Tech News
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What the Future Looked Like 100 Years Ago (And 5 Predictions That Came True) @ gizmodo
Published: Monday, December 24, 2012 | By: DennisThis seems pretty accurate, now to find the rest of the list.
In the early 1900s, Ladies Home Journal thought the future would bring a lot of things. The predictions sound funny and old timey, sure, but you know what? Even though we haven't eradicated flies and mosquitos (yet!), a lot of them came true. Including these five:
1) Hot and cold air from spigots: Suck it, past. Warm baths are a thing now.Check out the site for the other four.
You can also find the source of this story over at reddit.
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Assassin's Creed 3 @ LanOC Reviews
Published: Monday, December 24, 2012 | By: DennisI rarely pay much attention to game reviews and rely on inital impressions when I decide to purchase. So why post a link to a game review on a hardware review site??
I dunno
Innovation is a tough thing in the gaming industry. Not just coming up with something new and exciting that will get fans of all ages to line up to play, but once you have those fans you must innovate to keep them. This is something that the Assassin’s Creed franchise has had great success with. With the original release of Assassin’s Creed, it was something that gamers had never seen before and it was awesome. The gameplay got a bit repetitive and bland at times, but Ubisoft quickly improved on it with the next installment in the series giving gamers more things to do and a more in depth storyline. After that followed multiplayer and countless hours of online fun. I am extremely excited for this review of Assassin’s Creed 3 because it is set around the American Revolution, a time that has not been looked at before in the franchise and an interesting piece of history in my eyes. Sit back and grab your muskets because “The British and coming, the British are coming!”
I was actually given a code to download the game, much like what occured with LanOC, but the ubisoft website snubbed me and wouldn't accept the code. As I wasn't about to buy the game myself it was decided so simply, let it go.
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Websites Give Deals Based on User Information
Published: Monday, December 24, 2012 | By: DennisThis is an interesting story, and something I have noticed but didn't pay much attention to in the beginning.
A key difference: where Staples seemed to think they were located.
A Wall Street Journal investigation found that the Staples Inc. website displays different prices to people after estimating their locations. More than that, Staples appeared to consider the person's distance from a rival brick-and-mortar store, either OfficeMax Inc. OMX +1.34% or Office Depot Inc. ODP -2.31% If rival stores were within 20 miles or so, Staples.com usually showed a discounted price.The question I would have is, does this reflect in the store?? I think not.
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PowerColor PCS HD7870 Myst Edition Graphics Card Review @ HardwareHeaven.com
Published: Monday, December 24, 2012 | By: DennisSeems like they are trying to sell a video card based on what games it can play. Sound familar?
PowerColor are taking the Tahiti GPU, usually used in 7900 series cards, and pricing/configuring it at 7870 level. Call it Tahiti LE, 7950 Light... or 7870 Myst with PCS+ cooling. Today we take a look at how it performs in games like Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3 and Hitman Absolution.
Back in the early days having games included with your graphics card was a real value addition and proof that the card will run the latest titles. These days it really doesn't matter.
Sad how things have changed.
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Sparkle GeForce GTX 650 Ti review @ Guru3D
Published: Friday, December 21, 2012 | By: DennisGonna let the Guru tell you about this one.
We review and benchmark the Sparkle GeForce GTX 650 Ti Dragon series and perform an in-depth test with the latest games available. This graphics card is launched to fill the gap inbetween the Radeon HD 7770 and Radeon HD 7850. Aimed at a pricetag of roughly 150 EUR this product comes with 768 shader processors. Sparkle applies a custom PCB and their dual-fan cooler. Next to that you receive a factory overclock right out of the box. Let's check it out shall we ?
In looking at the card the first thing that comes to mind is that the PCB is HUGE! The cooler is full length with dual fans with a shroud designed to vent outside the chassis. Of course there is a huge gap in the cooler to ensure when the fans ramp up it can still cool the GPU. At this point the GPU will be at its hottest and will dump that air back into your chassis.
As I suggested in my 3-way review of the GTX 650 Ti I felt the lack of SLI and small nature of the "reference" PCB lended the card well to being a dedicated PhysX processor and not a viable solution to your "average" gaming needs.
Mainstream, yes, but for your average gaming rig get a card that can be expanded and offers a good level of performance like the GTX 660 Ti and above.
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ASUS Says: Intel likely to figure a way to keep LGA design for CPUs
Published: Friday, December 21, 2012 | By: DennisThe rumor that LGA is going away made the headlines a month ago and was even the subject of the NInjalane Podcast were we talked about the leaked roadmap and how the slide may have been leaked on purpose to gauge market reaction.
Well Joe Hsieh, Asustek Computer vice president and general manager of motherboard/desktop business claims that removing LGA from the Intel lineup isn't good for business but will be good for "their" business.
Commenting on Intel's reported plans of abandoning CPU socket designs and changing to directly soldered CPUs after two years, Asustek Computer vice president and general manager of motherboard/desktop business Joe Hsieh has said that the issue will not be as bad as people think, and Intel is likely to adopt a strategy to allow the both methods to coexist.
Hsieh noted that even if Intel's ball grid array (BGA) packaging plans enter the desktop industry, the industry will continue to live on as motherboard makers will figure out how to handle and respond to the change.The part that makes this Digitimes post interesting is that shortly after the rumors died down Intel announced that they will be supporting socketed CPUs for the foreseeable future.
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Were the Mayans Right? - Not Likely
Published: Friday, December 21, 2012 | By: DennisAccording to this news posting (that I created at 8:30am local time) the world didn't end and thus far the sky is still clear. Of course there is still time for asteroids to attack or the sun to get blazin' hot and the moon to crack but I'm thinking its prolly not going to happen.
At least today.
I forget where I read it but someone wrote in an article once that the 12/21/12 date doesn't account for changes in the western calendar and that the transition period depicted actually occurred a couple years ago. Personally, I find that hard to believe but whatever makes them sleep better at night.
So, crack open a beverage, fire up a gaming rig or tap an LN2 tank. Whatever you do enjoy the day like it should be,
A Friday!!
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The New SEO Landscape @ i7
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 | By: DennisI just posted a new blog article talking about how SEO has changed over the years which almost mirrors this marketing article over at i7. Its worth a read if you are curious about the "behind-the-scenes"
Remember the good old days when you could write an article, create a keyword rich meta title, strategically place your well researched keywords in headings and throughout your content (watch that keyword density!). Then fire up your favorite link building service or software to pepper the web with 1000’s of inbound links, all with keyword rich anchor text, and maybe use some paid blog network service like Build My Rank to create inbound links, and that was SEO?
I remember those days, it was good. It was also cowboy days of the internet where you could get away with almost anything and still come out on top while the honest guys/gals were left struggling to make keywords meet.
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NL: Review Block: Cases and what we have already reviewed
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 | By: DennisThere comes a time in the review site circle of life when "other" sites send you news of products that have already been reviewed. Sometimes I am the one sending out the late review and other times it is the other way around. Nothing wrong with that and for the most part google doesn't give preference to "first post" rankings anymore.
Or do they?
Chassis Reviews
- Review: Cooler Master HAF XB @ Ocaholic
- Cooler Master HAF XB Mid Tower Review @ Hi Tech Legion
- Silverstone SUGO SG08 @ techPowerUpAs you may have guessed reviews of these products already exist on this site and can be found by browsing the Review/Case section or by clicking the links below.
NInjalane Reviews
Cooler Master HAF XB Case Review @ Ninjalane
Silverstone Sugo SG08 Case Review @ NinjalaneAs always, more reviews to come along with some "real" news you might want to read.
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2012 Budget Mini-ITX Desktop PC System Build Guide @ Legit Reviews
Published: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 | By: DennisWe all love system guides. They outline what gear you need and in some cases show you how it all goes together. Legit Reviews has a MiniITX system guide up using an interesting combination of parts, most of which are from Asus.
Imagine that?
Are you looking to build a new PC and thinking about using the Mini-ITX platform? Today, Legit Reviews shows you how to create a SFF system and stay under the $650 price point. The system uses an Intel Ivy Bridge processor, a Kingston 120GB SSD, and an ASUS GeForce GTX 650 video card just to highlight a few of the main components. This system should be able to easily tackle normal usage scenarios during the work week and then switch roles to a nice gaming machine on the weekends. Read on to check out the build!
There are several ways to go when building a MiniITX system and the decision normally comes down to your chassis choice and how powerful you want things to be. The Bitfenix Prodify used in the Legit built is a really nice case but quite tall (for what it is) and limits where you can physically put the case. Now if you used a chassis like the Silverstone Sugo SG08 then you can have full length video card support, great cooling AND still be able to put the system on a shelf and out of the way.
