Extreme

Best extreme-definition 27-inch monitors

While most 27-inch monitors you'll find at your local Best Buy sport the perfectly capable resolution of 1,920x1,080 pixels, there's a growing contingent of monitor enthusiasts, like myself, who understand the real reason for the existence of 27-inch displays.

If you've never seen a 27-inch monitor running at 2,560x1,440-pixel resolution, then you've yet to be touched by a particularly affecting higher power.

Also referred to as "extreme definition" or "XD," this branch of higher-tier monitors will melt your face and not look back. However, as much as the impressive resolution benefits all aspects of computing, it is in games that it provides a particular advantage.… Read more

Skateboard down stairs with the Stair Rover

How do you go down a flight of stairs on a skateboard? Those with sufficient skill can usually grind down the supporting handrail like a champ, for one, while people such as myself tumble down wildly hoping not to break any bones.

Designer Po-Chih Lai's Stair Rover could alter the way skateboarders tackle the stair challenge.

Lai, a recent graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, also refers to his creation as a stairboard. The device lets the user ride down stairs by tapping the unique balancing act found in the eight wheels and specifically designed set of aluminum Y-frames at each end of the board. … Read more

Extremely Large Telescope gets rather strong vote of confidence

No, it's not something out of a Monty Python sketch. The "European Extremely Large Telescope" is, in fact, a real project. And it is, in fact, extremely large.

Or it will be, once it's built -- it'll be the world's largest optical/infrared telescope, actually. And with the recent vote to move the project beyond planning stages, the E-ELT may well be operational by sometime early in the next decade.… Read more

Hot new action games for iOS

I look through the new iOS releases and popular apps several times a day to find hidden gems to talk about here at the end of the week. Usually I try to come up with a theme to tie them all together, but I've been tracking some games over the past couple of weeks that are all good, but can't be wrapped up neatly in a nice little package.

Still, though the games are from different genres, each one has something unique to offer and I hope you'll be able to pick a game from the genre you like best -- I promise you won't be disappointed.… Read more

ExtremeCopy Free 64-bit speeds up copying in Windows

Since Windows is meant to be all things to most people, it leaves room for improvement on many fronts, such as copying files. Copying speed in Windows is mostly determined by your system's resources, but that's the point: by maximizing the copying according to your system's capabilities, it's possible to copy even very large files faster than Windows can. How much faster? Up to eight times faster, according to Easersoft, makers of ExtremeCopy Free, which optimizes copying speed based on your machine's resources. The standard version is free for personal and home use, though a … Read more

Google Ideas tackles violent extremism

Google is using technology to try to curb violent extremism around the world. Working with a think tank, venture philanthropists, and other partners, Google Ideas helped launch a new online network called Against Violent Extremism (AVE) today.

"What do a former violent jihadist from Indonesia, an ex-neo-Nazi from Sweden and a Canadian who was held hostage for 15 months in Somalia have in common?" director of Google Ideas Jared Cohen wrote in a blog post today. "In addition to their past experiences with radicalization, they are all also members of Against Violent Extremism."

AVE's goal … Read more

SanDisk Extreme SSD review: Standard and affordable

There's not much that's extreme about the SanDisk Extreme solid-state drive.

In fact, it's very standard, with a 9.5mm 2.5-inch design like most laptop hard drives. In my testing, the drive boosted the test machine's overall performance a great deal.… Read more

SanDisk ships Extreme solid-state drive

SanDisk announced today its latest solid-state drive, the SanDisk Extreme.

The company says the new drive offers up to 10 times the speed of a 7,200rpm hard drive and will greatly improve the boot and shutdown time as well as overall performance of a computer.

According to SanDisk, the new SanDisk Extreme SSD delivers up to 83,000 maximum random write input/output operations per second (IOPS) and up to 44,000 random read IOPS. The drive also offers fast sequential read and write performance up to 550MBps and 520MBps, respectively. This means apart from improving a computer's … Read more

How staying out of the light actually helped The Darkness II

Deciding when to release a video game involves a carefully planned strategy and knowing your competition. At times it feels like a publisher is watching the cards, observing patterns, and learning when to bet.

2K Games pulled some its own crafty rescheduling when the publisher pushed back The Darkness II from its initial fall 2011 release date to February 2012. It was a smart move on 2K's part because had it been delivered on time, it may have got lost in the ether that was an already overcrowded holiday gaming season.

Now I'm not privy to the actual specifics of why it was bumped, but avoiding military-shooter-mageddon 2011 was the right play--mostly because The Darkness II is a great game that deserves its own chance to step into the light.… Read more

Apple AirPort Utility 6.0: No love for Windows or Snow Leopard

Apple today launched version 6.0 of its AirPort Utility that enhances the networking experience for those using its networking products.

These products include the AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, and Time Capsule.

The new version lets you do all that you can do with the previous version (version 5.5.3), but with a more streamlined interface that resembles that of Apple's apps.… Read more