Vista successor has a name

The project previously codenamed "Vienna" is now... Windows 7!! Let's see... Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98, ME, XP, Vista. Yep, that's six, so the next would logically be seven. Good thing the folks over at Microsoft can count. Of course, 7 probably won't be the actual release name. At least I hope not. 7 is slated to be out around 2010, just three years after Vista. Not much news on new features yet. It looks like MS is back on their more regular launch schedule for new operating systems.

Geekout.tv's Favorite Freeware #2

CCleaner

Developer: Piriform

Formerly known as CrapCleaner, this app is one of my personal favorites. Not only does it have a catchy and honest name, but it works great too. CCleaner is a fantastic and easy way to get rid of all that Windows and internet gunk that builds up in your computer over time.

It cleans Windows temp files, IE, Firefox, and Opera browsing history and temporary internet files, and can even get rid of traces of recently opened documents in windows and many popular 3rd party programs. Plus, it has a registry cleaner built-in that can automatically back up your registry in case something bad happens. The best part is how fast it runs though. Normally about 2 seconds for file cleaning, and around 10 seconds for registry cleaning for me. That's blazing compared to Norton Systemworks. CCleaner does pretty much everything Systemworks does, and it's $40 cheaper! And, it's compatible with every version of Windows from 95 to Vista, except Windows XP 64-bit.

So if you need to free up some disk space, or if Windows is just feeling sluggish, and you want to spruce it up a little bit, try out CCleaner. This is the best and easiest cleaning app I have ever used.

Download CCleaner

There's also a portable version you can run straight from

John Carmack poo-poos PPUs

John Carmack, co-founder of id Software, co-creator of industry defining video game titles such as Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3d, DOOM (and its sequels), and Quake (and its sequels), and whose graphics engines have been used in games such as Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Half-Life, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and many others, spoke on his belief in the unimportance of Physics Processing Units (PPUs) which are dedicated physics processors for the PC. At the moment Ageia's PhysX card is the only PPU on the market. Current hardware can't handle the computational load that complex physics calculations place on the CPU. PPUs are there only to handle physics calculations, similar to how a graphics card takes the load off the CPU for graphics rendering. Carmack believes that future multi-core CPUs should easily be able to handle these types of physics calculations. ATI/AMD and nVidia also have plans in the works to use additional graphics cards as physics processors in the future, though it would require 2 or more graphics cards in a system.

I would tend to agree with Carmack on this one for three reasons. First, because he is a freaking genius, and he knows what he's talking about. If Carmack says PPUs are unnecessary, he's probably designed a system with his newest graphics engine, or a future prototype, to circumvent the problem. Second, at the rate that CPU and GPU technology is increasing, I don't think realistic physics will be a problem before long, with Intel coming out with 8 core CPUs here in the next couple years. Third, the market for these kinds of add-in cards is very small. The hard-core gamer who needs everything looking spectacular on a 30" monitor is about 1% of the total computer user market, and maybe 5% of the gaming market. These are the people that shell out $1,000 for dual graphics cards, $700 on a CPU, 4GB of RAM, etc... That doesn't leave a lot of opportunities for sales for companies like Ageia. The casual gamer with a mid-range graphics card, a gig or two of RAM, and a $100 CPU, who plays their favorite games 2 or 3 days a week, isn't going to shell out $300 more on a card that just makes physics better. This is the large majority of gamers. These types of people care more about the fun factor of the game, not so much the eye candy.

I know I won't be buying one of these PPUs anytime soon. I don't game nearly as much as I used to anymore, and I'd rather wait until nVidia and ATI/AMD get their physics processing technologies out. I'd rather have 2 graphics cards with 1 set of drivers, than a graphics card and a physics card, each with their own drivers. Fewer different devices and fewer drivers leads to less complications and headaches, which is just fine with me. :)

source: Engadget

AMD Q2 financial stats released

AMD posted their financial earnings and losses for the 2nd quarter of this year on July 19th. Total revenue was $1.378 billion, up from $1.216 billion in this quarter of 2006. Unfortunately, increased revenue was offset by increased expenses, and AMD's net losses totaled $600 million this quarter, despite a 38% increase in CPU shipments.

AMD's rival, Intel, reported their Q2 earnings just the day before. With a revenue of $8.7 billion, and net income of $1.3 billion for the quarter.

source: Dailytech

My take:

So AMD has had 2 consecutive quarters of fairly large losses. $611 million in Q1, $600 million in Q2. That's pretty bad for a company that brings in a total revenue of just above $1 billion per quarter. A lot of talk across the geeky areas of the interweb the last 6 months or so has been centered on AMD's financial troubles. The Intel camp sees this as the demise of AMD as a company, probably to be bought out by a large corporation like IBM. The AMD fanboys (which I am sometimes) are quick to point out Intel's anti-competitive practices, such as giving OEMs like HP and Dell large price cuts on CPUs if they didn't buy AMD CPUs. Of course, that has obviously been stopped recently, as about half of all HP PCs are equipped with AMD CPUs, and Toshiba, Dell, Acer, and Gateway/Emachines all use some AMD CPUs in their systems now.

In my opinion, this is definitely a bad time for AMD, but by no means is it the end. At the moment, Intel is almost 2 generations ahead technologically, but AMD hasn't put out a truely new product to compete with the Core 2 Duo in a long time. That will hopefully change later this summer with the launch of Barcelona. If Barcelona flops, or AMD can't get production up quick enough, they will certainly be bleeding red financially by the end of the year.

But will AMD be allowed to die? Would the US gov't, and the governments of the world allow Intel to snatch up AMD's market share to add onto the 70%+ market share they already have. AMD is Intel's largest and pretty much only competitor in the microprocessor market, and they have a lowly ~20% market share. My prediction, if AMD's financial woes continue, is this... I can see a situation similar to the Chrysler bail-out by the US gov't back in the 80's. Maybe AMD won't be saved by our gov't, but someone will do it. The US gov't saw the danger to the economy of losing one of three major auto builders. Of course, cars were the country's big booming business back then. Now computer technology is, and now there are only two major players instead of three. Giving Intel a market with essentially no competition would be horrible for consumers around the globe. They would have no reason to pour huge amounts of money into Research and Development. They would have no price wars to make their products affordable to the average consumer.

Let me tell you a story, if you'd care to listen for a bit.

The Pentium 4 processors were a good example of what could happen in this sort of market. Intel didn't see AMD as a threat in the market. At the time, they weren't much of a threat. Most of their CPUs were barely competitive with the new Pentium 4. Intel reused the same architecture (Netburst) for several generations of CPUs, adding small tweaks and features here and there. Netburst could scale to huge frequencies, up to 3.8ghz (not counting overclocking; some of these CPUs could hit 7ghz on exotic cooling like liquid nitrogen), but they were horribly inefficient. They were power hungry. They were so hot the higher end models almost required water cooling to run optimally. Intel ramped up the frequencies, and the populace began to believe that higher numbers meant always better. People shelled out big money for these Pentium 4 processors because they were told by Intel that a higher number followed by "ghz" was better. Then a few generations later, along comes AMD with its Athlon XP processor. Not anything amazing, but a worthy competitor performace-wise to the P4. But nobody notices. Then AMD becomes the first to market with a 64 bit CPU, the Athlon 64. Again nobody notices. Why? Intel has outmarketed and hypnotized the computing population with higher numbers. The numbers were higher, but the performance wasn't. A 2.0 ghz Athlon 64 is the equal of and even marginally better than a 3.2 ghz Pentium 4. Slowly AMD starts gaining market share on Intel. The wool is pulled off the consumers' eyes. At the release of the Athlon 64, AMD is sitting at ~15% share. By 2005, they're up to ~28%, their highest ever. Intel is finally taking notice. They realize they can't shove their outdated Netburst architecture down the throats of consumers anymore. People have realized that AMD CPUs are faster, produce less heat, provide longer battery life in laptops, and are just generally better. Over the last year or two they've dumped their savings into R&D on a new architecture, and in a short amount of time, leap three generations technologically over their own current CPUs, and are suddenly back on top.

This tells me that they believed that they were the king of the hill because their marketing machine was holding their old technology on top. When AMD started digging the hill out from under them, they finally saw that they had some real competition, and kicked things into high gear. This scenario would play itself out again if Intel no longer had any competition for real.

Anyway, that's enough ranting for tonight. I tried to be as little of an AMD fanboy there as possible.

Right now, Intel is on top because they have a superior CPU. If I had money, I would probably have a Core 2 Duo, or Core 2 Quad. I tend to go for the best bang for the buck, because I'm a broke college student, and I enjoy overclocking. But I will always root for AMD, because for several years, they have provided superior technology at a lower price than Intel. And I like rooting for the underdog. It keeps things interesting.

More Toy War Madness!!

Surfing the web tonight, I found another amazing toy that would be so much fun to have around. The Blimp Bomber! Now not only can you have tank and helicopter battles, you can drop bombs from on high with your radio controlled blimp! It drops light plastic bombs, to avoid hurting anyone, but this could still be hella fun. Just imagine flying this around at a LAN party around 3am, and dropping a bomb on the guy at the next table who has passed out on his keyboard, or in Justin's case, on a church pew up the hall.

source: Coolest Gadgets

Geekout.tv's Favorite Freeware #1

Good day geeks! Today I'd like to introduce another section of Project Silicon, the Geekout.tv Favorite Freeware. I'll be writing my own reviews of our resident geeks' favorite programs that cost absolutely nothing! And no, pirated software doesn't count as freeware. Piracy is illegal. These programs are legally free. Some are open source. Some help with internet browsing, some clean your computer of junk. These are the programs we use on a daily basis that make our lives easier. They will all always have 2 things in common though. They're free and they're absolutely awesome! I'll also give you a brief glimpse into why each of our geeks who use that particular app love it.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is literally the best thing to happen to the internet since broadband. Web browsing has never been safer, easier, or more fun than with Firefox. It is nearly infinitely customizable and works on pretty much any computing platform from Windows 98 to Vista, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Security:

Firefox blows Internet Explorer 6 from Microsoft out of the water as far as security goes. IE6 is riddled with more security holes than your favorite jacket after hunting with Dick Cheney. Security in the newer IE7 is pretty much on par with Firefox, but falls short in other categories. Most security holes discovered in Firefox are fixed within 48 hours. Using IE6 is just asking for a few spyware infections. I've been using Firefox for a couple years now, and I only get myself infected when I visit sites I know are risky to visit. Firefox stops a lot of the junk, but can't get it all. It does a very good job for a 100% free browser. Plus there are extensions that will increase your browsing safety even more, but we'll get into that later.

Tabbed Browsing

Gone are the days of having four different IE windows open to view different websites. With Firefox you can have one browser window open, and still view several websites at a time. Tabbed browsing is probably Firefox's most loved and often overlooked feature. IE6 doesn't have tabs. IE7 does now, but they just don't work quite as well as in Firefox. Tabbed browsing makes surfing so much easier, on your sanity, and system resources. It irks me to no end to have to use IE6 when I work on an older PC for a customer at work. It just makes me want to scream sometimes.

Extensions

Extensions are what make Firefox so customizable. Extensions let you add features that aren't already built into Firefox. Anything from a weather forecast in the toolbar, integration of your favorite audio player, and even extensions that will display daily quotes, to apps to help build and edit websites, block ads, and even help you blog! Someone has probably created an extension for anything you can think of. One of my favorites is AdBlock Plus. It helps get rid of the really pesky banner ads, and allows you to block the ones you don't want to see that it doesn't already block. And for those annoying flash ads, there's Flashblock! You can literally turn Firefox into anything you want, or leave it alone and just browse the net in peace.

Here's what some of my fellow geeks have to say about why they love Firefox:

Cody: "I love that Firefox is multiplatform (Win32, OSX PPC & Intel, Linux) and that you have the ability to bloat it into oblivion with extensions, but I only use one regularly, which would be Adblock Plus."

Eric: "I use Firefox for all my internet needs.
- Skin is Noia:2.0.

Extensions:
- Delicious Tags. Lets me tag webpages with the click of a button.
- Google Tool bar for Firefox. Lots of handy links to Google services.
- Google Notebook. I can save stuff to a notebook. So instead of copying and pasting lots of text. (say i'm looking at product descriptions doing some comparative shopping) I can highlight a bunch and 'note this' to save some text or photos. Very handy."

So there you have it. Firefox is the bomb. And best of all, it's free! Stay tuned next week for more of our favorite freeware! Feel free to send me some of your favorite freeware too. I'll try em out if I don't already use em, and write a review.

If you'd like to download Firefox, it can be found at Mozilla.com.

Awesome new Logitech webcams!

Before the end of this month, Logitech will be launching a new duo of webcams featuring Carl Zeiss Tessar lenses. This is similar to what Sony's higher end digital cameras pack, namely the W, T, and H series cameras. Sony W series cameras are simply amazing. The Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 and Quickcam Pro for Notebooks will feature full 2MP video recording at 30 frames per second, less than 3 second auto refocus, and compatibility with all major instant messenger programs and Skype. Still shots can be taken at up to 8MP. The Quickcams will also be equipped with Logitech's RightLight technology, and an integrated microphone with RightSound technology. You can read more HERE at Logitech's site.

source: Engadget

Gaming Mouse Benchmarks

I'm not much in the mood for writing today, and probably won't write anything for the next couple days, so here something to tide you guys over for a while.

ESReality.com has figured out an awesome way to test mice for gaming. It's an ingenious system, and a lot better than the subjective method of "Oh, I think this one feels pretty good to me" method that most reviewers use. Enjoy!

Mouse Benchmarks

edit: I changed my mind about not writing today, obviously. Here's my take on this review.

I like how this review was done. It gives you actual solid, quantifiable results. Most mouse reviews go like this. "After 2 weeks on my desk, Xbrand Xmouse was still very comfortable and didn't make my wrist sore, even after long hours of gaming. I experienced no skipping or anything while playing Xfastpacedgame." That's all well and good, but there are so many variables that change from user to user, this is hardly a good way to judge which mouse YOU should get.

It would seem from this guy's tests that the good ol' optical mouse is still vastly superior to the newer laser mouse for gaming. This is most likely due to the immaturity of the technology behind the laser mouse.

Under his "Perfect Control" rankings, measuring the speeds at which you have complete control over your movement, 3 of the top 5 mice were from Logitech. Not much of a surprise there to me. Nearly everything sitting on my desk says Logitech on it, only my monitor and speakers don't. The Logitech MX500 tops the charts here, with the MX300 in 2nd. This is only after overclocking the USB polling rate to 1000MHz from it's 125MHz stock setting. The highest ranking laser mouse was the Logitech G1, at 7th place.

The "Malfunction Speed" tests measure the speed at which the mouse begins to control erratically, and makes it's own random movements. 4 of the top 5 mice here are from Logitech again. The Logitech MX518 and the Diamondback from Razer had no malfunctioning limit. He was unable to make them not work correctly at any speed he could test. The highest speed he was able to test was 4.5 m/s, which is way faster than anyone's gonna be moving their arm or hand playing a video game. Again, the Logitech G1 bested all other laser mice at 8th place.

Oddly enough, only 2 of the top 5 mice are from Logitech in DPI ratings. Seems to me that all these new mice touting 2500dpi, 3200dpi, and so on are just spouting marketing fluff with high numbers like Intel did with their Pentium 4 line after AMD introduced the Athlon 64 and began a thorough 4 year arse-whooping. I am currently using an MX518, which has an adjustable resolution up to 1600DPI, but I rarely use it that high. I hardly ever even take it over 1000DPI. Most of my time is spent in the 400-800DPI range.

In the overall rankings, the MX500, MX518, and MX300 from Logitech, and the Razer Diamondback and Krait take the top 5 spots, in that order. All 5 are optical.

The MX500 is also their top scorer for "Bang for the Buck".

I have owned the MX500 and I use the MX518 now, and I can tell you from personal experience they are fantastic mice. Very comfortable, very rugged, and perfectly reliable. I've not had any experience with Razer mice, but I hear great things about them. I've owned nothing but Logitech keyboards and mice for years, and this is precisely why. They make fantastic products. The Logitech joystick I'm using now has only ever been bested in my experience by my very old Microsoft Sidewinder 3d, which stopped working for me just a couple years ago after nearly 7 years of duty.

Fight your friends in tanks and choppers. For real!

Ok, so it's not exactly real... but close enough. These are the coolest toys ever! Remote controlled tanks with infra-red turreted guns that actually register hits on other tanks. Remote controlled helicopters mounting lasers that temporarily disable another chopper when you hit it.

Think of the fun you can have with this!!! You can have helicopter dogfights with your friends. No more loading up Desert Combat to fly some AH-64 Apaches around and try to blow each other out of the sky. Now you can do it in your own back yard! Both units sell for about $100. But seriously, is that too much to pay for this kind of rad toy? I think not. Unless you're a poor college student like me. Then you can only dream. :(

(Hints to girlfriends: PERFECT CHRISTMAS PRESENT!!) ;)

source: Coolest Gadgets. Tank Chopper

Wow IBM... Wow!!

IBM announced a new revision of its Blue Gene supercomputers last week, the Blue Gene/P. The current revision, the Blue Gene/L, owned by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, is currently the world's most powerful supercomputer, with 131,072 700MHz IBM PowerPC 440 processors for a total processing power of 280 teraFLOPs, or 280 trillion floating point operations per second. The average consumer desktop PC can do about 3 gigaFLOPs, or 3 billion operations per second. So the older Blue Gene/L is about 140,000 times more powerful than that box sitting under your desk. Blue Gene/P on the other hand, is fully capable of pushing 1 petaFLOP! 1 QUADRILLION operations per second.

That's a 1 with 15 zeros. Three times more powerful than the current most powerful supercomputer on the planet. And IBM has already released plans for an alternate configuration capable of 3 petaFLOPs! The petaFLOP version of the Blue Gene/P has 294,912 850mhz IBM PowerPC 450 processors. The 3 petaFLOP version has 884,736 of the same 850 mhz processors. The Blue Gene/P is also at least seven times more energy efficient than any other current supercomputer, according to IBM. The first Blue Gene/P system will be used by the US Dept of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, right here in the great state of Illinois.

source: Dailytech