Britain slumps down broadband league as BT rolls out fibre service

The UK’s broadband infrastructure has slumped to 18th in the world, according to a report published by Cisco and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. The report, which assessed the quality of broadband infrastructures across the world, ranked the UK alongside Estonia. South Korea and Hong Kong held the top two spots. “The UK held its own,” said Tony Hart, associate fellow at the Saïd Business School. He said this was an accomplishment given the rapid rate of broadband expansion in other countries. The UK’s download throughput has increased by 39 per cent compared to last year, while upload speeds have improved by 17 per cent. According to the report, broadband latency in the UK decreased by 28 per cent.

Ofcom gives YouView green light

Broadcasting and telecoms regulator Ofcom has given the green light to YouView, the free-to-air internet-connected TV service. The regulator declined requests for a competition investigation into the service ahead of its planned launch in the first half of 2011. Ofcom was asked to investigate the scheme after complaints byVirgin Media, IPVision and BSkyB among others. They claimed that YouView was anti-competitive and would stifle innovation. The regulator said its decision not to go ahead with a full-blown investigation stemmed from the fact that it believes the service is likely to benefit consumers more than it would impede competition in the sector. “IPTV is still an emerging sector, and the impact of YouView on the market will not be known with any confidence for some time,” read an Ofcom statement. “It is likely that YouView will bring benefits to viewers and consumers – any potential harm to competition would need to be offset against these benefits.

Scientists Race to Simulate Earthquakes

The rush to build more-powerful supercomputers is part of a larger race to solve some of mankind’s biggest problems. One person on the front line of that effort is Thomas Jordan, director of the Southern California Earthquake Center. “We are very concerned about the current state of the faults in Southern California,” said Jordan, who described the San Andreas fault as “locked and loaded and ready to roll” with a sizable earthquake. Using a supercomputer called Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Jordan’s team has been running simulations of how an earthquake might affect Southern California. Running at 1.75 petaflops, Jaguar is the world’s second-fastest supercomputer.

JVC Earns THX 3D Projector Certification

Four new JVC home theater projectors are the world’s first to gain THX 3D Display Certification. The four projectors, introduced at CEDIA EXPO in September while undergoing THX testing, will be available later this month. The new THX 3D Certified projectors are the Reference Series DLA-RS60 and DLA-RS50, to be marketed by JVC’s Professional Products Company, and the Procision Series DLA-X9 and DLA-X7, to be available through JVC U.S.A. During the THX 3D certification process, more than 400 laboratory tests are conducted, evaluating color accuracy, crosstalk, viewing angles and video processing to ensure the high quality 3D and 2D display performance that home theater enthusiasts demand. The JVC projectors have one-button solutions for optimized playback of 3D and 2D movies. THX Professional Calibrators can access all THX Modes on JVC projectors for further fine-tuning.

Acronis Drive Monitor Review

You’re well aware that a conventional drive is the system component most prone to failure: After all, a HDD platter spins almost constantly, sectors constantly get written and then rewritten, and a mechanical arm continually reaches out to snag data from the spinning platter— all of this occurring in a hot, enclosed metal-and-plastic box. Let’s face it, you have every right to cringe every time you think you hear your drive make an untoward noise. In reality, you’re always only a few clicks and hiccoughs away from a dead drive. But if your drive is S.M.A.R.T.- compliant (or if you can muster the script-writing skills required to interface the app with your non-S.M.A.R.T. HDD), you have an ally in Acronis Drive Monitor.

Actual Multiple Monitors 3.0 Beta 1

With the price of flat-panel monitors dropping every month, and with even the most basic video cards sporting two video ports, it’s never been easier or cheaper to run a multimonitor rig. You might think that doing so is as simple as connecting a few cables and telling Windows “Hey, use all these monitors.” (And, to a certain extent, you’d be right.) Soon, though, you’d start to notice all sorts of annoyances with how Windows manages them. Actual Multiple Monitors is one of the more popular tools to get rid of those annoyances while adding lots of functionality. Out of the box, Windows puts a lot of limitations on the secondary monitor. You can’t have a Taskbar (along with a Start menu and Taskbar Tray) there. It can’t have a different wallpaper image, and you certainly can’t stretch one large image across all of your monitors to create a single, unified image.

Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 Toxic Edition

AMD recently gave its partners the green light to introduce overclocked Radeon HD 6850s, and Sapphire is the first out of the gate with its Toxic Edition. Although the GPU under the hood is the same as the stock 6850 we tested last month, Sapphire bolted this one to the same PCB it uses for the more powerhungry 6870 cards. Here, too, you’ll find dual six-pin power connectors, which provide more than enough juice to handle the overclocked 820MHz core clock (from 775MHz) and 1,100MHz memory clock (from 1,000MHz), as well as any overclock you manage to score on your own.

Patriot Memory Viper Xtreme 4GB (PX534G2000ELK)

The main attraction of Patriot Memory’s recently released line of Viper Xtreme memory kits is its new heatsink design. The new Viper Extreme kits have much heavier and thicker aluminum heatsinks, fused with copper heat plates that feature ridged fins along the top. The end result is a better-performing heatsink that’s able to more quickly absorb and dissipate heat. Patriot’s Viper Xtreme DDR3 kits are available in capacities ranging from 4GB to 12GB, with rated frequencies of 1,600MHz or 2,000MHz.

The kit I tested, model PX534G2000ELK, boasts a 4GB capacity (2x 2GB, dual channel) with a rated speed of 2,000MHz. It also supports XMP profiles for easy configuration on compatible motherboards and latencies of 9-10-9-27 at 1.65V. Performance of the Patriot kit was quite good. According to SiSoft Sandra, bandwidth hovered around the 20.5GBps mark, which is great for a dual-channel kit. A low-res Crysis benchmark yielded frame rates just north of 211fps. Because the main feature of this new memory is its heatsink design, I also checked temperatures under various conditions and came away impressed.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 480 SOC

A handful of overclocked GeForce GTX 480s are currently on the market, but few are as extreme as the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 480 Super Overclocked edition. What makes the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 480 SOC so interesting are its ultra-high clocks and custom cooler (dubbed Windforce 3X). In addition to being faster, the GeForce GTX 480 SOC is also quieter than reference cards, thanks to its custom triple-fan cooling setup. And, somewhat surprisingly, Gigabyte’s offering—despite its higher frequencies—actually consumes less power than slower reference cards.

The power savings are a result of more efficient voltage regulation circuitry on the GTX 480 SOC, as well as Gigabyte’s aggressive binning of the GPUs themselves. Everything about the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 480 SOC screams “power user.” This card is easily one of the most attractive GTX 480-based cards on the market. At under $470, it is priced competitively. The only thing that may give potential consumers pause is the recent arrival of the slightly faster GeForce GTX 580, which can be had for only an additional $30.

Gigabyte Aivia K8100 Review

Gamers demand much from a keyboard: appropriate key sensitivity, a usable macro facility, and the ability to press multiple keys at once, for example. The K8100 delivers all of these and adds an attractive housing plus several additional features. All keys are not created equal, and the K8100’s designers recognized the fact that some keys get more—and harder— use than others. The K8100’s keys are divided into force regions, with some keys (Spacebar, W, A, S, D, etc.) requiring more pressure (70 grams) than less frequently used keys that instead require only 50 or 60 grams. It’s hard to tell the difference in pressure without engaging in some seriously long-term gaming, but the key action itself is excellent. The keyboard features a 20-key antighosting feature: Up to 20 keys can be pressed simultaneously.

Zalman ZM-MH200 U3 Dual HDD Review

When reviewing hardware, the best products are sometimes the hardest to write about because there’s not much fodder for criticism. Such is the case with the Zalman ZM-MH200 U3 Dual HDD Docking Station. The ZM-MH200 U3 features two toploading slots for either 2.5- or 3.5-inch hard drives; you can just pop in a drive like bread in a toaster and push the eject button to remove it easily. It has a USB 3.0 interface, and the cable is included. The docking station supports dual mode (the drives in each slot are recognized as two separate drives), JBOD, RAID 0, and RAID 1. Setting the drives to your desired configuration is refreshingly simple: Set the two switches on the back of the unit to one of the four possible combinations and push the reset button.

Scythe USB Foot Switch Triple

As an everyday writer, I press CTRL-C, CTRL-V, and CTRL-S 500 times a day if I press them once—admittedly not the most strenuous of chores but timeconsuming nonetheless. With Scythe’s extremely handy USB Foot Switch, engaging such key combos is foot-stomp quick. Take that quickness and apply it to a favorite FPS, racing title, video-editing app, etc., and potential benefits become obvious. Scythe sells one- ($33), two- ($44), and three-pedal switches. I tested the three-pedal version. An obvious question of all versions is “Will the pedals hold up?” The answer is, “Yes.” Screwed to a thick, hard-plastic slab, the pedals resemble a guitar pedal setup with grooved, rubber mats covering each pedal. Rubber feet on the bottom prevent slippage on carpet, though they aren’t as successful on hardwood floors.

Antec LanBoy Air Review

If modular PSUs can help you customize your build, why couldn’t a modular chassis do the same? The LanBoy Air is a totally modular, open-air chassis built with the capacity to provide some serious cooling, which is obvious when you see that the case is practically all mesh wrapped around a frame.
 Starting with the outside tour of the LanBoy Air, we were impressed with a design that makes it possible to completely reconfigure the front panel, unscrew the varying sizes of side panels, and store tools in an onboard utility box that’s conveniently hidden at the bottom of the front panel. Not unlike tearing down and rebuilding a tower of Legos, the LanBoy Air is a joy to take apart and piece back together.

Easy ways to Extend Your Holiday Budget

LOOK FOR “NO INTEREST” DEALS
“No interest” deals are not necessarily hard to find, but they might be a bit of a misnomer. Larger retailers sometimes offer no interest financing for 12 or 18 months on items that cost above a certain dollar amount. But these deals are only “interest free” for the designated time frame. This means no interest will be charged if the balance is paid in full (there’s often a minimum monthly payment) before the 12 or 18 months is up. However, if the balance is not paid in full, shoppers will be responsible for all interest that accrued over that 12- or 18- month period. These “no interest” deals are a great way to extend a holiday budget, but shoppers should make certain they pay the balance off before the grace period is up.

COMPARISON SHOP
As sensible as it seems, many shoppers find little time to comparison shop during the often hectic holiday season. Shoppers looking to extend their budgets, however, should find the time to comparison shop. Significant savings could be had simply by scanning the different flyers in the Sunday newspaper. Such efforts only take minutes but could save shoppers hundreds of dollars during the holiday season.