News

Solar flares will be bigger this year. Stay tuned to SpaceWeather for more information.

Quote

"We predict the next cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the last cycle," says the model's creator, Mausumi Dikpati, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research's High Altitude Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, US. The Sun is currently near its minimum activity, at the tail end of a solar cycle, numbered 23. "Onset of the next cycle will be delayed by six to 12 months, to late 2007 or early 2008," Dikpati says. She expects the next peak to hit in 2012.

Humans continue to evolve.

Quote

For example, gene variants that improve the digestion of lactose have become more common, presumably since the domestication of cattle provided a ready source of milk. And in some Europeans, genes giving a lighter skin have increased in frequency, as populations have moved north to regions where there is less sunlight to generate vitamin D.

Multi-core CPUs and beyond soon.

Quote

Dual-core chips for PCs came out last year. Intel and AMD will come out with quad-core chips in 2007. During the next decade, chips with tens and possibly hundreds of cores will hit, according to Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO. He will speak Tuesday morning. Multiple-core computers will let consumers tackle several different tasks simultaneously, such as video recording while running virus checks. "I don't think consumers will do climate modeling, although given the way the climate is going, that may become a very popular thing to do in the future," Rattner said.

Microbes aboard Columbia survived.

Quote

Robert McLean at Texas State University in San Marcos had sent three strains of bacteria on the doomed Columbia sealed in a box to see how weightlessness would affect their growth. When the disaster happened, he assumed that the box had been destroyed. A few days later, however, a colleague spotted the charred container in a newspaper photograph of shuttle debris. McLean prised open the box to find the inner layers intact. The innards of the box had survived temperatures of more than 175 �C. His three bacterial strains had died, but he was surprised to find another bacterium, Microbispora, thriving inside.

Robotic mule. Watch the video, crazy.

Quote

Raibert says the latest version of BigDog can handle slopes of 35� - a steeper gradient than one in two. The hydraulics are driven by a two-stroke single-cylinder petrol engine, and it can carry over 40 kg, about 30% of its bodyweight. The robot can follow a simple path on its own, or can be remotely controlled.

Completing ISS is prime.

Quote

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin made it clear during a press conference on Thursday that his goal is to make use of 16 remaining shuttle flights to ensure the half-built station is finished, so fulfilling NASA's international obligations.

DC power directly to computers.

Quote

"It keeps the units considerably cooler within the chassis themselves and saves us somewhere between 10 and 20 percent over the AC-powered alternative," in terms of electrical costs, said Charles Taylor, a senior systems engineer at the University of Florida. Taylor installed an $840,000 cluster of 200 Rackable servers as a mini-supercomputer at the university in October. By using the DC-powered cooler servers, Taylor said he sidestepped a problem with insufficient air conditioning. "We didn't have the cooling capacity to house the cluster we thought we were going to be putting in there," he said.

NASA scrambles for May shuttle launch.

Quote

NASA is working towards a tentative 10 May launch date for its next shuttle flight, mission managers say. But so much work remains to be done to verify that the vehicle is safe to fly that any delays will mean the shuttle will miss its May launch window entirely, and will have to wait until at least July.

Apple patches OS X security bugs.

Quote

The Apple security update addresses those flaws, which affect the Safari Web browser and Apple Mail client. The vulnerabilities expose Mac users to risks that are more familiar to Windows owners: the installation of malicious code through a bad Web site or e-mail because of improper validation of downloads.

Napster blames Microsoft for failure. Let me clean the quote up for you: "Microsoft Sucks"

Quote

Our business does rely on Microsoft's digital rights management software and our business model also relies on Microsoft's ecosystem of device manufacturers," he said. Microsoft had to grapple with the complexities of dealing with a number of different services and device makers, Mr Gorog said.

Soybean powered sports car.

Quote

A car that can go from zero to 60 in four seconds and get more than 50 miles to the gallon would be enough to pique any driver's interest. So who do we have to thank for it. Ford? GM? Toyota? No - just Victor, David, Cheeseborough, Bruce, and Kosi, five kids from the auto shop program at West Philadelphia High School

PC makers stripping warranties.

Quote

It's not completely clear how big the market is for premium consumer support, said Matt Healey, an analyst with IDC. However, the overall market for Windows support last year was $7.8 billion, which includes everything from corporate server support to consumer PCs. It's safe to say the market size for consumer support measures in the "billions," he said.

Smaller brands make strides in electronics market. I'll buy if the quality is good.

Quote

At a heavily trafficked Costco store in Redwood City, gleaming high-definition TVs from household names like Panasonic, Pioneer and Sony share the shelf space with generally less expensive sets from less familiar Akai and Vizio. At Amazon.com, a 32-inch Olevia flat-panel LCD TV was recently the No. 1 selling TV. The relatively unknown brand consistently ranks in Amazon's top TV vendor list, helped by positive customer reviews, according to Amazon officials.

Check out the pinwheel galaxy. Great picture.

Quote

About 10 years of observations with Hubble, as well as images from powerful ground-based telescopes such as the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii, US, were superimposed to create this image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, or M101.

Eat chocolate, halve your risk of dying from heart disease. Real cocoa tastes terrible.

Quote

�The men in the group that consumed the least cocoa were twice as likely to die from a heart attack than those in the group that consumed the most cocoa - at least 4g per day - and the risk remained lower even when other factors such as smoking, physical exercise and weight were taken into account,� says lead researcher Brian Buijsse, at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and the Environment.

DoJ rejects Google's privacy concerns. The government wants search engine data to have another censorship law passed. Think about the children! I'm a firm believer that it is up to the PARENTS, not the government, to teach and show what is right and wrong to children. Don't limit my media because of children, thanks.

Quote

The department believes the information will help revive an online child protection law that has been blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court. By showing the wide variety of Web sites that people find through search engines, the government hopes to prove Internet filters are not strong enough to prevent children from viewing pornography and other inappropriate material online.

How could a law that has been blocked be open for discussion again? America is really turning into a stupid place. I think we need to get back to our roots and stop running our citizens lives. This is a democracy after all, why can't I vote on the crap the government is doing?

20 years of NES.

Quote

There was no denying that the NES was a phenomenon. By the 1990's one in every three American homes had an NES and video games had become a billion-dollar industry. Nintendo had taken over Saturday morning cartoons, cereal boxes, and the surface of commercial merchandise the world over. Through several different iterations, from the Japanese-exclusive Famicom Disk System to the 90's released top-loading NES, the NES dominated video game sales for nearly a decade.

MRO ready for orbital insertion.

Quote

The spacecraft has travelled 459 million kilometres (285 million miles) � 95% of the way to Mars � since its launch from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, US, in August 2005. It has already fired its thrusters twice to correct its course towards Mars. Those firings were so successful that mission managers cancelled two further trajectory tweaks that had been scheduled.

Inventor of the CCD doesn't own a digicam.

Quote

Boyle and George Smith will share the $500,000 US award for the invention of the "Charge-Coupled Device (CCD), a light-sensitive component at the heart of digital cameras and other widely used imaging technologies," the U.S. National Academy of Engineering said. ... Boyle is now 81 and lives in Halifax. He doesn't own a digital camera, saying things have gotten too complicated.

Final Blackberry case to be heard tomorrow. Shut them down, get people off the crackberry.

Quote

Tongue-in-cheek poetry aside, to millions of BlackBerry users, there's nothing funny about Friday's court hearing, which could draw to an end one aspect of the long-running patent spat between Ontario-based Research In Motion and Virginia-based patent-holding firm NTP. At the hearing in U.S. District Judge James Spencer's Richmond, Va., courtroom, lawyers for NTP, RIM and the federal government will argue over whether to issue an injunction on the sale and support of the wireless devices on American turf, as well as the amount of damages due to NTP from RIM.

There is nothing funny about this type of patent system. Something as trivial as email push was patented, this is unacceptable and patents such as these stifle innovation. That and IP regulation.

Another software patent that stifles innovation. This company was awarded a pantent for rich media online (ie: HTML+AJAX).

Quote

"The patent covers all rich-media technology implementations including Flash, Flex, Java, AJAX and XAML and all device footprints which access rich-media Internet applications including desktops, mobile devices, set-top boxes and video game consoles," Balthaser added. "Balthaser will be able to provide licenses for almost any rich-media Internet application across a broad range of devices and networks."

There is so much prior art it is stupid. I feel pretty bad when I need to report on patent issues and IP issues all the time.

Eight (8) different version of Windows Vista. Customers will be dumbfounded when it comes time to purchase. Nice job, Microsoft.

Quote

Various media organization saw the Web site before it was taken down and reported that Microsoft plans to offer six primary editions of Vista and an additional two variations for Europe that do not include Windows Media Player to comply with the European Union's past antitrust rulings. Included in those listed offerings was Windows Starter 2007, a stripped-down version for emerging markets to offer an alternative for pirated software. There was also a basic and premium edition for the home as well as versions for both businesses and large corporations, according to the reports.

Microsoft looks for protection (extortion) money from insecure operating systems. That means Windows! Yes, let's get consumers to PAY for security that the OS should already have in it. Amazing.

Quote

Though challenges remain, the opportunity for Microsoft is huge. The Yankee Group in January pegged the unsecured PC market--computers without antivirus software or that have lapsed antivirus subscriptions--as worth $15 billion. Enterprise customers already spend $3 billion a year on security, the analyst firm noted.

Movie studios sue over 'open' DVD player. Yeah, I forgot. I'm not allowed to do what I want with something I purchased. I forgot that the MPAA and the RIAA want to control things AFTER I pay money for it. Screw yourself.

Quote

They claimed that Samsung�s DVD players allowed consumers to avoid encryption features that prevent unauthorized duplication and demanded a recall of all the problematic products, Bloomberg said. The Motion Picture Association of America estimates that the movie industry lost $5.4 billion last year due to piracy.

How can they lose money due to piracy? That's NOT STEALING. You cannot say that piracy COSTS money. The only cost would be in prevention and perhaps that is a lost cause because NO ONE wants any draconian DRM in their own media.

Perpetual motion engine. By magnets...

Quote

According to the technical brief at the Flynn Research website, Parallel Path is a quantum leap in electromagnetic motor technology that requires no exotic materials or questionable science. A Parallel Path motor uses a pair of permanent magnets in addition to the familiar stator-coil-rotor arrangement of current motors. The magnets, along with an air gap, allow all of the magnetic flux within the core to be manipulated and directed--this ability to manipulate the magnetic flux in the core of a motor is what provides the exponential increase in efficiency with Parallel Path technology. Best of all, the Parallel Path technology can be used with linear as well as rotary electric motors.

Wearable games, included with clothing.

Quote

Edoc Laundry's line integrates an ARG into its shirts, hats and accessories. The story involves the mysterious death of the manager of a fictional band called Poor Richard. Clues such as words and symbols embedded in the clothes lead to a Web site and unlock complex elements of the overriding story of Poor Richard and its music.

Navigation systems can be dangerous. Duh.

Quote

One in 10 motorists with navigation systems set off on their journeys without bothering to program their route, and more than half admitted they had then had to take their eyes off the road to input the details whilst driving. Nearly one in eight did not even bother to check out a route they were unfamiliar with and simply relied on the technology to get them to their destination.

I'll start a once a week news post about the forum so you can keep up with all the great things happening there. »http://www.aseforums.com

Tornado has started a Photo Caption Content: »http://www.aseforums.com/viewtopic.php?topicid=1244 Post your entries in that thread and be sure to vote!

Speaking of contests, what would you like to win? »http://www.aseforums.com/viewtopic.php?topicid=1236

What does your computer's desktop look like? »http://www.aseforums.com/viewtopic.php?topicid=1243 Mine is pretty minimal. Clean = good.

That's all for now and remember to introduce yourself if you are new.

Some representative schmuck in NJ wants to make it illegal for companies to do some business in China. You can't make doing business in another country illegal for any reason (unless it is a human rights issue). This is not an issue about human rights because no one says that the internet is everyone's right. It isn't, tough. This bill also makes more bureaucracy in an already bloated government. There is another problem, bureaucracy. The DHS is a stupid bureaucracy. The FBI and the CIA did things fine as well as FEMA. You put EVEN MORE bureaucracy on top of them and they get NOTHING done. Hmm, what does this organization need? MORE organizational bureaucracy!

Quote

For instance, the draft bill would require Internet companies to provide the U.S. government with lists of all content and sites it has been forced to block by restrictive governments. "Now that puts the companies exactly where they don't want to be, which is in a fight between the U.S. government and the other governments," O'Brien said.

RIAA infringes on Fair-Use once again. This organization is one of the worst things to happen to entertainment. They want to BLEED every consumer dry even after paying for a CD. Why doesn't the government step in on this stuff?

Quote

As part of the on-going DMCA rule-making proceedings, the RIAA and other copyright industry associations submitted a filing that included this gem as part of their argument that space-shifting and format-shifting do not count as noninfringing uses, even when you are talking about making copies of your own CDs: "Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted, necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorization. In this regard, the statement attributed to counsel for copyright owners in the MGM v. Grokster case is simply a statement about authorization, not about fair use."

Microsoft screws up with Office 12. Multiple versions that can't differentiate from each other like Windows Vista. Should I get the Home Lite or the Home Pro?

Quote

The Redmond, Washington-based company will also offer a consumer version with Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007. There is also a basic offering that is preloaded onto some PCs, a version for small businesses and a standard suite of products.

Even the Army uses games to practice.

Quote

Like many soldiers in the 276th Engineer Battalion, whose PlayStations and Xboxes crowded the trailers that served as their barracks, he played games during his downtime. "Halo 2," the sequel to the best-selling first-person shooter game, was a favorite. So was "Full Spectrum Warrior," a military-themed title developed with help from the U.S. Army.

UK wants a backdoor into Windows Vista.

Quote

The system uses BitLocker Drive Encryption through a chip called TPM (Trusted Platform Module) in the computer's motherboard. It is partly aimed at preventing people from downloading unlicensed films or media. "This means that by default your hard disk is encrypted by using a key that you cannot physically get at...

Amazing how computer companies are trying so hard to stop people from doing fair use stuff on things they purchased.

Nintendo to make DS into HDTV and Web browser.

Quote

The Web browser, developed with Norway's Opera Software, will be sold as a DS card in June for 3,800 yen ($32). Users will be able to insert the card into the DS, which has Wi-Fi wireless networking capability, to browse the Internet in areas with connectivity. Nintendo spokesman said it was considering a similar browser product in its overseas markets.

Google to throw Linux a bone and port* some apps.

Quote

The Linux Picasa implementation includes the full feature set of the Windows Picasa 2.x software. It is not, strictly speaking, a port of Picasa to Linux. Instead, Linux Picasa combines Windows Picasa code and Wine technology to run Windows Picasa on Linux. This, however, will be transparent to Linux users, when they download, install, and run the free program on their systems.

Slime controlled robot.

Quote

As the slime tried to get away from the light its movement was sensed by the circuit and used to control one of the robot's six legs. The robot then scrabbled away from bright lights as a mechanical embodiment of the mould. Eventually, this type of control could be incorporated into the bot itself rather than used remotely.

IBM still running for GHz.

Quote

Chipmakers have found it harder to kick up a processor's clock speed while actually getting more useful work out of a chip and avoiding inordinate electricity consumption. As a result, Intel, Sun Microsystems and Advanced Micro Devices have begun emphasizing other features--for example, squeezing multiple processing engines, called cores, onto a single slice of silicon or executing many instruction sequences, called threads, simultaneously.

Amazon's A9 CEO jumps to Google. And big Google steals more employees.

Quote

Manber will become Google's vice president of engineering after he leaves A9 at the end of the week. His departure from Amazon was announced late Tuesday. A9 is a general Web search site, like the more popular Google or Yahoo, and it powers the Web search and site search on Amazon.com.

China to become toxic with pollution.

Quote

Pan criticized problems ranging from the over-development of hydro power in the upper reaches of China's major rivers to the clustering of dangerous chemical plants on river banks in populated areas and reckless urban expansions nationwide. "It's not a problem of certain companies or regions any more, the pollution is now structural," the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) official said.

Google's Desktop approaches OSness.

Quote

Google Desktop 3 poses new challenges to Microsoft Corp.'s dominance of the way people interact with computers, but also demands users place far greater trust in Google's capacity to protect their privacy. Google Desktop vacuums up data stored on a user's PC and makes it accessible on any other computer in regular use by the customer at home or work or even on an airplane trip, assuming users consent to storing data on Google's central computers.

I think I speak for everyone when I say, "Screw you, Google." My data is MINE and MINE alone. I love how people don't trust the government in terms of privacy, but seem willing to give a large corporation access to all the information they have.

Hubble disproves cosmic string.

Quote

Unfortunately for the proponents of cosmic strings, observations with Hubble on 12 January have revealed that CSL-1 is actually two different galaxies. "We have to conclude that CSL-1 is not the lensing of an elliptical galaxy by a cosmic string," Sazhin says.

More Windows flaws.

Quote

Though the WMF vulnerability may appear similar to previous flaws related to WMF that plagued Windows, the issue is different, Microsoft said. Last month the software maker rushed out a fix for a WMF rendering flaw that was being exploited to install spyware on the computers of unwitting Windows users. To remedy this new WMF problem, Microsoft recommends users upgrade to IE6 with Service Pack 1 and said it may issue a security patch.

Cisco's TV plans for Scientific-Atlanta.

Quote

For now, Cisco's consumer market is miniscule compared with its overall business. The company still generates the bulk of its revenue from sales of networking equipment to large companies. The rest of its revenue is split among sales to small and medium-size businesses, which account for 25 percent of sales. Its service-providers business brings in another 25 percent of revenue, while its consumer products generate only 5 percent of total revenue.

Net neutrality.

Quote

On Tuesday the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation is holding a hearing to discuss the issue. Companies such as Amazon.com, eBay, Google and Microsoft are pushing congressional leaders to draft legislation that calls for "network neutrality," which would bar phone companies and cable operators from picking favorites.

Photoshop on Linux needed.

Quote

So far, the most-requested applications have primarily been tools for design, Web publishing and multimedia. Photoshop, Dreamweaver and Macromedia Studio, AutoDesk's AutoCAD and Apple Computer's iTunes head the list. Norris said these results indicate that Linux on the desktop has matured; in the past, there was primarily demand for basic applications such as word processing, e-mail clients and Web browsers.

NASA to pump more money into Shuttle.

Quote

Griffin and other NASA officials announced the cuts on Monday during a press briefing on US president George Bush's 2007 budget request to Congress. In the proposed budget, NASA would receive $16.8 billion in 2007, an increase of 3.2% over the amount Congress appropriated for the agency for 2006. (This excludes $350 million given in 2006 to cover damage caused by Hurricane Katrina.)

Measuring dark matter.

Quote

Using the biggest telescopes in the world, including the Very Large Telescope facility in Chile, the group has made detailed 3D maps of the galaxies, using the movement of their stars to "trace" the impression of the dark matter among them and weigh it very precisely.

DSL price cuts help growth.

Quote

Last June, AT&T (then SBC Communications) was the first of the two large phone companies to dramatically reduce its DSL pricing--to $14.95 for the first year of service. In August, Verizon followed suit, offering its new tier of service, which includes 768kbps downloads, for $14.95 per month. And last week, AT& answered back, with a $12.99 price tag for the first year. Since AT&'s prices are promotional, after the first year the price of the service jumps to the company's regular pricing model, which is $29.99 per month.

NASA aims for May launch.

Quote

Although the shuttle team has significant engineering work yet to complete in order to make a launch during the targeted window of 3 to 22 May, Casper says NASA is "going to continue to work toward that window". He also outlined the agency's progress on the three recommendations from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board that were not fulfilled before Discovery's July 2005 launch.

Will RIM be shutdown. Patents in this country are becoming insane.

Quote

As its patent-infringement defense against NTP winds down, RIM is scheduled to argue on Feb. 24 against an injunction on the sale and support of BlackBerry devices in the U.S. After a jury trial in 2002, NTP won an injunction against RIM that was stayed in 2003 pending an appeals process.

Duke Nukem Forever still kicking.

Quote

I think it'll be out when pigs fly. But it's definitely going well now. Things are together; we're in full production. We're basically just pulling all the pieces together and making the game out of it. There's a lot that's finished. All the guns are finished. Most of the creatures are finished. And as I said, we're just basically pulling it all together and trying to make it fun. We've kind of got all these disassociated elements that make up a game, and you put them together and things happen. And then you just tweak it and polish it until it's fun, and that's kind of the phase we're in now, just trying to make something that is really fun to play and interesting.

Comcast's profits take a dive.

Quote

The big decline resulted from a drop in investment and other income and an increase in the effective tax rate, the company said. Investment and other income fell to $58 million in the fourth quarter from $553 million in the same period a year earlier.

RIAA screws another P2P company. How can a single BS entity like the RIAA have so much power? Ohh, they pay off the government. Nice.

Quote

The companies are facing recording and movie industry attorneys emboldened by last summer's Supreme Court ruling saying that file-swapping services could potentially be held liable for people who use their software to download movies, music and software illegally.

IE7 Beta 2 released.

Quote

Thank you for choosing Microsoft and for trying this pre-release software. Everyone on the Internet Explorer team wants to make your web browsing experience safer and easier. We welcome your feedback. To help you with beta testing, we've provided the resources and checklists below. You may want to print the checklists that apply to you and verify that your websites/applications work with the new Internet Explorer features. Let us know how Internet Explorer 7 is working for you by joining the Internet Explorer 7 newsgroup.

Computer power draw at its limits.

Quote

Trends aren't promising. Four or five years ago, a 6-foot tall rack full of computing gear would consume 2 to 3 kilowatts, "but now we're talking about 10-, 15- or 20-kilowatt-draw racks," said Sun Chief Technology Officer Greg Papadopoulos. Google has warned that its server electricity costs soon might outpace its server purchase costs.

Blizzard warns gay guild.

Quote

To WoW publisher Blizzard Entertainment, however, Andrews' message was out of bounds. The Irvine, Calif.-based game publisher said her recruiting was a violation of the game's harassment policy, specifically the section of that policy regarding sexual orientation. Andrews was quickly warned in an e-mail to stop recruiting inside the game and to take all such efforts to forums outside WoW's virtual world. Andrews was also warned that if she didn't stop recruiting for the guild inside WoW, she risked being banned from the game.

IceCube to help string theory.

Quote

Anchordoqui and his colleagues say cosmic neutrinos can achieve the energies needed when they slam into atoms on Earth. If gravity is hiding in the posited unseen dimensions, such collisions could open a floodgate between the dimensions and theoretically produce microscopic black holes that exist for just a fraction of a second before decaying into other particles.

It's a cold news day...

Video:

ATI X1300 Pro and X1600 XT @ Hexus.

Quote

The best offerings in the X1300 and X1600 range are what we look at today, as the markers for their sub markets, so join us as we analyse RV515 and RV530 in a modicum of depth internally, before looking at the physical specifics and performance levels of X1300 PRO and X1600 XT.

HIS X1600XT @ Bjorn3D.

Quote

While we have followed, and still are following, the battle for the high-end between NVIDIA and ATI sometimes it seems we forget the real important battle 'below', the fight about the mid-end. When the X1600XT was announced there were some concerns that it wasn't priced correctly when you compared it to similar NVIDIA cards. ATI responded by lowering the price and today the X1600XT is a chipset that offers a lot of features and performance for its price.

ATI X1900XT @ Hexus.

Quote

R580, moreso than any modern GPU that meets the D3D9 spec, therefore relies on software to show it off. Even current synthetic benchmarks designed to show off theoretical rates in 3D hardware can have a hard time exploiting the tripling in fragment processing ability. That's not to say the performance increases at the same clocks as R520 are invisible. Clearly they're not without increases, especially at the higher resolutions, of up to 30% in the games we tested, clock-for-clock.

ATI X1900XTX @ Legitreviews.

Quote

ATI�s new flagship video card is the X1900XTX. Thankfully the performance of the card matches the length of its name. It comes with a core clock of 650MHz and 512MB of RAM clocked at 1.55GHz. For those wondering X1800XT was clocked at 625MHz core, and 1.5GHz memory. It�s difficult to tell the differences between the new card and the old card on the outside, with the only noticeable differences being the number of mosfets next to the long red heat sink toward the end of the board...

ATI X1900XTX @ Bjorn3D.

Quote

The high-end video card war continues with ATI's latest GPU X1900 (R580). Sporting 3 times the pixel shader processors over the X1800XT and twice as many as the GeForce 7800GTX ATI has release a real power-horse. Even more important is the fact that the cards already are in stock in some online-stores which means it isn�t a paper-launch.

Club3D 7800GT @ VL.

Quote

The Club-3D 7800GT 256MB has come through our tests as one of the best performing cards around. The overall package is nice, although you can probably find a better package from other manufacturers, they will likely cost more. You get everything you need and a few extras to boot but the package is really all about the card; which is as it should be.

Motherboards:

Foxconn 6150K8MA @ OCC.

Quote

The only thing you can say negatively about the 6150K8MA is a point that is mitigated almost into neutrality; that of video output. Yes, the Foxconn 6150K8MA lacks the current high definition outputs to feed a HDTV however, how many HTPC systems don't sport at least a moderate range VGA card and TV card such as the Hauppauge TVR? Not many.

RAM:

Corsair PC3500 @ 3DX.

Quote

Corsair is one of the premier memory producers in the world. Their products are easily accepted as some of the highest quality memory on the market and the Pro Series modules brought LED activity indicators to Random Access Memory. With the overclockability of the AMD64 line of processors this product would be the perfect fit for the gamer looking to squeeze a little bit more performance from their machine by pushing the front side bus from 200 to around 218 Mhz. This moderate overclock, while not exactly in line with the hardcore overclockers pushing 800 - 1000 Mhz on the AMD64 platform, would fit the needs of the tweaker / gamer perfectly.

Cisco plans for Scientific-Atlanta.

Quote

The question now is, who's next? Will Cisco take a hard look at troubled but well-known TiVo, the maker of digital video recorders? What about Nintendo, maker of video game consoles? Or what about Sling Media, a start-up with technology that lets people watch cable television on their laptops or mobile devices with a broadband connection?

SuitSat ready for deployment.

Quote

The tattered Russian spacesuit will gradually fall towards Earth and should disintegrate in the planet's atmosphere within a few weeks. How long it lasts will depend on how much drag it experiences, which is difficult to predict because of its irregular shape. It should, however, be possible to track the satellite's flight by radar.

LA: Protecting your right to pruchase video games. No, wait...

Quote

Delgadillo said the company further deceived consumers by first claiming that hackers had modified the original version of the games, then announcing a week later that the sex scenes were written into the original game code. The lawsuit demands that Take-Two and Rockstar Games, the subsidiary behind "Grand Theft Auto," one of the best-selling in video game franchises history, stop marketing the games to children, pay fines and return $10 million in profits.

Congressmen now weblogging.

Quote

Obama and Kerry are two of about 11 members of Congress who are blogging today, either on their own blogs or as guests on others' sites. Republicans like Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Rep. Mark Kirk of Illinois and Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas have joined the fray, along with Democrats like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Rep. Louise Slaughter of New York.

Wrecking ball into Mars.

Quote

Now, researchers led by Phil Christensen at Arizona State University in Tempe, US, are proposing a mission to search for that ice directly. The idea behind THOR (Tracing Habitability, Organics, and Resources) is to fly an observer spacecraft to Mars and, hours before it reaches the planet, release an "impactor" ball. It could be up to 230 kilograms in mass and would be aimed at a region about 40� north or south of the equator.

New rocky planet found.

Quote

The newfound planet, named OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, is probably too cold to support life as we know it, astronomers said. With a surface temperature of -364 degrees Fahrenheit (-220 degrees Celsius), it is nearly as frigid as Pluto.

Disney eats Pixar, Pixar absorbs Disney.

Quote

This acquisition combines Pixar's preeminent creative and technological resources with Disney's unparalleled portfolio of world-class family entertainment, characters, theme parks and other franchises, resulting in vast potential for new landmark creative output and technological innovation that can fuel future growth across Disney's businesses. Garnering an impressive 20 Academy Awards, Pixar's creative team and global box office success have made it a leader in quality family entertainment through incomparable storytelling abilities, creative vision and innovative technical artistry.

Anonymous internet speech... your days are numbered. Sucks.

Quote

While the U.S. constitution places an extremely high value on and provides protection for free speech, such speech is not completely unbridled. That is why our nation has a developed body of law pertaining to defamation. In a nutshell, if someone says something false about someone else that causes harm to that person, liability and monetary damages may be awarded.

Google to censor stuff in China. And all American companies throw out their values. Thanks guys.

Quote

"By offering a version without 'subversive' content, Google is making it easier for Chinese officials to filter the Internet themselves. A Web site not listed by search engines has little chance of being found by users," the group said in a statement. "The new Google version means that even if a human rights publication is not blocked by local firewalls, it has no chance of being read in China."

Google heads cash in on stock.

Quote

Since the search giant went public in August 2004, Brin has sold about 6.5 million shares at a market value of $1.68 billion. Page has sold about 5.8 million shares at a market value of $1.4 billion, according to calculations from Thomson Financial. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who was brought in to run the company before it went public, has sold more than 2.1 million shares, worth more than $502 million.

Boot XP on a Mac, get money.

Quote

My MacBook is shipping on the 15th of February. I told my boss that this would replace my IBM desktop and I could boot Windows XP on it. I am still confident it can be done. I am pledging $100 of my own money and offering anyone else who would like the instructions on how to Dual boot these two operating systems the ability to donate some of their money into the pot as a reward for the person / group that can make dual-booting Mac OS X and Windows XP happen on an Intel Mac. Good Luck,

Blackhole's spacetime dent.

Quote

Scientists think that gas particles moving in warped spacetime near the black hole exhibit two types of motions, each giving rise to a unique frequency. One motion is the orbital motion of the gas as it goes around the black hole. This produces the 450 Hz frequency. The lower 300 Hz frequency is caused by the gas wobbling slightly due to the spacetime deformations.

Abstraction Layers: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=189

Video iPod: The DMCA killer. The DMCA is one of the worst pieces of legislation to date.

Quote

Still, some glimmers of hope exist for DMCA reform. At a hearing in November, Rep. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican who chairs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, seemed to take a common-sense approach. "It boils down to this: I believe that when I buy a music album or movie DVD, it should be mine once I leave the store," Barton said.

Talk to the car.

Quote

Certainly, for car navigation systems has been around for years, as it has for call centers. Many high-end to midrange vehicles like Lexus and Honda's Acura include voice command features for driving directions. But those technologies have long delivered a frustrating experience to consumers, thanks to a limited vocabulary of commands or poor recognition of synonyms and accents.

The CEV gets overhauled again.

Quote

NASA also has dropped plans to power the so-called Crew Launch Vehicle�s upper stage with a Space Shuttle Main Engine modified to start in flight, opting instead to go with an updated version of the J-2 engine that was used on NASA�s Saturn 5 rocket.

Abstraction layers are the foundation of all programming. Hiding the complex and maintaining portability are the prime reasons of using abstraction layers. An abstraction layer for database functions using PHP is given in this article. Read more...Next Page »

I start my last term of school today.

Oracle's post-merger plans.

Quote

Speaking at San Francisco City Hall, Oracle's top brass focused on the company's efforts to overhaul its business applications software, incorporating the best technology from more than a dozen companies it acquired during the past year or so. That initiative, called Project Fusion, began about a year ago, when Oracle completed its $10 billion buyout of PeopleSoft.

Sex.com sells for $14 Million.

Quote

Prior to learning of the sale of Sex.com, numerous adult industry message board postings had already begun speculating on the sale after noticing the radical change in the appearance of the Sex.com website. On the homepage of the updated website, the new owners refer to the site as �the new Sex.com,� and the appearance is radically different from the former site. The site is copyrighted by Escom.

RFID production to increase 25x.

Quote

he number of RFID tags produced worldwide is expected to increase more than 25 fold between 2005 and 2010, reaching 33 billion, according to market research company In-Stat. Total production of RFID tags in 2005 reached more than 1.3 billion, according to a recent report.

Comcast to screw consumers again by placing ads in ondemand. What Comcast doesn't care about is that the consumer is ALREADY paying for the cable service.

Quote

On Exercise TV, the ads will be integrated into the programs. Comcast has sold exclusive advertising rights to New Balance, the footwear maker, for several million dollars. This will allow the company to insert its products and logo in and around the programs, initially a selection of 90 fitness episodes.

Mars Science Laboratory aims for the red planet.

Quote

"MSL is like a chemist on Mars," Cook said. "From a technological point of view, people will be fairly amazed by both the size and the capability of MSL. It will certainly be able to drive circles around MER to a certain extent. Not speed wise. But from how long MSL can go every day�it will be able to do much more," he added.

New Horizons launched scrubbed again.

Quote

Flight controllers scrubbed the planned launch of NASA�s New Horizons Pluto probe and its Atlas 5 rocket just two minutes and 42 seconds before the booster�s engines were scheduled to fire. High ground winds, which dogged flight controllers throughout the day, proved too strong to loft the spacecraft safely, NASA officials said.

Yes, I am aware of the content issue. I'll be posting some stuff this weekend. Promise .

Dark energy is changing.

Quote

An idea that arose in the late 90s, dark energy seems to act over very large distances, pushing the Universe apart at an ever increasing speed. At the moment, many researchers believe that dark energy may be a foam of quantum particles that exists throughout the vacuum of space. Under that scenario, dark energy would be a constant and unchanging force, according to Michael Turner, a cosmologist from the University of Chicago, Illinois.

UK to host online-gambling summit. Anyone want to bet what happens?

Quote

Online casinos and poker rooms form a market valued at up to $12 billion a year globally. Online poker has surged in popularity as it pulls in a wider audience than traditional casino gambling, often including women and younger players who may not have visited casinos.

IBM gets $1.1 Billion service contract from Gap.

Quote

As part of the agreement, Gap expects about 400 of its employees, or workers at its subsidiaries, to join IBM. The company and IBM have the option of incorporating additional services into the agreement over time. Gap, which runs Banana Republic, Old Navy and its namesake stores, can renew the 10-year deal for up to three additional years.

Companies pushing virtualization into Linux.

Quote

One complicating factor to the acceptance of the OpenVZ virtual private server is another technology, virtual machine software. Recently, servers using x86 processors such as Intel's Xeon and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron gained new partitioning options through virtualization. First came VMware's virtual machine software, which uses a hypervisor to let multiple independent operating systems run on the same computer.

Forming an opinion faster than a blink of you eye.

Quote

Like the look of our website? Whatever the answer (and hopefully it was yes), the chances are you made your mind up within the first twentieth of a second. A study by researchers in Canada has shown that the snap decisions Internet users make about the quality of a web page have a lasting impact on their opinions.