Sunnyvale, CA—April 29, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the Special Ops Edition DDR3 Series, available in both PC3-8500 and PC3-10666 kits featuring the high densities and stability gamers demand. These DDR3 kits are ideal for users advancing to the next generation of memory platforms, offering the speeds, density, and reliability required for the latest DirectX 10 PC titles. Featuring a unique camouflage motif heatspreader design, the DDR3 Special Ops Edition Series was designed for gaming systems in need of a reliable upgrade as well as some extra style.
“With DDR3 platforms becoming more mature and readily available, more and more gamers are adopting the newer higher performing memory standard,” commented Alex Mei, CMO of the OCZ Technology Group. “We are excited to introduce a complete range of new Special Ops DDR3 kits ranging from 1066MHz to 1333MHz designed specifically for gamers looking to take advantage of the higher bandwidth and lower power consumption benefits offered with these SOE DDR3 modules.”
Here's the funniest thing I've seen all day...(thanks to [H])
To begin with, you probably only want to map a single event to your games, but as your confidence improves you'll be able to do more and give your hands a break. And as the NIA can speed up response times (200ms to click fire, 100ms to think it), it means you'll be more efficient at shooting before getting shot.
We got to use the device for an extended play in the wonderfully frenetic Unreal Tournament 3, and the buzz you get when you knock up your first frag is every bit as stunning as it is scary.
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Grand Theft Auto 4" went on sale Tuesday, with fans lining up at midnight to grab the first copies of the criminal action game hailed as a brutal and satirical masterpiece equal to films like "The Godfather."
Retailers such as GameStop Corp and Best Buy Co Inc took advance orders for the game weeks earlier and many outlets threw open their doors at midnight to accommodate fans eager to be among the first to play.
The launch of "Grand Theft Auto 4" is expected to be the biggest entertainment event of the year, with first-week sales forecast to be up to $400 million, beating those of last year's "Halo 3" from Microsoft Corp.
DENVER - A Colorado man accused of sending hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and falsifying e-mail headers. ADVERTISEMENT
Thirty-five-year-old Edward "Eddie" Davidson of Louisville was also ordered to pay nearly $715,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced Monday and ordered to report to prison authorities in May.
When Google introduced its PageRank algorithm long ago it allowed web searchers to have a metric they could look at and easily determine the authority of a webpage. Google researchers are now saying they have developed technology to do for images what PageRank did for web pages.
The New York Times reports that a pair of Google scientists presented a paper called “PageRank for Product Image Search” at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing. The software technology is being called VisualRank and is at its core an algorithm that blends techniques for recognizing images and technology for weighting images and ranking them based on what looks the most similar.
Although most of the attention in the increasingly-competitive CPU market has been focused on Intel and newcomer NVIDIA lately, AMD's still in it to win it, and it looks like it's taking some bold moves. First up, the company says over 100 laptop designs based on the new Puma mobile platform are being developed for delivery in June, over twice as many as it's had in the past. AMD's touting Puma's Hybrid Graphics mode that allows the system to intelligently switch between a Radeon HD3400 and integrated graphics for max power-savings, so it'll be interesting to see how the system stacks up against Intel's Atom and VIA's Isaiah -- like NVIDIA, AMD seems to be betting that consumers care more about graphics than raw horsepower.
It seemed like it would never happen, but the impossible has occurred: Apple's iPhone is coming to Canada. The news was quietly slipped into telecom giant Rogers' latest earnings report, with the simple statement that the company was "thrilled to announce" a "deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year." Apparently, lips are sealed on all other details
“The Vantec NexStar Hard Drive Dock lived up to its promise. It provides a convenient method of connecting any SATA drive to your system so that you can easily access the data on it. Performance was up to par, but the real benefit is from the design. During disaster recovery, you need something that's straightforward and easy to use and won't add more trouble to your life. The NexStar Hard Drive Dock succeeds in this aspect.”
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Sunday unveiled its first computer brand, aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, with design and sales help from its major chip customers such as Dell Inc.
AMD Business Class desktop personal computers will be followed by notebook PCs in the second half of this year.
SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - While there's little doubt about the power of this week's launch of "Grand Theft Auto IV," there is some question about the video game's legs.
The latest chapter in the wildly popular and controversial criminal action franchise will likely smash the $300 million global first-week sales figure for Microsoft's "Halo 3" in September, but how the game will fare by year's end is subject to debate.
"I think all the preorder programs now in place for these top titles really end up taking the long-term sales out of many games," said Michael Goodman, director of digital entertainment at Yankee Group. "So I don't think 'Grand Theft Auto IV' is going to have those kind of legs."
HONJO, Japan (Reuters) - Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics -- many of which are enjoying near-record prices.
It's called "urban mining", scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket.
Steve Ballmer kicked up a little dirt last week when he said that Microsoft could "wake up smarter" and keep selling XP after the June 30 cutoff date if customer feedback demanded it, but as you'd expect, the company is busily trying to "clarify" that statement by saying that while it always listens to customers, XP is definitely going to die on the 30th. Well, apart from the ultraportable exception that'll last until 2012 or so. And the backlog of licenses still in reseller's hands. Oh, and a little company called Dell, which, as rumored, is going to take advantage of a Vista licensing loophole that allows it to sell a copy of Vista but preload XP instead. Yep, that's the plan -- Dell's going to report a Vista sale to Microsoft, but deliver an XP box with Vista upgrade DVD to customers. (That sound you just heard was a million accountants sighing in appreciation.)
Need more unsubstantiated evidence that the 3G iPhone is near. Good, the Chinese language Commercial Times is quoting sources claiming that Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai) -- the maker of the 1st gen iPhone -- is ramping up 3G iPhone assembly by "the end of May" to ship 3 million units in June. It's expected to produce some 24-25 million units before the product reaches end of life. If those numbers are true then Apple had better be prepared for a proper global launch without those pesky revenue sharing schemes seen holding back world-wide uptake.
Asustek Computer is considering making Eee an independent brand with a lineup products including the original Eee PC notebook, as well as the previously reported upon Eee TV (E-TV), Eee desktop (E-DT), and Eee monitor which are all expected to be introduced by the end of the third quarter this year, according to industry sources.
Through separating Eee as a sub-brand, Asustek believes the product family will be able to jump out of the low-cost market bracket.
In other news, in addition to the Eee PC 900, the company will launch the Eee PC 1001 with a 10-inch panel as well as an 11-inch model by the end of this year, market sources have revealed.
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A Microsoft deadline for Internet service company Yahoo to accept its 44.6-billion-dollar (28.5-billion-euro) acquisition offer expired at midnight Saturday, setting the stage for a hostile takeover bid by the software giant.
Neither of the two sides made any comment as the Sunday 0700 GMT deadline came and went.
The deadlock was likely to pave the way for an ugly proxy battle -- a fight by Microsoft for a vote by Yahoo shareholders to place pro-Microsoft officials on its board of directors.
“The Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P Motherboard is an aggressive, extreme, yet efficient platform. It's a shock to see this board do so well and do it even better at more extreme frequencies. It's more affordable than most P35 overclocking motherboards and has plenty of the top end features a power user could want. There is a large void out there for energy conscious users who still want real power. This is absolutely the best choice for those on a budget who didn't think they could afford extreme performance.”
SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp gave Yahoo Inc no hope of a higher takeover price, saying it was ready to go hostile or even call off its bid if Yahoo maintains "unrealistic expectations" of a better deal.
"Speed is of the essence for the deal to make sense," Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said on a conference call on Thursday. If no deal is reached by this weekend, Microsoft will reconsider its offer and reveal new plans next week, he said.
"Unfortunately, the transaction has been anything but speedy and has been characterized by what would appear to be unrealistic expectations of value," he said of Yahoo's moves to frustrate Microsoft's unsolicited merger proposition.
The future of home video is thought to be set now with Blu-ray Disc emerging as the victor in the high-definition format war, but things aren’t quite so rosy in the present market.
Blu-ray Disc sales have jumped considerably in 2008, particularly following Toshiba’s surrender of the HD DVD format. In December 2007, 63 percent of high-definition movies were sold on Blu-ray Disc, and in March 2008, that number moved up to 81 percent, reported one analyst firm.
According to Reuters, 4.9 million high-def movies were sold, 3.8 million of which were Blu-ray – already well ahead of the pace in 2007, which saw total sales of 9.8 million.
Strong sales of Blu-ray Disc are not enough to make up for sagging sales of standard DVDs, which have been declining over the last two years. In 2006, movie studios generated $25 billion in revenue for home video releases. That number fell to $23.1 billion in 2007, with a further fall to $21.4 billion expected for this year, figured Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In a dimly lit back room on the second level of the University of Michigan library's book-shelving department, Courtney Mitchel helped a giant desktop machine digest a rare, centuries-old Bible.
Mitchel is among hundreds of librarians from Minnesota to England making digital versions of the most fragile of the books to be included in Google Inc.'s Book Search, a portal that will eventually lead users to all the estimated 50 million to 100 million books in the world.
The manually scanning — at up to 600 pages a day — is much slower than Google's regular process.
San Jose, California – April 23, 2008 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of DRAM memory modules and flash storage solutions, today launched a DDR3-1800 4GB kit (2x 2GB) in their extreme performance Project X family.
Super Talent’s Project X memory is widely regarded as the world’s most advanced DDR3. “This represents another major first-to-market milestone for Super Talent”, commented Super Talent Marketing Director, Joe James. “While competitors are only able to produce 4GB kits up to DDR3-1600, we’ve engineered a kit that performs at elevated clock speeds while still supporting aggressive latencies.”
This Project X kit is built with the fastest available, hand selected Micron DRAM chips, and is stress tested as a matched pair on a dual channel Asus® Striker II Extreme motherboard.
You may not have the disposable income to take home our one of a kind PS3 Laptop (which is still up for charity auction!), but that doesn't mean you don't have the time or wherewithal to build one of your own. Which is why we've asked our man Ben Heck to show everybody how he built the thing for the benefit of independent modders everywhere. In this installment we'll take apart the PS3, identify the parts within, and then reassemble them in a more compact way. We'll also install a USB breakout cable and take a look under the mammoth heatsinks and pipes.
FLARE is a modular system to create a dynamic hull for facades or any building or wall surface. Acting like a living skin, it allows a building to express, communicate and interact with its environment.
SANTA ANA, California (Reuters) - A computer hacker testified on Wednesday that a News Corp (NWSa.N) unit hired him to develop pirating software, but denied using it to penetrate the security system of a rival satellite television service.
Christopher Tarnovsky -- who said his first payment was $20,000 in cash hidden in electronic devices mailed from Canada -- testified in a corporate-spying lawsuit brought against News Corp's NDS Group (NNDS.O) by DISH Network Corp (DISH.O).
The trial could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage awards.
While solid-state drives (SSDs) aren’t the most popular storage medium in notebook computers right now, they are expected to grow significantly in the near future. Toshiba Semiconductor is betting that SSD drives grow significantly over the next three years and is enhancing capacity and reducing costs to grab that growing market.
Toshiba Semiconductor President Shozo Saito said at a seminar that he expects a full quarter of all notebooks shipped to be equipped with SSDs by 2011. Toshiba expects the SSD market to grow 133% every year on average through 2010 and Toshiba says its building capacity faster than that.
LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE, Belgium (Reuters) - Microsoft could re-think plans to phase out its Windows XP operating system by June 30 if customers show they want to keep it but so far they have not, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said.
"XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies we can always wake up smarter but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments," Ballmer told a news conference on Thursday.
“After several weeks of using the Lapworks Attaché I found it to be a solid and stable piece of equipment. The adjustable foot was secure and didn't have much slop in it whatsoever. The rubber pads kept the stand from sliding around on a smooth surface. With the aluminum and plastic construction, the Lapworks Attaché is extremely light to carry around; however, it's not meant to be something you lug around in the laptop bag due to its shape. Instead, it's meant to sit on your desk and act like a docking station, raising the elevation of the screen to keep the user from craning their neck and causing undo strain. The fans are 5 volts and get their power from the laptop. With the curve of the Attaché stand and fans blowing air on to the bottom of the laptop, proper ventilation is achieved.”
Michael Dell spoke at Fortune's Brainstorm:Green conference today, and he took the wraps off this funky bamboo-encased eco-PC concept. Said to be Dell's smallest-ever computer, the machine is 81 percent smaller than a standard desktop and uses 70 percent less power. There's no word on what's inside yet, but Dell says the machine is due to be released later this year, and should cost between $500 and $700.
Craigslist and eBay are seen in many eyes as direct competitors, but despite the competition between the two eBay holds a minority stake in Craigslist. A 2004 purchase grabbed eBay a 28.4% stake in Craigslist.
A suit filed by eBay this week against Craigslist alleges that the Craigslist Board of Directors, consisting of only two members including founder Craig Newmark and chief executive Jim Buckmaster, took action to dilute eBay’s stake in the company.
According to eBay unspecified actions taken by Craigslist have reduced eBay’s stake in Craigslist by more than 10%. ebay asked the court to reverse the actions of Craigslist to protect eBay’s investment and preserve its stake in Craigslist.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has begun testing technology that brings together a person's pictures, documents and other data scattered across a growing number of machines with the goal of allowing people to access their information from anywhere and at any time.
Microsoft's "Live Mesh" program, which uses the Internet as a data hub, synchronizes files across computers, phones and other devices so a digital picture frame at home could show a picture minutes after it was taken by a cell phone.
Initially the program will be limited to 10,000 U.S. testers and computers running its Windows operating system, but Microsoft said it plans to extend Live Mesh over the next few months to mobile phones, computers from Apple Inc and other devices connected to the Internet.
We were too poor to play with RC cars when we were kids, but it seems like it was worth the wait in order for these Fat Shark Wireless RC Glasses to be invented. Strap the glasses on your face and you'll be able to see through the actual head of the RC driver. Better yet, the head can pivot and tilt so you're not always looking straight ahead in front of the car. We only wish it would be adapted for Top Gun 2008, the end result of which would be tons and tons of "pilots" puking on the ground.
Fremont, California; April 22st, 2008--Ready to receive HD in all its full glory is the new ASUS M70 notebook that provides a WUXGA widescreen with 1920x1200 pixels resolution and Blu-Ray support. Combined with cutting-edge audio technologies including built-in Altec Lansing Speakers and Dolby Home Theater, the M70 is supremely suited as a digital entertainment and productivity tool. In addition to the all-rounded AV features, the M70 is the world�s first notebook to offer an ample storage of 1TB (2x 500GB) that can store up to 285,000 digital photos, 25,000 songs or 120 hours of HD movies*! For unparalleled high definition enjoyment, the M70 is the one and only entertainment notebook choice that is big on visual, audio and storage!
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp's game unit said on Tuesday it was delaying the launch of its "Home" 3D virtual online community service for the PlayStation 3 game console to autumn of this year, the second such delay.
Sony last year postponed the launch of the "Home" service, which is aimed at giving users a place to interact with other PS3 users, to early this year from last autumn.
As in the "Second Life" virtual world, Home users create online characters or avatars. They can chat with other visitors, play games and customize their own rooms located in the virtual world.
There’s no disputing that Epic Games continually pushes the envelope of gaming technology, particularly in the area of visuals. The game developer’s Unreal Engine 3 powers a number of current-generation games with some whiz-bang graphical effects on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but not any on the Wii. The reason for that may be Epic Games’ apparent distaste on some of the technical aspects of Nintendo’s latest console.
Details surrounding Netflix's upcoming set-top box partnership with LG are still scarce, but that hasn't stopped it from announcing similar plans with four other unnamed hardware manufacturers that it expects will sell "millions" of devices per year. Feel free to guess, but the only details available are that the fourth company is a small one likely to launch sooner than Q4, while the other three (including LG) will turn on Netflix functionality in some of their devices in the fourth quarter. It's unlikely to wash away the bad taste of an HD price hike, but we like imagining that all the hardware needed to connect Netflix's all-you-can-eat streaming movie service to our HDTV is already in the living room (Xbox 360 & PS3, we're looking at you).
Yesterday, I showed you how Dell irresponsibly ships tiny flash drives in gigantic boxes, giving the finger to the environment. Well, Dell isn't the only offender when it comes to wasteful shipping habits. Above, reader Paul shows us how WalMart.com decided to ship a flash drive to him. And NewEgg? It's even worse.
I about pissed myself when I read this. I order a ton of stuff online and every now and then you get something like the picture above and think o_0? Gold MacBook Air Has Bejeweled Rainbow Apple
Behold the 24 karat gold MacBook Air with a bejeweled version of the classic rainbow Apple. Why anyone would want a heavier, fingerprint-magnet version of a MacBook Air except a rich oil tycoon from the United Arab Emirates, I don't know. But even while all the shiny gold and colored sapphires may look tacky at first, I have to admit that it actually looks kind of cool when you see the whole thing.
San Francisco - A recent patent filing indicates that Apple is getting closer to adding its own instant messaging client to the iPhone.
The filing is titled "Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging," and covers methods for sending, receiving, and viewing ongoing conversations. The proposed GUI is similar to Apple's current interface for SMS.
Built-in support for IM has been missing from the iPhone, to the dismay of many users. The patent filing shows Apple has IM on its mind.
“These mini flash drives come from A-DATA’s “Nobility” and “Classic” lines, and are available in storage capacities up to 8GB. The three up for review today are the Nobility PD17, the Classic PD18, and the Nobility PD19, all of which are the 1 GB capacity sample versions. Let's take a look at what sets these drives apart from the crowd, as well as from each other.”
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's Asustek Computer (2357.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it expects most of its battery shortage problems to be resolved by the end of the second quarter, as it maintained its sales target for its popular low-cost PCs.
"Ninety percent of the battery problem should be resolved by June but it could still affect April and May Eee PC sales," said Asustek Chief Executive Jerry Shen, referring to the company's popular line of low-cost PCs.
Last month, Asustek said a global shortage of batteries for computers could affect up to 40 percent of its second-quarter shipments.
A fire in March at LG Chem Ltd (051910.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) halted the second biggest South Korea battery maker's Ochang plant, but the company said that it expected the factory to start production again in two to three months.
Overclockers and gamers, prepare to meet your next hard drive: the 300GB VelociRaptor from Western Digital. Said to be 35% faster than previous WD Raptors, the 10,000 RPM drive features a 3Gbps SATA interface, 16MB cache, and impressive 1.4 million hour MTBF thanks in part to the IcePack Mounting Frame. The IcePack heat sink not only keeps the drive spinning extra cool, it also bumps the 2.5-inch HDD to a required 3.5-inch drive bay. Available exclusively on Alienware's ALX gaming desktop this month and then up for grabs for everybody with $300 to burn starting mid-May.
MINNEAPOLIS - In Brent Swanson's basement home theater, there should be nothing drab about "Battlestar Galactica." He's got a high-end projector that beams the picture onto a wall painted like a silver screen, and speakers loom in the corners, flanking two big subwoofers.
Yet when he tuned in Sci Fi HD for a recent episode filmed in high definition, the image was soft and the darkest parts broke up into large blocks with no definition. Explosions, he said, were just dull.
"It kind of looked like they took the standard definition and just blew it up," said Swanson, a 33-year-old graphic designer and videographer who subscribes to Comcast Corp.'s TV service. "I couldn't really tell if what I was seeing was really better than what I saw on regular television."
The Toshiba Satellite U400/U405 series is a new 13.3" widescreen notebook that weighs in at just 4.85 pounds and packs solid Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn performance and a big hard drive with plenty of storage space. Add to that a stylish chassis covered in Toshiba's new "Fusion" finish, 3GB of RAM, a webcam, and fingerprint reader and this notebook starts looking even better. Toshiba calls this notebook a "compact hero [that] balances working room with carrying comfort." Let's take a look and see if this laptop is as good as it sounds.
Surely you're not content with just multi-touch and built-in accelerometers, right? Microsoft Research is expecting not, as it's already working towards integrating force-sensing technology that will enable gestures to twist on-screen imagery without crafting UMPCs out of flexible material. Essentially, the gurus behind the idea feel that implementing said tech would "turn an otherwise passive component that just holds the device together into an active input surface." In the future, it's likely that auditory cues would enable users to know when they've applied enough pressure to cause a change, and of course, they expect it to work hand-in-hand with existing human-computer interfaces. Yeah, who needs keypads these days, anyway?
We'd heard that Asus's bigger, badder Eee PC would be getting an early launch next month in Asia but it looks like the US won't have to wait very long either. Crave's Asus sources are telling them it'll launch stateside on May 12 for $549. That's definitely a bit more than the long-rumored $500 pricepoint. Is it worth it?
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Michigan woman who advertised online for a hitman to kill her lover's wife pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire scheme, prosecutors said on Friday.
Anne Marie Linscott, 49, faces 10 years in prison for each of three federal charges, including intent to commit murder, the U.S. Attorneys for the Western District of Michigan and the Eastern District of California said in a joint statement.
In November 2007, three California residents searching job listings on Craigslist.com found an advertisement for a "freelance" position posted by Linscott, according to court documents. The three job seekers contacted California police.
Apparently, eBay's policy changes are having desirable effects, despite the massive public outcry the company received. While the company cut its listing fees, it more than made up for it by significantly raising its commissions on successful sales, particularly on low-priced items such as video games and CDs. The higher rates along with the elimination of negative seller feedback to the buyer created outcry among many loyal eBay sellers.
Some sellers tried to boycott eBay. Initial metrics seemed to show the boycott to be working -- listings were decreasing and sales were down, by most official counts, although eBay insisted they weren't.
A planned cyberattack against CNN's Web site fizzled out Saturday as the group backing the event called it off.
"Our original plan for 19 April has been canceled because too many people are aware of it and the situation is chaotic," wrote a group called "Revenge of the Flame," according to a translation posted on the Dark Visitor Blog. "At an unspecified date in the near future, we will launch the attack."
Nintendo sold more high-end video game consoles in the U.S. in the month of March than Sony and Microsoft combined, according to data released Friday by market researcher NPD Group.
Nintendo sold 721,000 Wii consoles in March, according to NPD. Microsoft sold 262,000 Xbox 360 units while Sony sold 257,000 PlayStation 3 systems.
Nintendo Wii sales were sparked by the recent launch of the hit game Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- a Wii exclusive. NPD said the game sold 2.7 million copies in March, making it the month's top selling title by far.
It's been far too long since we heard about the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium w/ accompanying gigantic four-sided HD scoreboard (and far too long before the 2009 season when it opens). Mitsubishi apparently thinks its the one to drop in new details, since it's their Diamond Vision technology (also soon to be seen at the new Yankee Stadium) powering the worlds largest 1080p LED displays, and we're in no position to argue. What can we say, exact specs on HD screens totaling nearly 13,000 sq ft make us weak. Check after the break for the full details before they're scheduled to turn on June 1, 2009.
Wearable mice aren't exactly a new idea, but it seems that Microsoft thinks it can do things one better, with a recent patent application revealing its plans for a desk-defying device of its own. As you can see above, this one is designed to be worn even while your typing on a keyboard, with the cursor movement able to be switched on an off with a simple hand gesture. That pointing itself is handled by some gyroscopic sensors, with an accelerometer and a magnetometer apparently also employed for further gesture and position sensing. Needless to say, there's no indication of it becoming an actual product anytime soon but, unlike some of Microsoft's other patent applications, this one seems like it could well find its way off the drawing board sooner rather than later.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Green may be the new black, but many U.S. consumers are not recycling old electronic gadgets despite promises by multiple organizations for hassle-free ways to get rid of electronic waste.
Putting computers, televisions or cell phones in the trash is increasingly frowned on, and states like Massachusetts ban discarding many electronics in garbage cans. As a result, some local authorities arrange free recycling events and companies and charities around the country offer to recycle old devices.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's top executive said on Thursday the company was excited to be testing out a partnership to run at least some of rival Yahoo Inc's Web search advertising sales.
But Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt stopped short of characterizing how far negotiations with Yahoo had gone or how likely they were to lead to an actual business partnership.
We've no idea how old this image is—it's probably been floating around the internet for a while—but unless we see any other possible entries, we're going to award this the Most Ghetto Car Stereo Ever trophy. If you've got an old beater from the 1970s or '80s, you can actually make your own! I know! It's seriously making a statement to potential stereo thieves. A statement that says, "really, your self-esteem is low enough that you'll steal THIS? How about I just give you five bucks and we call it even?"
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. tweaked its online advertising formula and accelerated its growth outside the United States to produce a first-quarter profit that surpassed analysts' predictions, alleviating some of the economic worries battering its stock this year.
The news, released after the stock market closed Thursday, lifted Google's recently drooping shares by more than $76, or 17 percent.
"This is mostly a relief rally," said Stanford Group analyst Clayton Moran. "People are relieved that things aren't as bad as they thought."
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s first-quarter loss matched Wall Street's lowered expectations, with the slumping chip maker hurt by its inability to unload older products amid economic turbulence that tamped down domestic consumer spending.
The Sunnyvale-based company said Thursday that it lost $358 million, or 59 cents per share, during the first three months of the year, its sixth quarterly loss in a row. AMD lost $611 million, or $1.11 per share, in the same period last year.
Fremont, CA, April 17, 2008 – Corsair® www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in high performance computer and flash memory products, announced today the launch of their new Corsair high-density Memory Line for Mac Pro desktop systems. Made especially for the high performance demands of the Mac market, the new Corsair Mac Pro Memory Kits are fully buffered 667MHz solutions, available immediately in 2GB (2 x 1GB modules) and 4GB (2 x 2GB modules) DIMM kits. Mac Pro Memory is 100% Apple Compatible – Lifetime Warranty The Corsair Mac Pro memory modules are qualified at the Apple Test Labs in California and are 100% compatibility guaranteed with a lifetime warranty. “We are excited to extend our Corsair memory solutions to support the high performance Mac Pro Desktop Systems,” said John Beekley, VP of Applications at Corsair. “These modules offer end users the ability to greatly maximize the amount of memory in their Mac Pro,” added Beekley.
April 17, 2008 Woodstock, IL -- Other World Computing (OWC) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today their highest capacity portable, bus-powered storage drive to date – the OWC Mercury On-The-Go 500GB, 5400RPM portable storage drive. The Mercury On-The-Go 500GB offers blazing-fast FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0 connections, now available with 56% more data capacity than the previous award-winning Mercury On-The-Go model.
Immediately available and priced at $359.99, the Mercury On-The-Go 500GB portable drive is a palm-sized performer with huge capacity that fits in a shirt pocket. Built with the latest reliable, high-performance drive mechanisms and interfaced with OWC’s custom bridge solution featuring the Oxford924 chipset, the Mercury On-The-Go is ready for your largest projects yet.
Sunnyvale, CA—April 17, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled a blazing fast DDR3 addition to the new Flex II memory series. These premium modules run at incredibly fast 2000MHz speeds at CL8-8-8 timings for added performance to high-end systems with integrated water-cooling. Designed to the very core to offer enthusiasts the thermal management innovation of hybrid water and passive cooling, the new PC3-16000 Flex II Series offers rock-solid stability and performance for your high-end gaming or overclocking system.
“The bottom line here is that the ASUS EN9800GTX is a much cooler graphics card that's capable of replacing the 8800 GTX in ASUS' line up. Should you run out and replace that 8800 GTX you already have? Not really. Performance between these two GTXs is a pretty even battle with the newer 9800 winning out a little. Those looking for the newest performance card that offers the best bang for buck are going to find the ASUS EN9800GTX to be a good option. The only thing that would make it an even better choice would be a lower price tag and a decently bundled video game. It's ASUS, so anything is possible.”
It may have given him the runaround at first, but it looks like Circuit City is now finally doing the right thing after totally trashing the Honda Civic owned by an 8thcivic.com forum user that goes by the name VTECnical. As you may recall, that damage, which totaled over $12,000 in all, was incurred after VTECnical had Circuit City install a Pioneer AVIC Z2 GPS unit and some other components he purchased at the store, all of which went horribly wrong and left the car unsafe to drive. Now according to Autoblog, however, it appears that not only has Circuit City's insurance provider come through with over $10,000 to cover repair costs, but Circuit City has paid out the remaining amount itself, and thrown in a brand new $2,000 Pioneer AVIC Z2 to boot. No word if VTECnical's going to have Circuit City install it or not though.
Some entirely too ingenious hackers have found a reference to the rumored D3X deep within the bowels of Nikon's D3 firmware. The reference includes a list of resolutions available to the upcoming shooter, and it's apparently set to max out at a potentially Higgs Boson-inducing 24.4 megapixels. Word has it that this sensor is likely a variant of the megapixel monster behind Sony's upcoming A900, but since this is all being extrapolated from a few numbers hidden in some firmware, we're going to try not to get too ahead of ourselves at this point.
Number two digital music retailer Amazon was given DRM-free tracks from all four majors in the hope that it would be the first real rival to iTunes' total domination of music sales. But, on top of the fact Amazon's numbers drastically pale to iTunes' (we did ask for specifics, they wouldn't spill) NPD is reporting that a mere sliver—10 percent—of Amazon's users are iTunes defectors, even though all of its DRM-less tracks will play on the iPod (or anything else).
John Sciacca at Sound & Vision says his DVR no longer lets him record his favorite show, Survivor. Sciacca claims that despite setting his Time Warner box to record every episode of the reality show, when the time comes, it acts as if there is nothing to record. Sometimes, he says, the record light even goes on during the show, but it isn't saved to the hard drive. Apparently he's not the only one stuck without Survivor.
VH News: Tuesday 2nd Edition Posted by Diceman on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 @ 2:53
LOL! I just seen this posted over in the hardocp news and I just had to post it for you guys too. Check out what this dude did. He lined up wine bottles, put what looks like a steel ball on a pole on the roof of his RC car and drove past them to make them *ding* at different levels. What he got was the Mario Bros theme song!
Okay, so Jared Bouck's kegerator-cooled PC doesn't really sip on Hennessy, Bud Light or even Milwaukee's Best, but it sure does a good job of pretending to be 21. Essentially, this here mod is more for show than anything, but when all's said and done, you do have a liquid-cooled gaming rig and a nearby locale to stock your favorite beverages. After all, it's common knowledge that you can't stray too far to replenish your fluids during an all-night WoW raid, right? With $180, a bit of patience and some good old fashion work, you too can replace that vanilla cooling setup
HAVANA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Cubans lined up at state-owned telephone offices on Monday to buy cellular phone services previously available only to government officials and foreigners.
President Raul Castro, who took power in February, has moved quickly to ease restrictions in the communist country and the new reform allows Cubans to buy cellular phones for the first time or register those they had held illegally.
"It is an advance, like other things that are happening in Cuba now," said Alejandro, smiling with his new contract in hand. The self-employed Cuban has used a cellular telephone illegally for years in the name of a foreigner.
Diane Siddons got the call from Brandie Darnell in the middle of the day. Darnell had seen Siddons’ house advertised for rent on Craigslist and thought it was a smokin' deal: $800 a month for a five bedroom house in a Tampa Bay, Fla., suburb.
Only one problem: Siddons' house wasn't for rent. She hadn't placed any advertisement on Craigslist. Instead, a con artist had lifted photos of her home and placed them on the site as bait.
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems run most personal computers around the globe and are a cash cow for the world's largest software maker. But you'd never confuse a Windows user with the passionate fans of Mac OS X or even the free Linux operating system.
Unless it's someone running Windows XP, a version Microsoft wants to retire.
Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.
No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed. They complain about Vista's hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.
“As far as DVD optical drives go, the Asus DRW-2014L1T is right on par with a lot of the other drives in its class. The LightScribe is a bonus for those who like to label their discs. Most drive noise is created when the optical disc starts to wobble and vibrate. This vibration is transferred to the drive motor and tray, thus making the noise. The QuieTrack feature and Auto Vibration Reducing System seem to work really well, as the noise level from a spun up disc was low. FlextraLink™ prevents buffer under run problems caused by an empty data buffer, thereby eliminating the creation of CD-coasters. This technology is similar to, and seems to work as well as, other companies' buffer under run technologies.”
Integrated graphics sets that handle DirectX 10 like it's their job are a dime a dozen, but ASUS has nevertheless managed to find bragging rights in its G35 series of mobos. Hailed as the "world's first Intel platform" with onboard graphics capable of supporting DirectX 10 natively, the aforesaid motherboards won't require a separate GPU in order to handle the simplest of DX10 demands. Of course, we wouldn't expect the GMA X3500 to run circles around Crysis frame rate tests, but we suppose they'll do for the casual fans in attendance. Per usual, ASUS has left us high and dry in regard to pricing, but the trio of boards should be available as we speak.
We're not sure who nodded off in the art department, but we're fairly certain they're going to be wide awake come Monday morning. Apparently, Radio Shack is running circulars this week featuring the iPod touch... with the Installer and MobileChat icons. We're sure Apple will be stoked to discover that a jailbroken iPod is hanging out in one of America's most-viewed ads, and we're equally sure that buyers will be pleased to learn they don't really get an IM application with their purchase. Champagne for everyone!
Captain Witwicky had an excuse; he didn't know the Decepticons were after the All Spark. In fact, he didn't even know what the Decepticons were. If you opt to purchase this All Spark USB hub, with 4 ports and retailing at £13.99 ($28), what exactly would be your excuse? Still, if you do decide the All Spark USB hub is for you, prepare to die at the hands of your maniac Macbook, once the All Spark gives it life. Scary.
The eight-year-old reality competition series is finally getting upgraded to high definition. Next fall's 17th outing will be the first time the show's exotic locations, elaborate challenges and gruesome bug bites will be available in the widescreen HD format.
For a while, HD cameras were still considered more clunky and less reliable than their standard-definition counterparts -- not a good fit for being dragged around a rainy tropical beach, shooting physical competitions where capturing every second counts. Additionally, the cost of upgrading an elaborate on-location production like "Survivor" to HD is higher than a studio-based series like "Idol" or "Dancing." All told, "Survivor" uses about 20 cameras, with some for shooting underwater and from helicopters.
During the past couple years, HD camera reliability has improved greatly, and the cost has become more comparable to standard-definition equipment.
SAN FRANCISCO - Salesforce.com Inc.'s online software service is becoming a showcase for Google Inc.'s e-mail and other widely used applications, deepening a relationship that has spurred speculation Google eventually will buy its smaller partner.
Besides selling Google's programs to its 41,000 business customers, Salesforce.com will integrate the suite of applications into its own service, which helps companies track and identify customers' needs.
“All its splendor aside, it's a fantastic performer. It's easily the best, most capable cooler to cross this test bench. While it carries over the commonly seen tower design, the performance will easily be the deciding factor for the user who literally wants nothing but the coolest CPU possible. The Noctua NH-U12P is a great performer, it's cool, it's recommended, and it's my current top choice of CPU coolers.”
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA -- (April 10, 2008) -- Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of 800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered dual-inline memory (FB-DIMM) specifically designed and validated for Apple Mac Pro workstations and Xserve server systems. Shipping immediately, the Kingston(R) 800MHz FB-DIMM memory kits are available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities.
Fremont, California, USA, March 28, 2008 - Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium memory module and flash memory solutions, today announced the release of their DDR2 800MHz Fully-Buffered-DIMMs designed specifically for the Apple Mac Pro. Available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities, these new DRAM offerings allow for increased reliability and memory bandwidth; essential for today's memory intensive applications. "Stability and bandwidth are top priority when it comes to a computer's performance. With FB-DIMM technology, neither is sacrificed allowing users to experience their systems in a brand new light," states Les Henry, Technical Director at Patriot Memory. "To gain maximum performance with today's applications, it is essential to have enough memory to meet these demands. Patriot's new FB-DIMM's are the perfect solution to meet these tough demands."
SEATTLE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp wants to stick with its original takeover offer for Yahoo Inc, but is not ruling out News Corp joining its bid or other options, a source close to the company said on Friday.
Separately, a source familiar with the matter said News Corp continues to talk directly with Yahoo on reaching a deal without Microsoft. The source declined to provide details on what a potential deal structure would look like.
The source close to Microsoft said the company's preference all along has been to retain the original deal structure that would involve paying $31 per share in cash and stock to acquire Yahoo. But Microsoft has not ruled out bidding with partners.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s top technology executive is stepping down as the world's No. 2 microprocessor maker tries to recover from a sales slump triggered by prolonged product delays and tougher competition.
The Sunnyvale-based company said Friday that Chief Technology Officer Phil Hester's resignation is not connected to AMD's financial woes or its recently announced 10 percent reduction of its global work force.
Hester joined the company in 2005 after working for more than two decades at IBM Corp. and was responsible for crafting AMD's technological roadmap over the past three years.
Hey Guys, John Mayer here. I just wanted to tell you that if you mention my name in your Mac OS X software crash report, it seems that there are real chances of you getting a direct reply from Apple Support, just like it happened to me. A Gizmodo reader did it and he got a reply straight away from the good people at Apple Support
According to reports (translated, possibly misunderstood, clearly speculative reports), come this year's E3, Nintendo could be rolling out a brand-spanking-new DS -- most likely very unlike the one pictured above. If you follow the text in a Bloomberg Japan article, Famicom magazine publisher Hirokazu Hamamura says that the timing of E3 would fall right in line with the two-year stagger the Big N has applied to other handheld releases. Of course, Nintendo is saying "no comment," though we find that's usually the last thing they say before introducing the Wii, Game Boy, N64, Harry Potter Wand, or Ultimate Doomsday Device.
Sunnyvale, CA—April 10, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled the Flex II memory series, designed for blazing speeds demanded by enthusiasts. These premium modules run at incredibly fast DDR2-1150 speeds for high-performance systems with integrated water-cooling. Designed to the very core to offer enthusiasts the thermal management innovation of hybrid water and passive cooling, the new PC2-9200 Flex II Series offers rock-solid stability and performance for your high-end gaming or overclocking system. The OCZ Flex II heat management solution enables high-frequency memory to operate within an optimal balance of extreme speeds and low latencies without the high temperatures that inhibit or damage the module. Each PC2-9200 Flex II memory module features this breakthrough thermal management technology from OCZ. Combining an effective new heatspreader design with integrated liquid injection system and dedicated channels directly over the module’s ICs, Flex II effectively dissipates heat produced by high-speed memory. This sophisticated series was engineered with a unique “flexible” design to give enthusiasts the option to run the modules passively or water cooled via the thick array of aluminum fins, and the concurrent use of both options promotes maximum heat dissipation.
San Jose, California – April 10, 2008 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of DRAM memory modules and flash storage solutions, today announced immediate availability of the popular Project X in a new DDR3-2000 2GB (2x 1GB) kit. This Project X kit is built with the fastest available, carefully screened DRAM chips, and is hand tested as a matched pair on a dual channel Asus Striker II Extreme motherboard.
“Countless enthusiasts worldwide have already exceeded the 2000MHz mark with our Project X 1600 and 1800 kits over the past seven months. This new 2000 kit offers overclocking gurus a product that has passed our tightest test screen and packs some real serious horsepower”, commented Super Talent Marketing Director, Joe James.
SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp.'s attempt to take over Yahoo Inc. has become so tortured it may help Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. grow stronger, undermining Microsoft's main reason for pursing the deal in the first place.
"We find this to be a very advantageous situation for Google," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown said Thursday. "The longer this gets dragged out, the better for Google."
Yahoo signaled it is bracing for a protracted battle late Wednesday when an announcement and a media leak provided a glimpse at its labyrinthine search for alternatives to Microsoft's bid of more than $40 billion.
That's Fujitsu's WoodShell concept PC. It joins an increasingly common trend of so called "natural" products already demonstrated by MSI, ASUS, Olympus, LG and others. No specs are provided on this feel-good piece. However, we presume it's powered by the blood and tears wrung from the baby Gore's heartbreak.
According to English Russia, this special PC is used to work on fuel "connected directly to the car's gas tank." Hmmm. Apparently "it analyzes the state of the fuel and diagnoses the overall condition of the car, while consuming some gas fluid." Possibly even without detonating and killing everyone nearby. There are more pics in the gallery, shedding more light on the thing, but there's no monitor, keyboard or mouse, and you never really see the drives in action either. Even the backside looks something fishy, and there's no obvious combustion engine either. What's your expert opinion? And what are the chances that this whole brilliant scheme will at some point combust all to hell?
A friendly rivalry between Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS turned serious this Wednesday, with Verizon suing Time Warner over claims of false advertising.
The suit refers to a recent ad campaign launched by Time Warner (viewable here), featuring an annoying door-to-door salesman who uses an excessively uppity sales pitch and special effects to call Verizon’s service inferior: a shortened version of the ad infers that Time Warner had fiber optic before Verizon, and a longer version insinuates that Verizon FiOS TV requires a satellite connection.
“Two of those latest cards has come to us in the form of Gigabyte's ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB graphics cards, or GV-RX387512H for those currently shopping. NVidia's 8800 series are a very common top end budget gamer card and typically does well in most cases. How does the Gigabyte HD 3870 stack up against the card? And is it a viable solution? Read on for the surprising results.”
Fremont, CA, April 10, 2008 – Corsair® http://www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in enthusiast computer and flash memory products, announced today that it has been awarded 80 PLUS Certification across the entire Corsair line of Power Supply Units (PSUs), including the award winning modular HX Series, powerful TX Series and value-performance VX Series.
More Efficient, Same Performance
80 PLUS Certification is the gold standard for power supply energy efficiency. The 80 PLUS specification requires computer and server PSUs to be at least 80 percent efficient at 20 percent, 50 percent and 100 percent rated load, ultimately improving computer stability and saving money on electricity bills. In addition, there are also performance benefits, such as reduced heat output which increases system reliability and minimizes the need for loud, high rpm cooling fans.
“We at the 80 PLUS program are delighted to recognize and applaud Corsair for having a complete power supply product line that is 80 PLUS certified,” said Jason Boehlke of the 80 PLUS Organization.
Today LapWorks launched its new line of brightly-colored $49.95 Laptop Desk Futura laptop coolers.
The initial eight colors and patterns include: Deep Red, Bustin’ Blue, Passion Pink, Tempting Teal, Largely Leopard, Desert Camou, Jungle Camou and Red Marble.
May we provide you one of these colorful Laptop Desks to check out and enjoy?
Highlights of Painted Futura Program:
- Customers choose a matte or semi-gloss finish, and black or translucent no-slip rubber pads.
- LapWorks will poll its customers and offer one or more new color or pattern every month throughout 2008.
- They are affordable because they’re actually printed, using a specialized UV ink-jet printer that applies a heavy coat of industrial-grade ink that hardens when exposed to UV light.
- LapWorks believes it is the first to print a three-dimensional product using this process.
- The UV-cured ink has a similar hardness to automotive paint, and a final coat of matte or semi-gloss acrylic further protects the colored surface.
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc, which was widely believed to be running out of alternatives to accepting Microsoft Corp's takeover offer, has become a target of two warring camps of technology giants and their media allies, sources said on Wednesday.
News Corp is considering joining Microsoft in a bid for Yahoo which would bring in News Corp's MySpace online social hangout and create a more formidable rival to Internet juggernaut Google Inc, newspaper reports said.
But Yahoo, which announced earlier on Wednesday it plans to test Google search ads alongside Yahoo Web search services, is closing in on a deal with Time Warner Inc with its AOL unit, several sources told Reuters.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A company founded by Rupert Murdoch's daughter will help News Corp's MySpace distribute Web shows on television and DVDs outside the United States, as the world's largest social network seeks an audience away from the computer.
The move is a play to make shows such as MySpaceTV's "Quarterlife" or "Roommates" available outside of the United States, or create localized versions of the shows, said Travis Katz, managing director of MySpace's international arm.
SAN FRANCISCO - Cyber threats like NetSky, Mydoom and Parite are the bane of IT departments around the globe, but artist Alex Dragulescu has found subtle beauty deep within the dangerous computer code that can bring down networks and bombard e-mail inboxes with murderous spam.
Dragulescu has peeled back the code behind the world's worst tech bugs and rendered stunning images from it. The Romanian-born MIT researcher and artist was commissioned to do fashion the artwork by MessageLabs, a computer security company that sought to put a face — or at least a shape — on computer viruses.
The low-cost, sub-notebook market is just about to get even more crowded in the coming markets. ASUS took a risk by entering the market late last year, but it appears that many major manufacturers are now looking to cash in on the low-cost gravy train.
Yesterday, DailyTech reported that HP is stepping up to the plate with its aluminum-clad, VIA-powered 2133 Mini-Note PC. The 8.9" notebook offers a wide variety of processor speeds ranging from 1.0GHz to 1.6GHz along with solid-state drive (SSD), 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM HDDs.
Today, we've learned that Dell will soon enter the fray with a Compal-manufactured 8.9" sub-notebook. Compal will have the capacity to ship 200,000 to 300,000 of the notebooks to Dell each month beginning in early June.
That video we saw the other day of two iPod touches running a networked Quake 3 deathmatch sent ripples through the iPod / iPhone community. Those of you doubting the authenticity of the clip can probably put some fears to bed, as GameCyte has gotten a hold of the programmers, and they make it fairly clear it wasn't some elaborate hoax. According to developers Cameron and Marcia Tofer of Hermitworks, they managed to get the game up and running on the touches in, "Between eight and twelve hours," using jail-broken units, no official SDK, and modified code that added basic accelerometer support. The game in the video is being hosted on one of the devices and played over a local network -- and the Tofers claim that running a full 64-player match wouldn't be out of the question. Unfortunately, there aren't any plans to make this demo public, as the team is working on original content for the platform. So... email petition anyone?
Can it be? Why... why yes, a watch with integrated cellphone we might (might!) actually wear. The Van Der Led WM2 is a quad-band GSM watch with itty bitty 1.3-inch, 260k color touchscreen display, stereo Bluetooth, up to 240-hours of standby or 300-minutes talk, and 1GB of storage for a few of your MP3 or MP4 files. Better yet, from a distance, those uber geeky keys on the numeric pad look just like the glittering wrist studs capable of mesmerizing Death Metal, she-groupies backstage. Yours for €300 (about $471 US Rubbles) starting Monday.
This evolution of Jeff Han's multitouch surface doesn't require touching, allowing you to manipulate objects Jedi-style thanks to infrared camera tracking overhead. This makes possible the use of conventional software, like a web browser, while keeping the advantages of direct touch manipulation. We talked about the technology and its advantages over previous multitouch displays with Florian Echtler, the researcher behind the project at the Technical University in Munich, Germany:
SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. will begin showing homemade videos on its online photo-sharing site, Flickr, in a long-anticipated move that may be too late to lure most people away from the Internet's dominant video channel, Google Inc.'s YouTube. ADVERTISEMENT
Flickr's video technology, to debut late Tuesday, represents the latest example of Yahoo trying to catch up to Google in a crucial battleground.
Yahoo's inability to keep pace with Google in the lucrative online search market caused its profits and stock price to sag during the past two years, which in turn triggered an unsolicited takeover attempt by Microsoft Corp. for more than $40 billion.
“Looking at the FPSGun might give you the initial impression that it is some sort of Light Gun that you point at the screen. It is not. Instead, it regular mouse that somewhat resembles an inverted handgun. Thus, you hold it somewhat like you are gripping something, dare I say the handgrip of a "gun". The bottom of the mouse still has to rest on a surface; you aren't expected to hold this in the air. Instead, you move the FPSGun around approximately the same way you'd move a mouse around, sliding it on a surface. (The bottom has mouse feet just like any other mouse)”
Sunnyvale, Calif.—April 7, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and PC components, today unveiled the EliteXStream power supply family for high-powered gaming systems and workstations. Designed to offer the consumer market an enthusiast-grade computer power supply with a state-of-the-art architecture, the EliteXStream is the ultimate power solution for those users that require an ultra-efficient, highly reliable, high-wattage solution for their leading-edge gaming machine.
Co-developed with the experts at PC Power & Cooling, the EliteXStream is a flagship model among OCZ’s lineup of gamer-oriented power supplies. Expanding on a lineup of powerful and stable PSUs, OCZ designed the 800W and 1000W EliteXStream for optimum power distribution to all components by utilizing the superior "single +12V rail" design perfected by PC Power & Cooling. This trail-blazing approach to +12V rail design ends the need to budget power "across the rails" as is the case with the less effective multi-rail design found in the vast majority of high-performance PSUs on the market today.
“I am excited to bring a high-performance PSU to market that so effectively fuses the in-depth gaming and enthusiast experience of OCZ with the legendary power supply expertise of the PC Power & Cooling division”, said Ryan Edwards, Product Manager for the OCZ Technology Group. “Featuring up to 86% efficiency, a staggering single +12V rail output, a complete array of connectors, and an attractive MSRP, the new EliteXstream Series of PSUs sets a new standard for both the OCZ brand and the high-performance industry in general." The EliteXStream will be available in 800W and 1000W configurations, delivering up to 1KW of continuous power through a complete array of connectors including four 8-pin (6+2) PCI-E and 17 drive connectors. These PSUs are kept supremely cool with a large 120mm fan and feature a standard ATX power supply form factor.
San Jose, California – April 7, 2008 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced three new 8GB USB Flash drives, including the world’s smallest 8GB drive. These new drives include: PICO-A, with a swivel lid; the retractable PICO-B; and ultra small PICO-C. Super Talent’s patented PICO series USB drives are manufactured using chip-on-board (COB) technology, which enables up to 8GB of Flash storage to fit into an incredibly minute case. PICO-C drives weigh less than a nickel (about 4.7 grams) and measure only 31.3mm x 12.4mm x 3.4mm.
If your pants / panties were in a "bunch" upon hearing news that Windows 7 would be headed into your ever-loving arms "next year," you might just want to hold off on those party invites for a little bit. Sure, Bill Gates just happened to mention that we'd see a new version of the OS "Sometime in the next year or so," but it's looking like that "or so" makes a world of difference. Microsoft wants to chill everyone out with the somber news that its got no plans to introduce Windows 7 any earlier than January 2010 (three years from the launch of Vista), and reassure us that crazy old Gates may have just been talkin' developer speak.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it would cut 10 percent of its work force, or about 1,680 jobs, and gave a first-quarter revenue estimate below expectations, sending its shares down as much as 5 percent.
Citing lower-than-expected sales across its business, AMD estimated revenue for the quarter ended March 29 at about $1.5 billion, well below the average analyst forecast of $1.62 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
San Francisco - It's been on the market for just six months, and already the iPhone (plus its Wi-Fi-only variant, the iPod Touch) is the most used mobile browser for Internet access in the U.S., according to Irish researcher StatCounter. At No. 2 is the Symbian OS used in Nokia's devices. Globally, the two positions are reversed. In either case, Windows Mobile -- in all its versions -- is just a blip.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research), responding to a three-week deadline issued by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to accept its $42 billion takeover bid, again rejected the deal for undervaluing the Web pioneer.
In a defiant open letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Monday, Yahoo said the software giant's threat of a proxy battle was counterproductive and Yahoo would only be open to a better deal.
"Our board's view of your proposal has not changed," said the letter, signed by Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Chief Executive Jerry Yang. "We continue to believe that your proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo and our stockholders."
With Acer planning to launch two low-cost PC series, the 8.9-inch Aspire and 12.1-inch Slim Gemstone Aspire, the company is expected to see total low-cost PCs shipments of 6-6.5 million in the second half of 2008, according to sources at notebook ODMs.
Acer ordered one million 12.1-inch entry-level panels from AU Optoelectronics (AUO) in March this year. The panels are said to be priced around US$40-50 lower than same sized high-end panels.
Acer's 8.9-inch models are expected to see shipments of 5-5.5 million units in the second half of 2008, according to the sources.
On paper, this cutting board concept—with an embedded LCD display and wireless connectivity to display cooking recipes—is a great idea. Unfortunately, being an Iron Chef wannabe myself, it fails the basic kitchen test: the crazy-mess-where's-the-damn-pepper-proof test. My cutting board is always full of slices and dices of whatever substances are going to suffer the torture of my pans, which would make impossible to follow any recipe on it, forcing me to follow recipes the traditional way: not following them at all.
EW's pop-culture columnist peels away the hypocrisy a Massachusetts proposal to ban sales of violent games to minors, another attempt by politicians to act as surrogate parents that he says is not only doomed to fail, but is undemocratic to boot
Asustek filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California last week. In the filing, Asustek asked the court for relief from the alleged IBM infringements as well as monetary damages.
One of the Asustek patents is for a method for providing remote storage for Internet appliances, while the other relates to servers. Asustek alleges the patents have been infringed by IBM in components, software, and hardware related to storage area networking equipment and servers.
Taipei, Taiwan, April 4, 2008 – Catering to users who require extreme graphical support and robust performance, ASUS, leading producer of motherboards, has today released the new ASUS Crosshair II Formula Motherboard. This powerful motherboard includes innovative technologies like CPU Level Up, Hybrid SLI and 3-Way SLI for the best performance and graphical support. It is also ready for AMD® Socket AM2+ Phenom™ FX / Phenom X4 / Phenom X2 / Athlon™ X2 / Sempron™ and legacy AM2 processors; and features up to 5200 MT/s via HyperTransport™ 3.0-based system bus speeds for AM2+ CPUs.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has three weeks to accept Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) $31 per share cash-and-stock offer or Microsoft will mount a proxy battle to win investor support for the takeover, Microsoft said on Saturday.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a letter dated April 5 and addressed to Yahoo's board of directors that "now is the time" to negotiate final terms of a deal, one which would mark the biggest takeover yet in the high-tech industry.
"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors," Ballmer wrote.
Verizon Wireless and AT&T announced plans for their newly-won 700 MHz spectrum today, and the overall message is, “be patient.”
A press release from Verizon Wireless says that the company expects its 700 MHz network to go live by 2010, and it will be the home of its future 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) wireless network. As required by the FCC, Verizon’s network will be fully open to access for all manner of software and devices, and the company hints that it expects to see use from a variety of consumer electronics, including wireless phones, medical devices and gaming consoles.
THE NEW, LARGE LGA1366 socket for uni-CPU (Bloomfield) and dual-CPU (Gainestown) 2008 Nehalems is not just 20 per cent bigger on each side than the LGA775 for the current Penryns. It contains nearly 600 extra pins for those QPI links, three 64-bit DDR3 memory channels and, obviously, a lot of power.
MIAMI (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.(MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) co-founder Bill Gates said on Friday he expected the new version of Windows operating software, code-named Windows 7, to be released "sometime in the next year or so."
The software giant has been aiming to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the majority of the world's personal computers. Nevertheless, Gates' comments suggested that a successor to the Vista program might be released sooner than was generally expected.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc confirmed on Thursday it had been an active bidder in recent U.S. auctions for licenses to create a national wireless network and that it will weigh in as regulators set new rules.
In a statement, the Internet services leader said it planned to remain active in rule-making by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that will govern how Verizon Communications, the winning bidder for the "C Block" of nationwide wireless spectrum, will operate its network.
"In ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block," Google said. Active bidding ensured the rules designed to make these networks more open to independent Web services will be implemented, it said.
Intel's apparently gearing up to start pushing its so-called Anti-Theft Technology for laptops. Details are still sparse, but apparently it provides boot-time lockout of unauthorized users (presumably among other things) upon occasion of theft, and is being picked up by partner companies like Lenovo, Fujitsu, Phoenix, and McAffee for release later this year. It'd be really nice if we could get some connected GPS to phone home when your laptop takes off without you, but it's nice to know the industry's finally starting to take this stuff on instead of leaving hapless theft victims to fend for themselves.
"The network is asserting almost complete control of the users' ability to use their network as a gateway to the Internet," said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. "They become gatekeepers rather than gateways."
But the provisions are rarely enforced, except against obvious miscreants like spammers. Consumer outrage would have been the likely result if AT&T Inc. took advantage of its stated right to block any activity that causes the company "to be viewed unfavorably by others."
Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said this clause was a "piece of boilerplate that is passed around the corporate lawyers like a Christmas fruitcake.
As one of the most trend-setting tech companies, love it or hate it, Apple is constantly making news with its new products. A constant media circus follows Apple, and often the rumors hold true-- as was the case when Apple revamped its entire iPod line last fall.
Now the rumors have started to circulate again, this time about Apple's smart phone, the iPhone. Analysts now claim iPhone supplies are mysteriously shrinking, leading to speculation that either Apple is preparing to launch a new model, or is in the middle of a component crisis. Market research firm Bernstein Research, which runs regular supply checks, revealed that Apple's U.S. stores and its online store were out of stock of the device.
“The overall designs for the H.D.T. coolers are great. The install on the RVT-12025D model was easier than the RVT-12025. This was due to a tight clearance issue with my fingers pushing down on the pins for the Intel install. On a positive note, the motherboard removal was not necessary, and that is another major plus in my book for CPU cooler installs. With that said, both H.D.T coolers performed well, both are damn near silent, and the option of either a tower or low profile unit is another plus.”
Holy irony, Batman! People who play violent games online actually feel relaxed after they have played a round of bloody fun.
This according to new research discovered by Develop Magazine, which found that a sampling of 292 World of Warcraft players, ages 12-83 years, were more likely to feel calm or tired after playing a round of the popular online game.
"There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type," said Jane Barnett, who headed the Middlesex study. Translation: If you're an aggressive jackass before you play a video game, you'll still be one after; and video games don't magically turn peaceful people into violent offenders.
Cops finally busted the culprits behind yet another Craigslist-instigated ransacking of a Pacific Northwest domicile. And in some kind of completely unpredictable “Law & Order” plot twist, neither allegedly-guilty party turned out to be Craigslist itself. Who saw that coming?
Various and sundry lawmakers would have us believe that the free online advertising site is the root of all humanity’s ills. From pimping prostitutes to failing to police poor grammar, it seems there is no evil of which Craigslist isn’t capable … or at least won’t get blamed for.
The soundtracks from the “Grand Theft Auto” games have long been lauded as super-extra-hipster-awesome. But if you’ve ever heard a catchy tune and then tried to find it online, you know how time-consuming that can be.
Last week, Amazon and Rockstar announced a partnership that makes it easier for gamers to buy music they hear in “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which launches on April 29. Rockstar wants fans to be able to own the hard-to-find and vintage tracks they feature in their games. And Amazon? Well, they want to lure people to their fledgling music service.
We puzzled over Microsoft's cryptic statements at CeBIT that the Eee's "other requirements" would lead to an adjustment of the Windows 7 timeline, and it looks like our first guess was spot-on: Microsoft will be making Windows XP available for Eee-class ultraportables until 2010, and possibly later. Demand for XP on devices like the Eee and Intel's Classmate machines has prompted MS to reconsider axing XP entirely this June: the company will now sell XP Home through at least June 2010, and for one year after the release of Windows 7 -- which means sales of XP could stretch into 2012. There's no word on if the build of XP Home targeted at the ultraportable laptop set will be different from regular XP builds, but we doubt there'll be many changes -- it'll be awfully sad if people are still clamoring for XP more than a decade after its initial release, though.
Sunnyvale, Calif.—April 3, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance memory and PC components, today announced the release of all-new additions to the Silencer line of power supplies from PC Power & Cooling including a 500W EPS12V and Dell™ compatible model. The efficient and economical 370W, 420W, and 500W Silencers offer mainstream system builders and professionals a robust power resource at an affordable price point.
"I am pleased that PC Power & Cooling is able to offer exceptional Silencer series performance and reliability at such an affordable price point, " stated Doug Dodson, founder of PC Power & Cooling and CTO of Power Management for the OCZ Technology Group. "The Silencer line now offers every type of computer user an option for the premium power management of their system."
The Silencer 370, 420, and 500 offer a range of power for mainstream gaming, home theatre, and work station PCs. The 500W series features a specialized Dell version that allows Dell owners to upgrade their systems with the latest components including any of the new power-hungry high-performance video cards. Ideal for PC users who prefer a straight-forward, value-minded PSU, the Silencer 370, 420, and 500 provide cool, quiet, and reliable power
Today Asetek announced the availability of its liquid cooling system for the new nVidia GeForce 9800GTX and GeForce 9800GX2 graphics cards. Asetek is the first liquid cooling solution developed to exceed the stringent thermal performance, low noise and daunting reliability requirements demanded by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The graphics GPU power budget is constantly increasing as enthusiasts and professional workstation end users exhibit an insatiable desire for higher frame rates and resolution. Thermal management of the graphics card is an ever increasing challenge with every new generation of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), often at the sacrifice of acceptable fan noise.
Verizon's FiOS fiber broadband connection is currently the only option for United States Internet surfers to wander about the world wide web while downloading content at up to 50 Mbps and uploading data at up to 20 Mbps. However, Verizon's FiOS service is limited to a few areas at this time, even though roll-out is being performed slowly but surely.
Recently, Comcast also announced plans to increase the maximum bandwidth of its broadband service to 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload bandwidth to compete with Verizon.
Currently, Comcast is running its broadband service aalong the DOCSIS 2.0 protocol, or the second generation of the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications. This protocol tops out with a maximum downstream bandwidth of 42.88 Mbps while the maximum upstream bandwidth tops out at 30.72 Mbps.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Thursday its iTunes online music store has surpassed Wal-Mart Stores Inc to become the largest music retailer in the United States.
Apple's statement, citing industry data, came on the same day that iTunes faced a new challenge as News Corp's MySpace social networking site said it had formed an online music venture with three record labels.
Apple said its announcement was based on consumer data collected in January and February by market research firm NPD that counted 12 songs being equal to one CD.
Attention, lazy, lazy people! Say hello to Selfy the Easy Bed. Yes, that's the name of the product. It's a bed that makes itself in the morning, using a couple of rails that hold onto the sheets to lift and tuck everything in, giving you a neat bed to crawl into at the end of the day. Sure, it was invented for the sick and infirm, but I think your laziness could qualify as a sickness if you're really looking to justify this thing. Also, did I mention it's called Selfy the Easy Bed?
INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Shanghai, April 3, 2008 – Intel Corporation unveiled a new design of the Intel-powered classmate PC today at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. As announced in a keynote by Andrew Chien, Intel vice president, Corporate Technology Group and director of Intel Research, the second-generation Intel-powered classmate PC is an affordable, fully functional, rugged Internet-centric computer platform. These simple-to-use PCs have wireless capability, longer battery life, water resistant keyboards and are more shock resistant if dropped. Intel is calling this category of PCs "netbooks."
INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Shanghai, April 2, 2008 – Intel Corporation today introduced five new Intel® Atom™ processors and Intel Centrino® Atom™ processor technology for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and embedded computing solutions.
The technology package includes the Intel® Atom™ processor (formerly codenamed "Silverthorne") plus a single-chip with integrated graphics called the Intel® System Controller Hub that enables PC-like capabilities, an uncompromised Internet experience and long battery life in smaller devices that can fit in your pocket. Manufacturers around the world are planning to ship Intel-based MIDs beginning this summer.
MIDs are truly mobile devices that enable the best Internet experience in pocketable devices. MIDs will allow consumers to communicate, entertain, access information and be productive on-the-go, and are expected to represent a new class of next-generation, Internet-based portable video players, navigation devices, converged tablets and other consumer products.
SEATTLE - Amazon.com Inc.'s brick-and-mortar competitors have yet another reason to fear the Web: a new service that lets shoppers compare prices and buy things with a few quick taps on their cell phones.
Amazon TextBuyIt, which launched late Tuesday, lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that's "Amazon" on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work — including from inside physical stores.
If Amazon stocks matching items, the service returns two results at a time. Shoppers can immediately buy one of the first two the selections by texting back the number "1" or "2," or they can ask for more by texting the letter "M."
Global memory chip makers are hurrying DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) DRAM (dynamic RAM) into Intel validation labs in hopes the processor giant's Centrino 2 laptop chips will spur DRAM demand amid a market glut.
Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology and Nanya Technology have all sent out news releases in the past few days announcing Intel validation for DDR3 chips to be used with Intel's first mobile DDR3 platform, the upcoming Centrino 2 chip package, which is expected out in June.
Intel Centrino 2 processor technology combined with DDR3 will provide higher performance at lower power levels for notebooks "and will become a major driver for early volume production of DDR3 beginning in the second quarter of 2008," Samsung said in a statement Wednesday.
DigiTimes is feeling pretty confident about the rumors they started yesterday regarding the Xbox 360 with integrated Blu-ray. They are so confident that they're predicting a price war as Microsoft takes on Sony's PS3 at its own game. Their sources claim that the Blu-ray Disc drive will cost Microsoft between $95 and $100 -- much higher than the $18 to $20 DVD drives already found in the Xbox 360. Microsoft is of course, expected to sell its new Blu-ray rig at a loss as is customary in the console market. Sony may then be forced to lower the cost of the PS3 and/or retaliate by increasing Lite-On's cost for the Blu-ray components (like the BD-ROM pick-up heads) purchased from Sony. Whatever the result, the competition would be nothing but good news for consumers of HD media... you know, if the rumor is true.
LAS VEGAS — April 1, 2008 — AT&T (NYSE: T) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced a collaborative alliance that will transform the way consumers shop for mobile devices. AT&T will become the first company in the world to bring Microsoft Surface to life in a retail environment, giving customers the ability to explore their mobile worlds using touch and device recognition technology. Microsoft Surface is the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft. Beginning April 17, customers can experience Microsoft Surface in select AT&T retail locations, including stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco. Based on the success and learning from these initial pilot deployments, plans for further expansion across AT&T’s 2,200 U.S. retail stores will be determined.
“Now, a little bit on the motherboards using the processors. The two latest motherboards to support Penryn are the Bone Trail and Skull Trail. The BT is a single socket platform, while the ST is a dual socket. The motherboards get powerful chipset upgrades including DDR3 and XMP BIOS support. So, the boards now fully support DDR3 and 1600MHz Front Side Bus XMP profiles for some crazy overclocking. This is good news for users with 1333 and 1600MHz DDR3 memory since a simple, quick BIOS setting instantly brings your system's extra power online.”
Rest assured, we've witnessed quite a few astounding scientific displays set deep within university research labs, but it'd be mighty hard to cover up the $350,000 monolith residing at the Tufts University School of Engineering. The VisWall, unsurprisingly a product of Visbox, combines twin backscreen projectors and sophisticated software in order to display 3D imagery for DNA junkies and budding surgeons to swoon over. Aside from giving researchers and students alike the ability to investigate chemical structures and cellular makeups more closely, the 8- x 14-foot screen also dabbles in haptics, giving remote holders the ability to "guide the manipulation of virtual scalpels or surgical tweezers onscreen." Sheesh, it's like giving kids a reason to attend class -- imagine that.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - If you rushed to the Internet to book one of airline Virgin Blue's "no chair fares" for half price as advertised in Australian newspapers on Tuesday there was one message on their Web site -- April Fools!
Various companies and media organizations got into the swing of April 1 when pranks are allowed until noon with a range of hoaxes designed more to amuse than trick people.
Britain's Independent newspaper reported that foul-mouthed TV chef Gordon Ramsay was banning swearing in all his restaurants after Sydney authorities refused an application for him to set up an eatery on the grounds of "decency."
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp sees no reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc, two months after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet company, people familiar with Microsoft's plans said on Monday.
"Why would Microsoft bid against themselves? The company sees no reason to bid against itself," one of the people said.
San Francisco - Somewhere between 1 percent and 3 percent of all traffic on the Internet is meaningless packets of information, used in distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS ) to knock Web sites offline.
Those are the findings of Arbor Networks, a network traffic analysis company that recently looked at traffic flowing between more than 68 Internet service providers to see how much of it was malicious.
"The thing that's surprising is it's consistently 1 to 3 percent," said Danny McPherson, Arbor's chief research officer. "It's pretty significant."
The NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX-based graphics card enables full-throttle lifelike game play while providing optimal power management with HybridPower™ technology*. The PureVideo® HD engine also delivers unmatched video and movie quality and SLI® compatibility provides amplified performance when coupled with NVIDIA nForce® SLI-ready motherboards. Dollar-for-dollar, this GPU packs great performance.
The evolutionary beginnings of institutionalized foolishness are lost in the mists of time, but some historians set the origin of April Fools' Day back in the 1500s. According to this version of the tale, medieval New Year's celebrations in France were traditionally held in late March, climaxing with a final round of parties on April 1. Around the time of the Gregorian calendar switch, King Charles moved the timing for the big New Year's bash to January. Some people, however, continued to celebrate in April (or were fooled into doing so) - thus leaving themselves open to ridicule as silly old fogies.
There are lots of holes in this story, as The Straight Dope points out. In fact, the more you think about it, the more the story sounds like a centuries-old April Fools' hoax itself. A more sensible explanation would be that April Fools' Day was a carryover from the Romans' Hilaria Matris Deum festival, which was held on March 25, the time fixed in the ancient calendar as the spring equinox.
Windows XP has quite a few fans left despite the fact that the operating system was first launched in late 2001 and has since been replaced by the newer, more feature-packed Windows Vista operating system. Despite XP's age, many users stick to the operating system for its robustness, rock-solid driver support, and relatively bloat-free user interface (in comparison to Vista at least) which leads to better overall performance.
Microsoft, however, isn't exactly singing XP's praises anymore. While the Redmond-based company is putting the finishing touches on Service Pack 3 (SP3) for the nearly seven-year-old OS, the company announced last year that it would cease the sale of new XP licenses on June 30, 2008 -- this date itself was extended from January 31, 2008 due to incessant pressure from its customers.
Dell is continuing its efforts to cut costs and an Austin, TX desktop manufacturing plant looks to be the latest victim. As is the case with many U.S.-based companies these days, Dell will cut jobs and rely even more on overseas manufacturing "to restore the competitive advantage of the company’s operating model."
The Austin plant closure is a part of a five-point Dell growth plan which will focus on global consumer, enterprise, notebooks, small and medium enterprise and emerging countries. By removing the Austin plant from its portfolio, Dell hopes to make a sizeable dent in the $3B in savings that it hopes to realize over the next three years.
Sunnyvale, CA—April 29, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today announced the Special Ops Edition DDR3 Series, available in both PC3-8500 and PC3-10666 kits featuring the high densities and stability gamers demand. These DDR3 kits are ideal for users advancing to the next generation of memory platforms, offering the speeds, density, and reliability required for the latest DirectX 10 PC titles. Featuring a unique camouflage motif heatspreader design, the DDR3 Special Ops Edition Series was designed for gaming systems in need of a reliable upgrade as well as some extra style.
“With DDR3 platforms becoming more mature and readily available, more and more gamers are adopting the newer higher performing memory standard,” commented Alex Mei, CMO of the OCZ Technology Group. “We are excited to introduce a complete range of new Special Ops DDR3 kits ranging from 1066MHz to 1333MHz designed specifically for gamers looking to take advantage of the higher bandwidth and lower power consumption benefits offered with these SOE DDR3 modules.”
Here's the funniest thing I've seen all day...(thanks to [H])
To begin with, you probably only want to map a single event to your games, but as your confidence improves you'll be able to do more and give your hands a break. And as the NIA can speed up response times (200ms to click fire, 100ms to think it), it means you'll be more efficient at shooting before getting shot.
We got to use the device for an extended play in the wonderfully frenetic Unreal Tournament 3, and the buzz you get when you knock up your first frag is every bit as stunning as it is scary.
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Grand Theft Auto 4" went on sale Tuesday, with fans lining up at midnight to grab the first copies of the criminal action game hailed as a brutal and satirical masterpiece equal to films like "The Godfather."
Retailers such as GameStop Corp and Best Buy Co Inc took advance orders for the game weeks earlier and many outlets threw open their doors at midnight to accommodate fans eager to be among the first to play.
The launch of "Grand Theft Auto 4" is expected to be the biggest entertainment event of the year, with first-week sales forecast to be up to $400 million, beating those of last year's "Halo 3" from Microsoft Corp.
DENVER - A Colorado man accused of sending hundreds of thousands of spam e-mails has been sentenced to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion and falsifying e-mail headers. ADVERTISEMENT
Thirty-five-year-old Edward "Eddie" Davidson of Louisville was also ordered to pay nearly $715,000 to the Internal Revenue Service. He was sentenced Monday and ordered to report to prison authorities in May.
When Google introduced its PageRank algorithm long ago it allowed web searchers to have a metric they could look at and easily determine the authority of a webpage. Google researchers are now saying they have developed technology to do for images what PageRank did for web pages.
The New York Times reports that a pair of Google scientists presented a paper called “PageRank for Product Image Search” at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing. The software technology is being called VisualRank and is at its core an algorithm that blends techniques for recognizing images and technology for weighting images and ranking them based on what looks the most similar.
Although most of the attention in the increasingly-competitive CPU market has been focused on Intel and newcomer NVIDIA lately, AMD's still in it to win it, and it looks like it's taking some bold moves. First up, the company says over 100 laptop designs based on the new Puma mobile platform are being developed for delivery in June, over twice as many as it's had in the past. AMD's touting Puma's Hybrid Graphics mode that allows the system to intelligently switch between a Radeon HD3400 and integrated graphics for max power-savings, so it'll be interesting to see how the system stacks up against Intel's Atom and VIA's Isaiah -- like NVIDIA, AMD seems to be betting that consumers care more about graphics than raw horsepower.
It seemed like it would never happen, but the impossible has occurred: Apple's iPhone is coming to Canada. The news was quietly slipped into telecom giant Rogers' latest earnings report, with the simple statement that the company was "thrilled to announce" a "deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year." Apparently, lips are sealed on all other details
“The Vantec NexStar Hard Drive Dock lived up to its promise. It provides a convenient method of connecting any SATA drive to your system so that you can easily access the data on it. Performance was up to par, but the real benefit is from the design. During disaster recovery, you need something that's straightforward and easy to use and won't add more trouble to your life. The NexStar Hard Drive Dock succeeds in this aspect.”
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Sunday unveiled its first computer brand, aimed at small and medium-sized businesses, with design and sales help from its major chip customers such as Dell Inc.
AMD Business Class desktop personal computers will be followed by notebook PCs in the second half of this year.
SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - While there's little doubt about the power of this week's launch of "Grand Theft Auto IV," there is some question about the video game's legs.
The latest chapter in the wildly popular and controversial criminal action franchise will likely smash the $300 million global first-week sales figure for Microsoft's "Halo 3" in September, but how the game will fare by year's end is subject to debate.
"I think all the preorder programs now in place for these top titles really end up taking the long-term sales out of many games," said Michael Goodman, director of digital entertainment at Yankee Group. "So I don't think 'Grand Theft Auto IV' is going to have those kind of legs."
HONJO, Japan (Reuters) - Thinking of throwing out your old cell phone? Think again. Maybe you should mine it first for gold, silver, copper and a host of other metals embedded in the electronics -- many of which are enjoying near-record prices.
It's called "urban mining", scavenging through the scrap metal in old electronic products in search of such gems as iridium and gold, and it is a growth industry around the world as metal prices skyrocket.
Steve Ballmer kicked up a little dirt last week when he said that Microsoft could "wake up smarter" and keep selling XP after the June 30 cutoff date if customer feedback demanded it, but as you'd expect, the company is busily trying to "clarify" that statement by saying that while it always listens to customers, XP is definitely going to die on the 30th. Well, apart from the ultraportable exception that'll last until 2012 or so. And the backlog of licenses still in reseller's hands. Oh, and a little company called Dell, which, as rumored, is going to take advantage of a Vista licensing loophole that allows it to sell a copy of Vista but preload XP instead. Yep, that's the plan -- Dell's going to report a Vista sale to Microsoft, but deliver an XP box with Vista upgrade DVD to customers. (That sound you just heard was a million accountants sighing in appreciation.)
Need more unsubstantiated evidence that the 3G iPhone is near. Good, the Chinese language Commercial Times is quoting sources claiming that Foxconn (aka, Hon Hai) -- the maker of the 1st gen iPhone -- is ramping up 3G iPhone assembly by "the end of May" to ship 3 million units in June. It's expected to produce some 24-25 million units before the product reaches end of life. If those numbers are true then Apple had better be prepared for a proper global launch without those pesky revenue sharing schemes seen holding back world-wide uptake.
Asustek Computer is considering making Eee an independent brand with a lineup products including the original Eee PC notebook, as well as the previously reported upon Eee TV (E-TV), Eee desktop (E-DT), and Eee monitor which are all expected to be introduced by the end of the third quarter this year, according to industry sources.
Through separating Eee as a sub-brand, Asustek believes the product family will be able to jump out of the low-cost market bracket.
In other news, in addition to the Eee PC 900, the company will launch the Eee PC 1001 with a 10-inch panel as well as an 11-inch model by the end of this year, market sources have revealed.
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - A Microsoft deadline for Internet service company Yahoo to accept its 44.6-billion-dollar (28.5-billion-euro) acquisition offer expired at midnight Saturday, setting the stage for a hostile takeover bid by the software giant.
Neither of the two sides made any comment as the Sunday 0700 GMT deadline came and went.
The deadlock was likely to pave the way for an ugly proxy battle -- a fight by Microsoft for a vote by Yahoo shareholders to place pro-Microsoft officials on its board of directors.
“The Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS3P Motherboard is an aggressive, extreme, yet efficient platform. It's a shock to see this board do so well and do it even better at more extreme frequencies. It's more affordable than most P35 overclocking motherboards and has plenty of the top end features a power user could want. There is a large void out there for energy conscious users who still want real power. This is absolutely the best choice for those on a budget who didn't think they could afford extreme performance.”
SAN FRANCISCO/SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp gave Yahoo Inc no hope of a higher takeover price, saying it was ready to go hostile or even call off its bid if Yahoo maintains "unrealistic expectations" of a better deal.
"Speed is of the essence for the deal to make sense," Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said on a conference call on Thursday. If no deal is reached by this weekend, Microsoft will reconsider its offer and reveal new plans next week, he said.
"Unfortunately, the transaction has been anything but speedy and has been characterized by what would appear to be unrealistic expectations of value," he said of Yahoo's moves to frustrate Microsoft's unsolicited merger proposition.
The future of home video is thought to be set now with Blu-ray Disc emerging as the victor in the high-definition format war, but things aren’t quite so rosy in the present market.
Blu-ray Disc sales have jumped considerably in 2008, particularly following Toshiba’s surrender of the HD DVD format. In December 2007, 63 percent of high-definition movies were sold on Blu-ray Disc, and in March 2008, that number moved up to 81 percent, reported one analyst firm.
According to Reuters, 4.9 million high-def movies were sold, 3.8 million of which were Blu-ray – already well ahead of the pace in 2007, which saw total sales of 9.8 million.
Strong sales of Blu-ray Disc are not enough to make up for sagging sales of standard DVDs, which have been declining over the last two years. In 2006, movie studios generated $25 billion in revenue for home video releases. That number fell to $23.1 billion in 2007, with a further fall to $21.4 billion expected for this year, figured Citigroup analyst Jason Bazinet.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In a dimly lit back room on the second level of the University of Michigan library's book-shelving department, Courtney Mitchel helped a giant desktop machine digest a rare, centuries-old Bible.
Mitchel is among hundreds of librarians from Minnesota to England making digital versions of the most fragile of the books to be included in Google Inc.'s Book Search, a portal that will eventually lead users to all the estimated 50 million to 100 million books in the world.
The manually scanning — at up to 600 pages a day — is much slower than Google's regular process.
San Jose, California – April 23, 2008 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of DRAM memory modules and flash storage solutions, today launched a DDR3-1800 4GB kit (2x 2GB) in their extreme performance Project X family.
Super Talent’s Project X memory is widely regarded as the world’s most advanced DDR3. “This represents another major first-to-market milestone for Super Talent”, commented Super Talent Marketing Director, Joe James. “While competitors are only able to produce 4GB kits up to DDR3-1600, we’ve engineered a kit that performs at elevated clock speeds while still supporting aggressive latencies.”
This Project X kit is built with the fastest available, hand selected Micron DRAM chips, and is stress tested as a matched pair on a dual channel Asus® Striker II Extreme motherboard.
You may not have the disposable income to take home our one of a kind PS3 Laptop (which is still up for charity auction!), but that doesn't mean you don't have the time or wherewithal to build one of your own. Which is why we've asked our man Ben Heck to show everybody how he built the thing for the benefit of independent modders everywhere. In this installment we'll take apart the PS3, identify the parts within, and then reassemble them in a more compact way. We'll also install a USB breakout cable and take a look under the mammoth heatsinks and pipes.
FLARE is a modular system to create a dynamic hull for facades or any building or wall surface. Acting like a living skin, it allows a building to express, communicate and interact with its environment.
SANTA ANA, California (Reuters) - A computer hacker testified on Wednesday that a News Corp (NWSa.N) unit hired him to develop pirating software, but denied using it to penetrate the security system of a rival satellite television service.
Christopher Tarnovsky -- who said his first payment was $20,000 in cash hidden in electronic devices mailed from Canada -- testified in a corporate-spying lawsuit brought against News Corp's NDS Group (NNDS.O) by DISH Network Corp (DISH.O).
The trial could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in damage awards.
While solid-state drives (SSDs) aren’t the most popular storage medium in notebook computers right now, they are expected to grow significantly in the near future. Toshiba Semiconductor is betting that SSD drives grow significantly over the next three years and is enhancing capacity and reducing costs to grab that growing market.
Toshiba Semiconductor President Shozo Saito said at a seminar that he expects a full quarter of all notebooks shipped to be equipped with SSDs by 2011. Toshiba expects the SSD market to grow 133% every year on average through 2010 and Toshiba says its building capacity faster than that.
LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE, Belgium (Reuters) - Microsoft could re-think plans to phase out its Windows XP operating system by June 30 if customers show they want to keep it but so far they have not, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said.
"XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies we can always wake up smarter but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments," Ballmer told a news conference on Thursday.
“After several weeks of using the Lapworks Attaché I found it to be a solid and stable piece of equipment. The adjustable foot was secure and didn't have much slop in it whatsoever. The rubber pads kept the stand from sliding around on a smooth surface. With the aluminum and plastic construction, the Lapworks Attaché is extremely light to carry around; however, it's not meant to be something you lug around in the laptop bag due to its shape. Instead, it's meant to sit on your desk and act like a docking station, raising the elevation of the screen to keep the user from craning their neck and causing undo strain. The fans are 5 volts and get their power from the laptop. With the curve of the Attaché stand and fans blowing air on to the bottom of the laptop, proper ventilation is achieved.”
Michael Dell spoke at Fortune's Brainstorm:Green conference today, and he took the wraps off this funky bamboo-encased eco-PC concept. Said to be Dell's smallest-ever computer, the machine is 81 percent smaller than a standard desktop and uses 70 percent less power. There's no word on what's inside yet, but Dell says the machine is due to be released later this year, and should cost between $500 and $700.
Craigslist and eBay are seen in many eyes as direct competitors, but despite the competition between the two eBay holds a minority stake in Craigslist. A 2004 purchase grabbed eBay a 28.4% stake in Craigslist.
A suit filed by eBay this week against Craigslist alleges that the Craigslist Board of Directors, consisting of only two members including founder Craig Newmark and chief executive Jim Buckmaster, took action to dilute eBay’s stake in the company.
According to eBay unspecified actions taken by Craigslist have reduced eBay’s stake in Craigslist by more than 10%. ebay asked the court to reverse the actions of Craigslist to protect eBay’s investment and preserve its stake in Craigslist.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp has begun testing technology that brings together a person's pictures, documents and other data scattered across a growing number of machines with the goal of allowing people to access their information from anywhere and at any time.
Microsoft's "Live Mesh" program, which uses the Internet as a data hub, synchronizes files across computers, phones and other devices so a digital picture frame at home could show a picture minutes after it was taken by a cell phone.
Initially the program will be limited to 10,000 U.S. testers and computers running its Windows operating system, but Microsoft said it plans to extend Live Mesh over the next few months to mobile phones, computers from Apple Inc and other devices connected to the Internet.
We were too poor to play with RC cars when we were kids, but it seems like it was worth the wait in order for these Fat Shark Wireless RC Glasses to be invented. Strap the glasses on your face and you'll be able to see through the actual head of the RC driver. Better yet, the head can pivot and tilt so you're not always looking straight ahead in front of the car. We only wish it would be adapted for Top Gun 2008, the end result of which would be tons and tons of "pilots" puking on the ground.
Fremont, California; April 22st, 2008--Ready to receive HD in all its full glory is the new ASUS M70 notebook that provides a WUXGA widescreen with 1920x1200 pixels resolution and Blu-Ray support. Combined with cutting-edge audio technologies including built-in Altec Lansing Speakers and Dolby Home Theater, the M70 is supremely suited as a digital entertainment and productivity tool. In addition to the all-rounded AV features, the M70 is the world�s first notebook to offer an ample storage of 1TB (2x 500GB) that can store up to 285,000 digital photos, 25,000 songs or 120 hours of HD movies*! For unparalleled high definition enjoyment, the M70 is the one and only entertainment notebook choice that is big on visual, audio and storage!
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp's game unit said on Tuesday it was delaying the launch of its "Home" 3D virtual online community service for the PlayStation 3 game console to autumn of this year, the second such delay.
Sony last year postponed the launch of the "Home" service, which is aimed at giving users a place to interact with other PS3 users, to early this year from last autumn.
As in the "Second Life" virtual world, Home users create online characters or avatars. They can chat with other visitors, play games and customize their own rooms located in the virtual world.
There’s no disputing that Epic Games continually pushes the envelope of gaming technology, particularly in the area of visuals. The game developer’s Unreal Engine 3 powers a number of current-generation games with some whiz-bang graphical effects on PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, but not any on the Wii. The reason for that may be Epic Games’ apparent distaste on some of the technical aspects of Nintendo’s latest console.
Details surrounding Netflix's upcoming set-top box partnership with LG are still scarce, but that hasn't stopped it from announcing similar plans with four other unnamed hardware manufacturers that it expects will sell "millions" of devices per year. Feel free to guess, but the only details available are that the fourth company is a small one likely to launch sooner than Q4, while the other three (including LG) will turn on Netflix functionality in some of their devices in the fourth quarter. It's unlikely to wash away the bad taste of an HD price hike, but we like imagining that all the hardware needed to connect Netflix's all-you-can-eat streaming movie service to our HDTV is already in the living room (Xbox 360 & PS3, we're looking at you).
Yesterday, I showed you how Dell irresponsibly ships tiny flash drives in gigantic boxes, giving the finger to the environment. Well, Dell isn't the only offender when it comes to wasteful shipping habits. Above, reader Paul shows us how WalMart.com decided to ship a flash drive to him. And NewEgg? It's even worse.
I about pissed myself when I read this. I order a ton of stuff online and every now and then you get something like the picture above and think o_0? Gold MacBook Air Has Bejeweled Rainbow Apple
Behold the 24 karat gold MacBook Air with a bejeweled version of the classic rainbow Apple. Why anyone would want a heavier, fingerprint-magnet version of a MacBook Air except a rich oil tycoon from the United Arab Emirates, I don't know. But even while all the shiny gold and colored sapphires may look tacky at first, I have to admit that it actually looks kind of cool when you see the whole thing.
San Francisco - A recent patent filing indicates that Apple is getting closer to adding its own instant messaging client to the iPhone.
The filing is titled "Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging," and covers methods for sending, receiving, and viewing ongoing conversations. The proposed GUI is similar to Apple's current interface for SMS.
Built-in support for IM has been missing from the iPhone, to the dismay of many users. The patent filing shows Apple has IM on its mind.
“These mini flash drives come from A-DATA’s “Nobility” and “Classic” lines, and are available in storage capacities up to 8GB. The three up for review today are the Nobility PD17, the Classic PD18, and the Nobility PD19, all of which are the 1 GB capacity sample versions. Let's take a look at what sets these drives apart from the crowd, as well as from each other.”
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's Asustek Computer (2357.TW: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it expects most of its battery shortage problems to be resolved by the end of the second quarter, as it maintained its sales target for its popular low-cost PCs.
"Ninety percent of the battery problem should be resolved by June but it could still affect April and May Eee PC sales," said Asustek Chief Executive Jerry Shen, referring to the company's popular line of low-cost PCs.
Last month, Asustek said a global shortage of batteries for computers could affect up to 40 percent of its second-quarter shipments.
A fire in March at LG Chem Ltd (051910.KS: Quote, Profile, Research) halted the second biggest South Korea battery maker's Ochang plant, but the company said that it expected the factory to start production again in two to three months.
Overclockers and gamers, prepare to meet your next hard drive: the 300GB VelociRaptor from Western Digital. Said to be 35% faster than previous WD Raptors, the 10,000 RPM drive features a 3Gbps SATA interface, 16MB cache, and impressive 1.4 million hour MTBF thanks in part to the IcePack Mounting Frame. The IcePack heat sink not only keeps the drive spinning extra cool, it also bumps the 2.5-inch HDD to a required 3.5-inch drive bay. Available exclusively on Alienware's ALX gaming desktop this month and then up for grabs for everybody with $300 to burn starting mid-May.
MINNEAPOLIS - In Brent Swanson's basement home theater, there should be nothing drab about "Battlestar Galactica." He's got a high-end projector that beams the picture onto a wall painted like a silver screen, and speakers loom in the corners, flanking two big subwoofers.
Yet when he tuned in Sci Fi HD for a recent episode filmed in high definition, the image was soft and the darkest parts broke up into large blocks with no definition. Explosions, he said, were just dull.
"It kind of looked like they took the standard definition and just blew it up," said Swanson, a 33-year-old graphic designer and videographer who subscribes to Comcast Corp.'s TV service. "I couldn't really tell if what I was seeing was really better than what I saw on regular television."
The Toshiba Satellite U400/U405 series is a new 13.3" widescreen notebook that weighs in at just 4.85 pounds and packs solid Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn performance and a big hard drive with plenty of storage space. Add to that a stylish chassis covered in Toshiba's new "Fusion" finish, 3GB of RAM, a webcam, and fingerprint reader and this notebook starts looking even better. Toshiba calls this notebook a "compact hero [that] balances working room with carrying comfort." Let's take a look and see if this laptop is as good as it sounds.
Surely you're not content with just multi-touch and built-in accelerometers, right? Microsoft Research is expecting not, as it's already working towards integrating force-sensing technology that will enable gestures to twist on-screen imagery without crafting UMPCs out of flexible material. Essentially, the gurus behind the idea feel that implementing said tech would "turn an otherwise passive component that just holds the device together into an active input surface." In the future, it's likely that auditory cues would enable users to know when they've applied enough pressure to cause a change, and of course, they expect it to work hand-in-hand with existing human-computer interfaces. Yeah, who needs keypads these days, anyway?
We'd heard that Asus's bigger, badder Eee PC would be getting an early launch next month in Asia but it looks like the US won't have to wait very long either. Crave's Asus sources are telling them it'll launch stateside on May 12 for $549. That's definitely a bit more than the long-rumored $500 pricepoint. Is it worth it?
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A Michigan woman who advertised online for a hitman to kill her lover's wife pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire scheme, prosecutors said on Friday.
Anne Marie Linscott, 49, faces 10 years in prison for each of three federal charges, including intent to commit murder, the U.S. Attorneys for the Western District of Michigan and the Eastern District of California said in a joint statement.
In November 2007, three California residents searching job listings on Craigslist.com found an advertisement for a "freelance" position posted by Linscott, according to court documents. The three job seekers contacted California police.
Apparently, eBay's policy changes are having desirable effects, despite the massive public outcry the company received. While the company cut its listing fees, it more than made up for it by significantly raising its commissions on successful sales, particularly on low-priced items such as video games and CDs. The higher rates along with the elimination of negative seller feedback to the buyer created outcry among many loyal eBay sellers.
Some sellers tried to boycott eBay. Initial metrics seemed to show the boycott to be working -- listings were decreasing and sales were down, by most official counts, although eBay insisted they weren't.
A planned cyberattack against CNN's Web site fizzled out Saturday as the group backing the event called it off.
"Our original plan for 19 April has been canceled because too many people are aware of it and the situation is chaotic," wrote a group called "Revenge of the Flame," according to a translation posted on the Dark Visitor Blog. "At an unspecified date in the near future, we will launch the attack."
Nintendo sold more high-end video game consoles in the U.S. in the month of March than Sony and Microsoft combined, according to data released Friday by market researcher NPD Group.
Nintendo sold 721,000 Wii consoles in March, according to NPD. Microsoft sold 262,000 Xbox 360 units while Sony sold 257,000 PlayStation 3 systems.
Nintendo Wii sales were sparked by the recent launch of the hit game Super Smash Bros. Brawl -- a Wii exclusive. NPD said the game sold 2.7 million copies in March, making it the month's top selling title by far.
It's been far too long since we heard about the Dallas Cowboys' new stadium w/ accompanying gigantic four-sided HD scoreboard (and far too long before the 2009 season when it opens). Mitsubishi apparently thinks its the one to drop in new details, since it's their Diamond Vision technology (also soon to be seen at the new Yankee Stadium) powering the worlds largest 1080p LED displays, and we're in no position to argue. What can we say, exact specs on HD screens totaling nearly 13,000 sq ft make us weak. Check after the break for the full details before they're scheduled to turn on June 1, 2009.
Wearable mice aren't exactly a new idea, but it seems that Microsoft thinks it can do things one better, with a recent patent application revealing its plans for a desk-defying device of its own. As you can see above, this one is designed to be worn even while your typing on a keyboard, with the cursor movement able to be switched on an off with a simple hand gesture. That pointing itself is handled by some gyroscopic sensors, with an accelerometer and a magnetometer apparently also employed for further gesture and position sensing. Needless to say, there's no indication of it becoming an actual product anytime soon but, unlike some of Microsoft's other patent applications, this one seems like it could well find its way off the drawing board sooner rather than later.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Green may be the new black, but many U.S. consumers are not recycling old electronic gadgets despite promises by multiple organizations for hassle-free ways to get rid of electronic waste.
Putting computers, televisions or cell phones in the trash is increasingly frowned on, and states like Massachusetts ban discarding many electronics in garbage cans. As a result, some local authorities arrange free recycling events and companies and charities around the country offer to recycle old devices.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc's top executive said on Thursday the company was excited to be testing out a partnership to run at least some of rival Yahoo Inc's Web search advertising sales.
But Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt stopped short of characterizing how far negotiations with Yahoo had gone or how likely they were to lead to an actual business partnership.
We've no idea how old this image is—it's probably been floating around the internet for a while—but unless we see any other possible entries, we're going to award this the Most Ghetto Car Stereo Ever trophy. If you've got an old beater from the 1970s or '80s, you can actually make your own! I know! It's seriously making a statement to potential stereo thieves. A statement that says, "really, your self-esteem is low enough that you'll steal THIS? How about I just give you five bucks and we call it even?"
SAN FRANCISCO - Google Inc. tweaked its online advertising formula and accelerated its growth outside the United States to produce a first-quarter profit that surpassed analysts' predictions, alleviating some of the economic worries battering its stock this year.
The news, released after the stock market closed Thursday, lifted Google's recently drooping shares by more than $76, or 17 percent.
"This is mostly a relief rally," said Stanford Group analyst Clayton Moran. "People are relieved that things aren't as bad as they thought."
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s first-quarter loss matched Wall Street's lowered expectations, with the slumping chip maker hurt by its inability to unload older products amid economic turbulence that tamped down domestic consumer spending.
The Sunnyvale-based company said Thursday that it lost $358 million, or 59 cents per share, during the first three months of the year, its sixth quarterly loss in a row. AMD lost $611 million, or $1.11 per share, in the same period last year.
Fremont, CA, April 17, 2008 – Corsair® www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in high performance computer and flash memory products, announced today the launch of their new Corsair high-density Memory Line for Mac Pro desktop systems. Made especially for the high performance demands of the Mac market, the new Corsair Mac Pro Memory Kits are fully buffered 667MHz solutions, available immediately in 2GB (2 x 1GB modules) and 4GB (2 x 2GB modules) DIMM kits. Mac Pro Memory is 100% Apple Compatible – Lifetime Warranty The Corsair Mac Pro memory modules are qualified at the Apple Test Labs in California and are 100% compatibility guaranteed with a lifetime warranty. “We are excited to extend our Corsair memory solutions to support the high performance Mac Pro Desktop Systems,” said John Beekley, VP of Applications at Corsair. “These modules offer end users the ability to greatly maximize the amount of memory in their Mac Pro,” added Beekley.
April 17, 2008 Woodstock, IL -- Other World Computing (OWC) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today their highest capacity portable, bus-powered storage drive to date – the OWC Mercury On-The-Go 500GB, 5400RPM portable storage drive. The Mercury On-The-Go 500GB offers blazing-fast FireWire 800, FireWire 400, and USB 2.0 connections, now available with 56% more data capacity than the previous award-winning Mercury On-The-Go model.
Immediately available and priced at $359.99, the Mercury On-The-Go 500GB portable drive is a palm-sized performer with huge capacity that fits in a shirt pocket. Built with the latest reliable, high-performance drive mechanisms and interfaced with OWC’s custom bridge solution featuring the Oxford924 chipset, the Mercury On-The-Go is ready for your largest projects yet.
Sunnyvale, CA—April 17, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled a blazing fast DDR3 addition to the new Flex II memory series. These premium modules run at incredibly fast 2000MHz speeds at CL8-8-8 timings for added performance to high-end systems with integrated water-cooling. Designed to the very core to offer enthusiasts the thermal management innovation of hybrid water and passive cooling, the new PC3-16000 Flex II Series offers rock-solid stability and performance for your high-end gaming or overclocking system.
“The bottom line here is that the ASUS EN9800GTX is a much cooler graphics card that's capable of replacing the 8800 GTX in ASUS' line up. Should you run out and replace that 8800 GTX you already have? Not really. Performance between these two GTXs is a pretty even battle with the newer 9800 winning out a little. Those looking for the newest performance card that offers the best bang for buck are going to find the ASUS EN9800GTX to be a good option. The only thing that would make it an even better choice would be a lower price tag and a decently bundled video game. It's ASUS, so anything is possible.”
It may have given him the runaround at first, but it looks like Circuit City is now finally doing the right thing after totally trashing the Honda Civic owned by an 8thcivic.com forum user that goes by the name VTECnical. As you may recall, that damage, which totaled over $12,000 in all, was incurred after VTECnical had Circuit City install a Pioneer AVIC Z2 GPS unit and some other components he purchased at the store, all of which went horribly wrong and left the car unsafe to drive. Now according to Autoblog, however, it appears that not only has Circuit City's insurance provider come through with over $10,000 to cover repair costs, but Circuit City has paid out the remaining amount itself, and thrown in a brand new $2,000 Pioneer AVIC Z2 to boot. No word if VTECnical's going to have Circuit City install it or not though.
Some entirely too ingenious hackers have found a reference to the rumored D3X deep within the bowels of Nikon's D3 firmware. The reference includes a list of resolutions available to the upcoming shooter, and it's apparently set to max out at a potentially Higgs Boson-inducing 24.4 megapixels. Word has it that this sensor is likely a variant of the megapixel monster behind Sony's upcoming A900, but since this is all being extrapolated from a few numbers hidden in some firmware, we're going to try not to get too ahead of ourselves at this point.
Number two digital music retailer Amazon was given DRM-free tracks from all four majors in the hope that it would be the first real rival to iTunes' total domination of music sales. But, on top of the fact Amazon's numbers drastically pale to iTunes' (we did ask for specifics, they wouldn't spill) NPD is reporting that a mere sliver—10 percent—of Amazon's users are iTunes defectors, even though all of its DRM-less tracks will play on the iPod (or anything else).
John Sciacca at Sound & Vision says his DVR no longer lets him record his favorite show, Survivor. Sciacca claims that despite setting his Time Warner box to record every episode of the reality show, when the time comes, it acts as if there is nothing to record. Sometimes, he says, the record light even goes on during the show, but it isn't saved to the hard drive. Apparently he's not the only one stuck without Survivor.
VH News: Tuesday 2nd Edition Posted by Diceman on Tuesday, April 15, 2008 @ 2:53
LOL! I just seen this posted over in the hardocp news and I just had to post it for you guys too. Check out what this dude did. He lined up wine bottles, put what looks like a steel ball on a pole on the roof of his RC car and drove past them to make them *ding* at different levels. What he got was the Mario Bros theme song!
Okay, so Jared Bouck's kegerator-cooled PC doesn't really sip on Hennessy, Bud Light or even Milwaukee's Best, but it sure does a good job of pretending to be 21. Essentially, this here mod is more for show than anything, but when all's said and done, you do have a liquid-cooled gaming rig and a nearby locale to stock your favorite beverages. After all, it's common knowledge that you can't stray too far to replenish your fluids during an all-night WoW raid, right? With $180, a bit of patience and some good old fashion work, you too can replace that vanilla cooling setup
HAVANA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Cubans lined up at state-owned telephone offices on Monday to buy cellular phone services previously available only to government officials and foreigners.
President Raul Castro, who took power in February, has moved quickly to ease restrictions in the communist country and the new reform allows Cubans to buy cellular phones for the first time or register those they had held illegally.
"It is an advance, like other things that are happening in Cuba now," said Alejandro, smiling with his new contract in hand. The self-employed Cuban has used a cellular telephone illegally for years in the name of a foreigner.
Diane Siddons got the call from Brandie Darnell in the middle of the day. Darnell had seen Siddons’ house advertised for rent on Craigslist and thought it was a smokin' deal: $800 a month for a five bedroom house in a Tampa Bay, Fla., suburb.
Only one problem: Siddons' house wasn't for rent. She hadn't placed any advertisement on Craigslist. Instead, a con artist had lifted photos of her home and placed them on the site as bait.
SEATTLE, Washington (AP) -- Microsoft Corp.'s operating systems run most personal computers around the globe and are a cash cow for the world's largest software maker. But you'd never confuse a Windows user with the passionate fans of Mac OS X or even the free Linux operating system.
Unless it's someone running Windows XP, a version Microsoft wants to retire.
Fans of the six-year-old operating system set to be pulled off store shelves in June have papered the Internet with blog posts, cartoons and petitions recently. They trumpet its superiority to Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest PC operating system, whose consumer launch last January was greeted with lukewarm reviews.
No matter how hard Microsoft works to persuade people to embrace Vista, some just can't be wowed. They complain about Vista's hefty hardware requirements, its less-than-peppy performance, occasional incompatibility with other programs and devices and frequent, irritating security pop-up windows.
“As far as DVD optical drives go, the Asus DRW-2014L1T is right on par with a lot of the other drives in its class. The LightScribe is a bonus for those who like to label their discs. Most drive noise is created when the optical disc starts to wobble and vibrate. This vibration is transferred to the drive motor and tray, thus making the noise. The QuieTrack feature and Auto Vibration Reducing System seem to work really well, as the noise level from a spun up disc was low. FlextraLink™ prevents buffer under run problems caused by an empty data buffer, thereby eliminating the creation of CD-coasters. This technology is similar to, and seems to work as well as, other companies' buffer under run technologies.”
Integrated graphics sets that handle DirectX 10 like it's their job are a dime a dozen, but ASUS has nevertheless managed to find bragging rights in its G35 series of mobos. Hailed as the "world's first Intel platform" with onboard graphics capable of supporting DirectX 10 natively, the aforesaid motherboards won't require a separate GPU in order to handle the simplest of DX10 demands. Of course, we wouldn't expect the GMA X3500 to run circles around Crysis frame rate tests, but we suppose they'll do for the casual fans in attendance. Per usual, ASUS has left us high and dry in regard to pricing, but the trio of boards should be available as we speak.
We're not sure who nodded off in the art department, but we're fairly certain they're going to be wide awake come Monday morning. Apparently, Radio Shack is running circulars this week featuring the iPod touch... with the Installer and MobileChat icons. We're sure Apple will be stoked to discover that a jailbroken iPod is hanging out in one of America's most-viewed ads, and we're equally sure that buyers will be pleased to learn they don't really get an IM application with their purchase. Champagne for everyone!
Captain Witwicky had an excuse; he didn't know the Decepticons were after the All Spark. In fact, he didn't even know what the Decepticons were. If you opt to purchase this All Spark USB hub, with 4 ports and retailing at £13.99 ($28), what exactly would be your excuse? Still, if you do decide the All Spark USB hub is for you, prepare to die at the hands of your maniac Macbook, once the All Spark gives it life. Scary.
The eight-year-old reality competition series is finally getting upgraded to high definition. Next fall's 17th outing will be the first time the show's exotic locations, elaborate challenges and gruesome bug bites will be available in the widescreen HD format.
For a while, HD cameras were still considered more clunky and less reliable than their standard-definition counterparts -- not a good fit for being dragged around a rainy tropical beach, shooting physical competitions where capturing every second counts. Additionally, the cost of upgrading an elaborate on-location production like "Survivor" to HD is higher than a studio-based series like "Idol" or "Dancing." All told, "Survivor" uses about 20 cameras, with some for shooting underwater and from helicopters.
During the past couple years, HD camera reliability has improved greatly, and the cost has become more comparable to standard-definition equipment.
SAN FRANCISCO - Salesforce.com Inc.'s online software service is becoming a showcase for Google Inc.'s e-mail and other widely used applications, deepening a relationship that has spurred speculation Google eventually will buy its smaller partner.
Besides selling Google's programs to its 41,000 business customers, Salesforce.com will integrate the suite of applications into its own service, which helps companies track and identify customers' needs.
“All its splendor aside, it's a fantastic performer. It's easily the best, most capable cooler to cross this test bench. While it carries over the commonly seen tower design, the performance will easily be the deciding factor for the user who literally wants nothing but the coolest CPU possible. The Noctua NH-U12P is a great performer, it's cool, it's recommended, and it's my current top choice of CPU coolers.”
FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA -- (April 10, 2008) -- Kingston Technology Company, Inc., the independent world leader in memory products, today announced the release of 800MHz DDR2 fully-buffered dual-inline memory (FB-DIMM) specifically designed and validated for Apple Mac Pro workstations and Xserve server systems. Shipping immediately, the Kingston(R) 800MHz FB-DIMM memory kits are available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities.
Fremont, California, USA, March 28, 2008 - Patriot Memory, a global provider of premium memory module and flash memory solutions, today announced the release of their DDR2 800MHz Fully-Buffered-DIMMs designed specifically for the Apple Mac Pro. Available in 2GB, 4GB and 8GB capacities, these new DRAM offerings allow for increased reliability and memory bandwidth; essential for today's memory intensive applications. "Stability and bandwidth are top priority when it comes to a computer's performance. With FB-DIMM technology, neither is sacrificed allowing users to experience their systems in a brand new light," states Les Henry, Technical Director at Patriot Memory. "To gain maximum performance with today's applications, it is essential to have enough memory to meet these demands. Patriot's new FB-DIMM's are the perfect solution to meet these tough demands."
SEATTLE/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp wants to stick with its original takeover offer for Yahoo Inc, but is not ruling out News Corp joining its bid or other options, a source close to the company said on Friday.
Separately, a source familiar with the matter said News Corp continues to talk directly with Yahoo on reaching a deal without Microsoft. The source declined to provide details on what a potential deal structure would look like.
The source close to Microsoft said the company's preference all along has been to retain the original deal structure that would involve paying $31 per share in cash and stock to acquire Yahoo. But Microsoft has not ruled out bidding with partners.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s top technology executive is stepping down as the world's No. 2 microprocessor maker tries to recover from a sales slump triggered by prolonged product delays and tougher competition.
The Sunnyvale-based company said Friday that Chief Technology Officer Phil Hester's resignation is not connected to AMD's financial woes or its recently announced 10 percent reduction of its global work force.
Hester joined the company in 2005 after working for more than two decades at IBM Corp. and was responsible for crafting AMD's technological roadmap over the past three years.
Hey Guys, John Mayer here. I just wanted to tell you that if you mention my name in your Mac OS X software crash report, it seems that there are real chances of you getting a direct reply from Apple Support, just like it happened to me. A Gizmodo reader did it and he got a reply straight away from the good people at Apple Support
According to reports (translated, possibly misunderstood, clearly speculative reports), come this year's E3, Nintendo could be rolling out a brand-spanking-new DS -- most likely very unlike the one pictured above. If you follow the text in a Bloomberg Japan article, Famicom magazine publisher Hirokazu Hamamura says that the timing of E3 would fall right in line with the two-year stagger the Big N has applied to other handheld releases. Of course, Nintendo is saying "no comment," though we find that's usually the last thing they say before introducing the Wii, Game Boy, N64, Harry Potter Wand, or Ultimate Doomsday Device.
Sunnyvale, CA—April 10, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory, today unveiled the Flex II memory series, designed for blazing speeds demanded by enthusiasts. These premium modules run at incredibly fast DDR2-1150 speeds for high-performance systems with integrated water-cooling. Designed to the very core to offer enthusiasts the thermal management innovation of hybrid water and passive cooling, the new PC2-9200 Flex II Series offers rock-solid stability and performance for your high-end gaming or overclocking system. The OCZ Flex II heat management solution enables high-frequency memory to operate within an optimal balance of extreme speeds and low latencies without the high temperatures that inhibit or damage the module. Each PC2-9200 Flex II memory module features this breakthrough thermal management technology from OCZ. Combining an effective new heatspreader design with integrated liquid injection system and dedicated channels directly over the module’s ICs, Flex II effectively dissipates heat produced by high-speed memory. This sophisticated series was engineered with a unique “flexible” design to give enthusiasts the option to run the modules passively or water cooled via the thick array of aluminum fins, and the concurrent use of both options promotes maximum heat dissipation.
San Jose, California – April 10, 2008 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of DRAM memory modules and flash storage solutions, today announced immediate availability of the popular Project X in a new DDR3-2000 2GB (2x 1GB) kit. This Project X kit is built with the fastest available, carefully screened DRAM chips, and is hand tested as a matched pair on a dual channel Asus Striker II Extreme motherboard.
“Countless enthusiasts worldwide have already exceeded the 2000MHz mark with our Project X 1600 and 1800 kits over the past seven months. This new 2000 kit offers overclocking gurus a product that has passed our tightest test screen and packs some real serious horsepower”, commented Super Talent Marketing Director, Joe James.
SAN FRANCISCO - Microsoft Corp.'s attempt to take over Yahoo Inc. has become so tortured it may help Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. grow stronger, undermining Microsoft's main reason for pursing the deal in the first place.
"We find this to be a very advantageous situation for Google," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown said Thursday. "The longer this gets dragged out, the better for Google."
Yahoo signaled it is bracing for a protracted battle late Wednesday when an announcement and a media leak provided a glimpse at its labyrinthine search for alternatives to Microsoft's bid of more than $40 billion.
That's Fujitsu's WoodShell concept PC. It joins an increasingly common trend of so called "natural" products already demonstrated by MSI, ASUS, Olympus, LG and others. No specs are provided on this feel-good piece. However, we presume it's powered by the blood and tears wrung from the baby Gore's heartbreak.
According to English Russia, this special PC is used to work on fuel "connected directly to the car's gas tank." Hmmm. Apparently "it analyzes the state of the fuel and diagnoses the overall condition of the car, while consuming some gas fluid." Possibly even without detonating and killing everyone nearby. There are more pics in the gallery, shedding more light on the thing, but there's no monitor, keyboard or mouse, and you never really see the drives in action either. Even the backside looks something fishy, and there's no obvious combustion engine either. What's your expert opinion? And what are the chances that this whole brilliant scheme will at some point combust all to hell?
A friendly rivalry between Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS turned serious this Wednesday, with Verizon suing Time Warner over claims of false advertising.
The suit refers to a recent ad campaign launched by Time Warner (viewable here), featuring an annoying door-to-door salesman who uses an excessively uppity sales pitch and special effects to call Verizon’s service inferior: a shortened version of the ad infers that Time Warner had fiber optic before Verizon, and a longer version insinuates that Verizon FiOS TV requires a satellite connection.
“Two of those latest cards has come to us in the form of Gigabyte's ATI Radeon HD 3870 512MB graphics cards, or GV-RX387512H for those currently shopping. NVidia's 8800 series are a very common top end budget gamer card and typically does well in most cases. How does the Gigabyte HD 3870 stack up against the card? And is it a viable solution? Read on for the surprising results.”
Fremont, CA, April 10, 2008 – Corsair® http://www.corsair.com, a worldwide leader in enthusiast computer and flash memory products, announced today that it has been awarded 80 PLUS Certification across the entire Corsair line of Power Supply Units (PSUs), including the award winning modular HX Series, powerful TX Series and value-performance VX Series.
More Efficient, Same Performance
80 PLUS Certification is the gold standard for power supply energy efficiency. The 80 PLUS specification requires computer and server PSUs to be at least 80 percent efficient at 20 percent, 50 percent and 100 percent rated load, ultimately improving computer stability and saving money on electricity bills. In addition, there are also performance benefits, such as reduced heat output which increases system reliability and minimizes the need for loud, high rpm cooling fans.
“We at the 80 PLUS program are delighted to recognize and applaud Corsair for having a complete power supply product line that is 80 PLUS certified,” said Jason Boehlke of the 80 PLUS Organization.
Today LapWorks launched its new line of brightly-colored $49.95 Laptop Desk Futura laptop coolers.
The initial eight colors and patterns include: Deep Red, Bustin’ Blue, Passion Pink, Tempting Teal, Largely Leopard, Desert Camou, Jungle Camou and Red Marble.
May we provide you one of these colorful Laptop Desks to check out and enjoy?
Highlights of Painted Futura Program:
- Customers choose a matte or semi-gloss finish, and black or translucent no-slip rubber pads.
- LapWorks will poll its customers and offer one or more new color or pattern every month throughout 2008.
- They are affordable because they’re actually printed, using a specialized UV ink-jet printer that applies a heavy coat of industrial-grade ink that hardens when exposed to UV light.
- LapWorks believes it is the first to print a three-dimensional product using this process.
- The UV-cured ink has a similar hardness to automotive paint, and a final coat of matte or semi-gloss acrylic further protects the colored surface.
SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc, which was widely believed to be running out of alternatives to accepting Microsoft Corp's takeover offer, has become a target of two warring camps of technology giants and their media allies, sources said on Wednesday.
News Corp is considering joining Microsoft in a bid for Yahoo which would bring in News Corp's MySpace online social hangout and create a more formidable rival to Internet juggernaut Google Inc, newspaper reports said.
But Yahoo, which announced earlier on Wednesday it plans to test Google search ads alongside Yahoo Web search services, is closing in on a deal with Time Warner Inc with its AOL unit, several sources told Reuters.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A company founded by Rupert Murdoch's daughter will help News Corp's MySpace distribute Web shows on television and DVDs outside the United States, as the world's largest social network seeks an audience away from the computer.
The move is a play to make shows such as MySpaceTV's "Quarterlife" or "Roommates" available outside of the United States, or create localized versions of the shows, said Travis Katz, managing director of MySpace's international arm.
SAN FRANCISCO - Cyber threats like NetSky, Mydoom and Parite are the bane of IT departments around the globe, but artist Alex Dragulescu has found subtle beauty deep within the dangerous computer code that can bring down networks and bombard e-mail inboxes with murderous spam.
Dragulescu has peeled back the code behind the world's worst tech bugs and rendered stunning images from it. The Romanian-born MIT researcher and artist was commissioned to do fashion the artwork by MessageLabs, a computer security company that sought to put a face — or at least a shape — on computer viruses.
The low-cost, sub-notebook market is just about to get even more crowded in the coming markets. ASUS took a risk by entering the market late last year, but it appears that many major manufacturers are now looking to cash in on the low-cost gravy train.
Yesterday, DailyTech reported that HP is stepping up to the plate with its aluminum-clad, VIA-powered 2133 Mini-Note PC. The 8.9" notebook offers a wide variety of processor speeds ranging from 1.0GHz to 1.6GHz along with solid-state drive (SSD), 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM HDDs.
Today, we've learned that Dell will soon enter the fray with a Compal-manufactured 8.9" sub-notebook. Compal will have the capacity to ship 200,000 to 300,000 of the notebooks to Dell each month beginning in early June.
That video we saw the other day of two iPod touches running a networked Quake 3 deathmatch sent ripples through the iPod / iPhone community. Those of you doubting the authenticity of the clip can probably put some fears to bed, as GameCyte has gotten a hold of the programmers, and they make it fairly clear it wasn't some elaborate hoax. According to developers Cameron and Marcia Tofer of Hermitworks, they managed to get the game up and running on the touches in, "Between eight and twelve hours," using jail-broken units, no official SDK, and modified code that added basic accelerometer support. The game in the video is being hosted on one of the devices and played over a local network -- and the Tofers claim that running a full 64-player match wouldn't be out of the question. Unfortunately, there aren't any plans to make this demo public, as the team is working on original content for the platform. So... email petition anyone?
Can it be? Why... why yes, a watch with integrated cellphone we might (might!) actually wear. The Van Der Led WM2 is a quad-band GSM watch with itty bitty 1.3-inch, 260k color touchscreen display, stereo Bluetooth, up to 240-hours of standby or 300-minutes talk, and 1GB of storage for a few of your MP3 or MP4 files. Better yet, from a distance, those uber geeky keys on the numeric pad look just like the glittering wrist studs capable of mesmerizing Death Metal, she-groupies backstage. Yours for €300 (about $471 US Rubbles) starting Monday.
This evolution of Jeff Han's multitouch surface doesn't require touching, allowing you to manipulate objects Jedi-style thanks to infrared camera tracking overhead. This makes possible the use of conventional software, like a web browser, while keeping the advantages of direct touch manipulation. We talked about the technology and its advantages over previous multitouch displays with Florian Echtler, the researcher behind the project at the Technical University in Munich, Germany:
SAN FRANCISCO - Yahoo Inc. will begin showing homemade videos on its online photo-sharing site, Flickr, in a long-anticipated move that may be too late to lure most people away from the Internet's dominant video channel, Google Inc.'s YouTube. ADVERTISEMENT
Flickr's video technology, to debut late Tuesday, represents the latest example of Yahoo trying to catch up to Google in a crucial battleground.
Yahoo's inability to keep pace with Google in the lucrative online search market caused its profits and stock price to sag during the past two years, which in turn triggered an unsolicited takeover attempt by Microsoft Corp. for more than $40 billion.
“Looking at the FPSGun might give you the initial impression that it is some sort of Light Gun that you point at the screen. It is not. Instead, it regular mouse that somewhat resembles an inverted handgun. Thus, you hold it somewhat like you are gripping something, dare I say the handgrip of a "gun". The bottom of the mouse still has to rest on a surface; you aren't expected to hold this in the air. Instead, you move the FPSGun around approximately the same way you'd move a mouse around, sliding it on a surface. (The bottom has mouse feet just like any other mouse)”
Sunnyvale, Calif.—April 7, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance and high reliability memory and PC components, today unveiled the EliteXStream power supply family for high-powered gaming systems and workstations. Designed to offer the consumer market an enthusiast-grade computer power supply with a state-of-the-art architecture, the EliteXStream is the ultimate power solution for those users that require an ultra-efficient, highly reliable, high-wattage solution for their leading-edge gaming machine.
Co-developed with the experts at PC Power & Cooling, the EliteXStream is a flagship model among OCZ’s lineup of gamer-oriented power supplies. Expanding on a lineup of powerful and stable PSUs, OCZ designed the 800W and 1000W EliteXStream for optimum power distribution to all components by utilizing the superior "single +12V rail" design perfected by PC Power & Cooling. This trail-blazing approach to +12V rail design ends the need to budget power "across the rails" as is the case with the less effective multi-rail design found in the vast majority of high-performance PSUs on the market today.
“I am excited to bring a high-performance PSU to market that so effectively fuses the in-depth gaming and enthusiast experience of OCZ with the legendary power supply expertise of the PC Power & Cooling division”, said Ryan Edwards, Product Manager for the OCZ Technology Group. “Featuring up to 86% efficiency, a staggering single +12V rail output, a complete array of connectors, and an attractive MSRP, the new EliteXstream Series of PSUs sets a new standard for both the OCZ brand and the high-performance industry in general." The EliteXStream will be available in 800W and 1000W configurations, delivering up to 1KW of continuous power through a complete array of connectors including four 8-pin (6+2) PCI-E and 17 drive connectors. These PSUs are kept supremely cool with a large 120mm fan and feature a standard ATX power supply form factor.
San Jose, California – April 7, 2008 -- Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of Flash storage solutions and DRAM memory modules, today announced three new 8GB USB Flash drives, including the world’s smallest 8GB drive. These new drives include: PICO-A, with a swivel lid; the retractable PICO-B; and ultra small PICO-C. Super Talent’s patented PICO series USB drives are manufactured using chip-on-board (COB) technology, which enables up to 8GB of Flash storage to fit into an incredibly minute case. PICO-C drives weigh less than a nickel (about 4.7 grams) and measure only 31.3mm x 12.4mm x 3.4mm.
If your pants / panties were in a "bunch" upon hearing news that Windows 7 would be headed into your ever-loving arms "next year," you might just want to hold off on those party invites for a little bit. Sure, Bill Gates just happened to mention that we'd see a new version of the OS "Sometime in the next year or so," but it's looking like that "or so" makes a world of difference. Microsoft wants to chill everyone out with the somber news that its got no plans to introduce Windows 7 any earlier than January 2010 (three years from the launch of Vista), and reassure us that crazy old Gates may have just been talkin' developer speak.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it would cut 10 percent of its work force, or about 1,680 jobs, and gave a first-quarter revenue estimate below expectations, sending its shares down as much as 5 percent.
Citing lower-than-expected sales across its business, AMD estimated revenue for the quarter ended March 29 at about $1.5 billion, well below the average analyst forecast of $1.62 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.
San Francisco - It's been on the market for just six months, and already the iPhone (plus its Wi-Fi-only variant, the iPod Touch) is the most used mobile browser for Internet access in the U.S., according to Irish researcher StatCounter. At No. 2 is the Symbian OS used in Nokia's devices. Globally, the two positions are reversed. In either case, Windows Mobile -- in all its versions -- is just a blip.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research), responding to a three-week deadline issued by Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) to accept its $42 billion takeover bid, again rejected the deal for undervaluing the Web pioneer.
In a defiant open letter to Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Monday, Yahoo said the software giant's threat of a proxy battle was counterproductive and Yahoo would only be open to a better deal.
"Our board's view of your proposal has not changed," said the letter, signed by Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and Chief Executive Jerry Yang. "We continue to believe that your proposal is not in the best interests of Yahoo and our stockholders."
With Acer planning to launch two low-cost PC series, the 8.9-inch Aspire and 12.1-inch Slim Gemstone Aspire, the company is expected to see total low-cost PCs shipments of 6-6.5 million in the second half of 2008, according to sources at notebook ODMs.
Acer ordered one million 12.1-inch entry-level panels from AU Optoelectronics (AUO) in March this year. The panels are said to be priced around US$40-50 lower than same sized high-end panels.
Acer's 8.9-inch models are expected to see shipments of 5-5.5 million units in the second half of 2008, according to the sources.
On paper, this cutting board concept—with an embedded LCD display and wireless connectivity to display cooking recipes—is a great idea. Unfortunately, being an Iron Chef wannabe myself, it fails the basic kitchen test: the crazy-mess-where's-the-damn-pepper-proof test. My cutting board is always full of slices and dices of whatever substances are going to suffer the torture of my pans, which would make impossible to follow any recipe on it, forcing me to follow recipes the traditional way: not following them at all.
EW's pop-culture columnist peels away the hypocrisy a Massachusetts proposal to ban sales of violent games to minors, another attempt by politicians to act as surrogate parents that he says is not only doomed to fail, but is undemocratic to boot
Asustek filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California last week. In the filing, Asustek asked the court for relief from the alleged IBM infringements as well as monetary damages.
One of the Asustek patents is for a method for providing remote storage for Internet appliances, while the other relates to servers. Asustek alleges the patents have been infringed by IBM in components, software, and hardware related to storage area networking equipment and servers.
Taipei, Taiwan, April 4, 2008 – Catering to users who require extreme graphical support and robust performance, ASUS, leading producer of motherboards, has today released the new ASUS Crosshair II Formula Motherboard. This powerful motherboard includes innovative technologies like CPU Level Up, Hybrid SLI and 3-Way SLI for the best performance and graphical support. It is also ready for AMD® Socket AM2+ Phenom™ FX / Phenom X4 / Phenom X2 / Athlon™ X2 / Sempron™ and legacy AM2 processors; and features up to 5200 MT/s via HyperTransport™ 3.0-based system bus speeds for AM2+ CPUs.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc (YHOO.O: Quote, Profile, Research) has three weeks to accept Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) $31 per share cash-and-stock offer or Microsoft will mount a proxy battle to win investor support for the takeover, Microsoft said on Saturday.
Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said in a letter dated April 5 and addressed to Yahoo's board of directors that "now is the time" to negotiate final terms of a deal, one which would mark the biggest takeover yet in the high-tech industry.
"If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors," Ballmer wrote.
Verizon Wireless and AT&T announced plans for their newly-won 700 MHz spectrum today, and the overall message is, “be patient.”
A press release from Verizon Wireless says that the company expects its 700 MHz network to go live by 2010, and it will be the home of its future 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution) wireless network. As required by the FCC, Verizon’s network will be fully open to access for all manner of software and devices, and the company hints that it expects to see use from a variety of consumer electronics, including wireless phones, medical devices and gaming consoles.
THE NEW, LARGE LGA1366 socket for uni-CPU (Bloomfield) and dual-CPU (Gainestown) 2008 Nehalems is not just 20 per cent bigger on each side than the LGA775 for the current Penryns. It contains nearly 600 extra pins for those QPI links, three 64-bit DDR3 memory channels and, obviously, a lot of power.
MIAMI (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp.(MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) co-founder Bill Gates said on Friday he expected the new version of Windows operating software, code-named Windows 7, to be released "sometime in the next year or so."
The software giant has been aiming to issue more regular updates of the operating system software that powers the majority of the world's personal computers. Nevertheless, Gates' comments suggested that a successor to the Vista program might be released sooner than was generally expected.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc confirmed on Thursday it had been an active bidder in recent U.S. auctions for licenses to create a national wireless network and that it will weigh in as regulators set new rules.
In a statement, the Internet services leader said it planned to remain active in rule-making by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission that will govern how Verizon Communications, the winning bidder for the "C Block" of nationwide wireless spectrum, will operate its network.
"In ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block," Google said. Active bidding ensured the rules designed to make these networks more open to independent Web services will be implemented, it said.
Intel's apparently gearing up to start pushing its so-called Anti-Theft Technology for laptops. Details are still sparse, but apparently it provides boot-time lockout of unauthorized users (presumably among other things) upon occasion of theft, and is being picked up by partner companies like Lenovo, Fujitsu, Phoenix, and McAffee for release later this year. It'd be really nice if we could get some connected GPS to phone home when your laptop takes off without you, but it's nice to know the industry's finally starting to take this stuff on instead of leaving hapless theft victims to fend for themselves.
"The network is asserting almost complete control of the users' ability to use their network as a gateway to the Internet," said Marvin Ammori, general counsel of Free Press, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group. "They become gatekeepers rather than gateways."
But the provisions are rarely enforced, except against obvious miscreants like spammers. Consumer outrage would have been the likely result if AT&T Inc. took advantage of its stated right to block any activity that causes the company "to be viewed unfavorably by others."
Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, said this clause was a "piece of boilerplate that is passed around the corporate lawyers like a Christmas fruitcake.
As one of the most trend-setting tech companies, love it or hate it, Apple is constantly making news with its new products. A constant media circus follows Apple, and often the rumors hold true-- as was the case when Apple revamped its entire iPod line last fall.
Now the rumors have started to circulate again, this time about Apple's smart phone, the iPhone. Analysts now claim iPhone supplies are mysteriously shrinking, leading to speculation that either Apple is preparing to launch a new model, or is in the middle of a component crisis. Market research firm Bernstein Research, which runs regular supply checks, revealed that Apple's U.S. stores and its online store were out of stock of the device.
“The overall designs for the H.D.T. coolers are great. The install on the RVT-12025D model was easier than the RVT-12025. This was due to a tight clearance issue with my fingers pushing down on the pins for the Intel install. On a positive note, the motherboard removal was not necessary, and that is another major plus in my book for CPU cooler installs. With that said, both H.D.T coolers performed well, both are damn near silent, and the option of either a tower or low profile unit is another plus.”
Holy irony, Batman! People who play violent games online actually feel relaxed after they have played a round of bloody fun.
This according to new research discovered by Develop Magazine, which found that a sampling of 292 World of Warcraft players, ages 12-83 years, were more likely to feel calm or tired after playing a round of the popular online game.
"There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type," said Jane Barnett, who headed the Middlesex study. Translation: If you're an aggressive jackass before you play a video game, you'll still be one after; and video games don't magically turn peaceful people into violent offenders.
Cops finally busted the culprits behind yet another Craigslist-instigated ransacking of a Pacific Northwest domicile. And in some kind of completely unpredictable “Law & Order” plot twist, neither allegedly-guilty party turned out to be Craigslist itself. Who saw that coming?
Various and sundry lawmakers would have us believe that the free online advertising site is the root of all humanity’s ills. From pimping prostitutes to failing to police poor grammar, it seems there is no evil of which Craigslist isn’t capable … or at least won’t get blamed for.
The soundtracks from the “Grand Theft Auto” games have long been lauded as super-extra-hipster-awesome. But if you’ve ever heard a catchy tune and then tried to find it online, you know how time-consuming that can be.
Last week, Amazon and Rockstar announced a partnership that makes it easier for gamers to buy music they hear in “Grand Theft Auto IV,” which launches on April 29. Rockstar wants fans to be able to own the hard-to-find and vintage tracks they feature in their games. And Amazon? Well, they want to lure people to their fledgling music service.
We puzzled over Microsoft's cryptic statements at CeBIT that the Eee's "other requirements" would lead to an adjustment of the Windows 7 timeline, and it looks like our first guess was spot-on: Microsoft will be making Windows XP available for Eee-class ultraportables until 2010, and possibly later. Demand for XP on devices like the Eee and Intel's Classmate machines has prompted MS to reconsider axing XP entirely this June: the company will now sell XP Home through at least June 2010, and for one year after the release of Windows 7 -- which means sales of XP could stretch into 2012. There's no word on if the build of XP Home targeted at the ultraportable laptop set will be different from regular XP builds, but we doubt there'll be many changes -- it'll be awfully sad if people are still clamoring for XP more than a decade after its initial release, though.
Sunnyvale, Calif.—April 3, 2008—OCZ Technology Group, a worldwide leader in innovative, ultra-high performance memory and PC components, today announced the release of all-new additions to the Silencer line of power supplies from PC Power & Cooling including a 500W EPS12V and Dell™ compatible model. The efficient and economical 370W, 420W, and 500W Silencers offer mainstream system builders and professionals a robust power resource at an affordable price point.
"I am pleased that PC Power & Cooling is able to offer exceptional Silencer series performance and reliability at such an affordable price point, " stated Doug Dodson, founder of PC Power & Cooling and CTO of Power Management for the OCZ Technology Group. "The Silencer line now offers every type of computer user an option for the premium power management of their system."
The Silencer 370, 420, and 500 offer a range of power for mainstream gaming, home theatre, and work station PCs. The 500W series features a specialized Dell version that allows Dell owners to upgrade their systems with the latest components including any of the new power-hungry high-performance video cards. Ideal for PC users who prefer a straight-forward, value-minded PSU, the Silencer 370, 420, and 500 provide cool, quiet, and reliable power
Today Asetek announced the availability of its liquid cooling system for the new nVidia GeForce 9800GTX and GeForce 9800GX2 graphics cards. Asetek is the first liquid cooling solution developed to exceed the stringent thermal performance, low noise and daunting reliability requirements demanded by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs). The graphics GPU power budget is constantly increasing as enthusiasts and professional workstation end users exhibit an insatiable desire for higher frame rates and resolution. Thermal management of the graphics card is an ever increasing challenge with every new generation of Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), often at the sacrifice of acceptable fan noise.
Verizon's FiOS fiber broadband connection is currently the only option for United States Internet surfers to wander about the world wide web while downloading content at up to 50 Mbps and uploading data at up to 20 Mbps. However, Verizon's FiOS service is limited to a few areas at this time, even though roll-out is being performed slowly but surely.
Recently, Comcast also announced plans to increase the maximum bandwidth of its broadband service to 50 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload bandwidth to compete with Verizon.
Currently, Comcast is running its broadband service aalong the DOCSIS 2.0 protocol, or the second generation of the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specifications. This protocol tops out with a maximum downstream bandwidth of 42.88 Mbps while the maximum upstream bandwidth tops out at 30.72 Mbps.
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc said on Thursday its iTunes online music store has surpassed Wal-Mart Stores Inc to become the largest music retailer in the United States.
Apple's statement, citing industry data, came on the same day that iTunes faced a new challenge as News Corp's MySpace social networking site said it had formed an online music venture with three record labels.
Apple said its announcement was based on consumer data collected in January and February by market research firm NPD that counted 12 songs being equal to one CD.
Attention, lazy, lazy people! Say hello to Selfy the Easy Bed. Yes, that's the name of the product. It's a bed that makes itself in the morning, using a couple of rails that hold onto the sheets to lift and tuck everything in, giving you a neat bed to crawl into at the end of the day. Sure, it was invented for the sick and infirm, but I think your laziness could qualify as a sickness if you're really looking to justify this thing. Also, did I mention it's called Selfy the Easy Bed?
INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Shanghai, April 3, 2008 – Intel Corporation unveiled a new design of the Intel-powered classmate PC today at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. As announced in a keynote by Andrew Chien, Intel vice president, Corporate Technology Group and director of Intel Research, the second-generation Intel-powered classmate PC is an affordable, fully functional, rugged Internet-centric computer platform. These simple-to-use PCs have wireless capability, longer battery life, water resistant keyboards and are more shock resistant if dropped. Intel is calling this category of PCs "netbooks."
INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, Shanghai, April 2, 2008 – Intel Corporation today introduced five new Intel® Atom™ processors and Intel Centrino® Atom™ processor technology for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) and embedded computing solutions.
The technology package includes the Intel® Atom™ processor (formerly codenamed "Silverthorne") plus a single-chip with integrated graphics called the Intel® System Controller Hub that enables PC-like capabilities, an uncompromised Internet experience and long battery life in smaller devices that can fit in your pocket. Manufacturers around the world are planning to ship Intel-based MIDs beginning this summer.
MIDs are truly mobile devices that enable the best Internet experience in pocketable devices. MIDs will allow consumers to communicate, entertain, access information and be productive on-the-go, and are expected to represent a new class of next-generation, Internet-based portable video players, navigation devices, converged tablets and other consumer products.
SEATTLE - Amazon.com Inc.'s brick-and-mortar competitors have yet another reason to fear the Web: a new service that lets shoppers compare prices and buy things with a few quick taps on their cell phones.
Amazon TextBuyIt, which launched late Tuesday, lets people text the name of a product, its description or its UPC or ISBN to 262966 (that's "Amazon" on the keypad) from anywhere their cell phones work — including from inside physical stores.
If Amazon stocks matching items, the service returns two results at a time. Shoppers can immediately buy one of the first two the selections by texting back the number "1" or "2," or they can ask for more by texting the letter "M."
Global memory chip makers are hurrying DDR3 (double data rate, third generation) DRAM (dynamic RAM) into Intel validation labs in hopes the processor giant's Centrino 2 laptop chips will spur DRAM demand amid a market glut.
Samsung Electronics, Micron Technology and Nanya Technology have all sent out news releases in the past few days announcing Intel validation for DDR3 chips to be used with Intel's first mobile DDR3 platform, the upcoming Centrino 2 chip package, which is expected out in June.
Intel Centrino 2 processor technology combined with DDR3 will provide higher performance at lower power levels for notebooks "and will become a major driver for early volume production of DDR3 beginning in the second quarter of 2008," Samsung said in a statement Wednesday.
DigiTimes is feeling pretty confident about the rumors they started yesterday regarding the Xbox 360 with integrated Blu-ray. They are so confident that they're predicting a price war as Microsoft takes on Sony's PS3 at its own game. Their sources claim that the Blu-ray Disc drive will cost Microsoft between $95 and $100 -- much higher than the $18 to $20 DVD drives already found in the Xbox 360. Microsoft is of course, expected to sell its new Blu-ray rig at a loss as is customary in the console market. Sony may then be forced to lower the cost of the PS3 and/or retaliate by increasing Lite-On's cost for the Blu-ray components (like the BD-ROM pick-up heads) purchased from Sony. Whatever the result, the competition would be nothing but good news for consumers of HD media... you know, if the rumor is true.
LAS VEGAS — April 1, 2008 — AT&T (NYSE: T) and Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) today announced a collaborative alliance that will transform the way consumers shop for mobile devices. AT&T will become the first company in the world to bring Microsoft Surface to life in a retail environment, giving customers the ability to explore their mobile worlds using touch and device recognition technology. Microsoft Surface is the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft. Beginning April 17, customers can experience Microsoft Surface in select AT&T retail locations, including stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio and San Francisco. Based on the success and learning from these initial pilot deployments, plans for further expansion across AT&T’s 2,200 U.S. retail stores will be determined.
“Now, a little bit on the motherboards using the processors. The two latest motherboards to support Penryn are the Bone Trail and Skull Trail. The BT is a single socket platform, while the ST is a dual socket. The motherboards get powerful chipset upgrades including DDR3 and XMP BIOS support. So, the boards now fully support DDR3 and 1600MHz Front Side Bus XMP profiles for some crazy overclocking. This is good news for users with 1333 and 1600MHz DDR3 memory since a simple, quick BIOS setting instantly brings your system's extra power online.”
Rest assured, we've witnessed quite a few astounding scientific displays set deep within university research labs, but it'd be mighty hard to cover up the $350,000 monolith residing at the Tufts University School of Engineering. The VisWall, unsurprisingly a product of Visbox, combines twin backscreen projectors and sophisticated software in order to display 3D imagery for DNA junkies and budding surgeons to swoon over. Aside from giving researchers and students alike the ability to investigate chemical structures and cellular makeups more closely, the 8- x 14-foot screen also dabbles in haptics, giving remote holders the ability to "guide the manipulation of virtual scalpels or surgical tweezers onscreen." Sheesh, it's like giving kids a reason to attend class -- imagine that.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - If you rushed to the Internet to book one of airline Virgin Blue's "no chair fares" for half price as advertised in Australian newspapers on Tuesday there was one message on their Web site -- April Fools!
Various companies and media organizations got into the swing of April 1 when pranks are allowed until noon with a range of hoaxes designed more to amuse than trick people.
Britain's Independent newspaper reported that foul-mouthed TV chef Gordon Ramsay was banning swearing in all his restaurants after Sydney authorities refused an application for him to set up an eatery on the grounds of "decency."
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp sees no reason to increase its bid for Yahoo Inc, two months after it made a $44.6 billion offer to buy the Internet company, people familiar with Microsoft's plans said on Monday.
"Why would Microsoft bid against themselves? The company sees no reason to bid against itself," one of the people said.
San Francisco - Somewhere between 1 percent and 3 percent of all traffic on the Internet is meaningless packets of information, used in distributed denial of service attacks (DDOS ) to knock Web sites offline.
Those are the findings of Arbor Networks, a network traffic analysis company that recently looked at traffic flowing between more than 68 Internet service providers to see how much of it was malicious.
"The thing that's surprising is it's consistently 1 to 3 percent," said Danny McPherson, Arbor's chief research officer. "It's pretty significant."
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The evolutionary beginnings of institutionalized foolishness are lost in the mists of time, but some historians set the origin of April Fools' Day back in the 1500s. According to this version of the tale, medieval New Year's celebrations in France were traditionally held in late March, climaxing with a final round of parties on April 1. Around the time of the Gregorian calendar switch, King Charles moved the timing for the big New Year's bash to January. Some people, however, continued to celebrate in April (or were fooled into doing so) - thus leaving themselves open to ridicule as silly old fogies.
There are lots of holes in this story, as The Straight Dope points out. In fact, the more you think about it, the more the story sounds like a centuries-old April Fools' hoax itself. A more sensible explanation would be that April Fools' Day was a carryover from the Romans' Hilaria Matris Deum festival, which was held on March 25, the time fixed in the ancient calendar as the spring equinox.
Windows XP has quite a few fans left despite the fact that the operating system was first launched in late 2001 and has since been replaced by the newer, more feature-packed Windows Vista operating system. Despite XP's age, many users stick to the operating system for its robustness, rock-solid driver support, and relatively bloat-free user interface (in comparison to Vista at least) which leads to better overall performance.
Microsoft, however, isn't exactly singing XP's praises anymore. While the Redmond-based company is putting the finishing touches on Service Pack 3 (SP3) for the nearly seven-year-old OS, the company announced last year that it would cease the sale of new XP licenses on June 30, 2008 -- this date itself was extended from January 31, 2008 due to incessant pressure from its customers.
Dell is continuing its efforts to cut costs and an Austin, TX desktop manufacturing plant looks to be the latest victim. As is the case with many U.S.-based companies these days, Dell will cut jobs and rely even more on overseas manufacturing "to restore the competitive advantage of the company’s operating model."
The Austin plant closure is a part of a five-point Dell growth plan which will focus on global consumer, enterprise, notebooks, small and medium enterprise and emerging countries. By removing the Austin plant from its portfolio, Dell hopes to make a sizeable dent in the $3B in savings that it hopes to realize over the next three years.
