Here is your 'what's new in hardware' listing for Thursday morning!- Chick's Hardware posted a review of the Videologic Vivid! 32Mb video card based on the Kyro chipset.
- Tech Extreme takes a look at Bargain AMD Systems
- Gamer's Depot has a review of Seagate's new 18XL Ultra 160 Barracuda drive
- EuroGamer takes a quick look at Intel's Pentium 4 processor
- Gideontech just finished a review on the PC-Tel AMR Modem
- GotApex? has posted a review of the Power Color PowerGENE CMX2S-TV GeForce2MX 32MB SDR Display Adapter.
- Maximum3D has reviewed Guillemot's latest value sound card, the Maxi Sound MUSE.
- Neoseeker has posted a review of the Boston Acoustics BA-4800 4.1 speaker system.
- Luxidion.com has a review of The Elsa Erazor III Extreme video card.
- TweakTown has reviewed the Innovatek Tweeking Device 2 AMD Athlon Overclocking Device (the world's smallest GFD requiring no external power
- 3D Spotlight reviews the Sigma's Hollywood Plus Hardware DVD Decoder
- Gamecenter reviews Logitech's new force feedback wheel; the WingMan Formula Force GP
- ATI Responds to [H]ard|OCP: ATI has looked into some of the points [H]ard|OCP made in their Monday Editorial and decided that they want the people that might be buying their Vid Cards to be better informed.
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VisionTech announced that Hauppauge Digital, Inc. has integrated VisionTech's MPEG technology to deliver Personal Video Recording and DVD recording/playback capabilities on Hauppauge's new generation WinTV PCI card. The new WinTV board, called the WinTV-PVR, features VisionTech's Kfir single chip MPEG-2 encoder. The new model WinTV is a PCI add-on for PC's, and connects to either cable TV or to a TV antenna, displaying live TV in a resizable window on the PC screen while simultaneously allowing the recording of MPEG 2 compressed TV to the PC's hard disk. In addition to the display and recording of live TV, the WinTV-PVR provides instant replay and program pause. Based on Hauppauge's popular WinTV-2000 application, this new model also enables time-shifting, where viewers can scroll back TV broadcasts to view missed segments, then scroll ahead to "catch up" to the program in progress.
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Compaq Computer Corp. selected Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media Player 7 and Windows Media Format as the default digital media technology for its iPAQ personal audio players, including the recently introduced PA-1. Compaq customers will also be able to enjoy a new customized Windows Media Player 7 on the Presario line of PCs. As part of this announcement, Compaq and Microsoft are launching today a customized Windows Media Player 7 especially for Compaq Presario customers. The new player offers a special Compaq-branded skin with links to Compaq partner Web sites, along with a co-branded Compaq and WindowsMedia.com content guide to help users find the best digital audio and video on the Web. The new Compaq custom version of Windows Media Player 7 is available here.
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Intel is expected to release new mobile processors (800-MHz and 850-MHz Pentium III and 700-MHz Celeron chips) and Cnet says Dell Computer, Gateway, Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Toshiba are among the notebook manufacturers planning to offer the processors in new systems next week. Whenever Intel or rival Advanced Micro Devices releases new processors, there are always bargains to be found on last year's models. But in the notebook market--where buyers routinely pay a premium over similarly equipped desktop systems--the deals can be especially good. New systems expected to debut this week will most likely boast the $3,000 and higher price tags generally associated with leading-edge systems. That means that the previous crop of high-end systems will soon be available for several hundred dollars less.
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Upside Today is reporting that the Chinese government has gone to great efforts in the past three years to build its high-tech and Internet industries. This week, it just got easier. China ended a 20-year economic standoff with the U.S., abolishing restrictive trade policies that have kept many U.S. companies from entering its market. Now, everyone from semiconductor manufacturers to software makers are preparing to help China through a high-tech economic boom - and cash in along the way. The full story can be found here.
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Dell has announced the opening of an online marketplace for businesses, where Dell and other companies will sell their products over the Internet. Beginning Oct. 30, Dell will sell its own computers as well as products from select companies such as Motorola, Pitney Bowes and 3M on a Dell-hosted Web site to other businesses. Eventually, the site, Dell Marketplace, will offer general office products and industrial equipment. Dell will link customers to the separate Marketplace Web site, a product of Dell's e-business group recently established to incubate new business opportunities. The company predicts many - though executives won't specify just how many - of its 2 million business customers will use the new site. Dell's own Web site is one of the world's busiest, raking in $50 million daily in sales for the company. In addition to generating traffic for its main Web site, Dell will make money from Web hosting and transaction fees. The company would not give details about its fee system.
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In what is seen as a major step forward in the recognition of DFI as a top quality manufacturer of motherboards, the AK-74 motherboard has been approved as an AMD motherboard. Although DFI is recognized across the globe as a manufacturer of stable, reliable mainboards, this is the first one to gain recognition by AMD, whose opinion is highly rated within the industry. The AK-74 motherboard is an ATX form factor, socket A mainboard which supports AMD’s Athlonä and Duronä processors. With 4 PCI slots, and AGP slot that supports 2x and 4x AGP, 2 external USB ports and an AMR slot, DFI’s AK74 is well equipped for heavy use. It is also a very adaptable motherboard, with Wake-on RTC (Real Time Clock – this offers the user the chance to program the computer to switch on automatically at a user-defined time), modem and LAN features which make use that much easier and friendly. THE AK74 series is also equipped with Ice Qube, Suspend to RAM (STR) and AC’97 audio codec with Yamaha AP.
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Hewlett-Packard and COLT Telecom Group have announced plans for the roll-out of a comprehensive suite of on-line computing and services capabilities across Europe. Building upon COLT's existing pan-European Internet presence, the products and services will enable businesses to compete successfully within the expanding Internet economy and the accompanying move to e-services. The two companies will work together to design, develop and implement a pan-European e-services capability in up to 24 Internet Solution Centers (ISCs) which will leverage COLT's extensive high bandwidth fibre-optic network. For companies wanting to outsource their e-services or hosting, COLT's distributed network of ISCs will offer very high levels of security and customer service combined with unparalleled bandwidth. As a result, enterprise and dot-com customers looking to penetrate the European markets quickly will benefit from an expanding e-services portfolio. A total of 20-24 COLT ISCs are planned to open by early 2002 across Europe. There are currently six COLT ISCs in London, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. A further five centers are expected to open in Brussels, Berlin, Stockholm, Vienna and Zurich by the end of this year.
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Cnet is reporting that a new cat-shaped scanner being given away to millions of consumers this fall may be letting more out of the bag than the people using it know about. Privacy advocates are investigating the device, known as the CueCat, and its ability to snoop on consumers while swiping bar codes printed in catalogs and magazines or on products. Researchers say the scanner, produced by DigitalConvergence, makes use of an identifying serial number that could trace the actions of an individual user and create a detailed database on a specific device's usage. The full story can be found here.
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Naomi2, the arcade system developed by Sega and based on PowerVR graphics technology, debuts at the 38th Amusement Machine Show in Tokyo. Naomi2 is the next generation graphics architecture for arcade systems incorporating technologies designed by PowerVR Technologies - a division of Imagination Technologies - as part of the continuing partnership between Sega, NEC Corporation, and Imagination Technologies. Sega is already using the system for the development of the next generation of arcade titles, and some of these outstanding game images will be demonstrated at the Amusement Machine Show.
Naomi2 is based on the PowerVR architecture and also incorporates an advanced PowerVR co-processing engine for great game dynamics and full hardware geometry transformation and lighting (T&L), which reduces the CPU load to 1/10th, as well as direct and efficient support for use of multiple PowerVR rendering processors for super high performance and outstanding image quality.
Inside Naomi2: Naomi2 is a highly optimized parallel rendering architecture featuring twin PowerVR rendering engines, using adaptive load balancing across the dual engine and a full hardware Geometry Transformation and Lighting processor. With no-penalty for up to six fully featured lights Naomi2 can provide 10M triangles/sec sustained throughput in real gaming applications. Naomi2 also features combined dynamic and static model processing, multiple light type support (ambient, parallel, point and spot), hardware Z clipping, offscreen and backface culling, hardware bump mapping, and hardware environmental mapping support.
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