[H]ard|OCP

Which Google Projects Will Bite the Dust?

ComputerWorld asks the question “which Google projects will bite the dust?” Well, are we taking any bets? Should we start a pool or what? If that's the case, I got $5 on Google Checkout biting it in the second round of cuts.

Thanks to the recession, Google has begun killing projects that haven't made it financially, with CEO Eric Schmidt warning the company will eliminate "dark matter" projects that "haven't really caught on" and "aren't really that exciting." Two are already on the chopping block, with more to follow.

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NVIDIA Renaming Desktop & Mobile GPUs

According to VR-Zone, NVIDIA is giving their desktop and mobile GPUs a name change. The crew at VR-Zone was digging around in a recent driver package and found the following:

It appears Nvidia is carrying out the rebranding of their GPUs on both desktop and mobile front as VR-Zone has learned from the recent releases of the Forceware drivers. On the desktop front, there are GeForce GTS 150 based on G92, GeForce GT 130 based on G94, GeForce GT 120 based on G96 and GeForce G100 based on G98. On the mobile front, there are GeForce GTX 180M and GTX 170M based on G92, GeForce GTS 160M based on G94, GeForce GT 130M and G 110M based on G96 and GeForce G 105M based on G98.

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Idiotic Gift Ideas For The Holidays

You know, this list of gifts for “people on the go” wouldn’t be so bad if it was meant to be a joke…but it wasn’t. Recommending that you give someone a full size coffee maker for their car is retarded. The toaster oven and popcorn maker are just as bad.

Would you like some coffee in the morning but don’t feel like stoping at Dunkin Donuts. No problem! There is a full size coffee machine you can use in the car that boils and filters coffee. Are you hungry and in the mood for some pizza or maybe some fresh popcorn?…The popcorn popper and pizza/toaster oven for the car will take care of that too. All of these appliances can be powered by the cigerette lighter.

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

Cases & Modding

Tagan A+ El Diablo Advance @ Overclockers Club

Memory

Elixir DDR3-1600 PC3-12800 4Gb Kit @ CPU3D

Power Supply

BFG MX-550 Power Supply @ Hardware Secrets

Video

ATI FirePro V8700 Workstation Graphics Card @ HotHardware

Chrome Crushing The Bugs

The latest version of Chrome has stomped out some of the bugs but others still remain. Google’s new browser, like all browsers in their early stages, needs a little more work. It is just a matter of time until they track down most of the nasty bugs and squash em’.

Google on Wednesday night released the new version 0.4.154.31 of its Chrome browser to bash a bug that bit me by blackening the new big-screen version of Street View. Indeed, I no longer get the problem. Now if the company could get its Google Earth browser plug-in to work with Chrome, it would look more like Google's right hand is cooperating with its left hand.

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Tesla Owned By The Tango

I could’ve sworn that someone told me the Tesla was fast. Well, apparently it isn’t as fast as those ugly-ass Tango electric cars. I don’t mind getting beat in a drag race but damn man, this had to be downright humiliating.

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Intel Holiday Giveaways

Intel is feeling mighty generous this holiday season, not only are they running the “What’s Inside You” contest we told you guys about last week, they are also holding a few other contests.

The second contest is easy-peasy, just guess the number of reinvented transistors Intel has shipped since the beginning of the year. The closest guess wins a $500 Amazon gift certificate.

The third contest is a collaboration with Ubisoft. The two companies have teamed up to give you the chance to win one of 50 Far Cry 2 PC games and one CoreTM i7-965 Extreme Edition each day from now until December 31st.

AMD Updates Fourth Quarter Outlook

AMD today announced that it expects revenue from continuing operations for the fourth quarter ended December 27, 2008 to be approximately 25 percent lower than third quarter 2008 revenue of $1.585 billion, not including process technology license revenue. The decrease is due to weaker than expected demand across all geographies and businesses, particularly in the consumer market. AMD will report fourth quarter 2008 results after market close on January 22, 2009. AMD will hold a conference call on this day for the financial community at 2:00 p.m. PT to discuss fourth quarter results.

Gaming News

Fable II: Knothole Island Screenshots @ VE3D

Games for Windows - LIVE 2.0 Installer @ FileShack

Killzone 2 Early Impressions @ Joystiq

Midway Stock Tanks Following Clearance Sale @ Kotaku

Star Wars: Force Unleashed DLC Now Available @ Shacknews

ASUS M3A78-T Motherboard - 790GX Chipset

Our evaluation of the ASUS M3A78-T motherboard sporting the new 790GX chipset is online today for your viewing pleasure. If you are an overclocker with an older Athlon 64 X2 processor, this board might be what you are looking for.

If you are about to buy a new AMD motherboard, this one showed great overclocking prowess on the front side for older Athlon X2s. Maybe we will see the same with Phenom II CPUs.

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Rockstar Responds to GTA IV PC Issues

Rockstar has responded to the slew of bugs found in the PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV. Shacknews has also posted a lengthy list of error codes and what they mean.

Following reports of game-breaking problems with the recently-released PC version of Grand Theft Auto IV, publisher Rockstar has issued a statement, acknowledging that it is "aware that a small number of fans are having problems running GTA IV."

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[H]ardware Round-Up

Cooling

Xthermal BTF120PRO Cooling Fan @ Hardware Bistro

Memory

Cavalry 32gb 2.5" Solid State Drive @ Fusion Mods

Motherboards

MSI DKA790GX Platinum Motherboard @ Viper Lair

Video

Asus My Cinema-U3100Mini TV Tuner @ Overclockers Club

WWII Shooter For The iPhone

I’ll be the first to admit that the new Brothers In Arms: Hours Of Heroes for the iPhone looks pretty damn good for being an iPhone game. Here’s a link to the original story and the video:

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iPod Shortage: Just a Marketing Ploy?

Is the supposed ‘iPod shortage” just a marketing ploy? Doesn’t matter, whether it is real or not, the mere mention of a shortage always causes a feeding frenzy during the holidays. It works with everything else, why not the iPod?

Wu checked his retail sources and found that Amazon.com, Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart have all been experiencing shortages of the popular iPod Touch, Nano, and Shuffle models. Wait times for certain models on Amazon range from three weeks to two months.

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AMD Issues Fourth Quarter Warning

AMD has issued a fourth quarter warning saying it anticipates lower than expected revenues.

The chip maker expects to post revenues of $1.19 billion in the quarter ending Dec. 27, excluding process technology license revenues. That's 25 percent lower than its third quarter performance. When the company reported its third quarter results in October, the chip maker had issued a forecast that its fourth quarter revenues were expected to be flat with that performance.

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The World's Worst Way to Market Linux

I am not sure why the author of this article is surprised that cyber café owners are being charged $725 for Linux, we are talking about the Chinese government after all.

What's not to like? It's estimated that China has an 82% software piracy rate. Getting businesses to go legal with a native Chinese Linux sounded like a win to me. Until, I saw the Red Flag Linux price tag: 5,000 yuan, that's $725 U.S. That's way over the line for a small Chinese business.

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Malware That Targets Firefox Only

I know a lot of you use Firefox so I wanted to pass this news item on to you guys. The malware sits in your add-ons folder and runs when Firefox is started and registers itself in the browser's system files as Greasemonkey.

The malware uses JavaScript to identify more than 100 financial and money transfer Web sites, including Barclays, Wachovia, Bank of America, and PayPal along with two dozen or so Italian and Spanish banks. When it recognizes a Web site, it will collect logins and passwords, forwarding that information to a server in Russia.

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gOS On Video

The crew at EeePC News have posted a video of gOS today for your viewing pleasure. The site requires a translator but the video is in English.

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Random [H] Sighting

It would seem that the Blackberry Storm is so [H] that when you get more than two dozen of them together at one time they form themselves into a giant [H]. Thanks to Laleet S. and his brother for todays random [H] sighting!

Several Top-10 PC Vendors To Cut Order By 50%

According to DigiTimes’ anonymous sources, several top-ten PC vendors including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Asustek are expected to cut their ordering volume in half by Q1 2009. While the numbers above reflect the desktop PCs and notebooks, the sale of netbooks is expected to actually go up.

HP is planning to cut orders by around 50%, Dell 50-60%, and Acer and Asustek 40-50% each. The sources pointed out that they originally thought that HP and Dell were trying to lower their costs by combining orders together and outsourcing to just a few makers, but after confirming with other channel sources, it became clear that the two vendors have actually significantly reduced their orders.

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New Age of Parallel Computing Starts Today

Intel, Microsoft and UC Berkeley are celebrating the opening of the Parallel Computing Laboratory. The lab is designed to foster creativity by encouraging spontaneous interactions between faculty and students in parallel computing applications, software engineering, programming languages, libraries, testing, operating systems and computer architecture. Parallel computing has become essential to enhancing program performance and satisfying the increased demands for power efficiency and small form factors. This lab helps address the challenge ahead bringing the benefits of multi-core processing based on tens or hundreds of cores to mainstream developers and consumers.

Microsoft Takes Action Against “Blue Edition” Software Scheme

Microsoft Corp. today announced legal actions around the world against online auctioneers who allegedly orchestrated international marketing schemes and sold counterfeit software to unsuspecting customers. Legal actions were announced against auctioneers involved in numerous schemes, including the alleged fraudulent sale of so-called “Blue Edition,” counterfeit Windows XP software and illicit software components on online auction sites. In one case that demonstrates how global the trade-in fake software has become, counterfeiters in New Zealand allegedly sold counterfeit they obtained in China to customers in six countries.

Antique Radio PC Mod

This is easily one of the nicest PC mods I have seen in a long time. The retro styling and top notch craftsmanship make this HTPC something anyone would be proud to have on display in their home. Kudos to "slipperyskip" for a mod well done.

Spread The Word, Not The Worm

In today’s installment of “spread the word, not the worm” we have a worm that pretends to be from a familiar company with an attached coupon. Again, we know you guys wouldn’t fall for this but we all know people that would.

Security vendor WebSense issued an alert warning that holiday coupon e-mails from familiar companies may be malicious code in disguise, in this case a mass-mailing e-mail worm. The warning cites one spoofed McDonald's e-mail that claims to present their latest discount menu, and asks the recipient to print out the attached coupon.

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Google Avoided Antitrust Suit By Three Hours

Whoa, talk about dodging a bullet! It looks like the U.S. Department of Justice was only three hours away from smacking Google with an antitrust suit over its search deal with Yahoo before the company abandon the agreement.

"We were going to file the complaint at a certain time during the day," Litvack said in the interview. "We told them we were going to file the complaint at that time of day. Three hours before, they told us they were abandoning the agreement."

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

Cases & Modding

Antec Micro Fusion Remote 350 @ ASE Labs

ETC.

Belkin SOHO KVM Switch with Audio and DL DVI @ PCPer

PC Buyer's Guide Christmas 2008 @ Guru3D

Video

XFX GeForce GTX260 Black Edition @ InsideHW

Sparkle GeForce 9800 GTX+ @ MadShrimps

Hard Drive Shipments Slumping?

Market research firm iSuppli says that hard drive shipments could drop next year with the exception of SSDs, which they say will skyrocket over the next few years.

At the same time, iSuppli is estimating that solid state disk (SSD) drives shipped over the next year will leap 6x from 3.2 million this year to about 18.9 million next year and will produce $1.4 billion in revenue in 2009 compared to $163 million this year. By 2012, iSupply is estimating SSD sales will produce $9.3 billion in revenue from 88.6 million units shipped.

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Is Technology Rewiring Our Brains?

Scientist seem to be worried that technology is rewiring our brains. Wait, rewiring it in a good way or a bad way?

What does a teenage brain on Google look like? Do all those hours spent online rewire the circuitry? Could these kids even relate better to emoticons than to real people? These sound like concerns from worried parents. But they're coming from brain scientists.

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Cyber Monday Spending Up 15%

Analyst predicted a dismal Black Friday and boy were they wrong. Analyst said the same about Cyber Monday and once again, they were very, very wrong. Not only were sales up fifteen percent, it turns out that Cyber Monday was the second biggest day of online shopping ever.

"Consumers are clearly responding positively to retailers' aggressive online discounts," ComScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni said in a statement. "With Cyber Monday promotions beginning in earnest over the Thanksgiving weekend, consumers have finally begun to open their wallets, setting off a streak of four consecutive days of extremely strong growth..."

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Gaming News

Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena Trailer @ VE3D

Far Cry 2 PC Patch Coming @ Shacknews

F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin Engine Movie @ FileShack

Nintendo Game Contains Racial Slur @ Kotaku