Starting with the lockscreen, like with many other Android phones there are quick shortcuts to launch a range of apps, and in the phone’s settings you can choose with apps to feature. Swiping left reveals the lockscreen widgets, and swiping right launches the camera. The particle effect used to unlock the phone is pretty cool, and like the homescreen transition effects, you can change the unlock effect in the settings....
For the mATX cases, we installed the Gigabyte H55M-UD2H, a Core i5-750 cooled using the Cooler Master Hyper TX3, a Radeon HD 6870, a pair of Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB hard drives and OCZ’s ZX 850w power supply. The Lian-Li PC-Q25 was outfitted with the Asrock Z68M-ITX/HT motherboard, a Core i5-2500K with the standard Intel box cooler (again, the power supply made it difficult to use any third-party coolers), as well as a Radeon HD 6870....
Lost Ark’s launch in February was widely considered to be a massive success, hitting over 1.3 million concurrent users for the MMO in its first two days of launch. However, in the month since its release, players all over social media and on the game’s official forums decried the rampant botting and cheating. Because of the game’s popularity, players have also dealt with long server lines since its release. But this wave of bans seems to have cut into waiting times considerably, with some players reporting that lines have shrunk by thousands of players during peak periods....
The reason for this has to do in part with something called process isolation, which is meant to make Chrome more stable and secure. By separating every tab, plugin, and extension into its own process, if a single plugin or website crashes it doesn’t bring down the whole browser. Likewise, by this same logic, if an attack takes place in one tab, it’s harder for it to access data on another tab....
The flashlights look pretty good. As I went through my notes searching for something positive I’d written about Medal of Honor Warfighter, that line stuck out to me. “The flashlights look pretty good.” They do look pretty good. Whatever lighting magic Electronic Arts has handed around to its subsidiary studios is nifty and authentic-looking. Often, when a guy shines his flashlight at you, you’ll think, “Wow, that really looks like a guy with a flashlight!...
For a device released in 2015, it’s disappointing to see the inclusion of an SoC that first hit the market in 2013. The Snapdragon 410 is a handy upgrade on the Snapdragon 400, providing a performance boost of around 20% in CPU-limited tasks, while also supporting 64-bit code. I suspect Microsoft has stuck with the Snapdragon 400 due to their familiarity with it, but it really is time to move on....
A modder based in Japan recently released an adapter that makes all the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con functions reachable with one hand. The attachment provides yet another accessibility choice for Nintendo Switch owners. Although modder Akaki Kuumeri previously produced one-handed adapters for PlayStation and Xbox controllers, the Nintendo Switch version uses the Joy-Cons’ unique nature to introduce some new tricks. Kuumeri said this adapter was easier to design than those for traditional controllers because he could situate the Joy-Cons in different directions....
The center button and LED over it are used to control the LCD screen on the bottom of the mouse. They also let you change the DPI settings on-the-fly to one of two settings that you can configure. You can toggle profiles using the LCD and adjust mouse settings without accessing the software – as would be the case while gaming. This menu is accessed simply by holding down the center button for a few seconds....
The GS40 Phantom doesn’t surprise with its 3DMark performance, where it scores as expected for this sort of laptop. It does fall five percent slower than the Gigabyte P34W v5 on average, but does this translate into a difference in real-world games? In short, no, there isn’t a significant difference in gaming performance between Gigabyte and MSI’s 14-inch gaming laptops. The GTX 970M performs exactly as expected across our benchmarks, delivering a great 1080p gaming experience....
Targets were chosen by an international committee of representatives from NASA, ESA, CSA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute, and mark the official beginning of Webb’s general science operations. NASA previously shared images from its coldest instrument, the Mid-Infrared instrument (MIRI for short) but those were just test images to demonstrate it was working properly. Webb’s first official targets are as follows: Carina Nebula: The Carina Nebula is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina....
Intel’s next generation of Xeon data center processors, codenamed Sapphire Rapids, just got leaked. Like Intel’s consumer Alder Lake lineup, it will feature the chipmaker’s Golden Cove architecture and Intel 7 process node, previously known as 10 nm Enhanced SuperFin. After several delays, the processors are expected to debut later this year, around the same time as Intel’s mainstream Raptor Lake series. They will offer up to 56 cores and 112 threads and come with a maximum TDP of 350W....
Thankfully, outdated hardware is no longer the norm with Windows Phones. The Lumia 930 packs a 5.0-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of 1920 x 1080, which is exactly what you’d expect from a high-end smartphone in 2014. Nokia also boasts a pixel density of 441 PPI, ‘ClearBlack’ technology, and the super-sensitive touchscreen we first saw in the Lumia 920. Packing a pixel density of 441 PPI, the AMOLED panel has to use a PenTile RGBG subpixel arrangement, which means the display has a lower subpixel resolution compared to RGB stripe 1080p LCDs....
Nothing, the company started by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, has just announced its first smartphone, the Phone (1). Its standout feature is the design, as it has a transparent glass back, similar to the firm’s Ear (1) earbuds launched last year. Under the glass is some unique-looking light strips that are not just for aesthetics but also serve a purpose. They can act as a sophisticated notification light (you can assign each app or contact a different combination), a battery indicator while the handset is charging, and as a fill light for photos....
Nvidia issued an official statement today regarding instances of melting power cords for the GeForce RTX 4090. The company is aware of about 50 cases worldwide, claiming they result from users improperly plugging in the cables. The trouble started in late October when Reddit users reported power connectors for the 4090 melting on the end of the cable and the GPU’s connection port. Suspicion quickly shifted toward the power adaptors Nvidia shipped with the cards to make them compatible with older power supplies....
Besides the dual-GPU GeForce GTX 295 that went on sale months later, anything after the GTX 280 has been a rehash of the same GT200b graphics core. Nvidia battled it out against the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series, which had some good performers but was somewhat light on firepower. Long story short, last September ATI was already shipping brand new parts that were faster and more efficient, while Nvidia wasn’t giving out any specific details on Fermi....
The GeForce GTX 560 Ti averaged 41fps at 1920x1200 in Metro 2033, making it 13% slower than the GTX 570 and an impressive 32% faster than the GTX 470. The GTX 560 Ti was 13% slower than the Radeon HD 6950, but it managed to defeat the Radeon HD 6870 by a convincing 24% margin. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat has an official DirectX 11 benchmark tool, but we decided to dump that in favor of Fraps....
Our custom Crysis Warhead test using Fraps does not favor the Nvidia cards like the built-in benchmark tool, though it’s not entirely clear why. In any case, we found the GeForce GTX 590 to be 10% slower than the Radeon HD 6990. Meanwhile, it was 69% faster than the HD 6970, 50% faster than the HD 5970, and it beat the GTX 580 by a 54% margin. World in Conflict Soviet Assault World in Conflict has a solid built-in benchmark tool, so we relied on it using the “very high” quality setting with 4xAA/16xAF....
Likewise, the GTX 660 Ti was 11% faster and more power efficient than the competing Radeon HD 7870 when testing at 1920x1200 on most games, despite matching it on price. Predictably, AMD neutralized that threat by slashing prices. The HD 7870’s price dropped to $249, while the HD 7850 fell from $239 to $209 and the HD 7950 dipped from $349 to $319. This balanced things out, with products from both major GPU makers finding their rightful place in the market....
With its 450W TDP, $1,600 MSRP, and 24GB of GDDR6X clocked at 21 Gbps, the GeForce RTX 4090 is a monster in every respect. However, we’d heard plenty of rumors before Ampere’s launch of a Lovelace flagship with 48GB of memory @24 Gbps and a TGP of 900W. Update: Our GeForce RTX 4090 review is now live. Is it a power hog? Let’s find out… According to Moore’s Law is Dead, which can admittedly be a bit hit-and-miss with its claims, this card is the Titan Ada....
Our virus scan test showed no difference in performance between the OCZ Vector 150 and the original Vector with both take just 43 seconds, the best result recorded by any SSD. Interestingly, the Vector 150 was two seconds slower than the original Vector in our game installation test, taking 97 seconds opposed to 95 seconds, which was still on par with the 840 Pro and 840 Evo.
