"Live like a savage" (ja zo heet die site, kan het ook niet helpen) heeft een review van de Cambridge Soundworks FPS 2000 speakers gepost.

The frequency reponse of the FPS2000 is very good, the only complaint i might have is that the higher frequencies tend to sound hollow/tinny. The bass this unit provides is not the tight hard bass that some of us love but rather the booming loud bass which is ideal for the Quake3 style blast games. After listening to music i found the quality to be lacking a slight bit at the higher volumes but anything better would probably cost you a considerable amount of money.

If you have a SBLive! value then you will definitely notice a difference if you go out and get the Daughtercard which gives the DIN out. The FPS2000 comes with the cabling for this and it only involved plugging it in for the totally digital music experience. The difference although subtle is quite audible once you've tried comparative listening.

The 3D positioning capabilities of this speaker are pretty amazing. After playing Need for Speed: High Stakes with the EAX/D3D audio option it really added to the gaming experience. You dont realise there is a difference until you disable it and find the experience seriously lacking. With EAX3 just around the corner things can only get better.

In Engeland is zojuist de eerste flappentapper met irisscanner in gebruik genomen.

The new machine, known as Stella, has just gone on show in London following a successful public trial in Canada. It does not use a keyboard, and could see the demise of customers having to remember Pin (Personal identification number) numbers. It gets to know a customer personally - even down to remembering birthdays - through the recognition of his or her iris, the coloured part of the eye. The customer stares into three, high definition cameras, which identify the user by scanning 256 points on the iris. The method is virtually foolproof, and is more individual than fingerprinting.

de full story

Bij gebrek aan hardware nieuws vandaag dan maar even iets ludiekers, hoewel met perspectief.
Je kunt nu namelijk een stukje voorgeprogrammeerde DNA bestellen voor $1. In dat stukje zit een klein aantal computerinstructies een aantal miljard keer opgeslagen.
Het doel hiervan ? Het kweken van hybride computers.

Today anybody can order any imaginable sequence of DNA "instructions" by mail order for $1 per instruction. What you get is a test tube with about a trillion copies of any specific DNA sequence you desire. Worldwide, about a dozen laboratories thus far have ordered experimental DNA sequences in an attempt to derive living computers. The allure of DNA computing is the far denser packing of molecular information compared with silicon-based computers. A single bacterium cell measures just a micron square — about the same size as a single silicon transistor — but holds more than a megabyte of DNA memory and has all the computational structures to sense and respond to its environment.

lees hier meer.

Tijdens een 'spel' onder een groepje microsoft personeel is een volledige verdieping van een duur hotel door de politie geevacueerd.
Het spel was een soort van oefening tegen terroristische akties, waarbij voor de M$ medewerkers her en der door de stad (New York) aanwijzingen verspreid waren.
Een van de aanwijzingen was een met een label "radioactief afval" gemerkte container die in een hotel verstopt was. Daar werd echter direkt alarm geslagen.

Inevitably, however, some clues merged fantasy with reality, with less whimsical results. At the World Trade Center Marriott Hotel, vials containing dishwashing fluid labeled "radioactive waste" were discovered yesterday by custodial workers cleaning up a suite designed to simulate terrorist headquarters. Fearing they may have been contaminated, the workers notified police and port authorities, who briefly evacuated the 14th floor and an area of the basement while they worked to identify the substance. Authorities decided against filing charges.

Slimme zet
Lees hier het volledige bericht.

Sharky Extreme geeft een revieuw van de Soyo SY6BA+ III mammaplank. Het is een BX-plank met veel verschillende FSB's en is ook zeer geschikt voor overklokken. Hier een stukje:

Let's get right to it. The SY6BA+ III (or "V3" as the staff took to calling it) is an amazing piece of practical flexibility and technological implementation.

From its nearly perfect ergonomic design and layout to its seemingly endless amount of customization via simple BIOS settings, the V3 is a board that has easily vaulted to the top of our office's "favorite mainboards" list.

Before we explain why, go ahead and see if you spot some of the big love that the V3 dishes out for its owner. After looking at the list you may wonder if the SY6BA+ III is indeed "man's best friend" instead of your family pooch…

Het is dus wel een leuk bordje...lees hier waarom precies.

FullOn3D vergelijkt de nieuwste TNT(2) 2.08 drivers met de 1.88 versie. Ze testen in Q2 en Unreal. Het is een kort verhaaltje dus ik zet hier ff de conclusie :

Whatever NVidia was working on with these drivers, it doesn't show in the performance for the applications we regularily test - it may be better elsewhere. Stability on the K6-III/MVP3 combo is greatly improved for Quake 2, which is a good thing. On the other hand it was just as good in 1.76 before it was broken on the way to 1.88, so ...

It would be interesting to hear from NVidia what they are working on with those drivers, but getting a response is about as likely as getting one from Linus Thorvalds, the pope or Bill Clinton.

We'll try to keep you posted if we learn more, though.

Wil je cijfers zien dan moet je deze link aanklikken.

Zoals ik in mijn vorige posting al melde, hier een mooi overzichtje met afzet in stuks van de grootste moederbord fabrikanten over periode 1 van 1999:

ASUS Again On Top - 00:20 You are probably wondering, which mainboard manufacturer is dominating the market right now? Well, we can share with you some info, which will probably help you to find the correct answer.   Q1 1999 Shipment, thousand pcs Q1 1998 Shipment, thousand pcs Gain, % ASUS 2500 2100 19.0 Gigabyte 1120 790 41.8 MSI 1170 560 108.9 AOpen 512 425 20.5 Biostar 450 420 7.1 Shuttle 410 531 -22.8 Chaintech 360 230 56.5 A-trend 338 510 -33.7 LuckyStar 326 350 -6.9 Soyo 290 370 -21.6

As we see, ASUS once again proves the coolest, which is not surprising at all.

Geen informatie over Abit.

Bij onze russische vrienden vond ik een leuk stukje met informatie over moederbord fabrikanten en hun afzet in stuks, met daaronder een paar regeltjes met zeer interessante informatie:

ASUS has also devoted special attention to AMD K7. It will provide two mainboards for it: K7M based on AMD Irongate (due Q3) and K7V (due Q4) based on upcoming VIA chipset.

VoodooExtreme heeft een screen shot van het spel Slave Zero

Een uitvergroting staat hier.

Er is absoluut weinig boeiend nieuws op het net nu . Kyle van HardOCP heeft er ook last van... Lees dit:

I bought this Addtronics case about 9 months ago or so and have really enjoyed using it. While in Taiwan we stopped by and talked to the Addtronics people and told them where that had screwed up when they made it. Really only two minor points. Then I saw a picture of one of their cases with casters on it and I tried to position my self for some free schtuff. No deal, the tight little bastards made me buy'em.

Well, the deal is that while I may be testing a new mainboard on the workbench I can still get some frag-time in and call it "video card testing", so I take lots of vid cards in and out of my everyday unit. It can get to be a real bitch turning this full tower around all the time. So I slapped the casters on and while it helped, they really dug into the carpet. Bummer. Then I got mobile and slid on into Home Depot and got me a sheet of Plexiglas.

Juist....hij schrijf hoe die zn kast verrijdbaar maakt....
Plaatjes hier.

Exxtreme3D heeft een kleine review gebouwd rondom de Viper V770 TNT2. De review stelt niks voor, en de paar benchmarks die er zijn, komen van een AMD K2-400.

I tested the 3D card on the three programs: Quake2 Massive1.dm2, Quake2 Crusher.dm2, and Quake3Test 1. What was my results? Very much NOT what I expected. This was supposed to be a top-notch card that gives the maximum quality for 3D gaming. The Viper V770 Ultra was supposed to be going out with speeds at 175MHz core and 200MHz memory. However, the card actually 125MHz core and 183MHz clock speed. If you want it to go to the 175/200, though, you can overclock it with the Turbo Gauge. If you do this, though, the cooling fan supplied might not fully support it. You know...the Ally McBeal fan.

Nog een reviewtje van deze Flat Panel Speakers. 3DRage vond ze er wel hip uitzien, maar niet zo goed presteren:

The most important aspect in choosing the right speakers is the sound quality. With the Benwin BW2000's, the sound quality is a mixed bag. The satellites offer relatively good sound with quick response. The satellites offered extremely accurate sound reproduction with frequency responses from 150 - 20kHz. One major problem that both the satellites and subwoofer suffered from was distortion. When the volume was turned 3/4 of the way up you could tell that the distortion was present. The bad thing is that 3/4 of the way up is not loud with the flat panel speakers as they are nowhere near as loud as conventional speakers.

The 3D surround sound switch is a bit useless since the flat panel technology already removes the "hot spot" that conventional speakers possess and projects the sound in a 360 degree radius so everywhere in the room the sound quality would be the same. I heard no difference in sound when enabling or disabling the 3D switch.

The subwoofer is the biggest flaw in the speaker setup. Not only is it severely underpowered, it also suffers from the aforementioned distortion. When I turned the volume and bass all the way up I was disappointed as both were lacking power and volume.

Het lijkt erop dat intel's dagen geteld zijn.
Als overklokker zou je toch maf zijn als je nog een PIII gaat kopen als je onderstaande leest.

Sources close to AMD said today that overclocking Athlon K7s is an easy matter, with systems builders easily able to achieve speeds of 700MHz.

But things could get even better for overclocking freaks, because the same source said that AMD is likely to introduce a 750MHz part either late in Q3 or early in Q4 this year.

If AMD continues its policy of supporting gamers willing to overclock their parts, that could mean some very fast systems will emerge, knocking spots off the Intel competition, he said.

Multiprocessor boards are unlikely to arrive until early next year, however.

Rana Mainee, European research director at AMD, said: "We don't recommend overclocking but we haven't done anything in K7 to prevent it. If people want to do that, they can choose to do so at their own risk."

He said the majority of people using K7s would never want to open a machine but there were dedicated hobbyists who would want to tweak performance to its maximum.

He said he was unable to confirm the 750MHz K7 Athlon part, but added: "The K7 core is a great core and its very scalable".

Met deze zet van AMD zullen een groot aantal tweakers de sprong naar AMD wellicht wagen. Voorlopig zijn er nog de celerons, maar intel heeft al aangekondigt al haar processors te locked.

Natuurlijk is microsoft nog niet tevreden met haar grootschalige monopoliepositie op de softwaremarkt. Nu kunnen ze MP3 ook al niet met rust laten

Microsoft announced that future versions of the Diamond Rio Portable MP3 Player will support Microsoft Windows Media Audio (WMA). Microsoft boasts that with WMA, Rio users will be able to hold twice as much music with the same sound quality as MP3. Diamond recently announced the upcoming Rio PMP500, the next generation of its portable MP3 player. The PMP500 will offer 64MB standard, ID3 tag reading via the LCD, and an even smaller and sleeker design. The new Rio will ship with RioPort's Rio Audio Manager software, which will allow users to create, manage and play WMA and MP3 files. Microsoft and Diamond will also cooperate on Windows Media Management Services, the technology that allows users to securely transfer audio content from PCs to Rio players.

Wel een slimme zet van Diamond trouwens. Ook de hardcore Bill Gates discipelen die uiteraard WMA zullen gaan gebruiken ipv MP3 komen zo aan hun trekken.
lees meer hier

In de afgelopen nacht heeft Tim Sweeney en live chat gehad in #planetUnreal op irc (welke server dit precies was staat er niet bij) over de verdere gang van zaken in Unreal Tournament.

De chat quoten heeft weinig zin omdat er tussen vraag en antwoord soms een hele pagina tekst zit (ja, het was druk schijnbaar )

Toch ff een leuke van Tim zelf:

* Tim thinks UnrealScript is c00ler than C++

De volledige chatlog kun je hier nalezen.

Starstonesoftware (WIE ?!?!?!!) brengt een nieuwe versie van het freeware/shareware programma Eye of the Storm uit. Buiten de software zelf is er ook een openGL screensaver en nog een paar andere goodies.

Eye of the Storm is an OpenGL-based hurricane tracking program which lets you easily monitor the path and strength of Atlantic and Pacific tropical storms using an interactive 3D map. The Advanced Edition adds multiple map types (including realistic earth imagery), map pan & zoom, storm animations & playback, historical records and more. The free Advanced Edition Preview version retrieves inactive storms as well as active storms (so you can see what it does since there currently are no active storms), and includes a few historical storm files.

NOTE: Alleen voor weatherfreaks

Werd in mei in europa spam gelegaliseerd, in Canada trekt men zich daar niks van aan. 'Spam druist in tegen alle regels van de Netiquette', lijkt de instelling van de Candese rechtbank.

A Canadian court has ruled that sending junk email -- or spamming -- is in breach of the Net's unwritten code of conduct.

The decision by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice is believed to be the first time that spamming has been judged to break the abiding principles of netiquette, according to reports on US newswires.

Dit is dus gewoon het betere werk he. Verbieden die zooi !
meer

Amiga kondigde in November aan dat QNX het besturingssysteem zou worden voor de nieuwe generatie Amiga's. Eergisteren bedacht men zich en vertelde dat was besloten voor de Linux kernel. QNX heeft daar zo haar eigen gedachten over:

Dodge promised that most QNX applications and device drivers are source-identical across CPUs, allowing work done using the beta to be later migrated easily to whatever platform Amiga eventually selects for its next-generation hardware.

Dodge also announced Photon, a GUI designed to complement QNX. Photon is X Window compatible, and will ship with its own visual application builder, Web browser, multimedia player and 3D graphics system.

[...]

Certainly, the tone of Dodge's letter when he's describing the benefits of QNX over Linux suggest that, and in many ways his comments read as a plea to the Amiga community to stand up to the management's plan and back QNX.

We did what we said we'd do, Dodge appears to be saying, but Amiga has still turned away from us -- everyone in the Amiga community should make sure it doesn't get away with it.

QNX laat zich dus niet zomaar opzij zetten. Ongeacht welk besturingssysteem de Amiga uiteindelijk gaat gebruiken, QNX zal gewoon installeerbaar zijn.

Volledige bericht.
Meer over QNX
QNX demo (download de 1.44Mb demo van QNX - een windows-like besturingssysteem, web server, web browser en meer op 1 flop !)

Next Generation heeft een review(tje) geplaatst van het tot in de treuren toe gehypte 'kingpin'.
Ik heb 't zelf nog niet gespeeld, dus ik kan er weinig zinnigs over zeggen - maar op het eerste oog lijkt het me wel een vet spel.
Anyway:

So what kind of game do you get that's so grim and dangerous that it has more warning labels than a truck filled with radioactive sludge? An all-out shooter with a trace of adventure and mild RPG elements, using an enhanced Quake II engine. Seven episodes, with 24 levels of toe-to-toe butchery. You'll need a 3D accelerator for this one, and it looks great, in spite of the slums, boozed-up winos, street litter, crawling rats and burning oil drums. Lots of brick textures, neon signs, no-neck brutes and foul-mouthed women. Your typical crime-ridden neighborhood.

Of je naar de winkel moet rennen om hem te gaan halen kun je hierlezen.

GA-Source heeft een aantal screenshots geplaatst van het upcoming spel "Loose Cannon"

From the creators of the Crusader series comes a game with even more violence, destruction and all out mayhem. Loose Cannon puts you in the role of bounty hunter in a world gone bad - very bad.

Impressive to say the least !

Zie hier