ZZ and LBB in HK for 'Linger' Launch Ceremony

Zhou Yu Min and Li Bing Bing attended the opening ceremony of the movie 'Linger' in Hong Kong. This film, directed by Director Johnnie To, also invited a Lion Dance performance for the opening. During the event’s interaction with the audience, Zai Zai received big strong hugs from fans, making everyone there including the host to sigh, saying one can feel the warmth. When talking about his experience acting as a corpse in the movie, Zai Zai recollects that the make-up artist has to spend four to six hours on his body everyday which was rather tough. And when it came to the topic of the bed scene, Zai Zai explained that it is not as sensational as it looks, whereas Li Bing Bing frankly said that it was somewhat awkward at first but she has to overcome this barrier as a professional actor.



Zai Zai, Li Bing Bing, Wong You Nan and Yan Qing, were In Tunmen city square to attend 'Linger' promotional event and attracted around 500 fans, the whole thing was very lively. At the event, a female fan even hugged Zai Zai's waist in surprise making him completely stunned. Afterwards, Zai Zai shyly looked down, and even frankly admitted having been startled by his fan's passionate action, saying jokingly that it felt like he got pranked, but it was very funny.

At HK Movie Premiere:

Vic 'Linger' Promo in Singapore

Vic Zhou, a member of the sensational Taiwanese boy band 'F4', is in Singapore for his very first big screen debut 'Linger' on 4 January 2008.

As advised by Encore Films his tentative program will be as follows :

1250hrs : Arrival via Cathay Pacific (CX717) @ T1.

1500hrs : Press conference @ Kbox - K Union Cineleisure Level 8.



1830hrs : Public appearance at Plaza Singapura - Dhobby Ghaut MRT station Level 1. Then Event with radio station : y.e.s 93.3 fm. As judge of acting competition where 3 finalist will try to impress him by acting a scene from the movie.

2045hrs : Movie premiere (Red Carpet @ Cathay Cineplex Cineleisure Orchard, 8 Grange Road). Movie premiere by invitation only or thru contests. But public is able to see him walking on the red carpet. Vic would not be staying throughout the premiere screening as he would need to go for another interview.

F4 Third Album - Waiting For You

Today mark the new excitement for F4 fans. The third album titled "Zai Zhe Li Deng Ni" or "Waiting For You" has been released for Taiwan and Hong Kong. This year the Taiwan Tourism Bureau invited the four of them to be ambassadors to Japan and Korea, a huge amount of money was spent for the promotional activities. It attracted fans from Japan and Korea to follow their stars. But this brand new album could be their last album together, the music company has taken advantage of this favorable circumstance and has presented two versions of the same album (Feel Your Heart Edition & Await Your Love Edition). It includes two songs by the four of them and two solo songs each, making it a collector's item for the fans.

F4 - Zai Zhe Li Deng Ni (Waiting For You) MV - OT:Goodbye



F4 - Ti Yan (Experience) MV - OT:No Escape



Vic - Can Nian (Should Not) MV



Official website on Sony BMG : http://www.sonybmg.com.tw/pop/f4/index.php

At the press conference for Asia, the 4 of them took swords to place into the defense board. It was like all 4 were stronger when placed together. There were lots of different flower baskets from fans from all over the world. The most "attracting" flower basket was of course from Da S and Xiao S. On it, it was written, "Taiwan's Forever Strong Group, May you all be loving forever". And it was signed off as ASOS, which was Taiwan strongest group.

Merry Christmas!

More New MVs of Vic

New MVs from Wo Bu Shi F4 appeared on YouTube...

Ai Shang Zhe Shi Jie (Love This World)



Yi Jia Yi (One Plus One)



Missing You



Wan Mei Ou Xiang (Perfect Idol)

AMD Launches Phenom Black Edition

AMD's Phenom has been given new life today as a Black Edition. The Phenom Black Edition 9600 operates at a frequency of 2.3 GHz and makes use of 2MB of level two cache. Differentiating itself from the vanilla 9600, the Black Edition sports a fully unlocked multiplier. It might be assumed that these chips are binned better, allowing for higher clock speeds.

The Black Edition 9600 fills in the price point left vacant due to AMD's recent price cuts of the 9500 and 9600 Phenom processors. According to a statement by AMD, the AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition central processing unit has the same price as previously introduced AMD Phenom 9600, or $283 in 1000-unit quantities.

News:
X-bit labs

AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition Overclocking

Article from X-bit labs : Phenom CPU: Christmas Gift from AMD

AMD Analyst Day Coverage

Yesterday (Dec 13, 2007), AMD held an analyst conference in New York City.
Here I enclose the updated platform roadmap for Consumer Mainstream and Consumer Enthusiast.




ZDNet shows slides of AMD's presentation in New York City.

AMD COO (Chief Operating Officer) Dirk Meyer acknowledged Thursday that the launch of its quad-core Opteron chips, formerly known as Barcelona, has been a disappointment. But he also urged customers and investors not to overlook AMD’s promise and accomplishments. Meyer, speaking at its annual financial analyst conference in New York, was up front about the Barcelona problems, which have been widely reported. SPEC invalidated CPU results for Barcelona today. “We haven’t delivered our quad core product according to plan,” said Meyer. “We’ll make good on our promise to deliver hundreds of thousands of quad core processors, but we’re disappointed.”

Tech Report has a comprehensive coverage here.
Conclusion quoted from Tech Report:

Based on what we heard today, we can expect disappointing financial results for the fourth quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2008. However, AMD is right about one thing: it has a fair amount of momentum, and if it manages to execute as planned, 2008 may very well turn out to be a good year.

On the microprocessor front, AMD should have 45nm tri- and quad-core chips ready in time to meet Intel's 45nm Nehalem processors. Even if it doesn't manage to keep up with Nehalem, AMD's plethora of platforms should help keep large PC vendors interested. AMD looks set to regain much-needed market share in the mobile graphics market, although how well the AMD graphics division will do on the desktop remains to be seen. The Radeon HD 3870 and Radeon HD 3850 are certainly encouraging efforts, though.

While it's probably still a little early to make any forecasts pertaining to 2009 and beyond, AMD's outlook and confidence suggest the company still has at least a few more rounds to go—even with naysayers predicting its imminent demise.

AMD Phenom and Spider unveiled

AMD today unveiled its new platform codenamed “Spider”, with the first true quad-core processor supporting scalable graphics for The Ultimate Visual Experience™. The AMD Spider platform combines the introduction of AMD Phenom™ quad-core processors, ATI Radeon™ HD 3800 Series graphics processors with Microsoft DirectX® 10.1 support, AMD 7-Series chipsets with CrossFireX™ and AMD OverDrive™ software.

The architecture of the new AMD Phenom processor is based on the Barcelona core, otherwise known as the Agena core for the desktop market. The AMD Phenom processor is only the first part of a three part platform message that AMD is trying to present. The second part was the new AMD Radeon HD 3800 series of graphics. The third part is a new chipset, the second from the new AMD, known as the AMD 790.

With the release today AMD is only going to have two Phenom models on the list: an AMD Phenom 9600 and Phenom 9500 clocked at 2.3 GHz and 2.2 GHz respectively. Both are set at a TDP of 95 watts and will come with a total of 2MB of L3 cache and 2MB of L2 cache, 512KB to each core.

Phenom 9600 @ 2.3 GHz - $283 (available now)
Phenom 9500 @ 2.2 GHz - $251 (available now)
Phenom 9700 @ 2.4 GHz - under $300 (Q1 2008)
Phenom 9900 @ 2.6 GHz - under $350 (Q1 2008)

A video showcasing AMD's Overdrive utility has surfaced on YouTube. Sami Maekinen from AMD's chipset division explains what Overdrive is, how to use it, and its benefits. Unlike other utilities, AMD Overdrive controls the whole platform. That platform being Spider, this utility works with a Phenom processor, 790FX chipset and AMD's new videocards.



AMD OverDrive Utility - Before and After Demo



Official Items:
Spider Platform page
Phenom pricing

Reviews:
Real World Labs
Techware Labs
Hexus Phenom 9600
PC Perspective
Tech Report AMD 790FX chipset
Hot Hardware Spider Platform
Tech ARP AMD Spider Technology Report

AMD Releases Radeon HD 3800 Series

AMD today announced the introduction and immediate availability of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 Series of graphics processing units (GPU). As the world's first series of graphics processors to deliver Microsoft's DirectX 10.1 support, 55nm process technology and tri and quad multi-GPU support with ATI CrossFireX, the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series ushers in a new era of enthusiast gaming performance at mainstream price points. The ATI Radeon HD 3800 series will be introduced in two variants at launch, from US $179 MSRP, the ATI Radeon HD 3850 with 256MB of GDDR3 memory and from US $219 MSRP, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 with 512MB GDDR4 memory. The launch of the ATI Radeon HD 3800 series redefines the enthusiast segment and puts high performance gaming in reach of more users than ever before. This innovative new series of graphics products also represent the first step in the launch of AMD's upcoming enthusiast platform codenamed "Spider".

Reviews:
Tweaktown
Hardware Canucks
Elite Bastards
Hexus
HotHardware
AnandTech
Legit Reviews

From the reviews we have seen so far, it looks like the 3870 gives NVIDIA some competition in DirectX 10 games, while the DX9 performance is not as stellar. But then again, even with DX9 performance lower than NVIDIA's 8800GT, at 100+ fps average, the difference is not noticeable anyway. Let's just hope the 3870 X2 (R680) can compete in the enthusiast market or AMD's next generation GPUs are right around the corner. Actually, both would be nice. If AMD can keep the price low and have good driver support for the cards, they may be able to gain back some lost ground in the graphics market.

AMD Phenom box-art exposed

This is the new AMD Phenom box. The designs were more elegant than the current AMD boxes; the colors on them flowed nicely.