TechRadar takes a look at twelve common Windows 7 problems and gives advice on how to solve them, you can check it out over here.
3. Aero isn't running
If Windows 7 isn't looking its best - transparency has been turned off, say - then the Aero theme may not have been fully enabled on your system. Click Start, type Aero, choose the "Find and fix problems with transparency and other visual effects" link, and click Next to launch the Aero troubleshooting wizard. It'll try to identify and resolve and problems. And if it doesn't, then install the latest driver for your graphics hardware. That could be all your system needs.
Some Aero features may be disabled in the Registry, though. For example, if Aero Peek (the ability to make open windows transparent to display your desktop underneath) doesn't work for you, then launch REGEDIT, browse to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsDWM and make sure EnableAeroPeek is set to 1, rather than 0.
PC Perspective has some details about AMD's VISION program for desktop and mobile platforms, you can read it at PC Perspective.
During Sobon's presentation, she stated the VISION technology focused on explaining their technology in to consumers in plain language that was didn't feature the technical specifications about the system, but more about what the system could actually do in a real-world setting. "It's about making graphics matter," Sobon said. "Everything is accelerated by graphics and mainstream consumers don't understand that. We are making graphics important by usage, software, and speaking the consumer's language instead of using technical jargon."
Prepaid and pay-as-you-go cell phone services have a dirty reputation. For most of us, they conjure up images of rundown retail locations in strip malls full of smarmy salesmen, 2004-era phones, and sky-high prices to take advantage of people with poor credit.
At the conclusion of our tests we can easily see a progression of how PhysX has been implemented in different games and how those implementations can vary dramatically not only in effects but in required hardware. Some games worked best when more horsepower was available while others actually did better when hardware was clearly dedicated to a certain purpose.
At the conclusion of our tests we can easily see a progression of how PhysX has been implemented in different games and how those implementations can vary dramatically not only in effects but in required hardware. Some games worked best when more horsepower was available while others actually did better when hardware was clearly dedicated to a certain purpose.
ST-Ericsson published a video to demonstrate the 3D capabilities of the company's new U8500 platform, the first to integrate the ARM Mali-400 GPU. Here's the press release from two weeks ago:
ST-Ericsson, a world leader in wireless platforms and semiconductors and ARM [(LSE: ARM); (Nasdaq: ARMH)], announce a cooperation to accelerate the next step in mobile user experience and graphics innovation with the creation of a Mali technology-enabled development platform for content and application developers available via the ARM MaliTM Developer Center. The cooperation will speed up bringing consumers a better gaming experience in terms of high quality graphics, video and audio on their mobile devices. At the same time it will improve the user interface with enhanced performance, quicker responses and the ability to implement 3D graphics. The availability of the platform will enable developers to reduce significantly the time-to-market of content and applications for next generation devices.
The ARM Mali Developer Center (www.malideveloper.com) fosters a growing developer community of software engineers by providing resources such as graphics software development tools, example code, documentation and access to upcoming hardware through a community-based web portal.
“ARM has welcomed the opportunity to launch this joint initiative with ST-Ericsson. The availability of this development platform will help achieve and accelerate the Mali vision of outstanding graphics in any consumer electronic device,” said Lance Howarth, general manager, ARM Media Processing Division “By using the platform, members of the Mali Developer Center will be able to access Mali GPU capabilities early and create outstanding content and applications for the next generation of consumer devices.”
“Advanced graphics play a key role in the user experience for a wide variety of portable and consumer devices. Our collaboration with ARM will bring the Mali GPU capabilities to the developer community,” said Marc Cetto, vice president, 3G Multimedia and Platforms Division, ST-Ericsson. “With this co-operation we foresee that our customers will benefit from the early availability of a broad range of innovative content for their devices.”
To provide access to a leading edge environment, the development board is powered by ST-Ericsson’s U8500, the first smartphone platform to integrate the ARM Mali-400 OpenGL ES2.0 and OpenVG1.1 graphics processing unit. The U8500 is one of the earliest mobile platforms to introduce an ARM Cortex™-A9 MPCore™ SMP dual core processor and can support HD video playback at 1080p.
Here's the latest gameplay performance and image quality report from HardOCP, this time they tested the latest AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards in Resident Evil 5. You can read their report over here.
This evaluation will see 9 video cards from NVIDIA and AMD. From NVIDIA, we have the GeForce GTX 295, the GeForce GTX 285, the GeForce GTX 275, and the GeForce GTS 250. From AMD, we have the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, the Radeon HD 5870, the Radeon HD 5850, the Radeon HD 5770, and the Radeon HD 5750. The Radeon HD 4000 series has mostly been dropped from this evaluation because any gamers looking to upgrade to an ATI video card should be considering the new Radeon HD 5000 series products for their excellent performance and feature sets.
Zach Gage created quite a stir with a Mac video game that he developed as part of his Master of Fine Arts thesis project. The game is named Lose/Lose, it looks a bit like Space Invaders but the unique thing about it is that for every alien space ship you shoot the game permanently deleted a random file on your hard drive. If the player's ship is destroyed, the application itself is deleted. Gage seems quite amused, but security experts are a bit concerned:
On September 14, Gage posted his "Lose/Lose" game on his Web site and at the Experimental Gameplay Project, which links back to his site where he has a big warning in red: "KILLING ALIENS IN LOSE/LOSE WILL DELETE FILES ON YOUR HARDDRIVE PERMANENTLY." The application also displays a warning when it is launched.
This week, Symantec announced that it has flagged the application as malware, a Trojan it has dubbed OSX.Loosemaque. Sophos is calling it a Trojan too, OSX/LoseGame-A and Intego has named it OSX/LoserGame.
"We are concerned that somebody could take this and modify it in some way where users aren't aware of the consequences," Kevin Haley, director of product management at Symantec Security Response, said in an interview on Wednesday. "We want to make people aware of what's on their machine and they can make the decision on whether to run it or not."
DailyTech reports scientists are working on car engines made largely from composite plastics, with metal protective casings in the areas exposed to the greatest heat. Plastic engines would weigh less and may be about one third cheaper than traditional engines. However, despite these benefits there are still many obstacles. You can find more info at DailyTech.
Car engines are still typically made by pouring melted metal into molds -- a tweaked version of a 6,000 year old process. Engineers like Matti Holtzberg, a New Jersey engineer who's been designing plastic engines since the 1980s, envision a very different production process -- one that uses molded plastics.
Mr. Holtzberg has paired with Huntsman Corporation of Houston, a global chemical company which employs 12,000 employees and rakes in $10B USD per year, to market plastic engines. Currently, the average car has approximately 300 lbs of plastic -- typically including plastic interior paneling and exterior plastic bumpers. However, the leading material, by weight, remains metal. Steel in the frame and iron or aluminum castings for the engine blocks and cylinder heads, transmission cases and axle housings are prevalent in modern cars.
