Nvidia GeForce GTX 970/980: Windows vs. Ubuntu Linux performance Earlier this week I posted some benchmarks showing Nvidia's Linux Driver Continues Running Strong Against The Windows Driver that also included the open-source Nouveau driver results in the mix too. However, due to using the Nouveau driver, the newest GeForce GTX 970/980 graphics cards were left out of testing as the open-source driver doesn't yet fully support these newer Maxwell GPUs. In this article though we're going back to compare the Windows vs. Linux performance of these two high-end Nvidia GPUs at a UHD 4K resolution too. Phoronix
Amazon bought this man's company. Now he's coming for them The historic downtown commercial district of Montclair, N.J., is known for its restaurants, antique shops, and art-house movie theater. It's not usually home to lavishly funded attacks on the entrenched giants of global e-commerce. Yet on the second floor of a three-story red-brick building on Bloomfield Avenue, across a parking lot from a fancy pizza joint and up an unmarked stairwell, are the offices of one of the biggest bets in the history of online retail: a 100-employee startup called Jet.com. Businessweek
Microsoft's advance security notification service no longer publicly available Microsoft is "evolving" is Advance Notification Service in a way that will make its advance security update information available only to customers with paid Premier support contracts and organizations "involved in its security programs." The change means the Advance Notification Service (ANS) is no longer going to be publicly available. Microsoft created ANS more than 10 years ago as part of Patch Tuesday (which Microsoft execs these days prefer to call "Update Tuesday"). ZDNet
Nvidia Tegra X1 preview & architecture analysis In the past few years, we've seen Nvidia shift their mobile strategy dramatically with time. With Tegra 2 and 3, we saw multiple design wins in the smartphone space, along with the tablet space. These SoCs often had dedicated GPUs that were quite unlike what we saw in Nvidia's desktop and laptop GPUs, with a reduced feature set and unique architecture. However, with Tegra K1 we saw a distinct shift in Nvidia's SoC strategy, as the Tegra K1 was the first mobile SoC to achieve parity in GPU architecture with desktop GPUs. AnandTech
First DIY retina projector (2880x1800) This may be the first? retina projector built, at least in the USA. It started when I heard the 15 inch Macbook Pro LCD had an astonishing resolution of 2880x1800 pixels! I researched the tear down of a retina Macbook and found out it was deportable (no cable running behind lcd)! Some guy in Slovakia had built a retina interface (mad props for Rozsnyo, www.rozsnyo.com). Go figure! Let just say I got a little too excited and bought the LCD from China for $200! forum.allinbox.com
Cells use rotating arms to feel their way around, like a person in the dark Our world runs on rotating machines. Thin hoods and housings tend to conceal the whirling wonder of motors, gears, generators, turbines, pumps, screws, and drills that make it all happen. Although not always obvious, it shouldn't be too surprising that cells run on these same kinds of rotating machines. 3D imaging and computerized reconstructions from slices of cells has led to a profound, if as yet unstated, realization about their structure and therefore function... ExtremeTech
3D cameras are about to go mainstream We're used to our gadgets being passive objects. They respond to typed or tapped commands, but we don't expect them to be aware of their surroundings. Announcements and demonstrations at this week's Computer Electronics Show make it clear that that's going to change, and soon. As our devices have more and better sensors, they're going to be increasingly aware of the world around them, and will interact with the world and with us in more sophisticated ways. Vox
The work of art in the age of gadgets As CES 2015 wound to a close, our video team put together this incredible montage of over 250 gadgets in three minutes. We decided to narrate it with fragments from Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay "The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction," because the highest understanding of CES requires seeing the cultural change happening behind the blinking lights and slick touchscreens. Also it sounded cool. The Verge
The God Login I graduated with a Computer Science minor from the University of Virgina in 1992. The reason it's a minor and not a major is because to major in CS at UVa you had to go through the Engineering School, and I was absolutely not cut out for that kind of hardcore math and physics, to put it mildly. The beauty of a minor was that I could cherry pick all the cool CS classes and skip everything else. Coding Horror
Five best password managers A while ago, all it took to be a great password manager was to keep your passwords in an encrypted vault. Now the best password managers give you the option to sync or keep them local only, change web passwords with a click, log in to sites for you, and more. This week, we're looking at five of the best options. LifeHacker