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December 2013
Sunday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 29-December-2013  23:20:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cooling:
Cooler Master JetFlo on Vortez.
Noctua NH-U14S 140mm Tower CPU Cooler on BenchmarkReviews.

Video Cards:
SAPPHIRE Radeon R9 290X Tri-X benchmarked at 4K on Tweaktown.
MSI Radeon R9 270 2GB Gaming OC on Tweaktown.

Audio Visual:
BitFenix Flo PC Gaming Headset on eTeknix.
Creative Sound Blaster AXX 200 on CustomPCReview.
Rollei S-50 Wi-Fi Nitro Circus Live Limited Edition Action Camera on NikKTech.
Headset Roundup December 2013 on HWHeaven.
Kitsound Hive Bluetooth Speaker on eTeknix.
Samsung HS3000 Clip-On Bluetooth Headset on eTeknix.

Cases:
EVGA Hadron Air Mini ITX Case on PCPerspective.
NZXT H630 Silent Ultra Tower Gaming Chassis on Futurelooks.

Power Supply:
be quiet! Power Zone 850-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze on Tweaktown.
Seasonic S12G Series 750W on PCPerspective.
XTPower MP-23000A 23000mAh External Power Supply Battery Pack on NikKTech.
iWalk Extreme 10,000 Duo Mobile Battery on Tweaktown.
Cougar MX500 on LanOC.
Lepa G Series 850W on PureOC.
Cooler Master V700 700-Watt 80 PLUS Gold on Tweaktown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 on TechSpot.
LG Nexus 5 on OCaholic.

Input Etc:
SteelSeries Rival mouse on LanOC.
Thermaltake Ttesports MEKA G-Unit Illuminated Keyboard on TechWareLabs.
SteelSeries Rival Optical Mouse on HWHeaven.
Gigabyte Uranium game mouse on Guru3D.

Storage:
Seagate 600 480 GB vs. Kingston HyperX 3K 480 GB SSD on HWSecrets.
WD Black² Dual-Drive 120GB SSD + 1TB HDD Hybrid on LegitReviews.
ADATA Premier Pro 32GB UHS-1 microSDHC Memory Card on eTeknix.
Kingston DataTraveler Vault Privacy Anti-Virus Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
Vantec SATA/IDE to USB 3.0 Adapter on LegitReviews.
Silicon Power Armor Series A30 USB 3.0 Portable HDD on MadShrimps.
Strontium Nitro 64GB microSDXC Memory Card on Tweaktown.
ADATA DashDrive Elite SE720 External Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
Kingston DataTraveler 6000 FIPS Level 3 Encrypted Flash Drive on Tweaktown.

Misc:
EVGA GTX 780 Ti Classified Motherboard on HWAsylum.



Misc Pics (8 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 27-December-2013  14:18:09 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to Matt and andyroo54 this week!








Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! (5 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 24-December-2013  16:16:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Wow, it's Christmas Eve already. Things will quieten down on the news page and elsewhere on OCAU over the next few days as usual. I'll be spending time with family and friends and generally chilling out, and I hope you do the same. 2013 has had some ups and downs like any year, but I'm genuinely grateful to be part of the community of OCAU, and I'm amazed at what it's become - all thanks to the readers, members and admins. Next year will be OCAU's 15th year! I hope you have a great Xmas and a happy and safe New Year.


Tuesday Afternoon (3 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 24-December-2013  16:04:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Alan Turing has received his royal pardon, 61 years after his death. He was the father of modern computing whose work on the Enigma code at Bletchley Park is said to have shortened the Second World War. But he was also gay and in those less enlightened times was chemically castrated by an ungrateful nation after being convicted of “gross indecency” with a man in 1952. Now, nearly 60 years after his suicide from cyanide poisoning at the age of 41, Alan Turing has been officially pardoned by the Queen under the little-known Royal Prerogative of Mercy. More here. It's worth noting that he received an apology from the PM in 2009.

The MPAA insisted you wouldn't download a car, but Porsche disagree, thanks Owen. Sadly, in the immortal words of Patsy, it's only a model. The car company is offering 3D blueprints for its Cayman S model, which can be downloaded for free through Porsche’s official site. This allows anyone to print a copy of the car in real size or as a miniature.

Meanwhile a Lego Car has arrived in Melbourne. What happens if you take 500,000 pieces of Lego and 256 pistons, then hand them over to Steve Sammartino and Raul Oaida? This fully functioning, life-size, air-powered Lego car is what. With four orbital engines powering the massive lump of plastic bricks, the vehicle can hit speeds of up to 20mph.

Wired have a detailed article on the case against Kim Dotcom. In a 191-page "Summary of Evidence," government lawyers marshal Skype chats, financial data, and dozens of e-mails to make their case that Megaupload was a criminal network designed from the start to distribute copyrighted material. It discusses the payments made to heavy uploaders to encourage them to drive traffic to the files of movies and TV shows they hid online.

Chuck Norris, or at least, a CGI rendering of him, is hitting back with a Christmas Split in response to the earlier Van Damme one.

Bank of America reckon this Bitcoin thing could be a big deal. Bank of America has issued a research report suggesting that the crypto-currency Bitcoin could become “a major means of payment for e-commerce” on its way to emerging as “a serious competitor to traditional money transfer providers.”

Many Bitcoins are finding their way to the maker of some ransomware called CryptoLocker. Dell SecureWorks estimates that CryptoLocker has infected 250,000 victims. The average payout is $300 each, and millions in laundered Bitcoin have been tracked and traced to the ransomware's money runners. Spreading like wildfire from offices to homes, it arrives in email attachments (or over infected networks) to aggressively encrypt all files on a system (including mapped drives, Dropbox files, and all locally connected, network-attached, or cloud-based storage) - while an ominous onscreen timer demands payment within 72 hours.

A Facebook user in Melbourne has walked off a pier while transfixed by her phone. "She was still out in the water lying on her back in a floating position because she told us later that she couldn't swim," he said. "She still had her mobile phone in her hand and initially she apologised and said sorry. "She said, 'I was checking my Facebook page on the phone and I've fallen in'."

I've always said that in any conflict, right up to brink-of-nuclear-war scale, a sternly-worded fax is the way to go - and North Korea seem to agree. But my favorite aspect of this story by far isn't North Korea's fax threatening to launch a war at any moment. It's the fact that South Korea, on Friday, turned around and sent the North Koreans a threatening fax right back.



Tuesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 24-December-2013  15:20:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cooling:
Antec Kühler 1250 CLC CPU cooler on GamersNexus.
Deep Cool Gammaxx S40 CPU cooler on OCClub.
Noctua NH-U14S CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Antec Kuhler H20 650 CPU cooler on PureOC.
Watercool HTSF2 – Heat Transformer on PureOC.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung ATIV Book 9-Lite NP915S3G-K01 13.3-inch Touch Screen Notebook on PCStats.
Nokia Lumia 925 Smartphone on HotHardware.
ZOTAC ZBOX Nano AQ01 Plus on Vortez.
Nvidia Shield gaming tablet on LanOC.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 (2014 Edition) Android Tablet on MegaTechNews.
Acer Aspire S7 Ultrabook on HotHardware.
Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro Ultrabook on HotHardware.
LG Nexus 5 on OCaholic.
Lini PC Delivers A Nice Haswell-based Xubuntu PC on Phoronix.

Software:
Humble Bundle: PC and Android 8 on OCClub.
A Look at the SteamOS Beta on a Custom PC on Techgage.

Audio Visual:
iWalk Sound Angle Wireless Bluetooth Speaker on Tweaktown.
Corsair Vengeance 1500 (V2) Gaming Headset on LegitReviews.
Corsair Raptor HS40 USB headset on Vortez.
ASUS MB168B+ USB-powered 15.6-inch Full HD Portable Monitor on Tweaktown.
Plantronics BackBeat GO 2 Bluetooth Wireless Earbuds on LegitReviews.
D-Link DCS-2332L Outdoor HD Wireless Cloud Camera on Tweaktown.
SteelSeries Siberia Elite headset on LanOC.

Cases:
SilverStone Fortress FT04 on APHNetworks.
Antec P100 on RBMods.
Sharkoon Bulldozer on eTeknix.
Fractal Design Arc Mini R2 on BenchmarkReviews.
Cougar MX500 Mid Tower on PureOC.
EVGA Hadron Air on TechPowerUp.

Power Supply:
Corsair GS800 on OCaholic.
Corsair CS Series Modular 650W on TechPowerUp.
Google Nexus Wireless Charger on Tweaktown.
Patriot FUEL+ 7800mAh Mobile Rechargeable Battery on NikKTech.
OCZ Fatal1ty 750W on OCaholic.
FSP Aurum Pro 1000-Watt 80 PLUS Gold on Tweaktown.
FSP Twinkle 65 Universal Notebook Adapter on OCClub.
FSP Aurum CM Gold 650M 650-Watt 80 PLUS Gold on Tweaktown.
Corsair GS800 on OCaholic.

Storage:
Samsung 840 EVO 250GB mSATA SSD on CustomPCReview.
Kingston DataTraveler 4000 FIPS Level 2 Encrypted Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
Mushkin 240GB Chronos Go Deluxe on OCClub.
The Novelist PC on Tweaktown.
Western Digital 4TB Drive Roundup on TechWareLabs.
Crucial M500 M.2 NGFF SATA 3 SSD 480GB on TheSSDReview.
Teratrend RS431U Four Bay Rackmount RAID Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Patriot Spark 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on FunkyKit.
Crucial M500 960GB vs. Samsung 840 EVO 1TB on TechReport.
Netgear ReadyNAS 104 Four Bay Consumer NAS on Tweaktown.
Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB 3.5" Consumer HDD on Tweaktown.
Super Talent PCIe DX1 M.2 SSD 128GB on TheSSDReview.
Kingston DataTraveler HyperX PREDATOR 1TB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on NikKTech.

Input Etc:
Thermaltake Ttesports MEKA G1 Illuminated Keyboard on TechWareLabs.
Tt eSPORTS MEKA G1 Illuminated Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NikKTech.
Topre Type Heaven 204-Key Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Sharkoon DarkGlider Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
SteelSeries Rival Optical Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
Ozone Lepton & Neutron mousepads on Vortez.

Video Cards:
The $109 Console-killer GPU: AMD's Radeon R7 260 Graphics Card on Techgage.
MSI Radeon R9-270X HAWK on Guru3D.
Sapphire R9 290 on PureOC.
MSI Radeon R9 270 Gaming on ThinkComputers.

Networking:
ASUS USB-AC56 802.11ac Wireless Adapter on Tweaktown.
TP-Link WiFi Powerline Extender Starter Kit on HWHeaven.
Netgear R6100 Wi-Fi Router on LegitReviews.
TP-LINK 300Mbps AV500 WiFi Powerline Extender Starter Kit on MadShrimps.
Karma Wi-Fi Hotspot on ThinkComputers.
Sitecom Wi-Fi Router X8 AC1750 WLR-8100 and Wi-Fi USB 3.0 AC1200 WLA-7100 Adapter on MadShrimps.

Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X (FM2+) on eTeknix.
ASUS Z87-A on OCaholic.
ASUS Z87-Expert on OCaholic.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper B5 on Guru3D.
Intel Core i3 4340 on HardCoreWare.

Memory:
Kingston Hyper X DDR3 on Modders-Inc.
Patriot Viper 3 Low Profile PC3-17000 4x8GB DDR3 on APHNetworks.



Monday Morning Reviews (2 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 23-December-2013  01:58:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS MAXIMUS VI EXTREME on HWSecrets.
MSI Z87I Gaming AC Motherboard & GTX 760 GAMING ITX on Guru3D.
ASUS Maximus VI Impact: Enthusiast Mini-ITX on SilentPCReview.
Supermicro X10SLV-Q 4th Gen Core on Tweaktown.
ECS GANK MACHINE Z87H3-A2X EXTREME on TechPowerUp.

Audio Visual:
Level 10M Gaming Headset on PCGamers.
CM Storm Ceres 500 Gaming Headset on Modders-Inc.
Attitude One Almaz headphones on Vortez.
Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Gaming Headset on Tweaktown.
ROCCAT Kave XTD 5.1 Surround Headset on HWHeaven.
Sennheiser G4ME One Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.

Cases:
In Win 904 on PureOC.
Corsair Obsidian 750D on TechPowerUp.
Fractal Design ARC Mini R2 on OCClub.
BitFenix Phenom mITX on BenchmarkReviews.
In Win 904 Glass & Aluminium Chassis on eTeknix.

Video Cards:
AMD Radeon R7 260 on HWHeaven.
AMD Radeon R7 260 1GB on LegitReviews.
AMD Radeon R7 260 Preview on HotHardware.
AMD Radeon R7-260 on Guru3D.
ASUS ROG MARS 760 4GB Dual GPU on PCPerspective.
ASUS Radeon R9-290X DirectCUII OC on Guru3D.
ASUS MARS 760 4GB on LegitReviews.
GeForce GTX 660 vs GTX 760 on OCAholic.
ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II on PCPerspective.
MSI R9 270X Gaming 2GB on TechPowerUp.
ASUS Radeon R9 290X DirectCU II on PCPerspective.



Misc Pics (29 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 20-December-2013  13:44:26 (GMT +10) - by Rezin

Last Misc Pics before Xmas!








MyGica ATV510B Enjoy TV (20 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 19-December-2013  02:15:57 (GMT +10) - by Agg

FearTec has checked out the "MyGica ATV510b Enjoy TV", an Android-powered media player. It's not too big and not too pricey, but is it any good?


Click for the review!



Tuesday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 17-December-2013  12:33:15 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Portable & Prebuilt:
Intel NUC Kit D54250WYK mini-PC on Tweaktown.
LG G Pad 8.3 on OCaholic.
Apple iPad mini with Retina Display on HotHardware.
Samsung Galaxy Gear watch on ThinkComputers.
Acer C720 Chromebook Delivers Fast Ubuntu Performance on Phoronix.

Audio Visual:
Corsair Vengeance 2100 wireless headset on Guru3D.
SteelSeries FREE Mobile Wireless Bluetooth Controller on Tweaktown.
Turtle Beach Ear Force i60 Headset on HWHeaven.
CM Storm Ceres-300 Headset on LanOC.
AVerMedia Game Capture HD II C285 on MegaTechNews.
Ozone Rage ST headset on DVHardware.
Mad Catz Tritton Kunai Mobile Headset on eTeknix.
Pittasoft Blackvue Sport SC500 Action Camera on TechnologyX.
SteelSeries 5Hv3 Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Logitech G930 Wireless Headset on LanOC.
Jabra VOX In-Ear Earphones With Microphone on NikKTech.
BitFenix FLO headphones on Vortez.
Dropcam HD Wi-Fi Wireless Video Monitoring Camera on BigBruin.
AOC Q2963PM 29? UWHD MyMulti-Play AH-IPS Monitor on eTeknix.
DRACCO Captain Tt eSports Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.

Power Supply:
Patriot FUEL+ 7800mAh Mobile Rechargeable Battery on ThinkComputers.
Watts Up? Pro, Pro ES, and .Net Power Meter on Tweaktown.
Be Quiet! Power Zone 1000W on PCPerspective.
EVGA Bronze 600W on TechPowerUp.
Cooler Master GX II 650W on PureOC.
Fractal Design Integra R2 750W on LegitReviews.

Video Cards:
GIGABYTE R9 280X WindForce 3X OC on Vortez.
Sapphire R9 270 Dual-X 2GB on eTeknix.
ASUS MARS GTX 760 4 GB on TechPowerUp.
ASUS ROG GeForce GTX 780 Poseidon Platinum on Guru3D.
ASUS Radeon R9 280X DirectCU II TOP on ThinkComputers.
XFX R7950 Double Dissipation on LegitReviews.
VisionTek Radeon R9 270X 2GB Gaming on TechWareLabs.

Cooling:
Cooler Master Hyper 103 CPU cooler on OCaholic.
Corsair Hydro Series H75 Sealed Water Cooler on LegitReviews.
Prolimatech Black Series Genesis on TechPowerUp.
Noctua NH-U12S CPU cooler on OCaholic.
Cooler Master Eisberg 120L Prestige CPU cooler on OCaholic.

Networking:
NETGEAR R7000 Nighthawk Smart AC1900 Wi-Fi Router on MissingRemote.
ASUS USB-AC56 Wireless Adapter on LanOC.

Input Etc:
Genius KB-G265 Gaming Keyboard on FunkyKit.
Cooler Master CM Storm Reaper Gaming Mouse on PureOC.
Corsair Raptor M40 Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Logitech G19s Gaming Keyboard on OCClub.
Ducky Shine 3 keyboard on Vortez.
X2 XPAD Pro XXXL MP03 Mouse Pad on BenchmarkReviews.
Genius Energy Mouse with Smartphone Charging on Tweaktown.
MAX Keyboard Blackbird Tenkeyless Mechanical Backlit Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master CM Storm Reaper Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps.

Motherboard & CPU:
ECS L337 GANK Domination Z87H3-AX Golden on OCClub.
ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition Intel X79 on LegitReviews.
EVGA Z87 Stinger Mini ITX on PCPerspective.
Intel Core i5-2500K vs AMD A10-6800K Gaming-Performance on OCaholic.
GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 Gaming Motherboard on HWHeaven.
ASRock Z87M Extreme4 (LGA 1150) on eTeknix.

Storage:
ASUSTOR AS-608T NAS Server on NikKTech.
ADATA DashDrive Elite SE720 128GB External SSD on TechnologyX.
Seagate 600 Series 480GB RAID 0 SSD on Tweaktown.
Corsair Flash Voyager GS 128GB USB Flash Drive on MadShrimps.
Crucial M500 480GB SSD on CustomPCReview.
SanDisk Optimus Eco SAS Enterprise SSD 400GB on TheSSDReview.

Cases:
Fractal Design ARC Mini R2 Micro ATX on eTeknix.
iStarUSA S35 Mini-ITX NAS Tower on Tweaktown.
NZXT Phantom 530 Full Tower on PureOC.
Silverstone Fortress Series FT04 on eTeknix.
Fractal Design ARC MINI R2 Micro-ATX Mid Tower on MissingRemote.
Fractal Design Node 304 Mini-ITX on SilentPCReview.
BitFenix Shadow on TechPowerUp.

Software:
ROCCAT's Power-Grid for Android PC remote control software on Tweaktown.
Tt eSPORTS Battle Dragon Bag on NeoSeeker.



Monday Morning (8 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 16-December-2013  01:42:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Google have acquired Boston Dynamics, the guys who made the "Big Dog" robot etc. So not only do they know everything about you, they can now pursue you across rough terrain. Google apparently does not plan to proceed as a military contractor itself, although according to the article, Boston Dynamics will honor its existing military contracts. Raibert confirmed the acquisition to us, but so far neither side has commented further or explained how search ties into robots that walk on two or four legs, jump, climb and crawl.

The British Library has released a million new public domain images. These images were taken from the pages of 17th, 18th and 19th century books digitised by Microsoft who then generously gifted the scanned images to us, allowing us to release them back into the Public Domain. The images themselves cover a startling mix of subjects: There are maps, geological diagrams, beautiful illustrations, comical satire, illuminated and decorative letters, colourful illustrations, landscapes, wall-paintings and so much more that even we are not aware of.

NVIDIA have provided more info on their G-Sync technology. This revolutionary new take on how displays and graphics cards talk to each other enables a new class of variable refresh rate monitors that will offer up the smoothness advantages of having V-Sync off, while offering the tear-free images normally reserved for gamers enabling V-Sync. Coverage on Guru3D, HotHardware and PC Perspective.



Misc Pics (52 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 13-December-2013  14:31:02 (GMT +10) - by Rezin

Thanks to Hoff, biofrog, Dinuc and Andrew this week!







And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.



MSI Australia Xmas Game Code Giveaway! (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 13-December-2013  02:55:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OCAU sponsors MSI Australia have a nice Xmas present for us - in fact, 50 of them! They're giving away 50 game codes (you can choose one of Sleeping Dogs, Deus Ex, Far Cry 3 - Blood Dragon or Dirt 3) for letting us know in this thread how you will be gaming over the holidays.


click for the thread!



Forum Projects (1 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 12-December-2013  19:50:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's some interesting projects and reviews from people in the forums:


EvilGenius reviewed
the Veto Pro Pac XLT bag

Razorz has a tidy
watercooled Fractal Arc PC

booj compared the
i7 4960X vs i7 4770K @ 4.5Ghz


Scotty_DDR squeezed a PC
into an original XBOX case

Amfibius built himself
a Viking Ship!

nicknewpants revived
a classic G15 keyboard


Ratzz is building a
custom tiny GTX660 i7 gamer

gazza30 reviewed the
MSI R9 280x Gaming

NinjaSticjman reviewed the
CoolerMaster HAF Stacker 935



Thursday Afternoon (1 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 12-December-2013  14:14:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The strategic review of the NBN has been completed, and it's not exactly smooth sailing. A $29 billion blowout in the funding needed to complete the original national broadband network has forced Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull to abandon election promises, admitting the company would no longer be able to finish the first stage of the network by 2016.

The South Australian Government has an ad campaign warning about young children playing gambling games, but the choice of catchphrase - "gambling starts with games" - leaves a bit to be desired. It's all a new public awareness campaign, Gambling is no game, which advises parents to "look out for online games that simulate gambling". Specifically - and despite what the advertising may have you believe - the SA Government does not believe that playing Super Mario Bros will lead you to becoming a blackjack junkie, or that spending every waking hour in Call of Duty will result in you spending your last dollar down at the race track. The Interactive Games & Entertainment Association has asked them to remove the billboards as inaccurate.

DOOM was released 20 years ago, and John Carmack looks back at how far things have come. At the stroke of midnight on December 10, 1993, an executive at id Software uploaded a file to an FTP site on the University of Washington’s network. The filename was doom1_0.zip. Thus did one of the great revolutions in the world of gaming begin—not with a spectacular launch party and a multimillion-dollar ad campaign, but with a 2MB file transfer. ArsTechnica remember it too.

TPG are aquiring AAPT, thanks Skymaster. TPG Telecom has provided its strongest indication yet that it is preparing to take on Australia’s dominant internet players, finalising a $450 million deal to buy AAPT’s business and wholesale divisions from Telecom New Zealand. The deal will provide TPG with impressive infrastructure assets, including a 11,000km fibre-optic cable network. The network extends across six Australian states and territories and connects large capital cities.

LegitReviews have a 120mm watercooler roundup. The first sealed loop unit I personally reviewed was the CoolIT Systems Pure way back in 2008, and since I have reviewed several units from Corsair, CoolIT Systems, Intel, Thermaltake and Antec. Today we are taking a look at units from Cooler Master, Scythe, and Zalman. These are all new brands to us when it comes to liquid cooling, so we can't wait to see what they have to offer.

NASA have a cool video, the first to show the moon orbiting the Earth when viewed from afar. According to NASA's Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton "if Captain Kirk of the USS Enterprise said, 'Take us home, Scotty,' this is what the crew would see." It's truly an incredible sequence—the first time ever that the Moon has been captured orbiting Earth. Strictly speaking, every image of the Moon is of it orbiting the Earth.. also, Scotty doesn't pilot the Enterprise. :)

A few people have pointed out this Have I Been Pwned? website. I assume it's not simply harvesting emails..



Wednesday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 11-December-2013  21:59:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
Feenix Nascita 2014 Laser Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
Func KB-460 Mechanical Keyboard on PureOC.
CM Storm Reaper Laser Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.

Cases:
Lian Li PC-Q28 on ComputingOnDemand.
Cooler Master HAF Stacker 935 on OCIA.
Cooler Master Cosmos SE ATX Tower on Modders-Inc.
Cooler Master N400 on OCClub.

Video Cards:
MSI GeForce GTX 780 Ti Gaming on Guru3D.
NZXT Kraken G10 GPU Water Cooler on LegitReviews.
Palit GeForce GTX 780 Ti Jetstream on Guru3D.
Palit GTX 780 Ti JetStream 3 GB on TechPowerUp.

Storage:
Synology DiskStation DS214 & DS214play on LegionHW.
Toshiba MQ01ACF050 500GB SATA III HDD on NikKTech.
WD Black 2 SSD + HDD Dual Drive on HotHardware.
ADATA DashDrive Choice HC630 USB 3.0 Hard Drive on ThinkComputers.
ADATA DashDrive Elite SE720 128GB External SSD on CustomPCReview.
QNAP TS-470 on TechPowerUp.

Cooling:
NZXT Kraken G10 AIO GPU cooler on PureOC.
Cooler Master Nepton 280L Liquid CPU Cooler on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooler Master Storm SF-15 Laptop Cooler on APHNetworks.
Thermaltake Commander F5 Multi-Fan Controller on NeoSeeker.
Corsair H75 CPU cooler on OCaholic.
120mm Water Cooler Round Up Part 2 on LegitReviews.

Software:
Nvidia ShadowPlay Gameplay Recording Software on eTeknix.
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag PC game on Techgage.

Audio Visual:
CM Storm Ceres 300 & 500 headphones on Vortez.
SteelSeries 9H Headset on LanOC.

Motherboard & CPU:
AMD A10-6790K APU on HardCoreWare.
EVGA Z87 Classified Motherboard on HWAsylum.

Misc:
ROCCAT Tusko Widescreen Monitor Bag on NeoSeeker.
be quiet! Straight Power E9 700W PSU on OCaholic.
Netgear ProSAFE XS712T L2+ 10GbE Switch on Tweaktown.



Thecus N5550 NAS (4 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 10-December-2013  18:39:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OG has taken a look at the N5550 NAS from Thecus. It's a 5-bay network storage device with some aspirations to being a media server and more:


click for the review!



Scorptec Christmas PC Giveaway! (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 10-December-2013  01:30:08 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OCAU Major Sponsors Scorptec have a new contest for OCAU where you can win a PC worth up to $2500! See the contest thread for more details:


click to go to to the thread!



Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 10-December-2013  01:18:21 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
CMstorm Devastator Gaming Gear Combo mouse and keyboard on RBMods.
Genius GX Gila Professional Gaming Mouse on FunkyKit.
Func KB-460 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on OCClub.
Func KB-460 Gaming Keyboard on Phoronix.
Feenix Nascita Gaming Mouse and Dimora Gaming Mouse Pad on PureOC.

Storage:
SanDisk Extreme II 240GB RAID 0 SSD on Tweaktown.
EasyAcc Wi-Stor Wizard 4 in 1 Portable Device on NikKTech.
ASUS ROG RAIDR Express 240GB PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
Samsung 840 EVO mSATA SSD on HWHeaven.
Netgear ReadyNAS 516 6-Bay NAS on Tweaktown.

Motherboard & CPU:
Heavyweight rematch: Gigabyte X79-UP4 vs. MSI X79A-GD45 Plus on TechReport.
Intel Xeon E3-1230Lv3 1.8GHz Quad Core “Haswell” 25W CPU on eTeknix.
ASUS A88X-PRO on Vortez.

Video Cards:
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti GHz Edition on OCaholic.
Sapphire R9 280X Toxic on LanOC.
MSI GTX 780 Lightning 3GB on eTeknix.
MSI Radeon R9 270X 2GB HAWK Overclocked on Tweaktown.
VisionTek Radeon R9 280X 3GB on Tweaktown.

Cases:
NZXT H630 Silent Full Tower on ThinkComputers.
BitFenix Colossus Mini-ITX on Tweaktown.
EVGA Hadron Air Mini-ITX on Tweaktown.
BitFenix Phenom Mini-IT on SilentPCReview.
Chenbro SR30169 Mini-ITX Server Chassis on SilentPCReview.
Fractal Design Define XL R2 on NikKTech.
Fractal Node 304 White on MadShrimps.
SilverStone Fortress FT04 on Phoronix.

Audio Visual:
Turtle Beach Ear Force PX4 Wireless Gaming Headset Video Review on HWHeaven.
Mad Catz Tritton Kunai Headset for iOS on PureOC.
Sennheiser U320 Gaming Headset on GamingNexus.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Motorola Droid Ultra smartphone on HotHardware.
Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 14 Convertible Ultrabook on PCPerspective.

Misc:
Silverstone One ARM ARM11SC Single Monitor Arm on eTeknix.
Cooler Master G550M 550W PSU on TechPowerUp.
Thermaltake Massive SP Notebook Cooler on Tweaktown.



Monday Morning (20 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 9-December-2013  01:43:44 (GMT +10) - by Agg

If you've seen some instructions for unlocking backwards compatability for your Xbox One - don't do it! There’s just one hitch: Actually following the directions will totally destroy your new toy. You know. The one that retails anywhere from $500 to $900. More info here.

Intel have a 15-core server CPU on the way. Intel confirmed Thursday that it will release a 15-core server chip code-named Ivytown, which will be based on the Ivy Bridge architecture. Intel until now had topped off at 12 cores with the Xeon E5 v2 chips that shipped in the third quarter of this year.

TheAge have a fairly dramatic-sounding article about Telstra vacuuming up data. Australia's leading telecommunications company, Telstra, has installed highly advanced surveillance systems to "vacuum" the telephone calls, texts, social media messages and internet metadata of millions of Australians so that information can be filtered and given to intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

A couple of people sent in this demo video of the Snowdrop Engine used in Tom Clancy's The Division - claimed to be the most detailed video game ever. There's a little more info here. The Division is an online experience, where players team up to survive in a ravaged America, both in the game and through the companion app. The game is slated for PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Bit of a quiet morning, so here's some photos from Timbot, showing how not to open one of those annoying sealed boxes!




Misc Pics (33 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 6-December-2013  13:19:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to mpot, Sciby and Hoff this week!







And if you're after more, check out this Wiki page which lists ALL "misc pics" news posts from the archive.



Friday Afternoon (5 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 6-December-2013  13:16:50 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A couple of days ago, the last five analogue TV stations in Sydney shut down for good. On 3 December 2013, Sydney and surrounding areas highlighted in purple will switch off their analog TV signals and switch to digital-only TV. Here's a YouTube video showing the last few seconds of broadcasting. Only Channel 7 made an effort, it seems!

There's been another big password theft - but this time it was client-side. The massive data breach was a result of keylogging software maliciously installed on an untold number of computers around the world, researchers at cybersecurity firm Trustwave said. The virus was capturing log-in credentials for key websites over the past month and sending those usernames and passwords to a server controlled by the hackers.

Tech Report investigated claims that retail R9 290X cards seem to be slower than press samples. Is this really a thing? Are the Radeon R9 290X cards shipping to consumers really slower than the review units sent to the press? Well, let's see what we can find. They now have an answer from AMD. Based on feedback from the enthusiast community, we’ve implemented an all new PowerTune mechanism in the AMD Radeon R9 290 series that exploits the full capability of the individual GPUs rather than clamping performance to a least-common-denominator type of capability level.

Bathurst fans will want to see this comparison video between Gran Turismo 6 and the real world. Australian racing fans had been clamouring for years for Bathurst to appear on a racing game of note. Now two have come along at once. Forza Motorsport 5 has been in the wild for a couple of weeks now, but Gran Turismo’s version is just about to hit stores. This comparison video between Bathurstreal life and its virtual equivalent is ridiculous.

Here's a video from the Internet Governance Forum back in October, where John Selby talks about throwing out preconceptions about Cybersecurity.



Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 6-December-2013  07:14:12 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards & CPUs:
Asus A88X-PRO on Hardware Secrets.
MSI Z87 Motherboard Roundup on Hot Hardware.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 Motherboard on Techgage.

Graphics Cards:
HIS R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock 1GB on Madshrimps.
VisionTek Radeon R7 260X 2GB on TweakTown.
GeForce GTX 760 SLI vs GTX 780 Ti on ocaholic.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti vs AMD Radeon R9 290X at 4K Ultra HD on Legit Reviews.

Storage:
Toshiba PX02SS 12Gbps SAS Enterprise SSD Review (400GB) on The SSD Review.
WD Black² Dual Drive on Legion Hardware.
Western Digital My Cloud 2TB on eTeknix.
Adata DashDrive HV620 External HDD on Benchmark Reviews.

Input etc:
Func KB-460 Gaming Keyboard on techPowerUp.
Func KB-460 Gaming Keyboard on Guru3D.
Ducky 2108S Zero Cherry MX Brown Mechanical Keyboard on eTeknix.

Cooling:
Thermaltake Massive 14 Notebook Cooler on Hardware Asylum.
Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler on OCC.
Titan Master USB Fan on OCC.

Audio:
Corsair Vengeance 1400 Gaming Headset on Legit Reviews.
Cooler Master Storm Ceres 300 Headset on PureOverclock.
SteelSeries H Wireless Headset on LanOC.
Sonos PLAY:1 Wireless Speakers on MegaTechNews.
Audioengine 2+ (A2+) Powered Desktop Speakers on Custom PC Review.

Misc:
IN WIN 904 Mid Tower Case on Vortez.
Crucial Ballistix Sport VLP 2x 8 GB 1600 MHz C9 Memory on techPowerUp.



Cancer Petition (5 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 5-December-2013  11:55:16 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A few people pointed out that OCAU member Supersize is doing it tough, with his wife having a rare type of cancer. The strange thing is that there is an extended delay for surgery which, although not without its own issues, can save people's lives in cases like this. This is partly due to a recent change to interstate patient transfers and a limit on number of operations. NSW Health Minister, Mrs Jillian Skinner said on 15th October 2013 that "Until recently patients were also being accepted from interstate and overseas, but that practice has now stopped." There are a limited number of doctors in Australia that can perform this surgery. Hospitals with experienced doctors, like the Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane, have waiting lists compounded by a limit to the number of surgeries they are able to perform, they perform only 12 a year.

So, there's an online petition to change the system and hopefully save more lives. More info on Facebook, this website and of course this OCAU thread.



Interesting Forum Threads (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 4-December-2013  20:55:36 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a snapshot of what's going on in some of the forums. You can also find new interesting things you might have missed via the Who's Online page, the New Posts page and the Live forum view. Also try the Today's Posts link (find it on the Quick Links menu) and the handy Who Quoted Me? feature.

Anyone else feeling a bit nostalgic about overclocking? in Overclocking & Hardware.
OMFG Water Cooling gone WRONG! in Extreme and Water Cooling.
Classic G15 Keyboard Revival in Modding.
DIY Solar panel setup on a budget in Hobby Engineering.
Electrolysis - Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen in Hobby Engineering.
Best basic 3d printer (for kids) in Hobby Engineering.
Business PC naming schemes in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Creating a modern Mac environment in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Site to stop NBN turning into insulation batts debacle in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
OS X Mavericks for Free in Apple Desktop Hardware / Software.
Intel Xeon Phi co-processor (GPGPU) in Intel x86 CPUs and chipsets.
AMD 2014 Lines in AMD x86 CPUs and chipsets.
Should AMD build a NUC alternative? in AMD x86 CPUs and chipsets.
Have I committed some photographer faux pas? in Photography.
Aussie spider warning - I love my job in Photography Gallery.
Calgary Stampede Snacks in Geek Food.
Recipes to cook on a date! in Geek Food.
World's strongest beer contains 67.5% alcohol in Geek Grog & Homebrew.
Port Barrel in Geek Grog & Homebrew.
RF Safe-Stop shuts down car engines with radio pulse in Motoring.
Tesla's Worst Nightmare Sparked as Car Catches Fire in Motoring.
Hypothetical: Indonesia attempts to invade Australia in Current Events.



Wednesday Evening (5 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 4-December-2013  19:55:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

With Amazon's drone-delivery announcement (the marketing move of the year, it seems), it's no surprise that UPS and others might have similar ideas. FedEx founder Fred Smith has spoken repeatedly about his desire to move to a fleet of unmanned aircraft, something he believes could generate major cost savings. The impediment so far has been regulators. "We have all this stuff working in the lab right now, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel," remarks Guinn.

Asher meanwhile spotted this drone-seeking drone. Serial hacker Samy Kamkar has released all the hardware and software specifications that hobbyists need to build an aerial drone that seeks out other drones in the air, hacks them, and turns them into conscripted army of unmanned vehicles under the attacker's control.

A leaked roadmap seems to suggest AMD might exit the CPU business to focus on APUs. We'd feared something like this would happen for some time now, but leaked AMD product roadmaps confirmed it that AMD FX "Vishera" is the last line of CPUs from AMD. The company will only focus on APUs from here onward, and at the very most, one could expect CPU core counts to go up from their current quad-core stale-meat since A-series "Llano," which will continue into the 2014 A-Series "Kaveri," too. Well, a grain of salt required until anything official is announced.

A new ad for the Hobbit film includes blueprints to 3D print your own props. While the ads offer standard fare like links to buy tickets and check out movie trailers, there's one particularly clever component to the campaign — viewers will be able to download 3D-printing blueprints for the Key of Erebor, a prop that should feature prominently in the second part of the Hobbit film trilogy.

John Selby contributed towards this SMH article about giving away too much on social media. An estimated 12 million Australians regularly use social media to update friends, family and followers. What many don’t realise is that tweets, posts and images are read, analysed and stored by the brands they are talking about. Social media has become big business for advertisers, helping them find ‘‘brand advocates’’ and measure opinions.

Phoronix have a 27-way NVIDIA/AMD GPU Linux roundup. Twenty-seven different AMD Radeon and NVIDIA GeForce graphics cards were tested over the past week using the latest binary Linux drivers: AMD Catalyst 13.11 Beta v9.4 and NVIDIA 331.20. All testing happened from an Intel Core i7 4770K "Haswell" system running at 4.40GHz and with Ubuntu 13.10 x86_64 using the mainline Linux 3.12 kernel.

More space stuff from BlueRaven: Gamma Ray burst event believed to be "birth of a black hole" captured by Los Alamos National Laboratories robotic & computer-guided RAPTOR (RAPid Telescopes for Optical Response) system. More from Los Alamos National Laboratory here.

IntelInside sent in this story about Windows 8's lack of adoption. In the past month, Windows 8's market-share growth of 0.05 per cent was actually significantly lower than that of Windows 7 (0.22 per cent). In other words, Windows 8 is actually falling farther behind its own four-year-old predecessor even today.



Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 4-December-2013  14:19:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cooling:
Titan Dragonfly 4 CPU cooler on OCClub.
Titan Dragonfly 4 CPU Cooler on PureOC.
Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.

Video Cards:
HIS Radeon R9 270 IceQ X2 2GB on Tweaktown.
PowerColor R9 270X PCS+ 2 GB on TechPowerUp.
Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X OC on LegitReviews.

Power Supply:
Corsair CS650M on HWHeaven.
Fractal Design Tesla R2 650W on LegitReviews.

Input Etc:
CM Storm Power-RX mousepad on OCaholic.
Corsair Vengeance K95 keyboard on Guru3D.
ROCCAT Apuri Active USB-Hub with Mouse Bungee on Tweaktown.
ROCCAT Ryos MK Glow Illuminated Gaming Mechanical Keyboard on OCClub.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Acer C720 Chromebook on HotHardware.
Lenovo Erazer X700 Gaming Desktop PC on TechSpot.

Storage:
Seagate Business Storage 8-Bay Rackmount NAS on Tweaktown.
QNAP TS-470 Network Attached Storage on APHNetworks.

Misc:
Biostar Z87X 3D Motherboard on Bjorn3D.
Noontec Zoro HD Fashion Hi-Fi Headphones on NikKTech.



Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 3-December-2013  08:48:18 (GMT +10) - by booj

Motherboards & CPUs:
AMD A10-5800K vs A10-6800K Gaming-Performance on ocaholic.
Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H on ThinkComputers.

Graphics Cards:
Asus R9 270X DC II TOP 2 GB on techPowerUp.
Asus R9 280X DirectCU II TOP 3GB on TweakTown.

Storage:
Lexar JumpDrive P10 32 GB USB 3.0 on techPowerUp.
Seagate Wireless Plus 1 TB External HDD on Hardware Secrets.
Transcend ESD200 Portable USB 3.0 SSD on TweakTown.
Thecus N2560 NAS Server on NikKTech.
Adata DashDrive Choice HC630 500GB External HDD on TweakTown.
Corsair Flash Voyager GS 128GB on Vortez.
VisionTek Data Fusion PCIe SSD Review (480GB) on The SSD Review.

Cases:
BitFenix Prodigy M mATX on Benchmark Reviews.
Corsair Graphite 230T Mid Tower on Legit Reviews.

Cooling:
Cooler Master Nepton 280L AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on TweakTown.
Noctua NH-U14S CPU Heatsink on Frostytech.
Corsair Hydro Series H75 on Vortez.
Zalman Reserator 3 MAX Ultimate Liquid CPU Cooler on TweakTown.

Audio:
MP4Nation Brainwavz HM9 Headphones on techPowerUp.
Razer Kraken Forged Edition Headphones on Custom PC Review.
Sennheiser G4ME Zero Gaming Headset (Video Review) on HardwareHeaven.
SteelSeries 5Hv3 Gaming Headset on NikKTech.
Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 XS71HD Soundcard on HCW.

Portable & Mobile:
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 Edition Tablet on HotHardware.
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite E-reader on Benchmark Reviews.
Nvidia Shield on OCC.

Misc:
Gigabyte Aivia Uranium Wireless Gaming Mouse and Macro Station (Video Review) on HardwareHeaven.
Seasonic Platinum Series SS-660XP2 PSU on ocaholic.



Tuesday Morning (6 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 3-December-2013  00:49:11 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Amazon have unveiled Prime Air, which would have your order arrive at your door by unmanned drone in 30 minutes. It's not April 1st, is it? No, but it's a fair way off, still. Bezos told the news program he anticipates the project could be rolled out within the next four to five years (with the timing impacted by the FAA's ever evolving approach to drone regulation). More here and a video here, thanks asher.

TheReg flash back to the Telecom Australia Computerphone. In early 1980s Australia if you wanted a home computer, chances are you were a Commodore user, a TRS-80 user or … a Commodore user. Famous British micros from the likes of Sinclair and Oric never really got a foothold down under, leaving the field to the Vic 20, C64 and the occasional local contender like Microbee.

DigitalTrends meanwhile look at some weird peripherals from the past. If you’re like most people, everything you do on your computer is controlled by a keyboard and a mouse. This setup has worked well for over three decades, but it isn’t the only way to go. Ergonomic needs and computer games that need subtle inputs have encouraged some firms to come up with some pretty bizarre peripherals over the years. Some work well. Others don’t. And one is simply disturbing.

ForeignPolicy have an article about Stuxnet's secret twin. Three years after it was discovered, Stuxnet, the first publicly disclosed cyberweapon, continues to baffle military strategists, computer security experts, political decision-makers, and the general public. A comfortable narrative has formed around the weapon: how it attacked the Iranian nuclear facility at Natanz, how it was designed to be undiscoverable, how it escaped from Natanz against its creators' wishes. Major elements of that story are either incorrect or incomplete.

More worrying is the fact that nuclear passwords were simple, deliberately. Today I found out that during the height of the Cold War, the US military put such an emphasis on a rapid response to an attack on American soil, that to minimize any foreseeable delay in launching a nuclear missile, for nearly two decades they intentionally set the launch codes at every silo in the US to 8 zeroes.

Bing have unveiled the top global searches of 2013.. by people who use Bing. Ahem. Ladies appeared to rule 2013, since a woman was the most-searched person of the year in eight of the 12 participating countries around the world — Beyoncé reigned in the U.S., while Miley Cyrus’ highly publicized twerking made her the top-searched person in both Australia and Canada.

The fan film Star Wars Downunder has been released in full.




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