Gaming Sales Finally Decline
by Taylor Flatt on April 16th, 2009 at 7:06 pm EDT - 732 views
The gaming industry has finally seen a decrease in sales for the first time in the economic situation. While hardware sales dropped 18%, video game sales dropped 17% from $1.72 billion to $1.43 billion and software sales dropped 17% as well. This decrease is reported by the NPD while conducting their monthly studies in March. Although the situation has effected all other industries, it is no surprise that the gaming industry is one of the last to suffer. Offering recreation and infinite possibilities, it makes only sense that this would be one of the last to find their brick wall.
A NDP analyst, Anita Fraizer, had this to say about the situation,
While it might be tempting to jump to the conclusion that the sky is starting to fall on the video games industry given this month’s results, it’s important to remember that two very big things are different this year than last. First, Easter fell in March last year whereas it fell in April this year, and last March included the release of Super
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0 CommentsIBM’s Ambition: 20X Performance Leap
by Nathaniel Ed on February 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm EDT - 673 views
Seven months ago IBM created the most powerful supercomputer. Now IBM seeks to create an even more powerful computer; one that has the computing power of two million laptops.
You heard me right. Two million laptops. Equal to 20 petaflops. Much larger than the supercomputer that they build last year, which was the first computer to break the one petaflop barrier, pulling in at 1.105 petaflops.
They have codenamed it the Sequoia computer, and they schedule it to finish in 2011 for use at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, being built for the purpose of simulating nuclear tests. IBM says that it can also be used for weather forecasting or oil exploration. It will take up the same space as 96 refrigerator-sized racks in an area of 3422 square feet.
Skip The PC Store, Custom Build Your Computer
by Bradley Wint on January 31st, 2009 at 4:24 pm EDT - 1,467 views
In these economical times, many of us are now forced to actually give a hand in trying to figure ways to cut back on spending. Some people have even gone the ridiculous lengths to sit in the dark just to save on electricity. However, I think there are many ways to save money without affecting your personal lifestyle. Simply cut down on the expenses you don’t need, focus on what you need and what makes economical sense in the long run, as well as choosing cheaper alternatives without sacrificing quality.
This leads me to talk about purchasing computers. No matter how bad times seem, we may need to purchase a new computer at some point in time, which recently happened to me. Most of us may be accustomed to just heading to the store, or visiting an online alternative and purchasing a pre-manufactured system from one of the leading developers such as Apple, Dell, HP and others. However, did you ever sit down to think how expensive this is as a homeowner? Over the last 10 years, I have purchased 4 computers (high end ones for their time period), and have spent quite a lot on it.
Category: Hardware, Reviews, Software
Tags: Building Computer, Computer, CPU, Custom Computer, economy, GPU, HDD, Mobo, Operating Systems, pc
The Imaging Source Announces New Products
by Nathaniel Ed on January 31st, 2009 at 3:48 pm EDT - 385 views
The Imaging Source, an international manufacturer whos products include video converters, industrial cameras, and frame grabbers recently announced their newest line of products: a series of PCI-Express frame grabbers. They are deployed for applications in which require analog video signals to be processed by a PC. The analog video signals are: PAL, CCIR, NTSC, and RS-170.
Other devices compatible with them are ultrasound and X-Ray machines.
The frame grabbers ship with Windows drivers, the SDK ‘IC Imaging Control,’ and ‘IC Capture,’ which is the end-user application software. IC Capture software is a program that allows the setting of all frame grabber parameters, the acquisition of images and sequences, and the display of live video stream.
Further details can be found here.
Source: NeonDrum (courtesy of Liz Hartney)
Image courtesy of The Image Source.
Category: Hardware
Tags: Frame grabbers, Industrial cameras, The Imaging Source, Video converters, Windows
Future of Gaming – Where are we headed?
by Andreas Rothbauer on January 27th, 2009 at 9:31 pm EDT - 3,205 views
In these tough economic times when many people use the entertainment industry as an escape from the brutal reality and are looking for affordable family entertainment I thought it was time to reflect on the gaming industry and where we are going. I am sure many of you have probably grown up with the NES and other 8 bit consoles – so have I. Looking back at those days of playing the Super Marios, Zeldas and constantly blowing on the dusty cartridges to get them to work makes me miss my first gaming experiences and the epic struggle of trying to play or should I even dare say beat some of those superhard video games from the early 90s. However, I loved every minute of it and doing it with friends were some of the best times I’ve ever had.
Today, video games take on a new but just as important of a role in our lives as adults. As mentioned before, money is hard to come by in this day and age and many people don’t even have jobs anymore. Still, families are seeking entertainment and the unlikely suspect of a video game console has stepped up to deliver just that. What was once a geeky and negatively looked upon activity has spread into nearly every living room and TV show in the United States and even the entire world – newly elevated to pop-culture: the Nintendo Wii.
Category: Games, Graphic Cards, Online, Operating Systems, Programs, Reviews, Security
Tags: Future of Gaming, Gaming in the Cloud, Nintendo Wii, PS4, Steam Cloud, Xbox 720
Intel’s Uphill Struggle for 2009
by Chris Willhite on January 17th, 2009 at 12:49 pm EDT - 392 views
It looks like the economy is hitting even the biggest of giants. Intel reported that during the last few months of last year, sales were down about 23%. If the figures and predictions turn out to be true then Intel will also have a gross profit in the lower 40’s. The shrinking demand of processors from the consumers really hits Intel hard, and right in the kisser. Especially considering that desktop CPU’s contribute to ~80% of their sales.
PC demand is sinking fast, which takes its toll on Intel because Intel owns 80 percent of the market for microprocessors, the brains of personal computers. Market research firms IDC and Gartner Inc. reported this week that PC sales growth in the fourth quarter was the worst it’s been in six years, with the slump expected to drag out until possibly 2010. -
This isn’t to say that AMD is doing any better however, the current state of the economy just makes consumers shy away from shiney new electronic delacacies. If I were one of these companies i’d stop releasing new chips and rev up R&D to get some new innovation ready for when the economy gets back on track, but I’m no buisinessman.I don’t think Intel or AMD will be going away anytime soon, they’re the only real players in the CPU scene today, but they will have some hard roads ahead of them…Let’s just pray they don’t end up like the auto companies. 
Read more here at Wired.com
Image courtesy of Intel
GPU’s at CES
by Chris Willhite on January 11th, 2009 at 1:22 pm EDT - 317 views
There’s not much in way of inovation at CES for GPU’s this year, from Nvidia we have the GeForce 295, a dual-GPU version of the 280 which packs almost twice the performance. Also from AMD we have a new mobile 4000 series of graphics chips for laptops.
The Nvidia 295 graphics card goes back to one of Nvidia’s failed attempts at dual-GPU graphics cards, but this time they do it right. With the 9000 series of graphics cards Nvidia greatly improved upon their SLi technology, pushing GPU scaling to match ATi’s Crossfire. Now with the 295’s improved SLi scaling the dual-GPU card succeeds and is now the top-performing card on the market right now, only to be rivaled by two 280’s in SLi and in some occasions the 4870×2.
A list of Nvidia 295 reviews can be found on Bjorn3d under the “Video Cards” section.
AMD decided to stay where they are in the GPU market as of right now and focus more on improving laptops, perhaps to show up Intel’s newer mobile GPU’s. AMD now has the 4000 series of GPU’s for mobile laptops, greatly improving performance for the gamer-on-the-go. If these GPU’s perform even 75% as good as the desktop versions it’s still a great improvement for laptops. Even better if the GPU’s manage to keep cool and not kill battery life.
More on AMD’s new mobile graphics chips at AMD.
Image courtesy of GPUComputing.eu
Category: General, Graphic Cards, Hardware, Industry News
USB 3.0 Expected in 2010
by Chris Willhite on January 11th, 2009 at 7:31 am EDT - 1,122 views
USB 3.0 was showcased at CES recently and it is looking good. The current benchmarks show it to be up to 10x faster than USB 2.0 which makes it able to transfer a 25Gb HD movie in 70 seconds as opposed to almost 14 minutes with USB 2.0.
The only drawback, however, is that the new revision won’t be seen on products until 2010. I personally think it’s worth the wait having up to 5Gbps transfers. It will also be backwards compatible with USB 2.0 and even 1.1 devices (if anyone still has 1.1 devices) so you won’t have to pickup a new keyboard or mouse or whatever else you use with USB.
More on USB 3.0 here.
Image courtesy of blog.makezine.com
Phenom II, i7, and You
by Chris Willhite on January 9th, 2009 at 9:59 am EDT - 460 views
Well AMD’s Deneb processor now known as Phenom II has been released yesterday and I have taken the liberty of reading almost every review on Earth…At least the ones in English. So here is a basic overview of all of the reviews I have read and my thoughts on the new chip.
The new chips come in 2.8 and 3.0Ghz flavors with a 45nm manufacturing process and larger L3 cache, among other improvements. At prices ranging from $235 to $275 which, if cut even a bit, will likely put the pressure on Intel to lower their prices for the new i7.
Overview of the Reviews
There are tons of reviews on the web for the new chip (too many to list here) and all of them have been fairly consistent in their findings…
New Two-Headed Laptop
by Taylor Flatt on January 5th, 2009 at 10:20 pm EDT - 303 views
What is it?
Lenovo’s new two-headed laptop featuring a 17″ and 10.6″ monitors weighing in at 11lbs. The ThinkPad W700ds’ 10.6″ monitor slides out from the side of the laptop making it truly unique and obtuse in design. I bet you could never guess the outrageous pricing for this design. For a meager $3,663 you can get the default minimum featured laptop.
“It is not for the typical notebook user but rather is targeted at one with a very specific requirement”, says Stephen Kleynhans, an analyst at Garner. “You aren’t going to open this thing up on an airplane tray table or even at the local Starbucks. It is for transportable use. It is geared at a content creator or engineer who needs to work somewhere other than a primary office but needs access to a high-performance workstation”, he continues.
Category: Hardware
Tags: dual screens, Laptop, Lenovo, ThinkPad