Monday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 12:49 AM CEST - Apr,29 2003
- Post a comment / read (1)
- Importers warned over GBA Pokemon titles -
Nintendo has issued a warning to retailers importing copies of Pokemon
Sapphire and Pokemon Ruby for the GBA, indicating that the company will take
legal action if importing becomes widespread. GBA cartridges carry no
region protection, and with the UK launch of the eagerly awaited Pokemon
titles still two months off, many gamers and indie retailers are turning to
the US version of the games - which was released several weeks ago.
- Microsoft makes strides on new Windows - A more advanced test
version of
Windows XP's successor has leaked onto the Web, and it indicates that
Microsoft has stepped up work to deliver the new operating system, said
analysts. The operating system, code-named Longhorn, is expected to debut late
next year or early in 2005. But analysts who examined the latest test release,
dubbed "Milestone 5," which leaked onto the Web last week, said Microsoft
appears to be slightly ahead of schedule.
- Microsoft Reworks Win XP Patch - Microsoft
is revising a security patch for Windows XP systems with Service Pack 1
installed after customers complained that installing the patch slowed their
systems to a crawl. Originally released on April 16, the security bulletin
addressed a buffer overrun vulnerability in the Windows kernel, which manages
core services for the operating system such as allocating processor time and
memory, as well as error handling.
- Explorer 100% utilization in Windows XP - This from NTBugtraq:
I have found a problem in Windows XP (screenshot)
in that right clicking on a file in Windows Explorer causes 100% CPU
utilization on Windows XP. This only happens on files that have not been
selected first with a left mouse click. This problem is reproducible on
Pentium 3 and Pentium 4 machines of varying speed, does not happen on Pentium
2 systems. (thanks
Neowin)
- Intel gives away lip-reading speech recognition code -
Intel has released lip-reading visual speech recognition software under an
open source licence. Called Audio Visual Speech Recognition (AVSR), the
software is part of Intel's OpenCV computer vision and facial recognition code
library. Essentially, it tracks the speaker's mouth movements as individual
character and syllable sounds are formed. Intel reckons the technique to be
far more accurate than traditional speech recognition algorithms, which
analyse sounds rather than images.
- Ikarus Piccolo Micro RC Helicopter -
Now this is a
cool toy for the office or home! About 2 to 3 hour assembly time. 20"
rotor diameter, 19" fuselage length, about 10oz. total flying weight. This
version of Piccolo includes the more powerful G-310 "Tuning Motor" which has
enough power to lift the heavier optional scale fuselages. Fixed pitch rotor,
about 7 minutes flying time per battery charge. Tail rotor uses fixed pitch
propeller which is controlled by a second motor controller in the Piccoboard
PLUS. Main and tail rotor motors are included in Piccolo kit. The Piccoboard
PLUS is necessary for flying this helicopter and contains 2 electronic motor
controllers for the main and tail rotors, a gyro, electronic mixing functions,
BEC for receiver and servo power from the motor batteries, and the entire
equipment hookup method for a radio system and battery. (thanks
Slashdot.org)
- XM Satellite Radio comes to the PC -
XM Satellite Radio made its 101 channels available to personal computers
Monday, unleashing new competition for the recording industry, which is now
streaming music into millions of homes via the Web. The world's largest
satellite-radio provider began selling the $70 XM PC Receiver, which connects
to most PCs and lets them access broadcasts from XM's two satellites, said XM
spokesman Chance Patterson. The device is available at PC Connection or
directly from XM.
- Cisco Phone Calls on Wireless IP - Cisco Systems is offering a new
mobile telephone for use with its IP Communications systems and voice-over-IP
technology, the company said Monday.
The Cisco Wireless IP Phone 7920 connects to an organization's IP network
through wireless access points using the common 802.11b wireless
communications protocol, and is being marketed for organizations with mobile
workforces such as hospitals, retailers, and universities, Cisco said.
- Power Vision introduces rechargeable CR-V3 lithium battery for DSCs
- Taiwan’s Power Vision has introduced
a rechargeable CR-V3 lithium ion battery for digital still cameras (DSC),
which the company claimed to be the first worldwide. To separate its product
from traditional CR-V3 lithium ion batteries, Power Vision has named it the
“RCR-V3.” The new product, in the size of two AA batteries, is compatible to
the CR-V3 standard but can be charged and discharged 600-800 times, the
company said.
- How Much Does a High-End Graphics Processor from NVIDIA or ATI Cost? -
X-bit Labs have published
an interesting article on some of the actual costs for GPUs. " It is
interesting to note that the RADEON 9800 and the GeForce FX 5800 have nearly
the same core-sizes of 190 square millimetres even despite of the fact that
the chips are made using 0.15 and 0.13 micron fabrication processes
respectively. Wafers made using 0.13 micron technology cost more than those
made using less advanced 0.15 micron process; as a result, we may conclude
that ATI may receive higher gross margins selling its high-end GPUs compared
to NVIDIA at present"
Intel slashes Celeron prices -
Intel yesterday cut the prices (Reuters
/
Digitimes) of its 1.8GHz to 2.4GHz Celeron desktop chips. The Celeron
prices fell by up to 23.9 per cent. The 2.4GHz chip fell from $127 to $103, a
reduction of 18.9 per cent. The 2.3GHz fell from $117 to $89 (23.9 per cent),
the 2.2GHz chip from $103 to $83 (19.4 per cent), the 2.1GHz part from $89 to
$79 (11.2 per cent), the 2GHz Celeron from $83 to $69 (16.9 per cent) and the
1.8GHz chip from $69 to $64 (7.2 per cent). The 1.7GHz part will remain at
$54. The 11 May cuts are expected to see the 2.8GHz P4 fall in price
from $375 to $262, a fall of 30 per cent. The 2.6GHz part falls from $241 to
$193 (19.9 per cent) and the 2.4GHz part from $193 to $163 (15.5 per cent).
The 3.06GHz P4 will stay at $401.
- Apple takes iPod to 30GB -
The updated iPod is available not only with 15GB and 30GB hard drives, as
expected, but there's an entry-level model with a 10GB hard drive. Until the
launch today, it had been assumed that Apple would continue to offer the 10GB
second-generation iPod. US prices are $299 (10GB), $399 (15GB) and $499
(30GB).
- Dell Dimension XPS Gaming PC - GamersDepot take a look at
Dimension XPS Gaming PC ($4559) from Dell. "That said, the Dimension XPS
is still a great-performing PC which brings a lot to the table for its
respective price range. If Dell can fully support its XPS end-users with
upgradeable hardware, and a BIOS revision which will allow for tweaking, then
we're sure they'll start winning over some of the tough crowd who swear by
using a system made of standard parts. Let's face it, a system being
proprietary isn't too bad just as long as the manufacturer plans on supporting
it, and helping you get upgrades for it along the way at reasonable costs.
Whether or not Dell will do that remains to be seen - for now, however, it
looks like they've built the best Dimension system we've laid eyes on."
Another story can be found at
TheRegister &
IDG.
- EverGlide's Announces The Revolutionary Zboard! - Designed by
gamers for gamers, the
Zboard system
will give you a distinct competitive edge when playing your favorite PC games,
will help serious players take their game play to the next level, and will
enable beginner gamers to learn and enjoy their game much more quickly. The
Zboard is comprised of two separate components: 1.) The Keyboard Base that
connects to your personal computer, just like your present keyboard, and 2.) A
variety of separate insertable Game Keyboard Interfaces, each specifically
designed and programmed for many of today's most popular games (Madden, MoH,
AoM, NWN, Civ3, UT2k3, etc).
- Sony SDM-HS73 LCD Review - The LCD monitor market has matured
rapidly in recent years-to the point where most of the products offer
generally good viewing angles, brightness, contrast, and color, so
manufacturers must find other differentiators. Some companies add features or
lower prices. Sony has chosen to make the
17-inch Sony SDM-HS73 ($549 direct, after $50 rebate) easy on the eyes
whether it's on or off.
- Shuttle AB48PN i845PE 800FSB review - Hexus.net has posted
a review
of Shuttle AB48PN i845PE 800FSB. "In summary, a stable, potentially fast
motherboard that should appeal to system integrators and budget-orientated
enthusiasts. A little voltage adjustment and a slightly better package would
have made it that much more appealing."
- Mitsumi CR-485FTE (54/32/54) review -
The CR-485FTE is the world's first 54/32/54 CD-RW. No, that's not a typo.
The CR-485FTE reads and writes at 54x and rewrites at an amazing 32x.
Mitsumi's new writer isn't just about speed either. The drive also offers
features like ExacLink buffer underrun protection and Mitsumi's own AEGIS
WRITING technology to ensure the best writing quality possible.
- Inno3D Tornado Geforce FX 5200 128MB Review - In short, although
the Geforce FX 5200 is the baby of the family it offers adequate performance
for the casual gamer with good overclocking potential yielding a 10%-15%
performance increase in most games on a typical P4 2.53Ghz. With an expected
retail of around the €120-€140 euro mark,
it represents very good value for money.
- Spring Case Madness - Tom's Hardware Guide has posted
a review on 24 computer cases.
- How to Watercooling - Extensive - SubZeroTech has posted
a new article called "How to Watercooling - Extensive".
- Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 Review - The guys at ActiveWin
have published
an in-depth review of Visual Studio .NET 2003. According to review,
there is only minimal changes since the 2002 release.
- TMPGEnc DVD Author Available - Pegays Inc, developers of TMPGEnc
have introduced a new product called
TMPGEnc DVD Author that should enable you to author MPEG-1 /MPEG-2 files
and create DVD-Video structured files. Using MPEG files made by MPGEnc or
captured from a MPEG capture device it outputs a file (.ifo, VOB) that can be
burned to a DVD disc. (thanks
CDFreaks.com)
- Paint Shop Pro 8 -
Paint Shop Pro (download
trial), a part of the Paint Shop family of digital imaging and photography
products, is the most complete, easy-to-use software for creating professional
digital imaging results.
- Easy CD-DA Extractor 5.1.0 -
Easy
CD-DA Extractor includes tools for direct digital audio copying from Audio
CDs, file format conversions, and Audio CD recording. This new version adds
recovery CD-reading mode (aka "Secure" mode) and improves methods reading
contents from a "Copy Controlled" discs.
- Microsoft PowerToys XP -
PowerToys are additional programs that developers work on after the
product has been released to manufacturing, but before the next project has
begun. These toys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience! These
are available as individual files from Microsoft, but for this download, we
have zipped them all up in one file for you.
- FlashFXP 2.1 RC1 -
FlashFXP is the most powerful and popular FTP & FXP Client for Microsoft
Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP on the market today. This RC will expire in July, we
expect to have v2.1 released before then. This RC has been compiled without
debug error handling, If some bugs come up that we can not isolate I will
switch to debug error handling. So upgrade only at your own risk :P
- CDex 1.50 -
CDex (download
)is a utility of extraction (ripping) any audio files from an audio CD. The
files can be ripped in either the plain WAV format or to a compressed file
format (CDex supports many encoders). In addition, it has many additional
options to convert between several audio file formats. CDex is released under
the GPL terms.
- XP Smoker 1.5.16 -
XP Smoker is a tweaking program for Windows XP. It fully optimizes your
hard drive and cd drive's read ahead and write behind cache, optimizes 56K,
Cable, & DSL to get the most out of it. It also, optimizes the display
settings, filesystem settings, even your mouse port refresh rate.
- Riva Tuner v2.0 RC12.4 + SoftR9x00 -
RivaTuner (download)
is the most powerful tweaking utility for NVIDIA display adapters running
under Windows 98 / Windows 98 SE / Windows ME / Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
The purpose of this utility is to give you access to all the undocumented
features of the Detonator drivers. All versions of the Detonator drivers have
a lot of undocumented registry entries.
- AMD-8000 Series Core Logic (Chipset) Drivers - AMD has
released new
AMD-8000 Series Core Logic (Chipset) Drivers for Windows 2003 Server.
- USB 2.0 Drivers - Both ALI (USB
2.0 driver v1.47) and VIA (USB
2.0 driver v2.54) have released an updated USB 2.0 drivers..
|
Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
(new)
