ATI R680 Graphics Card is 100x Faster than a Cray-1 SuperComputer

If you’ve had an e-mail account for more than a couple of years, or even just a couple of months, you’ve probably received an e-mail hoax promising you the opportunity to make millions working from home, asking you to donate money to a fraudulent fund, or just passing along a fascinating (but false) story to elicit a widespread response from the public. While many, truly damaging scams are designed to covertly steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from innocent people, this list is mostly comprised of those hoaxes that are just downright ridiculous.

1. Lonelygirl15: One of the most popular Internet hoaxes in recent years, the lonelygirl15 teenager named Bree turned out to be nothing more than an actress named Jessica Rose. The YouTube sensation assuredly broke many lonely hearts who thought they shared a special connection with the web cam princess, the show is still going strong with an average of 70 million viewers, all of whom (hopefully) now know that lonelygirl15 isn’t real.
2. Disney Hoax: Could you imagine receiving a real live e-mail from Walt Disney, Jr. himself? Well, we couldn’t either, but enough people did to make this Disney hoax a real problem. The fraudluent e-mail claims to work with Bill Gates and Microsoft to try out a new e-mail tracing program. The e-mail asks people to forward the e-mail to as many people as possible, and “if it reaches 13,000 people, 1,300 of the people on the list will receive $5,000, and the rest will receive a free trip for two to Disney World for one week during the summer of 1999 at our expense.� We wish.
3. Show Your Bum Joke: According to Hoax-Slayer.com, this hoax “warns that a man supposedly conducting a survey may come to your door and ask to see your bum.� While this hoax is more of a spoof of a hoax, we just had to include it on our list.
4. Internet Wedding Scam: Irish and Scottish folk singer Marc Gunn posts on his website a warning for other musicians about the Internet Wedding scam. A person claiming to be a soon-to-be married man named Pitt Andre wanted to book Gunn’s band at their wedding. Agreeing to pay the 50% deposit upfront, the scammer instead sent a check for nearly double the amount, and then asked for a refund making up the difference. A couple of days later, the man e-mailed Gunn to tell him the wedding was off, and that he wanted all of the money back. According to Gunn, the first check “seemed to have cleared� after three days, and his group sent back the $2500. Of course, the original check inevitably bounced, leaving Gunn and his group “miserable…and $2500 poorer.�
5. Citibank Scam: This scam is pretty tricky. Online banking sites often promise tight security settings and password-protected account access, but even top companies aren’t immune to Internet scams. In 2003, the Citibank website was under siege from a scam artist that designed a pop-up, which “appears to be a Citibank page� and “comes up and asks you to verify your information,� which then “goes to a server in Russia that has nothing to do with Citibank.�
6. Nikki Leotardo: When the immensely popular HBO series The Sopranos planned its final episode during the summer of 2007, there was much speculation as to how America’s favorite mobsters would end their run on television. After the finale, viewers were left hanging, scratching their heads over what could have happened during the blackout from several suspicious characters looming over the Sopranos’ family dinner. A rumor started circulating on the Internet that the man standing at the counter was Nikki Leotardo, Phil’s nephew who had been on the show before and who could have been out to kill Tony. As it turns out, the whole thing was just a joke, and Sopranos fans are still left in the dark about how the show really ended.
7. Killer Bananas: In 2000, an Internet hoax about imported bananas containting flesh eating bacteria that “spread faster than the flu,� according to Kathy Means, vice-president of the Produce Marketing Association. Despite efforts to squash the rumor, people panicked, inciting investigative stories in the LA Times and from the Knight Ridder news service.
8. Neiman Marcus Cookie Hoax: Would you pay $250 for a cookie recipe? What if it came from Neiman Marcus? We hope that you answered no to both of those questions, but one woman claims to have been tricked into paying the absurd amount and then seeks revenge by sending the recipe out in an e-mail blast. As it turns out, Neiman Marcus never put its cookie recipe up for sale and now publishes the recipe on its website, free of charge of course.
9. Money-at-Home.com: How great would it be to manage your own company from home by turning your computer “into a money-making machine?� Unfortunately, the scammers are the only ones making money with this system. An e-mail invites people to send them money so that they can receive “instructions on where to go and what to download and install on your computer� so that you can run the business and start making lots of money. Even if the instructions actually come, you also have to give the scammers access to your PayPal account, where they can control your online funds.
10. Deodorant Causes Breast Cancer: Several years ago, a popular e-mail chain circulated the Internet claiming that antiperspirants caused breast cancer. Thankfully, experts debunked the ugly rumor, and women felt comfortable enough to continue using their deodorant.
11. Don’t Pump Gas on May 15: In May of 2007, an e-mail hoax pleaded with American drivers, “Don’t pump gas on May 15!� The hope was that large oil companies would suffer great financial losses if millions of people refused to fuel up on one single day. An article on CNN reveals that “the chain e-mail urging the gas boycott has been around for several years, surfacing most years in the springtime� and that “many of the numbers in the e-mail are either misleading or flat out wrong.�
12. Bill Gates Hoax: Poor Bill Gates has found himself involved in another e-mail scam, this time with AOL. As with the Disney hoax, people are rewarded for passing along the chain e-mail in $5.00, $3.00, and $1.00 increments. No Disney vacation included in this one, though.
13. ATM Security Hoax: Who needs 911 when you’ve got your trusty PIN number? This scam reports that if you need to call the police at an ATM machine, you can subtlely make the call by typing in your PIN number backwards. The website Hoax-Slayer.com reports that the scam “stated that this method of calling the police is very seldom used because people don’t know it exists,� and assures customers that “the machine will still give you the monies you requested,� despite having typed in your code backwards. Um, we don’t think so.
14. KFC Hoax: Despite what this Internet hoax wants you to believe, the Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise does not genetically engineer chicken-related organisms to maximize the amount of meat collected from each creature. This disgusting scam attempt to explain why Kentucky Fried Chicken is now referred to as just KFC, “because they can not use the word chicken anymore. Why? KFC does not use real chickens.�
15. Internet Auctions: Internet auctioning is a legal business, but it can also be a breeding ground for clever scams and identity theft. The Federal Trade Commission cautions people against phishing e-mails which attempt to steal important passwords and banking information.
16. The Helius Project: This popular scam is still believed by many people to be concrete evidence that intelligent aliens do exist. The Helius Project pretends to originate from “an alien species� trying to reach out to humans via the Internet. Where are Mulder and Scully when you need them to debunk your online alien rumors?
17. “Send An Email Ad to 10,000 Opt-in Subscribers�: Number 7 on the “Top 10 Internet Marketing Scams� list from the Real Estate Marketing Tools blog involves a scam that tries to convince innocent people to engage in illegal marketing tactics by sending advertisements to allegedly opt-in e-mail clients. Instead of falling for one of these scams, the author advises readers to start an e-mail campaign themselves, because “that way, you will know for sure that they are opt-in, and you will be able to manage the results.�
18. 419 Scam: This infamous network of scams is also known as the Nigerian Scam because of its West African origins. About.com reports that “in every variation� of the hoaxes, “the scammer is promising obscenely large payments for small unskilled tasks,� like paying legal and transfer fees out of your own pocket.
19. Snowball the Monster Cat: You wouldn’t believe a photo of an oversized cat if it was published on the front cover of National Enquirer, would you? If that’s the case, we’re wondering why so many people believed the picture of an 87-pound monster cat that surfaced on the Internet. Unbelievably, the photo was even talked about on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Good Morning America. Supposedly, the cat’s mother was rescued after being found “abandoned near a Canadian nuclear lab� in Canada; however, the cat’s owner admitted to doctoring the photo and starting the hoax.
20. Dead Fairy Hoax: “If you believe in fairies, then clap your hands!� As with Tinker Bell, clapping your hands won’t bring these little garden fairies back to life, probably because they never existed. An Englishman created and photographed small models of dead and mummified fairies to trick people into believing that fairies once existed. After e-mailing the pictures to friends as an April Fools’ joke, fairy lovers all over the world continue to believe that the photos are real, “even though [the] creator has long since admitted to the hoax,� according to Snopes.com.

If you suspect an e-mail of trying to solicit money or personal information from you, delete it immediately or report it to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, which is a federal organization comprised of a joint partnership with the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. While some of these hoaxes seem altogether ridiculous, Internet scamming is no joke.

It seems like every blog on the internet has one of these, so here’s my picks for the top 20 Linux applications. I’ll be covering programs from all different categories that I think stand out and shine as true wonders of Linux and will be presented in no particular order. I’ll even go over a few that I think could use some work but have potential to be something great.

Audio/Video

1. K3B
K3B is KDE’s cd burning application and it has nearly every feature you’d want. It has an interface similar to Nero and its capabilities are on par with Nero. I use this application for all my burning needs. It is a standard program and should be in all major distributions’ package managers.
2. Audacity
Audacity is an audio editing software that lets you edit audio tracks quickly and easily and gives you a nice selection of default effects to modify your tracks. This is an excellent program for beginners that need to edit some audio for a home movie. It is also excellent for bands with low budgets to get some experience mixing and mastering their own tracks, I’ve heard some excellent sounding cds come as a result of Audacity.

(more…)

Electronic Arts to buy BioWare, Pandemic
Deal with parent Elevation Partners is worth up to $860 million

Electronic Arts acquired Pandemic Studios and BioWare, maker of the much-anticipated “Mass Effect” game for the Xbox 360.

The Associated Press
Updated: 1:39 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2007

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - Electronic Arts Inc., the video game developer known for titles such as “Madden NFL” and “The Sims,” said Thursday it will acquire two software studios from Elevation Partners in a deal worth up to $860 million.

The studios, BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios, have a total of 10 games under development. Elevation owns their parent, VG Holding Corp.

Together, the studios employ about 800 people in Los Angeles and Austin, Texas, as well as in Canada and Australia.

Under the terms of the deal, EA will pay VG stockholders up to $620 million in cash and issue as much as $155 million in equity to some of the company’s employees. The shares will be subject to certain time and performance-restricted vesting criteria.

In addition, EA will assume outstanding VG Holding Corp. stock options, and has agreed to lend VG up to $35 million until the deal closes.

Microsoft Corp. is planning to publish BioWare’s Mass Effect game next month, and the studio is in the early stages of developing a multiplayer online game, EA said. Pandemic is planning to release “Mercenaries 2: World in Flames” and “Saboteur.”

The acquisition, which is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approval, is expected to close in January.

EA expects the deal to lower its 2008 earnings by about 30 to 40 cents per share. EA shares fell $1.22, or 2 percent, to close at $58.69 Thursday.

“Halo 3″ launched on XBox 360
By Franklin Paul and Nicole Maestri Reuters - Tuesday, September 25 06:08 am

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft began its midnight sales of “Halo 3″, the acclaimed alien shooter game that it hopes will widen its lead over Sony in the battle for industry dominance.

While some aficionados lined up before dawn at a Best Buy store on New York’s Fifth Avenue to grab a good seat for the launch extravaganza, others took advantage of the retailer’s offer to let them pay for a copy of the game and pick it up at midnight or the next day.

Alex Escobar was the first one at the store’s checkout counter, turning in a receipt to pick up his advance order.

“It is worth it. It is time to finish this fight,” Escobar said, echoing the tagline for a game featuring a futuristic soldier battling to save humanity from an alien onslaught.

What had been a only a modest gathering earlier in the day had swelled to a crowd of about 500 people that cheered as buyers entered the store, resembling other big consumer debuts this year, such as the last “Harry Potter” book and Apple’s iPhone.

“Halo 3″ is seen as the $30 billion (15 billion pound) video game industry’s equivalent of a new Potter book and Microsoft is counting on the game to finally push its money-losing entertainment unit into profitability.

“This is a critical holiday in terms of winning the next-generation console fight versus our competition and nobody has anything to go up and match ‘Halo,’” Shane Kim, vice president of Microsoft Game Studios, told Reuters Television.

Microsoft is backing the game with a marketing blitz that includes celebrity-studded midnight sales events at some 10,000 retailers across the United States.

In New York, someone dressed as the game’s armour-clad hero worked the crowd as music blared, lights flashed and event promoters handed out free goodies such as “Halo” t-shirts.

Gaming retail chain GameStop said the title set a record for advance orders, while Microsoft expects initial demand to surpass that for 2004’s “Halo 2″, which racked up $125 million in its first 24 hours.

SYSTEM SELLER

The first two “Halo” games have sold a combined 15 million copies and cemented Microsoft as a serious player in a video game industry that was dominated by Sony’s PlayStation 2.

“Halo 3″ is targeted firmly at the core Xbox audience of young males, for whom realistic combat games are a staple. It does little to widen the machine’s appeal to a more casual audience that is being courted with tremendous success by Nintendo’s Wii console.

“It’s not necessarily going to move a lot of new systems like the first ‘Halo’ did,” said Dan Hsu, editor-in-chief of EGM, a gaming magazine.

“At the same time, with all the marketing blitz and hype, consumers will be out there,” Hsu said, “and if they are thinking video games, they are thinking one of two things: ‘Halo’ or the Wii.”

Microsoft is certainly betting that the last chapter of the Halo trilogy will give a further boost to its latest console. The Xbox 360, launched in late 2005, has already enjoyed stronger sales than the pricier PlayStation 3, which critics say so far lacks any “system-seller” games.

“I was caught between buying the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but there are certain games like ‘Madden ‘08′ and this one that pushed me to Xbox 360,” said Darnell Jefferson, 25, who was second in line at Best Buy, referring to the hit football game made by Electronic Arts.

“Halo 3″ will enjoy the absence of another blockbuster game, “Grand Theft Auto IV”, whose October debut was delayed by publisher Take-Two Interactive Software until some time between February and April 2008.

The latest “Halo” has drawn wide praise from reviewers for its lush settings, cinematic story and breadth of features, positive buzz that pushed Microsoft shares up as much as 3.35 percent on Monday, their biggest one-day gain since April. The stock ended 1.5 percent higher at $29.08 on Nasdaq.

George Garcia, 32, said he had waited in line for 12 hours and planned to stay up all night playing the game.

“I knew it would deliver,” Garcia said.

(Additional reporting by Scott Hillis in San Francisco and Robert MacMillan in New York)

ATI Fires off new FireGL series 2Gb cards !

 

AMD today announced five new high-performance ATI FireGL™ workstation graphics accelerators for CAD, DCC and medical imaging professionals. The ATI FireGL V8650, FireGL V8600, FireGL V7600, FireGL V5600, and FireGL V3600 graphics boards are based on the next-generation ATI graphics processing unit (GPU) with an innovative unified shader architecture featuring up to 320 individual stream processing units. These new boards deliver acceleration of DirectX® 10- and OpenGL 2.1-based professional applications resulting in increased performance of more than 300% as compared to the previous generation of product.

Several key features distinguish the new series of ATI FireGL workstation graphics boards. An industry-first 2GB of on-board memory enables engineers and designers to interact with larger datasets and more complex models. The ATI FireGL unified shader architecture maximizes graphics throughput for today’s engineering and animation software. During performance tests, the ATI FireGL V5600 demonstrates more than 300% the performance of the ATI FireGL V5200 running the Viewperf 9.0.3 UGS Teamcenter Visualization Mockup (tcvis-01) benchmark test.

AMD’s unique AutoDetect feature instinctively optimizes the graphics driver based on the user’s specific software applications even while running multiple programs simultaneously. With AutoDetect, end users are no longer required to manually adjust application specific settings, even when toggling between different applications.  

“ATI FireGL products from AMD are known for bringing key new advancements to the workstation graphics market,� said Jon Peddie, principal, Jon Peddie Research. “With first-to-market features like 2GB memory and AutoDetect, AMD should continue to gain traction in the high and ultra-high end segments of this market to compliment their solid showing in the entry-level and mid-range.�    

The rigorous, application-specific certification process of ATI FireGL workstation graphics accelerators ensures a level of reliability that graphics professionals expect and trust. All ATI FireGL Visualization series products utilize a unified driver, which simplifies installation, deployment and maintenance, while support for Microsoft Vista enables future compatibility. Native multi-card support maximizes output flexibility by enabling larger displays, higher resolutions and the ability to drive four screens from two graphics cards in the same workstation. In addition, stream computing applications can leverage the massively parallel processing capability of the GPU for compute-intensive tasks such as physics, structural analysis and financial modeling.

“Given the new realistic rendering effects built into SolidWorks 2008, AMD’s release of the new ATI FireGLâ„¢ workstation graphics accelerators gives SolidWorks customers the power and advanced rendering capabilities to boost their productivity and creativity,” said Efrat Ravid, director of Marketing and Alliances for SolidWorks. “The innovative unified shader architecture and larger frame buffers of the ATI FireGL accelerators can remove past constraints when working with large data sets, while enabling real-time rendering of more complex assemblies.â€?

The new series of ATI FireGL workstation graphics accelerators from AMD are expected to begin shipping in September 2007 and will be available from workstation OEMs, system integrators and channel partners worldwide.

ATI FireGL Pricing information

Product                     Memory        MSRP (US$)
ATI FireGL V8650          2GB             $2799
ATI FireGL V8600          1GB             $1899
ATI FireGL V7600          512MB           $999
ATI FireGL V5600          512MB           $599
ATI FireGL V3600          256MB           $299

For more information about ATI FireGL products from AMD, please visit www.amd.com

Best Video Games To Play in 2007
by Matt Wood
The year 2006 was an interesting year. In the United States, there was a huge number of odd and notable national events, including the Northwest having the rainiest November on record (then receiving 10 inches of snow at Thanksgiving), California re-electing Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Vice President shooting somebody, and the continuing decline of the war in Iraq. With all of these things happening, it’s easy to understand why people turn to entertainment (and hobbies) for their daily dose of distraction.

To distract you in 2007, here’s my pick of the most amazing video games that came out in 2006 that you should make sure to play in 2007. Take a look at my pick for Game of the Year!

5) Rainbow Six Vegas Video Game

Rainbow Six Vegas
Ubisoft put this game out as a sequel to Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six series late in 2006. The game begins with combat in Mexico, but quickly moves the fighting to Las Vegas, Nevada. As expected, most of the combat in the game takes place in the city streets and in the casinos of Las Vegas.

Rainbow Six Vegas is a good First Person Shooter simply because it puts you right into the fight. Fast paced and exciting firefights, mixed with interesting locales (like the slot machine areas in casinos), makes for a great First Person Shooter that will playable for some time to come.

4) Saints Row Video Game

Saints Row
Volition released this game hoping it would have the same kind of success that the Grand Theft Auto series has had. You can move freely around the city of Stilwater (a fictional place), steal vehicles, buy weapons, get in firefights, and commit virtually any crime you can think of. Many of the things you could do in the Grand Theft Auto series you can do in Saints Row, and that’s why it’s so good.

Saints Row is one of those games that has all the things another good game has, and makes it better. Added features like restarting missions from the beginning if you fail (as opposed to going to jail or the hospital) help make this game fresh from the formula of Grand Theft Auto. The minigames (like running in front of cars in an attempt fraudulently gain insurance money) help to make the game fun and keeps things interesting. The story in the game is good, the aiming system is fun to use for firing weapons, and the GPS system in the game is the first I’ve used that actually helps you get places without getting you lost first. Saints Row is one of the very few good free roam games simply because it copied the awesome formula of Grand Theft Auto, and even added some good features to it.

3) Resistance: Fall of Man Video Game

Resistance Fall of Man
This First Person Shooter is one of the first games for Sony’s newly released PLAYSTATION 3 console. The game takes place in Western Europe shortly after when World War II would have taken place. In the game, some kind of strange force had taken over Russia and Eastern Europe, and World War II never took place. When the force begins to take over the rest of Europe, the United States sends in troops to try and stop the European takeover. This game stars one of the soldiers in the United States army that fights this foreign army.

Resistance: Fall of Man has explosive firefights, a great storyline, and even better online play. The game even has some great graphics for a launch title. Most of the weapons in the game are unique and interesting, so they keep the game fun. Resistance is by far the best game released as a launch title for the PLAYSTATION 3, and will carry the PLAYSTATION 3 through the New Year and into 2007.

2) Zelda: Twilight Princess Video Game

Zelda Twilight Princess
This RPG was highly anticipated for the Gamecube, and was delayed several times so that it would be ready to release on the Wii at its launch. The game features Link from the previous Zelda’s, and includes all the usual features expected from a Zelda game.

Zelda was released around the same time as Final Fantasy XII (Playstation 2), but was luckily released on one of the next generation consoles. The Wii’s surprising success at its launch was due to the lower prices, and sold out during the Christmas sales and through the New Year. This addition to the Zelda series was one of the best selling games during Christmas, and was the number one sold game to buyers of the Wii console. The new motion sensing utilized in the controller, and all of the small features this game are what keeps this game fun and interesting, and should be owned by any owner of the Wii console.

1) Gears of War Video Game

Marcus Fenix from Gears of War
This was a third person shooter developed by Epic, the makers of the Unreal Engine and the Unreal Tournament series. The game takes place on a planet similar to Earth called Serra. The planet has been taken over by a strange (and unknown) species of aliens called Locusts (for the ability to kill a large population of people quickly). A group of soldiers, called Gears, are out to take Serra back, and win the war once and for all.

Gears of War has the best graphics of any game ever made for any console, hands down. Rainbow Six Vegas has good graphics compared to other games, but Gears of War kicks, stamps, and throws Rainbow Six Vegas’s graphics out the window. Epic Games made this game nearly perfect, with tons of interesting little touches to the game. The campaign story is fun (yet short), which can be played in about 10 hours on your own. If you want to, you can play the storyline with a friend, either online or split screen on one TV. You can also host a cooperation game online that any person can join and play with you.

The real fun, however, comes with the online play for this game. Epic did a very good job of making the levels in Gears of War fair for both sides, either because they are symmetrical, or because the teams swap sides after every battle. The weapons in the campaign are all available in the online gameplay, making it extremely easy for people that have only played the campaign to play online. The high level of online competition, low number of players in online matches, and fun maps make Gears of War one of the best online games of ALL time!

My pick for the Game of the Year is Gears of War, and that’s it for the year of 2006. I hope that everybody had a safe and fun Christmas and New Year, and that all of you have a great 2007 ahead of you enjoying these terrific games and the new ones coming out soon!