2012-12-21-422

Acer, ASUS and Lenovo to compete with Apple's Macbook Air in thin and light laptops

When it comes to thin-and-light ultraportable laptops, Apple's Macbook Air hashad much success. Andthat has led othernotebook PC manufacturers likeAcer, ASUS and Lenovo expressing their plans to compete in the thin and light laptop segment.

According to news reports,the new offerings fromAcer, ASUS and Lenovo are likely to be incorporatingIntel's upcoming Sandy Bridge technology with screen sizes between 13.3- to 14-inch. The laptops would also go as thin as the Apple Macbook Air, although it is yet to see if the makers would compromise the number of ports on their devices. Consumers also do not have to wait too long for these either, as they are scheduled to be available early Q1 2011.

Whiledetails of the systems are still notunveiled, Aceris rumored to be replacingits TimelineXseries designed for ultraportables.

Source: DigiTimes

great halloween movie countdown #5 “the stepfather” — yes, the remake

If there’s one thing the horror community has been near-unanimous about recently, it’s that the remake of the 1987 suspense-thriller classic “The Stepfather” is bound to suck.

There’s plenty of evidence to support this preconceived notion. It’s directed by Nelson McCormick, who gave us the thoroughly uninspired reworking of “Prom Night” a couple of years ago. It’s a PG-13 teen horror. It’s thoroughly superfluous since the original still holds up terrifically. And most importantly, it doesn’t have Terry O’Quinn, whose standout performance as the titular homicidal quasi-family man was the heart and soul of the ’87 flick.

Again with the silent tyranny of expectations. I figured this movie would suck, and suck bad. I was wrong.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first — Dylan Walsh, The Stepfather himself, is no Terry O’Quinn. Not even close. The fact that O’Quinn has gone on to huge success as John Locke on “Lost” is no surprise to anyone who’s followed his career since the original “Stepfather.” He should have won the Oscar for that, no question, so it’s good to see him doing so well these days.

Walsh can’t come close to replicating that performance, but he really doesn’t even try to. His take on the idea of a guy who marries into “broken homes”? in a never-ending, thoroughly insane quest to find the perfect family to call his own, and then kills them all if things aren’t working before moving on to give the same homicidal hustle another try in another town is entirely different. As good? Hell no. It’s less subtle, less detailed, less complex, and much more overt and, frankly, two-dimensional. But it’s okay. It’s not enough to carry the film on its own, but he’s not asked to as much as O’Quinn was.

Calling himself David Harris, he moves to Portland, where he meets recently-divorced Susan Harding (Sela Ward, who the years have been very kind to) at the grocery store. In no time at all, he’s moved into her house and marriage is on the horizon. Susan’s sister gets David a job at her real estate office. Susan’s two youngest kids take to him nicely. Her ex-husband was a philandering jerk who abandoned his family and our guy David has no problem looking like the “good guy” up against “competition” like that.

Things start to go a little pear-shaped for him, though, when her oldest son, high school senior Michael (Penn Badgley), comes home from military boarding school, where he was sent for unspecified disciplinary reasons. At first, David tries to ease Michael’s concerns about him taking up with his mother and gets him readmitted to his local Portland high school so he can be closer to his girlfriend (current horror “it” girl Amber Heard, who spends most of the movie poolside in a bikini), He even asks Michael to be his best man when he takes his mother’s hand in marriage. Things seem to be off to a good start.

But Michael can’t shake the feeling in the back of his head that this guy is bad news. Soon he and, eventually, others begin to notice things about David his mother either can’t or won’t. He pays for everything in cash. He builds storage cabinets in the basement that he keeps locked. He screws up important details about his past. He doesn’t like his picture taken.

Okay, we know from the very first scene that David (or whatever name he’s going by) is a ruthless serial killer. There’s no question about that. The suspense her doesn’t come from wondering if he really is who we’re afraid he might be — we know that from the get-go. The suspense comes from wondering if he’ll be found out in time, and if everyone will survive that revelation if indeed it comes about.

Like the original, the bodycount here is low. For a serial killer flick, it’s relatively bloodless, it must be said. But it’s taut, well-paced, thoroughly suspenseful, and features some solid characterization from all the principal players. In short, it’s a believable premise, believably executed.

I confess to being somewhat disappointed that the new version has chosen to put a male character in the smart-kid role rather than the tough, independent young female we got in the original — a role which really stood out at the time because in the 1980s cinematic landscape, the job of women in horror films was to take their shirts off, scream, and get killed. But that’s my only major gripe. Apart from that, this is a pleasantly smart, well-realized updating.

If you’ve never seen the original, this movie will be all kinds of fun(and you should then take it upon yourself see the original ASAP—it’s finally out on DVD from Shout!Factory). If you have seen it, you won’t be nearly as disappointed as you expect to be. This new version of “The Stepfather”? is hardly the classic the first was, but it’s much better than any admittedly unnecessary, teen audience-marketed horror remake has any business being.? Okay — it didn’t actually need to be made by any stretch of the imagination, but since it has been, I’m glad the end product turned out to be so surprisingly enjoyable.

2012-12-21-251

3DMark 2012: Android devices invade a Windows world

We have received press release stating that Futuremark Corporation is announcing the foundation of its Benchmark Development Program for tablets powered by Android operating system.

Thefirst product coming out of that BDPis a next-generation benchmark "3DMark for Android" (working title), with the goal of becoming an industry standard gaming benchmark for tablets. With this announcement, its official that the targeted platforms for 3DMark 2012 are both Android 4 tablets and Windows 8 devices - an interesting prospect.

Futuremark wants to attract "companies involved in the manufacture of Android powered devices are invited to join Futuremarks Benchmark Development Program to play a critical role in the development of 3DMark for Android, from initial specification to final delivery."

Jukka Mäkinen, CEO of Futuremark said, "in 2012 we will bring 3DMark to the Android platform with a professional grade benchmark that can be trusted by manufacturers, suppliers and vendors to provide the definitive measure of gaming performance on Android while showcasing the very best in real-time graphics and effects."

We also caught up with Oliver Baltuch, President of Futuremark about the promised result compatibility between the two. While the benchmark development is in very early stages, the company wants to have comparable results between the two platforms and in about a year from now, the traditional "AMD vs. Intel" or "AMD vs. NVIDIA" debates might take a backseat to "3DMark Android 4 vs. 3DMark Windows 8".

The benchmark will measure gaming performance using CPU, GPU rendering and physics tests, using OpenGL ES API as the primary graphics interface. Results will be comparable through Futuremarks ORB database.

2012-12-21-127

[Rumour] Intel Arrandale shortages to last through April

Intel's Core ix mobile processors continue to suffer supply shortages,with notebook manufacturers looking to refresh their line-ups in summer.Rumours suggest that certain new models could be delayed by as much asthree months, if the supply problems don't improve.

Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, had recently acknowledged the shortages,claiming Intel were "slightly behind". Clearly, the shortages seem moreserious than that.

Widespread rumours suggested previously that Acer were over ordering Arrandale CPUs. The CPUs are currently selling for 20% over launch prices - an expected side effect of short supply and/or high demand.

Meanwhile, AMD are preparing their own quad/triple/dual core Champlain CPUs for notebooks, based on the desktop Athlon II products. They are expected to be branded as Mobile Phenom II and Turion II, and will finally bring K10 and 45nm to notebooks. The Champlain CPUs are set for release in May, with notebooks appearing in summer. Given Intel's Arrandale shortages, this might just be an opportunity for AMD in a market that has been dominated by Intel.

Reference: Techspot

grindhouse classics “coffy”

When people ask me what my all-time favorite blaxploitation flick is, the question is a serious a serious no-brainer. Oh, sure, there are plenty of great ones to choose from —Black Caesar, Across 110th Street, Shaft, Foxy Brown — the list of classics is nearly endless. But the one flick that stands out above all the others, the one that holds the title of not only the greatest of all blaxploitationers, but also one of the very best revenge movies ever made, is Jack Hill’s incomparable 1973 Pam Grier starring vehicle Coffy. This is the one that set the standard, folks, and frankly it has yet to be matched.

The story’s simple enough — when the younger sister of hard-working inner-city nurse Coffy (we never get her first name), better known as “Coffy,” is sent into comatose shock after shooting up some bad smack, our intrepid (and deadly sexy) heroine is determined to bring down the whole fucking criminal underworld all by herself. That’s bravado, people. She’s got no skills, no training, just a bad attitude and a body to die for.? The chain leads way higher than even she could have guessed, though — all the way from street dealers to big-time pimps to Italian mobsters out of Vegas to crooked cops right to the would-be congressman she’s sleeping with!

Simple story? Hell yeah. All the best are. But if you’ve got the right the woman for the job, even the simplest set-ups can leave you gripped to the screen. And Grier was definitely more than up to the task. Hill (one of the great unsung heroes of exploitation moviemaking) had worked with Grier on a couple of Roger Corman women-in-prison productions shot on the cheap in the Philippines (The Big Doll House and The Big Bird Cage, to be precise) and figured she was ready to graduate from being a supporting player as the stereotypical bad-ass-butch-black-woman-in-stir to her own starring turn, and damn was he right.? Pam’s not only a total sexual dynamo here (she gets naked three separate times in the first 15 minutes alone), she’s a supernatural force of pure fucking vengeance. Her conscience troubles her a bit more than you’d expect in a film like this (check out her “the past few days seem like a dream” monologue early on to her cop friend Carter), but she can put that in a locked drawer when she needs to and just plain kick ass. You always get the feeling revenge is gonna be bittersweet for Coffy, though, because Grier gives such a tellingly multi-dimensional performance (and the long slow fadeaway of her walking, battered and bruised after killing all the bad guys (come on, did you ever doubt she would?), along a lonely,? early-morning beach at the end as the credits roll provides a surprisingly downbeat ending that the genre would later airbrush out of things as these films became more formulaic) that’s always grounded in reality (and yes, reality itself would become another casualty of this genre’s success as time wore on). In short, Grier’s? Coffy is not some cartoonish superhero, but a real woman dealing with an extraordinary set of circumstances and trapped in a situation beyond her control that she’d rather not be a part of. Sure, she hams it up a bit when going undercover as a Jamaican prostitute to grab the attention of mega-pimp King George (who’s even got his own theme song!), but even in the midst of the most over-the-top scenes here, like the notorious cat fight (you knew there had to be one) at George’s pad, there’s always something lurking under the surface in Pam’s extraordinary performance. She’s a bad-ass mama out for revenge with soul, a real life flesh-and-blood heroine rather than a cardboard cut-out. She’s not a super-woman here (although she’s got a super-woman body — damn, I’ll quit obsessing over it now), but if conscripted into a situation where that’s what she’s gotta be, then goddamn if she isn’t gonna be it, and worry about the consequences later.

There are some damn fine supporting turns here as well, to be sure — Booker Bradshaw as sleazy Councilman-Soon-To-Be-Congressman? Brunswick, Sid Haig as — well, the kind of hired-muscle-with-a-perv-streak he always did so well at the time — but really this is Pam’s show all the way. From the minute she blows that pusher’s head off with a shotgun? (and this is also surprisingly violent for a film of this type — another element that would be toned down as the blaxploitation formula took hold) in the film’s opening scene (which would later be aped by effects legend Tom Savini in the legendary head-shot scene in Romero’s Dawn of the Dead), she absolutely owns this motherfucker from start to finish. Honestly, if Grier’s Coffy said “you can fuck me, but I might kill you afterwards if I feel like it”, you’d be up for taking the risk. That’s how undeniable she is here.? I can’t think of higher praise than that.

Hill and Grier would be back less than a year later with Foxy Brown, which essentially tells the same story with a bigger budget, less graphic violence, less nudity, and frankly less heart and realism. It’s still a damn fine flick, but it’s a sanitized, de-fanged version of what you see here. This is the pure, grade-A, 100-proof stuff.

Coffy is available on DVD from MGM as part of its Soul Cinema line. It features a nicely-done full-frame transfer, a solid stereo audio track, the original theatrical trailer, and a feature-length commentary from Jack Hill that’s absolutely gripping listening. It’s also playing free this month on Impact Action On Demand, available on most cable and satellite systems. I’m assuming most readers of this blog will have seen this before, probably numerous times, but if it’s been awhile, give it a go again — you’ll be very pleasantly surprised at what a bass-knuckled punch it still packs even after all these years. They just plain don’t make ‘em like this anymore — and truth be told, even though Coffy was a solid box-office success, they never made ‘em quite like this again even back in the day. This isn’t just “soul cinema,” it’s heart, soul, blood, and guts cinema. It’s everything you love exploitation films for, combined with everything that a lot of it (and everything else on celluloid, be it from Hollywood or the independents) is missing. It’s uncompromising, multi-faceted, honest and arresting art, folks. It’s complex in spite of? its simplicity and provides no easy answers or feel-good moments. It’s a genre movie for grown-ups that doesn’t insult your intelligence and for once provides more steak than sizzle (although there’s plenty of that, too). It’s the straight dope and it’ll hook you forever.

2012-12-21-258

3D-printed Minecraft worlds for sale online

Minecrafts PC players can now have their worlds exported into the real world via a company called FigurePrint. FigurePrint, which also makes models of your World of Warcraft and Xbox Live characters, has turned to 3D printing to make your virtual worlds come to life. Buying a model of your world is a fairly simple process: First, you download FigurePrints map exporting program, and extract your chosen map. After this, you select what part of the map you want to model. You can pick essentially any part you want, but larger sections will be more expensive. After this, you simply submit your request.

This is a really cool application for 3D-printing.

The models are printed with a special powder. A layer of the powder is spread onto a flat surface. Then resin, used to bind the powder together and harden it, is injected where the solid parts of the model are meant to be. After this, another layer of powder is added on top of the previous one and more resin is added. This process is repeated over and over again, building up the structure bit by bit, until you eventually have a completed model of resin, encased in a block of the powder. The powder is then cleaned away and your model is complete.

3D-printing is a growing industry, and some very complex models, including ones with moveable parts and functioning mechanical systems, can be created easily. Still, beyond product demos and architectural models, you dont hear about a lot of consumer applications of the technology, so its good news that companies such as FigurePrint are starting to pop up.

2012-12-21-277

55nm R680, RV660/670, RV635 & RV620 In Q4 2007

According to the latest AMD desktop graphics roadmap VR-Zone has seen, all nextgeneration GPUs will be 55nm based even for the highest end GPU supporting DX10Unified Shaders, Crossfire, HDMI, HDCP, UVD and PCI Express 2.0. R680 will bethe successor to R600 for the enthusiast segment slated for launch in end of Q4and mass production in Jan 2008. There will be UVD for R680 this time round.There is a new performance segment with RV660/670 while RV635 will succeed RV630for the mainstream segment and RV620 to succeed RV610 in the value segment. Theyare slated for sampling in Sept while mass production in Jan '08.