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November 2011 |
Wednesday Night Reviews
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Wednesday, 30-November-2011 23:56:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Silicon Power Diamon D05 USB 3.0 External Drive on Bjorn3D.
Kingston HyperX 240GB Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
QNAP TS-879U-RP High
Performance SMB NAS on ComputingOnDemand.
Synology DiskStation DS712+ NAS on TechWareLabs.
Cooling:
Antec KUHLER H2O 920 Liquid Cooling System on XbitLabs.
Intel RTS2011LC CPU Water Cooler on LegitReviews.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF on TechReaction.
Video Cards:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores Launch Roundup with SLI on HWHeaven.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 FleX Battlefield 3 Edition on eTeknix.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 TI 448 Core on LegitReviews.
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 core on Guru3D.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448-Core GPU on HotHardware.
MSI GTX 560 Ti-448 1280MB Twin Frozr III Power Edition on Tweaktown.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Core Limited Edition on PCPerspective.
MSI GTX560Ti 448 Core on OC3D.
ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores Direct CU II 1280 MB on TechPowerUp.
ZOTAC GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores 1280 MB on TechPowerUp.
Gigabyte GTX560Ti 448 Core on OC3D.
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Cores Twin Frozr III 1280 MB on TechPowerUp.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Garmin Nuvi 50 GPS on TechReviewSource.
Toshiba Portege Z835 laptop on TechReviewSource.
BlackBerry Curve 9360 smartphone on TBreak.
ZaReason Strata 6880 Sandy Bridge Notebook on Phoronix.
Power Supply:
NZXT HALE82 850W on HWSecrets.
Memory:
GeIL EVO CORSA 2133MHz DDR3 on Vortez.
Patriot Division 4 Viper Xtreme PC3-12800 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
Xebec Tech iTouchPad Diamond Keyboard on XtremeComputing.
SteelSeries Sensei Pro Grade Laser Mouse on MadShrimps.
Audio Visual:
Pivos AIOS HD Media Center on MegaTechNews.
Monsoon Vulkano Flow remote video streamer on MissingRemote.
Cases:
Xclio Touch 320 on PureOC.
BitFenix Merc Alpha on RWLabs.
SilverStone Precision PS07 on HWSecrets.
Fractal Design Core 3000 Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
NZXT Tempest 410 on Pro-Clockers.
Corsair Carbide 500R on RBMods.
Tuesday Night Reviews
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Tuesday, 29-November-2011 23:47:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Storage:
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Gen 2 (ST750LX003) hybrid drive on Bjorn3D.
Seagate Momentus XT ST750LX003 Hybrid 750GB on OCClub.
Seagate's Momentus XT 750GB hybrid hard drive on TechReport.
Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid on BenchmarkReviews.
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Drive on HotHardware.
Seagate Momentus XT 750GB Hybrid Drive on LegitReviews.
Corsair Performance Pro 256GB SSD on HWHeaven.
Icy Dock MB981U3-1SA 2.5"/3.5" USB 3.0 SATA & IDE Hard Drive Docking Station on eTeknix.
Kingston HyperX 120GB Upgrade Kit SSD on APHNetworks.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB on HardCoreWare.
Kingston HyperX 3.0 128GB 8-Channel USB Flash Drive on RWLabs.
Seagate Momentus 7200.5 750GB Hard Drive on LegitReviews.
Thecus N8900 8-Bay Rackmount NAS on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
Canon PowerShot SX230HS vs Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 Cameras Compared on RamblingThoughts.
Samsung SyncMaster SA950 27 Inch 3D LED Monitor on Tweaknews.
CM Storm Sirus 5.1 Headset on Vortez.
Samsung 55-Inch Series 8 LED 3D HDTV (UN55D8000YF) on Futurelooks.
3M Camcorder Projector CP45 on BusinessComputingWorld.
Sony BDP-S780 Blu-Ray player on TechReviewSource.
Tek-Republic TH Pro Virtual 7.1 Surround Gaming Headset on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
MSI N560GTX-448 Twin Frozr III Power Edition on OCClub.
EVGA GeForce GTX560Ti FTW 448-Core on BenchmarkReviews.
Sapphire HD 6970 2GB Dual Fan on Pro-Clockers.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB GDDR5 Dual Fan on TechWareLabs.
Palit GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Light Turbo 1GB on TechPowerUp.
Club 3D GeForce GTX 560Ti Green Edition on eTeknix.
EVGA GeForce GTX 580 Classified: Overclocked on BenchmarkReviews.
Sapphire HD 6970 2GB Dual Fan Video Card Overclocked on Tweaktown.
PNY GTX580 Liquid Cooled on OC3D.
Power Supply:
Four Power Supply Units with 1200 W Capacity on XbitLabs.
Seasonic SS-1000XP Active PFC F3 on XbitLabs.
Thortech PSU Roundup 800-1200W on XSReviews.
Seasonic Platinum 1000W on HWHeaven.
Seasonic Platinum 1000W on MadShrimps.
Motherboard & CPU:
Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 Motherboard on NeoSeeker.
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard on Bjorn3D.
Intel Core i7-3690X-EE CPU on LostCircuits.
AMD FX-8150 CPU on Mektu.
OCAU Tshirts - Order Now!
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Monday, 28-November-2011 15:13:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Orders are now open for the new batch of OCAU Tshirts. We've got various designs and colours, and even a surprise for ordering two. But orders close THIS FRIDAY so be quick!
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 28-November-2011 13:34:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Aviation fans will find this video from VooDoo interesting, but a bit sad. It shows the RAAF F-111s being disposed of in landfill now they've been retired.
Some Australian security professionals have argued unsuccessfully for ethical hacking safeguards in Australia. Maurushat and “many others” argued that Australia requires a “security research exemption” because the law “does not distinguish the motivation for hacking”. She cited the case of OSI Security researcher Patrick Webster who was hit with legal threats after he quietly disclosed vulnerabilities to First State Superannuation. Those charges were eventually dropped following media pressure.
Meanwhile a Google engineer has attacked security companies for apparently exaggerating security threats on smartphones. "Yes, a virus of the traditional kind is possible, but not probable. The barriers to spreading such a program from phone to phone are large and difficult enough to traverse when you have legitimate access to the phone," DiBona said.
Fujitsu have a new supercomputer. What makes this particular announcement interesting is the fact that PRIMEHPC FX10 will be using the SPARC64 IXfx processor, the successor chip to the SPARC64 VIIIfx, which is currently used in the world's fastest supercomputer, K Computer system, in Japan. However, instead of eight cores, the SPARC64 IXfx integrates 16 cores, which means that Fujitsu's 23.2 PFlops supercomputer would boast a stunning 1,572,864 processing cores - more than twice the number of cores in the K Computer's 705,024.
Will sends word of TRIM coming to RAID. Exciting news for anyone currently using their new SSD in RAID0! Intel will finally be bringing TRIM support. Currently the only way for TRIM to function on an SSD is to operate in AHCI mode. This means that drives in high-performance arrays such as RAID0 lose the NAND cleaning benefits which could decrease speeds as time goes on or as the drives fill up. Intel has stated that current RST versions don't yet support TRIM, but it will be unveiling it with RST 11.5.
You'll soon be able to rent an iPad full of games on Jetstar flights. As the new in-flight entertainment program is rolled out over the coming weeks on selected Jetstar flights, including Australian domestic, trans Tasman and short-haul international flights between Australia and New Zealand, passengers will have the option to rent iPads when flying longer than 2 hours for A$10 to A$15 per flight.
A camera has been found after a year lost at sea. Actual story: found off the end of a wharf in Deep Bay, BC while I was diving on a job for the harbour. I removed the SD card, cleaned it up, stuck it in a card reader and after being underwater in a corroding camera since August 2010 - it works! Approximately 50 pictures on the card from a family vacation.
The Philippines is the new capital of call centres. More Filipinos — about 400,000 — than Indians now spend their nights talking to mostly American consumers, industry officials said, as companies like AT&T, JPMorgan Chase and Expedia have hired call centers here, or built their own. The jobs have come from the United States, Europe and, to some extent, India as outsourcers followed their clients to the Philippines.
The Chinese government meanwhile seems to be encouraging future engineers, thanks Archades. Government leadership in Shanghai wants to build 100 community hackerspaces funded by the Chinese government. Each space will be at least 100 square meters, open 200 days a year, and come equipped with wood and metal lathes, saws, drills, grinders, mills, and more electronics than we can imagine.
A bar in London offers pee-controlled video games in the urinals. “Sophisticated algorithms then allow the user to do something simple, but VERY engaging – controlling the system just by aiming their stream left or right!” the blurb says on Captive Media’s website. So with the skiing game, you’re able to navigate the course with some subtle but deft movements. How well you do at the game is entirely in your hands, so to speak.
Here's a funny type like a movie hacker website. But today's real timewaster is Me and the Key, a strange little puzzle game.
NASA Science Lab Launch
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Sunday, 27-November-2011 01:44:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Short notice, but Rezin spotted that NASA will be launching their Science Lab rover towards Mars in under 10 minutes. Watch the launch live here! More info on the mission here.
Saturday Evening Reviews
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Saturday, 26-November-2011 20:08:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ECS X79R-AX Extreme on Guru3D.
ASRock X79 Extreme4-M on Vortez.
Cases:
Lian Li PC-TU200 Mini-ITX on Tweaktown.
CM Storm Trooper Full Tower on eTeknix.
BitFenix Merc Alpha Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Fractal Design Define XL Black Pearl on LegitReviews.
Cooler Master Storm Trooper on APHNetworks.
Antec P180 Mini on RBMods.
Video Cards:
Eyefinity Examined with Sapphire HD 6970 x4 and Core i7 3960X on Tweaktown.
Sapphire 6850 Vapor-X on XSReviews.
ASUS Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II on Pro-Clockers.
VTX3D Radeon HD 6850 X-Edition on eTeknix.
HIS HD6950 IceQ Crossfire on OC3D.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Amazon Kindle Fire on PCPerspective.
Samsung Galaxy S II on Tech-Reviews.
Storage:
WD Caviar Black 2TB on TBreak.
ADATA 16GB S102 USB 3.0 Flash Drive on FunkyKit.
OCZ Synapse Cache SSD 64GB on RWLabs.
QNAP TurboNAS TS-219P II NAS Server on RWLabs.
Corsair Flash Voyager GT USB 3.0 Flash Drive on EverythingUSB.
Western Digital Scorpio Blue 1TB 5400RPM Hard Drive on Tweaktown.
Patriot Pyro SE 6Gbps 240GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Power Supply:
OCZ ZT Series 550W on Vortez.
NZXT HALE82-850-M 850W on TechPowerUp.
Kingwin Stryker STR-500 500W Fanless on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
Roccat Isku Gaming Keyboard on Metku.
Razer Battlefield 3 Gaming Gear: BlackWidow Ultimate, Imperator, Onza and Scarab on HWHeaven.
Software:
Batman: Arkham City Performance Analysis on Tweaktown.
Batman: Arkham City (PC) Game on HWHeaven.
The Lord of the Rings: War in the North (PC) Game on HWHeaven.
Misc:
Corsair Vengeance PC3-15000 16GB Kit memory on Tweaktown.
Eminent EM7280 hdMEDIA RT³ media player on TechPowerUp.
ARCTIC Accelero Xtreme Plus II VGA cooler on Phoronix.
Thanks to BuzzPuppy and Simon this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Friday Midday
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Friday, 25-November-2011 11:55:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's some DNS flakery that might be affecting your ability to browse OCAU (and read this message) this morning. "Add more redundant DNS" has been on my To-Do list for a while, and just got bumped up a few places, so hopefully I'll be able to knock that problem on the head tonight. Put 59.167.233.37 for www.overclockers.com.au and forums.overclockers.com.au in your hosts file for a temporary fix.
TechCrunch took a tour at a giant Foxconn factory. The plant, called Foxconn City, is one of Foxconn’s 26 major and minor factories around the world. Built by founder Terry Guo in 1974, the City was the first of the many sprawling Foxconn complexes and covers three square kilometers. It is home to over 400,000 workers, many of whom live in university-style dorms on the Foxconn campus.
A few people sent in this Samsung ad which lampoons Apple owners. Although the ad takes a new approach, Samsung is hardly the first brand to challenge Apple’s cult-like following. SanDisk bashed “iPuppets” and “iSheep” in 2006 when it took on the iPod’s dominance in the portable MP3 player category. More recently, Motorola attempted to one-up one of Apple’s proudest moment — its legendary “1984? Macintosh ad — with a Super Bowl ad for the Xoom tablet that, like this latest Samsung commercial, presents Apple followers as clueless automatons.
I spotted this low profile video card which they reckon is powerful enough for Skyrim or BF3. For these types of cards, I opt to test under “real world” conditions since this is not the top-tier enthusiast kit. This is a card for normal people with normal budgets and normal desktop PCs. Personally I thought of MicroServers when I read that.
There's a social media storm about Nissan awarding a free car to a friend. On Monday Nissan announced that the winner of the free car was Zac Martin, a digital strategist with George Patterson Y&R. Nissan's customer experience channel co-ordinator, Simon Oboler, who runs Nissan's Facebook and other social media pages, is described by Martin as his "BFF" [best friend forever] on his blog.
Here's another super-tiny PC. The Cotton Candy might look like just a regular USB stick, but inside it dwells the parts of an Android phone or tablet — a 1.2GHz Samsung Exynos ARM CPU, ARM Mali-400 MP quad-core GPU, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, micro SD card slot for storage, and a HDMI jack on the opposite end. So, what's the point? When you plug it into a computer (Mac or PC) via USB or a TV via HDMI you've got Android 2.3 in all its glory.
Check out this very expensive coffee table. The Crashed Ferrari Table by French designer Charly Molinelli is a coffee table containing a wrecked Ferrari. To make the table, Molinelli found a totaled Ferrari and had it crushed to fit the dimensions of the table. The table now resides in a private home.
Thursday Evening
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Thursday, 24-November-2011 18:23:27 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Rockofclay points out that the Australian Synchrotron is having an open day this weekend. The Australian Synchrotron open day will be held on the 27th November 2011. Entry to the Australian Synchrotron Open Day is free but bookings are essential. Online bookings for Self-Guided and Specialist Tours opened at 9am on Friday 7 October 2011.
Corsair are crowing that they've beaten the world record for memory frequency. It looks, err, very cold. After several sessions of overclocking I was finally able to break 3400MHz memory frequency barrier which was just shy of the world record by 43MHz. Getting those last few MHz was really tough! After countless blue screens and crashes I was able to get 3467.8MHz however the CPUz validation was corrupt. I had the screenshot but it was useless without the validation. I continued to test and after an hour of blue screens I was able to get the validation file with the memory at 3467.8MHz and take the world record!
Tech Report checked out mid-range Skyrim performance. We've followed up our look at Battlefield 3 performance with a similar comparison of mid-range graphics cards in The Elder Scrolls V: Skryim.
BenchmarkReviews have an X79 comparison. As part of the Sandy Bridge Extreme CPU launch, Benchmark Reviews received several new X79 Express motherboards to test. Each motherboard's aimed at a different audience and has different features. In this article I'll compare the stock and overclocked performance of each motherboard to see if there are any significant differences.
Tweaktown meanwhile looked at CrossFireX x3 performance. With how intensive games are these days, hitting a CPU limitation becomes harder and harder - even more so when you start to throw ultra-high resolutions into the mix. Today we'll be looking at the performance of our X79 platform with the three Sapphire HD 6970s on hand.
PCPerspective spoke to Jessie from Antec. Recently, Antec's Communications Manager Jessie Lawrence stopped by the office and we sat down for a small interview to ask him about the new case designs, what he likes about working in this cut throat industry and how Antec plans to stem the tides against the competition.
Issue 17 of The Overclocker is now available for viewing.
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
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Thursday, 24-November-2011 17:37:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS P9X79 Deluxe (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme on Overclockers.com.
Intel Core i7 3930K (LGA 2011) CPU on Tweaktown.
ASRock X79 Extreme4 X79 Motherboard on eTeknix.
Audio Visual:
Vizio E3D420VX 3D HDTV on TechReviewSource.
AC Ryan Veolo Smart Android Hub on HWHeaven.
Arctic MC001-BD Media Center on TechPowerUp.
Krator N4-20U05 Neso 04 Speaker on XSReviews.
SteelSeries Diablo 3 Gaming Gear - Headset and Mouse on HWHeaven.
Samsung UN55D7000 55 inch LED HDTV on OCOnline.
Cooling:
Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Cooler on MadShrimps.
Enermax ETS-T40 CPU Cooler on OC3D.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Prolimatech Panther CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
XSPC EX360 Radiator on PureOC.
Video Cards:
MSI N580GTX Lightning Xtreme Edition 3 GB on XbitLabs.
HIS 6950 IceQ 2GB on XSReviews.
GIGABYTE HD 6670 OC 1GB on Futurelooks.
Sapphire HD 6970 FleX Battlefield 3 Edition on OCClub.
Memory:
Corsair Vengeance Quad-Channel Memory on NeoSeeker.
G.Skill RipjawsZ DDR3-1866MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit on NeoSeeker.
Storage:
LaCie 5Big Network 2 Professional 5-bay RAID Server on TechWareLabs.
Silverstone Raven 2 Evolution USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
QNAP TS-219 PII NAS on Bjorn3D.
ADATA S511 240GB SSD on LegionHW.
OCZ Octane Series SATA III Solid State Drive on HotHardware.
OCZ Octane 512GB SATA III SSD on HWHeaven.
OCZ Technology Octane 512GB Indilinx Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
OCZ Octane 512GB SSD on PCPerspective.
OCZ Octane 6Gbps 512GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Motorola RAZR Smartphone on TBreak.
Samsung Chromebook Series 5 on BusinessComputingWorld.
Sapphire 6670 1GB Single Slot on PureOC.
Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet on TechSpot.
GraVT Professional Photographer System prebuilt PC on LegitReviews.
AViiQ Portable Quick Stand for notebooks on Vortez.
Samsung Series 9 (NP900X3A-B01UB) notebook on TechReviewSource.
Amazon Kindle Fire on TechSpot.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Sensei Pro Laser Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Dragon Battle Bag & Conkor Mouse Pad on Tweaktown.
NewerTech NuScribe 2-in-1 Touch Screen Stylus and Pen on TestFreaks.
Tt eSports Black Element Laser Gaming Mouse on TBreak.
Power Supply:
Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W on APHNetworks.
TiVECO TVPS450 on HWSecrets.
LEPA G700-MA 700W on TechPowerUp.
Cases:
Corsair 500R Mid-Tower on OCClub.
CM Storm Trooper on Vortez.
Antec Eleven Hundred on BenchmarkReviews.
Antec 1100 on OCClub.
CM Storm Trooper on OC3D.
Thermaltake V9 BlacX Edition on RWLabs.
Misc:
Tokyoflash Kisai Seven Limited Edition Watch on MadShrimps.
Asus WL-330N3G 6-IN-1 Wireless-N Travel Router on Tweaknews.
Battlefield 3 on Bjorn3D.
MSI X79 Giveaway!
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Thursday, 24-November-2011 13:06:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCAU Major Sponsors MSI Australia are giving away some prize packs including an MSI X79A-GD45 Motherboard! To celebrate the release of Intel's latest and greatest X79 chipset along with their new 2nd generation i7 processors on LGA2011, MSI are giving one OCAU forum members the chance to win their own X79A-GD45 motherboard and 2 prize packs. Good luck!
Details in this thread.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
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Wednesday, 23-November-2011 01:05:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional on PureOC.
ASRock A55 Pro3 FM1 Motherboard on Pro-Clockers.
Cooling:
Zalman CNPS12X CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
GELID GX-7 CPU Cooler on XbitLabs.
Koolance VID-NX580 GeForce GTX 580/570 Water Block on LegitReviews.
Cases:
Eleven Hundred Midtower Gaming Case on LegitReviews.
Antec Eleven Hundred on Overclockers.com.
Cooler Master Trooper on MadShrimps.
ANTEC Eleven Hundred Super Mid-Tower Gaming Case preview on FutureLooks.
Rosewill Ranger Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
CM Storm - Trooper on HWHeaven.
Antec P280 on SilentPCReview.
Video Perspective: Antec P280 on PCPerspective.
Input Etc:
Tt eSPORTS Azurues Optical Gaming Mouse on XSReviews.
Arctic M551 Wired Laser Gaming Mouse on DragonSteelMods.
tT eSports Challenger Pro gaming keyboard on TechReaction.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Sony VAIO F Series laptop on TechReviewSource.
Dell Inspiron 14z Notebook on Futurelooks.
AVADirect Clevo P180HM 18-Inch Gaming Notebook on HotHardware.
Storage:
Seagate GoFlex Satellite Wireless Hard Drive on TBreak.
Corsair Performance Pro SATA 3 256GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Samsung MB-MS8GA 8GB microSDHC Card on Tech-Reviews.
QNAP MyCloudNAS Service on Tweaktown.
Patriot Pyro SE 120GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
RAIDAGE GAGE104U40SL-SAUF trayless HW RAID enclosure on ComputingOnDemand.
Audio Visual:
AC Ryan Veolo Smart Android Media Hub on Guru3D.
WOWee One Classic Power Bass Portable Speaker on Tweaktown.
Jabra STONE2 Bluetooth Headset on RWLabs.
WD TV Live Streaming Media Player on SilentPCReview.
Power Supply:
600-850W Power Supply Units Roundup on XbitLabs.
XFX Pro 1250W Black Edition Full Modular on HWHeaven.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 600W on TechPowerUp.
OCZ ZT Series 650W Modular on OCIA.
Here's some yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:
Monday Night
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Monday, 21-November-2011 23:11:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Arstechnica wonder if a smartphone, in particular the iPhone 4S or Galaxy S II, can replace a real camera. We took a series of subjects in a couple different lighting scenarios: flowers in outdoor lighting, a building at sunset, and some shots in very low indoor lighting at home and at a bar. We'll show you our comparison shots, noting the performance in each case as well as considering what each device was like to carry, pull out, set up, and take each shot.
Samsung meanwhile have unveiled a touch-screen table. The ‘surface’ table is 40 inches and can also feel 50 touches at once. It can also feel pens and pointers where as iPhones currently can only react to finger touch. The full HD screen has a windows PC built into the table and the table is just 4 inches thick. The table screen can also detect objects on the table.
iiNet have aquired TransACT. The acquisition, expected for completion by the end of the month, would provide iiNet with at least 40,000 additional subscribers and major infrastructure components including a hybrid-fibre coaxial network in regional Victoria and a growing fibre-to-the-premises business in Canberra housing estates. There's some suggestion this is part of an "NBN land-grab", but their CEO says it wasn't a factor.
TechSpot have a Skyrim performance test. Based on early estimates, Skyrim has shipped seven million copies worldwide across all platforms, including digital stores such as Steam. During a peak hour last Monday, Valve's platform alone recorded some 287,000 Skyrim players -- greater than the combined peak activity of MW3, Counter-Strike, Football Manger 2012 and Team Fortress 2.
Meanwhile PCPerspective wonder about BF3 performance on laptops. If we’re honest, a lot of our hearts have been stirred simply by the way the game looks. There aren’t many titles that really let a modern mid-range graphics card stretch its legs, even at 1080p resolution. Battlefield 3, however, can be demanding - and it looks beautiful. Even with the presets at medium, it’s one of the most attractive games ever.
Oracle say that HP have been keeping Itanium alive, in "a remake of Weekend at Bernie's". Intel would have ended the product had HP not paid it to do so, according to Oracle, which is facing a lawsuit because its decision to end support "undermined the rationale for paying Intel". HP wants Itanium to continue because its success rate at winning service contracts on non-HP UX systems, like Linux on x86 microprocessors, is much lower than with customers running HP UX systems, Oracle argues.
Forum Projects
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Sunday, 20-November-2011 20:03:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some reviews and projects from people in the forums:
Sunday Afternoon
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Sunday, 20-November-2011 15:37:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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From Andrew: Thought I'd drop you a line to tell you that in the Muon1 Distributed Particle Accelerator Design (DPAD) Project, a member of your team had the best design for a lattice. User '[OCAU] badger' had the best design int he PhaseRotEb6a lattice, which started December 2007. A video of the design has been made, and a writeup of the lattice will be here shortly. I'll admit I'm not entirely sure what all that means, but congrats to Badger anyway! :)
Rambus have lost their $4B lawsuit against Micron and Hynix. The IP licensing company, which has become widely known for its litigious ways, lost more than 60% of its market value following the ruling amid investors' fears that the company wouldn't be able to sustain its business model. The case revolved around allegations that Micron, Hynix and others had engaged in price-fixing to keep Rambus' RDRAM memory technology from gaining widespread adoption.
Seagate's CEO says it will be a while until the HDD market recovers from the flooding in Thailand. Each of the hundreds of thousands of drives Seagate’s Thai factories ship every day contain parts from 130 or so suppliers, many still under three feet of water. The projections by some Wall Street analysts that production will be back to pre-flood levels by summer are nonsense, Luczo says. “This is going to take a lot longer than people are assuming, until the end of 2012 at least,” he says. “And by then, demand will have gone up.”
The James Webb Telescope, expected to supercede Hubble, has recieved full funding approval from the House of Representatives. “It’s certainly a major improvement in our position,” says NASA’s John Mather, senior project scientist for JWST and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. “Especially considering that not too many months ago one of the subcommittees voted to give us zero dollars.”
Overclockers.com have taken Bulldozer to 8GHz. Hopefully this will be helpful for anyone out there with Bulldozer and Liquid Nitrogen, and for everyone else I hope it uncovers the secrets of how its done. It worked for me to the tune of 8.06GHz and currently 17th place in the world.
Sciby spotted this F1-style wheel for sim racers, with an interesting twist. You turn via what looks like a super responsive accelerometer and it has more than 20 buttons on it to give you one-touch access to everything you need. The real genius here is the gas and brake, though. Any hardcore racer will tell you, a simple button that just turns gas on/of or brake on/off just plain sucks. There’s no nuance. No control. Traditionally, expensive steering wheel rigs have featured foot pedals to accomodate this. While that’s definitely a more realistic driving experience it makes the rig extremely unportable. What they did for the SRW-S1 is to put a couple “paddles” on the back, that give you extremely nuanced control over acceleration and braking.
LegitReviews checked out DDR3 performance on X79. We started out running a single module at 1333MHz and then another module at a time to test dual channel, triple channel and finally quad channel. The Intel X79 chipet on the Intel SX79SI motherboard was able to properly run each memory configuration. The benchmark results in Sandra 2012 were very impressive in the sense that the benchmark results were nearly linear when moving from single channel to triple channel memory.
Kombiman sent word that the OCAU 2011 Secret Santa is now underway!
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 20-November-2011 14:24:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
CM Storm Sirus True 5.1 Gaming Headset on eTeknix.
Roccat Kulo Gaming Headset on TBreak.
NZXT Sentry Mix Fan Controller on TechWareLabs.
Corsair Vengeance 1500 7.1 USB Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Storage:
OCZ Synapse 60 GB Caching SSD on TechPowerUp.
OCZ Synapse Cache SSD on Guru3D.
SilverStone Raven RVS02 USB 3.0 2.5" Enclosure on APHNetworks.
Input Etc:
Razer Scarab Battlefield 3 Edition mousepad on RBMods.
Verbatim Wireless Mini Slimboard on XSReviews.
Prebuilt & Portable:
PCAudioLabs Rok Box MC 7xs on HotHardware.
Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet on TechReviewSource.
CyberPower Gamer Xtreme 1000 SE on Bjorn3D.
BlackBerry Torch 9810 smartphone on TBreak.
Galaxy Nexus smartphone on TheVerge.
Memory:
Crucial Ballistix Tactical PC3-12800 CL8 8GB DDR3 RAM Kit on Monster-Hardware.
G.Skill RipjawsZ PC3-17000 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Lancool PC-K57 on OCOnline.
Antec P280 on HWSecrets.
Antec Solo II Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
Fractal Design's Core 3000 on TechReport.
Software:
Star Wars: The Old Republic preview on SWTorFace.
FreeBSD 9.0 On Intel Sandy Bridge on Phoronix.
Misc:
A quick look at Gunnar's glasses for computer junkies on TechReport.
Aqua Computer Aquaero 5 XT fan controller on RWLabs.
ASRock A55 Pro3 motherboard on OCClub.
PowerColor DEVIL 13 HD 6970 2GB video card on Tweaktown.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Saturday, 19-November-2011 20:44:39 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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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.
Not Bulldozer, but in AMD Hardware.
Mini-Review - Astone MP-300T in Audio Visual.
Default Watercooling 2 x 5850's with Monster on 1 x 120mm rad in Extreme and Water Cooling.
Moving to a new office - What cool things would you do? in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Facebook in the workplace in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Devices for measuring electricity consumption in Electronics & Electrics.
Unusual shocking experience in Electronics & Electrics.
Making my own Custom 2 stroke Ignition in Electronics & Electrics.
New Arduino products at Maker Faire in NYC in Electronics & Electrics.
Asus VG278H - 27" 120Hz 3D monitor with 3D Vision 2 & LightBoost in Video Cards & Monitors.
NVIDIA 3D Vision 2 in Video Cards & Monitors.
New Leisure Suit Larry: From Al Lowe! in Retro & Arcade.
Project: Pentium 3 Revival in Modding.
Modern Warfare 3 first-day sales smash all entertainment records in PC Games.
Crimecraft in MMORPGs.
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in PC Games.
Taking a look back at the Walkman on Portable & Small Form Factor.
Motorola Droid RAZR in Google Android.
Linux Mint 12; Mint overtakes Ubuntu on Distrowatch in Other Operating Systems.
Aldi Launching "Expressi" - Nespresso-esque coffee machine in Geek Food.
Rocksmith - Be a guitar hero with YOUR guitar in Musicians.
Renowned Australian Scientists in Science.
Hugh Jackman as James Bond? in Entertainment.
Things about cars you thought were true (when you were a kid) in Motoring.
Life's twists and turns in The Pool Room.
Tales of the Ghetto in The Pool Room.
TShirt Design Contest - VOTING!
(0 Comments)
(link)
Saturday, 19-November-2011 02:57:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Voting is now open for the Tshirt Design Contest winners. Check out the short list and cast your vote here!
Note: Our Tshirt design contest ends at 7pm tonight Sydney time! Thanks to Jammahead and C0de this week:
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Friday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
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Friday, 18-November-2011 11:39:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Sabertooth P67 Motherboard on OCIA.
Intel Core i7-3930K, Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Processors on iXBTLabs.
MSI X79A-GD65 (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
X79 LGA2011 Socket Platform and Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition Processor on FutureLooks.
ASUS Maximus IV Gene-Z micro-ATX on PureOC.
GIGABYTE GA-X79-UD5 on Vortez.
Cases:
Antec P280 on TechPowerUp.
BitFenix Outlaw Mid Tower on eTeknix.
NZXT Source 220 on TechPowerUp.
Nexus Prominent R on HWSecrets.
Power Supply:
Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1000W on Tweaktown.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 600W on HWSecrets.
Thermaltake Dr. Power II PSU tester on NeoSeeker.
Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 1200W on PCPerspective.
Corsair TX750M 750W Modular on eTeknix.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Hands On With the HP Folio 13 ultraportable on TechReviewSource.
Nokia Lumia 800 Windows phone on TechSpot.
Motorola Photon 4G Android Worldphone on HotHardware.
Video Cards:
Sapphire HD6670 Low Profile on HWHeaven.
HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ on BenchmarkReviews.
Audio Visual:
Uebo M400 Wireless 1080p HD Media Player on MegaTechNews.
Blue Snowflake Microphone on Tech-Reviews.
Input Etc:
Thrustmaster T500 RS Racing Steering wheel on HWLook.
Storage:
RaidSonic Icy Box IB-RD3219STu3 USB 3.0 RAID Enclosure on RWLabs.
G-Technology G-DRIVE Mini 750GB HDD on LegitReviews.
Software:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Reviewed, BF3 Compared on HotHardware.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Community Game Review on HWHeaven.
Thursday Morning
(7 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 17-November-2011 00:32:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD has some new Opterons, previously code-named Interlagos and Valencia, with up to 16 cores. “Our industry is at a new juncture; virtualization has provided a new level of reliable consolidation and businesses are now looking to the cloud for even more agility and efficiency. We designed the new AMD Opteron processor for this precise moment,” said Paul Struhsaker, corporate vice president and general manager, Commercial Business, AMD. More here on ArsTechnica.
Meanwhile NVIDIA's Tegra CPUs are part of an upcoming supercomputer. The chipmaker said today the Barcelona Supercomputing Center is developing a new hybrid supercomputer that, for the first time, combines energy-efficient Nvidia Tegra CPUs (central processing units), based on the ARM chip architecture, with Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs).
If you happen to see any prototype Blade laptops, Razer would like them back. Razer is working closely with the authorities, as you do when something this valuable is stolen, and they urge their fans not to buy any suspiciously Blade-like laptops in back alleys or out of the backs of pickups.
Applidium have figured out how Siri works. As a result, we are able to use Siri’s recognition engine from any device. Yes, that means anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri! Or use Siri on an iPad! And we’re goign to share this know-how with you.
A Dutch artist decided to print out all the photos uploaded to Flickr in one day. He has created this amazing room of one million images after downloading and printing out every picture uploaded to Flickr in a 24-hour period. For his project, Photography In Abundance, he wanted to give visitors the opportunity to grasp the immense scale of just how many photos are shared on one site on a daily basis.
Tweaktown have a look at dual and quad channel memory performance on X79 and Z68. Memory performance on the new platform has been all over the place and I've personally been talking to both motherboard and RAM manufacturers to see what we can do about the performance. The big issue at the moment is under AIDA64 - an almost industry standard benchmark for us, we see that Quad Channel isn't painted in the best light.
GIGABYTE made a X79 overclocking video. Introduction to overclocking with GIGABYTE X79 boards, bios options and tuning, OC Touch discussion, RAM tweaks etc 3930K and X79-UD7.
The USA's DOJ want to make it a crime to violate terms of service. The U.S. Department of Justice is defending computer hacking laws that make it a crime to use a fake name on Facebook or lie about your weight in an online dating profile at a site like Match.com. In a statement obtained by CNET that's scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, the Justice Department argues that it must be able to prosecute violations of Web sites' often-ignored, always-unintelligible "terms of service" policies.
HWSecrets continue their thermal compound roundup. We added five new thermal compounds to our previous roundup, for a total of 50 different thermal compounds from major brands. We also tried another thermal compound from the kitchen: butter.
XbitLabs have a 750GB USB 3.0 External Drives Roundup, as well as a 1TB Hard Disk Drives Roundup. The last HDD roundup on our site was dedicated to 500 GB drives. Today we are going to check out nine models with 1 TB storage capacity from Seagate and Western Digital.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 17-November-2011 00:22:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
Canon PowerShot Elph 510 HS digicam on TechReviewSource.
CM Storm Sirus True 5.1 Surround Sound Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Western Digital TV Live on TechWareLabs.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS TUF Sabertooth X79 on Guru3D.
Intel i7 3960X Sandy Bridge-E Processor on Motherboards.org.
Intel X79 DX79SI Motherboard on Motherboards.org.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Asus Zenbook UX 21/31 on Gizmodo.
Alienware M17x (R3) Gaming Notebook on PCPerspective.
Samsung Solid Immerse rugged mobile phone on Tech-Reviews.
MSI CX640 Laptop on TBreak.
Cases:
Antec P280 on AnandTech.
Raidmax Blackstorm mid-tower on TechReaction.
Xclio Touch 320 Mid Tower on DragonSteelMods.
Cubitek Tattoo Pro on OCOnline.
Antec Performance One P280 Midtower on LegitReviews.
Antec Performance One Series P280 Super Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Storage:
Synology DS212j NAS on Vortez.
Mushkin Ventura Pro 32 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on OCClub.
QNAP TS-219P II Network Attached Storage on APHNetworks.
ADATA Superior SH14 500 GB USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
Kingston HyperX 240 GB SSD on HWSecrets.
Misc:
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall 2012 on TechReviewSource.
ARCTIC K481 Wireless Keyboard with Multi-Touch Pad on MadShrimps.
Corsair H100 Liquid Cooling on RBMods.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
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Wednesday, 16-November-2011 00:41:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable & Prebuilt:
MSI GE620 Gaming Laptop on HWLook.
Amazon Kindle Fire on TechReviewSource.
Asus G53SX laptop on TechReviewSource.
Samsung Galaxy Note Smartphone on TBreak.
Audio Visual:
Thermaltake eSports Shock Spin HD Headphones on TBreak.
UEBO M400 Network Media Player on APHNetworks.
Sound ID SIX Bluetooth Headset on TestFreaks.
Motherboard & CPU:
Sandy Bridge-E motherboards from Asus, Gigabyte, Intel, and MSI on TechReport.
GIGABYTE G1.Assassin 2 (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Asus Sabertooth X79 Motherboard on eTeknix.
Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition CPU on BenchmarkReviews.
Intel Sandy Bridge E 3690X CPU on MadShrimps.
Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition and Core i7-3930K processors on XbitLabs.
Asus Sabertooth 990FX on XbitLabs.
Input Etc:
Lenovo Multimedia Remote with Keyboard on EverythingUSB.
Gigabyte Aivia M8600 Mouse on OC3D.
Mad Catz R.A.T 7 Gaming Mouse - Albino Edition on MadShrimps.
Thermaltake MEKA G-Unit Keyboard on TBreak.
SteelSeries Legendary MMO Gaming Mouse on RWLabs.
QPad MK 80 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on XSReviews.
Ozone Radon 5k Gaming Mouse on PureOC.
Memory:
GeIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1333MHz 16GB Quad Channel Memory Kit on eTeknix.
Corsair Dominator GTX8 PC3-19200 Quad Channel 8GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Software:
WARGAMING’s World of Tanks for the PC Platform on FutureLooks.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Quick Review on DragonSteelMods.
Storage:
Synology DS212 NAS on Vortez.
Silicon Power Velox Series V30 60GB Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
OCZ Vertex LE 240GB Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Adata 32GB N005 Pro Flash Drive on FunkyKit.
Misc:
ARCTIC Z1 Monitor Stand on Phoronix.
Anidées AI6 case on TechPowerUp.
Sapphire 6970 FleX Battlefield 3 Edition video card on PureOC.
DeepCool IceEdge 400XT Heatsink on Frostytech.
GiGABYTE and HWBot X79 Contest
(1 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 15-November-2011 12:22:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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OCAU's HWBot Team and GIGABYTE have teamed up for another competition. This time there's 3 X79 motherboards and 10 DiRT3 vouchers up for grabs!
Full details in this thread.
Sandy Bridge E
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 15-November-2011 00:44:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Intel's Sandy Bridge E platform has been unveiled at last. In simple terms it's a new X79 chipset, a 6-core CPU and a new LGA-2011 socket to join them together. DiGiTaL MoNkEY has done an excellent job of summarising the info and reviews from around the net in this thread - so go there for all the juicy details!
Tshirt Design Contest Reminder
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 14-November-2011 20:02:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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You've only got until Friday to put in your entries for the OCAU Tshirt Design Contest! There's been some great entries already, but still time for a last-minute winner. :)
From Zac: I work at a computer shop, part of my job is normal consumer repairs when I'm not out in the field. Lady booked in her pc because it wasn't working. Our reception lady wrote on the job card that it had a mouse problem, I didn't take it literally at first...
 
Nasty!
Monday Afternoon
(5 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 14-November-2011 14:19:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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NASA are preparing to launch a new car-sized Mars rover in a week or so. NASA's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft with the Curiosity rover is set to launch to the planet Mars aboard an Atlas V rocket on Nov. 25, 2011 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. ... Curiosity has 10 science instruments to search for evidence about whether Mars had environments favorable for microbial life, including the chemical ingredients for life. The unique rover will use a laser to look inside rocks and release their gasses so that a spectrometer can analyze them and send the data back to Earth.
Adobe have officially given up on Flash for mobile devices. Software developer Adobe Systems is halting development of its Flash Player plug-in for mobile devices. The multimedia software is used to run movies, games and other applications. Adobe says it now believes the alternative HTML 5 technology offers the "best solution" because it is "universally supported". Discussion here.
If you have an original iPod Nano, Apple have some good and bad news for you. Bad: it might explode into flames. Good: they'll give you a replacement non-explodey one. An Apple spokesperson confirmed the company will be sending first-generation iPod Nanos to those whose serial numbers match the units with defective batteries. When asked how many of those first-generation iPod Nanos were available for the recall, the company was not willing to reveal that information.
Tech Report have a BF3 GPU comparison. Join us as we test three pairs of competing mid-range cards and see how well they handle EA DICE's latest blockbuster, Battlefield 3. XbitLabs have a similar comparison. Besides Battlefield 3, which is an important event in itself, DICE's rendering engine is going to power the upcoming Need for Speed: The Run and Mirror's Edge 2, both potential hits. So, our today’s tests will give you a general notion of system requirements you can expect from the next generation of PC games.
Marty sent in this rage comic from an 86yo. Normally they're a bit lame but this one is quite touching.
From IntelInside, a new cyber-security centre in Canberra. Lockheed Martin has added a cyber-security centre in Canberra to an international network of labs that includes facilities in the US and UK. Its NextGen Cyber Innovation and Technology Centre (NCITE) is now under construction, and will comprise 900 square meters of floor space. Due for its official opening in March 2012, Lockheed Martin says the facility will eventually employ 200 staff.
XbitLabs compared CPU-integrated graphics. Over the past few months AMD and Intel have been actively promoting desktop processors with computational and graphics cores insides. During our comparative test session we studied hybrid products like that and compared the performance of AMD A8, A6 and A4 against that of Intel Core i3 and Pentium processors.
Callan sent in this free driving game. Nitronic Rush is an experimental survival driving game developed by students at DigiPen Institute of Technology. Using the car’s many abilities (including boost, wings, and jump), avoid obstacles that the city throws at you. In many ways the game is a tribute to racing games of the 1990's, but with fresh graphics, audio, and gameplay.
Sunday Night Reviews
(2 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 13-November-2011 20:56:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Flagship Mainboards for Bulldozer from Asus, Gigabyte and MSI on XbitLabs.
ASUS M5A97, M5A99X, and Crosshair V Motherboard Review Roundup on PCPerspective.
ASUS M5A97 Evo (AMD 970) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
MSI 990FXA GD-80 on OCClub.
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 on ThinkComputers.
ECS A75F-M2 Socket FM1 mATX on FutureLooks.
GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD7 on LegitReviews.
GIGABYTE G1.Assassin 2 (Intel X79) on Tweaktown.
Video Cards:
PowerColor Devil 13 HD6970 on HWHeaven.
VisionTek Radeon HD 6850 on BenchmarkReviews.
Cases:
BitFenix Merc Alpha on APHNetworks.
BitFenix Raider on TechPowerUp.
Thermaltake Overseer RX-I on Vortez.
Cooler Master Silencio 550 on Guru3D.
Corsair Carbide Series 500R Arctic White Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Lian Li PC-V600F on HWHeaven.
Corsair Carbide 500R on TechPowerUp.
Fractal Design Arc Midi on HWSecrets.
AeroCool Sixth Element White on OC3D.
Power Supply:
ThermalTake Dr. Power II PSU Tester on FunkyKit.
Sandberg PowerBank 8000 Portable Battery on RWLabs.
SilverStone Strider Gold 750W on OCOnline.
Enermax NAXN 82+ 550W on HWSecrets.
Antec High Current 900W on PureOC.
Enermax ENM750AWT PSU on RBMods.
In-Win Glacier 900W on RWLabs.
CPU Cooler:
Gelid GX7 CPU Cooler on XtremeComputing.
Glacialtech Igloo H46 Heatsink on Frostytech.
Xigmatek Gaia SD1283 CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Gelid Tranquillo Rev2 CPU cooler on TechReaction.
Input Etc:
Roccat Arvo keyboard on TBreak.
Wacom Bamboo Capture Multi-touch Tablet on EverythingUSB.
ModMyMachine Slamepad mousemat on XSReviews.
Storage:
Corsair Force GT 240GB SSD & Crucial M4 SSD Update on HotHardware.
Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB (ST3000DM001) on Bjorn3D.
Patriot Wildfire 120GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
Software:
RAGE the PC Game on BenchmarkReviews.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Tested, Benchmarked on TechSpot.
PayDay: The Heist PC on eTeknix.
Misc:
Apacer ARES PC3-17066 8GB Kit memory on Tweaktown.
Corsair Vengeance 1500 & 1300 Headset on NeoSeeker.
Gabe Newell has advised that the Steam Forums have been hacked, and more importantly, the Steam database has been compromised. We do not have evidence that encrypted credit card numbers or personally identifying information were taken by the intruders, or that the protection on credit card numbers or passwords was cracked. We are still investigating. We don’t have evidence of credit card misuse at this time. Nonetheless you should watch your credit card activity and statements closely.
More info here, here and here, with discussion here.
Early this week coz I've got a lot of running around to do:
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Remembrance Day
(6 Comments)
(link)
Friday, 11-November-2011 11:50:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Today is 11/11/11, which apart from being a numerical oddity, is also Remembrance Day. Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day and Veterans Day) is a memorial day observed in Commonwealth countries since the end of World War I to remember the members of their armed forces who have died in the line of duty. So, spare a thought for those who gave their lives, and those they left behind.
Thursday Night
(4 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 10-November-2011 23:09:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A Japanese company called Cyberdyne have made a robot suit to protect nuclear workers. Waaaait a second, Cyberdyne? Robots? Am I the only one seeing this? Cyberdyne, based northeast of Tokyo, demonstrated an upgraded version of the robot device called the Hybrid Assistive Limb, or HAL, that can be worn under anti-radiation tungsten vests as heavy as 60 kilograms. They called it HAL?! Are they TRYING to make it go rogue?!
There's some chatter about Viacom apparently suffering due to piracy, yet still managing to give their CEO a $50M raise. His total pay was $84.5 million last year -- a 148.6% raise on his previous year's take home. Yes, that's a $50 million raise. Admittedly, much of that comes from stock options, but still. Not bad for a company being "decimated" by kids in their basements on the internet, huh? Discussion here.
CN spotted a story about an Australian Government email breach. Australian departments listed on the breach included AusTrac, IP Australia, the Bureau of Meterology, NSW Police, local councils, and hundreds of senator email addresses including Treasure Wayne Swan. Nine accounts for Britain's Ministry of Defence included usernames and passwords.
Fujitsu have a new supercomputer on the way. Ahead of the SC11 supercomputing conference in Seattle next week, Japanese IT conglomerate Fujitsu says it's not only going to commercialize the K supercomputer that just busted through the 10 petaflops barrier, but that early next year it will double-stuff the design with a new Sparc64 chip, and sell it to entities other than the Japanese government.
It seems Anonymous have pursuaded a Mexican drug cartel to release a hostage. Televisa reported that the man kidnapped in the eastern port of Veracruz was released ahead of a November 5 deadline set by Anonymous, after which it planned to divulge the Zetas's links to politicians and others. According to Reuters, Anonymous Veracruz released a YouTube video threatening to publish the names of "taxi drivers, journalists and police officers" that it said were "loyal servants" to the Zetas.
The AFACT vs iiNet battle continues, ahead of the High Court appeal. In what will be the final legal appeal by AFACT against the Federal Court's two rulings in the internet service provider's (ISP's) favour, the High Court will hear both sides of the argument on 1 and 2 December.
IntelInside spotted this video about the GIGABYTE 3D BIOS. The revolutionary GIGABYTE 3D BIOS™ application is based on our new GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™ technology and is available to consumers in two new exclusive modes of interaction never before seen in a BIOS environment. GIGABYTE has re-drawn the traditional BIOS experience providing mainstream and enthusiast users with a choice of unique and powerful graphical interfaces.
Stygian's Synth Continues
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 10-November-2011 18:06:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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BlueRaven sent word that, as part of Stygian Shane's impressive MFOS Modular Analogue Synthesizer project worklog, he's provided a detailed walkthrough of transcribing a circuit diagram to veroboard. If, like me, you consider electronics basically witchcraft, this is an interesting way to see it all come together:
Click for the forum post!
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
(2 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 10-November-2011 14:40:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
MSI Twin Frozr III 6950 1GB on Overclockers.com.
PowerColor HD 6970 Devil 13 2 GB on TechPowerUp.
Audio Visual:
Acer Revo RL100-U20P Home Theater PC on MissingRemote.
Optoma HD33 3D Projector on GamingNexus.
Sitecom Media Player 2TB MD-272 on Guru3D.
Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H and Z68XP-UD4 on PureOC.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper2 Z68 on HotHardware.
Biostar TA990FXE AM3+ on TechPowerUp.
MSI P67A-GD65 Intel P67 on PCStats.
AMD FX-4100 Quad Core 3.6GHz Bulldozer Processor on LegitReviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Sony VAIO VPC-L231FX/W on TechReviewSource.
Cyberpower X6 9200 Gaming Notebook on Bjorn3D.
Intel Ultrabook Running Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 on NGOHQ.
Puget Systems Serenity Core i5 HTPC on PCPerspective.
Samsung Galaxy Ace smartphone on Tech-Reviews.
Motorola Droid 3 Cell Phone on HWSecrets.
Cooling:
Scythe Kozuti SCKZT-1000 1.5U Low Profile Heatsink on Frostytech.
Corsair H100 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Zaward Generation 3 Golf Fan 120mm & 140mm on LegitReviews.
Prolimatech Panther CPU cooler on OCClub.
Thermalright True Spirit 140 CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
Auras Shagon AHC-118 Lower Noise Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Cases:
CM Storm Enforcer on Metku.
Corsair Carbide 500R on BenchmarkReviews.
Fractal Design Define Mini mATX on ThinkComputers.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake TR2 700W on HWSecrets.
Thortech Thunderbolt 1000W Modular on eTeknix.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk.III 600W on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake Dr. Power II PSU on OCClub.
SilverStone Nightjar 500W on HWSecrets.
Storage:
Synology DiskStation DS212j NAS on HWHeaven.
Areca ARC-1882x RAID Card Review: Lightning Strikes at 4.7GB/s on TheSSDReview.
QNAP TS-119P II and TS-219P II on LegionHW.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240GB SSD on Vortez.
Freecom Mobile Drive USB 3.0 XXS Leather on eTeknix.
Software:
A Quick Tour Of Oracle Solaris 11 on Phoronix.
Sega Renegade Ops on XSReviews.
Battlefield 3 PC on ViperLair.
Input Etc:
Gigabyte Aivia M6800 Wireless Macro Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
SteelSeries Sensei Pro Gaming Mouse on TBreak.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 9-November-2011 00:40:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
ASUS ENGTX570 DirectCU II on LegitReviews.
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win on Guru3D.
Sparkle X560 Ti DF Calibre on OC3D.
Audio Visual:
Dune HD Smart H1 Media Player on MissingRemote.
Arctic Cooling Arctic Sound E461-BM Earphones on APHNetworks.
Motherboard & CPU:
ECS A990FXM-A Black Series Motherboard on HWHeaven.
ASUS Sabertooth X79 (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme P67 ROG Motherboard on BigBruin.
Asus P8P67 Pro B3 Rev 3.1 Motherboard on RBMods.
Input Etc:
Roccat ISKU Illuminated Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Roccat Kone [+] Mouse on HWSecrets.
QPAD MK-80 Keyboard on Vortez.
XFX WarPad Mouse Pad on TechWareLabs.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP TouchSmart 320-1050 desktop on TechReviewSource.
Motorola Droid RAZR hands-on impressions on TechSpot.
Asus 23.6" ET2410IUTS-B019C All-In-One PC on HotHardware.
Asus U46SV-DH51 notebook on TechReviewSource.
Storage Options 7" Scroll Capacitive Multi-Touch Screen Tablet on eTeknix.
Cases:
CM Storm Trooper on TechPowerUp.
Lian Li PC-6 on ComputingOnDemand.
Lian Li PC6 on NinjaLane.
LEPA LPC302 Series on HWHeaven.
Memory:
GeIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1333MHz 8GB Memory Kit on eTeknix.
Software:
Hands-on preview: Diablo III on GamePron.
Battlefield 3 PC on Tweaktown.
Cooling:
Nofan CR-95C IcePipe 95W Fanless CPU Cooler on OC3D.
XSPC RayStorm CPU Water Block on PureOC.
SilenX EFZ-92HA3 Compact Tower Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Thermalright True Spirit 120 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Evercool Transformer 3 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
SilenX EFZ-92HA3 CPU Cooler on Bjorn3D.
Power Supply:
Diablotek UL Series 575W on ThinkComputers.
SilverStone Strider Gold 1200W on PCPerspective.
Storage:
Crucial 256GB m4 2.5'' SSD with Data Transfer Kit on MadShrimps.
SanDisk Ultra 120GB SF-1200 Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Hitachi G-DRIVE Mini & Touro Mobile Pro 750 GB on OCClub.
Thermaltake BlacX Duet 5G USB 3.0 Docking Station on RWLabs.
Plextor PX-PH500U3 USB 3.0 Portable Hard Disk Drive on MadShrimps.
Seagate New Barracuda XT 3TB on OCClub.
Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
OCZ Synapse Cache 64GB SATA 3 SSD on TheSSDReview.
Tuesday Morning
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Tuesday, 8-November-2011 02:30:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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TomsHardware take a look at how Windows 8 will cope with zillions of CPU cores. Processor IDs can be extracted from the graph with just a simple mouse hover. The graph will also scale and display a scroll bar when appropriate. Power users (or regular users who just want to break things) can also assign a processor affinity for a certain process within this task manager. This gives a massive amount of control to the user, but for mostly everyone, this is something that should be left alone.
ZDNet are reporting that Apple is threatening an importer and demanding purchaser info. Dmavo told ZDNet Australia yesterday that the Cupertino-based gadget maker was "dreaming" if it thought the company would stop selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and was outraged at the implication that it would hand over customer data.
HardCoreWare have an AMD vs Intel shootout. Perhaps it's fittingly late, but we have finally published our review of the AMD FX lineup of CPUs. We included the FX 8150, and replicated an 8120 and a theoretical "61xx" which makes use of three of the Bulldozer modules, but with full L3 cache. We put all the CPUs against the full lineup of Intel Sandy Bridge processors in the price range, and included a few extras, and even Llano.
VR-Zone meanwhile ponder the future of desktop CPUs. Right now, even after AMD's Bulldozer roll-out, Intel still seems to have quite clear processor performance dominance on the desktop for some time to come. So, since the refinements to the existing processes, and the new semiconductor process nodes will bring the capability to improvements, how to use them? Performance, power or price (read: integration)?
Zorinaq notes the spike in HDD prices due to the flooding in Thailand. Thailand manufactures 25% of the world's hard drives, and the severe 2011 monsoon season floods affected some of its largest industrial parks, where many hard drive manufacturers and component suppliers are located, causing worldwide shortages and price increases.
Apparently 6,000 copies of Modern Warfare 3 have been stolen in a daring truck heist, thanks Rezin. After running the truck off the road, two men armed with knives emerged from the ramming car, hurling tear gas at the truck’s driver and passenger. According to this report, they then liberated an estimated 6,000 copies of Modern Warfare 3, valued at around €400,000 ($550,000 AUD).
It seems the CIA are sifting through social media to track how people feel. The intelligence analysts at the agency's Open Source Center, who other agents refer to as "vengeful librarians," are tasked with sifting through millions of tweets, Facebook messages, online chat logs, and other public data on the World Wide Web to glean insights into the collective moods of regions or groups abroad. According to the Associated Press, these librarians are tracking up to five million tweets a day from places like China, Pakistan and Egypt.
Phoronix report from the Ubuntu 12.04 Developer Summit. The Ubuntu Developer Summit for the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" release has now ended in Orlando, Florida. Here is a brief summary of some of the interesting news and discussions that took place for this leading Linux desktop distribution.
It's not a web game, but it's a free download (for Windows), so today's timewaster is Stealth Bastard, from Linkin. A fast-paced, frenetic, one-step-away-from-chunky-death melange of sneaking, platforming, hacking and cursing. A whole lot of fun. It's like Metal Gear Solid and Super Meat Boy had a baby out of wedlock. Semi-literally.
OCAU Tshirt Design Contest!
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Monday, 7-November-2011 02:44:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's about time we made some more tshirts, so let's have a competition to make designs for them. You can win yourself an OCAU Mug or two, and of course, a free tshirt. :)
Australia's final R18+ gaming guidelines have been approved. Despite stories suggesting that a change to the Australian ratings system may be as far as two years away, the Federal Minister for Home Affairs has today announced that each Australian state and territory has signed off on the final guidelines required for the introduction of an adult R18+ classification Down Under.
AMD are planning to lay off 10% of their workforce, apparently mostly from marketing and PR. To strengthen our market position, we have to rebalance our skillsets to better align with these market shifts and implement a more competitive cost structure. Our competitors are serious and significant, and we will take the required actions to beat them... a lower cost base allows us to be more competitive today and to invest back into the business to fuel our “attack” strategies in— low power, emerging markets and the cloud. More here.
HP meanwhile have some ARM clusters in the works. The sales pitch for the Redstone systems, says Santeler, is that a half rack of Redstone machines and their external switches implementing 1,600 server nodes has 41 cables, burns 9.9 kilowatts, and costs $1.2m. A more traditional x86-based cluster doing the same amount of work would only require 400 two-socket Xeon servers, but it would take up 10 racks of space, have 1,600 cables, burn 91 kilowatts, and cost $3.3m.
An Australian statistician has recieved $11M in backing from Silicon Valley. Anthony Goldbloom, who coded Kaggle.com in a small apartment in Bondi in Sydney's east after leaving cushy jobs at Treasury and the Reserve Bank of Australia, is now the toast of Silicon Valley. The founder of PayPal and Slide, Max Levchin, is one of the investors and he has joined Kaggle as its chairman.
The Russian crew who spent 500 days pretending to go to Mars have come back to Earth, so to speak. A Russian crew has returned from a simulated mission to Mars after more than 500 days in isolation in conditions that replicated a flight into deep space. More here.
RamblingThoughts have a big article on the past, present and future of the NBN. If the NBN is built across Australia as planned, this new broadband infrastructure could be just as revolutionary as the Overland Telegraph was in its day. In urban areas we may tend to be blasé about its goals for download speeds, only an order or so higher than what many can already achieve. By enabling efficiencies across the economy, making rural/regional cities more competitive with capital cities, the NBN could potentially transform many aspects of our lives, including working from home, education, health, government and business services.
ThinkComputers have been playing with a lot of RAM. As many of you know our friends over at Patriot were nice enough to send us over 48GB of their 8GB G2 Series single modules. That is six 8GB modules, giving us a total of 48GB of DDR3! It is really crazy to think about that much memory in a system, it is close to a small solid state drive. We’ve had a lot of fun with all of this memory over the past couple of weeks and yes we installed all 48GB in a single system. Read on to check all the fun we’ve had with this memory!
FutureLooks have a Z68 roundup, with boards from ASUS, GIGABYTE, ASRock and MSI. If gaming and other fun activities like home or office work are the primary purpose, a highly affordable P67 system would more than make you happy. However, if productivity is more important and you work with very large data intensive programs, the Intel Z68 Chipset is the platform of choice thanks to the new enhanced features like LucidLogix Virtu and Intel Smart Response (ISR). While Virtu and Intel Quick Sync are very handy for video projects, ISR still brings one of the most useful performance boosts to the table. Let’s have a look at a wide array of the Z68 motherboard choices available and see if it’s possible to crown a winner.
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 6-November-2011 21:00:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
HIS HD6950 IceQ 2GB on Vortez.
EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win 2GB Dual-GPU on PCPerspective.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Apple iPhone 4S Review: iOS 5 + Siri on TechSpot.
MSI GT683 R Gaming Laptop on MadShrimps.
Storage:
Super Talent Upstream PCIe 200GB SSD Exclusive First Look on TheSSDReview.
Silicon Power Velox V20 120GB SATA II SSD on TheSSDReview.
AData S510 SATA 3 120GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
SilverStone SST-TS07B External USB 3.0 HDD Enclosure on LegitReviews.
MemoRight FTM Plus 240GB Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid PCI-E SSD Tests on BenchmarkReviews.
Raidon GR5630-WSB3 4-Bay Desktop Storage System on OCClub.
Cooling:
NZXT HAVIK 140 CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
Zalman CNPS 12X CPU cooler on Guru3D.
AMD Bulldozer Water Cooler stock cooler on NeoSeeker.
Software:
Battlefield 3 PC on eTeknix.
Need for Speed: The Run Single Player on GamingNexus.
Power Supply:
OCZ ZX Series 1250W on TBreak.
Enermax Platimax 600W on Tweaktown.
Misc:
VisionTek Ultimate 6GB DDR3-1866 memory on PureOC.
Tt eSPORTS Azurues Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
Fractal Design Core 3000 case on HWSecrets.
Thanks to Taceo Corpus and Allan 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
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Friday, 4-November-2011 11:38:44 (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 threads with deals on BF3, office chairs, ADSL routers, media players, video cards, soldering systems, headphones, data recovery, power boards, monitor arms, SSDs and a range of other goodies. Check 'em out!
Apparently video games are good for stimulating the imaginations of kids. We all know that parents should pay attention to both the amount of time kids spend playing video games and the type of games they're playing, but contrary to some prevailing wisdom, a new study shows that kids who play video games may actually be more creative than those who don't.
New Zealanders are recieving infringement notices under their new 3 strikes law. One peculiarity of New Zealand's system: it applies to the Internet account holder rather than the person actually accused of sharing the content online. It's certainly one way of solving the perennial doubt over who, exactly, was sitting behind an IP address.
Meanwhile the intellectual property industries seem to be doing just fine. The International Intellectual Property Alliance unveiled the new report today in association with the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus at an event in Washington, DC. The report doesn't even try to quantify losses to piracy anymore—last year, an official US government report concluded that such estimates were all deeply unreliable. Instead, it simply asserts without evidence that "piracy inhibits… growth in the US and around the world."
It's not just movies and music attracting lawsuits though, with a major book publisher chasing BitTorrent downloaders of their books. Other pirated books listed in the complaint include familiar titles such as “AutoCAD 2011 for Dummies,” “Day Trading for Dummies”, “Calculus Essential for Dummies” and “Word Press For Dummies”. Interestingly, the popular “BitTorrent for Dummies” is not included.
HardOCP have a AMD FX-8150 Multi-GPU Gameplay Performance Review. The goal of this evaluation today is to expand upon gaming performance with the AMD FX-8150 CPU using multiple-GPUs and higher resolutions. In our initial evaluation, we used a single Radeon HD 6970 GPU. This time, we are going to be using NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 580, but we are using more than just one. We will be using two for standard SLI, and we are also including three in a Tri-SLI configuration. On top of that, we are going to be testing in a triple-display NV Surround setup that lets us test up to a resolution of 5760x1200, well beyond the 1080p we tested before.
RWLabs have a Solid State Drive Roundup. Back in 2010 we were proud to bring all of you the single largest SSD roundup to date with units from almost every manufacturer in the field. Today you can follow us once again in yet another unique comparison as we take a total of 16 brand new solid state drives through a large number of tests for all of you to see just which one's the king of the hill currently and which one's best suited for your personal needs.
Internet Explorer has dropped below 50% of worldwide usage for the first time in more than a decade. Where has that market share gone? In the early days, it all went Firefox's way. These days, it's Chrome that's the main beneficiary of Internet Explorer's decline, and October was no exception. I just had a quick look at OCAU's stats for the last 3 months, it's 38% Firefox, 27% Chrome, 18% Internet Explorer, 10% Safari and 3% Opera.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 4-November-2011 11:07:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch on HotHardware.
ASUS Zenbook (UX21) on Anandtech.
Dell Vostro V131 laptop on Tech-Reviews.
Acer Aspire 5755-6482 laptop on TechReviewSource.
Mobile GPU Comparison: GeForce GTX 580M and Radeon HD 6990M on PC Perspective.
Software:
Battlefield 3 on HotHardware.
Need for Speed: The Run Multiplayer preview on GamingNexus.
Memory:
Avexir Standard Series DDR3 1600MHz 4GB Memory Kit on eTeknix.
Visiontek 8GB PC3-12800 CL9 1600 EX DDR3 on RBMods.
GeIL DDR3 Memory Round-up | Enhance Corsa | Evo Corsa on XSReviews.
Audio Visual:
Arctic E461-BM Earphones on Bjorn3D.
iZON Remote Room Monitor on TestFreaks.
Motherboard & CPU:
ECS P67H2-A Black Extreme Intel P67 on
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Professional (AMD 990FX) on Tweaktown.
Asus Rampage IV Extreme X79 on eTeknix.
AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer CPU and Scorpius (FX) Platform - Part 2 on FutureLooks.
ASUS Rampage III Black Edition X58 on Pro-Clockers.
Input Etc:
XEBEC Tech htpc Wireless Mini Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Roccat KONE[+] USB Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Storage:
Buffalo MiniStation Extreme on BusinessComputingWorld.
A quick look at OCZ's 2.15 SSD firmware on TechReport.
Cases:
Corsair Carbide 500R on OC3D.
Silverstone RV03 Raven 3 on NinjaLane.
NZXT Tempest 410 Elite Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
BitFenix Outlaw Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Level 10 GT on TechPowerUp.
Misc:
OnLive Game System on HWHeaven.
OCZ ZT Series 650W PSU on HWSecrets.
Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME Plus II Cooler on APHNetworks.
Forum Projects
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Thursday, 3-November-2011 20:04:00 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some reviews and projects from people in the forums:
Brian sent in these photos of possibly the most ghetto case ever:
    
It's all fun and games until you want to swap out the RAM.. :)
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 3-November-2011 02:41:55 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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People are concerned about spam which seems to be related to having shopped at Umart. ZDNet have a report and info from the vendor. The spam says that they're receiving the email because they subscribed to a mailing list on "one of the job portals". It offers a job that requires "no specific education or work experience". Umart told ZDNet Australia that it was aware of the issue and had received several instances of the email from its customer base. It is currently conducting an investigation, although it considers its data to be protected. Latest info in the thread seems to indicate the emails may be harvested from another source as well.
Will spotted some upcoming bigger hybrid drives. The Barracuda Green model line is being made end of life and moving forward Seagate will be making two types of desktop hard drives, simply called the Barracuda and Barracuda XT. Both drives run off a SATA 6Gbps interface and use the 1TB per platter areal density. The main difference between the two will be that the Barracuda XT will include Hybrid SSD caching (which launched on the laptop focused Momentus XT last year) when it hits the market in 4TB capacities next year.
Phoronix have a Ubuntu Virtualisation Showdown. While last week I showed how Ubuntu's performance has evolved as a KVM guest from Ubuntu 8.04 through Ubuntu 11.10, in today's article is a Linux virtualization showdown between VirtualBox, Xen, and KVM while using Ubuntu 11.10 on the Linux 3.0 kernel.
iiNet are in a little hot water over some alleged subliminal messaging in a TV ad. "We had 4400 people find it and they were pretty happy with themselves and that was about as far as it went, at least up until yesterday," he said. "That was until the rest of the world caught on to our little bit of fun and the online conversation buzzed. Some people were discussing whether it was 'subliminal advertising', others thought it was 'just a bit of fun', others said it was 'marketing genius' — I liked the last people the best."
Jastormont sent word that some satellites have been hacked. The two satellites, Landsat-7 and Terra AM-1, had been interfered with on four separate occasions, allowing the attackers to be in command of the satellites for two to over twelve minutes each time. Luckily, both of the satellites are used only for observing the Earth's climate and terrain, and the hackers never actually misused their control over them in any way.
Meanwhile a huge space rock is going to not quite kill us all again. NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity – allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass.
Here's a video of a man flying an RC multicopter.. while sitting in it, thanks Madhatter. At the end of October 2011, Thomas Senkel of e-volo made the first manned flight with an e-powered multicopter at an airstrip in the southwest of Germany. The flight lasted one minute and 30 seconds, after which the constructor and test pilot stated: "The flight characteristics are good natured. Without any steering input it would just hover there on the spot". This could be the future of flight, piloting a device as simple as a car.
Asher sent in today's very difficult Spatial Ability Test timewaster, which is part of his Uni course or something. Brain hurty.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 3-November-2011 01:44:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
ScanFX Mini HD Media Box on eTeknix.
NoiseHush NX80 Stereo Headphones on TechReviewSource.
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD FX 8150 Revisited on MadShrimps.
ASUS P9X79 Pro Preview on OC3D.
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme Preview on OC3D.
Asus Sabertooth X79 Motherboard Preview on eTeknix.
ASUS M5A97 EVO, ASUS M5A99X EVO boards on iXBTLabs.
Video Cards:
ASUS Radeon HD 6770 DirectCU Silent on Guru3D.
HIS Radeon HD 6870 IceQ 1GB on LegionHW.
Input Etc:
Xebec Tech HTPC Wireless Mini Keyboard with Touchpad on eTeknix.
Microsoft Touch Mouse on Tweaktown.
Zowie EC2 Gaming Mouse and G-TF Mouse Pad on PureOC.
NZXT Avatar S Gaming Mouse on OCIA.
SteelSeries Sensei Mouse on HWSecrets.
SteelSeries Sensei Pro Grade Laser Mouse on RWLabs.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake Dr. Power II ATX Power Supply Tester on LegitReviews.
Cooling:
Gelid GX-7 Stacked Heatpipe Heatsink on Frostytech.
Thermalright Archon Rev.A CPU Cooler on RWLabs.
Corsair Carbide Series 500R on Vortez.
Storage:
OCZ Technology RevoDrive Hybrid on Tweaktown.
Kingston DataTraveler 6000 USB on TBreak.
Seagate Barracuda 3TB Hard Drive ST3000DM001 on BenchmarkReviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP EliteBook 8560w laptop on TechReviewSource.
Asus Zenbook UX21 Ultrabook on HotHardware.
Lenovo ThinkVision LT1421 Portable Monitor on PC Perspective.
CyberPower Gamer Ultra 2098 Budget Gaming PC on LegitReviews.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 on Tech-Reviews.
Tuesday Night Reviews
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Tuesday, 1-November-2011 23:08:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Portable & Prebuilt:
ASUS Zenbook UX31 ultrabook on TechReport.
HTC EVO 3D smartphone on TBreak.
HP ProBook 4430s laptop on TechReviewSource.
Video Cards:
AMD FirePro V4900 workstation card on Phoronix.
ASUS HD6770 1GB DirectCU Silent on Vortez.
Audio Visual:
V-MODA Vibrato Remote Earphones on ThinkComputers.
Zowie Hammer USB Headset on PureOC.
SpeedLink Medusa NX 5.1 Headset on eTeknix.
Griffin Beacon Universal Remote for iPhone on MissingRemote.
Arctic Sound E461 Earphones on ReviewStash.
Cases:
Cougar Evolution on OC3D.
Thermaltake Overseer RX-I on BenchmarkReviews.
Corsair Carbide 500R Mid-Tower on LegitReviews.
AeroCool X-Predator Evil on OC3D.
Lian Li PC-6B Mid Tower on eTeknix.
Xigmatek Elysium Full Tower on MadShrimps.
CM Storm Trooper on OCClub.
Input Etc:
CM Storm Xornet Optical Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Zowie Celeritas Mechanical Keyboard on PureOC.
Thermaltake MEKA G-Unit Keyboard on TBreak.
Storage:
A Complete SSD Upgrade Kit for MacBook Pro on Bjorn3D.
OCZ RevoDrive Hybrid 100GB (PCIe SSD + 1TB HDD) on TechSpot.
OCZ Vertex 3 240GB SSD on XSReviews.
ASUS BC-12B1ST Optical Drive on Pro-Clockers.
Power Supply:
Cougar G800 GX-Series 800W on eTeknix.
Seasonic Platinum-1000 1000W on TechPowerUp.
Raidmax RX-1200AE High Efficiency Bronze Power Supply on TechwareLabs.
Thermaltake Dr. Power II Power Supply Tester on APHNetworks.
Cooling:
Evercool Transformer 4 PLUS CPU cooler on OCOnline.
Antec KÜHLER H2O 620 & 920 watercooling units on Metku.
Cooler Master GeminII S524 and Deep Cool Fiend Shark CPU coolers on XbitLabs.
Cooler Master Hyper 612 PWM CPU cooler on XbitLabs.
Gelid GX-7 CPU cooler on Guru3D.
Misc:
ASUS USB-N10 and USB-N13 Wireless N Network Adapters on BigBruin.
MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard on iXBTLabs.
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