Buffalo WiFi-AC AirStation WZR-D1800H Router and WLI-H4-D1300 Bridge

Back in December 2011, Broadcom was already promoting WiFi-AC, the next-generation WiFi home wireless network, and in January, Buffalo was demonstrating its WiFi-AC prototypes (based on a Broadcom chip) at CES. Today, Buffalo has just announced two WiFi-AC products: the AirStation WZR-D1800H Router and the WLI-H4-D1300 Bridge. Both are among the very first WiFi-AC products to hit the market, which is not completely surprising, given that Buffalo has a long string of “firsts” behind it.

On the paper, the Buffalo WiFi-AC AirStation WZR-D1800H Router offers 3X the effective speed when compared to WiFi-N routers. Additionally, Buffalo it is also completely backwards-compatible with existing networks. In practical terms, this means that you should be able to transfer files at a maximum theoretical 1.3Gbps – however, real-world numbers should be well below that. Still, WiFi-AC runs on the 5GHz frequency, which is much less crowded than the 2.4GHz used by a lot of electronic devices.

Buffalo actually goes beyond the WiFi-AC specs, and uses the 5GHz (1.3Gbps) and 2.4GHz (0.45Mbps) bands simultaneously to achieve a aggregate 1.75Gbps of theoretical throughput. This dual-setup may also prove useful for quality-of-service (QoS) protocols if exploited properly. In the meantime, keep in mind that just like any early WiFi product, those have been built based on a draft of the WiFi-AC specs, and may or may not fully interact properly with WiFi-AC products from other vendors. Both products are available immediately for $179.99.

GeForce Grid To Accelerate Cloud-Based Gaming Rendering

GeForce Grid is described by NVIDIA has a cloud gaming platform which is a “gaming-as-a-service” product which lets developer address a larger market by executing games on remote servers and stream them to all kinds of devices (laptop, tablets…) over the Internet. This is not unlike OnLive by the looks of it.

Of course, the main issue when dealing with game streaming games is latency. It’s not a new problem, and we’ve talked about this when OnLive was first demonstrated. To reduce the latency, there’s no secret: NVIDIA or their partners (Gakai was on-stage) need to build data-centers closer to customers. So far, the first one is located in Sunnyvale, so Bay Area residents may see network latency as low as 5ms to 10ms.

The net benefit to the game developers is that 1/they don’t need to port games to many platforms and instead focus their time in building better games. 2/ Digital Rights Management (DRM) is built-in, so it’s easy to build a paid service around this. And the games are “real games”, this is no Angry Birds in the image below (sorry for the blurry image, our video feed is not in HD).

NVIDIA’s Kepler GPU Supports Cloud Environments

NVIDIA has just announced at its GTC conference that the NVIDIA Kepler* graphics processor (GPU) has beendesigned to support virtualized environments which are the basis of cloud computing. GPUs are traditionally very hard to integrate in a virtual environment because GPUs have traditionally been designed around performance, which often resonates with a “direct to the metal” programming mentality.

These days, GPUs are fast enough to add a thin hardware layer that translates virtual addresses to physical addresses, along with virtualizing every graphics hardware commands. 

With this new design, and tons of software around it, NVIDIA GPUs are now able to work seamlessly in a virtualized environment. GPUs can now be shared among many users, and they don’t even have to be connected to a physical video output anymore. GPU sharing also enables the maximum utilization of the GPU hardware because single users often don’t fully utilize all the computing power of those chips. This utilization rate makes the GPU more power-efficient than it otherwise would be.

T-Mobile officially adds Prism to its budget lineup on May 6th for $20

                                                                                        

No surprise here, but T-Mobile has been prepping a low-end Android phone called the Prism for quite some time now, and it's finally time for the little guy to make its official debut. With a 3.5-inch HVGA display, 3.2MP fixed-focus camera and Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), it won't be the stuff dreams are made of. The CPU is also unspecified, which leads us to believe that T-Mo is leaving it out of the talking points for a reason -- yesterday's leak indicated that we can expect it to be 600MHz. That said, plenty of potential buyers wanting an inexpensive smartphone may be easily persuaded by its $20 price on contract (with a $50 mail-in rebate) or $150 without any sort of commitment. The Huawei-made Prismwill make its first appearance at Best Buy on May 6th, followed by Walmart on the 9th and official retail channels on the 23rd. We have a press release awaiting you after the break, so take a peek if it interests you.

Google Play adds carrier billing for music, movies and books

              Don't feel like having media purchased through Google Play billed directly to your credit card? Well, now you can have those charges simply added to your monthly phone bill, provided you're on T-Mobile here in the US, or NTT Docomo, KDDI, or Softbank in Japan. According to Google's posting about the move, Sprint will soon be offering the option to pay for movies, books and movies purchased through Big G's market along side your voice and data plan. For T-Mobile subscribers that means both apps and content can simply be added to your tab, while AT&T is sticking with carrier billing for apps only at the moment. Conspicuously absent from the whole shebang, however, is Verizon, which has been one of the more prominent Android pushers here in the US. For a complete list of carriers with at least some direct billing features check out the more coverage link.

Amazon outs Cloud Drive desktop app for Windows and Mac, allows easy access to your digital wares

     

 If you've been storing part of your digital library on Amazon's Cloud Drive, access to your goods just got easier. The outfit has released a desktop app for both Mac and Windows machines enabling uploads and downloads with minimal effort. For starters, you'll be able to drag and drop files via a Cloud Drive icon and you'll be a brief right-click away from sending any file or folder to the repository. Downloads from the cloud run in the background and can be paused / resumed whenever you darn well please. Dropped your connection in the heat of battle? No worries. The app manages restarts and connectivity hiccups without losing your wares. If you're already signed up, hit the source link below to fetch yours

Target pulls Kindle from virtual shelves, physical ones may follow

Since 2010, Target has happily hawked Amazon's e-reading wares. The retailer even carved out a branded corner of its online shop just for the Kindle. Now though, that store within a store is empty and conspicuously missing from Target's virtual shelves is Amazon's entire Kindle line. Sure, a few accessories remain, but the readers themselves are gone. What's more, according to an internal memo obtained by The Verge, the products will be cease to be restocked at the company's brick and mortar locations starting May 13th. The communique states that, after evaluation, Target "has made the decision to no longer carry Amazon hardware."

The reasoning behind the banishment isn't clear, but the potential causes are practically endless. Amazon's vast online repository of goods, including some grocery items, makes it a direct competitor of the big box outlet. Target continues to carry the Nook and Kobo e-readers, but those company's don't challenge the retailer. It's also possible that, with mini Apple Stores opening up on its premises, Cupertino put some pressure on Target to clear out its competitors. It could also be as simple as collapsed contract negotiations, with Target failing to get as big a cut of sales as it wanted or, and this is a bit of a stretch, the Minneapolis company could be preparing to launch its own e-reading hardware. Neither Amazon nor Target has responded to our requests for comment at this time.

Update: Target has affirmed the move to Reuters, with the following statement: "Target is phasing out Amazon- and Kindle-branded products in the spring of 2012."