News

The Europen space people made the first successful flight of an ion engine. America should be researching advanced technology like this as well.

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The engine does not combust fuel; rather it splits atoms with electricity to get ions, accelerates them at high speed, and then ejects them, driving the spacecraft forward. SMART-1 generates its electricity by converting sunlight with outsize solar arrays that give the spacecraft a 45-foot wingspan.

AMD is planning to release new chips ranging from the high-end, and all the way down to the ultra-low-end. Eventually, AMD hopes to make X86 chips for a $1!

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On the high end, AMD will release chips with two processing cores in 2005, and then follow in 2006 with chips based around a new chip core code-named Pacifica.

The company is relatively tight-lipped about Pacifica, but said it will be a dual-core chip that also contains virtualization technology--which allows a computer to run multiple operating systems--and a security technology called Presidio. Pacifica will appear in desktops, notebooks and servers in 2006. AMD said it also will come out with a new ultra low-power chip for notebooks.

A higher percentage of new handhelds are now shipping with Windows CE. Good news for Microsoft and their take over the world strategy.

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Shipments of handhelds that use Microsoft's Windows CE operating system rose by about 33 percent to about 1.4 million in the third quarter, compared with the same period last year. Meanwhile, shipments of handhelds that use the Palm operating system shrank by 26 percent to 851,000. Research In Motion showed huge growth, with shipments jumping more than 356 percent to 565,000 to round out the top three, the research company said.

I don't like when companies try to blackmail users for money. This is one such case.

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Windows XP SP2 "suffers because it is still basically the same operating system and has some major flaws which compromise end-user security," Shlomo Touboul, CEO of the firm, said in statement. "By using Finjan's proactive security solutions...users can enjoy a secure environment that protects them from such vulnerabilities."

Rainbow What?

Trade in every other XBOX Live FPS you have. This game is absolutely fantastic online! Amazingly well-balanced, action-packed, extremely diverse with tons of options, 16 players without even a PUBIC hair of lag...this game is going to have quite a long lifespan...The wait in development was worth it. Halo 2 Multiplayer is, without a doubt, the best XBOX Live game ever conceived. I'd have to say, however, that the single player is nothing great. Very good, but nothing special. Same ol' Halo, really. Same tedious areas and enemies (in some places). But, who cares? Everyone knows that multiplayer is where a game holds its replay value. I've played for about 8 hours and have still only seen half of the maps and a handful of gameplay modes. The variety is simply unmatched for a FPS. It runs completely lag-free and is so fun to play, you don't really care if you win. Add the incredible graphics (can't say I noticed any slowdown, and the game is SMOOTHER and noticably PRETTIER than Halo 1) and the fact that you can design your OWN GAME VARIANTS...it's just brilliant. If you have LIVE and you don't buy this game, you're a dildo. Of course, if you HAVE XBOX Live, you probably came to the same conclusions as I have by now. Pretty awesome, ain't it?

Believe The Hype.

On Friday or Saturday, I'll have some more content to post. I've got a bunch of new things to review.

Epox EP-8RDA6+ PRO @ Pyroport.

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EPoX have been one of my favoured motherboard manufacturers for some time now, mainly down to a favourable price / performance ratio. Today we have their latest (and quite possibly last) Socket A (Athlon XP) motherboard, the EP-8RDA6+ PRO.

Abit AV8.

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This board brought me a lot of satisfaction! Once I got the ABIT AV8 set up and running, it was fast and enjoyable to work with. ABIT has built another quality board that is a great performer! The board overclocked very well, and with faster ram, I am sure we could have even pushed it higher with the memory at 1:1...

Aopen SFF PC @ PCStats.

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Small Form Factor (SFF) PCs have advanced in leaps and bounds since they were first released by Shuttle a few years ago. PCstats recently reviewed an attractive SFF kit from AOpen, the EX915 XCube. In terms of standard equipment, the system also supports IEEE 1394b, Gigabit LAN, 7.1 channel audio, S-Video out and an onboard videocard. Of course, if you feel the need to upgrade, the AOpen EX915 XCube also includes one 32-bit PCI slot as well as a PCI Express 16x slot for hardcore videocard goodness!

http://www.ocmodshop.com/default.aspx?a=220
http://www.overclockersonline.com/index.php?page=articles&num=224&pnum=0
http://www.hard-h2o.com/readreview/mousepads/blackicemat2.html
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/steelss/
http://www.cooltechzone.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=732&Itemid=0
http://www.modthebox.com/review358_1.shtml
http://www.gruntville.com/reviews/misc/antec_hdcooler
http://www.hexus.net/content/reviews/review.php?dXJsX3Jldmlld19JRD05MDY=
http://www.bigbruin.com/reviews/ultramp3/
http://www.tcmagazine.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=69
http://hi-techreviews.com/nuke/hitachi3/page1.htm

For all you alternate browser fans, Firefox 1.0 has been released. I'll be trying it out. I already use Thunderbird.

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The wait is over. Firefox 1.0 empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 8 million others and make the switch today — Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.

I think I'm going to make some of you very jealous.

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I rest my case. And yes, I'll be playing in a few hours .

Looks as if MS is settling a long court battle with Novell. Novell will receive $536 Million in damages.

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The agreed-upon cash settlement involved antitrust litigation related to Novell's NetWare network operating software, which Novell once positioned as a potential competitor to Microsoft Windows operating system software.

You too can have your very own super computer for only $1.5 million. And don't forget the power requirements mentioned earlier.

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IBM plans to announce on Monday that the Blue Gene will be available immediately with a starting price of $1.5 million. Monday is also the opening day of the SC2004 supercomputing show in Pittsburgh.

Of course not, you dope. It's getting friggin' awesome reviews: check 'em out. 98 average at Metacritic. Not too shabby!

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox/halo2/

Every single XBOX owner will be getting this game. And, judging from what i've read, XBox Live users might as well trade in all of their other online games. Proximity chat (hehe), the "virtual couch" system, autoselection of the host according to best connection, full options for all online game modes, vehicle jacking, dual-wielding, etc..."PWNS" is the nerd word I'd use here, folks.

Leave your Gamertag in the comments section so we can kill each other this coming Tuesday night (and early Wednesday morning) See you all there!

The Top 500 list of supercomputers has IBM in the lead. This reminds me of a childish fight between two men. Even the power requirements for these things are expensive. How about on the order of millions of dollars for the power!

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In addition, the new speed definitively bested a Japanese system, NEC's Earth Simulator, that has led the Top500 list for two years. The Blue Gene/L lead could increase when the system quadruples in size from its current configuration with 16 racks and more than 16,000 dual-core processors. The improvement will be made by May, IBM says.

Microsoft has always wanted to get a piece of the TV sector. Microsoft TV is their newest version of the set top box. I wonder if it will fail as bad as Ultimate TV.

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Its vision has morphed over the years, from an ambitious attempt to bring PC-like functions onto the television to a more prosaic effort to improve video delivery. These days, it is focused on low-profile improvements in basic cable functions--for example, facilitating digital video recording on cable set-top boxes and showing program schedules.

Intel will soon be releasing the 3.8GHz P4. The other good thing is that Intel will be focusing more on chip performance than clock speed in newer CPUs. As you may realize, the Pentium 3 at the same clock speed would be a great deal faster than the P4.

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The chip will offer an extra helping of clock speed for high-end PCs, as Pentium 4 chips are now only available at speeds of up to 3.6GHz. But the 570 will likely be known more for its place in history, because it will, in a sense, represent the end of an era for the chipmaker. Intel focused for years on driving its PC processors' clock speeds higher, but this year it began focusing more on other elements that augment chip performance.

Well, it looks like MMORPGs have officially run out of good ideas for games becuase it was annouced that there will be a Hello Kitty MMO game made for those people who have nothing better to do with their money then to piss it away on who knows what kinda crap that game will provide. Here's the original article from Slashdot Games.

So Bush wins it. Visit ASEville: »http://www.aseville.com Everyone is happy.

Sapphire X800 XT @ VR-Zone.

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From stock core and memory clock speeds of 500MHz, I was able to overclock the Sapphire Radeon X800XT PCIe's core 46MHz and memory 55MHz, yielding a final clock speed of 546MHz/555MHz (core/memory). It's important to note that the core speed is actually faster than the stock core speed of the Radeon X800XT Platinum Edition, and just 5MHz slower than it's memory clock speed (Core: 520MHz / Memory: 560MHz). I was impressed that we were able to get at and maintain these speeds throughout our testing, with no artifacting or problems at overclocked frequencies after more than a week of playing games at them.

Logitech MX1000 @ DVH.

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About two years ago Logitech launched the amazing MX700 mouse. It was a huge leap for cordless mice since it were one of the first cordless mice that performed as well as a wired one. It immediately became a big hit and a few weeks ago Logitech released its successor, the Logitech MX1000 Laser Cordless Mouse. This new mouse promises a lot. According to Logitech optical is now obsolete, and the company also claim that their new laser-based optical mouse offers a 20x surface tracking improvement over LED-based optical mice like the MX700. In this review we'll take a closer look to see Logitech's promises are true.

Low latency PC3200 @ Madshrimps.

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We test a new batch of PC3200 and PC4400 rated memory from known and lesser known manufacteres on our Intel P4 test setup. With the introduction of Samsung´s TCCD revision F memory chips we might get performance only seen in the days of Winbond BH-5!

MSI 915P Neo2 @ PCStats.

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In this article, PCstats will be reviewing MSI Computer's brand new 915P Neo2 Platinum motherboard which is built with the performance user in mind! This full-size ATX motherboard includes a comprehensive feature set, from IEEE 1394 (for your high speed external multimedia devices like HDDs, scanners, MP3 players, etc), to an additional IDE RAID controller, Gigabit PCI Express ethernet controller, and Intel's Azalia onboard 7.1-channel audio.

Asus K8N-E @ Hexus.

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It's the features that drive this mainboard more than anything. The use of the 250Gb nForce3 variant, bringing with it GigE and those highly useful hardware firewall features for the home user, combined with plenty of USB2.0, FireWire400 and six SATA ports, means that ASUS push almost all the right buttons. Eight channel audio rounds things off.

This builds on a previous story I posted. Dell looks to be investigating NC for a potential location for a new plant. USA jobs are good.

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The Greensboro, N.C.-based Business Journal reported this week that a decision from Dell could come as soon as Nov. 9. The paper said the PC maker has been evaluating locations in the Triad area, a cluster of three towns--Greensboro, Winston-Salem and High Point. The new factory would cost $190 million to build, and it would employ about 1,900 people, the paper reported. Overall, the plant could bring about 8,400 jobs to the area, as Dell's suppliers would also have to locate near the new plant, the paper said.

A Texas-based law firm is threatening a very serious lawsuit against 12 of the top game publishing companies in the world. Their claim is that they own the patent to the process that allows 3D graphics to be displayed on a monitor and they are seeking royalties on EVERY GAME that has ever used that technology. The publishers named as defendants in the case are Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Activision, Atari, THQ, Vivendi Universal Games, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, LucasArts, and Namco Hometek. The patent owners apparently could have a case and people are saying that this will wind up going to court and it could very well mean a HUGE loss from the standpoint of the game developers. What could this mean for game publishers and the game industry if the patent owners do have a case? It's pretty scary. Read for yourself.

Based on the CNN maps and other stuff, Ohio looks like it'll be the next Florida. Everyone is looking to Ohio for the final count. Many project that Bush will win. I agree with the projection. Bush also has a commanding lead of the popular vote in the country. http://www.cnn.com

For the latest on the election, check out http://www.cnn.com

Gigabyte GA-8TRX330-L @ OCModShop.

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Now another well-known graphics card maker is making motherboard chipsets, this time it’s ATI with their RX330 chipset for Socket 478 (Pentium 4) processors. The board features 4 DIMM slots for memory, and are dual-channel, an AGP 8x slot, 5 PCI slots, and a Realtek 100Mbit Ethernet controller. Serial ATA-150 support is provided by ATI’s own SB300 I/O controller. The new RX330 offers no integrated graphics core as one might anticipate, as do some nForce motherboards.

PC3200 Roundup @ Legitreviews.

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Recently while characterizing six low latency DDR1 PC-3200 memory kits we noticed a performance gap when overclocking the modules. Sure, it is not uncommon to experience a few MHz here and there, but we were seeing 20+ MHz differences from similar memory kits...

Corsai Twin2X @ Hexus.

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DDR2 memory is here to stay. Intel has decided that future scalability is more important than immediate performance. Corsair's 1GBye DDR2 Twin2X pack debuts in at a blistering DDR533 speed. Just in case it sounds slow, that's high-end, premium DDR territory. What's more, Corsair is already marketing DDR2 that runs at, wait for it, an effective speed of 667MHz.

Crucial X800 Pro @ Hexus.

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It's safe to say that any card, and I mean any card, based on the R420 GPU will be a good one. Greater rendering parallelism and higher core and memory speeds ensure that benchmark performance will be stellar. That point of view is corroborated by decent benchmark results from Crucial's X800 PRO. If, then, all X800 PROs are considered to be 'good', what makes one better than another?. What immediately springs to mind are cards that arrive pre-clocked at higher-than-default levels, or ones that bundle in the very latest games, or, for most buyers, the ones that are the cheapest.

Mushkin PC3200 @ RBMods.

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Today we will look at some memory again. We got in touch with Mushkin and they sent us a really nice 1gb dual memory kit for testing. We will see how it performs vs a 1gb kit from Corsair, and also check out some overclocking, and see what this goes for. If you're in the market for memory stay tuned on this page.

MSI 915P Neo2 @ VL.

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While Intel chooses to market the 915P as a mainstream part, based on our results today we can see MSI's 915P Neo2 Platinum is anything but ordinary. Out of the box, we had zero issues with the board (always an important thing), and once we got everything up and running, the board proved itself to be quite the speed demon.

http://www.voidedwarranty.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1458&start=0
http://www.ap0calypse.com/showthread.php?t=1265
http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/cases/other/cases/raidmax/cobra/
http://www.techtastic.ca/reviews3/scd105.html
http://reviews.designtechnica.com/review1991.html
http://www.thetechzone.com/?m=show&id=126
http://www.futurelooks.com/display.php?i=287&p=1
http://www.tweaknews.net/reviews/cav1/
http://www.ap0calypse.com/showthread.php?t=1266
http://reviews.pimprig.com/cases/thermaltake_tsunami_dream_case.php
http://www.3dxtreme.net/index.php?id=silverstonetemjintj05b1
http://www.ocprices.com/index.php?rev_id=238
http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=1407
http://reviews.pimprig.com/cases/mnpctech_tsunami_ultra_case.php
http://www.ocia.net/reviews/ultramp3/ultramp3.shtml
http://www.hardwarehounds.com/reviews/mousegrips.shtml

Make sure you do your civic duty and go out and vote. Even if you don't like whoever is running, write your own name in for President! Just get out there and vote.

There will a bunch of new TLD (top level domains, like .com and .net) nearing approval. They include .xxx, .jobs, and .asia. .post and .travel are real close to being approved. aselabs.xxx! Porn for all!

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The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on Wednesday said it will begin technical and commercial negotiations to create and run the two new domains, a process that could take months. ICANN is considering creating 10 top-level domains (TLDs) to augment the nearly 250 current TLDs already in use, from the famous .com TLD to scores of lesser-known country TLDs such as .uk. In addition to .travel and .post, proposals for new TLDs include .xxx, .jobs, .asia and .eu. The status of the eight other applicants is still pending, the group said in a statement.

On November 8th, Intel will increase the cache of the Itanium line. This bring the cache to 9MB!

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The processor, an upgraded member of the Madison line, boosts high-speed cache memory from 6MB to 9MB--thus its nickname: Madison 9M. In addition, Intel is expected to update the rest of its Itanium 2 family, adding a lower-end model for dual-processor servers and a low-voltage model for servers that are packed densely together.

I'm not a betting person... well, not for this anyway. Gamblers are supporting Bush more than Kerry. By a large margin!

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Betfair's latest figures show 2.3 million pounds ($4.2 million) have been wagered on Bush, while Kerry has attracted only 680,000 pounds ($1.25 million) in bets. Bush is now at 1-5 odds to stay in office, whereas gamblers can still get odds of 2-1 on Kerry to win.

The article also mentions something important, that betting is a better indication of result than opinion polls.

There seems to be some very cool technology in the works at the University of Washington that could change the way we look as displays forever, or in this case, look at no display. They are working on a technology that can beam images directly onto our retinas using laser technology, offering possibly unlimited resolution at a very small tradeoff in size. The technology, called Virtual Retinal Display (VRD) could be the first step towards real virtual reality in the future. It is currently limited to only displaying red, but they say that color images will be comign very soon. *shudders* That brings back horrible memories of VirtualBoy and the many headaches it's horrible technology caused....
Thanks to Slashdot for bring the original article to my attention.

That's right. Downloads of songs now can get a group gold, platinum and multiplatinum status. In other stupid news, Billboard has a Top 10 list for cell phone ring tones. Amazing what we come up with.

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The first obvious winner? Outkast's "Hey Ya!" is the only multiplatinum single so far, with more than 400,000 downloads. Six songs qualified for platinum, or sales of 200,000 singles, and 45 titles got gold status, for selling 100,000 songs.

Price hikes. This thing will be able to display pictures! Wow, the iPod is turning into the model that the cell phone has. Make a good idea and put everything that isn't needed into it (features). Soon you'll be able to take pictures, have it tell you directions, and hell, just make it into a phone as well.

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The color model can also be used to display photos, either on its own screen or on a TV set. It comes in two capacities: a 40GB model for $499 and a 60GB version for $599. The screen is capable of displaying 65,536 colors.

My news email account got screwy with me, so I don't have many reviews for the past week. There are also issues with image uploading and stuff, so uploads currently don't work. I'll have to fix that.

Biostar K8NHA Grand.

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Biostar has embraced the AMD64 platform with motherboards and small form factors. We have looked at several of their boards. Today we look at their latest Athlon 64 board based on the nForce 3 250GB chipset. The K8NHA Grand builds on their previous nForce 3 boards. Let's take a look at the specs before we get into the review.

ATI X700 Pro/XT @ Hexus.

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This article serves two purposes. We'll take a look at the new XT, paying close attention to its thermal characteristics before looking at performance, and I'll also publish some numbers and thoughts from that initial look at the PRO. It was only 5MHz away on the core clock from matching ATI's final set clocks, so while its results are gleaned using an older driver build that ATI aren't especially happy with, it'll serve as a nice reference point for when we get a final PRO board to look at.

Corsair Twinx 5400 @ RBMods.

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Today we will have a look at our first pair of DDR2 memory that was sent to us by Corsair. We will have a drive and see how these perform against some normal DDR from Corsair and see what we can get after some overclocking. It will be interesting to see this high end memory in todays test so stay tuned.

Whoah! Looks like I'll be dusting off my PS2. This game is getting killer reviews just about everywhere:

http://ps2.ign.com/articles/559/559560p1.html

http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/gta4/review.html

I think everything is working fine now. I had trouble at school to test the site since we cache all the DNS entries. Now that I'm home, things seem to be working normally. Enjoy the speed boost. Also, there will be an increase in uploads soon .

Update: I'm still getting random DNS problems here.