Legit Reviews News History
Intel D5400XS Motherboard Pictured - SkullTrail Closer To Launching
Legit Reviews first saw the Intel SkullTrail system back at the Intel Developer Forum this fall and it seems new information and pictures are now available. Legit Reviews will bring you more on this great looking board in the near future when we have the full details. For now enjoy the great pictures of the Intel D5400XS motherboard!
What we have for you here, however, is an up close and personal look at the Skulltrail platform's D5400XS Intel ATX motherboard from a couple of different angles. As you can see, the Southbridge and dual NVIDIA nForce 100 MCP chips are actively cooled by a large fan-sink cooler. Our pics of Skulltrail from IDF showed a trio of small heatsinks, so things have changed a bit. The motherboard has four PCI Express x16 slots and dual standard PCI slots. Aluminum heatsinks cover the Northbridge and some of the components around both LGA771 Xeon CPU sockets. As for I/O, the board has six internal SATA ports, a single IDE port, and headers for additional USB and Firewire ports. On the IO plate, no legacy connectors are to be found, but it does have six USB ports, dual eSATA ports, single Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet jacks, and analog and digital HD audio inputs / outputs.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 06:14 PM
In the DVD war over HD, most buyers are sitting it out
What if nobody wins the high-definition DVD format wars? That increasingly looks to be the situation for the next-generation DVD technology, which is available to consumers in two incompatible formats. A little more than 18 months after their introduction, the two systems--Blu-ray, developed by Sony, and HD DVD, from Toshiba --have sold around 1 million stand-alone players combined. Both sides promote their technologies, their movie studio allies and the growing list of movies available in the new formats.
Neither has a clear advantage, either in terms of technology, number of movies or, increasingly, the price of the equipment. According to data from Adams Media Research, 578,000 HD DVD and 370,000 Blu-ray machines will be sold by the end of this year. HD DVD players, the vast majority of which are made by Toshiba, still have the price advantage. The company's least-expensive model--which displays images in the lower-quality 1080i format--can be found for $200 or less in electronics store promotions or from online discounters. Its least-expensive 1080p model is selling at Amazon for $250. But it is a tit-for-tat war. A Blu-ray 1080p unit from Samsung is just $30 more at Costco. Blu-ray units are also made by Panasonic, Philips, Sony, and others.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 05:20 PM
Video-Game Publishers See Another Blockbuster Year
After a blockbuster year with record sales, video-games publishers show no signs of letting up in 2008 as they prepare for the release of a parade of new titles for legions of gamers. The gaming community is already buzzing over the long-awaited release of such titles as Grand Theft Auto IV from Take-Two, Spore from Electronic Arts and Little Big Planet, a new game from Media Molecule, a small game developer.
Together, these new games could take the industry even higher. Despite fears of a slowdown in the economy and weak consumer spending, industry sales were up 52% to $13.2 billion, as of November, from a year ago. Gamers saw one of the biggest lineups ever with releases that included such blockbusters as Halo 3, Call of Duty IV, Rock Band, and Guitar Hero 3. The year clearly belonged to Activision, which not only topped sales charts through the crucial holiday season, but also pulled off a $18.9 billion merger with Vivendi Games to become the industry's largest publisher.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 01:18 PM
Record Data Breaches in 2007 - Credit Card Numbers Targeted
The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007, and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.
Foley's group lists more than 79 million records reported compromised in the United States through Dec. 18. That's a nearly fourfold increase from the nearly 20 million records reported in all of 2006. Another group, Attrition.org, estimates more than 162 million records compromised through Dec. 21 — both in the U.S. and overseas, unlike the other group's U.S.-only list. Attrition reported 49 million last year.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 01:16 PM
Semiconductor sales climb in November
Worldwide sales of semiconductors climbed 2.3 percent in November, as high oil prices and spreading mortgage woes did not dissuade gadget buyers. But annual growth for the the semiconductor industry could still fall short of forecasts, George Scalise, president of the San Jose-based Semiconductor Industry Association said in a release today.
"Early indications are that consumer products with high semiconductor content such as LCD TVs, PMP and MP3 players, along with digital cameras all sold well in the holiday buying season," Scalise said. Semiconductor sales are also being driven by the purchase of cell phones and personal computers. Sales of cell phones are expected to grow by more than 20 percent in 2007 for the fifth-consecutive year, and sales of personal computers are expected to grow by 10 percent. The growth was not spread evenly around the globe, however. According to the association, year-to-year sales in the Americas fell 3.9 percent, while sales in Europe fell .3 percent. Meanwhile, sales boomed in Japan, rising 6.9 percent, and in Asia Pacific, where they increased 3.8 percent.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 11:39 AM
Vonage, Nortel settle patent dispute
Internet-based calling company Vonage said it has agreed to settle a patent dispute with Nortel Networks with no payment of damages, sending its share up more than 8 percent. The settlement would put to rest the last of the major litigation against Vonage after it settled suits brought by AT&T, Verizon Communications and Sprint Nextel earlier this year.
The settlement involves a limited cross license to three Nortel and three Vonage patents and will not call for any monetary payments by any party. Claims over past damages will be dismissed without prejudice, Vonage said. Sahner said the dispute originated in a lawsuit filed by Digital Packet Licensing against Nortel in 2004. Vonage bought that company in 2006 and Nortel filed a counterclaim to the suit earlier this month.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 10:52 AM
Digital album packaging should improve in 2008
There is a reason people still buy CDs more than they do digital albums. Actually there are several, but viruses that come along with music via peer-to-peer sites (P2P) and a concern over digital rights management (DRM) aren't the only culprits.
According to label sources and pirate network tracking firms, fans downloading full albums from BitTorrent sites almost universally choose files that include scans of the CD booklet over those that don't. Of course, there is little that can be done with those scans other than view them on a computer. Imagine if the music industry and the digital music services got together and offered an official way to access the same content, but make it available on portable devices as well as make it interactive.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 10:34 AM
AMD has upper hand in next IGP chipset battle with Nvidia
AMD's RS780 and Nvidia's MCP 78 IGP chipsets are scheduled to go head-to-head in the first quarter of 2008, however, performance of the MCP 78S is reportedly below that of the RS780, while the higher-end MCP 78U is causing issues due to its higher thermal dissipation giving AMD the advantage over the chipset battle, according to sources at motherboard makers.
The RS780 is reported to have 15-20% better performance than the MCP 78S in 3DMark 05 and 06 tests, while the higher-end MCP 78U cannot function normally with the original passive northbridge heatpipe due to the higher core frequencies of the graphics engine. Adopting a larger heatpipe or fan will cause costs to rise significantly, pointed out the sources. Nvidia is still struggling with the problem, they added. Additionally, motherboard makers have not yet taken delivery of MCP 78 chipset supplies, which means that the original launch schedule of motherboards might have to be postponed back to the end of January or beginning of February, noted the sources.
Posted by | Mon, Dec 31, 2007 - 10:32 AM
Tesla CEO explains roadster delays - transmision lacks muscle
In order to get its electric sports car to owners sooner, Tesla Motors plans to deliver cars with a temporary transmission that falls short of its originally promised performance. The news was distributed to the wide world this week in a blog post from Ze'ev Drori, Tesla's new president and CEO.
The post is a reprint of a letter that was sent to Tesla purchasers on December 21, as a follow-up to a town hall meeting for Tesla owners that took place on December 12. About 100 people, including those who called in, participated in the meeting, according to Drori. The main goal is "to put the Tesla Roadster on the road as soon as possible," Drori said in the letter.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 08:51 PM
December 28 News from Around the Web
Check out news from around the web by visiting our forums! The following quote comes from TweakTown's review of the Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200.11 Hard Drive.
"We have been given a new HDD from Seagate to test based on their ever growing Barracuda 7200 series, this being the 11th generation drive which they call the 7200.11 and it boasts a whopping 1TB storage capacity. We will be pitting the Seagate 7200.11 against our 7200.10 500GB drive and the Western Digital RE2 750GB model. We have also added a new test to the fray, HD Tune which does a good all round job of testing the HDD."
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 01:25 PM
Sony Discontinues Rear-Projection TV
Sony said Thursday that it was dropping its money-losing rear-projection TV business worldwide to focus on flat-panel technologies. In October, Sony lowered its global sales forecast for rear-projection TVs, which use a projector to create images on large screens, to 400,000 from 700,000, which is down from 1.1 million the previous fiscal year.
By contrast, Sony expects to sell 10 million liquid-crystal-display TVs this fiscal year through March, up from 6.3 million the previous year. Earlier this month, Sony began selling an 11-inch TV that uses a relatively new but expensive flat-panel technology called organic light-emitting diode. The set, called the XEL-1, measures just 3 millimeters, or 0.12 inches, thick and delivers clear, vivid images.
New York Times Technology News
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 09:42 AM
Apple making deals for Web video rentals
Apple's sputtering efforts to be a major purveyor of video downloads may get a boost in 2008 from an agreement with Twentieth Century Fox Film for digital movie rentals. Apple has been trying to interest a number of Hollywood studios in an iTunes rental service, and several people familiar with the negotiations said more than one studio would appear onstage at the company's Macworld exhibition in San Francisco beginning January 14 to endorse a new Apple movie rental service.
Steven P. Jobs, the co-founder and chief executive of Apple, has been publicly skeptical about movie rentals in the past. Hints that Apple would reverse itself and pursue a digital-rental strategy emerged last month, when a Carnegie Mellon University undergraduate found a series of text phrases in the company's iTunes software suggesting that components of a video-on-demand rental service were already embedded. It is unclear whether movie rentals would give the company's Apple TV system a significant bump. Jobs said in an interview last year that the product was a "hobby" because nobody had figured out how to make Internet television a successful business.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 09:40 AM
Issues delay release of Optimus Maximus OLED keyboard
The Optimus Maximus keyboard developed by Russian designer Artemy Lebedev has been delayed once again, this time by problems with the device's firmware. Art Lebedev Studio had expected the first Optimus Maximus keyboards to ship in late December, but the release date has been pushed back to late February. He blamed the delay on a chip that powers the customizable keyboard. Legit Reviews was one of the first sites to take a closer look at the Maximus when we published this article in 2005!
"We have chosen a Philips processor that fully satisfied all our requirements. But as it is new as a product for Philips, they still experience some problems with the processor and we are compelled to work with draft documentation," Lebedev wrote this week in a blog post. Customers who have already paid and can't wait to get their hands on the keyboard, which has a tiny, customizable OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen on each key, can opt to receive a keyboard before the firmware issue is resolved. These keyboards already have "basic functionality," such as the ability to switch images displayed on the keys, but Lebedev said upgrading the firmware later on could be difficult for many users.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 08:43 AM
NASA scrubs January shuttle launch
The space shuttle Atlantis’ mission to the international space station likely will be pushed back a few more days or weeks as engineers study problems with electrical connectors in the spaceship’s external fuel tank, a top NASA manager said Thursday. NASA had been aiming for a Jan. 10 liftoff of Atlantis with a European lab for the space station. But shuttle program manager Wayne Hale indicated last week that the launch likely would be delayed after a test pointed to a bad connector.
Last week’s fuel tank test indicated open circuits in the connector that passes through the wall of the fuel tank, linking wiring between the gauges in the tank and Atlantis. Senior NASA managers decided Thursday to remove a plug and electrical connector from the tank and send it to an Alabama testing facility to be studied and repaired, Hale said. At this point, it appears all the work can be done while Atlantis is on the launch pad, he added.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 08:33 AM
Nvidia to postpone shipments of MCP72 chipset family to January
Nvidia originally planned to roll out the new MCP72 chipset in late November or early December but will now postpone shipping to January, along with the planned launch of its MCP78, according to sources at Taiwan motherboard makers. The sources detailed that Nvidia will introduce the new nForce 700a chipset family for AMD platforms, which includes MCP72XE, MCP72P and MCP78H in January, in attempts to compete with AMD's rival RD790 chipset.
Around the same time as the launch of the MCP72 family, Nvidia will also introduce the new MCP78S which includes a GeForce 8 series-based IGP, the sources added. Following these launches, Nvidia is expected to introduce two new MCP78 chipsets, the MCP78D and MCP78U (GeForce 9200), in February. The MCP78D will not support hybrid SLI technology and will target the entry-level market with a price tag of about US$55. The chipset is similar to the MCP78S but adds an IGP. The MCP78U is an IGP enabled version of the MCP78H and carries an expected price tag of US$78, the sources detailed.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 08:28 AM
Airlines take another look at inflight Internet
Airlines and service providers seeking to deliver high-speed Internet services to passengers say they've learned from Boeing Co.'s 2006 decision to pull the plug on its ambitions to outfit its planes with a similar service. Boeing, which did not disclose how much it invested in the service, took a pretax accounting charge of $320 million in 2006.
Analysts say Boeing's failed Connexion online service was costly to install and operate, resulting in large expenditures before getting a single paying customer. An industrywide downturn triggered by the 2001 terrorist attacks made the system an even tougher sell to struggling airlines. Among other things, JetBlue Airways Corp., AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and Virgin America are today turning to air-to-ground connections to avoid Boeing's expensive satellite fees.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 08:28 AM
Wal-Mart cancels movie download service
Wal-Mart Stores Inc quietly canceled its online video download service less than a year after the site went live, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday. Wal-Mart shut down the download site after Hewlett Packard Co discontinued the technology that powered it, Walmart.com spokeswoman Amy Colella said in an e-mail. She added that it will not look for another technology partner.
HP spokesman Hector Marinez said the company decided to discontinue its video download-only merchant store services because the market for paid video downloads did not perform "as expected." He noted that the Internet video business remains uncertain and is changing rapidly. Wal-Mart will continue offering physical DVDs for sale at its stores and online, but would not continue the online downloads business, said Colella, who declined to disclose the number of downloads sold on the site.
Posted by | Fri, Dec 28, 2007 - 08:23 AM
U.S. court of appeals hands Google a patent setback
Google's browser toolbar is back in court on patent infringement charges, after a U.S. court of appeals overturned part of a lower court decision. Google's AdSense contextual advertising service, though, is in the clear.
Hyperphrase Technologies filed suit against Google in April 2006, alleging that Google's AdSense and the AutoLink function of its toolbar infringed claims in four Hyperphrase patents relating to the contextual linking and presentation of information. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin rejected the allegations in a summary judgement in Google's favor, and Hyperphrase appealed. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the parts of the summary judgement relating to AdSense, and some of the claims against AutoLink, but overturned the part of the ruling dealing with AutoLink's alleged infringement of two of the patents. It remanded the case to the district court to be reexamined.
Posted by | Thu, Dec 27, 2007 - 09:10 AM
Amazon says 2007 holiday season strongest ever
Shares of online U.S. retailer Amazon.com rose more than 2 percent on Wednesday after the online retailer said the 2007 holiday season was its strongest since it opened in 1994. On December 10, its busiest day during the current season, Amazon said shoppers ordered more than 5.4 million items, or 62.5 items per second.
This year, top sellers included toys such as the Jakks EyeClops Bionic Eye, video games including Nintendo's Wii video game systems and Super Mario Galaxy, and consumer electronics products like the Garmin GPS and Samsung LCD high definition TVs. Other popular items, based on items ordered between November 15 and December 19, ranged from Black & Decker's auto wrench to Kenneth Cole Reaction men's wool pea coat. The company also said it sold about 17 Nintendo Wii systems per second when they had them in stock.
Posted by | Thu, Dec 27, 2007 - 06:56 AM
The AMD Athlon X2 is dead; long live Athlon 6000
AMD has recently outlined the phase-out schedule for several of its Athlon 64 X2 CPUs, while the Athlon brand name will be re-purposed for upcoming dual-core CPUs based on the K10 core, according to sources at motherboard makers. AMD will launch a new series of dual-core products based on its next-generation architecture, Athlon 6000, in the later half of second quarter next year. First to launch will be the Athlon 6250 and 6050, the sources revealed. Although the core frequencies of the two CPUs have not been set yet, they will adopt 1MB L2 cache and 2MB shared L3 cache, the sources added.
AMD will stop taking orders for Athlon 64 X2 6400+ black edition and 89W version Athlon 64 X2 6000+ processors in the first quarter of 2008. Last orders for 125W Athlon 64 X2 6000+ and Athlon 64 X2 5600+ processors will be at the end of the first quarter, the sources detailed. AMD will also stop taking orders for Athlon 64 X2 4200+ and 4000+ processors by the end of this year and will launch a 65W Athlon 64 X2 4600+ clocked at 2.3GHz and with 1MB L2 cache in second quarter of 2008.
Posted by | Thu, Dec 27, 2007 - 06:21 AM
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