News

PHP6 will feature a hold bunch of changes to make the language much better. Backwards compatibility be damned. Finally, PHP6 will usher in proper namespaces and such.

Quote

PHP V6 will offer many improvements and will clean up some of the functionality that has been in older versions of PHP. To take advantage of the new features and cleanup, read through the NEWS list (see Resources), as it will contain the most up-to-date information about what is included (or not included) in PHP V6. You can download developer versions of PHP V6 today and start making sure that your applications are unaffected by the changes. You can also take this opportunity to clean up your own scripts, removing any of the deprecated functions mentioned in this article or updating your syntax to make sure that your applications are supported.

In what is surely to be one of the most hilarious interviews made this year, Crytek and Epic Games explain why their games have fallen to low sales.

Quote

Said Yerli, “We are suffering currently from the huge piracy that is encompassing Crysis. We seem to lead the charts in piracy by a large margin, a chart leading that is not desirable. I believe that’s the core problem of PC Gaming, piracy, to the degree [that PC gamers who] pirate games inherently destroy the platform. Similar games on consoles sell factors of 4-5 more. It was a big lesson for us and I believe we won't have PC exclusives as we did with Crysis in future. We are going to support PC, but not exclusive anymore."

This statement confirms the attitude a lot of game developers discussed earlier this year at the 2008 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA. We spoke with Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, and learned that the Unreal Tournament 3 servers received over 40 million attempts at illegitimate access using pirate keys. That number is huge, and the real magnitude comes when you calculate the retail price of $49.99 (59.99 for Collector's Edition).

If those 40 million players actually paid the full price, it would have been nearly $2 billion more in Epic’s pocket book. That is more than the quarterly sales results from Nvidia or AMD. To add another perspective, the government lost out as well, because no sales tax is earned on pirated copies.

When you take into account that Crytek saw similar levels of pirated copies, it is easy to see how big of a deal gaming piracy is. Between two games there were billions of dollars of lost sales. The natural instinct is of course to hit the platform(s) where they can actually earn money, which is looking less and less favorable for PC gaming.

Crytek's problem is that they have built a game that has so much hype surrounding the amazing graphics struggling to pull 60 FPS on top of the line graphics cards that it has lead 90% of the PC gaming public to essentially say "why bother when I can't play it?" Whether that is Crytek's fault or not is up in the air, but they certainly took no measures to prevent such thoughts.

Epic, on the other hand, simply needs to STFU. They have made the exact same game for the past 4 years now, with each one being more reliant on graphics than gameplay as the years past, that people aren't bothering with UT anymore. You wanna know why Epic is facing financial problems with each passing game? Because their entire company is run by complete d-bags. They make Gears of War, it goes on to sell millions until people begin to realize how little it achieved, so Epic somehow think that they are able to be able to make relevant comments about the industry; completely ignoring the fact that most everything they have made in the past 5 years was shallow crap in a really nice wrapper and that they represent everything that is wrong with the industry all by themselves. Furthermore, there is no way to even prove anything related to such a number in sales revenue lost, because it implies that that many illegitimate server connection attempts are all separate people; which is nowhere near the truth.

PC gaming is dead (and console gaming is beginning to be), but it isn't because of piracy. Its because of crappy, unfinished releases; companies like Epic; and strong arm bull like this.
Besides, here is the alternative.

The entire industry is in dire need of a major, 1983-like crash simply because thoughts of companies like Epic that are so widespread and narrow-minded. The domination of the "Graphics first" mantra has made the whole industry a rotting corpse of itself, a blame which I place squarely on the heads of Sony. Sooner or later, PC gamers are going to realize that most of the next big amazing graphical showcases are just 10 year old gameplay with really pretty paint (Doom 3, for example), and they will stop bothering. PC games won't take that much of a hit as graphics card producers will. However, it will then destroy the console market.

Why are PC Games screwed? Copy protection. Mass Effect for the PC is looking to be great... until you find out that is phones home every 10 days to make sure the copy is valid. This is worse than Windows DRM. This is the reason that PC gaming is taking a hit, the crazy DRM that only stops real customers from playing. Cracked copies will work better than the original. If that's how the companies want to play it, fine. I buy games from Stardock since they contain NO protection. Hell, I bought a game from them and didn't even use it to show my support.

Quote

Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it. Each copy of Mass Effect comes with a CD Key which is used for this activation and for registration here at the BioWare Community. Mass Effect does not require the DVD to be in the drive in order to play, it is only for installation.

After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez'd and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn't become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can't contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.

With DRM, you don't own the game you purchased. Sorry EA, this doesn't fly.

Crazy! I bought the game and can't even play it yet. Sales have outdone even Halo 3. Remember that GTA 4 was released for the PS3 and Xbox 360.

Quote

The significance of the sales extends beyond buoying Take-Two, a company that has had its share of legal, financial and management struggles in the last few years. The company is the subject of a $2 billion hostile takeover effort by Electronic Arts, which is offering Take Two shareholders $25.74 a share for control of the company. If Take-Two can exceed sales expectations on Grand Theft Auto IV, it has the potential to drive up the share price and force Electronic Arts to raise its offer. On Tuesday, Take Two’s shares closed at $26.35, up 29 cents.

I really hope they continue to shun a takeover from EA. EA sucks.

»Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Toxic 100225TXSR @ ASE Labs

Quote

It has been a very long time since a graphics card has passed by the review bench of ASE Labs. Sapphire steps up to the plate with their release of the Radeon HD3870 Toxic Edition that hopes to earn some of your hard earned cash. With AMD's support of open source, the ATI partners are in a good position to conqueror the Linux market and the future to bright. Sapphire is the biggest producer of ATI cards and we will see how their product performs.

»Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ RAID Enclosure @ ASE Labs

Quote

ASE Labs has always explained the benefits of having redundant storage and backups. There are series of articles devoted to each technology. Sans Digital is a big player in RAID enclosures and their latest model, the MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ delivers USB2 and eSATA support to a 2 disk array of your choosing. This combines the best of both world for data backup and redundancy. It really is an excellent product.

»OCZ Rally2 Turbo 4GB USB Flash @ ASE Labs

Quote

OCZ may be best known for their memory products such as low latency and high speed RAM, but they also provide other products with enhanced speed and performance. Their line of cooling products as well as flash memory provide excellent performance in today's market. Today, ASE Labs has the OCZ Rally2 Turbo 4GB USB flash drive for review. Even flash can be dual channel.

»Logitech diNovo Mini Wireless @ ASE Labs

Quote

It has been a long time since I last reviewed a Logitech product. CES has come and gone and with the show brought some interesting items. One such item that Logitech was showing was the diNovo Mini which is targeted to media center PCs like those provided by MythTV. The diNovo Mini was released a few weeks ago and it is the spotlight in this review.

S3 Chrome 430 GT Graphics Card

Quote

S3 hasn't stopped releasing graphics cards, but we just don't seem to hear much about them anymore. Hopefully that's going to change with the release of the Chrome 430 GT. It's a low-end card that seems to be capable of taking on the big boys at NVIDIA and AMD. Trying to fire up GPU-Z just resulted in an error due to none of it being able to be recognized, though the core comes in at 625MHz and there is 256MB of GDDR2 memory running at a speed of 500MHz DDR. We have a 64-bit interface, 64nm core, PCI Express 2.0 support, Direct X 10.1 and Open GL 2.1 support.

Hades Gaming Ares H1 Optical Gaming Mouse @ DragonSteelMods

Quote

Gaming mice provide many features that are unavailable in standard mice. These options include higher DPI, the inclusion of counterweights, Teflon feet and precise tracking speeds. The two biggest names in the Gaming Mice arena include Logitech and Razer. Well, move over boys, there is a new contender. Hades Gaming has released the H1 Optical Gaming Mouse and this mouse holds it own against the big boys.

Silverstone Treasure TS01B RFID Enclosure @ techPowerUp

Quote

The Silverstone Treasure TS01B is a very unique 2.5 SATA hard drive enclosure. You may not only use it as a plain USB 2.0 powered unit, but may also set it up to safely encrypt your hard drive as well. The two included RFID tags then act as keys to gain access to your data.

Digit-Life Review: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX Graphics Card

Quote

While renaming products to GeForce 9xxx, NVIDIA launched another graphics card based on G92 -- GeForce 9800 GTX. It's the most powerful single-GPU graphics card, designed to replace GeForce 8800 GTX (and probably GeForce 8800 GTS 512MB in the nearest future). However, at this moment GeForce 9800 GTX stands in between GeForce 9800 GX2 and GeForce 8800 GTS 512 MB.

Wolfking Warrior XXtreme @ Bjorn3D

Quote

In today's gamer-friendly market there seems to be no shortage of gaming peripherals to choose from. Unfortunately for the games, however, not all peripherals are created equal - making it difficult and risky to choose. Today I hope to help with your decision by taking a look at the Wolfking Warrior XXtreme gaming keyboard. As an avid gamer that has always used a basic keyboard, the comparison will prove to be a great test for the latest Wolfking.

VL System M-Play Blast LCD Case Display Remote Control Review @ Tweaknews.net

Quote

I always enjoy being surprised by a product and the M-Play Blast was one such device. Not only did it exceed my expectations, it thoroughly impressed me. If you are looking for a remote setup for your media center and want something that looks at home with your VCR and other entertainment systems then the retro look of the M-play Blast should be right up your alley.

Corsair Survivor 32GB @ t-break

Quote

As flash memory prices keep lowering, we see higher capacity drives more readily available. We've already looked at the 32GB version of Corsair's Voyager drive. Today, we look at the 32GB of the Survivor. In case you missed our first article on Survivor, we would quickly like to say that its enclosure is one tough shell.

OCZ ReaperX HPC DDR3-1333 2GB Memory Kit Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Quote

In a few short years, OCZ has really made its mark in the PC enthusiast world. They have branched out into power supplies, CPU coolers, thermal compound, peripherals, flash media, they even have a new phase-change cooler for those extreme overclockers that need sub-zero temps. But, OCZ's forte is still high-performance system memory. Today I will be looking at OCZ's latest offering in the ReaperX series, the ReaperX PC3-1066 (DDR3-1333) 2 gig kit. Will the DDR3 ReaperX prove to be the awesome overclocker that its DDR2 little brother is? Read on and see...

NZXT Tempest ATX Mid Tower Enclosure

Quote

Enter the Tempest, an enclosure that claims to be the Airflow King. This is a mighty tall order to fill considering some of the similar products on the market, so we will take a closer look and see if they can live up to this statement. It will take more than just a couple of extra fans to step up to a statement like this, so we will look at overall design, active fans that come in the standard configuration as well as cooling a high-end rig. Can NZXT manage to really be considered an Airflow King?

Archos 705 WiFi Review @ Digital Trends

Quote

The gargantuan Archos 705 WiFi's attention-grabbing features include a 7-inch touchscreen, 160GB hard drive, integrated WiFi and digital video recorder functionality. What's more, because of its size, the device often gets compared to an ultra-portable PC, only minus the productivity features and processing speed that would make it truly deserve such categorization. But remember: Archos's goal - emblazoned on the front of the metal casing - was to make a large-screen mobile DVR for traveling video junkies. Extras like WiFi are meant more to provide greater access to content than to enable the 705 as a laptop replacement, and because it has less lofty ambitions than Cowon's overburdened Q5W, the gizmo achieves its goals fairly well. We just wish Archos had aimed a little higher with the most important feature of all: Audiovisual quality.

NVIDIA nForce 7 AMD Series Arrives - ASUS M3N-HT Deluxe Motherboard @ Legit Reviews

Quote

Quote: We compared the nForce 780a SLI to the AMD 780G since we wanted to test out the integrated graphics and PureVideo HD functionality as well as general performance. It seems to have paid off; the test results were interesting as the HD DVD playback testing over the HDMI output showed that NVIDIA passed up ATI when it comes to offloading the CPU usage. NVIDIA claims that an HT3-based Phenom CPU is required to provide the necessary bandwidth when playing HD video using the motherboard GPU. Our testing showed this is not true, but NVIDIA claims moving from a HT1 processor to HT3 will give the integrated graphics the bandwidth it needs to better render HD content. This is something we will check out later, because if we are impressed with what a 2.5GHz AMD Athlon 64 X2 dual-core CPU can do with HT1, we'd better be sitting down for some Phenom 50-series action...

Logitech diNovo Mini Review @ TechwareLabs

Quote

Quote: As the Media Center or Home Theatre PC becomes more popular in homes the need for a better way to interact with the PC on the other end becomes critical. While the standard remote control may be good for most functions, what do you do when you have the need to input information or data, or type in searches? Logitech has created the diNovo Mini which is essentially a tiny bluetooth keyboard which allows you much greater freedom with your HTPC. The diNovo Mini combines all the functionality of a touchpad, keyboard, and hotkeys all into one tiny palmtop package that even has back lighting. Check out our review of this cool accessory.

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 Sound Card

Quote

From a technical point of view we understand that Auzentech has fully licensed Creative Labs' X-Fi chip onto their own proprietary circuit board design. So what does that mean? Well it means arguably the world's fastest and most advanced audio processing at the average consumers reach right now, with upcoming driver support for Dolby Live, DTS interactive and since we have a Creative chip, the very latest in EAX surround technology. My first impressions were good with a very noticeable notch up from the low-end after swapping from the Xonar. Not only did the low-end sound a lot beefier, it had a lot more character to it; more warmth and depth.

Sapphire Hybrid CrossFire 780G Motherboard at Modders-Inc

Quote

Are you in the market for a small form factor m-ATX motherboard that can give you blistering performance for your multimedia needs, plus the ability to play the latest Direct X 10 games? And as a bonus you can install a second card to gain CrossFireX for your games. Then you have to check out the Sapphire PURE Hybrid CrossFire 780G Innovation Motherboard.

OCZ PC2-6400 ReaperX HPC 4GB Kit @ techPowerUp

Quote

The OCZ ReaperX HPC memory series is the newest variant of the heatpipe cooled memory available from the manufacturer. Its new design improves on the cooling with dual heatpipes and finer fins to keep the parts cool. In our testing we saw excellent performance going all the way to DDR2-736 at 3-3-3-12.

Vantec NexStar 3i Power Management Enclosure @ Pro-Clockers

Quote

Vantec has added another member to the NexStar 360 lineup. The 3i boasts some things that we have not seen from Vantec in their many ages in the industry. In the past year or so we have seen motherboards feature energy efficiency, now we have it in hard drive enclosures. The 3i has an integrated controller that can regulate power to the drive resulting in less power consumption, less noise and longer drive life. Adding the real reason why we buy hard drive enclosures, which is for data storage, the new Vantec housing may be worth taking a look at.

Zalman ZM850-HP 850W Modular Power Supply Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Quote

A little while ago, ThinkComputers reviewed the Zalman ZM500-HP 500W power supply unit. This time around, Zalman, maker of fine cooling products and power supplies, submitted for review a more powerful, but louder version of its line of power supply units, the ZM850-HP 850W. This 80PLUS-certified unit has lots of connectivity with its modular design, and two heatpipes and an ultra-quiet fan keep the unit virtually silent. The review is here.

NZXT Alpha Classical Series Mid-Tower Case @ Benchmark Reviews

Quote

Fortunately, since the PC Enclosure market is roughly organized into three segments; entry/OEM level, mid-range and performance/enthusiast, all you need to do to begin your case search, is to figure out which segment of the market fits your systems needs and zero your search down to that particular segment. Someone looking to spend between $25.00-$75.00 on their future system's enclosure need not waste their time exploring the expensive performance/enthusiast segment of the market, and so forth. Well, if part of your criteria is that you are on a budget or a first time builder, then usually the place to start is at the entry and budget mid-range levels.

Lian Li PC-C1110 Super Mid-Tower Chassis Review @ OCIA.net

Quote

Lian Li certainly put a lot of thought into the design of this case, = even taking the time to implement the classic separate thermal zone = design that is common to many full-tower and server cases. Can this case = wow us like the PC-A17 did, though? Continue on as we find out..

Cooler Master Real Power M850 850W @ techPowerUp

Quote

Cooler Master's Real Power M850 power supply is one of the first power supplies that has six 12V rails. This should be enough power for all your SLI or CrossFire needs. Like many other PSUs today, the M850 comes with a high gloss reflective case and a large number of connectors.

MSI GeForce 9600GT 1GB OC Graphics Card

Quote

We saw MSI mix it up just the other week with the 9600GT by overclocking it and going down the aftermarket cooler route. Aesthetically speaking, the card really didn't do a lot for us, but as we dived deeper into the testing of the card we became pleasantly surprised by the performance the cooler offered. The latest 9600GT variant from MSI sports the same cooler along with an extra 512MB of GDDR3, giving us a grand total of 1GB. The card also carries with it the same overclock we saw on the 512MB model which should aid in getting some extra performance over stock clocked offerings.

ECS GeForce 8800 GT 256MB Video Card Review - N8800GT-256MX @ Legit Reviews

Quote

The GeForce 8800 GT 256MB card has been around since November 2007 and now, six months later some very interesting versions of this card are appearing on the market. The ECS N8800GT-256MX is one of these cards! It appears that ECS has placed 512MB of GDDR3 memory on the N8800GT-256MX, but only enabled 256MB of the graphics memory through the BIOS. Once a quick BIOS flash is performed on the card it turned into a GeForce 8800 GT 512MB graphics card for the price of a 256MB card!

Foxconn 9800GTX Extreme OC @ Bjorn3D

Quote

Bjorn3D has previously reviewed the performance difference of the stock 9800GTX versus various high-end and mainstream graphic cards: namely the 8 series cards (review). We are fortunate to receive the Foxconn GeForce 9800 GTX Extreme OC card which features clock speed of 780/1900/2360 (core/shader/memory) as opposed to the reference speed of 675/1688/2200. Today, we will put this card against other mid-range graphic cards ranging from the last generation G80 to current generation G92 cards and even the HD card from AMD.

ASRock Penryn 1600SLIX3-WiFi 680i Motherboard Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Quote

ASRock came on board in 2002, not long after I started building my own rigs. In those six short years, they have come up with some remarkably innovative designs for economy motherboards. Today I will be looking at the ASRock Penryn 1600SLIX3-WiFi motherboard. ASRock has taken the nVidia 680i SLI chipset, given it the capability of running the new Core 2 Extreme 1600mHz FSB processors, added WiFi, and placed that in an economy-minded board.

DFI LANParty LT X48-T2R Motherboard

Quote

X48 has certainly earned a name for itself now. While Intel has been at the back end of adapting new technologies that actually work (forget the Rambus incident), the X38/X48 chipsets are somewhat ahead of their time. What can be said for the DFI X48 LANParty board other than yet another success from this once OEM company is that DFI has really taken on a new persona over the last three years. With a huge boost in R&D, DFI are designing boards that are not only functional, but look just as good as they perform.

Cooler Master Centurion 590 @ techPowerUp

Quote

The Cooler Master Centurion 590 is a very affordable entry level case that brings a lot of features from much more expensive enthusiast class enclosures. Its nine 5.25 drive bays offer ultimate expandability, large video cards will also find a comfortable home in it.

Do you remember a bit of time ago when .com domains that wouldn't resolve got kicked over to a Versign advertising page? They received a patent on a trivial matter of DNS. I guess the patent was awarded since it is one of those business method types... The ones that suck, just like all software patents.

Quote

As part of VeriSign’s (VRSN) 2001 purchase of eNic Corporation (operator of the .CC registry) the company became the owner of a patent application, which has now been granted on March 4th of this year under patent number 7,337,910 b2. While the original patent application, at the time written by eNic’s CEO Brian Cartmell and eNic’s CTO Jothan Frakes, was used in order to resolve and offer non-existent domain names for registration, it would also cover Verisign’s Sitefinder application, implemented in September of 2003, causing any unregistered .COM/.NET domain to resolve to a parked page. VeriSign, was ordered by ICANN to cease the practice shortly after they introduced it.

And crap. I own a .cc domain that I use! http://www.ase.cc

The Sapphire Radeon HD 3870 Toxic is the perfect match for your Linux system thanks to AMD. The bundle is also impressive.Next Page »

Thermaltake has released a new model in the Armor line of cases which are absolutely great cases.

LOS ANGELES, CA – May 2008 – After the success of "Armor+ Series" engineers at Thermaltake has worked around the clock to improve and innovate another and better chassis. Armor+ Series was launched at Computex 2007 a super tower allowing consumer to fully utilize the advance graphic technology. Today Thermaltake announced a new member of the Armo+, "Armor+ MX" a middle tower chassis with countless advance features.

The company once featured "Armor+ MX" chassis during CES 2008 in Las Vegas, it was immediate caught hundreds of attention. This one special chassis has never before available among this wide and competitive PC industry. Thanks to Thermaltake the Armor Plus MX will be available on the first week of MAY 2008 throughout major retailers and e-tailers, price has been set at $139 MSRP.Next Page »

This is a huge move for the industry. Adobe will release specifications and relinquish the licensing fees/restrictions for their Flash based formats. This move allows anyone to write and show content in this format with ease (if you understand the code). Adobe is not releasing their player or writing software, just the formats.

Quote

The Open Screen Project is working to enable a consistent runtime environment – taking advantage of Adobe Flash Player and, in the future, Adobe AIR -- that will remove barriers for developers and designers as they publish content and applications across desktops and consumer devices, including phones, mobile internet devices (MIDs), and set top boxes. The Open Screen Project will address potential technology fragmentation by allowing the runtime technology to be updated seamlessly over the air on mobile devices. The consistent runtime environment will provide optimal performance across a variety of operating systems and devices, and ultimately provide the best experience to consumers.

The KDE Team has released the first Alpha of KDE 4.1 which should be the version to replace the 3.5 series (that even I'm still using). The feature freeze is in place. 4.1 will be able to run on any operating system including Windows.

Hopefully they will be able to iron out the bugs for the forthcoming Kubuntu 8.10 release. I believe community development should rest in the 6 month Ubuntu release cycles since it is stable. The community still needs to work out how to easily install software (like a Mac) without using a package manager. I believe that the Mac puts all its dependencies inside a 'folder' that the program uses when it runs.

According to Kotaku, Rockstar has no ideas as to why the mega-hyped GTA IV is a glitchy unplayable mess to select few users. Thankfully, it seems the problems aren't as widespread as they were with the comically broken Bully: Scholarship Edition, and Rockstar sounds to be urgently searching for a way to fix it (and hopefully that will turn out better than Bully did, as well). However, regardless of the efforts that Rockstar takes, it is pretty unforgivable that they can't manage to code a game for either console without having to supplant it with a patch just to get it to run. Thank you, seventh generation! We truly love the laziness that built in hard drives has ushered.

Quote

Rockstar declined to comment on the issue officially, so I went to the phone and called up Rockstar Support to see what they had to say about the problem.

A very friendly, and obviously unhappy, fellow answered the phone who, after thanking me for not yelling at him and apologizing profusely for the problem, spilled quite a bit of beans on the issue:

The man told me that the problem is apparently only effecting the 60 GB version of the Playstation 3, but that it didn't matter than my particular console was a launch console (Yes, I told a little white lie and said my copy was locking up.) He said the problem is not across the board for the 60GB PS3s but rather only impacts some, so their tech folks are working around the clock to try and figure out what is causing the issue.

He did ask me to make sure that my harddrive wasn't full and that I had the latest firmware update, but confessed that that really isn't what's causing most of the problem. He also said that the Xbox 360 is having the "exact same problem," which has further stumped their tech folks.

Lovely. And people wonder why PC gaming is dead.

In a move to become more relevant, Time Warner will spin off its cable service unit. It shouldn't have bought AOL in the first place. Bad move.

Quote

Time Warner currently owns around 84 percent of Time Warner Cable. The media giant, which has been struggling of late, has been rumored to be discussing an AOL partnership with Yahoo. "A complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interest of both companies' shareholders," CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a release. The company also reported first-quarter earnings on Wednesday. Gains in its Turner cable networks and phone and broadband division were offset by slow ad sales at AOL and a decline in the Filmed Entertainment division.

City of Industry, CA - April 29, 2008 - Sans Digital, a leading provider of high performance storage subsystems, is introducing a series of innovative storage gadgets to the storage market, which includes the newly designed 5-bay storage device that is unlike any of the previous Sans Digital’s products - Hard Drive Rack HDDRACK5.

The Sans Digital Hard Drive Rack HDDRACK5 is the latest innovation product for hard drive storage and organization. Each HDDRACK5 unit houses up to five hard drives by using easy to install turnbuckle screws. Each hard drive connects to the motherboard via an IDE or SATA cable. By adding a 20-pin or 24-pin ATX power supply, the HDDRACK5 supports centralized power control via a built-in ON/OFF power switch. Designed with a 4.7" cooling fan and a hollow aluminum frame, the HDDRACK5 provides the most efficient heat dissipation.Next Page »

VIA has unveiled its new Linux portal site dedicated to providing better open source drivers. Though the site is pretty much bare at the moment, it shows that VIA is working on better supporting the community. The press release follows...

Taipei, Taiwan, 30 April 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced the launch of a beta version of the VIA Linux Portal as part of an initiative designed to extend collaboration with the Open Source community.

The VIA Linux Portal will initially offer graphics drivers for the VIA CN896 digital media IGP chipset for the new Ubuntu 8.04 LTS distribution. Documentation and source code for these drivers will be released over the coming weeks, with official forums and bug tracking scheduled for implementation later this year. The VIA Linux Portal will also adhere to a regular release schedule that is aligned with kernel changes and the release of major Linux distributions.Next Page »

Fremont, CA - April 28, 2008 - Antec, Inc., the leading global brand of high-performance computer components for the PC upgrade and Do-It-Yourself markets, has launched the Twelve Hundred PC enclosure, the next evolution of its best-selling Nine Hundred case. With an advanced cooling system, a spacious design and other convenient features, the Twelve Hundred is an excellent choice for gamers and other high-performance PC builders.Next Page »

City of Industry, CA, April 28, 2008 - DXG USA (http://www.dxgusa.com), one of the fastest growing digital camera manufacturers, announced today the new low priced DXG-569V HD High-Definition camcorder with a sexy vertical design for an ultra-slim form factor that consumers prefer. Available immediately at Radio Shack and other stores for $169 in glossy black and silver, the DXG-569V HD camcorder records real HD video up to 1280 x 720 at 30 fps for videos that are crystal-clear, crisp and colorful. Next Page »

Here is an interesting report on how webpage sizes have increased in size over the years. ASE Labs is also a good example. I was always reluctant to ad features to the front page and such, but now it shows article images, Adnet content blocks, Prototype.js, and other stuff. The first version was straight HTML (no CSS even!). Times have changed.

Quote

The size of the average web page has more than tripled since 2003. From 2003 to 2008 the average web page grew from 93.7K to over 312K (see Figure 1), some 233% (Domenech et al. 2007, Flinn & Betcher 2008). During the same five-year period, the number of objects in the average web page nearly doubled from 25.7 to 49.9 objects per page. Longer term statistics show that since 1995 the size of the average web page has increased by 22 times, and the number of objects per page has grown by 21.7 times.

The download is ready. Ubuntu 8.04 comes with Long Term Support for 5 years. I found a torrent here: Torrent. I use Kubuntu and will be using the KDE4 Remix. KDE4 rocks and I can't wait to try it out.

»Sans Digital MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ RAID Enclosure @ ASE Labs

Quote

ASE Labs has always explained the benefits of having redundant storage and backups. There are series of articles devoted to each technology. Sans Digital is a big player in RAID enclosures and their latest model, the MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ delivers USB2 and eSATA support to a 2 disk array of your choosing. This combines the best of both world for data backup and redundancy. It really is an excellent product.

»OCZ Rally2 Turbo 4GB USB Flash @ ASE Labs

Quote

OCZ may be best known for their memory products such as low latency and high speed RAM, but they also provide other products with enhanced speed and performance. Their line of cooling products as well as flash memory provide excellent performance in today's market. Today, ASE Labs has the OCZ Rally2 Turbo 4GB USB flash drive for review. Even flash can be dual channel.

»Logitech diNovo Mini Wireless @ ASE Labs

Quote

It has been a long time since I last reviewed a Logitech product. CES has come and gone and with the show brought some interesting items. One such item that Logitech was showing was the diNovo Mini which is targeted to media center PCs like those provided by MythTV. The diNovo Mini was released a few weeks ago and it is the spotlight in this review.

»ThermalTake Armor Case VA8003BWS @ ASE Labs

Quote

What happens when you need a full size case for a new build? Maybe you want the extra space for additional cooling or hardware support. Look no futher than the Thermaltake Armor VA8003BWS. We already know that Thermaltake is a big player in the cases and modding market. This case certainly fits its name. It is big, heavy, and tough.

OCZ DDR3-12800 Platinum vs. Patriot DDR3-1500 Viper @ Bjorn3D

Quote

Recently we received two DDR3 kits, one from OCZ Technology and one from Patriot Memory. The kit from OCZ was their 4GB DDR3 12800 (DDR3 1600) Platinum Enhance Bandwidth product and Patriot sent us their 2GB Viper DDR3 15000 (DDR3 1866) kit. Both of these products were used in our recent review of the ASUS P5E3 Premium motherboard. We saw some rather interesting phenomena with both of these memory kits in that review so we have decided to review both of these kits comparatively in much more detail using the same test rig. Our goal is not only to give you a complete review of these two memory products, but to also answer the questions we alluded to in the beginning of this introduction.

Intel QX9770 Quad Core Extreme 3.2Ghz Processor Review @ Tweaknews.net

Quote

The QX9770 being reviewed today is Intel's latest Socket 775 Quad-Core which not only boasts the smaller 45nm manufacturing process as the QX9650, but it also ups the stock core speed by 200Mhz to 3.2Ghz, cranks up the FSB from 1333Mhz to a screaming 1600Mhz, and for good measure slaps on another 4MB of on die cache to keep all cores fed properly.

Enhance Tech T4H CR External RAID Tower

Quote

Getting your hands on this device should solve your problems when it comes to flexible mobile storage with fail-safe protection. This is Enhance Technology's T4H CR. The unit comprises a very nicely built enclosure with handles for easy mobility, four HDD eSATA bays, a built-in LCD display for setup and configuration, and last but most certainly not least, a RAID controller with levels 0, 0+1 and 5. An independent PSU and rear mounted case fan is also resident. Before we get into the benchmarking side of things, let's perform a close physical inspection of the unit itself to get the full gist of what's on offer.

Buffalo TeraStation Pro II 1TB Rackmount NAS Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Quote

Some organizations-or people-need serious storage. Sometimes a simple server running Windows 2003 or Linux might not be sufficient, in terms of storage space, redundancy, or cost for all of these. The Buffalo TeraStation Pro II series of network-attached storage devices aims to please users and administrators who need a large amount of redundant storage, automatic backups to other units, gigabit networking, and the ability to increase the capacity. ThinkComputers takes a look at the one terabyte rackmount version in this review.

Antec Mini P180 mATX Case @ Pro-Clockers

Quote

Antec is never stopping with the introduction of new cases. If seems like every 3 months or so there is a new case to drool over. That new case today is the tiny brother case of the P180 which is simply labeled the P180 Mini. The Mini carries many of the features of the P180 but in a smaller shell. The only thing that is lacking is the spacing of the P180. But the compartments and cable management systems remain in place. But what the Mini has over the regular size P180 is lighter weight and somewhat portability. It is definitely one for the person that is lacking room to house a bigger size tower but is it one for the LAN goers? This is what we will find out.

Sun Solaris 10 5/08

Quote

While all of the Solaris excitement at Phoronix as of late has been around Solaris Express Developer 1/08 and the forthcoming release of OpenSolaris 2008.05, today Sun Microsystems has announced the immediate release of Solaris 10 5/08. This update to their Solaris OS includes major enhancements for those running Intel hardware, a number of new features, updated applications, the introduction of Solaris OnDemand, and updated drivers.

Edifer E3350 PC Speaker System Review @ Digital Trends

Quote

With so many computer 2.1 speaker systems on the market today, it's easy to be turned off from anything starting at under $100. But at the Consumer Electronics show earlier this year, the buzz was all about Edifiers new E3350 lifestyle speaker systems. People were assuming that with such rich sounds, and well built speakers, they would be in the $250 or higher price range. Coming in at just $99.99, the new E3350 speaker system combines award winning design with practical affordability.

Cooler Master Cosmos S Case Review @ Hardware Secrets

Quote

Cosmos S (internally called RC-1100 by Cooler Master) is a big full-tower case featuring aluminum body, ten 5 ¼ bays, a big 200-mm side fan and several other features. Let's take an in-depth on this new case from Cooler Master.

Mushkin XP-800 AP 800W PSU @ techPowerUp

Quote

Mushkin's new XP-800AP power supply offers enough power for even the most demanding rigs. The shiny black paint looks great and the connectors are numerous. One special feature is Rail Fusion which lets the user select if the whole PSU should run with one big rail or in Quad Rail mode.

Ways to silence your PC - XSReviews

Quote

* One of the holy grails of any PC enthusiast is to have a completely silent rig, or at least, quiet enough so that it doesn't disturb the game we're playing or the movie we're watching. This article is a collection of helpful information that should help those who don't want their conversation drowned out by rumbling hard disks or whirring fans.

AMD Phenom X3 8750 Triple Core Processor @ Viper Lair

Quote

Even though the AMD Unified Video Decoder can offload CPU usage in HD playback by putting the work on the graphics processing unit, if you're running multiple tasks during HD playback, the system does struggle if it doesn't have the horse power. We don't do it often, but at times we'll be converting files into DivX for sharing, and the CPU is completely maxed out, causing dropped frames during HD playback. For the test files we used, the X3 8750 had no problems with HD and file conversion.

HIS HD3850 AGP Video Card

Quote

The HIS HD3850 IceQ Turbo 512MB AGP Video Card comes action packed with powerful technology that will not let you down! And as much as we love a good hardware war, it's unfortunate that Nvidia is no longer building highend AGP cards for us to compare these results. With that said the question must be asked, is this the end of AGP?...

AMD Phenom X3 8750 Triple-Core Processor Review @ Legit Reviews

Quote

Quote: When it comes to performance the AMD Phenom X3 8750 performed much faster than the AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ and actually beat out the AMD Phenom X4 9600 (Running the TLB Patch) in a number of benchmarks. It was also able to perform better than the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 and Core 2 Duo E6750 as seen in the benchmarks. Intel still has the lead when overclocking, but AMD hasn't been marketing the Phenom X3 series as enthusiasts parts. With that said, we still managed to get another 500MHz out of the Phenom X3 8750 by overclocking just the bus frequency...

News: Bjorn3d.com tests the new Phenom X3 8750

Quote

'Thinking that having more cores would better? That is exactly what AMD is thinking. Today, AMD is once again being the first one on the market releasing the triple-core processor with their Phenom X3 8750. Does this processor can deliver a better performance than the dual-core processors, how does it compares to the quad core processors? Read our review and find out....'

AMD Phenom X3 Triple Core CPU

Quote

While the X4 is the more costly option (though in today's world the cost of a $250 processor isn't really that expensive), AMD is going to start shipping a cheaper option based on the same K10 architecture, and yes it keeps the Phenom branding, it's a direct descendant of the X4, but with a few modifications. On the chopping block today we have the new kid on the block designed to take over where the Athlon 64 X2's price range is set. Help us welcome to the Phenom family the triple core X3. How well does it perform? Stick around while we find out!

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 Review @ Digital Trends

Quote

the svelte and feature laden ThinkPad X300. While Apple had to make a number of compromises on the Air to get it down to its remarkable size, Lenovo took the opposite approach and have crammed as many features as possible - including an optical drive - into the X300. It's an expensive notebook because, unlike the Air, it comes with a solid-state 64GB hard drive standard. As of the time of this review, the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is priced from $3000 USD.

LiveWires T1 Custom IEMs @ techPowerUp

Quote

LiveWires T1 is the name of some new custom earphones that cost about half of its main rivals. They are built exactly to fit your ear with additional customization options like colors. These in-ears use two balanced armatures and play in a completely different league compared to whats usually available in this price segment.

SimpleTech 250GB Signature Mini Portable Drive @ TechwareLabs

Quote

Quote: While we have reservations about any drive named after a fruit, Jason Dumbaugh takes a look at the SimpleTech 2.5 inch Signature Mini Portable drive weighing in at 250GB. Nicknamed the Kiwi this little storage monster comes loaded with some very useful software that covers backup of your PC to the drive as well as to an online source. We test this drive to show you if its a speed demon, a snail, or somewhere in between.

Diamond Radeon HD 3870 1GB Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews

Quote

Quote: First and foremost, if you're playing at extreme resolutions of 2560x1600 a single ATI Radeon HD 3870 is clearly not going to cut it. It is able to provide playable frame rates in some situations but is bested by the Nvidia 8800 GTS in most of those same situations. When it comes to performance compared to a standard 3870 with 512MB, our 1GB version really didn't show much improvement in our short battery of test, but I believe that the performance is being held back more by the actual GPU than an increase in memory bandwidth and size can help. Our testing at such a high resolution should have given the Diamond 3870 1GB a chance to shine...

Tuniq Ensemble 1200W Power Supply Review @ ThinkComputers.org

Quote

Tuniq is a performance chassis and power supply purveyor subsidiary of cooling, lighting, and chassis maker Sunbeamtech. Tuniq is in the fashion business of the computer industry, making cases, power supplies, and other products with style and durability in mind in addition to performance. ThinkComputers received its Ensemble 1200W power supply, a sleek powerhouse which operates at a minimum efficiency of 82.3%, and an average efficiency of 86%. Read on for the review...

Logitech MX Air Cordless Mouse

Quote

The more I play with this thing, the more I'm reminded of the Phasers that they used in Star Trek; it's uncanny. I can almost pretend I'm Patrick Stewart dashing about in a well fitted uniform, barking out orders to my number one in a fine English accent. It feels very natural to hold in the hand, and obviously Logitech have spent a good chunk of money on the ergonomics of this thing alone. It's not often one has to pick up a mouse and wave it around, and they have certainly made sure that it feels pretty natural to do it.

News - Logitech MX5500 Revolution at Overclockers Online

Quote

Choosing a good keyboard and mouse is one of the most difficult choices I ever make and in so being I rarely switch my input devices. Using the MX5500 Revolution has made me quickly forget my old trusty mouse and keyboard. The keyboard is comfortable, responsive and customizable. The MX Revolution mouse is comfortable and precise and like the keyboard very customizable. The added bonus of Bluetooth wireless connectivity eliminates cables and has not showed flaky connectivity of Bluetooth units in the past.

Western Digital VelociRaptor 300GB SATA Hard Drive @ Legit Reviews

Quote

Quote: The Western Digital VelociRaptor was a blast to test since it's not every day something this new and innovative comes across the test bench. The Western Digital VelociRaptor is hands down the fastest single hard drive we have ever tested and it is hard to believe that the firmware is still being improved. It will be exciting to see how much more performance Western Digital will be able to get out of the VelociRaptor before it hits retail stores in May. As it stands right now having a burst speed of over 250 MB/s and a sustained read speed pushing over 100 MB/s is enough to put a smile on our face. Just imagine running RAID 0 with a pair of these!

Gigabyte EP35-DS4: DES in Action @ Bjorn3D

Quote

Now the current trend is focusing on energy more than ever, regardless whether to cut costs at the end of the month or the simple knowledge that over half of the United State's energy is produced from coal, therefore lower energy consumption translates into less coal pollution. When many consumers are penny pinching wherever they can, companies like Gigabyte and ASUS have decided to begin marketing energy saving motherboards not to a niche market, but to the masses.

Noctua NH-U12P CPU Cooler @ Pro-Clockers

Quote

Noctua has gone and improved on an old favorite. The U12P offers some improvements that were most needed over its predecessor, the NH-U12. These improvements range from better performance to easier mounting. And if that isn't enough how about a better fan included in the package. If you can recall, the original cooler was a big hit with enthusiasts all over. With these tweaks who knows what the future has for those of us wanting it all from the newest CPU. Does the U12P have what it take to beat our reigning king, the Thermalright Ultra-120? Read on to find out.

Zotac GeForce 9800GTX AMP Edition @ t-break

Quote

Zotac is a new nVidia partner- at least for us. Its a new brand in the region and this is the first product we have received from them which is an overclocked 9800GTX card. Considering how cool the 9800GTX runs, this should work out quite nicely. Lets find out how the AMPed version of Zotac compares to the stock 9800GTX and other cards.

What happens if you hard drive dies right now? Be safe and get a true backup solution: The MobileSTOR MS2UTN+ RAID enclosure. You won't be sorry that you did.
Next Page »

As stated in »my report a few years ago, DRM takes away your rights. How? Here is a true example. Microsoft will close its music service. Not a big deal? The DRM keys will also be stopped. And now any content you have cannot be shifted anywhere. It is stuck on the device and that's all. DRM invades your rights to the product you purchased and now you must buy the music at another store... Exactly what these greedy companies want.

Quote

MSN Entertainment and Video Services general manager Rob Bennett sent out an e-mail this afternoon to customers, advising them to make any and all authorizations or deauthorizations before August 31. "As of August 31, 2008, we will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for the songs you purchased from MSN Music or the authorization of additional computers," reads the e-mail seen by Ars. "You will need to obtain a license key for each of your songs downloaded from MSN Music on any new computer, and you must do so before August 31, 2008. If you attempt to transfer your songs to additional computers after August 31, 2008, those songs will not successfully play."

This doesn't just apply to the five different computers that PlaysForSure allows users to authorize, it also applies to operating systems on the same machine (users need to reauthorize a machine after they upgrade from Windows XP to Windows Vista, for example). Once September rolls around, users are committed to whatever five machines they may have authorized-along with whatever OS they are running.

EMI thinks that using online storage for music is illegal. A service called MP3tunes allows members to store their files for use at another place. This is legit and legal, but that doesn't stop the media cartels from trying to ban fair use... Here is some interesting quotes...

Quote

As you may be aware, the major record label EMI has sued MP3tunes, claiming our service is illegal. You can read about the case here. Much is at stake - if you don't have the right to store your own music online then you won't have the right to store ebooks, videos and other digital products as well. The notion of ownership in the 21st century will evaporate. The idea of ownership is important to me and I want to make sure I have that right and my kids do too.

The notion of ownership will evaporate... Is that really what you want?

The title was a bit finicky, but the NJ Supreme Court (that means only the state of NJ) has ruled that an ISP cannot give information without a warrant from a grand jury. Basically that means that in NJ, you are safe from the state institutions against privacy violations. Sadly, this does nothing about the federal level.

Quote

"The New Jersey Supreme Court is the first in the nation to recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy when using the internet anonymously," said Trenton-based attorney Grayson Barber, who represented six privacy rights organizations as a friend of the court. "'I think this reflects the reality that most people do expect a measure of privacy when they are using the internet anonymously."

The unanimous seven-member court held that police do have the right to seek a user's private information when investigating a crime involving a computer, but must follow legal procedures. The court said authorities do not have to warn a suspect that they have a grand jury subpoena to obtain the information.

That's a reminder. If you are committing a crime, the authorities just need to get a warrant for the information.

There are a bunch of press releases that I have for you to enjoy. Included...

Planar is Offering Two New State-Of-The-Art Projection Screens!
Corsair Announces High-Density Memory Line for Mac Pro Desktop Systems
D-Link Now Shipping PConTV
An HDTV your kitchen will flip for -- Westinghouse Digital's new 16" flip style TVNext Page »

That's right. The download is almost ready. Windows XP is now at SP3. And yet, does anyone care? Ubuntu 8.04 is coming in 3 days!

That's not the best part. The overview has two files for download. A PDF and whatever a XPS file is. I'm assuming XPS is Microsoft's answer to PDF.

Quote

Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3.pdf 428 KB
Overview of Windows XP Service Pack 3.xps 634 KB

So the XPS is bigger than the PDF. Nice job Microsoft.

This is a step in the right direction. States cannot be sued for copyright infringement. The law that allowed this was deemed unconstitutional. What does this mean?

Quote

In short, the Court invalidated the Copyright Remedy Clarification Act as unconstitutional, thus ruling that a State, employee of a State (acting within his or her official capacity) or instrumentality of a State cannot be held liable for copyright infringement.

Minow: Do all state employees have immunity for copyright infringement?

Pink: No. The Court's ruling only applies to state employees acting within their "official capcity." This gets a little tricky because a state official who has acted in violation of federal law will be stripped of his or her "official" character and will not be immune to suit under the 11th Amendment. Thus, for example, in the Marketing case, plaintiff may not seek damages against the professor in his official capacity as that it would violate the state’s sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment, but the professor likely would be "stripped of his official or representative character" and would be "subjected in his person to the consequences of his individual conduct" if plaintiff can show that the professor violated plaintiff’s federally protected copyright. In other words, a state employee will be subjected to suit in his or her individual capacity even though he or she had been acting as an agent of the State if it is shown that the employee's conduct was ultra vires his or her delegated authority, e.g. by violating a federal law.

In really short, it is a small victory and leads us in the right direction for sane IP law.

The new version of the Eee supports multi-touch on its trackpad. The technology that has been around for years has finally made it to a PC.

Quote

Better still, the mouse trackpad supports multi-touch gesture inputs -- even in Windows XP. A pinching motion lets you zoom in on images, stretching lets you zoom out, and a two-finger vertical stroking motion allows you to scroll up and down through documents. MacBook Air and iPod touch users have enjoyed this feature for some time, but it's the first we've ever seen it implemented on a Windows laptop.

The 900 still comes with Linux, but XP is an option with a crappier machine.

VIA ARTiGO Pico-ITX Kit Highlighted at ESC Silicon Valley Keynote, BYOES Track and Microsoft SPARK Your Imagination Program

San Jose, California, 16 April 2008 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of embedded silicon and platform technologies, today announced that the VIA ARTiGO Pico-ITX builder kit has been selected as the platform for the Build Your Own Embedded System track, a new hands-on embedded system development lab at Embedded Systems Conference Silicon Valley, taking place in San Jose from 14-18 April.Next Page »

S3 Graphics Announces Ultra Energy-Efficient Embedded Multimedia Graphics Processor at ESC 2008

Fremont, California, April 16, 2008 - S3 Graphics today announced the S3 Graphics 4300E graphics processor for embedded markets, bringing the latest in HD video playback, graphics rendering, display connectivity, and power management to developers of gaming, digital signage and other multimedia intensive embedded applications.Next Page »

As if you didn't need more proof. The FBI caused a delay in getting information to say it needs more power. More power meaning no warrants and the like... you know, 1984.

Quote

Counterterrorism officials in FBI headquarters slowed an investigation into a possible conspirator in the 2005 London bombings by forcing a field agent to return documents acquired from a U.S. university. Why? Because the agent received the documents through a lawful subpoena, while headquarters wanted him to demand the records under the USA Patriot Act, using a power the FBI did not have, but desperately wanted.

When a North Carolina State University lawyer correctly rejected the second records demand, the FBI obtained another subpoena. Two weeks later, the delay was cited by FBI director Robert Mueller in congressional testimony as proof that the USA Patriot Act needed to be expanded.

The strange episode is recounted in newly declassified documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act. The documents shed new light on how senior FBI officials' determination to gain independence from judicial oversight slowed its own investigation, and led the bureau's director to offer inaccurate testimony to Congress. The revelations are likely to play a key role in Capitol Hill hearings Tuesday and Wednesday on the FBI's use of so-called national security letters, or NSLs

Here we have direct evidence that our subpoena system works and the information was obtained, yet the FBI thought that wasn't good enough. This is supposed to be America. Citizens are supposed to have rights, you know, like that piece of paper called the Constitution?