http://www.blazingpc.com/forum en Tue, 07 Sep 2010 18:24:12 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/images/styles/mech/misc/rss.jpg http://www.blazingpc.com/forum http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21261&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:50:28 GMT This unique keyboard can't overcome major flaws

There’s a lot of history behind the Phantom lapboard (and its ill-begotten console progenitor) but we don’t need to go into that. What you do need to know is that the Phantom lapboard is essentially a wireless keyboard on a hinge. You can (and must) lock it into an angled position to use the mouse on the surface below and to the side of the keyboard. Now, this raises a question: Do you like typing on a keyboard that’s locked at a significant angle to the natural plane of your hands? Of course you don’t.

The hinge only locks to one position. Hope you like that angle!
Also, about that mousing surface. It’s really slippery, and so is the mouse. And it doesn’t have any sort of lip on it. So if you’re thinking about relaxing on the couch and using the Phantom in any sort of natural position, forget about it. The second you take your hand off the mouse to type something, that sucker’s clattering to the floor.
The keys don’t have a lot of click to them, but the keyboard is otherwise all right. Phantom Entertainment is advertising that the board has 13 hotkeys, but this is sort of misleading, as they’re actually referring to the media-player commands bound to the 12 function keys, none of which are programmable.
The mouse that comes with the Phantom Lapboard is a shiny black, pebble-shaped affair with an incredibly floaty scroll wheel with a clicking mechanism that makes it difficult to perform a single middle-click. Also, the mouse features no additional buttons, which makes it a hard sell as a gaming mouse.
The bottom line is that this thing is bad. The mouse isn’t good for gaming, the angled keyboard is awful for typing, and for media playback you’d do much better with a slimmer wireless media keyboard with a built-in trackpad or ball, which are available for significantly less than the Lapboard’s $140 asking price.
Phantom Lapboard

Phantom of the Opera

Keyboard spins 180 degrees to accommodate lefties; a real mouse and keyboard on your lap.
Starlight Express

Angled typing sucks; subpar mouse doesn’t stay put; high price tag.



More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21261 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21260&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 17:50:28 GMT For this week’s installment of Old School Monday (but actually a Tuesday because of Labor Day) we’ve got a little HTPC Before-and-After. The After,... For this week’s installment of Old School Monday (but actually a Tuesday because of Labor Day) we’ve got a little HTPC Before-and-After. The After, of course, is our recent feature on how to build the ultimate 3D home theater PC. You should check out the article, but the long and the short of it is that we set up a beast of a system, able to play video in 3D, play and record up to 4 TV channels at once, and stream pretty much everything under the sun from the internet.
So what’s the Before? It’s this beauty, from The October 1996 issue of Boot (our predecessor):

In 1996, the idea of a living room PC was still on shaky footing. The article cites a survey that says half of adults would be interested in TV/PC hybrid, but as we know that market never quite materialized. High-end TVs are becoming more computer-like, with web-enabled overlays and widgets, but the real incursion of the computer into the living room is coming via PC-like consoles and inexpensive streaming boxes.
Still, it's an interesting bit of perspective, so check it out:






More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21260 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21259&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:41:16 GMT Origin today unveiled "The Big O," the company's latest gaming rig that's as orgasmic (from a hardware standpoint) as it sounds. Not only will The Big O get frisky with any PC games you throw at it, but it also tosses monogamy out the window and pulls double duty as an Xbox 360 gaming console.
A baseline config includes a Danger Den Tower 21, Intel Core i7 930 processor overclocked to 4GHz, Rampage III Extreme Edition motherboard, two Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 graphics, 6GB of Corsair DDR3-1600 memory, two 50GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSDs flanked by a 2TB Western Digital hard drive, 1500W Silverstone PSU, Creative Fatal1ty soundcard, fan controller, LED lighting, liquid cooling all around, and of course Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. This little gem will set you back $7,700.
Upgrade options abound, and every Big O gaming PC comes with a liquid-cooled Xbox 360 slim console built in. Origin says you can even game on the Xbox 360 while your PC is busy dong whatever it is you have it doing, like Folding@Home, downloading torrents, ripping DVDs, etc.
Image Credit: Origin



More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21259 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21258&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 16:41:16 GMT Asus' G73Jh series notebooks already had the gaming chops for gamers looking for a desktop replacement, which was largely the result of the AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5870 graphics chip inside. Fresh out of the factory, however, are new models sporting Nvidia's Fermi-based GTX 460M graphics.
Both the ROG G35JW (15-inch) and G73JW (17-inch) models come with the upgraded graphics with 1.5GB of onboard GDDR5 (the Mobility HD 5870 shipped with 1GB). According to Asus, these are the first machines to sport Nvidia's mobile Fermi part.
Other than the graphics, the specs are mostly the same, including up to an Intel Core i7 820QM processor, up to 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory, up to a 750GB 7200RPM hard drive, Blu-ray options, 8-in-1 memory card reader, 2MP webcam, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, and so forth. The new models also ship with a USB 3.0 port, which wasn't included with the previous gen units.

Image Credit: Asus



More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21258 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21257&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 15:32:48 GMT Sony appears to be fighting a losing battle in preventing users from jailbreaking their PlayStation 3 consoles. In a recent Australian court ruling... Sony appears to be fighting a losing battle in preventing users from jailbreaking their PlayStation 3 consoles. In a recent Australian court ruling, a judge made permanent a previous ban on the distribution of the PSJailbreak dongle only to watch the software code behind a similar hack released for free into the wild. Naturally, Sony responded with a minor firmware update blocking these bits of code from working their mojo, but it's an ongoing cat and mouse game at best.
What we find most interesting, however, is how insanely easy it is to jailbreak a PS3. This is Sony's flagship console, after all, yet users have been able to jailbreak the device with everything from a Palm Pre to a calculator.
That's right, we said a calculator. Gizmodo has put together a collection of clips showing various devices cracking the PS3, and one of them includes the above mentioned hack (known as PSGroove) run from a TI-84. Pretty rad, no? Check it out below.



More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21257 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21256&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:28:08 GMT It's pretty rare that a company apologizes for a marketing mishap and offers to make it right. Just look at the Vista capable lawsuit, or more recently, Apple's lame attempt at addressing the iPhone 4's antennae issue (Hey dude, you're holding it wrong. Here's a free case, but did I mention you're holding it wrong?).
Little nuggets of public regret just don't happen very often, so kudos to Gigabyte for backtracking on its "HyperMemory" marketing, and shame on them for doing it in the first place. HyperMemory is Gigabyte's fancy term for combining its graphics cards' onboard memory with a user's system memory. That's all fine and dandy, but where the confusion sets in is when the box advertises 1GB of memory, when really the videocard only ships with 512MB; that other 512MB is shared with from your system RAM.

"Taiwan's unclear retail packaging labels for Gigabyte 'HyperMemory' HD 5670 graphics card may have caused some confusion among buyers," Gigabyte said in a statement. "Gigabyte apologizes fo any inconvenience caused. In order to better our product label descriptions, Gigabyte will indicate the actual amount of onboard memory size on the retail box for every model equipped with 'HyperMemory' technology."
But what about for users who where already burned, namely GV-T67HM-1G1 owners?
"Gigabyte assures that this model has never been available elsewhere, and has thus been banned from selling since the end of August. Owners who have purchased this model in Taiwan are able to return or refund this product until the end of September."
As our watchdog used to say, "Woof!"

Image Credit: PCDVD.com.tw (forum member "mannywood")



More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21256 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21255&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 14:28:08 GMT We've been pretty critical over Intel's decision to delay the adoption of USB 3.0, thus ensuring another generation of USB 2.0 products before we step forward to the faster the spec. Unfortunately, Intel's move appears contagious and we've received word that several IC makers are delaying the rollout of USB 3.0 chips too.
These include Taiwan-based IC design houses ASMedia Technology (a subsidiary of Asus), VIA Labs (a subsidiary of VIA), and Etron Technology, plus one U.S.-based firm, Fresco Logic. All four design houses had grand plans of implementing USB 3.0 chips onto motherboards by the end of 2010, but none of them have yet passed certification by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF).
According to some Taiwan-based motherboard makers, IC design houses have been sending out buggy USB 3.0 samples that are basically unusable. The challenge for these chip makers comes not only in terms of hardware, but in developing their own software since Windows 7 doesn't natively support USB 3.0.
It's not all bad news, though. NEC continues to supply USB 3.0 parts, like the ones found on boards built around AMD's 890FX chipset, and Intel is reportedly slapping the SuperSpeed spec onto its upcoming Cougar Point chipset for desktops using Sandy Bridge CPUs. These could ship as soon as November.

More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21255 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21254&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:20:51 GMT Listen, we're not looking to spark a debate over marijuana, so let's not get sidetracked in the comments section. But no matter where you stand on the issue, we can all probably agree that texting your local sheriff looking to score a bag of weed is a dumb idea.
"Hey Dawg, do you have a $20 I can buy right now?," a teen from Helena, MT sent out in a text message.
In his haste to get high, the teen texted the above message to the wrong number, and out of all the wrong numbers he could have sent that message too, it ended up going to Sheriff Leo Dutton, who initially thought it was a joke.
"I'm thinking, 'Hey this is odd,'" Dutton said. "I was looking around to see if there was someone outside my window playing a prank."
There wasn't, so Dutton enlisted the help of the Missouri River Drug Task Force and set up a sting to catch the teen. It worked, with Dutton getting the parents involved. No citation was issued.
The moral of the story? Double check those digits before texting.

More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21254 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21253&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 13:20:51 GMT Gamers looking to upgrade are in for a treat this Halloween, as both Nvidia and AMD are gearing up to release new videocards... Gamers looking to upgrade are in for a treat this Halloween, as both Nvidia and AMD are gearing up to release new videocards in October.
Nvidia will launch is latest GeForce 400 series parts, including the GeForce GT 430 (GF108) around the second week in October. According to reports, you can expect this part to perform somewhere in between a GeForce GT 240 and GT 220.
On the other side of the graphics tracks, AMD will launch its Radeon HD 6700 series, the first GPUs to drop the ATI nomenclature outright. Among these new cards will be two GPUs codenamed Barts XT and Barts Pro, which will replace the Radeon 5770 and 5750 in the mainstream market.

More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21253 http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21252&goto=newpost Tue, 07 Sep 2010 07:43:05 GMT Worried that Duke Nukem Forever will come out, and then Duke Nukem Foreverer will launch just as the sun collapses and devours the earth and all ... Worried that Duke Nukem Forever will come out, and then Duke Nukem Foreverer will launch just as the sun collapses and devours the earth and all that you hold dear? Well, no worries there, since 3D Realms has relinquished its Duke Nukem privileges. (Also, happily, you’ll be long dead before the sun ever goes Pac-Man on our humble little power planet, so hooray for that too!) From this point forward, Borderlands developer Gearbox will be handling all things Nukem – not just Forever.
“Fifteen years ago, Duke Nukem 3D helped launch my professional video game development career,” said Gearbox boss Randy Pitchford. “The Gearbox Software team and I are ecstatic that we have grown to a position to be able to pick up and carry the torch and help Duke rise back to glory in his time of need. Fans of the legendary hero and all the incredible talent that have ever helped him all deserve the very best support that we can bring.”
So, everyone wins, right? Well, mostly everyone. Surely 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard – the man who pumped mountains of his own money into Forever – can’t be entirely thrilled that someone else is signing their name on his handiwork. Well, shows what we know, because he also thinks the franchise is in good hands.
“Gearbox was the only home appropriate for the Duke Nukem brand. Their vision for its future direction is exciting and unbelievable. I personally cannot wait for fans to see their unique take on the franchise. This will be a win-win situation for everyone involved, especially the fans,” Broussard said in a press release.
What’s this odd sensation? Is it… optimism? For Duke Nukem? The thick layer of ice that once coated our cold hearts has finally melted, it would seem. The reason? Hope, perhaps. Or maybe global warming. We really hope it’s that first thing, though.

More... ]]> News Pages News Guy http://www.blazingpc.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21252