To clear up confusion surrounding Windows Blue, let me tell our readers that Microsoft isn’t going to call it Windows 9. Its not Windows 9. According to multiple sources, Microsoft will actually released Blue as part of the Windows 8 wave and not as an entirely new Windows platform update. It is going to be a refreshed version of Windows 8, and is expected to be released to manufacturing partners sometime in August. When it is going to be publicly released, Blue will lose its codename and will actually be called Windows 8.1.

At this years GDC, NVIDIA and EPIC games partnered up to showcase their latest Unreal Engine 4 demo known as “infiltrator” on the GeForce GTX 680 GPU.

Unreal Engine 4 Powered Infiltrator Demo Runs on Single GeForce GTX 680

NVIDIA and EPIC games have been partnering up since GDC 2011 to showcase the power of their latest Unreal Engines on GeForce GPUs from green team. As you all may remember, it was a PC powered by three Fermi GTX 580 GPUs that ran the real-time demonstration of EPIC games Unreal Engine 3 based “Samaritan demo” back in 2011. The highlights of the demo was the use of dynamic facial tessellation, point light reflections, bokeh depth of field, subsurface scattering which wow’d us and the PC gaming community back at that time.

A year later, the same demo was ran on not three flagship GPUs but a single Kepler GeForce GTX 680 which delivered the same level of visual quality and 60 FPS in the Samaritan demo. However, the demo wasn’t the only thing NVIDIA showcased their new (at the time) GPU with. At the same time, EPIC games and NVIDIA gave their audience a first look of the Unreal Engine 4 based “Elemental demo” which introduced an intesne level of next-generation real-time Global Illumination lighting and a massive amount of dynamic particles. Following is the real-time video of the Unreal Engine 4 based Elemental demo running off a single GeForce GTX 680 GPU. In a later comparison, it was revealed that the Elemental demo showcased on the PC was still far more impressive than the console version shown during the PS4 announcement event as seen from the direct feed screen shot below:

On a sunny afternoon, a few weeks ago, we managed to bag a chance a have tête-à-tête with Alessandro Lamanna – Vice President Marketing IMEA (India, Middle East, Africa) at the launch of Nokia Lumia 920 in Pakistan.

It has been some time since Nokia had sent one of their big guns to Pakistan, in order to make a pitch for Nokia’s newest offering on the Windows Phone scene. And we did not want to let that chance go. So here is our interview with Mr. Alessandro, arguably one of the most well versed guys on Nokia’s technological prowess, whom we have come across in quite some time.

Intel today announced quite some big news that the company would end its production of Desktop motherboards over the next three years. This means that the upcoming Z87 chipset based boards for Haswell generation of core processors would be the last from Intel’s Desktop Motherboards offering.

End of an Era – Intel Ends Desktop Motherboards Production

We disclosed internally today that Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will begin slowly ramping down over the course of the next three years. As Intel gradually ramps down its motherboard business we are ramping up critical areas of the desktop space including integration of innovative solutions for the PC ecosystem such as reference design development, NUC and other areas to be discussed later.

The internal talent and experience of twenty years in the boards business (which until recently has been largely focused on desktop tower type designs) is being redistributed to address emerging new form factors — desktop and mobile – and to expand Intel’s Form Factor Reference Design (FFRD) work and enable our partners to develop exciting new computing solutions.

The Desktop segment continues to be a major focus for Intel with hundreds of products across many subsegments and applications. Intel expects the broad and capable DT motherboard ecosystem (ie Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and many others) to fully support Intel’s growing roadmap and large worldwide customer base. Intel’s Desktop Motherboard Business will not develop any new Intel branded desktop motherboards after completion of Haswell-based 4th gen Core launch products in 2013 and will continue to support all products sold through the warranty period included with the specific product.

Intel remains very committed to the desktop business. We are making significant investments in the enthusiast platform with our K SKU portfolio and new 3rd Gen Intel Core Extreme Processors. In fact, Intel’s roadmap includes 227 desktop SKUs at 34 different price points, offering desktop solution for a wide range of customers… Intel will continue to support a broad portfolio of CPUs, on 3 different sockets, including LGA 2011, LGA 1155/1150, and BGA parts for entry level platforms. We maintain a broad portfolio of desktop products, covering 5 different power envelopes. Future product roadmaps will be evaluated based on platform performance and power needs.

The new Amazon MP3 store for iPhone and iPad has been released and it has been specially optimized for users of said iOS devices. Amazon is breaking in to the digital music market that iTunes has a firm monopoly on when it comes to iOS. Amazon’s music store has a staggering collection of 22 million songs, all of which are now available for purchase through the new Amazon MP3 store for iPhone and iPad.

When the PS3 launched back in 2006, nobody thought it would even be able to compete with the Xbox 360, with it’s outrageous high price tag and the average launch library (although I think that Resistance: Fall Of Man was a great game). Seven years later, it seems that PS3 is a force to be reckoned with, thanks to the numerous price cuts, top notch exclusives and the excellent Blu-ray capabilities.

Intel Intel Aims for Mobile Space with the 32nm Atom Z2420 Lexington SOC and 22nm Bay Trail SOC which will pave the way for Intel in the mobile sector with companies such as Acer, Lava, and Safaricom on-board.

The Atom Z2420 a highly integrated system on chip making use of a 32nm core process with high K/metal gate transistor technology. The Atom Z2420 operates at 1.2 GHz and has incredible power efficiency over the Z2460 with its Intel Burst Performance Technology. The CPU also comes with Hyper-Threading support. Being an SOC, the Atom Z2420 comes with an integrated dual-channel memory controller within the LPDDR2 PoP package.

Press Release – Six leading international cloud-gaming companies plan to use the NVIDIA GRID Cloud Gaming Platform to deliver gaming services to global broadband companies, NVIDIA announced today.

The NVIDIA GRID Platform enables the smooth, seamless interactive experience of a high-performance gaming PC anywhere, on any screen — including smart TVs, PCs, tablets and smartphones.

NVIDIA Tegra 4 has been officially unveiled at the CES 2013 NVIDIA press conference. The NVIDIA Tegra 4 chip which would power the upcoming Super-phones and smartphones features an ARM Cortex A15 Quad Core CPU, 72 Cuda Cores within the GPU and 4G LTE support.

Recently, we at WCCFtech had got a chance to interview Intel Pakistan’s country manager over a cup of coffee to sit back and talk about how over the years Intel Pakistan has progressed in our country and is constantly working towards modernizing our community along with talking in depth about Intel’s new Ultrabook.