Sunday Tech Reading - tech
(hx) 01:31 PM CEST - Jun,22 2003
- Post a comment / read (5)
- Aussie Company Releases Xbox Mod-Chip Designs -
AussieChip website
has freely published its sophisticated
Xbox mod-chip designs.
- Orrin Hatch: Software Pirate? - Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah)
suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the
Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed. But Hatch
himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably
would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.
The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed
by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The
copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.
"It's an unlicensed copy," said Andy Woolley, who runs Milonic. "It's very
unfortunate for him because of those comments he made."
- New bill injects FBI into P2P battle - HR-2517, the Piracy
Deterrence and Education Act of 2003,
instructs the FBI to develop a program to deter online traffic of
copyrighted material. The bureau would also develop a warning, with the FBI
seal, that copyright holders could issue to suspected violators. And the
bureau would encourage sharing of information on suspected copyright
violations among law enforcement, copyright owners and ISPs (Internet service
providers).
- Prices for CD-R discs to jump by 10% in 3Q - Thanks to strong
demand, prices for
CD-R discs will jump by 10% from about US$0.20 per disc currently to
US$0.22 in the third quarter, according to Ritek and CMC Magnetics, the two
largest optical storage disc makers in Taiwan.
- DVD Copying Software Gets Update - 321 Studios has
released an upgrade to its DVD-copying software despite still being
embroiled in a court case over the software's legality. The company announced
Friday that DVD X Copy Gold, an improved version of the software that includes
all of the features of two previous products, DVD X Copy and DVD X Copy
XPRESS, is now available. New features in DVD X Copy Gold let users copy most
DVDs within an hour, and can record all features of an original CD or compress
a DVD-9 to a DVD-5, fitting each backup copy onto a single DVD disk, 321
Studios said in a statement.
- Flight Simulator 2002 With 13 Monitors And 9 PCs - Yeah, that's no
joke, just 9
PC's & 13 monitors - Server PC is a 2.0ghz AMD and has 1 Asus 4800se
G4 AGP and when Motor flying 4 PCI graphic cards for the instrument panels..
All 8 Clients have AGP cards and are AMD 800 to 1.5ghz... My Ask21 Glider with
3 Asus 4800se G4 cards on the front 6 monitors, giving great downward landing
view. When you sit in front, all screens line up reasonably well ... Windows
XP on the 3 front PC's and 98se on the rest. (thanks
Slashdot.org)
- High-Tech Tools for Your Wrist -
The watch runs Palm OS 4.1, and has a 33-MHz Dragonball processor and 2MB
of memory. One interesting feature is its miniature stylus, which is hidden
inside the watchband and pops out so you can tap the tiny screen. The Wrist
PDA comes in three designs: a silver metallic model, one with a brown leather
band, and a sport model. Prices range from $275 to $295.
- Xybernaut Atigo-M review - With the processor of a PDA but
the appearance of a tablet PC,
the Xybernaut Atigo-M ($1,895 direct and up, depending on configuration)
is a bit of both. This unique portable Web tablet is designed for mobility in
the field but is also useful as a thin-client wireless device or as a smart
terminal.
- Asus MyPal a620, PocketPC 2003 -
The Asus MyPal a620 is a very versatile PocketPC, although we'd have liked
it if Asus had included Bluetooth support as a standard feature. Nevertheless
it is a no frills PocketPC at an affordable price that has an excellent
price/performance ratio. Whether you'd opt for a no-frills PocketPC depends on
your individual needs, most people don't need lots of extras that only cost
more and often go unused.
- Counter-Strike Headsets for Voice Communication - Valve, creators
of Counter-Strike and Half-Life, and Plantronics unveiled a custom
Counter-Strike
headset. Based on the Plantronics' popular DSP-500, this plug-and-play USB
headset features DSP technology and Counter-Strike's distinctive branding.
- RAID 15 With IDE: Added Value Or Eyewash? - Finally, the benefits
for home use are interesting, but are they strong enough to justify creating a
RAID array based on HighPoint/ DFI's RAID 1.5?
Overall performance is only slightly improved, while data security
actually increases by redundant storage onto two hard drives. The main reason
for having "secure" RAID is, after all, optimized failure safety and/ or data
security - and this is where RAID 1 is equally good and supported by a larger
variety of controllers. Power users are best served, as before, with RAID 0,
while genuine security coupled with higher performance is still associated
with higher costs and, consequently, with RAID 10 or RAID 5.
- Samsung SW-252B 52/24/52 CD-R/W Drive Review -
The Samsung 252B comes with a pretty much standard retail package compared
to other drives. It is nice to see they included the very popular Ahead Nero
5.0 burning software. Included in the box is a setup guide, Nero 5.0, User's
Guide CD, analog audio cable, IDE cable and 4 screws. Unfortunately Samsung
did not include any recording recording medium. A blank CD-R or CD-R/W disk
would have been nice to see and is usually included in the competitors retail
package.
- Thermaltake G4-VGA Review - The GeForce4 Ti series, however, has
not been entirely dropped, and the default heatsinks usually leave much to be
desired in terms of safe operating temperature and overclocking overhead.
Xoxide has provided us with
an all-copper VGA cooler from Thermaltake that looks to pack a punch. Of
course it will outperform the default heatsink; but will the price to
performance ratio hold strong?
- Game Accelerator BIOS review - As we've seen, the
Game Accelerator BIOS made a huge difference, for the better, in our
benchmarks. I would imagine any quality sticks of ram can easily handle the
Street Racer option, and for F1, you'll need something really good. Even if
you don't own performance ram, the system ran fine at Turbo, using a pair of
Crucial PC2700 sticks (though I was not able to run them at 400MHz). At Turbo
settings, the performance was still better than Auto, so consider this a free
performance boost.
- ATI Responds To v6.14.10.6351 Driver Leak - They guys at
Warp2Search have spoken to Terry Makedon, Senior Software Manager at ATI,
about their findings and the impact the canadian company feels driver leaks
have. By this official statement ATI reconfirms that the leak is an interim
build. The official Catalyst 3.5 drivers will have the packaging number 7.90
and will be released on Monday, June 23rd, 2003.
- hTune 3.0a -
hTune (download)
is a friendly program that helps you optimize Web sites for faster loading.
Clear wizard-style interface enables you to optimize multiple files in a few
simple steps by removing redundant elements.
- VisualRoute 7.2a Build 2031 -
VisualRoute (download)
delivers the functionality of key Internet "ping," "whois," and "traceroute"
tools, in a high-speed visually integrated package. VisualRoute automatically
analyzes Internet connectivity and performance problems, displaying the
results in an easy to understand table and on a world map.
- FolderIcon XP 1.0 beta 1 -
FolderIcon XP
allows you to change an icon for any folder. Left-click on a folder and choose
its icon, mark it as a "hot" or make it look gray
- XPlayer 2.2.1 -
XPlayer (download)
uses much less memory and CPU Resources than Microsoft Media Player. If you
are finding movies are playing slowly on your computer or have trouble staying
sychronized with audio, this might be your solution. XPlayer supports
Subtitles, VMR9 and various skins.
- Mp3tag 2.11 -
Mp3tag (download)
is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit ID3-tags and OGG Comments of
MP3- and Ogg Vorbis files. Mp3tag can rename files based on the tag
information, replace characters or words from tags and filenames,
import/export tag information, create playlists, and more.
- GSpot v2.2 Build 030518 -
GSpot (download)
determine what codec a video/audio file uses and what codec your system will
use to play it. Identifies MPEG (.mpg), QuickTime (.mov), RealMedia (.rm),
Windows Media (.wma / .asf), Flash (.swf) and others; will attempt a
DirectShow render those (and any other) file, and report either the error or
detailed results.
- MyIE2 v0.7.1355 post-Final -
MyIE2
(lite ~
pro)
is a multi-tabbed browser based on the IE core (IE5.x or above required). It
can open multiple web pages within one browser window, and uses little system
resources. This updated version fixes: 1)Could not open .htm files under some
special version of Windows. 2) Zoom page feature, could be used with Ctrl+'+',
Ctrl+'-' and Ctrl+'*' shortcut.
- Coding Workshop Ringtone Convertor 4.4.0 -
The Ringtone Converter (download)
is a software program for both Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac systems that
allows you to add new ringtones to your mobile phone without the need for
cables or expensive premium rate SMS services.
- aTuner 1.5.25.4465 -
A-tuner
is a small tool for changing the following 4 settings on your Nvidia card:
Anti-Aliasing (including all unofficial modes); Anisotropic Filtering; Vsync
MipMap LOD (Level Of Detail) Bias, and should work with Nvidia Detonators
23.11 - 44.65.
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Updated:10:40 PM CEST Jun,21
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