Western Digital ships 4TB WD Black hard drive, melds speed with space for $339

The 4TB hard drives that we've seen gradually filter into the marketplace have come with a few snags for desktop users; they're usually either external drives we'd never boot from or pokey internal models not meant for anything speed-intensive. Western Digital doesn't want us settling. It's shipping a 4TB version of its WD Black desktop drive that holds nothing back for the sake of the extra storage, spinning at a healthy 7,200RPM while packing 64MB of cache, dual processing and a two-stage actuator that together keep the drive working at full burn. At $339, the SATA 6Gbps drive undoubtedly carries a premium in trying to be the best of all worlds; it may be worth the expense for performance-minded types who've been out of options (and capacity) for awhile.

[Source: Engadget]

EE unveils 4G sim-only plans: 5GB max of LTE zip for £36 per month

If you already had a handset and wanted in on EE's extra 4G vroom, you may have been miffed when it launched without a sim-only option. The operator has now atoned, however, with new packages for the already-smartphoned: a threadbare 500MB contract will run you £21 per month over a year, while those who need data galore will have to pony up £36 for the max 5GB data plan. The latter option will save you £15 over a handset-included contract with 12 months less commitment, and adding an extra £5 along with another year will get you unlimited texting and calls while roaming. The plans are available online or over the phone, but will be coming to stores "very shortly" as well, according to EE. So, if you're looking to give that LTE equipped phone a speedy new life, hit the source for all the details.

[Source: Engadget]

Wahoo Fitness launches a Bluetooth smart scale for $99

With its new Balance Smartphone Scale, Wahoo Fitness clearly has designs on Withings' corner of the fitness gadget market. There's no phone dongles or shoe clips here -- simply step on the scale and your weight will be recorded and synced to the companion iOS app. The Balance can record up to 130 weigh-ins before needing to push the information to your iPhone or iPad via Bluetooth, which you can then share with the usual cloud services (should you need further reason to feel ashamed). The scale can manage the profiles of up to 16 different users and keep tabs on everyone's weight and BMI goals. Unlike its competition, there's no WiFi option, which means you can't sync your shame directly to the web. But, having to take the intermediary step of pulling out your phone presumably has helped the company shave the price down to $99. You can pre-order the Balance now for delivery the first week of December.

[Source: Engadget]

IBM supercomputer simulates 530 billion neurons and a whole lot of synapses

IBM Research, in collaboration with DARPA's Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) program, has reached another brain simulation milestone. Powered by its new TrueNorth system on the world's second faster supercomputer, IBM was capable of crafting a 2.084 billion neurosynaptic cores and 100 trillion synapses -- all at a speed "only" 1,542 times slower than real life. The abstract explains that this isn't a biologically realistic simulation of the human brain, but rather mathematically abstracted -- and little more dour -- versions steered towards maximizing function and minimizing cost. DARPA's SyNAPSE project aims to tie together supercomputing, neuroscience and neurotech for a future cognitive computing architecture far beyond what's running behind your PC screen at the moment.

[Source: Engadget]

Intel CEO Paul Otellini to step down in May, leaves a legacy of x86 dominance

Intel has just announced that CEO Paul Otellini will be stepping down in May of 2013. The long time executive will be retiring from the company and industry that he has dedicated the last 40 years of his life to, leaving behind a legacy that has seen Intel's dominance in the x86 field grow to almost unapproachable levels. As the fifth chief executive in the company's history he's overseen not only the processor reboot that followed the inefficient Pentium 4, but also played a roll in Apple's famous transition from PowerPC to Intel. Otellini and the board of directors will work together over the next six months to ensure a seamless transition of power, however a successor has yet to be chosen.

[Source: Engadget]

Start button utility strips even more '8' from Windows 8, has sold 'tens of thousands' of copies

When we first reported on Start8, a mod that brings the tried-and-tested Start button back to Windows 8, it was impossible to know how fiercely the fires of controversy would burn over Microsoft's new interface. Some of us adjusted to the full-screen Start "experience" pretty quickly, but it's also clear that a sizable population of users prefer things just as they were. How sizable? Well, according to one of Start8's makers, quoted by USA Today, the $5 app has now sold "tens of thousands" of copies after the "floodgates opened" on October 26th, with further tens of thousands of users picking up the free version. Whether that's a lot or a little depends entirely on your frame of reference -- after all, four million copies of the OS upgrade were sold in the first four days. Nevertheless, interest has been sufficient for Stardock to invest in an update that reinstates even more old-school flavor -- including the ability to drag and drop Start menu items, and to disable the new Start screen toggle that appears whenever you move your cursor to that hotly disputed lower-left corner.

[Source: Engadget]

Nintendo's Wii U gets gutted in the name of specs

Curious about what silicon is powering Nintendo's Wii U? So was Anand Lal Shimpi, who tore his brand new console to pieces in the name of science. At its heart is a multi-chip module with a PowerPC-based CPU, built on IBM's 45-nanometer process, paired with a GPU similar to AMD's RV7xx design. These two components share 2GB of DDR3 RAM (plus an unspecified amount of eDRAM), while Anand calculates memory bandwidth to be 12.8GB/s. That's around the same as as the Nexus 10 and new iPad, but should throw more frames at your eyeballs because those other devices are operating at much higher resolutions. In terms of power consumption, the Wii U's innards draw a pretty constant wattage regardless of load, drawing 32.8W when rendering the disc menu and 33.0W when playing Super Mario U -- for comparison, that's around a third of the appetite of the greedy little PlayStation 3 Slim.

[Source: Engadget]

Amazon Kindle celebrates five e-inked years

Can you imagine a holiday season without Amazon's e-reader series? The Kindle celebrates its fifth birthday today -- a device that, since its debut, has added bigger screens, slimmer builds, and even some damn decent backlighting. Back at the start, Amazon's first hardware was just a little chunky, covered in buttons, and housed a 6-inch 800 x 600 e-ink display. However, the online bookseller went on to dominate the then-nascent e-reader market, with no shortage of rivals now wanting claim their own slice of the book-loving crowd. Five years goes pretty fast -- we just wonder how many still have their DRM-protected Mobipocket e-books to hand.

[Source: Engadget]

Samsung ATIV S for Vodafone UK goes up for pre-order at Phones4U with a December launch

Brits looking to score Samsung's ATIV S flagship on Vodafone can start forming an orderly queue. UK reseller Phones4U is offering pre-orders for the Windows Phone 8 darling to those willing to sign a two-year contract, giving it away for free on a £33 ($52) plan with 600 minutes, unlimited text, 500MB of cellular data and 2GB on WiFi. Pay a pound more per month ($54) as well as £30 for the device ($48) and the subscription jumps to both unlimited minutes as well as 2GB of cellular use. Unfortunately, the wait for this biggest-screened Windows Phone may be a long one -- while Samsung has only confirmed a December launch for the ATIV S in the UK, Phones4U has the smartphone reaching customers on December 21st. If that's accurate, we'd make sure there's some leftover wrapping paper in case the ATIV S becomes a gift, even if it's to yourself.

[Source: Engadget]

Nokia leak suggests there's something between Windows Phone 7.8 and 8

Owners of older Windows Phones who expect to run out of railroad after 7.8 could actually have some cause for hope -- meager though it may be. A leaked slide, said to originate from a 25-page Nokia roadmap sent to WParea by an anonymous tipster, points toward at least one more update after Windows Phone 7.8 lands. However, it's clear that whoever drew up the slide isn't fully in the know, since the mystery version is simply described as "7.x.". Meanwhile, the official Russian Windows Phone Twitter account has also kept the wheels rolling by promising 18 months of support for 7.8. We can't exactly vouch for this either, since the tweet appears to have been deleted, but it does suggest that those last-year Lumias will keep chugging on for a good while longer.

[Source: Engadget]

Xperia Tablet S gets firmware update with VPN fix

If you picked up a Sony Xperia Tablet S before it was recalled over water resistance concerns, you'll be pleased to learn that the tablet has just received an over-the-air update. The patch to 'release6a' is still based upon Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich -- no Jelly Beanyet, unfortunately -- but it does fix a few problematic bugs with VPN connectivity on the Sony tablet, which could be useful if you're connecting the tab to a corporate network.

Xperia Tablet S owners can pick up today's update by heading to Settings > About tablet > Software updates. The Sony-made tablet is expected to go back on sale soon, presumably with fixed water-resistant capabilities.

[Source: Android Central]

MacLegion Bundle: 10 Mac Apps for $49.99, Including Djay, Fantastical, and Capo

A few times a year, MacRumors partners with one of the Mac App Bundle organizers to promote their bundle deal. The latest bundle comes from MacLegion and delivers 10 Mac applications for $49.99 (a $548.80 value if all purchased separately).

[Source: MacRumors]