Bij Thresh's FiringSquad hebben ze alvast de IntelliMouse Explorer getest. Dit is best een bijzondere muis want ipv een balletje gebruikt hij een motion-sensing mechanisme om zijn positie te bepalen. Vieze muisjes zijn nu dus verleden tijd 
. Lees de preview hier.
From a design standpoint, an optical mouse is really a good idea. As mentioned, it removes any and all moving parts, and it never needs to be cleaned. The only question is how to work around its various limitations.The biggest problem to solve was the cumbersome mousepad. Microsoft solved this problem by using a special CCD device. A "charged coupled device" is the mechanism used in a digital camera to capture a picture. So in essence, the MS Optical mouse is a very specialized digital camera. The camera is designed to take very fast snapshots of the surface under the mouse. It then compares the last two pictures and specialized firmware determines the difference between the pictures and translates it into positional movement.
Kryotech heeft een nieuw Athlon systeempje in elkaar geklust, die bij temperaturen van -40C vrolijk op een snelheid van 800MHz draait:
The KryoTech Cool Athlon™ is 800MHz of processing power to help you fly through your intense business and graphics applications and will mesmerize you with its gaming performance. It's 800MHz of blazingly cool performance for people who can't afford to wait. And unlike "overclocked" systems that run the processor out of spec and violate the manufacturer's warranty, the Cool AMD Athlon 800 is a total engineering solution delivered by KryoTech and fully endorsed by AMD.
Ace's Hardware heeft wat info uit een CTech Taiwan report weten te plukken, waarin een AMD ventje o.a. zegt dat we volgend jaar een socket versie van de Athlon kunnen verwachten:
- Athlon Marketing Manager Gary Bixler is quoted as saying that socket version of Athlon will debut next year- Athlon will go into 0.18 micron production at Austin in Q4, and 0.18 micron copper production at Dresden early next year
- 0.18 micron process will shrink the Athlon die from 184mm to 100mm
Gamers Depot heeft een review gepost van de goddelijk grote 22" Iiyama VisionMaster Pro510. Kost een beetje veel, maar dan heb je ook wat. Wat dacht je van een resolutie van 2048x1536 op een refreshrate van 75Hz?
The first thing I was struck with was that the screen was so flat I was, in fact it's so flat my wife almost tried to wallpaper it! =pAt all resolutions, including 2048x1536@75hz (driven by the Voodoo3 3500TV), the picture was crystal clear without any "banding" like you get on "cheap-skate" monitors, and without distortion, even at the edges! This was also the case when using the 15pin standard cabling that comes with it.
22" of unadulterated goodness gives a whole new meaning of interactive gameplay. There were a few times initially while playing Quake2 or Q3Test, that I had to stop for awhile and catch my breath due to the ole' "dizzy" effect that a large screen tends to have on ones eyeballs.
Linux Torvalds heeft op de LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Jose zijn visie over de toekomst van Linux naar buiten gebracht:
The future of Linux therefore holds power management and several other features aimed at making the "open source" operating system better for ordinary computer users, Torvalds said today at a keynote address at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo today.Future initiatives planned for the next version of Linux include improvements intended to support a range of technologies, including sound cards, universal serial bus (USB), PCMCIA cards, and plug-and-play features. Work to incorporate DVD drive support is being hampered by trade secrets in decrypting DVD information.
"It's not just the high end. We're trying to make Linux look good" on notebooks and low-end systems as well, Torvalds said.
Glimpses into the future of Linux aren't just important for Linux hobbyists. With computer companies such as IBM and Red Hat staking their future on the operating system, Torvalds's prognostications are the closest thing to a Linux product road map.
Meer info over nieuwe features die op het programma staan (zoals hot-swappable PCI devices, USB support, clustering enz.) vind je in deze dikke nieuwsposting van News.com.
3D Alpha heeft een artikeltje gepost waarin ze de performance van de interne IDE Zip drive vergelijken met die van een externe Parallelle drive. In ECP mode blijkt de parallelle drive meer dan 16 keer zo traag te zijn!
So now you're ready to find out which Zip Drive is more worth the money. The first thing you have to ask yourself is what's more important: Mobility or Speed? The External Parallel Port Zip Drives are excellent for mobility, and are easy to carry around, but you'll find out that their speed isn't nearly as fast as Iomega's Internal Zip Drives, even on faster and newer parallel ports. It all depends upon what you plan to do with the drive. Do you plan to use it at home a good deal? Or are you purchasing it soley for the sake of mobility as well as storage? What about if you plan to do both?Yes, the middlemen. Those who like take it with 'em as well as those who love speed. Well, if you're one of these people, I would highly suggest buying a USB Zip, but if by some twisted fate that it comes down to a decision between the two compared here, I would suggest the External Parallel Zip on EPP transfer mode, as it's the fastest of the four parallel port transfer modes.
News.com heeft een artikeltje geschreven over de huidige oorlog in DVD land, waar de DVD-RW standaard van Boonstra en Sony het opneemt tegen de DVD-RAM standaard van Hitachi, Panasonic en Toshiba. De huidige strijd heeft veel weg van de VHS vs Beta battle uit de jaren tachtig:
The players are strikingly similar. Beta backers Sony and Philips support one standard, DVD+RW, and VHS victors Hitachi, Panasonic, and Toshiba support the other, DVD-RAM."Do you want to bet on the guys who did VHS or the guys who did Beta?" asked Jim Porter, president of Disk Trend. "We see the same foolishness being repeated over and over again here and the inability to sit down in a smoke-filled room and agree what a single standard should be."
DVD+RW writes disks that most DVD drives and players can read. DVD-RAM, on the other hand, stores optical disks in caddies that won't work in older DVD devices. DVD rewritable's main advantage over the more popular CD rewritable is capacity, 4.7GB versus 640MB.
Wired News heeft een artikeltje gepost over de nieuwe Logitech Wingman Force Feedback mouse met 'tactile feedback':
The primary market for the Logitech's Wingman Force Feedback Mouse, which is due to ship in December, will be gaming. Tactile feedback has been used in joysticks that reflect inertial forces experienced in jet flight or driving simulations.[...] But Logitech and Immersion want to carry the concept to other mouse-intensive applications. From Web surfing to graphic design and business applications, the company thinks tactile feedback can be tied to productivity enhancement.
Logitech envisions users feeling the cursor interact with points, lines, and curves as they draw a 2-D image in a design program. Contours, surfaces, textures, and edges could provide similar sensations in 3-D rendering.
Check Wired voor de complete info.
The Tech Zone heeft een review gepost van de 3dfxCool Monitor HO, een koelertje waarmee je (jaja) monitor kunt koelen. Tegenwoordig schijnt dat namelijk nodig te zijn...
When I first heard of this product, I thought what the heck? What good is a monitor cooler. I mean what will it do? You can’t overclock the monitor or anything and it doesn’t affect system performance. However, I forgot one thing that the monitor produces a lot of. Heat. This can even affect the picture on your screen if you have a really old monitor. It can also affect the picture if your monitor is located in a section of the house which collects a lot of heat. Instead of buying a new monitor to fix the deteriorating picture on the monitor you can access a cheap alternative. Monitor cooling. Its cheap, easy to install, and quite effective.
Plaatje:
Firingsquad heeft z'n PIII Overclocking Guide ge-update met info over de overklokbaarheid van de PIII-600. Volgens opper-goeroe Tom heeft de PIII-600 al moeite om stabiel op 600Mhz te draaien, dus het valt te betwijfelen of daar nog wat meer uit geklokt kan worden:
Our retail P3-600 wasn't stable at 660MHz with the factory heatsink and fan. We removed the factory cooling setup and replaced it with a generic P3 cooling unit that has a larger heatsink. The processor was stable at 660MHz after the switch.We could POST and boot into Windows at 672MHz and 690MHz, but the system would crash as soon as we tried running a benchmark suite or Q3test timedemo. Slowly bumping the voltage up to 2.3 didn't help either. The fact that we could get our chip to boot into Windows @ 672MHz and 690MHz puts those speeds within reach, but our chip couldn't do it.
Gearheads heeft een preview van de Elsa Erazor III eXtreme online gezet. Deze kaart heeft net zoals de ATi All-in-Wonder een video in- en uitgang, maar is gebouwd rondom de snellere TNT chipset. De Elsa 3D Revelator glasses maken tevens deel uit van dit extreme pakketje:
The Erazor III's 3D Revelator glasses are similar to the ones shipped with the Erazor II PCI that is alternating with the Erazor III for time on the testbed, expect that they are infrared instead of tethered. This is much more convenient, although the infrared glasses require a battery replacement after a year. They come in a classy ELSA sunglasses bag already, which is a nice touch.There are a few features that I would have added to the TV I/O for the Erazor III. Consider this: You can hook the Erazor III up to 3 video input devices (Perhaps your cable box, your VCR, and your camcorder) and output to two of them (Your VCR and camcorder). Wouldn't it be nice if you could use the Erazor III as a video patchbox, so that you can dub between your camcorder and VCR? And wouldn't it be nice if you could also select your audio source while you are at it? Nonetheless, this is me trying to turn my computer into an entertainment center, so this is all just wishful thinking.
Gamers Depot heeft 3 nieuwe Tiberian Sun screenshots gepost:
Verder vind je er ook nog 3 kewle renderers. Check ze hier.
