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Das Capitolin sends us to Benchmark Reviews for an in-depth feature on DDR3 memory that begins: "These are uncertain financial times we live in today, and the rise and fall of our economy has had [a] direct [effect] on consumer spending. It has already been one full year now that DDR3 has been patiently waiting for the enthusiast community to give it proper consideration, yet [its] success is still undermined by misconceptions and high price. Benchmark Reviews has been testing DDR3 more actively than anyone... Sadly, it might take an article like this to open the eyes of my fellow hardware enthusiast[s] and overclocker[s], because it seems like DDR3 is the technology nobody wants [badly] enough to learn about. Pity, because overclocking is what it's all about."

The Future of Things covered the introduction last month of HP's DreamColor display, with 30 bits/pixel, developed in conjunction with DreamWorks Animation. The display is aimed at the video production, animation, and graphic arts industries. HP promises blacker blacks and whiter whites — though TFoT quotes one source who notes that if they deliver this, it will be due to the back-lighting and not to the number of bits/pixel. No word on the size of the displays that will actually be delivered, or on the price.

babyshiori writes "The NVIDIA Quadro family of professional graphics cards are very, very expensive. But many people know that Quadro and GeForce graphics cards are virtually identical in hardware. Obviously, you cannot just use Quadro drivers with your GeForce graphics cards. However, there is an easy way to soft-mod an NVIDIA GeForce desktop graphics card into an NVIDIA Quadro professional graphics card. Tech ARP shows us just how to do it. 'It all revolves around the driver support for professional 3D applications like 3ds Max or Maya. Quadro drivers allow the Quadro to be used to accelerate the rendering operations of such professional 3D applications while GeForce drivers do not. This is the basis for the premium prices NVIDIA (and ATI) charge for their professional-grade graphics cards.'"

Crtic2 writes "It has been known for months that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, originally conceived by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, is opening an office in Australia. Now that the news has gone mainstream, questions arise as to why? In an interview with iTWire, OLPC Australia board director Jeff Waugh provides some answers and says why Microsoft Windows has no role. http://www.itwire.com/content/view/18143/1023/"

KrispyDollars writes "It sounds crazy to say this, but the XP-based version of the Eee PC 900 (the new version with the 8.9" screen) will actually be considerably cheaper than the Linux-based version. At the official launch today, the company told journalists that 'Microsoft has been a longstanding supporter of Asus' to explain the price discrepancy. And — get this — only the XP-based machine will be sold at mass-market retailers, while the Linux-based model will be consigned to computer stores."

J. Dzhugashvili writes "Reviews of new graphics cards are a dime a dozen, but you don't see many that factor price into the equation. That's just what The Tech Report did in its latest piece, which ranks today's latest and greatest graphics cards and multi-GPU configurations from $150 to $1500 based on how much performance they provide for your dollar. The results may surprise you: TR found that GeForce 9600 GT SLI dual-card configs offer singularly good value, even taking into account the usual caveats of multi-GPU setups. The results also show Nvidia beating rival AMD cards senseless from the value perspective, both in single- and multi-GPU tests."
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14686

Mike writes "As if the Zune wasn't already crippled and unpopular enough, now comes a story indicating that Microsoft may build a 'Copyright Cop' into every Zune. A future update of the software for Microsoft's portable media player will likely include a 'feature' that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it. The president of digital distribution for NBC, J. B. Perrette, said the plan is to create 'filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.' Of course there's no way to tell legitimate content that you create from 'non-legitimate' content, so this looks like just another nail in the coffin of the Zune." Update: 05/08 20:50 GMT by T : From Microsoft employee Cesar Menendez comes this categorical denial of any such filtering mechanism.

Roland Piquepaille writes "The California Energy Commission is funding a research effort named CAPPS, short for California AUAV Air Pollution Profiling Study. CAPPS will use autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (AUAVs) to gather meteorological data as the aircraft fly through clouds over Southern California. The goal is to study smog and its consequences as well as better understand the sources of air pollution. The first flights started in April 2008 and data collection will continue until January 2009. But read more for additional references and photos of these autonomous unmanned aircraft."

Lucas123 writes "David Roberson, general manager of Hewlett-Packard's StorageWorks division, predicts that by 2013 the storage industry will be shipping a yottabyte (a billion gigabytes) of storage capacity annually. Roberson made the comment in conjunction with HP introducing a new rack system that clusters together four blade servers and three storage arrays with 820TB of capacity. Many vendors are moving toward this kind of platform, including IBM, with its recent acquisition of Israeli startup XIV, according to Enterprise Strategy Group analyst Mark Peters."

leoboiko writes "I'm a computer scientist and programmer with no training whatsoever in hardware or electronics. Sure, we designed a simple CPU (at a purely logical level) and learned about binary math and whatnot, and I can build a PC and stuff, but lately I've been wanting to, you know, solder something. Make my own cables, understand multimeters, perhaps assemble a simple robot or two. Play with hobbyist-level electronics. How does one go about educating oneself in this topic? I've been browsing Lessons in Electric Circuits online and it's been helpful, together with Misconceptions About 'Electricity' which went a long way in helping me finally to grok what electric charge and power actually are. I've reached the point where I want an actual dead-tree book, though. Any recommendations?"

gundar99 writes "Rock Port Missouri, population 1,300, is the first 100% wind-powered city in the US. Loess Hill Wind Farm, with four 1.25-MW wind turbines, is estimated to generate 16 gigawatt hours (16 million kilowatt hours) of electricity annually. 13 gigawatt hours of electricity have historically been consumed annually by the residents and businesses of this town."

Pig Hogger writes "If you're stuck with a cheap Canon point-and-shoot camera and have feature envy over the neighbor's sophisticated latest model, fret not! According to this LifeHacker article, the CHDK project allows nearly complete programmatic control of cheap Canon point-and-shoot cameras, enabling users to add features, up to and including games and BASIC scripting."

miller60 writes "Web servers hosting musician Peter Gabriel's web site have gone missing from their data center. "Our servers were stolen from our ISP's data centre on Sunday night — Monday morning," reads a notice at PeterGabriel.com. The incident is the latest in a series of high-profile equipment thefts in the past year, including armed robberies in data centers in Chicago and London. How secure is your data center?"

A hopeful anonymous reader writes "It looks like Splashpower (Or what is left of it anyway) was purchased by the company behind eCoupled. Hopefully this means that interoperable wireless power is one step closer to reality as two of the companies trying to comercialize the technology are now the same." (US readers, read "administration" as "bankruptcy.")

schliz lets us know about research out of Princeton on melting away defects on microchips using a laser. The new technique, termed Self-Perfection by Liquefaction (SPEL), was published in the May 4 issue of Nature Nanotechnology. Researchers have traditionally approached chip defects by trying to improve the microchip fabrication process, but this eventually reaches fundamental physical limits to do with random behavior of electrons and photons. By focussing on fixing defects, the new method enables more precise shaping of microchip components, and engineers expect to dramatically improve chip quality without increasing fabrication cost. The before-and-after images are remarkable. Here's a diagram of how the process works.

Ian Lamont writes "Google is so worried about Verizon Wireless's commitment to open access using the 700Mhz spectrum that it has asked the FCC to get a pledge from Verizon that the carrier will honor the FCC's open-access conditions before the FCC sells it the band. Verizon won the auction for the nationwide C block of the 700MHz spectrum, but Google points to Verizon's alleged attempts to abandon the conditions, including a filing with the FCC which said the commission 'could not force the C block winner to allow all applications on the network.' Could this be another expanding front in the Net Neutrality battle, or is it time for the carriers to accept the fact that Net Neutrality is essentially a done deal, and carriers need to prepare for the next battle — developing software and services to run on open networks?" The IP Democracy blog has Google's filing (PDF) and the following comment from Verizon: "Google's filing has no legal standing."

Engadget recently had the chance to review some high-end gear from SteelSeries. While they may be a little on the pricey side, it seems that both the Ikari laser mouse and the 7g keyboard received favorable reviews. "The Ikari laser mouse they announced last year is particularly great, with a built-in processor and sensitivity settings to allow for a customized and precise sensitivity setting in a plug-and-play setup particularly suited to professional gamers. Settings are easy to work, and the actual sensitivity and response of the mouse easily outclasses our prior mousing experiences. New to the market is the SteelSeries 7G keyboard, which is making its debut on Monday the 5th. The keyboard is fully mechanical, with no-click switches that give it a much stronger, smoother tactile feel, while simultaneously catering to gamers by registering half presses. The keyboard weighs a ton thanks to the heavy-duty iron-infused plastic and the gold electronics, and is quite capable of handling abuse. We grew up typing on heavy-duty keyboards, and this is easily the best one we've used this decade -- though the $150 pricetag also makes it the most expensive outside of the Optimus Maximus."

NewScientist is reporting that further research is progressing on new types of user input devices. Specifically, "gaze gaming," a technology that promises faster interaction using only your eyes. Currently technology for sight-based interaction is far too slow for practical applications in things like gaming. "Eye-gaze systems bounce infrared light from LEDs at the bottom of a computer monitor and track a person's eye movements using stereo infrared cameras. This setup can calculate where on a screen the user is looking with an accuracy of about 5 mm."