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Today is Friday and you know what that means! It is time once again for the [H]ard|OCP Week in Reviews! For anyone that might have missed them, we like to take a quick look back on the hardware evaluations and articles we posted earlier in the week. We kicked the week off with our evaluation of the XFX R7970 Black Edition video card followed by our ASUS Radeon HD 7970 video card review.
Remember the ex-employees sued by Groupon for taking jobs at Google? Well, they have teamed up and filed a countersuit. If forty more people sign up now, they can get a group discount on the lawyers fees. 
Former Groupon Inc sales representatives who were sued by that company after deciding to leave for Google Inc have filed a countersuit, claiming their former employer is pursuing "sham" litigation to keep them from joining rivals. Groupon, which runs the world's largest online coupon website, had accused Nikki Dorough, Brian Hanna and Michael Nolan of taking confidential trade secrets in moving to the world's largest Internet search company.
Cooling: Glacialtech Igloo H58 Heatsink @ FrostyTech
Prolimatech Lynx CPU Cooler @ Hardware Secrets
Swiftech Apogee HD Water Block @ OCIA
ETC.: Cooler Master QuickFire Keyboard @ LanOC
Tt eSports Shock Spin Gaming Headset @ Pro-Clockers
Motherboards: ASUS P8H67-M Evo Motherboard @ PCStats
Nothing says "I am saving my virginity for....ever" quite like a Star Trek Enterprise coffee table. The craftsmanship is rather impressive though!
Short answer? No. Long answer? Hell no! If I were Zuckerberg, right after the IPO I would cash out to "pursue other interests" before Facebook pulls a MySpace.
That’s the question many people are asking amid rising chatter that the booming social network plans to go public in 2012 and raise up to $10 billion in a deal that could value the company at more than $100 billion.
What do you guys think of Ubuntu's heads-up display desktop idea? The embedded video below shows the HUD in action:
Ordering a used book on Amazon? If you choose Super Saver Shipping you will receive a free package of cocaine at no extra charge. 
"They went back and they tested it and he came back like 10 minutes later and said, 'You didn't happen to purchase cocaine with your textbook did you?'" she said. "I was like 'No.'" Turns out the package contained about $300-$400 worth of cocaine, which the police confiscated and destroyed.
Your honor, I wasn't pirating software...I was preserving it for the future of mankind. Why are you laughing? I am being serious. Wait, are those handcuffs?
It may seem counterintuitive, but piracy has actually saved more software than it has destroyed. Already, pirates have spared tens of thousands of programs from extinction, proving themselves the unintentional stewards of our digital culture. Software pirates promote data survival through ubiquity and media independence. Like an ant that works as part of a larger system it doesn’t understand, the selfish action of each digital pirate, when taken in aggregate, has created a vast web of redundant data that ensures many digital works will live on.
Best Buy's Boring Prototype 2 Preorder Bonus @ Kotaku
Minecraft Introduces Ocelots On Video @ Joystiq
THQ Layoffs Hit Admin And Publishing Departments @ Shacknews
I'm not sure why they call it "private data" when it can be used against you in court. 
All that data, even the allegedly 'private' social media data, is not private but is fair game as e-discovery in civil litigation. Another study found who you are digitally on Facebook is who you are offline in real life. Lastly, the more data we overshare on social media, the more it becomes the "norm" for society . . . meaning for society as a whole, it lowers what is considered a reasonable expectation of privacy.
A laptop with a built in Kinect? As much as I hate to admit it, that actually sounds kind of cool.
The Daily had a chance to check out a pair of prototypes incorporating Kinect sensors over the last few days. The devices, which at first glance appear to be Asus netbooks running Windows 8, feature an array of small sensors stretching over the top of the screen where the webcam would normally be. At the bottom of the display is a set of what appear to be LEDs.
Compilers Mature For Intel Sandy/Ivy Bridge @ Phoronix
Memory/ Storage: Patriot Pyro SE 240Gb SSD @ FunkyKit
Power Supply: Antec EarthWatts Platinum 650W @ techPowerUP!
Video: Galaxy MDT GeForce GT 520 @ TechSpot
The crew at Overclockers Club has just put the finishing touches on their review of the XFX HD 7970 Black Edition video card. For comparison purposes, you can see our evaluation here.
Keep in mind, the base clock speeds of 1000 MHz on the core and 1425 MHz on the memory are already sizable increases over the default clock speeds. However, XFX has added their Double Dissipation cooling to increase the overclocking potential of their Black Edition HD 7970. As a result, the card responded well to voltage tweaking and a further boost in the clock speeds to 1177 MHz on the Tahiti core and 1652 MHz on the GDDR5 memory.
Nothing like the ol' "inflatable tank on the lawn" trick to keep people at bay. It works for door-to-door salesmen too.
"National Radio (New Zealand) called me about a half hour ago because someone texted to say that there's an army tank on Kim's lawn that is aimed at the front gate," France Komoroske, an attorney and DotCom neighbor, wrote CNET. "They asked me to go take a look."
When it comes to unique solutions to every day issues, no one comes close to the stuff you guys come up with! When the topic of $130 GPU water blocks came up, long time [H] reader Lorien shared this complete cooling solution that costs half of what those spendy blocks are going for! You can see more pictures here.
Finding ancient computer hardware on the shelves at Wal-Mart isn't surprising, it happens all the time. What makes this story funny is the employee's response to the customer:
The cashier told me outright, "You'll be bringing your kids in here some day, and these will still be here." We had a good laugh about it, and he told me I should probably take a picture and share it with my friends.
Apple's CEO has responded to a New York Times report on the horrible working conditions at the plants that make its products by saying the cares about every worker in its supply chain. This statement mirrors the one given during all the suicides, the explosion, claims of abuse and the worker revolt and the most recent mass suicide attempts. Heck, they should have this speech memorized by now.
The report also recalls a scenario in which a factory had to call the parents of a young worker to inform them of their son’s admission to the hospital. Horrid points of excessive overtime are included, in addition to a gruesome quote from a former Foxconn executive: "Apple never cared about anything other than increasing product quality and decreasing production cost." On top of all of that, the report shares word from former Apple executives, such as this quote: "We’ve known about labor abuses in some factories for four years, and they’re still going on."
For those of you that like a little hardware news on the go (iTunes or downloadable MP3) or you are just too damn lazy to read, I recommend you try out PC Perspective's weekly podcast. Here are just a few of the things the PCPer gang discussed this week:
Join us this week as we talk about a Gigabyte GTX 580 Super Overclock card, how much money Intel and AMD made (or didn't make), Kepler rumors, HD 7970 stock and more!
This is your end of the week reminder that joining the best folding team on the planet (Team #33) is now easier than ever. We don't give you money to join and we can't promise you prizes or other incentives, we do this simply because it is our passion and that is why we've had the best folding community around...for years. So, if you want to make a difference with a group of people that honestly care about what they are doing, join team Team #33 today.
Folding is a wonderful way to help your fellow man using your spare CPU cycles and now, thanks to the new FAH GPU Tracker v2, it is easier than ever to get started. Remember to put the number 33 in the "team" field and you’ll be folding with the [H]orde in no time! Thanks to all our team members for the wonderful job they are doing.
Seagate Technology today announced that its Board of Directors (the "Board") has approved an increase to its quarterly cash dividend from $0.18 per share to $0.25 per share, an increase of 39%. The increase is effective with the dividend payable on March 1, 2012 to shareholders of record as of the close of business on February 15, 2012. The payment of any future quarterly dividends will be at the discretion of the Board and will be dependent upon Seagate’s financial position, results of operations, available cash, cash flow, capital requirements and other factors deemed relevant by the Board.
Had a quick chat with the powers to be at AMD about 7970 video cards and the supply of those in retail. (You can find reviews and 7970 coverage, here, here, here, here, and here.) We all saw the 7970 go missing in retail/e-tail for a while but now it seems to be coming back. AMD told us that it was highly likely that we would see a steady supply on the 7970 from here out.
it’s already in place and weekly shipments are hitting stores in an effort to keep backorders to a minimum. It does look as if cards are available, and now that we are most likely through the initial rush I suspect we’ll be able to maintain reasonable quantities.
Checking where we are at on HD Radeon 7970 supplies today, we found those at Newegg with 6 different cards in stock. Amazon showed a 6 vendors in stock with cards, just be careful of the price, looks to be a couple of those guys are gouging.
Even Ferris Bueller thinks you should buy one and game your ass off.
So, you are in the Air Force and stationed in Afghanistan. You want to play your favorite game but you can't because it is only available as a digital download and, as you can imagine, internet access over there sucks. Normally, that would be the end of the story but, thanks to the developers of the game being all around awesome guys, this story has a good ending. Thanks to Paul Hofmann for the heads up!
"We're humbled by the kind of reaction the game has received from players. We respond to every fan email we get because we think it's well worthwhile to treat our customers the way we'd like to be treated. Besides which, we wouldn't be able to do any of this if not for them."
Click on this link, it will tell you what Google knows about you, how old it thinks you are and what gender. Mine wasn't even close, how about you? Oh yeah, and you can opt-out on that page too.
Your interests are associated with an advertising cookie that's stored in your browser. If you don't want us to store your interests, you can opt out below. Your ads preferences only apply in this browser on this computer. They are reset if you delete your browser's cookies.
Lian Li PC-90 HPTX Chassis @ MissingRemote
Cooling: Thermaltake Bigwater 760 @ FunkyKit
ETC.: Thermaltake Meka G Unit @ LanOC
Motherboards: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 Motherboard @ ocaholic
Hawaii wants to force internet service providers to keep track of every web site their customers visit for at least two years?
Hawaii's legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit. Its House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing this morning on a new bill (PDF) requiring the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents. The measure, H.B. 2288, says "Internet destination history information" and "subscriber's information" such as name and address must be saved for two years.
If I was McAfee in this situation, I would go all 9th grade on Symantec with "talk about liars, how's that whole source-code-that-wouldn't-affect-current-customers-thing working out for you?"
McAfee Senior Vice President for Finance and Accounting Edward Hayden told Reuters on Thursday that the claim was false. He added that his company had booked a record amount of business in its December quarter, signed its biggest deal ever and closed more sales over $1 million than it had in any single period. "We are not aware of any major account that we lost to Symantec during the quarter," he said.
Twitter has announced that it will begin censoring tweets on a country by country basis. The company used countries such as France and Germany that ban pro-Nazi content as an example of why this is happening.
We haven’t yet used this ability, but if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.
There is an interview with Fred Wester, CEO of Paradox Interactive posted at GameSpy today that is a must read for everyone (I'm looking at you game developers). A variety of topics are covered but what is really interesting is what he says about developing for the PC, not selling out for the console money and why SecuROM DRM is "a waste of money." Thanks to samduhman for the link.
Paradox Interactive may be a relatively small publisher, but it’s defined itself as a PC-first company that goes out of its way to make its customers happy. I sat down with CEO Fred Wester at this year’s PDXCon for a refreshingly frank talk about Paradox’s ongoing focus on PC gaming, his plan for the future, and the futility of DRM.
Wow, $120 million sure sounds like a lot of money to pay for these patents. When is the last time you used anything made by Real Networks?
Chipmaking giant Intel and digital media outfit Real Networks have announced a surprise deal that sees Intel paying RealNetworks $120 million for about 190 RealNetworks patents, 170 patent applications, and RealNetworks’ forthcoming next-generation video codec software. Under the deal, RealNetworks will continue to have the right to use its old patents in current and future products; however, the patents will belong to Intel, and the company is free to use them in its own products and/or license them out to others.
If you thought tossing a monitor over a fence was stupid, how about causing the evacuation of hundreds of people on an Army base because you thought "it's probably a bomb" was a funny thing to say.
A FedEx driver who allegedly said a package was "probably a bomb" as he delivered it to an Army base is now facing a felony terrorism threat charge. Military police evacuated 215 people from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers trailer at 17800 South Camp Williams Road and the surrounding area after an employee overheard the comment, according to charges filed Wednesday in 3rd District Court.
