Gallery: Bladestorm The Hundred Years´ War

One time PlayStation 3 exclusive, now coming to the Xbox 360, Bladestorm the Hundred Years´ War follows the traditional Koei formula: you versus lots of troops in a story driven hack and slash with RPG elements. These things are huge in Japan, but in the West? Not so much. That´s why Koei went Euro for their now-gen brawler from Omega Force.

I don´t think Koei is going to gain a new reputation for their graphics prowess, but you should decide for yourself. Michael McWhertor

Bladestorm The Hundred Years War

bladestormGalleryKoeiPS3Xbox 360 [SHOW]

Intel speeds up introduction of quad-core chip

(InfoWorld) - Intel Corp. says it has rushed introduction of a new quad-core chip originally scheduled for next year to Monday to meet demand from server manufacturers for the processor.

Intel is shipping the Xeon 5335 processor two months ahead of schedule as an addition to its 5300 series of quad core processors.

Quad cores, which allow the microprocessor package to perform up to four functions simultaneously, were first introduced by Intel in November. Intel has been pushed by rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.´s plans to launch a quad-core release in 2007.

The 5335 is a 2GHz processor with a 1.333GHz front-side bus and 8M bytes of Level 2 memory cache. The front side bus is the connection between the central processing unit and the memory cache. The 5335´s list price is US$690 when purchased in quantities of 1,000 or more.

It is positioned above the 5320 model, which features a 1.86GHz processor, a 1.066GHz front-side bus, selling for $455, and below the 5345, with a 2.33GHz processor and a 1.333GHz front-side bus for $851.

All three operate at 80 watts, compared to higher-end 5300s, which operate at 120 watts.

"The OEMs wanted these new processors. They said if there´s anything you could do so we could get the products early, it´d help," said Jason Waxman, director of Xeon server platforms marketing for Intel.

Waxman declined to be specific about which Intel fabrication facilities globally were used to make the 5335, but said Intel has the capacity to gear up production ahead of schedule.

The 5335 will be installed in server and/or workstations from companies such as Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Silicon Graphics Inc. and IBM Corp.

"It helps deliver that improved performance and allows people to get more out of a quad-core on a dual-socket server," said David Lord, a spokesman for Dell, who added that the 5335 is available as of Monday for order in a Dell PowerEdge server.

Intel still has two other quad-core processors to introduce in the first quarter, including a low volt 50-watt version, said Erica Fields, an Intel spokesperson.

 

This story has been corrected since its original release to reflect accurate prices.

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Firefox 3.0 Alpha Available for Download

Firefox is a fast-moving application, and now you can take a quick gander at the first Alpha version of Firefox 3.0, the next iteration of the open-source browser for Windows, Mac and Linux nicknamed Gran Paradiso. On the surface, it doesn´t look that different from the current version of Firefox (which we find to be unacceptably unstable, by the way).

Its innovations are under the hood, where it enhances compatibility with three tricked-out graphics standards that might soon be ubiquitous on the Web: Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), the Canvas specification, and the cairo graphics library. Sounds great, but what does all this stuff do? They all have to do with making Web pages look the same on any platform, and scaling up graphics without loss of quality.

Explanations, plus the download link, after the jump.

Scalable vector graphics have been around since 2001, and the idea here is to have a standard graphics format on the Web (the way jpeg and gif have become) that uses vectors, that is, descriptions of where lines will go rather than individual dots of each graphic that comprise bitmap images such as jpeg and gif. These graphics can be scaled up or down without any loss of resolution.

What about Canvas? It´s another next-gen Web technology that´s similar to Scalable Vector Graphics but adds the element of animation, where JavaScript code can access a defined area and dynamically draw on graphics such as graphs and animations.

The cairo graphics library is another vector-based graphics enabler that can use hardware acceleration that´s already in Firefox and has been since version 1.5. Cairo can work with the Quartz graphics engine in Mac OS X, as well as OpenGL.

There´s nothing quite like the speed of open-source development, but we wish version 2.0 of Firefox would be perfected before any grand adventures began on the next point release. But that´s just us. – Charlie White

Download Firefox 3.0 Alpha Here [Mozilla, via lifehacker]

AlphaCairoCanvasFirefoxFirefox 3.0Gran ParadisoMozillaScalable vector graphicsSoftwareSVG [SHOW]