AU Optronics was showing a new AMVA5 panel at Display Taiwan. AMVA 5th generation MVA panel features a real 16.000:1 contrast ratio. AMVA5 display has much deeper black tones, which results in higher contrast between the blacks and colours.

As we all know, contrast ratio for displays is most over hyped feature today. Most manufacturers are creating strong marketing push with quoting dynamic contrast ratio that exceeds 80.000:1… Dynamic contrast lowers the light from the backlight to make the picture appear to have more contrast. But dynamic contrast ratio is anything but an accurate figure, as every manufacturer is measuring it in their own way.

In real world a typical LCD desktop monitor has a contrast ratio between 1000-3000:1. AMVA5 with 16000:1 contrast ratio has a good chance to change the market. AU Optronics is primarly tarketing the TV market, with LCD computer monitors to follow later. Price might be an issue, as MVA panels are generally more expensive than plain TN panels usually found in consumer LCD monitors.

AUO is also developing AMVA displays for mobile devices. These smaller versions have a contrast ratio of "only" 3000:1, but still 3-5 times better than most current mobile displays.

Curious public at Intel Developer Forum (IDF) saw a glimpse in the SSD future, as Intel presented the concept of the fastest Solid State Drive. The SSD drive without name is using PCI Express data bus architecture, and can, at full capacity reach data transfer speeds of up to 4 Gigabits per second. Coupled with up to one million input / output operations per second (IOPS) this new Solid State Drive is almost thirty times faster than the current second generation Intel X25-M family drive.

The computer giant has reached an exceptional speeds by coupling 44 SLC memory elements and internal RAID controller. Since Intel's revolutionary Solid State drive is nowhere on the product maps, and since Intel emphasized that this is only prototype, it is difficult to predict whether, or when will we see this product available for sale. However, it is expected that solutions from this innovative concept will be used in the manufacturer’s next generation of SSD drives in X25 family drive (M and E). As always Intel also introduced other new products and new technology at IDF, and remains the most aggressive innovator out there.

SDXC Memory Card is the next-generation SD Memory Card standard defined by the SD Association in April 2009, in order to meet the ever-growing demand for high-capacity memory media, offering higher transfer rates for content rich storage applications. The new SDXC Memory Card Standard applies to cards with capacities over 32GB and up to 2 terabyte compared to the SDHC standard, which applies to cards with capacities from 4GB to 32GB. Toshiba Corporation, one of a leading innovators in NAND flash memory technologies and solutions, today announced the launch of the world‘s first 64GB SDXC Memory Card1 with the world‘s fastest data transfer rate2 compliant with the new SD Memory Standard Ver. 3.00, UHS 1043. Toshiba also extended its industry-leadership in memory card solutions by unveiling 32GB and 16GB SDHC Memory Cards compliant with the world‘s fastest data transfer rate4. Sample shipments of the new SDXC Memory Cards for OEM manufacturers will start this November, and of the new SDHC Memory Cards in December. Both products will be available at retailers next spring, when mass production starts.

The new SDXC and SDHC Memory Cards are the world‘s first memory cards compliant with the SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 3.00, UHS104, which brings a new level of ultra-fast read and write speeds to NAND flash based memory cards: a maximum write speed of 35MB per second, and a read
speed of 60MB per second. The specifications meet strong market demand for cards combining high level performance with increased data capacity, in order to support such applications as high speed continuous shooting for digital still cameras and high resolution video recording for digital camcorders, and high speed transfers of those data from/ to other media. UHS 104 is the highest standard in the new SD Memory Card Standard Ver. 3.00 that delivers data at a rate of 104MB/sec. Maximum read and write speed may vary depending on the host device, read and write conditions, and file size. 

More on SDXC memory cards for up to 2 TB of data storage

Surfing the internet could now be as easy as 1-2-3 with the new web technology that has been developed for the users’ convenience when looking for old “stuff” or something that was online for a while in the past. This new web tool is called Zoetrope, which was developed by Adobe Systems, makes browsing easier than ever!

When using Zoetrope, the user can go back through time by pulling a scrollbar towards the browser’s bottom as the web page winds back to show the pages viewed from the past few hours, days or so. It can also give the user updates on certain data e.g. prices of products or weather information by “highlighting” a page as if putting a magnifier on it, thereafter the results come out, revealing data from different sites at a time. The user can also pick pages that are related and sync them to show how they are connected to each other based on the contents.  

According to a research student at the University of Washington, Zoetrope could store a lot of information by covering the entire web. This new web trend however can save the user’s time by storing only the data that is needed by measuring the most number of times a page is viewed. Kris Carpenter, a director at the Internet Archive, says that new web trends like this can be a “fantastic leap forward” as Zoetrope can be an independent application or a part of a software to become part of the browser. This brings to Kris’ team to be interested in sharing data with Zoetrope’s.

Zoetrope could really be something that can be more helpful rather than just a tool. It could not only save the user’s time but also give more convenience and more fun in web browsing and research. See the video with live example of Zeotrope in action. We really hope to see Zeotrope soon in action!

When Intel announced its latest series of processors last year everybody was looking over to AMD… Will AMD put up a fight and show something that will ruin Intel’s leadership? Succeeding the popular Core 2 Duo series this series will be called Core i7 with a brand name Nehalem, Intel was widening the technology barrier with competitor. Now when AMD has lost the lead the market status of Intel is increasing continuously.

Instead of naming the processors in MHz like AMD, Intel chose to name their new processor by the name Core 2 Duo which was pretty easy to understand. As a result of this the processor got more popularity than expected. Intel is carrying on the same process. Now the company decided to name the product Core i7 which is also easy to understand. Intel announced that there will be two series, one with simple Core i7 logo which is for high end computing. While the one with black Core i7 logo will be for extreme edition.

  Nehalem processors are totally based on new architecture. So that’s why Intel named them Core i7 instead of Core 3. Intel didn’t specify exactly why they choose the name i7. Intel representative told that the name is not after some technical specifications, it is just a simple name chosen after market research. The company expects the name i7 to get popular within a few months after entering the market (and Windows 7 is coming this summer as well!)

The Core i7 processor is a native quad core processor. Besides the fact that they draw less power, these processors are much more efficient than the current processors. This processor is much faster and efficient as compared to AMD’s latest processor, including Phenom II and Phenom II T (the DDR3 version for AM3 socket). Also this processor is a competitor to Intel’s Core 2 Duo and quad, which will move to low end of offer.

The Nehalem processor requires a completely different platform. It requires the latest motherboard from Intel that is X58 which is quite expensive which has LGA socket-1366 and Tri- Channel memory. This motherboard runs DDR3 memory which is also not so cheap. Also this processor requires a cooler to keep its temperature down. The Nehalem processor will lie in the price band of $316 (for 2.66GHz) and $999 for Extreme series part (around 3.2GHz). Also cost of DDR3 is not coming down so quickly, but is already at level of fastest DDR2… But imagine having 12 or even 24 GB of memory on your computer! Whoa! Disable the swap drive right away!

More on Intel Nehalem has Problems?

DeepDyve which is previously known as Infovell has recently launched a free search engine that can be used to find the data in the so called Dark web. By dark data one means the data which is out of reach of various search engines and other searching algorithms.  The data can be databases, journals or some unstructured information which is located in the dark web.

This search engine will help in searching the dark web more easily to enable the access to data of life sciences, patents or Wikipedia data. This search Engine indexes around 500 million pages. Also the company said what they are indexing pages related to various other fields in science and technology hence increasing the number of indexed pages to a billion by the end of the year.

The search engine will be able to search the data which traditional search engines always look over as it is partnering the publications to gain access to the looked over data in the databases in field of science and technology. 

Google is also stepping forward in searching the dark web. Google said that they will try to include the PDF files which will help them in searching the dark web. Also it is trying to index the HTML forms that include various drop-down or similar kind of information and are also a part of dark web. 

According to data there are around 42 million consumers that spend 25 hours a week to search for researching material and personal information. Most of the time they get frustrated as the relevant information is not found on the web. Deepdyve is giving those customers a unique service that will help them in searching the data that they are looking for. Also there are additional functionalities that help the users to arrange filter and manipulate data according to them. The search engine introduced allows the user to type a key word or an entire article to search for the related topics in the dark web. 

More on DeepDyve - Search Engine of Future

Image via CrunchBase

Windows 7 is the long awaited Operating System from Microsoft; it is rumored to release in mid-2009. Windows 7 has been in development for 3 years and by looking at the screenshots and demo-videos, and recently from public-beta, it looks great.

Microsoft is not too secretive about Windows 7, as it is now officially acknowledged that Vista did not hit target (sales, user approval).  So Windows 7 will try to turn this around (as XP did to Millennium screw-up years ago).

End of December build 6801 was leaked on P2P sharing networks and people who have installed it were very happy with the features and its usability. But at CES Microsoft opened Windows 7 beta first to its developers, then to general public!

Impressions were largely positive! Windows 7 includes a number of features, like multi-touch interface, speech and handwriting recognition, faster booting, and other kernel improvements, better work with SSD drives, most noticeable speed improvements (even on older hardware) and lower memory usage!

Windows 7 will be the first OS to bring multi-touch capability to consumers. It has an on-screen keyboard and mouse features like dragging and right-clicking. Windows 7 also has a new taller taskbar with thumbnails that fan out when hovered with a mouse; it is a lot better looking than taskbar in Vista.

The other feature is easy synchronization with your media files where you can store your media on any drive and it will be easily accessed and synchronized (Something glimpse of what we already saw in Live Sync and Live Mesh services).

More on Windows 7 is coming!

THE GOOD: It took ATI just some weeks after introduction of high end 48xx series of graphics cards, to introduce the entry level and mainstream models. Even with their announcement, month ago, before we even got the card in our lab, ATI told us that 4670 will kill the competitor's offering = nvidia 9500gt (in same price range). Card is slim and uses only one slot. It does not require additional power, which proves lower energy usage, and hints that maybe soon we will see a completely passively cooled models - which is possible, as this card uses less power than 38xx (which offered passively cooled models). But since card has to be price competitvely, price of copper probbably prevents big copper radiators needed for good passive cooling at least at launch. Nevertheless although fan is default one, card in idle mode is silent. Even under full load card works preety lukewarm - we measured only 41C. Card is also very power efficient, and uses on average 15W of energy less than nvidia's 9500GT. With street price around 120 USD (90 eur), card offers much better value than its price competitor (9500gt). In 3Dmark Vantage test, the difference in performance in 1280×1024 performance test is INCREDIBLE 70 PER CENT! Although nvidia lowered the price of 9500GT to 99 USD (70 eur), ATI still remains better buy - at least in our opinion.

THE BAD:Its too bad that Sapphire did not opt for a bit larger fan, that would make this card almost silent even under load, as with default fan some noise is heard when card is under full load. Besides this, HD 4670 is great card with excellent price/value!

24-inch monitors are becoming available, and while 22-inchers are still mainstream, we are still more demanding of 24-inchers… Recently we got an opportunity to review DELL’s 2408WFP, and while we like the monitor, as it has a trillion of input connectors, and looks good on paper (specifications), we found out an interesting problem, that DELL is not adressing.

As you can see on our video, the prolem is with lagging. Now, every LCD monitor has a delay between time when video card sends a picture, and when it is actually displayed on monitor. This time is called lag. CRT monitors had 0 lag, and some of smaller LCDs are also very fast. This is something which can put off serious gamers and is a delay between graphics card and monitor output. By hooking up a CRT you can show that the LCD lags behind somewhat, which can affect users in some situations where they rely on the screen image being as fast as their inputs (e.g. fast FPS shooting games). Often, input lag is very low and probably wouldn't represent too much of a problem in real terms.

You should not mistaken lag delay with response time, as that simply means how many picture refreshes (frames) can monitor display in a second… But lag is more problematic, especially for gamest, as it introduces another delay – which might be crucial when playing online, and when every milisecond counts, as who will open fire first…

As you can see from out comparison video – even on multi monitor setup, this DELL is quite annoying to work with, as it is plain obvious that there is noticable lag in video processing.

More on DELL 2408WFP too slow for gamers? Large lagging problems!

What is Zango?

Zango is an entertainment content provider. They offer free access to videos, music, games, and also other downloads. This content is free to all users, as it is paid for by advertisers.

Users are presented with an license agreement that they must accept before they can access any content. When user accepts the licence and downloads Zango software, access to content is provided. Zango's program includes a search assistant and a toolbar. Since Zango's software does not collect or share any information about users (but it did before 2005) it is not considered spyware but rather just adware.

Advertisers participating in Zango's network sponsor free software that anyone can view and play, as long as user is willing to view the ads that go along with it. Zango is harmless. If you want to check out Zango, visit this watch movies online for free site, and accept the licence.

Zango also has an affiliate program for webmasters and web publishers. This type of Zango is mostly found on websites that provide valuable information or commercial content that is normally payable. When visitor comes to this website, Zango overlay is displayed and in order for visitor to see the page itseld, he is incouraged to install Zango. Webmaster gets up to $1,40 USD for every new installation. If you wish more information about Zango Affilaite program, visit their partner's site.

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