I See Dead Pixels
Quick Start
No more dead dots for Samsung
H
oping to end the emotional scar-
ring and buyer remorse caused
by dead pixels in its LCD moni-
tors, Samsung’s parent company has
announced a bold “no dead pixel”
policy for all LCDs purchased in 2005
and beyond. It goes something like this:
If you buy a Samsung LCD and at any
time in the first six months of ownership
discover even a single dead pixel, Samsung
will replace the display free of charge.
The new policy flies in the face of the
typical dead-pixel policy LCD shoppers
encounter these days, whereby a panel with up to 10 dead pixels is considered “normal,”
leaving the buyer no recourse under warranty. As you’re no doubt aware, LCD panels
consist of hundreds of thousands of individual pixels, and it’s not uncommon for one or
more of these teeny, tiny cells to stop functioning, causing them to appear white, black, or
a combination of colors at all times. The only caveat to Samsung’s otherwise generous pol-
icy is that it applies only to LCDs purchased after January 1, 2005. In other words, if you
bought a 17-inch Samsung LCD with fewer than 10 dead pixels (five on a 15-inch model)
in 2004, you’re SOL. As we went to press, the U.S. PR rep for Samsung said the company
is currently “investigating” how to implement the policy in the U.S. Dear Samsung:
Maximum PC would be happy to help with the investigation in any way possible.It’s Time to Chuck
Your Sharpie
HP invents cool disc-labeling tech
L
et’s face it: Using a Sharpie to jot
down the contents of a burned CD
or DVD is ghetto, no matter how
attractive your handwriting might be.
We’re equally tired of ruining perfectly
good discs with misaligned adhesive
labels.So imagine our delight when we found
out about HP’s new LightScribe technolo-
gy, which will enable us to burn both text
and pictures right on top of our discs.
You’ll need both a LightScribe-enabled
CD or DVD burner and LightScribe
media, because the process won’t work
on standard CD-R/RW and DVD-R/RW
discs. Once you’ve burned your data
onto the disc, simply take it out of the
drive, flip it over, and re-insert it into
the drive to burn the label. HP says
media-burning software developers are
in the process of updating their products
to add LightScribe functionality, so you
should check with the manufacturer
of your app of choice before throwing
down your cash for a LightScribe-capable
drive. The technology is currently lim-
ited to printing gray-scale images
and text, with lettering printed
in either straight-line or radial
fashion around the disc.
LightScribe media will be
available in both CD-
R/RW as well as 8x
DVD+R/RW formats.
Go to http://www.lightscribe.
com for more details.While LightScribe can only print gray-
scale text and images, its capable of
an impressive level of detail.FUN-SIZE NEWS
ATI SLI FYI
Rumors are swirl-
ing that ATI has a
home-brewed SLI
concoction wait-
ing in the wings
for a Q2 release.
According to TheInquirer.net, ATI’s
tech is named ATI Multi Rendering
(AMR) and unlike nVidia’s SLI solu-
tion, it will not require an interconnect
card. ATI is reportedly preparing its
very own motherboard chipset that
will enable the technology.YOUR PRINTER CAN RAT
YOU OUT
If you’re using a color laser printer,
the device is secretly imprinting an
almost invisible code on each docu-
ment you print. This code can be usedto trace the document right back to
your doorstep. Teeny, tiny, yellow dots
are scattered all over your documents,
but you’ll need a UV light or blue LED
to reveal them. This imprinting has
been going on for a long time, but was
only recently revealed to consumers.BACKWARD-COMPATIBLE
BLU-RAY DISCS COMING
JVC has created a three-layer optical
disc that has a 25GB Blu-ray layer on
top, with a dual-layer 8.5GB sandwich
beneath. It can be used as a standard
piece of DVD media today, and then as
Blu-ray media once that technology
becomes more widespread.MA XIMUMPC MARCH 2005
It’s not uncommon for even brand-new
LCDs to have a few dead pixels, but
Samsung hopes to change that.