Via Doom level shoots Tadpole weight options

ON TO THE SECOND WEEK of September news bites we boldly go. In a stroke of luck, we have had release that isn't horribly late, the Sparkle line of Geforce 6600 products. While the release went out a few weeks ago, and the boards shipped out last week, they should be hitting a store near you about the time you read this.

One thing I really like about Sparkle is that it is low key. In a world where things are sold based on how big the box is, not to mention how shiny you can make it, Sparkle is a refreshing change. At Computex, it had a stand with products. It didn't wave its hands around and have neon everything, it was an oasis of quiet and cool with nice toys. I like that.

The two cards it launched this time are the SP-PX43DT and the SP-PX43GDH. The DT is a 6600 running at 300MHz with either 128 or 256MB of DDR, and the GDH is a 6600GT at 500MHz with 128MB of GDDR3. The nice thing is that they are not named Anihalatorzzzzz 12XR-T, and do not come in a box with a strobe light built in. Sparkle is content to simply make solid cards. Did I mention I like that?

In the 'I don't know how I missed this one' category, we have a Doom 3 level released by Via. This one is called VIAVGA DM1, and it is a multiplayer deathmatch level. It is good to see that companies are supporting gamers like this. The one thing that bothers me though is that compared to the real Via HQ in Taiwan, with a conference room filled with journalists, this level is tame. The level, without people sniping across the room with words, can be found here.

From killing people with imaginary weaponry, we go to killing people with really big notebooks. Tadpole comes out with a notebook that can crush small and midsize animals, domestic or wild. If you are menaced by anything up to the size of a wild boar, Tadpole has the 20 pound laptop for you to crush it with in self defence.

This one is called the Tadpole Bullfrog, and it features a 1.28 Ghz UltraSPARC IIIi CPU, up to 8GB of RAM and a 17-inch 1280*1024 screen. I know, you are thinking about cards, I mean what good is a SPARC on an airplane if you can't use your favorite 66MHz 64 bit full length card in it? Well, worry no further, the Bullfrog has a slot just for you.

If it still seems feature, not mass, light, bear in mind it has an external SCSI port, dual Gig-E ports, and a memory card reader. Battery life can most likely be measured in minutes, countable to on fingers, but it is heavy. Seriously though, if you want this thing, and I am sure some people really do, check it out here

Last up is a product that catches us up to mid-September in the press release cycle. Lite-On just released a product almost as sexily named as the Sparkle things we started out with, the SOHW-1633S and SOHW-1653S DVD recorders.

They are both 16X DVD dual format drives, 48X CD recording, and have a 2MB buffer. The 1653S also does Dual Layer writing, and both come bundled with the appropriate version of Nero 6. The 1633S will cost about 99 Euros, and the 1653S a bit more, but they won't tell me how much yet. Either way, expect it to cost a lot less on the street.

The worst part about all of this, I just bought an 8X Lite-On drive. The problem is that if I had done my job and read the releases, I would have waited a week or two and got a better drive for less. You can't win, I tell you. µ