as tablets and smartphones - through Windows Phone 8 (which shares the same kernel, heart of Windows operating system). As you can see in the screenshot above, there is a lot of changes coming to the conventional perception of Windows user interface. First off, you'll note that the orb is no longer in the left corner of the Windows tray... further more, there is a shift from left-centric approach to a right-centric approach, with key icons and controls being positioned on the right.

AMD refreshes FirePro series at the entry level with V3900

AMD's FirePro family of graphics cards for the Professional/Workstation user has just seen a new addition today with the launch of the FirePro V3900 which replaces the V3800. AMD promises best-in-class workstation experiences at an entry level price point with this card - that being  £95 at select online resellers.

Compared to the V3800, the V3900 gets double the memory at 1GB and uses a GPU derived from the 6800 family of Radeon cards, dubbed "TURKS". The card's 128-bit DDR3 memory arrangement gives it 28.8GB/s of memory bandwidth compared to the V3800 which had a 64-bit interface providing half the bandwidth at 14.4GB/s.

I-O Data soon to release new 23-inch IPS display

I-O Data is readying up a new 23-inch IPS based monitor for launch at the end of the month, initially set to arrive in the Japanese market at an equivilent cost of about US $347.

Dubbed the LCD-MF234XPGBR, this IPS display uses LED backlighting and has 178 / 178 degree viewing angles along with a native 1920 x 1080 resolution. Its maximum brightness is rated at 250 cd/m2 along with a constrast ratio of 1000:1 (80,000:1 DCR).

Habey USA Unveils Fanless Embedded PC

Embedded computing manufacturer Habey USA announced the BIS-6630, a small, fanless embedded computer with an Intel Atom N2800 (1.83 GHz) or D2700 (2.13 GHz) at its core. The D2700 version also has a PowerVR SGX545 GPU (640MHz) which purports to offer 60% improvement in graphics performance over previous Atoms.