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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Could this finally be the perfect iPad accessory?

If you?ve used an iPad then you know how frustrating it can be to find just the right way to hold it. Whether you?re laying in bed, kicking back on a couch or sitting at a desk, nothing seems to work exactly as it should. Many attempts have been made to create accessories to solve the problem, but none of them have looked quite as promising as the meglio.

Where meglio is different is in the fact that it has so many uses. With a single attachment, you can go from having your iPad sitting comfortably on a desk, to being held securely in your hand or hanging on your treadmill during your morning workout. What?s more? It?s cheap. With iPad accessories coming near the $100 mark on regular occasion, meglio?s $40 price tag is welcome.

Want to get involved, there?s a Kickstarter project going on for meglio right now, and it needs a boost. Help get it funded and you?ll be one of the first to get your very own meglio as soon as they?re produced.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2011/03/05/could-this-finally-be-the-perfect-ipad-accessory/

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Videos: inside and outside Google's self-driving car

Five months ago, Google announced it had developed technology for cars that can drive themselves. Now, the company has decided it is ready to show off at least some of the fruits of its labor.

At this year's TED conference in Long Beach, California, attendees are getting a full-on demo of the technology. Search Engine Land has the full story.

Here's a video from the inside:

Here's a video from the outside:

As you can see, the demos are on a close course. The cars can reportedly drive sans drivers on regular streets, with a route computed by GPS. The search giant has previously said the system has driven automatically from San Francisco to Los Angeles with great success.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/42687-videos-inside-and-outside-googles-self-driving-car.html

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Without Loan Giants, 30-Year Mortgage May Fade Away

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage loan, the steady favorite of American borrowers since the 1950s, could become a luxury product, housing experts on both sides of the political aisle say.

Interest rates would rise for most borrowers, but urban and rural residents could see sharper increases than the coveted customers in the suburbs.

Lenders could charge fees for popular features now taken for granted, like the ability to ?lock in? an interest rate weeks or months before taking out a loan.

Life without Fannie and Freddie is the rare goal shared by the Obama administration and House Republicans, although it will not happen soon. Congress must agree on a plan, which could take years, and then the market must be weaned slowly from dependence on the companies and the financial backing they provide.

The reasons by now are well understood. Fannie and Freddie, created to increase the availability of mortgage loans, misused the government?s support to enrich shareholders and executives by backing millions of shoddy loans. Taxpayers so far have spent more than $135 billion on the cleanup.

The much more divisive question is whether the government should preserve the benefits that the companies provide to middle-class borrowers, including lower interest rates, lenient terms and the ability to get a mortgage even when banks are not making other kinds of loans.

Douglas J. Elliott, a financial policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, said Congress was being forced for the first time in decades to grapple with the cost of subsidizing middle-class mortgages. The collapse of Fannie and Freddie took with it the pretense that the government could do so at no risk to taxpayers, he said.

?The politicians would like something that provides a deep and wide subsidy for housing that doesn?t show up on the budget as costing anything. That?s what we had? with Fannie and Freddie, Mr. Elliott said. ?But going forward there is going to be more honest accounting.?

Some Republicans and Democrats say the price is too high. They want the government to pull back, letting the market dictate price, terms and availability.

?A purely private mortgage finance market is a very serious and very achievable goal,? Representative Scott Garrett, the New Jersey Republican who oversees the subcommittee that oversees Fannie and Freddie, said at a hearing this week. ?No one serious in this debate believes our housing market will return to the 1930s.?

Still, powerful interests in both parties want the government instead to construct a system that would preserve many of the same benefits, with changes intended to minimize the risk of future bailouts. They say the recent crisis showed that the market could not stand on its own.

?The kind of backstop that we have now, if it didn?t exist, we would have had a much more severe recession and a much sharper fall in home values,? said Michael D. Berman, chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, which represents the lending industry.

Hanging in the balance are the basic features of a mortgage loan: the interest rate and repayment period.

Fannie and Freddie allow people to borrow at lower rates because investors are so eager to pump money into the two companies that they accept relatively modest returns. The key to that success is the guarantee that investors will be repaid even if borrowers default ? a promise ultimately backed by taxpayers.

A long line of studies has found that the benefit to borrowers is relatively modest, less than one percentage point. But that was before the flood. Fannie, Freddie and other federal programs now support roughly 90 percent of new mortgage loans because lenders cannot raise money for mortgages that do not carry government guarantees.

One prominent investor, William H. Gross, the co-head of Pimco, the major bond investment firm, has estimated that he would demand a premium of three percentage points to buy such loans ? a cost that would be passed on to the borrower.

Proponents of a private market want the government gradually to withdraw its support, allowing investors to regain confidence. They argue that interest rates would eventually settle into roughly the same patterns that held before the financial crisis.

Some supporters of government backing also like the idea, believing that it will demonstrate the need for a backstop.

?I myself am eager to see whether there needs to be a guarantee,? said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, a crucial Democratic voice on housing issues.

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=ee3d0fd2e63bdad027ff8b58208436a9

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Thoughts on The Arctic Cooling GCM

This isn?t really a review, and I can?t label it as such, if only because Arctic Cooling?s GCM isn?t really the type of device we usually cover. Still, when it landed in the office I just couldn?t help myself. It looked so cheap and nasty that the other guys in the office recoiled from it in melodramatic disgust. I had to write about it.

You?ve seen gizmos like the GCM before, probably. It wouldn?t be out of place on the prize rack of a fairground attraction, or in a machine at that really run-down arcade that your parents never let you go to. The packaging is emblazoned with bold claims that try to sell the GCM to you on a sheer value factor ? 80 games in 1? Wowee! ? all of which strengthens the impression that it?s going to be rubbish.

But, hey, at least it comes with its own Arctic Cooling batteries!

Of course, you can tell from the moment you turn it on and first hear those tiny, tinny speakers squeak into life that the 80 games it offers are going to be terrible; the lowest, cheapest emulations of the franchises and games that the creators feel they can get away with. You know that they?re going to be full of simplistic knock-offs at best, if they work at all.


Still, if you?re anything like me, you can?t help but hope a little. Maybe one of those games could actually be quite good, eh? Or maybe it?ll be just entertaining and cheap enough for it to be worth shoving the GCM into the bottom of your rucksack and keeping it for an absolute last resort ? those times when your DS, PSP, iPod Touch, Gameboy Color and mobile phone are all out of battery life. And your solar charger is broken. And you?ve not got a book. Then the GCM might sputter its way towards usefulness, maybe.

As soon as I picked up the GCM, however, all these ideas scuttled out of my head and it suddenly dawned on me what the others knew intuitively ? that there is no way the GCM could ever be good at anything, ever, for whatever reason. It?s too light and flimsy to even make a good paperweight, too bulky to fit into a pocket and too flimsy to feel satisfactory in your hands.

The GCM seems to sum up everything bad about mass production; vomited onto the market thoughtlessly and crudely because ? and I'm guessing this is the extent of any executive approval it might have received ? ?someone must want to buy this crap.?

And, seriously, it?s so badly made and designed that it makes broken glass look like a solid product. The sensitive Reset and Main Menu buttons are on the shoulders, right where your fingers normally rest. Even the screen rattles.


And the games? Sheesh. There are 80 of them, but they're all even worse than you might have feared ? mostly boring one-button affairs with no depth or excitement, in which bland Mii-like avatars drift floatily around boring backgrounds and respond to your button presses after a half-second delay. There are a few titles in the mix, such as the obligatory Breakout clone and Schmup, which work OK, but even they lack enough lustre or speed to encourage more than the first five-minute fiddle.

Most of the included games don?t even work, in fact. The GCM has got more bugs than an ant farm, and it crashes regularly too. One time I tried to boot up Jet Girl, one of the less obnoxious titles in the Racing Games category, but got nothing more than a 12 second loading screen followed by a burst of numbers running across the screen. A moment later the Fencing game loaded up instead. In French.

The GCM is really a joke, and its punchline must be the price. £40 for this pile of cheap, worthless trash? It?s one thing for the GCM to fulfil expectations by turning out to be a poorly built and cheaply produced pocket-toy full of games you wouldn?t play if you had to. It?s something altogether to charge such an outrageous RRP ? you could have a nice meal for two for the cost of this bloody thing!

As I predicted earlier, the GCM is indeed the type of product you?d expect to see in an oversized gumball machine outside a hairdresser in the bad part of town. No wonder this isn?t a proper review; there just isn?t a score low enough.

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Corsair releases USB 3.0 upgrade kit for Obsidian cases

If you've purchased a high-end motherboard in recent months, it's likely outfitted with USB 3.0 support -- but is your case? Probably not. Besides spanking new models, most desktop chassis still come with USB 2.0 ports on the front panel, and that includes Corsair's Obsidian 700D and 800D. Both $270 full-tower enclosures ship with the dated USB spec and that undoubtedly discourages some enthusiast shoppers, especially since competing cases such as the HAF X have the new interface.

Hoping to remedy the situation, Corsair has released an inexpensive "USB 3.0 upgrade kit." For $14.99, Obsidian 700D and 800D owners can replace their existing I/O panel with one that swaps two of the 700D/800D's USB 2.0 ports for USB 3.0. The new panel carries two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, an IEEE 1394 connector, as well as stereo and microphone jacks. As a reminder, the front panel USB 3.0 ports must be plugged into USB 3.0 ports on your motherboard or expansion card.


"Our Obsidian Series cases are designed and built to last through years of system builds and upgrades, and our customers are on the leading edge of technology and of USB 3.0 adoption," said Ruben Mookerjee, VP and General Manager for Components at Corsair. "We are pleased to provide an upgrade kit that allows Obsidian Series owners to bring a USB 3.0 port to the front of the case, making it easier to connect USB 3.0 devices." You can purchase the kit directly through Corsair's site.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/42675-corsair-releases-usb-30-upgrade-kit-for-obsidian-cases.html

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Angry Birds for Android tops 30 million downloads

Angry Birds milestones don?t seem very hard to come by these days, the game is so popular that its creators have no problem generating another piece of publicity for the multi-platform game.

It has emerged that on Android smartphones alone, Angry Birds has surpassed 30 million downloads since its launch in October. The ad-supported app initially hit Android handsets in beta, topping 1 million downloads in two weeks, with the main release passing 5 million downloads in the month of December.

In the same month it was noted that the ad-supported version of the game was generating an impressive $1 million a month. Judging by how quickly the franchise has grown on the Android platform alone, Rovio could have easily generated over $5 million in advertising from its Android app to date.

Factor in the fact that Rovio has said 40% of new Angry Birds users now utilise the $0.99 ?Mighty Eagle? in-app purchase to assist them with difficult levels, Rovio is bringing in the green-tinted bacon.

Rovio has indicated it will release a paid version of its app for Android users who wish to play the game without in-game advertising. The paid app is expected to launch later in March, with a download price still unknown.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/03/04/angry-birds-for-android-tops-30-million-downloads/

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TwitFooter spruces up your email signatures with tweets

Adding a personalized signature to your emails is not only aesthetically pleasing, it?s also useful for advertising and gaining followers. Email signatures allow you to passively offer your contact information, website and social profiles to anyone you communicate with via email.

A Canadian-based startup has developed a Twitter tool called TwitFooter that displays tweets in the footer of your email signatures.

Users can setup TwitFooter to post either random tweets, the latest tweets, or just the Twitter bio. It works by copying a code from TwitFooter into the place you normally edit your email signature. It works without having to install any software, all you need to do is authorize it on Twitter.

TwitFooter
If you?re a blogger or content creator this tool could be useful because TwitFooter will post your latest articles (through tweets) within every email you create. It also features statistics that track inbound clicks from emails.

TwitFooter is a free tool that supports Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and Outlook 2003 & 2007.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/ca/2011/03/04/twitfooter-spruces-up-your-email-signatures-with-tweets/

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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.

Powered By WizardRSS.com | Full Text RSS Feeds | Amazon WordPress PluginHud 1 Settlement Statement

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

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Less Drama in White House After Staff Changes

But since William M. Daley took over two months ago, and David Plouffe succeeded David Axelrod as communications chief, the decision is made early ? and it sticks.

The new team that Mr. Obama has assembled to run the White House is just starting to make its mark. But together Mr. Daley and Mr. Plouffe are bringing a new order and a different management style for different times, say people within the West Wing and others who deal with them. The White House is more disciplined and less personality-driven, more focused on long-term strategic goals and less consumed by the daily messaging skirmishes with Republicans ? even when that means absorbing hits and pulling punches.

Unlike Mr. Emanuel, the idea-a-minute dynamo who would dart from floor to floor trying to control matters mundane and major, Mr. Daley, a seasoned former executive and a commerce secretary in the Clinton administration, has streamlined the operation and is more likely to keep to his office door closed and to delegate to subordinates. The big matters, however, demand his full attention. On Wednesday, Mr. Obama directed Mr. Daley to help negotiate a deal on spending cuts with Republicans on Capitol Hill.

?Rahm very much needed to do it all,? Mr. Daley told a group of reporters last month. ?And I don?t have that need.?

Mr. Plouffe likewise is less available to reporters and party officials and keeps his office television turned off ? to tune out the daily distractions of cable TV?s political play by play. Where Mr. Axelrod was an unabashedly sentimental true believer in the Obama brand, Mr. Plouffe, who managed Mr. Obama?s 2008 campaign, is a stoic, by-the-numbers master of organization.

Mr. Daley and Mr. Plouffe declined to be interviewed on the record, in contrast to their accessible and often-profiled predecessors. White House aides and outsiders who work with them asked not to be quoted by name in discussing how the new team is affecting the administration?s inner workings. And most said they did not want to imply criticism of Mr. Emanuel or Mr. Axelrod; the White House makeover, they emphasized, reflects a response to factors beyond personalities.

With two years of experience, Mr. Obama and his aides had ideas about how to do things differently. The president?s agenda is smaller; initially, his need to fulfill ambitious campaign promises and respond to the economic crisis demanded the tactical and legislative savvy that Mr. Emanuel had as a former member of Congress and senior adviser in the Clinton White House.

And Mr. Obama faces a new power dynamic: instead of leading an all-Democratic government, he heads a divided one in which neither he nor the Republican majority in the House can accomplish much without compromise.

?Times are different,? Mr. Daley said last month in the round table with reporters, hosted by Bloomberg News.

Nonetheless, staff members describe a happier workplace with clearer lines of authority and less fear of being chided by the often brusque Mr. Emanuel. Responsibility for communications and messaging has been consolidated. Cabinet members who were often overlooked in the past say they are more in the loop. With Mr. Daley taking the lead, there is more outreach to Republicans and business groups.

And the overhaul of the West Wing continues. On Wednesday, administration officials said they were doing away with the White House health care office as well as the coordinator for energy and climate change policy ? the energy czar job that had been held by Carol M. Browner until her recent resignation ? with responsibility for those issues now going to the Domestic Policy Council.

Yet aides also said some energy and dynamism departed with Mr. Emanuel, and much of the idealistic passion of the 2008 campaign left with Mr. Axelrod and some of the other Obama veterans, including the press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who was replaced by Jay Carney, formerly the spokesman for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and before that a reporter for Time.

Nowhere have the changes been more evident than in the administration?s early actions in what is likely to be a long-running, contentious and politically defining debate over the chronically imbalanced federal budget.

The strategic shift is clear from the design of Mr. Obama?s own budget proposal ? which critics slammed as not going nearly far enough to shrink projected deficits, but which the administration intended as a bid to draw the Republicans into negotiations ? to the White House?s muted reaction to the House Republicans? plans for the deepest domestic spending cuts in memory.

White House officials say the goal is to achieve a long-term victory ? by bagging a budget deal, or the credit for trying ? not to win each day?s news cycle. On two successive weekends, for example, the White House passed up chances to score points against the House Republicans.

Last Saturday, Mr. Daley addressed Democratic governors who were meeting in Washington and did not even utter the word ?Republican,? let alone throw partisan red meat by lambasting the House Republicans? proposed cuts in education, health services, border control and other programs important to financially struggling states ? a purposeful omission, officials said.

Similarly, a week earlier when the House approved those cuts by a party-line vote before dawn, the White House remained silent, though many of Mr. Obama?s priorities would be slashed.

Frustrated Democratic lawmakers and interest groups have been railing to White House aides that Mr. Obama is forfeiting opportunities to draw the public?s attention to what the Republicans? cuts would mean for programs popular with most voters, including the coveted independents. The aides respond that the time will come for Mr. Obama to join the attack, should Republicans press their agenda and refuse to compromise.

?One of the lessons of the last two years is that if the president weighs in all the time, it?s less impactful,? said Dan Pfeiffer, who remains as the communications director. ?But if he weighs in at a moment of his choosing when the public is paying attention, it will be more influential.?

Similarly, the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama?s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.

Administration officials said they saw the events beyond Washington as distractions from the optimistic ?win the future? message that Mr. Obama introduced in his State of the Union address, in which he exhorted the country to increase spending for some programs even as it cuts others so that America can ?out-innovate and out-educate? its global rivals.

Mr. Daley and Mr. Plouffe illustrated the administration?s fealty to that message on Tuesday. Mr. Daley, as usual, spoke to the business audience, addressing via videoconference a Florida meeting of the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Plouffe met with the executive council of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.

The events were not advertised by the White House and were closed to the news media. But a White House official said the two men?s message was the same: Win the future.

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Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=471bb242c9fccee6c9ea8472153d884f

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