Stories by Jason Cross

Alienware M11X: Big Gaming Performance in Tiny Package

If you want to play games on your laptop - real games, not Farmville on Facebook - you need one of those big, heavy, expensive desktop replacement laptops. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. Or, maybe you can get away with a fairly heavy and pricey ...

Nvidia unveils Tegra 2

Nvidia has unveiled its second-generation Tegra mobile system-on-chip processor, before the first generation has seen much traction (outside of the excellent Zune HD, Tegra hasn't really appeared in any marquee products). So what's new in Tegra 2? A ...

Tablets are hot this year's CES

CES 2010 is just getting under way and already everyone is talking about tablets. Lenovo has already unveiled the intriguing IdeaPad U1, a hybrid tablet/laptop that features an ARM-based tablet that can dock into a CULV-based ultraportable notebook. ...

Dell upgrades Mini 10 to Atom N450

Thinking about picking up one of those Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbooks? Good news! The company has announced that the product line has been refreshed to include the new Intel Atom N450 processor (the newly announced Atom that previously went under the...

Zune HD finally gets its 3D games

When the Zune HD launched, it swept the gadget world in a flurry of very positive reviews. It's a fantastic device for music, video, and podcasts, but the app selection could be charitably described as "weak." The Zune team said more, and better, app...

DirectX 11 Now Available for Windows Vista

Microsoft has long said, and we have reminded users, that DirectX 11 is not just a Windows 7 technology. The company promised that DirectX 11 will be available for Vista around the same time as the release of its latest and greatest operating system.

Nvidia Unveils Next-Gen Fermi Architecture

Nvidia may have renamed its NVISION promotional conference to the 'GPU Technology Conference', but it's still an Nvidia show through and through.

AMD announces Open Physics Initiative

A press release from AMD today announces the development of an Open Physics Initiative, together with Pixelux Entertainment. Pixelux is the developer of the Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) physics system used first in LucasArts' Star Wars: The Force U...

Where's USB 3.0?

It seems as if we've been writing about USB 3.0 forever, but it has really been only about two years since Intel and other parties formed a promotional group for USB 3.0 in 2007. The spec was completed in November 2008, at which time the standard's b...

Palm webOS 1.2 available now

Palm Pre owners should go update their phone, as webOS 1.2 is now available for download. This comes on the heels of a slew of leaks and, of course, an Tunes update that broke the Pre's ability to sync with Apple's software. The bad news is: webOS 1....

Intel Demos Larrabee Hardware

During the second IDF 2009 keynote, by Sean Maloney (Exec. VP and General Manager of Intel Architecture Group), we were briefly treated to the first public demonstration of Intel's upcoming enthusiast GPU code-named Larrabee. Intel has stated in the ...

Geek 101: a graphics card primer

We all know that the GPU (graphics processing unit) in modern computers is essentially responsible for everything you see on your screen. Both Windows Vista and Windows 7 can use the GPU to render the desktop, taking advantage of 3D acceleration feat...

Nvidia CEO predicts 570x performance increase in 3 years

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang predicted a whopping 570-fold increase in GPU Compute performance over the next three years, while traditional CPU would merely triple in processing power during that time, according to TG Daily. Huang made his claims during...

Is your Linksys or Netgear router open to attack?

If you have a Linksys model WRT160N or Netgear RP614v4 router, it may be time to worry a little. At least according to a report out of Defcon from The Register. The vulnerability is based on CSRF, or cross-site request forgery, an issue with the cPan...

OpenGL 3.2 released at SIGGRAPH

At the SIGGRAPH graphics conference in New Orleans this week, the Khronos Group announced the release of OpenGL 3.2. The new revision of the graphics API standard, along with the accompanying OpenGL Shading Language 1.50, adds quite a few new feature...