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Add-in sound cards are a dying breed, especially in this day and age of advanced motherboards loaded with bells and whistles. Onboard audio isn’t a new thing, mind you, but manufacturers have greatly improved the quality of integrated audio to the point where many no longer fool with a third-party solution. That said, there are still a handful of companies that cater to audiophiles. Perhaps the most well-known is Creative Technology Limited who at E2 2017 added a new member to its Sound BlasterX Pro-Gaming Series of PCIe audio cards. At the heart of the Sound BlasterX AE-5 is a quad-core Sound Core3D audio DSP and a 122dB ESS Sabre-Class DAC, the latter of which offers 32-bit/384kHz lossless playback and “true audio fidelity” for high-definition audio in music, movies and games. The card also features what Creative calls the world’s best gaming headphone amplifier for PCs, a custom-designed discrete headphone amp with a SNR of 116dB. Those concerned with visuals should note that the Sound BlasterX AE-5 is the first sound card to feature a built-in RGB controller powered by the Aurora Reactive Lighting System. RGB lighting has infiltrated virtually every other PC accessory and hardware type so it’s not all that surprising to now see them on sound cards. The Sound BlasterX AE-5 goes on sale next month priced at $149.99. There’s also a Pure Edition in the works with four LED strips that’ll command $179.99 come August.

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¤ Nickname: STYLISH ¤ Name: ¤ Age: ¤ Country: ¤ City: ¤ Favorite Games: ¤ Favorite Shows: ¤ Favorite Movies: ¤ Favorite Songs / Favorite genre: ¤ What would you like to do in life: ¤ Favorite actor - why ?: ¤ Favorite actress - why ?: ¤ You Smoke? / What brand of cigarette smoke: ¤ What alcoholic drink frequently: ¤ Favorite juice: ¤ In what country would you like to live: ¤ Favorite football team: ¤ Car models: ¤ A brief description about you: ¤ How did you find NewLifeZm?: ¤ If you win 1 million dollars, which would be the first thing you do?:

Computer engineering researchers at North Carolina State University have developed new software and hardware designs that should limit programming errors and improve system performance in devices that use non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies. "Currently, computers rely on dynamic random access memory (DRAM) for their operations," says James Tuck, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of two papers on the work. "But DRAM has significant limitations, making it difficult to scale up to deal with next generation systems. "As a result, next generation computer systems will likely rely on emerging NVM technologies for both operations and data storage. Our work here is focused on addressing some of the programming and performance challenges inherent in shifting from a DRAM computing paradigm to NVM," says Yan Solihin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State and co-author of the papers. One challenge with NVM systems is determining how to log, or save, a chunk of memory before making changes to it. These logs allow users to reset memory if the system fails, corrupting the memory that is being modified. At present, logging in an NVM system would require programmers to incorporate additional code into their programs -- slowing performance -- and increasing the number of operations that write over memory. Memory reliability suffers if it is written over too often. To address this, researchers have developed a system called Proteus, which includes a software model and complementary hardware. Because NVM computers are at present largely theoretical, the researchers compared the performance of Proteus against other techniques in a detailed simulator. Other techniques wrote to memory two to six times more than Proteus, meaning Proteus was much better at preserving the long-term reliability of memory. "Compared to existing techniques, Proteus was able to log memory almost for free, in terms of writing to memory," Solihin says. Proteus also performed better than other techniques in terms of run speed, though the advantage there was more modest -- a 9 percent to 11 percent improvement over the best existing techniques. A second challenge with NVM systems has to do with how a system gives data an address so that it can be retrieved. Some programs require those addresses to be changed, for security and other reasons -- but this can complicate programming and reduce performance in NVM systems. To address this problem, researchers developed a hardware-driven technique that effectively creates permanent addresses for data, but allows programs to give pseudonyms to those addresses as needed. "The programming still needs to account for the hardware, but it allows programmers to use the virtual memory approaches they're used to," Tuck says. "In simulations, our approach operated at least 1.5 times faster than previous techniques." Papers on both new techniques will be presented at the Annual IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Microarchitecture, being held Oct. 14-18 in Boston, Massachusetts. Lead author of the first paper, "Proteus: A Flexible and Fast Software Supported Hardware Logging approach for NVM," is Seunghee Shin, a Ph.D. student at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Satish Kumar Tirukkovalluri, a Ph.D. student at NC State, and Yan Solihin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. Lead author of the second paper, "Hardware Supported Persistent Object Address Translation," is Tiancong Wang, a Ph.D. student at NC State. The paper was co-authored by Sakthikumaran Sambasivam, a Ph.D. student at NC State, and Yan Solihin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at NC State. The work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

 Flagship phones give manufacturers the opportunity to showcase their latest technology, and because they attract attention and generate buzz, they help raise brand awareness. For Huawei, currently the world’s third largest smartphone producer by market share, its Mate series of phones is the pinnacle of what the company has to offer. And while the Mate 9, the successor to the Mate 8 that we looked at in-depth last year, packs some high-end hardware, Huawei recognizes it takes more than an impressive spec sheet to win the premium smartphone battle; it needs to provide an overall experience and image that matches the phone’s premium price. Performance and responsiveness are important for any phone, but essential for a flagship like the Mate 9. Making its debut inside the Mate 9’s aluminum chassis is HiSilicon’s new Kirin 960 SoC. The four ARM Cortex-A72 CPUs in the Mate 8’s Kirin 950 have been replaced by four of ARM’s latest Cortex-A73 CPUs. The plus-one change in model number is deceptive, however, because there are some significant differences between the two cores. The A73 actually belongs to a different processor family, with its roots going back to the A17 rather than branching out from the A15/A57/A72 family tree. One of the obvious differences between the two different microarchitectures is a reduction in decoder width: The A72 has a 3-wide decoder while the A73 is 2-wide. Despite what appears to be a reduction in capability on paper, ARM claims the A73 still offers better performance and efficiency relative to A72 on the same process and frequency. Four Cortex-A53 cores complete the big.LITTLE CPU configuration. The Mate 9’s CPU cores reach higher peak frequencies than those in the Mate 8 too, but the differences are small. The A53 cores get a negligible increase from 1.80GHz to 1.84GHz, while the A73 cores reach up to 2.36GHz versus the 2.3GHz for the Kirin 950’s A72 cores. It’s interesting that Kirin 960’s A73 cores are clocked lower than the Kirin 955’s 2.5GHz A72 cores, especially considering that ARM targets a peak frequency of 2.8GHz on 16nm (the Kirin 960 uses TSMC’s 16FFC FinFET process). With the Kirin 960, HiSilicon is more focused on reducing power consumption (and freeing up thermal headroom for the GPU) instead of chasing maximum CPU performance. Still, based on the A73’s other advantages, particularly the improvements to the memory subsystem, the Kirin 960 should still show a small performance gain relative to Kirin 950/955. Perhaps the biggest criticism of past Kirin SoCs were their seemingly underpowered GPUs. While Qualcomm pushed the performance and power envelope with its Adreno GPUs, and Samsung added eight- or twelve-core configurations of ARM’s latest Mali GPUs to its Exynos SoCs, HiSilicon’s Kirin SoCs made due with more modest four-core Mali configurations. Peak performance significantly trailed its peers, but Kirin’s lower power consumption limited the effects of thermal throttling (a significant problem for the faster GPUs). Ultimately, performance was “good enough” for the majority of cases. The Mate 9’s Kirin 960 SoC marks a radical shift in HiSilicon’s GPU philosophy. Not only does it utilize ARM’s latest Mali-G71 GPU based on the all-new Bifrost architecture, but it steps up to an eight-core configuration running at an impressive 900MHz—the same peak frequency used by the Kirin 950/955’s much smaller GPU. The combination of additional cores and architectural improvements give the Mate 9 a significant peak performance advantage over the Mate 8’s Mali-T880MP4 GPU, paving the way for new capabilities such as VR.

Better than ever at sprinting, cornering and stopping Twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter flat-6 rolls out 443 horsepower All-new, whisper-quiet premium-luxury interior Prices start at $114,250 (including destination charges) Stay tuned for a hybrid version Porsche introduced its new 2020 911 Carrera S at the 2018 Los Angeles auto show. As predicted, the highly anticipated 8th-generation sports car didn’t depart far from the iconic shape that has defined the rear-engine vehicle since its introduction in 1963 — hardly a passerby will mistake the new coupe for anything but a 911. Notwithstanding its familiar appearance, the 2020 911 is very different than its predecessor. The new coupe arrives with aluminum-intensive construction, an enhanced powertrain, new innovative technology, and more luxury appointments than any previous 911 in history. Consumer demands are changing, and Porsche realized that it had to evolve to keep its best-selling sports car at the top of the competitive segment. Is the 2020 Porsche 911 an all-new model? Despite carrying a new “Type 992” internal designation, it is not an all-new model. Instead, the 2020 Porsche 911 is a heavily reworked – and extensively updated – version of the automaker’s “Type 991” platform that was first introduced in 2011. In a significant departure from the past, Porsche has dropped the “narrow body” variant and will only offer the 2020 model with the wider platform – previously reserved for the all-wheel drive models. The additional room will allow the platform to accommodate future hybrid technology. While the basic platform is carried forward, rigidity has been improved with additional structural bracing and Porsche has focused on reducing mass – nearly every exterior body panel, except for the front and rear fascias, are now constructed from lightweight aluminum alloy. Other physical improvements include enhanced aerodynamics in the form of a larger active rear wing, and engineers have transitioned to a staggered wheel size — for the first time in the 911’s history — to further refine handling. In terms of appearance, Porsche has completely redesigned the 911’s front and rear fascias, the sculpted bodywork has a few more subtle creases, and the door handles are now electric — they automatically retract near-flush with the door panels when locked. The overall greenhouse, and side windows, are virtually identical to the outgoing model.

In medical delivery, enables a set of years paralysed patients regain mobility and walking reasonably. According to the independent newspaper, one of the patients who undergo medical training, was able to walk with the help of crutches, without a doctor's help, while others began to feel paralysed limbs. Patients who have benefited over the plight of the paralysis of medical training is based on stimulating the nerves that are still active in areas affected by paralysis, faulty external structures are connected to the legs and tie them with nervous brain. And a team of scientists at the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo on the aaltgrbh development, to alleviate the suffering of patients with paralysis, and reduce dependence on others to spend everyday things. Scientists project that included eight living with paralysis, was a belief that their legs 7 of them suffered damage, but returned to its dynamics. And the researchers discovered that some nerves were able to resist damage, thanks to training and motivating electronically, she returned to activity.

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Aren't you glad Team Fortress 2 didn't wind up looking like this? Valve has created quite a game with the long-awaited Team Fortress sequel, bearing many similarities to its predecessor, though incorporating enough changes to make it feel fresh. The most obvious aspect, which you may have noticed from any of the screens and video posted, is the visual style. Even after getting sucked into probably too many hours of play in the beta over the past few weeks, we're still amazed at the art design, both in how it looks and how it animates. But let's not get too carried away with the graphics. It's a game, after all, and the most important factor is how it plays and if it's entertaining. It's interesting to see both Team Fortress 2, which has been in development on and off for some seven years now, and Splash Damage's Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, which has seen its own share of setbacks and delays, finally come out right around the same time. Their nearly simultaneous retail release presents and interesting situation for you, the consumer, as to how to spend your cash. You may fondly remember your days in Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, dropping air strikes on hapless attackers and eagerly charging into bunkers to spout forth deadly plumes of flamethrower fuel. Yet you can't forget your days with Team Fortress Classic, or even further back with the original Team Fortress Quake mod, with its now painfully dated character models but compelling team-focused online play. There's really no right answer in this case as to which game is ultimately better. It's merely personal preference. Quake Wars is assuredly the more complicated game. For those uninitiated in the ways of Enemy Territory, the scope, dynamic objectives, speed at which the tide of battle can turn and the number of things you need to quickly consider when that happens, and user interface can be rather daunting. After learning the ins and outs it's clearly an excellent product, but it lacks that immediate, irresistible appeal so prominent in Valve's Team Fortress 2. And accessibility may very well be the deciding factor in determining which product users prefer. Regardless, it's an excellent time to be a gamer, since as tough as it may be to pick one or the other, making either choice rewards you with a well designed and highly entertaining title. Like in Team Fortress Classic (TFC), Team Fortress 2 has nine character classes: Spy, Pyro, Soldier, Heavy, Medic, Sniper, Demoman, Scout and Engineer. Each class' abilities on the battlefield have been streamlined, which, along with the graphics, is what makes Team Fortress 2 so much more accessible than TFC. No longer do you have Engineers running around with railguns and EMP grenades. Medics can't "infect" the other team, Spies don't have tranquilizer darts, and none of the classes have hand grenades. In TF2, each class has roughly three main ways of attacking - a primary weapon (the Heavy's minigun, Pyro's flamethrower, Engineer's sentry gun, etc.) and secondary (various classes have shotguns, others pistols, while the Demoman has a highly effective mine thrower) and melee weapons (the Scout's bat, the Medic's bonesaw, and so on). Though classes now possess fewer means of attacking, the resulting gameplay feels much more focused. Each class has a very clearly defined role and the means to ensure they perform successfully. The only limiting factor is, of course, how effectively your team meshes together. If your Engineers aren't guarding their structures, Spies can wipe them out in seconds with a few sapper charges. If your team is full of Heavies and Soldiers but lacks Medics, you're not going to get very far. If you're playing a capture point map without any Scouts on your team, you might as well just leave the server or start berating your squadmates until a few switch classes. The Medic, though, seems to be the hinge on which all gameplay balance swivels. For TF2 they've been given a health hose, which blasts out a restorative stream at friendlies within range and "sticks" to them as long as you keep the fire button depressed. As you heal injured teammates, or "overheal" to 150 percent health, an ubercharge meter builds in the bottom right of the screen. Unleashing this renders both target and Medic invulnerable for a few seconds, which is sometimes the only way to break through chokepoints po[CENSORED]ted with Heavies, Medics, and multiple tier three sentry guns. Even though Medics may be the most vital to a team's success, the other classes remain useful. Scouts, who are now rather deadly, are far and away the fastest, and their ability to double-jump and change direction in mid-air makes then all the more difficult to hit. Spies, in addition to being able to one-hit kill backstab the enemy, cause general chaos among enemy ranks. If your opponents know a spy is running around, they'll waste time and lose focus by shooting at their own teammates to try and reveal a disguised culprit. Pyros tend to be the most effective spy detectors, and can be frequently seen doing fiery pirouettes in 2Fort matches all over the beta servers, as a spy incognito will betray his cover by bursting into flames upon contact with the burning spray.In a September 26 Steam update, friendly fire was removed from TF2, which was definitely a good move. Friendly fire ruins much of the game considering the close-quarters maps combined with the wide area of effect attacks of Heavies, Pyros, Demomen, and Soldiers. Without FF, teammates are free to shoot each other, since if they bleed health, they're a spy. If you've been keeping up with our preview coverage, most of this is information you already knew. Hardcore gamers are playing the game already, since beta access was granted to those who pre-ordered through Steam. So enough with the descriptions, how does the game play? That really depends on what map you're on, since each map is tied to a mode, with no switching possible. This means 2Fort is only going to be capture the flag (or intelligence briefcase). You can't switch to team deathmatch, at least not yet. Granary and Well are control point maps, where your team scrambles to capture all five points for the win, which can only be captured in a sequential order. Dustbowl actually consists of three sections with two capture points each, and each team takes turns attacking and defending. Gravel Pit is a more open map that gives the attacking team a choice of the point capture order, as opposed to the linear order in which Granary and Well's points must be captured. Then there's Hydro, labeled as a territorial control map instead of a capture point map. It's basically one large map with capture points positioned all over, and sets teams down in walled-off sections for every round. Each team must simultaneously attack and defend, and if they successfully capture the other team's point, they advance to the next section of the overall map. This process is repeated until one team takes over the whole thing. While it's a good idea, we just couldn't shake the feeling that some sections of Hydro allowed for Scouts to capture points far too quickly, ending the round as the slow-moving Heavies are still puttering around in the starting area. Other than that, the old favorite 2Fort remains very similar and is still just as fun, and the updated versions of Well and Dustbowl are a blast, though our favorite at this point is Gravel Pit. Attackers have a choice of points A or B at the map's beginning, and for whatever reason most people online choose to go A first. It's an easier capture, sure, but why chain yourself to the sequential progression of the English alphabet? In response, defensive squads seem to always head to A as well, leaving B often wide open. Once the community gets used to the notion of sending scouts to both locations, it should be interesting to see how capture strategies develop. After A and B are taken by the attackers, point C becomes vulnerable, nestled atop a wooden spire threaded with ramps and planks in the center of a large arena. It's a great setting for a final battle, with plenty of cover spots, open space, and plateaus for creative sentry gun deployment. If there's any issue, it's that the capture speed at which C can be taken once you're actually standing on it could probably use some tweaking. If nobody wins the game at the end of a round, TF2 transitions to an overtime round where teams are no longer allowed to respawn, health pickups disappear, and resupply cabinets no longer give out health. You need to instead rely on medics and dispensers to heal any damage. Strangely, if nobody wins in overtime or wipes out the other team, the round ends in a draw. Sort of defeats the purpose of overtime, doesn't it? Moving on to features, Team Fortress 2 does not support bots as of right now. Quake Wars, on the other hand, does, and its bots which cover five classes on both sides behave rather intelligently. It does, however, feature fully integrated voice chat along with a set of in-game chat messages to call for medics and the like. Being able to communicate with teammates via headset makes a huge difference, especially when compared to playing something like Quake Wars without it. Organizing your team, telling medics exactly when to initiate the ubercharge, calling out spy positions and disguises, and alerting your team to security gun positions are all essential parts of success, and, as most gamers know, most effectively accomplished by being able to speak to each other. TF2 broadens its appeal even further with an amazing attention to detail. Critical hits, for instance, which pop out of your gun in the form of glittering bullets (or grenades, or rockets) cause green "critical hit" text prompts to pop up over your target's head. Special animations or occurrences surrounding a critical hit are nothing new, but they're done particularly well in TF2, giving you that satisfied feeling that you accomplished something special, making you feel skilled even if the critical hit happened by chance. The feeling is even more pronounced when your opponent explodes into chunky bits of gore laced together with globules of vital fluids. It may sound gross, but you'll find yourself laughing, a result of the game's cartoonish style. The graphics in this game are simply stunning. During rounds, you'll see Heavies laugh heartily while blasting forth a cone of lead from their miniguns. The animations of dispensers and sentry guns as they're being erected will cause you to actually stop playing the game and just watch as the various parts lock into place like a Transformer. You'll switch between weapons just to see the weapon readying animation of the characters, like the way the wire on the Sniper's rifle scope sways ever so slightly, or how the patches of tinted metal on the Scout's scattergun gleam in the sunlight. After every time you die, you're treated to a freeze frame of your killer, who's often caught in hilarious poses, particularly if you were a Pyro and had set him on fire. If you were splattered to pieces, the snapshot labels body parts like your head, pancreas, and appendix with little colored flags if they're in the scene. It's a simple feature that adds nothing to the gameplay, but does so much to keep you coming back in anticipation of the next surprise, wanting to find something else to smile about. If you're killed repeatedly by the same player, you'll also see "domination" appear next to their name on the kill screens. Simultaneously a message is sent out across the server alerting everyone to the fact that you're getting your ass kicked by the same guy over and over. It's embarrassing, to say the least, and a mechanic that drives you to play better and get revenge, which broadcasts another server message to let everyone know you aren't as bad as it seemed. Stages look just as good as the character models, with sometimes blocky stage designs completely offset by an impeccable, gorgeously realized artistic style. It's such a strong style that you can't help but wish more had been done with the 1950s spy / espionage theme, like adding in some storyline and true characterization beyond the wildly endearing models and animations. But this is an arena shooter, and that's something for another game…we hope. Sound design is marvelous as well, with nice little touches like the Pyro's voice chats being muffled (he's wearing a fireproof suit, after all), the Demoman's Scottish accent, and the Scout's urgent cries for a medic. Weapon sounds boom, making firing even a Scout pistol a thrilling experience, and make more or less useless weapons like the Medic's hypo gun fun to shoot. The music, of which there is very little, blends perfectly with the visuals when it does play, strengthening TF2's artistic vision even further. Some of the sounds are recycled from previous Valve games, something fans are sure to appreciate and the newcomers unlikely to notice, and they blend in well with the rest of the audio package.

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 Land Rover’s calling this a teaser shot of the new Discovery, but it’s not, because unlike a normal, tedious teaser shot, we can actually see something meaningful. This is the face of the all-new Land Rover Discovery. Stood next to its ancestors, it’s clear we’ve got a less bluff, more rakish and ‘designer’ look for Disco 5. There’s hints of Evoque, Discovery Sport, and a whole lot more Range Rover going on. In fact, it’s only a set of slimmer door mirrors away from being identical to 2014’s Discovery Vision concept car, as showcased at the New York Motor Show. It’s square-jawed and really rather handsome, but also far crisper and more modern than its predecessor. And that’s a proper TG favourite of a car – a hard act to follow. Besides trick-looking LED headlights and a stance that appears more Savile Row than Sahara Desert, we know that this Disco’s supported by Land Rover’s aluminium platform, currently in service underpinning the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport. So, there should be a mighty weight saving on the cards versus the current car’s twin-chassis set-up, which is good news for the turbocharged Ingenium engines doubtless employed hauling it along. Land Rover’s also confirmed the Discovery will keep its seven-seat capability. Over to design boss Gerry McGovern for the soundbite: “New Discovery redefines the large SUV. Land Rover’s design and engineering teams have revolutionised the Discovery DNA to create a highly desirable, extremely versatile and hugely capable premium SUV.” So, what else is likely? The Discovery Vision concept tellingly used an altogether more minimalist cabin, with touchscreens aplenty replacing the chunky switchgear of the venerable Discovery 4. Judging by the front of the production Discovery 5, much of that will carry over to this car, though we’ll find out much more when the car’s other three sides are revealed on 28 September.

A group of scientists created a silicone polymer that acts like a second skin "invisible" that replicates the properties of a young dermis to temporarily improve the hydration and reduce the appearance of wrinkles and dark circles, according to a study released today by Nature Materials. The report, which was made from the Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States, explained that this contribution will be used to improve drugs to treat diseases such as Dermatitis or eczema. The material, which adheres to the skin and is characterized by being elastic, transparent and have a long duration, becomes a seamless layer that mimics the mechanisms of a young skin and which could be adapted to achieve protection against ultraviolet radiation, in the words of the researchers. The teacher and member of the MIT Daniel Anderson stated that this chemical acts as "barrier", facilitates "cosmetic improvements" and "potentially will create medical products", "three factors that make them ideal for human use". According to the British magazine, the authors of the study carried out several tests in people to prove the effectiveness and its security and discovered that, when applying this silicone polymer on the place where there are dark circles, showed a constant compressive strength that tightens the skin for at least 24 hours. With regard to the hydration in dry skins, they realized that all those who proved this second skin experienced less loss of water that those who used a commercial product of high range. In addition, clarified that nobody suffered no irritation as a consequence of the polymer in silicone To achieve this result, the scientists worked with a range of up to 100 different polymers, all of them composed by a structure of "siloxane", which combines atoms of silicon and oxygen. With this material, intended to combat the problems of the skin that are derived with the passing of the years and protect the dermis of high temperatures, toxins, micro-organisms, radiation and low firmness and elasticity.

Versiunea Technical Preview de Windows 10 a primit o actualizare majoră după evenimentul de prezentare de săptămâna trecută. În cazul în care doriţi să îl instalaţi, există în continuare disponibilă o versiune de download, care poate fi pusă pe un stick USB sau pe un DVD. Totuşi, în cazul în care nu doriţi să luaţi sistemul de operare de la zero, sau doriţi să faceţi trecerea de la sistemele de operare Windows 7 sau 8 direct, există acum şi posibilitatea de a instala noua versiune direct din Windows Update. Această metodă este mai rapidă, întrucât nu necesită descărcarea unei imagini virtuale şi apoi copierea sa pe un alt mediu de stocare şi se face automat, fără prea multă interacţiune din partea utilizatorilor. Desigur, nu este indicat să instalaţi Windows 10 Technical Preview pe computerul principal pe care lucraţi, întrucât vorbim despre o variantă de test, nefinisată, care ar putea duce la incompatibilităţi cu anumit software sau componente hardware. În cazul în care sunteţi hotărâţi că doriţi să faceţi upgrade de la Windows 7 sau 8 la Windows 10 chiar acum, urmaţi paşii de mai jos. În primul rând, va trebui să vă înscrieţi în programul Windows Insider, în cazul în care nu eraţi deja. Acest lucru se face accesând site-ul insider.windows.com. Aici va trebui să vă logaţi cu un cont Microsoft şi să apăsaţi pe butonul Get Started. Pe pagina următoare va trebui să acceptaţi termenii şi condiţiile şi să selectaţi motivul pentru care doriţi să instalaţi Windows 10 Technical Preview. Apăsaţi pe butonul „Submit” şi apoi pe butonul „Continue” pe pagina următoare. Este de asemenea necesar să vă asiguraţi că sistemul pe care veţi instala update-ul se încadrează în cerinţele minime de sistem. Chiar dacă în teorie orice computer pe care este instalat deja Windows 7,8 sau 8.1 va putea fără probleme să ruleze Windows 10, Microsoft a pus la dispoziţie o listă de specificaţii tehnice necesare: - Procesor: 1 GHz; - RAM: 1 GB (32-bit) sau 2 GB (64-bit); - Spaţiu liber pe hard disk: 16 GB; - Placa grafică: compatibilă cu DirectX 9 şi driveri WDDM; - conexiune la internet şi un cont Microsoft; Primul pas este descărcarea unui update pentru sistemul de operare disponibil de pe site-ul oficial Microsoft dedicat Windows 10 Technical Preview. Apăsaţi pe butonul „Start upgrade now” şi salvaţi fişierul „Windows10TechnicalPreview.exe”undeva pe unitatea de stocare a computerului dumneavoastră. Acesta ocupă doar 10 MB şi poate fi salvat oriunde, de preferat undeva la îndemână (folderul Downloads sau pe Desktop). După terminarea download-ului, va trebui să rulaţi acest executabil. Programul de update va afişa o bară de progresie timp de câteva secunde, după care va atenţiona utilizatorul să restarteze computerul pentru a completa procesul de instalare. Salvaţi toate documentele deschise şi închideţi toate programele din fundal şi apăsaţi apoi pe butonul „Restart”. Atât la închidere cât şi la pornirea sistemului de operare va apărea un mesaj de configurare a update-urilor care va dura câteva secunde. Acest lucru este normal şi nu trebuie să interveniţi în acest proces. Aşteptaţi să termine şi nu apăsaţi pe nimic până când nu vă întoarceţi înapoi la desktop. Imediat ce vă întoarceţi în Windows, o fereastră cu Windows Update va apărea pe ecran, care anunţă că un nou update important pentru sistemul dumneavoastră este disponibil. În cazul în care nu sunteţi întâmpinaţi cu mesajul „Upgrade to Windows 10 Technical Preview”, va trebui să folosiţi butonul „Check for Updates”. De aici nu rămâne decât să apăsaţi butonul „Install” şi să aşteptaţi cât timp se descarcă update-ul de 2,8 GB. Odată ce update-ul este descărcat, va apărea un mesaj final care oferă două opţiuni: „Let's get started” şi „I changed my mind”. Odată ce apăsaţi pe „Let's get started” computerul este verificat pentru compatibilitate şi apare ecranul care atenţionează că instalarea poate începe. Este recomandat să salvaţi din nou toate documentele deschise şi să închideţi aplicaţiile înainte de a apăsa pe „Start Upgrade Now”. Aici este ultimul punct în care mai puteţi opri upgrade-ul la Windows 10 Technical Preview. Odată ce porneşte instalarea, va trebui să continuaţi procesul până la final. Update-ul durează câteva zeci de minute bune, în care PC-ul va afişa diverse mesaje. Încercaţi să nu interferaţi cu procesul şi să lăsaţi totul să funcţioneze de la sine. Totul este automat şi nu necesită interacţiune din partea utilizatorului. Când instalarea ajunge la sfârşit, Microsoft cere câteva informaţii despre modul în care doriţi ca sistemul de operare să funcţioneze cu referire la funcţiile noi. Puteţi opta să nu descarce automat noi update-uri şi să nu trimită date către serverele Microsoft, sau pur şi simplu să lăsaţi totul bifat şi să treceţi mai departe. De aici aveţi control complet asupra computerului în noul Windows 10 Technical Preview. De acum, la boot vor exista două opţiuni: fie alegeţi să porniţi Windows 10, fie puteţi opta pentru procesul de revenire la sistemul de operare anterior. Dacă nu sunteţi mulţumiţi de noua variantă de preview puteţi astfel să vă întoarceţi la vechiul sistem de operare fără prea mult stres. Noua metodă de a instala Windows 10 ca upgrade este o soluţie perfectă pentru cei care doresc să testeze versiunea de preview fără să piardă accesul la documentele şi software-ul instalat deja. Sursa Go4it

A new type of non-volatile memory known as Nano-RAM (NRAM) -- it's based on carbon nanotube and sports DRAM speed -- is now being produced in seven fabrication plants in various parts of the world. According to Nantero, the company that invented NRAM, it also has more than a dozen corporate customers lined up to begin experimenting with the memory once it begins rolling off production lines. [ Learn to love Windows 8 -- let InfoWorld show you how to smooth out the rough patches of Microsoft's OS until the next version arrives. | Stay up on key Microsoft technologies with the Enterprise Windows blog and Microsoft newsletter. ] "So those fabs have been and are indeed producing large numbers of wafers and chips," said Greg Schmergel, CEO of Nantero. "They are sample chips/test chips in preparation for mass production, which requires the product designs to be completed." Schmergel said it will likely take a couple more years before NRAM drives begin rolling off production lines. The geometric construct of a carbon nanotube. "This is one of very few technologies that's moved beyond the research lab into high-volume manufacturing CMOS facilities," Greg Wong, principal analyst at Forward Insights, said in a statement. "NRAM's unique combination of high speed and high endurance has the potential to enable innovative products in a host of consumer and enterprise applications." NRAM has the potential to create memory that is vastly more dense that NAND flash, which is used to make thumb drives and solid-state drives today. The densest NAND flash process today is near 15 nanometers. NRAM can reach densities of below 5 nanometers, according to Schmergel. Over the past two years, Nantero has been able to reduce NRAM production costs 10-fold, making it compatible with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS), the standard used for making microprocessors and DRAM. One big advantage NRAM has over traditional NAND flash is its resistance to heat. It can withstand up to 300 degrees Celsius. Nantero claims its memory can last thousands of years at 85 degrees Celcius and has been tested at 300 degrees Celsius for 10 years. Not one bit of data was lost. An illustration of the NRAM cell (left) and photos taken of the carbon nanotube fabric with an electronmicroscop (right). Anpther advantage is that NRAM is being built using the DDR4 specification interface, so it could sport up to 3.2 billion data transfers per second or 2,400 Mbps -- more than twice as fast as NAND flash. Natively, however, the NRAM's read/write capability is thousands of times faster than NAND flash, Schmergel said; the bottleneck is the computer BUS interface. "Nanotube switch [states] in picoseconds -- going off to on and on to off," Schmergal said. A picosecond is one trillionth of a second. Carbon nanotubes are strong -- very strong. In fact, they're 50 times stronger than steel, and they're only 1/50,000th the size a human hair. Because of carbon nanotubes' strength, NRAM has far greater write endurance compared to NAND flash. The best NAND flash, with error correction code, can withstand about 100,000 erase-write cycles. According to Nantero, NRAM can withstand 1012 write cycles and 1015 read cycles -- an almost infinite number. "Heat and vibration also will not cause errors," Schmergel said. Carbon nanotubes are strong -- very strong. In fact, they're 50 times stronger than steel, and they're only 1/50,000th the size a human hair. Because of carbon nanotubes' strength, NRAM has far greater write endurance compared to NAND flash. The best NAND flash, with error correction code, can withstand about 100,000 erase-write cycles. According to Nantero, NRAM can withstand 1012 write cycles and 1015 read cycles -- an almost infinite number. "Heat and vibration also will not cause errors," Schmergel said. How NRAM works Carbon nanotubes are grown from catalyst particles -- most commonly iron. NRAM is made up of an interlocking fabric matrix of carbon nanotubes that can either be touching or slightly separated. Each NRAM "cell" or transistor is made up the network of the carbon nanotubes that exist between two metal electrodes. The memory acts the same way as other resistive non-volatile RAM technologies. Carbon nanotubes that are not in contact with each other are in the high resistance state that represents the "off" or "0" state. When the carbon nanotube contact each other, they take on the low-resistance state of "on" or "1." An illustration showing the two states of NRAM, where one carbon nanotube is either touching another, creaing a low reisistance or "on" state; the other, where the tubes are not touching, creates a high resistance or "off" state. Over the past few months, Nantero has hired more than a dozen chip design engineers who are working to create high density circuits, including three dimensional or stacked designs for increased capacity. "If you're taking a gum stick, then your talking about many gigabytes of capacity -- terabytes in the [CENSORED]ure," Schmergel said. Nantero doesn't plan on producing its own NRAM drives, which will initially be marketed for purposes similar to solid-state drive (SSD) gum sticks or internal memory boards. But it will license its intellectual property to companies to develop their own product. Nantero's engineers are still in the process of creating chip designs for the memory wafers. Because of its resilience to heat, vibration and pressure, Nantero's carbon nanotube memory has caught the eye of aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and Schlumberger Ltd., the world's largest gas and oil exploration and drilling company; both companies are customers of Nantero. Nantero declined to name its other customers. "Clearly a company like [schlumberger] would have need of memory that could perform in environments with very high heat down in an oil well," Schmerge said. Founded in 2001, Nantero has to date generated $78.1 million in five rounds of funding, including a series E round for $31.5 million that it just closed. The company also announced that the former vice president of Intel's Flash Memory Group, Stefan Lai, has joined the company as a technical advisor. Lai co-invented the EPROM (erasable programmable read only memory) flash memory cell and led the Intel's phase change memory (PCM) development team. "Nantero's NRAM has unique attributes that make it the most promising candidate to be the almost ideal memory: the nonvolatility of Flash, and the speed and functionality of DRAM with lower cost," Lai said. Nantaro also announced that Yaw Wen Hu, a former executive vice president at Inotera Memories, has also come on board as a technical advisor. Inotera, a Taiwan-based partner of Micron, supplies nearly 10 percent of the world's 300mm DRAM silicon wafers at its two fabrication facilities. "The availability of memory technology that is extremely fast, can deliver terabits of storage capacity in the [CENSORED]ure and consumes very little power, has the potential to change the [CENSORED]ure of electronics," said Alan, Niebel, CEO of Webfeet Research. "After researching NRAM for over 12 years, WebFeet applauds Nantero for reducing manufacturing costs 10x in the last two years, making NRAM CMOS compatible and finally proving NRAM viability with commercial production capability from its licensees.

Apple Music is Apple's streaming service, but you can use it on a huge variety of equipment, not just iDevices and MacBooks. I made a subscription to Apple Music about a year ago, in the same week that Spotify came to Romania. At 20 lei a month, the price is surprisingly affordable and if you activate your family plan, as I did, it costs you 29.9 lei for a maximum of six people with different Apple IDs. The only condition is to include them in your virtual family. However, going beyond the reasons why it would have been recommended to subscribe to Apple Music, there is a very important one you can bypass it, especially if you are a Windows user. On PC or Mac, Apple Music works only through iTunes. On macOS, the application is more than decent. On Windows, iTunes is the perfect example of a slow, slow application that consumes a lot of hardware resources. If you've already subscribed to Apple Music and want to enjoy the experience without iTunes, for some time, there has been an alternative solution. It's not an official solution, but from my experiments it worked very well. Through the PlayAppleMusic.com website, you can access the entire Apple Music database, provided you log in with the username and password of your account. Once you have done this, you will immediately have access to your personal rendering lists, your entire bookstore of artists or albums, and last but not least, your favorite music. It is not very clear how legal this platform is, and if Apple would initiate a process it might win. On the other hand, as long as Tim Cook's giant does not offer you a solution to access Apple Music without iTunes, this is a surprisingly reliable alternative.