||Plazm|| writes "Tom's Hardware has an entertaining read on the latest offerings from processor makers Intel and AMD. Not only does it contain a plethora of benchmarks on the latest Dual core CPU's, but it also includes benchmarks from over 60 other legacy processors. Better yet, they let the benchmarks speak for themselves and let you draw your own conclusions. You may want to fill up your 44oz mug before sifting through this one, though."

An anonymous reader writes "The Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250 GB hard drive has 300 MB/sec transfer rate the drive has a monster 16 MB cache, both of which should make it one of the best performing 7200 RPM drives on the market. WD categorizes this drive in the "Highest Performance" section of its desktop market, so its safe to assume that is has solid performance without the expense of an enterprise level drive. With products like this available, advances are being made in the storage industry that are not being rivalled by those in other areas of computing, especially considering the price level of this drive."

aaditeshwar writes "It looks like sensor networks have some applications afterall, other than the usual stuff for defense and US military! AmBio has created a wireless mesh network of bugspraying "magnets" that report back data on the temperature, air conditions, and wind directions, and a central controller uses this data to turn ON or OFF the magnets in different areas. They plan to cover entire cities with such wireless meshes, and create an anti-mosquito shield around the city!"

Anonomisk Howard writes "The speed results from Big Bruin's review of OCZ's latest flash drive have me lusting for a new thumb drive. From the review: 'The OCZ Rally drive is not a radical new design, it does not look significantly different than any other USB 2.0 drive on the market, but then you plug it in and begin to use it. This thing smokes! The transfer times shown in the charts are what this drive is all about. If you want the fastest, sleekest, and most extreme drive currently on the market, this is the one to get.'"

Billosaur writes "With Lego being in the news after completion of their lawsuit against Mega Bloks, I found this interesting little tidbit on Boing Boing, about a company that makes stackable Lego Brick-shaped Hard Drives. With Hi-Speed USB 2.0 interface, it offers the fast data transfer rates required for substantial jobs like downloading digital photos, saving MP3s or transferring home videos from a camcorder. Available desktop models are: 160GB (white), 250GB (red), 300GB (blue) and 500GB (red). But can you build a Star Destroyer out of them?"

MojoDog writes " VIA has launched their new K8T900 chipset for the AMD platform this morning and HotHardware.com has a full analysis with benchmarks of the new platform. VIA is jumping into the dual PCI Express Graphics arena as well with this offering with their 'Rapid Fire' technology, which currently only supports their MultiChrome Dual GPU setups. However, NVIDIA and ATi will both have to provide the required driver level support for either SLI or CrossFire technology, which currently is not available on this new chipset. Beyond that, from a features and performance standpoint the K8T900 looks to be a solid solution."

Anony writes "Anandtech's Joshua Buss takes a look at four horizontal HTPC enclosures. He writes, "With the amazing rate at which full-fledged computers are dropping in price, it's really no wonder why they're starting to take over more and more roles that used to be accomplished by simpler machines. For everything from car stereo systems to hold massive music collections to kitchen machines for helping retrieve and store recipes, these "specialized" computer uses seem to only be expanding in number...Luckily, there have been many improvements made in this category since the inception of the HTPC, and as such, we were able to round up four very nice looking enclosures to compare in this article. Every unit is advertised as being able to handle a full ATX motherboard, and since the demands for a powerful HTPC are relatively high, we'll be giving these cases' cooling systems a vigorous workout with a brand new 3 gigahertz Pentium 4-based ATX test bed."

hrayr writes to tell us NASA is reporting that Spirit, their proclaimed "wonder child", sent to explore Mars has just wrapped up its first Martian year, equivalent to two Earth years. Originally designed to only last 90 days the small six wheeled machine has lasted far beyond the original scope to bring us immense amounts of data and some 70,000 images. There is still great hope that this data, and more to come will bring us one step closer to Mars habitation.

Timmus writes "With the release of the X1800 series last month, it was only a matter of time before ATI announced a new All-In-Wonder card that took advantage of it. Today Firingsquad has a review of the new board, the All-In-Wonder X1800 XL. The card features all the multimedia capabilities of previous AIW cards, giving you TV viewing and recording, timeshifting, and of course gaming. Video capture shots are provided as well."

BushCheney08 writes "According to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, TiVo is expanding its TiVoToGo service to allow recordings to be viewed on video iPods and PSPs. Files will be transcoded in real time and will include digital watermarks to try to cut down on piracy. The service begins beta-testing for select subscribers today, with a widespread rollout scheduled for early next year. An AP article is also available at Forbes."

this great guy writes "You read it correctly. It had to happen one day. According to Forbes 'Dell Inc has informed its Taiwan contract makers of plans to develop devices based on Advanced Micro Devices Inc's microprocessors, and these suppliers are awaiting orders for global shipment, the Economic Daily News reported, citing industry sources.'"

Lam1969 writes "Sumner Lemon reports that a Chinese company, Shenzhen Chuanghui Electronics Co., is remarking Celeron chips as Pentium 4s and supplying software to mask the chips' real pedigree from operating systems. From the article : 'The remarked processors Chuanghui sells are actually 1.7-GHz Celeron chips and are currently available for $78 each, including a motherboard, in quantities of 100 or more, said James Zhan, a company representative named online as a contact for potential buyers. By comparison, Intel sells the real thing for $401 in 1,000-unit quantities without a motherboard, according to the company's most recent price list.'"

ptorrone writes "I didn't really plan using a $20,000 laser cutter on my 17" PowerBook to etch a 19th-century engraving of a tarsier, a nocturnal mammal related to the lemur (also the vi book cover), but it seemed like it had to done. The results are stunning..."

wyldeone writes "The San Fransico Chronicle reports that the BART subway system has been completely outfitted with cells to allow cellphone usage everywhere on the line. The network has been paid for entirely by Nextel, who leased out the lines to the other carriers." From the article: "Rae said BART and the wireless companies know some riders will try to make calls over the din as BART roars and screeches through tunnels. But most of the business, he said, will be from people using wireless devices to read and send e-mail or browse the Internet. 'You could use your Blackberry to take care of all your e-mail on your way to work,' he said. 'But the trains are really too noisy (underground) to have an intelligent conversation.'"

nevermindme writes "Cisco has agreed to plunk down a whopping $6.9bn for Scientific-Atlanta, hoping to take a major share of the set-top-box market and push video efforts. The networking giant will pay $43 per share in cash for Scientific-Atlanta ($5.3bn) and swallow $1.6bn in debt. With the buy, Cisco acquires one of the more dominant set-top-box makers. In addition, it pushes well beyond the data center to touch consumers where they live."

theodp writes "Over at Slate, Avi Zenilman has seen the real classroom of the future firsthand: Students use class time to read the Drudge Report, send e-mail, play Legend of Zelda, or update profiles on Facebook.com. But not to worry - replace laptops with crumpled notes, and the classroom of the future looks a lot like the classroom of the past." From the article: "... when Cornell University researchers outfitted classrooms with wireless Internet and monitored students' browsing habits, they concluded, 'Longer browsing sessions during class tend to lead to lower grades, but there's a hint that a greater number of browsing sessions during class may actually lead to higher grades.' It seems a bit of a stretch to impute a causal relationship, but it's certainly possible that the kind of brain that can handle multiple channels of information is also the kind of brain that earns A's."

sebFlyte writes "ZDNet is reporting that enabling Intel's new Hyperthreading Technology on your servers could lead to markedly decreased performance, according to some developers who have been looking into problems that have been occurring since HT has been shipping automatically activated. One MS developer from the SQL server team put it simply: 'Our customers observed very interesting behaviour on high-end HT-enabled hardware. They noticed that in some cases when high load is applied SQL Server CPU usage increases significantly but SQL Server performance degrades.' Another developer, this time from Citrix, was just as blunt. 'It's ironic. Intel had sold hyperthreading as something that gave performance gains to heavily threaded software. SQL Server is very thread-intensive, but it suffers. In fact, I've never seen performance improvement on server software with hyperthreading enabled. We recommend customers disable it.'"

smanuel asks: "I'm in the process of helping my non-geek friend get his Linux box set up with a PCI wireless card. 2006 is fast approaching and Linux *still* has spotty support for 802.11a/b/g PCI and PCMCIA cards. Ask the The Oracle about wireless for Linux and the results aren't much better. There are a ton of cards to choose from but support is either spotty or requires such contortions that I'm wary of spending the time. What PCI/PCMCIA cards do fellow Slashdot readers recommend? I'm looking for both PCI and PCMCIA cards; preferably ones with native support in Linux (I'm trying to avoid ndis{c,w}rapper if I can). Is the fact that card manufacturers change chipsets more often than they underpants make this a never ending problem?"

KarmaOverDogma writes "The New York Times has an interesting piece on the slow but steady movement to reduce the power drain for appliances that are never truly turned off when they are powered down. In the typical house that's enough to light a 100-watt light bulb 24/7, according to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, a research arm of the Energy Department. In the United States alone, over $1 billion per year is spent powering devices such as TV's VCR's, Computers and Chargers while they are 'off.' Called 'vampires' and 'wall-warts' by Energy Experts, there has been growing support of their recommendations to adopt industry-wide standards, which would require manufacturers to build appliances with significantly lower consumption when not in use."

MarkRH writes "Although many sites posted the Reuters story on Sony merging its optical storage operations with NEC, people forget that NEC is one of the four senior members of the HD-DVD Promotion Group. What this means is that by next year the merged unit could sell CD drives, DVD drives, Blu-Ray, and 'perhaps even that other format,' a Sony spokesman told eWEEK. A bit shocking, given the acrimonious nature of the rivalry so far."