Techconnect Review Round-up 5/6/09
CPU & Motherboard
- Asus Maximus II Gene (Intel P45) and MSI 790FX-GD70 @ Bjorn3d
- Foxconn Flaming Blade @ [H] Enthusiast
Storage
- Corsair P256 256GB SSD @ bit-tech
- Five 2.5-inch hard drives at 500GB @ The Tech Report
Graphics cards
- Galaxy GeForce 9800GT Low Power @ Hardware Bistro
- Sapphire HD 4890 Toxic/Vapor-X @ Overclockers Club
- HIS Radeon HD 4890 Turbo (1Gb GDDR5) @ CPU3D
Enclosures & PSUs
- In Win X-Fighter case @ Neoseeker
- NZXT Beta Classic Series Midtower Steel Chassis @ ThinkComputers
- PC Power & Cooling Silencer 910W PSU @ DriverHeaven
- Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 W Power Supply @ Hardware Secrets
- Ikonik Ra X10 Liquid Full Tower Case @ TweakTown
- Chieftec Dragon CH-07B-R case @ techPowerUp
Displays
- Panasonic TX-L32X15B and Toshiba 42RV555DB @ TechRadar
Cooling and modding
- Coolermaster V10 Cpu Cooler @ Rbmods
Peripherals
- Razer Lachesis 4000 dpi Gaming Mouse @ HiTech Legion
- Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 5000 @ I4U News
- Genius NetScroll G500 Mouse @ TechRadar
PCs
- Samsung N310 netbook @ Hexus
- MSI GT627-216US Gaming Notebook @ HotHardware
- Acer Aspire Revo R3600 - nVidia ION Nettop @ TrustedReviews
Sound
- Asus Xonar Essence STX Sound Card @ X-bit labs
- Razer Carcharias Gaming headset @ Fudzilla
- Cresyn CS-HP500 Headphones @ techPowerUp
Other
- Epson Stylus SX515W - Wireless All-In-One Printer and Nokia 5220 XpressMusic @ TrustedReviews
- Technisat Skystar USB 2 CI @ TechRadar
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Google announces "test" versions of Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux
Google has made available test versions of its Chrome browser for Mac OS X and Linux, but warned the builds are aimed at developers and not stable enough for everyday use.
The release versions were revealed on Google's Chromium blog, which urged users not to download them, "unless, of course, you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software".
"In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM," Google product managers Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg said in a blog post, evidently trying to employ a little reverse psychology.
"Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."
Until now, Google's open-source browser has been a Windows-only product, and some Mac and Linux users have been clamoring for their own version - and it looks like their wait is coming to an end. Progress Google, keep it up!
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Microsoft CEO speaks out against Obama's corporate tax plans
Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, has spoken out about how he feels that higher taxes will have consequences that he believes Washington have yet to consider. Ballmer says that if Congress enacts President Obama's plans to impose higher corporate taxes, a sensible thing for Microsoft and other multi-nationals to do would be to move jobs offshore.
"It makes U.S. jobs more expensive," Ballmer said, according to Bloomberg News. "We're better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S. as opposed to keeping them inside the U.S."
Last month, the president announced a plan to rewrite tax law by preventing U.S.-based multinational companies from "deferring" and keeping profits offshore, which can lower their tax bills.
Business groups have opposed the president's plan strongly, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it will "impede growth in the U.S. economy, (and) cause the loss of jobs." The National Foreign Trade Council called it "counterproductive."
Microsoft employs about 95,000 people worldwide, and about 56,500 in the United States.
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Google employee reveals secret controversial recruitment practices
Bad press for Google's employment policies this week, as company recruiters are attacked by the media for allegedly being instructed not to hire staff from rival corporations such as Yahoo, and biotechnology specialists Genentech.
A former human resources manager for Google sold a story to Silicon Valley's Mercury News, which claimed that Google maintained a list of other organisations that should be blacklisted from any employment applications.
The news could be of interest to the US Department of Justice, which is currently investigating the hiring practices of Google, Yahoo and Apple to determine whether the firms' deliberately avoided headhunting each others' key staff.
The DoJ said that a formal pact not to hire senior staff from each other would hamper the ability of staff to sell their services to the highest bidder, and therefore stifle competition.
Google declined to comment on the Mercury News report, but said it was co-operating with the DoJ investigation.
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Apple CEO to return next week with all new iPhone in hand
Apple's Chief Executive Overlord, Mr. Jobs, is said to be preparing a somewhat triumphant and spectacular return to the office after his 6-month leave of absence.
This comeback is said to be host to the usual of Steve's favourites - alcohol, cake, girls and of course, an all new iPhone model. At the company's Worldwide Developer's Conference next week, rumours are all in the air about a) an announcement of an all-new, better, cheaper iPhone, and b) a Steve Jobs who is healthy, and back in business - so what would be more perfect than both both true?
Apple of course declined to comment on the reports or confirm a specific date for Jobs' return - however a spokeswoman for the firm said: "There is no comment on this beyond what Steve Dowling [Another spokesperson] said in the WSJ article: 'We look forward to Steve returning to Apple at the end of June'."
The Financial Times cited a source as saying that Apple will release a 4GB iPhone costing $50 to $100 (أ‚آ£31 to أ‚آ£62) less than current versions. A June release makes sense, as many users will be nearing the end of their existing contracts two years on from the original release date of June 2007.
As well as this, the all new new version of the iPhone operating system is also expected to be released next week - an exciting week for iPhone fans, so keep your eyes peeled for more info as it comes in!
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LAN Viewer version 2.3 software update
Utility monitoring the shared folders in a local network and notifies about new files. It is necessary that you did not visit the shared folders. The program will make it itself and will notify you on new files. For example: video, music, photos, and documents. You can set the program to monitoring within regular intervals of time, for example daily, weekly, at days of week. For each new task the individual rule of checking.
Changes include:
- Interface improvements.
- Allow select passive or active mode for FTP.
- Ability to monitor FTP-resources has been added.
- As well as various other fixes and improvements.
Website: Boyarick Net
Download: LAN Viewer 2.3
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Acer's Android netbooks to also boot Windows
Earlier this week Acer announced its intention to release Android-loaded netbooks and it said they would arrive quite quickly, in Q3. Unfortunately, this apparent rush to get Android on netbooks and out in the wild isn't something that open source fans can write home about as Acer will actually deliver dual-boot machines which will feature both Android and Windows XP.
With the dual-boot approach Acer is playing it safe as Android has yet to get consumer approval on netbooks, while Windows is the operating system of choice for low-cost PCs. The downside is that the Android netbooks will still require the purchase of a Windows license and that means they won't be cheaper than Windows-only versions - putting off people who wanted to save some cash from going for an open source-loaded PC. Acer will probably have Android-only netbooks later on though, assuming the OS proves attractive enough.
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Inno3D's single-slot GTX 295 Platinum to be factory overclocked
On display at Computex, Inno3D's GeForce GTX 295 Platinum Edition was the first single-slot GTX 295 to be seen but it may also be the first factory overclocked model to be released (and on sale). Cutting down on PCB use, the single-slot card features two 55nm GT200 GPUs clocked at 600 MHz (575 MHz stock) summing up to 480 Processing Cores, a 2x448-bit memory interface, 1792MB of GDDR3 memory set to 2160 MHz (1998 MHz), and the 'usual' - Quad SLI support, two DVI outputs, a nice big dual-slot cooler and a hefty price tag.
The GeForce GTX 295 Platinum Edition should make its retail debut in the next few weeks.
Picture courtesy of Hexus.
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Microsoft readies 10 updates for Patch Tuesday
Turning up the heat just as summer rolls in, Micorosft is gearing up to release no less than 10 patches this Tuesday, six of which are rated 'Critical', three 'Important', and one 'Moderate'. Although not getting into the details of the vulnerabilities before releasing fixes for them, the Redmond company does mention that the issues are found in Windows operating systems, Office suites and Internet Explorer, and that they can lead to information disclosure, elevation of privileges and remote code execution.
Be sure to check Windows Update this Tuesday and get your MS software up-to-date.
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A-Data announces its own DDR3 notebook memory
A-Data has now expanded its memory offer to include some shiny DDR3 products for Intel Centrino 2 laptops. To detail, A-Data last loose 1 and 2GB So-DIMMs working at 1333MHz with CL9 timings powered at a JEDEC-approved 1.5V that are ready to be paired up with Core 2 processors and maybe a nice and reasonably powerful discrete graphics card too.
The Taiwanese company is claiming to be ready to release DDR3-1600 laptop memory but since there's isn't really any demand for that, it will keep it for later.
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