Based on the architecture that was used to build the GeForce GTX Titan graphics card, NVIDIA has just officially announced the second graphics card to feature the GK110 GPU called GeForce GTX 780. As the name implies, It is also the first GeForce 700 series desktop GPU to be released into the market.

Running at a clock speed of up to 900MHz, the new GeForce GTX780 is said to offer up to 70-percent more performance than GeForce GTX 580 and 42-percent more than GeForce GTX 680. Apart from being packed with 2304 CUDA cores (384 less than GTX Titan) and 3GB 384-bit GDDR5, the new GeForce GTX 780 also supports the dynamic GPU Boost 2.0 as per GTX Titan.

The new graphic card also mark the arrival of an all-new feature by NVIDIA called adaptive temperature controller that helps to minimize unwanted fan speed fluctuations which supposedly leads to reduced noise when the card is in operation. While it is permanent feature and users are not able to disable it, they still able to control fan speed and fan performance curves through third-party performance tweaking software as usual.

Priced at around RM 1970 (USD 649), the Geforce GTX 780 is available from NVIDIA’s add-in-card partners right away in the form of reference design at the time being but users can expect to see custom design for them within a month or so. For further information, head on to www.nvidia.com.

Diablo III, the sequel to one of PC gaming’s favourite titles, crossed the one-year mark one week ago on May 15th. To commemorate the occasion, developers Blizzard has released a cool infographic with rapid fire stats in the year since it launched. Blizzard left no area of the metaphorical map unexplored, as numbers were crunched and detailed, from the total number of unique players who have played the game, to the total amount of gold found in the world of Sanctuary (a lot, by the way – but there’s no mention of whether the number was in any way affected by the recent glitch in the Real Money Auction House though).

In addition, Blizzard also added amusing and interesting trivia in the game. One example of it is the fact that Diablo III players have burned, in total, 4.7 billion calories just via mouse clicks. They were conservative in the measurements, too: Blizzard equated one monster kill to one mouse click – many a gaming mouse have fallen as we valiantly battled the monsters in Sanctuary.

That and more statistics and trivia for Diablo fans can be found in the (very) long infographic embedded after the break.

If the infographic has got you itching to try out the game, there’s some good news for you: in conjunction with Diablo III’s first birthday, Blizzard has slashed the price of the game to RM168. Hurry though, the offer only lasts until the end of this month.

(Source: Kotaku)

Qualcomm may be more renowned as makers of the Snapdragon chipsets powering plenty of smartphones today, but the company also has investments in other areas, namely in display technology with its Mirasol display tech. A mock-up of a smartphone using the Mirasol technology was shown in the SID Display Week, and the 5.1-inch Mirasol display certainly captures the imagination.

The 5.1-inch Mirasol panel Qualcomm is developing boasts a resolution of 2560 x 1440, giving it a eye-popping pixel density of 577ppi – far eclipsing the current densest screen (4.7 Full HD screen on the HTC One – 469ppi). Also, the Mirasol display uses up to six times less energy than standard LCD and OLED displays – again making this technology the stuff of the future. And it is: the Mirasol technology is still in R&D phase to eradicate the silver tint the highly reflective screen produces, and is not expected for the prime time for a few more years.

(Source: Engadget)

Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics have acquired a 10% stake of South Korea’s third-largest mobile device makers Pantech. The deal, worth a reported 53 billion Korean won ($48 million), makes Samsung Electronics the third-largest shareholder of Pantech, behind chipmakers Qualcomm and the Korea Development Bank.

To alleviate concerns regarding potential conflicts of interest, Samsung has released a statement about the purchase:

“Samsung Electronics has agreed to acquire a 10-percent stake in Pantech, valued at approximately KRW 53 billion. The investment is aimed at solidifying our relationship with Pantech, a key component customer of Samsung. Samsung will have no involvement in Pantech’s business management in any way or form.”

Pantech’s relationship with Samsung stems from its purchases of Samsung components for its devices, which is making a name for itself in the US in the middle-to-low end markets. This latest investment from Samsung follows the recent 3.08% investment into Sharp worth 10.4 billion won ($112 million), which also granted the Korean company access to the struggling Japanese company’s technology.

(Source: The Next Web)

Just moments ago, AMD have officially announced a number of new Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) that are designed for notebooks and tablets. Previously codenamed as Richland, Temash and Kabini, all three of them were first discussed by AMD at CES 2013 earlier this year.

The three platforms – which are officially referred to as 2013 AMD Elite Performance, Elite Mobility and Mainstream APUs respectively – resulted in 15 new APU models under AMD A-Series and E-Series line-up. Each platforms are designed to bring computing and graphics performance to all form factors that existed in current mobile computing world including touch-enabled notebooks as well as tablets and hybrid notebooks.

Since there are handful of them to go through, do check back later for our more in-depth look at AMD’s new mobile APUs for 2013.

[Source: AMD]

After numerous high-profile hacks into its user accounts, Twitter has finally begun rolling out two-step verification to all users. Just like Google, the added security layer is still an optional feature that needs to be enabled by the user. Once enabled, a six-digit verification code will be sent to a user’s phone via SMS, and this code will need to be entered the next time the user logs in to the social networking site.

Twitter also added that Twitter applications that have been linked to a user’s account prior to the two-step verification should remain unaffected after enabling the two-step verification. To add devices or applications after securing a user’s account with two-step verification, the user can access the applications management page to generate a temporary one-time password for login purposes. To find out more about how to activate two-step verification, Twitter has made a handy video embedded above.

(Source: Twitter via The Verge)

The first trailer for the upcoming Call of Duty game, called “Call of Duty: Ghosts”, was unveiled after last night’s Xbox One announcement. Unlike EA and DICE’s epic 17-minute gameplay video, CoD: Ghosts’ video is more run of the mill, with a focus to the storyline and epic sequences that the Call of Duty series have been known for in the past.

According to developers Infinity Ward, the new CoD title will also be powered by a new graphics engine that promises “amazing graphic fidelity and new innovative ways to play the game”. While the new graphics engine does not feature environment destructibility like that on Frostbite in EA’s Battlefield series, it also adds some new nifty movement-related features, such as the ability to retain momentum and automatically jump over small obstacles, and also to slide in and out of the battelfield – similar to what the Medal of Honor game implemented.

As we also know, “Ghosts” will feature a new set of characters, and a brand new story. Infinity Ward have revealed that the story will be written by Academy Award-winning writer Stephen Gaghan, whose previous works include “Traffic” and “Syriana”. Check out the behind-the-scenes video embedded after the jump – it’s a must-watch for all CoD fans.

While the arrival of BlackBerry 10 might have made previous iteration of BlackBerry OS pretty much outdated (no offence, BlackBerry fans), Porsche Design are still not yet done with their P’9981 smartphone which was originally launched back in 2011.

But this time around, only 25 units will be made available through selected Porsche Design stores throughout the world. The reason is rather obvious: this particular extra limited Porsche Design P’9981 Gold features a stainless steel case and a gold-colored titanium coating which is than further finished with a layer of 24-carat gold.

As if it is not pimped enough, the limited edition number for each unit is put on display right on the device’s camera cover that is located on the backside of the phone and is actually milled from a solid block of 24-carat gold.

No price was mentioned but frankly speaking, the Porsche Design P’9981 Gold most probably out of reach for us mortals given that the standard P’9981 already costs RM 6388 when it was launched in Malaysia last year.

[Source: via CrackBerry]

Apart from the Acer Aspire P3, Acer Malaysia today is also launching the new Aspire R7. The Malaysian unit of this multi-mode notebook is powered by Intel Core i5 and will be priced at RM 2999 once it hits retailers in June.

Meanwhile, the company will also be launching the 2013 Acer Aspire V series Ultrabooks in the same month although they will be arriving slightly later than R7; specifically towards the middle of June. Available in two different sub-series: the refreshed V5 (which is said to be slimmer and lighter than 2012 edition) and the all-new V7, the starting price for the 2013 Acer Aspire V series Ultrabooks will begin from RM 1,699 onwards.

Our brief preview of the Acer Aspire R7 and V7 alongside Aspire P3 will be available soon, so stay tuned but for now, do check out the Aspire R7 spec sheet and list of features for the 2013 Aspire V series through the Read More link below.

LG Electronics Malaysia has today announced its partnership with Brightstar Malaysia as the national distributor of selected models of LG’s Optimus smartphones. Effective this month, three new LG Optimus smartphones - the LG Optimus G, Optimus L9 and the Optimus L5 II Dual – are now officially available at all smartphone retailers nationwide, with the promise of more devices to come in the future.

Article continues after the break, with more information regarding the three devices.

The three LG smartphones available this month each cater to a specific target market: the flagship Optimus G premium smartphone, the mid-range Optimus L9 as well as the entry-level dual-SIM Optimus L5 II Dual. Retailing between RM529 and RM1599, the new LG smartphones look set to be viable alternatives in the increasingly competitive Android smartphone market.

The flagship Optimus G smartphone, released late last year, was the first to use Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Pro quad-core processor which soon became the processor of choice for many of the flagship smartphones in the past year. The Optimus G is also the device blueprint behind the LG Nexus 4, Google’s most powerful smartphone yet. What makes the Optimus G more appealing, however, is that it has 4G LTE connectivity which supports our local 4G networks, as well as a larger 13MP camera. For more information about the LG Optimus G, check out our review of LG’s pride and glory.

In addition, LG also announced the availability of the Optimus L9, a sleek and slim smartphone from the L-Series family. Featuring a 4.7-inch qHD IPS display with Gorilla Glass 2, it is powered by a TI OMAP4430 1GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM. There’s only 4GB of flash storage inside, but the L9 supports up to 32GB microSD cards. In addition, the Optimus L9 also sports an 8MP rear camera – a rare feature for smartphones in its price range. Also, the 2150mAh battery is also slightly larger than that on the Optimus G. Unfortunately, the Optimus L9 is only running on the older Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich – however, LG Malaysia has promised that an upgrade to Jelly Bean will be available in a month’s time.

Finally, the LG Optimus L5 II Dual is an affordable dual-SIM smartphone with a 4-inch, 480 x 800 IPS display. Powered by a Mediatek 1GHz single core processor and 512MB of RAM, the Optimus L5 II Dual also features a 5MP rear camera and 4GB of non-expandable storage. However, it sports a generous 1700mAh battery pack that should ensure pretty impressive battery life.

Both the LG Optimus G and Optimus L9 feature the Optimus UI 3.0, with plenty of advanced features such as QuickMemo and Safety Care. The Optimus L5 II Dual also has several of the features from the Optimus UI, such as QuickMemo. All three devices are now available nationwide, and will retail for RM1599 (Optimus G), RM899 (Optimus L9) and RM529 (Optimus L5 II Dual).

For more information about LG’s Optimus smartphones, head on to its official website here.