Apple Announces Revamped MacBook Family

As was expected, Apple today unveiled their brand-new MacBook's, which include the MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, and I have to say, even as a non-Mac guy, they look quite sharp. There is no $799 model available that some were hoping to see, but the original 13-inch model has been dropped to $999, which features a 2.1GHz processor and a 120GB hard drive.

The new models all feature an aluminum body, and according to Engadget, it feels "ridiculously solid". To help increase vibrancy, Apple opted to use a glass display, although according to the same article linked to above, it creates a lot of glare... something that will cause difficulties outside or even in a really bright room.

As a recent rumor suggested, the new MacBook's include NVIDIA GPUs, which is something definitely to be excited over. The smallest model, at $1,299, includes an NVIDIA 9400M GPU, while the MacBook Pro's feature the same, but also an additional 9600M GT discrete card... also known as Hybrid SLI.

Unlike most other notebooks available, the new MacBook's include a Mini DisplayPort port, which will work nicely with the new (and extremely expensive, at $899) 24" Cinema LED display. Besides the fact that it offers amazing crispness and great color, the display also features exhaustive environmental improvements that meet Energy Star 4.0 requirements. The downside is the price, and the fact that it appears to only work with the new MacBook's.

Overall, a good showing from Apple. Good luck making a purchase today, though. The overwhelming demand has taken the store down, although it should be back up later.

Every member of the new MacBook family features an LED-backlit display for brilliant instant-on performance that uses up to 30 percent less energy than its predecessor and eliminates the mercury found in industry standard fluorescent tube backlights. The ultra-thin displays provide crisp images and vivid colors which are ideal for viewing photos and movies, and the edge-to-edge cover glass creates a smooth, seamless surface. Every display in the new MacBook line uses completely arsenic-free glass.

Source: Apple Press Release

Cracking Passwords with NVIDIA GPUs

Although NVIDIA isn't exactly blowing anyone away lately with their GPUs, the company is hoping to sell the entire industry on their CUDA technology, as we've explored many times in the past, and will likely continue to talk about in the future. Essentially, CUDA is a C++/C-based language that utilizes the GPU to its maximum potential, and given that it's a highly optimized parallel processor, extraordinary speed can be seen.

A few months ago, in talking to one graphics card vendor, the idea of using CUDA for the sake of hacking/cracking was brought to the conversation, but I don't think either of us expected something to hit the market so soon. Thanks to a company called Elcomsoft, that is now a reality, and the results and what the application can do is impressive.

If you locked yourself out of a seriously important file, or your system, don't fret. This software likely supports the encryption scheme you need to tackle, and according to their reports, a high-end NVIDIA GPU (8800 GTX) can process a password close to 14x faster than a typical Intel Core 2 Duo, which is highly impressive. The software can also handle upwards of 64 CPU cores and 4 physical GPUs to work together for even faster operation. The downside? The price... but it's to be expected.

Elcomsoft Distributed Password Recovery employs a revolutionary, patent pending technology to accelerate password recovery when a compatible NVIDIA graphics card is present in addition to the CPU-only mode. Currently supporting all GeForce 8 and GeForce 9 boards, the acceleration technology offloads parts of computational-heavy processing onto the fast and highly scalable processors featured in the NVIDIA’s latest graphic accelerators.

Source: Elcomsoft, Via: Ars Technica

Windows 7 Becomes Windows 7

Windows Vista may have been released to consumers last January, but the "Windows 7" moniker for the follow-up OS was coined long before that. Every few months since then, we'd hear more about the OS, and Microsoft is doing a great job in making sure everyone knows what's going on with the Vista-replacement - they've even gone as far as to release a very in-depth development blog a few months ago.

Well, we've been calling it "Windows 7" for a while, so let's stick with it, ok? Microsoft agrees, and sure enough, the next version of Windows is going to be called just that. It may seem lazy, but "Windows 7" actually has a nice ring to it, and hey, it does seem to work for Apple, right?

Wondering why Windows 7 is actually considered the seventh version? In the earliest days, the OS names were simple, with Windows 1.0 in 1985, 2.0 in 1987 and 30 in 1990. Things changed when Windows NT was released in 1993, which was essentially the fourth version. Windows 95/98/ME also shared the "4" version number, while 2000 and XP officially became the fifth. Vista of course is version six, which makes Windows 7 appropriately named.

"For me, one of the most exciting times in the release of a new product is right before we show it to the world for the first time," Nash wrote. "In a few weeks we are going to be talking about the details of this release at the PDC and at WinHEC. We will be sharing a pre-beta 'developer only release' with attendees of both shows and giving them the first broad in-depth look at what we've been up to."

Source: Beyond Binary Blog

OpenOffice.org 3 Released

We've been waiting for a little while, but wait no more - OpenOffice.org 3 is here. The initial release is available in eight different languages and all current platforms, including Linux, Unix and Apple. Opinions are mixed, but if you are already an OOo user, there is literally no reason for not upgrading. The UI looks slightly better and the functionality has been improved (although none of those enhancements have effected me directly, yet).

One writer at a Houston Chronicle blog seems entirely pleased with the latest release and states that it's becoming an "even better alternative" to the more mainstream office suites, including of course, Microsoft Office. The best part is the fact that it's free, and it's hard to beat that. Plus, if you are a Mac user, you'll notice a nice stability boost since this is the first version of OOo to run on that platform without the use of the X11 Unix shell.

In addition to native OS X support, the latest OOo updates support for more formats, including Microsoft Office 2007's XML-based files, and you can see an example of that in the image below. In this particular case, OOo did import the proper graph graphic, but it's non-editable... so the options for actually editing Office 2007 documents is going to be a bit limited. It's definitely improving, though. That aside, that's going to be a limited issue, and doesn't detract from the great application it is. I'm still unable to shift from Office 2007... but I'm confident it will happen someday.

OOo supports several file formats, but uses OASIS's OpenDocument Format (ODF) by default. ODF is rapidly gaining widespread acceptance and is also supported by Google Docs, Zoho, IBM's Lotus Notes, and KDE's KOffice project. ODF is increasingly being adopted as the preferred format by government agencies in many different countries. This trend has placed pressure on Microsoft, which has agreed to include native ODF support in future versions of Office.

Source: Ars Technica

Tech Roundup - October 14, 2008

Motherboards & Processors
• ASUS P6T Deluxe Preview - Overclock3D

Displays & Video Cards
• ATI Radeon HD 4350 versus EVGA GeForce 9400GT - Motherboards.org
• ATI RADEON HD 4670 512MB - Digit-Life
• Diamond ATI Radeon HD 4870 1024MB GDDR5 - TestFreaks
• ECS GeForce 9800 GTX+ Hydra SLI - Legit Reviews

Memory & Storage
• Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3-1333 4GB - Think Computers
• OCZ Reaper HPC PC3-10666 - Pure Overclock

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse with BlueTrack - TweakTown
• Monster Beats Headphones by Dr. Dre - TheTechLounge

Cooling
• Cooler Master GeminII S - Overclockers Club
• Sunbeamtech Core-Contact Freezer - Technic3D
• Vantec Aeroflow FX92/FX120 HDT CPU Coolers - Virtual-Hideout

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Apevia X-Sniper G Type Case - Hardware Logic
• Coolermaster HAF932 Full Tower - Pro-Clockers
• Thermaltake Toughpower 850 Watt ESA Power Supply - Bjorn3D

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Lenovo Thinkpad W700 Mobile Workstation - HotHardware
• Samsung HT-X710T Multi-Device - Digital Trends