The Good NET Guide

Posts Tagged ‘graphics’

As you may have heard by now, many of Apple’s new 27-inch iMacs are more like iLemons. While the systems themselves are fine (and fast) there have been a ton of reports about problems with the screens (including mine and at least one other TechCrunch writer). Apple issued an update on December 21 that did not fix the problem for most of those users. Today, they have issued another update — so far, so good.

While the December 21 update was titled “27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update 1.0,” this new update is called “27-inch iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0.” A slight variation, but a big one, as this apparently is altering the display firmware itself rather than that of the graphics card. This update is also about half the size of the previous one. As with the other update, this takes a few minutes to install.

Earlier today, it was reported that Apple was halting production of the 27-inch iMacs until it could solve the issues afflicting the line. Aside from the screen flickering issue, other iMacs apparently have a yellow-tinting problem. As reports of troubles kept piling in, indications were that Apple was seeing long wait times for the devices, which some attributed to popularity, while others attributed to these problems.

The Apple Discussions forum on the topic now has some 271 pages (up from 191 a couple weeks ago) of comments/complaints and over 500,000 views (up from 400,000 a few weeks ago). It has more views than all the other threads combined — by far. Apple still has yet to say officially what the problem is with the product, and why the original update didn’t fix the issue. Hopefully this update will once and for all.

Liquid cooling is a funny thing.

Read the original post:
CoolIT now has a universal GPU liquid cooling solution, the Omni A.L.C

We looked at the 500GB USB 3.0 Seagate BlackArmor PS110 a few days back and now the Western Digital My Book 3.0 drive is on the bench. There are some important differences and similarities between the two USB 3.0 options. First, while the PS110 is a portable solution and the My Book 3.0 is a desktop external, both drives spin at 7200 RPM.

The rest is here: 
Review: Western Digital My Book 3.0

Mobile data devices are a boon for AT&T.  The company reported strong earnings this morning, seeing a 26 percent rise in fourth-quarter profit.  AT&T sold 3.1 million iPhones in the fourth quarter, with the device being called out as one of the key drivers of the success for the telecommunications company. Quarterly earnings increased to $3.01 billion from $2.40 billion from the previous year, matching Wall Street expectation. Revenue from wireless services was strong, rising 9.2 percent with the addition of 2.7 million net subscribers during the fourth quarter.

But another area of growth for AT&T is in wireless eReaders connected to its 3G data network.  Currently, the Amazon Kindle, the Sony Reader Daily Edition and the Barnes & Noble Nook are all using AT&T for data connectivity. During the fourth quarter, the number of these devices on AT&T’s wireless network increased by more than 1 million in the fourth quarter, which was the strongest quarter in this category to date.  And as we learned yesterday, AT&T will also provide internet connectivity for Apple’s new iPad.

It is expected that this category will continue to grow like gangbusters, especially with the addition of the iPad, which boasts an app called iBooks, Apple’s own collection of digital books formatted for the device. Apple partnered with five publishers to make books available for sale through the iBooks store. Jobs claimed yesterday that the iPad will take Amazon’s Kindle technology to the next level. The iBooks support the ePub format, allows readers to flip through pages and supports pictures, video, and other graphics. The first book available will cost $14.99. It’s expected that the eReader market as a whole will grow by millions in 2010, with Forrester predicting that 10 million e-readers will be sold in the coming year. The firm estimated that 3 million eReaders were sold in 2009.

So what does this mean for AT&T? More money, obviously.  The company said that its earnings were partly bolstered by the rapid growth of the e-reader device. AT&T only recently brought the Kindle on board, after Amazon dropped Sprint last fall for the Kindle 2.  However, while all Kindle’s come with a data plan, not all iPads will come with 3G connectivity.  Only the most expensive ones will.  All models also connect via WiFi.

Once the iPad SDK is released, many developers will be in a mad rush to create apps optimized for Apple’s tablet device. Already, developers are flocking to update their apps with the new iPhone SDK optimized for the iPad. But it’s not only the developers of games and apps who are participating in this gold rush. Motally, a startup that provides analytics on mobile devices, is launching the extension of their user-action tracking services for mobile web and apps to include content developed on Apple’s iPad. Their analytics will automatically work for iPhone apps accessed on the device with further support to be released specifically for the iPad SDK once it is available from Apple.

Motally’s offering allows developers to receive daily reports, web-based dynamic reports and user statistics such as unique users, page views, engagement time search keyworks, average pages/visit, etc. Currently using the iPhone SDK, Motally will support the iPad SDK once it rolls out.

Motally offers more advanced features that allows developers to troubleshoot and debug their products from anywhere in the world, without having to re-deploy apps and games to the Apple iPhone store. For a young startup, Motally has seen significant traction as a mobile analytics provider. Backed by renown investor Ron Conway, Motally’s clients include Twitter, Yelp, Fandango and Verizon.

Buried in Nokia’s earnings release from this morning (PDF) is an interesting revelation about the Ovi Store, the centralized application shop for programs fit for Nokia devices that the Finnish giant debuted – not so stylishly – in May 2009.

The company now officially acknowledges that the Ovi Store is seeing more than 1 million downloads a day on millions of handsets around the world, after cautiously mentioning that it was approaching that milestone earlier this month at CES.

At a recent roundtable event in London to discuss the company’s app strategy with journalists, Nokia VP of Product, Media George Linardos, also shared that it is currently working a completely rebuilt version of the one-stop app shop, due to be launched in the Spring of this year. Linardos at the time of the event, early December 2009, said that Ovi Store download numbers were growing 100% month-on-month.

In another upbeat story about the Ovi Store, it was revealed earlier this week that the store has recently overtaken Apple’s App Store in territories such as Asia and Latin America. We should note in that regard that Nokia-carrying AT&T customers in the U.S. only got access to Ovi Store early January 2010.

One million downloads a day – or roughly 30 million per month – is admirable but not breathtaking growth any way you look at it. Just for the sake of comparison: Apple’s App Store went from 2 to 3 billion app downloads in the course of 3 months, which means the App Store serves more than ten times the amount of apps per month than the Ovi Store.

Nokia, still the world’s top mobile phone maker, reported a stronger-than-expected 65% rise in fourth-quarter net profit this morning. The Espoo, Finland-based company reported net profit of €948 million for the quarter or 26 eurocents a share, up from €576 million a year ago.

What caught our eye was the volume of devices the company shipped in Q4 2009: the total mobile device volumes of Devices & Services were 126.9 million units, representing an increase of 12% year on year.

The overall industry mobile device volumes for the same period were 329 million units (based on Nokia’s estimate), representing an increase of 8% year on year.

Broken down by region, Nokia shipped most of these phones and mobile computers to Europe and Asia-Pacific (68% of the total units shipped, combined). North America only accounted for 3.8 million units, while emerging markets like Middle East & Africa bought 24.3 million units.

Nokia estimates that its mobile device market share for the fourth quarter 2009 was 39%, compared with 37% in the fourth quarter 2008. The company says the increase was driven by higher market share in all regions with the exception of the United States and Canada, where market share remained flat.

Nokia shares are up a solid 12% in pre-market trading.

When the Psystar Rebel EFI software launched yesterday, the Internet collectively gasped at the wild claims but a few people in the Hackintosh community probably new better. Sites were claiming that the Rebel EFI software would allow OS X to be installed on any computer, but that simply isn’t true as I’ve found out over the last 12 hours.

Excerpt from:
Psystar Rebel EFI isn’t magic, won’t install OS X on “any machine”

10/GUI: One Very Slick Desktop Multi-Touch Concept (Video) National Geographic: 50 Years of Space Exploration The Second Coming of the Polaroid Graphene makes a gra-fine photodetector Full body scanners at airports reveal your junk

Read the original here: 
Daily Crunch: The Future of Scanning Edition