Tuesday, October 09, 2012

AMD's New Mobile Processor Plays Call of Duty on Your Windows 8 Tab [Guts]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5950124/amds-new-mobile-processor-plays-call-of-duty-on-your-windows-8-tab

AMD's New Mobile Processor Plays Call of Duty on Your Windows 8 TabAMD has officially announced its new tablet-specific Z-60 processor, known as Hondo, and it promises rather a lot. In fact, the chip manufacturer claims it will allow you to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on your Windows 8 tablet, at 30 fps on a 1024 x 768 display. Sounds zippy.

AMD claims that the Z-60's integrated Radeon HD 6250 graphics have five to six times the performance of Intel's last-gen Atom chips—if that's really a benchmark worth bragging about—made possible by creating a more power-efficient version of its low-end laptop processors. That's the opposite approach to Intel, whose Clover Trail tablet processor line is a beefed up version of its Medfield smartphone chip.

The Z-60, then, will pack a dual-core 1GHz chip with 80 graphics cores for video and gaming, and by the sounds of it should hold its own in terms of performance. Sadly, it sounds like AMD's offering will lag behind Intel when it comes to battery life, though: AMD claims the Z-60 should squeeze 6 hours of 720p HD video playback out of a 30Wh battery, while Intel promises 10 hours. Similarly, Intel claims 3 weeks of standby time, while AMD offers just 2.

All in, it seems like AMD's processor may pack more punch than Intel's Clover Trail, at the expense of battery life. It may, of course, come down to a question of cost—at which point it's not clear just yet who the winner will be. [Verge]

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Math Has Never Looked as Pretty as This [Image Cache]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/5950128/math-has-never-looked-as-pretty-as-this

Math Has Never Looked as Pretty as ThisWhen you were at high school, math was probably an uninspiring string of algebra you had to crunch through. Get to the cutting edge of computational fluid dynamics, though, and it all starts to look a hell of a lot more pretty.

These images represent incredibly complex fluid flows, and were generated suing supercomputers by researchers at the Laboratory for Computational Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota. From the top, these images show off examples of the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, and finally some good ol' fashioned turbulence.

The best bit? They're available as high-res image files so you can download them and use them as your desktop background. [LCSE via Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics]

Images by LCSE

Math Has Never Looked as Pretty as This Math Has Never Looked as Pretty as This

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NVIDIA launches GeForce 650 Ti, Maingear says all custom desktop models now have it

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/09/nvidia-launches-geforce-650-ti-maingear-outs-desktops/

Nvidia launches geforce 650 ti, maingear says all desktop models now support it

No one can accuse Maingear of skipping the latest hardware cycles -- less than a month after offering PCs with NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 and 660 graphics, the PC system builder has announced that you can get all its desktop machines with GTX 650 Ti graphics now, too. As it happens, NVIDIA has just launched that very product -- a friskier version of the GTX 650 with extra Cuda cores -- keeping Maingear in lockstep with its graphics board suppliers again. That card will fill the gap between the $229 GeForce GTX 660 and $109 GTX 650 cards and run $149 (estimated), while Maingear has said it will feature special F131 and Potenza GTX 650 Ti systems at $150 off, along with a free copy of Assassin Creed III. So, if you need all the fps you can get, but can't quite pony up for the more desirable GTX 660, check the PR for more details.

Continue reading NVIDIA launches GeForce 650 Ti, Maingear says all custom desktop models now have it

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NVIDIA launches GeForce 650 Ti, Maingear says all custom desktop models now have it originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/09/microsoft-research-digits-3d-hand-gesture-tracking/

Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video)

A team led by researchers at Microsoft's UK-based R&D lab has crafted a system that tracks the full 3D pose of a user's hand without the need for a pesky glove. Dubbed Digits, the Kinect-inspired rig latches onto a user's wrist and utilizes a diffuse infrared light, IR laser, camera and inertial measurement unit to track fingertips and just five key points of a hand. Leveraging a pair of mathematical models developed in-house after studying the mechanics of the human hand, the group uses the captured data to extrapolate the position of a user's paw. The team envisions the solution as a supplement to touch-based interfaces, a method for eyes-free control of mobile devices and as a gaming controller that could work in conjunction with Kinect or similar systems. In its current state, the device is composed of off-the-shelf parts and needs to be tethered to a laptop, but the ultimate goal is to create a mobile, self contained unit the size of a wrist watch. Hit the break to catch a video of the setup in action or tap the second source link below for more details in the group's academic paper.

Continue r! eading < em>Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video)

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Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung Galaxy Note II for T-Mobile made (more) official, comes with gamepad-tuned racing this fall

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/09/samsung-galaxy-note-ii-for-t-mobile-made-official/

Samsung Galaxy Note II for TMobile made official, comes with gamepadoptimized racing

Now that the Galaxy Note II has already been given a formal debut for AT&T and Sprint, it's T-Mobile's turn at bat. The magenta network isn't deviating significantly from the hardware seen at other American carriers, aside from the absence of (currently active) LTE, but it does brag about bonus software. Gamers taken with the MOGA mobile gaming system (read: Bluetooth controller) will get a preloaded, special version of an "exciting new racing game" that's tailored for the physical controller. Unfortunately, T-Mobile is shy about committing to prices and ship dates for the gray and white Note II editions it will be offering in the weeks ahead -- although there's more than one hint that we should keep an eye out around October 24th, or at least no later than mid-November.

Continue reading Samsung G! alaxy No te II for T-Mobile made (more) official, comes with gamepad-tuned racing this fall

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Samsung Galaxy Note II for T-Mobile made (more) official, comes with gamepad-tuned racing this fall originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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