Dorling Kindersley - Encyclopedia of Science 3

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 28th, 2008

The Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness encyclopedias have been around for a while, but Avanquest has just launched version 3 of the product. This is a polished and enhanced program which has been updated to keep it relevant for today’s students. So Pluto is now correctly classified as a dwarf planet (although there’s no mention of whether or not it’s the birthplace of Happy, Dopey and Sleepy).

The package broadly covers four main topics - maths, physics, chemistry and life sciences - and contains material relevant to Key Stages 2, 3 and 4 of the national curriculum. Although this is a revamped version, it bears a slightly dated, low resolution feel.

(Read the full post about ‘Dorling Kindersley - Encyclopedia of Science 3′…)


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NVIDIA’s 1.4 Billion Transistor GPU: GT200 Arrives as the GeForce GTX 280 & 260

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 25th, 2008

NVIDIA’s 1.4 Billion Transistor GPU: GT200 Arrives as the GeForce GTX 280 & 260
One-Point-Four-Billion. That’s transistors folks. The chip is codenamed GT200 and it’s the successor to NVIDIA’s G80 and G92 families. Why the change in naming? The GT stands for “Graphics Tesla” and this is the second generation Graphics Tesla architecture, the first being the G80. The GT200 is launching today in two flavors, the die of the larger one is pictured below: Um…yeah…we’re reviewing that today (this die comparison is to scale and that’s a dual-core Penryn) Let’s put aside all the important considerations for a moment and bask in the glow of sheer geekdom. Intel’s Montecito processor (their dual core Itanium 2) weighs in at over 1.7 billion transistors, but the vast majority of this is L3 cache (over 1.5 billion transistors for 24MB of on die memory). (Read the full post about ‘NVIDIA’s 1.4 Billion Transistor GPU: GT200 Arrives as the GeForce GTX 280 & 260′…)


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The Radeon HD 4870 & 4850: AMD Wins at $199 and $299

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 23rd, 2008

…and then disaster struck.

Or at least that’s how it felt. The past few weeks have been incredibly tumultuous, sleepless, and beyond interesting. It is as if AMD and NVIDIA just started pulling out hardware and throwing it at eachother while we stood in the middle getting pegged with graphics cards. And we weren’t just hit with new architectures and unexpected die shrinks, but new drivers left and right.

First up was GT200, which appeared in the form of the GeForce GTX 280 and GeForce GTX 260. Of course, both of those can be paired or tri-ed (if you will), but with two cards requiring at least a 1200W PSU we’re a bit worried of trying three.

(Read the full post about ‘The Radeon HD 4870 & 4850: AMD Wins at $199 and $299′…)


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Computex 2008 Day One

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 19th, 2008

Computex 2008 Day One
We spent the majority of today going from private suite to private suite at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Taipei where several companies are showcasing their latest products. These suites offer a distinct difference from the hustle and bustle of main halls by offering a more casual and intimate atmosphere to discuss current product trends and technology. That said, let’s run through a few of the many products we touched today. ASRock One of the more interesting motherboard companies we visit at Computex each year is ASRock. Their product line typically consists of previous generation chipsets targeting the budget sector. That focus has changed and ASRock will be offering the latest chipset technology at product launch now. (Read the full post about ‘Computex 2008 Day One’…)


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Lian Li PC-V2110

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 13th, 2008

Lian Li PC-V2110
Recently, we were in search of a new PC case to fulfill the role of arduous performance oriented motherboard review testing. We decided to step up from our trusty Lian Li PC75 to something more current. We have been looking for a something that is a little more friendly to the continual chopping and changing of vital system components that we subject our lab PC cases to at least a couple of times a week. Naturally, as previous Lian Li case owners we were drawn to their newer offerings, especially the revised V-Series that was unveiled at CeBIT in Hannover earlier this year. There, Lian Li publicized a few shake-ups to their entire consumer case line-up; notable additions to the vast lineup are gaming cases known as the Armorsuit series and new cases for the HTPC buffs among us. (Read the full post about ‘Lian Li PC-V2110′…)


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Singing the Praises of the Nikon D300

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 8th, 2008

Singing the Praises of the Nikon D300
It has been a very busy winter and spring, with new camera models from just about every serious DSLR vendor and every wannabe vendor in the photo universe. One of the very nice things about reviewing camera equipment is you eventually get to try them all out, and in the process you sometimes end up finding a winner or two. This time around there was a really unexpected surprise. Sometimes one camera or another stands out, or one lens strikes us a particularly great solution. This time one DSLR blew the socks off everything else in the DSLR universe. (Read the full post about ‘Singing the Praises of the Nikon D300′…)


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Asus - M3N-HT Deluxe Mempipe

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 4th, 2008

One of the latest boards form Asus is the M3N-HT Deluxe, based around Nvidia’s new nForce 780a SLI chipset which offers 3-Way SLI support for AMD processors, as well as bringing Nvidia’s new HybridSLI technology to the table.

Nvidia’s HybridSLI consists of two technologies - HybridPower and GeForce Boost - both of which are only available under Windows Vista. The power-saving HybridPower works by turning off the dedicated graphics card when you’re not playing games and dynamically switching in the onboard GeForce 8 series graphics. GeForce Boost, meanwhile, allows the graphics core of a dedicated card and the core of the integrated graphics to be used in SLI mode.

So far, so good, but at present both technologies are limited to a couple of cards each.

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Clothes Scottsdale

Posted in: Fashion, Shopping, clothes | June 3rd, 2008

Boutique shopping is the way to go. Clothes Scottsdale is no different. You get Scottsdale premier shopping at Scottsdale boutiques. Boutiques are centres for fashion accessories, where you will find several dozens of fashion accessories for kids, teens, men, and women. Style advisors at the salons can give you fashion advice and full style makeovers.

Uptown boutiques always attract a good number of customers, as they are attractively designed and conveniently positioned, most likely in a mall. Scottsdale boutique shopping is no different and you can experience Scottsdale premium shopping at one. (Read the full post about ‘Clothes Scottsdale’…)


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ASUS Eee Box Preview & Intel’s Atom Benchmarked

Posted in: Computers, Entertainment, Marketing | June 3rd, 2008

The Internet today is far more functional than it ever was and we’re finally at the point where being able to access the net in places like your living room, bathroom or kitchen is actually pretty useful. Recipes are no longer stored in cookbooks, they are in emails or websites. There’s a website or forum for virtually everything, not to mention the utility of sites like Wikipedia and imdb.

The problem is that a kitchen PC that could be used to check emails, look up recipes or chat with someone while cooking wasn’t really feasible when decent PCs would set you back at least $1500. As PC prices fell however, the possibility of putting a PC in nearly every room of your house increased tremendously.

(Read the full post about ‘ASUS Eee Box Preview & Intel’s Atom Benchmarked’…)


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