|
|
|
|
|
May 2014 |
Friday again!
     
     
     
     
     
AMD and NVIDIA are in a spat about optimisation again. Forbes have an article to get you up to speed. Last weekend AMD issued some bold statements to Forbes about Nvidia’s GameWorks developer program, and how it may have impacted performance of Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs on AMD hardware. These claims stretched beyond just Watch Dogs and extended into the greater PC gaming ecosystem, with AMD’s Robert Hallock passionately explaining that GameWorks represents “a clear and present threat to gamers by deliberately crippling performance on AMD products.” Now Nvidia is firing back, intent on setting the record straight.
Apparently a PR stunt for the game Watch_Dogs sparked a bomb scare in Sydney. The safe was part of a promotion for Watch_Dogs, and was accompanied by a "suspicious" letter telling a journalist to "check your voicemail". The problem is, the reporter did not have any messages to check, so the safe remained locked. After staff entered a code that had been taped to the box, the safe started to beep, prompting fears that it could be an explosive device.
Canberra residents are getting free WiFi from iiNet, with more info here. The ACT Government has awarded iiNet a five-year contract to offer free wi-fi to Canberra residents and visitors, with over 700 wireless access points to be rolled out across 12 business districts by June next year.
The New York Times report on teleporting data reliably. In a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science, physicists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology reported that they were able to reliably teleport information between two quantum bits separated by three meters, or about 10 feet.
A heap of people sent this in so I'm passing it along, although it seems like a bit pie in the sky (or pie on the road) to me. It'd be great if it got up and running, though - solar freakin' roadways.
Thursday Evening
(4 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 29-May-2014 20:31:12 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
A few people passed on a message from TrueCrypt, who has warned that they may not be secure and recommends using something else. The development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. Windows 8/7/Vista and later offer integrated support for encrypted disks and virtual disk images. Such integrated support is also available on other platforms. You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform. Coverage here, here, here and here. It's not clear if there is an actual issue or if it's just saying there might be due to discontinued development.
The Curiosity Show has released their first new episode since 1990. I loved this show as a kid! For the first time in more than 20 years, Australia's much-loved kids' science program, the Curiosity Show, has partnered with Kellogg Australia to create a new episode all in the name of educating Aussie parents and their children about breakfast nutrition. It's not as Kellogg-spammy as I expected. Discussion here.
BF3 on Origin is free at the moment. Carve a path through your opponents with destructible environments, vehicular combat and huge multiplayer maps.
The boss of Spotify Australia says they are fighting music piracy successfully. Contrary to the insistence of media analysts, music piracy in Australia is not endemic, and streaming music services have contributed to stemming that flow — that’s the claim made by Spotify Australian chief Kate Vale, whose company is finishing up a project on Spotify’s impact on Australian piracy.
The 2013 CERT Australia Cyber Crime and Security Survey is available for download. The annual surveys are designed to obtain a better understanding of how cyber incidents are affecting the businesses that form part of Australia’s systems of national interest – the businesses that partner with CERT Australia. The findings from the surveys provide a picture of the current cyber security measures these businesses have in place; the recent cyber incidents they have experienced; and their reporting of them.
Wednesday Afternoon
(13 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-May-2014 13:46:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
The Government's "Stay Smart Online" website is warning of ransom attacks on Apple products, seemingly targeted at Australians. Apple device and Mac users should be aware that they may be targeted by hackers who lock you out of your device before demanding payment of a ransom. In recent hours, a number of Australian Apple users have reported the ransom attack targeting their devices. The information available is limited and may be updated as more information emerges. Coverage here and here.
Meanwhile, the Avast Anti Virus Forum has been hacked, with details of 400,000 users compromised. Company's CEO Vincent Steckler today stated in a blog post that user's nicknames, user names, email addresses and hashed passwords were compromised in a attack on Avast Forum which took place over this past weekend. Steckler also noted in the same blog, that although the passwords are hashed but it could be possible for a sophisticated thief / progammer to derive these passwords.
If you're still using Windows XP, mpot noticed this registry change which might enable you to receive updates - although Microsoft say it's not a good idea. We recently became aware of a hack that purportedly aims to provide security updates to Windows XP customers. The security updates that could be installed are intended for Windows Embedded and Windows Server 2003 customers and do not fully protect Windows XP customers.
The Queensland Government has adopted a cloud-first policy for IT purchases, thanks bbjayo. The policy makes Queensland the first Australian government to take the plunge and commit fully to a ‘cloud-first’ approach, following in the footsteps of the UK, Denmark and New Zealand. The policy, released today, states that agencies “must consider first cloud-based solutions in preference to traditional ICT investments”.
HotHardware meanwhile checked out NVIDIA's GRID Virtual GPU cloud computing. NVIDIA announced that it would offer a free 24-hour test drive of NVIDIA GRID to anyone who wanted to see what the technology could do. We took the company up on its offer and what we've seen is damned impressive.
Sydney is apparently getting a Gaming Bar soon, following Brisbane and Melbourne's lead. Creator Ben “BeStRaFe” Mudie, who has been actively involved in the Sydney LAN scene, helping organise several events including SGL, has told us he is “hoping to kick the doors open in August.” Located in the basement of 199 Clarence St in the CBD, Spawn Point will be located right next to the Redoak microbrewery. It’s a venue ideal for small-scale functions, and while Mudie wants to keep a steady flow of events happening at the bar, he’s also conscious of keeping it open for those passers-by in the city who just want to drop in.
Phoronix have a high-end GeForce vs Radeon Linux gaming comparison. After last week carrying out separate NVIDIA Windows vs. Linux OpenGL benchmarks and similar AMD Radeon Windows 8.1 vs. Ubuntu 14.04 tests, today we are pitting the GeForce and Radeon graphics cards against each other on Ubuntu Linux with the very latest drivers to see how their performance compares now head-on. With this testing we have some Steam games plus are also monitoring the power consumption, performance-per-Watt, and GPU thermal metrics.
It seems that SSD speed boost in the previous news post is a little too good to be true, thanks bbjayo. Bottom line: Don't expect to see this impressive speed up in the next three years. Flash vendors have other techniques for speeding flash performance.
Wednesday Lunchtime Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-May-2014 13:15:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Storage:
Corsair Force LX SSD Review (256GB) on TheSSDReview.
ioSafe 214 Dual-bay Disaster-Proof NAS on Techgage.
Kingston 32GB microSD Mobility Kit on Tweaktown.
QNAP SilentNAS HS-210 NAS Server on NikKTech.
Toshiba PX03SN 12Gb/s SAS3 Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
X2 Aurel Noise Cancellation Headset on OCIA.
ASUS PB287Q 28-in 4K Single Stream 60Hz Monitor on LegitReviews.
Video Cards:
MSI Radeon R9 280 OC on TechWareLabs.
MSI GeForce GTX 780 6GB Twin Frozr Gaming OCed on Tweaktown.
Radeon R9 290X vs. Radeon R9 280X CrossFire on OCaholic.
Software:
Watch_Dogs on Vortez.
Watch Dogs on OCClub.
Cooling:
V3 Components Voltair TEC CPU Cooler on LegitReviews.
Noctua NH-U9B SE2 CPU Cooler on ThinkComputers.
Misc:
Linksys WRT1900AC Wireless AC Router on HWHeaven.
Antec GX500 tower case on TechPowerUp.
Corsair AXi Series 1500 W on TechPowerUp.
ASUS A88X-Pro FM2+ motherboard on Modders-Inc.
Logitech G502 Proteus Core mouse on LanOC.
Wednesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 28-May-2014 01:53:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 Preview on OCAholic.
ASUS ROG Maximus VII Hero on OCClub.
GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming 7 on Vortez.
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK on HWSecrets.
GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H (Intel Z97) on Tweaktown.
ASUS Maximus VII Gene on OCaholic.
Audio Visual:
ADESSO XTREAM S2 BLUETOOTH SPEAKER on APHNetworks.
ASUS PB287Q WLED 4K UHD 28-inch Monitor on Tweaktown.
ASUS PB287Q 4K UHD 28-in Monitor on PCPerspective.
Liquid Image Ego 1080P WiFi Xtreme Sport Camera on NikKTech.
Mionix NASH 20 Headset on PureOC.
SteelSeries Siberia Elite vs Sennheiser G4ME ZERO gaming headsets on FutureLooks.
Software:
Watch Dogs (PC) on HWHeaven.
Watch Dogs Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance on TechSpot.
Watch Dogs PC graphics performance on Guru3D.
Storage:
Buffalo DriveStation Mini Thunderbolt 512GB External SSD on Tweaktown.
Corsair Force Series LX 256GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Samsung XP941 M.2 x & 840 Pro SATA 3 and Plextor M6e M.2 x2 SSDs on TheSSDReview.
SanDisk Extreme Pro UHS-II 32GB Memory Card on LegitReviews.
Thecus N2310 2-bay Intelligent NAS on eTeknix.
Kingston Class 10 UHS-1 Ultimate SDXC Card (64GB) on TheSSDReview.
OCZ Vertex 460 (240GB) on Bjorn3D.
Samsung XP941 256GB M.2 PCIe SSD on LegitReviews.
Intel Z97 Review - M.2 vs SATA on Vortez.
QNAP SilentNAS HS-210 NAS Server on NikKTech.
Plextor M6S SSD on Guru3D.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet (10.1-Inch) on MegaTechNews.
AOC A2472PW4T Monitor/Android All-in-One System on Tweaktown.
Acer Aspire S7-392-6807 Touchscreen Ultrabook Laptop on Tweaktown.
Dell Venue 11 Pro Windows Tablet on MegaTechNews.
PC And Projector In-One: Gigabyte's Brix Projector on HotHardware.
Input Etc:
Ozone Strike Pro keyboard on Vortez.
Genius Energy Mouse on APHNetworks.
Func KB460 keyboard on OCaholic.
Cooler Master CM Storm Trigger Z Gaming Keyboard on MadShrimps.
Cooling:
bequiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 Heatsink on HWAsylum.
Enermax Liqtech 120X CPU Cooler on HWHeaven.
Bitdefender Internet Security
(31 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 27-May-2014 11:42:31 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Bitdefender have offered OCAU members a free 6 month trial of their commercial antivirus / internet security program:
click for details!
GIGABYTE Z97X Overclocking Guide
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 26-May-2014 19:24:49 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Sin0822 has another of his in-depth overclocking guides. This time it covers the GIGABYTE Z97X boards. While this guide focuses heavily on the Z97X-SOC and Z97X-SOC Force, the same principles can be applied to any GIGABYTE Z97 motherboard. All the results done by me in this guide are done on a closed loop AIO watercooler with above ambient temperature. There is a separate section from top overclockers such as Dinos22, and those are mostly done on LN2.
click for the guide!
Google have aquired Word Lens and made it free, possibly only for a limited time. When traveling in a foreign country, Word Lens users would simply hold the phone up to a sign and the camera would immediately translate it. Currently, users can translate between English and Portuguese, German, Italian, French, Russian, and Spanish. I've been playing with it on my S5 and frankly it's borderline witchcraft. :) Very handy if you travel or need to translate basic text.
Matt sent in this SSD speed breakthrough which might even be good news for current SSD owners. There is definitely a possibility that existing devices still in support by their manufacturers may get firmware updates in the near future so that they store data in the new manner and benefit from the increased speed, decreased power consumption and increased expected life of drives equipped with the new NAND controller firmware.
Anandtech have a guide to averting disaster with backups. We are at a point where a single hard drive can contain multiple terabytes of information, and with a single mishap, lose it all forever. Everyone knows someone who has had the misfortune of having a computer stop working and wanting their information back.
Some space geeks are contacting an old spacecraft using crowdsourced funds. A team of space enthusiasts has picked up the first new contact with International Sun/Earth Explorer 3 (ISEE-3) probe and is preparing to fire its boosters for the first time since 1987, after a team of privateers crowdsourced over $125,000 for the project. Meanwhile, there's some new detailed photos of the Apollo 11 landing site.
Still on space news, NASA have taken the world's biggest selfie. This image was built using 36,422 individual photos that were posted on social media and tagged #globalselfie on or around April 22, 2014. People on every continent – 113 countries and regions in all – posted selfies.
Video card prices might be dropping soon, now that crypto miners have moved on. [A]s chips designed for Bitcoin mining started appearing in early 2014, demand for graphics cards has been dropping. Since mining chips have advantages in size, power consumption, reliability and costs, most Bitcoin operators have turned to dedicated chips instead, the sources said.
Speaking of which, you might be mining coins for someone else if you downloaded a pirate copy of Watch Dogs recently. It's not unusual for a "leaked" video game torrent to also include a virus or two. Gamers who are into such things tend to consider them almost par for the course, but this one is a new variation on a theme.
Here's an article on why one guy is sending Google Glass back, thanks mpot. It's called glassing out. Your eyes roll over to the right to look at the screen, and the rest of the world goes out of focus. People can't make eye contact with you, and if they're versed in popular psychology, they read things into your lack of eye contact.
Monday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 26-May-2014 02:50:01 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Republic of Gamers Maximus VII Ranger Z97 (LGA 1150) on eTeknix.
Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 7 (LGA 1150) on Eteknix.
Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Force on OCaholic.
Intel Haswell Refresh Reviewed: Core i7-4790, i5-4690, i5-4590 and i5-4460 on MadShrimps.
ASRock Z97 Extreme6 on Anandtech.
Video Cards:
Sapphire R9 290 Vapor-X OC Edition on HWHeaven.
MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming 6 GB on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Kingston 64GB SDA3 SDXC UHS I Class 3 Memory Card
Seagate Enterprise Capacity 3.5 V4 6TB SATA III HDD on NikKTech.
Thecus N2560 Network Attached Storage on Modders-Inc.
ADATA XPG SX300 mSATA Solid State Drive on ThinkComputers.
Zalman ZM-VE400 Encrypted External HDD Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Silicon Power Diamond D20 500GB USB 3.0 Portable HDD on MadShrimps.
Vantec NexStar Wi-Fi External HDD Enclosure on Tweaktown.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Sensei Wireless mouse on LanOC.
Logitech G502 Proteus Core: Tunable 12,000 DPI Gaming Mouse on TechSpot.
Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Poseidon Z Illuminated Cherry MX Blue Keyboard on TechnologyX.
Cooling:
BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 Heatsink on FrostyTech.
Thermaltake NiC C4 CPU cooler on OCClub.
NZXT Sentry 3 Fan Controller on Techgage.
Cases:
Lian Li PC-Q07B Mini-ITX on BenchmarkReviews.
Phanteks Enthoo Pro Full Tower on PureOC.
Thanks to Kon and LethalCorpse this week!
     
     
     
     
     
Catching up on some interesting projects and reviews from people in the forums:
eBay Hacked - Change Passwords
(14 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 22-May-2014 10:47:06 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
eBay are advising everyone to change their passwords after a recent breach. A post on eBay's corporate site said that cyber-attackers accessed the information after obtaining "a small number of employee log-in credentials", allowing them to access its systems - something it only became aware of a fortnight ago. "The database... included eBay customers' name, encrypted password, email address, physical address, phone number and date of birth," it said. "However, the database did not contain financial information or other confidential personal information.
Scorptec SteelSeries Sensei Contest
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 22-May-2014 01:47:52 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Scorptec have another contest - to win a SteelSeries Sensei Wireless gaming mouse!
click for details!
Thursday Morning
(1 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 22-May-2014 01:39:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Microsoft have revealed their Surface Pro 3, thanks BM. More info here on TheVerge and here on Tech Report. Microsoft has just spilled the beans on its Surface Pro 3 tablet, and the details are really quite interesting. The company has taken a fresh approach to the Surface Pro this time around, with a stated goal of "removing the conflict" between the tablet and laptop form factors. Anandtech have a hands-on preview as well.
Telstra meanwhile has plans for a $100M wi-fi network, thanks mpot. Particularly noteworthy is the bit about bandwidth-sharing. To make up the remaining 1.9 million hot spots expected throughout Australia, Telstra will attempt to convince its home broadband customers to share a “portion” of their bandwidth with other Telstra wi-fi customers, via a new “secure” gateway, in exchange for similar access to the bandwidth of other wi-fi sharers across the country. Those who join the “wi-fi community” will be able to use their broadband allowance at no extra charge across the network of international and domestic hot spots.
Gizmodo are reporting that Tesla will build a Supercharger network here in Australia. Apparently, the company “will develop, in time, a Supercharger network in Australia.” Those Superchargers shouldn’t be expected until at least early 2015, and that’s an estimate rather than a confirmed timeframe. For anyone that buys a Model S early, the car will also recharge at public EV charging stations using the IEC 62196 standard connector, used at ChargePoint and some other privately-run installations. I didn't realise the recharging was free - interesting.
China and the USA are butting heads over cyber-spying accusations. China summoned the U.S. ambassador after the United States accused five Chinese military officers of hacking into American companies to steal trade secrets, warning Washington it could take further action, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Meanwhile the FBI has discovered that if they want top-notch cyber experts, they have to allow stoners to work for them. James Comey, the FBI director, says the bureau's no-tolerance marijuana policy is hindering the hiring of cyber-security experts. Coney added that he is "grappling" with possibly changing the practice.
It's been quiet on the tech support scammer front for many months here, but they started ringing again about two weeks ago. ArsTechnica have an article on the FTC's battle with one company in India. After the call, the FTC sent Civil Investigative Demands—requests for information—to just about every US company that had done any sort of business with PCCare247: banks, credit card processors, domain registrars, telephone companies, Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. In October 2012, after months of work, agency lawyers had finally assembled their case into a 15-page complaint against PCCare247 and its owner, Vikas Agrawal (sometimes spelled Agarwal).
Wednesday Evening Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 21-May-2014 20:20:42 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Maximus VII Ranger on OCaholic.
Haswell Refresh: Intel's New Z97 Platform Explored on LegionHW.
MSI Z97 MPOWER MAX AC (Intel Z97) on Tweaktown.
MSI Z97 XPOWER AC on Guru3D.
MSI Z97 Gaming 7 on PCPerspective.
ECS Z87H3-A2X Golden on Modders-Inc.
Storage:
ASUSTOR AS-604RD 4-bay Rackmount NAS on Tweaktown.
Buffalo MiniStation Extreme 1TB External HDD on Tweaktown.
Edge Boost Server 7mm SSD on TheSSDReview.
Samsung SP941 512GB M.2 PCIe SSD on Tweaktown.
Cases:
Bitfenix Colossus Micro on OCaholic.
BitFenix Colossus Micro-ATX on HWHeaven.
Raidmax Viper GX Midi Tower on NikKTech.
Bitfenix Phenom ITX on OCaholic.
Memory:
G.Skill ARES F3-2400C11D-8GAB 2x 4GB DDR3 on TechPowerUp.
Team Group Xtreem 32GB PC3 17000 DDR3 2133 Memory Kit on MadShrimps.
Video Cards:
Diamond R7 250 Boost on PureOC.
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X OC 4GB on LegitReviews.
Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X OC on Tweaktown.
Sapphire R9 290X Vapor-X Tri-X OC on ThinkComputers.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Sony Xperia Z2 Tablet on TechSpot.
Verizon Wireless Nexus 7 2013 on LanOC.
Dell Inspiron 15 7537: NVIDIA Graphics Bring the Game on HotHardware.
Audio Visual:
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM Lens on TechnologyX.
HiFiMAN HE-560 Planar Magnetic Headphones on techPowerUp.
Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 XS71HDU USB Sound Card on LegitReviews.
Turtle Beach Titanfall Atlas Multi-Format Gaming Headset on eTeknix.
Compro TN4230 Outdoor PoE IP Camera on eTeknix.
Input Etc:
Bloody RT5A Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
Tt eSPORTS Poseidon Z Illuminated Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
Sentey Lumenata Pro Gaming Mouse on BenchmarkReviews.
Video review: Corsair Raptor M45, Vengeance M65 & M95 mice on TechReport.
Misc:
SilverStone Strider Essential Gold ST70F-ESG 700W PSU on APHNetworks.
Amped Wireless REC15A Compact AC Wi-Fi Range Extender on Tweaktown.
LarKooler SkyWater 330 DYI Kit CPU cooler on MadShrimps.
Thermaltake Poseidon Z Community Testing
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 21-May-2014 01:41:32 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Thermaltake have another community review contest running in the forums! This time FIVE people will be selected to win a keyboard and share their thoughts on it. See the thread for details:
click for details!
Jimbogimp sent word that their Electric Radical Racecar had its first race on the weekend:
click for the thread!
While I'm here, how did I miss this earlier project from them?! It's only a flippin' electric DeLorean:
click for the (other) thread!
Australian motorsport legend Sir Jack Brabham has passed away aged 88. Brabham travelled to Europe in 1955 and before long he was building his own cars – revolutionising the sport by shifting the engine from the front of the vehicle to the back. In 1959 he won the first of his three championships, famously running out of fuel in the last race and pushing his car to the finish. Mark Webber has posted his thoughts on the only man in history to win an F1 world championship in a car he designed and built himself.
The FCC have approved the idea of an internet fast lane, putting an end to Net Neutrality. This is really big news that could forever change the internet. According to the FCC’s proposal, companies that deliver content over the internet like Netflix, Hulu, and Business Insider will be able to pay internet service providers (ISPs) for direct access to customers on a given network. That means their content will reach ISP subscribers much faster than content from companies that don’t pay ISPs for direct access. More here.
ArsTechnica checked out a few cars that are powered by nVidia. utside of the visitor check-in on Nvidia's campus, three gorgeous cars—the Audi RS7, the Lamborghini Aventador, and the Tesla Model S—are parked, attracting the occasional gawking employee. Although Nvidia's partnership with the three car makers isn't anything new, we welcomed the chance to see just what the tech in these high-end cars is really like. We also wanted to see what Nvidia hopes to offer car makers who are designing systems that will need to be cutting edge when their vehicles hit the market—a difficult task given the length of the automotive development cycle.
George R. R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones, has revealed he uses a DOS PC with no net connection for his writing. "It does everything I want a word processing program to do, and it doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help. I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital letter. I don't want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key."
ScienceDaily report on a new cryptography algorithm. Researchers at the Laboratoire Lorrain de Recherches en Informatique et ses Applications (CNRS/Université de Lorraine/Inria) and the Laboratoire d'Informatique de Paris 6 (CNRS/UPMC) have solved one aspect of the discrete logarithm problem. This is considered to be one of the 'holy grails' of algorithmic number theory, on which the security of many cryptographic systems used today is based. They have devised a new algorithm (1) that calls into question the security of one variant of this problem, which has been closely studied since 1976.
BackBlaze looked into hard drive temperatures and their effect on reliability. Disk drive manufacturers tell Backblaze that in general, it’s a good idea to keep disks cooler so they will last longer. After looking at data on over 34,000 drives, I found that overall there is no correlation between temperature and failure rate.
Monday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 19-May-2014 01:59:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Z97-A on ThinkComputers.
AMD A10-7850K (Kaveri) on XbitLabs.
ASRock Z97 Extreme4 (Intel Z97) on Tweaktown.
MSI's Z97 Gaming 7 motherboard on TechReport.
ASUS SABERTOOTH Z97 MARK 1 (Intel Z97) on Tweaktown.
ASUS Z97I-Plus on OCaholic.
MSI Z97I Gaming AC and R9 270X Gaming ITX on Guru3D.
Audio Visual:
Amazon Fire TV Review, A Competent Media Streamer on HotHardware.
X2 Saturn 5.1 Gaming Headset on LegitReviews.
Creative Labs Sound Blaster E1 on LanOC.
Func HS-260 Gaming Headset on APHNetworks.
Video Cards:
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II OC on XbitLabs.
GeForce GTX TITAN vs. Radeon R9 280X CrossFire on OCaholic.
Power Supply:
Death of a Gutless Wonder V: Uncool to the Max on JonnyGuru.
Enermax Revolution XT 630W 80+ Gold Modular PSU on PureOC.
XTPower XT-10000ADF 10000mAh Power Bank on NikKTech.
Seasonic G Series V2 550 W on TechPowerUp.
Storage:
Samsung SSD XP941: The PCIe Era is Here on AnandTech.
Kingston DataTraveler R3.0 G2 64GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on NikKTech.
Seagate Desktop 3.5? 4TB Solid State Hybrid Drive on eTeknix.
Kingfast 32GB Secure Hardware Encrypted USB Flash Drive on Tweaktown.
Plextor M6M 256GB mSATA SSD on LegitReviews.
Thecus N2310 Consumer NAS on Tweaktown.
QNAP SilentNAS HS-210 2-Bay NAS on eTeknix.
Patriot Stellar 64GB USB/OTG 3.0 Flash Drive on NeoSeeker.
OCZ RevoDrive 350 PCI Express SSD on HotHardware.
EDGE Boost Pro 300GB Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
Crucial M550 256GB SSD on HardCoreWare.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 SSD on Vortez.
ADATA DashDrive Durable HD650 500GB USB 3.0 External HDD on PureOC.
Seagate Enterprise Class 6TB Hard Drive on HWHeaven.
Icy Dock ToughArmor Series Overview on Tweaktown.
Cases:
NZXT Phantom 240 Mid-Tower Chassis on eTeknix.
Cooler Master HAF Stacker on LanOC.
Thermaltake Commander G41 Mid-Tower on Modders-Inc.
Dimastech Mini testbench on OCaholic.
Corsair Obsidian 250D and SilverStone Sugo SG05-450 Mini-ITXs on XbitLabs.
Phanteks Enthoo Pro Tower on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooling:
Enermax Liqmax 120X AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Corsair Hydro Series H105 on TechPowerUp.
Raijintek THEMIS Evo CPU Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Enermax Liqmax 120S AIO Liquid CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
Memory:
Kingston HyperX Fury White 2 x 4GB PC3 15000 on OCClub.
Avexir Blitz 1.1 Series Memory on PureOC.
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB DDR3-1866 CL10 Memory on FunkyKit.
Input Etc:
Tt eSPORTS Level10M Hybrid Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Level 10 M Hybrid Gaming Mouse & Ladon Pad on TechnologyX.
Das Keyboard 4 Professional on TechSpot.
Logitech G502 Proteus Core Tunable Gaming Mouse on NikKTech.
Rapoo T120P Wireless Touch Mouse on Tweaktown.
Networking:
NETGEAR Nighthawk Smart WiFi Router R7000 on HWHeaven.
TRENDnet AC1900 Dual Band Wireless Router (TEW-818DRU) on MadShrimps.
Thanks to Rob, Matt and Davo11111 today!
     
     
     
     
     
Point to Point Pong
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-May-2014 19:54:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Check out this cool retro project from v8ltd: As a follow up to my point to point wired transistor clock I thought that it would be fun to try and build a replica of the original Atari Pong video game using the same point to point wiring method. This proved to be quite an exercise as one bad connection would lead to the whole thing not working, and there are thousands of connections!
click for the thread!
Thursday Evening
(1 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 15-May-2014 19:42:17 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
The new budget includes a Cyber Commissioner, which isn't anywhere near as cool as the Judge Dredd meets Robocop mental image it gave me at first. The government confirmed as part of the 2014-15 Federal Budget that the Children’s e-Safety Commissioner would be established from next year. The role of the government’s new Net Nanny would be to develop a system whereby bullying material “targeted at Australian children” would be taken down quickly from sites like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter. The Office of the e-Safety Commissioner will also look to develop a new cyber-bullying offence (kill me now) and a civil penalty regime for offenders.
TeamAU did well on a recent foray to New Zealand, breaking some records. In addition to this the boys traveled to New Zealand to run a GIGABYTE OC workshop with PLAYTECH, AMES IT Acadamy, SteelSeries, AOC and GUNNAR and took the Aquamark 3 world record in setup day with GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force, Patriot PSC fronzen at 1350 CAS7 and a GTX580 with 4770K running at 6.4GHz.
The NSA has a new boss, who promises more transparency. In his first interview since taking the helm of both the NSA and US Cyber Command in April, Admiral Mike Rogers said he would be more candid with the public about much of the NSA's work after nearly a year of damaging revelations by former contractor Edward Snowden.
Meanwhile Australia's privacy commissioner is examining mobile apps. Australian Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim has begun a privacy sweep of the 50 most popular apps in Australia to see why they collect personal information and what is done with the data.
PCPerspective consider expandable watercooling systems. All-in-one liquid coolers seem to be all the rage with several companies introducing expandable systems for integration of a system chipset or graphics cooling block to the loop. We will be exploring the performance of two of our previously reviewed coolers to see just how well those liquid coolers can handle the addition of an additional in-line graphics card block. Both the Koolance EXT-440CU Liquid Cooling System and the Cooler Master Glacer 240L Liquid CPU Cooler were used with the ASUS Poseidon GTX 780 graphics card placed in-line for testing.
Tech Report look at the state of the art in lightbulbs. The Internet is a strange and wonderful place. A couple of months ago, I posted a Friday night topic on light bulbs that incited a fair amount of discussion. Not long after that, I kid you not, I started receiving press releases and phone calls from the world's light-bulb brands, as if it made perfect sense for a website with the tagline "PC hardware explored" to be writing about LEDs versus CFLs.
If you're hanging out for Google Glass (and you're in the USA), you might be able to just buy it for $1500 now. "We learned a lot when we opened our site a few weeks ago, so we’ve decided to move to a more open beta," reads the statement from the Google Glass team. "We’re still in the Explorer Program while we continue to improve our hardware and software, but starting today, anyone in the U.S. can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand starting today, anyone in the U.S. can buy the Glass Explorer Edition, as long as we have it on hand."
HWAsylum have a bit of a rant about overclocking support. One thing I have noticed over the years is a distinct lack of support when it comes to overclocking. Now, don’t get me wrong, this article isn’t so much about the hardware but rather the actions hardware makers take when it comes to the end game. To help explain my points I’ll provide a little background which should not only illustrate my point but, also lay the groundwork for what needs to change.
Wednesday Night Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 14-May-2014 23:36:43 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Maximus VII Ranger on Vortez.
ASUS Maximus VII Ranger on OCaholic.
ASRock Z97 Extreme6 on OCaholic.
ASUS Z97-A Motherboard on Modders-Inc.
ASUS Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1 on BenchmarkReviews.
MSI Z97 Gaming 7 LGA 1150 on CustomPCReview.
Haswell Refresh: Intel's New Z97 Platform Explored on TechSpot.
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Motherboard on PureOC.
Audio Visual:
Coolermaster, Speedlink & TteSports Budget Headset Head-to-Head on eTeknix.
Steelseries 9H Gaming Headset on FunkyKit.
MEGATech Reviews: PAPAGO! GoLife Extreme Full HD Action Camera on MegaTechNews.
Input Etc:
Sentey Crimson Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
i-Rocks K10 Rock Series Gaming Keyboard on HWHeaven.
ROCCAT Ryos MK Glow Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
Sentey Aphelion Elite Gamer Series Mouse on OCClub.
TESORO Lobera Supreme Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on PureOC.
Rapoo E2700 Wireless Multimedia Touchpad Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Thermaltake eSPORTS Poseidon Z Illuminated Gaming Mechanical Keyboard on Modders-Inc.
Storage:
RaidSonic ICY BOX IB-RD3662U3S External HDD RAID Enclosure on NikKTech.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512GB SSD on Tweaktown.
Addonics AD25MSD mSATA to 2.5-inch SATA Drive Adapter on LegitReviews.
Toshiba Exceria Pro 32GB UHS-II SD Card on FunkyKit.
Synology DS214se - Network Attached Storage (NAS) on FunkyKit.
Lexar JumpDrive S33 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on FunkyKit.
SanDisk Connect Wireless Media Drive (64 GB) on TechnologyX.
ADATA XPG 64GB SDXC UHS-I Speed Class 3 U3 Memory Card on LegitReviews.
Cases:
SilverStone Milo ML06 on Phoronix.
Cooling:
EVERCOOL HPL-815 Low Profile CPU Cooler on FunkyKit.
EVERCOOL CARRY NB-EC01 Portable Notebook Cooler on FunkyKit.
CRYORIG R1 Universal CPU cooler on TechPowerUp.
Interesting Forum Threads
(2 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-May-2014 17:05:59 (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.
Semp asks questions about Watercooling in Extreme and Water Cooling.
CEO's story of the '11 hack that destroyed Distribute.IT in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Hard Drive Degausser in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Pay MS $10mil - Recieve XP support for 1 year in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Zero Day IE Exploit (IE6-IE11) in Business & Enterprise Computing.
Are you running XP? in Windows Operating Systems.
2015: AMD goes both ways...ARM and x86 in AMD x86 CPUs and Chipsets.
Kogan $699 3d Printer in Hobby Engineering.
The Home Computer Course - Orbis 1983 in Retro & Arcade.
C64 Reloaded - New C64 mobo coming july 2014 in Retro & Arcade.
4:3 on widescreen project - test your monitor in Retro & Arcade.
EA Taking a lot of games off their online service in PC Games.
Young Blood Reverses Ageing in Science.
Raw, Raw+ JPEG, JPEG - what do you use? in Photography & Video.
Amazon patents studio photography on seamless white background in Photography & Video.
Beer porn in Geek Grog & Homebrew.
Kiwi kid, 21, builds epic rally car in barn. 0-200kmh time: 7 seconds! in Motoring.
Bet: $2 a litre for fuel by Christmas in Motoring.
Do you (financially) cheat on your spouse? in Career, Education & Finance.
Beards & Moustaches: Why? in Sport, Fitness & Health.
Gamespy is shutting down, which is going to affect a lot of games, report PlayerAttack. The official list mentions a handful of Battlefield titles including BF2, 1942 and 2142, several Command & Conquers for PC, and a bunch of Wii and DS titles.
Tech Report have info on Adaptive-Sync on DisplayPort. PC gaming animation may soon become more fluid than ever, thanks to a development just announced by the folks at the VESA display standards organization. VESA has officially added a feature called Adaptive-Sync to the DisplayPort 1.2a specification, which means that a G-Sync-style adaptive refresh mechanism could be built into nearly every new desktop monitor in the coming months and years.
Oracle won a legal victory over Google recently. The dispute comes down to arcane code used in Google’s Android operating system, and if the courts ultimately find in favor of Oracle, the decision could reverberate across the tech industry. The situation is complicated, but it can be summed up pretty simply. Oracle owns Java. Google cloned Java in building Android. Oracle sued. And now the courts are trying to decide when it’s OK to clone someone else’s software.
A few people sent in this spurious correlations site. The charts on this site aren't meant to imply causation nor are they meant to create a distrust for research or even correlative data. Rather, I hope this projects gets people interested in statistics and research.
It's claimed that the NSA has been backdooring routers made in the USA. For years, the US government loudly warned the world that Chinese routers and other internet devices pose a "threat" because they are built with backdoor surveillance functionality that gives the Chinese government the ability to spy on anyone using them. Yet what the NSA's documents show is that Americans have been engaged in precisely the activity that the US accused the Chinese of doing.
Meanwhile in NZ, there's some tough new comms laws. As part of the new law - which requires the country's main signals intelligence agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to play a prime role in network and systems security - providers are now dutybound to notify the state about any design and procurement decisions before implementation, according to government guidance.
Tuesday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 13-May-2014 11:01:29 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Input Etc:
Bloody Technology ZL5A Sniper Gaming Mouse on MadShrimps.
Roccat Ryos MK Glow keyboard on OCaholic.
Cooling:
Enermax ETS-N30-HE CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler on FutureLooks.
Thermaltake Water 3.0 Pro Liquid CPU Cooling System on NikKTech.
Evercool Carry NB-EC01 Portable Notebook Cooler on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
Asus Z97-A on LanOC.
GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force on LegitReviews.
MSI Z97 MPower MAX AC on Modders-Inc.
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer on OCaholic.
ASUS Maximus VII Hero on OCaholic.
TYAN S7056WGM3NR-2T (Intel C602) Server Motherboard on Tweaktown.
Intel Core i7-3930K 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling on OCaholic.
MSI GTX 760 Gaming MINI-ITX on PureOC.
Cases:
Antec P100 Midi Tower on NikKTech.
DimasTech Test/Bench Table on HWHeaven.
Cougar MX500 on TechPowerUp.
Fractal Design Node 804 Micro ATX on BenchmarkReviews.
Storage:
Transcend SSD340 256GB SSD on Tweaktown.
ADATA XPG SX900 SSD on TechWareLabs.
NETGEAR ReadyNAS 102 Dual-bay NAS on Techgage.
PNY Optima SSD Series Review (240 GB) on TheSSDReview.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Galaxy S5 on TechSpot.
CyberPowerPC Zeus Mini-I 780 SFF Gaming PC on CustomPCReview.
Power Supply:
Luxa2 By Thermaltake TX-P1 and TX-200 Single and Dual Qi Enabled Wireless Charger on TechnologyX.
Be Quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 750W on PureOC.
Misc:
Sapphire R7 250X Vapor-X video card on HWHeaven.
Asus PCE-AC68 802.11ac Dual-Band PCI Express Wireless Adaptor on eTeknix.
Silicon Power Superior SDXC UHS-I U3 64GB Flash Memory on APHNetworks.
Sennheiser Momentum Headphone on TechnologyX.
Intel 9 Series Chipset
(2 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 12-May-2014 14:57:45 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Intel's 9 series chipset has officially arrived, but as Tech Report point out, it's a bit strange because there's already been lots of boards released and reviewed (and linked on OCAU). This chipset launch is unusual in another way, too. As far as I can tell, it's the first time Intel has introduced a new core-logic platform without an updated CPU alongside it. The recent Haswell Refresh is little more than a speed bump for last year's silicon, so it doesn't count.
Anyway, plenty more coverage and reviews around:
MSI Z97 Gaming 5 on LanOC.
Intel i7 4790 Haswell Refresh Slower than previous Gen 4770K? on MadShrimps.
Core i7 4790 Haswell Refresh processor on Guru3D.
ASUS Z97-A and Z97 Deluxe motherboard on Guru3D.
MSI Z97 GAMING 7 on Vortez.
ASUS Z97-A on Vortez.
GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WIFI-BK on Vortez.
Intel Z79: Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming G1, MSI Z97 Gaming 5 and ASUS Maximus VII Hero on HWHeaven.
Intel Z97 Motherboard Round-Up: EVGA, MSI, Gigabyte on HotHardware.
GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1-WIFI-BK Black Edition on PCPerspective.
MSI Z97 GAMING 5 (Intel LGA 1150) on TechPowerUp.
ASUS Z97-A motherboard on Tech Report.
ASUS Z97-A (LGA 1150) on eTeknix.
In the forums there's a preview of MSI's Z97 boards as well as a preview of GIGABYTE's Z97-SOC Force board, and general discussion in this thread.
Monday Morning Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Monday, 12-May-2014 01:56:38 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Input Etc:
Func MS-3 R.2 Gaming Mouse and Surface 1030 r2 Mouse Pad on LegitReviews.
CMStorm's QuickFire Rapid-i mechanical keyboard preview on TechReport.
Storage:
SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB USB3.0 Flash Drive on eTeknix.
Icy Dock EZConvert Series Overview on Tweaktown.
ADATA Premier Pro SP920 512GB SSD on LegitReviews.
OCZ Vertex 460 240GB SATA III 2.5" SSD on MadShrimps.
Cooler Master Nepton 280L CPU Cooler on MadShrimps.
ASRock Rack 1U12LW-C2750 12-Bay Storage Server on Tweaktown.
Audio Visual:
Silverstone SST-EB03 Desktop Headphone Amp & SST-EB01-E DAC on eTeknix.
Bayan Audio Soundbook Wireless Bluetooth Speaker on TechnologyX.
Func HS-260 Gaming Headset on LegitReviews.
Rokit Boost Swage 2 Wireless Stereo Headphones on NikKTech.
Video Cards:
MSI Radeon R9 280X 6GB Twin Frozr Gaming Overclocked on Tweaktown.
ASUS GeForce GTX 780 Ti DirectCU II on HotHardware.
Portable & Prebuilt:
XMG P304 Gaming Laptop on HWHeaven.
The HTC One (M8) Smartphone on TechARP.
Lenovo ThinkPad 8 Tablet on ThinkComputers.
Memory:
Patriot Viper SODIMM PC3-12800 2x8GB on APHNetworks.
Kingston KVR-16R11S4/8HA DDR3 1600MHz ValueRAM Server Memory on Tweaktown.
Kingston HyperX Predator KHX28C12T2K2/8X on OCClub.
Cooling:
NZXT Kraken G10 Liquid Cooling GPU Mounting Kit on Tweaktown.
Raijintek Morpheus VGA cooler on TechPowerUp.
Reeven Justice RC-1204 CPU cooler on Bjorn3D.
Thanks to Hoff and timbot this week!
     
     
     
     
Pika sent in this link to webcams in space! NASA is now live-streaming views of Earth from space captured by four commercial high-definition video cameras that were installed on the exterior of the International Space Station last month. The project, known as the High Definition Earth Viewing (HDEV) experiment, aims to test how cameras perform in the space environment. That'd be one heck of a screensaver.
There was a recent issue with certain file shares, such as dropbox, thanks mpot. Dropbox has disabled access to previously created shared links to certain kinds of documents after the discovery that some users' sensitive files—including tax returns and bank records—were exposed through Google AdWords campaigns.
Back to space, with a huge computing project simulating the universe in higher detail than ever before. The Illustris project is a set of large-scale cosmological simulations, including the most ambitious simulation of galaxy formation yet performed. The calculation tracks the expansion of the universe, the gravitational pull of matter onto itself, the motion or "hydrodynamics" of cosmic gas, as well as the formation of stars and black holes. These physical components and processes are all modeled starting from initial conditions resembling the very young universe 300,000 years after the Big Bang and until the present day, spanning over 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution.
Internet heavyweights are joining forces against the FCC's net neutrality stance. The letter marks a first time some influential tech companies, like Amazon, have formally expressed a stance on net neutrality regulations since news of the FCC proposal broke on April 23rd. The letter signifies that technology companies have found a united front in calling for open internet rules that preserve the key non-discrimination principle of net neutrality. There are already some negative effects of the proposed legislation.
TomsHardware have best gaming CPUs rated for May 2014. This month's column includes price adjustments, along with AMD's AM1 platform and its corresponding APUs. From Intel, we mourn the loss of one of our price/performance favorites, the Core i5-3350P. In its place, we're recommending the Core i5-4570.
Meanwhile there's an interview with AMD's CEO about the future of the CPU market. But Read, who joined AMD from Lenovo in 2011, has a challenge: AMD’s share of the most popular x86 server chips has dwindled to less than 3%, Mercury Research figures show. (Intel controls the remaining 97%, a situation that Read says allows it to “extra” higher pricing than would ordinarily be possible). On Monday, at an event in San Francisco, Read is likely to discuss his counterattack. Besides its traditional server chips, Read is breaking from AMD tradition by embracing ARM Holdings designs and “fabric” communications circuitry obtained from its acquisition of startup SeaMicro.
Thursday Evening Reviews
(1 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 8-May-2014 20:25:54 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
MSI Z87i Gaming AC Mini ITX on PureOC.
ASUS MAXIMUS VI IMPACT (Intel LGA1150) on TechPowerUp.
Gigabyte F2A88XN-WIFI on Bjorn3D.
ASUS Z97-DELUXE on BenchmarkReview.
Audio Visual:
Microlab T1 headset on Vortez.
Ozone Onda Pro X-Surround Pro Gaming Headset on eTeknix.
Genius GX SW-G5.1 3500 5.1 Surround Sound on Modders-Inc.
Cases:
Phanteks Enthoo Pro on OCClub.
In Win 901 on OCaholic.
SilverStone RVZ01 on SilentPCReview.
Input Etc:
SteelSeries Sensei Wireless Gaming Mouse on CustomPCReview.
Rosewill's Striker RK-6000 mechanical keyboard on TechReport.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-D15 CPU Cooler on Tweaktown.
X2 Spire Eclipse IV CPU Cooler on PureOC.
X2 Products Eclipse IV Heatsink on FrostyTech.
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler on HWHeaven.
Scythe Kotetsu CPU Cooler on SilentPCReview.
Storage:
Seagate 6TB Enterprise Capacity 3.5 HDD v4 on Tweaktown.
Micron M500DC 800GB Enterprise SSD on Tweaktown.
Intel 730 480GB SSD Two-Drive RAID on Tweaktown.
Misc:
Amped Wireless REC15A 802.11ac Wi-Fi Range Extender on LegitReviews.
GeForce GTX 780 vs. Radeon R9 280X CrossFire on OCaholic.
Corsair AX1500i Titanium PSU on Guru3D.
Thermaltake Core V71 Community Testing
(0 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 7-May-2014 15:47:41 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Thermaltake have a community review contest running in the forums, where three people will be selected to win a case and share their thoughts on it. See the thread for details:
click for details!
Wednesday Afternoon
(1 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 7-May-2014 15:43:18 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Sony have a new 185TB tape, thanks shortielah. Created with the help of IBM, Sony's technology allows for tapes that can store the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-ray discs. The tape hold 148 gigabits (Gb) per square inch - beating a record set in 2010 more than five times over. Storage tapes are typically used by businesses to hold huge amounts of data for a long time.
Tech Report have more info on AMD's pin-compatible CPUs. At a press event just now, AMD offered an update on its "ambidextrous" strategy for CPUs and SoCs. There's lots of juicy detail here, but the big headline news is that the company is working on two new-from-scratch CPU core designs, one that's compatible with the 64-bit ARMv8 instruction set ISA and another that is an x86 replacement for Bulldozer and its descendants.
Meanwhile HotHardware hung out with ARM in Austin. It has been nearly a year since we visited ARM in Cambridge, UK, and the company recently held another tech day -- this time in Austin, Texas. During the three-day session, ARM covered a wide range of topics, with a primary focus on server ecosystems and next-generation mobile hardware.
OCZ Storage were interviewed by Guru3D. Many of you know that OCZ Technology has been in rough weather last year, that's up-to the point where the company needed to file a chapter 11 bankruptcy, with the purpose to be taken over by Toshiba. The SSD market is fierce and competitive, if you are your own NAND flash manufacturer then you can sell your products cheap. If you sell NAND flash to a party like OCZ, then OCZ pays a premium price, making it hard for them to actually offer a price competitive solution. In this Interview we'll ask to see what has happened over the past few months, and how it affects consumers and clients.
Tech Report also look into password management. Until the Heartbleed fiasco, I'd been using a mish-mash of alphanumeric passwords and passphrases, all stored safely in my noggin. I wasn't nearly as diligent as I ought to have been about freshening them up, but that never got me into trouble. I made sure to use long, difficult-to-crack passwords with double-digit character counts, and I tried not to use the same ones for different services.
Kingsley over at PlayerAttack has a bee in his bonnet about business vs gaming communities. We all know the business of gaming can kill the industry. It happened in the 80's and it could happen again, but is it also killing community? I've been in the games industry for the last 15 years, either running game servers at a local LAN, running a games network for a major Australian ISP, and more recently a news website and TV show. I've seen a lot of changes over the years particularly when it comes to gaming communities.
Greg sent word of Flashback in June. Flashback is a computer demoscene party hosted once a year in Sydney Australia. Computer enthusiasts come to socialise and compete in competitions such as realtime programming, graphics running on old and new computers, homebrew hardware, pre-rendered animations, graphics and music. The word "demoparty" is globally used to describe this gathering of coders, musicians, graphic artists and creative minds under one roof which share their work and compete with others.
Wednesday Afternoon Reviews
(2 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 7-May-2014 14:40:34 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
Intel Core i7 4790 (Haswell Refresh) CPU and Z97 Performance Preview on Tweaktown.
ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Preview on OCaholic.
NVIDIA Tegra K1 Compared To AMD AM1 APUs on Phoronix.
Intel Core i7-3960X 3-way SLI Gaming Performance Scaling on OCaholic.
ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer on OCaholic.
Cooling:
NoFan CR-80EH Fanless Copper CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Thermalright AXP-200 Muscle Low-Profile CPU Cooler on NikKTech.
Storage:
Kingston SSDNow E50 100GB Solid-State Drive on NikKTech.
Serial Cables SA-ENC12G-01A 12Gb/s SAS3 JBOD External Storage on Tweaktown.
Synology DS214se & DSM 5.0 Overview on TechPowerUp.
Plextor M6M 256GB mSATA SSD on HotHardware.
Intel 730 Series 480GB SSD Review in RAID on LegitReviews.
Mach Xtreme DIY Series SATA-DOM 32GB SSD on TheSSDReview.
Cases:
Zalman Z3 Plus White Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Phanteks Enthoo Pro Mid-Tower on Modders-Inc.
Fractal Design Node 804 Micro-ATX on LegitReviews.
Silverstone Raven RVZ01 on LanOC.
Fractal Design Node 804 Micro ATX on HWHeaven.
Bitfenix Ronin on Bjorn3D.
NCASE M1 Mini-ITX Crowdfunded Case on PCPerspective.
Memory:
ADATA XPG V2 2600 MHz RAM on TechWareLabs.
Kingston HyperX Fury 8GB 1866MHz CL10 Memory on PureOC.
Audio Visual:
SteelSeries 9H Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Diamond USB Xtreme Sound XS71HDU on HardCoreWare.
Creative Sound Blaster Omni Surround 5.1 USB Sound Card on MadShrimps.
Audioengine A2+ Desktop Computer Speakers on APHNetworks.
Power Supply:
Limefuel Blast L60X 6,000mAh External Portable Battery on Tweaktown.
Anker 40 watt 5-port Wall Charger and 2nd Gen Astro3 12000 mAh Battery on PCPerspective.
Cooler Master V Series Platinum 1200W on TechPowerUp.
Input Etc:
Corsair Raptor K50 Gaming Keyboard on ThinkComputers.
Tt eSPORTS Illuminated Poseidon Z Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Sentey Crimson Pro Gaming Keyboard on BenchmarkReviews.
Steelseries Rival mouse on OCaholic.
Misc:
Booq Boa Brief Laptop Bag on ThinkComputers.
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 video card on HWSecrets.
Nvidia Shield Portable Games Console on eTeknix.
Wednesday Morning
(6 Comments)
(link)
Wednesday, 7-May-2014 02:41:14 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There may be a piracy crackdown coming very soon to Australia, with the "three strikes law" as one option. Fairfax is reporting that the Federal Government will implement anti-piracy measures “as early as this week”. Leading the anti-piracy charge is Attorney General, George Brandis, who has had the problem of Aussie piracy on his plate since he took office last year. He has since been meeting with ISPs, telcos and rights holders, looking to find a tough solution to crack down on piracy. More here and discussion here.
AMD have revealed plans for pin-compatible ARM and x86 CPUs. Next year, AMD will release a low-power 20nm Cortex A57 based SoC with integrated Graphics Core Next GPU. The big news? The 20nm ARM based SoC will be pin compatible with AMD's next-generation low power x86 SoC (using Puma+ cores). The ARM SoC will also be AMD's first official Android platform. Discussion here.
ioSafe have a fireproof NAS, so naturally enough MadShrimps set it on fire. Testing water proof is easy to do, fire proof however.. not so straight forward. They specified that their device can survive 30 minutes when temperature reach up to ~840°C. Those numbers are quite specific.
Tech Report checked out SATA Express. The Hyper Express drive is due this quarter, and I've been using a prototype to test upcoming motherboards. Expect full coverage of those boards soon. In the meantime, you can whet your appetite with a quick look at the drive. LegitReviews have the same drive on the testbench.
Tuesday Afternoon Reviews
(1 Comments)
(link)
Tuesday, 6-May-2014 13:55:46 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
ASUS Z97-Deluxe Motherboard on PCPerspective.
ASUS Z97-Pro Wi-Fi AC Intel Z97 Motherboard on LegitReviews.
A Look at ASUS’ Upcoming Z97 Motherboard Lineup on Techgage.
Storage:
Verbatim Mini Metal USB 3.0 Flash Drive on ModSynergy.
Synology DS414j 4-Bay NAS on eTeknix.
Buffalo TeraStation 5600 Six-Bay Windows Storage Server on Tweaktown.
Netgear ReadyNAS RN102 & RN104 on LegionHW.
SanDisk Extreme PRO 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive on TheSSDReview.
Intel 530 180GB Two-Drive SSD RAID Report on Tweaktown.
KingFast 32GB Encrypted USB Key on ModSynergy.
Corsair Flash Voyager GO 64GB PC/Mobile Flash Storage Drive on MadShrimps.
Cases:
XFX Bravo Type 01 Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Fractal Arc Mini R2 on LanOC.
Rosewill Legacy MX2-B Mid-Tower on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master Silencio 652S Case Review with Seidon 120v Cooler on HWHeaven.
Corsair Obsidian Series 450D & Carbide Series Air 540 on TechSpot.
Thermaltake Urban SD1 Micro SFF Chassis on Tweaktown.
Microcool Banchetto 103 bench on OCAholic.
Thermaltake Urban SD1 MicroATX on BenchmarkReviews.
Cooling:
Noctua NH-D15 Silent Tower Heatsink video review from LinusTechTips.
XSPC RX360 V3 Triple Fan Radiator on NikKTech.
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3 CPU Cooler on eTeknix.
Alphacool NexXxoS Cool Answer 240 D5/UT Set CPU Water Cooler on Tweaktown.
Cooler Master Seidon 120V Liquid CPU Cooler on PCPerspective.
Noctua NH-U14S CPU Cooler on Modders-Inc.
Networking:
D-Link DAP-1520 AC750 Wi-Fi Range Extender on Tweaktown.
Asus RT-AC68U 802.11ac Dual-Band Wireless Router on eTeknix.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Samsung Galaxy S5 on HotHardware.
HTC One (M8) Android Smartphone on HotHardware.
Gigabyte BRIX Projector Ultra Compact PC Kit on ThinkComputers.
Input Etc:
Mionix NAOS & AVIOR 7000 mice on TechPowerUp.
Ozone Neon Precision Laser Gaming Mouse on eTeknix.
IOGEAR KeyMander Controller Emulator on NeoSeeker.
Corsair Raptor M45 Optical Gaming Mouse on Tweaktown.
Mad Catz R.A.T. TE Gaming Mouse on HWHeaven.
Audio Visual:
Jabra Solemate Mini Portable Wireless Speaker on NikKTech.
BitFenix FLO headset on Guru3D.
Nikon D7100 DSLR User Review on TechnologyX.
Diamond XS71HDU USB Xtreme Sound 24bit 7.1 Channel Digital Audio Adapter on PureOC.
The programming language BASIC is fifty years old. Early BASIC was a strange beast but the language slowly but surely accreted all of the tools necessary to do real work. Most early home computers ran BASIC as a default and I fondly recall created executables in Turbo Basic, a powerful successor to Dartmouth BASIC that essentially bolted a Ferrari engine into a Pinto. With the rise of the web BASIC fell out of fashion but you can still mess around with it on OS X, Windows, and Linux. You can even program it on Android and iOS.
A jury has (mostly) decided that Samsung infringed several Apple patents, with $119.6M awarded in damages. The jury found all accused Samsung phones infringed on the first patent at issue, the ’647 “quick-links” patent, but the devices did not infringe on two others related to universal search and background synchronization. For the ’721 “slide-to-unlock” patent, it ruled some Samsung products infringed, while others did not. Discussion continues in this thread.
There's a new chemical element, number 117, thanks BFM. In 2010 a US Russian collaboration announced they had produced atoms of an element with 117 protons, filling a gap that appeared when 118 was made four years earlier. However International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) insists on corroboration by two independent teams before it allows new elements to be added to the Periodic Table, although a temporary name of Ununseptium is in use until confirmation has been made. It has taken four years, but this appears to have finally arrived.
Google's self-driving cars are getting smarter. Google has released a new video that demonstrates some impressive software improvements that have been made over the last two years: Most notably, its self-driving cars can now track hundreds of objects simultaneously, including pedestrians, an indicating cyclist, a stop sign held by a crossing guard, or traffic cones.
However Stephen Hawking warns that we might not be taking AI seriously enough. One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand. Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.
John McAfee is keeping himself in the headlines, this time with a new chat program. Chadder uses "key server encryption," which Mr. McAfee says would mean that Chadder's servers do not see the unencrypted message, and only the recipient of the message would be able to see it. Upon further explanation on the app's Facebook page, it is detailed that the messages are encrypted using 256 bit AES (which is what is currently used for SSL/TLS) and the encryption keys are handled by a "3rd party." The post on Facebook explains that it "makes it so [that] the content you send through our servers is only visible to you and the recipients of the message."
New on the "interesting but of dubious real-world use" front is this microSD to SSD converter. This microSD Card Drive Creator lets you gather up all your old microSD memory cards and add them to a single unit which you can then plug into your computer to give you SSD type storage at a stroke. You’ll need a fair few cards to make it worthwhile, since the unit accepts up to 10 cards, and you’ll have to use Class 10 cards to make it worthwhile, but it’s still a bit of a gas.
If you're feeling contesty, Hackaday have a trip to space up for grabs, while Intel want you to make a game.
Sunday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Sunday, 4-May-2014 14:54:47 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Happy Star Wars Day!
Audio Visual:
Microlab SOLO9C speakers on Vortez.
SilverStone Ensemble EB01-E USB DAC on BenchmarkReviews.
ASUS PQ321QE 31.5-inch 4K Monitor on Tweaktown.
Motherboard & CPU:
Trying Out The Jetson TK1, NVIDIA's High-End Tegra K1 Board on Phoronix.
ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition on OCClub.
AMD Beema and Mullins APU Performance – 3rd Generation APU on LegitReviews.
ASUS Maximus VII Gene on OCaholic.
ASUS Z97 Motherboard Launch Coverage on eTeknix.
Storage:
Kingston 64GB DataTraveler Locker+G3 USB Drive on PureOC.
Addonics RAID Tower III External Storage Device on Tweaktown.
StarTech USB 3.0 Hub with Ethernet on TechWareLabs.
Power Supply:
Corsair AX1500i 1500W on JonnyGuru.
Corsair AX1500i Titanium video review on OC3D.
Cases:
Enermax iVektor Computer Case on Modders-Inc.
Cooler Master Elite 130 on LanOC.
Video Cards:
Best video cards: April 2014 on Anandtech.
GIGABYTE GTX 750 Ti OC on Vortez.
GeForce GTX 780 Ti vs. Radeon R9 280X CrossFire on OCAholic.
Input Etc:
Corsair Raptor K40 Gaming Keyboard on Tweaktown.
Tt eSPORTS Poseidon Z Mechanical Gaming Keyboard on NikKTech.
Sentey Phoenix Gaming Keyboard on NeoSeeker.
Portable & Prebuilt:
MSI Primo 81 Tablet on HWSecrets.
CyberPower Zeus Mini-I 780 Gaming System on ThinkComputers.
Thanks to halostrike, OG and FREF99 this week!
     
     
     
     
     
Thursday Afternoon Reviews
(0 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-May-2014 13:53:33 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
Motherboard & CPU:
A first look at AMD's Mullins mobile APU on TechReport.
AMD Low-Power APUs: Beema and Mullins Preview on TechSpot.
AMD Beema and Mullins Low-Power 2014 APUs Tested on HotHardware.
AMD Unveils Beema and Mullins: A Greater than Expected Refresh of Kabini on PCPerspective.
ASRock AM1H-ITX: One Of The Best AM1 Mini-ITX Motherboards on Phoronix.
ASUS ROG Maximus VI Impact Mini-ITX on Tech-Report.
ASUS Z97-WS Workstation (Intel Z97) on Tweaktown.
A Look #throughglass at GIGABYTE's Upcoming Z97X-SOC Force Motherboard on Tweaktown.
ASUS A88X-Pro on PureOC.
Input Etc:
Sentey Aphelion Gaming Mouse on NeoSeeker.
Sentey Nebulus Gaming Mouse on Techgage.
Mionix Naos 7000 and Avior 7000 Optical Gaming Mouse on TechnologyX.
Power Supply:
ADATA Elite CE700 Wireless Charging Stand on Tweaktown.
Limefuel Blast L156X 15,600mAh External Portable Battery on Tweaktown.
Portable & Prebuilt:
Alienware 17: AMD's R9 M290X Goes Mobile on HotHardware.
Dell Venue 11i Pro Tablet Video Review on HWHeaven.
Networking:
D-Link DHP-601AV 600Mbps Powerline Starter Kit on Tweaktown.
Linksys PLEK500 500Mbps Powerline Homeplug AV2 Kit on NikKTech.
Audio Visual:
ROCCAT Kave XTD 5.1 Headset on PureOC.
AOC G2460PQU 24-inch 144Hz LED Widescreen Monitor on Tweaktown.
CM Storm Sirus-C Gaming Headset on HWHeaven.
Storage:
OCZ RevoDrive 350 480GB PCI-E SSD on HWCanucks.
Kingston DataTraveler MicroDuo OTG 32GB USB Flash Drive on NikKTech.
Misc:
Flexbot Multicopter on YouTube from Brett.
SteelSeries Stratus Wireless Controller for iOS 7 on MegaTechNews.
Thursday Morning
(3 Comments)
(link)
Thursday, 1-May-2014 02:49:05 (GMT +10) - by Agg
|
There's a security issue with IE, thanks mpot and |Renegade|. The zero-day code-execution hole in IE versions 6 through 11 represents a significant threat to the Internet security because there is currently no fix for the underlying bug, which affects an estimated 26 percent of the total browser market. It's also the first severe vulnerability to target affect Windows XP users since Microsoft withdrew support for that aging OS earlier this month. Users who have the option of using an alternate browser should avoid all use of IE for the time being.
Also, an issue with Flash which has now been patched. While the exploit Kaspersky observed attacked only computers running Microsoft Windows, the underlying flaw, which is formally categorized as CVE-2014-1776 and resides in a Flash component known as the Pixel Bender, is present in the Adobe application built for OS X and Linux machines as well. Adobe has updated all three versions to plug the hole. Because security holes frequently become much more widely exploited in the hours or days after they are disclosed, people on all three platforms should update as soon as possible. Since the update I've had a few plugin crashes in YouTube, hrrm.
Here's a funny video showing how lag affects you in real life. You wouldn't accept lag offline, so why do it online? ume.net, a fiber broadband provider that offers up to 1000 Mbit/s, performed an experiment. Four volunteers got to experience internet's biggest disturbance in real life - lag.
Wired report on a motherboard from Google. To the outsider, the motherboard may not look like much, but the fact that Google has taken the time and effort to port its software to IBM’s architecture and even design a motherboard based on an IBM processor is a big deal. Since its beginning, back in 1998, Google has used servers equipped with Intel processors, and today the company is one of the world’s largest buyers of Intel server chips. The search giant doesn’t make servers for anyone but itself, but it’s likely the fifth-largest Intel server chip customer on Earth.
Tech Report meanwhile cover a new 3-bit TLC NAND SSD from Samsung. In the beginning, server SSDs relied exclusively on SLC NAND with one bit per cell. MLC-based drives with two bits per cell have become more popular in recent years, though. These drives offer sufficient performance and endurance for many enterprise tasks, minus the hefty price premium associated with SLC NAND. Now, Samsung has gone one step further with a new PM853T server SSD based on TLC flash with three bits per cell.
|
|
Advertisement:
All original content copyright James Rolfe.
All rights reserved. No reproduction allowed without written permission.
Interested in advertising on OCAU? Contact us for info.
|
|
