(thenexweb) -- Microsoft suddenly has a fantastic sense of humor.
First, they sent flowers to the funeral of IE6. Now they’re rolling out a new webcomic series called “Where’s the ‘Any’ Key?” The site allows IT professionals to share their worst fail moments from their time doing tech support. From there, users can vote on these anecdotes.
The highest-rated anecdote every week wins its author a Sony Vaio X, £100 in gift certificates to the Microsoft store, and the anecdote is turned into the site’s weekly comic strip.
Why has Microsoft suddenly gotten a sense of humor?
It’s actually surprisingly simple. Microsoft knows that it has to do something to shake its reputation as being both the butt of jokes and the evil empire at the same time. By poking fun at its own flaws, it’s managed to put a human face on a previously imposing corporation.
As you can see from the above comic, it seems like Microsoft’s finally sticking to its core competencies regarding humor, as explained in this page (yes, that really is a MSFT page).
28 April 2010
Microsoft Understands How IT Guys Feel
Night Vision Coming Soon To Cell Phones, Eyeglasses
(Discovery) -- Adapting technology found in flat screen television sets, scientists have created a thin film that converts infrared light into visible light. The technology could give cell phones, eyeglasses and car windshields cheap, lightweight night vision.
"This device can convert any infrared image into a visible image and would weigh no more than a pair of eyeglasses," said Franky So, a scientist at the University of Florida who describes his new night vision technology in a recent article in the journal Advanced Materials that was funded in part by advanced technology powerhouse DARPA.
Most night vision devices today use massive amounts of electricity -- often several thousand volts, according to So -- and heavy, glass lenses that maintain a vacuum to make the night come alive. So's device takes a radically different turn, replacing glass with thin plastic, eliminating the vacuum and using energy-efficient, organic LEDs.
So does this by using technology borrowed from flat screen TVs. Infrared light enters the film and is detected by the first of seven separate layers, which generates a slight electrical charge. Additional electrical energy -- about three to five volts -- amplifies that signal, which is then converted back into visible light.
Like most of today's night vision cameras, So's device emits an eerie green light. Unlike most night vision technology today, however, So's design would weigh less than 100 grams (less than a quarter of a pound). Part of that weight is the proof of concept small size -- about one square centimeter -- but So says that even a full scale device could weigh as little as 10 grams and be only a few microns thick.
In other words, heavy and bulky night vision goggles could be replaced with a thin, lightweight coating weighing less than half a deck of playing cards.
It will take about 18 months to scale up the device for practical applications, such as car windshields, lightweight night vision eyeglasses and cell phones cameras.
"Ten years ago when people talked about putting cameras in cell phones, people asked why would you want to do that," said So. "Now you cannot find a cell phone without a camera. In the future, you might not be able to find a cell phone without night vision."
Night vision cell phones could be just the start. So said his team also plans to create cell phones that can see, and more importantly, measure heat as well. A cell phone equipped with heat vision could instantly take a patient's body temperature to see if they had a fever. A car windshield could make pedestrians crossing the street much easier to see and avoid.
Other scientists are enthusiastic about the new research. "This has a high potential to revolutionize night vision," said Yongli Gao, a professor at the University of Rochester. "It could be very useful in detecting heat loss from homes to reduce energy consumption, and for military applications as well."
27 April 2010
Japan unveils humanoid robot that smiles, frowns
A model (R) smiles to her double -- a humanoid robot "Geminoid-F" (L) at a press conference in Osaka. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
(Xinhuanet) -- Japanese researchers have developed a humanoid robot that can laugh and smile as it mimics a person's facial expressions.
By receiving electric signals from the person it is modelled on, the robot can move its rubber facial skin to imitate expressions like a smile, a laugh and a grim look.
"I felt like I had a twin sister," the model said.
A model (R) smiles to her double -- a humanoid robot "Geminoid-F" (L) at a press conference in Osaka. (Xinhua/AFP Photo)
26 April 2010
Sony to stop selling floppy disks from 2011
(BBC) -- Sony has signalled what could be the final end of the venerable floppy disk.
The electronics giant has said it will stop selling the 30-year-old storage media in Japan from March 2011.
In March the firm stopped sales of the disks in most international markets due to dwindling demand and competition from other storage formats.
The slow death of the "floppy" or "diskette" began in 1998 when Apple decided to not include a floppy drive in its G3 iMac computer.
Since then various other firms have stopped support for floppy disks, including computer giant Dell in 2003.
Computing store PC World stopped selling them in 2007.
However, Sony has continued to sell the disks, and continues to ship them in the millions.
Now, the firm - which claims to have produced the first 3.5in (9cm) disks in 1981 - has decided to halt sales completely faced with competition from online storage and portable USB drives.
08 July 2008
Pioneer Develops Ultra-High Capacity Optical Disc
(informationweek) -- Pioneer on Monday said it has developed a read-only optical disc with a capacity of 400 GB, far more than any disc commercially available today.
Pioneer said the disc has 16 layers, each capable of storing 25 GB, which is the maximum of a one-sided Blu-ray disc used to store high-definition video. The company said its technology can be used in building recordable discs and can also be read by Blu-ray players after tweaking the hardware.
In building the disc, Pioneer overcame the difficulty of obtaining clear signals from each layer of a multi-layer disc. Crosstalk from adjacent layers and transmission loss have been the biggest problems.
Pioneer said it solved the problems by developing a new optical disc structure that can play back high-quality signals from every layer. The company also developed a "compensator" and a light-receiving element for reading signals when there's a high signal-to-noise ratio in the optical pick-up mechanism, according to Pioneer.
The growing storage needs of business and consumers are expected to drive demand for higher capacity discs. In addition, offering one disc equal to many commercially available discs today will conserve resources, Pioneer said in a statement issued from Japan.
"This development has bolstered Pioneer's confidence in the feasibility of a large-capacity optical disc, which is expected to become necessary in the near future," the company said.
Pioneer plans to release the details of its research at the International Symposium on Optical Memory and Optical Data Storage, which is scheduled for July 13 in Hawaii.
01 July 2008
Pentagon will buy satellites to do more spying
WASHINGTON (AP/yahoo) -- The Pentagon will buy and operate one or two commercial imagery satellites and plans to design and build another with more sophisticated spying capabilities, according to government and private industry officials.
The satellites could spy on enemy troop movements, spot construction at suspected nuclear sites and alert commanders to new militant training camps.
The Broad Area Surveillance Intelligence Capability (BASIC) satellite system will cost between $2 billion and $4 billion. It would add to the secret constellation of satellites that now circle the Earth, producing still images that are pieced together into one large mosaic.
A single satellite can visit one spot on Earth twice every day. BASIC's additional satellites will allow the photos to be updated more often, alerting U.S. government users to potential trouble, humanitarian crises or natural disasters like floods.
The announcement of the BASIC program, expected this week, has been delayed for months, with Pentagon, Air Force, and National Reconnaissance Office officials fighting over who should be in charge of buying, building and operating the satellites. They have also debated whose needs the system will cater to: senior military commanders or policymakers in Washington, D.C.
At stake was not just money but power: billion-dollar budgets are up for grabs, and the agencies' traditional missions and way of doing business have been hanging in the balance.
The National Reconnaissance Office ultimately won the right to buy and operate the satellites, besting the Air Force. And military commanders' needs trumped the White House. They will, for the first time, have the power to dictate what satellites will photograph when they pass overhead. The concept is known as "assured tasking."
"The battlefield today is so dynamic the warfighter needs to be able to respond at a moment's notice. Knowing they have the opportunity to have assured tasking in the next pass of satellite becomes very critical and helpful in the planning of their operations," Josh Hartman, the Pentagon director for space and intelligence capability acquisition, told The Associated Press.
Military commanders have long desired that kind of tasking control. Now, they submit their requests to a national intelligence authority which prioritizes the missions. And sometimes those requests are delayed or rejected.
The new satellite system is meant to bridge what intelligence agencies fear will become a huge gap caused by cancellation in September 2005 of a major component of the Future Imagery Architecture system overseen by the National Reconnaissance Office. Boeing, the primary contractor, ran into technical problems developing the satellite and spent nearly $10 billion, blowing its budget by $3 billion to $5 billion before the Pentagon pulled the plug, according to industry experts and government reports.
The Pentagon now hopes BASIC will fill in some of the lost capabilities.
_First, it will increase the amount of imagery the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency buys from commercial satellite companies GeoEye and DigitalGlobe, which are expected to put four new satellites into orbit by 2013. The U.S. military now has a $1 billion contract with two commercial satellite companies to buy space imagery. A U.S. commercial satellite launched in September by DigitalGlobe can make out the outline of 20-inch object from space. This year, GeoEye is launching a satellite with the ability to see the outlines of a 16-inch object. By 2011, that capability is expected to sharpen to nearly 10 inches. Secret government imagery satellites are believed by experts to have better than six-inch resolution.
_Second, the National Reconnaissance Office will buy, launch and operate one or two commercial imagery satellites with 16-inch resolution, probably around 2014.
_Third, NRO will design and build another more advanced satellite to be launched in 2018. The capability of that satellite, known as Block II, will be defined later.
Underpinning this will be the creation of a new ground intelligence station that will not only download the imagery directly from the satellites and make it available to all users, but will also — in theory — allow the users to tap into the national intelligence database that holds imagery produced by all spy equipment and sources such as satellites, aircraft and ground sensors.
The Pentagon's plan to both buy commercial satellite imagery and operate similar satellites of its own is an attempt to balance two competing goals. National space policy requires the Pentagon to buy as much commercial imagery as possible to help the companies withstand competition from subsidized foreign satellite companies. At the same time the Pentagon does not want to give the companies so much business that they tailor their services to government needs and ignore the private sector they need to make them self-supporting.
The Pentagon satellites will also be a back-up capability in case future commercial satellites malfunction.
The nation's classified network of satellites represents some of the most expensive government programs and receives almost no public oversight. Because of their multibillion-dollar price tags, sensitive missions and lengthy development schedules, spy agencies go to great pains to keep details from becoming public.
But if history is an indicator, the price tag could climb much higher as the new satellite is built. The House and Senate intelligence committees have criticized the Pentagon and intelligence agencies' management of space programs. Half the programs have experienced cost growth of 50 percent or more.
The Defense Department spends about $20 billion annually on space programs.
20 June 2008
Bill Gates: 10 Memorable Moments
(pcworld.co.nz) -- For more than 30 years he has roamed among us, a strange hybrid of Napoleon Dynamite and Vlad the Impaler. Nerdy yet ruthless, brilliant yet hobbled by blind spots regarding his company's failings, Bill Gates leaves an indelible mark on everything digital. Yet on June 27, he'll step down from his day-to-day duties at Microsoft to devote himself to philanthropic activities.
We humbly offer 10 of the most memorable moments of Bill's career, with suggestions for suitable career moves he might consider if he decides to follow the logical path indicated by each milestone.
1. Windows 95 Starts Up (August 24, 1995)
We'll probably never see another product launch like the one that propelled Windows 95 onto the world (and that's surely a good thing). Even the pomp and circumstance surrounding the iPhone's debut last year paled in comparison. The millions of dollars that Microsoft paid for the rights to the Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" was only the beginning of the estimated US$300 million marketing juggernaut that accompanied this launch.
Among other excesses, the Empire State Building was bathed in Microsoft corporate colours, and playing fields in Britain were painted with the Windows 95 logo to make it visible from the air. The Redmond, Washington, campus of Microsoft was transformed into a carnival for the day, with food, jugglers, clowns, hot air balloons, a ferris wheel, and circus tents. And at the centre of it all was Bill--grinning awkwardly in his blue Microsoft polo shirt and trying to sound casual as he engaged in teleprompter banter with The Tonight Show's Jay Leno.
Bill's best line: "Windows 95 is so easy even a talk-show host can figure it out."
Good thing he didn't quit his day job (until now).
Second Career: Stand-up comic? Don't call us, we'll call you.
2. Turn On, Drop Out, Hack Code (January 1975)
It was a photo of the MITS Altair 8800 on the cover of Popular Electronics magazine that started it all. After Harvard classmate Paul Allen showed him the issue, Gates called MITS president Ed Roberts and convinced him that he and Allen had created a BASIC program for the Altair, even though neither had written a single line of code. After Roberts expressed interest, they worked feverishly to create the program in eight weeks. Later that year, Gates dropped out of Harvard and moved to Albuquerque, where he took a job writing software for Roberts at $10 an hour. Eventually he made enough money from his BASIC royalties to buy himself a Porsche 911--with which he racked up multiple arrests for speeding and driving without a license.
Second Career: Driving instructor? Thanks, but we'll just walk.
3. Bill Takes the Stand in Antitrust Case (August 27, 1998)
Windows has always had problems with memory management; evidently Gates does too. That's certainly how it appeared when the CEO's videotaped deposition in the United States v. Microsoft antitrust trial hit the web. Gates' reputation as a brilliant, detail-oriented control freak took a serious tumble as he peppered his testimony with "I don't recall" (6 times), "I don't remember" (14 times), and "I don't know" (22 times). Gates quibbled about the meaning of words like "concerned" and "compete," engaging U.S. attorney David Boies in a circuitous dance of semantics that rivalled Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine for sheer loopiness. But Gates would have the last laugh when a U.S. Court of Appeals overruled Jackson's judgment against Microsoft three years later (see item #9).
Second Career: Expert witness? We object.
4. Bill Gates: PC World US Centrefold Model (July 1987)
Yes, we are talking about that Bill Gates. No, he did not pose in the nude, praise Yahweh. He was wearing a dark blue suit, a lavender shirt, and a striped tie, instead of the usual lumpy sweater. And we are entirely to blame for this one because the Gates gatefold graced the July 1987 issue of PC World magazine, alongside an interview with the then-32-year-old software tycoon. It was the first centrefold the magazine ran, as well as (almost certainly) the last. Hey, we were all young and stupid in those days.
Second Career: Pin-up boy? Sure--the day after we all go blind.
5. A Gazillionaire Is Born (March 13, 1986)
The day Microsoft went public, Gates became an instant megamillionaire (actually a $234-millionaire, based on the IPO price). But it wasn't until July 17, 1995, that Forbes magazine named him the richest featherless biped on the planet, with a net worth just shy of $13 billion. His wealth snowballed from there. During the height of dot com madness, Gates's paper fortune exceeded $100 billion, inspiring several websites devoted to measuring just how much money that was in real terms. No wonder people found it easy to believe the rumour that he'd give you $1000 just for responding to an e-mail (a classic Net hoax). But instead of hoarding all the cash, Gates put his money where other people's mouths are, establishing the William H. Gates III Foundation (later changed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). After the bubble burst, Microsoft's share price plummeted (as did every other tech stock), further deflating his bank balance. Now with a personal net worth of just $58 billion, Gates ranks third in the world behind Mexican telecom entrepreneur Carlos Slim Helu and Bill's bridge-playing buddy, Warren Buffet.
Second Career: Quasi-retired philanthropist? This one he's got down cold.
6. If It's Cream Pie, This Must Be Belgium (February 4, 1998)
Gates was notorious for making pie-in-the-sky predictions for Microsoft products. So it probably shouldn't have surprised him to receive a pie in the eye when he visited Brussels in February 1998. Gates got creamed as he was entering the Concert Noble Hall for an education conference sponsored by the Flemish government. Belgian anarchist Noël "the Pieman" Godin took credit for the aerial pastry, one in a series of tart-fueled attacks Godin has inflicted on notable people. Gates reportedly said later that the pie "wasn't that tasty."
Second Career: Circus clown? Hey, Gates takes a pie in the face as well as Soupy Sales ever did. We think he has potential.
(Thanks to Belgian TV station een for the photo.)
7. Mr. Gates Builds His Dream House (1988 to 1995)
What do you do when you have more money than God? Build a house fit for a deity, of course. Gates's mansion on the shores of Lake Washington in Seattle took seven years to complete and cost somewhere between $40 million and $100 million, depending on which source you accept. According to Fortune Magazine, "It was a bachelor's dream and a bride's nightmare: 40,000 square feet with several garages, a trampoline room, an indoor pool, a theatre with a popcorn machine, and enough software and high-tech displays to make a newlywed feel as though she were living inside a video game."
After their wedding, Melinda apparently toned down some of the house's boy-toyishness. Still, as PBS's Robert X. Cringely reported, visitors to the home were asked to wear electronic badges that allowed the house "to adjust climate, music, lighting--even the electronic artwork on the walls--to match their preferences as they move from room to room. And what happens when more than one person is in a room? The reality of active badges is that Bill Gates is still king. When Bill is in the room, his taste rules."
Second Career: Home builder? I think we'd rather just rent.
8. Bill Gets Hitched (January 1, 1994)
When you're the world's richest man you have to work double-time to hide from the public eye. So when Gates decided to marry former Microsoft product manager Melinda French, he organized the wedding on the tiny Hawaiian island of Lanai, booked every hotel room on the island, and rented every helicopter in the state to frustrate potential paparazzi.
The $1 million ceremony took place on the 12th tee of the Manele Bay Hotel golf course. On the guest list: best man Steve Ballmer, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, Warren Buffet, and Washington Post doyenne Katherine Graham. The band? Singer Willie Nelson.
Second Career: Wedding planner? We like Bill's style, but it's too rich for our blood. We'll stick with J-Lo.
9. Microsoft Remains Intact (June 28, 2001)
Bill & Co. dodged a major bullet when a federal appeals court overruled U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's decision in United States v. Microsoft, rescinding his order to split the company in two. The appellate court found that Microsoft had indeed acted as a monopoly in bundling Internet Explorer with Windows, but it ruled Jackson's remedy too harsh. By then, Gates had already stepped down as Microsoft CEO, having handed the reins to Steve Ballmer in January 2000. Who knows? If Microsoft had been split, Gates might have found himself competing with his old college buddy Ballmer--and Yahoo might be trying to buy them instead.
Second Career: Yahoo employee? That's something we'd like to see.
10. Bill Gets His Sheepskin (June 7, 2007)
More than 30 years after dropping out of Harvard, Bill finally got to flip his tassels. As a student, Gates was known to prefer poker and programming over attending classes, but in June 2007 he received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree after delivering the commencement address at his alma mater. Also receiving an honorary law degree that day: former Celtics star Bill Russell. So it was a good day for Bills all around. Remember kids, stay in school. And if you can't manage that, starting your own software empire and dominating the world for 30 years isn't a bad fallback plan.
Second Career: Career counsellor? One thing is certain: Nobody knows more about second careers than Bill. He's a natural.
19 June 2008
Godfather's son sues over game
(pcpro.co.uk) -- The son of "The Godfather" author Mario Puzo has sued Paramount, claiming the company had failed to pay royalties from the video game that was based on the book and subsequent movie. Anthony Puzo has filed court documents to the Los Angeles Superior Court claiming at least £500,000 in damages for breach of contract.
Paramount had licensed Electronic Arts in 2006 to produce and distribute a game based on the storyline of the Godfather trilogy. Author Mario Puzo died in 1999, leaving his estate to his children.
"In material breach of the audio-visual products agreement, Paramount has failed and refused to pay the Puzo Estate the sums due it in respect of the Godfather game," said the court filing.
According to the lawsuit, this agreement was made because Puzo was originally paid "an extremely low price" by Paramount for the film rights to his book as at the time he was a "young, relatively unknown author, struggling to support his family."
Puzo's book about the Corleone Mafia family was adapted into one of the most successful award-winning movies of all-time, starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino
Firefox 3 browser is nifty and packed with handy features
(usatoday) -- Even if you're an active Web surfer you probably don't pay much attention to the browser you are using. By default, you likely employ Microsoft's Internet Explorer on a Windows machine, if only because Internet Explorer sits right there on your desktop. The Apple crowd typically sticks with Safari.
Still, many of us in recent years have been drawn to a feature-rich browser called Firefox from the non-profit Mozilla organization. This week Mozilla released a speedy and more secure new version called Firefox 3.
I've generally had a very good experience testing Firefox 3 on Windows PCs and Macs. (It also works on Linux.) It's snappier than Internet Explorer and uses less memory. I had no trouble migrating from Firefox 2. And Mozilla claims Firefox 3 has more than 15,000 improvements, though I'll have to take their word for it because most of the action is under the hood.
Why go to the trouble of switching browsers? Through the years, Microsoft has been slow to innovate. Guess that comes with owning a monopoly share. It was late to the party with such features as tabbed browsing, which lets you keep multiple browser windows open at the same time. (The feature is there now.)
And for a while anyway, Internet Explorer seemed to have more gaping holes than Swiss cheese, though to be fair it's gotten a lot more secure in recent iterations. Still, the door was left wide open for more nimble rivals, including Apple's Safari (which now also works on Windows), Norway's Opera and, of course, Firefox.
I've long appreciated the "restore previous session" feature in Firefox, which opens the tabs and windows from your previous session should the browser unexpectedly crash — neither Internet Explorer nor Safari has that feature. A Firefox pop-up blocker arrived early on. A built-in spell-checker is another core feature.
As "open source" software — meaning the code is open to all programmers — Firefox is also extremely customizable. Some 5,000 add-on programs have been made available, though not all of them are ready for version 3. I was unable to load Google Send to Phone for Firefox because as a pop-up window warned, "It does not provide secure updates." Mozilla said about 75% of the most-used add-ons were compatible with Firefox 3 in the days leading up to the launch; most of your favorites should catch up quickly.
Firefox 3 is less of a hog on system resources than its predecessor or Internet Explorer. I opened a dozen popular sites in Firefox on a Vista machine and opened the same ones with Microsoft's browser. Firefox used a lot less memory.
Let's take a closer look at the latest version of the Mozilla browser.
•Easy navigation. Arguably the most useful new feature is the "Smart Location Bar," aka, the "Awesome Bar." Start typing and Firefox serves up a drop-down list of possible cyberdestinations based on sites you've already visited, bookmarked or tagged. It learns as you go. The words you type appear in bold, making it a cinch to find an appropriate match if there is one. Typing "Ru" brought up listings of sites I visited after Tim Russert died.
Firefox makes intelligent (and usually correct) guesses when you enter text. You won't always have to type in a complete Web address. When I typed "Mets" and pressed enter, I was transported to the official site of my favorite ball club. When I typed "onion," I was taken to the Onion humor site. On Internet Explorer, typing "Mets" and "onion" took me to search pages instead.
Bookmarking is also a breeze. A star icon appears to the right of the Web address in the location bar. Click the star once to save the location as a bookmark. Or double-click the star to tag and save the site to a particular location.
And you can click on a new Most Visited folder to check out the sites you hang out at most often, one of the available "smart bookmark folders."
•Security. You were warned in Firefox 2, and for that matter Internet Explorer, when coming upon a "phishing" site. These bogus sites try ripping you off by masquerading as real financial (or other) institutions. With Firefox 3, Mozilla broadens the alarm to include sites that attempt to attack your machine with viruses, spyware or other "malware." A pop-up appears with a "get me out of here" button; you can also click for an explanation of why the site is blocked.
Clicking on a tiny icon to the left of the location bar lets you determine if a site you are visiting is legit.
Mozilla's rivals aren't standing still. Opera just released its own new version with features that keep bookmarks and notes synchronized between the desktop browser and one on your cellphone. Microsoft is readying a new version of Internet Explorer, and the bet is Apple is doing the same with Safari. And the Flock "social browser" (which is built on top of Firefox technology) is in trials with a new test version of its own. The way it's going, you may even start paying more attention to the browser that you are using.
18 June 2008
Statistics show Firefox 3 spreading fast
Firefox 3 gained market share rapidly, even before it was 24 hours old. (Credit: NetApplications)
(CNET) -- Firefox 3 is spreading fast, claiming more than 4 percent of the share of Web browser usage less than 24 hours after its release.
According to Net Applications, which monitors browser usage at major Web sites, Firefox 3 rapidly ascended to what I'd call force-to-be-reckoned-with status, something Web designers shouldn't be ignoring. For comparison, Apple's Safari had 6.25 percent share in May, and Opera had 0.71 percent.
Undoubtedly, most Firefox 3 activity is from existing Firefox users, but it's still a notable achievement, given that software companies constantly struggle to get users to adopt the latest products.
Mozilla, which sponsors and oversees development of the open-source Web browser, released Firefox 3 for download on Tuesday. It primed the publicity pump with an effort to set a 24-hour download record, and interest by the abundant Firefox loyalists brought Mozilla's servers to their knees for nearly two hours Wednesday.
Mozilla has been fulfilling pent-up demand ever since. Sometime after 7 a.m. PDT, downloads crossed the 7 million mark, according to Mozilla's download counter, which is fun to watch, even though it's badly formatted.
The download rate, which peaked at 14,000 per minute Tuesday, was about 6,600 per minute Wednesday morning.
For full coverage, including reviews and videos, see CNET's Firefox 3 resource center. Read More......
Toshiba: new laptop -- world's lightest
Toshiba headquarters building stands against the backdrop of the sky in Tokyo July 31, 2006. (Xinhua/Reuters, File Photo)BEIJING, June 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Toshiba Corp. claimed that the newly-launched ultraportable laptop, the Portege R500-S5007V, is the world's lightest, according to U.S. media reports Wednesday.
The claim came after the Tokyo-headquartered electronics manufacturer announced it added a 128GB solid state drive (SSD) to its straw-weight laptop.
The Portege R500 now measures 0.77 inches (about 1.96 cm) at its thinnest point and weighs at just 2.4 pounds (1.08 kg), compared to Apple's MacBook Air, 3 pounds (about 1.36 kg), and Lenovo's Thinkpad X300, around 2.93 pounds (about 1.33kg).
The new laptop is outfitted with a 7mm DVD SuperMulti Drive to go with the new SSD, which consumes less power as it has no moving parts like a hard drive and gives the battery more runtime. According to the company, the laptop can run for eight hours on a single battery charge.
The notebook also features a 1.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo chip and a transreflective backlit LED screen.
Porteges with the SSD will cost 2,995 U.S dollars, roughly 1,000 dollars more than the versions with hard disks in the 120GB to 160GB range.
The laptop will start shipping in the third quarter this year, according to the company. But it wasn't available to comment on worldwide availability. Read More......
Firefox 3.0 Released, Servers Overwhelmed
(pcworld/macworld) -- Mozilla has released Firefox 3.0, the final release of the newest version of its popular Web browser. The company may have been a bit unprepared for the onslaught of Web traffic the release generated; reports note that its servers have been overwhelmed since the release.
Mozilla released Firefox on Tuesday after a public preview that lasted months, through myriad alpha and beta development builds and several release candidates.
New features in Firefox 3.0 include one-click bookmarking, instant Web site ID (to help identify online scams and unsafe transactions), improved performance, Web page zooming, password management, a smart location bar, and platform-native look and feel.
Mozilla hopes to set a world record for downloads with Firefox 3 on Tuesday. Though the big "Download Day" was set to begin at 1 p.m. ET, Mozilla's Web site was down or working sporadically all morning on the East Coast, and users still could not download Firefox 3 from the site more than an hour later.
A Firefox spokeswoman said via e-mail just after 2 p.m. that the company was aware of the problem and "working to get it back up quickly."
Mozilla also outlined the problems it was having with its Web site in a blog entry.
"The outpouring of interest and enthusiasm around Firefox 3 has been overwhelming (literally!)," according to the post. "Our servers are currently feeling the burn and should be back to normal shortly."
Mozilla will begin registering downloads for the record for 24 hours from the moment the site goes live, according to the post.
System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.4 or later, G3 or better (including Intel), 128MB RAM, 200MB hard disk space.
12 June 2008
Opera 9.5 browser released
(webuser) -- Opera Software has made the final public release of its new browser, Opera 9.5, available for download.
One of the key features in version 9.5 is Opera Link, which will synchronise the browser across several different devices such as mobile phones, desktops, PDAs and even Wii games consoles, keeping your bookmarks and other settings up-to-date.
Opera first started testing the latest build nine months ago and the release comes just days before Mozilla releases the full version of its Firefox 3 browser.
Another feature new to Opera 9.5 is Quick Find, designed to help surfers locate pages in their history just by typing a key word into their address bar. Firefox has a similar feature called the "Awesome Bar" built into its latest browser release.
Security against malware and phishing has also been strengthened in Opera 9.5.
"Opera's Fraud Protection not only protects you from fraudulent websites, it is now the first browser publically available to protect you from malware and other malicious software on the web, " the company said.
Versions of Opera 9.5 are available for download from the Opera homepage for Mac, Linux and Windows platforms, in 30 different languages.
www.opera.com
Israeli company develops radar system that sees through walls
The Xaver 400 is capable of penetrating concrete, reinforced concrete, cinder block, brick, stucco, adobe, drywall and other common wall types, with a range of up to eight meters (26ft).
(haaretz) -- It's not easy to locate Camero's offices in the Kfar Neter industrial zone, but it may have just gotten easier. The startup has developed a system that allows users to see through walls.
It sounds just like a comic book fantasy come true - after all, who hasn't dreamt of getting to peek into the boss's office or the spouse's doings in the other room? Not so fast, budding Poirots: Camero's product is designed not for the entertainment of our inner child, but for use primarily in military and search and rescue operations.
And such technology could indeed be beneficial for special unit soldiers, for instance, or for locating people trapped in burning buildings.
"The idea of seeing through walls has been around since the 1960s, but modern technology is now ripe enough to enable it to happen," explains Camero's technology director, Amir Beeri. "When we established the company in 2004, we intended to develop sufficiently high vision resolution to allow an untrained user to see through a wall."
Camero's unique radar utilizes Ultra Wide Band (UWB), a technology that has only come of age in recent years, and with the use of special algorithms can process data picked up by the detector to give a reasonable image of anything behind that wall. Lacking imaging algorithms, the system made by its competitor, Time Domain is able to reveal only whether there is someone on the other side of the wall.
Although the first version developed by Camero, the Xaver 800, which includes a 82cm by 82cm screen on a tripod and weighs about 10 kg, making the system too clumsy for use in battle conditions, the Xaver 400 and Xaver 300 are both lighter weight and smaller sized, meant for use as a quick-to-use tactical tool.
The systems are capable of penetrating various types of walls, but not solid metal ones, like the walls of shipping containers.
Camero CEO Aharon Aharon says that the company has already sold the system to various armies and police forces around the world, and is optimistic about the future of the technology.
"Like the Israeli army's night vision system, which was once an expensive product and eventually came into broad, general use, we hope that our radar too will become standard issue for all military units," Aharon said.
US remains science and tech superpower
The US now accounts for 40 per cent of global spending on scientific R&D
(vnunet) -- The US remains the dominant world power in science and technology, a new Federal government-sponsored report claims today.
A study by non-profit research organisation Rand Corporation found that the US now accounts for 40 per cent of global spending on scientific research and development.
The country employs 70 per cent of the world's Nobel Prize winners, and is home to three-quarters of the world's top 40 universities.
Rand Corporation noted that an influx of foreign students, scientists and engineers in the sciences has helped the US build and maintain its lead, even as many other nations increase spending on research and development.
Continuing this flow of foreign-born talent is critical to helping the US maintain its lead, the research claims.
"Much of the concern about the US losing its edge as the world leader in science and technology appears to be unfounded," said Titus Galama, co-author of the report and a management scientist at Rand.
"But the US cannot afford to be complacent. Effort is needed to make sure the nation maintains or even extends its standing."
Galama explained that US investment in research and development has not lagged in recent years, but has grown at rates similar to that seen elsewhere in the world, growing even faster than spending in Europe and Japan.
However, other nations are rapidly educating their populations in science and technology.
For instance, the European Union and China are graduating more university-educated scientists and engineers every year than the US.
Intel to make USB 3.0 host controller spec free
(computerworlduk) -- Intel plans to make the specification for a USB 3.0 host controller freely available during the second half of this year, hitting back at rumours the chip maker wanted to keep the technology for itself.
The specification will be made available under a contract that doesn't require royalty payments. "Basically: free, gratis, unpaid, zero dollars, free of charge, at no cost, on the house," wrote Nick Knupffer, an Intel spokesman, on an Intel blog.
Knupffer's comments on the host controller specification is an apparent response to industry rumours Intel wanted to keep USB 3.0 - which promises substantially faster transfer speeds than USB 2.0 - for itself, meaning that only Intel-made chipsets would support this feature. The host controller specification - which differs from the USB 3.0 specification - is meant to speed the design of chips that support USB 3.0, he said.
The USB 3.0 specification is being developed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group. The group counts Intel, Microsoft, HP, NXP Semiconductors, NEC and Texas Instruments as members.
Intel isn't planning to make the host controller specification available because the company's executives are nice people, Knupffer said.
"After all, the sooner USB 3.0 hits the market, the sooner all you readers will be flooding your devices and hard drives with insanely large files requiring masses amounts of computational resources, improving your lives, and making you pleased that you bought a quad-core processor," he wrote.
AMD announces physics partnership with Havok
(custompc) -- Surprise move sees AMD cooperating with Intel’s physics branch to get Havok acceleration on both CPUs and GPUs
Many people predicted a sticky situation for AMD when it came to physics acceleration after Intel bought Havok, and AMD even admitted that talks had broken down between Havok and AMD after the acquisition. It looked even worse when Nvidia bought Ageia, and AMD even started talking about using Stanford’s Brook language for physics. However, in a surprise move, AMD has now announced that it’s back on track to offer gaming physics with Havok.
In a statement, AMD put aside its rivalry with Intel and claimed that ‘by working together, both companies are demonstrating their commitment to open standards and continued support for the needs of the game community.’ AMD’s senior vice president and general manager of AMD’s graphics products group, Rick Bergman, described Havok as ‘the clear market leader in physics software’ and said that AMD would be working to optimise its ‘platforms to consistently deliver the best possible visual experience to the gamer.’
AMD is hoping to accelerate Havok Physics on both its multi-core CPUs and GPUs and claims that it’s ‘striving to deliver the best of both worlds.’ However, the main focus at the moment appears to be AMD’s CPUs. AMD and Havok say that they’re planning to optimise the ‘full range of Havok technologies on AMD x86 superscalar processors,' and AMD claims that ‘Havok Physics scales extremely well across the entire family of AMD processors.’
Havok’s managing director, David O’Meara, explained the priority for CPUs, saying that ‘the feedback that we consistently receive from leading game developers is that core game play simulation should be performed on CPU cores.’ However, he added that GPU physics acceleration could become a feature in the future, saying that ‘the capabilities of massively parallel products offer technical possibilities for computing certain types of simulation. We look forward to working with AMD to explore these possibilities.’
So where does this leave Nvidia with its GPU-acceleration of PhysX via CUDA? Will game developers happily work with two physics APIs? Let us know your thoughts.
How cool technologies help fast food move even faster
(itbusiness.ca) -- The Swiss Chalet chain operators boost their order volume with new call centre software. Meanwhile, meet 'HyperActive Bob' the software that tells you how much food you need in the bin before the customers arrive.
North American fast food chains are using technology to speed up order fulfilment, improve customer service and reduce costs.
And it's not slowing down any time soon, with nearly $650 million being invested in 27 operations, according to the National Venture Capital Association.
“A lot of people have started using restaurants as their kitchens and they don't cook food anymore,” said Joseph Gagnon, CEO of Exit41 in Andover, MA. They want easy access to their favourite foods, whether it's through a drive-through, on the Web or even via text messaging.
Exit41, whose tag line is ‘shortest route between hunger and satisfaction' – makes food-ordering applications. It's flagship product being the Exit41 Enterprise Suite, which includes online ordering and call centre modules.
Software keeps tabs on drive-through service.
The company says its products have been used to process more than 17 million orders to date.
Gagnon notes that people today have more functionality inside their car than they do in their home office.
“I call it the cocoon,” he said. “With that macro-consumer trend going on, you can start to understand why we're trying to look at improved ways of operating in a drive-through or off-premise take-out delivery type of model.”
It's really a production operation, said Gagnon. The software hands over the ordering process to someone who's not necessarily sitting in the restaurant dealing with the day-to-day craziness. That allows restaurant owners to extend their operations to have an adjunct capacity in a call centre, so they can start to rethink their processes to be more efficient – such as taking multiple orders at the same time.
“What we're starting to see is, you're finally trying to orient the way you operate your restaurant to the way the customer is living,” he said.
To work, however, they must have strong integration into the existing point-of-sale environment (such as PCI compliance and multiple tender types).
The company has now expanded into the casual dining market, where additional features – such as delivery dispatch and order history – have been added to its original software.
Free Pearl Jam Songs Offered by Verizon
(softpedia) -- Pearl Jam fans from all over the US, listen to this: Verizon is offering free mobile bootleg recordings from the band's current US tour that started yesterday, June 11, in West Palm Beach, Florida, and will end on June 30, in Mansfield, Massachusetts.
More exactly, during every one of the 12 concerts included in the tour, Verizon will record three tracks performed live by Pearl Jam. After each show, one of these tracks will be offered for free, via the V CAST Music service, for all the Verizon customers who want to download it. The other tracks are also available, but at standard costs. All the Pearl Jam related content (including ringtones and ringback tones) is available in the "Pearl Jam" category found on V CAST Music and can be downloaded either on users' PCs or directly on their phones.
Besides offering exclusive bootlegs, Pearl Jam and Verizon also encourage users to participate to the HopeLine program and donate unused mobile phones for charitable purposes. During each venue of the Pearl Jam tour, fans can find special areas set up precisely for this purpose, where they can hand out phones, accessories or batteries that they no longer need.
Talking about Pearl Jam and their collaboration with Verizon, Ed Ruth, director of digital music for Verizon, stated: "Pearl Jam has long been at the forefront of generations of talented artists taking action and speaking out on what’s important to them, and mobile technology is a large part of that movement. Verizon Wireless delivers the opportunity for artists to interact directly with fans – they can download music, win tickets to the show and now get the world’s first mobile bootlegs from this legendary band."
With a history spanning almost 20 years, Pearl Jam is one of the most popular grunge/alternative rock bands in the world. Starting with the legendary debut album from 1991, called "Ten", the band has sold about 60 million records worldwide, while Eddie Vedder, the frontman, has become a "rock icon".
The current US tour of Pearl Jam will probably concentrate on the band's latest album, called "Pearl Jam" and released in May 2006. Even so, I believe fans will have the chance to hear older songs, like the beautiful "Black", for example (actually, this is a song that I'd like to hear if I was there).
Monster Cable goes wireless with HD kit
Today, in honor of cable's tru2way agreement with major CE and IT companies, Panasonic is holding a demonstration in the National Press Club of a Panasonic VIERA Plasma HDTV that can receive HD interactive, digital cable service without using a separate cable set-top box. (PRNewsFoto/Panasonic)
NEW YORK (AP/google) -- Monster Cable Products Inc., the company that's synonymous with expensive video and audio cables, is going wireless.
On Thursday, Monster is introducing a set of two boxes: a receiver that plugs into the back of a high-definition TV and a transmitter that connects to a DVD player or other components of a home entertainment center.
The transmitter can send an HD video signal wirelessly up to 30 feet to the receiver, using so-called ultra-wideband, or UWB, technology from Sigma Designs Inc.
"This is our Monster Cable-less solution," joked Monster Cable president Noel Lee, in an interview.
The Monster Digital Express HD boxes will be available in October for $299.95 each.
Wireless HD connections are a hot field in consumer electronics, with many companies trying different technologies to solve the problem of maintaining a steady flow of wireless data at very high speeds. Ultra-wideband, a relatively novel technology, is a leading contender.
In January, Westinghouse Digital Electronics showed off an LCD TV for the commercial signage market with a built-in UWB receiver chip and a matching transmitter.
A consortium that includes Sony Corp., Toshiba Corp. and Intel Corp. is promoting another wireless technology they call WirelessHD, with transfer speeds that are even higher than UWB.
Other manufacturers, like LG Electronics, are betting on run-of-the-mill Wi-Fi as the wireless link. Wi-Fi is a tried and true technology for data networking, but is less than ideal for streaming video because of interference from other Wi-Fi gadgets.
"We had opportunities with lots of other systems that just didn't have the quality of service," Lee said. "(Sigma) is the first partner we found ... that has a robust enough technology."
The Monster transmitter will "upscale" non-HD signal sources, like DVDs, to HD resolution before transmitting. The receiver plugs into a High-Definition Multimedia Interface, or HDMI, port on the TV.
To back up the short-range wireless capability, the boxes can also connect via coaxial cable to reach each other in different rooms, up to 330 feet away.
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