Several days ago I was telling you about OCZ and its new PSU lineup, but that’s not all OCZ got to update. In a recent event, OCZ has also presented the second generation of its gaming mice - the Dominatrix.

The Fudzilla guys were present and managed to play around for a while with the new mouse. Their first impression was that the new Dominatrix could be regarded as a much more serious gaming mouse than the previously released OCZ Equalizer. However, OCZ claims that the new mouse is rather a budget gamer type as it comes with exchangeable weights, on-board memory for multiple button schemes and the DPI of 2000 in standard mode or up-to 3200 DPI which can be defined by the user. The design and the rest of the functions seem to be standard with most of the budget mice out there, although the mouse again features the blue and black combination of colors which was also present on the OCZ Equalizer. Looks like OCZ is trying to build a signature color scheme for their mice.

OCZ didn’t exactly mention when the new mouse is going to be released, but we already know it’s going to be priced at around €30.

We know Roadrunner is the fastest supercomputer on Earth (for the moment at least), but how much does it cost to assemble and maintain such a behemoth? Millions of dollars? Not that much for a government-funded project. I guess the guys who assembled the Roadrunner didn’t take into consideration what NVIDIA CUDA can provide for their endeavors. CUDA forces all unified stream processors found in a GPU to work as separate CPUs. So if we have two NVIDIA 9800GX2 cards, that would amount to 2X256 processors running at around 1,4 GHZ. This setup alone can turn you computer into a miniature supercomputer that can solve complex equations and coordinate impressive simulations. How about 8 of these cards working in parallel?

MIT graduate students Nicolas Pint, David Cox and James DiCarlo have managed to assemble an impressive 16-GPU system composed of eight 9800GX2 video cards donated by NVIDIA. That would translate into 2048 processors that would deliver more than 20 TFLOPS. The CUDA architecture will soon be adopted by ATI, as well, and that means we will get to use 1600 processors on a single Radeon 4870X2 card. Sure, the ATI unified processors are clocked at a lower frequency than those found on NVIDIA’s cards. Still, eight 4870X2 will net you the power of 6400 processors clocked at around 800 MHz.

Ubergizmo informs that the high-throughput method the three students promote can also use other ubiquitous technologies like IBM's Cell Broadband Engine processor (found in Sony's Playstation 3) or Amazon's Elastic Cloud Computing services. What puzzles me is the fact that the team is also involved in the PetaVision project on the Roadrunner, so why didn’t they use the CUDA architecture? That would have cut the costs drastically. I reckon the Roadrunner had been designed before the CUDA architecture actually got released.

While IT analysts point out that computer mice might go extinct in the next 5 years, making way for mind-control interfaces, it is possible that the digital rodents are going to suffer some weird mutations, probably benefitting from alien technology. If that sounds a bit cryptic to you, check out the Alien Mouse concept and you’ll know what I mean:

Apparently, the guy who designed this mouse, MIzanur Rahman, was looking to enhance ergonomics in a drastic way. Actually, Rahman says that his idea was to create a mouse that would strictly adhere to the principles of ergonomics and provide maximum comfort by molding itself to the user's hand with a body constructed of soft gel and cellulose. Hey, that sounds like Moldable Mouse 2.0. It even features a pulsating central core that reverberates throughout the frame to help relieve stress and possible injuries.

Cool futuristic appearance, but how exactly do we control this thing? The designer explains that all functionality is handled by the sphere-shaped section at the top. A central joystick is flanked by fairly standard right and left click buttons, but the good thing of the peculiar controls layout is that the mouse never needs to be physically moved.

The Alien Mouse is still in concept stage and I reckon if the designer doesn’t step on it in the next 5 years, we might not get the chance to test it… Maybe it’ll be exported to some alien worlds.

The official WHQL Catalyst 8.7 driver from ATI has just been released. The new driver had to stay a bit longer into beta phase, but that is not because of the upcoming HD 4870X2.

ATI’s release notes inform that the newest version comes with some improvements for the Radeon HD 3600 and 3400 products in 3DMark Vantage, while the latest GPU generation along with the HD 3800 and HD 3600 series are supposed to be getting major improvements in Company of Heroes DX10 and Lost Planet DX10. Catalyst 8.7 also brings some improvements for Lost Planet and Call of Duty under DirectX 9 on HD 4800 series and better Crossfire scaling on all products.

There’s an additional feature located in the Catalyst Control Center, which is now enhanced to show full hardware information for each physical graphics accelerator installed, in case you have more than one cards. The ATI team managed to resolve many issues with games such as Assassin's Creed, Crysis, Rainbow Six Vegas 2, World in Conflict, Hellgate: London and some other minor games. As always, there is an updated list of known issues that haven’t been corrected just yet.

Windows Vista and XP owners, as well as Linux owners can download the latest Catalyst version from the AMD Game site.

Scientists have been trying to come up with alternative forms of computing for a couple of decades now. The silicon-based chips may soon be reaching their limits, and scientists are still exploring other possibilities that could prove at least as fast as what Intel, IBM, Sun and AMD are offering now. One alternative was identified in the chemical compounds of the human DNA molecule.

A couple of days ago, a group of Japanese chemists managed to come up with world's first DNA molecule made almost entirely of artificial parts. This breakthrough is supposed to bring huge improvements in gene therapy and pave the way for futuristic nano-sized computers, along with other technological advancements.

The DNA code string has already been cracked by scientists, but no one has managed to entirely decipher the meaning of the genetic code. For example, the entire human DNA sequence can be stored in no less than 30 volumes, each having more than 300 pages. According to Live Science, scientists have tried for years to develop artificial versions of DNA in order to take advantage of its amazing information storage capabilities. The first steps towards nano-sized computers have been taken with the attempts to harness DNA in order to create simple electronic circuits.

DNA is known to be using a group of four bases to code proteins used in cell functioning and development. But the Japanese chemists lead by Masahiko Inouye at the University of Toyama came up with entirely artificial replicas of these bases inside the sugar-based framework of a DNA molecule, creating unusually stable, double-stranded structures resembling natural DNA.

"The unique chemistry of these structures and their high stability offer unprecedented possibilities for developing new biotech materials and applications," the researchers said in a statement. "The artificial DNA might be applied to a future extracellular genetic system with information storage and amplifiable abilities."