Shawn Oliver
Opinions and content posted by HotHardware contributors are their own.
Recent posts
Make no mistake about it -- Acer came out swinging this week. Between the AspireRevo, its new Timeline series of notebooks and these two all-in-ones, we're wondering what the company has left in store for the rest of 2009. The latest newcomers to emerge from Acer are the Aspire Z5600 all-in-one PC and the all-white eMachines EZ1600, both of...
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While not quite out in time for our GTX 285 round-up, Sparkle's making sure you have just one more option when it comes time to lay out for a new NVIDIA GPU. The company's non-extravagant GeForce GTX 285 arrives in just two forms: a 1GB version and a 2GB version. According to the company, this card provides up to 30% faster performance than...
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Not content with jointly announcing the world's first commercial Ion-based nettop, Acer also delivered an all new line of notebooks this week. The suitably named Timeline series aims to take on the likes of Adamo (from Dell) and the X-Slim family (from MSI). The standout features on the Timeline rigs are excellent battery life, stellar design...
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While many in the chip making and consumer electronics business are contracting, VIA's expanding. Today, the company has just announced its entry into the design manufacturing service business, which will enable it to provide flexible system hardware solutions, starting with the NSD7200 home storage and media server pictured below.Now, VIA's...
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200 million. Just let that sink in. That huge, immense number is how many Facebook members the social networking site has, and it took less than half a decade to make it happen. CEO Mark Zuckerberg proudly proclaimed that his site would meet and exceed the 200 million member mark today, and if you just so happened to finally jump in after...
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Here lately, Asus has spent the bulk of its time pumping out all sorts of new GPUs. Today, however, it's going back to its roots -- and by that, we mean, back to the notebook arena. The outfit's P Series, which was just showcased at CeBIT in Germany last month, will soon be equipped with Intel's own Anti-Theft Technology in an effort to curb...
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Man, we like how Intel parties. Rather than standing around in front of all manners of junk food just waiting for presents, the aforementioned chip maker has decided it best to give us -- the loyal consumers of the world -- a gift on Atom's 1 year birthday. Over at the Intel Developer Forum in Beijing, the company is joyously celebrating the...
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It was bound to happen, was it not? With Netflix flying onto all sorts of unorthodox devices and Internet TV emerging as a legitimate source of entertainment, we just had to see a report like this. Recent statistics from research firm Nielsen have shown that video games (and consoles, naturally) are luring more and more individuals than ever...
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Britain wants Internet for all, South Korea wants 1Gbps Internet by 2012, and Australia wants to make both of those initiatives look like child's play. According to a new report from Down Under, the Australian government is planning to create a "publicly owned company to build a national high-speed broadband network worth 43 billion Australian...
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Here's a tactic you don't see used everyday. Rather than just slashing prices across the board, AMD's taking a different approach in an attempt to sell chips despite a worldwide recessions. The newly announced AMD Opteron Upgrade Program includes 2000 series and 8000 series dual- and Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors along with the upcoming...
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Fusion-io, the company responsible for bringing some of the fastest SSD solutions on the planet to mission-critical applications and affluent consumers, has just landed a new round of funding in order to further dominate the market. Just after launching its ioDrive Duo and naming Steve Wozniak as the firm's Chief Scientist, it has just...
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Apple's newest Mac Pro was the first machine on the planet to ship with Intel's Nehalem-based Xeon 5500 and 3500 Series processors, and now those very chips have made their way over to the company's line of rack-mount servers. The long standing Xserve line has been updated today with "twice the performance" of prior models, bringing with them...
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As the competition heats up in the online video watching realm, Netflix is making sure it stays one step ahead (or in lockstep, worse case scenario) with all those rivals. Starting today, those with Netflix subscriptions can instantly watch popular Comedy Central and Nickelodeon programming on computers (via Netflix.com) and on TVs via the...
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In an effort to get its ATI FirePro 3D cards into the hands of more and more prosumers and creative professionals, AMD has today announced that said graphics accelerators will be offered up on a wide range of HP workstations. Specifically, the entire "top-to-bottom" line of FirePro GPUs can now be ordered within HP's new Z Workstations, and...
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If you thought the iPhone rumors would die down awhile after hearing that the next version may wind up with 802.11n support, you thought wrong. A new report from Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes has fueled the raging fire further, asserting that Apple looks to be shoring up iPhone 3Gs to sell off before the introducing of something new...
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Gamers across the pond (meaning Europe and Japan, specifically) have been able to handle Nintendo's smallest and most powerful DS system yet for some time now, but at long last the pleasure is finally coming to those who call North America home. Starting this week, gamers with a thirst for more on-the-go fun can part with $170 in order to...
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We're not able to speak for everyone, obviously, but we certainly don't go out of our way to make sure our HDMI cables are visible to house guests. In fact, we go to rather extreme lengths to make sure the cabling in our home theater systems is concealed. Rather than trying to hide something as natural as an HDMI cable in a high definition...
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Um, what? Frankly, that's the reaction we have after digesting an absolutely absurd -- and borderline comical -- new PR snippet from Sony. Given that April 1st is well behind us, we're left to believe that John Koller's statement regarding Nintendo's DSi launch is completely legitimate. For those unaware, the smallest and most powerful DS...
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Well, what have we here? Just days after officials in Sweden passed a new law that sought to crack down on online piracy and copyright infringement, Internet traffic in the nation has suddenly fallen off a cliff. Now, some may argue that Torrent hosting site The Pirate Bay is actually located in Sweden, though purists will undoubtedly argue...
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To say it has been awhile since we've seen a compelling new system from Puget Systems would be an understatement, but maybe we just haven't been looking hard enough. Either way, it's hard to ignore the company's latest: a pair of Core i7-based rigs that don't come cheap but promise top-notch performance from top to bottom.The firm's popular...
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Remember that 50 nanometer DDR3 SDRAM that Elpida developed late last year? Good news -- production is underway on it. For those of you just dying to get more memory into the netbooks, notebooks and UMPCs of today, Elpida Memory has begun mass producing what it's calling the industry's highest density 2Gb Mobile RAM using 50nm process technology.The...
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With all the hubbub surrounding Dell's growing Inspiron Mini family and the flashy new Adamo, we had practically forgotten about the all-business Vostro line. Dell has just jarred our memories by giving the 13", 15" and 17" versions a slight makeover and throwing in a few upgrades that definitely make our mouths water. 1720 all come bundled...
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