Tech News
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NL: Review Block - Forgetting to Remember, Memory
Published: Monday, October 4, 2010 | By: DennisWe don't see many memory reviews anymore despite there being several really cool modules currently being sold. Here are a couple memory related reviews that fell into the inbox this week.
System Memory Modules - Overclocking Baby!!
- G.Skill Trident 2000 MHz DDR3 CL9 8GB Kit @ techPowerUp
- G.Skill Ripjaws PC3-12800 (1600MHz) 8GB Kit @ TweakTown
Solid State Disks
- 11-Way SSD Roundup 2010 @ Real World Labs
- Funky Kit Review: OCZ Vertex 2 60Gb SSD
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Electronic Arts deny access to play Taliban in new Metal of Honor
Published: Friday, October 1, 2010 | By: DennisThis is a strange turn for EA, normally they play the (freedom of speech / talk to the hand) card when people complain about what they do. I guess "in these tough economic times" they aren't taking any chances and actually listening to the public.
In this case, for good reason.
Bravo!
Electronic Arts Inc. will no longer allow gamers to play the newest edition of its military-themed video game "Medal of Honor" as Taliban fighters "shooting" U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the video game publisher said Friday.
In a posting on the company's "Medal of Honor" blog, EA said that it is renaming the "Taliban" team "Opposing Force" in the wake of concerns voiced by friends and families of soldiers who have died.
The option to play as the Taliban was to be included in the multiplayer mode of "Medal of Honor" that is coming out Oct. 12.It is about time game developers were given a reality check. Granted games become more real when they relate to current events, but also become very dated at the same time.
Of course the best solution would be to create to "fake" sides like they did in Command and Conquer. At least then nobody can complain that it is US vs USSR since it says GDI vs NOD on the box.
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Gigabyte ships 5.2 million motherboards in 3Q10
Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | By: DennisWhoa, now this is interesting.
Gigabyte Technology has revealed that its shipments of motherboards increase substantially in September which will bring total motherboard shipments for the third quarter of 2010 to at least 5.2 million units.
Order visibility for the fourth quarter is not yet clear with motherboard shipments likely to drop slightly from the third, but the company will be able to reach its target of shipping 19-20 million motherboards in 2010, according to vice president Richard Ma.
Of course these boards don't all go to consumers; the majority go to OEMs and to fulfill custom orders. -
AMD to delay the launch of Radeon HD 6000
Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | By: DennisIn an interesting turn of events it would seem AMD/ATI is pulling an Intel on NVidia and is going to delay the 6000 series, but only a month.
AMD has recently postponed the launch schedule of its next-generation Radeon HD 6000 series GPUs (Southern Islands) from the original October 12 to November, according to sources from graphics card makers.
Seeing its chance, Nvidia aims to launch its new entry-level GPUs as well as cut its existing GPU prices in October to boost the market share, the sources noted.
Both AMD and Nvidia declined to comment on their products' launch schedule.Not a huge deal, and gives enthusiasts 30 more days of interest from the money they saved.
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Padding Oracle Attack Affects Every ASP.NET Web Apps - Patch Now
Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | By: DennisThere is a patch being issued this week that is supposed to fix an "Out of Band" issue with ASP.Net encryption. The flaw has been known for several years, however back then it was used as fuel to make programmers and website architects more responsible in how they designed websites.
However, despite how good (or bad) an ASP.Net programmer is they cannot escape this particular flaw considering the information used to exploit and root the web application is key to how ASP.Net applications run. Namely the encrypted session keys and cookies.
Crypto isn't really my thing; however this article (and the ones it links to) is pretty good explaining the issue at hand."We knew ASP.NET was vulnerable to our attack several months ago, but we didn't know how serious it is until a couple of weeks ago. It turns out that the vulnerability in ASP.NET is the most critical amongst other frameworks. In short, it totally destroys ASP.NET security," said Thai Duong, who along with Juliano Rizzo, developed the attack against ASP.NET.
The pair have developed a tool specifically for use in this attack, called the Padding Oracle Exploit Tool. Their attack is an application of a technique that's been known since at least 2002, when Serge Vaudenay presented a paper on the topic at Eurocrypt.
Funny thing is, I heard about this issue back in 2002 but it was considered a minor flaw since most examples showed that with proper use of error messages and proper application fallover you could protect yourself from the attack.
The reality is far worseIn addition, an attacker could execute this technique without waiting for the error messages by using information gained through side-channel leakages.
"It's worth noting that the attack is 100% reliable, i.e. one can be sure that once they run the attack, they can exploit the target. It's just a matter of time. If the attacker is lucky, then he can own any ASP.NET website in seconds. The average time for the attack to complete is 30 minutes. The longest time it ever takes is less than 50 minutes," Duong said.
Needless to say, I'll be patching my systems sooner rather than later. -
NL: Review Block - Sliced Bread Edition - Video Mobo LiLo
Published: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 | By: DennisMotherboards
- ASRock 890GX Extreme4 Motherboard Review @ KitGuru
- GIGABYTE X58A-UD9 (Intel X58 Express) Motherboard @ TweakTown
- ASRock 890FX Deluxe4 @ PureOverclock
Cooling
- Cooler Master V6GT @ techPowerUp
- 8 triple radiator comparison @ Hardwareoverclock
Video
- ECS GeForce GTX 460 1GB Black Video Card Review @ Legit Reviews
- Gigabyte GTS 450 1Gb @ LanOC Reviews
- Axle GeForce GTX 460 ACE review Guru3D
- Palit GTS 450 Sonic Platinum @ Bjorn3D
- InnoVISION GeForce GTS 450 iChill Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
- PNY GeForce GTS 450 1GB @ PureOverclock
- Zotac GTX 460 AMP! Edition Review @ Technic3D
- PNY GeForce GTS 450 1GB XLR8 Review @ Hardware Canucks
Storage
- Thermaltake BlacX 5G HDD Docking Station @ Techgage
- OCZ Vertex 2E 120GB SSD review @ Hexus
Memory
- Mushkin Blackline PC3-12800 Review @ XSReviews
- Geil Ultra 2000MHZ Review @ XSReviews
Big list of reviews this time. Be sure to check out our reviews as well, there is a Cooler Master V6 GT review and several video cards. -
The New-Age Nickel & Diming @ Techgage
Published: Monday, September 27, 2010 | By: DennisThere is an interesting editorial over at Techgage that tackles the issue of modern day "nickel and dime(ing)" For those of you that don't know "Nickel and Dime" is an old saying that described how some products end up costing you more than the original price with various add-ons or fees along the way.
A good example is buying a new car. Say the sticker price is $20,000, when you go in to buy the car the salesman says, "With this car you should also get our special fabric spray for $300, and a set of floor mats for $50, and the upgraded spare tire for $150". By themselves these sound like a deal, and a great way to protect your investment, but also raises the price of the car up to $20,500.
Over the course of the past couple of years, there's been a growing trend that's both frustrating and expensive to consumers. It also shows no sign of slowing down, and ironically, many of us contribute to it. As the title of this editorial suggests, this trend amounts to what I like to call new-age nickel and diming.
The Editorial covers downloadable game content, playability of games, micropayments and the hardware unlocks offered on Intel processors. I can't say I agree with everything in the editorial, especially since the current trends are a direct result of a thrifty public. These are the same people that not only has extremely short attention spans, but is unwilling (or unable) to pay the asking price for anything. These people often turn to piracy (for games and movies) or wait until the price comes down to what they understand to be a reasonable level, basically forcing publishers and manufactures to become creative in their pricing structure.
Micropayments and downloadable content (for games) is one way for game developers to re-coop their costs. Think about it, which sounds better? Spending $60 on something, or $10 on something? $10 is usually accepted, so they lower the base price by $10 and offer an upgrade later.
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NL: Review Block: A Little Bit of Everything
Published: Thursday, September 23, 2010 | By: DennisJust cleaning out the news box, here are some of the notable reviews from the past few days.
Cases
- Thermaltake Armor A60 Mid Tower Case Review @ Legit Reviews
- NZXT Phantom Full Tower Case Review @ Bigbruin
- Thermaltake Armor A60 Computer Chassis review @ APH Networks
- Corsair Graphite 600T Mid Tower Case Video Review @ Hardware Canucks
Storage
- GSkill Phoenix Pro 120GB Solid State Drive Review @ Real World Labs
- Corsair Force 40GB Solid State Drive Review @ Hardware Canucks
Cooling
- Swiftech H20-X20 Edge Liquid Cooling Kit Review @ OCIA
Video
- Palit GeForce GTS 450 Sonic Platinum 1GB @ PureOverclock
- HIS HD 5570 Low Profile VideoCard Review @ Tweaknews
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 Super Overclock Review @ Hardware Canucks
Mobos
- Asus Rampage III Gene Motherboard Review @ ITShootOut -
MSI's Master Overclocking Arena Grand Final @ TechReport
Published: Thursday, September 23, 2010 | By: DennisOverclocking competitions are a great way for hardware manufactures to put famous names behind their products. It also highlights what these famous overclockers can do given full access to hardware and all the LN2 they can handle.
The Tech Report has a short 2 page report from the MOA show floor, however it seems he was more into the dancing storm troopers than the overclocking competition.
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Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 750W Power Supply Review @ JonnyGURU
Published: Thursday, September 23, 2010 | By: DennisHere is the new face in PSU designs, rounded corners for that go fast visual appeal.
For as long as I can remember, power supplies have been coming to my load tester in the same old rectangular boxes. Once in a while the size of the box will change, but never the form factor itself. Thermaltake has dropped their latest and greatest into my lap today, and to my surprise they've actually tried to do something different. The Toughpower Grand series doesn't just come in a regular metal box, it comes in a box with fancy rounded corners.
Now this is a PSU I could actually get excited about, tasteful lighting design, ornate shell design, mesh grill. Give it a nice paintjob and show it off.
