A closer look at Origin PC's Phase Change cooling system (and its new gaming laptops too)

Believe it or not, we just spent 45 minutes with two of Origin PC's founders and weren't treated to a gaming demo. Then again, the company isn't here at CES to brag about 3DMark11 scores. Instead, it's showing off its new freon-based Phase Change cooling technology, which enables the Genesis desktop to be overclocked to 5.7GHz, and which pushes that desktop's starting price from $1,337 to $4,499. So how does that $3,000 feature work? In brief, it uses a compressor to send chilled vapor through insulated tubing, eventually hitting a cold plate running as low as -40 degrees. The Little Devil chassis used for the purpose of this demo has an LED screen displaying the operating temperature, but you won't need it: the system automatically shuts down if it gets too cold, and it won't boot into Windows until Phase Change is up and running. In addition to all this, the Genesis uses liquid cooling around the motherboard, and an air-based system on the video cards.

While we were there, we also checked out the EON15-S and EON17-S laptops, which will be available with an updated design sometime this quarter. Though the interior should look familiar to anyone who's ever laid eyes on a Clevo, Origin remodeled the lid, adding a matte finish option and race car-inspired molding (to evoke the idea of speed, natch). As for specs, Origin's founders directed us to the company's website, which suggests the internals won't change along with the design (certainly, the prices remain the same). Expect these to start at $1,539 for the 15-incher and $1,590 for the larger model -- prices that now include 24/7 free lifetime support. Find some photos below and continue on past the break for a video where you can see (and hear) that Phase Change setup in action.

Gallery: Origin PC's Phase Change cooling demo at CES 2012

Gallery: Origin PC EON15-S hands-on

Gallery: Origin PC EON17-S hands-on

Continue reading A closer look at Origin PC's Phase Change cooling system (and its new gaming laptops too)

A closer look at Origin PC's Phase Change cooling system (and its new gaming laptops too) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  Origin PC  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/7XZFegm24As/

kate upton winter solstice r. kelly x factor finale andy cohen andy cohen pro bowl voting

Microsoft's new/old Windows Phone update policy keeps customers in the dark

Microsoft has published a new Windows Phone update, build 8107, to resolve a problem where the soft keyboard sometimes disappears, leaving users no way to type anything on the phone. The bug can affect any handset on any carrier, so it?should be rolled out to everyone as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't willing to say who will actually receive the update, or when.

During the troubled rollout of the NoDo update, the company published a useful guide to tell users how far through the approval and deployment process their particular combination of handset and carrier were, allowing them to have a good idea when each upgrade would be available.

This added valuable transparency to a process that has been more complex than we would like?a result of carriers' ability to block the delivery of updates for any reason (or no reason at all).

However, in a blog post announcing the new patch (or rather, confirming: the update had already started to roll out some days previously) on Friday, Eric Hautala, General Manager of "Customer Experience Engineering" at Microsoft, said that going forward, the company would no longer provide such detailed information. Major feature updates would still be publicised, but minor patches?security updates, stability improvements, bug fixes?would now be secret. There would be no posts to the Windows Phone blog to announce their availability and no updates to the published schedule to inform users of when they'd actually be able to install the update.

New/old

This isn't a new policy as such; it's the same policy that the company used when it launched the operating system. But the response has been uniformly and consistently hostile. Windows Phone users want to know what patches are out there, and they want to know when their mobile operators are stiffing them.

At the end of 2011, former Microsoft employee Charlie Kindel made the argument that consumer-favoring decisions?tight regulation of carrier crapware, uniform hardware specifications and hence good software compatibility, centralized operating system upgades?were hindering Windows Phone's acceptance among network operators. The carriers were denied the ability to remove features they didn't like and to put their own stamp on the software.

The ability to bar updates was perhaps the biggest obvious concession that Microsoft made to the phone networks; while it was far from the sole cause of the NoDo issues (a software failure to check for free disk space before performing the update, and Samsung's decision to silently ship two different hardware versions of its Focus were also big issues), it was one of the most aggravating. Being denied an update because it's not compatible with your phone hardware is frustrating, but understandable?it's better to have no update than a bricked phone. Being denied an update because your mobile operator can't be bothered to sign off on it is a whole lot more annoying: there was no technical reason for the delays, just mobile operators making a nuisance of themselves.

In the wake of the NoDo issues, we were concerned by this very problem, but the swift and universal roll-out of the major Windows Phone 7.5 "Mango" upgrade did a lot to convince us that the procedural problems were all fixed. It appears that our hope was misguided.

The entire rationale for carrier testing and approval is unclear, with Microsoft conceding that Apple doesn't bother asking for the mobile operators to test or approve iOS updates before shipping them. There's generally no benefit to consumers from giving carriers this kind of control, but as a minor concession to make the phone networks a little happier about the platform, it's understandable.

Keeping the availability and timing of updates secret similarly offers no benefit at all to consumers. Microsoft watcher Paul Thurrott has opined that the decision to stop keeping customers in the know might even be a deliberate ploy to keep the carriers on-side by sparing them from embarrassment. Obviously, Microsoft can't afford to poison the various relationships it has with partners, so it's understandable that the company avoids making its its partners look bad even when they screw up?the company avoided pointing the finger at Yahoo! when Yahoo!'s broken mail servers caused excessive data usage, for instance, and it avoided calling out Samsung for its Focus hardware shenanigans.

But when an operator is refusing to allow distribution of a small, low-risk update that everyone needs, we think that perhaps it's the time to do the right thing by the users and let them know what's going on. Until every update goes as smoothly as the Mango update, Windows Phone customers deserve the extra information.

Source: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/everything/~3/15C7Ni9X7Bo/microsofts-newold-windows-phone-update-policy-keeps-customers-in-the-dark.ars

occupy oakland occupy oakland yahoo.com/mail david nelson david nelson frank gore frank gore

PSA Test for Prostate Cancer Doesn't Save Lives: Study (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, Jan. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Annual screening for prostate cancer doesn't save lives, finds a new study that is unlikely to quell the controversy surrounding routine prostate specific antigen (PSA) screening.

"Organized prostate cancer screening when done in addition to whatever background testing exists in the population does not result in any apparent benefit, but does result in harm from false positives and over-diagnosis," said lead researcher Philip Prorok, from the Division of Cancer Prevention at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

"Men considering prostate cancer screening should be fully informed of the implications of such testing before making a decision," he added.

Experts have disagreed for some time on whether the blood test saves lives or results in over-diagnosis and over-treatment. The new findings, which extend prior results out to 13 years of follow-up, are published in the Jan. 6 online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The study followed men enrolled in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening (PLCO) Trial from 1993 to 2009, comparing results for a group of men who had undergone screening with those for men who hadn't had testing. The men were 55 to 74 years old.

One group had PSA screening every year for six years and a digital rectal examination every year for four years. The other men had regular care, which in some cases included screening if requested by the patient or doctor.

Compared to men getting usual care, the screened men had a 12 percent relative increase in prostate cancer but a slightly lower rate of high-grade cancer.

However, no difference in deaths was seen between the two groups.

This finding held true even after age, screening before the trial and other medical conditions were taken into account, the researchers said.

Prorok said that better treatment for prostate cancer may explain the similar mortality results.

Among prostate cancer patients, death from other causes was somewhat higher in the screened group (10.7 percent of 4,250 men with prostate cancer) compared to the usual care group (9.9 percent of 3,815 men with prostate cancer).

This indicates men who underwent PSA screening were over-diagnosed, meaning the test picked up slow-growing tumors that probably weren't lethal, the researchers said.

"PSA testing and digital rectal examination screening as conducted in this trial did not reduce prostate cancer mortality, but there was a persistent excess of prostate cancer cases in the screened arm, suggesting over-diagnosis of prostate cancer," Prorok said.

Some prostate cancer experts disagree with the authors' conclusions.

Dr. Anthony D'Amico, chief of radiation oncology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said the results are invalid because the trial was flawed.

According to D'Amico, 52 percent of those who received usual care had a PSA screening. "That's a serious issue which makes it very hard for the study to show if any benefit exists for PSA screening," he said.

Also, 15 percent of those who were supposed to get PSA screening never did, D'Amico said. "So what you've got is a screening study in which 85 percent of the people got PSA screened on the screening arm and 52 percent got screened on the control arm, which makes it impossible to ever measure a difference," he said.

Men should ignore this study, "because it has no relevance to PSA screening," D'Amico said.

D'Amico said he has more confidence in the results of a European study published in 2009 in the New England Journal of Medicine, which showed a 20 percent reduction in cancer mortality with PSA screening.

Men who can benefit most from screening are those at risk for prostate cancer, particularly men who have a family history of prostate cancer, African Americans and men over 60, D'Amico said.

Prorok acknowledged that the PLCO trial wasn't perfect. "Nonetheless, the contamination was not enough to eliminate the early diagnosis of prostate cancers nor the persistent excess of cancers," he said.

PLCO provides information about over-diagnosis, Prorok added. "Even if the contamination did dilute a benefit compared to no screening, the result of no mortality difference between the arms in PLCO could be interpreted to suggest that more intensive screening is not beneficial but does result in harm," he said.

More information

For more information on prostate cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/cancer/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120107/hl_hsn/psatestforprostatecancerdoesntsavelivesstudy

ucla usc ucla usc sean taylor usc football cybermonday coach outlet apostasy

Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X)

We're entering familiar territory for our enthusiast readers. The latest Intel six-core CPU is overclocked and paired with an obscene number of video cards to give us the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X) ($6,899 direct). Frankly, we'd have it no other way. The funny thing is that our contact at Falcon NW told us that though the system flirts with the mythical 5GHz overclock, it is actually dialed back (more than a little) for reliability's sake. Any overclocker can push Intel's latest Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition to lofty (and unstable) clock speeds with a few clicks of a mouse in the UEFI (aka BIOS), but the people at Falcon are masters of smart overclocking that will keep the system from crashing like a drunken panda in a go-kart. Build quality with bragging rights is the reason we award the latest Mach V our latest Editors' Choice for high-end gaming desktop PCs.

Design and Features
The Mach V (Core i7-3960X) is in Falcon NW's signature Mach V chassis, like the previous Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-2600K) ($4,599 direct, 4 stars). In this imposing black tower the video cards are mounted vertically to help disperse heat; the cards' fans vent out the top of the system. The front panel is hidden behind a door with the iconic Falcon NW logo cut into the metal.

The chassis is full of tech: the cooler for the Intel Core i7-3960X, the three Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 cards, 32GB of system memory (eight 4GB sticks), two SSDs, a 2TB data storage hard drive, a Blu-ray player/DVD burner combo drive, and an Asus P9X79 motherboard. Powering it all is a 1,200-watt power supply (PSU). To put this into perspective, mainstream tower desktops get by with 260 to 400 watts. Because of how much power this PSU can pack, you may want to think twice about running other high-wattage electrical appliances (like space heaters or hair dryers) on the same electrical circuit as the Falcon. A moderately beefy uninterruptable power supply might be a good accompaniment, just in case you overload the circuit.

Because the DIMM and PCI Express slots are filled, there isn't much extra expansion room here, but about the only people likely to be disappointed by this are ?ber-users who prefer discrete sound cards for their surround gaming. There's a bit of room in the chassis for hard drive or optical drive expansion, but with this system's specs, you won't need to add anything for a long time. Externally, there are plenty of ports: five USB 2.0, eight of the faster USB 3.0, and two eSATA. You can potentially run six displays off of this little monster, using a combination of the DVI and mini HDMI output jacks (mini-HDMI?to?HDMI adapter cables are included). About the only drawback to the chassis' design is that the majority of the system's ports are on the top of the system, under a metal panel. There are routing holes in the back of the system for cables, but it's still inconvenient to connect peripherals to the main ports on the motherboard and video cards. It's a good thing that the system has two more easily accessible USB 3.0 ports closer to the front of the system on the top (along with headphone and microphone jacks).

The system's 32GB of memory will likely be "enough" for this system as long as you own it, and will certainly be plenty for the multitasking gamer who likes to play on one monitor, surf on another, and message on a third. (In other words, Tony Stark.) The 500GB capacity of the two 256GB SSDs in a RAID Level 0 array is plenty for Windows 7, a bunch of games, and some files to all benefit from the SSDs' superior speed. An additional 2TB data drive was included on our review unit as well. If that isn't enough, the system has enough eSATA and USB 3.0 ports to potentially support at least another 40TB of external hard drive space.

Performance
The Mach V (Core i7-3960X) does not disappoint as far as performance. It took top spot on eight of the ten tests we currently run, and was minimally slower on the two remaining tests. The system gained playable scores on all four gaming tests, including Crysis (75 frames per second, or fps) and Lost Planet 2 (168fps) at 1,920-by-1,080 resolution on high detail settings. This means that you'll get a smooth game session while using a standard 24-27 inch monitor. If you have an older 30-inch (2,560-by-1,600 resolution) behemoth, the system will work fine as well; the system achieved playable scores in anecdotal testing. Other systems like the Digital Storm Black Ops Enix Edition ($3,627, 4 stars) and Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960 ($4,599, 4 stars) kept close on Crysis (both got 73fps at 1,920 by 1,080), but the Falcon blew the others out of the water on the DX11-based Lost Planet 2 (the others were a distant second at 122-123 fps). Likewise, the Mach V completed our Handbrake video encoding test in the fastest time ever (54 seconds), and was a scant two seconds behind the Enix Edition on Photoshop CS5 (2:21 versus 2:19). For work or play, this is the system you currently want.

The Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X) will eventually be supplanted as speed champ, but at this particular moment in time it's the fastest PC we've tested. It trumps its nearest (and admittedly less-expensive) competitors, the Digital Storm Black Ops Enix Edition and Polywell Ignition X7900i-3960, with build quality, insane component stats, and ultimately bragging rights. You don't buy a PC this expensive because it can do spreadsheets. You buy one because you want to crush your enemies on the gaming grid, then brag to your friends about how you did it on your incredibly overbuilt $7,000 PC (provided your friends are also part of the top 1 percent). Because of that and its blazing performance, the Mach V follows its predecessors as our new Editors' Choice for high-end gaming rigs.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X) with several other desktops side by side.

More desktop reviews:
??? Velocity Micro Vector Holiday Edition (2011)
??? Falcon Northwest Mach V (Core i7-3960X)
??? Cybernet ZPC-D5
??? Dell Inspiron One 2320
??? HP Omni 120-1024
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/U0Xoije4BAQ/0,2817,2398368,00.asp

ipad 2 cases movie times serene branson matthew mcconaughey to catch a predator davenport denver nuggets

In YouTube video, Casey Anthony makes no mention of daughter (Reuters)

ORLANDO, Fla (Reuters) ? A YouTube video going viral on Thursday appears to show Casey Anthony speaking out about her life for the first time since she was found not guilty last summer of killing her daughter Caylee in Florida.

"It's just a little surreal how much things have changed since July and how many things haven't changed," said Anthony, 25, in the four-minute recording that she described as the first installment of her video diary.

"But the good thing is that things are starting to look up and things are starting to change in a good way. I just hope they stay, things stay good and they only get better."

Calls and email requests to several of Anthony's lawyers to confirm her identity on the YouTube video were not immediately returned. NBC News and People magazine reported Thursday that unnamed sources had confirmed the woman was Anthony.

In the video, which Anthony said was recorded in October, she sports a short, blond hairstyle and black-framed glasses, a different look from her long, brunette hair at trial.

She is sitting in an office chair in a plain paneled room with Venetian blinds, giving no indication of her whereabouts, which have been kept secret by the court for her safety while she serves a one-year probation on check fraud charges.

Anthony never mentions her high-profile trial or her 2-year-old daughter Caylee, who prosecutors said was dead for a month before Anthony told anyone that the toddler was missing in 2008.

Anthony was acquitted by a jury in Orlando of a first-degree murder charge. She is appealing her convictions on four counts of lying to detectives about what happened to Caylee.

In the video, Anthony said she adopted a dog and bought herself a computer. After spending more than two years in jail awaiting her trial, she expresses joy in her new possessions.

"It's been a long time since I've been able to call something mine," she said.

Anthony talks about the possibility of getting off probation early in time for her birthday in March and about her solitary life being enriched by the ability to speak on camera.

"This has just been a such blessing in so many ways that now I have someone to talk to when I'm by myself so I'm not bothering the poor dog that I've adopted, that I love," she said.

(Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter Bohan)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20120105/us_nm/us_crime_anthony

gli joseph gordon levitt kevin durant katy perry russell brand mark hurd rutgers new ipad 3

On Saturn Moon Titan, Weather Report Brings Chance of Methane Rain (SPACE.com)

Scientists have used models to help predict Earth's weather for years, but now astronomers are using similar simulations to forecast rain at a more distant locale: Saturn's biggest moon Titan.

The study may help explain features such as rivers, lakes and clouds of methane on Titan, and could predict future changes, researchers said.

On Earth, water flows in a cycle, raining down from the sky, running in rivers and streams to oceans and lakes, and evaporating under sunlight into mist, forming clouds that eventually rain down. Probes sent to Titan have revealed that methane flows in a cycle there in much the same way.

To better understand the weather and climate of Titan, scientists created 3D atmospheric simulations of its methane cycle based on circulation models originally designed for Earth.

These new computer models revealed that in areas closer to Titan's equator, rare but intense storms apparently occur around the equinoxes, when days and nights on Titan are of equal length and the summer and winter poles trade places. This reversal often generates atmospheric instabilities, leading to storms capable of carving riverlike features. [Photos of Saturn's moon Titan]

"They have some similarities to the intense storms occurring in spring over the U.S. Great Plains," said study lead author Tapio Schneider, an atmospheric dynamicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

The simulations also hint that lakes form near the poles on Titan due to accumulation of cold-trapped methane. This happens preferentially in the north, which has a longer rainy season ? Saturn's oval-shaped orbit means that Saturn happens to be further from the sun when Titan is experiencing summer in the north.

In addition, the models suggest clouds form primarily in mid- and high-latitudes of the hemisphere where summer is taking place on Titan.

"The results for the first time give us a unified picture of how Titan's methane cycle works," Schneider said. "What I find most satisfying is that many seemingly disparate observations ? clouds, lakes, dry river beds ? can be explained within one sparse and coherent framework."

Upcoming space- and ground-based observations of Titan might confirm or reject predictions made by these models. For instance, "we predict that intense methane clouds should appear in Titan's north polar region within about two years," Schneider said. "We also predict that lake levels will rise in the northern hemisphere over the next 15 years, and we give estimates of how much methane the lakes will gain."

The scientists detailed their findings in the Jan. 5 issue of the journal Nature.

Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/space/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/space/20120104/sc_space/onsaturnmoontitanweatherreportbringschanceofmethanerain

los angeles angels lindsay lohan’s playboy cover leaked online lindsay lohan’s playboy cover leaked online kevin martin va tech shooting 2011 cj wilson coriolanus

Argentine leader undergoes thyroid cancer surgery (AP)

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina ? Argentina's president underwent surgery Wednesday to remove her cancerous thyroid gland.

Cristina Fernandez, 58, was found to have papillary thyroid carcinoma shortly after beginning her second four-year term as Argentina's leader, doctors said. Preoperative tests suggested it had not spread beyond her thyroid, so the condition should be curable without chemotherapy, they added.

Vice President Amado Boudou was put in charge shortly before the operation, and will remain as the country's constitutional leader for 20 more days while Fernandez takes medical leave, the presidency said.

Early Wednesday, Fernandez flew by helicopter from the presidential residence in Olivos to the Hospital Austral in suburban Pilar, north of the capital. She went under general anesthesia several hours later for the operation led by Dr. Pedro Saco, a veteran Argentine oncologist who specializes in cancers of the head and neck.

Experts say thyroid removals are about as routine as cancer surgeries can be, although the process is not without risk: surgeons must take care not to damage a nearby nerve that guides the vocal cords, or to remove the adjacent parathyroids, which regulate the body's calcium supply.

Patients should generally take care to relax their necks after surgery. Temporary hoarseness is common, and in rare cases, permanent voice changes can result. Patients also must swallow radioactive iodide for several days to destroy any cancerous remnants and provide for clearer images to detect any additional cancer, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

After surgery, patients take medicine ? levothyroxine sodium ? for the rest of their lives to replace a hormone that the thyroid glands produce. Blood tests every six to 12 months to measure thyroid levels also are recommended.

Fernandez is only the latest sitting South American leader to be diagnosed with cancer. Presidents Fernando Lugo of Paraguay, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Dilma Rousseff of Brazil all have undergone treatments recently.

Supporters waited anxiously outside the hospital for word on the surgery's results, waving flags, carrying handmade signs that said "Be Strong Cristina" and building small shrines to the populist leader, who won reelection with a 54 percent landslide in October. Many carried pictures showing Fernandez and her late husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, who died of a heart attack in 2010.

Boudou, her former economy minister, is expected to work closely with Fernandez's other Cabinet members while she recuperates at her home in Calafate, in far-southern Argentina, and make no major policy changes. Argentina all but shuts down anyway for the summer holidays in January and February, so her diagnosis and surgery came at a relatively calm time.

___

Follow Michael Warren on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mwarrenap

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120104/ap_on_he_me/lt_argentina_president_s_health

lakers news rachel crow rachel crow steelers browns albert pujols pau gasol va tech