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Full version of indie gem Noitu Love 2: Devolution now available
Posted by admin on 20.04.2008 in Games
With a title like Noitu Love 2: Devolution, we're fully aware that it sounds like the kind of inappropriate Japanese dating sim your creepy partner in junior high computers class would oft log on to Newgrounds to play -- but we hope that its unsettling eponym doesn't scare you off from what could be one of the best indie titles of the year. Observe the above trailer, and just try to suppress your glowing nostalgia for cult classics Gunstar Heroes and Mischief Makers.

Creator Joakim Sandberg recently made the full version of the game available to purchase on his website for $20 -- but we know that you, our thrifty readers, will download the free, recently extended demo, to see if the Treasure-esque, mouse-controlled action game touches your heart as it touched ours.



Joystiq
US video game market skyrockets 57%, Xbox 360 ahead
Posted by admin on 20.04.2008 in News
In the never ending video console war, Microsoft's Xbox 360 has now stepped back ahead of Sony's PlayStation 3 in terms of unit sales, says a new study by the leading industry analyst group on the subject.

But both platforms got outperformed by Nintendo's Wii and the portable Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable, within a total US video game market that reached a $1.7 billion milestone in March.

Even in a tough economy, the US market for video game hardware, software, and accessories soared 57% from March 2007 to reach $1.7 billion last month, according to NPD Group's David Riley, who attributed his group's findings to a number of factors, including "a shift in preferences for expenditures of consumer dollars."

BetaNews
Kodak dusts off 'smudge-free' digital frames
Posted by admin on 20.04.2008 in News
iPhone owners are all too aware of the smudges that constantly mess up the handset's touchscreen. So Kodak has developed a digital photo frame family that lets users pick images without leaving their paw prints over the pictures.

The 7in P720, 8in M820 and 10in M1020 each feature a white "Quick Touch Border" that runs along the bottom of the frame. When pressed, scaled-down copies of images stored on, say, an SD card or USB Flash drive appear on the frame's screen. Because users select images with the interactive border, they don't have to touch the display area.

Reg Hardware
Asus Sets Eee PC 900 U.S. Launch for May 12th
Posted by admin on 20.04.2008 in News
Asus informed us this evening that the Eee PC 900 will hit the store shelves in the U.S. on May 12th. The Linux and Windows XP loaded version of this 8.9" version of the Eee PC will both cost $549.

The Eee PC 900 has already been released in both Europe and Asia, the U.S. is left as the second fiddle in this release party.

Notebook Review
AMD Reports Net Loss of $358 Million
Posted by admin on 20.04.2008 in News
Chip-maker AMD revealed some first quarter financial numbers today, and the results aren't exactly stellar. Total revenue for the company was $1.505 billion, but it had sustained a net loss of $358 million, or $0.59 per share, and an operating loss of $264 million. These results include an impact of $50 million, or $0.08 per share, from ATI acquisition-related charges. However, although first quarter revenue decreased 15% compared to the fourth quarter of 2007, it actually increased 22% compared to the first quarter of 2007.

"A seasonally weak first quarter was amplified by a challenging economic environment for consumers and lower than expected revenues of previous generation products, resulting in lower than expected revenues in all business segments." said Robert J. Rivet, AMD's Chief Financial officer. "We remain committed to achieve operating profitability in the second half of the year, driven by our portfolio of new products and platforms and aggressive restructuring programs."

Neowin
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Six-core Intel processors coming this year
Posted by admin on 19.03.2008 in News
Advancing its architecture at what most independent observers would now agree is a breakneck pace, Intel offered further details today on how soon it would begin phasing out the Core Microarchitecture it introduced in the summer of 2006.

With the second phase of its 45 nm generation microprocessors -- what it calls "tock," using a metaphor that drives rival AMD mad -- Intel will move to a processor design that utilizes scalable cores, from two all the way to eight, it will introduce another new microarchitecture for processing instructions, and it will phase out the front-side bus as a component of its architecture. We've known these facts based on bits and pieces of information compiled from Intel hints over the past six months. Now we know this as absolute fact, confirmed by senior vice president Pat Gelsinger during a special presentation this morning.

BetaNews
Tagan BZ 900W Power Supply
Posted by admin on 19.03.2008 in Reviews
The last time we had looked at a Tagan power supply was last October when exploring the Tagan ITZ 1300W and comparing it to Thermaltake's ToughPower 1200W power supply. While most enthusiasts don't need power supplies in excess of 1,000 Watts, for those that do the ITZ 1300W did perform admirably but its voltage rails did fluctuate some, though it did have the "WOW" factor on its side thanks to the stunning paint job. Since then Tagan released a new power supply, which has a maximum power output of 900W, boasts six +12V rails, and is modular with LED indicators for each cable. This new power supply is the Tagan BZ 900W, and today we are reviewing it at Phoronix.

Phoronix
GMC R-2 Toast Case
Posted by admin on 19.03.2008 in Reviews
Joe has taken a look at the new Toast R-2 case from GMC for you and has his reactions as well as the unique pattented feature of this case. He explains why this case will fit into your love it or hate it category. For an in depth look inside and out at the R-2 read our review.

Techware Labs
Steelseries Ikari Laser Gaming Mouse
Posted by admin on 19.03.2008 in Reviews
All through testing I experienced nothing but comfort and that neat feeling only quality can give you. Like all good things though it comes at a price and the Ikari Laser is certainly not cheap coming in at around US$65. This is certainly not the type of product your average home user should be looking at, unless you have money to throw away, but for the enthusiast and or Gamer it's a worthwhile investment.

TweakNews
Intel E8000 "Wolfdale" Dual-Core Processors
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
To find out to what extent the changes implemented with Penryn translate into dual-core performance gains, we benchmarked an E8500 engineering sample. The E8500 is the E8000 series top model. In this capacity we compared it with an E6850, the previous top-of-the line product. However, the E8500 is running at 3160 MHz and the E6850 at 3000 MHz. This means that differences between them cannot be entirely attributed to the new features that come with the E8000 series, but at least partially to the 160 MHz higher core frequency. In order to "isolate" the impact of the various changes Intel has implemented with E8000 we run all tests with a multiplier of x9 as well.

OCAU
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ASUS 8800 GT 512MB TOP Edition
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
So, where does the 8800 GT fit in terms of market niche? I'd say it's still well tuned for users looking for the best bang for buck. I mean, it's still a really, really good buy. The regular 8800 GTS, GTX, and Ultras are still quite a bit more with the GTX and Ultra still costing the most. The ASUS 8800 GT TOP Edition may cost a little more than the stock frequency versions, but the card packs a bigger punch thanks to its factory overclocked settings and the card is very quiet. And the card is fully warranted.

Virtual-Hideout
Rocketfish Universal Wireless Rear Surround Sound Speaker Kit
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
Today we are looking at the Rocketfish Wireless Universal Rear Speaker Kit. This kit allows you to make any rear 5.1 surround speakers into a wireless system requiring no wires running from your receiver to the rear speakers.
Once everything was connected up the system worked flawlessly. As soon as I pressed the connect button on the transmitter the rear speakers synced up. In my room the rear speakers are about 30 feet from the transmitter. There was no lag, popping or other issue noticeable with the sound when watching a Blu-ray movie.

I4U
AutumnWave OnAir GT (USB HDTV Tuner)
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
HDTV broadcast becomes more accessible in many cities AutumnWave is bringing to the notebook/laptop users an easy way to capture the high quality must watch sports or your favorite TV programs on-the-go.

Madshrimps
Razer Lachesis 4000dpi Gaming Mouse
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
Any true gamer is always seeking to gain the advantage over their opponent. Razer seeks to give you that edge in the form of their new Lachesis mouse which boasts an amazing 4000dpi sensitivity. Bullseye the target has been eliminated!

Techware Labs
Seagate Momentus 5400.4 250GB
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
Seagate blessed Bjorn3D this week with their newest and largest 2.5 inch hard drive, the Momentus 5400.4 RPM 250GB (3.0Gb/s). First impressions out of the box left me thinking it was going to be much slower than a 7200 RPM hard drive. Boy was I wrong. Way wrong. I noticed that the interface was faster than the 7200 RPM but I wasn't sure how the RPM differences and interface differences would scale out. The Momentus 250GB hard drive is faster and is as quiet as the hard drive in my Dell Latitude 820 (TravelStar 7200 RPM 80GB 1.5Gb/s). These facts, and the 5 year warranty Seagate provides, make this a great buy if you are looking for a new drive.

Bjorn3d
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GeForce 9800 GX2 with ForceWare 174.51
Posted by admin on 18.03.2008 in Reviews
We said we would test the GX2 again once we obtained some updated drivers, and that's exactly what we're about to do right now. From a hotmail account this morning, we received the 174.51 drivers. The difference between these drivers and the last batch of 174 drivers we tried is that these ones actually installed!

Word is that the new drivers fix the profile issues that were present in the 173.67 release. While some people say SLI just wasn't working in the first driver we tested, the issues seem more related to profiles.

TweakTown
Vista SP1 to hit Windows Update Tuesday, reports say
Posted by admin on 17.03.2008 in News
Microsoft will release Windows Vista Service Pack 1 next week to a wider audience, according to information posted on Amazon.com and reports from a Web site that correctly called SP1's ship date last month.

Amazon currently lists Vista SP1 retail copies as available next Wednesday, March 19, while TechARP.com, the Malaysian Web site that nailed the update's release to manufacturing (RTM) date several days early, said users would be able to download SP1 starting Tuesday, March 18.

CompupterWorld
Sapphire HD3850 & HD3850 in Crossfire
Posted by admin on 17.03.2008 in Reviews
Come on along as we take a look at the Sapphire HD3850 both as a single card and as we try two cards in Crossfire configuration. Some of the results may surprise you as it did us while other may make you shake your head.

Hi-Tech Reviews
GeForce 9800 GX2 Overclocked and Tested
Posted by admin on 17.03.2008 in Reviews
When a new high-end graphics card comes out you like to think that a CPU with four cores clocked at 3GHz is going to do the job pretty well. Though, like most high-end cards, when we start to increase the CPU clock further, we can begin to see some really good gains in performance.

So we've done exactly that today, we've moved our trusty Intel quad-core Q6600 processor up to 3.75GHz but at the same time we thought that we may as well see what we can do with the clocks on the GeForce 9800 GX2. The increases clock speeds will be what most consumers can achieve without spending a truck load of cash on extreme cooling. CPU is cooled using Corsair water cooling and the GX2 uses its stock standard air cooling.

TweakTown
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NorhTec prepping sub-$300 Linux-based laptop of its own
Posted by admin on 16.03.2008 in News
Sheesh -- as if the Eee PC, ONE, Cloudbook, G10IL and countless others weren't enough, now we've got one more low-cost laptop to keep track of. Aiming to arrive just a hair below that magical $300 price point, NorhTec is reportedly gearing up to introduce its Gecko laptop to the world, but the machine itself will be designed / built by Quanta. So far, we're hearing that it'll tout a 1GHz Via C7M ULV processor, an optional PATA hard drive, integrated graphics, a 7-inch display and the Linpus Linux Lite operating system. According to NorhTech's president Michael Barnes, "Linpus Lite is very similar to gOS," which we aren't exactly sure is something you'd really want to trumpet. Nevertheless, said bigwig also implied that the formal announcement of this here lappie would be happening soon -- let's just hope it actually stays under three bills.

Engadget