Toshiba is offering what they tout as the world's first slim form factor HD DVD-RW ( rewriteable) drive suitable for laptop PCs. It will read and write both single and dual layer HD DVD disks, as well as DVDs and CDs. It might help the HD DVD format a little in its battle with Blu-Ray to become the standard format for large media files....Read more...
Microsoft has teams of engineers working on all kinds of interesting projects. Some are never meant see the light of day; others have to be seen to be believed, like Photosynth. Photosynth is a technology that takes multiple pictures and not only stiches them together (with angle correction) but also allows the construction of 3D environments...Read more...
Researchers led by the University of Tokyo have broken the speed record for data transmission using standard communication protocols.The new record, 9.08 gigabits per second, will probably stand until someone comes up with a new protocol for data transmission. Don't worry, they're working on it. That likely represents...Read more...
Just about everyone in the world knows about the iPhone by now, but why do consumers seem so interested? Does it go well with their iRack or is it the 8GB of storage? InformationWeek has some thoughts: "The iPhone isn't available yet, and it's certain to have its limitations, yet Apple has managed to create a pretty loud buzz among consumers. A...Read more...
VIA Defines Pico-ITX Form Factor, the World's Smallest x86 Mainboard Tiny 10cm x 7.2cm complete PC platform fits into palm of hand, more than 75% smaller than the Mini-ITX, embodies VIA's "Small is Beautiful" strategy to inspire x86 system innovation Taipei, Taiwan, 19 April 2007 - VIA Technologies,...Read more...
Intel releasing a chip ahead of time is usually a sign of stiff competition, something that they haven't had a lot of for several months now at the high-end. What's known to be coming down the pipe from AMD is their quad-core Barcelona, which may or may not give Intel's finest some competition. Being that Intel and AMD both have...Read more...
The Inquirer is reporting that the refresh to NVIDIA's G80 GPU (GeForce 8 Series), which is probably code-named G81 if history is an indicator, will be manufactured on TSMC's 65nm process node. "THE G80 replacement looks like it might be known as G81, and it appears that Nvidia...Read more...
Seagate Technology today introduced the world's fastest hard drive -- the Savvio 15K drive, the new 15K-rpm addition to the Savvio family of 2.5-inch Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) enterprise drive solutions. The Savvio 15K drive provides the highest hard drive performance density and reliability while ensuring...Read more...
Now this is interesting. We've seen this coming for a long while here in the US, at least those of us that pay attention to such things relative to the world economy. It seems as though, after years and years of prosperity as the worlds foremost manufacturing super-power, China or more specifically Chinese workers are no longer...Read more...
Apple and HP appear to be ready to offer notebooks with LCD screens backlit with LEDs by the latter half of 2007. Neat. LED-backlit displays have slowly been making their way into consumer electronics lately, with Samsung leading the way with some of their LED HDTVs - the company has also...Read more...
Fudo over at The Inquirer reports that XFX will be the first graphics card vendor which has NVIDIA's blessings to offer a factory-overclocked GeForce 8800 series graphics card. The flagship GeForce 8800 GTX XXX Edition will ship with a core frequency of 630MHz and memory running at 2GHz. In contrast, stock GeForce 8800 GTX cards operate...Read more...
DigiTimes is reporting that the impending release of Windows Vista has some motherboard and video card manufacturers worried that their excess inventory of low-end products that don't support Vista will be completely devalued. "With Windows Vista up and coming, makers of motherboards and VGA cards are now worried they will incur losses...Read more...
Fudo over at The Inquirer reports that their sources have learned NVIDIA will not allow any board vendors to offer a factory overclocked version of the new GeForce 8800 series GPU's. For vendors such as BFG, XFX, and Gainward which have used factory overclocking to help differentiate them from other card vendors this is certainly less...Read more...
When Shuttle first thrust small form factor systems upon the Do-It-Yourself crowd in 2001, they were deemed niche products that wouldn't likely appeal to the masses, due to inherent expandability deficiencies and limited feature-sets relative to full-sized desktop systems. Over the last half decade though, interest in small form...Read more...
X-Bit Labs have managed to get their hands on the demo for the add-on for the popular game F.E.A.R and run it using the latest crop of hardware to illustrate what hardware will provide the best possible performance for this title. Using the Jupiter EX graphics engine and Havok physics engine, the title demands some significant resources...Read more...
While we've posted links to various factory tours in the past, Firingsquad has a unique video tour of the insides of one of Gigabyte's factories. Click here to see the 2:11 minute video of Gigabyte, Taiwan. "Back in June we were invited to tour one of Gigabytes top factories. If you've...Read more...
ZDNet is reporting that start-up, Torpark, has just released a "stealth" browser which enables users the ability to surf the web under hidden identity. Unlike fee software such as Anonymizer, SafeSharing, SecretSurfer, etc, this browser is free. Based off of portable Firefox, Torpark can work freely off of USB keys...Read more...
Gamers can get their first taste of the upcoming expansion pack for F.E.A.R. with the single player demo that was released today. Head on over to whatisfear.com to get yourself started....Read more...
AMD PIONEERS INTERACTIVE ONLINE RESOURCE, REDEFINING TRADITIONAL WAYS IT INDUSTRY ACCESSES INFORMATION - AMD Virtual IT Experience Brings Industry Together, Using Cutting Edge Gaming Technology to Create an "Always On" Resource - Sunnyvale, Calif. - Sept. 12, 2006 - AMD (NYSE: AMD) today unveiled the AMD Virtual IT Experience, a...Read more...
Some look at plumbing and ask why? Some look at plumbing and ask why the hell not? Well, the folks at Think Geek have a cool plumbing add on to illuminate your faucet water into a luminous blue color. And the installation sounds easy; any case modder should be able to install it. Plumber's crack optional. Tired of that same old monotonous...Read more...
There is a great article on-line at acmqueue.com detailing the past, present, and potential future methods by which humans interact with computers. They cover advances made at Xerox's PARC and speculate about future technologies like perceptual interfaces. I don't know about all of you, but give me a good wireless laser-mouse...Read more...
Digitimes reports that Asustek will soon introduce a new brand, ASmobile, to be used by their whitebook products. The first notebook bearing the ASmobile brand will appear during the fourth quarter of 2006. Asustek is trying to repeat the success they enjoyed when they re-branded their low-price motherboards to ASRock. However, the...Read more...