TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Firefox 3.6 finally hit its first beta milestone during the weekend, so those of you who were holding off until a more mature build of the upcoming browser became available will be glad to know this is it, no more test candidates or nightly builds needed.

We've been closely watching the development of Firefox's next iteration which brings a long list of additions and refinements to the popular Web browser. After a small developmental setback, Beta 1 arrives highlighting the following new features:

• Users can now change their browser’s appearance with a single click, with built in support for Personas
• Firefox 3.6 will alert users about out of date plugins to keep them safe
• Open, native video can now be displayed full screen, and supports poster frames
• Support for the WOFF font format
• Improved JavaScript performance, overall browser responsiveness and startup time
• Support for new CSS, DOM and HTML5 web technologies

Since the release of Google Chrome, a lot more focus has been put on browser's speed, not only by Mozilla but all major players including Microsoft. While I still consider Firefox the best all-around browser out there (in good part thanks to the numerous useful add-ons available), I've been experimenting severe slowdown problems on JavaScript heavy pages, whereas even Internet Explorer seems to behave just fine.

Other additions should appeal to a variety of users, depending on what you like to do with your browser. Personas support lets you skin your browser instantly, in fact you can preview Firefox's modified looks by merely hovering over the different styles available. Video support continues to be enhanced on the browser, while developers will be keen about Web Open Font Format (WOFF), HTML5 and CSS' new features support.

Last but not least, Firefox 3.6 Beta will likely break a majority of your current add-ons, however, if you are lucky you should still be able to override compatibility and put them to use regardless.

It's no secret that tech enthusiasts enjoy playing video games, and the holiday season typically brings some of the year's greatest titles. A few weeks back we created a list of PC games we're most excited about for the fourth quarter and beyond, and yesterday robortwillys, a recent member of our community opened this similarly themed forum topic that we thought deserved a little more attention.

We ask you to share your most recent game purchase and your opinion of it. You're welcome to share whether or not it was worth the price paid, and your general critique of the said title. The game can be for any platform, though we're undeniably biased toward PC games.


My last game purchase was Left 4 Dead 2, which is still a couple of weeks away from release, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the demo. Discuss.

DirectX 11 comes to Vista Microsoft launched Windows 7 with full DirectX 11 support, but until now, Vista users running ATI’s newest 5000 series cards were left out in the cold. It's not like you’ve been waiting months to play the newest DX11 titles, but at least you now have the comfort of knowing that you don’t need to upgrade your OS in order to take advantage of your new GPU. Maximum PC

A-Data introduces industry's fastest SSD S596 A-Data Technology announced today its industry-leading SSD S596, a 2.5” SATAII SSD designed specifically for PC enthusiastic, multi-task and heavy-graphic users to perform assorted applications five times faster! Capacities are available at 64, 128, and 256GB, the S596 is completely in compliance with Windows 7 and Mac Snow Leopard. Legit Reviews

The lost decade; Why Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates Last month Microsoft rolled out Windows 7 and opened the first of a chain of new retail stores. As usual with such announcements, there's been loads of hoopla and ginned-up excitement. But mostly people are just relieved. Windows 7 replaces Vista, one of the most disastrous tech products ever. It also caps the end of a decade in which Microsoft's founder, Bill Gates, stepped aside, and the company lost its edge. Newsweek

Windows 7 endless reboot answer evades Microsoft Users remained stymied today by endless reboots after trying to upgrade their PCs to Windows 7, according to messages posted on Microsoft's support forum. An answer has yet to be found for all users, who began reporting the problem last Friday after watching the upgrade stall two-thirds of the way through the process. Computerworld

Mozilla releases first beta of Firefox 3.6 Those keen to try out Mozilla's latest browser--and its new process to update the software more frequently--now can try Firefox 3.6 beta 1. CNET

Nvidia has released GeForce 195.39 beta drivers, its first to support the OpenCL 1.0 specification. The version also brings over 200 bug fixes, support for CUDA Toolkit 3.0 (which will be released in the coming weeks), and SLI support for various titles including Borderlands, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, G-Force, FIFA Soccer 2010, League of Legends: Clash of Fates, NHL 2009, Order of War, Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, Race On, and Star Trek: D-A-C, along with a boost in SLI performance for Champions Online and Dragon-Age: Origins.

Fudzilla notes that SLI support for the above titles is already present in Nvidia's SLI Profile Update 3, which was made available on October 15, so the recent beta release doesn't bring anything too new on that front. Among the couple hundred bug fixes is an error which caused GeForce G210 to switch to 4-bit color mode, and another that caused Battlefield Heroes to freeze on the GTX 280. For a complete rundown on the changes, take a look at the release notes (XP, Vista, 7). Grab your download below:

Windows XP | XP/Server 2003 64-bit | Windows Vista/7 | Vista/7 64-bit

MSI has introduced the CR610, a new 16" laptop built on AMD's upcoming Tigris platform. The machine seems fitting for standard multimedia use, and features a LED-backlit 1366 x 768 HD display, an AMD Athlon II CPU and RS880 chipset with Radeon HD 4200 graphics, up to 4GB of DDR2 800MHz RAM, a choice of 250GB, 320GB and 500GB HDDs, and a DVD burner.
Other specifications include Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, optional Bluetooth connectivity, a 1.3 mega-pixel webcam, an Express Card slot, a four-in-one memory card reader, three USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA port, VGA- and HDMI-out, the usual headphone and mic jacks, and a six-cell battery. The MSI CR610 measures 374 x 247 x 18-30mm -- about 20% thinner than traditional 16" notebooks according to MSI -- and weighs 2.48kg or 5.46lbs.

Naturally, the CR610 will ship with Windows 7, but no details on a price or availability have been announced.

As HP seeks to reinforce their top spot for global PC shipments, the company is planning to cut prices all around, especially in the very low-cost laptop arena. Acer isn't far behind them, and is prepared to initiate a price war with HP over the coming year.

With a substantial hardware lineup already deployed, Acer is well-equipped to offer cheap hardware in general. With this renewed approach, it'll hopefully benefit end-users by bringing a lot of very low-cost laptops to the market next year. If HP and Acer are both planning to target the low-cost market, you can assume a lot of other vendors will follow as well.

Acer's intentions to drop pricing may help them do more than just compete with HP. It may also further a related goal Acer has set for themselves, hoping to ship over 40 million notebooks next year. Becoming the number one vendor worldwide would have other benefits as well, such as giving them substantial leverage with suppliers, shipping companies and retailers -- impressive for a company that was a fairly small player in the notebook market a few years back.

Customers aren't all about price, though. Form and function are important, especially with the sheer amount of notebook manufacturers offering everything from shrunken netbooks to desktop replacements. If there's one negative aspect of price competition among vendors, it's disappearing features. Hopefully that won't be the case, and the lower prices in store won't come at the cost of useful functionality.

In addition to announcing that its 15" OELD display will hit Korean shelves in November, LG revealed plans to release 20"-plus OLED panels in 2010, 30"-plus in 2011, and 40"-plus in 2012 -- quite the outlook. While smaller panels will use sixth-generation substrates with a low-temperature polycrystal silicon, OLED panels larger than 40" will require eight-generation size glass substrates.

According to LG's OLED sales and marketing VP Won Kim, eighth-generation substrates will require LG to develop equipment that can handle a temperature of over 700 degrees Celsius. The company says oxide semiconductor is one of the candidate materials to be used for large panels, but it has a low reproducibility because of variations among lots. It was also made known that fluorescent materials will be used until 2011, followed by phosphorescent materials.

LG hopes to achieve a 50% higher material cost and a 30% lower yield than those of LCD panels in 2012, and a 20-30% lower material cost with an equivalent yield in 2016 -- meaning that 40" OLED displays may be cheaper than their LCD counterparts in 7 years.

A recent rumor suggests that AMD may have plans to halt orders for various Phenom II X4 processors starting in the fourth quarter of 2009 into the first half of 2010. It is suspected that AMD's decision is based on a plan to launch a revised Phenom II X4 (Deneb 45nm) processor, which will have lower thermals and support higher clock rates.

If the speculation holds any truth, AMD's Phenom II X4 910 and 945 will be pulled first, with the last order being made this quarter, and shipments will cease in the second quarter of next year. Next to die will be the Phenom II X4 925, which will stop shipping in the third quarter of 2010. The 125W Phenom II X4 955 will be replaced with a 95W iteration in the second quarter of next year, along with the 140W 965 which will be swapped with a 125W unit.

In other AMD news, the company has postponed the launch of its 1.8GHz 45nm 25W Regor-based CPU (dubbed Athlon II X2 620u) until late first quarter 2010. The 1.6GHz Athlon II X2 520u is still slated for a late 2009 debut.

Few years ago a little-known feature called Virtual Wi-Fi was crafted by Microsoft's research group as a way to "virtualize" one wireless card as several separate adapters in Windows. The project was discontinued in 2006, but some of the code apparently made its way into Windows 7, and now at least one company is taking advantage of it with a new application that can turn any laptop into a wireless access point.


Developed by military consulting firm Nomadio, Connectify lets a laptop "tether" other wireless devices to a single Internet connection by effectively turning it into a software-based wireless router. Windows 7 is required on the notebook acting as a wireless hotspot, but any wireless-equipped device, including handhelds and other notebooks running whatever operating system can jump online without any additional software. The program even encrypts traffic to and from the software hotspot using WPA2-Personal (AES) encryption.

While the Connectify beta is free to download, Nomadio expects to charge users once the complete version is released in about six weeks. A free, ad-supported version might also be released down the road.

Facebook has been awarded $711 million in damages against spammer Sanford Wallace for bombarding the social networking with phony wall posts and messages. The so-called “Spam King” was sued in February along with Adam Arzoomanian and Scott Shaw for allegedly obtaining login credentials for other users' accounts, and sending out links to phishing sites and other websites that paid spammers for referrals.

While Facebook isn't expecting to receive the full amount of the massive award, the company says they'll work hard to get everything they can and hope this will serve as a deterrent to all spammers. In addition to the damages, Judge Jeremy Fogel of U.S. District Court in Northern California's San Jose division referred Wallace for prosecution of criminal contempt of court, which means he could face jail time.

This isn't the first time Wallace has been targeted and fined. In May 2008, he was found guilty of violating the CAN-SPAM act and was ordered to pay $230 million for spamming and phishing on MySpace. Wallace was also hit with a nice $4 million fine from the FTC in 2006 and has faced numerous other suits in between.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry, recently confirmed it has run into new issues with their 40nm process technology that have sent yield rates down to 40%. Major customers for TSMC's 40nm processes include AMD, which just released its Radeon HD 5000 series, and Nvidia, who is expected to launch the GT300 series in December.

On first thought the conspiracy theorist in me found this suspiciously untimely for AMD, which for the first time in a long while had a great opportunity to capitalize on its early-to-market status. Their latest 40nm-based cards are not only the first to support DirectX 11, with Nvidia's answer arriving a few months later, but they have also been getting high marks for their performance and feature set in reviews around the web.

Then again TSMC's recent issues will reportedly impact shipping schedules for both AMD and Nvidia -- not to mention the manufacturer's financial performance. Company chairman and CEO Morris Chang pledged to get the problem fixed during the current quarter. The company had previously improved yield rates for its 40nm processes to around 60% from as low as 20-30% in the second quarter of 2009.

Google's Creepy Social Search @ PC Mag
8 Tech Trends for 2010 @ Fox News
AMD Loses Its Linux Core Engineering Manager @ Phoronix
Simple Afghan mission turns deadly for U.S. soldiers @ Reuters
See more articles and reviews.

Five years ago in TechSpot:
Intel sticks with Windows 2000

Acer has introduced a new multitouch monitor, the perfect complement to a fresh copy of Windows 7. At 23", the T230H is a bit larger than competing units from HP and Dell, and it has some respectable specifications. With multitouch support, the monitor will recognize both one and two-finger gestures, like pinch-zoom.

It features a native 1080p resolution, a 2ms response time, an 80,000:1 contrast ratio, 300 cd/m2 brightness, .265mm pixel pitch, 16.7 million colors, connectors for VGA, DVI, HDMI, and USB (for touch functionality), and built-in 1.5W stereo speakers. The T230H has an adjustable height of 110mm along with -5/15 degree tilt and swivel capabilities. It also has VESA wall mount and Kensington Lock support.


Acer backs the T230H with a 3-year "bring-in service" and will launch the display soon in Europe at a cost of 349 euros (about $514). While there is no information on US availability or pricing, the T230H is listed on Acer's US site, so a stateside debut seems imminent.

Microsoft and Yahoo have postponed finalizing their search deal, according to an October 28 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The companies intended to complete the deal by October 27, but have apparently run into some issues. "Given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain some details to be finalized," said the filing, adding that both parties are working as quickly as possible to reach agreements, and have made good progress to date.

The pending deal was first announced in July, and will see Microsoft's Bing as the exclusive search provider for Yahoo's sites. While a delay may seem like bad news, Yahoo and Microsoft have plenty of time to sort things out. An initial roll-out isn't slated until next year at some point, and it has been said that full implementation won't occur until at least 24 months after regulatory approval. The companies are now looking to close the deal by early 2010.

Keeping your operating system up to date is vital to having a malware-free computer. But even if you've got Windows fully patched, any one of your installed applications can be a potential point of entry for attackers should you forget or are just too lazy to grab the latest version. Enter Secunia PSI, a freeware security tool that makes it easy to find and fix old programs on your PC, even those that lack automatic update features.


The program can recognize thousands of software products and gathers update information from a variety of online sources. After performing a system scan, you'll be presented with a list of insecure apps that have available updates, as well as "end-of-life" programs that are no longer being supported by the developer. The overview also provides an overall system score as well as basic information about your programs, with a ton more easily accessible by switching to the advanced interface mode.


Apart from providing a detailed listing of potential threats, Secunia PSI will offer download links to their respective updated versions, which you'll have to install manually. By default, the program is set to launch on boot and will start monitoring your system for new software or newly discovered security holes. If you prefer manual scans, you can turn this off and save system resources using the settings tab in the advanced mode.

Needless to say, Secunia PSI is not meant to replace your antivirus or firewall tools, but it does provides an extra layer of protection for ensuring that your software is as secure as it can be.