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Bill Gates’ Last Day
It’s been a cool 33 years since Bill and Paul Allen founded (then) Micro-soft, and today’s the day Gates steps down from his job as chairman of the company. He will still have a part-time job at the company, but the days of his influence at Microsoft are over.
CNET has compiled a list of the most famous Bill Gates videos from throughout the year, exemplifying some of his best moments on video. A few of the best speeches, skits, and conferences are all here.
Well, it’s finally here: Bill Gates’ final, official day at Microsoft as a full-time employee.
To mark this historic moment–33 years in the making–we’ve been combing through our video archives to find some memorable stuff.
Eee PC 901 and 1000 May Ship on July 8 in the US
Though customers in Taiwan have been able to play around with the newest model Eee PCs for a while now, the wait for the U.S. release might not be that far off. ASUS’ pre-sales department is letting customers know that they can expect to be able to purchase an Eee on July 8th. Obviously this isn’t an official release date, but it’s a better estimate than nothing.
The new versions offer many improvement’s over the brand’s predecessor, the 700 and 701, including a larger, higher resolution screen, faster performance, and better battery life. We will hopefully be able to get one in for review and provide our own input on how well the updated model competes.
Sure, you can already pick up an Eee PC 901, 1000 or 1000H in Taiwan. And the company’s been projecting a July 1st launch date for the UK for a while now. But up until this evening I hadn’t heard any word on a US release. But a reader contacted me today and let me know that he had called the Asus pre-sales department on a whim today and asked when the Eee PC 901 would be hitting the US. And without hesitating, the rep told him July 8th
Rumor: Diablo III and Xbox 360 Price Cuts on the Way
Even though the news hasn’t been confirmed by both parties, two separate rumors have hit the internet. The first one involves a sequel to long-time fan favorite series, Diablo. The third game in the franchise, which has been all but confirmed. According to DiabloII.net, they have acquired information about the game’s announcement from "insider sources." Blizzard also purchased the domain diablo3.com, and "Diablo III General Discussion" forum has appeared on the Battle.net.
Blizzard design VP Rob Pardo revealed that the company does intend to announce a new title at the event at this weekend’s Blizzard Worldwide Invitiational in Paris, but declined to offer further details… Moreover, Diablo fan website DiabloII.net reports that Blizzard’s game announcement will be Diablo III, the long-awaited next title in Blizzard’s hack-and-slash RPG series.
Finally, in a bit of unrelated news, a K-Mart circular has hit the internet advertising a $299.99 Xbox 360 Premium. There was speculation about Microsoft dropping the price of the 360 during E3, but it’s possible the company might make the move a week earlier to compete with the PS3.
Sources: Shacknews, Slickdeals
Flashy Websites Annoy Users
Even though this is sort of a no-brainer, SDL Tridion, a web content management firm polled users for their opinion on the most annoying and most frustrating web experience. It may be hard to believe, but pop up ads came at the top of the list, along with "long introductions to web sites that cannot be turned off, the requirement to download new applications to view elements of a page, and a requirement to hand over a lot of personal information just to access company details."
A good example, in my mind, would be a promotional site for a cell phone. Sprint’s page for the Samsung Instinct, and RIM’s page for the BlackBerry Bold are both Flash based, but offer little in the ways of actual information or content. Yeah, I want to know the specs on the newest phone, but do I really have to sit for the transitions on the Flash
I’m curious, however, to what exactly denotes "clean" web design. Clearly, users prefer style with substance, but the actual science behind good web design can be the difference of making a good first impression or keeping a customer, or reader in our case. There are studies and principle on the case, but design is subjective in a lot of ways.
Web content management firm SDL Tridion has released the results of its research into what elements of web site design most turn off internet users, coming in top is pop up advertising. Seventy-eight percents of respondents said that this type of advertising was the most frustrating web experience, complaining that ads appeared at inappropriate times and were difficult to get rid off.
Dell Releases New Studio Laptops
Even though the notebooks have been leaked before, Dell just officially announced the availability of their newest consumer-based notebook line. The new line offers a refreshed look, more customizability, and, interestingly enough, new applications.
The first new program to be included is Dell Video Chat, a sort of Skype and iChat competitor. The second is a Leopard-inspired Dell Dock application, which puts icons in a dock (hence the name) at the top of the window for easy access. There’s little telling weather or not these programs will actually be of use and efficient, or just more bloatware we’ve come to expect from manufacturers, but it’s a nice change to see a company try to move forward and give more to their customers.
The new notebooks are available now, and Notebook Review has a review of the 17" model, with a video highlighting its features.
“The Last HOPE” Conference in NY Next Month
Ahh, the summer is here, and the next two months hold some great conferences and trade shows, such as the Intel Developer Forum, NVISION and the first ASUS Republic of Gamers convention. But that’s far from all. One I’ll be attending next month is HOPE, or Hackers on Planet Earth.
This conference takes place bi-annually in New York City, at the historic Hotel Pennsylvania. That hotel is set to meet its grim fate next year, as it will be torn down to make more room for, get this… a new office building! So, this is the last conference to be held there, hence the theme, "The Last Hope".
For those unaware, HOPE is a conference that’s sole purpose is to inform. All of the keynotes and workshops revolve around hacking in some regard, and it’s almost impossible to find a subject here you will not be interested in. Of course, we all know that hacking doesn’t always equal evil, but rather is a great hobby that involves learning and tinkering – both very good things.
For a list of all the talks, check out the complete list of official ones. Some notable speakers are Steve Rambam, Mitch Altman, Adam Savage and Steven Levy, but there are countless other great speakers and topics scheduled as well. If anyone here is planning to make the conference, feel free to post in the thread, and perhaps we could meet up!
There will be three days and nights of speakers along with all sorts of activities to keep you entertained and enlightened. We have a tremendous amount of space for us to make use of and it’s all right in the middle of the city, across the street from Penn Station. You still have time to get involved in this historic event, whether by attending, volunteering, speaking, or creating something new that none of us have thought of yet.
Source: The Last HOPE
NVIDIA’s PhysX Drivers Under Fire
NVIDIA is the target of a lot of backlash the past week, since releasing updated PhysX drivers that optimize higher-end GPUs to handle the workload. The drivers themselves aren’t the problem, but rather inflated 3DMark Vantage scores. Because the benchmark utilizes PhysX libraries in a few tests, adding in acceleration can increase the overall score by a fair margin, putting NVIDIA cards right into the leaderboards.
In a normal system, the algorithms are sent straight to the processor, and as you are probably aware, the processor isn’t so good for specific calculations like this, whereas the GPU excels, and that’s evident by running this test. Many are calling NVIDIA cheaters, but I think they are far from it. The physics calculations have just shifted from the CPU to the GPU, where they calculate faster.
Why people care so much about high 3DMark scores is beyond me, but what many are overlooking is the fact that this driver not only inflates what is apparently the most important number in computing, but it also opens up PhysX capabilities in any of the games that support it, including Unreal Tournament III. I gave this a quick test last night and was impressed. Finally, cool physics done from a GPU in a game people actually play.
Right now it’s limited to higher-end GPUs, and from quick tests, I believe it might be due to the amount of processing power the physics actually need. I’ll be testing it more, and report further when I have a few findings. If you have a 9800 GTX or GTX 260 / 280, feel free to give them a go.
During the benchmark install, a runtime library is updated to allow the test to run on the GPU and then during the test, it addresses the benchmark DLLs to the GPU instead of the PPU or CPU. Nothing within the benchmark is changed at all. No software libraries or even a line of code changes in the benchmark whatsoever. The only thing that changes is that installer, nothing else.
Source: HotHardware
Recording Industry Declares Radio “Piracy”
The recording industry, in its all-knowing wisdom, has decided to take another stab at gaining revenue from radio broadcasters. Last Monday, the National Association of Broadcasters literally received a can of herring and a dictionary (along with some provocatively named music tracks) to help the recording industry’s point get across. And it’s simple. It’s easy to understand. They want more money.
A long standing agreement between the two parties came to the mutual settlement that radio broadcasters are free from paying performance royalties if the record label’s material is "promoted." And to an extent, that’s exactly what radio broadcasters do – promote music. However, the record label’s new rational claims that terrestrial radio is "a form of piracy" because the industry doesn’t agree with the new terms.
Now, personally, I’m split between the issue. On one hand, the relationship has remained constant throughout the years, and broadcasters are already feeling the pressure from new markets such as internet radio and music downloading, and the cost of supporting their arguably dwindling industry. Yet, on the other hand, I think there should be identical fees payed by terrestrial, internet, and any other form of broadcasting or sharing media. But changing the terms just because the labels want more money should not be an option.
The article adds that there are proposals on the issue for radio broadcasters to pay variable or a flat fee, depending on the bill and size of the station. A bill could be approved as early as this Thursday.
On Monday, the recording industry sent the National Association of Broadcasters — the trade group representing the $16 billion a year AM-FM broadcasting business — a can of herring to underscore that it believes its arguments against paying royalties are a red herring. The NAB says its members should not pay royalties because AM-FM radio "promotes" the music industry.
Intel To Launch Three Nehalem-based CPUs by End of Q408?
It’s still a bit early to instill confidence in rumors, but this one seems reasonable. Industry-tracking site DigiTimes is reporting that by the end of the year, Intel will launch three different processors based on the Nehalem microarchitecture. The fastest model will debut at 3.2GHz, similar to today’s LGA775-based QX9770, while the others will be clocked at 2.93GHz and 2.66GHz.
If history is any indicator, Intel will launch the 3.2GHz part first and label it as part of the ‘Extreme’ series. After some time has passed, they’ll follow-up with the lower-clocked offerings, which are still likely to be priced higher than current Yorkfield mid-range offerings.
As we are already aware, the X58 chipset will launch at the same time as the first processor’s launch, which will end what we know as the FSB, thanks to the introduction of the QuickPath Interconnect architecture. As for further specifics, such as pricing and model names, that won’t be known until later this year, though leaks are sure to happen before then.
In other news, Intel has updated its processor schedule in will begin to phase out its Core 2 Extreme QX6850 and 6800 after July this year, the sources revealed. Additionally, the performance-level quad-core Q9550 and Q9650 will both phase out in the first quarter of 2009. Intel will leave its quad-core Yorkfield processors for the mainstream market and their life cycle will not end until the end of fourth quarter 2009.
Source: DigiTimes
Want the Largest HTPC Chassis Ever? Lian Li’s Tyr X2000 Is For You
As I recently explained in our ASUS U6E 12.1" review, bigger is no longer necessarily better. Today, most people are not satisfied with their PCs unless it’s small, quiet and robust. Hard to put all three of those together, but it can be done. Well, there still linger people who think that bigger is better, and wow, does Lian Li have you covered.
The company has just released their Tyr X2000 ‘HTPC/Gaming Chassis’, that’s not so much large as it is FREAKING HUGE. As you can see in the photo below, it’s capable of supporting a full eATX motherboard with plenty of room for airflow. At the bottom can be found hard drive bays for six drives, with no real expandability past that. But when was the last time you really used more than SIX hard drives?
I digress. On top, a power supply can be mounted in addition to your ODDs and 3.25" accessory, be it a floppy drive (??) or something else. Pricing is not mentioned in the press release, but chances are if you have to ask, it’s not going to be for you.
Update: It looks like the selling price will be around $520USD. The case will only be available to the US through NewEgg, in systems that they apparently pre-build to sell. Canada and the rest of the world will sell the case naked via the usual e-tailers.
The Tyr X2000 is aligned to become the most unique HTPC/Gaming Chassis on the market today allowing unprecedented high performance components to be encompassed in the home theatre environment without compromising on looks and appeal. The stylish and unique side panels accept 2x 5.25" Optical Device Drives and one 3.5" drive, which are accessible from either the left or right side, while the front face is for ergonomics and airflow. The 6x hot swap RAID SATA HDD bays can contain terabytes of multimedia for your viewing pleasure while the spaciously zoned interior can accommodate virtually any system you can think of.
Source: Lian Li Tyr X2000 Microsite
Waving Good-Bye to Bill Gates
As June 27 gets closer and closer, technology pendants, competitors and fellow colleagues face the growing realization that Bill Gates will soon leave the technology industry and his position as chairman of Microsoft. It’s not entirely clear what impact the leave will have, but the entire incident remains to be a historical event worth noting.
The man, despite any personal grievances one may hold, has made many contributions to the technology and software industry, as well as to the world through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Although Gates will still have a part time job at Microsoft, he will not be there on a day-to-day basis and will instead focus his efforts on his charity.
It’s a nice thing to see fellow CEOs give their respects and say their goodbyes to the man who essentially changed the personal computer to be what we know it today. CNet has a collection of 13 technology leaders saying goodbye to Bill Gates, and his legacy.
As Bill Gates steps down from full-time work at Microsoft, well-wishing cheers and not-so-nice jeers are echoing from Silicon Valley. After 32 years of competition and acquisition, Gates managed to ruffle some feathers, while still making some famous friends. After the end of this month, Gates plans to spend only 20 percent of his time as a Microsoft chairman and the rest of his time will be devoted to the Gates Foundation and other pet projects.
AMD HD 4850 – Best Mid-Range GPU Ever? Yes.
If you are excited about the GPU market right now, then good, you sure have the right to be. It’s been a little while since ATI released a GPU to cause alarm for NVIDIA, but it’s happening now with the HD 4850. Despite being a mid-range offering, it’s more powerful than what would be considered high-end just a few months ago, and that, in itself, is impressive to think about.
Though our review is not yet ready, I couldn’t help but make a post and build up some anticipation. The main reason for excitement would be the fact that the HD 4850 is faster in almost all of our tests than NVIDIA’s 9800 GTX. The reason that’s impressive is because the HD 4850 debuts with a $200 price tag. In most of the games we’ve tested, even 2560×1600 proved more than playable… especially with Half-Life 2 and Call of Duty 4.
Overclocking is not entirely impressive, but still reasonable. The fact is though, if you have this card, you should find little need to even want to overclock it, unless you are one of those who feels dirty unless there is a good OC in place. Add to the fact that the card at stock speeds is hot, overclocking feels even less important.
 Credit: Techgage / Rob Williams |
Right now, the HD 4850 is a fantastic choice for someone looking to spend $200 on a new GPU. For those looking for something smaller, I still whole heartily recommend NVIDIA’s 9600 GT, because at ~$140, it’s still the king of that segment. Considering how much more power could be had for that extra $60 though, it can be a difficult decision to make.
The best part of the HD 4850 is the fact that it’s available right now at numerous popular e-tailers. NewEgg alone offers eight different models… all priced at $199.99. NVIDIA will launch their 9800 GTX+ next month, which might shake up the decision-making process a little bit. That will most likely ride on pricing, though, so don’t be surprised to see this new card even lower than its $199.99 SRP by that time.
ASUS RoG Convention Gets Date Change
Last Thursday, I posted about the upcoming ASUS Republic of Gamers convention, and already there is a major change. Due to scheduling issues, the convention has been pushed back from July 18 – 20 to August 8 – 10. Despite the change, we’ll still be there with bells on.
For the uninformed, the Republic of Gamers convention is essentially one big LAN party, with hopes to bring in around 1,000 gamers. It takes place at the Hyatt Regency right in the heart of Dallas, Texas. The event will be BYOC and BYON (bring-your-own notebook). Food will cost, but some should be free, with the rest being very cheap.
In addition to the LAN party itself will be a few workshops, one handled by Kyle Bennett of Hard|OCP. Overall, it should be quite an interesting time, and I for one am extremely interested to see how well this one goes. If it goes well, we can be sure to see it happen as an annual event.
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Welcome to the Republic Of Gamers Convention, brought to you by ASUS and Intel. ROGCon will be heating up Dallas, Texas this August 8th to 10th by bringing old school LAN party fun to a whole new level. ROGCon will be open to the public and will feature a 24-hour BYOC where 700 gamers can show-off their skills.
Source: Republic of Gamers Convention
ASUS Hosting First RoG Convention Next Month
This summer is gearing up to be a good one for LAN parties and cool conferences (IDF, NVISION, E3), and ASUS is helping to do their part by holding the first Republic of Gamers Convention, taking place from July 18 – 20. The bulk of the convention is a LAN party, where over 700 gamers can meet and greet and kick each others ass. You are free to bring either your desktop PC or your laptop.
If you live in or around the Dallas, TX area, this is one event you shouldn’t consider missing. It’s only $20, and with the amount of projected gamers there, it should turn out to be one heck of an event. Our very own Greg King will be there, who plans to conquer every… single… game he touches.
Now that I’ve set the standard so high, doesn’t it make you want to attend even more? For those who prefer specifics, check out the official FAQ, then register! I know we have a lot of Texan readers, so there will be no excuse if the place isn’t bursting at the seams!
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Welcome to the Republic Of Gamers Convention, brought to you by ASUS and Intel. ROGCon will be heating up Dallas, Texas this July 18th to 20th by bringing old school LAN party fun to a whole new level. ROGCon will be open to the public and will feature a 24-hour BYOC where 700 gamers can show-off their skills.
Source: RoG Convention
NVIDIA Prepares to Launch 9800 GTX+ Next Month
If there is one thing NVIDIA’s great at, it’s making the competition feel the heat. Even though they are offering the best top-end cards right now, and have been since… hmm, the 6-series, the last thing they want to do is allow AMD to take the lead, in anything. We already know that AMD makes some incredible mid-range cards, and that’s what seems to scare NVIDIA, especially with the upcoming HD 4850 card launch.
From early reports, the HD 4850 out-performs the 9800 GTX from NVIDIA, a card that up until the GTX 280 was the fastest single-GPU card on the planet. But it gets better. The HD 4850 isn’t only faster, but it’s supposed to be priced around the $200 mark (HD 4870 at ~$279). Well, at that price, it would be $70 cheaper on average, over the 9800 GTX. So what’s NVIDIA to do? Drop prices? No, in typical NVIDIA fashion, they’ll again release another card that should not see the light of day.
Ryan at PC Perspective just received a new NVIDIA card, labeled the 9800 GTX+, to benchmark to his hearts content. 9800 GTX+? I’m all for new GPUs when they are warranted, but other than a small die shrink and clock bump, this is essentially a pre-overclocked 9800 GTX. What’s the point? Who knows, but we will once the card is released next month and can have a gander at its pricing.
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Compared to the current generation GeForce 9800 GTX that runs at 675 MHz core, 1688 MHz shader and 1100 MHz memory clocks, the new 9800 GTX+ is a considerable bump in speed. What makes this all possible? The 9800 GTX+ is the 55nm refresh of G92 – all current 9800-series cards are built on 65nm technology.
Source: PC Perspective
Tracking Firefox 3 Downloads Instantly
Firefox 3 is here, and a world record attempt is being made. I am not sure what the previous record was, but I think the results so far are going to give the browser a great chance at it. When’s the last time you saw millions band together to download a new browser, anyway? With Firefox 2, perhaps, but since then, the browser’s worldwide usage has only gone up.
The Mozilla folks have put up a cool page that allows you to track their progress so far, and even offers the ability to narrow it down to a specific country. At the time of writing, the worldwide downloads have topped 7,000,000 and still seems to be going up rather fast. So far, the USA have been responsible for over 2.4m, while Germany comes in second, at close to 500K. At this rate, it’s looking like it might just hit 7.75m before the 24hr mark, but my math has always been horrible, so don’t quote my estimation.
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Please download Firefox 3 by 11:16 a.m. PDT (18:16 UTC) on June 18, 2008. That’s 11:16 a.m. in Mountain View, 2:16 p.m. in Toronto, 3:16 p.m. in Rio de Janeiro, 8:16 p.m. in Paris, Madrid, Berlin, Rome and Warsaw, 10:16 p.m. in Moscow, and June 19, 2008 at 2:16 a.m. in Beijing and 3:16 a.m. in Tokyo.
Source: Spread Firefox
Toshiba Includes Dedicated Multimedia Chip in Upcoming Qosmio G55
Toshiba’s upcoming Qosmio G55 notebook looks to employ a Quad-Core processor, but it might not be what you think. It’s not from AMD, nor Intel, but rather the result of a collaboration between IBM, Sony and Toshiba. Based on the Cell processor, used in blade servers, this Quad-Core chip operating at 1.5GHz (256KB cache per core) will be used to enhance your multimedia experience.
I’ve emailed Toshiba to get specifics on exactly why this chip will help improve multimedia tasks, but from what I understand, it would be similar to Intel taking their SSE4 instruction set and putting it on a dedicated processor. Whether or not this means you will need specially-equipped software to take advantage of the enhancements, I’m unsure, but hope to have an answer soon.
Still, this idea is interesting, and no doubt intriguing for hardcore multimedia buffs. It seems a little odd to chuck this in a notebook, but the Qosmio G55 is a desktop replacement, so using it as the initial platform to test the waters isn’t a bad idea. Well, that, and not to mention that Toshiba doesn’t deal with desktop systems. I’m still trying to surmise the usefulness of the chip though, because once mobile Quad-Cores hit the mainstream, it might have less of an appeal. But, faster is faster, so it might always have a place somewhere. Adding four extra dedicated cores can’t be a bad thing, right?
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The Japanese company says that the processor achieves what many high-end graphics processing units (GPUs) from the likes of Nvidia and AMD now feature: transcoding acceleration. Transcoding, or converting–movies, for example–from one format to another, can be extremely time consuming, sometimes taking hours.
Source: C|Net News
Wine 1.0 Released
Following on the heals of Firefox’s 3.0 release (albeit two days early), the Wine team released their 1.0 gold version of the popular open source software, which allows Windows applications to run on Linux (and Unix.. and OS X..) without the use of an emulator or virtual machine. The new version offers little more than grammatical error fixes in the application, but it’s awesome to know that the 15-year project finally hit its milestone 1 dot 0 release.
It’s a painful and frustrating process to reverse engineer the Windows API, and the developers who donated their time had to recreate the framework for Windows with little assistance. Hopefully their progress will diminish the barrier to entry for individuals and corporations who rely on Windows programs and allow them to take the dive into Linux.
Here’s to improving compatibility onward and to future releases.
The Wine team is proud to announce that Wine 1.0 is now available. This is the first stable release of Wine after 15 years of development and beta testing. Many thanks to everybody who helped us along that long road!
While compatibility is not perfect yet, thousands of applications have been reported to work very well. Check http://appdb.winehq.org to see the details for your favorite applications.
Firefox 3 Now Available – Help Break a Record!
Mozilla aims to break the world record for the most downloaded software in 24 hours. A few hours ago, the browser was released, but the site had technical difficulties (go figure), but the site’s available now as this post is going up. Over 1.5 million people have pledged to download already, so if you haven’t already, head over to the download page and get some free software.
Firefox is available for all of the major operating systems in over 45 languages and is used in over 320 countries, and of course, is completely open source. Version 3 adds tons of new fixes and features. Remember, if you’re using RC3 (or two on Windows or Linux) and you want to participate, you must download from Mozilla’s site to have your download count!
With more than 15,000 improvements, Firefox 3 is faster, safer and smarter than ever before. The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox 3 sets the pace with dozens of new features, including the smart location bar, one-click bookmarking and blindingly fast performance.
PSP Gets Major Version Update, But No Major New Features
Sony has announced that a brand-new piece of PSP firmware is en route, set with the 4.0 version number. With such a major version change, you’d assume that major changes are in store, right? Well, from what I can tell, the changes are not worthy of such a version change, but to each their own, I suppose.
What’s new is Google implementation, allowing you to search the web for things straight from the XMB. You know, instead of launching the browser first and heading to Google.com. Quite the time-savings there. Also new is the ability to speed up and slow down video playback when played off of a Memory Stick PRO Duo. Push up and down on the D-Pad to adjust the speed accordingly.
Seriously. That’s what’s new in this major version update.
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Another new feature delivered through the 4.00 update is the ability to change viewing speed during playback of videos stored on your Memory Stick PRO Duo, so you can speed through or slow down what you’re watching. To do this simply press the up or down directional buttons while playing a video. Enjoy!
Source: Playstation Blog
NVIDIA Announces GTX 260 and GTX 280 Graphic Cards
If there is one thing NVIDIA does well, it’s the art of taking one GPU core and prolonging it’s lifespan as much as possible. When G80 was first launched, in the form of the 8800 GTX, it offered mind-blowing performance that obliterated the competition. Amazingly, though, it kept that way for quite a while, as the 8800 GTX was the leading GPU all the way up until ATI released their HD 3870 X2.
But then we had the 9-series, and dual-GPU solutions. Of course, it’s not surprising to see a dual-GPU solution out-perform a single GPU, but today, NVIDIA unveils their GTX 280, which accomplishes just that. Compared to the 9800 GX2, it wins in many competitions and follows just inches behind in others. For a single-GPU solution, that’s impressive… as heck.
The downside is that the new GTX 280 is expensive, but that’s to be expected for a brand-new offering that happens to blow away every other single-GPU solution before it. At $649 each, SLI might be out of the question for early adopters, but for the hardcore (and I do mean hardcore) enthusiasts, 3-way SLI is definitely possible.
In the end, the new GPU consumes less power than the 9800 GX2, is quieter, runs just as warm, and happens to perform like the true beast we expected it to. Hard to not like that. We didn’t receive our samples in sufficient time, so we were unable to publish our content today, but stay tuned as it should be delivered before the end of the week.
Now we just need to await ATI’s upcoming offerings to see where everything will fall into place.
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Though producing such a massive GPU, does have its drawbacks, which are evident when you consider its die size and when looking at power consumption characteristics, the fact remains NVIDIA has produced the most powerful and fastest graphics card we have ever tested – yet again.
Source: HotHardware
Microsoft is Not Amused About Google-Yahoo! Advertising Deal
It seems that Microsoft has some sour grapes about the failed Yahoo! acquisition the company recently attempted a few months back. Now that Google and Yahoo! have announced a joint advertising deal, Microsoft spokesperson Jack Evans suggested that the move offers less competition and will increase costs for advertisers.
On one level, I can sympathize with the software giant. After all, a Yahoo-Google "merger" of sorts was just the thing many analysts were considering in an effort to thwart off Microsoft. But on another, I can’t help but think the whole vocal opposition is a little childish. It’s hard to deny that Microsoft (understandably) wants inroads on any industry that can provide them with revenue, but they have been struggling for a while now on a "me too" basis. If the deal did go through, the acquisition would have created another monopoly, this time hailing under Microsoft’s control. The outcome is the same, essentially one company is left is a worse position.
So is the deal really bad for the online advertising industry? Yahoo! had a large opposition to letting Microsoft aquire them in the first place, and were quick to announce the cooperation with Google. It seems like the two are willing to work together, so time will only tell.
"Our position has been clear since April that any deal between these two companies will increase prices for advertisers and start to consolidate more than 90 percent of the search advertising market in Google’s hands," Evans said. "Legal and industry experts agree that this would clearly make the market less competitive."
AMD Gets Cozy With Havok
You may remember that Intel acquired the software maker last year, but that won’t stop AMD from doing some harmless flirting. AMD plans to incorporate the technology in their graphics cards, and optimize their CPU performance with software that takes advantage of the company’s physics engine.
Since this could very well mean you’ll be seeing Havok’s physics being processed from AMD’s GPUs, I take this news as a good sign. Taking into account Nvidia’s purchase of Ageia, this could mean both companies would have a means of physics that would be (to some degree) offloaded from the CPU. If we can see a real world gaming performance increase, I’ll encourage it.
AMD will work with game giant Havok to tailor Havok’s game technology to AMD processors, the companies said Thursday. The plans call for optimizing game-physics effects utilizing AMD’s multicore processors and graphics processing units, or GPUs.
Metallica vs. The Internet, Again
File this story under the “huh?” category. Metallica, who were apparently working on a new album, invited music critics to preview six new tracks and review them. Then, their management asked the music blog Blinded by the Hype to take down their review, even though the reviewer never signed a non-disclosure agreement to preview the songs.
As you probably recall, the band had issues in the past with their music being pirated (or even present) on the Internet. It’s sad to see things haven’t changed for the better. Personally, I won’t be picking up any new Metallica albums for the foreseeable future.
Given all that Metallica has done, said, and been through in the last 20 years, what could they still do that would lead bloggers to ask, "What the hell is wrong with Metallica?" In this case, the answer is fairly pedestrian but still dumb: censor bloggers.
Firefox 3 Nearing Completion, RC3 for Mac Released
The Mozilla foundation released another release candidate today for the Mac version of their Firefox 3 web browser. The update was released to fix a "showstopper" bug that would cause the browser to hang after updating an OS X machine from 10.5.0 to 10.5.3 directly. The new build will go through further testing, and the project’s lead developers have stated they are confident correct any remaining problems by the end of the week.
The Windows and Linux versions of RC3 share the same code as RC2, and are completely identical. Although an official release date has yet to be determined, I would expect the final version of the browser to be released in the next week or two.
There’s a reason for that, we’ve learned: Mozilla is preparing a public rebuild of its release candidate for Mac OS X, that addresses a bug uncovered by users. It cropped up as a result of the operating system update process. Specifically, when you set up a Mac with System 10.5.0, then use Apple’s update system to upgrade directly to 10.5.3. When that happens, Firefox 3.0 RC2 can hang after it’s been made the default browser, and when it’s trying to load its plug-in database. Users who upgrade only to System 10.5.2 don’t experience the problem.