[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

321 Studios Update:

Last week, 321 Studios suffered a set back in court when a California judge ruled against them in their DVD copying software case. 321 Studios passed on the following statement for us to share with you guys:

As many of you may have already heard, Judge Illston of the Northern District of California Court ruled against us last Friday and in favor of the movie studios. This is the first major decision in the six lawsuits in which we are now involved. Her ruling included an injunction preventing us from continuing to sell the current version of our popular DVDXCOPY software if it included a ripper. This injunction takes effect 7 days from her order. While we do not agree with the rationale behind the decision, we intend to fully comply with the order and, at the same time, file an appeal and ask her to stay the injunction pending the appeal.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition

Cooling:

Thermal Integration TI-A8641L HSF @ Frosty Tech - Thermalright SLK948-U @ 1SweetPC

Case Study:

Enermax Server Case @ Big Bruin - Antec Aluminum Case @ Hardware-Mag - RaidMax Scorpio @ Techware Labs

Audio:

Intimus 5.1 Audio @ Design Techica - MX900 Wireless Combo @ LAN Addict - Mad Dog 7.1 DSP @ PCExtreme - Logitech Z3 Speakers @ 3DXtreme - Zalman Surround Headphones @ Gamers Depot - RS Audio Cables @ ExHardware

Other:

Evercool Memorex Mods @ True Review - Sunbeam Liquid CCFL @ OCIA - 256MB Gizmo Drive @ PyroPort - MS Wireless Desktop @ JustFPS

[H]ardNews - InfiniumEd

Infinium Labs Responds to PA:

It seems as though Penny-Arcade is taking issue with Infinium Labs CEO, Tim Roberts. In a Phantom.net forum post, that has since been removed (I personally saw it when posted.), Tim claimed that Penny-Arcade called him to advise him of this comic calling Tim's lifestyle into question. If you scroll down the current page, look for "Let the Dog go!"

Bottom line, the guy is a lying huckster. I guess he figured he could post that on his forum and we’d never see it. This proves he has no concept of how huge PA is. Penny Arcade isn’t just a comic and a news post Tim, PA is a community and we have agents everywhere. Chances are they’re watching you even now.

Here are Infinium Labs' demands of HardOCP.

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

XFX GFFX 5950Ultra:

More high end video card review action today. This time around the crew at VR-Zone have the XFX GeForce FX 5950Ultra in house for a round or two of benchmarks. This card isn’t the fastest GFFX 5950U out there, but it does get a few points because it comes with a decent bundle.

For the big spenders out there looking to play their games at high resolutions with Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering enabled, the XFX GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is an excellent card to purchase and is one that will continue to carry the XFX brand name until we get NV40 territory later on this year.

Secure ID:

How would you like to have to swipe your ID to use your PC? Ugh. I suppose there are pluses and minuses to the issue, but giving a blood sample and retina scan to log on at work kinda gives me the heebie-jeebies.

Separate technologies that will make logging on to networks more secure, were announced by Microsoft of Redmond, Washington, US and Sun Microsystems of Santa Clara, California at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. Microsoft says that a technology called SecurID, developed at RSA Security in Bedford Massachusetts, will be integrated with Windows by September 2004.

Eyes On The Road:

Most states don’t allow any video device that can be viewed by the driver and for good reason. If you doubt what I am saying, I give you this story of a guy busted watching pr0n as he was driving. Blame Mr. Burns for this one.

Police said the 35-year old man from Clifton Park, New York, was watching a adult movie called "Chocolate Foam" on Tuesday night while driving his Mercedes Benz in the town of Schenectady when he was spotted by an officer at a stop light.

AT-Eye Auction:

While we are on the subject of “eyes”, that auction for a pair of ATi promotional EYEBALLS is rolling along nicely. Oddly enough (or not), Kyle is in the lead with a bid of over $50. (Well, he was when we originally posted.),

The two life-like moving eyeballs each have a black silk-screened ATI logo that can be rotated out of view. One of the eyeballs has less "eye juice" but that just adds to the creepy effect!

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

AMD & MS Pair Up:

AMD and Microsoft have paired up to fight virus and worms. A feature in the AMD Athlon64, when paired up with a special feature in the upcoming Service Pack 2 from MS, will kick buffer overrun exploits right in the nuts. I’m not sure if "right in the nuts" was a direct quote or not, but it does seem to sum up the situation quite nicely.

The chipmaker on Wednesday announced that it has included a feature inside its Athlon 64 and Opteron processors for PCs and servers that will help combat certain computer viruses and worms. The feature, which will work in concert with Microsoft's Windows XP operating system, will be switched on later this year when Microsoft releases its Service Pack 2 update for the OS.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

DDR II Explained:

Are you confused about DDR II? Hexus is here to help. The gang has laid out a pretty easy to understand article that will hopefully clear up some of the confusion…or make it worse. Heh.

DDR-II. What do you think of when you see that written on a spec sheet or a website? DDR at twice the frequency? DDR on a 2x bigger bus? Plain old dual-channel DDR, just written differently? I didn't have a clue either. And when I see it written as DDR2, I get another little bit of confused added on top. Do they mean DDR-II, have they missed a G off the front while talking about graphics card memory? Aieee, it's a bit of minefield at the moment.

Clearly The Case:

If you fancy a see through case, this review focuses on the Terra-Byte Aurora case. If a full tower case is not what you were looking for, this “secret agent” mini clear case reviewed by Explosive Labs might just be the ticket. Here is a quote from the Explosive Labs review:

This case is aimed at another crowd. For case modifiers out there this case is definitely one to consider, it is highly unique, very slick looking, compact and ideal for LAN parties.

Maxdy VPC-1000 Hub:

There are two reviews of the Maxdy VPC-1000 out there today. The first comes from the fellas at Virtual Hardware and the second is at ClubOC. Here is a quote from ClubOC:

Have you ever wanted to listen to your favorite FM radio station on your computer? Or maybe listen to your music CDs or MP3s without powering up your computer? Okay, all that and play DVDs too...by just adding a single component to your computer? Well, there really is an add in computer component that will do all that called the VPC1000 Multimedia Hub.

[H]ardNews - Blair's Tech Ed.

Killer Eyesight:

Pretty cool stuff here, you can just look at your target and blow it up. Next up…mind bullets (that’s telekinesis)! I can’t believe I just worked Tenacious D lyrics into a news post.

JHMCS are said to combine a magnetic head tracker with a display projected onto the pilot's visor, giving the pilot a targeting device that can be used to aim sensors and weapons wherever the pilot is looking. With JHMCS, the pilot can aim the radar, air-to-air missiles, infrared sensors, and air-to-ground weapons by pointing his or her head at the target and pressing a switch on the flight controls.

Gaming Phones:

To hell with getting a gaming laptop, pretty soon our phones will have good 3D capabilities. Next you’ll be getting a Half Life 2 coupon with your phone.

The latest addition to Toshiba's T series of MPEG-4 LSI, the T4G (part number: TC35285XBG) supports fast rendering of graphics, including advanced shading, texture mapping, special effects and other visualization functions, enabling mobile phones to offer high-resolution 3D graphics matching those of current game consoles.

False Alarm Asteroid:

Call the President, call the President…killer asteroid on the way to earth!!! Ummm, nevermind, false alarm. Doh!

Astronomers have revealed how they came within minutes of alerting the world to a potential asteroid strike last month. Some scientists believed the object had a one-in-four chance of hitting the planet within 36 hours. It could have caused local devastation and the researchers contemplated a call to President Bush before new data finally showed there was no danger.

New Test Chip:

Applied Materials are proud of their first 65-nm test chip. We heard they were handing out “It’s a Chip!” cigars.

Applied Materials Inc., working with Cadence Design Systems, Inc., has made a 65-nm test chip using diagonal as well as traditional right-angle Manhattan interconnects. The X Initiative consortium said Wednesday that Applied created the first 65-nm X-architecture chip at the company's technology center in Sunnyvale, Calif. Applied fabricated an X-architecture 90-nm test chip last summer.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

Biostar iDEQ 200P:

If you are looking into getting an Athlon64 small form factor PC, this Biostar iDEQ 200P might be something to look into. The gang at Tech Report weren’t overly impressed with this nForce3 powered SFF, here is a clip from the review:

Biostar started well with the iDEQ 200P, but they couldn't deliver the total package. The iDEQ's intelligent enclosure design, smart cable routing, slick packaging, and endearing good looks were a heckuva nice start. Biostar has incorporated a number of clever, fresh ideas into the physical design of the iDEQ.

Snap Server 100:

Need network attached storage? Check out this review of the Snap Server 1100 at Guru3D (insert "oh snaps" joke here).

The product is for the business user that is willing to pay that kind of money for file-sharing based on security and reliability. This is not just a file-server, it is a REAL file-server with Users, User-groups and file-level security.

Dually Xeon Review:

If you are looking into building a dually Xeon rig then check out this ASUS PC-DL Deluxe. The PC-DL Deluxe is a very nice board with all the features of the Canterwood chipset…well, with an added CPU.

ASUS has designed the PC-DL Deluxe, a dual Xeon board that’s powered by the 875 Canterwood chipset. The 875P is a much more advanced chipset than E7505, offering integrated SATA support, dual-channel DDR400 (in theory), Intel’s CSA (Communication Streaming Architecture), and support for a larger number of USB 2.0 ports.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Thoughts & Prayers:

Please take a moment this morning to consider one of our community's families. Brian Smith of ProCooling had recently had the joy of welcoming his fourth child into this world, Deborah Elease Smith, and thankfully she is healthy and happy. Sadly, during her labor, his wife experienced a stroke. Brian and her doctors are unsure about what will come to pass at this time. The thoughts and prayers of many HardOCPers is with you and your family Brian. If there is anything any of us can do, please let us know.

[H]ardNews 4th Edition

Cool Case Mods:

More case mod madness today. Attila over at AJ Design wanted to show off his mad modding skillz with this his sweet Mac to PC mod. You have to admit, a 3GHz P4, Radeon 9700 powered Mac sounds pretty damn sweet:

Not to be outdone, [H] reader Hoon Chae busted out with his homebrew CarPC mod. While it is a work in progress, you can see what a little ingenuity can do:

RFID Bill:

While most laws and legislation are a complete waste of time when it comes to the tech industry, proposing a bill to inform users that your company uses RFID tags is a common sense kind of thing. The bill goes further saying they want the tags destroyed before leaving the store, kinda like clothing tags are now.

"The privacy impact of letting manufacturers and stores put RFID chips in the clothes, groceries and everything else you buy is enormous," Bowen said in a statement. "There's no reason to let RFID sneak up on us when we have the ability to put some privacy protections in place before the genie's out of the bottle."

Hollywood & Games:

IPKonfig editorializes the subject of the impact Hollywood is having on games. Honestly, most games with Hollywood influence blow nuts. Having a famous actor in your game does not make it a good game.

I don't think we need another RIAA, actually the MPAA, beating down the doors of mod designers. It's going to happen; game modders will fiddle with and create additions to their favorite games. Half-Life, though lacking any famous actors, has become the most modded game today, known as Counter Strike. Battle Field 1942 has also had a nice modification. Again, though, no famous actors are in the game.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition

Cold Weather OC:

People pay tons of money for phase-change cooling, water cooling kits or LN2 all in the name of low temps and high OCs. IntelForums figured out that you didn’t need all that to get super cool CPU temps, all you needed was to move to Minnesota and put your case outside in –2C temps. Sometimes low-tech is the best way to go. Check out this thread in the IntelForums for all the info.

At 1.75GHz, our Pentium III was stable enough to install Unreal Tournament 2003, and install and run its BotMatch Benchmark. It navigated the internet, ran 3DMark01SE without a glitch, and exhibited no signs of instability during normal use over a multiple hour period. It was able to re-boot and run several times without hanging up as well.

Radeon 9600XT:

On the ATi side of the isle, the Radeon 9600XT is the card to get if you are looking at a mainstream performer that will not break the bank. TweakNews gives you their thoughts on this budget bad ass, here’s a quote:

I tested it in many games while I was working on this review, from Vietcong to Morrowind to Need For Speed: Underground and then some. With tweaked-out settings, and the highest texture settings, my testbed never slowed down once, not even in the worst sandstorm in Morrowind.

Tim Sweeney Talks:

The brains behind Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, sits down for an interview with the Beyond3D crew. Tim talks about tech stuff like what PCI Express brings to the industry and the impact it will have on current games. Interesting stuff.

Fundamental architectural improvements due to PCI-Express will likely have to wait for the next major Microsoft OS release to be widely utilized by games and by video drivers. But in the meantime, it's a great platform improvement, allowing another decade of significant performance scaling just as AGP reaches its limits. I'm also looking forward to it as a geek toy, being able to buy high-end PC's with two PCI-Express graphics slots and plug in two high-end video cards.

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Borg Mod:

Regardless whether you are a Star Trek fan and know who the “Borg” are, this is one of the baddest looking case mods ever. Build completely from scratch by Xor’Arch, credit has to be given where credit is due, this thing is awesome. A complete work of art. Here is a sample image to whet your appetite: