Bijna iedereen heeft Enemy of the State met Will Smith al wel zo'n beetje gezien, denk ik. Nu lijkt het erop dat waar het daar ook om ging nu IRL ook echt gaat gebeuren.

Big Brother is watching you... De Amerikaanse regering slaat bijna door in haar angst voor de donkere kanten van het Internetgebruik. Het Ministerie van Justitie lanceert een nieuw wet om cybercriminaliteit en kinderpornografie te bestrijden. Agenten kunnen nu in het geheim huizen binnendringen om zo programma's op computers te instaleren en wachtwoorden te kraken om misbruik op te sporen. Deze "Cyberspace Electronic Security Act" krijgt veel tegenstand van verdedigers van vrije meningsuiting en burgerlijke vrijheden.

Deze info heb ik gejat van News4Free.

The Tech Zone heeft een review gepost van de BE6, Abit's huidige slot1 flagship met ATA/66 support en 66, 68, 75, 83, 100, 103, 105, 110, 112, 115, 120, 124, 133, 140, 150Mhz busspeed settings:

The inclusion of a 105 and 110Mhz bus is very welcome. Abit has done their homework on Intel's current processor offering and has chosen bus speed to take those CPUs to the limit. For example, I think Abit hit the limit of my Celeron 366 dead on with the 110Mhz bus. At 100Mhz the Celeron 366 is 100% stable. Increasing the bus speed by 2Mhz to 112Mhz made the system unstable, no matter how much voltage I used.

With the old Abit BX6 v2 I could only run the Celeron 366 at 567Mhz (103x5.5) because the next bus speed was 112Mhz, which is unstable. Using the Abit BE6, I now have a stable 605Mhz Celeron system. :-)

OS Opinion heeft een editorial gepost over de overname van Star Division door Sun. Volgens de schrijver van dit artikel hoopt Sun zijn JavaStation met deze aankoop aantrekkelijker te maken als desktop systeem:

All successful platforms are defined by their applications. The desktop is defined by office products and convenient Internet access. The JavaStation, coupled with Star Office, delivers both in a zero (or near zero) administrative bonus. Support and administration is the biggest expense of the Windows desktop platform.

I wouldn't expect Sun to become a desktop vendor any time soon though. They are simply getting the ball rolling. If it takes off, others will license JavaStation technology, but they will still put their trust in high end Sun equipment for the back end. While some have fretted over what this purchase means for the desktop, they have missed what it means for the Server.

3D Alpha heeft een review van de Gigabyte GA-660 TNT2 kaart gepost. De kaart draait standaard op 150/166MHz, maar kan met behulp van een jumpertje naar 175/190Mhz overgeklokt worden:

The GA-660 has an interesting jumper on it that is labeled "Turbo". According to the manual, when covered, this switch enables the user to overclock the board. I was able to safely overclock my board to a setting of 175mhz core, 190mhz memory. This may be attributed to the inclusion of a very impressive cooling system. Not only does the GA-660 have a heatsink and fan covering the front side of the TNT2 chipset, but it also includes a large heatsink covering the back of it. The default speed of the GA-660 is 150/166. The memory was stable at 190mhz, but above that it produced visual accuities.

Ook erg leuk is de blauw gekleurde printplaat:

ZDNet UK heeft een artikel waarin bovenstaand onderwerp wordt geanalyseerd. Hier heb je een paar snippers:

But Burman believes strong competition will continue in the market and that Intel is not yet in a position to eliminate its rival. He concedes that AMD hasn't got the muscle to damage Intel in a significant way and that Intel is far from "quaking in its boots", despite losing the all important speed advantage.

[...] One industry observer suggested AMD would only be able to sustain the pressure of successive price cuts for as long as Intel allowed it to play in a market place Intel regards as its own. Undoubtedly, Intel is considerably better-positioned to take the substantial financial hit that follows hefty price cuts. The strategy of cutting margins for a long-term fight is more suited to Intel. More price cuts make Intel look good. Burman explained: "It's the old story of marketing over technology in some ways. Intel is fortunate to be in the strange position of making components that are more famous than the boxes surrounding them." "It's not a one-horse race," he concluded.

Volgens een nieuwsbericht van The Register ondervinden de chip prijzen in Taiwan op dit moment een sterke stijging, als gevolg van een tekort aan componenten:

According to one report, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), has announced price hikes of 25 per cent, starting in early September. The company had already warned of earlier price increases of 15 per cent. TSMC is the biggest silicon foundry on the island.

Other major Taiwanese foundries, including UMC, are bound to follow suit.

Weer een posting van The Register: Intel heeft de eerste werkende samples van de Merced gebakken. Onze grote vriend uit Redmond krijgt Win64 echter nog niet aan de praat, dit terwijl Linux al wel draait:

Reliable sources close to Intel's plans say that the company has produced first silicon samples of the processor in its fabrication plants. But while the news may be good for Intel, Microsoft is already gnashing its teeth.

Because the Linux operating system is already running on the silicon while Microsoft's Win64 software won't. Microsoft Redmond has drafted in armies of developers in an attempt to sort out the embarrassing fact, the sources said.

John Carmack heeft z'n .plan file geupdate met info over een nieuwe Q3Test versie, die volgende maand gereleased zou moeten worden:

The current plan is that we will have another test release around the middle of next month. This version will be running game/cgame/ui with the virtual machine, and will include single player play against bots. No new maps.

I will be releasing the source for all the VM modules with it, and setting the executable up so that it will allow modified modules to be used.

The modified LCC and q3asm will be available both in source form and precompiled, so a professional development environment will not be requried. Using MSDEV to debug binary dll's does make exploration a lot easier than adding prints to interpreted code...

Some minor porting work on the tools will be necessary to do development under linux. The effort would be greater for mac development, because the tools are inherently command line based.

The map editor and tools will not be released until after the game hits store shelves. To be completely clear: you are not legally licensed to create or use addon maps with the test.

I am hoping that this public review will turn up bugs before we complete the game. 50k lines of code is quite a bit to go over, but people familiar with previous games will have a good head start in the game module.

The best possible situation would be if exploration of the code evolves into a tier system, with either moderated or limited access lists that I can follow without being swamped. I can't afford to be too involved in helping everyone figure out the basics. I have plenty of confidence in the mod communities ability to work that out. :-)

Hierna volgt nog een hele zooi technische info, dat lees je allemaal hier.

AMD heeft aangekondigd dat het z'n CPU prijzen voorlopig nog niet gaat verlagen:

Despite claimsearlier this week that AMD would "have to respond" to Intel price cuts announced Monday, the company now says no immediate price changes will be made to the Athlon family of processors.

[...] AMD's European marketing director Robert Stead, told ZDNet News Thursday: "We do not need to make cuts on the Athlon family, regardless of Intel's reductions. We do not slavishly follow Intel's price changes." Traditionally, AMD has been seen to shadow Intel's price cuts.

Stead admits there is a constant battle to balance price cuts of individual chips while keeping the average price above $100 (£62). "We have 45 to 50 microprocessors and we need to achieve an average of $100 or above," says Stead.

Om te voorkomen dat AMD in een hevige prijsoorlog met het financieel veel sterkere Intel verzeild raakt, lijkt het me voor AMD ook wel verstandig om niet meteen te zakken.

Het is lang (2 jaar) geleden dat we zoveel nieuwe reviews van Tom zagen. Nu heeft-ie een artikel gepost waarin hij de performance van de Voodoo3-3500, (Hercules Dynamite) TNT2 Ultra en G400 Max op een 800MHz Kryotech Cool Athlon vergelijkt:

There's no doubt about it! A person can't go wrong using the KryoTech Cool AMD Athlon 800MHz processor with any of the tested video boards. Each of the tested video boards did quite well across the tested suite of game apps. I was surprised to see that the G400MAX's performance wasn't leading the pack with the faster Athlon processor. Even though Matrox did some fine work increasing their OpenGL performance by some 25%, they still need to squeeze out some more to stay competitive using OpenGL based game applications. Knowing that the next generation 3D chips will incorporate highly efficient geometry engines, it will be interesting to see if a high speed Athlon offers any benefit when using a 3D chip that incorporates on-board geometry setup.

Uit de benchmarks blijkt dat de de G400 en TNT2 elkaar op hoge resoluties (1600x1200) nauwelijks ontlopen. Benchmarks e.d. vind je hier.

GameSpot heeft een zeer goed artikel geschreven genaamd "The Final Hours of Tiberian Sun". In 15 pagina's lees je alles over hoe Tiberian Sun tot stand is gekomen, van het begin tot de laatste paar minuten. De designers zijn geïnterviewed, maar ook Kane, de leider van Nod, die bekent zelf een die-hard C&C-er te zijn en vaak op Westwood Online te vinden is. Anyway, dit is zeker de moeite waard om te lezen, klik hier.

Hot on the heels of Command and Conquer's release, Sperry was already thinking about the next step - Command and Conquer 2: Tiberian Sun. In fact, the original Command and Conquer included a sneak preview movie on the CD for Tiberian Sun. That sneak preview movie caused quite a bit of debate, as it showed a MechWarrior-esque unit being controlled in a first-person interface:

The movie played at the end of Command and Conquer teased players about Tiberian Sun.

Was Tiberian Sun going to be something completely new? "That movie was just left over because we didn't make that unit for the game," says lead in-game artist Joe Hewitt. "We thought it would be a cool teaser for the next game." But regardless of what the next game was going to be, no one - Sperry included - expected the game to take four years to complete.

"Unfortunately, a little project named Red Alert came along," admits Sperry, referring to Westwood's incredibly successful prequel to Command and Conquer that pitted the Soviets against the Allies in a twisted history of sorts where Einstein displaces Hitler on the time continuum circa World War II.

Westwood's Red Alert launched in 1996 and received great praise from gamers and critics.

Built in just over a year using the C&C engine, Red Alert arrived in early 1996 and was hugely successful from day one. If anything, it was a testament to the fact that C&C had developed a huge international fan base... a group of individuals who have now been waiting since 1996 for the next C&C game.

"It's not like we haven't been working on a new game," explains Sperry. Indeed, initial design work on Tiberian Sun began in late 1995, only days after the original Command and Conquer shipped. "It just took an incredible amount of time to build Tiberian Sun because we were using a whole new engine and trying to introduce a lot of new tactics," Sperry rationalizes.

Van links naar rechts, Executive Producer Brett Sperry, Nod Leader Joe Kucan AKA "Kane", en Lead Designer Adam Isgreen.

Check GameSpot voor meer!

Voodoo Extreme heeft een chat log gepost van hun IRC chat met Scott Miller van 3DRealms. Uiteraard werd er gebabbeld over Duke Nukem Forever:

Question: How is the general detail level in Duke Nukem Forever (polygon counts, and so on) as compared to Unreal or Unreal Tournament?

We have higher poly counts, partly because base systems are getting better... and because we have scaling tech (both upwards and downwards). over

The biggest concern with Unreal is a framerate hit. What are you doing to make sure this doesn't happen?

We are rewriting a lot of the Unreal code...and we're designing our levels with more attention paid...to framerate. George Broussard, my partner and ...project leader of DNF, is the King of framerate, and will always...let that be the deciding factor over any other issue...nothing is worse than a slow level.

AOpen heeft z'n Athlon bord aangekondigd: het ding heet AK71 en zoals we van AOpen mogen verwachten wordt dit weer een super solide plankje (of niet Rosink ). Overclockers' Workbench serveert de soep:

'With AMD's new introduction of AMD-K7 motherboard, AOpen also has announced it's latest motherboard for AMD's new platform.

Utilising the AMD-750 AGP chipset, the AOpen AK71 is manufactured on a 6 layers PCB board (Compare to current 4 layers seen in the market). The mothebroard also pass the low ESR (Protection of CPU by limiting the voltage passing thru CPU. Generally voltage near CPU is very high for there are lots of CPU around) requirements set by AMD.

Coming with a 2 years manufacturer warranty and manufactured by number 2 motherboard manufacturer in the world, you will be reassure the quality and ease of use of the new AOpen AK71 motherboard by AOpen.

Below please find attached specification. As more information becomes available regarding features, they will be posted to our website. Photos will also be on the website when they become available.'

Being an Aopen board, we can expect the usual rock solid stability and, hopefully, some overclocking features!

Yup, dat lees je goed: Seagate heeft een ATA/66 versie van z'n 7200rpm Barracuda SCSI monster uitgebracht. Storage Review heeft een review van het ding:

So, what's the best drive around? The Quantum Fireball Plus KX is "faster" in Windows 9x, the operating system voted as "most important" by readers in a recent StorageReview.com survey. The Barracuda ATA, however, is "faster" under Windows NT, the technology found in the upcoming Windows 2000. It should be noted here that the term "faster" really is a farce; the drives virtually deadlock in all categories. ThreadMark places the Barracuda ahead; by now, however, regular readers should be aware that we don't weight ThreadMark results highly. What else distinguishes the two? Both turn in decent heat and noise levels. The Barracuda ATA will boast an incredible street price of $299. Notice the word "will." As of the time of this writing, we haven't yet spotted the drive offered from any retailer. Seagate claims the drive will ship "very soon." If it makes it out within the next couple weeks, it'll possess an $80 price advantage over the competition. If not, competition from other manufacturers will arrive en mass, and who knows what that'll bring ? Bottom line: The Barracuda ATA certainly is one heck of drive; we hope it hits general availability ASAP.

De snelste ATA/66 schijf van dit moment, in WinNT/2000l! (en alleen al vanwege die koele naam wil ik dit ding in m'n PC hebben ).

Onze russische vrienden van iXBT-Labs hebben een dikke TNT2 overclocking guide in elkaar geschroefd. iXBT vergelijkt de overklokbaarheid van de Diamond Viper V770, Creative 3DBlaster TNT2 Ultra en Asus V3800 Ultra. Verder vind je er info over koeling en SDRAM/SGRAM snelheden en uiteraard heeft iXBT ook weer véél benchmarks.

Well, let's sum up. We have every right to state that Diamond Viper V770 graphics card with 6ns memory chips from Hyundai turns out the best choice. Most cards with the standard working frequencies set to 125/150MHz (chipset and memory correspondingly) can be overclocked to 160/225MHz, which provides a 50% performance gain in applications requiring powerful graphics accelerator. V770 Ultra with 5.5ns memory chips from Hyundai can be overclocked somewhat better, but the price is unproportionally higher.

As for ASUS and Creative, we wouldn't recommend you to buy their cards from recent supplies for further overclocking, because they have less overclockable graphics chipsets and slower SGRAM memory.

Mocht je nog van plan zijn om een TNT2 te gaan halen, dan lijkt me dit een erg intessant artikel.

Tiberian Sun is wereldwijd gereleased, dus zien we ook de eerste reviews verschijnen. Comchip heeft er eentje, waarvan hier een stukje (over de multiplayer aspecten in Tiberian Sun):

That put aside, there are many options to choose from other than the connection type. For example, there is a random map generator that resembles the one in Simcity 3000. You can choose the number of hills and cliffs there are, how many cities in your map, the density of vegetation etc etc. The thing I like the most is that you can choose the time of day to play in. Of course there is an option to let the computer randomize one for you if you don't want to be bothered with the settings. Apart from the map itself, you can also choose whether to have your own base, whether bridges are destroyable or not, and others. In this aspect, you gotta give them full credit for this full configurability.

[...] Overall, the multiplayer aspect is pretty well designed, with many options to choose from, people that aren't bored with RTS games in general will live another happy life in the RTS land of C&C.

En hier een paar screenshots, voor wie het spel nog niet heeft gezien:

The Register heeft weer wat leuke info opgevist. Geen idee of dit waar is...

Sources close to Intel have suggested that the Mendocino design, which saved the Celeron from utter oblivion, has 256K cache designed in, not just the 128K cache, as widely advertised.

According to the source, Cadence was called in after the original Celeron performed disastrously and designed the Mendocino core. The Intel source, based in Israel, said that the external design was good, but Intel did not want to implement everything all at once. That suggests that Intel may well enable the other 128K of trannies at a time best known to it.

No one from either the Intel or Cadence press offices was available at press time.

Firingsquad heeft een Q&A'tje gepost met Chris Pate van Logitech, met de vraag of Logitech van plan is om (in navolging van Microsoft met de IntelliEye) een optische muis op de markt te zetten:

Q: When is Logitech planning to bring out an optical mouse?

A: We do not discuss unannounced products. We have been working with optical technology for over 8 years and we will continue to do so. We use optical technology in our current mice (opto-mechanical ball rollers and scroll wheel) and we use the optical Marble technology in our Marble trackballs

Q: Why is it taking so long for Logitech to get a ball-less mouse on the market?

A: We bring products to the market when we believe that consumers will see a benefit from them. We invest heavily in developing pointing devices which will give the user the best possible experience in terms of usability, price-performance, comfort and reliability.

Q: Why has Logitech allowed Microsoft to be first to market with a solid state optical mouse?

A: We pride ourselves in being innovators in the PC perhipheral business, bringing customer valued benefits to our products. Based on market research that we have conducted over the years, we have chosen to focus on the most valued benefits in the pointing device line, namely, cordless-ness, comfort and reliability Customers tell us this is more important.

Meer info vind je op de News page van Firingsquad.

Firingsquad heeft een nieuwe ATA/66 driver en HighPoint HPT366 BIOS voor de Abit BE6 en BP6 online staan:

We've been able to get ahold of some newer BETA drivers for the BE6. Please keep in mind that these drivers are indeed beta, and neither FiringSquad nor Abit are responsible for anything that happens to your system if you use them (unless everything starts working perfectly and all your bugs go away - then we'll be happy to take credit - download at your own discretion! These drivers update the HPT 366 BIOS to version 1.1, and it has updated Win98 drivers for greater ATA-66 stability. They replace the older beta drivers from 8/13/99.

De BE6 updates kun je hier downloaden, de BP6 updates staan hier.

3DHardware.net heeft een review gepost van de Monsoon MM-1000 flat panel speakers . 3DN is erg positief over de kwaliteit van deze ultra platte kabaalmakers:

How do these speakers perform compared to other flat panel systems? Without any hesitation I can say that they run circles around the competition, outperforming the NXT technology in every way. How do they compare to traditional speakers? The MM1000's feature superior clarity and imaging. Not only have I rediscovered stereo effects in music, I have in many ways rediscovered sound. Away from our computers, we're used to hearing sounds directly from their source. I don't consider myself an incredibly talented musician, but I play a number of instruments, and often find myself disappointed in the quality of recordings - from classical music to pop albums. There's just nothing like being there with the instrument. I like to hear a guitarist's pick as it strikes every string he plays. I like to hear the hammers inside a piano. I want to hear every minute reverberation and echo - from the instrument and the room. The Monsoon MM1000's reproduce these sounds with an accuracy I've never before experienced. Their sound is incredibly crisp and life-like.

Om een of andere reden (euh - bijna alle 4de generatie kaarten zijn nu verkrijgbaar) zien we nu overal videoplank vergelijkingen opduiken. GA-Source loopt gezellig mee en zet een 3D Card Roundup online. En de King of the Hil is de... Matrox G400 Max!

Some of you may very well be wondering how I came to this decision, given that there were only a few tests that the Millennium G400 MAX won on. And I guess I have to say that speed is NOT everything. When you are spending so much money on a video card, you want more from the card. For me, and for most of you, that is not JUST extra frames per second.

The Millennium G400 MAX adds some features that result in spectacular image quality, as well as some of the best possible gaming uses. For flight sims, as well as real time strategy games (such as War Monkeys) the Dual Head dual monitor support changes the games entirely. And the Environment Bump Mapping makes water and metallic surfaces look REAL.

De reviews (met veel Celeron, K6-III en PIII benchmarks) vind je hier.

JC heeft een aantal Lightwave benchmarks van het net geraapt. De Athlon-500 is vergeleken met een gelijk geklokte PIII ongeveer 33% sneller:

Turns	Athlon	Pentium III
1	6.3 (sec)	8.4 (sec)
2	12.6	16.8
3	18.9	25.2
4	25.3	33.6

So how did they do? The 500MHz K7/Athlon turns out a third better than the PIII (33% faster, that is). This is promising compared to the rumoured 20% advantage of the beta model (as reported on Upgrade Center long ago). If K7 and P6 both scale in the same fashion (benchmarks at Tom's have suggested that K7 might scale better as MHz goes up, but I digress), then it would take an 800MHz Pentium III to match a 600MHz K7/Athlon in this particular benchmark.

C|Net Gamecenter heeft een review van de Elsa Erazor III met 3D Revelator online geparkeerd. Over die 3D glazen heb je hier een stukje:

The stereoscopic 3D effect worked very well in my tests. Descent 3, the perfect game for 3D glasses, was astounding. I've never seen a game look this good in stereoscopic 3D. The heads-up display view seemed to float at the screen level as the action went on behind it, and the 3D stereo made traveling through the caverns all the more immersive and realistic.

De Erazor III is verder op een nogal magere 125/140MHz geklokt en heeft daarom voor TNT2 begrippen een nogal lage performance. Meer daarover lees je in de review.

Betanews weet ons te verblijden met het bericht dat Nullsoft een nieuwe versie van WinAMP heeft gereleased. Hier heb je de een lijst met fixes, updates en nieuwe features in versie 2.5:

* Winamp is now freeware! Thanks to all who have previously registered, your support is really appreciated!
* Skin selection menu in main menu, browser in preferences
* Builtin visualization settings are now in preferences
* Two streaming-related bugfixes to in_mp3.dll
* Added streamed-file saving to in_mp3.dll (no shoutcast saving, sorry)
* Added extended-M3U/PLS support (files include title and length info)
* Improved in_mp3.dll's frame sync code
* Better multi-byte character set support
* Numerous playlist editor bugfixes, and refinements
* Fixed some default skin images
* Fixed some leak and GDI issues (thanks, BoundsChecker)
* Fixed some leaks in in_cdda.dll
* Restructured some internals of Winamp for bitrate reporting for speed
* Added recent stream list to open location box
* Automatic IE integration for SHOUTcast
* Fixed a bug in out_wave.dll
* Updated AudioSoft plug-in
* Final WMA support for full version

De installer van 1,2Meg kun je hier neerhalen.

Ik kwam bij Techweb een artikeltje tegen over mevrouw Webbie Tookay, het eerste virtual model ter wereld:

Elite Models, the worldwide agency that launched the careers of supermodels Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista, and Naomi Campbell, now has Webbie Tookay, a computer-generated animated mannequin that can show up anywhere, any time.

[...] Created by Swedish designer Steven Stahlberg, the virtual model has "perfect" measurements, Abreu said.

"It was decided to give her the major tendencies of today's models," she said. "She is not that skinny. And she has well-defined breasts, well-defined hips."

She is a combination of a voluptuous European blonde, a Latina, and an Asian woman. And Webbie Tookay not only looks good, but has her own opinions about things. She would never wear fur, for example.

"We are very proud of her personality and her character," Abreu said. "She has environmental concerns, she is for birth control, and, besides, she looks very pretty."

En zo ziet dit gerenderde ding eruit:

Meer plaatjes vind je op Illusion2k.com.

NT op de Alpha is dood, zo meldt MaximumPC:

Echoing Compaq's decision to stop support of NT on Alpha CPUs, Microsoft said this week it will end support as well.

Last week, Compaq quietly let go of 100 engineers working to support Windows NT on the super-fast Alpha CPU. Compaq said it wished to concentrate efforts its Unix and Linux support.

Microsoft said it would end Alpha support beyond Windows NT 4, although it plans to offer the upcoming Service Pack 6 for Alpha. Microsoft has already dropped support for MIPS and PowerPC processors. The latest move will make Windows 2000 an x86-only operating system after Release Candidate 2 is made available. [break] En de mening van Ars Technica, ook wel interessant: [/break] Following Compaq's lead (or is it really the other way around), Microsoft is saying bye-bye to the Alpha after Service Pack 6 for NT4 is released. Windows 2000 RC 2 will not include Alpha support. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing (considering all the possible ramifications it could have). All I do know is that NT on the Alpha was really impressive (in terms of speed), and Microsoft seems to be a little too x86-happy these days. With all the rumors circulating about bad blood between Intel and Microsoft, one might expect to see Microsoft interested in running on another architecture. Alpha is the third and final non-x86 architecture to dance with and be dumped by Microsoft. MIPS and PPC support was once available, although neither was particularly stable. In fact, the PPC support was so bad I was surprised it ever made it to the public.

This move doesn't necessarily mean the end of Microsoft's affair with the Alpha. As many of you have pointed out, NT isn't (yet) a 64-bit OS, so one would have to consider if Compaq et al should bother supporting a 32-bit OS. When (and if) 64-bit NT rears its head, I'd be surprised if Alpha wasn't back on the scene, head to head with Merced. Thanks to Andy for the heads-up.

Hmm, lullig: bij onze overzeese vrienden zijn zaterdag 1440 splinternieuwe Compaq notebooks kwijt geraakt. Gevolg: 5% van de verkoop naar de klote...

The huge-load of Compaq notebooks stolen this weekend represented around five percent of the vendor's anticipated UK quarterly laptop sales.

According to IDC, Compaq sold around 21,000 notebooks in Q2, and 31,000 in Q1 this year. Which means the 1,440 base units stolen on Saturday could put a dent in shipping. In all, 810 Compaq Armada 1500Cs and 630 Armada 1750s were nabbed in transit, Cheshire Police said this morning.

Andy Brown, IDC analyst, said it would not have a huge effect on Compaq supply. However, he warned that the most serious aspect of the theft involved the TFT screens. These screens are like gold dust at the moment due to an international industry shortage.

In dit artikel van GA-Source vind je meer lachwekkende info .

De Japanse Athlon overclocking maffia heeft weer toegeslagen: dit keer laten ze er eentje op 700Mhz lopen, met als bewijs deze super wazige screendump:

Aargh: nooit JPEG compressie gebruiken bij het saven van window screenshots!. Maar goed, daar hadden we het niet over . Wazige Japanse site heeft tevens een aantal foto's van een mishandelde Athlon printplaat. Wie zelf aan de slag wil gaan kan bij Ace's Hardware terecht voor een tabelletje met resistor settings.

Ik kwam bij Ace's Hardware (die het weer van FullOn3D overgeknipt heeft) een post tegen met concrete info over de status en performance van de Cyrix Gobi:

This is all fact and no rumour. VIA made offers to approximately 100 Cyrix employees to stay to work for VIA/Cyrix. VIA offered ridiculous amounts of bonus money to keep the employees from leaving including all the profits from Gobi split among the remaining employees. The Gobi project shouldn't be much farther than when the layoffs occured. Gobi is having lots of probelms such as problems with getting the 256K integrated L2 cache to work. Performance wise, a pretty recent version of Gobi performs on par with the MII clock for clock but that should improve if they get the L2 cache working. FPU performance is faster than the K6-2 but slower than a Celeron. With 3DNow!, Gobi is comparable to a Celeron Mhz for Mhz. However, Gobi will use the dreaded PR system so performance might fall way behing competitors' offerings. At the time of the Cyrix layoffs, there were some 333 MHz Gobis available and a handful running on a 133 MHz frontside bus. Mojave seems like a dead project since almost nobody is working on that project.

Ach ja, je raakt eraan gewend: er zit weer eens een beveiligings hol in Internet Explorer. News.com brengt ons op de hoogte:

The security hole is in the company's popular Web browser on Windows 95/98 and allows the execution of arbitrary programs on computers when users visit a Web page or receive Outlook email. It does so by creating, overwriting, and putting content in local files.

The problem may take "full control over the user's computer," according to Georgi Guninski, a Bulgarian programmer who discovered the problem over the weekend. Guninski has reported a number of bugs from various browser makers in the past.

The security hole is related to an ActiveX control that ships with IE5. That control could potentially pose a security risk to customers if it is used improperly by a malicious hacker, Microsoft confirmed.

Je kunt ook gewoon Netscape downloaden .

Computer Games Online heeft z'n Fall'99 video card roundup online gezet. "Fall'99" is wellicht een beetje voorbarig, aangezien we deze herfst de eerste nVidia NV10 (en misschien ook Videologic Neon 250). Anyway, de algemen conclusie van CGO luidt:

So what did we learn after testing a dozen of this year's video cards? That they're all pretty good. The slower ones are generally cheaper, and good for people with slower machines who wouldn't benefit that much for a more expensive card anyway. Nearly every card in the roundup performed very well, giving an excellent game playing experience with good image quality, all the necessary features, and excellent 2D capabilities. Every video card now plays DVD movies very well with software DVD players if your machine is fairly quick (400MHz or faster). Really, compared to the cards of last year, every card in the roundup is a vast improvement, and their speed differences are really apparently only when gauged against each other. Put simply, the worst card released this year is still "average" quality.

3dfx heeft een press release over z'n nieuwe T-Buffer technologie de deur uit gedaan. Een stukje marketing crap, voor geïnteresseerden:

August 24, 1999 – 3dfx Interactive® Inc. (NASDAQ: TDFX) today announced support from a broad range of industry leaders for its breakthrough T-Buffer™ cinematic effects technology, previewed for the first time Aug. 2 and designed for use in next-generation consumer PC products. The new technology has drawn praise from Intel, AMD, and several leading software developers.

3dfx's new T-Buffer technology dramatically improves the rendering capabilities for consumer PCs, bridging the “realism” gap that exists today between motion picture and photographic imagery and computer-generated images. With its T-Buffer technology, 3dfx comes one step closer to fulfilling its mission to bring advanced cinematic effects and realistic imagery to consumers.

Designed to dramatically raise the quality of 3D graphics rendering, the T-Buffer technology enables cinematic effects never before available on consumer PCs at real-time frame rates essential to attaining and experiencing true-to-life imagery. Chief among these are real-time Full-Scene Spatial Anti-Aliasing, which removes the appearance of jagged edges in a rendered scene, and real-time Motion Blur, which dramatically improves the rendered realism for fast-moving objects. The T-Buffer technology also allows for the first time acceleration of Depth of Field effects commonly used in professional photography and cinematography.

Verder hebben ze ook nog een press release over een samenwerkingsverband met Legend Technology, een grote Chinese retailer. 3dfx hoopt hiermee in China meer Voodoo plankjes aan de man te kunnen brengen.

Beyond3D heeft een artikel gepost over de nieuwe produkt lijn van Guillemot, die op 23 augustus in Belgenland gepresenteerd werd. Nieuw zijn o.a. het Ferrari Force Feedback Racing Wheel, de Maxi Flat Speakers 2.0 en de Maxi Sound Fortissimo. Over de Guillemot NV10 mocht helaas nog niets gezegd worden:

During the following conversation it became clear that the Belgian press meeting had a bit of an unfortunate timing, its about 1 or 2 weeks to early, meaning that no details could be given about the new product line based on the NV10 processor. There will be a press conference in France next week, and according to the rumors, NVIDIA will announce the processor officially on the 31st of August. Anyway, Guillemot Belgium advised us to visit their stand at ECTS (coming in just a couple of weeks), because more details should be available by then. They were not yet certain if the product would be shown publicly or behind closed doors. Either way, we at Beyond 3D will be able to attend the meetings public or not. So stay tuned for more NV10 news during the coming weeks, with a peak during ECTS.

Die Ferrari stuurtjes zien er best wel kewl uit (links Ferrari Racing Wheel en rechts Ferrari Force Feedback Racing Wheel):

Matsushita en Toshiba hebben nieuwe compact memory cards in ontwikkeling, voor gebruik in MP3 players, digitale camera's en andere draagbare waren. Versies met een capaciteit van 256Mb worden in 2001 verwacht:

"The compact memory cards will be about half the size of a credit card. Two types will be introduced in 2000 -- one with data storage capabilibity of 32 megabytes and the other wit 64 megabytes. Another wit data capability of 256 megabytes will hit the market in 2001.

The three firms said they will promote the cards as an industry standard and will set up an entity to license the technology to other makers of card-related equipment.

The tie-up is a positive development for Matsushita as it seeks to set a de facto standard for next-generation memory cards", said Dresdner Kleinwort Benson analyst Kimihide Takano.

Meer info vind je in dit artikel van ZDNet.

ZDNet heeft een artikel over de huidige oorlog in de PC Console markt. Sony plant een marketing budget van 150 miljoen dollar. Sega moet het doen met 50 miljoen minder. Het valt trouwens te betwijfelen of de Dreamcast een groot succes zal worden, want console gamers blijken vooral op de PSXII te zitten wachten:

Anaylysts have said they do net expect the PlayStation to lose its dominance, even wit a news sytem also coming from Nintendo, the Dolphin 200 and Sega's Dreamcast this year.

According to a study released by Ziff-Davis at the gaming summit, which polled about 1,500 video gamers, the biggest percentage of gamers are looking forward to the new PlayStation, compared to the other new gaming systems. [break] Ook zijn er personen die menen dat nieuwe consoles zoals de PSXII (die overigens pas eind 2000 wordt gereleased) de PC als game platform overbodig zullen maken: [/break] However, some in the industry have been predicting that the stunning graphics and the high performance in the new Sony PlayStation 2 will move both game developers and consequently, gamers, away from the personal computer tot the PlayStation.

"It sounds like a lot of them (developers) have their eye on the PlayStation 2", said George Jones, editor-in-chief of Computer Gaming World.