News Archive

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple, has decided to back a new firm called Hotswap.  Hotswap specializes in video compression technologies, and they are currently offering technology that focuses on making digital media file sizes smaller thus enabling shorter uploads while increasing both image and video quality.The potential applications...

An interesting collection of rumors and speculations about the next completely new AMD CPU has surfaced.AMD hasn't officially announced the chip yet, so anything can change between now and the target launch date sometime in 2009. AMD plans to launch its third-generation Opteron platform in 2009 with the Sandtiger octal-core processor. Beneath...

Professor Robert Wood of Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences considers the life-sized robotic fly small, agile, and, from a military perspective, inconspicuous. With funding offered by the U.S. Military, Harvard researchers spent seven years working on it. Composed of lightweight carbon joints, the bug moves like...

The figures for graphics market share are out for Q2 of 2007. According to John Peddie Research, it appears that Nvidia continues to seize market share away from Intel and AMD. In fact, Nvidia’s market share took another leap this past quarter from Q1, whereas AMD’s market share continued its steady slide. As for Intel, it took a small dive...

Today at HotHardware, we have posted our thoughts on a new high-performance DDR2 kit from OCZ, the DDR2 PC2-6400 Vista Performance Platinum 4GB Dual Channel kit.  As its name suggests, OCZ's DDR2 PC2-6400 Vista Performance Platinum 4GB Dual Channel kit is a member of the company’s low latency Platinum XTC line, and it offers and impressive...

Microsoft has released a new DirectX redistributable package into the wild for virtually all versions of Windows, including 64-bit versions of Vista and XP.  This is a DirectX9 and 10 end-user runtime update that's not going to show up on the Windows Update website.  It is an official release, however.  "This download provides...

According to a story published on DigiTimes, 45nm notebook processors derived from the upcoming 'Penryn' core will account for 50% of Intel's total shipments by the second quarter of next year.  We've known for quite some time that Intel's 45nm parts were slated to arrive this year with production ramping up in '08, but information claiming that...

EUROPEAN COMMISSION (EC) CHARGES INTEL WITH ANTITRUST VIOLATIONS - Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Chairman and CEO, Hector Ruiz and AMD CAO, Tom McCoy Respond to Media Inquires Via Conference Call - WHO: AMD Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz and Executive Vice President of Legal Affairs and CAO Tom McCoy....

Video: Sapphire HD 2400 XT Video Card Review @ OCC Diamond Radeon HD 2900 XT 1GB @ TR Leadtek WinFast 8600GT Fanless @ ChileHardware HANNS-G HW223D 22" LCD Review @ Motherboards.org Sapphire...

EBay has been ordered to take stronger measures to prevent cases of certain types of fraud by the German Federal Supreme Court.All this trouble started with customers selling fake Rolex watches with starting prices under 800 Euros.  Whatever happened to caveat emptor? “The ruling by the German Federal Supreme Court came in an appeal by plaintiffs...

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, recently announced to members of the European press that the company expects to phase out the Linksys name. Chambers considered the Linksys brand as having reached “end of life,” and is to be replaced by new products that wear a redesigned Cisco emblem. “‘It will all come overtime into a Cisco brand,’ Chambers...

Google has finally started detailing the specific details of their plan to filter copyrighted material from their video service, YouTube.  Hopefully this will appease media giants such as Viacom, who have filed suit against Google.The plan will take effect in September, and will use digital video fingerprinting to help ID copyrighted material....

At least one customer hasn’t been too thrilled with some of the battery issues with the new iPhone from Apple.Jose Trujillo, irritated customer, has filed a class action law suit against Apple: “One iPhone customer wasn't happy at all with the iPhone's battery life or the two alternatives to replacing a defective battery and filed a class-action...

Tonight we'll kick off the weekend with something off-topic that might just get you fighting mad - as in angry.  We all know the health care system here in the US leaves a lot to be desired in spots.  Insurance companies shafting patients in need, drug companies gouging; you know the drill.  But when the “good Doctor” is too blinded by his...

The next-gen disc format wars have been going on for quite some time, with no clear winner as yet.  In fact, the wars have dragged on so long that there is a growing concern that neither format will win, and we’ll have to wait another few years for something worthy of a few hundred of your hard earned dollars.With that said, it’s easy to understand...

A pair of graduate students at MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning have ambitions to generate energy from everyday human movements in urban settings. James Graham and Jusczyk call the project “Crowd Farm,” which would convert some of the mechanical energy of walking or jumping people into electricity in such places as malls, concerts,...

Tech Talk with Associate Vice President of Worldwide Marketing of GIGABYTE United GIGABYTE United, City of Industry, CA, - GIGABYTE, the leading brand of Motherboard manufacturer, has taken Intel P35 motherboard to extreme with its Ultra Durable 2 Series motherboard, aiming at those PC enthusiasts who...

Early rumors about FB-DIMMs claimed that they were going to offer better bandwidth, power/heat efficiency, all adding minimal latency.  Theory and reality don’t always end up being the same thing, and FB-DIMMs are great at some tasks, but there’s a fairly large latency penalty.  Add to that the fact that the FB-DIMMs are significantly more...

We wanted to let you all know that we’ve just posted a new article here at HotHardware, in which we evaluate the features, bundles, overclockability, and performance of two NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI-based motherboards, the MSI P6N-SLI Platinum and the Abit Fatal1ty FPIN9-SLI.  One of the boards is more feature-rich and somewhat more expensive,...

NVIDIA Announces Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call SANTA CLARA, CA—NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) will host a conference call to discuss its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal year 2008 on August 9, 2007 at 2:00 PM, Pacific Time. The Company's prepared remarks will be followed by a...

Video: Calibre P860, GeForce 8600GT @ Bjorn3D Jetway Radeon HD 2900 XT 512M @ MVKTech Processors: Pentium E2140/2160 and Athlon X2 BE-2350: Low-Power CPUs @ Digit-Life...

In a recent business update call earlier this month, NVIDIA CEO, Jen-Hsun Huang went on record to address the company's high failure rate problem with respect to certain mobile GPU designs and the charges against the cost of revenue for Q2 that are anticipated to cover warranty, repair or return of the product.  The...

AMD held a Technology Analyst Day in Sunnyvale, California today, where members of their management team delivered presentations related to the company's various technologies and roadmaps.  There were a number of details revealed during the presentations regarding AMD's modular M-SPACE design methodology, next-generation graphics technology...

Toshiba’s new 12.1” Portege R500 notebook is being touted as the world’s lightest widescreen notebook in its class. When equipped with a 64 GB SSD and 3 cell battery, it only weighs 1.72 pounds. Admittedly though, the stated weight is without an optical drive. Starting at $1999, the R500 runs Windows XP Pro and is driven by a Core 2 Duo U7600...

After suffering from heavy losses, AMD takes some time to reorganize its two-year map for server and PC chips. According to AMD executives, the number two CPU maker has plans not only to reveal a new server-chip design in 2009 , but also to push forth faster versions of its Barcelona quad-core server chip later on in the year. The company’s...

Online compensation company Salary.com recently conducted its third annual online survey on slacking at work. 2,057 people participated in the survey which found that 60 percent of those surveyed admitted to wasting time at work with the average employee wasting 1.7 hours of a typical 8.5 hour working day. The leading time wasting...

VIA PowerSaver Certified Energy-Efficient by China's CSC VIA's innovative PowerSaver technology certified by China Standard Certification Center for providing both environmental and economic benefits Taipei, Taiwan, 26 July 2007 - VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator and developer...

There's always been an element of superstition about the safety and security of all sorts of web browsers and operating systems. The idea that if Bill Gates isn't involved you'll be magically protected against trouble is wearing a little thin now. The best protection against exploits in browsers has always been a market share south of 5% Well,...

Video: Sapphire HD 2600 XT Video Card Review @ OCC Gigabyte GeForce 8600GT 256MB @ Phoronix Asus EN8800GTX TOP AQUATANK 768MB @ Digit-Life Motherboards & Chipsets:...

If you're a Sam & Fax fan, rejoice: a new season is en route for this fall.  If you're a person who likes gaming in small, affordable doses, then you might also want to rejoice. After several games announced plans for episodes, only a few have delivered.  Some, like SiN have outright cancelled plans for episodic gaming.  Others are waiting...

$7,000,000,000.  Can you guess what in the wonderful world of IT that number refers to?  If you guessed the weekly allowance that Bill Gates gives his children, you’re probably close, but not quite on target.It is actually the amount of market value that Apple declined on news that iPhone activations were far behind the expected sales numbers....

68 million people played video games on a console last month, and an astonishing 42% spent that time playing on the last generation Sony console, the Playstation 2. Nintendo's Wii has garnered a lot of press for its explosive sales and fun, intuitive controller; but if you add sales of the Playstation 2 and Playstation 3, they add up to about...

In a business update call earlier this month, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang went on record detailing the impact of certain NVIDIA notebook GPU failures that have been reported and the one time charge the company would have to take against the cost of revenue for Q2 of this year.  The blank check was estimated at the time to...

Whenever Microsoft releases a new version of its Windows OS, people generally line up to buy.  They often go so far as to just buy a whole new PC to replace their aging rig, or because they don’t feel comfortable installing the OS themselves.  Generally the industry sees a large surge in sales that immediately follow the release of a new OS.President...

Though we wouldn’t say that credit cards have “revolutionized” our lives, one could argue that they have changed, to an extent, the way we spend money. A card is more compact, more hygienic (we hope), and much less risky to use for purchases, and to carry around. Nonetheless, things could always be better, as indicated by the recent fad that...

We’ve just posted a new article here at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features, range, and performance of a couple of draft-N WiFi devices from TRENDnet.  The main focus of the article is the TRENDnet TEW-631BRP Firewall Router, but we used it in conjunction with a TEW-621PC PCMCIA adapter that brings 300Mbps wireless connectivity to...

In the race to develop the first LCD panel that supports the new DisplayPort interface, the champion turns out to be none other than memory chip giant Samsung. After its approval by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA), DisplayPort is said to be the successor to the DVI, LVDS, and eventually VGA interfaces. As for Samsung’s first...

AMD Unveils Forward-Looking Technology Innovation To Extend Memory Footprint for Server Computing — Latest Customer-Centric Innovation from AMD to Improve Performance Burgeoning Technologies like Virtualization and Multi-Core Computing — SUNNYVALE, Calif....

AMD Unveils Forward-Looking Technology Innovation To Extend Memory Footprint for Server Computing — Latest Customer-Centric Innovation from AMD to Improve Performance Burgeoning Technologies like Virtualization and Multi-Core Computing — SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- July 25, 2007 --Responding...

Video: MSI NX8800 GTS 320 MB OC Edition & [H] Sapphire x1950 PRO Ultimate Edition @ OCC HP w2207 22-inch LCD Review @ Digital Trends Motherboards & Chipsets:...

Advertisers have decided that they want to have a presence in Second Life, even though they don't know what it is, really. Throwing money at a technology you don't understand? Check. Inflated traffic figures?  Check. A vague sense of urgency coupled with 6 and 7 figure outlays? Check. No way to measure return? Check. Hey, look, they've put...

Graphene is a one atom thick piece of carbon, and its very efficient conductive properties and nano-scale size would make it really useful as a replacement for copper connections on computer chips. The graphite in your pencil is made of lots and lots of graphene. The trick has been to make it in the one atom thickness.  Saroj Nayak and other...

AMD may have signed on with TSMC to outsource production of their upcoming Fusion technology.  At present it seems that Fusion will be produced on TSMC’s 45nm process. “JPMorgan projects that TSMC can further expand its technology to CPU manufacturing in the first quarter of 2008 after this field qualification is completed, though any meaningful...

With all of the recent hype surrounding Apple's iPhone, it seems more and more people are ditching, or at least thinking about ditching, their basic, 'mono-tasker' mobile phones in favor of multifunction SmartPhones.  And although Apple has clearly been getting the lion's share of press coverage lately, there are a ton of other popular SmartPhones...

Asustek Computer Inc. has recently included the Intel Turbo Memory offering to its line of Santa Rosa mobile platform-based notebooks. The Turbo-Memory-fitted notebooks will be available by late August of this year. “The new laptop configurations with Intel Turbo Memory, formerly codenamed ‘Robson’, are the 14-inch F8SV-A1 and V2S-A1,...

Researchers at the Georgia Electronic Design Center (GEDC) of Georgia Institute of Technology are working on ultra-fast wireless connectivity solutions. If current efforts eventually lead to success, it could mean the end of the wired computer. The team of researchers propose the use of extremely high radio frequencies to attain broad bandwidth...

Alienware is now offering solid-state hard drives as an option for three of their notebook models, the Area-51 m5550, Area-51 m9750 and the Aurora m9700. While the addition of solid-state drives as an option isn't anything special since several other notebook manufacturers already offer SSDs, what is special is that Alienware will offer them...

New VIA Nano-ITX Mainboard for Healthcare, Retail and Industrial Applications VIA EPIA NR Nano-ITX mainboard offers unrivalled storage and I/O flexibility and native dual LVDS support in a low profile, fanless package for highly tailored embedded systems Taipei, Taiwan, 24 July 2007 - VIA...

Video & Audio: Foxconn GeForce 8600 GTS Review @ OCC The Abit AirPace Wireless Audio Device Review @ TechwareLabs Edifier MP300 Portable Speaker System @ Techgage Processors:...

The smug factor with the iPhone is off the charts. I personally don't need a PDA I can yell into, so I don't have much of an opinion about it.  But it will be fun to see the reaction of the Apple fanatics to the announcement that the iPhone is susceptible to being taken over by hackers if you visit a malicious website or tap into a bad internet...

Corning Inc, the inventors of low-loss optical fiber wire in the 1970s, have devised a way to use nanostructures to allow fiber-optic cable to be bent around tight corners without loss of signal. This opens up the way for high speed fiber service to be made available to millions of customers in such places as apartment buildings and condominiums...

There's an awful lot of fanboi jawing about which video game platform is the best.  And of course, besides the big three console gamers, there's always the hardcore overclocker crowd getting every last shader going  while saving the universe. But what might be obscured in the friendly joshing is that video game hardware and software sales...

There has been a lot of confusion recently concerning upcoming AMD sockets dubbed AM2+ and AM3.  Since AMD hasn’t released anything official, all we really have to go on is speculation.Current speculation has yet to settle on exactly which CPUs will fit into which sockets, with some people/sites claiming any AMx CPU will work in any AM series...

A fun e-mail just landed in the in-box that we thought some of you would like to see.  It seems that some folks at Intel have gotten together and come up with a cool appreciation website and set of videos that will bring a tear (of laughter) to a seasoned sysadmin's eye.  Did you know that July 27th is System Administrator Appreciation Day?...

Computers have gotten to the point where they can routinely decimate the best human players at many games, but most of those games can be boiled down to simply analyzing x number of moves in advance and seeing which move(s) result in the highest probability of success.  What about games that might use a bit of instinct and intuition, especially...

The folks over at Digital Entertainment News got a chance to sit down in front of a high-end Toshiba notebook and play a pre-release build of the highly anticipated DX10 game Crysis. As you'll see, they came away thoroughly impressed.  Considering our first hand experience with Crysis at a couple of NVIDIA sponsored events and in the MS booth...

Video: Foxconn 8600GTS-256 OC 700/2200 @ HardwareLogic WinFast HDTV Cinema TV Tuner card @ Modders-Inc.com XFX Fatal1ty Geforce Overclocked 7600 GT @ Tweaknews.net Samsung SyncMaster 971P 19-inch LCD Monitor @ ThinkComputers.org...

The 6000+ isn't the end of the line for AMD Athlon 64 X2 after all. Dispite AMD roadmaps long foretelling that the Athlon 64 X2 product line as we currently know it would end with the 6000+, Digitimes is reporting that AMD is planning to release a new addition to the line-up. The new part will be badged as the 6400+ and will clock in at 3.2GHz...

July 22 has come and gone and just as anticipated, the Intel price cut is finally here. Unless you've been on vacation in the African plains for the last couple months, living the disconnected life with the local tribes and learning their ways, you've probably heard about this widely reported price cut. The price cuts effect Intel's quad core...

We’ve just posted a new article here at HotHardware, in which we evaluate the features, overclockability, and performance of two Abit-built motherboards, the IP35 Pro (P35) and AB9 QuadGT (P965) for Intel LGA775-based processors.  Here’s a snip from the piece......

There's bad, and then there's evil. But spammers are worse than evil. And the worst version of evil is to use our beloved Homer Simpson to trick you into giving up your e-mail address, and then signing you up for a spam barrage. Don't click on that survey about the Simpsons movie. The spammed e-mails try to lure...

Online video rental service Netflix noticed that their big rival for your rental dollar, Blockbuster, was wooing away their customers with lower prices. So Netflix is lowering the cost of two of their most popular subscription plans to match Blockbuster's prices. With the reductions announced Sunday, Netflix will charge $16.99...

The days of the importance of a single core processor's speed alone seem to be over. With major manufacturers already able to put up to 80 cores on one chip, the consensus is that multicore is where it's at going forward. There's a problem, of course. Nobody knows how to program the things properly to use the digital horsepower already available,...

While Gordon Gekko (from the movie Wall Street) might have argued that greed is good, excessive amounts of it aren’t always conducive to effective business relationships.Enter Steve Jobs and Sony CEO Howard Stringer.  Both of them are running corporations that sell music, and it appears that friction has developed as a result.  Jobs called...

If you’re an Xbox 360 owner and you’re looking for a place to download more of your favorite shows and movies, then you may want to look into CinemaNow.  A recent update to their software package has enabled more than 7000 videos to be downloaded and viewed by Xbox 360 owners: “CinemaNow Inc., the premier online destination for downloadable...

Former professor of engineering at the University of California, Davis Paul S. Moller has always dreamed of developing a flying car. In the 1970s, he established Supertrapp Industries, a company that specializes in a device that muffles engine noise. He sold the company in the 1980s so that he could pursue his dreams, and since then has established...

While Intel has been touting the energy efficiency of their Core series of CPUs, there have been a few recent tests that suggest certain AMD CPUs might come out on top when compared with similar Intel CPUs.  The results of the latest test show a savings of nearly $100 a year: “Specifically, the independent computer-testing firm announced...

Microsoft is finally starting to let a few details about their next OS, dubbed “Windows 7”, slip.  While the new features are still under wraps for now, MS did reveal that they plan on adopting a more incremental development approach somewhat similar to that of Apple.  It could be argued that MS has already tried this approach as Windows 98...

Nokia has recently launched a new service that allows GPS users to pinpoint their location in one minute, as opposed to the standard three minutes that it currently takes. The service will be available to users of its N95 handset, Nokia’s flagship product. “‘It will be reliably under one minute in most countries,’ says Ralph Eric Kunz, head...

Have you ever wondered why there are so many viruses and other malware out there just waiting to infect your PC(s)?  Is it really possible that there are so many people these days who have the intelligence and the lack of scruples required to make so many viruses?  Or is it more probable that there are a few bright people out there who have...

Vista.  The name makes most people either smile or cringe, depending on whether or not they’ve run into compatibility issues.  So how does Vista stack up on the whole? “Nearly six months after it launched, gripes over what doesn't work with Vista continue, eclipsing positive buzz over the program's improved desktop search, graphics and security.With...

Do you have some extremely old hardware in your home or office?  Maybe you still have that 286 laying around someplace or perhaps a TRS-80?  As antiquated as these things might seem next to todays quad-core CPUs with gigabytes of memory, they’re nothing compared to the Meccano Differential Anaylser No. 2: “That machine was bought for £100...

Over the years we have seen our electronic devices become smaller and more powerful. Even many of us humans are starting to slim down and tone up as the fitness fad takes hold. Now it seems that the masterminds at Compulab had both thoughts in mind when they introduced the so-called “fit-PC,” which comes with Linux preinstalled. The Haifa,...

While Steve Jobs did a good job of stealing its thunder several weeks ago with the launch of the iPhone, Waterloo-based Research In Motion is still on track and has recently been doing quite well. As Sun Tzu once said, someone on the defense is preparing for an attack, or something along those lines. Indeed, it appears that RIM is preparing...

The nominations for the 59th annual Primetime Emmy Awards, to be held on Sept. 16 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, were announced yesterday. The South Park episode "Make Love, Not Warcraft" was nominated in the Outstanding Animated Program (for programming less than one hour) category, along with other hit shows like SpongeBob, The...

It's been only years after a combination of powerful hardware and software allowed Deep Blue to defeat World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov, and now researchers have announced the completion of an ‘unbeatable’ checkers program. “After 18-and-a-half years and sifting through 500 billion billion (a five followed by 20 zeroes) checkers positions,...

Video: BFG Tech GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 @ TR BFG 8600 GTS OC2 @ Technic3D AMD Gemini 2600XT Preview @ InsideHW.com Processors: Revisiting the Past Part 1: Dual-Core...

AMD hosted a small gathering in the Penthouse at the SoHo Grand Hotel in New York City yesterday, to showcase some of their existing products and technologies, to show off a few products built by their partners, and to demo some products due to be released in the coming months.  We attended the event and snapped some photos of the various...

Representatives of Clearwire and Sprint Nextel, the third largest mobile carrier in the U.S., have announced a cooperative effort to convene a national WiMax wireless broadband network, which is the upcoming 4G technology standard. WiMax mobile technology has been developed to work over 5 times faster than contemporary 3rd generation wireless...

Details about Intel's upcoming update to Conroe have been slowly leaking out to the public all week. The "Penryn" family of processors is set to succeed the Conroe family at the end of this year. Penryn will introduce SSE4 and take the Core 2 family of processors to 45nm. Digitimes is now reporting that their sources have told them that the...

AMD Reports Second Quarter Results – Microprocessor Unit Shipments Increase 22% Year-Over-Year and 38% Sequentially –...

OCZ Technology Group Releases the World’s First Production 1800MHz DDR3 Solution Sunnyvale, Calif—July 19, 2007—OCZ Technology Group, the worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled the next step to achieving maximum performance on the latest PC platforms...

Hello Everyone!  We'd like you all to feast your eyes on the newest - and definitely the cutest - member of the HotHardware family, Eric Weirick.  Our resident news man Chad and his wife were just blessed by a bouncing baby boy this past Monday, July 16th at around 9:10 AM. Eric showed up about 3 weeks earlier than expected...

Video: Planar PX2611W 26-Inch Widescreen LCD Monitor @ Benchmark Reviews NVIDIA GeForce 8: Linux vs. Windows @ Phoronix Biostar Sigma-Gate VR8603TS21 GeForce 8600GTS @ PCStats Processors:...

According to a telephone interview with John Antone, VP and GM of Intel’s Asia-Pacific division, Intel is providing samples of its Penryn workstation and server CPUs to various computer makers way before the planned launch date, which is Q4 of 2007. “‘We're now broadly sampling [Penryn] for all the various platforms.’” Penryn is the code...

Researchers from the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Riverside, have developed a type of liquid that has the ability to change color when treated with a magnetic force. The liquid is composed of iron oxide particles, each about 100nm in diameter, coated with plastic and suspended in water. Leading researcher Yadong...

VoodooPC Smashes Industry Records with Next-Gen Notebook PC 17-inch laptop sets new standard for performance notebooks (CALGARY, Canada) – Wednesday, July 18, 2007 – VoodooPC, the world’s leading architect of personalized, handcrafted high-performance PCs, today...

Steam, Valve Corp's online game distribution system, just added THQ to its roster of big-name developers further expanding the impressive list of games being distributed through its Steam client. THQ is a major game developer and publisher responsible for several recent blockbuster hits such as Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:...

Intel Second-Quarter Revenue $8.7 Billion Revenue $8.7 Billion, up 8 Percent Year-over-Year Operating Income $1.35 Billion, up 26 Percent Year-over-Year Net Income $1.3 Billion EPS 22 cents...

Video: Gainward Bliss 8800 Ultra @ Overclock3D Logisys Dual Heatpipe VGA Cooler @ 3DGameMan Power: SMART1200LCD UPS Review @ FusionMods.Net HEC Zephyr 650W Power...

AMD slashed prices on it's dual-core offerings early last week, lowering prices on its Athlon 64 X2 and FX processors by as much as 33 percent. Intel is expected to drop prices on their quad-core desktop processors on July 22nd and its server processors on July 29th, likely in response to AMD's price drops. These prices cuts have sparked widespread...

George Harrison, a marketing executive at Nintendo, stated that the Game Boy name might be put to sleep after a glorious 18-year life. He points out the fact that the DS has been very successful, which means the company doesn’t need to rely on the Game Boy franchise anymore. Harrison said, "It's hard to say in the future if we will ever bring...

Intel has made a recent revision to its game plan: Conroe-based E2140 budget-class desktop CPUs will no longer be phased out, at least not until later on. Intel’s original arrangement was to reduce the price of the E2160 from $84 to $74 USD and launch the E2180 on August 26 to take the E2160’s place at $84 USD. The original plan called for...

OCZ Technology Continues to Push the DDR3 Envelope and Announces Enhanced Bandwidth High Performance 1600MHz Modules Sunnyvale, Calif.—July 17, 2007—OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announces two new 1600MHz parts including...

WD ANNOUNCES 750 GB ENTERPRISE-CLASS SATA HARD DRIVES WD RE2 750 GB Hard Drives Deliver Cool, Fast, Reliable High-Capacity Performance LAKE FOREST, Calif. - July 17, 2007 - Addressing the needs for the growing enterprise market for high-capacity, highly-reliable storage, Western Digital...

Video: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT @ [H] Memory & Storage: A.C.Ryan AluBox ESATA/USB2.0 External HD Enclosure @ Tweaknews Western Digital My Book Pro 500 GB HD @ Hard-H2O...

It is still a challenge for scientists to develop a good nano-scale battery, which is why nano-scale devices are still fueled by energy sources that are much bigger than the devices themselves. One of the key problems is how to build such a small battery, and NASA has been looking at biological molecules that have self-assembling properties...

A group of Australian researchers have reportedly developed a device that allows people to manipulate their TVs, DVD players, and other electronics with a simple wave of the hand. The controller box has a built-in camera that can identify seven simple hand gestures and can be used with up to 8 different devices. The development is led by Australian...

By now you've probably noticed that Intel launched a new family of desktop processors today, featuring a new core stepping and support for a 1333MHz front side bus speed; you can check out our evaluation of the Core 2 Extreme QX6850 with more information regarding the launch right here. Intel, however, has also just announced a brand...

Video: Compro VideoMate TV Gold Plus II M505 Card Review @ MVKTech Installing The Avivo Driver On Ubuntu @ Phoronix PowerColor HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR3 Review @ InsideHW.com Processors:...

Hello All.  I ntel’s has just launched their latest flagship desktop processor, the Core 2 Extreme QX6850, and we’ve got it on the test-bench at here HotHardware.com.  Here’s a snip: “It took a small voltage bump to 1.45V in the BIOS to hit 3.73GHz.  To achieve this, we raised the...

Ever wonder how much juice your SLI gaming rig sucks up every month? You probably won’t know exactly how hard it’s digging into your pockets, but if you’re living in the UK, that might change quite soon.A new government project in the UK aimed at raising environmental awareness and fighting global warming is providing some 15,000 Britons with...

Core 2 Duo-based notebooks abound these days and along with Asus, IBM and Dell, HP has always offered innovative designs that can be attention-grabbers with the HH editorial team.  We hereby summon the HP team to provide us with one of these gems for testing and evaluation.  T7100 processor, 15.4 wide screen and special casing.  That is a...

NTT DoCoMo has just announced plans to start testing its new prototype “Super 3G” system for ultra-high speed data transfer over mobile devices. Japan’s largest mobile carrier hopes to attain a remarkable 300Mbps in its testing trials over the wireless network. Although the Super 3G system will not be implemented in Japan until at least 2009,...

A report by financial firm American Technology Research has proclaimed that approximately 25% of iPhone consumers are “switchers” to AT&T from other carriers. “‘We find these numbers impressive, showing that a fair amount of customers are willing to pay high early cancellation fees (~$125-$200) to get out of their existing service contracts...

According to Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata, sales of Nintendo’s innovative Wii video game console has the potential to surpass the Sony’s PS2, which is still the biggest hit in the history of the video game industry. In fact, Nintendo became one of the ten most expensive companies in Japan last month. As for Sony’s admirable moves of cutting...

Intel Joins One Laptop Per Child CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 13, 2007 – Intel and One Laptop per Child (OLPC) today announced they have agreed to work together to bring the benefits of technology to the developing world through synergy of their respective programs....

Video: MSI GeForce 8500 GT & 8600 GT Comparison @ NVNews Intel GMA950 & 2.1.0 Driver @ Phoronix Processors: Intel Core 2 Duo E6320/6420: The Long Awaited Low-End @ Digit-Life...

There are many obstacles to our relationship. You're 75 years old, but age doesn't matter to me. You live in central Sweden, which is kind of a long haul from New England. I'll commute.  Both you and I are already married, which might be an impediment as well. But, Sigbritt, you have the world's fastest broadband connection, 40 Gigabits per...

Pirate sites are here and Microsoft might have a new scheme to make use of them.  The idea is that Zunes transfering pirated files to others will give them only 3 plays before the song has to be purchased: “The technology proposed by Microsoft would essentially allow them to capitalize on this by "encrypting" songs transferred offline (in...

Dell is out with a line of laptops and desktops aimed at the small business market. They've named the line Vostro, which is latin for... Oh, who cares, it's a dumb name. Never mind the name, it's a great idea. Businesses of a dozen or two people (SMEs) can't afford to have in-house tech support, and need inexpensive, powerful machines ready...

It wasn’t that long ago that the loss of a laptop or hard disk containing sensitive information about consumers was big news.  Sadly, it’s becoming much more common these days.  In fact, it’s so common that U.K. Information Commissioner Richard Thomas and his staff have looked into some 6000 complaints. "The roll call of banks, retailers,...

It might seem like a foregone conclusion that using personal electronics during a lightning storm isn’t the brightest of ideas, but apparently nobody told these guys: “Listen to an iPod during a storm and you may get more than electrifying tunes. A Canadian jogger suffered wishbone-shaped chest and neck burns, ruptured eardrums and a broken...

Just in case you missed the fresh link at the top of the page, we wanted to let you all know that we’ve just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features, overclockability, and performance of Gigabyte’s over the top GA-N680SLI-DQ6 motherboard.  Here’s a snip from the piece......

Kingston Technology Unveils First Ultra Low Latency DDR3 Memory Modules Memory Release Drives Performance Benchmarks, Gaming Further, Faster Than Ever Fountain Valley, CA (July 12, 2007) Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today...

Video: MSI NX8600GT-T2D256E-OC GeForce 8600GT @ PCStats Sapphire HD 2900 XT @ Overclock3D HIS Radeon IceQ Turbo X1650XT @ Tweaknews.net Motherboards & Chipsets:...

The third installment in the Bourne Trilogy, "The Bourne Ultimatum," will open in theaters on August 3rd.  Part of the appeal of the character is his casual, savvy use of technology as he breezes through far-flung exotic locations.  He'll reconfigure your phone after he punches you with it, while driving like a madman.  Universal decided to...

You know you need your daily buzz and we're just the folks to give it to you - HH style that is.  This is the first shot of HH Forum HOT Threads goodness that we'll be serving up to you here, sort of like Isaac your bar tender but different. As we noted recently, we've upgraded the HH Forum software and things are looking pretty...

Mobile phone carrier Sprint Nextel has sent out about 1000 "Dear John" letters, terminating service to customers that called Sprint's customer support line between 40 an 50 times a month, often about the same thing over and over. Industry analysts estimate that it costs $10 to $20 per call to handle customer service. So, right, wrong, or indifferent,...

EA is perhaps one of the most influential companies in the modern software entertainment industry.  The company owns some of the most popular gaming franchises on the market today: Sims, Madden,  C & C, and the list just goes on.  When EA speaks, the industry as a whole listens.What is EA talking about these days?  Innovation, or rather...

Albatron’s Blue Ray Decoder Card brings HighDef Video and Windows Vista Performance Exciting low-profile VGA card with PureVideo HD reduces CPU utilization 60% during HD playback Albatron has recently announced the exciting new “Blue Ray Decoder Card” giving mainstream users...

According to this article on DailyTech, AMD is preparing a chipset that will be the basis for future high-end motherboard, the RD790.  The RD790 is supposedly going to support not only dual CPU sockets, but also up to 4 graphics cards.  This could be the very platform for the next generation “Quadfather”, or “Quadfather 2.0” if you will. “The...

Video: AMD Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 GPUs @ TR BFG GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 ThermoIntelligence @ PCPer XFX GeForce 8600 GT Fatal1ty @ HardwareZone Motherboards & Chipsets:...

At the E3 Media and Business Summit today, NCsoft Corp., the leading developer and publisher of online games in the world announced a deal with Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) to develop several games for the Playstation 3 and PSP platforms that will be accessible through the Playstation Network. "Their track record of creating successful...

OCZ Technology Introduces New DDR2 4GB Quad Kits for Memory-Hungry Gaming Systems and Vista Workstations Sunnyvale, CA—OCZ Technology Group, Inc., a worldwide leader in innovative ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the PC2-6400 Platinum and PC2-6400 Gold 4GB “Quad” Kits....

If you were a young lad who was enjoying youth during the 1980s, you may remember your very first computer experience, whether it was with a Commodore 64, Vic-20, or Amiga. Feeling nostalgic? Well Commodore is making a comeback in the U.S. quite soon, this time as a powerful gaming computer. Meet Commodore Gaming, which has already been launched...

Google shelled out $625 million for Postini, the messaging security company. Why would they do that?  According to Google: "Google already has world class spam and virus protection as part of the Gmail service." Well, that's nice. But in the big business world, that won't cut it, and Google knows it.  On the official Google Blog,...

Acting off a hunch, a patent, and some reliable inside information, Kevin Chang of JP Morgan believes that the iPhone Apple plans to release in Q4 of this year could be based on the iPod Nano. The iPhone has done well thus far, but the price tag of $500 to $600 depending on storage size is keeping Apple's first cell phone out of the hands...

TV broadcasts are going digital. That's fine. Their  former broadcast spectrum, at 700 MHz, is going to be available for other things. That's great. That spectrum is very useful, as the signal can penetrate walls. That's terrific.The head of the FCC, Kevin Martin, thinks that the spectrum should be turned over at auction to wireless broadband...

Perhaps some of us remember that at around the same time a year ago, we heard about Google’s scheme to use a computer’s built-in microphone to listen-in on the TV shows that we happen to be watching and to use such information to connect us to websites of interest. Although the details were unclear at the time, a recent patent application...

Aimbot, aimhack, cheats, or what have you is what we’re talking about today. We’ve probably all been victims of cheating at least once during the many hours we have spent playing games in front of the screen. And we all know that cheating usually spoils the fun for everyone. That might be why Intel has embarked on anti-cheat crusade, so to...

It’s not really a big surprise that MS is working on a service pack (SP) for Vista.  The two things that may come as a surprise to many are how soon after launching the SP might be released (November, less than a year after launch) and of course, why: “Windows Vista is not even a year old, but Microsoft is already orchestrating the launch...

Video: A Brief Introduction to GPGPU @ HWUpgrade Processors: Modern CPU Architecture: A Crash Course @ Hardcoreware.net Motherboards & Chipsets:...

AMD Announces the Resignation of Dave Orton, former CEO of ATI SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- July 10, 2007 --AMD (NYSE:AMD) announced today that Dave Orton, former president...

Just in case you like to skip right down to the news, we wanted to let you all know that w e’ve just a posted a new article here at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features, installation, and image quality of AMD’s brand new ATI TV Wonder 600 USB tuner.  Here’s a snip from the piece: "At...

AJAX and streaming media has killed the page view as the metric of choice for people trying to figure out who's looking at what on the internet. Statistics giant Nielsen/NetRatings will announce today that it will immedately use total time spent by users as the benchmark for measuring internet use. "It is not that page views are...

Information Week goes beyond asking who would buy used tech gear, -the answer is pretty much everybody- and examines the real-world factors that drive hardware hungry equipment users to look for goods unauthorized by manufacturers, or the so-called "gray market" of counterfeit hardware, to look for bargains or just plain hard to find stuff....

The price cuts we told you about yesterday are now official.  Sorry, no Barcelona pricing just yet.  We'll keep an eye out though, as we'd expect that information to be released at about the same time the first CPUs from that family get ready to ship.  Here's just a few of prices, representing the fastest CPUs AMD has to offer in some of the...

Project Falcon is the codename for Microsoft’s latest plan to change the architecture of future Xbox 360s such that they are less prone to overheating problems as their contemporary brethren. After a recent investigation by Microsoft, the company has been plagued with a $1 billion check to extend the warranties of red ring sufferers and other...

Google today announced that it has reached a settlement to acquire Postini, a company that provides clients with security services (protecting instant messaging, e-mail, and other modes of communication). The $625 million deal gives Google access to an established clientele of over 35,000 businesses and 10 million international users, and...

VMware And Intel Capital Announce Investment PALO ALTO, Calif. and SANTA CLARA, Calif., July 9, 2007 — VMware, Inc., the global leader in software for virtualization...

Video: Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT CrossFire @ [H] Asus MW201U 20 Inch LCD Display @ XYZ Computing HIS ICEQ3 Radeon X1950 Pro @ Tweaknews.net HP LP3065 30-inch LCD Review @ Digital Trends...

W e’ve just a posted a new article here at HotHardware in which we evaluate the features and image quality of AMD’s brand new ATI TV Wonder 650 Combo PCI Express.  Here’s a snip from the piece: "The most obvious physical change to the ATI TV Wonder 650 PCIe is...

Visa helps a lot of people buy a lot of stuff: $1 trillion dollars annually. They're currently testing a payment system, along with Wells Fargo Bank, that allows its customers to make payments using their mobile phones. Such payment methods are already common in Japan and South Korea.  Using "account-level processing," Visa's payment-processing...

Sony has lowered the price of their Playstation gaming console by $100.  Or they'll sell you  a new model with an improved 80 GB drive at the old $ 599 price point. While Microsoft is busy going through the couch cushions looking for a billion dollars to fix all the Xbox 360s with the "Red Ring Of Death," this move will probably jumpstart...

If you’re looking to build an AMD powered system, you might want to hold out a short while as we are very likely to see revised CPU prices from the Sunnyvale based chip maker. “AMD Monday will slash prices by as much as 30 percent on its Athlon 64 X2 dual-core microprocessor series, according to a system builder with a long-standing business...

If somebody stole your credit card information and intends to use it online, it’s not all bad news.  You could end up with a very small tax-deduction, or at least that’s what Symantec is claiming.The latest trend for people who steal credit card information (carders) is that they test the stolen information by making small donations.  Whether...

MediaDefender, a company that provides anti-piracy solutions, has been accused of setting up a fake pirate site called MiiVi.According to reports from around the web, the site offered unlimited free movie downloads once users downloaded their software package.The software package is said to contain spyware that supposedly reports existing...

It seems that the end of the road is coming up for both Dempsey and Paxville Xeons.  Given the excellent performance and efficiency of the Core based Xeons, it’s not very surprising to see these NetBurst technology put out to pasture. “Intel plans to announce the phase out date for its Xeon 5000 series (Dempsey) 2-way server processors in...

Have you ever dropped off your PC for repairs and wondered if the techs might be looking over your private media collection?  If so, you’ve not alone.  The Consumerist decided to do a little research on the subject, using the Geek Squad techs as their test subjects.  Instead of just using logfiles for evidence, they actually have video of...

A new disc technology has been devised that will allow each upcoming Blu-ray or HD DVD disc to potentially store as much as 500GB.  The secret is in the inside, as in the fact that the data is no longer being stored on the outside of the disc, but rather on internal nanostructures. “A partnership between the University of Berlin, Budapest...

Automobiles are becoming more and more advanced thanks to the development of various sensory and wireless technologies. Indeed, car manufacturers are quite enthusiastic about tomorrow’s car, stating that drivers of the future can enjoy a safer ride as the vehicles they drive will be able to communicate with each other and with the road itself....

AMD has reportedly invested $7.5 million USD into trouble chip design firm Transmeta.  You might recall the name Transmeta from a few years ago, when their Crusoe chip was garnering some media attention.  This doesn’t mark the first time that both companies have worked together, in fact AMD considers Transmeta to be a “key ally” and has even...

It's being reported that anti-piracy watchdog, MediaDefender, may have set up a trap for potential pirates: “Several days ago, anti-piracy watchdog MediaDefender launched MiiVi.com, a decoy piracy site claiming to offer "fast and easy video downloading."  It displayed copyright by "MiiVi, Inc," and mentioned no affiliation with MediaDefender,...

Creative has extended the support for their OpenAL wrapper, dubbed ALchemy, to include functioning with their Audigy series of cards.  ALchemy allows software products that utilize EAX to operate under Vista without compromises in features or quality. “In Windows Vista, Microsoft has decided to remove the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL)...

Compared a year ago, digital music sales are now double what they used to be. However, the research report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) also said that the music industry as a whole continues to slump. Although digital music sales are still growing quickly, the growth has not kept up with shrinking CD...

Most of us probably thought it was in the bag when Sony announced many weeks ago that it was going to lower its PS3 prices in order to stay competitive in the gaming market. However, according to Sony’s president, Ryoji Chubachi, it’s not gonna happen. Currently, the PS3 is still over twice as expensive as its rival, the Nintendo Wii, which...

Engineers Ravi Vaidyanthan and Lalit Gupta of Southern Illinois University have determined a way to measure and utilize the minute changes in inner ear pressure, caused when a person moves their tongue inside their mouth, to operate equipment like a wheelchair.  It's bound to be a boon to the severely disabled, but eventually might find a...

Just about everyone has at least heard some tale of neglect with video games and/or the internet to blame.  It seems that the American Medical Association (AMA), even after declining to call gaming an addiction (at this time), wants to study the subject further: “The call to examine gaming and Internet addiction may spawn from the widely...

The good news is that a new technique involving lasers may speed traditional magnetic hard drives up by as much as 100 times!The bad news is that we might have to wait a decade to even see a prototype.  Hopefully some heavy hitter in the storage arena will see the promise in this technology and put it on the R & D fast track. “This optically...

CNNMoney examined the growing use of worker performance software by large companies to rate their employees' skills, ongoing progress, and value, and how it's transforming the mundane yearly review into a bar chart extravaganza.  Does it work? Since only 39% of employees surveyed by Salary.com think the current employment practice of a yearly...

Scientists at the University of Southampton have developed  a tiny generator that is powered by vibrations. The generator was designed for use in applications where replacing batteries would be very difficult. At the heart of the tiny device, which is less than a cubic centimeter in size, are several magnets on a cantilever. When vibrations...

A Microsoft investigation of the Xbox has turned out to be favorable to existing owners of the system, and to those who wish to grab one in the future. In light of the results of the inquiry, which revealed a number of factors that contribute to the infamous overheating problems of the Xbox, Microsoft today announced that it will extend the...

ASUS Announces World's First Hardware Based Real-time Overclocking Device Unparalleled Overclocking with EN8600GT OC GEAR/HTDP/256M Taipei, Taiwan, July 3, 2007 – ASUS today introduced the new OC gear as the world´s first hardware based real-time overclocking device for graphics cards....

Valve Software just released some cool images of the cover artwork for the 'Orange Box'.  Here's what the packaging is going to look like for the PC, XBox360, and PS3 version of 'Orange Box', which includes Half Life 2: Episode 2, Portal, and the much anticipated (and very cool looking) Team Fortress 2......

Processors: AMD Athlon X2 BE-2350 @ HardwareZone Video: PowerColor HD 2900 XT @ I4U Samsung LN-T4061F 40 Inch 1080p High Definition LCD TV @ Tweaknews XFX 8600GT...

Hello everyone.  We want to direct your attention to a new poll we're conducting, regarding monitor size.  Now that LCD prices have come way down and relatively large, high-resolution screens are within reach for more and more consumers, we wanted to see how many of you have taken the plunge and splurged on a large display - or maybe even...

Just in case you're the type who likes to jump right down to the news, we wanted to let you all know that we’ve just posted a new article in which we evaluate the features and performance of PNY’s XLR8 8800 GTX OC.  Here’s a snip from the piece: “The PNY XLR8 8800 GTX OC has a list price of $579.99 and...

The least Hot Hardware in the world might be your set-top cable box. It unscrambles your signal and changes the channel. The FCC thought it would sex up the lowly technology and spur competition by requiring set-top boxes be configured to allow the end user to purchase the box, with an installable card supplied by the cable provider to make...

When you get right down to it, there's really only one thing that matters about a cellphone. Can I call someone on it? No matter what? Because most cellphones are fairly delicate, the answer too often is: No. Casio's "ruggedized" G'zOne phone might be the solution to the abuse the real world dishes out to your cell phone. Inspired...

As a result of the speculated rise in price of computer memory chips, shares of Samsung, Hynix, and other major producers rose today. Shares of South Korean company Samsung, the largest producer of DRAM in the world, rose 1.2% today, whereas the runner-up, Hynix, also based in Korea, climbed 4.3%. Other companies including Powerchip, Nanya,...

Waterloo-based Research In Motion Ltd. has recently penetrated the Chinese market after a grueling eight-year effort. Last month, the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry gave RIM a pass to sell its handsets in China. According to a manager at RIM’s Beijing office, the company plans to launch the 8700g in Chinese shops at the end of August....

Happy 4th of July!  It's Independence Day here in the states, and that usually means a day filled with family, food, and fun.  Be safe today, especially if you plan to mess with any fireworks, and enjoy the holiday.  And from all of us here on HH, Happy 4th!...

We’re not necessarily talking about gamers who need to eat more Subway sandwiches here, but rather people who are gaming fanatics.  Enough to dedicate large blocks of time and money to thier hobby.  So who are they and what are their defining characteristics?  A recent survey says that the so-called “Heavy Gamers” make up about 2% of all gamers:...

Google has been purchasing unused fiber-optic capacity from cable and telephone companies for several years.  How much is unknown, but it appears to experts that they have much, much,  more than they could ever use to simply connect all their data centers together.  What's it all for? Canada's Financial Post thinks they may be preparing to...

A new study shows the effects of gaming on reading and study time amongst students 10-19 years old.  Not surprisingly these students shaved a little time off their studying and reading time to get in a few extra minutes with their favorite games.  Surprisingly they didn't often sacrifice much time with their families. for gamesHow much time...

In a report charmingly called "The Ampere Strikes Back," Britain's Energy Saving Trust has predicted that electronic gear will consume  nearly half of the total electricity used by the typical household by the year 2020, surpassing the traditionally big electricity eaters in the home: kitchen appliances and lighting. The most striking number...

Bonnie Australian lass, Tamara Broome, met an American lad on World Of Warcraft, the current king of MMOs.  So what’s the big problem?  One of them is a minor!  No, I don’t mean their primary or secondary tradeskills in WoW!!  Minor with an “o” not the kind who complains about the lack of gold veins near Goldshire.  In a strange twist, it’s...

Super Talent Ups the Ante with DDR3-1600 CL7 And Ships World's First 2GB 1333MHz DDR3 Module San Jose, California - July 3, 2007 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of DRAM memory modules and flash storage solutions, today launched three significant new DDR3 kits....

According to a new report compiled by Informa Telecons and Media, a leading provider of business intelligence in the telecommunications realm, global cell phone subscriptions have reached an unprecedented 3 billion. The report declares that the actual number of users is far less than the number of subscriptions, which suggests that many people...

Just today, AsusTek Computer Inc. announced plans to divide the company into three different corporate entities. The reason given for the move is so that they may maximize performance and minimize disagreements of interest. Unihan Technology Corp. will be the PC-related manufacturing division, whereas the module, casing, and non-PC manufacturing...

The gang at The Inquirer has aquired some new information regarding AMD's upcoming native, Quad-Core processor, dubbed Barcelona.  They've got a number of synthetic benchmark results that paint a very good picture of Barcelona's performance, should they turn out to be correct... "These performance numbers were based on systems using...

Processors: Intel Desktop Processor Series Performance @ Legion Hardware Motherboards & Chipsets: Gigabyte GA-P35C-DS3R @ TechGage Memory & Storage:...

Despite competitors having talking points about how the iPhone battery isn't replaceable, that's not entirely the case.  It's true that the user isn't able to buy a battery and  swap it out on the road as they can with many existing phones, but Apple can do it for you, for a fee of $85.95 plus applicable taxes: "If your iPhone requires...

A study conducted by Hope Cummings of the University of Michigan and Elizabeth Vandewater of the University of Texas at Austin sampled a group of adolescents, both gamers and non-gamers, from around the U.S. to find out where they find the time to play games and what parts of their lives suffer as a result. They found that boys spent an average...

If you own a tinfoil hat, now might be a good time to go grab it.  Apparently Windows Vista has no less than 20 features/services that harvest information: "Are you using Windows Vista? Then you might as well know that the licensed operating system installed on your machine is harvesting a healthy volume of information for Microsoft. In...

HotHardware told you earlier about the nifty web-based phone service GrandCentral. It allows you to ring every number you have on any phone of your choosing, along with a powerful caller ID and a host of other features. Well, Google was interested in the service, too, and thought GrandCentral would make a grand addition to their stable of...

It seems that AMD has cancelled their upcoming Lima CPU, which was slated to be a relatively low-end single core offering: “AMD will continue to ship single-core processors. However, all single-core processors will carry the Sempron brand. With Lima out of the picture, Sparta will be the next new single-core AMD processor. AMD expects...

If you’re an avid YouTuber, then you might want to pay close attention to this new way to spread viruses.  New methods of virus distribution tend start with just one or two people doing it, but copycats come out of the woodwork at a stunning rate. The new method shows viewers a web site URL during...

I like clever people. Not smart people, exactly. Smart people do dumb things all the time. I'm talking about people who look at a situation a little differently than the rest of the crowd, and profit from it. Not cheaters. Inspired.So while everyone was lining up to pay an outrageous amount for an iPhone, because the item seemed nifty or cool,...

Almost any time that a new product is released with enough hype to virtually guarantee a first-day sellout, there will almost always be someone there who plans on putting the item(s) on auction.  They might not be too vocal about who they are since they don’t want any competition, but there’s a fair chance that they’re there. So...

It seems that Apple Inc.’s CEO Steve Jobs just might realize his dreams of making the iPhone as popular as the company’s computers and the iPod. Analyst David Bailey of Goldman Sachs Inc. says that sales figures over the weekend may have been as high as 700,000 units, whereas Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster gauged the trading at around 500,000....

Hello everyone.  We're writing to let you all know that we’ve just posted a new article at in which we evaluate the features and performance of Shuttle’s flagship SDXi barebones small form factor XPC.  The SDXi features a number of unique features like dual PEG slots, a built-in water-cooler for Radeon GPU-based graphics cards, and a slick,...

Although AMD sent out a press release last week stating that native quad-core chips based on their 'Barcelona' core would ship in August, some rumors are spreading today that claim AMD's Phenom processors for desktop machines won't ship until early 2008... "AMD intends to modify its process technology to increase the yield rate and...

Video: Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 PRO AGP @ Tweaknews XFX Fatal1ty 8600 GT Professional Series @ Overclock3D Motherboards & Chipsets: Sapphire Pure 690G @ ChileHardware...

Universal Music Group has notified Apple that it's not renewing its annual contract that allows Apple to offer Universal's  music through Apple's iTunes service. They haven't ended the relationship entirely, as Universal continues to market through iTunes as a sort of tenant at will. It's all about leverage when the pennies get counted....

The Harry Potter series of novels is popular, to say the least. It's popular enough to spawn a malware e-mail scheme. An e-mail promising an attachment that contains a copy of the latest wildly anticipated novel "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" contains a virus instead. But at least it's an amusing virus.  It attacks USB memory drives...

Don't just see your virtual world, but feel it?  As the saying goes truth is sometimes stranger than fiction, or science-fiction as the case may be.  However, just as Buck Rogers debuted the laser gun in silver screen days of old and the Jetsons gave us the picture phone, scientists are turning yet another far-fetched idea seemingly into reality....

It seems that we are starting to see something new brewing in Yahoo’s cauldron after Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo, replaced Terry Semel as the new CEO. Yahoo has just launched a new display advertising tool known as SmartAds today. The new platform allows marketers to modify ads according to the Internet surfer’s characteristics, such as...

It seems that Samsung may be in the process of revising the specs and prices for their upcoming UMPC, the Q1 Ultra.  Sadly, it might be that the specs are going down and the price is going up.  If you've already pre-ordered one of these, you may want to re-evaluate your purchase. "The first signs of worry for the Q1U-EL came in early June....

An interesting twist to the Benoit family tragedy has surfaced: apparently the Wikipedia entry for Chris Benoit was changed, noting the death of his wife for his failure to appear at an event, 13-14 hours before the bodies of the family were discovered in their home in Georgia by local authorities.  Police claim to have the individual allegedly...