Friday, November 12, 2010
VIDEO: Trailer for Rockstar Games' L.A. Noire arrives... Finally
First touted back in 2006, L.A. Noire is the latest in an ever-expanding line of open-ended, plot-rich Rockstar Games' titles and it's edging closer to its release than ever before. Well, a trailer has been unveiled, anyway.
The game fits into the action adventure genre, but is a slight departure for the developer behind the Grand Theft Auto franchise and Red Dead Redemption. Instead of focusing on law-breakers, it asks the player to solve crimes, namely a series of gruesome murders committed around Los Angeles back in a 1930s setting.
However, even from the trailer, L.A. Noire displays the company's trademark attention to detail and superb storytelling ability.
Unfortunately, though, there's still no announcement on release date. We would expect it to be, at the very least, next year - perhaps, even, the latter half. At least then it could share its launch with its fifth anniversary.
Looking forward to this game? Think it'll hold up to GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption? Let us know in the comments below...
Android Application:Battery Saver(Juice defender and Juice Plotter)
As the Android rage continues throughout the world, the most common complaint I hear is "Why is my battery power so low?" Well, there are many reasons and factors that play into the Android interface being a battery hog. Simple answers could be too much display brightness or not turning off email sync, Wi-Fi, GPS or Bluetooth. But honestly, aren’t we living in the age of smart phones, where we shouldn’t have to pay attention to the little details that make the difference in our phones lasting a whole day or even more? I was recently shown two amazing battery-conserving apps that I want all my fellow Android users out there to download ASAP.
The first app I want to talk to you about is Juice Defender by Latedroid. It gives you full control and automatic settings for all the aspects of your device that drain the battery. If you are a CDMA user (Verizon, Sprint, US Cellular), it allows your device to control when it’s connecting to the network via a 3G or 4G connection, when data connection is allowed to run, and when Wi-Fi should be on or off. These are huge battery changing options for the device. Once you run the program once, it is auto-configured to run these battery saving techniques all the time. By ensuring that your device only has a data connection when it’s necessary, you can maximize battery power.
Another really great feature is a widget that can be placed on the home screen that will give a very accurate gauge of how much battery power you have left on the device. Juice Defender also has the ability to keep your device in a hibernative state during certain hours of the day. This ensures you won’t constantly need a bedtime charge just so your device is full of juice by morning.
Outside of all the amazing features of Juice Defender, Juice Plotter by Latedroid is a partner app that allows you to see where your battery usage is coming from directly. The app plots battery usage info on a chart over a period of time so you can pinpoint exactly the times and what you were doing that caused major battery loss. This app adds a widget to the home screen that, when combined with Juice Defender, shows how much more battery power was gained by using these two apps together. One important thing to remember: “Ignore” these apps on any task killer program after installing them to ensure that you are maximizing battery saving techniques.
So get on the market ASAP and download Juice Defender and Juice Plotter by Latedroid, and experience a daily change in maximizing your Android’s battery life and efficiency. Both apps are free and available for download now. Also, after trying these two apps, check out the Ultimate Juice add-on for $5.30, which will give the advanced user even more control over how battery is being saved by adding location, specific app, and direct timeframe controls around data and Wi-Fi connection capabilities.
The first app I want to talk to you about is Juice Defender by Latedroid. It gives you full control and automatic settings for all the aspects of your device that drain the battery. If you are a CDMA user (Verizon, Sprint, US Cellular), it allows your device to control when it’s connecting to the network via a 3G or 4G connection, when data connection is allowed to run, and when Wi-Fi should be on or off. These are huge battery changing options for the device. Once you run the program once, it is auto-configured to run these battery saving techniques all the time. By ensuring that your device only has a data connection when it’s necessary, you can maximize battery power.
Another really great feature is a widget that can be placed on the home screen that will give a very accurate gauge of how much battery power you have left on the device. Juice Defender also has the ability to keep your device in a hibernative state during certain hours of the day. This ensures you won’t constantly need a bedtime charge just so your device is full of juice by morning.
Outside of all the amazing features of Juice Defender, Juice Plotter by Latedroid is a partner app that allows you to see where your battery usage is coming from directly. The app plots battery usage info on a chart over a period of time so you can pinpoint exactly the times and what you were doing that caused major battery loss. This app adds a widget to the home screen that, when combined with Juice Defender, shows how much more battery power was gained by using these two apps together. One important thing to remember: “Ignore” these apps on any task killer program after installing them to ensure that you are maximizing battery saving techniques.
So get on the market ASAP and download Juice Defender and Juice Plotter by Latedroid, and experience a daily change in maximizing your Android’s battery life and efficiency. Both apps are free and available for download now. Also, after trying these two apps, check out the Ultimate Juice add-on for $5.30, which will give the advanced user even more control over how battery is being saved by adding location, specific app, and direct timeframe controls around data and Wi-Fi connection capabilities.
LG Optimus 7 review
Windows Phone 7 handsets are like episodes of Friends: they’re all basically the same, but each has a slight twist. The LG Optimus 7 then is “The one with the DLNA”. The LG Optimus 7 will be available on Vodafone, where your other option will be the HTC 7 Trophy (The one with the low price).
Out of the box, the LG Optimus 7 measures 125 x 59.8 x 11.5mm and weighs in at approx. 140g. On the front it features a 3.8-inch 800 x 480 pixel resolution display. This is the same resolution as all the other Windows Phone 7 launch handsets; the only variation coming in size, up to 4.3-inches with the HTC HD7, although our display pick of the bunch is the Samsung Omnia 7’s AMOLED.
Across the bottom of the display are the regulation three buttons offering back, Start and search. Rather than being touch buttons, the Optimus 7 has physical buttons, the central raised Windows logo acting as the Start button. Given the detailing in the logo, it doesn’t feel very nice under your fingers, but all three buttons work reliably enough.
Elsewhere around the body you’ll find the required camera button and volume keys, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Micro-USB socket for charging and syncing. The standby button is situated on the top of the device, and we found it just a little too small to reliably hit first time every time when we wanted to use the phone.
The LG Optimus 7 feels reassuringly well built in the hand, with no sign of creaks coming from the handset. The solid metal backplate fits in reassuringly, under which you’ll find the bay for the 1500mAh battery and SIM card slot. With Windows Phone 7 not supporting removable memory you won’t find a microSD card slot like you will on many other devices. Instead you’ll have to make do with the 16GB of internal memory.
Some are already complaining about the lack of microSD as an option on the launch devices for Windows Phone 7, but it hasn’t been a problem for an army of iPhone users and with 16GB to play with you should have enough space - unless you have an enormous music collection or want to carry around a lot of video with you.
We’ve covered in a fair amount of detail the experience of using Windows Phone 7 in our review of the mobile operating system, and we don’t plan to cover all those points again here. If you are interested, it is well worth reading that review - there is a link at the bottom of this page. There are also plenty of photos of the user interface there as well. What we will cover here is what makes the LG Optimus 7 different.
Power up the LG Optimus 7 and you are greeted with the red of Vodafone, which is disturbingly reminiscent of their Vodafone 360 handsets, but easily changed to a more comforting hue in the settings. Vodafone has added a tile called 360 My Web which essentially is just a browser shortcut to that service. Otherwise the device is unsullied by Voda.
With Microsoft defining what the minimum hardware specs should be for Windows Phone 7 (hence the similarity across the board), manufacturer influence on the handset is focused on just a few areas. One is in the apps they can offer, either by offering a Hub or by granting access through Marketplace to exclusive content, which is what LG have chosen to do. The second major area of differentiation is in the camera.
Looking at the apps, the LG Optimus 7 offers up a collection of pre-installed features. The first, and headline feature, is DLNA sharing. Called Play To, it will allow you to play content on your phone on other compatible devices. Sounds great, but in practice it is a one way system - we’d rather use the technology to view content from a network drive as you can with Samsung’s AllShare on the Galaxy S.
The second area where LG have lavished attention is the camera. Opening up the 5-megapixel autofocus camera you’ll find LG’s branding has made it into the settings menu, offering up what it calls Intelligent Shot, and you’ll find LG’s favoured Beauty Shot makes it into the mix, borrowing something from its Viewty line. You also get the Panorama shot and a link to ScanSearch, its AR viewer. Exactly why this is sitting in the camera menus we don’t know.
In practice we didn’t find a discernible difference between the various camera settings, in fact sticking to “off” in the Intelligent Shot option garnered our most favoured results. Camera performance is average, suffering the same nasties you’ll find on mobile devices elsewhere, but it is capable in good conditions.
One of the nice features is Panorama shot which is a little different and offers to stitch together five shots as you pan the camera. An on-screen arrow directs you to try to make it as smooth as possible. It doesn’t compete with the likes of Sony’s Sweep Panorama on its digital cameras, but we found it fun none the less, even if the results are a little varied.
Video capture offers a maximum 720p resolution as you’ll find elsewhere in Windows Phone 7. The quality isn’t especially good and we found that it struggled to focus, returning an average of 24fps. Fixed focus video is pretty common on mobile phones, but in this case it lacked detail and sharpness overall.
We mentioned in passing the AR, or augmented reality, application ScanSearch that LG has included. This uses the camera and Google so you can find local points of interest, be that a café or bar. The results are only as good as the database however, and we found that using search in the regular Maps got us a better result.
There is an FM radio, but we found the reception to be extremely poor. Sat in an identical position as the Samsung Omnia 7, the Optimus 7 was unable to tune into any radio stations - this was using the same headphones as the aerial. The bundled headphones aren’t too bad however, being of the in-ear variety and offering a choice of rubbers to get a good fit.
Sitting at the core of the LG Optimus 7 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz chipset. You get GPS, Bluetooth, sensors galore and Wi-Fi as you will on any other Windows Phone 7 handset. One issue we had was that the phone would regularly report that it had no data connection, despite being well within Wi-Fi range. This might be a problem with the individual device, or a bug, but it’s something to be aware of. We found that Bluetooth was not Mac compatible.
Battery life is pretty good - we managed to get the battery to last more than a day, but heavy use will see it needing to be charged every night. Thanks to the curved top of the handset, making and taking calls is comfortable too, and the slightly smaller frame of the Optimus 7 makes it more comfortable in the hand than some of the larger devices.
Out of the box, the LG Optimus 7 measures 125 x 59.8 x 11.5mm and weighs in at approx. 140g. On the front it features a 3.8-inch 800 x 480 pixel resolution display. This is the same resolution as all the other Windows Phone 7 launch handsets; the only variation coming in size, up to 4.3-inches with the HTC HD7, although our display pick of the bunch is the Samsung Omnia 7’s AMOLED.
Across the bottom of the display are the regulation three buttons offering back, Start and search. Rather than being touch buttons, the Optimus 7 has physical buttons, the central raised Windows logo acting as the Start button. Given the detailing in the logo, it doesn’t feel very nice under your fingers, but all three buttons work reliably enough.
Elsewhere around the body you’ll find the required camera button and volume keys, along with a 3.5mm headphone jack and a Micro-USB socket for charging and syncing. The standby button is situated on the top of the device, and we found it just a little too small to reliably hit first time every time when we wanted to use the phone.
The LG Optimus 7 feels reassuringly well built in the hand, with no sign of creaks coming from the handset. The solid metal backplate fits in reassuringly, under which you’ll find the bay for the 1500mAh battery and SIM card slot. With Windows Phone 7 not supporting removable memory you won’t find a microSD card slot like you will on many other devices. Instead you’ll have to make do with the 16GB of internal memory.
Some are already complaining about the lack of microSD as an option on the launch devices for Windows Phone 7, but it hasn’t been a problem for an army of iPhone users and with 16GB to play with you should have enough space - unless you have an enormous music collection or want to carry around a lot of video with you.
We’ve covered in a fair amount of detail the experience of using Windows Phone 7 in our review of the mobile operating system, and we don’t plan to cover all those points again here. If you are interested, it is well worth reading that review - there is a link at the bottom of this page. There are also plenty of photos of the user interface there as well. What we will cover here is what makes the LG Optimus 7 different.
Power up the LG Optimus 7 and you are greeted with the red of Vodafone, which is disturbingly reminiscent of their Vodafone 360 handsets, but easily changed to a more comforting hue in the settings. Vodafone has added a tile called 360 My Web which essentially is just a browser shortcut to that service. Otherwise the device is unsullied by Voda.
With Microsoft defining what the minimum hardware specs should be for Windows Phone 7 (hence the similarity across the board), manufacturer influence on the handset is focused on just a few areas. One is in the apps they can offer, either by offering a Hub or by granting access through Marketplace to exclusive content, which is what LG have chosen to do. The second major area of differentiation is in the camera.
Looking at the apps, the LG Optimus 7 offers up a collection of pre-installed features. The first, and headline feature, is DLNA sharing. Called Play To, it will allow you to play content on your phone on other compatible devices. Sounds great, but in practice it is a one way system - we’d rather use the technology to view content from a network drive as you can with Samsung’s AllShare on the Galaxy S.
The second area where LG have lavished attention is the camera. Opening up the 5-megapixel autofocus camera you’ll find LG’s branding has made it into the settings menu, offering up what it calls Intelligent Shot, and you’ll find LG’s favoured Beauty Shot makes it into the mix, borrowing something from its Viewty line. You also get the Panorama shot and a link to ScanSearch, its AR viewer. Exactly why this is sitting in the camera menus we don’t know.
In practice we didn’t find a discernible difference between the various camera settings, in fact sticking to “off” in the Intelligent Shot option garnered our most favoured results. Camera performance is average, suffering the same nasties you’ll find on mobile devices elsewhere, but it is capable in good conditions.
One of the nice features is Panorama shot which is a little different and offers to stitch together five shots as you pan the camera. An on-screen arrow directs you to try to make it as smooth as possible. It doesn’t compete with the likes of Sony’s Sweep Panorama on its digital cameras, but we found it fun none the less, even if the results are a little varied.
Video capture offers a maximum 720p resolution as you’ll find elsewhere in Windows Phone 7. The quality isn’t especially good and we found that it struggled to focus, returning an average of 24fps. Fixed focus video is pretty common on mobile phones, but in this case it lacked detail and sharpness overall.
We mentioned in passing the AR, or augmented reality, application ScanSearch that LG has included. This uses the camera and Google so you can find local points of interest, be that a café or bar. The results are only as good as the database however, and we found that using search in the regular Maps got us a better result.
There is an FM radio, but we found the reception to be extremely poor. Sat in an identical position as the Samsung Omnia 7, the Optimus 7 was unable to tune into any radio stations - this was using the same headphones as the aerial. The bundled headphones aren’t too bad however, being of the in-ear variety and offering a choice of rubbers to get a good fit.
Sitting at the core of the LG Optimus 7 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz chipset. You get GPS, Bluetooth, sensors galore and Wi-Fi as you will on any other Windows Phone 7 handset. One issue we had was that the phone would regularly report that it had no data connection, despite being well within Wi-Fi range. This might be a problem with the individual device, or a bug, but it’s something to be aware of. We found that Bluetooth was not Mac compatible.
Battery life is pretty good - we managed to get the battery to last more than a day, but heavy use will see it needing to be charged every night. Thanks to the curved top of the handset, making and taking calls is comfortable too, and the slightly smaller frame of the Optimus 7 makes it more comfortable in the hand than some of the larger devices.
Sony Ericsson's Not Planning for Symbian Phones Anymore
Sony Ericsson has made a statement that it will not be using the Symbian OS on their phones anymore. We have no plans for the time being to develop any new products to the Symbian Foundation standard or operating system,” Aldo Liguori, a spokesman for the London-based company, said by telephone today.
Without giving a hint to future projects in the pipeline, the company has stated that they are planning for devices that support Android.
Without giving a hint to future projects in the pipeline, the company has stated that they are planning for devices that support Android.
Windows Phone 7 App Submissions Now Open For Everyone
Microsoft's opened the floodgates for developers to submit applications for Windows Phone 7. Submissions were already possible for early registrants, but now everyone who has an application can submit.
So go ahead guys, get your apps out there.
SOURCE: App Hub
The App Hub - get your application tools and go!
Applications need to meet Microsoft's content and technical guidelines and can face rejection. Sounds familiar? However, Microsoft has said that they're making the process as transparent as possible and much easier to deal with than Apple's system.So go ahead guys, get your apps out there.
SOURCE: App Hub
Cisco Announces A New Range Of Routers
Cisco today announced the launch of its latest Linksys E-Series Routers. These are a new range of wireless routers designed to easily connect all wireless devices in the home offering the range and speed that addresses the productivity and entertainment needs of today’s consumer
Linksys E1000 Wireless-N Router (MRP: Rs. 5,999)
Welcome To The Human Network
Suresh Balasubramanian, National Sales Director, Cisco Consumer Products, India, said, “India is at the forefront in adopting new wireless technologies fuelled by rapid broadband penetration and increase in shared content, online gaming and media downloads. With regards to wireless LAN space, Indian consumers are evolving and so do their needs for home networking devices that are easy to setup and use. Linksys E-series routers offer benefits of wireless networking can be tapped to their full potential enabling consumers to enjoy online gaming and high definition video streaming”.
The E-Series routers come in three models,each to suit the specific requirements of user.The specs for each model are as followsLinksys E1000 Wireless-N Router (MRP: Rs. 5,999)
- Ideal for general wireless Internet usage and home office productivity
- Wirelessly connects computers and other devices
- Uses four Fast Ethernet (10/100 Mbps) ports to directly connect wired devices
- Ideal for connecting computers, gaming consoles, Internet-enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray players
- Features selectable dual-band (2.4 GHz or 5 GHz) technology to help avoid interference, allowing for smoother file transfers and media streaming
- Includes four Gigabit ports for faster file sharing with other Gigabit-enabled devices, including computers, hard drives and servers
- Optimised for streaming video and other entertainment, ideal for connecting computers, gaming consoles, Internet-enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray players.
- Features simultaneous dual-band (2.4 GHz and 5 GHz) technology, high-performance Wireless-N technology for smoother HD video streaming, wireless gaming and file transfers
- Includes four Gigabit ports for faster file sharing and provides connectivity to storage devices for file sharing at home or over the Internet
- Built-in media server enables streaming of entertainment content to an Xbox 360, PS3 or other compatible device from USB connected storage devices
Thursday, November 11, 2010
nVidia geforce GTX 580 out in the wild
Lord of the Cards - The return of the king?
When NVIDIA launched the GeForce GTX 480 in Q1 2010, their worst fears became reality. The high-end Fermi part was launched and then was gutted and slaughtered over three trivial aspects; those being high-power consumption, loud noise levels and a GPU that ran far too hot.
The flipside of that coin was the fact that the performance was actually spot on. To date the GeForce GTX 480 is the fastest kid on the DX11 block offering stunning performance. Yet the dark clouds that started hovering above the Fermi launch was something they never got rid of, up until the GeForce GTX 460 launch.
That made the GeForce GTX 480 probably the worst selling high-end graphics card series to date for NVIDIA. Throughout the year we've reviewed a good number GTX 480 cards and we've always tried to be very fair. We firmly (not Fermi) believe that if NVIDIA addressed the heat and noise levels from the get go, the outcome and overall opinion of the GTX 480 would have been much more positive as more enthusiast targeted end users can live with that somewhat high TDP. Good examples of these are KFA2's excellent GeForce GTX 480 Anarchy and more recently the MSI GTX 480 Lightning and soon Gigabyte's GTX 480 SOC.
However, the damage was done and NVIDIA needed to refocus, redesign and improve the GF100 silicon. They went back to the drawing board, made the design more efficient and at transistor level made some significant changes. As a result they were able to slightly lower the TDP, increase the shader processor count and increase the overall clock frequency on both core and memory domains.
The end result is the product you've all been hearing about for weeks now, the GeForce GTX 580. A product that is more silent then the GTX 280/285/480 you guys are so familiar with, a product that keeps temperatures under control slightly better and noise levels that overall are really silent. All that still based on the 40nm fabrication node, while offering over 20% more performance compared to the reference GeForce GTX 480.
Will NVIDIA have it right this time? Well they'd better hope so, as real soon AMD's Cayman aka Radeon HD 6970 is being released as well. These two cards will go head to head with each other in both price and performance, at least that's what we hope.
Exciting times with an exciting product, head on over to the next page where we'll start up a review on the product that NVIDIA unleashes today, the GeForce GTX 580.
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