Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "If you ever wanted proof that Google's recently-launched Circles social network is angled as the antithesis of Facebook, check out Google Takeout. Produced by the Data Liberation Front, Takeout lets you export all of your data from Circles, Picasa, and Buzz in open formats that can then be imported into other, competing services."

An anonymous reader writes "With a shiny new version of Presto that's apparently up to 20% faster, cool tweaks to Speed Dial, and a bunch of other features and bug fixes, the crazy Norwegians have just launched the latest version of desktop Opera."

adeelarshad82 writes "Microsoft's very simple yet graceful concept raises a very big question. The way Microsoft is planning out Windows 8, developers will be able to write one HTML 5 app which will run across every Windows 8 form factor, from desktops to laptops, to ARM netbooks and tablets. Given the concept, if you remove the operating system — or at least make it transparent enough that the browser becomes the platform — then suddenly every piece of software works across every piece of hardware which raises the question that why Mozilla hasn't considered a Firefox OS?"

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft isn't exactly known for its hardware prowess. Sure, it's churned out plenty of nice mice, keyboards, and game controllers over the years, but success with actual devices has been mixed. The Xbox 360 has exceeded all expectations, while the Zune and Kin hardware have been monumental failures. According to industry sources in Taiwan, however, Microsoft is working on a Windows 8 tablet that will be powered by Texas Instrument's next-generation 1.8GHz dual core processor."

An anonymous reader writes "Asus has announced that three Eee PCs will ship with Ubuntu Linux. Three 2011 models — the 1001PXD, 1011PX, and 1015PX — are immediately available, though no retailers seem to stock them yet. A Canonical exec had this to say about the new netbooks: 'There are a number of factors that make Ubuntu an attractive proposition for ASUS and its customers. Ubuntu continues to set the standard for slick design, ease of use and security, it is the world's third most popular operating system, and [it] has the most number of users in Linux. We [Canonical] were looking at publicly available data on the operating systems accessing Wikipedia last week and found the web site serves more pages to Ubuntu PCs than to iPads — there are a lot of users out there.' It might not be the same as Asus launching three flagship netbooks all running Ubuntu instead of Windows, but it's definitely a start. Asus says there are more Ubuntu netbooks to come later this year, too — hopefully they'll run Ubuntu 11.04."

An anonymous reader writes "Two researchers — Johannes Kopf from Microsoft, and Dani Lischinski from The Hebrew University — have successfully created an algorithm that depixelizes and upscales low-resolution 8-bit 'pixel art' into lush vector graphics. The algorithm identifies pixel-level details (original paper — PDF) to accurately shade the new image — but more importantly, the algorithm can create smooth, curved contour lines from only-connected-on-the-diagonal single pixels. At long last, we might be able to play Super Mario Bros. on a big screen without stretching our beloved plumber's pixels to breaking point. You really must look at the sample images." Scroll down in the paper to see how their technique stacks up against some others, including Adobe's Live Trace.

adeelarshad82 writes "In the same way that Apple championed FireWire for the replacement of parallel SCSI, Thunderbolt is meant as the next big thing in video and audio peripheral interfaces. Plus, it's Apple's move to beat USB 3.0. However, Thunderbolt is off to a slow start, for a number of reasons — from cost to the technology's features in comparison to USB 3.0 — which is why it may be dead in the water."

An anonymous reader writes "Intel, speaking out of turn and damaging its intimate relationship with Microsoft, has revealed that legacy x86-compiled software will not work on the ARM version of Windows 8. Microsoft has promised that the Office suite will be available on Windows 8 ARM, but beyond that, nothing. While this means there won't be many compatible apps at launch, it also means this will be the first full-bodied version of Windows that won't (initially) be susceptible to viruses and malware..."

An anonymous reader writes "One group of Australian researchers have managed to teach robots to do something that, until now, was the reserve of humans and a few other animals: they've taught them how to invent and use spoken language. The robots, called LingoDroids, are introduced to each other. In order to share information, they need to communicate. Since they don't share a common language, they do the next best thing: they make one up. The LingoDroids invent words to describe areas on their maps, speak the word aloud to the other robot, and then find a way to connect the word and the place, the same way a human would point to themselves and speak their name to someone who doesn't speak their language."

An anonymous reader writes "Hot on the heels of the $25 ARM computer, Google is to offer a $20 per month package for students, which includes a Chrome OS laptop (like the Cr-48) and an online component, which will likely include a storage bump for a user's Google Docs, Gmail, Picasa Web, and Google Music files. This would serve two purposes for Google: first, Google will be able to expand its existing user base for Chrome OS. For half the price of a typical cell phone contract, students will be able to pick up a netbook with 3G connectivity. Second, Google will be able to test the package offering publicly prior to eventually adding an enterprise version for Google Apps users."

adeelarshad82 writes "Scientists at UC Berkeley were able to shrink a graphene optical modulator down to 25 square microns in size (small enough to include in silicon circuitry) and were able to modulate it at a speed of 1GHz. The researchers say that modulation speeds of up to 500GHz are theoretically possible. According to the research, due to the high modulation speeds, a graphene modulator can transmit a huge amount of data using spectral bandwidth that conventional modulators can only dream of. Professor Xiang Zhang, in an attempt to boil his group's new findings into consumer-speak, puts it this way: 'If graphene modulators can actually operate at 500GHz, we could soon see networks that are capable of petabit or exabit transmission speeds, rather than megabits and gigabits.'"

adeelarshad82 writes "The University of Nottingham's Nanotechnology Center decided to help Professor of chemistry, Martyn Poliakoff celebrate his special day by 'etching' a copy of a Periodic Table of Elements onto a single strand of the scientist's hair using a 'very sophisticated' electron ion beam microscope. The microscope creates a very fine etching of the periodic table only a few microns across by shooting a 'focused ion beam' of gallium ions at the hair. The technology here is nothing revolutionary, but it is inspiring to see a grown man get so giddy with the prospect of seeing science in action."

adeelarshad82 writes "IBM says they have made a significant leap forward in the viability of 'Racetrack memory,' a new technology design which has the potential to exponentially increase computing power. This new tech could give devices the ability to store as much as 100 times more information than they do now, which would be accessed at far greater speeds while utilizing 'much less' energy than today's designs. In the future, a single portable device might be able to hold as much memory as today's business-class servers and run on a single battery charge for weeks at a time. Racetrack memory works by storing data as magnetic regions (also called domains), which would be transported along nanowire 'racetracks.' Instead of forcing a computer to seek out the data it needs, as traditional computing systems do, the information would automatically slide along the racetrack to where it could be used."

adeelarshad82 writes "IBM revealed details of its 5.2-GHz chip, the fastest microprocessor ever announced. Costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, IBM described the z196, which will power its Z-series of mainframes. The z196 contains 1.4 billion transistors on a chip measuring 512 square millimeters fabricated on 45-nm PD SOI technology. It contains a 64KB L1 instruction cache, a 128KB L1 data cache, a 1.5MB private L2 cache per core, plus a pair of co-processors used for cryptographic operations. IBM is set to ship the chip in September."

WesternActor writes "The Khronos Group has announced full details for the OpenGL 4.1 specification. Among the new features of the spec, which comes just five months after the release of the 4.0 specification, is full support for OpenGL ES, which simplifies porting between mobile and desktop platforms. It'll be interesting to see what effect, if any, this new spec has on the graphics industry — more compatibility could change the way many embedded systems are designed. There are lots of other changes and additions in the spec, as well." Reader suraj.sun contributes insight from Ars, which brings OpenGL's competition into focus: "OpenGL 4.0 brought feature parity with Direct3D 11's new features — in particular, compute shaders and tessellation — and with 4.1, the Khronos Group claims that it is surpassing the functionality offered in Microsoft's 3D API. ... Whether this truly constitutes a leapfrogging of Direct3D 11 is not obvious."

WesternActor writes "Computers are getting cheaper to buy every year, but there are still sometimes advantages to building them yourself. ExtremeTech has a story about how they sought out the parts for a $200 computer that (of course) runs Linux as a way of breaking the budget barrier. They even test it against a commercially available eMachines nettop to see how it compares in terms of performance. This probably isn't something everyone will want to do, but it's an interesting example of something you can do on the cheap if you put your mind to it."

robotsrule writes "This video shows a WowWee Rovio mobile spy robot being piloted remotely over a Skype video call using thought, facial gestures, and head movements, with the help of the Emotiv Systems EPOC 14-electrode EEG headset with built-in gyroscope. An accompanying article explains in detail how the system works and what steps were taken with the Emotiv systems SDK to interface with the EPOC headset along with code samples. The system is based on Robodance 5, a free robot control program for consumer robot owners that will be out in beta on May 20, 2010."

robotsrule writes "As we discussed last month, RealityServer 3.0 is Nvidia's attempt to bring photo-realistic 3D images to any Internet-connected device, including the likes of Android and iPhone. RealityServer 3.0 pushes the CPU-killing 3D rendering process to a high-power, GPU based, back-end server farm based on Nvidia's Tesla or Quadro architectures. The resulting images are then streamed back to the client device in seconds; such images would normally take hours to compute even on a high-end unassisted workstation. Extreme Tech has up an article containing an interview with product managers from Nvidia and Mental Images, whose iray application is employed in a two-minute video demonstration of near-real-time ray-traced rendering." Once you get to the Extreme Tech site, going to the printable version will help to preserve sanity.

WesternActor writes "ExtremeTech has an interview with a couple of the folks behind Nvidia's new RealityServer platform, which purports to make photorealistic 3D images available to anyone on any computing platform, even things like smartphones. The idea is that all the rendering happens 'in the cloud,' which allows for a much wider distribution of high-quality images. RealityServer isn't released until November 30, but it looks like it could be interesting. The article has photos and a video that show it in action."

adeelarshad82 writes "Intel's X58 chipset is the platform of choice for enthusiasts, but Intel serves a heck of a big audience. To please that larger crowd and bring down prices, the company is planning a mainstream iteration of its Nehalem architecture: the P55 chipset. It's designed to work with the forthcoming Lynnfield CPUs, and offers performance close to LGA1366 chips at a much cheaper price. Recently Asus demoed its first intel P55 chip and released exclusive photos. Asus claims to have run its new boards with engineering samples of the Core i5-750 at a 77 percent overclock, boosting speeds from 2.66 GHz to 4.7 GHz. Asus admits this wasn't necessarily stable, but still — that's fast. And on liquid cooling, the boards reportedly hit speeds of 5.1 GHz."

adeelarshad82 writes "Intel's X58 chipset is the platform of choice for enthusiasts, but Intel serves a heck of a big audience. To please that larger crowd and bring down prices, the company is planning a mainstream iteration of its Nehalem architecture: the P55 chipset. It's designed to work with the forthcoming Lynnfield CPUs, and offers performance close to LGA1366 chips at a much cheaper price. Recently Asus demoed its first intel P55 chip and released exclusive photos. Asus claims to have run its new boards with engineering samples of the Core i5-750 at a 77 percent overclock, boosting speeds from 2.66 GHz to 4.7 GHz. Asus admits this wasn't necessarily stable, but still — that's fast. And on liquid cooling, the boards reportedly hit speeds of 5.1 GHz."

ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may recall Loyd Case's series of articles illustrating his experiences after switching to solar power for his family home. Loyd shared his one month update, a six month update, and now finally concludes his series after one year of solar power. Despite the $38,000 initial cost for the setup, Loyd is very optimistic after a $3,000 savings in one year, meaning that in about 12 years he will break even — though he suspects ten years is a better estimate considering other factors. Other reasons such as feeling 'green,' increasing the property value of his house, and the 'spousal acceptance factor' all support Loyd's decision on why he'd do it all over again if he had to." The article is spread annoyingly over multiple pages, like everything at the site, and the print version omits the graphs.

ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may recall Loyd Case's series of articles illustrating his experiences after switching to solar power for his family home. Loyd shared his one month update, a six month update, and now finally concludes his series after one year of solar power. Despite the $38,000 initial cost for the setup, Loyd is very optimistic after a $3,000 savings in one year, meaning that in about 12 years he will break even — though he suspects ten years is a better estimate considering other factors. Other reasons such as feeling 'green,' increasing the property value of his house, and the 'spousal acceptance factor' all support Loyd's decision on why he'd do it all over again if he had to." The article is spread annoyingly over multiple pages, like everything at the site, and the print version omits the graphs.

ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may recall Loyd Case's series of articles illustrating his experiences after switching to solar power for his family home. Loyd shared his one month update, a six month update, and now finally concludes his series after one year of solar power. Despite the $38,000 initial cost for the setup, Loyd is very optimistic after a $3,000 savings in one year, meaning that in about 12 years he will break even — though he suspects ten years is a better estimate considering other factors. Other reasons such as feeling 'green,' increasing the property value of his house, and the 'spousal acceptance factor' all support Loyd's decision on why he'd do it all over again if he had to." The article is spread annoyingly over multiple pages, like everything at the site, and the print version omits the graphs.

ThinSkin writes "Building a computer that can handle today's games doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, you can build one for less than $800, especially given that many hardware manufacturers have cut costs considerably. Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech shows gamers how to build an $800 gaming PC, one that features an overclockable Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 and a graphics-crunching EVGA 260 GTX Core 216. The computer exceeded expectations in gaming and synthetic tests, and was even overclocked well over spec at 3.01GHz."

ThinSkin writes "Building a computer that can handle today's games doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, you can build one for less than $800, especially given that many hardware manufacturers have cut costs considerably. Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech shows gamers how to build an $800 gaming PC, one that features an overclockable Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 and a graphics-crunching EVGA 260 GTX Core 216. The computer exceeded expectations in gaming and synthetic tests, and was even overclocked well over spec at 3.01GHz."

Anonymous Coward writes "Not all of us are prepared to drop $500 for a killer graphics card. Generally, the sweet spot in price and performance is in the budget category of GPUs. Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech reviews nine current graphics cards, all of which are below $250, some below $150, to determine which cards are worth the time and money for the gamer on a budget. In the sub $150 category, the ATI Radeon 4770 performed the best for its price. Spend a little more and Joel recommends the GeForce 260."

ThinSkin writes "As part of their 'Spring Refresh,' both AMD and Nvidia reveal new $250 graphics cards, the Radeon 4890 and GeForce GTX 275. ExtremeTech takes both cards and runs them through a gamut of gaming and synthetic benchmarks to decide which card triumphs over the other. Long story short, the GeForce takes the cake with impressive performance at its price, while the Radeon didn't show a high improvement over the cheaper Radeon 4870."

ThinSkin writes "As part of their 'Spring Refresh,' both AMD and Nvidia reveal new $250 graphics cards, the Radeon 4890 and GeForce GTX 275. ExtremeTech takes both cards and runs them through a gamut of gaming and synthetic benchmarks to decide which card triumphs over the other. Long story short, the GeForce takes the cake with impressive performance at its price, while the Radeon didn't show a high improvement over the cheaper Radeon 4870."

ThinSkin writes "Imagine playing bleeding-edge games, yet never again upgrading your hardware. That's the ambitious goal of OnLive's Internet delivered gaming service. Using cloud computing, OnLive's goal is to 'make all modern games playable on any system,' thanks in large part to OnLive's remote servers that do all the heavy lifting. With a fast enough Internet connection, gamers can effectively stream and play games using a PC, Mac, or a 'MicroConsole,' 'a dedicated gaming client provided by OnLive that includes a game controller.' Without ever having to worry about costly hardware upgrades or the cost of a next-gen console, gamers can expect to fork over about $50 yearly just for the service. If this thing takes off, this can spell trouble for gaming consoles down the road, especially if already-established services like Steam and Impulse join the fray."

ThinSkin writes "Imagine playing bleeding-edge games, yet never again upgrading your hardware. That's the ambitious goal of OnLive's Internet delivered gaming service. Using cloud computing, OnLive's goal is to 'make all modern games playable on any system,' thanks in large part to OnLive's remote servers that do all the heavy lifting. With a fast enough Internet connection, gamers can effectively stream and play games using a PC, Mac, or a 'MicroConsole,' 'a dedicated gaming client provided by OnLive that includes a game controller.' Without ever having to worry about costly hardware upgrades or the cost of a next-gen console, gamers can expect to fork over about $50 yearly just for the service. If this thing takes off, this can spell trouble for gaming consoles down the road, especially if already-established services like Steam and Impulse join the fray."

Mikey Win writes "ExtremeTech shows us a cool hardware hack that allows multiple operating system to boot without dealing with any tedious BIOS setup changes. How? By building your own SATA hard drive switch. The result? You can expect a longer hard drive life span, power supply load reduction, and partitions protected from becoming overwritten or corrupted."

ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, it sure seemed like a great deal, but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached. While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."

ThinSkin writes "Slashdot readers may remember an article regarding ExtremeTech's Loyd Case's experiences with solar power for the home after one month of usage. During that time six months ago, it sure seemed like a great deal, but the tables have turned significantly once winter approached. While it's no surprise solar power generation is expected to dwindle during the winter, Loyd compares solar power data of the last six months to determine if solar power is still worth the time and money."

ThinSkin writes "Now that the folks at ExtremeTech have finished writing about the best keyboards for every occasion, they conclude their roundup of input devices with the best computer mice in every category, which includes ergonomic mice, gaming mice, notebook mice, and so on. While this year's crop of gaming mice didn't impress much, there were advancements in non-gaming mice and tracking, as demonstrated by Microsoft's Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack technology — which is considered more precise than optical and laser. Even ergonomic mice saw little growth in the year — prompting the reviewer to rely on the older Zero Tension Mouse as a favorite."

ThinSkin writes "Now that the folks at ExtremeTech have finished writing about the best keyboards for every occasion, they conclude their roundup of input devices with the best computer mice in every category, which includes ergonomic mice, gaming mice, notebook mice, and so on. While this year's crop of gaming mice didn't impress much, there were advancements in non-gaming mice and tracking, as demonstrated by Microsoft's Explorer Mouse with BlueTrack technology — which is considered more precise than optical and laser. Even ergonomic mice saw little growth in the year — prompting the reviewer to rely on the older Zero Tension Mouse as a favorite."

ThinSkin writes "ExtremeTech has written an article on the best keyboards in every category, such as gaming keyboards (macro and hybrid), media center keyboards, keyboard gamepads, and so forth. Of course, the big companies like Microsoft and Logitech dominate these lists, while smaller companies like Razer, Ideazon, and others play an important role as well."

ThinSkin writes "ExtremeTech has written an article on the best keyboards in every category, such as gaming keyboards (macro and hybrid), media center keyboards, keyboard gamepads, and so forth. Of course, the big companies like Microsoft and Logitech dominate these lists, while smaller companies like Razer, Ideazon, and others play an important role as well."

ThinSkin writes "The folks over at ExtremeTech have had enough time on their hands to benchmark Intel's entire quad-core lineup to determine which has the best performance for the dollar. While prices range from $183 to $1399, the real bargain is with Intel's latest Core i7 architecture which outpaced many other more expensive processors. For comparison's sake, Intel's fastest dual-core CPU was thrown into the mix and was, at times, not even competitive, which suggests that we're beginning to see more and more multi-threaded applications take advantage of four cores."

ThinSkin writes "The folks over at ExtremeTech have had enough time on their hands to benchmark Intel's entire quad-core lineup to determine which has the best performance for the dollar. While prices range from $183 to $1399, the real bargain is with Intel's latest Core i7 architecture which outpaced many other more expensive processors. For comparison's sake, Intel's fastest dual-core CPU was thrown into the mix and was, at times, not even competitive, which suggests that we're beginning to see more and more multi-threaded applications take advantage of four cores."

ThinSkin writes "So many Web browsers, so little time. The folks at ExtremeTech have assembled the ultimate browser test to determine which Web browser is king. From speed tests to rendering tests, different browsers traded off wins, but Google Chrome came out on top."

ThinSkin writes "So many Web browsers, so little time. The folks at ExtremeTech have assembled the ultimate browser test to determine which Web browser is king. From speed tests to rendering tests, different browsers traded off wins, but Google Chrome came out on top."

Barence writes "Microsoft has released the first pre-beta code of Windows 7, and PC Pro has a series of in-depth, hands-on examinations of all the new features. The revamped user interface has clearly gleaned more than a little inspiration from the Mac OS X Dock, but it goes further than the Apple concept with 'jumplists,' new gadgets and an updated system tray. The much-vaunted multi-touch controls were there to play with, and it seemed to work well. Networking has been given the full treatment, with new features HomeGroup and Libraries. Windows 7 debuts a new feature called Device Stage that has the potential to be unbelievably handy ... or a complete disaster. Finally, several new features could make PCs easier to manage and secure for IT departments, such as BitLocker To Go and Branch Cache." All in all, these features together lead some people to the conclusion that Windows 7 will "suck less than Vista" — that last link from reader ThinSkin, who also points to a related sampling of screenshots from the current iteration of Windows 7.

Barence writes "Microsoft has released the first pre-beta code of Windows 7, and PC Pro has a series of in-depth, hands-on examinations of all the new features. The revamped user interface has clearly gleaned more than a little inspiration from the Mac OS X Dock, but it goes further than the Apple concept with 'jumplists,' new gadgets and an updated system tray. The much-vaunted multi-touch controls were there to play with, and it seemed to work well. Networking has been given the full treatment, with new features HomeGroup and Libraries. Windows 7 debuts a new feature called Device Stage that has the potential to be unbelievably handy ... or a complete disaster. Finally, several new features could make PCs easier to manage and secure for IT departments, such as BitLocker To Go and Branch Cache." All in all, these features together lead some people to the conclusion that Windows 7 will "suck less than Vista" — that last link from reader ThinSkin, who also points to a related sampling of screenshots from the current iteration of Windows 7.

ThinSkin writes "Just when you thought laser and optical mice were enjoying their reign on mousepads worldwide, Microsoft has to come along and introduces their 'BlueTrack Technology,' a mouse tracking system that aims to work on virtually any terrain short of mirrored and reflective surfaces. ExtremeTech reviews the Explorer Mouse and Explorer Mini Mouse, both of which are powered by Microsoft's newest sensor, to see just how well this technology works. Testing on granite, carpet, marble, and other surfaces, the reviewers were impressed with the responsiveness of BlueTrack, but they also noted that laser mice were competitive on these surfaces as well. Even though the mice didn't get a recommendation from the reviewers (price being a major concern), they did admit that this BlueTrack is the best tracking system available today. MaximumPC has some pictures and a brief technical interview."

ThinSkin writes "Just when you thought laser and optical mice were enjoying their reign on mousepads worldwide, Microsoft has to come along and introduces their 'BlueTrack Technology,' a mouse tracking system that aims to work on virtually any terrain short of mirrored and reflective surfaces. ExtremeTech reviews the Explorer Mouse and Explorer Mini Mouse, both of which are powered by Microsoft's newest sensor, to see just how well this technology works. Testing on granite, carpet, marble, and other surfaces, the reviewers were impressed with the responsiveness of BlueTrack, but they also noted that laser mice were competitive on these surfaces as well. Even though the mice didn't get a recommendation from the reviewers (price being a major concern), they did admit that this BlueTrack is the best tracking system available today. MaximumPC has some pictures and a brief technical interview."

ThinSkin writes "It is appropriate to say that Antec was 'thinking outside the box' when the idea of the 'Skeleton' PC Case sprung to mind. The Antec Skeleton is an open-air PC case with a pair of shelves for the motherboard and other components — held up by arching arms. There are no side panels. This is ideal for the computer user who is constantly fidgeting with his PC parts, or someone who wants to show off his fancy components. Just have a compressed air can nearby. There is also a slideshow of Antec Skeleton images available."

ThinSkin writes "It is appropriate to say that Antec was 'thinking outside the box' when the idea of the 'Skeleton' PC Case sprung to mind. The Antec Skeleton is an open-air PC case with a pair of shelves for the motherboard and other components — held up by arching arms. There are no side panels. This is ideal for the computer user who is constantly fidgeting with his PC parts, or someone who wants to show off his fancy components. Just have a compressed air can nearby. There is also a slideshow of Antec Skeleton images available."

ThinSkin writes "It is appropriate to say that Antec was 'thinking outside the box' when the idea of the 'Skeleton' PC Case sprung to mind. The Antec Skeleton is an open-air PC case with a pair of shelves for the motherboard and other components — held up by arching arms. There are no side panels. This is ideal for the computer user who is constantly fidgeting with his PC parts, or someone who wants to show off his fancy components. Just have a compressed air can nearby. There is also a slideshow of Antec Skeleton images available."

ThinSkin writes "Who needs a brick-and-mortar game shop when you have the world wide web of video game download services? Joel Durham Jr. over at ExtremeTech examines some game download services to decide once and for all which virtual storefront has the best deal for gamers. Among the services reviewed are: Steam, Impulse, Direct2Drive, Good Old Games, and WildTangent Orb. The most popular site in the roundup, Steam, was also the most favored because of its wide selection of popular titles, while Direct2Drive also scored top marks because it has 'just about every title in the universe.'" Which service(s) do you like the most, and what have your experiences with them been?