Although seemingly over-the-top, this render is actually a good representation of Dubai's plans of world domination (in tourist numbers). Witness the following few images.

Power supply reviews here at the online portion of HWZ are few and far in-between, for the simple reason that we cannot borrow a load/test power unit that can adequately stress a high-end PSU too often. And the item in question can’t get much higher than this: the Gigabyte Odin Pro 1200W PSU is the highest-rated power supply unit to pass through our hands, ever.

In a closed-door session that took place at Brother’s Chatham House offices in Makati, HWZ was treated to an advanced peek at Brother’s new releases in the multi-function printing arena. While Brother’s products have primarily been designed to appeal more to corporate buyers, the company has compiled (and shown to us) some interesting studies of local printing trends, especially the direction the business is taking and where their new launch of the 7000 series fits in all of the projections, as well as explaining their bullish attitude and mentality towards their target market and their competitors, respectively.

                                              Toshiaki Isakawa-san, General Manager for Brother International, Philippines, sat down with us for an informal discussion of market trends and Brother's position in it.

                                             The three 9800 GTX+ cards - the one with the radiator connected to it is the Zone edition from Zotac.

Greetings to all the intrepid PC enthusiasts in the country! If you’ve been wondering what else you can get out of your uber-clocked PC other than higher FPS and better general performance, then wonder no more. MSI and many more sponsors, plus the HardwareZone network, is bringing you the chance to show off the performance of your overclocked creations, display your build, overclock, and tweaking skills, and also the chance to win great prizes in the Iron Tech 2008 competition!

Nvidia’s  forte has always been on the graphics side of the business, and truth be told, while it has had a lot of hits with its chipset releases, such as the 680i and the more recent 780i, Nvidia cannot achieve the same market coverage as other competitors with their larger pool of resources.

Who hasn’t played with Lego blocks in the old, old days of their childhood? Certainly most anyone will have a block or two (or a box or two) at home, and have tried to build upon grandiose plans that may have included castles, walls, houses and boxes. In the case of this one special modder, he took the concept of an “enclosure” and applied it to his own set of lego blocks – coming out with a computer mod as classic as case modding itself.

                                              After laying out everything in a CAD program, the parts are prepared for eventual construction.

It shouldn’t matter all that much here in the Philippines but the fact is, electric vehicles are becoming more commonplace and practical. Out of this increasing popularity there rose a quirky little problem that plagued the safety concerns of pedestrians, bicyclists, and pet owners everywhere – the plague of the silent car.

For most products reviewed here online or blogged about in the zone, the first question asked of a product is “how much better is it than a similar but older product?” In the case of HP’s Indigo line of Printing presses however, there was no basis for comparison for this writer, and I had to fall back to the most-asked question by befuddled tech-writers and clueless editors alike – what does it do?

                                              Mr. Alon Bar-Shany, VP & GM of HP Indigo Digital Press Division was at hand to update the press of the Indigo line's status.

There’s nothing as disappointing as missed opportunity. This is especially true with tech products, with all the possible capabilities compounded by all of the different formats, methods, and flavors of media and the hardware behind it. In this case, the Emtec Movie Cube Q120 isn’t what I’d call an exemplary product, but it is disappointing in how high it could have reached, especially with this reviewer’s high expectations, given a more polished approach to this product’s development.

                                              Three indicator lights - power, hard disk activity, and music - hide behind the black plastic.
 

In the “cool” department, this UGV (Unnamed Gravy Van? Actually, it’s Unmanned Ground Vehicle) named “Guardian” and made by G-nius of the US makes its rounds in areas with the need for perimeter security. The fun thing about this autonomous robot is that it can actually go off-road when the need arises, unlike other delicate, straight-from-the-lab robots.

Toyota’s flair for solid, usually staid but ultimately dependable modes of transportation is taking a twist in their latest introduction of some 2-wheeled transportation options. Not a motorcycle, more like uhh – “personal transportation machine” as popularized by a certain American manufacturer. (Thanks to Akihabara News for all pictures)

As always with Zotac, they were one of the first to come up with a sample of the hotly anticipated Nvidia 9500 GT based videocard, and not just a run-of-the-mill model; they had an AMP! edition ready for us to torture and feed into our test bench. We take a look at the budget card based on the latest Nvidia 9000 series architecture.