Bonux's Android set-top box is pretty much Google TV lite

Bonux's Android set-top box ain't shipping till the year's end, either. Tucked away in a small corner of Computex was the gem you see above: an Android 2.1-based set-top box designed to bring... well, Android to your television. The white mockup box was strictly in place to demonstrate the software, and the inability to find a live internet connection on the floor crushed their desires to demonstrate connected extras. Essentially, this STB would scale a mobile OS up to TV size, which isn't exactly the most elegant of solutions. That said, it does "work," and the idea of using Android to pull in local media and web content may tempt those who aren't willing to deal with the expense and complications of snagging a full-blown HTPC. We were told that the box could play back nearly every major file format known to man, and the HDMI output ensures broad compatibility with practically every HDTV ever sold.

When speaking with company representatives at its booth, they asserted that their goal was to shrink the white box down to the size of the black unit sitting beside it, or something barely larger than a deck of cards. If all goes to plan, they should be shipping worldwide by the end of this year, but they stated that it would be awhile before Froyo (Android 2.2) was supported given the intrinsic need for more potent hardware. Speaking of which, they've yet to actually nail down a final processor, and they're still debating whether they'll have WiFi as an option. In the end, consumers should expect "between one and three" variants (including one with an integrated TV tuner, possibly), and a retail starting price of around "$120 to $130." So, found that patience you were looking for yet?

Kazaa founders open legal music service called Rdio

Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Kazaa (as well as Skype and Joost), have unveiled a new (entirely legal) music streaming service – an increasingly crowded market these days. Called Rdio, the startup will charge $5 to $10 per month for unlimited access across PCs and mobile devices. This same premise has long been available in services offered by Microsoft, Rhapsody, Napster and countless others.

Rdio is run out of San Francisco by 22 employees, and it'll open this week in an invitation-only preview with widespread availability expect later this year. Despite the rocky history between Kazaa and record labels, at least one has agreed to work with Zennstrom and Friis. "We resolved the past," said the Warner Music Group. "These guys are focused on the future."

On the surface, Rdio looks like any one of the other all-you-can-eat music services, but it promises to break from the norm by adding social features, such as letting users see what their friends are listening to. People can also view a list of the most popular music among their contacts. There's also talk of linking up with Skype somehow, but we're not sure how that would play out.

Microsoft reveals updated Windows Live Essentials suite

Microsoft has previewed a major refresh to its freely downloadable Windows Live Essentials suite, which includes Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Messenger, Mail, Sync and others. According to CNET, Redmond hopes the overhaul will make Windows more appealing to consumers during this year's holiday season since no significant updates are planned for the OS itself.

The revamped version of Photo Gallery will add facial recognition to make life easier when it comes to managing and organizing tons of photos. Photo Gallery will also receive new editing tools, such as Photo Fuse, which lets you take the best parts from similar pictures and fuse them together. This feature is demonstrated in the image above, where a woman swaps her face in a group shot.

Movie Maker will get new themes, the ability to import photo caption data from Photo Gallery, export HD videos, and you'll be able to upload content directly to Facebook, and other sites. Mail will let you manage multiple email accounts, calendars, RSS feeds, contacts and newsgroups in one place. It'll also let you send up to 10GB of photos per email, chat via IM in the inbox, and more.

Manufacturers push for USB 3.0 adoption, Intel holds it back

With Computex 2010 underway, several manufacturers have taken the occasion to launch new USB 3.0 peripherals in hopes of increasing sales as the new interface slowly gains traction. Among them is Iomega, which today revamped its eGo line of portable and desktop hard drives with a total of five new drive models, including a pair equipped with SuperSpeed USB 3.0. Kingston showed off an upcoming external SSD that hooks up to the next-gen interface, while SuperTalent continued to expand its USB 3.0 flash drive lineup with the new Express RAM Cache model.

But while each of them is doing their part in helping bring this technology to mainstream ground, it seems Intel is not very interested in giving them a hand. Initially expected to hold back adoption until 2011, unconfirmed reports now claim Intel will not be packaging USB 3.0 support into its chipsets until 2012. The SuperSpeed specification was introduced in November of last year and already there are plenty of vendors shipping USB 3.0 motherboards based on NEC's controller. AMD plans to integrate this chip in its reference designs and other cheaper alternatives are on the way too.

Given that vendors like Asus, Gigabyte and ASRock are already building USB 3.0 into their products, it's hard to see why Intel would have any problems supporting the standard. Perhaps it's not so much a technical matter but rather the chipmaker pursuing its own agenda -- that is, trying to make the market more receptive to Light Peak. The optical cable interface does have its advantages over USB 3.0 so we're interested to see how things play out.

Microsoft unveils Windows Embedded Compact 7 for tablets

Microsoft has unveiled a version of Windows 7 designed specifically for tablets and other specialized devices. The platform, dubbed Windows Embedded Compact 7, is expected to be released to manufacturing in the fourth quarter, but can already be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site in its preview form. Details are a bit slim at the moment, but it seems to be a compartmentalized version of Windows 7 compatible with non-Intel architectures.

Features listed in the official product page include an updated version of Internet Explorer with support for Silverlight and Adobe Flash 10.1, MPEG4 and HD video playback, support for Microsoft Exchange 2010, Microsoft Office and Adobe PDF viewers, and Windows 7 Device Stage for transferring files between a mobile device and a PC. A multi-touch interface is also mentioned, complete with custom gestures like panning and pinch zooming.

One of the first tablets to launch with Windows Embedded Compact 7 will reportedly be the recently announced Asus Eee Pad EP121. Microsoft has posted a few videos of the new operating system here, showcasing its "connected experiences", "rich user experiences", and platform reliability.

AMD shows off Fusion APUs, on track for H1 2011 release

Nearly four years after first revealing plans for its next-generation Fusion processors, AMD has finally conducted the first public demonstration of its CPU-GPU hybrid, running Aliens vs. Predator in DirectX 11 mode and doing some hardware acceleration in Internet Explorer. The company was careful to reveal as few specifics about the chips as possible, but said two versions of Fusion are being prepared for release in the first half of 2011.

A mainstream version called Llano will feature four cores and 4MB of L3 cache, while a low-power version dubbed Ontario will offer two cores and just 1MB of L3 cache. Both chips are now available to select customers in sample quantities. AMD's Rick Bergman didn't specifically name the APU demonstrated, but described it as a "low power Fusion processor" so we assume it was the dual-core Ontario part. To put the chip's capabilities into perspective, Bergman noted they were using the same game AMD used last fall to demonstrate their high-end discrete GPU.

For those unaware, Fusion basically combines the central processing unit (CPU), graphics processing unit (GPU), video processing and other accelerator capabilities in a single-die design. This is a much more sophisticated approach than Intel's at present, which adds a separate 45nm GPU to the processor package. AMD said it is working with several companies to optimize software for its APUs, and announced the AMD Fusion Fund to jumpstart this effort.

OCZ unveils "affordable" PCI-Express SSD, RevoDrive

OCZ took the opportunity at Computex 2010 to showcase its latest additions to its already broad solid-state drives lineup. Dubbed RevoDrive, this new product is designed to slip into a PCI Express x4 slot and employs two SandForce SF-1222 controllers in RAID mode for maximum performance -- up to 540MB/s reads and 530MB/s writes, as well as 75,000 IOPS. It's a compact version of last year's Z-Drive for high-performance gaming PCs and workstations.

OCZ calls this bootable drive "affordable", though it stops short of revealing the actual price tag (or an expected release date, for that matter). It should be available in capacities ranging from 120 to 480GB using the less expensive NAND flash memory when it finally launches. The company also showed off new 1.8-inch Vertex 2 and Onyx II SSDs aimed at ultrathin notebooks, netbooks, nettops, and tablets. These drives will be available "in a range of capacities" featuring a SATA 3Gb/s interface and Windows 7's TRIM feature. Unfortunately, again, OCZ gave no pricing or release details.

Crytek secretly toiling away on an MMO?

Here's a rumor to jumpstart your day: Crytek might be whipping up an MMO. The LinkedIn profile of Crytek senior IT manager James Dennett suggests that the Crysis developer may be working on an unannounced MMO. Dennett's profile lists experience "designing, testing and implementing as part of the development team the systems infrastructure for an MMO online game." Of course, that's hardly concrete evidence, but there's more.

Crytek recently purchased the following domain names: "codename-kingdoms.com, codename-kingdoms.net, codenamekingdoms.com, codenamekingdoms.net, kingdomsthegame.com, kingdomsthegame.net, kingdoms-thegame.com, and kingdoms-thegame.net." Also, about a year ago, the company filed several trademarks covering computer game software and electronic games, one being "Kingdoms." Noticing a trend?

This is nothing more than speculation, and Crytek could simply be adding MMO features to CryEngine – especially since the popular MMORPG Aion is already using the engine.

Asus unleashes Lamborghini VX6, VX7 notebooks

Asus is making the most of its time at Computex this year, having already unveiled a range of slate devices and ROG-branded hardware. Today the Taiwanese PC maker showed its redesigned premium Lamborghini VX6 and VX7 notebooks, which measure 12.1 and 15.6 inches. Both systems feature a glossy shell, a chiclet keyboard, a Bang & Olufsen ICEpower sound system, and they're embellished in automotive trinkets.

The VX6 is more along the lines of a netbook on steroids than a standard notebook PC, packing a dual-core 1.83GHz Intel Atom D525, Nvidia Ion 2 discrete graphics, 4GB of RAM, a display resolution of 1,366x768, as well as USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity. The VX7 stirs in Core i3, i5, and i7 processors, up to 16GB of RAM, Nvidia N11E-GS DirectX 11 graphics, and a 1080p display.

Asus hasn't revealed anything in the way of pricing or availability.

Hitachi intros industry's quickest, most capacious 7mm HDDs

Hitachi today added several new ultra-slim hard drives to the Travelstar and CinemaStar Z series, which measure 7mm-thin and seem to break all sorts of records. Hitachi's press release says the family is home to the world's most capacious and fastest spinning 7mm drive, the Travelstar Z7K320, which offers 320GB of storage with a spindle speed of 7200RPM.

It also features 16MB of cache, uses SATA 3Gb/s, and consumes only 1.8W of power when active and 0.8W when idle. Additionally, the Travelstar Z7K320 offers up to 18% more performance than the 5400RPM Travelstar Z5K320, which features 8MB of cache, and consumes only 1.6W of power during read/write and 0.55W when idle.

Hitachi's CinemaStar drives are "specifically designed" for A/V streaming devices, such as set-top boxes, PVRs, portable video players, DVR-enabled TVs, and video surveillance systems. The fifth-generation 2.5-inch 5400RPM Z5K320 features 8MB of cache along with an "improved protection scheme for power fluctuation and enhanced Thermal Fly-Height Control for improved error rates."

The drives are expected to reach mass production in August, but there's no official release date or pricing at this point.

Intel intros new Atom processors, Oak Trail platform, more

Intel has made a few Atom-related announcements today at Computex, including a new dual-core netbook Atom, and four other Atom processors. The company said it would ship dual-core Atom processors for netbooks sooner than expected, and they're already in production. New devices with the dual-core netbook chips should be available by this holiday season.

Although the company previously contested that single-core Atoms were sufficient for netbooks, it now believes that the featherweight mobile PCs can benefit from having dual-core processors. "As the web content and the browser content becomes richer, the dual-core will bring a better experience when enjoying rich content or multiple windows," Intel said.

The company also announced four new Atom processors that support DDR3 memory including the single-core N455 and N475 for netbooks, along with the single-core D425 and dual-core D525 for compact desktops. The N-series processors begin shipping today, while the D-series chips will be available starting June 21.

Meanwhile, Intel showed a reference design for a 14mm-thick netbook using a new thermal "technology concept" called Canoe Lake, as well as a Moorestown variant of the Atom dubbed Oak Trail. The platform uses less power and requires only half the physical footprint of existing Atoms, while supporting 1080p playback and operating systems including Windows 7, MeeGo, Android, and Chrome OS.

Qualcomm announces dual-core 1.2GHz Snapdragon CPUs

Qualcomm today announced its first dual-core Snapdragon processors, which should bring a significant upgrade to the existing 1GHz single-core part found in such devices as the Nexus One, Droid Incredible, and Evo 4G smartphones, HP's Compaq Airlife 100 and Lenovo's Skylight smartbooks, as well as Dell's Streak 5 five-inch tablet.

The new processors will add support for 1080p video playback, 24-bit WXGA 1280x800 displays, OpenGL ES 2.0 and OpenVG 1.1 visual effects, and low-power GPS and audio engines. The MSM8260 is for HSPA+ networks (that's AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, namely), while the MSM8660 is designed for multi-mode HPSA+/CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev. B networks.

The company's MSM8260 and MSM8660 chips run at up to 1.2GHz and can boost all-around performance by dedicating a processing core to background tasks – old news for full-fledged computers but an exciting proposition for smartphones as they increasingly become multitasking devices.

The new parts could also find their way into smartbooks and tablets as well, and the company says it's "excited by the innovation our customers are already showing as they begin designing products based on our dual core MSM8260 and MSM8660 chipsets."

Asus lugs tons of ROG hardware to Computex

Asus is showing off plenty of ROG-branded hardware at this year's Computex, including a desktop, notebooks, motherboards, and graphics cards. The company's CG8490 PC features Intel's new six-core i7-980X processor, 12GB of RAM, and a pair of overclocked Radeon HD 5870 graphics cards. Mobile gaming rigs include the 15.6-inch G53 and 17.3-inch G73Jw, which support 3D Nvidia graphics, USB 3.0, up to 16GB of RAM, as well as Intel's Core i3, i5 and i7 processors.

Meanwhile, company has prepared two system boards: the Rampage III Extreme and the Crosshair IV Formula. The former is Intel X58/ICH10R-based and can be overclocked via ROG Connect, OC Kit, RC Bluetooth, and a new iPhone overclocking tool. The latter is designed for AMD-based rigs, supports dual-channel 2000MHz DDR3 RAM, and features Core Unlocker for accessing "locked" cores on AMD processors – a common feature with newer boards.

Asus' new graphics cards include the MATRIX5870, which brings more power efficiency, and the ARES, a dual Radeon HD 5870 with 4GB of GDDR5 RAM.

Intel announces 50-core Knights Corner HPC processor

Although Intel drove another nail into the coffin of its Larrabee discrete GPU project last week, the architecture itself is very much alive. A variant of the architecture is being used for High Performance Computing applications and it's said to leverage both Larrabee and Intel's many cores research projects. Called the Many Integrated Core (MIC) architecture, it will first appear in a 22nm product codenamed Knights Corner that scales to more than 50 processing cores.

MIC-based products will be aimed at segments such as exploration, scientific research and financial or climate simulation, and although a majority of applications will still run best on the company Xeon server processors, MIC chips will "help accelerate select highly parallel applications," Intel said in a press release today.

The chipmaker hasn't provided a release date, but it's currently shipping development kits codenamed "Knights Ferry" to select industry players. In the second half of this year, the company will deliver an "extensive range of developer tools" for its MIC architecture.

Asus announces two Eee Pad models and an e-book reader

After teasing its entry into the burgeoning tablet market for months, Asus today unveiled its first Eee Pad tablets running Windows software and an e-reader, dubbed Eee Tablet, with a note-taking function. The announcement included the 10-inch EP101TC running Windows Embedded Compact 7 (an updated version of Windows CE), and the 12-inch EP121 running Windows 7 Home Premium on an Intel Core 2 Duo CULV processor.

Asus claims the device can be used as a multimedia player, e-reader, Web browser, or, with the help of a keyboard docking station, a full-featured PC. The company didn't share much in the way of specs -- after all, the Eee Pad won't be on the market until early 2011 -- but said the "ultra-slim and light" device will include a webcam, USB port, HDMI-out, SD slot, and should offer 10 hours of battery life. Prices are expected to range between $399 and $449. Unfortunately, their rumored Google-android tablet was nowhere to be seen.

As for the Eee Tablet, Asus describes it as "one of the world's most accurate and sensitive digital note taking devices" which will give users the feel of writing on paper. It will be available in September for $199 to $299, and will feature an 8-inch grayscale display, two-megapixel camera to snap photos of slides or other subjects for notes later on, an electronic notepad, Wi-Fi, a media player and a battery life of 10 hours.

Hitachi-LG to launch SSD-equipped optical drives in August

Hitachi-LG has lifted the veil on an interesting new product called the HyDrive that combines an optical drive with embedded NAND flash memory functioning as an SSD. The idea is to pave the way for thin netbooks, tablets and ultraportables that can fit an optical drive without needing a second drive bay. HyDrive units will initially be available in 32GB and 64GB capacities, with up to 256GB and SATA III 6Gbps configurations coming next year.

In terms of performance, the SSD component has a peak read speed of 175MB/s and writes at a maximum of 60MB/s. The first-generation HyDrive products will come in 12.7mm thick form factors and will unfortunately not fit into most conventional laptops. Instead, they will be targeted towards HPTCs and other small form factor PCs, at least until they are shrunk down to 9.5mm thick next year by embedding the SSD component directly within the PCB assembly.

Hitachi says its hybrid drive will first be seen in August inside the Moneual Family PC 102. ASUS' N61DA notebook and future Eee Top all-in-ones will also feature the drive after testing is completed, and all of AMD's new 8-series system chipsets already support the technology. No pricing details or stand-alone kits were announced.

MSI unveils Windows 7, Android Wind Pad tablets

With Computex 2010 now in full swing, the first wave of Apple iPad competitors are finally breaking cover today starting with two tablet models from MSI. The Wind Pad 100 and 110 both have 10-inch multi-touch displays but vary sharply in hardware and software. Namely, the first packs a 1.66GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor and runs Windows 7 Ultimate, while the MSI Wind Pad 110 switches to a dual-core Nvidia Tegra 250 chip with Android.

The Wind Pad 100 has a customized, touch-friendly layer on top of Windows 7 to support Microsoft's normally desktop oriented operating system. It also has 2 USB ports, a webcam, 8-hour battery life, and an HDMI output for handling 720p HD video. Engadget got some hands-on time with the device and thus far they don't seem too impressed by it. Although it was quite light at 1.7 pounds, the plastic build felt quite cheap and overall the Wind Pad 100 was incredibly sluggish in terms of performance. It didn't help that the device is expected to retail for around $499.

Meanwhile, the Android-powered Wind Pad 110 should come in at about $100 cheaper with a price of $399. All we know in terms of specs so far, besides its 10" touch display, is that it has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, a USB port and some form of video output. It also looks a bit more stylized than its Windows-based sibling and should have swappable back plates to change its appearance. No solid estimate on an expected release date was given other than "later this year."

Nvidia launches GeForce GTX 465, Fermi gets closer to mainstream pricing

Nvidia released today the most affordable entry so far in the GeForce GTX 400 graphics card family. The new GTX 465 is based on the same Fermi 40nm architecture we know from the GTX 480 and GTX 470 GPUs with certain cut-down specifications like the number of stream processors, texture units, and memory bus width (256-bit). The core clock speed remains identical to the GTX 470, while the memory clock speed has been just slightly lowered. This is all to be expected from a less expensive part. Nvidia has set pricing of the GTX 465 at $280 with cards already available from Newegg and a few other retailers.

It's usually the case that a lower performing graphics card comes with the advantage of lower power consumption and as a result lower heat generation. I mention this in particular because it's been one of our biggest complaints about GTX 400 GPUs. Unfortunately, the GTX 465 doesn't see much in the way of improvements in this area. Anandtech has published a review on a GTX 465 card from Zotac and the conclusion is clear-cut: "The GTX 465 is much louder and much more power hungry than the Radeon 5850 all while being slower – and all you save is $20."

Later this week we will be publishing a full update in the current rivarly between the GeForce GTX 480 and 470 boards versus the ATI Radeon HD 5870 and 5850. Besides our usual round-up of testing with the most updated drivers (Nvidia recently claimed big performance improvements) we will be looking at other specifics like minimum frames per second, which many gamers assert is the biggest strength of the latest GeForce cards.