- 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
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SimCity Societies: EA Doing Things Right This Time?
SimCity… it’s one of those games you have to give credit to. It was one of the first sim games on the market that did things -right-… all the way up until SimCity 3 when things became inherently mind-dulling. I wanted to build cities and have fun, without the worry of screwing around with water-pipes! Well, apparently I am not the only one out there who feels that way, as EA is promising a “city builder with a focus on accessibility”. I admit, I am really, really looking forward to this game.
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The act of zoning is gone entirely, leaving players to place their buildings one by one in order to lay our their city. That may sound contrary to the overall goal, but the structures themselves are the characters this time around. Each building comes with its own stats and attributes that more clearly affect the citizens of your city.
Source: Joystiq
GNOME Turns 10-Years-Old
If you can find a Linux user who has never used the GNOME desktop environment, please let me know. Indeed, it’s become incredibly popular in the ten years it’s been around, thanks to it’s clean design and simplistic usage. One of the reasons GNOME has succeeded is due to the emphasis on keeping things simple and employing an identical look between all of the base applications. One thing is for sure, GNOME may still be a young DE, but it’s certainly matured a great deal.
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“We want to develop a free and complete set of user friendly applications and desktop tools, similar to CDE and KDE but based entirely on free software.” Those were the opening lines of Miguel De Icaza’s email announcing the GNU Network Object Model Environment, better known as GNOME, exactly (in my timezone) ten years ago, on 15th August 1997.
Source: OSNews
Compact Discs Turn 25-Years-Old
Considering the fact that compact discs are still widely used today, it’s almost hard to believe that today marks their 25th birthday. In celebration, I think we all owe it to the format to think back to your very first audio CD purchase. That’s what the staff at Engadget did, and all I can say is Billy Joel? Seriously? Mine was Green Day – Dookie, an album I still listen to quite frequently.
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Now with some 200 billion discs having been sold worldwide — and probably twice as many distributed gratis by AOL in its dial-up heyday — it would seem that the original shiny little platter is unquestionably in its golden years, with more convenient or capacious formats replacing it on almost every front.
Source: Engadget
LAX Experiences Major Problems After Single NIC Dies
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LAX is a pretty daunting airport. It’s huge… very huge. I’ve missed flights there before, and it’s hardly fun. My problems there don’t compare to what happened this past weekend, though, where close to 20,000 passengers were stranded for a few hours due to a technical snafu. The issue? A network card that decided to die. Sure, peripherals die, but when a simple network card dies and takes out an airport, that’s not saying very much about how things are run there.
Attention airline operators: this is what you get when you buy from the lowest bidder, in this case Sewart’s PC and Bagel shop, which, while having decent bagels, makes crappy cheap-ass Peecees. Look for a full audit and upgrade at LAX soon. Poor devils.
Source: CrunchGear
AMD Announces Extensions for Parallel Programming
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AMD has no intentions of giving up on x86 yet, and has proved that with their announcement of extensions for software parallelism to help make parallel programming easier and also better optimized. The first extension, which has no tentative date, will give software access information about expired instructions and cache misses to improve performance. This “lightweight profiling” would give near real-time analysis of performance, without causing a performance hit. If you are not a developer, this announcement won’t mean much, but you can sit back and bask in the fact that AMD is still hard at work, developing new technologies.
“As we look ahead in multicore systems, we see the need for hardware and software to work together to evolve a new set of techniques,” said Earl Stahl, vice president of software engineering at AMD. “We see this as the first of a family of family of extensions, and we are working on others,” he added.
Source: EE Times
Intel X38 Chipset Launch Date Set
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DailyTech just the other day gave us information regarding Intel’s upcoming Penryn, and now they have given us information on something even nearer-term, the X38 chipset. According to their sources, the chipset will launch on September 23, just a little over a month from now. Mentioned also is the fact that X38 is designed to support DDR3 memory natively, but DDR2 motherboards will not be uncommon.
The new chipset is a member of the Bearlake family, which saw its initial debut with the G33 and P35 Express variants last June. Intel’s X38 Express succeeds the 975X Express that made its debut with Intel’s Pentium D Presler processors. Although the Intel 975X Express launched in late 2005, the chipset shared basics with Intel’s 945 and 955X Express chipset families. Intel decided not to refresh the 975X Express with a Broadwater variant and held out for Bearlake.
Source: DailyTech
AllOfMP3 Found Legal By Russian Court
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We have posted many times about AllOfMP3.com in the past, and chances are this will not be the last. The music service was in dire straits for many months before finally being shut down due to the Russian governments persuasive push. Weeks ago, we learned that the head of the service had to go to trial, to see if he was actually guilty of anything. As it turns out, he wasn’t. Add to that, AllOfMP3.com turns out to be completely legal under Russian law.
EMI, NBC Universal and Time Warner took Denis Kvasov to court claiming that AllofMP3’s cheap prices breached copyright laws. AllofMP3 went offline July 2 following continued pressure from the US Government on Russia to shut the site, including an escalation of the dispute to the World Trade Organization. AllofMP3 was also the subject of a lawsuit filed in New York last December that attempted to claim damages of $1.65 trillion.
Source: TechCrunch
Intel Penryn To Launch On November 11
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We have posted a few articles over the past couple months about Intel’s Penryn, and now we finally have a set launch date: November 11. Penryn brings a lot to the table and should be quite fun to play with. Included will be SSE4, MG transistors, 45nm, lower TDPs and higher L2 cache.
DailyTech have acquired a list of the new models and also pricing. All models listed are server-based, with the top ranking X5460 clocking in at 3.16GHz. Like all Penryn Quad-Cores, it will feature 12MB of L2 cache, with a TDP of 120W. ‘E’ processors are less expensive and have a lower TDP, such as the E5405 at 2GHz that will retail for $209. Yes.. Quad-Core with 12MB L2 for $209. Progress is great.
Intel Xeon processors carrying the “E†designation feature 80-watt TDP ratings while the “X†bin processors have higher 120-watt TDP ratings. Intel does not plan to launch the low-power “L†models until Q1’08, with two models in the pipeline. Strangely, Intel never issued a formal announcement for the launch of Penryn nor has the November 11 date showed up on roadmaps. Instead, the launch date popped up on a public webpage for resellers.
Source: DailyTech
Could An ‘Adobe Office’ Become A Reality?
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Adobe is a huge company. Maybe not Microsoft huge, but with the acquisition of Macromedia two years ago, they’ve become quite a stature in the market. They offer many different products, many you’ve probably never even heard of, that take care of many tasks. One thing their products can’t help you with, though, are your spreadsheets and slide show presentations. Wired has posted news that Adobe is pondering making a move into the office market, which they are clearly capable of doing. My brain is already churning images of what an Adobe Office would look like.
The software maker famous for Flash and Photoshop is poised to take the plunge into the lucrative world of office applications. It may sound far-fetched at first, but the stage is set for Adobe to flex its muscle in the office-app arena. The company already has a strong presence in business software with its Acrobat suite of products and interest in its new platform for web-enabled applications that run on the desktop is rising quickly.
Source: Wired
Soft Mobile Phone Concept
Finally, someone’s come up with something for those of us who seem to abuse our cell phones.
“This is a soft mobile phone concept. The phone is encased in a flexible plastic housing. A soft polymer insert is located between the microchip module and the casing. You can drop it, bend it, sit on it, toss it around, and give it to Naomi Campbell to throw at her assistant without detriment.
A flexible display (a 2,75-in. diagonal, a 433 × 266 pixels) and the keys are located on the surface. The display itself looks like paper, but the ink incorporated in it can change its position when affected by electric signals. This process called “electrowetting†is so quick that you can even display video. And it’s not a fairytale technology either. The display was developed by Robert Hayes and Johan Feenstra.”
Source: Yanko Design
Nimoy To Begin Trek Shooting
Is this logical?
Original Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy, who will reprise the role of Spock in J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Star Trek film, told fans at a convention in Las Vegas that he will begin shooting his scenes in December and will do more in February and March of next year, StarTrek.com reported.
Nimoy’s role as the older Spock is “not gigantic,” but, “it’s more than a cameo,” Nimoy said on Aug. 12. Heroes star Zachary Quinto will play Spock as a young man.
At the same convention, William Shatner, who played Capt. Kirk, appeared onstage with Nimoy and ribbed his co-star because Shatner apparently won’t be in the new movie, the site reported.
Abrams’ Star Trek, which reportedly deals with the first mission of a young Capt. James T. Kirk and Spock, will begin filming in November, the site reported.
Source: SciFi Wire
What’s Killing Game Development?
I stumbled across this article by Jakub Wojnarowicz dated 09 July 2007, and I’m in complete agreement with the fact that game players in general are suffering from “gamer fatigue”. Everything out there has been done ten times before. We’re tired of killing x number of creature y and collecting z trophies. There simply has to be a better way. But do the developers have the ability to move into the next phase of games, particularly MMOs?
Read for yourself and see if think they can.
What’s Killing Game Development?
Source: Firing Squad
LaCie Offers “Biggest” 5TB RAID Tower
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LaCie is not a company many immediately think of when it comes to storage, but no one can accuse of them for not thinking big. In fact, their latest product is called Biggest S2S, and for good reason. It doesn’t hold a measly 1TB, but rather a full 5TB (5,000GB). It’s targeted towards the multi-media creation folks, and those with big pockets thanks to the $3,699 price tag. For those with even bigger pockets, you can pick up four to stack with each other to have access to 20TB.
The 5TB Biggest S2S five-disk RAID boasts a 3Gbit/sec eSATA interface, direct eSATA-to-SATA connection, burst rates of over 200MB/sec, and the ability to link up with three other S2S units on the eSATA PCI-X / ExpressCard to achieve the aforementioned 20TB solution. Furthermore, the disks are hot-swappable and the tower is hot-pluggable, and it can even be setup to beam out email alerts in the event of disk failure. The 5TB S2S is available now for $3,699 with a PCI-X card, or you can toss in an extra Benjamin and go for the PCI-E bundle.
Source: Engadget
Top 10 Commandments For Newbie Linux Users
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Linux is thought of by many as being a complicated OS that can’t do much. That’s hardly true, as it depends a lot on your distro and also how eager you are to learn and accept the fact that Linux is not Windows. The latest blog post at Linux Brain Dump gives users ten commandments to live by. I agree with all of them except for the first, where they state “Thou shalt not log in as root.” How do you expect to learn Linux without using root??
If one top list wasn’t enough for you, how about “50 Reasons To Dump Windows”, which was posted the other day at Linux Haxor. Some reasons are blatantly redundant, so it could easily be a ten reasons list, but still a decent list to link your friends to.
Source: Linux Brain Dump, Linux Haxor
RIAA Short on Funds?
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Doing something wrong is, well, wrong. Unless of course you are the RIAA, who have set a perfect example of how to not pay off your huge bills. Last month, they were ordered to pay Debbie Foster’s attorney fees, which stacked up to a staggering $68,685.23. Of course, they are just sitting back and hoping the courts will forget about it. If only things worked that way.
Can it be that the RIAA, or the “Big 4” record companies it represents, are short on funds? It turns out that despite the Judge’s order, entered a month ago, telling them to pay Debbie Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys fees, in Capitol v. Foster, they have failed to make payment. Ms. Foster has now had to ask the Court to enter Judgment, so that she can commence ‘post judgment collection proceedings’. According to Ms. Foster’s motion papers (pdf), her attorneys received no response to their email inquiry about payment. Perhaps the RIAA should ask their lawyers for a loan?
Source: Slashdot
Hotmail Now Offers 5GB Free Space
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Not to be outpaced by the competition, Microsoft has jacked up their free Hotmail service to offer all users 5GB of space. Do you really need that much space? No, and even Microsoft knows this when they said, “Just when you were wondering how you’d ever fill up 2 or 4 GB of mail…”. But, lots of free storage is good regardless of how you look at things. In addition to this announcement, paid users now receive 10GB of space, and performance issues have been tackled as well.
We’ve been hearing you loud and clear across the world: speed is one of the most important aspects of a web-based email service. We’ve spent more time in this release identifying what parts of the product are slowest and fixing those. We hope that you notice an improvement when this update is released to your account, and we’ll continue our work on performance in future releases.
Source: Spaces Blog
Joybubbles, Legendary Phone Phreaker Passes Away
If you are familiar with hacking culture at all, you likely know all about phone phreaking and the fact that Joe Engressia was one of the most well-versed individuals on the subject, also being called the grand daddy of the hobby. He was one of the very few who could whistle 2600Hz with his mouth, as well. I’ve listened to multiple interviews with him in the past and was impressed by his vast knowledge on phreaking and hacking in general. He passed away last week of a heart attack, at age 58.
I have sad news of yet another death, that of “Joybubbles”, born Joe Engressia. “Joybubbles” wasn’t just a “handle”, but rather what he legally changed his name to around 1990. He was also known by some as “The Whistler”. Joe Engressia was one of the better known blind “phone phreaks” of the 1960s/70s-era. He even got a job with Mountain Bell Telephone in the 1970s-era, and worked for a while as a TSPS Operator in Denver as well in other areas of Mountain Bell.
Source: Telecom Gear
Microsoft Churning Out New XP Keys
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Now, I’m not one to bash Vista, but it appears for some reason, many out there are dissatisfied with the new OS. Regardless of the reason(s), Microsoft has finally sucked it up and got to creating a new batch of Windows XP product keys. That really says something. XP is now well over five years old, but it’s aged quite well, thanks to it’s many updates. Since no one really has a solid reason for upgrading, why not stick with what works?
It’s not secret that a lot of folks are less than pleased with Windows Vista. And while Windows XP has been on the shelves for more than 5 years, Microsoft’s longest-reigning operating system still suits the needs of computer users. But it turns out that there’s a downside to having an operating system that’s been as popular as XP for as long as 5+ years. You eventually start to run out of working product activation keys.
Source: Download Squad
Duke Nukem 3D Coming To XBL?
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I wish I could have posted the title sans a question mark, but no one really knows whether or not this will happen. I clearly remember the day I first installed DN3D on my fresh 486/66, because I was bragging to myself about how many times I could install the game on my massive 4GB hard drive. One thing is for sure, the game was well worth the 0.8% of the drive it hogged up. If it comes to XBL, I will buy it up quick and kick some ass. Come on 3D Realms.. make it so.
This would typically be the part where we go into a discussion of when Duke Nukem Forever is coming out and wonder openly if it will ever happen. But we’ll simply give you this handy-dandy little link to our Duke Nukem Forever happy 10th un-birthday post and let you think about what you were doing ten years ago when the game was first announced. With any luck, by the time you snap out of thinking back ten years, the XBLA version of Duke Nukem 3D will be ready.
Source: Joystiq
Looking For A Chuckle?
This is a real commercial, and that’s all that needs to be said.
Via: CrunchGear
Playstation 3 Proves Difficult To Break
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It’s no wonder I lack so much ambition… the folks at PS3Vault.com took it all. In light of the fact that the Xbox 360 has had notorious reliability problems, someone had to put the Playstation 3 through it’s paces, and the results are quite impressive. Included in the slew of tests was running the console in a 0°C freezer for a total of 108 hours and also a FREAKING SAUNA at 120°F for another 64 hours. All of this was done while the console was actually in use.. playing movies and games. The cool thing is that it passed these tests with flying colors.
So how good is the console when put under extreme operating pressure and alternating environments The total concept of the Ps3 console instills robustness, stability and durability, the overall package combines the latest chip technology and peripheral advancements. The following results of the console are noteworthy reading and were done under the following guidelines. Results were recorded accurately to provide an actual operating statistic.
Source: PS3 Vault
Alexa Is a Useless Pile of Waste
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There’s little doubt… if you manage a web site, chances are good that you’ve taken a gander at your Alexa rankings at some point. It’s certainly an appealing method to compare one site to another, but as Michael Arrington explains, it’s completely useless and shouldn’t be trusted by anyone. As an example, the service claims that Youtube is now larger than Google, obviously untrue. Comscore results show Google as having over 100 billion pageviews per month, while Youtube sites at a more modest 16 billion. Alexa is in need of a true overhaul, and until that happens, there will be no <3 from me.
This is, of course, complete fiction. And it shows just how useless Alexa has become as a method for measuring web traffic and reach. Comscore tells a much different (and more accurate) story – Google is nearing 100 billion monthly page views; YouTube sees around 16 billion. Even newcomer Compete, which measures traffic in a similar way as Alexa, seems to be getting it right. Alexa needs an overhaul. It’s long since become less than useful.
Source: Tech Crunch
Apple Gets Into Social Music Scene with My iTunes
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The term “web 2.0” is definitely (so is definitely) overused these days, but with it comes many social networking sites that fit every flavor. As far as music goes, there are countless networking sites available, including my favorite, Last.fm. Apple, not being one to be left in the dust, released My iTunes, a set of widgets which deliver functionality similar to social music networking websites. Since so many people use iTunes already, this kind of thing just makes sense.
There are currently three embeddable widgets to choose from. One shows recent iTunes purchases. Another shows music you’ve reviewed on iTunes. The last shows a sort of tag cloud of artists you’ve purchased on the iTunes store. The widgets can be customized by size and color.
Source: TechCrunch
Some Facebook Source Code Leaked
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If you acquire some source code for a popular online application, what else would you do except start up a fresh blog and post it? That’s what the people behind Facebook Secrets did and now the entire net is in a frenzy. The value of the source code doesn’t seem that apparent, since it’s just for the index page and not the rest of the website, but it may give ideas to crackers on how to delve deeper into the Facebook systems. It also shows just how vulnerable Facebook is, but that’s not exactly a new revelation. You would imagine Facebook is annoyed, but the entire Facebook community at large simply super-pokes each other and forgets about it.
This leak is not good news for Facebook, as it raises the question of how secure a Facebook users private data really is. If the main source code for a site can be leaked, then it can be said that almost anything is possible. Facebook has become such a success and has such a high profile that it has become a magnet for attacks against its systems.
Source: TechCrunch
360 Elite + 7 HD-DVD Movies + HD-DVD Player = $599
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If you think HD-DVD is dead, you are only fooling yourself. In an effort to keep things moving smoothly, Amazon has announced a sweet deal that includes an Xbox 360 Elite, Xbox 360 HD-DVD player and seven free HD-DVD movies. The deal works like this: You purchase the console, it already includes King Kong, but Amazon’s deal also includes 300. On top of that, there is a voucher for five free HD-DVDs, which brings the total up to seven. It’s times like this when I wish I needed a new Xbox.
The $599 price is certainly interesting given that it’s identical to the 80GB PS3 model which includes the Blu-ray player and this package seems geared for the movie inclined. Then again, you can always get a clearance 60GB PS3 with Blu-ray for $100 less than this bundle. Of course, we don’t buy our systems for movies, we buy them for games, and in that department y’all can choose who’s ahead at this stage.
Source: Joystiq