Moss Technology (Substitute Page)

The International Astronomical Union's 2,500 astronomers (representing 75 countries) gathered to decide the fate of Pluto and the results are in. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to demote Pluto from the ranks of the solar system's now 8 planets. The reason Pluto got demoted is because Pluto no longer fits the newly ratified definition of a planet. The new definition states that a planet is “a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ...nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.” Pluto is disqualified because it does not clear the neighborhood around its orbit since its orbit overlaps with its much larger neighbor Neptune. Instead, Pluto will be classified as a dwarf planet and be classified with the other dwarf planets.

Posted by tlmoss at 1:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

Over the weekend, Nvidia switched its old logo for a new one (in Moss Technology's opinion it isn't that big of a change) but this new logo design is not officially processed yet. The new logo is in all capital letters (NVIDIA), instead of the previous nVIDIA, but the company had changed the official trademark to all capital letters several years ago.

Posted by tlmoss at 2:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

NZXT was founded in 2004 as a company that sells cases especially designed for gamers. Many people want to build their DIY computers using Alienware cases, I admit it, I do too. The Apollo is as Alienware-esque you're go to get from a manufacturer that's not Alienware. Even thought NZXT is a new kid on the block, it designed kick-ass cases such as the Lexa and the Nemesis. Apollo is exception. Retailing around $69.99 USD, it pretty cheap, everything consider. The black part of the case near the top of the bezel is actually smoked acrylic, allowing LEDs to shine through, neat eh? The front I/O panel is on the right side and has two USB ports, a Firewire port, and audio jacks. The shiny piece of plastic right under the door is the power button (the reset button is behind the door). The black line between the power button and the smoked acrylic, is actually a hard drive activity LED, which is helpful. The case also features 5 external 5.25" drive bays, 1 external 3.5" drive bay and 4 internal 3.5" drive bays. It is cooled by two 120mm blue LED fans (actally they're a teal color), one located on the side and one in the back. The front intake fan in optional. On either side of the chrome slots on the bezel are two blue LEDs, click here for a hi-res picture. The Apollo case's bezel is kept closed by magnets. The case is made from SECC steel, which makes the case weigh a hefty 7.2 kg, without anything inside it. Overall the case is very study on the outside. Now for the inside. The Apollo comes with a standard full side window and a 120mm fan in it. Opening up the case was easy, just unscrew the two thumbscrews, and your in. The Apollo case is almost totally tooless, you can throw away your screwdriver once you installed your motherboard and PSU. Unlike some other vendors, NZXT's "tooless" design is actually tooless. Instead of clipping some plastic pieces to each end of your CD-ROM drive, you simply have to slide it in and move the black piece over until it clicks into one of the holes. Then you push down and it's good to go. This is an awesome way to secure you CD-ROM drives, but I don't see often enough. The only downside is the black clips are a bit large, but compared to the ugly tan-colored ones, these blacks ones are awesome. Motherboard installation was easy with the included manual. Installing a graphics card or a sound card is unbelievably easy, all you need to do, is push one of the black clips up (above). Once you do that, you can remove the metal guard and install the card. Once the card is in place, you snap this plastic piece back down to securely keep the card in place. Simple as that. Conclusion: the Apollo is everything that a good gaming case should be. The only knock against the case is that it does include a front fan, but for $69.99 USD, who cares? Anyway, cooling performance didn't suffer so I'm not complaining. The Apollo is currently the gaming case to have, and it even takes over the spot of the former case champion, the NZXT Lexa ;)

Posted by tlmoss at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments

Transgaming, a company that speciliazes in making programs that allow people to use Windows games on other platforms, introduced Cider this week. Cider is an application "wrapper" (that is, not realy an application) that allows Mac gamers to go out and buy games made for Windows and install it and play it in OS X, the same way as they would in Windows -- all the work is handled by Cider in the background. Cider works by translating API calls in real-time into code that OS X can understand. This includes all the features of the game such as 3D acceleration, sound etc. This will help developers a lot, and maybe save the computer gaming market (you can't really call it a "PC" gaming market anymore can you). TransGaming says that by bundling Cider with their Windows games, developers can make games for Windows and Apple users can simply go out, purchase those same games, and bring it home and enjoy it on their Macs. There's no need for developers to develop "Mac" versions of their games, which is time consuming and sometimes doesn't produce a profit. But, Cider only works with Intel-based Macs, sorry Apple "G" users. According to TransGaming:

Cider is a sophisticated portability engine that allows Windows games to be run on Intel Macs without any modifications to the original game source code. Cider works by directly loading a Windows program into memory on an Intel-Mac and linking it to an optimized version of the Win32 APIs. Games are simply wrapped up in the Cider engine and they work on the Mac. This means developers only have one code base to maintain while keeping the ability to target multiple platforms.

But users may see a performance hit ranging from 10 to 15 percent compared to the same game being played in Windows. Apple is expected to talk about the future of gaming on the Mac platform at its World Wide Developers Conference this week, for this is a big boost for Apple who might intergate Cider into future OSes, maybe even into Leopard, which is scheduled for Spring 07 launch.

Posted by tlmoss at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

Today was the first day of Apple's annual World Wide Developers Conference. The event usually comes with a host of announcements and product unveilings. This year's WWDC06 is one that's quite important for Apple because the company will be releasing a major operating system upgrade, by the name of Leopard. And I bet the next will Panther. Humph. What's with the cat species? Oh, well. Leopard will be Apple's most important upgrade so far because it includes a host of brand new features and not just some updates. For example, Leopard includes a new program called Time Machine, which can (as its name suggests) go back in "time". Basically if you delete something for good. (Emptied your trash with something important in it). You can go back in "time" with Time Machine to when you deleted it and then restore it, by clicking (duh!) the restore button. Dailytech's Tuan Nguyen went on to say that:

"Although Leopard does not appear to be scheduled for release in 2006, hopes are up. The new OS will integrate new desktop searching features competitive with other solutions such as Google's Desktop Search and the searching features being introduced with Windows Vista. Other notable features are VoIP integration and there has been talk about Leopard including geographical mapping features directly integrated into the OS."

Apple's new Mac Pro will be using two brand new Intel Woodcrest Xeon processors, (that's four frickin' cores!) which are basically rebadged Core 2's, but still...the Mac Pro is a monster with up two terabytes of storage and three videocards (optional). It can hold up to 16 GB of memory and has two 16x SuperDrives with double-layer support. The price will start at $2499.99 USD. I believe that Apple will be introducing a single-chip Core 2 Duo desktop line. And I think (considering Apple's current naming scheme) that it will called iMac Pro or something similiar, like just Mac.

Posted by tlmoss at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

The Xbox 360 has an enormous headstart over both the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3, but the 360 hasn't been sellin' well, Microsoft should've sold way more consoles then it has. Back to the Wii. The Wii may not be as "advanced" as the PS3 or the 360 but it has some very important things on its side. First of all, the Wii will cost around $200 USD (maybe a little bit less) which is $200 USD under the 360 (the $300 version of the 360 isn't worth it) and $300 less than the cheapest PS3. Plus, Nintendo's games have a habit of being cheaper too ($20 USD instead of $30-60 USD). And the Wii's backwards compatibilty (bc) rocks, while the 360's plain sucks (you can only play a 100 out of the 500 Xbox games out there), PS3's bc is unkown to me at the moment. Neither the Xbox 360 nor the PS3 has any catchy titles at the moment. But when Halo 3 hits the stores this Xmas, expect the 360s to fly off the shelves. It amazing how much Microsoft relies on Halo 3 to sell its consoles. Sony always relied heavily on third-party developers to make titles for its consoles, take the PS2 for an example, but a host of developers announced that they won't make any games for the PS3 because it's too expensive. A recent survey in Japan stated that 90% of the developers think that the PS3's price is to high. According to IBM, yields on the Cell processors were extremely poor, and that most Cell procs would ship without all eight cores working. According to IBM, some PS3 units will have 7-core Cell procs and some with 8-core Cell procs. Another ding against Sony. Sony has a lot of work to do this generation to keep its #1 crown. Gaming giant Electronic Arts has also been showing favoritism to the less expensive Wii when showcases its new games. BusinessWeek goes on to say:

EA announced six Nintendo Wii launch titles and showed long working demos for two of those. But it offered only a short clip of a car-racing game for PS3. EA says it's still testing the potential of the PS3. "Many developers think the console's initial high price will lead to slow sales and are holding off on creating games for Sony," Hamamura says.

And also the most noticable feature about the Wii its controller. Motion sensing isn't a new feature. It came out in, what, 1998. But Nintendo is the first company that actually makes it good. Also, the Wii has decent graphics at a much cheaper price. You can spend $$$'s that you saved on things that a gamer needs, games, chips, parties, you name it. If I had to chose, the Wii seems like the best bang for the buck right now.

Posted by tlmoss at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments

Gears of War sneaks ahead PS3 launch
Microsoft’s Richard Teversham has been sticking to the corporate line of attacking the PlayStation 3's price and pointing out the XBOX 360's clear price advantage and head start in the market. Teversham also noted that Microsoft had a few surprises in store to counter the mighty blow that will likely be thrown by the PS3. And to give a name to that counter offensive, it is Gears of War.

Microsoft confirmed that Epic Games' Gears of War will launch on November 12 in the United States; 5 days ahead of the PS3's November 17 launch. With Halo 3 still about eight months away, Gears of War is the best chance Microsoft has to keep the Xbox 360 afloat. And according to GamesIndustry.biz:

The company declined to state the obvious about the launch timing - preferring instead to remind us how many trade-show awards the game has picked up so far - but it's made no secret in the past of its desire to upset Sony's launch plans… Whether it's still "perfect" - as Gates envisioned the clash of Sony's next-gen console and Halo 3 - remains to be seen, but hype is certainly on Gears' side, and the game's likely to shift huge quantities amongst the Xbox 360 hardcore.

Posted by tlmoss at 5:56 PM | Permalink | Comments

Corsairs brand new HX620W
When I say brand new I mean it the dang thing came out yesterday! When the sample arrived from Corsair, the noticable thing about the PSU was the impressive glossy box. The presentation of the product was great as was the safety foam around the power supply. Talk about packaging, whew! Oh, well, enough talking about the cardboard and foam! Inside the box there was the PSU itself, which was encased in foam, a modular cable bag, a power cord, two plastic bags, and the owner manual. The modular cable bag contained 11 cables that can be used with PSU, but...only 7 of them can be used at once. The HX620W handled the FX-62 and X6800 very well. Plus, it is by far one of the most stable PSU's so far and it was one of the most energy efficent too. Idling around 208 watts and under full load it usedabout 485 watts. Bottom Line: the Corsair HX620W power supply features solid power rails and is one of the most efficient power supplies on the market today.

Posted by tlmoss at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments

The strony of Philips' plan to sell off its semiconductor business to focus on other businesses is quite long, so I'm going to skip it. This week, the bidding for Philips' semiconductor division has ended. Two firms, by the names Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Silver Lake Partners have reportedly won the war. The ending price is roughly $10.2 billion USD. The bidding war occurred between three groups of investment companies. While some in the industry were shocked at the initial announcement to sell by Philips, its large semiconductor division accounts for only 17%. Philips originally stated that the semiconductor business was simply too volatile, and that it wanted to focus on more high-margin businesses such as electronics for the health care industry and lifestyle industry. Sources indicate that Philips will be talking about the sale sometime next week. Despite the sale, Philips' semiconductor business actually had a rising year, raking in sales of $1.53 billion in Q2 which was 12 percent higher than the same period last year.Even though the semiconductor division performed well, it affected Philips' overall shares in a negative way because of investor fears about a down cycle in the semiconductor business.

Posted by tlmoss at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments

On July 24th, 2006, price cuts were announced that affected most of AMD’s product lineup excluding the Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 4400+ and 4000+ for s939 and sAM2, since they are soon-to-be discontinued products. Although Athlon 64 X2 4800+, 4400+ and 4000+ are EOL products, some distributors still have them in stock. Nevertheless, distributors decided to drop the the prices anyway. A new price sheet (left, click to in large) reveals new distributor pricing for the remaining 2x1MB Athlon 64 X2 processors. By Agust 27th distributors are expected to drop prices on Athlon 64 X2 4800+ and 4400+ s939 and sAM2 products to $266 and $224 respectively. Athlon 64 X2 models 4000+ will drop to $173 in the same time frame. The price cuts will be the last for the respective models as AMD has already sent out an EOL regarding the Athlon 64 X2 models.

Posted by tlmoss at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments

High-end memory maker, Corsair, made a big splash when it announced that it's going to jump into power supply market with two new power supplies. The new Corsair HX620W and HX520W power supplies feature enhanced modular cables. Corsair is throwing the new HX620W and HX520W at enthusiast gamers, workstations and file servers. Three +12V rails are present on the HX620W and HX520W. THREE. At a maximum 50 amps output rating on the HX620W and maximum 40 amps output rating on the HX520W. Both power supplies have two PCI Express power connectors and have been tested with ATI CrossFire and NVIDIA SLI system configurations. An engineer at Corsair at the bright idea of allowing you to only use the cables you need. So, you can take those extra useless cables hanging around in your case, and shove them into a drawer and forget about them. After that you can marvel (if you have a window on your case) how clean your case looks. Power supply cooling is provided by a single 120MM double ball-bearing fan for silent operation while keeping the ambient temperatures at around 50 degrees Celsius. Efficiency is rated around 80% with an active PFC and the MTBF is 100,000 hours. Corsair’s HX620W and HX520W power supplies are available immediately from various online retailers for around $169.95 and $119.95 respectively.

Posted by tlmoss at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

A keyless what? A keyless P-H-O-N-E! NEC's n6206 gets FCC (FCC stands for Federal Communications Comission for all you people who didn't know) approval. The phone looks like every other phone that ever came off the production line, except there is no keypad. NEC ditched the regular cellphone screen and opted for a touch screen to make the phone smaller. The phone supports all of the standard features users have come to expect. The n6206 has a 240x320 QVGA display, web browser, media player, handwriting recognition, as well as a camera, although the resolution of the camera is unknown at the moment. It is also unknown if any US carriers decide to pick up the phone, as the phone is mainly targeted at the Asian markets. Price and availability are unclear as well.

Posted by tlmoss at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments

It seems like the days of the PDA are over, they can't really compete with modern smartphones. In the last two years more and more people have moving away from PDAs to smartphones, which can do it all. The whole PDA market has been on decline since Q2 '05. Dell's sales alone dropped a whopping 34% in Q1 of 2006, while HP's dropped by 30%. DigiTimes reports that Dell has stopped its PDA development altogether and has diverted the funding to its notebook division. Dell's last all new PDA model came out in 2004 under the name of X50 Series, which was based on Windows Mobile 2003. A year later, the company released a minor update, the X51 Series, which was basically a X50 with a new name and the new Window Mobile 2005. While it's not surprising that Dell has seen a steady decline in the sale of PDAs, kind of odd that Dell hasn't taken the opportunity to create a smartphone based on the Windows Mobile 5.0 OS like the Motorola Q or Palm Treo 700p.

Posted by tlmoss at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments

ATI is also working on an interesting Core 2-compatible chipset, currently codenamed RD600. When ATI ships it in Q4 this year, it’s rumored that most RD600-powered motherboards will have three PCI-E x16 slots. The Intel D975XBX already has this type of physical slot configuration, but the RD600 will support more actual PCI-E lanes, so each slot will likely have more electrical connections. ATI’s goals with the RD600 will be to offer full-bandwidth CrossFire compatibility using a pair of PEG slots, with the third PCI-E x16 slot being used for an additional graphics card to handle physics calculations. ATI has been showcasing a system featuring three graphics cards in physics demos, so the rumors look true. The RD600 will be coupled with the upcoming SB600 southbridge and share many features and specifications with the currently available RD580, or the CrossFire Xpress 3200. This new chipset will, if the rumor circulating right now are true, support three graphics cards. THREE. ATI thinks that people are going go out and buy three ATI graphics cards just so that they can use one for physics. Intel will probably not pull Intel's chipset bus lisence, yet. So, RD600 is probably safe but RS700 due out sometime in '07 will be endangered. Special thanks to Dailytech and CPU.

Posted by tlmoss at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments

A Quantum Leap in Visual Computing

Powered by NVIDIA SLI and Quadro graphics technology the Quadro Plex 1000 is designed with advanced visualization capabilities such as 4K high-definition video, 3D styling and design, scientific and medical visualization, oil and gas exploration and visual simulation and training in mind. The Quadro Plex 1000 is available in a 3U rackmount or desktop configurations. Performance capabilities of Quadro Plex 1000 systems is rated for up to 80-billion pixels/sec, seven billion vertices/sec, resolutions up to 148 megapixels on 16 synchronized digital output channels and eight HD SDI channels. Three models are available—Model I, Model II and Model III. I not going to go over all the specifics but let me tell you that Model II is a behemoth; with two NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 X2s and 512MB of graphics memory per GPU, eight dual-link DVI outputs, Genlock/framelock, Frame Synchronization and 64x SLI FSAA. It will also accept an optional NVIDIA Quadro G-Sync module too. Quadro Plex 1000 Visual Computing Systems are compatible with x86 and x86-64 systems with Intel and AMD processors. Windows and Linux operating systems are supported. The Visual Computing Systems connect to systems using a PCI Express x16 interface with a 2M NVIDIA Quadro Plex Interconnect Cable. A 520 watt power supply provides power to Quadro Plex 1000 Visual Computing Systems. Quadro Plex 1000 Visual Computing System's acoustic performance is acceptable compared to all the horsepower your getting. Most of this article was written by Anh Huynh, not me. Pricing for Quadro Plex 1000 Visual Computing Systems start at $17,500.

Posted by tlmoss at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments