MyBroadband takes Vodacom's 21 Mbps HSPA network for a spin; HSPA+ network and device details released
Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys last week surprised the media when he announced that the cellular provider has switched on its first 21 Mbps HSPA+ (aka Evolved High-Speed Packet Access) site in Midrand, with plans to extend the coverage to areas ‘where it makes sense’.
The Vodacom CEO added that all Vodacom HSDPA subscribers will be upgraded to 7.2 Mbps speeds, with plans to have the full Vodacom network 14.4 Mbps enabled for the World Cup. Uys said that around 100 sites will be 14.4 Mbps enabled by the end of March, but highlighted that transmission capacity remains a significant challenge in the rollout of these higher speeds.
21 Mbps HSPA+ live testing
MyBroadband tested Vodacoms 21 Mbps HSPA+ network, and the results were encouraging. For the testing a Huawei K4505 data card - which is commercially available in South Africa was used. Other data cards which are also HSPA+ capable and available in South Africa include the ZTE K4505-Z and the Huawei E182.
Downlink speeds in the live testing environment peaked at around 14.6 Mbps, significantly lower than the 21.1 Mbps theoretical peak rate of the network. Vodacoms Executive Director for Engineering and Technology, Andries Delport however explains that this is not unexpected, and that factors like the distance from the base station have a big impact on the actual throughput of the service.
In testing where the modem was right next to the base station downlink speeds flat-lined at just over 21 Mbps,
As time has progressed us nerds have needed more and more out of our hardware, we strive for more cores and faster clocks but the age old computer problem of heat has never really gone away. Sure with birth of Conroe (Core 2) and Phenom we are able to harness more per clock cycle but there are always the enthusiasts who will push CPU's (and GPUs) to their limit in an effort to suck out every last bit of computational goodness.
With the new Core i7's we have seen a large number of people buying the entry level chips and overclocking them as far as their cooling will let them. A common popular overclocking (OC'ing) i7 has been the Core i7 920 and more specifically the D0 stepping model. Now the i7's aren't exactly 'cool' CPU's and do run quite warm especially when really stressed.
Well all this bring me to the topic of this review, "It's all about my temps baby!!". With high performance parts comes the problem of heat. To solve this us g33ks turn to fans for better airflow, bigger heatspreaders for more surface area, water cooling for very serious cooling and DICE (Dry Ice) or LN2 (Liquid Nitrogen) for those complete overclocking nutters.
With CPU's we normally turn to aftermarket coolers to help alleviate our heat woes and that is why I am doing this. May I present you to my 2 review volunteers, the Cogage True Spirit and the Cogage Arrow:
The ATI Radeon HD 5450 will cost less than $60 (USD) for a 512MB memory configuration and supporting DirectX 11 making it one sweet deal if you’re looking for a DirectX 11 graphics card for your Windows 7 PC.
The Radeon HD 5450 offers entry level performance and ultra-low power consumption and also supports AMD’s multi-monitor technology called ATI Eyefinity and their ATI Stream technology. There will be variations of this card depending on partner offers including passive cooling models or whisper-quiet, single slot fan-cooled models.
This graphics card is perfect for someone putting together a home theater PC (HTPC) with Windows 7 as it comes with features like HDMI 1.3a with Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
For a complete list of specs on the ATI Radeon HD 5450,
Intel 32nm processors dubbed Clarkdale, are to be launched next week. But its capabilities are already being explored by over-clockers from around the world. The picture shows the overclocking feat achieved by NickShih from Xtremesystems forum. He reached a speed of 6.9GHz on a Core i5 32nm edition.
As you can see, the voltage is set at 1.94V which is not that high, considering the frequency achieved. With this proof at hand, we can now be a bit more confident about Clarkdales achieving good clocks on lower volts, thus letting us have a fair share of the OC fun. Anyhow it was expected, so lets see if it’s for real once it has been released.
Have a look at the screen shot to get all the details.
The config used was Intel Core i5 1156 LGA 32nm coupled with EVGA P55 3X SLI Classified.This did a overclock of 6921.8MHZ with multiplier of 27 and bus speed of 256.36.The stock rated FSB was 3076.35 Mhz.So you can see the capability of Core i5 32nm chip. System specification:
Processor: Clarkdale 3.47GMotherboard: EVGA P55 3X Classified (E659)
VGA card: Radeon HD 5870
RAM: A-DATA 2200 CL8 & G.Skill 2000 CL7
PSU: Antec TruePower Quattro 1200 OC
Hard
Well, we know one up-and-coming reporter who's well on her way to Pulitzer City. Posted just after the jump is one of the most hard-hitting news reports on the dangers of online gaming we've seen in years. Oh, sorry -- did we say "hard-hitting?" We meant "sensationalized, irrational, unresearched, and absolutely hilarious." We get those two phrases mixed up with surprising frequency.
If we were only allowed to give you one piece of advice in our lifetime, it would be that you should watch the video posted after the jump. If we could give you two pieces of advice, they would be to watch the video, and never, ever let a reporter into your house. For any reason. Ever. Ever.
When you've got thousands of the world's most brilliant engineers spending 20% of their time on whatever takes their fancy, you need a home for the results. Such a home would provide a safe environment for these fledgling experiments to test their wings — even if they fail. It would provide a playground where the geekier contingent of the general public can access ideas before those ideas are ready for public consumption. It would be associated enough with Google to get the brand benefits, and quarantined enough so that it doesn't put the core service at risk.
That playground exists at Google Labs. And while many of the experiments from the Lab have slunk away into obscurity (anyone remember Google X?), some of the big G's most popular current offerings had their genesis there. Google Alerts, Google Desktop, GOOG-411, Google Docs, Google Maps, and more, all alumni of this no-holds-barred, no-fear-of-consequences toy store.
Here are my current picks for the 10 coolest experiments in the Labs right now.
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SA prepares for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 beta launch tonight
Yesterday we announced that iGame had confirmed that it will be hosting a number of servers for the Battlefield: Bad Company 2 beta.
EA has since announced that the beta program will kick off at 7pm this evening. At this time servers around the world will go live, including iGame’s.
Local gamers will be able to download the beta client (game files) locally from iGame’s FTP servers. The cost of the 1.5GB download will be relatively insignificant if gamers make use of local bandwidth. Local bandwidth can be bought from most ISPs for around R10 per GB, and is also included with some ISPs' international offerings. For example, Telkom offers 30GB of local bandwidth with its 5GB international accounts. In these cases it is only possible to access the local bandwidth once the international bandwidth is used up.
Unfortunately, as dictated by EA, iGame will only be able to release the beta client to public access at the time of the beta launch; 7PM. This means that come launch time the servers are likely to be empty as gamers will be downloading the required game files.
Some gamers have expressed anger that they need to preorder the game before gaining access to the beta. This has led to unfair criticism being levelled at some local retailers who are under strict instructions from the publisher to not provide beta keys before receiving pre-order payment.
As soon as iGame announces the IP addresses for their servers MyGaming will publish the details.
Source: UberGizmo It is true after all - Apple (the largest mobile devices company in the world at a value of over $50 billion, which is more than Nokia in terms of revenue) has finally announced the second coming of gadgetopia in the form of the iPad. As expected, Steve Jobs took to the stage to bring us news that has the entire gadget world riveted with the $499 (upwards) iPad occupying the middle ground between smartphones and laptops. It is touted to be superior to any netbook and laptop for that matter, being able to be used in any direction that you want it with new drop downs in the e-mail interface as well as a large onscreen QWERTY to get those emails sent out in a flurry. Without any tactile feedback, we wonder how the public will get used to this compared to typing on a regular QWERTY keyboard. As for the interface itself, it is more or less a much larger version of the iPhone, photo flicking and all (as expected). As for the iTunes store, it has been pre-loaded into the iPad itself. More details in the extended post.
So far at the iPad's unveiling, scrolling seemed to be smooth and fast, and unlocking it requires a similar sliding movement as that of the iPhone. The browser is Mobile Safari, but there doesn't seem to be Flash support built-in. No idea on the resolution that the iPad holds, but it seems to be the iPod touch Phat in essence.
Initial impressions on web browsing as well as email capability have proved to be interesting, but it isn't groundbreaking in any way as we already get the same on the iPod touch and iPhone albeit on a much smaller scale, relatively speaking.
Going through the photo slideshow is a somewhat familiar experience if you have played around with iPhoto before. By saying so, we mean you can browse through the entire photo album quickly to see if there is a... [Read More]
George Hotz, one of the guys on the team that broke open the Iphone with the Jailbreak method has claimed success in hacking the PS3. Praising the security on the PS3, Hotz says he now has read write access to the system’s memory, and full access to the hypervisor.
I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3. The rest is just software. And reversing. I have a lot of reversing ahead of me, as I now have dumps of LV0 and LV1. I’ve also dumped the NAND without removing it or a modchip. 3 years, 2 months, 11 days … that’s a pretty secure system
In what’s likely to be bad news for Sony, Hotz claims that the exploit isn’t really patchable – but that Sony may make it harder to implement. Most PS3 hacking claims have been met with incredible scepticism, but with Hotz’s pedigree, this may just be the real deal.
Piracy on the PS3 is still not entirely feasible though, with Blu-Ray writers still being mostly scarce, and media costing fortunes. The PS3 though accepts 1.5TB hard drives though, and it wouldn’t be a stretch to expect some sort of Blu-Ray to HDD dumping in the near future.
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