Zotac GeForce GTX 460 1GB : Great card at £200

Now we have a monster here, the first GF104 based card, the GTX 460, and what's great about it, you ask? Well, it simply trumps the GTX 460, and with enough headroom for overclocking, beats the Radeon HD 5850, reaches the mark on GTX 470, and almost at par with Radeon 5870 except at very haigh resolutions. All this at about £200 only!

PERFORMANCE
Let the figures speak to you themselves(all figures in frames per second, the higher, the better)

Heaven Benchmark 2.0 DirectX11(2560x1600)
GTX 460 1GB - 13
GTX 460 1GB O.C - 15
GTX 460 768MB - 8
Radeon HD 5850 - 10

 DiRT 2 DirectX11 (2560x1600/1680x1050)
GTX 460 1GB - 40/73
GTX 460 1GB O.C - 45/83
GTX 460 768MB -31/67
Radeon HD 5850 - 42/65

Just Cause 2 DirectX10 (2560x1600/1680x1050)
GTX 460 1GB - 19/37
GTX 460 1GB O.C - 22/41
GTX 460 768MB - 18/35
Radeon HD 5850 - 19/36

So what we have here is the winner of a card, that fits perfectly in the mid range segment while giving some competition to the high end cards. Moreover, the new GF104 architecture is better than the GF100 architecture and dissipates much less heat while giving amazing performance.

Screenshots from RAGE, id Software's latest upcoming game

RAGE is one great game that is coming soon from industry veteran John Carmack's id Software team and Bethesda Studios. RAGE is a groundbreaking first-person shooter set in the not-too-distant future after an asteroid impacts Earth, leaving a ravaged world behind. You emerge into this vast wasteland to discover humanity working to rebuild itself against such forces as raider gangs, mutants, and the Authority – an oppressive government regime that has a special interest in you in particular. Featuring intense first-person action, vehicle combat, an expansive world and jaw-dropping graphics powered by id’s revolutionary idTech 5 technology. RAGE promises an experience like no other.
Here are a few screenshots from the game.

Windows XP SP2 expires on July 13th... Upgrade to SP3 or Windows 7

If you haven’t already, you now only have just three days to move from Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) to either SP3 or Windows 7. Next week, on July 13, both XP SP2 and Windows 2000 will reach what Microsoft calls End of Support. The Redmond company is gearing up to cut the lifeline that keeps XP copies with the most consistent upgrade delivered to the OS alive. 

This milestone in the product lifecycle of XP has generated a range of questions, some easier to answer than others. You will find a list of frequently asked questions along with answers, some right from Microsoft on http://bit.ly/bAIbiT

Dragon Age 2 Arrives in March 2011, Main Character Is Hawke

From Softpedia(http://news.softpedia.com/news/Dragon-Age-2-Arrives-in-March-2011-Main-Character-Is-Hawke-146887.shtml)

BioWare and Electronic Arts has announced that they are developing Dragon Age 2, a new entry in the original franchise they launched in 2009. Initial reports suggested that the game might arrive as early as February of next year but a statement from the two companies has made it clear that Dragon Age 2 will be launched in March 2011 on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft, the PlayStation 3 from Sony and the PC.

YouTube now supports 4k-resolution videos

From CNET (http://news.cnet.com/8301-27076_3-20010174-248.html?tag=mncol) by Josh Lowensohn

Thought 1080p video on YouTube was big? Think bigger.


YouTube on Friday announced that its player now supports 4k, a standard resolution for films that measures 4096x3072 pixels. As YouTube Engineer Ramesh Sarukkai explained in the announcement on YouTube's official blog, "4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p," and it dwarfs even Imax, which projects films in the slightly smaller 2k format, with its 2048x1080-pixel resolution.

Of course, the proof of 4k's merits is in the pudding, which is why YouTube has a special playlist of five films that can be played back in their original 4k resolution. As Sarukkai warns, viewing these properly requires considerable bandwidth speed, as well as the right gear.

Speaking of which, even with a fast connection, home users will need the proper equipment to enjoy 4k videos in their native resolution. This means a large display, or 4k-capable projector--neither of which can be had on the cheap. It's also worth mentioning that while quite good-looking, streaming 4k video still has to jump through some of the same compression hoops that lower resolutions of HD video must do, meaning that they'll be playing at a much lower bit rate than you'd see, if you were to watch it from the source. On smaller videos, this can be less noticeable, but when blown up big, compression artifacts can be easier to spot.

1080p remains top size in most consumer HDTVs, as well as the service's previous resolution limit. Newer-model phones like the iPhone 4 and HTC Evo are just now becoming capable of shooting in the lesser 720p resolution, leaving 1080p and above to dedicated filming hardware.

Opera Mini 5.1 is here with better optimizations for your phone

Opera has reportedly announced the release of the latest version of its immensely popular mobile web browser - the Opera Mini which happens to be the most widely used mobile browser in the world, with over 61 million users worldwide. According to Opera's own estimation, it is functional in about 3,000 mobile models across the globe.
With the new version, that came up just a few months after the release of version 5.0, it is claimed to further enhance the browsing experience on mobiles with limited memory, that frequently throw "out-of-memory" messages while browsing. The update is said to include a new optimized browser skin which allows multiple pages to be open at the same time, quicker scrolling through pages, and an overall enhanced browsing performance.

You can download it by visiting http://m.opera.com from your phone's native browser and the interesting part is that, Opera is expected to automatically select the optimized version for your phone.

Game Critics' Winners of E3 2010

The following is the list of Game Critics' E3 winners:



Best of Show
Nintendo 3DS (Nintendo)


Best Original Game
Dance Central (Harmonix/MTV Games/Microsoft for Xbox 360)


Best Console Game
Rage (id Software/Bethesda for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)


Best Handheld Game
God of War: Ghost of Sparta (Ready at Dawn/Sony Santa Monica for PSP)


Best PC Game
Portal 2 (Valve)


Best Hardware
Nintendo 3DS (Nintendo)


Best Action Game
Rage (id Software/Bethesda for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)


Best Action/Adventure Game
Portal 2 (Valve for PC / Mac, PS3 and Xbox 360)


Best Role Playing Game
Star Wars: The Old Republic (BioWare Austin/LucasArts/EA for PC)


Best Fighting Game
Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (Capcom for PS3 and Xbox 360)


Best Racing Game
Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (Criterion Games/Electronic Arts for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)


Best Sports Game
NBA Jam (EA Canada/EA Sports for Wii)


Best Strategy Game
Civilization V (Firaxis/2K Games for PC)


Best Social/Casual Game
Rock Band 3 (Harmonix/MTV Games/Electronic Arts for PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii)


Best Motion Simulation Game
Dance Central (Harmonix/MTV Games/Microsoft for Xbox 360)


Best Online Multiplayer
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)


Special Commendation for Graphics
Rage (id Software/Bethesda for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360)

id Software's Rage bags 3 critics awards at E3 2010

From thinkdigit(http://www.thinkdigit.com/Gaming/id-Softwares-Rage-bags-3-critics-awards_4979.html) by Vinod Yalburgi

id Software's Rage, developed by Bethesda Studios - the makers of Fallout 3, simply looks stunning with unbelievably realistic 3D graphics, dynamic lighting atmosphere and breathtaking visuals running on the powerful idTech5 Engine. This post-apocalyptic first-person-shooter reportedly bagged three game critics awards namely: best console game, best action game and "special commendation for graphics", at E3 2010 video game show held in Los Angeles.

Aptly, it took the second position behind Electronic Arts who bagged four awards: Need for Speed Hot Pursuit (best racing game), NBA Jam (best sports game), Rock Band 3 (best social/casual game) and The Old Republic (best RPG). Rage has been confirmed for the 2011 release on the following platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Mac.

Apple reveals the perpetrator of the iTunes hack

From thinkdigit(http://www.thinkdigit.com/Internet/Apple-reveals-the-perpetrator-of-the-iTunes_4982.html) by Abhinav Lal

Apple finally commented on the iTunes account fiasco, revealing that it had been caused by Thuat Nguyen himself, the developer whose works were being illegally purchased. Certainly the person with the most motive, it seemed unlikely that the perpetrator would be stupid enough to act like the bewildered, temporarily rich developer who couldn’t believe that 42 of his apps were suddenly in the top 50 sales positions in the iTunes App Store’s book category. The attempt at misdirection, buying other developers’ apps, was a bit too late to keep the Apple snoops off Thuat’s tail. Other information from Apple says that the damage caused by the debacle was not too bad, limited to only about 400 iTunes accounts being hacked. New security measures will also be instated, to avoid credit card misuse.



This is Apple’s official statement about the issue:


The developer Thuat Nguyen and his apps were removed from the App Store for violating the developer Program License Agreement, including fraudulent purchase patterns.


Developers do not receive any iTunes confidential customer data when an app is downloaded.


If your credit card or iTunes password is stolen and used on iTunes we recommend that you contact your financial institution and inquire about canceling the card and issuing a chargeback for any unauthorized transactions. We also recommend that you change your iTunes account password immediately. For more information on best practices for password security visit http://www.apple.com/support/itunes.

iBUYPOWER's MAGIC software turns any PC game into a multi-touch title

From GameDaily(http://bit.ly/cMClSl) by Big Download

There's been a lot of talk about different interfaces for playing games. One of them is something that you can get right now; the ability to touch a screen to manipulate units, give commands and more. Now gaming PC maker iBUYPOWER has created a special software tool that, if you have the right hardware, will allow you to turn any game into one that supports touch screen manipulation.

How Xbox 360 Kinect and Playstation Move are changing the future of gaming

(http://www.helium.com/items/1876648-future-of-gaming-xbox-360-kinect-and-playstation-3-move)by Lauren Almeida

Gaming has always been an evolving recreational activity. Now going on seven generations of gaming consoles, the history of gaming and how it has evolved is quite impressive. How we came from the Magnavox Odyssey to the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 is a huge curve of technological advancements, and this is just over the last forty years. However, now that the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 Kinect are being introduced later this year, the entire future of gaming is going to undergo some serious changes.