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Sunday, February 28, 2010

Why Intel's Core i7 Processor Is a Beautiful Monster


You might have even seen some benchmarks and features showing that this is a real beast of processor. Well, we're pretty excited about the Core i7, so here's a quick guide to why it's so awesome:
Hokay, so the way Intel develops chips is on what it calls the "tick-tock cycle". The "tick" is the improvement of its current microarchitecture, mainly shrinking it down to make it more energy efficient, along with other tweaks. As you now can guess, the "tock" indicates the launch of a totally new microarchitecture.
Penryn, for instance, was the tick to the Core 2's tock, shrinking it down from a 65-nanometer process to 45nm. Core i7 is a tock, using a completely new microarchitecturecodenamed Nehalem. Core i7 Nehalem is actually a dramatic step forward, remedying several lingering Intel architecture deficiencies that AMD actually had them beat on years ago. So, here are four things that specifically make the new chip awesome:
Bye Bye Front-Side Bus
The ancient front-side bus setup has long been a drag on Intel's chips, and they're finally ditching it. The FSB 
essentially carried data between the CPU and memory controller hub (which is also out the window, more on that in a sec), but that didn't work so well when you started talking buckets of cores. In its place is a new tech called QuickPath Interconnectthat'll make the old bottlenecks history and running tons of cores even better. QPI uses direct point-to-point connections that have a bandwidth of about 25GB/s, way faster than what FSB could offer. The downside is that it requires a new QPI-friendly motherboard. This concept is kind of cribbed from AMD, whose HyperTransport has been doing something similar for a longass time.
Integrated Memory Controller and Triple-Channel Memory
You might notice a pattern that a lot of Nehalem's performance boosts have to do with better access to memory and fatter bandwidth. Yet another tech that AMD held over Intel's head for years is an 
integrated memory controller, which Core i7 finally uses. Basically this just means that the memory controller is on the same die as the CPU, cutting down memory latency. Before, with Intel chips, communication had to take place across the front-side bus, making stuff slooooow. The last memory bonus is that Core i7 supports triple-channel memory. Right now, you're probably on a computer using dual-channel memory (in English, I mean that it uses RAM sticks in sets of two). Core i7 will make three sticks of RAM the new standard—so keep an eye out for plenty of 6GB and 12GB systems running around.
The Return of Hyper-Threading
Intel abandoned 
Hyper-Threading after the Pentium 4, but it's back in Core i7 (and Atom, but really, psh). Basically, it's a parallel-processing tech that runs multiple threads simultaneously. In English, it divvies up tasks so they can be crunched by a processor simultaneously, instead of one after the other. It short, it makes video encoding and other parallel-friendly processes run faster. We're interested to see what kind of gains this will produce in tandem with programs coded to take advantage of threading, not to mention the next great operating systems, Snow Leopard and Windows 7, which will supposedly make better use of multiple cores and parallel processing than current OSes.
Built-In Power Management and Overclocking
Core i7 is pretty much a beast already, but whereas Intel used to say that overclocking was bad for your processor, now with the Core i7, 
it's built right in. The Core i7 is really aggressive with power management, more so than Core 2, so it'll sip juice when it's not busy, and then crank the power when it needs it. In the BIOS now, you can set it to overclock the CPU in certain situations, and customize that by thermal ratings so it won't overheat.
So yeah, Core i7 gets our engines running, and we're not even chip nerds. (Honest!) Sadly though, right now there are just a few Core i7 chips available, and they're all for desktops. There's not much of a downside for portables—save for the need for new motherboards and the DDR3 RAM already used by premium laptops—but before you see it in a Dell XPS notebook or MacBook Pro, you're going to see it in a lot of desktop gaming and graphics-intensive systems. Laptops probably won't appear until way into next year, but we think they'll be well worth the wait.

The Spies Have It: Sneaky Gadgets You Should Know About



Did you know there are hundreds of spy-like gadgets that can record you at any given moment, without your knowledge? You don’t have to be in a James Bond film to get spied on. Spy gadgets could be hiding in your workplace, your car, or even your front yard.

Although it’s illegal in most places to record someone without their consent, that probably wouldn’t stop some people from using one of these readily available devices to make a video or audio recording of someone without their knowledge, and we thought it was high time someone talked about it.

We looked around and found some spy gadgets that illustrate this point. Some of these are pretty creepy while others are mildly amusing in an off-beat sort of way. In any case, if you weren’t feeling paranoid before, these devices may give you reason to be more suspicious in the future.


You’ll Never Look at a Power Strip the Same Way Again



Here's a power strip from DPL Surveillance Equipment that has a hidden compartment for plugging in a SIM card that can turn the power strip into a listening device. It can be called like a phone allowing someone to eavesdrop on a conversation or it can initiate a call when it detects audio. It costs $1,209 to buy or it can be rented for $175 per week. A surge protector version also "taps" land lines plugged into the strip. It also looks like there are many other SIM-based surveillance products that come in all kinds of packages. You can watch a video of it here.


Bird House Cam

               
If you see a bird house like this in your neighbor’s yard, chances are, you’re being watched. It looks like a bird house but it's really a video camera disguised as a bird house. The camera is activated by heat and motion. It records video to an SD card and costs $699 from Spygadgets.com.


Key FobCam


Here's a video camera disguised as a key fob. We suppose it could just as easily be used for making legitimate recreational videos but in this creepy video someone lays down his key fob on a counter and starts recording video of the woman behind the counter.  Chinavision.com  sells it for $47.


SunglassesCam


We think it wouldn’t be too hard to spot these obvious looking, spycam sunglasses but for $120 someone can buy a pair for recording whatever they happen to be looking at.





ID CardCam


The next time you see a stranger wandering around your company with a badge hanging from their neck you might want to pull out your hidden camera detector (below) and give their badge a quick scan.


Hidden Camera Detector


                 
Starting to feel a little paranoid? For about $90 you can buy this device from BrickHouseSecurity.com that uses light reflected off a camera lens to detect hidden cameras. It might give you some peace of mind next time you find yourself at some discount motel.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Ten Reasons to Love the iPad


Ten Reasons to Love the iPad

Despite all the complaints about the new Apple iPad and
how it's missing features and lacking innovation, there's
still a lot to like about this cool new device. Here's our list
of how we learned to stop worrying and love the iPad.
1. It’s a network appliance

The iPad is much more than a supersized iPod Touch, it’s a
network appliance that you can use anywhere; in the house or
 on the road. As we like to say "the best OS, is no OS," and
 the iPhone/iPad OS really stays out of users way and
makes it fun and easy to use.
2. It’s a device you can love
Although we like to say “never love anything that can’t love
 you back,” the iPad is going to be something people are
going to snuggle up with and get very intimate with. We
suspect iPad owners will get very close to their units.
3. It runs iPhone apps
What could be better than a big screen version of all those
cool iPhone apps like Facebook and Yelp.
4. It’s a great game machine
The iPod Touch and iPhone have become the new handheld
 game platform of choice. With inexpensive games and the
unit acting as the controller we imagine that there will be
more games than ever available for iPhone OS devices
5. You can read books in the dark
Even though we suspect many avid readers will still prefer
the lightweight e-Readers with reflective display and page
turning buttons like the Kindle and others, it might still be
nice to snuggle up in bed with your iPad to read a book
 or magazine.
6. You can watch movies on it
Yes, we know HD movies will have black borders on the top
and bottom off the screen and you’ll probably want to use
 headphones or external speakers for a better experience but
we suspect the iPad will shine as media player for movies,
TV shows, and photographs.
7. It has a nice design
Okay, so it does look like a supersized iPod Touch and the
 black bezel is a little prominent but you have to admit if there
 is one thing Steve Jobs and his team knows how to do is
create a nice looking device.
8. You can use the iTunes store with it
We wonder what’s going to happen when you start trying to
keep all your devices in synch with iTunes, and we have to
say iTunes has its share of annoying qualities but it’s still a
great way to access music, podcasts, videos, and now
books, magazines, and all kinds of other new content.
9. It’s very fast and responsive
Everyone who has seen a demo or tried an iPad always
 remarks how responsive it is. The new 1GHz A4 processor
 probably has a lot to do with it. It’s nice to see the snap return.
We were beginning to wonder if the Nexus and its Snapdragon
processor was going to continue to run circles around Apple
devices. All we need now is a speedier iPhone.
10. It has a ten hour battery life
We’re always suspicious of battery life “claims,” and we’ve
never seen a device that has lived up to the marketing hype
but we’ll let Apple be innocent until proven guilty of
exaggerating battery life claims.