ECS A970M-A Deluxe Motherboard Review
Overclockersclub looks at ECS A970M-A Deluxe motherboard.
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How to Maximize Storage Space Guide
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Common Ancestral Father Older than Thought
It can be interesting to examine your family tree and see what important people you may be related to. Unfortunately you cannot take your family trees all the way back as records are lost and memories are forgotten. Genetically though, you can take it further back and it turns out that some of our genes go further back than we thought, as reported by New Scientist.
Scientists discovered some time ago that all men and women have two common ancestors, which have since been named 'mitochondrial Eve' and 'Y-chromosomal Adam,' because of what we have inherited from them. As the Y-chromosome is inherited exclusively from the father, it is possible to trace back the different mutations of the gene to a single ancestor. Previous work has placed that common father about 142,000 years into the past, but more recent research has pushed this date back to about 338,000 years ago. This research was initiated by the discovery of Y-chromosomes too different from others to have come from any-nearer an ancestor.
Interestingly this means the ancestral Y-chromosome actually developed before modern humans did, as our species is only about 195,000 years old. It also pushes 'Y-chromosomal Adam' back further than 'mitochondrial Eve' who is believed to have lived between 190,000 and 200,000 years ago. (To be clear, these are simply the ancestors whose family lines have not been broken even until modern day and not the only male or female of their own time.)
Source: New Scientist
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Enermax Launches NAXN ADV Power Supply Series
Enermax has announced its latest power supply series, the NAXN ADV. These new units are 80 PLUS Bronze certified, offering up to 88% efficiency at up to 100% load. Featuring all flat cables, this new power supply will help to reduce system clutter and enhance airflow and cooling performance. A single 12V rail provides 42A for the 550W model and 50A for the 650W model. A double ball bearing fan helps to provide cooling while keeping noise to a minimum. The 550W model will cost $89.99 and the 650W unit will cost $99.99.
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NVIDIA Technology to be Used in PlayStation 4
NVIDIA will be releasing support for its PhysX and APEX software development kits for the upcoming Sony PlayStation 4. These software technologies are used for collision detection and simulation of rigid bodies, clothing, fluids, and particle systems. PhysX is primarily used to create physics based real-world effects for games while APEX allows for the creation of intricate environments for those effects. Product manager for PhysX Mike Skolones said, “Great physics technology is essential for delivering a better gaming experience and multi platform support is critical for developers,” and also added that, “With PhysX and APEX support for PlayStation 4, customers can look forward to better games.”
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Impossibly Old Star Made More Possible
There are a myriad of old age jokes out there from having telephone number '1' to having to hunt dinosaurs for dinner. Now the classic 'older than dirt' joke has been given a new spin by HD 140283, the Methuselah star, as it comes in at about 14.5 billion years old, in our 13.8 billion year old Universe. Don't worry though, thanks to researchers at the Goddard Space Flight Center and their work with the Hubble Space Telescope that is actually a younger and more possible age than the 16 billion years old age the star had previously been given.
This star has been interesting to astronomers since before its age was calculated because of its great speed, eccentric orbit around the galaxy, and relative closeness at just 190.1 light years away. Unlike its orbit though, precisely calculating the star's age is quite difficult though, and in 2000 when this was done the result came back as 16 billion years old, which is simply impossible. Fortunately Hubble has now studied the star and greatly narrowed the margin of error and shed billions of years from its age by putting it at just 14.5 billion years old, with an error of +/- 0.8 billion years.
Hubble has had help though as our improved understanding of the inner workings of stars allows us to theoretically determine its age using information about its composition and similar characteristics. With luck one day we will be able to actually date the star firmly after the Big Bang.
Source: Goddard Space Flight Center
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Hardware Round: Friday Edition
DeepCool is a name we are seeing more often in the realm of cooling products and OCC recently reviewed two products from DeepCool as part of our CPU Cooler roundup. Today, we get a chance to examine the DeepCool N9 Aluminum Notebook Cooler sporting a single 180mm manually variable speed fan to keep your laptop cool. We also have another Z77 chipset motherboard from ASRock in the lineup for those of you interested in a micro-ATX based system.
Cooling
DeepCool N9 Aluminum Notebook Cooler @ Benchmark Reviews
Gadgets
Amiigo: Fitness Bracelet For iPhone And Android @ ThinkComputers
Motherboards
ASRock Z77 Pro4-M LGA 1155 Motherboard @ [H]ardOCP
Miscellany
Podcast #241 @ PC Perspective
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Motorola to Cut Up to 1,200 Employees in US, China, and India
Some not so good news for Motorola is on the way, as up to ten percent of its workforce in the US, China, and India could be cut soon. The company has been making reductions since last summer, and this upcoming batch is just another part of the overall plan. That ten percent accounts for about 1,200 employees across the three regions, which is never easy to deal with in the current economic landscape. The company did say it's helping its employees through the "difficult transistion," but what exactly that entails wasn't clarified. Motorola cited a combination of high costs and low sales as the reason for the cuts, though new devices on the horizon should hopefully alleviate those problems.
Source: Engadget
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Marker for Dyslexia Discovered
Dyslexia is a not uncommon learning impairment that affects one's ability to read. For decades researchers have been trying to understand what causes it and how to treat it, so the estimated 10% of society can overcome it. Researchers at Northwestern University have recently reported that they appear to have found a biological marker for the disorder.
Previous work has found that dyslexia, a disorder that specifically affects hearing, is related to one's auditory skills. What the Northwestern researchers have done is identify a relationship between a child's reading ability and how their brain encodes sounds. To find the relationship the researchers measured the children's automatic brain wave responses as they listened to speech sounds. The best readers showed greater consistency when encoding the sounds than the poorer readers, and the researchers believe the encoding stabilizes when a child successfully learns a sound's meaning.
Luckily the researchers also found a way to treat the dyslexic students by fitting them with assisted listening devices. These devices exclusively transmit their teacher's voice to their ears and block out other sounds, allowing the children to better focus on the sounds. After just one year the students no longer needed the devices to maintain their reading proficiency.
Source: Northwestern University
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New Universal Laptop Charger from Cooler Master
Cooler Master has announced the latest addition to its line of miscellaneous electronic accessories, the SNA universal laptop charger. The SNA is available in charging capacities of 65W and 90W in a slim design, making it perfect for taking wherever you may be going. Ten tips are included to accommodate a large number of laptops and help eliminate the need for having multiple proprietary chargers. The 65W model will retail for $39.99 and the 90W will cost $54.99.
Source: Cooler Master
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Mimicking a Magnetic Field to Cool Electronics
Just as important as the CPU in your computer is what you use to keep it cool. If the chip gets too hot it can start to throw errors, which is bad for a personal computer and unacceptable for a server, which is why so much money is spent on cooling server farms. A team of researchers from multiple institutions including Elhuyar Fundazioa and Cambridge University have recently found a new way to apply a cooling method that may ease cooling costs.
Scientists have known about the magnetocaloric effect, which relates magnetic fields to a material's temperature and how it could be used for cooling devices for some time. Due to the required magnetic fields though, such a cooling method has been unusable within computers as the fields could disrupt operation. What the researchers have discovered is that it is possible to mimic the effect of a magnetic field on a material by straining it. That means it should be possible to cool a material using the magnetocaloric effect without risking any damage to the components around it.
Conveniently, this technology should exist at the same scale as modern electronics, so if it becomes possible to produce, it will fit right in with computer components. Technically it could also be scaled up for large-scale cooling, like refrigerators, but doing so would not be economical at that size.
Source: Elhuyar Fundazioa
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Samsung Invests 10.4 Billion Yen into LCD Manufacturer Sharp
Samsung has announced that it will be investing the equivalent of $111.5 million into display manufacturer Sharp, giving Samsung a 3% stake in the company. This investment will provide Samsung with a stable supply of LCD panels for use in its TVs. Sharp will invest $73.7 million of the investment into developing new LCD technology, as well as a further $34.5 million into other areas of its business over the next two years.
Samsung is not the only large company who has recently invested into Sharp. Qualcomm also agreed to invest up to $120 million into Sharp to fund development of next-generation MEMS (Microelectromechanical System) displays in December last year. Apple is also have said to have invested over $2 billion into Sharp after it ran into financial difficulty during the last quarter. The deals that have been struck with the company may be enough to keep the display manufacturer in business despite the current economic market and stiff competition from its Chinese and Korean rivals.
Source: Tom's Hardware
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Video Games Improve Senior's Emotional Well-Being
Many people tend to associate video games with the younger generations, as we are the ones who grew up not only with arcades but also game consoles. Someday though we will be the older generation and based on a recent study, it may be a good thing for us to keep playing in our old age. Researchers at North Carolina State University studied the gaming habits of current senior citizens and discovered a correlation with their emotional and social well-being.
Throughout our lives it is important to have a positive sense of well-being, and as we get older it can be particularly important as it can help keep us active. The researchers decided to see if video games can help with that by surveying 140 persons over the age of 62 for their well-being and gaming habits. Within that group, 61% admitted to playing video games occasionally and 35% reported playing at least once a week. It turns out that all of the senior gamers, regardless of how often they gamed, showed higher levels of well-being, while those who do not game reported more negative emotions and levels of depression.
This study indicates that gaming may be a positive activity for successful aging, but the researchers are not going to leave it at that. Next they want to see if video games can improve mental health in older adults.
Source: North Carolina State University
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Hardware Roundup: Thursday Edition
In our roundup today we have a review of the TT eSports Theron gaming mouse designed in collaboration with Taiwanese StarCraft II pro-gamer Softball. We also get another look at the NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan video card. Swiftech is an established name in cooling and today we have a review covering its H220 self-contained liquid cooling system. We finish things off with a look at the performance and image quality of the Aliens: Colonial Marines gaming title.
Cooling
Swiftech H220 Water Cooling System @ ThinkComputers
Gaming
Aliens: Colonial Marines Performance and IQ @ [H]ardOCP
Input Devices
TT eSports x Softball @ XSReviews
Video
Nvidia GeForce GTX Titan @ TechSpot
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Available Tags:NVIDIA , Hardware , Motorola , India , Cooler Master , Samsung , Sharp ,
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