malpern writes "I've written a review of upcoming virtual keyboards based on published reports. There are pictures, descriptions, and details for each of the four major manufactures (Virtual Devices, Developer VKB, Canesta, and Senseboard Technologies)."

brejc8 writes "HP have revealed the new range of AlphaServer systems. The new EV7 processors show very reasonable performance figures. Revealed by the inquirer the 1GHz versions have very similar SPEC scores as the 1GHz Itanium 2 (INT_2000 of 875 and FP_2000 of 1,500). This is very intersting after HP were rumoured to ensure that "...no Alpha benchmark will be released until the Itanium platform(s) is/are faster"."

Chris Jones asks: "I am finding that with all the large IDE harddrives becoming so cheap lately, I now have 4-5 nice sized IDE drives lying around my home office. Does anyone know of firewire enclosures that support multiple harddrives and are NOT RAID? RAID seems to quadruple the cost of enclosures... I just want a box with a power supply that can handle 4 IDE drives as well as the 4 Oxford 911 firewire bridge boards. On a different note, does anyone know if the Oxford 911 bridge board supports master and slave drives? If it does, then I would only need two boards for my 4 IDE drives, so if someone currently makes something like this, please point me to them! I would expect to pay $35 per Oxford board, $50 for the power supply and $50 for the enclosure... $15 for a cooling fan Does this sound reasonable?"

Moritz writes "Garmin is introducing a PalmOS5 handheld with GPS, MP3 and 32MB of memory. That's very nice, but why is there no bluetooth? Why can't somebody just get the spec right? Other than that this seems to be a nice addition to the PalmOS lineup."

Philipp Markus Alexander Schmid asks: "Does anyone know if there exists a MMC to MemoryStick adapter? There is this wonderful SonyEricsson P800 which comes with a memorystick duo slot. I'm currently building a MemoryStick standard to MemoryStick duo adapter for the phone (because of the non-existing availability of the duo). The next step would be an MMC to memorystick duo adapter, but is there a device or chip that can convert on the fly between MMC and MemorysStick?"

Per Hansson writes "Techspot was at Comdex in Sweden a few days ago; we have now posted a small interview with Nvidia along with some high-res pictures of the Geforce FX on this page in our new comments system." This is one of the strangest looking video cards I've ever seen (and it isn't cheap), though it may look different by the time you can buy it in a box. Which is not yet, despite all the hype.

bigcitymike writes "Well it might be vaporware, but it appears Dreamix is trying to turn the Xbox into a PVR with a TV guide like scheduler. They also state PC as well as Mac/Linux support down the road. " Project Dreamix will turn the Microsoft Xbox into the ultimate home entertainment center." I presume it requires a mod-chip installed." The xbox media player really goes a long way towards this goal already. MSFT may not be the friendliest of companies, but for $200, the x-box makes a helluva stereo component.

Salden writes "University of Wisconsin scientists propose a way to create 20nm chip features. They were investigating the limits of X-ray lithography and discovered that they could control the phase of X-rays by adjusting the gap between a mask and wafer. Pretty cool."

RevMike writes "The New York Times (reg required) is reporting that Bell Labs/Lucent has developed a method to multiply the bandwidth of cellular networks by using multipath. Robert Lucky developed the system called Blast. He claims that it should multiply the data rates in existing spectrum 300% to 400%. One prototype took a network from 2.5Mb/s to 19.2 Mb/s. Interestingly, the system works better in cluttered environments." And on a related note, Kimberley Burchett writes "The latest Physics News Update mentions that skyscrapers could actually help wireless communication. 'The more scatterers between the transmitters and receivers, the more channels that are available. For the time being, the communication technique is limited to ultrasonic communication - the electronics necessary for exploiting scatterers with wide-band time-reversal antennas at cell phone frequencies simply don't yet exist.'"

We ran the "Call for questions" Monday, January 13, under the headline, Discuss BIOS and Palladium Issues With an AMIBIOS Rep. Note that Brian Richardson, AMI sales engineer, is a real engineer, not just a salesperson, and is also a staunch Slashdot reader who knows we have low tolerance for PR whitewashes around here. Brian's answers are real, not laundered, and he responded not only to the 10 questions we sent him but also to some he felt deserved answers even though they weren't moderated all the way up. Please note that in much of this interview he is speaking as "Brian Richardson, individual," and that his opinions do not necessarily reflect those of AMI's management. With that said, be prepared to learn a lot about the BIOS business, and how TCPA and Palladium relate (and don't relate) to it.

Doctor Hu writes "The Economist has a story ("Think Before You Talk") describing a new range of mobile phone prototypes designed by Ideo to discourage antisocial usage - devices ringing in concert halls, loud proclamations that the caller is on his way home, etc. The first of the series uses electric shocks to condition the user to talk at a non-intrusive level; the others are similarly ingenious. Not intended to be commercially produced, just to provoke discussion (and provide publicity for Ideo, presumably). Nice comment at the end from one of the designers that for devices like mobile phones, "user-centric" design needs to take the needs of people nearby the user into account as well."

Mike Parsons writes "Andrew and Adam over at Explosive Labs have a nice review up on the Seagate Barracuda V, one of the first production Serial ATA drives. Keep in mind, Generation 1 of Serial ATA was not meant to be a 'incredible performance jump.' Rather, its intended purpose was to make the industry transition seamless to allow time to mature the future generations of SATA. Generation 2 and 3 of SATA show more promise for those interested in performance, as white papers behind them gives you the nice fuzzy feeling for speed!"

IrateSurf writes "ExtremeTech has a story about a new use of embedded Linux from Onkyo, which runs a home music server. Their NAS-2.3 has a CD-player as well as an 80GB hard drive for storing music and streaming it to other players on the an Ethernet network. Also check out the web site for the NAS-2.3." If only they would make it record radio, too ...

Ed writes "PalmSource, the company that makes the Palm OS, has decided to stop using Graffiti for text input in all future versions of its operating system. Instead, it will switch to using a version of CIC's Jot recognition system, which will be called Graffiti 2. PalmSource was forced to make this move after losing a patent infringement lawsuit brought by Xerox. Jot is already used by the Pocket PC operating system. You can read more about it on Brighthand."

Zygo writes "The Swiftech MCX462+T at 3dGameMan, a very solid and beautiful Antec case over here, Coffee and maybe even some ram at OverclockerCafe, the Logitech Cordless Optical MX700 over here, the DFI AD77 Infinity KT400 mobo over at PC stats, Coolermaster ramsinks at Mikhailtech, the Canon S230 here, another case review, the Tyan Tachyon 9700 Pro, 19" ViewSonic monitor, Vantec's Nexus NXP-101 A True Review, Freecom FX-1 USB-2 CD-RW at Blagged-HW, the Nexland Wireless ISB Router at LanAddict and to end the Icemat."

lmd writes "Digital-Explosion has an article with step-by-step instructions on how to cool a power supply with water (yes, water) instead of fans/heatsinks to make it quieter. Please read the warning and disclaimer (and buy insurance if you don't have any) if you decide to try this at home."

mikeb55121 writes "In my never ending quest to build a bigger and better computer i have come across this new design of computer case that is prety intresting to me and possibly any one else out there who build their own computers. This case is very unique because it is shaped as a "T" and the manufacture says that it ends cable clutter and has very good airflow." The aesthetics aren't bad, and the concept is solid. It'll be interesting to see if this catches on. I kind of doubt it.

An anonymous reader writes " Do you envy new Apple 17" PowerBook keyboard? Here's keyboard light kits for all most any keyboard no matter which OS you are using. There's NINE choice of colors (Light Blue, Deep Blue, Hot Pink, Yellow, White, Purple, Neon Green, Lime Green, and Red) available but unfortunately not coming with light sensor. "

1101z asks: "Well I work for a public access station in a city where a second cable/phone/internet company has moved just started operating. Part of there deal with the city was to let us have (for free) dark fiber links between several location in the city and our studio, so that we would be able to cablecast live from those locations. As the computer guy I would like to be able to interconnect computer networks that already exist at several of those locations, when we are not using the fiber for cablecast. The question is what is the cheapest way to build a TCP/IP network over this dark fiber." I wonder if the fiber being used is related to this story, from a month ago?

crank asks: "I've recently hoisted an antenna high upon my roof, since I'm bored with listening to the mega-watt corporate radio stations and instead and enjoying great, niche college and NPR stations. What I need is some sort of TiVo-like radio device, which will tune to the appropriate radio station and record to the hard drive (ideally to MP3 or Ogg Vorbis formats). Then, I could dump these to one of the many portable devices or stream from a computer for later listening. This is especially important with stations that change format frequently throughout the day, such as KFJC. Any suggestions? I think the tricky part would be integration of the FM tuner. I've had limited success with leaving the radio station pre-tuned to the station I want to tape, but I'd like something smarter that would power up, capture the program, and then power down."