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- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
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- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
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Barcelona to outperform Clovertown?
AMD isn’t sitting still. Their native quad core 65nm processors, codenamed Barcelona, are due for release later this year and rather than concentrate on price, AMD are instead emphasizing performance. According to AMD’s corporate vice president for server and workstation products, Randy Allen, AMD expects “Barcelona to outperform Clovertown by 40 percent.”
If this is true, then we have something from AMD to actually get excited over. Although these are server-based CPUs, its a good assumption that some fantastic desktop chips are on their way also. AMD adds that even though there is a nice performance boost, the power draw and thermal envelope is identical to current-gen Opterons.
Source: ZD Net
Hacker Releases Tool to Add Third Party HDD to Xbox 360
A hacker who goes by the handle “TheSpecialist,†has released a tool that allows any Western Digital BEVS SATA hard drive to be used on the Xbox 360. A quick price search for WD hard drives find that twice the drive can be had for half the price – the lowest-end 40GB WD Scorpio drive for $50 – a cost effective, but adventurous alternative.
It’s about time that a tool like this came along, because Microsoft certainly isn’t making the situation any better. Paying $99 for a 20GB hard drive nowadays is just ridiculous regardless of what console or system it’s in. Really, Microsoft could release 160GB official drives and -still- make money, so what’s the hold up?
Source: Daily Tech
50% movie piracy from Canada
As much as 50 per cent of the world’s pirated movies come from Canada, prompting the film industry to threaten to delay the release of new titles in this country. According to an investigation by Twentieth Century Fox, most of the illegal recording, or “camcording,” is taking place in Montreal movie houses, taking advantage of bilingual releases and lax copyright laws.
I don’t agree with piracy, but I can’t help but feel so proud that my Country is so good at something. In all seriousness though, what exactly is delaying film releases going to do? Is this going to get so bad that you will need to go to the docks late at night to get the latest blockbuster?
Source: Canada.com
eBay To Delist Virtual Items
The well-known auction site eBay has recently made a policy decision that may throw these assumptions into a different light. Following up on a rumour that’s been going around I spoke today with a media representative for the company, who confirmed that eBay is now delisting all auctions for ‘virtual artifacts’ from the site. This includes currency, items, and accounts/characters; not even the ‘neopoints’ used in the popular Neopets service is exempt from this decision.
I am one of those weirdos who is completely for this action, as I hate virtual item sales and fully believe that they ruin games to a good extent. This kind of thing has been going on for years and year though, so what made eBay step up to the plate all of a sudden?
Source: Slashdot
Intel’s Penryn On The Way
Today Intel is announcing a number of details on its 45nm process node, including official details on the first family of 45nm processors due out later this year. The announcements themselves, as you will soon see, are impressive enough but arguably more interesting is the amount of detail Intel is giving away at this point. In the past we’ve had to go to sources other than official Intel channels for this sort of information, but that has all changed with the new Intel.
Included with these new 45nm chips is an updated transistor designed to decrease current leakage. As amazing as Conroe has proven to be, it’s going to be great to see 45nm surface with performance results. Promised are higher frequencies of course, but thanks to the smaller process it will result in lower voltages and temperature as well.
Source: AnandTech
A-Data’s 128GB Solid State Drive Sees the Light of Day
A-Data was showing off this 128GB 2.5-inch solid-state drive in the back rooms of CES, and finally a picture of the largest-capacity SSD in the world has surfaced. Not much is known about it except that it’s a SATA II drive and might be shipping about six months from now.
It’s good to see these drives getting larger by the week, but that doesn’t make them anymore affordable. This would be a great replacement for any regular laptop drive, since it would definitely prolong battery life. I’d still hate to see the price tag though.
Source: Gizmodo
Caffeine in baked goods
That cup of coffee just not getting it done anymore? How about a Buzz Donut or a Buzzed Bagel? That’s what Doctor Robert Bohannon, a Durham, North Carolina, molecular scientist, has come up with. Bohannon says he’s developed a way to add caffeine to baked goods, without the bitter taste of caffeine. Each piece of pastry is the equivalent of about two cups of coffee.
I could certainly use a Buzz Donut every now and again. Sometimes, you just need that little boost and what better way to get one than eating a tasty treat? Energy drinks are fine usually, but too many can result in a burning stomach. Sign me up.
Source: NY Times
A new Era begins on Atys
A lot has happened on Atys. With new funds, new motivation and a lot of success Ryzom is being developed further, to satisfy your demands on a high quality MMORPG.
Plenty of bugs have been resolved and many new great features have gone online. Furthermore we want to reward faithful customers, the longer you play, the less you pay. From now on you can play Ryzom from 9,90 Euros/month, saving more than 30%!
We look forward to see you soon, once again part of the Ryzom community. Plenty of new missions, new adventures and new players are waiting for you!
Your Ryzom Team
http://ryzom.com
Win a huge jackpot? Maybe not!
A new casino in Pennsylvania had a slot machine tell a player that he had won $102,000, supposedly “the big jackpot” of the day. Various casino staff came up and congratulated him, until someone else came over and offered him two free meal coupons, saying that the jackpot message (which even stated his name) was a software glitch on their internal computer system, and was due to some internal testing that never should have reached the actual machine.
What a rollercoaster ride that would be! Should the casino have paid the supposed winner anyway? It would certainly help for PR, but it -was- a new casino so they may not have wanted to throw money away, so to speak. Assuming that it was indeed a real glitch.
Source: Tech Dirt
European Union Explores Ban of Violent Video Games
The German government has a long history on its harsh views on violent video games and is taking it upon itself to conduct a study of all the different national rules concerning video games to create a unified policy that all 27 members of the EU could put into place.
If there’s good news to come from this, it’s that potential bans are decided upon by each individual Country, not by EU as a whole. Either way, violent games don’t ever seem to be the real issue. School bullying and violent TV shows should be the first target.. if anything.
Olympus Unveils 18x Optical Zoom SP-550 UZ
The camera features a 7.1MP imager and has the ability to capture pictures at a burst rate of 15 frames per second. The camera can also capture 30FPS video at 320×240 or 640×480. And as expected from consumer digital cameras these days, a large 2.5″ LCD screen (230,000 pixels) is provided to framing and image playback.
This is a great looking camera and is made better by the fact that it has a huge 18x optical zoom. The immediate downsides though is that it does not have a flip-out screen and requires xD media cards. Why can’t they just use SD cards, which are available -everywhere-?
Source: Daily Tech
Fox subpoenas YouTube after "24" clips posted
20th Century Fox served YouTube with a subpoena Wednesday demanding the Google-owned viral video site disclose the identity of a user who uploaded copies of entire recent episodes of primetime series "24" and "The Simpsons." The subpoena, which first came to light on the blog Google Watch (http://googlewatch.eweek.com/index.html), was granted by a judge in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California after being filed by the News Corp.-owned studio on January 18.
One of the main gripes that Fox makes is that the episodes appeared on YouTube even before they broadcast on TV. So, it sounds like an insider… and it’s up to Google as to whether or not they will be exposed. I still have to wonder who would rather watch a hugely dithered version of the show instead of watching it on TV?
Source: Reuters
At Least 25 Million Americans Pirate Movies
Roughly 25 million Americans — or 18 percent of the U.S. online population — have illegally downloaded a full-length movie, a study released Wednesday asserts. In a study of 2,600 Americans polled via telephone and online, Digital Life America, a unit of Solutions Research Group, found that 32 million Americans had downloaded a movie at some point in the past.
I’m one that finds it foolish to have a 25 Million figure based off 2,600 people, but I’ve been called strange in the past. Either way, if that number is remotely true, then that would result in a large percentage of computer users. I am not sure how the MPAA peeps can even sleep at night!
Source: Extreme Tech
Google from the toilet
We’re unveiling the public release of “Testing on the Toilet”: one of Google’s little secrets that has helped us to inspire our developers to write well-tested code. We write flyers about everything from dependency injection to code coverage, and then regularly plaster the bathrooms all over Google with each episode, almost 500 stalls worldwide.
This is a great idea. When you are in the washroom, not much is going on with the thinking process so it’s the perfect opportunity to actually contemplate what it is you are reading. This blog is designed for developers though, so it would help if you were one in order to understand it at all.
Source: Google TotT
KDE 3.5.6 Released
The KDE Project today announced the immediate availability of KDE 3.5.6, a maintenance release for the latest generation of the most advanced and powerful free desktop for GNU/Linux and other UNIXes. KDE now supports 65 languages, making it available to more people than most non-free software and can be easily extended to support others by communities who wish to contribute to the open source project.
There’s a few great improvements in this release, so users out there that like using cutting edge versions of their software can head over to the official site and download the sources.
Source: KDE.org
AMD Announces Strategic Partnership with TCL Computer
BEIJING – Jan. 25, 2007 – AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that TCL Computer Tech. Co. Ltd., one of China’s fastest-growing PC manufacturers, will offer customers a range of commercial notebooks and desktops based on high-performing, energy-efficient AMD64 processors.
You can read the full press release here.
Waking up to the smell of coffee
There is nothing like sleeping in a little on the weekend, and waking up to the smell of bubbling hot coffee…fragrance. The tough part is when stretch, realize that your “girlfriend” didn’t make you breakfast, and discover that she stole your wallet on the way out.
What a novel idea… to have an alarm clock that fills the room with coffee scent to help wake the senses. The next version should -actually- make coffee for you. Of course at that point you may as well just keep a regular coffee machine on your nightstand.
Source: Gizmodo
BBC putting OS fanboys in heat of battle
As part of our launch coverage we are looking for a committed Vista user – you are probably someone who has been trialling Vista in beta or using it for your business – as well as a passionate Mac OS X user and a devotee of Linux. We will select three of you to go head-to-head-to-head on the subject of your favourite operating system.
Sounds like quite a contest… hopefully bloodshed between the contestants is kept to a minimal. Despite this news posting being published today, they already have closed the doors for new entries. Here’s to hoping that they at least broadcast this “battle”, it would be interesting to see.
Source: BBC News
OEM Vista… prices too good to be true?
Insane discounts? It’s a mix, really. Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium OEM are priced the same as the retail upgrade editions, meaning that your average do-it-yourself system builder isn’t going to save much with an OEM purchase provided he has an old copy of Windows laying around to validate the upgrade.
If you are thinking of picking up an OEM version, bear in mind that swapping out parts all the time will likely invalidate the license. For a PC that doesn’t have the parts removed or added often, the OEM seems like a steal. Well, if $200 is a “steal”, that is.
Source: Ars Technica
Interview with author of BackupHDDVD
On December 26, 2006, a member of the Doom9.com forums named muslix64 introduced himself as circumventing the content protection – not the copy protection – of HD DVD. Additionally, he made available an open source program named BackupHDDDVD.
I have to hand it to this guy… he not only cracked HD-DVD, but Blu-Ray as well. I don’t agree with piracy but the fact of the matter is, people who -legally- buy their high-definition content are unable to play it on a monitor without HDCP support. All that does is irritate people. I would be pissed if I had to run out and purchase a completely new monitor when the one I have is just fine. Great interview overall.
Source: Slyck
AMD X2 6000+ coming soon
Earlier this week AMD added the Athlon 64 6000+ SKU to its distributor roadmap along with several Energy Efficient low power CPUs — the single-core EE 3800+ and 3500+. The 6000+ chips are scheduled for a late February launch and will be based on the 90nm node, while the EE CPUs are slated for the 65nm node.
To be the owner of this brand new 3.0GHz chip, you will only need to shell out $600. Now, I’d still easily go for an Intel C2D chip that’s half the price, but 3.0GHz is extremely nice for a K8. I am going to sit back and wait for AMD to come up with a true C2D killer.
Source: Daily Tech
Bungie Admits That It Screwed Up Halo 2
When it comes to Halo 2, the developers of the game aren’t content with how things turned. Sure the game went on to rack up $125 million USD in sales on its first day and has sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide since its launch, but those successes seem to ring a bit hollow with Bungie.
I am not sure if this is just a whiny developer, or a very creative marketing ploy. He stresses that the Halo 2 multiplayer is -so- bad, that he can’t even play it. But, he mentions that Halo 3 is going to be far better. Of course.
Source: Daily Tech
PS3 European Launch Set For March 23
Sony’s PlayStation 3 will be made available to a larger audience starting on March 23 of this year. While PS3 fans in Japan and the United States have been had access to the console since mid-November 2006, consumers in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australia were left in the dark.
“Who cares?” is the first question I have to ask. I am not against the PS3 but fact is, the console is in -such- limited supply, that nobody is going to care that much except the extreme fanboys. To make matters worse, the console is a lot more expensive in the UK. Yes, it’s possible.
Source: Daily Tech
Microsoft May Have Mistakenly Pegged 2.6 Million As Pirates
Microsoft’s anti-piracy tool has marked more than one in every five copies of Windows as bogus, the Redmond, Wash., developer said Tuesday, while up to 2.6 million users may have been mistakenly pegged as pirates. As it beats the drum about the danger of pirated software, particularly Windows, prior to the release of Vista, Microsoft released some figures from its Windows Genuine Advantage program.
If it wasn’t for companies like Dell who force copies of Windows on people, Microsoft would likely have a much higher number to report. What I would be interested in knowing, is how many people that realize they are using a non-legal version, run out to pick one up? It would just be neat to know how well WGA is actually working for MS in that regard.
Source: Information Week
Apple Special Event on February 20
Apple is planning a special event on February 20 to introduce Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), iLife ‘07 and iWork ‘07 as well as updated Mac Pros. Mac Pros will be available immediately with a free upgrade to 10.5 when it ships, and the ship date for 10.5 will be confirmed for 3/24/07 as we have been predicting for quite some time now.
Nobody knows for sure what will take place at this special event, but Leopards release seems to be confirmed for late March. It’s about time, since we’ve been hearing about it and viewing screenshots for months. But of course, when we think of how long we’ve been waiting on Vista…
Source: Apple Recon