Nvidia Delays Fermi to March 2010

Nvidia has selected the launch date for its next-generation DirectX 11-supporting GPU (Fermi) to be March, 2010, while AMD will launch more GPUs in January-February, according to sources from graphics card makers. Nvidia also plans to have a live demo of the product at CES in January.

According to market rumors, Nvidia had originally scheduled the launch of Fermi for November 2009 but then delayed the planned launch until CES in January 2010 due to defects. However,the sources stated that Nvidia recently notified graphics card makers that the official launch will be in March 2010, which is consistent with previous Nvidia comments that the product will begin shipping in the first quarter of 2010.

Commenting on the news, Nvidia stated that its planned schedule of product shipping in the first quarter 2010 remains unchanged and any rumors of defects are completely false.

Nvidia plans to launch a 40nm GDDR5 memory-based Fermi-GF100 GPU in March, and will launch a GF104 version in the second quarter to target the high-end market with its GeForce GTX295/285/275/260, the sources pointed out.

For performance level markets, Nvidia will allow its GeForce GTS250, GT240/220 and 9800GT/9500GT defend against AMD's Radeon HD 5770/5750, 4870/4850 and 4670/4650.

For the mainstream market, Nvidia will mainly push its GeForce 210.

Meanwhile, AMD will launch 40nm Radeon HD 5670/5570 (Redwood) and HD 5450 (Cedar) GPUs at the end of January or in February 2010, the sources noted.

In related news, although Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's (TSMC's) 40nm process yields have already improved, capacity is still not sufficient to supply the two GPU giants fully which may have an impact the launch schedules, the sources added.

AMD did not respond by the time of publication.

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China's last tiger is eaten

The man was sentenced to 12 years in jail, local media reported. Kang Wannian, a villager from Mengla, Yunnan Province, met the tiger in February while gathering freshwater clams in a nature reserve near China's border with Laos. He claimed to have killed it in self-defence.

The only known wild Indochinese tiger in China, photographed in 2007 at the same reserve, has not been seen since Kang's meal, the Yunnan-based newspaper Life News reported earlier this month.

The paper quoted the provincial Forestry Bureau as saying there was no evidence the tiger was the last one in China.

A local court sentenced Kang to 10 years for killing a rare animal plus two years for illegal possession of firearms, the local web portal Yunnan.cn reported. Prosecutors said Kang did not need a gun to gather clams.

Four villagers who helped Kang dismember the tiger and ate its meat were also sentenced from three to four years for "covering up and concealing criminal gains", the report said.

The Indochinese tiger is on the brink of extinction, with fewer than 1,000 left in the forests of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.

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Facebook fuelling divorce

Facebook is being cited in almost one in five of online divorce petitions, lawyers have claimed.

Suspicious spouses have also used the websites to find evidence of flirting and even affairs which have led to divorce

The social networking site, which connects old friends and allows users to make new ones online, is being blamed for an increasing number of marital breakdowns.

Divorce lawyers claim the explosion in the popularity of websites such as Facebook and Bebo is tempting to people to cheat on their partners.

Suspicious spouses have also used the websites to find evidence of flirting and even affairs which have led to divorce.

One law firm, which specialises in divorce, claimed almost one in five petitions they processed cited Facebook.

Mark Keenan, Managing Director of Divorce-Online said: "I had heard from my staff that there were a lot of people saying they had found out things about their partners on Facebook and I decided to see how prevalent it was I was really surprised to see 20 per cent of all the petitions containing references to Facebook.

"The most common reason seemed to be people having inappropriate sexual chats with people they were not supposed to."

Flirty emails and messages found on Facebook pages are increasingly being cited as evidence of unreasonable behaviour.

Computer firms have even cashed in by developing software allowing suspicious spouses to electronically spy on someone's online activities.

One 35-year-old woman even discovered her husband was divorcing her via Facebook.

Conference organiser Emma Brady was distraught to read that her marriage was over when he updated his status on the site to read: "Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady."

Last year a 28-year-old woman ended her marriage after discovering her husband had been having a virtual affair with someone in cyberspace he had never met.

Amy Taylor 28, split from David Pollard after discovering he was sleeping with an escort in the game Second Life, a virtual world where people reinvent themselves.

Around 14 million Britons are believed to regularly use social networking sites to communicate with old friends or make new ones.

The popularity of the Friends Reunited website several years ago was also blamed for a surge in divorces as bored husbands and wives used it to contact old flames and first loves.

The UK’s divorce rate has fallen in recent years, but two in five marriages are still failing according the latest statistics.

Mr Keenan believes that the general divorce rate will rocket in 2010 with the recession taking the blame.

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