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Apple's iPad Outsells HP's PCs in Q1 2012

2012-01-25T18:26:00.006-05:00

It's no surprise that Apple is one of the top PC and technology makers in the world. What may be surprising is the fact that Apple has surpassed HP in computer unit sales and revenues for the first time ever, making the Cupertino giant the number one company. Apple can attribute a lot of this success to record sales of iPads and, instead of losing sales to low priced tablets, Apple said that it would continue to "innovate like crazy" in the tablet market.

The company reported quarterly sales of 15.4 million iPads and 5.2 million Macs, which gave Apple more than 20 million sales of dedicated computing devices. It was reported that HP's sales for the fourth quarter of 2011 were close to 14.7 million, with Lenovo and Dell selling 12.9 million and 11.6 million units, respectively. In addition to that, Apple's figures were twice that of those reported by Microsoft for the same quarter.

Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple, was asked about the impact of lower-priced tablets in the market, like Amazon's Kindle Fire. Cook replied that he was happy with the iPad's sales and pointed out that sell-through had exceeded sell-in, which left the company with strained inventory levels around the world, contradicting the rumors that the Kindle Fire had dampened potential iPad sales. Cook also stated that Apple sees the iPad as a "huge opportunity for Apple over time" and that "there will come a day when the tablet market in units is larger than the PC market."

Tablets are indeed doing very well with almost every name in the tech world offering their own version of the iPad which pioneered the market. However, I don't think that tablets will ever fully replace computers or laptops. Physical keyboards and mouse controls are too ingrained in people and are also extremely necessary for a lot of computing tasks. Sure you can make keyboard docks and mouse attachments, but what's the point?

Cook also pointed out that the rapid growth of iPad sales was eating up the growth of generic PC sales but not hurting the Apple's own Mac sales. It seems that all of Apple's mobile tech gadgets draw in customers for the company's netbooks and desktop computers. Sales of both have been up, and over 1/5 of all Apple Mac sales were through the company's own retail stores.

Source: Apple Insider - Apple now largest computer maker, sold more iPads alone than HP sold PCs
Slash Gear - Apple sold more iPads than HP sold PCs in Q1 2012

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Amazon's Cloud Allowing Windows Server to Run Free

2012-01-16T14:40:00.006-05:00

If you are wanting to run Windows Server via Amazon's Cloud Service for free, the time has come for your wish to be granted. That's right, enterprise companies now have the ability to run Microsoft's Windows Server for as many as 750 hours in Amazon's cloud completely free using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Free Usage Tier according to a statement released by the website on Saturday.

This announcement will allow enterprise companies that already run applications on Windows Server to give Amazon's cloud service a test drive completely free of charge. Enterprise users will be able to select from a wide array of pre-configured Amazon Machine Images without Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. The Windows Server images run on a Micro instance (virtual sever) that includes 613 MB of memory as well as 32-bit or 64-bit support.

The Free Usage Tier was launched back in 2010 but has only recently become available with Linux. Enterprise companies now have the opportunity to run both operating systems simultaneously for as long as 750 hours per month for one year. After that, these companies will have to pay regular fees that start as low as $0.02 per hour for Linux and $0.03 per hour for Windows.

If a company exceeds its usage limits, additional fees will be incurred. For instance, if you have two different server instances active for 400 hours a piece for the entire month, you have gone over your monthly usage by 50 hours. The first 750 hours will still be free, but you will have to pay the standard price for the 50 hours extra you used. In addition to that, the tier also includes limited use of Amazon's load balancer, storage services and the SimpleDB database.

Source: Computer World - Windows Server now runs for free in Amazon's cloud

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Upgraded Samsung Series 7 Gamer Laptop Set to Hit U.S. in April

2012-01-13T14:09:00.007-05:00

Us laptop gamers here in the states have been pretty envious of our European brothers as they have had the privilege of buying the Samsung Series 7 Gamer notebook since last spring. Well, this spring (April, to be specific) that envy dies and becomes reborn as jubilation as Samsung will be shipping the Series 7 Gamer to us Yanks while giving it a nice increase in specs at the same time.

The 17" gaming laptop will still have the same aesthetics, as well as the same external features, as its European counterpart, including the 2.1 speaker setup with down-firing Subwoofer, super-bright screen and that big knob thingy that switches the device between power modes, like the Gaming Mode, which clocks up the CPU turbo mode, changes the keyboard backlighting, disables the Windows key and a few other things. The only real external difference is the lack of a 3D display option and the addition of a DisplayPort output.

Crack this bad boy open and you will be able to find the differences. On the inside the Series 7 Gamer gets a nice new set of parts. The second generation Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7 processor is gone, replaced by a quad-core third-generation Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 processor instead. In addition to that, the graphics have received an increase from the Radeon HD 6970M to the upcoming GeForce GTX 670M. You will still have a Blu-ray drive as well as the 2TB hard drive so nothing's new there.

You will be able to grab this mobile gaming giant when it is released in April for a reasonable $1,799, or whenever Intel's high-end Ivy Bridge chips and Nvidia's next-generation GPUs are ready to go, which we hope is by April because, honestly, we can't hold out on this laptop forever.

Source: PC World - Samsung to Bring Series 7 Gamer to the U.S., With Upgrades

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Quanta Sues AMD Over "Faulty" Chips

2012-01-04T12:48:00.008-05:00

The world's largest contract maker of notebook computers, Quanta Computer Incorporated, has filed a lawsuit against Advanced Micro Devices Incorporated (AMD) for what Quanta is calling a breach of contract. Quanta is accusing AMD of selling the company defective products and thus seeks compensation.

AMD and its ATI Technologies Incorporated unit sold chips to Quanta that did not meet the company's tolerances and were unfit for particular purposes, the company noted in a federal court filing in San Jose, California. The chips Quanta purchased were used in notebooks Quanta manufactured for NEC which caused the computers to malfunction and crash according to the court filing.

In a statement from Quanta that is found in the court documents says, "Quanta has suffered significant injury to prospective revenue and profits." Quanta is seeking a trial by jury as well as damages for the faulty chips. AMD, which accumulates over $6 billion in annual revenue, is the second largest maker of computer processors, bested only by Intel, which has a staggering $50 billion annual revenue.

The lawsuit also claims breach of warranty, negligent misrepresentation, civil fraud and interference with a contract. "AMD disputes the allegations in Quanta's complaint and believes they are without merit," AMD spokesman Michael Silverman said in a statement. "AMD is aware of no other customer reports of the alleged issues with the AMD chip that Quanta used, which AMD no longer sells. In fact, Quanta has itself acknowledged to AMD that it used the identical chip in large volumes in a different computer platform that it manufactured for NEC without such issues."

In addition to NEC, Quanta makes computers on contract for HP, Dell and Acer. The company's shares increased 1.9% in Taipei today before news of this lawsuit went public, and the case has been filed as Quanta v. Advanced Micro Devices, 12-cv-12, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

Source: Bloomberg - Quanta Sues AMD Over Allegedly Unsuitable Chips for NEC Notebook Computers

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Italian Government Slaps Apple with $1.2 Million Fine

2011-12-27T14:07:00.007-05:00

Apple has been hit with quite a hefty fine from a somewhat surprising place today, Italy. That's right, on December 27, 2011 the country of Italy fined the tech giant 900,000 euros, or roughly $1.2 million, for allegedly encouraging its customers to sign up for AppleCare, the official tech support of the company, without informing them that they would receive two years of free support after purchasing the service.

Reuters reported that Italy requires every company that does business in the country to offer two full years of absolutely free technical support to any and all Italian customers. AppleCare is an important after-purchase revenue generator for the company. Apple offers this protection service on every single one of its products, from iPads and iPhones to MacBooks and Apple All-in-Ones, though prices vary depending on which device you get the service for. Naturally getting tech support on your iPhone should cost a little less than getting it on your MacBook Air.

Towards the beginning of this year, Apple updated its iPhone plan. The all new AppleCare+ gives customers extended warranties and technical support for as long as two years. In addition to this, the new AppleCare+ also includes repairs on two incidents of accidental damage as opposed to the previous single repair offered. The service itself will cost iPhone users $99.

In addition to AppleCare+ for the iPhone, another AppleCare package for the iMac will run customers $169 with the MacBook Pro option costing $349. The cheapest service is for the iPod Touch, costing only $59.

Apple has yet to release any official statement on the fine by the Italian Government and there is no way of knowing if it will ask employees in Italian Apple stores to make it clear to customers that their products are covered for two years. However, this fine will barely scrape the top of Apple's revenue pile as the company has tens of billions of dollars just lining the walls of their headquarter's bathrooms for decoration.

Source: CNET - Italy fines Apple $1.2 million over AppleCare practices

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Mozilla Launches Firefox 9.0.1 Right After Firefox 9 Due to Bugs

2011-12-23T15:53:00.006-05:00

Just one day after it released Firefox 9, Mozilla quickly released an update after backing out of a bug fix that was causing users on Mac, Linux and Windows computers to experience browser crashes. Mozilla released Firefox 9.0.1 on Wednesday which made many people think that it was fake due to the fact that it released right behind version 9.

According to a post on the Mozilla support forum, "Seeing links for [Firefox 9.0.1], why is it being released? Or is it a hoax?" Other discussions on the support forum's threads included messages from users asking whether or not Mozilla actually updated the Firefox browser and if so, why?

Mozilla did not specify in the release notes of v9.0.1 why it needed to re-release the browser though developers did note that the update was prompted by crash reports, specifically for Mac users, though Windows and Linux users also experienced crashes. According to a statement from Alex Keybl, one of the engineering Project Managers on Mozilla's Release Team, "We built Firefox 9.0.1 with bug 708572 backed out. We've pushed Firefox 9.0.1 for all platforms. Although, we think Windows is mostly unaffected, we still decided to move forward with Windows-v9.0.1."

In order to rectify the problem, one that caused crashes whenever users ran certain add-on toolbars (like the one distributed by the Dallas Cowboys), the developers at Mozilla removed a patch that had been applied previously. The rush update that occurred on Wednesday was the second by Mozilla in the last 30 days. Mozilla shipped Firefox 8.0.1 back on November 21 to deal with a large number of crashes with Mac OS X. The crashes were eventually traced back to an Apple update of Java that occurred earlier in the month.

Anybody who upgraded to Firefox 9 in between the time of its release and the release of 9.0.1 can update to the new version by choosing "About Firefox" from the Firefox menu on the Mac or "About Firefox" from the Help menu under the Firefox button on Windows and then approving the new version's installation after it has completed downloading.

Source: Computer World - Mozilla re-releases Firefox 9, backs out fix causing crash

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New Features for Google Chrome v16

2011-12-15T15:43:00.009-05:00

Google Chrome was just updated and the newest version brings an option to print any webpage using Cloud Print and multiple profile support for users who are on one computer to maintain separate settings. These new additions will become available with version 16 for Windows, Mac and Linux users when it is released.

Launching back in January, Google Cloud Print allows you to print to your home or office printer from almost any web-enabled device, though it was restricted to webpages with special Cloud Print buttons and specific Google apps like Docs or desktop apps like Cloud Print for Mac. With the new update any user can use Google Chrome to print to a Cloud Print-ready printer or computer acting as a Cloud Print server.

Using Cloud Print is also very easy. All you have to do is select Print from Chrome's menu options under the wrench icon. This will take you to a print preview page where you can select "Print with Google Cloud Print" from the "Destination" dropdown menu on the left. Then select "Print" at the top of the print dialogue when you're good to go.

Another addition to the update is multiple profiles. Multiple profiles started appearing in Chrome's beta channel back in November as a way for multiple users to keep their bookmarks, Web apps and other settings separate. This can be particularly useful if you have more than one user trying to use the household computer but you can't be bothered to switch user profiles using the operating system of your computer.

In order to get started with Chrome's multiple profiles, click on Chrome's wrench icon and select "Preferences" to open the browser's settings page in a new tab. After that, click "Personal Stuff" on the left side of the screen. If that is too much work, you can always just type in "chrome://settings/personal" in an empty browser tab.

Once you do this, select "Users" and then "Add New User." A new browser tab will appear with a blank profile on it that has some generic name and one of Chrome's avatars. The active user's avatar will appear in the upper right corner of the Chrome browser for Mac users and the upper left corner for Windows users. In addition to that, you can edit each profile's username and avatar at "chrome://settings/personal".

Each user also has the ability to sign in separately to their Google account to sync Chrome settings stored online. This is useful if you want access to your Chrome settings on a PC that isn't yours. Just make sure you erase your profile on any computer that isn't yours because Chrome profiles are not secure and they don't have any password protection options so anyone using the same PC as you will have access to your browser settings.

Source: PC World - Google Chrome Adds Cloud Print Option, Multiple Profile Support

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Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Updated

2011-12-06T14:40:00.008-05:00

Microsoft has just updated its Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and posted a service pack with a plethora of new features and bug fixes according to a statement released by the company on Monday. The new features to Microsoft Exchange Service Pack 2 were designed based on feedback from customers, Microsoft said, and they reflect the expanding use of enterprise email, scheduling and associated functions across a wide range of devices and deployment scenarios.

One of the new features, known as Outlook Web Application (OWA) Mini, offers the user the ability to browse mailboxes and global address lists from low bandwidth and low resolution devices. This type of mini-internet browser can, in addition, be used as an alternative to synchronizing all Exchange data with the actual phone or mobile device, which can sometimes be prohibitive.

Another new feature allows administrators to segment enterprise global address lists (GAL) into smaller segments. By doing this, it allows administrators to create virtual groups. Previous versions of Microsoft Exchange also had this ability but this is the first time Exchange 2010 offers it in a way that doesn't require manual intervention from administrators.

In addition to these new features, the update includes the Hybrid Configuration Wizard designed for organizations wishing to deploy some mail accounts on Microsoft Office 365 and keep others on their internal systems. The wizard simplifies the process of archiving data and sharing things like calendar entries and secure mail across both the hosted and internal mail accounts.

The update also permits cross-site silent redirection for OWA, which could provide the basis for single sign-on across the entire enterprise platform. With a feature like this, an Outlook Web Application client request could be automatically transferred from one Active Directory implementation to another. In addition to that, the service pack includes multiple bug fixes and collects other features introduced in Service Pack 1 which was released back in August 2010.

Source: Computer World - Microsoft updates Exchange 2010

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Computer History Museum Opens New Online Exhibit Dedicated to Steve Jobs

2011-12-05T22:05:00.006-05:00

In what is perhaps the biggest show of remembrance for him since his death, the Computer History Museum has just launched an online exhibit completely dedicated to former Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. Jobs, as many of you know, passed away back in October, a great loss for Apple and the world.

The exhibit, known as "Steve Jobs: From Garage to World's Most Valuable Company", features a plethora of photos and descriptions of objects from the museum's permanent collection. In addition to that, visitors will find vintage footage of Jobs from his younger years and Apple's humble beginnings.

One thing of particular interest in the exhibit is a 22 minute video of Jobs from 1980. In the video Jobs talks about the early days of Apple and, at one point, after citing some examples of how Apple computers were being used in agriculture and schools, Jobs confesses that he and co-founder Steve Wozniak "had absolutely no idea what people were going to do with these things when we started out. As a matter of fact, the two people it was designed for was Woz and myself because we couldn't afford to buy a computer kit on the market."

In a statement from the Computer History Museum's Senior Curator Dag Spicer, "In Jobs' own words, we hear how luck as well as skill played big roles in Apple's founding. We also see how focused, articulate and convincing Jobs could be, even at this early stage."

The story also runs through Jobs' entire life via pictures and allows visitors to see historic documents like one of the newsletters of Jobs and Wozniak's famed Homebrew Computer Club. Visitors are also able to look through confidential memorandum outlining Apple's public offering plans, as well as its original business plan for the Macintosh.

There are quite of few gems in this little collection for you to look around at, especially if reading Steve Jobs' biography didn't fully satisfy you. I highly recommend checking it out if you are a fan of Apple, Jobs himself or simply the story of what two ambitious minds can accomplish.

Source: PC World - Computer History Museum Launches Online Steve Jobs Exhibit

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The Inevitable Sadness of AMD

2011-11-30T11:54:00.004-05:00

It would seem that the arms race between AMD and Intel has ended, and the victor is Intel. The most recent news to come out of AMD’s headquarters is that they are going to stop researching and producing high-end CPU’s. AMD will instead change the focus of their company.

The first rumors out were speculating that AMD was out of the desktop processor game completely and moving towards mobile devices, but the day after these rumors appeared AMD made a statement saying that they will not be stopping their entire line of processors, but not moving forward with new high-end equipment. These statements are coming off the fresh “failure” of the bulldozer chipsets which had so much potential. AMD has also announced that they laid off nearly twelve percent of their workforce. In AMD’s statement they stated that they will be focusing on their x86 processor models and mobile technology moving forward.

Consumers are now left with major questions: Who will step in the ring and try to contend with Intel? How long until the first anti-trust lawsuit against Intel appears? Who will drive Intel to continue on its track record of excellence and force them to be competitive in their pricing? It does not seem like a feasible option for any processor company at this time to do so.

Sources:Softpedia.com - AMD Not Competing with Intel Anymore, Goes Mobile Softpedia.com - AMD Still Committed to x86, Whatever That Means Mercurynews.com - AMD struggling to reinvent itself

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Western Digital's Deal to Acquire Hitachi's HDD Business Approved

2011-11-23T13:39:00.005-05:00

Western Digital has just secured conditional approval from the European Union's competition regulator to purchase Hitachi's hard disk drive business for a grand total of $4.3 billion. This was only made possible, however, after Western Digital agreed to sell several of its production operations.

Western Digital, which just so happens to be the world's second largest competitor in the hard disk drive (HDD) sector, and Hitachi, which just so happens to be the third largest, unveiled the deal back in March. The deal itself is aimed at giving the United States company a competitive edge in developing next-generation information storage technology.

This decision by the European Commission confirmed a story published last week by Reuters. According to European Union Commissioner Joaquin Almunia in a recent statement, "The proposed divestiture will ensure that competition in the industry is fully restored before the merger is implemented."

Western Digital did promise to sell essential production assets for the manufacturer of 3.5" disc drives, including a production plant, according to the Commission, which cited reduced competition in the sector after Seagate Technology bought Samsung Electronics' hard disk drive business recently. In addition to that the company agreed to transfer or license intellectual property rights to the business to be sold off. What's more is that Western Digital will also transfer staff and the supply of HDD components to the unit.

Western Digital is unable to complete the deal until it finds an appropriate buyer for the unit, which will then need to be approved by the regulator, according to the commission. If Western Digital is unable to find a suitable buyer, it stands to reason that this deal, although approved, will never actually come to fruition, which could be disappointing for both companies.

Source: Reuters - Western Digital cleared to buy Hitachi disk drive business

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Microsoft Kinect for PC Coming Soon

2011-11-22T23:25:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday, November 22 Microsoft announced that it is working on getting its Kinect motion-sensing device ready to use on PCs that run Windows. The company currently sells Kinect for its Xbox 360 gaming console; however, it is hard at work and says that it will have the PC version ready by early 2012.

"Coupled with the numerous upgrades and improvements our team is making to the Software Development Kit (SDK) and runtime, the new hardware delivers features and functionality that Windows developers and Microsoft customers have been asking for," wrote Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows, in a blog post.

"Simple changes include shortening the USB cable to ensure reliability across a broad range of computers and the inclusion of a small dongle to improve coexistence with other USB peripherals," Eisler continued. "Of particular interest to developers will be the new firmware which enables the depth camera to see objects as close as 50 centimeters in front of the device without losing accuracy or precision, with graceful degradation down to 40 centimeters. 'Near Mode' will enable a whole new class of 'close up' applications, beyond the living room scenarios for Kinect for Xbox 360. This is one of the most requested features from the many developers and companies participating in our Kinect for Windows pilot program and folks commenting on our forums, and we're pleased to deliver this, and more, at launch."

This announcement about the PC version of the Kinect comes on the exact same day that Microsoft officially acquired VideoSurf. Microsoft acquired the company, which was founded in 2006, for $70 million. It hopes to incorporate the California-based company’s online video search technology into the Xbox Live system.

According to a statement released by the companies on Tuesday, November 22, VideoSurf "offers a back-end computer vision technology that 'sees' frames inside videos to make discovering content fast, easy and accurate."

"VideoSurf's content analytics technology will enhance the search and discovery of entertainment content across our platform," said the director of Xbox Live for Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Business Alex Garden. "This holiday we will launch voice search across our entertainment partners on Xbox Live. Over time, as we integrate VideoSurf's technology into our system, we are excited about the potential to have content tagged in real time to increase the speed and relevance of the search results.”

According to Microsoft, the acquisition would "make it easier for world-class video partners to take full advantage of advanced features such as voice search enabled by Kinect for Xbox 360."

Microsoft also said that in the next few months it will bring "nearly 40 world-leading TV and entertainment providers to Xbox Live." These will include Bravo, Comcast, HBO GO, Verizon FiOS, and Syfy in the U.S.; BBC in the U.K.; Telefónica in Spain; Rogers On Demand in Canada; Televisa in Mexico; ZDF in Germany; and Mediaset in Italy.

"Microsoft's Interactive Entertainment Division is at the leading edge of connected entertainment," said Lior Delgo, the CEO and co-founder of VideoSurf, in the statement that they released with Microsoft. "We are incredibly excited to be working together on our mutual passion for creating amazing consumer experiences and reinventing how consumers search, discover and enjoy content on their televisions."

Source: PCMag - Microsoft Preps Kinect for PCs Hardware, Firmware

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Japan's K Computer Remains as the World's Most Powerful Supercomputer

2011-11-14T17:06:00.005-05:00

There is a recently released list of the Top 500 most powerful computers in the world, and once again Japan's K Computer takes the number one spot with an increase from 8.162 petaflops to 10.51 petaflops per second. This balances out to 10.51 quadrillion floating-point operations per second. The letter "K" is short for the Japanese word "kei", which symbolizes 10 quadrillion. Coincidence? I think not.

On the Top 500 list from June, the K Computer took the number one spot out of the hands of China's Tianhe-1A system. The Tianhe-1A remains in the number two spot at the moment at 2.57 petaflops. Following in the number three spot is the Oak Ridge National Lab's Jaguar supercomputer. After that, the rest of the list looks pretty much the same as the last, with many companies holding the same spots as they previously did. According to TOP500 editor Erich Strohmaier, "This is the first time since we began publishing the list back in 1993 that the top 10 systems showed no turnover."

The K Computer, which is installed at the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS) in Kobe, Japan in partnership with Fujitsu, uses 705,024 SPARC64 processing cores. If you want to know just how many that is, it is more than the rest of the top five on the list combined. In addition to that, the K Computer uses 12.66 megawatts of power, four times more than its nearest competitor. This is also more than the 9.89 megawatts of power the computer recorded in June. However, despite these high numbers, the K Computer is still one of the most efficient supercomputers on the list, delivering 830 Mflops per watt.

The K Computer was installed in 672 racks back in June. An expansion of 800 cabinets allowed the 10 petaflop achievement to be accomplished. Just a week ago, Fujitsu announced the expansion possibilities of the K Computer as it could possibly grow to a theoretical 23 petaflops.

Aside from the rankings remaining unchanged, other characteristics evolved with the November 2011 list. The entry point for being on the Top 500 list is now at 50.9 teraflops with the combined performance across all 500 supercomputers being 74.2 petaflops, an increase from the 58.7 petaflops recorded in June. Gigabit Ethernet is still the most popular internal system interconnect, being used in 223 systems. However, InfinfBand use increased to 213 systems.

Average power consumption continued to rise with 29 systems on the list confirmed at using more than one megawatt of power. The most energy efficient supercomputers are BlueGene/Q with 2,029 Mflops per watt. IBM just filed a patent for a massive supercomputer that could potentially reach 107 petaflops. In total all of the systems that reported in on power consumption combined for more than 159 megawatts.

Source: Data Center Knowledge - K Computer Still the Most Powerful Supercomputer

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HDD Shortages to Spill Over into Q1 2012

2011-11-11T18:39:00.004-05:00

Considering operations are disrupted at over a dozen hard disk drive (HDD) factories thanks to flooding in Thailand, PC manufacturers should begin preparing for significant supply shortages according to market research firm IDC. Worldwide HDD shipments could suffer almost a 20% decline starting in the middle of this month that could extend far into the first quarter of 2012 according to the firm.

Thailand accounts for somewhere between 40% and 45% of HDD production in the entire world. As of early November, almost half of Thailand's production was directly affected by flooding. Even though production at some factories was halted as a result of flooding, the industry also faces work stoppages due to poor access and power outages. The full extent of the damage to the industry will not be known until all the floodwaters recede, even though it is already clear that there will be supply shortages into the first quarter of 2012 according to IDC.

Research Vice President at IDC John Rydning stated earlier in the month that hard drive manufacturers will favor their high-margin products used in enterprise servers and storage systems. "But the HDD vendors can't neglect their smaller customers, whose business will continue to be important once capacity is fully restored." Prices for HDDs have already started to increase rapidly in some cases, some by more than 30%.

IDC noted that the industry should be able to restore drive production quickly once the waters recede, though today's shortages will continue to constrain supply for an extended period. Hard drive prices should stabilize by next June, according to IDC, and the industry should be back to normal by the second half of 2012. IDC also says that the decline in total shipments for the fourth quarter is expected to be "less than 10%" due to the fact that a large chunk of PC shipments have already taken place for this quarter.

Worst-case scenarios put the total loss for the first quarter of 2012 at around 20% though IDC said that there are opportunities for larger PC vendors to capture enterprise accounts from smaller competitors and accelerate industry consolidation, more specifically in faster growth markets.

According to Program Vice President for IDC's Worldwide Consumer Device Trackers Loren Loverade, "The HDD shortage will affect smaller PC vendors and lower-priced products most, including mini-notebooks, emerging markets and entry-level consumer PCs. However, even the largest vendors are expected to face HDD shortages, particularly for portable PCs where the market is more consolidated. Nevertheless, the shortage will relieve some pressure on pricing and margins and present some opportunities for strategic share gains among the larger players."

Source: Computer World - PC makers should 'brace' for drive shortages

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School Computers to Be Replaced by School iPads in 2016

2011-11-03T18:47:00.006-04:00

With the technological age in full force, computers have become a staple in schools. Every single grade it seems is using computers for learning and entertainment while teaching. But, could the age of classroom computers be over? Is there a new piece of technology that will undoubtedly dethrone the computer in the classroom? Maybe, as many think tablets will eventually replace desktop computers in classrooms.

A recent survey of district tech directors discovered that all of them were testing or deploying tablet devices. What's more is that the survey also discovered that these directors expect tablets to outnumber computers in the classroom by the year 2016.

Analyst for Piper Jaffray Gene Munster recently surveyed 25 educational IT directors at a conference about the integration of technology in classrooms. Munster's survey, which was titled "Tablets in the Classroom", revealed that all 25 directors were using Apple's iPad in their schools while none of the participants were testing or deploying Android-based tablets. Munster went on to explain that this trend in education may be due to a familiarity with Apple devices among students and school employees.

According to Munster, "Within the next five years, our respondents expect to have more tablets per student than they currently have computers." Considering iPads represent a majority of the tablets in schools, Munster believes that the word "tablet" is synonymous with "iPad". The school districts that were represented in the survey currently have about 10 students per every computer. However, in the next five years, IT directors expect that number to drop to about six students per iPad. Devices, like the iPad, are more desirable over computers in the classroom because they provide a more individualized learning experience than traditional computers.

Tim Cook, the new CEO of Apple, stated earlier this year that demand for the iPad is strong among education customers. Back in February Georgia Senate President pro tem Tommie Williams proposed a plan to replace conventional textbooks in middle schools with the iPad. Williams met with Apple to talk about a plan to make the iPad a central component in the state's education system.

The iPad is slowly creeping its way into schools. Many students can rent the devices from their campus library in college and some schools, like the ones surveyed by Munster, are actually using them in the classroom. If expectations are correct, students in 2016 are going to have some fun times in the classroom.

Source: School Library Journal - IPads to Outpace Computers in Schools by 2016, Poll Says

Will March 2012 Give Us the iPad 3?

2011-10-24T18:30:00.009-04:00

I wrote recently abut the iPad getting a possible discounted release and a new name (iPad Mini?) in the early part of 2012. While that was sure to spark the interests of iPad and tablet users a little bit, a new report should make that excitement grow exponentially.

According to a report from Macotakara, which cited "a reliable Asian source", the next generation iPad is being rushed into production thanks to Chinese New Year celebrations lasting from January 22nd through the 28th. Factories in China are all gearing up to produce the iPad 3 by the end of January 2012.

Assuming that the source is reliable (An unreliable source on the internet? I don't believe it...), the new iPad is said to include a redesigned dock connector that features the same number of pins but in a smaller shape than the one the current iPad uses. If this is true, the new connector could pose a serious problem with existing products that plug into the dock.

In addition to the new connector, the tablet's screen will also remain the same size, even though the source didn't mention if Apple would increase it to Retina Display levels or continue on with the current resolution.

This report isn't the first, however, it joins a small number of previous iPad 3 rumors that have already surfaced. Different sites and sources have been in constant debate as to whether or not the new iPad would offer a 2,048 x 1,536 display. A move like that would give the tablet the same resolution as the current iPhone 4 and 4S as well as the iPod Touch 4G.

As far as a launch windows goes, you are probably looking at a March 2012 release date, especially considering the fact that Apple unveiled the original iPad in April of 2010 and the iPad 2 in March of 2011. Nevertheless, the Linley Group, a chip consulting firm, believes that Apple will outfit the iPad 3 with an A6 processor. This could also potentially push the launch back until June 2012 or later.

Source: CNET - iPad 3 could launch in March, with connector issues, report says

Samsung Introduces New Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus

2011-10-23T19:38:00.006-04:00

Samsung has just confirmed that another variation of its Samsung Galaxy Tab will be hitting stores soon. This new device, known as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus, will begin selling on November 13, 2011 at many U.S. retailers for a surprisingly reasonable $399.99 according to a statement released by Samsung.

The 16GB tablet, complete with 7" screen, is focused more on home entertainment than business usage, coming complete with a Peel Smart Remote TV app that allows you to tap on the screen in order to quickly find and watch television shows on any manufacturer's TV or home entertainment system.

In addition to that, built-in infrared in the tablet allows you to control a home theater or television setup. The best part is that you don't need any extra cables or hardware, just what you already have in your living room and the tablet, in order to control the TV functions. The Peel remote app allows you to have full control over your TV or entertainment system regardless if it is Samsung brand or not.

Aside from controlling your DVD player, Blu-Ray player, set-top box or TV, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will also connect to Facebook and Twitter allowing you to share information about what is being watched. According to Chief Experience Officer for Peel Greg Lindley, "Peel's vision is eliminating the barriers between you and your favorite shows."

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus runs on a 1.2GHz dual-core processor as well as Android 3.2 Honeycomb for an operating system. The device is also only .39" thick and only weighs 12.1 ounces.

Samsung has a plethora of tablets that come with either WiFi only or WiFi and 3G/4G connectivity. According to the website, the Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus features both cellular and WiFi capabilities though Samsung has yet to announce which U.S. wireless carriers will support the tablet.

The original Galaxy Tab ran on Android 2.2 and upgraded to 2.3 back in May. It too had a 7" touch screen but was slightly larger and heavier and only came with a 1GHz processor. Sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab Plus will begin on November 13 nationwide at Best Buy, Amazon, tiger Direct, Fry's and other outlets with pre-orders becoming available on October 23.

Source: Computer World - Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus to ship Nov. 13 for $400

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Toshiba Introduces Tiny Enterprise Hard Drives

2011-10-14T18:39:00.006-04:00

Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit has just announced a high-capacity 2.5" high-performance enterprise-class drive. Known as the Toshiba MK01GRRB/R series, this drive supports the exacting requirements for compute-intensive environments witha 15,000 RPM spin speed, a 6Gb/s SAS interface and a maximum capacity of 300GB1. In addition to that, this drive also offers drive-based encryption in order to help companies manage data security.

According to Vice President of Marketing at Toshiba's Storage Products Business Unit Joel Hagberg, "Enterprise customers are increasingly satisfying their performance and capacity needs with power efficient small form factor drives. Enterprise drives with the latest self-encryption features are helping data centers to more cost-effectively achieve compliance with information security mandates. Toshiba small form factor enterprise drives deliver the performance, capacity and security features IT administrators require for today's mission critical server storage and cloud appliance markets."

The third-generation 2.5-inch 15,000 RPM enterprise drives leverage an enhanced power condition state that reduces the spin of your hard drive in idle states. In addition to that, it also significantly lowers power consumption which also means lower heat dissipation, increasing system stability and less energy usage. As a part of Toshiba's commitment to improved security, this drive also features self-encryption technology that is designed for the Trusted Computing Group "Enterprise SSC" specification.

According to John Rydning, IDC's Research Vice President for Hard Disk Drives, "Increasing the capacity of the 2.5-inch enterprise class HDDs is expanding the market opportunity for this form factor given its inherent power and data density advantages as compared to 3.5-inch models. Toshiba's new MK01GRRB/R series drives give server and storage system customers the capacity they want with the performance they need, as well as the ability to secure data on the drive with Toshiba's SED technology option." Shipments of the Toshiba MK01GRRB/R Series are scheduled to begin in volume in Q1 2012.

Source: Engadget - Toshiba introduces tine enterprise hard drives with big speed and big storage

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London 2012: Powered By Acer

2011-10-10T12:05:00.005-04:00

We have known for some time that the London 2012 Olympics will be in part powered by Acer. What we are just now finding out is the details on how they are going to supply the athletes, in house functions and guard stations. It looks like Acer will be providing some 11,000 computers to be used next summer, as well as providing the scanners that the security gates are using. This should provide a big boost to the Acer name and the company as a whole.

A more recent report is showing that Acer will be providing around 10,000 desktop PC’s, another 1,000 laptops, and a little under a thousand servers. Acer will be sticking with their Veriton L670Gs, which is not exactly a powerhouse computer by any means. At the highest tier these PC’s only come with Windows Vista (which will be loaded for the games), Intel’s Core 2 Quad, 4 GB of DDR2, and a serial ATA. The laptops, on the other hand, are their TravelMate 6593Gs running Windows 7 but still stuck with the dual core chips. Sure Usain Bolt can run 100 meters in 9.58, but the technology he is using is from 2007.

It is also worth mentioning that Acer will be sporting anywhere from 300 to 400 employees on staff to help with all technical issues. Among those staff members only a small margin of them (3% or less) will be from outside of Britain, but most are extremely well trained, with a majority even working on the Vancouver 2010 games.

Good luck, fellow techies working the games, good luck.

Sources:

Itpro.co.uk - Going for Gold - IT at the London Olympics

Theregister.co.uk - London 2012 Olympics: 17000 athletes, 11000 computers

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Napster to be Acquired by Rhapsody

2011-10-03T18:30:00.005-04:00

One of the oldest internet subscription music services on the web, Rhapsody, has finally, and officially, acquired Napster subscribers as well as a host of other assets from Best Buy. However, Best Buy will retain a minority stake in Rhapsody according to a joint statement from both companies.

The acquisition is expected to close on November 30 according to the companies. Best Buy is unloading a music service that really struggled before being acquired by Rhapsody and seemingly disappeared afterwards. Financial terms of the deal have not officially been released though it does not appear that Best Buy's investment in Napster has paid off.

The electronics retailer acquired a revamped version of Napster back in 2008 which allowed the company to officially enter into the online music sector. Napster started off as the pioneer file-sharing service back in the day. The service allowed users to share songs with each other via the internet. However, lawsuits filed by multiple recording companies nearly destroyed the company, eventually leading to the selling of the trademark and brand.

Three years ago Best Buy launched an all-cash tender offer for outstanding Napster shares priced at $2.65 per share; the full acquisition was valued at $121 million. That number represented a $54 million net of approximately $67 million in cash and short-term investments. Napster recognized that it had 700,000 members when Best Buy acquired the service though it is unclear as to how many the company has now.

Despite Napster's failure, Rhapsody appears to be years ahead of its time. Over the past ten years Rhapsody worked on getting consumers interested in subscription music services. Now the entire music industry is attempting to make that business model work.

Rhapsody was owned, in part, by RealNetworks and Viacom, though those companies spun off the service back in April 2010. Since then, managers for Rhapsody have been trying to prevent upstart "all-you-can-eat" services from taking all the credit. Spotify, MOG and some other digital music services are just some of the many services that charge a monthly fee for premium services, just like Rhapsody.

Source: CNET - Rhapsody to acquire Napster (scoop)

Microsoft's IE9 Strategy Fails to Produce Results

2011-10-02T21:42:00.007-04:00

As the rise of other browsers, like Google Chrome, begin to show, so does the demise of others, namely Internet Explorer. The web browser, designed by Microsoft, continued to lose members last month, losing the largest number of users since December 2010.

During September, Internet Explorer lost nine-tenths of a percentage point of share, dropping to 54.4%, a new record low for the browser. The drop experienced last month was the seventh straight decline and the largest decline since December of last year where Internet Explorer fell by 1.1 points. Causing the decrease was, of course, Google Chrome, which saw shares increase by seven-tenths of a point. Adding to the decline was Apple's Safari browser, which saw an increase of four-tenths of a percentage point.

Chrome ended the month with a 16.2% share with Safari accounting for 5% of all browsers used worldwide. Microsoft, on the other hand, focused on looking at the brighter side by plugging the success of Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7. Head of Internet Explorer's Marketing Roger Capriotti used data from Net Applications to highlight the gains of IE9 by pointing out that the browser version owned 21% global share of browsers running on Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 9 is the second-most popular internet browser on Windows 7 with a 21% compared to Internet Explorer 8's leading 31.6%. Firefox 6 and Chrome 13 came in third and fourth place, respectively, with 13.9% and 13.1%. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't outlined an alternate strategy for stopping IE defections. While the focus on Internet Explorer 9 may pay off in the long run, it has failed to slow down the number of defectors heading to Safari, Chrome or Firefox. Since its debut, Microsoft has lost 4 percentage points of share with Internet Explorer 9.

Source: Computer World - Microsoft's IE9-first strategy fails to stem browser slide

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Popular Industries for Computer Rentals

2011-09-27T10:21:00.005-04:00

There are several industries that take advantage of technology rentals like computers, laptops, projectors, temporary office equipment and audio visual rentals. Many business industries can benefit from them in a wide variety of ways.

For instance, Small to Medium Business Industry Computer Rentals occur on a regular basis. They are perfect for when a computer or laptop malfunctions or breaks down. A small to medium business usually needs a replacement rental so that business continues smoothly, even while their own equipment is damaged. It can give a business time to repair their equipment or get new equipment.

Small and medium businesses are not the only type of industry to commonly rent computers or audio visual equipment. Fortune 500 Industry Computer Rentals are also popular when one of these businesses needs to accommodate a growing staff or is expanding. Technology rentals are also convenient when gearing up for presentations, conferences, trade shows or an event for product launching.

Computer rentals are becoming more of a trend as more companies and businesses are seeing the many benefits they can provide for their specific industry. Find out more Computer Rental Industries

Mozilla Debating a 5-Week Release Schedule for Firefox

2011-09-21T21:23:00.005-04:00

I think it is safe to say that the new six week rapid release cycle for Mozilla's Firefox internet browser has drawn a lot of controversy since it was announced and put into effect. However, it seems as if Mozilla likes the negative press because it seems as if there could be more to come from this rapid release cycle.

In a recent thread noticed on a developer mailing list, anybody and everybody involved in the effort has been debating the possibility of shortening the cycle even more. These developers are considering shortening the already short six week cycle to a five week cycle or even shorter than that.

According to Mozilla Software Engineer Josh Aas, "Our transition to releasing every six weeks went really well. We're getting fixes to users much more quickly than we used to, but can we get fixes to users even faster? Moving to a five week cycle would mean a fix going into mozilla-central would get to users three weeks faster."

So shortening the short cycle that people are already complaining about sounds like a good idea? To Aas it does. "That's a big deal," Aas added. "It's an upgrade in responsiveness that we can't afford not to pass on if we can pull it off. I suspect the only way to know if we can do it is to try - we can always back off if it doesn't work out."

However, not everybody is objecting to the idea of shortening the cycle. Firefox Release Manager Christian Legnitto stated, "Yes, I absolutely think in the future we will shorten the cycle--but it won't be soon. We have some work to do to make six weeks smooth from a process, tool and product side. When we get six weeks down to a science, we can shorten as needed."

Source: PC World - Mozilla Mulls a 5-Week Firefox Release Cycle

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A Walk in the Clouds to Unlimited Storage

2011-09-20T19:36:00.001-04:00

Do you get tired of constantly having to upgrade to a bigger hard drive? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could have unlimited disk space? What if you could access your files from anywhere and any device? As a photographer I can’t tell you how invaluable this would be! Photos take up lots and lots of space. To get a good quality print just one photo can take 5mb of space and when you are dumping 150 photos onto your hard drive after every shoot, it doesn’t take long to fill it up.
A new beta software just might be the solution. It’s from a startup called Bitcasa; when you install it, the capacity of your computer's hard drive becomes, essentially, infinite! It is currently only available for Apple computers but a Windows version is in development; and plans of apps for mobile devices are in the works as well.

Bitcasa creates the illusion of unlimited hard drive space but the files are kept on a cloud server. Your computer will respond to opening any file as if it is local and there would be no wait for downloads, even videos!

Using a storage service is not a new concept. Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Docs, Amazon and countless others have been offering online storage for some time. But Bitcasa is not like any of those services. It doesn’t move files around or sync. Bitcasa doesn’t know what the file is, what the name is, what the contents are or anything about the file itself. It only deals in bits and bytes, the 1′s and 0′s of digital data. Data is encrypted on the client side. This is kind of like contemplating the universe for me because I am amazed that my photos can go from a picture to zeros and ones and back again.

Bitcasa is only $10.00 a month! Ten dollars for unlimited space? How can that be? Bitcasa CEO Tony Gauda says $10/month still gives the company large margins. The fact is, 60% of data is duplicate. For example, if I have an MP3 of the Foo Fighters new single and someone else has it too, those would be made up of the same zeros and ones. I think that’s amazing! Also times are hard so if $10.00 a month is hard to squeeze from your budget, a less than unlimited free version is on its way. Bitcasa will be free while in limited beta trials. You can sign up for access here.

Windows 8 Developer Preview

2011-09-13T13:51:00.007-04:00

Windows 8, the highly anticipated followup to the hugely successful Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft, was displayed, albeit briefly, way back at D9. However, Anaheim is where the new OS is really going to kick off. Microsoft is starting its Build conference with a full-on developer preview of the new OS, code-named Windows 8 at the moment.

According to Microsoft's President of Windows and Windows Live Division Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft has been completely re-imagining the Windows operating system. In doing so the company has brought a lot of new capabilities that coders will be able to dive into sooner rather than later.

The new "Metro-styled" user interface is right up front and brings new graphical elements of the Windows Phone 7 to your desktop, laptop or tablet. In addition to that, Windows 8 will also come with Internet Explorer 10 pre-installed as well as a more intense focus on apps that have the ability to communicate with each other.

If you have been using Windows 7 for a while now and you are used to it, you should have no problem making the switch to Windows 8. Windows 8 is built primarily on the same foundation as Windows 7 though the retooled Task Manager and Windows Explorer should tease your interests a little more.

The new Windows Store will allow developers to present their apps to any country that has availability to Windows 8, and support for ARM-based chipsets is also proudly included along with x86 compatibility. What this basically means is that every device from a small tablet to a large custom PC will be able to easily handle everything Windows 8 has to offer.

Microsoft has also confirmed backwards compatibility with "devices and programs" that support Windows 7. In addition to that it has also been said that developers will be able to download the Windows Developer Preview from the new Windows Dev Center later on in this week, though no official date has been specified.

I don't know about you but I am thoroughly excited for Windows 8. I can't wait to get my hands on this new operating system and start exploring all the new features it has to offer!

Source: Engadget - Microsoft launches Windows 8 developer preview, downloads coming 'later this week'

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Microsoft Patch Tuesday Bringing 15 Patches

2011-09-09T14:42:00.006-04:00

According to a recent report from Microsoft, the company is planning on releasing a total of five security updates next week in order to fix 15 vulnerabilities located in Windows, Excel, SharePoint Server and Groove. All five of the updates will be rated as "important" which is the second highest ranking in the four-step security system set up by Microsoft.

Typically, Microsoft ships a smaller number of updates in months labeled as an "odd number month" and is keeping to that plan. The volume of September is down compared to August when Microsoft patched 22 problems with 13 bulletins or individual security updates. According to Director of Security Operations at nCircle Security Andrew Storms, "Not a lot there, but we didn't expect much. It is the light month, the down month."

Microsoft laid out all the details about the coming patches in an advanced notice of next week's patch day which is Tuesday. Two of the updates affect Windows with one of them only impacting Server 2003, 2008 and 2008 R2. The second patch fixes a few more bugs found in all supported versions of the operating system which include XP and Windows 7.

"There are a number of server-only components that have been present through the whole lifecycle of Windows Server," Storms added about the server-only update. "SMB is an example. And they patched SMB often in the last several months."

SMB, or server message block, is a network and file-sharing protocol designed by Microsoft that has already been patched multiple times this year including an update that took place in April that stopped up a critical hole that some analysts believe could be used by criminals to construct a dangerous worm.

An additional two updates also coming out next week will patch up problems located in Excel 2010 and Excel 2011 for the Mac and in the Office software altogether. The fifth patch will fix a plethora of server-side software including SharePoint, Groove and Office Web Apps, which is the cloud-based version of Microsoft's suite.

Source: Computer World - Microsoft plans 15 patches for Windows, Office next week

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HP Releases Seven All-in-One PCs

2011-09-07T16:51:00.007-04:00

Even though Hewlett-Packard might stop selling WebOS devices and move its PSG (Personal Systems Group) into a separate company, they haven't been stopped from unveiling seven new PC's today. They updated their Omni, TouchSmart and HP Pro lineups. These PC's all have starting prices ranging from $400 to $900. So even though they might not be keeping their PSG division around (which is responsible for desktops and laptop PCs), they are making it clear they still plan to be a leader in the PC market. HP plans on all-in-one PCs becoming a huge seller next year and even cited that they expect interest to grow from 9.9 percent to 15.7 percent in the next 12 months.

The first two PCs they are rolling out are the Omni 120 and the Omni 220. The Omni 120 has a 20-inch screen and will offer up to 750 GB of hard drive space and your choice of an AMD or Intel processor. The 21.5-inch Omni 220 will have a unique cantilever design and will have Intel's 'Sandy Bridge' core processors. The Omni 220 will be available September 11 starting at $800 dollars, followed by the Omni 120 becoming available September 21 with a starting price tag of $400.

HP also plans to release four new TouchSmart PCs around the same time. The TouchSmart 320 has a 20-inch screen and won't be in stores until October 2 with a starting price of $600. The 21.5-inch Touchsmart 420 and 23-inch Touchsmart 520 will be available September 11 with starting prices of $700 and $900. All of the PCs come with touchscreen displays and include Beats Audio technology.

The fourth TouchSmart being launched is the Touchsmart Elite 7320 Business PC. This all-in-one computer comes with a 21.5-inch HD LED back-lite display. You will be able to choose a Core i3, i5, or i7 processor and HP plans to launch this model September 21, starting at only $850.

The last all-in-one PC, which has no confirmed launch date but should hit stores sometime in October, is the HP Pro 3420. This computer features a 20-inch display, Core i3 processor, up to 8GB of RAM, and up to 2TB of hard drive space. The starting price of this PC is set to be $600.

Source: PC World - HP Announces Seven New All-in-One PCs

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Mozilla's Rapid Release Schedule for Firefox Comes Under Scrutiny

2011-08-31T17:06:00.006-04:00

Mozilla's new rapid release schedule for its Firefox internet browser, which was created as a positive thing for the company, has come under a lot of scrutiny in the past few weeks and even more fuel was added to the fire over the weekend to make things even worse.

The criticism this time came from a former volunteer for the project, Tyler Downer. Downer recently left the project after three years after becoming increasingly frustrated with what he describes as a "broken" triage process for finding and fixing bugs.

According to a blog post from Downer, "Triage as we know it today is NOT ready to handle the Rapid Release process." Under the old model, with which a new major version of the browser would be released once every year, "triage had a bit more time to go through a massive pile of bugs to find regressions and issues, and there was a pretty good chance that most bugs would get caught just because we had time on our side, and we could afford to miss a bug for six weeks, because we would most likely get around to it," Downer added.

However, Downer asserts that with the new, faster process, triage has been caught off guard. "We currently have 2,598 [unconfirmed] bugs in Firefox that haven't been touched in 150 days. That is almost 2,600 bugs that have not been touched since Firefox 4 was released. And how many more bugs have been touched but not really triaged or worked on? Every day this number grows."

Despite his comments, however, Downer did make a point to note that he wasn't criticizing the rapid release process itself. "I love the idea of rapid release. Rapid release is going to be awesome if done properly. I have always been so frustrated by the continual late releases that hold back awesome new features from the web."

In addition to that, Downer also added that he doesn't think the situation is hopeless. "I have been in talks over the past few days, and I see a good possibility that Mozilla means business in improving triage." However, when Downer decided to leave, it was due to a general lack of interest in doing anything substantial to improve the triage process.

Source: PC World - Firefox's Rapid Release Schedule Draws More Blame

HP Launches New Compaq 8200 Elite All-In-One PC

2011-08-22T17:08:00.006-04:00

Just a few days after announcing that it was planning to shut down its PC business, HP has launched an all new all-in-one desktop aimed specifically at business customers.

Branded the HP Compaq 8200 Elite, this computer comes with a 23-inch HD LED display as well as your choice of either Windows 7 Professional, Ultimate or Home Premium as your operating system.

While all-in-one computers like this aren't really breaking stories, this one is a bit of a surprise given HP's previously reported stance on computers. HP announced last week that it would discontinue its TouchPad tablet and basically shutter its WebOS operation.

In addition to that, HP also stated that it is looking to find a new direction for its PC business, the Personal Systems Group (PSG), as it refocuses the attention of its business around software solutions instead.

According to a statement that was recently released by HP, "HP will consider a broad range of options that may include, among others, a full or partial separation of PSG from HP through spin-off or other transactions."

The HP Compaq 8200 Elite is the first device from the company to use Intel's second generation Core vPro technology in order to boost performance and hard drive access. Moreover, the device comes with a one year license to HP Virtual Rooms which allows you to set up online conference centers for meetings or presentations.

The HP Compaq 8200 Elite will also come with up to 8GB of memory, the option of solid state drives and hardware-based encryption. Employees will also find an integrated webcam as well as integrated speakers with SRS premium sound.

The HP Compaq 8200 Elite all-in-one computer is available now for a starting price of $999. This price nets you an Intel Pentium dual-core G850 processor as well as all the other standard features.

Source: CNET - Sweeping changes don't halt HP all-in-one PC launch

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IBM Develops Computer Chip That Acts Like a Brain

2011-08-19T14:01:00.005-04:00

Artificial Intelligence is something that science fiction movie directors love to utilize. Many directors have envisioned a future with robots and things that can act and behave like humans. However, something like that has always been out of reach for us, until now.

IBM recently introduced a new experimental neurosynaptic computer chip that emulates brain function in areas like cognition, perception and action. According to statements from IBM, these new chips will use algorithms and silicon circuitry in order to recreate spiking neurons and synapses in the brain.

These new chips will be embedded into cognitive computers. These computers will not be programmed to do certain actions, like the computers you and I use everyday. Instead, these devices will learn through experiences., create hypotheses and remember outcomes.

According to Project Leader for IBM Research Dharmendra Modha, "These chips are another significant step in the evolution of computers from calculators to learning systems, signaling the beginning of a new generation of computers and their applications in business, science and government."

The chips are being designed and created by IBM, who is working alongside multiple university collaborators. DARPA, or the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has already awarded $21 million in funding to IBM for the research as part of Phase 2 of the Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics, or SyNAPSE (I hope they pay their anagram creators handsomely) project.

SyNAPSE is a project that was designed to create a computer system that will analyze complex information from multiple sensors and adapt itself automatically based on its interaction with the environment. Regardless, this technology is extremely impressive and, albeit, rather scary. If they are already making computer chips that can think, I wonder how long it will be before they make ones that will subsequently take over humanity? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Source: Government Technology - IBM Computer Chip Mimics Human Brain Function

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Firefox 6 Ready for August 16 Release

2011-08-11T22:08:00.005-04:00

Mozilla states that it is on track to release Firefox 6 next week according to notes posted on the company's website. Developers have signed off on Firefox 6 and also anticipate no problems that could delay the release date of August 16 for the most recent upgrade to Mozilla's web browser according to meeting notes.

According to the notes, "On track with a few bugs still remaining. No concerns for Tuesday." Mozilla has used a new rapid-release schedule ever since the spring of this year. This new schedule delivers a new version of Firefox every six weeks, a move that many analysts and critics are comparing to the same one Google uses to update its Chrome browser for the last year.

Firefox 5 was released back on June 21, six weeks ago next Tuesday. Mozilla is already working on Firefox 7 and plans on releasing it on September 27. In addition to that, if the rapid-release schedule works like it is supposed to, Firefox 8 will become available on November 8 with Firefox 9 becoming available on December 20.

Firefox 6 includes multiple, noticeable changes to the browser, including highlighting domain names in the address bar. Both Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 9 do a similar thing by making domain names boldfaced. In addition to that, Firefox 6 also reduces start-up time when users rely on Panorama, the multi-tab organizer for Firefox.

Some users, however, are upset by the change of pace for Mozilla and Firefox including corporations like IBM, which have installed the open-source browser on tens of thousands of Windows PCs. However, that has not frightened Mozilla, who has not backed off of the rapid-release schedule at all. Though, in response to enterprise complaints and concerns, Mozilla has established a committee in order to take feedback from users.

As well as releasing Firefox 6 next week, Mozilla also plans on releasing Firefox 3.6.20, an update that will include security patches and other fixes to the 2010 edition retained by nearly 1 in 3 users of Firefox. When Firefox 6 ships, users running Firefox 4 or Firefox 5 will be offered the newest edition via the browser's update mechanism that is triggered when the "About Firefox" dialog is opened.

As of the end of July, only 11% of Firefox users were still running Firefox 4 and 48% were running Firefox 5. What do you think? Are you excited about the release of Firefox 6? What are your thoughts on Mozilla's new rapid-release schedule? Let me know in the comments section below.

Source: Computer World - Mozilla on track to ship Firefox 6 next week

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Whether you need a short-term rental or a long-term lease, we have the right kind of server for your needs.

New Finger and Stylus Gestures Could Be Coming to Windows 8

2011-08-01T14:18:00.004-04:00

A lot of people are excited about the upcoming operating system from Microsoft known, as of right now, as Windows 8. Windows 8, or whatever it is named upon release, is the highly anticipated successor to the the immensely popular Windows 7 operating system currently out from Microsoft. However, some new developments are leaking their way onto the internet, including the fact that Microsoft has unveiled several patent filings that are pointing to new finger and stylus gestures that could be incorporated into Windows 8 tablets.

These patent filings were actually filed back in 2010 but Microsoft just published them last week. These new patents show that Microsoft believes finger and stylus gestures can work not only separately but together as well in order to offer a user-friendly means of input on new touch screen devices. This new method that would recognize both methods of input would recognize the first method as your finger and the second as your stylus. Using both your finger and your stylus could then create a variety of gestures, a lot of which seem to be geared more toward image editing though could be put to other uses as well.

For example, a copy gesture would allow you to tap on an object with your finger and then move it around with your stylus. A cut gesture would allow you to split an object in half using fingers, a stylus or both at the same time. A brush gesture would assist you in removing part of an image and then storing it somewhere else on the screen. A staple gesture may be used to stack multiple objects or images on top of each other and a stamp gesture would create duplicates of whatever you wanted.

The upcoming Windows 8 operating system for tablets was unveiled by Microsoft at the D9 Conference back in June. Microsoft is expected to release more information and details about the OS at the upcoming Build Conference in September, with a beta possibly ready for developers to test out at that time as well.

Source: CNET - Windows 8 could see new finger and stylus gestures

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Java Standard Edition 7 Finally Released by Oracle

2011-07-29T17:03:00.005-04:00

Oracle has finally shipped Java Platform Standard Edition 7, otherwise known as Java SE 7, in what is the first major update to the programming language in over five years. Oracle let news of this out in a company announcement yesterday. This is also the very first release of Java SE under the ownership of Oracle.

According to Oracle Chief Java Architect Mark Reinhold in a webcast earlier in the month, "We all know for various business and political reasons that this release has taken some time."

According to an estimate by Oracle, some 9 million developers from around the globe use Java. Tiobe Software also estimates that Java is the most widely used programming language in the world, bumping off C and obliterating C++ with twice as many users. Over 3 billion devices around the world run Java and it is deployed by 97% of enterprise desktops worldwide. In addition to that, the Java runtime is downloaded over a billion times each year.

Since Oracle acquired Java as part of its January 2010 acquisition of Sun Microsystems, the company has come under a lot of scrutiny from a plethora of different quarters for its management. Back in December, the Apache Software Foundation withdrew its participation from the Java Community Process, stating that Oracle did not govern Java as a truly open specification. Oracle has also sued Google for "inappropriate use of Java" in Google's Android mobile OS.

According to Senior Director of Engineering for Red Hat's Middleware Business and Red Hat's Primary Liaison for the JCP Mark Little, however, "The new release is solid, though it is more of an incremental release than anything else."

The new version of Java addresses many of the trends that have overtaken the field of computer programming over the past 10 years. It offers increasingly improved support for the growing number of non-Java dynamic languages that are designed to run on Java Virtual Machine. In addition to that, it also features an API for simplifying the task of running a program across multiple processor cores. Also, the range of actions that programs can take with file systems has been vastly improved as well.

Source: Computer World - Oracle releases Java SE 7

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Google Discontinuing Toolbar Support for Mozilla Firefox

2011-07-22T17:37:00.008-04:00

Things between Firefox and Google have taken a turn for the awkward. Since its inception, Mozilla has always received a lot of funding from the search giant. However, analysts have been expecting Google to drop out of that role ever since the company launched its very own web browser, Google Chrome. Ever since Chrome was released and those analysts made their predictions, they have all been sorely disappointed, until now.

Google has just announced that the company will no longer include support for new versions of Firefox with its Google Toolbar. Many analysts' predictions have finally come true though this may spark another prediction, one that announcse that a new browser war has just been started.

However, that seems highly unlikely. The main reason Google is dropping support is due to the fact that Firefox already offers a lot of the benefits that the Google Toolbar offers, whether it be natively or through the immense amount of add-ons that Firefox offers.

Google is being very courteous about the dropping of support. The company will continue to offer Google Toolbar for older versions of Firefox and even created a webpage that was designed to help former users of Google Toolbar find similar functions in Firefox 5 and later versions yet to come. The Google Toolbar Blog has the full announcement if you are interested.

What do you think? Are you upset about Google dropping Google Toolbar support on later versions of Firefox? Or does the browser have enough of its own features to fill the gap? If you really can't live without the Google Toolbar, you can always switch to Google Chrome. It works well enough for me to work on every day.

Source: MaximumPC - Google Dumps Toolbar Support For Firefox

Rent Computer Peripherals From Rentacomputer.com

2011-07-21T09:13:00.008-04:00

Sometimes you only need computer technology for a short time, perhaps to augment your business's computing capacity during peak business seasons. Purchasing technology to meet such a temporary need involves taking on unnecessary expenditures, and inevitably leaves you or your business with a lot of superfluous technology after the need is fulfilled. So renting computer technology makes perfect sense for such ephemeral needs.

Not only can Rentacomputer.com procure any computer rental you might need, but they can also configure temporary solutions and technology packages that include computer peripherals as well.

What are Computer Peripheral Rentals?

Computer peripherals are any accessory items that you might want or need with your computer rental, whether you are renting a laptop, desktop, or tablet computer. Having the right accessory items with your rental can be crucial, and it is often the case that renters do not already have many of the accessories they might need to make their rental function in the capacity that they need it to.

Gigabit Switches

If your you Computer Rental consists of several or more computers that will be operated simultaneously by various users, then you might very well need a gigabit switch. This will allow you to connect your laptop rentals to one LAN source, which is invaluable if you need to have multiple users simultaneously connecting to the web. Our Tech Travel Agents typically recommend either an 8 Port 100/1000 Gigabit Switch or a 24 Port 100/1000 Gigabit Switch, depending on how many computers you are renting.

Wireless Routers

Wireless Routers are also a very important peripheral if you need to wirelessly connect your Computer Rental. These especially become valuable when you are putting together interactive trade show booths, or require event planners and maintenance personnel to stay connected via laptops or tablet computers. Wireless routers are also invaluable if you are setting up a temporary office. Our agents usually recommend a Cisco/Linksys 4 Port Wireless Router.

Computer Cable Locks

Security can often be an issue, especially if you are setting up a booth or kiosk with your computer rentals, where a lot of traffic will be passing by. You can ease your worries about the security of your rentals by adding cable locks to your rental configuration, so that you can lock down each unit and protect against theft.

Conference Phones

A very handy accessory to have when you need to keep in touch with multiple collaborators is a conference phone, whereby you can speak with the people you need to speak with all at once and expedite project logistics. Our Tech Travel Agents recommend getting a Polycom Soundstation for your conference speakerphone rental.

Wireless Presentation Mouse & Remotes

If you are getting a Laptop Rental for presentation purposes, then you should also consider getting a wireless mouse or remote added to your rental configuration. With these accessories you can have a lot more freedom while giving your presentation, instead of being tied down to wherever your computer is stationed.

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Google+ Making Some Big Developments

2011-07-11T13:23:00.009-04:00

Just a few weeks out of the gate and Google+ is already becoming highly popular among its early adopters. It is estimated that as many as 5 million users are already a part of the service's user base with many websites opting to adopt the +1 button. However, despite all that, it is still unclear as to whether or not Google+ is here to stay or if it will fail just like Google's other attempts at social networking.

In the meantime, things are looking positive for Google+. If you have not signed up yet, or have been unable to, then you might want a little peek at what is going on inside the pages of the service. Here are five notable developments pertaining to Google+ since it launched.

Increase in Google+ Share Buttons
While Google+ may be nowhere near Facebook, it is giving Twitter a run for its money. According to different sources, there are already more Google+ Share buttons, or +1 buttons, on the internet than Twitter share plugins. In a search of the 10,000 most viewed websites, nearly 4.5% have +1 buttons while only 2.1% have Twitter buttons.

MySpace and Digg Heavy on Google+
Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, recently reported that he would be moving his domain, KevinRose.com, to his Google+ page, which will move his online activity to that network as well. In addition to Kevin Rose, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson also has an extensive Google+ presence. Anderson's presence is so prevalent that he even used the service to write a blog post praising Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg for the site's recent integration of Skype.

Invites Stabilizing
Google+ was being so inundated with invites and such that Google started a habit of randomly turning the invites feature on and off, and it was getting rather annoying. Users also griped about how they would invite friends and when those individuals finally got around to checking out the network, the invite feature would be turned off. However, all that seems to have stabilized, for now at least. The invite link has remained unchanged and working since Saturday.

Tips and Tricks from Users
Some of the more dedicated users of Google+ have already joined forces and created a tips and tricks guide for Google+ known as Google+: A Collaborative Document, which can be found on Google Docs. The document is over 40 pages long and covers everything like creative ways to use circles, tips on privacy, how to send private messages and an extensive guide for Chrome and Safari. In addition to that, the guide, which is in English, is being translated into Chinese, German and Russian.

Business Pages Coming Soon
A lot of enterprises are supposedly very anxious to get into Google+ and Google is planning on opening up its social experiment to business pages in the "near future". A lot of people are wondering if when Google+ offers business pages, if Google Offers, Google's form of Groupon and Facebook Deals, will expand into Google+ as well.

So there you have it, five of the top things that have been happening on Google+ since it launched. If you haven't gotten an invite yet, you might want to start making more friends or find some way to get on the network. Even though Google+ is in a somewhat of a trial stage, it is already gaining immense popularity.

Source: PC World - Google+: 5 Big Developments

Microsoft Increases Security of Outlook Hotmail Connector

2011-07-08T15:11:00.006-04:00

Microsoft has recently boosted the security of a certain tool that allows Outlook users to send and receive messages via Microsoft's web-based Hotmail service. The new Outlook Hotmail Connector now supports HTTPS, a protocol which encrypts all traffic between the email client and the Windows Live Hotmail service.

Back in November of 2010, Microsoft added an all-HTTPS option to Hotmail, due in part as a reaction to Firesheep, a Firefox add-on released the month before which allowed anybody to scan an unsecured WiFi network and hijack other people's access to Facebook, Twitter and a whole bunch of other websites.

The update to the Outlook Hotmail Connector that was released this week is simply a follow-up to Microsoft's move back in 2010. According to Microsoft's Outlook team, "Using a connection with HTTPS helps you be even more confident that your account is safer from hijackers, and that your private information remains private."

This new tool encrypts communication between Outlook and the Windows Live email, calendar and contact services. Google's Gmail beat out Hotmail to the HTTPS by more than a few years. Gmail users have had this option of encrypting all Gmail traffic since 2008. However, in mid-January of 2010 Google enabled HTTPS by default on the same day it accused hackers from China of breaking into its systems and trying to access the Gmail accounts of human rights activists who lived in the country at the time.

In addition to this, Microsoft has also updated the consumer-grade Windows Live Mail to support HTTPS as well. Unlike its Outlook Express predecessor, which just so happened to be bundled with Windows XP, Windows Live Mail is an optional download for Windows Vista and Windows 7. Outlook Hotmail Connector can be downloaded in 32-bit or 64-bit versions for Outlook 2003, 2007 and 2010 on Windows. There is no similar tool for outlook 2011, which was included with Office for Mac 2011.

The Windows Live Essentials update, which includes the HTTPS-enabled Windows Live Mail, is available here or on Microsoft's download website as well.

Source: Computer World - Microsoft beefs up Outlook-to-Hotmail security

Insane Demand Causes Google to Shut Down Invite Process for Google+

2011-06-30T16:35:00.005-04:00

Just a single day after Google unveiled Google+, the company's brand new social networking service, Google decided it would be a good idea to open up the invitation process late Wednesday afternoon to all those fortunate enough to have already been invited to participate in the service.

Before, the keys to Google+ were only given to those very select few who were fortunate enough to be allowed in at launch. So naturally an invite was a precious and prized commodity. Google has stressed that Google+ is in its very early stages though whatever it was that Google was aiming for with its field trial must have been pretty darn successful. The reason I say that is because every single person that was invited to the service is now able to invite other people in as well.

But that wasn't all, the people who were invited by the initial users were able to invite friends of their own too. Even better was the fact that people writing about the decision to open up the invitation process were suddenly struck with a lot of popularity amongst readers. MG Siegler from TechCrunch wrote on his Google+ page on his own story that, "I'm not sure any TechCrunch post has gotten comments at such a fast rate."

This amount of attention seems like it must have been a bit more than Google had asked for. After nearly six hours, Google shut the invitation process down over what Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google Vic Gundotra called "insane demand". Gundotra posted on his Google+ page late on Wednesday night, "We need to do this carefully and in a controlled way." Gundotra did not specify when the invite functionality would be back up and running.

Source: PC World - Google+ Invite Process Shut Down Amid 'Insane Demand'

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Japan Creates World's Fastest Supercomputer

2011-06-20T14:33:00.005-04:00

When it comes to the most powerful supercomputers in the world, I don't think it is to anybody's great surprise that the most powerful one is located in Japan. This new Japanese supercomputer has just recently earned the top spot among all the supercomputers in the world with a performance that makes other supercomputers look like a TI-82.

Known as the "K Computer", this device is three times faster than its closest rival from China, which previously held the number one spot, according to Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University Tennessee at Knoxville Jack Dongarra. Dongarra also keeps the official rankings of computer performance.

The K Computer, which was created by Fujitsu and is located at the Riken Advanced Institute for Computational Science in Kobe, Japan, represents an incredible step forward in the realm of speed. This computer will also, more than likely, become a great sense of national pride for Japan, especially for computer scientists, who take the race to have the fastest computer in the world very seriously.

According to Dongarra, "It's a very impressive machine. It's a lot more powerful than the other computers." The latest ranking of the top 500 computers is determined with a simple mathematical equation. The computer who gets to take the top spot is able to make 8.2 quadrillion calculations per second which also calculates to 8.2 petaflops per second. The performance of the K Computer is the same as linking around 1 million desktops.

Supercomputers have many uses including earthquake simulations, climate modeling, nuclear research and weapons development and testing. Businesses also use supercomputers for oil exploration as well as rapid stock trading. However, building a supercomputer isn't cheap and it usually involves connecting thousands of small computers in a data center.

The K Computer is made up of 672 cabinets filled with system boards. The K Computer is considered to be energy-efficient even though it uses enough electricity to power around 10,000 homes at an estimated cost of $10 million annually. I'd hate to see the statistics for the non-energy-efficient ones. The lab that the K Computer calls home is planning on increasing the size of the computer to 800 cabinets which is predicted to raise the speed of the supercomputer that is already faster then its five closest competitors.

The K Computer received its name from the Japanese word "Kei" which translates to 10 quadrillion, the overall goal for the number of calculations the supercomputer should be able to perform. The previously leading supercomputer was China's Tianhe-1A which was located at the National Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, China. The Tianhe-1A was the first Chinese supercomputer to hit the top spot which acted as a beacon of the country's growing technological prowess.

The fastest supercomputer in the United States is located at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. It placed third behind the K Computer and the Tianhe-1A. Countries in Asia have made sizable investments in supercomputing and currently dominate the upper echelon of the field. Japan and China alone hold four out of the top five spots.

However, when it comes to the top 10, the United States is still the leader, holding five of the top 10 spots. Japan's top supercomputer ranking marks the country's first since 2004. The United States and China were previously the only countries to hold that title. These rankings, issued every six months, are frequently changed and reflect just how fast computer power is advancing.

Source: The New York Times - Japanese 'K' Computer Is Ranked Most Powerful

Facebook Creating an App for the iPad

2011-06-17T10:41:00.005-04:00

Facebook is planning on releasing an app for the iPad in the next couple of weeks that is said to feature a "slick design" as well as new Facebook Chat and Groups functionality. In addition to that, the app is also said to feature an "amazing" photo and video experience.

This news comes right after another report that Facebook was preparing an HTML 5 web app for iOS devices. In addition to that, Facebook is supposedly working on a new website optimized for the iPad. However, Facebook's refreshed site is only meant to be a "supplement" to the iOS apps from Facebook, not a replacement.

With the high popularity of the iPhone's Facebook app, it is surprising that Facebook hasn't created one for the iPad. To make up for the lack of an app, iPad users have been forced to turn to third party apps like Friendly, MyPad and Facely HD or just go with Facebook's actual website.

However, that could all change if the latest round of rumors turns out to be true. It has been said that the proposed iPad app has been in development for over a year. It has been said that CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is heavily involved in the design of the app as well as its features. Photos and videos will be displayed full size at full resolution and the app is also expected to be free, just like all of Facebook's mobile apps.

Source: PC Mag - Facebook Crafts an iPad App

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Samsung's New 30nm DDR3 DRAM

2011-06-09T13:27:00.007-04:00

Samsung has just recently introduced 30-nanometer-class1 DDR3 synchronous dynamic random access memory (DRAM) modules designed for upgrading your PC. This new generation of faster, energy efficient DRAM modules is going to be available via consumer retail channels this summer.

According to Samsung Electronics America's Senior Vice President of Mobile Entertainment Marketing Reid Sullivan, "Replacing your DRAM can be one of the easiest, most cost-effective ways to upgrade your PC's performance, and these new products offer the most energy-efficient option currently available to consumers. Samsung is committed to bringing performance-enhanced computing to consumers, and our 30nm-class process technology offers an outstanding combination of advanced low-power DDR3 technology, with blazing speed up to 1,600 megabytes per second."

You can get this new DRAM from Samsung in either a 2GB or 4GB model and both are available in very low profile unbuffered dual in-line memory module configurations for desktop PCs and small outline DIMM configurations for notebook PCs. They are also backwards compatible with systems designed for previous DDR3 and DDR2 memory and can be purchased in single or dual pack quantities.

These memory sticks are also more energy efficient, using up to two-thirds less energy than those manufactured with industry standard 60nm class technology. What is great about that is that this boost in energy efficiency does not come at the cost of performance. The new modules transfer data at up to 1,600 Mbps which is 20% faster than the current 40nm-class generation of DDR3 DRAM from Samsung.

The new 30nm-class DDR3 DRAM modules will be available from Samsung this summer with single pack modules costing less than $30 to less than $55 and dual pack modules ranging from less than $55 to less than $110.

Source: Engadget - Samsung's 30nm DDR3 DRAM boosts speeds, cuts power consumption

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Internet Access Shut Down In Most of Syria

2011-06-04T12:00:00.005-04:00

According to Renesys, a service that focuses on monitoring Internet connectivity, due to the civil unrest that is going on in Syria, most of the country’s Internet services have been shut down.

According to a blog post that was posted by Renesys on Friday, June 3 at approximately 6:35 a.m. local time, close to two-thirds of the entire country’s networks were disabled. The company said that “over the course of roughly half an hour, the routes to 40 of 59 networks were withdrawn from the global routing table."

Unfortunately for Syrians, most of their Internet access is brought to them by a company called SyriaTel, which is state-owned. "They buy most of their Internet transit from Turk Telekom and Deutsche Telekom, with some contribution from PCCW, Tata, and Telecom Italia," Renesys said. "Connectivity has historically come in over submarine cable from Cyprus; activation of new terrestrial fiber connections to Turkey have been delayed by this year's political unrest."

Well, what about the other third of the networks, some might ask? Unfortunately, Renesys said that all of those connections belong to the Syrian government. Of course the country’s Oil Ministry Web site is still online, as is Syrian Telecom’s official page, but government sites like the Ministry of Education, the Damascus city government page and the Syrian Customs site are all down.

Although Renesys had lots of great information, they did not have any evidence of what specific regions or cities were affected by the outages or how the massive outage was coordinated; however, they did say that "if Egypt and Libya's Internet outages are any guide, one might conclude that events on the streets in Syria are reaching a tipping point."

Google confirmed the outages in Syria via its Twitter account, tweeting on Friday afternoon: "Google services currently blocked in Syria."

For months the citizens of Syria of have been protesting against the conditions of their country, but according the Washington Post, the real turning point for everything was this past Wednesday. The Post reports that more than 300 opponents of the current Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, held a meeting at a hotel in Turkey to discuss what their next move should be. According to the Post, "It was significant that the government's opponents were finally coming together to try to present a united front to a world that remains skeptical about the Syrian protest movement."

Just this past February, there were reports that the Syrian government was planning to lift the then current bans on YouTube and Facebook. These bans had been present for over four years and were supposed to be lifted due to the “popular upheaval” about the situation.

In the past year, there has been plenty of civil unrest around the globe. Protest and violence exploded in the Middle East in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. In January Internet services went down in Egypt for a couple days, due to the protests concerning the country’s governmental issues, including the nearly 30-year rule of its “President” Hosni Mubarak. In March Internet services were also disabled in Libya due to similar issues and protests.

The outages in Syria, however, ironically occurred on the same day that the United Nations released its Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression. Frank La Rue’s report discussed the recent increase of governmental restriction on the flow of online information. He noted that this was mostly due to the Internet’s ability to unite individuals together in protest of something; however, in his report he encouraged governments to not restrict their country’s citizens' Web usage. He instead asked them to work on developing a plan that would make the Internet widely available, accessible and affordable to all.

"There should be as little restriction as possible to the flow of information via the Internet, except in a few, very exceptional, and limited circumstances prescribed by international human rights law," La Rue said in a statement.

"The report by the Special Rapporteur raises concerns about justifying broad surveillance powers under the name of national security or counter-terrorism," said the U.S.-based Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement. "La Rue should be commended for questioning the ostensible motives for online surveillance."

"As Rapporteur La Rue affirms, the Internet's unique ability to provide ample space for individual free expression can lead to the strengthening of other human rights, including political, economic and social rights," said Cynthia Wong, the Director of the Center for Democracy and Technology’s Project on Global Internet Freedom. "In order for these rights to be realized, governments, civil society and industry must all continue to build on the work begun by the Special Rapporteur."

Malware on the Rise

2011-06-03T11:46:00.004-04:00

Malware is the thing to look out for these days. McAfee claims that they tracked more than six million different unique malware samples in the first quarter alone. Those numbers make the first quarter the most active quarter for malware issues ever.

In a statement, Vincent Weafer, the senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said, "It's been a busy start to 2011 for cybercriminals."

McAfee went on to say that February was the most active malware month. In February, 2011 there were 2.75 million samples alone. According to the company, in March, 2011 there were also more than 350,000 fake anti-virus software samples, which was the highest level in over a year; however, partially in part to the demise of the Rustock botnet, spam is at the lowest level since 2007.

"Even though this past quarter once again showed that spam has slowed, it doesn't mean that cybercriminals aren't actively pursuing alternate avenues," Weafer continued. "We're seeing a lot of emerging threats, such as Android malware and new botnets attempting to take over where Rustock left off, that will have a significant impact on the activity we see quarter after quarter."

The most popular OS for mobile malware is still Symbian, but McAfee reported that Android is gaining on Symbian and came in at number two. McAfee thinks that Android isn’t number one because Google allows for the side-loading of Android apps. This means that it does not have a main spot where it checks apps for any possible suspicious behavior.

Just this past week, Google had to remove more than two dozen apps from their Android Market due to malware issues. NetQuin, a mobile security firm, also identified more than 20 malware filled Android apps that went to the extent of auto-dialing phones to pile up high user fees.

When dealing with spam, McAfee tracked more than 1.5 trillion messages each and every day, but thankfully that number is less than half of what it was just a year ago.

Government agencies across the globe have been working hard to crack down on cybercrime. In September dozens of international cyber-gangsters who were responsible for the creation and spread of the Zeus botnet were arrested. Also, thanks to Microsoft, FireEye (an anti-malware company), the University of Washington and Pfizer (a pharmaceutical firm) Rustock was taken down in March.

In their statement McAfee warned that the creators of the Zeus bot are hard at work merging the Zeus code with the SpyEye botnet. This would affect banking and online transactions, so it could cause some major issues if it isn’t handled.

"There was a strong uptick in new botnet infections toward the end of Q1, most likely due to the reseeding process, where cybercriminals slow down activity in order to spend time rebuilding botnets," McAfee said. "The botnet takedowns have resulted in an increase in the price of sending spam on the underground marketplace, showing that the laws of supply and demand also apply to cybercrime."

So why are people even falling for these threats? Well, cyber-criminals are very sophisticated these days. They make their scams look legit, so it’s hard to tell that it’s a threat sometimes until it’s too late. It seems that the spam that is promoting an actual product seemed to lure in the most people. IGNORE the e-mails advertising iPads and HDTVs. McAfee also noted a rise in “banker” Trojans. They lure people in talking about things like UPS, FedEx, USPS and the IRS. Unfortunately, on top of that, scammers are also taking advantage of crisis events like the Japan earthquake and tsunamis.

It’s just important to pay attention to what you are opening up or downloading before you do it. If you’re careful and take the necessary precautions, you should most likely be able to avoid any issues.

Fake MacDefender Malware Originating from Russian Payment Processor

2011-06-02T21:51:00.004-04:00

For about a month there has been a fake MacDefender malware that has been circulating and plaguing Apple computer owners. No one seemed to know where it was coming from, but finally on Friday, May 27 a computer security researcher made the claim that the fake malware could be traced back to an online Russian payment processor called ChronoPay.

"Some of the recent scams that used bogus security alerts in a bid to frighten Mac users into purchasing worthless security software appear to have been the brainchild of ChronoPay, Russia's largest online payment processor and something of a pioneer in the rogue anti-virus business," wrote security researcher Brian Krebs on his KrebsonSecurity blog.

The fake MacDefender and the incredibly similar scareware called MacProtector and MacSecurity tended to attack from points like infected Google Image search results. Once your computer is infected, it is incredibly difficult for Mac users to remove the malware. The issue is that the malware doesn’t have a dock icon and it attaches itself to the launch menu of the computer.

Krebs was able to trace the newest strains of the scareware back to ChronoPay by simply examining the two different domains that the software directs all of its Mac users to go to for a paid software security solution. While investigating, he found out that both mac-defence.com and macbookprotection.com were associated with the e-mail address fc@mail-eye.com. According to leaked ChronoPay documents, this e-mail address is owned by Alexandra Volkova, the company’s financial controller.

According to Krebs, both of the Mac domains listed above have been suspended by Webpoint.com, which is a Czech registrar; however, Krebs said that the fc@mail-eye.com account was used recently to register appledefense.com and appleprodefense.com. Despite this, Mac users have not yet reported being directed to either of these sites via malware like MacDefender.

"ChronoPay has been an unabashed 'leader' in the scareware industry for quite some time," Krebs writes. Just in 2008, it was the core processor of a site called trafficconvertor.biz. This was an “anti-virus” program that was designed to release the first strain of the Conficker worm. It was an incredibly destructive virus that still works to infect millions of computers across the globe.

"In the coming days, Apple will deliver a Mac OS X software update that will automatically find and remove MacDefender malware and its known variants," Apple wrote. “The update will also help protect users by providing an explicit warning if they download this malware."

Apple also released a document with detailed instructions for Mac users on ways to eliminate MacDefender from their computers.

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Dell Computers Are a Green Choice

2011-06-01T09:04:00.005-04:00

In today’s society, many are encouraged to ‘go green’ and help save our planet’s resources. These days our society is focusing on reusing, reducing, and recycling materials. Dell computers are a great choice for those who want to become more eco-friendly. There are many different things about Dell computers that qualify them as ‘green’.

One thing that qualifies Dell computers is what they’re made of. The company consistently finds new ways to incorporate recycled materials into their products, as well as less harmful materials. Much of the plastic used to make Dell computers is recycled material, as well as the plastic used in their packaging. They have also replaced many of the harmful chemicals used to produce their computers with less harmful and/or harmless materials. One major step they took was introducing more computers with LCD screens which reduce the usage of mercury.

Another great thing about Dell computers is the packaging that they come in. Besides using recycled plastic, Dell also uses bamboo when packaging their computers. The bamboo is biodegradable and is a natural, renewable resource. Bamboo also has a lot of tensile strength, which makes it ideal for packaging and protecting the computers.

Not only are the products that Dell creates eco-friendly, but also the way in which their products are manufactured. The company is one of the top five purchasers of renewable energy in the U.S. and is number one when it comes to the computer industry. Dell also strives to reduce their water usage. Many Dell facilities have installed more efficient water fixtures, as well as re-using water for landscaping irrigation after it is treated by on-site sewage treatment facilities. Dell also does not create any industrial wastewater.

Outside of creating and shipping their products, Dell is also eco-friendly in the fact that they have set up a partnership with Goodwill which encourages people to donate their old computer equipment, no matter what brand, in order to help people in economic crises. To find a drop-off center near you, click here. Dell has also partnered with The Conservation Fund and Carbonfund.org to help the Plant a Tree Program. This program uses donations to plant trees in areas that have been deforested in order to offset greenhouse gas emissions. If you would like to make a donation, you can do so here.

It’s clear that when it comes to going green, Dell has a lot to offer. They strive to continue making their company more energy efficient and eco-friendly in every way possible. To learn more about how Dell is making a difference in the environment, visit http://content.dell.com/us/en/corp/dell-earth.aspx.

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Lockheed-Martin Purchases D-Wave's First Quantum Computer

2011-05-31T16:12:00.007-04:00

D-Wave out of Canada has just sold the first of its commercial quantum computers and they sold it to Lockheed-Martin. However, it wasn't as easy as your average sale. Despite the fact that D-Wave managed to make the sale, the company had to do it despite a debate over whether it truly was a quantum computer.

Back in February 2007 D-Wave demonstrated a machine that could solve problems regular computers are incapable of solving, in principle that is. The reason it is only in principle is because the tests run on the computer were not impossible on a regular computer. This created a fair bit of doubt among some that the chip was actually performing quantum-mechanical computations.

The computer works differently than the regular "gate model" of quantum computing where a series of quantum bits can be encoded as either 0, 1 or both simultaneously. D-Wave's machine uses something researchers are calling "adiabatic quantum computing" or "quantum annealing". However, some people disagree that this process is actually, truly quantum computing.

But despite all this, Lockheed-Martin wasn't turned away. The company just recently signed a deal with D-Wave to purchase a quantum computer for an estimated $10 million. This agreement will span multiple years and include system maintenance as well as various other professional services.

As of right now, it is unclear what Lockheed-Martin plans on doing with the computer. However, according to D-Wave's President and CEO Vern Brownell, "Our combined strength will provide capacity for innovation needed to tackle important unresolved computational problems of today and tomorrow. Our relationship will allow us to significantly advance the potential of quantum computing."

This is the second biggest deal the company has signed in the past couple of years with the biggest being a tie-up with Google in order to improve image search algorithms. Despite the fact that D-Wave's technology has not been 100% proven, Lockheed-Martin has still seen it as worthy of a $10 million investment. If anything, it gives them first access to this kind of technology.

Source: Wired - D-Wave sells its first 'quantum' computer

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PayPal's Peter Thiel Pays Students to Skip College

2011-05-30T13:34:00.005-04:00

Senior year is stressful for a lot of students. Most are concentrated on getting good grades and academic honors so they can get into a good college and have a better life some day. A lot of students do a lot of hard work in order to earn money to go to college. However, two dozen students from around the country will, instead of going to college, be paid to not go to school.

That's right, 24 gifted technical students from around the country will each be given a $100,000 scholarship by San Francisco tech tycoon Peter Thiel with a little catch, that they do not go to college this coming fall. Instead of going to school, these students are receiving the $100,000 so they can chase their dreams for the next two years.

"It seems like the perfect point in our lives to pursue this kind of project," stated Nick Cammarata, a gifted computer programmer who recently got accepted into the esteemed computer science program at Carnegie Mellon's University. He, along with 17-year-old David Merfield, will be working on software designed to upend the standard approach to high school teaching. Merfield is turning down an opportunity to attend Princeton University in order to participate in the scholarship.

Each applicant for the scholarship was asked to design a project to change the world. Thiel personally hand-picked the winners based on these projects. While all the ideas span different disciplines, they all have a high technology angle to them. According to Thiel, "One winner wants to create a mobile banking system for the developing world. Another is working to create cheaper biofuels. One wants to build robots that can help around the house."

This scholarship could not have come at a more interesting, and quite possibly crucial time as the debate over higher education's value is becoming quite heated. There are thousands of new graduates who are swimming in student loan debts and are encountering one of the hardest job markets in decades. Many people are pondering whether or not a college education is worth it given the rising tuitions and diminishing prospects.

"Turning people into debt slaves when they're in college students is really not how we end up building a better society," Thiel added. Thiel made his fortune as co-founder of PayPal shortly after graduating from Stanford Law School. After that he became the first major investor in Facebook. Thiel is adamant in his belief that innovation has become stagnant in the United States and that radical solutions are needed to push civilization forward.

One such effort is the "20 Under 20" fellowship. Thiel believes that the brightest young minds are able to contribute more to society by skipping college and bringing their ideas to the real world right away. However, not everyone can be as fortunate as Thiel and Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook.

Director of Research at Duke University's Center for Entrepreneurship Vivek Wadhwa doesn't agree with Thiel and sees his new program as sending a message that anybody can be Mark Zuckerberg. "Silicon Valley lives in its own bubble. It sees the world through its own prism. Its got a distorted view," Wadhwa stated.

Wadhwa also added, "All the people who are making a fuss are highly educated. They're rich themselves. They've achieved success because of their education. There's no way in hell we would have heard about Peter Thiel if he hadn't graduated from Stanford."

Thiel retorted that the "20 Under 20" should not be judged on the basis of his own education background or the merits of his critique on higher education. Thiel has urged critics to wait and see what these individuals achieve over the next two years.

Studies from the past few years have noted that individuals who received a college degree were laid off during the "Great Recession" at a much lower rate than individuals without college degrees. In addition to that, individuals with college degrees were also more likely to be rehired.

Could this be a new revolution in higher education? Or will the world push these students, as well as their ideas, away due to their lack of college education?

Source: Yahoo! News - Tech mogul pays bright minds not to go to college

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Cutting Costs Sees an Increase in Profits for Dell

2011-05-18T14:54:00.004-04:00

Good news recently came out of Dell as the computer company reported that its net income for the last quarter nearly tripled as Dell benefited from lower computer component costs and growth in certain areas of its more profitable product lines.

Dell's shares rose 5% in extended trading, beating analysts' adjusted net income estimates but coming a bit short of revenue estimates. For Dell's first three months, which ended on April 29th, Dell earned $945 million, which equals about $0.49 per share, which was higher than the $341 million, $0.17 per share of last year.

If you exclude one-time items, Dell earned $0.55 per share which easily beat the numbers expected by Wall Street. Analysts polled by FactSet estimated adjusted earnings of $0.43 per share. Revenue rose only 1% to $15.02 billion from $14.9 billion last year, which was short of the predicted $15.4 billion. Product revenue remained the same at $12.1 billion with services revenue rising 6% to $3.0 billion.

Dell's consumer section, which accounts for nearly 20% of the company's revenue, dropped 7% to $3.0 billion as well. Consumer demand also fell more than anticipated and in an interview, CFO Brian Gladden attributed some of the cause to "the market for consumer PCs being saturated in developed countries." He also added that "while tablet computers are still a small portion of the PC market, there's clearly an impact for them on consumer demand for traditional PCs."

Revenue from large enterprises increased by 5% to $4.5 billion with revenue from small and medium-sized businesses increasing 7% to $3.8 billion. Public sector revenue, on the other hand, saw a decline of 2% to $3.8 billion. Dell saw the biggest gain in servers and networking. In this category revenue rose 11% to $2.0 billion. Sales of desktop PCs fell 8% to $3.3 billion with mobile PCs rising 3% to $4.7 billion.

Dell has been working hard to increase their proportion of server computers, data storage devices and technology consulting services sold. According to Dell, these areas are more profitable than the company's base PC business. However, compared with one year ago, most of Dell's product categories accounted for nearly the same percentage of revenue and computers for consumers, and businesses continued to make up over half of Dell's revenue.

However, Dell's gross margin, which is still an indicator of the efficiency of Dell's business, came in at 22.9% which was higher than the 20.4% expected by analysts from Reuters. Dell's strategy of focusing on more profitable areas of business and cutting back on lower-margin offerings is working extremely well according to Gladden.

Andy Hargreaves, an analyst for Pacific Crest, thinks that Dell's gross margin is "impressive" and stated that "Dell should be able to keep it up for now." Hargreaves also stated, "They do have the potential to sustain margins long-term, but in order to do so they have to drive toward more services-oriented businesses."

Taking a look at this current quarter, Dell is predicting that revenue will rise by a percentage in the mid-single digits over the first quarter, slightly faster than its seasonal 2% to 3% growth. Analysts are expecting somewhere around $16 billion. Dell continues to expect revenue to grow 5% to 9% for the full fiscal year which implies a total of $64.6 billion to $67 billion with analysts expecting around $64.4 billion.

Dell saw shares rise $0.86, or roughly 5.4%, to a total of $16.76 in extended trading. The stock finished regular trading down $0.10 to $15.90.

Source: The Associated Press - Dell profit jumps as computer maker cuts costs

Pirated Software Value is On the Rise

2011-05-16T21:44:00.003-04:00

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) stated in their annual report that the revenue from software piracy in 2010 has reached record highs. The alliance stated that piracy worldwide is now costing the industry $59 billion. They also said that it seems as though the piracy is primarily occurring in emerging markets where PC growth is taking place.

In terms of piracy rates according to region, the central/eastern regions of Europe and South and Central America ranked the highest. The regions all tied at 64 percent. The BSA said that the commercial value of software piracy has grown 14 percent in a mere year.

The BSA represents the entire software industry. BSA president and chief executive Robert Holleyman said in a statement, “The software industry is being robbed blind. Nearly $59 billion worth of products were stolen last year — and the rates of theft are completely out of control in the world's fastest-growing markets. The irony is people everywhere value intellectual property rights, but in many cases they don't understand they are getting their software illegally."

The BSA reported that the global market for personal computers skyrocketed in 2010. As PCMag puts it, “for the first time, PC shipments to emerging economies outpaced those to mature markets, 174 million to 173 million.”

The BSA stated that “the problem is that people often do not realize the software they are using is illegal.” The BSA found that the most common form of piracy that was found in the emerging economies was when an individual would buy a single copy of software and then install it onto multiple computers. They also found that businesses were doing this as well. The organization discovered that an entire fifty-one percent of PC users (including businesses) in these emerging markets did not realize that installing a single copy of software onto multiple computers was illegal. A BSA spokeswoman said that they obtained all of this information from Ipsos and IDC. She also said that Ipsos surveyed more than 15,000 different consumer and business PC users to get the best possible picture of the “software load” per PC.

I don’t think that it is surprising that the piracy rates have gone up. Now, I’m not saying that it's right by any means. There is no gray area when it comes to piracy. It’s simply illegal, but with the economy in the state that it is, there really isn’t any extra cash floating around to buy multiple copies of software when you can really just use one. I’m not saying it's right, but it does make sense that the rates are setting records.

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PQI Debuts World's Smallest USB 3.0 Flash Drive

2011-05-09T15:52:00.006-04:00

I love USB flash drives. I think these little suckers are one of the best things to hit computers since sliced bread. I used a flash drive almost every day this past semester of school and boy was it a nifty thing to keep around. Almost every piece of school work I had to do this past semester is on my trusty 2GB Toshiba flash drive.

Now, my flash drive is your average one. It is nearly the same size as all other flash drives and is able to be clipped on my key chain or stuck in my pocket.However, I'm sure there are some of you reading this that prefer your flash drive to be tiny and really easy to carry around with you.

Well, if tiny is how you like your gear, then you will definitely want to check out the newest USB 3.0 flash drive released by PQI because this little guy is just that, little. This newest flash drive out of PQI is known as the Traveling Disk Drive U819V and is, as PQI claims, the smallest USB 3.0 flash drive in the world.

When PQI says that this thing is small, they mean that this thing is small. The U819V measures a mere 3cm long and comes with a removable cap that is attached to the USB drive via a lanyard. The U819V uses COB encasement technology which surrounds the components in order to keep them cool by helping dissipate the heat generated while in use. The arch nemesis to technology is heat, especially when it comes to memory that loses performance as it heats up.

You can get the U819V in a plethora of storage sizes ranging from 4GB up to 32GB if you really really need all that space. The device measures 3.15 x 14.8 x 7.3mm making it the perfect size to lose as soon as you open it. It weighs 3.6 grams and works with both USB 2.0 as well as USB 3.0 ports. Data transfer when connected to USB 3.0 is claimed to be 5Gbps, which is pretty good.

Pricing of the U819V has yet to be determined but don't be surprised if these little buggers are a little more expensive than your run of the mill flash drives. Word of warning, don't blow a lot of money on the 32GB if you are in the habit of losing things.

Source: SlashGear - PQI outs world's smallest USB 3.0 flash drive

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Scientists Try to Make a Schizophrenic Computer

2011-05-07T13:32:00.006-04:00

So, in my time as a blogger I have written about some pretty interesting things. I have also written about some pretty strange things and even some downright absurd things. However, this story may just be in a league of its own.

A recent study by researchers at the University of Texas in Austin along with researchers from Yale University was set on creating the thinking of a schizophrenic mind on a computer. Yeah, that's right, they are trying to make a computer a schizophrenic by using a virtual network.

Their research is based on something known as the hyperlearning theory of schizophrenia. This theory maintains that the disease schizophrenia stems from an inability to forget or ignore non-essential information.

In their work, the research teams taught a series of stories to a computer model known to them as DISCERN. Using natural language processing, the computer is able to map out the different stories in a manner similar to the human brain. In the researchers' model, a simulated dopamine release was used to mark significant information as DISCERN learned the stories. What this means is that DISCERN more or less forgot less and perceived more information as being important.

When the researchers asked DISCERN to recant the stories, the computer did so while producing strange and delusional narratives from the information it was given. According to the Science Blog, "After being re-trained with the elevated learning rate, DISCERN began putting itself at the center of fantastical, delusional stories that incorporated elements from other stories it had been told to recall. In one answer, for instance, DISCERN claimed responsibility for a terrorist bombing."

The Science Blog went on to say, "In another instance, DISCERN began showing evidence of "derailment" - replying to requests for a specific memory with a jumble of dissociated sentences, abrupt digressions and constant leaps from the first- to the third-person and back again."

Even though this study is very interesting and the computer did show similarities to actual schizophrenic symptoms that were disturbingly similar, DISCERN is not concrete proof of the hyperlearning hypothesis. It is simply a simulation and the relevance of the output is interpreted by humans. However, the unique approach to the study, modeling a cause of a brain disorder and comparing the results to actual cases, is stunning overall and could even prove to be a powerful new tool for doctors, psychologists and psychiatrists.

Source: Geekosystem - Scientists Attempt to Induce Schizophrenia on a Computer

Bing's Shopping Section Gets a Revamp from Microsoft

2011-04-28T13:57:00.008-04:00

The next couple of weeks are going to be pretty busy for most, what with Mother's Day, summer vacation and school graduations all on the horizon. Well, because of that, Microsoft has given the shopping section of its Bing search engine a little bit of a makeover which includes the ability to link it to Facebook accounts.

With this new integration into Facebook, users can be reminded of their friend's and family's birthdays and even share their shopping lists with them according to a report by Microsoft.

Other changes include a redesigned shopping home page with a new layout that is specifically designed to give more prominent placement to top search results, popular products and even related articles with the intention of making things easier and faster to scan this information.

A revamped results page now features bigger images at the top of the screen. It also offers more filters in order to fine-tune results and even let users hover over different items in order to trigger the display of additional product information.

Even though Google is the top search engine without a doubt, Microsoft keeps on chugging along, investing heavily in Bing for years now. Officials from Microsoft maintain that there are big opportunities set to radically improve the search user experience. Microsoft also stated that if it continues innovating with Bing, it could definitely make a run at Google.

However, that doesn't mean that Google is just going to sit there and take it. The search master is constantly improving algorithms in order to make sure it retains users' loyalty and defends its core market.

To improve its chances against Google, Microsoft as well as Yahoo are both implementing a search partnership. However, last week Yahoo's CEO Carol Bartz stated that Microsoft's AdCenter search ad system isn't yielding the results the companies have expected. However, both Yahoo and Microsoft have both said that they are confident that improvements to AdCenter will boost its revenue-per-search rate to the expected levels before the year is up.

Source: PCWorld - Microsoft Revamps Bing Shopping Section

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Top Desktops Available

2011-04-26T21:54:00.006-04:00

Desktop computers have come a very long way over the years. They used to be big, boring boxes that took up tons of space, but they have transformed into new, chic, flashy tools that can do almost anything.

The price of a desktop can range from as low as $250 to as high as $5,000. That’s a really big range, so how do you know which desktop will meet all of your needs? Well, here is a list of the top 8 desktops currently on the market. These desktops include all of the features that you could ever need and price tags that won’t break your budget.

Asus All-in-One PC ET2400IGTS-B008E
$1249.99 at Amazon

Some reviews compare this incredible desktop to Apple’s 21-inch iMac. The Asus All-in-One PCET2400IGTS-B008Eoffers a huge touch-sensitive screen, a quad-core processor, USB 3.0 ports, Blu-Ray, 1080p HD, SonicMaster Audio, HDMI, VGA-in, and wireless keyboard, mouse, networking, and IR remote. It does have a bit of bloatware and the apps are not particularly well-integrated, but those really aren’t a big deal in comparison with all of the great features that this has to offer.

Dell Inspiron i580-8139NBC
$499.98 at Staples

The Dell Inspiron i580-8139NBC is an incredible deal. It has a Core i3 processor, HDMI port, no bloatware, and expandability. The big issues are that it doesn’t have USB 3.0 or Wi-Fi. If you’re looking for a nice PC with all of the basic functionalities and a great price, this is the desktop for you.

Dell XPS x8300-5215NBK
$1099.99 at Best Buy

The Dell XPS x8300-5215NBK is considered to be a rather high-end desktop PC. It features high-end 3D graphics, a card retention bracket, HDMI DisplayPort, 8GB of memory, 1.5TB hard drive, and a Second Generation Intel Core processor. One thing that I was very disappointed not to see on this PC was a Blu-Ray player, but all of these other great features seem to make up for it.

Digital Storm Black Ops Enix Edition
Around $3,625

Obviously from the price tag, this desktop is definitely on the high-end list. Most people aren’t usually looking to spend this much money on a gaming desktop, but if you are, this chic PC is a great option. It has incredible performance, Blu-ray, USB 3.0 port, no bloatware, and a great cooling system. One of the biggest issues with this desktop though is that it is not easy to get into and there is no internal upgrade room, but if you can look past these few things and you have the money to spend, this is the gaming desktop for you.

HP Compaq 4000 Pro
Around $550

This is a great value desktop. It doesn’t necessarily have all of the bells and whistles, but it includes everything that you really need. It is compact, offers expansion room (including the space for a second hard drive), and built-in dual monitor support. It doesn’t have TPM, only two memory slots, or any eSATA or DisplayPort. For a fair price, you can get everything that you really need from a desktop.

HP TouchSmart 310-1125y
$699.99 at Best Buy

The TouchSmart 310-1125y offers some incredible features for the price tag. It has an incredibly responsive touchscreen with full touch interface, a wireless keyboard and mouse, and fantastic entertainment options. It does only offer 1,600 x 900 screen resolution and low-powered 3D graphics, but when you consider everything that it has to offer, it is a great entry level touchscreen desktop.

Lenovo IdeaCentre K330-11691AU
$599.99 at Best Buy

The Lenovo IdeaCentre K330-11691AU features up-to-date components that should keep you content with the desktop for as long as 5-7 years. It has a second generation Intel Core i-processor, no bloatware, HDMI, and an incredibly easy to upgrade tool-less interior. It offers some great, new technology that should keep it going for quite some time.

Lenovo ThinkStation C20
Around $4,600

So yes, the Lenovo ThinkStation C20 is quite possibly a bank breaker, but of course, there’s a reason for the high price tag. The desktop includes dual CPU Xeon power, ISV certification for a variety of different professional programs, card retention, and a 3-year warranty. It also is rack mountable, compact, and capable of driving two 30-inch panels simultaneously; however, it still is pricey and offers no USB 3.0 or FireWire.

These are the top desktop computers on the market today. If you're looking for a new, chic desktop PC, you should definitely look into one of the computers above.

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Microsoft's Office 365 Goes Open Beta

2011-04-18T14:45:00.009-04:00

Microsoft has finally opened the door to its cloud-based Office 365 and is now offering the service as a public beta for anybody and everybody to try out. The beta is available in 38 countries as well as 17 languages. The new beta also follows several months of limited testing with a few thousand businesses that were able to take the service out for an early test drive. After this public beta, Office 365 will officially launch later this year.

Office 365, which was unveiled last October, is Microsoft's attempt at offering businesses a cloud-based alternative to some of the company's more traditional desktop and server products. Office 365 combines Office Web Apps with hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint as well as Microsoft's Lync product. The Lync product provides the online communication and collaboration element of Office 365.

With all of this, Office 365 is designed to offer a plethora of features including document creation, document sharing, e-mail, IM, online meetings and public Web sites. Microsoft has also included protection in the form of its enterprise ForeFront security client and is also promising a 99.9% uptime for the entire service.

Once Office 365 officially launches it will be offered as two separate plans depending on the size of your company. Small businesses with around 25 employees or less can pay $6 per person per month to receive Office Web Apps and the hosted versions of Exchange and SharePoint. Larger corporations will have to chose from one of four different plans geared toward faculty, staff and students.

In addition to Office 365 being offered as a beta, Office 365 Marketplace is in beta form as well. Office 365 Marketplace is designed to supplement Office 365 and tries to help businesses find apps and services offered by different Microsoft partners. Reports from users already experiencing the beta have noted that everything is working as Microsoft has advertised it to.

Source: CNET - Microsoft opens up Office 365 as public beta

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2011 Sees a Slip in Worldwide PC Shipments

2011-04-17T22:59:00.005-04:00

Bad news for the computer industry has just recently been released. Thanks to weak demand for consumer PCs, growth for worldwide PC shipments showed a 1.1% decline from the first quarter of 2010 according to a Gartner's PC Quarterly Statistics Worldwide by Region program. Weak demand for consumer PCs was the primary inhibitor. However, despite the weakening of sales around the globe, the Asia Pacific region showed encouraging growth as PC shipments surpassed 28.2 million in the first quarter of 2011. This is interesting due to the fact that, statistically speaking, sales of consumer PCs usually do not show this much popularity or growth in the beginning of the year. The first quarter of most years is stereotypically slow for PC sales. Gartner also noted, however, that these shipment results indicate potential sluggishness and not a typical seasonal slowdown. Gartner pointed out that these figures are well below earlier predictions for a 3% growth in the first quarter of 2011. In response to different markets in Asia, Gartner said that consumer PC sales were also slow both in China and also in Taiwan and that they failed to attract customers during the celebration of Chinese New Year. Consumers in India were occupied by the Cricket World Cup and preferred to upgrade their personal PCs or buy a new TV rather than home electronics. In addition to that, PC shipments in Japan hit a decline of 13.1% in 2011's first quarter. According to Principle Analyst for Gartner Mikako Kitagawa, "Weak demand for consumer PCs was the biggest inhibitor of growth. Low prices for consumer PCs, which had long stimulated growth, no longer attracted buyers. Instead, consumers turned their attention to media tablets and other consumer electronics. With the launch of the iPad 2 in February, more consumers either switched to buying an alternative device, or simply held back from buying PCs. We're investigating whether this trend is likely to have a long-term effect on the PC market." Computer company HP accounted for 17.6% of worldwide PC shipments in the first quarter of 2011. HP also maintained the number one spot. Acer saw declining shipments of 12.2% and Dell reported a shipment decline year-over-year for the first time in six quarters. Lenovo continued to price products competitively in the consumer market as well as the professional market and enjoyed the strongest growth among the top vendors as a result. Source: PCWorld - Worldwide PC Shipments Slip in 2011

Projector Rentals Are Great for Business Meetings

Most business class projectors will do a good job displaying your PowerPoint presentation. If you have a small presentation group, a 2000 lumen LCD projector will be able to produce a nice and clear picture. For larger audiences you should consider a 5000 lumen LCD projector.

Steve Wozniak Says the iPad is for Normal People

2011-04-06T14:58:00.006-04:00

Here's something interesting for you. While speaking at an event in Santa Clara, California, co-founder of Apple Steve Wozniak stated that the "iPad is for the normal people of the world." Wozniak was speaking at the Storage Network World conference and made a clear distinction between his "technological audience" and the average consumer. According to Mr. Wozniak, it has always been the dream of Steve Jobs, current CEO of Apple, to create a computer that was simple enough for anyone to pick up and use "but it was hard to get there, because we had to go through a lot of steps where you connected to things." If you were one of the few that tried diligently to set up a wireless network about 5 to 10 years ago, then you can most likely attest to this. The iPad is one of the few computer-like devices members of an older generation enjoy using and a device that a lot of people primarily use instead of a laptop or desktop computer. There is also the incredible story of the 100-year old woman who was absolutely tickled with her first ever computer purchase, a first-generation iPad. What is interesting is that a lot of the numbers for the iPad go against users like the ones mentioned above. A survey conducted in November 2010 found that only 28.9% of respondents indicated that the iPad was their primary computing device. While that is a nice number, it still suggests that the majority of iPad owners use the device as a secondary piece of technology. Another study conducted in December of 2010 found that the average iPad owner is a college-educated male, 48-years old, with an earning of more than $100,000 per year. You cannot say that this is the normal picture of an American with 75% of the population earning less than $50,000 per year and women make up little more than half of the population. Then again, the iPad has only been around for a little more than a year. Global adoption, especially among demographics that are traditionally slow-moving in terms of picking up new technologies, will take some time. That is why it makes a little sense that the owner statistics of the iPad are more indicative of what constitutes an early adopter as opposed to what constitutes the iPad's actual target market. Sure, Mr. Wozniak may be over-generalizing when he says that the iPad is for the quote "normal" people of the world, but it still represents the closest attempt yet to make computing easy enough for those who do not have extensive experience with using computers. The price of entry for ownership is also on the low side for not only tablets but also for computing devices in general. We can probably expect Mr. Wozniak's view of the iPad user to become more true as Apple continues to make computing easier for everybody. Source: Gigaom - Apple Co-Creator Says iPad is a Computer for "Normal People"

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Intel Unleashes New 320 Series SSD with Increased Capacity

2011-03-28T13:01:00.008-04:00

Intel has just announced their newest product, the Intel SSD 320 Series, which represents a significant upgrade to Intel's existing lineup of solid-state drives. According to Intel, this series of SSD can have up to 600GB and improves performance all while having a better price than the current X25-M Series. This new SSD definitely fulfills Intel's promise of their 25-nanometer multilevel cell flash manufacturing process. This process increased production in 2010 and increased SSD capacity points while also reducing production costs by cramming 8GB of storage onto a single 167mm flash die.

For those of you who don't know, that is twice the capacity that could be produced by the previous 34nm process. Intel has done a lot of work with the 320 Series. Everything you know about the SSD has been redesigned. It now uses an all-new Intel controller and even supports 128-bit AES encryption. This series also enhances data reliability through extra arrays which amplify the error correction that is already in the flash. Then it adds a failsafe in order to enable the drive to complete writing a file even if it has been interrupted by a loss of power.

With all these new features, the new SSD should not have any problems appealing to the target audience of consumers and business users. Intel expects the 320 Series to even find a place in data center and server applications as a replacement for the 15,000 rpm hard drives. Intel has not yet released a retail pricing, however, they do expect the drives to sell in quantity for $89 (40GB), $159 (120GB), $289 (160GB) $529 (300GB) and $1,069 (600GB). If you want a comparison, the Crucial RealSSD 300 (256GB) currently sells for $475 while the Intel X25-M (160GB) goes for about $410.

Intel has stated that they expect the 160GB SSD 320 Series to sell for "about $100" less than the X25-M. A year ago a 256GB SSD would run you around $750, so if Intel's expected volume prices can become retail prices, we may just see a new lineup that could help adapt SSD into a more mainstream item.

Source: PCWorld - Intel 320 Series SSD Boosts Capacity, Drops Cost

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Chrome 11 Hits Beta Form with Some Amazing Additions

2011-03-25T12:25:00.005-04:00

The latest and greatest edition of Firefox, known as Firefox 4, was just released a few days ago in an official worldwide release. Upon looking at it for the first time, it appears to be a great update to the Mozilla Firefox browser containing immense speed improvements. And if there is anything a browser needs these days to stay in the game, it is fast, and I mean fast, speeds.

You can attribute that need to Google's shot at an internet browser with Google Chrome, which is one of the fastest growing internet browsers on the market. But just because Mozilla added faster speeds to Firefox 4 to combat Google Chrome does not mean Google Chrome is just sitting there taking it. On the exact same day that Mozilla launched Firefox 4, Google pushed out Chrome 11 in beta form. At first glance, Chrome 11's beta may appear to be no more than a reason to show off the new Google Chrome icon. However, if you dig deep, you will realize that there are a few amazing things to be seen, things you won't want to miss.

One new feature for Chrome 11 is added support for HTML5's speech input API. What this means is that you will have the ability to talk to your computer while Chrome 11 interprets it. For those of you tech savvy folks that have already gotten the hang of this via an Android device or other mobile platform, this is something you will definitely love. One thing to note is that this is an HTML5 spec so it is not Chrome 11 specific, any internet browser can use it. Though if you want to use it right now, you have to get the Chrome 11 beta.

According to reports about the talk to text feature, the program works quite well. You speak whatever you want to say and the browser is able to transcribe your speech into visible text on the screen. The best part is that you don't need to install any annoying Flash player or plug-in, it just works.

Another feature of the Chrome 11 beta is an initial take on GPU-accelerated 3D CSS, according to Google. This will allow website developers to create sites with 3D effects using CSS very soon which, like the talk to text thing, is very cool.

As version numbers of internet browsers have been rapidly increasing, Google says that it does not like bragging about new version bumps. However, this one is still pretty cool and should be in stable form very shortly.

Source: TechCrunch - On Firefox 4 Day, Chrome 11 Hits Beta With The Ability To Talk To Your Computer!

Has AMD Finally Topped Nvidia in Triple-GPU Scaling?

2011-03-17T16:06:00.006-04:00

When building your own PC or even just upgrading the one you already have, you have a tendency to always go bigger. A lot of the time people do serious upgrades when they upgrade their GPU. A lot of people upgrade to the next higher model, but some double up and get two GPUs. But then there are the others who put their money down on the question of whether or not three GPUs is all that much better than two?

Nvidia has been the undeniable leader when it comes to multi-card scaling with AMD always trailing behind. However, there are a new array of GPUs from AMD that may just push them ahead of Nvidia in the multi-card scaling race. The geniuses over at Tom's Hardware loaded up a super fast computer with single, dual and triple -GPU configurations to find out the truth.

In the GPU market, everything is pretty much a waiting game. About every six months or so, either AMD or Nvidia releases a product and the other company waits to see what is going on hoping to bounce that one back by tweaking the clocks, power and configuration of their own device. Both companies do this in order to build anticipation with their followers.

Despite the hysteria in the GPU world, the past few launches have barely raised the bar at all. Anybody out there that wants to play their games at a high resolution without giving up all the juicy goodness of the game will probably have to use a multi-GPU setup.

So the big question here is not necessarily which card is better but rather which works better in pairs and trios. Buyers and enthusiasts can save a lot of money by purchasing AMD's 1 GB card. However, the newest 2 GB AMD Radeon HD 6950 is the least expensive three-way CrossFire option.

The closest competitor to this is Nvidia's GeForce GTX 5570 1280 MB GPU which also represents the cheapest current three-way SLI configuration from Nvidia. Tom's Hardware has already reported on great scaling from three-way SLI so what is probably the biggest question is whether or not AMD's scaling has improved to the point where it can surpass Nvidia. Two-way figures point to the positive and it seems that Radeon devices work together much better than in the past.

Overall, CrossFire's value-oriented win in the two-way area and the performance win in the three-way configuration setup was enough to make Radeon the clear cut winner according to Tom's Hardware. However, if that isn't convincing enough for you, then the low power consumption of the Radeon HD 6950 should be. If you want the full rundown and specifications of the tests and all the juicy details, head on over to Tom's Hardware now and check it out.

Source: Tom's Hardware - Triple-GPU Scaling: AMD CrossFire Vs. Nvidia SLI

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Hitachi GTS Acquired by Western Digital for $4.3 Billion

2011-03-08T08:31:00.007-05:00

Every now and then in the computer world we actually do hear about things that do not involve Apple or anything Apple related. It is rare, yes, but it does happen. One such instance is that Western Digital, a company known for their hard drives, has officially bought out Hitachi GST for a pretty $4.3 billion.

That's right, on Monday Western Digital told media outlets that they were buying Hitachi Global Storage Technologies for the equivalent of $4.3 billion. There were different things that comprised the entire deal which included a combination of $3.5 billion in cash with the addition of shares in the total amount of $50 million. Full terms of the deal included Western Digital's name remaining the same for the company and Hitachi GST CEO Steve Milligan joining Western Digital as President.

CEO of Western Digital John Coyne argued to media sources that the move was primarily for scale. Western Digital and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies would form a larger competitor company and would also have the advantage of better research as well as a wider range of products as Hitachi has focused primarily on fields like drivers for set-top boxes and a greater focus on mobile hard drives.

This move is an attempt by Western Digital to hedge their position and compete against a market that gets increasingly tougher each day. Hitachi has suffered with reduced influence whereas Western Digital has been battling it out with fellow American rival company Seagate. Western Digital's acquisition of Hitachi GST gives the company a improved position in the competition.

Source: Electronista - Western Digital to snap up Hitachi GTS for $4.3 billion

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Microsoft Launches Campaign to Kill Internet Explorer 6 for Good

2011-03-04T19:54:00.006-05:00

Are you one of those people out there who only uses Internet Explorer for your web browser? If so, then you may also be a part of the large group of people that still uses Internet Explorer 6. Well, if you are one of these people, you have some bad news coming your way. Microsoft has officially launched a new web site that is aimed at increasing its campaign to move internet users off of Internet Explorer 6 forever.

This new site, known as the Internet Explorer 6 Countdown, went live today and is "dedicated to watching Internet Explorer 6 usage drop to less than 1% worldwide, so more websites can choose to drop support for Internet Explorer 6, saving hours of work for web developers," according to the site.

A lot of computers, mainly in the business world, continue to use Internet Explorer 6 due to internal-facing apps that are dependent on the 10-year-old, non-standards compliant browser from Microsoft. Thankfully, the web page has links to tools for businesses just like this that are stuck with Internet Explorer 6. Gartner analysts have complained in the past that Microsoft's current tools for moving business users off of Internet Explorer 6 have been far too pricey.

Another feature of the Countdown page includes a world map that highlights countries around the world who still have the most Internet Explorer 6 installations. Right now China holds the number one spot. In addition to focusing on the developer side of the Anti-Internet Explorer 6 campaign, Microsoft officials are also emphasizing the improved security Internet Explorer 6 users can receive from switching to Internet Explorer 7 or Internet Explorer 8. Internet Explorer 9 is currently in the release candidate stage and is not mentioned on the page as a comparison point.

Source: ZDNet - Microsoft: Friends don't let friends use Internet Explorer

Intel's Light Peak to Debut Thursday

2011-02-23T16:22:00.006-05:00

The technology world loves rumors, in fact, I think that they live, breath, eat and sleep rumors. I feel that if there were no internet rumors, then we would have a lot of depressed computer people out there with nothing to do to fill their free time. It's quite sad really. But, alas, we have another rumor floating around the internet that all the little techies are drooling over and that is the rumor that Intel will officially launch its Light Peak high-speed connection technology this Thursday.

This great speculation comes from Intel telling the media that it will "host a press briefing to discuss a new technology that is about to appear on the market." CNET apparently has "an industry source familiar with details of the event" and says that it will indeed be Light Peak. Other speculation surrounding this news is concerning whether or not this launch will have anything to do with the new MacBook Pros also set to be launched on Thursday.

Rumors have been circulating since late 2010 about Apple possibly incorporating Light Peak into its 2011 MacBook Pro models. Since then, there have been leaked spec sheets floating around as well as product photos of a 13-inch MacBook Pro which would back up this rumor if it is true. If this is true, then Apple plans on renaming it "Thunderbolt". However, it is unclear whether or not Intel will adopt this nomenclature as well.

Whether you decide to call it Thunderbolt or Light Peak is up to you, but know that it is a single interface designed to replace the SCSI, SATA, USB, FireWire and PCI Express ports on a computer. The technology, which is copper-based, supposedly delivers 10Gbps bi-directional data transfers and is the main reason some people have speculated Intel has been so slow to adopt native USB 3.0 support on its motherboards, something Intel has not surprisingly refuted.

Source: Maximum PC - Intel to Debut Light Peak on Thursday, Apple Calls it "Thunderbolt"

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New Fab 42 from Intel

2011-02-22T22:17:00.006-05:00

On Friday, February 18, Intel announced that they will be constructing a brand new $5 billion fab in Arizona. The fab will be used for the manufacturing of chips using a 14-nm manufacturing process and leading edge 300-mm wafers.

In the statement that Intel released on Friday, it was said that the new fab would be called Fab 42. Construction of the facility will begin sometime in the middle of 2011. Intel is saying that Fab 42 will be "the most advanced, high-volume manufacturing facility in the world." It should be finished in 2013.

The announcement about Intel’s latest investment was made on the same day that President Obama toured an Intel facility in Hillsboro, Oregon. While at the facility, Obama decided to go ahead and name Intel’s chief executive Paul Otellini as a member of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Going along with this, it is definitely not coincidental that the new fab that Intel is constructing will create "thousands of construction and permanent manufacturing jobs" that go right along with Otellini’s new position.

One of the biggest advantages that Intel has had in the past has been its strong manufacturing line. They have constructed several different fabs around the world. These fabs have really helped to keep Intel in competition with their rival AMD, who has been trying to undermine Intel by designing more efficient chips.

The new 14-nm fab that is being constructed by Intel will be considered one of the most advanced semiconductor fabs compared to any in its category. According to PCmag, the fabs will be “putting out chips that will incorporate linewidths that are twice as fine as Intel's current ‘Sandy Bridge’ processors, which use a 32-nm process.” As of right now, a comparison cannot be made between the chips that Intel is putting out currently and those that will be made with the new process, but we can say that the new chips will most likely use less power or run much faster than the versions that Intel is currently releasing.

"The investment positions our manufacturing network for future growth," said Brian Krzanich, senior vice president and general manager for Intel's manufacturing and supply chain operations, in a statement. "This fab will begin operations on a process that will allow us to create transistors with a minimum feature size of 14 nanometers. For Intel, manufacturing serves as the underpinning for our business and allows us to provide customers and consumers with leading-edge products in high volume. The unmatched scope and scale of our investments in manufacturing help Intel maintain industry leadership and drives innovation."

In the past few weeks, Intel has been dealing with a small roadblock that the company discovered concerning a support chip that is associated with the Sandy Bridge chip processor.

At the end of January, Intel found what is now being called the “Cougar Point” flaw and were forced to recall the chip. Shipping resumed about a week after the problem was discovered, but it was under the condition that Intel and OED could both assure one hundred percent that the flaw would not manifest.

Due to the temporary roadblock that Intel was forced to deal with, its rival AMD went ahead and launched an ad campaign on Friday in an attempt to pull in customers. We’ll have to see if Intel can jump right back into the race.

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Google Searches Drop while Bing Searches Rise

2011-02-14T13:45:00.005-05:00

In the great search engine war, two competitors reign supreme above all others, Google and Bing. While there are a lot of search engines out there, none get the attention or press like these two. Google has its name everywhere and you can hardly flip through the channels without seeing a commercial for Bing. But exactly how close are these two competitors when it comes to number of users? Closer than you might think, actually.

Even though Google is still the leader of the U.S. search engines, it did see a drop in market share slightly in January whereas Bing continued to pick up more steam. For the first month of 2011, Google's portion of all searches dropped by 1 percentage point to 65.6%. While this was happening to Google, Bing's portion of searches jumped up 1.1 percentage point to 13.1%. This left the other search engine Yahoo flat with a 16.1% cut of all searches in January.

These numbers are right in line with a pattern that for the past several months has plagued Google in which the company sheds a little bit of their shares while Bing edges up slightly. The good thing for Google is that these drops have usually only been fractions of a percentage point as opposed to the full point the company saw in January.

The number of core searches tallied rose from 16.4 billion to 16.9 billion from December to January, a 3% increase. Google hit the number one spot with a total of 11.1 billion searches. Yahoo came in second with 2.7 billion, followed by Bing who tallied only 2.2 billion. These numbers represent a 1% increase in January for Google, a 4% increase for Yahoo and a 13% increase for Bing.

These figures are derived from explicit core searches. This just means search terms manually entered into the search bar. This data also takes into account all of a company's search sites. So, in Google's case, these results included searches on Google's main page and the ones on YouTube, Google News, Google Images, and other proprietaries.

These numbers also include "powered by" searches. In January Google's number of "powered by" searches on its own sites and on AOL and Ask.com was 62.8%, whereas Bing searches on Microsoft and Yahoo reached 25.6%. This showed yet another loss pattern for Google as the company lost a small percentage of their "powered by" searches as well.

While Google does remain in a commanding lead, Bing could slowly creep up and surpass Google as the leader of the search engine world. However, you do have to take into account the recent battle between Google and Bing where Bing was accused by Google of stealing search results. If proven guilty, this could have a serious effect on Bing and their search engine.

Source: cnet News - Bing continues to grab more searches

'Jeopardy!' Contestants Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter Face Off Against Watson, the Super Computer from IBM

2011-02-11T13:43:00.006-05:00

It will be a battle fit for the record books, one that will go down in history alongside Gettysburg and World War II. Only this one will not be fought with swords, guns or armies, but with little clickers and incredible knowledge. That's right, I am talking about the epic showdown set to take place on Jeopardy! this coming Monday which pits two of the show's biggest all-time winners, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, against Watson, a computer designed by IBM.

If you are not familiar with the popular game show that tests contestants' knowledge in a wide range of categories, then you will not know who Ken Jennings or Brad Rutter are. To put it simply, Jennings won a grand total of $3,022,700 on the show coming in second only to Brad Rutter who took home a total of $3,255,102. Needless to say, these gentlemen are extremely smart and ready to test their wits against the ultimate competitor, technology.

According to Stephen Baker, author of Final Jeopardy: Man vs. Machine and the Quest to Know Everything, "The computer is fast on the buzzer, and if it's given certain specialties - it's good on facts about facts it can find and nail down - it could win. But humans are better with complex English, puns, nuances, so..."

This challenge was initiated by IBM after its scientists worked on Watson for four years. The outcome has already been determined as the show does not air live, but it is a secret. The episodes were taped on January 14th, 2011 and are set to air on Monday, February 14th, 2011 and conclude on Wednesday, February 16th, 2011. Alex Trebek, the host of Jeopardy! since 1984, isn't budging on giving away the result either.

"I think the guys have a slight edge on knowledge because their memories are good," says Trebek. "In terms of speed, it's no contest. Watson has the edge there. But it'll all come down to luck." Trebek also added that Watson could not see or hear him "so it was pointless to comment in his direction!"

Executive Producer of Jeopardy! Harry Friedman noted that putting the show together was definitely a challenge. Nobody has every done this before and the closest thing to be done like this was when chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov took on an IBM computer known as Deep Blue. He lost. According to Friedman, "Producing for people and with people is one thing, but dealing with a computer was another."

Friedman sees the competition as a "fascinating exhibition of technology" and not a tournament or a competition. "It is to be judged for what technology can do," he says. However, don't tell that to Jennings or Rutter. Jennings stated that he was spooked by the setting, which took place inside the labs of IBM. "No one was cheering for me. It was at their (IBM's) home arena. It was an away game for humanity."

Rutter, who has won the highest accumulative amount on Jeopardy! ever, says that he does not think humans are becoming outdated and that he enjoyed being a "guinea pig" playing against a computer. According to Rutter, "People watch the show to see the contestants and how they react. Watson will never jump up and down when he gets it right."

The contest is going to air this coming Monday, Feruary 14th, 2011. Check your local listings so you can tune in and see who is smarter, man or machine.

Source: USA Today - 'Jeopardy!' champs compete against computer

Intel Design Flaw Affects HP Availability

2011-02-02T14:25:00.006-05:00

The tech world has been buzzing over Intel's second generation of processors known as "Sandy Bridge", but now they might be buzzing in a slightly different way as a major design flaw is stirring things up with not only Intel but other technology companies that have invested in devices using the processors.

HP has stated that the availability of some of their devices will be "impacted" by the design flaw in the chips that was recently disclosed by Intel. This flaw will also delay a product presentation by HP that is scheduled to take place in San Francisco next week.

According to a statement by Edelman Public Relations Worldwide, "We are postponing the business notebooks briefing on February 10 as the availability of HP products will be impacted by the flaw outlined by Intel." Intel said in a statement on January 31 that it will incur $1 billion in missed sales and higher costs to fix this design flaw. This flaw is also affecting PC makers like Samsung, who said they will offer refunds on some PCs, and NEC, who said they may push back the release of four new models.

The flaw is in a support chip, or chipset, for Intel's latest Sandy Bridge processors which were designed to improve PC graphics and repel a challenge by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. HP sells many computers that use chips other than the Sandy Bridge ones from Intel. According to Marlene Somsak, spokeswoman for HP, "HP has the broadest lineup of PCs in the industry and there are many HP choices using a wide variety of processors."

Dave Frink, spokesman for Dell, stated in an e-mail that "the Intel flaw affects four Dell products sold under its XPS, Vostro and Alienware brands." Frink went on to say, "We're committed to addressing this with customers who have already purchased one of the four products, will work directly with them and provide further details as they become available."

Devices that could potentially have the faulty chips have been sold since January 9 and Intel said it has corrected the flaw and has already begun manufacturing a new version of the chip to resolve the issue.

Intel plans on delivering an updated version of the Sandy Bridge processors, known as Cougar Point, to customers in late February with full production happening in April. Eight million Cougar Point chips have already been shipped out by Intel that will have to be replaced.

Source: Business Week

Neverware JuiceBox a100 Gives New Life to Old Computers

2011-01-24T08:56:00.011-05:00

When it comes to computers, most people expect theirs to be outdated within four years or less, depending on how you treat it. When Jonathan Hefter, CEO of Neverware, a start-up company out of New York City, was asked what he thought about the issue, he laughed and said, There are two things in this world planned for obsolescence. Computers and pantyhose. They are designed for the dump."

Hefter was not always into computers. He began as an undergraduate at Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania where he was studying economics. However, that goal was short-lived when, after not desiring to go into finance after graduation, Hefter spent a year in the basement of his parents' house tinkering with things. The concepts of networks come to Hefter naturally, even though he had never taken a course in computers. Hefter had a dream, a dream to create sustainable computing. While Hefter was trying to make that dream a reality, he came up with the world's first "juicebox", a nifty piece of virtualization technology.

In the earlier part of 2010, Hefter set up two technology pilots in schools around his area. The success of these pilots proved to Hefter, as well as others, that his concept could work. From here things only went up as in the spring at the Kairos Society's Annual Summit Hefter was approached by Polaris Partner Peter Flint. Flint invited Hefter to become a resident of Dogpatch Labs.

Hefter founded Neverware in May of 2010. Neverware is a company that you could call the "fountain of youth" for computers and recently moved into New York City's Dogpatch Labs. The cream of the crop for Neverware is definitely the JuiceBox a100, a single server appliance that will power up to one hundred old desktops with Windows 7 when added to the network. According to Hefter, "For a school in Africa, give them a LAN, one juicebox and the computers that corporations throw out and they suddenly now have the latest technology. Think about the implications in terms of education!"

This idea is not new, however. "This has been done but not since the 60's," said Hefter. In the 60's we relied on mainframe computing and one super powerful computer could support dozens of terminals. Since then though, computer power has become much faster and much cheaper and quicker than networking technology, which is why we have switched to local PC models. However, the PC model is extremely wasteful in terms of energy consumption and pollution. Old computers have to be destroyed and when they get thrown into a landfill or burned in an incinerator, they release a lot of toxic elements like lead, mercury and barium. Every juicebox that is set up acts like a new network. It is extremely green, not causing as much pollution and is energy efficient.

"Being able to build and successfully create the juicebox concept came in part from my own naiveté because I hadn't been involved in the industry so I had no clue that certain things just weren't done. This allowed me to develop as if those barriers did not exist," Hefter explains.

Overall, Hefter has created four juicebox machines, three real ones and one mobile demo. There is a great deal of freedom in the design of the juicebox thanks to the great flexibility of the device. Hefter's main focus here is on education and trying to give schools and educators the latest and most up to date technologies. Hefter wants to give the developing world an edge because he believes this is the place where he can be most distributive.

Pricing is still being worked out by Neverware, but they will likely come up with a more crowd pleasing software-as-service model. So I guess it is safe to say that the JuiceBox a100 will cost a fraction of a traditional desktop. The current juicebox can only support 100 units, though Hefter is in the process of making a 150 version juicebox very soon. Check out the video below where Hefter demos the JuiceBox a100 and his 10-year old Pentium 3 computer with missing hard drive and his laptop, which he uses as a keyboard and monitor.

Source: The Next Web, Engadget, Vimeo (video)

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Four Board Members Replaced by HP

2011-01-21T14:29:00.005-05:00

Sometimes companies have to make changes and sometimes those changes are big. Just ask the people at Hewlett-Packard. Only a few months out of the scandal involving Mark Hurd, HP is giving its board of directors a little bit of a makeover. HP released yesterday that they are replacing four board members as well as adding an additional seat. The four members that are being replaced are Joel Hyatt, John Joyce, Robert Ryan and Lucille Salhany.

The individuals replacing these four are newcomers Shumeet Banerji, CEO of Booz & Company; Gary Reiner, former CIO at GE; Patricia Russo, former CEO of Alcatel-Lucent; Dominique Senequier, CEO of AXA Private Equity; and Meg Whitman, former president and CEO of eBay and a recent California gubernatorial candidate. This increases the number of board members at HP from 12 to 13.

All five of the new directors will also stand for re-election at HP's next annual meeting in March. According to Ray Lane, HP's non-executive chairman of the board of directors, "The addition of these new directors will further diversify the outstanding talents and wide-ranging experience that our directors already bring to HP. Lane, also in his statement, thanked the four retiring members saying that they "worked tirelessly and effectively to navigate HP through a difficult leadership change in the last six months."

Robert Ryan, former lead independent director of the board, called it "a great privilege to serve on the HP board and see this outstanding company build on its legacy as a technology leader and innovator." Ryan also went on to express his confidence in Lane as well as the new CEO Leo Apotheker. Ryan added, "HP has a strong leadership team in place to continue moving the company forward."

These replacements seem to coincide with the investigation HP is ready to start into the circumstances surrounding the resignation of former CEO Mark Hurd from the company. Hurd, the now CEO of HP rival company Oracle, resigned as CEO back in August after sexual harassment allegations led to an inquiry which found that Hurd had misrepresented his expenses to the company.

HP reported that they want this investigation to be independent and led by a committee of outside attorneys and board members who joined HP after the resignation of Hurd. However, that means that only two board members will be eligible, Apotheker and Lane. However, with the new slew of Directors that just came in, this would mean that they all could participate.

Adding a bunch of new faces allows Aptheker to add new blood and cut old ties. Until this change, some directors were approaching nearly a decade on the board. Salhany was named a director back in 2002, Ryan in 2004 and Joyce and Hyatt were both added in 2007. The longest serving ones on the board now were added in 2005 when Hurd first arrived at the company.

Lane did clarify that the four members that left did so voluntarily and that their departure had nothing to do with Hurd's. The only problem with the new members is that they will have little time to make themselves at home before jumping into the fray. Aside from the Hurd investigation, HP is facing shareholder lawsuits over the severance package Hurd received. The Securities and Exchange Commission is also snooping around and asking questions about Hurd revealing an impending purchase of Electronic Data Systems to a former contractor months before it was announced to the public.

HP has a lot on its plate at the moment and the new board members will definitely have their hands full in the coming months.

Source: CNET

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"Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing" Exhibit Opens at the Computer History Museum

2011-01-12T11:34:00.007-05:00

Whether it be art museums, history museums, museums that focus on a specific event in history or some other kind, people love going to museums. However, the majority of museums are generally more fun for the elderly, buffs of the certain genre or elementary school field trips. But there is one museum that caters to a different type of visitor, a more technological visitor, the Computer History Museum, and this week they have something new for all the tech junkies out there.

This week the Computer History Museum opened a $19 million, 25,000-square-foot expansion with a new signature exhibition known as "Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing." This new exhibit, after being in development for over six years, represents the most comprehensive physical and online exploration of computing history in the world. It spans everything from the abacus and slide rules all the way to robots, Pong and the Internet.

According to John Hollar, CEO of the museum located in Mountain View, California, "Many times, people coming to the museum have very basic questions: 'How did that computer on my desk get there? How did that phone I've used for so long get smart?' It's an exhibition that's primarily aimed at a non-technical audience, though there's a ton of great history and information for the technical audience as well."

The exhibition has been specifically designed to be accessible to visitors in a multitude of ways. This includes documents, video presentations, over 5,000 images and 1,100 artifacts in 19 galleries. The exhibit also features hands-on interactive stations that will demonstrate the principles of computing like being able to pick up a 24lb Osbourne computer or playing a game of Pong, Pacman or Spacewar.

There are many key artifacts in the exhibit including a 1956 IBM 305 computer as well as its 350 hard drive, the first commercially available machine of its type which practically took up an entire room and only held 5MB of data. Guests will also get to see the console of a 1950 Univac 1, the first household computer, a complete installation of the original IBM System/360, the dominate technology in mainframe computing for nearly 20 years and a Cray-1 supercomputer which was the world's fastest from 1976 to 1982.

Guests will even get the opportunity to see "The Utah Teapot", the device graphics designer pioneer Martin Newell used as his 3D computer model at the University of Utah. The teapot became the standard reference for computer graphics and the more realistic the designers could make the teapot, the better their graphics engine was considered. The ENIAC, which was built during World War II and was the world's first large-scale computer to run at electronic speed, is also on display.

"This is one of the greatest electronic computers ever invented," stated Holler. "We've made this a very human story. We've tried to talk about not just what happened, but what mattered in history. What mattered often boils down to the people who were the great innovators and the problems they were trying to solve, and so much of the exhibit is devoted to those important stories."

The ceremonial opening, which took place yesterday, contained a number of technological legends like Apple co-founder and engineer Steve Wozniak, computer programming pioneer Donald Knuth, video game inventors Al Alcorn and Steve Russell and IBM's first female fellow Fran Allen. The galleries of the exhibit will have many legends of the computing world speak as part of a series entitled "Revolutionaries".

Guest can also partake of an oral history program with over 40 interactive stations featuring the legends of computing. The stations will contain archived interviews with pioneers like Chuck Thacker from Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center and John Atanasoff who built the first digital computer in 1939. Holler added, "We often say, 'wouldn't it have been great to have been able to talk to Michelangelo as he painted the Sistine Chapel?' We can do that."

The exhibit is open now and is sure to be the highlight of any computer or tech lover's trip to the museum. If you love technology, history, computers or all of the above, then this is one place you have to visit before you die. Put it on your bucket list or tattoo it to the inside of your eyelids. Do whatever it takes to remember to go and see this exhibit.

Source: PC World

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Intel's Second Generation of Core Processors

2011-01-03T12:51:00.006-05:00

The second generation core processor family, otherwise known as the Intel Core 2011 processors, has finally arrived. There have been months of teasing accompanying on-stage demos, but the details on the Core i3, i5 and i7 processors are finally coming out and, considering the fact that there are a total of 29 new CPUs as well as a new integrated graphics options (processor graphics), there is a lot to mull over.

The first generation of processors was released a little over a year ago, so what is it that makes the second generation different? Well, if you haven't been following the Sandy Bridge news, the new family of processors are all based on the 32nm microarchitecture from Intel. They are also the first to put processor, memory controller and graphics on the same die.

But what does that mean for you? Well, it means the package is smaller and the parts take advantage of each other more efficiently. While the graphics may not be as good as a discrete video card, they are a lot more powerful than before. According to Intel, the HD 2000 and 3000 processor graphics provide double the performance of Capella-based systems which coincides with early benchmark tests. Turbo Boost and Hyper-threading technologies have also been improved by Intel to a point at which the new chips enable higher levels of CPU performance. The new integrated chips reduce power consumption and can even turn off an idle optic drive activating "incredible battery life" according to Intel.

The new architecture means new CPUs, 29 to be exact, which include different versions of mobile and desktop Core i3, i5 and i7 models. Naming on the processors has changed. Now the processor's name is followed by four numbers as opposed to the previous three. The first processors to ship in physical systems will be the quad-core i7 CPUs and should be hitting this week with the dual-core versions coming in February. Ultra-low voltage versions for portable laptops are coming and should be introduced in the second half of the year. Be sure to keep an eye out for some specially marked overclockable "K" series processors that will allow you to individually set the clockspeed ratios for each individual core.

This new generation of processors is sure to create quite the buzz in the computer world, especially for people who are enthusiasts or are looking to build a custom rig. There are a lot more details out about the processors now than there have been, but I can only imagine what will be revealed about them later. Keep checking back here periodically for all the details on the second generation Intel processors.

Source: Engadget

Microsoft Word Gets Hacked

2011-01-01T13:19:00.009-05:00

No computer program is 100% safe. Any program, no matter how good the programmer behind it was, can be hacked. Even big companies, the ones that have hundreds of technicians and programmers, are still vulnerable to hackers. Just take a look at the most recent hacks on one of the most widely used pieces of software in the world, Microsoft Word.

According to Microsoft officials last Tuesday, hackers are now exploiting a vulnerability in Microsoft Word in order to plant malware on Windows PCs. The bug, found in Microsoft Word 2002, 2003, 2007 and 2010, was patched back on November 9th, 2010, as a part of Microsoft's monthly security update.

Word 2008 and 2011 for the Mac have been patched as well, however, Microsoft has not yet issued a fix for the same flaw in Word 2004. The attacks, on the other hand, only affect Windows versions of the suite.

According to the Microsoft Malware Protection Center (MMPC), which is the group that investigates attack codes and also issues signature updates for the company's antivirus software, the first exploits were found last week. When the Word patch was shipped last month, the bug was rated as a "1" on the exploitability index. What that number means is that a working attack would manifest within 30 days.

The attack uses a malicious Rich Text Format (RTF) file to generate a stack overflow in Word on Windows, according to MMPC researcher Rodel Finones. Once a successful exploit takes place, the attack codes download and run a Trojan horse on the PC. Microsoft rated this RTF vulnerability as "critical" in Word 2007 as well as 2010 last month. However it was only listed as "important" in all other affected versions.

It is thought that this bug was a hacker choice due to the fact that users running Office 2007 or 2010 could be attacked if they made the simple mistake of previewing a specially-crafted RTF document in the Outlook e-mail client.

According to Jason Miller, the Data and Security Team Manager for Shavik Technologies, "Once a malformed message hits the Outlook preview pane, remote code can be executed. You should patch this right away." This is what he said when Microsoft released the patch.

Finones stated that the code "reliably exploits this Word vulnerability" and also urged users who have yet to install the November patch to do so immediately.

Source: Computer World

McAfee's 2011 List of Threats

2010-12-28T17:14:00.004-05:00

With the New Year fast approaching, tech enthusiasts are very excited about all of the latest technology that is being introduced in 2011, but what about the possible security concerns that come with all the new technology? On Tuesday, December 28, 2010, McAfee released their 2011 list of threat predictions. The company said, "The list comprises [the] most buzzed about platforms and services, including Google's Android, Apple's iPhone, Foursquare, Google TV and the Mac OS X platform, which are all expected to become major targets for cybercriminals."

"We've seen significant advancements in device and social network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most," said Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, in a statement. "These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss."

McAfee will have to work especially hard to fend off the increasingly sophisticated malware that will be targeting Apple in 2011. So far, the Apple Mac OS platform has been decently secure, said McAfee. The iPhone and iPad are growing increasingly popular in the business realm though, and McAfee is afraid that with the general lack of knowledge about how to secure these Apple devices Apple botnets and Trojans could be a frequent occurrence and become a serious issue.

The biggest thing that people need to be really careful about is social networking sites. McAfee said that sites like Twitter and Facebook can easily fall prey to problems like URL shortening scans. They continued saying that they knew that utilizing abbreviated links does make it easier to condense your 140 character limit Tweets, but sometimes these links are also an easy way for criminals to mask and direct users to malicious Web sites. Each minute there are more than 3,000 tiny URLs created. Due to these astronomical numbers, McAfee said that they expect to see an increasing number of URLs that will be utilized for spam, scamming, and other malicious purposes.

Although a recent study showed that only 4 percent of adults really use location-based services, companies are continuing to release location-based features including Foursquare, Google Latitude, Facebook Places, and more. McAfee warns that the information that is shared on sites like these could easily enable cyber criminals to formulate a targeted attack. They also predicted that in 2011 there will be an increase in the use of this type of tactic across most of the popular social networking sites.

A lot of these location-based services that people utilize are used via their mobile phones. Because of this, McAfee is also predicting a “rapid escalation” in the number of mobile attacks due to “widespread adoption of mobile devices in business environments, combined with historically fragile cellular infrastructure and slow strides toward encryption."

McAfee also said that the increased use of Internet TV connections could pose a serious security risk. If manufacturers just rush into releasing their products, they could run into some major issues with suspicious and malicious apps on platforms such as a Google TV device. "These apps will target or expose privacy and identity data and will allow cybercriminals to manipulate a variety of physical devices through compromised or controlled apps, eventually raising the effectiveness of botnets," McAfee said.

These weren’t the only things that McAfee had on the threat list that they released. The list also included:

Hacktivism: McAfee is predicting that there will most definitely be a rise in the number of possibly politically motivated cyber attacks. "More groups will repeat the WikiLeaks example," McAfee said. They continued saying that unlike WikiLeaks though, the strategy will be much more sophisticated and leverage social networks.

Friendly Fire: McAfee is saying that there will also be a rise in the use of malicious content that is disguised as an e-mail from a source that you know. There is “signed” malware that works to imitate legitimate files that McAfee is afraid will be much more prevalent. They also said that “friendly fire,” which is a threat that seems to come from your friends but really is a virus such as Koobface or VBMania, will become a much more prevalent choice by cybercriminals. McAfee also said that these attacks go hand-in-hand with social network attacks and that these social network attacks could quite possibly eventually overtake e-mail attacks.

Botnets: McAfee Labs is predicting that with the merger of Zeus and SpyEye that there will be more sophisticated bots that will be produced because of the advancements for bypassing security mechanisms and law enforcement monitoring. McAfee Labs also says that they expect to see an increase in botnet activity that begins to adopt data-gathering and data removal functionality, instead of the more common use of sending spam.

Well, one thing that can definitely be taken from McAfee’s 2011 list of threats is that there are definitely threats out there that users want to avoid. Security is a big issue that many people tend to avoid, including myself. Protection and caution is necessary and is something that people really need to pay a little more attention to.

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Browser Wars Heat Up for Microsoft

2010-12-22T09:43:00.007-05:00

"I fear all we have done is awaken a sleeping giant...", those were the words of Admiral Isoroku Yamoto after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and it also seems to be the feeling people have toward Microsoft and the company's entrance into the "browser wars" we are seeing today.

Back when Internet Explorer first came out, it was a high performance browser with a lot of useful functions. However, those days were finite, and Microsoft got branded with the reputation of producing crappy browsers, a reputation that IE7 and IE8 did nothing to improve upon.

In 2010, however, a long effort to reactivate the company's browser projects showed promise in IE9. As of right now, the application is still in beta form, but it has already shifted the browser market dramatically.

Internet Explorer 9 supports any and every kind of Web standard including a ton of HTML5 features like built-in video, CSS3 for advanced formatting, professional typography and SVG for smoothly resizable graphical elements. IE9 also speeds up the execution of web-based JavaScript programs. This development did manage to alert browser rivals for one top priority today, hardware acceleration. The software itself is accompanied by a push by the industry where Microsoft is educating Web developers and contributing to the development of standards.

It does appear that it may take a little while before web developers trust that Microsoft is serious about browsers again. It also seems that people still using the ancient IE6 will still be wary of upgrading. One thing is clear, Microsoft is paving the way for a new browser future where web sites as well as web applications become more fluid, interactive, polished and powerful.

In terms of Microsoft, Internet Explorer 9 has come in at exactly the right time. The battle with IE has always been against Firefox, however, Google's Chrome has brought in a new era of fierce competition. I think it is safe to say that Google knows a little something about the internet, and the company has a major agenda of web applications to pursue as well as a big enough presence on the web to allow it to make new technologies relevant by building them into its browser and web site.

Early in 2010 Chrome passed Safari by Apple for third place in the rankings of browser usage, and its growth carried to almost 10% of usage in November. A new phase of Google browser ambition is just taking off as well. The Chrome Web Store, which was designed to promote web-based applications and Chrome OS, allows people to find and purchase nearly any web app they want.

Chrome OS is much more of a departure from existing technology than just a browser. Google only offers it built into hardware. Google has done a good job with Android, but it is still unclear as to how well Chrome OS will fare with consumers and businesses.

Firefox's percentage of browser usage has remained consistently flat for most of 2010 thanks to Chrome. There are big things planned for Firefox 4 including many new features and performance enhancements. The problem is that Mozilla failed to meet a 2010 deadline and has since been pushed into 2011.

Apple's Safari has steadily increased in usage share with a few signs that the Windows version is catching on. Safari has been the principle sponsor of the open-source WebKit project, the same project both Safari and Chrome are based on. However, Google is steadily increasing.

One notable feature of Safari 5 that arrived in July was extensions that have the ability to customize the browser's behavior. Opera, the browser currently ranked 5th, is building them into Opera 11 which is the upcoming version of the browser which will match Chrome and Jetpack, the upcoming browser from Mozilla.

Adobe Systems, maker of Flash Player plug-in, had a particularly difficult year but ended on a good note. Apple, not surprisingly, did not budge on their ban of Flash from iOS devices directly, however, it did relent on blocking an Adobe tool that allows you to convert Flash apps to native apps. Google and Adobe forged an alliance due to the very public fight between Apple and Adobe which resulted in Flash support and promotion within Android.

The browser market combines competition between makers with cooperation as all the companies seek to advance the possibilities that can occur on the web. HTML5 standardization has sprouted emotional clashes between different groups involved as the specification moves more under the control of corporate powers.

The mobile market is also a big challenge to the web. Native software can offer better interfaces as well as faster performance than traditional web apps on mobile devices. However, it is still clear that the web as well as the tools for using it are clearly on the rise.

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Kingston Digital Unveils Second Generation Colorful Mini Fun USB Flash Drives

2010-12-14T17:23:00.007-05:00

USB flash drives are some of the most convenient pieces of technology around today. They allow you to add anything from data files to word documents and even movies or music to them and transport them to any USB device for instant access. But just because you have a cool piece of technology doesn't mean it has to be boring.

That is why Kingston Digital unleashed their DataTraveler Mini Fun not too long ago, a device that added color and fun to your everyday USB flash drive. Well, everything deserves an upgrade now and then which is why Kingston Digital has just unveiled the next generation of the DataTraveler Mini Fun USB flash drive.

This latest release from Kingston features a ton of colors as well as a rubber casing and a miniature size which is reviving one of Kingston's favorite designs. According to Jim Selby, Manager of European Product Marketing for Kingston Digital Europe, "These multicolored fun devices can be 'snapped' to each other in order to construct different objects and cool shapes. Users can take apart their designs and build something new and creative every day. The versatile Kingston DataTraveler Mini Fun G2 is the perfect storage companion to help store your favorite documents, photos and music in a mini-sized drive. It's so small that you can take it anywhere."

There are three different color designs for the Kingston DataTraveler Mini Fun G2. This allows users to mix and match different sticks. The mini design and bright colors make this USB drive ideal for your home, school and travel. There are three models of this device currently available, a 2GB, 4GB and 8GB, each of which come with a different color combination.

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Breakthrough by IBM May Bring Us Exascale Supercomputers

2010-12-01T17:54:00.006-05:00

If you are one of the people out there that doesn't think that a supercomputer seems good enough, then you probably work at IBM. Researchers at IBM have just made a breakthrough in using light pulses to help accelerate the transfer of data between chips. If this works out like the people at IBM think it will, then it could quite possibly increase supercomputer performance by more than a thousand times.

This technology, dubbed CMOS Integrated Silicon Nanophotonics (I feel smarter already), integrates optical modules as well as electrical modules on a single piece of silicon. This allows electrical signals created at the transistor level to be transformed into light pulses, seemingly allowing chips to communicate faster according to IBM silicon photonics research scientist Will Green.

IBM believes that this new technology will lead to massive advances in supercomputer power. The fastest supercomputers we have around today max out at nearly 2 petaflops which, for us lay people, registers into two thousand trillion calculations per second. The photonics technology could increase this number to a staggering trillion million calculations per second. Yeah, a MILLION TRILLION calculations per second, otherwise known as an exaflop. This would help IBM achieve their goal of building an exascale computer by the year 2020.

According to Green, "In an exascale system, interconnects have to be able to push exabytes per second across the network. This is an interesting milestone for system builders who are looking at building exascale systems in 10 years."

The possibility of integrating multiple photonics modules onto a single substrate or onto a motherboard is here, according to Green. Newer supercomputers already use optical technology for chips in order to communicate. However, this usually occurs at the rack level and mostly over a single wavelength. This breakthrough will allow optical communication simultaneously at multiple wavelengths.

The good thing about this technology is that it can be manufactured on a standard chip production line. Another benefit is that it also needs no special tools, making it extremely cost-effective. The current demonstration used a 130-nanometer CMOS manufacturing node. However, IBM plans on pursuing integration into "deeply scaled sub-100 nanometer CMOS processes," according to Green.

The technology aims to replace copper wires. As you know, copper wires are widely used today for data transfer between chips. Optics can get a speed increase for distances as short as a few centimeters to as long as a few miles and even consumes less power. Eventually, IBM hopes to use optics for on-chip communication between transistors as well. According to Green, "There is a vision for the chip level, but that is not what we are claiming today."

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Wozjob Apple 1 sells for Nearly a Quarter of a Million USD

2010-11-26T15:32:00.000-05:00

Wiki Photo: The Hand built Apple-1

The Apple-1 computer was hand build in Steve Wozniak's parents garage. Steve Job's came up with the idea of selling it. The Apple-1 was first demonstrated in April 1976 at the HomeBrew Computer Club in Palo Alto.

Originally, the Apple 1 sold for $500 when it was sold to a reseller 1976. It was made out of wood and was billed as the first "personal computer." The retailer marked up the Apple-1 by 33% giving it a price of $666.66.

An Apple I reportedly sold for $50,000 USD at auction in 1999, with another apparently selling in 2009 for $17,500.

Fast forward to November 2010. This same Apple I (with serial number 82) sold for $178,000 ($213,600 including the 'buyer's premium') at Christie's auction house in London , making it by far the highest price paid for this model to date, at £133,250 ($210,000).

The high value of this particular example is likely due to the rare documents and packaging offered in the sale rather than the computer itself; namely (and amongst others) the original packaging (with the return label showing Steve Jobs' parents address, the original Apple Computer Inc 'headquarters' being their garage), a personally typed and signed letter from Jobs (answering technical questions about the computer) and the original invoice showing 'Steven' as the salesman.

Story Sources: EpochTimes, Wiki, Gather

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Record Profits For Dell Due to Increase in Demands

2010-11-23T19:36:00.005-05:00

On Thursday, November 18th, Dell reported their third quarter earnings to be record breaking due to the increased demand for PCs and computer services. Despite this report from Dell, consumer revenue for the company only showed a 4 percent increase for the third quarter and is predicted to have little to no increase for the fourth quarter and holiday season.

Dell’s reports were pretty incredible, despite what consumer revenue says. They reported a net income of $822 million, which is a 144 percent increase from the same period a year ago, and $15.39 billion in revenues, which is up 19 percent from the same period a year ago.

“Our strong results demonstrate that we are listening to customers and delivering what they want,” stated Michael Dell, chief executive of Dell. “It validates that our strategy to offer choice and efficiency at every level of the IT enterprise computing stack is taking hold, and we are more focused than ever to being a true partner – not merely a provider – to our customers. Dell is growing in the right areas, and I'm very excited about our momentum."

Dell executives have said that the company has been focusing on “profit share” instead of market share when it comes to units sold. Chief financial officer Brian Gladden said, “I believe that the third quarter results demonstrate the strategy we have described to you over the past year is the correct one,” in a conference call with analysts on Thursday.

Dell’s Large Enterprise revenue came in at $4.3 billion, which is a 27 percent increase from last year, with an operating income of about $400 million (or 9.2 percent of revenue). Their Small and Medium Business revenue came in at $3.7 billion, which is a 24 percent increase, with an operating income of $391 million. Their consumer revenue came in at $3 billion, which was only a 4 percent increase, as was mentioned above. Dell said that for operating income the consumer segment improved to breaking even for the quarter, despite the “muted” consumer demand.

On Thursday Dell also announced that its new Inspiron Duo laptop was just made available for pre-order. All of these announcements come a day after the announcement that Dell communication chief Ron Garriques was leaving the company. This has caused some speculations about what will happen to Dell’s plan of creating a line of cell phones.

In the conference call though, Garriques resignation from the company was barely even addressed. The questions were focused more towards the “management changes” at Dell and the impact that the tablet industry will have on the company. Executives responded by saying that Dell’s 2011 tablet release will address “all the opportunities we see for tablets.”

Michael Dell went on to say, “We are very much in the mobile space, working very much with both Android and Windows Mobile 7 and encouraged with the development of both of those and see them as a great opportunity for us.”

Steve Felice, the president of consumer small and medium business for Dell, made an apparent reference to tablets and the general mobile space by saying, “We want to mainstream the supply chain, the sales capability, and the marketing capability. All of this is aimed to bring this more to scale in faster fashion than we normally envisioned.”

In the conference call Dell did not present any target revenues for the fourth quarter. Instead the company said, “Fourth quarter revenue is expected to track in-line to slightly up from the third quarter as commercial demand remains stable while consumer demand remains more muted.”

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HP Will Be Paying Out $16.25 M in Settlement

2010-11-13T14:10:00.004-05:00

HP is a very well-known technological name, but the company is really not having the best of years so far in 2010. It’s not their sales numbers or their products; it’s something very different that they had complete control over. On Wednesday, the Department of Justice announced that HP will be paying out $16.25 million in order to settle e-rate fraud charges.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission say that contractors for HP “wined and dined” certain Dallas public school officials so that they would be able to obtain insider information that would assist them in winning competitive e-rate contracts from the school system. These contracts are a government program that work to fund Internet connections in public schools and libraries.

Now, HP’s contractors did more than just take workers from the Dallas Independent School District and the Houston Independent School District out to dinner or something like that. These contractors bought the school officials lavish gifts that included things like yacht trips and tickets to the 2004 Super Bowl. All of these gifts helped HP to secure the contracts that they wanted. These contracts included more than $17 million worth of HP equipment. The government was tipped off about HP’s dealings with the school districts. This prompted the Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission’s investigation of the allegations.

As a result of HP’s dealings and of the Federal Communication Commission’s investigations, they will be paying out $16.25 million. The FCC says that most of the money will be returned to the e-rate program. They have also said that in the future they will make sure that HP follows all of the e-rate requirements so that this does not happen again.

"The FCC's compliance agreement with HP ensures that HP will train its employees thoroughly on the FCC's gift and other e-rate rules and provides for audits of HP's e-rate business," said the general counsel of the FCC, Austin Schlick. "If HP fails to monitor its e-rate activities closely and abide by e-rate program requirements, it will face substantial penalties."

HP said that they have now dismissed all of the contractors that broke the rules concerning the e-rate contract. “HP requires that all employees and partners adhere to lawful and ethical business practices," stated the company. "The activities at the center of this investigation occurred more than five years ago, the partner relationships have been terminated, and the employees involved are no longer with the company." They also added, “HP fully cooperated with the authorities, and the matter is now resolved.”

The chairman of the FCC, Julius Genachowski, said, “Broadband is key to our children's 21st century education. That's why one of the FCC's top priorities is making sure e-rate works to benefit students and libraries. Today's settlement shows the extensive efforts of the FCC and DOJ to protect the e-rate program from waste, fraud, and abuse, and to deter misconduct in the future."

The FCC edited the e-rate program slightly in September so that there would be no misunderstandings or abuses concerning the rules about soliciting or receiving gifts within the program. They also added a few rules to make sure that the bidding process was completely fair for everyone that is involved.

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New Wireless Solar Keyboard from Logitech

2010-11-03T19:14:00.004-04:00

Logitech is a Swiss peripheral device manufacturer that makes PC accessories including keyboards, mice, microphones, game controllers, and webcams. They also produce home and computer speakers, headphones, wireless audio devices, and audio devices for MP3 players and mobile phones. The newest innovation in their computer peripheral department is the Wireless Solar Keyboard K750.

This keyboard brings together all of the latest technology. It features integrated solar panels on the top of the keyboard that collect the power for the K750 so that you can use it without batteries or power cords inside or outside of the office. Logitech has made the incredible claim that when the keyboard is fully charged it can last for up to three months in a pitch black room.

The keyboard has a very sleek design. It is mostly black, except for the slim white frame, and is about one-third of an inch thick. The keys were designed in the chiclet style and have an extremely comfortable feel. The keyboard features an on/off switch that allows you to conserve power when you aren’t utilizing the K750. There also is an indicator light that lets you know when the charge of the keyboard is getting low.

Logitech includes their Unifying Receiver with the Wireless Solar Keyboard K750. It is a thumbnail USB device that gives you the ability to use your keyboard wirelessly. The receiver also features the special ability to sync up to six Logitech peripherals with the one USB device. Another great feature is the solar power app that will allow K750 users to install a lux meter that will measure ambient light levels and the battery life of the keyboard. This app will be available to download on November 15th.

The Wireless Solar Keyboard from Logitech is not shipping yet, but it is available for pre-order. The keyboard will be shipping a little later this month and will cost $79.99. I think that this keyboard is awesome. It’s incredible that when charged the keyboard can last up to three months. Also, wireless really means more convenient to me, which is important. I think that this solar keyboard will definitely be a hit. This is a great keyboard from a great company.

If you need an Apple Mac Desktop Computer Rental, then call Rentacomputer.com today at 800-736-8772.

The Playbook

2010-09-30T00:05:00.004-04:00

With the release of the iPad other companies are scrambling to release their own tablet PCs. On the horizon is Dell's Slate and also revealed is Research in Motion's (RIM's) Playbook. RIM is most well known for its Blackberry phones and with the popularity of the Blackberry staying consistent throughout the years hope is high that the Playbook can live up to expectations.

While the Blackberry line of phones is known for their business-savvy software, RIM wants consumers of all backgrounds to be comfortable with the Playbook. RIM has tried for a long time to break away from their business-only niche, and the Playbook might be just the device to do it. If RIM wants their new tablet to be fun, they have made a step in the right direction with the Playbook's dual cameras. The forward camera is 3 mega pixels and the rear camera is 5 mega pixels. The presence of the forward facing camera indicates that there will be video calling on the tablet, and everything is shown in brilliant 1080p HD video. The screen will be a 7" LCD.

With all of these positives the Playbook sounds like it could be a real contender for the iPad, but like every device, it has its potential downfalls. One thing that sticks out very clearly is the lack of built in 3G. RIM has already stated that 3G will not be built into the Playbook in the first generation, and that is almost unheard of for the tablets being released. The screen, while beautiful, is also smaller than the iPad's. Lastly, the Playbook is not due for release till early 2011, and at that time it will have to compete with the next generation of iPads.

There is definitely hope for the Playbook in the tablet market. The first generation may not do so well, but hopefully once RIM gets its feet wet in the tablet industry, it will be able to produce a quality product for Blackberry lovers and the general public alike.

Below are the specs and features for the Blackberry Playbook:

7" LCD display, 1024 x 600 screen resolution
5.1" x 7.6" x 0.4" (130mm x 194mm x 10mm)
0.9 lbs (400g)
Built-in microUSB connector
Multi-touch capacitive screen
Wi-Fi® 802.11 a/b/g/n

3 MP high definition forward-facing camera
5 MP high definition rear-facing camera
Codec support for superior media playback, creation and video calling
1080p HD video; H.264, MPEG4, WMV HDMI video output
Micro USB and Micro HDMI

1 GHz dual-core processor
1GB RAM
Symmetrical dual-core processing

Rapid development environment
Reliable BlackBerry Tablet OS, powered by QNX technology
Supports POSIX OS, SMP, Open GL, BlackBerry® 6, WebKit, Adobe® Flash®, Java® and Adobe Mobile AIR

Rentacomputer.com offers a full range of iPad Rentals. Get yours today by visiting www.rentacomputer.com or by calling 800-736-8772.

Pay-As-You-Go 4G From Clearwire

2010-09-02T01:07:00.005-04:00

Last Monday internet provider Clearwire announced that it would begin offering a pay-as-you-go 4G service for its customers. With the demand for faster and faster internet rising, and the amount of contractual services lowering, this is exactly what the new tech-savvy generation needs.

The new 4G service will be called Rover and will be available in all of Clearwire's networks. Clearwire, being partially owned by Sprint-Nextel, is used to power the 4G WiMax network, and it is this network Rover will run off of.

Lately Clearwire has been in slump profit wise, losing millions of dollars this year alone. This new pay-as-you-go network will hopefully rekindle some profits for the flagging company, as well as making internet accessible for those who don't want to get tangled up in a contract.

Price wise Rover seems to be decent. It will connect to Clearwire's network using either a "Stick" or a "Puck". The Stick will connect directly to the computer and provide access and as its name suggests, is a USB modem. The Stick will retail for $100. The Puck provides access for up to eight mobile devices and costs $150 dollars, which is an incredible deal for fifty dollars more, and also allows multiple laptops or other mobile devices to be online simultaneously. Users can choose to pay by the day, by the week, or by the month. Prices will be $5 for a day, $20 dollars for a week, or $50 dollars for a month.

With a reasonable price for their new 4G network Clearwire can hope to recoup its recent losses. More good news for the company is that it is currently the only service provider offering 4G. Other internet heavyweights will soon enter into the game, but Clearwire may be able to retain popularity with its contract-free Rover.

Looking for Computer / PC Rental information? Visit the www.rentacomputer.com PC Rental page for your short term business PC needs. Or see this link for a complete line of Personal Computer Rentals.

Broadband made a legal right for Finnish citizens

2010-08-17T23:21:00.002-04:00

Broadband made a legal right for Finnish citizens.
Let us be honest, how many of us are reading this article from our neighbors wifi? I, for one, am not, but that may or may not be because I’m the only one with internet in the building. The ethical argument for using another person’s wireless internet is akin to the argument about virtual property. Have we reached an age where a person can not only own the rights to something tangible, but something completely invisible as well? It is almost considered ignorant to go without internet anymore, but with bills for electric, cable, water, gas, and everything else piling up, it is becoming more and more difficult to add another forty dollars or so to our monthly spending. With social networking becoming more popular than postal mail, maybe the US should take a hint from Finland, and their new policy that internet should be a legal right to each and every person.
In October 2009 promises were being made by Finland's communication officials that by 2010 everyone would have broadband internet of at least 1Mbit/s, and by 2015 amping it up to 100Mbit/s. Finland makes this possible using ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line). As of July 2010 this promise came to fruition, and all of Finland had the option to be connected to the web. Even before this breakthrough in communication, certain cities in Finland, such as Oulu, were already offering city-wide internet access. Finland’s willingness to offer such a commodity for no cost to its general public may seem startling, but when one looks at the benefits to free internet, it is understandable why this step was taken.
According to Reuters, four out of five people believe that internet access is a fundamental right. For the older population this might seem hard to believe, since the internet has only become extremely popular in the last decade. Internet access has become such a crucial part of our everyday lives that it would be impossible for some businesses to function without it. In fact, some businesses are completely internet based, with nary a cubicle in sight. More and more people would benefit from open access internet, even to the point where it would open up jobs for people unable to leave their homes.
America's attempts to jump start its economy are everywhere. New highways being built, new government-run jobs opening up, the evidence is obvious that drastic steps are being taken to put money back into the pockets of American citizens in hopes that said citizens will spend the money. By offering nationwide broadband access, online shopping would be available to every single citizen, not just the technically savvy. The factory worker that gets off work at 3:00am with a hole in his steel toed boots could jump on his computer, as basic as it might be, and order a new pair for delivery. No more worrying about waking up five hours early to get to the shoe store. The full time Mom could order all of her Christmas presents from home without having to dress and wash her numerous offspring. The possibilities are endless. For wireless intenet on the go consider an AirCard rental from Rentacomputer.com.

Looking for Computer / PC Rental information? Visit the www.rentacomputer.com PC Rental page for your short term business PC needs. Or see this link for a complete line of Personal Computer Rentals.

Are iPad Users Snobs?

2010-08-13T05:31:00.007-04:00

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to many people but iPad users are "selfish elites." At least, that's what a new study says. The research comes from MyType, a consumer research firm. They surveyed 20,000 people between March and May to get a "psychological profile" of iPad owners. The result? "Selfish elites."

MyType found that iPad owners tend to be up to six times more "wealthy, sophisticated, highly educated, and disproportionately interested in business and finance" compared to non-owners. iPad owners also tend to be less than kind or altruistic. For the most part, they fell into the 30-50 age range.

However, a whopping 96% of those likely to criticize iPads don't even own the device. Those people have been deemed "independent geeks" by the company. MyType's Tim Koelkebeck said in an interview with Wired.com that this group earned its name by being "self-directed young people who look down on conformity and are interested in video games, computers, electronics, science and the internet."

MyType lists a number of reasons as to why the iPad owners could be, well, the way they are. Speculation includes the high price tag of the device and the desire to have more gadgets on which to do more work for the workaholic types. As a matter of fact, when the iPad was released, there seemed to be mixed opinions amongst the people who wondered why the device was even necessary versus the people who saw it as a cool new way to stay connected.

As for the "independent geeks" or critics of the device, speculation suggests they are one trip to the Apple Store away from praising the iPad. Koelkebeck says that bashing it is an "identity statement." He goes on to say of the critics, "As a mainstream, closed-platform device whose major claim to fame is ease of use and sex appeal, the iPad is everything that they are not."

That's pretty harsh, but anyone who knows anything about computers, the tech world, or modern pop culture knows that hating Apple products is simply a way of life for some people. However, there are also those people out there who would probably buy Apple garbage bags if they were to go on sale at the Apple Store.

Just how scientific is this research? Well, obviously, calling someone a "selfish elite" or an "independent geek" is pretty subjective. However, MyType did make a serious effort to get the American public's opinion of the iPad. You can read more about how they conducted their research and the reasoning behind it at MyType.com/blog.

If you're on the fence about the iPad and would like to take one for a test drive, check out temporary iPad Rentals.

Looking for Computer / PC Rental information? Visit the www.rentacomputer.com PC Rental page for your short term business PC needs. Or see this link for a complete line of Personal Computer Rentals.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Forced to Resign

2010-08-05T00:53:00.004-04:00

Hewlett-Packard, the country's best-selling computer brand and the world's largest technology company, is without a leader today. According to the Associated Press, CEO Mark Hurd was forced to resign this week after being accused of falsifying "expenses to hide numerous private dinners with a woman who was paid up to $5,000 per event to greet people and make introductions among executives attending HP events that she helped organize."

The woman in question had accused Hurd of sexual harassment. However, both Hurd and the woman's lawyer, Gloria Allred, claimed the relationship between the two was not sexual. The board of directions said that even though Hurd didn't actually violate its sexual harassment policy, he did break its rules of conduct. Despite the accusations from HP's board of directors, Hurd insists the money spent to pay the woman was a legitimate business expense, but he also says he doesn't have a record of just how much was spent.

After the news was released on Friday, HP's stock fell 10% in after-hours trading. Despite the loss, analysts say the drop was merely a reaction to the news and nothing to be concerned about.
Hurd began at HP in 2005 after 25 years at NRC Corp. With Hurd at the wheel HP spent over $20 billion on acquisitions that helped turn the company into a well-rounded computer company. The most recent was the $1.4 billion purchase of smartphone maker Palm Inc. in June. During his tenure, the company's market value nearly doubled.

So, who will replace Hurd? No one knows for sure just yet, but there are rumors swirling that it could be an internal candidate. Some of the potential replacements from inside the company include Todd Bradley, who oversees personal computers and mobile devices; Vyomesh Joshi, who oversees printers; Ann Livermore, who leads the servers, services, software, and storage division; and Shane Robison, HP's leader of corporate strategy and marketing. Cathie Lesjak, the company's CFO, is serving as interim CEO until a replacement is named, but she insists she would not take the permanent job.

Don't feel sorry for Hurd though. He will walk away with about $28 million in cash and stock.

As for HP, this is the third "scandal" to hit the company's top executives in five years. Former CEO Carly Fiorina was forced to resign after the company's controversial deal to buy Compaq in 2002 didn't produce the desired results. In 2006 Chairwoman Patricia Dunn was forced to leave after a boardroom spying scandal involving spying on reporters' and directors' phone records which were being leaked to the media.

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