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Latest News | | |  |
|  | S3 to roll out Direct X 10 graphics chips by the end of 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
S3 Graphics are set to release two new graphics cores by the end of the year according to DigiTimes.com: "The Chrome 460 will support DirectX 10 and adopts a 90nm process, while the Chrome 430 will support DirectX 10.1 and adopts a 65nm process. Both chips will be manufactured by Fujitsu and have already entered the design verification test stage." VIA will also benefit from this development: "S3 will also pair the two chips with VIA Technologies' CPUs and chipsets and expects to increase overall market share by 5% in 2008." S3's chips might not be out there fighting for the top performance position with AMD and NVIDIA but the report does list an impressive collection of current customers none the less, including: "Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard (HP), Qimonda, Gigabyte Technology, AOpen, Albatron Technology, Hasee Computer, PC Partner, Newegg, Digicool and Axper." |   |
| VIA's first Pico-ITX board appearinf for less cost than expected
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Linux for Devices.com reports: "Given the manufacturing- and component-constraints that accompany miniaturization, smaller motherboards tend to cost more than larger ones. Therefore, whereas mini-ITX boards typically sell for $200 or less, nano-ITX boards mostly have stayed north of the $300 mark. Following this trend, pico-ITX boards could be expected to come in around $400 or more, at least initially. However, despite the form-factor having just been introduced in January of this year, the first pico-ITX motherboards are already showing up in the Web-stores of several board suppliers, priced below $300." | |
| Solar power - lots of loss
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Steve Paine continues his journey across Germany on a bike that has solar panels to power his Samsung Q1b UMPC. In his latest blog post, he tests out just how efficient, or as it turns out, how inefficient, the battery charge is from the solar panels. Although he manages to get a couple of hours use from the UMPC after three hours of charging, there is a lot of power lost between the solar panels and the UMPC's battery and then the battery and the actual device. "It's thanks to devices like UMPCs that this is project is at all possible because I really doubt it would have worked with even a 'power saving' notebook PC. " His blog contains a lot of interesting information. It highlights how much room for improvement there is when it comes to charging electronic devices using solar panels. | |
| Five years worth of the AMD Athlon
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
If you don't have the latest AMD Athlon model and you've been wondering if it's worth upgrading, you might like to check out this article on LegitReviews.com:"After going back five years and looking at the performance of the Athlon XP 1800+, it is amazing to see how far we have come in just five years. A good number of our readers still have Athlon XP systems in use and this article was a great opportunity to show them what they are missing out on as none of the major hardware review sites include these processor in updated performance charts any longer. The new Athlon 64 X2 6400+ processor is a welcomed addition to the Athlon series of processors, but it's sad knowing that this will likely be the last speed step for the Athlon series..." | |
| Nano-ITX tribute
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
"This is a project which I started last year, but due time problems, I had to stop, but now, I'm ready to go on again. It calls 'NanoTribute', it's a kind of 'Thank you VIA' to make such little x86 based pc. I would like to thank VIA and specially VIA Latin America to send me two of these babies: VIA Epia N and VIA Epia NL. It will be a simple case, from scratch, and the plan is to create the front panels in a way which you could change between skins easily."
The log of this project, in the Bit-tech.net forums, so far covers the testing and OS installation. Making the custom case will come next. | |
| Alaska Wolf PC on sale at Wal-Mart group through Aurrera Stores throughout Mexico
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
VIA "and ASI Corporation, a market leader in the IT distribution business, today announced that the new Alaska Wolf PC powered by the VIA C7-D processor is available at Wal-Mart stores throughout Mexico.Based on the VIA pc2500 mainboard, the Alaska Wolf PC combines exceptionally low power consumption with advanced productivity and multimedia application performance to provide a highly affordable energy efficient system for Mexican consumers and business users at a price of 5,299.99 Mexican Pesos (US$485), including a 17” LCD monitor. 
The Alaska Wolf PC is powered by a combination of the 1.5GHz VIA C7-D processor, with a maximum power draw of just 20 watts, and the VIA CN700 digital media chipset featuring the VIA UniChrome Pro II Integrated Graphics Processor. Other key features include 1GB DDR2 DRAM, a 160GB SATA HDD, and a DVD Combo Drive. The system also comes with Microsoft Windows Vista Starter Edition, an “Office Ready” bundle giving the end user 60 days use of Microsoft Office for free, and Nero Version 8.0." | |
| Tweaking Vista on the OQO model 02
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
MarcusCake.com bought an OQO when his laptop died. After installing Vista he found that Skype was slow as a dog. "From what I could determine, Vista was so busy running Vista that it couldn’t do what I wanted it to do." After a bit of playing around he worked out how to tweak the OS to run considerably faster on the OQO. Check it out here. | |
| Miscellaneous
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
"Well and truly past that half way mark for the year, we find ourselves half way through the month of August and a new ATI Catalyst release from the folks over at AMD. We should really see a big focus for improvements over the next few months thanks to the large Radeon line up now available on the market and their need to gain momentum in the market. No doubt, performance sells!" So did AMD release a winner with these latest drivers? Find out on Tweaktown.com.With a whopping 1024MB of DDR4 RAM, TrustedReviews.com investigates whether the Sapphire HD 2900 XT 1024MB DDR4 is worth the cost of all that expensive memory. And finally, id is going to be giving away Quake III for free. But there is a catch and AMDZone.com has the skinny straight from id's Business Manager: “There’s so many things we can do with the web from what happens in the game to the user interface and I think John’s had this idea of doing a free version of it for a little while. Quake 3 has been around and we want to test out some aspects of tournament and community building around the game.” Stratton added that they also plan to test out something entirely ad funded with Quake Zero, re-working the maps to work with in game-advertising. | |
| The Solar UMPC tour begins
Monday, August 27, 2007
When I get ready to go on a trip away from home, it never ceases to amaze me how much time it takes in preparation. My main PC is a desktop and I have to transfer whatever files and emails I might need to the laptop for the trip. Then I have to evaluate what I need to bring and what bags will suite that luggage the best. But transportation, accommodation and power during the trip are all taken care of (as you would expect).Chippy, who writes for UMPCPortal.com, has been planning a bike ride across Germany for months. The original start date was delayed due to bad weather, but the Solar UMPC journey finally began on the weekend. But Chippy started his blog a long time ago and up until now, it has charted the extraordinary amount of time he has spent getting ready. It's one thing to manage a camping trip on a bike in the first place—Chippy's trip is even more challenging, since he has rigged his bike with solar panels so that he can blog along the way on a Samsung Q1b UMPC. Chippy's main tour sponsor is VIA; the processor in the Samsung Q1b is a VIA C7-M ULV which gives the device the best battery life of any device in its class. 
The fully-fitted bike is 25kg and Chippy manages around 20km/h. So far he's blogged from a beigarten and from inside his tent late at night, a fellow camper's snores bellowing nearby. Although Chippy has experimented before the trip with how well the solar panels work to charge the UMPC, reading about his experiences during the trip will be very interesting. It's ironically kind of primitive—no airplanes, hot indoor showers or an assurance of toilet facilities when you need them—but this is a very modern mobile trip none-the-less! | |
| New Hyperion Pro drivers released
Monday, August 27, 2007
Version 5.13A of the Hyperion Pro drivers includes the following components:INF V2.90A
AGP V4.60A
V-RAID V5.60A and RAID Tools v5.40
VIA IDE Falcon Storage Device driver v2.10A VIA Hyperion Pro drivers are suitable for ANY VIA chipset - but they are particularly recommended for KT4## series, P4X4## series and newer, for example: K7 chipsets: KT400, KT400A, KT600, KT880, KM400, KN400
K8 chipsets: K8T800, K8T800Pro, K8M800, K8M890, K8N800, K8N890, K8T890, K8T890Pro, K8T900
P4 chipsets: P4X400, P4X400A, PT800, PT880, PM800, PN800, PM880, PN880, PT880Pro, PT894, P4M800/Pro/CE, P4M900, PT890
C Series Chipsets: CN700, CN400, CLE266, CX700,CX700M, CN800, CN896
V Series Chipsets: VN800, VX700, VN896 | |
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| Most recent blog entries |  |
| | | A New Era Awaits | | Mike's Blog
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| | The Force Unleashed | | Mike's Blog
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