Tuesday Tech Madness - tech
(hx) 12:52 PM CET - Nov,25 2003
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- House Approves Antispam Bill - Lawmakers are one step closer to
enacting the first nationwide antispam law. The House of Representatives on
Saturday overwhelmingly
approved a bill that would fine spammers who violate restrictions on
unsolicited commercial e-mail. You can also check this statement from
Microsoft.
- New IE may burst pop-up bubble - The Redmond, Wash.-based software
giant recently indicated that
it will add pop-up blocking features to Internet Explorer (IE) next year,
as part of an update for Windows XP. Others have offered similar tools before,
but because IE so thoroughly dominates the browser market, ad executives and
Internet watchers believe the changes could finally burst the bubble for
pop-ups.
- Intel Touts Making of Next-Generation Test Chips - Intel on Monday
said it has
built test chips using next-generation 65 nanometer technology and expects
to be the first to produce them, in 2005.
- IBM makes play for online games - IBM is set to release on
Tuesday an early version of software intended to
allow game developers to easily build support for business functions into
online games. The company's Business Integration for Games (BIG) will
provide ready-made tools for handling business tasks such as processing sales
transactions and managing pay-to-play tournaments. IBM will release an early
version of the software under its AlphaWorks program to encourage companies to
experiment with emerging technology.
- Hydro-Québec in Canada to test internet over power lines -
Hydro-Québec is planning to offer
high-speed internet service over its power lines to compete with similar
services from cable and telephone companies. The utility already uses
signals over its power lines to control stoplights, but now it wants to adapt
it to offer internet access. Some experts say such a service could be up to
five times faster than high-speed cable internet service.
Apple Offers IPod Battery Tips - Some IPod owners have complained that
new-generation IPods display inaccurate battery charging data, so Apple
Computer has posted a brief technical note to help. "The IPod battery
indicator shows, approximately, how much charge is left in the battery," Apple
explains. The company's note discusses situations in which the indicator will
show there is charge left in the unit, when in fact it is out of power.
- Voodoo ships first DirectX 9 "Centrino" notebook -
The Envy m:460 isn't a true Centrino machine - it simply uses Intel's
Pentium M processor, offered at 1.4GHz to 1.7GHz. VoodooPC will provide an
Intel Centrino 802.11b wireless card, but it's touting an 802.11g alternative.
The company doesn't say which company manufactures the card. The notebook's
graphics engine comes from ATI: it's a Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro. The 130nm
chip offers full DirectX 9 support and comes with 128MB of G-DDR2-M graphics
SDRAM.
- Mitac launches GPS Pocket PC -
The Mio 168 features Microsoft Windows Mobile 2003 Pocket PC OS, an 300MHz
Intel PXA255 processor, 32MB ROM, 64MB SDRAM and a 3.5-inch, 65,000-color
transflective TFT LCD screen. For expansion, it has an SDIO slot. Aimed at car
drivers, the Mio 168 includes a map function, providing navigation to places
such as gas stations, restaurants and parking lots in Taiwan. With each
purchase, the company is also providing a free 32MB MultiMedia Card (MMC) with
a US map. Mitac currently does not plan to market the device in the US. “But
the map function will be great for Taiwanese business travelers on the road in
the US,” said Justine Liu, a PR manager at Mitac. The Mio 168 is priced at
NT$12,000 (about US$352).
- AMD AthlonXP 2500+ Barton review - If you're planning to buy that
one last AthlonXP processor, or are upgrading an old Socket A system but don't
want to spend a lot of money, make sure you take
a close look at the AthlonXP 2500+. You'll no doubt like it's excellent
price/performance ratio.
- MB Round-up -
ABIT AI7 Springdale |
ABIT KV8 MAX3 K8T800 |
DFI NFII Ultra
Infinity nForce2 |
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra B |
ASUS P4S800D-E SiS 655TX |
SiS755 Reference Board Preview |
Soltek SL-865-GR
- ATI Radeon 9600 XT VPU - This popularity will only continue for ATI
with their brand new Radeon 9600 XT VPU. It offers a remarkable cost to
performance ratio against the Radeon 9800 XT, as shown in our benchmarks, and
at times is even close to matching its performance when overclocked. Image
Quality is up there with the best offering higher AF rates than the
competition from nVidia. Retailers in Australia have given us an idea of what
retail graphics cards based on the
9600 XT will cost and it is less than half what the Radeon 9800 XT 256MB
currently costs. This fact will make the Radeon 9600 XT perfect for people who
are on a budget but still want quality gaming performance for current and some
upcoming game titles.
- AIW 9600 Pro review - ATI announced the AIW 9600 Pro in July of
this year. At the time, ATI figured that the card would hit retail in
August/September. Unfortunately, things didn't exactly go according to plan.
Due to the blackout that hit the Northeast and the various problems with the
SoBig worm, it was slightly delayed. ATI is now shipping the AIW 9600 to
stores and it should be available
as you read this review.
- SilenX 400 Watt Power Supply Unit review - When most of us
Overclockers think 'power' we think 3 things - Higher, Faster, Louder. Well,
this PSU is about to change the face of what we're looking for. Rated at 14
dBa or LESS, this PSU is the quietest one on the market, bar none. At 14
decibels, its not a matter of how much you need to ramp it down to hear it -
its a matter of checking to see if its still on!
But can something so quiet be efficient and useful?
- Thermaltake PurePower 480 Butterfly PSU - When it comes to choosing
a power supply the goal must always be quality power output first, then
anything else you want to look for second.
With the 480 watt Butterfly we see an extraordinarily stable output of
power along all power rails, so we have met the primary requirement.
- Logitech Z-5300 speaker system review - If you are looking for
an
affordable set of surround speakers for your game system or computer
consider this one. The list price is $200 but we looked around and saw it for
as little as $120 with an average price of $140.
- Rio Karma 20 GB review - The 20 GB Karma has a current street price
of around $280 compared to the 20GB I-pod which has a current street price of
around $388. Instead of spending the majority of this review comparing the
Karma to the I-pod,
here is a list of advantages/disadvantages of the Karma.
- Inkjet Printer Round-up - The new Canon printer has a raft of extra
modules making it a bit like a tank, the HP has an LCD screen and integrated
photo retouching, and the Epson has gone for cost-effectiveness with new ink
and a model at half the price of the others.
So which of them is right?
- AMD Athlon 64 Performance Computing - The heat is on! -
TweakTown has collected high-end performance parts from AMD, ABIT, ATI,
GeCube, Mushkin, Maxtor and Thermaltake and built the fastest possible Athlon
64 desktop computer around. The heat is on - become part of the action and
read about what this high-powered system is capable of!
- Has AMD Castrated Overclocking? - If you're an
overclocking freak, yes. With its latest release of the 64bit processors,
mainly the Athlon 64 and the Athlon 64 FX,
AMD
is not allowing much room to the 'push for more' world. It's quite sad for
a lot of us who enjoy looking for our CPUs upper limits--hitting them feels so
darn cool, ya know.
- Windows tweaking download guide 2.0 - There is an updated version
of XP-Tweaking Guide, now called
XP
tweaking Experience 2.0. The Tweaking Experience for Microsoft Windows
XP/2000 and Windows 2003 Server brings together all Tweaks for Microsoft
Windows XP/2000 and Windows 2003 Server such as Internet, Miscellaneous,
System Performance, Windows 2003 Server and User Interface related Tweaks into
a single, easy-to-use, centralized help file.
- WinAmp Plug-In File Writer 1.20 - At this moment
it will let you
specify a directory to write files in, it will let you choose between the
raw, ape, mp3, ogg and wave file formats and it supports three different modes
for creating a filename, just title simply uses the title as a filename,
expanded title uses the title but expands some variables just like with the
title option of my LineIn plugin (see the Option reference of my LineIn
plugin), the expandable string option enables you to specify an expandable
string which is used to create the filename (usefull with a setting like: %ut
- on %dl), you have to use at least %ut (unexpanded title), %et (expanded
title) or %p# with that option, %p# expands to the playlist position (padded
with zeroes upto # digits).
- WinRAR 3.30 Beta 2 -
This new beta fixed a bug in beta 1 ISO format support, Now WinRAR
"Rename" command does not allow to enter an empty string as a new file name,
"Scan archive for viruses" command is able to recognize more antivirus
scanners and "Generate report" command includes the report creation date to
title of HTML reports.
- HyperSnap-DX v5.40.05 (SHW) -
HyperSnap-DX
brings you professional quality, convenient Windows screen captures. It was
designed for ease of use, with powerful and useful features - including
capture from DirectX and 3dfx Glide games, and some DVD/Video players.
- XMark 7.0 Service Pack 1 - Dacris Software has released
the first service pack for
XMark 7.0, the distributed system benchmarking and optimization suite.
- ObjectDock 1.0 -
ObjectDock is a freeware program that combines program launching and task
management into a single "dock" that does it with style. ObjectDock allows for
dock items to react in many different ways to mouse overs and supports
"Docklets" which can add new functionality to the dock.
- Media Player Classic 6.4.6.9 -
This new version
fixes the broken AVI opener and reindexer, the roq decoders have been enabled
and there's a new built-in ogg splitter. (thanks
Doom9.org)
- nVidia nForce 3.22/3.26 Remix driverset -
It uses the 3.75 beta sound drivers that has fixed some peoples sound
issues. While still giving you the best sounding driver and gaming performance
that you like to have. This nForce driver package contains the below
components: International Version No display, Audio driver 3.75 (WHQL), Audio
utilities 3.75, Ethernet driver 3.39 (WHQL), GART driver 3.43 (WHQL), SMBus
driver 3.43 (WHQL), USB 2.01, Installer 3.65.
- Matrox Parhelia Drivers 1.05.01.008 - Matrox has issued
a driver update for its Parhelia, P750, and P650 graphics cards, fixing a
nagging bug that impeded performance in SPEC's viewperf workstation graphics
benchmark.
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Updated:03:04 PM CEST Jun,20
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