For the past year or so, gamers have been in a tough spot. There have been options for those who want decent DirectX 9 performance, but newer games are more demanding and some of the affordable cards in the sub-$300 price range aren't delivering great experiences anymore. Then there's DirectX 10. DX10 games are finally starting to show up in force, and the newest ones like Crysis and Hellgate: London show marked improvements over the DX9 mode.

The performance hit for DX10 is usually pretty strong, and the only cards that can run these games in DX10 mode at a decent clip cost $300-$500. Most gamers want a Radeon 2900XT or GeForce 8800 GTS, GTX, or Ultra, but they can't afford it. Those cards are very large and suck down a lot of power, as well. The sweet spot is $200-250, where cards aren't over 10" long and don't devour so many watts that you need a new case and power supply just to operate them. For a year, there has been no viable option in this price range for the latest and greatest DX10 graphics cards.

Until now.

Full Story @ ExtremeTech

Read full story…

Read Original Post Here

Technical Writing Geek writes with a Reuters story about a collection of privacy groups looking to set up a ‘Do Not Track’ list online, similar to the ‘Do Not Call’ list meant to dissuade telemarketing. “Computer users should be notified when their Web surfing is tracked by online advertisers and Web publishers, argue the Consumer Federation of America, the World Privacy Forum and the Center for Democracy and Technology, among other groups in a coalition promoting the idea. Rather than burying privacy policies in fine print, companies should also disclose them more fully and provide easier ways to opt out, the groups said. The organizations submitted the proposals to the Federal Trade Commission, ahead of the consumer watchdog agency’s workshop on Nov. 1-2 to study the increasing use of tracking technology to target online ads.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read Original Post Here

Today, on the last day of our 10 year anniversary navel gazing spectacular, I present the final (thank god!) chapter in my 4 part history of Slashdot. I’ve written about the creation, the explosion, and the corporatization. Today I talk about where we are today, and what I see as our future, and how I feel about it. Clicky click the magic link below to read the last “thrilling” chapter, and celebrate with me the fact that I won’t have to spend this much time writing about Slashdot for another decade.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read Original Post Here

Glenn Fleishman writes “Apple has changed its license for Mac OS X Server 10.5 (Leopard Server) to allow virtualized instances. VMware and Parallels are poised to offer support. This probably presages a thoroughly overhauled Xserve product with greater capability for acting as a virtual machine server, too. ‘Ben Rudolph, Director of Corporate Communications for Parallels, told me, “Enabling Leopard Server to run in a virtual machine may take some time, but we’re working closely with Apple on it and will make it public as quickly as possible.” Pat Lee, Product Manager at VMware, concurred, saying “We applaud Apple for the exciting licensing changes implemented in Leopard Server. Apple customers can now run Mac OS X Server, Windows, Linux and other x86 operating systems simultaneously on Apple hardware so we are excited about the possibilities this change presents.” Although neither company committed to specific features or timetables, it appears as though we should be seeing virtualization products from both that will enable an Xserve to run multiple copies of Leopard Server in virtual machines.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read Original Post Here

It's official! Midway has issued a press release stating that Unreal Tournament 3 has gone gold.

Midway and Epic today announced that Unreal Tournament 3 has gone to gold master for the PC. Developed by the team behind the critically acclaimed video game Gears of War, Unreal Tournament 3 is currently scheduled to ship in North America on November 19th for the PC with a suggested retail price of $49.95 and $59.95 for the collector's edition. The PlayStation 3 version will follow soon. Unreal Tournament fans can get a taste of the compelling first person shooter by checking out the previously released single-player trailer below, or download the beta demo.

Mark Rein adds that the game should ship in Europe on the 22nd.

Full Story @ BeyondUnreal

Read full story…

Read Original Post Here

Intel announced on Wednesday its line of Itanium products for high-end computing servers. Code-named Montvale, the chip is an update to Montecito, the dual-core Itanium 2 chip that was launched in July last year, Eddie Toh, regional platform marketing manager of the Server Platforms Group for Asia-Pacific at Intel, said in an interview on Monday. Originally due in 2006, the launch of Montvale has been held up until now. Like Montecito, the new Itanium chip is based on a manufacturing process with circuitry dimensions of 90 nanometers, and has two processor cores.

Montvale, also known as the Itanium 9100 processor series, ships in seven iterations consisting of six dual-core chips and a single-core chip, Toh said. Comparing Montvale to the existing Itanium 9000 processor series, Toh said the new chip has three new features. The first new feature–core-level lockstep–is said to strengthen the Itanium platform's support for mission-critical applications, as it "improves the data integrity and reliability of applications by eliminating undetected errors in the core". Coupled with the existing socket-level lockstep technology, the core-level lockstep feature enables "greater reliability, availability, and serviceability by guaranteeing that calculation results are consistent among the cores and sockets", Intel said.

Full Story @ News.com

Read full story…

Read Original Post Here

MagicTweak is a special program designed to optimize and personalize Microsoft Windows. It provides one-stop, instant access to a variety of Windows settings that can be altered for a friendlier Windows environment.This unique software makes it easy to tweak hundreds of hidden settings in Windows Vista/2003/XP/2000/Me/98, so there is no longer any need to dig through the registry looking for that specific setting (from the Start Menu, Desktop, Internet Explorer, System Icon to System Security) that just doesn't seem to be there.With the ability to customize almost any aspect of Windows, you can become a Windows expert instantly!

Read full story…

Read Original Post Here

FixYourThinking writes “After nearly one and a half years of harassment from a relentless attorney, it seems that quietly a blogger in South Carolina has won a monumental ruling in favor of bloggers. In a summary judgement requested by the Defendant, Philip Smith was able to obtain a special sanction after the Plaintiff attorney put a ‘notice of lien’ (called lis pendens) on Smith’s residence. The judge also reprimanded the Plaintiff attorney for abusive deposition and court procedure. The case set forth the following; ‘It’s not the format; it’s the content and intention that make text journalism / reporting.’”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read Original Post Here

From Brisbane to Beunos Aires… From the UK to France to Romania… from New York to San Francisco and everywhere in between, we had well over 100s of parties and over 2,300 registered attendees scattered around the world. Many of them got boxes of t-shirts and ThinkGeek gift certificates (and some of them even got them on time). We’ve seen cakes with legos and logos, we seen nerf gun fights, and even a lawn sporking. I’ve put a tiny sampling of my favorite pictures online. The grand prize winner is of the $1k store credit at ThinkGeek is Lindsi from Minneapolis. Their party featured a lolcats cake, a taco bar and a dude in a helmet smashing computers with a sledge hammer in a raining parking lot. They earned it. We had a great time in both Palo Alto and Ann Arbor- I hope you guys had fun wherever you gathered. See you again in 2017!

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read Original Post Here

AugstWest writes “Unfortunately it’s in separate projects, but just after Jim Mallon (the man who owns all things MST3K) announced that he would be bringing back Tom Servo, Crow and Gypsy in animated Flash shorts on the web along with Paul Chaplin (a writer from the original MST3K), Joel Hodgson, the series creator, has announced that he will be launching a new venture called Cinematic Titanic. It will feature horrible movies riffed by the original cast of MST3K, including Josh Weinstein (the original Tom Servo), Trace Beaulieu (the original Crow), Frank Conniff (TV’s Frank), Mary Jo Pehl (Pearl Forrester) and, of course, Joel himself. They’ve already got the rights to 12 movies, and will be releasing one a month starting in December for DVD purchase or download.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read Original Post Here