News

Patent reform legislation, but not enough or the right kind. Someone that lives outside the patent office will be rich...

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The legal standard that was applied awards patents to the person who invented a concept first, and it has long been a unique feature of the U.S. patent system. This year, however, Congress is about to consider a controversial proposal from Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, that would grant a patent to the first person to submit the paperwork --a standard that's common outside the United States.

BadApple eyes iTunes and DRM.

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I asked Steve Jobs to put FairPlay onto Linux and he said "no." I mean, flat-out no. That's not a world I want. I want a world where people can choose any hardware device they want, any operating system, and not have to re-buy their music every time they get a new device. I think open standards are the key to that. What we were trying to do with BadApple is pull the world more towards an open direction.

Transplant cells duped to provide stability to host.

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The new technique could make tissue grafts invisible to the immune system, and would allow transplant recipients to circumvent the multiple side effects of immunosuppressive drugs, says Maggie Dallman, an immunologist at Imperial College London, UK, whose team is examining the method in mice. The process - which dupes the cells the human body uses to regulate its immunity - makes use of the natural immune-dampening effect of suppressor or regulatory T-cells. It has shown some promise in treating auto-immune diseases such as multiple sclerosis in mice. Regulatory T-cells keep other immune cells in check, and prevent them from attacking the body's own tissues.

Oracle to buy Siebel. Siebel sucks.

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Siebel makes software for handling customer relationship management, or CRM. Oracle said its acquisition will add 4,000 customers and 3.4 million CRM users. Oracle will offer $10.66 for each share of Siebel stock, a nearly 17 percent premium over the company's $9.13 closing price Friday.

Ebay to buy Skype.

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The auctioneer said it plans to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock for the Web communications company. It would make a further payout of up to $1.5 billion by 2008 or 2009 if financial targets are met, giving the deal a total value of up to $4.1 billion, executives of the two companies said.

Shuttle will use ISS for power.

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The new Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System will mean as much as an extra 8 kilowatts of electricity for the orbiter. "It's enough so that you don't have to use up the oxygen supplies to feed the fuel cells," says NASA Johnson Space Center spokesperson Kylie Clem. The $68 million project will add to Boeing's $12.8 billion ISS contract.

My idea was simple. I sent this in to NASA. Line the inside of the cargo bay doors with solar panels. When the shuttle gets into space, it opens the bay doors to let heat escape. With the door open, it could collect solar power from the panels. I also believe that NASA should fly the shuttles to space when they are retired and leave them in orbit. It is a proven crew habitat and could be used for other things in space as well.

More X size solar flares coming.

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If enough storms erupt, the odds go up that there will be effects here. And the likelihood of Earth taking one directly on the chin goes up with each passing day as the sunspot takes aim. There is a 75 percent chance of more X-class flares each day through Tuesday, the SEC says. On Friday, a space radiation storm was captured in an image from the SOHO spacecraft, which monitors the Sun.

I remember looking out from Hoboken at the World Trade Center in flames, and their destruction. Please take a moment to remember all that were lost, and for the people they left behind.

We remember, always.

Remember that.

I've got some stuff planned for next week. Keep checking this space.

Video:

Leadtek 7800 GTX SLI @ Bjorn3D.

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NVIDIA’s new GeForce 7800 GTX clearly has been received very well by the hardware sites on the Internet. It is a very fast card. In fact, in some cases, it is as fast as having two GeForce 6800 Ultras in your machine. Considering how fast the card is alone, I was very curious how fast it would be in SLI-mode. I’ve spent one month playing games just to get a feel for what two GeForce 7800 GTX's in SLI-mode can do. For our testing, I used two Leadtek GeForce 7800 GTX cards. This article should give you an idea if it’s currently worth going with two GeForce 7800 GTX cards or not.

Gigabyte 6600 @ Madshrimps.

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With the introduction of PCI express only a few high end VGA cards were available, now that we have low/mid range it's time to see how they stack up to their big brothers. The 6600GT is a mid-range card, let's find out if it is worth the asking price. Be prepared, because here comes the Gigabyte 6600 256 Mb Turbo Force !

Nvidia 7800GT @ RBMods.

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Well most of us know about the new Nvidia card that was just released on the market so we thought it's time to check out the 7800 card and see how it does performs vs the 6800 and some ATI cards. We have taken this unit and thoroughly tested it in gaming, overclocking, and overall performance to see what it really can do.

Sapphire X850XT @ Tweaktown.

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Today we're looking at Sapphire's X850XT PE, or Platinum Edition. Not only that, but we’ll be testing it in the AGP format since many of our readers have perfectly serviceable AGP motherboards and haven’t felt the dire need to move on to PCI-Express as yet. So kick up your heels and relax as we take a tour of the latest and greatest offering from ATI in the form of the X850XT and we’ll see how it compares to its smaller brother, the X800XT!

Albatron 7800GTX @ VL.

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Performance like this doesn't come cheap, but you get what you pay for. In this case, the Albatron 7800 GTX will provide lightning quick performance with the image quality to match. The bundle is nothing to boast about, but nobody usually cares about that anyway.

RAM:

Kingston HyperX PC2-6000 @ Bjorn3D.

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With over 2,000 memory products in their portfolio, Kingston Technology can provide memory solutions for just about anyone's needs. The company's depth makes it easy to see why it is a leader in the memory market. The products in its extensive line-up cover everything from the basic, entry-level memory modules for system builders to the high-end, high-performance modules the PC enthusiast crowd has grown to love. Kingston's high-end system memory products are given the HyperX brand. Of course, Kingston offers HyperX products featuring the latest memory technology, DDR2. DDR2 is supported on most of the recently released chipsets and will eventually supplant first generation DDR as the dominant memory type in the PC industry. It is an evolution of the DDR specification that features lower power consumption, higher speeds and better thermal performance. The main disadvantage of DDR2 right now is its CAS latencies are higher than those of comparable DDR modules, but it's only a matter of time before DDR2's CAS latencies reach parity with DDR's.

Motherboard:

Abit AW8-Max @ TTZ.

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The Abit MAX series of motherboard represents the epitome of motherboard design. Everything about an Abit MAX motherboard screams "This is the best there is." And indeed, the new Abit AW8-MAX is the best MAX motherboard to date. The AW8-MAX is the latest addition to Abit's revolutionary MAX Series, and the first to feature Silent OTES cooling technology - creating a MAX motherboard that's not only provides maximum performance, but is dead silent as well.

Tyan Tomcat K8E @ BFR.

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Tyan Computer Corporation is well known for their servers and system boards and rightly so. Their line up of products is quite extensive in the server market and while their offerings are slightly less in the home consumer market they have kept their products up to date with the latest technologies extremely well. Today we look at their latest Socket 939 motherboard, the Tomcat K8E (S2865).

ECS KN1 Extreme @ LR.

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The KN1 Extreme brings together the dominance of AMD's socket 939 processors and NVIDIA's nForce 4 chipset in an extremely affordable package. Coupled with a top notch bundle, the KN1 Extreme definitely makes the list of top budget boards.

Aopen i945Pa-PLF @ OCC.

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All things considered, this AOpen i945Pa-PLF is a pretty rockin' board for a $130 bucks. The included bundle is a bit lacking, but the board showed solid performance throughout the testing. Coupled with a nice color scheme and roomy layout, I'd have to give this board two thumbs up. It's only downside is really the lack of RAID and small bundle. And it's high point has to be the overclockability of the board. Surpassing even our i955 based motherboard here, we were genuinely impressed.

Internet tax resuming.

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Technically, those who live in states with sales taxes--there are 45 of them, plus the District of Columbia--are already supposed to pay fees on their out-of-state purchases, even if they were seemingly "tax-free." That's because all of those states have a use tax, typically levied at the same rate as the sales tax, on out-of-state items their residents have bought tax-free. If the item was bought out of state but taxed at a lower tax rate, some states, such as California, ask their residents to pay their home state the difference upon their return.

Google hires Vint Cerf.

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In one of the tech industry's most prestigious hires in recent years, Google announced Thursday that Cerf, 62, would help the company develop new architectures, systems and standards for a next generation of applications that would likely run across the Internet. Cerf, who was the vice president of technology strategy at MCI and a visiting scientist with NASA, will start his new job as Google's chief Internet evangelist on Oct. 3.

There are differences in people's brains.

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There are two new genetic studies that suggest the brain may still be evolving. Geneticist Bruce Lahn of the University of Chicago in Illinois, US, and colleagues analysed the sequences of two genes active in the brain – Microcephalin and ASPM. Both regulate brain size - people carrying a non-functioning mutant copy of these genes suffer microcephaly, where they have a normally structured brain that is much smaller than usual.

We're all dead in the future anyway.

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And it may not be a rare process. If excess metals are a sign of dust accretion, "it would mean that metal-rich white dwarfs – and this is fully 25% of all white dwarfs – may have debris discs, and therefore planetary systems, around them", says Mukremin Kilic, a graduate student at the University of Texas, US, who led the IRTF observing team. "Planetary systems may be more numerous than we thought." "We now have a window into how planetary systems like our own might behave billions of years from now," Says Ben Zuckerman, an astronomer at UCLA. "The parallel to our own solar system’s eventual demise is chilling," Becklin adds.

Review posted: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=178

Bigelow inflatable modules testing soon.

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The one-third scale version of a larger Bigelow inflatable module is dubbed Genesis. It will be lofted into space atop a Dnepr booster under contract with ISC Kosmotras, a Russian and Ukrainian rocket-for-hire company. A second Genesis module is also slated to be orbited, perhaps later next year too. Both inflatable structures are to circle Earth for several years and be thoroughly evaluated.

Largest asteroid may contain more water than Earth.

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If this mantle is composed of at least 25 percent water, Ceres would have more fresh water than Earth, according to a statement released by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble for NASA and the European Space Agency.

Nuclear stockpiles could make many bombs.

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The total amount of plutonium, which is created in nuclear reactors, is increasing by 70 tonnes per year, the report says. Most of it is combined with radioactive waste in spent fuel, and is hence relatively difficult to access. But ISIS points out that 238 tonnes has been extracted by reprocessing plants, and that this total is expected to rise to 286 tonnes by 2010. The largest stockpile - 90 tonnes - will be owned by the UK, followed by Japan (62 tonnes), Russia (50), France (48) and Germany (27).

In the truest spirit of form over function, I have a fan that mates with a cold cathode to add extra flair to your otherwise boring case. Do you have a boring case? Then read about this fan...Next Page »

Comet contains life juice.

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Millions of kilograms of fine dust particles and water and a "surprisingly high" amount of organic molecules sprayed into space when NASA crashed its Deep Impact spacecraft into Comet 9P/Tempel 1 on 4 July 2005, reveal a trio of new studies. The observations bolster theories that comets may have seeded Earth with the raw materials for life and suggest they may be sponge-like - rather than hardened - at their cores.

Katrina creates health problems. They are pumping out the city, finally.

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While some experts believe the risk for mosquito-borne infections such as malaria and West Nile virus has increased due to the flood waters, others believe the floods may wash the insects’ eggs out to sea and that the increasingly salty floodscape will prove unfavourable to them, which may actually lower the risk of these diseases. However, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is starting to carry out mosquito controls in the area and closely monitoring for new outbreaks of West Nile virus. Disaster health experts say some of the public health risks may have been hyped. They point out that many of the health fears after the Asian tsunami never materialised – there were no epidemics, despite isolated outbreaks of dengue fever, malaria and measles. And, they say, outbreaks of diseases like typhoid and cholera are unlikely in Louisiana because the microbes involved are virtually non-existent in the region.

More natural disasters coming.

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The closest thing to a sure-bet U.S. disaster awaits in California, experts agree. A magnitude 7.5 quake under Los Angeles could kill as many as 18,000 and cost $250 billion, according to computer models.

GPL 3 to include stipulations on patents. Bye bye GPL.

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"Software patents are clearly a menace to society and innovation. We like this to be more explicit," Greve said. The idea is that if someone uses software patents against free software, that company or person loses the right to distribute that particular program and use it in their product, he added.

Networking startups coming back.

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Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs agree that the technology start-up market has come back to life during the past year. Valuations for top-tier companies are on the rise and large companies, particularly big networking equipment makers such as Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks, are once again shopping for good acquisitions.

State of Massachusetts wants open documents.

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Kriss could not immediately be contacted for further comment, but it is clear that Massachusetts has long-standing concerns over Microsoft's XML schema. Earlier this year, in a document describing its work on open standards, the Commonwealth said that "the Microsoft "Patent License" for use of Office schemas has not been accepted as satisfactory by all parties, even if it eventually proves to satisfy the requirements of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. To some, the exceptions to the 'royalty-free license ... to make, use, sell, offer to sell, import, and otherwise distribute Licensed Implementations solely for the purpose of reading and writing files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas' are problematic, as are the terms of use," said the Commonwealth.

Mars may harbor water.

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While channels and ridges in the Martian landscape indicate that water once flowed across it and probes have detected ice in the soil, Bourke believes she has found topographical evidence that some of its giant dunes are about 50 percent water. "My findings do not suggest that there's more water on Mars," she told journalists at the British Association for the Advancement of Science festival in Dublin. "It's identifying a new location that has not been defined before."

Atlantis unmounts from fuel tank.

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A six-month slip in NASA's next shuttle mission, coupled with hurricane damage to its external tank factory in New Orleans, is prompting the agency to move a lot of hardware around Kennedy Space Center. The orbiter Atlantis was hoisted off a mobile launcher platform in the KSC Vehicle Assembly Building on Friday, the first step in taking apart a fully assembled shuttle.

Hope everyone is having a nice day off. Remember to check the links right above this news post to help the people caught in the wake of Katrina. I have donated already, have you?

Australia goes insane. These people are worse than us with copyrights.

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An Australian court ruled on Monday that users of Kazaa, a popular internet music file-swapping system, breached music copyright and ordered its owners to modify the software. "The respondents authorised users to infringe the applicants' copyright in their sound recordings," Federal Court Judge Murray Wilcox said in his ruling. Australia's major record companies sued Kazaa's Australian owners and developers, Sharman Networks, claiming Kazaa had cost them millions of dollars in lost sales.

EU gives China clean coal tech. Clean coal... stick CO2 in the ground, that's clean...

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The European Union agreed on Monday to give China the technology for a coal-fired power station designed to combat global warming. The clean coal-power plant will employ carbon capture and storage technology through which the coal plant can capture its own emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), burying them in porous rock underground for long-term storage.

Apple ready for iTunes phone.

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The Apple rumor mill swung into overdrive this week when the company reported it would make a big digital music announcement on Wednesday (September 7). Most observers expect Apple Computer to unveil the iTunes-compatible mobile phone that has been in development with Motorola for more than a year. Several industry sources have identified Cingular as the wireless operator making the long-anticipated device available to subscribers.

Hubble goes to two gyros.

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The space agency announced August 31 that ground controllers have shut down one of the three operational gyros onboard the orbiting eye on the universe. Doing so is expected to preserve the overall health of that third gyro—thus extend the space observatory’s science gathering through mid-2008, an eight-month extension. Hubble Space Telescope (HST) gyroscopes are critical to running the Earth orbiting facility’s complex pointing control system. That system maintains precise pointing of the telescope during science observations.

Sony's handheld upgrades it's firmware to version 2.0 adding several new features.Next Page »

I'm off to AC tomorrow and that means no news tomorrow.

These people should be shot and killed. Looting is one thing, shooting at evacuees is another. I think all criminals in that disaster should be taken down.

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He described scenes of lawlessness and desperation, with people simply dragging corpses into corners. "They have quite a few people running around here with guns," he said. "You got these young teenage boys running around up here raping these girls." Elsewhere, groups of armed men wandered the streets, buildings smoldered and people picked through stores for what they could find. Charity Hospital, one of several facilities attempting to evacuate patients, was forced to halt the effort

Nulcear space batteries.

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Under the $300 million plan, the Idaho National Laboratory would produce 11 pounds (5 kg) of plutonium-238 a year for 30 years starting in 2011. The non-weapons-grade plutonium is used to power everything from satellites to deep space probes, leading industry insiders to call the finished product "space batteries."

The probe using a space battery.

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Before New Horizons heads for Pluto, however, yet another crucial milestone must be met: Approval to use a radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG), the nuclear power source that provides the electrical energy to operate the spacecraft’s mechanical and electronic systems in the cold darkness of deep space. Any mission that plans to use an RTG undergoes a safety analysis carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). In addition to the DoE review, an ad hoc Interagency Nuclear Safety Review Panel (INSRP) – supported by experts from government, industry and academia -- is involved as part of a Presidential nuclear safety launch approval process to evaluate the safety analysis report prepared by DoE.

Thermaltake Xray review posted: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=177

Alternate browsers hide information better.

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Lewis, who works for risk consulting company Kroll, gave attendees more tips on how to read the cache, history and cookie files that Firefox and Opera generate. He recommended some free tools for investigators, including Opera 4 File Explorer, which displays Opera cache files, and Web Historian from Red Cliff, which exports history information for IE, Opera and Firefox into an easily readable Excel spreadsheet.

Mice that regenerate.

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The self-healing mice, from a strain known as MRL, were then subjected to a series of surgical procedures. In one case the mice had their toes amputated -- but the digits grew back, complete with joints. In another test some of the tail was cut off, and this also regenerated. Then the researchers used a cryoprobe to freeze parts of the animals' hearts, and watched them grow back again. A similar phenomenon was observed when the optic nerve was severed and the liver partially destroyed.

Pulser ejected out of the Milky Way.

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A team from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Socorro, New Mexico, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, clocked the dead star at 1100 kilometres per second. The object, called B1508+55, is a rotating neutron star, or pulsar. It is the superdense core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova about 2.5 million years ago. The explosion seems to have ejected the pulsar with such force that it will eventually escape the Milky Way entirely, says team member Shami Chatterjee, an astronomer with NRAO and CfA.

LA evacuees arriving in Houston.

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Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath damaged beyond repair tens of thousands of homes and businesses in the region and left more than 78,000 people in emergency shelters, the president said. Bush on Wednesday announced a massive federal mobilization to help victims, warning that "the challenges that we face on the ground are unprecedented."

Thermaltake may make some cool accessories, but this is certainly not one of them. Summing up this product in one word... 'Pointless.' Read why within...Next Page »

When I said that I'd be putting a review out yesterday, I meant today!

Google branches to print ads.

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The experiment, as it is described by the companies buying the ads, is Google's latest foray into display advertising and another big step toward becoming a one-stop shop for ad sales, whether online or offline. The trial also marks the first time the company has ventured offline with any of its products, according to industry watchers.

Microsoft double dips on Server 2003.

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Designed as a moderate update to the operating system, R2 is a paid upgrade, but by adding features while leaving the core of the OS intact, it's designed to require less testing. The update includes improved branch office and storage management abilities and other capabilities, some of which have previously been released as feature packs. R2 is based on the core of Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1, which was released in March. Microsoft plans to release R2 for its standard, enterprise and datacenter editions and for both 32-bit and 64-bit x86 chips, but not for Intel's Itanium processor.

IrDA goes to 100 Mb/s.

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According to IrDA, IrSimple's "VFIR" mode (presumably standing for "very fast infrared"), supporting data rates up to 16 Mbit/s, has already been achieved. Additionally, an ultra-fast "UFIR" mode that will support 100 Mbit/s is under development.

Hooked on worm.

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The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would – causing them to seek out and plunge into water.

Harder than diamonds.

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The properties of the resulting material were then measured using a diamond anvil cell at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France. This instrument squeezes a material between two normal diamonds, enabling researchers to study it at high pressure using synchrotron radiation – extremely intense X-rays which reveal the material’s structure. The researchers found their ACNR to be 0.3% denser than ordinary diamond and more resistant to pressure than any other known material.

Penguin to explore the moon.

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The lander sits on four legs, much like a small version of the original landers that brought astronauts to the moon. The squat, compact unit has a few tiny jump boosters protruding below and on its sides and looks nothing like an actual penguin.

Warning! DO NOT BUY WINDOWS VISTA. DRM will hurt everything about this operating system. Stick with XP or even go to Linux.

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Several major changes have been made to the way the operating system will handle video and audio, though few of these are included in the early version now in the hands of beta testers. The rest of the components will likely be added in the next, as yet unscheduled, beta release, and will be in the final launch of the operating system next year. At the most basic level, some audio and video--at least when it is in Microsoft's Windows Media format--will be handled in a new "protected environment" that will keep applications such as media players or plug-ins separate from the actual media data.

Content protection built into Vista is a good business plan for Microsoft. It screws consumers in two ways. The first is that your rights as a consumer are left out in regards to fair use. Don't think of making a backup copy of anything you buy legally for any reason. I make copies of games that I buy all the time and use the copied disk instead of the original. The second is vendor lock in. If Vista will be the only person out there that supports this massive DRMed customer hated crap, then we will all be forced to use this POS or we won't get the movies and music that we may want to hear. Since movies and music nowadays suck, I don't think there would be much of a problem if this happens... I think I speak for everyone when I say "Screw you Microsoft and the RIAA and MPAA."

Creative Zen loaded with virus.

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Looks like somebody turned off the virus scanner at the Creative production plant—it would appear that about 3,700 5GB Zen Neeons shipped since July might have possibly been packing a W32.Wullik.B@mm payload. Of course, if you don’t go running conspicuous applications found on your device and have some cursory virus scanning going on you’ll probably be ok just to wipe the damned thing out of box, but somehow we have a feeling there’ll be an unfortunate few for whom this won’t be too fond an experience.

Microsoft releases WinFS beta.

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WinFS will not be a part of the next version of Windows, Windows Vista, when it ships at the end of next year, but will be available to the operating system as an add-on release sometime in 2007, said Quentin Clark, director of program management for WinFS at Microsoft. The technology originally was scheduled to be part of Windows Vista but Microsoft cancelled that plan in August 2004. WinFS promises to make it easier for users to search and organize their files on the Windows operating system, Clark said.

ESA contemplates shuttle delays.

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ESA's major piece of ISS hardware, the billion-dollar Columbus module, cannot fly until NASA delivers Node 2 - the module’s station attachment port - to the orbital laboratory during the planned STS-120, ESA officials said. The STS-120 flight, however, must wait until after a series of missions to add new solar arrays, batters and trusses to the ISS that begin with the launch of STS-115 aboard Atlantis, according to NASA's current shuttle flight plans. Node 2's arrival would mark the completion point for U.S. components, with Columbus slated to launch three flights later. "Our priority is for the launch of Columbus, and therefore of Node 2 to which Columbus is attached," Thirkettle said. "Then for the establishment of a 6-person permanent ISS crew, to ensure the full utilization of Columbus and thus the full scientific return on the investment we have made in the ISS program."

I'll get that review up by tomorrow, actually. Quick and dirty one.

Video Cards:

GeCube X800GT @ TT.

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Recently we saw ATI quietly introduce their Radeon X800GT graphics cards into the market which are designed to compete directly against nVidia's mighty mid-range GeForce 6600GT. Today we're looking at GeCube's version of the X800GT which is overclocked a little to match the clock speeds of the 6600GT. Read on as we examine ATI's latest VPU and see how it stands up against nVidia's mid-range hot cake.

MSI 7800GTX @ Designtechnica.

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Today we are reviewing two of MSI’s NX7800 GTX video cards based on the new G70 GPU and setup in a SLI configuration. Available in two versions, the regular NX7800GTX-VTD256E and the NX7800GTX-VTD256E (Lite) (the Lite does not include any games), MSI hopes to draw you away from the other countless brands of GeForce 7800 GTX video cards with their own offering. Read on to see if there is a reason to choose MSI over the others.

Sapphire X550 @ Bjorn3D.

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Although Sapphire may be best known for its high-end ATI video card solutions, the company also offers a variety of entry-level ATI-based graphics cards. I actually took a look at Sapphire's X300SE HyperMemory card back in may. Today, it's time to review a card that is a notch up in the entry-level segment -- the Sapphire Radeon X550. While the X300SE HyperMemory costs around $50, the X550 can be found for about $75.

Nvidia 7800GTX @ 3DA.

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The 7800GT stretches Nvidia's latest series below the pricey high end level, and while it is clear the 7800GT isn't at the same level as the 7800GTX performance wise, neither is the price tag, making it a far higher value choice for gamers who want all round performance without too much of a burden on their wallets. Not only that, but a clear future upgrade path is here via SLI if your system supports it, making the 7800GT really a great choice for its price range, representing all you need in features, performance per dollar and future proof ability.

Motherboards:

Foxconn NF4K8AC.

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Foxconn brings a lot to the table with the NF4K8AC-8EKRS board. Solid performance and a broad spectrum of features. Sporting 8-Channel Audio, Gigabit LAN and RAID, Foxconn really scores on giving Joe User lots of bang for the buck. In terms of layout, our complaints are minimal and those are limited to the chipset placement and its not having a fan header mounted nearby. Outside of this, Foxconn gets high marks on layout maximizing access while minimizing cable clutter.

Epox EP-9NPA+SLI @ PCStats.

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The Epox 9NPA+ SLI supports any current and future socket 939 AMD Athlon64 processor and is based on the Nvidia nForce4 SLI chipset with support for up to 4GB of PC3200 DDR memory. The Epox EP-9NPA+SLI motherboard adds on to this capability with an on board PCI Express-based Silicon Image SiI3132 Serial ATA II controller. The SIS SiI3132 supports two additional Serial ATA II channels, and thanks to port multiplier capabilities it can accommodate up to 30 SATA HDDs (fifteen on each port) with an appropriate port-multiplier device.

I have some small things to review by Wed. Keep watching this space.

Adobe+Macromedia.

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So what convinced you to go after Macromedia?
Chizen: Every year we go through our previous strategy plan...When we sat down this year, we talked about how to give users more of a rich experience, more animation, more graphics, more video and more collaboration around Acrobat. Then we took a look at Macromedia and said, "Jeez, if we had Macromedia as part of our asset base, we could speed up our execution against our strategy." Without that, we might have been late. That was driving me more than scale.

Vista's Secure Startup. Which will be bypassable when people's data become destroyed due to encryption.

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Secure Startup uses a chip called the Trusted Platform Module, or TPM, which offers protected storage of encryption keys, passwords and digital certificates. Vista uses this capability to verify that a PC has not been tampered with when it starts up and to protect data through encryption. The TPM is typically affixed to the motherboard of a PC. Because it is stored in hardware, the information is more secure from external software attacks and physical theft. To service a PC, the Secure Startup feature can be temporarily disabled. And if a PC breaks and data on a hard drive needs to be accessed on, say, a different machine, a recovery key can unlock the system, Heil said. This recovery key is generated when a user enables Secure Startup and should be stored away from the computer.

Microsoft + OSDL joint research? Perhaps, NOT!

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Cohen however, was coy on Taylor's proposal. "As far as working with Microsoft on a study, Microsoft could probably find one negative line on Linux in a 100-page research report that it would spend $10 million marketing while ignoring the other 99 pages," he said in his e-mail to ZDNet Asia.

Lightning gun. Not LIGHTNING BOLT!

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After handing over the goods, Bitar explained his unusual entry into the high-tech weapons market as he headed into Arlington for dinner. The lightning gun began, literally, as a daydream when Bitar was running a Styrofoam recycling business in the early 1990s. Watching the machinery that cut up the used material, he noticed sparks shooting into the air. He began to wonder, at first idly and then more intensely, if there was a way to extend the sparks' range.

Katrina hits land.

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n Biloxi, CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano reported that wind gusts topping 100 mph were starting to pull the roofs off of nearby buildings. Hurricane warnings are posted from Morgan City, Louisiana, eastward to the Alabama-Florida state line, including New Orleans and Lake Pontchartrain. This means winds of at least 74 mph are expected in the warning area within the next 24 hours.

Developers, developers, developers... for Google?

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Both offerings, notably Sidebar, have the potential to lure away current Microsoft users, analysts said. But Google--in a technique perfected long ago at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters--has made software developers an important target audience as well. As with nearly all its services, Google is supporting standards and providing hooks intended to let outside developers create add-on products.

Earth's core spins faster than Earth.

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Over the course of a day, the earth spins around once, or 360 degrees. The new research indicates that over a year, the inner core spins an extra 0.3 to 0.5 degrees compared with the rest of the planet.

James Webb Space Telescopr $1 billion over budget.

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But the JWST is already $1 billion over its budget and this week a panel of scientists recommended reducing the shorter wavelengths that Webb can readily see. The change would mean the telescope could see clearly down to wavelengths of about 1.7 microns, in the infrared band of the spectrum. But it would not be able to view the visible range down to 0.6 microns unless it spends 50% longer on its observations.

HP auths $4 billion stock buyback.

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Stock repurchases typically help bolster a company's stock price. Shares of HP on Thursday went up more than 1 percent to $26.90 on the New York Stock Exchange. In the last nine months ending July 31, HP bought back $2.1 billion of its shares. An additional $800 million are still expected to be repurchased under a previous program approved in September 2004.

Stop stepping on colonies!

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Measuring the bacterial biodiversity of soil is difficult because only a few species can be cultured in the lab, according to Jason Gans of Los Alamos National Laboratory, California, US. Fortunately, biologists can also estimate biodiversity using a technique called DNA reassociation. This involves chemically unzipping the two strands of all the bacterial DNA in a sample, mixing them up and seeing how long they take to join up again with matching partners.

Sony and Samsung - Better LCDs, cheaper.

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A Sony spokeswoman said its engineers would start to play a larger role in the relationship, offering ideas on how to produce a higher quality panel at a lower cost. But the basic panel technology would continue to come from Samsung. "We will be working together to improve panel quality and cut manufacturing costs," said the spokeswoman, Mina Naito. "But we are not talking about conducting joint research and development of the panels."

OK, I understand that it's the "next greatest system" and everything, and that people will want some games and extras and stuff, but this is bordering on insane. This page from GameStop shows an "ultimate" XBox 360 bundle for no less than $1,199.83. Any game system bundle that involves a comma in the price is too high by at LEAST 70%. The bundle includes 11 games (which of course are all subject to availability at time of launch), a wireless controller (not sure if it's actually a second controller or the one that comes with the system), a "play and charge kit" (not sure what that does, I can't imagine that the wireless controllers wouldn't come standard with a recharger...), a rechargable battery (duh, I would imagine that the play and charge kit would use one of those), a 12 month subscription to X Box Live Gold, and a 1 year replacement plan. Wow. That has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Aside from the fact that the controller, charger and battery are three completely seperate items, 11 games? I know that people get giddy over new stuff, but come on, it brings the price to just about $1,200. Also, when looking at the specs for the actual system, it comes with a WIRED Live communicator in the unit with the hard drive included. I thought everything was supposed to be wireless. This pricing for 360 is getting retarded, and if Microsoft thinks that they will get millions of people to pay that kind of money, they are sorely mistaken unless this system can do everything from play games to cleaning my room and doing my laundry for me.

Microsoft changes the power button.

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Desktop machines will enter a mode Microsoft is calling "hybrid sleep." In this case, Vista will save the system state and other information to disk, just in case power is lost, but will then enter a sleep mode from which the computer can quickly be roused. People will likely still be able to go to the start menu if they want to shut down the computer. But being able to send it into a particular kind of sleep at the push of a button will be a boon, said Greg Graceffo, a product manager in Microsoft's Windows client unit.

Ultrawide band = Wireless USB.

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UWB lets users handle larger data transfers at 110 megabytes per second between devices less than 32 feet apart from each other or 480Mbps speeds at about 10 feet. The technology could be a boon to adding more streaming media to consumer electronics devices and peripherals.

SpaceShipThree to be orbital ship.

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Orbital vehicle SpaceShipThree (SS3) will be developed by space tourism company Virgin Galactic and Mojave-based SpaceShipTwo (SS2)-developer Scaled Composites, if the planned SS2 suborbitalservice is successful, says Virgin Galactic president Will White­horn

Kliper ready by 2010. Just in time for the shuttles to be scrapped...

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That timing coincides with NASA's plan to retire its space shuttle fleet in 2010. "The fact that the shuttle is retiring means there needs to be a human crew transportation system in place," Thirkettle told New Scientist. NASA is developing a shuttle replacement called the Crew Exploration Vehicle, which it hopes to launch by 2014, but has said it does not want international governmental cooperation on the project. That has "shoved" Europe into searching for an alternative spacecraft to ensure "we'd always have access to space", says Thirkettle.

ZeroSpyware Review Posted! »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=176

Ficken FA18 with 'LASERS'.

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The High Energy Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), being designed by the Pentagon's central research and development agency, will weigh just 750 kg (1,650 lb) and measures the size of a large fridge. To date, such lasers have been so bulky because of the need for huge cooling systems to stop them overheating, that they had to be fitted to large aircraft such as jumbo jets, New Scientist magazine reported on Wednesday.

Google chat.

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A trial version, in English only initially, can be found at http://www.google.com/talk/. Users need to have a Google Gmail account. The computer-to-computer Web calling software requires speakers and a microphone, or a computer-ready headset. The service fits within the Google Sidebar, another service the company introduced this week which is designed to help it branch out beyond pure search to help users manage e-mail, instant messages, news headlines and music.

AOL fined for hard balling customers.

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The agreement stems from consumers' complaints that AOL customer service representatives would either ignore requests, or make it unduly difficult, to cancel their service, according to a statement from Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer said that an incentive system AOL had developed for its customer service representatives contributed to most of the actions that drew complaints.

ZeroSpyware Review Posted: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=176

Sun tests its own grid computing.

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In the retail grid's initial phases, Sun is offering processing and storage in a pay-as-you-go arrangement of $1 per CPU (central processing unit) per hour, delivered via an Internet connection. The company has established four data centers to fuel the service.

Intel branded VIIV. Platformization for desktops has arrived.

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The difference is that the Centrino sticker indicates that the PC in question includes an Intel processor, an Intel chipset and a Wi-Fi receiver tested and/or manufactured by the company. The VIIV sticker indicates that the PC contains an Intel processor, a chipset and a software stack for performing specific functions. In the past year or so, Intel has increasingly promoted its own homegrown software for entertainment tasks.

JAXA tests supersonic passanger jet.

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A mock-up of the aircraft will be attached to a solid rocket to get it aloft. The real aircraft would likely have an efficient high-speed turbine engine. Japan has successfully tested an engine that can reach speeds of up to mach 5.5. After completing the test, the aircraft would glide back to the ground with the aid of a parachute. Japan had another test launch of this aircraft in 2002, but the launch ended in disaster when airplane separated from the rocket and fell onto the launch pad shortly after liftoff.

Space radiation makes building blocks of life.

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The team believes a special type of "handed" space radiation destroyed more right-handed amino acids on the icy dust from which the solar system formed. This dust, along with the comets it condensed into, then crashed into Earth and other planets, providing them with an overabundance of left-handed amino acids that went on to form proteins

Dust devils on Mars.

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“Wind processes are the only active processes that we know are happening on Mars,” said rover science team member Patrick Whelley, who has been studying the dust devil images, in a telephone interview. “They’re short term geologically and occur…[but] they have shaped the landscape.”

ZeroSpyware Review Posted: »http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=176

Intel rocks on power management.

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The "Enhanced Intel Deeper Sleep" technology, a feature of the company's new chips, lowers a processor's voltage below the Deeper Sleep state found in Intel's current family of mobile chips. When the processor is inactive, the system clears out some of the memory cache to help save power.

Coal power cells.

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Weibel's new design allows electricity to be generated at just 100°C, a temperature that is far easier to work with. But the efficiency of the current prototype device is "horrid”, he admits. At 7%, it is roughly one-fifth as efficient as conventional power stations in extracting energy from coal, he says.

NASA sends tank back to factory for RMA repair.

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The orange tank was loaded onto a covered barge for the water trip to the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans. Officials said it might be used as a test bed and might eventually be modified to be used as the tank for Discovery's mission tentatively set for March 2006. The tank - called ET-119 - was originally set to fly into space on the third return-to-flight mission following the 2003 Columbia accident.

With more and more spyware being released daily, it's likely that most Windows users have plenty of invasive and resource-hogging software unknowingly clogging up their system. ZeroSpyware aims to take care of the problem, and protects your computer at the same time. It is a worthy addition to your spyware arsenal.Next Page »

There will be a new review posted today!

Google's Adwords irks some people. I agree, the cost is too much.

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Since the changes were made, some AdWords advertisers have complained that instead of paying 5 cents, they have to bid anywhere from 10 cents to $1 or more for new keywords. In addition, they gripe that Google is not being forthcoming about its formula for determining the quality score and bids.

AMD may scores Fortune 500 laptop deal.

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AMD, though, still sells few desktop and notebook chips into this market. Instead, most of the AMD-based business computers are sold in small- and medium-size business computers. The nx6125, which debuted in June, was designed as a medium-size business machine. Part of the buyer reluctance comes from the lengthy qualification and testing processes that large corporate buyers undergo when looking at new computers.

Next Gen DVD standards full on. No cooperation here.

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Some electronics firms, including Paris-based Thomson, have said they would support both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats. Supporters of the Blu-ray technology include Apple Computer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Samsung Electronics.

Embryonic stem cells from skin cells. Crazy research.

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Scientists have created a human embryonic stem cell from ordinary skin cells and say it is a step closer to tailored medical treatments without the technical difficulties or the controversy of using human embryos. The scientists said on Monday their technique, in which they fused embryonic stem cells to skin and bone cells, could one day provide the scientific and medical benefits of so-called therapeutic cloning.

I expected to post a review of a spyware removal program today, but I went down the shore and will finish it up tomorrow. Look for it.

RAM:

Crucial PC2-4200 @ PCStats.

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In the following pages of this review, PCSTATS will be benchmarking and overclocking a 1GB set of Crucial Ballistix PC2-4200 DDR2 memory (2x 512MB) which come packed in bright yellow/orange aluminum heatspreaders. By default Crucial's Ballistix PC2-4200 runs at DDR2-533 speeds with memory timings of 4-4-4-10, at a voltage of 1.8V. Crucial has always been on the conservative side of 'enthusiast' level gear, but we're hoping that this Ballistix DDR2 RAM will still be up to the overclocking challenge.

OCZ PC4800 @ Pimprig.

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This kit features SamsungTCC5 modules (new cousin to the TCCD line) which allow for this RAM to reach the phenomenal stock speed of 600MHz DDR at 2.85V. I was especially keen to benchmark this RAM vs the PC3200 BH5 RAM previously reviewed. Where the PC3200 Gold Ed. RAM brought speed via low latencies combined with stellar overclocking, the PC4800 Platinum Kit aims to supply this speed via raw FSB speeds coupled with respectable latencies.

OCZ PC4000 @ 3DX.

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OCZ has delivered another kickass product and while some of the testing showed that 4x UTT using 2-2-2-5 with 2T settings was a faster alternative when running 2GB, when using TCCD we were limited in our overclocking even when both kits can do 300+ on their own. Also, not all motherboards will provide the 3.1 volts UTT needed to run these speeds. Obviously, popping in two 1GB sticks of memory will be the preferred way of running 2GB of memory however, if you already have an existing gig of memory and are looking to add more moving to this type of kit may not be the most cost effective option. However, if you are building a new system or looking to upgrade an older memory kit then a kit like this is the perfect solution. OCZ memory includes a lifetime warranty and this particular kit is warrantied to 2.9v +5%.

Video:

ATI X800XT AIW @ VL.

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Whether you are a gamer looking for a little more out of your video card, or a multimedia enthusiast that has had to give up gaming performance in the past for a top of the line multimedia card, the X800XT AIW deserves a serious look.

Motherboard:

ECS KN1 Extreme @ Bjorn3D.

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Apparently, ECS was tired of getting overlooked by enthusiasts and decided to start an 'Extreme' line of motherboards. While the term 'extreme' has become a silly 2000's cliche, it still manages to catch our attention. What is catching more people's attention, though, is the early success of these Extreme mainboards. ECS is now not only delivering great buys but also great performance, competing quite well in a previously untapped segment with compelling bang-for-the-buck offerings.

ASUS P5WD2 @ LR.

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Overall, the layout of the ASUS P5WD2 Premium is as close to flawless as I have seen. I was extremely impressed by the clean, uncluttered layout that ASUS devised. It is obvious that this board was built with an incredible amount of flexibility in mind.

Abit AN8-SLI @ PCStats.

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With no loyalties, we're free to openly jump between platforms and manufacturers, sometimes to the dismay of brand-fans, in search of faster speeds that bring better performance. Before the ABIT AN8-SLI was released, rumors flourished that it would challenge the DFI LANParty NF4 SLI-DR for top spot, so you can be sure that this review is going to be an exciting one as we try to settle that question. Call it an ABIT vs. DFI battle royal if you will. Based on the nVidia nForce4 SLI chipset, the ABIT AN8-SLI supports AMD Athlon64/FX/X2 processors and includes a Port 80 diagnostics card and of course the ABIT Q-OTES chipset cooling solution.

ECS PF21 @ VL.

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ECS have put together a very stable and well rounded package with the PF21 Extreme. It is very overclocker friendly due to the huge amount of BIOS tweaks available to the user. Being the underdog, the PF21 is priced less than similiar specced boards from the more well known manufacturers, this makes the ECS PF21 Extreme an excellent choice whether you are a novice overclocker or a seasoned vet.

I'm finishing up a review of a spyware removal software.

Gas prices raise fuel costs.

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Both FedEx and UPS have imposed special fuel surcharges on top of normal delivery fees. "It's a monthly adjustment that we do based on a rounded average of the U.S. Gulf Coast spot price for a gallon of kerosene jet fuel," FedEx spokeswoman Darcie Goodwin said. "It's to help customers respond to the changes in the fuel price so that they can forecast and plan."

Supernova creates halo.

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Called 1987A, the supernova was the brightest recorded in 400 years and exploded in a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. Astronomers believe that about a million years before the supernova, the star lost most of its outer layers through a slow-moving wind of particles.

Fetal cells treat mother's problems.

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One key step will be to establish beyond doubt that the effect seen in mice happens in humans too. Dawe says this can be done by looking for cells containing a Y chromosome in post-mortem brain tissue from mothers of boys. "We've already started work on acquiring tissue to answer this question," he says.

3D touch TV.

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While companies, universities and research institutes around the world have made some progress on reproducing 3D images suitable for TV, developing the technologies to create the sensations of touch and smell could prove the most challenging, Takeuchi said in an interview with Reuters. Researchers are looking into ultrasound, electric stimulation and wind pressure as potential technologies for touch.

Hustling space.

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Impatience and frustration together breed a weakness for the Great Leap Forward: the one technology, or mission, or business model, or political silver bullet that will get us back on track. "If only we’d kept building Saturn Vs, or pushed on from the X-15." "If only NASA had another clear, compelling goal—like Mars." "If only we can line up enough sub-orbital tourists." "If only China would challenge us as the USSR did in 1957."

Intel's WiMax push.

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By working with city governments, Intel aims to develop the market for WiMax, an emerging technology that promises to cover entire cites with high-speed wireless Internet links. City authorities are seen as some of the primary users of WiMax technologies, the next generation beyond Wi-Fi systems, which transmit wireless data over short distances.

A blackhole's brutal birth.

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Black holes are forged in extreme violence, such as when stars more massive than about 25 Suns run out of nuclear fuel. Their cores collapse into black holes, which devour the stars innards and shoot out high-speed jets of matter and radiation.

Discovery, not Atlantis, will be the next to go up.

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Shuttle Discovery will make the return flight to space in March 2006, instead of shuttle Atlantis. Atlantis will be used for the following mission, which will carry truss segments to the International Space Station that are too heavy for Discovery to manage.