TwoHeadsAin'tGoodEnough asks: "For our current contract, my company needs to find video splitters which don't just replicate the same signal across all monitors. Googling isn't helping too much, because thousands of people are selling video splitters, but they're all the wrong kind. We need to split a signal onto 4 displays. (Each display is going to be a 52" plasma screen, *drool*). It doesn't matter whether we are splitting analog vga output or dvi output, so long as it works. Any suggestions?" These type of setups are commonly called "videowalls", and there is a library out there called VWLib that can be used to manipulate such systems. Some videowalls are custom affairs, but I'm sure there are commercial entites out there that build complete setups. Have any of you tried to put something like this together? If so, what were your experiences? Update: 03/12 9:15pm EDT by C :After digging thru the Slashdot Archives, this story was found that might also shed some light on the subject.

Milanek writes "The iBook/PowerBook battery seems to be permanently incapacitated by the 10.2.4 update. " I had this problem as well - had to get my battery replaced last week. It was a painless exchange, but still annonying.

rchatterjee writes "SCSI is very close to joining ATA in leaving a parallel interface design behind in favor of serial one. Serial attached SCSI, as the standard will be known, is expected to be ratified sometime in the second quarter of this year according to this article at Computerworld. Hard drive manufacturers Seagate and Maxtor have already said that they will have drives conforming to the new standard shipping by the end of the year. The new standard will shatter the current SCSI throughput limit of 320 megabit/sec with a starting maximum throughput of 3 gigabit/sec. But before this thread turns into a SCSI fanboy vs. ATA fanboy flame war this other article states that Serial Attached SCSI will be compatible with SATA drives so you can have the best of both worlds."

An anonymous reader writes "The new Nokia 7250 is out. Small, very cool looking phone that even has a built-in camera. 3 page review with 6 pages of photos, including a photo gallery of images taken by the 7250 itself - with some human help, of course."

An anonymous reader writes "Ever wonder what happens to DRAM that fails quality assurance testing during manufacturing? Turns out a lot of it ends up as 'downgrade' memory and ends up in OEM memory modules. Last resort: use it in an answering machine, where the sampled audio can be very tolerant of bit errors."

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to Mitre computer scientist Joseph Mitola, next-generation cell phones might be cognitive radios (CRs), or software radios learning from interaction with their users and acting in their best interest. InfoWorld talked with him about how his vision of "cognitive radio" would work, and how it could redefine cell phone technology. Mitola said his vision is still about five to 10 years from realization, but that it could mean a sea change as control is shifted from network operators to users. He also said that sending a 10 MB email in a zone where carrier charges are high might cause the CR to alert its user, and suggest waiting until getting to the office to use the LAN instead. Finally, he talked about serious issues like privacy and security. For example, he envisions that video recognition would allow CR cell phones to visually authenticate their owners. Check this column for selected Q&As or read the full InfoWorld's interview."

WCityMike writes "Major Shawn Weed, an intelligence planner with the Third Infantry Division, eschewed his Panasonic Toughbook because it wasn't fast enough in processing giant satellite and reconnaissance images. He put in a requisition for and received a PowerBook G4, the only Apple currently being used in the entire Middle East theater. 'Frankly, lives are in the balance here, so the quicker I can get stuff done accurately, the better,' Weed says."

Mortimer.CA writes "An interesting article on how cell phones are changing the way people interact and get together in Japan. Some interesting quotations: 'To not have a keitai (cell phone) is to be walking blind, disconnected from just-in-time information on where and when you are in the social networks of time and place.' And the new social faux pas: 'One college student I spoke to described leaving one's phone at home or letting the battery die as "the new taboo."' The article mentions the book Smart Mobs which was mentioned on Slashdot before. I keep thinking how Marshal McLuhan said that our new inventions change the way we view the world. This is 'obvious' now, but was quite a new idea when he thought of it. In the 40s and 50s you "needed" to get a (land line) phone, then it was cars, email, and now cell phones. What's next? Is it simply a matter of keeping up with the Joneses?"

HBergeron writes "Despite some exhautive searching I have able to find very little about LED based light fixtures for the home. There are some in marine use, and a spare handful of others come up on a Google search but from all I have read on Slashdot I have to believe there are more out there. I am in the final stages of a home remodel and would very much like to use 'the lighting source of the future' (tm) in a number of places. For one, the bedroom, LEDs could make a nice bedside sconce/reading light, and a red/white option could be just the like for those late night stumbling across the room expeditions. A vanity light seems like another good place. Not to mention energy and bulb replacement savings." While these may not be economical for most people, I'm sure there are a few folks out there who have put these new lights to the test. How well did they stack up to the use of traditional filament lights?

shiroi_kami writes "I finally received my long-awaited (and pre ordered) CD-ROM and immediately loaded the game up on my IPAQ (I didn't even look at the PC Extras)." shiroi_kami has written some other PC game reviews; here's his first of a Pocket PC game. Read on below for his thoughts on Sorcery PDA.

Sivar writes "StorageReview has a review of the first 10,000 RPM IDE hard drive. Despite the speed that other technologies are improving, this is the first rotational speed increase in almost six years for standard IDE drives." The review is pretty thorough, but also warns to keep in mind that the reviewed unit is only beta hardware.

arielsebbag writes "According to CNET, Several high-tech companies including Sony and Sanyo have officially unveiled a consortium to create technical and safety standards for bringing three-dimensional displays to desktops, laptops and cell phones. They are probably focusing their efforts on the technology developed by Sharp. It looks like they are actually good to go and hopefully the 3D display will hit the market by 2004."

Steve asks: "I've suffered ongoing problems with my cable access for several months which my cable company has not resolved. Yesterday I discovered that the cause of the problem was probably due to a remote software update applied to my cable modem by the cable company 2 months ago. Their solution is to give me a new rental modem. This is fine, except that I *own* the current modem which is now broken and can not be sold on. The cable company are unwilling to offer compensation. According to my contract, the company can only modify equipment which they own. The question: have they broken the UK's Computer Misuse Act? Should they be liable for damages caused?"

An anonymous reader writes: "EE Times is reporting on China's BLX IC Design Corp nearing the completion of their first 64-bit CPU. Based on the MIPS instruction set the 500-MHz Godson-2 microprocessor is aimed toward distributed grid computing. To avoid MIPS patent issues, several instructions (unaligned loads and storeds in the 32 bit version) have not been implemented but with the support of over 60 software providers such as Red Flag Linux and the ability to tweak compilers to not use these instructions this should not be a problem. The Godson-1 processor (also patent free) was announced last year and was aimed at the embedded market." The Godson processor line has generally been called Dragon by the Western press.

multiOSfreak asks: "I recently picked up a DVD-R/RW drive on the cheap, and I was wondering which component DVD players have the widest latitude of compatibility with 'burned' DVD media. I have a Toshiba SD-1600, and it's very picky about the media (so far, it will only play Princo and Verbatim DataLife +). I've looked at a ton of sites on DVD players, but none of them gave comments from actual users on how well they worked, firmware upgrades, etc. Epinions is okay, but the level of knowledge of most reviewers is nowhere near that of the Slashdot community." What DVD Players are the least picky about the media they use?

ATi is bringing out their new card, the Radeon 9800 Pro, and all of the hardware review sites which depend on ATi's generosity for pre-release hardware have released their necessarily favorable reviews. Here's a few: Hothardware.com, Hexus.net, HardOCP.com, Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, Extremetech, PCWorld.

war3rd writes "According to The Register, Toshiba has finally been able to build a fuel cell for laptops that they will unveil at CeBit next week. The fuel cells are expected to last approximately 5 hours and are compatible with existing lithium-ion batteries. Form factor remains the only issue. The trick is that they use the water by-product from the cell to dilute the methanol source as it enters the reformer, and are therefore able to store higher concentrations of methanol in the cell. My only concern is how quickly can they get this to market?"

Cutie Pi writes "Dell has just released the Inspiron 8500, a new 15.4" widescreen notebook with a WUXGA screen--thats 1920x1200, high enough resolution to watch HDTV quality movies. Couple that with the new nVidia 64MB GeForce4 4200 Go (much faster than the ATI Radeon 9000), and you've got quite a notebook!! Can't wait to get my hands on one!"

chipset writes "Found a way to hack the Belkin USB Wireless (802.11b) driver to allow other adapters to work. By using the Atmel Wan Driver page on SourceForge and these tips drivers can be modified to support other wireless adapters. This will get unsupported USB WLAN adapters working with the Mac."

fist_187 asks: "i'm working on a semi-portable MP3 player project, and would like to include a CD-ROM drive in my setup, but a full size drive is a little bigger than I'd like. so, I thought about using a drive designed for mini-CDs...but I can't find any! I know that there are several MP3 portables that use mini-CDs, but does someone know where to find the drives themselves (preferably in a USB or IDE variety)? The only thing I've been able to find, after some searching, is the Imation RipGO!, but that's already a player... defeating the purpose of building from scratch in the first place. Does anyone have advice on where to look?"