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Sunday, 16 October 2011

Intel to bundle liquid cooler with Sandy Bridge-E CPUs

Intel's upcoming Sandy Bridge-E processors will be the company's first to ship with an all-in-one liquid cooling system.

The coolers, manufactured by Asetek but branded by Intel, will ship as part of a bundle with the Core i7 3000-series processors, and will also be available separately.

Like CoolIT's Advanced Liquid Cooling, the cooler consists of an external 120mm fan - which sits at the back of your PC's case - as well as a pump and a heatsink to keep things nice and chilly.

Step into Liquid

It marks Intel's first move away from traditional air cooling, and the all-in-one design means users don't need a City and Guilds plumbing certificate to liquid-cool their PCs.

The cooler also means Intel is keen for users to overclock its forthcoming super-chip to extreme temperatures and frequencies.

The standalone cooler will be compatible with the Sandy Bridge-E's LGA2011 platform, as well as LGA1155, LGA1156 and LGA1366 platforms.

There's no word on whether it has user-modifiable fan speeds, though - a feature we loved in the original CoolIT system.

We've seen liquid cooling become more common in recent years, and with prices of all-in-one systems dropping considerably it's become the bedroom enthusiast's method of choice.

iCloud, iOS 5, iTunes 10.5, and OS X 10.7.2 Released

In accordance with last week's keynote, Apple users have some downloading to do: iOS 5, iTunes 10.5, and Mac OS X 10.7.2 have all been released. These updates collectively enable Apple's new iCloud service, which will eventually replace the older MobileMe service and provide syncing and backups for users' documents, pictures, and other data.

iOS 5, which supports the iPhone 3GS, 4, and 4S, all iPads, the third and fourth-gen iPod Touches, and the Apple TV 2, enables a number of other new features: a new notifications system and the Notifications Center, the iMessage protocol, wi-fi syncing, and over-the-air OS updates. You can download the update to your devices after downloading iTunes 10.5. Expect our full, in-depth review of the new OS soon.

Mac OS X 10.7.2 doesn't bring major new features to the OS, but it does apply a range of security and reliability patches to the operating system which should help with some of the teething issues most new OS X releases have. Release notes for the update haven't yet been published, but we'll update the article to link to them when they're live.

Along with these updates, Apple has also published a Lion Recovery update, which updates Lion users' recovery partitions to work better with the new Find My Mac feature.

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AirPort Utility for iOS Launches

When we reviewed the 5th generation Airport Extreme and 4th generation Time Capsule, several people pointed out that the iOS 5 beta included an Airport configuration mode inside settings. This mode allowed for initial setup whenever the iDevice was in range of an unconfigured Airport.

We heard grumblings later that Airport Utility was coming to iOS, and today Airport Utility for iOS appeared in the App Store. The application works for iPhone/iPod Touch sized devices, and on the iPad 1/2, though iOS 5 is a requirement for the application. This is yet another part of Apple's attempt to make computing possible without the expressed requirement of also owning a desktop, and eliminates another interesting edge case in that puzzle.

Thus far I've spent a while poking around inside the Airport Utility release and am impressed with the depth of configuration options present. While the desktop Airport Utility analog for OS X or Windows still has more options, the big things are here, including network setup, WiFi configuration (everything from SSID to wireless channels), a list of wireless clients and their RSSI, ability to reboot AirPorts, and even perform firmware updates. I've put together a gallery with most of the important menus below.

Gallery: AirPort Utility for iOS

Source: Apple Store

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BenQ EW2420 Monitor Review

The EW2420 from BenQ is designed for use as a multi-purpose display. While it has the standard DVI and HDMI port you would expect on a current monitor, it also has an additional HDMI port for another video source like a video game system or Blu-ray player, as well as speakers for the audio from these sources.

Of course, if the panel doesn’t perform well then it doesn’t matter how many inputs it has, but the BenQ looks promising with both a VA panel and an LED backlight. The last time we checked out a BenQ LCD, it was an MVA panel that caused us to lament the decline in quality seen over the years. Read on as we determine whether the EW2420 can stand with the better offerings on the market.

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Thursday, 13 October 2011

Asus 'Ultrabooks' to launch tomorrow, UK pricing from £600?

News of Asus' line of slim, powerful 'ultrabooks' has reached these parts, with the company apparently set to reveal the line up tomorrow.

A little bird has told our buddies over at Gizmodo UK that the new range's pricing is set to start at £600, with the higher-spec UX21 and UX31 setting you back at least £1,000.

Ultrabooks are Intel's answer to the MacBook Air, with high end specs crammed into a thin, light frame.

Don't be surprised if you don't see Asus bandy the term 'ultrabook' around too much though; the company is apparently set to rebrand the line as "Zenbook" because apparently that's better.

Zen garden

The Asus UX21 was the first Ultrabook to be announced, and its higher price tag is thanks, in part, to its aluminium body which, according to Gizmodo's source, ups the price by over £200.

Best not to hold your breath for a Chrome-running machine from the Asus line-up though; the source reckons that although the company has tested Chrome OS on its ultrabooks, the experience wasn't up to scratch.

Steve Jobs: The Movie rights bought by Sony

The story of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs will be turned into a movie after Sony Pictures reportedly bought the rights to his official biography.

The movie studio, which also brought The Social Network to the big screen, will base the film around Walter Isaacson's official biography simply titled 'Steve Jobs', which is released on October 24th.

Deadline is reporting that Sony has splashed-out a "seven figure" sum to acquire the rights and that the film will be produced by Mark Gordon.

Brought forward

The release of the official biography, which was the subject of 40 interviews over two years, was brought forward a month, following the sad passing of Steve Jobs last week.

The author, a former managing editor of TIME magazine, says that Mr Jobs decision to agree to the book was so his children would understand why he spent so much time away from home.

"I wanted my kids to know me," he told Walter Isaacson. "I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did."

Mr Jobs, who co-founded Apple and twice built it into the most influential tech company in the world, died last week, aged 56, following a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Apple iTunes 10.5 released

Apple has released its biggest iTunes update in quite some time.

iTunes 10.5 brings access to iTunes in the Cloud, which stores all of the music, TV shows and apps you've purchased and makes them available to re-download on other Apple devices at no extra cost.

It'll also facilitate automatic downloads, which will mean any purchase you make on any of your iTunes-enabled devices can automatically be downloaded to the others.

It is also the first version of iTunes to offer wireless syncing with iOS 5, meaning you'll no longer have to physically plug your iPhone or iPad into your computer to transfer content.

Any devices on the same Wi-Fi network will be able to sync when iOS 5 is launched on Wednesday. That functionality will also extend to over-the-air software updates.

No iTunes Match access

iTunes 10.5 doesn't yet allow users to sign up for Apple's iTunes Match subscription service, which will scan your entire music library and replace tracks with high quality files from Apple.

It'll cost $24.99 in the US, but Apple has yet to agree deals with UK record companies to bring iTunes Match to the UK. Those deals are not expected to until spring 2012 at the earliest.

That service is expected to launch stateside in the next few weeks.

If you want to upgrade your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad to iOS 5 you'll need iTunes 10.5 so we'd recommend you download the 100MB+ file now in order to save yourself a little time on Wednesday.