NVIDIA Advances PC Gaming with World’s First Certified Support for Microsoft DirectX 10
NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today released the world’s first WHQL-certified drivers for Microsoft DirectX 10, coinciding with the release of the first DirectX 10 test kit from Microsoft, which allows other hardware vendors to test their graphics processors using the DirectX 10 WHQL tests. Microsoft DirectX 10 is included with Windows Vista and delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects for games, all rendered in real-time on NVIDIA GeForce 8-series GPUs. GeForce 8-series GPUs are the first and only Microsoft DirectX 10-capable GPUs currently available.
The new ForceWare 100.65 drivers support GeForce 6-, 7-, and 8-series NVIDIA GPUs. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GPUs now meet the Vista Premium Device Logo requirements, in addition to GeForce 6- and 7-series GPUs which previously met the requirements. The new drivers can be downloaded from: http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GPUs are the reference GPUs of DirectX 10 application developers as they create and test groundbreaking next-generation content. Several of the most anticipated titles for 2007—including Crysis (published by Electronic Arts), Hellgate London (EA/Namco), World in Conflict (Sierra Entertainment), and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Funcom)—are designed on NVIDIA hardware to exploit the new features of DirectX 10. Several other titles are being adapted to support DirectX10 features, including Company of Heroes, Eve Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Microsoft Flight Simulator X.
NVIDIA Advances PC Gaming with World’s First Certified Support for Microsoft DirectX 10
NVIDIA® Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today released the world’s first WHQL-certified drivers for Microsoft DirectX 10, coinciding with the release of the first DirectX 10 test kit from Microsoft, which allows other hardware vendors to test their graphics processors using the DirectX 10 WHQL tests. Microsoft DirectX 10 is included with Windows Vista and delivers unparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects for games, all rendered in real-time on NVIDIA GeForce 8-series GPUs. GeForce 8-series GPUs are the first and only Microsoft DirectX 10-capable GPUs currently available.
The new ForceWare 100.65 drivers support GeForce 6-, 7-, and 8-series NVIDIA GPUs. NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GPUs now meet the Vista Premium Device Logo requirements, in addition to GeForce 6- and 7-series GPUs which previously met the requirements. The new drivers can be downloaded from: http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GPUs are the reference GPUs of DirectX 10 application developers as they create and test groundbreaking next-generation content. Several of the most anticipated titles for 2007—including Crysis (published by Electronic Arts), Hellgate London (EA/Namco), World in Conflict (Sierra Entertainment), and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures (Funcom)—are designed on NVIDIA hardware to exploit the new features of DirectX 10. Several other titles are being adapted to support DirectX10 features, including Company of Heroes, Eve Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Microsoft Flight Simulator X.
NVIDIA Powers India's Latest Gaming PC by HCL
HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate PC combines NVIDIA® SLI technology with Intel® Core 2™ Extreme X6800 processor to create one the fastest gaming machines available in India
Gaming PC by HCLBANGALORE, INDIA-30TH SEPTEMBER 2006-NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, announces that India's leading information enabling & integration major HCL has selected NVIDIA technology to drive its latest gaming PC. The HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate will be based on the NVIDIA nForce® 5 chipset and features two NVIDIA® GeForce® graphics processing units (GPUs). Combined with the Intel® Core™ 2 Extreme X6800 processor, this configuration is widely recognised as the ultimate gaming platform.
This awesome HCL system will include:
* nForce-Intel edition chipset
* 2 x NVIDIA GeForce 7900GT GPUs
* Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor (2.93 GHz clock speed, 4 MB cache, 1066 MHz front side bus)
* Two GB DDR2 RAM
* Microsoft Windows Media Centre edition
"The equation is simple: NVIDIA SLI technology + Intel Core 2 Extreme = unbeatable gaming performance," said Alain Tiquet, NVIDIA Group Director for Marketing Europe, Middle East, Africa and India. "All over the world reviewers are coming to this same conclusion and now we're very excited to be working with HCL in bringing this system to the Indian market."
"With NVIDIA powering the HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate it's the ultimate PC gaming machine," continued Rajender Kumar, Executive Vice President of HCL. "HCL is passionate about creating products which meet the evolving needs of our customers. By anticipating how the PC will develop, the company is maintaining its leadership with a range of technology solutions for the Indian market. Now we have created the HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate by blending together the world's fastest processor, richest graphics capabilities and most engaging gaming content to deliver one of the fastest PCs available presently in India."
"The Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor provides the best gaming performance known to mankind!" explained Prakash Bagri, Director, OEM Business at Intel. "We are delighted to be part of the new HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate and confident that the Intel® Core™2 Extreme Processor will bring in new levels of excitement, helping to spearhead India's gaming revolution."
Rishi Srivastava, Director of Windows Client Business Group, Microsoft India, agrees. "India has today emerged as a booming gaming market - NASSCOM estimates that this market will grow at a significant CAGR of 89.1 percent to touch $205 million in 2009. This Windows Media Centre powered HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate provides consumers with the ultimate gaming experience. We are very excited about this launch and are sure that Indian consumers will see immense value in the offering."
HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate availability
Available ex-stock through HCL Digilife and HCL key Channel partners. For more information or to order, please contact Mohammed Danish at +91-9818567868 or email at mdanish@hcl.in. The HCL Beanstalk Game Master Ultimate retails at around Rupees 149,990 plus taxes.
About NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation is the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies. The Company creates innovative, industry-changing products for computing, consumer electronics, and mobile devices. NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA and has offices throughout Asia, Europe, and the Americas. For more information, visit www.nvidia.co.in.
About HCL Infosystems
HCL Infosystems, with an annual revenue of US$ 2.6 Billion, is India's premier information enabling and system integration company. HCL offers products and infrastructure solutions in the fields of computing, communication, networking, office automation, broadcasting and imaging. It has partnerships with leading global players like Intel, AMD, Toshiba, Bull, Ericsson, Cisco, Microsoft, Nokia, Apple, Computer Associates, Symantec and Konica Minolta among others.
HCL has a direct sales, channel sales and retail sales network pan India. HCL has a support of 300+ customer service centers and four ISO 9001 certified state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. HCL Infosystems has pan India presence across metros and non-metros. With a mission to provide world-class information technology solutions and services to enable its customers to serve their customers better, HCL Infosystems is forever setting new standards of IT in the country. For more information please visit www.hclinfosystems.in.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
ASUS P5K3 PREMIUM MB
Asus has introduced the P5K3 Premium motherboard with Turbo D3 Onboard Memory feature.
Asus claims that 2GB Dual Channel DDR3 onboard memory will enable DDR3 overclocking speeds of above 1,500 MHz, and reduced clock cycle timings for random data access.
The integrated DDR3 2GB memory modules are custom-made, and only about three-quarters the length of standard DDR3, claims Vinay Shetty, product manager of component business, Asus India.
The P5K3 is based on the Intel P35 Express Chipset and supports Intel next generation 45nm Multi-Core CPU.
Asus claims the new technology incorporates the Perfect T-Tree design and Hyper PCB design, and works seamlessly with Super Memspeed technology for superior overclocking performance.
The PSK3 utilizes the Perfect T-Tree design to provide simultanous random data access on every memory chip. Which means that data access to each memory chip occurs at the same time, instead of conventional DDR3 Fly-by Topologies that require time to be spent waiting for one by one random data access. This in turn reduces clock cycle timing by 50 percent for random data access, thereby ensuring faster memory speeds.
Asus however recommends installing a CPU with 1066 MHz FSB or later to enjoy the guaranteed overclocking speed.
Meanwhile, the Hyper PCB design, according to the company, provides good power delivery and cleaner signals with less crosstalk. The technology also provides more ground layers for better heat dissipation, thus allowing users enjoy faster speeds for better overclocking.
The motherboard has two slots -- each of PCI-E 16x and PCI-E 1x specifications. It also has 3 PCI slots for adding other devices, and 10 USB 2.0 ports.
The new Asus P5K3 Premium motherboard is priced at Rs 70,150.
HD VMD TO BATTLE BLU-RAY DISC AND HD DVD
Players and discs using a new high-def format will appear soon--but will consumers make room for yet another combatant in the HD format wars?
At the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) trade show in Denver, a company promoting a new high-definition optical disc format demonstrated set-top players and high-definition movies that cost far less than ones that use the competing Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD formats. The only faux pas: Arriving late to a two-party format war that consumers are already reluctant to support.
Next month, New Medium Enterprises' 1080p set-top players, which use the HD VMD (Versatile Multilayer Disc) format, will go on sale on Amazon.com and in stores such as Radio Shack and Costco for around $150--about half the cost of the least-expensive 1080p HD DVD player, and perhaps a fourth the cost of the least-expensive Blu-ray player. The movies that work in them are similarly inexpensive.
"Expect a small premium over DVD [discs], and a big discount over Blu-ray and HD DVD," says Jim Cardwell, an advisor to the company and former president of Warner Home Video.
Red-Laser Technology
Instead of the blue-laser technology embraced by the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps, the HD VMD format uses the red-laser technology already used to create DVDs, and as a result, keeps the cost of manufacturing discs and drives low, says Eugene Levich, director and chief technology officer of New Medium Enterprises. He said that manufacturing a Blu-ray drive costs ten times as much as manufacturing a DVD or HD VMD drive, because the latter two are essentially the same drive but with different firmware.
HD VMD discs, which hold up to 30GB on a single side, are encoded with a maximum bit rate of 40 megabits per second; that's within spitting distance of Blu-ray's 48 mbps, and quite a bit more than 36 mbps for HD DVD. The format uses MPEG-2 and VC1 video formats to encode at 1080p resolution for the time being, and will possibly move to the H.264 format in the future.
Levich said the video quality is "at least as good" as that of the other formats. Using a projection system, HD VMD reps showed me clips of "We Were Soldiers" and "Apocalypto." The movies looked very good--not as stunning as I expected, but I'd just arrived from the CEDIA show floor, where every television vendor uses phenomenal, highly doctored content to show off their products.
The HD VMD format supports up to 7.1-channel Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, and DTS audio output, though it will not offer the high-bit-rate Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio surround-sound codecs.
Multitalented, Inexpensive Players
HD VMD player
The ML622S and the ML775S players each have a single HDMI 1.3 connection and can play HD VMDs, DVDs, CDs, and MP3 CDs, as well as a few other formats. The ML622S costs about $150; the ML775S will cost slightly more. The ML775S adds USB ports and a media-card reader for displaying photos and playing video content from devices such as thumb drives and external hard drives. Both players have Ethernet ports designed for downloading firmware updates, not the interactive features supported by HD DVD and Blu-ray. They come in black, red, gray, and white.
At launch, 20 U.S. movie titles will be available, including many from Mel Gibson's Icon Entertainment International. That's pretty sparse, and the list doesn't include that many hot titles. Of course, Blu-ray and HD DVD didn't start out with many more than that either, and New Medium Enterprises says that much more content from around the world, including many Bollywood titles, will be available.
Cardwell says that if the set-top players sell well, that will convince more major studios to sign on for HD VMD. But without content, buyers may be reticent to buy the set-top players. However, HD VMD players work with other, non-HD VMD content--and because they're inexpensive, buyers may be willing to take a chance.
Friday, September 7, 2007
SONY DSLR-A700
Sony unveiled its latest prosumer Alpha digital camera today. The new DSLR-A700 is priced at a base $1,400 for the body only and should be available starting in October. Several kits with lenses will be available as well.
The Sony DSLR-A700 sports a 12.2-megapixel CMOS sensor and offers special image stabilization technology for more steady shots. It incorporates a new auto-focus system with 11 wide-area sensors including a center dual cross sensor for better AF, a maximum shutter speed of 1/8,000th of a second and shooting at up to five frames per second in JPEG fine or standard mode.
You get the feeling from the few features we’ve listed here Sony is quite serious about this camera. It definitely is the case, especially with HDMI output for showing off your favorite shots on that Sony HDTV you just purchased. Go ahead - put yourself into hock for Sony. It doesn’t mind at all.
SONY ERICSSON W910I
A mobile phone that reads your mind?
Oh sure, there had been movement-sensitive devices before, but it was Nintendo's Wii games controller that kicked off the latest spate of interest, followed of course by the iPhone, which can sense rotation and turn the screen image to suit.
Now it's Sony Ericsson's turn - in its latest W910i Walkman phone, it's added an accelerometer so you can change music tracks simply by flicking the phone. It sounds strange at first, yet the movement is actually quite natural - like flicking a horse's reins or a dog's lead, say.
The accelerometer-equipped phone can also be used Wii-style as a games controller. For example, if you're playing a driving game, you can hold the phone in both hands and turn it like the steering wheel on your virtual car.
Who'll be the first to take this technology and apply it to more serious applications, though? For example, how about paging through the messages on your handheld by flicking it left or right, or flipping the device Star Trek communicator-style to open or close a message or window?
Oh sure, there had been movement-sensitive devices before, but it was Nintendo's Wii games controller that kicked off the latest spate of interest, followed of course by the iPhone, which can sense rotation and turn the screen image to suit.
Now it's Sony Ericsson's turn - in its latest W910i Walkman phone, it's added an accelerometer so you can change music tracks simply by flicking the phone. It sounds strange at first, yet the movement is actually quite natural - like flicking a horse's reins or a dog's lead, say.
The accelerometer-equipped phone can also be used Wii-style as a games controller. For example, if you're playing a driving game, you can hold the phone in both hands and turn it like the steering wheel on your virtual car.
Who'll be the first to take this technology and apply it to more serious applications, though? For example, how about paging through the messages on your handheld by flicking it left or right, or flipping the device Star Trek communicator-style to open or close a message or window?
PHILIPS TECHNOLOGY
Philips showcases the latest advances in consumer lifestyle technology at IFA
Philips is showcasing its leadership in consumer lifestyle electronics at this year’s IFA, being held in Berlin from 31 August until 5 September.
Highlights of the show include the revolutionary new Aurea FlatTV, which builds on Philips’ 11-year leadership in flat television technology. The Aurea’s application of the latest advances in Philips Ambilight TV technology results in a minimalist design that radiates an aura of light and color beyond the frame to create an immersive, ambient viewing experience.
Retailers, journalists and consumers visiting the Philips stand at IFA will also be able to see:
• Philips’ full range of 2007 FlatTVs, including the 47PFL9732D, named European Full HD LCD TV of the Year, 2007-2008 by the European Imaging & Sound Association (EISA). The 47” set is one of a number of Philips FlatTVs this year to feature both the new LED-based Ambilight system and the acclaimed new picture quality platform, Perfect Pixel HD Engine.
• The Philips HTS8100 SoundBar with Ambisound technology, winner of the European Home Theater Compact System 2007-2008 EISA Award. The HTS8100 is a true innovation in home entertainment, delivering true 5.1-channel surround sound in a single unit, sleekly designed to fit underneath any flat panel television.
• Philips-Swarovski Active Crystals – the unique new range of headphones and USB storage devices encrusted in Swarovski crystals and to be worn as fashion accessories.
• GoGear portable video and audio players – Philips is expanding its presence to cover a range of MP3 Video players including mobile TV tuners and DVD playback.
• Advanced technology applications being developed for commercial introduction by Philips Research are on display in the FutureZone. Highlights include the TagTiles home learning tool, and new applications of 3D display solutions for professional signage applications.
About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a global leader in healthcare, lifestyle and technology, delivering products, services and solutions through the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 125,800 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 27 billion in 2006, the company is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, personal care and home appliances, as well as consumer electronics.
Philips is showcasing its leadership in consumer lifestyle electronics at this year’s IFA, being held in Berlin from 31 August until 5 September.
Highlights of the show include the revolutionary new Aurea FlatTV, which builds on Philips’ 11-year leadership in flat television technology. The Aurea’s application of the latest advances in Philips Ambilight TV technology results in a minimalist design that radiates an aura of light and color beyond the frame to create an immersive, ambient viewing experience.
Retailers, journalists and consumers visiting the Philips stand at IFA will also be able to see:
• Philips’ full range of 2007 FlatTVs, including the 47PFL9732D, named European Full HD LCD TV of the Year, 2007-2008 by the European Imaging & Sound Association (EISA). The 47” set is one of a number of Philips FlatTVs this year to feature both the new LED-based Ambilight system and the acclaimed new picture quality platform, Perfect Pixel HD Engine.
• The Philips HTS8100 SoundBar with Ambisound technology, winner of the European Home Theater Compact System 2007-2008 EISA Award. The HTS8100 is a true innovation in home entertainment, delivering true 5.1-channel surround sound in a single unit, sleekly designed to fit underneath any flat panel television.
• Philips-Swarovski Active Crystals – the unique new range of headphones and USB storage devices encrusted in Swarovski crystals and to be worn as fashion accessories.
• GoGear portable video and audio players – Philips is expanding its presence to cover a range of MP3 Video players including mobile TV tuners and DVD playback.
• Advanced technology applications being developed for commercial introduction by Philips Research are on display in the FutureZone. Highlights include the TagTiles home learning tool, and new applications of 3D display solutions for professional signage applications.
About Royal Philips Electronics
Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHI) is a global leader in healthcare, lifestyle and technology, delivering products, services and solutions through the brand promise of “sense and simplicity”. Headquartered in the Netherlands, Philips employs approximately 125,800 employees in more than 60 countries worldwide. With sales of EUR 27 billion in 2006, the company is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging and patient monitoring systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, personal care and home appliances, as well as consumer electronics.
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