ABXZone Computer Forums - Frontpage Articles & Site Announcements

Hollywood wants to outsource copyright enforcement: iiNet

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:33:44 GMT

IINET yesterday accused Hollywood studios of trying to "outsource" its copyright enforcement to internet firms ...
...lead barrister Richard Cobden SC argued that the studios' demand that iiNet pass infringement notices on to customers amounted to an unreasonable request to police its customers...

Read the story here

Oh great, :doh: , so next we'll have iPIN's being issued to us at home... (IP Infringement Notices)...

Google makes Chrome OS open source today

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:23:46 GMT

Google made the early code available to the open source community ...
All the code is open and sketches of the design documents are available now.

Read the story here

High-tech origami: Recyclable paper laptop

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 11:19:30 GMT

In a world where concern for the environment is high on the agenda, it was only a matter of time before the laptop got a green makeover...
designer Je Sung Park has pushed the concept to its limit and opened our eyes to the laptop of the future: a recyclable paper design...

Read the story here

Warning: not to be used when raining...

Nvidia Shows Off GeForce �Fermi� Graphics Card...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:55:35 GMT

Nvidia Corp. on Wednesday displayed the first photo of its next-generation flagship graphics card based on the Fermi-GF100...
Chief executive of Nvidia said it would ramp up production of Fermi-GF100 graphics processor in Q1 of its fiscal 2011...

Read the story here

Left 4 Dead 2 Today!

johnrr6 — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:13:06 GMT

The holiday season is heating up and another FPS was released last night at midnight. Left 4 Dead 2----the sequel to the highly acclaimed original Zombie shooter from Valve. New scenes, new survivors, nerve searing action, new weapons and levels that reshape themselves (your favorite shortcut may now be a dead end with Infected waiting to ambush) all add to this latest version. Along with the release of COD Modern Warfare 2 last week and Borderlands a few days before that, the FPS genre on the PC is undergoing a mini renaissance. Bottom line: If you are a FPS fan for the PC-----the holidays are shaping up nicely. Shoot, I'm still blasting my way through Borderlands which is highly addictive in itself! Fun!!

Here's is a fairly in-depth review from IGN:

IGN: Left 4 Dead 2 Review

Breaking News (I think) Zune coming to the EU!

Sylar — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:38:54 GMT

Zune coming to EU in 2010 ish.... see google news etc not sure if it means the zune device or just the brand ill keep u posted.

Zune Brand only not Zune HD nothing to see here move along.

"This isn't the gorgeous-looking Zune HD that's been wowing our American friends, with its iPod touch-rivalling multimedia capabilities. Rather, Zune will be the new name for the Video Marketplace on Xbox Live - Microsoft's online gaming network."

Intel to pay AMD $1.25-billion, settle all disputes

Kedas — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:10:50 GMT

Chip makers Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc said they have settled all outstanding legal disputes, including antitrust litigation and patent licensing issues.

Intel to pay AMD $1.25-billion, settle all disputes

I gues they will also have a lot less lawyer costs :-)
AMD could have had much more but stability and a certain future is also very valuable for AMD now.

Lucid's HYDRA hands on performance

mindx2 — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:40:40 GMT

"Ever since its auspicious debut as a technology demo at last year's fall IDF, Lucid's Hydra chip has been an object of curiosity for us. Could this small start-up firm really create a GPU load-balancing chip that would function as smoothly as SLI and CrossFire, yet allow more leeway in mixing GPUs of different types? They'd taken on a daunting challenge, but they seemed to have a pretty good start on the problem."

Hands on with Lucid's Hydra GPU load balancer - The Tech Report - Page 1

Seems like they are able to deliver what was being advertised... getting more interesting...

Microsoft gets tough on Xbox pirates

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:25:13 GMT

Microsoft has cut off up to one million users of the Xbox 360 games console who modified their machines to play pirated games...Microsoft can simply bar gamers from its Xbox Live service, if they have modified their consoles to accept pirated games...
"All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox Live terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox Live," Microsoft said in a statement.

Read the story here

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 Today!!!

johnrr6 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:55:24 GMT

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 is being released Today!!! Many game stores had a special "Midnight Opening" so that customers could pick up their copy of the game last night. Sales are anticipated to equal or surpass Grand Theft Auto IV which was the most successfully sold video game ever.
Infinity Ward had been working on this version for over two years and trailers depict outstanding game play and superb graphics. The storyline picks up at the end of Call of Duty 4 as the good guys continue to fight an international Russian terrorist organization.

With the release of this game, a Borderlands game gaining in popularity daily, and an upcoming Aliens Versus Predator......The FPS genre is having a mini renaissance on the PC just in time for, and during the upcoming holidays.

I purchased Borderlands yesterday and will pick up my copy of CODMW2 today.....

So many games.....so little time.

Droid Verdict----Good, But iPhone Still Better!!

johnrr6 — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:31:07 GMT

Reviews of Verizon's new Droid smartphone----which has gathered attention as of late, are coming in....

The Verdict so far:

If you really, really like Verizon (and there is no doubt that Verizon simply has the strongest overall network coverage right now in the US).....

Then get a Droid----as it's the best smartphone Verizon has to offer.

However-----if you want the best smartphone and are willing to put up with AT&T annoyances.....

Then the iPhone is STILL the way to go.

Two reviews here:
Mossberg On The Droid: The Best Verizon Has To Offer (VZ, MOT, AAPL)
If You Don't Buy An iPhone, Buy A Droid (GOOG, AAPL, MOT)

Twitter A MESS right now!

johnrr6 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:01:53 GMT

I'm getting so I hate Twitter....there---I said it-----now you can throw stones.....

You daily see the articles about Twitter being the fastest growing social networking company and how their company value has raised into the billions of dollars.....

OK---that may be so.....and the problems I am going to speak of are probably a direct result of their tremendous explosion in growth and demand. But be that as it may----the BOTTOM LINE is this: Twitter is a mess right now....

Many (far, FAR too many) accounts created since as late as mid September can't be searched for and "found" making it impossible to "follow" someone's tweets (Why have Twitter if you can't "follow" someone??)
Email notifications are spotty at best.
SMS text notifications problems continue to bedevil the site
Site speed has become unuseable far too often
Too many error messages
Things just get "lost" far to often.....

Twitter Support replies to posts detailing these problems with a lot of "we are devoting a lot of engineering time to fix this" responses---and also a bunch of other cutsie little sayings on error pages like "Whoa----something is wrong!"

Well DUH!

I have experienced all of these issues in trying to set up a Twitter site for a very progressive official in our public school system. Boards are rife with Twitter issues.

Problems stem from a new update, tremendous demand and also Twitter trying to shoe horn in, additional features.....

If you are trying to set up an official Twitter site for a person of stature, a school or a business----you may want to hold off until Twitter's technical abilities actually match what they promise. Heck----if you re just trying to set one up for yourself----I wouldn't bother right now......

Why is it when a company has just ONE THING----that it does REALLY WELL-----they AWAYS try to add a bunch of other things to the product which ultimately causes failure.....

Twitter----today's Billion dollar valued company.....tomorrow's Blockbuster Videos.....

Have you had bad experiences as well?----or quite the opposite?? I invite you to post your comments in this thread.

Price War Reversed: ATI Increases Pricing

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:34:39 GMT

ATI, graphics business unit of Advanced Micro Devices, on Monday said that it would increase the price of its ATI Radeon HD 5850 graphics processing unit (GPU) by $20+ due to overwhelming demand...

Story here

Looks like I may need to pick up my new cards this week then if I want to avoid this price hike... I'm considering a pair of 5850's to run in cross fire or waiting for a 5850x2 card... (or whatever it will be called)

I'm operating on the assumption here that adding two cards to my rig will only result in about 3 db of increased noise over just the one card... can anyone here confirm or deny that for me? (i'm not a sound audiophile myself)...
So if one card is outputting around 47 db at load then two would be around 50...

But I expect a x2 card would be quieter than 2 cards... so would be a better solution ... but how long before a 5850x2 comes out?

New dual-GPU ATI Radeon 5970 spotted

Over here they talk about a 5870x2 having been spotted... maybe I should wait for these x2 parts and just wear the extra $$... <sigh>

WHO: Cell Phones Linked to Brain Cancer

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:45:47 GMT

$30 million study surveyed the cell phone habits of 12,800 people in 13 countries, and found a "significantly increased risk" of brain tumors among people who have used cell phones for over ten years...

Read the story here

flip. That means I'm in trouble... :( "significantly increased risk" ... :( :(

Apple's App Store Surpasses 100,000 Applications!!

johnrr6 — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:32:21 GMT

As recently as mid-August when I first bought my iPhone3GS there was just a shade over 70,000 applications or "apps" for short.....available for the iPhone and iPod. At that time I thought this number incredible and after many visits and long hours searching through the "App Store" I have walked away with the feeling that there truly IS an "App for everything"----as Apple is so quick to claim. In the two months since, the App Store has grown to over 100,000 applications! With a growth rate of almost 15,000 Apps a month!! Staggering!! The closest competitor is Android with less than 14,000 total applications and although popular---no where near the projected growth rate of this Apple success story. Microsoft doesn't have an available platform to sell PPC and smartphone applications but is said to be eying Apple's success with envy and building plans to compete. To visit the App Store, you must have iTunes installed but there are a host of different independent web sites that review the myriad of applications as they are released. Whether you own an iPhone or not, the growth rate and popularity of the platform and applications is remarkable. Read the story here: App Store Crosses Milestone: More than 100,000 iPhone Apps Approved - iPhone Hacks

Nokia sues Apple over iPhone patents

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:33:51 GMT

NOKIA, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, has filed a suit in a US district court against Apple, alleging that its iPhone infringes Nokia's patents...

Nokia said the patents cover wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption and affect all Apple iPhone models shipped since the iPhone was introduced in 2007...

Read the story here

$15m fine for SMS scammers

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:32:07 GMT

THE operators of a mobile phone text scam that preyed on the desperate and dateless were slammed with $15.8 million in fines for breaching anti-spam laws in the state of Queensland's Federal Court in Australia.

While handing down the decision today, Federal Court Justice John Logan described the scam as "a particularly vile form of behaviour".

Read the story here

Left 4 Dead Australian Ban Appeal Fails

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:26:40 GMT

The original uncensored version of Left 4 Dead 2 will remain ineligible for sale in Australia...An Aussie-friendly version of Left 4 Dead 2 will instead be sold Down Under...

:mad:

Story here

Microsoft Starts Selling Windows 7 Operating System.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:19:34 GMT

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday started to sell its long-awaited Windows 7 operating system.
The estimated retail prices for full packaged retail product of Windows 7 in the U.S. are:

Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99

Story here

Microsoft Starts Selling PCs Online

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:15:54 GMT

With the opening of its first retail store taking place today, Microsoft has opened up its online store and is now selling PCs through its website...

Story over at Toms