HIS ATI HD3870x2 Spotted In China

ATI's dual GPU monster the HD3870x2 has been spotted in the wild in shops in Guangzhou China being flogged for roughly $550 U.S. Sporting two RV670 running at 825mhz core with 1000mhz GDDR3 speeds and using 1ns GDDR3 for a total of 1GB of memory (512MB per core) this should be a screamer if you have the PSU to handle it. We expect benchmarks to be available quite soon, from those ATI board partners allowed to bench these. Pics below courtesy of Pconline.com.cn ...

22/01/2008 | Email

Mike Magee Leaves TheInquirer

After co-founding one of the oldest and largest online tech publications TheRegister in 1994, then moving on to greener pastures full of "voles", "chipzilla's" and "everywhere girls" when he founded TheInquirer in 2001, Mike Magee is calling it quits . Just this morning TheInquirer posted news that "Mageek" would be leaving the publication at the end of February, and that Paul Hales will take his place as Editor.

Mageek said: “I really do owe the readers of the INQUIRER and those who supported me when I started it an apology, sorry really big vote of thanks. I’ve enjoyed every day I’ve worked on the INQUIRER apart from the day I had a triple bypass op.

"I also want to thank the loyal bunch of hacks who’ve helped turn the mag into the success story it became.”
Mike Magee and TheInquirer changed the landscape of tech news reporting by doing things their own way and refusing to bow to industry pressure to gloss over the news. It is a publication both feared and respected by the industry at large, and one that we hope continues to cut it's own path without Mageek at the helm.

Even if Mike rarely posted our news and reviews [no we're not bitter... ED.] we wish him well in whatever future endeavors strike his fancy. Whatever they are, they probably won't be tame.

18/01/2008 | 2 comments | Email

Comcast Gets Into Streaming Video With Fancast

One of the more low key annoucements at CES yesterday involved Comcasts official rollout of Fancast.com . Partnering with Amazon's IMDB and the likes of CBS, Viacom, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, USA, Bravo, BBC, SciFi, and Hulu, Fancast aims to be "the" place to go for streaming video. Through it's licensing arrangements with major studios it has at it's fingertips over 100,000 video properties. Currently there is only a fraction of this available directly from the site in live streams, but expect the streamable content to grow quite a bit going forward.

Signifying Comcasts boldest step yet into online content, it also shows how important online advertising is becoming to traditional market players bottom lines. Comcast will capitalize this new portal through an advertising based model as well as through tie-ins with Fandago , the online movie ticket portal it purchased last year.

08/01/2008 | Email

Shifts In The Computing Landscape. Asus, Lenovo, and Apple?

Several fundamental PC market shifts are beginning to take place in an unlikely realm. The United States. With heavy hitting brands in the U.S. like Dell and HP at first glance it would seem we're quite well served here, but with the changing landscape of computing itself comes opportunity. Despite the fact that overall unit sales growth is slowing in the U.S. due to saturation and the fact that most actual growth is shifting to newer and less economically developed markets, this is really only true in the commodity desktop market. A market already under huge price and profit margin pressures. Solution? Cater to growth categories and higher margin product lines.

02/01/2008 | Email

Voting For A Tech Savvy Prez?

Here in the states, the Presidential primaries are just around the corner, and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has decided to get involved in the process with a tech-savvy twist. TechCrunch has set up a new sub-domain, primaries.techcrunch.com , for the sole purpose of polling it's huge user-base for the candidate they believe understands and represents them on many key technology based issues.

At the site, users can vote for the candidate as they see them, based on their stands on important issues such as Net Neutrality, Immigration and H1B Visas, Taxes & Internet Taxes, Technology Education, The Digital Divide, Identity Theft The Upcoming Mobile Spectrum Auction, China, Intellectual Property Rights and Renewable Energy. Head over and let your voice be heard.

Voting started the 18th of December and will continue through midnight PST, Friday January 18^th. Right now, the polls are showing Dennis Kucinich as the leader for the democratic party with 38% of the vote. Ron Paul Leads the republican polls with a whopping 86% of the vote. View the current results here.

21/12/2007 | Email

Intel Delays 45nm Quads

Intel recently adjusted its launch strategy with the forthcoming 45nm quad-core CPUs (Core 2 Quad Q9300, Q9450 and Q9550), and will postpone their originally scheduled January launch. Digitimes reports...

Launching the CPUs now will not benefit Intel much in its battle with AMD. The delay could cause damage to Intel's 65nm quad-core CPUs, therefore the company has decided it is in no rush to release new products until AMD is able to present more of a threat. Intel commented that its launch of 45nm quad-core CPUs for desktops is on track for first quarter 2008, but declined to disclose a specific time-frame.
With AMD's current financial and process woes, Intel is probably doing them a big favor. It also may be to compete with AMD's release of their upgraded phenom processors within the same time frame of Intel's February/March delay.

19/12/2007 | Email

Ron Paul Gets a Social Networking Site

Utilizing a beta platform called MOLI, www.ronspeople.com. have started a brand new social networking site exclusively geared towards presidential candidate Ron Paul. MOLI is a site that allows users to create individual communities and have multiple profiles under the same account. This segmentation enables isolated groupings of people interested in the same subject matter.

Ron Paul supporters will be able to communicate and debate within one centralized meet-up spot. This uncensored and unrestricted venue will allow more efficient communication and broader collaboration. Text, audio, video, music,  and photos are all integrated into this platform.  User driven content is often a successful method of getting people to congregate and share their ideas with one another.

Digital activism is spreading like wildfire and changing the political atmosphere of apathy to a world wide movement for freedom. If the $6 million 16^th of December is any indication of how palpable his support base is becoming,  this website will be flooded with visitors as soon as word spreads. Within a few hours of the site's launch, www.ronspeople.com already have over a 100 members. The political debate on the growing site should be enlightening. Supporters of each presidential candidate should create a community like this one and foster as much political debate as possible. Nothing  is worse than an uninformed vote.

Judy Balint, President of MOLI.com states in a press release

“MOLI is an excellent platform for this type of grass roots election campaign where supporters can find their digital voice in a rich multi-sensory environment. In fact, we are organizing webinars for Ron Paul supporters to educate them about all the rich, interactive capabilities MOLI is making available to them for their grass roots movement.”

18/12/2007 | Email

Sonic The Hedgehog Coming to the iPod

Earlier this morning, Sega of America released news(PR) of the availability of the 1991 Sonic the Hedgehog game on the Apple iPod series. Support is slated for the iPod nano with video, iPod classic, and fifth generation iPods. The 45+ million copy franchise is going to be available through any of the 22 iTune stores for 4.99 USD and can be "gifted" as well.

Sega hopes that the tremendous install base of the iPod family will lend to exposing a whole new audience to the old time wonders of Sonic The Hedgehog.  The game has been reprogrammed with the Apple's proprietary format and should provide a good port experience. Apple gave SEGA considerable support while making this game. Let us hope that they did a better job of this rendition than the horrendous GBA version. *No information is available yet on how the iPod controls will be implemented, but it does raise some questions with only two buttons available*.Whether or not the casual gaming market will embrace this is yet to be seen. However, the amount of nostalgic purchases will probably be high.

*Update*: Control Scheme:
We've managed to ascertain the control scheme:
Click (hold) right to run right
Click (hold) left to run left
Center button jumps.
Click play/pause to spin
Touch "Menu" to look up,
Touch play/pause to crouch

“Sonic The Hedgehog is one of the most beloved video game characters of all time,” said; Simon Jeffery, President and COO of SEGA of America, “And with the installed base that iPod enjoys Sonic now becomes available to a whole new group of casual and hardcore gamers just in the time for the holidays.”

18/12/2007 | Email

3.2 Billion Lost To Phishing in 2007

Gartner's latest survey into the realm of phishing attacks paints a rather bleak picture for 2007, with a record estimated loss of $3.2 Billion (that's Billion, with a B) U.S. Dollars. Overall loss per incident fell (to $886 from $1,244 lost on average in 2006), but the numbers of individuals who fell victim rose quite sharply from 2.3 Million in 2006 to a staggering 3.6 Million. Although online portals such as Paypal and eBay remained the most spoofed brands, it appears that phishers are getting more creative by utilizing fake electronic greetings cards, foreign businesses, and charitable organizations in their attacks on consumers. Furthermore, these criminals are increasingly targeting debit card and banking credentials rather than credit cards, because the fraud protection mechanisms there are far weaker, according to a study done at The University of California at Berkeley.

18/12/2007 | Email

EA Reveals Tiberium - New Franchise

EA revealed a new game today called Tiberium, and it will take place within the Command and Conquer universe. They think this new franchise will launch “…players into an epic battle for power”. Tiberium revolves around an extraterrestrial crystal that negates fossil fuels as an energy source. Civilization is depending on this power for its survival, and of course, it could be a self-destructive force as well.

Read more about this RTS/FPS here *updated*

18/12/2007 | 1 comment | Email