Raspberry Pi Firmware Updater Will Make Your Life Easier

The Raspberry Pi credit-card-sized Linux-loaded ARM computer has been shipping for a little while, and it was enough for developers to see just how frustrating it can be to have to constantly reinstall the firmware. 

Since the small device is primarily meant for teaching and experimenting with programming, mishaps can happen, which means that the core software doesn't always come out scot-free. 

Developer Hexxeh decided it was time to simplify the reinstall and update process, so he released a small tool that does just that. He doesn't even want anything in exchange for it, so go here and download it if you have one of those critters. 

If you still haven't received your order, all we can say is hold on because it will reach you eventually. RS and Allied Electronics are doing their best. Probably.

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Nokia Lumia 850 Concept Phone Emerges

Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia has already released a handful of Windows Phone devices, but some more of them should make it to the shelves in the not too distant future. 

Among them, we might see one that closely resembles the Nokia Lumia 850 handsets in the photos attached to this post. 

It is only a concept handset for the time being, but it is a good looking one, and could win the hearts of many if indeed manufactured and released. 

The concept phone packs a 3.8–inch curved display, while featuring a polycarbonate unibody with edgeless design. Of course, the handset runs under Windows Phone, just as all devices in Nokia’s Lumia series. 

The concept comes from BrianMFB, a designer from Luxembourg (via TheNokiaBlog). Make sure to click on the images below to see them in full size.

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Intel's Sub-Par Ivy Bridge Cooling Busted

For some reason or other, Intel chose to use common thermal grease between the Ivy Bridge CPUs and their integrated heatspreader (IHS). What people didn't realize was that said grease was of a fairly low quality too. 

We should first mention that the temperature Ivy Bridge works at isn't really a hazard, but we have to wonder why Intel allowed this situation to happen. These are high-end, expensive chips, not cheap models where every cut corner counts. 

It was back in late April when we reported on that intentional design change that has been acknowledged as the cause behind the operational temperature of Ivy Bridge CPUs. It might not have even been noticed if Sandy Bridge hadn’t run cooler. 

Rather than fluxless solder, the Santa Clara, California-based company put common thermal compound between the chip and the IHS. We just never noticed how sub-par it was. 

Fortunately, the folks at Impress PC Watch embarked upon a quest to find out precisely that, and the results aren't at all flattering. After wiping away the thermal grease, they tested the Core i7-3770K with OCZ's Freeze Extreme and Coollaboratory's Liquid Pro. 

The latter supposedly offers 82W/mk of thermal conductivity, which is better than OCZ's Freeze Extreme, and that's saying something. One would expect us to be setting up a great reveal, where Intel's solution was better than OCZ's but weaker than Liquid Pro. 

Alas, that is not the case. Instead, Impress PC Watch found both alternatives to be vastly superior to the default grease. When running at 3.5 GHz, the Core i7-3770K quad-core high-end chip ran at 8 degrees Celsius less on Freeze Extreme and 11 degrees less with Liquid Pro. Moreover, a 4.6 GHz overclock led to an even higher difference, of 15 and 20 degrees, respectively. 

Thermalright Silver Arrow SB-E was employed during the tests, so the gaps could vary depending on whatever other CPU cooler is present. Be advised, though, that removing the integrated heatspreader of a CPU can damage the CPU die and will void the warranty in any case. Test at your own risk.

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Gigabyte’s WindForce 3x GeForce GTX670 Video Card Is Official

Well-known Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte has just announced the GeForce GTX 670 WindForce 3X custom video card on its official website. We’ve already seen and talked about the design here.

It’s called GV-N670OC-2GD and comes with the company’s quality UltraDurable VGA+ PCB. The PCB has two oz copper layers, along with electrical ripple control, ferrite core chokes, low RDS MOSFETs and Japanese solid-state capacitors.

Right form the factory, the card comes moderately pre-overclocked to 980 MHz core, 1058 MHz GPU Boost and the usual 6.00 GHz effective GDDR5 memory frequency.

The three fans have a 90-millimeter diameter, and the connectivity side comes with two dual-link DVI ports along with a HDMI and a DisplayPort connector.

Pricing is quite good and stands at 415 USD for the US buyers. The European gamers will have to shell out around 320 EUR for the WindForce 3X.

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Windows 8 on ARM Is Flawed, Intel Believes

Windows 8, the next-generation operating system from Microsoft, will be the first to arrive with support for ARM architectures as well, in addition to the x86 architecture that it already runs on. 

Dubbed Windows RT, Windows on ARM will pack most of the features that the rest of Windows 8 flavors will include, but it will still lack some important functions. 

For example, it won’t bring along support for legacy applications, which will be a bit of a problem for ARM devices, Intel claims. 

During a meeting with investors at Intel’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Intel CEO Paul Otellini reportedly suggested that Windows 8 is flawed on ARM devices. 

The issue with these ARM PCs is that they won’t provide users with the Classic Windows environment that users have been already accustomed with, he said. 

Intel-based machines running Windows 8 will have this feature, which will pose a great advantage when it comes to competing with ARM architectures.

"With one button you can get to legacy mode...this is critically important for CIOs who want to preserve all of their investments in software," Otellini reportedly stated, referring to a Windows 8 ultrabook it was demonstrating. 

Concerns on Windows RT’s ability to satisfy user’s needs have been raised before as well. In fact, some software companies suggested that their applications won’t be able to deliver the intended experience on this platform version. 

On ARM devices, only the Metro environment will be available for users, although there will be some apps capable of running in the Classic Windows mode as well, namely Microsoft Office and Internet Explorer 10. 

Yesterday, Mozilla and Google shouted their discontent with this, claiming that their Firefox and Chrome browsers, respectively, would be confined to the Metro UI on Windows RT, without even benefiting from full access to the APIs needed to make them competitive, modern browsers. 

This is not the first time that x86-based Windows 8 devices are said to come with a great advantage over ARM ones. 

However, while this has been mainly analyst talk until now, it appears that hardware makers are also starting to see the benefits of offering support for legacy apps and for the desktop mode on their Windows 8 computers.

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LG LS970 (Eclipse 4G LTE) Leaks Online with 2GB of RAM

Last week, South Korean mobile phone maker LG Electronics unveiled to the world a new smartphone powered by Android, the LG Optimus LTE2, the first in the world to pack 2GB of RAM inside. 

The handset was made official only for the South Korean market, and LG did not unveil plans to have it available on other markets around the world as well. 

However, it appears that the handset vendor might have another smartphone coming to shelves soon with the same amount of RAM, and that it could prove an international device. 

Sporting model number LS970, this device is said to arrive on shelves as the LG Eclipse 4G LTE, yet nothing has been confirmed on this for the time being. 

However, the guys over at BriefMobile managed to unveil some of the device’s hardware specifications, and they also got hold of a leaked photo with it, though seen only from the back. 

Apparently, the device is powered by a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm APQ8064 application processor, a powerful quad-core Snapdragon S4 chip (a Krait design) that also includes the Adreno 320 GPU. 

Other rumored specs of this handset include a large 4.7-inch LCD TFT display capable of delivering a 1280 x 768-pixel resolution, as well as 16GB of internal storage. The phone shuold be powered by a 2100 mAh battery.

On the back, the new mobile phone is said to sport a 13-megapixel photo snapper, most probably with support for HD video recording, complemented by a 1.3MP camera on the front, great for making video calls. 

The leaked hardware specs also indicate that the device would offer support for LTE band 25, which would make it fit for Sprint’s network (hence the supposition that it could be launched as the LG Eclipse 4G LTE). 

Since no official confirmation on this smartphone has emerged until now, we’ll take the info on it with a grain of salt. However, we’ll keep an eye out for additional details on it, so stay tuned for more.

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Intel Haswell Mobile Chipsets Revealed

Intel's third-generation of central processing units hasn't even been fully launched yet, but already there is information on the next generation of processors and accompanying chipsets. 

For those who haven't guessed it yet, by “next-generation” CPUs we mean the Haswell series, the ones that will even introduce DDR4 support eventually. 

Sure, the first Haswell, bound for 2013 release, won't have that asset, but the Haswell-EX series will, starting in 2014. 

We've seen the web uncover quite a few other bits and pieces of information about Haswell, down to DirectX 1.1 support and 4th-Level On-Package cache for the GPU. 

Most recently though, VR-Zone claims to have learned the names of the chipsets that will support the mobile range of processors. 

There will be five in total, instead of the seven that Ivy Bridge notebook chips can land on. General consumer notebooks will use the HM87, HM85 or HM80 platform, while business laptops will receive the QM87. Ultrabooks will boast a special chipset called UM83. 

Indeed, Ultrabooks will have a unique hardware layout among notebooks, although the underlining platform concept is the same. 

HM87 and QM87 will support both Intel Smart Response technology (SSD caching) and RAID storage configurations. No explanation exists for why the former won't be included in all five, despite its usefulness. 

For those who've yet to get up to speed on the technology, SSD caching works by “merging” an HDD and an SSD together. As in the BIOS can make the OS think they are a single storage entity, thus combining the data capacity of the former with the speed of the latter. 

The report mentions that, in addition to the above, there will be a single-chip part in the series, an SoC of sorts (system-on-chip), with the CPU, GPU and the Lynx Point LP (Low Power probably) on the same package. We'll keep an eye out for further details.

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EVGA Brings Out 2 GB and 4 GB GTX 670 Cards

We've seen the new NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670, we've written about the ASUS GTX 670 DirectCU II and DirectCU II TOP and now we are doing the same for EVGA's own boards. 

EVGA has, or will soon have, five versions of the GTX 670 graphics cards up for sale. One might also say that there are only three boards available. The number five is reached because two of them come in both 2 GB and 4 GB GDDR5 VRAM memory capacities. The third comes only with 2 GB. 

The regular EVGA GTX 670 is one of the models with two memory options. Obviously, it sticks to the reference clock speeds: 915 MHz for the GPU (980 MHz GPU Boost) and the 6008 MHz GDDR5 frequency. 

The second card with both 2 GB and 4 GB versions is the EVGA GTX 670 SuperClocked, whose GK104 GPU functions at 967 MHz (1,046 MHz GPU Boost). The third and final card, the one with only 2 GB VRAM, is the GTX 670 FTW. Its GPU is clocked at 1006 MHz (1,084 MHz GPU Boost). 

All three adapters have dual-DVI connectivity, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs. What's more, since NVIDIA now supports up to four monitors on a single video adapter, 3D Vision Surround doesn't need a SLI setup to work. 

Not that SLI isn't supported of course. GTX 670 has three-way multi-GPU capability, although it will take a big motherboard with many PCI Express 3.0 or 2.0 slots for such systems to be made. All cards have dual-slot coolers after all. 

Be advised that only the reference-clocked EVGA GTX 670 sticks to the $399 / 399 Euro mark, unless it's the 4 GB iteration, in which case the tag is $469 / 469 Euro. The SuperClocked adapter sells for $419 / 419 Euro (2 GB) or $480 / 480 Euro (4 GB), while the FTX needs a sum of $439 / 439 Euro.

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Asus GeForce GTX 670 DirectCU II

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670 was meant to be a more affordable alternative to the GeForce GTX 680, but ASUS didn't see any problem with increasing the tag a little, not it if meant it could heavily overclock the GPU and toss a beast of a cooler on top of it.

For those who haven't read our article on the original GeForce GTX 670, the card is priced at $399 / 379-399 Euro. ASUS's GeForce GTX 670 Direct CU II TOP wants $419 in exchange for its services, and probably just as many Euro in Europe.

The name comes from the well-known DirectCU II cooler, with two fans and a large, long heatsink. This cooling module is as much a deliberate addition on ASUS's part as it is a necessity: the company used a custom PCB and factory-overclocked GPU, which means that there is extra heat to deal with, heat that the reference cooler might not so easily cope with.

Nickel-plated copper heatpipes come in direct contact with the GPU and take heat to the aluminum fins. The 90mm PWM fans disperse it afterwards. All in all, a 20% extra cooling prowess is achieved.

It doesn't hurt that DirectCU II is also much quieter than the alternative. And now we can finally say what those clocks are: 1,110 MHz during normal operation and 1,137 MHz when GPU Boost comes into play. For the sake of comparison, the normal speeds are 915 MHz and 980 MHz, respectively.

A final special perk is the ASUS Digi+ VRM, which lets owners fine-tune card voltage through the GPUTweak software. In addition to the GeForce GTX 670 DirectCu II TOP, ASUS is shipping the GTX 670 DirectCU II, which bears the custom cooler but no alterations to the performance. Consequently, the price is $399 / 399 Euro.

Like all GTX 670 models, ASUS' creations utilize 2 GB of GDDR5 VRAM clocked at 6 GHz, as well as dual-DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.

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2048pixels - World’s Best iPad Retina Wallpapers

A trio of talented and passionate people have been so impressed with the new iPad’s screen that they decided to launch a web site designed specifically to fulfill the need for higher resolution artwork required by the new tablet computer.

Launching with a bunch of wallpapers of their own, as well as allowing others to submit works, “2048pixels provides a venue for anyone to download original 2048x2048 iPad retina artwork by some of the best designers in the world.”

The site is truly breathtaking, featuring a clean design and super easy navigation between the works. If we didn't know any better, we'd be inclined to say it was crafted by Apple Inc. themselves.

“With the release of the latest iPad, there is a real need in the market for products that utilize this incredible resolution. 2048pixels creates a place for all designers to showcase their skills while leveraging this latest technology in exciting ways,” reads the description.

All wallpapers featured on 2048pixels must be original artwork, uploaded by their creators. Designs are assessed for quality, appropriateness, and originality, and finally offered up for grabs on the 2048pixels gallery.

“2048pixels is the best place to share your original 2048x2048 iPad retina wallpaper,” says the company. “We will post the best designs and images for the world to enjoy. Simply fill out all the fields in the form below and submit your design for consideration.”

Artists can’t sell their works via 2048px.com, and they must follow a few guidelines as well, such as a mandatory resolution of (you guessed it!) 2048 x 2048 pixels, JPG or PNG formats,  no adult themes, no watermarks, no faces of individuals, including prolific figures or celebrities, and only one submission per design.

The good news is that each artist that submits any works to 2048px retains full ownership of their artwork. The company specifically states “We do not claim any ownership to any of the artwork on 2048pixels. These terms do not grant us any rights to their artwork except for the limited right to share their artwork on 2048pixels.”

The same goes for you - the iPad owner downloading the goods. You can’t use them for commercial purposes, or anything of the sort.

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