Tech round up

Intel cuts quad-core price by 50 percent - The price of the Core 2 Quad Q6700 (2.66GHz) fell 50 percent from $530 to $266, while the quad-core Xeon X3230 (2.66GHz) saw an identical cut: from $530 to $266. Celeron price-cut highlights include the Celeron 430 (1.8GHz), reduced 23 percent from $44 to $34 and the dual-core Celeron E1200 (1.6GHz), falling 19 percent from $53 to $43. The dual-core Xeon 3085 (3GHz) was reduced 29 percent from $266 to $188, and the Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 (3GHz), from $266 to $183, or 31 percent.

Leadtek 9600 GT SLI reviewed and compared with 9800 GTX - In the end, price wise you will get slightly higher performance when purchasing a Leadtek 9600GT Extreme.

WD Velociraptor 10K RPM 300GB Hard Drive Tested - In every benchmark and test they ran, the new Velociraptor was clearly the fastest drive of the lot, and usually by a wide margin.

Logitech MX5500 Revolution Tested - The keyboard is comfortable, responsive and customizable. The MX Revolution mouse is comfortable and precise and like the keyboard very customizable. The added bonus of Bluetooth wireless connectivity eliminates cables and has not showed flaky connectivity of Bluetooth units in the past. In related news, TweakTown has a review of the Logitech MX Air Cordless Mouse

ATI Catalyst 8.4 Analysis - XP & Vista - The HD 3870 manages to lose a bit of performance in a number of applications while the HD 3650 saw some gains under Vista in our OpenGL based benchmarks

Microsoft says XP SP3 complete, available imminently - The company said the final code of the service pack has been released to manufacturing and now is working its way to OEMs and corporate customers. Access via Microsoft's Automatic Update feature will begin April 29.

From Win32 to Cocoa: a Windows user's conversion to Mac OS X - An excellent article and not nearly as bias as the title suggests, more a well though out and rational disection of what's current wrong with Windows as a software development platform.

SANS Solves Mystery of Mass Web Site Infections - They found a sneaky software tool that uses Google's search engine to hunt for Web sites running certain kinds of vulnerable applications

Test firing of new NASA methane rocket engine (video) - If the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.

Encyclopedia Britannica Now Free For Bloggers - And now, you can get access to the online version for free through a new program called Britannica Webshare.

North American HTC Ad Lets Your Fingers Do The Walking - HTC is set to unleash a massive marketing campaign to try and increase its brand presence in North America, starting with this ad

Car Hits Oil Slick At 150km/h (video) - A dude films himself driving over 150km/h on the highway when he hits an oil slick and loses control of his car

Hellboy II - The Golden Army Teaser Trailer (2008) - The film is a sequel to 2004's Hellboy, also directed by Del Toro. Hellboy II: The Golden Army is written by Guillermo del Toro and Mike Mignola. Universal Pictures finances and distributes the film, which has a target release date for July 11, 2008.

The Crowd at a Rock Show (pic) - check it out

Cavalera Conspiracy - Sanctuary (video) - Incredible clip, inredible album. I'm going to buy it!

South Park wakes up to no internet! (video) - This was the most hilarious episode I've watched in quite awhile! :-)

Paris Hilton is the HOTTIE! pt.1 (video) - On this episode PARIS HILTON comes by the NGTV studios with her co-star Christine Lakin to discuss the nature of HOT and the virtue of NOT.

TimeLapse Video of a Guy Trapped in an Elevator for 41 Hours (video) - On Friday, October 15, 1999 at 11pm in the McGraw Hill Building in NYC, Nicholas White took a cigarette break. After his nicotine fix, White heads back upstairs in Elevator Car #30.... But, something went wrong, and 41 hours later, he finally exits the elevator! The original story can be found here.