Nvidia Fermi update: they have names!

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Back in the middle of January I blogged about the possibility that Nvidia’s latest round of GPUs, codenamed Fermi, might darken the door of the PC Pro Lab sometime in 2010, even though we’d been assured that the new chips would be ready for a graphics card Labs in December.

The blog attracted a fair few comments, mainly because I’d offered a prize: guess the date when we take delivery of Fermi cards, and I’ll send you some assorted gubbins from the deepest, darkest depths of the Labs.

Now, though, the competition seems to be heating up: Nvidia’s UK PR manager, Ben Berraondo, has revealed that the two first Fermi parts out of the door will be the GeForce GTX 470 and 480. We’re relieved to see that Nvidia hasn’t decided to tinker with its naming scheme again and, if the firm’s previous form is any sort of indicator, these will both be reasonably high-end parts.

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Do you care about DirectX 11?

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

Before every new graphics card release, ATI holds a conference call to go through the chip’s specification, marketing strategy and future. It’s normally hosted by the head of the team that developed the card and is attended by journalists from across Europe, and normally they’re pretty routine.

During the call to announce the new Radeon HD 5670, however, a comment from Shaila Bansal, senior product manager for the Radeon HD 5000-series, sparked my interest. “There is a lot of demand from customers to have the latest version of DirectX”, she said, referring to a slide in our presentation PDFs that allegedly illustrated that point before going on to say how the new card is squarely aimed at the “mainstream” consumer rather than enthusiasts who might salivate over the Radeon HD 5970.

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Where on earth are Nvidia’s Fermi GPUs?

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Running a graphics card Labs once a year makes sense for several reasons. For a start, it normally coincides with ATI and Nvidia’s major line refreshes, and it’s a chance to get every single available GPU into the Labs for a one-off shootout: a chance to see, once and for all, which card pushes pixels like no other.

We had planned to test throughout December, since ATI’s Radeon HD 5000-series cards have mostly been released, but Nvidia’s put a stop to those plans. Despite assurances that we’d have cards before Christmas, Fermi parts are proving as elusive as some private time in the Celebrity Big Brother house.

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Why Android shouldn’t worry about the iPhone

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

Apple may have given the smartphone market a much-needed kick up the backside a couple of years ago, but it’s also given rise to an uncomfortable new term, “iPhone killer”, which seems to be attached to every new device – even though it’s a largely pointless and potentially harmful comparison.

That’s because, as much as it pains me to admit it, the only thing that’s likely to finish off the iPhone will be its successor. It won’t be the Palm Pre, it won’t be the Motorola DROID and it certainly won’t be Google’s own Nexus One. The iPhone is simply too good – or, at least, Apple’s advertising, brand and new-found market penetration is too good – for another phone or OS to ascend the summit of the smartphone market.

This doesn’t have to spell the end of Android, though. In fact, the increased demand for smartphones represents a huge opportunity if the internet hype machine can stop relentlessly comparing every new release to Apple’s behemoth and instead concentrate on the platform’s real strengths rather than a pithy soundbite.

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Stupid tech in Christmas films

Thursday, December 24th, 2009

Christmas TV may be cheesier than the average Fondue addict thanks to dozens of old repeats and schmaltzy family films, but there’s still plenty of fun to be had amid the predictable seasonal schedules.

Take the hundreds of movies that are churned out by dozens of channels over the festive period: while some just aren’t worth bothering with – with guff like Santa Clause: The Movie or White Christmas the worst offenders – others are worth a watch simply for their off-the-wall technology.

We’ve scoured the listings and hunted down our favourite examples so, if you’ve got a spare moment between the Queen’s Speech and Top of the Pops, you can take a peek at some of the oddest tech ever commited to celluloid.

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Big developers on Android – who needs ‘em?

Friday, November 27th, 2009

The Android market copped some flack last week as developer Gameloft “significantly” cut its investment in the platform after the firm’s finance director claimed that the store isn’t neat enough – and that Android just isn’t lucrative enough for big businesses.

The burgeoning Android app scene, though, suggests that Gameloft and its ilk won’t be missed.

After all the market, as deficient as it is, still offers hundreds of applications made by talented individuals and fast-moving small companies, and the growth of the store – which has seen 94% more app projects started in October than in September – almost certainly has more to do with them than with the occasional big company, like Gameloft, gracing us with its presence.

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Photoshop Mobile on Android review: first look

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

Photoshop Mobile has been available on Windows Mobile devices and the iPhone since the beginning of October, but the release of the software on Android is sure to attract thousands of new users to the service.

The Photoshop brand, though, is synonymous with top quality photography products – and we’ve been hands-on with the Android version to see if it’s fit to carry on this legacy.

First impressions are good, with the sleek interface responding well: the left-hand tab shows pictures stored locally, with the right-hand panel displaying images stored on your Photoshop.com account, which offers 2GB of free storage unless you’re willing to pay for the premium 20GB service.

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ATI Radeon HD 5970: 42% more expensive in the UK

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

The ATI Radeon HD 5970, aside being from the fastest graphics card in the world, is several things: hot enough to sear the skin off your fingers, for instance, and so huge that it’ll barely fit inside the average ATX case.

At £520 inc VAT for a stock version, it’s also one of the most expensive graphics cards available in the UK – and, when the same card costs $599 in the US, that seems like a tremendous rip-off.

We’ve asked ATI to clarify exactly how it arrived at this price – after all, a straight conversion of the American price would see the HD 5970 costing around £360 – but the firm’s replies have only consisted of the usual corporate excuses, with VAT, shipping costs and exchange rates all blamed for the 42% price hike.

So, how likely are these oft-used excuses?

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Motorola pays Lucas for its Droid

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Google’s Android operating system seems to be gathering pace, with more and more phones emerging that run the Open Source mobile OS – in the past few months we’ve reviewed the Samsung i7500 Galaxy, HTC Hero and HTC Magic.

One phone that’s gathering momentum across the pond is the Motorola Droid and, from early previews, it’s easy to see why: as well as offering the numerous benefits of Android, it also has a sliding Qwerty keyboard, 3.7in capacitive touchscreen, 5mp camera, GPS and Wi-Fi. It’s also the first phone to ship with Google Maps Navigation installed.

In short, it sounds superb – but that’s not the most interesting thing about one of the most-hyped smartphones of the past several months.

The most interesting thing about Motorola’s new phone can actually be found on the Droid homepage. Look past the flashy graphics towards the copyright notices at the bottom of the screen – you know, the part that everyone usually ignores – and read the bottom line, which says:

“DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilm Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license.”

So it appears that Motorola can’t call its new Android phone the Droid unless they pay a certain Mr. Lucas a hefty wodge of cash to stop him turning up at the Chicago firm’s HQ with a battery of lawyers.

Who knew that R2D2 could prove so profitable?

Thanks to Brian Sharp at WikiTravel for the R2D2 image.

Help me choose my next PC case

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

I know there’s a while to go yet, but I’m beginning to think about Christmas – and, specifically, what I’m going to do about my ailing PC over the holiday period.

It’s in bad shape. The chassis is an decrepit Cooler Master model that has no screws holding the sides on and, since I rescued it from the PC Pro Labs, not all of the components inside are actually secured properly: the two hard disks lie uncomfortably in their drive bays, and the optical drive isn’t attached to the 5.25in bay, either; instead, it merely balances between the bay and the front of the chassis and  has to be physically pulled towards the front of the system to be used.

Obviously, this brings numerous disadvantages, with the rattling and reverberating of the hard disks and optical drive meaning that my system isn’t exactly quiet. The lack of cable-tidying means that it’s an ugly PC to look at and difficult to work inside, too, which has made life tricky when I’ve upgraded components in the past.

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