CainX writes "A comparison of five power supply units was posted recently. Anandtech has done a more complete review and examined 18 of the newest models in the plus 300 watt range." Power supplies tend to be one of those forgotten, but ever so important parts of machine construction.

DrCarbonite writes "Andre' LaMothe is releasing a brand new game console, the XGAMESTATION which may fulfill the fantasies of Slashdot readers everywhere. 16-bit Motorola CPU with a graphics architecture "similar to the Commodore 64, Atari 800, and Apple II". Its an electronics kit being marketed as a game system that wants to be hacked/modded/rebuilt. It supports homebrew everything-- joystick adapters, displays, software, roms, the whole nine yards."

prostoalex writes "IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though. Taiwan is current #1."

rahlquist writes "An article over at infoworld discusses that buying that used router on ebay may not be a good deal if Cisco can find its way to screwing you. What's next, buy a used Ford and pay Ford to transfer the license for the onboard computer's OS or face piracy charges if you continue to drive?"

eggboard writes "Matthew Gast, author of 802.11 Wireless Networks, filed this article for O'Reilly Networks explaining exactly how fast 802.11g really is: that is, what's the actual data payload and real throughput, not the rated maximum speed. His conclusion? In mixed 802.11b/g networks, which will be common for years to come, g is only 1.6 to 2.4 times faster than b, not 5 times faster as it is in its g-only mode. This article has real math based on the specs, rather than armchair speculation."

paulnuyu writes "ZDNet/MSN has an article about a robot that detects Wi-Fi vulnerabilities and intrusions. The two wheeled robot made by the Shmoo Group cruised around the DefCon convention in Vegas last Sunday, picking up telnet and POP passwords. Though still a prototype, the shipping version is projected to have autonomous steering capabilities."

An anonymous reader writes "This guy went to the trouble of swapping logic boards on a dead hard drive to get his NeverWinter Nights save games back and took photos." I would have just used a character editor to get my stuff back, but clearly, I lack the dedication this gentleman has. Regardless of reason, nice work!

An anonymous reader writes "If James Bond was into wireless hacking, this would be his rig."

dwm writes "Think broadband over power lines (BPL) would be wonderful? There might be some collateral damage. The American Radio Relay League (your friendly neighborhood ham radio operators) have documented dramatic HF radio interference in areas where BPL is being tested (Check out the video of actual interference)."

fluor2 writes "Ever wanted a screen floating in air? Two scientists, Ismo Rakkolainen and Karri Palovuori, both from Tampere University of Technology, Finland have come up with an idea. It is called the Walk-thru Fog Screen. The fog screen, consisting of 'fog' that is blown down from top, and the protective laminar airflow creates a thin and crisp surface, pretty undisturbed by the air in the rest of the room, making it ideal for projector usage. People can walk right through this screen of fog. Their next idea is to use the fog as a touch-screen, making it even more accessible." For a screen one can walk through, the image quality is better than I'd have thought.

Faeton writes " HowardChui.com has 5 nifty Bluetooth cellphone headsets reviewed. Looks like we're moving towards the StarTrek Comm unit (check out the size of the Nextlink Bluespoon Digital headset!)"

Nine Mirrors Turning writes "According to the Register the US Navy has ordered 260 XServe servers running Yellow Dog Linux from Terra Soft Solutions. Terra Soft is the only reseller allowed to resell Apple hardware with a third-party operating system installed. The XServes will be modified by a unnamed third-party and will be running a custom kernel. The XServes are destined for US Navy submarines and will be used for real-time image processing. I do wonder how many will be installed on each sub, though. Are we talking clustering here? I didn't even know the USN was running Linux on front-line ships."

flynn_nrg writes "WifiBSD is a minimalistic version of FreeBSD based on the 5.x branch. WifiBSD is aimed for wireless routers running on embedded devices such as boards from soekris.com. In addition to the wi driver WifiBSD includes support for Atheros's 802.11b/g and 802.11a/b/g Wireless LAN Chipsets. The latest version of WifiBSD can be found here."

devn2k writes "At the first annual WiFi Shootout at DefCon in Las Vegas, Adversarial Science Lab won the contest to shoot a wireless signal across the Nevada desert, with a distance of 35.2196 miles. The antenna was built from metal poles, window screen mesh, cardboard, duct tape, and aluminum foil! According to the official contest page, the antenna was designed the night before the contest, its component parts were purchased for $98 at Home Depot, and the next day it was built completely from scratch in the desert, on the side of the mountain, in the rain."

gmhowell asks: "With the popularity of USB pen drives, I've thought it time to join the crowd and get one. But I'm curious as to what is so important that you should always have a copy. Clearly PuTTY or your favorite SSH client is important. Perhaps with some keys. But what else? A copy of your browser cookies? MP3s? Pictures? What other software is smart enough to run from a portable medium without need for an installation? (Yup, MAME and z26 seem like likely candidates)."

An anonymous reader writes "A long time ago, in what feels like a different universe, Cyrix created the first sub-$1000 PC based on a 2 chip solution called the Media-GX. Soon after National Semiconductor bought Cyrix, keeping the Media-GX team and selling the 686MX team to VIA. In the meantime, the Media-GX team have created the a series of single chip PCs, and a totally new CPU, the GX2. Now National Semiconductor is selling the division to AMD, which should give it a higher profile and better fab technology again." Reader jlouderb reminds us of National Semiconductor's Device Girls promotion, "a lame take-off on the Spice Girls," and points to coverage at eWeek of the purchase.

opticsorg writes "The combination of moderate optical powers and tight bends can prove catastrophic for optical fibers, according to research carried out by BT Exact in the UK. Although the effect is unlikely to cause problems in current networks, it means that designers may need to think carefully before scaling up the power in their systems or deploying Raman amplifiers with pump powers of several hundred milliwatts or more. In the July 10th issue of Electronics Letters, Ed Sikora and his colleagues report that powers as low as 500 mW can induce permanent damage in singlemode fiber that is bent (13 mm bend diameter or less). 'These bends could be found in exchange racks or splice trays, for example, especially if a fiber is tugged or pulled,' Sikora told Optics.org. The BT researchers carried out tests on four types of fiber subjected to a range of bend diameters (5 to 15 mm) and optical powers of up to a few watts. In all cases the fibers fail within 53 hours. 'What was unexpected was that the catastrophic failure can occur in 90 bends at fairly low powers of less than 1 W or so,' said Sikora. 'It's important to understand that we're not saying that networks are going to fall over tomorrow, but as powers go up you have to aware this effect could occur under certain circumstances.'"

theodp writes "A judge has ruled in favor of holding company NTP in its patent-infringement case against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, awarding monetary damages and fees of $53.7 million and granting an injunction preventing RIM from making, using, or offering to sell handhelds, services or software in the U.S. until the date of expiration of NTP's patents, the latest of which is May 20, 2012. The court then stayed that injunction, pending an appeal by the Canadian company."

Nice2Cats asks: "So I'm reading all over about how companies are desperate for people who know how to work mainframes, especially now that IBM is shipping them with Linux. But how -- short of a course with Big Blue or some other exercise in expensive formal education -- can I acquire even the most basic information or experience with big iron? There doesn't seem to be many tutorials or introductions online; what would be nice, but I can't seem to find either, would be a simulator that would run on a PC. All I want to know is if I like enough to be seriously interested."

Misha writes "AMD has demonstrated a new Linux-based handheld at LinuxWorld. The OpenPDA runs on low-power Alchemy chips, with support for USB, Ethernet, UARTS. Here is press release. Among the highlights are: A comprehensive Metrowerks suit as the basis of OpenPDA applications, Qt, Java, Opera browser."