HIS Unveils AMD Radeon HD 6870 Turbo Edition

It seemed that nowadays, there would be two versions of graphic card – standard and factory overclocked – whenever a new GPU hits the market. The recently released AMD Radeon HD 6870 was no exception to this, even though we were made to understand that AMD didn’t allow any major technical changes to their new card. Somehow, it doesn’t stop HIS from coming out with a slightly souped-up version of Radeon HD 6870 graphic card.

Contained within the HIS Radeon HD 6870 Turbo is a 920 MHz core – 20 MHz more than the standard core – together with an increased memory clock from the standard 1050 MHz to 1120 MHz. Also, the card itself looks exactly like the standard HIS Radeon HD 6870 and can only be identified by the additional “Turbo” sticker on its cooler and packaging.

Nothing much to shout about, to be honest but given the restrictions they have to go through, it is not actually a rocket science to figure out why the improvement on the card is not really significant and as we said before, there is nothing wrong with having choice. You can find out more about the new HIS Radeon HD 6870 graphic card – now available at retailers everywhere – at the company’s official website (www.hisdigital.com).

Sony Ericsson Xperia X8

The Sony Ericsson Xperia X8 has finally hit our market; around four months after it’s unveiling in June 2010. Equipped with Android 1.6 – with update to 2.1 to be available in this month – as its operating system, the device is the company’s fourth Android smartphone after Xperia X10, X10 mini and X10 mini pro.

Available in White and Dark Blue/White colorways, the new X8 actually shared quite a number of features with X10 mini and mini Pro such as 600MHz processor, the four customizable shortcuts on the corner of its UI, Timescape application and the infinite button. Nevertheless, with its 3-inch display – which is slightly larger than X10 – together with its price tag of RM 899, the new X8 is still an interesting addition to the Sony Ericsson’s Xperia family.

Opera Mobile Now Available For Android

Choice, for most of the times, is actually a good thing and as another alternative browser to surf the Internet on Android devices, that is exactly what the new Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta represents. Available now for free from Android Market or atm.opera.com/next, the browser is said to be able to load page faster than many other mobile browsers out there, together with a highly fluid panning, scrolling and smooth zooming experience.

“Android users now have a better choice when it comes to using a browser on their mobile devices. With Opera’s new browser for Android, we give users the opportunity to access the Web, using the best tools available,” – Lars Boilesen, CEO, Opera Software.

Other features included in the new Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta are:

- Easy access to favourite websites and convenient password management through Speed Dial

- Better browsing on slow or congested networks with Opera Turbo

- Easy tab management with visual tabs

- Opera Presto rendering engine

- Sync your bookmarks across devices with Opera Link

- Ability to be set as the default browser

- Geolocation support

- SVG support

Of course, the Opera Mobile 10.1 Beta is not actually the first Opera internet browser for Android devices as that honor actually belongs to Opera Mini. Well, if you wondering which Opera products to choose for your Android devices, this comparison chart and blogpost might be able to help you out. Head on to Opera’s official website (www.opera.com/mobile) for more details.

Radeon HD 6800 Series

We bet you already heard of it but in case you haven’t yet, AMD has recently launched the second wave of their DirectX 11 graphic cards – the Radeon HD 6800 series. Available from retailers everywhere, the new 68000 series is the first Radeon card that carries the AMD brand, instead of ATI like yesteryears and claimed to be able to provide 30-percent more game performance than competing products.

Based on AMD’s Northern Island family of GPU, new to the AMD Radeon HD 6800 series are the support for morphological anti-aliasing, together with the introduction of their own 3D technology, the AMD HD3D. The new graphic card series is also said to be the first in the industry to feature both DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a ports together. It might not seem much but for users who love the ATI Eyefinity multi-display technology, the multiple port availability should be a very good news to them.

For starters, the card is currently available in two flavours – 6870 and 6850 – with a price tag that starts from RM 554 (USD 179) onwards; a price range that puts them directly head to head against NVIDIA GTX 460 and 470. Interesting, we must say…well, for the full lowdown of the new AMD Radeon HD 6800 series including the complete technical specifications, do visit their official website at www.amd.com

[Source: Radeon HD 6800]

Hack Google to get Rewards

Hackers and security experts scream out in joy because Google will be rewarding you to do what you love to do most: hack. Google is welcoming all hackers and security experts to find flaws in all of Google’s web applications and will pay every user who discovers any security vulnerabilities. In January, Google had a similar program for the company’s open-source Chromium project and as of Monday, they announced on their blog that they will be extending this program to Google, YouTube, Blogger and Google’s social network, Orkut however, it will not include Google client applications such as Android, Picasa and Sketchup.

Aiming to make all its application safer for users, Google will pay up to USD$3,133.70 for a vulnerability, depending on the seriousness of the flaw. The security team describes the vulnerability as “any serious bug which directly affects the confidentiality or integrity of user data” and all rewards are issued on a first-come-first-serve basis. Check out the company’s official blog for detailed information and if hacking is your interest and don’t intend on receiving any money for finding flaws on these Google applications (why wouldn’t you want money?), Google will donate the reward to charity.

[Source: Daily Tech, Google Blog]

Sony A33 and A55

The Sony A33 and A55 are the first batch of camera that features Sony’s brand new translucent mirror technology. Among one of their much touted features is the full HD recording capability at 1080p resolution. However, if you found yourself attracted to them for that reason, you might not like this: sensors on A33 and A55 can overheat in just six minutes when they are used for video recording.

According to Sony, the actual available recording time depends on the Image Stabilization (IS) settings and the surrounding temperature. Turning the IS on would give A33 and A55 users around six to eleven minutes of recording time while turning it off would push it further to around 29 minutes. Once the limit has been reached, the camera will shut down by itself and Sony recommend users have to let the camera cool down first before restarting them.

[Source: Engadget]

Norton Internet Security & Antivirus 2011

According to statistics and studies conducted by security software makers Norton, 83% of internet users in Malaysia have fallen victims to cybercrimes which include computer viruses, identity theft and credit car fraud. With such staggering figures, consumers are in dire need of a robust security system to protect themselves from Nigerian Princes and the ever elusive Spanish Lottery.

[Source: Norton News]

RIM: BlackBerry PlayBook

Its official – BlackBerry will soon be available in the form of tablet. The company behind the brand, Research In Motion (RIM) has just launched the so-called “professional-grade” BlackBerry PlayBook tablet just mere hours ago at the currently on-going BlackBerry DEVCON 2010. RIM also announced the BlackBerry Tablet OS, a totally new operating system to go with it.

Fondly referred by many as the “BlackPad” before its launch, the 7-inch capacitive touch screen device with WSVGA 1024×600 resolution is powered by a 1GHz dual-core processor together with a 1GB RAM. It comes with two HD cameras – 3 megapixels front facing and 5 megapixels rear facing – and supports both 1080p HD video recording and playback. As far as connectivity goes, it is equipped with 802.11 a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, while physically, there are also microHDMI and microUSB ports.

As for the new BlackBerry Tablet OS, RIM stated that it is fully POSIX compliant and supports OpenGL for 2D and 3D graphics application such as gaming. The OS also fully support Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, HTML5 and Java, making it pretty web friendly as well as attractive to developers and content creators. Well, that’s pretty much about it for now as RIM is going to keep the rest of the features and specifications until further notice.

To be available in 3G and 4G models, the device is expected to be out in US in early 2011 while the rest of the world will start to receive it sometime in Q2 of 2011. Check out two more product shots after the jump and to find out more, head on to www.blackberry.com/playbook

[Source: Blackberry Blog]

Sigma SD1

The Sigma Corporation is pleased to announce the new SIGMA SD1 Digital SLR Camera, incorporating a 46 megapixel (4,800×3,200×3 layers) 24×16mm APS-C X3 direct image sensor.

The SIGMA SD1 is Sigma’s flagship digital SLR model, adopting a lightweight yet solid magnesium alloy for its body and O-ring sealing connections to make a weather-resistant design throughout for use in harsh conditions.

The SIGMA SD1 incorporates a 24×16mm APS-C X3 direct image sensor and dual “TRUE (Three-layer Responsive Ultimate Engine) II ”image processing engines. The combination of the 46 megapixel (4,800×3,200×3 layers) sensor and dual TRUE II processing engines ensure the high resolution images are processed quickly with high definition and a smooth and subtle graduation of color.

The SD1 is SIGMA’s latest digital SLR camera which meets high requirements of professional and enthusiast photographers for all types of photography.

[Source: Sigma SD1]

Panasonic Lumix GH2

The GH2 has yet another ace up it’s sleeve in the form of a refined image processing engine and sensor, allowing the GH2 to take 3D photos with the 3D lens we posted about a few months back. With the new 3D lens, the H-FT102, stereo images from both the left and right lens are processed with the 3D imaging system and are viewable on a 3D ready Viera television.

The other 2 lenses Panasonic are launching are the 14mm f2.5 which has that title of the lightest single focal length lens in the Lumix G series, and the Lumix G Vario 100-300mm f4-5.6 for the aspiring sports photographer or all around perv.

The 3 lenses will retail at $249.95 (RM772) for the 3D lens, US$399.95 (RM1240) for the 14/2.5 and US$599.95 (RM1860) for the 100-300mm super telephoto.

The GH2 will ship in early December with a price of US$899.95 (RM2790) body only, US$999.95 (RM3100) for the 14-42mm bundle and US$1499.95 (RM4651) for the 14-140mm bundle.

[Source: Panasonic Lumix]