cool

Lenovo CEO Gets $3 Million Performance Bonus, Gives It Away To Employees

Brad Chacos — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 18:01:05 +0000

Usually, when you hear about CEO compensation, it's in relation to how mind-blowingly much executives make, or how a dismissed honcho left riding on a golden parachute. Not at Lenovo. The PC provider has been on a tear in recent months and is on the verge of supplanting HP as the number one computer manufacturer in the world. That top-notch performance made CEO Yang Yuanqing eligible for a big fat bonus check. Rather than keeping the cash for himself, he divvied up the $3 million performance-related bonus into 10,000-ish slices and distributed it to the everymen (and women) who make up the bulk of the company.

The shared bonus only went out to junior-level employees, such as receptionists and factory workers, rather than managers or other executives. Each employee received the equivalent of $314, CNN reports.

That would be nothing to sneeze at in the U.S., but it's a staggering sum in China, where Lenovo is based. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China, the average rural Chinese resident only earns 6,977 yuan per year, or the equivalent of $1,094. Urban Chinese residents make out better, pulling down a 2011 yearly average of 23,939 yuan, but that still only works out to $3,762. Basically, $314 can mean a world of difference for Lenovo rank-and-file employees.

Lenovo's CEO pulled down an additional $2.2 million in bonuses from other incentives and earned a total compensation of right around $14 million.

SilentMaxx Offers A Silent, Passively Cooled Sandy Bridge-E Gaming PC With Discrete Graphics

Brad Chacos — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 17:14:33 +0000

What's even cooler than rocking a powerful Sandy Bridge-E rig supplemented with discrete graphics? Rocking a powerful Sandy Bridge-E rig that's supplemented by discrete graphics and runs completely silent thanks to gargantuan passive coolers. Sound crazy? It is, but the PC builders at Germany's SilentMaxx are offering just that in silent system built around the company's crazy TwinBlock passive cooler, which chills out 100W TDP CPUs with the help of ten copper heatpipes and two utterly massive heat sinks.

The base version of the Fanless I-850 Gamer PC costs the equivalent of $1,569 and includes a 3.6 GHz Core i7-3820, 8GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, Gigabyte X79-UD3 mobo, a passively cooled Radeon HD 7770, and a hard drive silencer that doubles as a heatsink. Thinking that graphics card is a bit weaksauce for a Sandy Bridge-E build? You're right, but fear not: SilentMaxx offers a ton of customization options, maxing out with passively cooled GTX 580, GTX 670 or Radeon 7970 offerings, 32GB of RAM, a pair of 512GB SSDs and a 3.3GHz Core i7-3960X. Be warned: the cost doesn't include shipping, which could be a hefty bill if you're bringing it over to the U.S.

That seems like a lot of firepower with a lot of heat generation, but SilentMaxx claims the aforementioned monster TwinBlock cooler, passive GPU cooling and custom-designed ventilation-friendly tower should keep things quiet and cool enough. The company even puts its money where its mouth is with a 24 month, no-questions-asked warranty.

Props to Olivier at Fanless Tech for bringing our attention to this passively cooled powerhouse.

MyBadOmen's Mass Effect 3 Case Mod Will Rock Your Intergalactic Socks

Brad Chacos — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:44:41 +0000

Usually, just tossing around the words "Mass Effect 3 mod" is enough to get you banned from Origin's multiplayer servers before you can blink a Batarian's eyes. Not in this case; rather than whipping together some modified code to gain XP at an advanced rate, David Lane (a.k.a. MyBadOmen) has instead whipped together a kick-ass ME3-inspired case mod that's sure to send a shiver down the robotic spines of Reapers galaxy-wide.

Lane based the ME3 mod around a NZXT Switch 810, and its craftsmanship earned him a shout out from company founder Johnny Hou in a blog post. A bevy of sponsors helped Lane build the Normandy SR2 homage from his fortress of solitude (aka an RV in the woods of New Hampshire), including Plextor, EK Waterblocks and NZXT itself.

The interior keeps up the red, white and black ME3 color scheme with a pair of Powercolor Radeon HD 6970s in Crossfire, red fans, and a red- and white-tinged Fatal1ty Professional Series mobo from ASRock. The liquid coursing through the cooling system is a nice red and white mix, too, while the exterior of the case is a mixture of hand-painting and di-noc carbon fiber sheets. There's even a little Normandy recreation on the liquid cooling reservoir.

Making this masterpiece took a lot of work. You can retrace David's steps in his epic 100 page-plus build log, which thankfully has an index for quickly jumping to specific updates. A few final touches should be posted soon. Like what you see? We've recently outlined all the tools you need to start modding yourself; David's ME3 build log shows you how to use them.

NZXT's "Hue" LED Controller Offers Custom Case Lighting with Minimum Fuss

Brad Chacos — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 17:05:34 +0000

Not everything in life is clear-cut. Take LED lighting in your PC for instance; some people love the look of colorful bulbs, while the same effect makes others want to claw their eyes out with a molex tool. If you fall into the former camp, NZXT's new "Hue" LED controller might just be up your alley. It's a premade lighting solution that seems flexible enough to satisfy DIYers who want custom rave club-like effects without worrying about inverters and grounding wires.

The controller itself slips into a 5.25-inch drive bay and sports three controls, which let you manually tweak the RGB color settings, brightness and pulse speed of the unit's LED lights. Fading, flashing, color changing -- it's all there. The lighting itself comes in the form of a 2 meter-long sleeve with 24 LEDs peppered throughout; it's nice and bendy, so you're able to snake the lights through your rig any way you see fit.

NZXT's $33 Hue controller uses a SATA connection and is already available; you can find more information on NZXT's website.

Via Engadget

This Scratch-Built, Desk-Based PC Mod Looks Great, Runs Cool And Rocks Three Monitors

Brad Chacos — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:40:58 +0000

Something about case mods that build a PC into an actual desk are just plain cool. We loved Peter Brands' L3P Desk (featured in our kick-ass case mods gallery) and a new mod by Shazim Mohammed continues on in the fine tradition by cramming a water-cooled, plenty powerful PC with a three monitor Eyefinity setup into a desk that was built completely from scratch. It might not be overly flashy, but it's impressive nonetheless.

The biggest challenge, Mohammed reports, was figuring out a way to get good air flow moving around the MDF-built desk. He enlisted the help of a Tom's Hardware forum-goer and planned a layout that includes three exhaust fans, two intake fans and a liquid cooling setup for the CPU and GPU. The final setup runs at 31 degrees Celcius.

Speaking of final setups, here's what Mohammed put into his desk, straight from the man himself:

Asus Gene IV Motherboard
i5-2500k Processor
Radeon HD 7950 Graphics card with Water Cooling block (EK)
3x Dell UltraSharp (U2312HM) Monitors (in Eyefinity setup) with a modded ergonomic mount.
3x Gelid UV Reactive Green fans
XSPC Raystorm CPU waterblock
XSPC RX360 Radiator
PrimoFlex UV Green tubinh
Swiftech pump

Head over to Mohammed's build log to see tons and tons of both in-progress and finished product pics. Seriously, there are a lot of them: just so you don't think your broadband connection's acting up, we'll warn you in advance that the website takes a long time to load. It's worth the wait, though.

Via Engadget (suprisingly)

Microsoft Kept Surface Tablet A Secret By Securing The Team In An Underground Bunker

Brad Chacos — Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:09:34 +0000

How does Microsoft, one of the highest-profile technology companies in the world, create a new, similarly high-profile piece of hardware like the Surface Tablet without anybody in the industry getting a whiff of it? Simple: you lock the designers working on the project into secretive underground facilities with security measures similar to what you'd find at a bank or sensitive data centers.

Microsoft hardware guru Stevie Bathiche told TechRadar, our FutureUS sister site, that the small team worked in "an underground bunker with no windows." Once things started picking up, Microsoft brought the team above ground, but the new digs sported armed guards, biometric verification and double airlock-type doors to ensure that nobody was able to sneak their way in; one door had to close completely before the other one would start to open.

The Surface tablet's team spilled several more beans about the blood, sweat and anal-retentive tears that went into designing Microsoft's first self-branded tablet. They also confirmed you won't see a Windows RT tablet sporting a Kindle Fire-low price tag. Head on over to TechRadar to read the whole shebang.

Sandia National Lab Starts Licensing Out Super Quiet, Hyper-Efficient CPU Cooler

Brad Chacos — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 17:33:51 +0000

Think your CPU cooler kicks ass? Some of the top minds in the country disagree. Researchers at the Sandia National Laboratories have been working on a novel new design for a rapidly spinning cooler, one that they say is up to 30 percent more efficient than traditional models AND virtually silent in typical use cases. Sounds crazy ambitious? Apparently, it isn't; Sandia's already looking to license the technology out to electronics suppliers, and one unidentified CPU cooling company has already hopped on the bandwagon.

Sandia's cooler basically consists of two parts: a disk-shaped heat spreader with vertical cooling fins, positioned on top of a stationary base plate that touches the CPU and acts as a heat sink. The bottom of the finned spreader is flat, as is the top of the heat sink. A gap of less than 0.001-inches separates the two, and during operation the top disk spins at a rate of 2,000 RPM.

Being at such close range and spinning so fast creates, essentially, a self-regulating "hydrodynamic gas bearing," which lets the cooler negate the thin layer of stagnant air -- known as the boundary layer -- that locks in a lot heat in traditional sink-plus-fan CPU cooling methods. In fact, the heat takes on almost liquid properties in Sandia's method and transfers between the heat sink and the cooling fins very, very efficiently.

As the cooler spins, its shape draws air down into the "eye" of the hardware, which is then quickly pushed out radially through its curved fins, keeping everything cool. The shape and spin of the cooler benefits this stage two-fold; it pumps air very, very well, and any dust that tries to settle on it gets blown out just as fast.

If that's a bit too technical for your blood, check out the video above, in which creator Jeffrey Koplow shows off the cooler in action and provides a solid description of how it works. It's a lot easier to grasp if you watch it, trust me. A lot more information can be found in a whitepaper on the Sandia National Laboratory website.

Sandia hopes the cooler's design will scale up and take off in a number of industries, including (obviously) PC uses, solid state lighting, HVAC, automotive and large appliances. Which CPU cooling company do you think licensed the technology?

Nigerian Princes: Scientifically Designed to Identify Idiots

Brad Chacos — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 18:01:05 +0000

Oh, those wacky Nigerian princes and their tales of lost fortunes. If only they had your help! But they don't, of course, because anybody with half a brain can see through the scam. And that's the key to the scheme, one Microsoft researcher says in a 14 page report about Nigerian scams; the fantastic stories serve to screen out skeptical folks, leaving the scammers free to pick off the low-hanging fruit that responds to wild emails from African royalty.

The abstract to Cormac Herley's "Why do Nigerian Scammers Say They are from Nigeria?" sums things up nicely, followed by a ton of probability checks, algebra and graphs to back up his big talk:

Far-fetched tales of West African riches strike most as comical. Our analysis suggests that is an advantage to the attacker, not a disadvantage. Since his attack has a low density of victims the Nigerian scammer has an over-riding need to reduce false positives. By sending an email that repels all but the most gullible the scammer gets the most promising marks to self-select, and tilts the true to false positive ratio in his favor.

The scammers have to spend a lot of time exchanging emails with possible victims, Herley goes on to explain. By enticing savvy folks (like Maximum PC readers) into quickly tossing ridiculous scam emails into the junk folder, the criminals maximize their potential profit by focusing their efforts on gullible grandmothers with a taste for snake oil.

If you don't mind tl;dr reports that are peppered with math, be sure to check out the full report. It's an interesting read. Props to [H]ardOCP for pointing it out!

Image credit: quickmeme.com

Intel's Brain-Like Neuromophic CPUs Provide Possible Blueprint for Future Generations of Robotic Overlords

Brad Chacos — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 17:57:18 +0000

Intel's placing its bets on more than just the company's top-notch fabrication facilities; the company apparently has a stake in creating future generations of robot overlords, as well. Less than a month ago, Intel unveiled a new research project designed to make technology that's smart enough to learn its user's personal quirks and adapt accordingly; last week, Intel researchers published a proposal for a new, neuromorphic chip design -- hardware that mimics the human brain.

Intel's technique differs quite a bit from IBM's cognitive chips, which were first announced almost a year ago. While IBM's brain chips use traditional silicon circuits containing so-called "neurosynaptic cores" with "programmable synapses" and "learning synapses," the method proposed by Intel instead uses multi-input lateral spin valves and memristors. The LSVs are itty bitty magnets that change their magnetism depending on the rotation of the electrons coursing through them, while memristors either increase or decrease their electrical resistance depending on the direction of the electrical current's flow.

The Intel researchers say that by arranging these parts into specific configurations, the LSVs can basically act as neurons, while the memristors mimic synapses. They also claim that the neuromorphic CPUs are amazingly energy efficient, using 15 to 300 times less power than current CMOS technology.

The group claims that the chip would be good for processing tasks similar to what humans do, such as "analog-data-sensing, data-conversion, cognitive-computing, associative memory, programmable-logic and analog and digital signal processing."

One big caveat; at this stage, Intel's neuromorphic CPU is entirely theoretical, while IBM's brain-clone is already a prototype. That being said, you can read all about Intel's neuromorphic chip in the company's whitepaper proposal, which you can find in entirety here. (PDF)

Via Technology Review

Author Neal Stephenson Kickstarts PC-Exclusive, Motion-Controlled Swordfighting PVP Game

Brad Chacos — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 18:14:14 +0000

Meticulous detail, motion-controlled swords and PC exclusivity: that's what noted sci-fi and historical fiction author Neal Stephenson is bringing to the table if his arena-style blade-dueling game, Clang, meets its $500k funding goal. Stephenson, you see, is sick of seeing guns, guns and more guns in games and he -- with the help of Subutai, his Seattle-based media company -- wants to bring back old-school sword duels in virtual form, all powered by Razer's Hydra motion controller.

Despite calling the game "Guitar Hero with swords" in the most hilarious Kickstart video we've ever seen -- keep your eyes peeled for an ornery, crowbar-crafting Gabe Newell! -- Stephenson says that the Hydra's low latency and high accuracy will open up a word of advanced sword-fighting capabilities, including different stances, pommel strikes, grappling, feints, and parries.

The game is slated to start off as a simple one-on-one multiplayer arena game, with longswords being the only weapons available, but Stephenson says that as the technology and gameplay is perfected, the team hopes to introduce adventure-style quests and a toolkit dubbed MASE (for Martial Arts System Embodiments) that will enable Subutai and others to add new weapons and fighting styles to Clang, with Japanese kenjutsu and Viking sword-and-board being the two examples cited. Stories and books set in the Clang universe are already being published through Amazon.

Clang's already raised around $250,000, or just under half its goal. Dropping $25 into the proverbial bucket gets you kudos in the game credits as well as a copy of the title once it's finished, which should be around February of next year. Even if you're not into the whole crowdfunding thing, be sure to check out that intro video to witness Stephenson's wicked humor (and his even more wicked beard) firsthand.

Noctua and Rotosub's Active Noise-Cancelling Fan Gets Detailed and Videotaped

Brad Chacos — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:48:22 +0000

Remember the active noise-cancelling fans Noctua promised to have on display at the Computex exhibition last week? Well, said cooling technology was indeed available, along with new information about pricing and release info for the products. So does Rotosub's ANC technology actually quiet things down as much as promised? Noctua's posted a video of the noise-cancelling fan in action so that you can judge for yourself.

After watching (and listening) to the video, our ears report that the ANC tech manages to dull the noise of the fans by quite a bit. The soft, soothing quiet is thanks to a team effort by a mic, a signal processor and a metal band in the center of the fan. As the fan spins, the microphone feeds the noise to the signal processor, which does its frequency-finding magic and then delivers a signal to magnets embedded in the tip of the fan blades. The magnets make the blades quiver oh-so-slightly in response to the metal band in the center of the fan, which creates a sound that largely cancels out the noise of the fan itself.

Now for the bad news: Noctua told the Verge than ANC-enabled fans are at least a year away from retail shelves, and the initial versions may be bulky, as they won't necessarily have the mic and signal processor integrated into the body of the fan itself. The fans are also expected to cost somewhere between $40 and $50 bucks, whereas the currently available Noctua NF-F12 can be found for between $20 and $25, depending on where you're shopping.

So, hearing (or not -- ha!) all that, are you still intrigued by active noise-cancelling fans, or does the anticipated price point cool down your enthusiasm?

New Technology Brings On-Demand, Tactile Buttons To Touchscreen Devices

Brad Chacos — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 17:20:46 +0000

Just in case you didn't get the hint from the tablet-tastic Windows 8 Metro UI and those 900,000 Android devices activated each and every day: the world is turning into an increasingly touch-focused place. Touchscreens are nice and all, but we prefer our QWERTY to be a little more… tactile. Enter the appropriately named Tactus Technology: while most of our attention was focused on E3 and Computex last week, Tactus stole the show at the Society for Information Display's (SID) conference in Boston with new technology that can create dynamic physical buttons over a touchscreen display on-demand.

According to the white paper Tactus reps sent us, the multi-layered Tactus display technology sits on top of a device's touch sensors and has "micro channels" comprised of multiple tiny holes in predetermined locations; when physical buttons are needed, an optically clear fluid rises up from a lower layer of the Tactus sheet to fill the holes and create the on-demand physical interface. When physical buttons aren't needed, the fluid exits and the display flattens back out, as you can see in the video below.

Tactus claims the technology doesn't add any additional thickness to the touchscreen, as the 0.75mm to 1mm Tactus display replaces the topmost layer of glass or plastic found in current touchscreens. The buttons raise and lower in less than a second. Buttons of virtually any shape and varying heights can be created with the technology, but given its design, the buttons will be limited to whichever keys OEMs choose to include, such as the numeric dialer and QWERTY keypad found in phones.

The company also claims that the morphing display uses very little additional energy, as it only draws power when altering the fluid pressure to initially raise or lower a button. By contrast, vibrating haptic displays suck down juice whenever a button is pressed.

Tactus showed off a prototype of the morphing touchscreen display on an Android tablet at SID and Engadget got its hands on the goodie, proclaiming it to be "truly impressive" despite giving the display a look that's "a mash-up of matte and glossy."

The first Tactus technology-enabled devices aren't expected to ship until next year, but we gotta say, the idea of a Windows 8 tablet or AIO with a dynamic, on-demand tactile keyboard is definitely intriguing. What do you think?

Lian Li's Bringing A Working Choo-Choo-Chassis To Computex

Brad Chacos — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:04:34 +0000

Lian Li just announced that it will be previewing two new mobile PC cases at the Computex exhibition in Taipei next week -- and by mobile, we mean actually moving. The company will be showing off both the aforementioned steam engine, complete with smoke, and an SUV-look-alike dubbed the PC-Q15. Both will be doing laps around the Lian Li booth.

According to the press release, the PC-Q15 is being "specially designed for Computex," but the engine-like PC-CK101 should be available later this year. In addition to choo-chooing around a track and blowing real smoke, the PC-CK101 case sports USB 3.0 ports, an optical disc drive and support for both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch HDDs, although Lian Li's kept mum about further technical details.

Other Lian Li cases will also be on display, including a vent-less case for silent builds and the newest chassis made completely out of steel, rather than aluminum. (Don't worry, plenty of more traditional cases will be there too, plenty of which still rock the brushed aluminum so many system builders know and love.)

Thoughts? There's no questioning the cool factor, but is a choo-choo chassis a nifty niche offering or a big bundle o' useless?

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Iron Man PC Mod Kicks Bionic Ass, Creator Explains How It Happened

Brad Chacos — Tue, 29 May 2012 17:14:57 +0000

Ron Lee Christianson's known in modderati circles for the outstanding attention to detail in his case mods, and his latest project is no different: the Iron Man PC blows our mind. Commissioned by Thermaltake and built with Thermaltake's new Armor Revo case -- though you'd never know it just by looking at it -- this kick ass case contains the extra touches that make a difference, such as a replica of Iron Man's chest-bound Arc Reactor and a front-facing copy of Iron Man's helm that actually opens and closes. We spoke with Ron about the Iron Man mod and other things over the weekend.

He told us that the Iron Man PC, which will show up in Thermaltake's booth at Computex next week, could be just the first of many Marvel-inspired cases; "Thermaltake and I are discussing the entire Avengers line of case mods," he writes.

Thermaltake approached Ron with the Iron Man mod idea way back in January. "After discussing design ideas for weeks I got started on the build in early March. The greatest challenge was staying true to Marvel's design of the Iron Man suits and incorporating it into a PC case. I watched the movies over and over as I worked on the build trying to pick up on the fine details and personality of the suits."

Ron keeps his skills honed by following the build logs of other in-progress case mods around the Internet. (You can see the build log for the Iron Man PC on Ron's BlueHorseStudios website, complete with a material list and dozens and dozens of pictures.) He also offers some tips and tricks for would-be modders:

"The advice I'd give to anyone starting a build is to do a ton of research on your subject matter (and) document your work in work logs and free media outlets like Facebook and Youtube. Everyone has their own skill sets that they feel comfortable in, master those skills and don't be afraid to try new things... Attention to detail is everything."

Click through the gallery below to see a bunch of pics of the final Iron Man build and two awesome in-progress pics of the Arc Reactor. More pics can be found in the worklog Thermaltake has up on its Facebook page. Speaking of Facebook, if you like what you see, head over to the May edition of Xoxide's "Build of the Month" competition, where Ron's Iron Man PC is one of several finalists vying for the top spot.

Follow Brad on Google+ or Twitter

Space Geeks Geek Out On A History-Filled Friday Afternoon

Brad Chacos — Fri, 25 May 2012 18:06:25 +0000

It's a slow day tech news-wise, but May 25th has turned out to be an early Christmas for space geeks. Any self-respecting science nerd is no doubt already aware that SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft has successfully completed its mission and become the first commercial space craft to ever dock with the International Space Station, but today marks key milestones for a pair of beloved space-based sci-fi franchises as well.

NASA summed up the historical event in a single sentence: The SpaceX Dragon capsule was securely bolted to the Harmony module of the International Space Station at 12:02 p.m. EDT. In fact, SpaceX joins an elite group: the United States, Russia, China, and the European Space Agency are the only other organizations to successfully dock spacecraft in orbit.

May 25th is also Towel Day, the day that hoopy froods remember and celebrate the accomplishments of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently scribe Douglas Adams. Scott Davis pointed out some special once-a-century Towel Day math on G+: 5+25+12=42. Synchronicity, folks.

Speaking of synchronicity, today is also the 35th anniversary of the first airing of Stars Wars: A New Hope. All kinds of tributes are up around the web, but our favorite is Wired Science's analysis of blaster fire in the Star Wars universe.

You may now returned to your regularly scheduled PC news.