Intel’s P45 chipset is a progression from the popular P35, and MSI’s P45 Platinum is one of the first boards to come out with this particular chipset. We take a quick look into the changes, improvements and totally new features with both the chipset and the motherboard in this entry.

As a hardware reviewer, one would expect to have a basic grasp of the level of technology available to the consumer and how “new” or “innovative” a product is based on a base level of expected performance.  With the HP Scanjet N7710, this basic grasp is thrown awry, requiring a re-thinking of what the norm is in the area of business machines.

Microsoft’s Sidewinder has come back to life. Like Mary Shelley’s Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Microsoft has created life out of seemingly old parts and brand names to arrive at a monster of a design – the Microsoft SideWinder Gaming Mouse.

Adopting new technology is always a difficult process – it’s fortunate that a slew of products to compensate for this always show up to ease this transition. The problem is, most look horrible and doesn’t work that well. In the case of Solid State Drives (SSD) as a replacement for the regular, mechanical spinning drives, the rate of adoption is especially low – mainly due to SSD’s high price and a compromise in size versus its admittedly higher performance.

It’s not everyday that you can beat the pants off the Ferrari and Porsche drivers in a vehicle even more insubstantial than your regular owner-type jeep. After all, the multi-million peso cars mentioned above run 1 to 100 kph in around 4-5 seconds, and aside from plunking down the same amount of cash in a similar product to match these cars’ performance, you’d need to be piloting a fast aircraft to beat their speeds.

With Intel’s recent release of the new “Eaglelake” P45 chipset, Asus has also released a new family of motherboards intended for the mainstream to high-end market. Ranging from the P5Q3-Deluxe/WiFi-AP at the top, to the P5Q-E mainstream motherboard, the P5Q series brings on technologies, catch-phrases, and features galore that mocks the term “mainstream” and catapults this series into the enthusiast’s limelight.

Shure delivered to the HWM offices a one-two punch in the form of the MPA-2B Music Phone Adapter and the SE 110 Noise Isolating Earphones. With these products, Shure is going to lengths to tap into the mainstream market of music fans and casual audiophiles.

As exciting, cutting-edge technologies go, the 3M developed mini projector made for handphones is a mixed bag. Nearly as small as a regular camera mechanism found in current handheld devices, this unit does exactly as its name implies – projects media onto a (preferably) flat surface.

                                              3M mini projector module.

It’s always difficult to strike a balance. That’s why we have lawyers dividing “white” right and “black” wrong into a million different shades of grey. HTC attempts to stick to one particular shade of grey with the release of the Advantage X7510, and its up to you whether this product is right or wrong for you.

ECS, purveyor of affordable motherboards and videocards and a favorite of the local PC-buying community, is starting to get serious. With their event at the Teatrino in Promenade, Greenhills, they are staking out a spot on the high-end shopping list of both enthusiasts and the mass-gaming people. We show you what transpired during the event.

The HWM offices are getting inundated with videocard samples, and from the pile, we pick one of the better looking packages – the XFX 9800GX2. There are a couple of reasons why the XFX was an easy pick out of the many other cards – one, it’s a 9800GX2 based card, and two, it looked nice.

                                             Much better packaging than cartoon-based competition.

Going to the hospital is never a good experience for anyone (even with the valiant doctors and nurses doing their best to make things pleasant) – especially if the patient is a little kid with nothing to look forward to but bed, doctors in white lab coats and visits from relatives. Microsoft and the non-profit organization Companions in Courage is aiming to minimize the hurt by providing the young patients with a very powerful distraction: Xbox360 kiosks.

The green revolution is upon us. Nearly all corporations, especially in the tech industry, have some kind of green program going on and extolling their parent companies efforts in the field. This revolution applies both ways though. On our way to the idea of a totally interactive home controlled by a home AI smarter than your dog, it is only natural that we don’t immediately have the mind-machine interface that can tell your mood from when you wake up and fixes your coffee before you climb out of bed. Nor do we have a HAL-like talking computer to brief us on our day. We start from the periphery, and this is what we have.

                                             With just three (fake) leaves, taking care of this should be as easy as pressing a button.
 

Shanghai – Continuing from our take of HP's latest SMB solutions last week, we now present you their Enterprise solutions. Dull as the subject may sound, their solutions become pretty exciting when placed in live situations. HP also announced several efforts in providing their channel and solutions partners with their new offerings.

AMD’s Technology Forum held at Singapore last April 29 contained many surprises, not least of all was the Business Class initiative, announced a day earlier. The forum covered this initiative in detail, listing down its specific features, components, and benefits to the business user. For a full overview, do point your clickers at this link: Paradigm.