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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone vr-zone.com stuff for the geeks vr-zone stuff for the geeks is a bi-weekly publication covering the latest gadgets and stuff for the geeks bonus that usb 3.0 offers and in reality there s no reason for a device with usb 2.0 ports today in related news we re also hearing that apple is working with some of its partners to create more affordable thunderbolt storage solutions suitable for demanding consumers or small businesses that don t need the throughput offered by highend raid enclosures further on the subject of thunderbolt intel might allow third party companies to create device side thunderbolt chipsets although the company is not considering allowing the competition in on the host side apple s considering usb 3.0 as an addition to thunderbolt source http vr-zone.com/articles/apple-s-considering-usb-3.0-as-anaddition-to-thunderbolt/13467.html september 1st 2011 exclusive preview of lenovo ideapad u400 a lot of people have been disappointed over apple s lack of interest in the usb 3.0 standard but thanks to a little bird vrzone has heard that the company is still looking at usb 3.0 as a potential feature to add on future products as to when and how this might happen is not something we know but from our understanding it ll happen before intel integrates usb 3.0 support into its chipsets a lot of people have been disappointed over apple s lack of interest in the usb 3.0 standard but thanks to a little bird vrzone has heard that the company is still looking at usb 3.0 as a potential feature to add on future products as to when and how this might happen is not something we know but from our understanding it ll happen before intel integrates usb 3.0 support into its chipsets sadly we can t reveal all the information at hand as not only would we cause problems for our source but also the entire company in question but suffice to say apple has been looking into usb 3.0 host controllers especially as the price has finally reached an affordable level a usb 3.0 host controller is priced at somewhere between us$2-3 in large quantities today which should be compared to us$10-15 for intel s thunderbolt chip it s also important to remember that thunderbolt not only requires a host chip but also a device chip and additional chips on the device end depending on the type of device this makes thunderbolt a very expensive solution for simple storage device etc for this simple reason it makes sense that apple is considering implementing usb 3.0 support into its products especially as the device end is very simple and equally affordable if not even cheaper than the host end usb 3.0 can of course not match the performance of a device connected over thunderbolt but that level of performance is often not required by the consumer market and apple is seemingly catering more and more towards consumer backwards compatibility is another source http vr-zone.com/articles/exclusive-preview-of-lenovo-ideapadu400/13466.html september 1st 2011 vr-zone was one of the media to get an exclusive preview of the new lenovo ideapad u400 notebook pc in singapore although it is not the u300 ultrabook the u400 is designed as an affordable laptop with style and good functionality details inside 1

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone the 14-inch lenovo ideapad u400 looks extremely stylish with round edges and from its exterior design it is inevitable to draw comparisons with the renowned apple macbook pro according to the company the u400 we see here is a prototype unit its chassis is made of aluminium which makes it fairly durable and comes in graphite grey at this press time the laptop has spacious palm rest a huge multitouch touchpad with left/right clickable buttons and uses a chiclet-styled keyboard for comfortable typing the power button is on the top left corner of the keyboard and we did not find any notification leds as the body is one piece aluminium needless to say it is impossible to replace the battery or even upgrade the memory modules without having to void the unit s warranty looking at the dxdiag.exe information the u400 is equipped with 2.2ghz intel core i3-2330m 2gb ddr3 memory and ati radeon graphics the lenovo ideapad u400 is currently available as an exclusive bundle with starhub maxinfinity ultimate 100mbps fibre home broadband plan s$99.30 per month the u400 offered with starhub is valued at s$1,899 and comes with 2.7ghz intel core i7-2620m 4gb ddr3 memory 500gb hard disk ati radeon hd 6470m graphics 1gb vram dvd supermulti drive and preinstalled with windows 7 home premium according to lenovo the ideapad 400 would be retailing soon at their authorized resellers and retail stores with similar hardware specifications and price point on the right we find the system recovery button air vent lan and usb3.0 port while on the left holds the headphone jack two usb 2.0 hdmi out connectors and a slot-in dvd drive sony ericsson xperia ray preorders began retails on 9 september in singapore source http vr-zone.com/articles/sony-ericsson-xperia-ray-pre-ordersbegan-retails-on-9-september-in-singapore/13464.html 2

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september 1st 2011 september 1st 2011 september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone sony ericsson has a booth at the comex show 2011 located on level 6 hall 602 booth number 6341 to showcase their current offerings which include the xperia arc xperia mini xperia mini pro and xperia play but if you were at their booth you would notice a banner that says taking pre-orders of the xperia ray yes pre-orders have started which means the new xperia ray android smartphone is arriving here in singapore hp singapore announced the promotion prices for their webos-based touchpad tablets just a day before the comex show needless to say there are a lot of enthusiastic buyers who want to grab the special offer but in the end many were angry and disappointed when they found out the tablets have been fully redeemed even before the show started update hp has issued a statement that due to safety and security concerns the sale of the standalone hp touchpads at comex will be discontinued however hp pcs purchase with purchase offers for the hp touchpad will still be available at the comex show the much anticipated sony ericsson xperia ray is coming to singapore with pre-orders commencing today measuring just 9.9mm thin the xperia ray sports a 3.3-inch screen and runs the latest android platform for smartphones gingerbread 2.3 the phone packs a powerful 1ghz processor reality display with mobile bravia engine a 8.1-megapixel camera with exmor r for mobile and high definition video functionality the sony ericsson xperia ray will be available for sale on 9 september at a recommended retail price of s$598 if you preorder the xperia ray smartphone from today until 9 sept you will receive an exquisite gift from mont blanc pre-order of the xperia ray is available at m1 singtel and starhub sony ericsson concept stores parkway parade and ang mo kio hub and selected sony stores and sony centres also available at comex 2011 hall 602 at the sony ericsson booth 6341 redemption of gift at mont blanc boutique at mandarin gallery from 10 sept to 30 nov while stocks last update hp has issued a statement that due to safety and security concerns the sale of the standalone hp touchpads at comex will be discontinued however hp pcs purchase with purchase offers for the hp touchpad will still be available at the comex show at the comex show 2011 the 16gb hp touchpad is going for s$126 w/gst while the 32gb version is selling at s$201 w/gst however only 100 units of each model will be sold with only one tablet per person and on the first two days of the show on top of that the company will only accept cash payment no credit cards or nets and there will also be nonreturnable and non-refundable policies with such attractive price tags ever since hp usa announced the us$99 touchpad tablets just about ten days ago it makes sense why people are going ga-ga over them unfortunately the arrangement for the comex promotion was badly planned there was no mention as to where one can queue to get the touchpad tablets not even on the hp singapore facebook page not to mention the comments on the popular social networking website are not very encouraging either with some citing the obvious fact that why the company is only selling 200 units each day when there are so many people who would kill to buy the tablet hp singapore 3 hp touchpad at comex 2011 draws huge angry crowd source http vr-zone.com/articles/hp-touchpad-at-comex-2011-drawshuge-angry-crowd/13460.html

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone only said that if you missed the special promotion you can still purchase it with their purchase-on-purchase program which include buying either a hp touchsmart610 -1138d 1178d 1188d hp pavilion dv4-3020tx or hp pavilion dv6-6144tx dv6-6105tx and dv6-6106tx you can then get the chance to buy the hp touchpad 16gb and hp touchpad 32gb for s$49 with gst and s$119 with gst respectively notebook pcs promotion comex show 2011 source http vr-zone.com/articles/notebook-pcs-promotion comexshow-2011/13462.html september 1st 2011 the comex show 2011 is here for those who are hunting for a new notebook pc well there are some good offers from the various manufacturers including asus sony samsung and toshiba who knows you might find something that would suit your computing needs asus vr-zone was at the comex show 2011 around 10am and learnt that all the touchpad tablets have already been redeemed even before the 12pm official opening time apparently the company had handed out queue numbers to those in queue when there was no mention anywhere not even on their facebook page as to where the queue would take place one of the lucky buyers above pic was 83 in the queue and said that he was there since 6.45am in the morning this means that by 8am all 200 queue tickets would have been sold out the best part was that there was a huge crowd waiting outside the halls and they were unaware of this the halls were opened 30min earlier at 11.30am and the mad horde all ran to the hp booth at the rear only to be left angry and disappointed when they learnt that all the touchpad tablets have been redeemed check out the crowd pic and video below the k series laptop is one of asus star products which features highly durable premium aluminum textures and comes in variopis stylish colors red green blue pink and black the 14-inch asus k43sj29i5 which is equipped with 2.9ghz intel core i5-2410m processor 4gb ddr3 memory after free upgrade 500gb sata hard disk nvidia feforce gt520m with 1gb vram dvd super-multi double layer drive and preinstalled with windows 7 home premium is selling at s$799 u.p s$999 the slightly more power variant k43sv29i7 which comes with 2ghz intel core i7-2690qm processor 6gb ddr3 memory after free upgrade 640gb sata hard disk nvidia geforce gt540 with 1gb vram dvd super-multi double layer drive and preinstalled with windows 7 home premium is retailing at s$1,099 u.p s$1,398 dell 4

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone gamer enthusiasts who are looking for a powerful yet portable gaming laptop would have to check out the latest dell alienware m14x in terms of hardware specifications the alienware m14x is equipped with intel core i7-2630m processor 4gb dual-channel ddr3 sdram 500gb 7200rpm sata hard disk and nvidia gt555m graphics with 1.5gb ddr3 memory the 14-inch gaming monster which is one of dell s star products is selling at s$2,299 but if you want a slightly lower intel core i5 2410m processor variant with nvidia geforce gt555m 1.5gb vram 4gb ddr3 sdram and 500gb sata hard disk you can get it at s$1,999 with free razer gaming mouse and headset samsung incorporating a 14-inch display with led backlight the vaio c features 2.3ghz intel core i5-2410m processor 4gb ddr3 memory 500gb hard disk amd radeon hd6630m 1gb vram graphics and preloaded with windows 7 home premium 64-bit operating system available in four stylish colors of black orange green and pink the vaio c model vcpcca15fgd is selling at a decents$1,399 acer powered by 2.3ghz intel core i5-2410m processor and comes with 4gb ddr3 memory 640gb hard disk nvidia geforce gt520m graphics with nvidia optimus technology and bluray combo drive the samsung rc420e is designed for work and play if the attractive price tag of s$1,099 u.p s$1,299 isn t enough to swing you over the manufacturer also throws in free trend micro titanium internet security software carrying case and second year extended local warranty sony the acer aspire 4750g-2634g50mn is one of the few very attractive purchases at the comex show inside the 14inch notebook pc are 2ghz intel core i7-2630qm processor 8gb ddr3 memory after free upgrade 500gb hard disk nvidia geforce gt540 graphics with 2gb vram dvd+rw combo drive and preinstalled with microsoft windows 7 home premium operating system for such high-specification machine it is selling at s$1,098 toshiba 5

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone 8th prize s 600 cash 9th prize s 500 cash 10th prize s 400 cash 11th prize s 300 cash 12th prize s 200 cash the comex 2011 show lucky draw results will be published in the new paper on 12th september 2011 at the toshiba booth the satellite p745 stands out among its peer with its sleek and stylish looks in the hardware department it comes with 2.3ghz intel core i5-2410 processor 8gb ddr3 memory 750gb sata hard disk nvidia geforce gt525m with 2gb vram and optimus technology dvd supermulti drive and preloaded with windows 7 home premium all these at an attractive price of s$1,399 u.p s$2,199 comex 2011 lucky draw redemption counter on level 6 suntec exhibition centre source http vr-zone.com/articles/comex-2011-lucky-draw-redemptioncounter-on-level-6-suntec-exhibition-centre/13461.html september 1st 2011 making a purchase at comex 2011 remember to redeem and fill up your lucky draw coupons on level 6 for every $100 spent at the show you will get a chance to win up to $20000 cash lucky draw redemption counter organiser s office making a purchase at comex 2011 remember to redeem and fill up your lucky draw coupons on level 6 for every $100 spent at the show you will get a chance to win up to $20000 cash lucky draw for every $100 spent during the show you will get a chance to win 1st prize s 20,000 cash 2nd prize s 3,000 cash 3rd prize s 2,000 cash 4th prize s 1,000 cash 5th prize s 900 cash 6th prize s 800 cash 7th prize s 700 cash 6 coupon filling up area

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone considering that this is a weekday and just the start of the show we don t expect the situation to change anytime soon amd fx-series lineup revealed source http vr-zone.com/articles/amd-fx-series-lineuprevealed/13458.html september 1st 2011 driving to comex 2011 carparks full already source http vr-zone.com/articles/driving-to-comex-2011 carparks-fullalready/13459.html september 1st 2011 as we move ever closer to the release of amd s fx-series gigabyte has revealed a cpu compatibility list for its 990fx motherboards which all but confirms the final fx-series skus as expected there will be 8-core 6-core and 4-core cpus with the flagship clocked at 3.6 ghz our correspondent on the ground managed to snap this picture just now looks like visitors to comex 2011 suntec city will have to take public transport or park their cars somewhere else as all the parking lots near the exhibition arena is unavailable the final shipping stepping is b2 the top part fx-8150 is clocked at 3.6 ghz with a tdp of 125w next in line is the fx-8120 clocked at 3.1 ghz there are two versions 125w and 95w this suggests that the fx-8120 was initially targeted for 95w but may ship with a 125w tdp to begin with the final 8-core cpu is the fx-8100 clocked at 2.8 ghz the sole 6-core cpu will be fx-6100 at 3.3 ghz while the 4core cpu will be fx-4100 clocked at 3.6 ghz both feature 95w tdp and will likely compete up against the core i5 series all cpus feature 8mb l3 cache this suggests that fx-6100 and fx-4100 are likely to be zambezi with 1 module and 2 modules disabled respectively rather than native 3-module 2-module dies the clock speeds mentioned in the table only refer to the base frequencies with no mention of turbo core the latest rumours still suggest a launch in september while other rumours suggest mass availability may happen only in october comex 2011 pricelists now available http vr-zone.com comex/pricelists our correspondent on the ground snapped this picture just now looks like visitors to comex 2011 suntec city will have to take public transport or park their cars somewhere else as all the parking lots near the exhibition arena is unavailable source http vr-zone.com/articles/comex-2011-pricelists-now-available-http-vr-zone.comcomexpricelists/13457.html 7

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september 1st 2011 september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone one slight issue with the announcement is that various samsung websites contain slightly different details with regards to the exact specifications and features so we ll suggest a smidgen of caution here the series 7 carries the sub brand chronos borrowed from the greek god of time as samsung claims to have added several new features that helps to reduce the boot time of the system and in general speed things up samsung series 7 notebooks have big screens in small footprints source http vr-zone.com/articles/samsung-series-7-notebooks-have-bigscreens-in-small-footprints/13456.html september 1st 2011 even if the rumours about samsung s interest in hp s pc business were refuted by the company if samsung s series 7 notebook announcement is anything to go by the company has a bright future in the notebook market the series 7 is samsung s new performance line of notebooks but possibly the most impressive feature is the fact that samsung claims that they ve managed to stuff a larger screen size inside a smaller chassis size but is this even possible even if the rumours about samsung s interest in hp s pc business were refuted by the company if samsung s series 7 notebook announcement is anything to go by the company has a bright future in the notebook market the series 7 is samsung s new performance line of notebooks but possibly the most impressive feature is the fact that samsung claims that they ve managed to stuff a larger screen size inside a smaller chassis size but is this even possible most of the speed increase comes from what samsung calls expresscache which sounds a lot like intel s smart response technology but apparently it s not as samsung is using a much smaller 8gb ssd whereas intel s smart response requires at least 20gb of ssd storage it works more closely to that of a seagate momentus xt hybrid drive albeit with the ssd part being fitted to the notebooks pcb rather than inside the hard drive combine this with something that samsung calls faststart and you end up with a claimed post time of two seconds and a cold boot time of 19 seconds in terms of battery life samsung claims an impressive 9h on a single charge and the company goes on to say that its life plus battery technology keeps 80 percent of the cells original capacity for up to 1,500 re-charge cycles as such samsung claims that its batteries can last up to five times as long as some of its competitors this is all great stuff but the real selling point of the series 7 in our opinion is that samsung has managed to squeeze a larger screen size into a smaller notebook size as such the model with a 14-inch screen is the size of a 13.3-inch notebook the model with the 15-inch screen the size of a 14inch notebook and the model with the 15.6-inch screen the size of a 15-inch notebook if that wasn t good enough samsung is offering 1600x900 resolution panels across the board all sporting 300nits brightness it gets even better though as all four models have matt screens which is a really welcomed 8

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone addition and hopefully something that samsung s competitors will pick up on $1,299 s$1,565 and samsung is expecting to start selling the series 7 on the 2nd of october in the us check out the video below for some additional details ocz s ssd caching solution launches source http vr-zone.com/articles/ocz-s-ssd-caching-solutionlaunches/13455.html september 1st 2011 as for the actual hardware specs well samsung will be launching with intel s updated core i7 and core i5 processors and all but the 14-inch model or is that 13-inch will come with a quad core cpu while the smaller model will have to make do with a dual core cpu all models also have discrete amd graphics 6gb of ddr3 memory and a 750gb hard drive as standard do keep in mind that this is the us spec and this might be different in other markets the rest of the specs can be found in the somewhat messy table below it s hard not to call ocz an innovative company as they keep coming up with new ways of either connecting your ssd or take advantage of ssd technology somehow in your pc the latest addition to the revodrive series of pci express based ssds is the revodrive hybrid and if you ve been around for a while you might remember that once upon a time isa cards with a hard drive strapped to them weren t so uncommon and the revodrive hybrid somewhat harkens back to those days it s hard not to call ocz an innovative company as they keep coming up with new ways of either connecting your ssd or take advantage of ssd technology somehow in your pc the latest addition to the revodrive series of pci express based ssds is the revodrive hybrid and if you ve been around for a while you might remember that once upon a time isa cards with a hard drive strapped to them weren t so uncommon and the revodrive hybrid somewhat harkens back to those days although the hardcards as they were known as are long since history it looks like we ll once again shove hard drives into our expansion slots at least if ocz has anything to do with it early details from the flash memory summit last year suggested that ocz was working on a hard drive caching solution using a revodrive with a pair of sata connectors on it but apparently this idea was scrapped in favour of the revodrive hybrid we almost forgot to mention that the keyboards features blue backlight and that samsung has of course implemented a pair of usb 3.0 ports and a slot-loaded optical drive in all models the trackpad is also massive and very similar to the one found on apple s macbook s price wise we re looking at a starting price of us$999.99 s$1,205 stretching all the way to us ocz demoed an early version of the revodrive hybrid back at computex but quite a few things have changed since then ok so ocz is a couple of months later than it planned but these 9

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone things happen and there are some upsides and downsides to this for starters larger 2.5-inch hard drives have become widely available and the revodrive hybrid will now ship with a 1tb drive rather than a 500gb drive the ssd part has also been boosted from 60 to 100gb which should hopefully mean improved performance and ocz is claiming speeds of up to 910mb/s in the press release alongside 120,000 iops at 4k random writes all very impressive numbers indeed the not so good news is that the price also went up from an estimated us$350 to us$499.99 making the revodrive hybrid a very costly ssd caching solution this clearly puts it outside of your average consumers reach as well but hopefully ocz will consider launching more affordable options in the future performance and reliability under the harshest operating environment · double-forward switching circuitry offers low power loss and high reliability · unparalleled dc to dc converter provides highest efficiency most stable performance and perfect regulation · 3oz pcb design reduces heat generation and allows greater efficiency · robust dedicated +12v output comes with dual +12v rails design providing up to 40a for 12v1 and 80a for 12v2 · fandelaycool technology allows 14cm fan to continue to operate 15-30 sec after system shuts-down to ensure all components are properly cooled · multi-gpu ready comes with 8 x pci-e 6+2pin for cutting-edge gaming machine · auto switching circuitry for universal ac input from 90-264v · active power factor correction pfc with pf value of 0.95 at full load · high reliability mtbf>120,000 hours · dimension 5.9 w x 3.4 h x ?7.1 l 150mmw x 86mmh x 180mml · built-in industry grade protections over current over power over voltage under voltage over temperature and short-circuit protection · safety emi approvals ce tuv fcc ul cul gost and bsmi certified thermaltake toughpower grand 1050w psu review source http vr-zone.com/articles/thermaltake-toughpowergrand-1050w-psu-review/13454.html september 1st 2011 thermaltake is a well known company and carries a good reputation as a high quality psu manufacturer not too long ago we had a look at one of thermaltake s mainstream power supplies the tr-2 800w unit today we are going to examine and review one of the company s best products the toughpower grand 1050w unit a power supply aiming to satisfy the craving needs of hardcore enthusiasts let us have a closer look at it thermaltake is a well known company and carries a good reputation as a high quality psu manufacturer not too long ago we had a look at one of thermaltake s mainstream power supplies the tr-2 800w unit today we are going to examine and review one of the company s best products the toughpower grand 1050w unit a power supply aiming to satisfy the craving needs of hardcore enthusiasts let us have a closer look at it · compliance with intel atx 12v 2.3 ssi eps 12v 2.92 standards · 80 plus gold certified ­ with 87-93 extreme high efficiency 20-100 load to cut down electric cost · 24/7 50oc guaranteed to deliver 1050w continuous power · pure aesthetic performance design with uncompromising acer finally launches the iconia smart source http vr-zone.com/articles/acer-finally-launches-the-iconiasmart/13453.html september 1st 2011 · proprietary dual ball bearing 14cm flower-shape fan enables longer lifespan and lowers overall noise output by dramatically reducing bearing frictions · 100 105oc 221of japanese made electrolytic solid state capacitors provide uncompromised sometimes waiting for something good can take too long and in the case of the iconia smart from acer which was first announced back at the mobile world congress in february has finally launched well at least in taiwan that said the company did deliver on its september launch date although judging by the fact that no hardware changes were implemented it feels like the phone is about six months late sometimes waiting for something good can take too long and in the case of the iconia smart from acer which was first announced back at the mobile world congress in february has finally launched well at least in taiwan that said 10

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone the company did deliver on its september launch date although judging by the fact that no hardware changes were implemented it feels like the phone is about six months late we got some hands on time with the iconia smart at acer s low key launch event in taipei and not much has changed since february the only really good news is that acer has put android 2.3 on the iconia smart which does at least put it at level playing ground with the competition to be fair the iconia smart doesn t have a ton of direct competitors thanks to its 4.8-inch screen with a 21:9 aspect ratio and 1024x480 resolution and this is the saving grace of what can only be described as something of a hybrid tablet sadly the tech specs are a bit long in the tooth now with a single core 1ghz qualcomm msm8255 soc 512mb of ram and 8gb of internal storage the iconia smart is pretty average in terms of spec today no matter if you compare it to other smartphones or to tablets other features include 802.11b/g n wi-fi bluetooth 2.1 a-gps an 8 megapixel camera that can shoot 720p video a micro hdmi and usb port and finally hsdpa speeds of up to 14.4mbps and hsupa speeds of up to 5.76mbps despite its fairly large size at 141.7x64.5x13.6mm it s surprisingly slimmer than the samsung galaxy s ii with its 4.27-inch screen as it s 66.1mm wide that said at 185g the iconia smart is bordering on obese when you re talking phones but if you consider it a competitor to say the dell streak for example then it s actually quite light and pocket friendly overall acer has come up with a unique form factor but we don t think this on its own is going to be enough considering all of its competitors are now offering dual core devices on their high-end devices luckily acer has priced the iconia smart at a reasonable nt$14,800 s$615/us$510 which does at least make it competitive price wise and we d expect actual retail pricing to drop lower than this quite quickly we ve added a few more pictures from the event on the next page hp singapore unveils touchpad pricing at comex show 2011 source http vr-zone.com/articles/hp-singapore-unveils-touchpadpricing-at-comex-show-2011/13452.html september 1st 2011 kudos to acer for hosting the entire presentation from an iconia smart thanks to its micro hdmi port this is a first to us as we haven t seen any other company brave enough to host an entire presentation including demos from the device being launched while hp has officially dropped their webos-based touchpad tablet pricing to us$99 there was no news whether the pricing would be applied at this part of the world well apparently the company has unveiled the latest pricing of the touchpad though there are some terms and conditions details inside 11

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone having large computer systems even up to the supercomputer grade for a long time acrc is a unique combination of diverse high-end hardware resources led by a team of experts to support the growing user base a choice of systems for every user in the asia-pacific region singapore may be smaller in scale compared to the resources of china japan or korea when it comes to the scientific research and engineering base but it has had accumulated expertise and user base to justify having large computer systems even up to the supercomputer grade for a long time top singapore universities nus and ntu as well as various institutes and even companies involved in rendering farms or oil exploration simulations have been using large computer here either vector or parallel single image supercomputers or clusters of standardised servers as the usage increased leading to many disparate systems in various locations the government agency astar created astar computational resource centre acrc where at least for the numerous institutes under the astar umbrella as well as other research bodies in singapore there was now a centralised high end supercomputing resource base located on the 17th floor of the humongous fusionopolis behemoth of a building on top of the soon to open onenorth circle line mrt station in ayer rajah area acrc has one of world s rare heavy-duty supercomputer data centres located on a high floor of a tall building it is divided into five functional areas computational systems storage networking operations and hpc software.the two dozen staff headed by dr marek michalewicz director and stephen wong deputy director in charge of systems among others provide support for over seven hundred of local and some international users on a variety of systems acrc operates another data center with large storage located at the biopolis aimed mainly at bioinformatics users according to hp the 16gb and 32gb hp touchpads will be available at s$126 with gst and s$201 with gst respectively for the first two days of comex show however only 100 unit of each of the versions will be available each day and that the purchase is limited to only one unit per person regardless of whether it is 16gb or 32gb best of all the mode of purchase is cash and carry only no credit cards or nets and it will be a non-refundable and non-returnable so if you want to grab one you will have to be quick the units will be available at hp booth 8428 specifically the hp direct counter hall 402/403 for those of you who are purchasing the hp touchsmart610 -1138d 1178d 1188d and hp pavilion dv4-3020tx hp pavilion dv6-6144tx dv6-6105tx and dv6-6106tx you will also get to buy the hp touchpad 16gb and hp touchpad 32gb for s$49 with gst and s$119 with gst respectively the purchase-with-purchase hp touchpad will be available at rewardslink in a first come first serve basis while stocks last rewardslink can be located at 3 temasek boulevard #02-163 suntec city mall singapore 038983 opening hours monday ­ sunday 11.00am ­ 7.00pmeve of x mas /new year/cny 11.00am ­ 3.00pm closed on x mas new year and cny astar s acrc singapore aims for supercomputing heights source http vr-zone.com/articles/a-star-s-acrc-singapore-aims-forsupercomputing-heights/13450.html september 1st 2011 in the asia-pacific region singapore may be smaller in scale compared to the resources of china japan or korea when it comes to the scientific research and engineering base but it has had accumulated expertise and user base to justify 12

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone now acrc can t yet fight in size with multi-petaflop systems that can now be found in japan or china but the centre has diversity of hardware platforms that makes it interesting from their 2048-core westmere-ex single-image shared memory machine with 12 tb ram the largest of its type in the region to a 3,800 core xeon dp fujitsu general purpose cluster amd opteron smp cluster combination as well as one of the largest ibm power7-based risc clusters in the region the first one would obviously make hackers salivate how about seeing a linux or windows as the machine could run it too task prompt showing 2048 cores available with 12,000 gb system memory and there s a good reason for it too long there was an overemphasis just on the top 500 supercomputer ranking in terms of peak and tested gflops or tflops according to the infamous linpack linear algebra benchmark routine however the underlying system architecture can influence the real application execution potential even more dr marek s team has over the past few years consciously diversified the available resources for varied usage types so whether your application can scale to 1,000 cores in a single task or you just dump 1,000 simple unconnected threads at the same time there is the right kind of system to run either kind of jobs plus many other types in the centre main systems here one being a brand new ibm p755 power7 cluster of 30 nodes each with 32 cores running at 3.3 ghz and 128 gb ram per node the other one is an older 32-node cluster of 8-socket quad-core opterons made by hp but its excellent pcie i/o bandwidth as well as 128 gb ram per node make it good for hosting multiple gpgpus for instance · smp machine aimed at very large tera-scale tasks in terms of both processor and memory load like the above mentioned sgi altix uv with its 256 eight-core intel xeons put together sharing 12 tb ram all under one linux os boot each of the cores runs at 2.66 ghz with peak 4 flops/cycle offering theoretical peak performance of over 21 tflops in a single machine what would seem to be good to add here to the resource i feel would be a nice visualisation cluster driving a 100 mpixel 3-d cave-style vr facility such combination is normally driven by dozens of tightly interconnected dualcpu workstations each with a powerful open gl gpu or two which use chromium or similar parallel opengl software layer to parallelise real-time 3-d across dozens of gpus at the same time cave automatic virtual environment which really gives the user an immersion of being in a virtual world cave recursively acronyms as cave anyway acrc sister institute ihpc has a small setup of this type already for awhile machines alone even with petabytes of associates storage huge ventilation power and backup facilities and hardware support staff monitoring the usage constantly are not enough acrc expert team helps the users acquire the right applications commercial or open source or where needed additional hardware that can be housed at the premises as well as user code tuning and optimisation and as more users from within and outside astar including nus ntu associated schools and commercial as well as selected international collaborations are added to the roster the pressure to increase resources is constant it may sound unbelievable to an outside user but most of the acrc system resources are constantly used every moment at 90 to 100 usage imagine your computer s cpu loaded at that level for say 5 years of its life non stop there are three types of computer systems right now at acrc · cluster of large number of small dual processor nodes for heavy loads of many serial jobs as well as highly parallel codes that run well with message passing mpi the fujitsu bx900 450-node cluster of dual-xeondp small nodes each with two cpu sockets and 24 gb or more ram per node all connected via generic infiniband qdr is the main resource here its 45 tflops performance capability puts it close to the 50 tflops class where the world s top 200 systems start right now · cluster of smaller number of larger nodes more suitable for large memory-footprint applications with higher degree of cpu and thread communication there are 2 13

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone therefore to keep up with the user requirements and also competing centres in the region acrc has to increase its capacity rapidly as soon as possible after all japan and china both have multiple petaflop-class systems right now including the world s largest one in kobe reaching close to 10 pflops at riken right now while we can t have a petaflop machine in singapore yet as of today a slightly smaller one say half-petaflop cluster of large core-count noder would make very good sense right now to attract more users to our shores and provide a good base for an even larger national level supercomputing core this takes an investment in systems infrastructure and of course people but would cement singapore s role as the high performance computing centre of the region samsung d7000 led tv the led d7000 incorporates improved backlight scanning technology with samsung s new 3d proprietary frame interpolation algorithm which improves 3d picture quality and creates sharp 2d and 3d pictures and smooth frame transitions without blurring with access to smart hub the led d7000 series is an ideal media center complementing consumers ever connected and mobile lifestyles usual price 46-inch s$4,499 55-inch s$5,999 comex promotion:tba in the part 2 of the story we will look at some good application and code examples how acrc users actually make full utilisation of thousands of cores and terabytes or memory at one go as well as challenges in configuring benchmarking and maintaining huge supercomputer systems of this sort especially in our hot humid climate here comex show 2011 promotions samsung source http vr-zone.com/articles/comex-show-2011-promotionssamsung/13449.html september 1st 2011 samsung nx11 camera equipped with a built-in flash and electronic vga 640x480 viewfinder the nx11 sports a 3-inch amoled lcd screen which reduces glare from sunlight so that images can be seen under any lighting conditions the nx11 also provides high quality video with 720p hd recording and its large aps-c sensor allows the videos to be recorded with shallow depth of field providing effects similar to in-motion picture movies the nx11 will come complete with an 18-55mm i-function lens as well as two new i-function lenses a 20mm pancake and a 20-50mm zoom silver color lens comex promotion s$999 with 20-50 mm i-function standard kit lens samsung will be showcasing their range of products from laptops smartphones lcd tvs blu-ray players home entertainment systems to tablet devices video camcorders and digital cameras at this week s comex show 2011 the samsung booth can be located on level 4 booth 8321 8328 14

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september 1st 2011 published by vr-zone samsung series 9 900x3a 13.3-inch notebook with a maximum thickness of 16.3mm and an ultralight weight of 1.31 kg the 9 series notebook 900x3a sports a high quality screen boasting market-leading 400nit brightness and 16 million colors it also comes equipped with an intel coretm i7/i5 processor solid state drive and genuine windows 7 home premium using samsung s innovative powerplus charging technology and a power-efficient and advanced lithium-polymer battery it has a battery lifespan that lasts up to 6.5 hours comex promotion:s$2,488 samsung galaxy tab 10.1 the galaxy tab 10.1 features samsung s own touchwiz user interface implemented on the android honeycomb platform offering superior multi-tasking and enhanced user interaction and navigation it is the world s thinnest mobile tablet available at 8.6 mm and weighs approximately 560g the galaxy tab 10.1 with its wxga tft lcd display 1280 x 800 is powered by 1ghz dual core ap it is the perfect device for sharing and enjoying media content with family and friends comex promotion:16gb 3g version s$848 m1 announces new mdata mobile broadband plans source http vr-zone.com/articles/m1-announces-new-mdata-mobilebroadband-plans/13448.html september 1st 2011 samsung galaxy s ii the samsung galaxy s ii features a 1.2ghz dual-core processor hspa connectivity providing data transfer of up to 21mbps a super amoled plus touchscreen display at just 8.49mm in thickness the new smartphone is a powerful evolution of its predecessor in speed screen and slim design weighing 116g the galaxy ii has a 4.27-inch super amoled plus screen making improvements in screen size colour gamut and power consumption comex promotion:16gb s$998 m1 limited m1 has announced that it will launch four new competitively priced mobile broadband plans for customers on september 1 this year the new plans which are claimed to be aimed at providing a better mobile surfing experience to consumers will reportedly start from the low price of s$12 a month and will be differentiated by data bundle sizes m1 has announced the availability of four new mdata mobile broadband plans for customers starting from september 1 this year according to m1 the new plans which start from the low price of s$12 per month will help the company to provide a better mobile surfing experience to customers the new plans will be provisioned at the speeds of 7.2 mbps or 21 mbps theoretical download speeds although m1 has claimed that users can expect to experience typical download speeds ranging between 0.6 to 6.7 mbps under most circumstances m1 has also confirmed that customers who opt to go for the 7.2 mbps package will be given the chance to 15

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