Content and news by Rob Williams

Microsoft recently joined the chorus of voices warning to protect yourself before Friday against an email-borne worm that could bring down your PC completely but is doing so in such prudish terms that few will understand what it’s saying.

For a humorous look at this topic, check out Hexus.

RECORDS OF insider trading for Google (tick: GOOG) show that CEO Eric Schmidt made over thirty sales of his stock options on the 26th of January. In total, Mr Schmidt netted well over $15 million. This figure is dwarfed by sales made by Lawrence Page on the 20th of January. Mr Page made two sales of 43,795 and 51,727 shares which yielded $18,052,632 and $22,166,198 respectively.

The prices seem to be going back up slowly, but that $30 drop was a quick one. Check out the posting at The Inquirer.

Like that fungus under your keyboard, Duke Nukem Forever never really seems to go away. Well in the latest installment in unsubstantiated DNF rumors it appears that the game is finally in production. Via Joystiq “everyone’s favorite vaporware is “in full production” according to George Broussard, co-founder of 3D Realms. In an interview with 1up, towards the end, Broussard chats about the status of Duke Nukem Forever, the unfortunately-apt title to the game over a decade in development.

This is not tech news, but I’ve been waiting for this game for almost half my life! If this is true, it’s going to be a good day. Check out the posting at Slashdot.

After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams. On the company’s web site, if you click on “Telegrams” in the left-side navigation bar, you’re taken to a page that ends a technological era with about as little fanfare as possible.

No doubt e-mail and other internet related services are responsible for it’s death, but it certainly lasted a while. You can read all about it at LiveScience.

We had a chance to chat with Josh Robinson, the former Sony 3D artist who shook up the gaming media with a largely negative review of PS3 development. Today’s interview confirms that Robinson lost his job at Sony as a result of the article. He discusses his dismissal from Sony, his new job, the genesis of the PS3 article, and the reactions to the story from around the web.

I was looking forward to the PS3, but I’m not so sure now. It’s not exactly reassuring when it’s own developer is not liking the direction it’s heading. Check out the great interview at PS3 Week.

If you are going to build an Intel and have hardcore performance in mind, you should check out Hardware Zoom’s review of the latest motherboard from Gigabyte. The GA-G1975X is feature packed and unique in many ways, plus it’s top notch in terms of overclocking. Too bad it places the PCI slots in between the two PCI-E… odd! Speaking of hardcore, if you are such a gamer and need a new mouse, then you may want to consider the Razer Diamondback Plasma that techFEAR is taking a look at today. “I got 1600 DPI baby” could be your new pick-up line from now on.

No doubt gamers will use products that give them an edge, and Overclockers Cafe is taking a brand new keyboard for a spin that may do just that. The Wolfking keyboard is incredibly unique, because instead of a normal keyboard shape, it’s a circle instead! You really have to check out the review just to see how unique that thing is! For a top notch ATI card, if that’s your preferred flavor, check out Rage3D for a very detailed look at the X1900XT and XTX cards!

Cases & Enclosures
• Cooler Master AMMO 533 – Madshrimps

Cooling
• Cooler Master Susurro – Overclockers Online
• Jetart NP6600 Notebook Cooler – MikhailTech

Motherboards & CPU’s
• Gigabyte GA-G1975X G1-Turbo – Hardware Zoom

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Razer Diamondback Plasma LE – techFEAR
• Ripper XL and Zoom v2.0 mats + InstaGlide – XS Reviews
• Wolfking Gaming Keyboard – Overclocker Cafe

Video Cards & Monitor
• ATI All-in-Wonder X1900 – Sudhian
• Diamond Stealth X550 – techPowerUp!
• HIS X1600 XT IceQ Turbo PCIe – XYZ Computing
• Radeon X1900 XTX and Radeon X1900 XT – Rage3D

Etcetera & Contests
• Mini Re-draw of ARP-Seagate Survey Contest Winners – Rojak Pot
• Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T9 – Design Technica

The SeaMonkey Council is proud to announce SeaMonkey 1.0, the first end-user release of their internet suite. SeaMonkey is available as a free download from its mozilla.org-hosted website, features a state-of-the-art web browser, a powerful email client, a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client. For web developers, mozilla.org’s DOM inspector and JavaScript debugger tools are included as well.

This seems to have come a long way since I used SeaMonkey 0.1! Definitely check it out here if you want to check out an all-in-one suite.

Sony has released software for its popular PSP handheld gaming device called TalkMan. In development for some time now, the program currently stores about 3,000 conversation patterns in English, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. ‘A user may speak the words “Koko-wa-dokodesuka?” (Where is this?) in Japanese, for example, into the device’s microphone, upon which a cartoon bird acting as an interpreter will pop up and start talking in the user’s language. The bird is also able to translate the reply into Japanese.’ A European release for TalkMan is expected in the spring.

This is extremely cool, but I wonder how much the retail price will be. I am also curious about the accuracy of the product, or if you will have to end up repeating yourself to get a straight reply from the device. Either way, very cool. Check out the posting at Slashdot.

It seems that NVIDIA and their OEMs are shipping GeForce 7800 GS cards to distribution centers around the globe. Some of the distributors are waiting for the official launch, but others can’t contain themselves and have started distributing cards already.

What’s this mean to you? Well, it could be the next killer AGP variant! Check out the full posting at NGOHQ.

In the end, King Kong does an excellent job in preserving the majesty of the movies storyline. The big ape himself feels just as tremendous on our monitors as he did on the big screen. And Despite its linear nature, it still proved to be a blast the first time through. We can only recommend this game with two thumbs up as it met and exceeded our expectations by a large margin!

Check out the full review at GamePyre.

Our source has stated that one of Europe’s largest CD replicators is on standby, they’ve signed NDA’s and are awaiting the green light from Bungie. According to our source the CD replicators have been given an approximate date to ensure that their pressing schedule is clear for the amount of units they’ll need to produce.

It’s sad that we will still not be seeing this until next year at least. Check out the posting at Hexus.

It’s a three-key keyboard with big color OLED screens. The price of the
keyboard is $100 until April 2, 2006. We are looking forward to receiving a
fresh lot of the keyboards ready for shipment on May 15. We are planning to
give you the opportunity to pre-order the keyboard at our online store this
week.

Wow! I can do so much with three keys, I truly have to pick this up right now. No doubt this is worth the $100 asking price, considering the OLED’s last a staggering 5000 hours! Yes I am being sarcastic here. What a load of crap. Unless of course, you have $100 to throw around, then be my guest.

Turtle Beach announces “Roadie,” the latest addition to its Audio Advantage Series of USB audio adapters designed for PC users who are serious about portable, high quality audio. Roadie transforms the built-in sound of the average laptop into a rich audio experience, packing an amazing array of features into a package that literally fits in the palm of your hand. With 8 channels of analog outputs for true 5.1/7.1 surround sound, it’s an ideal accessory for playing PC games, watching DVD movies, using VoIP applications, and playing or recording music.

Read the full press release here.

If you are looking for a great GPU cooler, then you will want to head over to Think Computers today. The Zalman VF700 is easy to install and performs well, and even earned a 10/10! There’s few review sites that haven’t taken a look at the Corsair PC3500PRO kit, but that’s because it kicks total ass. It’s a 2GB kit with wicked tight timings, but it’s so hard to find in stock! If you are in the mood for winning stuff, then head over to Xtreme Computing and XYZ Computing and check out their contests!

Cases & Enclosures
• AplusCase Dacapo – Technic 3D

Cooling
• Noctua NH-U12 CPU Cooler – A1 Electronics
• Zalman VF700-Cu LED VGA Cooler – Think Computers

Memory & Storage
• Corsair 2GB XMS-3500LLPRO – Rojak Pot
• G.Skill: 2GB DDR500 Kit & 2 x 512MB DDR400 RAM – TweakPC
• Kingston HyperX 2GB PC3200 (KHX3200K2/2G) Dual Channel DDR – Big Bruin

Motherboards & CPU’s
• AMD Athlon 64 FX-60 – Guru 3D

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• AiZen FlyBy Bluetooth Headset – A True Review
• Altec Lansing AHP-712I Active Noise Reduction Headphones – Bona Fide Reviews
• E-Power Silent Engine 550W Power Supply – Legit Reviews
• Logitech MX610 Cordless Laser Mouse – CyberWizardPit
• Kingwin Absolute Power 600w – XS Reviews
• Razer Copperhead – XS Reviews
• SonoWave Digital Media Player – 3D Gameman
• Vizo Mirror Box – Pro-Clockers

Video Cards & Monitor
• ATI All-In-Wonder X1900 PCIe – Viper Lair
• ATI’s Radeon X1900 Video Card Series Part II – Legit Reviews
• MSI RX1800XT-VT2D512E 512MB – PC Stats
• PowerColor X800GTO16 – Overclockers Online

Etcetera & Contests
• 3DMark2006 Benchmark Roundup – Tweak PC
• CES 2006 Spotlight: Polk Audio I-Sonic – Design Technica
• Hardware Giveaway: Pick-Your-Own-Prize! – XYZ Computing
• Influence of CPU speed on various benchmarks – 3D Chip
• Jackson Armor Card – Think Computers
• NZXT Lexa case giveaway – Xtreme Computing
• Sauerbraten v2006-01-31 (Game Engine) – Phoronix

If you are in the market for a 1GB DDR2 kit, then this kit proves to be a great choice. Despite being value memory, it overclocks quite well with the ability to keep stock timings.

AN ANALYST said that Dell is likely to strike a deal as early as March, involving notebooks.

Doug Freedman, from American Technology Research, said in a note to his clients that the deal “will likely mature from there to include servers and desktops, in that order, in subsequent months.”

It would be certainly nice if this proved true. I entirely regret picking up an Intel notebook from Dell a few years ago, so it will be nice if they actually offer some choice. Check out the posting at The Inq.

The Register reports that Google is working on a version of Ubuntu, known internally as Goobuntu. Google has confirmed it is working on a desktop linux project, but declined to supply further details, including what the project is for. Is Google about to release this as an alternative to Windows?

If it is going to be based on Ubuntu, then chances are it will be using GNOME as the default desktop. It will be worth a look once the projects released, but KDE would have been a far better choice. Check out the posting at Slashdot.

The Wine Wiki has just been updated with some interesting benchmarks. The author takes some benchmarking tools, and runs them in both Windows and in Linux under Wine. Obviously, Windows is in the lead, but Wine is catching up very steadily. You can check out the full results right here.

HEXUS gaming caught up with Jon and his good friend ex Sensible sound legend Richard Joseph for a chat about Sensible Soccer… the new version due out later this year… as well as life and everything else…

Check out the full interview at Hexus!

Sara Andrews received an email from Blizzard under the title “Harassment – Sexual Orientation”, Sara had wanted to set up a gay friendly guild and had advertised via the chat channels. Blizzard now promises to ban any players actively advertising for such guilds.

Wow, Blizzard sure was bold here. I have a feeling this is not going to work out to their favor. Check out the full posting at Hexus.