Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 04:14 AM CEST - May,08 2003
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- Sony to combine PlayStation and group chip operations -
Sony is to unify its diverse chip development and production operations
into a single business in a bid to turn the company into a semiconductor
powerhouse. The new business' first offering will be a combination of the
PlayStation 2's Emotion Engine CPU and the console's graphics processor on a
single 53.5 million transistor chip, according to an EE Times interview with
the operation's chief, Ken Kutaragi.
- First Matrix Reloaded Review - London Daily mirror has the
first review of the Matrix Reloaded. (thanks
IMDB)
- Media Player flaw flays PC security -
The
vulnerability could let an intruder create a file that appears to be a
Windows Media Player skin, but that in reality is a malicious program. The
program can be copied to a location of the intruder's choice when downloaded.
An online vandal could, for example, have a Trojan horse loaded onto a
victim's start-up folder, so that it executes when the computer is restarted.
- Microsoft: Longhorn to arrive in 2005 - Longhorn, the next major
version of Windows for desktop PCs,
will
debut in 2005 and will usher in a new level of graphics for PCs. With
Longhorn, Microsoft hopes to improve the visual quality of the computing
experience. Company representatives at a WinHEC demonstration of a pre-beta
version of Longhorn said that the goal is to be able to run the OS on screens
with a resolution of 120 dots per inch or higher. That's far more refined than
screens today. Current 17-inch SXGA displays have a resolution of about 95
dots per square inch, said Bob O'Donnell, an analyst at market research firm
IDC.
- Downed Pirate Site Resurfaces - The site,
The ISO News, offers
discussions about pirated software and video games
and a chance to win a modified chip (mod chip) for Microsoft's XBox video
game console. Mod chips enable users to use the XBox or other game consoles
for ways the vendors do not intend. The DOJ could not be reached for comment
on this week's reappearance of isonews as theisonews.com.
- HP Unveils Sub-$800 Color LaserJet - With the introduction of
the LaserJet 1500L, Hewlett-Packard is setting a new price point for color
laser printers: The new model's
price tag is just $799. The new printer, available this week, is aimed at
small and home offices. The LaserJet 1500L supports printing speeds of up to
16 pages per minute on black and white, and 4 ppm for color, according to HP.
The unit comes with 16MB of RAM and supports 600 dot-per-inch resolution.
- 3GHz wars - getting acquainted - They have given three ratings
in
this article, one for the AMD's Athlon XP 2700+, XP 3000+ and Intel's
Pentium 4 3.06GHz.
- AMD AthlonMP 2800+ Barton Core Review - Overall,
the MP 2800+ is a great chip. For those working with a motherboard that
will support them via a BIOS flash, the opportunity is here. If your MP system
is running below the MP 1900+ threshold, you may want to consider looking at
these processors. If you are running anything higher than the MP 1900+ CPU,
you may want to look to the Opteron for your next system upgrade.
- MSI GeForce 4 FX5200-TDR128 Review - The GeForce FX 5200's main
competition in the sub $100 market will come from ATI's Radeon 9100 and 9200
graphics cards, but unfortunately we were not able to get samples in time for
review so we'll be comparing the MSI FX5200 TDR128'sperformance to its GeForce
4 budget and performance mainstream oriented relatives. So how will the MSI
FX5200 TDR128 fare?
Let's
take a look.
- NVIDIA's GeForce FX 5600 GPU 256MB Review - Performance-wise,
the Radeon 9500 and 9600 Pro lay down a beating on the GeForce FX 5600, even
when the latter is equipped with 256MB of memory. As far as features go,
there are few practical ways that the Radeons are really lacking. The Radeon
9500 and 9600 Pro only support pixel shader programs up to 64 instructions in
length (which is the limit of the pixel shader 2.0 specification), and they
only offer 96-bit pixel shader precision rather than the 128-bit precision
available to the GeForce FX 5600.
- Zalman Ultra-Quiet 400W PSU Review - DeviantPC has just published
a review of the Zalman Ultra-Quiet 400W PSU. "Although at first I was
thoroughly skeptical that the Zalman PSU would make any difference to the
noise that emanates from my PC, however I was glad to
be proven completely wrong. The PSU is nearly what it claims to be, Silent.
The difference in noise levels was more noticeable when all case fans were run
at half speed."
- Pyramat 300 Interactive Gaming Mat Review -
The Pyramat 300 Interactive is a foam based mat with a three piece speaker
system toward one end of the roughly seven inches long mat. Its first and
foremost purpose is to provide you with a place to sit down and relax, in
comfort, to then enjoy each and every punch, knock, kick and crash in the game
you are playing and in the movie you are watching through its small 25 watt
RMS, yet quit effective, sound system with four inches sub woofer directly
behind your back to assist with all the big blows to pound through the upper
part of your body and legs - it is essentially a force feedback mat.
- New Xbox Pads Revealed - Microsoft today confirmed that
Green and Blue controllers would be joining the existing list of Xbox
joypad's. After surveying Xbox owners to discover which would be the most
popular choices, Microsoft have confirmed that the new pads will be unveiled
at E3 and will go on sale in America during October for an estimated retail
price of $29.99.
- Overclocking the Pentium 4 2.4C - To sum it all up,
this
one retail Pentium 4 2.4C has certainly gotten us excited about OCing
Intel CPUs again. There is no doubt that Intel has been fighting for more and
more of the enthusiast market share and this is one more landmine for AMD
loyalists to sidestep.
- Upgrading Creative's Nomad Jukebox Zen - ExtremeMhz has written
an
Extreme Guide to upgrading: Creative's Nomad Jukebox Zen.
- Windows XP Startup and Performance Tweaks -
This first ArsTechnica's guide aims to cover two main areas of contention:
the boot process (sans the system services, which are an entire guide of their
own) and a mishmash of general computing tweaks. The boot tweaks will be
comprised of not only system settings, but also several under-utilized
applications that can dramatically reduce load time.
- phpMyAdmin 2.5.0 RC2 -
phpMyAdmin (changelog)
can manage a whole MySQL-server (needs a super-user) but also a single
database.
- HyperSnap-DX 5.11.00 -
HyperSnap-DX 5 (download)
is a screen capture and image editing tool for MS Windows. It captures screens
from standard desktop programs and even those hard-to-grab DirectX, Direct3D,
3Dfx Voodoo and Glide mode games. In this new version, unlicensed copy now
permits a 30 days free trial without any limitations like stamp on images.
- UltraEdit 10.00c -
UltraEdit is a text editor with support for unlimited file sizes, a spell
checker, drag and drop, full HEX editing capabilities, user configurable
syntax highlighting, column editing, sorting, and a configurable toolbar.
- SecureFX 2.1.5 -
The SecureFX client application (download)
lets you choose between SFTP or FTP over an encrypted SSH2t connection for
secure transfers, or standard FTP for non-secure transfers. It has a simple
Explorer-like interface, so it's easy to learn and use.
- WinAmp Plug-In Tripex DirectX 3.12.6 -
Tripex (mirror)
is an freeware 3D visualisation Plug-In for WinAmp 2 and 3 which fades between
many effects, animated in real time in response to the music.
- Audio Plugins collection for Nero Burning ROM - Mister.de
has now offers
the biggest audio plugin collection for Nero Burning ROM, supporting
following codecs: libfaac/libfaad2, AACEnc v2.15/FastEnc v2.0, Monkey's Audio
SDK 3.97, Windows Media Format 9 Series SDK. flac 1.1.0, LPAC Codec DLL 3.08,
The Lame Project 3.93.1, mppenc 1.14/mppdec 1.95z6, OptimFROG v4.504b, Ogg
Vorbis Win32 SDK (1.0), RealNetworks Helix Producer SDK, Etree.org Shorten
3.5.1 Speex 1.0/libspeex and WavPack 3.97.
- The MasmoBench v4 -
The MasmoBench is
a new benchmark for Graphic card and Cpu testing. The Benchmark includes 7
Demos all in FullScreen. The Graphics Effects are: Render to Texture, Mirror
drawing, Lighting Illumination, Vertex color with Normal Calculation and
Shadows. The results can have saved and compared with those presents in the
file.
- Intel Chipset Identification Utility 2.83 -
The Intel Chipset Identification Utility provides an easy way to identify
the specific Intel chipset that is located on your motherboard.
- IntelliType Pro 2.3 & IntelliType Pro 2.2 Keyboard Software -
Microsoft IntelliType Pro software (download)
provides full functionality for the Microsoft Office Keyboard, Microsoft
Wireless Optical Desktop for Bluetooth keyboardWireless Desktop, Natural
Keyboard Pro, Internet Keyboard Pro, and Internet Keyboard. It also lets you
customize the keyboard to fit your needs.
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Updated:10:40 PM CEST Jun,21
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