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April 2014
Wednesday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 30-April-2014  23:52:13 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cooling:
Noctua NH-D15 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN - Aircooling vs. Watercooling EK-FC TITAN on OCaholic.
Silverstone Tundra Series TD03 CPU Water Cooler on eTeknix.

Storage:
Silicon Power 32GB Superior microSDHC UHS-1 Flash Card on MadShrimps.
VisionTek mSATA Mini Enclosure on LegitReviews.
KingMax SME35 XValue 240GB SSD on GoughLui, thanks Chris.
iStarUSA 5K25TU Hot Swap 5.25-inch Bay Enclosure on Tweaktown.
PNY Optima 240GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Synology DiskStation DS414j NAS on HWHeaven.
Kingston DataTraveler Mini 16GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on BigBruin.
Synology DiskStation DS414j on LegionHW.
iStarUSA 5K3525U Hot Swap Bay Enclosure on Tweaktown.

Cases:
Corsair Obsidian 450D Mid-Tower on MadShrimps.
IN WIN 904 Mid Tower on Modders-Inc.
Xigmatek Nebula Mini-ITX case on TechPowerUp.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 4 mATX case on OCaholic.

Video Cards:
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 ROG Poseidon Platinum 3GB OC on Tweaktown.
Radeon R9 295X2 CrossFire at 4K on PCPerspective.

Power Supply:
Corsair AX1500i on HWHeaven.
Corsair AX1500i 1500W Titanium on Tweaktown.
Corsair AX1500i Digital ATX 1500W on PCPerspective.
Bitfenix Fury Gold 750W on TechPowerUp.



Forum Projects (1 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 29-April-2014  17:14:24 (GMT +10) - by Agg

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


windwithme has an
Intel Core i7-4960X guide

and checked out the
GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER5 mobo

Murton is making some
DIY acoustic treatment


d33g33 has a nicely finished
watercooled Define R4

Jrcjamie has a very bright
watercooled Caselabs TH10

and crocodaVe has installed
his handmade brass piping



Tuesday Afternoon (4 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 29-April-2014  16:13:19 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Right, slowly getting back up to speed after long weekends and school holidays! Time for some news catchup.

Net Neutrality is back in the headlines with the FCC apparently changing their view of it. The Federal Communications Commission, America's telcoms regulator, has formulated a plan to allow internet service providers (ISPs) to charge companies for the right to "premium" access to its customers. This is the worst internet policy news imaginable. It should strike terror into the heart of anyone who cares about fairness, politics, the widening gap between the rich and the poor, fair trade, entrepreneurship, or innovation. More here and here.

MacWorld have daisychained 42 devices from one Mac Pro. Since Thunderbolt ports can support up to six peripherals in a daisy chain, which is a wiring scheme where multiple devices are chained together in a certain order, Macworld decided to test how many devices they could daisy chain together with the new Mac Pro's six Thunderbolt ports, four USB 3.0 ports, one HDMI port and two gigabit Ethernet ports.

The search for the world's worst video game has been successful. The legend was true. Atari really did dump a bunch of E.T. and other Atari 2600 cartridges and paraphernalia into a landfill 30 years ago. Today, a team of video game archaeologists recovered the proof. More here, discussion here.

Also recently unearthed are some new Andy Warhol digital images, created on an Amiga. "The purely digital images, 'trapped' for nearly 30 years on Amiga floppy disks stored in the archives collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, were discovered and extracted by members of the Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club," the university said in a statement on its website. The newly uncovered art is owned by the Andy Warhol Foundation, although it was commissioned by Commodore International to promote its 1985 Amiga 1000 computer. There's an Amiga thread in our Retro forum.

This browser plugin to unlock text from images is bordering on witchcraft - particularly the "remove text" feature. Project Naptha automatically applies state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms on every image you see while browsing the web. The result is a seamless and intuitive experience, where you can highlight as well as copy and paste and even edit and translate the text formerly trapped within an image.

This isn't really a timewaster, but for some reason this thumbs and ammo blog tickled my fancy.



Tuesday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 29-April-2014  02:18:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
GIGABYTE Next Generation Motherboards on PCPerspective.
ASUS Z97-Pro (Wi-Fi AC) Motherboard Preview on LegitReviews.
MSI Next-Gen GAMING 5 Preview on TechPowerUp.
ASUS Z97-DELUXE Motherboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Next Generation Intel Preview - Featuring Asus and Gigabyte on HWHeaven.
Budget CPU Roundup: AMD Kabini vs. Intel Bay Trail-D on TechSpot.
ASUS Maximus VII Hero Preview on OCaholic.
ASUS Z97-WS Workstation Motherboard (Intel Z97) Overview on Tweaktown.
Gigabyte Next Generation Intel Motherboards on LegitReviews.
A first look at Gigabyte's next-gen Intel motherboards on TechReport.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus on HotHardware.
MSI GS70 STEALTH Laptop on HWSecrets.
Gigabyte Brix Gaming on ArsTechnica.
Braebo Computers ‘Titan’ Budget AMD Gaming System on eTeknix.

Audio Visual:
Turtle Beach Ear Force XO Four Gaming Headset on eTeknix.
ROCCAT Kave XTD 5.1 Digital Gaming Headset on ThinkComputers.
Adesso Xtream H2 Bluetooth Headset on APHNetworks.

Cooling:
Raijintek Pallas Low-Profile CPU Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Noctua NH-U14S on LanOC.
Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler on NikKTech.



Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 28-April-2014  01:59:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
MSI A88XM GAMING Motherboard and R9 280X TWIN FROZR GAMING on HWHeaven.
Intel Core i7-4930K 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling on OCaholic.
SteelSeries H Wireless Gaming Headset on MegaTechNews.

Storage:
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCI-E SSD on HWCanucks.
Synology DS1513+ 5-Bay NAS on eTeknix.
Silicon Power Armor A30 1TB USB 3.0 External HDD on Tweaktown.
ASUS Hyper Express SATA Express Drive Performance Preview on LegitReviews.
Addonics eSATA PCI Express Add-On Card on Tweaktown.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
Crucial M550 512GB SSD on Tweaktown.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD 480GB on TechSpot.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD on Guru3D.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480GB) on HWHeaven.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480 GB on OCaholic.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe 480GB on LegionHW.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD Review (480GB) on TheSSDReview.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCIe SSD (480 GB) on TechnologyX.

Cooling:
Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler on Vortez.
Noctua NH-U14S CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.
Enermax ETS-T40 Black Twister CPU cooler on OCaholic.

Video Cards:
MSI GTX 760 Twin Frozr IV Gaming OC Edition (2GB) on TechnologyX.
Sapphire R9 280X Vapor-X (Tri-X) OC 3GB on eTeknix.
Gigabyte GTX 750 Ti WindForce 2X OC 2GB on eTeknix.
XFX Radeon R7 250 Core Edition on HWSecrets.



Misc Pics (37 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 25-April-2014  14:02:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Friday again - have a safe long weekend!








ANZAC Day (9 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 25-April-2014  00:25:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Aratama Bashi recently posted a sobering set of photos of ANZAC Cove into the Photography Forum. They really give a sense of what ANZAC Day is in memory of. It's also worth noting that next year will mark 100 years since the Gallipoli landings.



They shall grow not old
As we who are left grow old
Age shall not weary them
Nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them

Lest We Forget



Thursday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 24-April-2014  22:40:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon 5350 & ASUS AM1I-A on NeoSeeker.
AMD Kabini: Athlon 5350 Desktop SoC on SilentPCReview.

Storage:
CalDigit Thunderbolt Station Docking Device on Tweaktown.
Western Digital Red 4TB HDD RAID on Tweaktown.
SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash Drive on ThinkComputers.

Video Cards:
VisionTek CryoVenom R9 290 on PureOC.
Custom-cooled Radeon R9 290X cards from Asus and XFX on TechReport.
GeForce GTX 760 SLI vs. Radeon R9 290X on OCaholic.

Audio Visual:
Turtle Beach Titanfall Ear Force Atlas Headset on HWHeaven.
Astro A50's and the SteelSeries H Wireless Headset on Tech2Pwn.

Input Etc:
Coolermaster Quickfire XT Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on eTeknix.
TP-LINK WPA4220KIT Powerline 300Mbps AV500 Wi-Fi Range Extender on Tweaktown.
G.SKILL RipJaws SO-DIMM 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory on Vortez.
EVGA SuperNOVA 750G2 and 850G2 Gold Power Supply on PCPerspective.
HTC One M8 Smartphone Performance on LegitReviews.
Cooler Master Blizzard T2 CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.

Cases:
Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini-ITX on Modders-Inc.
Fractal Arc XL on LanOC.



Interesting Forum Threads (4 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 24-April-2014  02:18:30 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a few interesting threads from the forums. Remember, OCAU has official Twitter, Facebook and Google+ pages. If you can add us via the various services it's much appreciated and helps us get the word out, and keep you up to date. :)

A Guide To Phishing- What it is and How to avoid it in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
Heartbleed vuln and router hardware in Networking, Telephony & Internet.
Lync Servers in Business & Enterprise Computing.
LIVE Old Computer LIVE in Overclocking & Hardware.
Heartbleed SSL exploit [CVE-2014-0160] in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014 Unboxing in Overclocking & Hardware.
Effect of capacitor across mains in Electronics & Electrics.
Breath activated DVD in Electronics & Electrics.
Hyperkin SupaBoy - a handheld snes console in Retro & Arcade.
Lens Blur for Android in Photography & Video.
Bangkok - What should I eat? (updated with Photos) in Geek Food.
Keen travelers - what do you utilise travel agents for (if at all)? in Holidays & Travel.
"Join me in the airline lounge" Thread in Holidays & Travel.
How to deal with senior staff member who has anger problems in Career, Education & Finance.
How much does your current job relate to your field of study? in Career, Education & Finance.
Forget Sugar, Protein is the New Evil in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Diet Wars - the debate rages on in Sport, Fitness & Health.
The State of Electric Vehicles in Australia in Motoring.
Koenigsegg One:1 & The Hennessey Venom GT in Motoring.
2014 FIA World Endurance Championship in Motorsport.
I win the vocabulary test in The Pub.



Wednesday Night Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 23-April-2014  21:25:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 on OCaholic.
ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer on HWSecrets.
AMD Athlon 5350 APU and AM1 Platform on Guru3D.
MSI A88X-G45 Gaming on Modders-Inc.
Gigabyte AM1M-S2H on Phoronix.

Cases:
Thermaltake Core V71 Full-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Silverstone Raven RVZ01 Mini-ITX on HWAsylum.
Bitfenix Collosus Mini ITX on PureOC.
Bitfenix Prodigy M M-ATX on Bjorn3D.
In Win 901 Aluminum Mini-ITX on PureOC.
In Win 901 on LanOC.

Storage:
Plextor M6M 256GB mSATA SSD on CustomPCReview.
HGST Deskstar NAS 4TB 3.5-inch Consumer HDD on Tweaktown.
Micron M500DC Enterprise Class SSD on HotHardware.
Micron M500DC Enterprise SSD 480GB on TheSSDReview.
Crucial M550 512GB SATA SSD on CustomPCReview.
KingFast Encrypted USB Key on ModSynergy.

Input Etc:
CM Storm Control-RX mousepad on OCAholic.
Mionix Avior 7000 Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps.
Deck Hassium Pro & Francium Pro Mechanical Keyboard on HardCoreWare.

Audio Visual:
D-Link DCS-825L Wi-Fi Baby Monitor Camera on Tweaktown.
ICY BOX BigCityVibes Headphones and Bluetooth Speaker on HWHeaven.
PAPAGO P2Pro Full HD DashCam on NikKTech.
D-Link DCS-2330L HD Wireless Network Camera on Phoronix.
BitFenix Flo Headset on TechPowerUp.

Video Cards:
Sapphire Vapor-X R9 290 Tri-X OC on LegitReviews.
ASUS GTX 750 Ti OC 2GB on eTeknix.
MSI Radeon R9 290X Lightning 4GB on TechPowerUp.

Misc:
Microsoft’s Office in the Cloud: Office 365 on Techgage.
Thermaltake Bigwater 760 Pro Water Cooling System on ThinkComputers.
Gigabyte BRIX Pro Mini-PC on MadShrimps.
Linksys EA6900 AC1900 802.11ac Dual- Band Wireless Router on eTeknix.
SilentiumPC Supremo M1 700W PSU on TechPowerUp.



Tuesday Evening (2 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 22-April-2014  18:51:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A court case in the USA about a company you've probably never heard of could have a big effect on the TV industry, thanks mpot. More info here. The case is arguably the most important to hit the television industry since the landmark ruling over Sony’s Betamax format in 1984, which legalized home recordings. It will determine to some degree how broadcast television will be offered online in the future, and could restrict cloud storage services like Dropbox and Google Music as well.

LegitReviews have a 32GB USB OTG drive roundup. There was a time just recently when there were no USB On-The-Go (OTG) flash drives on the market, but now there are hundreds of different models from dozens of brands. OTG USB flash drives are often referred to as dual-drives due to the fact they feature Micro-USB and Type A USB 2.0 connectors.

PCPerspective built an AMD AM1 machine for gaming. After Josh's initial review of the AMD AM1 Platform and the Athlon 5350, we received a few requests to look at gaming performance with a discrete GPU installed. Even though this platform isn't being aimed at gamers looking to play demanding titles, we started to investigate this setup anyway.

PCPerspective compared low-end GPUs with AM1. For those looking at purchasing hardware for a low-cost socketed Kabini APU system build following our many AMD AM1 Platform tests under Linux that found the low-end hardware to play well with the open-source operating system, one of the motherboards worth considering is the ASUS AM1I-A.

Tweaktown meanwhile have some high-end CrossFireX. We throw a HIS Radeon R9 290X 4GB in with the new R9 295X2 8GB and see what kind of magic we can make happen. Let's take a look at the gaming numbers now!

Wired have more info on Project Ara, Google's upcoming modular phone. Instead of a slab of glass and metal that you have no ability to upgrade, save for buying a new device, it’s an attempt to launch a phone where all of the main components are interchangeable via modules that click in and out, attaching via electro-permanent magnets. Despite being highly customizable, it will only come in three main sizes, helping to eliminate the kind of device fragmentation that currently plagues Android.

HotHardware compared three GeForce GTX 780 Ti cards. In this case, we've gone out and collected NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Ti graphics cards from three different enthusiast brands: EVGA, Gigabyte, and MSI. Each of the cards in this roundup go above and beyond NVIDIA's reference blueprint -- they're all factory overclocked, custom cooled, and designed to run quiet so you can hear when an enemy tries to sneak up on you.

Symon sent in this list of Hubble's Top 100 Images.



Monday Evening Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 21-April-2014  20:33:53 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Portable & Prebuilt:
Gigabyte Brix Pro GB-BXi7-4770R Ultra Compact Barebones System on eTeknix.
PAPAGO GoWatch 770 Sports Watch on Tweaktown.

Storage:
Acer Chromebook C720 SSD Upgrade To MyDigitalSSD M.2 (NGFF) 128GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Kingston SDXC UHS-I U3 64GB Flash Memory on APHNetworks.

Audio Visual:
X2 SATURN 5.1 HD Gaming Audio Headset on NikKTech.
SanDisk Clip Sport MP3 Player on LegitReviews.

Cooling:
Corsair Graphite 230T Mid-Tower Case and H75 Liquid CPU Cooler on HWHeaven.
Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Slim CPU Cooler on NikKTech.

Cases:
BitFenix Comrade Mid-Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Thermaltake Core V71 on OCClub.

Misc:
Punchtec Ord Bot Hadron 3D Printer on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake POSEIDON Mechanical Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
KFA2 GTX 750 Ti OC 2GB video card on eTeknix.
AMD A10-7850K Kaveri APU on LanOC.



Misc Pics (25 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 18-April-2014  14:30:35 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Have a happy and safe Easter!








Plextor Easter Egg Hunt (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 18-April-2014  13:47:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Plextor are running a worldwide contest to win one of their SSDs. Welcome to Plextor’s fun Easter Contest. Win great prizes including the latest ultra-fast M6e PCIe SSD as you Search for Performance around the world. The contest lasts until 24th April. The contest is open to everyone around the globe and winners for each of the prizes will be randomly drawn from those who find the prizes.


Friday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 18-April-2014  13:32:07 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Audio Visual:
PAPAGO! P3 Full HD 1080p Driving Recorder Dashcam on MEGATech.
Sentey Vibros Gaming Headset on Modders-Inc.
AOC Q2770PQU 27" PLS Monitor on eTeknix.
Microlab M-1910 speakers on Vortez.

Cases:
Silverstone Raven Z RVZ01 Mini-ITX on TechSpot.
NZXT H440 on TechPowerUp.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Tivax MiTraveler 3D-8 Android tablet on Vortez.
Lenovo ThinkPad 8 Tablet on HotHardware.
Gigabyte Tegra Note 7 on LegionHW.

Cooling:
be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Coolermaster Nepton 140XL & 280L All-In-One CPU Water Cooler on eTeknix.
Raijintek Pallas Low Profile Heatsink on Frostytech.
Noctua NH-U12S CPU cooler on LanOC.
Noctua NH-D15 CPU cooler on HardCoreWare.

Input Etc:
Sentey Revolution Pro Laser Gaming Mouse on Tweaknews.
Bloody B540 Mechanical Keyboard and TL8A Laser Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
CM Storm Havoc Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.
CM Storm Recon mouse on OCaholic.
Ozone Strike Pro Backlit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.

Video Cards:
ASUS GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum on OCAholic.
HIS R7 260X iPower IceQ X² 2GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
ASUS GeForce GTX 760 Striker Platinum on Guru3D.
Lexar Professional 600x SDXC UHS-1 Card (256GB) on TheSSDReview.
Sapphire AMD Radeon R7 265 Dual-X 2GB on eTeknix.
XFX Radeon R9 290 CrossFire Video Card Review at 4K Ultra HD on LegitReviews.

Storage:
WD MyCloud EX2 Two-Bay Consumer Cloud Storage on Tweaktown.
Kingston DataTraveler microDuo USB Drive on ThinkComputers.
Kingwin KF-252-BK Internal Hard Drive Hot Swap Rack on Tweaknews.
LaCie Little Big Disk Thunderbolt 2 External Storage Device on Tweaktown.

Misc:
TRENDnet TEW-818DRU AC1900 802.11ac Wireless Router on Tweaktown.
ASUS A88X-Pro AMD Motherboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Antec TruePower Classic 550W PSU on NikKTech.



Thursday Morning (21 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 17-April-2014  01:48:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A few people pointed out that Optus have a court-ordered correction posted on their homepage. In a television advertisement broadcast from about 26 January 2014 until 18 February 2014, Optus represented that the difference between the Optus mobile network and Telstra's mobile network is minimal and insignificant. The Supreme Court of Victoria has found that by broadcasting the advertisement, Optus engaged in conduct that is misleading and deceptive and made false representations in breach of the Australian Consumer Law.

TPG meanwhile have been fined $400k for not ensuring customers could dial emergency numbers. Telco TPG has been fined $400,000 for failing to provide access to emergency numbers for customers who had not paid bills. Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg on Wednesday found TPG failed to give access to triple-0 and 112 on more than 190 occasions between March and September 2011. He also found the company did not ensure that almost 6000 lines had access to emergency numbers over that period.

The ACCC has had a data breach on some of its websites. The affected websites are Recalls Australia, Product Safety Australia, SCAMwatch and the ACCC Public Registers website. The email addresses of some subscribers to the ACCC’s information alert services were inadvertently made accessible online. They were not indexed by search engines or linked from a web page on our sites. They could only be found if specific URLs were tried.

If you have a Windows phone and want to check out the Windows Phone 8.1 Preview for Developers, it seems you now can. Even if you’re not really a developer you can join the Preview for Developers to get Windows Phone 8.1 today. Every handset running Windows Phone 8 in the wild now is capable of the upgrade. Here’s how to get Window Phone 8.1.

Of course you shouldn't use your phone while driving, and Victorian Police can now spot you doing it from more than half a kilometre away. The Herald Sun reports Victoria Police began deploying the cameras last week, which will also focus on seat belt infringements and other distractions such as applying make-up or eating at the wheel. Wait, what? Is eating in a car illegal in NSW too?



Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 16-April-2014  14:51:37 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
ASRock FM2 A85X-ITX on FutureLooks.
Overclocking The AMD AM1 Athlon & Sempron APUs on Phoronix.
Are AMD Athlon/Sempron APUs Fast Enough For Steam On Linux, Steam Machines? on Phoronix.
AMD Athlon 5350 APU and AM1 Platform on LegitReviews.
ECS KBN-I/5200 AMD A6-5200 Mini-ITX on PureOC.
AMD Athlon 5350 / 5150 & Sempron 3850 / 2650 on Phoronix.

Cooling:
Corsair H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.
SilentiumPC Fera 2 HE 1224 CPU Cooler on MadShrimps.
Cooler Master Nepton 140XL CPU Cooler on HWSecrets.
Cooler Master Nepton 280L Water Cooler on APHNetworks.
be quiet! Dark Rock 3 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.

Cases:
SilverStone PS10 on PureOC.
Nanoxia Deep Silence 6 HPTX on Tweaktown.
Noctua NH-D15 Dual-Tower CPU Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Scythe IORI Scior 1000 CPU cooler on OCaholic.
Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini-ITX on BenchmarkReviews.
In Win 901 Mini-ITX on HWAsylum.
Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower on NikKTech.

Input Etc:
Mad Catz R.A.T. TE Gaming Mouse on LegitReviews.
SteelSeries Rival Optical Mouse on APHNetworks.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Acer TA272 HUL All-in-One Android desktop on TechSpot.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Android Smartphone on MegaTechNews.
KobraLan Extreme mini-PC on OCaholic.

Storage:
CoreRise Comay BladeDrive E28 1.6TB Enterprise PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SSD on eTeknix.
Asustor AS-204TE NAS on TechPowerUp.
HGST Ultrastar SSD800MH 12Gb/s SAS3 Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
Kingston 64GB SDXC Class 3 Memory Card & USB 3.0 MobileLite G3 Reader on PureOC.
Thunderbolt 2: Ready for Windows with the ASUS ThunderboltEX II on Tweaktown.
OCZ VERTEX 460 240GB on Vortez.
Plextor M6e 256GB PCI Express SSD on Guru3D.
Samsung XP941 Native PCIe M.2 SSD (512GB) on TechnologyX.
Synology DS414 High Performance 4-bay NAS Server for SMB & SOHO on MadShrimps.
OCZ 240GB Vertex 460 SSD on OCIA.

Video Cards:
XFX Radeon R7 240 Core Edition on HWSecrets.
Powercolor AMD Radeon R7 250X 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
EVGA Backplate Install for the GTX 780 Ti Classified on HWAsylum.
Gigabyte BRIX Pro And Intel Iris Pro Graphics on HotHardware.

Power Supply:
Xtorm LAVA CHARGER Universal Solar / USB Charger on NikKTech.
EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W on TechPowerUp.

Networking:
Diamond Wireless Range Extender WR300NSI on ThinkComputers.
Linksys WRT1900AC 802.11ac Smart Wireless Router on Tweaktown.

Misc:
DXRacer M-Series Game Chair on LanOC.



Total Lunar Eclipse This Evening (2 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 15-April-2014  16:22:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg

It's been 2.5 years since a total lunar eclipse was observable from Australia - and one's happening tonight. The Total Lunar Eclipse on April 15th, 2014 is well placed for observers in the Western Hemisphere, and will be visible in its entirety for all of North and South America. Most of Europe and Africa experience moonset just as the eclipse begins, while Australians and New Zealands will see the eclipsed moon at Moonrise. None of the eclipse is visible from north/east Europe, eastern Africa, the Middle East or Central Asia.

For Australians and New Zealanders, the eclipse will be in progress at Moonrise. The further East you are, the more of the eclipse you'll see. The Total stage of the eclipse starts at 5:08pm AEST, with Moonrise at 5:28pm AEST and maximum eclipse at around 5:46pm AEST, but will change depending on your timezone. Check the table further below for timings in a city near you.


More info here and discussion here.



Photography Gallery (3 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 14-April-2014  21:37:40 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's a quick snapshot of what people are up to in our Photography Gallery forum.



















Monday Lunchtime (13 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 14-April-2014  12:42:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The Heartbleed SSL bug remains the top story of the moment, with lots more info from mpot: here's a code analysis of the issue, and the programmer who introduced it claims it was an honest mistake - although some are not convinced. In fact, it's claimed the NSA was aware of and actively exploited the bug for two years. Anyway, here's a list of big sites that were affected and their current status. Discussion continues here.

Xbit have a Haswell memory performance scaling test, while PCPerspective cover AMD APU Memory scaling. Meanwhile OCaholic look at Core i7-4960X 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling. In our 3-way SLI gaming performance scaling articles we're going to investigate 3-way SLI scaling factors with different CPUs and different clock speeds. In eight recent games and two theoretical benchmarks we want to find out what difference 3-way SLI makes, when we run benchmarks with the CPU at stock clocks as well as overclocked to 4.5 GHz.

Tech Report looked behind the scenes at Intel's SSD division. The city is home base for Intel's Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group, otherwise known as NSG, which is responsible for the development and testing of Intel solid-state drives. The NSG had a story to tell about how its design and validation work produces extremely reliable SSDs. We got hard numbers on failure rates, details about efforts to make SSDs more dependable, and a peek behind the scenes at the Folsom facility.

Google Glass will apparently be on limited sale to consumers in the USA. Google Inc will take online orders for its Glass wearable gadget on April 15, in its biggest push to get the $1,500 wraparound Web-ready glasses out to the U.S. public. For a limited time starting Tuesday, Google will make the wearable device available to more than just the select group of users such as apps developers in its Glass Explorer program. In a blogpost, Google did not say how many pairs it would sell, just that the quantity would be limited. I actually saw a Google Glass wearer in the wild the other day, at the AWS Sydney Summit. He was walking around a bit awkwardly, obviously dividing his attention between the screen and the real world.

Tech Report also checked out the Steam Controller. After getting myself killed a few times, I put down the controller and spoke with the Valve guy. Was I just uncommonly clumsy, I asked, or was the learning curve really so steep? To my surprise, he said it personally took him eight hours to get fully acquainted with the Steam controller.

Red Dwarf will be returning for an 11th season! Announced during a panel at the recent Scarborough, England science fiction convention, series eleven of Red Dwarf is currently slated to go into production in October of this year. This could mean we’ll see new episodes as early as soon as the fall of 2015. Initially that sounds like a long wait, but considering how long we’ve waited before, that’s nothing.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about this - with ANZAC Day coming up, you can now experience a minute of silence via the web or by phoning a non-free number. Hrm.



Monday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 14-April-2014  01:17:20 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
Corsair Raptor K40 Gaming Keyboard on eTeknix.
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Gaming Keyboard on HWHeaven.
Cooler Master CM Storm Xornet Gaming Mouse on Tweaknews.
Das Keyboard 4 Professional on HotHardware.
Logitech G400s mouse on LanOC.

Audio Visual:
Wavemaster Stax 2.1 Speaker on eTeknix.
Logitech Bluetooth Audio Adapter on Techgage.
Creative Sound BlasterAxx 200 Axx on TechPowerUp.
Acer S241HL bmid 24-inch 5ms Full HD Monitor on Tweaktown.
BenQ XL2720Z Gaming Monitor on FunkyKit.
Rosewill R-Studio Ampbox Bluetooth Speaker on LegitReviews.
Vizio 54" Soundbar 3.0 on GamingNexus.

Video Cards:
ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II on XbitLabs.
Sapphire R7 250 Ultimate Passive 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
GIGABYTE R9 290X OC WINDFORCE 3X on FunkyKit.
XFX Radeon R9 280X 3GB Double D Black Edition OC on Tweaktown.

Storage:
Intel 730 Solid State Drive on XbitLabs.
Zalman ZM-VE300 USB 3.0 External Drive Case on LegitReviews.
Plextor M6e 512GB PCI Express Solid State Drive on eTeknix.
Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB USB 3.0 External HDD on Tweaktown.
Crucial M550 256GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Plextor M6M mSATA SSD (256GB) on Tweaktown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
Verizon Wireless Nokia Lumia Icon on LanOC.
ASUS-G10AC-1B prebuilt desktop on OCaholic.

Cases:
Cougar MX300 Midtower Gaming Case on TechnologyX.
BitFenix Shadow on OCaholic.
Cooler Master HAF Stacker on TechPowerUp.

Cooling:
Dark Rock Pro 3 by beQuiet! CPU cooler on TechWareLabs.
Deepcool Gamer Storm Gabriel on Modders-Inc.
Enermax Liqtech 120X CPU cooler on OCaholic.
Thermalright Silver Arrow IB-E CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Enermax ETS-T40 Black Twister CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
SilverStone Tundra Series TD03 All-in-One Liquid Cooler on PCPerspective.

Memory:
AVEXIR Blitz 1.1 DDR3 RAM on BenchmarkReviews.
ADATA XPG V2 PC3-19200 16GB Dual Channel Memory Kit on Tweaktown.
Corsair Vengeance Low Profile 16GB 1600MHz C10 Dual Channel DDR3 Memory Kit on MadShrimps.

Misc:
Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Smart Wi-Fi Wireless Router on NikKTech.
Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X motherboard on Bjorn3D.



Misc Pics (21 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 11-April-2014  12:47:25 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Thanks to brodsta and IntelInside this week!








Gigabyte Z97 Competition (3 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 11-April-2014  11:31:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg

GIGABYTE and the OCAU HWBot team are running a contest, so if you feel like gettin' your benchmark on and winning some stuff, check it out:


click for the thread!



Friday Morning Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 11-April-2014  11:03:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Motherboard & CPU:
AMD Athlon 5350 Kabini AM1 APU on Modders-Inc.
AMD Athlon 5350 APU On Linux on Phoronix.
AMD AM1 Athlon 5350 on PCPerspective.
AMD AM1 Platform with Athlon 5350 and MSI AM1i Motherboard on HWHeaven.
AMD “Kabini” AM1 Athlon 5350 APU (FS1b) on eTeknix.
AAEON EMB-BT1: A Linux-Friendly, Mini-ITX, Atom "Bay Trail" Board on Phoronix.
Biostar A88W Hi-Fi 3D ATX Motherboard on PureOC.
GIGABYTE GA-7PESH3 (Intel C602) on Tweaktown.
MSI Z87M-GAMING on MadShrimps.

Portable & Prebuilt:
iOCEAN X7S 8-core Smartphone on MadShrimps.
HTC One M8 on TechSpot.
ASRock Rack 2U12L6SC-2TS6 Barebones Server Kit on Tweaktown.
Gumstick Smartphone Stand on Bjorn3D.
NVIDIA SHIELD OTA Update & Performance Review on LegitReviews.
Razer Edge Pro gaming tablet on HWHeaven.

Power Supply:
Pivos MANA 2200 mAh Battery Pack on Bjorn3D.
Super Flower Leadex Platinum 1200W PSU on TechPowerUp.
Cougar CMX V3 850-Watt 80 PLUS Bronze on Tweaktown.
ADATA PV100 Power Bank on BenchmarkReviews.
LUXA2 P-MEGA 41600mAh World’s Largest Power Station on eTeknix.



Friday Morning (11 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 11-April-2014  01:43:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

The "Heartbleed" SSL bug has had quite an impact across the web. Given the affected software has been so widely used for more than two years and attracted a lot of attention while people were scrambling to patch servers, you might want to think about changing your passwords for important services. This issue didn't affect OCAU directly but it's a good idea to change your password occasionally anyway, and of course, don't use the same password in multiple places. If you want to know if a site you use has been affected, here's a webpage which can check for you. Discussion here.

From Matt: You may know that Microsoft stopped update and security support for windows XP this month. What you may not know is that, obviously in an attempt to burn all bridges with anybody living in reality, Microsoft also is planning to stop home-user support for Windows 7 next year, pushing everybody to upgrade to the operating system that nobody wants, Windows 8 (or possibly by that point, Windows 9).

Or you could pay millions like the Dutch government, thanks Gunna. The government of the Netherlands has struck a multimillion Euro deal with Microsoft to secure continued support for its Windows XP systems, according to a report published on 4 April in Dutch News.

Here's an odd one: Three companies, Fuel Entertainment, Xbox Entertainment Studios and LightBox Entertainment plan on digging up portions of an old Alamogordo landfill located near First Street and White Sands Boulevard to search for Atari "E.T. The Extraterrestrial" game cartridges purportedly buried there in the 1980s. The burial is somewhat of an urban legend among video game enthusiasts.

NASA have released lots of software into the public domain. NASA on Thursday opened up access to the software created for various missions and operations with the publication of a catalog by the space agency's Technology Transfer Program, which points interested parties to methods for obtaining code that interests them.

The mainframe is 50 years old now, and ITWorld have an interesting article about how the S/360 changed everything. Before the System/360 introduction, manufacturers built each new computer model from scratch. Sometimes machines were even built individually for each customer. Software designed to run on one machine would not work on other machines, even from the same manufacturer. The operating system for each computer had to be built from scratch as well.



Thursday Evening Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 10-April-2014  18:54:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Cases:
Corsair Obsidian 450D on Guru3D.
Bitfenix Comrade on OCaholic.
Corsair Carbide SPEC 01 on Vortez.
XFX Type01 Bravo Mid-Tower on NeoSeeker.
Cougar MX300 on OCClub.
Thermaltake Core V71 Full-Tower on Tweaktown.

Storage:
Plextor M6S SSD 256GB on TheSSDReview.
Plextor M6S 256GB SSD on Tweaktown.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 128GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Inateck FEU3NS-1 USB 3.0 External Storage Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Thecus N5550 5-Bay NAS Server and XBMC Home Theater Computer on MissingRemote.
Patriot Stellar 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on APHNetworks.
MyDigitalSSD Pocket Vault SSD on TheSSDReview.

Audio Visual:
Oregon Scientific ATC Chameleon Dual Lens Action Camera on NikKTech.
ASUS Xonar U7 USB Sound Card and Amp on LegitReviews.
iui Design Mirror Boombox bluetooth speakers on ThinkComputers.
Bitfenix Flo headset on OCaholic.
Samsung PN64F8500 64 Inch Plasma Smart TV no Tweaknews.

Software:
CyberLink PowerDVD 14 on MissingRemote.
Office Mobile For iPad and iPhone on HotHardware.

Video Cards:
MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB MINI-ITX Gaming OC on Tweaktown.
XFX R9 280 Double Dissipation Black Edition OC 3GB on eTeknix.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8GB on eTeknix.
Sapphire R9 280X VaporX on Bjorn3D.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8GB at 4K Ultra HD on LegitReviews.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 on LegionHW.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 on HotHardware.
AMD Radeon R9 295x2 on Guru3D.
AMD's Radeon R9 295 X2 on TechReport.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8GB on PCPerspective.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8GB Reference Dual GPU on Tweaktown.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 on TechSpot.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 on HWHeaven.
AMD Radeon R9 295X2 8 GB on TechPowerUp.



Tuesday Afternoon (6 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 8-April-2014  17:11:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg

A bug in OpenSSL has put encrypted communications at risk, with more coverage here and here, thanks schnappy. Even if you’ve never heard of OpenSSL, it’s probably a part of your life in one way or another — or, more likely, in many ways. The apps you use, the sites you visit; if they encrypt the data they send back and forth, there’s a good chance they use OpenSSL to do it. The Apache web server that powers something like 50% of the Internet’s web sites, for example, utilizes OpenSSL.

This from OCAU member anthonyl: Here is my little company "Fans On Board" TV debut on The Today Show yesterday.. Im hoping to raise over a million dollars for 3 charities.. Make-A-Wish Australia, Starlight Children's Foundation and Eden Dora Trust in the UK.. the video explains how.. Here's the Today Show video with more info.

AMD have a new FirePro W9100. First announced last month, the FirePro W9100 is AMD’s new flagship FirePro video card. Based on AMD’s Hawaii GPU, the FirePro W9100 is a fairly straightforward update to AMD’s FirePro lineup, bringing with it the various GCN 1.1 feature upgrades along with Hawaii’s stronger overall performance and greatly improved double precision (FP64) performance.

Video game related aggression may be more about sucking at the game rather than in-game violence, according to a new study. However, only some of the gamers were given a tutorial before playing the game so they could familiarise themselves with the controls and game mechanics. The researchers found that it was the players who had not had the tutorial who felt less competent and more aggressive, rather than people who had played the more violent version of the game.

If you use Windows 8 and miss the start bar, there's good news, everybody. At its Build conference today, Microsoft announced a new Start Menu that looks like a hybrid of the best of Windows 7 and Windows 8. It's around the same size as the Windows 7 menu, but also features miniature Live Tiles along one side.

A five year old has hacked the Xbox login system - by hitting the spacebar, thanks mpot. Kristoffer Von Hassel uncovered a vulnerability in Xbox Live's password system, that would allow someone to log into a Xbox player's account without their password. Kristoffer's parents noticed he was logging into his father's Xbox Live account simply by tapping the space bar.

Seagate has a new 6TB HDD, with more info here. Seagate has joined Western Digital’s previously exclusive 6TB hard drive club, with the enterprise-class 7,200 RPM ST6000NM0004. Priced at around $600 (similar to WD’s Ultrastar He6), Seagate’s new drive isn’t likely to find a home in your gaming rig or office workstation — but that’s not really the point of ultra-high-end hardware, anyway. No, the main reason you should be excited about Seagate’s 6TB drive is that the technology that makes such capacities possible will trickle down to mainstream drives, resulting in cheaper 4TB desktop drives, and hopefully the arrival of 2.5-inch 3TB laptop hard drives.



MSI Australia OCAU Easter Giveaway (0 Comments) (link)
 Monday, 7-April-2014  13:53:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Another giveaway! This time, MSI Australia are offering the chance to win a SteelSeries gaming headset or mouse:


click for the thread!



Sunday Night Reviews (1 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 6-April-2014  23:30:26 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Audio Visual:
Amazon Fire TV on Phoronix.
D-Link DCS-2330L Outdoor HD Network Camera on Tweaktown.
GAMDIAS EROS Surround Sound Gaming Headset on FutureLooks.
VidaBox OpenSqueeze Network Players on TechPowerUp.
Sigma USB Dock on MartyBugs.
Cooler Master CM Storm Pitch Gaming Earphones on MadShrimps.

Cases:
In Win 904 on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake Urban T81 Extreme Full Tower on eTeknix.
Coolermaster HAF Stacker 935, 315R & 315F Modular Chassis on eTeknix.
Cooler Master Elite 110 Mini-ITX Chassis on Tweaktown.

Input Etc:
Bloody G501 Headset, B120 Keyboard and ZL5A Mouse on HWHeaven.
Logitech G19s keyboard on LanOC.
ROCCAT Ryos MK Pro Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.

Storage:
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 SED 4TB SATA III HDD on NikKTech.
Lexar S73 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
OWC ThunderBay IV 8TB Thunderbolt External Storage Drive on Tweaktown.
Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB USB 3.0 External HDD on Tweaktown.
Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2TB Portable HDD on Techgage.
Inateck USB 3.0 PCI Express Add-On Card on Tweaktown.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512 GB on OCaholic.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 256GB SSD on eTeknix.

Video Cards:
HIS Radeon R7 250 iCooler Boost Clock 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
MSI Radeon R9 290X Lightning Overclocked on Tweaktown.
AMD XFX Radeon R7 250 Core Edition Passive 1GB GDDR5 on eTeknix.
Sapphire Radeon R9 280 Dual-X 3GB OC on Tweaktown.
ASUS Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II OC on OCaholic.

Power Supply:
LUXA2 TX-200 Dual Wireless Qi Charging Station on LegitReviews.
Pivos MANA 5200mAh & 2200mAh Portable Battery Packs on ThinkComputers.

Cooling:
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler on PureOC.
ARCTIC Accelero Hybrid II-120 Air/Liquid Cooler on NikKTech.

Misc:
Kingston HyperX Genesis LoVo 16GB DDR3-1600 CL9 memory on FunkyKit.
ASUS Maximus VI Gene motherboard on ThinkComputers.
Nokia Lumia Icon Review: Verizon's Windows Phone 8 Flagship on HotHardware.



Daylight Savings (5 Comments) (link)
 Sunday, 6-April-2014  11:59:03 (GMT +10) - by Agg

If you were confused about time this morning, it's because daylight savings has ended in affected states. Daylight Saving Time begins at 2am on the first Sunday in October, when clocks are put forward one hour. It ends at 2am (which is 3am Daylight Saving Time) on the first Sunday in April, when clocks are put back one hour. If your forum timestamping looks wrong, fiddle with the settings in UserCP.


Misc Pics (23 Comments) (link)
 Friday, 4-April-2014  13:56:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Friday again!








Geek Food (1 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 3-April-2014  20:28:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Here's some yummy threads from our Geek Recipes forum:


Salmon and Potato Sushi
by sbm888

Salmon with Yuzu and Shiso
by sbm888

Brisket in a Weber Q
by mmBax


Goat Curry (Pressure Cooker)
by no5isalive

Turkish Baklava
by Alper

and sgtraven reports from
the TopShelf Festival



Thursday Midday (4 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 3-April-2014  12:49:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Windows XP will no longer be supported by Microsoft in a few days, but it's still going strong. March was the fifth full month of availability for Microsoft’s latest operating system version: Windows 8.1 continues to steadily grow while Windows 8 managed to stay flat, allowing the duo together to finally crack 11 percent market share. Meanwhile, with only a week left of support, Windows XP still has more than 27 percent of the pie.

The new NBN boss arrived this week. To say he faces a tough challenge is an understatement of international proportions. Never before in his life has the executive faced the level of scrutiny, animosity and politicking that the $41 billion national broadband network’s construction will throw at him.

The UK Government are updating their copyright laws for the digital age. The changes make small but important reforms to UK copyright law and aim to end the current situation where minor and reasonable acts of copying which benefit consumers, society and the economy are unlawful. They also remove a range of unnecessary rules and regulations from the statute book in line with the government’s aim to reduce regulation.

Closer to home, a couple of weeks ago the Minister for Justice released legislation to streamline the classification system in Australia. The reforms remove the need for reclassification when minor changes are made to computer games, such as software updates, bug fixes, or even when a new song is added to a karaoke game. Films that were modified to play on the small screen of an aeroplane in-flight service, or movies changing from 2D to 3D, will no longer require reclassification.

An autocorrect SNAFU apparently led to lots of people donating to the wrong charity. In order to donate to Cancer Research UK, you had to text the word “BEAT”, to a generic donations number but instead some charitable folks’ generous donations were auto-corrected to “BEARS”, resulting in them adopting a polar bear, rather than donating to Cancer Research.

You probably want to skip this story if you're squeamish, but neurosurgeons have successfully implanted a 3D-printed section of skull. The operation was performed by a team of neurosurgeons at the University Medical Centre Utrecht and the university claims this is this first instance of a successful 3D printed cranium that has not been rejected by the patient.

Tech Report look at DirectX 12 in more detail. We already covered the basics of DirectX 12 amid the GDC frenzy. Now that we've had time to study our notes from the show, we can delve into a little more detail about the new API's inception, the key ways in which it differs from DirectX 11, and what AMD and Nvidia think about it.

This video is from October but I don't recall seeing it before - 3M demonstrating an immersion bath cooler. This is a demonstration rig that shows off submersion cooling with one of the Novec products from 3M. A normal commercial motherboard is partially submerged (the CPU is fully submerged) in the liquid and cools the components without any issues like thermal buildup or short circuiting.

TechSpot explore how much effect video formats and players can affect battery life. Over the course of the last two weeks, I’ve been digging deep into what the optimal playback setup is for lengthening battery life. Throughout more than 145 hours of testing, I’ve looked at a range of Windows video players, including the stock Windows 8 app, Windows Media Player, VLC and MPC-HC, plus many encoding formats such as H.264, Xvid, and the all-new HEVC format.

If you've been hooked on one of the various versions of 2048, you might be interested in this article, thanks Matt. Because the story is basically wrong: 2048 is summarily a free public mod of 1024, which is a rip-off of Threes. Threes, by Asher Vollmer and Greg Wohlwend, is a game made by people the game development community know and like. It addresses the Flappy Bird phenomenon also.



Thursday Midday Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Thursday, 3-April-2014  12:16:58 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Input Etc:
ROCCAT Kone Pure Gaming Mouse LanOC.
Tt eSPORTS Saphira Gaming Mouse on ThinkComputers.
ROCCAT Siru Gaming Mousepad on BenchmarkReviews.

Video Cards:
XFX Radeon R9 290 Double Dissipation on LegitReviews.
AMD XFX Radeon R7 240 Core Edition Passive 2GB DDR3 on eTeknix.

Storage:
Toshiba PX02SS 12Gb/s SAS3 Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
SSD Endurance Diary with OCZ Vector 256 GB on OCaholic.

Cases:
Fractal ARC MINI R2 on MadShrimps.
NZXT H440 Silent Mid-tower on Modders-Inc.

Misc:
Seasonic S12G 450W on TechPowerUp.
Noctua NH-U12S, NH-U14S and NH-D14 CPU Coolers on HWHeaven.



2014 April Fools (6 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 2-April-2014  17:34:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg

I'm always wary about posting news on April 1st and 2nd, but here's a few I'm pretty sure ARE pranks: iiNet have Pet-Fi, while Telstra have a Pet Phone (FB link) and Birdseye had Chocolated Coated Peas (FB link). Tony Abbott is supportive of his lesbian dog, Google Maps have Pokemon to catch and Vegemite have a new energy drink (FB link). HL3 is coming but EA own it, Japanese train commuters will have scent alerts of upcoming stations, while OCInside have an SSD Puncher to double their capacity. Tesla Motors are releasing cars to match iPhones.

Let me know in the comments if you spotted any other good ones out there!



Wednesday Afternoon Reviews (0 Comments) (link)
 Wednesday, 2-April-2014  17:24:22 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Storage:
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 SSD Family on HotHardware.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 2.5" SSD Full Capacity Roundup on PCPerspective.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 1TB SSD on Tweaktown.
Adata's Premiere Pro SP920 solid-state drive on TechReport.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 SSD (512GB) on TechnologyX.
SanDisk Extreme II 240GB 6-Drive SSD RAID on Tweaktown.
ADATA SP920 SSD on TheSSDReview.
Intel 730 SSD on Guru3D.
Crucial M550 512 GB on TechPowerUp.
Seagate 600 Pro 200GB 2-Drive SSD RAID on Tweaktown.
Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 16GB USB2.0 Flash Drive on eTeknix.
HGST Ultrastar He6 6TB Helium Enterprise HDD on Tweaktown.

Portable & Prebuilt:
ASUS Zenbook UX301LA on Phoronix.
MSI Nightblade Barebone System on Modders-Inc.

Input Etc:
Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Hybrid Gaming Mouse on NikKTech.
Ozone Strike Pro Gaming Keyboard on RBMods.
Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014 on LanOC.

Cooling:
Corsair H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Silverstone NB04 Notebook Cooler on eTeknix.

Cases:
Microcool Banchetto 101 testbed case on OCaholic.
Raidmax Cobra Z on PureOC.
BitFenix Colossus Micro-ATX on PCPerspective.
Corsair Graphite 760T Full Tower on LegitReviews.
NZXT H230 on ThinkComputers.
Corsair Graphite 760T on TechPowerUp.
Corsair Graphite Series 760T Full Tower on MadShrimps.

Video Cards:
Sapphire Radeon R7-240 Dual HDMI on Bjorn3D.
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II OC watercooling vs aircooling on OCaholic.
Sapphire Radeon R9 270 Dual-X 2GB OC Overclocked on Tweaktown.
GeForce GTX Titan vs. GTX 780 Ti on OCaholic.

Audio Visual:
Attitude 1 Almaz Multi-Format Headset on eTeknix.
BitFenix Flo Gaming Headset on BenchmarkReviews.
KGUARD Easy Link EL421-4HW212B Surveillance Camera Kit on APHNetworks.

Misc:
Linksys EA6900 WiFi Smart Router AC1900 on HWHeaven.
be quiet! Pure Power L8 700W on FutureLooks.



Win a FUNC Mousing Surface from Scorptec! (3 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 1-April-2014  12:53:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg

OCAU Major Sponsor Scorptec have another competition for us - this time you can win a FUNC mousing surface:


click for the thread!



Facebook and OCAU Announce Ocaulus Headset (62 Comments) (link)
 Tuesday, 1-April-2014  00:03:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg

Acquisition positions Facebook to accelerate growth into the forum space

MENLO PARK, CALIF. - March 31st, 2014 - Facebook today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to acquire OCAU Pty Ltd, the leader in immersive forum technology, for an undisclosed sum. The agreement also provides for an additional earn-out based on the achievement of certain milestones.

OCAU is the leader in immersive forum technology and has already built strong interest among developers, having received several orders for development kits for the company's forum headset, the Ocaulus Thrift. While the applications for forum technology beyond general discussion are in their nascent stages, several industries are already experimenting with the technology, and Facebook plans to extend OCAU's existing advantage to new verticals, including communications, media and entertainment, education and other areas. Given these broad potential applications, forum technology is a strong candidate to emerge as the next social and communications platform.


OCAU's Ground-breaking Forum Headset


"Mobile is the platform of today, and now we're also getting ready for the platforms of tomorrow," said Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. "OCAU has the chance to create the most social platform ever, and change the way we work, play and communicate. Also, they keep appearing in my type-ahead when I look up stuff for Oculus VR so it was easiest to just buy them too."

"We are excited to work with Mark and the Facebook team to deliver the very best forum platform in the world," said James Rolfe, founder and CEO of OCAU. "We believe forums will be heavily defined by social experiences that connect people in magical, new ways. It is a transformative and disruptive technology, that enables the world to experience the impossible, and it's only just the beginning. Also, with the money involved I can get some new tyres for my car, and maybe a takeaway."

OCAU will maintain its headquarters in NSW, Australia and will continue development of the Ocaulus Thrift, its ground-breaking forum headset.

Edit: April Fools, obviously. :) I can finally take this thing off!




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