Quick Start
FUN-SIZE NEWS
THE ENTERPRISE HAS LANDED
It may not convince skeptics, but this evidence sat-
isfies our belief that beings from a utopian society
in the far-flung future have visited Planet Earth. 3M
labs in Minnesota recently announced a “flame-spray” technique
that produces transparent alloys from aluminum oxides. That’s
right—transparent aluminum is here, just as predicted in the 1986
film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Maximum PC staff are scouring
the greens of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park for telltale signs of
space shuttle depressions.WINFS 86’D
In our October 2004 Longhorn preview, Maximum PC sang the praises
of WinFS, the next-generation file system that would enable much
faster searching and data retrieval by maintaining directories in a
relational database. Imagine our heartbreak when Microsoft subse-
quently announced that it was dropping WinFS from the initial launch
of Longhorn in order to make the new Windows’ already-delayed
launch projection of 2006. It may, however, be made available later as
a free update. We’ll keep you updated as our insiders feed us the lat-
est from Redmond.COMING SOON TO A HOME THEATER NEAR YOU
Optware Corp. announced a working proof-of-concept holographic
recording disc, known as the Collinear Holographic Data StorageSystem, with one terabyte of storage capacity and a one gigabyte-
per-second transfer speed. That’d be 200 times the capacity of today’s
single-layer DVDs and 40 times the speed of today’s DVD drives. And
just enough to hold every deleted scene from the Lord of the Rings
trilogy.LOST IN TRANSLATION
It’s inevitable that the world’s
largest software company should
commit a social gaffe or two trans-
lating its software for various cul-
tures, but leave it to Microsoft to
err with such spectacular aplomb.
First, the company lost millions in
revenue when Windows XP was
recalled by the Indian government
because the OS included a graphic
establishing disputed Kashmir
as an independent territory. More recently, a translation boo-boo
prompted Spanish language users to select a gender of “male”
or “bitch.”MA XIMUMPC NOVEMBER 2004
Peace and Quiet in PC-ville
A Utah physicist cancels PC noise with weird science
0
C power users go to
some wacky lengths to
squelch the noise of a
handful of case fans hum-
ming in unison, but often
these efforts simply trade one
problem for another. Acoustic
padding can heat up your
PCs interior. Fan cards hog a
PCI slot. Ear muffs look ridic-
ulous. And don’t even get us
started on the hazards of a
water-cooling kit gone awry.
Scott Sommerfeldt, a
physics professor at Brigham
Young University in Utah,
may have the answer we’ve
been looking for, and
strangely enough, it’s more
noise. The noise suppres-
sion system he developed
with graduate student Kent
Gee uses four tiny speakers
to generate sound waves
that cancel out the frequen-
cies generated by case fans.
Sommerfeldt likens thereduction in fan noise to
“going from soft talking to a
low whisper.”
While noise cancella-
tion (also known as active
noise control) isn’t a new
idea, as anyone who’s worn
a pair of noise-canceling
headphones already knows,
it’s expensive technology.
Sommerfeldt’s noise sup-
pressor, on the other hand,
was put together with read-
ily available parts for about
$20, making it practical for
manufacturers to implement
in their case designs.
Sommerfeldt and Gee
have filed for a patent on
the system, and they hope
that soon, light-sleeping
case modders everywhere
will be able to buy an inex-
pensive noise suppression
kit and finally get a good
night’s sleep.By creating fluctuations in air
pressure equal and opposite to those
created by the noise of a whirring
fan, tiny speakers put the kibosh on
PC case noise.