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The Internet has been around for about 14 years now, which many would consider to be a while. But, despite all that time, the legal system still hasn’t had time (or so it seems) to catch up, as there are still many uncertainties about what’s legal, and not, online. Even things that are blatantly illegal, or should be, are not, and as you could imagine, that can cause a headache for some people.

Once such crime is theft of a domain name. That is, to physically log (or break) into the rightful owners domain account, change the information, and simply call it your own. That’s just what Daniel Goncalves did with web URL P2P.com. Except, he didn’t just steal it, he actually sold it from right under the real owner’s noses. As you’d expect, such a domain would sell for a pretty penny, and it did… $110,000 to NBA player Mark Madsen.

It’s hard to tell if the owners received the domain name back yet, or not, but it’s proven to be a complicated process in having the case dealt with, since, as mentioned before, it seems that no one knows just how to handle legal cases like this. It’s a legal gray area, but with the Internet what it is today, I don’t think it’s safe to keep on going without hardened laws. After all, the owners of P2P.com had the money to fight their case… many people do not.

The main problems affecting victims of domain name theft are lack of experience of law enforcement, lack of clear legal precedents, and the money necessary to launch an investigation. DomainNameNews, which first reported the arrest, relates the Angels’ experience in reporting the crime. When the Angels called Florida police to report the theft, a uniformed officer in a squad car was sent to their home. “What’s a domain?” the officer asked them, according to DomainNameNews.

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Although GPGPU (general-purpose computing on GPUs) is growing in popularity, we’re still a little ways away from it becoming totally mainstream, and used by many. Over the course of the past year, though, NVIDIA is one company who has actively been pushing GPGPU, along with their CUDA technology, in order to get applications and scenarios in front of consumers to show them the benefits that their speedy graphics cards can offer.

One area where GPGPU can drastically improve performance is with video encoding, especially where filters are concerned. In some cases, the performance can increase upwards of 100 times over a CPU, and it’s for this reason that NVIDIA focuses on pushing the technology so hard. The company has just experienced a nice thumbs-up from a company called Lowry Digital, as well, as that company is the one which is responsible for enhancing the film footage of the Apollo 11 landing on the moon.

As you’d imagine, video footage from almost fifty years ago can’t hold a candle to today’s HD video, but even considering the time it was recorded, it still looks pretty bad given the circumstances. As you can see in the sample below, though, the image is drastically improved (there are more samples at the below link). In the  press release, it notes that on typical CPUs, each frame being dealt with would take upwards of 45 minutes to process, but with GPGPU, it takes seconds.

Maybe this is the kind of news that NVIDIA and GPGPU as a whole needs to get consumers excited about such technology, especially given that many people don’t realize they can do similar processing in their own homes.

“Lowry Digital’s restoration process has brought out details in the Apollo 11 videos that were never visible before,” said Andy Keane, general manager of the Tesla business unit at NVIDIA. “You can now see the faces of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin behind their visors, the stars on the U.S. flag when it is being raised and amazing details of the moon surface. We’re proud that NVIDIA has made such an important contribution to this historic project.”

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One of the more touted features of Windows 7 has got to be the “Windows XP Mode”, which aims to tackle an issue that some found themselves with when moving to Windows Vista… incompatibility. With Windows XP, compatibilities existed, but they usually weren’t a major issue. Vista was the stark opposite though, with many peripherals simply not working, and applications as well. While XP Mode could only be considered an unbelievable workaround, it should do well to please anyone who’ll need to use it.

Last week, we posted an article taking an introductory look at virtualization, and how it works. Windows XP Mode uses the same technology, through Microsoft’s Windows Virtual PC application. With Windows 7 (and any current version of Windows for that matter), anyone can go and download the application for free. But if you want to use “Windows XP Mode” as Microsoft calls it, you’ll need to be using either the Professional or Ultimate version of 7. If you’re on Home Basic or Home Premium, you’ll have to provide your own copy of XP.

For those with Professional or Ultimate installations, you’re now able to download the RC version of Windows XP Mode and get to work right away. If all goes well, it should be simple, and everything should work as hoped. The RC features some updates worth noting, such as USB sharing. This means that your XP installation can utilize your USB devices such as printers and flash drives without issue.

To make use of the Windows XP Mode, you need a processor that supports either AMD’s “AMD-V” or Intel’s “Intel VT”. Most recent CPUs support these, but to make sure, you should look up your respective CPU model on the vendor’s website. To read more about Virtual PC and Windows XP Mode, check out Microsoft’s site here. If you happen to take this for a spin, post in our forums and let us know how you made out!

Windows XP Mode provides what we like to call that “last mile” compatibility technology for those cases when a Windows XP productivity application isn’t compatible with Windows 7. Users can run and launch Windows XP productivity applications in Windows XP Mode directly from a Windows 7 desktop. I also strongly recommend that customers install anti-malware and anti-virus software in Windows XP Mode so that Windows XP Mode environment is well protected.

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Motherboards & Processors
• ASUS Maximus II GENE – Overclock3D
• ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo – Hardware Logic
• MSI AMD 785GM-E65 – PC Perspective

Displays & Video Cards
• Sapphire Vapor-X HD 4890 2GB – Motherboards.org
• Zotac GTX295 Single PCB – Hardwareoverclock

Memory & Storage
• Kingston Series V 128GB SSD – Motherboards.org
• PhotoFasts G-Monster V5 256GB SSD – TweakTown
• Transcend Ultra 120GB SSD – PureOverclock

Peripherals & Gadgets
• Beats by Dre Tour Headphones – Digital Trends
• D-Link DGL-4500 Xtreme N Gaming Router – ThinkComputers

Cooling
• Corsair Hydro Series H50 CPU Water Cooling Kit – Legit Reviews
• GELID Solutions GC-2 Thermal Compound – techPowerUp

Chassis & Power Supplies
• Cooler Master 922 HAF Chassis – Overclocker Cafe
• Cooler Master Sileo 500 Mid-Tower Chassis – TweakTown
• Maxcube Amoris 6010 Gaming Chassis – Pro-Clockers
• Thermaltake Element G Chassis – Pro-Clockers

Competitions, Complete Systems & Et cetera
• Boost Your PC’s Performance for Free – Digital Trends
• Canon PowerShot SX1 IS – Digital Trends
• GIGABYTE Booktop M1022 Netbook – TweakTown
• Phoronix Test Suite 2.0, PTS Desktop Live 2009.3 Released – Phoronix

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In any industry, it’s common to see people come and go, but I’d be willing to bet that in the tech industry, as thriving as it is, it happens a bit more often than you’d expect. Some people jump around from position to position at various companies like there’s no tomorrow, so it’s notable when someone decides to change things up and leave a position that they’ve held for over a decade.

A week ago today, though, Derek Perez, NVIDIA’s Director of Public Relations, posted on his Facebook account that he made the decision to leave NVIDIA after 11 years to set out to tackle a new adventure. He waited a week to fill us in on just what that adventure was, though, and believe it or not, it has not much to do with the tech industry. Rather, Derek is off to become the head of marketing for the Nashville Predators, an NHL team.

Anyone who knows Derek knows what kind of sports nut he is, with an incredible love for hockey (and he’s not even Canadian!). So while this new job puts him in a completely different environment, his expertise with management and marketing, along with his love of hockey, makes the move a no-brainer. In his words: “I think I got a dream job“.

On behalf of our site, I’d like to give Derek wholehearted congratulations and also a big thanks for all the help and support he’s given us for as long as we’ve been doing business with NVIDIA, and we wish him the best of luck. Keep your eyes on the ice, DP!

Credit: Igor Stanek

Here are some quick fun facts. When Derek joined NVIDIA in 1998, it was around the same time that the company moved their offices to Santa Clara, California, where they still remain today. The hot new product of the year? It was none other than the RIVA TNT, the successor to the RIVA 128, and direct competition to 3Dfx’s newly-launched Voodoo2 (NVIDIA acquired 3Dfx’s assets in 2000).

In addition to offering improved texture filtering techniques and trilinear filtering, it also introduced 32-bit color and a 24-bit Z-buffer for gaming. Then of course, the TNT2 followed the next year. Also that year, NVIDIA released their first Vanta graphics card, and also the GeForce 256. Boy, how time flies!

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