Tests
”Did Flash Support Slow the Nokia N95's Download vs the iPhone 3G?
Ever since Steve Jobs showed the speedy new iPhone 3G in a browser faceoff against the Nokia N95 at WWDC, users on Howard Forums have been crying foul. They say His Steveness's test of loading the National Geographic homepage was bogus because the N95's browser uses Flash, a feature that the iPhone's Safari lacks. We ran our own tests of the N95 browser with Flash turned off in New York and San Francisco, and found some interesting results: The N95 is often slower than was demoed at WWDC. But much, much faster with the free Opera browser with its images optimized server-side.
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Over the Counter DNA Paternity Tests Seem Like a Great Idea
After home pregnancy kits revolutionized stick peeing from an office to a home affair, the door was opened to the general public performing previously lab-only work on their own toilets. Identigene and Rite Aid have taken it one step further, allowing you to tell whether or not that kid is yours with a simple $29.99 kit (plus $119 lab fee) that includes three mouth-rubbing swabs. Results are obtained in the longest three to five business days you've ever experienced, but if you want a result that's actually "court admissible", you'll have to pay an another additional fee. And honestly, who would get one of these just out of curiosity and not have it be in preparation for some sort of custody battle? [DNA Testing via Gearlog]Ars Benches the New iMac, Predictably Decent Performance
While we poked and prodded our new iMac trying to answer all of your questions, Ars Technicha went their traditional route and benchmarked the hell out of the poor iMac. The 20-inch, 2.4GHz machine with 2GB or RAM " outdid a MacBook Pro with an identical CPU and FSB in my testing, and it was more than competitive with a Mac Pro in formal tests." That said, these aren't huge increases over modern hardware. And the Mac Pro destroyed the iMac in heavily multi-threaded tests. Such is the predictability of performance in all x86 era. [Ars]
portable media
Rebuttal: CNET's DRM Battery Test Refuted?
According to CNET's recent article, WMA DRM caused a 25% reduction in battery life in your portable music player. This seemed fishy to the guys at DAPreview, so they set out on their own test to see whether this shorter play time actually held true if the bitrates were the same in the WMA and MP3 files. Turns out, the non-DRM version scored at 14 hours and 55 minutes and the DRM version scored at just 25 minutes less with 14 hours and 30 minutes. A 2.8% difference isn't going to get people riled up anytime soon. Looks like you've got red on you, CNET. More »Lightscribe Works Better With Multiple Burns
I've never seen anyone using Lightscribe to label their CDs thus far, but that doesn't mean people don't do it. In an obvious, if interesting test, reader David shows us that you can greatly improve the contrast on Lightscribe disks by burning them a few times. At 5-10 minutes per burn, you better have a book and a sandwich handy, but this is the first time I've seen this sort of test. The numbers indicate the times the label was burned.
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