Posted 08/29/08 at 04:23:03 PM by Pulkit Chandna
The abandoned remains of EarthLink’s ambitious free WiFi service are scattered across various U.S cities. Many of the WiFi networks that EarthLink founded have been rescued by private investors and saved from their inevitable demise. The latest savior happens to be Google, which has decided to run the WiFi network in Milpitas. It has joined hands with I-Net Solutions and a few others to save the network. There will be no access fee unlike the time when EarthLink ran this particular network . The Milpitas network didn't figure on EarthLink's list of free WiFi networks.

Posted 08/29/08 at 11:00:00 AM by Will Smith
Steelseries delivers a one-two punch of awesome with its first mouse—the Ikari, a standard five-button, right-handed design suitable for gamers who use either the palm and claw-style grips. With its low-profile design, the Ikari doesn’t provide sufficient support for folks who like to rest their palm on the mouse; our palm-gripped tester had a stiff hand after a few hours of play. Nonetheless, the Ikari’s other features and kick-ass sensor make us almost willing to ignore the less-than-ergonomically perfect shape.

Those features, after the jump.
Posted 08/28/08 at 05:24:38 PM by Will Smith
We love the shape of this mouse—it’s comfortable for even the longest session—and the DeathAdder just gets better from there. The sensor delivers pixel-perfect accuracy, and we love that the driver lets us adjust everything from X and Y sensitivity to the lights on the mouse. We’re still not sold on the idea of constantly updating firmware for a mere mouse, but Razer’s built a highly compelling rodent with the DeathAdder.

Hit the jump for the full review.
Posted 08/28/08 at 03:04:37 PM by Chris Moody
Cnet posted an article saying that Nvidia is now offering what it calls "native" licensing of SLI to its partners and system builders. Native licensing will not require the use of Nvidia's nForce 200 bridge for the Core i7 and X58 motherboards. That is right, no chip. The difference between native and the nForce 200 is that native SLI allows for more “common configurations”. There were no details on what “common configurations” could mean.Only the boards certified by Nvidia will be Nvidia will be able to enable SLI.
Pure speculation on my part is that it might mean only dual cards in SLI, not 3 or more on the native solution.
We can hope that this is a sign of a thaw in relations befween Intel and Nvidia. Of course Nvidia board certification may not make motherboard manufactuers very happy at the prospect of another hoop to jump through.
In any case, we can at least be assured of having a helping of SLI with our Core i7.

Posted 08/28/08 at 11:00:00 AM by David Murphy
Taking a cue from ViewSonic’s playbook, Westinghouse’s L2610NM produces a crappy image out of the box. We haven’t seen a display ship with such a whited-out picture in a long time.
And unlike ViewSonic’s VX2240w, adjusting the L2610NM’s brightness and contrast settings does little to help matters.

More of this sin against nature after the jump.
Posted 08/27/08 at 02:00:00 PM by David Murphy
Size is important, but so is quality. Hannspree’s 27.5-inch HF289HJB fits the former just fine, but its average performance makes us yearn for a better-quality picture to fill the massive screen.

Dim news after the jump.
Posted 08/27/08 at 01:00:00 PM by Michael Brown
TBI Audio Systems bowled us over last year with its passive Majestic Diamond peakers; the company recently sent us the follow-up to those speakers (the Majestic Diamond IR) along with the new hybrid-powered Millennia MG3 Class D amplifier. (Buying the components as a package shaves $100 off the cost of acquiring them separately.)
Hybrid power means the amp can operate on either A/C power (using the included power supply) or eight AA batteries (not included). Plugging in the power adapter shuts off the batteries (but it won’t refresh any rechargeable batteries you might be using). Add a set of strong passive speakers and a digital media player capable of playing tracks encoded using a lossless codec (we used Cowon’s FLAC-friendly A3) and you have a fabulous audio system you can listen to just about anywhere.

Read on for the full review.
Posted 08/27/08 at 12:30:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff
A Dream Machine graced the inaugural issue of Maximum PC back in 1998, and the tradition of building an annual no-holds-barred PC beast has continued unabated since then. True to form, this year’s rig is the most audacious, most powerful dream rig to date. Equipped with no fewer than eight processing cores, four graphics cores, and five hard drives, DM2008 is probably also our most controversial build. But as Lando said, it’s not our fault.
In the old days, we would just pick the very best hardware available. But those were simpler times, when parts vendors all got along and their sole mission was to provide you with badass gear. Sadly, the stakes are so high today that politics has an undue influence on hardware configurations.

To find out who's on our naughty list, and see an in-depth kick-ass examination of our Dream Machine, hit the jump! And hold onto your hat.


