[H]ard|OCP

Google to Leave China on April 10

I think we can all agree that Google’s decision to leave China is a far better option than continuing to censor searches in that country.

"I have received information saying that Google will leave China on April 10, but this information has not at present been confirmed by Google," the China Business News quoted the agent as saying. The report also said Google would reveal its plans for its China-based staff that day.

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Cyberbullying Threats Are Not Protected Speech

Feeling like talking a little smack in the forums today? You might want to read this first.

A California appeals court ruled this week that threatening posts made by readers of a website are not protected free speech, allowing a case charging the posters with hate crimes and defamation to proceed.

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Internet Piracy is Taking Big Toll on Jobs

Yes, this is another study on internet piracy that says illegal downloads are costing people their jobs. What makes this article different from the others is this juicy quote that claims stuff is pirated because we want to be cool…like Johnny Depp. Huh!?!?

"To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we're talking about a criminal act. We're talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do," she said.

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Tech Equipment Tax Deduction Tips

Since it is tax season, I thought I would pass on a link to this handy article on tax deductions for your tech equipment.

Your computers, your cell phone, Internet services, Web hosting--your business depends on technology to run, so at tax time it's natural to want to deduct all your tech expenditures. And accountants agree--but only up to a point.

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ASUS Introduces Designo Series LED Monitors

ASUS today unveiled brand new additions to its Designo Series range—the MS248, MS238, MS228 and MS208 LED monitors. These eco-friendly, ultra-slim monitors feature 16.5mm profiles and 20" to 23.6" displays that deliver uncompromised performance and mind-blowing visuals. The cutting-edge MS Series LED monitors deliver a benchmark 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio for more lifelike images. Retaining the binary state-inspired concept that incorporates the numbers 1 and 0 into an ultra-slim design, these LED monitors come with a glittering sapphire blue rear bezel. They also retain the original's iconic Ergo-Fit Technology spherical ring stand that lets users adjust the monitor's tilt angle with just one finger. Each of these mercury-free LED monitors reduce energy consumption by up to 45%*, and lowers annual CO₂ emissions by 23.6kg

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VIA Announces Integration with Microsoft RemoteFX Technology

VIA Technologies, Inc, a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms, today announced plans to support Microsoft RemoteFX, a feature being developed for Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1. "VIA is excited to work with Microsoft in bringing the latest virtual desktop technologies to the fast evolving thin client sector," said Richard Brown, Vice President of Marketing, VIA Technologies, Inc. "Adding Microsoft RemoteFX to our media system processor technologies will deliver a more visually compelling, multimedia-rich virtual desktop experience."

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Creditors Turned Off by Sex.com Auction

Look, I know some of these domain names go for big bucks and all but this is getting ridiculous. Endless lawsuits, lawyers, bankruptcy, creditors, equity holders and a one million dollar deposit just to bid in the auction? Wow.

An auction in New York of the hotly desired Sex.com Internet domain name scheduled for Thursday was halted at the last hour when creditors forced the previous owner into bankruptcy.

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

ETC.

10 Things to do with a New Computer @ TechwareLabs

MusicSkins Custom Netbook Skin @ DSM

Memory/ Storage

Patriot Viper II Sector 5 2000MHz 4GB Memory Kit @ Legit Reviews

Motherboards

MSI 890GXM-G65 AMD Motherboard @ OCIA

Power Supply

Chill Innovation 450W Power Supply @ HardwareHeaven

Google, Intel, and Sony to Join Forces

According to a new report, Google, Intel, and Sony are going to join forces to build a set top box called "Google TV." Thanks to Rick E. for the linkage.

The search giant is believed to be working with Sony and Intel to develop a system called "Google TV", and has built a prototype set-top box in an effort to provide a better way for people to surf the web through their televisions.

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AMD Phenom II X6 Clocks Leaked

The crew at Tech Connect say they have leaked information and clock speeds for the AMD Phenom II X6.

Courtesy of a couple BIOS updates released by Gigabyte (and leaked CPU support lists), we now know that the X6 1035T will have its six cores set to 2600 MHz / 2.6 GHz, while the X6 1055T will be set @ 2800 MHz / 2.8 GHz. Expanding on the info available it's clear that the highest-end hexa-core prepped by AMD for next month, the Phenom II X6 1075T will be clocked at 3.0 GHz, 333 MHz under Intel's own Core i7 980X EE.

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Xbox 360 Getting USB Storage Ugrade?

We covered this earlier in our Gaming [H]eadlines post but, after all the e-mail you guys have sent me about this, I figured it deserved a post of its own. The quick and dirty version of the rumor is that Microsoft will allow USB storage devices (up to 16GB) to be used as storage devices. I haven’t heard back from MS on this one yet but I will keep you guys up to date if and when I do.

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Viacom, Google Air Dirty Laundry in Court Docs

I know most people claim they don’t like it when companies air their dirty laundry like this but, even the most jaded would have to agree, this is some pretty good stuff.

"We believe YouTube would make a transformative acquisition for MTV Networks/Viacom that would immediately make us the leading deliverer of video online, globally," according to an internal Viacom slide that Google filed with the court.

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Fastest Book Scanner Ever

Check out this new book scanning system that can scan a book as you flip through it. You have to watch the video to really appreciate it.

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Gaming [H]eadlines

Ensemble "Crunch Culture" Follow-Up @ Blue’s News

Halo: Reach Matchmaking and Social Features @ Shacknews

Heavy Rain PS3 Patch Coming @ Kotaku

Xbox 360 Gaining USB Storage Support @ Joystiq

Acer Blamed For Tight Supply of Mobile Nehalem CPUs&#

DigiTimes, citing anonymous industry sources, claims that tight supply of mobile Intel Core i7-i5-i3 processors is a result of large volume purchases made by Acer.

Intel's latest Core i7/i5/i3 series notebook processors are currently facing tight supply, as Acer, optimistic about the upcoming demand for the related notebooks, has placed large volume of orders for the processors, according to sources from the notebook sector.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 Final Specs & Pricing Revealed?

The rumor mill is in high gear today with what appear to be final specs and pricing on the GeForce GTX 470 and 480 in the forums today. According to the linked information, the GeForce 470 will have 448 stream processors, 225W TDP and a $349 (US) price tag. The GeForce GTX 480 will have 512 stream processors, 295W TDP and a $499 (US) price tag. For comparison, the TDP of the GTX 480 is very similar to the Radeon HD 5970 which happens to be a dual GPU card. Follow the link above for rumored "internal benchmarks" and a lively discussion on the entire topic at hand.

Eyefinity 5x1 8400x1050 LCD in Action

Those of you considering an upgrade to a multi-monitor Eyefinity set-up really have to see the video in this thread showing Dirt2 running at 8400 x 1050 on five monitors powered by a single Radeon HD5850. Thanks to Intel_Hydralisk for the link.

Kyle's Note: Worth mentioning here is that Eyefinity does not currently support a 5x1 display configuration natively for most of its cards. We do think that will be coming shortly though and we hope to see the yet-to-be launched Eyefinity 6 card support configurations like this one below. Another point of interest is that just today Powercolor announced a 5 head 5770 video card. This will surely crimp Matrox' style when it comes to multi-head desktop cards.

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Is Social Media Better Than Sex?

One person out of every fourteen people surveyed said they don’t mind being interrupted during sex for a message. You know what that means? It means one out of every fourteen people don’t qualify to read the [H].

I'm not surprised that 40 percent of respondents don't mind being interrupted for a message. I'll fully admit to being one of those people. But it depends on the time and the place. One in three respondents will take a message during a meal, and one in 14 during sex (this number jumps to one in 10 for those under 25).

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[H]ardware Round-Up

Cases & Modding

Cooler Master USP 100 Case @ PureOC

Memory/ Storage

Kingston LoVo Power Saving 1.25V DDR3 @ Bit-Tech

Patriot Gamer-Series DDR3-1600 Memory @ BmR

Motherboards

Asus P6X58D Premium @ Overclockers Club

Video

XFX Radeon HD 5830 1GB GDDR5 @ Hardware Canucks

New Version of Chrome Out

There is a new stable version of Chrome out now. Also, Google announced the winner of the first $1337 Chromium Security Reward today as well.

Please see the Chromium security page for more detail. Note that the referenced bugs may be kept private until a majority of our users are up to date with the fix. Congratulations to Sergey Glazunov on receiving the first $1337 Chromium Security Reward for bug 35724.

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Top 11 Social Networks You Shouldn't Join

BBSpot has posted a list of the "Top 11 Social Networks You Shouldn't Join." Damn, I don't know, it’s a toss-up between number seven and number nine on the list.

9. CellMates - You probably want to avoid qualifying to join this site.

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Judge Approves $9.5 Million Facebook ‘Beacon’ Accord

Remember that Facebook program "Beacon?" Well, the class action lawsuit filed over it has been settled for $9.5 million (of which the lawyers get $3M).

The case concerned allegations Facebook’s now defunct "Beacon" program breached federal wiretap and video-rental privacy laws. Terms of the settlement, in which Facebook denied any wrongdoing, require the site to finance what the deal calls a "Digital Trust Fund" that would issue more than $6 million in grants to organizations to study online privacy

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ATI Catalyst 10.3 Preview Driver

AMD has posted that Catalyst 10.3 preview driver we told you about the other day (HERE). Currently the driver is available for Windows 7 and Vista 32-bit and 64-bit in both desktop and notebook flavors.

This release of ATI Catalyst™ introduces support for the production version of Windows® 7 and Windows® Vista for notebooks featuring the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 2000 Series, ATI Mobility™ Radeon HD 3000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 4000 Series, and ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5000 Series of products.

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GM's Enhanced Vision System HUD

The future of driving is here. Thanks to Grady A. and Edward C. for the link on this one.

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Emergency Internet Control Bill Gets a Rewrite

According to this, the Skynet bill is getting a rewrite so it doesn’t sound so scary. Oops, did I say Skynet? I meant the "Emergency Internet Control Bill."

Sen. Jay Rockefeller alarmed technology and telecommunications firms last year when he announced a plan for the president to seize "emergency" control of the Internet. Now the West Virginia Democrat is trying again with a new version that aides hope will be seen as less extreme.

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Man Accused of Disabling 100 Cars Over Internet

I am not sure how funny I would think this was if I was one of the one hundred victims but, since I wasn't, it’s okay to laugh.

A man fired from a Texas auto dealership used an Internet service to remotely disable ignitions and set off car horns of more than 100 vehicles sold at his old workplace, police said Wednesday.

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MSI Mainboards Fully Support Core i7-980X Extreme 6-Core CPUs

To provide consumers more comprehensive upgrade services, MSI, the world-leading mainboard and graphic card manufacturer, announced today that all MSI Intel X58-based mainboards will support the latest Intel Core i7-980X Extreme, the 32nm B1 stepping native 6-core CPU. So in the beginning of product design, MSI's total consideration about upgradability is shown, and also the greater scalability to consumers is brought.

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AMD Foundation to Sponsor Game Design Workshop

AMD today announced the AMD Foundation, in support of AMD Changing the Game, has awarded a $100,000 grant to Games for Change. The funds will be used to sponsor a day-long game design workshop for educators at the upcoming 7th annual Games for Change Festival. Games for Change (G4C) is a non-profit that promotes the extraordinary power of video games to address contemporary social issues, including poverty, education and climate change. As part of G4C’s signature event, the Games for Change Festival, AMD will sponsor a day-long workshop to help middle and high school teachers, non-profit leaders, and others develop social issue game design programs for their school curriculums or after-school programs. The workshop will be held on May 24, 2010, at Parsons The New School For Design in New York City, and is designed to accommodate up to 150 participants.

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Canadian Movie Pirate Sent To Jail

Distribute two crappy movies on the internet? That’ll be jail time for you mister. Oh yeah, don’t try to use the lame "I’m emo" defense like this guy did either, that just guarantees you’ll get jail time.

Today the verdict came in, and the Court sentenced Adam to two and a half months in prison – the prosecution had demanded four. The defense lawyer had argued for community service because Adam suffers from depression and a troubled childhood, but despite these arguments, the Court decided to opt for a prison sentence.

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