Hardware
Buying a computer : Make it a green one
Its time when we took our environment seriously & do whatever we can to save & contribute towards saving our planet. These days almost every giant company is trying to reduce their carbon footprint. Green initiatives are coming into action here & there, but what can an individual do to help towards saving the environment.
Almost everyone these days use computers. While building/ ordering a new computer, whether it is a custom made PC or a branded one, you can make it a green pc. Going green isn’t very difficult. Many Companies out there are making green pcs these days. Check out the brand website for the green PC options or if you are making a custom pc , you can make a list of Green components you might want to use.
An example is the western digital Green Caviar Green series of hard disk drives.
not only hard disk drives , but others components like Motherboards are also coming with green labels on them, check them out. While selecting a processor, just don’t go for the top of the line product. Calculate your usage and the amount of computing power you need & select a processor accordingly. While selecting a CPU remember to check out how much watts a processor takes and its power saving features.
Just remember every single commitment taken toward saving our environment counts. Just use the resources you really need.
Shantanu Kaushik
Popularity: 2% [?]
Ah ! Mini
Call them Mini, Netbook or ultra-portables. These tiny computers have come a long way in mobile computing. These days you can use your smartphone to do almost everything, but there are certain things that you would like a computer to do. What makes Mini computers or Netbooks special & should you buy one is going to be discussed here.
What is a Netbook ?
A netbook is a hot piece of computer that can work for long hours while generating minimal heat, but with that it gives you slower performance when compared to a standard desktop/Laptop PC. You can do almost everything on a netbook, but should refrain from using high resource hungry application on it.
Options with Processors
Both Intel & AMD are giving options in mobile processors which fill the Netbooks today. While Intel Atom is a more cheap solution then AMD ( this being quite opposite when seen in Laptop/Desktop) . The Cheapest Netbook in Indian market starts nearly at 12,500/- ( which might vary in your state or region).
Should I buy a Netbook ?
Netbook is a great portable computer for word processing, Internet surfing, blogging etc. ! But the limitations come in terms of processing power. Playing Games and intensive coding or High Definition videos can be a problem, but you can watch normal DVD/CD quality videos very easily.
Buying a netbook is a perfect option if you already have a Home Desktop/Laptop computer that suffices your resource hungry application needs. Netbook is more affordable, light & portable.
Popularity: 2% [?]
New XBOX 360 coming this fall
Some call it SLim & some are crazy about the new kinect motion tracking peripheral that is a part of the bundle with all new XBOX 360 from Microsoft that seems to hit the market this fall. As revealed with a internmal market survey its been said : “part of a bundle with the newly designed Xbox 360 console” but Microsoft quickly adds that “we have no additional details about pricing or retail strategy to share at this time.” Meanwhile, GameStop is stating that an Elite bundle will be selling for 399 dollars, while an Arcade one will cost 299.”
Its being speculated that XBOX 360 Slim might be priced very competitively at $199 onwards. This console will feature a 250 Gigabyte of Hard disk space and an internal WiFi Card. HDMI output will also be a option.
Kinect, formerly known as Natal, ables the players to control the games they play without any physical controller, but using a camera and software. Microsoft has setup a launch date of Nov. 4 for North America Region. For rest of the world and about pricing information you have to wait will August.
Source|Original Story| Softpedia | TCN Writeup| Shantanu
Popularity: 48% [?]
Truth Behind the death of Intel’s Larrabee
Intel, a well known company, had plans to Roll out a discrete Graphic card chip better known as larrabee, The GPU ( Graphic Processing Unit ) was beleived to compete with the industry kings in Graphic field i.e. AMD-Ati & nVidia. It was said that Intel was working too hard to develop this GFx chip that was based on x86 architecture. The highly appreciated work by Intel was suddenly annouced as delayed indefinitely.
A industry report by Techeye claimed that a hardware designer at Intel said that Larrabee would have changed the Graphics industry significantly as the platform was more flexible in terms of usability and programmability when compared to AMD or nVidia. Its been sometime now since we see high powered Gfx Chip by nvidia or Ati ( AMD) , As better the technology gets they wont be suporting the x86 architecture, this might give larrabee an edge to compatiblity.
“Intel is not a one-shot company. But there is a whole product plan and roadmap still in place,” an anonymous Larrabee engineer reportedly said. “Intel has the luxury of being able to release stuff in its own time, there are not too many other companies that can do that.”
AMD & Nvidia has their own advantages, Intel might just work again on the Larrabee and we might see something better, unless Intel Kills the project.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Transformation to Hard drives
The year is 2010, its time some thing undergo changes. Technology has never been at ease, it changes everyday, something new turns up and outdates other. Now The Hard drives as we know them , are about to undergo a major format shift, this format shift will be the biggest in the last 30 years. It is being said that by early 2011 all harddrives will change how we the users store our data on them. The HDD’s will use advanced format to achieve this. This enhancement will help store more data, more effeciently & while conserving power usage. But the problem arises when we think that right now many users are still on Windows XP, who dont plan to migrate soon to Windows 7.
“The technology has changed but that fundamental building block of formatting has not,” said David Burks, a product marketing manager for storage firm Seagate.
By change in technology, it means that there were times when the hard drives were just few megabytes in size, and formatting them with a 512byte block partition made a whole lot sense, but what now ? when people are using 1TB ( 1024 GB) as a standard Drisk for their computing needs. This fine resolution on hard drives is causing a problem,manager said, because of the wasted space associated with each tiny block.Each 512 byte sector has a marker showing where it begins and an area dedicated to storing error correction codes. In addition a tiny gap has to be left between each sector. In large drives this wasted space where data cannot be stored can take up a significant proportion of the drive.
Moving to an advanced format of 4K sectors means about eight times less wasted space but will allow drives to devote twice as much space per block to error correction.
“You can get yourself into a corner where you cannot squeeze much more onto the disk,” said Steve Perkins, a technical consultant for Western Digital.
This shift also allows manufacturers to make more efficient use of the real estate on a hard drive.
“We can put more data on the disk,” he said. “It’s about 7-11% more efficient as a format.”
Source | BBC
Popularity: 4% [?]
