Going by Microsoft’s Greater China COO Michel van der Bel, the launch of Windows Phone in China is off to an auspicious start — enough to give Apple the shakes. He claims that devices like the Nokia Lumia 800c have helped Windows Phone reach seven percent of the Chinese market, or just enough to get past the six points of the iPhone. We’re waiting on hard data before we take van der Bel’s word: the top smartphone makers worldwide aren’t depending much or at all on Windows Phone, and the iPhone has a thriving gray market in China that masks some of its real numbers. Having said this, we’ve seen signs of Windows Phone enjoying a bit of a surge even in an iOS- and Android-loving Europe, so we’ll be watching to see if there’s an uptick in the number of buyers saying ni hao to Microsoft in the near future.

SOURCE via CNET

E-sports’ growing popularity among spectators shows no sign of slowing down. The MLG have posted some remarkable figures from the 2011 season. Around 3.5 million unique viewers in total have tuned into MLG Pro Circuit weekends this season. The Pro Circuit National Championships in Providence, Rhode Island drew more than quarter of a million concurrent viewers at peak times, from 175 different countries. MLG CEO Sundance DiGiovanni says that in the 18-24 age range, “MLG now pulls in larger audiences than several traditional television cable networks.”

MLG also say that visitors to their site during tournament weekends is up 225% on numbers seen in 2010. To celebrate the spike, they’ve put together a fancy infographic of the enormous numbers the 2011 season attracted. You’ll find that embedded below.

The MLG don’t say which games in particular have drawn the new audience, but the numbers are likely down to the spreading influence of the pro StarCraft 2 scene in the US and Europe. In October, Blizzcon hosted the first GSL finals to take place beyond Korea’s borders. The best StarCraft: Brood Wars players in the world were there, too, invited by Blizzard so that they could witness the growing passion for professional e-sports in the West.

The winter Dreamhack event that took place at the end of November also did extremely well, attracting a record 1.7 million unique web TV viewers. Even more watched the event on Swedish TV. Dreamhack hosted tournaments for StarCraft II, Quake Live, Counter-Strike 1.6, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, Dota 2, Heroes Of Newerth and Bloodline Champions, and received a record number of visitors. They expect to break records again when the four day summer event kicks off on June 16.

Toyota’s UK division spilled the beans on the production GT 86 over the holiday weekend, and now Subaru has let loose on its version of this jointly developed sports coupe: the BRZ. Not surprisingly, most of the details we know about both models are identical, including their naturally aspirated 2.0-liter horizontally opposed boxer engines, your choice of 6-speed manual or automatic (with shift paddles) transmissions, rear-wheel-drive layout and low center of gravity.

Toyota states that the GT 86′s engine will produce 197 bhp and 151 lb-ft of torque. Likewise, Subaru says its version will make a nice, round 200 horsepower and 151 lb-ft. Subaru also revealed a couple of tidbits that Toyota left out, including a svelte curb weight of 2,689 pounds and a standard tire size will be 215/45R17 rubber.

As for the car’s design, there’s nothing here we haven’t seen before in the various concept iterations of the BRZ (and FT-86, for that matter). It’s up to you to decide whether or not that’s a good thing, but we’ll just say we think the BRZ’s better angle is from the rear, while Toyota’s sharper at the front.

Based on information leaked from Chiphell, the new Ivy Bridge processors will have a maximum of 77 watts TDP (thermal design power), which is down from 95 watts for the current Sandy Bridge.

VR-Zone has provided what looks to be leaked roadmaps for the upcoming Ivy Bridge processors for 2012. The information is coming out of a Chinese forum (Chiphell), so the information can be taken as such, until official word from Intel. Based on the information provided, the new Ivy Bridge processors look to a have a peak TDP (thermal design power) of 77W for their extreme processors. The Ivy Bridge TDP looks to range from 77W down to 35W on their “power optimized” CPUs.

The roadmap shows a complex diagram on Intel’s plans for late Q1/early Q2 2012. The information on the left looks to be information on Intel’s marketing segmentations for each processor. The map shows there will be the standard unlocked K SKU’s, just like with current gen Sandy Bridge processors.  Intel’s shrink to 22nm, alongside with its new “3D transistors”, looks to be helping push down the TDP on the new Ivy Bridge processors. The quad core 65W S and 45W T SKU’s are similar to what we are seeing on current Sandy Bridge CPUs. The new Pentium Ivy Bridge SKU’s gain DDR3 1600MHz memory support, along with the rest of the Ivy Bridge chips.

There doesn’t seem to be much of a format change for the upcoming Ivy Bridge CPUs and their name format. The higher-end CPUs will start with the i7 tag with unlocked versions followed by a “K” and lower power models followed by “S/I”. Medium range CPUs will start with the i5 tag and the lower ranges will have the usual i3 tag. The CPUs will start with Core i7 37xx, Core i5 35xx, 34xx and 33xx, Core i3 31xx.  The Pentiums and Celerons are expected to get a fourth digit in front which will be a 2, so they will be Pentium G2xxx.

Intel looks to be taking a page from AMD on making the Ivy Bridge CPU scompatible with current gen Sandy Bridge platforms (though there are things to watch for). The easiest method is to go with the newer 7-series chipsets, which will support current gen Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs, according to Intel. If you want to use your current motherboard, things get a little more difficult for the end-user. Bad news first, the Q67, Q65 and B65 chipsets will not support Ivy Bridge even with a motherboard firmware update. The Z68, P67, H67 and H61 chipsets look to all be compatible with a required UEFI update (this can be seen by recent announcements of motherboard makers coming out the PCIe Gen 3 support, which require the Ivy Bridge CPU). This will require a flash to Intel’s ME8L (L for Legacy) UEFI code to provide support for Ivy Bridge on the motherboards (VR-Zone hints that the ME8L may not be available for updating at initial launch of Ivy Bridge).

SOURCE via vr-zone

If you’re a huge fan of the classic arcade game, Space Invaders, and you don’t have $10,000 to shell out for a fancy Space Invaders watch, this alarm clock could be the next best thing. Who can forget the awesome sounds of lasers pew-pewing and aliens shuffling their way down to your planet? Well with the Space Alien alarm clock you can relive all of your glorious Space Invaders moments.

Not only does this clock wake you up to the nostalgia provoking sounds of the Space Invaders game, it also shuffles side by side on your night stand, almost taunting you to blast it. Sure the alarm features a simple design, but it is a must have for diehard fans of the alien blasting classic. If you’d like to see one of these moving around on your desk, head on over to I Want One of Those to purchase one for ~$21.

After American expat BirdAbroad made her local stores famous last week, local officials have since been combing through the city’s 300-plus gadget shops on behalf of Apple China, and managed to dig up two more “Apple” stores. It’s not exactly clear if these new offenders are at the same severity as the ones spotted by BirdAbroad, but the authorities have confirmed that none of the five stores are Apple Authorised Resellers, let alone having its permission to use its logo on their store front.

Additionally, two out of the five stores have since been shut down due to unlicensed retail operation. The fate of the remaining three is still unknown — the officials have only concluded that no KIRF products have been found in the stores, though details such as the decor and staff uniform are certainly very similar to those of the real deal. BirdAbroad has since gathered photos of more sketchy Apple stores across the world, so go take a gander. Oh, and for those who have been out of the loop, there’s a hands-on video of one of the Kunming stores after the break.

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LG is apparently tired of this tiny OLED stuff and has decided it’s time to super-size the organically-powered panels and plans to introduce a 55-inch HDTV in mid-2012. We’ve got faith it can deliver too — last summer the Korean manufacturer was showing off a 31-inch model (above) and it sounds like the company is shifting focus completely towards larger sizes. CEO Kwon Young-soo has said that IPS technology is much better suited for the mobile space. Of course, LG has promised impressively-sized panels before and, even if such a set does make it to market, chances are you’ll have to take out a second mortgage to afford one.

SOURCE via Slashgear

Microsoft is keeping up with its tradition in sending Mozilla something sweet each time a new version of Firefox “ships.” Awww, ain’t that sweet! Tuesday Internet browser rival Microsoft sent Mozilla a congratulatory cupcake for shipping Firefox 5. It wasn’t six feet tall with a bikini-clad bimbo inside waiting to burst through the icing. There wasn’t even anything explosive or stinky that would bring the launch party to a screeching halt. Instead it was just a large cupcake sitting in a box, wrapped with a pretty blue ribbon and sporting Internet Explorer’s iconic “e” logo like a big blue eye.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft sent Mozilla a tasty congratulatory treat. The Internet Explorer team sent along an entire cake back in 2008 with the launch of Firefox 3, and then sent another somewhat smaller cake this past March when Mozilla unleashed Firefox 4. Typically the IE team sends its “love” with a comment like “congratulations on shipping,” but seeing how the desserts keep getting smaller with each Firefox release, the IE team was reduced to writing the love note on the actual shipping box this time around.

So what’s the point in sending the sweets if they’re not laced with poison to take the rivals out once and for all? There’s certainly nothing wrong with a little bit of friendly competition – competition is what drives innovation, and innovation brings us things like VoIP calling within a browser, HTML5 video and Farmville. And after all, even if IE and Firefox are competing browsers, Microsoft still wins in the end given that Firefox enables Windows-based consumers – those who don’t like Internet Explorer – to shop for Microsoft products online, watch videos laced with Microsoft ads, and even use Bing to hunt down whatever they choose.

Microsoft launched Internet Explorer 9 on March 14 and saw up to 27 downloads per second, and over 250 downloads every 10 seconds, reaching a reported 2.3 million downloads in just 24 hours. The release of Firefox 5 was much more successful with 5 million downloads in 24 hours, partially thanks to its support for Windows XP. So, essentially the cupcake is Microsoft’s way of recognizing Mozilla’s success while also reminding the Firefox team that Internet Explorer is still lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike at any moment. Oh, and thanks for the business too, gang.

SOURCE via winrumors