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January 2010 |
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 31-January-2010 15:31:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
EVGA P55 FTW LGA1156 board on XbitLabs.
EVGA W555 First Look dual LGA1366 board on OC3D.
ECS H55H-CM LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
MSI H57M-ED65 mATX LGA1156 board on HWZone.
ASUS P7P55D Premium and P7P55D-E Pro LGA1156 board on OCClub.
Intel Celeron E3300 Processor on iXBTLabs.
Intel Core i3 530 Clarkdale On Linux on Phoronix.
ASUS P7P55 WS SuperComputer LGA1156 board on Bjorn3D.
ASRock H55DE3 LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD5 Intel P55 LGA1156 board on PCStats.
Cases:
Cooler Master Cosmos 1000, Corsair Obsidian 800D and Lian Li PC-X2000 on XbitLabs.
Lancool Dragon Lord PC-K58 Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Corsair Obsidian 800D on PureOC.
Cooler Master HAF 932 AMD Limited Edition on BigBruin.
NZXT Hades Crafted Mid-Tower on OCIA.
Mountain Mods Ascension Crystal Ship on TechPowerUp.
Cooling:
Scythe Grand Kama Cross CPU cooler on XbitLabs.
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Noctua NH-D14 CPU Heatsink on APHNetworks.
Silverstone NT07-AM2 1U Low Profile AMD Heatsink on Frostytech.
Thermalright Spitfire VGA Cooler on PCShopTalk.
Storage:
Thecus N4100PRO on InsideHW.
Patriot Memory Torqx 64GB PFZ64GS25SSDR Solid State Drive on PCShopTalk.
Patriot Valkyrie NAS Raid Device on Pro-Clockers.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 5770 on Tweaknews.
ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB on Tweaktown.
PowerColor Radeon HD5850 PCS+ on BenchmarkReviews.
Diamond Radeon HD 5750 OC on LegitReviews.
Power Supply:
Nexus RX-5300 530W Modular on PCPerspective.
Jersey Modular Edition 750W on HWHeaven.
SilverStone Strider Plus ST75F-P 750W on APHNetworks.
Thanks to Lee, Jesse and Paul for these! The last two might be considered "Not Safe for Work", I guess.
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Friday Morning
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Friday, 29-January-2010 03:13:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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So Apple launched their iPad yesterday and the response has been, well, mostly underwhelming. TomsHardware suggest some ways to improve it. I've had the opportunity to sit down and talk to several analysts and industry professionals about their thoughts on the iPad. Views seem to be split, but everyone appears to think the same: the iPad could have been so much more. Discussion and more info here.
Air New Zealand have apparently added USB ports and iPod connectors to every seat on their Boeing 777s. It took years, but the results not only put Air New Zealand in the front of the industry but also might just change how other long-haul airlines look at the coach cabin in the future. Knowing that if word got out about their plans they would lose part of their lead, they've secretly been working on a new layout that has finally been revealed to the public.
Bit-Tech took a detailed (hands-off) look at the EVGA W555 dual LGA1366 motherboard that is attracting so much interest lately. Created by a design team led by Peter 'Shamino' Tan, the W555 was first unveiled at the CES show a couple of weeks ago. However, the only shots we saw of the board were extremely blurry and covered with heatsinks. Fortunately, EVGA sent us these photos so we could take a closer look at how this monster motherboard is shaping up.
The US Department of Defence have researched the benefits of video games. Think interactive video games are a waste of time or more suited for children? Think again. Research under way by the Office of Naval Research indicates that video games can help adults process information much faster and improve their fundamental abilities to reason and solve problems in novel contexts.
It seems Ubisoft have a new DRM plan, and all future games from them must always be online, thanks Rohan. Responding to the public outcry for more draconian, inconveniencing copyright management, they have replaced Starforce and announced their new PC-only DRM system. One that requires you be permanently online in order to be able to play. Discussion here.
NASA have connected the International Space Station to the internet. Well, via a remote desktop setup, it seems. Expedition 22 Flight Engineer T.J. Creamer made first use of the new system Friday, when he posted the first unassisted update to his Twitter account, @Astro_TJ, from the space station. Previous tweets from space had to be e-mailed to the ground where support personnel posted them to the astronaut's Twitter account. Less tweeting, more colonising Mars, ta.
Meanwhile the last ever Shuttle night launch is scheduled for February 7th. In fact the current schedule (PDF here) shows only 5 missions remaining in total, with the Shuttles being retired after that. Shuttle Endeavour and its crew will deliver to the space station a third connecting module, the Italian-built Tranquility node and the seven-windowed cupola, which will be used as a control room for robotics.
From ChrisH: This month's Iron Musician topic was 'Sleep' and the voting is now open. Drop by and listen to the tracks produced by fellow forum members, and be sure to vote for your favourite!
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 28-January-2010 21:52:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard and CPU:
AMD's January Budget Refresh: 5 New Processors on PCPerspective.
AMD Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition 3.2GHz on PCStats.
AMD's Fastest Dual-core - Phenom II X2 555 BE on HWZone.
AMD 65W Processors: Phenom II X4 910e and Athlon II X2 255 on Bjorn3D.
Asus Rampage II Extreme LGA1366 board on OCClub.
Intel Core i3 530 Processor on Guru3D.
Asus P7P55D-E Pro LGA1566 board on Bjorn3D.
P55 vs X58 Memory Performance Analysis on Tweaktown.
Three AMD 785G Motherboards Compared and Overclocked on MadShrimps.
EVGA H55 LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
Intel Core i5 661 Clarkdale 32nm Processor on FutureLooks.
AMD Phenom II X4 910e 2.6 GHz Quad-Core 65W on PCStats.
Storage:
Kingston 128GB V+ Series SNV325-S2 SSD on LegitReviews.
OCZ Agility 60GB SSD on NeoSeeker.
OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB SSD on Techspot.
Synology DS410j NAS Station on OC3D.
A-Data T907 Jack Skellington 8GB Flash Drive on TechPowerUp.
Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB on Techgage.
Vantec NexStar Universal Storage Adapter on ThinkComputers.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX 12GB DDR3-1600 on PureOC.
Corsair Dominator PC3-12800 8GB on NeoSeeker.
Cases:
NZXT Tempest EVO on RBMods.
SilverStone Fortress FT02 on Motherboards.org.
In Win Maelstrom on PureOC.
SilverStone Grandia GD04 on Phoronix.
NZXT Hades on HWSecrets.
Zalman MS1000-HS2 Mid-Tower on PCPerspective.
Cooling:
Thermaltake V1 AX CPU Cooler on Tweaknews.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU Cooler on OCIA.
Titan Skalli CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Glacialtech Igloo 5610 Plus Silent Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler on OCOnline.
Misc:
ASRock ION 330HT with Blu-Ray ION/ATOM system on HWHeaven.
Ultra X4 600W PSU on OCClub.
PNY VERTO GeForce GT 240 video card on LegitReviews.
Forum Projects
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Wednesday, 27-January-2010 17:53:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a few interesting things from the forums:
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 27-January-2010 17:29:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Federal Court has indicated it will hand down its ruling on the iiNet vs AFACT case next week. The trial has been watched closely by both the federal government and overseas observers. The group of Hollywood studios has attempted to persuade the court that iiNet can be held legally liable for alleged copyright infringement activity by its customers, so the decision is expected to have wide ramifications for internet providers.
Meanwhile Crikey have an article about a copyright outrage not getting much publicity, thanks enigma. The proposal has been debated at a series of meetings between stakeholders since 2007, and while confirmed information is fairly scant, earlier leaked documents suggest that as well as covering physical piracy, ACTA will try and enforce copyright in the digital realm, meaning the same kind of ISP-level meddling that’s associated with current internet censorship proposals in Australia.
GeoHot has now released his PS3 hack. This is the coveted PS3 exploit, gives full memory access and therefore ring 0 access from OtherOS. Enjoy your hypervisor dumps. This is known to work with version 2.4.2 only, but I imagine it works on all current versions.
Biofrog sent in this quite amazing video from Haiti showing some of the destruction. But it's interesting from a tech perspective because as the car drives down the road, you can swing the point of view around 360 degrees. Interesting.
At about 5am tomorrow morning Apple will (presumably) unveil their Apple Tablet. Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Apple is supposedly set to introduce a tablet device (AKA the Apple Tablet, iSlate, etc.) at its latest event that will change the lives of every man, woman, and child on the planet. Sure, it could just be a fresh version of iLife and an 8GB iPhone 3GS, but we kinda doubt that. Discussion here.
Clone spotted this Stephen Conroy comic. Funny and a good example of what's wrong with the idea. :)
A Star Trek MMO seems like the perfect setup to get me hooked on an MMO (the Lego one sounds interesting too). Anyway, YouGamers checked out Star Trek Online to see if it's any good. Cryptic has built a track record with superhero MMOs but their latest release, Champions Online, was somewhat underwhelming. Now they attempt to go where no MMO has gone before with Star Trek Online. Game discussion here.
Enigma also spotted the amusing story that a French copyright enforcement group has proudly unveiled their new logo, before discovering it used unlicense fonts. It soon became clear, however, that there was a fundamental problem with the design. The logo, already officially registered for 2 months with the National Institute of Industrial Property, had been created with an unlicensed font called “Bienvenue.”
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 27-January-2010 16:26:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable & Prebuilt:
Lenovo ideapad S10-2 netbook on TBreak.
Asus Eee PC 1101HA Seashell Netbook on TechSpot.
HP TouchSmart 600 prebuilt touchscreen PC on DigitalTrends.
Google Nexus One Android Mobile SmartPhone with Root Instructions on RamblingThoughts.
Video Cards:
ECS NVIDIA GeForce GT 240 512MB on Phoronix.
ASUS GeForce 210, GT 220 & GT 240 on Techgage.
HIS Radeon HD 5670 ICEQ on Guru3D.
XFX HD 5670 775M on Motherboards.org.
Overclocking the Sapphire HD 5670 1GB on Tweaktown.
MSI R5670-PMD1G Radeon HD 5670 1GB on TechPowerUp.
PowerColor PCS+ 5770 and Sapphire 5770 Vapor-X on HWHeaven.
Input Etc:
Vidabox Premium Wireless ACC-KBLTB Keyboard on MadShrimps.
SteelSeries Xai Gaming Mouse on RBMods.
Archos 9 PCtablet on HWZone.
Das Keyboard Model S Professional on TestFreaks.
XP-Pen XP-8060B 8-inch Tablet with Wireless Mouse on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Koolance CPU-LN2 Rev2 Liquid Nitrogen Pot on LegitReviews.
Thermaltake ISGC-100 Low Profile Heatsink on Frostytech.
Glacialtech Igloo 5710 Plus Silent Heatsink on Frostytech.
Noctua NH-U12P SE2 CPU Cooler on OCOnline.
Arctic Cooling Alpine 11 Pro Heatsink on Frostytech.
Titan Skalli TTC-NC05TZ/NPW (RB) CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Glacialtech Igloo 5710 Plus Silent Heatsink on Frostytech.
ProlimaTech MK-13 Video Card Cooler on BenchmarkReviews.
Misc:
NZXT IU01 USB Expansion Kit on OCIA.
NZXT IU01 USB Expansion Board on BonaFideReviews.
Lilliput 7" Mini USB Monitor on PCPerspective.
Powermat Portable Wireless Charging Mat on BigBruin.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 27-January-2010 03:28:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Following up on our earlier Google Maps Street View Car article, you might see a similarly-equipped pedal-powered trikes soon. Google wants every nook and cranny of Australia covered on its Google Maps Street View service and to make that happen it will unleash an army of cyclists to capture images off the beaten track and in pedestrian-only locations. In fact, they're taking suggestions for locations in Australia that aren't on Street View but would be accessible using the trikes. Discussion here.
There's a bit of a stir about the Aboriginal flag being left out of Google's Australia Day logo, but it turns out to have been a copyright/payment issue. The designer of the flag, Harold Thomas, who owns the copyright to the flag, refused to give Google permission to reproduce the design on its website, Google said. Discussion here.
The date on this video is from July but it's news to me: YouTube in 3D, thanks professo. More info on the YouTube blog here. The format is exploding in popularity, and already there are countless 3D videos on YouTube. We wanted to make it easier for you to watch and enjoy them in a variety of formats, since having a 3D experience usually requires special glasses or viewing techniques.
GamingHeaven checked out Dark Void, with PhysX. Dark Void is one of the first big multi-platform releases of 2010 and is also a key title in NVIDIA’s PhysX catalogue. Today GamingHeaven take a look at the game in detail with a full review and also look at the PhysX content/performance.
A few people sent word that the PS3 may have been hacked after 3 years of trying. Mr Hotz said that he was continuing to work on the hack and, once finished, would publish details online in a similar way to his previous iPhone exploits.
Gizmodo spotted a suspiciously familiar logo in New Zealand, thanks Curtis. There’s something about ATI Engineering’s logo, as spotted by reader bammac on a recent trip to Napier in New Zealand, that looks vaguely familiar.
Shawn sent in this Google Maps surprise at Loch Ness. No, it's not what you're expecting..
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 27-January-2010 03:11:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Intel Core i5-750 CPU on APHNetworks.
ASRock M3A785GXH/128M AM3 board on iXBTLabs.
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R LGA1366 board on VR-Zone.
Asus P6X58D LGA1366 board on Bjorn3D.
AMD Phenom II X2 555 BE & Athlon II X4 635 & X3 440 Processors on ExtremeOC.
AMD Athlon II X3 440 & X4 635 on Bjorn3D.
Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 Motherboard Video Review on Motherboards.org.
AMD Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz Socket AM3 Quad-Core Processor on PCStats.
AMD X2 555 Black Edition on NeoSeeker.
AMD X4 635 and X4 910e on NeoSeeker.
Intel Pentium G6950 vs. AMD Phenom II X2 550 on LegionHW.
Power Supply:
Nexus RX-1K 1000W on PureOC.
Glacialtech GP-AX950AA on RWLabs.
Cougar 1000CM 1000w on OC3D.
Mushkin Volta 600W on HWSecrets.
SilverStone Strider Plus 750W on HWSecrets.
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 750W on OCClub.
Storage:
Toshiba T6UG1XBG SSD Controller on BenchmarkReviews.
OCZ Vertex 2 Pro (SandForce SF1500) SSD on Guru3D.
INEO 3.5 HDD enclosure on Bjorn3D.
Xigmatek Lighter 60GB Portable Drive on HWHeaven.
Kingston SSDNOW V+ Series 128GB video review on Motherboards.org.
2 TB Seagate Barracuda XT with 6 Gbps SATA 3.0 on HardCoreWare.
Cases:
Xigmatek Midgard Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master ATCS 840 on TechPowerUp.
Coolermaster Elite 100 Mini ITX on Pro-Clockers.
Silverstone Fortress FT02 on Metku.
Coolermaster Sileo 500 Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 26-January-2010 15:23:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Hope you're having a good Australia Day!
As per the last few years around this time, I've made a Motorsport Calendar in the Wiki. A handy bookmark if you find yourself wondering what's coming up each weekend. I've added MotoGP, World Superbike and Formula One, but feel free to add your own favourite championships.
If you want to re-live the bad old days of Windows 3.1, sniper spotted a website that will let you. Michael's website is a way to look back into the days of Windows 3.1 without having to install a thing. It's a site that emulates the operating system, allowing you to explore it as if you had it installed on your own computer. As long as nobody conjurs up the days when I used to support Lotus Notes running on OS/2 Warp, I'm happy.
Something else to celebrate today is the 50th birthday of bubble wrap. It's somewhat remarkable that a love of Bubble Wrap remains alive and well even in an age when the digital world's allure may increasingly substitute for simpler worldly pleasures. Millions of Facebook users have declared themselves fans of Bubble Wrap, and Bandai has rolled out a virtual bubble-popping app for your iPhone or iPod.
Google's founders have indicated they will give up majority control by 2014 by selling some of their stock holdings. "Today, we disclosed that Larry and Sergey have entered into plans to sell 5 million Google shares, each over the next five years--these shares represent about 17 of their overall Google holdings," Google said in an e-mailed statement.
Wired report on a bizarre self-selling artwork on eBay. A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter, 2009, is a black, acrylic box that places itself for sale on eBay every seven days thanks to an internet connection, which, according to the artist's conditions of sale, must be live at all times. Disconnections are only allowed during transportation, says the creator.
A New Zealand school has gone completely open source, slashing its licensing bills. Ditching Microsoft is highly unusual within the NZ education sector, as a long-standing contract with the national government means the software giant is paid for technology for the school even though none has been used.
Great Australian Internet Blackout
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Tuesday, 26-January-2010 14:20:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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You may have noticed we've joined the Great Australian Internet Blackout to bring attention to the issue of Australian Internet Filtering. However, I realise it's somewhat "preaching to the choir" to tell OCAU readers that such a filter won't block all problem content, is open to abuse including the blocking of legal content and should not be forced onto households that either have no children or are capable of managing their own internet access. Not to mention that people who genuinely want to seek out illegal content have plenty of other methods to do so which will not be affected by this filter in the slightest. Anyway, more info here and here.
Google Maps Street View Car
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Monday, 25-January-2010 22:52:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Anakha spotted a Google Maps Street View car parked recently, and having his camera on him, sent in a few pics and info:
Click for the article!
Monday Evening Reviews
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Monday, 25-January-2010 20:57:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 5870 on LegitReviews.
Powercolor HD 5770 PCS+ on TechPowerUp.
NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 on iXBTLabs.
Motherboard and CPU:
AMD Athlon II X2 255, X3 440, X4 635, Phenom II X2 555, and X4 910e on OCClub.
AMD Phenom II X4 910e 2.6GHz 65W TDP Processor on LegitReviews.
AMD Phenom II X2 555 and Athlon II X4 635 Performance on HotHardware.
Jetway NC63-330-LF IPC Atom board on PCShopTalk.
Intel's Clarkdale Part IV on LostCircuits.
Intel H55 Mobo Shootout - Integrated HD Graphics Showdown on HWZone.
Cooling:
Xigmatek Balder SD1283 CPU Cooler on Tweaknews.
Akasa Freedom Tower CPU Cooler on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake ISGC-300 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Cases:
NZXT TEMPEST EVO Crafted Series on BonaFideReviews.
Lian Li PC-B25F on NeoSeeker.
Storage:
Gen-2 Kingston SSDNowV+ Series SSD SNV325 on BenchmarkReviews.
QNAP NMP-1000 Network Media Player on NinjaLane.
Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
OCZ Throttle 32Gb eSATA and USB Memory Stick on MadShrimps.
Kingston SSDNow V Series 40GB on Techgage.
Sunday Morning
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Sunday, 24-January-2010 01:46:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Professo spotted HTML5 support in YouTube. HTML5 is a new web standard that is gaining popularity rapidly and adds many new features to your web experience. Most notably for YouTube users, HTML5 includes support for video and audio playback. This means that users with an HTML5 compatible browser, and support for the proper audio and video codecs can watch a video without needing to download a browser plugin.
Audioholics report on a $500 Blu-Ray player turning into a $3500 one. When we received the player the first thing we did was open it up to get a look at the inside. Imagine my surprise when I found that not only did the Lexicon share the same boards and transport as the Oppo - it was in fact AN OPPO BDP-83 PLAYER, CHASSIS AND ALL, SHOVED INSIDE AN ALUMINUM LEXICON WRAPPER.
Tweakguides have updated their guide for Firefox. The TweakGuides Firefox Tweak Guide has been updated for the release of Firefox 3.6. For those who have read the guide previously, the major updates for Firefox 3.6 are indicated clearly. For Firefox users who haven't read the guide yet, now is the best time to correctly configure your browser for optimal performance and learn all about its functionality at the same time.
Something cool from IntelInside: Here's an unusual wedding present - a puzzle box that won't open until it is taken to a certain location in the world!. The Reverse Geocache Puzzle is based on an Arduino microcontroller.
Michael Atkinson isn't making any friends in the gaming community, with comments like this, thanks enigma: "I assume the Gamers4Croydon campaign will involve criminal activities and dirty tricks, which is what I've come to expect from gamers," he said.
Interesting Forum Threads:
Best way to put paste on your CPU? in Newbie Lounge.
Using flight simulator joystick for web browsing in Newbie Lounge.
The smoke comes out, doesn't go back in! in Overclocking & Hardware.
Mighty Morphing Mouse in Overclocking & Hardware.
EVGA EVBOT, your friendly OC hero! in Overclocking & Hardware.
7-way SLI in Video Cards & Monitors.
Core i3 530 Benchmarks in Intel Hardware.
Digital Clock (with no ICs) in Electronics.
Realtek HD Audio - Wow in PC Audio.
Wings of Prey (WW2 flightsim) in Games.
Easy food for driving in Geek Food.
How dirty is the dirtiest computer you have seen in The Pub.
Friday again! Thanks to Chris and Tim for these..
     
     
     
eTeknix have a somewhat bizarre AMD advertisement showing a monkey upgrading a video card. ATI are on a mission to make installing or upgrading your graphics card as simple and as painless as possible, and this advert shows exactly that. ATI brought in a monkey that had been fully trained to take apart a case and install a graphics card, as well as its drivers.
CCTV footage has caught someone installing malware in South Australia. South Australian Police are hunting a male who broke into a recruitment firm and spent three hours installing remote access software on one of its computers. Three hours?!
More worrying is this huge EFTPOS scam which seems to be Australia-wide. Every Australian capital city and some regional centres have been hit by the scam, believed to involve a 50-strong gang operating out of Asia. Police yesterday took the extraordinary step of urging people to change their PIN numbers. They claimed many more accounts would be fleeced in weeks to come unless acount holders took steps to protect themselves.
If you're a train-spotter, a travel buff or simply have an otherwise idle high definition display, perhaps this movie will be of interest, thanks Lemming. The longest documentary ever? At least the longest we have made, almost 7 1/2 hours, showing every minute of the scenic train ride between Bergen on the Norwegian west coast, crossing the mountains to the capital of Oslo.
Chris sent in this article about GSM security. This week brought some bad news for mobile phone users. German security expert Karsten Nohl showed how easy it is to eavesdrop on GSM-based (Global System for Mobile Communications) cell phones, including those used by AT&T and T-Mobile customers in the U.S.
EFA are claiming one hundred signatures per hour for the Internet Filtering petition they intend to submit to parliament, thanks Jay. “The most important thing about the petition is that it is valid for parliament [as] it has been worded in compliance with Senate Standing Orders… it is not just clicking a button,” Guy said.
Dink spotted this amusing book piracy article. Apparently, over 2 billion books were "loaned" last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000.
AusGamers have posted part 2 of their DIY PVR article. They're also celebrating their 10th birthday and have taken a look back at a decade of gaming. As 2010 kicks off, we reflect over the last 10 years of gaming history as we take a nostalgic trip through the years.
Thursday Night Reviews #2
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Thursday, 21-January-2010 21:22:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
NZXT Hades on OCClub.
INWIN Maelstrom Case on TechnoYard.
NZXT Tempest EVO on OCIA.
NZXT HADES Crafted Series on BonaFideReviews.
Cooler Master 690 II Advanced Mid-Tower on Techgage.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Kinzu Optical Gaming Mouse on TechPowerUp.
SteelSeries Merc Stealth Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Evercool Booster Cool Wrist Pad on OCClub.
CoolerMaster Storm Sentinel Advance Mouse on NinjaLane.
Storage:
Thecus N0503 ComboNAS Enclosure on FutureLooks.
LSI MegaRAID SATA and SAS 9260-8i RAID Card on LegitReviews.
Plextor PX-B940SA Internal 12X BD Writer on CCER.
SandForce SF1500 Enterprise SSD Processor on BenchmarkReviews.
Patriot PS-100 128GB SSD on LegionHW.
SD Battles: Corsair X128 vs. Solutions on JMicron Chip on XbitLabs.
NZXT USB Expansion System on ThinkComputers.
Cooling:
Apack Zerotherm Core92 Intel Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU Cooler on Tweaknews.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU cooler on Bjorn3D.
Thermalright Venomous-X CPU cooler on LegionHW.
Power Supply:
Antec Truepower New TP-650 on Hi-TechReviews.
3R System iCEAGE IA450HP80 450W on HWSecrets.
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 21-January-2010 21:10:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Asus EAH5770/2DIS/1GD5 and PowerColor PCS HD5750 1GB GDDR5 Premium on XbitLabs.
PowerColor HD 5770 PCS+ on NeoSeeker.
ECS GeForce GT 240 512MB on PureOC.
AMD ATI Radeon HD 5670 512MB on TestSeek.
Motherboards:
Seven Intel P55 Motherboards Tested From Asus, DFI, MSI, Gigabyte on MadShrimps.
Intel H55, H57 Chipsets on iXBTLabs.
Intel Core i5 661 3.33 GHz CPU on TechPowerUp.
Jetway NC93-330W-LF ITX Atom board on Pro-Clockers.
MSI P55-GD80 LGA1156 board on Metku.
Intel DH55TC LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
ASUS M4A785TD-V EVO AMD 785G AM3 board on ThinkComputers.
ECS H55H-M mATX LGA1156 board on Guru3D.
Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 AM3 board on Motherboards.org.
MSI H57M-ED65 LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
Intel DP55WG LGA1156 board on XbitLabs.
Biostar TH55XE LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
GIGABYTE GA-H57M-USB3 LGA1156 board on Tweaktown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Asus UL30A Laptop on InsideHW.
ASRock ION 330HT-BD Home Theater PC on EOC.
HP TouchSmart 600 23-inch All-In-One PC on HotHardware.
Verizon Wireless Gateway LT 2016u Netbook on TestFreaks.
Asrock ION 330HT-BD Nettop on RBMods.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX 4GB Kit 1600MHz on Bjorn3D.
Corsair Dominator GTX Series PC3-18000 4GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Sponsor Specials
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Thursday, 21-January-2010 15:44:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials Forum if you're shopping around. In there our various sponsors have specials and info on Windows 7, ISP deals, fitness supplements, LCD monitors, office chairs, camera filters, media players, headphones, monitor stands, video cards, speakers, data recovery and a range of components. Check 'em out!
nVIDIA GF100 Fermi
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Thursday, 21-January-2010 14:57:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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nVIDIA announced more details of its upcoming Fermi GPU recently. To quote Bjorn3D: This isn't a core re-hash it's a top down core redesign and from what we can see it addresses more shortcomings of GTX-2xx (don't get us wrong we love our GTX-2xx lineup of cards) than we expected. Right out of the gate lets do a short but not complete list of features that Fermi got that GTX-2xx didn't, DX11, Tessellation, Parallel polygon processing, shared L2 Cache, up to 32xCSAA (up from 16x), GDDR5, Nvidia Surround (triple monitor acting like one monitor) Nvidia 3D Vision Surround.
More coverage on Neoseeker, TechPowerUp, HotHardware, BenchmarkReviews, Guru3D, Techgage, PCPerspective and OCClub. Discussion continues in the gargantuan thread here.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 20-January-2010 15:41:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Tarrith sent word of an Internet Filtering Petition to the Senate being organised by Electronic Frontiers Australia. You can sign the petition electronically by going to the this page and leaving your name, postcode and email address. Please talk to your friends, family and colleagues about the problems with the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy and encourage them to sign the petition as well.
Arstechnica have a good article catching up on the current Google vs China situation. The immediate aftermath of the announcement was a media feeding frenzy—and that was before the Chinese government's various departments even began reacting to the news. Now that they have, it's clear that Google and China are on a collision course, and that the US government is ready to get involved on Google's side.
They also cover the recent Facebook and AT&T authentication issue, thanks Timbot. This past week, several users reported visiting Facebook, and, well, seeing the wrong face. Without any action on their part, a number of AT&T smartphone users found themselves logged into the popular social networking site under user accounts other than their own.
Gizmodo have info on some upcoming Sony laptops with quad SSDs. We already knew the two models would have a 13.1-inch LED backlit screen, an optical Blu-ray drive and HDMI-out, but new information is always appreciated. Made from carbon fibre and aluminium, the laptops weigh less than 1.45kg.
Byteside have another show happening on Feb 2nd: Australia's number 1 live Tech and Games show returns, and you're invited to come along and enjoy a great night out. We're now at an all-new venue this season - the swanky Hotel CBD in Sydney. It's the same place we held our amazing Christmas Special, so you know it's a comfortable and relaxed place with great food and drinks, and just a bit easier to get to. You can RSVP here if you're keen.
Phalanx sent in this cool Symphony of Science video. "The Unbroken Thread" is the fourth video in the Symphony of Science series, and it features David Attenborough, Jane Goodall, and Carl Sagan. The clips used in this installment come from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, David Attenborough's Charles Darwin and the Tree of Life, The Life of Mammals, The Living Planet, BBC Life, XVIVO Scientific Animations, IMAX Cosmic Voyage, Jane Goodall's TED Talk, and a clever Guiness Commercial.
Madshrimps checked out RAID0 Stripe Sizes with SSDs, using OCZ Vertex drives. We all know that two is better than one, we have dual core CPUs, dual GPU video cards, and if you really want to get the most out of your storage, a set of SSDs in RAID will boost your performance noticeably. We tested 6 different RAID stripe sizes and 3 different RAID configs in 4 different storage benchmarks, some synthetic, others real world operations. More than 1200 benchmarks results summed up in a few charts.
I keep forgetting to link this, but a Michigan company has invented, and is selling, a sarcasm symbol to avoid confusion in the written word. More info on their site here and discussion here. What a greeeaaaaat idea!
Tuesday Night Reviews
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Tuesday, 19-January-2010 23:42:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
G.Skill Falcon II 128GB SSD on Techspot.
Xigmatek Lighter 60GB on PureOC.
1TB 3.5'' External Hard Disk Drive Roundup on RWLabs.
LSI MegaRAID 9280-8E SAS 6G PCIe 2.0 RAID Controller on Tweaktown.
In Win AMMO HDD enclosure on PureOC.
Xigmatek Lighter 60GB Portable Pocket Hard Drive on Tweaknews.
Lacie iamaKey 8 GB Flash Drive on TechPowerUp.
Video Cards:
VisionTek 5750 on Bjorn3D.
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB on ThinkComputers.
Cases:
Cooler Master Gladiator 600 on Tweaknews.
Antec Two Hundred Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
Coolermaster HAF 932 AMD Edition on Motherboards.org.
NZXT Gamma Case on OCOnline.
Audio / Visual:
Arctic Cooling E361-WM Earphones on Tweaknews.
Microsoft LifeCam Cinema 720p HD-Webcam on BenchmarkReviews.
Canon EOS 1D Mark IV on HWZone.
Cooling:
Thermaltake ISGC-400 Heatsink on Frostytech.
Akasa X4 Cooler on HWHeaven.
Power Supply:
Corsair HX750W Professional Series on Futurelooks.
Enermax Modu87+ 700W on JonnyGuru.
Games on Net writes that, Atkins has forced R18+ movies into faceless 'burka boxes'. Adults aged over 18 seeking to buy or borrow a copy of Mad Max, the acclaimed desert war drama Three Kings, starring George Clooney, the Brad Pitt classic Fight Club or the 2009 Blu Ray release of Sasha Baron Cohen's fashion parody Bruno will now find them in plain packaging displaying nothing more than the film's title.
Faux News writes that a Network Flaw Caused a Scary Web Error. A Georgia mother and her two daughters logged onto Facebook from mobile phones last weekend and wound up in a startling place: strangers' accounts with full access to troves of private information.
Tech Spot has a cool article on Enabling Windows 7's Hidden "God Mode". "God Mode" simply provides users with a centralized Control Panel for all of Windows' settings, from changing your desktop background to setting up a VPN or partitioning your hard drive. In all, there are nearly 50 categories and most have several entries.
Big thank you to Jay for sending in this story on a Uni network running porn and pirate movies. Students at Sydney University's elite residential colleges are running a secret computer network for sharing pornography and pirated movies and music. Naughty naughty.
Apparently the Asus E-Reader Has Potential To Change The Market. Reportedly, Asus will be introducing the DR-570 by the end of 2010, but it won't be just another one in the crowd. In fact, it just might be a game-changer. The reader will supposedly have a 6" screen, but rather than using e-ink like every other reader out there, this one will utilize a color OLED screen. Yeah, OLED. OLED displays haven't been used in too many commercial products yet, mostly because of the prohibitive costs involved.
This article asks, Was the Hack into Google an Inside Job? The whirlwind of news and rumors surrounding Google and its dealings in China seems to grow faster, more disjointed and more chaotic by the day. Today, Reuters reports that, in addition to looking at the Chinese government, Google is looking at the possibility that help came from within its own ranks in the recent hacking successes. It seems the rumour mill will keep on churning for a while yet.
According to Computer World, D-Link has Warned of Vulnerable Routers. IDG News Service - Router manufacturer D-Link Corp. today admitted that some of its routers have a vulnerability that could allow hackers access to a device's administrative settings. The Taipei, Taiwan-based form said that it has issued patches to fix the flaws.
Android seems to be doing well with Android Usage UP 200% Over 3 Months. According to new data from ChangeWave Research, both usage and consumer sentiment towards Google's mobile operating system Android has increased over the past several months. As of December 2009, the research firm's survey shows that 4% of all smartphone owners now use a phone running some version of the Android OS. That's an increase of 200% since the previous survey released in September.
Lastly, Kingston are offering replacements for their USB drives affected by the recent security issue. It has recently been brought to our attention that a skilled person with the proper tools and physical access to the drives may be able to gain unauthorized access to data contained on the following Kingston Secure USB drives..
Photography Gallery
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Monday, 18-January-2010 17:18:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some recent photos from our Photography Gallery forum:
ITWorld report on the specifics behind the recent Google security issue. The attack is very reliable on Internet Explorer 6 running on Windows XP, and it could possibly be modified to work on more recent versions of the browser, Marcus said. "The game really changes now that it's hosted publicly," he said.
Technology is being used for good in Haiti. Meanwhile, mobile-phone users in the U.S. donated more than $10 million to earthquake relief within 36 hours by texting "HAITI" to the short-code 90999 from their phones. By late Friday, more than 900,000 people had donated $10 per text message, according to mGive, which is operating the donation drive for the American Red Cross. Verizon Wireless and other service providers will fast-track the funds to the relief effort, and 100 percent of the money donated goes to relief, according to mGive. Aid organizations have also successfully solicited donations via social-networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Australia Post recently asked people to turn in their old mobile phones for recycling. "Recycling mobile phones is easy," Ms Snelleman said. "All you need to do is collect a satchel from your local Australia Post outlet, place the phone with the battery connected in one section of the satchel and accessories in the other section, and post it in any street posting box."
XbitLabs have a roundup of 2TB 7200rpm HDDs. It looks like we have just got another proof of the world progress theory. First we discussed 2 TB hard drives with 5,400 RPM spindle rotation speed. And today we are going to look at six solutions with faster rotating platters from Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital.
They also checked out Intel's Pine Trail mobile platform. Intel revised their netbook and nettop platform and released a refreshed version for it. Now it is built on an energy-efficient Intel NM10 Express chipset and Pineview processor with the integrated memory controller and GMA3150 graphics core. These are pretty serious changes, but what do they actually mean for regular users?
MadShrimps have a mainstream showdown between Intel's clarkdale and AMD's Phenom II on 785G. With the launch of Clarkdale by Intel, they have finally released a Nehalem for the masses, the Core i3 and i5 variations with integrated graphics are a direct competitor to the market segment currently held by AMD Phenom and Athlon CPUs. In this article we compare the performance of the IGP on the Intel Core i5 661 to and AMD system with 785G chipset.
From Ben: Those who are concerned about internet business method and computer software patents being improperly granted should join the prior art search over at Peer-to-Patent Australia. The project, which runs for the next 5 months allows people to put forward prior art that will be considered during the patent examination of participating patents.
Today's timewaster is first person tetris, thanks mcrow5!
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 17-January-2010 14:53:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 LGA1156 mATX board on XbitLabs.
Intel i7 Extreme 920XM with NVIDIA GTX 280M on PCPerspective.
Video Cards:
Radeon HD 5670 on Techgage.
XFX Radeon HD 5870 XXX Edition on Motherboards.org.
Cooling:
Vantec Aeroflow FX 120 CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
Noctua NH-C12P SE14 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
XSPC X2O 750 Reservoir Pump on PureOC.
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme Heatsink on Frostytech.
Glacialtech F101 PWM Heatsink on Frostytech.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W on HWSecrets.
Corsair HX650w on OC3D.
Ultra X4 500W on Bjorn3D.
Cases:
Mini-ITX Cases Roundup on XbitLabs.
LanCool Dragon Lord PC-K58W on BenchmarkReviews.
Moneual Labs MonCaso Y601W mATX HTPC case on OCIA.
Memory & Storage:
Verbatim Tuff N Tiny 8GB Flash Drive on TestFreaks.
Mushkin DDR3-1600 7-9-7-24 Blackline on LegitReviews.
Misc:
Thrustmaster Ferrari Motors Gamepad F430 on RBMods.
Canon EOS 500D SLR Digicam with 15-85mm USM EFS Lens on RamblingThoughts.
According to Fullchannel, a Spanish politician may sue over bin Laden photo. A Spanish politician said on Saturday that he was "stupefied" by the FBI's decision to use his photograph to compose its latest image of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and is considering taking legal action.
According to this article, Proposed Web video restrictions have caused outrage in Italy. New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web, opposition lawmakers have warned.
Mashable writes that, TwitPic Could be Worth More Than $10 Million. We’ve seen a host of deals recently in the Twitter app space, but here’s one that we now know didn’t happen: TwitPic selling out for north of $10 million.
In the midst of the current global financial crisis, an Apple Iphone app has come to the rescue with a 3,000% loan application. The app, from Wonga, lets borrowers have up to Ł1,000 in their bank account within 15 minutes at the astounding cost of 3,000% interest.
Apparently, the German government has asked it's citizens to Stop Using Internet Explorer. In a statement issued today, the German Federal Office for Security in Information Technology (known as BSI) recommends that all Internet Explorer users switch to an alternative browser.
According to the Telegraph, China has started monitoring billions of text messages. Customers of China’s two largest mobile phone networks, China Mobile and China Unicom, have had their texting service blocked after sending risqué messages, the state media claims.
Unfortunately it seems that the Decision on NBN suppliers has been delayed. The National Broadband Network Company has delayed the release of its shortlist of suppliers for fibre-to-the-home related equipment and services required to build the ambitious $43 billion project.
Torrent Freak writes, OiNK Admin Found Not Guilty, Walks Free. The defense tore into IFPI and countered by calling Ellis an innovator with talents to be nurtured. Today the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty, and Ellis walked free.
Microsoft urges Windows XP users to ditch their Outdated Flash version. Microsoft rarely issues security advisories on third-party products, but since this version of Flash originally came bundled with Windows XP, Microsoft feels it needs to warn its users.
According to Mashable, Intel’s Earnings Up an Astounding 875%. We thought Zillow’s 2011 IPO was a good sign for the tech and Internet market. Intel has not only just confirmed that notion, but blown everybody’s expectations right out of the water.
In an Australian article, ZDnet writes, Exetel on ACMA: No demand for 100Mbps. In his latest attack on the Federal Government's plans to build a 100Mbps national broadband network, Exetel boss John Linton this week said a new report from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) showed there was clear demand for mobility, but none for high-end speeds.
Tech Crunch writes that, Bing Is Growing Faster Than Ever. Bing just keeps on gaining market share, and is now growing faster than ever before. In December, Microsoft’s search engine gained another 0.4 percent to capture 10.7 percent of U.S. search queries, according to the latest comScore qSearch numbers.
Apparently, Google Has Removed an Encyclopedia Dramatica Link. Google has agreed to remove from its search index links to a satirical website that allegedly promotes racist views of indigenous Australians.
Wired has Satellite Photos of Haiti Before and After the Earthquake. Multiple buildings have clearly collapsed in this area of Port-au-Prince, and several more appear ready to crumble. Numerous strong aftershocks of magnitude 5 and up have continued to bring down buildings that were damaged and weakened by the mainshock.
Thanks to Gaz, Brad, haza and Dave for these!
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 15-January-2010 14:55:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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We're running very low on popular sizes of polo shirts, so it's no longer a case of "pre-order if you're keen", it's now "pre order if you want one, at all". Info here.
Congratulations to OCAU member oldnewby - his Cygnus X1 mod has been voted the mod of the year over on Bit-Tech. There's a giant worklog here.
Tech Report compared four killer PSUs. Although not a particularly titillating PC component, the PSU is arguably one of the most important. We've pitted four fresh enthusiast-focused units from Corsair, Enermax, Seasonic, and XFX against our beastly load generator to see if one might rise to the top. And one did.
Here's some cool photos from the Dakar Rally 2010 which finishes soon. This year's race began and will end in Buenos Aires, covering a looping 9,000 kilometers between Argentina and Chile over 14 stages. 362 Teams began the race with 176 motorcycles and quad bikes, 134 cars, and 52 trucks.
We linked this Mythbusters nVIDIA demonstration when they first did it a couple of years ago, but at the time I didn't see this related video where they blast Jamie with 20,000 paintballs. :)
OC.com have an article about SSDs, Trim and Disk Space. There is a lot of discussion on forums about the impact of available disk space on SSD performance. A pertinent question was raised; At what point does drive utilization impact SSD performance?
Loop Goose spotted this soft-drink powered mobile phone. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable. Hrm, this seems to just be a design concept rather than anything anywhere near production.
Bigiain spotted a JavaScript runtime for Flash, which amazingly enough works on the iPhone.
BenchmarkReviews have a AM3 CPU Cooler comparison. In this 'preview' article, Benchmark Reviews tests several CPU coolers on the AM3 socket for the AMD Phenom-II platform. An overclocked AMD Phenom II X4 965 "Black Edition" processor was used (original 140W version), and given a heart-warming 1.55 volts to the vCore so it could reach 4000MHz (4GHz) stable. We did test with 1.6V at first, but felt it was unsafe for all but the absolute best coolers. The heat produced at 1.55V caused at least one product to earn high marks in our tests, while another fell so far below respectible performance that it pains us to expose it.
Codam sent word of a new LGA1156 Mini-ITX board from Zotac. Support for the latest generation of Intel® Core™ i3, Core™ i5 and Core™ i7 takes the ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi to performance levels previously unattainable by the mini-ITX form factor. The ZOTAC H55-ITX WiFi supports Intel® QuickPath technology for lightning-fast communications to high-speed dual-channel DDR3 memory for superior bandwidth and quicker memory access that delivers the chart-topping performance enthusiasts and performance-hungry users desire.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 15-January-2010 14:29:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 5670 on PCPerspective.
ZOTAC GeForce GT 220 1GB GDDR3 on Testseek.
HIS Radeon HD 5670 IceQ 512 MB on TechPowerUp.
ATI Radeon HD 5670 on HWZone.
ATI Radeon HD5670 on OC3D.
Cases:
Xclio Nighthawk on DragonSteelMods.
SilverStone Mini-ITX Sugo SG07 Prototype Chassis @ CES on LegitReviews.
Lian-Li PC-8N aluminum case on Testseek.
SilverStone Fortress FT02 on HWSecrets.
Raidmax Skyliner Mid-Tower on Hi-TechReviews.
Thermaltake Element V on LegionHW.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Kinzu Optical Mouse on HWHeaven.
Mionix Naos 5000 gaming mouse on XSReviews.
Storage:
Proware Technology MiniEPICa Series EP-m501-AA DAS Enclosure on Tweaktown.
QNAP TS-119 Turbo NAS on XSReviews.
Seagate Barracuda XT HDD on DigitalTrends.
OCZ Vertex 2 Pro SSD on PCPerspective.
Iomega StorCenter ix2-200 (4TB) on TechReviewSource.
TorrentFreak writes that Watching Porn Online More Acceptable Than Piracy. A survey conducted by the New Zealand based research firm UMR Research found that nearly half of the respondents think that it’s morally okay to watch porn on the Internet.
ABC News has an article on the possibility Men Being More Evolved. Women may think of men as primitive, but new research indicates that the Y chromosome — the thing that makes a man male — is evolving far faster than the rest of the human genetic code. Certainly one to keep in mind when you next have an argument with your wife. Just don't blame me if you have to sleep on the couch. ;)
Online Education has got a cool Break Down of Gaming Statistics with some interesting results. Apparently the average age of gamers is now 32 years old.
Ever wondered how much it costs to make an average video game? Game Pro has an article on Game production costs in 2009. Interactive entertainment media industry analyst Wanda Meloni is joining the 2009 financial weigh-in party. In her breakdown of the ups and downs of the year, she sheds some light on just how expensive it is to make games.
Wired has an interesting piece called, Obsessed With the Internet: A Tale From China. The Chinese news media was filled with terrifying stories of WOW-crazed kids dropping dead or killing their parents, and Deng Fei and Zhou Juan worried that they might lose their only son to a technological demon they barely understood. So they were lured in by the camp’s pledge to end his “bad behavior.”
In another story from China, the BBC has more on Internet Security. Apparently, Security experts say Google cyber-attack was routine. "Human-rights activists are the biggest target," said Mr Hypponen. "Everyone from Freedom for Tibet to Falun Gong supporters and those involved in Liberation of Taiwan are hit."
Lastly a reminder to buy OCAU polo shirts. Remember it's limited edition and in a few years you'll be the cool cat at meets when you're styling one of these bad boys. There are also stubby holders for those of you who prefer to attend meets in your mankinis.
Thursday Evening Reviews
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Thursday, 14-January-2010 20:10:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
XFX Radeon HD5750 1GB on eTeknix.
HIS Radeon HD 5750 ICEQ+ on Guru3D.
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 260 Super OverClock on MadShrimps.
ATI Radeon HD5830 on eTeknix.
XFX Radeon HD5770 1GB on eTeknix.
Sapphire Radeon HD5670 on NinjaLane.
Sapphire HD 5670 1GB on OCClub.
Cooling:
3R System iCEAGE Prima Boss II CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Sodium-Potassium Liquid Metal Cooled Danamics LMX Heatsink on Frostytech.
VIZO EZ-SURF Fanless Notebook Cooler on Virtual-Hideout.
Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Evercool Cruise Missile STC-03 Thermal Paste on VerdisReviews.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus and Hyper TX3 on LegionHW.
Noctua NH-D12 CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
CoolIT Domino ALC Liquid Cooling System on FrostyTech.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Smooth Creations 18.4 Gaming Notebook on Tweaktown.
ASUS EEE PC 701SD Netbook on BigBruin.
Acer Ferrari One 200 laptop on TBreak.
ASRock ION 330HT-BD Blu-ray NetTop on Phoronix.
Memory:
Crucial Ballistx 1600 Tracers on Bjorn3D.
OCZ Black Edition DDR3 Memory Kit on BenchmarkReviews.
GeIL 8GB DDR3-1600 Black Dragon on PureOC.
ATI Radeon HD 5670
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Thursday, 14-January-2010 18:45:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD have announced the Radeon HD 5670, a budget DX11 card. AMD has been relatively straightforward in designing the Evergreen family. Each chip is half of its bigger brother. This means that the Redwood chip and the 5670 is in most ways half of a Juniper/5770: half the SIMDs (400), half the ROPs (8), half the texture units (20), etc. The core clocks are also slightly changed compared to the 5870 and 5770; here we have a core clock of 775MHz instead of 850MHz as found on those cards. So on paper, the 5670 is going to be slightly less than half of a 5770 in performance.
Coverage on Anandtech, LegitReviews, Bjorn3D, Modders-Inc, RBMods, Guru3D, Tech Report, PurePC, NeoSeeker, BenchmarkReviews, HWHeaven, HotHardware and Tweaktown.
New Major Sponsor - Warcom
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Wednesday, 13-January-2010 17:44:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I'm pleased to announce that Warcom have come onboard as an OCAU Major Sponsor, joining our long-term Major Sponsors Computer Alliance and Scorpion Technology. Warcom are an online retailer who have really grown and expanded over the last few years.
During our recent outage Warcom and their sister site Insiteful were very helpful in getting us back online and it's great to have them involved with OCAU on an on-going basis. In fact I think it's their goal to drag our somewhat dated website kicking and screaming into the 21st century. :) So I look forward to drawing on their expertise in future, during what is hopefully a long and fruitful partnership.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 13-January-2010 15:28:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few people sent in this Google Blog post about Google's approach to China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China. This could be quite a big deal. Discussion here.
Speaking of China, it seems that registration of .cn domains has been closed to overseas registrars. In its latest attempt to save the reputation of China's domains, the administrative agency responsible for China's Internet affairs, CNNIC, has announced an indefinite suspension all ".CN" registrations from overseas registrars.
Fudzilla have a more detailed look at EVGA dual LGA1366 board at CES, thanks Sniper. Many have been asking about the form-factor type of the 270-GT-W555 for the past few days since its official debut at CES. We tried getting answers out of Jacob and Peter, but they told us that there is currently no official ATX standard for this size board. The thing that gets me about this board is, surely it's going to be so expensive as to eliminate any savings that you'd get from not just going to a dual Xeon solution. Speaking of which, dual Xeon server boards are not (all) that huge, so why is this one? Still a cool idea, but I wonder if it'll get off the ground.
This will probably enrage the camera nazis, but I found this guide to choosing a digicam an interesting way to clear up the mess of new models out recently. To make things simple, we maintain a flow chart that helps you decide which camera to buy. Just follow the lines until you end up with a camera that fits your needs!
On the other hand, sex robots! "She can't vacuum, she can't cook but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean," TrueCompanion's Douglas Hines said. "She's a companion. She has a personality. She hears you. She listens to you. She speaks. She feels your touch. She goes to sleep. We are trying to replicate a personality of a person." Discussion here.
A man in Melbourne has apparently been crushed to death by a large computer server, thanks Allen. Jeez.. not sure what to say about that, but be careful at work! I had a couple of scary moments (which will probably haunt my lower back for years to come) with our old monster BBQ server getting it into and out of the rack.
BFM sent in an interesting read on Wikipedia about an FBI espionage case. Following confirmation by the FBI CART Unit, Sullivan filed a report with Office of Professional Responsibility requesting further investigation of Hanssen's attempted penetration of the Bureau's high-security network operated by the National Security Division. Hanssen claimed he wanted to connect a color printer to his computer and needed the password cracker to get around the administrative password.
Manaz is involved with a tarmac rally team who are competing in the AASA Australian Tarmac Rally Championship. If you are in Hobart today the Ambulance Private cars are on display at Mawson Place near Constitution Dock.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
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Wednesday, 13-January-2010 14:42:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Asrock M3A785GMH/128M Socket AM3 on Pro-Clockers.
ASUS P7P55D EVO Motherboard (Preliminary Version) LGA1156 board on PCShopTalk.
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD3R LGA1156 board on Bjorn3D.
Intel Core i5-660/661 Processors on iXBTLabs.
Asus P7P55D Premium LGA1156 board on TechWareLabs.
Audio Visual:
Auzentech Home Theater HD sound card on XSReviews.
GlideTV Navigator remote on DragonSteelMods.
ROCCAT Kave 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset on PCShopTalk.
Tritton AX 180 Universal Gaming Headset on LegitReviews.
Patriot Box Office Media Player on RBMods.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W on Pro-Clockers.
XFX 650 W XXX Edition on HWSecrets.
Thermaltake Toughpower 1200W on Hi-TechReviews.
Ultra X4 750-Watt Modular on BonaFideReview.
Enermax MODU87+ 700W on HWSecrets.
Storage:
Thecus N0503 NAS on CCEReviews.
Patriot Gear Box Network Device on RBMods.
CRU-DataPort SecureDock 500GB Encrypted Enclosure on CCEReviews.
Kingston 16GB Data Traveler Locker+ on PureOC.
OCZ Zee 4GB USB drive on Phoronix.
It took years of nagging, but I've finally gotten around to organising another batch of OCAU Polo Shirts. In fact, these are special 10th Anniversary shirts!
Click for details!
Tuesday Midday
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Tuesday, 12-January-2010 12:36:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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More miscellaneous CES coverage: Seagate on Bigbruin, Shuttle's upgradeable laptops on Techwarelabs, Microsoft and HP's tablet on eTeknix, general video coverage on HWHeaven, booth babes on ThinkComputers, OCZ SSDs on LegitReviews and Top 10 highlights on I4U.
Also from CES, a funny video of an unbreakable mobile phone being broken. Reporter Dan Simmons from the BBC's technology show Click managed to break a mobile phone marketed as "unbreakable", during a demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
HotHardware also checked out a cool surround gaming setup at CES. While you're in the surround vision setup, your field of view, both ahead of you and as far as your peripheral vision can detect, is completely covered game scenery. Also, it's not just a stretched view of course but because the actual field of view is 7640X900, you get to see more of the game scene content itself. In Dirt 2, which is a DX11 title, the visuals were stunning.
Simon noticed that Bit-Tech have an early review of the MSI Big Bang Fusion board, a commercial implementation of Lucid's Hydra. Lucid's aim is to allow mix-and-match multi-GPU between almost any graphics cards, free from the restrictions SLI and CrossFire impose. This means it had to not only create a multi-GPU hardware solution that bypassed the considerably strong driver ecosystems of both ATI and Nvidia graphics cards, but also develop drivers for every possible graphics hardware combination to work in every game, efficiently. Looks like Guru3D have taken a look too.
Here's some funny passive-aggressive WiFi names, thanks (ironically) Rage. When even leaving a note is too direct…you folks with wireless networks still named “linksys” or “trendnet” are clearly missing out on a priceless opportunity to piss off your neighbors.
We may have mentioned this earlier, but Michael spotted more info about the CSIRO's new CPU-GPU supercomputer. CSIRO's latest supercomputer cluster will be among the world's first to combine traditional CPUs with more powerful graphics processing units or GPUs, providing a world class computational and simulation science facility to advance priority CSIRO science.
mrs_dan77 sends word that Iron Chef voting for the Christmas competition is now up. Mmm, tasty!
Forum Projects
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Monday, 11-January-2010 20:58:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A few more interesting things from the forums:
Monday Evening Reviews
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Monday, 11-January-2010 20:20:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
Kingston HyperX 1600MHz 12GB Triple Channel on Bjorn3D.
Kingston HyperX DDR3 4gig Memory Kit 1600Mhz on TestFreaks.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Xai Laser Gaming Mouse on TechPowerUp.
ROCCAT ARVO Gaming Keyboard on Metku.
Razer Imperator on Metku.
PureTrak Mouse Pads on OC3D.
Cases:
Thermaltake Element G on BonaFideReviews.
Cooler Master 690 II Advanced Mid Tower on ExtremeOC.
Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced Midtower on LegitReviews.
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master 690 II Advanced on NeoSeeker.
Cooler Master Storn Sniper Black Edition Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master Gladiator 600 Mid-Tower on OCOnline.
Thermaltake Element V on TechPowerUp.
SilverStone Raven RV02-BW on Tweaktown.
AZZA Helios 910R ATX Mid Tower Gaming Case on LegitReviews.
Blast from the Past II - IBM Portable PC
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Monday, 11-January-2010 00:13:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Following on from mAJORD's recent Tour of the IBM PC-XT, JustRight has taken a look at the great great grand-pappy of your netbook, the IBM Portable PC. A very loose definition of "portable" was allowed back then:
Click for the article!
Acer has issued a recall for some of its notebooks due to a burn hazard, thanks mpot. The recalled notebook computer models are the Acer AS3410, AS3410T, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG. The computer’s screen size is about 13.3 inches measured diagonally. Not all units are affected. Consumers should contact Acer to determine if their unit is included in the recall.
Some USB drives have a security issue, thanks Allen. SanDisk Corp. and Verbatim Corp. have joined Kingston Technology Inc. in warning customers about a potential security threat posed by a flaw in the hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption on their USB flash drives.
Gizmodo have some info on the upcoming Lego Universe MMO. There are two components of the game that are pretty tightly interweaved: the more traditional MMO portions where you use your skills and interact with other players to achieve goals and defeat monsters, and the building bit, where you have your own territory and can build anything you want out of Lego pieces.
Meanwhile it seems 3D Porn isn't too far off. "For several decades, the adult entertainment industry has driven adoption of every significant new entertainment delivery system - the VHS home-video craze in the 1980s, the satellite television mania in the 1990s and the present day internet," said Lance Johnson of Bad Girls in 3D. "2010 and beyond will be all about 3D. Society's enthusiasm for 3D films is largely responsible for the record $10 billion in box office revenues in 2009.
CNET take a look at what seems to be a new contender for the title of first microcomputer. Damer said that about a year-and-a-half ago, he was contacted by a former Sacramento State researcher named Bill Pentz who told him something along the lines of, "I think I led a team at Sacramento State which built the first fully-built-out microcomputer."
We haven't heard much about Net Neutrality for a while, but it's still being contested in court in the USA. In hearing a legal dispute between the agency and Comcast Corp., a three-judge federal appeals court panel questioned the commission's authority to impose so-called "net neutrality" obligations on the nation's largest cable TV and Internet operator. Those rules are intended to prevent broadband providers from abusing their control over the market for high-speed Internet access.
Today's timewaster is this basketball game which runs like a league - more info here.
Forum Projects
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Saturday, 9-January-2010 22:01:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Catching up on a few interesting things from the forums:
Saturday Afternoon
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Saturday, 9-January-2010 15:51:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's hope yet for my flying car dreams, thanks von Stalhein. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will this month hold its first Proposers' Day Workshop in support of a flying car program it will begin this year known as the Transformer (TX). The goal of the TX will be to build a flying vehicle that will let military personnel avoid water, difficult terrain, and road obstructions as well as IED and ambush threats by driving and flying when necessary.
But if I can't have a flying car, I can at least have a Star Trek wetsuit, thanks Mindy. These custom wetsuits are made from official materials providing protection for water-faring trekies and is available in three colors: Command Yellow, Science Blue, and Engineering Red. Avoid the red one, naturally.
Australian capital cities will be getting higher-quality Google Street View images soon. In what has become company tradition, Google staff gather outside their offices around the world to pose for shots that will eventually end up on Street View.
Speaking of exciting street scenes (and flying cars), how's this for spirited driving. The Swedes have developed the MOOSE ROLL! Remind me not to rob a bank in Sweden.
There's a lot of chatter about EVGA's dual-LGA1366 motherboard, which will hopefully be the BP6 of the current era. Some things you may not know: The board is able to run with two entirely different models of CPU, or the same CPU’s at different multipliers. There are two 8 pin, three 6 pin, and two 4 pin floppy connectors in and around the CPU sockets for delivering extra power to the DIMM slots, CPU’s and graphic cards while under extreme overclocking condition.
Also at CES, NVIDIA have shown off the GeForce GF100 Fermi, their flagship DX11 card. Info on LegitReviews, including a triple SLI demo. Legit Reviews got a chance to look at test system that had not one, but three GF100 Fermi graphics cards running in triple SLI demo. The demo is being narrated NVIDIA and it is worth a look! . NVIDIA also announced that GF100 was in volume production, so it looks like Fermi will still be out in Q1 2010.
HWZone report on Sony's 3D Vision, as well as Samsung's 3D technology. Not a fan of 3D? Perhaps the Sony blitz will convince you. Here are the highlights from Sony's CES press conference. I saw Avatar 3D the other day - the movie itself was a bit predictable, but the 3D effect was pretty cool.
Thanks to Wayne and Simon for these! Remember to send any in that you find.. or indeed, any other interesting news.
     
     
     
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 8-January-2010 13:53:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Powercolor HD 5850 PCS+ on TechPowerUp.
VisionTek HD 5750 on NeoSeeker.
ATI Radeon HD5750 1GB Graphics Card Video Review on eTeknix.
ASUS EAH5750 Formula on OCClub.
Sapphire HD 5870 Vapor X on XSReviews.
Cooling:
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme CPU cooler on FrostyTech.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU cooler on Hi-TechReviews.
Prolimatech MK-13 GPU cooler on LegionHW.
Danamics LMX Gen2 Liquid Metal Cooler on NordicHW.
Portable:
Mobility Radeon HD 5000 series brings DX11 to laptops on TechReport.
AMD's Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series GPUs on Techgage.
Acer Ferrari One 11.6-inch Netbook on Tweaktown.
Novatech V14 Laptop on HWHeaven.
Storage:
A-DATA S592 128GB Solid State Disk on Tweaktown.
Crucial M225 128GB SSD on OC3D.
Crucial M225 64GB 2.5" SSD on RBMods.
Thermaltake BlacX Duet HDD bay on PureOC.
Exclusive look at RunCore’s new Pro V 100GB SandForce Solid State Disk on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake BlacX Duet Dual Hard Drive Docking Station on BigBruin.
Thecus N0503 NAS on CCEReviews.
Friday Morning
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Friday, 8-January-2010 03:14:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Burj Dubai (now called the Burj Khalifa) opened recently, breaking all kinds of records, including being the tallest man-made structure ever built. Unmanned machines will clean the top 27 additional tiers and the glass spire. The cleaning system was developed in Australia at a cost of A$8 million. There's a video from the top here which will probably give you vertigo if you're prone to it! And in case you're wondering, about 13 seconds.
There's lots of stuff going on at CES, with Engadget reporting live from Steve Ballmer's keynote, some new SSDs on HotHardware and Day One info on Tweaknews and Anandtech.
Electronic Frontiers Australia have hired a senior law lecturer to run a campaign against mandatory internet censorship. Peter Black, who teaches law at the university, will be tasked with running an online and offline campaign to counter the government's plans.
People wondering when thin-bezel monitors would become available in the wake of AMD's EyeFinity will be interested in this joint announcement from AMD and Samsung. AMD (NYSE: AMD) and Samsung today showcased new thin-bezel displays that enable the most seamless multi-display experience yet with ATI Eyefinity technology on select ATI Radeon™ HD graphics cards, by minimizing display edges to enable a super high resolution panoramic computing experience.
A Perth doctor's Lamborghini has been impounded under hoon laws - and it was being driven by a mechanic! WA police Assistant Commissioner for Judicial Services Wayne Gregson said there was nothing police could do because "our hands are tied''.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Wednesday, 6-January-2010 21:54:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A quick snapshot of what people are discussing at the moment:
EVGA sneak peak of Dual LGA-1366 motherboard for CES 2010 in Overclocking & Hardware.
Team Australia overclocking at Reloaded Lan, January 16th-17th in Overclocking & Hardware.
New AMD Promotion in AMD Hardware.
AMD 965 C3 on LN2 @ 6667MHz with 1M SuperPi W.R. to go in AMD Hardware.
W3570 @4966-4997Mhz HT enabled 1.440-1.488v H20 in Intel Hardware.
i5 Clarkdale Testing! in Intel Hardware.
What are you paying for with external expertise? in Business & Enterprise Computing.
What AV do you sell into SMBs? in Business & Enterprise Computing.
The Manhattan Beach Project aims to put an end to aging by 2029 in Science.
$100 discount from Sparkfun in Electronics.
The Friggin' Laser in Electronics.
Overload and or Dust bunnies at work. Don't let this happen to you in Electronics.
All comps in house play same audio at the same time in PC Audio.
Various Unmetered File Lists from Australian ISP’s in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
Anyone using a non-traditional display in Video Cards & Monitors.
The 120Hz Monitor Thread in Video Cards & Monitors.
Space saving tips for SSDs in Storage & Backup.
Tell us about the day you lost everything in Storage & Backup.
HomeNAS : ZFS, Importation, ESXi, oh my! in Storage & Backup.
How much space do you usually have left until you buy a new drive? in Storage & Backup.
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 6-January-2010 21:17:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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ArsTechnica report on the death of the land-line, thanks Daviesh. POTS and PSTN are "relics of a by gone era," AT&T wrote to the FCC just before the holidays. "Due to technological advances, changes in consumer preference, and market forces, the question is when, not if, POTS service and the PSTN over which it is provided will become obsolete."
After nearly six years on the surface of Mars, the rover Spirit is in a spot of bother with the Martian winter approaching. "At the current rate of dust accumulation, solar arrays at zero tilt would provide barely enough energy to run the survival heaters through the Mars winter solstice," said Jennifer Herman, a rover power engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.
TechARP look at Intel's Turbo Boost in a little more detail. This article will focus on the mysterious Intel Turbo Boost Technology. It has been bandied about by Intel as a nifty way to improve the Core i7's performance with older applications that cannot fully utilize its four processing cores, but what exactly is it?
LostCircuits meanwhile wonder about the built-in GPU core of Clarkdale, and how it borrows CPU cycles. In this second part we are looking at the performance of Clarkdale with special emphasis on the synergism between the two separate processors, namely the borrowing of CPU cycles for graphics processing, and where it applies - or not.
LegitReviews report from CES with a 6Gbps SATA SSD demo. Benchmark tests have shown the Crucial C300 to be the fastest desktop and notebook SSD available to end consumers, boasting scorching-fast read speeds of up to 355MB/s. The Crucial C300 natively supports SATA 6Gb/s—the next generation high-speed storage interface—and is backwards compatible with the SATA 3Gb/s interface.
Steve found some info on the upcoming Google Nexus One mobile phone, and Google's larger mobile strategy. One could be forgiven for assuming Google was about to knock over the smartphone market--two and a half years after Apple did just that--with one quick blow going into Tuesday's Android event with a phone designed by Google and sold at retail by Google. After all, that's what the Internet said would happen leading up to the event. Discussion here.
Wednesday Night Reviews
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Wednesday, 6-January-2010 20:49:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Memory:
Crucial 4GB DDR3-1333 on PureOC.
A-DATA PC3-17600 Plus Series 4GB Dual-Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.
Power Supply:
Topower Tiger 1200W on OCOnline.
Kingwin Mach-1 1000W on BigBruin.
Cases:
Silverstone Fortress 2 FT02 Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Cooler Master 690 II Advanced on PureOC.
Cooler Master CM690-II Advanced on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced on OCClub.
Storage:
QNAP TS-809 Pro network storage on Bjorn3D.
Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ 16GB USB Flash Drive on TestFreaks.
Misc:
Hercules ePlug 200 Duo Powerline Networking Kit on I4U.
JetArt MousePal Mouse Pad on Pro-Clockers.
NetSecure SmartSwipe USB credit card machine on iGadgetLife.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(2 Comments)
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Wednesday, 6-January-2010 02:57:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Arctic Cooling Accelero L2 Pro GPU cooler on Bjorn3D.
Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 Pro CPU cooler on HWSecrets.
Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme CPU cooler on Frostytech.
Prolimatech Megahalems CPU cooler on FrostyTech.
AeroCool DCC-C900 CPU cooler on ThinkComputers.
Motherboard & CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 CPU on RBMods.
ASUS P7H55D-M EVO H55 board on Motherboards.org.
ASRock H55M Pro H55 board on Tweaktown.
MSI Eclipse Plus Intel X58 Express board on PCStats.
DFI MI-P55-T36 Mini-ITX on Anandtech,thanks Tony_L.
Audio Visual:
Village Tronic ViBook Plus notebook monitor adaptor on CCEReviews.
IPEVO P2V "Macro" USB Webcam on EverythingUSB.
Brother HL-2140 Laser Printer on HWSecrets.
Video Cards:
Gainward GeForce GT220 on Metku.
Sapphire Radeon 5770 Vapor-X on PureOC.
HIS Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 on OC3D.
GIGABYTE GeForce GT-240 HDMI on BenchmarkReviews.
Inno3D GeForce GT240 on OCClub.
Portable & Prebuilt:
MSI Wind-Top AE2220-25SUS PC on BenchmarkReviews.
Norhtec Gecko Edubook on DigitalReviews.
Lenovo X100e ultraportable on HWZone.
Tuesday Afternoon
(2 Comments)
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Tuesday, 5-January-2010 16:59:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you think you might like an OCAU 10th Anniversary Polo Shirt, please measure and vote in this poll so we know roughly what sizes to order most of.
There's a zillion reviews of Intel's new Clarkdale CPUs out on the net, so instead of linking them all here, I'll refer you to this Intel Hardware Forum thread by DiGiTaL MoNkEY. Enjoy!
The 2009 Darwin Awards have been awarded. For the first time ever, a woman--yes, a member of the safer sex--made it into the year's Top Darwin Awards Contenders! 2009 Antepenultimate Winner is the North Carolina woman who jumped into a swollen creek to rescue her drowning...moped.
Gizmodo report on how non-latin domain names can be used for evil. Pretty much as we worried they might be back when they were announced. Unicode is great because it supports multiple languages simultaneously, bringing international understanding, universal peace and planetary love. And so is ICANN’s decision to allow domain names that use non-Latin alphabets. Until both combine to steal your credit card number.
Nik spotted a cyber-monitoring upgrade in New Zealand. The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.
Agner's CPU blog ponders what they're calling the Cripple AMD function in Intel's compiler. However, the Intel CPU dispatcher does not only check which instruction set is supported by the CPU, it also checks the vendor ID string. If the vendor string says "GenuineIntel" then it uses the optimal code path. If the CPU is not from Intel then, in most cases, it will run the slowest possible version of the code, even if the CPU is fully compatible with a better version.
Bono meanwhile is calling for tighter internet controls. In his regular column for the New York Times, which the U2 frontman began a year ago, Bono says downloading is becoming all-encompassing.
If you'd like to try your hand at an oppressive censorship regime, have a go at Ban This Game.
Intel Clarkdale
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Monday, 4-January-2010 16:00:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Intel have just unveiled their "Clarkdale" family of CPUs and Chainbolt has a detailed report for us. These new CPUs are the next generation of Nehalem, but interestingly, they contain within the CPU a separate graphics processor. Will this be your next CPU? Read on to find out:
Click for the review!
Once again we missed out on Friday due to New Year, so here's a catchup pile of misc pics. Thanks to Harry, Ben, James, Jeremy and Rick for these! Interesting that people are using their real names instead of usernames in emails today. :) Also, the last one might be "Not Safe For Work" (despite my adding a big black censorship box) so beware!
     
     
     
A Tour of IBM's PC-XT
(4 Comments)
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Sunday, 3-January-2010 23:48:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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As we stagger blinking into the bright lights of 2010, mAJORD takes us on a tour back to the early 1980's with a detailed look inside IBM's XT. Ahh, it's great to re-live the days when men were men, women existed primarily in magazine form and computers were beige.
Click for the article!
Sunday Afternoon
(3 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 3-January-2010 15:38:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Hope you had a fun New Years and all hangovers have fully subsided..
I'll resist my usual comment about flying cars, but c'mon, it's 2010 now! Seems I'm not the only person wondering why we aren't living in Star Trek yet. As we approach a new decade, nearly a third (32%) of Americans say they believed there would be greater technological advances by 2010, a new Zogby/ScoopDaily poll shows.
TeslaDownUnder ended 2009 with a bang, or at least, a giant tesla coil xmas tree. This year I did another Xmas tree based on the success of the one I did in 2007. I made it bigger (9m = 30 ft) and more spectacular by using a different technique. It still uses a long exposure and a rotating colored filter but the tree shape is outlined by sparks from a rotating rod on top of the Tesla coil.
Seb spotted a Y2.01K bug affecting Bank of Queensland. BOQ's Eftpos machines skipped ahead six years when the clock ticked over to January 1 and started date stamping January 2016. ... The glitch cost businesses untold amounts as the Eftpos terminals read customers' cards as having expired and refused their transactions.
Tarrith reminds us that the Australian Broadband Survey 2009 is still running, until the end of January. Whirlpool's annual Australian Broadband Survey is a comprehensive survey run by users, for users. Through this survey we're giving the consumer a strong voice to say how they feel about the general state of broadband in Australia, and specific experiences with their provider.
Here's a funny mod turning a netbook into a giant mobile phone. So this guy buys a Dell Inspiron Mini 10.1-inch netbook but either isn’t happy at its lack of cellular coverage, or just has a severe phone fixation and decides to rip it apart and turn it into a Dell Mini 3i phone, complete with Android-based OS.
Sal sent in these 3d fractals, with more info here. The original Mandelbrot is an amazing object that has captured the public's imagination for 30 years with its cascading patterns and hypnotically colourful detail.
Google Earth has been used to confirm a Dreamtime meteor legend. One of the stories - which tells of a star that fell into a waterhole called Puka in the valley, where Kulaia the serpent lived - had led to the discovery of the ancient crater, but there were "many, many more", Mr Hamacher said.
If you fancy yourself as a stock picker, you might want to try our OCAU Iron Trader competition. If you're an experienced tipper or you just want to give it a go and have some fun, now is the time to join! Don't be scared, plenty of novices have shamed our "expert" tippers.
Fans of the TV show Dexter might enjoy these animated online episodes telling other parts of the Dexter story.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Saturday, 2-January-2010 14:21:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
WD Caviar Black 2 TB on InsideHW.
Kingston 16GB DataTraveler Locker+ Flash Drive on BigBruin.
SanDisk 32GB Extreme III SDHC Memory Card on LegitReviews.
ANTEC MX-25 Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure on PCShopTalk.
OCZ's Vertex 2 Pro MLC SSD on Anandtech, thanks htcham.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte P55A-UD6 SATA-6G LGA1156 board on BenchmarkReviews.
ASUS P7P55D Premium LGA1156 board on LegitReviews.
ASUS Z8NA-D6C Server Motherboard on Motherboards.org.
Gigabyte EP45-UD3LR on iXBTLabs.
Gigabyte P55A-UD6 LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
GIGABYTE P55A-UD4P LGA1156 board on Bjorn3D.
Tyan S5502 Server/Workstation System Board on TechWareLabs.
ASUS Maximus III Gene mATX LGA1156 board on PureOC.
Asus Maximus III Formula LGA1156 board on XbitLabs.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler on DragonSteelMods.
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro. Rev 2 CPU cooler Hi-TechReviews.
Larkooler Universal CPU / VGA / Chipset / Mosfet Liquid Cooling Kit on MadShrimps.
Scythe Kabuto CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
Akasa Freedom Force VGA Cooler on DriverHeaven.
Swiftech Apogee XT High End CPU Water Block on MadShrimps.
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2 CPU cooler on Hi-TechReviews.
Cases:
NZXT Lexa S on RBMods.
Aerocool BX-500 B Series Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Corsair Obsidian 800D on LegionHW.
NZXT TEMPEST EVO on OCClub.
LanCool PC-K56W Mid-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
XClio Nighthawk on DriverHeaven.
Raidmax Skyline on OCClub.
Saturday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 2-January-2010 14:01:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
HIS HD5770 vs. HIS HD4890 iCooler x4 Comparison on OCrCafe.
HIS Radeon HD 5770 1GB on Tweaktown.
PowerColor PCS+ 5770 on OCClub.
HIS Radeon HD5750 iCooler IV Video Card Benchmarking on LegitReviews.
ECS GeForce GT240 512MB on Motherboards.org.
Power Supplies:
Thermaltake Evo_Blue 750W on Bjorn3D.
Corsair HX750 on Hi-TechReviews.
Kingwin Lazer Series 1,000W on PCPerspective.
Zalman ZM600-RS 600W on Pro-Clockers.
Cooler Master SNA 95 Universal Power Adapter on APHNetworks.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Jetway Ecomo EM100BV Netbook on TechWareLabs.
ASRock ION 330HT Nettop on ThinkComputers.
Dell Alienware m15x laptop on HWZone.
The HP Mini 110 Studio Tord Boontje Edition netbook on TBreak.
Input Etc:
Razer Abyssus Gaming Mouse on Bjorn3D.
Razer Imperator Laser Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
VidaBox Premium Wireless Keyboard on Guru3D.
Wacom Intuos4 and Bamboo Tablets on PCPerspective.
SteelSeries XAI Laser Gaming Mouse on PCShopTalk.
Archos 5 Internet Tablet on HWZone.
Logitech G27 Racing Wheel on Techgage.
Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse on TechPowerUp.
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