- 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
Microsoft files for *bleep*ing good patent
A recently unearthed patent application originally filed in October 2004 by Microsoft could make television and radio broadcasters very happy. In it, Microsoft describes the use of an “automatic censoring filter” that can censor undesirable speech in real-time (or batch mode, for Chris Rock).
If this actually works, then this could be a dream come true for content providers. Maybe Microsoft should begin work on an auto-nudity censor. They could test it out at any live event that Janet Jackson stars at. Check it out at ArsTechnica.
Oblivion becomes M-Rated
Both versions of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion have been given a new rating due to “detailed and intense depictions of blood and gore,” and because of a modification in an art file that allows players to create topless versions of female characters. The game was originally rated “teen,” but the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) revoked the rating yesterday. From now on, the game will be sold under the “Mature” tag, meaning that gamers under the age of 17 in the US will no longer be able to purchase the game.
Fer cryin’ out loud! Are these re-ratings going to become common standard now or something? Maybe the ESRB needs to learn ‘haxor’ skills and view the texture files before they give the game a final rating. It would save time.. and money. Check out the posting at DailyTech.
LG Electronics Launches Full HD LCD TV With 250GB HD
LG Electronics’ previous line of high definition LCD TVs also featured a hard disk drive based DVR system with a capacity of 160GB. This year’s models will feature an upgraded 250GB hard drive for up to 13 hours of high definition recording.
In addition, the TV offers 6ms response time, native 1080p and a staggering 5000:1 contrast ratio? Whew, this thing will be pricy! Check it out at DailyTech.
Commercial Skipping Is Big Business
According to a report from JupiterResearch skipping commercials may add up to big losses for television networks. The new report claims that of digital video recorder (DVR) subscribers surveyed 53% of users skip 100% of TV commercials.
I couldn’t imagine _willingly_ wanting to watch through boring, repetitive commercials, but that’s just me. Apparently there is an $8B yearly loss in there somewhere, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see ‘anti-commercial-skipping’ devices in the near future. Check out the full news posting at DailyTech.
HD DVD vs. Blu-ray
Just when you finished replacing all your VHS tapes with DVDs, you heard that there are two new kids on the block, HD DVD and Blu-ray. They both claim that they’re the successor to DVD, and that eventually they’re going to replace it completely. If you’ve been watching this fight from the sidelines, confused by the differences between the competing standards, keep reading, and we’ll explain some of the technical details behind the marketing hype.
Without a doubt, if you choose to go with either format, it’s not going to be a fun decision. Check out the full article at GideonTech, which may just help with your decision.
Hardware Roundup for May 5
- Thermaltake Maxtrix VX Case – XYZ Computing
Cases & Enclosures
- Aerocool Silver Lightning Fans – Pro-Clockers
- Antec Performance CPU Cooler – Bjorn3D
- Zalman Vf900-cu GPU Cooler – Red & Blackness
Cooling
- 1 & 2 GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2 800 MHz CL4 Kits (German) – PC Masters
- 2x1GB DDR Memory Roundup: Corsair, Mushkin and OCZ – Pure Overclock
- 1GB Corsair XMS2-8500 – ByteSector
- Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.10 750 GB – GamePC
Memory & Storage
- ASUS’ N4L-VM DH – BIOS Magazine
- ASUS P5N32-SLI Deluxe – HardOCP
Motherboards & CPU’s
- Apple iPod Nano 2GB MP3 Player – Big Bruin
- Logitech mm28 Portable Speaker – Virtual-Hideout
- Seasonic S12 600W Power Supply – AMD Zone
- Seasonic S12 600W Power Supply – PC Stats
Peripherals & Power Supplies
- Mobile Graphics Card Ranking – 3D Chip
Video Cards & Monitor
- Cooler Master May 2006 Contest – Overclockers Online
- Panasonic VDR-D300 Camcorder – Digital Trends
Etcetera & Contests
Hardware Roundup for May 4
- Coolink Silent Savior Hard Drive Enclosure – A1-Electronics
- Enermax Laureate Hard Drive Enclosure – XS Reviews
- SilverStone TJ08 – Overclockers Online
Cases & Enclosures
- Asetek WaterChill Xternal Water Cooling – 3D Gameman
- Thermaltake Big Water 745 – Think Computers
Cooling
- Crucial 1GB DDR2 PC2-4200 Laptop SODIMM – Xtreme Computing
- Corsair DDR2 XMS2 PC2-8500 Memory Kit – Motherboards.org
- OCZ DDR2-1000 Platinum XTC EL – Phoronix
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB SATA Hard Drive – Big Bruin
Memory & Storage
- CrossFire Xpress 1600 Motherboards: DFI, Asus, ECS – HotHardware
Motherboards & CPU’s
- LightScribe versus LabelFlash – 3D Velocity
- Ripper XXL vs. Corepad XXXL Deskpad Comparison – Virtual-Hideout
- Speed-Link Power Feedback Leather Wheel – Technic3D
- SunbeamTech Nuuo 550w PSU – OCIA
- Vizo Gemini Cordless Optical Mouse – Pro-ClockerS
Peripherals & Power Supplies
- Ageia PhysX PPU – Hexus
- RCA HD61LPW175 61″ DLP – Digital Trends
- S3 Chrome S27 PCI Express – PC Stats
Video Cards & Monitor
- AC Ryan Modding Goodies – 3D Velocity
Etcetera & Contests
EFF petition asks for end to RIAA lawsuits
The EFF petition has garnered over 90,000 signatures so far, and the EFF plans to deliver the petition to the commerce and judiciary committees in the House and Senate once it reaches 100,000. I have no doubt that many readers here at Ars will help the EFF reach its goal, but will a petition with 100,000 signatures speak louder than well-funded lobbyists?
It’s hard to imagine that anyone could ignore 100,000 signatures, so here’s hoping. Check out the full posting at Ars Technica.
Napster Follows Real’s Lead: Pretends To Go Free
Napster is simply offering a limited promotion of free music — in this case, the promotion lets you listen to any song five times before you have to pay up. It’s not a bad promotional idea, of course, but it’s a long way from free music.
Obviously music will never be completely free, so it’s obvious this was just an attention getter. Even so, 5 full free listens is still not such a bad idea. It’s better than the small 30 second clips that their competitors offer. Check out the full post at TechDirt.
DOA Coming to the Theater Near You
DOA: Dead or Alive, the movie based on the Dead or Alive video game series is set to be released on August 25. The preview images and the trailer point to a more Charlies Angels 2 type fluff than a serious action movie. The girls are also seem friendlier with each other, in odds with the intense competition in the game.
I am a big fan of the games, but I can only anticipate how boring this movie will be. Of course, the girls will be the only real reason to see it in the first place. Check it out at Slashdot.
‘Halo 3’ Will Make Appearance at E3 2006
As anticipation continues to build as we get close to E3 2006, which starts nine days from now, a Halo 3 video will be shown during a news briefing on Tuesday, May 9, according to IGN. The video that will be shown is around two minutes long, but it is unknown what kind of content is in the video. Unfortunately for Halo fans, it will most likely be at least a year before the game is released. Halo 3 appears to already be the most anticipated game for the Microsoft Xbox 360 game console.
Check out the full news posting at DailyTech.
How Google Sometimes Profits From Your Typos
Is Google cluttering the Internet and possibly violating trademark rules? Maybe. Are they making piles of money? Yes. Google is continuing to find ways to make loads of cash by beating other companies to an idea that isn’t necessarily difficult. Google is alledgedly supporting domain squatters by supporting pay-per-click portals on mispellings of popular domains.– which can sometimes be reached by typing in a wrong URL while searching for a different site. The Washington Post found 100 random misspellings of “http://www.earthlink.net” after a brief test.
How that URL can be typed potentially 100 wrong ways is a mystery to me, but it’s an interesting test. Regardless of how Google is doing things, it’s hard to blame them for using unused space for ads. They note that they believe they are doing nothing wrong, so it looks like it will stay. Check out the posting at DailyTech.
First NVIDIA Quad SLI Benchmarks
If performance is what you crave, then look no further than NVIDIA’s GeForce 7900 Quad SLI. The four physical GeForce 7900 GPUs, there and two dedicated PCI Express x48 bridges are just what the doctor ordered. We first got wind of GeForce 7900 Quad SLI a few months ago when Foxconn leaked details of the card during CeBit.
The benchmarks are hardly amazing, but if you must have the fastest graphics power available… here it is. There are a lot of problems in addition though, like some games and benchmarks crashing or have artifacts. That’s not so welcomed for over $2000 worth of GPU’s. Check out the posting at DailyTech and the full article at XBit Labs.
Dell XPS M1210 Notebook Prematurely Divulged
Dell just recently launched its XPS M1710 gaming notebook which features a 17″ screen, an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7900 GS or 7900 GTX graphics chip and support for Intel’s faster Core Duo processors. Dell is going one step further with the planned introduction of a gaming laptop with a much smaller form-factor.
The smaller model even includes an integrated webcam. I have to admit, these are some great looking laptops. Check it out at DailyTech.
Virtual-Hideout Visits the Koolance Factory Store
Pretty much everyone has heard of Koolance and probably seen one of their dreamy machines cooling one serious gaming pc. Virtual-Hideout wanted to know who Koolance is and what they are about. Join us as we go inside one of the world leaders in watercooling!
If you are a water cooling enthusiast, you are going to love this walk through at Koolance. Check out the full article at Virtual-Hideout.
Hardware Roundup for May 1
- Antec Take 4 – Bjorn3D
- Koolance PC4-1025BK Water-cooled Server Case – Extreme MHz
- Thermaltake Aguila – Overclock Cafe
- Thermaltake Eureka – hardCOREware
Cases & Enclosures
- Corsair Nautilus 500 Watercooling System – Neoseeker
- Corsair Nautilus 500 Watercooling System – XYZ Computing
- Scythe Shogun CPU Cooling – Technic3D
Cooling
- OCZ EL PC-3200 Platinum XTC Edition 2GB – Think Computers
Memory & Storage
- ECS Elitegroup C19-A SLI Pentium 4 – Big Bruin
- Ultra Products 2GB PC2-6400 – GamePyre
Motherboards & CPU’s
- PCXMods Mouse Grips – XS Reviews
Peripherals & Power Supplies
- Asus Extreme N6600GT – Madshrimps
- ASUS Extreme N7900GT – Legion Hardware
- Mobile GPU Comparison Guide Rev. 5.2 – Rojak Pot
- NVIDIA Quad-SLI vs. ATI Crossfire – techPowerUp!
- PowerColor X1800 GTO – Technic3D
- Radeon x800 GTO 256MB 16Pipes AGP – Cooling-Station
Video Cards & Monitor
- Contest: HSPC Tech Station Giveaway – Virtual-Hideout
- JVC SU-DH1 – Digital Trends
- Linux: Quake 4 v1.2.1 – SMP A Reality? – Phoronix
- Linux: Xubuntu v6.06 Dapper Drake Beta 2 – Phoronix
Etcetera & Contests
AMD Single Core Price Cuts for Ides of May
We’ve received a new price forecast for AMD’s single core Athlon 64 and Sempron 64 processors for the month of May. The new price forecast shows price drops among the lower-end and mid-range product ranges. These processors vary from the Sempron 64 2800+ all the way up to the Athlon 64 3500+. Price drops vary from 10-15% on Athlon 64 3200+ and 3500+ models while Sempron 64 receive a 19-25% drop on the upper end 3400+ and 3300+ models. Lower-end Sempron models receive rather modest price drops of around 10-14%.
Chances are also good that these prices will go down further, depending on how quickly AM2 takes off. Too bad it doesn’t look like AM2 will affect any S939 Dual Cores though. Check it out at DailyTech.
Skype Reportedly Has Over 100 Million Users
Ebay bought Skype last September — it looks like it was the right decision. Skype yesterday announced that it has more than 100 million registered users in about two and a half years, which the company claims is the fastest growth of any Internet program available. For those not familiar with the program, Skye allows users to talk for free from computer to computer, or pay a small fee to have the ability to place and receive calls from regular telephones. The success of companies like Skype and Vonage are forcing traditional telephone companies to rethink the way they do business in the United States.
This is impressive. Considering that ‘chat clients’ were far from new at the time, Skype knew what they were doing. Check out the full newsie at DailyTech.
NVIDIA GeForce 6100
In September of 2005, NVIDIA had unveiled the GeForce 6100
series integrated graphics, in conjunction with the NVIDIA nForce 410
and 430. Today we have taken the GeForce 6100 for another spin under
Linux with the latest proprietary drivers to see how the integrated
graphics are able to fair within a slew of gaming benchmarks.
Check out the full look over at Phoronix.
Spire SP741B3 DiamondCool II HSF Cooler Review
A closer examination of the SP741B3 DiamondCool II reveals that the cooler is
constructed entirely out of copper and is enclosed aluminum based fan shroud.
The fan shroud has 4 pre-drilled mounting holes in each corner to keep the
90mm fan stationary. The SP741B3 DiamondCool II has introduces 4 embedded
heat-pipes for enhanced thermal cooling as well as 55 stamped micro-fins which
optimize the airflow and prevent obstruction. The base plate and fins are
constructed out of copper by cutting the material in thin layers and bending
the fins in place.
Check out the full review at ModTheBox.
Jetart Storm 2 VC1000 Cooler Review
Recently, I have the privilege of reviewing the Jetart 3D cooler that, in my opinion, wasn’t the most well conceived product out there. Now I have the VC1000, better known as the Storm 2, in my hands. With a brighter package, better look and a more enticing name, can this better the 3D cooler? I sure hope so.
Check out the full review at XS Reviews.
Thermaltake Mini Typhoon Review
The Thermaltake Big Typhoon is known for being one of the top-performing air coolers out there. Now Thermaltake has released a smaller, lighter cooler called the Mini Typhoon which is is supposed to offer the best features of the Big Typhoon at a fraction of the cost. Can six heatpipes and a 92mm fan keep your CPU cool?
Head on over to techPowerUp! for the full review.
Razer Diamondback and Copperhead Giveaway
Razer, the leader in gaming mice, is giving you a chance to win some of the best mice ever made! That’s right, how would you like to get your hands on a Chameleon Diamondback or a Chaos Green Copperhead? . One winner a week will be chosen. Each entry will be good for the entire duration of the giveaway. If you do not win one week your entry will carry over to the next week(s). Sunday April 30th is the last day for the first Razer mouse given away.
Check out the full details at Modders-Inc!
ErgoDex DX1 – The only fully custom keyboard
The macro function and recording new keys was pretty easy to use, I would have to say ErgoDex have got the software just right with many possibilities available to the user. FPS user or flight Sims, or just looking for that perfect board for Photoshop or Cuebase, the ErgoDex covers it all and thanks to the excellent driver soft, it is not hard to create these profiles.
Check out the full review at Xtreme Computing.
NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver v1.8456 (x32/x64) Released
The NGO NVIDIA Optimized Driver is a tweaked version of the NVIDIA ForceWare driver. The main purpose is to satisfy the users with better performance and image quality. The Driver has support for all GeForce cards.
You can grab the latest version over at NGOHQ.