Morning Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:51 PM CET - Jan,17 2003
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- Harry Potter Magic! New Book Already Best-Seller - The long-awaited
fifth book in the Harry Potter series has become an instant best-seller
less than 24 hours after the June publication date was announced, online book
stores said on Thursday. Amazon.com said it took only two hours after becoming
available for pre-order for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" to
reach the top-selling spot. Amazon.com's British arm, Amazon.co.uk, said more
than 30,000 customers had placed orders in 24 hours for author J.K. Rowling's
latest tale of the boy wizard and his adventures. Barnes and Noble.com said
orders had been pouring in since the announcement on Wednesday by Rowling's
publishers that the 255,000 word book would be published on June 21.
- PlayStation 2 game console shipments to top 50 million - Japan's
Sony Corp said on Thursday that shipments of its PlayStation 2 game console
have
topped 50 million thanks to an upbeat holiday shopping season.
- Taiwanese pirates says "catch me if you can!" - Minister of Justice
Chen Ding-nan yesterday responded to a challenge by CD pirates and said
that the ministry's crackdown on such piracy will never stop. A TV news story
yesterday reported that the pirated editions of many new movies, such as Die
Another Day and Hero, are now available in both VCD and DVD formats at the
price of NT$100 each at night markets. On the TV news footage, a DVD
player was playing the credits of Die Another Day,
but the pirates had added a sub-credit onto the video which read, "Catch
me if you can, Chen Ding-nan!"
- Intel delays dual-processor, plans new server chip - Intel said
Thursday that it is
pushing back the release of its first dual-core processor by a year to
2005 and adding a new microprocessor for servers to its Itanium II lineup.
Intel had planned to release its first dual-core processor in 2004 in a
microprocessor, code-named ``Montecito,'' but will now release it a year
later, said Intel spokeswoman Erica Fields.
- Nvidia And ATI Interviews - NordicHardware recently had the
opportunity to sit down and
chat with nVidia at Comdex Scandinavia 2003. "We spoke about the
GeForce FX, nForce 2, Personal Cinema 2 etc. and of course future products. We
also had the chance to clear up some of the cunfusion and rumours surrounding
the ever so late GeForce FX. By a coincidence we also got the replies from
an e-mail interview we sent to ATi some months ago so now we have the
great pleasure of presenting you with two interviews with the two videocard
giants nVidia and ATi."
- Video camera design released for cell phones - Atsana Semiconductor
has announced the availability of a
1.3
Megapixel Video Camera Accessory Module reference design for mobile phones
and PDA manufacturers. The reference design connects to existing mobile
handsets to offer MPEG4 and H.263 video along with Megapixel JPEG and audio
capabilities. OEMs now have a ready-to-market, production-ready design that
provides add-on Megapixel still image and video camera functionality to mobile
phone handsets.
- Samsung v200, SGH-v205 make debut - First came Nokia's 7650, then
came Sony Ericsson's P800 - and now, Samsung is launching its first mobile
phone with an integrated digital camera as the third of the big four
manufacturers. The mobile phone, to be dubbed as the v200 in Europe and the
SGH-v205 in the states, offers tri-band 900/1800/1900 MHz GSM, as well as
Class 8 GPRS.
The
SGH-v205 is already available in the U.S. through T-Mobile for $449 USD,
whilst the v200 is slated for general availability in Europe in March, 2003.
- Credit Card-Size Hard Drive Can Hold 5GB -
StorCard can contain from 100MB to more than 5GB of data on a plastic
card. At first glance, it looks like a credit card, and even has a magnetic
strip like a credit card, for potential use in standard credit card readers.
The hard disk data, however, is accessed on a tiny spinning disk inside the
thin card. The card actually has moveable parts inside its thin shell," says
Bill Heil, vice president of StorCard. A spinning wheel made of Mylar is
engaged when the card is inserted into a StorReader, a USB-connected drive or
PC Card that reads and writes to the StorCard. The reader is expected to
retail for under $100 and the cards for under $15 each, Heil says. The
StorCard and StorReader are scheduled to become available in the second half
of 2003.
- Acer to launch world's first 14.1-inch Tablet PC in 2Q - According
to sources, in the second quarter of 2003 Acer
will launch the world's first 14.1-inch TFT LCD Tablet PC. The company's
first Tablet PC - the TravelMate C100 - was equipped with a 10.4-inch screen
and has sold 35,000 units since its launch last year. With the larger screen,
Acer will leapfrog brand vendors such as Toshiba and Motion Computing, which
have adopted 12.1-inch screens. Acer decided not to use a 12.1-inch screen
because the price of 14.1-inch panel is close to that of 12.1-inch, sources
said.
- AMD Athlon XP 2600+ Review - The only thing working against the
2600+ at this point is the upcoming release of the Barton and Hammer CPU's,
which are both coming out sometime this year. However, if you are looking for
an AMD Athlon XP processor based on AMD's new Thoroughbred Revision "B" core,
the
2600+ / 333 FSB is definitely a great processor to match up with your new
nForce 2 or KT400 motherboard.
- America's Army tweak guide - Although first releases came with its
hiccups, America's Army has mostly overcome its teething problems and is doing
pretty well now. Based on the latest version of the Unreal Engine,
this guide will take you through configuring the game for an optimum
performance on your system, better network play and fixing other issues that
might arise!
- Securing Windows 2000 Server -
The Securing Windows 2000 Server solution is delivered
in eleven chapters, plus a Test Guide, a Delivery Guide, and a Support
Readiness Guide, each with applicable job aids, script files and test cases.
- Overclocking the HP iPAQ h1910 - While many are happy with their
new HP iPAQ h1910 Pocket PCs, there is always room for improvement. While the
h1910 ships with a 200 MHz XScale processor, other current Pocket PCs contain
300 and even 400 MHz processors. Recently, some ambitious programmers have
found a way to increase,
or overclock, their iPAQ h1910s to 300 MHz, and have released utility
software so that others can do the same.
- ICQ Pro 2003a Beta Build 3799 -
ICQ (download)
is a revolutionary user-friendly Internet program that notifies you who's
online at all times and enables you to initiate contact with those people at
any time. This new version fixes message history is not saved by default,
includes some minor interface changes and bug fixes.
- Codename Dashboard 1.0 Final - Codename
Dashboard which has about 6000 users (download)
using it any given time. It has been growing, and it still is. Codename:
Dashboard is an application that resides at the side of your screen. It is a
host for interchangeable components, allowing you to have access to whatever
information you want, on your desktop, all the time.
- A-Tuner 1.3.2.4201 -
A-Tuner is a
small tool for changing Anti-Aliasing (including all unofficial modes),
Anisotropic Filtering, Vsync, MipMap LOD (Level Of Detail) Bias on your Nvidia
card and should work with Nvidia Detonators 23.11 - 42.01.
- Fresh UI 5.10 Tweaking Tool -
Fresh UI your FREE
Windows tweaking tool - just got better with the release of version 5.1.
This new version features options for File System, Registry Files, ShutDown,
Advanced System, and Windows Update hidden settings.
- PowerStrip 3.31 Beta Build 370 -
PowerStrip (download)
provides advanced, multi-monitor, programmable hardware support to a wide
range of graphics cards - from the venerable Matrox Millennium I to the latest
Radeon 9700DV and Matrox Parhelia.
- WinRAR 3.11 Final -
WinRAR has been updated
to version
3.11 Final. This new version features: Convert" command is able to process
.tgz archives, GUI SFX modules provide more detailed diagnostic messages for
CRC errors or file create errors, Command line RAR returns the exit code 9 in
case of file create errors, and more.
- Leadtek Nvidia Detonator 42.01 - After Asus has released their
42.01 version in beta stage here now
Leadtek is offering the same driver version customized for their complete
Nvidia graphics card lineup. (thanks
Warp2Search).
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Updated:12:40 AM CEST Jun,21
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