3DCOOL BLOGS

2007-10-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

Samsung's big advances in tiny chips.
That 128 gb iPod isn't all that far off, neither is SSDs (solid state drives) with more that 32 gb of storage that won't cost you an arm and a leg.

Electronics giant Samsung has shown off what it claims is the world's most powerful chip for use in memory cards.

The 64 gigabit (Gb) chips could be used to make 128 gigabyte memory cards, commonly used in MP3 players, capable of holding the equivalent of 80 DVDs.

The chips are built using circuits with a minimum feature size of just 30 billionths of a metre (nanometre).

Rival firm Toshiba has said it is also working with similar technology. Both firms will release products in 2009.

Flash advance

Flash memory is a so-called non-volatile computer memory, primarily used in memory cards, USB drives and MP3 players.

Non-volatile memory retains information even when there is no power to the device.

Samsung said there was currently "exploding demand" for flash memory as a storage medium in a range of applications.

The new chips are designed to be used in a specific type of memory known as NAND flash.

NAND is one of two types of flash memory and offers higher storage and faster speeds than the cheaper NOR flash.

NOR is commonly used in low-end applications where smaller memory capacity and slower speeds are acceptable, such as in cheaper mobile phone handsets.

Samsung has said that a single chip could be used in an MP3 player capable of holding 18,000 songs.

Combining 16 chips would allow 128GB devices, the company said, making Flash a rival to hard drives.

"This has the biggest storage capacity of a single memory chip ever developed in the world," Kwon Hyosun of the firm told AFP.

Toshiba announced its plans to use 30nm technology earlier this month.

"Our goal is to gain an edge over rivals by supplying the most advanced chips before anyone else," a spokeswoman for Toshiba said at the time.

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.bbc.co.uk

Eric

2007-10-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

Video Guided tour of Mac OS X Leopard
There is some slick stuff in that new OS from Mac. It promises to be the most important release to date for Apple.

With just one week left before Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard becomes available, Apple has posted a guide tour to show users some of the newest features of the operating system.

The video shows Stacks, Coverflow, Quick Look, Time Machine, Spaces, Mail and several other features.

Apple officially announced the release date for Leopard earlier this week. Calling Leopard “the richest OS X release yet,” Apple will begin selling the operating system on October 26.

Leopard will cost $129 is available for pre-order from the company’s Web site.

Read and see all about it here, courtesy of apple.com. Blog intro courtesy of macworld.com.

Eric

2007-10-22T03:21:00.000-07:00

"Orange Box" emerges as video game sleeper hit.
Seriously now, how many different ways can you re-package Half-Life 2?

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters Life!) - What do you get when you throw together a 3-year-old video game, two sequels, a multiplayer variant a decade in the making and a quirky concept game involving a gun that shoots teleportation holes?

If you're Valve Corp, one of the best-regarded independent video game studios, you get "The Orange Box", which is winning rave reviews and emerging as a sleeper hit.

The main game is "Half-Life 2", a shooter set in an Orwellian future where aliens walk freely among us. The game came out in 2004 but is going strong thanks to two expansion packs, 2006's "Episode One" and now "Episode Two".

"We wanted to provide a mix of gameplay mechanics and environments," Valve marketing director Doug Lombardi said of the latest installment.

"We try to give you more of an epic scale than we've done before."

As Valve was putting the finishing touches on "Episode Two", it was also wrapping up "Team Fortress 2", an online multiplayer combat game. The original "Team Fortress" came out in 1996 as a popular free modification for the game "Quake".

"'Team Fortress 2' and 'Episode Two' were kind of on a collision course release-wise," Lombardi said of the decision to sell the games together.

"We said do we want them competing or complementing each other?"

Read all about it here, courtesy of in.reuters.com

Eric

2007-10-19T03:29:00.000-07:00

It's official - Mac OS X Leopard lands October 26th
With over 300 new improvement, it's Apples most robust and feature paced OS ever.

A Leopard is set to join the Apple family, the latest in a string of animal-named products aimed at taking a bite out of the competition.

Apple calls Mac OS X Leopard its biggest operating system upgrade ever. At $129, it's due in stores Oct. 26 and promises 300 new features.

Leopard, which replaces OS X Tiger, arrives as Apple is having a record year. Its stock has doubled in 2007, from about $85 a share in early January to nearly $170 now. It has sold more than 1 million iPhones, the year's most hyped and discussed tech product. And Apple's iPod business remains strong. New iPod units recently introduced include a video-capable Nano, a small media player that is the most popular in the line.

While much of Apple's attention has been focused on non-computer activities, Leopard is aimed at a core goal - selling more Macintosh computers. The new operating system has loads of new stylistic bells and whistles, with two notables:

• Time Machine automatically backs up files without your involvement and lets you "turn back time" to retrieve a lost file. It's different from other backup utilities in that with "a couple of setup clicks, you're done," says Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller. "Everything is automatic."

• Boot Camp gives you the ability to run Windows on a Mac. All you need to do is buy a copy of Windows software, and you can run both platforms on one machine.

Read all about it here, courtesy of apple.com and blog intro by indystar.gns.gannett.com

Eric

2007-10-18T03:21:00.000-07:00

Asustek Eee PC goes on sale in Taiwan
Boy, this sure would make a great "stocking stuffer"! (Notice the OS that they use.)

Asustek Computer's low-cost Eee PC notebook has gone on sale in Taiwan with pricing at online retailers at around NT$11,655 (US$358). This is much higher than the price of US$199 Asustek originally promoted for the portable PC, but this was to be as expected as Asustek recently admitted that the lower price would only be available for bulk purchases of a model with lower specifications, and which is intended for emerging markets.

The model now on sale in Taiwan features a 7-inch LCD display, 4GB solid state storage, 512MB DDR2 RAM and runs on an Intel mobile processor. Weight is given as 920g. The devices also features three USB 2.0 ports, Wi-Fi b/g connectivity, a VGA output, two audio jacks, Secure Digital (SD) card reader (which according to earlier reports also supports SDHC cards), webcam, speakers, and LAN and modem ports. Battery life is listed as 3.5 hours.

As previously reported the Eee PC comes loaded with a customized Linux-based operating system and a suite of software applications. These include the Firefox web browser, email and instant messaging clients, Skype, and OpenOffice 2.0. In line with Asustek's aim of promoting the Eee PC for educational use, a collection of children's learning software which covers subjects including science, math and languages is also included. Additionally, the Eee PC supports multimedia functions and includes a selection of games. Whether or not users will be able to add additional software through repositories maintained by Asustek is unclear at this stage.

Asustek has set up a service network in Taiwan including toll-free call center, service center, and a drop off/collection service with a local chain of convenience stores. Interestingly, it is explicitly made clear that the service center will not support issues related to the installation of Windows XP on the Eee PC although Aststeck notes that the hardware does support the operating system.

According information on the Asustek website a total of four models can be expected to be available.

Asustek Eee PC specifications
	Eee PC 8G	Eee PC 4G	Eee PC 4G Surf	Eee PC 2G Surf
Display	7-inch
CPU	Intel
OS	Linux (hardware Windows XP compatible)
LAN	Yes
Wireless LAN	Yes
Memory (DDR2)	1GB	512MB	512MB	256MB
Storage	8GB	4GB	4GB	2GB
Webcam	Yes		Yes
Battery	4-cell 5200mAh: 3.5 hours		4-cell 4400mAh: 2.8 hours

Source: Company, compiled by Digitimes, October 2007

Read all about it here, courtesy of digitimes.com

Eric

2007-10-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

Apple drops price of DRM-free iTunes
The Cupertino based company prices DRM-free music the same as the "leaded" version...0.99 cents.

This report was updated midday to reflect that Apple has confirmed the DRM-free iTunes price drop.

Apple has dropped the price of its iTunes Plus songs that have no digital rights management (DRM) software protection and allow owners to move song files freely from one device to another.

The 256kbps DRM-free song files were originally priced at $1.29 per song with a lower per-song average price for buying an entire album. iTunes now seems to be offering the same files for 99 cents per song, the same price it charges for its usual 128kbps DRM versions.

"iTunes Plus has been incredibly popular with our customers, and now we're making it available at an even more affordable price," Tom Neumayr, senior manager for iPods, Apple TV and iTunes, said in a statement. "We're adding over 2 million tracks from key independent labels, in addition to EMI's digital catalog, and look forward to even more labels and artists making their music available on iTunes Plus."

The change closely follows Amazon.com's launch of its own digital-music store.

As of September 25, Amazon.com began offering 256kbps DRM-free MP3s for between 89 cents and 99 cents each, depending on the song.

While Apple has made no formal comment as to why it's decided to reduce its DRM-free iTunes prices, Amazon's new music store could be the reason.

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.com

Eric

2007-10-16T03:09:00.000-07:00

Hard Disk Drive to get smaller in size, with bigger storage and cheaper?
Hitachi's new technology breakthrough unlocks the 1 tb limit...

A single hard drive with four terabytes of storage (4TB) could be a reality by 2011, thanks to a nanotechnology breakthrough by Japanese firm Hitachi.

The company has successfully managed to shrink the read-write head of a hard drive to two thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair.

The smaller head can read greater densities of data stored on the disk.

Hitachi said the advance would fuel the "terabyte era", with a 4TB drive able to hold more than a million songs.

Hard drives store data by magnetising the surface of the disk in a pattern which represents the data in digital form.

The data is stored digitally as tiny magnetized regions, called bits, on the disk. A magnetic orientation in one direction on the disk could represent a "1", while an orientation in the opposite direction could represent a "0".

Read all about it here, courtesy of news.bbc.co.uk

Eric

2007-10-15T03:14:00.000-07:00

Plasma TV's are off limits in Aussie Land
Apparently, plasma TV's are "the major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions from households."

MOST current plasma television sets would be banned from sale in Australia within a year under onerous mandatory energy requirements recommended in a report commissioned by the Federal Government.

The consulting firm Digital CEnergy, which prepared the report for the Government's Australian Greenhouse Office, also recommends a second tier of even tougher restrictions that would then ban almost all current LCD models from the market in April 2011.

The report was commissioned in response to a fact sheet released this year by the Government's Equipment Energy Efficiency Committee, which said television power consumption was increasing at an alarming rate as consumers upgraded from low-power cathode-ray TVs to energy-guzzling plasma and LCD behemoths.

It found TVs were fast overtaking fridges, heaters and air-conditioners as the major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions from households.

Read all about it here, courtesy of theage.com.au.com

Eric

2007-10-12T03:15:00.000-07:00

***FRIDAY FUNNY***
Video of girl playing Star Wars on a ...trumpet!
This gives a whole new meaning to "that blows". Seriously, this is a pretty amazing vid.

There are many things that make the following video amazing. For starters, it’s called “Star Wars Trumpet” — that should be enough right there. But no, it gets better. For the trumpeteer is a girl named Stacey Hedger, who appears on stage wearing the finest black unitard with silver sparkle-fringed sleeves the 1980’s had to offer. And just when you think you’re about to be blown away by her unbelievable horn skills… she proceeds to pump out the most cacaphonous, ear-splitting rendition of the Star Wars theme imaginable. Thankfully, this doesn’t stop her from using her trumpet as a deadly blaster! And doing a killer Charlie Chaplin impression!

Read all about it here, courtesy of bestweekever.com

Eric

2007-10-11T03:23:00.000-07:00

AMD's Quad-Core Phenom Model and Clocks Revealed
They look good on paper, but will AMD's new CPU's deliver the goods?

AMD has confirmed the model name and clock speed of the upcoming quad-core Phenom processors and plans to launch them as scheduled in Nov/Dec while Phenom FX will launched in Q1 next year. AMD plans to add higher clocked Phenom FX and Phenom quad-core processors in Q2 next year.

Phenom FX-82 will be clocked at 2.6GHz or higher while the faster FX-8x model could hit 3GHz. FX-82 DVT samples will be available in Q4 while production will kick off in Q1 2008 while FX-8x DVT sample and production is slated for Q2 2008.

Phenom 9600 and 9500 clocked at 2.4GHz and 2.2GHz respectively will be the first quad-core Phenom processors to hit the market in Nov. Phenom 9700 clocked at 2.6GHz will come along slightly later in Dec. A faster iteration of the quad-core Phenom will come along in Q2 2008 while DVT samples will be available in Q1. Most likely, it will be called Phenom 9800 and clocked at 2.8GHz.

Read all about it here, courtesy of VR-Zone.com

Eric

2007-10-10T03:32:00.000-07:00

Six Ways to Catch Your Favorite TV Shows
Don't thinks just TiVo for this one, the options are always nice.

With the fall television schedule in full swing, many of us are back in the habit of plopping down in front of the tube at night to catch the latest installment of our favorite show when it's scheduled to air. That means clearing your schedule to watch the show and then sitting in front of the TV for a whole hour just for 43 minutes' worth of programming. That doesn't seem very productive, does it? Luckily, this viewing season there are more ways than ever to catch the latest episodes of your best-loved shows without becoming a slave to the prime-time television schedule. So forget the fall lineup as you know it, because this year you're going to watch TV on your terms

Read all about it here, courtesy of lifehacker.com

Eric

2007-10-09T03:22:00.000-07:00

ASUS Motherboard Ships With Embedded Linux, Web Browser

This MoBo isn't cheap, but it does introduce a very slick idea...embedded Linux OS.

The good folks over at ASUS have sent over the P5E3 Deluxe, which is based upon Intel's new X38 Chipset and continues in the usual ASUS fashion of pushing new (and often unexpected) innovations onto the motherboard. Without spoiling the review of this motherboard that will be published shortly, the ASUS P5E3 Deluxe is one of the most innovative motherboards we have seen to date and it packs one very exciting and unusual feature. Embedded onto the P5E3 Deluxe is a Linux environment that features a Firefox-rebranded web browser and the Skype VoIP client! Within five seconds of turning on this $360 USD gaming/enthusiast motherboard, you can be using Linux and surfing the Internet. On this motherboard the feature is known as ASUS Express Gate, which is powered by something called SplashTop. SplashTop is an instant-on Linux desktop being created by DeviceVM. SplashTop isn't even launching for a few more days (October 10), but in this article we have more details on this embedded Linux environment as well as screenshots and our thoughts with what will hopefully come next for this Linux environment.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Phoronix.com

Eric

2007-10-08T03:30:00.000-07:00

15 Ridiculously Useful Website
This is a great list of websites, that you can use everyday!

Crossfit
A free fitness website that posts a new "Workout of the Day" every day. The workouts focus on total body fitness. The workouts are used by military personnel, athletes, and normal people. The site also contains an index of the exercises used in the workouts complete with videos and slideshows. They offer a newsletter for those willing to pay. It is an outstanding site for both fitness gurus and average Joes.
Lonely Planet
This site offers, among other things, an outstanding resource for anyone researching travel destinations.
Retail Me Not
A catalog of online coupons posted and reviewed by users. The coupons vary from sites like Polo to Amazon to Papajohns.
Web MD
Provides a reference for anyone looking to diagnose his or her symptoms or research medical issues. It is a good place to visit before making that, oh so expensive, trip to the doctor.
Epicurious
A source of cooking information ranging from recipes to techniques to restaurant reviews.
E-How
A reference site for just about everything else. Want to k now how to wax snow skis? Make pizza dough? Install a bathtub? This is the place.
Kayak
Combines search results from several different travel websites and presents them in a very user-friendly interactive format.
Bartleby
One of the better academic research websites I've come across.
Monster Jobs
Looking for a job? Need a resume?
How Stuff Works
A very cool website that contains explanations of those mysteries in life that you just can't figure out. A few examples are Murphy's Law, Pickpockets, and Light Sabers (Yes, light sabers).
Product Wiki
A wikipedia-type product review website. All reviews and articles are written and updated by the site's users.
What Should I Read Next
Can't decide what to read next? Simply enter a book title and/or author that you like and the site will recommend a number of books for you.
The Universal Packing List
This is a very unique website I found that creates a packing list for you based on information you provide regarding your trip and intentions/plans.
Happy Median
Enter your location and a friend's location and this site will tell you where you should meet (Halfway).
Musicovery
Seriously, the coolest music-related site I've seen. You choose the mood, intensity, and genres of the music you would like to hear and the site will provide you with a virtual web of music to explore. The web evolves with each choice you make. You can click on any song in the web at anytime.

Read all about it here , courtesy of webupon.com.com

Eric

2007-10-05T12:07:00.000-07:00

***Friday Funny(ish)***
Painting of Tica by Dru Blair. This is not a photo...really
Amazing results from good old fashioned skill and dedication

Read all about it here, courtesy of drublair.com

Eric

2007-10-04T03:58:00.000-07:00

New Zune vs. New iPod showdown, specs compared
Strange how Microsoft comes out with a revised Zune just a few weeks after the new iPod...

The new Zunes are official so let's get to it: a spec-by-spec scrap between Redmond's new Zunes and Cupertino's formidable iPod foe. Unfortunately, Microsoft failed to mention the all important battery performance of their new gear in addition to a few other minor details. Microsoft fans will tell you that's due to an iPhone-like surprise close to the November launch while haters will jump to the conclusion that this is a definite sign of trouble. Still even without that morsel, there's plenty of data to masticate for comparison.

The Zune 80GB certainly holds its own when pitted against the 80GB iPod classic on a specification table. That's not the case, however, with the iPod touch as long as you're willing to sacrifice the bytes for the touch's bigger display and heftier price tag. It's a tougher call on the flash-based Zune vs. the iPod nano -- just how important is WiFi to you on a 1.8-inch display? None of this, of course, accounts for the oh so important user experience or the ecosystems supporting their respective players. As such, we'll reserve final judgment until we have the new Zunes in-hand. Until then you'd best dig in fanboys, that November release is a long way off. The tables that follow will provide the fuel to fight the flame wars in the weeks to come.

Update: Battery data updated with information found on Amazon.com.

The Zune 80 with its big 3.2-inch display fits right in between Apple's iPod classic and iPod touch models. As such, we'll give you all three in a side-by-side comparison. Since Microsoft is a bit light on the specs, we've plugged in the information we reasonably expect to carry over from the 1st generation Zune -- otherwise, it's To Be Determined:

Read all about it here, courtesy of engadget.com

Eric

2007-10-03T03:34:00.000-07:00

Americans wrong about computer security: poll
I think clueless or lost would be a more apt term than "wrong"as sad as that is to say...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most Americans believe their computers are protected against viruses and spyware, but scans found that a large number had outdated or disabled security software, according to a poll released on Monday.

Fully 87 percent of Americans polled said they had anti- virus software, 73 percent said they had a firewall and 70 percent said they had anti-spyware software, according to the survey by security software maker McAfee Inc (MFE.N:Research) and the National Cyber Security Alliance.

But when pollsters asked to remotely scan the respondents' computers, the story turned out to be very different.

While 94 percent of those polled had anti-virus software, just half had updated it in the past month, the survey showed. Eighty one percent had a firewall protecting private information, but just 64 percent had enabled it. And 70 percent said they had anti-spyware software, but only 55 percent had enabled it.

Spyware not only monitors what a computer user does, but can also install software without the user's consent and interfere with the computer in other ways.

Bari Abdul, a McAfee vice president, said most viruses were not written by attention-seeking hackers looking to pull a prank.

"Most of the action has gone to stealing identity," he said after speaking at a cyber security conference sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance.

Nine percent of those polled reported having had their identity stolen, he said.

Read all about it here, courtesy of uk.reuters.com

Eric

2007-10-02T05:01:00.000-07:00

New Sony XEL-1 OLED TV
Sony goes back to it's roots and builds innovative and desirable products once again.

Sony introduces their first commercial OLED TV named XEL-1.

The stunning XEL-1 is what Sony teased on their site in Japan Friday. The XEL-1 is an 11 inch display that is only 3mm thin.
Other stunning performance indicators include a dramatic 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and a low 45W power consumption.
Sony has put the ultra-thin display on a pedestal with a flexible arm. At 11 inches the Sony XEL-1 is a nice stylish desk accessory.
The first Sony OLED TV has a resolution of 960x ×540px, but takes input resolution up to 1080p.
The Sony XEL-1 has an integrated digital TV tuner for Japan. Other features of the Sony OLED TV include USB, LAN interface, 1x HDMI port, headphone plug and S-Force sound.

Overall measurements of the XEL-1 are 287×253×140mm.
Sony plans to start shipping the XEL-1 OLED TV on December 1st for 200,000 Yen (~$1,740). This is a very high price for an 11 inch TV, but it is the first OLED TV you can buy. Early adoption always has its price.

Read all about it here, courtesy of i4u.com

Eric

2007-10-01T03:24:00.000-07:00

Hard Disk Drives Near Capacity Limits
What, a terabyte isn't big enough for you? Sheesh!

You may have heard about or even experienced yourself the problem of buying a new hard disk drive to install on your old (and sometimes not that old) machine and facing some size limitation, i.e. your old system does not recognizing the full capacity of your hard disk drive. In this tutorial we will explain why this happens, list all hard disk drive capacity limitations that have ever existed since the PC was created and show you how to fix them.

A capacity limitation can occur for several reasons, such as a hardware limitation, a limitation of the file system your hard drive is using or a limitation of the operating system you are using.

First, let’s understand how data are stored on hard disk drives.

Hard disk drives are sealed system containing one or more magnetic discs inside. Each side is simply called side or head, because for each side there is a magnetic head available for reading and writing data. Each side of a magnetic disc is divided into several concentric tracks or cylinders. Then each track is divided into sectors. Each sector holds 512 bytes of information. The minimum unit the hard disk drive controller can access is the sector, meaning that if it has to read just one byte from a given sector, it must read the entire sector.

The number of bytes inside a sector is fixed, it is always 512 bytes. But the number of tracks, sectors per track and sides (i.e. heads) a hard drive has will depend on the model. The number of heads, tracks and sectors per track a hard disk drive has is called geometry.

If you multiply the number of heads by the number of tracks and then by the number of sectors per track you will find how many sectors a given hard disk drive has (for newer hard disk drives the manufacturer announces the number of sectors the drive has, instead of its geometry). Multiplying this number by 512 will give you the total capacity of a hard disk drive in bytes.

Read all about it here, courtesy of hardwaresecrets.com

Eric

2007-09-28T05:13:00.000-07:00

***Friday Funny***
This gives a whole new meaning to lounge lizard
Hey, it's Friday and we all need a laugh.

Yes, This is For Real.

Tony, or by his Flickr sobriquet manmadepants, submitted this amazing photo to our Featured Photos Pool. In his own words...

I swear on my life this is 100% real. I was walking down the street looking for stuff to photograph and this guy is just sitting outside a coffee shop with this 80 year old woman and he is taking these little sofa things out of a bag. Then he opens another compartment in the bag and there are about five lizards like this guy. Then he would pose them and they would just sit there like this. Don't really know why.
He didn't really explain much but he did say they take about three months to train them to do this. I didn't bother asking if he only trained his lizards to sit in relaxing human posses or if there were other ones too. The whole thing was just to oddly perfect, I really didn't need him to go in to detail.

Also I like the surprising detailed craftsmanship of the sofa. Now I can say I've truly seen it all!

Photo by manmadepants via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr

Read all about it here, courtesy of laist.com

Eric

2007-09-27T03:29:00.000-07:00

Gateway mimics new iMac with "one"
At least you could have loaded linux, to be even more Mac like! sheesh!

PC maker Gateway today fired a salvo at Apple with a new all-in-one home desktop that bears strong design similarities with the recently introduced aluminum iMac. Called simply the One, the design is far sleeker than Gateway's earlier Profile systems and fits the entire design within a single metal shell just 3.6 inches deep. The entire front face is black to hide the borders of the 19-inch widescreen LCD and blend into home decor, such as the living room. The One also builds on Apple's minimalist emphasis: where the iMac plugs all cables directly into the back, the One feeds gigabit Ethernet, four USB ports, and AV ports to the external power adapter to take clutter away from the desk. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are standard and eliminate the need for a wired mouse or keyboard. Other echoes of Apple's design are found in a slot-loading, side-mounted DVD burner as well a main casing with three USB ports, one FireWire, and audio in/out connectors. The new design has a 5-in-1 card reader and is easily opened to replace the hard drive or memory, however. Buyers can also add a mounting kit to hoist the One against a wall, or a USB TV tuner for watching live programming.

Gateway says it will ship the series in late October with two retail models and a single online-only version. The retail line starts at $1,300 with a 1.5GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of memory, a 320GB hard drive, and Intel X3100 graphics; a high-end model boosts speed to 2GHz, memory to 3GB, hard disk space to 500GB, and adds Mobility Radeon HD 2600 dedicated video for its higher $1,800 price tag. Both have a 1.3-megapixel webcam hidden in the chassis, Gateway says. The online model sits in between the two store models with the same hardware as the base PC save for a 400GB hard drive and Radeon HD 2600 chipset. It should be available for $1,500.

Read all about it here, courtesy of electronista.com

Eric

2007-09-26T03:36:00.000-07:00

If Apple never existed
I shudder the thought.

Back in 2005, I wrote a column depicting a day in a fictitious world without Microsoft. Now I want to turn the tables and imagine a world without Apple.

I arrive at the office, courier bag slung over one shoulder, Peet's coffee in one hand. It feels earlier than it is, probably because I'd been working on deadline until late in the evening.

The problem with writing about home computers is keeping track of all of them. There are times I wish a single home computer standard existed, but that's a pipe dream. Still, HC's have come a long way since the early days of the Altair and Compupro boxes.

When I arrive at the office, several large boxes are awaiting me. The new Harmon Kardon home entertainment computer is in one of the boxes. Harmon is trying to establish a new category, the "HEC". I say, to HEC with it. Who wants to get locked into one type of media, when the CD is perfectly adequate? The Harmon PR rep had spoken eloquently about how transferring the music from a CD to the magneto-optical drive built into the Harmon HEC meant you could have as many as thirty CDs on tap at any one time. But once in the HEC, you couldn't get the music out, locking you into Harmon gear forever.

I plopped myself down at my desk and pulled out the Tandy NB5000 portable computer. It's a neat device, not much bigger than a large paper notebook, with an 80-column LCD screen. It had been a long, arduous process getting the Ziff-Davis IT department to approve the Radio Shack NBCs. Apparently, buying the utility software to convert the text format to something the DEC minicomputers could recognize was expensive.

I found myself wishing that one of the big computer companies had dived into the market for HCs, but alas, they had ceded the territory to the big consumer electronics companies. Sony, Toshiba, NEC and others had gobbled up companies like Amiga, Atari, and the various CP/M hardware companies in the late 1980's, and proceeded to deliver dozens of different HCs. It was really a hobbyists dream and nightmare both. All the different devices were pretty cool—except that getting your data from one to another was a real mess.

This was all exacerbated by the dozen or so companies building microprocessors for HCs, all of which had different instruction sets, different word lengths and different bit order. But it was job security for writers like me, who could make sense of it all to end users. No one company had gained enough traction to set a single standard.

I read over my roundup on the latest 200MB magneto-optical drives, then transferred it to the 5MB floppy built into the side of the NBC. The NEC unit was clearly best, but Sony's was a close second, due to its support for both the standard 200MB format and a Sony proprietary format that was also 200MB. However, the proprietary format could store up to twenty minutes of video, making it a sort of poor man's Laserdisc. I popped out the floppy drive and walked over to our production team.

The roundup needed to be edited, then formatted for the various electronic mail blasts as well as the print version. We had four people dedicated to reformatting the text into formats that the various mail readers on the several dozen HCs could understand.

I returned to my office just as the phone rang. It was Steve, a PR rep from a new company starting up Santa Clara. "Hey, we have a pretty neat gadget. It's about the size of a cassette Walkman, but uses a tiny MO drive to hold three hours of music. It only weighs about eight ounces. Want to check it out?"

"Sure," I said. "Might be a cool gadget for our holiday gift guide."

"One other thing. I've picked up a new account. They're building these HCs using off-the-shelf components and the same magnetic disk technology used in minicomputers and mainframes. It even runs a kind of UNIX."

I sighed. "How much does it cost."

"That's the great part. It's under $10,000."

"Steve, that's too much for most families."

"Hey, it's really cool. You know, Loyd, you've got to learn to think different."

You might wonder how this rather bleak scenario might exist if Apple had never come to pass. Despite not being a Mac user, it's my belief that Apple acted as a catalyst for the industry. Prior to Apple, there were a host of home computers and business-oriented PCs, either running proprietary operating systems or some variant of CP/M. But even CP/M machines often couldn't talk to each other.

Had there never been an Apple, the IBM PC may never have emerged, which then set off the tidal wave of innovation + standardization that allows us to have cheap PC technology today. Apple has had a tremendous impact, both directly through its suberb industrial design and efforts to simplify technology, and indirectly, by stimulating competition that eventually resulted in the PC ecosystem we have today. What do you think?

Read all about it here, courtesy of Extremetech.com

Eric

2007-09-25T03:34:00.000-07:00

Halo3 has landed
The most anticipated games in recent history, hits store shelves after 3 years of development.

Halo 3 is an interesting mix of established protocol and intriguing new stuff. For example, the gameplay doesn't stray too far from Halo 2, which, in turn, didn't exactly reinvent the original Halo. Don't take that as a negative, because it means that Halo 3 plays extremely well, with the same types of light tactical considerations that have made the series stand apart from other, faster-paced shooters. The balance between your guns, your grenades, and your melee attack has always given Halo a unique feel in the genre, and those same considerations apply today, both in the campaign mode and in multiplayer. You'll also have new weapons and items to consider, such as a host of Brute weapons. One example is the spiker, which is an exciting automatic pistol that fires quickly and decimates opponents, especially if you're holding a pair of them. Another is the mauler, which is a one-handed shotgun that can level enemies up close. You'll even find weapons so huge that your movement speed slows when you carry them. When you use these weapons, the camera pulls out to a third-person perspective so you can see your missile pod, plasma cannon, or flamethrower as it fires. And then there's the gravity hammer. Originally shown in Halo 2 (where it wasn't usable by the player), the gravity hammer is a large melee weapon that will wipe out most regular enemies in one swipe. Needless to say, it can be especially fun in multiplayer settings. The end result is gameplay that feels wholly familiar without retreading the same ground too heavily.

Read all about it here, courtesy of CNET.com

Eric

2007-09-24T03:18:00.000-07:00

Intel says WiMax is coming next year - this time for sure
Ummm, yep sure it is. Can I sell you some great ocean front property in Idaho while were at it?

One thing was very clear at this week's Intel Developer Forum, the semiannual gathering of hardware and software developers sponsored by the semiconductor giant: If it's small and mobile, Intel wants to put a chip in it. The lumbering rectangular towers we so often refer to as PCs have become passé, and according to Intel, are increasingly taking a back seat to a new breed of laptops, ultramobile PCs, mobile internet devices and cell phones.

In his keynote on Wednesday, David Perlmutter, senior vice president of Intel's Mobility Group, described mobile users with "insatiable appetites," hungry for ever more mobility and connectivity.

The company plans to sate this hunger with something called Montevina in mid-2008. Montevina, which will become the company's next-generation Centrino mobile platform, is based on Intel's 45-nanometer fabrication technology. It will support things like DDR3 memory, Blu-ray and HD-DVD playback, as well as an integrated Wi-Fi/WiMax module the company calls Echo Peak.

What that means in plain English is that Montevina notebooks will be faster and low-power, will include support for the latest optical storage standards, and will presumably be ready to connect with the latest wireless networks out of the box. As testament to the clout Intel wields, a number of laptop manufactures like Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba and Panasonic have already committed to using Montevina.

Key to Intel's wireless strategy is the standard known as Mobile WiMax (IEEE 802.16e). Yes, that's the same WiMax you've been hearing about -- but not seeing -- for close to five years now. But according to Intel, as well as Sprint Nextel and Clearwire, WiMax really will be ready for its public debut next year.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Wired.com

Eric

2007-09-21T03:32:00.000-07:00

***FRIDAY FUNNY***
Top ten laughably bad tech ads
Hey, it's Friday why not end the week with a good laugh...

The tech industry has a rich and hilarious history of being unable to promote itself as anything other than unutterably dorky. Originally we were going to call this 'The top ten worst tech ads', but as we hunted around we discovered these are pure gold. They are shockingly bad, but you'll derive so much pleasure from watching them it didn't seem right to use 'worst' anymore.

Anyway, we've collected ten of our favourites -- in no particular order -- that made us laugh, either because they feature lycra, awful singing, pathetic old technology, Steve Ballmer or some combination of all of the above. -Ian Morris

Steve Ballmer sells Windows 1.0
You've got to love Steve Ballmer. Now Bill Gates is stepping down from the day-to-day running of Microsoft to concentrate on being a full-time good guy, Ballmer is pretty much in charge at Redmond. Anyone who saw his monkey dance will know why that's a little scary.

Anyway, this video is him selling Windows 1.0. And while it's funny for all the wrong reasons, you have to respect Ballmer for not caring what people think of him. We can't imagine Jobs doing this.

Update: Several commenters have pointed out this was an internal MS video that wasn't broadcast. Fair enough, our mistake. It's still incredibly funny. And there's still no way Jobs would do it.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Crave.Cnet.co.uk

Eric

2007-09-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

Intel QX6850 Quad Core Extreme Processor Review
AMD needs to get it in gear and challenge the mighty Intel.

Earth to AMD......earth to AMD........come in AMD.........where are you?

A lot of us are asking that question these days, and to be honest, AMD had better arrive on the scene soon, as INTEL's most recent releases offer only a modest improvement over their predecessors. Looking at it from purely a business standpoint, Intel is doing it right: Why compete against yourself? Until AMD gets their act together and releases a processor that forces Intel's hand, there's really no point in bringing any major upgrades to market. While that may be good for Intel's bottom line, its bad for us enthusiasts who wait with baited breath for the next best thing.

All of this should change toward the end of the year, as Intel's Penryn and AMDs Phenom are now on the horizon. But for now, we're basically limited to refreshes of Intel's current Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad lines of processors.

Today we take a quick look at Intel's QX6850 Core 2 Extreme. For those of you with no mortgage, no bills, a great job, or rich parents, the QX6850 is currently the pinnacle of the processing world.

Read all about it here, courtesy of Hardwarelogic.com

Eric