Tech News

• AMD & HardOCP FX GamExperience 2012 Coverage @ Legit Reviews

  Published: Monday, January 23, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Legit Reviews posted two articles related to the GamExperience 2012.

  The AMD & [H]ardOCP FX GamExperience Day 2012

  Yesterday roughly 600 people headed to Eddie Deen’s Ranch in downtown Dallas, Texas to attend the AMD and HardOCP FX GamExperience. The FX GamExperience was a a free event that showcased the AMD gaming technologies available for PC gamers and to make it really special over $50,000 worth of prizes were given away from 21 sponsors during the eight hour event! Read on to take a quick peak at the event!

   AMD Reality Check at FX GamExperience

  AMD conducted a reality check for gamers down in Dallas, Texas for the FX GamExperience today that we were able to watch and tally up the results with them. For the challenge AMD setup up an area of the FX GamExperience venue with four test systems for two heads up tests. One system was powered by an Intel platform and the other by AMD and gamers had to pick which system played games the best.

   The event is held in Dallas which is home to AMD, id and a few other big names so its no wonder the event has been gaining traction.

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• NL: Review Block - Coolers and Cases - 1/23/2012

  Published: Monday, January 23, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Just a few cases and coolers to keep your gear safe and devoid of extra heat.

  Cases
  - Silverstone Raven 3 RV03 Computer Case Review @ Tweaknews
  - Cooler Master's Cosmos II enclosure
  - Silverstone SUGO SG08 mITX Case@ Pro-Clockers
  
  Coolers
  - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Heatsink Review @ APH  Networks
  - Noctua NF-F12 Fan Review @ Midwest Tech Reviews
  - Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler at Modders-Inc
   

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• Of CES 2012 and missed expectations

  Published: Sunday, January 22, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Having met Cyril a few times at the various trade shows I have to chuckle at his humor and honestly when describing CES 2012.  I too was there and met up with the TR guys, briefly, to shake hands, say hi, and avoid the all too common question, "how is the show going for you?".  Instead I commented on how Cryil was back in Las Vegas.

  His remark will remain shrouded in mystery, however I can say there was a timid, yet heartfelt chuckle with his response.

  Were there any firsts at this year's CES? None come to mind. CES 2012 was a show of second tries and third wheels, like the $529 Tegra 2 tablet from Toshiba and the convertible ultrabook from Lenovo that folds flat with the keyboard exposed below. It was a CES of me-toos and maybes, where prototypes of dubious value intermingled with MacBook and iPad lookalikes. There was no big, earth-shattering story this year; nothing like the birth of the netbook at Computex '07 or the unveiling of Nvidia's Project Denver at CES '11.

  The post is short, and full of good, you should take 10, and read to the end.

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• Megaupload has been shut down

  Published: Friday, January 20, 2012 | By: Dennis

  In what might be the first of several website attacks the popular filesharing site Megaupload" has been shut down for piracy.  While news of this takedown has been all over the web there is very little being said about the guy behind the uploads.

  Dotcom, the megamind behind Megaupload, was arrested yesterday in New Zealand, his panic-room door busted down by officials, who found the hacker clinging to a sawed-off shotgun. Dotcom faces up to 55 years in prison if extradited to the U.S. and convicted on charges of racketeering, copyright infringement, and money laundering. The hacker-turned-multimillionaire businessman has been accused of costing the entertainment industry $500 million through pirated content uploaded to his popular file-sharing site, which boasted 180 million registered users and celebrity endorsements from Kanye West to Kim Kardashian.

  Check out the site for a good history of what Kim Dotcom has been up to.   Heck you even get a photo of the big guy.

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• Performance Tuning Protection Plan by Intel - Overclock Protection

  Published: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 | By: Dennis

  It is about time that Intel did something like this.  For the longest time overclockers had to hide the fact they were abusing processors just so that they can use the 3 year warranty in hopes of getting their processor replaced.  This is of a special concern when dealing with special $1000 dollar processors that come with unlocked multipliers and insane levels of performance. 

  Why spend that much money if you're not going to push them?

  The Performance Tuning Protection Plan being offered by Intel is a chance for you to experiment with the overclocking features of your processor without the worries of what will happen if you push the procesor too far. The Plan allows you a single processor replacement, hassle-free, from our customer support. This is in addtion to your standard 3 year warranty. In other words, if it fails under normal usage, we will replace it under the standard warranty; if it fails while running outside of Intel's specifications, we will replace it under the Performance Tuning Protection Plan.
  
  So what we are saying is this: Go ahead and push it, we've got your back.
  

  The way this works is that you buy an enhanced warranty based on your processor type and if the processor fails while you are overclocking Intel will provide a one-time replacement, no questions asked. For more information and pricing check out the Performance Turning Protection Plan on the Intel website.

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• digg is Dead! - at least to Ninjalane and the rest of the Internet

  Published: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 | By: Dennis

  A few weeks ago I posted a thread in the Ninjalane Message Forum asking people if I should keep the "digg this" social button on each article page and I got some interesting results.
  
  Unanimous of those was that removing the "digg this" button would not be the end of the world, in fact, some people actually offered me money to remove it. 
  
  Yes real American dollars, greenbacks, cash!  or maybe that was a dream, I'm not sure.  Either way the "digg this" button has been removed so any of you digg'ers, all 0 of you, will have to find another outlet to get your stories off.

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• Websites Wikipedia, Reddit, Others Go Dark Wednesday to Protest SOPA, PIPA

  Published: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 | By: Dennis

  I don't normally get animated about bills like this because by the time they get passed they are so watered down that they cannot be enforced.  However, I don't think that will be the case with SOPA and PIPA, both bills have backings from large industries who are basically struggling to survive. 

  Do not try to look up "Internet Censorship" or "SOPA" or "PIPA" on Wikipedia, the giant online encyclopedia, on Wednesday. SOPA and PIPA are two bills in Congress meant to stop the illegal copying and sharing of movies and music on the Internet, but major Internet companies say the bills would put them in the impossible position of policing the online world. 

  The biggest issue I see with these bills is how it will embrace anti-competition processes.  In the early days one of the quickest ways to get to the top was to make sure your competition wasn't there.  Sometimes that ment attacking the company physically or creating campaigns that targeted that company to ensure the public would no longer trust them.  

  With SOPA or PIPA there isn't anything to stop, say a rival hardware review site, from saying that their competition is pirating, log a complain and basically get that site blocked and or taken down without any recourse for appeal.  I believe that is one of the issues still being discussed but it still brings up questions as to how far the bills will go to police the internet. 

  The story goes on to mention that the source of the piracy isn't always within the US but from foreign countries who find it easy to copy and redistribute US based software and technology.  Sadly those are who need to be targeted and a US internet bill wouldn't apply.

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• How to build a digital pinball machine in Metku

  Published: Sunday, January 15, 2012 | By: Dennis

  This might be one of the coolest mods I have ever seen, at least since the advent of a mame machine.  The mod consists of matching 3 video panels together to create a digital pinball machine complete with sounds and realistic switches,

  Check it out.

  So what is a digital pinball machine? In short, it is a digital recreation of the original ones that you may have played in arcades, gas stations etc. I chose the shape of the machine to be
  somewhat similar to the original ones but there is no reason to do so if more creative approach is needed.

  I'm glad they opted to run it without the legs since they really didn't look sturdy at all.

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• Made it back to the Labs safe and sound

  Published: Saturday, January 14, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Well as you may have guessed CES 2012 has concluded and I am finally back in the Labs trying to get things sorted out.

  There is some stuff I need to get caught up on around the house after which I can get to adding some more CES coverage and finally posting Episode 13 of the Ninjalane Podcast.

  Stay tuned 

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• CES:2012 TechReport Round-up - Get along little doggies

  Published: Thursday, January 12, 2012 | By: Dennis

  Busy Day for me yesterday so no daily post for Day 2  (yet). In the meantime check out what TechReport has been up to.

  - Nvidia and Asus aim for $249 Tegra 3 tablet
  - Thermaltake brings rubber domes back in style
  - OCZ, Marvell scale Kilimanjaro with PCIe SSD
  - Lenovo's Yoga bends over backward to please us

  Another big day of running around and catching up with folks.  Stay tuned.

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