Acer Iconia Tab A200 Leaked, Receives Bluetooth Certification

Acer is about to announce a new Iconia Tab tablet, namely the Iconia Tab A200, which was spotted recently at Bluetooth SIG.

According to the folks over at PocketDroid, the slate should be delivered with Android 3.2 Honeycomb on board, but there's no mention of any kind of platform on the Bluetooth SIG site.

The tablet is described as being “lightweight and smaller than a magazine,” so we can't be sure if it's a 10-incher, or it will be out with a smaller display.

Other technical details about the unannounced slate are kind of blurry, but one thing is certain, the Iconia Tab A200 will released in Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America.

In addition, Bluetooth SIG documents confirm that the Iconia Tab A200 will be delivered with Wi-Fi connectivity included.

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Fujitsu Supercomputer Is Fastest in the World at 10.51 Petaflops

Supercomputers seem to be spoken of a lot these days but, then again, with monsters the size of the Fujitsu K, this is hardly surprising.

The Top500 list of supercomputers will probably have the K at the very top next time it is compiled.

Though Fujitsu has not yet held the official press release that will officially claim the world's fastest title for the HPC application, a report did it well enough in advance.

Right now, the K can work at ten petaflops or, more precisely, 10.51 petaflops, in line with how Fujitsu wanted to make this possible by 2012.

The conglomerate has 88,128 processors spread across 864 racks and relies on $10 million (7.22 Euro) worth of electricity a year.

The formal press release will be made at SC11 (will take place from November 12 to 18).

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ASUS Transformer Prime Tablet Smashes Through Benchmark

ASUS Transformer Prime barely got through the FCC, and it came out in pieces too, but that still didn't stop a certain someone from seeing its benchmarking score. 

As unlikely as it sounds, the tablet, which is powered by NVIDIA's Tegra 3 Kal-El ARM SoC (system-on-chip), was found on AnTuTu benchmark.

The AnTuTu benchmarking app showed it clearly superior to both tablets and some high-end smartphones.

Apparently, with a score of 12,872, the Kal-El device was very much ahead of the rest.

For the sake of comparison, the score is roughly twice as high as the one that the Original Transformer is able to dish out.

More data may or may not show up in leaks before ASUS actually make the official introduction of the Eee Pad Transformer prime, on November 9.

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Asus ROG G53SX Notebook Is a Gaming Powerhouse

Asus continues to expand its range of ROG gaming notebook with new products and the latest to make its arrival is the G53SX which seems to resemble a great deal the older G74SX laptop, but is comes with a smaller 15.6-inch display.

Just as it was the case with its predecessor, the G53SX features the same all-black look and angular design characteristic to the company's ROG-series notebooks.

At the heart of the Asus G53SS notebook stands the Intel Core i7-2670QM processor, that features four computing cores operating at 2.2GHz, which xan be paired together with up to 16GB of DDR3 memory (four DIMM banks are available) and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M dedicated graphics card.

This GPU is based on the GF114 core and packs 384 stream processors, 64 texture units, 32 ROPs, and 3GB of video buffer memory.

The powerful Nvidia graphics card is used for driving a Full HD resolution (1920x1080) ColorShine display which measures 15.6-inch in diagonal.

As far as storage is concerned, the Asus notebook can be configured with various HDD, SSD and hybrid storage solutions, and the base version comes pre-fitted with a specious 1TB hard drive with a spindle speed of 7,200RPM.

Just as its older brother, the notebook also features SuperSpeed USB 3.0 connectivity, an HDMI 1.4a port (as well as various other video outputs), Altec Lansing THX TruStudio speakers and S/PDIF digital audio out.

The rest of the features list includes a DVD burner, a 2MP webcam with microphone, Wi-Fi b/g/n and Gigabit Ethernet networking (no Bluetooth though), a multi-format card reader, an 8-cell 5200mAh battery and a backlit keyboard great for LAN parties and mid-night gaming sessions.

Pricing for the base version of the Asus G53SX that comes equipped with 4GB of system memory is set at €1,200 according to Laptop Spirit, or about $1,600 US for those of you living across the Atlantic.

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MSI Showcases Micro-ATX X79MA-GD45 LGA 2011 Motherboard

At the start of this week we took a glimpse at what was then the only micro-ATX LGA 2011 motherboard to ever come into our attention, the ASRock-built X79 Extreme4-M, but it now seems like MSI will also have a similar model on offer, the X79MA-GD45.

Like all the other high-end motherboards fabricated by the Taiwanese company, this latest of MSI's creation also sports Military Class III components for improved overclocking and reliability.

In order to fit in the micro-ATX form factor, the X79MA-GD45 was however forced to drop some of the features of its larger siblings, mainly the extra expansions slots.

Despite this change, the motherboard still manages to come with a complete feature set sporting no less than four DDR3 memory slots as well as support for dual-GPU setups using AMD's CrossFireX or Nvidia's SLI technology.

Furthermore, both of the installed PCI Express x16 slots offer the full PCIe x16 bandwidth.

The rest of the expansion slots include two PCI Express x1 slots, while storage is provided thanks to a pair of SATA 6Gbps ports, which are seconded by four other SATA ports working at 3Gbps.

When taking a look at the rear I/O connections of the X79MA-GD45, users are greeted by a pair of USB 3.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet, a number of USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port and by 7.1-channel audio with optical and coaxial S/PDIF outputs.

On the motherboard's PCB, consumers will also find a series of dedicated voltage read points, a Clear CMOS switch as well as the usual on-board header for connecting two extra USB 3.0 ports.

The pricing of the MSI LGA 2011 X79MA-GD45 is still unknown at this point in time, but TCMagazine believes that the board won't end up retailing for more than €200 (roughly $276 US).

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Lenovo 20-inch C225 All-in-One Is Based on an AMD APU

One would think that 6 GB of RAM and 1 TB HDDs aren't exactly entry-level market material, but Lenovo seems to disagree and showed it through the C225 all-in-one. 

Two versions of this All-in-One personal computer are available for customers to choose from.

One has 4 GB of DDR3 RAM (random access memory), a capacity that is pretty much standard at this point, as well as a hard disk drive of 500 GB.

Already the entry-level parameters are skimmed, but they are exceeded completely by the other version of the system, with 6 GB RAM and a HDD of 1 TB.

In that order, they cost $499 and $699, which means 361 Euro and 506 Euro, respectively.

The means that Lenovo used to keep the AiO still part of the low-end market were the size and the processing platform.

The system measures 18.5 inches in diagonal, while the hardware revolves around, so to speak, the AMD E-450 APU (accelerated processing unit).

With two cores at 1.6 GHz and the AMD Radeon 6310 graphics, the chip has an HD screen to show off on (resolution of 1,366 x 768 pixels).

Also, Lenovo threw in a pair of 3W speakers, a DVD writer, a 0.3 megapixel webcam, 02.11 b/g/n WiFi, a 6-in-1 card reader and USB (both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0).

Both AiOs are already up for order through the company's official website (go here for the offers). They are loaded with the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System, 64-bit.

This is the latest computer to use AMD's Fusion platform, the chip collection that enabled the company's slight share increase on the CPU market.

APUs will continue to be primary weapon in the Sunnyvale, California-based company revenue-gaining tactics, at least until Bulldozer goes through enough of a revision to actually put on a good show, repeated overclocking record breaking or no.

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Download Automatic Fix for Duqu 0-Day Vulnerability in Windows Kernel

While a security update for the Critical zero-day vulnerability in Windows kernel exploited by the Duqu malware is not yet available, Microsoft has reacted quite fast to enable customers to at least deploy a temporary solution until it releases an official patch. 

The automatic fix currently being offered to all Windows users comes to introduce a workaround capable of blocking Duqu from exploiting the TrueType Font Parsing Vulnerability (CVE-2011-3402).

The security hole resides in the Win32k TrueType font parsing engine, and is caused when a Windows kernel-mode driver handles the TrueType font type improperly, Microsoft explained.

“An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability could run arbitrary code in kernel mode. The attacker could then install programs; view, change, or delete data; or create new accounts with full user rights,” the software giant said.

“We are aware of targeted attacks that try to use the reported vulnerability; overall, we see low customer impact at this time. This vulnerability is related to the Duqu malware.”

The Microsoft Security Advisory (2639658) and KB 2639658 have been published on November 3, 2011 to provide additional information to customers, guidance on how to protect themselves against potential attacks and the workaround the Redmond company put together.

“To make it easy for customers to install, we have released a Fix it that will allow one-click installation of the workaround and an easy way for enterprises to deploy,” the software giant said.

Customers looking to render Duqu incapable of exploiting the Critical 0-day TrueType Font Parsing vulnerability need to install Microsoft Fix it 50792.

“When you run the Enable fix it solution, the workaround denies the system access to the T2embed.dll file,” the company informs.

The software giant is also supplying Microsoft Fix it 50793 to disable the changes introduce by Microsoft Fix it 50792.

The Fix it automatic solution is a viable workaround that can be deployed until Microsoft patches the TrueType Font Parsing security issue. According to the company, a security update won’t be released next week with the rest of its monthly patches for November.

“Given our ability to detect exploit attempts for this issue, we are able to closely monitor the threat landscape and will notify customers if we see any indication of increased risk,” revealed Jerry Bryant, group manager, Response Communications Trustworthy Computing Group.

“As previously stated, the risk for customers remains low. However, that is subject to change so we encourage customers to either apply the workaround or ensure their anti-malware vendor has added new signatures based on the information we’ve provided them to ensure protections are in place for this issue.”

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Twitter for BlackBerry 2.1.0.18 Beta Now Available

A new flavor of Twitter for BlackBerry is now available for download via the BlackBerry Beta Zone, namely version 2.1.0.18, which brings along a nice range of enhancements when compared to the previous release of the application. 

The new app iteration brings along a new feature, offering users the possibility to easily switch accounts by hitting Alt + Space.

At the same time, the new mobile software release brings along a series of fixes for issues discovered in the previous app flavor, such as Tweet Refresh, which notifies on every Tweet and not according to time set in Options.

The issue preventing users from viewing user profiles of multiple @mentions was solved, the same as the problem with responding to a Tweet from selected account. Message thread in Universal search will open now.

When moving the cursor to the right in message list, it will not scroll to the bottom as before, but will move up or down one line.

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Root for Galaxy Nexus Already Available

Galaxy Nexus, the latest Google phone out there, has been already rooted, although it is not yet available for purchase. 

The handset was officially introduced only a few weeks ago, and is expected to arrive on shelves starting with mid-November with the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform on board.

Users will be able to root the new smartphone immediately after purchasing it, provided that this is something that they are looking to achieve, of course.

The root method for Samsung's new Galaxy Nexus comes from the guys over at MoDaCo, and is said to be only temporary root (the handset will revert to the original state when rebooted).

They called the required file for rooting this mobile phone Superboot, which is a boot.img that will install su and the superuser APK on the handset when booting up.

According to them, this rooting method does not require playing with ADB or overwriting the official ROM that the device arrived with.

However, they note that those who will have in their hands a retail Galaxy Nexus might need to unlock the bootloader inside this device first.

To root the Galaxy Nexus, users will need to have the Superboot.zip file downloaded on their devices, and extracted to a directory.

Then, they will have to enter bootloader mode (press the 'volume up' and 'volume down' buttons at the same time when booting up the device).

For the next step, users will have to do various actions, depending on the OS their PCs are running under. Those using Windows will simply have to double click 'install-superboot-windows.bat' to do the job.

On Mac and Linux, users will need to open a terminal window to the directory where they extracted the aforementioned file, then type 'chmod +x install-superboot-mac.sh' followed by './install-superboot-mac.sh' or 'chmod +x install-superboot-linux.sh' followed by './install-superboot-linux.sh'.

You can read more on the rooting of Galaxy Nexus on this thread on MoDaCo forums.

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Helal Linux 3: Ubuntu for Muslims, With Unity

Helal Linux 3.0 is an Ubuntu-based operating system with support for Arabic languages. It has both both Unity 3D and the GNOME Shell 3.2 interface, as well as the GNOME Classic one.

Hanny Sabbagh, the main developer behind the Helal Linux project, contacted us a couple of days ago in regard to his brand-new operating system, based on Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot).

As the title says, Helal Linux 3.0 is an Ubuntu for Muslims, supporting both English and Arabic languages. It contains lots of fixes for bugs still present in Ubuntu 11.10.

Among the included apps present in Helal Linux 3.0 we can mention LibreOffice 3.4.3, Y PPA Manager, Skype, Pidgin, Othman, Monajat applet, Hijra applet, FileZilla, Firefox 7.0.1, The GIMP 2.6.11, CompizConfig Settings Manager, Chromium, GNOME Tweak Tool, and Google Chrome.

At the moment, Helal Linux 3.0 is in Beta stage. Therefore, it should NOT be installed on production machines, as it is intended to be used for testing purposes only.

Download Helal Linux 3.0 Beta right now via this link. Below we've prepared some nice screenshots of Helal Linux, just click to enlarge!

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