Michael Lin
Recent posts
Scientists at the University of Southampton have developed a tiny generator that is powered by vibrations. The generator was designed for use in applications where replacing batteries would be very difficult. At the heart of the tiny device, which is less than a cubic centimeter in size, are several magnets on a cantilever. When vibrations...
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When we first took a look at the GeForce 8800 Ultra, back in May, we were left with some mixed feelings. On one hand it was, and still is, the undisputed graphics champ. On the other hand, it didn't introduce any new features and it wasn't a whole lot faster than its significantly cheaper sibling, and former graphics champ, the 8800 GTX. The...
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A study conducted by Hope Cummings of the University of Michigan and Elizabeth Vandewater of the University of Texas at Austin sampled a group of adolescents, both gamers and non-gamers, from around the U.S. to find out where they find the time to play games and what parts of their lives suffer as a result. They found that boys spent an average...
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For the last several months, DDR2 memory development has been largly stagnent. The fastest DDR2 memory kits from last summer were, for the most part, still the fastest DDR2 memory kits this spring. We haven't seen any truly significant developments in DDR2 since Micron stepped up to the plate with their D9 chips. Although manufacturers...
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Alienware, known best for their alien-head shaped gaming rigs, has just announced that they will be entering the home theater PC market with a slick looking new system called the Hanger18. The Hanger18 is a slim DVD-player sized HTPC and it will run Windows Vista Home Premium on an AMD LIVE! platform....
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AMD has been diligently releasing an update to the ATI Catalyst drivers once every month but it seemed like they had missed the driver release for the month of May. However, it looks they got it out the door at the last possible moment because the new drivers are now available for download, dated May 31st. Catalyst 7.5 has two new features,...
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These days, we expect our motherboards to come loaded with onboard features. It has become increasingly rare for a motherboard not to include features like integrated audio and LAN. It's also easy to find boards sporting integrated video and built-in processors (ie. VIA EPIA). Abit's IN9 32X-MAX even has 802.11b/g wireless support. But, have...
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Abit is normally associated with enthusiast-class overclocking motherboards and to a lesser extent their now discontinued line of Radeon graphics cards. Most people would not think of abit as a manufacturer of multimedia speakers. So it was to our surprise when abit announced a new line of speakers late last year. Dubbed "iDome", this new...
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If you want high-performance PC gaming action in a portable package, a laptop equipped with a GeForce Go 7 series chip has been your best bet for the last year or so. From the modest GeForce Go 7600 to the monstrous GeForce Go 7950 GTX, NVIDIA has most mobile gaming needs covered. If you were really serious, you could...
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In early November of last year, NVIDIA unveiled their successor to the nForce 5, the nForce 600 series. The starting line-up included three solutions supporting Intel's Core 2 processor, each aimed at a different segment of the market and each with a different price point. The most expensive chipset in the series, the...
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Last summer, Dell agreed to purchase Alienware in a controversial merger of two very different companies. Alienware, who was looking to raise capital to fund its world-wide expansion, found a good partner in Dell when it came to realize that it would be able to meet its demands while simultaneously benefiting from...
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A few weeks ago, we looked at the HIS Radeon X1950 Pro IceQ3 Turbo, a mainstream graphics card set to do battle with the GeForce 7900GS in the $200 price segment. Based on the RV570 GPU, the X1950 Pro brought a host of features to the table including native CrossFire. While X1950 Pro is a good performer for a great price, some of us were left...
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When Intel unleashed the Core 2 back in July, they introduced the P965 as their mainstream chipset, while the 975X Express chipset was upgraded with Core 2 support to cover the high-end enthusiast segment. However, the P965 didn't end up being 'just' a mainstream product. As production boards utilizing the...
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This is a friendly reminder to those of you who still haven't upgraded to Windows XP SP2 that Microsoft will end support for SP1 on Tuesday. This means that after Tuesday, users running SP1 will no longer be able to receive security updates unless they upgrade to SP2. I know many of you have stayed away from SP2 because some of the new...
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Cool-LOOKING - AND running - laptops get performance BOOST FROM INTEL CORE 2 DUO PROCESSORS SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 28, 2006 - Laptops around the world are getting a make-over as systems based on Intel Centrino Duo mobile technology are now shipping with Intel Core 2 Duo mobile processors inside, Intel Corporation announced today. More than...
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ATI released a new version of their Linux proprietary drivers today, version 8.28.8. This new version is ATI's first unified 32bit-64bit driver installer for Linux. It automatically recognizes which CPU architecture is being used and installs the appropriate driver. Other new features include display switching support for...
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New Scientist Magazine's Invention blog reports that the German company, Thomson, is applying for a patent on a new optical media technology that could potentially result in up to eight times the data density. The method involves the way that optical media is recorded. Optical disks are covered with millions of microscopic pits. In...
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ABIT LAUNCHES AW9D SERIES Intel 975X Chipset motherboards built for Core 2 Duo and beyond August 16th , 2006 - Today Universal abit launched their much anticipated AW9D and AW9D-MAX motherboards based on the Intel 975X chipset. There has been much anticipation in the industry for this series and as far as looks go, these boards are built to...
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Digitimes reports that Asustek will soon introduce a new brand, ASmobile, to be used by their whitebook products. The first notebook bearing the ASmobile brand will appear during the fourth quarter of 2006. Asustek is trying to repeat the success they enjoyed when they re-branded their low-price motherboards to ASRock. However, the...
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Fudo over at The Inquirer reports that their sources are indicating ATI's next generation R600 flagship GPU will feature a full 64 physical pipelines. Looking at the current number of pipelines in NVIDIA's flagship cards, there is little doubt that the company's upcoming G80 GPU will need to have a healthy increase in pipelines...
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Twelve FireFox fans, mainly Oregon State University students, created a large FireFox crop circle with a diameter of 220 feet on Saturday. The crop circle took two weeks to plan and was constructed in under 24 hours in an oat field near Amity, Oregon, with the permission of the land owners. The circle is completely invisible...
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Earlier this year, ASUS announced their new enthusiast motherboard line, aimed at gamers and modders. Dubbed 'Republic of Gamers', the series will compete directly with Abit's Fatal1ty and DFI's LANParty products. PC Perspective took a look at the first member of the new product line, the ASUS Crosshair. Is the Crosshair...
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