Ford makes list of the 25 most EV-friendly cities, still likes selling cars to residents elsewhere

So, you saw a Volt, Leaf, or Focus Electric and were convinced to go green, but are unsure whether your local municipality is as eco-friendly as you are. Well, Ford has done your homework for you (without even demanding your lunch money in return), and identified the "25 Most Electric Vehicle-Ready Cities" in the US. What makes a metropolis worthy of such status in the eyes of the Blue Oval boys? A utilities structure that allows off-peak charging, for starters, plus reduced red tape for getting your EV permits and inspections, incentives for offsetting up-front customer costs, urban plans for charging infrastructure, and EV-friendly city advisory committees. If your town's lacking in those areas, perhaps it's time to give your city counsel a ring -- part of being an eco-warrior is political activism, right? PR's after the break.

Gigabyte G1.Sniper X58 review

In a previous review I already mentioned that the Intel X58 chipset is a gift that keeps on giving, like a Duracell battery that keeps on going. Well, it's not so much the chipset rather then the stuff designed around it that keeps it going.

Two and a half years after its release new products still flood the market based on this chipset and as it seems, it's getting more and more high-end with each motherboard release we receive and test.

I mean you guys read the ASUS rampage III Black edition review not to long ago, and now it's time to go to Gigabyte. They decided to spice up and refresh their X58 series motherboards as well, armed with a snazzy marketing theme they wanted to build something for the true gamer and not so much the uber hardcore overclock -- and that might just work out really well for them.

And with much success, the Killer series was born, with good looks, excellent performance, great overclockability and then in addition to it all extra's, adding a SATA 6G controller, USB 3.0, but also the BigFoot KillerNIC has been integrated into this motherboard, and... Realtek audio? Heck it's been kicked out. There's actually a fully fetched Creative Labs X-Fi (20K2) DSP mounted into the motherboard to bring better audio capability into your PC. All in all it's a very impressive motherboard not only features wise, yet also in terms of sheer design. The motherboard as tested today actually brings back memories of the early X58 motherboards from eVGA styling wise with the black PCB and the green colored PCie slots. And considering these are good memories, heck have a look yourself, meet the Gigabyte G1 Sniper gaming edition motherboard as the design is a sheer class on its own.

Two weeks ago they already brought you a quick overview of the entry level Radeon HD 6450, well guess what ? AMD has more on the table. Three cards are now officially released in the low-end segment, namely the AMD Radeon HD 6670, HD 6570 and 6450.

All small, cute and tiny products that have been  released by AMD to address a sizable market.. Products that could be handy for desktop usage and hey now, it might sit mighty fine in a HTPC.

The Radeon HD 6400/6500 and 6600 series addresses the low-level market yet AMD has decided to double the number of stream processors available to the Caicos (6400) core over previous products and Turks for the 6500 and 6600 series. All these cards come with:

• Graphics core DirectX® 11
• Eyefinity displays Up to 3
• Low Board Power
• Frame Buffer 512MB-1GB
• Memory Type GDDR5/DDR3
• Available Display outputs HDMI 1.4, DP 1.2, DVI, VGA.
• Form factor Low profile
• Thermal Active or Passive cooling

The three low-segment series 6000 cards"

Radeon  HD 6450 -- All the graphics card have a 40nm based GPU and start at a very decent 160 SPs, as well as 8 texturing units, 16 Z/Stencil ROP units and 4 color ROP units for the 6450. The clock frequencies will vary based on models, ranging from 625 towards 725 MHz. The card can now be configured with faster GDDR5 memory, AMD is now allowing for up to 1GB of GDDR5 video buffer to be installed that can be clocked between 800MHz and 900MHz. The TDP is 20W for the DDR3 models adn 27 Watt for the GDDR5 models.

Radeon  HD 6570 -- All the graphics card have a 40nm based GPU and start at a very decent 480 SPs, as well as 24 texturing units, 32 Z/Stencil ROP units and 8 color ROP units for the 6570. The clock frequencies will be 650 MHz. The card is configured with faster GDDR5 memory or could as well be equipped with DDR3 memory, AMD is now allowing 512 up to 1GB of GDDR5 video buffer to be installed that can be clocked between 800MHz and 900MHz. This card will have a 44W TDP.

Radeon  HD 6670 -- All the graphics card have a 40nm based GPU, the transistor count for his model is 716M and is comes with at a very decent 480 SPs, as well as 24 texturing units, 32 Z/Stencil ROP units and 8 color ROP units for the 6670. The clock frequency will be 800 MHz. The card is configured with faster GDDR5 (4000 MHz effective) memory, AMD is now allowing 512 or 1GB of GDDR5 video buffer to be installed allowing it a 64 GB/s bandwidth. This card will have a 66W TDP.

The Radeon HD 6670 is the card we'll briefly review today.

Continue reading at guru3d

SOURCE:  guru3d

GeForce ForceWare 270.61 WHQL Released

This is the first WHQL-certified release from the Release 270 family of drivers (versions 270.xx to 274.xx). You can read more about this family of drivers on GeForce.com.

This driver package supports GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500-series desktop GPUs as well as ION desktop GPUs. This driver package also includes the 3D Vision Controller driver.

Razer Hydra motion controller gets summer release, Portal 2 bundle

Remember the Razer Hydra controller that let you materialize portals with a real electromagnetic orb? Those motion sensing sticks will be available for pre-order in May and will go on sale in June, two months after this week's release of Portal 2, the game it was first demoed with. However, Razer'll still charge you for a copy of the murderous robot game if you want the fancy gizmo, as it's pricing the bundle at $140 -- understandably more expensive that the "below $100" price that it was targeting for the controller alone. Two months is a pretty long time to wait to play the already-available title, and Razer isn't offering any info on a standalone version of the Sixense-based magnetic peripheral. On the upside, though, Joystiq got its hands on a list of compatible titles, which includes 122 games on top of the aforementioned sequel. 

White iPhone 4 used to demo new multitasking, Spotlight search in 'test version' of iOS? (video)

We've just laid eyes on a video from the prolific leaksters over at Tinhte, who claim they not only have a white iPhone 4 from Apple, but it's one with a "test version" of iOS that nobody else has yet seen. It's difficult to ascertain how legitimate this software is -- it could just be a neatly done jailbreak mod -- but that site has a track record of getting its hands on Apple gear ahead of the pack. With that said, the multitasking menu shown here substitutes the current use of apps' icons to represent them with a visual of each app's open window. You can tap on a window to expand it (replete with animation) to fill the screen or long-press on it to bring up the familiar "x" button for shutting it down. This is all accompanied by a new "Search iPhone" dialog at the very top, which sends you into Spotlight search that looks very much the way it currently does (though it seems to no longer be accessible with a left swipe from the first homescreen as on previous versions of iOS). Jump past the break for the video.

Update: A second video has been uncovered, this one showing that we're looking at a prototype unit and taking us on a tour around its body. A visit to the Settings menu shows a 64GB storage capacity, while app folder creation is also handled a little differently from iOS 4. The presence of the Touch Fighter app on this phone, which Apple built to show off the capabilities of earlier versions of the handset, and other internal-looking software seems to point to this indeed being some form of iOS beta build. Of course, it might not be iOS 5 at all, but simply a never-released version of iOS 4. All we know for sure is that the video's after the break.

Erase a CD like a boss (video)

And here we thought that electricity was only good for reanimating monsters. Video after the break.

Panasonic chains Toughbook to a snowmobile, shows signs of life post-torture (video)

We've never questioned the rigidity of Panasonic's Toughbook line -- after all, we've been shown just how rugged these things are time and time again -- but a new video from the company is just too clever to pass over. Sure, it hardly makes any clearer what's already clear, but just in case you were still having doubts, Panny's Toughbook line is mighty tough. As in, tough enough to survive being towed behind a snowmobile in bitterly cold conditions. Unfortunately, the company only shows the screen lighting up after the ride's done, so there's still the possibility that the keyboard is totally shot -- but hey, props for being alive at all, right? Have a look yourself in the video above.


VIA  Engadget
SOURCE  YouTube (Panasonic)

Apple spent nearly $5.7b on Samsung parts in 2010, faces 'strong' response to its patent suit

Want some numerical context to last night's revelation that Apple is suing Samsung Electronics for copying the iPhone and iPad? How does $5.7 billion sound? That's how much Apple spent on buying up parts from Samsung last year, according to the AFP, which cites the Cupertino company as Samsung's second-biggest client after Sony. Given the breadth of Samsung's component manufacturing, these expenditures can and probably do span everything from flash storage and RAM to processing chips to displays. What's fascinating here -- and illustrative of the psychopathic nature of corporations -- is that in spite of this massive interdependency, Apple's lodged a broadly worded patent assault on a major prong of Samsung's business (smartphones and tablets) and now Samsung's been quoted as saying it has "no choice but [to] respond strongly." A company official has apparently expressed the belief that Apple may be infringing on some of Samsung's wireless patents, which means we can probably look forward to another fat batch of papers being submitted to the Northern District of California court. Lovely.


VIA  Engadget
SOURCE  AFP (Yahoo! News)

HECTOR insect-inspired hexapod walking robot is a smooth operator (video)

We've seen some rather nightmare-inducing robots inspired by insects, but, once again, the folks at Germany's Bielefeld University have managed to turn something inherently creepy into a rather lighthearted affair. HECTOR, or hexapod cognitive autonomously operating robot, was designed to help its creators understand how exactly real animals manage to move so gracefully. Physically speaking, HECTOR sports six legs, with 18 joints in total, that protrude from an exoskeleton made of carbon fiber reinforced plastic. Its legs are given a rather life-like range of motion provided by a special set of "elastic joint drives" and a series of "biologically inspired" algorithms, and its exoskeleton can carry a load weighing 30 kilograms -- the robot itself weighs a mere 12 kilograms. What's more, HECTOR's built to learn from its experiences. Okay, so a three foot robotic insect that can carry nearly three times its weight does sound kind of creepy in retrospect, but HECTOR really does have some smooth moves. You can see for yourself in the video after the break.