Content and news by Rob Williams

The state prosecutor’s office of Mühlhausen in Germany has started criminal proceedings against the first of up to 15,000 users who, according to the German society for the pursuit of copyright infringements, have knowingly paid for illegal content on the internet. It is one of the biggest cases of Internet piracy and illegal copying ever discovered.

Last year German police arrested a 46 year-old lawyer who, along with two brothers from Thuringia, offered bootleg software, games and movies through the high speed download service Ftpwelt.com. Among the releases offered were movies shot in cinemas with digital camcorders. According to the police the men grossed over €1m.

Ouch! That’s what you pay for buying illegal software though. Check it out at The Register.

Google has launched its new mapping service that uses local search and satellite images to give users a three-dimensional view of buildings and terrain.

Google Earth, announced Tuesday, uses technology from the company’s Keyhole division, a satellite mapping service it bought in October. The software for the service can be downloaded free from the search giant’s Web site.

For those who never used Keyhole, you don’t know what you are missing. I have easily spent hours some nights just goofing around with it. I have yet to try this version, but it looks great, I’m definitely going to install it. Check it out over at Google. Source: News.com

You may remember a review we had a few weeks ago, of Novells latest offering, SuSE 9.3 Professional. Well, if you were waiting for it to become available through download, your time has come!

You can check out the info and get links to downloads here. For those who missed our review of the OS, you can check that out here.

Ahh, it’s that time of the week for Google to release a new service.

Google Inc. on Monday launched a video viewer for watching and searching video stored in the company’s servers.

Separately, the company’s stock topped $300 for the first time on Monday, closing on the Nasdaq Stock Market at $304.10, an increase of $6.85, or 2.3 percent.

You can check out the full video at Information Week. I checked out one video, (type in AOTS), which screwed up my sound entirely. Could be just me, but it was a bizarre thing to happen.

Announcing the news in Tokyo yesterday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates told reporters that his company and electronics giant Toshiba are expanding their alliance, planning to work on high-definition DVD players that would use a specialized version of Windows. Gates also said Microsoft might consider using HD DVD in a future update of the company’s upcoming Xbox 360 video game console.

HD DVD’s are a direct rival to Blu Ray, and even though Blu Ray can hold 50GB worth of data, compared to the HD DVD’s 30GB, they are more costly to build. I would hope, that if games were to be developed using HD DVD’s, that it wouldn’t go over 30GB, not that it would matter. But wow, that’s a LOT of space! Check out the full article at Tech News World.

NEW YORK – On Tuesday, Apple Computer made good on recent promises by Chief Executive Steve Jobs to release a new version of its iTunes music player software that supports podcasting.

Users of iTunes 4.9, which is available for free, can now subscribe to some 3,000 podcasts–essentially pre-recorded audio programs–from within the iTunes music software. ITunes is the software that users on both Apple’s Macintosh computers and machines running Microsoft’s Windows use to manage their music libraries stored on their iPod MP3 players and purchase music downloads from Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Wow, that’s great news. POD casting is growing in popularity quickly, so now there’s another reason to use iTunes I guess. Read all about it at Forbes.

This review examines three of the latest modular power supplies in the
market: Aerocool Turbine Power (550W), SkyHawk Power One GM620, and
Thermaltake PurePower TWV500W. While each of these PSUs shares a few
similarities, each also brings to the table something unique. Do any of
them deserve a spot in your computer? Read on and find out.

Modular PSU’s are a great way to keep your PC clutter to a minimum. I seriously think there should be way more modular PSU’s on the market. Check out the full round-up at A True Review.

In this article, John Guzman, who’s always willing to share his point of views, is expressing his opinions regarding password security. With identity theft on the rise, this is a great article for beginners to learn some tips for securing their passwords.

Many, many people choose easy passwords to guess. They think, “Nobody would EVER guess ‘Poochie’. Of course they don’t guess because Brute Forcers do the work for them. If you are interested in creating a very secure password, (you should be), then check out the article at Phoronix.

One of the newest products on the virtual shelves of Logic Supply adds that extra appeal of silence to Mini-ITX systems by eliminating the need for fans on the processor or anywhere on the case. The Serener GS-L01 Fanless Mini-ITX Case utilizes heatpipe technology and large aluminum fins on the exterior of the case to passively cool the entire system, making it an appealing choice for home, commercial, or industrial applications.

This is a great looking Mini-ITX case, I have to admit. Style is something that Serener has done right! Check out the full review over at Big Bruin.

As you know ATI has released the Catalyst 5.6 driver for the Microsoft Windows x64 platform, unfortunately this driver only supports Radeon 9500 and above. Have no FEAR! The NGO ATI Optimized Driver is here with support for ALL desktop and mobile radeon cards.

If you want a greatly tweaked driver, check out NGOHQ’s version!

DUAL-CORE PROCESSORS have brought the creamy smoothness of SMP to single-socket systems, and at least in AMD’s case, a single Opteron processor with two cores is actually faster than a pair of single-core chips. That dual-core chip also consumes less power, produces less heat, and makes less noise than a comparable dual-Opteron configuration, making it a tempting upgrade for workstation users and SMP enthusiasts who may not need the horsepower of a dual-processor, dual-core system.

Check out the full review over at Tech Report.

Saratoga, California USA – June 28, 2005 – With today’s launch of PCMark05, Futuremark furthers its leading position as the benchmark software provider of choice for the PC industry, IT managers, IT media and consumers. PCMark05 is a totally new product and features the most advanced workloads, including HD video transcoding, digital music encoding, advanced threading and trace-based hard disk performance tests.

You can check out the full release here. You can choose a variety of download sites here. This version is twice as large as ’04, memory wise, so it may pack a punch.

The difference between 3D Mark and PC Mark, is that while 3D Mark depends much more on your GPU, PC Mark takes advantage of all the components to get a better score. I already bought my copy, now to see how hurting my score will be!

The crucial 11K barrier on 3DMark05 for single card configuration has been broken with ASUS EN7800GTX card running at an insane 702Mhz/1506MHz. The benching rig is made up of AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 @ 3.56GHz, ASUS A8N-SLI Premium (modded), 2 x 512MB GSkill DDR600 and phase change cascade cooling setup.

Very impressive. For all you out there with Phase cooling, all 10 of you, you know what to expect. I could only imagine was could be accomplished with an SLi setup.. at least 16k. Check it out here.

Using an Asetek Waterchill system, with only a water block on the CPU, we tested the overclocking potential of the Foxconn 925XE. We would have put a block on the chipset as well, but with the new chipset HSF mounting solution, we have no way of attaching the block to the northbridge chipset. We managed to get our 3 GHz P4 running stable at 3.75 GHz, which is a healthy 750 MHz overclock.

Head over to Viper Lair for the review. Foxconn is not a name that comes to my mind right away for a motherboard choice, so check it out!

This is just a friendly reminder that we still have a great contest going at Phoronix. For the month of June, we’re giving away SIX great prizes from XtracPads. Registration is simple, so there’s no reason not to enter!

Check out the details here!

There are a few factors that determine a heatsink’s cooling performance; the heatsink itself of course, the thermal interface material, and the factor most people forget, flatness of the heatsink base. A large number of heatsinks these days have bases that are not flat. Even the best heatsinks are not free from this problem. How do we solve this problem however? Lapping is usually the solution, and Easy PC Kits has a Premium Heatsink Lapping Kit to make it easier.

If your heatsink needs cleaning, check out the review at Phoronix.

NEW YORK – The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that Internet file-sharing services may be sued for encouraging copyright infringement by their users, who share digital music files.

The unanimous decision sends the case between Grokster, a music file-sharing service, and MGM Mirage back to a lower court. The court’s justices said sufficient evidence existed to demonstrate unlawful intent on the part of file-sharing services to hold them liable for the copyright-infringing activities of their customers.

I rarely see a P2P network encourage trading of copyrighted files. This may affect other P2P in the near future though.. Source: Forbes

There are plenty of reviews floating around of the new ultra powerful FX-57 processor from AMD. Here is a quick list:

Hard|OCP – The AMD Athlon FX-57 owns the high-end computer gaming space. There is not another processor that can touch it. Couple an Athlon 64 FX-57 with the likes of a new GeForce 7800 GTX or two and you will have the most power desktop gaming computer in the world.

Toms Hardware – AMD should be pretty happy, because it is now offering both the fastest single core and the fastest dual core desktop processor. However, with more and more applications being optimized for dual and multi core environments, the need for blazingly fast single core processors will certainly decrease in the long run.

Bit-Tech – In order to get the CPU stable in Prime 95 at 3.0GHz, we had to increase the core voltage to 1.54v. We managed to get it stable here for a little over one hour. If you are looking for complete stability, we found that 2955MHz was the highest that we could get Prime 95 to continuously loop overnight. We achieved this clock speed at 211×14.0.

AMD Zone – It is clear that the FX doesn’t quite have the same luster with the X2 on the scene. AMD is quick to say that gaming performance is best on the FX still, but clearly from our marks the FX57 will not have a significant edge over at least the 4800+, and likely will not overclock much further if at all.

Hexus – Put simply: if you want the fastest x86 processor on the planet, measured using games and single-threaded benchmarks, the FX-57 should be the only thing on your shopping list.

Other Reviews: Extreme-Tech – Firing Squad – Hot Hardware – Tech Report – X-Bit Labs

If you want the fastest CPU available and are willing to part with $1,000US, then check out these reviews!

Today 3Dxtreme is taking a look at the latest product from a company called Bluegears. Bluegears has released a new sound card, the HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold. For years gamers like us have relied on Creative Labs and their Sound Blaster line of sound card to deliver the gaming experience. Non-frequent driver updates and some chipset compatibility issues have plagued the Creative product line for years, but to many of us if you weren’t using an Audigy card, you just weren’t experiencing gaming as it was meant to be. Onboard audio has evolved quite a bit over the years and is the choice of audio for some gamers; others still rely on a PCI card to deliver the experience that the onboard audio cards just cannot deliver.

Check out the full review over at 3D Xtreme.

Rivatuner 2.0 RC 15.6

RivaTuner is the most powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA and ATI display adapters running under Windows 98 / Windows 98 SE / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP. You can download the latest version here.

ATI Tray Tools 1.0.2.705

ATI Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings. Quite handy and quite a small download. Download it here. Windows 98/ME are not supported!