MuthaPussBucket writes: "Luckily for consumers, prices of hard drives continue to come down and now more manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have licensed the TiVO and ReplayTV technology to use in their own products. SE takes a look at the Panasonic ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder Model PV-HS2000. This one looks as though it's one of the pricer ones but it's also one of the better models."

dameon asks: "I have been asked by my supervisor to select a replacement for our current SGI Onyx2 space heater. The current setup contains 24-195 Mhz IP27 processors, 12GB main memory, and around 140 GB of total storage space. We use it to run a bunch of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) code. Currently the demand on our system is so much that the jobs are backing up. So, they came to me with two quotes and said: "Which one is better?" I have had limited experience in the field of powerhouse number-crunchers. The two quotes I have received are from HP and SGI. SGI's quote is for: an Origin 3400 with 12 GB Memory, 24-400MHz/8MB R12K's, and 1/2 TB of storage space. HP is offering 3 9000 series N-4000's adding up to about the same specs in total, with the exception of the processors. Hp is offering 550 MHz PA8600's (1.5MB) processors in their setup (it also has more storage space setup with a hyperfabric configuration). All of the software we use will run on both platforms. So, I would like to put this to the Slashdot community: Which one is better?"

Pizon writes: "Ever wonder what else you can do with your Palm? Well, here is a good start. This clever little monkey used the 3Com Palm Pilot to build a fully autonomous robot out of standard, readily available parts (glue, tape, and a small amount of soldering). The robot can then drive itself around on flat surfaces, using optical range sensors to sense nearby obstacles and walls." Proof that not everything requires scads of hardware or the latest processor -- sometimes small is beautiful.

Gus asks: "Why do vendors continue to develop new processor cores, as opposed to using newer technologies in older proven designs? The best example of this I can find is IBM selling the 'Blue Lightening' chip, which was really a 386, but was sold as a 486. Why not make a 386 today using copper and a 0.18 micron process? Wouldn't this be fairly cheap? Are new instructions worth adding?"

One reader from the Anonymous Coward Horde asks: "I'm looking for a cheap router/firewall to put between my private LAN and DMZ. I already have a Netopia R7100 (DSL modem + router/firewall + 8 port 10Mb hub) so I've been looking at the Netopia R9100 (router/firewall + 8 port 10Mb hub). The issue is that the port on the WAN side of the R9100 is 10Mb though I'll have a 100Mb hub connected to the LAN side via the uplink. This means that communication between my LAN hosts and DMZ hosts will be 10Mb rather than 100Mb. All the products I've found "suffer" from this limitation (okay, in the $200 - $500 bracket, I did find one for ~$2k). I don't want to start building a Linux box for a router! Any pointers?"

HaveBlue writes "Apparently not content to simply go after those writing software for the CueCat, Digital Convergence is now giving the evil eye to hardware hackers. I just got a letter via FedEx this morning almost exactly like the one sent to Michael Rothwell and other developers. DC just doesn't seem to understand that they can't control hardware that's given away for free..." The second link is an extremely detailed discussion of the internals of the CueCat. Mirror it while you can.

valmont: "The folks at cnet have this article about Sony's latest toy: The Airboard. It seems to merge all kinds of wild stuff in a pad hooked to a base station with TV Antenna and wireless modem: simultaneous TV and Internet/web browsing, remote-controlling of home appliances. Looks pretty nifty ..." And considering that Sony is hep to Transmeta, I wonder what chip and OS will power this thing.

dannyp writes "The New York Times reports that Palm and Motorola are going to jointly develop a phone with embedded Palm functionality. The story requires free registration, as always." I've seen a PalmPilot III/combo phone before - just looked clunky and heavy. And some of the non-US phones do a better job, but I'd still like the ultimate combo phone.

LennyDotCom points to this ZDNet story which should interest anyone with a hankering to build his own linux-based router, dedicated file server, MP3 jukebox, or whatever else you can fit in a 13" x 10" x 2.5" box pre-equipped with nearly everything but a hard drive. The author of this piece tells you how to get Linux booting on the optional disk-on-chip, too, so you can create one-off, totally silent machines. The price seems reasonable, too.

Bingo Foo asks: "Many moons ago, I saw an article on some pretty neato sounding PowerPC daughterboards made to work with Intel Linux. To this day, I have yet to see a review of them (Say it ain't so, Ars...), or even a reasonably detailed explanation of how the cross-compiling and job execution work. In a somewhat exhaustive Web search, I found more questions and speculation than answers. All of the specific applications mentioned are rendering and other 'dumb' SIMD processes. It's difficult to tell just how versatile these boards might be. Has anyone shelled out the $6k for one of these things and are they willing to share their experiences with the rest of the world? In particular, I wonder if this might come in handy for some Monte Carlo codes that we run where I work, where raw flops are more important than communication or memory, and the parallelism is MIMD."

emc3 writes: "On a whim, I decided to actually pay attention to my daily MP3.com spam^H^H^H^Hmember update. While checking out what was left of my online CD collection after the recent shakedowns, a banner ad caught my eye. It's for a device called the ZapStation. This soon-to-be-released device claims to be able to play audio CDs, DVDs, MP3 CDROMs, and it can serve as an MP3 jukebox, DVD jukebox, Web browser, and it can probably julienne fries by hooking up to your Cuisinart via the USB port. What's the catch? It's not on the market yet. But for $599, you can reserve one before they roll out of the factory (next month). Sounds pretty friggin' cool. Did I mention that it's got a 566MHz Celeron, USB port, and wireless keyboard? Sounds like it's just dying to be hacked." Not bad - good amount of space, and it sounds like it will be cool - if it comes out.

Usquebaugh sent us a fairly impressive image -- this site shows several screenshots of the Yopy (the Samsung Linux-based PDA that we've covered a bit in the past). It's pretty similiar to most color handhelds, although the screenshots show it running Heretic and a Game Boy emulator.

gnewt writes "The guys at The Tech Report have put together a pretty comprehensive review of 3dfx's V5 5500 AGP. There's a comparison against several NVIDIA products, including the GeForce2, on image quality, FSAA, performance, and mip mapping. Overall, a nice introduction to modern 3D accelerators."

Fervent writes: "Hoping to up-end Palm company's supremacy in the color department for Palm OS, Handspring plans to release a Palm device with support for 65,536 colors. " Also, they're gonna offer a version integrated with a cell phone.

Edgester writes "There is an article at Security Focus about Digital Convergence and the CueCat Barcode Scanner. DC thinks that those Cease and Desist letters completely stopped the hacker community from hacking the CueCat scanners." Oh - and we should just point that in the continuing example of Digital Convergence's wonderful security their site was cracked and all user info was captured.

michael_cain asks: "I have to take a series of demos 'on the road' occasionally and have to have a data connection back to the home lab. In many cases this takes the form of a T1. In order to terminate that at both ends, I currently have to have a CSU/DSU and baby router at each end. I would like to simplify this arrangement; does anyone know of a pair of small boxes that would let me use a T1 as a simple Ethernet bridge (well, a learning bridge would be nice)? Just plug the T1 into one side of each, a 10BaseT or 100BaseT into the other side of each, and relay Ethernet frames back and forth?"

Ted Pham asks: "I want to purchase an 802.11b wireless base station for my house. My top two candidates are the Apple Airport and the Orinoco RG-1000, and I have a few questions about how these products compare." Anyone care to give comments on any experiences they have had with these pieces of hardware. Read on for more specifics.

noname (guess who ;) writes, "There's a really thorough look at ATI's Radeon 256 32MB (which we've not seen yet due to the delay in shipping) and the technology behind it. The author of this piece not only pits it against NVIDIA's best (the GeForce2)also went behind the scenes of ATI's HyperZ technology by interviewing some engineers about the 3D graphics pipeline. Finally we get to the bottom of who's better, the GeForce2 or the Radeon and it looks like a win for NVIDIA here."

Alex Bischoff writes: "According to this NY Times Article, 3Com will release Palm OS 3.5 in the fall, but for about $20. 'Mr. Cook said that he had already heard grumbling from some Palm users about the upgrading fee and that some future releases might still be free.' ObCredit: PalmStation." (Free registration, worth every penny.) I wonder if this is a way to sell more (new) Palms?

Reader redial writes: "You've seen them before, the glasses that give you the impression of a 19" monitor several feet in front of your face. InViso's eShades have a nice twist. The lightweight glasses use a standard PC-Card or Flash interface. Plug these bad boys into your YOPY and attract all the babes." Actually, the site says that PDA support is still in the future, and needing a Flash or PC Card interface seems a bit of a turn-off, though in fairness that is also the power source. But these look like a cool combination of a) acceptable size and b) the magic acceptable threshold of SVGA resolution. Yes, please!