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NVIDIA's Quadro FX 5800 with 4GB graphics memory is 'the most powerful graphics card in history'
That's some serious boasting by NVIDIA, but this is some serious graphics horsepower. The Quadro FX 5800, already seen in NVIDIA's Quadro Plex D data cruncher, replaces the 5600 at the top of the NVIDIA heap with 240 CUDA-programmable parallel cores and the industry's first card with 4GB of graphics memory. MSRP? Just $3,499 for you big spender -- pennies for the companies who can harness the power for the purposes of oil and gas exploration, 4D modeling, and graphics design.
'World's fastest WiFi' uses 'lasers'
We love the smell of a "world's fastest" or "world's largest" claim in the morning. This time it's a team of researchers led by Ernesto Ciaramella at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa Italy, saying they've developed the "world's fastest WiFi." Their network beams data at an amazing 1.2Tbps over a few kilometers, more than enough to share your entire Kurosawa collection faster than you can say "Yojimbo." So, performance claims are valid, but we're not sure about that "WiFi" part. Data was transmitted using Free Space Optics (FSO), blinking lasers or LEDs that act like fiber optics without the fiber. This means line-of-sight connections only, so if you get frustrated when concrete walls hamper your WiFi downloads imagine how you'd feel if a little puffy cloud killed all your torrents. So, fastest wireless? Check. Practical solution for high-speed wireless communications? Not so much.
The fastest way to play Arena PvP
We've covered the topic of keyboard turners before, but Paul over on LJ has a similar distinction between control schemes -- he set up a spectrum that has clickers (or those who click all their icons with the mouse) on one end, and pressers (what he called "experts," though that's a little too biased for our tastes) on the other -- those who use the mouse to control movement only, and hit keyboard buttons to use abilities.Personally, I do a mixture of both -- some icons, especially on the top rows, are easier to reach with the mouse than on the keyboard, so I click them. But most of the lower icons are easier to just reach up and click the number buttons on the keyboard, so that's what I do with those. Still Paul isn't really interested in the ways people do it -- he's interested in what's best. In Arena, getting abilities cast and out as fast as possible is often more important than anything else, so it definitely seems like relying on the mouse for movement (and maybe even binding oft-used abilities to mouse keys) would be much faster than clicking on icons periodically. Of course, there's always the option to do both at the same time.It would be interesting for sure to see what kind of schemes and setups winning Arena teams use -- I'd imagine that they'd have to play with default interfaces, so while keybindings and macros would probably work best, they wouldn't be able to go too overboard with customization. At the highest levels, is it faster to click and press or just use the mouse for movement?
Samsung announces world's fastest memory: GDDR5
Gadzooks gamers, Samsung just announced what they are calling the world's fastest memory: GDDR5. The new series five, double-data rate memory chip transfers data at a lickity quick 6Gbps -- about 4x faster while using 20% less power than the GDDR3 memory found in modern GPUs and the PS3. Compare that to their 4Gbps GDDR4 chips and you'll understand the fuss. The chips have already been delivered in samples to the likes of NVIDIA and ATI. Samsung expects the series five chips to capture more than 50 percent of the high-end PC graphics market by 2010.[via DigiTimes]
Mitsubishi builds "world's fastest washing machine"
Never ones to shy away from "word's x-est" of anything, we're especially excited to see such claims come to bear on the realms of minutes and hours, instead of millimeters and nanoseconds. Mitsubishi is laying claim to the title of "world's fastest washing machine," and is tossing in the title of "first moving drum washing machine" while it's at it. The "Moving Drum MVW-VD1" washer-dryer can tilt the washing drum based on how many clothes are in it, and which function it's performing. The slant keeps clothes from sticking to the sides, and means the machine can wash 20 pounds of clothes in 35 minutes, and dry 13 pounds in 145 minutes. Unfortunately, as speedy as this thing might be, it still takes longer than the tried and true sniff-and-wear-it method, not that we would know. The machine hits Japan in May, no word yet on an overseas release.[Via Spluch]
Pioneer unveils DVR-A12J 10x dual-layer DVD burner
Similar to the height / width race that's always going on in the land of HDTV, the write speed race is also one that never seems to cease. While you can toast a blank DVD at 20x, the dual-layer variety demands a bit more patience, but thanks to Pioneer's latest, the waiting game is getting ever shorter. The DVR-A12J lineup comes in piano black, silver, and white color schemes, claims Windows XP compatibility, and offers up 10x write speeds on dual-layer DVD+/-R media. Additionally, it touts Labelflash technology (similar to LightScribe), writes to single-layer DVD media at 18x, and takes care of DVD-RAM at 12x. Moreover, it boasts a 2MB cache and a rather stout Cyberlink software bundle, including PowerDVD6, PowerProducer, and Power2Go. So if you're still holding out on those pricey (and sluggish) Blu-ray burners, you can snap this sucka up for just ¥10,000 ($86) later this month.[Via Impress]
Lite-On finally releases 20x Super AllWrite LH-20A1P DVD burner
Ok, so we knew these bad boys were coming, and now they're finally here -- well, almost. Lite-On is setting the burning world on fire with its newly released 20X Super AllWrite LH-20A1P DVD burner. Touting a lighting-fast 20x write speed for single-sided DVD+/-R discs and 8x for DVDs of the dual-layer variety, the new burner can toast 4.7GB of data in "around five minutes." Of course, it can handle those CD-R / RWs as well, and even DVD-RAM, but we all know you DVD archivers are after the coveted 20x mark when eying this one. To prevent pumping out coasters at an alarming rate, Lite-On included its SMART-BURN technology, which provides buffer underrun protection to keep those burns error free. Unfortunately, the drive hasn't quite hit shelves yet, but it should be ready to grab sometime next month for a currently undisclosed price.[Via Far East Gizmos]
Kodak intros 200 page-per-minute i1860 commercial scanner
With all these newfangled fingerprint / retina scanners in the news lately, it's easy to forget about the plain ole document-reading variety, but Kodak is bringing it all back into focus by unveiling its "fastest production scanner ever," the i1860. The mammoth-sized device captures images at up to 200 pages per minute, and sports a snazzy color touchscreen as well as "automatic height-adjustment" for those long, cold nights spent running year-end reports. Its SurePath technology, in conjunction with "three ultrasonic multi-feed detection sensors," will supposedly help you avoid an office worker's worst nightmare (paper jams during crunch time), and the five output formats should handle just about any obscure map or overcrowded spreadsheet you throw at it. The machine also touts a 300dpi optical resolution, 500 sheet feeder, JPEG / TIFF file export functionality, and FireWire connectivity. Should you work in a heavily overloaded archiving business, or just have ridiculous amounts of cash to burn, you can pick up have this 480-pound beast delivered in December for a whopping £55,000 ($104,605).[Via BIOS]
