Raspberry Pi Linux PC Enters Mass Production

Raspberry Pi, a miniature computer with an estimate cost of just $25 (€18.5) and that will most probably run a Linux distro or RISC OS, has entered mass production, according to one of its creators, Eben Upton. 

Raspberry Pi is being developed in China and the first shipment should number in the thousands. They will undergo a small testing period, of about two days, and then they will be made available to general public, at first in the United Kingdom market.

Raspberry Pi Foundation, the developers of this amazing mini-computer, have funded their work by selling mini-motherboards (ten models). They went on Ebay for ridiculously high prices, some people even paying $5000 (€ 3900) for one item.

  

Raspberry Pi relies on an ARM processor with a clock speed of 700 MHz, plus 128 MB or 256 MB of RAM, an SD card slot and a 5V Micro USB connector that supplies the power. It also features RCA and HDMI ports.

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EVGA Precision 2.1.2 Available for Download

Good news for the enthusiasts who are into graphic card tuning: a new version of EVGA's proprietary utility, codenamed Precision. 

Reaching version 2.1.2, the EVGA Precision brings an integrated GPU Voltage Tuner to offer you more information on your graphic cards. As for the rest, you get the same high flexibility by using up to 10 profiles with in-game assignable keys, independent/ synchronous fan and clock settings, or temperature view in the system tray.

The Core and Shader clocks can be altered independently thanks to the Link/ Unlink capability, while the on-screen real-time function allows you to view instantaneous data relating to framerate, temperature or clock monitoring.

While offering 4 preset skins, the EVGA Precision 2.1.2 utility lets you create your own themes as well, and now can also save screenshots. The utility works with EVGA's 6, 7, 8, 9, 200, 400, or 500 series cards and with ForceWare 96.xx or higher drivers.

Download the EVGA Precision 2.1.2 and take control of your graphic card's settings.

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Microsoft’s Requirements for Windows 8 Tablet PCs

Microsoft and its partners are gearing up for the release of the first Windows 8 devices later this year, when the platform hits gold status and becomes commercially available.

The Redmond-based company wants to make sure that devices running Windows 8 will deliver specific capabilities to their users, and has come up with a specific set of requirements for manufacturers to take into consideration. 

The same as it did with the Windows Phone platform, Microsoft wanted to make sure that upcoming devices met Windows performance, quality, and feature criteria, and released the hardware requirement documentation for Windows 8 logo certification. 

One of the features that devices will have to include is the option to disable the Secure Boot feature, though it will become available only on non-ARM devices, as previously reported. 

However, there is a series of other features that users will certainly be interested in seeing inside Windows 8 tablet PCs, such as support for a minimum of 5 touch points.

Multi-touch will certainly be there, and not only two-points, as the HP TouchSmart features, WithinWindows notes. Users will be able to put at least five fingers on the screen at the same time. 

Windows 8 tablet PCs will also include NFC capabilities. They will arrive on shelves with NFC “touch marks,” which translates into some sort of a sticker that indicates where another NFC capable device can connect with it. 

Knowing exactly where the NFC chip is located inside the device will make it much easier for users to pair Windows 8 tablets, especially since they feature large form factors. 

Additionally, it appears that Microsoft is asking manufacturers to pack their tablet PCs with a number of 5 hardware buttons. 

There will be one button for Power, one for Rotation lock, another one for Windows Key, and two for Volume up and Volume down, respectively.

Moreover, Microsoft asks for the Windows Key on these devices to be at least 10.5 mm (0.41 inches) in diameter. The shape may differ, it seems. 

These requirements will be in place for all Windows 8 tablet PCs, regardless of the application processor packed inside them. We should see both Intel-based and ARM-powered devices complying with them.

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TP-LINK Intros the TL-WR702N, ‘World’s Smallest’ Router

TP-LINK has recently uncovered a new range of networking products at this year’s CES 2012 fair, including the TL-WR702N router which the company touts as being the smallest device of this type released so far.

More compact than a credit card, the TL-WR702N supports speeds up to 150Mbps and was designed so that it gets its power from a microUSB slot that can also be connected to a PC. 

Another product released by TP-LINK together with the TL-WR702N is the TL-MR3040 portable 3G battery powered Wireless N router which also supports transfer speeds up to 150Mbps.

The built-in battery pack of the TL-MR3040 is said to deliver up to 4.5hours of autonomy, which should definitely be enough for most users.

“Championing innovation and ensuring that TP-LINK is at the forefront of the industry is at the heart of our business, so it’s great to preview such an advanced group of products at CES 2012,” said Eric Wang, country manager of TP-Link UK. 

“The breadth of our new products enhance the existing portfolio and reaffirm the ongoing consumer desire for fast, efficient, secure and reliable solutions,” concluded the company’s rep.

Outside of these two routers, the company also introduced the TL-NS210 NAS server which is capable of accommodating up to 3.5-inch hard drives providing up to 4TB of storage space.

Powered by a 1.2GHz processor, the NAS connects to the home network via a Gigabit Ethernet port.

“NAS technology has grown rapidly over the past few years fuelled by consumer demand for secure storage solutions,” said Wang. 

“With the rise of HD content and digital download the necessity for solutions like the TL-NS210 is only set to increase, so TP-LINK is constantly innovating to ensure we maintain the market leader position.”

No information regarding the price of these products was released by TP-LINK, but the company expects them to arrive later this year.

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Thecus Launches N4800 NAS with Intel Atom N2700 CPU

Thecus has just announced that it updated its product range with a new NAS solution, known as the N4800, which comes powered by Intel’s Atom N2700 processor and is designed in order to be used by small and medium businesses.

The N4800 server can support up to four 3.5-inch SATA drives sporting up to 3TB of storage space and these can be setup to run either in a JBOD mode or in various RAID arrays, including RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, or 10.

Additional storage devices can be attached via two frontal USB 2.0 ports and a pair of USB 2.0 ports, the Thecus N4800 also featuring an eSATA connectors for linking an external hard drive. 

Another interesting feature of the N4800 is the inclusion of an HDMI output which allows users to connect an external monitor and use the NAS as an HTPC system.

In addition to the powerful hardware, the N4800 also features Thecus’ special firmware that brings a wide variety of features such as support for XFS, SATA 6Gbps, iSCSI, as well as an open source module system with more than a dozen free modules available right now on the company’s website.

Other features of the N4800 include, a front-mounted OLED screen for easy monitoring and administration, Gigabit Ethernet support, USB printer support and the NAS also comes bundled together with the Acronis Backup software. 

“Gathering what's been best for the N4200 series, the N4800 also has its own fair share of new technologies with no less than 2 GB of DDR3 RAM. 

“This very powerful NAS will become a must-have for all small and medium businesses in need of centralized storage, application serving, and top-notch response time within multi-user environments,” said Thecus’ rep.

Sadly, Techus hasn’t provided us with any information regarding pricing or availability of the N4800 NAS server.

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HP TouchPad Gets Android 4.0, Cyanogen Mod 9 Video Available

Yet again, the webOS tablet, which sold in droves after it was pronounced dead and buried, has become the subject of Internet talks, this time due to the impending support for Ice Cream Sandwich. 

It was not unknown that people were working on an unofficial Android 4.0 port for HP's TouchPad tablet, which run webOS by default. 

Still, since the CyanogenMod team actually got far enough that they were able to put up a promo video, it was obvious that some attention would be drawn. 

CyanogenMod 9 is a customized version of the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system that Google released last year. 

Android 4.0 was especially optimized for tablets that lack all the standard Android buttons, even more so than Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). 

That said, the new promo video shows the koi live wallpaper, Wi-Fi and even the Angry Birds game demo working just fine. 

What's more, video playback is reportedly working as well, even though the video says it still doesn't (the breakthrough was achieved after the teaser was released). 

One thing that still doesn't work is the front-facing camera, but it shouldn't be long before this, and all other hurdles and bugs, were overcome. 

For those interested in some background, the TouchPad webOS tablet form HP was officially in the tablet game for six weeks. 

After that, it was sacked along with most other webOS projects, but the tale of the undying slate did not end there. 

The company's decision to get rid of its existing supply by selling TouchPads at super-low prices ended up putting the item in the lead of the non-iPad tablet segment. 

Now that there are thousands of TouchPads out there, people are doing their best to replace webOS with Android, hence the diligence of the CyanogenMod team. 

Watch the video below for a glimpse of what is to come.

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CyanogenMod 9 Music App Now Available for Download

Andrew Neal, the guy behind the CyanogenMod 9 Music app that replaces the old stock music player has just released the final version of the application and will soon release it in the Android Market. 

The application comes with a level of customization that cannot be found in any other application for Android devices, the developer claims.

First of all, most of the functions of the application are only a click away. Shopping via Android Market, sharing songs or set favorite songs as ring tones, as well as delete and search certain songs can be done with just one push.

Although CyanogenMod 9 Music app can be installed on older versions of Google’s Android platform, the application runs best on Ice Cream Sandwich platform.

Those who do now own an Android 4.0 device will be able to use the customized music player but some of the features will not work, such as notification and lockscreen controls.

In addition, the new music player application includes native Shake and Flip actions, which allow users to play and pause music by just flipping their phones face down or up. It is also worth mentioning that the Shake Action can be further customized to meet any user’s needs.

According to Neal, the application comes with a theme engine that can be customized to the max, allowing artists to make changes to almost every aspect of the user interface in the application.

Moreover, Andrew Neal also released a tool for creating themes for CyanogenMod 9 Music app, which is simply called Music Theme Template and can be downloaded for free here.

CyanogenMod 9 Music App will be published in the Android Market within the next “couple of weeks,” but it will have a different name. Head over to Andrew Neal’s site for more in-depth details on the CyanogenMod 9 Music app.

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Windows 8’s Resilient File System (ReFS) Gets Detailed

Windows 8 is bound to bring along a wide range of changes from the previous versions of Microsoft’s client. Some of them will affect the storage capabilities of the platform as well. 

The platform brings along a newly engineered file system, which sports the name of ReFS (Resilient File System). Built on NTFS, it offers backwards compatibility while ensuring that the platform benefits from a new generation of storage technologies and scenarios. 

In a recent blog post on MSDN, Surendra Verma, a development manager on Microsoft’s Storage and File System team, explains what the new file system in Windows 8 is all about and what it can deliver to  

users.  

When developing ReFS, Microsoft focused on providing increased compatibility with a subset of NTFS features that had enjoyed wide adoption. 

Moreover, the company ensured that data verification and auto-correction were in place so that data wouldn’t get corrupted. If it does, it has to be automatically corrected. 

Surendra Verma also notes that ReFS was optimized for extreme scale and that the file system is not taken offline. When corruptions occur, the fault will have to be isolated, while the rest of the volume remains accessible. 

Additionally, ReFS is fully compatible with the new Storage Spaces feature that Microsoft detailed not too long ago. The file system can provide a full end-to-end resiliency architecture when used in conjunction with Storage Spaces. 

Some of the main features of ReFS include:

• Metadata integrity with checksums
• Integrity streams providing optional user data integrity
• Allocate on write transactional model for robust disk updates (also known as copy on write)
• Large volume, file and directory sizes
• Storage pooling and virtualization makes file system creation and management easy
• Data striping for performance (bandwidth can be managed) and redundancy for fault tolerance
• Disk scrubbing for protection against latent disk errors
• Resiliency to corruptions with "salvage" for maximum volume availability in all cases
• Shared storage pools across machines for additional failure tolerance and load balancing

Moreover, ReFS comes with a series of features that are present in NTFS as well, including BitLocker encryption, access-control lists for security, symbolic links, junction points, volume snapshots, file IDs, and more.

Microsoft has also ensured that all data stored on ReFS is currently accessible through the same file access APIs on all clients and platforms that can now access NTFS volumes.

Windows 8 Developer Preview Build 8102 M3 can be downloaded via this link.

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iPhone 5 May Be Waterproof Thanks to ZGO Tech

A technology that repels water from electronics at a molecular level may be used by Apple and Samsung in their forthcoming devices, according to a spokesperson for HZO, the company that makes the product.

Pocket-lint has learned from HZO that the company is in the process of signing deals with major smartphone makers, including Apple, to coat their upcoming devices with the magical material.

A demonstration video by ZGO (embedded below) reveals that although the coating is invisible to the naked eye, the substance is so powerfully impermeable it can protect an iPod that has been completely submersed in water.

The demo uses a player that has been connected to an external speaker while playing a song. Both the iPod and the speaker have been given the same treatment. Water literally jumps off the speaker’s membrane as the music from the submersed iPod continues to play.

"We showed the Samsung Chairman the technology with a Samsung Galaxy S that we had coated with HZO and he couldn't believe his eyes," a representative of the company told Pocket-lint. "Samsung is really excited by the tech."

The company has told the blog that they are talking to Apple as well. ZGO is eager to have Apple use it in the iPhone 5 to make it waterproof.

"We expect HZO to be in next season's phones," HZO said, after unveiling their miraculous product at CES 2012, in Las Vegas.

To be noted that HZO is not the only company marketing and selling such a technology.

The folks at Liquipel have an identical product on sale. They too showed it off at CES and they used similar scenarios - i.e. submersing an iPhone in a tank filled with water.

It is unclear who has the rights for this invention (most likely the patents are still pending), but the product is, indeed, magical. HZO stands to make a ton of cash from licensing deals.

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Printer Can Create Artificial Living Tissue

A group of scientists from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL), in Switzerland, announces that it's currently working on developing a very special type of printer, one that will be capable of printing artificial living tissues on command. 

The new investigation could finally provide research teams around the world with access to biological samples that would otherwise be very difficult to obtain. In turn, this will help scientists develop new treatments for various conditions, and also make it easier for them to test new drugs. 

The Swiss team says that the technology development effort is still in its earliest stages, but add that progress thus far has been encouraging. Various research teams have been trying to obtain artificial living material for a long time, but the EPFL team appears to be closest to this objective. 

When completed, their special printer will be able to create living constructs whose structure will be nearly identical to that of human tissues. Naturally, the instrument will be able to create a wide array of tissue types, including those researchers know are affected in a wide array of diseases. 

Even if artificial in nature, the cells in these constructs will interact in a coordinated, physiological manner, exactly how they do inside naturally-occurring tissues. The team already published a study on the approach in the latest issue of the esteemed journal Advanced Materials, PhysOrg reports.

“We have not yet created tissue, strictly speaking. At this stage, we have essentially studied a way in which to structure biological materials in three dimensions; this research will improve cell culture and then will eventually be used as a base for creating tissues,” says scientist Jürgen Brügger.

He holds an appointment as a professor and the head of the Microsystems 1 Laboratory at EPFL. Experts from the Engineering School (STI) and School of Life Sciences (SV) are working together on making the new printer a reality. 

According to Professor Matthias Lutolf, who is the head of EPFL Stem Cell Engineering Laboratory, one of the main challenges involves using the right materials in the printer. The risk of cells growing randomly, in an unorganized manner inside the artificial tissues, is very large. 

“Mixing the right ingredients isn’t sufficient. The cells grow in a haphazard manner, randomly, and won’t develop into viable tissue,” he concludes.

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