![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
You know people are nervous about gas prices when an erroneous report of a refinery fire on a local news website made crude prices 40 cents.
CBS affiliate KOTV reported that a lightning strike had caused a fire at an Oklahoma refinery--sparking a flurry of excitement among energy traders and boosting U.S. crude prices 40 cents. The refining company announced the story was "completely wrong" and the station withdrew the story.
Although there is no official word on the Mozilla site, there is a new version of Firefox 2.0.0.4 out that is carrying yesterday’s date. For those of you that just can’t wait until something official is announced, grab the Windows version here and the Linux version here. Thanks to Robin B. for the heads up.
Just because Apple is now selling tunes without DRM, you’d better think twice before you start sharing your music with everyone. While this may seem obvious to most of us, you’d be surprised how many people actually think no DRM means they are free to share their music with everyone.
Sure, you can now download music from the iTunes store without DRM but that doesn't mean you should just willy nilly start sharing that music with your friends. For one thing, it's illegal. For another, your account information is embedded into that m4a music file.
Although there has been no confirmation from Google yet, the anti-spam / anti-virus company GreenBorder has made a statement on its website saying the company has been acquired by Google. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Google did not return press inquiries by deadline but GreenBorder, a Mountain View, Calif.-based security company, posted a statement on its Web site, telling users that it has been bought by Google. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. "We will continue to support our existing customers through the end of their current subscriptions," the statement added.
We have posted our evaluation of the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 640 MB today for your viewing pleasure. Those of you trying to decide which 8800 series card is best for you had better read this article before plopping down your hard earned cash. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.
For the sake of comparison, we are evaluating this video card up against a reference clocked NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB video card, and a reference clocked NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX 768 MB video card. We want to find out exactly what the overclock on the BFGTech GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 640 MB bring to our gaming experience.
Epic Games Forums have posted a thread translating an interview with Epic’s Tim Sweeney concerning Unreal Engine 3. Inside you will find interesting technical information regarding Unreal Engine 3 such as multi-core CPU support, DX10 support, lack of AA in DX9 but will support it in DX10, as well as some info that could possibly spell bad times ahead for the Radeon HD 2900 XT in Unreal Tournament 3 compared to the GeForce 8 series.
PCGH: How exactly are you utilizing the functions of Direct X 10? Epic: Unreal Tournament 3 will ship with full DX10 support, with multi-sampling being the biggest visible benefit of the new graphics interface. Additionally, with DX10 under Vista we have the possibility to use the video memory more efficiently, to be able to display textures with a higher grade of detail as it would be possible with the DX9 path of Vista. Most effects of UT3 are more bound to the fillrate than to basic features like geometry processing. That's why DX10 has a great impact on performance, while we mostly forgo the integration of new features.
Of course, we will hold off judgments until we actually play the game, but on paper this bolded comment sure makes us think since ATI has concentrated on geometry performance over texture/fillrate performance with the R600.
As if the game bill recently passed by the New York State Senate wasn’t bad enough, let’s introduce a bill making it a felony to sell violent games to kids. What’s next…the gas chamber for selling M rated games?
Selling or renting to a minor a game which includes “depraved violence and indecent images” would be a class E felony under the state penal code
Cooling
Gigabyte 3D Galaxy II Liquid Cooling System @ Tweaknews
Motherboards
Gigabyte GA-P35-DQ6 Intel P35 @ PCStats
Jetway 966PDAG-PB @ Guru3D
ETC.
Gaming Headset Head to Head @ Bit-Tech
With ISPs coughing up your personal information at the drop of a hat nowadays, it might be a good idea to know what information is collected, how long they keep it and why. Wired asked some of the biggest names in the business these very same questions, you might be surprised by the answers.
Wired News, with help from some readers, attempted to get real answers from the largest United States-based ISPs about what information they gather on their customers' use of the internet, and how long they retain records like IP addresses, e-mail and real-time browsing activity. Most importantly, we asked what they require from law-enforcement agencies before coughing up the data, and whether they sell your data to marketers.
The parent company of MySpace has announced that it will acquire Photobucket for an undisclosed amount of money. Details of the deal have not been released.
MySpace's parent, News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, agreed to acquire popular photo sharing site Photobucket Inc. just weeks after a public spat in which MySpace partially blocked content from Photobucket.
Lite-On has reportedly secured OEM orders for DVD drives that are used in the Xbox 360. The article states that Lite-On will produce up to a million drives per month for Microsoft.
The built-in DVD-ROM drives for the Xbox 360 have been produced by two OEM makers, Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology (TSST) and BenQ, the sources indicated. Lite-On IT took over BenQ's optical disc drive business unit in mid-2006 but did not take over the OEM manufacturing rights for Xbox 360 because it was required to obtain new certification from Microsoft, the sources pointed out.
According to World Semiconductor Trade Statistics, the world's top chip makers have cut their sales growth forecast after a weaker-than-expected first quarter. The good news is that they still expect solid growth in 2008.
The global semiconductor market is now expected to grow by 2.3 percent to $253.51 billion in 2007. In October it expected growth of 8.6 percent. The group also trimmed its 2008 growth estimate for the worldwide semiconductor market to 10.2 percent from an earlier expectation of 12.1 percent growth.
