Shawn Oliver
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
Good news for Intel, chip makers, PC manufacturers and the economy at large: Intel's CEO is seemingly upbeat about the industry, and recently stated that things were "so far, so good" in Q2. The comment came from the top man Paul Otellini, where we was addressing analysts during a conference call this week. Specifically, he noted that chip...
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Well, well -- we suppose it was only a matter of time. Just about anyone who is anyone is diving head first into the cloud phenomenon (that includes Google, Panda, AMD and CherryPal to name a few), and thus, so will Ubuntu. What's likely the world's most well known flavor of Linux has decided to debut another varient: Ubuntu One. Canonical...
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We're not quite sure what to read into this, but Super Talent has quietly issued a firmware update that sounds an awful lot like the update Intel issued around this time last month. Surely you remember that, right? Essentially, Intel's otherwise fantastic X-25M and X-18M solid state drives were shown to degrade with time under very specific...
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Logitech has certainly dabbled in the gaming realm before, but this is arguably its most impressive venture yet. For years now, home cinema enthusiasts have wondered why Sony added in Bluetooth remote control capabilities over the far more widely accepted RF radio. At long last, a company with a trusted record in the remote industry is stepping...
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Computex 2009 is just around the corner, which means lots of new notebooks and obviously, lots of new storage options. A-DATA is getting a leg-up on everyone else by announcing that it will be on hand in Taiwan to introduce its high-performance memory modules, the highest speed CompactFlash (CF) cards in the industry, new SSD products, trendy...
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Dell has pushed out quite a few new machines of late, and it's not showing any signs whatsoever of slowing down. This week, the company has expanded its iconic Inspiron line by adding in a new netbook, a few new slim and mini-tower desktops and six new colors for the Inspiron 15 lineup.Starting with the smallest of the bunch, we've got the...
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While not quite as exciting as Asus' bevy of new notebooks this morning, the newest card in the growing Xonar line will certainly tantalize those scouting an audiophile-level sound device. The Xonar DS 7.1 Channel Audio Card gets back to the basics by ditching the HDMI output on the Xonar HDAV1.3 and offering up the more traditional 3.5mm...
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Verizon Wireless already announced that Novatel Wireless' MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot would soon be sold and operable on its network, and now that company's main US competitor is doing the same. Today, Sprint came forward to announce that the very same device -- albeit with a new, shiny aluminum shell and a Sprint logo -- is coming...
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Calling this motherboard one fit for a "supercomputer" is probably stretching things, but we've no doubt that Asus' latest mainboard is built for serious abuse. The P6T7 WS SuperComputer Workstation Motherboard (catch all that?) is billed as the "most revolutionary and powerful Parallel Computing solution available to date." The board is equipped...
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We always knew this day would come, but we certainly wouldn't have guessed May 13th, 2009. At any rate, AMD has today proudly announced the planet's first 1GHz graphics processor (without third-party / user overclocking, of course) with the ATI Radeon HD 4890 GPU. If you'll recall, we actually benchmarked the standard 850MHz version early...
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Boy, those suits in the European Union sure know how to dish out the fines. Just over a year after the EU ordered Microsoft to pay fines totaling $1.3 billion for withholding critical information from developers, the same entity has come forward and slapped Intel with a record-setting fine of $1.45 billion. Talk about unceremonious record...
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It's pretty obvious that NVIDIA understands the opportunity that's in front of them, but just in case anyone is oblivious, Research and Markets is making sure the point is clear. With the CPU becoming less and less important (and the GPU, hardware encoders and broadband speeds gaining in importance), there's a huge opening for fringe processing...
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Thought this whole "green" thing was just a fad? Think again. Rentech, Inc. announced today a plan to construct a plan to build a plant in Rialto, California for the production of ultra-clean synthetic fuels and electric power from renewable waste biomass feedstocks. Pretty sophisticated, no? The Rialto Renewable Energy Center (Rialto Project)...
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Taking a break for dishing out new notebooks and netbooks, Asus is today unveiling its newest device for tuning into OTA broadcasts via an HTPC. The newest product in the My Cinema line packs an absurdly long name: My Cinema-EHD3-100/NQA/FM/AV/MCE RC Dual Hybrid TV Card. What that tries to explain in so many words is that it can record and...
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Man, Intel sure hasn't been shy about breaking out the checkbook of late. Just a few months after it allocated $7 billion for investments in chip plants, the company has decided to set aside another $12 million in order to create a Visual Computing Research Center in Europe. What for, you ask? To "explore advanced graphics and visual computing...
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Here's a way to get attention to your product: suggest that it can prevent consumers' PCs from becoming a "zombie." Believe it or not, a new report from McAfee suggests there has been a 50% increase in the number of detected "zombie computers" since 2008. You're terrified already, aren't you?According to a BBC report, a zombie PC is simply...
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It's not often that you see a manufacturer release a self-proclaimed "incremental update" to an existing product (firmware refreshes notwithstanding), so Lenovo's new IdeaPad S10-2 is certainly noteworthy. The original IdeaPad S10 first surfaced last autumn, and rather than delivering a true successor, Lenovo has opted to dole out a Revision...
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We've seen Acer demonstrate a few of its notebooks with WiMAX modules built in, so it's no real surprise to hear that this very company has decided to join the Open Patent Alliance (OPA), a group dedicated to offering intellectual property rights (IPR) solutions that support the development and widespread adoption of WiMAX. In fact, Acer has...
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Netgear's ReadyNAS line has been steadily growing, expanding and adapting over the years, and that's definitely evident with the newest family member. The ReadyNAS 2100 is a rack-mount system rather than a standard rectangular box that attaches to one's desktop, and it's obviously aimed at prosumers and small businesses in dire need of serious...
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This, friends, is the definition of "caught between a rock and a hard place." You see, AT&T is desperate to hang on to its iPhone exclusivity, particularly now that Verizon Wireless is reportedly looking to coerce Apple into producing a version for its CDMA network. On one hand, keeping the iPhone close to the chest enables AT&T to...
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As it turns out, Swine Flu just might be the least of our worries on a national scale; according to a top official within the US government, cyber espionage and attacks from terror groups are the biggest threats to the country's military computer networks. We've seen time and time again that attacks on our network infrastructure can bring...
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MSI is busting out another bag of tricks today, deviating from its usual onslaught of notebooks and graphics cards to offer up a number of audio products. The appropriately named Syren series aims to deliver dream-worthy sound, and at least initially, the family will consist of the SyrenSound X-Fi high-end sound card, the SyrenPhone Gaming...
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