Content and news by Rob Williams

Microsoft’s Richard Teversham was sticking to the corporate line of attacking the PlayStation 3’s price and pointing out the XBOX 360’s clear price advantage and head start in the market. Teversham also noted that Microsoft had a few surprises in store to counter the mighty blow that will likely be thrown by the PS3. Today we know what at least part of that counter offensive is: Gears of War.

Though Gears of War looks incredible, I highly doubt it will halt PS3 sales by any significant amount. I think the biggest deal here, is that we are finally getting a new 360 game to choose from. That puts us up to.. like 20 games to choose from?

BusinessWeek looks at the current entrepreneurs of Web 2.0 via the lens of Kevin Rose and Digg. Although the article focuses on the rise and success of Digg, it also looks at the ethos of Web 2.0 and its successful companies, including YouTube, Del.icio.us, Facebook and Xfire.

There’s little doubt that these people have have helped in the way we use the net recently. Just look at how often people link you to a video on YouTube!

Eight-way capable Opteron models 8220 SE, 8218, 8216, 8214 and 8212 have dropped to $2,621, $2,127, $1,498, $1,153 and $864 from its previous prices of $2,638, $2,143, $1,515, $1,169 and $880 respectively. Dual capable Opteron models 2220 SE, 2218, 2216, 2214, 2212 and 2212 will be priced at $1,153, $864, $691, $517, $373 and $252 respectively. Previous prices for the Opteron 22xx series was $1,169, $880, $707, $533, $390 and $268.

Yes, that’s a lot of prices to sort through. $268 for the bottom of the run isn’t half bad though, although I am unsure of the specifications of that specific chip. The real question is whether or not these will prove to be the overclockers dream, as the 939/940 ones were. More than likely not…

After suffering embarrassing security exploits over the past several years, Microsoft Corp. is trying a new tactic: inviting some of the world’s best-known computer experts to try to poke holes in Vista, the next generation of its Windows operating system.

This is a great idea, and it’s somewhat surprising that they didn’t try this before. Maybe an even better idea would be to hire some great security professionals to do this along the development cycle. Microsoft has changed the way code is analyzed though, so maybe Vista really will be an improvement over XP.

In the wake of “The Colbert Report” host Stephen Colbert waxing philosophical about Wikipedia, making changes to entries on the air and urging his viewers to edit entries to include details he knew were false, an editor of the site has banned the comedian.

Many viewers likely seen this coming, although I didn’t even after viewing this episode. It doesn’t look like any of the mentioned entries were edited, due to the staff locking them shortly after the broadcast.

No. God, no. Today’s Windows Vista builds are a study in frustration, and trust me, I use the darn thing day in and day out, and I’ve seen what happens when you subject yourself to it wholeheartedly. I think I’ve mentioned the phrase “I could hear the screams” on the SuperSite before. My wife said that to me one day, and she was referring to the sound of me barking some primeval curse at my desktop PC as it succumbed to Vista’s stupid slowdowns, crashes, and hang ups for the umpteenth time.

That about sums that up! After reading the article, there’s really no denying that Vista is not ready for primetime. Paul goes on to note that instead of some things getting better, they are actually getting far worse.

TransGaming, which several years ago dipped its toes in the Mac game market with conversions from leading Mac game publishers, is taking another step into the Mac market, this time adopting their Cedega technology for Linux to run on Intel-based Macs. The result is a forthcoming series of games from PC game publishers that TransGaming’s CEO Vikas Gupta calls a “transparent” experience for Mac gamers.

If this software works as well as they say it does, then this will no doubt be yet another point that Apple will stress in their stupid commercials. They don’t seem to mention what games will be supported… so it may be all. Hard to believe, but we should see soon enough.

If you are an enthusiast that is looking to purchase a power supply we wish you the best of luck, because it’s a pain in the ass digging through the marketing fluff and getting the information you need. If you are making a feature shopping list as you are looking for the ultimate power supply then these points of interest should be on your list.

This is a great read if you are on the lookout for a great PSU, and want to do things right the first time. They note that out of the 9 power supplies in question, only 2 fit their within their recommendations.

Cases & Enclosures
• ICY DOCK Modiflash 722 Removable HDD Enclosure – Red & Blackness
• NZXT Apollo Orange Midtower – Big Bruin
• Origen X15e HTPC – Bit-Tech
• Sansun Galaxy – Bjorn3D
• Thecus Y.E.S. Box N2050 RAID External Hard Drive Enclosure – Think Computers

Cooling
• JetArt Storm2 VGA Cooler – DragonSteelMods
• OCZ Tempest – OCIA
• Silverstone NT-06 CPU Cooling – Technic3D

Motherboards & Processors
• ASUS P5W DH Deluxe vs Gigabyte GA 965P DS3 Conroe Motherboard Shootout – Maxit Mag
• ECS C51GM-M AM2 – 3D Gameman
• ECS RS485M-M AM2 Radeon Xpress 1150 – Hexus
• MSI K9N SLI Platinum nForce 570 SLI – PC Stats
• Tyan Tiger K9HE S3970 (Socket F) – Phoronix

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Bandridge Gaming headse – Xtreme Computingg
• Cooler Master iGreen Power 430W – ByteSized Reviews
• Cooler Master iGreen Power 430W – Hardware Secrets
• Corsair CMPSU-620HX – Viper Lair
• Logitech G3 – GotFrag
• Logitech G5 – Legion PC Gamers
• Steelpad 5L – Tech Tastic
• Zalman ZM460B-APS Power Supply – Driver Heaven

Displays & Video Cards
• Leadtek PX7950 GX2 TDH – AMDZone

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Garmin Nüvi 310 – BIOS Magazine
• SteelSecurity Beta Preview – CyberWizardPit
• QuakeCon 2006 Pre-launch – techFEAR

Plextor will soon be launching the PlexEraser drive which will completely eradicate all signs of previously written data to any optical media out there. Generally a DVDRW or CDRW can be erased with a regular $40-$60 drive but for those with pressed discs or write-once media, the PlexEraser can be used to delete data on the disc and destroy the media forever in 6 minutes.

I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that this will be far more expensive than it should be. Considering the price of scissors or a hammer, it would be hard to justify purchasing this.

A tale of email woe for PlusNET ISP. According to this announcement they have spent the last month attempting to recover 700GB of accidentally deleted emails. By their estimates, up to 12GB of these had yet to be read by their recipients. Despite the efforts of a data recovery specialist, they have now given up on recovering any of the deleted data. Well that’s one way to deal with spam.

It seems strange to be that even a recovery specialist could not recover most of the data. Either way, this is a huge hit to PlusNets credibility.

Time Warner announced that AOL will offer its software, e-mail and just about anything else connected to the portal for free. New members will be able to sign up for the software completely gratis, and former members who have quit within the last two years may sign back up with AOL and retain their old e-mail address and handles.

I don’t think anyone is going to be excited that crap software has finally become free. If it actually suits your fancy, go and check it out.

In an opinion by Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour, the Commission found that, through a course of deceptive conduct, Rambus was able to distort a critical standard-setting process and engage in an anticompetitive ‘hold up’ of the computer memory industry. The Commission held that Rambus’s acts of deception constituted exclusionary conduct under Section 2 of the Sherman Act and contributed significantly to Rambus’s acquisition of monopoly power in the four relevant markets.

I don’t think anyone will be incredibly surprised by this. It seems unclear what will happen to the company, whether it be fines or revoked patents… but time will tell.

You might think that your spam filter works well and couldn’t be improved. Are you sure? You may think that the risk of losing important mail outweighs the benefit of using a filter. Could you convince someone who holds the other opinion? If I told you that my filter was 99-percent accurate, would you believe me? Would you know what I meant? Would you be able to translate that 99-percent into the risk of losing an important message?

If you are interested in learning more about the findings, you can download a variety of video formats on the site. They weigh in at around 500MB… aka the same amount of spam I’ve received in the past week.

Dell saw its Q1 ’06 shipments of PDAs drop by nearly 34% while HP saw a 30% decrease. The overall market for PDAs has been on the decline as far back as Q2 of 2005 and shrank by 19% in Q1 ’06. DigiTimes reports that Dell has stopped its PDA development altogether and has diverted the funding to its notebook division.

Well this was bound to happen. It’s too bad that they pulled out of the PDA market entirely. It was one piece of Dell hardware I didn’t actually mind.

Between July 24th, 2006 and August 27th, 2006 distributors are expected to drop prices on Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 4400+ Socket AM2 and 939 products to $266 and $224 respectively. Athlon 64 X2 models 4000+ will drop to $173 in the same time frame.

If you wanted the chance to pick up a 2*1MB cache before they go extint, do not pass this up. I am not sure the real world differences between 2*1MB and 2*512KB of cache, but benchmarks prove it to be worthwhile.

San Jose, California – August 2, 2006 — Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of memory modules and flash products, today announced three new styles of USB flash drives. All three new series of USB drives support hi-speed USB 2.0, and employ the latest dual channel controllers for optimum performance. All three models also include an activity LED.

You can read the full press release here.

Sunnyvale, CA—August 2, 2006—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the PC2-6400 SOE Urban Elite, a premium DDR2-800 part with ultra-low timings of 4-4-3. This exclusive gaming solution is part of the award winning OCZ Special Ops Edition (SOE) family and features an urban camouflage motif heatspreader. Gamers can now benefit from the performance of enhanced latencies and top quality components with a look that complements their enthusiasm for gaming.

You can read the full press release here.

Cases & Enclosures
• Ultra Products MicroFly Micro ATX Case – Big Bruin

Cooling
• Arctic Cooling Alpine64 – DragonSteelMods
• Jetart DT2000 Thermo Eye – Tech Domain
• Zalman CNPS7000B-Cu Low Noise Heatsink – FrostyTech

Memory & Storage
• Safe Data Storage at Home – HDD Saver
• Vantec NexStar LX NAS Hard Drive – Big Bruin

Motherboards & Processors
• ECS RS485M-M AM2 – MadBox PC (Spanish)
• Energy Efficient Athlon 64 X2 4600+ & 3800+ – HotHardware
• NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition – Hexus

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Cooler Master eXtreme Power Duo 600W Power Supply – Think Computers
• Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620 – Legit Reviews
• Enermax Aurora – Technic3D (German)
• HEC WIN550UB Power Supply – 3D Gameman

Displays & Video Cards
• EVGA 7600GS 512MB – Motherboards.org
• EVGA e-GeForce 7300GT – GamePyre
• VisionTek Radeon X1600XT 512MB AGP – Bjorn3D

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Dell XPS M2010 – BIOS Magazine
• Nespresso Le Cube Espresso Maker – XYZ Computing

One has been a star for some time now, while the other is rising to stardom. The AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 and the Intel Core 2 Extreme are ready to duke it out for honors as the fastest of all x86 systems. Let’s get on with our contest, and pitch the old champion against a new one.

I’m sure you will not be surprised with the results. The X6800 beat out the FX-62 by around 30% throughout all of the tests. AMD had better have something up their sleeves to combat this one!