Overclockers Club news Feed

3D Printed Implant Saves Baby's Life

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:52:43 -0700

The thought of having to bury one's child is certainly terrifying to parents and can only be worse when that child is only an infant. Some parents do have to live that nightmare because of a number of illnesses, such as tracheomalacia which will cause an infant to stop breathing. For one Ohio family though, the terror ended as researchers at the University of Michigan were able to create an implant to let their baby breath.

Tracheomalacia is a condition where the cartilage around the trachea is unable to support the air pipe, allowing it to collapse and cutoff breathing. Most children grow out of it in a few years, but for some severe cases, resuscitation can be required daily. The doctors had little hope and the parents were desperate, so the University of Michigan researchers were contacted, as they had in fact been working on a device to treat the condition. With emergency clearance from the FDA and scans of the baby's trachea and bronchus, the researchers printed an implant specially designed to wrap around the organs and keep them from collapsing. Just three weeks after the device was implanted, the baby was taken off his ventilator and has had no trouble breathing since.

In roughly two to three years, the baby's trachea will grow into a healthy state and no longer need the implant, which fortunately will actually have dissolved into the body at the same time. The researchers are understandably proud of their work as it went from something to might save a life, to saving one and the parents could not be more relieved.

Source: University of Michigan Health System

Hardware Roundup: Friday Edition

Fri, 24 May 2013 08:37:46 -0700

Another week has come to a close, but there's still some reviews to check out. NVIDIA's newly released GeForce GTX 780 has another review, but this time it's a model from Zotac. It's just the first of what should be many OEM cards hitting reviewers, so be on the lookout for it and plenty more! There's a review on the AMD A4-5000 APU, which is the first ever quad-core x86-based SoC. We have two looks at the OCZ Vertex 450 256GB SSD, which pairs the 20nm process with the Indilinx controller. If you need a lot more storage than those SSDs, look no further than the review on a 4TB hard drive from Seagate. There's a look at a multitude of fans from Noctua, including some of the ones seen here at OCC. There's plenty more to check out too, so be sure to hit up all the reviews below.

Video Cards
Zotac GeForce GTX 780 @ Bjorn3D

CPUs
AMD A4-5000: The affordable ultraportable APU @ TechSpot

Storage/Hard Drives
OCZ Vertex 450 256GB SSD - Indilinx drives 20nm flash @ PC Perspective
OCZ Vertex 450 SSD: Vector-like Performance for (Slightly) Less @ TechSpot
4TB Seagate Desktop HDD ST4000DM000 @ Benchmark Reviews

Cooling
Noctua Fans @ ThinkComputers

Networking
Sitecom Wi-Fi Router X6 N900 (WLR-6100) @ Madshrimps

Miscellany
Case Mod Friday: Smokey Green Giant @ ThinkComputers

Diamond Helps to Extend Wireless Range

Fri, 24 May 2013 07:31:40 -0700

Diamond Multimedia has announced an upgrade to its WR300N wireless range extender with the WR300NSI. The new device offers three capabilities in one compact package, acting as a wireless repeater and range extender, wireless access point, and wireless bridge device. The WR300NSI plugs directly into a wall outlet and can take an Internet connection from an Ethernet cable or an existing wireless signal. It is able to deliver Internet connections using either wireless or Ethernet access and can extend the wireless range of your network by up to 30 meters. The WR300NSI offers security for your connections using WEP, WPA, or WPA2 encryption with the latest AES and TKIP algorithms. An MSRP of $49.99 gives users a cheap and easy method to extend the reach of their home or office networks.

Source: Press Release

New Quantum Encryption System Created

Thu, 23 May 2013 17:03:47 -0700

Some people say that the most valuable thing in the modern world is information, and if that is true than the ability to secure that information is also going to be very valuable. Numerous systems have been developed to protect digital information from being stolen and quantum encryption is one of the strongest systems available now, but does have some weaknesses, such as limited range. Researchers at MIT have developed a new quantum encryption method though that can address the range issue as well as limits on transmission size.

Quantum encryption takes advantage of certain properties and phenomena of quantum mechanics to make eavesdropping on a transmission impossible, without being exposed, because measuring a quantum signal changes it. The quantum mechanical properties and phenomena used though are quite fragile, which limits transmission range, but the researchers have found a way around that. Even though during transmission noise will disrupt a signal, the researchers determined that if a megabit of data were sent between two people communicating legitimately, only one bit would get flipped due to the noise. If there were an illegitimate listener though, an eavesdropper, half of the bits they receive would be flipped, making the signal useless to them.

This is certainly an important discovery for enabling fully quantum-encrypted communication, but does have one weakness, at the moment. In its current form, this method is only strong against passive eavesdroppers, who just listen in, but an active eavesdropper who affects the transmissions would be able to defeat it, at least until more research is done to strengthen this system against them.

Source: MIT

Cooler Master Announces i Series Power Supplies

Thu, 23 May 2013 14:28:52 -0700

The i Series is the latest line of power supplies from Cooler Master. These power supplies operate on a single +12V rail, allowing the system to power any number of power hungry components. This is achieved through the "inclusion of higher quality components and process improvements that allow for high efficiency of 85% or more." The additional inclusion of high durability capacitors and other over power protections ensure that the i Series will keep your system running strong for years to come.

Source: Cooler Master

Hardware Roundup: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 Edition

Thu, 23 May 2013 15:15:40 -0700

NVIDIA has launched its new top of the food chain video card in the form of the GeForce GTX 780. This new card is based on the GK110 core seen in the GTX Titan, but a little stripped down to make it more affordable for the masses. It's priced at $649, which is still up there, but owning the latest and greatest rarely comes at a cheaper price point. To see how it compares to the Titan, the older GTX 680, and even AMD's offerings, check out all the reviews below.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 @ OCC
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 @ Benchmark Reviews
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 3GB - GK110 Mini @ PC Perspective
NVIDIA GTX 780 @ LanOC Reviews
GeForce GTX 780: The Titan Descendant @ TechSpot
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 @ Bjorn3D

Portable Optical Atomic-Trap Created

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:36:25 -0700

Precision is of great importance for many devices and generally it is easier to be precise when what you are measuring is not moving much. Achieving this can be rather difficult though when you are working with atoms. Technologies to cool atoms so they barely move do exist, and now researchers at the Universities of Strathclyde and Glasgow, Imperial College London and the National Physical Laboratory have miniaturized it to the point of being portable.

Atoms, being as small as they are, are not exactly easy to cool, since you cannot just put some ice on them, and even if you could, you want them cooled to nearly absolute zero for the best measurements. The way this is accomplished is by shining lasers on the particles that will hold the atom in place, forcing it to cool down. Typically these setups are large, making them difficult to incorporate into some devices, but the researchers have managed to shrink the technology using special diffraction gratings. When a single laser beam strikes the gratings, which have been etched into a semiconductor, the beam splits into many, and each subsequent beam has the ability to trap and cool atoms.

This smaller, simpler design could impact numerous technologies, including atomic clocks, magnetometers and accelerometers. These technologies have applications including navigation, telecommunication, medical imaging and more.

Source: University of Strathclyde

Hardware Roundup: Thursday Edition

Thu, 23 May 2013 08:31:03 -0700

We have several articles that should pique your interests today. First up are two different articles on the recently revealed Xbox One: one discusses everything you need to know about the console and the other looks at how Microsoft seems to be turning the Xbox from a game console into a home entertainment hub. We have a look at what the ASUS Transformer Prime is capable of even after a year of being available. There's also a look at not one but three different AMD parts: the Temash, Kabini, and Richland mobile platforms; the Jaguar and GCN compute architecture for Temash and Kabini; and finally a performance preview of a laptop outfitted with the A4-5000 Kabini.

CPUs
AMD 2013 Mobile Platforms - Temash, Kabini, and Richland @ PC Perspective
Jaguar + GCN - The Compute Architecture for Temash and Kabini @ PC Perspective
Performance Preview - AMD A4-5000 Kabini Reference Notebook Tested @ PC Perspective

Gaming
Xbox One: Entertainment Hub First, Gaming Console Second - But Could It Disrupt TV? @ TechSpot
What You Need To Know about the Xbox One @ ThinkComputers

Laptops/Tablets
A year later: Transformer Prime @ LanOC Reviews

Printing Graphene Circuits via Inkjet

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:41:20 -0700

Given their prevalence, there is a decent chance you do not think about the potential inkjet printers have for doing more than just printing out directions or homework. Indeed many researchers have been looking to them for high speed, repeatable production of devices by swapping out ink cartridges for other liquids. Now researchers at Northwestern University have replaced ink with a graphene solution, allowing them to print graphene-based electronic patterns.

Graphene is an atom-thick sheet of carbon with extraordinary electrical and physical properties, making it of great interest to numerous researchers. Producing large quantities of high quality graphene though can be difficult, and that impedes some development with it. The Northwestern researchers however found a way to produce graphene flakes at room temperature using ethanol and ethyl cellulose. These flakes were then combined with a solvent to create a printable ink that is 250 times more conductive than previous attempts at graphene ink.

While the high conductivity of graphene certainly makes this research interesting, its flexibility and strength adds to the printed circuits' potential as they can be used in future, flexible devices. Thanks to the scalability of inkjet printing, such devices could possibly be made quite cheaply, once they ready for production.

Source: Northwestern University

Qualcomm Sheds Some Light on Mirasol Displays

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:23:49 -0700

Qualcomm has been showing off a new display type called a Mirasol display, which is based on the company's micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS). This technology will have a significant impact on smartphones and tablets, since it will use only about one sixth of the power required by LCD or OLED displays. This will improve battery life by a substantial amount, as displays are one of the most power hungry parts in a smartphone or a tablet. According to Qualcomm, the display will provide a "convergent display experience with paper-like readability in almost any ambient condition," which means that as long as there is some light around you, you should get a good, clear image. However, the technology only works when there is light present because the pixels making up the display works by reflecting light at specific wavelengths. That problem can potentially be avoided by implementing a LED-based solution into the display that can be turned on and off, thus making the display readable at night.

Engadget was able to get a shot of a smartphone and a smartwatch, both using a Mirasol display. The smartphone is sporting a 5.1 inch panel with an impressive 2560x1440 resolution, giving it a pixel per inch count of 577.

The biggest problem with this new technology is that it is still being developed and it will need a few more years in research and development before it will appear in consumer electronics, so for now you will have to make due with regular LCD or OLED displays.

Source: Engadget

New Magnetic Field Observed

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:32:54 -0700

Magnets are the sums of their parts, specifically electrons, as the negatively charged particles have their own small magnetic fields that can align and combine to create the larger ones we are familiar with. The directionality of the magnetic fields comes from the angular momentum or spin of the electrons, which is not related to the spin of a top, and could be used for computing purposes. Researchers at the University of Delaware have recently observed a previously predicted magnetic field which could have some very interesting impacts on future computing technologies.

Spin currents are going to be a critical part of spintronic computers as they will carry information similarly to electrical currents in modern computers. When spin currents travel through some materials though, there can be interesting effects, and the researchers discovered one of these recently. As a pure spin current flowed into a material consisting of a double layer of a heavy metal and a ferromagnetic material, the current diffuses into the ferromagnet and creates a magnetic field within it, capable of switching its magnetization. On its own, that may not seem very interesting, but this new field has the unique property of being confined to the ferromagnet; it does not extend outside of the material.

One of the issues with some spintronic and magnetic technologies is shielding, so one bit or cell does not rewrite another. As this new magnetic field stays within the material though, shielding would not be required, and that would allow for very high circuit densities.

Source: University of Delaware

Hardware Roundup: Wednesday Edition

Wed, 22 May 2013 08:27:37 -0700

Metro: Last Light recently released, and if you're wondering how it'll perform on your PC, it would be best for you to check out the article below. If you're in need of a new case, the IN WIN G7 might be the one for you at a budget friendly price. Jumping into Wireless N doesn't have to be an expensive proposition, as Rosewill's T600N Wireless Router can be had for under $60. Check out the review below to see if it could be the new piece in your home network. We have a look at the Star Wars: The Old Republic gaming mouse, which is a modified version of Razer's Naga Epic decked out in a Star Wars design. There's a review on Lenovo's new Y500 gaming laptop that packs a mighty punch and yet won't set you back near as much as other similar gaming laptops. To keep it cool under an intense frag session, there's a look at the Cooler Master NotePal U2 Plus Cooling Pad, which can fit up to 17" laptops. For the media buff there's a review on the Leawo Total Media Converter Ultimate that can transcode Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

Cases
IN WIN G7 Mid-Tower @ [H]ardOCP

Gaming
Metro: Last Light Performance, Benchmarked @ TechSpot

Networking
Rosewill T600N Wireless Router @ ThinkComputers

Keyboards/Mice
Star Wars: The Old Republic Gaming Mouse @ Madshrimps

Laptops
Lenovo Y500 Gaming Notebook Review: The Best Mobile Gaming Value Around? @ PC Perspective

Cooling
Cooler Master NotePal U2 Plus Cooling Pad @ Neoseeker

Miscellany
Leawo Total Media Converter Ultimate @ Benchmark Reviews

NVIDIA PhysX and APEX Announced for Xbox One

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:46:54 -0700

Microsoft announced the new Xbox One console earlier today, and while that may have been relatively light on games, there's one good thing to look forward to with it. NVIDIA has announced its supporting its PhysX and APEX SDKs for the Xbox One, ensuring the same level of technology is shared between PCs and consoles. NVIDIA PhysX is "the world’s most pervasive physics solution" to bring real-world effects into the virtual world, be it for bodies, fluids, fabric, and more. NVIDIA APEX is similar to PhysX, but steps it up for some of the most physics-enabled (and destructive) environments you can possibly have in a game. The quanity and visual quality of destructive objects can be expanded, turn smoke and other particle-based fluids into gameplay components, and even make life-life clothing that properly interacts with characters for that ultimate immersion factor.

NVIDIA is quite excited about both PhysX and APEX being in the Xbox One, and you can check out what the two technologies are all about here for PhysX and here for APEX.

Source: Press Release

Fractal Design Unveils Node 304 White Computer Case

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:24:42 -0700

Fractal Design has recently announced a variant on a rather unique case that may seem small, but can pack a lot of hardware. The Node 304 White features an attractive exterior and a modular interior that's capable of accomodating six hard drives. If you don't need that much storage space, just pop out some of the brackets and you can install graphics cards up to 12" in length. Tower CPU coolers up to 165mm in height can be installed too, plus single-fan water cooling systems can also fit inside. If you're wondering about fans, well, Fractal Design has three Silent Series R2 hydraulic bearing fans (two 92mm in the front, one 140mm in the rear) in the Node 304, with filtered air intakes ensuring no dust can get inside. Motherboard compatiblity includes mini-ITX and DTX, ATX power supplies up to 160mm in length can fit, while the front panel consists of two USB 3.0 ports, audio in/out, and power and reset buttons.

The Fractal Design Node 304 White will be available soon for $89.99. The Node 304 Black is already available for the same price.

Source: Press Release

Nano-'Trees' Use Solar Energy to Split Water

Tue, 21 May 2013 15:21:58 -0700

Water is a fairly common material in the Universe thanks to how much hydrogen and oxygen want to bond to form the molecule. When the elements do bond, energy is released and could be tapped to power man-made devices, but first we need the hydrogen and oxygen to bond. A common idea is to create systems that use solar energy to split water molecules, and researchers at Berkeley Lab have recently developed a new device for doing so.

This new device is actually a combination of nanowires made of silicon and titanium oxide. These materials are both semiconductors that react with light, but different parts of the spectrum. Silicon operates in the visible and infrared ranges, while titanium oxide reacts to ultraviolet light. When exposed to sunlight, the two materials also do different things as the silicon adds electrons to protons to produce hydrogen, and the titanium oxide pulls the oxygen out of water molecules. To improve performance, the titanium oxide nanowires are arranged like a forest on the larger silicon nanowire. This configuration increases the surface area to interact with water and helps capture sunlight.

Currently the device only achieves 0.12% solar-to-fuel conversion efficiency, which is not horrible, but does need to be increased for commercial use. Fortunately the researchers already know one way to optimize the system by matching the energy outputs of the silicon and titanium oxide.

Source: Berkeley Lab