|
|
|
|
|
June 2011 |
Thursday Afternoon
(4 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 30-June-2011 13:02:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Google have unveiled Google+, their social network. Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it. Discussion here and there's a demo here.
News Corp meanwhile have sold Myspace for $35M, after buying it in 2005 for $580M. There will be a new CEO, but oddly, Justin Timberlake seems to be involved in the new management. According to the press release, Timberlake will play a “major role” in strategy and creative direction for the beleaguered social network. The release makes no mention of exactly how much of a stake the pop star will have.
Futuremark have a Lords of Overclocking 2011 contest, for all 3DMark2011 users, but it's restricted to MSI graphics cards. The overall highest scoring contestants from each region during the four week period will win a chance to participate in MSI Master Overclocking Arena 2011 Grand Final in Taipei. The prize includes travel and hotel for the winner and one teammate.
Tabris spotted this cool IC stool. We wanted a new footstool at the lab, and somehow came across the idea of making it in the shape of our hero above, the 555 timer chip.
Here's a sneaky way to attack a network, with a poisoned mouse. For the attack to work, the booby-trapped USB Logitech mouse had to look and behave precisely the same as a normal device. But it also needed to include secret capabilities that allowed the mouse to do things no user would ever dream possible. Meanwhile it seems hackers have disrupted al-Qaida again. "My guess is that it will take them at least several days more to repair the damage and get their network up and functioning again," he said.
Sony have a laptop with an external GPU connected by Light Peak, AKA Thunderbolt. Then there's the concern about performance. Sony must be running PCIe over Light Peak, but you only get a maximum of 1.25GB/s of bandwidth to/from the GPU - assuming no additional overhead. While the 6650M is likely much faster than Sandy Bridge's intergrated GPU, it's potentially slower than an on-board 6650M would have been because of the Light Peak bottleneck.
Thursday Morning Reviews
(4 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 30-June-2011 02:23:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Power Supply:
Cougar RS 650W on HWSecrets.
NZXT HALE90 750W on OCClub.
Video Cards:
GIGABYTE GTX 560 OC on Bjorn3D.
MSI Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr III on Techgage.
Sapphire HD 6450 1 GB Passive on TechPowerUp.
HIS HD6970 IceQ Turbo on Metku.
HIS Radeon HD 6990 4GB on HotHardware.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Motherboard on iXBTLabs.
Asus' P8H67-I Deluxe Mini-ITX motherboard on TechReport.
Gigabyte A75M-UD2H Motherboard First Look Preview on eTeknix.
Asrock Z68 Pro3-M Socket 1155 Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3-B3 Motherboard on FunkyKit.
Audio Visual:
Raptor-Gaming H3 Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
SteelSeries 7XB 360 Headset on OC3D.
Canon Exilim EX-ZR100 camera on TechReviewSource.
Iogear Wireless HD Computer to TV Kit on Futurelooks.
PCTV Nanotech T2 HD Tuner on XSReviews.
Creative Aurvana In-Ear3 Noise Isolating Earphones on HWHeaven.
Cases:
SilverStone Grandia GD06 on HWSecrets.
Silverstone Precision Series PS06 on TechReaction.
Sentey Burton Full-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Wednesday Afternoon
(2 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 29-June-2011 13:24:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Mario Marathon 4 seems to be underway, and has raised over $108,000 so far. We are a group of guys in our thirties who love video games and wanted to use this love to give back. Throughout the event we are joined by our friends and family who have all shown great support of the event.
Hacking group Anonymous have released some Australian data including some files from Mosman council. We spoke to Mosman's manager of IT services, Kevin Nonweiler, who was unconcerned. He stressed that no internal information was exposed. All relevant data was public facing. The few accounts that were mentioned all had their passwords changed immediately and that no rate payer information was taken.
Wired report on dodgy chips. In 2010, the U.S. military had a problem. It had bought over 59,000 microchips destined for installation in everything from missile defense systems to gadgets that tell friend from foe. The chips turned out to be counterfeits from China, but it could have been even worse. Instead of crappy Chinese fakes being put into Navy weapons systems, the chips could have been hacked, able to shut off a missile in the event of war or lie around just waiting to malfunction.
A Californian law to restrict video game sales to minors has been struck down as anti free speech. The Supreme Court's majority opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, said there was no tradition in the United States of restricting children's access to depictions of violence. He cited a number of books for children that depict violence. "Grimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed. As her just desserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers 'til she fell dead on the floor,'" Justice Scalia said.
Here's a project to build a mini-PC into a bible.
Futurelooks interviewed Antec's new PSU boss. The new guy at Antec now has the responsibility of a whole new power supply business unit, but with it, all the powers he has always wanted in order to affect changes that make customers happy. He took time to sit with us during a stop in Vancouver, BC Canada, to tell us a bit more about what this shake up at the company means including more about his new role.
VR-Zone checked out Crysis 2 in DX11. Crysis 2's lack of graphical oomph was mainly due to missing DirectX 11 support at launch, which meant that Crysis 2 could not take advantage of the latest technologies such as tessellation. Fortunately, Crytek promised to add DirectX 11 support in a future update, and, three months later, it has made good on its promise. VR-Zone has whipped up some benchmarks, videos and screenshots galore to see Crysis 2 in its full glory!
Bjorn3D played with SLI performance. We grabbed two GTX 470s and ran a slew of tests across an Intel Sandy Bridge system, AMD system with ASUS Crosshair IV Extreme board that features Lucid Hydra for SLI, and the latest 990FX chipset from GIGABYTE that offers native SLI support.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 28-June-2011 02:20:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
ASUS Xonar Xense Premium Gaming Audio Set on ThinkComputers.
Arctic Sound P531 5.1 Surround Headset on RWLabs.
Antec Veris Multimedia Station Premier on eTeknix.
Steelseries 5HV2 USB headphones on TBreak.
Plantronics Discovery 975 Bluetooth Earpiece on RWLabs.
Sharkoon X-Tatic SP Stereo Headset on eTeknix.
Video Cards:
MSI R6850 Cyclone PE / OC on OCIA.
AMD Radeon HD6850 & HD6950 CrossFire Performance on BenchmarkReviews.
ECS GTX 560 vs Zotac GTX 560: Budget cards battle on TBreak.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB DiRT 3 Edition on HWHeaven.
Storage:
Corsair Force 3 120GB SSD on Guru3D.
Crucial m4 128GB SATA 6G Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Performance (Intel P67) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 Socket 1155 Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
Gigabyte X58A-OC Sub Zero on OC3D.
MSI P67A-GD80 LGA1155 Sandy Bridge ATX Motherboard on Futurelooks.
Asus F1A75-M Pro Llano Motherboard Preview on eTeknix.
ASUS F1A75-V Pro (AMD A75) Llano Motherboard Preview on Tweaktown.
Software:
Alice: Madness Returns PC Performance Review on NeoSeeker.
An In-Depth Look at Fedora 15 on Techgage.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP Pavilion dv7t Quad Edition on TechReviewSource.
Samsung Nexus S 4G on PCPerspective.
Cases:
Cooler Master Storm Enforcer Mid-Tower on BigBruin.
Enermax SpineRex full tower on TechPowerUp.
BitFenix Shinobi Window on TechReport.
Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced on OCOnline.
Cooling:
ThermoLab Trinity Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Scythe Mine 2 CPU cooler on PureOC.
Misc:
Logisys Lighting Systems on HWPacers.
Corsair Dominator 4GB DDR3 1600Mhz C7 Memory Kit on LegitReviews.
Logitech M305 Wireless Mouse on LegitReviews.
Motherboard Art #2
(4 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 27-June-2011 20:13:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
You might remember Dan's motherboard blues window from a year or so ago, made from chopped-up motherboards. He's sent in a photo of his latest work, titled "Big Bill":
click to enlarge!
Dan also asked if I could subtly *cough* mention that this piece and the earlier one are now for sale, and to contact him via email if you're interested.
Here's some interesting things from people in the forums:
Petrolheads in Perth, take note
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 27-June-2011 15:21:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There's details of a Shell Special Event in the Motoring forum. On behalf of Shell, we are pleased to invite forum members of W.A. to an exclusive event celebrating the launch of Shell V-Power, Shell’s 98 octane premium fuel, in Perth. RSVP here.
Monday Afternoon
(4 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 27-June-2011 14:51:02 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
I've been doing pretty well flu-wise, the last couple of years, but I'm hoping this tickle in my throat isn't turning into man flu. When the dreaded bug strikes, women have a much stronger immune response than men, Queensland researchers say.
Sniper spotted some early info on PCI Express 4. Even though PCI Express 3.0 is still several months away, PCI Express 4.0 is already in the works and some basic specifications of the interconnection technologies are already known. The maximum bandwidth of the fourth generation of PCIe interconnect will be 16GT/s per lane. There will also be a number of new features implemented.
Here's some very cool photos of a Space Shuttle flight deck. More than three months since Discovery returned from its final space voyage, the shuttle is now inside one of Kennedy Space Center's orbiter processing facilities. These images show Discovery's flight deck.
There's presumably a lot less knobs and buttons in driverless cars, which are now legal in Nevada. The legislature makes it legal for Google’s automated Prius and Audi TT fleet to cruise Nevada roads. But this isn’t just about the next industry Google is aiming to take over – read on for a closer look.
Meanwhile a US "artist" is gaming in a box for 7 days. Some may call him crazy but US artist Jordan Long is on mission to highlight post traumatic stress disorder by living in a crate on the back of a flat-bed trailer for seven days straight while playing the video game Lord of the Rings Online on his way to an art exhibition. Doesn't sound much more arduous than a long-weekend LAN party. :)
TF2 is apparently free forever. No advertising model will be pursued, Walker said. No premium subscription model will be used. No cynical “pay-to-win” options will be implemented, he assured. In-game items will now be the only way Valve gets any money from Team Fortress 2. But again, Walker assured that the number of gratis in-game items – which are released on a daily basis – would not dry up.
Japanese fans have been shocked to discover a pop star isn't real. Fans of the newest band member are understandably disappointed. But it's not hard to see how many were fooled during Eguchi's short run as a pop star. Watch the video above and see if you can pick out the fake girl before she's revealed. I couldn't. And even when I knew who was fake, she still didn't look fake to me.
Today's timewasters are Fragger Lost City and Fragger Bonus Blast, from biatch.
Here's a few reviews that people have posted in the forums:
Saturday Night Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 25-June-2011 22:15:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
Corsair HS1A Gaming Headset on Techgage.
Sandberg StreetBlaster Stereo Headset on RWLabs.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Crosshair V Formula Motherboard on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD7 Motherboard on HWHeaven.
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 on PureOC.
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7: Ready Bulldozer, AM3+ on Bjorn3D.
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX Motherboard on LegitReviews.
Intel Pentium G850, Pentium G840 and Pentium G620 CPUs on XbitLabs.
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Motherboard on HWSecrets.
MSI Z68MA-ED55 (Intel Z68) mATX Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP Veer 4G Smartphone on HotHardware.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 on PCPerspective.
Motorola XOOM tablet on Tech-Reviews.
Zotac Z-Box Mini PC BluRay 250GB HTPC on XSReviews.
Video Cards:
HIS 6870 IceQ X Turbo X on Overclockers.com.
Sapphire HD6670 Ultimate, HD6750 & HD6770 on OCClub.
ASUS MATRIX GeForce GTX 580 1536MB Platinum on Tweaktown.
Storage:
OCZ Agility 3 240GB SSD on TechReaction.
Seagate GoFlex Slim (320GB) on TechReviewSource.
Cooling:
NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller on NeoSeeker.
Arctic Accelero Xtreme Plus II GPU cooler on MadShrimps.
Scythe Susanoo CPU Cooler on XbitLabs.
Scythe Mine 2 Super-Cooler on XbitLabs.
Cases:
Gaming Case Roundup: Six Sub-$200 Choices on TechSpot.
Cooler Master Silencio 550 on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooler Master CM Storm Enforcer on Modders-Inc.
Gaming Cases from NZXT: Phantom and Vulcan on XbitLabs.
Misc:
Logisys 12V Remote Kit on HWPacers.
Mushkin Blackline Ridgeback 2000 MHz DDR3 8GB memory on Guru3D.
Corsair Professional Series HX1050 PSU on TechPowerUp.
Another week goes whizzing by..
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
With a name that will unfortunately be familiar to some OCAU members, it seems a Queensland man has been sentenced to prison for internet fraud, thanks BLint. Police prosecutor Sergeant Mick O'Rourke said Fletcher used forums and websites to post items for sale on the internet. Sgt O'Rourke said the buyers then electronically transferred the money to a bank account but they never received the items they purchased.
Quake turned 15 recently, thanks Spg. If you thought that made you feel old, Sonic the Hedgehog turned 20 a day later. I still think the first time I loaded Quake and had that free-look mouse view, looking around at the flickering torches etc, was one of my most memorable in-game experiences. :)
Back to the present, and Tech Report have their thoughts on Duke Nukem Forever, while Bjorn3D reviewed it. BenchmarkReviews meanwhile tried DNF in 3D. Those of us who played the original Duke Nukem games after weaning ourselves from Doom and Quake have finally had our patience rewarded, but adding a little frosting to the cake is the fact that Duke Nukem Forever was coded to take full advantage of NVIDIA's 3D Vision technology: it's a "3D Ready"-qualified game.
The PCI Express SIG are looking to tackle Thunderbolt by making a cabled version, thanks Sniper. The new cable will be based on PCIe 3.0 which supports up to 8 GTransfers/second. It likely will support a maximum of four parallel lanes for throughput up to 32 Gbits/s and distances no longer than three meters.
Bond spotted this nuclear-defying plastic. But Greenbury also thinks that Starlite's potential has been, so far, its biggest handicap. 'It's difficult to think of another invention that is bigger in its implications. If it had been less important, I think it would have been much easier.' Ward certainly believes in his product, claiming publicly that it could have prevented the space shuttle disasters. Discussion here.
There's an entirely new type of aircraft. Austrian research company IAT21 has presented a new type of aircraft at the Paris Air Show which has the potential to become aviation's first disruptive technology since the jet engine. The D-Dalus (a play on Daedalus from Greek mythology) is neither fixed wing or rotor craft and uses four, mechanically-linked, contra-rotating cylindrical turbines, each running at the same 2200 rpm, for its propulsion.
AMD has apparently rejected SYSMark 2012, and Techgage looked into why. The sole purpose of a benchmark is to provide useful metrics to consumers in order for them to make well-informed purchasing decisions, and where that's concerned, AMD's CMO Nigel Dessau has stated that "AMD does not believe SM2012 achieves this objective."
It seems the recent hack on Distribute.IT has been pretty much fatal, with the Netregistry Group announcing they have completely aquired DIT and all customers, thanks Matt. This arrangement is supported by .au Domain Administration Ltd (auDA), the .au manager, which has been working closely with Distribute IT management and Netregistry to ensure a satisfactory outcome for affected customers. Says Chris Disspain, CEO of auDA: “I am very pleased that Netregistry Group, Distribute.IT and auDA have been able to cooperate effectively to arrive at an arrangement that is consistent with auDA’s goal of ensuring the ongoing stability and security of .au.”
Friday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 24-June-2011 02:28:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Input Etc:
GT Omega Racing Simulator on Tweaktown.
Razer TRON Legacy Gaming Mouse And Mat Bundle on RWLabs.
Audio Visual:
Logitech Z906 Speaker System on HotHardware.
AC Ryan PlayOn!HD2 Media Player on Tweaktown.
Sharkoon X-Tatic SX Stereo Headset on eTeknix.
Portable & Prebuilt:
BlackBerry PlayBook on TBreak.
Dell Inspiron 17R laptop on TechReviewSource.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock H61iCafe Intel H61 Motherboard on ThinkComputers.
Gigabyte 990 FXA-UD7 on Guru3D.
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 on Bjorn3D.
AMD's A8-3500M Fusion APU on Tech Report.
Storage:
Synology DiskStation DS1511+ on LegionHW.
Intel SSD 320 Series 160 GB on HWSecrets.
OCZ Agility 3 240GB SSD on HWHeaven.
QNAP TS-412 Turbo NAS on TechSpot.
OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G 240GB SSD on LegitReviews.
OCZ Technology RevoDrive X2 100GB PCI Express SSD on BigBruin.
OCZ Agility 3 SSD Tests on BenchmarkReviews.
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SATA 6Gbit/s SSD on Techgage.
Cases:
Cooler Master HAF X Full Tower on eTeknix.
Thermaltake Armor A90 on TechReaction.
Habey EMC-600B SFF Mini-ITX on MissingRemote.
NZXT H2 Classic Silent Mid-Tower on OCIA.
Sentey SS2-2807 on TechReaction.
Misc:
Enermax EMG700AWT Modu87+ 700W PSU on RBMods.
G.Skill Sniper Series PC312800 Cas 7 memory on OCClub.
NZXT Havik 140 CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
F@H Beat The Box Challenge
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 23-June-2011 16:07:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Over in the Team OCAU forum there's a Beat The Box Challenge for July. Props to MSI who have offered a motherboard and a video card as prizes.
In short, the closer you get to out-folding a PC built around the prize components, the more chances to win you get to win. If you don't know how to get folding here's an easy way.
There's some new laws in Australia, involving preserving electronic evidence. The Federal Government has introduced new laws to force internet and phone companies to hold electronic information that is needed for investigations into cyber crime. Police and spy agencies will be able to order companies to preserve emails or text messages, before a warrant is issued, to prevent it from being destroyed.
SanDisk have an enterprise-level 800GB SSD. The company has just introduced a half dozen new 2.5? and 3.5? drives for its Lightning series: three SLC drives with capacities of 100, 200, and 400GB and three MLC drives at 200, 400, and a titanic 800GB. These new drives were made possible in part by SanDisk’s $327 million acquisition of Pliant Technology — which developed SSDs designed to replace Fiber Channel drives in servers, including PCIe-pluggable flash storage.
A new camera lets you fix focus issues after a photo has been taken. The company’s technology allows a picture’s focus to be adjusted after it is taken. While viewing a picture taken with a Lytro camera on a computer screen, you can, for example, click to bring people in the foreground into sharp relief, or switch the focus to the mountains behind them. More here.
Sphinx noticed that Telstra and Optus will begin censoring the web next month. Telstra and Optus confirmed they would block access to a list of child abuse websites provided by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and more compiled by unnamed international organisations from mid-year. But internet experts have warned that the scheme is merely a "feel-good policy" that will not stop criminals from accessing obscene material online and could block websites unfairly.
Tech Report have posted their latest system guides. This summer edition of our system guide is for users who desperately need to ditch their tattered old gaming rigs or desktops sitting on the brink of obsolescence. We've tweaked our four usual system configurations to reap the rewards of today's exceptionally cheap, fast, and capable components. Although you may ask yourself after the fact, "what if I'd waited," we doubt you'll regret jumping the gun. In fact, we've made provisions in some of our builds to provide an upgrade path to Bulldozer.
Techgage meanwhile look at Intel's Smart Response Technology with a second SSD. When we tested out Intel's 'Smart Response Technology' last month, we liked what we saw. But at $110 for a 20GB SLC SSD, we wondered if a larger, more cost-effective option could still make the best use of the technology. With that, we're pitting Kingston's SSDNow V+100 64GB drive, at $150, against Intel's, to see if we retain SRT's effectiveness.
It's been a while since we've mentioned DansData, and he apparently has new letters, thanks Zac. Cordless anti-static wrist straps do not actually work at all. Like the mobile-phone antenna-booster sticker, the performance-enhancing magic sports bracelet, the ultrasonic mosquito repeller and this thing, they are pure placebo.
Photography Gallery
(5 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 22-June-2011 15:30:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum:
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
(1 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 22-June-2011 14:46:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
Toshiba BDX5200 Blu-ray player on TechReviewSource.
Head-Direct HiFiMAN HE-500 Headphones on TechPowerUp.
Patriot Box Office Core Open Source Media Player on Tweaknews.
Power Supply:
Cougar CMX 700W on HWSecrets.
Pico Power Supply Backplate on MissingRemote.
Cooling:
Akasa Helix Widescreen Notebook Cooler on TechReviewSource.
Antec Kühler H2O 920 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Video Cards:
GeForce GTX 560 Sonic Platinum and GeForce GTX 560 Ti Sonic on XbitLabs.
Sapphire 6950 DiRT 3 Edition on PureOC.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Dirt 3 Edition on Tweaktown.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 & HD 6670 on NeoSeeker.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 Ultimate on TechWareLabs.
Storage:
Samsung M2 portable 3.0 External Hard Drive on Metku.
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB on OCClub.
Seagate ST31000524AS 1TB HDD on Monster-HW.
OCZ Vertex 3 MAX IOPS 240GB SSD on PureOC.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Dell XPS 15z Ultra Slim Notebook on HotHardware.
HTC Sensation Smartphone on TechSpot.
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD 990FX: Prepping for Bulldozer on HWSecrets.
Sapphire PURE WHITE FUSION E350 and PURE FUSION MINI E350 Mainboards on XbitLabs.
AMD Llano A8-3500M APU on TBreak.
ASUS M5A99X EVO (AMD 990X) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Cases:
AZZA Toledo 301 ATX Mid Tower on LegitReviews.
NZXT H2 on APHNetworks.
Thermaltake Element Q mini-ITX/HTPC case on TechReaction.
AZZA Toledo 301 ATX Mid Tower on LegitReviews.
Fractal Design Define R3 on RWLabs.
Misc:
Kingston HyperX Lovo 1866MHz Low Voltage Memory Kit on eTeknix.
SteelSeries Shift Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Wednesday Morning
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 22-June-2011 03:14:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
The LulzSec story keeps rolling on, with a man being arrested in the UK, and other reports that they've taken the 2011 UK Census data. However on the official Twitter feed, LulzSec say both are incorrect and unrelated to them.
Closer to home, the recent Distribute.IT hack has caused unrecoverable damage, with 4800 websites gone for good. "In assessing the situation, our greatest fears have been confirmed that not only was the production data erased during the attack, but also key backups, snapshots and other information that would allow us to reconstruct these servers from the remaining data."
Australian tech site MacTalk has a new owner. After a few months of deliberation, lawyers and accountants, the sale of MacTalk is finally complete. Niche Media, the publishers of Macworld Australia, Desktop and many other fine titles, are the new owners of MacTalk Media Pty Ltd, beginning June 24th, 2011.
The world of Bitcoin had a shakeup recently, with a hacked exchange. The extent of the compromise became clear when a copy of Mt.Gox's user database began circulating online. The file included username, email addres, and hashed password for thousands of Mt.Gox users. Karpeles's statement was updated to acknowledge the breach. He warned users who have re-used the Mt.Gox passwords on other sites to change them.
TBreak have a battle of the DX11 GPUs. My aim with this feature article is to show you all the options available in the market right now. And depending on your setup, how much money should you spend.
Meanwhile, XbitLabs compared video cards in Duke Nukem Forever. Time will show what its destiny is going to be, but we are really interested to find out how greatly the most anticipated game of the summer 2011 may determine your graphics sub-system upgrade options.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 21-June-2011 02:11:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
GIGABYTE X58A-OC (Intel X58 Express) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
RAZER Chimaera Wireless Gaming Headset on MadShrimps.
RaidSonic Icy Box IB-NAS6220 HDD Network Mediaserver on RWLabs.
SteelSeries Spectrum 7XB Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Portable & Prebuilt:
CrystalView E-Pad Touch 7” 720MHz Android Tablet on ReviewTheTech.
HTC Sensation smartphone on TBreak.
Aria Gladiator HD2-K prebuilt system on OC3D.
Lenovo ThinkPad T420s laptop on TechReviewSource.
Storage:
Thecus N2200XXX NAS Server on DragonSteelMods.
OCZ RevoDrive 3 x2 240GB PCIe SSD Quick Look on TheSSDReview.
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB Max IOPS Edition SSD on LegitReviews.
Cases:
NZXT Phantom on NinjaLane.
NZXT Sentry Mesh on Bjorn3D.
Fractal Design Core 3000 on Guru3D.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 6750 1GB on ThinkComputers.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 on Phoronix.
Input Etc:
Razer Naga Molten MMO Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
Steelseries Switch Gaming Keyboard on TechReaction.
Misc:
Designcord 5 Metre Autorewind Cable Reel Extension Lead on eTeknix.
Corsair Vengeance 1866 MHz DDR3 Memory on BenchmarkReviews.
Western Digital Livewire Power Line AV Kit on TechWareLabs.
Be Quiet! Straight Power E8 400W on TechPowerUp.
Sponsor Specials
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 20-June-2011 13:47:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials forum if you're shopping around. In there our various sponsors have threads with deals on yoyos, fitness supplements, media players, headphones, home automation, antivirus software, office chairs and a range of PC goodies. Worth a look!
AMD had their Fusion Developer Summit recently, and here's some coverage: Microsoft Demos C++ AMP Heterogeneous Computing and ARM VP Responds to Partnerships with AMD on HotHardware, AMD's Demers reveals details of next GPU architecture on Tech Report and AMD Fusion System Architecture Overview - Southern Isle GPUs and Beyond on PC Perspective.
The latest MegaCorp to report a hacking is SEGA, with 1.3M users affected. Names, birth dates, e-mail addresses and encrypted passwords of users of Sega Pass online network members had been compromised, Sega said in a statement, though payment data such as credit card numbers was safe. Sega Pass had been shut down.
Meanwhile some new malware is out to steal your Bitcoins. “If you use Bitcoins, you have the option to encrypt your wallet and we recommend that you choose a strong password for this in the event that an attacker is attempting to brute-force your wallet open,” Symantec’s Stephen Doherty wrote in a blog post Thursday.
Tensop pointed out this aptly-named SysAdmin Porn blog, which has a photo tour of some serious hardware. Back in June of last year, the University of Illinois’ held a “Community Day” at the NCSA IBM Blue Waters facility. I was able tour this and get a few pictures. When operational, it will be the world’s fastest computer.
IBM actually turned 100 recently, thanks Daniel. Perhaps the most quantifiable hallmark is the value investors put on the company: $197 billion. That makes IBM the fifth-most-valuable U.S. company, just behind Microsoft at $200 billion and well ahead of Google at $162 billion.
Lurks spotted this detailed worklog of building an EvE-themed mini-PC. If it is good enough to use epoxy to assemble the chassis on a Lotus Elise, it should be good enough for a computer.
Also impressive is a high school student building an 8-bit computer from scratch. No, he didn’t buy some computer parts and snap them together; he blueprinted every wire and connection and then built it, wire by wire. After he finished construction, he had to teach it how to communicate, so he created his own operating system and wrote some games for it. That’s dedication.
HotHardware have a P67 Motherboard roundup, while HWHeaven have a Socket 1155 Roundup and FutureLooks checked out a few Patriot Flash Drives. In this USB flash drive shootout, we take a look at the difference between USB 2.0 and USB 3.0, as well as the difference between having quad-channel and 8-channel.
AirQ sent in this virtual museum tour, of the National Museum of the U.S Air Force. Click on the MAP in the upper right hand corner to bring down a visual menu of the different sites within the museum, then click on a dot within that site to view the exhibits from that camera angle and then follow (click on) the arrows. Clicking on a specific exhibit gives you more info too.
Saturday Night Reviews
(2 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 18-June-2011 22:11:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
Altec Lansing Orbit USB Stereo Speakers on EverythingUSB.
CiragoTV Platinum CMC3200 Network Multimedia Center on LegitReviews.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ on TechPowerUp.
ASUS P8H67-I Deluxe mITX Motherboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Gigabyte G1.Assassin on OCClub.
More Linux Benchmarks Of The AMD A8-3500M Fusion APU on Phoronix.
GIGABYTE A75-UD4H (AMD A75) Llano Motherboard Preview on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon HD 6670 Ultimate 1GB on Tweaktown.
Sapphire HD 6750 on Overclockers.com.
AMD Radeon 6450 512MB on eTeknix.
PowerColor HD 6850 SCS3 1GB on TechPowerUp.
HIS HD6990 4GB on Vortez.
Cases:
Thermaltake Level 10GT on RBMods.
NZXT H2 Silent Classic Mid-Tower on DragonSteelMods.
Cooling:
Lamptron Fan Controller FC5V2 on MadShrimps.
NZXT HAVIK 140 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Memory:
Gskill Sniper 12GB X58 RAM Kit on MadShrimps.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Chillblast Fusion Impact 3D Full System on XSReviews.
HP ProBook 4530s notebook on TechReviewSource.
Software:
Red Faction: Armageddon PC game on HWHeaven.
Duke Nukem Forever PC game on YouGamers.
Storage:
Patriot Supersonic Magnum 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on APHNetworks.
CineXPlayer for iPad on Tech-Reviews.
RAIDON GT5630-SB3 USB 3.0 4 Bay Desktop Data Backup Storage Solution on RWLabs.
Power Supply:
FSP Aurum CM Gold 750W on HWSecrets.
Mushkin Enhanced Joule 700W on Tweaktown.
Rasurbo Real Power 450W on XSReviews.
FSP Group Aurum Gold 500W on OCIA.
Thanks to David, metamorphosis and JC this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Palit GeForce GT 520 1GB
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 17-June-2011 13:30:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
DiGiTaL MoNkEY has taken a look at this entry-level card from Palit. High-end gamers will look elsewhere, but if you're building an HTPC, a silent machine or a general workstation, this passively-cooled card might do the trick:
Click for the review!
MSI HWBot Contest
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 17-June-2011 13:19:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
MSI and OCAU's HWBot team are running a contest, with three MSI motherboards up for grabs. This time it's actually an overclocking contest! :)
Click for the thread!
Friday Afternoon
(7 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 17-June-2011 13:13:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
High-profile hacking group Lulzsec are racking up scalps, now including the CIA's website. The group has also targeted the US Senate website, Nintendo, game developer Bethesda Software, FBI-affiliate Infraguard, US media company PBS and several online multiplayer games such as EVEOnline, League of Legends and Minecraft.
The Federal Government has quietly closed the mandatory internet filtering department, but says it's still on track with the filter. The reorganisation was triggered by the Government’s scrapping of optional wider filtering programs worth $9.8 million, which was disclosed in last month’s federal budget. A spokesman for Communications Minister Senator Conroy rejected suggestions that the abolition of the branch signalled any reversal in the Government’s desire to introduce mandatory, ISP-level filtering.
This sounds almost like an April Fools thing, but HardOCP report on some new AMD Catalyst features. Steady Video is currently an AMD exclusive feature based on AMD APP Technology. By applying advanced algorithms behind the scenes, users do not have to deal with shaky or unstable video ever again! Capabilities scale with hardware and are end user controlled. Image Stabilization brought to YouTube!
DNF reviews continue to be mixed, but a backlash against negative reviews cost a PR company the most. 2K games told Kotaku that they don't endorse the comments made by Redner and confirmed that "The Redner Group no longer represents our products."
Murdoch University has a new Linux cluster. The 9,600-core HP POD deployment is housed in a single container outside Murdoch’s School of Business, IT and Law. It comprises HP Blade servers and 500 terabytes of storage, can operate at 87.2 TeraFLOPS, and was ranked 87th on the Top500 supercomputer list last November.
HWHeaven have a X58 DDR3 memory roundup. We'll be using our high end X58 build to look at kits which each have their own unique selling points to find out what Corsair, Crucial, G.Skill, Kingston and Patriot have to offer in the triple channel DDR3 market.
Ole noticed that the New York Times have posted their thoughts on Chromebook. The first assumption is that you’re online everywhere you go. That’s rather critical, because when it’s not online, a Chromebook can’t do much of anything. You can’t peruse your e-mail, read documents or books or listen to music. With very few exceptions, when the Chromebook isn’t online, it’s a 3.3-pound paperweight.
Allan and Jason both pointed out that SilentPCReview is shutting down. The circumstances that made Silent PC Review a viable project for me in 2002 no longer hold sway, though I will certainly miss many aspects of it. That's a shame - they seemed to be one of the few sites to create their own niche and succeed in it. But if it's time to move on, then all the best, Mike!
If you played the "Google Guitar" which was on their homepage for Les Paul's birthday last week, you weren't alone. "During the two days that the Les Paul doodle was online, those 740 million visitors, according to analytics from RescueTime, spent 26 seconds more on the Google home page than normal," it said. If you missed it, you can still play it here. All this reminded me of the Google Pacman game, which is also still available.
Friday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 17-June-2011 00:32:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
MSI P67A-GD65 Motherboard on eTeknix.
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Socket 1155 Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ECS HDC-I ITX Fusion board on NeoSeeker.
Audio Visual:
Western Digital TV Live Hub on TechWareLabs.
Corsair SP2500 2.1 speaker system on TechReaction.
Power Supply:
Enermax NAXN 80+ 600W on HWSecrets.
Kingwin LZP-550 Lazer Platinum 550W on TechPowerUp.
Innergie mCube Lite Universal Laptop Charger on XSReviews.
Corsair TX850 V2 on HWSecrets.
Club 3D CSP-X1200CS 1200W on TechPowerUp.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP ProBook 6360b Notebook on TechSpot.
Asus K53E-B1 notebook on TechReviewSource.
Fractal Designs Arc Midi on OC3D.
Asus K53SV: Sandy Bridge for the Masses notebook on InsideHW.
Memory:
Patriot Memory VIPER Xtreme PC3-12800 CL8 6GB Kit on RWLabs.
Kingston HyperX PnP 8GB DDR3 1866MHz Dual Channel SODIMM video review on FutureLooks.
Cases:
Thermaltake Level 10 GT on XSReviews.
Sentey Optimus GS-6000 mid-tower on PureOC.
Thermaltake Element V Black Edition on TechReaction.
Antec One Hundred Gaming Case on Modders-Inc.
BitFenix Shinobi Window Case on LegitReviews.
SilverStone Precision PS06 on HWSecrets.
Storage:
OCZ Technology Agility 3 240GB Solid State Drive on OCIA.
ICY DOCK MB881U3-1SA EZ-Dock on ThinkComputers.
Samsung S2 USB 3.0 Powered Hard Drive on VelocityReviews.
Intel SSD 320 Series Solid State Drive on BenchmarkReviews.
OCZ Agility 3 240 GB SSD on LegitReviews.
Cooling:
NZXT Sentry Mesh Fan Controller on OCClub.
Swiftech H20-320 Water Cooling Kit on OC3D.
Scythe Mugen 3 CPU cooler on RWLabs.
Misc:
Epson WorkForce 60 printer on TechReviewSource.
Raptor-Gaming LM3 Mouse on HWHeaven.
ASUS GTX 580 Matrix Platinum video card on Guru3D.
Duke Nukem Forever (PC) game on OCModShop.
Wednesday Night
(7 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 15-June-2011 22:50:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
So, Duke Nukem Forever was finally released last week, and I don't think I even noticed. Maybe after a decade of teasers I just automatically filter DNF news out now. :) Anyway, reviews have been mixed, to say the least. Discussion continues in this enormous thread. Techgage have another review while Techspot checked out performance.
Still on the gaming front, Mario Marathon 4 is on next week. Mario Marathon is an annual fan run fundraiser for Child's Play Charity. Child's Play provides toys, games and books to patients of children's hospitals worldwide. The multi day internet event, broadcast live online, attracts an audience from around the world to watch as the team plays through twenty five years of Super Mario Brothers video games. Now in its fourth year, the event has attracted nearly 500,000 viewers, and raised over $125,000 for Child's Play.
Gigabyte and PCPP are holding an overclocking workshop in Sydney next week, and want to give out some tickets to OCAU people. More info here and here. We are taking 15 lucky amateur overclockers, so get in quick! The event is to be held Monday the 20th at Intime Cyber Cafe in Sydney, so the competition is only open to Sydney residents, or people willing to travel. TeamAU will be the mentors at the event, so everyone will be in very capable hands.
Speaking of which, Youngpro from TeamAU is chasing MSI Lightning 275 video cards to help bring the 3DMark01 record back to Australia. If you've got one, sell it to him, but be aware he will be doing horrible things to it in the name of speed. :) We already found 2 but unfortunately they have perished along the way.
Dave sent in this Unauthorised Backstory of the Portal Universe. Portal fans, are you interested in how Aperture Science went from the brink of bankruptcy to being one of the most powerful and advanced research facilities on the planet? Ever wonder who invented GLADOS, and how she developed her obsession with testing? Curious as to how a cube could become a man's best friend?
OhSmeg noticed that Australian TV Show "Hungry Beast" had an interesting video on the Stuxnet virus, which was picked up by security blogs including F-Secure's, where you can watch the clip. While not all the details in the video are technically accurate, it's still worth watching.
Tech Report toured Zotac's factory. Unlike some graphics card and motherboard makers, Zotac has its own production capacity. We tour the Zotac factory in Dongguan, China to see where the company's GeForce cards and Mini-ITX mobos are born.
Tweaktown have an NVIDIA NF200 x16/x16 vs. Intel x8/x8 P67 Performance Analysis. Over the last few years we've seen companies implement the chip to boards to help move the default SLI or CrossFire X setup from x8 / x8 which is offered via the Intel chipset, to x16 / x16 via the NF200 chip.
Kon sent this quite neat iPod magic trick video. Mostly just coordinated video playback and sleight of hand, but cleverly done.
Wednesday Afternoon
(4 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 15-June-2011 13:47:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
The winners in the recent AusPCMarket BitFenix case contest have been announced (scroll down a bit). 1st Place: Darren's Watercooled PC, with a careful balance of SLI performance for maximum gaming. 2nd Place: Marcel's dream machine, a mix of work and play. 3rd place: Daimon's 12TB NAS, for maximum network storage with a small footprint.
We also had an extremely quick contest from SonicBoom last night, which was won in about 20 minutes! So I imagine the next one will be a bit more difficult. :) Congrats to Randy_Chuggs who scored a fancy powerboard.
AMD unveiled its Llano A-Series APU yesterday, which revolves around 32nm quad-core CPUs. We all knew that when AMD bought ATI many years ago that the company had plans for making a Fusion processor that basically blended the CPU, GPU and Northbridge all into once chip. AMD calls this smorgasbord of technology goodness an “accelerated processing unit” or APU. Coverage on LegitReviews, HotHardware and PC Perspective. Anandtech cover the notebook and desktop versions, thanks Anthony.
AMD also discussed the next-generation APU at a recent developer summit, with coverage on PC Perspective and Tech Report. During a talk on the next generation of GPU technology at the AMD Fusion Developer Summit, one of the engineers was asked about Trinity, the next APU to be released in 2012 (and shown running today for the very first time). It was offered that Trinity in fact used a VLIW4 architecture rather than the VLIW5 design found in the just released Llano A-series APU.
Bitcoin is keeping itself in the news, now with a $500k cyber-heist. A high-rolling geek who goes by the handle Allinvain claims that on Monday afternoon, someone pilfered 25,000 Bitcoins from his wallet file and deposited them into another anonymous account. At the current exchange rate of $18.72 per Bitcoin, that's about $467,500. (Though the exchange rate has reached as high as ~$29 in recent days.)
NeoSeeker looked at the UEFI BIOS from ASUS. The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is meant to be an OS-Firmware interface, much like a standard BIOS is. This interface manages the PC boot and runtime services. It has been developed from the ground up, and thus should not be considered as an evolution to current existing BIOSes, which did not end up evolving much with current hardware.
The UN is involved in the three strikes for copyright infringement debate. Michael Geist notes that on Friday, Sweden made remarks at the UN Human Rights Council that endorsed many of the report's findings, including the criticism of "three strikes" rules. The statement was signed by 40 other nations, including the United States and Canada. The United Kingdom and France, two nations that have enacted "three strikes" regimes, did not sign the statement.
A kickbacks scheme revolving around overpriced printer cartridges has been unearthed in Victoria. The company charged up to $396 for cartridges that cost $99 from other suppliers. In one case, an Arts Victoria project officer, who was in charge of purchasing printer toner, bought enough printer cartridges last the department 40 years, despite the fact they expire after 24 months. The project manager received $8,300 in gift vouchers and prepaid credit cards in a year.
Google has some interesting new features on the way. It's just announced that Android-style Voice Search is headed to Chrome (with support for English only, initially), and that it will be joined by a new Search by Image feature (also available in Chrome, or Firefox with an extension). ... In other news, Google's announced Instant Pages (also demoed after the break), which promises to speed up browsing by prerendering results when its "confident you're going to click them."
Today's timewaster is a Shaun the Sheep physics game from KR.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 15-June-2011 02:49:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Professional Motherboard on LegitReviews.
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme (Intel P67) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 on PureOC.
Two LGA1155 Mainboards from Elitegroup Black Series: ECS P67H2-A and P67H2-A2 on XbitLabs.
Memory:
G.Skill Sniper 1866 MHz DDR3 Memory Kit on BenchmarkReviews.
GSkill SNIPER PC3-12800 CL7 12GB Kit on RWLabs.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries 6Gv2 Keyboard on OC3D.
Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Black Element on APHNetworks.
Portable & Prebuilt:
ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Honeycomb Tablet on TBreak.
MSI GT683R-242US Notebook With GeForce GTX 560M on HotHardware.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on TechSpot.
Storage:
Kingston 32GB DTU3G2 USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Bjorn3D.
OWC's Extreme Pro 6Gbps SSD on TechReaction.
Kingston DataTraveler Ultimate 3.0 Gen. 2 USB
3.0 Flash Drive on TechARP.
Mach Xtreme MX-GX USB 3.0 16GB Flash Drive on eTeknix.
ADATA S511 120gb SATA 3 SSD on TheSSDReview.
Cases:
In Win Dragon Rider on XtremeComputing.
Cooler Master Silencio 550 on eTeknix.
NZXT H2 Silent Mid-Tower on Techgage.
Silverstonetek PS05 System Enclosure on Metku.
Lian Li PC-U6 Cowry on Vortez.
Cooling:
Swiftech MCP35X and MCP35X Reservoir (Rev. 2) on Overclockers.com.
AURAS Shagon' AHC-118 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Xigmatek AEGIR cooler on TechReaction.
Audio Visual:
AOC e2243 Fwk Razor 21.5 Inch Aire LED LCD Monitor on Futurelooks.
Nikon COOLPIX S570 12MP Digital Camera on ThinkComputers.
Samsung PN59D8000 on TechReviewSource.
Diamond VStream Wireless HD Video Streamer on EverythingUSB.
AC Ryan PlayOn!HD 2 1TB on Guru3D.
Samsung SyncMaster SA850: World’s First Monitor on PLS Matrix on XbitLabs.
Video Cards:
AMD Llano Graphics / Radeon HD 6620G On Linux on Phoronix.
Sapphire Radeon HD6950 Flex 2GB DDR5 on Metku.
ZOTAC GTX590 3GB on Vortez.
PowerColor Radeon HD6790 1GB on InsideHW.
ASUS Geforce GTS 450 DirectCU OC 1GB on ThinkComputers.
MSI Radeon R6970 Lightning and VTX3D Radeon HD 6970 X-Edition on XbitLabs.
Misc:
Duke Nukem Forever Game Review (PC) on HWHeaven.
PC Mark 7 Performance Review on OCClub.
Sentey GSP850-SM 850W PSU on OCIA.
Samsung ML-3310ND printer on BusinessComputingWorld.
Tuesday Afternoon
(1 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 14-June-2011 16:45:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
BeanerSA noticed that this is Men's Health Week. Men and boys face different health concerns than women and girls, and IMHW is an opportunity to both acknowledge these differences and look for ways to improve the health and wellbeing of men and boys. He suggests that, given the average gamer is 37 years old, we need to look after ourselves.
On an entirely unrelated note, IGN point out that all these jumping-around game consoles nowadays are great unless you're a fat sweaty guy. I definitely think Microsoft Kinect has cool uses -- see Sesame Street: Once Upon Monster -- but none of the games I saw today made me regret or want to change the lifestyle choices that have led to me being a big fat party animal.
Australian online wholesaler Distribute.IT has been hacked and taken down, thanks Folken. The company - best known as a domain name registrar - said in a post to its Twitter account that it had been the victim of a "very deliberate, coordinated & malicious attack".
If you're after more info on Bitcoin, Sniper spotted this article on DailyTech. First, the originators of the Bitcoin market didn't want to take the 100+ years that most modern currencies required to mature. To that end they "seeded" the market, by granting ownership "miners" -- people who used hardware to "find" Bitcoins using an underlying algorithm.
Gunna spotted an article about the horrors of Windows 8. But one aspect of the demonstration has the legions of Windows developers deeply concerned, and with good reason: they were told that all their experience, all their knowledge, and every program they have written in the past would be useless on Windows 8.
Gasman wants us to know that Tau Day is coming up soon. That page contains a detailed explanation of why Pi is wrong and Tau is what all the cool kids should be using, but cunningly makes it near impossible to tell from a skimread when Tau Day actually is. Seems to be June 28? I'll stick with Talk Like a Pirate Day, yarr.
Interesting Forum Threads
(2 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 13-June-2011 20:24:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Here's a snapshot 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.
Logitech G400 - MX518 Successor in Overclocking & Hardware.
Last night my Shaw PSU exploded (with pics) in Overclocking & Hardware.
The mouse to end all mice! in Overclocking & Hardware.
What makes a CPU a GEM? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Arduino controlled brew kettle in Electronics.
New Aquacomputer Rads in Extreme Cooling, thanks Matt.
GT5: OCAU Historic Car Championship (HCC) - Season 1 (Pre-1971) in Sony Consoles.
New Synology NAS DS211j setup in Networking.
How to succeed in IT without really trying in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Corsair Issues Force 3 SSD Recall in Storage & Backup.
Canonical launches Ubuntu Developer Portal preview in Other Operating Systems.
Sigma SD1 - a.k.a. "Pass the crackpipe, Sigma!" in Photography & Video.
Five minutes for a cup of coffee? Why so long? in Geek Food.
Vegan Black Metal Chef in Geek Food.
Shameless plug (aka Black holes and stuff) in Science.
Why do we enjoy musical notes? in Science.
Pi is "Wrong" in Science.
LS Talk Show - Australian Gaming Podcast in PC Games.
"A cloud hangs over the Sysadmin" in Career, Education & Finance.
A year without alcohol in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Top 10 Australian Fastest Muscle Cars (infographic) in Motoring.
Congrats to the winners of our recent The Witcher II - Assassins of Kings contest. Phrenetic, mitt, Bombster, mr_mordred2095 and green_comet were runners-up, with AussieKev taking the main prize.
There's only a few days left in the CarSales contest to win a Ford Focus car. Ford and Carsales.com.au invite you to put the all-new Ford Focus through its paces in a series of tests. 12 lucky entrants will receive an all-new Ford Focus for 6 weeks, a flip camera, and a license to entertain! Document the tests, get the most votes…and you get to keep the car! Discussion here.
There's also a couple of iPad 2s up for grabs, although you have to spend a few bucks to get into the draw. New sponsor DIY Home Automation are giving one away to an OCAU member, with discussion here. Warcom have one on offer too, as well as prizes for joining their mailing list or liking them on Facebook, and discussion here.
Monday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 13-June-2011 01:59:04 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Input Etc:
SteelSeries 6Gv2 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Zowie G-TF Speed mouse mat on XSReviews.
Steelseries Ikari Laser Mouse (White) on TBreak.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Galaxy SII smartphone on InsideHW.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on HotHardware.
HP Envy 17 3D notebook on TBreak.
Audio Visual:
Thermaltake Shock Headset on Bjorn3D.
Apacer Audio Steno AU825 MP4 Player on RWLabs.
Radiopaq Duo Headphones on Tech-Reviews.
Cases:
Antec Six Hundred V2 on NeoSeeker.
NZXT Classic Series H2 Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Corsair Graphite Series 600T White on HWSecrets.
Bitfenix Colossus Venom Edition on RBMods.
Memory:
G.Skill Ripjaws-X Series PC3-14900 8GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon 6770 FleX Edition on PureOC.
HIS Radeon HD6950 IceQ-X Turbo-X on BenchmarkReviews.
HIS Radeon 6970 ICEQ Turbo on Guru3D.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 6870 OC on eTeknix.
Power Supply:
Sentey Golden Steel Power 850W on OCClub.
OCZ ZX Series 1000W on InsideHW.
Storage:
Kingston SSDNow V100 vs. Patriot Torqx 2 128 GB SSD on HWSecrets.
LSI 9265 MegaRAID Supplementary Review: The Beauty of CacheCade on TheSSDReview.
SuperSpeed USB 3.0 INEO I-NA309D Pro on TechWareLabs.
Sunday Afternoon
(4 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 12-June-2011 15:42:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
It's probably about time I mentioned Bitcoin on the news page. I haven't really gotten my head around it entirely yet, but in short, it's a peer-to-peer currency system. Unlike other digital currencies, Bitcoin avoids central authorities and issuers. Bitcoin uses a distributed database spread across nodes of a peer-to-peer network to journal transactions, and uses digital signatures and proof-of-work to provide basic security functions, such as ensuring that bitcoins can be spent only once per owner and only by the person who owns them. Some people think it's a really big deal. Once OCAU members discovered there's a distributed computing project involved, it became quite a hot topic here, too. But some people feel there's a certain shadiness to the whole thing and it's not really certain how much bitcoins will continue to be worth in terms of real-world money, or even how to exchange them for it. I guess if it really takes off, you won't have to.
There's an Australian Regional Photography Competition running at the moment. The Department of Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government lunched the MyRegion National Photographic Competition, inviting Australians to submit ‘Images of Australia’ taken over the past year that showcase the people, places, wildlife, landscapes and nature that make their communities unique.
The DS game "Dead or Alive: Dimensions" has had its classification revoked in Australia, essentially banning it until it is re-classified. This game was classified PG (Parental Guidance) on 8 February 2011 with consumer advice ‘mild violence and sexualized gameplay’. Information provided to the Board last week suggested that the game contained content not drawn to the Board’s attention in the original classification application.
Another high-profile hacking has occurred, with UK game developers Codemasters reporting customer details stolen, thanks Jon and Martin. Codemasters - which makes games for consoles including Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo Wii - said hackers had accessed customer names and addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers and encrypted passwords. The attack followed a number of similar computer hacks, including two against Sony which saw the data of almost 100 million users stolen. Discussion here.
Here's a funny video about the future of home computing, from 1966. Unlike most videos from the past that speculated on flying cars and robots doing all our chores, this one went for the 'home shopping' angle, bank account unification and a way to send letters electronically all over the world.
On the "ooh, shiny" front, IBM have a graphene-based integrated circuit, Japanese researchers have made holograms you can touch and some NZ geeks have made an augmented reality MicroMachines demo. Augmented Reality Micromachines(ARMM) is a car racing game that let players turn their desks into the race courses. ARMM utilizes Microsoft’s Kinect for table-top reconstruction, Bullet for the physics simulation and Openscenegraph for rendering.
Guru3D went to the headquarters of ECS in Taiwan. We'll show awesome building photos but then quickly move onwards towards the Research and Development department where the good stuff is designed from PCB CAD design stages, the BIOS team and actually research and development.
E3 was on recently in Los Angeles, and LegitReviews have wrap-up coverage and booth babes. TechSpot have a trailer hotlist. One thing everyone's talking about is the new Nintendo Wii U.
Thanks to JC, Keiran, Brian and timbot this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Sponsor Specials
(1 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 10-June-2011 14:07:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Remember to keep an eye on our Sponsor Specials forum if you're shopping around. In there our various sponsors have threads with deals on headphones, iPhone accessories, home automation, SSDs, antivirus software, media players, web hosting, office chairs, cookware, keyboards and a range of other goodies. Check 'em out!
Friday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 10-June-2011 14:02:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
Diamond VStream HDMI transmitter on OCClub.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX9V on TechReviewSource.
Roccat Kulo 7.1 Virtual Surround headset on XSReviews.
Elgato EyeTV Hybrid USB Tuner on MissingRemote.
RCA DHT235C Portable Digital TV on OCOnline.
Canon REALiS SX80 Mark II on TechReviewSource.
Razer Ferox speakers on TBreak.
Motherboard & CPU:
GIGABYTE 990FXA-UD7 (AMD 990FX) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO motherboard on InsideHW.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HTC Thunderbolt smartphone on HWSecrets.
TomTom GO 2535 M LIVE on TechReviewSource.
Power Supply:
FSP AURUM GOLD AU-700 on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W on Pro-Clockers.
Video Cards:
ASUS GTX 580 Matrix Platinum 1.5 GB on TechPowerUp.
AMD Radeon HD 6870 CrossFire with 5x1 Eyefinity on HotHardware.
MSI GTX 580 Lightning Twin Frozr III on PureOC.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 fleX 1GB on eTeknix.
HIS Radeon HD6850 IceQ-X Turbo on BenchmarkReviews.
HIS Radeon HD 6970 IceQ Turbo on LegionHW.
MSI N560GTX-Ti HAWK on PCPerspective.
Zotac GTX590 SLI 5760x1080 Nvidia Surround on OC3D.
Input Etc:
Cooler Master CM Storm Spawn Gaming Mouse on Tweaknews.
SteelSeries Cataclysm MMO Gaming MouseSteelSeries Cataclysm MMO Gaming Mouse on RWLabs.
Enermax AURORA Micro Wireless Keyboard on TechReaction.
Cases:
Corsair Obsidian 650D Mid-tower on OCIA.
BitFenix Survivor on HWSecrets.
Software:
Brink PC game on HWHeaven.
Section 8: Prejudice PC game on HWHeaven.
Misc:
ASUS WL-330N3G 6-in-1 Wireless-N Mobile Router on ThinkComputers.
Antec Soundscience Bias Halo 6 LED Lighting Kit on ThinkComputers.
Patriot Memory Viper Xtreme DDR3 2000MHz on TechReaction.
If you're looking for long-lost hardware documentation, then The Hardware Project might save your bacon. The idea behind The Hardware Project is simple. We aim to offer up as much computer hardware documentation as we can get our dirty little hands on. All of this documentation started out free and available, and we hope to keep it that way. Ahh, it takes me back. :)
Old documentation might be handy if you, for example, wanted to build your own Cray-1A. I’ve spent the last year and a half or so constructing my own 1/10-scale, binary-compatible, cycle-accurate Cray-1. This project falls purely into the “because I can!” category - I was poking around the internet one day looking for a Cray emulator and came up dry, so I decided to do something about it.
The music industry seems to be changing its piracy stance in Australia. Sabiene Heindl, general manager of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations, today said there needed to be "mitigation measures" for those engaged in repeated illegal file sharing but "such measures would not include termination of internet accounts". Discussion here.
Issue 15 of TheOverclocker magazine is out now. We take a look at what it takes to be at the top and what you shouldn’t do if you plan to get there, but more importantly we discuss what you should strive for. We welcome Sin to the team as he lends us his talents and helps us make yet another epic issue of TheOverclocker.
HardCoreWare compare some CPUs. All four CPUs roughly fall within $15-20 of the X4 980’s $185 price range. This will answer a few questions: Is the 980X’s 3.7 GHz clock speed a better choice over the 1100T X6 at 3.3 GHz but with two extra cores? How do those two CPUs compare to their respective Sandy Bridge competition? Core i5 2400 and 2500, which are also quad-core CPUs
If you liked the NASA photos of Endeavour docked with the ISS a couple of days ago, then you'll love this video shot from the same departing Soyuz. After the Soyuz TMA-20 carrying Expedition 27 Commander Dmitry Kondratyev and Flight Engineers Cady Coleman and Paolo Nespoli undocked from the International Space Station on May 23, Nespoli captured this video of shuttle Endeavour docked to the orbital complex.
SiliconAngel wants to know if you've had any trouble with USB3.0 front ports. I've been over on the Corsair support forums, trying to work out why their cases don't have internal header cables to their front panel USB 3.0 ports (their cables loop back to mainboard backpanel ports), and it appears they are yet to find or develop a cable to internal FPC headers that doesn't suffer from degraded signal quality resulting in lower-than-expected (and specified) USB 3.0 transfer speeds (and according to some members of the public, they have seen devices incorrectly detected and other anomalies due to poor quality internal cables).
Today's timewaster is In the Doghouse, from Tony.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 9-June-2011 16:48:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Cooling:
Koolance CPU-370 Water Block on PureOC.
MNPCTech Billet Radiator Grill on PureOC.
NZXT HAVIK 140 CPU cooler on NeoSeeker.
EVGA Superclock CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Be Quiet Dark Rock Advanced CPU cooler on OC3D.
Auras Shagon ARC-118 Heatsink on Frostytech.
Cases:
NZXT's H2 mid-tower enclosure on TechReport.
Corsair Obsidian 650D on OCClub.
Thermaltake Chaser MK-1 on RWLabs.
Cooler Master CM Storm Enforcer on eTeknix.
Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T on HWHeaven.
Cooler Master Elite 371 on APHNetworks.
Thermaltake Armor A30 on OCClub.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT on Pro-Clockers.
Motherboard & CPU:
Intel Core i7 2600K Sandy Bridge CPU on TechWareLabs.
ECS A890GXM-A2 Motherboard on NeoSeeker.
Jetway NF81-T56N-LF mITX Motherboard on APHNetworks.
ASUS M5A97 EVO AM3+ on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Patriot Memory Supersonic 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on PCStats.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB Solid State Drive on APHNetworks.
QNAP TS-659 Pro II NAS on BenchmarkReviews.
Western Digital Caviar Green (WD30EZRX) 3 TB Desktop Hard Disk Drive on TechARP.
Kingston Data Traveller Ultimate G2 3.0 64GB on XSReviews.
OCZ Technology Agility 3 240GB on Tweaktown.
Buffalo LinkStation Pro Duo NAS on BusinessComputingWorld.
ioSafe Rugged USB 3.0 Portable Drive on EverythingUSB.
Here's a few reviews that people have posted in the forums:
Wednesday Afternoon
(7 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 8-June-2011 13:44:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
If you're in NSW you can enter to win an MSI laptop over on the TripleM website. To win one of FOUR MSI Wind U160DX Netbooks valued at $399 simply register your details today and tell us in 50 words or less what you love about MSI laptops? We’re giving away one each week for four weeks, so enter today! Also, Warcom are giving away $200 credit, which you can enter the draw for by "liking" them on Facebook.
News Ltd are continuing their move towards charging for online content, with the first Australian newspaper to throw up a "paywall" being The Australian. Non-subscribers will be able to access "extensive general content" on the website and mobile sites, but News Digital Media chief executive Richard Freudenstein said a "large amount of unique, premium content" would be available only to subscribers.
E3 is on at the moment, and one thing people are talking about is a new 3D display from Sony. The 3D Display utilizes an exclusive feature that optimizes two-player mode by delivering individual full HD screens, giving each person their own full screen view of the action on the same display while playing co-op or head-to-head. However this guy reckons you can already do it.
HWHeaven built a Fusion HTPC. Today we will take a look at the ECS HDC-I and combine it with a case designed for cool and silent running, the Fractal Design Define Mini. We will show the build process, components paired with these two items and performance in tasks such as Blu-Ray playback and video streaming.
Meanwhile Scott from Tech Report built a new desktop. I'll admit to being like the proverbial plumber with a leaky sink. When it comes to my own, primary personal computer, I've been borderline neglectful for a little while now. Happily, I decided to end all that recently by building myself an excellent new computer.
There's some amazing new photos of Endeavour docked with the ISS. This image of the International Space Station and the docked space shuttle Endeavour, flying at an altitude of approximately 220 miles, was taken by Expedition 27 crew member Paolo Nespoli from the Soyuz TMA-20 following its undocking on May 23, 2011 (USA time).
Paul noticed that our Department of Defence has lost their X-Files. The only file Defence was able to locate was titled ''Report on UFOs/Strange Occurrences and Phenomena in Woomera''; the others had been destroyed. ''We also discovered one [other] file, which had not been destroyed but could not be located,'' Ms Carpenter wrote.
Today's timewaster is entanglement from Martin. I think we've seen something similar before.
Some Computex stragglers:
Gigabyte VIP room - what we found inside on PC Authority.
Evolve III Maestro Convertible Tablet Triple Boots Windows, Android, MeeGo on MegaTechNews.
G.Skill Highlights Phoenix II Pro 'SandForce Driven' SSD on TheSSDReview.
Corsair Announces Force 3 GT SSDs For The Enthusiast on TheSSDReview.
Kingston Releases HyperX SSD IN Blowout "WOW" Fashion on TheSSDReview.
Computex 2011 Show Girls on TechPowerUp.
Noctua builds a better 120mm fan on Tech Report.
Fan speed control? BitFenix has an app for that on Tech Report.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(3 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 8-June-2011 02:59:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Cooling:
Zalman CNPS9900 Max Heatsink on Overclockers.com.
Arctic Cooling Freezer XTREME Rev. 2 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboard on TheSSDReview.
Gigabyte GA-X58-USB3 Motherboard on eTeknix.
MSI P67A-GD80 LGA 1155 ATX Motherboard on PCPerspective.
Audio Visual:
Logitech Z506 5.1 Speakers on Techgage.
ASUS VW266H Widescreen LCD Monitor on BenchmarkReviews.
Kodak PlaySport Zx3 mini camcorder on TechReviewSource.
Cases:
Silverstonetek Raven 3 System Enclosure on Metku.
Antec Six Hundred 600 Gaming Mid-Tower on Tweaknews.
BitFenix Shinobi Window Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake eSports Armor A30 mATX LAN Case on LegitReviews.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1050W PSU on OCIA.
RASURBO Real & Power 550W on TechPowerUp.
Antec High Current Gamer 620W on RWLabs.
Cougar CMX 550W on XSReviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
ASUS NX90 notebook on TBreak.
Alienware M11x R3 Ultraportable Gaming Laptop on TechWareLabs.
Samsung Galaxy S II Mobile Phone on TBreak.
Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY on TechSpot.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Ultralight Laptop on HotHardware.
Video Cards:
Gigabyte Geforce GTX 560 OC (1GB GDDR5) on FunkyKit.
Sapphire Radeon 6770 Vapor-X on PureOC.
Gigabyte GTX 560 SuperOverclock on PureOC.
MSI R6850 Cyclone Power Edition on OCClub.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6770 on Phoronix.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6750 on Pro-Clockers.
HIS HD6970 IceQ Turbo on Vortez.
Storage:
Zalman ZM-VE200 External HDD Case on MadShrimps.
Thecus N3200XXX Network Attached Storage Server on BigBruin.
Misc:
G.Skill Sniper 8GB CL7 DDR3 on Guru3D.
Ttesports Challenger Ultimate Keyboard on RBMods.
Bulletstorm PC game on Tweaktown.
Here's some interesting things from people in the forums:
Computex has finished, and windwithme has posted his photos from Day 1 into the forums:
Click for the thread!
Here's more coverage from around the net:
PCI Express 3.0 on MSI Z68 on Tech Report.
Kingston, Patriot intro 6Gbps SandForce SSDs on Tech Report.
EVGA working on dual-socket X79 mobo, custom GTX 570 on Tech Report.
HD Booth Babes video from Tweaktown.
ASUS Shows Off Ultrathin UX Series MacBook Air Killer on FutureLooks.
ZALMAN Unveils New Coolers, New Case and a New Bluetooth Headset on FutureLooks.
Asus Wavi Xtion Kinect Clone Demo’d By Booth Babe on FutureLooks.
OCZ Technology Shows Off New Power Supplies and RevoDrives on FutureLooks.
GIGABYTE Unveils New BookTop S1080 Tablet, M2342 Docking and P2532 Media Notebooks on FutureLooks.
Day 3 on NinjaLane.
Booth Babes on NinjaLane.
Antec Performance P280 Case First Look on PC Perspective.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT White, Frio GT and BigWater coolers and USB Power Strip on PC Perspective.
Post Computex 2011 - Part 1 on Bjorn3D.
MSI GT780R Notebook Ups Your Game on MegaTechNews.
OCZ Reaches 1 Million IOPS in SSD Demo on TheSSDReview.
Mach Xtreme Displays New JMicron SATA 3 SSD on TheSSDReview.
SuperTalent Showcases SandForce Driven Flash Drive on TheSSDReview.
Congrats to the winners of our recent MSI Giveaway. First prize went to xsphera, with juppy the runner-up, while Sven76 and pie123 picked up consolation prizes.
Google will stop supporting older browsers soon. Those using IE7, Safari 3, Firefox 3.5 and their predecessors to view Gmail, Google Calendar, Talk, Docs and Sites will then lose some functions. Eventually, it warned, these web services will stop working for those sticking with older browsers.
A few people sent in this report of a kid selling a kidney to buy an iPad 2. The way the Shanghai Daily tells it, the boy, from Huaishan City, said he couldn't afford an iPad 2 and wanted one rather badly. He said he was contacted by an online broker who told him he could get 22,000 Yuan (just under $3,400) for his kidney.
An Australian Facebook troll has been released from prison. Hampson, a self-confessed "troll", posted pictures of penises and wrote offensive messages on two sites for children killed in February last year.
France meanwhile has banned Facebook and Twitter from radio and TV. Radio and television news anchors may no longer say the words “Facebook” and “Twitter” on air, unless the terms are part of a news story. This prohibits French news organizations from urging their audience to “follow us on Twitter” or “check out or Facebook page,” or other such promotions.
Gigabyte have a new Touch BIOS, and both PCStats and Techgage checked it out. To help make up for the lack of a proper EFI solution, GIGABYTE has given its Z68 users what it touts as being a "Hybrid EFI" - or in non-marketing speak, a piece of Windows software for interfacing with an old-school BIOS. We take TouchBIOS for a spin and see if it has what it takes to become a viable solution for most users.
Apple have responded to the recent MacDefender by providing an update, but it's been bypassed by some newer malware. But sadly for Apple the story doesn't end there. Within 8 hours of releasing the update, ZDNet discovered a new version of Mac Defender popped up named "Mdinstall.pkg" and it's able to slide right by all of Apple's fancy new protections.
Oracle have given up on OpenOffice, and donated it to the Apache Foundation, thanks dasuperham. Oracle became the owner of the largest rival to Microsoft’s Office software when it acquired Sun Microsystems back in 2009. Open Office will now become part of the Apache Foundation’s Incubator project.
Cheap GPUs can be used as password-cracking powerhouses. Increase the password to 6 characters (pYDbL6), and the CPU takes 1 hour 30 minutes versus only four seconds on the GPU. Go further to 7 characters (fh0GH5h), and the CPU would grind along for 4 days, versus a frankly worrying 17 minutes 30 seconds for the GPU. Discussion here.
Normally vandalism isn't really news, but this attack on an under-construction Apple Store took some effort, thanks Grom Hellscream. They casually went up to the building posing as a team of construction workers, cordoned off a work site, and proceeded to screw pre-made panels, forming a Windows logo, to the side of the store's black veil -- all in broad daylight.
decryption is organising an Australian iOS Developer Conference. The aim of this conference is to give an insight into how Australian developers are achieving success on the App Store, and forging full-time jobs and careers out of cultivating their ideas and publishing their creations on Apple's App Store.
Sean wanted to let us know that the successor to the Wii is on the way and will be shown at E3. Project Café (colloquially referred to as the Wii 2, Wii HD, Nintendo Feel, or Nintendo Stream) is the codename for Nintendo's upcoming video game console and successor to the Wii. The system is expected to be released in 2012 and will be demonstrated in playable form at E3 2011, where the system's specifications will be announced.
The Duke Nukem Forever demo is now available to people in the "First Access Club", whatever that is.
Timbot sent in this neato kaleidoscope timewaster.
MSI GTX 560 Twin Frozr II OC Folding Review
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 5-June-2011 20:14:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
After DM's MSI GTX 560 Twin Frozr II OC review, we sent the card over to trevor68 to take a look at it from a Folding@Home perspective:
Click for the review!
Sunday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 5-June-2011 02:41:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherbard & CPU:
Zotac H67-ITX WiFi H67 Motherboard on eTeknix.
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 Motherboard on iXBTLabs.
Storage:
Plextor PX-NAS4 Network Attached Storage Device on ThinkComputers.
Intel 320 Series 120GB SSD on ITShootOut.
Kingston HyperX MAX 3.0 128GB External USB 3.0 Drive on RWLabs.
Patriot LX Pro 32GB SDHC on OCOnline.
MUKii TransImp X3 Plus Hard Drive Enclosure on OCIA.
Video Cards:
HIS Radeon HD6870 IceQ-X Turbo-X on BenchmarkReviews.
HIS HD6990 Eyefinity 5760x1080 on OC3D.
HIS Radeon HD 6970 IceQ Turbo 2GB on Tweaktown.
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC on Guru3D.
Cases:
Viako Mini Letter ML-55 E-350 Wifi on TechPowerUp.
In Win Buc Mid Tower on Bjorn3D.
Corsair Graphite 600T White Special Edition on LegitReviews.
Water Cooling The Silverstone Temjin Series TJ11 on TechReaction.
Coolermaster Storm Enforcer on XSReviews.
Cooling:
Thermaltake Jing Heatsink on Frostytech.
Aerocool X-Vision Fan Controller on Pro-Clockers.
Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond Thermal Compound on Tweaktown.
Evercool Transformer 3 Heatsink on Frostytech.
Software:
Dirt 3 PC game on Tweaktown.
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings GPU & CPU Performance on TechSpot.
Input Etc:
Microsoft wireless keyboard with 128-bit encryption on TBreak.
Raptor-Gaming K3 and LK1 Keyboards on HWHeaven.
Steelseries 7G Gaming Keyboard on TBreak.
Misc:
Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3X2K2/8GX 2x4GB DDR3 RAM on APHNetworks.
LEPA G500-MA 500W PSU on Tweaktown.
Antec Soundscience Rockus 3D 2.1 Speaker System on MadShrimps.
Samsung Nexus S: Google's Idea of a Smartphone on InsideHW.
Thanks to Lurks, Sephir0th and Zac this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Silicon Power V20 Series 120GB SSD
(11 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 3-June-2011 13:31:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
DiGiTaL MoNkEY has taken a look at this 120GB 2.5" SSD from Silicon Power. He's compared it to the more widely known OCZ Vertex 2. On paper and pricewise it looks like a contender, but how does it shape up in the benchmarks?
Click for the review!
Rubik's Cube Robot
(4 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 3-June-2011 13:16:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Symon pointed out this impressive Rubik's Cube Robot project from dakiller in the forums. Last year I did my final year project in Mechatronic Engineering/Computer Science degree and a team of 6 of us built a robot to solve a Rubiks cube as fast as we could. The end result is a 10.69 second solve, well under the current robot record of 18.2 seconds!
Click for the thread, with videos!
Friday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 3-June-2011 13:08:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
Corsair SP2200 2.1 Speaker System on ThinkComputers.
Sharkoon Universal X-TATIC SP Headset on XtremeComputing.
3M PocketProjector MP180 on BusinessComputingWorld.
Storage:
Patriot SuperSonic USB 3.0 Flash Drive on TechWareLabs.
OCZ Agility 3 SSD on NeoSeeker.
RaidSonic ICY BOX IB-230StU3-G 2.5" USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure on RWLabs.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Toshiba Satellite A665-S5176 laptop on TechReviewSource.
Samsung Infuse 4G Android Smartphone on HotHardware.
Asus Eee PC 1215B notebook on TechReviewSource.
LG P990 Optimus 2X smartphone on InsideHW.
Pandigital Novel 7" Android Tablet & eReader on HotHardware.
Video Cards:
Zotac GTX 560 TI Amp! Edition on XSReviews.
HIS Radeon 6870 ICEQ X Turbo X on Guru3D.
MSI GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition (XE) 3GB on HWCanucks.
ASUS HD 6950 on OCClub.
Cases:
Corsair Obsidian 650D mid-tower on PureOC.
Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition Mid-Tower on ThinkComputers.
Corsair White Graphite Series 600T Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
MSI Z68A-GD80 Intel Motherboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 on LegionHW.
Misc:
Aerocool Strike X Fan Controller on HWSecrets.
Kingston HyperX Genesis 2133MHz Memory Kit on eTeknix.
Enermax Aurora Micro Wireless Keyboard on XSReviews.
Microsoft have given the world a glipse of Windows 8, particularly the new user interface. Coverage on ArsTechnica, All Things D, VR-Zone and PCAuthority, thanks JD. The first thing you notice is the desktop of tiny icons PC users have been familiar with for decades, has been replaced by big, blocky "tiles", as Microsoft calls them. The idea is you'll be able to see information at a glance, without having to open up your email client, or calendar.
Vortez have a water cooling shootout. ith 4 different watercooling setups, all with different levels of complexity, we aim to see just how much extra performance watercooling has to offer.
TechSpot meanwhile checked out budget and enthusiast SSDs. To ease your pain in choosing the right SSD, we've put together a condensed list with some of what we consider the best SSDs in the market right now, basing our picks on performance and highlighting a slightly slower alternative offering a better cost per gigabyte value.
HWSecrets compared more thermal compounds. We added five more new thermal compounds to our previous roundup, for a total of 25 different thermal compounds from major brands. We also tried an "alternative" compound: lipstick.
Martin sends word that there's a CoD: Black Ops free weekend this weekend. Presumably this applies to Aussies as well? Pre-load the game now and be ready to play when the free weekend starts on Thursday, June 2nd at 10am Pacific Time. The Free Weekend of Call of Duty®: Black Ops will let you play the entire multiplayer portion of the base game.
Darkness sent in this 80's gaming themed video clip for a band called Goldfish, with more info here. There's a making of video too.
Sciby meanwhile spotted this real-life portal show. Clever idea! :)
Voting for May's Iron Photographer is now open. There seem to be a lot of entries this month? The official theme for the month was "Portraits but no pets" and this months poll will close at 10:00PM on Thursday 30th June 2011.
Here's a few more Computex headlines:
Day 2 Highlights on NinjaLane.
Shuttle PC and Booth Babes Day 1 on TechWareLabs.
Noctua shows off high end cooling prototypes, G.Skill & ASUS Live Extreme Overclocking and ASUS Unveils Water-Cooled ROG Gaming PC on VR-Zone.
AMD Shows Off Trinity APU based on Bulldozer, APU for Tablets, ASUS GPUTweak Software, MSI shows Gen3 PCIe, X79 Motherboard and GTX 580 Extreme and Antec intros High Current Gamer Plus PSU and Solo II Chassis on PC Perspective.
DisplayLink Unveils New USB 2.0 and 3.0 Graphics Solutions on FutureLooks.
Thursday Evening Reviews
(1 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 2-June-2011 20:38:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX on PureOC.
Asus SABERTOOTH 990FX and the MSI 990FXA-GD80 on PCPerspective.
AMD Phenom 2 X4 980BE CPU on RBMods.
Storage:
G-Technology G-RAID Mini Dual-Drive Storage System on RWLabs.
Patriot Supersonic 32 GB USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
Sharkoon Flexi-Drive Extreme Duo 16GB USB 3.0 Thumb Drive on Tweaktown.
Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB on OCClub.
ioSafe Rugged Portable HDD on DragonSteelMods.
OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SSD on LegitReviews.
Cases:
Sentey Black Box Series: BX1-4284 V2.3 midtower on TechReaction.
Corsair Obsidian 650D on BenchmarkReviews.
Corsair Special Edition White Graphite 600T on Techgage.
Enermax SpineRex on Vortez.
Obsidian 650D Mid-Tower on Modders-Inc.
Cubitek HPTX Tank on RWLabs.
Power Supply:
Corsair TX850 V2 Power Supply on HWSecrets.
Nesteq ASM Xzero 600W Semi-Fanless Power Supply Unit on eTeknix.
Cooling:
NZXT FX 120 and FX 140 Fan on Vortez.
NZXT HAVIK 140 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
NZXT HAVIK 140 Heatsink on Overclockers.com.
Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler and Intel Core i7-990X Processor on HWHeaven.
Here's some yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:
Interesting Forum Threads
(2 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 1-June-2011 16:17:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
In case you missed it, OCAU now has official twitter and facebook pages. Anyway, here's a few interesting threads from the forums:
Upcoming Corsair Hydro Series H80, H100 CPU Coolers Listed in Overclocking & Hardware.
EVGA Superclock:CPU COOLER in Overclocking & Hardware.
Another Shuttle VMware ESXi home lab in Overclocking & Hardware.
GIGABYTE's high-end 990FXA-UD7 and UD5 get listed early in Overclocking & Hardware.
[TeamAU] Takes out Aquamark WR in Overclocking & Hardware.
Which is the better lube for my bearings? in Overclocking & Hardware.
Touchscreen Keyboard in Modding.
Ultimate P67/Z68 Quick reference guide! in Intel Hardware.
SysAdmin 101 in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Are enterprise-class machines better quality than consumer-class? in Business & Enterprise Computing.
The Great "Oh crap, we can't use EK nickel blocks, what now?" Thread in Extreme Cooling.
HTPC Chassis Survey in HTPC.
Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Android 3.0 (honeycomb) in Google Android OS & Devices.
Ebook reader: Looking for a cheap and effective model in Other Toys.
Depixelizing Pixel Art: Upscaling Retro 8-bit Games in Retro & Arcade.
FLASHBACK Retro - c64, Amiga Pc demoscene party June long week end in Retro & Arcade.
300+ photo stitch - Great Ocean Road in Photography Gallery.
Time for Steve Ballmer to step down as Microsoft CEO? in Current Events & Serious Discussion.
Biggest breed of rabbit in Oz as a pet? in Pets & Animals.
Hanoi to Saigon by bike [journal] in Motoring.
All gamed out - Age 32 in The Pub.
Hundreds slapped with fines in swearing offensive in The Pub.
Wednesday Afternoon
(5 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 1-June-2011 14:51:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Hexus have a GTX 560 roundup between GIGABYTE, ASUS and MSI. The GeForce GTX 560 is an interesting mid-range GPU insofar as NVIDIA doesn't prescribe default frequencies. Leaving all the work to its horde of partners, which includes designing the PCB, cooling and qualifying speeds, most have simply taken their extant GTX 560 Ti cards and switched the GPU around. You can of course read our GTX 560 reviews too: GIGABYTE, ASUS and MSI.
Internode CEO Simon Hackett has been awarded the Future in Review (FiRe) 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year award in the USA. The award, which recognises business acumen and strategic sense of global priorities, is not always given out; the last recipient was the founder and former CEO of PayPal, Elon Musk, who also chairs Solarcity and is the chair and chief executive of Tesla Motors and Space Exploration Technologies.
Gamers are up in arms with reports that Call of Duty may start monthly fees. Activision Blizzard Inc. plans to launch an online service called Call of Duty Elite this fall that will work with the next major edition of the game, "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3," and future installments of the hyper-realistic combat-simulation game. In a move industry executives describe as a first, Activision plans to charge a monthly subscription fee for the service, which will provide extra content that isn't offered on game discs sold in stores, including downloadable map packs that give players new "Call of Duty" levels to play.
TechSpot checked out DiRT 3 CPU & GPU performance. Developed with the latest (v2.0) EGO game engine, Dirt 3 is a spectacular looking racing game with some surprisingly high, but also incredibly vague recommended system requirements. Codemasters recommends that you play with an AMD Phenom II or Intel Core i7 processor and an AMD Radeon HD 6000 series graphics card, but fails to mention specific models or anything at all from Nvidia. Meanwhile, the minimum requirements say you can scrape by with a paltry Athlon 64/Pentium D and HD 2000/GeForce 8000 class graphics.
Somewhat off-topic, but here's a scary reminder to check your axle spacers. I'm on a round-the-US trip, and apparently, I forgot to put on the chain-side wheel spacer the last time I changed the tire. The bike made it 3500 miles, but on a 105 degree day, in the middle of the Texas desert, this happened.
CSimpson sent info about the EB Games Expo in October. The EB Games Expo aims to bring an E3-style gaming exhibition to Australia, showcasing games and technology to Australian gamers. It will be held on Queensland's Gold Coast, at the Gold Coast Convention Centre. The Expo will follow the already-running EB Vendor Show, an industry-only event, but will open the doors to the public with stalls, live demonstrations and displays. With 26 exhibitors just announced and more additions possible, the 2011 EB Games Expo will be the largest gaming exhibition ever staged in Australia.
Rowan noticed that World IPv6 Day is coming up soon. On 8 June, 2011, Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Akamai and Limelight Networks will be amongst some of the major organisations that will offer their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour “test flight”. The goal of the Test Flight Day is to motivate organizations across the industry – Internet service providers, hardware makers, operating system vendors and web companies – to prepare their services for IPv6 to ensure a successful transition as IPv4 addresses run out.
Hackaday have taken a look at a bizarre fake news machine. We covered the Newstweek, a wall-wart sized box that injects fake news stories over public WiFi connections last February, but now there’s a great walk through and it seems our doubts about this project were disproved. The Newstweek uses ARP spoofing to change the text displayed on several news sites. After doing some field research, placing and configuring the device, there’s a simple web frontend that configures the man-in-the-middle hack.
Some Computex headlines: ASUS Press Conference on Futurelooks, Day 1 mini-post on NinjaLane, Day 1 Booth Babes on TechWareLabs, OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid on Tech Report, Intel Ultrabooks and Atom on PC Perspective, ASUS unveils Padfone on HotHardware and ASUS unveils ultra-thin notebook on Tech Report.
Also from John: Anand is reporting from Computex that AMD’s long-awaited Bulldozer has been slightly delayed because of issues with its B0 and B1 steppings. Now looking at a late July launch with B2 silicon. Also mentions that the 9 series motherboards currently arriving have functionally identical chipsets to the 8 series that they supersede. Also Hexus have managed to get their hands on an actual Llano sporting MB and although they haven’t been able to test it they have pictures to show the new Fusion part in all its glory. They are also predicting arrival of Llano in notebooks over coming weeks, with desktop versions arriving July.
AMD 990FX Chipset
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 1-June-2011 12:31:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
AMD have unveiled their 990FX chipset for their upcoming Bulldozer CPUs on socket AM3+, with up to 8 cores and multi-GPU graphics. DiGiTaL MoNkEY has a photo-heavy look at the Sabertooth 990FX board from ASUS:
Click for the preview!
Here's some coverage on other sites:
ASUS RoG Crosshair V Formula (990FX) and MSI 990FXA-GD80 on HWHeaven.
ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX Motherboard on OCClub.
Asus Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ Motherboard on eTeknix.
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX on Guru3D.
Bulldozer mobos from Asus and MSI: Sabertooth 990FX & 990FXA-GD80 on Tech Report.
ASUS Crosshair-V Formula 990FX Motherboard on BenchmarkReviews.
ASUS Crosshair V Formula (AMD 990FX) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASUS Crosshair V Formula 990FX on OC3D.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 1-June-2011 01:49:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Audio Visual:
Roundup: Dell Monitors on e-IPS Matrix on XbitLabs.
Arctic Sound E461 Earphones on Tweaktown.
Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-WX9 digicam on TechReviewSource.
Storage:
G.Skill Phoenix Evo 115GB SSD on ITShootout.
Intel 510 Series 250GB SSD on InsideHW.
Patriot Memory Supersonic 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on BigBruin.
OCZ Technology Agility 3 SandForce 240GB SATA 6G SSD on PCPerspective.
Buffalo DriveStation HD-LBU2 on BusinessComputingWorld.
Cases:
In Win Dragon Rider Full Tower on eTeknix.
Video Cards:
Gainward GTX 560 Ti 2048MB on Metku.
ASUS Radeon HD 6870 DirectCU II 1GB on Tweaktown.
MSI GeForce GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition 3 GB on TechPowerUp.
MSI GTX 580 Lightning Xtreme Edition 3GB OC on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
Asus Crosshair IV Formula motherboard on HardCoreWare.
GIGABYTE P67A-UD7-B3 Motherboard on LegitReviews.
Fully-Fledged LGA1155 Platform: Intel Z68 Express Chipset on XbitLabs.
MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard on LegitReviews.
Intel Z68 Express Chipset on iXBTLabs.
Gigabyte G1.Assassin Gaming Motherboard on RWLabs.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HTC Incredible S Mobile Phone on TBreak.
Hewlett Packard EliteBook 8560p Notebook on HotHardware.
Cooling:
Cooler Master V8 CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Antec Kuhler H20 920 CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
Thermaltake Jing CPU Heatsink on APHNetworks.
Heat Column Cooler: Noiseblocker NB-TwinTec on XbitLabs.
Cooler Master V6GT and Thermaltake Jing on XbitLabs.
Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Aerocool F6XT Fan Controller on HWSecrets.
GlacialTech Siberia CPU Cooler on ComputingonDemand.
Memory:
TwinMOS TwiSTER 4GB DDR3-2133 Memory Kit on TBreak.
Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer 6GB DDR3-1600 on PureOC.
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
Interested in advertising on OCAU? Contact us for info.
|
|
