22 April 2011

VIDEO GAMES LIVE IS COMING TO MALAYSIA ONCE AGAIN



Did you missed last year’s Video Games Live at Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre? I did and I still crying in my sleeps thinking about it. Ok, kidding about the crying part but I was seriously frustrated until just mere minutes ago when an eagle eyed reader has pointed to us that Video Games Live has confirmed the date and venue of their 2011 show in Kuala Lumpur. Is that cool or what?
According to the show’s official website, Video Games Live show in Kuala Lumpur will take place on Saturday, 1st October at National Stadium. It is rather a weird selection of venue for such a gig since the National Stadium of Bukit Jalil is rather too huge and open; hence, I believe that the actual venue would either be at Stadium Putra or Stadium Negara.
That being said, I don’t think venue is a big problem as I’m sure many gamers and music lovers alike will swarm the show no matter where it is going to held, so let’s wait for the full details from the local organizer. This time, I will definitely be there at the show.

[Source: Video Games Live. Image: Roxanne Ready, used under Creative Commons license. Thanks toKyoyagami for pointing it out!]

HIS TAKES ON AMD RADEON HD 6450, 6570 AND 6670


Released back in February, these three budget AMD Radeon HD 6000 series graphic cards – the 6450, 6570and 6670 - were originally available only for OEM companies. However, AMD has quietly made them available recently at retail stores through many of their partners including HIS.
While the technical specifications of HIS offerings are very close to AMD’s reference design, the new HIS Radeon HD 6450, 6570 and 6670 are available in a variety of cooling options especially for 6450 where it is available in both fan and fanless design. Even though they are budget graphic cards, they are still come equipped with many features as per other more advanced GPU in Radeon HD 6000 series such as DirectX 11 support, AMD Eyefinity multi-monitor technology, AMD CrossFire (software-based only), AMD HD3D and many more; making them a good alternative to integrated graphic processors inside desktop PCs.
For further information, head on to your favourite retailers or visit HIS official website at www.hisdigital.com.

19 April 2011

DUAL SIM CARD SOLUTION FOR YOUR IPHONE 4!


If you're an iPhone 4 toting jet setter, constantly travelling between two countries, and hence constantly having to swap and store two different SIM cards, look no further! The brand new 2Phone case for the iPhone 4 from Rebelsimcard.com features a SIM card slot which allows you to make and receive calls from a second line without having to swap SIM Cards. No switching on the software side is needed either, it all goes on simultaneously so you wont miss a call on either line. For this to work however, your phone must be jailbroken to use the accompanying app. 

Not only is the 2Phone case a useful second SIM Card enabler, it's also a 800AH battery which adds much needed extra juice to your iPhone. The only downside though is that the case costs a hefty US$250. I like the idea of what it does, but do I like it enough to drop US$250 on one? I don't know, perhaps carrying the paperclip on me is a better option.

03 April 2011

NEW SANDY BRIDGE APPLE MACBOOK PRO'S FREEZING UNDER LOAD


Apple's new Sandy Bridge laptops sure are some amazing bits of kit, I know I want one. The combination of Intel's speedy new processors and AMD's latest graphics solutions for laptops is a match made in heaven. Or is it? According to a huge thread on Apple's support forum, a huge bunch of users are finding that their brand spanking new 2011 Macbook Pros are freezing up under heavy load. Users are complaining that when heavily making use of the new AMD graphics card over the integrated Intel ones to perform intensive tasks, the Macbook Pros are either displaying a strange banding across the screen or freezing up, rendering the machine useless until reboot.

The strange thing is, reading accounts across the net, one user managed to access the machine remotely via SSH, and it seemed that it was still running albeit with a frozen screen which leads me to believe its AMD's infamous substandard graphics drivers causing the problems. So if you have a 2011 Macbook Pro, switch to the integrated graphics for now and lets all hope that they fix the problem sharpish. Anyone with the same problems? Let us know how you fixed it in the comments! 

THE NEW SAMSUNG GALAXY TAB 10.1 AND 8.9, SLIMMER AND BETTER



It’s no longer a surprise that after Apple launched its thinner and lighter iPad 2, Samsung feels slightly threatened and even announced that they’re reconsidering the price for the Galaxy Tab 10.1, so what happened yesterday at the Samsung CTIA Wireless 2011 press conference? Announcement of the pricing of course, and Samsung did not only announce and officially unveil the Galaxy 8.9 they’ve been teasing consumers over the past few weeks, they also announced a totally revamped Galaxy Tab 10.1

So what’s new on both the tablet devices from Samsung? First of all, amazed (and probably inspired) by how slim the iPad 2 is, Samsung decided to give its gadgets a diet too, achieving an amazing slim design that measures at 0.33”, just slightly slimmer than the iPad 2 that measures at 0.34” thick. Both the models also comes with a microSD card slot, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a SIM card slot for the 3G versions of both models. The camera sounds kind of disappointing though, both of them comes with a 3MP camera at the back of the device inclusive of a LED flash while the front can capture at 2MP.

Hit the break for more information.

NZXT ANNOUNCES H2 CLASSIC SILENT PC CHASSIS



Even though current generation of computer hardware are relatively quieter - judging from a number of our recent hardware reviews – some users just can’t stand any noises coming from their computer. Well, if you are one of them, the California-based NZXT might have something for you.
Designed to prevent users from being disturbed by the noises coming from their rig, the new NZXT H2 Classic Silent Midtower Chassis is layered with premium noise dampening foam which is said to be able to stop hardware noise from being heard outside of the chassis. Not enough with that, the chassis also comes with a magnetic cover over its top 140mm fan which can be removed for better air flow.
“Noise is a distracting by-product of a powerful gaming rig that can confuse and endanger the avid gamer in the heat of battle. H2 delivers peace of mind through absolute silence effectively enhancing concentration and accuracy to set the stage for complete gaming domination,” -Johnny Hou, Founder and Chief Designer, NZXT.
NZXT has also equipped the steel chassis with a removable 3-phase fan controller that allow users to adjust the chassis fan speeds at 40%, 70% and 100%; together with a number of other features such as hot swap able SATA HDD dock, USB 3.0 port and 25mm empty space behind motherboard for easier cable management.









ASUS UNLEASHES THREE GEFORCE GTX 550 TI MODELS, ADDS GTX 590 WHILE AT IT


If you somehow didn’t get the memo, NVIDIA has recently announced two new graphic cards under their GeForce 500 series – the easy on the pocket GTX 550 Ti and the monstrous dual core GTX 590. Now that both of them are already official, it is time for their partners to come out with their take on both new cards to the market and ASUSare bringing out quite a number of offerings for consumers everywhere to get their hands on.

For GeForce GTX 550 Ti, ASUS has come out with three different models that feature slightly higher processor’s clock speed than NVIDIA’s reference design. The lowest of the three - the standard edition – runs at 910 MHz while the TOP and Ultimate edition are rated at 975MHz and 1015MHz respectively. All three cards also come with tweaked memory clock speed but the increments are rather noticeable for standard and TOP edition cards at 4104 MHz while the Ultimate edition receives better treatment at 4200MHz.

All ASUS GTX 550 Ti are also equipped with ASUS own all-cooper DirectCU cooling solution that promises lower running temperature up to 20% than stock cooling, together with power delivery components that are made from ASUS custom Super Alloy Power mixture. The ASUS GeForce GTX 550 TI series are priced from RM 599 onwards.

Meanwhile, for those who are hungry for more power, the ASUS GTX 590 is not something that you can easily miss. However, compared to all the performance tweaks that ASUS GTX 550 Ti series receives, the ASUS GTX 590 is rather closer to reference design with only 5 MHz increase in its processor’s clock speed but since there are no other single cards in NVIDIA stable that are currently faster than a GTX 590, it is still one feisty release from the company. Users are still able to push the card’s clock speed up to 918 MHz through ASUS Voltage Tweak utility give they have the bravery to do that and of course, the right conditions. No pricing is available at the moment though.

For further information about these new NVIDIA GeForce 500 series cards from ASUS, head on to your favourite retailers or visit ASUS official website at www.asus.com. Check out the cards full specifications right after the jump.

HTC FLYER IS COMING TO OUR MARKET, CONFIRMED BY MAXIS



Ready or not, HTC’s first tablet – the Flyer – is about to land here in Malaysia. The 7-inch tablet was first announced at the recent Mobile World Congress as part of HTC's line-up for 2011 and runs on Android 2.4underneath a table-optimized implementation of HTC Sense. Internally, it is powered by a single-core 1.5GHz processor together with 1GB of RAM and 32GB of internal storage.
So, guess which telco is getting the first dibs of the new device here in Malaysia? Although the exclusivity status is unknown for now, it seemed that the HTC Flyer will at least be available through Maxis first. This was revealed through their Twitter account as they are now looking for reviewers to join their next batch of Maxis10 Reviewers’ Program which will be featuring the new tablet.

Judging from my past observation of the program - which have previously included iPhone 4 and recently, theNexus S - Maxis will usually put up a recruitment notice very near to the official launch of a highlighted device. So, if you are down for HTC Flyer, get ready for its arrival then.