Afternoon Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 08:29 PM CET - Dec,25 2002
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- Hong Kong launches powerline broadband - After a two-year trial,
Hutchison Global Communications (HGC) has launched
a new type of broadband service for residences using the electricity
supply network. The service, a first for Asia, is an alternative way for
users to access broadband, and poses a new threat in the already competitive
broadband market. It offers 1.5 megabits per second service at a monthly cost
of HK$138 (US$17.70) in a market with prices ranging from HK$68 (US$8.70) to
over HK$200 (US$25.60). Users are required to lock into a seven-month contract
in return for a modem, or power socket.
- Music pirates face state, local crackdown - State and local police
are helping with
a crackdown
on pirated music this holiday shopping season with some success, the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Monday. Thousands of pirated CDs
worth tens of thousands of dollars have been confiscated from music stores,
flea markets and record stores. The Recording Industry Association of America,
representing the nation's five largest recording labels, said millions of
pirated CDs are costing the industry $300 million nationwide and Florida is a
hot spot. Maria Elian Puieon was charged Dec. 7 with copying of CDs of some of
the nation's hottest markets when she showed up at the Fun Lan Swap Shop in
Tampa with 3,777 disks. Police said she was selling the CDs at a fraction of
the $15.98 a copy charged by many retail stores.
- Russia launches three satellites into space -
Russia launched three satellites into space aboard a Proton rocket today,
one month after a similar launcher failed to propel the world's largest
European communications satellite into orbit. The three Russian satellites,
which blasted off from Kazakhstan's Baikonur cosmodrome, were set to reach
orbit by 11:00pm AEDT and join Russia's Global Navigation Satellite System
(GLONASS), Russia's space agency told AFP.
- New 'Mortal Kombat' Is a Little 'Looney' - It has come to my
attention here at the Department of Preposterous Premises that some console
game owners are being confused by the release of "Mortal Kombat: Deadly
Alliance," the new $50 fighting game for Xbox, GameCube and PlayStation 2.
Apparently consumers are having trouble distinguishing it from another combat
game, "Loons: The Fight for Fame" ($40, Xbox), in which Looney Tunes cartoon
characters battle for celluloid supremacy. Therefore,
this columnist would like to offer a comparison of both products for
possibly befuddled buyers.
- New CPU heatsink makes 80% heat breakthrough - A report on
Nikkei Net said that
Furukawa
Electric has made a copper/aluminium heatsink with remarkable thermal
properties. The heat sink, it claims, will give up to 80 per cent better
cooling than conventional sinks. This design is called crimped fin and the
firm expects copper to be at the base of the sink, with aluminium* used for
the fins. And the fins will be inserted into holes in the copper base with a
fin pitch of 1.9 millimetres. The sinks will be manufactured in China and
reach a production capacity of two million a month by September next year.
- Translated Bartonium 2500+ Review -
AMD Barton 2500+ arrives - the true power of a 512K L2 cache is revealed.
After several core revisions, the Athlon XP will move to a more interesting
core variant, the long-awaited Barton. To be honest, the Barton has been
delayed for a considerable length of time. Rumours of its impending launch
have been rife since the release of the Thoroughbred, but what enthusiasts saw
was the release of the TBred-B, then a shift to a 166MHz FSB. The road to the
Barton with 512K L2 cache has indeed been a long one...
- Little Megapixel Monsters, Part II - This year's ultimate Christmas
present has to be a digital camera. Tom's Hardware have
tested the latest of them - the most beautiful and compact, the real
must-haves: Canon PowerShot S230 (Ixus V3), Casio Exilim EX-M2, Minolta Dimage
Xi, Toshiba PDR-T30 and Sony DSC-U10. Colors, detail, vignetting, zoom and
speed have all been examined under the microscope.
- Printer Roundup - Tom's Hardware have
tested printers all year long, bringing the results to you so you can keep
up to date on what's new technically, as well as price-wise. Here, in what
will be our last installment of 2002, we'll get you up to speed with our lab
results for six new printers: the Canon i850, the HP Deskjet 3820, the Epson
Stylus C62, the Epson Stylus C82, the Canon S330, and the Epson Stylus Photo
830.
- WaterCooling - Here to Stay or Passing Fad? -
As CPU's
get faster, they tend to get hotter - Fact. Yes, the manufacturing process
may get smaller each time around, but as the number of transistors rise, so
does the temperature. One option we have to cool our hotter CPU's is a large
heat sink and an even larger fan, but quite frankly I've had enough of ear
damaging Delta's. Some may prefer the idea of a loud fan to the thought of
pumping water around a PC, but each to their own and as they say, "Don't knock
till you've tried it".
- Mandrake Linux 9.0 Review - Today we are looking
at Linux Mandrake, a relative newcomer but which has picked up a large
user base through the years which keep its development alive and well. The
first version of Mandrake was based on Red Hat which is a fine distro in
itself. The makers wanted too keep all that was good with Red Hat and get rid
of all the bad, such as using KDE instead of GNOME as default desktop. Over
the years, though, it has changed from simply being Red Hat repackaged into a
separate distro in its own right. However if you dig deep enough you can still
see the Red Hat roots but we are not really interested in that.
- Battlefield 1942 Tweak Guide - Along comes
this guide, which brings together all the performance tweaks, tips and
.con file settings, along with troubleshooting help and handy reference
material like the console commands and working No-CD/blood patch links - all
to make sure you get BF1942 running at its very best on your machine. Take a
wander through the guide and hopefully I can help you enjoy this amazing game
even more.
- SnagIt v6.1.3 -
SnagIt
allows users to capture, manage, manipulate, and print images, text, and
video. SnagIt features support for capturing menus, the entire contents of
scrolling windows, DOS screens, and desktop-animation sequences. It also
includes tools for processing image brightness, contrast, hue, sharpness,
scale, color reduction, and color substitution.
- Privacy Inspector 1.31 - Do you have a spouse, children, or a
boss who you do not want knowing what you were doing on the computer? Why
worry about other people using the computer after you. You need
Privacy Inspector
(download)
before someone else gets your personal information from your computer. Privacy
Inspector cleans up your tracks left by Windows,your browser and many other
programs. Save storage space and improve performance of your computer.
- MyIE2 v.0.60.835 Final -
MyIE2
(download)
is a multi-tabbed browser based on the IE core (IE5.x or above required). It
can open multiple web pages within one browser window, and uses little system
resources. This new version fixes Resource leak under win9x system, some
problems in autohide mode, etc.
- Jet-Audio v5.0 -
Jet-Audio (download)
features an impressive home audio system interface, including independent A/V
components for Digital Signal Processor, Audio CD Player, Digital Audio (MP3,
RA, etc.), MIDI (MID, MOD etc.), and Digital Video (AVI, MPG, MOV, etc.),
along with a Mixer and a Remote Controller.
- REALmagic Drivers - Sigma Designs has released
new drivers for REALmagic Xcard, REALmagic Hollywood Plus, NetStream 2000,
NetStream 2000TV and NetStream 4000.
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Updated:10:44 AM CEST Sep,20
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