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Intel Corporation today announced it has received a request for additional information from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in connection with the agency's regulatory review of the proposed transaction with STMicroelectronics and certain affiliates of Francisco Partners to form a private, independent semiconductor company that will design, develop and manufacture non-volatile memory products.
Video
Leadtek WinFast PX8500 GT THD Extreme @ Mad Shrimps
Memory
Corsair Flash Padlock USB Flash Drive @ Legit Reviews
ETC.
PC Perspective Podcast #11 @ PC Perspective
Ten Steps To A Secure PC @ PCStats
A group of states submitted a court filing Thursday claiming that ending oversight of Microsoft's business practices in November would not allow enough time to consider the antitrust implications of Windows Vista.
The consent decree aimed to make it possible for Microsoft's middleware competitors _ software makers who built programs that run on top of the Windows operating system but act as a platform for other development, like a Web browser _ to compete fairly, even if Microsoft's operating system monopoly persisted.
According to this article, Sony has acknowledged that its proprietary audio technology was a marketplace flop and has decided to open its new portable media players to other formats.
The moves were announced Thursday at a Berlin consumer electronics trade fair as the Japanese electronics pioneer unveiled a pair of new digital Walkmans that can play the Windows Media Audio, MP3 and AAC audio formats.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Goes Gold @ VE3D
Repaired Xbox Consoles Coming With Freebies @ Kotaku
Warhawk Developer Interview @ GamePro
Wii Sets UK Record with Million Console Mark @ Shacknews
Apple is being sued for allegedly ignoring ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines by not making its stores accessible to customers with disabilities. If the allegations against the company are true, Apple should be ashamed of themselves. Thank my Mom for the linkage.
Filed this past Friday in a Northern District of California court, the 17-page suit claims that Apple has simultaneously violated both the federal Americans With Disabilities Act as well as the California Health and Safety Code by failing to provide "full and equal" access at its San Francisco flagship shop on One Stockton Street.
AMD today announced further plans to innovate the x86 architecture by introducing SSE5, a new extension of the x86 instruction set that is designed to allow software developers to simplify code and achieve greater efficiency for the most performance-hungry applications. SSE5 will give developers additional capabilities to help maximize the performance of applications that have daily impact on consumers and enterprises, including high performance computing, multimedia and security applications. By making the SSE5 specification available to developers today, AMD expects to ease the adoption of the new instructions for tool providers and software vendors who develop these performance-intense applications.
Video
ATI R500 On Linux: Then & Now @ Phoronix
Cooling
CoolIT Ram Fan Memory Cooler @ Tweaknews
ETC.
AC Ryan MobiliT Notebook External Battery DV Hardware
MNPCTechs Billet Aluminum Accessories @ Modders Inc.
Cases & Modding
Danger Den Water Box Plus Case (Part 3) @ OCC
Philips has announced the the Aurea HDTV with Ambilight. Apparently women will make out with your wall if you buy one of these. Heck, buy two and get some “hot LCD on LCD action” going.
There has been a lot of talk in our forums about the Inq posting a story noting 30K+ 3DMark 06 scores with a Phenom FX / Agena core AMD next-gen processor. Let me just call a spade a spade here and tell you that this story is wrong. A 3GHz “K10” and 2900 XT CF system as noted below is NOT going to give you a 30K score in 3DMark06.
The particular processor was none other than a single socket Barcelona or Agena FX, call it what you will. The reference motherboard containing RD790 chipset packed two HD 2900XT cards, and the memory installed was Corsair’s Dominator PC2-9136C5D, or the same ones we have been using ever since they came out. There was a Raptor hard drive, and that was about that. OCZ will like the fact that PP&C Quaddie CrossFire PSU was installed in the system.
When clocked at 3.0 GHz and equipped with two overclocked HD2900XT cards in CrossFire, Agena FX or single-core Barcelona smashed an index of 30,000 3DMarks 06.
I know Theo Valich, the author of this story quoted above. While he might have very well seen what is being reported, it is not going to be reproducible in a controlled test environment. I have to think that someone was pulling the wool over his eyes. As for motivations, who knows?
As for what the noted system would score in this popular benchmark, we would have to inform you that the score Theo saw was about 30% to 35% inflated. And while I wish it was going to work out to be true for the gamers and hardware enthusiasts out there, it is just not going to happen. You can take that to the bank. Phenom FX is going to be a great product that will be extremely competitive with current Core 2 architecture, but let's not inflate our expectations artificially.
The California State Assembly has passed a bill that bans drivers under the age of 18 from using a cellphone, pager, walkie-talkie or laptop while driving. Sounds like common sense to me. I mean, who uses a laptop while driving anyway?
The bill, previously approved by the state Senate, goes back there for expected final approval of amendments before it is placed on the desk of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has not decided yet whether he will sign or veto it, officials said.
Remember when Sony said they had plenty of 60GB PS3s to last for the “foreseeable future?” Well, I guess the future is now because the company is now saying that they have no more 60GB PS3s in the warehouse. Don’t panic, there are still plenty sitting on store shelves.
"We no longer have any inventory in SCEA warehouses. All inventory has been purchased and shipped to retailers," Karraker said. "We don't have visibility as to if that is on their store shelves or in their warehouses at this time. However, based on inventory reports from our retailers, there is ample supply still left in the channel."
You know, if you wanted proof that the only thing wrong with the PS3 is the sky-high price tag, this would be it. Drop the price $100 and sales picked up dramatically. Hopefully this means a price cut is in store for the 80GB ($599) unit.
