Tech News
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NSA director finally greets Defcon hackers
Published: Saturday, July 28, 2012 | By: DennisI've never actually attended Defcon but it has started to really sound like the place to be for anyone interested in cybersecurity, including the NSA.
Against a backdrop of relentless cyber-espionage on U.S. companies and government agencies and vulnerabilities and exploits affecting critical infrastructure providers, Gen. Alexander, who also is commander of the U.S. Cyber Command, asked the hackers for help. "In this room right here is the talent we need to secure cyberspace," he said. "You know we can protect the networks and have civil liberties and privacy and you can help us get there."
Long a staple at Defcon, the "Spot the Fed" contest served as a playful detente between the hackers and the agents who chased them for phone phreaking, distributed denial-of-service attacks, Web site defacements, and basically using the Internet as their personal playground and social experiment.With the increasing threat of cyber warfare many will look to the very people who made things like Defcon possible to further protect ourselves from attack.
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Those 27-inch IPS displays from Korea are for real @ TR
Published: Friday, July 27, 2012 | By: DennisMonitor reviews are usually pretty darn boring but after reading the "hook" in the email notification I got a little curious.
In forum threads across the web, enthusiasts have been swapping stories of amazing deals on 27" monitors with beautiful IPS panels imported from Korea. Unable to resist this prospect, we ordered up one on eBay to see what it was like.
The short answer? Pretty amazing. It was delivered by a man riding a unicorn made of bacon, and when we turned it on, it shot rainbows of ecstasy into our eye sockets. Our full review follows:I'm really not sure how special this monitor really is, the bezel is a glossy black and the stand is simple and just tilts forward and back. Combine that with 25x14 resolution and I would have to get this monitor a 100% meh rating.
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The Android Dilemma - An Open Platform Open to Piracy? @ Techgage
Published: Thursday, July 26, 2012 | By: DennisHere is an interesting article that looks at the piracy problem of the Android OS.
Unlike its leading competitor, iOS, Android is about as open as a traditional desktop OS. As such, piracy is no stranger here, and some developers speculate that the situation is made worse by the fact that it is in fact "open". We analyze that and other thoughts, and try to evaluate whether or not closing Android would solve anything.
Weird how you can have piracy in the open source world but when do you don't give credit where credit is due or bypass the pay to play model you're not much better than the guy selling copies of that movie you saw last night.
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Pictures of the New Gigabyte Z77 OC Board Released
Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 | By: DennisGigabyte released some photos of their much anticipated Z77 OC edition motherboard complete with the famed orange and black color scheme and promise of insane LN2 overclocking potential.
This motherboard comes with some insane features including a 32 phase power supply, thin-fin radiator covering the South Bridge chip and monster PWM cooler around the CPU socket. If you look closely along the right side of the board (near the overclocking buttons) there is a tiny switch to enable the LN2 mode which should allow full pot overclocking and bypass the complex steps to get there.
It is difficult to tell but the small heatsink under the CPU socket is likely for the PLX PCI Express 3.0 Switch which will enable 4-way SLI and Crossfire configurations. While most hardcore overclockers will claim this adds latency to their scores the truth of the matter is there are very few platforms which will run 3DMark 11 @ 6.6Ghz without it.
I did get to see a version of this motherboard at Computex. It wasn't mentioned at the time but the insane layout made the product seem more like a board designed for press coverage than an actual product.
Turns out I was only half wrong
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NL: Review Block - Motherboards and Storage
Published: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 | By: DennisWelcome to another edition of Motherboards and Storage, in this segment I'll be showing you a vareity of motherboard reviews that range from Asus and Gigabyte designs with an ASRock thrown in there just for fun.
Afterwards I'll have you look over the list of Memory and Storage reviews including a well known Boise brand, Crucial, whose reviews have reached out beyond the confines of the Boise valley.
Motherboards
- Hardware Reviews - MSI 990FXA-GD80 Motherboard
- ASRock Z77 Extreme9 Intel LGA 1155 @ techPowerUp
- ASUS P8Z77-V Premium @ Ocaholic
- ASUS Maximus V Extreme review
- Gigabyte Z77 G.1 Sniper 3 @ PureOverclock
Storage and Memory
- OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB @ techPowerUp
- Crucial Ballistix Elite 2x2GB DDR3-1866 MHz CL9 @ Ocaholic
- G.Skill TridentX 2666C11-13-13-35 Kit Review @ MadshrimpsMore to come.
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MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning Video Card Review @ [H]
Published: Tuesday, July 24, 2012 | By: DennisHardOCP has posted their review of the GTX 680 Lightning which is one of the most anticipated video cards of the summer. The question now is, Does it stack up against the EVGA Classified? and was it worth the wait??
The MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning comes loaded with high end components, a proven custom cooling system, and the promise of extreme overclocking ability. We will push the MSI GeForce GTX 680 Lightning to its limit and compare it to an AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and an overclocked AMD Radeon HD 7970 to find its value.
Read on to find out.
Having used a few Lightning edition video cards in the past I'm a little curious to see how this one handles the Kepler power problem.
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NL: Review Block: Keyboard Kindness
Published: Monday, July 23, 2012 | By: DennisKeyboards have been the new hot accessory for the past couple years with the majority of vendors concentrating on making them more expensive thru key switch technology and gamer centric features.
Does this actually help you write news or a term paper? not likely but it can help get a few more frags in your favorite MMO.
Interweb Reviews
- ROCCAT Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard Review @ ThinkComputers
- AZiO Levetron Mech 5 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review @ Custom PC Review
- CM Storm Trigger review: mechanical keyboard
- CM Storm Quick Fire Pro Mechanical Gaming Keyboard @ techPowerUpCheck back tomorrow you might be surprised to see a review in the keyboard variety.
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Asustek considers acquisition to expand in motherboard market
Published: Thursday, July 19, 2012 | By: DennisIn a market that has put increased pressure on mobo makers to cut costs and build smarter designs you have to wonder if gobbling up other companies is better than letting them fold up. For instance would DFI still be in the game had they purchased Abit or Soltek before they folded?
As the global motherboard market has been seeing weak growth since 2005, Asustek Computer reportedly is considering acquisitions to further expand its economic scale in the motherboard market, but the company has refuted the rumors and said that it is seeing stable development of its motherboard business and has no plans for acquisitions or strategic alliances.
Currently, motherboard makers' shipment growths each year are mainly contributed by shipments that were snatched from fellow competitors; therefore, price competition in the motherboard market has never ceased with first-tier players such as Asustek and Gigabyte Technology which have larger resources, gaining market share from smaller players such as Micro-Star International (MSI), Elitegroup Computer System (ECS), ASRock and Biostar.Price and margins are what keep these companies afloat and the retail sector is not where they make their money. Money is made in volume or by creating one off models that fill a niche market with no competition.
Read more about this story at Digitimes
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Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700: Infinite potential, limited OS
Published: Wednesday, July 18, 2012 | By: DennisIt is no secret that there is at least one Asus Transformer in the house and Nnjalane Podcast Co-Host Darren has three of the little buggers floating around his home. Considering that I had recently bought the Asus Slate I didn't think getting an additional Transformer was all that necessary.
Turns out I was wrong. Slate style tablets work great as a laptop replacement but the limited battery life is a real downer when surfing the web or chatting with people online. The solution to this would be an entertainment tablet like the new Transformer Pad Infinity TF700. Tegra 3 provides the multimedia power and the keyboard is a nice option for those looking to actually work on their android device.
The Asus Transformer Pad Infinity TF700 is the Transformer Prime as it should have been. A Gandalf the White to the Prime's Saruman. Asus has clearly listened to the grievances -- most notably, GPS issues -- of some Prime owners and in most cases, addresses said grievances and then some.
The TF700 is more than just an upgrade to the Prime. It's also a chance to represent the full potential of the Transformer line. Check out the full review to see if Asus succeeds (despite the Android market's relatively paltry support for high-resolution screens and the Tegra 3 processor).Sign me up! It is too bad the new device is difficult to find in the US, hopefully things will get better in the next couple weeks.
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NL: Motherboard Roundup
Published: Monday, July 16, 2012 | By: DennisYeeHaww!! It's time to round up those pesky motherboard doggies, eat us some beans and make pretty lights around the campfire.
First on the list is an awesome motherboard from EVGA called the Z77 FTW. At the time this was one of the first boards on the market to feature the PLX switch to enable quad SLI and Crossfire on a Z77 motherboard.
- EVGA Z77 FTW Intel Z77 Motherboard Review @ Legit Reviews
- EVGA Z77 FTW review (at Guru3D, they never include that with their news alerts, it must be an elitist thing)Next on the list is another awesome motherboard, and the second one I have seen with the PLX switch, the Gigabyte Sniper 3. Look for a review of this very motherboard soon, (its currently going thru the testing phase)
- Gigabyte G1.Sniper3 Z77 Motherboard Review @ HotHardware
Lastly there are some misc boards like something from MSI and Asus
- MSI Z77-GD55 @ PureOverclock
- ASUS Maximus V Formula review (again from that site, Guru3D)Now that you have seen them, which do you like best? Which do you like least? Sound off in the forum, or fart on the fire. Your choice
