Hardware 19 - The Cockney Cast

Hardware 19 - The Cockney Cast

Posted on 18th Feb 2011 at 10:18 by Podcast with 6 comments

This week's bit-tech and Custom PC podcast is brought to you by Clive, Antony and Paul.

First on the agenda is the continuing Intel Sandy Bridge saga, and what motherboard manufacturers are doing to sort it out. We also comment on MSI's returns strategy, which the company announced on Wednesday.

Next we make some time to talk about the gorgeous Silverstone FT03. It's a pretty peculiar case due to its inverted design, but it's always refreshing to see manufactures taking a different approach.

Finally, Antony gives us a sneaky look at the CPU cooler group test from the latest issue of Custom PC, which went on sale at newsagents yesterday. Make sure you pick up a copy if you want to see which new CPU coolers offer the best combination of cooling and value.


As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, although there's a slightly different twist on it this week. The lucky winner will be able to get their hands on a Mionix Propus 380 mousepad, which will provide the perfect tracking surface for whichever mouse you choose to use.

As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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Enermax to launch CPU coolers

Enermax to launch CPU coolers

Posted on 19th Feb 2011 at 10:32 by Richard Swinburne with 18 comments

During a brief discussion with Enermax recently, a PR person let slip that the company's planning to launch a new CPU cooler range, which will be based on the principles of vortex generator flow technology, while featuring a couple of Enermax's Twister bearing fans.

The cooler has six heatpipes that get direct contact with the CPU, while a Twister fan sits on either side of the tower. Meanwhile, the LEDs can be switched off using the little buttons below each fan in the picture. The fans *should* feature 4-pin PWM power connectors as well, but we don't know whether they'll be tied together with a single connector yet.


More information about the coolers is likely to start doing the rounds soon, though, as Enermax is encouraging folk to visit its booth in the usually wet (sometimes snowy), cold and miserable surroundings of the CeBIT tradeshow in Hannover, Germany, at the start of March.

Does this design look like a winner to you? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

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Apple offers $100 back to recent iPad customers

Apple offers $100 back to recent iPad customers

Hardware 19 - The Cockney Cast

Hardware 19 - The Cockney Cast

Posted on 18th Feb 2011 at 10:18 by Podcast with 6 comments

This week's bit-tech and Custom PC podcast is brought to you by Clive, Antony and Paul.

First on the agenda is the continuing Intel Sandy Bridge saga, and what motherboard manufacturers are doing to sort it out. We also comment on MSI's returns strategy, which the company announced on Wednesday.

Next we make some time to talk about the gorgeous Silverstone FT03. It's a pretty peculiar case due to its inverted design, but it's always refreshing to see manufactures taking a different approach.

Finally, Antony gives us a sneaky look at the CPU cooler group test from the latest issue of Custom PC, which went on sale at newsagents yesterday. Make sure you pick up a copy if you want to see which new CPU coolers offer the best combination of cooling and value.


As always, we've also set up our weekly competition, although there's a slightly different twist on it this week. The lucky winner will be able to get their hands on a Mionix Propus 380 mousepad, which will provide the perfect tracking surface for whichever mouse you choose to use.

As ever, the bit-tech hardware podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/bit-tech/blog/~3/9YDeYBokO2k/

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House Republicans Move to Uphold Marriage Act

Republican leaders had the option of inserting themselves in the case by introducing a resolution on the House floor and allowing members to speak out on the issue. Instead they released a statement of their intent on a Friday afternoon when the House was out of session.

By choosing that route, Republican leaders illuminated a central problem they face in the 112th Congress: how to reflect the priorities of traditional social conservatives when much of the party?s energy is focused on the federal budget and the national debt, the animating passions of the freshman class of lawmakers.

Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana set off a debate within the party last month when he warned fellow Republicans not to get bogged down in the cultural wars of yore and to ?agree to get along for a little while? on social issues.

Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio took to the political tightrope with an arabesque on Friday, when he announced in a news release that he would convene the Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, made up of the three top Republicans and two most senior Democrats in the House, ?for the purpose of initiating action by the House to defend this law of the United States.?

By doing so, Mr. Boehner fulfilled a promise to the more conservative members of his caucus, who care deeply about the law, by stepping in to defend it. But he stopped short of creating the appearance of House members distracted from their spending fight by a battle over gay marriage.

The advisory group can now decide to ask courts to appoint it as a party in cases involving the marriage act or it can simply file a brief or make an argument as an interested observer.

?My personal preference would have been a resolution on the House floor,? said Bryan Fischer, the director of issue analysis for American Family Association, a conservative Christian organization in Tupelo, Miss. ?But the political landscape in 1995 meant that the law passed overwhelmingly,? he said. ?You may not have the same overwhelming majority on this resolution, so the optics may not be optimum.?

Support for action by the House to defend the marriage statute came from some conservative groups and lawmakers. But many freshmen in the Republican caucus were silent on the matter.

Representative Raúl Labrador, a conservative freshman from Idaho, has not mentioned the issue, said Phil Hardy, his spokesman. ?My boss is all about the budgets and finding the waste,? Mr. Hardy said in an e-mail.

Similarly, Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, who leads the House Tea Party caucus, has not addressed the statute, even as she released statements concerning President Obama?s budget, and freedom of choice in light bulbs.

?She does not support gay marriage,? said Doug Sachtleben, Ms. Bachmann?s spokesman.

?But I do know that right now she is particularly concerned about defunding Obamacare, this whole budget process,? he said. ?Those are the time-pressing issues for her.?

The minority leader, Nancy Pelosi of California, said in a statement that ?I oppose Speaker Boehner?s effort to put the House in the position of defending this indefensible statute.?

Mr. Boehner said that it was the president, not the House, that was diverting attention from the budget battles to focus on gay marriage, adding that the House was simply fulfilling an obligation to defend laws it had passed.

?It is regrettable that the Obama administration has opened this divisive issue at a time when Americans want their leaders to focus on jobs and the challenges facing our economy,? Mr. Boehner said. ?The constitutionality of this law should be determined by the courts, not by the president unilaterally, and this action by the House will ensure the matter is addressed in a manner consistent with our Constitution.?

The move drew rebukes from gay rights groups and some Democrats. ?I think it?s sad that the speaker of the House wants to spend taxpayer funds to discriminate against people,? said Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the lead sponsor of a bill to repeal the marriage act. ?It is his right to do this. But it is totally wrong.?

Mr. Fischer of the family organization said he would rather have the House than the Obama administration defend the act. ?We think the Department of Justice was making a pretty tepid and halfhearted defense,? he said. ?This is such an important public policy law it needs to be defended by someone who believes it is good.?

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South Korean government websites hit by DDoS attack

It seems that Wordpress.com is not the only website experiencing distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. Major South Korean websites have also been hit by a DDoS attack, twice today, according to South Korean antivirus developer AhnLab.

About 40 web sites were targeted, including the presidential office, the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Kookmin Bank, the defense ministry, and the US military in Seoul, according to BusinessWeek. The government issued its third-highest alert against online attacks.

"DDoS(Distributed Denial of Service) attack is now on Korean websites including government webpages," AhnLab said in a statement. "We're on emergency response with our all resources including ASEC and CERT, providing emergency antivirus solution. Additional DDoS attack occurred around 18:30 (Korean Time), not scored though. It just caused insignificant damages as users install antivirus and emergency solution from AV vendors, such as AhnLab, and other government organizations."

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/42697-south-korean-government-websites-hit-by-ddos-attack.html

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A Laptop that Knows Where You're Looking

Tom Simonite

A camera over the screen is a standard feature for laptops. But only Lenovo's new model has a pair of cameras below its display to track the movements of a user's eyes.

The prototype laptop can be controlled with eye motions, reducing the need to use the mouse and making it faster to navigate through information such as maps or menus.

The laptop can notice when its user has read to near the bottom of a page and can automatically scroll down to reveal more text. The same trick also makes it possible to browse through an e-mail in-box without using the mouse at all. When using a map application, the user can zoom in on an area by looking at it and scrolling the mouse wheel. The computer also dims its screen automatically to save power when it detects that the user's gaze has left the screen.

"We're attempting to make the process of interacting with your computer a more natural experience," says Barbara Barclay, who heads North American operations for Tobii, the Swedish company that supplied the eye-tracking hardware and software for the prototype. So far, only 20 of the new computers have been made; Tobii and Lenovo will each have 10 with which to test out new ideas.

The two cameras below the laptop's screen use infrared light to track a user's pupils. An infrared light source located next to the cameras lights up the user's face and creates a "glint" in the eyes that can be accurately tracked. The position of those points is used to create a 3-D model of the eyes that is used to calculate what part of the screen the user is looking at; the information is updated 40 times per second.

The system can accurately track the direction of the user's gaze to about 0.5 degrees, which translates to about half an inch on the screen of the laptop. A user can shift position, says Barclay, but the head must be kept within a volume of roughly two cubic feet. Because the hardware is mounted and moves with the laptop's LCD screen, a user's efforts to accommodate the display's limited viewing angle by adjusting head and monitor position usually ensure that the eyes remain in proper camera range.

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As Health Costs Soar, G.O.P. and Insurers Differ on Cause

The new federal health care law may eventually ?bend the cost curve? downward, as proponents argue. But for now, at many workplaces here, the rising cost of health care is prompting insurance premiums to skyrocket while coverage is shrinking.

As Congress continues to debate the new health care law, health insurance costs are still rising, particularly for small businesses. Republicans are seizing on the trend as evidence that the new law includes expensive features that are driving up premiums. But the insurance industry says premiums are rising primarily because of the underlying cost of care and a growing demand for it.

Across the country, premiums have more than doubled in the last decade, with smaller companies particularly hard hit in recent years, federal officials say.

In New Hampshire, where the population is among the healthiest in the nation, according to various surveys, the insurance market for individuals, families and small businesses is extremely fragile. More than 90 percent of private employers in New Hampshire have fewer than 50 employees. Small and medium-size employers try to shop around for health insurance, but have few alternatives from which to choose.

This year, groups of more than 20 workers have been experiencing premium increases of around 20 percent, insurance agents say, while smaller groups are seeing increases of 40 percent to 60 percent or more.

?The rate of increase is phenomenal,? said Jean Pierre La Tourette, owner of Flora Ventures, a florist with 11 employees in Newmarket, N.H., near Portsmouth. When he was recently notified that the monthly premium for single employees at his firm was going up by $229, or 40 percent, to $789, Mr. La Tourette said, he felt ?a combination of anger and frustration.?

Economists and state regulators say health insurance is expensive primarily because health care is expensive.

?You won?t really address the cost of health insurance unless you address the cost of health care itself,? New Hampshire?s insurance commissioner, Roger A. Sevigny, said.

In a letter explaining Mr. La Tourette?s new rate, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield said it resulted, in part, from ?an increase in medical trends, especially the utilization of services and the underlying cost of health care, for all small-group customers.?

William P. DeLuca III and his family own several companies, including four car dealerships and the Bank of New England, which together have 550 employees in New Hampshire and eastern Massachusetts. To obtain a better rate, Mr. DeLuca said, he switched this year to Harvard Pilgrim Health Care from Tufts Health Plan. The Tufts increase would have been 23 percent, he said, while Harvard Pilgrim?s was 19 percent.

?It?s out of control,? Mr. DeLuca said. ?The cost of living is barely going up 1 or 2 percent a year. But we and our employees have to absorb these huge increases in health insurance costs.?

Some insurance industry lobbyists say the new federal health care law is driving up premiums. But Vincent Capozzi, senior vice president for sales and customer service at Harvard Pilgrim, said that only one percentage point of the increases here was attributable to the federal law, mainly its requirement for free coverage of preventive services.

Another percentage point results from new state laws requiring coverage of hearing aids and certain treatments for autism, Mr. Capozzi said. Most of the remainder, he said, reflects increases in the use and cost of medical care by small-group customers, with adjustments for demographic characteristics like age.

In many cases, insurance coverage is shrinking as deductibles are increasing and choices of hospitals are more limited. Robert I. Woodland, the president of the Woodland Design Group, said his company had experienced double-digit increases in premiums for seven years, even as benefits were whittled back. Most recently, he was notified that the rates were being increased 43 percent, so the monthly premium for a single worker would be $550, up from $384.

?Essentially, we have been paying a lot more for a lot less,? Mr. Woodland said. ?It?s outrageous. I cannot imagine charging my clients 43 percent more in a single year.?

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