Computer science marks to be considered for engg eligibility

BANGALORE: The All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) has buckled under pressure from several states to alter eligibility criteria for engineering courses: it has agreed to consider computer science and electronics as qualifying subjects along with the existing ones.

The apex regulator, however, has turned down the request to reduce eligibility criteria for general category students from the revised 50% marks (45% in case of SC/ST candidates) in qualifying subjects for admission to engineering courses. AICTE had enhanced eligibility criteria by 5% for general category students from this year.

More II PU candidates are now likely to become eligible to pick engineering seats via the state CET. Marks scored by II PU candidates in computer science and electronics will be considered while deciding eligibility criteria for engineering/technical courses, along with chemistry, biology and biotechnology.

Higher education minister V S Acharya may meet HRD minister Kapil Sibal in New Delhi on Tuesday to push for reduction in eligibility criteria for 2011-12.

Computex 2011: MSI Unveils Wind Top All-in-One PC Series

At Computex 2011, popular brand MSI unveiled at the event, its latest range of Wind Top series – Wind Top AP2000 and Wind Top AP2011. The desktop range has been readied keeping in mind the varying needs of MSI’s dynamic clientele, MSI stated. The Wind Top AP2000 is MSI’s All-in-One PC AP2000. The Wind Top series, MSI states upholds the needs of the business men and other professionals. Here’s a look at the specifications in detail:

Soaring high...

• Intel Pentium Processor P6200 (2.13 GHz)
• Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
• 20” 16:9 widescreen single touch panel (1600*900)
• 2GB DDR3 Memory, Max to 8GB
• 500GB Hard Drive
• Tray-in DVD Super Multi
• 1.3M Webcam and Microphone

In addition to the specifications mentioned above, MSI claims to have added several features including LED panels on their All-in-One desktop range to enhance its inclination towards global environment protection trends. Since LED panels consume 30 per cent lesser electricity, they seem to be a friendlier option.

Yet another one, in the series that was unveiled was the Wind Top AP2011 that comes packed with Intel’s second generation Core processor with immense power, which MSI claims is apt for multitasking purposes.

Creative Creates Multi-Core Sound Core3D Processor

The sound card business doesn’t see the same level of development as the GPU market, for example. This has been the case over the last couple of years with only a few vendors designing cards and audio processors. Most users seem content with the quality on onboard audio solutions on motherboards these days. Taking the processor approach, Creative has designed a new multi-core audio and voice processor called Sound Core3D.

More processing power thanks to four cores onboard the processor.

The solution will be available as an external device and an integrated chip on Creative’s vendor devices which can also include consumer electronics. Gigabyte is one of these vendors who will be using the chip on some of their solutions in the future. The chip is based on a 56-pin QFP package. The Sound Core3D chip uses four cores, 4 and 6-channel audio 24-bit DACs and even a headphone amplifier output. There is support for the usual digital outputs as well as a digital microphone in. The APU has been designed in conjunction with THX. The chip also has the usual set of enhancements for echo cancellation, noise reduction and normalization of audio.

Computex 2011: Windows 8 Build 7985 Demoed

At Computex 2011, several attendees managed to get a glimpse of the latest build of Windows 8. The build - 7985.fbl_core1_kernel was reportedly readied on May 3 to make a partner preview of the same possible at the event in Taipei. The complete build string, 7985.fbl_core1_kernel_cptx.110503-1501 clearly reveals the same. The Milestone 3, however, comes sans a couple of shell changes that Microsoft introduced, among which was the superbar user account image integration.

Heavy buil(d)t!

The Windows 8 interface does pick up some cues from Windows Phone 7, but that ends there. Windows 8 allows users to launch apps using the tile-based start screen, and will be a replacement to the good old Windows 7 start up screen. Among the applications included are live tile notifications and the ability to naturally switch between applications. Users now also have the provision to snap and resize an application to place it on the side of the new touch screen user interface. 

At the All Things Digital D9 conference, Microsoft did raise the curtains over the new Windows 8 user interface. It was at the conference that Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft's President of the Windows Division mentioned the company’s plans to reveal some more details at the BUILD conference in September.

WWDC 2011: Apple Teases Us with Logos of Upcoming Launches

Apple is gearing up for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), which is set to take place at San Francisco, next week. But unlike every year, this time around they have given the world a sneak peek into some of the services which are set to be launched at WWDC 2011. Posters at San Francisco’s largest convention and exhibition complex, Moscone Center are showing off Apple’s upcoming services namely the Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud. Logos of Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5 and iCloud revealed The iCloud was named by Apple in a press release on Tuesday, but no image had been associated with it at the time. However, now as the posters suggest the iCloud logo has an app like appearance. The next logo to be previewed was the iOS 5; and like the iOS 4 logo it is mostly similar in design but now has a 5 instead. And finally with the OS X Lion, the logo is with a face of a Lion in a circle. In addition to these standalone posters there is a poster showing OS X Lion + iOS 5 + iCloud = WWDC 2011. Additional banners are put up at the Moscone Center which are still under wraps.

Computex 2011: ASUS Announces Crosshair V Motherboard Series

Just a while back, AMD announced their new range of 9-Series chipsets and in absolute rhythm, ASUS have launched their latest iteration in the Crosshair Series of motherboards, called the Crosshair V Formula. The motherboard not only supports the AM3+ FX socket, but also has support for Athlon II and Sempron 100 Series of processors. What’s nice to know is that this motherboard will also be supporting Bulldozer series of processors.

More power and more support

Crosshair V Formula has an ATX form factor and supports up to 32 GB of RAM on the four RAM slots that most standard motherboards feature today. Apart from that this also supports the AMD 3-Way SLI and 3-Way CrossfireX modes for NVIDIA and AMD’s graphic cards respectively. There are three PCIe 2.0 expansion slots for dual x16 speeds or x8,x8 and x16 speeds. The motherboard has plenty of USB ports with as much as six USB 3.0 ports and 12 USB 2.0 ports. Being the latest motherboard, the Crosshair V Formula also has ASUS’ UEFI BIOS menus to interact with the hardware directly.

The pricing hasn’t been announced as yet, but stay tuned for more information on the Crosshair V Formula.