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Thursday Morning (1 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 16-April-2014 15:48:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A few people pointed out that Optus have a court-ordered correction posted on their homepage. In a television advertisement broadcast from about 26 January 2014 until 18 February 2014, Optus represented that the difference between the Optus mobile network and Telstra's mobile network is minimal and insignificant. The Supreme Court of Victoria has found that by broadcasting the advertisement, Optus engaged in conduct that is misleading and deceptive and made false representations in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

TPG meanwhile have been fined $400k for not ensuring customers could dial emergency numbers. Telco TPG has been fined $400,000 for failing to provide access to emergency numbers for customers who had not paid bills. Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg on Wednesday found TPG failed to give access to triple-0 and 112 on more than 190 occasions between March and September 2011. He also found the company did not ensure that almost 6000 lines had access to emergency numbers over that period.

The ACCC has had a data breach on some of its websites. The affected websites are Recalls Australia, Product Safety Australia, SCAMwatch and the ACCC Public Registers website. The email addresses of some subscribers to the ACCC’s information alert services were inadvertently made accessible online. They were not indexed by search engines or linked from a web page on our sites. They could only be found if specific URLs were tried.

If you have a Windows phone and want to check out the Windows Phone 8.1 Preview for Developers, it seems you now can. Even if you’re not really a developer you can join the Preview for Developers to get Windows Phone 8.1 today. Every handset running Windows Phone 8 in the wild now is capable of the upgrade. Here’s how to get Window Phone 8.1.

Of course you shouldn't use your phone while driving, and Victorian Police can now spot you doing it from more than half a kilometre away. The Herald Sun reports Victoria Police began deploying the cameras last week, which will also focus on selt belt infringements and other distractions such as applying make-up or eating at the wheel. Wait, what? Is eating in a car illegal in NSW too?

Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 16-April-2014 04:51:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock FM2 A85X-ITX on FutureLooks.
Overclocking The AMD AM1 Athlon & Sempron APUs on Phoronix.
Are AMD Athlon/Sempron APUs Fast Enough For Steam On Linux, Steam Machines? on Phoronix.
AMD Athlon 5350 APU and AM1 Platform on LegitReviews.
ECS KBN-I/5200 AMD A6-5200 Mini-ITX on PureOC.
AMD Athlon 5350 / 5150 & Sempron 3850 / 2650 on Phoronix.

Cooling:
Corsair H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.
SilentiumPC Fera 2 HE 1224 CPU Cooler on MadShrimps.
Cooler Master Nepton 140XL CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master Nepton 280L Water Cooler on APHNetworks.
be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.

Cases:
SilverStone PS10 on PureOC.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 HPTX on Tweaktown.
Noctua NH-D15 Dual-Tower CPU Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Scythe IORI Scior 1000 CPU cooler on OCaholic.
Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini-ITX on BenchmarkReviews.
In Win 901 Mini-ITX on HWAsylum.
Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower on NikKTech.

Input Etc:
Mad Catz R.A.T. TE Gaming Mouse on LegitReviews.
SteelSeries Rival Optical Mouse on APHNetworks.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Acer TA272 HUL All-in-One Android desktop on TechSpot.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Android Smartphone on MegaTechNews.
KobraLan Extreme mini-PC on OCaholic.

Storage:
CoreRise Comay BladeDrive E28 1.6TB Enterprise PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD on eTeknix.
Asustor AS-204TE NAS on TechPowerUp.
HGST Ultrastar SSD800MH 12Gb/s SAS3 Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
Kingston 64GB SDXC Class 3 Memory Card & USB 3.0 MobileLite G3 Reader on PureOC.
Thunderbolt 2: Ready for Windows with the ASUS ThunderboltEX II on Tweaktown.
OCZ VERTEX 460 240GB on Vortez.
Plextor M6e 256GB PCI Express SSD on Guru3D.
Samsung XP941 Native PCIe M.2 SSD (512GB) on TechnologyX.
Synology DS414 High Performance 4-bay NAS Server for SMB & SOHO on MadShrimps.
OCZ 240GB Vertex 460 SSD on OCIA.

Video Cards:
XFX Radeon R7 240 Core Edition on HWSecrets.
Powercolor AMD Radeon R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
EVGA Backplate Install for the GTX 780 Ti Classified on HWAsylum.
Gigabyte BRIX Pro And Intel Iris Pro Graphics on HotHardware.

Power Supply:
Xtorm LAVA CHARGER Universal Solar / USB Charger on NikKTech.
EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W on TechPowerUp.

Networking:
Diamond Wireless Range Extender WR300NSI on ThinkComputers.
Linksys WRT1900AC 802.11ac Smart Wireless Router on Tweaktown.

Misc:
DXRacer M-Series Game Chair on LanOC.

Total Lunar Eclipse This Evening (2 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 15-April-2014 06:22:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg

It's been 2.5 years since a total lunar eclipse was observable from Australia - and one's happening tonight. The Total Lunar Eclipse on April 15th, 2014 is well placed for observers in the Western Hemisphere, and will be visible in its entirety for all of North and South America. Most of Europe and Africa experience moonset just as the eclipse begins, while Australians and New Zealands will see the eclipsed moon at Moonrise. None of the eclipse is visible from north/east Europe, eastern Africa, the Middle East or Central Asia.

For Australians and New Zealanders, the eclipse will be in progress at Moonrise. The further East you are, the more of the eclipse you'll see. The Total stage of the eclipse starts at 5:08pm AEST, with Moonrise at 5:28pm AEST and maximum eclipse at around 5:46pm AEST, but will change depending on your timezone. Check the table further below for timings in a city near you.

More info here and discussion here.

Photography Gallery (3 Comments) (link)
Monday, 14-April-2014 11:37:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum.

Monday Lunchtime (13 Comments) (link)
Monday, 14-April-2014 02:42:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The Heartbleed SSL bug remains the top story of the moment, with lots more info from mpot: here's a code analysis of the issue, and the programmer who introduced it claims it was an honest mistake - although some are not convinced. In fact, it's claimed the NSA was aware of and actively exploited the bug for two years. Anyway, here's a list of big sites that were affected and their current status. Discussion continues here.

Xbit have a Haswell memory performance scaling test, while PCPerspective cover AMD APU Memory scaling. Meanwhile OCaholic look at Core i7-4960X 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling. In our 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling articles we're going to investigate 3-way SLI scaling factors with different CPUs and different clock speeds. In eight recent games and two theoretical benchmarks we want to find out what difference 3-way SLI makes, when we run benchmarks with the CPU at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz.

Tech Report looked behind the scenes at Intel's SSD division. The city is home base for Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, otherwise known as NSG, which is responsible for the development and testing of Intel solid-state drives. The NSG had a story to tell about how its design and validation work produces extremely reliable SSDs. We got hard numbers on failure rates, details about efforts to make SSDs more dependable, and a peek behind the scenes at the Folsom facility.

Google Glass will apparently be on limited sale to consumers in the USA. Google Inc will take online orders for its Glass wearable gadget on April 15, in its biggest push to get the $1,500 wraparound Web-ready glasses out to the U.S. public. For a limited time starting Tuesday, Google will make the wearable device available to more than just the select group of users such as apps developers in its Glass Explorer program. In a blogpost, Google did not say how many pairs it would sell, just that the quantity would be limited. I actually saw a Google Glass wearer in the wild the other day, at the AWS Sydney Summit. He was walking around a bit awkwardly, obviously dividing his attention between the screen and the real world.

Tech Report also checked out the Steam Controller. After getting myself killed a few times, I put down the controller and spoke with the Valve guy. Was I just uncommonly clumsy, I asked, or was the learning curve really so steep? To my surprise, he said it personally took him eight hours to get fully acquainted with the Steam controller.

Red Dwarf will be returning for an 11th season! Announced during a panel at the recent Scarborough, England science fiction convention, series eleven of Red Dwarf is currently slated to go into production in October of this year. This could mean we’ll see new episodes as early as soon as the fall of 2015. Initially that sounds like a long wait, but considering how long we’ve waited before, that’s nothing.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this - with ANZAC Day coming up, you can now experience a minute of silence via the web or by phoning a non-free number. Hrm.

Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Sunday, 13-April-2014 15:17:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
Corsair Raptor K40 Gaming Keyboard on eTeknix.
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Gaming Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Cooler Master CM Storm Xornet Gaming Mouse on Tweaknews.
Das Keyboard 4 Professional on HotHardware.
Logitech G400s mouse on LanOC.

Audio Visual:
Wavemaster Stax 2.1 Speaker on eTeknix.
Logitech Bluetooth Audio Adapter on Techgage.
Creative Sound BlasterAxx 200 Axx on TechPowerUp.
Acer S241HL bmid 24-inch 5ms Full HD Monitor on Tweaktown.
BenQ XL2720Z Gaming Monitor on FunkyKit.
Rosewill R-Studio Ampbox Bluetooth Speaker on LegitReviews.
Vizio 54" Soundbar 3.0 on GamingNexus.

Video Cards:
ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II on XbitLabs.
Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate Passive 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
GIGABYTE R9 290X OC WINDFORCE 3X on FunkyKit.
XFX Radeon R9 280X 3GB Double D Black Edition OC on Tweaktown.

Storage:
Intel 730 Solid State Drive on XbitLabs.
Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3.0 External Drive Case on LegitReviews.
Plextor M6e 512GB PCI Express Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB USB 3.0 External HDD on Tweaktown.
Crucial M550 256GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Plextor M6M mSATA SSD (256GB) on Tweaktown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Verizon Wireless Nokia Lumia Icon on LanOC.
ASUS-G10AC-1B prebuilt desktop on OCaholic.

Cases:
Cougar MX300 Midtower Gaming Case on TechnologyX.
BitFenix Shadow on OCaholic.
Cooler Master HAF Stacker on TechPowerUp.

Cooling:
Dark Rock Pro 3 by beQuiet! CPU cooler on TechWareLabs.
Deepcool Gamer Storm Gabriel on Modders-Inc.
Enermax Liqtech 120X CPU cooler on OCaholic.
Thermalright Silver Arrow IB-E CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Enermax ETS-T40 Black Twister CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
SilverStone Tundra Series TD03 All-in-One Liquid Cooler on PCPerspective.

Memory:
AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 DDR3 RAM on BenchmarkReviews.
ADATA XPG V2 PC3-19200 16GB Dual Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB 1600MHz C10 Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit on MadShrimps.

Misc:
Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Wireless Router on NikKTech.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X motherboard on Bjorn3D.

Misc Pics (19 Comments) (link)
Friday, 11-April-2014 02:47:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to brodsta and IntelInside this week!

Gigabyte Z97 Competition (3 Comments) (link)
Friday, 11-April-2014 01:31:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg

GIGABYTE and the OCAU HWBot team are running a contest, so if you feel like gettin' your benchmark on and winning some stuff, check it out:

click for the thread!

Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Friday, 11-April-2014 01:03:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini AM1 APU on Modders-Inc.
AMD Athlon 5350 APU On Linux on Phoronix.
AMD AM1 Athlon 5350 on PCPerspective.
AMD AM1 Platform with Athlon 5350 and MSI AM1i Motherboard on HWHeaven.
AMD “Kabini” AM1 Athlon 5350 APU (FS1b) on eTeknix.
AAEON EMB-BT1: A Linux-Friendly, Mini-ITX, Atom "Bay Trail" Board on Phoronix.
Biostar A88W Hi-Fi 3D ATX Motherboard on PureOC.
GIGABYTE GA-7PESH3 (Intel C602) on Tweaktown.
MSI Z87M-GAMING on MadShrimps.

Portable & Prebuilt:
iOCEAN X7S 8-core Smartphone on MadShrimps.
HTC One M8 on TechSpot.
ASRock Rack 2U12L6SC-2TS6 Barebones Server Kit on Tweaktown.
Gumstick Smartphone Stand on Bjorn3D.
NVIDIA SHIELD OTA Update & Performance Review on LegitReviews.
Razer Edge Pro gaming tablet on HWHeaven.

Power Supply:
Pivos MANA 2200 mAh Battery Pack on Bjorn3D.
Super Flower Leadex Platinum 1200W PSU on TechPowerUp.
Cougar CMX V3 850-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze on Tweaktown.
ADATA PV100 Power Bank on BenchmarkReviews.
LUXA2 P-MEGA 41600mAh World’s Largest Power Station on eTeknix.

Friday Morning (11 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 10-April-2014 15:43:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The "Heartbleed" SSL bug has had quite an impact across the web. Given the affected software has been so widely used for more than two years and attracted a lot of attention while people were scrambling to patch servers, you might want to think about changing your passwords for important services. This issue didn't affect OCAU directly but it's a good idea to change your password occasionally anyway, and of course, don't use the same password in multiple places. If you want to know if a site you use has been affected, here's a webpage which can check for you. Discussion here.

From Matt: You may know that Microsoft stopped update and security support for windows XP this month. What you may not know is that, obviously in an attempt to burn all bridges with anybody living in reality, Microsoft also is planning to stop home-user support for Windows 7 next year, pushing everybody to upgrade to the operating system that nobody wants, Windows 8 (or possibly by that point, Windows 9).

Or you could pay millions like the Dutch government, thanks Gunna. The government of the Netherlands has struck a multimillion Euro deal with Microsoft to secure continued support for its Windows XP systems, according to a report published on 4 April in Dutch News.

Here's an odd one: Three companies, Fuel Entertainment, Xbox Entertainment Studios and LightBox Entertainment plan on digging up portions of an old Alamogordo landfill located near First Street and White Sands Boulevard to search for Atari "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" game cartridges purportedly buried there in the 1980s. The burial is somewhat of an urban legend among video game enthusiasts.

NASA have released lots of software into the public domain. NASA on Thursday opened up access to the software created for various missions and operations with the publication of a catalog by the space agency's Technology Transfer Program, which points interested parties to methods for obtaining code that interests them.

The mainframe is 50 years old now, and ITWorld have an interesting article about how the S/360 changed everything. Before the System/360 introduction, manufacturers built each new computer model from scratch. Sometimes machines were even built individually for each customer. Software designed to run on one machine would not work on other machines, even from the same manufacturer. The operating system for each computer had to be built from scratch as well.

Thursday Evening Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 10-April-2014 08:54:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Tuesday Afternoon (6 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 8-April-2014 07:11:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A bug in OpenSSL has put encrypted communications at risk, with more coverage here and here, thanks schnappy. Even if you’ve never heard of OpenSSL, it’s probably a part of your life in one way or another — or, more likely, in many ways. The apps you use, the sites you visit; if they encrypt the data they send back and forth, there’s a good chance they use OpenSSL to do it. The Apache web server that powers something like 50% of the Internet’s web sites, for example, utilizes OpenSSL.

This from OCAU member anthonyl: Here is my little company "Fans On Board" TV debut on The Today Show yesterday.. Im hoping to raise over a million dollars for 3 charities.. Make-A-Wish Australia, Starlight Children's Foundation and Eden Dora Trust in the UK.. the video explains how.. Here's the Today Show video with more info.

AMD have a new FirePro W9100. First announced last month, the FirePro W9100 is AMD’s new flagship FirePro video card. Based on AMD’s Hawaii GPU, the FirePro W9100 is a fairly straightforward update to AMD’s FirePro lineup, bringing with it the various GCN 1.1 feature upgrades along with Hawaii’s stronger overall performance and greatly improved double precision (FP64) performance.

Video game related aggression may be more about sucking at the game rather than in-game violence, according to a new study. However, only some of the gamers were given a tutorial before playing the game so they could familiarise themselves with the controls and game mechanics. The researchers found that it was the players who had not had the tutorial who felt less competent and more aggressive, rather than people who had played the more violent version of the game.

If you use Windows 8 and miss the start bar, there's good news, everybody. At its Build conference today, Microsoft announced a new Start Menu that looks like a hybrid of the best of Windows 7 and Windows 8. It's around the same size as the Windows 7 menu, but also features miniature Live Tiles along one side.

A five year old has hacked the Xbox login system - by hitting the spacebar, thanks mpot. Kristoffer Von Hassel uncovered a vulnerability in Xbox Live's password system, that would allow someone to log into a Xbox player's account without their password. Kristoffer's parents noticed he was logging into his father's Xbox Live account simply by tapping the space bar.

Seagate has a new 6TB HDD, with more info here. Seagate has joined Western Digital’s previously exclusive 6TB hard drive club, with the enterprise-class 7,200 RPM ST6000NM0004. Priced at around $600 (similar to WD’s Ultrastar He6), Seagate’s new drive isn’t likely to find a home in your gaming rig or office workstation — but that’s not really the point of ultra-high-end hardware, anyway. No, the main reason you should be excited about Seagate’s 6TB drive is that the technology that makes such capacities possible will trickle down to mainstream drives, resulting in cheaper 4TB desktop drives, and hopefully the arrival of 2.5-inch 3TB laptop hard drives.

MSI Australia OCAU Easter Giveaway (0 Comments) (link)
Monday, 7-April-2014 03:53:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Another giveaway! This time, MSI Australia are offering the chance to win a SteelSeries gaming headset or mouse:

click for the thread!

Sunday Night Reviews (1 Comments) (link)
Sunday, 6-April-2014 13:30:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Audio Visual:
Amazon Fire TV on Phoronix.
D-Link DCS-2330L Outdoor HD Network Camera on Tweaktown.
GAMDIAS EROS Surround Sound Gaming Headset on FutureLooks.
VidaBox OpenSqueeze Network Players on TechPowerUp.
Sigma USB Dock on MartyBugs.
Cooler Master CM Storm Pitch Gaming Earphones on MadShrimps.

Cases:
In Win 904 on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake Urban T81 Extreme Full Tower on eTeknix.
Coolermaster HAF Stacker 935, 315R & 315F Modular Chassis on eTeknix.
Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini-ITX Chassis on Tweaktown.

Input Etc:
Bloody G501 Headset, B120 Keyboard and ZL5A Mouse on HWHeaven.
Logitech G19s keyboard on LanOC.
ROCCAT Ryos MK Pro Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.

Storage:
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 SED 4TB SATA III HDD on NikKTech.
Lexar S73 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
OWC ThunderBay IV 8TB Thunderbolt External Storage Drive on Tweaktown.
Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB USB 3.0 External HDD on Tweaktown.
Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable HDD on Techgage.
Inateck USB 3.0 PCI Express Add-On Card on Tweaktown.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512 GB on OCaholic.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 256GB SSD on eTeknix.

Video Cards:
HIS Radeon R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
MSI Radeon R9 290X Lightning Overclocked on Tweaktown.
AMD XFX Radeon R7 250 Core Edition Passive 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
Sapphire Radeon R9 280 Dual-X 3GB OC on Tweaktown.
ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC on OCaholic.

Power Supply:
LUXA2 TX-200 Dual Wireless Qi Charging Station on LegitReviews.
Pivos MANA 5200mAh & 2200mAh Portable Battery Packs on ThinkComputers.

Cooling:
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler on PureOC.
ARCTIC Accelero Hybrid II-120 Air/Liquid Cooler on NikKTech.

Misc:
Kingston HyperX Genesis LoVo 16GB DDR3-1600 CL9 memory on FunkyKit.
ASUS Maximus VI Gene motherboard on ThinkComputers.
Nokia Lumia Icon Review: Verizon's Windows Phone 8 Flagship on HotHardware.

Daylight Savings (5 Comments) (link)
Sunday, 6-April-2014 01:59:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

If you were confused about time this morning, it's because daylight savings has ended in affected states. Daylight Saving Time begins at 2am on the first Sunday in October, when clocks are put forward one hour. It ends at 2am (which is 3am Daylight Saving Time) on the first Sunday in April, when clocks are put back one hour. If your forum timestamping looks wrong, fiddle with the settings in UserCP.

Misc Pics (25 Comments) (link)
Friday, 4-April-2014 02:56:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Friday again!

Geek Food (1 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 3-April-2014 09:28:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's some yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:

Salmon and Potato Sushi
by sbm888

Salmon with Yuzu and Shiso
by sbm888

Brisket in a Weber Q
by mmBax

Goat Curry (Pressure Cooker)
by no5isalive

Turkish Baklava
by Alper

and sgtraven reports from
the TopShelf Festival

Thursday Midday (4 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 3-April-2014 01:49:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft in a few days, but it's still going strong. March was the fifth full month of availability for Microsoft’s latest operating system version: Windows 8.1 continues to steadily grow while Windows 8 managed to stay flat, allowing the duo together to finally crack 11 percent market share. Meanwhile, with only a week left of support, Windows XP still has more than 27 percent of the pie.

The new NBN boss arrived this week. To say he faces a tough challenge is an understatement of international proportions. Never before in his life has the executive faced the level of scrutiny, animosity and politicking that the $41 billion national broadband network’s construction will throw at him.

The UK Government are updating their copyright laws for the digital age. The changes make small but important reforms to UK copyright law and aim to end the current situation where minor and reasonable acts of copying which benefit consumers, society and the economy are unlawful. They also remove a range of unnecessary rules and regulations from the statute book in line with the government’s aim to reduce regulation.

Closer to home, a couple of weeks ago the Minister for Justice released legislation to streamline the classification system in Australia. The reforms remove the need for reclassification when minor changes are made to computer games, such as software updates, bug fixes, or even when a new song is added to a karaoke game. Films that were modified to play on the small screen of an aeroplane in-flight service, or movies changing from 2D to 3D, will no longer require reclassification.

An autocorrect SNAFU apparently led to lots of people donating to the wrong charity. In order to donate to Cancer Research UK, you had to text the word “BEAT”, to a generic donations number but instead some charitable folks’ generous donations were auto-corrected to “BEARS”, resulting in them adopting a polar bear, rather than donating to Cancer Research.

You probably want to skip this story if you're squeamish, but neurosurgeons have successfully implanted a 3D-printed section of skull. The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not been rejected by the patient.

Tech Report look at DirectX 12 in more detail. We already covered the basics of DirectX 12 amid the GDC frenzy. Now that we've had time to study our notes from the show, we can delve into a little more detail about the new API's inception, the key ways in which it differs from DirectX 11, and what AMD and Nvidia think about it.

This video is from October but I don't recall seeing it before - 3M demonstrating an immersion bath cooler. This is a demonstration rig that shows off submersion cooling with one of the Novec products from 3M. A normal commercial motherboard is partially submerged (the CPU is fully submerged) in the liquid and cools the components without any issues like thermal buildup or short circuiting.

TechSpot explore how much effect video formats and players can affect battery life. Over the course of the last two weeks, I’ve been digging deep into what the optimal playback setup is for lengthening battery life. Throughout more than 145 hours of testing, I’ve looked at a range of Windows video players, including the stock Windows 8 app, Windows Media Player, VLC and MPC-HC, plus many encoding formats such as H.264, Xvid, and the all-new HEVC format.

If you've been hooked on one of the various versions of 2048, you might be interested in this article, thanks Matt. Because the story is basically wrong: 2048 is summarily a free public mod of 1024, which is a rip-off of Threes. Threes, by Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend, is a game made by people the game development community know and like. It addresses the Flappy Bird phenomenon also.

Thursday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 3-April-2014 01:16:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
ROCCAT Kone Pure Gaming Mouse LanOC.
Tt eSPORTS Saphira Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.
ROCCAT Siru Gaming Mousepad on BenchmarkReviews.

Video Cards:
XFX Radeon R9 290 Double Dissipation on LegitReviews.
AMD XFX Radeon R7 240 Core Edition Passive 2GB DDR3 on eTeknix.

Storage:
Toshiba PX02SS 12Gb/s SAS3 Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
SSD Endurance Diary with OCZ Vector 256 GB on OCaholic.

Cases:
Fractal ARC MINI R2 on MadShrimps.
NZXT H440 Silent Mid-tower on Modders-Inc.

Misc:
Seasonic S12G 450W on TechPowerUp.
Noctua NH-U12S, NH-U14S and NH-D14 CPU Coolers on HWHeaven.

2014 April Fools (6 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 2-April-2014 06:34:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

I'm always wary about posting news on April 1st and 2nd, but here's a few I'm pretty sure ARE pranks: iiNet have Pet-Fi, while Telstra have a Pet Phone (FB link) and Birdseye had Chocolated Coated Peas (FB link). Tony Abbott is supportive of his lesbian dog, Google Maps have Pokemon to catch and Vegemite have a new energy drink (FB link). HL3 is coming but EA own it, Japanese train commuters will have scent alerts of upcoming stations, while OCInside have an SSD Puncher to double their capacity. Tesla Motors are releasing cars to match iPhones.

Let me know in the comments if you spotted any other good ones out there!

Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 2-April-2014 06:24:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Storage:
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 SSD Family on HotHardware.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 2.5" SSD Full Capacity Roundup on PCPerspective.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 1TB SSD on Tweaktown.
Adata's Premiere Pro SP920 solid-state drive on TechReport.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 SSD (512GB) on TechnologyX.
SanDisk Extreme II 240GB 6-Drive SSD RAID on Tweaktown.
ADATA SP920 SSD on TheSSDReview.
Intel 730 SSD on Guru3D.
Crucial M550 512 GB on TechPowerUp.
Seagate 600 Pro 200GB 2-Drive SSD RAID on Tweaktown.
Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 16GB USB2.0 Flash Drive on eTeknix.
HGST Ultrastar He6 6TB Helium Enterprise HDD on Tweaktown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
ASUS Zenbook UX301LA on Phoronix.
MSI Nightblade Barebone System on Modders-Inc.

Input Etc:
Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Hybrid Gaming Mouse on NikKTech.
Ozone Strike Pro Gaming Keyboard on RBMods.
Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014 on LanOC.

Cooling:
Corsair H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Silverstone NB04 Notebook Cooler on eTeknix.

Cases:
Microcool Banchetto 101 testbed case on OCaholic.
Raidmax Cobra Z on PureOC.
BitFenix Colossus Micro-ATX on PCPerspective.
Corsair Graphite 760T Full Tower on LegitReviews.
NZXT H230 on ThinkComputers.
Corsair Graphite 760T on TechPowerUp.
Corsair Graphite Series 760T Full Tower on MadShrimps.

Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon R7-240 Dual HDMI on Bjorn3D.
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II OC watercooling vs aircooling on OCaholic.
Sapphire Radeon R9 270 Dual-X 2GB OC Overclocked on Tweaktown.
GeForce GTX Titan vs. GTX 780 Ti on OCaholic.

Audio Visual:
Attitude 1 Almaz Multi-Format Headset on eTeknix.
BitFenix Flo Gaming Headset on BenchmarkReviews.
KGUARD Easy Link EL421-4HW212B Surveillance Camera Kit on APHNetworks.

Misc:
Linksys EA6900 WiFi Smart Router AC1900 on HWHeaven.
be quiet! Pure Power L8 700W on FutureLooks.

Win a FUNC Mousing Surface from Scorptec! (4 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 1-April-2014 01:53:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OCAU Major Sponsor Scorptec have another competition for us - this time you can win a FUNC mousing surface:

click for the thread!

Facebook and OCAU Announce Ocaulus Headset (63 Comments) (link)
Monday, 31-March-2014 13:03:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Acquisition positions Facebook to accelerate growth into the forum space

MENLO PARK, CALIF. - March 31st, 2014 - Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire OCAU Pty Ltd, the leader in immersive forum technology, for an undisclosed sum. The agreement also provides for an additional earn-out based on the achievement of certain milestones.

OCAU is the leader in immersive forum technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received several orders for development kits for the company's forum headset, the Ocaulus Thrift. While the applications for forum technology beyond general discussion are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend OCAU's existing advantage to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas. Given these broad potential applications, forum technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform.

OCAU's Ground-breaking Forum Headset

"Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. "OCAU has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate. Also, they keep appearing in my type-ahead when I look up stuff for Oculus VR so it was easiest to just buy them too."

"We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best forum platform in the world," said James Rolfe, founder and CEO of OCAU. "We believe forums will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning. Also, with the money involved I can get some new tyres for my car, and maybe a takeaway."

OCAU will maintain its headquarters in NSW, Australia and will continue development of the Ocaulus Thrift, its ground-breaking forum headset.

Edit: April Fools, obviously. :) I can finally take this thing off!

OCAU-themed Sim Racing Cockpit (0 Comments) (link)
Monday, 31-March-2014 01:17:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's something special - an OCAU-themed sim racing cockpit from mrbean_phillip:

click for the thread!

Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Sunday, 30-March-2014 14:44:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
Biostar Hi-Fi A88W 3D (AMD FM2+) on TechPowerUp.
ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer on PureOC.
Intel Core i7-4930K vs Core i7-3930K SLI Gaming-Performance on OCaholic.

Video Cards:
PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 290X 4GB on LegitReviews.
Sapphire Dual-X R9 280 OC on LanOC.

Cases:
Aerocool GT-S White Full Tower on eTeknix.
Corsair Obsidian 450D on OCaholic.
Rosewill RSV-Z2600 3U Rackmount Server Chassis on Tweaktown.
XFX Type 01 Bravo on OCClub.
Corsair Graphite Series 730T & 760T Full Tower on eTeknix.
Corsair Graphite 760T on OCaholic.
Corsair Graphite Series 760T on Guru3D.
Corsair Graphite 760T Full-Tower on Tweaktown.
Corsair Graphite 760T on Vortez.

Storage:
Samsung SSD 840 EVO mSATA on HotHardware.
Toshiba MQ01ABD100H 1TB SSHD on NikKTech.

Audio Visual:
Rollei Sunglasses Cam 100 on NikKTech.
Bit Fenix Flo Headset on FunkyKit.
PAPAGO! P2 Pro Dashcam on eTeknix.
PAPAGO! P3 Dashcam on BenchmarkReviews.
Turtle Beach Ear Force i60 Wireless Headset on LegitReviews.

Cooling:
Corsair H105 Hydro Series All-In-One 240mm Water Cooler on eTeknix.
Cooler Master Glacer 240L All-in-One Liquid Cooler on PCPerspective.

Input Etc:
Vortex KBT Race II Mechanical Keyboard on HardCoreWare.
Ozone Boson Portable Gaming Mouse Pad on FunkyKit.

Power Supply:
Raidmax RX-1000AE 1000W Power Supply on ThinkComputers.
Limefuel Blast L240X 24,000mAh External Portable Battery on Tweaktown.
Pivos Mana 5200mAh Battery Pack on Bjorn3D.

Misc:
GT Omega Pro Racing Office Chair on HWHeaven.
Cyberpower Zeus Mini prebuilt PC on Bjorn3D.

Misc Pics (39 Comments) (link)
Friday, 28-March-2014 03:27:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to Jason this week!

Friday Morning (13 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 27-March-2014 14:25:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg

This is news to me - Australian digital TV receivers will need to be retuned soon (and some areas may have already been required to). Some TV channels are changing their frequency as the final step in the move to digital-only TV. You'll need to retune your TV, set-top box or digital recorder when these changes happen in your area. If you don't, you won't be able to receive all free-to-air digital TV channels.

NVIDIA have unveiled their next-gen GPU "Pascal", with coverage on Anandtech, Tweaktown, Tech Report and HotHardware. Pascal is NVIDIA’s latest GPU architecture and is being introduced in between Maxwell and Volta. In the process it has absorbed old Maxwell’s unified virtual memory support and old Volta’s on-package DRAM, integrating those feature additions into a single new product.

Mpot sent in this story about one of the largest bitcoin mining setups on the planet. Carlson has to keep expanding and upgrading his processing power to remain at seven to 10 percent of the world's Bitcoin mining. Global hashing power is estimated at about 39.5 petahash, putting Carlson's 2.2 petahash at about 5.6 percent of the world's total. Carlson intends to add another petahash within a month, bringing his percentage up to about 8 percent.

Owen spotted this handy portable stove which can boil water and charge your phone (amazon affiliate link). The BioLite Wood Burning CampStove combines the benefits of a lightweight backpacking stove and an off-grid power charger so you can cook a meal while charging your gadgets. The Campstove is the perfect solution for both the backcountry campsite and also Emergency Preparedness Kits.

eBay are apparently going to be taking a slice of the shipping cost from sellers. Hundreds of thousands of Australian users will receive an email this morning that says from May 6 “final value fees” will apply not only to the sale price but postage. The move is likely to be unpopular with many sellers who are already paying final value fees of as much as 9.9 per cent — up from 5.25 per cent three years ago.

Microsoft have released the source code for early versions of MS-DOS and Word, thanks mpot. Tony_L spotted more info on the Word side of things here, and there's some hidden jokes in the MS-DOS code. Yesterday, Microsoft and the Computer History Museum released the source code for early versions of Microsoft’s MS-DOS and Word programs, which one developer ciphered through and found hidden jokes.

Meanwhile Word 2010 has a security issues with RTF files, with a little more info here. Microsoft says it's aware of attacks going on now, but there's no fix yet to stop the hackers. It's working on a way to stop the bug. The only way to be sure your computer won't get infected is not to open a document with the .rtf file extension until Microsoft says it's fine to do so.

Some more headlines from the recent Game Developer's Conference: Microsoft DirectX 12 and Windows 7 Support and AMD RapidFire and Cloud Gaming on BenchmarkReviews. AMD's More-Open Linux Driver Strategy on Phoronix. NVIDIA Talks High Performance Graphics APIs on HotHardware.

Today's timewaster is Diamond Hollow II, a mouse+kb platformer that reminds me of an Amiga game I can't quite remember the name of.. or if you're still hooked on "2048" from yesterday, try the inevitable doge version.

Thursday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 27-March-2014 12:24:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Audio Visual:
CM Storm Pulse-R Aluminum Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Netgear VueZone VZSX2800 Wireless Surveillance Camera Kit on eTeknix.
Creative Airwave Wireless Bluetooth Speaker on MegaTechNews.
Wavemaster STAX 2.1 Speaker on HWHeaven.

Storage:
Kingston 32GB DataTraveler microDUO OTG USB Flash Drive on FutureLooks.
Western Digital Purple Surveillance Storage 4TB HDD on Tweaktown.
Kingston SDXC UHS-1 Speed Class 3 Flash Card (64GB) on TheSSDReview.
Thecus N7510 on LegionHW.
Mach Xtreme Technology MX-LX 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on MadShrimps.
LSI MegaRAID SAS3 9361-8i 12Gb/s RAID Controller on Tweaktown.
OCZ Vertex 460 - 240GB SSD on FunkyKit.

Input Etc:
Func MS-3 Revision 2 Gaming Mouse on PureOC.
iRocks Spirit Cocoon Illuminated Mouse on eTeknix.
ROCCAT Ryos MK Advanced Mechanical Keyboard on Tweaktown.

Video Cards:
Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X Edition on TechWareLabs.
Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X Tri-X OC on ThinkComputers.
ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 on LegitReviews.
ASUS ROG Poseidon GTX 780 on PCPerspective.
ASUS Radeon R9-290X Matrix on Guru3D.

Cooling:
SilentiumPC Fera 2 HE 1224 CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Phanteks PH-F140 (XP, SP, SP_LED) Case Fan on OCClub.
Enermax ETS-T40 CPU cooler on OCAholic.

Cases:
In Win tou Review: All-Glass Case on TechSpot.
Corsair's Obsidian Series 450D enclosure on TechReport.
SilverStone Grandia GD08 HTPC Case on OCIA.
SilverStone Raven RVZ01 Mini-ITX on Phoronix.
Corsair Obsidian Series 450D Performance Mid-Tower on PCPerspective.
Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 on OCaholic.
AZZA CSAZ-XT1 Full-Tower Gaming Case on BenchmarkReviews.
Corsair Obsidian 450D on Vortez.
Corsair Obsidian 450D on TechPowerUp.
Lian Li PC-A79 Full-Tower on Tweaktown.
Corsair Obsidian 450D Mid-Tower on eTeknix.
Corsair Obsidian 450D Mid-Tower on LegitReviews.

Misc:
Rosewill RGS-108P POE Gigabit Network Switch on Modders-Inc.
Silverstone SST-PB03 AA Emergency Battery Pack on eTeknix.
G.Skill RipjawsX PC3-17000 8GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.
Acer Iconia B1 Tablet on HWSecrets.

Wednesday Night (7 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 26-March-2014 12:53:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Quite a lot of enthusiasts are up in arms at the news that Facebook have bought Oculus VR, creators of the Rift, for $2B. Notch has gone so far as to cancel a Minecraft version for the Rift in direct response to the deal. "Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. "Oculus has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate." Which is interesting, because it sounds like they're almost taking aim at Google Glass rather than the previous gaming focus of Rift. It's also interesting because Oculus basically started from a Kickstarter campaign and has now hit the bigtime. Anyway, more here and here, with discussion towards the end of this thread.

NVIDIA have announced their Titan Z - a $3000 USD video card. More here. Continuing the TITAN legacy of supercomputer-inspired performance, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang unveiled the GeForce GTX TITAN Z today at our annual GPU Technology Conference. Built around two Kepler GPUs and 12GB of dedicated frame buffer memory, TITAN Z is engineered for next-generation 5K and multi-monitor gaming.

Dogecoin continue to become more serious while maintaining their tongue-in-cheek status - now sponsoring a NASCAR racer. First dogecoin funds the Jamaican bobsled team, and now their very own NASCAR racer. We may just be dealing with the next big thing in sports sponsorship, just as it's growing up. Too bad, Nike.

Tweaktown have an OCZ Storage. This past week, we sat down with Alex Mei from OCZ Storage Solutions to discuss topics including past, present and OCZ's future as part of Toshiba. Meanwhile PCPerspective checked out Intel's SSD poduction and testing. Today I'm going to lay out one of the more impressive things I saw at the briefings, and that is the process Intel goes through to ensure their products are among the most solid and reliable in the industry.

Tech Report have some info on DirectX 12. When Microsoft announced DirectX 12 yesterday, we learned that a broad swath of existing hardware would support the new API. That wasn't the whole story, however, as Nvidia's Tony Tamasi clarified in an interview with us today. It turns out that DirectX 12 will introduce a set of new features in addition to the lower-level abstraction, and those features will require new hardware. There's some more info over here on PCPerspective.

Today's timewaster is 2048, a sliding puzzle game from biatch.

Forum Projects (1 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 25-March-2014 07:43:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's some interesting projects from people in the forums:

bundymania has compared
26x 360mm radiators

crocodaVe is making
brass watercooling pipes

havabeer has the same
but with stainless steel

Davo1111 reviewed the
Acer C720 Chromebook

bundymania reviewed the
CM Storm 500 headset

and Soc is
building a house!

Tuesday Afternoon (1 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 25-March-2014 06:42:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg

If you're going on a gaming binge, remember to take regular breaks, and don't drink 4 litres of energy drinks in a sitting. Dahl, 14, had been playing the shooter on his school's LAN with friends when, taking a break in the cafeteria, he collapsed. Rushed to hospital, his kidneys failed and he slipped into a coma. Turns out he'd consumed 4 litres of energy drinks to sustain the session, which far exceeds any kind of manufacturer's warning or shred of common sense.

Michael Malone has left iiNet, thanks alch. After 20 years growing a small Perth-based internet service provider into one of Australia's biggest telecommunications companies, iiNet chief executive Michael Malone says he faces "a long dark road ahead" as he quits the job. The outgoing chief executive and major iiNet shareholder says he can't rule out selling his shares in the company over the next 12 months. iiNet acting CEO and chief financial officer David Buckingham will take over from Mr Malone while a search is conducted for his replacement, the company said on Friday.

eTeknix have another 4K gaming showdown. In this article we will be doing a “smackdown” of Nvidia GTX 780 Ti SLI against AMD R9 290X SLI in a variety of games. Based on specified MSRPs the GTX 780 Ti SLI ($699 x 2) is a much more expensive option than the AMD R9 290Xs ($549 x 2) but with recent (mining induced) inflationary pricing on AMD R9 290X graphics cards the pricing is actually a lot closer than you might think and so it begs the question – which combination should you choose for the best 4K Gaming experience?

PandoDaily report on an alleged agreement between tech giants involving not poaching staff from each other. Confidential internal Google and Apple memos, buried within piles of court dockets and reviewed by PandoDaily, clearly show that what began as a secret cartel agreement between Apple’s Steve Jobs and Google’s Eric Schmidt to illegally fix the labor market for hi-tech workers, expanded within a few years to include companies ranging from Dell, IBM, eBay and Microsoft, to Comcast, Clear Channel, Dreamworks, and London-based public relations behemoth WPP. All told, the combined workforces of the companies involved totals well over a million employees.

Meanwhile the good news is that, while Google ARE working on advanced humanoid robots to enslave, err, assist us all, they have rejected military funding of the project. Google isn’t interested in taking money from DARPA because its ambitions are in the more lucrative consumer market, and any association with DARPA leads to headlines like, "What the heck will Google do with these scary military robots?" DARPA doesn’t want to give Google money because it wants to use its $2.7 billion budget to fund startups with scarce resources, not Goliath tech companies, and its investments are supposed to seed technology that can one day be purchased by the Pentagon for national defense, which Google is unlikely to play along with.

NASA have a new 360 degree view of our galaxy. Spitzer, launched into space in 2003 and has spent more than 10 years studying everything from asteroids in our solar system to the most remote galaxies at the edge of the observable universe. In this time, it has spent a total of 4,142 hours (172 days) taking pictures of the disk, or plane, of our Milky Way galaxy in infrared light. This is the first time those images have been stitched together into a single, expansive view.

From Nathan: FREE TO PLAY is a feature-length documentary that follows three professional gamers from around the world as they compete for a million dollar prize in the first Dota 2 International Tournament. In recent years, E Sports has surged in popularity to become one of the most widely-practiced forms of competitive sport today. A million dollar tournament changed the landscape of the gaming world and for those elite players at the top of their craft, nothing would ever be the same again. Produced by Valve, the film documents the challenges and sacrifices required of players to compete at the highest level.

Tuesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 25-March-2014 06:04:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cases:
INWIN 901 Mini-ITX PC Chassis on TechnologyX.
Corsair Graphite 760T full-tower on OCaholic.
Anidees AI-4 M-ATX Silenced Chassis on eTeknix.
XFX TYPE01 Bravo on HWHeaven.
Aerocool DS Cube on MadShrimps.
Fractal Design ARC Mini R2 on FunkyKit.
Microcool Banchetto K on OCaholic.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Sony SmartWatch 2 on Tweaktown.
CyberpowerPC Zeus Mini-I 780 mITX System on LegitReviews.

Storage:
Intel 730 SSD on HWHeaven.
Icy Dock Blizzard 3.5" SATA Enclosure on LanOC.
WD My Cloud EX2 Personal Cloud Server on HotHardware.
Seagate Savvio 15K.3 Enterprise HDD on Tweaktown.
OCZ Vector 150 240GB SATA III 2.5" SSD on MadShrimps.
Kingston Technology E50 Enterprise 240GB SSD on Futurelooks.

Audio Visual:
Ozone Onda PRO on Vortez.
SteelSeries H Wireless Gaming Headset on GamingNexus.
ROCCAT Kave XTD 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headphones on Techgage.
Bose Soundlink Mini Speaker on FunkyKit.

Input Etc:
Roccat Kone Pure Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Speedlink Xeox Pro Analogue Wireless PlayStation 3 & PC Gamepad on eTeknix.
Func MS-3 Revision 2 w/F-Series 10 L on APHNetworks.
Ozone Neon Precision Laser Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
Ducky Shine 3 Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Corsair Raptor K40 keyboard on Guru3D.
Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014 (Razer Green Switches) keyboard on CustomPCReview.
CM Storm Trigger-Z keyboard on OCaholic.
Steelseries Rival Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit.

Video Cards:
XFX R7 240 on OCClub.
Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti Windforce on PureOC.
MSI R9 290X LIGHTNING on Vortez.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti Video Card Roundup on LegitReviews.

Power Supply:
Antec TruePower Classic 650W on NikKTech.
Cooler Master V Series 850W on PCPerspective.
Silverstone Strider Essential ST60F-ESB 600W on TechPowerUp.

Networking:
Netgear Nighthawk R7000 AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Router on Tweaktown.
Netgear Nighthawk R7000 AC1900 Wireless Router on LegitReviews.

Memory:
Kingston HyperX Predator 8GB DDR3-2400 Kit on OCIA.
AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 Memory Series on FunkyKit.

Misc:
ASUS Z87 Gryphon motherboard & armor kit on PCGamers.
Thermolab LP53 CPU cooler on OCaholic.

Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Sunday, 23-March-2014 14:05:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Portable & Prebuilt:
Asrock Vision HT 420D mini-PC on LegionHW.
Acer Iconia W4 tablet on TechSpot.
Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 on HotHardware.

Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z87X-UD7 TH on HWSecrets.
Intel Core i7-4960X Ivy Bridge-E CPU on TechWareLabs.
AMD Kaveri A10-7850K Overclocking – Unleashing GCN’s Potential on eTeknix.
Asus Gryphon Z87 LGA 1150 Mainboard on XbitLabs.
Intel Core i7-4930K SLI Gaming Performance Scaling on OCaholic.
Gigabyte's G1.Sniper 5 on TechReport.
AMD A10-7850K Kaveri APU Processor on Modders-Inc.

Audio Visual:
Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Gaming Headset (Iron White) on MadShrimps.
ASUS Cerberus Gaming Headset Video Review on HWHeaven.
Creative Sound BlasterAxx AXX 200 Intelligent Wireless Sound System on MegaTechNews.

Storage:
Western Digital WD Black² 2.5-inch Dual Drive (SSD + HDD) on Modders-Inc.
Crucial M550 128GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Crucial M550 512GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
WD My Cloud 2TB Personal Cloud Storage on ThinkComputers.
Seagate Desktop SSHD 4TB on NikKTech.
Samsung 840 EVO Solid State Drive on XbitLabs.
SilverStone CP11 SATA Cable on APHNetworks.
WD Xe 10k SAS 2.5-inch Enterprise HDD on Tweaktown.
Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 16GB Flash Drive on FunkyKit.

Video Cards:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti in 2-way SLI: Performance Review on XbitLabs.
MSI Radeon R9 290X Twin Frozr Gaming OC Overclocked on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Vapor-X R9 280X TRI-X OC on OCClub.
Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti on HWAsylum.
Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ 4GB on eTeknix.

Misc Pics (53 Comments) (link)
Friday, 21-March-2014 02:53:07 (GMT +10) - by Rezin

Thanks to Jackoschitt and blinky this week!

1990 Computers Page (26 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 20-March-2014 08:55:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Walshy sent in this newspaper scan for Misc Pics, but there's so much info there I thought it deserved a post of its own. Found in my archives, while doing a bit of a cleanout. It was a bit of paper my mum used to make a dress pattern with, which is why it survived the 20-odd years until I scanned a copy. The article itself is fascinating, but so are the classified ads below it. $3,500 for a 2nd-hand Apple laser printer? Ouch! (That's >$6,300 in 2013 dollars according to the RBA Inflation Calculator).

click to enlarge!

For more of a flashback, check out the Time Warp Computer Prices article we did - 10 years ago, so it's in a time warp of its own now!

Thursday Afternoon (8 Comments) (link)
Thursday, 20-March-2014 03:35:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Intel have unveiled their plans to revolutionise the desktop. Compelling new form factors such as mini PCs and desktop all-in-ones (AIOs) are driving excitement within the category, and Intel is helping to deliver new capabilities that consumers and businesses want. Enthusiast users are among the most important proponents of desktop computing, and Intel is announcing roadmap enhancements especially for them. Coverage on Tech Report, LegitReviews and HotHardware.

This sounds suspiciously like a viral marketing ad for an unlimited text plan, but anyway someone who was ripped off online has responded by texting the works of Shakespeare to the scammer. He sends it as one text but his victim can only receive them in 160 character chunks - meaning the 37 works of Shakespeare will buzz through in 29,305 individual texts. So far Edd has sent 22 plays including Hamlet, Macbeth and Othello which have been delivered in 17,424 texts.

Apple has some new home automation patents which sound a bit sci-fi. In this particular report we cover a powerful new invention that has come out of the blue. It could apply to a future version of Siri that is designed to work with distributed sensors that a user could place throughout their home, Office or beyond. It's an advanced reminder system that could notify you that it's time to take your medications or that you have appointments or meetings in any room equipped with the appropriate sensors.

PCPerspective have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti Roundup. There has been a few cases that we have noticed where the long standing shortages and price hikes from coin mining have dwindled, which is great news for gamers but may also be bad news for NVIDIA’s GPUs in some areas. Though, even if the R7 265 becomes available, the GTX 750 Ti remains the best card you can buy that doesn’t require a power connection. This puts it in a unique position for power limited upgrades.

PlayerAttack are reporting on what seems to be some new Australian servers for Battle.net. Ahead of the release of Diablo III: Reaper of Souls next week, it looks like Blizzard has quietly launched Australian Battle.net servers for the game. The publisher has remained very quiet on the topic, but early research suggests the servers are hosted in Sydney and are providing sub-100ms pings for gamers in Australia and New Zealand.

ThinkComputers list the 10 highest-paid pro gamers of all time. Some of the best professional gamers make a living off of gaming and tournaments. Ever wondered how much these pro-gamers make? Just the other day I was thinking about a guy called "Thresh" who used to record timedemos back in the Quake days.. wonder whatever happened to him.

Interesting Forum Threads (0 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 19-March-2014 10:06:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a few interesting threads from the forums. Remember, OCAU has official Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages. If you can add us via the various services it's much appreciated and helps us get the word out, and keep you up to date. :)

Anti static in the IT environment in Overclocking & Hardware.
Captherm makes a heatsink with high explosives in Overclocking & Hardware.
Managing internal queue jumpers in Business & Enteprise Computing.
The Incompetence of Major Corporations in Australia in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Fire and Rescue NSW switch to ChromeOS for new deployment in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Guide for Wireless Scan to Network for Fuji Xerox CM205FW in Networking & Internet.
Compulab Fit-PC 2/2i/3/4, Intense-PC/2, MintBox/2 in Portable & Small Form Factor.
Zotac ZBOX E-series line: Haswell with Iris Pro 5200 IGP in Portable & Small Form Factor.
LG UM95 34" QHD 21:9 (3440 x 1440) in Video Cards & Monitors.
New retro console - Hyperkin Retron 5 in Retro & Arcade.
History of Video Game Consoles - in Commercials in Retro & Arcade.
486 memories in Retro & Arcade.
RAM price trends 2013/2014 in Memory.
Officeworks selling 3D printers in Hobby Engineering.
Current 3D printer for a computer club? in Hobby Engineering.
Cheap Amateur Handhelds in Electronics & Electrics.
A Dunning-Kruger detection kit in Science.
Gravity Waves from Big Bang Detected in Science.
2014 Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix in Motorsport.
Vegemite changed flavour! in Geek Food.
PM just had video removed by YouTube in Politics & Policies.
Australia urged to follow New Zealand's lead on flag rethink in Politics & Policies.
Malaysian Airways Jet Missing in Current Events.

Wednesday Evening Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Wednesday, 19-March-2014 09:37:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Audio Visual:
Sony Xperia Z1 Compact smartphone on TechSpot.
SteelSeries H Wireless Gaming Headset on NikKTech.
Ergotech Freedom Quad 1-over-3 Desk Stand for monitors on Techgage.

Video Cards:
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum OCaholic.
ASUS Radeon R9 290X Matrix Platinum on OCaholic.
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti Matrix Platinum Edition on Guru3D.
Powercolor R9 290X PCS+ on OCClub.

Storage:
iStarUSA 4 x 2.5" SATA Hot-Swap Drive Bay Cage on FunkyKit.
Crucial M550 Series Solid State Drive on HotHardware.
Crucial M550 1TB SSD on Tweaktown.
Crucial M550 512GB SSD on LegitReviews.
Crucial M550 SSD (512GB) on TechnologyX.
Crucial's M550 solid-state drive on TechReport.
Crucial M550 SSD 128GB to 1TB on HWHeaven.
Crucial M550 SSD 1TB on TheSSDReview.
Crucial M550 Solid State Drive on BenchmarkReviews.
Icy Dock ‘Black Vortex’ MB074SP-B 3.5” 4-in-3 Cage on eTeknix.

Misc:
Feenix Autore Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
AMD Mantle & TrueAudio Patch for THIEF Tested on LegitReviews.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 5 Mid-Tower case on PureOC.
Gigabyte's Brix Pro mini PC on Tech Report.
Corsair Hydro Series H75 Liquid CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.

Tuesday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 18-March-2014 06:40:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The Attorney-General's office has suggested new laws to expose encrypted data. Australia's Attorney-General's department wants new laws to force users and providers of encrypted internet communications services to decode any data intercepted by authorities. The proposal is buried in a submission (pdf) by the department to a Senate inquiry on revision of the Telecommunications Interception Act. There's also a suggestion that browser history be retained by ISPs.

Coincidentally (or not), Google will be encrypting searches soon. The tech behemoth plans to make users' searches more private as part of the company's broader campaign to push back against hackers and government surveillance. They've already started in China as a show of defiance against the country's infamous censors.

The European Union have voted in favour of a universal charger for mobile phones. A common charger for mobile phones sold in the European Union should be developed in order to reduce waste and hassle for consumers, according to MEPs voting on an update to radio equipment laws this week.

CeBIT 2014 is on in Hannover Germany, and MadShrimps have a quick tour and some Fractal Design info. Swedish designer Fractal was represented by their PR team at the Resellers booth. Fractal is known for their build quality and refined aesthetics, yet still able to sell their designs at an affordable price. Highlight for CeBIT 2014 was their latest Node 804 design.

HotHardware checked out Thief Mantle performance. Today AMD and Square Enix release an updated driver and patch for Thief which adds support for Mantle. Here we take a quick look at some performance figures.

Phoronix have been playing with 4K Ultra HD on Ubuntu. With the release of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" right around the corner we have out today some new benchmarks of various AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards when testing them with the latest Linux GPU drivers on Ubuntu 14.04 at 4K (3840 x 2160).

Tuesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
Tuesday, 18-March-2014 05:17:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg