Nightly Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 03:12 AM CEST - Aug,29 2003
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- From Doom to Zoom - J. Carmack Chases After Space Race Prize - The
competition to build and fly a rocket ship into space and back is heating up
as
the Jan. 1, 2005, deadline approaches for the X Prize. Sure, it may seem
like a long way off, but in the world of rocket science 16 months is a blip in
time. More than 20 teams from around the world are vying for the $10 million
prize. Among them is Armadillo Aerospace, a research and development team out
to prove you don't have to have big bucks for a big launch. The man at
Armadillo's helm is no rocket scientist. He's a computer programmer. John
Carmack, co-founder and owner of id Software, started Armadillo Aerospace more
than two years ago. Once a side project, it's grown into a big chunk of his
life, Carmack says.
- Next gen consoles spark concern - The next generation of consoles
could shake up the games industry, with a game costing tens of millions of
dollars to develop, say experts. Making a title for the successors to the
PlayStation 2, Xbox and GameCube
could run into $20 or $30 million, game developers meeting in London were
told. But the price of a game in the shops is likely to stay the same.
It could mean many smaller software firms going bust or joining forces with
other small companies.
- Computer game boosts children's' language skills - A simple
computer program that teaches children to distinguish between sounds can
dramatically boost their listening skills. It can
allow them to progress by the equivalent of two years in just a few weeks,
the game's creator claims. The game, called Phonomena, was devised by David
Moore of the University of Oxford, UK, as an aid for children with language
problems, but he says his latest trials also show that it can help any child.
Other experts, however, are reserving judgement until independent tests are
carried out.
- Solar-powered Big Brother is watching you -
A solar-powered
wireless surveillance system that beams video images from remote cameras
back to a central server using Wi-Fi hit the market yesterday. The system,
dubbed SolaCam, has been jointly developed by wireless firms Proxim and Hutton
Communications. It combines Proxim's Tsunami MP.11 802.11-based
point-to-multipoint wireless kit with IP video cameras, and receives all its
power requirements through solar panels.
- Addonics Ships Serial ATA Converter - Addonics Technologies
is now shipping a conversion kit intended to give you an even broader
selection of hard-drive technology: It offers a way to convert a 2.5-inch
internal parallel ATA drive into an external Serial ATA drive. The resulting
drive is capable of connecting either to a PCI Serial ATA adapter with an
external port (priced at $37) or to a CardBus Serial ATA adapter ($55),
according to Addonics. The drive model must be of 9mm height, and the kit can
be powered from either a USB port or an AC/DC power adapter (data and power
cables are included). The Addonics Mini ExDrive carries a list price of $55.
- Super fast Linux supercomputer goes online - The Department of
Energy (DoE) powered up the US's fastest unclassified supercomputer this week,
a
11.8 teraflops behemoth to be used in scientific research. Powered by
2,000 Intel Itanium2 processors HP Integrity servers running Linux, the
monster system will be used for applications in the fields of environmental
and molecular sciences, including chemistry, biology, climate and subsurface
chemistry. The supercomputer find its home at the DoE's Pacific Northwest
National Laboratory (PNNL).
- Gateway Takes a Shot at Cameras - Gateway has introduced
its first digital cameras, unveiling four models as part of its ongoing
strategy to boost its stake in the consumer electronics market. The new
cameras consist of two M-series models for first-time digital camera users and
two T-series units for experienced users, says Matt Milne, Gateway's general
manager of digital solutions. Prices range from $130 to $400.
- Philips chips to flip TV displays -
Philips will unveil new chips at the Internationale Funkausstellung in
Berlin on Thursday that it hopes will make it easier and faster for its
manufacturing customers to begin producing televisions with LCDs instead of
CRTs. The electronics giant will demonstrate the chips during the show, which
runs Aug. 29 through Sept. 3.
- Samsung launches photo phones - Samsung this week announced three
new mobile phones, two of them with built-in camers. One of the models,
the SGH-X600, has a 640 x 480 camera with a tilting range of 180 degrees
forward and back, and is mounted on top of the phone, with an LED mini-flash
located around the lens. Weighting only 80g, the GPRS phone offers a 1.6in,
16-bit colour screen with 16-bit doubling as a viewfinder. It also includes
Java games.
- How Anti-Piracy Technologies are Transforming Digital Media -
When the smoke cleared, DVDs had been crammed with more layers of copy
protection than any other consumer format, and probably more acronyms too.
Each of these is described in more detail later
in this article.
- Gigabyte in talks to acquire Elsa - Gigabyte Technology is
negotiating to acquire Germany-based graphics card maker Elsa, according
to sources. Talks have been underway, and initial agreements have reportedly
been set, sources added. The acquisition could be finalized as early as late
September, according to sources.
- Asustek to launch own-brand graphics cards using ATI solutions in 3Q -
Asustek Computer, a key customer for Nvidia's graphics chipsets in Asia,
expects to launch own-brand graphics cards featuring ATI solutions by the
end of this quarter. The two sides expect to officially announce the news in
late September, according to sources.
- Product: Canon PowerShot G5 review -
The new 5-megapixel Canon PowerShot G5 cuts to the front of the line in
Canon's lineup of point-and-shoot digital cameras. At $800, this isn't the
camera to get your mom started in digital photography. But the G5 will appeal
to hobbyist shutterbugs who can't afford the $1,500 price that digital SLRs
command.
- Neuros Audio Computer Rethinks MP3 review -
A new company on the scene, Neuros Audio, took a long hard look at this
market space and is now shipping what the company has dubbed an 'audio
computer'. It features an FM tuner and transmitter (transceiver), support for
the open source encoder Ogg Vorbis, and a Linux music management app. It can
not only record FM radio, but can sample and save music playing on an FM
station and find similar material via the Web when the player is connected to
your PC.
- Asus PC-DL with 875P Chipset for Intel's Xeon review - With its
1-MB L3 cache, Intel's Xeon was poised to take the workstation market by
storm. Unfortunately, the Intel E7505 chipset isn't the greatest match for the
CPU, as it only supports dual DDR266. Asus decided it needed to tackle this
problem. And tackle it did:
it developed a board that aims to enhance performance with an 875P desktop
chipset and dual DDR333.
- Kingston HyperX 512MB DDR PC3500 - On the heatspreaders, is a
sticker indicating the ram type. We can see that the ram is rated for PC3500
operation, which is 434MHz. The timings are rated at 2-4-4-8-1 (CAS
Latency 2), which is pretty good, though not great. Not to worry though, as
the ram can do better, but those are the SPD settings detected in the BIOS, so
we'll be fixing that when we get into testing.
- Seagate Barracuda 160 Gigabytes HDD Review - If you're in the
market for additional storage, or have the opportunity to select which drive
comes in that new PC you're looking at buying, we can assure you that this
drive - in a RAID configuration or stand-alone -
is a great investment that should reward you with years of great storage
performance.
- IOGear COMBO 3.5" ION Drive (60GB) -
The ION Combo External 3.5" Hard drive (60GB) is stylish and supports both
Firewire and USB. It operates at 7200 RPM and has a seek time of only 8.5
milliseconds. It is made for people who cannot install internal hard drives or
do not have IDE ports left available. It arrives with the Samsung SP0612N HDD
or something very similar, which has countless features.
- The Teac DV-W50D DVD+R/RW Drive Review - It seems that Teac's
goal of an affordable drive that has everything you want, while trimming the
features you may not miss has its pluses, but along with those pluses are a
few minuses. Overall,
the Teac DV-W50D DVD+R/RW CD-R/RW Dual Format Drive performed fairly well
in all of our benchmark tests, but there is still room for improvement.
- Contemporary Integrated Sound Solutions - As for sound quality,
many add-on sound cards are still better than integrated audio solutions.
The reason is simple: mainboard makers try to reduce the cost at any rate.
They choose cheap codecs, and don't care about proper screening of audio
components. That's why a user may consider purchasing a sound card to be a
better decision than using the integrated audio.
- Hitachi CML152 15 LCD Monitor Review - Techwarelabs has posted
a review of Hitachi CML152 15" LCD Monitor.
- Zalman 80C-HP Heatpipe VGA Cooler w/ optional fan (Video Review) -
The Zalman 80C-HP Heatpipe VGA Cooler w/ optional fan makes one fantastic
VGA cooling product. It fits just about every Video Card & is relatively easy
to install. With the massive heatsink on the front & back coupled with the
heatpipe & 80mm fan it will definitely keep even the fastest Video Cards cool.
- Zalman 400W Power Supply Review - You call yourself a modder? You
have nice blue LED fans, a blue motherboard, blue video card, blue UV reactive
cables, a sweet window cutout . and a big ugly silver power supply. Not a lot
of people mod their power supply, maybe a UV reactive acrylic cover, but who
really anodizes it to match their case? Anodizing is quite pricy, and spray
paint just doesn't look all that great. Don't forget all the power you need to
run all those little gadgets! Today we'll be looking at a
ZM400A, a black 400W power supply from Zalman. They say its silent, very
silent, but also deadly.
- Altec Lansing 5100 Speaker Review - In the end if you are
looking to replace
those old speakers, the Altec Lansing 5100s is a good setup for those
looking for a system that's price, performance, and style are all evenly
mixed.
- Logitech Cordless Click Plus Review - If you can settle for a
symmetrical, ambidextrous oval shape and no Forward and Back buttons (just the
two main buttons, clickable scroll wheel, and Quick Switch), the
Cordless Click offers the same RF technology for $40.
- The Definitive ATI Bios, Softmod and Tweak Guide -
check it out!
- OVERCLOCKING THE NFORCE2 A BASIC GUIDE - There are essentially
two types of overclocking - front side bus and multiplier. Motherboards
have a clock chip that generates a signal. This signal controls how fast the
board's circuits run. This speed is measured in millions of cycles per second,
or Megahertz. Today's current crop of motherboards run at stock speeds
anywhere from 100Mhz to 166Mhz. Additionally, there is circuitry that enables
the computer's processor, or CPU, to run at a multiple of the board speed,
hence the term multiplier.
- DVD2SVCD 1.2.1 Build 1 -
Freeware DVD2SVCD is
a completely automated frontend for converting DVD, PVA and AVI files to SVCD.
- WinDVD Platinum 5.1.5.5 (costs money) -
WinDVD Platinum 5 (download)
is the ultimate DVD software player, providing you with the finest quality
video and audio playback. Watch movies with a theater experience right on your
computer or laptop.
- RegSeeker 1.30 -
RegSeeker includes
a powerful registry cleaner and can display various informations like your
startup entries, several histories (even index.dat files), installed
applications and much more ! With RegSeeker you can search for any item inside
your registry, export/delete the results, open them in the registry.
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Updated:10:31 PM CEST Jun,20
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