TDK has made scratched DVDs a thing of the past. A DVD treated with their protective coating survived even the worse kind of abuse.

Someone hacked into the SCO website and posted this humorous message. Obviously, SCO has fixed it, but Neowin managed to get a screenshot of it!

If you're running Winamp 5.05 or 5.06 you should probably take a look at this security warning.

Some modding goodness over at bit-tech. They modded a newspaper box into a fully loaded PC.

Hexus finishes off their review of the 6600GT.

X-bit labs figures out the best CPU to play HL2 with.

What!? A huge 10 mobo roundup? Better get that stick from under your bed...

Does anyone know why a coffee shop makes you a drink, but its so hot that you'd scald yourself if you ever tried to take a sip for about a half an hour? I swear these places make certain that your mocha or cappuccino or whatever is like 219 degrees before handing you the cup, usually almost burning your hand in the process. Email me if you can clue me in on this.

Anyways, if you're into Half Life mods, the developers at Ironoak.de are on the verge of releasing their latest project, deemed Brain Bread. For zombie fans, this is definitely worth checking out. It's essentially a co-op based survival game, pitting you and several friends against hordes of zombies, with the end game goal of, well, getting out alive. It's got a lot of the skill based facets that you've seen in Natural Selection, but what sets this mod apart from others is it's awesome looking GOREgeous-system. For a Half Life 1 mod, I think it's pretty freakin cool that they've managed to create this intricate level of detail.

I was just contacted by a SOYO PR Contact, and it appears that SOYO Taiwan's exit of the motherboard manufacturing industry will not affect SOYO Group (SOYO USA).

Here's the full message:

SOYO Group, Inc. www.soyousa.com headquartered in Ontario, California and SOYO Taiwan www.soyo.com.tw are separate companies. SOYO Taiwan's decision to exit motherboard manufacturing does not affect SOYO Group. SOYO will continue to introduce new products including motherboards to the market. Our current rebate and warranty programs remain in place and will be honored.

The SOYO USA operation remains unchanged, and we will continue selling the DRAGON and other AMD and Intel-based motherboards, as well as peripherals, consumer electronics, portable storage, networking, and broadband telecommunications products and services.

In fact, the SOYO, VoIP group. SOYO Broadband Telephony, http://phone.soyo.com is now a division of SOYO Group, Inc. and has entered the VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) market with the introduction of "Z-Connect," a complete line of hardware solutions and connection services that deliver instant broadband telephone capabilities. With the SOYO solution all users need to do is plug SOYO's Z-Connect telephone, router or gateway into a broadband connection and immediately begin saving money on telephone bills. With the Z-Connect service, there are no set-up fees, monthly fees, service contracts, software set-up or hidden charges.

The first two products that SOYO is introducing are SOYO Z-Connect AVRO 3001 VoIP Router and the SOYO Z-Connect G668 IP Phone. New motherboards will be introduced in the 4th quarter of 2004.

Today is a sad day! It looks like Soyo is leaving the motherboard business to "shifts focus to components and materials."

Looks like ATI will be updating their line of X800 video cards , but what're the specs exactly?

You must be living in a cave if you haven't noticed ATI has released another set of drivers. Click here and download them! This brings everything up to version 4.11.

Mmmm... free is always a good flavor, that and Sun will be giving away the newest release of it's OS .

Tom's Hardware does their annual buying guide which is full of goodies.

Mhz isn't everything these day, but Intel still decided to release their latest chip at 3.8Ghz. This time it's called the 570J.

ATI makes yet another chipset called the Xpress 200. AMD based of course, but can it compete?

X-bit labs looks into the Western Digital RAID Edition family of hard drives with the SATA interface.

Half Life 2 will be unlocked on my computer in barely a day...I can't wait! I've got a case of Barqs root beer to my left, cordless phone and cell phone to my right, and pizza in the fridge (if only I had a mini-fridge and a microwave in my room...I wouldn't have to move at all!). From 00:00:01am Tuesday morning until whenever I finish, I'm not going to stop. You can expect to see a full fledged Half Life 2 review here, soon.

Anyway, on to the news. Apparently Novell isn't satisfied with their last legal battle with Microsoft, and has decided to sue them again. This time its over Microsoft's business practices during the time that Novell owned Wordperfect. I don't get Novell, really...last time they sued because Microsoft stomped on their Netware network OS. Earlier this week, Microsoft agreed to pay Novell over a half a billion dollars over that...why are they still haggling Microsoft for more money?

This is one of the most earthshaking yet rediculous lawsuits I've seen in recent memory: Texas-based law firm McKool Smith is sueing a dozen video game publishers, including Electronic Arts, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft, Activision, Atari, THQ, Vivendi Universal Games, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, LucasArts, and Namco, under the case that the use of 3d images on a computer is patented. Therefore, according to this patent, every three dimensional game ever made is subject to the patents owner. Wow...just...wow. Read the full story at GameDaily.

It seems that G4-Tech TV has done it again. The Screen Savers is gone. Most of the team was told to clean out their desks yesterday afternoon. This was really the only reason I bothered to tune into the channel, and now that they've given everyone but Kevin and Sarah (who knows whats happening to them) the proverbial boot, I could really care less if that channel tanks.

Just a quick bit of news before I go to class; it seems that the case modder Piloux, now famous for his Blackmesa HL2 case, has finally completed his second project. After presenting Blackmesa, Piloux was contacted by Gabe Newell, owner and CEO of VALVe, asking him to make a similar box for use in their conference room.

Anyway, his latest case is an amazing piece of art. Check out part one of Blackmesa II's unveiling here.

Halo 2 has been released to the general populace, much to the joy of most of the reviews concerning it. I'll hold my praise and/or critisicm until I get a chance to play it for a while. Anyways, here's the "big three's" take on it.

Gamespy's review

IGN's review

Aaaaaand Gamespot's review

Also, VALVe has released Half Life 2's Source Development Kit (SDK) through Steam to anyone who has purchased the game through their preload offer. For more information, go here.