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December 2011 |
Last one of the year! Hope you have a fun and safe NYE and an awesome 2012. :) The first pic is possibly NSFW.
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Informal Brisbane Meet-up, Sunday Jan 8th
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Friday, 30-December-2011 13:27:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I'm going to be in Brisbane next weekend and Wolfy is organising a casual get-together in the Roma St Parklands. So if you're also in the area and want to meet some fellow OCAUers, eat some BBQ food and kick a ball around or whatever, drop by!
Friday Afternoon
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Friday, 30-December-2011 13:21:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Right, now to try and summarise a week's worth of news!
Simon Hackett has posted more info about the Internode-iiNet deal. This is the only time in iiNet’s history that the result of an acquisition includes the assignment of a Significant shareholding to the founder of the company concerned. It makes this a combined merger/acquisition, because I’m retaining a substantial shareholding interest at the completion of the deal. This was my choice.
Gigabyte have announced some of their X79 motherboards can have overheating problems - people are even reporting smoking components. Unfortunately that page is machine translated and I can't find a proper english release, but in short it seems like you need to do a firmware update or send the board back. More info here.
A Japanese researcher has created a biometric chair which recognises your own unique bum-print. Why develop this technology when fingerprint and iris scanners already exist? Because those scanners can be easily influenced by environmental factors (greasy fingers and low light, respectively) while - unless you have a giant George Costanza wallet in your back pocket - there is very little to interfere with a chair measuring the pressure you create while sitting down.
The RIAA are claiming that someone else is using their IP addresses for piracy. A few days ago we reported that no less than 6 IP-addresses registered to the RIAA had been busted for downloading copyrighted material. Quite a shocker to everyone - including the music industry group apparently - as they are now using a defense previously attempted by many alleged file-sharers. It wasn’t members of RIAA staff who downloaded these files, the RIAA insists, it was a mysterious third party vendor who unknowingly smeared the group’s good name.
Meanwhile the "You Wouldn't Steal A Car" music seems to be stolen itself. Netherlands composer Melchior Rietveldt composed that ominous techno tune for a local film festival after being asked by anti-piracy group BREIN, who are funded by Hollywood. A few years later, he got himself a copy of Harry Potter on DVD and noticed his music was suddenly being used for much wider use than he had originally agreed to in contract. Which essentially means that when they say 'you wouldn't steal a television', that doesn't quite extend to intellectual property.
An controller manufacturer (or more accurately, their marketing firm) have enraged the hive mind by attacking a concerned customer and then staff from the popular gaming comic Penny Arcade. I got an incredible email today from a Penny Arcade reader. Dave shared with me an email chain between him and Ocean Marketing (the folks behind the Avenger controller) Trust me when I tell you that this is one wild ride. I’m serious, Mr. Toad would look at this ride and just give a slow clap while shaking his head. More here. Discussion here.
Also recieving the wrath of the masses is GoDaddy, for their support of SOPA, a controversial US internet bill. When the internet gets upset about something, it doesn’t sulk alone in IRC, a single felt-pen tear static on its cheek. No, it goes all-out. At the moment, it has GoDaddy in its sights, and with Jimmy Wales’s decision to find a new, non-GoDaddy home for Wikipedia, the internet has just fired one of its bigger weapons at the under-siege registrar. More info on the GoDaddy story here on CNN and more on SOPA affecting websites on TomsHardware.
Volkswagen have turned off work email after hours to help employees keep their home and work lives separate. Under the arrangement servers stop routing emails 30 minutes after the end of employees' shifts, and then start again 30 minutes before they return to work. The staff can still use their devices to make calls and the rule does not apply to senior management.
Wired say that Windows 8 tablets will surprise everyone. Windows-based tablets haven’t been treated kindly by the test of time. Those released in the Windows XP era relied on wonky, stylus-based data entry, and even modern, touch-based tablets running Windows 7 are poor performers.
Meanwhile Intel are showing off their smartphone and tablet tech for next year. Known as "reference designs," the devices are sent out to inspire and instruct manufacturers interested in building products around Intel's latest technology. "They can use as much or as little of the reference design as they like," says Smith, who hinted that the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in January could bring news of gadgets in which Intel's chips will appear.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 29-December-2011 00:29:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
MSI 990FXA-GD80 on Bjorn3D.
ARM Cortex-A9 PandaBoard ES Benchmarks on Phoronix.
AMD A8-3870K Llano APU Linux Overclocking on Phoronix.
ECS X79R-AX (Intel X79) on Tweaktown.
ASUS 990FX Sabertooth on Bjorn3D.
Video Cards:
AMD Radeon HD 7970 on TechSpot.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 'Tahiti' on Vortez.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB on PCPerspective.
Cooling:
Thermaltake Frio Advanced CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Zalman CNPS12X Lower Noise Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Input Etc:
Steelseries SRW-S1 Racing Wheel on FunkyKit.
Xebec Tech X-Line Multimedia Keyboard on eTeknix.
SteelSeries Sensei Gaming Mouse on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master Storm QuickFire Rapid Keyboard on Pro-Clockers.
Memory:
Exceleram E30200A 8GB DDR3-Series Memory Modules on MadShrimps.
Corsair Vengeance LP PC3-12800 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB 2133 MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory Kit on FutureLooks.
Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB DDR3-1600 Memory on BenchmarkReviews.
Mushkin Redline PC3-17000 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
HP Omni 120-1024 prebuilt all-in-one PC on TechReviewSource.
Sony Tablet S Android Slate on HotHardware.
Acer Aspire Z5771-UR31P all-in-one on TechReviewSource.
HP Pavilion G6-1C77NR laptop on TechReviewSource.
Cases:
SilverStone Raven RV03 on OCIA.
Raidmax Seiran on HWSecrets.
Silverstone Grandia Series GD06 HTPC Case on eTeknix.
Fractal Design Arc Midi Black Case on LegitReviews.
Bitfenix Outlaw on TechReaction.
Power Supply:
Silencer MK III 600W on Technoyard.
Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 850W on Guru3D.
Corsair TX550M and TX750M on PCPerspective.
Rosewill HIVE 650W on HWSecrets.
Energizer iSurge Travel Charging Station on LegitReviews.
Super Flower Golden King 550W on XSReviews.
Enermax Platimax 1200W on RWLabs.
Storage:
Batman Arkham City 3D Vision Game on BenchmarkReviews.
IOCELL NETDISK Hard Drive Enclosure on ThinkComputers.
Kingmax 128GB SATA II SSD on TBreak.
Corsair Performance Pro Series 256GB on OCClub.
QNAP TS-419P II NAS on XbitLabs.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 64GB on Bjorn3D.
Super Talent USB 3.0 Express ST4 32GB Flash Drive on MadShrimps.
Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD on RBMods.
Misc:
GoldKey USB Data Security Token on LegitReviews.
Parrot AR.Drone RC quad-rotor on TechPowerUp.
Wednesday Night Reviews
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Wednesday, 28-December-2011 21:19:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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My 5yo son beat me at 10-pin bowling today. I'm ok with it. :)
Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock X79 Extreme9 (Intel X79) on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3P Z68 on APHNetworks.
ECS X79R-AX Motherboard on HWSecrets.
Cooling:
Noctua NF-F12 PWM Fan on RBMods.
Cooler Master GeminII S524 CPU Cooler on TechWareLabs.
Corsair Air Series A50 CPU Cooler on CircuitRemix.
Zalman CNPS11X Performa CPU Cooler on XbitLabs.
Enermax ETD-T60-TB Top-Cooler on XbitLabs.
Audio Visual:
SteelSeries Diablo III Mouse and Headset on OC3D.
Samsung MV800 Digital Camera on Tech-Reviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
A Week With The Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone on Tweaktown.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus on TechSpot.
Building a BitTorrent Rig with the Zotac ZBOX Nano Plus on LegitReviews.
Motorola Droid RAZR Smartphone on HotHardware.
Dell Latitude E6220 laptop on TechReviewSource.
Samsung Galaxy Nexus with ICS Smartphone on HotHardware.
Cases:
NZXT Phantom 410 on RWLabs.
Streacom FC5 Silent HTPC Chassis on MissingRemote.
Antec’s Eleven Hundred (1100) Super Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis on FutureLooks.
BitFenix Merc on PureOC.
Xigmatek Elysium on OCClub.
Monday Afternoon Reviews
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Monday, 26-December-2011 14:11:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Hope you're having a good one.. here's some reviews:
Motherboard & CPU:
AMD A8-3870K - Radeon HD 6550D Graphics on Phoronix.
Gigabyte 990FXA-UD5 AM3+ Motherboard on Funkykit.
ASUS Rampage IV Extreme on TBreak.
ASRock X79 Extreme4-M on PureOC.
ASUS P9X79 Deluxe Intel LGA 2011 on TechPowerUp.
Video Cards:
Radeon HD 7970 Overclock and perf Guide on Guru3D.
Sapphire Low-Profile Radeon HD 6670 on Pro-Clockers.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 on LegionHW.
Sapphire HD 6670 Low Profile on OCClub.
Club3D Radeon HD 6950 Battlefield 3 Edition on eTeknix.
Storage:
Corsair Performance Pro 128GB on PureOC.
Hitachi TOURO DESK PRO 3TB USB 3.0 External HDD on RWLabs.
Patriot Pyro SE SSD on Bjorn3D.
Cases:
XClio Touch 320 Mid Tower on Tweaktown.
NZXT Phantom 410 on HWSecrets.
Diablotek Fly Mid Tower on ThinkComputers.
Input Etc:
Thrustmaster Ferrari F1 Wheel T500 on Vortez.
Corepad Deskpad XL and XXXXL mouse mats on XSReviews.
Corsair Vengeance K90, K60 Gaming Keyboards and M90, M60 Gaming Mice on HWHeaven.
Merry Xmas & Happy New Year
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Saturday, 24-December-2011 11:54:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Expect things to get a bit quiet on the news page for the next few days or so, as I take a bit of time away from the screen. 2011 was a fairly quiet year from OCAU's perspective, although we did have the very inspirational fund-raiser for Charli's family, some merchandise runs and a few competitions. But of course, this year was also marked by various environmental and economic problems which made things tough for a lot of people. So, I hope you have a great Xmas break with your family and friends - keep safe, and after a Happy New Year we can kick it all off again in 2012!
Two more sleeps! Thanks to dean_is_not and Stuart this week.
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
AMD Radeon HD 7000 Series
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Friday, 23-December-2011 02:11:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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AMD have unveiled their Radeon HD 7000 series, with the flagship HD 7970 model. This is a monster of a card with 3GB of RAM, aimed squarely at the single-GPU performance crown. DiGiTaL MoNkEY has done a great job of rounding up the first batch of reviews in this forum post and discussion continues in that thread.
iiNet to acquire Internode
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Thursday, 22-December-2011 16:35:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Internode have announced that they are to be acquired by iiNet. iiNet is purchasing 100 per cent of the shares in both Internode and Agile. Internode and Agile will continue to operate as separate business units within the group, retaining their current staff and offices. The current management team, including founder Simon Hackett, are all continuing with the company group. The ASX announcement PDF is here.
Discussion here.
Photography Gallery
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Thursday, 22-December-2011 02:15:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum.
Thursday Morning Reviews
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Thursday, 22-December-2011 00:40:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cases:
Enermax Spinerex Full Tower on XSReviews.
3R System T100 Valkyrie on HWSecrets.
Fractal Designs Arc Midi Mid Tower on MissingRemote.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Simraceway SRW-S1 Steering Wheel on HWHeaven.
SteelSeries Diablo III Gaming Mouse and Headset on LegitReviews.
Motherboard & CPU:
Z68 Motherboard Roundup Part 2 on OCClub.
Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi Supreme Motherboard on ThinkComputers.
ASRock X79 Extreme4-M (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Intel DX79SI Motherboard on TBreak.
Portable & Prebuilt:
MacBook Air vs. Ultrabooks on TechReviewSource.
Samsung Series 7 (NP700Z5A-S03) laptop on TechReviewSource.
HTC Rhyme Android Smartphone on HWHeaven.
Pantech Link II phone on TestFreaks.
Lenovo's IdeaPad U400 Notebook on HotHardware.
Power Supply:
400-520W Power Supply Units Roundup on XbitLabs.
XFX ProSeries 1250W on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Toughpower XT Platinum 1275W on TechPowerUp.
NZXT HALE82 750W on Pro-Clockers.
Enermax MAXREVO 1350W on OC3D.
Enermax Revolution87+ 850W on HWHeaven.
Storage:
Patriot Pyro SE 120GB RAID0 on LegionHW.
Seagate GoFlex Desk 4TB USB 3.0 External Drive on EverythingUSB.
Crucial RealSSD C400 256GB on Bjorn3D.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
Crucial M4 128GB SSD on Guru3D.
Hitachi Touro Desk Pro 3TB HDD on Tweaktown.
ADATA S511 240 GB Solid State Drive on XbitLabs.
SilverStone EC03 USB 3.0 PCI-E Adapter on Phoronix.
Memory:
Corsair Vengeance 1866MHz CL9 16GB DDR3 on Vortez.
G.SKILL RipjawsZ 1866MHz CL9 16GB DDR3 on Vortez.
Cooling:
Cheerful CPU Cooler: Enermax ETS-T40-VD on XbitLabs.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on CircuitRemix.
Wednesday Morning
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Wednesday, 21-December-2011 03:02:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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WD and Seagate are shortening the warranty period on some hard drives. In some cases warranty lengths have been reduced from five years to just 12 months, with the biggest drop in budget or low-power drives. With many enthusiasts undoubtedly worried about this drastic restructuring of warranty terms, it's important to remember this is reflecting a business alignment in warranty lengths and not a reduction in drive quality.
Here's some photos from inside the insides of Atlantis, probably the last chance before the Shuttles are stripped for display. Its insides being pulled out to ensure it is safe for exhibit, as well as significantly lighten it for its planned steep-angled display, Atlantis is scheduled to be powered down this week for the final time.
The smartphone patent wars continue, with Apple scoring against HTC in the USA. Apple just won a big court victory against HTC that could force HTC to stop selling its Android phones in the United States. The United States International Trade Commission ruled that HTC was infringing on a system level patent that effects HTC Android devices running Android 1.6 to 2.2. More here.
Meanwhile Sabretooth noticed that some Samsung Galaxy users can score some free apps as Xmas approaches, and more importantly, Android v4 aka Ice Cream Sandwich is officially coming to the S2 next year. Discussion continues here.
As usual on the Internet, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Australian eBay customers lured by ultra-bargain priced TV sets and other electronics have shelled out thousands of dollars only to receive empty boxes in the mail. Police are investigating after receiving reports from reputable eBay sellers who were tricked into carrying out the scam by bogus job ads.
Dutch airline KLM are letting customers pick their seat-mates via Facebook. It is developing an internet service known as “meet and seat” which will give fliers access to to their fellow travellers’ Facebook and LinkedIn profiles. The scheme will be launched next year and KLM admitted that many details still have to be worked out.
PC Perspective report on a driver fix from nVIDIA. Late last night NVIDIA passed over a driver that finally fixes the issue we discussed last Friday with the EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2Win dual-GPU graphics card and the new X79 chipset. The issue arose from the inability to actually enable SLI on the card thus leaving one of your GTX 560 Ti's on the board sitting there limp.
EA's new game Syndicate has been refused classification in Oz. Submitted to the board under its real name, Syndicate has been officially Refused Classification, meaning it is effectively banned from sale, distribution or display in Australia. We have contacted both Electronic Arts and the Board to find out just what part of the game was so distressing.
The Chinese Government says it will make it rain more to help industry and the environment. China is starting four regional programs to artificially increase precipitation across the country by 10 per cent before 2015, under a newly released 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), according to the state-run China Daily. "Weather intervention" could bring an additional 230 billion cubic meters of precipitation per year - that's on top of the 50 billion China already artificially creates annually, China Daily says.
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
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Tuesday, 20-December-2011 16:32:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
MSI X79A-GD65 8D on Bjorn3D.
GIGABYTE G1.Killer Sniper 2 Z68 on FutureLooks.
Cases:
Rosewill Ranger Mid-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Xigmatek Gigas on HWHeaven.
Fractal Design Define XL on HWSecrets.
NZXT Phantom 410 on LegitReviews.
Nexus Prominent 5 on TechReaction.
Silverstone Sugo SG08 on NinjaLane.
SilverStone Grandia Series GD06 HTPC Chassis on Tweaktown.
Antec Solo II Mid Tower Chassis on eTeknix.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX Genesis PC3-12800 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Samsung Green 8GB DDR3-1600 VLP on PureOC.
Kingston HyperX Genesis 16GB DDR3-2133 on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooling:
Evercool Transformer 3 (HPM-12025) CPU cooler on OCOnline.
BitFenix Spectre Pro fans on OC3D.
Alpenföhn K2 CPU Cooler on MadShrimps.
Storage:
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on CircuitRemix.
OCZ Synapse 64GB Caching SSD on APHNetworks.
OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 240G SSD on Overclockers.com.
SilverStone TS07 SATA3 Enclosure on Phoronix.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet on HWSecrets.
Choiix Wave Stand on Pro-Clockers.
Sony VAIO S Series laptop on TechReviewSource.
Be.ez Le reporter Air 13 MacBook Air Bag on Tech-Reviews.
Sony VAIO Z-Series Laptop on TBreak.
Input Etc:
Cooler Master Xornet gaming mouse on XSReviews.
Verbatim Mini Wireless SlimBoard on TestFreaks.
One for All Smart Control on Tech-Reviews.
Power Supply:
Corsair HX1050 1050W on OCClub.
PC Power & Cooling Mk III 600W on Guru3D.
Networking:
TRENDnet 450Mbps Dual Band Wireless N HD Media Bridge on MadShrimps.
TRENDnet TEW-692GR 450Mbps Router on RBMods.
ASUS RT-N66U Dual Band Gigabit Router preview on VR-Zone.
Misc:
Sapphire Radeon HD 6450 FleX Edition on eTeknix.
Aperion Audio Intimus 4T Tower Speaker on MissingRemote.
Batman Arkham City Review, DX11 Explored on HotHardware.
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 19-December-2011 13:12:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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So, I made the switch from iPhone to Android yesterday. I played with the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy S II side by side for about 20 mins, and ended up choosing the slightly-older S2 over the new-shiny Nexus. Goodbye, iTunes!
According to a new monitoring website, everybody pirates, it seems. Earlier this week, it was found that employees of major copyright holders Sony, Universal, and Fox were all found to have illegally downloaded content through the BitTorrent network. Today, two prominent figures in the online piracy fight were also found to be seemingly undoing all of their employers’ hard work in the fight against online piracy.
Comic-Con will be coming to Australia, specifically Adelaide, in 2012. "The San Diego convention started with 300 people in 1970 and last year attendance exceeded 130,000," Ms Gago said. "This is a good example of South Australia tapping into a niche market to deliver broad economic benefits." Oz Comic-Con will be held on Saturday, March 31, and Sunday, April 1, in the Goyder Pavilion at the Adelaide Showgrounds. The aim is to make it an annual event.
Microsoft is going to remotely nuke IE6. Right now its usage is at 8.3 percent, which means that millions of users out there are using obsolete technology. Microsoft has decided to kill it fast: starting next month, they will upgrade Windows users automatically to the latest version of Internet Explorer supported by the computers. This, Microsoft says, will put the usage down to less than 1 percent.
An upcoming version of Google's answer to Siri may be named in honour of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, wife of Gene Roddenberry and best known for being the voice of the ship's computer in various versions of Star Trek. If the report holds true, Majel would be an upgrade to Android's current Voice Actions app, which lets you make calls, send emails, search the web, get directions and perform other actions via your voice. But in its current incarnation, Voice Actions relies on preset voice commands in contrast to Siri, which lets you converse more naturally.
Hitachi have announced 4TB desktop HDDs. The 4TB Deskstar 5K4000 is a 3.5-inch hard drive with a 32MB cache buffer that provides an exceptional blend of power efficiency and performance, making it an ideal solution for power-friendly desktop computers. Providing 33 percent more capacity compared to current 3TB drives, the Deskstar 5K4000 drive features innovative CoolSpin technology, expanding this class of performance-optimized, energy-efficient drives that run cooler and require less power. They also have a new 900GB 10k-rpm 2.5" SAS drive.
PC Perspective meanwhile wonder if the end of the HDD shortage is in sight. We have been covering the unfortunate disaster in Thailand and the accompanying disruption in the world of storage since things first started hitting the fan in October. The initial result was a very dramatic price increase on traditional spinning disks - prices going up as much as 200% in some cases. This week we got our hands on some very interesting data from Dynamite Data, a company focused on channel monitoring, that they were willing to let us share with you.
iXBT compared some low-end and mid-range video cards. Today we shall review as many as five low and mid-end graphics cards: four based on NVIDIA GPUs and one on an AMD Radeon GPU. All five have custom design and coolers, so let's see if this provides any benefits.
Damien spotted this LAN-party optimised house built by a Google engineer. There's more technical details here. The house has twelve of these fold-out computer stations, six in each of two rooms (ideal for team vs. team games). The actual computers are not next to the monitors, but are all in a rack in a back room. The stations were built by a cabinet maker based on specs I created. The rest of the house was designed by my dad, Richard Varda, who happens to be an architect.
Skymaster sent in this video of a lizard gamer. My Bearded Dragon showing her mad skills :)
Interesting Forum Threads
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Saturday, 17-December-2011 20:08:06 (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.
AMD Catalyst 12.1 preview (New Features) in AMD Hardware.
Oscilloscope guides and documents in Electronics & Electrics.
What to do once you discover the internet owns you? in Networking.
Let's play "How corroded was your phone socket before the telstra guy replaced it" in Networking.
How does Google know where I am? in Networking.
Need help blocking kids laptop net access in Networking.
"Beautiful" really just doesn't cut it in Retro & Arcade.
Retro Museum at The Gamesmen in Retro & Arcade.
Music Tuition in Musicians.
Epic's Galaxy Nexus Review in Mobile Phones.
Has the Higgs Been Discovered? Physicists Gear Up for Watershed Announcement in Science.
From omnivore to vegan: The dietary education of Bill Clinton in Sport, Fitness & Health.
OCAU Golf Addicts Club and golf Discussion thread in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Fitocracy Invites - The game you play to improve your fitness in Sport, Fitness & Health.
In desperate need of help. What the hell are these bugs biting me? (pics) in Lifestyle.
How much was your last electricity bill? in Lifestyle.
QLD police unveil new covert speed camera technology in Motoring.
2012 F1 discussion thread inc Silly Season and Testing in Motorsport.
Man Drives Veyron Into Lake to Claim Insurance in Motoring.
Postie bike engine swap in Motoring.
Mechanical Agony in Motoring.
Getting a mate to slow down in Motoring.
Warning to Adelaide CBD pedestrians in Motoring.
The stupidity of people can be quite amazing...Tell me your customer stories in The Pub.
Christmas FlashMob... The greatest of all time.... OF ALL TIME! in The Pub.
Saturday Evening Reviews
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Saturday, 17-December-2011 18:24:56 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock X79 Extreme4 (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock X79 Extreme9 X79 Motherboard on eTeknix.
AMD FX-8120, AMD FX-6100 and AMD FX-4100 CPUs on XbitLabs.
Asus M5A99X EVO and Asus M5A97 EVO on XbitLabs.
Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E Processor on PCPerspective.
Cases:
Lian Li PC-TU200 on HWHeaven.
NZXT Source 220 on NeoSeeker.
Memory:
G.Skill Ripjaws Z F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH 16GB Quad Channel Memory Kit on Bjorn3D.
Patriot Division 4 Viper Xtreme DDR3-1600 Quad Channel Kit on HWHeaven.
Power Supply:
Cooler Master Silent Pro Hybrid 1050W on TechPowerUp.
NZXT HALE82 750 Watt Modular on TestFreaks.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 600W on RWLabs.
SilverStone Strider Gold Evolution 750W on HWSecrets.
Input Etc:
Corepad Keira mouse mat on XSReviews.
Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard on PureOC.
Storage:
Hitachi Touro Mobile Pro 750GB USB 3.0 HDD on Tweaktown.
Patriot Pyro SE 240GB SSD on Guru3D.
Mushkin Chronos 60GB SSD on OCClub.
HighPoint RocketRAID 6Gb/s SATA/SAS 2720SGL w/ 8 Micron C400 6Gbps SSDs on TheSSDReview.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on TestFreaks.
Samsung 830 Series 256GB SATA III SSD on LegitReviews.
Cooling:
NZXT HAVIK 120 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Enermax ETS T40 HSF on TechReaction.
Video Cards:
GeForce GTX 580 Showdown: ASUS Matrix vs.EVGA Classified on LegitReviews.
PowerColor HD6970 Devil 13 on OC3D.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2 GB DualFan on XbitLabs.
Misc:
TomTom GO LIVE 820 Top Gear Edition Sat Nav on Tech-Reviews.
Tritton Gears of War 3 Dolby 7.1 Surround Sound Headset on HWLooks.
Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 & Xyboard 8.2 Tablets on TechSpot.
Zabcat xplorer² File Management Software on BenchmarkReviews.
Am I the only one who can never seem to remember if Xmas day is on the 24th or 25th? Anyway, thanks to Mark and S1mon this week:
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Update: I just noticed this is the 10,000th news post since we switched to individual posts in March 2000. Phew!
OCAU Graffiti Wallpaper
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Friday, 16-December-2011 12:34:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Frontl1ne pointed out that it's been a while since we mentioned these awesome wallpapers from graffiti_tech. There's some OCAU ones, and also various PC brands:
Click for the thread!
Friday Midday
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Friday, 16-December-2011 12:24:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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HotHardware have a liquid cooler lineup. The kits we're looking at today are a far cry from the water coolers enthusiasts have been building for years. DIY water coolers typically involve separate reservoirs and external pumps. The systems we've tested contain significantly less fluid and use small pumps directly integrated into the cooling block. Integrated all-in-one kits may not offer the theoretical performance of a high-end home-built system, but they're vastly easier to install and require virtually no maintenance.
New Zealand seismic stations recorded a strange event recently - a Foo Fighters concert. Two seismic stations in the Auckland GeoNet seismic network recorded the ground literally rocking to the Foo Fighters gig at Western Springs on Tuesday night. The Herne Bay -HBAZ and Eden Park -EPAZ (with IESE-Auckland Uni) stations are 1.5 and 2km from Western Springs respectively and recorded a strong low frequency signal associated with the Foo Fighters gig.
Google's Galaxy Nexus phone is now officially available in Australia, with info here, here and here. Telstra however is not the first company to offer the Nexus in Australia. Online retailers Kogan and Mobicity already have been shipping the Nexus, having sourced their stock independently of Samsung Australia. Both began taking orders for the device last month. Discussion continues in this long thread.
There's a new supercomputer which uses flash memory instead of arrays of hard drives. Naturally, it's named "Gordon". More importantly, Gordon is now at the top in terms of how many I/O (input/output) operations it can do per second, which is a critical measure for doing data-intensive computing, such as sifting through huge datasets just to find a sliver of meaningful information. In recent validation tests, Gordon achieved an unprecedented 36 million IOPS (input/output operations per second), making it the most powerful supercomputer ever commissioned by the NSF for doing I/O and breaking the previous (2010) record of only 4.2 million IOPS.
Also enjoying some big numbers is this camera setup from MIT. We have built an imaging solution that allows us to visualize propagation of light. The effective exposure time of each frame is two trillionths of a second and the resultant visualization depicts the movement of light at roughly half a trillion frames per second. Direct recording of reflected or scattered light at such a frame rate with sufficient brightness is nearly impossible. We use an indirect 'stroboscopic' method that records millions of repeated measurements by careful scanning in time and viewpoints. Then we rearrange the data to create a 'movie' of a nanosecond long event.
HP meanwhile explain the limits of batteries. So, with venture capital and the other usual suspects turning their attention to, among other things, batteries, a peanut-sized power pack will soon run your car and permanently energize your tablet. Right? Wrong. Badly wrong. While there's a lot of progress to make, the physical limits are clear.
An Austrian man has asked Facebook for all the info they have on him, and got back more than he expected, thanks OhSmeg. After a wait, the 24 year-old law student got what he was seeking: a CD with all his data stored on it - 1,222 files in all. The collection of PDF format documents was roughly the length Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace but told a more mundane story: a record of Schrems' years-long relationship with the world's largest social network.
HWSecrets want to get you up to speed on the status of PCI-E 3.0. So it is no surprise that when PCI-E Gen 3 was announced, it caught the eye of enthusiasts who have an insatiable demand for speed. At eight Giga Transfers per second (8 GT/s) bit rate, the bandwidth was doubled for PCI-E 3.0, making it the natural evolution from the long-in-the-tooth 2.0 standard. It also became a race for marketing departments to see who could implement this technology first as a way to grab this high-end, influential market.
Friday Morning Reviews
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Friday, 16-December-2011 01:43:23 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte Z68XP-UD4 on HardCoreWare.
Gigabyte X79-UD7 on Bjorn3D.
Intel Sandy Bridge E 3930K CPU on MadShrimps.
Audio Visual:
Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset on Tweaktown.
V-Moda Vibrato Remote In-Ear Noise Isolating Headphones on TestFreaks.
Ultimate Ears In-Ear Reference Monitors on TechPowerUp.
Ferguson Hill FH009 speakers on Tech-Reviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Lenovo IdeaPad V470 laptop on TechReviewSource.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus on HotHardware.
HP Omni 220-1080qd on TechReviewSource.
Nokia Lumia 800 with Windows Phone 7.5 on HWHeaven.
Asrock Vision 3D 252B mini PC on LegionHW.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 CPU Cooler on TBreak.
NZXT HAVIK 120 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Noctua NF-F12 120mm PWM Fan on Viperlair.
Noctua Focus Flow 120mm NF-F12 PWM Fan on TechReport.
Cases:
NZXT Phantom 410 Mid Tower on eTeknix.
Rosewill Blackhawk-Ultra HPTX on BenchmarkReviews.
Antec Eleven Hundred on Vortez.
Antec Eleven Hundred on HWSecrets.
Power Supply:
Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1000W on HWHeaven.
Corsair TX750M on Vortez.
NZXT Hale82 750W and 850W on PureOC.
Storage:
CZ Technology’s Synapse Cache 64GB SSD on FutureLooks.
Kingston 64GB DataTraveler HyperX 3.0 USB Flash Drive on eTeknix.
Misc:
TRENDnet TEW-680MB 450Mbps Dual Band Wireless N HD Media Bridge on RBMods.
CM Storm Xornet mouse on OC3D.
Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 video card on TechReport.
Forum Projects
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Thursday, 15-December-2011 21:03:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some reviews and projects from people in the forums:
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 15-December-2011 02:52:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Futuremark have released a battery life benchmark. Futuremark®, the world leader in performance benchmarking software and services, today expanded its product line with Powermark™ a new battery life and power consumption test for Windows 7 notebooks, laptops, tablets and other battery powered devices. Powermark is a professional grade benchmark designed for industrial testing of battery powered Windows 7 devices by OEMs, corporations and governments.
Tweaktown have some SSD RAID fun. Today we jump forward and find ourselves looking at the brand new m4 drives from Crucial to see what's going on with performance. We'll also be taking the same approach as we did last year with the four drives on hand which will again be running in RAID 0. Outside of the new m4 drives, though, we've got ourselves a brand new Areca RAID card to make sure we're able to get the most amount of performance out of our drives.
TechSpot have a cooler roundup. Included in the comparison are the Thermalright True Spirit 140, Prolimatech Panther, Thermaltake Frio Advanced and Noctua NH-D14. All four are designed to support multiple platforms on both AMD and Intel camps.
PS3 owners hoping to get Linux back on their machines are out of luck, it seems. A federal judge has dismissed the remaining claim by class who said Sony reneged on its promise to let PlayStation 3 video game consoles function as computers. Discussion here.
There's another Humble Bundle on offer, with 7 games at whatever price you like, raising money for charity. The games work great on Mac, Windows, and Linux (system requirements here). Please note that this is the initial release of seven Linux builds, so please be patient while we fix 1.0 issues as fast as we can. You can support charity. Choose exactly how your purchase is divided: between the developers, the Child's Play Charity, or the American Red Cross.
But if even that's too much for you, tafedude noticed that Empire Earth Gold Edition is free - for probably only a few more hours now. So, we’re giving anyone who comes to GOG.com and adds Empire Earth: Gold Edition to their carts a free copy of the game. Be sure to come by and pick it up before 10.59 GMT on the 14th of December, though, to get it for free.
Wednesday Evening Reviews
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Wednesday, 14-December-2011 20:06:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Two days without internet make Agg something something. So here's some reviews catchup:
Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Focus S Windows Phone on TechSpot.
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook on TBreak.
Lenovo IdeaCentre H330 desktop on TechReviewSource.
Mac Mini on HWSecrets.
CyberPower Xplorer X6-9200 Gaming Notebook on NeoSeeker.
Storage:
SanDisk Cruzer Flash Drive 8GB on TBreak.
Patriot Pyro SE Solid State Drive on BenchmarkReviews.
Patriot Pyro SE 120GB & 240GB on OCClub.
Patriot Pyro SE 240GB on PureOC.
Sandisk Ultra 240GB SATA II Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
G-Technology G-DRIVE slim HDD on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
Genius HS-200 Gold In-Ear Headset on TestFreaks.
Paradigm Millenia HT Speaker System on SilentPCReview.
Samsung NX200 digicam on Tech-Reviews.
Video Cards:
KFA2 GeForce GTX 570 MDT X4 on Guru3D.
ASUS GTX560Ti 448 Core DirectCU II on OC3D.
Cases:
Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Tower on SilentPCReview.
BitFenix Merc Alpha on ComputingOnDemand.
NZXT Tempest 210 on TechPowerUp.
Antec Eleven Hundred Mid Tower Gaming Case on ThinkComputers.
Raidmax Seiran Mid-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Diablotek Legend on TechWareLabs.
Case Labs MAGNUM M8 on LegitReviews.
Video Perspective: Antec Eleven Hundred Case on PCPerspective.
Antec Solo II on XSReviews.
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS P9X79 Pro (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASRock Z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3 LGA1155 ATX Motherboard on FutureLooks.
Asus P8Z68-V LX Z68 Motherboard on eTeknix.
ASUS P9X79 Pro on eTeknix.
EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard on LegitReviews.
Gigabyte E350N-USB3 Fusion Mini ITX Motherboard on PCPerspective.
ASUS Rampage III Extreme Black Edition X58 LGA1366 ATX on FutureLooks.
Gigabyte G1.Assassin 2 Motherboard on TBreak.
Intel DX79SI Motherboard on HWSecrets.
Intel Core i7 3960X Extreme Edition On Linux on Phoronix.
Sapphire Pure Black 990FX Mobo and Radeon 6450 FleX Edition on HWHeaven.
ASRock A75M-ITX FM1 Mini-ITX Motherboard on FutureLooks.
ECS X79R-AX Intel LGA 2011 on TechPowerUp.
Input Etc:
Star Wars: The Old Republic Gaming Peripherals by Razer on HWHeaven.
SteelSeries Sensei Laser Mouse on APHNetworks.
Razer Imperator Battlefield 3 Edition Gaming Mouse on RBMods.
ROCCAT Kova [+] Gaming Mouse on OCClub.
Power Supply:
NZXT HALE82 850W Power Supply on RWLabs.
PC Power & Cooling Silencer Mk III 600W on Tweaktown.
Enermax MaxRevo 1350W Fully Modular on eTeknix.
Cooling:
NZXT Havik 140 Cooler on Tweaknews.
Funky Kit Review: Noctua NF-F12 PWM 120mm Fan on FunkyKit.
Antec Kuhler 620 water cooling kit on XSReviews.
Akasa Venom Voodoo HSF on TechReaction.
Alpenföhn Himalaya CPU Cooler on Vortez.
Thermalright Macho CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Corsair Hydro H80 and H100 CPU coolers on PureOC.
Software:
Star Wars: The Old Republic Preview (PC) on HWHeaven.
Star Wars: The Old Republic First Look (Preview) on YouGamers.
World of Tanks NVIDIA 3D Vision Game on BenchmarkReviews.
Misc:
TRENDnet TEW-691GR 450Mbps Wireless N Gigabit Router on RWLabs.
G.Skill RipjawsZ PC3-19200 16GB Kit memory on Tweaktown.
Monday Afternoon
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Monday, 12-December-2011 18:02:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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There's a JBHifi Voucher Facebook Hoax doing the rounds. If you take a laissez-faire attitude to your privacy and clicked on the event, you’ll probably need to resecure your Facebook account, before the scammers can harvest too much information. Scamwatch has a couple of links on how to do that, as well as some good ideas to keep in mind the next time you think a major corporation is going to give you lots of stuff for nothing on social networks.
Lemming sent in some robot combat footage from the recent Robot Wars Nationals. For those who missed it, here are the videos of the fights on the weekend. More will be added as they are uploaded.
For something a little different, here's some amazing library buildings from around the world. Doesn't seem to have that big curved wall of books I've seen in other photos, though. We’ve tried to balance our list between architecturally interesting libraries and libraries with interesting collections, but most of these libraries are actually fascinating in both respects. We’d love to spend a day in any of these libraries, and we hope you’ll agree.
There's a 12 Days of Xmas Folding Challenge going on in the Team OCAU forum. Hopefully this months prizes (whilst slightly different in nature) will address some of our issues and spread the Christmas cheer amongst the die hard folding summer sadists.
Lastly, Pugs sent in this photo. It's nice to see the washing machine modding community have embraced windows and neons at last!
click to enlarge
G19 Screen Guide
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Sunday, 11-December-2011 14:22:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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I just noticed this detailed guide from d-dave-b in the forums, showing some of the amazing things you can do with the little screen on Logitech's G19 keyboard:
Click for the guide!
Sunday Afternoon
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Sunday, 11-December-2011 14:07:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Telstra seem to have exposed customer data by opening an internal website to the internet. Detailed information about Telstra's customer accounts - including usernames and passwords - has been found to be sitting on the open web for anyone to access via a Google search. Discussion here.
Apple's appeal in the Australian High Court to have Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 blocked in Australia has been rejected, clearing the way for sales by Xmas. Samsung Electronics Australia is pleased with today’s judgment by the High Court of Australia to deny Apple’s request to appeal the decision of the Full Court. The Full Court of Australia decision on November 30 clearly affirmed our view that Apple’s claims lack merit and that an injunction should not have been imposed on the GALAXY Tab 10.1.
In fact, Apple are not doing well at all on the legal front, with Motorola seemingly scoring a Europe-wide sales ban on iOS devices. Motorola Mobility has won its first of two patent-infringement cases against Apple, both of which were filed back in April. This grants them an injunction against all of the products which infringe. No big deal, that only includes the iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, the original iPad 3G and iPad 2 3G. Oh damn. More here, thanks NPSF3000.
That kinda stuff makes me wish gadget makers could just play nice and let us get on with our geekery, but here's a more positive story: HP are making webOS open source. HP plans to continue to be active in the development and support of webOS. By combining the innovative webOS platform with the development power of the open source community, there is the opportunity to significantly improve applications and web services for the next generation of devices.
CN sends word that NASA is missing space samples - hundreds of them. In a report issued by the agency's inspector general on Thursday, NASA concedes that more than 500 pieces of moon rocks, meteorites, comet chunks and other space material were stolen or have been missing since 1970. That includes 218 moon samples that were stolen and later returned and about two dozen moon rocks and chunks of lunar soil that were reported lost last year.
Google have a new Google Currents service, which seems to be USA only at the moment. We’ve worked with more than 150 publishing partners to offer full-length articles from more than 180 editions including CNET, AllThingsD, Forbes, Saveur, PBS, Huffington Post, Fast Company and more. Content is optimized for smartphones and tablets, allowing you to intuitively navigate between words, pictures and video on large and small screens alike, even if you’re offline.
Tech Report lament the current state of TV. Or... you can hop on your favorite BiTorrent tracker and download high-definition, commercial-free rips of any TV show on the planet at most an hour after it airs. Many of the legit offerings are doing things almost right, but the pirates still provide a better service, hands down. It's not even funny. We all know what the problem is and what needs to be done, so why haven't the big networks gotten the message yet?
Tabris spotted this diagram showing the recent Mythbusters cannonball mishap and how far it went.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
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Sunday, 11-December-2011 13:41:28 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Audio Visual:
StarTech.com DisplayPort to VGA Converter on Tech-Reviews.
Samsung PN59D8000 59 Inch 3D Plasma TV on Tweaknews.
Hanns.G HL231 Monitor on Tech-Reviews.
Motherboard & CPU:
Biostar TA990FXE on XbitLabs.
Zotac A75-ITX WiFi on Bjorn3D.
Zotac A75-ITX WiFi on OCClub.
Video Cards:
Sapphire HD6670 on TechReaction.
Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 2GB Dual Fan on NeoSeeker.
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III 1G/OC on LegitReviews.
Sapphire Vapor-X HD 6850 1GB GDDR5 on iXBTLabs.
Input Etc:
Thrustmaster Ferrari F430 Force Feedback Racing Wheel on eTeknix.
QNAP TurboNAS TS-419P II NAS Server on RWLabs.
Storage:
Corsair Force GT Series 240 GB and Corsair Force 3 Series 240 GB on XbitLabs.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on BigBruin.
Corsair Performance Pro 256GB SSD on Guru3D.
G-Technology G-DRIVE Mobile HDD on Tweaktown.
Silicon Power Velox V30 60 GB SSD on TechPowerUp.
Synology DS212 NAS on Tech-Reviews.
Power Supply:
Thermaltake Tough Power Grand TPG-1200M on FutureLooks.
Thortech Thunderbolt Plus 1200W on Vortez.
Cases:
ATX System Cases from Ascot, InWin and Scythe on XbitLabs.
Xigmatek Midgard II on TechPowerUp.
NZXT Tempest 410 Elite on PureOC.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Idolian TouchTab10 10" Android Tablet on TestFreaks.
Cyberpower LAN Party EVO Commander System on HWHeaven.
Dell XPS 14z Notebook on HotHardware.
EUROCOM Panther 3.0 Laptop on HWHeaven.
Dell Inspiron 14z Notebook Review: A Portable Workhorse on PCPerspective.
Misc:
Samsung ML-2540 Monochrome Laser Printer on OCOnline.
G.Skill RipjawsZ PC3-14900 16GB Kit memory on Tweaktown.
ProlimaTech Panther CPU Cooler with Nano Aluminum Thermal Compound on TechWareLabs.
Hackerspace and Robot Wars
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Saturday, 10-December-2011 02:31:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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You know when words like "hackerspace" and "robotic sports" get thrown around, geeks are having way too much fun. Lemming sends word that this weekend, Hackerspace Brisbane are having open days and hosting the Robot Wars Australian Nationals.
Come watch as combat robots from all over Australia face off in a death match, until a single triumphant robot is left! Hackerspace Brisbane will also be open both days for members and visitors alike. We will have a blacksmith on site on the Saturday working out the back of the hackerspace, definitely worth a look.
It's in Fortitude Valley from 10am today and tomorrow, with detailed directions here.
Thanks to ikt and HyRax1 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
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Friday, 9-December-2011 02:32:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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The Federal Government has released an emergency phone app. The DisasterWatch app can be downloaded for free and contains the latest public information via a direct feed from emergency response teams in each state and territory. Attorney-General Robert McClelland says the tool is designed to reduce unnecessary calls to the triple-0 network.
NASA's next-generation telescope is back on track, they say. In February, NASA inspector general Paul Martin told lawmakers that the telescope had gone way over its initial budget of $3.5 billion and was likely to come in at around $6.5 billion. NASA has also pushed back its scheduled launch -- initially set for 2013 -- numerous times. It is now set for October 2018. Speaking of which, CN sent in these best space photos of 2011 on NationalGeographic.
Khalil spotted a smartphone watch. There's a new version of the hacker-friendly inPulse Smartwatch, a wrist-computer that pairs with (most) BlackBerry and (some) Android phones. This time around, you'll find beefier construction and any number of watchapps that include different watch faces and a presenter app that lets you control PowerPoint presentations as you pretend you're Bob from ReBoot.
I'm not entirely sure of the details, but there's some kind of mass artwork installation on Cockatoo Island. The OUTPOST PROJECT is all set to transform the gritty industrial spaces of Cockatoo Island into an explosion of urban art. An impossible outcome, without the talent, commitment and energy of more than 150 artists, all willing to come on a journey with curators Sydney Harbour Federation Trust and aMBUSH Gallery, in a first for the Southern Hemisphere. Seems to end on 11th December.
Timbot spotted this future-predicting supercomputer. The Living Earth Simulator is funded by the European Union and its costs rise up to 900 million pounds. In theory, the program could be able to predict a long range of events, including the spread of disease, financial crisis and other negative or favorable incidents. If proven accurate, LES could replace the traditional economic models that are used in the present, making it easier to predict economic events.
Koopz sends word that Playclaw is free for today only. Seems to be a non-crippled FRAPS type thing. This proggy is awesome for making vids / taking screenies / monitoring vid card and CPU temps / loads while in game.
HWSecrets continue their thermal compound roundup. We added five new thermal compounds to our previous roundup, for a total of 55 different thermal compounds from major brands. We also tried another alternative thermal compound: Philadelphia Cream Cheese. I bet that smelled lovely.
A few people sent in this bizarre story about the Red Cross considering if gamers could be war criminals. Eh? A spokesperson for ICRC Australia told news.com.au the workshop looked at how games “represented International Humanitarian Law”, which regulates the legal conduct of warfare. "The aim for the ICRC is that they send the right signals to their hundreds of millions of players by rewarding respect for IHL and penalising violations," the spokesperson said.
SiliconAngel noticed CNET bundling malware with downloads, enraging Fyodor, author of nmap. C|Net's Download.Com site has started wrapping their Nmap downloads (as well as other free software like VLC) in a trojan installer which does things like installing a sketchy "StartNow" toolbar, changing the user's default search engine to Microsoft Bing, and changing their home page to Microsoft's MSN. More info here.
Thursday Night Reviews
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Thursday, 8-December-2011 23:37:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Cooling:
NZXT Havik vs Noctua NH-D14 CPU coolers on OC3D.
Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo CPU cooler on OC3D.
Maingear EPIC 180 Liquid CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo on OCClub.
Video Cards:
MSI GTX560 Ti 448 'Power Edition' on Vortez.
Sapphire HD6870 on Bjorn3D.
Memory:
Crucial Ballistix 6GB DDR3 2133 MHz RAM Triple Channel Kit on TechWareLabs.
GeIL Enhance CORSA 1600MHz CL9 8GB DDR3 on Vortez.
GeIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 1600MHz 8GB Memory Kit on eTeknix.
GeIL Enhance Corsa DDR3 and Evo Corsa DDR3 Memory Kits on HWHeaven.
Patriot Division 4 DDR3-1600 Quad Channel Memory on NeoSeeker.
Portable & Prebuilt:
LG Nitro HD Android phone on TechSpot.
Lenovo's ThinkPad Tablet: An Android Business Slate on HotHardware.
Viako Mini Letter ML55 WIFI PC on MadShrimps.
Apple MacBook Air 13-inch (2011) on Tech-Reviews.
Sony VAIO VPC-YB35BX/B notebook on TechReviewSource.
Audio Visual:
SteelSeries Gaming Headsets Overview Dec 2011 on HWHeaven.
Shure SRH550DJ headphones on TechReviewSource.
Corsair Vengeance 1500 Gaming Headset on EverythingUSB.
V-Moda True Blood REVAMP In-Ear Noise Isolating Headphones on TestFreaks.
Sennheiser HD 239 Stereo Headphones on TBreak.
Nikon Coolpix P7100 on TechReviewSource.
Motherboard & CPU:
Intel DX79SI (Intel X79) Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASUS Rampage IV Formula (BF 3 Edition) on TBreak.
ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe Z68 LGA 1155 Motherboard on BigBruin.
Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard on eTeknix.
Gigabyte X79 UD7 on Guru3D.
Cases:
BitFenix Outlaw Mid-Tower on Futurelooks.
Thermaltake Spacecraft VF-I on RWLabs.
Streacom FC5 OD & Streacom ST-150WP on TechPowerUp.
Thermaltake Commander MS-I USB 3.0 on PureOC.
Rosewill Blackhawk Ultra on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master Storm Trooper Full Tower on LegitReviews.
Cooler Master Storm Trooper on TechSpot.
Storage:
Patriot LX Series SDXC 64GB Flash Memory on APHNetworks.
Samsung 830 SATA III 6Gbps 128GB SSD on XSReviews.
OCZ Octane 512GB Indilinx SSD on LegitReviews.
SilverStone RVS02 SATA Enclosure on Phoronix.
Silicon Power Diamond D05 750GB USB 3.0 on TechPowerUp.
IOCELL NetDISK 351UNE Network Storage Device on BenchmarkReviews.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX USB 3.0 64GB on PureOC.
OCZ RevoDrive 3 PCI-Express SSD on OCIA.
Power Supply:
Huntkey X7 900W on HWSecrets.
XFX ProSeries 1000W on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake Dr Power II PSU Tester on NinjaLane.
Thermaltake Dr. Power II Power Supply Tester on TestFreaks.
Input Etc:
Steelseries Diablo III Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit.
Roccat Kova[+] Optical USB Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Ozone Strike Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on OCClub.
ROCCAT Kova+ Max Performance Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
Misc:
Griffin HELO TC iPhone-controlled RC helicopter on TestFreaks.
SteelSeries Desmo Digital Eyewear anti-eyestrain glasses on BenchmarkReviews.
Tribes:Ascend Closed Beta Key Giveaway
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Thursday, 8-December-2011 12:13:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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If you're a Tribes fan, I have some good news for you. To celebrate Tribes:Ascend being chosen as an eSport Promotional Title by the North American Star League, they're giving away 100 keys for the closed beta to OCAU members!
Tribes: Ascend is a new game within the lauded sci-fi shooter franchise Tribes. The original game, Starsiege: Tribes, was one of the first multiplayer only online games and has been cited as a grassroots early influence on eSports and shoutcasting. Building upon this legacy, the new Tribes: Ascend has been designed from the ground up with competitive eSports in mind, making it an ideal addition to the NASL.
If you want a key, be one of the first 100 people to click the screenshot and fill in your details.
Click for your key!
Discussion of Tribes:Ascend is ongoing in this thread.
Update: Keys seem to be all gone now!
Scorptec NVIDIA Demo
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Thursday, 8-December-2011 03:20:59 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Just got an interesting email from OCAU Major Sponsor Scorptec. Tomorrow (Friday) at their South Melbourne store (205 Clarendon St) they're having an NVIDIA demonstration day with some high-end hardware running some current games in 3D Vision. There's some giveaways and things too, so might be worth checking out if you're in Melbourne - 10:30 am to 2pm tomorrow.
Quake Epsilon guide from metamorphosis
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Wednesday, 7-December-2011 22:29:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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It's 15 years since Quake came out, but there's still a lot of modding and tweaking going on. This is thanks largely to the shareware version being freely distributable, and the full version being only a few bucks on Steam. OCAU forum-goer metamorphosis has put together a guide and assembled some download links to help you get it looking its best - and it looks amazing!
Click for the guide!
Wednesday Evening
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Wednesday, 7-December-2011 20:23:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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A Facebook privacy flaw has been exploited, with Mark Zuckerberg's private photos exposed to demonstrate the flaw, thanks Rezin. After reporting a public profile picture as inappropriate because of “nudity or pornography”, intruders were offered the chance to report more photographs posted by the same user. Facebook then presented them with a thumbnail gallery of private images which could be enlarged by making a simple change in the browser address bar and downloaded.
Also feeling a little sheepish are the Mythbusters, after a cannonball left the testing area and flew through a nearby neighbourhood. There, the 6-inch projectile bounced in front of a home on quiet Cassata Place, ripped through the front door, raced up the stairs and blasted through a bedroom, where a man, woman and child slept through it all - only awakening because of plaster dust. The ball wasn't done bouncing.
Takai pointed out that Google's calculator can now display graphs, like this one. More info here. The Google graph drawing feature is a pretty powerful tool that supports simple numbers and exponents but functions such as sine and cosine as well. It won't be enough to do your homework for you, but it’s a good control feature and certainly a nifty free tool for math in higher education as well.
Apple have apparently lost the right to call an iPad an iPad in China, thanks TheWedgie. The court agreed, ruling that the Shenzhen-based company holds the rights to the iPad trademark in the Chinese market, the Daily reported. Proview is seeking $1 billion-plus compensation from Apple for copyright infringement.
If you have an Android phone, there seem to be some very cheap apps today. Something interesting is going on in the Android Market this morning. A bunch of our favorite apps are suddenly going for a dime, with no real rhyme or reason for the discount. @dirkyd3rlc and @Pat_Huey on Twitter alerted us to SwiftKey and Minecraft on sale for 10 cents, and we've found others.
Anandtech looked into why Ivy Bridge is still quad-core. A couple days ago, we published our Ivy Bridge Desktop Lineup Overview in which we mentioned that Ivy Bridge will remain a quad-core solution. There are dozens of forum posts with people asking why there's no hex-core Ivy Bridge, so now seems like a good time to address the question.
Don your tinfoil hats, because the US Government has a new eavesdropping machine. t's likely Anderson is not alone in her concerns that the government may be monitoring what Americans say, write, and read. And now there may be even more to worry about: a newly revealed security research project called PRODIGAL -- the Proactive Discovery of Insider Threats Using Graph Analysis and Learning -- which has been built to scan IMs, texts and emails . . . and can read approximately a quarter billion of them a day.
Arctic have a survey and giveaway. The respondents who successfully complete and submit the questionnaire by 18.12.2011. would have a chance to win a Gaming Headset P531. All the information we collect will be used only for the purposes of research and will not be released to anyone else.
Interesting Forum Threads
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Wednesday, 7-December-2011 00:19:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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In case you missed them, OCAU has official twitter and facebook pages. The twitter feed is much like an RSS feed and is updated every time we post news. The Facebook page is updated when we have something other than the usual news and reviews posts. Anyway, here's a few interesting threads from the forums:
Reprap open source 3D printer in Electronics & Electrics.
Jaycar PCB Etching Kit in Electronics & Electrics.
Modifying AMP type solder connectors for high vibration environments in Electronics & Electrics.
New Eizo Monitor $36,000 in Video Cards & Monitors.
Games developer tells "bitching" PC Users where to go in PC Games.
'Steadier State' - a free Steady State for Windows 7 in Business & Enterprise Computing.
How do you deal with file duplication (windows env) in Business & Enterprise Computing.
AMD starts hiring world class SoC engineers in AMD Hardware.
Sparkleshare (Like dropbox except you run the server) in Other Operating Systems.
De-lidding in AMD Hardware.
Best Games to hunt down and re-aquire. - Pre-Loved Classics in Retro & Arcade.
Won the Dark Souls Coffin Comp!! in Game Consoles.
Nokia Windows Phone Lumia 800 & 710 Discussion in Mobile Phones.
Benton, Benton....BENTON!!! in Pets & Animals.
New indie aussie metal album - free download in Musicians.
$3 million smash: supercars caught in mass pile-up in Motoring.
I found a healthy replacement for rice in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Harry Jenkins resigns as speaker in Politics & Policies.
Scrapping the bike helmet law in Current Events.
Man arrested at Large Hadron Collider claims he's from the future in The Pub.
Deleting social media memberships, have you done it? in The Pub.
Tuesday Evening
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Tuesday, 6-December-2011 18:35:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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An Australian man has hacked Siri to automate his home. Mr Schappi says his hack could allow users to do simple tasks such as turn their air conditioning on or off, control their home entertainment or alarm system and unlock their front door or car. But the hack may not last long, with Mr Schappi predicting Apple would want to close the hole he exploited. Discussion here.
VooDoo spotted this cautionary tale about a car going boom. i had an acetylene bottle in my truck, the valve was bumped so slightly and over night the truck filled with the gas. i noticed the smell, and opened the doors to air out the truck. i drove the truck out of the garage to get some more air movement. i went to roll the pass side window down and as soon as i touched the power windows. BAM. with me in the truck.
NASA's Voyager 2 has switched to backup thrusters to save power, extending its journey by another decade. Voyager 2 is currently located about 9 billion miles (14 billion kilometers) from Earth in the heliosheath -- the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind, which streams out from the sun, is slowed by the pressure of interstellar gas.
Closer to home, FOTW sent in this video of Jet-man Yves Rossy flying with two jets over the Alps. His custom-built jet suit weighs 54kg and can travel at speeds in excess of 125mph. Rossy used to fly fighter jets for the Swiss air force and in 2006 became the first and only man in the history of aviation to fly with a jet-propelled wing.
TheSSDReview played with SSD caching software with 7 drives. Our review today is, not only a look at NVELO Dataplex SSD caching software, but also, a round up of just about every mSATA SSD available today. It strikes to the heart of those of us who want performance, capacity and value in our desktop systems and notebooks and same very interesting results transpire.
FutureLooks checked out SSD RAID0 performance using two Kingston HyperX 120GB drives. In our SATA3 SSD round up, we showed you how just one of the sweet looking Kingston HyperX 120GB SSDs produced some impressive data transfer numbers that will more than satisfy the largest majority of users. However, some pro-users move a lot of data and multitask. Another SSD could help if configured in RAID. We took two HyperX 120GB SSDs and attached them in a RAID 0 configuration using a GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD5 motherboard via the native Intel SATA3 ports.
PC Perspective checked out some hybrid drives. The result of this roundup is that due to the various hardware configurations each Hybrid solution is created for, there is no clear winner. The RevoDrive Hybrid dominates the field, but can only be installed into a desktop class machine. The Seagate Momentus XT provides the simplest drop-in high-capacity performance for laptops containing a single 2.5" HDD bay. Finally, Intel's Rapid Response Technology present on Z68 desktops and recent 68 series mobile chipsets, gives a flexible option that works very well.
Apple's bid to block the Samsung Galaxy in the USA has been denied. As the legal drama between Apple and Samsung drags on around the world, US District Court Judge has rejected Apple's request to block the sales of Galaxy devices. Reuters reports the ruling came out late Friday, with the judge deciding "It is not clear that an injunction on Samsung's accused devices would prevent Apple from being irreparably harmed,".
Tuesday Midday Reviews
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Tuesday, 6-December-2011 12:22:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Motherboard & CPU:
MSI X79A-GD65 (8D) on HWSecrets.
ASUS Sabertooth X79 (Intel X79) on Tweaktown.
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme P67 LGA1155 ATX on Futurelooks.
Storage:
Seagate 750GB Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid Drive on PCStats.
Samsung 830 SATA3 SSD 256GB on OC3D.
OCZ Octane 512GB SSD on Guru3D.
SilverStone SST-EC03 USB 3.0 PCI-E Card on BenchmarkReviews.
Audio Visual:
Patriot Javelin S4 Media Server on XbitLabs.
Optoma HD33 3D Projector on TechWareLabs.
Sitecom MD-272 HDD TV Media Player 2TB on MadShrimps.
Ozone Onda 3HX Gaming Headset on RBMods.
Cooling:
Zalman CNPS12X Super Cooler on XbitLabs.
Phanteks PH-TC14PE Super-Cooler on XbitLabs.
Jou Jye BW-1238B-PWM High Power 120mm Fan on Funkykit.
SilenX EFX-12-12 120mm Fan on Bjorn3D.
Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU cooler on OCClub.
Power Supply:
ZAGG ZAGGSparq 2.0 Portable Battery on RWLabs.
OCZ ZT Series 650W on APHNetworks.
Memory:
GeIL EVO CORSA PC3-19200 16GB Kit on Tweaktown.
Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 Low Voltage 1600MHz on LegitReviews.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Amazon Kindle Fire: Insight and How Not To Get Burned on HotHardware.
Gateway ID47H07u on TechReviewSource.
Sony Ericsson Xperia Pro on TBreak.
Misc:
Gigabyte Geforce GTX580 Super OverClock video card on FunkyKit.
Thermaltake Overseer RX-I case on TechPowerUp.
Forum Projects
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Sunday, 4-December-2011 21:11:48 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Here's some reviews and projects from people in the forums:
OCAU recently passed the one million threads mark. While that thread itself is, err, not particularly prestigious, it's a pretty amazing milestone. :)
There's been a lot of chatter in the last few days about AMD possibly exiting the x86 market, effectively giving up their long battle with Intel, but I've held off reporting it here because I can't find anything solid about it. So, I'll simply link this thread where the ideas are being discussed - but bear in mind, it seems to just be rumour and speculation at the moment. Actually, it seems to be largely based on comments in this interview, which are not all that dramatic.
Also burning up the blogs is the issue of Carrier IQ, which suggests all Android phones are secretly recording and reporting too much information about their owners, thanks Draxonic. If you have any decently modern Android phone, it’s possible that everything you do is being recorded by hidden software lurking inside. It even circumvents web encryption and grabs everything — including your passwords and Google queries. More here.
Telstra meanwhile opened Androidland in Melbourne. Designed by Telstra in collaboration with Google and handset makers Samsung, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG, Androidland features displays and games that will help shoppers learn about Android phones and tablets. More here and discussion here.
IntelInside sent in this article suggesting computer experts think normal users are dumb, essentially. Pretty much been that way forever, hasn't it? :) But the point is, things should be designed more intuitively and with less reliance on people learning how to use them over time. The vast majority of users, don't know as much, don't care as much either, and this is why they don't learn as much, because to the normal person getting on with their life, that's more important than spending hours learning about computer features.
The MSDN blog has shown that Windows 8 will support very large hard drives. To start you out with a little bit of context, we will define “very large capacity” disk drives as sizes > 2.2TB (per disk drive). The current architecture in Windows has some limits that makes these drives somewhat tricky to deal with in some scenarios.
From Ashley: Britain's GCHQ - responsible for providing the country's signals intelligence - are running an online test as the first round in a recruitment drive. I doubt anyone without British citizenship would be ultimately successful in landing a job but it should pose a fun challenge for some people nonetheless.
I don't normally link funny videos as news, but this one cracked me up, so what the heck. :)
Sunday Evening Reviews
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Sunday, 4-December-2011 19:28:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Video Cards:
HIS 6770 IceQ X Turbo 1GB GDDR5, HIS 6750 Fan 1GB GDDR5 Graphics Cards on iXBTLabs.
MSI GTX560Ti 448 - Overclock Part 2 on OC3D.
MSI GTX 560 Ti-448 1280MB Twin Frozr III Power Edition Overclocked on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
Intel X79 Sandy Bridge-E Motherboards Roundup on TBreak.
Gigabyte X79-UD3 Motherboard on HWSecrets.
ECS A990FXM-A Socket AM3+ on TechPowerUp.
ASRock Z68 Extreme 7 Gen 3 LGA 1155 Motherboard on PCPerspective.
BIOSTAR TA990FXE AMD 990FX Motherboard on LegitReviews.
ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe Motherboard on OCIA.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Toshiba Portege Z830 Ultrabook on TheSSDReview.
Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Tegra 3 Unleashed on HotHardware.
HP TouchSmart 9300 Elite prebuilt PC on TechReviewSource.
Asus Zenbook UX31 Laptop on HWLook.
ASUS U36SD-XA1 Notebook on PCPerspective.
HTC EVO 3D Android Smartphone on HWHeaven.
Cases:
Lian Li PC-TU200 on TechWareLabs.
Bitfenix Merc Alpha on TechReaction.
CaseLabs MAGNUM M8 on TechPowerUp.
BitFenix Outlaw on NeoSeeker.
Raidmax Blade on NinjaLane.
NZXT Phantom 410 on Vortez.
BitFenix Outlaw on Pro-Clockers.
Enermax Fulmo GT on HWSecrets.
NZXT Phantom 410 on TechPowerUp.
Cooling:
Thermaltake Frio OCK Universal CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.
Antec Kuhler H20 920 water cooling kit on XSReviews.
Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Alpenföhn K2 CPU Cooler on Vortez.
Spire Gemini Rev. 2 CPU cooler on OCClub.
Prolimatech Lynx CPU Cooler on Pro-Clockers.
Jou Jye BW-1225P-LV Low Voltage 120mm Fan on FunkyKit.
Storage:
OCZ Octane 512GB solid-state drive on TechReport.
Synology DiskStation DS212j and DS212+ on LegionHW.
QNAP TS-419P II NAS Network Storage Server on BenchmarkReviews.
OCZ RevoDrive 3 X2 240GB on OCClub.
ADATA N005 Pro USB 64GB flash drive on Guru3D.
SilverStone Raven RVS02 External USB 3.0 HDD / SSD Enclosure on LegitReviews.
Synology DiskStation DS212j NAS Server on RWLabs.
Patriot Pyro SE 120GB Solid State Drive on Tweaktown.
Power Supply:
PC Power & Cooling Silencer MK III 400W on TechPowerUp.
Seasonic 1000W Platinum on Guru3D.
bequiet! Straight Power E9 CM 680W on HWSecrets.
Input Etc:
Logitech K400 wireless keyboard on TechAU.
CM Storm Xornet 2000 DPI Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
Tt eSPORTS Meka Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on TechWareLabs.
Tt eSPORTS MEKA G Unit Keyboard on Vortez.
Razer Onza Battlefield 3 Edition gaming controller on RBMods.
Roccat Isku Keyboard on OC3D.
ROCCAT ALUMIC Gaming Mousepad on TechWareLabs.
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition Mechanical Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Audio Visual:
Tt eSPORTS Isurus In-Ear Gaming Headset on XSReviews.
Steelseries Diablo 3 Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
Arctic Sound P321 USB Headset on OCOnline.
TRITTON AX Pro True 5.1 Surround Headset on RWLabs.
Steelseries Specturm 7XB Wireless Headset on TBreak.
Misc:
Kingston HyperX Genesis Quad Channel 2400MHz DDR3 memory on HWHeaven.
Serious Sam 3 BFE (PC) Game on HWHeaven.
Zillions of OCAU Tshirt orders to process.. brain melty. Today's the last day to get your order in, remember. In the meantime, thanks to mpot and axeman this week!
     
     
     
     
And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.
Thursday Morning
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Thursday, 1-December-2011 03:12:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
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Don't forget, Tshirt orders close tomorrow. I understand payments take a little while to clear but make sure you get your order email in!
There's a proposal for a "3-strikes" system for pirates in Australia. Under a proposal released by telco industry body the Communications Alliance, users will receive an "education notice" if they are suspected of pirating content like movies. If they persist, they will be issued with up to three warning notices within a 12-month period. If a user continues to pirate content after that, they would then face the prospect of having their details passed on to copyright holders, allowing them to institute legal action. Discussion continues in this thread.
Robert Llewellyn has blogged from the set of Red Dwarf, where filming of Season 10 is underway! We are making 6 new episodes to go out on Dave in 2012. It’s very likely, if not definite, they will also be shown in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand too. All the original cast are appearing, Craig, Chris Danny and myself as Lister, Rimmer, Cat and Kryten.
There's an Electric Vehicle Trial happening soon in Victoria. Households selected for the trial will be provided with a car and charging infrastructure. You will have to pay for your own electricity, which will be cheaper than filling up with petrol. You will also need to provide information about where, when and how you drive the car, and what you think about it.
MoJoMaN sent word that WiFi might fry your sperm. In a report in the venerable medical journal Fertility and Sterility, Argentinian scientists describe how they got semen samples from 29 healthy men, placed a few drops under a laptop connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi and then hit download. Four hours later, the semen was, eh, well-done.
Here's some amazing photos from inside an Amazon.com facility. These pictures are from Swansea, Wales. The Amazon Swansea fulfillment center is one of the largest Amazon warehouses in the world.
Rezin spotted that Internode have footage from the recent Gorgeous Festival. Kicking off, we thought we'd show you some exclusive footage from the Gorgeous Festival, held in McLaren Vale, South Australia. Aussie rock legends, Icehouse, supported by Josh Pyke and Emma Louise were recorded live on the 26th of November event, exclusively for Internode customers.
Battlefield 3 has been banned in Iran. Not too surprising, given much of it is set in Iran. This is one occasion where the realism depicted in video games has caused backlash: Various locations within Tehran are represented with alarming accuracy – including an assortment of industrial and urban settings as well as military spots. One scene is set within the city’s iconic Grand Bazaar.
Here's a quite beautiful video shot using Google Maps, thanks Andypoo. Google Street View stop motion animation short made as a personal project by director Tom Jenkins. Story: A lonely desk toy longs for escape from the dark confines of the office, so he takes a cross country road trip to the Pacific Coast in the only way he can – using a toy car and Google Maps Street View.
Issue #2 of Hardware Leaks is available for viewing now, with discussion in this thread.
GIGABYTE put on an overclocking workshop in Brisbane recently, and here's a video of the shenanigans.
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