• Nvidia admits GeForce drivers responsible for fan problems, issues updates By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews Download Nvidia ForceWare Drivers for Windows version 197.73 from Fileforum now.Nvidia top story badgeVersion 196.75 of Nvidia's GeForce/Ion drivers were indeed responsible for fan overheating problems reported by users. That's the verdict from Nvidia, which in a second round of responses to customer concerns has released version 197.73, which it assures users doesn't have the problem.According to a frequent contributor to Nvidia's support forum, the problem was with the release version of the driver (other contributors reported no such problem with the beta). Specifically, version 196.75 ran the on-board graphics chip fan at 40% speed like it's supposed to. But when the card got hotter, the speed boost failed to kick in.As one tester verified, "Up to 72° [Celsius], the fan remains at 40%. At 73° it increases to 41%, at 74° to 42%, and at 75° it varies between 44 and 45%."To its credit, Nvidia's response has actually been quite swift. Over the past few days, registered driver users received e-mail messages advising them to roll back to an earlier version. One Dell XPS M1730 customer tried that, only to find that certain data left behind from a simple uninstall made it impossible to reboot his computer except into Safe Mode -- where, after a short time, it would freeze. A volunteer pointed out the M1730 is a laptop...and the 196.75 drivers were for desktop PC cards.Other volunteers suggested the use of driver cleaning utilities such as Guru3D Driver Sweeper. Meanwhile, they advised others to use manual utilities to monitor their processor temperatures.Though some long-time forum members were prematurely lamenting about how long they'd have to wait to see software fixes, they actually did come within a few days. But that wasn't good enough for some who complained they lost their cards entirely. Over the weekend, prior to Nvidia's announcement, one forum contributor commented, "I have filled out an error report form and it seems that all I (we) can do now is wait. The possible fixes I have heard include: RMA video card for a new one; buy a new video card. These seem like rather poor fixes."Sensing the onset of a possible customer revolt, forum contributor ImNutz4NvSLI (who, we can assume, is nuts for Nvidia SLI) attempted to put out the flames: "Paying attention to your GPUs temps is your responsibility. I can't imagine a situation in which my GPUs would get to over 100c and I wouldn't know about it. I am not trying to be cruel or insensitive, I am just stating it like it is. In this world today people are always looking for something for nothing, and looking to pass blame and not take responsibility for their own actions. While this driver may have broken automatic fan control on some users GPUs, certainly not all, fan control was still there to use and was working, all you had to do was pay attention to the temps."The contributor pointed to a thread he set up last Saturday, containing illustrated instructions for setting up manual temperature monitors in Windows. Utilities such as EVGA Precision, for instance, show little temperature indicators in the Windows system tray, and can even overlay game screens with temperature monitor information on-demand. Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Netflix axes 'friends' feature due to unpopularity By Tim Conneally, Betanews For more than five years, Netflix has had a feature called "Friends" which lets users connect their Netflix account with others so they can view each other's queues, suggest movies to each other, or see how a movie ranks against their peers' ratings.Todd Yellin, Netflix VP of Product Management said that after six years, only two percent of subscribers actually used the feature, so it is going to be phased out in the coming months."No company has unlimited resources and we decided to move engineering development time and resources from a little used feature to support and maintain the things that benefit all Netflix members as the service evolves -- more devices for streaming and better encoding, for example," Yellin said.Streaming, by comparison, is an absolute smash. Yellin said that roughly 50% of all Netflix subscribers use the Instant Streaming feature on their TVs, set-top boxes, and game consoles.Unfortunately, the way the change became evident was rather clumsy.Last week, Netflix implemented a new "Movie Detail" page on its Web site, which eliminated top 10 lists, friend ratings, and the ability to send movie notes. The features were still on the site, but their tabs were just removed from the page. Customers who used the "friends" feature were upset.On a Hacking Netflix article about it last week, one commenter said, "The Friends feature and Top Ten Lists are *not* on individual movie pages any longer. Reviews from random Netflix users *are* there, however, and that makes absolutely no sense. Why would I care more about a random Netflix user's opinion than my friends'?"Rather than letting subscribers know up front that the feature was in the process of being removed, Netflix just pulled the feature from its prominent position and relegated it to the background. "We fumbled the ball this week," Yellin said. "In making some changes to the Movie Display Page we didn't fully communicate how they impact users of the Friends feature, and we owe you that. We've read every blog post, Tweet, news article and call log to Customer Service by those of you who are upset about this decision. To you, we apologize for not being more upfront earlier. We appreciate your passion and we understand your disappointment and frustration. Our decision is meant to benefit all Netflix members by allowing everyone to enjoy more movies and more TV episodes on more devices while still receiving the unbeatable convenience, selection and value that are the hallmarks of the Netflix service." Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Kindle for Mac released: Is Amazon's e-reader moving away from hardware? By Tim Conneally, Betanews When Amazon debuted its first Kindle e-reader just over two years ago, we asked "...but will anyone buy it?"We still can't say for certain.Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made it very clear that Kindle users consume a lot of Amazon's e-books. But to date, Bezos has never gone public with hardware sales figures. So we can't be sure if it's Kindle hardware that's driving content sales, or perhaps the software Kindle for Windows 7, iPhone, iPod Touch, and BlackBerry.A report from Credit Suisse Group AG in February determined that Amazon.com had a 90% share of the e-book sales market last year. So the question looms large: What is everyone reading these books on?Today, Amazon announced Kindle for Mac, the latest addition to the family of free Kindle software. It's essentially the same software that was released for Windows back in November, which lets users synchronize content and bookmarks between their mobile Kindle device and their desktop. If a user is reading an e-book on his Kindle 2 or iPhone, he can pick up on his PC where he left off on his mobile.The software gives users the ability to shop in the Kindle Store, access their library of previously purchased content, view notes and highlights, adjust font size and spacing, and unlike the Kindle device, read books in full color. Amazon says the software will eventually come to include full-text search and the ability to make new annotations.Kindle continues its strong push in the software direction this year. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer showed off a mystery HP slate running Kindle Software at CES this year, and Amazon promises a version will grace Apple's hotly anticipated iPad. So Amazon looks ready for the tablet trend.The Kindle hardware, however, doesn't appear to be blazing as many new trails right now. The educational pilot programs with the Kindle DX were largely unsuccessful, and Amazon job listings earlier this month showed the company was considering improvement of the Kindle's rudimentary Web browser "on a tight schedule." It's obvious that Kindle is a vehicle for selling Amazon's proprietary e-books. But with no sales figures to illustrate consumer adoption of Kindle hardware, a saturated market of competing e-reader hardware of equally negligible relevance, and continuing growth of the free Kindle software, we may have to rephrase and restate Ed Oswald's question from two years ago... People are buying Kindle books, but are they buying Kindle? Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Microsoft cuts and pastes an egg By Carmi Levy, Betanews Ever since she brought me into the world, my mother has taught me many things, namely to not only learn from my own mistakes, but also from the mistakes of others.Microsoft clearly never spoke to my mom, as evidenced by its decision to leave cut, copy, and paste capabilities out of the new Windows Phone 7 Series platform, at least in the early rounds. If they had paid Mom a visit, they would have been told -- after being offered some tea, of course -- to fix all the boo-boos of earlier smartphone operating systems before releasing their own updated version. She would have advised them to understand the rough spots encountered by competitive offerings, and do everything in their power to avoid them.I think my mom's ticked with MicrosoftOkay, perhaps she wouldn't have worded it precisely that way, but I'm certain you get my point regardless. I'm sure I speak for my mother (and likely, a whole bunch of you, too) when I say I'm disappointed in what may either be Microsoft's "decision" to leave three of the most basic functions in the history of computing out of its just-announced OS, or as we seem to be learning now, it's having overlooked the whole subject in the planning phase.This morning, blogger Long Zheng reports he was told by Microsoft that cut and paste is something the company hopes will find a place in Windows Phone 7 Series at some future point.Now, the initial excuse the company provided was (and is, and quite likely always will be) insufficient and, if we're being brutally honest, more than a little arrogant: "Most users, including Office users, don't really need clipboard functionality." So what's the story now, after Long's report: "We asked users to give us some details, and they decided, most users do like clipboard functionality, just not right at first?"Carmi Levy Wide Angle Zoom (v.2)While I realize OS vendors have to make countless decisions about which features should and should not make it into the final product, I bristle at Microsoft's tone -- a bit like US Congresspeople explaining why the public option for health care is a really, really, really good idea, but just not for the bill being discussed today. If Microsoft (or, for that matter, if anyone at all) can learn anything from Congress this year, it's that people don't like being told by The Powers On High what they are supposed to want or not want, and when.It isn't Microsoft's place to tell users that they won't ever need to cut, copy, or paste anything for as long as they own their new devices. It's the kind of blow-off statement that sounds shockingly like Apple when it introduced the iPhone in 2007, similarly stripped of any ability to cut-and-paste. After a sea of complaints from users and reviewers who actually do know what they want, and don't need to be told, Apple wisely retro-baked that functionality back into the OS two years later. While the controversy didn't seem to dent Apple's market share, Microsoft hardly has the benefit of Apple's marketing prowess or brand equity.Apple aficionados were willing to cut the company some slack, and ended up buying iPhones anyway. Microsoft aficionados are a lot harder to find, they won't line up around the block in the middle of the night, and they'll probably pick up an Android-powered device as an alternative. With Windows Mobile...oops, Classic devices retaining this feature, and Windows Phone 7 Series lacking it, the inconsistency is difficult to understand. However you slice it, there will be no slack for Windows Phone 7 Series, and it's more than a little shocking that Microsoft couldn't see this coming.Teaching us all a lesson?In fairness to Microsoft, its new mobile OS includes a data detection service that automatically recognizes common elements like addresses and phone numbers. Within this context, perhaps there's room to make the argument that cutting and pasting is yesterday's news. This technology, popularized with the first mass-market GUIs in the early '80s, and perpetuated in virtually every desktop and mobile OS ever since, could be one of those things that we hold on to like a security blanket. And like the ratty old blanket, perhaps there's a time when we need to let go. Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is doing us all a favor by pushing it out the door.But consumers are a fickle lot. And what makes sense from a strategic or historical perspective isn't necessarily right from the point of view of the guy forking over the dough for your new wonder-product. Never mind that Microsoft may, in fact, be "right" in concluding that we no longer need cut, copy, and paste on our mobile devices. Customers, after all, are always right, even if their choices make them look like circus clowns who do their makeup in the dark. It's their mistake to make and their shame to live down. Even if the vendor believes otherwise, it's not the smartest business strategy to call them idiots and make fun of their smudged face paint.It's at moments like these that the mobile browsing experience truly does resemble the desktop browsing experience. (IE Mobile 6 on Windows Mobile 6.1.4 emulator)Casting off a legacyIn fairness to Microsoft, I somewhat understand where the company is coming from. Previous versions of its mobile OS suffered from what I like to call Shrunken Windows Syndrome. Instead of being built from the ground up as truly mobile-enabled solutions, they seemed to be pared-down versions of Microsoft's flagship desktop OS products. Microsoft's philosophy seemed to be that if it worked on a PC, it would work on a smartphone or a PDA, too. I used a number of Windows CE and Mobile devices over the years, and I never got used to navigating a full-on Start menu, complete with cascading sub-menus, with a stylus or thumb keyboard. It was as if Microsoft never actually used its own mobile products out in the field, and never listened to users who complained bitterly that its design philosophy simply didn't work out there.With Windows Phone 7 Series, Microsoft seems to have finally gotten the mobile message. It's built from the ground up as a modern, competitive, lean and efficient mobile OS. I suspect the cut-and-paste omission is the company's way of overcompensating for years of heavy Windows legacy on its mobile products, a hackneyed way to break with its past.Memo to Redmond: There are other ways to accomplish this.It's only temporaryIf Long Zheng's reporting is accurate (and it often is), I'd wager that v7.1 will have copy and paste...that is, if Microsoft doesn't cave to the firestorm earlier and release it as an on-the-fly fix. Either way, the only way Microsoft will ever gain traction in the mobile OS market is by listening to both customers and prospective customers and integrating their suggestions -- well, the value-added ones, at least -- into successive generations of their product.This is a gaffe Microsoft simply can't afford. Its mobile OS is in the fight of its life as Microsoft battles the Apple/Google/RIM juggernaut on one hand and its own declining mobile market share on the other. Beyond the numbers, there's the risk that the market has already given up on Microsoft succeeding as a mobile vendor. That psychological factor (something Palm knows all too well) is something Microsoft needs to fix by reinstating cut-and-paste support. Now wouldn't be soon enough.Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business. Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Google improves Maps for Android, rolls in bonus features By Tim Conneally, Betanews Google Maps 4.1 search results screenToday, Google has rolled out a significant update to the Google Maps application for Android 1.6+ devices, which now includes a new search results page, support for multiple accounts, a new Latitude home screen widget, and a new Maps live wallpaper for 2.1 devices.Previously, when you performed a search in Maps, you would have to choose a result from a list of markers on the map. When you clicked the marker, it would open a page with three tabs: Address, Details, and Reviews. Under the Address tab, there were options to Show the result on the map, get directions to it, call it, look at it in Street View, or add it as a contact. The other two tabs contain exactly what you'd expect, details and reviews. If you wanted to pick a different listing, you'd have to go back to the map view and pick a different marker.Now, Google has completely eliminated the tabs, turned all the actions from the "Address" tab into buttons, included digested versions of the other tabs on the first page, and added the ability to "Buzz" about the location you have picked. Additionally, you no longer have to navigate back to the map to check out other nearby results. You can simply swipe across the page to leaf through all the results.The Latitude widget that accompanies the 4.1 update lets users view their nearby Latitude friends at all times from their home screen. The Maps live wallpaper, probably the coolest bonus feature, lets 2.1 users turn their entire homescreen background into a live animated map.The update is available now from the Android Market. Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Preliminary results: IE9 tech preview performs 7.8 times better than IE8 By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews Banner: Test ResultsIn the first series of comprehensive performance tests comparing Microsoft's Internet Explorer 9 technical preview, released yesterday, to stable Web browsers in current use today, Betanews confirmed superb speed gains by the IE9 chassis in specific categories. Not everything in the new IE9 was faster than IE8, but in the computational department, the development team's Chakra JavaScript engine shows much-needed gains.In anticipation of IE9, Betanews has been developing a radically improved set of performance tests to complement (and, in a few categories, replace) those we've used in recent months. Our objective is to determine not just how much faster IE9 is, but how much better and more efficient it will be, in computing data, in rendering on-screen objects, and in adapting to varying workloads.Betanews estimates that the IE9 chassis on Windows 7 offers 9.32 times better raw computational performance than IE8 on Windows 7, on the same machine. That's a welcome number due in large part to vastly improved scores in the widely respected SunSpider battery, as well as high scores in a new set of variable-workload computational tests produced by Betanews. Specifically on the SunSpider, the IE9 preview scored a 44.77 on Betanews' relative performance index, compared to 5.59 for IE8. Our index is based on cumulative relative performance in each category of the test battery, compared against the score posted by an old, slow Web browser: IE7 on Vista SP2. This means, yes, IE9 (thus far) offers almost 45 times the computational speed of IE7 on the older operating system -- easily the single largest surge we've seen between generations.A recent dev build of Google Chrome 5 on Windows 7 scored a 69.83 on that same SunSpider index, followed closely by the first stable version of Opera 10.5 with 68.64.As Microsoft embraces HTML 5, it's also managing to eke out some marginal speed gains in the rendering department, although it must be noted that the IE9 chassis is running in an almost feature-less window with very minimal overhead. As of now, the IE9 preview offers 23% better rendering performance (CSS, DHTML, support for the Canvas element in HTML 5) than IE8.Looking for the goodWhat Microsoft did yesterday was give outside developers, for the first time, direct access to just the engine of its next-generation Web browser, long before the functionality and usability features are attached to it. The reason, the Internet Explorer 9 product team says, is to elicit real-world feedback so that the product can be fine-tuned.That describes exactly what we intend to do. Over the last few weeks, Betanews has been compiling a suite of next-generation browser tests, having taken into account the feedback we've received from both our readers and browser manufacturers, Microsoft included. As rapidly as browsers have evolved in just the past year, it's become clear to us that when we compare brands, at one level, we truly are comparing apples to apple trees, or lawnmowers to bulldozers. When we concentrate on the prowess or power angle, with all the adrenaline-rushing metaphors and superlatives, we sometimes forget that sometimes, what the world really wants is an efficient lawnmower.Last year, IE General Manager Dean Hachamovitch asked me to take a closer, fairer look at Internet Explorer. Specifically, he said that there were architectural efficiencies to be found in the product line, if only we took the time to look for them.How I opted to respond to that challenge was to focus on one under-appreciated aspect of the Web browser that will become more important as its components are transported to six-core desktop systems on one end, and Snapdragon handsets and netbooks on the other: scalability. Specifically, I started exploring whether there was a way to effectively measure how well a browser handles increasing workloads, of ever higher orders of magnitude.Mozilla helped to begin making scalability an issue with its introduction of the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine in Firefox. Tracers make problems that appear complex in coding simpler for their processing engines to execute, by pre-processing instructions ahead of time, converting and optimizing long sequences into easily digestible, assembly language-like instructions. Theoretically, the simpler and longer the sequences, the easier the digestive process should become.So in this new era, it becomes necessary to test the efficiency of a browser's capability to digest those long sequences, to make harder problems simpler for themselves. This is the scalability element which will represent 30% of the score in our revised Relative Performance Index.Yesterday, Dean Hachamovitch played down the importance of just-in-time compiling as a factor in improving browser efficiency, promoting instead the option of moving the interpreter to a background process. But doing that alone, as we're discovering now, may not effectively combat what has historically been IE's biggest problem as a Web apps platform: the ability to fall off a cliff (see: "stack overflow") when problems get especially difficult. On new tests involving sorting algorithms, for instance, where recursion easily becomes thousands of layers deep, IE8 can spin off into a coma. So far, we have not seen the comatose effect in the IE9 tech preview, which could be the first sign of very good news for Web app developers.What I was surprised to discover in crafting this new set of tests was that IE was not alone. Chrome can fall off a cliff too, just several orders of magnitude later (after 10 million iterations, for example, rather than 100,000). As the problem gets more and more complex, the gap between Chrome or Safari or the new Opera's performance and that of IE becomes wider and wider...and wider. And that's a problem because you could arbitrarily choose some point out in space, where Chrome is a thousand times faster than IE rather than, say, ten. Wait long enough and you might get 10,000.And that, as IE proponents assert, would not be fair. It's actually the reason we chose not to include Google's V8 benchmark battery in our tests: because there does not appear to be a real-world correlation between the hundreds of times greater performance the V8 battery can report over IE, and the differences we see in ordinary use.So the goal of our scalability tests is to recognize that smaller engines can still be efficient in what they do, even when they offer lesser horsepower. Maybe IE can't run a 10-million-iteration test. But the difference between its performance in 100,000 iterations and in 10,000 can be compared to Chrome's difference between 10 million iterations and 1 million. That factor may still be meaningful.In the very first report of browsers' scalability compared to IE7 in Vista SP2, the IE9 tech preview in Windows 7 scored a 6.57 compared to IE8's score of 1.13. That means, we believe IE9's new "Chakra" interpreter offers 581.4% greater efficiency than IE8 at speeding up when workloads increase. Betanews is applying these new tests to the latest stable browsers from the other Top Five browser makers; and yes, Ross Perot fans, we'll have the charts ready when the numbers come in. Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Unboxing: TiVo Premiere By Tim Conneally, Betanews Though you might come to Betanews expecting an article with either performance testing and graphs or inflammatory diatribes, we're not above a good unboxing; especially when it's a brand new piece of hardware that we intend to thoroughly test (or just very seriously play with.) Today, we're fortunate enough to have received a new TiVo Premiere, the first TiVo DVR with an HD interface designed especially to unite content from multiple sources under a single experience. They call it "The One Box." Have a look!TiVo Premiere UnboxingClick the TiVo logo above for the Grand Premiere Unboxing Slideshow! Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Sprint assures that it's getting the Nexus One, too By Tim Conneally, Betanews Nexus One Yesterday, an updated version of Google's Nexus One Android smartphone was released, compatible with AT&T and Rogers Canada's 3G networks. Today, Sprint is letting everyone know that it is getting the device too.This means that all four major wireless carriers have secured a spot for the Nexus One this year. Google sells versions of the device optimized for T-Mobile and AT&T's wireless networks, and a version for Verizon's network is still expected some time in the Spring, but the operator has not put out any further notices about its availability. Likewise, Sprint today isn't disclosing exactly when Google will start selling a Sprint-compatible Nexus One, nor is it disclosing any pricing plans associated with the device. Today's announcement is simply a confirmation that one is on the way "soon." Google has not updated its online store to reflect Sprint's announcement. Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati
  • Things to look for at CTIA: America's first 4G smartphone By Tim Conneally, Betanews Sprint is making the bold first move into 4G smartphone market next week, a Wall Street Journal report said today. At that time, the carrier is expected to show off its new WiMAX-enabled HTC Supersonic. The Supersonic has been a pretty big blip on the Android community's radar for several months, after a whole list of HTC device names was uncovered in a leaked Sense UI ROM last December. Since that time, a few more details have been discovered, and a few blurry spy camera shots and renders have surfaced; but as far as official specs go, there are none. It looks to have the same massive 4.3" screen that the HD2 has, run on the Android platform, and possibly contain a Snapdragon processor.Sprint is the only major mobile network operator with a higher-speed "4G" network immediately available to consumers, but it is currently only accessible through USB dongles and portable hotspots like the Sierra Wireless Overdrive, and these are still only available in about 10 markets nationwide.There are nearly 30 WiMAX networks active in the US now under the Clear brand (a joint venture of Sprint and Clearwire), and this year Clearwire expects to complete 80 more cities including major markets Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Seattle, and Washington DC. Since Betanews is headquartered in Baltimore, we've been using Sprint's WiMAX network since it first launched in 2008. I ran a quick test this morning to see how well the WiMAX connection holds up against my smartphones' 3G connections, and the performance was actually only marginally better. Using the FCC's Ookla network tester three times for each network, Sprint 4G averaged 5.35 Mbps / 0.30 Mbps with 130 ms latency, Verizon 3G averaged 1.61 Mbps / 0.65 Mbps with 122 ms latency, and T-Mobile 3G averaged 0.5Mbps / 0.45 Mbps with 215 ms latency. Unfortunately, I didn't have a device handy to test AT&T's speeds in the area this morning. We will be meeting with both Sprint and HTC at CTIA next week and will be able to give you a crystal clear look at the device if it does, in fact, show up. Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010 Add to digg Add to Google Add to Slashdot Add to Twitter Add to del.icio.us Add to Facebook Add to Technorati

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