Tech News
-
Airline Passengers Are Now Allowed Off Stuck Planes
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009 | By: DennisSo far I have been lucky enough to skirt by having to sit on a plane for extended periods, and it is really rather unfortunate that customer complaints had to prompt a rule like this to go into effect. But I am glad to see there is now something in place to allow people to get off a plane if there is a delay over 3.5 hours.
As many of us know 3.5 hours is longer that most domestic flights (depending on destination) but when you're delay could be up to 10 hours it is nice to get off a cramped plane to get some real food and something to drink.Dec. 21 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. airlines would have to let passengers off planes stuck on airport tarmacs after three hours, under a new federal rule prompted by consumer complaints.
The rule, which takes effect in April, exempts airlines from the limit for safety or security, or if air-traffic controllers say returning to the gate would disrupt airport operations, the Transportation Department said today in a statement. The rule applies to domestic flights; airlines flying International routes would set separate limits.
"Airline passengers have rights, and these new rules will require airlines to live up to their obligation," Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said today in a written statement.
The airline industry has been struggling for the past few years and while most travelers would like to blame the airline industry we can only blame ourselves. Travelers are always looking for the lowest fare and airlines need passengers to operate. Then travelers complain about the cut rate service because they are unwilling to pay what it costs to actually travel, as a result service and accommodations suffer.
Gone are the times of a full can of soda and in-flight meals, gone are the times when you could check up to 2 bags per person for free, and gone are the times when airlines will actually take care of their passengers. They still know you have choices in air travel and they know you picked them not for the service or clean planes but because of destination and cost. -
NL: PC Game Reviews Roundup
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009 | By: WillThe shopping for the Holiday Season is almost over so here is a few more PC games to look at for the PC gamer in your home.
LOTRO: Siege Of Mirkwood (PC) Review @ Gamingheaven
Siege of Mirkwood is the latest addon for Lord Of The Rings Online and it places the player into a gloomy, dark and dingy world. Thats not to say it isn't compelling however because there is still plenty that fans of the series will take from this game.
The Saboteur (PC) Review @ TweakPC
This is the last titel coming from Pandemic Studios. Is "The Saboteur" a good game? We took a look and show you the shooter.
-
Silverstone Raven 2 Enclosure review in Metku
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009 | By: WillWe at Ninjalane have taken a huge liken to this case since our very own review that you can read right here. Once your done reading that one take a look at this review here. Compare the two and see is the Reven 2 is the case for you.
"Early this year Silverstone came up with Raven chassis that got some rather unique features, including positive pressure cooling and motherboard in weird 90-degree angle. After the initial launch the guys at Silverstone haven't been resting on their laurels, but been busy working with the new version, and now the Raven 2 is out and also arrived to our tests."
That is one slick case.
-
Popcorn Hour C-200 HD Media Player Video Review - HD audio finally done right!
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009 | By: WillNinjalane loves playing with new software all the time and we are looking forward to playing with this Popcorn software for our HTPC. Until then though let's get a good read on what all this software is about. Let's take a gander together.
"When we were contacted by the PR agency for Popcorn Hour a week or two ago and we heard they wanted to send us their C-200 HD Media Player, I didn't get overly excited. I've been testing a range of media players all year (many Realtek based units that while good, are far from impressive) and truthfully haven't really had too much to get excited about. I didn't bother checking the specifications of the C-200 until I started testing the unit to see what it could do and didn't really have much experience with Popcorn's products.
On paper I could see that the Popcorn Hour product was different. For starters, I could see that it wasn't built around the same Realtek solution that many companies have been using. The Realtek solution is fine - there are loads of files and formats supported and video and audio playback is good, but these sorts of devices get boring after a while, since they can all only vary in difference by a small amount."
Very neat.
-
MSI GTX 275 Lightning Shatters World Records on LN2 @ Madshrimps
Published: Monday, December 21, 2009 | By: WillLooks like the old NVidia GTX275 still has some serious life in her for the LN2 extremist out there. Nothing like seeing the "faster running NVidia GPU ever" in this review to get everyones attention. Let's hope this is not just a lucky golden sample.
Once in a while, a high-end video card lands on my test table; in most cases just to overclock on air cooling without even the most simple voltage modifications. This time however we put the card under LN2 and found out this is a golden sample within the Lightning series. Is it the fastest running NVIDIA GPU ever?
We would love to see a few more put under LN2 to see more results.
-
Intel DP55WG and DP55KG P55 Motherboards Benchmarked @ Legit Reviews
Published: Friday, December 18, 2009 | By: WillHere is a two for one P55 motherboard review. This review highlights the difference that motherboard marks even Intel is doing to give each of their boards a way to stand out from each other. This also help justify the price differences as well.
"As you can see both of these motherboards are nearly identical, but there are a few small differences. For starters the Intel DP55KG costs $199.99 shipped. This is $60 higher than the Intel DP55WG motherboard as it costs just $139.99 shipped. These two boards might have the same form factor, chipset and processor support, but the price difference shows something bigger must be happening. When Legit Reviews first saw these motherboards at Quakecon 2009 we discovered that the Intel DP55WG 'Warrensburg' motherboard is based off the same PCB as the Intel DP55KG 'Kinsberg' motherboard, but has been stripped down. The main thing we noticed is that Intel removed two of the power phases so the DP55WG has just four total power phases. Intel also removed the eSATA ports from the back panel, two of the SATA ports, the onboard USB port and other features like the Bluetooth and the cool LED skull. Intel also removed some of the overclocking features from the BIOS on the Intel DP55WG
motherboard. The end result is a board that is $60 less expensive, but how will that impact performance and overclocking? Let's read on to take a look at that..."The super dork is coming out in me by say "cool" an LED skull on the board.
-
Cooler Master HAF 932 AMD Edition Case Review @ Hardware Secrets
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 | By: WillIt has been a while since we looked at the original Cooler Master HAF 932. Well Cooler Master has done the NInjalane colors proud with the new AMD HAF 932 version that uses our very popular cools in the best of ways.
"Cooler Master has just released a new version from their HAF 932 full-tower case targeted to AMD/ATI fanboys. Is it simply a HAF 932 painted red or is there more features? Since we've already reviewed the original HAF 932 we will be able to tell you exactly all the differences between the two. Let's check it out."
That is one tight looking color scheme.
-
Asus Ion-Powered Eee PC 1201N Review @ HotHardware
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 | By: WillNVidia is now breaking out onto the market with the very popular netbook systems. NVidia is also being put into the most popular netbook brand to boot as well with the Asus Eee. Let's take a gander at what NVidia has done with this product line in the review.
The proliferation of NVIDIA's Ion GPU has been a long time coming. We've been talking about its merits for the better part of this year, but only recently has it been able to find its way into more than a handful of mainstream, shipping netbooks. We recently had a look at HP's Mini 311 with Windows 7 Home Premium, and while the Ion definitely enabled smooth HD playback where it was previously impossible with a paltry 1.6GHz Atom N270 and Intel IGP, the CPU bottleneck held back the entire system. Today, however, we're taking a look at a much more powerful system.
Asus has come a long way since the launch of its original Eee PC. 7" and 8" netbooks are no longer the norm, and the availability of 12" netbooks is on the rise. The newest member of the stylish Seashell lineup is the Eee PC 1201N, which easily bests any other netbook we've tested in terms of specifications. It's also one of the larger netbooks out, blurring the line between the netbooks of old and the ultraportables of today. Featuring a 12.1" HD display, dual-core Atom 330 CPU, 2GB of DDR2 RAM, Windows 7 Home Premium, an HDMI output and NVIDIA's Ion GPU technology, there's not much to dislike about the newest Eee PC based on its build sheet...I'm looking hard at one of these for sure.
-
NL: PC Gaming Reviews Roundup
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 | By: WillNinjalane just to remind all of our PC gaming readers that there is still hope for the PC.
Divinity II Ego Draconis for PC @ TestFreaks
"Today for review I'm looking at a game that isn't going to be released until next year, sounds like a long way off but it isn't really. January 5th is the release date of Divinity II: Ego Draconis for both PC and Xbox360 and I got the PC version a few weeks before that date so I could bring you a review or preview of it. I've got tons of screenshots for you along with a video as well from my time playing the game. Divinity II Ego Draconis will offer you hours and hours of play even if you just play it right through without doing any of the side quests. The graphics are beautiful, and game play is fun and exhilarating, especially as you fly around in your dragon form. So continue on to learn more... "
Colin McRae DiRT 2 (PC) Review @ TweakPC
Colin McRae DiRT 2 is the Racinggame oft he year and one oft he first games supporting DirectX 11. It comes with bombastic graphics,
what else can it offer? -
Adobe Flash 10.1 Ushers In GPU Accelerated Flash! @ Legit Reviews
Published: Thursday, December 17, 2009 | By: WillThe GPU is just knocking on the CPU door. Another task given to the GPU over the CPU from Adobe is working with Flash 10.1.So what is next for the GPU?
"It's easy to see in the chart above what an incredible difference Flash 10.1 makes! With Flash 10.0, SD played smoothly, while 720P lost a barely noticeable number of frames and 1080P played terribly, bogging down the entire computer so much that Internet Explorer locked up and the process had to be killed in Task Manager. Firefox had a similar locking result, though it did eventually respond on its own. A credit to Google's Chrome sandboxing approach, closing out the browser was immediate even if the video playback was the worst..."
GPU FTW!
