With all the games on the market, how do parents ensure their children will only play the appropriate games at the appropriate times? The upcoming Windows Vista will include a slew of parental game controls that will please parents and perhaps annoy their children who want to sneak in some World of Warcraft before finishing their homework. The new OS can track, limit and even stop game usage for little Johnny or, as Microsoft calls him, Toby. Chris Donahue, Microsoft's Group Manger for Games for Windows, stopped by our Westlake Village, California office to show us exactly how the new controls work and how to set them up. Read more
Microsoft will be rolling out a new web-based service designed to help parents protect their children from unwanted online content. Read more
Even Windows pirates get the security support from Microsoft. Read more
Windows Vista will introduce new tools that aim to make pirated versions less attractive and prompt users to activate a legally obtained copy of the OS. Deeply integrated into the core of the software, Microsoft will reserve functionality such as the Aero Glass interface for Windows Vista versions that are validated. Read more
Cyberpower sent us a factory-overclocked Phenom II X4 955 system wielding two Radeon HD 4890 cards in CrossFire. We pit the formidable rig against our previous System Builder Marathon Core i7 machine to see if AMD can deliver a viable gaming alternative. Read more
The latest 2 TB hard drives are still expensive, but 1.5 TB disks provide low power consumption at a better cost-to-capacity ratio. We look at offerings from Samsung and Western Digital to determine the value of taking a step down from the flagships. Read more
When a new paradigm like cloud computing or a new platform like Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) comes along, it’s smart to ask tough questions. Read more
With 36 lanes of PCIe 2.0, 3-way SLI could be the X58 chipset’s biggest challenge. If that turns out to be true, is Nvidia’s nForce 200 controller hub, which multiplexes the platform's connectivity, a solution? We compare three configurations to find out. Read more