[H]ardNews 4th Edition - Blair's Tech Ed.

Chinese DVD Player Lawsuit:

Uh oh. It looks like the Chinese makers of DVD players are suing for royalties. With just the sheer amount of DVD players, drives, etc. the damages could be a lot of money. Sony, Pioneer and LG have been hit with suits so far.

Two Chinese DVD player manufacturers have sued consumer electronics giants Philips, Sony, Pioneer and LG Electronics, alleging they violated U.S. antitrust laws in the licensing of patented technologies.

Intel Backing Municipal WiFi:

Intel says it will work to prevent legislation that limits or prohibits creation of wireless networks.

Sean Maloney told the Wireless Communications Alliance (WCA) conference in San Jose that Intel would work to get municipalities and telecommunications vendors to cooperate on developing wireless access instead of being adversarial.

Apple Cuts Mini Upgrade Costs:

I was going to do a whole big joke about Apple making Mini upgrade price cuts but decided against it. Apple has had a rough two weeks.

Just two weeks after the Mac mini's introduction, Apple Computer Inc. of Cupertino, Calif., has reduced the pricing on some of the build-to-order options on its Mac mini personal computer.

[H]ardNews 3rd Edition - Mods & Ends

Cooling:

Titan Vanessa Heat Pipe CPU Cooler Review @ PCmoddingmy - Prime Cooler Memory Cooler @ Phoronix

Etc.:

Sunbeam Chameleon @ LAN Addict - Seasonic S12 380W Power Supply @ CoolTechZone - StarTech.com TV Jockey @ BigBruin - TFT Display Round Up and Buyers Guide @ Spode's Abode - AC Ryan LAN.RangerT 10m Blue LED network cable @ Techniz - Casebuy's EZ Power Supply Tester Review @ Buddha's LAN Room - Matrix Orbital MX424 LCD @ VR-Zone

Cases & Modding:

Enermax MaxFlow CS-718B Full Tower Case @ InsaneTek

[H]ardNews 2nd Edition

Intel Trademark Mystery:

The tech world is buzzing wondering what these new trademark applications from Intel mean. Hmmm, "Intel Inside VIIV" and "Intel VIIV"…what could that mean? Most people are guessing it has something to do with upcoming dual core CPUs and 64-bit processors.

Recent trademark filings from Intel are raising speculation that the world's largest chip maker may be preparing to create a new global brand. The question is, what does VIIV mean? "Intel Inside VIIV" and "Intel VIIV" were filed as U.S. trademarks last month by the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker, known for its Pentium and Centrino brands.

*UPDATE* So far, out of 100 e-mail, this is what you guys think. Intel is thinking that VI means 6 and IV means IV. Also, Intel’s new processors will be the P6 line. The use of VI as 6 and the mirror image IV can also signify dual core (dual image). So Intel is playing on the 64-bit message but instead of using the traditional LXIV (64), they went with a mirror image play on 64 (VIIV) to subliminally signify dual cores at the same time. Sounds good to me! Thanks to everyone who sent their ideas in.

[H]ardNews 1st Edition - Press Releases

Intel Science Talent Search:

Intel Corporation today recognized the 40 finalists who will vie for more than $530,000 in scholarships in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS), America 's oldest pre-college science competition for high school seniors. “These finalists reflect the best accomplishments of solid, project-based, curiosity-driven education,” said Intel CEO Craig Barrett.

ATi = World’s Largest Supplier:

New Mercury Research market share numbers released today for Q4 2004 show ATI Technologies Inc. was the world’s largest discrete graphics supplier in 2004. ATI continues to move forward with six sequential quarters of year over year growth - shipping over half of the world’s discrete graphics. “With a virtual clean sweep of OEM PCI Express designs on desktop and notebook PCs, ATI continues to lead the market for discrete graphics,” said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, PC Business Unit, ATI Technologies.

MS World Anti-Piracy Initiative:

In 2005, Microsoft Corp. plans to enhance its anti-piracy engineering, education and enforcement efforts by expanding the Windows® Genuine Advantage program. Windows Genuine Advantage checks the authenticity of a user's software and provides access to popular software and other benefits, helping consumers and businesses ensure that they are receiving the greater reliability, faster access to updates, and richer user experiences offered by genuine Windows XP software.

[H]ardNews 12th Edition

MPAA File More Suits:

The MPAA has not only filed more lawsuits against movie swappers, they have released a tool that searches your hard drive for copyrighted material.

Hollywood studios filed a second round of lawsuits against online movie-swappers on Wednesday, stepping up legal pressure on the file-trading community. The MPAA also made available a new free software tool so parents can scan their computers for file-swapping programs and for movie or music files which may be copyrighted.

This isn’t all bad news, those of you with terabytes of movies and music files and have lost track of some over the years, just use this tool to help you find them. The utility even searches zip files. Heh…just kidding.

[H]ardNews 11th Edition

Infinium Lawyers Selling Stock?

The folks at Where is Phantom stumbled across a bit of information that many of you will find interesting. Apparently many of Infinium Labs lawyers have cached in their IL stock for a pretty nice chunk of change, some making as much as $750,000 from their stock sale.

A lot of lawyers from that firm are walking away with not only lawyers fees from all the work they did for Infinium Labs (unless on retainer), but a hefty bit of pocket change. Most cashed in their stock on the 11th.

[H]ardNews 10th Edition

Target Pulls Mac Mini?

Apple Insider is saying that Target has pulled the Mac Mini from its website citing “availability concerns”. The rumor is that savvy shoppers were ordering the Mac Mini and then using a 10% off coupon which dropped the price below what Target was actually paying for the Mini, leading to the Mini disappearance from the online store.

Just four days after Target.com began listing Apple's recently announced Mac mini computer as a purchasable item, the online retailer has abruptly yanked the product from its web site.

While we are on the subject of Macs, you really ought to check out today’s FoxTrot. A big thanks to Greg Alioto for the link.

The Planet Announces Spirus Email Gateway:

The Planet has introduced Spirus, a dynamic email gateway to prevent email attack, viruses and prevent email attack on the company's hosted email servers to give its customers peace of mind. The Planet is not only one of the fastest growing managed hosting providers in the U.S but they are also the exclusive bandwidth provider for [H]ardOCP.

Mr. Fleitman said that Spirus is ideal for reducing those risks. "Spirus offers our customers the right balance of safety, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness," he explained. "Through ORBIT, it’s simple to optimize their servers’ protection, so business-critical messages still get through but harmful mail doesn’t. And at $10 monthly per domain, it’s much more affordable than leaving servers unprotected."

[H]ardNews 9th Edition

Paparazzi-Proof Cameras?

Get a load of this. HP is patenting a system that would allow cameras that could be remotely triggered to blur the faces of anyone not wanting to be photographed. What the?!? HP says they don’t have any current plans for the technology…they just like to patent stuff for the fun of it.

In short, anyone who doesn't want their photo taken at a particular time could hit a clicker to ensure that any cameras or camera-equipped gadgets in range got only a fuzzy outline of their face.

[H]ardNews 8th Edition

Official ABIT Reply:

Many of you saw the publicity surround the long-standing lawsuit against ABIT for faulty capacitors that plagued every motherboard maker in the industry. Here is an official ABIT reply, which simply backs up their policy from the beginning.

ABIT is pleased that this issue has come to a conclusion. Prior to this lawsuit, any ABIT user with an issue with capacitors on an ABIT motherboard already had the ability to get their board repaired at the ABIT USA Service Center. The Settlement has not enforced anything above what is already standard ABIT policy. ABIT stands by our service levels, about which Anandtech says, "Abit's RMA policy is unmatched in the U.S.; no other motherboard manufacturer comes close." ABIT and IBM were the first 2 companies to recognize the capacitor issue and ABIT was the first and only company to switch to 100% Japanese capacitors. Essentially, this lawsuit enforces a policy which was already a standard at ABIT.

One of the reasons that ABIT motherboards remain one of our favorites is their e-RMA procedure that simply works out well for ABIT motherboard owners in warranty need. In fact, HardOCP has been diligent in not even reviewing motherboards from companies with lacking RMA services in North America.

[H]ardNews 7th Edition

GeForce 6600GT SLi:

Lost Circuits has a good write up covering the GeForce 600GT in SLi, what it has to offer and what it all means to you. You can see our SLi platform coverage here for more information.

The resurrection of SLI, made possible by PCI Express offers new dimensions for 3D processing - in both performance and price categories whereas the upper midrange of the price range still faces a painful void.

Pentium M & DFI 855GME-MGF:

There is nine page review of Intel’s Pentium M processor at BeHardware today. Is the power-house Pentium M something you would be interested in? Read the review and find out, here’s a quote:

Without increasing the electric input, the Pentium M is able to reach equivalent performances to high end processors with relatively simple overclocking and minimal power consumption.

BTX Form Factor:

Hardware Analysis takes a basic look at BTX form factor. While the article pointed out a few things they were concerned with, overall I think they came away with a favorable impression depending on use and application.

Overall the micro-BTX system left a good impression; it is quiet and has a small footprint, smaller than most micro-ATX systems. And unlike a micro-ATX system running a Pentium 4 processor it runs quiet enough to be used in an office environment for many hours a day.

[H]ardNews 6th Edition

[H]ardForum [H]appenings:

[H]umpday [H]ardForum [H]appenings is upon you! How about a little homemade super cooling to start things off. Next up, check out the post your workstation thread and post a picture of your set up or just browse the thread to steal good ideas for your own home set up. Deal of the day is this $30 450W PSU. Runner up would be this Logitech MX510 blue mouse for $24. Remember to hit the For Sale & Trade forum to make your own deal of the day and, as always, feel free to just drop into the forums for any reason and join in on any of the 145,000 active threads or start a thread of your own! We’ll see you in there.

[H]ardNews 5th Edition

Mobo Makers Expect Growth:

DigiTimes is reporting that first-tier motherboard makers are expecting growth in 2005. Of the big name board makers mentioned, ASUS is expects the biggest growth with a whopping 55% jump in revenue expected this year. Wow.

Taiwan first-tier motherboard makers Asustek Computer, Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS), Gigabyte Technology and Micro-Star International (MSI) have released revenue and shipment projections for 2005.

Soltek SL-K8TPRO-939:

Noticia3D has posted a review of the Soltek SL-K8TPRO-939 socket 939 motherboard. You will need a translator for this one unless you can read the quote below or you just planning on looking at the pretty pictures and graphs.

Durante las pruebas la placa ha demostrado muy buena estabilidad aplicando un overclock moderado y el rendimiento obtenido es bastante elevado como hemos visto en cada uno de los tests.

HTPC Editorial:

HTPC News has a short but sweet editorial posted that discusses the topic of "Thinking Outside the Gamer’s Box". The article covers the time, effort, planning and mind set that goes into building a properly configured HTPC.

Yeah you’re a gamer and a hardcore tweaker. You can build a typical PC in 15 minutes, load Windows XP, get the latest drivers and have 3Dmark hitting high-scores in no time. However you need to throw that mentality out the door right now.