The Kinect controller for Windows has just become available. It is compatible with all Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs with a 2.66GHz dual-core or faster CPU and at least 2GB RAM.

Note that the Kinect for Windows comes with no pre-bundled compatible application or game. We are yet to see its powers in Windows environment. Read more »

Intel has just unveiled seven new members of its Sandy Bridge family of CPUs. We got three quad-core desktop processors of the Core i5 variety and four Celeron CPUs meant for use in mobile devices.

The first and most powerful of the new processors is Core i5-2550K, which is an unlocked-multiplier CPU with a stock clock speed of 100MHz higher than the i5-2500K. The i5-2550K runs at 3.4GHz, with frequencies of up to 3.8GHz possible with the Turbo boost. Read more »

The words ‘affordable’ and ‘Alienware’ don’t usually go together but with the new Alienware X51, Dell intends to change that. It is the smallest Alienware desktop gaming system so far and also the cheapest. But despite the starting price of ‘just’ $699, the new Alienware X51 packs in decent hardware.

For starters you get a 3.3GHz Core i3-2120 processor as standard with the option to upgrade to a Core i5 or i7. You also get a full-size Nvidia GeForce GT545 with 1GB GDDR5 memory with an option to choose the GT555. Read more »

If you thought Lenovo was going to stop its announcements at ultrabooks and netbooks, you obviously don’t know the company very well. The Chinese announcement marathon continued with a bunch of solid desktop computers and refreshed all-in-ones.

More specifically, the IdeaCentre B-series got a refresh in the form of the B540 and B340 powerful all-in-ones, while the Lenovo desktop family got new members from the IdeaCentre K and H series. Read more »

OCZ opened their CES 2012 tally by unveiling a new member of their SSD lineup. Dubbed Lightfoot, the new OCZ SSD comes with a twist – it uses Thunderbolt as its only connectivity option.

You remember Thunderbolt technology, right? Cool, because this OCZ model is utilizing it perfectly by combining its high transfer speeds with the great write/read speeds of Solid State Drives. Read more »

Vizio is an American consumer electronics brand known for their highly-competitive prices that have made them such a hit in the continent. Now they plan to enter the Windows-based computer segment with these ultra-stylish notebooks and All In Ones (AIO).

There will be five models on sale, two of which will be AIOs, one with a 24-inch display and the other with a 27-inch display and the other three will be notebooks. Two of these will be Ultrabooks with a 14-inch and a 15.6-inch display and the last one is a regular 15.6-inch notebook. Read more »

UK-based electrical retailer Comet have incurred the wrath of the big ‘M’ over in Redmond, Washington.

Microsoft are presently taking legal action against Comet following allegations of the production and sale of bootlegged copies of both Windows XP and Windows Vista recovery CDs. Read more »

The highly anticipated AMD 7xxx-series GPU are finally arriving and the first one out of the gate is the Radeon HD 7970. This is the first GPU to utilize the 28nm process technology and according to AMD is the fastest single-GPU graphics card in the market today.

The 7970 is clocked at 925MHz and can be overclocked to 1.1GHz. It has 2,048 stream processors and 3GB of GDDR5 memory with 384-bit memory bus. It is also the first graphics card in the world to use the Direct3D 11.1 technology and AMD’s Graphics Core Next GPU architecture and natively supports PCI Express 3.0. Read more »

Ivy Bridge seems to be moving away from us every time we get closer – Intel has reportedly told its partners that their next generation desktop CPUs won’t be hitting the market in March-April as previously thought, but instead will come out some time in Q2 2012.

The new processors feature several key improvements that make it worth the wait – or it did at least when we thought they were coming sooner. Read more »

The upcoming Windows 8 is a huge jump ahead in terms of touchscreen usability, but some worry that’s at the cost of non-touchscreen usability. Well, Synaptics are showing off a cool concept which uses the touchpad on a laptop to mimic a touchscreen.

The concept is called Synaptics Gesture Suite (SGS) and works surprisingly well for some gestures – switching between app with a horizontal swipe, docking apps to the screen, using tabs in Internet Explorer all seem highly usable and cool. Read more »

App Player alpha for Windows is a newly released piece of free software from developer BlueStacks. Designed to run on Windows PC’s and tablets, it allows you to run Android apps on your Windows computer or tablet, with no modification to the original app.

App Player lets you run apps windowed or full screen and with their Cloud Connect service, you can share software between your Android and Windows devices easily. Read more »

Apple’s implementation of Intel’s Light Peak technology is going places. Intel has now announced that they will be bringing the technology to Windows-based computers as well, with companies like ASUS and Acer joining the bandwagon and getting their products ready for a 2012 launch.

Being the same essential technology, Thunderbolt on these other devices will work the same way as it does on the new range of Mac computers. It will have the same specifications and features that Apple touts for its new range of Macs and will work with the same set of accessories. Read more »

We as a race have always had a fascination with speed, making faster cars with better aerodynamics, pushing the global network faster and faster with fiber optic broadband and for power users, a PC needs a lightning fast brain to deal with those heavy duty tasks.

But what about trying to squeeze the greatest clock speed you can out of a stock CPU, just for the sake of it. Read more »

This one is for AMD fans – Radeon-branded, AMD-manufactured DDR3 RAM modules. They will come in three flavors, but all share the same capacity – 2GB. The differences are in clock speed and timings.

The three flavors are Entertainment, ULTRA PRO Gaming and Enterprise. The Entertainment line is clocked at 1333MHz (9-9-9 timings), while the ULTRA PRO Gaming goes at 1600MHz (11-11-11). Read more »

Apple has launched a new $999 iMac, which is now their cheapest iMac. But unlike the other iMacs, you can’t just go to a store and buy one. This one is limited to educational institutions only, so unless your school or college is spending money on these for your computer lab, you probably won’t get to use one.

This model differs slightly from the base $1,199 iMac. The $999 iMac has a slower 3.1GHz dual-core Intel Core i3 processor instead of the faster quad-core Core i5 on the more expensive model. Read more »