GIF is Oxford’s 2012 Word of the Year in the US

It was two decades ago that Tim Berners-Lee and his CERN colleagues uploaded the very first .GIF file to the Internet, and GIF has come a long way since then. Being the abbreviation of “graphics interchange format”, it has at long last taken its place among the pantheon of tech words in the Oxford dictionary, having good company such as “tweet,” “blog,” and “google”. Bear in mind that GIF remains Oxford’s Word of the Year 2012 in the US, while our friends living across the pond has named “omnishambles” as its Word of the Year in the UK.

Back in the US, “GIF” managed to beat out “superstorm”, a term that gained popularity after Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, while “YOLO,” a shortened version of “You only live once”, proved to put up quite a fight as well. Glad that the road to such prominence, while long and winding, proved worthwhile – will JPG make the cut anytime soon?

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Vudu Internet streaming 1080p video announced

Vudu has just announced that their 1080p video streaming service is available over the Web, allowing users to enjoy a cinema-like experience straight from their browsers as well as Vudu To Go, making it the first-of-its-kind service that is available in today’s market. Touted to be the first streaming service to use a Web browser to deliver HDX, which is the highest-quality content available from any Internet, broadcast or satellite on-demand service, your eyes will definitely be clamoring for a better quality monitor if you haven’t made an upgrade to your monitor for years. HDX is a groundbreaking video format that is capable of offering stunning 1080p HD True Digital video, where it complements HDX streaming also over Vudu-enabled HDTVs, the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Blu-ray players and streaming media devices including (but not limited to) Roku and Boxee.

One of Vudu’s strengths would be it having the world’s largest selection of HD movies, where among these include thousands of blockbusters, Hollywood classics and indie films. All movies are available the same day they are released on DVD or Blu-ray, so you know for sure there is no need to play the waiting game longer than normal, and you can rent or purchase these movies without the need for a subscription. Are you looking forward to enjoy this new service from Vudu?

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McAfee sought by police in murder investigation

John McAfee’s name is a famous one – at least his family name is, for coming up with one of the more popular antivirus programs in the realm of PC computing. It is rather unfortunate that he is currently being sought after by the Belize police in connection with a murder, where American expatriate Gregory Faull is concerned. Faull was shot on Saturday night at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye, and Vienne Robinson, assistant superintendent of the San Pedro police department in Belize, informed FoxNews.com that police are hot on the trails of McAfee.

Robinson mentioned, “We are looking for him in connection with the murder. No one has been charged with murder yet. Everyone was scared of McAfee. He was walking around the beach carrying a gun.” We do hope that the police will be able to do their job efficiently and without any obstructions of justice, while folks in Belize recover from this rather painful experience. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the real culprit will be caught soon – and justice will be swift and fast.

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Asus VivoBook U38N hits the FCC

Asus’ latest VivoBook U38N has just made an appearance at the FCC, and it goes without saying that the Asus VivoBook U38N itself is set to follow for a general release in due time Stateside. To understand more about the Asus VivoBook U38N, it resembles an Ultrabook, but on the technical side of things, it does not qualify to be one since it is powered by an AMD processor instead of an Intel processor. Still, this 13.3” notebook measures a mere 0.7” in thickness and tips the scales at 3.4 pounds, while sporting a 1920 x 1080 pixel IPS touchscreen display, 4GB RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.

The AMD A8 quad-core processor runs proceedings from within, and you will be happy to know that Asus has thrown in a trio of USB 3.0 ports at the side, in addition to a mini VGA port and an HDMI port. 802.11n WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity options are complemented by Bang & Olufsen speakers. With its 48Whr battery, it can last for up to 5 hours on a full charge. Windows 8 has been pre-installed as a standard, and the only thing which we need to look out for now would be an official announcement on its price tag and availability.

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Tsukumo G-Gear GA9J-J43/XE2 Gaming PC

Tsukumo-G-Gear-GA9J-J43_XE2-Gaming-PC

Tsukumo Japan has once again expanded its line of gaming PCs by launching the G-Gear GA9J-J43/XE2. Specs-wise, the system is equipped with a 3.50GHz Intel Core i7-3970X Extreme Edition processor, an Intel X79 Express Chipset, a GeForce GTX 680 2GB graphics card, a 16GB DDR3 RAM, a 256GB SSD, a DVD Super Multi Drive, a 700W 80PLUS BRONZE power supply and runs on Windows 8 Pro 64-bit OS. The G-Gear GA9J-J43/XE2 is available now for 234,980 Yen (about $2,953). [Product Page]

Acer C7 Chromebook officially announced at $199

Not to be outdone with Samsung’s latest $249 Chromebook, Acer is also introducing its second-generation Chromebook that’s worth $199. We previously reported that Acer is prepping up a second-generation Chromebook and is already poised for a mid-October release. Well, it looks like Acer has just timed the launch perfectly, considering how busy October was. The new Acer C7 Chromebook promises to deliver a hassle-free computing experience with speed, built-in security, and the simplicity of automatic updates.

It sports an 11.6-inch display with a 1366 x 768 resolution and it comes with a full-size keyboard, fully clickable trackpad, and a battery that offers around 3.5 hours of battery life. Inside the new Acer Chromebook is an Intel Core processor, an HD camera, USB 2.0, a 320GB hard drive, and a whopping 100GB of free storage on Google Drive. Expect this Chromebook to hit stores tomorrow, November 13 at the price of $199. Get this on Google Play and Best Buy.

“Creating a better, simpler computer and making it available for everyone is at the core of the Chromebook vision. It’s exciting to see people using Chromebooks as the perfect additional computer in the home, and we continue to work with our partners to make them easy-to-use and more affordable,” said Sundar Pichai, Senior Vice-President for Chrome and Apps at Google. “Today, we’re delighted that our partner Acer is introducing a new addition to the Chromebook family: the new Acer C7 Chromebook.”

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NVIDIA Powers World’s Fastest Supercomputer: the Titan

NVIDIA is making some noise in the supercomputing world today by unveiling its latest Tesla K-Series, in which K stands for “Kepler”, which is the name of the micro-architecture used to build it. That is the same architecture used in NVIDIA’s most recent graphics processors (GPUs) which is now making its way to the supercomputing world.

Unlike traditional GPUs, the Tesla Series is built to take advantage of the massive parallelism of graphics processors to accelerate general computation tasks. In fact, the Tesla cards don’t even have a video-out port which could remind us of their graphics cards cousins. (more…)

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The Simpsons USB flash drives

America’s most dysfunctional cartoon family, the Simpsons, is definitely one of my favorite cartoon series to date – and for good reason, of course. The offbeat humor, parody of certain real life characters and situations, and generally the script as well as storyline with characters who seem absolutely real and alive did it for me. I am quite sure the merchandise juggernaut for the Simpsons is a force not to be trifled with, and here we are with the latest edition of The Simpsons USB flash drives.

This new collection of USB flash drives depict all immediate family of the Simpsons – including Homer, Marge, Lisa, and of course, Bart the man, and are produced by Italian company Tribe. Somehow, the size proportion does seem to be a wee bit off compared to the original cartoon characters to me, but it could be just last night’s late night out that has caused me to have less than perfect eyesight and judgment this morning. What do you think – are you willing to fork out your hard earned money for more USB flash drives that you know you will never use, but rather, will display on the desk or display cabinet instead?

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‘Power Hunters’ Are ‘Jersey Strong’ In Aftermath Of Hurricane Sandy [Videos]

'Power Hunters' Are 'Jersey Strong' In Aftermath Of Hurricane SandySeeking power was an arduous task as most folks learned early on in the
aftermath of superstorm, Hurricane Sandy. Desperately seeking power for
our cell phones, iPads and laptops became part of the zeitgeist emanating from those affected in New Jersey and New York. The power grid
that used to affect only our heat, electricity and land lines now
included cell towers that experienced disrupted service as well. Even
for those services that remained operational, without electricity we
needed alternatives to charge our devices.

Storm Power Gamer Samsung-SP Gaming PC

Storm-Power-Gamer-Samsung-SP-Gaming-PC

Here comes a new gaming PC from Storm System Technology, the Storm Power Gamer Samsung-SP. Powered by a 3.40GHz Intel Core i7-3770 processor, the system is equipped with an Intel Z77 Express Chipset, a GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB graphics card, an 8GB DDR3 RAM, a 250GB SSD (Samsung SSD 840 Series), a DVD Super Multi Drive, a 600W 80PLUS BRONZE power supply and runs on Windows 8 Pro 64-bit OS. The Storm Power Gamer Samsung-SP is available now for 129,990 Yen (about $1,634). [Product Page]