Content and news by Rob Williams

The survey, commissioned by U.S. cable television’s Oxygen Network that is owned and operated by women, found the technology gender gap has virtually closed with the majority of women snapping up new technology and using it easily. Women were found on average to own 6.6 technology devices while men own 6.9, and four out of every five women felt comfortable using technology with 46 percent doing their own computer trouble-shooting.

In reality, this isn’t actually that surprising. When hauling out a huge wad of cash, it would be difficult to choose a rock over something functional. The times are a-changin.

Vista is still in Beta 2, and at least seven months from retail launch, but we had to see how our XP and older, classic games worked on Vista. We tested games from GameRanking’s top-ten lists from the years 2000 to 2005, and we also tossed in a few notable games that were released prior to 2000 as well as a handful of games released this year.

There’s still a few that still do not work, but most do. Surprisingly, Half-Life 2 would not run, while Half-Life 2: Lost Cost would. They did not mention what build of Vista they used for testing, but it’s presumably Beta 2.

Members of the original Linux-NTFS team have now created a promising new solution for using NTFS formatted drives in Linux without the use of any Microsoft code, drivers or files. Finally, Linux users will have reliable ability to both read and write reliably to Microsoft ’s NTFS filesystem, using this new driver that is currently in beta.

This is huge news for anyone who uses Linux on a regular basis. If you wanted to transfer files in between Windows and Linux reliably, you would have to use a FAT32 hard drive or thumb drive. This will just make things so much easier if it’s as stable as it promises to be.

Five Free Days of Red Orchestra begins tomorrow via www.steamgames.com, with pre-loading available now. Those who try Red Orchestra during the Free Days will have access to the full game, including the brand new map (Lyes Krovy) and new gameplay enhancements from Tripwire.

If you never picked up this one because you were not sure if you’d enjoy it, then these five days are for you. Just double-click the game name in Steam and you’ll be good to go.

Microsoft commissioned special-edition cans of the Lemon-Lime Talking Rain sparkling water for their employees, complete with Vista logo and an intranet link for them to find out more information about Vista. Guess Microsoft needs to hype up the energy internally as well, since they’re adding these to the stock of other free sodas employees drink.

Ok, so this is not really breaking news as much as it is cool. I think the funniest thing is that it’s just a regular flavoured water. Maybe they should hand out altered cans of Bawls instead to get Vista out on time.

Teversham also promised a few surprises for its console in Q4, but failed to at least drop a hint as to what could possibly be in store. As far as we know, he could be talking about the already announced external HD DVD drive or some top secret, developed in a locked basement “killer game” that no one was expecting.

I for one can’t wait to see what they have up their sleeves, and I hope it’s not a simple HD-DVD player. I can see why they would mock Sony, but why Nintendo? Chances are Nintendo is going to rule the top if they can get enough consoles ready for launch.

San Jose, California – August 1, 2006 — Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of memory modules and flash products, today announced an agreement with CMTL, the memory industry’s leading independent compatibility test lab. As part of the agreement, SuperTalent™ server memory will be qualified on the latest server motherboards from Intel® Corporation.

You can read the full press release here.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 1, 2006 – Intel Corporation today introduced its first NOR flash memory products aimed at the emerging low-cost cell phone segment. The new products have a new pin sharing package to minimize pin count and are configured to work with low-cost, single-chip baseband and RF solutions from leading chipset suppliers. Major handset vendors are expected to start introducing low-cost cell phones based on Intel flash products this quarter.

You can read the full press release here.

FLETCHER, OHIO – August 1st, 2006 – Ultra Products, a global leader in technology solutions, has introduced their new GRID ATX Mid-Tower case featuring a stealth black finish, cool mesh front bezel, and included Ultra V-Series 500W PSU. Retailing for $119.00, the GRID is perfect for the enthusiast looking for the perfect balance of function and style.

You can read the full press release here.

Glinde, 27 July 2006. be quiet! the specialist for high-end and low-noise power supplies is expanding its range by the brand-new STRAIGHT POWER series. It is the logical addition to the current high-end DARK POWER PRO series with smart cable management system and the proven ECASO (Enhanced Cooling After System Off) technology.

You can read the full press release here.

Cooling
• Alphacool Cool Answer III – Guru3D
• Conroe heatsink group test – Bit-Tech
• Swiftech MCW60-T Thermoelectric VGA Waterblock – OCIA
• Thermaltake Mini Typhoon – Overclockers Online
• Zalman CNPS8000 Low Noise Heatsink – Frosty Tech

Memory & Storage
• Acronis True Image Backup Software – A True Review
• SilverStone 3.5” Card reader – DragonSteelMods

Motherboards & Processors
• ECS RS482-M Radeon Xpress 200 – Hexus
• Intel Core 2 Duo Family – TechSpot
• Kontron 886LCD-M/mITX – EPIA Center

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Altec Lansing AHP612 Headphones – Digital Trends
• Razer Armadillo – Razer Armadillo
• SteelPad S&S Pro Gaming Mouse Pad – ModTheBox
• Be-Quiet StraightPower Series – Driver Heaven

Displays & Video Cards
• GeCube ATi Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB – Think Computers
• LG FLATRON L1752S LCD Monitor – MadBoxPC
• MSI NX7600 GT VT2D256E – HardOCP Enthusiast

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• ASUS A7J Laptop – GD Hardware
• Everglide Gaming Gear Give Away – Big Bruin
• Two Sunbeam Superior Panel Giveaway – Overclockers Online
• Win a Set of XFX 7900GT Cards – Bjorn3D

AMD on Monday said it increased its share of the x86 server processor market to 25.9 percent, a number confirmed by Mercury Research’s Dean McCarron, who tracks market share figures. Intel now holds 72.9 percent of the overall market for x86 processors, while AMD has 21.6 percent.

Things are constantly looking up for AMD. There’s no telling whether the recent availability through Dell has much to do with it, but there’s no doubt AMD is rapidly gaining ground here.

A social networking website for Americans aged 50-plus went live on Monday – complete with an online obituary database that sends out alerts when someone you may know dies and that plans to set up a do-it-yourself funeral service. The founder of internet job site Monster.com, Jeff Taylor, launched Eons.com, a similar site to the popular online teen hang-outs MySpace or Facebook for the 50-plus crowd.

In the social networking scheme of things, it looks like no crowd is going to be left out.

SIGGRAPH 2006—BOSTON, MA—August 1, 2006— NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA), the worldwide leader in programmable graphics processor technologies, today ushered in a new era of advanced visualization for the professional graphics market with the introduction of the NVIDIA Quadro Plex 1000, the world’s first dedicated Visual Computing System (VCS).

Now this machine is a true graphics beast. “Resolutions as high as 148 megapixels on 16 synchronized digital-output channels and eight HD SDI channels”. One thing I can’t help but notice though, is the fact that the NVIDIA logo is changed up a bit. Does that mean a redesign is in the near future?

the expo will be changing to the “E3 Media Festival.” A different GameSpot article goes further into some of the causes and effects of this story, describing the pressure from companies like Sony, Microsoft, and EA to cut the costs associated with the show, as well as the impact of a smaller show on the city of Los Angeles from disappointed cab drivers to a hard-to-interpret remark by an attorney saying he thought the city wouldn’t “take this lying down.”

The show will be slimmed down and renamed, but what that means to the rest of us is yet to be seen. If this is really going to turn out to be a more ‘intimate’ show, it sounds like they may have even stricter qualifications to enter.

We had posted yesterday regarding Futuremark not allowing submissions to their ORB if a Conroe CPU was used. Well, that has since changed and things are good to roll now. If you don’t have a Conroe, you may as well not even consider trying to get to the top :)

It had been reported in March the LG Electronics had shelved plans to release its BD199 Blu-ray player. Instead the company considered working on a hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD player to cover both sides of the field. Well, it looks as though LG is now falling back to supporting just the Blu-ray disc standard. While it appears that LG won’t be resurrecting the BD199 for a quick release, the company will make an announcement later this year as to its future Blu-ray product plans.

Well, I have to admit that this sucks, because a hybrid player would not only same consumers cash, but make a buying decision even easier. As it stands, it appears Blu-Ray -may- be the way to go due to the higher capabilities. Of course, that’s if money is not an issue.

If there’s one area where Linux distributions fall behind Windows, it’s games. Most PC games are built for Windows. Where does that leave Linux users? With Cedega, a melding of Wine and DirectX developed by TransGaming. Today, Cedega 5.2.3 officially supports about 50 games, though in reality it can run a lot more.

It would be nice to be able to run any Windows game under Linux without any issue, but it’s certainly not that way right now. The author notes that it’s a true ‘plug and pray’ experience, but it’s certainly better than nothing.

In what continues to be a wave of large acquisitions, SanDisk announced today that it has agreed to buy M-Systems Flash Disk Pioneers Ltd. for $1.35 billion in stock. M-Systems is an Israeli competitor of SanDisk. According to SanDisk, the deal brings together strengths of both SanDisk and M-Systems.

It looks like these large acquisitions are not going to end anytime soon. Though it’s not likely to affect anything over on these shores, this is still a rather big gain for SanDisk.

Western Digital’s Scorpio line of 2.5-inch notebook drive platters are being manufactured to utilize the perpendicular magnetic recording method to record bits of data on the platter in a vertical manner to increase the amount of bits that can be written per square inch. When the bits are positioned vertically they take up less surface area as opposed to a horizontal organization. The Scorpio’s new platters will have a density of 80GB per platter to allow Western Digital to compete in the notebook market.

It was a wonder when WD would step up to the plate and offer these top end offerings also. Of course, pricing is not available, so it’s really a waiting game to see how they will compare to the high-end Seagate Momentus and Barracuda drives.