Broadband Internet. It's a luxury that many of us take for granted, and if it goes out even for a few minutes, we get up in arms about the outage. We expect it to always be there, and we expect it to always work perfectly. Frankly, we don't give a single thought as to how life was pre-broadband. In fact, we probably complain more often than...Read more...
Intel says will defend patent rights against AMD SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 7 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Tuesday it has "serious questions" about a deal announced by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to spin off its manufacturing business and focus on chip design,...Read more...
Security researchers presenting information at next week's Black Hat convention are expected to demonstrate a particularly nasty method for stealing online credentials from users on any number of websites that allow users to upload their own pictures. The exploit will work by displaying what looks like a .gif picture, but contains a Java applet...Read more...
A story in the New York Times had the blogosphere up in arms, but Microsoft indicates we shouldn't believe it. The Times said that Microsoft is working to implement an anti-piracy filter into its Zune media players, which would prevent playback of unauthorized videos.In fact, J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal,...Read more...
Heck, if you're going to write malware, you might as well protect yourself against piracy, and copyright it, right?Professional virus writers are now selling a suite of software on the Internet with an unusual attachment: a detailed licensing agreement that promises penalties for redistributing the malicious code without permission."I just...Read more...
Everyone keeps telling me how smart Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook is, but I'm beginning to have my doubts. Fresh on the heels of his disastrous foray into datamining with Facebook's Beacon service, he seems to be unclear on the concept of copyright infringement. Hasbro and Mattel, owners of the copyright for the Scrabble word game,...Read more...
The slim form factor of your average flatscreen, plus its widescreen dimensions, coupled with the rat's nest of wires and other components that you generally need to watch what you want to watch has yet to be elegantly integrated into the living room. The TV armoire is dead, and we're left to display components out in the open, generally....Read more...
Federal financial aid is always an arm-twisting manuever used against colleges, and this is no different. Colleges must, according to Congress, make more of an effort to police their students, or face the "music" (pun intended).New federal legislation says universities must agree to provide not just deterrents but also "alternatives"...Read more...
Microsoft and Google have been locked together in a corporate struggle of titanic proportions for the past few years, one from which a clear victor has yet to emerge. The battle sprawls from search engines, to office suites, and now the video services are becoming the new focal point of the conflict.On the Google side of the line is the reigning...Read more...
Google has recently announced plans to employ advanced copyright protection technology to thwart unauthorized video posts on YouTube. The company expects to have the filtering software up and running by September. Beck assures us that Google’s new defensive software is as advanced as FBI fingerprinting technology. “The software will enable...Read more...
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....Read more...
John Carmack, owner of id Software, appeared at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and delivered the first public demonstration of id's next generation game engine. It allows almost unlimited visual tinkering separate from the mechanics of the game. Tools to be provided by Id mean "They have unlimited flexibility to change as much...Read more...
If you don't have hundreds or thousands of dollars to spend updating your new rig with one of AMD's socket AM2 CPUs, Thermalright is doing its best to keep your old AMD K8 CPUs running cool with their Thermalright SLK-948U until upgrading your processor isn't life threatening to you're...Read more...
Much of the professional sports world has some kind of drug testing system in place, but there hasn't really ever been talk about drug use in the Cyberathlete Professional League. While drugs and alcohol have always been banned from the league, there wasn't much in the way of what to do with suspected abusers. The new 2007 terms have...Read more...
Sony Computer Entertainment wanted to make sure you could play your PS2 games on a PS3. So they put PS2 hardware right in it. That won't last, and an emulator will eventually replace it. So will all your PS2 games work on the PS3 emulator? Beats me. Beats them too: ...Read more...
Laser TVs are the latest "Hot Hardware" you can't buy yet. Estimates range from one or two years out to vaporware. But if you want a big -- make that huge-- screen, much brighter than any plasma, with more colors and higher contrast than anything currently on the market--DLP, LCD, Plasma, SEP, Cathode Ray Tube, Etch-A-Sketch--this...Read more...
Well, they had the 39th annual Tokyo Auto Show the other day, and Toyota set hearts aflutter with their "i-swing" personal mobility concept car. Now, the skeptical among you might notice that the squarest of squares seem to think they can place a lower case " i " in front of anything and sell it to the skinny eyeglass...Read more...
THERMALRIGHT RELEASES HR-05 NORTH BRIDGE COOLER As technologies get more advanced each day we see faster CPUs, motherboards, VGA cards, and etc. Unfortunately all of that translates into generating more heat inside our computers. Many of us forget that one of those heat sources also comes from the North Bridge chipset. Like the CPU coolers,...Read more...
The noise over what to do about Digital Rights Management and how the idea should be approached is a battle that's been raging on for a while now. Public outcry was sparked last year when rootkit software was discovered on CDs produced by Sony, and really hasn't died down since. In their latest article, eCoustics...Read more...
Our latest off-color HotHardware release is up for grabs again this evening – Old School. The holidays are now officially over, and Sully rings in with some cheerful ramblings, as always... The Future Looks Bright! It's not our typical hardware-centric content by any means, but we urge you all to come by and check it out. ...Read more...
Those of you looking for a beefy GPU cooler, without sacrificing PCI slots, will want to check out the Thermalright V-1 Ultra reviewed at OCIA. It's got a unique "wrap-around" design, with heat-pipes and an oversided fan. The guys at OCIA seemed to like it too; so much so that they granted it their "Seal of Approval".The...Read more...
This article was published last week, but with more XBox 360's shipping soon(hopefully), you might want to weigh the pros against the cons on buying the $400 bundle, rather than the $300 core package. "You'll be surprised about the differences between the two bundled systems so consider these...Read more...