Displays

ASUS ARES cries havoc, lets slip the GPUs of war: a review roundup of the world’s fastest graphics card

When you name your graphics card after the God of War, you’d better hope it brings some heat, but judging by early reviews, that’s just what ASUS has done. The three slot monstrosity above is the ARES, a $1200 limited edition, fully custom board, sporting twin Radeon HD 5870 GPUs, four gigabytes of GDDR5 memory and practically enough raw copper to smelt a sword.


Amazon Kindle dual-screen e-reader patent granted, Barnes & Noble Nook potentially in trouble

Looks like the battle for e-reader dominance between Amazon and Barnes & Noble could soon expand beyond the recent spate of price drops and into the courtroom as well: the USPTO just granted a 2006 Amazon patent on e-readers with secondary LCD displays (like the original Kindle’s scroller-navigation panel ), and several of the claims are potentially broad enough to cover the Nook and many other devices with both electronic paper and LCD displays. What’s more, Amazon agreed not to file for any corresponding foreign patents during the four-year approval process and thus wasn’t required to publish the patent application — meaning this is likely a complete surprise to the entire industry


Liquid-cooled Asetek prototype redefines our all-in-one expectations (video)

We’ve been moaning about middling AIO performance for a while now, and outside of Apple’s spendy iMacs , not many have stepped up to the plate with equivalent grunt to what you might be able to splice together with a separate case and a bit of elbow grease. That won’t stay true for long, however, if Asetek’s prototype gets picked up by one of your favorite vendors. This liquid-cooled beastie — which proudly proclaims it has the same profile as the iMac at 58mm in thickness — is capable of powering and chilling both a 2.66GHz Core i7-920 and a GeForce GTX 280M


Hulu CEO: we’re ‘complimentary’ to cable

Hoping to trade in your expensive cable or satellite plan for a nice, juicy melon ball of cottage cheese-like… we mean, a portable Hulu Plus subscription at $10 a month?


Epson shows off IU-01 interactive whiteboard module for projectors

Epson ‘s just unveiled a new module — the IU-01 — which will serve as an interactive whiteboard for its projectors and eliminate the need for an actual whiteboard. It’ll also come with two pens which allow for user interaction with the screen, allowing them to open and close files and programs, as well as write on the screen. The IU-01 will be released in October, and it’ll run you $599.


3D displays and haptic interfaces come together in HIRO III

The Kawasaki and Mouri Laboratory at Gifu University in Japan are researching and developing a touch interface which, combined with 3D displays, could offer a new way to simulate the touching of objects. HIRO III is a haptic interface robot which can provide realistic kinesthetic sensations to the user’s hand and fingers, while the 3D display provides the visual experience. Possible applications include medical diagnostics training, but for now, HIRO III is still in the lab.