Look out Asus, Gigabyte isn’t just nipping at your heels anymore, the top-tier motherboard maker is pretty much standing side by side , market watchers say. According to news and rumor site DigiTimes, Gigabyte looks to have shipped anywhere from 3.1 million to 3.3 million motherboards in the first two months of 2010, putting the company on par with Asus, who is estimated to have shipped 3.2 million to 3.3 million units. Don’t expect... 

The HP Slate’s resemblance to Apple’s iPad looks to be no more than skin deep. Sure, the two devices do basically do the same thing, but Slate looks to offer a bit more potential, if the HP/Abode promotional videos are to believed, with Windows 7 and Flash support. The tiff between Apple and Adobe raises some key concern about the quality of the Flash application. Sure, it drives a lot of content on the web, but at what cost to hardware?... 

Listening to the Maximum PC podcast #131 this past week (I’m behind) brought back some fond memories.  Not only was there a little glint in my eye because I was actually mentioned on said podcast, but I was also tearing up a bit at the realization that the very art of podcasting could serve as an excellent Freeware Files roundup. Thus, here we are!  Podcasting is a huge topic in itself, so I’m trying to bridge a bunch of different... 

The Ubisoft DRM situation has been covered to death, but it’s like a train wreck we just can’t seem to look away from. The latest news comes out of Europe and is reporting that the DRM authentication servers have been down all day, and have yet to return. “I don’t have any clear information on what the issue is … but clearly the extended downtime and lengthy login issues are unacceptable, particularly …  Read More →

Microsoft’s TechEd conference doesn’t typically get a lot of news coverage around here given it’s IT focus, but keynote presenter Eric Rudder was showing off some pretty interesting new Windows phone features which are worthy of note. During his presentation he was able to show off not just a cross platform game that worked across the Xbox 360, PC, and mobile phone, but also how he was able to keep all of his gaming sessions... 

Nvidia has been pretty tight lipped when it comes to Fermi’s performance numbers, but as the March 26th launch date approaches, a few additional details are starting to leak out. This time it’s a video documenting some early benchmarks , giving us our first real peak at Fermi’s performance. Of course we would be remiss if we didn’t mention that the Heaven benchmark utility demonstrated in the video was administered solely... 

We’ve tossed around some pretty harsh criticisms of Ubisoft’s new PC DRM approach, and it’s very much deserved. Piracy is a tricky issue to combat, we get it, but we also know that no amount of DRM will ever stop the dedicated few kleptomaniacs who for one reason or another, simply refuse to pay for software. The only truth when it comes to copy protection is that the stronger it is, the more honest customers you will accidentally... 

After some incredibly clever viral marketing on Valve’s part, GameStop and Game Informer have teamed up to let the cat out of the bag a few days early. Not that we’re complaining, mind you. In addition to the expected return of GlaDOS (she is “still alive,” after all) and an all new single-player mode packed with “devious test chambers,” Portal 2 promises a completely separate co-op campaign that has even the mighty collective MPC... 

Well, we suppose it was inevitable. After being handed their walking papers earlier this week, former Infinity Ward bosses Jason West and Vince Zampella have rallied their lawyers for what promises to be the court equivalent of a train wreck colliding with the last two Matrix movies and the remnants of M. Night Shyamalan’s movie career. “We were shocked by Activision’s decision to terminate our contract,” said West. “We poured our... 

Leave it to Brando to really talk up a product. The “Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard” is apparently pretty awesome if you take their word for it . It has 26 “dazzling” LEDs backlighting the keyboard. As if that wasn’t enough to sell you, it is designed to be easy to carry; by being small apparently. Then there’s the “notebook trackpad”. If you still have doubts, just remember this: it also has a laser pointer. How can they power all... 

The wait is almost over folks, and in less than a month, the iPad frenzy will begin. Apple announced today that its “magical and revolutionary” tablet will be available in the U.S. on Saturday, April 3, for the Wi-Fi models. You’ll have to wait until late April for 3G. “iPad is something completely new,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’re excited for customers to get their hands on this magical... 

Fantasy role-playing games, bow before your new king Dragon Age: Origins is the first in a new franchise from role-playing powerhouse BioWare, and while its swords ‘n’ sorcery setting may, at first glance, appear to be the result of an especially fruitful attempt at robbing J.R.R. Tolkien’s grave, don’t let that fool you. Dragon Age may very well contain one of the finest, most compelling videogame worlds ever created. But that on its... 

It looks as though Apple is bringing down the ban hammer on more than just the risqué apps. All so-called “Wi-Fi detector apps” have disappeared from the App Store . Apple claims these apps were taking advantage of a private framework; this was news to the developers of such apps. One developer said of the incident, “We received a very unfortunate email today from Apple stating that WiFi Where has been removed from sale on the App Store... 

One evening my house’s master breaker box was shut off while my computer was still on. I went into the BIOS and ensured that all my settings were set as before, but since then, every time I start up my computer cold it starts to spool up, then stops for about two seconds, and then boots. If I restart after my machine has been running for a while, it boots with no delay. I went into the BIOS to see if there was any problem in the APM settings,... 

Open-source is not about the money. The software world has gotten this point pretty well by now.  Sure, you can wrap additional elements of a larger business plan around an open-source offering.  But even at its core, the concept of open-source isn’t really designed around capitalistic ideals.  If anything, it’s more communistic in its focus : everybody shares an equal stake in a project, and anybody is free to assert their individual...