Tech News
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Logitech G402 Hyperion Fury Review @ HardwareHeaven
The brain works in strange ways. When I read the title and saw "Hyperion" the first thing that came to mind is that Logitech is building a mouse tailoredfor Borderlands players. While I'm sure some owners of this mouse will eventually play the Borderlands Pre-Sequel that doesn't seem all this mouse is intending to do.
Today we have one of the latest G series mice from Logitech attached to our system for review. Read on to find out how the G402 Hyperion Fury does.
Looking at the review photos I can see Logitech hasn't deviated much from the traditional shape established around the G5 era. They did add some buttons to help with macro usage and the optics look amazingly impressive.
Overall this mouse looks really comphy and had it come with a weight system I would be online searching the stores for one right now.
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Home Server Build Part 3 – The Context @ Hardware Slave
I have always been interested in servers and like the idea of having another computer where I can store my excess data or spin off other applications to run so they don't take up resources on my main machine. Back in the early says (before Ninjalane.com) I played around with NT4 and at one time had a remote server running a simple fileshare for me. The hardware was something like a Intel 486 with whatever hardware I had laying around. it was just a test and started a lifelong obsession to create the ultimate server.
Servers are a delicate balance of Min/Max between hardware cost and hardware performance and making sure you spend the money where you need it. Some simply need data storage so a simple NAS might be plenty. Others wish to run applications so CPU and Memory might be important. In the end you need to consider where the performance bottlenecks are and make sure you spend your money to maximize return.
Hardware Slave is building an article series on building a home server. The content and writing style remind me of some of my early work and while I never tackled a server build article I can understand exactly what they are doing.
In parts one and two, we basically spec’d and built a basis for a Home Server. In reality, other than plans to use it as a Server, it is currently just a desktop PC with RAID SSD’s and a lot of RAM. We have had the server up and running now for some weeks and it has performed flawlessly.
The 2 tests HDD’s are running quiet and cool, thanks to the 120mm case fan blowing fresh air over them and they are delivering content on demand while storing all our critical information. But now, it’s really time for the context of the build.My latest server upgrade consists of a Core i7 3770k on a Gigabyte motherboard. The server is designed as an application server so it needs CPU power but also serves as the primary data store for the house. Because of this I spend extra time making sure the data subsystem was fast (Hardware based RAID 5) and that there was enough CPU to handle large data transfers over the Gigabit network.
Hardware Slave is on the right track though I suspect there will be some hardware upgrades shortly after the server goes live.
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Corsair Carbide Air 240 @ techPowerUp
Back in the old days, I believe there was more of a distinct seperation between the console world and PC's. Recently however, it seems like that line has definitely blurred. With examples like AMD fueling it's revenues feeding chips to Sony for their PS4s, the definition of what makes the traditional PC unique seems to be more elusive, and the arguement is really just over your preferred chassis, UI and input device. This may feed into why we're starting to see more chassis designs deviating away from the traditional tall, rectangular, iconic design, in favor of something a little more... well, like a console.
Corsair has steered clear of the tiny cube chassis, while other companies like BitFenix, Xigmatek, or Aerocool have been duking it out, trying to get the attention of gamers who want a compact chassis with the ability to hold potent hardware. Well, the Carbide Air 240 is about to step into the ring and manages to impress.
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Cooler Master Nepton 280L Liquid CPU Cooler Review @ Hardware Heaven
Cooler Master recently released the Nepton, a liquid cooler built for high performance applications. It uses slightly larger radiators and fans to improve airflow, over it's counterpart the Saidon line of coolers, preferring to use 140mm fans over the Saidon's 120mm. The Nepton is available in a single 140mm design, as well as a dual-fan 280mm design.
Recently we took a look at a bundle of Cooler Master components which included their Silencio case, gold rated PSU and the Seidon cooler. That cooler really stood out for us with its simple install and decent performance… but it was an entry level cooler. Today we have the Nepton 280L on our test bench which we hope takes that same installation and adds a whole whack of performance for the high end user. Let’s find out…
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Russian Hackers Steal Over a Billion Passwords
Following just a short span after the Heartbleed bug was discovered, a new security exploit is now being reported, causing yet another large wave of reminders to err on the side of caution and change your passwords again to all of your favorite sites - just in case.
A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, security researchers say.
The records, discovered by Hold Security, a firm in Milwaukee, include confidential material gathered from 420,000 websites, including household names, and small Internet sites.
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ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II OC 2 GB Video Card Review @ Madshrimps
Today we're looking at another budget enthusiast card with a lot of (potential) horsepower under the hood. The CU II posts some good gaming figures, and is cheaper than many 270X variants. Since it's built on the same hardware, with a few clock tweaks, it can also can run nearly as fast as them too.
The ASUS R9 270 Direct CU II VGA card shares the hardware with the more expensive 270X variant, but has lower stock clocks; from our experiences regarding overclocking with this card, we could say that it can easy surpass the R9 270X clocks or ever surpass it. Those who search the best bang for the buck VGA cards and won’t game on higher resolutions than Full-HD should put this card on their short list.
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NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet: The Fastest Tablet Available @ HotHardware.com
Back in late July, NVidia showcased their new Shield tablet, aimed squarely at mobile gaming and multimedia. Now that they've started shipping, we're starting to get some more information now on it's performance, both as a mobile gaming platform, and as a tablet device.
A few days after the initial announcement was made, we got our hands on a SHIELD tablet, wireless controller, and cover. We’re still working (and playing) with the SHIELD tablet, and will be posting up some more information about its gaming prowess in the days ahead, but in the meantime, we thought you’d all like to take to see just how the device performs.
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Oculus Rift Dev Kit 2 Teardown @ iFixIt
When Facebook's acquisition of Oculus went public there was a rather fierce uproar over the whole thing. That has all since simmered down as the collective internet has since found something new to decry and rally against a week later.
Now, to assuage any lingering fears that Facebook was using any of its other intellectual properties for nefarious emotional conditioning experiments, the kind folks over at iFixIt have torn apart the latest Oculus Rift development kit to make sure. Long answer short, it's perfectly safe - but you may be surprised at what they did find inside.
Oculus VR took the world by surprise last year with the Oculus Rift. This year, they seek to push their own self-created envelope with the Oculus Rift Development Kit 2. We may not have flying cars, hoverboards or (commercial) teleporters, but we do have the latest virtual reality tech. Join us as we ogle the wizardry in the Oculus Rift DK2, teardown style.
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AMD Kaveri AMD's A10-7800 Processor Review @ Tech Report
Looks like AMD is introducing a few extra players to it's Kaveri lineup of APU's. The new A10-7800 and A8-7600 are looking to compliment the A10-7850K and 7700K as slightly less powerful but optimized variants of the original chipsets. A new 6-core A6-7400K was also announced for budget minded enthusiasts looking to make a leap up for under $100.
We first reviewed an AMD Kaveri processor back at the start of the year, but since then, AMD's new APU has been in kind of a weird place. The A8-7600 chip we reviewed has been scarce in retail channels, evidently because AMD succeeded in selling them elsewhere—likely to big PC manufacturers. Some of the chips were surely set aside for use in laptops, too. As a result, PC hobbyists just haven't had very good access to AMD's latest APU.
Happily, that situation is finally changing, and Kaveri-based chips are starting to make their way into the market. AMD is putting an exclamation point on that fact today by filling out its APU lineup and making some tweaks to its pricing. The headliner of the bunch is a brand-new model, the A10-7800, that may just be the most desirable Kaveri-based desktop processor yet. -
The Backpedaling Patent Troll Tried to Drop a Lawsuit
Never thought I would concern myself with a "patent troll" but this story over at Ars has me concerned. The article talks about how a company, Personal Audio, is trying to get money from a patent they hold describing "episodic content". This patent and applies to Podcasts and certain online videos where they are released on a regular basis.
As you know Podcasts work on the episode principle much like a written article. The Hardware Asylum Podcast and Ninjalane Podcast before that never indicated an episode number in the recording but, if you look carefully you can see what number we are on.
The article goes on in a typical "he said, she said" banter claiming that (Patent Troll) Personal Audio filed a lawsuit against Adam Carolla claiming he owed them money. Adam fought back and even asked his listeners to send in money to help pay his legal expenses. Personal Audio then dropped the lawsuit after realizing that Podcasters don't make much money. As it would turn out Adam didn't accept that and is still planning to go to court.
"Adam Carolla’s assertions that we would destroy podcasting were ludicrous on their face," said Personal Audio CEO Brad Liddle. "But it generated sympathy from fans and ratings for his show. Getting his fan base to continue to donate to his legal fund is a cynical exploitation of the publicity power he enjoys as an entertainer." He continued to say that Personal Audio was "quite surprised" Carolla turned down their offer:
Perhaps this is because he feels he can simply get his fans to fund his future and, now unnecessary, legal expenses. Or perhaps it relates to how he uses the case as material for his show. The fact of the matter is that Adam Carolla is asking people to donate money to him for a lawsuit that he no longer needs to defend. We would like his listeners to understand this situation when deciding whether or not to donate additional money to his cause.
According to Personal Audio, they've lost interest in suing podcasters because the podcasters—even one of Adam Carolla's size—just don't make enough money for it to care.There is a principle involved here and I applaud Carolla in fighting to make sure Podcasts remain free (to a certain extent). Personal Audio is now attempting to tarnish his reptutation by claiming he is using listener money to fight a lawsuit he no longer needs to defend.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I suspect that if Carolla wins then Personal Audio will lose their ability to troll on their 1996 patent. However, if Personal Audio wins then Carolla will end up paying the license fee and they will have free reign to request money from other famous, and not so famous, podcasters.
A tightrope on both sides.
