Not too long ago, we shared with you a sneak peek of the Asus’ ROG (Republic of Gamers) Rampage IV Extreme and eVGA X79 E779 Classified motherboards. Today, we share a sneak peek of some of the other upcoming Intel X79 motherboards.

• Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3
• Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5
• Asus P9X79 Deluxe
• Asus TUF Sabertooth X79
• eVGA X79 FTW

Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3: Has four DDR3 DIMM slots, four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (two capable of x16,x16) and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 expansion slot. There two SATA 6 Gb/s (white), four SATA 3 Gb/s (black) from the Intel X79 controller and four SATA 6 Gb/s (gray) from a Marvell controller. The I/O panel comes with the standard variation of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, along with 8+2 channel HD audio and Gigabit LAN connection.

Gigabyte GA-X79-UD5: Has eight DDR3 DIMM slots, three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (two capable of x16,x16), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 and one PCI expansion slot. There are two SATA 6 Gb/s (white), four SATA 3 Gb/s (black) from the Intel X79 controllers and four SATA 6 Gb/s (gray) from a Marvell controller. The I/O panel comes with the standard variation of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, along with 8+2 channel HD audio and Gigabit LAN connection.

Asus P9X79 Deluxe: Has eight DDR3 DIMM slots, four PCI-Express x16 (unclear if they are PCI-Express 3.0 or a combination of 3.0 & 2.0) and two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 expansion slot. There are eight internal SATA ports, including two SATA 6 Gb/s (gray), four SATA 3 Gb/s (blue) from the Intel X79 controller and two SATA 6 Gb/s (white) from a Marvell controller. The I/O panel comes with the standard variation of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, along with 8+2 channel HD audio and two Gigabit LAN connections.

Asus TUF Sabertooth X79: Has eight DDR3 DIMM slots, two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (capable of x16,x16), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (@ x8), two PCI-Express 2.0 x1, and one PCI expansion slot. There are eight internal SATA ports, including two SATA 6 Gb/s (brown), four SATA 3 Gb/s (black) from the Intel X79 controller and two SATA 6 Gb/s (white) from a third-party controller. The I/O panel comes with the standard variation of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, along with 8+2 channel HD audio and Gigabit LAN connection.

eVGA X79 FTW: Has four DDR3 DIMM slots, four PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (two capable of x16,x16), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (@ x8) and one PCI-Express 2.0 x1 expansion slot. There are only six internal SATA ports, including two SATA 6 Gb/s (red) and four SATA 3 Gb/s (black) from the Intel X79 controller. The I/O panel comes with the standard variation of USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports, along with 8+2 channel HD audio and two Gigabit LAN connections to list just a few of the options.

Market researchers predict that, by 2015, there will be more people in the U.S. accessing the Internet through mobile devices than through traditional PCs. “Forget what we have taken for granted on how consumers use the Internet,” said Karsten Weide, research vice president, Media and Entertainment. “Soon, more users will access the Web using mobile devices than using PCs, and it’s going to make the Internet a very different place.”

Weide and his team believe that number of mobile Internet users will grow by an average of 16.6 percent between 2010 and 2015. The number of PC users accessing the Internet will stagnate and then begin to decline, IDC said.

The market research firm did not say when the decline may begin and how severe it will be.

On a global basis, IDC predicts that there will be 2.7 billion Internet users by 2015, up from 2 billion at the end of 2010. In 2015, more that 40 percent of the globe’s population will have access to the Internet, according to IDC.

SOURCE via IDC

Lego are less a toy and more a medium for inspiration. The plastic masons behind Legoland Florida’s Miniland were inspired enough by the shape and power of the Bugatti Veyron über-car, that they snuck a brick version into their miniature world for little gearheads and their parents to find.

A main attraction of Legoland is its tiny version of our big old world, complete with a minifig-sized White House, Eiffel Tower, and even a miniature golf course for “mini mini golf.” The Lego maniacs who built it call it “Miniland.”

We’re guessing it isn’t worth the $1.6 million a regular Veyron costs, but the tiny Lego supercar looks right at home at a golf course and is an impressive facsimile given the size limitation, and, of course, the bricks available at such a “Mini” level.

It’s time to get the kids to Legoland Florida and start the indoctrination now.

No doubt the defense industry is one of the greatest technology incubators the world has ever seen. But does any of that trick fighter-jet stuff ever end up in the cars we drive? The answer is yes. Heads-up displays (HUDs), for one.

During World War I, aircraft engineers got the idea to combine electrical illumination with the then-rudimentary optical reflector sight to help pilots aim planes’ machine guns. Pilots would no longer have to align their heads precisely with mechanical sights to make an accurate shot. By the 1950s, such displays had expanded to include complex, radar-guided lead-finding sights as well as basic flight information like altitude, air speed, compass and artificial horizon indicators.

In 1988, General Motors was the first company to install a monochrome HUD in a civilian motor vehicle, adding color in 1998, and then partnered with Raytheon to offer HUD-based infrared night vision in 2000 (it was discontinued in 2004). Other automakers followed. BMW was the first Europan manufacturer to offer an HUD, in 2003.

Both companies appear to be committed to the HUD. In 2010, GM announced it was working on a Tron-like system that gathered data from a bank of sensors and cameras, parsed the info, and projected laser-generated images — outlining a sharp curve on a foggy day, for example, or highlighting a faint obstacle in the dark — onto the surface of the windshield. That system hasn’t yet been incorporated into a production car.

BMW’s latest full-color HUD incorporates a wafer-thin foil into the windshield, onto which a high-resolution image is projected from a high-intensity light source inside the instrument panel. The light shines through a translucent thin film transistor (TFT) display, and transferred to the windscreen via mirrors. Usually, the convex glass would create a double image, but by adding the internal foil defeats the distortion. BMW says it’s similar to the monochrome projection system used in the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet.

Both companies tout the safety of such systems, considering a driver doesn’t have to look away from the road to get vehicle information, and the possibility of layering driver-aid functions over the field of view. Naturally, getting the right mix of layered information and physical optics correct is important. Overloading a driver with data would indeed have the opposite effect, making such systems less safe.

That means, while it’s possible in theory, the 1981 Tony Danza movie Goin’ Ape won’t be coming soon to a windshield near you.

Wednesday VIA Technologies revealed an “industry first” with the launch of its new 64-bit dual-core VIA EPIA-P900 Pico-ITX board. It features a 1 GHz VIA Eden X2 CPU along with the VIA VX900H Media System Processor, all crammed on a board measuring just 10cm x 7.2cm.

According to VIA, the new board supports up to 4 GB of DDR3 memory, HD audio, HDMI (1080p), VGA and single-channel 24-bit LVDS display connectivity. There’s even a high performance hardware HD video decoder via the latest VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 video engine.

“The VIA ChromotionHD 2.0 engine provides advanced filtering and cutting edge post-processing to perform ultra smooth decoding of H.264, MPEG-2, VC-1, WMV9, and HDCP for Blu-ray content protection providing smooth playback of the most demanding multimedia titles at resolutions up to 1080p without incurring a heavy CPU load,” VIA said Wednesday. “The VIA EPIA-P900 features the VIA Vinyl VT2021, a 10 channel HD audio codec, delivering outstanding sound quality and support for Blu-ray and HD DVD Audio Content Protection.”

As for other features, the EPIA-P900 provides on-board pin headers that support an additional five USB 2.0 ports, an LPC connector, SMBus connector, PS/2 support, audio jacks, LVDS, 4 pairs of DIO and two UART ports. The rear I/O includes one HDMI port, one VGA port, 2 USB 2.0 ports and 1 GigaLAN port.

“The VIA Pico-ITX allows embedded system design to pack unprecedented levels of performance into even smaller form factors,” said Epan Wu Head of the VIA Embedded Platform Division, VIA Technologies, Inc. “The new VIA EPIA-P900 opens up exciting new possibilities for innovation in ultra-compact embedded designs.”

VIA did not offer actual pricing or availability, so stay tuned.

Gus Richard from Piper Jaffray told Cnet that “we could run out of drives by the end of November.”

Caused by the dramatic flooding in Thailand, hard drive prices have already shot up by 10 to 60 percent, but Richard is concerned that PC manufacturers especially are not taking enough precaution to deal with the shortage.

“Nobody seems to be really paying attention. Everyone overreacted to the disaster in Japan. And now I think they’re underreacting,” he told Cnet. The estimate is that supply will fall about 60 million units short of a demand of 180 million drives and PC manufacturers will not be not able to meet demand with the units they can produce.

However, while Richard believes that shipments could drop by 5 to 10 million units because of the shortage, the supply problem is likely to spill over into Q1 2012 and affect 10 to 20 million units. In Q1, the expected shortage may be between 60 to 80 million units as lack of supply in Q4 is carried over into the New Year.

SOURCE via CNET

Wednesday Amazon said that “thousands” of apps will be heading to the Kindle Fire tablet next week. Naturally this will be due to the underlying operating system — a customized Android 2.3 “Gingerbread” — and the online retailer’s own Amazon Appstore for Android. Customers will be able to install numerous compatible apps including Netflix, Rhapsody, Pandora, Twitter, Comics by comiXology, Facebook, The Weather Channel as well as popular games from Zynga, EA, Gameloft, PopCap and Rovio after pulling it out of the box.

“Kindle Fire customers will be able to download these apps and games without having to register multiple times and using Amazon’s simple and secure 1-Click payment technology,” the company said. “Plus, all apps are Amazon-tested on Kindle Fire for the best experience possible, customers can get a great “paid” app for free every day, and once you’ve downloaded an app from the Amazon Appstore, it’s available on Kindle Fire as well as your other Android-based devices.”

Amazon has kept its Free-App-Of-The-Day special alive and kicking since the Appstore first launched, offering gems like Plants Vs. Zombies, Cut The Rope, Angry Birds Rio, Cyberlords, Fancy Widget Pro, Trillian Pro, Shazam Encore, Swiftkey X, TweetCaster Pro, WeatherBug Elite, Sketchbook Mobile, Tunein Radio Pro and more for free. The catch is that each app is free for an entire day: once that day passes, the app returns to its normal price. All apps purchased via the Amazon Appstore is kept in the cloud and can be re-downloaded at any time.

“We started talking to app developers everywhere the day we introduced Kindle Fire, and the response has been overwhelming,” said Dave Limp, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. “In addition to over 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, books, and magazines from Amazon, we are excited to offer customers thousands of apps and games to choose from on Kindle Fire – from Pandora and Rhapsody to Facebook and Twitter to Netflix, as well as popular games from EA, Zynga and many other top game developers. And this is only the beginning – we’re adding more apps and games every day across all categories.”

Customers who purchase the Kindle Fire next week will get a free month of Amazon Prime which will grant access to Prime Instant Video with 13,000 movies and TV shows available for unlimited streaming. The tablet will also come packed with the new Kindle Owners’ Lending Library where Kindle owners can choose from thousands of books to borrow for free including more than 100 current and former New York Times Bestsellers – as frequently as a book a month, with no due dates.

Customers in the U.S. can still pre-order the Kindle Fire tablet at http://www.amazon.com/kindlefire. The device officially ships next week on November 15.