Office Printer As Dangerous As Cigarettes

Australian scientist say that air quality tests have shown that the printer in your office could pose as much danger as taking a drag on a cigarette. Whoa.

An investigation of dozens of laser printers revealed that almost 30 per cent emit potentially dangerous levels of particles into the air. These ultra-fine particles were capable of infiltrating the lungs and causing lasting damage on the scale of inhaled cigarette smoke, said researcher Professor Lidia Morawska of the Queensland University of Technology.

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iTunes Surpasses 3 Billion Songs Sold

Apple announced today that the iTunes store has sold more than 3 billion songs to date. Impressive.

The milestone came just six months after iTunes, Apple Inc.'s online music download service, surpassed the 2 billion tracks-sold mark. The service launched in April 2003 and it took until February 2006 to sell its first 1 billion songs.

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FCC Approves Rules For Airwaves Auction

The Washington Post is reporting that the FCC has approved rules for the upcoming airwaves auction that should give people more choice on their cell phones and wireless devices. The text of the rules were not released during today’s meeting.

The Federal Communications Commission approved a much-debated "open access" provision, pushed by Chairman Kevin Martin, a Republican, and supported by the agency's two Democrats, that will allow customers to use whatever phone and software they want on about one-third of the spectrum to be auctioned.

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Cooler Master Extends Real Power PSU Warranty

At Cooler Master, we pride ourselves on designing power supply units that meet the needs of even the most demanding applications. As part of our total commitment to quality, Cooler Master is pleased to announce that we will be extending the warranty period of our Real Power and Real Power M series power supply units to a period of five years. With this newly extended warranty, Cooler Master users can purchase Real Power and Real Power M PSUs with even greater confidence.

SSL is Not Enough Security for Online Backup

If you are kicking around the idea of storing data with an online backup facility, there are things you should know first. This article has some very good information about data, encryption, security and even has links to online data storage providers.

Online backup services providers know that they need to convince potential customers that it is safe to backup their data over the Internet. With all of the fraud, hacking, and security problems on the Internet, even the novice computer user is concerned about security issues when considering online backup services.

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Gaming News

4 Player Online Co-Op In Halo 3 @ Shacknews

Eidos Boss Explains How To See PS3s @ GamesIndustry

Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars Beta "Soon" @ Official Site

Epic vs. Silicon Knights Is A Common Lawsuit @ Kotaku

Circuit City Spills Beans On Xbox 360 Price Drop

Circuit City’s latest print ad shows several price cuts on the Xbox 360 line. According to the flyer, the Elite will get a $30 cut, the Premium $50 and the Core $20 off. Hit the link to see actual scans of the flyer.

In the wake of the Wal-Mart flyer and the Toys R Us flyer, now comes the Circuit City flyer sent to Joystiq showing that beginning Aug. 12 the Xbox 360 premium will be $350, the Elite will be $450 and the Core will have a $20 break and be $280.

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Torvalds Rebukes Desktop Critics

The creator of the Linux operating system kernel, Linus Torvalds, has some choice words for a fellow programmer that slammed Linux over its perceived inability to break into the desktop market.

Torvalds was responding to criticism by programmer Con Kolivas, who had developed a patch designed to improve the performance of specific Linux desktop features. Kolivas claimed in an interview that the kernel development process privileges enterprise-centric server features, while basic desktop features remain almost unusable.

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Sony Unveils Flash Based Vaio

APC Mag has the lowdown on Sony’s new flash storage based Vaio laptop. The feature packed laptop is rather nice. It has sleek good looks and the system specs are indeed impressive but the price tag is a tad bit on the high side. Take a peek:

After playing with the TZ18HN for a few minutes I have to admit it's one sexy notebook. It's incredibly light and small (227 x 22.5 x 198mm) and is built around a carbon fibre frame. The only problem is the price - at $4299 you can easily find more powerful, higherspec'd computers on the market. But doing so won't get you bragging rights about having the first flash-based notebook on your block.

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Firefox 2.0.0.6 Released

Attention all you alternative browser fans, Mozilla just released Firefox 2.0.0.6! This latest update fixes two recently discovered security holes (1 high, 1 moderate) The download weighs in at only 5.7MB so grab it if you need it, try it if you haven’t.

The following security issues have been fixed. Unescaped URIs passed to external programs MFSA 2007-26 Privilege escalation through chrome-loaded about:blank windows. The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life.

NVIDIA 162.18 WHQL Drivers

For those of you that missed the announcement last week, NVIDIA released new Windows XP WHQL certified drivers for all you GeForce owners. The latest Forceware package weighs in at just under 47MB and brings the drivers up to version 162.18. Grab them if you need them. Thanks to Theron Speer for the heads up.

WHQL Certified driver. Improved compatibility for Lost Planet. Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0c and OpenGL® 2.1 support. Numerous game and application compatibility fixes. Please read the release notes for more information on product support, feature limitations, driver fixes and known compatibility issues. If you would like to be notified of upcoming drivers for Windows, please subscribe to the newsletter.

[H]ardware Round-Up

Video

Graphics Card Repair Guide Part 2 @ TechARP

ETC.

Commodore XX Gaming PC @ Bit-Tech

Logitech VX Nano Mouse @ XYZ Computing

OCZ ModXStream 780W PSU @ Driver Heaven

OCZ ModXStream 780W PSU @ Modders Inc.