:: Gizmoza :: Where You Can Get the Newest HighTech-IT and Gadgets Reviews

Report: iPhone 3rd Gen Details Revealed

2009-03-27T06:07:00.001+07:00

A new iPhone is on its way according to reports

One general expectation in the tech community is that Apple will release a new iPhone sometime in 2009. After two years of consecutive hardware releases, people would likely be more surprised if Apple didn't release a new phone this year.

Still, Apple and its U.S. service provider AT&T have remained coy about upcoming hardware updates. The iPhone OS v3.0 preview came with not a hardware mention to be seen, after the last two OS updates accompanied new hardware.

However, recent reports cite a high-level source at AT&T as saying that a new iPhone may indeed be coming. The source says that yearly iPhone hardware releases are "becoming a tradition" and comments that in mid-June (around the time of the OS v3.0 release) , Apple and AT&T will have a big announcement.

They also hint that customers soon will not have to choose between the iPhone or high end smartphones with more features. This indicates that new features may be added to the iPhone with the next hardware update, such as autofocus/flash for the camera, video sharing, etc.

Furthermore, the reports say that the source hinted that a new Infineon chipset may be used in the hardware successor, possibly a faster HSDPA (7.2Mbps) chipset. This chipset would speed up the iPhone's network connections to run even faster than the current 3G model.

While rumors have the tendency to not come true, Boy Genius, who originated the reports, claims that the comments are "100% confirmed." If indeed true, things may get even more interesting in the smart phone market in just a couple short months.

New Xbox 360 Hardware Failures Being Reported in Significant Numbers Stephen Kamizuru

2009-03-27T06:06:00.000+07:00

Xbox 360 failures are on the rise since the launch of the New Xbox Experience

A known Xbox 360 hardware issue is beginning to surface in significant numbers recently based on research conducted by video game site Joystiq. Tentatively called the Xbox 360 E74 error, one of the lights on the “Ring of Lights” on the front of your Xbox 360 console flashes red and you receive the error code and message: "E74. System Error. Contact Xbox Customer Support". The symptoms involve the bottom right portion of the indicator ring repeatedly flashing on and off and lines or snow will become visible across the screen.

According to the initial Joystiq article posted on March 13, the Microsoft representative Joystiq contacted told them she wasn't familiar with the problem and that they were looking in to the issue. The E74 error is a known issue that is recognized by Microsoft and is documented on Microsoft’s own support site complete with diagrams. The support site has a last revised time stamp of March 3, 2009 as of this writing, predating the Joystiq article that broke the story.

Microsoft’s support site provides no explanation for the error other than to state, “This behavior occurs when the Xbox 360 console experiences a hardware failure.” Joystiq theorizes the E74 error is related to a hardware video problem where the ANA/HANA scaling chip on Xbox 360s equipped with HDMI functionality has come loose.

The main theory put forward that tries to explain why this particular hardware issue is being seen more frequently is the increased graphical stress caused by the introduction of the New Xbox Experience. The New Xbox Experience was launched on November 19 and provided Xbox Live users with a complete rework of the user interface.

One of the significant changes introduced by the New Xbox Experience was the removal of the blade interface. The blades allowed users to access pages of information and features quickly due to the fact they are stacked on top of each other. The new interface uses full windows to spread out the screen.

Another significant change introduced by the New Xbox Experience was the implementation of a graphical avatar system. Users are allowed to choose their avatar from a large group; each avatar is dressed differently, has a unique hair style, and skin color. Once you have chosen your avatar, you are allowed to customize it with new clothing, accessories, and hair. The stress caused by these visual changes may be what is taking many Xbox 360s to the breaking point for unlucky customers.

An interesting pattern can be seen on a Google Trends chart that shows a noticeable spike in users researching the E74 error in November 2008 right around the launch of the New Xbox Experience.

Joystiq’s analysis of survey respondents show a similar pattern of increased E74 failures starting in November of last year. A conspiracy theory making the rounds speculates Microsoft may have changed the system diagnostics test to report Red Ring of Death error as E74 instead to save money. For errors reported as E74, it would force customers to pay $100 for the repair if the error occurs later than 12 months after purchase. The E74 error is not covered under the 3-year extended warranty set in place for the Red Ring of Death malfunction. Joystiq points out that this theory is unlikely because survey respondents are still reporting Red Ring of Death errors after the launch of the New Xbox Experience.

On March 19, Joystiq posted Microsoft’s official response to the E74 issue where they stated:

E74 is a general hardware error on Xbox 360 indicated by a single red flashing light in the Xbox Ring of Light and an error message visible on the television. This error is unrelated to the three flashing red lights error and there is not a single root cause. We encourage anyone who receives this error to contact Xbox Customer support through www.xbox.com/support or 1-800-4-MY-XBOX. The majority of customers who own Xbox 360 consoles continue to have a terrific experience from their first day, and continue to, day in and day out.

As pointed out by Joystiq, Microsoft’s response fails to adequately answer what causes the E74 error, if there has been an increase in incidents, and why it is not covered while the Red Ring of Death is. The evidence is mounting as Joystiq has posted an update on March 23 showing E74 errors have definitely increased since the introduction of the New Xbox Experience. It remains to be seen how long it takes Microsoft to acknowledge there is an issue and deal with in a way that satisfies their current customers. As past history shows an adequate response may take time.

Microsoft’s top game executive, Robbie Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices group, said at a dinner in July 2008 that Microsoft’s own research shows that gamers have largely forgiven the company for defective Xbox 360s. Depending on how this issue is handled current customers may not be so quick to forgive.

Windows Vista SP2 Hits RTM

2009-03-27T06:04:00.002+07:00

Microsoft's latest service pack will bring the ability to record Blu-Ray, numerous Wi-Fi updates, and other tweaks and bugfixes

On the tails of the release of the Windows Vista SP2 Release Candidate to the masses, only a couple weeks later Microsoft has delivered the RTM Escrow build to its Connect beta testers. Microsoft had already released this build several days ago, reportedly, to its internal testers.

Beta testers can find the new build on Windows Update via Windows Connect. It has been packaged with multiple install options to test, including Slipstream versions and Standalone installers. The new build string is 6002.17043.090312-1835, so if you are a tester or have a copy you can check its authenticity against that.

The new service pack delivers many much anticipated features, along with numerous tweaks and bug fixes which should strengthen the Vista experience. Among the hottest additions in the new pack is the ability to record in Blu-Ray format for the first time in Windows. Other key additions include Bluetooth v2.1 connectivity, Windows Connect Now (WCN) Wi-Fi Configuration wireless functionality, faster Wi-Fi resume times after hibernation, Windows Search 4.0, and the ability to configure the maximum number of TCP connections.

For those outside the testing community eager to get their hands on the final version of SP2, it should be available within a couple weeks, as the RTM build typically is the last step before a public release. Stay tuned for more details.

Canon Unveils EOS Rebel T1i D-SLR

2009-03-27T06:01:00.002+07:00

T1i D-SLR records full 1080p HD Video at entry-level price

For a long time, the biggest problem facing many digital photographers who were moving from the point-and-shoot market to the D-SLR market was the inability to record video. Thankfully, Nikon changed that last summer.

In August 2008, Nikon introduced its D90 D-SLR that was capable of recording 720P HD video, a first for the D-SLR world. The D90 recorded at 24 FPS in 720p resolution and offered a Live View LCD. Shortly after the D90 broke cover, Canon unveiled a high-end D-SLR called the EOS 5D Mark II that offered full 1080p HD recording at 30 FPS. The big downside was that the 5D Mark II retailed for a hefty $2,699 for the body only putting it out of the beginners reach.

Canon has now announced a new entry-level D-SLR camera called the EOS Rebel T1i that is the first Rebel capable of recording HD video. The T1i can record in 1080p resolution at 20 FPS, dropping the resolution down to 720p gets you full 30 FPS recording and SD recording at 640 x 480 is supported as well. Video is recorded in .MOV format using MPEG-4 compression.

The camera has a 15.1-megapixel CMOS sensor and uses Canon's DIGIC 4 Imaging Processor. A 3-inch rear LCD offers Live View shooting and has a resolution of 920,000 dots. A wealth of automatic features makes using a D-SLR easy for first time users.

Automatic features of the T1i include Auto Lighting Optimizer and Creative Auto Mode. The Auto Lighting Optimizer helps ensure that the subject of each picture is well light and visible by analyzing the image brightness and automatically adjusting dark areas so they appear brighter.

Creative Auto Mode is a full auto setting on the camera that allows for automatic adjustments to exposure compensation, aperture, or shutter speed through a simple navigation menu on the LCD. The menus allow users to do things like blur the background of a shot or lighten or darken an image with automatic modes.

The Rebel T1i has an integrated cleaning system that cleans the sensor for crisp photos. ISO sensitivity for the camera is ISO 100 to ISO 3200 in whole stop increments and two additional high ISO settings are included with H1 offering ISO 6400 and H2 offering ISO 12800.

The camera is also capable of shooting continuously at 3.4 FPS for up to 170 shots in large/fine mode or up to nine RAW images. Three Live View shooting modes are offered including Quick, Live, and Face Detection mode. All the Live View modes can be used on images and video.

Canon's EOS Rebel T1i will be available in early May with a body only Kit selling for $799.99 including a battery pack, USB cable, a neck strap and other accessories. Those looking for a kit can get the T1i body along with an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Zoom lens for $899.99.

Apple iPhone 3G May Only Cost $100 to Make

2008-06-19T13:03:00.000+07:00

Apple profits for hardware will drop but software sales and market share will climb

Last year when the first generation iPhone was announced by Apple, the bill of materials for the device was estimated to be in the area of $170. According to recent analysis the new iPhone 3G could be costing Apple significantly less to make than the original iPhone.

According to teardown analysis from Portelligent Inc., the new iPhone 3G could have a bill of materials as low as $100. This reduction in the cost to build the device takes into account the increased prices for the addition of a 3G chipset and a GPS chip.

“Gen2 iPhone pricing is aggressive enough that it made me think Apple's really taking the gloves off on this one," noted Portelligent president David Carey. "They are probably not as worried about iPhone hardware profits as they are about getting a piece of the action on service revenues and getting more Macs in homes and offices all around the globe.”

This aggressive pricing is taking some money out of Apple’s coffers on hardware sales. However, Apple will likely make up the losses on hardware sales in revenues for software sold via the App Store. DailyTech reported that the App Store could be a billion dollar business for Apple by 2009.

Will Strauss from Forward Concepts told EETimes that he believes the iPhone 3G is using an Infineon baseband and RF transceiver along with a Samsung applications processor. Samsung launched a handset with these same parts recently and pointed out that the cost of the Infineon chips were about 20% less than similar chips from Qualcomm.

According to Carey, the addition of the HSPDA chipset adds $15 and the addition of the GPS chip adds another $5. Those additional costs are offset in part by the reduced memory pricing compared to last year. These cost figures, of course, don't take into account development, marketing, and software costs.

Palm Expects to Ship 2 Million Centro Smartphones

2008-06-19T13:01:00.000+07:00

Palm hopes to keep seeing its Centro smartphones fly off store shelves

Palm Inc. may be stuck in a rut and facing difficult financial times, but it hopes selling 2 million units of the Centro smartphone in 2008 will help turn things around.

At least 1 million units have been shipped so far in the United States since the phone's launch in mid-October. The Centro is Palm's fastest selling smartphone in company history.

Palm's recent announcement that the phone is now available for Verizon Wireless will help the company ship even more units of the phone. Consumers can now purchase and use a Centro on the Verizon Wireless, AT&T and Sprint Nextel phone networks.

Verizon customers can purchase the phone for $99.99 after a $70 MIR and two-year customer agreement or extension with Verizon.

Centro features a QWERTY keyboard, Bluetooth, digital camera, 64MB internal memory, and runs on Palm OS 5.4.9.

The phone is considered a smaller, easier to use Palm Treo smartphone, but it has some drawbacks. While it allows its users to e-mail, browse the internet, text and picture message, there isn't a built-in instant message program available.

The Centro's success can be attributed to new smartphone users, Palm indicated in a press release. The Apple iPhone 3G may have gotten a price cut, but the Centro remains cheap and easy to use, and Palm expects it will continue to draw in new smart phone owners.

Understanding its using an aging operating system and internet browser unlikely to please experienced smart phone owners, Palm is working on a new OS that should be available in 2009. The team of developers will be responsible solely for creating a new interactive platform aimed directly towards higher-end, more experienced phone users.

According to IDC, Palm increased its market share 5 percent, and now controls 13 percent of the global smartphone market.

Microsoft Announces NavReady Embedded Operating System for PNDs

2008-06-19T12:59:00.000+07:00

NavReady is Microsoft's first category specific operating system

Microsoft announced a new embedded Windows operating system this week called NavReady. Microsoft says that NavReady is the first category-specific operating system it has released.

Some key features of NavReady are a small footprint that uses a componentized technology that allows the OS to be incorporated into CE 5.0 designs easily. The OS is designed to run on an ARM processor and it supports a 32-bit native real-time unified kernel.

Microsoft says that NavReady will help manufacturers build portable navigation devices (PNDs) with a highly connected design. The OS supports Bluetooth for rich hands-free usage, managed dial-up networking services and other Bluetooth features.

One key component is Live Search for devices that helps perform search quires to find points of interest. Desktop pass-though is also featured and allows the PND to establish connections to online services and the Internet when the device is connected to a Windows-based PC that has ActiveSync/WDMC installed along with an internet connection. PNDs using the NavReady OS can also act as SideShow display for Vista computers.

The internet connectivity of the new OS allows for use of MSN Direct for updates on traffic, gas prices and more. PC World reports that Mio Technology has already announced it will use the Windows Embedded NavReady 2009 operating system in its next line of Mio GPS devices.

XM, Sirius Merger Gets FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's Approval

2008-06-19T12:58:00.000+07:00

Final vote on the merger could come at any time

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin has recommended that the merger between Sirius and XM be approved according to the Associated Press. To get Martin’s approval, provisions were added to the merger deal that would turn over a portion of the available bandwidth from the satellite providers to noncommercial and minority programming.

The provisions for turning over portions of the satellite bandwidth require the two companies to donate 8% of their satellite capacity to noncommercial and minority broadcasts. That available bandwidth equates to about 12 channels each from Sirius and XM for a total of 24 channels.

Other provisions from Martin to his approval include an open radio agreement that would promote competition among manufacturers of satellite radios and a three year price freeze on all packages and an a la cart option to be available within three months of the close of the deal.

The AP quotes Martin from a statement, “As I've indicated before, this is an unusual situation. I am recommending that with the voluntary commitments they (the companies) have offered, on balance, this transaction would be in the public interest.”

Despite Martin’s approval the final vote to approve the merger is yet to happen and the other four commissioners could still say no to the merger. There is no clear indication on how the other commissioners feel on the merger at this time.

The approval of the merger has been long sought by Sirius and XM. The merger was approved by the U.S. Justice Department in March. When Sirius and XM first announced they intended to merge their two companies the deal was worth in the area of $13 billion.

The final vote on the merger could come any time after Martin’s recommendation is given to his fellow commissioners.

Phoenix Gets Some Dirt on Mars

2008-06-19T12:55:00.000+07:00

After a short sticky situation, Phoenix returns some images to Earth.

After successfully reaching Mars at the end of a nine and a half month jaunt through interplanetary space, the Phoenix Lander landed safely on the surface and began broadcasting data back to Earth. Phoenix's well known mission is to study the Martian surface and air, scanning it for traces of life and help to discover how a planet once thought to be at least partially covered with water became an icy desert.

To examine the rust-colored soil, Phoenix uses a robotic arm which wields a small backhoe type bucket to scoop up soil and bring it to the various instruments aboard the lander. Presently, the probe has gathered at least one sample which has been imaged by its Optical Microscope instrument.

The soil sample surprised Phoenix mission crew, being somewhat more clumpy and sticky than was theorized. However, the particles that were imaged by the microscope were successfully deposited upon a custom silicone substrate. The substrate contains several different strips with different sizes and patterns of pegs and holes machined into them. The various patterns are designed to help capture and hold different sizes of particles for imaging not only by the Optical Microscope, but by Phoenix's onboard Atomic Force Microscope.

The images show various types of particles, most notably large particles of dark glassy appearance, probably volcanic in origin, and smaller particles which are more similar to the dust that swirls endlessly in the Martian atmosphere. Also in the mix are at least four different types of minerals.

No reports of life are flooding in from the Phoenix control center. Though the lander has been on Mars for nearly 20 days, data from the instruments is just starting to be collected and analyzed. It may be weeks or months before a sample of ice, what the mission planners are most enthusiastically seeking, is collected for analysis.

Mars may have an active, though slow climate. It may have once teemed with primordial life in liquid water. With any luck and a little work, thanks to the Phoenix lander, we may soon have answers to these unknowns.

Doctors Test Newly Invented Gestural Interface During Brain Surgery

2008-06-19T12:52:00.000+07:00

The new and growing field of gestural computing got a serious field test during brain surgery

Gestural interfaces are a hot new field of computing. Microsoft announced that its upcoming OS -- Windows 7 -- will rely heavily on gestures and touch. In a most basic sense, a gestural interface is controlled by movements of the hands or arms, allowing users to gesture to literally scroll around images on screen. Sometimes this is coupled with touch in devices such as the iPhone, where a pinching gesture can shrink or expand items.

Continuing the progress in the field of gestural computing, researchers at Israel's Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) developed a new gestural computer system specially designed for medical use. In the past, doctors used touch screens or mice to navigate about images during surgeries. However, by touching the screen, they risk compromising sterility and introducing infection into the surgery site.

The new system is purely gestural and requires no touch. It allows doctors to scroll around images by moving their hands in front of the screen.

The system received an impressive field test at a Washington D.C. hospital and the results are detailed in the June article “A Gesture-based Tool for Sterile Browsing of Radiology Images" in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association.

Juan P. Wachs, a recent Ph.D. recipient from the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management at BGU lead the research, which he describes stating, "A sterile human-machine interface is of supreme importance because it is the means by which the surgeon controls medical information, avoiding patient contamination, the operating room (OR) and the other surgeons. This could replace touch screens now used in many hospital operating rooms which must be sealed to prevent accumulation or spreading of contaminants and requires smooth surfaces that must be thoroughly cleaned after each procedure – but sometimes aren't. With infection rates at U.S. hospitals now at unacceptably high rates, our system offers a possible alternative."

The new system, known as Gestix, eliminates the need for complex and largely ineffective sterilization procedures on today's OR touch screens. When surgeons first start with the system, they train it and learn to use it by learning to move their hand in one of eight directions away from a neutral area, fast. This movement scrolls the image. They also learn to zoom in and out by rotating their hand clockwise or counterclockwise. To avoid misleading signals, when the doctor is done, they drop their hand which triggers a sleep mode.

The hand motions are captured using a Canon VC-C4 camera and they are processed by an Intel Pentium processor and a Matrox Standard II Video Capture device. The system was tested to much success at the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C during two "in vivo" neurosurgical brain biopsies. This may be the first time such a system was used with an "in vivo" procedure, according to the researchers.

Wachs worked with colleagues Professors Helman Stern and Yael Edan on the project and with a variety of M.S. students, who theses pertained to the topic. Ongoing research is focusing to expand the gestural interface for use in tele-robotic and tele-operated systems. By adding voice recognition, researchers hope to create a system with many control modes (multimodal).

Other additional research on the imaging side is being developed by Prof. Helman Stern and Dr. Tal Oren of the Dept. of Industrial Engineering and Management and Dr. Amir Shapiro of the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. They aim to help the vision impaired navigate better through use of this system and a tactile body display.

BGU's staff has not announced the current commercialization plans for the technology, but it seems likely that it will soon be finding its way into hospitals.

AP Uses DCMA Takedown on News Site; Riles Bloggers, Online News Community

2008-06-19T12:50:00.000+07:00

Blogger remains defiant against AP, explores legal options

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provided a valuable tool for copyright owners such as artists and writers to defend their property online. However, in the ever evolving online community, the DMCA notices, as they are commonly known, are being used more and more often, at times threatening seemingly legitimate sites.

Some argue that the DMCA powers are being used to infringe upon users' online freedoms -- and frequently. The latest and perhaps most thought provoking DMCA battle is building between the Associate Press (AP) and The Drudge Retort, a social news/blog owned by Rogers Cadenhead, over the reposting of AP article snippets.

Interestingly, the AP is attacking both the owner for his news posts that occasionally contain small excerpts of AP text linked to the original story, and his users who similarly post snippets from various web stories on the internet in the contents. In both cases, the AP says this makes these pages in question DMCA takedown fodder.

Pursuit of action against the first alleged type of offense -- site-run reprints -- could threaten many news distribution sites such as Digg, Reddit, and Mixx, which bring news to millions of users a day. The second purported illegal offense -- users reposting comments is even more far-reaching as users on major news sites frequently have users post snippets from AP articles.

The second allegation in particular is raising a provocative question -- should commenters' actions result in punishment of a site? If so, this would mean news sites must scour every user post and try to determine if it contained copyrighted content. While The Drudge Retort is a relatively small fish, the questions raised by the AP's attack are salient to most of the online industry, from news sites, to the multitude of forums that see similar posts.

While it’s possible that major outlets like AP will only target minor, relatively weak targets like The Drudge Retort, some fear that they may begin to target multiple sites, similar to the RIAA's campaign against filesharers. In the AP lawyers' letter to Cadenhead, they state their belief that "The Drudge Retort users' use of AP content does not fall within the parameters of fair use."

They continue, "AP considers taking the headline and lead of a story without a proper license to be an infringement of its copyrights, and additionally constitutes 'hot news' misappropriation."

Seven takedown notices were filed in total against the site.

The AP is a wire service, both online and offline which writes news stories that are reprinted for heavy fees by member outlets. The service does not have its own "inbound links" or "search-juice", contrary a misconception held by some bloggers. Only its members do, which is why they are willing to pay a premium for it. The AP's stance, while a bit draconian does make sense from one perspective -- if writers could get the content for free, why would they pay AP so much for it?

The attack on the site is part of a growing campaign of legal actions from the AP. In October they targeted the news site Moreover owned by Verisign, which has similar type of service, but in its case charges users for it and a variety of other content. However the Moreover case was slightly more blatant as the site was allegedly reposting entire articles without paying.

The AP debate highlights the questions surrounding the rather ambiguous legal concept of "fair use" which is decided on a case by case basis on many determinates. Among these are whether the use is part of a commercial effort or if it’s for nonprofit. Other factors include the nature of the work and the size of the excerpted text in relation to the size of the full original text. Also considered is the effect on the owner of the copyright.

While Moreover is obviously violating fair use by the above definition, it’s harder to tell with The Drudge Retort. Its owner obviously sees his site and its commenters' use as fair use, while the AP disagrees.

While the AP has yet to wage full scale online war to similar occurrences which litter the web and online news, this latest case illustrates a more aggressive shift on its stance on fair use. The ramifications of the case and those that follow may be extremely significant to the future of the online world.

New Dielectric Material Promises Radiation Resistant Transistors, Flexible Computers

2008-06-19T12:48:00.000+07:00

Roll-up, transparent computers and displays are just one of the neat sci-fi gadgets a new material from Northwestern University may lead to.

DailyTech has in the past covered research into the effects of long term exposure to space bound radiation on humans. Though mankind has spent many years in space, the effects of prolonged exposure, even under ideal circumstances, are as of yet unknown. Though the human part of space travel is the most important part of the equation for manned flight, radiation poses a series threat to other participants – especially electronics.

The effects of radiation on over-the-counter electronics are, in contrast, fairly well known. One of the most important parts of any electronic appliance, the transistor, is one of the most susceptible components to radiation. The problem comes from the absorptive properties of the silicon dioxide dielectrics that insulate a transistor's gate from its semiconductor components. Silicon dioxide captures radiation, which in turn creates electrons and holes. This process eventually builds up enough of a charge to short circuit the transistor, destroying it.

Not only do the human parts of a manned space odyssey need to be protected from the harsh environs of space, the fragile machinery that carries them will have to be as well. To address this concern, scientists at Northwestern University have delivered a new type of transistor to use in the International Space Station for testing. The prototype transistors were placed outside the space station where they will gain unprotected exposure to space radiation for the period of one year.

The transistors are based on a new material, dubbed SANDs for self-assembling nanodielectrics, and are the product of research into creating new types of dielectrics for future technology. The Northwestern group's goal was to create a dielectric material that was not only robust, but printable; something that could be used in transparent displays or flexible electronics. Ultimately they accomplished this by utilizing a dipping process to create thin films of self-assembled molecules.

Tobin Marks, Vladimir N. Ipatieff Research Professor of Chemistry at the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences explains, “It’s not just that these transistors are only good for outer space -- that’s an illustration of just how tough they are. There is one technology on Earth, and only one, that will create as many features per unit time as a chip plant, and that’s a modern newspaper printing plant, since the paper flies at hundreds of feet per second. Every time Intel wants to make a new chip, it costs billions of dollars and takes years to do. And yet every day they print a new New York Times. So we thought, could you use printing to create electronic circuits?”

Preliminary tests with nuclear reactors show promising results for the SANDs. They appear to be highly resistant to radiation exposure, so NASA has taken a keen interest. Should the ISS tests return favorable results, the new material could revolutionize space electronics in terms of endurance and lifespan.

Aside from the obvious benefits in being radiation resistant, the group hopes to see the new material find use in many other fields -- wherever flexible, hardy and printable circuitry could find itself utilized. Some examples they cite range from solar panels to cell phones to flat-panel displays. One goal is to create inexpensive RFID tags to compliment or replace bar codes in stores. Cashiers could more easily interact with the tags, scanning an entire cart's contents at once along with alerting her if an item has reached its expiration date or informing her and the computer if the item is low on stock levels.

While the Northwestern group has already succeeded in making printed circuitry using their new material, they continue to research transistor materials that can be used as inks. The combination of a printable transistor with a highly durable dielectric substrate will likely lead to some very nifty electronics in the future.

Production Honda FCX Fuel Cell Cars Hit American Streets

2008-06-19T12:45:00.000+07:00

The next generation fuel cell from Honda is trickling into the hands of a lucky few

Honda is among the automotive giants leading the charge to explore hydrogen technologies. The culmination of its efforts to date is the Honda FCX Clarity. The Clarity features a slick and curvy design, a 100 kW V Flow fuel cell stack that has shrunk 65 percent since Honda's initial design, 171-liter, 5,000-psi hydrogen fuel tank, a lithium ion battery pack, and a 95 kW (127 HP) electric motor. At 68 MPG and a range of 270 miles, the Clarity is very competitive with other sedans.

This week, the first mass-produced units of the hot new zero-emissions car rolled off a Japanese assembly line in Takanezawa, Japan. However, they're not going to stay in the land of the rising sun for long; they're headed for the U.S. The units are going primarily to Southern California, where a lucky few will receive them. Among these are movie stars and starlets, who will help give the car, and Honda's hybrid efforts, a high profile.

Among these VIPs are actress Jamie Lee Curtis and filmmaker husband Christopher Guest, actress Laura Harris, film producer Ron Yerxa, as well as businessmen Jon Spallino and Jim Salomon. The group was flown to a special ceremony where they were presented with the cars. Harris, who played villainess Marie Warner on the hit TV show "24" loves the car. She states, "It's so smooth. It's like a future machine, but it's not."

The new fuel cell vehicle is certainly promising. Its two times more energy efficient than a gas-electric hybrid and three times as efficient as a traditional gas engine, brags Honda.

Honda is deploying a "few dozen" units this year to kick off production. By the end of 3 years, this number will have jumped to 200. The cars will be available to lease for $600 a month, which includes maintenance and collision coverage. The actors and others receiving the early shipments will be able to drive home their vehicles starting in July.

In California alone, Honda received 50,000 applications for the cars. Anyone living in the state could apply on the company's website. The vast majority of these people were rejected as they did not live close enough to the three hydrogen stations in Torrance, Santa Monica and Irvine.

The enthusiasm from Honda was infectious. John Mendel, a senior vice president at America Honda Motor Co. cheered at the ceremony, "This is indeed a historic day for both Honda and American Honda - a new chapter in our nearly fifty-year history in America. It's an especially significant day for American Honda as we plant firm footsteps toward the mainstreaming of fuel cell cars."

Major obstacles remain, however, for fuel cell cars. First and foremost, there's a lack of hydrogen fuel stations and an infrastructure to pipe fuel around the country. Second are the issues surrounding the stack: high price and less than desirable lifetime. While advances have helped alleviate these problems slightly, they still exist.

To Honda, its fuel cell efforts are a new chance to win over its rivals. While Honda broke ground by releasing the first gas-electric hybrid in the States in 1999, Toyota quickly outpaced it with Toyota's Prius. Toyota recently announced the sale of its millionth hybrid Prius, while Honda ended up struggling, discontinuing two of its hybrids -- the Honda Insight, and the Accord hybrid.

Honda will be releasing the Clarity in Japan this fall, and it will also be going hybrid crazy, trying to battle back against Toyota. It will release a new gas-electric hybrid-only model and will be releasing hybrid editions of the slick CR-Z and Fit subcompact.

Apple Announces Second Generation iPhone 3G, 2.0 Software, iTunes App Store

2008-06-13T02:22:00.000+07:00

Apple swings for the fences, again.

When it comes to announcing a new product, Apple knows how to set the stage and get people excited right up until the official announcement. Nowhere was this more obvious than with the launch of the original iPhone. The fervor surrounding the mobile handset didn't settle down when the first generation iPhone was announced in early January 2007 -- it continued until the eventual release of the phone in June of that year.

Speculation on the follow-up, the "3G iPhone", has been building ever since the first generation model was revealed -- but things really started getting a bit uproarious over the past few months. Case makers began leaking dimensions for the upcoming phone, supposed "leaked" pictures of the phone were drooled over by nearly ever gadget site on the web, and leaked firmware was picked over with a fine-tooth comb.

Apple today finally announced its next generation crowd pleaser. Apple is looking to address the shortcoming of its first effort this time around and further expand its popularity (Jobs previously stated that he wants 10 million iPhones sold within the first 18 months – it already surpassed the 6 million mark during its first year).

First things firsts – the worse kept secret about the second generation iPhone is its 3G capabilities. The first gen model was widely criticized for its slow EDGE cellular broadband capabilities. Apple is now matching the competition with the iPhone 3G. The iPhone 3G has tapered look with thinner edges, solid metal buttons, a black plastic backing, flush headphone jack [thank goodness], and vastly improved audio.

The faster cellular connectivity of the iPhone 3G allow for download speeds nearly as quick as WiFi and speeds that are 2.5 times as fast as EDGE. The iPhone 3G also sports better battery life than its predecessor. The iPhone 3G now supports 2G talk time of 10 hours, 3G talk time of 5 hours, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio, and 5-6 hours of high-speed web browsing.

Another big addition is fully integrated GPS tracking. IPhone 3G users can now get positioning information from WiFi, cell towers, and now the hardware GPS.

Apple also confirmed early speculation that price breaks would be in store for the new lineup of iPhones. The Cupertino, California-based company confirmed today that the new 8GB iPhone will be priced at $199 with a new two-year contract when it launches July 11, while the 16GB iPhone (which will be available in white at a later date) will set you back $299 under the same terms.

The iPhone 3G will be rolled out in 22 countries on July 11 (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the U.S.).

Apple first announced the Software Developer Kit (SDK) for the iPhone in early March along with the 2.0 firmware update. The SDK allows third-party manufacturers to create their own applications for the iPhone and iPod touch and upload them to the new iTunes App Store.

Developers are charged a $99 fee to publish each application to the iTunes App Store -- Apple also takes a 30% cut of the purchase price for each application sold to customers to cover hosting and processing fees. For generous developers that provide their apps for free on the iTunes App Store, the aforementioned hosting and processing fees are dropped.

Jobs noted that applications that are less than 10MB in size will be downloadable through the cell network – applications larger than 10MB will have to be downloaded through a WiFi connection of through the desktop iTunes application. Automatic updates for applications will also be pushed through to the device.

A number of applications were on display that were developed using the SDK including SEGA’s Super Monkey Ball (which will be available for $9.99 from the iTunes App Store), an integrated eBay tool complete with bidding and search, and a news reader provided for free by the Associated Press. The latter tool will send local news to you based on your location, save images, video, and text for offline viewing, and even allow you submit news as it happens.

The 2.0 software -- which is available not only for the iPhone 3G, but also to the original iPhone and iPod touch -- adds a number of new features to make the devices more corporate friendly. These include push email/calendar/contacts between an iPhone/Mac/PC via MobileMe, auto-discovery, global address lookup, Cisco IPsec VPN, Certificates and Identities, WPA2/802.11x, and remote wipe.

Other features include contacts search, bulk delete/move for emails, a new scientific calculator, and the ability to save images to the Photo Library. Microsoft PowerPoint documents are now supported as well.

IPhone users will receive the 2.0 software update for free, while iPod touch users will have to pay $9.99. The update will be available next month.

IBM Scientists Demonstrate Liquid Cooling Process for 3D Stacked Chips

2008-06-13T02:20:00.000+07:00

IBM scientists say stacked processors have higher power densities than nuclear reactors

As processors add processing cores, circuits, and other components, the amount of heat they generate increases exponentially. Researchers and chipmakers have found that the ability to dissipate heat will be one of the main challenges to making processors in the future.

Researchers from IBM Labs and the Fraunhofer Institute in Berlin have demonstrated a prototype 3D chip that has a liquid cooling system built-in to deliver water directly between each layer of the stacked processor.

The 3D chip stacks take components in a traditional chip that sit side-by-side and stack them atop one another in a layer. While the process allows chipmakers to create more powerful chips, with shortened interconnects between components for data to travel, the process presents significant cooling challenges. With 3D stacked chip design data has to move only 1/1000th of the distance data needs to travel on a traditional 2D chip. In addition to the shortened pathways for data to traverse, the 3D process also allows for 100 times the amount of pathways for data to flow. Both techniques together greatly increase the potential performance of a 3D stacked chip.

The issue for researchers designing these 3D chips is that the stacked chips produce a very high level of aggregated heat dissipation of close to 1 kilowatt in a volume of only half a cubic centimeter. IBM researchers point out that that level of heat dissipation is 10 times higher than any other human-made device and that power densities in stacked processor designs are higher than in both nuclear and plasma reactors.

Thomas Brunschwiler, project leader at IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory said in a statement, “As we package chips on top of each other to significantly speed a processor's capability to process data, we have found that conventional coolers attached to the back of a chip don't scale. In order to exploit the potential of high-performance 3-D chip stacking, we need interlayer cooling. Until now, nobody has demonstrated viable solutions to this problem.”

The solution to the problem the IBM team devised is to pipe water through cooling structures, as thin as 50 microns, between the individual layers of the stacked chip. The scientists were able to show cooling performance of up to 180 W/cm2 per layer in a stack with a footprint of 4 cm2. One IBM researcher says that the cooling performance is a significant breakthrough and that without the breakthrough the stacking of two or more high-density power layers would be impossible.

In experiments, the researchers passed water into a 1 by 1 cm test device made up of a cooling layer between two heat sources. The cooling layer was only 100 microns in height (about twice the thickness of a human hair) and has 10,000 vertical interconnects per square cm.

The interconnects were hermetically sealed to prevent the water from causing electrical shorts within the chip. Individual layers were built using existing 3D packaging fabrication methods to etch the holes for signal transmission from one layer to the next. Each interconnect had a silicon wall around it and a fine layer of silicon oxide to insulate the electrical connections from the water. A new thin-film soldering technique was developed by the researchers to provide the precision and robustness needed to provide thermal contact for the cooling film.

IBM first announced its 3D chip stacking process in April of 2007.

New Military Supercomputer Breaks Performance Record

2008-06-13T02:17:00.000+07:00

Roadrunner supercomputer is first to break petaflop barrier

A new supercomputer in the U.S. has broken a barrier that many thought wouldn’t be broken for years to come. A new supercomputer-- dubbed Roadrunner-- has broken the petaflop barrier.

Roadrunner was designed by engineers and scientists at IBM and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Ultimately, Roadrunner will be placed into a classified environment where it will be used to simulate what effects aging has on the stockpile of nuclear weapons the U.S. has in its arsenal. The problem it will work on is modeling how aging nuclear weapons behave the first fraction of a second during an explosion. Before beginning its nuclear weapons research, Roadrunner will be used to model the effects of global warming.

The Roadrunner supercomputer costs $133 million and is built using chips from both consumer electronics and more common server processors.

Roadrunner has 12,960 chips that are an improved version of the Cell chip used in the PS3. These Cell processors act as a turbocharger for certain portions of the calculations the Roadrunner processes. The computer also uses a smaller, unspecified number of AMD Opteron processors.

A computer researcher from the University of Tennessee, Jack Dongarra told the New York Times, “This [breaking the petaflop barrier] is equivalent to the four-minute mile of supercomputing.”

Horst Simon from the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory said, “Roadrunner tells us about what will happen in the next decade. Technology is coming from the consumer electronics market and the innovation is happening first in terms of cell phones and embedded electronics.”

Technology first appearing in the consumer electronics market and then making its way into supercomputing is a stark contrast to a process that commonly works in the exact opposite manner.

In total, Roadrunner has 116,640 processing cores and the real challenge for programmers is figuring out how to keep all of those processing cores in use simultaneously to get the best performance. Roadrunner requires about 3 megawatts of power, or about enough electricity to run a large shopping center.

To put the processing power in perspective, Thomas P. D’Agostino of the National Nuclear Security Administration said that if all 6 billion people on Earth entered calculations on a calculator for 24 hours a day, seven days per week it would take 46 years to do what Roadrunner can do in one day.

How Roadrunner is cooled is unknown, IBM has recently moved to liquid cooling for its supercomputers, but Roadrunner appears to be air cooled.

Ballmer to Retire in 10 Years; Looks Back on Happy, Rocky Relationship With Gates

2008-06-13T02:15:00.000+07:00

With Ballmer's new announcement that he will retire within 10 years and Gates' retirement this year, its worth a look at the pair's past, present, and future.

Microsoft has owned the privilege of being the world's largest software company for well over a decade and it has strong executive leadership to thank for that, largely. Love them or hate them, Microsoft's founder and current Chairman Bill Gates and CEO Steve Ballmer, a key Microsoft veteran, have shaped the face and course of Microsoft and the tech industry as a whole.

When Gates stepped down as CEO in 2000 allowing Ballmer to step up, it was a historic moment for the company. That moment is nearing its finale this year, with Gates finally looking to fully retire. And as the future fast approaches, Ballmer just announced that he will follow Gates into retirement in just 10 years time or less.

With the departure of Gates and looking forward to the departure of Ballmer, it’s worth taking a look at how Microsoft has been shaped by the pair’s relationship – one that Ballmer once emotively compared to a marriage which produced many children. The Wall Street Journal provides inside insight into internal dealings that took place during the Gates-Ballmer transition and how their relationship survived its rockiest days.

Gates and Ballmer's story does not start with Microsoft; rather it begins far before that. They first met at Harvard University in the mid-1970s. They were the same age (both are now 52) and they shared a love for poker and intellectual challenges. One fond memory they hold is when they failed to attend a single economics class session, but through collaborative cramming managed to score near perfect marks -- 97 percent for Ballmer and 99 percent for Gates.

The scores were reflective of the pair’s early relationship and work at Microsoft. Both shared almost equal duties, but Gates always owned the dominant position by a hair. Gates took on the role of providing the chief software and business direction, while Ballmer filled in for other necessary top duties. There was no part of the business that the pair couldn't manage. Gates describes the time stating, "For a certain size organization, it was beautiful."

Like most pairs, the two had their share of heated arguments and fights, but they would quickly make up -- and get back to work. In the 90s Microsoft was forced to restructure, following government charges of monopoly and the threat of the burgeoning online industry. This culminated with Gates announcing Ballmer would replace him as CEO in 2000 and that he would begin the transition into retirement.

Bill Gates assumed the role of "Chief Software Architect" -- a role that was beneath Ballmer's. Gates, however, still thought of himself as top dog, and according to his own omission would offer sarcasm in important meetings, undermining Ballmer's leadership. Everything from personnel staffing to the Xbox to Windows itself became a battleground for the power struggle in which Gates refused to accept his subordinate role. The clashes had many casualties, among them the eventually defunct NetDocs program; elements of which survived to be incorporated into the Office program.

In 2001, the board and senior executives intervened, calling Gates and Ballmer into a meeting about the destructive effect their relationship was having. Jon Shirley, a former Microsoft president states, "The board was really concerned about what was going to happen."

In February 2001, perhaps the most important meeting in Microsoft's history took place at the Polaris restaurant in the Bellevue Club Hotel a few miles from Microsoft's campus. Gates and Ballmer have never revealed the details of this meeting, so the world may never know, but the overall gist was to establish Mr. Gates as the "junior partner" to Mr. Ballmer's "senior partner."

Ballmer pledged to learn when to override Gates and when to "let things go". He stated that after the meeting, "We got it figured out."

Meanwhile Gates began to defer to Ballmer to the shock of many. Microsoft Vice President Mich Matthews recalls executives exchanging bewildered glances during such an instance in an important meeting. Gates says he needed to do most of the changing. He stated, "Steve is all about being on the team, and being committed to the mutual goals. So I had to figure out, what are my behaviors that don't reinforce that? What is it about sarcasm in a meeting? Or just going, 'This is completely screwed up'?"

The result was an enriched Microsoft. Ballmer kept the technical savvy, but moved towards a model in which the executives took a greater managerial role, as opposed to being involved greatly in tech development. Surprising to some, despite his reputation for ebullience he did a commendable job making peace with various regulators and patent disputes.

In recent years, despite its troubles, Microsoft has had its share of shining success, such as Windows XP, and its modest ones, such as the Xbox program. And after surviving their greatest trial, Gates and Ballmer became incredibly close once again, so much so that they would at times complete each other's sentences. In a recent interview Ballmer, teared up, discussing the creation of Microsoft.

He reminisced, "It is a little like giving birth to something. Bill gave birth but I was kind of an early nanny in raising this child. There are fun things we get to do together, that's all nice. I mean, it's important, but this is..."

"...this is what we did," Gates added grinning, a bit misty-eyed himself.

Doubts remain. Gates delivered his last major speech to employees and customers this week, and will now be semi-retired. However, some think that if Microsoft enters a crisis, such as failing to rebound from the Vista slump, Gates won't be able to resist the temptation of a second coming with the company, much like Apple's Steve Jobs. Others are concerned about Microsoft's future because they say that neither Ballmer nor Gates can offer the young blood needed to solve such a crisis.

And there's Ballmer's upcoming retirement, which he just announced. In an interview, Ballmer commented that he would stay with Microsoft "for another nine or 10 years ... until my last kid goes away to college." While this may seem like a long time, decades have a habit of quickly slipping by amidst the unfaltering passage of time. Microsoft's brass are aware and Ballmer's announcement leaves many pondering what will become of Microsoft in a post-Gates and then in a post-Ballmer-Gates era.

One possibility for Ballmer's replacement is Lotus Notes founder and current Microsoft chief tech visionary Ray Ozzie, whom Gates once described as "one of the top five programmers in the universe." Ozzie is replacing Gates in much of his roles he's held since stepping down as CEO. Moving up to the CEO position would not be an unmanageable transition. However, Ozzie is almost the same age as Ballmer and Gates, so he make look to retire himself.

If Ozzie does retire, the future for Microsoft really is a mystery and wide open. Much of the company's budding and veteran leadership -- Joanne Bradford, Rob Short, Jeff Raikes, and Bruce Jaffe to name a few -- has left either to manage elsewhere or to the greener pastures of retirement.

There is much uncertainty with Gates leaving and now with Ballmer's own retirement clock ticking. However, whatever the future may hold for Microsoft, it is truly salient to look at the indelible mark that the relationship between Ballmer and Gates -- rocky at times, warm at others -- left on both the field of electronics and the economy in general in the last two decades.

Microsoft Sees OOXML Stalled Due to International Appeals

2008-06-13T02:13:00.000+07:00

"The more you tighten your grip the more star systems will slip through your fingers"

Microsoft's hopes of controlling the open document world were nearing fruition after the International Standards Organization finally certified its OOXML standard at the start of April. The ISO had already ratified ODF, the competitive open-source format from the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) used heavily in Linux, but Microsoft faced a lengthy struggle to try to get its own format recognized. Without certification it would be tough to push the format as a legitimate open document option.

Microsoft had good reason to want to control the world of open documents. As users switch platforms and software more and more, and use an increasing amount of open source solutions, the need for a non-software specific format has surfaced. Microsoft hoped that by making its own proprietary open-file format the preferred standard it could seize control of this budding field.

However, to Microsoft's anger, the process has now been held up by complaints. Following rumors that Microsoft pushed the vote through and used underhanded tactics to suppress dissent, Brazil, India, South Africa, and Venezuela lent such claims credence by filing complaints against the ratification.

The ratification cannot go forward until these complaints are heard, and they must be voiced before the end of June. The final decision of how to react to them will be handed to two management committees. India in particular was quite vocal in its opposition. An open letter, written by a member of the technical standardization committee in India, states that Microsoft's long and ambiguous proposed specification left it unclear what was being implemented. He says this means that Microsoft can implement the new format however it wants, ruining the whole reason for ISO -- to promote openness.

He also accuses Microsoft of running a careful concerted smear campaign that undercut the Indian concerns. He states:

Microsoft started filing complaints to various Indian authorities in early March 2008, claiming bias on part of several members of the committee because of their presumed membership of a group called ‘ODF Alliance India’. My Institution and its representatives are part of the group which has been falsely implicated in these complaints. Worse, the complaints have painted these organizations and their representatives, including the Indian delegation which attended the BRM, as acting against the Indian National interests. This is the most derogatory accusation to any Indian, amounting, personally for me at least, to intolerable blasphemy.

In the letter he alleges that Microsoft pressured the Indian national government to change its stance, and likely did so with other national governments as well. He states that Microsoft behaved in a way "amounting to interfering with the governance process of a sovereign country." He concludes, "I would like to assure all colleagues and other readers that my intentions are purely to respond to the grave provocation caused by the actions of Microsoft."

Meanwhile ODF creators OASIS tried to steal a bit of the spotlight calling for an "implementation, interoperability, and conformity" technical committee to continue ODF's openness and quality. The entity plans on trying to bring ISO or the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) into the project. Surprisingly Microsoft has expressed interest in joining the committee, igniting many conspiracy theories on the internet.

A Big Green Tax Cut; San Francisco Intensifies Solar Grant Efforts

2008-06-13T02:12:00.000+07:00

San Francisco is looking to get off the grid and save money with a vast solar push

Independent solar power efforts are growing rapidly. With a number of businesses providing unique, online-coordinated installation options, individuals and small businesses are adopting the technology. And part of the new rate of adoption is thanks to local government grants.

Many cities and states give citizens large grants to bear some of the capital brunt of buying solar panels. These grants are in essence a big tax break as the consumer will typically make a good deal of money of the solar panels in their lifetime. They are the alternative energy version of the business world's small business grants.

This Tuesday, San Francisco looked to keep the good times rolling and put some green back its citizens' pockets with the approval of a massive new grant campaign. Solar panel manufacturers and installers received the news with giddy anticipation and are preparing for the new boom.

For the next ten years, citizens can get $3,000 to $6,000 in a one-time grant to install panels. Both businesses and charities are also receiving some solar love. Businesses and nonprofits can get $10,000 grants, while nonprofit affordable housing can get up to a whopping $30,000. Mayor Gavin Newsom states, "This rebate program further establishes San Francisco as America's solar energy leader and symbolizes the commitment of the city to make affordable solar power available to those who want it."

The mayor says the program should launch this July and will only cost the city $3 million yearly. He says the benefits are far reaching and go beyond just putting money back in the hands of consumers and businesses in energy cost savings. Newsom says the program will attract businesses and will grow green jobs.

If San Francisco can really pull of the green transformation it will be a significant accomplishment. In the green-savvy California, San Francisco has traditionally been somewhat of a laughing stock of the alternative energy community. The city was ranked last in the Bay Area by a recent assessment by the San Francisco Solar Task Force. Of the city's 195,000 rooftops, only 744 had solar panels, less than 1 percent.

The mayor hopes that the new efforts will panel nearly 10,000 rooftops over the decade, or roughly 5 percent of the city's rooftops. If successful, this would produce around 50 MW of power.

Lyndon Rive, CEO of installer SolarCity, whom DailyTech recently reported on, is thrilled by the effort. He anticipates the number of panels tripling and as the city's largest solar installer; he's in prime position for success. With 40 current employees his company is expanding with a "green" job training initiative in a low-income part of the city. Rive complements the new program stating, "It's simple, easy to understand, and easy to implement."

While his company offered solar leasing, he acknowledges that this strategy was not as cost effective and that most citizens couldn't afford it. Now between city, state, and federal tax credits, rebates, and grants, an average consumer who would have paid $30,000 for panels can pay a mere $6,000. Kevin Gage, sales director for San Diego-based installer Borrego Solar states, "This is just gonna spur the industry. The market was essentially shut down in San Francisco. Now a lot of companies like ours are gonna move into San Francisco."

Ironically the approval was announced the same day San Francisco utility Pacific Gas & Electric announced a 6.5 percent electricity rate hiking on surging fossil fuel costs. San Franciscan Sylvia Ventura is excited about the relief the move may provide her fellow citizens, but she's a bit fearful that the myriad of installers will confuse them. She states, "This business was done for a long time in the shadows and some installers took advantage of people being intimidated by the data, not understanding metering, wattage, and what to pay."

She and her husband Dan Barahona launched a new effort, One Block Off The Grid, which aims to use collective bargaining and other subsidies to further reduce the cost of the panels to an attractive price of "free". She says that the first 50 homeowners that sign up for the program will receive panels free of cost, thanks to the effort's clever negotiating. However, corporate partners are still in the process of being secured and the list is currently only half full.

Whether the new grant program is a glowing success or just a modest one, at the end of the day its putting money back in the hands of the hardworking tax payer. With rising energy and food costs, the consumer in San Francisco will finally get to see some light.

Intel Responds to AMD, NVIDIA USB 3.0 Allegations

2008-06-13T02:10:00.000+07:00

Intel says open host controller specifications have cost gazillions of dollars to develop

According to Intel’s Nick Knupffer, there are a lot of myths going around concerning USB 3.0 and Intel’s involvement in the development of the specification. Knupffer wrote a blog post on Intel’s website in an attempt to dispel these myths.

Knupffer points out that Intel is not developing the USB 3.0 specification. What Intel is developing is the host controller spec which Knupffer describes as a “Dummies Guide” to building a USB 3.0 compatible piece of silicon.

Knupffer says in the blog post that Intel has invested “gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours” in developing the open host controller and despite its significant investment still plans to give the specification to competing manufacturers for free. Knupffer also says that Intel loves it when CPU performance is used to the max and the huge increase in bandwidth of USB 3.0 will mean larger file transfers and more processor usage. This in turn is expected to lead to an increased demand for faster processors.

AMD and NVIDIA leveled allegations at Intel recently that claim Intel was withholding the open host controller specifications in an attempt to give itself a market advantage. Intel and AMD claim that by withholding the specification the lead Intel will have in bringing USB 3.0 compliant products to market will be in the six to nine month range.

Intel denied the allegations of withholding the open host controller specifications at the time AMD and NVIDIA made their charges public and announced they would be designing their own open host controller. In Knupffer’s blog post, he again says that Intel isn’t holding the open host controller specifications back from competitors.

According to Knupffer, the significant investment in the open host controller specifications is specifically to get USB 3.0 into the market faster, so why would it withhold the specification. Intel still maintains that the specifications aren’t ready and that it plans to give the specifications to other manufacturers in the second half of 2008.

The final myth that Knupffer addresses in his post is that USB 3.0 technology borrows heavily from technology used in PCI Express. Intel points out that it was involved with both the PCI-SIG and the USB-IF at the design stage for both PCI Express and for USB 3.0. The insinuation form Intel is that the technology that is similar in both devices was developed on its dime.

Evolution in Escherichia Coli Bacterium Observed During Lab Tests

2008-06-13T02:05:00.000+07:00

E. Coli bacteria shows signs of evolution in lab testing

Despite an overwhelming body of scientific evidence, evolution is still a fiercely debate topic in some circles. Many people take evolution for granted, simply understanding that it is the theory accepted by the scientific community based on the strong supporting evidence, and remain relatively oblivious to the controversy.

However, the fact remains that yearly there are many protests and court cases in the U.S. and abroad where people try to block educational attempts to teach the theory of evolution and replace them with religious-based theories.

Fortunately for evolutionary scientists they now have perhaps the greatest piece of evidence of all -- the largest evolutionary leap observed to date. The experiment started inconspicuously, with researchers at Michigan State University in East Lansing by using a single Escherichia coli bacterium and its descendants to found 12 populations.

Over 44,000 generations were observed and only minor mutations were observed, as is typical in these kinds of studies. Typical beneficial mutations -- larger cell size, faster growth rates, and lower peak population densities -- were observed.

Then at generation 31,500 something shocking happened. The bacteria evolved, gaining an entirely new gene that could process citrate, a nutrient that the bacteria could not previously use. To put this in context, lack of citrate metabolism is one of E. coli's identifying traits. And the newly evolved bacteria proceeded to dominate over their citrate-intolerant kin.

Says researcher Richard Lenski, "It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting."

Lenski says the only two explanations are either an extremely improbable mutation such as a rare chromosomal inversion, or a series of small mutation adding up to a useful new gene. Was the trait inevitable, guided by some all powerful hand? Lenski turned to his freezer for the answer. Unthawing the bacteria, from early generations, he found that pure chance had guided the evolutionary leap and that the bacteria did not evolve the trait. He did find that the later generations after 20,000 did evolve the trait eventually, indicating something happened around this time that laid the groundwork for the evolution.

He and his fellow researchers are currently studying exactly what change allowed for the eventual evolution. This experiment, however, proves that evolution does not always lead to best possible outcome (in that other lines did not achieve the same optimal trait). This has been a major point of contention raised by creationists who point to structures in nature that serve ornamental or little purpose as proof of creationism.

Further, it goes to show that profound changes can happen, including the introduction of entirely new genes. A particularly harsh criticism leveled in the past by was that profound genetic changes, including the creation of new genes, were never observed. Considering a few genes can account for profound morphological differences in larger organism, this is a very salient piece of evidence for evolution's supporters.

Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago lauded the research and took a bit of an opportunity to poke fun at creationists saying, "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events. That's just what creationists say can't happen."

The findings are reported in the journal PNAS.

FCC to Hold Early Termination Fee Hearing Today

2008-06-13T02:04:00.000+07:00

U.S. Customers Could Look Forward To Nicer Fees

The FCC will hold an open meeting today (PDF) on the topic of Early Termination Fees, bringing in a variety of panelists to discuss the future of a thorny practice that, while rankling consumers, is claimed as necessary by the cellular service industry.

Central to the discussion will be an industry-sponsored proposal that seeks to make massive changes in the way providers handle termination fees: under the proposed changes, customers would receive a 30-day grace period to cancel a contract after they sign it, and in the event of a terminated contract after that time, the applicable fees would be prorated down based on the contract's time remaining.

Traditionally, cell phone companies charge the same termination fee regardless of where a customer is in their contract -- fees stay the same regardless of whether they are 60 days in, or only have 60 days left. This policy, combined with an increasingly skyward rise in the fees themselves, recently resulted in a phalanx of class-action lawsuits against the industry as consumers become bitter over what they perceive to be company lock-in. Providers say the fees are necessary in order to subsidize customers' phones, which are frequently sold far below cost in order to make service plans more appealing.

The new iPhone 3G, with its $199/$299 price point in the United States, will be one of the first phones offered under these new rules. While AT&T customers are still required to sign a two-year agreement to buy the phone, if a customer chooses to terminate his or her contract they will only pay a prorated fee calculated from the time remaining on their contract. Purchasers of the original iPhone will remain bound to the old rules.

Meanwhile, a series of e-mail messages recently revealed by the Associated Press showed that some, if not all, providers in the cell phone industry exempt the government from termination charges.

"The government will never, never accept [a termination penalty] and for the most part I think a lot of the [complaining] is real," wrote Nextel (now Sprint Nextel) former marketing vice president Scott Weiner, in an "confidential" e-mail dated January 2004. It regarded a question of whether or not to assess termination fees for government subscribers that canceled their contract.

As it exists currently, cellular service regulation is handled in a "patchwork" fashion at the state level; industry representatives want the FCC to establish a national regulatory framework instead.

Appearing at the hearing are representatives from the trade group CTIA, DIRECTV, and Verizon, as well as a variety of professors, lawyers, and ordinary consumers.

Microsoft Exec,No Plans for iPhone Clone

2008-06-13T02:02:00.000+07:00

Microsoft will keep focus on Windows Mobile and not worry about creating an iPhone clone

Microsoft has mobile operating systems designed for mobile phones and the Zune MP3 player, but does not have any plans to roll both services into a Microsoft-branded phone any time soon.

During an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Robbie Bach, Entertainment and Devices division president, said the company has no concrete plans to release an Apple iPhone clone in the future.

"We don't make phones ourselves. We don't have any plans to make phones ourselves. Our focus is on the belief that a phone is a very personal thing. Different people want different types of phones," Bach said during the interview.

Microsoft will instead focus on Windows Mobile, which has shipped on 20 million mobile devices already. When asked about Steve Jobs' announcement of the new 3G iPhone, Bach said Microsoft already ships "lots" of 3G phones that are powered by the Windows Mobile operating system.

Furthermore, Microsoft expects cell phones shipping with Windows Mobile will outsell the iPhone and RIM's BlackBerry smart phones, which use the OS X and a proprietary OS provided by RIM.

The demand for more interactive software will increase while the cell phone market, most notably smart phones, continues to rise.

"In general, what you are seeing in that phone space is tremendous growth in what people have called smart phones. (It's) growing dramatically. That means more opportunity for us. There is more opportunity for services on top of those phones. There is more opportunity for a richer experience. It's not just about the phone. It's about browsing. It's about music. It's about video. It's about e-mails, text messaging and photos."

Keeping the Zune simply a multimedia device may seem risky since many music listeners internationally are listening to music using their cell phone, but Microsoft believes the MP3 player market is still big enough to justify making stand alone MP3 players. Software is becoming increasingly important for owners of MP3 players, as Zune owners can already play TV episodes and Microsoft may add movies to its portfolio in the future.

In the rest of the interview, Bach discusses Blu-ray and the Nintendo Wii's international dominance and popularity.

Microsoft reached the 10 million consoles sold level before Nintendo or Sony, but the Wii is quickly catching up and is expected to overtake Microsoft in overall sales numbers shortly. But Microsoft understands that even though the consoles are competing in the same market.

Toshiba Boosts 1.8", 5400 RPM HDDs to 160GB

2008-06-13T01:58:00.000+07:00

Toshiba takes the fight to SSDs with an expanded lineup of 5400RPM 1.8" HDDs

Back in late February, DailyTech reported on Toshiba's introduction of 5400 RPM 1.8" HDDs into the marketplace. Traditionally, 1.8" HDDs were only available with a 4200 RPM spindle speed, but the boost to 5400 RPM was a welcome addition to help improve performance on the smallest notebooks and UMPCs.

At the time of the announcement, Toshiba announced the availability of 80GB and 120GB models. Today, Toshiba's 5400 RPM 1.8" lineup is expanding to include a 160GB model and a revamped 80GB model.

The new 160GB (MK1617GSG) drive uses two platters while its new 80GB (MK8017GSG) counterpart used a single platter -- Toshiba's 80GB offering launched in February required two platters to reach the same capacity. Both drives feature 8MB of cache, 15ms average seek time, a micro-SATA connectors and comply with SATA 2.6 specifications.

"Toshiba's eight years in perfecting 1.8-inch HDD technology puts us in a unique position to address explosive growth in the mobility segment with proven products that deliver the performance and capacity that system manufacturers need," said Toshiba Storage Device Division Marketing VP, Maciek Brzeski.

At these capacities, our 1.8-inch HDDs are enabling the miniaturization of mobile PCs by providing better power consumption efficiency and improved ruggedness over larger form factors."

Toshiba’s new mobile HDDs will be available to OEMs in August of this year.

Toshiba's recent development in the area of 1.8" HDDs should give it more ammunition to go up against the increasing performance and falling costs of solid state drives (SSDs). Super Talent is currently leading all players in the SSD field by further driving down costs and recently introduced 30GB, 60GB, and 120GB 1.8" SSDs priced at $299, $449, and $679 respectively.

Apple Hopes to Cash in With Ringtones, Music Downloads For iPhone

2008-05-24T21:45:00.000+07:00

Apple and music label have high hopes that new music offerings will yield big profits.

There's some moving and shaking going on between Apple and the major music labels. Preceding the release of the new 3G iPhone, Apple is looking for new ways to cash in on its growing popularity. And music labels are hoping to get perks of their own, by haggling with Apple to loosen some of its long time policies which have irked the labels.

First, Apple and the labels are in talks for possible over-the-air downloads. Previously, the iPhone could not directly download songs via its cellular broadband network. However, thanks to faster speeds from the 3G networks, it should be possible at last to download songs on the go.

Standing in the way are the music labels who are arguing that Apple needs to pay a higher price for over-the-air downloads, as opposed to standard downloads. The labels current sell standard downloads wholesale for 70 cents, which Apple in turn resells on its iTunes store for 99 cents.

Both Apple and the labels are eager to cut a deal, though. Apple's recent deals have grown the total number of users reached by its carrier networks from 153 million to 575 million. Even if just a scant fraction of these users purchase the iPhone, it will represent an even more significant market to the labels as time goes on.

And Apple has concerns of its own. Many phone manufacturers are moving aggressively to push music compatible phones, many of which come with music packages. If Apple falls behind in its quality of offerings, it will likely pay the price in market share. Having already struggled with poor sales in the European market, Apple is eager to safeguard its back against competitors such as Nokia and Sony Ericsson.

Both Apple and the labels are also eager to expand their offerings for ringtones, a particularly lucrative market. Currently Apple offers a limited selection of ringtones via a 99-cent ringtone upgrade to various tracks on its iTunes store.

Apple also looks to expand its ringback selection. Ringbacks are like ringtones, except they play for the person calling your phone, in place of the standard "ring ring" noise. Ringbacks may command an even higher premium wholesale price than ringtones, raising the possibility of ring backs in the range of $2.49 or more. Some complain about the recording industry's creative pricing tactics for ringtones and ringbacks, but they keep selling relatively well.

The labels say that Apple is very eager to work towards a deal. Says one label executive involved in the talks, "They want a big launch in June."

Labels are taking the chance to use the negotiations as an opportunity to try to push Apple to let them adopt a more flexible price structure, as opposed to the current model, a flat price of 99 cents per song. Some fear this would lead to price gouging, but the major labels insist they would only charge more for new hit tracks, and would charge less than 99 cents for older tracks.

Apple does currently allow the labels to set their own prices for full album downloads. This allows the labels to employ a favored tactic, throwing in art, bonus tracks, and other content, in order to raise the price a few more dollars.

There is some evidence that Apple may consider loosening its price structure. It has allowed HBO to charge $2.99 for its TV episode downloads. All other TV downloads are priced at $1.99.

In a more unlikely side of talks, it is reported that Universal Music Group is pushing Apple to offer subscription music services. Such a plan could allow iPhone users with unlimited music from the labels for a one or two-year subscription period. Sources familiar with the talks say that the labels think the service is worth much more than Apple does, and they're unlikely to reach a compromise. However, if they did it could provide a competitor to the similar Nokia "Comes With Music" service that offers unlimited free downloads to keep. Apple will likely eye the success of this risky program, which has been criticized as unprofitable, before it makes any big moves.

ASUS Looks to Tame Rivals With Atom-based Eee PC 901

2008-05-24T21:42:00.001+07:00

ASUS readies yet another addition to the Eee PC family

Yesterday, DailyTech reported on MSI's new Wind notebook which will do battle with ASUS' Eee PC 900. The MSI Wind has a slightly larger footprint than the Eee PC 900, but adds such features as an 80GB 2.5" SATA HDD, 10" display, and Bluetooth (on the high-end version).

These features can all be had for the starting price of $399 according to MSI Director of U.S. Sales, Andy Tung. The pricing puts serious pressure on the 8.9" Eee PC 900 which is priced at $549.99.

With all the buzz on the internet turning towards MSI's Wind, it's not too surprising that pictures of a reinvigorated Eee PC 901 have "leaked" to the internet. Blogeee.net posted a number of new images depicting a more rounded and chrome-laden model.

As the name suggest, it appears that the Eee PC 901 will still soldier on with an 8.9" display instead of the forthcoming 10" display -- this would continue the precedent set by the Eee PC 701 (7" display) and the Eee PC 900 (8.9" display).

No other new information was provided other than the fact that the Eee PC 901 is equipped with Intel's Atom processor -- presumably the same 1.6GHz unit found under the hood of the MSI Wind. The pictures also show that ASUS finally wised up and moved the Kensington lock from directly adjacent to the VGA port to the opposite side of the machine unhindered. The dual-array microphone is now positioned under the screen (instead of on top like the Eee PC 900), and the machine also appears to have gained a few quick launch buttons above the keyboard.

Hopefully, the new Eee PC 901 will come with a lower price tag to compete with upcoming notebooks from MSI and Dell. However, ASUS may have to do some serious component and model shuffling to erase the $150 deficit between the current Eee PC 900 and the base $399 MSI Wind.

Building An "Iron Man" Pt. II: Jet-powered, Winged Flight

2008-05-24T21:35:00.000+07:00

"It's just my job five days a week, A rocket man, a rocket man"; New technology brings superstrength, can more new technology bring exoskeleton based flight to complete the "Iron Man"?

The summer's hottest blockbuster is the superhero flick "Iron Man" which stars Robert Downey Jr. as weapons designer turned superhero Tony Stark. In part one of this two part series, we looked at the advances made in building exoskeletons, particularly Sarcos Inc.'s new Sarcos suit which can lift over 500 lbs, is maneuverable enough to handle stairs, and can run 30 minutes untethered.

Having a super-powered suit is great, but aside from his power, the comic book character "Iron Man" had two other key attributes -- speed and flight. Without it, Iron Man would go from a superhero, to just plain super slow.

Fortunately there are some promising technologies to give the exoskeleton fighting suit of the future super speed and flight. This article, the second part of this two part series, seeks to examine a couple of them.

First in the category of super speed comes the "rocket boots" from Russia, which after decades is nearing perfection. Videos of the boots can be viewed here (in Russian language) [1][2][3].

The boots also go by the names "Power Boots", "Seven League Boots", "Quickwalker Boots", or commonly "Saigak Boots". Saigak is Russian for a fast kind of elk.

The boots allow the user to run at up to 22 mph, with little fatigue, yet are delicate enough to climb stairs quickly. They also get 70 MPG. The boots are powered by tiny diesel/gas burning pistons. They can carry 1/3 of a cup of fuel and propel the user 3 miles. Using the boots, you can also jump much higher than the standard man.

Viktor Gordyev, a Russian who attended the University at Ufa in the Southern Urals, originally got the idea for the boots when sweating out laps in his college's physical education requirement in 1974. It is unclear exactly when they were invented and perfected, except that Gordyev's work was classified by the Soviet government. In 1994 the project was finally declassified, and Gordyev was able to market his work.

Unfortunately, his company went under in 2006, after a lack of interest from investors. A demonstration at Disney World in 1998 went nowhere due to safety concerns. Says a woeful Gardyev, "They don’t have characteristics that would allow an ordinary person to use them.... [using the shoes involves] taking certain risks. They should work like a Kalashnikov. Reliable in anybody’s hands."

Still, hopefully the U.S. military and/or investors might find some promise in the shoes. The future remains wide open.

Next up is the rocket pack. The rocket belt was originally invented in the 1960s by researcher William Suitor at Bell Aerosystems. The pack had a 21 second fuel limit, as well as weight restrictions, rendering it mostly useless. The first test flight was made by pioneer aviator Herald Graham in 1961.

After decades of little progress, a new company, Go Fast Sports and Beverage Company, is designing and marketing improved jetpacks. Their latest model will retail at $200,000, will have a flight time of 9 minutes, a maximum speed of 85 MPH, a service ceiling of 250 ft, and a pilot weight limit of 180 lbs. It is estimated that it will allow you to fly 11 miles on its 5-gallon tank and is powered by a T-73 turbine engine. As pilot Troy Widgery says, who tested the pack at a recent arena show, "Not bad."

While the pack obviously would not be sufficient for flight and additional weight tolerance would be needed to handle the 100+ lbs from the exoskeleton and other apparatus (boots), it would at least get you in the air and allow you to briefly hover.

Need to really fly like a jet, like Iron Man? That's where the third and fourth inventions this article details comes in. French inventor Yves Rossy, a former Swiss jet fighter pilot, and current commercial pilot has invented a human-mounted mini jet, earning him the title "Fusion Man".

The jet features carbon fiber wings spanning 2.5 m, with four mini jet engines using kerosene fuel. The engines have reached speeds of 190 MPH over the Swiss Alps, after a 8,000 ft jump out a plane.

The wings helped him fly for over 4 minutes, landing by parachute. Rossy describes it in French stating, roughly, "It's like there's a big handle in your back, and the good Lord takes you by it and shoves you through the air, it's fantastic!!"

At a recent demonstration flight for CNN.com he elated, "It's one thing to do it on one's own, but to be able to share it live today that's extraordinary."

Rossy plans to use the wings to cross the English Channel next year.

Finnish inventors first developed the wing suit, allow men to glide along through the air. The company that produces the suits Birdman Inc. has launched a new project, the Birdman Rocket Team. Their lead pilot Visa Parviainen in 2005 and since has donned rocket boots for test flights. The two jet engines attach burn a butane/propane mix, at a rate of half a liter per minute. They provide 16kgs of thrust.

The engines allow level flights as well as climbing. Stalls are no problem to recover from for the skilled pilot, such as Parviainen, thanks to the agility of the human body. Flights could last half a minute or more at high speeds.

While the Russian Rocket boots, the Go Fast Jetpack, the Jet Man wings, and the Finnish Bird suit/rocket boots represent disparate inventions that would add extra weight and complexity, if combined, together perhaps their successors could combine to provide an exoskeleton with flight capabilities, much like Iron Man in the movies. It certainly wouldn't be cheap, and obviously the extra weight from the exoskeleton would be extremely difficult to compensate for but the rate of recent advances its look more and more doable. Here's hoping.

Building An "Iron Man" Pt. I: Military Grade Exoskeleton

2008-05-24T21:29:00.000+07:00

Real life technologies mimics the comic books with breakthroughs in human exoskeletons.

The summer's hottest blockbuster thus far has been Iron Man -- not even the runaway hit Grand Theft Auto IV could slow it down. The movie centers around a super hero using a high tech suit to perform heroic feats no ordinary man could. What's intriguing is just how close real life technology is to creating a slightly less insanely overpowered "Iron Man" suit.

In the first entry of a two part series, this article examines the developments in exoskeleton technology from an enterprising startup recently acquired by a major defense contractor. The exoskeleton starts with a simple concept -- while large war machines like tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) are mighty weapons, they lack the maneuverability of ground soldiers and provide a large target. However, ground soldiers lack the strength to carry sufficient stopping power to take on heavy vehicles.

Sarcos Inc. has taken this concept and run with it, producing a mature exoskeleton design that may just possibly lead to the first real life "Iron Man" suit. Sarcos comes from a decidedly non-militaristic background of designing robots for "Jurassic Park" rides at the Universal Studios theme park. However, the contractor quickly morphed into a military contractor embarking on an exciting new project -- the Sarcos Suit.

While athletic, Sarcos engineer Rex Jameson, standing at 5'11" is no superman. While he can press a modest 200 lbs on a good day, his strength is by no means superhuman. Until he puts on the Sarcos Suit that is. Gripping the claw-like hand guides of the exoskeleton, Jameson recently ripped off dozens of 500 lb presses at a recent demonstration of the suit.

The stunned audience eventually got bored, because Jameson just wasn't stopping, it was far too easy. Says Jameson, "Everyone gets bored much more quickly than I get tired."

The experience proved an exciting demo of the 150 lb suit's potential to give the soldier of the future superpowers. The U.S. Army, which is funding Sarcos, hopes that the technology will be used on the battlefield. It has given Sarcos a $10 million, two-year contract to develop the suit. Initial applications will be off the battlefield and will include heavy lifting and cargo operations.

The suit works on a basic level by detecting the user's every movement and amplifying it. The suit currently has a rather impressive 30 minute battery life, and can operate indefinitely tethered to a power cord. Sarcos hopes to extend the battery life so that the suit can operate for longer periods of time on the battlefield. They also hope to bring down the cost, which is currently rather high.

Stephen Jacobsen, chief designer of the Sarcos suit, says that human muscle movement amplification, a frequent comic fantasy, has become a reality. He states, "Everybody likes the idea of being a superhero, and this is all about expanding the capabilities of a human."

While the army started exoskeleton research as early as 1995, the Sarcos suit is the first major success to date. The suit so impressed Waltham, Massachusetts-based defense contracting giant Raytheon, that it bought Sarcos Inc. this past November.

Jack Obusek, a former colonel now employed in the Army's Soldier Research Development and Engineering Center, foresees the suits initially providing invaluable support. From loading heavy ammo crates, to fixing tanks in the battlefield that would otherwise have to be scrapped to prevent American tank from falling into enemy hands, the potential is enormous he feels.

Jacobsen adds that the technology may also serve home-front uses, helping construction workers build, helping firemen carry gear inside burning houses, and helping disabled people move more freely. Jacobsen states, "We see the value being realized when these suits can be built in great numbers for both military and commercial uses, and they start coming down in cost to within the range of the price of a small car."

While Jacobsen declines to estimate an exact price for the mass-produced version of the suit, the "price of a small car" comment seems exciting indeed. However, certainly such a possibility would raise questions of restrictions, as having a host of super-power endowed citizens might lead to dangerous possibilities.

Meanwhile Sarcos is concentrating on the power issue. While noisy, Sarcos says a gas engine is one possibility. A small gas engine could fit inside the suits backpack, they say. Obusek states, "The power issue is probably the No. 1 challenge standing in the way of getting this thing in the field."

Obusek says that while fine-tuning is still needed, the good news is Sarcos seems to have overcome the challenge of amplifying muscle movements by pairing super-fast microprocessors to detect joint movement with powerful mechanics. The system processes its data in a central computer and then actuates powerful hydraulic valves, which mimics the human body's tendons in a natural, but powered up movement.

The suit lags slightly behind human response times. Obusek states, "With all the previous attempts at this technology, there has been a slight lag time between the intent of the human, and the actual movement of the machine."

In a demonstration, Jameson was able to bounce a soccer ball off his helmeted head, punch a punching bag (not as fast as a boxer, but at a reasonable pace), and slowly ascend a flight of stairs.

Jameson says the suit takes a bit of getting used to. He states, "It feels less agile than it is. Because of the way the control laws work, it's ever so slightly slower than I am. And because we are so in tune with our bodies' responses, this tiny delay initially made me tense."

However, he quickly adapted and has discovered that the human body uses the suit in unforeseen ways. He explains, "I can regain my balance naturally after stumbling -- something I discovered completely by accident. It takes no special training, beyond learning to relax and trust the robot."

While the suit can't fly, it could certainly lug some impressive firepower on the battlefield someday with a few modifications. As to the flying, stay tuned for part two of making a real life "Iron Man".

Microsoft cuts Vista prices just a year after its consumer launch

2008-03-07T02:12:00.001+07:00

Microsoft cuts Vista prices just a year after its consumer launch

Windows Vista has received a sour reputation in the year it has been on the market. Some users of complained about driver incompatibility and performance issues -- among other things -- compared to the venerable Windows XP operating system the came before it. Microsoft addressed a number of these issues with Service Pack 1, but many consumers and businesses are still sticking with Windows XP.

Microsoft is looking to give customers more incentive to upgrade to Windows Vista by cutting the price on some versions of the operating system. Although upgrade versions account for less than 10% of Vista licenses, two upgrade editions will see price cuts.

The range-topping Windows Vista Ultimate (full) will fall from $399 to $319. Windows Vista Ultimate (upgrade) drops to $219 from $259. Finally, Windows Vista Home Premium (upgrade) had its price cut from $159 to $129.

"We anticipate these changed will provide greater opportunities ... to sell more stand-alone copies of Windows," said Microsoft corporate VP Brad Brooks.

Microsoft says that it sold over 100 million Vista licenses since its consumer launch in late January 2007. Hopefully for Microsoft, this latest price cut will help improve Vista adoption.

However, there may be one obstacle in the way that will still stop consumers from making the switch: Windows XP SP3.

ECS Guns for Eee PC 900 With G10IL Notebook

2008-03-07T02:08:00.000+07:00

ECS shows off 11" notebook with HSDPA

ASUS made headlines around the globe earlier this week with the 8.9" Eee PC 900 at CeBIT. The second generation Eee PC improves upon its predecessor with a higher resolution screen, larger trackpad, more storage/memory and hopefully a faster/more power efficient processor.

ASUS-rival ECS is tired of letting the Eee PC hog the spotlight in the sub-$500 price range and today showed off its 11" G10IL sub-notebook. Hard specifications for the device (processor, chipsets, memory, storage capacity/type, etc.) were not revealed, but we do know that the G10IL will come with three USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet port, VGA connection, 56k modem and built-in HSDPA 7.2.

Although it wasn't mentioned, 802.11a/g support is a given and Bluetooth connectivity is likely for the production model. As with the Eee PC 401/Eee PC 900, no optical drive is included with the ECS G10IL.

It should be interesting to see what processor platform ECS chooses to power the G10IL. The notebook appears to be pretty feature-packed for the sub-$500 price point, so one would likely point towards a VIA-based platform for cost reasons.

However, Intel's new Atom processor and Centrino Atom platform could give VIA a run for the money in pricing and power efficiency. Regardless of which processing platform ECS chooses, we'll keep you informed with the latest details.

Olympus Launches World's Smallest DSLR Camera

2008-03-07T02:03:00.000+07:00

The Olympus E-420 is sized more like a point-and-shoot camera than a DSLR

Olympus announced a new digital SLR camera called the E-420 that it bills as the world’s smallest DSLR camera. Despite its small size, Olympus promises a full feature set.

Olympus says the E-420 is small enough to fit into a purse or jacket pocket with measurements of 5.1-inches by 3.6-inches by 2.1-inches the E-420 is sized more like a point and shoot camera than a traditional DSLR. The camera is also very lightweight at only 13.4 ounces.

Other features of the E-420 include autofocus with a live view LCD that allows users to frame shots with the LCD screen rather than the view finder is desired. The LCD itself is a 2.7-inch HyperCrystal II promising twice the contrast and better viewing in bright conditions. The camera uses a 10-megapixel Live-MOS sensor promising clear images even at high ISO settings.

The E-420 is also compatible with wireless flash units form Olympus including the FL-50R and FL-36R. The camera supports CompactFlash Type I/II, Microdrive and xD-Picture cards for storage and the lens mount is a four thirds system. A dust reduction system is built-in and uses Supersonic Wave Filter technology. Images can be shot in 12-bit RAW format, JPEG, or RAW+JPEG.

The viewfinder is an eye-level single-lens reflex design with approximately a 95% field of view with a magnification of 0.92x. Image stabilization is not included. The autofocus system uses 3-point multiple AF and has an available focusing aid. The ISO sensitivity rage is ISO 100- 1600 in 1EV steps and the shutter speed is from 2 – 1/4000 of a second. The camera ships with a 14-42mm f2.8 kit lens. Availability is scheduled for late April at about $599 for the kit with lens and $499 for the body only.

Major PC Powers to Form Gaming Alliance at GDC 2008

2008-02-17T18:04:00.000+07:00

Band of Brothers: Microsoft, Intel, NVIDIA, AMD

Mark Rein of Epic Games recently told the story of the shift in gaming from the PC to consoles.

“When Call of Duty 4 came out, I heard some of our guys sitting around talking about the great game they'd had last night and I'm like, 'Hey guys, what server are you playing on? I'd love to come and join you,' and they said, 'Just send us a friends request,'” he said.

“It was at that point I realized they were all playing it on console. Plus, the sales of the console versions are something like ten times the sales of the PC versions,” Rein continued. “I'm a real fan of the PC, but yes, consoles are definitely stealing a lot of hardcore gamers from the PC.”

The controlled nature of consoles, along with the multiplayer capabilities of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, are enticing former PC gaming faithful with their relatively hassle-free experience. The open, uncontrolled nature of the PC, is both the platform’s strength and weakness.

According to Dean Takahashi’s blog on Mercury News, the major powers in PC technology will soon announce a fellowship amongst them called the PC Gaming Alliance. The reveal is said to take place at next week’s Games Developers Conference, and will include Intel, Microsoft, NVIDIA, AMD and several other computer companies.

The aim of the PC Gaming Alliance is to keep the PC as a viable and attractive platform for developers, and to remain competitive with the console industry.

This comes shortly after NPD revealed its data showing that PC game accounted for only 14 percent of retail game sales in 2007. NPD, however, did not track digital download or online subscription sales for 2007, a now considerable factor in the PC market. NPD announced recently that it intends to begin collecting information on game subscriptions for online games such as MMOs.

Blizzard with its online model seems to be flourishing even with the rise in console sales. “We believe that the PC gaming industry is strong when you look at everything together,” said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment, last week at the DICE Summit. World of Warcraft currently has more than 10 million subscribers pouring money into PC gaming, but the monthly revenue generated isn’t counted as part of retail sales.

The Games Developer Conference 2008 runs from February 18 to 22 in San Francisco.

Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 Turns Up The Heat On The Competition

2008-02-17T18:02:00.000+07:00

The new Beta release of Firefox 3.0 is drawing glowing reviews, is shaping up by some's estimates to be an "IE slayer"

With months left for Mozilla to fulfill its promise of releasing Firefox 3.0 to the public in the first half of 2008, the company just launched its third beta candidate of the browser, leaving only one beta left. This indicates that Mozilla is well on its way to meeting its intend release timeframe. And if initial reviews of Firefox 3.0 beta 3 are to believed, Mozilla might be able to release the browser today with little worries if it had too.

While Mozilla obviously will take its time, and stick to perfecting the fourth beta candidate, the third beta looks much more like a finished candidate than its prior brethren. The first beta focused on speed and leanness, and surprised testers with visibly faster page loads than the current generation Mozilla, Opera, Apple, and Microsoft browsers. The next beta maintained this new speed while beefing up security with a number of key improvements and some minor user interface modifications.

Now the third beta has delivered substantial user interface changes, which for the most part seem to make browsing a much more comfortable experience. The new bookmark tool built into the URL bar has been tweaked to be much more intuitive. A number of graphical changes have also occurred among these is a new "keyhole look" for the backward and forward button, in which a large circular backward button rests snugly beside a smaller curved forward button. The two separate navigation dropdowns for the buttons, which appeared in all previous versions of mozilla have been fused into a single drop down, offering a full history.

The new beta also adopts default themes equally well from Windows and Linux, helping it to blend seamlessly with your desktop environment. In Linux the build can take GTK Themes, Tango styles, or GNOME icons, with equivalent ease. The integration is reported to be so good that the browser literally looks like GNOME application, which will be pleasing to some Linux users. Mac users can also cheer as OS X themes are finally included. Further, for Mac users support for native widgets in forms is also implemented, opening up many new possibilities.

The tabbing interface now allows you to drag and drop tabs between windows, a seemingly natural, but until now unsupported, feature. The status bar also has an added download indicator, which gives you a quick visual update on your downloads. Further the URL autocompletion algorithm has been significantly improved, allowing smarter searches that help you go back to pages you frequently visit, quicker.

A key new feature is the inclusion of a built in add-on manager. Add-ins have been part of whats fueled the popularity of Firefox, as they can add extra functionality for everything from ad-blocking to RSS feeds. Now users can use this built in manager to search, find, and install add-ons without ever going to the add-on page again (previously users had to navigate to a page on Mozilla's website).

While Microsoft plans on revealing key features of its new Internet Explorer 8 browser at its MIX conference in March, the browser is still a long ways away from its "late 2008" release date. By the looks of Firefox 3.0 beta 3, those months stretching between the final release of Firefox 3.0 and the release of Internet Explorer 8 may be particularly long and painful for Microsoft's IE team, as they are forced to play spectator as Mozilla offers up a greatly improved browser.

Woman Sues Best Buy For $54M Over Lost Laptop

2008-02-17T17:59:00.000+07:00

Frustrated with what she sees as incompetence of Best Buy "Geek Squad" staffers who admittedly lost her computer, one woman files a whopper of a suit

The saga of one crazy suit began with Best Buy customer Raelyn Campbell's purchase of a laptop computer from a local Best Buy store in the D.C. area. A Best Buy staffer talked her into buying a $300 extended warranty. The warranty includes coverage by Best Buy's service technicians -- "Geek Squad" -- for three years, and replacements of defective hardware free of charge.

Her laptop indeed experienced hardware malfunctions within a year when her on/off switch broke. At that point, Campbell breathed a sigh of relief that she purchased the warranty and took her laptop in to Best Buy. She turned in her laptop in May and was told that it would be up and running within two to six weeks. This was a major inconvenience to her, as she was a frequent business traveler, but she figured she just should stay optimistic that it came as soon as possible.

In July an 'Agent David Goodfellow’ told Campbell that the laptop would be "ready within days". A call several days later informed her that the laptop was not ready, and was in fact still at the repair center. The rest of the month concluded with continued assurances that it was going to leave the repair center in no time.

By August, she returned from a business trip to Asia and still had heard no new word from Best Buy. Feeling concerned she called the store and asked to speak to the manager. She was told the manager was in a meeting, so she left a message. Her phone call was never returned. She eventually tried calling again and another employee 'Cicero' listened to her story and searched the store records, and informed her that he discovered that "[The laptop] never appears to have left the store."

A few days later he called her back and informed her that it appeared that the laptop was lost in store, without ever having been shipped out. While Campbell says that 'Cicero' was considerate and helpful, she was extremely angry that the other store employees had been apparently outright lying to her.

While 'Cicero' promised that he'd try to get the store to compensate her, nothing happened. After weeks of calling, Campbell was finally informed that she could accept a $900 dollar gift card, far less than the $1,100 she paid for the laptop and $300 she paid for the warranty. Angered and insulted, she wrote a frustrated letter to Best Buy's management detailing the situation, on August 24. She rejected the offer and demanded $2,100 in cash.

Best Buy outright refused her demands and she heard nothing from them by October. So Campbell told her friends and family members to write Best Buy and complain. Her friends did and received a surprising response from the store's general manager, Robert Delissio in the form of a surly email. In the email Delissio stated, "For every customer that has had an unpleasant experience I can show you hundreds who have had a great experience. I have been in retail for a long time and the one conclusion I have come to is that not every customer can be satisfied. Does my store have opportunities? Absolutely! What I can say is that we strive to deliver the experience that every customer deserves to receive."

Further infuriated, Campbell contacted the Washington, D.C., attorney general's office, who contacted the store. The store caved a bit and offered her an increased offer of $1,100 credit refund and a $500 gift card.

That's when Campbell discovered that her identity could be at risk due to private documents she stored on the computer. Shocked and infuriated with Best Buy's lack of helpfulness, she found a lawyer and filed a $54 million dollar lawsuit against Best Buy for losing her property and opening her to identity theft.

Best Buy has since upped their offer to Campbell to $2,500 cash if she signed a confidentiality agreement. Campbell refused. She says she realizes she probably won't win a multi-million dollar settlement, but she does want substantial damages for store negligence and an honest "explanation as to how my computer could have been stolen from a secure area" within the store. She also demands a company promise that they will institute training for their employees on identity theft issues.

Campbell admitted a major goal of the suit is to draw attention, to what she feel is atrocious customer service. Campbell strongly believes in this role as a legal champion, stating, "I can't help but wonder how many other people have had their computer stolen (or) lost by Best Buy and then been bullied into accepting lowball compensation offers for replacement expenses and no compensation for identity theft protection expenses."

Best Buy's legal representatives have refused to comment on the case.

Scientists Combine 3 People's DNA Into Single Embryo

2008-02-17T17:57:00.000+07:00

Scientists promise a cure for mitochondrial disorders by fusing three people's genetic material into single embryo

Some people expected controversy over genetic science to die down with the announcement of stem cells created from decidedly uncontroversial skin cells -- they were wrong. A new research study conducted in Britain is creating a firestorm of debate over the ethics of gene manipulation.

British scientists reported last week that they successfully created human embryos from the DNA of not two, but three people -- two women and a man. Researchers tried to downplay concerns of ethics with genetic modification, citing that the embryos chiefly consist of the DNA from one man and one women, but contain select segments from the other women.

The goal of the research is to one day be able to eliminate hereditary disease and defects, via gene splicing from healthy individuals.

Patrick Chinnery, a professor of neurogenetics at Newcastle University, states, "We are not trying to alter genes, we're just trying to swap a small proportion of the bad ones for some good ones."

Despite being presented at a conference, the research is being met with some skepticism as it has not peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal. The scandal over a South Korean researcher's fraudulent human cloning claims in 2005 having left many in the scientific community skeptical of big genetics claims, without cold, hard evidence to validate them.

According to Chinnery and the British researchers, their research involved implanting the DNA from a women with a mitochondrial disorder into the egg of a women with healthy mitochondria. Thus the woman with the genetic disorder passed on the rest of her genetic legacy, while the other woman contributed only DNA in the form of healthy mitochondria and no chromosomal DNA.

The research is funded by the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, a British charity.

Scientists caution that the mitochondria only represent a minuscule gene portion. Real genetic modification won't come until the distant future. Chinnery said, "Most of the genes that make you who you are are inside the nucleus. We're not going anywhere near that."

In total ten embryos were reported to be created, though they were only allowed to develop a scant five days. No embryos were implanted. Researchers hope to offer the treatment to parents undergoing in-vitro fertilization, in a few years, though.

Francoise Shenfield, a fertility expert with the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology, an unaffiliated center enthused, "If successful, this research could give families who might otherwise have a bleak future a chance to avoid some very grave diseases."

Similar experiments have been carried out by Japanese research teams on mice with mitochondrial defects. The British parliament is supposed to take up the issue of regulation of possible future treatments involving the procedure, should sufficient documentation be delivered to validate Chinnery and his team's claims.

For an interesting look at the ethics, benefits, and risks of genetic engineering, refer to DailyTech blogger Michael Asher's article "Biotech, Genetic Engineering and the Boy Who Cried Wolf".

Microsoft Calls Yahoo Rejection "Unfortunate," Pursues Hostile Takeover

2008-02-17T17:51:00.000+07:00

Microsoft plans to take its bid for Yahoo directly to shareholders

In the world of mergers, there are numerous levels of "hostility" which characterize bids. There are unilateral talks, mutually agreed upon, which are typically labeled as more germane, even if one company ends up absorbing the other.

Then there are unsolicited bids, such as Microsoft's initial offer to Yahoo, which are often labeled as "partially hostile". On the far end of the spectrum are "fully hostile" bids, in which one company tries to bypass another company’s executive and board leadership by offering a buyout directly to shareholders. Among the famous examples of takeovers considered "hostile" was the HP and Compaq merger, which passed by a meager 51% margin in a shareholder vote.

Having been rejected by Yahoo's board, Microsoft commented that it was "unfair" that Yahoo did not embrace its "full and fair proposal to combine" the companies. Now, Microsoft indicates it is planning to bypass the board and take the issue directly to a shareholder vote. Microsoft states, "We are offering shareholders superior value and the opportunity to participate in the upside of the combined company. The combination also offers an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market."

Microsoft's statement continues, "The Yahoo! response does not change our belief in the strategic and financial merits of our proposal. As we have said previously, Microsoft reserves the right to pursue all necessary steps to ensure that Yahoo!'s shareholders are provided with the opportunity to realize the value inherent in our proposal."

The decision by Microsoft to pursue a fully hostile takeover is truly a sign of the times at Yahoo. Yahoo despite promising big changes continues to lose ground to Google in search engine market share, which in turn leads to sinking advertising profits. The company dismissed 1,000 employees recently. Yahoo aggressively acquired companies throughout last year, but its investments left it with little to show for it.

The hostile bid by Microsoft may nix a future board-arranged merger with Yahoo, but at this point it may be a moot issue. If Microsoft has to, it can simply wait out the company until it falls further towards its demise, though it would prefer a quick merger while the company still has some vitality.

Yahoo has a lot to offer Microsoft. Despite its dropping search engine share, Yahoo still represents a significant portion of the market and a major market name. An alliance with Microsoft could establish a strong competitor to Google. Further, Yahoo has a wealth of intellectual property, domain names, and other assets that could come in handy to an ever-evolving Microsoft.

The board is left to ponder Microsoft's words, and their significant decision -- as it may be their last.

Samsung 64GB SATA II SSD In Mass Production

2008-02-16T19:39:00.000+07:00

Samsung refreshes 64GB SSD with faster SATA II interface

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are the new hype in high-speed storage solutions and with each new launch comes improvements over the last. Currently, storage space is what many manufacturers are focusing on due to the demand by consumers.

There are still a few details that certain manufacturers are bringing up to speed. Many of the key players in the SSD game are still implementing a PATA interface on their solid-state products which is holding these devices back from performing at the highest levels. This is the reason for Samsung Electronics' most recent launch announcement.

Samsung announced in a press release that its 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch 64GB SSD with a SATA II interface is now in the mass production stage. The new SATA II version of the drive was announced in Q4 2007 and is said to remove the bottlenecks of the PATA interface used in the previous version of the drive.

According to the director of Samsung Semiconductor's flash marketing department, “While there will always be a market for HDDs, we see growing demand for our new SSDs, especially now that they are available with the SATA II interface.”

Due to the inclusion of the SATA II interface on the new refresh, transfer rates on the new 64GB SATA II SSD will increase 60 percent from SATA I versions of the same drive. Instead of the 65 MB/sec read and 45 MB/sec write speeds of the previous PATA SSD drive, the SATA II flavor will produce a maximum write speed of 120 MB/sec read and 100 MB/sec write speeds.

Additionally, because the drive is based on solid-state memory technology, the 64GB SATA II SSD will be able to withstand 1500Gs of shock within a 1/2 ms span, roughly 3 times the amount of shock a traditional hard disk drive would be able to withstand in 2 ms.

Pricing information on the 1.8-inch 64GB SSD is not officially available since these drives are currently an OEM-only option, however, it seems that PC makers such as Dell and Alienware are providing solid-state drives as a $1,000+ option in certain high-end notebook systems.

Recently, Samsung also announced a 128GB SSD using multi-level cell NAND flash which is scheduled for a mid-2008 launch with costs speculated to be around the $2,000 mark. With prices this high, only the super-enthusiasts will opt for these products.

That said, drives such as BitMICROs 832GB SSD that is scheduled for a H2 2008 launch will be completely out of reach for anyone but the mildly wealthy under current price schedules.

Hitachi and Matsushita LCD Pact Finalized, Details Revealed

2008-02-16T19:37:00.000+07:00

Matsushita grabs a 24.9% stake in Hitachi Displays

The LCD industry is set to boom in 2008 pushed by the transition to digital TV broadcasts in the U.S. in 2009 and the upcoming Olympic games. This boom in 2008 could lead to a downturn in the coming years according to some experts after LCD makers scramble to ramp up production capacity to meet the current demand for LCD TVs.

Hitachi and Matsushita announced today that the formal contract regarding an alliance has been completed (PDF). A basic agreement between Hitachi and Matsushita was reached in December of 2007.

The final terms of the agreement between the companies was announced today and under the agreement Matsushita will take a 24.9% stake in Hitachi Displays Ltd. Matsushita’s stake will be acquired form Hitachi on March 21, 2008 pending regulatory approvals. A second step of the agreement will have Matsushita purchasing the total shares of IPS Alpha Technology, Ltd. for 66 billion yen along with all IPS LCD panel-related businesses.

DailyTech reported that Hitachi was in talks with Canon in December of 2007 and reports say that the two companies are still working towards a finalized contract. The Matsushita agreement will reportedly leave Hitachi is a 50.2% stake in Hitachi Displays.

The first multi-billion dollar LCD panel talks between Matsushita and Hitachi ensued on December 19, 2007. At that time Matsushita said it would invest $2.7 billion USD into a new LCD manufacturing facility.

Google Extends to Chinese Music Market

2008-02-16T19:36:00.000+07:00

Google plans to make a move in order to bring free legitimate music to China

Google will announce its plans for a joint venture with Top100.cn that will give users free downloads of licensed music in China. The collaboration between the two companies will use online advertisement in order to generate revenue, according to Reuters.

Top 100 was launched using the capital of Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star, and industry professional Ge Chen at an initial sum of $2.78 million.

Google’s plans to move into the Chinese music market will come as tough competition for other music sites such as Baidu. Baidu.com has developed its stance as the leading music search service China by offering pirated versions of MP3s.

Just last week , IFPI, Warner, Universal and Sony filed suit against Baidu, Sohu.com and Yahoo China for giving users access to infringed copyrighted materials. IFPI's report indicated “more than 99 percent of all music distributed in China are pirated”. China’s legitimate music market holds very little bearing on the global music sales, roughly less than 1 percent.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on the joint venture, claiming the company does not comment on rumors. No other details have been released on the planned deal.

Google Android's Java SDK Hopes To Leave iPhone In The Dust

2008-02-16T19:33:00.000+07:00

While the iPhone continues to snub Java, Google looks to step up to the plate

When Google announced that it was working on a phone project, many fantasized that it was making a "GPhone", similar to Apple Inc.'s iPhone. Google surprised many when it was revealed that it was instead creating a Linux-driven OS and development environment to compete with Symbian and Microsoft's mobile phone operating systems. Google is taking the project very seriously and is offering $10M to developers and startups to develop creative software for the platform.

Google released the Android SDK with much aplomb in November, confident it would rock the industry -- it did for some extent. The platform gained strong support from T-Mobile, HTC, Motorola, and other key industry players. It has been opposed by Verizon and AT&T, though, who were concerned that it would undercut their proprietary.

Now a new version of the SDK is out and with it is some new improvements. The programming interfaces and development tools have been updated to be more functional and easier to use. Google has added a new OS user interface, which includes an OS X dock look-alike. It has also added the capability to create layout animations for applications. The phone now supports many more formats, including OGG. It also includes geo-coding support and a new Eclipse plug-in.

What is really interesting is not so much the minor iterative details, but the big picture of what Google is trying to do. With Android, Google is emphasizing not only the importance of SDKs for phone operating systems, but also the value of Java support for mobile applications. While Java seems a natural fit for mobile applications, it was snubbed by Apple's Jobs and did not appear in the iPhone. Jobs was quoted as saying, "Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain."

However, many argue that the iPhone and iPod lineups onboard iTunes components could be much better written and full featured if they were written in Java, which was made for such cross-platform embedded scenarios. Google is championing Java, and unlike other Java SDKs for mobile applications, is letting programmers work with the phone on a deeper native level -- a first. It feels that by doing this it can leave less full-featured phones like the iPhone in the dust.

One key competitor to Google will be Sun's own JavaFX Mobile SDK, which is currently under development. Where Google basically uses its own brand of Java with “Dalvik” bytecode, Sun supports traditional Java bytecode. This means that while Google's Android SDK can run equally deep and full featured software to Sun's offerings, there will be no working code base for it from legacy code.

Who will win the mobile phone industry -- Android SDK with an early launch and lots of financial backing, or JavaFX Mobile SDK with its more traditional Java support -- remains to be seen. However, it is clear that Google is very committed to pushing both mobile SDKs and Java. Sun and Google are certainly united on one issue -- that the iPhone and various other phone maker's lack of native Java support is a glaring, and ultimately fatal, flaw.

South Korean Firm Will Clone Your Pet

2008-02-16T19:32:00.000+07:00

Clone your beloved Snookums for a mere $150k

Cloning is a subject of much debate here in the United States, therefore, we don’t hear of the cloning of animals by American scientists much. However, the process of cloning animals is done in other countries.

A Korean company called RNL Bio is working with the scientists who cloned the first canine named Snuppy. The company is offering to clone deceased pets for the tidy sum of $150,000. A company spokeswoman says that the first customer, Bernann McKunney from California, has already signed up to have her dead pit bull cloned.

McKunney says she is particularly attached to the dead animal because it saved her life during an attack by another animal. RNL Bio says that ear tissue from the dog was preserved at a U.S. biotech lab before the animal’s death and that there is about a 25% chance of being able to clone a new animal from this tissue.

The actual cloning of the animal will be done by Seoul National University and led by veterinary professor Dr. Lee Byeong-chun.

Lee worked with the disgraced Hwang Woo-suk who was found to have falsified his research. Lee was in court many times alongside Hwang for allegations of misappropriating funds and was suspended for three months during the stem cell scandal.

GeForce 8 To Get Software PhysX Engine

2008-02-16T19:30:00.001+07:00

NVIDIA's purchase of AGEIA leads to a PhysX-on-CUDA port

With the announcement earlier this month of NVIDIA's acquisition of AGEIA, rumours began to fly immediately surrounding the future of dedicated physics hardware -- and it now appears that the PhysX name will live on as a checkbox beside the capabilities of some current and most future NVIDIA GPUs.

During NVIDIA's fourth-quarter financial results conference call, CEO Jen-Hsun Huang responded to several questions about the plans for technology obtained in the AGEIA purchase, revealing that the plan is to port the AGEIA PhysX engine to NVIDIA's CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) C-like programming language.

"We're working toward the physics-engine-to-CUDA port as we speak. And we intend to throw a lot of resources at it." said Huang. "[PhysX on CUDA] is just going to be a software download. Every single GPU that is CUDA-enabled will be able to run the physics engine when it comes."

NVIDIA's choice to run a physics engine on a GPU runs in stark contrast to AMD's assertion in late 2007 that "GPU based physics is dead until DirectX 11." Every NVIDIA 8-series GPU is currently capable of running CUDA applications, and future GPUs will no doubt retain this feature.

The idea of using SLI for more than graphics has been brought up by NVIDIA in the past, so it was no surprise to hear Huang endorsing its further use again. "It might - and probably will - encourage people to buy a second GPU for their SLI slot. And for the highest-end gamer, it will encourage them to buy three GPUs." No mention was made of the use of the upcoming "Hybrid SLI" technology showcased at CES 2008, but an onboard GPU supporting CUDA could theoretically be used as a physics processor while discrete GPUs handle the rendering.

No timeframe for the release of the PhysX-on-CUDA software was specified, but with the PhysX engine to be available to a larger audience, it will no doubt encourage the development of more accelerated physics engines in upcoming titles.

PS3 Outsells Xbox 360, Bested Only by Wii in January Sales

2008-02-16T19:28:00.000+07:00

PlayStation 3 beats all but the Wii during January hardware sales

Holiday sales figures for gaming console hardware were predictable. Nintendo Wii was at the top, Xbox 360 somewhere in the middle and the PlayStation 3 near the bottom. But 2008 is a new year and so far looks nothing at all like 2007 – except, of course, the Wii is still number one.

Nintendo’s console sold the most in North America with 274,000 units, likely still selling out whatever is shipped to retailers.

Believe it or not, second place belongs to the PlayStation 3, selling 269,000, just 5,000 fewer units than the Wii. The PS2 wasn’t far behind either, with 264,000.

The handheld systems occupied places fourth and fifth, with the Nintendo DS moving 251,000 and the PSP doing 230,000.

Surprisingly, the Xbox 360 tied for last place with 230,000 units for the month. Microsoft told the press before the release of NPD data that its console recently experienced shortages.

"You could say we misjudged demand ... We're literally out of stock in many stores," Jeff Bell, head of global marketing for Microsoft's games business, said in Reuters story. "We think this will have an impact on our sales. It may cause the overall industry number to be down a little bit ... Retailers have been really upset, they are on allocation. It is a lag I think we're seeing in January and that may continue into February, then as spring ramps up, we'll be able to meet that demand."

Sony, on the other hand, appeared to be exceptionally pleased at its excellent placement in January. The PlayStation 3 finds itself in unfamiliar territory being near the top. One possible explanation could be that the Warner Bros. announcement regarding exclusive Blu-ray Disc support pushed those on the fence to finally pick up a PlayStation 3. Another reason could be that, with the PS3 being the bottom seller during December 2007, there was still plenty of stock remaining in retail channels to make up for shortages of other systems.

Regardless, Sony was happy to boast that its PlayStation brand as a whole generated the most U.S. retail dollars in the industry with $486 million, 25 percent higher than Nintendo and 61 percent higher than Microsoft.

“Coming off a great holiday sales season we see strong momentum behind PS3 in 2008,and feel confident about the year ahead. We have an exceptionally diverse lineup of exclusive games, from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Metal Gear Solid 4 and Resistance 2 to more mainstream games such as LittleBigPlanet and SingStar,” Said Jack Tretton, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment America. “Beyond that, we have Blu-ray emerging as the de facto high def standard, the developer community is hitting their stride, consumers are recognizing the tremendous value and innovative services such as PlayStation Home are all in the works, so this is definitely shaping up to be a breakthrough year for us.”

Despite January being a typically slower month in the videogame industry, the first month of 2008 was up 18 percent as compared to the same period last year, with games leading at 50 percent higher. Overall, the U.S. games industry pulled in $1.18 billion in sales during January.

Palm Takes Jab at BlackBerry Outages

2008-02-16T19:25:00.000+07:00

Palm has some fun at RIM's expense

One company's misstep is often a prime opportunity for a competitor to come in and take advantage. Companies like Sony and Microsoft stab each other in the back all the time with regards to consoles. We even saw Nokia take a jab at Apple over the "locked" iPhone.

In the case of Palm, Inc., the company saw a great opportunity to go after Research in Motion (RIM) over its service interruption on Monday.

Frustrated BlackBerry users were sidelined when they had problems sending emails and documents using the RIM-supplied data service. The outages were later blamed on a system upgrade aimed to boost the overall capacity of the data network.

Palm now has an advertisement on its U.S. website that pokes fun at RIM's folly. The ad touts the importance of uptime and notes that Palm smartphones "Connect to your Microsoft Exchange Server. No third-party servers and no nationwide blackouts."

It's mildly amusing attack on RIM and its popular BlackBerry mobile devices, but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Palm recently ranked last in a mobile phone customer satisfaction survey performed by ChangeWave. The survey showed that only 30% of Palm customers were happy with their devices compared to 55% for BlackBerry owners. Apple's iPhone took top honors with 72%.

Perhaps we'll see ads from RIM taking a jab at Palm's last-place ranking in the future -- or maybe RIM considers itself above such antics.

Sprint's Xohm WiMAX Service Soft Launch Coming Soon

2008-02-16T19:23:00.000+07:00

Three major U.S. cites to get Xohm this Spring

Many ardent mobile phone and laptop users are still waiting for high-speed wireless connections to come to their cities. Many are left utilizing mobile data plans that are on par with dial up connections from the early 1990’s rather than being comparable to today’s broadband speeds.

PC World reports that Sprint’s oft-delayed WiMAX service dubbed Xohm has a soft launch coming soon. According to WiMAX Forum president and CEO Ron Resnick, WiMAX products are here and WiMAX is here. That statement will sound hollow to those looking forward to WiMAX in the United States.

While there have been 260 commercial deployments of WiMAX in 110 countries according to Resnick, the service has yet to see wide availability in America, and it could be a while yet before that happens.

Ali Tabassi, Sprint’s VP for technology development, says that a soft launch of the Xohm service will happen this spring in Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington D.C. Tabassi points out, however, that the budget for rolling the service out to the majority of Sprint customers is not yet finalized.

The cost of setting up a national WiMAX network from Sprint is reported to be $5 billion and if Sprint is willing and able to part with that amount of money is a decision Sprint CEO Dan Hesse has yet to make. $5 billion is a huge chunk of change in anyone’s book and more so when Sprint is cutting back on staff to cut costs as it loses customers to rivals.

The promise Sprint’s Xohm service makes is tantalizing with WiMAX Forum members claiming download speeds in the area of three to five megabits per second and upload speeds of one to one and a half megabits per second.

The only thing known now aside from the soft launch in the three major U.S. cities is that Sprint acknowledges it will not hit the 100 million subscriber mark for its Xohm service in 2008 it had aimed for.

Happy Valentines Day

2008-02-14T03:51:00.001+07:00

I name is THARUSHNU YOODEE webmaster website GIZMOZA concern in Valentines festival day . The this beg for give The every person have happiness in day something love and commit . something love give old prevent and prevent . I still The single as before in year .The this have no lover but I as a result still have love and happiness at commit give with The every person something love be what at depth profoundly at wait for help give world The bright .

Anti-Scientology Protests Rock Streets Worldwide

2008-02-13T14:08:00.000+07:00

Remember, remember the 10th of...February?

It appears that “Anonymous” – a loose-knit group of Internet protesters united in their campaign against the Church of Scientology – kept its promise of worldwide demonstrations. This past Sunday, activists identifying themselves as members of Anonymous appeared in cities around the globe to peacefully demonstrate against the Church and its so-called crimes.

Demonstrations occurred in a reported 93 cities worldwide, including Sydney, Los Angeles, New York, London, Dublin, and Stockholm. Donning signs with slogans such as “Knowledge is Free,” “Question $cientology,” and “Enlightenment should not cost £100,000,” Anonymous took a vocal stand against the Church of Scientology’s alleged human rights violations and relentless suppression of dissent. Demonstrations proceeded peacefully, with protesters concealing themselves behind Guy Fawkes masks – among other things – as popularized in the movie “V for Vendetta.”

Anonymous seemingly rose out of nowhere to declare war on the Church late last January, claiming that the Church brainwashes its members and drives them into bankruptcy through expensive spiritual treatments. Anonymous’ medium of choice is YouTube. The group’s first video, a shot-across-the-bow titled “Message to Scientology,” now has over 2 million views. In it, Anonymous promises to “expel” the Church from the Internet and “systematically dismantle Scientology in its present form.”

While Anonymous’ exact origins are unclear, its members are known to coordinate on social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

Additional videos appeared late last week, authored by a pair of YouTube members identifying themselves as participants in Anonymous: Anonymous1321 and Anonymous1942. “Do not misread our intentions,” says Anonymous1321 in Anonymous Message to Scientology, “ours is not to judge your beliefs. We oppose the [Church] as a business, not a religion, of which it claims to be both. How can a supposedly nonprofit organization cause its believers to go bankrupt?”

Scientology officials condemned the demonstrations, equating Anonymous to nothing more than “cyber-terrorists.” In an official statement released later on Sunday, Church officials said that “Anonymous is perpetrating religious hate crimes against Churches of Scientology and individual Scientologists for no reason other than religious bigotry.”

Previously, the Church of Scientology dismissed Anonymous, offering little response to the group’s messages. “We don’t get into responding to such threats on the Internet,” said Church spokeswoman Janet Laveau in an interview last week, later noting that “those wishing to find out the Church of Scientology's views and to gain context … have the right to search official Church websites.”

Referring to the recent attacks against Church websites, Scientology officials claim that Anonymous has “repeatedly attempted to suppress free speech through illegal assaults on church websites so as to prevent Internet users from obtaining information … [in addition to engaging in] other harassment, including threats of violence in telephone calls, fax transmissions, and emails, not to mention the Anonymous mailing of white powder to dozens of our churches.”

Organizers say the date of February 10 was picked to commemorate the birthday of Lisa McPherson, who died under the Scientology’s care in 1995. Criminal charges filed over McPherson’s death were later dropped in 2000.

Lynn Fountain Campbell, a former Scientology member and participant in the Los Angeles protests, explained the sudden rise of Anonymous as a response to public apathy: “it’s just reached critical mass. People aren’t scared anymore.”

HTC Shift Now Available in Europe

2008-02-13T14:02:00.000+07:00

HTC serves up a Vista UMPC with a side of Windows Mobile

After nearly a year since its initial mention on DailyTech, HTC's vision of the UMPC, the Shift, has finally come to market -- at least in Europe.

The HTC Shift sports many of the same features as other popular UMPCs, including an 800MHz Intel A110 processor, 1GB DDR2 memory, 40GB or 60GB 1.8" HDD, 7" 800x480 touch-screen, and Windows Vista Business -- but adds in a 400MHz Qualcomm ARM-based processor with 64MB of RAM and 128MB ROM capable of running Windows Mobile 6. This gives the Shift the ability to run both operating systems simultaneously, and switch between them at the touch of a button, which HTC has dubbed "SnapVUE."

Rather than behaving as two individual devices sandwiched together in a common chassis, the two operating modes of the Shift are designed to interact and synchronize with each other using ActiveSync -- emails, calendar appointments, and contacts can be accessed through Outlook in "full computer" mode, or through the Windows Mobile operating system when running in SnapVUE mode.

HTC is also championing Microsoft's new UMPC software platform "Origami Experience 2.0" designed to make standard computing applications more "finger-friendly." The new Origami platform includes a web browser, RSS reader, media player, and the "Origami Now" screen, which appears very much like the Today screen of Windows Mobile. Even the conventional problem of entering a password on a touch-screen display has been addressed via the "Picture Password" component.

The Shift's connectivity has thankfully remained unchanged from the initial announcement -- UMTS/HSDPA is available for 3.5G connectivity, the slower but more prevalent GPRS or EDGE data connections can be used, and the expected Bluetooth 2.0 and 802.11b/g WiFi is also present.

Cost for the Shift has also been officially announced at €1199 (~US$1750) while importer Dynamism is accepting pre-orders for US$1599.

Microsoft Calls Yahoo Rejection "Unfortunate," Pursues Hostile Takeover

2008-02-13T14:01:00.000+07:00

Microsoft Prepares to Unveil IE8 Features At MIX08

2008-02-13T13:59:00.000+07:00

With a Firefox 3.0 release impending, Microsoft prepares to reveal its new firepower with a keynote on the status of IE8

MIX, an annual Microsoft-hosterd conference for web developers held each spring at the swank Venetian in Las Vegas, has often drawn exciting news. At the first MIX conference, held in '06 Dean Hachamovitch, leader of Microsoft's Internet Explorer team gave an exciting presentation of the future of the browser, which highlight the improvements found in IE7 that would help the browser regain competitiveness against a more full-featured Firefox browser. Internet Explorer 7 released several months later in October, and stayed very true to the form of Hachamovitch's presentation, adding tabbed browsing, antiphishing and more.

This year's MIX conference, held on March 5th through 7th, promises a similar preview at what kind of heat Microsoft is planning to unleash on the next generation browser arms race. Hachamovitch will be giving an exclusive look at the state of Internet Explorer 8 and key features of the browser.

Microsoft's browser is currently in the alpha release stage. It will be going to an initial Beta release by mid '08. This will preceed a late '08 launch. Little is known about the features at this time so the announcement of Hachamovitch's keynote is creating considerable excitement in developer circles.

What exactly Hachamovitch has in store and the reception of the browser are critical to Microsoft's fight to stay competitive in the browser market sector. While browsers are only one key segment of Microsoft's business, Microsoft takes them very seriously. The company is not above doing a little trash talking about bitter rival Mozilla's Firefox browser.

The next generation browser war should be intense. Microsoft has been bleeding marketshare to the Mozilla Foundation's browser throughout the IE6 and IE7 era. Mozilla should get the jump on Microsoft when it releases Firefox 3.0, codenamed "Gran Paradiso", early this year. The browser is currently on its second beta, with two more betas planned. Initial reports are very enthusiastic and state that the browser is noticably faster, leaner and more intuitive. Microsoft is sure to have some cards up its sleeve as well though, and MIX '08 should give a preview of them.

HD DVD Promotional Group Wimpers at Netflix, Best Buy, Blu-ray Alliances

2008-02-13T13:57:00.000+07:00

HD DVD Promotional Group offers little resistance to the latest Blu-ray victories

The HD DVD Promotional Group suffered two crippling blows yesterday. Early Monday morning, Netflix announced that it would become Blu-ray exclusive with regards to online high-definition movie rentals.

Monday afternoon, Best Buy announced that while it wouldn't drop HD DVD altogether, it would place more emphasis on Blu-ray and heavily promote that standard.

"Consumers have told us that they want us to help lead the way. We’ve listened to our customers, and we are responding. Best Buy will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format," said Best Buy President and Chief Financial Officer Brian Dunn.

The HD DVD Promotional Group of course was not too happy to hear about the latest losses in the format war and offered up this rather tame response:

We have long held the belief that HD DVD is the best format for consumers based on quality and value, and with more than 1 million HD DVD players on the market, it's unfortunate to see Netflix make the decision to only stock Blu-ray titles going forward. While the Best Buy announcement says they will recommend Blu-ray, at least they will continue to carry HD DVD and offer consumers a choice at retail.

Perhaps the HD DVD Promotional Group doesn't have any fight left. Toshiba already went to great lengths to cut the prices on its third-generation DVD players, but that obviously wasn't enough to stop the shift to Blu-ray. Toshiba's HD DVD commercial during the Super Bowl also didn't help to win over any new supporters.

However, maybe consumers can take solace in the fact that things may be finally winding down in the HD DVD versus Blu-ray battle. Studio support is lining up fervently behind Blu-ray, so the days of finding a high definition movie on HD DVD, but not on Blu-ray, may soon be over.

Early adopters of the HD DVD standard though may just be left with their existing HD DVD library and an excellent upscaling DVD player.

EA to Deliver PC Version of Mass Effect

2008-02-13T13:52:00.000+07:00

Electronic Arts nabs Mass Effect PC publishing rights from Microsoft

Nearly all of BioWare’s recent RPG releases have first hit Microsoft’s console, be it the original Xbox or Xbox 360, only later to make it to the PC. It happened with the two Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic games, as well as Jade Empire, and it will happen to Mass Effect.

Electronic Arts and BioWare announced today that Mass Effect, originally released on the Xbox 360 late November 2007, will be hitting the PC in May 2008. Unlike the Xbox 360 version, which was published by Microsoft Games Studios, EA will be handing the publishing duties for the PC port.

“Mass Effect serves as a powerful example of video games as an art form, delivering new levels of emotional intensity, realistic characters and a gripping storyline – all set in a compelling new universe,” said Ray Muzyka, General Manager, BioWare and Vice President, Electronic Arts.

Mass Effect for the PC also represents the first sign of the split in publishing agreements for BioWare and Microsoft after EA acquired the Canadian game developer.

Frank Gibeau, President of EA’s Games Label added, “EA has struck an agreement with Microsoft to handle future publishing for Mass Effect. We are looking forward to releasing Mass Effect on the PC this Spring and brand new titles in the future.”

EA said that the PC release will contain several new optimizations specific to the version, such as new control schemes, hot keys, along with new additions in the form of a new decryption mini-game and enhanced GUI system.

BioWare also recently announced new paid DLC for Xbox 360 owners to appear in March. It’s unclear at this time whether or not any of this content will be incorporated into the PC version.

Microsoft Releases Vista SP1 RTM, XP SP3 RC2 to Testers

2008-02-12T11:00:00.000+07:00

Microsoft spreads Service Pack love to testers

Microsoft announced last week that it completed work on Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1) and released it to manufacturing. Unfortunately for consumers, Microsoft also announced that that the update wouldn't be available to consumers until around March.

However, current beta testers for SP1 will be glad to know that they can download the service pack right now. Microsoft makes SP1 available for download in a number of ways.

Testers can download a single .exe file with the SP1 update in x86 (Windows6.0-KB936330-X86-wave0.exe) or x64 (Windows6.0-KB936330-X64-wave0.exe) flavors. The next option is to download a registry file which gives testers access to SP1 via Windows Update. The third and final way that testers can install SP1 -- x86 and x64 versions -- is via a standalone ISO installer which allows the service pack to easily be installed on multiple machines via a CD.

Microsoft lists the build version for SP1 as 6001.18000.080118-1840.

In other Windows news, the still popular Windows XP operating system is getting another update courtesy of Microsoft's Connect website. The Redmond, Washington-based company uploaded Windows XP SP3 Release Candidate 2 (RC2) for beta testers to try out.

The Windows XP SP3 RC2 update is available in five languages and weighs in at about 315MB for the English version.

NVIDIA Introduces HD Handheld Computing Platform

2008-02-12T10:56:00.000+07:00

High-definition video and graphics processing coming to a Windows Mobile Smartphone near you

It wasn't too long ago that cell phone LED screen resolutions touted incredible resolutions of 100 pixels. After the switch to LCDs, most mobile phones today carry resolutions in excess of 100,000 pixels, and in full color too. With the convergence of hand-held and mobile devices, it was only a matter of time before the graphics giants jumped headlong into the world of mobile computing.

NVIDIA announced today the APX 2500 application processor for mobile devices. The new chip features high-definition computing capabilities such as HD 720p video playback and capture.

One of the more significant hurdles of any mobile platform is power consumption. Because mobile devices rely on low power batteries in such small packages, NVIDIA designed the processor to operate with restrictions under an ultra-low-power GeForce core. NVIDIA won't tell just how low yet, but competing processors from Samsung and AMD run in the 10 milliwatt range.

The APX 2500 will support decoding of 720p H.264, MPEG-4, and VC-1/WMV9 media and encoding of 720p H.264 and MPEG-4 media along with the support for standard audio formats including AAC, AMR, WMA, and the ever popular MP3 format. The display subsystem of the APX 2500 also includes HDMI 1.2 support for outputting video at 720p as well as output to a monitor at resolutions up to 1280x1024.

Additional features of the APX 2500 processor include support for up to 12 megapixel camera sensors (opposed to current 3 megapixel cell phone cameras) and 3D graphics processing capabilities including OpenGL ES 2.0 and Direct3D Mobile support.

NVIDIA worked closely with Microsoft on the APX 2500 so its safe to assume the processor will initially or ultimately be a Windows Mobile device exclusive.

The APX 2500 will take center stage at NVIDIA's booth at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The company indicates it will announce high-definition mobile video and graphics processor by mid-summer 2008.

If the APX 2500 solution is indeed an exclusive for Windows Mobile-based devices, Microsoft may see a powerful gain in the mobile OS market among mobile software developers such as Nokia and Google's upcoming AndroidOS.

Plextor Announces Blu-ray, HD DVD Drives

2008-02-12T10:52:00.000+07:00

Next-generation burners to hit the European market by end of month

Recent news suggests the Blu-ray optical media format used for audio, video and storage is taking control of the market place as movie studios and movie rental services such as Warner and Netflix are flipping the script on HD DVD and siding exclusively with Blu-ray. However, despite HD DVD's apparent struggles to stay in the race, many hardware manufacturers are still committed to both formats.

Plextor Europe is suiting up for the game by launching two new optical drives, the PX-B920SA CD/DVD/Blu-ray writer and HD DVD reader and the PX-B300SA CD/DVD writer and Blu-ray/HD DVD reader.

The PX-B920SA is the jack of (almost) all trades as it features CD-R/RW write speeds of 40x/24x and DVD R/RW write speeds of up to 16x/8x. Additionally, the PX-B920SA is able to write to BD-R/RE media at up to 4x/2x and read the media at up to 8x speeds depending on the format. The PX-B920SA also has the ability to read HD DVD media at 3x speeds.

The drive features a SATA interface with a 4 MB buffer and also features Lightscribe technology which is not always the seller for these devices but more of a luxury feature.

The PX-B300SA does the usual CD/DVD reading and writing duties at the same speeds, however it doubles as only a reader for Blu-ray and HD-DVD media at up to 6x and 3x speeds respectively. The PX-B300SA also features a SATA interface and a 4 MB buffer along with the Lightscribe technology.

Both the PX-B920SA and the PX-B300SA will launch in European markets by the end of February with no decided US launch date so far. Pricing information is not yet available but is expected to be a premium over OEM-type devices from companies such as LG.

Google Plans To Fight Microsoft-Yahoo

2008-02-12T10:49:00.000+07:00

Google won't let Microsoft and Yahoo merge without a fight

Late last week DailyTech covered Microsoft's landmark $44.6 billion unsolicited bid for Yahoo, which threatened to transform the online business landscape overnight. While the outcome at first seem uncertain, opposition to the move quickly evaporated with the resignation of former CEO and Chairman at-the-time, Terry Semel.

Semel had strongly criticized the merger as not in Yahoo's best interests. With Semel's resignation, and landmark tough times for Yahoo, a deal seems so likely many analysts are already calling it a sure thing.

Meanwhile, Google remained quiet during Microsoft's initial announcements. However, now the giant has come out swinging again the merger, which represents a serious threat to its online dominance.

David Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer has posted a warning to Microsoft and Yahoo in his Google blog. In the blog he blasts the "hostile bid," stating, "Microsoft's hostile bid for Yahoo! raises troubling questions. This is about more than simply a financial transaction, one company taking over another. It's about preserving the underlying principles of the Internet: openness and innovation."

He implies that Google, and a pre-merger Yahoo represent openess and freedom of the Internet. He implies that a Microsoft-Yahoo merger may mark a move towards staleness, proprietary systems, and most notably, monopolistic practices.

He adds the provocative question, "Could Microsoft now attempt to exert the same sort of inappropriate and illegal influence over the Internet that it did with the PC? While the Internet rewards competitive innovation, Microsoft has frequently sought to establish proprietary monopolies -- and then leverage its dominance into new, adjacent markets."

He continues, "Could the acquisition of Yahoo! allow Microsoft -- despite its legacy of serious legal and regulatory offenses -- to extend unfair practices from browsers and operating systems to the Internet? In addition, Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors' email, IM, and web-based services? Policymakers around the world need to ask these questions -- and consumers deserve satisfying answers."

The blog, particularly coming from Google's top legal brass, seems to unmistakably imply that should Yahoo accept Microsoft's bid, Google would lobby for legal action to block the merger.

Google would likely argue that a Microsoft-Yahoo union would craft a monopoly or would open the door to anticompetitive practices. Its strongest evidence would be in the effects of the merger on total traffic and instant messaging use. Yahoo's properties still ranked number one in terms of traffic last year. A Microsoft-Yahoo team would certainly be the most visited set of properties. Further, a union between Microsoft and Yahoo would mean that Yahoo's titular messaging software and Microsoft's MSN Messenger would create a strong new leader in terms of instant messaging market share, according to Google.

Google would have a tougher time criticizing the merger in terms of advertising revenue and search engine traffic. Even with the merger, Google would currently still control approximately two-thirds of search engine traffic. Google would also maintain an advertising revenue lead, by most estimates.

While a Microsoft-Yahoo merger would represent a significant boost to Microsoft's power, it could also bring serious legal woes for both companies. With a hostile legal environment in the U.S. and abroad, and pressure from Google sure to be strongly applied, the real test may not be whether Yahoo accepts Microsoft's offer, but rather whether the accepted offer can survive international antitrust courts.

Yahoo Rejects Microsoft, Wants More Money

2008-02-12T10:47:00.000+07:00

Microsoft loses bid for Yahoo and must choose between a fully hostile bid, a higher offer, or waiting for Yahoo to fall further on hard times

The Microsoft-Yahoo saga, which played out over the last couple weeks, began with Microsoft making an unsolicited offer for internet giant Yahoo. The plot thickened with the resignation of Chairman Terry Semel from Yahoo's board, and a Google threat of legal action to block the move. While many analysts considered the deal a shoe-in, initial analysis of Yahoo's willingness to accept the deal in the first place was apparently off the mark.

Inside sources had warned that CEO Jerry Yang, who held considerable sway over the final decision had been very wary of Yahoo getting digested into the Microsoft empire. These sources had called such a development "Jerry's worst nightmare." Perhaps they should have been heeded sooner.

In a move which had been forecast since late last week, Yahoo's board on Monday formally rejected Microsoft's $45B bid. The rejection made it clear that the board felt that anything less than double its stock price would be too little. Yahoo would accept an offer of $40 per share or higher, significantly more than Microsoft's offer, which equated to about $31 per share.

The statement from Yahoo's board, attacked Microsoft's offer as cheap, stating, "The board believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo, including our global brand, large worldwide audience, significant recent investments in advertising platforms and future growth prospects, free cash flow and earnings potential, as well as our substantial unconsolidated investments."

This contrasts Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer's valuation of the Yahoo, in which he called his company's bid "generous."

The board made it clear that its ears would be open to a higher bid from Microsoft or other investors, stating that Yahoo "is continually evaluating all of its strategic options in the context of the rapidly evolving industry environment."

Yahoo struggles are evidenced by significant layoffs and a 2008 forecast that many in the investment community considered disappointing. Some see Yahoo's move and simply a gutsy attempt to try to get Microsoft to up its offer. One thing that may stand in the way of this, though, is lack of competitive interest. After Google's criticism, it is unlikely that Google would field a bid, and it might not be able to even do so, due to possible violations of antitrust laws stemming from a Yahoo-Google merger. Fox owner Rupert Murdoch, known for buying up properties, has also stated that he has no interest in Yahoo.

As no one else has showed much interest in struggling Yahoo, Microsoft may feel little need to rush, and may alternatively choose to sit back and wait like a vulture circling a tired beast, ready to strike when Yahoo's circumstances make it more willing to deal.

Another possibility that remains is that Microsoft could make a fully hostile bid and bring its offer directly to Yahoo's shareholders, attempting to outmaneuver the board. Such a move might work, but would risk seriously damaging its future prospects, if it was rebuffed.

Yahoo rejected a Microsoft bid in 2006 and 2007 in private talks, but this offer was Microsoft's first public bid; and also its first public rejection. Microsoft refused to comment, so its next move is anyone's guess. Microsoft, though, had previously made it clear that it considered the move an essential step for both companies, stating, "Today, the market is increasingly dominated by one player who is consolidating its dominance through acquisition. Together, Microsoft and Yahoo! can offer a credible alternative for consumers, advertisers and publishers."

With the prospect of such an alliance evaporating almost as quickly as it was born, the news is surely a disappointment to Microsoft's leadership.

Starbucks Switches from T-Mobile to AT&T for WiFi Access

2008-02-12T10:44:00.000+07:00

Starbucks gets a new partner for customer WiFi access

Coffee means big business here in the United States. Starbucks grew from its humble roots in the Northwest to a point now where you can find at least a few within a 5 mile radius in any major U.S. city. Fast food chain McDonalds has even gotten in on the act to cash in on the success of “premium” coffee.

In an attempt to provide a better "in store experience" for its customers and to distance itself from a growing McDonalds threat, Starbucks today announced a new strategic alliance to provide WiFi service to customers. Beginning in the spring of 2008, 7,000+ Starbucks stores in the U.S. will switch from T-Mobile WiFi access to AT&T.

“As we continue to build our technology offerings in ways that both enhance and expand the Starbucks Experience for our customers, we made a strategic decision to expand our existing relationship with our longtime technology partner AT&T to include consumer Wi-Fi,” said Starbucks CTO Chris Bruzzo.

Starbucks notes that its customers that wish to continue using T-Mobile Hotspot access will be able to do so seamlessly thanks to an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile.

According to the company, Starbucks cardholders will be allotted two hours of free WiFi access per day at Starbucks stores. As reported by DailyTech in late January, existing AT&T broadband and AT&T U-verse customers will have access to free WiFi at any time.

“This is what our customers have been waiting for — free Starbucks-quality Wi-Fi,” Bruzzo continued. “Through our new partnership with AT&T, we also welcome their millions of current customers who can now come in and enjoy free Wi-Fi as part of their daily Starbucks Experience.”

Customers without a Starbucks card or an AT&T broadband account will pay $3.99 for two hours of service or $19.99 for a month's worth of surfing.

Apple Updates Trademark to Cover Game Devices

2008-02-12T10:41:00.000+07:00

A USPTO filing shows Apple may consider its own game console

Gaming is a big business with some game titles bringing in more money than Hollywood’s blockbuster movies. Traditionally the gaming market is dominated by console gaming systems from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. However, that could be changing.

An application filed by Apple with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) amends Apple’s trademark to cover gaming systems. The application is very short on information and merely adds a list of new items to the trademark coverage.

The application adds the following to the trademark:

Toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games

That could mean that in the future we could be adding an Apple video game console to the list of game consoles around. From the sounds of the application we could also see a portable game system from Apple as well.

The amended application was filed on February 8, 2008 by Apple; an attorney has not yet been assigned to the case. Other than the simple paragraph of new items Apple might want to sell in the future, no other information is available at this time.
Apple declined to comment on the application, but representatives at the company exhibited enthusiasm regarding the trademark application.

Microsoft Gets a New Sidekick

2008-02-12T10:39:00.000+07:00

Microsoft is now Danger's middle name

Microsoft dug deep into its pocketbook recently with the offer to buy Yahoo for the large sum of $46 billion -- that offer was rejected. Microsoft, however, announced a purchase today that was much easier to finance.

Microsoft says that it agreed to purchase Danger Inc., the company best known for the Sidekick mobile device. Microsoft president of Entertainment and Devices Division Robbie Bach said in a statement, “Microsoft is a global leader with our Windows Mobile software and expanding mobile services. The addition of Danger serves as a perfect complement to our existing software and services, and also strengthens our dedication to improving mobile experiences centered on individuals and what they like.”

Microsoft says that Danger Inc. has connected with a young and enthusiastic customer base that is Internet-savvy and socially inclined. The purchase is expected to add additional assets and resources to Microsoft’s entry into the consumer space.

Danger Inc. chairman and CEO Henry R. Nothhaft said, “Danger continues to provide an effortless and fun mobile experience for consumers. Now by combining our uncompromised application software and powerful back-end service with Microsoft, we can expand our innovative service offerings even further and take mobility to a new level.”

The terms of the Microsoft purchase are unknown at this time. It doesn’t take any insider information to know after the purchase of Danger, a Sidekick running Windows Mobile will be just around the corner.

Digital Converter Boxes on the Cheap at Wal-Mart

2008-02-12T10:37:00.000+07:00

Wal-Mart puts cheap digital converter box on store shelves for under $50

While many in the United States know that the transition to digital TV broadcasts will begin in early 2009, there are still some that are oblivious to the transition. The Nielsen Company says it estimates that the transition will affect 13 million households across the country.

To offset the cost of the digital transition for consumers, the U.S. government is offering coupons to help reduce the cost of the convertors for affected households. Without these digital convertor boxes, homes without TVs capable of receiving digital broadcasts that aren’t connected to satellite or cable services will no longer be able to receive programming.

Consumers will be eligible for up to two $40 coupons which can be used towards the purchase price of a converter box. Wal-Mart says that it expects many customers using these coupons to show up in its stores across the country.

Gary Severson, senior vice president of Home Entertainment for Wal-Mart said in a statement, “Due to our many locations, we expect the majority of customers will come to us for making their digital transition plan, both for convenience and price. We've prepared for many months to ensure the coupon process will go smoothly, and will work with suppliers to continue to have available, affordable options in our stores for all customers."

To make the buying process easier Wal-Mart says it set up a new platform at its registers to make using the $40 coupons as easy as using a gift card. The catch with the $40 coupons provided by the government is that the converters at this point all cost more than $40.

Wal-Mart now has one of the cheapest converters around with a Magnavox Digital-to-Analog converter at a price of $49.87. That leaves consumers paying about $10 out of their own pocket to continue to watch over the air programming with old analog only TVs.

Some may find the digital transition happening before the February 17, 2009 deadline in their area. The FCC changed the rules to allow broadcasters to make the digital transition early if it was required for the station to make the transition.

LG KE850 Prada Phone

2008-02-11T23:22:00.000+07:00

The Prada Phone by LG (KE850) is a real breakthrough in the industry, as it is a unique, sophisticated and elegant mobile phone with the first complete advanced touch interface. LG and Prada have worked closely together on every aspect of the product, from handset development to marketing combining the attention to detail and uncompromising quality of Prada design with the trademark technological innovation of LG mobile.

Prada’s involvement extends beyond exterior aesthetics to the key elements of the user experience such as the advanced touch interface, ring tones, pre-loaded content, mobile phone accessories and the exclusive leather case, inspired by the classic Italian craftsmen tradition.

The Prada Phone by LG introduces the world’s first advanced touch interface which eliminates the conventional keypad making the overall usage experience a highly tactile one. An extra wide LCD screen maximizes visual impact, allowing the user to benefit from several key features of the phone, including the 2 megapixel camera featuring Schneider-Kreuznach lens, video player and document viewer capacity. Above all, these features contribute to the phone’s beautifully sleek and simplistic appearance.

Glowing icons on the face of the phone disappear when not in use to reveal a pure, un-adulterated black exterior. The phone is ultra thin (just 12 mm), nonetheless it hosts an array of additional multimedia functions, including an MP3 player and a music multitasking function for messaging. It also boasts an external memory slot, allowing the user to increase memory capacity for images, music and film clips.

A Watch That Alarms You

2008-02-11T23:17:00.000+07:00

Designer Nikita Golovlev has created a watch for the hearing impaired. AlarMe is a very unique and stylish design that has the ability to alert those who cannot hear an audible alarm by vibration on the watch. The watch has two built in multidirectional microphones that measure the surrounding ambient sound levels. Once the sound changes frequency, the vibrating alarm alerts the user that there is a situation going on and they need to leave the area. The LED lights and face alert the user as to what the alarm is, and if it is a serious situation or one where only caution needs to be had.

Trackball Player

2008-02-11T23:10:00.000+07:00

Who needs buttons when you have a trackball? Yes the good ole’ trackball, often dismissed as yesterday’s technology but perhaps we can find a place for it in today’s touchscreen crazed devices. The Ball Player works like every other MP3 player except for one minor, or not so minor, difference. In lieu of buttons, you simply roll the trackball towards the direction of control you wish to execute. It may seem pointless but the trackball also works another way. Place it on any flat surface and you can control your tunes by moving it up, down, and side to side.

Bluetooth SIG working on specification to allow Bluetooth to piggyback onto Wi-Fi

2008-02-11T23:03:00.000+07:00

Bluetooth SIG working on specification to allow Bluetooth to piggyback onto Wi-Fi

Mobile phones like the Apple iPhone, and various Blackberry models typically feature both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity. These two protocols work independently of each other while the handset is in operation.

The Bluetooth SIG announced today a new method of speeding up Bluetooth connectivity by piggybacking onto the Wi-Fi connection already available in many handsets and devices. The Bluetooth SIG is very specific in that this new announcement in no way affects the development of the upcoming Ultra Wideband (UWB) technology that has been in development for the last few years.

The Bluetooth SIG says the new architecture, which is called Alternate MAC/PHY by the members working on the specification, is a way to grab the low hanging fruit until UWB comes to market.

Michael Foley, Ph.D., executive director of the Bluetooth SIG said in a statement, “This is the wireless technology equivalent of ‘low hanging fruit.’ What we’re doing is taking classic Bluetooth connections – using Bluetooth protocols, profiles, security and other architectural elements – and allowing it to jump on top of the already present 802.11 radio, when necessary, to send bulky entertainment data, faster. When the speed of 802.11 is overkill, the connection returns to normal operation on a Bluetooth radio for optimal power management and performance.”

At the core of the technology, when low speeds are all that is needed, the traditional Bluetooth only radio would be used. When a user needs to send a large file from a Bluetooth device to a printer the Wi-Fi radio would be used to send the large file at much faster speeds. This new technology will be seen in devices that utilize one single radio for both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The final specification for Alternate MAC/PHY is expected to be published in mid-2009.

DailyTech reported in 2006 that the UWB Forum was having problems with one of the major members claiming that the goals of the UWB Forum were too grand.

EA Regrets Stifling Developers, Promises Reform

2008-02-11T23:00:00.000+07:00

Game developers are like flowers, says EA CEO

Electronic Arts has a reputation among gamers for swallowing talented game developers only to later turn them into excrement. EA CEO John Riccitiello knows it, and told Game|Life at DICE, "We at EA blew it, and to a degree I was involved in these things, so I blew it."

Developers fallen victim to EA’s previous mismanagement include the once great Origin Systems, Westwood and Bullfrog. "When I talked to the creators that populated these companies at the time, they felt like they were buried and stifled," Riccitiello said.

EA Sports is notorious for making small changes, sometimes the most significant of which is a roster update, every year to its sports games and selling them for full price. While that model may work for a select genre, it’s largely inapplicable everywhere else. EA may have figured that purchasing a developer for solely the IP would be a winning idea, but one that is now proven to fail without the adequate inspiration behind it.

"The command and conquer model," said the EA CEO, "doesn't work. If you think you're going to buy a developer and put your name on the label... you're making a profound mistake."

Such was the topic of Riccitiello’s talk at the DICE conference, informing listeners that he would put forth a "new model" of "how publishers and developers can work together in the future," hoping to avoid the mistakes of EA past.

With EA’s most recent acquisition of BioWare and Pandemic, for which the publisher paid $860 million, the company now has to makes sure it doesn’t mess with a good thing.

"Creative teams can be thought of as flowers in a hothouse -- you move the temperature up or down a few degrees and the flowers will die," Riccitiello said.

Microsoft's Shane Kim Talks Xbox 360 in 2008

2008-02-11T22:57:00.000+07:00

Halo and Gears of War are scaring away casual gamers, says Microsoft

A the DICE Summit, Microsoft Game Studios corporate VP Shame Kim made himself available for a conference session, recorded by Gamasutra, answering many questions surrounding the Xbox business.

One of the biggest blows to Microsoft in 2007 was the loss of Bungie Studios. Kim explained, “People have speculated that we were stifling their creative freedom, but I can tell you there's no studio that had more freedom at Microsoft Game Studios than Bungie. I think, at the heart of it, they wanted to return to their independent roots. At the end of the day, you are talking about human beings here. My personal philosophy? You want to work with people who are happy to work with you.”

Besides Bungie, there were two other development houses to leave from under Microsoft’s umbrella. BioWare was fully acquired by EA earlier this year, and Bizarre Creations is now with Activision. Kim downplayed the snatching those two second party developers and said that it was just the nature of the industry, and that Microsoft still has many great partners on its side.

"We work with a lot of external development partners - Epic has been a tremendous partner for us. It's just the nature of the game,” said Kim. “We do have five great internal studios. I believe in having a great mix, and a great commitment to internal development as well... we can't control other publishers.”

The VP also added that third-party publishers have an incentive to produce content on Xbox 360, due to excellent game sales on the platform. “The vast majority of software sales is going to come from third parties,” Kim noted. “We don't have the dominant share on our own platform - that comes from third parties. And if you look at the results for great third-party platform titles, we're outselling other platforms 2:1, 3:1 and so on.”

2007 was certainly the best year yet in quality games for the Xbox 360. It was so good, in fact, that some believe that Microsoft will be unable to match it for 2008. Although he didn’t make any promises, Kim believes that 2008 will be “very stacked” with quality games, some of which have yet to be announced. Of the titles that have been announced, Kim specifically mentioned Halo Wars, Fable 2 and Alan Wake.

Even with its head start, the Xbox 360 was quickly surpassed in total unit sales by the Nintendo Wii, but Kim says that hardware sales aren’t the only way to measure a platform’s success. “It's easier to focus on console unit sales," he continued. "But if you look at the consumer spending on the current [console] generation, Xbox 360 customers spend 45 percent of next gen spending.”

That’s not to say that Microsoft isn’t looking to replicate some of what Nintendo was able to do with its current generation of hardware – capturing the casual market. Oddly enough, Kim names Halo and Gears of War as barriers to that goal.

“When your flagship titles are Halo and Gears of War, most people naturally attribute a brand of mature-rated hardcore to the Xbox platform. I'm glad we have Halo and Gears of War, but it makes it harder to reach out to some people,” said Kim. “We do have a lot to offer to people and we have to do a better job of letting people know. We're trying to get mass-market with Xbox 360, and the generation has a long way to go.”

Out of the current three major console platform holders, Microsoft is the only one without a portable gaming solution. Will there ever be a portable Xbox? “Never say never,” Kim replied. “Launching a portable device is like launching a Zune, launching another Xbox 360... we have a ways to go [to compete effectively in the music space]... Zune is not just about the device, it's about the service as well.”

For now, it seems that Kim and the rest of Microsoft’s gaming division is focused on making the Xbox 360 the overall victor of the generation. “By no means does anyone at Microsoft think the race is over,” Kim stated. “You have very powerful and formidable contenders in Nintendo and Sony ... to underestimate them and to count them out would be a foolish mistake.”

Geeky Gambling

2008-02-10T19:48:00.001+07:00

Snap! It’s a USB flash drive that looks like a domino but the disguise serves a purpose. Each white dot denotes 1 gig of memory used. Not sure how useful that is but at least you’ll be ready for an impromptu street corner game of dominos.

Smoke And You Die Says The Ashtray

2008-02-10T19:30:00.000+07:00

The first ashtray designed to weigh the amount of ash placed inside and give you an accurate indication of how much your smoking habits have brought you closer to death. Morbid I know but there’s some genius in it. This product was designed from the core to shock the smoker and make him/her think twice before lighting up.

It uses an internal weighing system. The built in microchip and LCD display then conveys how many days you have taken off your life by smoking so far. The whole tray itself gets darker as you delve closer to a wheezing end.

Wow, makes a great gift huh? (Insert sarcasm)

Blocky MP3 Player, Oh And Modular Too

2008-02-10T19:23:00.000+07:00

If you hit the jump, try to ignore the emo haircuts and focus on that piece of tech hanging from around their necks.
The BLOC MP3 player may look like another stylized DAP but there’s function to its Lego-like form. The core unit houses an OLED screen, 4-way directional toggle, and 50GB of memory. Should you need more, just snap on another memory module. Wanna share music with friends? No problem - just connect two BLOCS together and get your sync on. Oh and just for kicks, it’ll record voice notes too.

Concept people, concept.

Google Can Win By Losing Spectrum Auction

2008-02-10T19:20:00.000+07:00

Google doesn't want their own playground; just permission to play in the sandbox

With the FCC auction on the 700MHz band drawing to a close, and the bidding on the "50-states, eight-license" package going stagnant, analysts are speculating that Google has already withdrawn from the race, leaving the lead to Verizon Wireless.

With the $4.64 billion reserve price met on January 31st, the "open access" rules pushed for by Google have become part and parcel to the spectrum. The buyer of the spectrum will be "required to provide a platform that is 'more open to devices and applications' ... allowing consumers their choice in applications and devices to connect with." Regardless of who wins, Google stands to benefit from the "open access" rules to promote their mobile phone OS, Android.

However, industry experts haven't all agreed that Google has thrown in the towel. "If Google wanted to get into the nationwide wireless business, this was their only chance," said Rebecca Arbogast, a telecommunications analyst from Washington, DC.

While the Internet juggernaut has more than $6.5 billion in cash and assets targeted for investment, the cost of the hardware and supporting infrastructure to build a nationwide network -- in addition to the $4.84 billion demanded by the FCC for the license -- would eclipse this by a significant amount.

The auction is projected to close within the month, and the official winners will be announced at that time.

Apple MacBook Air

2008-02-10T00:32:00.000+07:00

MacBook Air is ultrathin, ultraportable, and ultra unlike anything else. But you don’t lose inches and pounds overnight. It’s the result of rethinking conventions. Of multiple wireless innovations. And of breakthrough design. With MacBook Air, mobile computing suddenly has a new standard. Priced at $1799 USD and ships in two weeks.
The thinness of MacBook Air is stirring. But perhaps more impressive, there’s a full-size notebook encased in the 0.16 to 0.76 inch of sleek, sturdy anodized aluminum. And at just 3.0 pounds,1 MacBook Air is more than portable — it’s with you everywhere you go.

The glossy 13.3-inch, widescreen LED backlit MacBook Air display is the same viewable size as the screen on MacBook. The 1280-by-800 resolution gives you vibrant images and rich colors at full brightness the moment you open MacBook Air. So you get full-screen performance with all the benefits of a slim design.
The keyboard is full-size with crisp keys just like the ones on MacBook. But MacBook Air goes further by adding backlit key illumination, making it easy to work in low-light settings such as airplanes and conference halls. A built-in ambient light sensor automatically adjusts keyboard and display brightness for optimal visibility. And with the oversize multi-touch trackpad, it just keeps getting better for fingers.

SUV Not Big Enough for You? Try an XUV

2008-02-10T00:29:00.000+07:00

Alton's offering sets new standards for conspicuous consumption

While most automakers are jumping on the trend of smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, Alton Manufacturing has taken the opposite route. They've created a whole new vehicle category with their extreme-SUV variant, the "XUV"

The XUV weighs in at an eye-popping 13 tons, and includes such features as hardwood floors, a 42 inch plasma TV, two smaller drop-down TVs, a 42-speaker sound system, custom captain's chairs, and four computer workstations.

Oh, and a train horn too ... in case someone doesn't see you coming.

Based on a modified Ford F-650 platform, the XUV is powered by a 7.2L turbocharged diesel engine built by Caterpillar. The purchase price will set you back nearly 200 gran, a figure that likely pales besides the estimated annual fuel bill.

MySpace Launches Developer Platform

2008-02-10T00:25:00.000+07:00

MySpace developer platform allows the building of custom applications to interact with MySpace pages

This week MySpace announced its developer platform to make it easy for third party developers to build applications that work with MySpace pages. To go along with the new developer platform, the online social site also started a MySpace Developer Platform website where users of the software can build and test applications.

ComputerWorld reports that the Developer Platform site will be open to developers for a month to build and test applications in a live environment before the applications are visible to MySpace members in March.

The heart of the MySpace Developer platform is a set of APIs needed to make applications work with MySpace. The set includes Google OpenSocial with special MySpace extensions to enable JavaScript and HTML to interact with MySpace and Representational State Transfer or REST APIs designed to speed up applications.

MySpace came under fire from a variety of sources over the security of its member information and the illegitimate use of that information by some nefarious users. According to MySpace, the new applications developed with the developer platform will be policed by the same privacy controls now in place for other members.

DailyTech reported earlier this month that MySpace has signed an agreement with 49 states to protect its users. MySpace says that applications created with its new developer kit will never have access to more information that is available on the profile page of a user.

The new MySpace developer’s platform will allow MySpace to compete with Facebook on the customization front. Facebook allows users to make and use customized applications that allow them to interact with other Facebook users.

Some examples of Facebook applications are birthday calendars and applications that allow users to see what they have in common with other users of the same application.

GM to Showcase Flex-fuel, Car-based Hybrid Pickup Concept in Chicago

2008-02-10T00:21:00.000+07:00

GM adds many fuel-saving features to its unibody pickup truck

All auto manufacturers are thinking "green" these days and many will showcase their fuel-efficient vehicles at the upcoming 2008 Chicago Auto Show. In this age of broken embargos and leaked specifications, it comes as no surprise that one of GM's vehicles to be showcased at the show was leaked early.

The new GMC Denali XT Concept is based on the same Zeta platform that forms the basis of the upcoming Pontiac G8 sedan and Chevy Camaro. The low-slung concept features a fully-independent front and rear suspension, 23" wheels and a 55" bed with Midgate. The Midgate feature -- similar in concept to the Chevrolet Avalanche and Cadillac Escalade EXT -- extends the bed to a full seven feet.

The most important part of the Denali XT Concept, however, is its advanced powertrain. The concept uses a brand new 4.9-liter, 326 HP small-block V8 engine with direct injection. The new 4.9-liter engine can be powered by regular gasoline or E85 ethanol and uses cylinder-deactivation to run on just four cylinders under light loads for better fuel economy.

In addition, the Denali XT concept features GM's two-mode hybrid system which can also be found on the 2008 GMC Yukon Hybrid, 2008 Chevy Tahoe Hybrid and 2009 Saturn Vue Green Line. GM's two-mode hybrid system allows lumbering behemoths like the Yukon and Tahoe achieve 20+ MPG in the city.

"Like all GMCs, the Denali XT is functional and capable, but it blends those traits with a more efficient, sporty driving experience," said GMC general manager Jim Bunnell. "It is a vehicle that exemplifies GMC's engineering excellence, as well as GM's commitment to hybrid and advanced technologies."

The GMC Denali XT Concept foreshadows the production model which could debut in the U.S. within the next year. Styling will no doubt be toned down somewhat for the production model, but expect to see many of the fuel-saving technologies to carry over to the road-going version.

Lenovo ThinkPad X300 64GB SSD

2008-02-10T00:19:00.000+07:00

Best Buy for Business leaks pricing for the Lenovo ThinkPad X300

Last month, DailyTech told you about Lenovo's impressive new 13.3" ThinkPad X300 notebook. Nearly every aspect of the device was covered except for its availability date and the price of admission.

Best Buy for Business tackled one of those unknowns by leaking the price for a ThinkPad X300 equipped with a 64GB solid state disk (SSD). Best Buy for Business lists the price at a whopping $2,743.99.

The price may initially make you stand back and take pause, but an Apple MacBook Air with a 64GB SSD will ring up even higher at $3,098.

Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 packs a plethora of features into a 12.5" x 9" x 0.73" - 0.92" frame that weighs a mere 2.5 pounds in its base configuration. The display is a 1440x900 LED backlit unit, two DIMM slots are provided for up to 4GB of DDR2 memory and a DVD burner is included with the package.

Wireless connectivity is handled by Bluetooth and 802.11n WiFi, while HSDPA, EV-DO Rev A and WiMAX options also exist.

Lenovo is sure to make an announcement any day on its latest and greatest, so be sure to stay tuned for updated details.

IBM Proposes One Computer to Run Entire Internet

2008-02-10T00:15:00.000+07:00

Dreaming big; IBM looks to host entire internet on a single modified Blue Gene supercomputer

Thomas Watson, founder of IBM, is oft misquoted as stating that the world really only would need five computers. Ironically the frequently used, erroneous quotation may come to true by the very hands of the business Watson created.

IBM launched an Epic project with an almost unfathomable goal -- to develop a single supercomputer capable of running the entire internet as a web application. The project, codenamed Kittyhawk (detailed in a white paper by IBM) created quite the stir in internet technology community.

While the software details descend quickly into the realm of the cerebral, one number that jumps off the page is the estimate for the number of cores and memory for the finished proposed system -- 67.1 million cores with 32PB of memory.

The system is based on IBM's Blue Gene/P architecture, which takes millions of cores and arranges them in a hierarchal architecture. At the lowest level four 850 MHz Power PC cores run on a single chip, with built in memory controllers and interconnects. The next level up is the card, which contains 32 of these quad core chips known as "nodes." Up a level, 16 cards compose a midplane. A server rack has two midplanes, yielding a total of 1024 nodes, or 4096 processors. Each server rack has 2TB of memory to play with. A maximum of 16,384 racks can be networked to yield the finally staggering metrics. As each rack has an I/O bandwidth of 640Gb/s, a "full" 67.1m core system would sport 10.4Pb/s of bandwidth.

The design is certainly not unproven technology -- IBM's Blue Gene architectures own 4 of the top 10 spots of the list of fastest supercomputers on the planet, including the top spot, which is occupied by IBM's Blue Gene/L. IBM's Blue Gene/L architecture is the successor to its P architecture. The Kittyhawk project, initially designed with the Blue Gene/P architecture, will likely make the eventual switch to the more powerful and efficient "L" architecture.

IBM argues that there are many advantages to using large SMP (symmetric multi-processing) systems for internet hosting. Such systems beat clusters in power efficiency and space requirements. However, clusters beat SMPs in terms of pricing and availability, due to the ability to utilize generic commercial hardware for much of the system. This had led companies such as Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com, Google and Microsoft to adopt cluster hosting centers, which provide the companies with the ability to flexibly increase their capacity as demand mandates.

While it acknowledges the benefits of clusters, IBM feels that by using its proven, scalable Blue Gene architecture it can provide box solutions for web software jobs which beat cluster solutions at their own game. IBM says that by choosing Blue Gene, web customers would be able to obtain large savings due to the more efficient infrastructure.

The company also points out that a fast-growing web company often has need for bandwidth outpaced by demand. Their web hosts can only add so much capacity at a time, due to the long validation and construction process needed to expand clusters. IBM says its Blue Gene system is validated per rack, so can be quickly deployed for increased capacity. Additionally, it points out that clusters have relatively high failure rates, leading to loss in service or need for backup systems, while its racks seldom fail.

IBM's current implementation is in a dead heat with current clusters, according to the company. It can currently run most standard web applications, including Linux, Apache, MySQL and Ruby on Rails. Its conclusions are based on the SPECjbb2005 Java performance benchmark, which yielded an impressive 9565 Business Operations per second (BOPS) for the current implementation, and LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/Python) software benchmarks, which yielded similar encouraging results. IBM's researchers feel that this is only the start and that an optimized version will blow away clusters. They stated in the paper, "We hypothesize that for a large class of web-scale workloads the Blue Gene/P platform is an order of magnitude more efficient to purchase and operate than the commodity clusters in use today."

The current implementation makes use of a Linux microkernel, network-based management, software appliances and a quasi-stateless approach to provide high performance. Parallel processing optimizations both in software and hardware, sophisticated error checking, and built in trackable administrative tools are among the many weapons in the system's arsenal.

One criticism of the system is that it uses IBM's proprietary PowerPC architecture. This leaves system implementers with the choice of either programming in Linux for PowerPC, an unpopular choice, or being forced to used to use relatively clumsy ports of Linux/x86 code at the cost of performance. Despite the landmark idea, IBM still finds itself a bit weighed down in its refusal to accept the worldwide dominance of the x86 architecture.

While these issues and the hiccups of a brand new approach still need to be ironed out, IBM stands to gain some significant customers in the web hosting world with its attractive setup, even if it can't accomplish its Herculean goal of the Kittyhawk.

Video Sparks "Anonymous" War vs. Tom Cruise, Scientology

2008-02-09T01:08:00.000+07:00

Scientologist wage war on a digital battle field

The Church of Scientology rarely sees a lot of respect from the press and general public. Critics – a group that scales from individual citizens all the way up to entire nations – label it as a cult and unscrupulous enterprise, preying on the minds and pocketbooks of its followers.

In the United States, however, the controversial religion has, for the most part, avoided outright attack; aside from the occasional tell-all website and snarky TV commentary, it enjoys considerable support from Hollywood and the its followers amongst the public.

That is, until now. What started with a simple video has now stretched deep into the digital domain, and if the critics are to be believed then the War on Scientology has just begun.

The video, which stars a crazed Tom Cruise, appeared on YouTube late last month. Intended for internal distribution and leaked by unknown sources, the Cruise video was created by the Church of Scientology to honor Cruise with its “Freedom Medal of Valor,” for his work in exposing a billion people to the Church’s beliefs.

In the eight-minute clip, Cruise explains his faith in a crazed fervor, interspersing brief statements with fidgeting, maniacal laughter, and wild hand motions. “We are the authorities on getting people off drugs...we can rehabilitate criminals’ way to happiness (sic) … we can bring peace and unite cultures,” he says in one part. “I won't hesitate to put ethics on someone else as I put it ruthlessly on myself … [Scientology is] rough and tumble, it’s wild and wooly.”

Understandably displeased, the Church of Scientology allegedly forced YouTube to remove the video, threatening to sue if it refused. Not wanting to start a fight with a group known for its penchant for lawsuits, YouTube caved and took the video offline.

Since then, the Cruise video has been parodied several times.

The move earned the ire of hackers and protestors, furious over for what they feel is the Church's suppression of free speech. Protestors claim the YouTube incident is merely the latest chapter in a long history of frivolous lawsuits and copyright/trademark disputes, designed specifically to suppress the proliferation of material that the Church finds embarrassing.

Online, hackers took their own revenge, with the Church’s web presence suffering a series of crippling attacks: its international website was temporarily taken down, and its U.K. website remained crippled for days. On a different front, computer guerillas “Google bombed” the Church of Scientology’s official website, bringing it to the top of search results for “dangerous cult.”

Back on YouTube, an activist group calling itself “Anonymous” posted its first online threat against Scientology two weeks ago, citing the Church’s alleged “campaigns of misinformation, suppression of dissent, and litigious nature.” Two more videos have been posted since, all of them featuring stock video of cities, clouds, and landscapes, with the group’s mysterious vendetta read by a computerized voice-over.

In Anonymous’ first video, titled “Message to Scientology” and speaking directly to the Church, the group pledges that it will “expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form.”

Whoever Anonymous is – the group claims its members include “lawyers, parents, IT professionals, members of law enforcement, college students, veterinary technicians and more” – it appears serious; Anonymous acknowledges the Church as a serious opponent and notes that “we are prepared for a long, long campaign.” A later video warns Scientologists to beware of February 10th, a date on which Anonymous will launch several protests at Scientology facilities around the world, coordinated by groups on Facebook and YouTube.

Anonymous’ organizers claim they wish to stay incognito for ethical reasons. One protester, explaining the campaign to the The Guardian, stated that he “[didn’t] want them to get a foothold in the UK the same way as they have in other countries. [The Church of Scientology claims] to be a church and a religion but they charge people to attend their sessions and they are a registered trademark – that doesn't strike anyone as a religion. At the start this was a hacker operation but it is more than that now. Scientologists say it's just a bunch of hacker geeks but that's going to be proved wrong on February 10."

According to organizers, Anonymous started with a “youth movement” among online communities but is now drawing protesters from all walks of life. It distributes Leaflets throughout the United States, questioning the true nature of Scientology and its tactics.

The Church of Scientology is trying to both downplay the movement and fight back. It dismisses the protesters and hackers as a “pathetic” collection of “computer geeks.” Janet Laveau, a spokeswoman for the Church of Scientology in Britain, says that “we don't get into responding to such threats on the internet, particularly anonymous ones.”

According to Laveau, the surge of negative publicity actually created a “surge of interest” in the Scientology, which she hopes will bring many new converts, although it denies forcing YouTube to take down the Cruise video despite numerous reports to the contrary. “These selective and out-of-context excerpts … nevertheless resulted in people searching for and visiting Church of Scientology websites,” says Laveau. “Those wishing to find out the Church of Scientology's views and to gain context of the video have the right to search official Church websites."

In the United States, Scientologists hired an unnamed internet company to defend its sites from attacks and fight back against the hackers. The move was financed in part by a $10 million donation from actress Nancy Cartwright, who voices Bart Simpson.

The Church of Scientology has a long history of waging expensive legal battles to suppress public criticism. In 2005, the Church lost a 10-year battle in the Netherlands against a number of internet service providers as well as Dutch writer Karin Spaink, who posted numerous revealing documents online revealing alarming, secret teachings of the Church.

Invented in 1952, The Church of Scientology is the brainchild of science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard. Based around 18 central religious books, Scientology believes that humans came to earth via an all-powerful alien being named “Xenu,” who stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. Many accuse Hubbard of maintaining a religious façade for tax and legal purposes, and Hubbard once told Reader’s Digest that "if a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion." Together, the religion’s exotic believes, questionable history, and penchant for secrecy has made for excellent fodder from the Church’s many critics.

Andreas Heldal-Lund, a Norwegian free speech advocate applauds the grassroots movement and says they've “won” the war against scientology. However, she denounces the internet attacks, stating that “one of the biggest arguments against Scientology is they are a threat to free speech and here they can say people are hitting back at their free speech. It ruins our argument.”

Creative's 32GB Zen PMP

2008-02-09T01:05:00.000+07:00

Creative gets down and dirty with 32GB Zen pricing

Just a few days ago, Apple bumped the maximum capacity of its popular iPod touch portable media player (PMP) from 16GB to 32GB. The increase in capacity also resulted in a price increase from $399 to $499.

Creative may not have the same name recognition as Apple when it comes to PMPs, but the company is looking to attract customers on a different front: pricing. The company's 32GB Zen already undercut the 16GB iPod touch by $70, but Creative is taken even further steps to lower the price of its player.

Creative now lists the 32GB Zen at a low price of $299 representing a $30 price cut. That puts the 32GB Zen at the same price as an 8GB iPod touch.

On a feature-for-feature basis, however, the Zen would most likely be best compared with the iPod nano. Apple's popular iPod nano is priced at $149 for the 4GB model and $199 for the 8GB model. An additional $100 gets you four times the capacity with the Zen plus the addition of an FM tuner.

While we are unlikely to see any price cuts coming from Apple any time soon, it nice to see that other manufacturers are looking to pass the savings gathered from more streamlined NAND flash production onto the consumer.

Rival SanDisk is also looking to drive NAND flash pricing downwards with new 43nm NAND production and three-bit-per-cell technology.

IBM Shrinks Cell B.E. to 45nm Process

2008-02-09T01:02:00.000+07:00

PlayStation 3 CPU soon smaller, cooler, cheaper

In the continuing effort to advance production of the Cell Broadband Engine, IBM revealed yesterday at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco plans to migrate the processor to the 45nm high-k process.

The Cell Broadband Engine chip currently found in the latest PlayStation 3 hardware is manufactured on IBM’s 65nm SOI process, which was quietly introduced into the market with the 40GB PS3. The power consumption drop from the original launch model, which used a 90nm Cell/B.E., to the 40GB model made users take notice of the shift in manufacturing process.

The further shrink of the Cell/B.E. to 45nm will reduce power consumption by another 40 percent and die size by 34 percent, helping to cut costs. Current analyst estimates put the cost of manufacture per PlayStation 3 console at around $400, close to the MSRP of the entry-level 40GB console.

Even with the shift to 45nm, Sony may not immediately pass the cost savings onto the consumer. The PlayStation division finally turned a profit for the first time since the PS3 debut, a trend the company likely wishes to continue. In the long run, however, cheaper components pave the way for eventual price drops.

The upcoming 45nm Cell/B.E. benefits not only the PlayStation 3, as the chip in also used IBM Blade servers for industrial applications, such as medical imaging. Toshiba has also adapted the Cell/B.E. technology, which it calls the SpursEngine, for mobile graphical applications.

According to Ars Technica, IBM’s effort in shrinking the Cell/B.E. is done solely with Sony in mind. As the PlayStation 3 is the largest application of Cell/B.E. technology, IBM apparently tailored the smaller chip for cooler and cheaper consoles, rather than for increased performance and functionality. Such is hinted at an IBM document, stating, “To guarantee the proper operation of existing gaming software, the exact cycle-by-cycle machine behavior, including operating frequency, must be preserved.”

Such considerations for Sony by its partners are important for the console maker, as the company itself is getting out of the chip business. On April 1, Sony will be officially handing over control of Cell/B.E. manufacturing facilities to Toshiba. Sony also stated that it will cease R&D efforts on future 32nm chip processes, though it will remain active with Toshiba and IBM on future iterations of the Cell/B.E.

MacBook Air to Get Slim PC Competitors

2008-02-08T03:41:00.000+07:00

Intel says competitors to Apple can use the CPU found in the MacBook Air; 45nm CPU refresh coming this Fall

When Apple unveiled the MacBook Air most every technophile stifled a lustful moan. However, the paltry specifications included in the Air leave something to be desired -- even to the most ardent of Steve Jobs protégés.

PC manufacturers expect to fill the gap. InformationWeek reports that two PC makers will release similarly size Windows systems using the miniaturized Core 2 Duo processor found in the svelte MacBook Air.

The low-voltage Core 2 Duo processor found in the MacBook Air is not present in any other computer to date. Some would claim Intel designed the processor specifically for Apple, though Intel roadmaps designate the ultra-low voltage processor as "publicly available" to any system integrator.

The low-voltage Core 2 Duo played a big part in the ability for Apple to make the Air so thin. The processor is built on
the older Intel Merom processor family, though the "mini" version is 60% smaller that other Merom processors.
The 1.6 GHz Core 2 Duo certainly won't set any speed records. In fact, the 65nm processor first got its debut at 1.8 GHz in 2006. Similar performing 65nm Yonah processors at 1.8 GHz debuted almost a year before that.

Intel announced its 45nm processor line last month, just a week before the MacBook Air announcement. However, those interested in sacrificing performance for slim footprints won't have to wait long: Intel's corporate roadmap claims 45nm versions of Penryn, the current processor generation, will be available this fall.

Even if PC manufacturers incorporate the mini Merom processor in upcoming notebooks before this Fall, Apple will certainly opt for the 45nm processor in the next-generation MacBook Air.

Intel has not released the names of the PC manufacturers anticipating to release slim PCs based on the "mini" Merom processors.

Social Networking Sites Endanger Children Less Than IMs, Chat Rooms

2008-02-08T03:13:00.000+07:00

Solicitation and harassment much more likely in chat rooms and over IM says study

Social networking sites have been under fire for poor security measures and screening of users leading to harassment and sexual solicitation of minors using sites like MySpace and Facebook.

The results from a study were announced today that was performed by child health researchers Michele Ybarra of Internet Solutions for Kids and Kimberly Mitchell of the University of New Hampshire Crimes Against Children Research Center. The goal of the study was to find where young teens and children were most likely to be the victims of unwanted sexual solicitation and harassment.

Many may think social networking sites are the most likely place for kids to be harassed online. DailyTech reported in December of 2007 that a family had sued MySpace after a teenage girl killed herself after being the victim of cyber bullying on the site. MySpace competitor Facebook was also the target of legal action last year when the New York Attorney General filed a subpoena against the site due to allegations of sexual solicitation of minors.

Contrary to the image these types of cases give social networking sites, the new study shows that young teens are much more likely to be harassed via instant messages or in chat rooms than on social networking sites.

Of the 1,600 kids between 10 and 15 years of age surveyed across the nation, 4% reported unwanted sexual solicitation and 9% reported being harassed on social networking sites. The study respondents reported 59% more solicitations were received over instant messengers and 19% more in chat rooms. Overall kids were 96% more likely to be harassed in instant messages than on a social networking site.

The study authors use this data to illustrate to parents that they need to be aware of what their children are doing online and not simply focus on social networking sites. The authors also point out that the vast majority of children using social networking, instant messages or chat rooms will never be the victims of harassment of unwanted solicitations.

Ybarra also says, “Young people experiencing problems online are often experiencing problems offline as well. We need to make sure that we are giving them the support and tools to healthfully navigate across all environments, both online and offline."

Update: NVIDIA to Acquire AGEIA

2008-02-08T03:09:00.000+07:00

The physics battle heats up

FPS Labs is reporting that NVIDIA will soon announce its intention to acquire AGEIA. FPS Labs' Stu Grubbs has no financial terms for the deal, but notes that his confidential source expects the deal to become official sometime this week.

AMD batted around the idea of purchasing AGEIA in November 2007, but considering that the company is still recovering from its ATI acquisition, that idea was put to rest rather quickly. It should be interesting to see how AMD will respond to the news if the announcement comes this week -- especially considering that AMD has already declared GPU-based physics dead.

A successful acquisition of AGEIA would give NVIDIA the firepower to go up against Intel which purchased physics software developer Havok in September.

The last time that DailyTech covered AGEIA, its PhysX 100M mobile physics processor was sharing chassis space with dual GeForce 8700M GT graphics cards in Dell's $2,700 XPS M1730 World of Warcraft Edition notebook.

If NVIDIA has its way, NVIDIA GPUs and chipsets may have an even closer synergy with AGEIA hardware in the future.

Updated 2/4/2008
Just moments after this story went live, NVIDIA sent us the official PR announcing its acquisition of AGEIA (further details will come forth on Wednesday):

NVIDIA, the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AGEIA Technologies, Inc., the industry leader in gaming physics technology. AGEIA's PhysX software is widely adopted with more than 140 PhysX-based games shipping or in development on Sony Playstation3, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii and Gaming PCs. AGEIA physics software is pervasive with over 10,000 registered and active users of the PhysX SDK.

“The AGEIA team is world class, and is passionate about the same thing we are—creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences,” stated Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. “By combining the teams that created the world’s most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce®-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world.”

“NVIDIA is the perfect fit for us. They have the world’s best parallel computing technology and are the thought leaders in GPUs and gaming. We are united by a common culture based on a passion for innovating and driving the consumer experience,” said Manju Hegde, co-founder and CEO of AGEIA.

Pirate Bay’s Defiant Leadership Slapped with Conspiracy Charges

2008-02-08T02:58:00.000+07:00

Site’s admins denounce accusations as idiotic

Making good on a promise tendered last week, the country of Sweden pressed charges against four ThePirateBay.org administrators, accusing them of conspiring to break Swedish copyright law.

According to prosecutor Håkan Roswall, the BitTorrent supersite commercially exploits copyright-protected works through ad revenues, of which it nets over $3 million annually. The four men charged include The Pirate Bay co-founder Peter “Brokep” Sunde, administrators Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, and businessman/entrepreneur Carl Lundström, whose company once provided hosting for the site. Authorities specifically named 33 different copyrighted works, comprising of 20 songs, nine films and four computer games for which The Pirate Bay made torrents available illegally.

Roswall says that the four should be made to pay at least $188,000, which the indictment says is the minimum profit that The Pirate Bay made from its activities. If convicted, they could face up to two years in prison.

IFPI chairman John Kennedy says The Pirate Bay is primarily interested in “making money, not music” and that the site turned Sweden, which is “normally the most law abiding of EU countries,” into a copyright charlatan, with “intellectual property laws on par with Russia.”

Despite the accusations, The Pirate Bay seems unfazed. “In case we lose the pending trial (yeah right) there will still not be any changes to the site. The Pirate Bay will keep operating just as always. We've been here for years and we will be here many more,” writes an unnamed administrator on the site’s official blog, before pointing out that Swedish police could have “saved a hell of a lot of trees” by posting the 4,620 pages of legal documents against Sunde and friends – available for approximately $1000 USD – in a PDF torrent on the site.

The Pirate Bay says that it hosts close to a million torrents, which point to files on users’ computers that are distributed across the BitTorrent network. The site maintains that it does not host nor trade in infringing material, an accusation that Sunde dismissed as “idiotic” in an interview with Reuters conducted earlier last January.

BBC’s dot.life blogger Darren Waters believes The Pirate Bay – as opposed to other torrent supersites – was targeted because of its openly defiant attitude and historic resilience to legal threats; the site keeps an online graveyard of sorts littered with takedown notices and administrators’ sarcastic responses. The Pirate Bay’s adversaries include almost every major copyright organization on the planet, as well as numerous artists, software developers, and filmmakers.

Thus far – with one exception, due to a police raid in May 2006 that knocked the site offline for a few days – The Pirate Bay continues to operate unrestricted.

Yahoo Chairman Resigns, Microsoft Bid Offering Heats Up

2008-02-08T02:54:00.000+07:00

Yahoo Chairman Terry Semel resigns, Gates looks to solidify his online empire with the acquisition of Yahoo

Only days ago, the news broke that Yahoo was in troubled waters and sinking fast. The Internet giant, which ranks number 2 in terms of search engine traffic and number 1 in terms of total traffic to properties, posted a declining net profit for the fourth straight quarter. Worse yet, it announced that it would be cutting 1,000 jobs, or almost 7 percent of its workforce. CEO Jerry Yang stated that the company was facing "strong headwinds" and had to be prepared to make big changes.

Now, an opportunity has come knocking on Yahoo's door, which holds the promise of transforming the online business world. Microsoft Corp. made an unsolicited $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo and its holdings this morning. The offer is one half in Microsoft common stock, and the other half in cash.

The move promises a sweet payoff for share holders, who would see their stocks soar 62% from Thursday levels, up to a $31 per share payout.

Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer was among Microsoft's big guns to be pushing the move. He enthused that the move is the "next major milestone" for Microsoft. He continued, "We are very, very confident this is the right path for Microsoft and for Yahoo."

Ballmer informed the media that Microsoft has been in talks with Yahoo, preparing the offer, for nearly 18 months now. He gave Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang a personal call on Thursday night to announce the bid in person.

A Microsoft-Yahoo team would shake up the online community by creating a legitimate competitor to Google, which current stands far above the competition in terms of search engine Traffic. Traffic research site comScore indicates that Yahoo has 22.9% of the search engine market and Microsoft owns a 9.8% share. Together, their 32.7% share, would pose a challenge to Google's 58.4% share of the U.S. search engine market.

Microsoft revealed that it had first had broached the possibility to Yahoo executives a year ago, but was rebuffed by Yahoo's board of directors and CEO. With today's resignation of Semel, the balance of Yahoo's board could lead to a different outcome. Semel was strongly opposed to the merger last year.

A year after Microsoft's offering, Yahoo is much worse for wear and promises to evaluate Microsoft's proposal "carefully and promptly." As UBS analyst Benjamin Schachte puts it, "Last year, Yahoo told investors it needed more time to get on the right track. But you only get a certain amount of time to turn things around."

Steve Ballmer stated, "We have great respect for Yahoo, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market."

Google spokesman Matt Furman declined to comment, stating, "It would be premature to comment at this point."

Sony Ericsson PXi

2008-01-03T05:22:00.000+07:00

Bence Bogar must be a leftie because his SE PXi concept is a product specifically created for all lefties tho it’s flexible enough for righties too. Obviously following the current direction of SE’s P series of smartphones, the PXi is powerful while staying somewhat slim and ergonomic. The body is magnesium framing a big 3.3 inch touchscreen. The screen rotates automatically ala iPhone and is optimized for both finger and stylus input. The right side of the unit houses a jogdial and a secondary touchscreen which adapts to whatever app is currently open. The smartphone also sports not 1 but 2 card slots for all memory whores. Business functions aside, the PXi is equipped with stereo speakers and a Cybershot class 5 megapixel camera.

I don’t know much about lefties but if the PXi was created with them in mind, isn’t the jogdial on the wrong side? I’m just saying.

[PXi - mobile concept]

Asus Aura Mobile Phone

2008-01-03T05:16:00.000+07:00

Asus Aura, produced by Hungarian design company Egy Studio for Taiwanese vendor. It was clearly inspired by iPhone, although it has some interesting innovations addressing commonly mentioned shortcomings of Apple’s cellphone. Features of Asus Aura include - a sliding QWERTY keyboard that should make text entry much easier, 3,9 touchscreen covering the whole surface of the phone, 2 megapixel camera, microSD memory card slot, GSM, UMTS, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. All of this in a 6mm thick package.

PMP With Gasp! No Touchscreen

2008-01-03T05:04:00.000+07:00

Yes someone has designed a concept in 2007 with no touchscreen! Can you believe it? It’s like they didn’t get the memo or something. Seriously tho, I believe there’s still a place for tactile or as the geeks say it, “analog” controls. Designers Mathieu Pesme and Jeff Castel embrace other ‘concepty’ technologies without drowning us in all the high tech hoopla-hype.

This PMP (portable media player) comes equipped wit an subsurface OLED widescreen and a simple dropped bevel around the bezel to wind your headphones in. Other noted design elements are the tactile control wheel and integrated stereo speakers.

[PMP]

Creative Announces 32GB ZEN Portable Multimedia Device

2008-01-03T04:59:00.000+07:00

Creative's new ZEN serves up 32GB of storage space

Apple may know how to tickle the fancy of portable audio enthusiasts around the world with innovative features (i.e., the iPod touch), but manufacturers like SanDisk and Creative continue to lead the way in value and storage capacity.

In late October, provided details on SanDisk's yet-to-be-officially-announced 32GB Sansa View. The tiny player can playback audio/video and features a 2.4" QVGA screen. Pricing for the player is a relatively reasonable $329.99 which rings up $70 less than an iPod touch.

Creative, not one to be left out of a capacity war, is following suit with the official unveil of its 32GB ZEN. The ZEN features a 2.5" display, an FM radio turner, a Secure Digital expansion slot for those who crave even more storage space and includes support for a multitude of file formats (WMV9, MJPEG, MPEG4-SP, DivX 4/5, XviD, MP3, WMA, Audible 2, 3, 4 and non-protected AAC).

Creative says that the built-in lithium-ion battery is good for 5 hours of video playback or up to 30 hours of audio playback.

Robot Learns Like A Child

2008-01-02T21:25:00.000+07:00

Robots are notoriously lousy at coping with unfamiliar situations. One of the major obstacles to having robots assist us at home is that they’re going to need to be flexible, and home users aren’t going to want to sit down and write a new servo control subroutine every time their robot needs to perform a task for which it has not been preprogrammed. The robot in the video above is able to learn via observation and replication, which is how we humans figure things out. The HOAP-3 robot, made by Fujitsu, has been programmed by Sylvain Calinon and other researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne to watch how a human performs an action, and then duplicate that action. If the robot doesn’t get it right, it can learn on the fly as a human corrects its motions, which (if you think about it) is pretty much how you were taught to write, throw a baseball, ride a bike, and so forth. I’d much rather have a dumb robot with the ability to learn than a smart robot that I can’t teach new things to, especially if the teaching process is no more complicated than a game of Simon says. Er, make that Evan says.

[ Sylvain Calinon’s Homepage ]

Volkswagen Viseo

2008-01-02T19:46:00.000+07:00

Marc Kirsch’s diploma project was created in collaboration with Volkswagen design in Wolfsburg Germany. A three-seat prototype car powered by an electric engine. The project was created considering the visual and conceptional influence of internationally renowned architect Santiago Calatrava. Kirsch created a vehicle that enables a higher level of comfort whilst enhancing the driving experience and promoting ecological values. The target was to create a visionary concept car, shaped and based on the Calatravian motto of “dynamic balance” through the use of new technologies.

The popular shapes used by Calatrava are recognized in the design of the Viseo concept with a large glass surface area completely covered in a flexible OLED film. This guarantees an innovative safety and communication concept allowing the vehicle to communicate externally.

Designer: Marc Kirsch

It Was A Rock Lobster

2008-01-02T19:33:00.000+07:00

Anytime I can get one of the best lyrics from the B52’s into a blog post, I’m there. I’m not just pulling this out of thin air tho. This multimedia device is called the Lobster and if you squint really hard, the segmented pieces sorta look like a lobster’s tail.

It’s composed of an LCD screen that acts as a base for a multitude of media modules. By snapping those modules on, you further extend the Lobster’s features. The cool thing about the segmented design is it makes a perfect arm band, that is if you add enough modules. Sneaky huh?

[It Was A Rock Lobster]

Go Ahead And Pick A Light

2008-01-02T19:29:00.000+07:00

Picking fruit from a tree could be a metaphor for recharging and reusing. This hollow steel tree is exactly that. It charges three pear-shaped lights that can be picked off for use. They’ll stay illuminated for an hour and when you’re out of “juice”, just put them back on the tree.

Designer: Nick Foley

The Lamborghini Reventón

2008-01-02T05:38:00.000+07:00

When you see a Lamborghini, you see style, elegance, power and performance. Top of the line in all it has to offer inside and out. Lamborghini has always been a car that is truly unique and one that out performs all others. With the birth of the new Lamborghini Reventon, the style, power and performance has been knocked up several notches. With only 20 being made and selling for 1 million Euro’s (tax not included), the Reventon is by far the most unique Lamborghini yet made-a true masterpiece.

Designed with the idea of modern aeronautics behind it, Reventon has style and vitality like no other car around. With its twisting design the Reventon has a seamlessly elegant movement. The carbon fiber material and the forward-facing air intakes allows for the 650 horsepower car stability, power and precision even at 340 km/hr.

Not only is the design of the Reventon extraordinary, but the coloring created just for this model is unique. A mid opaque green/grey, which in the sunlight, shows a depth to the paint of the Reventon.

The interior of the Reventon is equally stunning. With a G-force meter created solely for the Reventon, it shows the dynamic drive forces, longitudinal acceleration during acceleration and braking, as well as transversal acceleration around bends.

The Reventon has many other amazing features unique to this car. Once again, Lamborghini has shown exactly how much dedication goes into creating a super masterpiece - Style, and perfection to another classic.

[Lamborghini]

Personalizing That Phone

2008-01-02T05:34:00.000+07:00

Customizable face plates for electronics is all the rage right? This clamshell phone is all about user customization. The grid lattice structure holds colored pins to mimic precious jewelry. Create all kinds of designs and patterns in full pixelated isometric glory. Limited edition versions with precious metals and gems could also be created to heighten the sense of personal style and design.

Designer: Nils Siegel [Personalizing That Phone]

Projection Mobile Phones

2008-01-02T05:31:00.000+07:00

’s getting there, day by day, closer and closer. It’s only a matter of time before mobile projection technology makes its way into the mass market. This concept by Stefano Casanova is a Windows based mobile phone that can project your desktop to an flat surface. The micro light projector is actually integrated into the LCD so in order to activate it, you have to flip the screen down. Conceptual but interesting.

[Projection Mobile Phones]

Futuristic Vaio Zoom

2008-01-02T05:26:00.000+07:00

The Vaio Zoom notebook concept takes everything we know about holographic technology and squeezes it inside a thin glass form factor. When off, the screen is completely transparent and the keyboard goes opaque. Turn it on and the touchscreen holographic festivities begin. Even the mouse buttons are holographic!

It’s just a concept so there’s no info on important tidbits like tactile feedback, battery life, system stats, etc., but rest assured technologies like this are closer than you think. It may not come all at once but it’s coming.

Merry christmas and Happy New year 2008

2007-12-31T17:39:00.000+07:00

Merry christmas and Happy New year 2008!

Japan's New Way of Saving: The Bank of Life

2007-12-31T15:53:00.000+07:00

We have grown accustomed to the habit of placing our loose change in our ever dependable piggy banks. Now, wouldn't it be nice to have a bank that is "tamagotchi" in nature.

Here it is. Introducing the Bank of Life.

Upon closer inspection, users will find out that there is a virtual man waiting...

This bank holds up to a whopping 100,000 Yen.

But hold on, there's more...

He starts off living in a very shabby apartment. And as soon as you put money inside the Life Bank, he will slowly earn virtual money in the process. Soon enough, he will move to a bigger apartment, start drinking wine, have a pet, and will even get married in the process. Through it all, the person will be so rich in his virtual world that you will find out that you too will be 100,000 Yen richer.

Superbitus money box

2007-12-31T15:41:00.000+07:00

Problem:	Give meaning to the breaking of a money box.

Superbitus is a one-piece bomb-shaped plaster-made money-saving box. Supplied with a white marker to write the purpose of savings.