So there has been a lot of stuff going on in the world of technology the past week or two.  Here are some of the more interesting things.

Ken Gypen, author of several Linux-related articles on bit-tech, posted a new article about how to build your own router.  It is very interesting and can be useful if you have tons of unused computers around, like I do.  Be sure to check out Ken's other articles (build your own server and Linux has game), if you haven't already.

AMD released their new generation of video cards, the Radeon HD 4000 series.  TechReport has some thorough articles on the 4850 and 4870.  This new series seems like it might break NVIDIA's hold on the GPU market, and so far it has definitely made an impact on the Green Giant's stock.

In case you haven't heard already, Western Digital released a new version of their Raptor series of hard drives, the VelociRaptor.  Easily the fastest single hard drive around, and now with 300 GBs of space.

Also, I'm now using a Phenom X4 9850 BE CPU, 4GB Corsair Dominator 1066 MHz RAM, Biostar's TForce TA780G M2+ HP motherboard, and Seagate's Barracuda 7200.10 750 GB hard drive.  I just installed the new hardware yesterday, so I haven't had a chance to see the improvements yet, but I'll do some tests next week.  I'm definitely liking the 9850 BE/780G combo for sure.

Intel recently showed a demo of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars with a highly modified engine using ray tracing.  TG Daily has the report with a few pictures.  Interestingly enough, Intel was running the demo on a 64-bit Linux distribution, which means, of course, it was also using OpenGL.  Yes, Intel supports ray tracing on 32- and 64-bit versions of both Windows and Linux.  Nice.

It will be a while (if ever) before ray tracing is standard fare on the desktop, but progress is being made rapidly toward that possibility.  Reflections, refractions, collision detection, and lighting will all be much more realistic with ray tracing.  It's cool stuff and it will be interesting to see how it progresses over the next few years.

Phoronix has posted some information stating that they have received confirmation that Valve is porting their Source Engine to Linux.  Rumors of such an event have been floating around for a while, but these seem to be more than just rumors.  Phoronix rarely posts unofficial information or rumors, but they will when are they are nearly 100% sure the information is correct.  So how will this affect anything?

Well, for starters, the Source Engine is very powerful, offering HDR, one of the best AI systems, a Havok-based physics system, and many more awesome features.  Not only that, but word has it, as would be expected, that Valve's content distribution program, Steam, will also be available on Linux.  This would open up Linux users to a huge number of games without the use of any special programs, such as Wine.

Not only that, but if a bunch of new games become available for Linux and the Linux gaming community increases, companies will have a reason to develop better Linux drivers instead of relying on unofficial, manytimes unstable Linux drivers.  This could be a huge turning point for the Linux community.

It also could turn out to be just another temporary excuse for real Linux support in games.  But my guess is that this is not the case.  Judging by Valve's history, this is going to be a big deal, and it could easily change the way most people view Linux.

I know that I will definitely be a happier Geek.  I don't believe I could think of a single good reason to use Windows once I can play all the best games in Linux natively.

Oh, and there will probably be Mac support too, but that makes no difference to me.

Welcome to Source:Open 2.0!  My name is Russ Creech and this is the new version of my blog using Drupal 5.5.  I'm a technology and science geek, college student, open source advocate, and a Southerner.  I will be posting random things related to science, technology, computers, "philosophy," religion, food, and life in general.  I will also be using this website as a testbed for tinkering with Drupal and learning some PHP, so expect some errors and problems every once in a while.  For now, check out this video.  I use Linux for the most part, just to let you know.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon for more!