Slashdot Mirror

Here's a more comprehensive look at online music services: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1784304 ,00.asp

Ya, that was the conclusion of ExtremeTech's Jason Cross in his ATI Radeon X1800 XT review

This is not the first time AMD has lured a developer into sheadding some character in order to promote their processors, Far Cry for instance. When AMD first released their 64 bit processor THere were a number of bogus features/limitations based on the processor's precision.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1862962 ,00.asp

Step 1: Go to fry's or any other computer store
Step 2: Buy any "gyration" brand wireless mouse

That's it.

http://www.gamecubicle.com/news-nintendo_gyration. htm
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1128548 ,00.asp

Obviously the USAGE of this controller will be important, but the technology IS there, and it IS amazing. I own one of these mice, and it is EXCELLENT.

I use it for a media center computer, and using it is like magic. Playing an RTS using a gyration mouse is hard to even describe.

For under $100 TODAY you can play with this technology in an "unoptimized for gaming" way.

A cordless drill is better than a screwdriver.

Only if you need it for drilling. Otherwise it's unnecessarily heavy and bulky, and very likely without low enough torque settings.
Right now I probably put in and take out hundreds of screws in a day. They're all small screws.
For this I use a Milwaukee 2.4V regular old electric screwdriver.
It's smaller than a drill, so I can get it where I need it AND the battery alone for my drill weighs more than the whole screwdriver.

Bear in mind this isn't a cheap POS screwdriver, it's properly sized for the job, and has two batteries, so I have one on charge at all times.

I wouldn't think about using either of my two cordless drills on a #2 screw. They'd snap it off in a heart beat.

If I was building a deck or doing drywall, sure, I'd use the drills, but for electronic devices with a bunch of #2 and #4 screws, no way.

For working on my car, I just bought a nice IR air powered pistol grip screwdriver. Do not bring that one out in public :) Sure, I already had an impact gun and an air ratchet, but not everything needs than much torque.

That's why it would be handy if browsers (or a Firefox plugin maybe?) supported a way to include referrer information in the url, such as:

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =159811,00.asp?REFERRER=http://www.extremetech.com /

I know that the example syntax is lame, but you got the point.

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =159811,00.asp
Printable Version
-theGreater.

http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =159811,00.asp
Printable Version
-theGreater.

I only wanted to point out that it seems everyone on here is talking about all this great intell 64 architecture which is being 'lost' or what not but why is everybody making it seem as if AMD would have needed to 'run off and make intell clones'? Granted that the itanium may not have the same architecture as the Xeon which came out beforehand, but are people forgetting that to make the Xeon Intell had reverse engineered the AMD opteron?

As i remember the article at the time, intell coppied everythign down to a typo in the documentation which AMD later fixed (as well as 2 instruction sets). I cannot find the article i read but doing a simple google search yeilds: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1561875 ,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

It just seemed to me that everyone was giving credit to intell for making the first common 64 processors when it was AMD this time a fisrt, and later coppied.

Who cares as long as the job gets done in the end.

And for the record AMD rules.

but heres a tie fighter case mod in the meantime
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1823675 ,00.asp

Agreed that that's part of it. And, as we slip down that slope where there are hardware- and OS-level mechanisms determining what we can and cannot view, hear and run, let's please thank the heavens and stars for GNU, the FSF and the thousands of players who've given us the ability to circumvent these things.

I personally don't get too up in arms about "some DRM." I think, e.g., FairPlay is pretty fair for consumers. Currently.

I no longer hear (m)any rants about CPU IDs. It's not because it's no longer there - it's because - per the parent post - we're desensitized.

From my PoV, a little governing of our digital Freedoms is acceptable if it means there's incentive for entities to build and offer good services. I thank heavens for the eternal vigilance we're all provided by the likes of GNU and FSF because they're the ones who've made possible the tools that can help us decide for ourselves when others decide to clamp down too tightly (and that threshold will differ for diferent individuals).

HDCP Vulnerable? Since its inception, HDCP has been criticized by cryptographers and hackers who claim that the system suffers from profound vulnerabilities. While researching this story, we unearthed documents that described several types of straightforward attacks in great detail. Some claim that HDCP relies too heavily on a small array of keys that can be easily cracked through simple linear algebra, while others describe ways to capture encrypted transmissions for later decryption on a compromised display.

Phoenix was doing just that.

from ExtremeTech. It's fairly comprehensive. Read it here : http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1847008 ,00.asp Notice the perfect 10 score.

It's not a problem today when you run 2 or 10 or however many windowed OpenGL apps at once along with some DirectX ones too; somehow Windows seems to cope just fine

Read this: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1791683 ,00.asp

It explains the nuances in much better detail than I could.

But I fail to see why they would be making such a big stink in that case.

They aren't. A guy posting to an OpenGL forum is, telling everyone to complain about the situation to the vendors. And there is apparently a guy from 3dlabs posting essentially what I've been saying.

I'll bet these newer driver APIs give vendors much less control over the internals of various parts of the graphics system.

It depends on your perspective. The final output from various pieces of hardware should be more consistent, and I don't think that is an unreasonable goal. What process they use to generate that output is up to the vendor (that's why there is a driver layer to abstract the hardware from the software), so long as they implement the minimum featureset necessary for the checkbox they're aiming for. The biggest developments these days appear to be related to vertex and pixel shaders (and MS seems to be making a big deal about going crazy with them for aero), and that's probably where most of the biggest changes lie.

Fascinating. Can you cite any references to support your statement?

Gladly...

Identity management looks esp poor for RH when you compare that old krufty Netscape thing that RH bought vs. a stable and extremely mature (over 1 billion served) eDirectory product which is light years ahead of even Active Directory.

I freely admit that some of these articles are a bit long in the tooth however the directory services software landscape hasn't changed dramatically in the last few years. MS' last AD schema change was in 2003 and that wasn't an earth shattering update or anything.

For $41 I can get the Logitech MX1000 laser mouse.

It uses a real laser (as opposed to a red LED and a camera) for tracking, has an ergonomic design, is wireless, has a recharging stand, battery indicator, 8 buttons (left, right, forward, back, "tasks", scroll up, scroll down), and a up/down/left/right tilt wheel.

I use this thing for everything from Photoshop to Counter Strike, and it is BY FAR the best mouse I've ever used, corded or not. Never jumps around. Is incredibly accurate. Extremely comfortable. Battery lasts a very long time. It's just great.

Can somebody tell me why I would want the Apple mouse? Oh... ya... because Apple made it. My bad.

This means that Linux can be installed without breaking the existing installations or screwing with the boot loader at all. The DRM is a problem but there is not too much information about if there is going to be a lot of DRM in this new bios replacement.

Trust me, Linux might work on it, but copying other software created or installed on those other operating systems will NOT be easy. This time, the DRM is in the silicon.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1839128 ,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

This item is in the same town as me... this makes me want to buy it.

I have seen Tie Fighter computer case mods too.. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1823675 ,00.asp...

Imagine the look of this on it.

Beautiful.

-
Warfire

Here's an article on Extremetech discussing Transparent Anti-Aliasing coming from NVIDIA. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1836786 ,00.asp They did a study with a bunch of games and found that the performance benefit is not that great.

So this begs me to ask are these graphics companies solely concentrating on having a great fast GPU that can take these loads. Or are they simply pushing the market to adopt more expensive cards that have these GPUs.

Matrox Intros PCIe x1 Graphics Card

Itanium sales fall $13.4bn shy of $14bn forecast

IBM mocks Itanium server sales - again

Dell Discontinues Intel Itanium Workstation

Tell me something if AMD has more than enough Fab capacity then why have we still not seen X2 prices drop, the price is almost double that of Intel.
And so you think AMD is hiding its capacity behind some shielded doors ??
If you want some real info before calling ppl names read this http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1820856 ,00.asp
And if it had excess capacity why plan for another fab (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,182884 7,00.asp)

Tell me something if AMD has more than enough Fab capacity then why have we still not seen X2 prices drop, the price is almost double that of Intel.
And so you think AMD is hiding its capacity behind some shielded doors ??
If you want some real info before calling ppl names read this http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1820856 ,00.asp
And if it had excess capacity why plan for another fab (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,182884 7,00.asp)

I'd be interested in seeing what Steve Jobs saw on Intel's roadmap for the next few years that convinced him...

Two words: Project LaGrande.

In short, Apple wants to promote media in all forms; iMovie, iTunes, iLife, iPhoto, GarageBand, etc. In order to do this as broadly as they want (think iPod, ARM-based handhelds, media-on-the-go, etc.), the media conglomerates need to know they're protected. This means STRONG DRM built into the silicon itself. This means Project LaGrande.. and of course lower-power, lower-heat Intel chipsets. High-performance chips generate heat, thats the reality of PowerPC.

Apple isn't after power or performance, they're after portable media and long battery life (think better Powerbooks and next-gen iPod-type devices).

You can skip the articles they don't tell you much other than what is in the Slashdot Summary. However, the blog entry has the code part on it. Here are all the articles including code entry...

Story:

Ryan Naraine - PC Magazine Tue Jun 28,10:49 AM ET

Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen has cracked the lock on Google's new in-browser video player.

Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.

The patch, released on Johansen's 'So Sue Me' blog, effectively disables a modification Google made to the VideoLAN code to prevent users from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers.

Johansen said the patch, which requires the .Net run-time framework, will remove Google's restriction and allow the playback of video files that aren't on the video.google.com server.

The 21-year-old hacker, who faced two trials in Norway in 2002 and 2003 for his role in the release of the
DeCSS decryption software, is a hero to many for his efforts to defeat DRM (digital rights management) mechanisms built into media player technology.

He has been involved in a public cat-and-mouse game with Apple Inc., releasing several tools to bypass the DRM software used to encrypt music sold on the iTunes Music Store. LINK TO: PyMusique Unlocks iTunes Copy Protection. Again. http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1779526 ,00.asp

Johansen has also cracked Apple's AirPort Express's encryption and released a proof-of-concept program that allows
Linux users to play video encoded with Microsoft's proprietary WMV9 codec. The proof-of-concept is based on the VideoLan code.

Addict3d.org more details:

Jon Lech Johansen, "DVD Jon", took just one day to build a crack to allow you to play video on your website using Google's VLC-based player.

This means you can publish video that will play on your webpage and will work for anyone who has Google's player installed.

Johansen, also known as 'DVD Jon' for his work on decrypting DVD security codes, has created a patch for the Google Video Viewer--less than 24 hours after the search giant shipped the video playback plug-in, a tool based on the open-source VideoLAN media player.

Crack can be found here -

http://nanocrew.net/wp-content/GVVPatch.exe

http://nanocrew.net/?p=114

Blog Entry:

Google has released Google Video Viewer, a browser plugin based on VLC. Here's one of the features they've added:

+ // Google mods
+ const char* allowed_host = \"video.google.com\";
+ char * host_found = strstr(p_sys->url.psz_host, allowed_host);
+ if ((host_found == NULL) ||
+ ((host_found + strlen(allowed_host)) !=
+ (p_sys->url.psz_host + strlen(p_sys->url.psz_host)))) {
+ msg_Warn( p_access, \"invalid host, only video.google.com is allowed\" );
+ goto error;
+ }

This "feature" prevents you from playing videos that are not hosted on Google's servers. Download and run this patch I wrote to remove this restriction. Running the patch requires a .NET runtime.

Read about this last year:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1555134 ,00.asp

Wi-Fi is a trademark owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance, and is based on various parts of 802.11. It is a wireless local area network standard.

WiMax is a trademark owned by the WiMax forum, and is 802.16d (Fixed WiMax) and 802.16e (Mobile WiMax) [.16e is not yet ratified by IEEE]. These are wireless metro or wide area network standards (depending on where you feel that difference lies)

The two network technologies will likely co-exist in the future. See this article for how their interaction might work out (in the first few paragraphs) [the article refers to fixed WiMax].

"The key is this: if you want a true HDTV experience, the unit you buy should natively support either 1080i or 720p. You may still get a pretty darned good picture out of a 1024x768 display, but it's not true high-definition. Be sure to check the native resolution of any digital display before you buy. Actually, only a small handful of TVs actually support (or come close to supporting) the true 1920x1080 resolution of 1080i, so sets claiming native 1080i really are not at that level in horizontal resolution"

[cough] http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1573980 ,00.asp [/cough]

I'm personally surprised how often I hear about the "rapid adoption" of HDTV and that at the same time I never hear about how TV developers have been misleading their customers.

The only thing that would be stranger is if Microsoft moved to the PowerPC platform...

By the end of this summer you'll be able to buy the Dell 24" LCD for only around $700(!) [...]

I read the linked article but I didn't see it mentioned that the LCD will be going for $700 by the end of the summer :-/. Did I just miss that part or is this forecast covered elsewhere?

What used to be luxury displays will soon become commodity, much to the shagrin of the Apple Cinema fans (who fall back on the "aluminum style" defense).

Anyway, 24" is about the size limit a person can tolerate for a desktop display if you don't want to have to physically pan your head around to take it all in. The price drops can't come soon enough for me, as this is the huge, low-response display I (and everyone else) have been drooling over for months...

According to this interview, the Xbox 360 will support VGA-out. We'll have to see if computer monitors will work, but I don't see why not. It will be a decade before I or most of my friends will be able to afford an HDTV, and I'm not buying a console if I have to drop another three grand to use it.

What I *am* saying is that it is at least marginally surprising or at the very least deliciously ironic that Microsoft is using Apple computers at the premier electronic entertainment expo of the year to demonstrate its multi-billion dollar new console less than 2 quarters from ship. And no, these days, R&D and manufacturing isn't *that* "just-in-time". It's pretty startling, actually, that they don't have a shitload of final or near-final test Xbox 360s, and that they're still doing everything with Power Macs.

Despite all the Intel-trashing above, the really interesting part of the Pentium D (dual cores) is the price:

In his own posting to the FreeBSD mail archives dated June 25, Hubbard stated that his new "day job" would not be the end of his contributions to the FreeBSD and other projects. In his words, "Apple does fully understand the importance of FreeBSD and they don't want me or anyone else to stop working on it. FreeBSD doesn't compete with Apple's product offerings in any way and provides an excellent source of technology for them."

Taken from here.

AMDZone.com Tech Report Sudhian Hexus Hot Hardware Anandtech xbit xbit PCWorld Trusted Reviews

ExtremeTech has an excellent story as well. They call it the best desktop processor ever.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1781863 ,00.asp
INTEL DUAL CORE REVIEW
It was an interesting read with some benchmarks
all intel though

Desktop Window Manager

Quartz Compositor

Note this has been around since before Mac OS X 10.0 (March 2001), gaining hardware acceleration for compositing in Mac OS X 10.2 (August 2002) and most recently hardware acceleration of 2D primitives in Mac OS X 10.4 (currently available to developers only).

A very large number of parallels exist between Apple's Quartz, Quartz 2D, and Apple's OpenGL model/abstractions and stuff coming in Longhorn.

Of course I can't fault them for running with a good idea and one that is a generally logical extension of OpenGL concepts mixed with ideas from the 2D world (PDF, painters model... good old SGI guys).

i didnt say IBM cant keep up, i said they missed the ball with apple on this and let down users(me being one of them).

if your claiming AMDs design is a rushed design then you are the one that doesnt seem to know what they are talking about. AMD designed the chip from the begining with dual core in mind
my back up
"Memory requests are piped through a system request interface to a crossbar switch. The original Opteron/Athlon 64 design was designed with multiple cores in mind, he reminded the audience." FTA

relax, i didnt talk smack about your mother, i just said i was let down.

Linspire (formerly Lindows) made that decision a long time ago, and it has been brought up on Slashdot many-a-time...

A quick search reveals this article from 2003 in which the founder of Lindows states his case for the matter...

And this review from 2002 (linked to by /.) also noted this problem...

It's not been mentioned that HDR effects aren't going to be visible on flatscreen lcd screens, because of the limitations of the brightness scales they can display.

More details: here

had a review of the D-Link a while ago

it's been posted here before(searched but couldn't find it); an extremely in-depth series of articles(four sections) from ExtremeTech: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1752639 ,00.asp/ covering display technology and colorimetry written by Dr. Raymond Soneira, author of DisplayMate.

But if you're naive about the net and you go online maybe once a month...then you're a raw piece of meat in a pool full of sharks.

I am one of those naive that really don't have a clue what hardware review sites to trust. My comfort is that I am probably far from alone, in this matter.

To assist me and other naives(sp?), please join this silly poll and review the following sites (regarding credibility) with a scale ranging from 1 to 10, where 1 is "No credibility at all" and 10 is "Perfect credibility, these guys wouldn't post a biased review for world domination":

About PC Hardware Reviews
Ace's Hardware
Anandtech
Ars Technica
Beyond 3D
Cnet Reviews
Dan's Data
Dev Hardware
Extremetech
Firingsquad
[H]ard|OCP
Hardware Analysis
Hardwarecentral
Hardwarezone
IT Reviews
OcPrices
Overclockers.com
ProCooling.com
The Tech Report
The Tech Zone
Tom's Hardware
TrustedReviews
Viperlair
Xtreme Resources

If you know only a few of them, give your opinion on those.

Maybe someone with the right facilities could set up an independent poll?

8ms LCDs are common now, and check this out: 4ms lcds are on the way.

8 ms = .008 seconds
1/.008 = 125 refreshes a second.

There is no way you can see the refresh rate at 125hz, and even less of a chance at 250 hz (4ms)

Current display devices can display a limited range of contrast and colors, which is one of the main reasons that most image acquisition, processing, and display techniques use no more than eight bits per color channel. This course outlines recent advances in high-dynamic-range imaging, from capture to display, that remove this restriction, thereby enabling images to represent the color gamut and dynamic range of the original scene rather than the limited subspace imposed by current monitor technology. This hands-on course teaches how high-dynamic-range images can be captured, the file formats available to store them, and the algorithms required to prepare them for display on low-dynamic-range display devices. The trade-offs at each stage, from capture to display, are assessed, allowing attendees to make informed choices about data-capture techniques, file formats, and tone-reproduction operators. The course also covers recent advances in image-based lighting, in which HDR images can be used to illuminate CG objects and realistically integrate them into real-world scenes. Through practical examples taken from photography and the film industry, it shows the vast improvements in image fidelity afforded by high-dynamic-range imaging. [more]