- 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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Subliminal Messages Might Actually Work
New research indicates that subliminal messages may actually work. In a paper titled Attentional Load Modulates Responses of Human Primary Visual Cortex to Invisible Stimuli, Bahrani et al. demonstrate that even though stimuli may not be available to consciousness, they are processed by the visual cortex.
Finally! I now know how to make every single one of you come back to the site each day.
Source: Slashdot
Sony: Xbox Live is Static and Can’t Match PlayStation Home
Xbox Live is a static, 2D, text-heavy environment that can’t match the rich community features found in Home. Xbox Live community interaction is much more passive and limited to the members on that friend’s list.
Hah, this is easy to say almost a year and a half after Xbox Live became available on the 360. Either way, they are doing a great job bragging up Home, so hopefully it’s everything we’ve dreamed up in an online hub.
Source: Daily Tech
Everything You Need To Know About IPv6
he engineers decided that it made sense to split the monolithic NCP protocol into two parts: an Internet Protocol that allows packets to be routed between the different networks connected to the ARPANET, and a Transport Control Protocol that takes a data stream, splits it into segments and transmits the segments using the Internet Protocol.
If you want a good primer on IPv6 and internet protocol in general, this is a fantastic read that you should check out.
Source: Ars Technica
Microns Image Sensor Hits 8 Megapixel
Micron Technology, a leading proponent of camera image sensors built using the same CMOS manufacturing technology used to make most computer processors, has begun selling a new 8-megapixel model.
Just so you know, these sensors are not ones you see in digital cameras but rather phones/pdas and video cameras. Micron is certainly on the move though. If they keep it up we may very well see them storm into the digital camera market as well.
Source: News.com
Intel to Sample Phase Change Memory This Year
This week Intel privately shared parts of it roadmap for memory technologies through 2008. Revealed was that Intel’s progress on phase-change memory, shortened as usually PCM or PRAM, will soon be sampling to customers with mass production possible before the end of the year.
This is promising, especially since the lead of the department states it as being “close to nirvana”. It will amaze me if we see it in action before the end of the year, however.
Source: DailyTech
Apple and LG To Release Flash-based Laptops
Apple Inc. may sell zippy notebook computers later this year that use the same type of fast memory as music players and digital cameras, driving down prices of hard disk drives, an analyst said today. In a separate report, LG Electronics Inc. is also said to be planning the release of a laptop this month that uses a hybrid (flash/spinning disk) drive.
This seems to be catching on quick, and if the technologies live up to the hype then I don’t think anyone will complain. Even though they these laptops will cost more than ones with standard drives, the extra battery life and stability should ease that pain.
Source: Computer World
Sweden Admits Tapping Citizens’ Phones for Decades
Sweden is close to implementing new surveillance legislation that will include the monitoring of emails, telephone calls and keyword searches using advanced pattern analysis. The objective is to detect ‘threats such as terrorism, IT attacks or the spread of weapons of mass destruction’ but the proposals have divided the country. In a misguided attempt to put people at ease, the government admitted that Sweden has been tapping its citizens’ phones for decades anyway.
Of course, I am sure everyone has wanted to hear this. It’s sad that this is what things have come to, or even have been for quite a while. You can’t even pick up your phone anymore as a normal human being without knowing for sure if it’s being tapped or not. I wonder how many other governments are doing this, besides the US and Sweden?
Source: Slashsot
More Advertising in Your Next Xbox Game
TheGameFeed is reporting on Microsoft’s plans to offset Xbox360 game costs with more in game advertising under its subsidiary, Massive. In-game ads are gaining popularity and the wave isn’t going to stop. Publishers see this as a huge potential for increased game revenues to help offset the rising development costs for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii. The question is how far will they go, and how much are gamers willing to take?
This is a tough issue. If I pay $60 for a game, I don’t want to have to put up with advertising. Part of that $60 should be towards the right of not having to put up with ads. Counter-Strike 1.6 just received this loving treatment and the reaction doesn’t seem to be good so far.
Source: Slashdot
HP Sees Huge Linux Desktop Deals
Hewlett-Packard is closing custom deals for thousands of desktop PCs running Linux, which has the company assessing the possibility of offering factory-loaded Linux systems, an HP executive said. “We are involved in a number of massive deals for Linux desktops, and those are the kinds of things that are indicators of critical mass. So we are really looking at it very hard,”
As they should. Dells loss could be HPs huge gain. Either way, I’d be curious to see how well HP would succeed in something like this, since it’s only been Dells name in the limelight for Linux desktops for a while.
Source: CRN
Computer Foul-up Breaks Canadian Tax Filing System
During a weekend maintenance window, the Canada Revenue Agency (Fills the same role as the IRS south of the border) experienced data corruption issues in the tax databases. As a precaution, they have disabled all electronic filling services, and paper based returns will be stacking up in the mail room, as returns cannot be filed at all until the problem is fixed.
Those crazy canucks!
Source: Slashdot
Who Wants a Beer Tossing Fridge?
It took the 22-year-old Cornwell about 150 hours and $400 in parts to modify a minifridge common to many college dorm rooms into the beer-tossing machine, which can launch 10 cans of beer from its magazine before needing a reload.
I think the question to ask would be, who doesn’t want one of these? Great idea… just too bad there are no images.
Source: CNN.com
The Road to KDE 4: Oxygen Artwork and Icons
One of the big visual changes just happened in KDE 4, the transition of kdelibs to the Oxygen Icon set. This transition is still in progress, and it includes a massive icon naming scheme change that affects thousands of files. But, the Oxygen artwork project much is more than just an icon set, it’s a unified way to do artwork for KDE 4.
So far KDE 4 is coming along nicely, but still has a long way to go. Oxygen seems impressive as well, especially regarding independent resolutions for enabled applications/games. KDE 4 looks to be changing the naming schemes of a -lot- though, so upgrading from 3 looks to be a fun task.
Source: KDE.News
Microsoft Move Could Be The End Of The JPEG?
Microsoft Corp. will soon submit to an international standards organization a new photo format that offers higher-quality images with better compression, the company said today. The format, HD Photo — recently renamed from Windows Media Photo — is taking aim at the JPEG format, a 15-year-old technology widely used in digital cameras and image applications.
Normally I wouldn’t jump at the idea of a new image format, but HD Photo has some interesting claims. Imagine a format that doesn’t face the effects of compression as bad as JPEG and ends up half the filesize. Either way, it will have to prove it’s point well in order to become a new standard.
Source: Computer World
Samsung Ships World’s First Hybrid HDDs
Samsung new MH80 HDDs will be fully compatible with Windows Vista and will offer OneNAND Flash onboard in capacities of 128MB or 256MB. The onboard flash allows for up to 50% faster OS boots, quicker resume times and increases in battery life of up to 30 minutes.
I don’t know about you, but 128MB or 256MB does not seem like a big deal in this day and age. Regardless, the product has huge promises, so hopefully they will play out well in the reviews. It’s not mentioned what interface the drive uses, but it’s likely to be SATA/300 just like the other top-end notebook drives.
Source: Daily Tech
3DFX Drivers Still Emerging
Seven years after, drivers for 3dfx cards still appear. First of all, it is nearly incredible that enthusiast community managed to support an operating system which was still in the works. Secondly – it is incredible that drivers that support both 32- and 64-bit Windows have just came out.
It’s great to see support like this for older hardware. The new drivers are not just a simple rehash of the older ones, but rather completely re-written from the ground up. Give them a try if you still have your Voodoo kicking around.
Source: The Inquirer
World Of WarCraft Expansion Hits 3.5 Million Users
Blizzard Entertainment announced that The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for the popular World of Warcraft game, has sold more than 3.5 million copies in a little bit more than a month, following the North America launch in January. The game sold around 2.4 million copies the first 24 hours that it was available to gamers.
Though I am not a WoW player, it’s hard to ignore just how impressive that is. 2.4 million copies in a day? That’s incredible support (addiction)!
Source: Daily Tech
FAA May Ditch Vista For Linux
Another straw in the wind: following last week’s news that the US Department of Transportation is putting a halt on upgrades to Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer 7, today comes word that the Federal Aviation Administration may ditch Vista and Office in favor of Google’s new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware.
Is this another nail in the coffin? Not quite, but it’s a statement. Not upgrading to Vista is one thing, moving to an entirely different OS is another. The conversion won’t happen overnight though, as employees would be lacking in needed training.
Source: Slashdot
WGA Notification Just Doesn’t Stop
In addition to the Windows update site, the automatic Windows Update finds the new software version and tries to install it. During installation, the program requests the user’s consent once again. If you then cancel, your desktop firewall may set off an alarm because an update program is trying to connect to the internet.
Included in the information sent back is the OS build number and other encrypted strings. This personally doesn’t bother me too much, but I agree with others that it should tell you information is being transmitted, especially after telling you it would not happen. What else have we come to expect?
Source: Heise-Security
Captain America Dies on the Page
Captain America has undertaken his last mission at least for now. The venerable superhero is killed in the issue of his namesake comic that hit stands Wednesday, the New York Daily News reported. On the new edition’s pages, a sniper shoots down the shield-wielding hero as he leaves a courthouse.
Captain America, we hardly knew thee. Well, I didn’t at least. I stuck to Spiderman when I was younger. Either way, it’s sad to see another comic character put to rest.
Source: ABC News
Microsoft Responds to DOT Ban On Vista
Windows Vista, Office 2007, and IE7 are widely recognized by independent analysts to offer dramatic improvements in security, management features, new collaboration capabilities and productivity enhancements. Ultimately we think we can help DOT understand how these products can help its enterprise organization.
Of course they do. It means they make more money. I don’t think DOT cares as much about the security as much as it does the actual compatibility and stability though. At least that’s what I’ve gained from previous news stories.
Source: All About Microsoft Blog
NASA Can’t Pay for Killer Asteroid Hunt
The cost to find at least 90 percent of the 20,000 potentially hazardous asteroids and comets by 2020 would be about $1 billion, according to a report NASA will release later this week. The report was previewed Monday at a Planetary Defense Conference in Washington. Congress in 2005 asked NASA to come up with a plan to track most killer asteroids and propose how to deflect the potentially catastrophic ones.
Don’t read the article if you’d rather not spit out your delicious cup of coffee. It’s not really a funny subject, but I can’t help but laugh at the fact that they don’t have enough money to “save Earth”.
Source: MSNBC
Adobe Creative Suite 3 To Be Announced March 27th
The wait is nearly over! We can now confirm that Adobe Creative Suite 3 will be announced March 27, 2007. The company is celebrating the launch at an event in New York City that will be webcast live at 3:30pm ET. During the webcast, Adobe will reveal the features and suite configurations that make this the largest software release in Adobe’s 25 year history.
Just a little bit longer before we find out all the new features of CS3, although the biggest ones are probably already known. The blog post mentions that even though the announcement will be made later this month, the actual release won’t be until "later" in the spring.
Source: Adobe
Help Dell Build Open Source Computers
Clearly, there is a huge pent-up demand for pre-installed GNU/Linux systems from Dell. But equally clearly, it would be difficult for Dell to make, sell and support such systems with its current business model.
Because it doesn’t look like Dell is getting these Linux PCs to become a reality fast enough, there are suggestions that they set up a completely different division with the goal of getting things done. If you agree, go and vote.
Source: Dell Idea Storm
Network Sniffer On Steroids
Errata has developed a new network sniffer, dubbed ‘Ferret,’ that looks for traffic using 25 protocols, including those for the popular instant message clients as well as DHCP, SNMP, DNS and HTTP. This means the sniffer will capture requests for network addresses, network management tools, Web sites queries, Web traffic and more.
This program was rushed out for the BlackHat conference last week, but still should be usable for those who like to tinker. They include the source code on their site, but as it stands it’s designed for Windows only.
Source: Slashdot
Microsoft Announces Six Million Xbox Live Users
Microsoft announced a goal during E3 2006 to try and have six million people connect to the Microsoft Xbox Live service by June 2007. While many considered it a bold move that would be unreachable, Microsoft today officially confirmed that it has reached its milestone four months faster than previously expected.
Finally, some great news to come out of Microsoft. I’m happy to hear this, because it’s one of the few services I actually find to be worth every dollar. It mentions in the article that over 2 million messages are sent each day, and over 710 million hours have been spent in Halo 2.
Source: Daily Tech