Lucid’s Hydra chip got alot of attention by consumers since it changed the face of multi-GPU technology as the chip allowed users to use any combination of graphics cards regardless of make or model to power their PCs.

MSI, a well known company in the PC hardware industry, has revealed two new boards that are powered by this chip.

Price at $190, the P55A Fuzion has two PCI-E x16 slots, two PCI-E x1 slots and 2 PCI slots. The board has  a total of 8 SATA ports, 2 are SATA 6GB/s and the rest are SATA 3 GB/s ports. The board has USB 3.0 ports, 8channel audio and an enthernet port.

The 870A Fuzion is powered by AMD’s 870 chipset. The board is similar to the P55A Fuzion and price at $ 160. The only differences are that this board has one less PCI slot than the P55A and all 8 SATA ports are at 6GB/s. Other than that it has USB 3.0, 8 channel audio and an Ethernet port.

Since both the motherboards are powered by Lucid Hydra, they offer users with the ability to use any combination of graphics cards desired with 16X bandwidth on both the PCI-E slots.

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In addition to the existing drives in the GoFlex range, Seagate has revealed a 3TB external hard drive to meet the ever-growing needs of consumers.

The 3TG FreeAgent GoFlex desk external drive is on sale for $250.The drive has a black 3.5inch enclosure  and has various connectivity options including USB 3.0 and FireWire as well as the widely used USB2.0 interface. The drive works with a Windows based PC as well as a MAC based PC through an included NTFS driver.

Consumer capacity demands are quickly out-pacing the needs of business as people continue to collect high-definition videos, photos and music,” said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of Sales, Marketing and Product Line Management. “Seagate has a tradition of designing products that break into new storage frontiers to meet customer requirements and the 3TB GoFlex Desk external drive is no exception-delivering the highest-capacity storage solution available today.

According to a recent study, the average house-hold will have about 900GB of digital media by 2014. Since the storage requirements for businesses and individuals are growing worldwide, the hard drive should be an excellent option for anyone looking to expand their storage space to meet their home entertainment and office needs.

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PlayStation Network Plus, first got announced at E3, however there wasn’t much information available about it’s benefits. Now though Sony has revealed information about PSN PLUS, so you know what you get for your money.

It you $17.99 for a three month subscription though you can also get a $50 subscription for a year which basically saves you $22 over the 3 month package if you use it for a year.

After launch, PSN PLUS will allow subscribers to get Wipeout HD for free as well as other games from Sony’s PSP Minis range and some PS1 classics. Other features include free monthly games that are downloadable as long as your subscription lasts, 20-50% discounts at the PlayStation Store, early access to betas and demos as well as a feature that allows users to auto-update games as soon as new patches and updates get released.

Lastly subscribers can even download games on a trial basis that allows them to play for an hour to see if the game is worth buying. If you buy the game after the trial period expires you can continue it from where you left it off in the trial.

Overall PSN Plus should be quite a good feature for PS3 users as it offers a variety of services for a small price.

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Although the iPhone 4 has only hit markets a few days earlier, some hackers have already gained access to th phone. Using the userland jailbreak method two hackers, planetbeing and chpwn have gained root access since Apple didn’t properly patch the method.

According to planetbeing:

Think I’m the first one I know about to get a root shell (and SSH) on iPhone 4, using poor @comex’s code (since he has no iPhone 4)

Shortly after that Musclenerd managed to get Cydia running on the iPhone 4 and also gained full root shell access.

An update to the userland jailbreak is expected soon after the new firmware (iOS 4.0.1) gets released, however the jailbreak won’t be released soon as it is still in its early stages. Apparently the jailbreak still contains some of Apple’s software which need to be removed before the jailbreak can be released.

i_Enthusiast: the jailbreak shown is a more of a stepping stone for us, it can’t be released because it includes some of apples software

Planetbeing: Don’t want to speak for @comex, but afaik no one has breathed a word about release date and what we have right now is nowhere ready.

Also keep in mind that the jailbreak does not unlock the iPhone 4, so iPhone users in the US will have to wait sometime before they can use their phones on other carriers whereas users in other countries can use unlocked iPhones with any carrier they desire. The delay is caused due to differences in the OS used by the iPhone 4:

The DevTeam and others have been checking through the iPhone 4, and have noticed the baseband runs a completely different OS than on previous models. The iPhone 3G and 3G[S] both ran Nucleus OS on the PMB8878 baseband CPU (aka XGold 608), where the iPhone 2G ran the PMB8876 (aka S-Gold 2). iPhone 4 uses the PMB9800, or X-Gold 618 – running a separate OS – ThreadX, an RTOS by ExpressLogic.

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Unlike previous iPhone models, Apple had announced that the iPhone 4 white model would have a completely white body whereas the older phones only had a white backside.

Apparently this has caused some manufacturing problems due to which the  white model has been delayed for a  month.

Models of Apple’s new iPhone 4 have proven more challenging to manufacture than expected, and as a result they will not be available until the second half of July,” the Cupertino, California-based company said in a brief statement. “The availability of the more popular iPhone 4 black models is not affected.

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According to the New York Post, an Apple Store in the city is experiencing theft incidents in bright day light.

While delivering a shipment of iPads to the store, a Hispanic thief snatched a box of 5 iPads while the driver was stacking the boxes and fled down a street. In another incident at the same store, a guy asked for directions from a UPS driver delivering iPads. While he was distracted, an associate got his hands on a box of iPads and fled the scene. According to the driver the Hispanic thief was 5’10 and weighed about 175 pounds.

Due to the repeated incidents, even the staff at the store are now unaware about delivery schedules to avoid further mishaps. Hopefully Apple will track down the stolen iPads when they are eventually synced with Itunes.

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Recenty there have been reports over the web regarding a flaw in the iPhone 4. As it turns out, the device looses signal strength when the silver antenna headband around the screen is touched.

According to a reviewer, Walt Mossberg:

On at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting “no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this.

The problem could possibly have been caused due to a firmware issue. The iPhone 4 defers from the old generation iPhone in the way it picks signals. Instead of picking the strongest signal like the 3rd gen iPhones, the iPhone4 picks the highest quality signal. As this change has not been represented in the firmware it could explain  the lack of signals when the Antenna band is touched.

If this is the case, iPhone customers can rest assured the problem will be dealt with since it is a known bug according to Apple. Since Apple has been made aware of the bug we can hope this is a firmware issue and hope a quick fix can be release soon, this can be quite the complication for all the left handed users of the iPhone.

But its surprising to see that such a issue was not found during the final testing of the phone, it would be okay if the issue had a minimal rate of 2% of total phones but this problem is almost in every iPhone 4 sold. But I am 99% sure despite this issue the sales of the iPhone 4 will definitely sky rocket and out sell the previous iPhones. (As always Apple can sell snow to an eskimo(s))

Source : Wired

HP has introduced a new netbook designed for school children. The HP Mini 100e netbook has a rugged build and a spill-resistant keyboard to ensure children don’t accidentaly damage the netbook. It even has a LED on the back of the LCD display that lights up to indicate the laptop is being used for surfing the web so that teachers are aware of children’s activities.

Priced at $299 the netbook weighs 3.2pounds which could be a significant problem since such devices for children should be VERY lightweight and portable. The netbook will not be for sale directly to children instead it will be provided to educational facilities.

Specifications:

• Intel Atom N455 processor
• 160GB hard drive
• 10inch LED Display
• Ethernet adapter and Wifi
• An option between a 3cell or 6cell battery depending on use
• Comes with essential pre-installed software such as MS Office
• A choice of Windows 7, Linux Enterprise 1.1 or Windows XP to run the netbook

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Over the world, Droid fans have been eagerly waiting to get even the smallest piece of information about the Droid X. Now the waiting is finally over.  Verizon has officially announced that the Droid X will ship on 15th July. It will be available through Verizon as well as other retailers.

Confirmed Specifications:

• 1GHz OMAP processor
• 8GB built-in memory
• 16GB MicroSD card also included with an option to upgrade to a 32GB MicroSD card
• The Droid doubles as a  Wifi spot for $20 a month
• 4.3inch touchscreen
• 3 microphones for voice, video and noise cancellation
• 8MP camera that can record in 720p
• HDMI output

The Droid X will run on Google’s Android OS however it will be V2.1. Users can get the newer V2.2 OS later on as a download. The device has a onscreen multi-touch keyboard and will cost $299 with a 2year contract. However  a $100 mail-in-rebate will bring the price down to just $199.

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Lexar Media, has announced a new addition to Crucial’s SSD lineup, the RealSSD C300. The 64GB Solid State drive offers great value witth a prrice tag of $150.

The SSD features up-to 335MB/s read speeds and up-to 75Mb’s write speeds as well as a  3 year limited warranty. The 2.5inch drive has a SATA 6GB/s interface but it is also backward-compatible with SATA 3GB/s.

Overall the drive offers great performance at a relatively small price tag and is ideal for use as a booting device for desktop PCs to ensure optimum Windows performance.

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