Bad Piggies (Rovio) - PC Download

Rovio is about to give its Angry Birds a taste of their own medicine. The game make is expanding its Angry Birds franchise with a new game called Bad Piggies. In this installment, instead of playing from the perspective of the birds, you take on the role of their pig archenemies, as you try and steal a treasure trove of eggs from those furious fowl. The new game is available for iOS, Android, and Mac; Rovio promises editions are on their way for Windows desktops, Windows Phone, and the upcoming Windows 8 operating system. In Bad Piggies, you try to reassemble a map that will lead the pigs to the birds’ stash of eggs. That means you have to pass a finish line in each level, but instead of using a slingshot to sail and smash into each map piece as in prior Angry Birds offerings, you build a piggie-styled contraption that propels you through each level. Those contraptions can be made out of umbrellas, wings, boxes, bottle rockets, balloons, and bellows, and they’ll send your pig soaring. As you progress through the game, you unlock more powerful pieces to add to your vehicles.

If you get stuck on a level, Rovio will let you turn to a mechanic for help to create the appropriate contraption for your current level. Similar to using the all powerful Mighty Eagle in Angry Birds, hiring a mechanic in Bad Piggies will cost you. If you “Like” Bad Piggies on Facebook, Rovio will start you off with three complimentary roadside assistance sessions. After that you have to pay $1.99 for 10 mechanic sessions, $6.49 for 35, or for people who really need help, $10.49 for 65.

In the early levels of the game, you aren’t given much freedom to build a contraption; instead, you need to build a certain configuration if you want to earn a three-star score. That’s a similar approach to earlier Angry Birds games, where aiming your birds at specific places will help you achieve three stars. Still, it doesn’t stop you from coming up with your own solution for getting through a level, even if there’s usually a standard way to best a bird.

Download PC Version Download

Read more at http://www.macworld.com.au/news/rovio-enhances-angry-birds-franchise-with-bad-piggies-74362/

HP Envy 6-1001tx Experience

The Hewlett Packard, Envy 6 Sleekbook is the latest and greatest innovation of the Hp Envy product line.

This particular sleekbook comes with a great design and features which is the key when it comes to a portability and performance.

In the market of notebooks, it is rare to spot such a device with a combination of high performance, dedicated graphics and a fast processor with higher powered battery that lasts up to 9 consecutive hours*. Most importantly the Envy team has done a perfect job on arranging all these powerful devices in such a tiny space of 19.8 x 374 x 252.8 mm.

This particular Envy 6 truly amazes me with regard to the sleek design and style as well as the luxurious finish. The whole sleekbook is covered with brushed aluminium almost 80% of the device except for the bottom and the inside frame of the LCD screen. Focusing on the portability aspect, the LCD lid itself feels like a slim razor blade with rounded edges. Size wise, the whole sleekbook is as thick as my HP DV6's base part. Interestingly the bottom of the Envy 6 has been covered with a layer of smooth velvet like plastic which feels comfortable in your hand while carrying.

The performances are truly magnificent. The Intel i5-2467M provides Turbo Boost up to 2.30 GHz at the presence of high performance applications. The graphics cards are Intel HD 3000 integrated and Radeon 7670m dedicated carrying DDR5 VRAM up to 2 Gigabytes.  The Radeon 7670m is known as a high performance gaming graphics processor that makes sure the games performs the way you anticipated. A quick configuration of switchable graphics from AMD Catalyst, give you the boost of graphics for all your DirectX 11 Supported games such a Dirt 3, Battlefield 3, Grand Theft Auto V, Just Cause 2, so on and so forth.

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Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)

• 459
  Dell XPS 14 (Core i7 3517U, 8GB RAM, 500GB HDD, GeForce GT 630M)
• 473
  Asus ZenBook Prime UX31A (Core i7 3517U, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD)
• 518
  Fujitsu Lifebook U772 (Core i5 3427U, 4GB RAM, 500GB HD + 32GB SSD cache)
• 538
  Sony Vaio T 11.6 (Core i5 3317U, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD)
• 577
  Asus ZenBook UX31 (Core i7 2667M, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD)
• 615
  Asus ZenBook UX21 (Core i7 2667M, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD)
• 682
  Toshiba Satellite Z830 (Core i5 2467M, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD)
• 686
  HP Envy 14 Spectre (Core i5 2467M, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD)
• 693
  HP Envy 6 1001TX (Core i5 2467M, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD)
• 719
  Samsung Series 5 Ultra 14-inch (Core i5 2467M, 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Radeon HD 7550M)
• 723
  Acer Aspire S3 (Core i5 2467M, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD)
• 837
  HP Folio 13 (Core i5 2467M, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD)
• 857
  Samsung Series 5 Ultra 13.3-inch (Core i5 2467, 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD)

(Shorter bars indicate better performance) Source: www.cnet.com.au

Intel® Core™ i5-2467M Processor (3M Cache, up to 2.30 GHz)

Source: http://ark.intel.com

*Depends on the work load

Apple iPhone 5 Keynote Full Video

The New iPhone 5 Keynote - find the video below

When we envisioned the new iPhone, we landed on a remarkably thin and light design. But it’s nearly impossible to make a device so thin and so light without sacrificing features or performance.

We could have taken the easy way out and designed something more reasonable and less remarkable. But we didn’t. If the technology didn’t exist, we invented it. If a component wasn’t small enough, we re-imagined it. If convention was standing in the way, we left it behind. The result is iPhone 5: the thinnest, lightest, fastest iPhone ever.

iPhone 5 is just 7.6 millimetres thin. To make that happen, Apple engineers had to think small, component by component. They created a nano-SIM card, which is 44 per cent smaller than a micro-SIM. They also developed a unique cellular solution that allows iPhone 5 to support the latest wireless technologies but doesn’t sacrifice speed, battery life or its slim profile. The intelligent, reversible Lightning connector is 80 per cent smaller than the 30-pin connector. The 8-megapixel iSight camera has even more features — like panorama and dynamic low-light boost — yet it’s 20 per cent smaller. And the new A6 chip is up to two times faster than the A5 chip but 22 per cent smaller. Even with so much inside, iPhone 5 is 20 per cent lighter and 18 per cent thinner than iPhone 4S.(Apple 2012)

Reference: http://www.apple.com/au/iphone/design/

HP Envy 6 Switchable Graphics Problem

Introduction

Recently, I bought a new HP Envy 6 Sleekbook with dual graphics cards (Intel 3000+ Radeon 7670m 2GB). Since the laptop had a dedicated graphics card of 2Gig I thought I would play some high graphics games. However I soon found out that it was not that easy to play games without lagging at high settings.

Problems

According to AMD Catalyst, the high priority programs (games, etc) must be assigned as "high performance" from the switch graphics control panel.

Fig.1

Fig.2

However when assigned and saved, some games start to work with the dedicated graphics card whereas others revert back to "not assigned" (Ex GTAIV.exe works with the dedicated Radeon whereas Alan Wake.exe Reverts back to "Not Assigned and start to lag)

Also even when the programs are assigned, all games show the video card as Intel Graphics 3000 with the Radeons Ram of 2000MB

Solutions

For one, there are no straightforward solutions to this problem as HP hasn't released a new BIOS for Envy 6 to switch between graphics cards at the BIOS setup, so the selected card will kick in at any program you run afterwords. For an example Envy 14, 15, etc... has a new BIOS F.1A whereas the Envy 6 has the F.0A BIOS version at the moment which is unable to switch between graphics cards at the BIOS setup.

As a result of that what you need to do is to install the recommended drivers for your HP Envy 6 from HP's official  website and restart the computer.

Here's how

1.Leave the original catalyst software installed. Official one as in link

2. Download this driver (My card is 7670m) 

3. Install it,double click on sp57269.exe, NEXt NEXt ,ect...

Then goto Computer Management > Right click the dedicated AMD card > Update driver from My compiter >Find the driver manually on  C:\swsetup\Bin64\ > Next and So on..

4. Eventually my display went black for several seconds and AMD card appeard above Intel one.

****************RESTART the computer******************************

5. goto "configure switchable graphics" on catalyst and "assigned" and "save" your game .exe

6. Download and install AMD System Monitor

7. Run AMD System Monitor (Look the pic below, it doesn't show the Radeon card in use)

8. Run the game while AMD System Monitor is on (Set game to max graphics)

9. While you are on the game, pause it and press Windows button on your keyboad, hopefully you will see the dedicated card in action as follows. :)

Conclusion

Thus this shows that at least the dedicated card works at switchable graphics on at least some applications without the BIOS F.1A.

However the reason that HP gives on reverting back to "Not Assigned"  on "High Performance" .exe's is that  "When configuring the Dynamic Switchable Graphics in the Catalyst Control Center, the notebook does not permit any OpenGL applications to be associated with the Discrete (dGPU) or high-performance GPU. The OpenGL applications will work using the power-saving or Integrated GPU (iGPU) but the performance levels may be lower than expected."

Thus their solution to rectify the problem is.... 

"Enable Fixed Mode Switchable Graphics in the BIOS"

which we (Evny 6 Owners) dont have in the current, latest BIOS F.0A .