HotHardware and TechVi Video Podcast No. 5
This week we peek at the computer enthusiast's wish list with our friends at TechVi. On the list this time around? We talk processors, video cards and notebooks / netbooks. Also, a peek at the D5000, Nikon's latest DSLR sexy-cam, and ChromiumOS, the pre-release version of ChromeOS from Google. Show Notes: 0:36 — Nikon D5000 DSLR, 2:01 — Gift Guide: Processors, 4:10 — Gift Guide: Video Cards, 6:18 — Gift Guide: Notebooks gift guide, 8:34 — Google ChromiumOS
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Next-Gen SD Format Nearing Completion: 300MB/sec Transfer Promised
We've already heard of SDXC--in fact, it's a format that was announced almost a year ago now--but we've really seen nothing to make us believe it (or the technology behind it) was ready for primetime. Now, however, it looks as if the underpinnings are finally coming together, and we're hearing things that are making us smile about existing Secure Digital options as well (backwards compatibility, anyone?) Reportedly, the next-generation Secure Digital (SD) memory card standard, SD Specification Version 4.00,
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Energizer Zinc Air Batteries To Gain Power From Oxygen, Revolutionize Stagnant Industry
Here at Hot Hardware, few things irk us worse than dealing with batteries. If you think about it, much of the trouble we still deal with in the consumer electronics realm is due to batteries, particularly when thinking of the mobile sector. Most everything (cell phones, notebooks, portable media players, watches, etc.) is limited by the size and capacity of the battery within, and without deforming your device or forcing it to run at a lower clock speed, you basically have no options for improving the life of
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Crucial Ships 4GB DDR3-1333 Modules For New Core i5/i7 And AM3 Rigs
Need some more DDR3 RAM for your forthcoming rig? Who doesn't need more RAM, right? If you're on the hunt, Crucial has a new 4GB DDR3-1333MHz DIMM it would like you to take a look at, which are designed to enable 16GB setups within systems with 4 DIMM slots and to performance exceptionally well within 64-bit environments. The unbuffered PC3-10600 modules are available now, and they're engineered to work with the latest chips from Intel and AMD including the Core i7, Core i5 and AMD AM3 CPUs. There's no mention
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School Worker Fired For Using District PC To Chase Down Aliens
You can file this one in the drawer labeled "Weird, Weirder and Weirdest." In what's easily one of the strangest tales we're heard this year in the technology realm, a (former) Arizona school district employee has been shown his leaving papers after he tinkered with school computers. We know what you're thinking--some guy downloaded some not-so-nice material while on the clock, and now he's paying for it. What's the big deal, right? Not quite. credit: East Valley TribuneThe big deal is that this story
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FlipShare Your Videos On Your TV
Some have said that the addition of video recording to the iPod nano earlier this year spelled the possible demise of Flip Video's popular line of handheld camcorders. The Cisco division is not standing still, however, waiting for Apple to catch up, as on Wednesday they announced FlipShare TV, which is a new $150 box that you can use to view videos either shared directly from your computer or from your FlipShare channels on the Internet. FlipShare.com was introduced earlier this year as a way to share videos.
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AT&T and Verizon Make Up (No KIssing, Though)
AT&T has dropped its lawsuit Verizon over the latter's "There's A Map For That" commercials. The commercials, which began earlier this year, mocked the iPhone's coverage issues on AT&T by saying there was "a map for that," a take-off on the "there's an app for that" tagline used for the iPhone. However, the commercials put two maps side-by-side comparing Verizon's 3G coverage to AT&T's. While it's true that Verizon's 3G coverage is covers far more of the US when compared to AT&T's, AT&T said
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Try, Try Again As Intel Releases TRIM-Enabling Firmware
Intel has re-released TRIM enabling firmware for its Intel X25-M and X18-M SSDs. TRIM is available in Windows 7, and its function is to prevent the performance degradation that SSDs see over time. TRIM clears flash pages instead of marking them as available when users delete data. That is what happens for normal hard drives, and there's no issue with them, but this creates what's called the "block-rewrite penalty" on SSDs, which occurs if a flash cell is not empty when it needs to be written to. The new
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Asus EeeTop PC ET2002 Review
The Asus Eee Top ET2002 is an all-in-one desktop computer that provides the basics for everyday computing as well as multimedia entertainment in a space-saving design. It features a large, 20-inch 16:9 widescreen display and a 1.6GHz dual core Intel Atom 330 processor. Perhaps one of the coolest new features of the ET2002 is the fact that it is one of the first all-in-one computers from Asus to feature NVIDIA Ion integrated graphics for additional multimedia processing horsepower and perhaps even a bit of light
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Show Us Your HOT Hardware Video Contest Winner Announced!
As many of you know, we have been running a contest with our friends at Viddler, where you could have had a shot at winning a Flip UltraHD pocket camcorder. To say it has been an interesting, entertaining and wild ride, would be a complete understatement. Coasterfreak900's entry for example, gave us some tips on protecting ourselves from alien invasion with some high tech gear, while Dave Yankoviac, aka the Anywhereman went a little old school on us to say the least, complete with Gorilla glue holding
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Asus EeeTop PC ET2002 Review
The Asus Eee Top ET2002 is an all-in-one desktop computer that provides the basics for everyday computing as well as multimedia entertainment in a space-saving design. It features a large, 20-inch 16:9 widescreen display and a 1.6GHz dual core Intel Atom 330 processor. Perhaps one of the coolest new features of the ET2002 is the fact that it is one of the first all-in-one computers from Asus to feature NVIDIA Ion integrated graphics for additional multimedia processing horsepower and perhaps even a bit of light
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Asus EeeTop PC ET2002 Review
The Asus Eee Top ET2002 is an all-in-one desktop computer that provides the basics for everyday computing as well as multimedia entertainment in a space-saving design. It features a large, 20-inch 16:9 widescreen display and a 1.6GHz dual core Intel Atom 330 processor. Perhaps one of the coolest new features of the ET2002 is the fact that it is one of the first all-in-one computers from Asus to feature NVIDIA Ion integrated graphics for additional multimedia processing horsepower and perhaps even a bit of light gaming.
While the basic components of the ET2002 aren't all that different from those found in your typical netbook, this computer is able to handle HD video and a few other higher-end performance graphics tasks quite well...
Asus EeeTop PC ET2002 Review 
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School Worker Fired For Using District PC To Chase Down Aliens
You can file this one in the drawer labeled "Weird, Weirder and Weirdest." In what's easily one of the strangest tales we're heard this year in the technology realm, a (former) Arizona school district employee has been shown his leaving papers after he tinkered with school computers. We know what you're thinking--some guy downloaded some not-so-nice material while on the clock, and now he's paying for it. What's the big deal, right? Not quite.  credit:آ East Valley Tribune |
That said, the deal is that school-owned computers were used for who knows how long to "analyze radio telescope data in an experiment to find extraterrestrial intelligence," and obviously that's not so kosher with whoever is in charge here. Thinking rationally about this, we can understand that SETI@home (which is a completely legitimate program, by the way) would force school-owned PCs to run longer (instead of falling to sleep after classes end) and would definitely tax PC hardware more. It's hard to put a finger on how much extra energy this scheme would consume and how much faster it would accelerate HDD deterioration, but still, we can't help but think the $1 million figure was just thrown out there for shock value.
SETI @ Home PC Client
And shock it has. Birdwell stated that the $1 million included figures to remove the SETI software, and that while the fellow blamed won't be returning for work, police are still conducting a broader investigation as we speak. Something tells us this guy really did more than just help some scientists locate aliens, but those sins are probably too embarrassing to be made public.
Network Cabling, Higley School District
credit:آ East Valley Tribune
One thing is for sure, Brad needs to work on his cable management strategy a bit.آ His Cat5 routing here looks like he's been spending too much time with the ramen noodle bowl.
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AT&T and Verizon Make Up (No KIssing, Though)
AT&T has dropped its lawsuit Verizon over the latter's "There's A Map For That" commercials. The commercials, which began earlier this year, mocked the iPhone's coverage issues on AT&T by saying there was "a map for that," a take-off on the "there's an app for that" tagline used for the iPhone.However, the commercials put two maps side-by-side comparing Verizon's 3G coverage to AT&T's. While it's true that Verizon's 3G coverage is covers far more of the US when compared to AT&T's, AT&T said that the maps confused consumers, leading them to believe that AT&T had no coverage at all in the white areas of the map. Thus, the AT&T lawsuit.
However, AT&T lost the first round of that fight, and thus has given in. Certainly, Verizon hasn't. As it told AT&T in response to the lawsuit, "the truth hurts." Verizon just launched a holiday-themed version of its map ads, as seen below.
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Show Us Your HOT Hardware Video Contest Winner Announced!
As many of you know, we have been running a contest with our friends at Viddler, where you could have had a shot at winning a Flip UltraHD pocket camcorder.آ To say it has been an interesting, entertaining and wild ride, would be a complete understatement. Coasterfreak900's entry for example, gave us some tips on protecting ourselves from alien invasion with some high tech gear, while Dave Yankoviac, aka the Anywhereman went a little old school on us to say the least, complete with Gorilla glue holding his high-end gear together.آ It's OK Dave, we won't tell Dell about that Mac look you've got going on you notebook there, honest, but you're probably going to make some folks in Redmond cringe with that one.آ Regardless, even with all the wacky antics of folks like this (Manduh, if only you got Shatner in there, you would have been a shoe-in!), folks just couldn't quite compete with Phil Montero's mad video production skillz.آ Congratulations Phil!آ You're our lucky winner!آ You've heard of a quad-core processor, sure, that's easy but feast your eyes on Quad-Phil!
Wow, Phil.آ We think we need to get you in touch with a few folks at AMD or Intel.آ Your multiplicitous ways might come in handy!آ No, we're not going to get into what you might do with this capability in your personal life.آ This is a family show, Phil.
At any rate, a big thanks to our friends at Viddler and to the folks at Cisco for sponsoring the Flip UltraHD pocket camcorder prize.آ And thanks to all of you that participated in the contest!آ We very much enjoyed your contributions and hope you all had a little fun in the process too!
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Try, Try Again As Intel Releases TRIM-Enabling Firmware
Intel has re-released TRIM enabling firmware for its Intel X25-M and X18-M SSDs. TRIM is available in Windows 7, and its function is to prevent the performance degradation that SSDs see over time.آ TRIM clears flash pages instead of marking them as available when users delete data. That is what happens for normal hard drives, and there's no issue with them, but this creates what's called the "block-rewrite penalty" on SSDs, which occurs if a flash cell is not empty when it needs to be written to.
The new firmware version is 02HD. The short description of the update via Intel's release notes are the short and sweet:
This firmware revision has several continuous improvement optimizations intended to provide the best possible user experience with the Intel SSD.That actually means this firmware revision will fix your bricked SSDs, and hopefully not brick any ones that are working. As always, Intel warns that firmware upgrades are done at your own risk, which is what people who upgraded to 02HA found out.
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So Which One Would YOU Purchase?
I decided I wanted a Logitech V450 Nano wireless notebook laser mouse that I found HERE on NewEgg for $47.99 + $3.96 tax + $6.98 shipping. But since I am a cheap guy, I went looking on Ebay and found it HERE tested and re-certified for only $22.95 with no tax and free shipping. I can't imagine that much can go wrong with a mouse, new or re-whatever, so I purchased it on Ebay. Did I get a smokin' deal or what?
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FlipShare Your Videos On Your TV
Some have said that the addition of video recording to the iPod nano earlier this year spelled the possible demise of Flip Video's popular line of handheld camcorders. The Cisco division is not standing still, however, waiting for Apple to catch up, as on Wednesday they announced FlipShare TV, which is a new $150 box that you can use to view videos either shared directly from your computer or from your FlipShare channels on the Internet.FlipShare.com was introduced earlier this year as a way to share videos. While you can obviously share videos via YouTube, it's easier to keep them private on FlipShare.com. On YouTube you can keep a video private, but then those who want to view them must accept a "friend" request from you, and too many people just don't get why they need to do that on YouTube. Well, perhaps I don't want my baby's video running around the entire Web!
Anyway, FlipShare TV includes the box itself, a remote, and a USB key that must be in a computer. The wireless connection between that key and the FlipShareTV box itself must be maintained in order to view videos. The recommended range is no more than 200 feet. The box itself can connect to your TV with standard A/V cables or even HDMI (HDMI cable sold separately).
With the new FlipShare 5.0 software installed on the PC (installed automatically on a Mac or Windows PC as soon as the USB key is plugged in), once there's a connection between the appropriate PC and box (and TV), you can control access to the videos directly via the box, sans the PC. Any new videos uploaded to a FlipShare channel you have access to will appear in a folder labeled "New Items," at least until you watch them.
Don't forget also that there's a FlipShare app for the iPhone, BlackBerry and Android. New videos will appear automatically in your app when they are shared with the you.
The biggest drawback to FlipShare TV is the fact that it still requires a computer. While the computer doesn't even necessarily need to be in the same room as the TV, it's still a drawback. What would be better would be something like the Roko box, whereby you don't need anything but the box itself. Still, we are big fans of the Flip.
Flip Video's parent company, Pure Digital, was purchased by Cisco earlier this year. The move seemed to be just another step in Cisco's home media initiatives. Flip Video camcorders have been at the top, or near the top, of sales figures for camcorders for some time, as users have gravitated toward its ease of use and carryability.
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