[H]ardNews - PR Flack

Corsair Registered DDR433:

All-In-Wonder For Everyone:

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Galaxy Zeus GFFX 5700Ultra:

NVNews reviews another “middle of the road” warrior in the graphics card arena. Most of you probably haven’t heard of this Zeus GFFX 5700Ultra 128MB from a company named Galaxy, then again, neither have I. Let’s see what the crew at NVNews has to say about the card and the company behind it.

Galaxy Technology is a certified NVIDIA Board Partner with headquarters in Hong Kong. Kevin Poon, who is Galaxy's International Director of Sales, furnished nV News with a review sample of the Zeus GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, which was the second unit to come off their manufacturing line.

Airport Security “Delight”:

If you travel often you know what a pain in the ass security can be at the airport ( though it is much needed and appreciated ). With that in mind, check out this APC TravelPower backpack which might be handy for your laptop and devices but would easily win the “piece of luggage most likely to be detonated by the bomb squad” award if you ask me...heh, the company slogan should be “say hello to a strip search”.

The APC TravelPower line of laptop cases does have that “cool factor” that we look for. These are not your ordinary laptop bags. With a built-in surge protector and travel charger for your portable devices, the APC TravelPower lineup shows us how style, function and technology can blend together to make some pretty interesting and useful products.

No RAM On Mars:

One of the working theories into the strange behavior of the Mars rover is not enough RAM. Seems the fellas might have made a classic error, a mistake many of us PC guys make as well, of skimping on the memory. It just goes to show you that it can happen to anyone. Thanks to Jim Downs for the linkage.

Engineers temporarily disabled the computer's flash memory, which is similar to the system used by digital cameras to retain photographs whether the power is on or off. Trosper said one theory is that Spirit's random-access memory, or RAM, has too little capacity to manage the file buildup in the flash memory.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

New MSI SFF:

TBreak has a few super secret spy photos of an upcoming version of the SFF MSI MegaPC. There are a few slides and a handful of specs posted here.

Digital Audio Center with 5.1 Audio, Digital Media Center with Wireless Internet, Digital Entertainment Center with Live TV Recording, MSI Media Center Deluxe III and more.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

PowerColor Radeon 9800XT:

3DChip has posted a review of the PowerColor Radeon 9800XT 256MB. The review is in German so you will need a translator if you plan on doing more than just looking at the benchmarks and staring at the pretty pictures. Then again, that is all most of us do anyway, so you should be fine with or without a translator. I took the liberty of translating this quote for you:

Real high points are with a Radeon 9800XT diagram chip, which brings only higher clock rates than its predecessor to Radeon 9800 pro with itself not to expect. Both diagram maps, is it now nVIDIA with the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra, or ATi with the Radeon 9800XT represent momentarily the fastest representatives in the High end to Customer market and have your pro and cons. But in the comparison to the GeForce FX, shows up 5950 Ultra an advantage, which furnish the Radeon 9800XT diagram map in the quality mode with AntiAliasing and anisotropic filter higher Frameraten.

Dan Talks TV:

Whether you like Dan, or hate Dan, you have to admit…sometimes he can be pretty funny. Dan dishes on why TVs can’t do high resolution computer graphics.

A while ago, someone near and dear to me (because he sends me money) asked if he could buy a reasonably priced TV that could display high-res computer graphics. It took me quite a lot of words to say "No".

Swiftech Cooling Review:

OCIA has the Swiftech MCX462-V Heatsink and MCX159-R Chipset Cooler on the test bench today. For those hard core air cooling junkies out there ( and you know who you are ) this is a must read:

Everything I have heard about the Swiftech coolers online proved to be true. The innovative design of the heatsink and clips provided for easy installation in a very tight area. If you are looking for a great heatsink cooler combination then the Swiftech MCX462-V heatsink and MCX159-R chipset cooler provide a powerful 1-2 punch combination to knock that heat out of your PC.

[H]ardNews - Tech Ed.

More Flexible Display News:

Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands will publish the current status of its polymer electronics work in the Feb. 1 issue of Nature Materials. The company said in a news release that an internal venture called Polymer Vision has made organics-based 5-inch diagonal active matrix displays with 320-240 pixel resolution. The displays combine a 25 micron thick backplane with polymer electronics with a 200-miron frontplane of reflective electronic ink developed by E Ink Corp.

How Surround Sound Works:

In movie theaters of the 1930s, the entire soundtrack was played on a single speaker or collection of speakers positioned behind the movie screen. Today, theater audiences expect to hear sound coming from every direction; and the technology that once characterized only movie theaters is now fairly standard in home entertainment centers. In this article, we'll take a look at the surround-sound systems that have become standard movie theater equipment. We'll also look at home-theater surround-sound setups and get you started building your own.

Cool Mars Stuff:

NASA's Opportunity rover returned the first pictures of its landing site early today, revealing a surreal, dark landscape unlike any ever seen before on Mars. "Opportunity has touched down in a bizarre, alien landscape," said Dr. Steve Squyres of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., principal investigator for the science instruments on Opportunity and its twin, Spirit. "I'm flabbergasted. I'm astonished. I'm blown away."

Adaptive Computing Platform:

QuickSilver Technology Inc. said it is ready to take on ASICs and FPGAs with a design platform that uses some radical reconfigurable computing principles. The Silicon Valley startup has developed the platform to solve common design problems. About six years in the making, the company's adaptive computing platform is a start-from-scratch approach that will require designers to look at chip development in a new light. Company officials acknowledge that its adaptive computing machine technology will require an adjustment, but they hope the time-to-market rewards promised will prove too enticing to ignore.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

P4 Cooler Round-up:

If you are shopping around for a heatsink for your Pentium 4 box, this Pentium 4 cooler round-up will sure come in handy. The round-up includes coolers from Intel, Spire, Glacialtech, FSP, Titan and Zalman. The Intel OEM HSF does better than most of the name brand heatsinks in this round-up.

Everyone who buys computers in 2004 will face the need for effective cooling. While the PC enthusiast can afford a cooler at $30-$40, the common user at best puts aside $10 of the budget for a cooler. At the same time, for this money the user would want to get an absolutely noiseless cooling (which is a sensible decision).

Leadtek GFFX 5700Ultra:

NextGen Electronics has a one page review of the Leadtek Winfast A360 Ultra GFFX 5700 Ultra posted today. This quote caught my eye:

LeadTek has put on a very interesting and aesthetically pleasing cooling solution that employs - as far as we know - the only dust guard in the video card market. The cooling solution is a high performance "Air surround" technique can lead the air flow every side of the board, which makes the Fan more efficient. The "Filter on Fan" design provides better protection on the heatsink by reducing the amount of dust that collects - a smart move for any gamer.

While this may be a “cool” feature at first, the fine mesh screen over the fan clogs extremely fast restricting airflow. Anyone who owns a Leadtek card and uses it in a normal environment knows exactly what I am talking about.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Novarg Virus Update:

Here is a little more info on the virus Kyle told you guys about yesterday. Apparently the virus is supposed to attack the SCO servers on Feb 1st. With SCO being as hated as they are, I could just see people letting their PC get infected on purpose. You know you aren’t liked when virus are made in your honor.

Once the virus infects a Windows-running PC, it installs a program that allows the computer to be controlled remotely. The program primes the PC to send data to the SCO Group's Web server, starting Feb. 1, a virus researcher said on the condition of anonymity.

MikeRoweSoft Kid Update:

First he was being pressured by MS over his domain name. After a bunch of bad publicity…MS backed off, the kid demands $10k. Now the kid is going to Redmond on a trip, getting an Xbox and a bunch of free MS schooling…what the!?!?!

A Canadian teenager whose website annoyed Bill Gates' lawyers is giving it up in exchange for Microsoft goodies, including an Xbox console. As a sign of goodwill, Microsoft said it would also give the teenager training for certification on its products, and he and his parents have been invited to the technology giants' headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

8x DVD-R In Feb:

I looks like we will be seeing 8x DVD-R media soon. That will be good for prices ( in theory ) for all of us that own 4x DVD-R drives.

Lead Data, a second-tier producer of optical storage discs in Taiwan, will begin deliveries of blank 8x DVD-R discs to a Japanese client in February. The client is one of the world’s top five optical disc brands, Lead Data said.

[H]ardNews 11th Edition

Crucial DDR400:

The guys at TweakNews take some of the less expensive Ram out there and shows us if it is up to an enthusiast task or not.

I cannot stress enough though that this is mainstream RAM and not intended to overclock. That being said however, I was very very impressed with the results. Despite the RAMs refusal to operate at lower timings, it still managed to attain DDR436 and held its own in every benchmark.

You Lovin' It?

If this does not make you give up your trips to the Golden Arches, I am not sure anything will. Filmmaker, Morgan Spurlock, spends a month eating nothing but Mickey Ds. Thanks Jason Barnhart.

His liver became toxic, his cholesterol shot up from a low 165 to 230, his libido flagged and he suffered headaches and depression.

Cooling:

Keep Track of Temps @ 8Balls - VGA HSF @ Ohls

Etc.:

Silent PSU @ NeoSeeker - HTPC Case @ FastLane - Computer Tote @ PimpRig

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

New Windows Virus:

I am getting a few hundred of these an hour right now, so be aware. Make sure you update your virus definitions!

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

Beware New Scam:

Matt S. points out that you do not want to get duped by these email scammers.

(CNN) -- E-mail users are being warned about a new identity theft scam that tries to snare victims by accusing them of violating the government's anti-terrorism Patriot Act.

Computer Aids:

This ScienceDaily article talks about some stuff that seems like it is right out of a SciFi novel. Pretty soon your computer might be telling you when to shut your mouth at a meeting. Boy, we could have used that a few times.

It will monitor your perspiration and heartbeat, read your facial expressions and head motions, analyze your voice tones, and correlate these to keep you informed with a running account of how you are feeling - something you may be ignoring - instead of waiting passively for your factual questions.

Most importantly for us, it has a popup window that says, "Don't call him a "jackass" again." Thanks WickerBill.

1.4GHz XBox:

I am not sure why you would need this, since XBox games are designed to run on the specific platform, but then again I got rid of my XBox after the second DVD drive burst into flame. If this thing is for real and one of you buys one, let us know your thoughts about it.

CPU upgraded to Intel "Tualatin" Celeron 1400 MHz (1.4 GHz) (256KB L2 cache) - Includes an external CPU speed switch, which enables switching between 1.48GHz and 740MHz CPU Speeds. Great tweaking possibilities and lots of fun. - Provides extreme gaming experience as the fastest video gaming console in the world. - Offers superior video output including S-video, standard A/V video and audio cable. - Supports Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound (built-in digital audio SPDIF port with optical fiber connection). - Provides optional hard drive upgrade up to 120GB.

K8T800 Review:

If you are needing to get hold of an Athlon64 motherboard for your next build, you will want to check out the Asus K8V series. It seems to be a great performer. We have had great experiences with the MSI K8T Neo and suggest you check it out as well.

With the ability to lower the Athlon64 processor multiplier, we were able to hit a very respectable 237 MHz FSB without having to lower the memory frequency!

They did get one of the fastest FSB OCs I have seen out of a stock Athlon64 board yet!!

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

Torc Engine Demo:

This link was directly stolen from ShackNews! It looks as though some other folks are catching up with the likes of id Software and Valve. The Torc game engine tech demo (Bink video) is posted at Fileshack for your viewing pleasure. It is worth a look.

Pepsi Rewards Thieves:

Steal copyrighted material, get job selling soda pop.

Some 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses them of unauthorized downloads, will appear in a Pepsi-Cola (PEP) ad that kicks off a two-month offer of up to 100 million free — and legal — downloads from Apple's iTunes, the leading online music seller.

Omega 4.1 Drivers:

I know many of you are fans of Omega drivers and DarkTweaker has posted an article that cover the performance of the driver pack. It is written in German, but the graphs are universal. Not much in the way of recent games was used for testing though.

[H]ardNews - PR Flack

Intel Goes UV:

SAN DIEGO & SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 2004--Cymer, Inc. (Nasdaq NM: CYMI), the world's leading supplier of deep ultraviolet (DUV) light sources used in semiconductor manufacturing, and Intel Corporation today announced they have signed a development agreement for Intel to provide US$20 million in funding over the next three years to accelerate development of production-worthy extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography light sources.

IBM & RFID:

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 2004--Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE:PHG)(AEX:PHI) and IBM today announced a major initiative to jointly develop customer systems for radio frequency identification (RFID) and smart card applications. Working together, Philips and IBM will combine their industry expertise to address the growing need for advanced high-security smart cards and RFID technology in day-to-day business processes, operations and consumer lifestyles.

GDDR-III:

2 Billion Served:

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 26, 2004--According to data from Coughlin Associates, Peripheral Research Corporation and Disk/Trend, 2004 will be the year that the cumulative total disk drives shipped by the hard disk drive industry exceed 2 billion units. In addition, cumulative total magnetic head production will exceed 9 billion units and disk media production will approach 5 billion units shipped through 2004. These analysts in combination with Computer Technology Review will recognize existing hard disk drive and major component vendors for this industry achievement at the 2005 Storage Visions(SM) Conference that will occur in January 2005 just prior to the 2005 CES conference.