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AMD revealed its plans for the future yesterday, which focuses on the remainder of this year and all of next year. There is the usual talk of extending out current products with new releases and series, but there was something a bit more curious concerning ARM CPUs. I will get to that last part in a bit, but AMD wants to shorten the time frame between CPU designs to something similar to GPUs, with 18-24 months of separation instead of a few years. AMD will do that by moving away from custom designs for chips, and will instead rely on synthesized layouts and lower power usage. This will also allow for more APUs to be produced, with the CPU and GPU combined on the same die, which AMD sees as a big part of its plans.

There will be three new APU lines released this year: Trinity, Brazos 2.0, and Hondo. Trinity is aimed at performance laptop and mainstream desktop users, and pairs one or two Piledriver modules (succesor to Bulldozer) with an HD 7000 GPU. Brazos 2.0 will have a power usage between 9 - 18W, and packs two Bobcat cores with an HD 6000 GPU. The Hondo line will top out at 4.5W, and will have one or two Bobcat cores and an HD 6000 GPU. All the mentioned GPUs could just be rebrands, so the Trinity APUs will have an HD 6000 GPU while the Brazos 2.0 and Hondo will have an HD 5000 GPU.

As for regular CPUs, AMD will release the Piledriver parts under the FX line, and will have two to four modules just like the current Bulldozer line. 2013 will still see the Piledriver modules used in the desktop line, while the APU lines will get new versions based on new architecture. The server CPU line remains the same this year, while 2013 will see updated versions launch but keep the current number of modules/threads, memory channels, and HyperTransport links. The 2013 versions will be based on Piledriver, however, so the performance will be increased while using the same amount of power.

AMD has more plans as well, which you can read about in full at the source.

Researchers have found it is not economic influences that limit the growth of digitally stored information on the Internet, but the human brain. Reported by Springer is the study (pdf) which considered some 633 million files, constituting 675 TB of data. This represents every file there is an outgoing link to from Wikipedia and dmoz. The file types include applications, text, images, audio and video.

The researchers looked at specific characteristics of the files, such as the bit rate, resolution, and length. These data were then plotted by how often they occur for each data type. The graph shows a decline as the axes increase, but is without an exponential tail at the end. If economic factors, such as the cost of hard drives, limited how large or how high of quality a file was, there would be such a tail. Further examination of the graph showed patterns which match the Weber-Fechner law. Basically what this law says is the noticeability of a change is follows a logarithmic curve. For example, increasing the resolution of a low resolution image is more noticeable than increasing the resolution of an already high resolution image.

What this implies is the information on the Internet cannot grow faster than what our brains can handle.

Good news everyone, as Bethesda's Pete Hines announced the Creation Kit for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim "is on track" to release next Tuesday! Bethesda recently posted a preview video of the Creation Kit and showed just a little of what you can do with the in-depth modding tools, but did not reveal exactly when we would be getting it. Now, thanks to Pete Hines, VP of PR and Marketing at Bethesda, we know just a few short days await us. Hines also mentioned a "special surprise" with it, but did not elaborate any further. This surprise could be the Skyrim Workshop, but it could also be something else, like details on upcoming DLC (although the first two are 360 exclusive for a month) or even some included mods. Whatever the case may be, we only have until Tuesday to see what everyone can do with the Creation Kit for Skyrim.

While some people may not care, for others it is a habit to make sure the left ear phone is in the left ear and right earphone in the right ear. For some audio sources, it won’t matter much, but others, like movies and video games, require the proper channels are going to the proper ear. (You don’t want to turn the wrong direction when an alien, orc, or other enemy is firing at you.)

To solve this problem, researchers at the Igarashi Design Interfaces Project have added electrodes to the front of ear buds. When the buds are put in the correct ears, the electrodes will be against the outer ear, which will form a connection. If the ear buds are reversed though, the electrodes are out in the air and not making a connection. This then triggers a chip to switch the channels, thereby ensuring the proper audio is going to its proper place.

The researchers went a step further with this though, as they also added a way for the earphones to know when they are being shared by two people. When worn by one person, there will be a weak electric current between the ear buds, but when two people wear them, the circuit is broken. This causes the chip to combine the stereo channels into a mono channel, which is sent to both ear pieces. This way both listeners get all of the audio.

The news just keeps pouring in about THQ, and none of it looks good. Just days after announcing 240 employees are being laid off, THQ announced Metro: Last Light is being delayed to 2013, and the Warhammer 40,000 MMO, Dark Millennium Online, is still on the way. However, THQ is looking for some help with Dark Millennium Online in the form of a business partner, most likely to help ensure the MMO gets released. Other games, like South Park: The Game, Crytek's Homefront sequel, and Guillermo del Toro's inSane, are still on schedule, but it is Metro: Last Light seeing the delay. Many fans have been looking forward to what Last Light can bring after the successful Metro 2033, but we all have to wait at least one more year before getting a chance with it. THQ just needs some help, so anyone with a spare $10 million should give them a call to support the Warhammer 40k MMO.

A classic stereotype is that men are better at math than women, but there has been little if any solid evidence to explain this, even though women are not often found in high positions that require math. (Having worked with and been taught by female mathematicians, I know ability is not dependent on sex.) Basically the stereotype exists and the population seems to display it, but the explanation for why this could be true has not been found. One promising theory is called stereotype threat and it explains that if a woman believes the stereotype she will perform worse than what she is capable of.

Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have reexamined the studies supporting stereotype threat and have found several issues with them. For example, there is a lack of male control groups and the improper application of statistical techniques in some of these studies. The researcher did what they could to correct the problems and when they did the significance of the results disappeared, showing the studies’ conclusions were wrong.

This is a major issue because of the amount of focus given to the theory. If it were to turn out stereotype threat is incorrect then school policies and funding have been wasted trying to fix a problem in the wrong place.

We have continuing coverage on the AMD HD 7950 3GB card with two reviews looking at multi-card configurations. In storage-related news, our roundup roped in another review on Synology's DS-212 two-Bay NAS device along with an article on the 830 Series solid-state drive from Samsung. We also get a chance to read up on AMD's processor and GPU roadmaps through 2013.

Manufacturers
AMD Processor and GPU Roadmaps Through 2013 @ PC Perspective

Storage/Hard Drives
Samsung's 830 Series solid-state drive @ Tech Report
Synology DS-212 Two-Bay NAS @ Tweaknews

Trade Shows/Conventions
AMD [H]ard|OCP FX GamExperience @ [H]ardOCP

Video
AMD Radeon HD 7950 CrossFire & TriFire @ Neoseeker
Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB OC Video Card in CrossFire @ TweakTown

No matter what your opinion is of DRM, this bit of news is just one example why always-online DRM is not the best solution. Next week, Ubisoft will be moving some of its gaming servers, which will result in the downtime of some always-on DRM games. Ubisoft did not say when the servers will be restored, but starting on February 7th, Tom Clancy's HAWX 2, The Settlers 7, and Might & Magic Heroes VI will not be playable. Other titles, like Assassin's Creed: Revelations and Driver: San Francisco will not be affected, nor will other games that can be played offline (provided you already activated those). This is a pretty big strike against why always-on DRM is more of a hinderance, as three different games cannot be played once the servers go down. Hopefully the upgrade to the new servers does not take very long, but still, games you paid for should not have an issue like that.

The start of the year typically does not have much in the way of major game releases, though there are always some that launch in January. However, analysts from RW Baird predict January 2012 numbers will pale in comparison to January 2011 numbers when NPD results come in, due to no "significant new title releases." The top selling titles will most likely include Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Zumba Fitness, and Just Dance 3, but overall, the numbers are expected to be 20% lower than January 2011. The analysts also say that because of the extra hardware units available and the lack of major sales, numbers for last month will suffer on a whole. Things are expected to turn around in February and March, with the likes of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Mass Effect 3, the PlayStation Vita, and all the titles launching for the Vita.