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One of the complaints some people have with Amazon’s Kindle Fire device is that it’s only 7 inches. Sure, it’s relatively affordable in the land of tablets (or glorified eBook readers, if you prefer to call it that), but certainly a larger screen size would put additional competitive heat on Apple’s iPad, the only tablet line that sells better than the Fire. Well, it looks as though a 10.1-inch Kindle Fire is nearing release.

According to DigiTimes, Amazon is “likely” to launch a full-sized Kindle Fire tablet device in the third quarter of this year, and is so serious … [Read More...]

MSI’s ‘Gamer’s Choice Edition GTX 680 Norris Edition’ is a high-end gaming PC, but it’s not an official Chuck Norris system, because a gaming PC implies eventual obsolescence and Chuck Norris would never allow that to happen. There are millions of PC gamers in the wild, because Chuck Norris allows there to be, and as far as we know, there’s only one Norris Edition system, an obvious reference to the martial arts master and Internet sensation.

So we’ve established that MSI’s latest system is missing Chuck, but otherwise the recipe includes plenty of promising ingredients. It starts with a liquid … [Read More...]

Whenever a new Windows OS rears its head, Microsoft alleviates the concerns of wary would-be PC buyers who may be tempted to put off purchasing a new computer for couple of months by offering them a free upgrade to the soon-to-be-released Windows flavor. That may grind to a halt with Windows 8; several sources say Microsoft will still give recent Windows 7 PC buyers a chance to upgrade, but only if buyers shell out another $14.99.

However, that $14.99 bucks will net users full access to Windows 8 Pro rather than the everyday Windows 8 OS, CNET’s Mary Jo Folley … [Read More...]

Bad definitions pop up every now and again in the antivirus world, as evidenced by that boondoggle a few months back when Microsoft’s AV started banning Google’s Chrome browser as a malicious app. A new set of bad definitions may be the worst whoops! we’ve ever seen, though; a ProActiv definition update pushed to premium Avira subscribers brought Windows PCs around the world to a halt after incorrectly labeling a bevy of critical processes as malware. Ruh-roh Raggie! 

ZDNet reports that the Avira forums were alight this morning with tales of all kinds of false positives. (We’d link to specific … [Read More...]

Faster Wi-Fi ain’t just coming, folks — it’s already here. Just a few weeks back, we reported that Netgear was racing to be the first manufacturer with a speedy new 802.11ac router available on the consumer market, expecting to ship its R6300 router sometime this month. Well, “sometime” wasn’t fast enough; we’re still waiting on the R6300, while Buffalo announced that its first 802.11ac devices are available in stores today in the form of the AirStation WZR-D1800H wireless router and the WLI-H4-D1300 wireless media bridge.

With theoretical maximum speeds of up to 1.3Gbps, 802.11ac signals could achieve speeds three times … [Read More...]

After a ton of speculation, a bit of denial, and a ton of testing we finally have our answer. The thermal interface material change made by Intel when it went from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge is indeed the cause of the excessive temperatures we’ve observed while overclocking. The first accusation was made in late-April by Overclockers.com, however proving it wasn’t easy. The Japanese division of PC Watch somehow managed to remove the integrated heat spreader from a Core i7 3770k, along with the stock binding and grease. They then proceed to replace it with aftermarket alternatives, and the results … [Read More...]

Members of the case modding community have long looked up to John Hanlon, aka JohnHanlon303, as more than just a friendly face; many consider him a full-fledged mentor. Earlier this year, the community learned that Hanlon suffers from incurable asbestos poisoning that leaves him with 40 percent lung capacity and recently, left him permanently unable to work. Rather than simply sending social media condolences, the modderati, with the help of several sponsors, leaped into action to try and raise funds for Hanlon. The result — the John Hanlon Fundraiser PC — went up for auction on eBay this afternoon and … [Read More...]

Changes are a-coming to chkdsk and NTFS health in Windows 8, and unlike the controversial Metro interface, these tweaks should make everyone happy. As hard drives get bigger, the Windows 7 chkdsk times get longer (and longer, and longer…) when hard disk errors occur, as infrequent as they are. In a worse-case scenario, attempting to boot a corrupt drive can take hours. The new system changes all that.

The Windows 8 improvements will let NTFS try to identify corruptions on-the-fly and make an instant fix in the background, no usage interruptions required. If that doesn’t work, Windows 8 will conduct … [Read More...]

Hey, remember that whole Mass Effect 3 ending thing? Mercifully, I don’t plan on giving it any further attention beyond that sentence. But it did – in its less oppressively obnoxious moments – give rise to a renewed discussion about videogame endings. The general consensus? It’s the point where even the mightiest fall, tumbling from a perch of lofty regard to the turgid depths of disappointment. BioShock, Fallout 3, Knights of The Old Republic II – even the most beloved franchises have proven all-too-capable of heinous back-stabbery at the 11th hour. 

And those are only the standouts. Plenty of other series … [Read More...]

According to the old Internet rumor mill, Nvidia’s GTX 670 graphics card is set to launch this Friday. Pictures of alleged retail boxes have been popping up for a while, even before the massive dual-GPU GTX 690 hit the streets a week ago. Now, one reviewer claims that a unit fell into his hands courtesy of an unnamed manufacturer, and he’s benchmarked the leaked card and slapped the results up on the web for all to see.

Usually, these reported leaks turn out to be B.S., but the folks over at TweakTown have a sterling reputation for honesty and have … [Read More...]

When Eric Cartman prettied himself up in makeup and started shouting “Whatever! I’ll do what I want!” on a fictional Maury Povich talk show, he and South Park’s creators were flexing the freedom of speech rights allowed to everyone in the United States. Now, Google may be getting ready to do what it wants, too; the company recently commissioned a report by a First Amendment scholar who concluded that Google’s search engine results are constitutionally protected speech and shouldn’t be subject to government anti-trust regulations.

UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, the brains behind the claims, says that search engine results … [Read More...]

What’s the future of memory look like? NAND flash? Hybrid memory cubes? The memory makers over at Micron have their hands in both of those technologies, but they’re also banking on a third form hitting the streets before too long, bearing a striking resemblance to the DDR3 we all know and love. This weekend, the company announced that “its first fully functional DDR4 DRAM module” is up and running and should make it to market in 2013.

DDR4 has higher clock speeds and data transfer rates than DDR3 while simultaneously using less voltage than its predecessor, although the final standard … [Read More...]

Are you ready for the second coming of Google’s Internet-enabled TV platform? Well, ready or not, Google TV is once again on the horizon, and this time it will be LG making a big push to promote the platform, not Logitech, which had some harsh words for the service after being burned by weak sales and left holding millions of dollars in unsold inventory. That’s all in the past as far as LG is concerned, and the future starts in mid-May.

“Production of Google TVs will start from May 17 from our factory in Mexico and U.S. consumers will be … [Read More...]

The GTX 680 and AMD Radeon 7000 series cards that showed up this year run cooler and more efficiently than cards from previous generations, but hey, they’re still powerful pieces of technology; pumping out those kinds of polygons puts out some high temperatures. If your new GPU has been running a bit hot under the collar, you’ll be happy to hear that a trio of new cooling solutions from Arctic can help you beat the heat. And if you haven’t been able to spring for a new GPU in 2012, that’s okay; these coolers support a vast array of cards … [Read More...]

When people say that we’re living in a post PC era, they’re typically only looking at sales of prebuilt systems — the HP, Dell and Lenovo “PCs in a box” that grace the shelves of your local retailers. Those numbers, however, fail to take component sales and custom builds into consideration. (Sacrilege!) Now, a new report highlights just what we’re missing by omitting component sales: Jon Peddie Research, a prominent research firm, says that PC gaming hardware sales will hit $23.6 billion — that’s “billion,” with a “B” — in sales by the end of the year.

The sales will … [Read More...]

With May 15th less than two weeks away, it’s no surprise that the Diablo III hype train is starting to chug along at full speed. Blizzard opened the game’s doors to everybody with a Battle.net account for an open beta a couple of weekends back, and in the past few days, the company has released a slick new TV trailer and unveiled the fee structure for Diablo III’s controversial auction house item-selling feature. (You know, the one that “forced” Blizzard to invoke always-on DRM, even for single player mode.) Are you ready to get gouged?

The how-to and FAQ pages … [Read More...]

Motorola Mobility has won an injunction against several Microsoft properties in Germany, including Windows 7, Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, and even the Xbox 360 game console. After initially postponing the ruling, Judge Dr. Holger Kircher of the Landgericht Mannheim (Mannheim Regional Court) issued his ruling on four of Motorola’s complaints against Microsoft, ultimately awarding the mobile device maker an injunction against Microsoft on two patents.

Foss Patents, which first reported on the ruling, says the patents pertain to an “adaptive motion compensation using a plurarlity of motion compensators” and an “adaptive compression of digital video data.” These are a … [Read More...]

Check Point appears to be on a mission to prove you don’t need to pay for full-fledged PC security, a motto that sits well with Maximum PC readers and enthusiasts in general. Starting today, you can download Check Point’s ZoneAlarm Free Antivirus + Firewall 2013, purportedly “the most complete free Internet security solution for consumers,” at absolutely no charge. You can’t beat the price, but can you beat the security?

That’s something we look forward to testing. In the meantime, some key features include a robust antivirus and spyware scan engine that scans, detects, and removes both known and unknown … [Read More...]