Flexible keyboards have become very popular, even being featured in big budget movies, so it’s no surprise that there seems to suddenly be an abundance of them floating around everywhere now because of their co-starring role in Die Hard. Most you’ll see are the corded kind, but today I’ve got the cordless version for review, called the Wireless Multimedia Flexible Keyboard, and it’s essentially the same as the corded version, but I was curious as to how it performs compared to other wireless keyboards. So read on to check it out and see what I learned…

Full Review HERE

Title:  Two New Penumbra Black Plague Trailers Released

Text:  Paradox Interactive just released two new Penumbra Black Plague Trailers. Atmosphere and Flow.

Link:  http://b1tt.com/2040/

KillerNIC is something as odd as a high-end network card designed for gaming. It has been questioned in many ways, so we decided to test it as thorough as we could imagine and then bring out some statistical calculations to get some scientific proof. We’ve summarized 2,400 ping values together with FPS statistics from 40 test sessions in this review. And yes, it does work. Sometimes.

Link:
http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?skrivelse=524

Quote:
“There is perhaps no other product that is more controversial and generates more heated debates around the ‘Net than the Killer NIC. It makes big claims, and the difficulty is that traditional testing methods may not give a full representation of the card’s abilities. As a result, I’ve spent weeks testing and exploring the Killer’s resulting impact on lag, framerates, and responsiveness, running it through the paces, gathering massive amounts of data.”

Ah, at last, my grand project begins. Here I go again with my guides. This time I intend to do a complete guide of Oblivion, Knights of the Nine, and Shivering Isles. Now that my time is free up, I can do this. Let’s begin with the first full expansion for one of the best games ever made.

The Shivering Isles expansion is something special. It is almost as if you play a new game, a completely new game within the same universe. If you dare step into the mouth of Madness, be prepared to succumb to the strange new world. There’s little to say about the game if you’ve played Oblivion. It’s the same gameplay and the same graphics, only the setting has changed to what can either be a lush landscape of color, or a macabre swampland, you will play in both. That is the main theme of the game, light or dark, but in the case of the Isles, it is which form of insanity you hail from. Do you prefer to torture someone with images of their death until they go mad, or do you wish that they take the plunge through eternal and never ending bliss? It’s your choice, all I’m here to do is help you either way. Great game, a must play, now let’s jump in.

Review URL ::
http://www.ocmodshop.com/ocmodshop.aspx?a=1059

Lexar 12-in-1 USB2 Card Reader

” This is the current generation of Lexar card reader and it features a plethora of card support. You can read CompactFlash (types 1 and 2), Smart Media, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, MultiMediaCard, xD-Picture Card (Type M and H), SD Card, SDHC, MicroDrive, MS Duo, MS PRO Duo, miniSD, and RS MMC. That’s pretty much the available options on the market right now. They still include support for Smart Media which is so outdated. ”

Link: http://www.aselabs.com/articles.php?id=235

Calgary, Alberta  – January 28th, 2008 -  Right on the heals of AMD announcing the availability of the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 earlier this month, CoolIT Systems debuts the third installment in the Reference Series line of liquid cooling systems designed to quietly and effectively cool Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.’s highly anticipated performance graphics cards, the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2.   In recent testing, the liquid cooled cards were stably clocked up to over 900MHz core clock speed and the memory pushed to 1GHz with no thermal issues.

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Title: Properller Slot Graphics Cooler Review @ FusionMods.Net

Link: http://www.fusionmods.net/index.php?theCase=viewThread&threadID=1235

Quote: “The Properller installs quick and easily, providing excellent support for cooling any graphics card.”

NEW CONTENT – Gran Turismo 5 Prologue PS3 Preview

TTGamer have today posted a hands-on preview of Gran Turismo 5 Prologue for the PS3. It’s early days still, but it’s clear next gen racing hasn’t seen anything yet.For more information, please visit - http://gaming.tweaktown.com/articles/875/gran_turismo_5_prologue_hands_on_preview/index.html

TechwareLabs has published a review of the Nexus Caterpillar Silent PC Case. Here’s a clip from the review:

Quote: “If you are looking for a good case with a focus on silence and good cooling then the Nexus Caterpillar may be just right for you. We take a look at this case and show you it pro’s and cons.”

LINK:
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/cases/nexus_caterpillar/

Title:
Nexus Caterpillar Silent PC Case Review @ TechwareLabs

FastSilicon.com has posted a review titled “ Pinnacle PCTV HD Card 800i Review” , a relatively new and inexpensive PCI based NTSC,ATSC,QAM,ClearQAM HD tuner from Pinnacle Systems.

Here is a quote:

“TV Tuners are an integral part of building a Home Theatre PC. To that end, today we take a look at Pinnacle’s PCTV HD Card 800i . As an inexpensive PCI tuning option claiming support for NTSC, ATSC, QAM, and ClearQAM broadcasts, will it live up to the hype as well as Pinnacle’s reputation? Read on to find out…“

Review Link:

http://www.fastsilicon.com/graphics-card-reviews/pinnacle-pctv-hd-card-800i-review.html

BHFO.org Press Release

Summary:

Official Release of the HD3870X2:

“AMD officially released information on their HD3870X2 graphics cards today. The cards are available at retailers, and at MSRP! NVIDIA has some competition.”

Part of the article:

“Maintaining the intended schedule, AMD released information today on the ATi Radeon HD 3870X2. The press release states an immediate availability of the possible NVIDIA contender. Rick Bergman, who is senior vice president and general manager of the Graphics Product Group at AMD, stated:

“PC gaming enthusiasts demand the ultimate in performance and scalability for their HD gaming experience and the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 sets the standard by which all should be compared in this segment…” he added “With this launch we reaffirm our commitment to enthusiast performance leadership and send a clear message that the ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is the new gold standard of the PC gaming world.”

Newegg.com has the ATi Radeon HD 3870X2 available at the expected retail cost of 449USD. They have five brands available with four of them in stock now. The cheapest 8800 Ultra at this time is 629USD, with most sitting closer to 700USD. NVIDIA should react fast, if they hope to compete. The good news is this should drive down the prices of all video cards. Most other retail sites have the card’s value set at around 500USD, or they did not carry the card. Newegg has the cheapest price so far, which is MSRP.

Diamond has a lower core clock of 775MHz and there are two versions available: 1024MB and 512MB. Sapphire also…”~Chris Hunter

News Article Link:

http://www.bhfo.org/news/press-releases/official-release-of-the-hd3870×2.html

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First Release, “Playboy Games: Pool Party,” Scheduled to Launch Worldwide In Summer 2008

AGOURA HILLS, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–THQ Wireless Inc., a subsidiary of THQ Inc. (NASDAQ:THQI), today announced that it has signed a worldwide agreement with Playboy Enterprises, Inc. (NYSE:PLA)(NYSE:PLAA) to exclusively develop Playboy-branded mobile games. The multi-year Playboy agreement covers the development and publishing rights to multiple Playboy-branded, lifestyle themed, non-nude mobile games featuring bikini-clad Playmates to be released worldwide. The first title, Playboy Games: Pool Party, is scheduled to launch in summer 2008.

“Given the extensive appeal and popularity of the Playboy brand, mobile games based on this license are sure to provide a fun and entertaining experience,” said Adam Comiskey, vice president, international, THQ Wireless. “THQ Wireless is ideally positioned to provide engaging games with the hallmark of the Playboy lifestyle.”

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— Industry’s First Teraflop Consumer Graphics Card Redefines High-Definition Performance for 1080P Gaming and beyond —

SUNNYVALE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced the immediate availability of the ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 X2 graphics processor, expanding the visual boundaries of PC entertainment well beyond the 1080P High Definition (HD) threshold. The industry’s first graphics processor to break the Teraflop (one trillion floating point operations per second) barrier, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 nearly doubles the performance of the award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 3870 introduced in November 2007.²

Through an elegant yet aggressive design, the 55 nanometer process-based ATI Radeon 3870 X2 combines two ATI Radeon HD 3870s on a single graphics board, connected through integrated CrossFire™ technology. ATI Radeon 3870 X2 is also the first performance-leadership graphics product in the world to support Microsoft’s upcoming DirectX^® 10.1 technology. The ATI Radeon 3870 X2 delivers a new class of price and performance leadership with unbelievable enthusiast value at a suggested retail price of US $449.

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Digit-Life Review: HIS, MSI, Powerolor (TUL), GeCube RADEON HD 3870 X2 2×512MB PCI

Excerpt:
“We’ve tested four 3870 X2 cards from HIS, MSI, Powerolor (TUL), and GeCube. The first three copy the reference design (MSI card is overclocked though). And GeCube has customized its product in a rather unique way.”

Article: http://www.digit-life.com/articles3/video/rv670-3-part1.html

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Sparkle 8800GTS 512MB Review: G92 Madness Continues

“The G92 based Geforce 8800GT was a very exciting product,
unfortunately NVIDIA was short of supply and lower priced ATI HD3850 &
HD3870 gained a lot of popularity this way. The higher-end market
still remained untouched; to fill up this gap NVIDIA came up with a
second wave of 8800GTS video cards. With the GT in mind, could we be
dealing with yet another great NVIDIA product? We find out.”

http://www.madshrimps.be/?action=getarticle&articID=661

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Title: Palm Treo 750 @ Techgage

Quote: Palm’s Treo 750 is one of two models offered with Windows Mobile - this one in particular using 6. Specs include a 2.5″ 240×240 touchscreen, 300MHz processor, miniSD support, 1.3MP camera with 2x zoom, 4-hour talk-time, GSM/UMTS support and more.

Title: OCZ 4GB Reaper X HPC PC2-6400 Memory Review @ Virtual-Hideout

Review link: http://www.virtual-hideout.net/reviews/OCZ_ReaperX_HPC_4GB/index.shtml

Quote: “The kit I received was the 4GB kit, or 2×2GB PC2-6400, that runs at 800MHz and has a timing rating of 4-4-3-15. The modules will run those timings at 1.8v - 2.1v and handle up to 2.2v without voiding the EVP (Extended Voltage Protection) warranty. The 4-4-3-15 timings are really good for DDR2. With such tight timings I wouldn’t expect high overclocking rates at the stock timing; but loosened up, the result might be impressive.”

NEW CONTENT (Visual) - GECUBE Radeon HD 3870 X2 Graphics Card

QUOTE: “It’s one of those cards we’ve heard about quite a bit, but often when it comes to these dual GPU models they’re nothing more than a bit of a prototype. Sometimes they manage to also hit the media and on the rare occasion they actually go into mass production for all to get their hands on it.

The whole card design is loads better than the GX2 we saw from NVIDIA in 2006 which was literally two separate PCBs connected by a little bridge. Ultimately though it doesn’t matter what the card looks like, it comes down to how it performs and that’s something we’re going to be looking at in just a moment.”

For more information, please visit - http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1281/gecube_radeon_hd_3870_x2_graphics_card/index.html

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Barry’s Rigs ‘n Reviews has just posted a review of the Lamptron Fan Controller FC1

Title: 

Lamptron Fan Controller FC1 @ BRnR

Link:

http://www.barrys-rigs-n-reviews.com/reviews/2008/accessories/fc1/fc1.htm
Quote: “ Fan controllers are a popular, “best-of-both-worlds” solution, which allow you to keep fan noise to reasonable levels while maintaining adequate cooling, with the ability to ramp fan speeds up to the max for overclocking and gaming. Available in a wide range of designs and prices, today we’re going to look at an economical little unit from a company named Lamptron that allows you to control a CPU fan plus an additional fan—the Lamptron Fan Controller FC1.”

If money is a concern, but you still want decent performance, this offering from MSI may be worth consideration.

“Obviously, anything you can put into that PCIe slot to update the on-board video is going to give you a boost, the MSI NX8600GT Twin Turbo is not only going to do that, its going to do it while keeping those all important big bills in your savings account. nVidia has been king of the high end market space for some time now, and the midrange has been going their way as well. When they have cards such as the NX8600GT Twin Turbo being put out by Manufacturers such as MSI in this case, its no wonder.”

http://www.viperlair.com/reviews/video/msi/8xxx/8600tt/

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Title:
HIS Radeon HD 3870 X2 1 GB

Link:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_3870_X2

Brief:
The HIS Radeon 3870 X2 combines the power of two ATI RV670 GPUs into one to reach for the performance throne in single card processing power. Even tough the implementation has some minor limitations the overall product is certainly interesting and can maybe bring AMD back in the game.

The headline says it all but here’s a taste…

Snip:
“AMD officially launched their new high-end flagship graphics card today and this one has a pair of graphics processors on a single PCB. The Radeon HD 3870 X2 was codenamed R680 throughout its development. Although that codename implies the card is powered by a new GPU, it is not. The Radeon HD 3870 X2 is instead powered by a pair of RV670 GPUs linked together on a single PCB by a PCI Express fan-out switch.  In essence, the Radeon HD 3870 X2 is “CrossFire on a card” but with a small boost in clock speed for each GPU as well.”

Direct Link:
http://www.hothardware.com/articles/R680_Has_Landed_ATI_Radeon_HD_3870_X2/

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Google CEO bullish on mobile Web advertising

Posted: 27 Jan 2008 04:26 PM CST

The arrival of a truly mobile Web, offering a new generation of location-based advertising, is set to unleash a “huge revolution,” Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said.

“It’s the re-creation of the Internet, it’s the re-creation of the PC (personal computer) story, and it is before us–and it is very likely it will happen in the next year,” he told a panel at the World Economic Forum, in Davos, Switzerland.

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Windows 7 coming out next year?

Posted: 27 Jan 2008 04:26 PM CST

A recently-release roadmap for the next major Window release – Windows 7 – indicates that Microsoft is planning to release the new operating system in the second half of 2009, rather than the anticipated release date of some time in 2010.

There are apparently three “milestone” builds planned for 2008, and the first one – M1 – has already shipped to key partners for code validation. M1 is for the English language build only, but is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will most likely be the last Windows operating system available in 32-bit, and given the rapid advances Windows Vista is making in the 64-bit computing market, this seems a sensible decision.

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Lotus Notes for iPhone not ready yet

Posted: 27 Jan 2008 04:26 PM CST

Despite reports that the launch of Lotus Notes for the iPhone and iPod Touch is imminent, IBM says it is not quite ready to release the software.

A formal announcement of Lotus Notes for Apple’s portable devices was to occur at IBM’s Lotusphere conference this week, with the software available free for users with a Lotus Web-access license or on a yearly subscription basis for new users.