- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
Social & RSS Feeds
Latest Videos
Latest News
Tech News
Google Changes Street View Policies
Although Google develops some great mapping tools (or at least buys the developers who do), there are too many possible security risks to talk about in a single news post, especially with their Street View application. Since launched in May, many have complained about the lack of privacy, considering you could zoom up to an innocent civilian walking out of a strip club or stalk kittens sitting in windows.
Despite the fact that only “dozens” of requests were received by Google for removal of ones-self being found on the service, they changed their policy back in May without anyone realizing it. Now, if you find yourself in Street View and want to opt-out, you can contact them and they will remove you (or at least block your face) without questions.
 |
I have a hard time believing that such a low amount of requests were submitted, but I’m glad to see the policy change has been implimented. Though it would require a good amount of resources, I’d still be more comfortable with faces and other identifying factors being blurred out automatically, instead of waiting around for a removal request.
Source: Mashable
AMD’s Henri Richard Resigns
If there is one company that has gone through a fair amount of rough patches, it’s AMD. The sad thing is that these rough patches are not exactly behind them. Things have just been shaken up a little more, as Executive VP / Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Henri Richard, has called it quits. The resignation takes effect on September 8th and as of now, AMD has not announced a replacement. The resignation comes just one month after AMD’s Dave Orton also left.
Things are not looking that great for AMD these days. Product launches never seem to hit their date, and if they do, they under-perform when compared to the competition. Not to mention the debts that are piling up, and now top execs are leaving? AMD is far from dead, but their Barcelona and Phenom need to ship as soon as possible.
 |
AMD’s Henri Richard plans to step down from his position as executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer, according to inside sources at AMD and confirmed by CNET. Richard’s resignation takes effect on September 8. AMD has yet to issue an official press release regarding the matter, nor has the company named a suitable replacement.
BioShock Widescreen Issues Not Issues At All
The ultra-hyped first-person shooter, BioShock, was finally released this past Thursday to antsy fans. As with any launch nowadays, things didn’t go as smoothly as 2K Games had hoped. The biggest issue being the fact that the game wasn’t scaling properly when using a widescreen resolution. Instead of scaling, it would simply chop off the top and bottom of the gameplay area.
As Joystiq reports, it turns out to not be a bug at all. Developers used the widescreen setting on 90% of their testing stations, and after careful consideration, the “best” mode was what made it into the game. Luckily, if you are still unhappy, 2K is working on a patch that should please you. But, if you still want to be upset at the developers, you can focus on the inclusion of SecuROM with the game, if you like.
 |
While that sounds like a “same difference” situation, 2K feels they made the right decision. If, however, you’re still not pleased, the developer is looking into ways of allowing users to manually adjust the field of view. Alternatively, you can have your memory erased and play the game blissfully unaware of issues you wouldn’t have noticed had someone not pointed them out to you.
Source: Joystiq
Gentoo Users: Upgrade Your NVIDIA Driver!
The Inquirer is reporting on an NVIDIA-driver-based bug that resides within the Gentoo Linux distribution. The bug is rather simple, and rather simple to fix. The driver resides under /dev as nvidia* (nvidia0, nvidia1, etc) and with some old versions of the driver, which were installed through Portage, incorrect permissions were set. Thanks to this, the driver could be exploited in a variety of ways, the harshest being changes to the GPU’s clock frequencies.
If you use Gentoo and the NVIDIA driver, it’s best to upgrade to the latest stable version in Portage with your emerge command. If you install the NVIDIA driver yourself (without Portage), it looks like you are safe, as it’s Portage at fault for setting incorrect permissions.
 |
The file permissions mean that a hacker could alter the drivers and send arbitary code to the board itself, resulting in a software compromise or even damage to the actual Nvidia hardware, should a hacker choose to jack up your clock frequencies on the sly. Gentoo users are being urged to update to the latest version of the X11 Nvidia drivers, if they haven’t done so already, as the up to date version has the file permissions fixed.
Source: The Inquirer
AGEIA Announces Mobile PPU
Not much has come out of the AGEIA camp recently, but that doesn’t mean that their R&D is still not in full-force. Today at the Leipzig convention, they announced a new PhysX processor for notebook PCs, which you can see pictured below. It’s called the “AGEIA PhysX 100M Processor” and is currently the only physics-based accelerator card for notebooks. Dell has already jumped on the PhysX bandwagon and will be featuring the processor in their upcoming XPS line-up.
Also shown off over there today is Warmonger, Operation: Downtown Destruction, a game I have some interest in, since seeing the videos at this years CES. Also being shown is Unreal Tournament 3 being run with the PhysX processor. If the game does prove to use the PPU to it’s full extent, then this might be -the- reason to pick one up.
 |
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. – August 22, 2007 – AGEIA (TM) Technologies, Inc. the pioneer in hardware-accelerated physics for PC games and a leader in console gaming physics, today announced that it will showcase a series of upcoming PhysX powered games and its new AGEIA PhysX Mobile Technology (TM) at the upcoming Games Convention 2007, Halle 4 G22, August 22-27 in Leipzig, Germany.
Source: AGEIA Press Release
skate. Demo Released To Xbox Live, PS3 Demo Soon
A demo for EA’s upcoming skate sim finally hit Xbox Live, which leaves you enough time to experience it well before it’s release on Sept. 12. PS3 players are left in the dark for now, but should be able to experience the demo as well, before the end of the week, or next week at the latest.
Being a huge Tony Hawk Pro Skater fan, I was looking quite forward to skate. because THPS only comes out once a year and I want something else to hog my time. Well, I played through the demo and can’t say I am immediately impressed, though I admit I need to better get used to the controls.
 |
While playing, I can’t help but think that the developers deliberately did everything different from the Tony Hawk series, but in some cases, I wish they -had- “borrowed” some features. I’d much rather tap the A button to jump than to flick the analog stick down and up in a fluid motion. Now, I realize that skate. is meant to be a sim, not a THPS clone, so I am willing to give it more time before sitting on a conclusion.
Source: skate. Website
Apple iWork 08, A Worthy Upgrade
Office 2007 arrived late last year to much fanfare. Compared to previous versions, it was a huge step forward, despite the fact that many found the new ribbons to be a true pain. One problem I have with the program is how clunky it can be. I use Excel 2007 quite often, and often it will reset a few of my options (color/graph), so that I have to go through the entire creation process again. Seems so needless, but by the looks of things, Apples latest iWork 08 is doing most things right.
Lifehacker has taken a look at the latest version of Numbers (spreadsheet) to see if it lives up to the hype, and overall they are impressed. Like any piece of software, there are a few issues, but those issues seem to be outweighed by the applications shining features.
 |
We decided to give Numbers a test drive ourselves to see if it really deserves all the praise. In fact, while Numbers isn’t a revelation, it does for spreadsheets what the iPod did for MP3 players. Numbers adds polish, ease-of-use and some beautiful “duh, of COURSE it should work that way!” features to spreadsheets.
Source: Lifehacker
Microsoft Brings Back The Sidewinder Name
Remember the old Microsoft Sidewinder gamepad? I knew a lot of people who owned them, but couldn’t manage to enjoy them myself. It felt like I was holding a loaf of bread, which I guess is where the design for the original Xbox controller came from. Well, the folks from Redmond are bringing the brand back with a “hardcore gamers” mouse.
At first look, I have to say the mouse looks absolutely sick. I love the color scheme, button layout and the scroll wheel looks perfect. The “hardcore gamer” aspect comes from the fact that it’s tweakable, similar to Logitech’s latest G9 mouse. The feet are even interchangeable, with three different surfaces. Now just to wait until final copies hit retail.
 |
I have to say that my first experience with this mouse in July was extremely positive. Every single person in the office who played with this mouse LOVED their experience with it. When the promised driver features are combined with the physical options on the mouse, the customization is nearly endless. This mouse was designed to be a crowd pleaser and I have no doubt in my mind that it will be. While these are my impressions from New York, I reserve full judgment until I have the final product in my hands for review.
Source: Gotfrag
Toshiba Announces High-End SDHC Cards
I have a few SDHC cards laying around here, capacity of 4GB. With those, I have a hard time even coming close to filling it up in a single session, while shooting 10MP RAW+JPEG. For professionals, I could understand 8GB, but Toshiba blows the doors straight off what we thought was high-end with the announcement of their 16GB and 32GB SDHC card. Prices should be $350 and $700… not bad considering 8GB cards just earlier this year retailed for over $400.
 |
Yeah, Toshiba just announced an 8GB microSDHC card and even a massive 16GB full-size SDHC card (launching in October for ¥40,000, about $350), but it’s the friggin 32GB card we’re eyeballing. Due out January of next year for ¥80,000, soon enough you’ll be plunking down seven bills for what’s surely the last memory card you’ll need for, what, six months?
Source: Engadget
Girl Fined $71 For Recording 20 Seconds Of Movie
It’s hard to feel “sorry” for the movie-industry, regarding piracy, when reading news like this. For whatever reason, 19-year-old Jhannet Sejas thought it would be a good idea to record 20-seconds worth of the Transformers movie to show her 13-year-old brother later on. Bad move, and one she was arrested for. Yes, arrested… for taping twenty seconds of a movie.
She pleaded guilty and got off rather easy, with a $71 fine. Now, while I agree that she shouldn’t have recorded -anything-, given the fact that MPAA and others are on a power-trip, I find it utterly ridiculous to bring someone to court for a 20-second recording. How could the movie industry possibly chalk that up as an impact to their business? If anything, news like this will only make people pirate movies even more, just to spite these empty-headed corporate idiots.
 |
When arrested on her birthday last month, the Annandale, Virginia, resident said she was taking the short clip with a Canon PowerShot to show her 13-year-old brother. Neither Sejas nor her attorney were immediately available for comment. If Sejas stays out of trouble for a year, the misdemeanor will be expunged from her record.
Source: Wired
Guild Wars Hits 4 Million Units Sold
Guild Wars, the popular subscription-free MMO from NCsoft, has hit 4 million units sold. That number includes sales from the original game and both the Factions and Nightfall expansion packs. Anyone who owns the original version can hop on and play, so technically they have many “subscribers”, but I would be interested in knowing the number of active accounts at the present time. I am sure that information won’t just slide out of either ArenaNet or NCsoft, though.
 |
“Four million units sold is an impressive number and demonstrates that Guild Wars is a proven franchise,” said Bob McKenzie, Senior Vice President of Merchandising, GameStop Corporation. “The Guild Wars franchise delivers an outstanding gaming experience and is clearly an important part of our PC games offerings.”
Source: NCsoft Press Release
YouTube Testing In-Video Advertising
YouTube is now implementing advertising directly into hosted videos, although I have been unable to spot one so far, which might be due to the fact that I am based in Canada. However, according to Cnet, the ads are actually quite non-intrusive and shouldn’t be a bother to anyone. During a video, an ad might appear at the bottom and can be clicked to load a new window. It will automatically pause and resume once you are finished watching the ad.
Google announced that it has begun testing a new advertising format for YouTube, the video-sharing giant, with a small number of advertisers. Google, a company that made its fortune on Web advertising, is ignoring the long-held belief by marketing gurus that a video-sharing site had only two choices when deciding where to place ads: before or after the video.
Source: News.com
Toshiba To Release 320GB 2.5″ Notebook Drive Later This Year
Although I am not a huge fan of notebook computing to begin with, one of the biggest reasons has to do with the hardware. I cringe when having to game on a notebook, when I know that my desktop would be so much more painless. Storage is one area in particular where things seem to be lagging, as 250GB is the biggest you can go for right now, while 750GB on the desktop is commonplace now. 250GB is indeed a lot of space but it can fill up very quickly in this digital media age.
That’s about to change, come November. Toshiba announced yesterday that they will be releasing a brand new high-end 320GB 2.5″ drive, with spindle speeds of 5400RPM. In addition, lower-density drives are also getting a boost. At around the same time, you will be able to pick up a 200GB model with 7200RPM spindle speeds… ideal for your gaming notebook. As you might expect, pricing is currently not disclosed.
 |
Toshiba Corporation today announced the launch of nine new 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDD) that employ the company’s latest advances in HDD technology. The new drives include the MK3252GSX, which achieves an industry-leading*1 capacity of 320GB, and the MK2049GSY, which improves performance with a 7,200rpm rotational speed. Toshiba will mass produce the drives in turn, starting from November.
Source: Toshiba Japan
Google Decides To Reimburse Google Video Customers
We posted a few weeks ago that Google was ending their download-to-own video service. This move essentially ended support for the videos that people already downloaded and paid for, but Google offered credits to those people for use with their Google Checkout service.
Well as it turns out, there were far too many pissed-off people that were effected by this, so Google changed their minds. Customers will now receive full refunds, even if they have already vouched for the Google Checkout coupons and the videos will remain playable for the next six months. Seems like a happy ending to a service that shouldn’t have ever existed.
|
Thankfully, Google appears to have listened to peoples concerns, and has had a change of heart with their policy. According to the Official Google Blog, Google Video customers will receive a full refund via their credit card (once you’ve confirmed or updated your credit card details), any existing Google Checkout coupons can be kept as a way of saying “sorry [Google] goofed”, and Videos will remain playable for another six months.
Source: Download Squad
Cooler Master 2007 Mod Contest Begins
Cooler Master lets us know that their 2007 Mod Contest is underway, and if you are a modder and happen to use Cooler Master products, this contest is for you. There are two categories, Extreme and Artistic, and depending on what type of case mod you have, you would enter one of them. In addition, your case must include five different CM products, although the case counts as two.
 |
There are three sets of prizes for each category, with the grand prize winner from each receiving a CSX case (picture above, two designs available), 1000W Real Power Pro PSU, GeminII CPU cooler, Xcraft 2.5 and some CM apparel. Contest runs from now until October 15th, so you still have time to build up a fresh mod before entering.
Source: Cooler Master
Playing Music Slows Vista Network Performance?
When Vista launched, I immediately noticed that networking capabilities were over-complicated, but once things were configured properly, it was rather stable overall. However, one problem that did plague me was network performance, which seemed to drop when compared to my XP machines. I am not the one apparently, but there could be other reasons why network performance is ‘lagging’.
A forum thread at 2 CPU has a few posts from Vista users who have noticed a noticeable network performance hit whenever music was playing. Why this is, no one really knows, but Vista is not handling certain tasks as well as it could be. Many people in the forum have been experiencing the same problem, and if you are as well, you can relax in knowing you are not alone.
 |
However, some users over at the 2CPU forums have discovered an unexplained connection with audio playback resulting in a cap at approximately 5%-10% of total network throughput. Whenever any audio is being sent to a sound card (even, several users report, while paused), network performance is instantly reduced. As soon as the audio is stopped, the throughput begins to climb to its expected speed.
Source: 2 CPU Forums, Via: Slashdot
DeLoreans To Be Produced In 2008
Iconic 80’s uber-car DeLorean will be making a comeback in 2008, according to the VP at the DeLorean Motor Company in Detroit. While this is the same company that produced the originals, the owners are different, but that won’t mean these new cars won’t have the same look and feel of the original. The owners are passionate about DeLoreans, after all. Believe it or not… a price tag is already set: $57,500.
 |
And yes, we’re also told it will look like a DeLorean — square nose, gull-wings and all. This time, instead of attempting to mass produce the cars, the DeLorean folks will be building them by hand at their assembly plant in the li’l town of Humble, Texas. No word yet on issues regarding EPA testing or production numbers (we didn’t think to ask), but the Detroit News is claiming it’ll be one or two a month.
Source: Jalopnik
Folding@Home PS3 Client Updated
Those of you PS3 Folders out there should get on downloading the latest client, which I assume you will be prompted to download next time to log on. Two major areas have been addressed, including user requests and improved accuracy of the core that’s running the SPU. Will this mean that the PS3 will become an even more efficient Folder? Yes, but it might not mean that your overall scores will be higher… your submissions might just prove more useful.
 |
Another really cool feature that was also requested by the FAH community is the support of PSP Remote Play. In this latest version we enabled this feature so you can now access FAH remotely from your PSP (that you already own, since it’s such a cool little gadget) which is an awesome combination since the CELL processor is actually doing the Folding job, but the PSP fully controls the UI so you can carry it around with you.
Source: Playstation Blog
SuprNova.org Has Been Revived
If you don’t remember SuprNova.org, welcome to the internet. I hope it’s been treating you well. SuprNova was the first -big- file-swapping site that used torrents exclusively. It first launched in 2002 and became so popular, that my computer illiterate friends knew what it was and how to use it. Thanks to legal pressure, the site ended in late 2004. Earlier this month, previous SuprNova owner, Slonček, donated the domain to The Pirate Bay owners, who decided that it deserved a revival.
The site just relaunched minutes ago (2:00PM EST) and seems to be bombarded with traffic, because it’s quite slow. We don’t condone piracy, but we don’t like how record companies/movie industries are handling things either. A revisited SuprNova is a quick jab to the gut to those who originally demanded it be shut down. Considering that The Pirate Bay owners have kept their site up and running for some time, chances are the new SuprNova will not go away anytime soon.
 |
Suprnova has been down for some years due to some heavy pressure from the copyright lobby. The former owner sloncek donated suprnova to The Pirate Bay – and as you know, we like to kick ass and bow for noone! We were going to keep this site a secret until we had finished it, but of course it leaked, that’s how internet works. So now that the word is out, we’re releasing it!
Source: SuprNova
Adobe Releasing Beta Flash 9 Player Today, “Moviestar”
According to blogs around the web, Adobe today will be releasing an updated beta version of it’s Flash Player 9 software, code-named Moviestar. This update will add H.264 support, a now-common standard. Interestingly enough, the new player will also be able to take advantage of the users’ graphics cards acceleration and is optimized for Dual-Core processors.
The reason this should be of any interest to anyone is that the addition of H.264 support means that high-definition video should be popping up around the web in the months to come. Of course, we won’t likely see it spread around too fast, considering that current standard-definition content is a major bandwidth hog as is. So more than likely, this will be executed in business scenarios more often than on sites like YouTube, at least at first. Either way, I am looking forward to watching some high-definition content instead of having to stare at a 300×250 box.
 |
Support for the H.264 standard will lead to more Web video content being available in high definition, Randall said. He said Adobe chose to support the standard now because it is being adopted more by content producers and media distributors like cable companies. Flash is a de facto standard for streaming video used by YouTube and other high-volume Web sites.
Source: News.com
Linux Offers Superb Hardware Support
Often, people are afraid that Linux won’t offer them full support for all of their hardware, but more often than not, full-functionality of peripherals and other hardware can be retained. Sometimes it requires a little effort, but it can be done. Sometimes, nothing has to be done, in the case of blogger John Goerzen. He was impressed that after upgrading a four-year old machine with a crippled motherboard, Linux booted no problem, with no nagging “where the heck is that driver?” errors.
I’ll be the first to admit.. that doesn’t always happen, but I’ve been in the same situation as John before, where things DID go that smoothly. One regard where I feel Linux is superior to Windows is it’s no nonsense hardware detection. The other day, I casually plugged in my Playstation 3 gamepad to charge it (to save turning on the console), only to notice that the computer (Gentoo) actually picked up on it. I was goofing around with an NES emulator only a minute after I plugged it in.. no extra drivers were needed.
 |
Even though I had switched from the default Debian “supports everything” kernel to a K7 kernel, it still booted. And every single piece of hardware was supported immediately. There was no “add new hardware” wizard that popped up, no “I’ve found new hardware” boxes. It just worked, silently, with no need to tell me anything or have me click on anything.
Source: John Goerzen Blog
Square Enix Opens Up Merchandise Store To US Customers
I grew up playing Final Fantasy games, starting with the first in the series. During those years, I often thought about how cool it would be to have a hard copy of an item I found in the game, such as a key. Well, I am over those thoughts now (I swear), but if you aren’t, you will be pleased to know that Square Enix has -finally- opened up their store to US customers. Canucks… myself included, are not permitted to order anything. We are apparently too great of a threat, despite the fact that all we do is cast Curaja and ride Chocobos all day.
 |
There are a variety of products in the collection, including figuri action figures, pendants, rings, mock fantasy items, and so on. Final Fantasy is not the only game series with items up for sale though. Dragon Quest, Valkyrie Profile and Kingdom Hearts can be found also. Geeky? Yes. Am I intrigued? Shut up.
Source: Square Enix Store
Refurbished iPhones Available For $100 Off
Still have a nagging feeling that you want an iPhone, but aren’t willing to hand over a full $600? How does $100 off sound? That’s a reality thanks to Apple’s refurbished program. $600 iPhones will be $500 and $500 iPhones will be, you guessed it, $400. Although the phones are refurbished, they are still qualified for regular extended warranty service, which you can purchase for $69. Seems a bit odd that refurbs are available so soon after launch, but hey, I’m not one to question Apple.
 |
The news of the refurbished iPhones comes right on the heels of the announcement of a second iPhone lawsuit. Sydney Leung is seeking more than $5 million USD in damages from Apple over the cost and replacement of the iPhone’s battery. The first lawsuit — filed by Jose Trujillo in July — made similar claims. The price cut should be welcome news to potential buyers looking to get a deal on an iPhone. The full one-year warranty should be enough to entice many buyers who might otherwise be turned off by refurbished devices.
Source: DailyTech
Paramount Studios Goes With HD-DVD
Despite what many are thinking, HD-DVD is not dead yet. Actually, it’s far from it, and today only proves that even more. Movie studio Paramount announced that they have adopted the format instead of Blu-ray, which probably won’t mean that much to Sony, but will mean a lot to Toshiba. Each camp has great support, so it’s still far too early to declare a “winner”. If we will ever be able to at all…
 |
What makes this decision so remarkable is the fact that Paramount was a fence straddler: the company has issued movies in both HD DVD and Blu-ray over the past several months, choosing to evaluate the market. Paramount says that its evaluation uncovered two benefits to HD DVD. First, the format is less expensive to produce, as we have touched on before. Second, Paramount described HD DVD as being superior owing to “market-ready technology.”
Source: Ars Technica
Bioshock Demo Available, Released To Retailers
The day.. is finally here. You’ve waded through dozens of favorable reviews and crazy people, and now you want to finally play. What are you waiting for? Run to the store, or hit up Steam to purchase and download the game there. Given the hype that is revolving around this game, I am willing to bet that the download process will be less than perfect though.
|
If you don’t own an Xbox 360 or simply wanted to hold out for the PC demo, you can finally give it a try now. 2K Games really waited to the last minute, but at least it arrived now, and not days from now. GameDaily and many others are hosting the file, and again, download queues are likely to be intense. Game on!
Source: GameDaily