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This basic FAQ should answer some of your most immediate shopping questions (with more background on Ivy Bridge and its new 22nm transistors here). For a more in-depth look at Ivy Bridge performance results on laptops and desktops, check out our system reviews, benchmark scores, and analysis at the related links below.
Should I look for an Ivy Bridge sticker at the store? Post-launch, you'll likely rarely hear that name again. It's an internal code name (like Sandy Bridge before it), that we use as a quick shorthand. In reality, this is Intel's third-generation Core series processor family, which will use the same Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 names as the previous two generations.
If the names are the same, how can I tell which PCs have the newest parts? On the mobile side, it's easier. The 2012 Ivy Bridge (or third-generation) CPUs have a part number that begins with the number 3. For example, one of our test systems has an Intel i7-3720QM CPU. Our Sandy Bridge test system from last year had an Intel Core i7-2820QM. The new mobile CPUs are: i7-3920XM, i7-3820QM, i7-3720QM, i7-3612QM, and 3610QM. The desktop CPUs are: i7-3770K, i7-3770, i7-3770T, i7-3770S, i5-3570K, i5-3550, i5-3450, i5-3550S, and i5-3450S.
Related stories Ivy Bridge PCs: The first wave At long last, a credible 3D gaming chip from Intel Our first Ivy Bridge laptops: How do they perform? Intel's Ivy Bridge waits on Windows 8 Asus Essentio CM6870 review Origin Eon 17-S review Origin Genesis reviewSo if I buy a laptop now, it'll have the new CPUs, right? Hold on, partner. You knew it wasn't going to be that easy, right? The first systems with Ivy Bridge CPUs are getting reviewed right now, but they won't be available to order until at least April 29. Additionally, those are just going to be the very high-end quad-core Core i7 versions. The more-mainstream dual-core Core i5 and Core i3 parts should start appearing sometime around the end of May.
Is the third-generation Core i-series much faster than the second-generation? The leap between generations is not going to be as great as between the first- and second-gen Core i-series chips. In fact,when it comes to actual CPU performance, we really don't expect you'd notice too much of a difference at all in everyday use. Where the new platform really shines is in its integrated graphics.
Intel's new HD 4000 graphics replaces the current HD 3000, and the company promises that you'll be able to play current high-end PC games without needing a separate Nvidia or AMD GPU. Of course, they say that with just about every generation of integrated graphics, and it's never quite true.
Two of the first Ivy Bridge laptops, from Origin and Asus.
So, how good are the new integrated HD 4000 graphics? Definitely better. If you keep the detail levels turned down, you can get a very playable experience from most current PC games. But, keep in mind the early test systems we have all include very high-end quad-core Core i7 CPUs, which can help in some games. We'll have to wait until we can test midrange Core i3 and Core i5 laptops to see if you can skip the discrete GPU and still play Skyrim on your midprice laptop (on these high-end system, Skyrim worked fine at full 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution, but with detail levels set to low).
For a more in-depth look at the HD 4000's gaming chops, read this detailed analysis.
Will these new CPUs make my next PC cost more? From the vendors we've spoken to, there should be no price difference to consumers once second-gen CPUs are swapped out for third-gen ones.
Does Ivy Bridge improve battery life? After the big leap made by last year's Sandy Bridge Intel chips, both battery life and application performance are in for modest gains. In comparing somewhat similar 17-inch Origin gaming laptops (one Ivy Bridge, one Sandy Bridge), we saw a small drop in battery life, but those were both outlier systems with power-hungry overclocked parts. In comparing two similar Asus N-series laptops, the newer Ivy Bridge version ran for an additional 12 minutes (226 versus 214 minutes). Keep in mind that these are all examples of high-powered Core i7 laptops that aren't expected to have great battery life. We'll have to wait until the mainstream versions of Ivy Bridge hit to really test battery life.
I really need a mainstream laptop right now, should I tough it out and wait four to eight weeks? This is a topic recently debated here at the CNET offices, and you can see the arguments for and against waiting here. Besides Intel's new chips, it may also be worth waiting for Windows 8, or at least the free upgrade coupons we expect to see bundled with new laptops starting in late summer.
One thing to definitely watch out for is new laptop models or refreshes announced right now or in the next few weeks. In some unfortunate cases, if you order (or preorder) right away, you'll actually be getting a laptop with the older second-generation CPUs, but if you wait another week or so (for quad-core, longer for dual-core), the same systems will be for sale with newer Ivy Bridge parts.
The PC makers in question blame Intel for shifting the release dates of these new CPUs. We say, if you're launching a new product right around the time of a processor upgrade, don't take people's money for an extra week or so and make sure every customer has the newest parts.
...Source: Intel's Ivy Bridge arrives: Here's what you need to know
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They say children learn best by doing, by having a "hands-on" experience. A mother in Maryland took that advice to heart when she started "Food on the 15th," a non-profit program that involves school children helping people in need.
jwplayer('jwPlayer1').setup({'flashplayer': 'http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/ThePlatform/jwplayer/5_8_licensed/player http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981211421.swf','file': 'http://av.voanews.com/VOA_Clickability_Feed_Connector/72/597/Foodon15thWEB-Platform__109677.mp4','controlbar': 'bottom','image': 'http://media.voanews.com/images/Foodon15thWEB-Platform_640x480_2222541240.jpg','width': '480','height': '297','plugins': {'sharing-3': {code: '%3Ciframe width%3D%27480%27 height%3D%27305%27 src%3D%27http%3A%2F%2Fwww.voanews.com%2Ftemplates%2FwidgetDisplay.html%3Fid%3D147336935%26player%3Darticle%27 frameborder%3D%270%27 allowfullscreen%3E%3C%2Fiframe%3E',link: 'http://www.voanews.com/templates/widgetDisplay.html?id=147336935&player=article'},'gapro-2': { accountid: '19450753-5', trackstarts:'true', trackpercentage:'true', tracktime:'true'}},'backcolor':'666666','frontcolor':'FFFFFF'});On the 15th of each month, a classroom at Pointers Run Elementary School in Maryland, is abuzz with volunteers. Students like Campbell Snoddy collect food that has been donated by students, parents and teachers from each classroom. First, the children check to make sure the food isn't too old. Then they sort it by category and put the cans and boxes into bags to be delivered to low-income senior citizens in the community. “I wanted to teach my daughter about philanthropy, about helping others who were less fortunate in the community," says Julie Rosenthal, who started the non-profit program six years ago. "And I wanted to teach other kids in the community, too.”At the time, Rosenthal’s daughter Jenny Mandle was a 5th grader. She's now 15 and still involved.“I honestly thought that food j
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PENASCO, N.M -- Although my author bio hints at it, you might not guess that I file CNET stories from the edge of the vast wilderness.
I've lived here five years now, and it's taken me that long to cross the Digital Divide that still exists in this country between those who take decent broadband for granted and those who must constantly say, "Actually, no, I can't Skype."
Today, I finally have a connection at my home office that's on par with average DSL services, but it's not cheap and it hasn't been easy getting it.
Over the course of this and four subsequent posts, I'm going to share the 12-year odyssey that brought me from the San Francisco Bay Area to where I am today -- a guy in an isolated mountain village where many people live without Internet access (or even voice mail, for that matter) who writes about technology -- and my struggles to drag just basic broadband from the digital First World to my more... digitally underdeveloped home.
To understand how I got here, let's briefly revisit the era of the dot-com bubble.
Twelve years ago this month, I got my first big break at South by Southwest. A now long-forgotten Web site I was working on as part of my journalism degree at the University of Missouri won the award for Best Current Events Site that year, besting the likes of "The Daily Show" and others.
Within hours, I was offered a job at a "new-media magazine" -- also now long forgotten -- in San Francisco. I put my education on hold and moved west, arriving just in time for the carnage of the dot-com bubble burst. The digital Shangri-La I envisioned was crumbling, if it ever really existed in the first place.
Within months I was back in Missouri finishing my degree, and aft
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> SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Struggling with a slowing business for traditional videogame retail sales, GameStop Corp. said Thursday that it plans to expand its business in the areas of digital content and mobile devices.
The Grapevine, Tex.-based retailer said it will expand its business of buying, selling and trading-in used iPhones and iPads and other mobile devices to all of its retail stores Offset Printing Machines. The company also said it has acquired BuyMyTronics.com, an online business that buys and refurbishes used mobile devices, for an undisclosed sum. GameStop is also banking on the digital side of its business growing by 50% this year — offsetting the continued slowdown of retail sales of new game disks and consoles. “We’ve been engaged in a calculated transformation of the company,” CEO Paul Raines said on a conference call with analysts Thursday morning, following the announcement of the company’s fourth fiscal quarter earnings results. Those results were mixed, with earnings coming in line with Wall Street’s estimates with weaker-than-expected sales for the period ended Jan. 28. The period was hurt by weaker demand for new game titles and consoles, despite the launch of some big properties such as “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” in the holiday season.Shares of GameStop were last trading down 2% to $24.16, though the shares were up as much as 4% early in the session. For the fourth quarter, GameStop reported net income of $174.7 million, or $1.27 per share, compared with net income of $237.8 million, or $1.56 per share, for the same period the previous year. Excluding charges for asset impairment and other restructuring costs, the company said adjusted earnings would have been $1.73 per share — up from $1.57 per share for the same period last year, based on the same metrics. This came in line with the consensus estimates by analysts, according to FactSet Research. Sales slipped by 3% to $3.58 billion during the quarter. Analysts had been expe
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Most of the patents that Yahoo is suing Facebook over are for vague concepts that underly a wide variety of web services, but one is for a much more specific protocol that Facebook definitely employs: seamless communication between email and instant messaging users.
If the other patents are ruled invalid for being too broad to enforce, it’s maybe this Patent 7406501 that could stick http://onlinedegreespro.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-7.html. Facebook could need a separate defense or answer to this complaint, or it could be forced into a settlement to close the case prior its IPO.
Filed way back in 2003 before Facebook existed, and issued in July 2008 by the time the social network had roughly 200 million users, the patent’s abstract reads:
“Systems and methods allowing an instant messaging user to exchange messages with an e-mail user. To the instant messaging user, the experience is a seamless exchange of instant messages; to the e-mail user, the experience is a seamless exchange of e-mail messages. Conversion of an instant message to an e-mail message includes insertion of a token into the e-mail message, and conversion of an e-mail message to an instant message includes validating a token extracted from the e-mail message.”
My research hasn’t surfaced any other prominent companies that provide this service. Many will deliver email notifications about missed instant messages, but not actually allow users to have their full emails delivered as instant messages and vice versa.
Over two years after the patent was filed, Facebook launched its unified messaging product that offers this service. Email users can send messages to [username]@facebook.com to have them delivered as Chats or Facebook Messages. Messages or Chats sent back are delivered as emails. That means Facebook is directly infringing on Yahoo’s patent.
Facebook did make some significant improvements to what Yahoo patented. Rather than blindly delivering communications as Chats or emails, Facebook dynamically assesses what the best delivery medium is. If a recipient i
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