Ebox PC games console for £66?

The new ARM v7 chip based Marvell Ebox was unveiled at CES in January and it is probably the worlds most powerful tiny PC set-top box. What’s even more interesting was the price that was announced – just $99 (£66).

The following interview with Marvell describes the full system capabilities. You get HDMI output, e-sata, 3 USB ports, audio in/out, all integrated in one ultra slim and light desktop box. It can playback 1080p video, output 1080p Ubuntu user interfaces and also render 3D games like Quake 3 at the same time. (more…)

Dell Inspiron Zino HD

Dell recently launched the Mac Mini beater in the form of the Inspiron Zino HD. This box has the potential to be a great solution as a small form factor (SFF) HTPC as well as a very capable desktop computer. Measuring  a mere 7  3/4 inches on each side and only 3 1/2 inches tall (approximately), this is a really small PC and wouldn’t look out of place in any living room.

The heart of this machine sits the AMD RS780G chipset and the AMD Athlon™ X2 3250e processor.  Combined, these two pieces of technology deliver a very compelling experience in both processing and graphics power.  Capable of handling excellent HD playback through a 42″ TV, online streamed content and delivers a great entertainment experience.

From £249 this small HTPC offer exceptional value for money although the one thing it lacks is a DVB tuner card so you can’t connect your satellite dish for recording on media centre. In addition, it is not possible to add any tuner cards as the Zino HD offers no PCI slots. Click here for more details.

New Ion2 based games machine?

News that Acer has already ordered the new Nvidia Ion 2 chipset for it’s upcoming successor to the superb nettop Acer Aspire Revo could be suggesting that they are preparing to launch the new PC based games machine rumoured on gizmodo.com last year.

The new Nvidia Ion 2 will be showcased at CES in January and the shader count will be at least 32 according to the site Fudzilla. With twice the power of the previous Ion chipset this will start to enable some pretty useful games performance depending on the CPU.

Nvidia also has a little ace in the hole called Flash video acceleration. They recently demonstrated an Ion-powered HP Mini 311 playing stutter-free YouTube HD video on an external monitor. The final version of Flash 10.1 will make this an everyday occurrence sometime mid-next year.

Decade when games went mainstream

In 1961, a group of students at MIT, programmed a game titled Spacewar! on the DEC PDP-1,  a new computer at the time. The game pitted two human players against each other, each controlling a spacecraft capable of firing missiles, while a black hole in the center of the screen created a large hazard for the crafts. The game was sold with new DEC computers and traded throughout the then-primitive Internet. Spacewar! is credited as the first influential computer game.

Things have moved on a lot since that first game was written. Read Keith Stuart’s Guardian Blog which describes how games took over the home in the past decade. Click Here…

Britons spend £2.24 each on downloads

Recently released figures show that Britain is the digital capital of Europe with the average person spending £2.24 per head on digital products. This is 20 times more than the italians but still some way behind the USA. With many more digtal providers and devices this figure is set to explode. Read the full article at the BBC blog.

Twitter is Hacked!

So twitter.com was “hacked” overnight, most people’s first thought is that the Twitter.com servers had been compromised but in fact this wasn’t your standard Hack it was a compromised DNS trick.

Hackers know that to gain access to a system they have to go through multiple layers of security designed to keep them out, so the best approach is to try and find a weak link in the chain. External servers that provide a service to Twitter are a good place to start.

In his case the Hackers targeted Twitters DNS record,  DNS is how web addresses relate to a unique number on the web called the IP address when you type in Twitter.com the DNS servers “Translate” that into a number and locate the correct server for you.

The hackers Hijacked the DNS record and point it to a server they control. Twitters own servers were not directly compromised!

In this instance we were VERY LUCKY the hackers were just making a point, it could of been much worse if they had setup a clone of the Twitter.com homepage and collected login information.

To guard against DNS hjack attack you should:

1. Make sure your Domain contact details are up to date
2. Use a complex password to access your DNS providers control panels
3. If its a .com .net or .org domain that you keep the DOMAIN LOCK ON