Intel Corporation is presenting a paper at the SIGGRAPH 2008 industry conference in Los Angeles on Aug. 12 that describes features and capabilities of its first-ever forthcoming "many-core" blueprint or architecture codenamed "Larrabee."

Details unveiled in the SIGGRAPH paper include a new approach to the software rendering 3-D pipeline, a many-core (many processor engines in a product) programming model and performance analysis for several applications.

The first product based on Larrabee will target the personal computer graphics market and is expected in 2009 or 2010. Larrabee will be the industry's first many-core x86 Intel architecture, meaning it will be based on an array of many processors. The individual processors are similar to the Intel processors that power the Internet and the laptops, PCs and servers that access and network to it.

Larrabee is expected to kick start an industry-wide effort to create and optimize software for the dozens, hundreds and thousands of cores expected to power future computers. Intel has a number of internal teams, projects and software-related efforts underway to speed the transition, but the tera-scale research program has been the single largest investment in Intel's technology research and has partnered with more than 400 universities, DARPA and companies such as Microsoft and HP to move the industry in this direction.

Over time, the consistency of Intel architecture and thus developer freedom afforded by the Larrabee architecture will bring about massive innovation in many areas and market segments. For example, while current games keep getting more and more realistic, they do so within a rigid and limited framework. Working directly with some of the world's top 3-D graphics experts, Larrabee will give developers of games and APIs (Application Programming Interface) a blank canvas onto which they can innovate like never before.

Initial product implementations of the Larrabee architecture will target discrete graphics applications, support DirectX and OpenGL, and run existing games and programs. Additionally, a broad potential range of highly parallel applications including scientific and engineering software will benefit from the Larrabee native C/C++ programming model.

Additional details of the Larrabee architecture discussed in this paper include:

The Larrabee architecture has a pipeline derived from the dual-issue Intel Pentium

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Weighing in on the new consoles, the master of doom, John Carmack, also gets us up to speed on engine improvements.

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Sales are perking up for 64-bit after years of dominance by 32-bit OS's

The hottest buzz in the tech industry in 2003 was 64-bit hardware and operating systems. That year the industry seemed on the verge of a computer revolution.  Then AMD CEO Hector Ruiz stated, "Our industry, right now, is hungry for another round of innovation."

AMD released its first 64-bit processors that year.  While sales were decent, there was no consumer 64-bit operating system to take advantage of the hardware.  Then finally in 2005, Microsoft released Windows XP in 64-bit form.  Yet again the 64-bit industry seemed set to explode.

The release was met with much criticism, though.  Part of the problem was necessity -- even in 2005 the average user did not need more than 2 GB, in most circumstances.  Another major hitch was driver support.  All drivers had to be rewritten to work with the new width.

Despite these difficulties, three years later, for the first time, the 64-bit industry is at last healthy and growing.  With virtually all new processors from Intel and AMD supporting 64-bit, 64-bit OS's are flourishing as well. 

In a recent blog, Microsoft's Chris Flores reported that 20 percent of new Windows systems connecting to Windows Update were 64-bit.  This is up from a mere 3 percent in March.  He stated, "Put more simply, usage of 64-bit Windows Vista is growing much more rapidly than 32-bit.  Based on current trends, this growth will accelerate as the retail channel shifts to supplying a rapidly increasing assortment of 64-bit desktops and laptops."

Retailers such as Best Buy and Circuit City are also catching on to the trend, offering largely 64-bit OS-equipped machines for their most heavily advertised models.  Many manufacturers are also throwing in their support; Gateway will be transitioning its entire desktop line to 64-bit in time for the back-to-school shopping season.  To put this in perspective, in its first quarter, only 5 percent of Gateway's notebooks and desktops were 64-bit.  In its third quarter, a whopping 95 percent of desktops will be 64-bit and 30 percent of notebooks will be.

Aside from the increased memory, one other possible cause for adoption is the increased availability of software that takes advantage of the increased capacity.  Adobe's various graphical design product lines have been revamped for 64-bit.  Another drive may be gaming, which is typically memory hungry. "64-bit versions of Windows will begin to find their way into high-end gaming notebooks, which increasingly are being used as high-end notebook workstations as opposed to strictly gaming systems," said IDC analyst Richard Shim.

Finally, it may just be inevitability that is helping 64-bit.  While the upgrade will only provide subtle benefits to the majority of users, even power users, it is an iterative advance.  And like most advances, after a period of reticence, people are finally warming up to it.

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SPACE websites are abuzz with speculation about what NASA's latest Mars probe may have found.

The excitement has been triggered by the respected journal Aviation Week claiming the space agency has alerted the White House to "major new Phoenix lander discoveries concerning the 'potential for life' ". NASA has said little about the claims, although it has used the social networking site Twitter to play down the reports.

The magazine did say it was not life that had been discovered but evidence relating to the planet's "habitability". It strongly hinted that an announcement, perhaps next month, would be far more dramatic than last week's news that Phoenix had confirmed there was water ice on the planet.

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A Thai video game distributor has stopped selling Grand Theft Auto, after a local teenager went on a self-confessed GTA style murder and robbery rampage.

The 18-year old high school student, who

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Nvidia has denied that it

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Noise always has been an issue with graphics cards. The past few years however manufacturers has put more emphasis on cooling solutions that though are high performance, are silent. Every now and then however there are some companies out there releasing a product completely passively cooled. Today therefore we test the first in a two-fold of passively cooled GeForce 9600 GT products. This one comes from the lads at Galaxy, and is completely heatpipe based. There are situations where passive cooling can be ideal - Home Theater PCs for example. Or even the common desktop PC if you game heavily and you like the lack of noise as much as I do.

Today we test a passively cooled GeForce 9600 GT product. This one comes from the lads at Galaxy, and is completely heatpipe based. But is it any good ?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-9600-gt-silent-heatpipe-review-galaxy/

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Hehe, seriously sometimes when you see a product screenshot of something new, you tend to burn into laughter. Well at least I did when I noticed this new Thermaltake RAM Cooler RamOrb. Aah well here we go:

Thermaltake RAM Cooler RamOrb is designed with a heat transmitting channel to take heat away from the memory; consisting of a copper heatpipe to effectively conduct the heat to the copper fins for heat dissipation, and the extra 5cm fan works strongly to further accelerate the heat dissipation process. Other than the excellent structure, Thermaltake RamOrb is also angle adjustable for the enhancement of mechanical compatibility; and the side flow design integrates well with the chassis air flow to further push the cooling performance to the maximum. An additional tool included to fix the aluminum heat spreader makes the installation of RamOrb easy and simple; and with such slim sized cooler, you will also be able to add on multiple coolers for possible RAM upgrades in the future. Thermaltake RAM Cooler RamOrb measures 155 x 17 x 105 mm and weigh 136g.

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The Federal Communications Commission last Friday formally ruled that Comcast's traffic throttling practices were illegal, setting a precedent for US Internet providers. The decision acts on a recent report of the FCC's plans and requires that the the cable company stop the filtering it has used so far, which uses a Sandvine program that automatically breaks the connection between Comcast users and others running BitTorrent clients and certain peer-to-peer software. The ruling also requires that Comcast disclose how it performs any future throttling, which the provider already plans to do but in a more general form.

The FCC bases its decision largely on a non-binding 2005 statement that high-speed Internet access should be open and widely available, a framework that both the FCC and advocates have said establishes a basis for net neutrality that gives all content the same level of access. By punishing certain forms of file sharing traffic simply through their format, Comcast is violating the principle of that statement, critics charge.

Voting for the ruling resulted in a narrow 3-2 decision that saw significant opposition from FCC chairman Kevin Martin's fellow Republicans in the Commission as well as repeated opposition from Comcast itself. The telecoms firm first denied its throttling practice but has since been forced to acknowledge its existence, now claiming it to be a "reasonable" measure to prevent heavy downloaders from bogging down the rest of the network.

A statement issued by Comcast in the wake of the ruling tries to minimize the perceived impact of throttling, saying that it engages only in "very limited" management of peer-to-peer uploads and says that the "overwhelming majority" of traffic is unaffected. The firm also points to its partnerships with BitTorrent and other companies, though these were formed primarily after Comcast's secret throttling methods were exposed.

Martin has added that Comcast's clear attempt to hide and deny its behavior made the offense especially serious.

While the FCC's move has been criticized for the absence of a financial penalty, it nonetheless sets a precedent that may see similar penalties launched against other American providers that either slow down certain types of traffic or else favor traffic to others, such as a company's own websites. Cox and other providers are suspected as following in Comcast's footsteps.

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Just for the sake of it, instead of hyper-cooling your PC gear, did you ever wonder what would happen if you throw a bowl of liquid nitrogen in a pool? No ? Me neither .. but check out this video:


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The folks from Akasa unveiled two new cases: the infinti and infinti ZOR. The main difference between the two is that the ZOR edition has blue LED fans and a sidewindow. The case is made out of steel and features an aluminum front. There's room for eleven 5.25" devices, six HDDs (2x 3HDD cage) and one FDD drive. The case ships with three fans and features two washable air intake filters.

Taking the gaming experience to a completely new level, the exciting Infiniti ZOR delivers exceptional cooling performance and plenty of user friendly features.

Hard core gaming stresses PC hardware; keeping cool is crucial for system stability therefore every element of the case has been engineered to provide maximum cooling performance. CPU, GPU, memory, VRM

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PC.IGN and ShackNews has posted their impressions of Wolfenstein, the upcoming first-person shooter. The game is planned to hit simultaneously on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, though no release date has been set.

The demo began with a machinegun-armed B.J. blasting away at swastika-bearing soldiers, making his way to an objective amidst an urban battlefield. After some standard gun play, we got a taste of the "Veil" powers, special abilities that B.J. can activate to give him an edge in combat. The first revealed was a time-stopping power, which naturally slowed combat down to a snail's pace. When used, these powers will shift B.J. into the Veil world, the green-hued, energy-filled realm that Hitler is after. The Nazis are the only ones who have been meddling in this world, so enemy structures will exist in the Veil--a sort of Soul Reaver-esque changing of level geometry.

Strange bee-like aliens also inhabit the Veil, collecting some kind of energy for a mysterious purpose. These fat alien bees can be shot and killed, their amassed energy exploding outward and damaging the soldiers around them. While the bees were all we saw, Raven noted that other types of creatures will show up later in the game, and they may be utilized to accomplish objectives. Outside of the Veil, combat seemed to be typical Wolfenstein fare, though enemy AI is now smart enough to make use of cover. As such, that cover can be exploded and dispersed via Havok physics. B.J. can also get hands on with enemies, using weapons in melee fashion. A Raven rep made mention of a sledgehammer weapon, indicating that pure melee arms will be featured.

The presentation ended with a short boss fight featuring a "heavy trooper," an armored humanoid with an impenetrable forcefield protecting him. To defeat him, B.J. had to enter the Veil to bypass the shield, then attack several weak points on the hulking trooper. After killing him, our hero picked up the enemy's weapon, a Ghostbusters-like laser beam that incinerated enemies on contact, blasting cover out of the way.

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GGmania reported that Activision today revealed that it is planning to release more of franchise titles Guitar Hero and Call of Duty in 2009. Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said that the publisher will "leapfrog" studios, which we'll assume to mean that, since Treyarch is hard at work on Call of Duty: World At War, that Call of Duty 4 developer Infinity Ward will be taking the reins on this one. Kotaku mentions a rumor that Infinity Ward is working on a science-fiction shooter, and speculate whether CoD 6 will be fought with ray guns, though it was also recently reported the developer is cultivating an entirely new intellectual property. In related news, CVG has a nice lengthy write-up of Call of Duty: World at War. The team had a chance to sit down with a demo of World at War:

Treyarch's Noah commented that players in the dev's offices had begun playing World At War in the same manner as real US troops would move through a battlefield; advancing slowly, scouring the tree tops for enemies and firing into the long grass to spook hidden enemies. Backing up this gameplay is COD's latest weapon - the flamethrower. This enables you to burn trees, grass and almost anything on the battlefield. It was demoed to me in the game's new Co-op mode, with Noah and Treyarch's creative director Richard Farrelly teaming up to showcase the fiery death-dealer.  It looked a little cheap. Every step was met with a vicious burst from the scorching flamethrower, which instantly set everyone and anything on fire. Grass would burn, spread and torch trees; flaming enemies would run screaming into gun turrets and cause havoc. It looked all too easy and Noah admits that getting this balance right, especially for online, will be vital.

COD4 sung online. It changed everything. So handily using the COD4 engine means everything you and I loved about playing online will be retained for World At War, including Perks, team modes and old-school set-ups. Noah was being coy about the Perks system for World At War, after all these are WWII weapons, but upgrades such as powerful shots, mid-mag reloads on the M1 Grand and new grenade classes (Molotov cocktails) will be on offer.

Interestingly, Treyarch are pushing the idea of a vehicle-based online mode. There will be specific maps and Perks created just for skirmishes involving tanks, jeeps and armoured cars. This is something of a gamble, especially considering the game's limited development time. It's debatable whether online vehicle combat will add anything to the series over being a niche side event.  The second campaign is set at the end of the European war as Russian forces pushed into Berlin. This looks to resemble the tightly contested street skirmishes of COD4. Expect something similar to the Middle-Eastern stages of Modern Combat with a smattering of new weapons, including the return of the fire effect used in the Pacific campaign with the introduction of Molotov cocktails and combustable environments to make use of.

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You just need to set your wished clock and it calculates all other settings, for example. It automatically sets the correct CPU-RAM-ratio and Referenceclock:HTT-Ratio.

It

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The S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Clear Sky Website now shows the system requirements for GSC Game World's upcoming shooter prequel:

MINIMAL

• Microsoft Windows 2000(SP4)/XP/Vista (SP1) 
• Intel Pentium 4 2.0 Ghz / AMD XP 2200+ 
• 512 MB RAM 
• 10 GB free hard disc space 
• 128 MB DirectX 8.0 compatible card / nVIDIA GeForce 5700 / ATI Radeon 9600 
• Keyboard, Mouse 
• LAN / Internet for Multiplayer 
• Microsoft Windows XP/Vista (SP1) 
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 / AMD 64 X2 4200+ 
• 1.5 GB RAM 
• 10 GB free hard disc space 
• 256 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible card / nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT / ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT
• Keyboard, Mouse 
• LAN / Internet for Multiplayer

RECOMMENDED

• Microsoft Windows XP/Vista (SP1) 
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 / AMD 64 X2 4200+ 
• 1.5 GB RAM 
• 10 GB free hard disc space 
• 256 MB DirectX 9.0c compatible card / nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT / ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 
• Keyboard, Mouse 
• LAN / Internet for Multiplayer

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The good folks over at G4TV obtained over seven minutes of new footage from Far Cry 2. Check it out if interested:


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That's always good news. Hitachi is developing a new generation of lithium-ion battery packs that should significantly extend the running time of portable devices without requiring a radical breakthrough in technology, the company said when discussing its financial results. The Japanese electronics maker plans to swap the graphite used in the electrodes of today's batteries with a silicon alloy material that would increase the effective capacity of a battery by 20 percent without making additional changes.

It also has a lower expansion coefficient that potentially reduces the susceptibility of the battery to overheating and triggering the battery fires that prompted a global recall by Sony in 2007.

The company also plans to use a different alloy for the positive electrode, made of cobalt, magnesium and nickel, that would also improve capacity by an unspecified amount. It would also reduce the dependence on potentially costly cobalt, which makes up the bulk of the electrode in today's batteries, Hitachi says.

Silicon alloy should be implemented in Hitachi's batteries by the end of 2009, while the cobalt mix should be ready elsewhere in the year. No mention is made of the company's exact plans for the invention, though lithium-ion packs are most often used for cellphones as well as notebooks and are likely to replace older nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries in electric and hybrid cars.

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Sam Knows publishes its long awaiting performance report, published today sam knows limited published the results of its long awaited broadband performance reports from the UK's ISP's.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/pm/PM_Summer_08.pdf
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Dell customers are unhappy with the BIOS patch released by Dell to counter the problem with faulty NVIDIA GPUs. Here

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Let me firstly state that there's nothing more unsubstantiated than this rumor from Digitimes. Yet NVIDIA may quit the mainboard chipset industry entirely just as it's rumored to be expanding into new areas, if a claim from companies producing the final mainboards themselves.

The California-based creator of the nForce line has allegedly held a meeting this week to determine whether it should continue producing chipsets at all but has been met with "silence," hinting both that NVIDIA was already considering an exit but also that weak demand gives it little reason to continue. Some of these partners have already made their intentions clear by canceling mainboards that would use the nForce 7-series chipset, the report argues. The line is NVIDIA's flagship and gives both AMD- and Intel-based computers support for advanced performance features such as quad SLI, which teams up four video cards to accelerate 3D on one display.

SLI's future would be uncertain without a company dedicated to supporting it and would potentially hand a victory to AMD, which already ensures CrossFire support not just on mainboards that support its Athlon and Phenom processors but also certain Intel-based reference designs.

Updated - A response from NVIDIA's Bryan del Rizzo:

1. The story on Digitimes is completely groundless. We have no intention of getting out of the chipset business.
2. In fact, our MCP business is as strong as it ever has been for both AMD and Intel platforms:
   1. Mercury Research has reported that the NVIDIA market share of AMD platforms in Q2 08 was 60%. We have been steady in this range for over two years.
   2. SLI is still the preferred multi-GPU platform thanks to its stellar scaling, game compatibility and driver stability.
   3. nForce 790i SLI is the recommended choice by editors worldwide due to its compelling combination of memory performance, overclocking, and support for SLI. . . .
3. We're looking forward to bring new and very exciting MCP products to the market for both AMD and Intel platforms.

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