Content and news by Rob Williams

We posted the other day about an on-going story at Phoronix, where Michael investigated the embedded Linux environment that was included with ASUS’ latest P5E3 Deluxe motherboard. As it turns out, this will not be the last we see of it. Plans are set for the technology to break out of the desktop market and target notebooks as well. This would be a great solution for those looking to save their battery power on the road, if all they need to do is surf the web.

The source code for this technology is available, but not online. If you want a copy, you need to e-mail DeviceVM and ask for a copy, which will arrive via CD. Though this technology has limited uses right now, I’m interested to see how far and exactly where it will go.

One detail that was also shed during yesterday’s briefing was word that the current SplashTop product is based upon the Linux 2.6.20 kernel. Right now, the source-code for SplashTop isn’t available for download; however, complying with the terms of the GNU GPL license, developers that email DeviceVM for the source-code can have a CD mailed to them. In the coming months the source-code will be publicly available on the Internet.

Source: Phoronix

The time… has finally come. Episode 2 has been elusive, but it’s here, and its brought a team. We are not going to touch TF2 or Portal though… we are more interested in going back to where we left off sixteen months ago…

Intel’s X38 is here and we have Gigabyte’s top offering in-house. Key features include PCI-E 2.0, dual PCI-E 16x slots, 1333/1600FSB support along with a slew of unique features Gigabyte has become well-known for.

Seagate have announced their latest mobile hard-drive, the Momentus 5400 PSD. As the name suggests, these have a rotation speed of 5400 RPM and the “PSD” stands for Power Savings Drive. With the introduction of these drives, Seagate hopes to help promote better efficiency in notebook computing, an important factor for those who are looking for the best battery-life and supreme power consumption.

The drives implement a 256MB flash memory chip that is not far different from what you’d find in your flashed-based thumb drive. The premise is simple. To keep speeds high and power low, the hard-drive itself will swap information with this flash chip as needed. Instead of draining all of the power from faster disk-access, the flash chip uses lower power and in effect, proves more efficient. Not surprisingly, Windows Vista is the focus here, thanks to it’s ReadyDrive technology. It’s a known fact that Vista drains a mobile battery faster than XP did, so drives like these may help to make up the difference. Of course, we won’t know this for sure until reviews surface. You can read the full press release below.

SCOTTS VALLEY, Calif. – October 8, 2007 – Seagate Technology (NYSE:STX), the world’s number one hard drive maker, today launched a new era of digital storage by shipping in volume hybrid notebook disc drives that combine disc storage with flash memory to deliver ultra power efficiency, faster boot-ups and greater reliability for the exploding laptop PC market.

Source: Seagate Press Release

Ever have a show-stopping computer problem, reformatted your machine, and then later realized that you could have fixed it with a rescue CD? That sucks, but it doesn’t have to happen again with the SystemRescueCD, a Gentoo-based Linux distribution that’s sole purpose is to help you get your rig back up and running.

Of course, it’s not just used for restoring Linux machines, but it can handle Windows as well… even Vista. It helps if you have basic software knowledge, as file editing may come into play, but there are other tools that might take that burden off of your hands. The distro also includes GParted, so that you can create new partitions outside of your OS. I’ve never used SystemRescueCD before, but the folks at DesktopLinux urges everyone to give it a download. I’ve done so while writing this post. You never know when disaster will strike…

If you’re a Windows user, don’t let the fact that this is a Linux-based repair tool keep you away. SystemRescueCD has long excelled at repairing Windows systems. With new support for the Vista “Offline NT Password & Registry Editor” and improved support for NTFS drives, SystemRescueCD is better than ever for what ails your Windows PCs.

Source: DesktopLinux

I’m not a fan of OS X, but there is no denying that many people are. To make a statement that your upcoming OS is going to best OS X… it’s huge. That’s what president Bill McEwen said in an older interview, but a more recent interview shows that nothing has changed. I have never used Amiga, at least to my knowledge, but when someone makes such a bold statement, I tend to be a little curious. We’ll find out more about Amiga OS5 in the next few months. While I’m doubtful it will blow our socks off like we are promised, it’s going to be an interesting release regardless.

Amiga Inc. Acting President Bill McEwen has given an update to Amiga OS5 of sorts. In a previous interview Bill had said of OS5: “The product that we are going to ship is going to be much better than OSX from Apple”. “OS 5 is ahead of schedule, and we will be making public announcements concerning the product in the 4th quarter of this year.”

Source: Slashdot

Why don’t we see more Mac games? Heck, Linux games? Of course we are talking about commercial games here, such as Half-Life 2. According to reports, Apple once met up with Valve regarding releasing the game for Mac OS X, but Valve demands $1 million up front before they will sit down and get to coding. Who’s to blame them, though? Development costs money, and if the players aren’t there, then it’s an unwise business decision. Of course, what’s stopping Steve Jobs from giving up three-hours worth of his pay to potentially increase the Apple fan base by a large margin? Oh well, at least their’s Boot Camp.

That said, Apple’s lack of focus on gaming remains a fundamental weak spot in their consumer strategy (let’s not even talk Apple gaming consoles), but we’re hopeful that as companies continue to adopt new technologies like Cider, Mac users will at least be able to enjoy smash hits like Half-Life 2 (if nothing else). Ah well, thank Freeman for Boot Camp.

Source: Joystiq

ASUS has a track record of releasing great products with well-thought-out features, but here’s a completely new one. As Phoronix has found out first-hand, the new ASUS P5E3 Deluxe WiFi-AP motherboard offers a pre-loaded version of Linux, which I assume would run off a separate flash chip somewhere on the board.

Because this is all on-board, it boots in mere seconds. Once in, you can browse the web via WiFi or wired connection, or even talk on Skype. As Michael found out, there are a few ways that it could be improved even further, such as by allowing the mounting of external storage. Even without that, this is one cool feature.

At first when hearing about this Express Gate feature, we figured it was just some small feature being worked on by a couple ASUS engineers. When powering up the motherboard, we assumed you would just hit a key sequence and enter a quickly thrown together Linux environment that featured a basic web browser. Well, much to our surprise this was actually a finely crafted Linux desktop environment.

Source: Phoronix

Recently, most of the buzz around Intel’s technologies focus on 45nm and X38, but what about memory? We sit down with Intel’s Christopher Cox to learn more about XMP (Extreme Memory Profiles) and also get a glimpse of what’s in the future for memory.

When we posted two weeks ago that the OLPC XO would be sold in North America for a two-week period, it was only a matter of time before someone got their hands on one and gave it a review. That person this time around is David Pogue, who seemed to have fallen in love with it.

Of course, this isn’t a PC that a performance user would want to use, but that’s not who it’s developed for, as Pogue points out. He did mention that it had features that even surpassed those of our own laptops, including a solar-panel for recharging the battery, a battery that could be recharged far more times than conventional laptop batteries and also the fact that it’s drop-proof, liquid-proof and dirt-proof. Not bad for a $200 system. Almost makes your laptop green with envy, hmm?

And sure enough, the bloggers and the ignorant have already begun to spit on the XO laptop. “Dude, for $400, I can buy a real Windows laptop,” they say. Clearly, the XO’s mission has sailed over these people’s heads like a 747. The truth is, the XO laptop, now in final testing, is absolutely amazing, and in my limited tests, a total kid magnet. Both the hardware and the software exhibit breakthrough after breakthrough — some of them not available on any other laptop, for $400 or $4,000.

Source: New York Times

It might seem silly to think that 50GB for a single Blu-ray disc isn’t enough, but at this point, even high-def movies are doing what they can to fill it up. Hitachi is working to future-proof the high-def format though, with an introduction of their experimental 100GB quad-layer disc. Why anyone should care about this is that due to how it’s designed, it would still be compatible with all current Blu-ray drives on the market. To push the envelope even further, the company also states that they are working on a octa-layer version of the disc as well, which would offer an incredible 200GB of space.

Although no new hardware may be required to read the additional layers of Hitachi’s Blu-ray Disc, it is still unclear what costs, if any, would be added onto the manufacturing side of the equation. Should expensive equipment be required to manufacture the discs, movie studios may opt to release their titles across two Blu-ray Discs rather than cram movie and special feature data onto a single disc.

Source: DailyTech

When Apple began using Intel’s processors in their machines, who knew that Intel was going to allow them rights to the fastest products available before everyone else? We saw it happen with the Quad-Core 3.0GHz Xeon, which until recently had only been available on the Mac Pro.

According to rumors, when Intel’s Penryn-based processors are released next month, Apple will again have the fastest offering exclusive to them, at 3.2GHz. By comparison, the PC side will have the QX9650 at 3.0GHz available at launch. The good thing in all of this is that the small clock bump doesn’t mean much of anything, since a minor flick of a switch in the BIOS would match the same frequency of the 3.2GHz, without as much as a voltage bump.

Apple’s modern day equivalent to such a system would be its custom-configuded 8-Core Mac Pro, which employs two 3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors running on a 1333MHz front-side bus and retailing for $4000. The report suggests that Apple anticipates selling so many of these niche machines, that other PC manufacturers like Dell and HP would barely have enough supply of the 3.2GHz chips to announce availability of rival offerings.

Source: AppleInsider

It’s been quite the week for Halo, and that’s an understatement. In it’s first week, Halo 3 managed to score over $300 million in revenue, which is an apparent record. Now comes news that Bungie has decided to go their own way, as a separate entity. What’s this mean to you? Not much, ultimately, as they have vowed to continue their relationship with Microsoft on future Halo titles. That… is a good thing for everyone involved.

And speaking of Halo, recall that movie that was being developed? It turns out that’s been put on ice as well. It’s a good thing that Halo 3 is kicking ass, else fans would be real upset.

We’ll continue to make Xbox 360 games, and we’ll continue to make amazing games for MGS. In that regard, nothing has changed. All that has changed is that now Bungie Studios is once again, the property of the folks of Bungie Studios. Microsoft is and will continue to be, a brilliant, inventive and creatively collaborative publishing partner.

Source: Kotaku (Bungie Split), Kotaku (Halo Movie)

AsylumLAN is held every third month, beginning each February. We’ve attended the past two LAN events, and will be attending the very next one as well, which begins in twenty-six days. As it stands, Greg, Matt Harris and myself will be there, along with one of my local best friends, Chris. If you happen to live around Evansville, IN (Three/Four hour drive from heart of Indianapolis, Southern OH/IL or KY) and are up for a good LAN event, consider signing up on their website. Don’t give me the excuse that it’s too long of a drive… I’m coming down from Canada! Yeah, that’s right you’ll purchase a ticket.

We are a group of gamers in the Evansville, IN area that get together every few months for some LAN party goodness in a friendly family-oriented atmosphere. Players of all ages and skill levels are welcome. Below is some basic info that you will need to join the party. Any questions? Drop me an emailThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , visit our forums, or drop by our IRC channel #asylumlan on gamesurge.

Source: AsylumLAN

Ever notice how a lot of companies who promise pre-overclocked gaming-PCs never actually push the hardware that’s installed anywhere close to the limit? Chicago-based Überclok are not afraid to push their machines to the (reasonable) limit, and who’s to blame them? Intel has been pushing out some incredible overclocking chips since last summer, so the potential for ultra-high-clocked PCs is there.

At the current time, they have two models available, the Ion and Reaktor, the latter which features the Dual-Core E6850 3.0GHz overclocked to 3.7GHz speeds. Oddly enough, there doesn’t seem to be any mention of GPU overclocking, or the cooling that’s included. On top of that, there is no way to upgrade the CPU that’s included, either. Strange, but at least there is a 30-day full-money-back guarantee. You don’t see that too often.

Just as a gourmet chef selects the freshest ingredients daily, Ãœberclok’s PCs are always built from the newest technology, chosen to give you the biggest bang for your buck. We remain agile by focusing on system design and industry innovation. Since we don’t mass produce a huge inventory, we can respond very quickly when component manufacturers release better products. You can be sure an Ãœberclok PC is future-proof, upgradeable, and will give you three years of solid gaming!

Source: Uberclok

I admit that I’m not much of a movie buff, but when it’s a movie about cars, it’s a different story. When it’s a movie about cars, women, beer and racing, I’m glued to the seat. Like many, I was a big fan of 2001’s Fast and the Furious, but was disappointed with the two movies that followed. Well, good news, as both Vin Diesel and Paul Walker will be re-uniting as a duo for the fourth installment. Whether or not the 4th movie will make up for the other two will have to be seen, but could it really go that wrong with those two back?

Although we were able to catch Diesel’s drift in the movie number tré, the absence of the drift-less Walker left this particular moviegoer wanting. Now that we know the two are back together at last, the only question left unanswered is this: how could the fourth film be any Faster or more Furiouser than the first three?

Source: Autoblog

I’m not a Mac user, but even I am finding the wait for OS X Leopard to be taking forever. Not surprisingly, rumors have been floating around for a while as to a potential release date, but as of now, rumor has it that October 26th could be the day. Apple has a history of releasing their OS updates on the last Friday of a given month, and it’s unlikely that it will be pushed all the way to November, given the status of the latest betas.

Also referred via Gizmodo is another rumor (aren’t they fun?), but this time for the iPhone and it’s Canuck-boundedness. According to rumors, Canadians might see the iPhone available mid-October, which would still be far longer of an overall wait than I think most of us originally anticipated. Now, I’ll admit that I might be able to believe the Leopard rumor, but this one is a little harder to swallow, as the apparent price for the Canuck iPhone would be $799. Yeah, right.

Attention friends to the Great White North: the Apple iPhone is rumored to be coming your way by middle of this month. The leak is said to come from an insider at Canadian fashion specialty department store Holt Renfrew, and the 8GB GSM iPhone will reportedly sell for $799. If these rumors are true, and we have no reason to believe so, that’ll be double the price of the iPhone in the U.S.!

Source: Gizmodo (Leopard), Gizmodo (Canada iPhone)

Wow, what can be said that isn’t blatantly obvious? The RIAA has won another major case, against Jammie Thomas, a single mother with two kids. RIAA cases have always been ridiculous, but this one is more so because the jury decided that it was fair for a single mother to be liable for $222,000 for owning twenty-four pirated songs. Thomas is no doubt going to file an appeal, but how frustrating it is that the RIAA can get away with this…

Under the username “Tereastarr,” Thomas was found sharing just over 1,700 files via the Kazaa network on February 21, 2005. Of those 1,700 tracks, 24 were named – including music from popular artists such as AFI, Green Day, and Aerosmith – and for each one she was held liable for $9,250 worth of damages, coming to a grand total of $222,000.

Source: DailyTech

Firefox is simple, while IE is not (ok, that’s a matter of opinion). You download and install Firefox without much of an issue. At best, it will inconvenience you with regards to importing Internet Explorer bookmarks. IE7 on the other hand, requires you go through the hassle of validating your Windows installation before it can be used. Firefox’s reflection on what simple should be, might just be rubbing off on the folks at Redmond. Nah, it’s all about market-share.

According to Ars Technica, Microsoft is dropping the WGA check from IE7 in an attempt to increase its usage. This should mean, technically, that if you are using an non-legit version of Windows, you should have no problem using their latest browser. Will this move actually help them gain the additional piece of the userbase they are looking for? Hard to say, but I’m sure many are going to be glad to see the WGA check gone, even those with legal copies of the OS. Now if WGA could be dropped entirely… oh, and activation while they are at it.

More worrying for Microsoft is the fact that IE7’s share appears to be leveling off at between 20 to 27 percent, despite strong growth after it was initially released in 2006. Microsoft does still have the advantage of having IE 7 bundled with every new computer running Windows Vista, so it will certainly become more widely used in the future, but the company has apparently decided that short term market share is more important than piracy checks.

Source: Ars Technica

Slashdot. Whether you love it or hate it, there’s no denying the effect it has had on news websites, and the internet in general. It’s hard to believe the monster it has become, and it was all started as a joke… a casual site that wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. Wired gave Rob Malda a phone call to help reflect on the past ten years, and posted the interview today.

When I registered the domain name it was supposed to be a joke, and I wanted an e-mail address that wasn’t my college’s e-mail. The website was built out of my blog — though they didn’t call them blogs back then — because I wanted to have a web server I could Perl and hack around on. There was no premeditation, and it was three or four months before I realized Slashdot meant anything.

Source: Wired.com