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February 2010 |
OCAU 10th Anniversary Polo Shirts and Stubby Holders
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Sunday, 28-February-2010 20:36:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Tomorrow (Monday 1st March) is the LAST DAY you can get your order in for OCAU 10th Anniversary Polo Shirts. Don't miss out!
Sunday Afternoon Reviews #2
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Sunday, 28-February-2010 17:37:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
Gigabyte X58A-UD3R Intel X58 LGA 1366 on ThinkComputers.
ASUS P7P55D-E Pro (P55 Express) LGA1156 board on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte P55A-UD7 LGA1156 board on Techgage.
ASUS Maximus III Extreme LGA1156 board on Guru3D.
Asus P7P55D-E Premium LGA1156 board on APHNetworks.
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD7 LGA1366 board on BenchmarkReviews.
ASUS P7H57D-V EVO LGA1156 board on LegitReviews.
ASRock H55DE3 LGA1156 board on Motherboards.org.
Cases:
Antec ISK300-150 on HWSecrets.
Aerocool BX-500 PGS Series B on Hi-TechReviews.
Silverstone Fortress FT02 on Phoronix.
Storage:
Kingwin Dock Master 3.0 Hard Drive Dock on Pro-Clockers.
Corsair Flash Padlock 2 8GB USB Flash Drive on ThinkComputers.
Corsair Flash Padlock 2 8GB USB Flash Drive on on OCCLub.
RaidSonic Icy Box IB-318 and IB-250 USB 3.0 HDD Enclosures video review on Tweaktown.
Silicon Power E10 and M10 SSDs on OC3D.
WD 1TB Caviar Green Hard Drive w/ Advanced Format on HotHardware.
Toshiba HG2 43nm 256GB Solid State Drive on LegitReviews.
Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB on Bjorn3D.
TwinMOS Mobile Disk Q7 64GB USB Drive on TBreak.
Power Supply:
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W on HWSecrets.
Thermaltake TR2 RX 750W Modular on Tweaknews.
Huntkey Balance King 4500 450W on HWSecrets.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 28-February-2010 17:15:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
OCZ Alchemy Series Elixir Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
GIGABYTE M8000 Xtreme Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte Ghost GM-M8000X Laser Gaming Mouse on PCStats.
Wacom Bamboo CTH-460 tablet on TechReviewSource.
Roccat Arvo Gaming Keyboard on RBMods.
Cyber Snipa Silencer gaming mouse on XSReviews.
Memory:
G.Skill Pi Series 17600 4GB Kit on OC3D.
G.Skill ECO DDR3-1600 (PC3 12800) on Modders-Inc.
Audio Visual:
ASUS MY-CINEMA PHC3-150 HDTV-Tuner Card on BenchmarkReviews.
Gorillapod SLR-Zoom and Ballhead SLR-Zoom camera tripods on DragonSteelMods.
Polaroid Pogo Instant Mobile Printer on BonaFideReviews.
Boston Acoustics VS 344 speakers on DigitalTrends.
Software:
Napoleon: Total War PC game on IGN.
Command & Conquer 4 preview on GamingHeaven.
Aliens Vs Predator PC Game DX11 Performance Benchmarks on LegitReviews.
Napoleon: Total War PC game on GamingHeaven.
Misc:
AirLive 802.11n router on TechPowerUp.
Soundgraph FingerVU 706 USB LCD mini touchscreen on TechPowerUp.
Gunnar Optiks Wi-FIVE Digital Performance Eyewear on LegitReviews.
Chile Earthquake and Tsunami Warning
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Sunday, 28-February-2010 00:50:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's been a magnitude 8.8 earthquake near Chile, resulting in a widespread tsunami alert for the Pacific, including parts of Australia's east coast. The BoM said tsunami waves could start affecting Norfolk and Lord Howe Islands after 8:30am (AEDT) on Sunday, NSW could be hit after 8:45am (AEDT) while Queensland could be hit after 8:15am (AEST).
A TSUNAMI IS A SERIES OF WAVES AND THE FIRST WAVE MAY NOT BE THE LARGEST. TSUNAMI WAVE HEIGHTS CANNOT BE PREDICTED AND CAN VARY SIGNIFICANTLY ALONG A COAST DUE TO LOCAL EFFECTS. THE TIME FROM ONE TSUNAMI WAVE TO THE NEXT CAN BE FIVE MINUTES TO AN HOUR, AND THE THREAT CAN CONTINUE FOR MANY HOURS AS MULTIPLE WAVES ARRIVE.
I know there have been previous warnings like this with no noticeable effect, but it's better to be safe than sorry. The official warnings from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology are here for QLD and here for NSW, while the Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre's website with updates is here.
Discussion here.
Photography Gallery
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Saturday, 27-February-2010 21:38:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some recent photos from our Photography Gallery forum:
Thanks to mpot, Phalanx, Matt and Lachlan this week!
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 26-February-2010 13:25:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AFACT have lodged an appeal against the earlier ruling favouring iiNet in their copyright case. They will be challenging almost the entire judgement. But central to the appeal is an argument that the judge applied an incorrect test for whether iiNet "authorised" the copyright infringement of subscribers on its network.
Senator Kate Lundy has suggested an internet filter "lite" for Australia. The bottom line is that for many people a (generally silently applied) mandatory filter with a secret blacklist would always be concerning regardless of the filter scope. It still wouldn’t engage or educate all Internet subscribers in better online safety practices, it wouldn’t deal with business concerns and it wouldn’t deal with concerns around a secret blacklist: only the direct engagement of Internet subscribers and the ability to legitimately opt out resolves these fundamental objections.
Meanwhile Senator Conroy's website filters filtering from itself, thanks Jay. In the function that creates the list, or "tag cloud", there is a condition that if the words "ISP filtering" appear they should be skipped and not displayed.
Paypal may be opening an apps store for developers, thanks Teddybear. "We have a huge emphasis on interacting with developers. They're our customers, along with consumers and merchants," Bedier said during an interview at an outside café in Miami Beach's Lincoln Road promenade.
Here's an amusing article looking back at computer manuals. For example, the manual for the Franklin Ace 100 begins with about 40 pages of computer basics (What are they? What can they do? etc). And then, on page 40, two thirds of the way down the page, there is a chapter heading called “The Ancestral Territorial Imperatives of the Trumpeter Swan.”
Mitchee sent in this photo which looks like a TIE fighter cockpit, but is in fact from inside the ISS's new cupola. The cupola's fully opened windows look down on the Sahara Desert in this image that was 'tweeted' from space by JAXA astronaut and Expedition 22 flight engineer Soichi Noguchi.
If you're after some educatin', there's a huge pile of free online computer science courses here. Schools like MIT, UC Berkeley, and UMass Boston, are offering free online courses on everything from basic programming to robotics.
Today's timewaster has a sciency bent too, being a solar system simulator. In fact there's a huge pile of similar simulation games here.
ATI Radeon HD 5830
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Friday, 26-February-2010 12:12:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD have released yet another DirectX 11 card, the Radeon HD 5830 at the value end of the market. Taking a look at their prices, which regrettably often differ from the retail ones, you can see that there is a substantial difference between the Radeon HD 5770 and Radeon HD 5850 which is not filled by a DirectX 11 compatible product. Trying to close this gap up, AMD announces one more model: Radeon HD 5830!
Coverage on XbitLabs, OCClub, Techgage, Bjorn3D, BenchmarkReviews, NeoSeeker, PC Perspective, Tweaktown, LegitReviews, HotHardware, LegionHW, HWHeaven and TechPowerUp.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 26-February-2010 03:58:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Zalman CNPS10X Flex CPU Cooler on OCOnline.
Zalman CNPS10X Performa Heatsink on Frostytech.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU cooler on OCClub.
Spire TherMax II CPU cooler on Tweaknews.
Tuniq Tower 120 Extreme CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
XtremeGear HP-1216B Heatsink on Frostytech.
Prolimatech MK-13 VGA Cooler on PureOC.
Power Supply:
XFX 750 W Black Edition on HWSecrets.
Enermax Modu87+ 500W on PureOC.
Kingwin Lazer 850W on Bjorn3D.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire on Tweaktown.
Asus EAH5750 on RBMods.
ASUS EAH5750 Formula Radeon HD 5750 on PCPerspective.
ASUS EAH5770 CuCore on LostCircuits.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Gateway SX2840-01 SFF desktop PC on TechReviewSource.
Sony VAIO Y Series Notebook on HotHardware.
CompuLab Fit-PC2 NetTop on Phoronix.
Storage:
Corsair Padlock 2 8GB on NeoSeeker.
Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SATA 3Gbps Performance Analysis on Tweaktown.
Synology Disk Station DS410j NAS on TechSpot.
Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB SATA3 Hard Drive on FutureLooks.
Synology DS710+ NAS on XSReviews.
Synology Disk Station DS210j on CCEReviews.
Addonics Pocket eSATA/USB DigiDrive on TechPowerUp.
QNAP TS-459 Pro Turbo NAS with Intel Atom D510 on LegitReviews.
Patriot Torqx 64 GB SSD on OCIA.
Netgear ReadyNAS Duo on XbitLabs.
Sans Digital Towerraid TR5UT(-B) on TechWareLabs.
Western Digital AV-GP 2 TB Hard Disk Drive on TechARP.
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 25-February-2010 17:55:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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An Italian court has found Google executives guilty for allowing a bullying video to be posted online. Google consider this a serious threat to the web in Italy. "If individuals like myself and my Google colleagues who had nothing to do with the harassing incident, its filming or its uploading onto Google Video can be held criminally liable solely by virtue of our position at Google, every employee of any internet hosting service faces similar liability," he added.
Closer to home, someone in Western Australia has been successfully sued for online forum comments, thanks von Stalhein. The hunt for the man's true identity proved the stuff of private detective novels updated into the age of blogs.
Check out this bizarre pin-cushion building being built by the British in China. Costing £25million to build, the 60ft-high cube-like construction is covered by 60,000 quivering, transparent acrylic rods,received investment from eight Government departments and agencies.
NVIDIA have an interesting paper showing how a GPU with CUDA can accelerate SQL database operations. This paper focuses on accelerating SELECT queries and describes the considerations in an efficient GPU implemen-tation of the SQLite command processor. Results on an NVIDIA Tesla C1060 achieve speedups of 20-70X depend-ing on the size of the result set.
XbitLabs looked at some HDD silencers and coolers. Today we are going to talk about six solutions for cooling 3.5-inch hard disk drives. We will check the cooling efficiency and acoustic performance of products from GlacialTech, Scythe, Tuniq, Xilence and A.C.Ryan.
NASA have a Lunar Explorer Rover Simulator app for the iPhone. You want to Discover how LER’s turning radius, ability to move in multiple directions, attached suits, and habitat capabilities optimize safety and exploration efficiency. You want to virtual test drive the Lunar Electric Rover.
Meanwhile Dell have a tablet which is taking aim at the iPad, thanks disfuctional. The Mini 5 will sport a 5-megapixel camera on the back, a separate front-facing camera that can be used for video conferencing, a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity and a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1-GHz processor. The 5-inch screen also means it will be be closer to the Sony PSP in its form factor than the longer legal notepad design of the iPad.
VooDoo sent word of a push to build a drag-strip in Melbourne, with more info here. As some of you may know, the Victorian people have been without competition ANDRA drag racing for over 10 years now. In co-operation with ANDRA, there has been a group of people lobbying to the state governmnet to get a world class track built in Victoria to bring back drag racing.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 25-February-2010 15:01:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboards:
DFI LanParty MI P55-T36 LGA1156 mini-ITX on HWZone.
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD6 LGA1156 board on APHNetworks.
Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD4 LGA 1156 Micro ATX on PCPerspective.
MSI P55-GD85 LGA1156 on LegitReviews.
GIGABYTE MA790XT-UD4P AM3 DDR3 on ExtremeOC.
GIGABYTE P55A-UD7 LGA1156 on Motherboards.org.
Gigabyte GA-790FXTA-UD5 AM3 board on HWHeaven.
ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Clarksdale LGA1156 board on BenchmarkReviews.
Video Cards:
Zotac GeForce GT 240 512MB on VerdisReviews.
HIS Radeon HD5670 IceQ on Hi-TechReviews.
MSI HD R5770 Hawk on OCClub.
Asus EAH5670 1GB on Bjorn3D.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 TOXIC on Tweaktown.
PowerColor Radeon HD 5970 LCS on OCClub.
HIS Radeon HD 5450 1GB GDDR3 on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Raidmax Skyline on PureOC.
Thermaltake Element T on Tweaknews.
IN WIN Maelstrom Full Tower on Tweaktown.
Coolermaster USP 100 Mid Tower on Pro-Clockers.
SilverStone Fortress FT-02 on TechWareLabs.
Moneual Lab Y601B mATX HTPC case on TechPowerUp.
In Win Diva mini-ITX "girl" case on HWSecrets.
NZXT Gamma Classic Mid Tower Black Steel on Modders-Inc.
NZXT Hades Crafted Series Mid-Tower on Techgage.
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced on Guru3D.
Coolermaster CM690 II Advance Mid Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Wednesday, 24-February-2010 20:37:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Catching up on some more interesting threads in the forums:
Games you just couldn't get into in Games.
JCOVE lite - a free military simulator in Games.
Take care buying games from ebay in Games.
The "PC gamers being screwed" thread in Games.
OS or frontend for young children in Windows Operating Systems.
Linux Alternatives for Windows Software + switching in Other Operating Systems.
A Week with Ubuntu in Other Operating Systems.
Linux Home Servers - Questions in Other Operating Systems.
HTPC, Best to get each codec individually? or as a suite? in Audio Visual.
Best MP3 player for playing lossless music in Audio Visual.
Using steering wheel in lounge room in Game Consoles.
For all you Threadless & Tolkien lovers in Graphic Design & Digital Art.
Show us your BBQ! in Geek Food.
Mobile sets off security alarm in stores in Mobile Phones.
iPhone (4g?) Rumor thread in Mobile Phones.
Does anyone else hate their iPhone? in Mobile Phones.
HTC shows Windows Mobile more love with the HD mini in Mobile Phones.
Guitar shopping in Tokyo - photos in Musicians.
Guitar Blind Test II (four clean electrics) in Musicians.
Bicycle Trailer Design + Worklog in Other Toys.
Olympus to go completely mirrorless in Photography.
100 Most Influential Photographers of Our Time in Photography.
Should venues and events loosen up on camera restrictions? in Photography.
007, your country needs you in Photography.
The Akinator in The Pub.
Ever wanted to hear a girl moan your IP address? in The Pub.
Proluma Contest Reminder
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Wednesday, 24-February-2010 12:58:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember we're having a geekiest self-portrait contest at the moment, to win a triple-screen LCD monitor stand from Proluma. A few good entries so far, but I'm sure we've got some bigger geeks on OCAU. :)
Tuesday Night
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Tuesday, 23-February-2010 21:11:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A document that people are claiming is a leaked draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has some worrying elements. It proposes making ISPs (Internet service providers) liable under civil law for the content their subscribers upload or download using their networks. Sounds familiar..
Sounds familiar because it's just like the result that was NOT achieved by the recent AFACT vs iiNet case, which iiNet won, but who now are being asked to pay part of AFACT's legal fees, thanks enigma. "We didn't ask to be sued. They came to us and sued us and they lost, so I don't see why we should be paying any of their legal expenses," Malone told ZDNet.com.au today.
Also sounding familiar is this Tasmanian law: According to consumer group Digital Tasmania, Section 191 of the state’s Electoral Law currently requires all election material posted on the internet to be accompanied by an authorisation containing a person’s full name and home or work address. The situation mirrors legislation enacted in South Australia recently which requires a resident’s details to accompany any internet comment about the election. However, the state quickly pledged to repeal the legislation after substantial public dissent led by newspaper the Advertiser.
A couple of hardcore Apple fans have been married in an Apple store. The geeky ceremony was attended by around 30 friends and family -- as well as several bemused Apple shoppers. Staff also watched on in shock as the couple exchanged rings (attached to 1st generation iPods) and the wedding was conducted by a priest dressed as Steve Jobs.
There are apparently mountains of electronic waste building up in developing nations, according to the UN. The report gathered information about current levels of e-waste in 11 nations and also looked at how those totals might grow in the next decade. Globally, e-waste is growing at a rate of about 40 million tonnes per year as consumers, in both developed and developing nations, buy new gadgets and discard their old ones.
There's an interesting video here about gaming, including how Facebook has shaken the industry, and where the future of game design may be going. If you do experience design of any kind it’ll be the most valuable (and entertaining) 20 minutes you’ll spend all week. Actually I just watched it to the end and it was really interesting stuff.
TechReport consider CPU value. In our grand Athlon II vs. Core i3 showdown article last week, we included performance-per-dollar graphs based on whole system prices. Those system prices were themselves derived from the rough cost of a middle-of-the-road PC—the kind your typical enthusiast might buy. What if you're on a tight budget and really have to cut corners, though? We've whipped up another set of graphs, this time using prices from low-end components, in order to find out.
Original_Muse sent in this amusing but worrying article about working for the Government. In regards to the post on “ThinkUKnow” and government organised websites in general it seems apt to link to this journalists writings on when he was head hunted to be a speech writer. Then how he saw just how disorganised some government websites can be.
XbitLabs took a look at onboard PhysX. All contemporary Nvidia solutions support PhysX, but in return some of the GPU resources are assigned to physics effects acceleration. Is it possible to avoid performance losses without adding more cards? EVGA’s answer is "yes". We in our turn will try to answer the question if there is an alternative for the owners of ATI Radeon HD solutions.
Evil ZeR0 spotted this (beware, some NSFW ads) gingerbread PC worklog. I'd seen a couple of photos before but not the whole process, so thanks!
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
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Tuesday, 23-February-2010 15:54:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Thinksound Rain Headphones / Earbuds on DragonSteelMods.
Thinksound Rain on DigitalTrends.
Geeks.com Mini LED LCD Projector on RBMods.
Storage:
A-DATA 32 GB 633x Compact Flash on TechPowerUp.
USB 3.0 2.5" SATA HDD Enclosure on TestFreaks.
OCZ Vertex LE (Limited Edition) 100GB SSD on LegitReviews.
Kingston SSDNow V Series 128gb SSD Notebook Bundle on TestFreaks.
G.Skill Falcon II 128GB SSD on Guru3D.
Synology DS710+ 2-bay All-in-1 NAS Server on OC3D.
Micron RealSSD C300 256GB SATA 6Gbps SSD on LegitReviews.
Seagate BlackArmor 500GB PS 110 USB 3.0 Performance Kit on TestFreaks.
Corsair P64 SSD RAID 0 on PureOC.
Cooling:
Tuniq Propeller 120 CPU cooler on XbitLabs.
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 CPU Cooler on DragonSteelMods.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Chill Innovation ChillDesk MiniXL Laptop Cooler on HWHeaven.
Evercool FIT Laptop Cooler on PCShopTalk.
Input Etc:
Gigabyte GHOST M8000X Gaming Mouse on LegitReviews.
Razer Orochi Mobile Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Mionix NAOS 5000 Gaming Mouse on Metku.
OCAU 10th Anniversary Polo Shirts and Stubby Holders
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Tuesday, 23-February-2010 12:36:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Time's running out for you to order OCAU 10th anniversary polo shirts and stubby holders. Orders will only be accepted until March 1st, so don't miss out!
We have a few "S" size polos left over from the first batch, so if you order some of those, you will get them immediately instead of having to wait for the second batch to go through.
Forum Projects
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Monday, 22-February-2010 21:20:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Catching up on some interesting things from the forums:
ThinkUKnow, Australia's new internet safety initiative for children, has been officially launched and has a YouTube channel. ThinkUKnow is an Internet safety program delivering interactive training to parents, carers and teachers through primary and secondary schools across Australia using a network of accredited trainers. Created by the UK Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, ThinkUKnow Australia has been developed by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Microsoft Australia.
Nintendo's legal triumphs continue, with a ruling against a company selling r4 cards. The gadgets, known as R4 cards, are used to download pirated games on to handheld consoles and have been illegal in Australia since 2005. IT Solutions Pty Ltd - which trades as GadgetGear - was selling the cards online in Australia. The company will now have to pay Nintendo $620,000 in damages. GadgetGear has also agreed to stop importing the devices into Australia.
If you're using the Window7 Release Candidate, it will stop working soon. On March 1st, it will start shutting down every two hours. To avoid interruption, please reinstall a prior version of Windows or move to Windows 7. In either case, you'll need to do a custom (clean) install to replace the RC. As with any clean installation, you'll need to back up your data then reinstall your applications and restore the data.
I've seen a couple of episodes of the old "Connections" program by James Burke and really liked them, but never saw the rest. Well, good news, they're now free on YouTube. Good entertaining sciency stuff - if a little hammy nowadays. :)
If you're after a new domain name, sex.com will be up for sale again soon. The notice also states: “To be qualified to bid at the auction, bidders must appear at the auction with a certified bank check in the amount of $1,000,000.”
AusGamers are excited that the Nokia N900 Australian Release has been confirmed for april, with a press event on March 2nd. Australian pricing details have not yet been announced, but they'll be confirmed at the media event, so stay tuned for further details.
Futurelooks have some info on technology at the Winter Olympics. For instance, you know the gold, silver, and bronze medals being awarded to the winners? They took discarded circuit boards and collected the useful metals in them (gold, silver, and copper). The Royal Canadian Mint then recycled them into the highly treasured discs.
Overclockers.com ponder hard drive fragmentation. Defragmenting a HDD is one of those basics that we should all do and has been so since well, mechanical HDDs came into existence. However, is this just good housekeeping practice based on actual results, or is it just one of those myths about what to do with your computer to keep it running well?
Byteside have new Tech Show and Games Show episodes, with a focus on mobile computing and first-person shooters respectively.
Saturday Night Reviews #2
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Saturday, 20-February-2010 21:56:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
BenQ Joybee GP1 projector on InsideHW.
Motorsports HERO Wide rugged video camera on TechWareLabs.
eStarling TouchConnect WiFi Digital Photo Frame on BigBruin.
Zotac Mag HTPC on TBreak.
Mionix Keid 20 Gaming Headset on PureOC.
Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1e X-Fi Sound Card on Guru3D.
Asus Xonar D1 sound card on Bjorn3D.
Panasonic 54-inch VIERA TH-P54Z1N Plasma TV on HWZone.
Thinksound Thunder headphones on DigitalTrends.
Power Supply:
XFX XPS-650W on OCClub.
3R System iCEAGE IA500HP80 500W on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master Silent Pro M 600W on HWSecrets.
Video Cards:
ASUS EAH5670 1GB GDDR5 on PureOC.
HIS Radeon HD 5670 IceQ+ 1GB on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic OC Edition on OCClub.
Sapphire HD 5850 Toxic on NeoSeeker.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 TOXIC GFX on HWHeaven.
ATI Radeon HD 5670 Shootout - Mainstream Battle Royale on HWZone.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5850 Toxic on Techgage.
Sapphire HD 5450 512 MB GDDR3 on TechPowerUp.
GIGABYTE Radeon HD 5670 1GB GDDR5 OC on Tweaktown.
Cases:
NZXT Tempest EVO on Bjorn3D.
InWin Maelstrom PC Case Enclosure on Tech-Revirews.
Moneual MonCaso 600 on RBMods.
SilverStone Fortress FT02 on HWHeaven.
Storage:
OCZ Vertex 2 Pro 100GB SandForce SF-1500 SSD on LegitReviews.
Patriot Valkyrie 2 Bay Network Attach Storage on TestFreaks.
Vantec eSATA ExpressCard UGT-ST450CB on OCIA.
ASUS BC-08B1ST Blu-ray Combo Drive on ThinkComputers.
Western Digital's 6Gbps Caviar Black 1TB hard drive on TechReport.
Kingston SSDNow V Series (2nd Gen) 128GB SSD on PCPerspective.
Lite-On iHES208 Internal 8X Blu-ray Combo Drive on Tweaktown.
Lite-On Slim USB 8x External DVD Writer on TechWareLabs.
Kingston MobileLite G2 FCR-MLG2+SD4/16GB portable card reader on AseLabs.
Eagletech ET-CSMDSU2-BK Dual Bay SATA to USB Enclosure on Pro-Clockers.
Micron RealSSD C300 SATA III SSD on HotHardware.
Kingston SSDNow V+ Series SNVP325-S2B 512GB Gen 2 Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
PCI-Express USB 3.0 Host Controller Card and USB3.0 Extension Cable on TestFreaks.
OCZ Vertex LE (Limited Edition) 100GB SSD on PCPerspective.
Computer Geeks eSATA Enclosure HE-2521B on OCIA.
G.Skill PI DDR3-2000 C7 memory on PureOC.
Saturday Night Reviews
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Saturday, 20-February-2010 21:22:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Zalman CNPS10X Quiet Heatsink on Frostytech.
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 CPU cooler on OCOnline.
Zalman CNPS9900 NT CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Corsair Hydro Series H50 Water Cooling System on Motherboards.org.
Motherboard & CPU:
EVGA P55 FTW LGA 1156 on PCPerspective.
ECS H55H-CM mATX LGA1156 board on HWZone.
Intel Core i5-661 Clarksdale Processor on BenchmarkReviews.
MSI H55M ED55 LGA1156 board on OC3D.
Gigabyte GA-H55M-USB3 LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
AMD Athlon II X4 635 & Phenom II X2 555 Black Edition on Techgage.
ASUS P6X58D-Premium SATA6G LGA1366 board on BenchmarkReviews.
ASRock A330ION Mini-ITX ION board on LegitReviews.
ASUS Maximus III Extreme LGA1156 board on OC3D.
Input Etc:
Enermax Aurora Micro Wireless Keyboard on PureOC.
ROCCAT Arvo Compact Gaming Keyboard on HWHeaven.
CM Storm Sentinel Advance 5600 DPI Mouse on Hi-TechReviews.
Cooler Master CM Storm Sentinal Advance Gaming Mouse on Tweaknews.
Portable:
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13-inch Notebook on ThinkComputers.
LG Haier R450 Notebook on TBreak.
Hard Candy Bubble Shell Case for Acer Aspire One D250 on LaptopReviewsCentral.
Lenovo Skylight Preview netbook on HWZone.
Friday again!
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
OCAU 10th Anniversary Polo Shirts and Stubby Holders
(3 Comments)
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Friday, 19-February-2010 12:36:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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We're currently accepting pre-orders for a second round of polo shirts and stubby holders. Orders will only be accepted until March 1st, so don't miss out!
Interesting Forum Threads
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Friday, 19-February-2010 03:48:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a catch-up of what's going on in some of the forums. You can also find new interesting things you might have missed via the Who's Online page, the New Posts page and the Live forum view. Also try the Today's Posts link (find it on the Quick Links menu) and the handy Who Quoted Me? feature.
Most Efficient CUDA Processing per Dollar! in Overclocking & Hardware.
Just set a motherboard on fire... in Overclocking & Hardware.
Don't blow-dry your keyboard after cleaning... in Overclocking & Hardware.
Single Card Vantage Performance World record in Overclocking & Hardware.
Silicon Chip Web Server In a Box kit in Electronics.
The RV870 Story: AMD Showing up to the Fight in Video Cards & Monitors.
3g failover system for ADSL2+ in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
AAPT to start Australian first of "actual" UNLIMITED Broadband in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
Help me track down the person who stole my laptop in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
DELL Vostro V13 in Portable & Small Form Factor.
Onkyo DX DX1007A5 Dual screen laptop in Portable & Small Form Factor.
Design Hara in Portable & Small Form Factor.
Best way to backup growing 2.5TB worth of data in Storage & Backup.
New Dell H700 RAID controller - locked to Dell certified drives in Storage & Backup.
My wicked raid arrays, your thoughts? in Storage & Backup.
WD Caviar Black 1 TB, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64 MB Cache, WD1002FAEX Coming Soon in Storage & Backup.
SSD for safety? in Storage & Backup.
AMD Phenom II X6 Series Details Surface, Slated for May 2010? in AMD Hardware.
MSI Big Bang Trinergy (review) in Intel Hardware.
GULFTOWN i7 980X Q3VG FULL BENCHING OCed-06M, S-PI, Cinebench, LinX in Intel Hardware.
Canon 550D in Photography.
Automate Windows 7 Install for System Builders in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Wireless AP to Support ~100 Users in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Cisco CSS11501 h/w load balancer vs 2x Haproxy shared load balancers? in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Will you buy an iPad? in Apple Hardware & Software.
Hong Kong Goldfish Market (pics) in Pets & Animals.
Introducing the Pacman Express... in Motoring.
Aircon - how to tell if it needs re-gas? in Motoring - Technical.
2012 Indycar Concept from DeltaWing in Motoring - Motorsport.
Favourite movie lines in Entertainment.
Friday Morning
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Friday, 19-February-2010 03:42:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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ATI's Catalyst 10.2 drivers are causing quite a stir, with coverage on Tweaktown, LegitReviews, PCPerspective, Icrontic and Techgage. Discussion in the forums here and here.
Tech Report compare Core i3 and Athlon II. What happens when you test the Core i3-530 against the Athlon II X4 in a broad suite of benchmarks, while considering power efficiency, overclocking headroom, value, and historical perspective? Repetitive strain injury, if you're us. For you, though, we have a massive, comprehensive CPU roundup.
IGN ponder gaming in 2020. Live on IGN, a mammoth developer roundtable feature discussing what gaming will be like in the year 2020. Contributing to the discussion are representatives from 5th Cell, Blizzard, Turn 10, Rocksteady, Ubi Montreal, Radical, Capcom, Platinum Games, Gearbox, Guerrilla Games, FreeStyle Games, Bizarre Creations, Avalanche, Chrome and 2K.
Stephen Conroy continues to draw fire, with suggestions he has made too many bad calls and should be axed, thanks enigma. If governments were not required to take into consideration the political fallout attached to decision-making about who does and does not sit in cabinet, Kevin Rudd would surely have sacked Conroy by now.
Timbot spotted this interesting article about TechEd admins rickrolling leechers. We don’t shape the traffic on the network at all and nor do we see it as our role to police or restrict delegate use of the network (a policy that will, no doubt, change for tech•ed 2010 based on last year). Given this, we had to do a bit of seat-of-our-pants work to identify who the main culprits were and then implement counter-measures to at least lessen their impact on the delegates who were at the event to learn and share (rather than download).
Neerav wonders if we're headed for digital dark ages. One of the great ironies of the information age is that we are creating an abundance of information/multimedia content in the form of photos, video and text on the internet, computers and portable devices but also losing/destroying it at a fantastic pace because it isn't archived properly for the future.
Bjorn3D checked out some high-end hard drives. We are reviewing four Seagate Cheetah NS.2 600GB 10,000RPM 6.0Gbit/s SAS hard drives in order to see how well they perform in tasks like video editing and composing.
NASA has slashed the prices on their Space Shuttles, thanks von Stalheim. All stock must go! No reasonable offer refused! If an entire shuttle is beyond your budget, consider a main engine instead. NASA had hoped to charge up to $800,000 for these but lack of interest has forced it to slash the price. They are now available for free: a bargain in anybody's language. Just bear in mind that the buyer must pay for postage and packaging.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 18-February-2010 15:04:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Noctua NH-C12P SE14 on OCClub.
OCZ Hydro Pulse 800 L/h Pump on Bjorn3D.
Lamptron FC5 Fan Controller on PCShopTalk.
Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler on Tweaknews.
Cases:
NZXT Tempest Evo on Hi-TechReviews.
Thermaltake Element V Full Tower on Tweaknews.
Azza Helios 910 on TechPowerUp.
NZXT Panzerbox Welded Aluminum Tower on Pro-Clockers.
Azza Spartan 102 on APHNetworks.
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon II X4 635 on TechWareLabs.
MSI P55-GD85 LGA1156 board on PureOC.
Pegatron IPX7A-ION/330 ION/ATOM board on iXBTLabs.
MSI H55M-ED55 LGA1156 board on Tweaktown.
ASRock X58 SuperComputer LGA1366 board on ExtremeOC.
Gigabyte X58A-UD7 LGA1366 board on LegitReviews.
Storage:
Synology N410J NAS Server on Motherboards.org.
NZXT IU01 Internal USB Expansion on OCClub.
USB 3.0 SSD performance the MSI Star USB 3.0 controller on Guru3D.
Vantec NexStar 3 SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Enclosure on Pro-Clockers.
iStorage Disk Genie secure portable storage on XSReviews.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX 12GB 1600MHz DDR3 Triple Channel Memory Kit on FutureLooks.
OCZ Fatal1ty DDR3-1600 Memory Kit on BenchmarkReviews.
Wednesday Night
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Wednesday, 17-February-2010 23:26:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Pale Blue Dot image is twenty years old. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known. There's a video here with Carl Sagan's speech about this amazing image.
Michael Atkinson apparently feels more at risk from gamers than from bikie gangs. I feel that my family and I are more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me and are running a candidate against me. That candidate seems to be Kat Nicholson, PS3 gamer, thanks Auska.
Valhalla LAN Parties meanwhile have invited Mr Atkinson to see for himself that gamers cover a huge spectrum of perfectly normal, non-violent people. Video gamers include people of all ages, in fact, according to recent studies the average age of the gamer is now in the 30-40 year bracket as opposed to being limited to teenagers. Many of these people work respectable jobs in government and industry. Gamers include members of both sexes - the last two years has seen the number of female attendees at gaming events increase more than 300%. Discussion here.
Sniper spotted some 12-core AMD CPUs for sale. Oakville Mehlville Computers, a maker of custom servers and workstations from Missouri, has started to sell twelve-core AMD Opteron 6174 microprocessors for servers at an Ebay auction. The chips are not officially launched yet, even though the processors do not look like engineering samples and may belong to the first mass-production batch of twelve-core chips.
I can't decide if this is old news or not, but it's cool regardless: Command & Conquer classic versions are freeware now. Command & Conquer classic, Red Alert and Tiberian Sun + Expansion are now all available for FREE. Yes free! Discussion here.
VooDoo spotted this alarming video of a very close call for Tony Abbott, with more info here. Mr Abbott was on his way to be briefed on safety issues on the Princes Highway south-west of Melbourne when the near miss occurred. His car was waiting to turn right on a single-lane section of the road at Winchelsea when the truck nearly rammed him from behind.
Toshiba announced some (PDF) 2.5" SAS drives. With top capacity at 600GB, the new MBF family represents the industry's highest capacity 2.5-inch enterprise-class HDD and features Toshiba's first enterprise-class self-encrypting drive (SED) offering. The introduction of the MBF series demonstrates the successful integration of Toshiba and Fujitsu's HDD business last year and illustrates Toshiba's capability and commitment to building further leadership in the enterprise market. This series meets the exacting standards of the enterprise market with 10,025 RPM spin speed and a 6Gb/s SAS interface for use in mid-range volume servers, mainstream storage arrays, blade and rack-mount servers and other business-critical, power-conscious, data-intensive applications.
Danamics has a new liquid metal cooler, thanks Sniper. The cooler measures 158.2 (L) x 170.5 (H) x 90 (D) mm and weights 1170 grams without a fan, features an electromagnetic pump which circulates liquid metal through nickel-plated tubes, can be equipped with two 120mm fans, and is bundled with the Power Booster 2, a 3.5-inch device that provides the required watts to get the metal going.
Today's timewaster is this nauseatingly cute Robot Unicorn Attack game.
AMD's Cypress and Juniper
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Wednesday, 17-February-2010 11:56:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Dirtyd has checked out AMD's new Radeon HD 5870 and 5770, comparing them to the older 4890:
Click for the article!
Wednesday Midday Reviews
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Wednesday, 17-February-2010 11:45:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
Mionix Naos 5000 Gaming Mouse on DragonSteelMods.
Razer Imperator Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
Video Cards:
HIS HD 5670 IceQ 512MB on OCOnline.
Sapphire Radeon HD5670 1GB on BigBruin.
Axle Geforce G210 on RBMods.
ASUS AEAH 5750 Formula on LostCircuits.
HIS Radeon HD 5750 IceQ+ 1GB on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Radeon HD5870 on NinjaLane.
Portable:
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge 13 on HWZone.
ASUS Eee PC 1201N Dual-Core ION Netbook on LegitReviews.
MSI Wind U135 Netbook on HotHardware.
ASUS K50IN Series Notebook on OC3D.
Asus Eee PC 1005PE: Pine Trail on InsideHW.
Power Supply:
Seasonic X-Series 750W on Bjorn3D.
Enermax Tomahawk 500W on HWSecrets.
Antec TruePower Quattro 1200W on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake Toughpower XT 775W on HWSecrets.
OCAU 10th Anniversary Polo Shirts and Stubby Holders
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Tuesday, 16-February-2010 13:46:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you missed out when our last batch of 10th Anniversary merchandise sold out in only a few days, or if you want some more, now's your chance! We will be accepting pre-orders and payments until the 1st of March this time - that's the end of next week. These OCAU 10th Anniversary polo shirts and stubby holders will definitely not be repeated after this batch, so don't miss out!
Click for details!
Proluma Contest Reminder
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Tuesday, 16-February-2010 12:23:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Remember we're having a geekiest self-portrait contest at the moment, to win a triple-screen LCD monitor stand from Proluma. A few good entries so far, but I'm sure we've got some bigger geeks on OCAU. :)
Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 16-February-2010 02:21:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Fellow Australian geeky site ZGeek is 10 years old. Congrats! Seriously, this site has been the best fun to run. I've met so many cool and amazing people. I've had so many funny moments and times where I have been literally blown away by some of the amazing geek skills you guys and gals have. It's been the best journey ever.
The backlash against Google automatically signing Gmail users up to Buzz has been significant enough that Google have changed the setup to NOT automatically sign people up. We've heard your feedback loud and clear, and since we launched Google Buzz four days ago, we've been working around the clock to address the concerns you've raised. Today, we wanted to let you know about a number of changes we'll be making over the next few days based on all the feedback we've received.
Barbie has a new role, as a Computer Engineer. Computer engineer Barbie, which will be released in winter 2010, sports a geek chic binary code patterned tee (We’d so wear that!) and she comes equipped with everything a modern day geek girl would use. That includes a smartphone, Bluetooth headset, laptop travel bag, and last but not least – a pink laptop. No word on whether it’s a Mac or PC though.
Microsoft are planning to update Windows 7's activation mechanism to work more like an antivirus program, tackling new cracks as they appear. More info here and here, thanks enigma and IntelInside. An optional Windows Activation Technologies Update for Windows 7, which will be released later this month, closes more than 70 "activation hacks," according to Joe Williams, general manager of Microsoft's Genuine Windows unit, responsible for anti-counterfeiting measures.
Sniper spotted this interesting YouTube Video Speed History feature. Your average video speed at this location from 14 January 2010 to 12 February 2010 was 1.97 Mbps. Hrm, not great actually.
When winter rolls around, you might end up poking your phone with a sausage. Apparently snack sausages from the CJ Corporation are electrostatically compatible with the iPhone's capacitive touchscreen, leading many to use them as a "meat stylus" in the cold weather, rather than remove a glove. And it's not just a joke; apparently South Korean snack sausage sales are soaring. Bizarre.
Enigma spotted an interesting story about a film benefitting from piracy. Unlike the majority of Hollywood movie bosses, the creators of Ink – Jamin and Kiowa Winans – decided to embrace their new-found pirate fans after the extra publicity pushed the movie to 16th place on IMDb’s movie meter and boosted DVD and Blu-ray sales. Kiowa wrote to TorrentFreak and said that the movie ending up on BitTorrent was “absolutely” the best thing that could’ve happened to it.
XbitLabs have info on AMD's upcoming 32nm Llano CPUs. As reported, AMD Llano accelerated processing unit (APU) will have four x86 cores based on the current micro-architecture each of which will have 9.69mm² die size (without L2 cache), a little more than 35 million transistors (without L2 cache), 2.5W – 25W power consumption, 0.8V – 1.3V voltage and target clock-speeds at over 3.0GHz clock-speed. The clock-speeds will dynamically scale their clock-speeds and voltages within the designated thermal design power in order to boost performance when a program does not require all four processing engines or trim power consumption when there is no demand for resources.
Monday Night Reviews
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Monday, 15-February-2010 23:43:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Promise SmartStor NS4600 NAS on Guru3D.
Kingston SSDNow V+ Series 128GB on Techgage.
Patriot Valkyrie 2-Bay Network Attached Storage Device on Tweaktown.
Western Digital SATA 6Gb/sec 1TB Caviar Black (WD1002FAEX) on PCPerspective.
Ineo Technology I-NA312N1 NAS on RBMods.
Cases:
Nexus Edge on XSReviews.
Zalman Z7 Plus on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master Sniper Black Edition on Motherboards.org.
Akasa Freedom Xone on PureOC.
Raidmax Skyline Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
Thermaltake Element Q Mini ITX on Pro-Clockers.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD6 and GA-P55A-UD4P LGA1156 board on OCClub.
Asus P7H57D-V EVO LGA1156 board on OCClub.
AMD vs Intel in a $100-150 CPU Battle on HardCoreWare.
AMD Athlon II X2 255 Dual Core 3.1GHz Processor on LegitReviews.
ECS Elitegroup H55H-M LGA1156 board on Phoronix.
Intel Core i3 530 and i3 540 on TechPowerUp.
EVGA H55 LGA1156 board on OCIA.
Audio / Visual:
O!Play Asus media player on NeoSeeker.
Patriot Box Office Media Player on TechWareLabs.
BGears ViBRO Sound System on Hi-TechReviews.
Altec Lansing BackBeat 906 Bluetooth Headset on HWZone.
LG 47LH30 47" 1080p Widescreen TV on PCPerspective.
CiragoTV Platinum CMC2000 500GB Network Multimedia Player on TestFreaks.
Patriot Box Office Media Player on TestFreaks.
Diamond XSTU21 Sound Tube & MSP100B Mini Rockers Mobile Speakers on OCClub.
Patriot Box Office Network Media Player on APHNetworks.
Misc:
Wireless N USB Adapters - Linksys WUSB600N, Netcomm NP900N and Netgear WNDA3100 on RamblingThoughts.
Proporta Products for the Asus Eee PC 900 on iGadgetLife.
Canon PIXMA MX340 Office All-In-One Printer on TestFreaks.
Sunday Morning
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Sunday, 14-February-2010 01:53:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AusGamers have opened the voting for their 2009 Game of the Year. You have one week to vote and get behind your game, and tell your friends to sign up and help support your viewpoint, or even throw down their own. We waited this long to put this together because we didn't want to present this amidst everyone else's GOTY features, or have them steal our voting idea.
The ABC report that some Melbourne businesses have been hacked in response to violence against Indian students. It is believed computers belonging to at least five Melbourne businesses have been stripped of their data by a hacker who threatens to attack more companies if the violence continues. One Melbourne construction company says it lost all its data and had to pay $120,000 to repair its computer network. Discussion here.
Google are entering the world of ultra-fast broadband, thanks enigma. The company promised competitive pricing. Google already has a fibre network which connects its data centres, speeds up search and lowers the cost of streaming video on YouTube. The company believes that faster internet connections will benefit everybody. It will also get more people using the internet, swelling the number of potential customers for Google's search advertising business.
Check out this cool iPhone game which displays your enemies against the real world filmed through the camera. "Sky Siege" is a brand new dimension in gaming will literally have you standing up and fighting. You'll be frantically looking up down and spinning around to survive! I didn't think the iPhone had enough grunt to make that kind of thing work, though.. maybe it's a 3GS thing.
Speaking of augmented reality, Lego have some kiosks that can show you the completed model of a kit, in virtual 3D. Really interesting kiosk at the Lego Store in Woodfield Mall, Schaumberg, IL.
Telstra have lost their copyright case concerning the Yellow Pages and White Pages. The judgement also has wide-reaching implications because it may mean that companies that merely assemble a database of facts - such as auction or sports results - without any other 'literary effort' may not be able to copyright the information.
One of the founders of ThePirateBay has a new project, Flattr. It's an interesting twist on the micropayments idea. We aim to revolutionize how people pay and get paid for content on the internet. Come, join and show the world that good content is worth some coins out of your pocket.
Paul sent in this interesting article about software in the Cold War. Never ones to allow the limitations of the law to dictate their actions, the KGB officials inserted an agent to abduct the technology from a Canadian firm. Unbeknownst to the Soviet spies, the software they stole sported a little something extra: a few lines of computer code which had been inserted just for them.
Sunday Morning Reviews
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Sunday, 14-February-2010 01:51:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
Noctua NH-D14 HSF on LegitReviews.
Titan Fenrir CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
EK Supreme HF CPU Block PureOC.
Video Cards:
ATI 5450 512MB on RBMods.
AMD Radeon HD 5570 and 5450 on PCPerspective.
PowerColor PCS+ 5670 512MB on PureOC.
ATI Radeon HD5570 on BenchmarkReviews.
MSI R5770 HAWK on Motherboards.org.
Sapphire Radeon HD5450 on NinjaLane.
PowerColor Radeon HD 5870 1GB PCS+ OC on Tweaktown.
ATI Radeon HD 5670 512 MB on XbitLabs.
Power Supply:
Enermax Modu87 Plus 600W on Guru3D.
Xigmatek NRP-PC702 700W on HWHeaven.
Storage:
A-DATA 8GB Nobility S805 USB 2.0 Flash Drive on LegitReviews.
Sans Digital Tower Raid TR4UT 4-Bay Hard Drive Enclosure on Tweaknews.
LiteON eHAU424 External DVD/CD Writer on PCStats.
Asus BD-Combo (Blu-Ray Combo Optical Drive BC-08B1ST) on Bjorn3D.
Vantec USB 3.0 PCI-e Host Card w/ NexStar 3 SuperSpeed Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Thanks to Felix, Frank and Viljar for this week's submissions:
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Friday Afternoon Reviews
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Friday, 12-February-2010 13:56:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable:
Dell Inspiron 14z notebook on TechReviewSource.
Intel Pine Trail Platform on InsideHW.
Hercules eCAFE EC-1000W 10.1-inch Netbook on Tweaktown.
ASUS Eee PC 1005PE Netbook, Intel Atom N450 on LegitReviews.
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge on HotHardware.
Motherboards:
ASRock M3A785GMH/128M on iXBTLabs.
Jetway Kuroshio BI-600 Intel X58 on TechWareLabs.
GIGABYTE H55M-USB3 on Motherboards.org.
ECS A785GM-AD3 Black Series on OCIA.
Cases:
Thermaltake Element T Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
CM Storm Sniper Black Edition on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
Mionix Naos 5000 Laser Gaming Mouse on TechPowerUp.
Logitech G110 Gaming Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Steelseries 9HD mouse mat on XSReviews.
Razer DeathAdder 1800DPI mouse on Phoronix.
Storage:
64 GB Solid State Drive Round-Up on HWSecrets.
Kingston DataTraveler Locker+ 16GB USB Flash on ASELabs.
Brando USB 3.0 Complete Storage Solution on PCShopTalk.
LaCie Rikiki 500GB Portable USB Hard Drive on ThinkComputers.
HornetTek X2-RAID Dual Bay 3.5-inch eSATA/USB 2.0 Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Mushkin Io series 128GB SSD on OCClub.
Seagate BlackArmor PS110 USB 3.0 External Drive on Bjorn3D.
Sponsor Specials
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Thursday, 11-February-2010 20:22:25 (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 monitor stands, fitness supplements, amplifiers, speaker kits, office chairs, media players, photography gear, HDMI cables, data recovery, web hosting and a range of components. It's worth a look!
Thursday Afternoon
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Thursday, 11-February-2010 13:20:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Internet group Anonymous have turned their attention to the Australian Government, attacking several websites over the last couple of days. "The goal of today's attacks was to show the Australian Government that we are not afraid to act, and to raise awareness of the issue of internet censorship and our group's dedication to fighting it," the email said.
kombiman meanwhile sent word of a draft response to the public consultation on an R18+ rating for computer games in Australia. The public consultation on the introduction of an R18+ for computer games closes at the end of the month. Jessi Citizen, on behalf of Electronic Frontiers Australia and in conjunction with Ausgamers, has prepared a draft response to the consultation that sets out their understanding of the issues and their arguments. They're seeking comments from the community on their draft response.
AirQ spotted an article about quantum fractals. From thunderous mountain landscapes viewed from above to the erratic trajectories of Brownian motion, fractal patterns exist at many scales in nature. Physicists believe that fractals also exist in the quantum world, and now a group of researchers in the US has shown that this is indeed the case.
HWSecrets have an article about motherboard voltage regulation. In this tutorial we will present an in-depth trip inside the motherboard voltage regulator circuit, showing you how to identify this circuit, how it works, what the most common projects are and how to identify good-quality components.
I haven't heard that much about Google Buzz - there doesn't even seem to be a forum thread about it. Anyway, it looks like Google's entry to the social networking scene, kind've a facebook/twitter thing. Seems to work via gmail and mobile devices at the moment.
Speaking of Google, they say they will not censor YouTube in Australia, or at least, will not voluntarily comply with the Government's "Refused Classification" criteria. "The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information. RC includes the grey realms of material instructing in any crime from [painting] graffiti to politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia, and exposing these topics to public debate is vital for democracy." Discussion here.
Supernanny has turned her attention to violent video games, declaring 20 minutes of gameplay enough to desensitise children. So really, what does this all say about the long-term effects of exposure to violent video games? I would suggest very, very little. That's why, there is absolutely no conclusive data in this area, despite dozens of similar research undertakings around the world, and despite Dr Tanya Byron's exhaustive analysis for the government's Digital Britain report.
HWLogic wonder if how 8GB of RAM in a laptop improves life on the run. And with the proliferation of DDR3 in notebooks, an 8GB upgrade isn’t just a statement of your commitment to run with the big dogs, it’s also a costly investment. Outside of bragging rights, is it worth it?
If you're using an SSD, you might find this SSD Tweak Utility useful. A user on the OCZ forums created a utility that gives you centralized access to all the popular SSD configuration points within Windows.
SGL is apparently back and running another LAN in Sydney soon: Our website is www.sgl.org.au and our first event will be for 300 LANners and running from Midday on 27th March to 4PM on 28th March and emceed by Jeremy "Junglist" Ray.
Byteside have another upcoming show you can RSVP to if you're keen. On the Tech Shiow, we're arming up with the best mobile tech in 'The Laptop Revolution'. We're on the cusp of sweeping changes to the way we take our computing on the road. Finally, the laptop is evolving and we've got the right experts to share insider insight.
Today's bizarre Street View sighting is When Snorkelers Attack, in Norway.
Wednesday Evening Reviews
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Wednesday, 10-February-2010 19:50:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Input Etc:
Enermax AURORA Micro Wireless Keyboard on DragonSteelMods.
Enermax Wireless Aluminum Keyboard on Hi-TechReviews.
Portable:
Lenovo IdeaPad U550 on DigitalTrends.
Refurbished Dell Latitude D410 laptop on Monster-Hardware.
Acer Aspire One 532h-2326 10.1-inch Netbook on Tweaktown.
TEGA TTP10 Touch 3G Slate on DigitalTrends.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS P7H55D-M EVO Intel H55 mATX on ThinkComputers.
Athlon II X4 635 and Phenom II X2 555 CPUs on HWSecrets.
Jetway NC63-330-LF Mini-ITX on eTeknix.
Intel Core i5 661 Processor on OCIA.
Video Cards:
ECS Geforce GT 240 on OCClub.
ATI HD 5570 on NeoSeeker.
Cooling:
Spire TherMax Pro CPU Cooler on Tech-Reviews.
Cooler Master Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler on OCIA.
Memory:
G.SKILL F3-17600CL7D-4GBPIS 2x2GB DDR3 on APHNetworks.
Mushkin PC3-12800 6GB Kit on RBMods.
Storage:
ASUS Super-Multi SATA Optical Drive on BenchmarkReviews.
Adaptec RAID 5805Z PCI-E x1 SATA/SAS RAID Controller on Tweaktown.
Software:
Google Buzz on DigitalTrends.
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (Preview) on GamingHeaven.
Lavasoft Ad-Aware Game Edition on Tech-Reviews.
Misc:
Thermaltake Lanbox VF1000BWS case on Tweaknews.
Epson MovieMate 60 Projector on TestFreaks.
Kingwin Lazer 850W PSU on PureOC.
QNAP NMP-1000 Network Media Player on TechPowerUp.
Wednesday Afternoon
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Wednesday, 10-February-2010 13:18:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A Brisbane man has been fined $1.5 million for uploading a pirate copy of Super Mario Bros Wii. James Burt, 24 from Brisbane, received an early copy of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros Wii and made it available for download from a website, which has since been shut down. As a result of his actions the Federal Court ordered Burt to pay Nintendo $1.5m in damages and also cover the $100,000 in court costs.
From FatBoyNotSoSlim: Basically the CS club at Waterloo uni in Canada is running a Tron themed AI code challenge and Google is sponsoring it. Its pretty slick and very easy to get started. There's still several weeks left to refine code, and a large variety of code languages are accepted. We can ever create an OCAU team if we wish. I started about 3 hours ago, and after copypasting some sample code (they recommend you do this) I’m ranked 190 in the world and 5th in Australia, which is scary as I don’t know what I’m doing.
Optus say they are on schedule to upgrade their cable network to 100Mbit/s by mid-2010, thanks Michael. The speed upgrade — which Optus first flagged on 20 November — will put Optus neck and neck with Telstra’s cable network, which the telco is also in the process of upgrading. It will see Optus’ network upgaded to the DoCSIS 3.0 standard.
nVIDIA have unveiled "Optimus Technology", which sadly doesn't turn their video cards into a truck or a giant robot, but instead allows transparent switching between integrated and discrete graphics, thus allowing performance and longer battery life in laptops. Coverage on PC Perspective, Tech Report, LegitReviews, HWZone and HotHardware.
MoJoMaN spotted this Apple Ad from New Zealand in 1984. "So simple to operate you can teach yourself the basics yet so versatile there's over 10,000 individual programmes to choose from. Apple Computers, simply good business".
Wednesday Midday Reviews
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Wednesday, 10-February-2010 12:49:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 Review and Radeon Value Card Roundup on HWHeaven.
ATI Radeon HD 5570 on LegionHW.
ATI Radeon HD 5570: Affordable DX11 GPU on HotHardware.
Sapphire HD 5570 1GB on OCClub.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 1GB GDDR3 on Tweaktown.
ATI Radeon HD 5570 - Sub-$100 HTPC & Gaming Solution on Techgage.
Sapphire Radeon HD5570 1GB DDR3 on PureOC.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5570 1GB CrossFire on LegitReviews.
Radeon HD 5570 on Guru3D.
Powercolor HD 5870 PCS+ on TechPowerUp.
Sapphire HD 5570 1 GB on Bjorn3D.
Gigabyte HD 5670 OC on NeoSeeker.
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD5570 on Tweaknews.
Gigabyte Radeon HD5670 on NinjaLane.
Sapphire HD5750 Vapor-X on Metku.
Storage:
iStorage diskGenie 320GB Encrypted Portable Hard Drive on Tech-Reviews.
iStarUSA xAGE-N99 HDD Docking Station on TechWareLabs.
LiteOn Strong-Page MLC SSD LA-32M1S on BenchmarkReviews.
Cases:
Thermaltake Level 10 VL30001 N1Z on Motherboards.org.
Thermaltake Luxa2 LM300 Pro HTPC Case on RWLabs.
Corsair Obsidian Series 800D on ThinkComputers.
Thermaltake Element V Full Tower on Pro-Clockers.
SilverStone Grandia GD04 on Motherboards.org.
Proluma Geeky Self-Portrait Contest!
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Tuesday, 9-February-2010 14:07:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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You might remember our recent messiest desk competition during which Proluma gave away one of their fancy dual-monitor stands to the person with the most horrifying desk.
Well, we're doing another competition now, to win one of the first Proluma triple-screen stands in Australia! This will naturally max out your geeky desktop, so the prize will go to the person who posts the geekiest self-portrait picture in this thread. Make sure you have an OCAU screenshot or an "OCAU" sign or something proving it's you.
I'll pick the geekiest, funniest or otherwise arbitrarily "best" top 10 and we'll run a poll to decide the winner. 2nd and 3rd place will score a couple of OCAU 10th Anniversary stubby coolers too. Entries close at the end of February, so get geekin'! Thanks again to Proluma for another cool prize.
OCAU Buzziness
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Tuesday, 9-February-2010 13:53:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCAU is the third buzziest channel for tech brand mentions, it seems. Wait, what? A company called Brandtology do a "Digital Brand Index" to see which websites in Australia have the most mentions of the "top 65 tech brands" - we came up third after Twitter and Whirlpool.
You can download the press release and full report if you're keen.
Tuesday Afternoon
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Tuesday, 9-February-2010 13:39:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's been nearly a year since Wolfram|Alpha appeared on the scene, but my question is: is anyone using it? It seems like a cool idea but whenever I try to get anything out of it, I find myself shouting at page after page of Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure how to compute an answer from your input messages. So if you think it's cool and use it all the time, tell us about it in the comments.
PureOC have a guide to unlocking the X2 555 BE. How does a full-featured Phenom II X4 CPU for $99 sound? AMD's new dual core hotrod, the X2 555 BE, is actually an X4 in disguise and just needs a bit of help to unlock those two extra cores for all the performance goodness you can dream about at bargain prices. We successfully unlocked the X2 555 BE and we'll tell you how today and show the resulting performance increase.
IBM has been demonstrating graphene transistors that might replace silicon one day, thanks metamorphosis. IBM has created graphene transistors that leave silicon ones in the dust. The prototype devices, made from atom-thick sheets of carbon, operate at 100 gigahertz--meaning they can switch on and off 100 billion times each second, about 10 times as fast as the speediest silicon transistors.
Ashley spotted a video on a car ciggy lighter gadget that gives your buzzbox the sound of a throaty V8. It's a bit more clever than it seems at first, because it actually pipes the V8 sound to your stereo and reacts in sync with your throttle use. Could be quite amusing to install one in my bongo van.
Mysrh sent in this pictorial history of Windows. November 1985: Windows 1.0 launches, after four years in development as "Interface Manager".
HWZone have a 7-way CULV notebook battle. If you're still undecided on which Intel CULV notebook to get, then don't give this article a miss as we scope out the latest 13-inch models to see which one's really worth dragging the wallet out for. Acer, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG, MSI and Toshiba battle it out in this shootout.
We haven't heard about the Large Hadron Collider much lately, but it is doing sciency stuff, although not at full power yet. The Large Hadron Collider is capable of creating collisions up to 14 TeV, but scientists are gradually easing the machine up to that level to try to avoid safety issues that have arisen in the past. ... During the collider’s next run in March, researchers hope to create collisions of 7 TeV, says Roland. The success of the latest effort “makes us extremely optimistic about the detector,” he says. “It performed beautifully during the run.”
Tuesday Morning Reviews
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Tuesday, 9-February-2010 03:12:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Power Supply:
Ultra X4 1050W on TechWareLabs.
Ultra X4 1600 Watt Full Modular on Tweaktown.
Storage:
Dynatron Azenx P-Secure Secure HDD Enclosure on Pro-Clockers.
Team Group Xtreem-G1 120GB Solid State Disk on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps Tested On Gigabyte P55A-UD6 on MadShrimps.
i5 661 32nm Clarkdale on BIOSTAR TH55XE on OC.com.
Foxconn Inferno Katana P55 LGA1156 board on NinjaLane.
Gigabyte GA-H57M-USB3 LGA1156 board on Guru3D.
Intel Core i5 661 Dual Core LGA 1156 CPU on ThinkComputers.
Video Cards:
MSI N240GT-MD512 OC/D5 on Bjorn3D.
EVGA Geforce GTX275 CO-OP on BenchmarkReviews.
ASUS ENGT240 on OCClub.
Cooling:
Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME 4870X2 VGA Cooler on PCShopTalk.
Noctua NF-P14 FLX Case Fan on VerdisReviews.
Prebuilt:
ASRock ION 330HT NetTop HTPC on Futurelooks.
HP Pavilion Elite HPE-140f desktop on TechReviewSource.
Misc:
Samsung PN58B850 58 inch Plasma TV on Tweaknews.
Antec Nine Hundred Two Ultimate Gaming Case on LegitReviews.
The Space Shuttle Endeavour is about to perform what will probably be the last ever night launch for a Space Shuttle. The countdown clock is at T-9 minutes but they're about halfway through a 45-minute "built-in hold", after which the countdown will resume and, weather permitting, the Shuttle will launch in about half an hour from now.
More info on the NASA Shuttle Page, and you can watch the launch on NASA TV.
The Shuttle Endeavour's launch has been delayed, and should now go ahead in about 18 hours or about 7:14pm Sydney time, I think. 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. The mission will feature three spacewalks.
South Africa's Kulula airline has painted (at least) one of their planes in a quite clever explanatory colour scheme. Now every traveler can even learn where the black box is. If you find yourself looking for one, by the way, I think they're usually orange.
The FBI seem to be proposing that ISPs be required to keep records of website visits by their customers. Motta pointed to a 2006 resolution from the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which called for the "retention of customer subscriber information, and source and destination information for a minimum specified reasonable period of time so that it will be available to the law enforcement community." Recording what Web sites are visited, though, is likely to draw both practical and privacy objections.
Tweaktown have an SSD Optimisation Guide. Today we are going to cut through all of the hype and discuss proven methods that will allow you to get the most out of your high performance desktop or notebook.
JD spotted this (PDF) 49-port USB2.0 hub, in response to the power-only 80-port one from a few days ago.
Meanwhile if I can't have a flying car, I can at least walk to work in a mech, thanks James. Except I work from home, damnit. Imagine taking it through a drive-through, though. Stride menacingly to the second window please..
PCPerspective have some info on Intel's upcoming tera-scale technologies. We have been talking about tera-scale technologies since 2006 when it comes to Intel research programs. The name is perhaps more grandiose than the actual idea: as data sets increase in size the need for computing technologies to handle this amount of data will need to be created. It is no secret that the CPU as it exists today simply can't handle the massive amounts of parallel information that will soon become normal operating procedure.
stmok sent word of an Internet Explorer issue. Our investigation so far has shown that if a user is using a version of Internet Explorer that is not running in Protected Mode an attacker may be able to access files with an already known filename and location. These versions include Internet Explorer 5.01 Service Pack 4 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service 4; Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 on Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4; and Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8 on supported editions of Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows XP Service Pack 3, and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2. Protected Mode prevents exploitation of this vulnerability and is running by default for versions of Internet Explorer on Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008.
Byteside have two new shows: the Tech Show: Byteside blasts into 2010 with a little subject called 'The Future', the Tech show explores some of the big ideas we'll be thinking about a lot in the coming decade. We explore the current hot ideas, from ebooks to iPads and 3DTV, to what happens next when the Internet is truly everywhere. And the Games Show: We start the new decade by exploring what might happen in the coming ten years. When might we see another generation of consoles? Where are the best new ideas in gaming going to come from? And is smellovision getting set for primetime?
Google are getting a bit Star Trek, with plans for a speech translating phone. “We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years’ time,” said Franz Och, Google’s head of translation services. “Clearly, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that’s what we’re working on. To truly work as well as Trek's "universal translator", it has to make the aliens' lips move so they even look like they're speaking English. ;)
Monday Morning Reviews
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Monday, 8-February-2010 00:38:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
XClio Nighthawk on RBMods.
SilverStone Grandia GD05 HTPC Case on OCIA.
Thermaltake Element V on PureOC.
AZZA Solano 1000R Full-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Mini-Box.com M350 Universal Mini-ITX Enclosure on BigBruin.
Cooler Master ATCS 840 on TechwareLabs.
NZXT Hades on OCOnline.
Storage:
Silverstone DS221 Dual HDD Raid Enclosure on Pro-Clockers.
Kingston MobileLite G2 USB Card Reader on LegitReviews.
64GB Solid State Drive Round-Up on HWSecrets.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX 1600MHz 12GB Triple Channel on TestFreaks.
G.Skill Pi Series DDR3-2200 and Eco DDR3-1600 on HWHeaven.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries 7G keyboard on OC3D.
Microsoft Explorer Wireless Rechargeable Mouse on Tweaknews.
Misc:
22-inch 3D Vision LCD Monitor Showdown - Samsung vs. Viewsonic on HWZone.
Silverstone Strider Plus Series 850W Modular PSU on Bjorn3D.
The Budget P55 - Jetway Kuroshio BI-700 LGA1566 board on HWZone.
Sapphire HD 5670 1GB on Bjorn3D.
New forum member "graffiti tech" has made some spectacular AMD/ATI/Intel themed wallpapers - check them out in this thread:
Click for the thread!
Saturday Night Reviews
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Saturday, 6-February-2010 21:49:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
ATI Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 Video Card in CrossFire on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 LP on HWLogic.
Gigabyte GV-R545OC Radeon HD 5450 on Pro-Clockers.
Sapphire Radeon HD5450 512MB on HWHeaven.
Intel Clarkdale Linux Graphics Performance on Phoronix.
Intel HD Graphics on XbitLabs.
PowerColor Radeon HD 5750 on OCClub.
MSI R5770 HAWK on Guru3D.
MSI Radeon HD 5770 HAWK 1GB on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 on Motherboards.org.
PowerColor Radeon HD 5850 on SilentPCReview.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte H55M-S2H LGA1156 board on TBreak.
AMD Phenom II X4 910e Energy Efficient 65W CPU on PCStats.
Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P LGA1156 board on PCStats.
ECS A785GM-AD3 Black Series AM3 board on Motherboards.org.
ASUS Maximus III Gene LGA1156 mATX board on PCPerspective.
AMD Athlon II X4 635 CPU on RBMods.
ASUS M4A785G HTPC/RC AM3 board on iXBTLabs.
Asus P7H55D-M EVO LGA1156 microATX on SilentPCReview.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Alienware M11x Notebook on HWHeaven.
MSI Wind U135 Pinetrail notebook on MadShrimps.
Sony Vaio X Series notebook on DigitalTrends.
Software:
Star Trek Online (PC) on GamingHeaven.
Metro 2033 (PC, 360) on GamingNexus.
Pinnacle Studio HD Ultimate Collection V14 on FutureLooks.
Cooling:
Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler on XbitLabs.
Noctua NH-D14 flagship dual-fan CPU cooler on SilentPCReview.
Thermaltake SpinQ VT CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Zalman CNPS10X Extreme & CNPS10X Flex CPU coolers on Bjorn3D.
Thor's Hammer CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
I'll have to sneak this post in between thunderstorms! Thanks to Bobby and spyker for a few of these:
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
EB Games have joined the fight for an R18+ Rating for videogames in Australia. EB has announced that in all 350 EB Games stores across Australia customers will be able to sign a petition that will be used to lobby the Government to introduce an R18+ classification category for computer games.
I really am trying not to mention Michael Atkinson in every news post this week, but BFM spotted an interview with him on JJJ's "Hack" program. Gamers4Croydon President and Legislative Council candidate, Chris Prior, and South Australia Attorney General, Michael Atkinson, discuss the R18+ rating for videogames on a segment of TripleJ's Hack, a current affairs program, broadcast on Wednesday the 3rd of February 2010.
Quan-Time spotted this power piggy bank which is a kinda cool idea. If your kids have a habit of leaving their electronic devices turned on all day, this little gadget may be just for you. The Power Hog is a very special, easy-to-use piggy bank that helps children visualize and understand that using electricity costs money.
Robots can evolve to learn cooperation and hunting. What could possibly go wrong? The researchers described "spider" hunting techniques among the bots in which hunters would lie in wait for prey (which in this case, fortunately, consisted of other robots). The hunted, meanwhile, developed a strategy of "quickly (rotating) in place, which reduced the probability of being approached from the sides without sensors."
Speaking of which, there's a bizarre Lian Li marketing video involving a new spidery open-air case. Lian Li Chassis are rare and endangered, and very valuable indeed. None more so than this flirtatious creature captured on film for the first time-- in its unnatural habitat.
Bill and Melinda Gates have pledged $10 billion USD for vaccinations. "We really believe vaccines are great miracle of our lifetime," said Melinda, estimated that the new donation would save the lives of 8 million children in the developing world. The Gates couple also said they believed a malaria vaccine would be available "in our lifetime."
On a related note, those concerned about a possible link between certain vaccinations and autism should be aware that The Lancet has retracted the study from 1998 that linked the two, thanks JD. Since the controversial paper was published, British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent studies have found no proof that the vaccine is connected to autism, though some parents are still wary of the shot.
Intel have revealed more info about their upcoming mobile and 6-core CPUs, with coverage on HotHardware and TechReport. In a press conference earlier today, Intel provided a sneak peek at some of the papers it will present next week during the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco. The chipmaker revealed a few juicy details about Gulftown, its upcoming six-core, 32-nm processor, as well as some interesting research prototypes kicking around in its labs.
I forgot who sent me this in IRC (sorry!) but it's some info on NASA's 2011 budget. People are upset about the Constellation (Shuttle-replacement) program being cancelled, but apparently the news isn't all bad. So NASA isn't giving up on space exploration, and it isn't just handing things over to private industry (it's merely going to incorporate it more). In fact, space exploration efforts will see an increase in funding by several billion dollars over the course of the next five years. Meanwhile, private industry will help advance efforts in LEO so that NASA can focus on the things that are most important (and the long term goals that corporations probably won't touch yet). The Constellation program is canceled but it has been replaced by a program that is likely far more cost-effective and realistic.
Thursday Evening Reviews
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Thursday, 4-February-2010 19:47:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Nothing like a bit of flooding to add excitement to your day..
Video Cards:
ATI's Radeon HD 5450 - The Perfect HTPC Card? on Techgage.
ATI Radeon HD5450 on BenchmarkReviews.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB on PureOC.
ATI Radeon HD 5450 512MB DDR3 on LegitReviews.
Sapphire HD 5450 512MB on OCClub.
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450 512MB GDDR3 on Tweaktown.
ATI Radeon HD 5450: DX11 On The Cheap on HotHardware.
ATI Radeon HD 5450 on LegionHW.
Sapphire HD 5770 Vapor-X on TechPowerUp.
HIS Radeon HD 5750 on Tweaknews.
Gigabyte 1 Gig HD5670 on Bjorn3D.
ATI RADEON HD 5670 on iXBTLabs.
Cases:
XClio Blackhawk Full Tower Chassis on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Element G Mid Tower on iXBTLabs.
Zalman MS1000-HS2 Pro mid-tower on Guru3D.
Storage:
Synology DS-210J Two-Bay NAS on Tweaknews.
Synology DS210j NAS on XSReviews.
OCZ Vertex 2 Pro, Sandforce Powered SSD on HotHardware.
Sunbeam Airbox 3.5-inch External Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
Cooler Master Xport 251 HDD enclosure on TechPowerUp.
Synology Disk Station DS410j NAS on TechWareLabs.
Crucial RealSSD C300 256GB SATA 6Gbps Solid State Disk on Tweaktown.
Crucial RealSSD-C300 SATA-III 6Gbps SSD on BenchmarkReviews.
Kingston SSDNow V+ 128GB Solid State Disk on Techwarelabs.
Memory:
OCZ Reaper Triple Channel PC3 15000 6GB on NinjaLane.
Mushkin Blackline 996782 PC3 12800 2x2GB on OCClub.
Cooling:
Xigmatek Bifrost VD1065: HDT Cooler for Graphics Accelerators on XbitLabs.
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme Rev.C, Cogage Arrow and Zalman CNPS10X Flex CPU coolers on XbitLabs.
Thermalright Venomous X CPU Cooler on PCShopTalk.
Corsair Hydro Series H50 CPU cooler on OC.com.
Noctua NH-D14 Dual Fan CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 4-February-2010 13:34:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock P55 Extreme Intel P55 LGA1156 board on ThinkComputers.
ASUS P7H57D-V EVO (H57 Express) LGA1156 board on Tweaktown.
Core i3: The Most Affordable Nehalem on InsideHW.
Tyan S2915 n6650W & S2927 n3600B Opteron boards on Phoronix.
AMD Phenom II X4 910e CPU on TechWareLabs.
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD6 Intel P55 LGA1156 board on PCStats.
ASUS P7H55D-M EVO & Intel DH55TC LGA1156 boards on TechGage.
MSI P55-GD85 LGA1156 board on HWSecrets.
ECS A785GM-AD3 AM3 board on OCClub.
ASUS P7H55D-M EVO LGA1156 board on Motherboards.org.
Inferno Katana: Infernal LGA1156 on XbitLabs.
AMD Athlon II X4 635 2.9GHz Quad Core Processor on LegitReviews.
Input Etc:
Thrustmaster F1 & F430 Gamepad Controllers on PureOC.
Cyber Snipa Silencer Mouse on Hi-TechReviews.
Mionix Naos 5000 Gaming Mouse on PureOC.
Power Supply:
Cooler Master GX 750W on HWSecrets.
Ultra X4 600W Modular on OC3D.
Cooler Master GX 750W on PureOC.
Fractal Design Newton R2 1000W on RWLabs.
Portable:
Asus G51J Notebook on PCPerspective.
Asus G60J: A Notebook for Gamers on InsideHW.
Lenovo ThinkPad Edge on DigitalTrends.
The Federal Court has handed down its judgement in the iiNet vs AFACT case, and it has ruled in iiNet's favour. No doubt there will be an appeal by AFACT but for the moment it seems the Court agrees that providing access to the Internet is not 'authorising' infringement.
The decision had the potential to impact internet users and the internet industry profoundly as it sets a legal precedent surrounding how much ISPs are required to do to prevent customers from downloading movies and other content illegally.
But after an on-and-off eight-week trial that examined whether iiNet authorised customers to download pirated movies, Justice Dennis Cowdroy found that the ISP was not liable for the downloading habits of its customers.
There's some highlights from the summary here and an analysis here. More info on The Age, ZDNet and ITNews. There's a twitter feed with a lot more links here. Thanks to everyone who sent in info! Discussion continues in this thread.
Phone Finance Scams
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Thursday, 4-February-2010 00:27:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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VooDoo sent a warning about some phone finance scams that are doing the rounds and targeting small businesses. There's been recent coverage on A Current Affair and Stateline Queensland. The ACCC are now involved and there's a website here about the issue.
From the ACCC: It is alleged the telecommunications companies used a "bundled services deals" business model. Under the deals the company would enter into a contract with a small business to provide it with telecommunications services and call credits to cover payments for what some customers thought was "free" equipment. Whereas, it is alleged, the equipment was supplied to customers under rental agreements by finance companies that were not related to the telecommunications companies.
I'm not sure about all the claims being made so of course do your own research, but I thought it was definitely worthwhile passing along the warning.
I recently spotted this Pix gallery uploaded by MUTMAN and asked if he had any more info. Turns out it's from an email that has been doing the rounds for a while, but it's a pretty cool modular plug setup:
Click for the gallery!
There's more info on this site, which seems to be the original source for what may (sadly) only be a concept for the moment. Someone make an Australian version!
Wednesday Morning Misc
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Wednesday, 3-February-2010 03:47:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Following up on the previous story about South Australian anonymous election commentary, their Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has apparently backed down over the laws. "This way, no one need fear now that they are being censored on the net or in blogs, whether they blog under their own name or anonymously. The law will be repealed retrospectively. As much as I hate to use the phrase "a victory for common sense", that's what this is. In fact it's turning into a bit of an embarrassing week for Mr Atkinson, it seems.
Video Card Reviews:
ECS GeForce GT 240 512MB GDDR5 HDMI on LegitReviews.
MSI Radeon HD 5670 1GB Video Card in CrossFire on Tweaktown.
XFX Radeon HD5850 Black Edition 1GB on eTeknix.
Sapphire 5770 Vapor X on Bjorn3D.
PowerColor Radeon HD 5770 PCS+ on Guru3D.
Axle GeForce G210 on OCClub.
Interesting Forum Threads:
Major new result from Folding @ Home in Team OCAU.
What is your definition of stable? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Upcoming Intel Core Q1-Q3 2010 CPUs Detailed in Intel Hardware.
I shaved my macbook in Apple Hardware & Software.
OpenMediaVault NAS Development (Freenas Replacement) in Other Operating Systems.
How I lost 16C on my GFX card without spending a cent in Modding.
Space diver to attempt first supersonic freefall in Science.
NASA’s ambitious Constellation moon program to be wiped out? in Current Events.
So, mum's in love with a Nigerian 419 scammer in The Pub.
Yuppies rather face death than drink substandard coffee in The Pub.
Tuesday Night
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Tuesday, 2-February-2010 20:39:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Quite a few people sent word that there's new laws in South Australia, effectively censoring political comment on the upcoming State election by requiring any commenter to publish their name and street address. The law, which was pushed through last year as part of a raft of amendments to the Electoral Act and supported by the Liberal Party, also requires media organisations to keep a person's real name and full address on file for six months, and they face fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner. Err, so if we don't HAVE the real name and addresses of commenters, and of course have no way of verifying the info given to us anyway, what do we do? Just blindly ban any comment on the SA State Election? Not to mention that publishing your name and address on the internet is pretty universally known to be a bad idea. Faaaantastic. However, EFA seem to think it might not be as bad as it seems at first glance.
The EFF meanwhile are demonstrating a browser's fingerprint, thanks wessam. The EFF's Panopticlick application collects anonymised data to help users establish how easy it is to identify them amongst all their fellow surfers. The service evaluates the HTTP request headers (browser ID and accepted MIME types) and uses JavaScript to collect information about the browser's installed plug-ins and fonts as well as screen size and time zone. Finally, it also considers standard cookies and "super cookies" (web storage, Flash cookies, IE userData) to determine a browser's ranking.
Intel and Micron have announced a 25nm NAND fab, with reports on LegitReviews, PC Perspective and HotHardware. February 1, 2010 marks the official announcement of 25 nanometer NAND technology--a major advancement for the company. Intel and Micron now lay claim to the smallest production ready semiconductor process technology in the industry.
Justice Cowdry will apparently be handing down the judgement in the iiNet vs AFACT case on Thursday. During cross-examination, iiNet stated it was legally unable to act as “judge and jury” by disconnecting customers, and that as such its only recourse was to refer cases of possible infringement to other authorities.
Overclockers.com have a 3-step guide to overclocking your Core i3, i5 or i7 system. There are so many people willing to give advice, but who can you trust? It’s hard to know, and I’ve seen many users sent on wild goose chases because they are following advice that doesn’t solve or even address their specific problem. I’ve also seen too much trial and error overclocking. What I will attempt to do is create a very simple three step guide to “one-size-fits-all” overclocking.
Whistleblower website Wikileaks has had to shut down, temporarily at least, due to lack of funds. The document repository, founded by an Australian living in East Africa, has been the catalyst for countless front-page stories around the world. It has exposed serious business and political corruption and sparked a political scandal in Australia when it published the federal government's secret blacklist of banned websites.
Koopzy sent word that the Principality of Hutt River is celebrating 40 years since secession. The Principality of Hutt River is situated 595 km north of Perth, Western Australia and is about 75 square km in area, consisting of some 18,500 acres of land. Hutt River is an Independent Sovereign State having seceded from Australia on the Twenty First Day of April 1970 and is of comparable size to Hong Kong (not the New Territories). More info on the Wikipedia Page.
Quan-Time spotted this cool scale of the universe Flash slider thing.
Tuesday Evening Reviews
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Tuesday, 2-February-2010 19:38:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
AXUS FiT500E 5 Bay SATA Enclosure on OZHardware.
Kingston SSDNow V+ Series (Rev 2.0) 128GB SSD on FutureLooks.
Vantec NexStar TX NST-210S2-BK on TechPowerUp.
ioSafe Solo 500GB Rugged USB External Hard Drive on Technoyard.
Audio Visual:
Samsung SyncMaster F2380 23-inch 16:9 Widescreen LCD on PCStats.
Mionix Keid 20 Headphones on Metku.
Epson PictureMate Show photo printer on TechReviewSource.
Epson PictureMate PM310 - Photo Frame and Printer in One on HWZone.
Vizio VF551XVTLCD HDTV on DigitalTrends.
Portable:
Intel Pine Trail Explored with ASUS Eee PC 1005PE on HWZone.
Toshiba NB 200 netbook on TBreak.
Asus UL50-V Laptop on RBMods.
Asus EEE-PC 1005HA Netbook on OC3D.
Cases:
Vidabox vCase3 HTPC enclosure on RWLabs.
NZXT Tempest-EVO on BenchmarkReviews.
SilverStone SG05 White Mini-ITX on LegitReviews.
NZXT Beta EVO Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
Misc:
Corsair Dominator GTX Series PC3-19200 4GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Choiix Accu-Mouse: Corded and Wireless on Pro-Clockers.
Tuniq Ripper 1000 Watt Power Supply on Pro-Clockers.
Thermaltake DuOrb VGA Cooler on BonaFideReviews.
I spent much of Monday stuffing polo shirts into post packs - and recovering from a hangover.. from saturday..
Tired of running out of USB ports? Never again, thanks to this 80-port USB board. Sadly it seems to be for power only, not data, so there go my plans for an 80 thumbdrive RAID array.
Google are inviting people to find bugs in their Chrome browser and/or the underlying Chromium framework, and be paid for it. As per Mozilla, our base reward for eligible bugs is $500. If the panel finds a particular bug particularly severe or particularly clever, we envisage rewards of $1337. The panel may also decide a single report actually constitutes multiple bugs. As a consumer of the Chromium open source project, Google will be sponsoring the rewards.
BFM sent in this article about bogus explosives detectors. There's more info on this Wikipedia page and here. According to the laboratory's Dr. Markus Kuhn, it was "impossible" for the card to detect anything and it had "absolutely nothing to do with the detection of TNT". The card could not be programmed, had no memory, no microprocessor and no form of information could be stored on it. Despite the high cost of the devices, the cards were worth only about two to three pence (3-5¢) each. Wow. The thing even looks like a dowsing rod.
If you're going to steal stuff at a trade show, it's probably a dumb idea to steal from the booth of a security company, thanks Timbot. That booth belonged to Swann Security, a company that specializes in home security equipment. Their cameras were set up at the time of the incident and show the thief taking off with a book he stole from their display.
The most accident-prone street in Britain has been bubble-wrapped to raise safety awareness, thanks Daniel. Cars, motorbikes, a kennel and even a garden gnome were covered in 1500sq metres of bubble wrap in an effort that took eight men over half a day.
I've been aware of this story for a couple of days but I'm still not sure if it's a beatup or the real deal, but people keep sending it in, so here it is: Australia is banning small breasts in pornography, because it may "encourage paedophilia". Riiiiight. More on boingboing and discussion here. The Australian Classification Board (ACB) has responded to accusations by The Australian Sex Party that material with depictions of women with small breasts has been banned. A spokesperson for the ACB told me today that publications which contain offensive depictions or descriptions of persons who are or appear to be persons under the age of 18 (whether they are engaged in sexual activity or not) must be classified RC.
RamblingThoughts compared some Digital TV PVR options. 99% of people are not Geeks obsessed with technology. So they don’t know what a Digital TV PVR (personal video recorder) is and why it can revolutionise their TV watching experience. This article compares 3 kinds of Digital TV PVR’s for free to air TV: Beyonwiz (non Freeview) vs Tivo (Freeview) vs Sony PlayTV (PlayStation 3 addon). It does not cover cable TV PVR’s like Foxtel IQ. I am kinda tempted to get one of those PlayTV things for my PS3, actually.
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