AMD releases Catalyst drivers for Windows 8 Release Preview

The Windows 8 Release Preview is out and chip giant AMD has already released Catalyst drivers for its range of GPUs.
By releasing official Catalyst drivers, AMD is able to make sure users of its GPUs have access to all the latest features, such as native 3D support, and optimized screen rotation detection for rotation-aware devices.
Another benefit to using the official drivers is that they are optimized for the platform, and will deliver lower GPU power consumption and improved sleep/resume performance. These features will be of particular interest to those testing the Windows 8 Release Preview on notebooks and other mobile devices that rely on a battery to keep going.
These new drivers feature support for the new WDDM 1.2 (Windows Display Driver Model 1.2) which is new to Windows 8. This new driver model includes preemptive multitasking, reduced memory footprint and improved resource sharing.
There are a number of known issues that are worth bearing in mind if you’re planning on taking the Windows 8 Release Preview for a test drive on a system equipped with AMD graphics. These include:

• Radeon HD 7900, Radeon HD 7800, and the Radeon HD 7700 performance in DirectX 9 applications may be slower under Windows 8 vs. Windows 7.
• CrossFireX configurations using the Radeon HD 7900, Radeon HD 7800, and the Radeon HD 7700 in DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 applications may be slower under Windows 8 vs. Windows 7.
• CrossFireX configurations using the Radeon HD 7900, Radeon HD 7800, and the Radeon HD 7700  in OpenCL accelerated applications may cause a BSOD or system hang.
• Blacklight Retribution (DirectX11 mode) played with a CrossFire configuration may result in a system crash when launching the application (32-bit OS only).
• Video corruption can be seen when playing back movie trailers with Metro video player.

As well as support for the Radeon and FirePro line of graphics chips, there’s also support for the A-, C- and E-series APU CPU/GPU packages.
NVIDIA has yet to update its drivers for the Release Preview. When the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was released back in February, it took the company two weeks to release the first driver update to support the new platform.

olympus vr-340

(Credit: Olympus)

The Olympus VR-340 has a lot going for it and for very little money.
Inside its 1.1-inch thick, all-metal casing is a 10x f3.0-5.9 24-240mm lens and a 16-megapixel CCD sensor with sensor-shift image stabilization. On back you get a high-res 3-inch LCD and a one-touch record button for capturing 720p HD movies.
Shooting options are made for snapshooters with Olympus' iAuto scene recognition that determines the best settings based on 30 scene types; Program Auto for some extra control over your results; 14 scene modes; and seven of Olympus' Magic Filters including Pop Art, Pin Hole, and Drawing.
Also included are Beauty and Makeup modes for softening skin, smoothing wrinkles and blemishes, and more unusual options like whitening teeth, lifting cheek bones, and adding eyeshadow.
The Olympus VR-340 is available for less than $150, which makes it one of the least expensive 10x zoom ultracompacts on the market.

Nanotech Dental Filling Kills Bacteria, Strengthens Teeth

Your next filling may do a little more to keep your teeth healthy. Researchers at the University of Maryland have created the first cavity-fillers also kill bacteria and re-grow layers of tooth, the university announced yesterday (May 1). Huakun Xu and his colleagues created a cavity-prepping mouthwash, a filling and a filling cement that include tiny, nano-size particles of silver and calcium that have a diameter roughly 1/1000th as wide as a human hair. The researchers reported on the prepping fluid in the Journal of Dental Research in April. The University of Maryland's tech transfer office now has patents pending for the new materials and is open to licensing. If a company takes up the offer , it will probably test the inventions in people and try to earn U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to use the inventions widely.
Over the past few years, manufacturers have added nano-size silver particles to surgery instruments, bandages, home air filters and more because nanosilver kills bacteria and other microbes. Scientists haven't fully discovered how nanosilver works yet, but they think it works in part by anchoring to cell walls, which some types of bacteria cells have, but human cells don't. The nanosilver induces the cell walls to let in all kinds of junk and contaminants from the environment around the bacteria cells, eventually killing them.
Xu and his team added nanosilver to the new prepping wash and filling adhesive because the main complications of fillings happen along the edges of the original cavity, Xu said. The new filling adhesive and prepping fluid kill bacteria in the vulnerable area before dentists add the filling.  "These are the first things that cover the internal surfaces of the tooth," Xu said. The primer and adhesive also flow into tiny spaces inside the tooth, he added.
Meanwhile, calcium phosphate nanoparticles in the adhesive and in the filling itself add important minerals to the teeth, Xu said. 
 The research team members hope their nano additions will help fillings last longer than the usual five to 10 years, though they haven't yet tested if that's true. So far, they've only tested the new materials on bacteria harvested from people's teeth and grown in lab. They plan to study the primer, adhesive and filling in animal teeth and human teeth next.

LG Optimus L7 UK release date confirmed

LG has revealed it is to bring its latest flagship Android handset to the UK with the LG Optimus L7 confirmed to hit British retailers later this month.

Having been officially unveiled at MWC 2012 earlier this year, the LG Optimus L7 is to follow the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy S3 and be made available to eager consumers in the coming days running Google’s latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich OS.

LG Optimus L7 Specs

Lining up at just 8.7mm thick, the Optimus L7 boasts a 4.3-inch WVGA display with an ultra-wide viewing angle allowing users to enjoy impressive visuals from any direction. Elsewhere a 1GHz Cortex A5 processor provides the grunt whilst a 5-megapixel rear-mounted camera offers up impressive snaps enhanced by an LED flash.

“For consumers desiring high-end style and sophistication in a smartphone, LG Optimus L7 offers beauty and performance in one smart package,” said Dr. Jong-seok Park, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “The L7 is a significant addition to our L-Series portfolio and we are confident that it’ll prove highly attractive to users. We expect it to be one of our most popular smartphones.”

LG Optimus L7 Release Date and Price

With an unveiling largely overshadowed by the recent Samsung Galaxy S3 announcement, LG has failed to offer confirmed pricing information for the upcoming L7. Despite this the company has revealed that the handset has been handed an “early May” European arrival before making the trip to global markets at a later date.

Are you impressed by the LG Optimus L7 or would you rather plump for the Samsung Galaxy S3 when it hits the UK on May 30th? Let us know via the T3 Twitter and Facebook feeds.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 News: Release Date, Trailer, Zombies

Following months of rumours, endless speculation and the odd leak, Activision and Treyarch have officially unveiled Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 will be the next addition to the COD gaming franchise.

Whilst developer Activision got a little trigger happy and accidentally set the official Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 website live just hours ahead of the title’s formal unveiling, the gaming giant has now fully revealed its plans for the 2012 addition to the iconic FPS series.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Story

As its name might suggest, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is a direct follow-on from the 2010 released record breaking Black Ops offering with the original title’s protagonist, Frank Woods, making a return to guide gamers through his memories of recent conflicts.

Set largely in the future the second release in the Black Ops sub-franchise will see controller touting sofa jockeys transported between the mid 1980s and a mechanically enhanced war zone of 2025.

With a large portion of the game to be held in the year 2025, it appears the coming 13 years are to be tough ones in the real world with a plethora of futuristic weaponry and machines to see battles fought out with a selection of drones fitted with chainguns and rocket launchers, weaponised quadrocopters and a bevy of similarly scary foes.

What makes this selection of high-end, futuristic warfare powerhouses all the more daunting is the fact that the bad guys have got hold of the keys and are now using it against the western world in an almost ironic display of their abilities of destruction.

Despite offering an insight into upcoming technologies, the 2025 setting sees Treyarch run a fine line between realistic evolution and farcical sci-fi futurism, landing on the right side of the fence with not a single laser shooter, ray gun or teleportation device in sight.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Characters

Whilst Frank Woods makes the jump from the original Black Ops to offer some narration to the next-generation release, gamers will find themselves fighting though the eyes of the Mason family with different characters leading the way for the 1980s and 2025 based gameplay.

With Alex Mason resuming his role as the lead protagonist for the 80’s based scuffles, jump forward a couple of decade and Mason’s spawn, David Mason, is running the show and attempting to bring down the fleets of war machines heading into the likes of Los Angeles.

On the darker side of the moral spectrum Raul Menendez is introduced as the leading villain in what is sure to become a transitional moment for the Call of Duty franchise. Set to be transferred into gaming baddie folk law, Menedez brides the 40 year timeframe with an array of no good shenanigans set to go down in the middle.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 Release Date

Having been correctly leaked and predicted on a number of occasions prior to the final official confirmation, Activision has revealed that a Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 UK release date will be held in accordance with franchise tradition just weeks ahead of the festive period on November 13th.

Set to be made available across a number of countries and core markets simultaneously, the Black Ops 2 release will no doubt see a wide selection of global retailers hold midnight openings offering eager gamers the chance to be amongst the first to get their mitts on the release.

Launching for the standard collection of Sony PS3, Xbox 360 and PC formats, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 pre-orders have already opened with the official COD website taking advanced orders of the Black Ops and Modern Warfare 3 follow-on.

With a number of online retailers already jumping on the Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 pre-order bandwagon and vying for consumer’s cash the likes of GAME are offering added incentives for the snapping up the upcoming COD addition through its stores with all pre-orders securing users a Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Prestige token to unlock either a choice of weapons, double XP or multiplayer features.

Following recent year, it is expected price wars will circulate the Activision published title in the weeks and months leading up to its release with Amazon jumping in early with a £42.90 Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 price tag.

Top 5 Fastest Supercomputers In The World

The most recent list of the world’s top 500 fastest supercomputers was announced at the 2011 International Supercomputing Conference in Hamburg, Germany.
Taking the top spot on this biannual list is the Fujitsu-made “K Computer,” installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Japan. This massive processing powerhouse runs on 548,352 cores (68,544 CPUs with eight cores each) and is more powerful than the combined capabilities of the next five systems that follow it on the list.
By contrast, the second fastest system, China’s Tianhe-1A, last year’s champion, is powered by 186,368 cores.
Japan and China are each home to two of the top five supercomputers on this list. While only one of the top five resides in the United States, half of the top ten fastest systems are all located stateside.
You can check out the world’s top 5 supercomputers in our slideshow (below). Visit the most recent list of Top500 Supercomputing Sites to view a list of the top 100 systems.

#1 – Fujitsu “K Computer”

Located: RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS), Japan
Installation year: 2011

#2 – NUDT “Tianhe-1A”

Located: National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China
Installation year: 2010

#3 – Cray “Jaguar”

Located: DOE/SC/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, United States
Installation year: 2009

#4 – Dawning “Nebulae”

Located: National Supercomputing Centre in Shenzhen (NSCS), China
Installation year: 2010

#5 – NEC/HP “TSUBAME 2.0″

Located: GSIC Center, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan.
Installation year: 2010

samsung smart tv

NEW DELHI: Samsung Electronics announced the launch of its Smart TV models ES8000, ES7500 and Plasma E8000 in the Indian market. Samsung's Smart Interaction technology which includes Voice Control, Motion Control, and Face Recognition commands, provides users with option for controlling and interacting with the TV. Users can operate the TV and other functions without using the remote. The Smart TV also has a built-in camera that recognises movement in the foreground, as well as microphones that recognise voice.

Samsung is also providing consumers access to a variety of premium content available, with over 1,500 apps offered worldwide. Samsung's Smart TVs is faster and it is powered by a dual-core processor. Also, Samsung's AllShare Play enables consumers to push content manually to the cloud or pull the content directly from their Smart TV or other mobile devices.
The 'ES series' of Samsung Slim LED televisions use edge-lit technology and offers excellent contrast and brightness with a Dynamic Contrast ratio of 3.5 million:1, consume 40% less power and have excellent durability. The Samsung Smart televisions, including LED & plasma models are priced in the range between Rs 37,700 to Rs 273,000.