Nightly Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 03:40 AM CET - Oct,30 2003
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- No public Longhorn preview, says MS - developers only -
The leak of the special Longhorn build designed for Microsoft's
Professional Developers Conference (PDC) this week may turn out to have a lot
more rarity value than expected. According to Microsoft, this build will not
be widely available after all.
- Gates puts his money on Longhorn - Microsoft bets that its next OS
will succeed even in a tough market.
In
this interview, Bill Gates claims that Longhorn will make the world work
better. Here are the specs of a PC in 2006 according to Gates: 4-6GHz
processor, 2GB+ memory, 1TB hard drive, Graphics processor 3X today's
performance,1GB Ethernet, 54Mbps wireless networking. You can also check the
Windows roadmap.
- 5 'exabytes' of information created in '02, report says -
Last year,
people generated five exabytes of information, the equivalent of a
half-million new libraries the size of the Library of Congress, they
reported.With a world population of 6.3 billion, that's about 800 megabytes of
recorded information produced per person, which would take about 30 feet of
books to store on paper.
- Off-topic: US develops lethal new viruses - A scientist funded by
the US government has deliberately
created an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox
virus, through genetic engineering. The new virus kills all mice even if they
have been given antiviral drugs as well as a vaccine that would normally
protect them. The work has not stopped there. The cowpox virus, which infects
a range of animals including humans, has been genetically altered in a similar
way. The new virus, which is about to be tested on animals, should be lethal
only to mice, Mark Buller of the University of St Louis told New Scientist. He
says his work is necessary to explore what bioterrorists might do.
- Off-topic - Universe began not with a bang - but a whistle -
The universe may have begun with a whistle rather than a Big Bang,
according to a new study of the afterglow of the moment of Creation. By
analysing radiation left over from the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, a
physicist has recreated its "sound". The noise, which can be downloaded from
the internet, resembles the hum of a jet plane flying overhead.
- Legal Napster up and running - Its features having been unveiled
early this month,
Napster's introduction to the masses Wednesday contains little in the way of
surprises. As announced earlier, the free software provides access to a
huge library of songs that nonsubscribers can download for 99 cents apiece, as
well as to a $9.99-a-month service that allows subscribers unlimited
listening.
- Intel Ships 802.11a Chip - Intel announced this week that, after
several delays,
its Intel Pro/Wireless 2100A chip is shipping to notebook manufacturers,
giving Centrino notebooks an 802.11a connection. The new chip allows notebook
users to connect to 802.11a networks, which operate at a higher frequency than
the more popular 802.11b networks that Intel's Centrino technology currently
supports. The 802.11a networks operate at a frequency of 5 GHz, which permits
them to transfer data at faster rates with less interference but over shorter
distances than 802.11b networks.
- Microsoft to bring DirectX 8 gaming to PDAs -
Microsoft plans to radically boost the multimedia performance of the next
generation of PDAs and smartphones based on its software, if pronouncements
made at this year's Professional Developers Conference (PDC) come to fruition.
PDC coverage among specialist Pocket PC and smartphone sites has focused on
the software giant's plan to raise the resolutions supported by Windows Mobile
devices to 480 x 640 for Pocket PCs and 240 x 320 for smartphones.
- GeForce FX 5700 and 5950 Ultra nVidias return to the top? -
TweakTown has posted
a new article "GeForce FX 5700 and 5950 Ultra nVidias return to the top?"
nVidia's NV36 (GeForce FX 5700) and NV38 (GeForce FX 5950) cores have arrived.
How do they compare to the competition from the 2003 conquering ATI in the
9600 Pro and 9800 Pro.
- Creative MuVo NX MP3 player review - TheRegister has taken a look
at Creative's MuVo
NX MP3 player. The device is a hybrid device which means that it's
basically an USB Flash storage drive that happens to play MP3 and WMA files.
The device is a keychain drive and thus it's ultra portable with dimensions of
only 5.2 x 2.2 x 1.3cm (2 x 0.9 x 0.5in). The MuVo NX is available in two
versions, 128MB (US$ 150) and 256MB (US$ 200).
- Samsung Napster YP-910GS review - How did they fit all that in
there? That's the first question you'll ask after checking out the new
co-branded
Samsung Napster YP-910GS player/recorder ($399 street). This latest
addition to Samsung's YEPP line of digital-audio devices is roughly the same
size as the Apple iPod, but the YP-910GS manages to cram in a lot of
extras-features the iPod lacks, such as an FM tuner, an FM transmitter, and a
voice recorder.
- Kenwood HTB-506 Home Theater System Review -
The Kenwood HTB-506 provides one with an easy to setup and simple touse
home-theater-in-a-box system. It has some shortcomings here andthere which was
especially noticeable only in music applications, but itis quite satisfying in
home theater applications. If you need anall-in-one receiver-and-speakers
solution and you are on a limitedbudget, this system is worth checking out.
For $500, the HTB-506represents a very good value.
- SiS 655FX Chipset Review - MBReview has posted
a review on
the SiS 655FX chipset.
Mushkin 1GB PC4000 Dual Pack Memory Review - LegitReviews has posted a
Mushkin 1GB PC4000 Dual Pack Memory review.
- ABIT Siluro FX 5600 DT 256MB & FX 5600 Ultra DT128MB Review - Hexus
has posted
a review on the ABIT Siluro FX 5600 DT 256MB & FX 5600 Ultra DT128MB video
cards. The FX 5600 / Ultra series is a reasonable stab at attempting to
balance features and performance to cost. ABIT has a couple of cards here that
are quite different beasts. The 256MB model is a disappointing card,
especially in view of its potential. The 128MB Ultra version is worthy of
consideration, however. Both cards appear to be priced at around the L125
mark. You pays your money, you takes your choice.
- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 Ultra Preview -
GeForce FX 5700 is the mainstream refresh of GeForce FX 5600 Ultra. The
refresh is the mainstream equivalent of NV30 to NV35 in that the basic
configuration stays the same but the main thrust being that the integer shader
units have been replace with small floating point units, there have been
optimisations for the Intellisample image quality options and the addition of
UltraShadow. Although the pixel pipeline configuration remains the same as
NV31, albeit with the replacement of the integer units for float ALU's, the
entire vertex engine from NV30 / NV35 has been lifted and included in the NV36
chip for GeForce FX 5700.
- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5950 Ultra Preview - NVNews has posted an NVIDIA
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
Preview.
- The Albatron Gigi GeForce FX 5200 Ultra -
This FX 5200 Ultra's blue PCB is a nice touch. With modding becoming
extremely popular among the enthusiast community, having a flashy card such as
this Albatron FX 5200 Ultra inside the case is a nice touch. While all the
pretty colors will do nothing for performance, the heatsink and RAM-sinks
chosen by Albatron may do the trick.
- AIW 9600 Pro Review - Accelenation has posted
a review on the
All-In-Wonder 9600 Pro video card. Without AA & AF the 9600 cards offer
performance within 5% of the R9700 Pro. When AA & AF are enabled the
performance gap widens to around 40%.
- Coolmax - Taurus CX 450B Silent Switching PSU Review - Do you want
your computer to operate with a great deal more stability, do you want the
voltages on the all of the rails to stay within at least a 5% tolerance? Then
you are going to have to invest
in a good power supply. With the ever-increasing number of toys we seem to
find ourselves placing inside our computers, the need for a high current, well
regulated power supply should be a paramount concern.
- Mobile Net Switch 2.1 - '
Mobile Net Switch
enables you to use your computer on more then one network with the click of a
button. The program allows you to automatically select the correct drive
mappings, printer settings, IP settings and more. All changes are made
instantly, no reboot is required.
Sound Forge 7.0a - Sonic Foundry (download
trial ~
what's new) has released an updated version of their audio editing
software called Sound Forge Studio.
DVD Region-Free 3.20 -
DVD Region-Free (download)
enables you to watch any region DVD on region-locked DVD drive. It will work,
even if you can not change the DVD drive's region anymore. DVD Region-Free
enables DVD copy software such as DVDFab, DVD X Copy XPress, InterVideo DVD
Copy, CloneDVD, DVD2One, Pinnacle InstantCopy, DVD Shrink and Nero Recode to
copy any DVD from DVD drive directly.
BlindWrite 5.0.0.110 -
Blindwrite Suite is an allround set for your personal CD backups. It
consists of two seperate tools, Blindread and Blindwrite. Use Blindread to
create image files of your CDs, which can be burned with Blindwrite or mounted
as a virtual drive (with Daemon Tools for example).
Intel Desktop Control Center 1.0 -
Intel
Desktop Control Center enables you to perform stress tests to verify
system stability and to conduct performance testing to measure the impact of
system configuration changes. The easy-to-read system gauges provide feedback
so you can observe the effects of various system modifications in real-time.
NTFS Reader for DOS 1.0.2 -
NTFS
Reader for DOS is a freeware tool that provides read access to NTFS
partitions within the MS-DOS environment. You can preview files on NTFS and
copy files from NTFS to FAT volumes or network drives.
Apache 1.3.29 & 2.0.48 - The Apache Software Foundation has
released
Apache 1.3.29 and
2.0.48 This version of Apache is principally a bug fix release.
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Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
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