Midtown Blogger/Manhattan Valley Follies: Extreme Tech

Brace for the BGPocalypse: Big disruptions loom as internet overgrowth continues

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ET deals: Core i7 HP Envy 17t for $800, Flex 20 mobile PC $650, Lumia 520 prepaid $40, more August 13, 2014 at 3:51 pm
Today we’ve got some fantastic deals for you on a wide range of electronics, peripherals and accessories. We’ve got a great price on a powerful 17-inch touch laptop, the lowest price we’ve ever seen on a 20-inch multi-mode PC, and a great low price on a prepaid AT&T smartphone.
Alienware Alpha is the first Steam Machine … but it runs Windows, and comes with a normal Xbox 360 gamepad August 13, 2014 at 9:01 am
Alienware has announced that its Steam Machine — the Alienware Alpha — will be available in November for $550. Curiously, though, the Alpha — which should be the first commercially available Steam Machine — won’t ship with Valve’s purpose-built Steam Controller. The Alpha also won’t ship with SteamOS. In fact, the Alienware Alpha is basically just a mid-spec Windows 8.1 PC that boots straight into Steam Big Picture Mode. Considering Steam Machines were meant to usher in a new era of Linux-based living room game consoles, with a magical gamepad that makes PC games playable from your couch, what exactly is Alienware playing at?
PS4 sales top 10 million worldwide, while Xbox One still only around 5 million August 13, 2014 at 6:31 am
At Gamescom in Germany, Sony has announced that the PlayStation 4 has sold over 10 million units since it launched nine months ago in November 2013. Meanwhile, Microsoft still hasn’t released any recent sales figures for the Xbox One, suggesting the console isn’t doing all that well. Our estimates put the Xbox One at around 5 million units sold through to customers — or about half the total sales of the PS4. According to a fateful quote by ex-Xbox chief Don Mattrick, it would appear that the PS4 has won this generation’s console war.
ET deals: Toshiba Satellite 15.6-inch laptop with touch for $370 August 12, 2014 at 5:25 pm
Touchcreens help you get the most out of any new Windows 8 laptop these days, but it’s often an expensive add-on that takes any laptop out of the budget realm. Today we’ve spotted a huge savings on a refurbished model direct from Toshiba, giving you a modern laptop with a touchscreen for just $370.
Microsoft at Gamescom: DLNA returns, white Xbox One, live TV streaming coming this year August 12, 2014 at 3:45 pm
A new white Xbox One bundle sans Kinect is coming in October, and a previously announced major third-party title is now officially an Xbox exclusive. In addition to the announcements on stage, a blog post from Microsoft’s Jeff Rubenstein outlined a handful of software improvements slated for the platform later this year. Among them, live television streaming to SmartGlass devices stands out as a major feature for Xbox One enthusiasts.
Reversible USB Type-C connector finalized: Devices, cables, and adapters coming soon August 12, 2014 at 12:25 pm
The USB Promoter Group has announced that the greatest invention in the known universe — the reversible Type-C USB connector — is finally ready for mass production. The USB Implementers Forum will now take the Type-C spec and start building devices, cables, and adapters that support the new reversible connector. We could begin seeing Type-C USB devices over the next few months, but it may take a little while for Type-C to reach critical mass.
The 270TB storage pod: Does Seagate or WD make the ultimate 6TB hard drive? August 12, 2014 at 10:59 am
Signaling that 6TB hard drives are no longer for the exclusive enjoyment of expensive enterprise-level setups, Backblaze has crammed 45 of the drives into a single enclosure to create what we believe to be the highest-density storage pod ever created — 270 terabytes of spinning platter joy in a 4U rack-mount chassis. Better yet, if you have about $15,000 to hand and a penchant for computer building, you could even build your own 270TB storage pod — Backblaze open-sources its hardware designs, so you can simply follow along.
Google invests in 60-terabit $300-million trans-Pacific cable to protect its growth in Asia August 12, 2014 at 10:18 am
Google has joined forces with a number of Asian telecoms giants to deploy the world’s fastest trans-Pacific submarine cable. The cable, which is lumbered with the rather unimaginative name “Faster”, will have an initial capacity of 60 terabits per second. Faster (it’s not even an acronym!) will provide an important high-speed link from the west coast of the US to landing points in Japan, and then on to rapidly growing markets in China, India, Indonesia, and other Asian countries. The cable will be deployed by NEC at a total cost of $300 million.
Nvidia details 64-bit Denver Tegra K1, claims Haswell-class performance for first 64-bit Android chip August 12, 2014 at 7:38 am
Nvidia has finally taken the wraps off its 64-bit Denver CPU core — and, well, let’s just say that the 64-bit Android race just got a lot more interesting. The Denver CPU will be available later this year in the Tegra K1 SoC, where you’ll get two Denver cores and a 192-core Kepler GPU. Nvidia says this will be the first 64-bit ARM chip for Android, and that it “completely outpaces” other ARM SoCs. The Denver CPU is so beastly that it even beats out some PC-class chips (the low-end Haswell Celeron), while consuming much less power. The secret behind this performance boost is a novel technology called Dynamic Code Optimization.
ET deals: Dell Inspiron Core i5 desktop with 8GB RAM for $500 August 11, 2014 at 3:57 pm
Today’s deal is for the desktop user who wants strong performance but doesn’t want to pay for anything too fancy. This we’ll spec’d Core i5 Inspiron desktop will deliver great results for everyday use for years to come, all for just $500, the lowest price we’ve seen.