Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Google debuts Chrome for Mac, Linux
Google released Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux Thursday--but only in rough developer preview versions that the company warns are works in progress.
"In order to get more feedback from developers, we have early developer channel versions of Google Chrome for Mac OS X and Linux, but whatever you do, please DON'T DOWNLOAD THEM," Google product managers Mike Smith and Karen Grunberg said in a blog post, evidently trying to employ a little reverse psychology. "Unless of course you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software."
Until now, Google's open-source browser has been a Windows-only product, and some Mac and Linux users have been clamoring for their own version. Google coders have been working to rebuild some Chrome components, such as its graphical interface and its sandbox that isolates different processes from each other, to move beyond just Windows.
Google offers three versions of Chrome: stable, beta, and developer preview. The Mac OS X and Linux versions fall into this last, category, the most buggy and least tested and complete.
The Flash plug-in won't work, for example, so forget watching YouTube videos. Printing or bookmark management aren't implemented yet. And privacy controls aren't fully baked. Google said there are more than 400 bugs that need to be stomped.
Even though only released for the experimental crowd, the new versions are a big step forward for the browser. First, the versions will plug into Google's auto-update service that automatically downloads new versions. Second, the products bear the Google Chrome brand, not just the Chromium label of the only incarnations available until now. And third, a much larger audience will be helping Google debug the code through automated crash reports of the new versions.
Not everyone can try the Mac and Linux
versions, though. Google spokesman Eitan Bencuya said the Linux version is supported only the Debian and Ubuntu incarnations of Linux, and the Mac OS X version only works on Intel-based Macs.
Google isn't saying when the new versions will make it to beta status, much less stable. "It's unclear. This is a first step," Bencuya said.
After years of near-dormancy when Microsoft's Internet Explorer ruled the roost, the browser world again is on fire, fueled by competition and a new generation of more interactive Web applications. Mozilla is on the cusp of releasing Firefox 3.5, as is Apple with Safari 4 for both
Windows and Mac OS X. Opera 10 is in beta, and even battleship Microsoft is slowly starting to speed up with in the weeks-old Internet Explorer 8.
According to Net Applications statistics, Internet Explorer remains the king of the heap, with 65.5 percent market share in May 2009. Firefox has 22.5 percent, Safari 8.4, and Chrome has edged up to 1.8 percent since its launch in September.
All this variety means Web developers have to test their sites to make sure they work with more versions. Because Chrome uses the WebKit engine for interpreting and displaying Web page coding, the same engine Safari uses, Google argues that Chrome should be similar. But Chrome uses a different engine for JavaScript called V8, and Web-based JavaScript instructions are at the heart of much of the present proliferation of elaborate Web pages and applications.
The browser challengers argue that having multiple browsers on the market means that Web programmers will aim more for supporting standards such as HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript. And indeed, Microsoft made a standards mode the default for IE 8. However, varying interpretations of standard and varying degrees of support complicate the matter, and a large number of people haven't upgraded from IE 6, much less IE 7.
IDC: Recession Driving Down Storage Spending
Hard times are driving large enterprises to patch holes in their storage architectures with systems designed for small and medium-sized businesses, one reason enterprise disk storage revenue fell 18.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to research company IDC.
The drop in revenue from last year's first quarter came with what may be an even more sobering statistic: Demand for storage capacity grew just 14.8 percent in the quarter, the slowest rate since late 2002, according to IDC analyst Liz Conner. Enterprises still need more storage, but they aren't willing to pay for it, Conner said. There were 2,146 petabytes of storage shipped in the quarter. A petabyte is about 1 million gigabytes.
IDC expects the doldrums to remain through another quarter, with a recovery possible late this year or early in 2010, Conner said.
Revenue for all external disk storage, including direct-attached storage, NAS (network-attached storage) and SANs (storage-area networks), fell at a slightly lower rate of 13.6 percent. Total enterprise disk storage brought in US$5.6 billion in revenue in the quarter, of which external storage took up $4.2 billion. Neither category includes disks in PCs or other client systems.
Two of the seemingly bright spots in the quarterly report actually reveal gloomy trends. Sales revenue from entry-level storage systems, priced below $15,000 per system, grew 9.9 percent. Much of this came from large enterprises buying these systems to meet immediate capacity needs rather than investing in the larger platforms they will eventually need, Conner said. There was also 14.5 percent growth in the price range of $300,000 to $499,999. However, many of the systems that sold in that price range were supposed to cost much more and were sold at a significant discount, Conner said.
One product category that made genuine gains in the quarter was iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) SANs, which saw 40.5 percent revenue growth from a year earlier. Enterprises are finding that iSCSI SANs deliver much of the capability of traditional Fibre Channel networks for less money, according to Conner. Some are actually investing in storage gear that can use both iSCSI and Fibre Channel, so they can upgrade later. Dell led the iSCSI market in the quarter with more than 36 percent of revenue, followed by EMC with just under 16 percent, IDC said.
Neither buying lower-end systems nor temporarily using iSCSI should cause enterprises any great management headaches, especially if they stay with one vendor, Conner said. Certain pairs of vendors also have good compatibility between their systems, though others don't, she said.
The dramatic slowing in the storage market didn't shake up the rankings of the major vendors, IDC said. In the external disk storage market, EMC remained the top seller with market share of 20.7 percent. Hewlett-Packard and IBM were in a statistical tie for second place with 11.5 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively. Dell and Hitachi were tied for fourth place.
EMC also continued to lead the network disk storage market, made up of NAS and Open SAN. It had 26 percent of market revenue, followed by NetApp with 12 percent, IDC said.
IDC's report counts revenue by the brand of the product and doesn't count OEM (original equipment manufacturer) revenue to vendors whose products are sold under a different brand.
The drop in revenue from last year's first quarter came with what may be an even more sobering statistic: Demand for storage capacity grew just 14.8 percent in the quarter, the slowest rate since late 2002, according to IDC analyst Liz Conner. Enterprises still need more storage, but they aren't willing to pay for it, Conner said. There were 2,146 petabytes of storage shipped in the quarter. A petabyte is about 1 million gigabytes.
IDC expects the doldrums to remain through another quarter, with a recovery possible late this year or early in 2010, Conner said.
Revenue for all external disk storage, including direct-attached storage, NAS (network-attached storage) and SANs (storage-area networks), fell at a slightly lower rate of 13.6 percent. Total enterprise disk storage brought in US$5.6 billion in revenue in the quarter, of which external storage took up $4.2 billion. Neither category includes disks in PCs or other client systems.
Two of the seemingly bright spots in the quarterly report actually reveal gloomy trends. Sales revenue from entry-level storage systems, priced below $15,000 per system, grew 9.9 percent. Much of this came from large enterprises buying these systems to meet immediate capacity needs rather than investing in the larger platforms they will eventually need, Conner said. There was also 14.5 percent growth in the price range of $300,000 to $499,999. However, many of the systems that sold in that price range were supposed to cost much more and were sold at a significant discount, Conner said.
One product category that made genuine gains in the quarter was iSCSI (Internet Small Computer System Interface) SANs, which saw 40.5 percent revenue growth from a year earlier. Enterprises are finding that iSCSI SANs deliver much of the capability of traditional Fibre Channel networks for less money, according to Conner. Some are actually investing in storage gear that can use both iSCSI and Fibre Channel, so they can upgrade later. Dell led the iSCSI market in the quarter with more than 36 percent of revenue, followed by EMC with just under 16 percent, IDC said.
Neither buying lower-end systems nor temporarily using iSCSI should cause enterprises any great management headaches, especially if they stay with one vendor, Conner said. Certain pairs of vendors also have good compatibility between their systems, though others don't, she said.
The dramatic slowing in the storage market didn't shake up the rankings of the major vendors, IDC said. In the external disk storage market, EMC remained the top seller with market share of 20.7 percent. Hewlett-Packard and IBM were in a statistical tie for second place with 11.5 percent and 11.3 percent, respectively. Dell and Hitachi were tied for fourth place.
EMC also continued to lead the network disk storage market, made up of NAS and Open SAN. It had 26 percent of market revenue, followed by NetApp with 12 percent, IDC said.
IDC's report counts revenue by the brand of the product and doesn't count OEM (original equipment manufacturer) revenue to vendors whose products are sold under a different brand.
Palm Pre Roundup: The Critics Have Spoken
It's T-minus two days until the Palm Pre will hit the stores nationwide (with the adequate shortages) and the highly anticipated device already found its way onto a sleeve of reviewer's hands, including our own Ginny Mies.Everybody is comparing the Palm Pre with Apple's iPhone. Well, the Pre was actually designed to go head-to-head with Apple's phone, no room for doubt here. And the Pre brings a few extra perks, such as a physical keyboard, a better camera and a removable battery.
Palm also introduces a brand new operating system with the Pre, WebOS, something the company has been working on for a while now. Based on Linux and designed from grounds-up for a complete touchscreen experience (ahem, Nokia), WebOS is set to bring a user interface on par with iPhone's (at least), including something Apple's phone users don't enjoy yet - multitasking.
So, does the Palm Pre live up to the hype? Read on for the latest reviews:
Ginny Mies - PC World [read review]
Pros:
- good pocketable size
- overall good call quality (on Sprint's 3G network)
- iTunes music library synchronization
- web browser renders pages beautifully
- "fair" battery life (5 hours, 17 minutes)
Cons:
- keyboard slightly cramped
- bezel lip on the sides and bottom can interfere with typing
- social networking synergy feature only a good idea on the surface
- lacks removable memory (8GB built-in)
- slow, unresponsive photo album application
Walt Mossberg - Wall Street Journal [read review]
Pros:
- vibrant, readable screen
- pleasant user interface with card metaphor
- over-the-air sync with Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange
- wireless backup service
- MMS, copy&paste, universal search
Cons:
- weak battery life
- no keyboard shortcuts
- poor App Catalog (application store)
- clumsy power button
- poorly implemented auto-correct system
David Pogue - New York Times [read review]
Pros:
- good, comfortable size (overall)
- call audio quality above average
- great multi-tasking implementation
- full iTunes sync (except DRM'd items)
- contact and calendar syncing and synergy
Cons:
- very quiet ringer
- battery life a "heartbreaker"
- very few apps in App Catalog
- sometimes slow when opening apps
- no expandable memory
If you're planning to go and grab a Palm Pre this weekend, you should keep in mind the $100 mail-in rebate at Sprint stores, which you can get instantly when buying from BestBuy. However, if you're not convinced yet, on Monday (June 8) Apple is set to unveil the 3.0 iPhone software update and hopefully a new iPhone.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Nokia N97 Gets Launch Date, Decent Facebook App
The Nokia N97, one of the hottest phones coming out this summer, is set to touch down worldwide this month. After months of waiting and speculation, Nokia is finally ready to start shipping its flagship model, dubbed as a "multimedia computer".
The N97 will ease your pockets of $699 before subsidies (simfree) but Nokia did not confirm an official launch date for the U.S.. However, in the U.K. the phone will be available on June 19 at the company's flagship stores, so it is safe to assume that the New York and Chicago Nokia stores will carry the phone around the same time.
On June 26 the Nokia N97 is expected to hit the wireless carriers (at least in the U.K.), but in the U.S. it has not been confirmed which operators will offer the phone. Meanwhile, you can pre-order an N97 as of today from Nokia's website, in either black or white.
Nokia's latest flagship device features a 5-megapixel camera, 32GB of on-board storage (expandable with up to 16GB via microSD), GPS, and a full QWERTY keyboard. The N97 is set to battle-it-out this summer with the Palm Pre (coming on June 6) and Apple's new iPhone (to be announced June 8). To see a head-to-head feature comparison of this summer's hottest phones, check out the latest Smartphone Smackdown.
In preparation for the launch of the N97, an official Facebook app is out now, which is also compatible with the company's 5800 touchscreen phone. By now, Nokia touchscreen devices users had to use the less-capable Facebook mobile web interface to sort their social networking dealings.
The Nokia Facebook app (now downloadable from the Ovi Store) looks very similar to its iPhone counterpart, but lacks the chat feature. On the good side, the app takes advantage of the phone's accelerometer and can be used in landscape mode as well. However, early reports say that the app can get quite slow and unresponsive at times.
The N97 will ease your pockets of $699 before subsidies (simfree) but Nokia did not confirm an official launch date for the U.S.. However, in the U.K. the phone will be available on June 19 at the company's flagship stores, so it is safe to assume that the New York and Chicago Nokia stores will carry the phone around the same time.
On June 26 the Nokia N97 is expected to hit the wireless carriers (at least in the U.K.), but in the U.S. it has not been confirmed which operators will offer the phone. Meanwhile, you can pre-order an N97 as of today from Nokia's website, in either black or white.
Nokia's latest flagship device features a 5-megapixel camera, 32GB of on-board storage (expandable with up to 16GB via microSD), GPS, and a full QWERTY keyboard. The N97 is set to battle-it-out this summer with the Palm Pre (coming on June 6) and Apple's new iPhone (to be announced June 8). To see a head-to-head feature comparison of this summer's hottest phones, check out the latest Smartphone Smackdown.
In preparation for the launch of the N97, an official Facebook app is out now, which is also compatible with the company's 5800 touchscreen phone. By now, Nokia touchscreen devices users had to use the less-capable Facebook mobile web interface to sort their social networking dealings.
The Nokia Facebook app (now downloadable from the Ovi Store) looks very similar to its iPhone counterpart, but lacks the chat feature. On the good side, the app takes advantage of the phone's accelerometer and can be used in landscape mode as well. However, early reports say that the app can get quite slow and unresponsive at times.
Windows 7 Release: What Happens Between Now & Oct. 22
Microsoft will release Windows 7 on October 22, the company has confirmed. The date will put Windows 7 on store shelves a full three months earlier than originally planned. It follows Microsoft's recent announcement that Windows 7 would ship "in time for the holidays" and matches rumors of a fall release spread around the Web in April.Of course, there are still plenty of things that'll take place between now and October. Here's the breakdown of some key events and revelations leading up to the Windows 7 release.
Windows 7 Upgrade Option
Microsoft is expected to unveil an upgrade program for the Windows 7 release. The program will likely let you get Windows 7 for free or with a discount if you've recently bought a Vista-based PC that meets certain conditions.
So what are those conditions? That's not yet clear. Microsoft has confirmed the program will be called "Windows Upgrade Option." Early speculation suggests it may mirror the Vista Express Upgrade program, which provided free or discounted upgrades for users who'd bought XP-based systems in the months leading up to Vista's release. That program didn't exactly run smoothly, though: PC World expressed concern over hidden costs associated with the upgrade, and many consumers complained of delays and other issues in getting their upgrade requests processed.
Microsoft Corporate Vice President Steve Guggenheimer is set to deliver a keynote address at the Computex 2009 conference in Taipei on Wednesday. The address, entitled "Windows Makes Life Simpler," should provide additional details on how the Windows 7 upgrade program will operate.
Windows 7 Release-to-Manufacturing
Another step in the Windows 7 release process will be the transition into the release-to-manufacturing (RTM) phase of development. That's the final phase before the software becomes available to consumers, and -- as its name suggests -- entails Microsoft sending the Windows 7 code to PC manufacturers so they can start preparing new systems for the October 22 release.
Windows 7's RTM phase is expected to begin in late July or early August.
Windows 7 Compatibility Center
Microsoft's official Windows 7 Compatibility Center will launch in conjunction with the software itself, according to a FAQ posted on the site. The Compatibility Center will allow you to make sure your devices and applications will work with Windows 7 before making the upgrade.
Vista's Compatibility Center launched with a very different timeline: The service went online in July of 2008, a full year-and-a-half after Vista's release. In an ironic twist, the Vista Compatibility Center also seemed to have some compatibility issues of its own -- the site was completely inaccessible to users during its first days online.
Microsoft, no doubt, is hoping Windows 7's release and reception will be a far less bumpy experience. If early coverage is any indication, that wish just may come true.
Don't take our word for it, though -- try Windows 7 out for yourself. The Windows 7 Release Candidate is still available for download as of now. Microsoft has said the functionality and features will remain relatively constant from that version to the final release.
Sony Ericsson Satio another 12.1MP Phone
Sony Ericsson has announced another 12.1 megapixel phone, the Sony Ericsson Satio. It is a full 640 x 350 3.5-inch touchscreen phone comes with 12.1 megapixel camera, dual-band HSPA, microSD expansion (forget about the expensive memory stick), xenon flash and will be available in three colors black, silver and Bordeaux. Will be out in October. More pictures after the break.
Sony Ericsson Satio specs:• 12.1 megapixel camera, video light, xenon flash, auto focus, face detection, bestpic, geotagging, image stabilizer.
• red-eye reduction, smile detection, touch focus
• Bluetooth stereo (A2DP)• WebKit web browser
• On-screen QWERTY keyboard
• Auto rotate• Gesture control
• S60 5th edition Symbian OS
• HD and 3D games
• FM radio with RDS
• Java• TV out
• In-built WiFi
• A-GPS
• Size: 112 x 55 x 13.3 mm
• Weight: 126 grams
• Main screen: 16,777,216 colour nHD TFT
• 16:9 widescreen
• Resolution: 640 x 360 pixels
• Size: 3.5 inches
• Phone memory: 128 MB
• Memory Card Support: SanDisk microSD
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
'Best Video' scam on Twitter dropped malware
Twitter users were hit with another attack over the weekend featuring tweets reading "Best Video" and a link to a Web site that downloads malware, a security firm said on Monday.
The Web site, with a .ru (Russia) domain, purports to show an embedded YouTube video. Instead, the page downloads a malicious PDF that contains a "flurry of exploits" and if successful downloads fraudware that displays a fake security warning to try to get people to pay money, according to Kaspersky's Viruslist.com blog.
Contrary to earlier reports that the attack was a worm, the Kaspersky blog post speculates that the attackers were using accounts stolen in a phishing attack about a week ago.
Thousands of Twitter users were affected by what looked like a worm-like phishing attack last week, but was instead a site designed to help Twitters increase their number of followers quickly. The TwitterCut site looked like a Twitter log-in page and prompted people to type in their user names and passwords. Site administrators denied the phishing allegations and said they were shutting it down, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.
"This attack is very significant," the Kaspersky post says of the latest attack. "It would seem that at least one criminal group is now exploring the distribution of for-profit on Twitter. If the trends we've seen on other social platforms are any indicator for Twitter, then we can only expect an increase in attacks."
Twitter said on Saturday that it was aware of the problem and working on it. Another message from Twitter on its status page said some legitimate accounts affected by the attack were suspended but would be restored and that no personal information had been compromised.
The Web site, with a .ru (Russia) domain, purports to show an embedded YouTube video. Instead, the page downloads a malicious PDF that contains a "flurry of exploits" and if successful downloads fraudware that displays a fake security warning to try to get people to pay money, according to Kaspersky's Viruslist.com blog.
Contrary to earlier reports that the attack was a worm, the Kaspersky blog post speculates that the attackers were using accounts stolen in a phishing attack about a week ago.
Thousands of Twitter users were affected by what looked like a worm-like phishing attack last week, but was instead a site designed to help Twitters increase their number of followers quickly. The TwitterCut site looked like a Twitter log-in page and prompted people to type in their user names and passwords. Site administrators denied the phishing allegations and said they were shutting it down, according to the TrendLabs Malware Blog.
"This attack is very significant," the Kaspersky post says of the latest attack. "It would seem that at least one criminal group is now exploring the distribution of for-profit on Twitter. If the trends we've seen on other social platforms are any indicator for Twitter, then we can only expect an increase in attacks."
Twitter said on Saturday that it was aware of the problem and working on it. Another message from Twitter on its status page said some legitimate accounts affected by the attack were suspended but would be restored and that no personal information had been compromised.
Intel launches chips for low-cost, thin laptops
Intel is launching its line of processors for thin, inexpensive laptops at the Computex tech conference in Taipei. Intel marketing chief Sean Maloney talked about this in a phone interview."It's clear that people like devices to be thin and light," said Maloney, who was speaking from the Computex conference in Taipei where he will be giving a keynote on Tuesday.
"We've really taken that to heart and come out with a complete top-to-bottom range of microprocessors that enable radically longer battery life and much smaller designs," said Maloney, referring to Intel's new lineup of consumer ultra-low-voltage (CULV) processors.
Maloney continued. "There are a lot of computers being announced here (Computex) that look like conventional notebooks in terms of how wide the screens are, but they're super-thin, the performance is very good, and they get up to nine hours battery life without a big, fat battery at the back," he said.
"We've really taken that to heart and come out with a complete top-to-bottom range of microprocessors that enable radically longer battery life and much smaller designs," said Maloney, referring to Intel's new lineup of consumer ultra-low-voltage (CULV) processors.
Maloney continued. "There are a lot of computers being announced here (Computex) that look like conventional notebooks in terms of how wide the screens are, but they're super-thin, the performance is very good, and they get up to nine hours battery life without a big, fat battery at the back," he said.
"It's a big change for industry. It means the technology weaves its way into your life more because you're going to have all-day notebooks," Maloney said.
The new processors will encompass the Core 2, Pentium, and Celeron processor architectures, according to Maloney.
Prices for these new laptops will start at $399 and range up to $2,000 in some cases, Maloney said.
And will laptops based on these chips impact the sales of Netbooks? "I don't think so," Maloney said, but added: "It's a loser mentality to not develop one segment because you're worried about the other."
Maloney continued. "The demographics (for Netbooks) that's completely untouched is kids between the ages of 7 and 12. So, the Netbook market is still at a very early stage," he said.
In addition, Intel unveiled the Mobile Intel GS40 Express Chipset for the new ULV-based laptops. This "value" chipset enables ULV-based laptops to support HD (high-definition) playback, Windows Vista Premium support and native support for integrated HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).
Wireles options will include embedded WiMAX or Intel "My Wi-Fi" technology. My Wi-Fi transforms a laptop into a WiFi personal area network, connecting directly with up to eight Wi-Fi-certified devices, according to Intel.
Though a crush of new thin laptops are expected, the MSI X340 is one of the first. The X340 has a 13.4-inch screen, weighs 2.86 pounds, and measures .78 inches thick.
The new processors will encompass the Core 2, Pentium, and Celeron processor architectures, according to Maloney.
Prices for these new laptops will start at $399 and range up to $2,000 in some cases, Maloney said.
And will laptops based on these chips impact the sales of Netbooks? "I don't think so," Maloney said, but added: "It's a loser mentality to not develop one segment because you're worried about the other."
Maloney continued. "The demographics (for Netbooks) that's completely untouched is kids between the ages of 7 and 12. So, the Netbook market is still at a very early stage," he said.
In addition, Intel unveiled the Mobile Intel GS40 Express Chipset for the new ULV-based laptops. This "value" chipset enables ULV-based laptops to support HD (high-definition) playback, Windows Vista Premium support and native support for integrated HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).
Wireles options will include embedded WiMAX or Intel "My Wi-Fi" technology. My Wi-Fi transforms a laptop into a WiFi personal area network, connecting directly with up to eight Wi-Fi-certified devices, according to Intel.
Though a crush of new thin laptops are expected, the MSI X340 is one of the first. The X340 has a 13.4-inch screen, weighs 2.86 pounds, and measures .78 inches thick.
AMD Challenges Intel With Dual-core Neo Chip
Advanced Micro Devices on Monday said it had started shipping the dual-core Athlon Neo processor for thin and light laptops, upping the ante in its battle with rival Intel, which offers processors for similar laptops.The new Neo chip will be an upgrade over the single-core Neo processor launched by AMD in January. Laptops with the dual-core processor will offer faster processing and graphics performance, said David Schwarzbach, senior manager for platform marketing at AMD.
Neo chips are designed for thin and light laptops that can deliver full functionality at affordable prices, AMD says. AMD fits Neo chips into a category of consumer PCs it calls "ultrathin" laptops, which falls between netbooks and expensive ultraportable laptops like Apple's MacBook Air. AMD contends that netbooks, though cheap, provide limited functionality, while ultraportables are too expensive, with prices above US$1,500.
Some ultrathin laptops in the market today come with screen sizes between 12.1 inches and 14 inches, and weigh between 3 pounds (1.36 kilograms) and 4 pounds. AMD said dual-core Neo will be in laptops priced between $750 and $999. The chip operates at a clock speed of around 1.6GHz and draws up to 18 watts of power. Pricing for the chip wasn't immediately available.
Laptops with the new Neo chips are being shown at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. Hewlett-Packard -- which already ships the Pavilion DV2 laptop with a single-core Neo -- will refresh the laptop with the new chip, Schwarzbach said. HP's laptop will become available on Monday, while other Neo-based laptops will become available in September.
Ultrathin laptops are as portable as netbooks and provide adequate performance to run most applications, like high-definition multimedia, casual gaming and productivity applications, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. If ultrathin laptops become hot, the losers could be PC makers like Sony, Toshiba and Apple, who have been overcharging consumers for expensive ultraportables, Brookwood said.
AMD's Neo could potentially face competition from Intel's low-power processors for ultrathin laptops -- also called CULV (consumer ultra-low voltage) processors -- that may be introduced at Computex. Laptops with Intel's CULV chips -- like Lenovo's IdeaPad U350 and MSI's X-Slim laptops -- have already been announced.
The updated Neo chip will be part of AMD's upcoming Congo platform for ultrathin laptops. The platform will include integrated graphics based on the Radeon 3200 graphics core, a major upgrade from the earlier Radeon 1200 integrated graphics. That should enable faster decoding of high-definition content and provide a better multimedia experience, Schwarzbach said.
Most netbooks offer limited graphics capabilities, which could draw users to ultrathin laptops, Insight 64's Brookwood said. On a platform level, AMD holds an advantage over Intel on graphics capabilities, Brookwood said.
"When it comes to integrated graphics, it's hardly a contest between Intel and AMD. AMD wins hands down," Brookwood said.
By contrast, Intel's chips offer better performance-per-watt than Neo chips, Brookwood said. Intel's chips are manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, which brings more energy efficiency to laptops than the older 65-nm process used by AMD for Neo chips. But the dual-core Neo could help laptop users do more tasks simultaneously than Intel's single-core CULV chips.
But processor speed won't be a major factor in driving adoption of ultrathin laptops, Brookwood said. The thin and light size will appeal more to consumers, and the battle could be around pricing and style.
"Nobody will buy these products to edit movies or to do a lot of Photoshop-like work," Brookwood said.
AMD on Monday also announced dual-core desktop chips that are manufactured using the 45-nm process. The Phenom II X2 550 runs at a clock speed of 3.1GHz and includes 7MB of cache. It is priced at $102. The dual-core Athlon II X2 250 processor operates at a speed of 3.0GHz and includes 2MB of L2 cache. It is priced at $87. Both processors will come as part of a chip package that supports faster DDR3 memory.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Pakistan in Guinness Book of World Records
The widest gauge in standard use is 1.676 m (5 ft 6 in). This wide gauge is used in Spain, Portugal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Argentina, and Chile. The narrower standard gauge, 1.435 m (4.698 ft), is more common in much of America and Europe.
The most wickets taken over a one-day international cricket career is 440 by Pakistan's Wasim Akram in 319 matches between 1985 and 2001. Wasim took the wickets at an average of 24.04 runs. Born in 1966 Lahore, Wasim Akram started playing cricket, like many Pakistanis, on the streets. He made his international debut at the age of 18 after an invitation to join the national team's training camp as they prepared for a match against New Zealand. Wasim's ability to move the ball in the air combined with his pace and accuracy has earned him a reputation as one of the world's best fast bowlers. In February 2000, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pakistan Cricket Board.
The largest mosque is Shah Faisal Mosque, near Islamabad, Pakistan. The total area of the complex is 18.97 ha (46.87 acres), with the covered area of the prayer hall being 0.48 ha (1.19 acres). It can accommodate 100,000 worshippers.
Largest Football (Soccer)
Largest Football (Soccer)
A football made from artificial leather PV-PVC and hand-sewn by staff at Ihsan Sports of Hajipura, Sialkot, Pakistan, had a diameter of 4m (13ft 1in) when measured on 30 June 2002.The super-sized soccer ball – an exact replica of the company's standard football – was made from 32 separate panels that were laminated, printed then hand-stitched together. It was unveiled at the Al Faysaliah shopping mall in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, by members of the Disabled Children's Society. "I was amazed at the size of the football," said one spectator, "and I imagine it would be really hard to actually play with."
Largest Volunteer Ambulance Organization
Largest Volunteer Ambulance Organization
Abdul Sattar Edhi (Pakistan) began his ambulance service in 1948, ferrying injured people to hospital. Today, his radio-linked network includes 500 ambulances all over Pakistan, and attracts funds of US$5 million a year.
The smallest published Quran book measures 1.7 cm x 1.28 cm x 0.72 cm (0.66 in x 0.50 in x 0.28 in). It is published in an unabridged, bound version, in fine print Arabic and is 571 pages long. Dr Muhammad Karim Beebani at October 15, 2004 in Pakistan.
The largest victory margin is 233 runs by Pakistan against Bangladesh (320 for the loss of three wickets to 87 all out), at Dhaka, Bangladesh, on June 2, 2000.
The youngest Test player ever is Hasan Raza (Pakistan) who made his debut, aged 14 years 227 days, against Zimbabwe at Faisalabad, Pakistan on 24 October 1996.Born 11 March 1982 in Karachi, like other Pakistani cricketers Raza was given test match experience very early. The right-handed batsmen has played for Pakistan Customs, Habib Bank Limited, Karachi Cricket Association, and Pakistan.
The largest flaming candle image took place at the Serena Hotel in Faisalabad, Pakistan when 48 people lit 8,154 candles to create the Sandoz logo on December 31, 2003.
The most men's squash world championship team titles won is six, by Australia, in 1967, 1969, 1971, 1973, 1989, and 1991; and Pakistan, in 1977, 1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, and 1993.Jahangir KhanJahangir is listed in Guinness Book of World Records as having the most world championship squash titles.He was unbeaten in competitive play for five years. During that time he won 555 matches consecutively. This was not only the longest winning streak in squash history, but also one of longest unbeaten runs by any athlete in top-level professional sport.
Sitting seven A-levels might easily have done the trick, even though he had started to study some of the subjects only three days before the exam.But he was determined to get some good grades. So he sat another three, and three more. Then another nine. Just in case, he took a couple of AS levels along the way.
The 18 year-old boy genius took the long list of exams within 12-months netting himself 22 A grades, one B and one C
Since the World Open was inaugurated in 1975, Jansher Khan has clinched the title eight times, with his relative Jahangir coming close behind winning six titles. But Jahangir has also claimed three International Squash Rackets Federation world individual titles, taking his tally of World titles to a record-breaking total of nine. In 1982 Jahangir astonished everyone by winning the International Squash Players Association Championship without losing a single point! Jansher played in his first World Open in 1987 in Birmingham, England, beating Jahangir in the semi-final. Jansher has only once failed to make it to the final in the 10 World Opens he has played.
WANT TO KNOW MORE?The famous Khan family have dominated the sport of squash for over 50 years. The champion family originates from a village called Nawakille in Pakistan. Jansher (born in 1960 and whose name means "Lion-Hearted") succeeded his relatives - Peshawar, Hashim, Azam, Roshan, Moibullah (Senior), and Jahangir, all of them champion squash stars. Since 1950, the family has won 29 British Opens.
GUESS WHAT? Jansher Khan has beaten Australian Chris Dittmar a staggering 17 times in the finals! For much of Chris' career he was ranked No.2 in the world, but finally managed to push Jansher off the top spot in the last week of his career
Windows Vista SP2: Readers Report Big Increases in Free Disk Space
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 went final earlier this week, with numerous fixes and tweaks to improve performance, bolster security, and squash bugs. But some PC World readers are seeing another welcome change to SP2: a lot more free disk space.In comments posted in our forums, several readers reported large increases in free hard disk space after installing Vista SP2. Mind you, I'm not talking about a gigabyte here or there; one reader claimed that installing Vista SP2 freed up a massive 40 GB chunk of disk space. Another reader said, "Wow! I didn't notice that til now. I went from about 88GB free to 122GB free. That's a significant change 'under the hood,' isn't it?" And yet another reader gained back 130 GB of hard disk space. Wow.
At least a couple users told me that their free space grew significantly after installing SP2, without them doing anything else. Vista SP2 includes a command-line cleanup tool (compcln.exe) you can run to remove older system files and restore points, thus freeing up hard disk space.
My assumption is that the Vista SP2 installer automatically runs compcln.exe, but we have yet to receive an official explanation from Microsoft. Once we do, though, I'll pass it along. Obviously your milage may vary depending on your system, but I think it's safe to say that most everyone will welcome more free disk space.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Google's Wave Consolidates Core Online Features in One Tool
Google released to developers an early version of a collaboration and communication tool that consolidates features from e-mail, instant messaging, blogging, wikis, multimedia management and document sharing.
Called Wave, the Web application is the equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife for consumer online services and possibly one of the riskiest and most ambitious endeavors Google has embarked upon in years.
In the works for about two years, Wave has the potential to drive people away from popular Google products like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, Picasa, Blogger and Sites, as well as from similar products from competitors like Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.
However, Wave could also fall flat if people don't understand how it can be useful, or if they can't be convinced to give up their e-mail, blogging, IM and other individual online services.
Whatever destiny holds for Wave, it is a bold attempt by Google to give people a new unified Web application for their communication and content creation needs, instead of integrating the company's set of discrete online services.
That Wave ranks pretty high within Google's plans is evidenced by the starring role it is getting at the company's I/O developer conference. Thursday's keynote was devoted entirely to Wave, with the two project co-founders and its product manager on stage giving a lengthy and detailed demo of the tool.
"We're banking on Wave having a very large impact, but a lot of it depends on our ability to explain this to users. That's part of the reason why we're putting this out early to developers," said Lars Rasmussen, Wave project co-founder, in an interview.
Because Wave is conceptually adventurous and will require end users to wrap their heads around it, Google wants to get a conversation started about the product months before it's available to consumers, he said.
"It's good that we get to discuss it for some time before it's ready," Rasmussen said.
Ernest Lombardi, a Web developer with Sapphire Technologies in Portland, Maine, was "blown away" after sitting through the keynote.
"It's simple, genius, and most importantly open. Watching the presentation, I had visions of Wave having an impact on everything from academia to collaborative fiction to the legislative process at state and federal levels," Lombardi said via e-mail.
Lombardi already envisions a variety of ways in which Wave could be useful to some of his clients who are interested in collaboration, community building applications and social networking-like interfaces.
He believes Wave has big potential to be revolutionary.
"Wave is aptly named, since it has the potential to wash away what we now consider to be the Internet. It is not difficult to imagine the net as we know it becoming an ever-expanding archipelago of Wave-based islands," Lombardi said.
Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, who is attending I/O, is also very impressed with Wave. "This is one of the best product concepts I've seen in the past five years," Dulaney said.
It's clear that Wave represents a significant evolution for Internet communications, particularly e-mail and IM, and Gmail users will in time migrate to Wave, he said.
Makers of competing Webmail and IM services will have to respond with Wave equivalents, or else their users will also switch to the Google product, Dulaney added.
However, Wave's appeal extends beyond e-mail and IM, since it also offers a wide variety of other functionality, like blogs, wikis, photo management and document collaboration, and can be extended broadly by third parties thanks to its open architecture and APIs, he said.
"It glues together a lot of things that have until now been separate products," Dulaney said. "This is where users will want to be."
Even after working on the product for about two years, Rasmussen and the other members of the Wave development team still discover new uses for the tool, so he's very aware that grasping the possibilities of Wave will not be an automatic thing for end users.
That, again, is why Google decided to share Wave early with developers. "Now is a good time for developers to start picking up the APIs, building cool applications and extensions, so when we do launch later this year our users and their users can enjoy all these things together," he said.
Rasmussen and his brother Jens, the other Wave project co-founder, also learned how beneficial it can be to a Google product to have an enthusiastic community of developers around it. They arrived at Google in 2004 when Google bought their mapping startup Where 2 Tech, and went to work in creating what would become Google Maps, a service credited with igniting the mashup frenzy.
At its core, Wave lets people create a document to which multiple users can add rich text, multimedia, gadget applications and feeds, and do so concurrently in the way in which people interact on, say, instant messaging. These "waves" can be rolled back to view the evolution of the document.
It remains to be seen whether Wave will cannibalize Gmail and other popular Google products, but the culture of innovation at the company trumps those types of concerns.
"Just because we have a suite of very popular products, we shouldn't stop innovating; quite the contrary. We should always keep trying and do new, better things," Rasmussen said.
Wave is built on Google Web Toolkit using HTML 5, the latest version of the Web's markup language, and has a set of APIs designed to let developers extend its functionality and integrate it with other Web services. The protocol underneath Wave is designed for "open federation" so that the product is interoperable, and Google plans to launch the Wave code as open source.
Google expects to keep Wave as a developer preview product for at least several more months. For starters, only developers attending I/O will get access to Wave on Thursday. Google will expand access to more developers later.
Rasmussen warns that the Wave code will appear rough even to developers, so those interested should be of the adventurous type who like to be early adopters and participate in the evolution of a product.
While Wave doesn't inherently have a "friends graph" function, Google expects developers will build integration links for it with social-networking sites. During the keynote, the Wave team will show an early integration with Twitter.
Called Wave, the Web application is the equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife for consumer online services and possibly one of the riskiest and most ambitious endeavors Google has embarked upon in years.
In the works for about two years, Wave has the potential to drive people away from popular Google products like Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, Picasa, Blogger and Sites, as well as from similar products from competitors like Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL.
However, Wave could also fall flat if people don't understand how it can be useful, or if they can't be convinced to give up their e-mail, blogging, IM and other individual online services.
Whatever destiny holds for Wave, it is a bold attempt by Google to give people a new unified Web application for their communication and content creation needs, instead of integrating the company's set of discrete online services.
That Wave ranks pretty high within Google's plans is evidenced by the starring role it is getting at the company's I/O developer conference. Thursday's keynote was devoted entirely to Wave, with the two project co-founders and its product manager on stage giving a lengthy and detailed demo of the tool.
"We're banking on Wave having a very large impact, but a lot of it depends on our ability to explain this to users. That's part of the reason why we're putting this out early to developers," said Lars Rasmussen, Wave project co-founder, in an interview.
Because Wave is conceptually adventurous and will require end users to wrap their heads around it, Google wants to get a conversation started about the product months before it's available to consumers, he said.
"It's good that we get to discuss it for some time before it's ready," Rasmussen said.
Ernest Lombardi, a Web developer with Sapphire Technologies in Portland, Maine, was "blown away" after sitting through the keynote.
"It's simple, genius, and most importantly open. Watching the presentation, I had visions of Wave having an impact on everything from academia to collaborative fiction to the legislative process at state and federal levels," Lombardi said via e-mail.
Lombardi already envisions a variety of ways in which Wave could be useful to some of his clients who are interested in collaboration, community building applications and social networking-like interfaces.
He believes Wave has big potential to be revolutionary.
"Wave is aptly named, since it has the potential to wash away what we now consider to be the Internet. It is not difficult to imagine the net as we know it becoming an ever-expanding archipelago of Wave-based islands," Lombardi said.
Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney, who is attending I/O, is also very impressed with Wave. "This is one of the best product concepts I've seen in the past five years," Dulaney said.
It's clear that Wave represents a significant evolution for Internet communications, particularly e-mail and IM, and Gmail users will in time migrate to Wave, he said.
Makers of competing Webmail and IM services will have to respond with Wave equivalents, or else their users will also switch to the Google product, Dulaney added.
However, Wave's appeal extends beyond e-mail and IM, since it also offers a wide variety of other functionality, like blogs, wikis, photo management and document collaboration, and can be extended broadly by third parties thanks to its open architecture and APIs, he said.
"It glues together a lot of things that have until now been separate products," Dulaney said. "This is where users will want to be."
Even after working on the product for about two years, Rasmussen and the other members of the Wave development team still discover new uses for the tool, so he's very aware that grasping the possibilities of Wave will not be an automatic thing for end users.
That, again, is why Google decided to share Wave early with developers. "Now is a good time for developers to start picking up the APIs, building cool applications and extensions, so when we do launch later this year our users and their users can enjoy all these things together," he said.
Rasmussen and his brother Jens, the other Wave project co-founder, also learned how beneficial it can be to a Google product to have an enthusiastic community of developers around it. They arrived at Google in 2004 when Google bought their mapping startup Where 2 Tech, and went to work in creating what would become Google Maps, a service credited with igniting the mashup frenzy.
At its core, Wave lets people create a document to which multiple users can add rich text, multimedia, gadget applications and feeds, and do so concurrently in the way in which people interact on, say, instant messaging. These "waves" can be rolled back to view the evolution of the document.
It remains to be seen whether Wave will cannibalize Gmail and other popular Google products, but the culture of innovation at the company trumps those types of concerns.
"Just because we have a suite of very popular products, we shouldn't stop innovating; quite the contrary. We should always keep trying and do new, better things," Rasmussen said.
Wave is built on Google Web Toolkit using HTML 5, the latest version of the Web's markup language, and has a set of APIs designed to let developers extend its functionality and integrate it with other Web services. The protocol underneath Wave is designed for "open federation" so that the product is interoperable, and Google plans to launch the Wave code as open source.
Google expects to keep Wave as a developer preview product for at least several more months. For starters, only developers attending I/O will get access to Wave on Thursday. Google will expand access to more developers later.
Rasmussen warns that the Wave code will appear rough even to developers, so those interested should be of the adventurous type who like to be early adopters and participate in the evolution of a product.
While Wave doesn't inherently have a "friends graph" function, Google expects developers will build integration links for it with social-networking sites. During the keynote, the Wave team will show an early integration with Twitter.
Secure Your Vista PC in 10 Easy Steps
By making a few judicious changes using the security tools within Windows Vista--and in some cases by adding a few pieces of free software--you can lock down your operating system. 1. Use Windows Security Center as a Starting Point For a quick overview of your security settings, the Windows Security Center is where you'll find the status of your system firewall, auto update, malware protection, and other security settings. Click Start, Control Panel, Security Center, or you can simply click the shield icon in the task tray. If you see any red or yellow, you are not fully protected. For example, if you have not yet installed an antivirus product on your machine, or if your current antivirus product is out-of-date, the Malware section of the Security Center should be yellow. Windows does not offer a built-in antivirus utility, so you'll want to install your own. For free antivirus, I recommend AVG Anti-Virus 8. 2. Use Windows Defender as a Diagnostic Tool The Malware section also covers antispyware protection, and for that Windows Vista includes Windows Defender. The antispyware protection in your antivirus program usually trumps the protection Microsoft provides, but there are several good reasons to keep Windows Defender enabled. One is that every antispyware program uses a different definition of what is and what is not spyware, so redundant protection can actually offer some benefit. Another reason to keep Windows Defender enabled: diagnostics. Click Tools, and choose Software Explorer from the resulting pane. You can display lists of applications from several categories such as Currently Running Programs, Network Connected Programs, and Winsock Service Providers, but Startup Programs is perhaps the most useful. Click on any name in the left window, and full details will appear in the right pane. By highlighting, you can remove, disable, or enable any of the programs listed. 3. Disable the Start Up menu Windows Vista keeps track of all the documents and programs you launch in the Start Up menu. This can be convenient for some users, but it can also compromise your privacy if you share a computer within an office or household. Fortunately Windows Vista provides an easy way to tweak this setting. To protect your privacy, follow these steps: Right click on the taskbar and select Properties. Click on the Start Menu tab. Uncheck Store and display a list of recently opened files. Uncheck Store and display a list of recently opened programs. Click OK. 4. Get Two-Way Firewall Protection No desktop should be without a personal firewall, but even if the Security Center says you're protected, you may not be. The Windows Firewall within Vista blocks all incoming traffic that might be malicious or suspicious--and that's good. But outbound protection is not enabled by default. That's a dangerous situation if some new malicious software finds its way onto your PC. Microsoft did include the tools for Windows Vista to have a true two-way firewall, but finding the setting is a little complicated. (Hint: Don't go looking the Windows Firewall settings dialog box.) To get two-way protection in Windows Vista, click on the Start button; in the search space, type wf.msc and press Enter. Click on the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security icon. This management interface displays the inbound and outbound rules. Click on Windows Firewalls Properties. You should now see a dialog box with several tabs. For each profile--Domain, Private, and Public--change the setting to Block, and then click OK. 5. Lock Out Unwanted Guests If you share your computer with others (and even if you don't), Windows Vista includes a neat way to keep unwanted guests from guessing your system administrator password. When you set up users and declare one user as administrator (with full privileges), Windows Vista allows outsiders unlimited guesses at the password you chose. Here's how to limit the guesses. Click Start, type Local Security Policy. Click Account Lockout Policy. Choose Account Lockout Threshold. At the prompt, enter the number of invalid log-ins you'll accept (say, 3). Click OK and close. 6. Now Audit Your Attackers With the Account Lockout policy in place, you can now enable auditing to see any account attacks. To turn on auditing for failed log-on events, do the following: Click the Start button, type secpol.msc, and click the secpol icon. Click on Local Policies and then Audit Policy. Right-click on Audit account logon events policy and select Properties. Check the Failure box and click OK. Right-click on Audit logon events policy and select Properties. Check the Failure box and click OK. Close the Local Security Policy window. You can then use the Event Viewer (by running eventvwr.msc) to view the logs under Windows Logs and Security. 7. Secure Your Internet Explorer Settings The Windows Security Center will also report whether your Internet Explorer 7 (or IE security settings are at their recommended levels. If the screen shows this section as red, you can adjust the settings within the browser itself. Within Internet Explorer, click Tools in the menu bar. From the drop-down menu, click Internet Options. Choose the Security tab. Within the Security tab, click Custom Level. Here you'll see a window with all the security options for the browser. If any are below the recommended level (if, say, some kind of malware reconfigured your browser settings), these options will be highlighted in red. To change an individual setting, click the appropriate radio button. To reset them all, use the button near the bottom of the tab. You can also change the overall security setting for Internet Explorer from the default Medium-High setting to the recommended High or Medium, if you wish. Click OK to save and close. 8. Use OpenDNS Domain Name System (DNS) servers act as a phone book. When you type "pcworld . com" in the address bar, for instance, Internet Explorer sends that common-name request to your Internet service provider's DNS servers to be converted into a series of numbers, or an IP address. Lately, DNS servers have come under attack, with criminals seeking to redirect common DNS preferences to servers that their interests control. One way to stop such abuse is to use OpenDNS. Go to Start, Control Panel, Network and Internet, and then click Network and Sharing Center. Under the tasks listed on the left, click Manage Network Connections. In the Manage Network Connections window, do the following. Right-click on the icon representing your network card. Click Properties. Click Internet Protocol Version 4. Click the Properties button. Select the Use the following DNS server addresses radio button. Click OK. 9. Live With User Account Control One area where some people might want to see the Windows Security Center turn red is User Account Control (UAC), perhaps the most controversial security feature within Windows Vista. Designed to keep rogue remote software from automatically installing (among other things), UAC has a tendency to thwart legitimate software installations by interrupting the process several times with useless messages. In Windows 7 you'll be able to set UAC to the level you want. Until then, you do have some options. One is to disable UAC. I would caution against that, since UAC is meant to warn you of potential danger. Instead, install TweakUAC, a free utility that offers the ability to turn UAC on or off as well as an intermediate "quiet" mode that keeps UAC on but suppresses administration elevation prompts. With TweakUAC in quiet mode, UAC will appear to be off to those running as administrator accounts, while people with standard user accounts will still be prompted. 10. Check Your Work Now that you've tweaked Windows Vista, you can keep tabs on your system's security with the System Health Report. This diagnostic tool takes input from the Performance and Reliability Monitor and turns it into an information-packed report that can spotlight potential security problems. Open Control Panel. Click System. In the Tasks list, click Performance (near the bottom). In the resulting Tasks list, click Advanced tools (near the top). Click the last item on the resulting list: Generate a system health report. The report will list any missing drivers that might be causing error codes, tell you whether your antivirus protection is installed, and declare whether UAC is turned on. You may want to run this report once a month just to make sure everything's still good.
Sony Cybershot T200 and T70
Sony has recently announced its two new models to the Cybershot family - T200 and T70, an upgraded version to T100 and T20. These latest ultra-slim and stylish digital cameras from Sony feature an 8.1-megapixel sensor, same metalic design, Carl Zeiss optics Vario-Tessar len and touchscreen LCD display. In addition, both of them also include a Smile Shutter scene mode that able to detect your smiles automatically
Key Features Of Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T70
*8.1-megapixels Sensor
* 3x Optical Zoom, 5.1x HD Smart (16:9), 6x Precision Digital, 15x Smart (VGA)
* New Face Detection Technology With Smile Shutter * Super Steady Shot
* Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar Lens
* 3.0-inch Clear Photo LCD Plus
* Stamina (CIPA): Up to approx. 270 shots / approx. 135 min.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Vista Service Pack 2 Now Ready for Download
Windows Vista Service Pack 2 is now available for download. The Vista SP2 update includes new support for recording Blu-ray discs straight from the Vista OS, updated support for Bluetooth v2.1, and bug fixes that address slow shutdowns and mysterious crashes.
You can download Vista SP2 directly from Microsoft at its Web site (348MB) or it will be automatically delivered to your Vista system via Windows Update within a few weeks, according to Microsoft. You must have Vista SP1 installed on your system to install the SP2 Vista.
Additional Vista SP2 Updates
Besides Blu-ray and Bluetooth support, Vista SP2 also:
* Fixes Wi-Fi issues when Vista awakes from sleep mode.
* Improves performance of Vista desktop sidebar gadget, allowing for RSS feeds to perform better.
* Address overall Vista system performance issues. Microsoft says SP2 repairs nearly 700 nagging Vista bugs and security updates.
* Boosts power management efficiency by 10 percent.
* Gives your computer support for VIA Technologies' new 64-bit CPU
* Lets your system support exFAT, which can handle larger files and can also use UTC timestamps so you can synchronize files across different time zones.
You can download Vista SP2 directly from Microsoft at its Web site (348MB) or it will be automatically delivered to your Vista system via Windows Update within a few weeks, according to Microsoft. You must have Vista SP1 installed on your system to install the SP2 Vista.
Additional Vista SP2 Updates
Besides Blu-ray and Bluetooth support, Vista SP2 also:
* Fixes Wi-Fi issues when Vista awakes from sleep mode.
* Improves performance of Vista desktop sidebar gadget, allowing for RSS feeds to perform better.
* Address overall Vista system performance issues. Microsoft says SP2 repairs nearly 700 nagging Vista bugs and security updates.
* Boosts power management efficiency by 10 percent.
* Gives your computer support for VIA Technologies' new 64-bit CPU
* Lets your system support exFAT, which can handle larger files and can also use UTC timestamps so you can synchronize files across different time zones.
Intel's Nehalem EX to Gain Error Correction Technology
Intel's eight-core Nehalem EX server processor will include a technology derived from its high-end Itanium chips that helps to reduce data corruption and ensure reliable server performance, the company said Tuesday.
The processor will include an error correction feature called MCA Recovery, which will detect and fix errors that could otherwise cause systems to crash, said Boyd Davis, general manager of Intel's server platforms marketing group, at a press conference.
The chip will be able to detect system errors originating in the CPU or system memory and work with the operating system to correct them. That could help make systems more fault tolerant and provide greater uptime, he said.
Error correction is a feature Intel includes in its high-end Itanium chips, designed for servers that require very high levels of availability. Itanium uses a different instruction set to x86 server chips and competes more with RISC-based processors like Sun's Sparc and IBM's Power.
Though Intel is trying to push the Nehalem EX chips into higher-end environments, Davis brushed off concerns that the processors might cannibalize sales of its more expensive Itanium chips.
Itanium sales are driven largely by software and operating system choices, he said. For example, customers running Unix-based systems would be more likely to adopt Itanium over Xeon. In addition, the error correction in Itanium is more advanced than that in the Nehalem EX and can resolve a larger number of errors, Davis said.
"Our expectation is Itanium will be healthy for us based on software" and services, Davis said.
Still, Itanium has been less successful than Intel originally hoped, with only a few vendors such as Hewlett-Packard selling Itanium-based servers.
Last week Intel pushed back the release of the next version of Itanium, code-named Tukwila, to early next year. It said it wanted to speed the performance of highly threaded workloads.
Including the error correction feature in Nehalem EX marks a shift in Intel's strategy, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. Intel tried to keep Xeon confined to the lower end of the market and wanted customers to buy Itanium for mainframe-type applications. By equipping Xeon chips with higher-end features, Intel is pushing Xeon up into that market, Brookwood said.
However, customers running legacy applications or who need very high levels of availability, such as stock markets and banks, may continue to buy Itanium systems, he said.
Adding error correction to the Xeon line will be useful as workloads get more complex and use more memory, Davis said. It may also be helpful as workloads are spread across virtual machines in data centers. Data corruption in one virtual machine can spread to other VMs and cause a server to crash, Davis said. Nehalem EX will be able to isolate an error and restart individual virtual machines without crashing an entire system, he said.
The Nehalem EX chips will be the first x86 server chips to include such error correction features, Davis said. Intel is sampling the chips to server makers, and systems powered by them will begin shipping early next year, Davis said. Intel won't say yet what clockspeeds the chips will run at.
IBM displayed an eight-socket server at Tuesday's press event with 64 cores running 128 software threads simultaneously.
Intel is targeting the EX processors at high-end systems running data-intensive applications such as databases. The chips are built on the Nehalem microarchitecture, which improves system speed by cutting data bottlenecks that plagued Intel's earlier chips. Intel's existing Xeon 5500 quad-core chips, which launched in March, are also based on Nehalem.
Along with error correction, servers based on Nehalem EX will include separate buffered memory chips that can temporarily store data alongside the main memory for faster execution.
The processor will include an error correction feature called MCA Recovery, which will detect and fix errors that could otherwise cause systems to crash, said Boyd Davis, general manager of Intel's server platforms marketing group, at a press conference.
The chip will be able to detect system errors originating in the CPU or system memory and work with the operating system to correct them. That could help make systems more fault tolerant and provide greater uptime, he said.
Error correction is a feature Intel includes in its high-end Itanium chips, designed for servers that require very high levels of availability. Itanium uses a different instruction set to x86 server chips and competes more with RISC-based processors like Sun's Sparc and IBM's Power.
Though Intel is trying to push the Nehalem EX chips into higher-end environments, Davis brushed off concerns that the processors might cannibalize sales of its more expensive Itanium chips.
Itanium sales are driven largely by software and operating system choices, he said. For example, customers running Unix-based systems would be more likely to adopt Itanium over Xeon. In addition, the error correction in Itanium is more advanced than that in the Nehalem EX and can resolve a larger number of errors, Davis said.
"Our expectation is Itanium will be healthy for us based on software" and services, Davis said.
Still, Itanium has been less successful than Intel originally hoped, with only a few vendors such as Hewlett-Packard selling Itanium-based servers.
Last week Intel pushed back the release of the next version of Itanium, code-named Tukwila, to early next year. It said it wanted to speed the performance of highly threaded workloads.
Including the error correction feature in Nehalem EX marks a shift in Intel's strategy, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. Intel tried to keep Xeon confined to the lower end of the market and wanted customers to buy Itanium for mainframe-type applications. By equipping Xeon chips with higher-end features, Intel is pushing Xeon up into that market, Brookwood said.
However, customers running legacy applications or who need very high levels of availability, such as stock markets and banks, may continue to buy Itanium systems, he said.
Adding error correction to the Xeon line will be useful as workloads get more complex and use more memory, Davis said. It may also be helpful as workloads are spread across virtual machines in data centers. Data corruption in one virtual machine can spread to other VMs and cause a server to crash, Davis said. Nehalem EX will be able to isolate an error and restart individual virtual machines without crashing an entire system, he said.
The Nehalem EX chips will be the first x86 server chips to include such error correction features, Davis said. Intel is sampling the chips to server makers, and systems powered by them will begin shipping early next year, Davis said. Intel won't say yet what clockspeeds the chips will run at.
IBM displayed an eight-socket server at Tuesday's press event with 64 cores running 128 software threads simultaneously.
Intel is targeting the EX processors at high-end systems running data-intensive applications such as databases. The chips are built on the Nehalem microarchitecture, which improves system speed by cutting data bottlenecks that plagued Intel's earlier chips. Intel's existing Xeon 5500 quad-core chips, which launched in March, are also based on Nehalem.
Along with error correction, servers based on Nehalem EX will include separate buffered memory chips that can temporarily store data alongside the main memory for faster execution.
Microsoft confirms Zune HD coming this fall
Microsoft on Tuesday confirmed its plans to take on the iPod Touch with a new, touch-screen Zune that will be able to surf the Web, play high-definition movies, and tune in to digital radio.
The Zune HD, which will be available in the U.S. only starting this fall, features an HD Radio tuner as well as an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch screen, Microsoft said. It is based on Windows CE and will use a version of Internet Explorer customized for its touch screen, Microsoft said.
The software maker did not announce pricing or capacity, though it said the device will use flash memory and attempt to take on Apple's high-end iPod models.
"This device is created to go head to head with the iPod Touch," Chris Stephenson, general manager of global marketing for Microsoft Zune, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. Zune buyers will also be able to play HD content on their TVs via a dock, Microsoft said.
The software maker also said that at next week's E3 trade show in Los Angeles it will announce details on a new Zune-branded video service for the Xbox that will replace the current Xbox Live marketplace for TV and movies. The company didn't announce details or specifically say that content will be playable on both Zunes and the Xbox.
Currently videos purchased via the Xbox can't be played on a Zune, although both stores use a similar back-end infrastructure to serve up content. Over time, Stephenson said the goal is to move toward a world in which content purchased once can be played on a variety of devices.
Microsoft plans to offer the new Zune video service in a number of European markets, in addition to North America.
The Zune HD, which will be available in the U.S. only starting this fall, features an HD Radio tuner as well as an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) touch screen, Microsoft said. It is based on Windows CE and will use a version of Internet Explorer customized for its touch screen, Microsoft said.
The software maker did not announce pricing or capacity, though it said the device will use flash memory and attempt to take on Apple's high-end iPod models.
"This device is created to go head to head with the iPod Touch," Chris Stephenson, general manager of global marketing for Microsoft Zune, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. Zune buyers will also be able to play HD content on their TVs via a dock, Microsoft said.
The software maker also said that at next week's E3 trade show in Los Angeles it will announce details on a new Zune-branded video service for the Xbox that will replace the current Xbox Live marketplace for TV and movies. The company didn't announce details or specifically say that content will be playable on both Zunes and the Xbox.
Currently videos purchased via the Xbox can't be played on a Zune, although both stores use a similar back-end infrastructure to serve up content. Over time, Stephenson said the goal is to move toward a world in which content purchased once can be played on a variety of devices.
Microsoft plans to offer the new Zune video service in a number of European markets, in addition to North America.
As for the Zune HD, Microsoft is doubling down on its bet on a radio tuner as a distinguishing feature. Stephenson noted that the current Zune's FM radio is its second most popular selling point. Adding support for HD Radio, a free over-the-air digital radio technology, represents both a risk and opportunity.
"It's really one of the first portable HD radio receivers out there," Stephenson said. "It's going to be important for us to communicate the value of HD Radio since it is a fairly nascent technology."
One of the big unanswered questions is what sort of gaming abilities the Zune HD will have. There has been speculation on the topic, but Microsoft refused to comment ahead of E3 saying it had no details to share at this time.
Microsoft plans to continue selling its hard drive-based model, which will have a software QWERTY keyboard, but said it plans to eventually discontinue its other flash models in favor of the Zune HD.
"Expect to see the Zune HD...become the definitive Zune product going forward," Stephenson said. "You will continue to see the hard drive product in the market. (The Zune HD) will take over from existing flash devices."
Although Microsoft has said it isn't building a ZunePhone, the company does want to be able to offer its Zune service on phones. However, Stephenson said that is a longer-term goal that will take at least until next year to fulfill.
"This is enough work for us this year," he said. "Going forward, Zune will start to surface on multiple platforms across the ecosystem. Expect to see it pop up in many different places."
"It's really one of the first portable HD radio receivers out there," Stephenson said. "It's going to be important for us to communicate the value of HD Radio since it is a fairly nascent technology."
One of the big unanswered questions is what sort of gaming abilities the Zune HD will have. There has been speculation on the topic, but Microsoft refused to comment ahead of E3 saying it had no details to share at this time.
Microsoft plans to continue selling its hard drive-based model, which will have a software QWERTY keyboard, but said it plans to eventually discontinue its other flash models in favor of the Zune HD.
"Expect to see the Zune HD...become the definitive Zune product going forward," Stephenson said. "You will continue to see the hard drive product in the market. (The Zune HD) will take over from existing flash devices."
Although Microsoft has said it isn't building a ZunePhone, the company does want to be able to offer its Zune service on phones. However, Stephenson said that is a longer-term goal that will take at least until next year to fulfill.
"This is enough work for us this year," he said. "Going forward, Zune will start to surface on multiple platforms across the ecosystem. Expect to see it pop up in many different places."
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Microsoft May Rename Live Search 'Bing': Massive Ad Campaign Planned
Microsoft's new search engine is reportedly dumping its codename, Kumo, in favor of the brand name Bing. To get the word out, Microsoft is planning a massive advertising campaign to launch its new search brand. Bing's debut will feature a $80 to $100 million online, TV, print, and radio advertising campaign, according to AdvertisingAge. To put that number in perspective, Google's entire advertising budget for all of 2008 was $25 million, AdAge says. Microsoft is hoping a major ad push will take a chunk out of Google -- the number one online search brand -- in favor of Bing, the same way Microsoft's laptop hunter ads helped in its fight against Apple.
But Microsoft's ads won't take on Google, Yahoo, or even Ask.com directly by name. Instead, the Bing ads will try to convince you that by using "today's search engines" you're missing out on all that your search experience could be. To back up this assertion, Microsoft offers some internal data indicating 42 percent of all searches need to be refined after the first query, AdAge reports. Furthermore, Microsoft has found 25 percent of all post-search clicks hit the back button instead of a Website link when looking at a search results page.
The inability to find what you want on the first try may be where Microsoft believes Bing has an edge. In March, when screenshots of Microsoft's new search engine leaked online under the codename Kumo, the photos showed a "related categories" feature on the results page. If you were looking for a set of new stereo speakers, for example, you would see links to reviews, manuals, prices, and so on related to the specific product you were seeking. There were also examples of Kumo/Bing yielding different related categories in a search for entertainers with related categories like biographies, song lyrics, and albums. The ability to refine your search with directly relevant categories could be a very helpful search tool, as opposed to starting all over from scratch with a new query if you don't find what you're looking for.
If Bing's "related categories" feature can offer results directly relevant to your query each and every time you hit the search button, then Microsoft may be able to peel off some, but definitely not all, of that Google mojo. However, Bing's competitors may already have features comparable to related categories in their arsenals. Google rolled out its own set of tools to help you refine your search at its recent Searchology event, and Yahoo will launch search refinement tools in the coming months.
Whether Bing's features are a huge jump forward over Google's new tools or Yahoo's upcoming overhaul is hard to know, since no one outside of Microsoft has had a chance to try Bing. This week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to demonstrate Bing during the D: All Things D conference, which runs from May 26 through 28. It's not clear if Ballmer will announce a launch date for the new search engine from All Things D; however, once Bing is finally available to the public, I have no doubt many people will want to test drive the new search engine. But even if Bing can win over some early converts, the true test will be whether those users are still 'Binging' instead of 'Googling' a month or two later.
Service is not the only obstacle for a challenger to Google's dominance, either. To keep users coming back for more, Microsoft must dislodge the idea from the public consciousness that the name Google is synonymous with Internet search. Will 100 million greenbacks be enough to convince people that 'to Google' is not actually a verb? Microsoft may think so, but what do you say?
But Microsoft's ads won't take on Google, Yahoo, or even Ask.com directly by name. Instead, the Bing ads will try to convince you that by using "today's search engines" you're missing out on all that your search experience could be. To back up this assertion, Microsoft offers some internal data indicating 42 percent of all searches need to be refined after the first query, AdAge reports. Furthermore, Microsoft has found 25 percent of all post-search clicks hit the back button instead of a Website link when looking at a search results page.
The inability to find what you want on the first try may be where Microsoft believes Bing has an edge. In March, when screenshots of Microsoft's new search engine leaked online under the codename Kumo, the photos showed a "related categories" feature on the results page. If you were looking for a set of new stereo speakers, for example, you would see links to reviews, manuals, prices, and so on related to the specific product you were seeking. There were also examples of Kumo/Bing yielding different related categories in a search for entertainers with related categories like biographies, song lyrics, and albums. The ability to refine your search with directly relevant categories could be a very helpful search tool, as opposed to starting all over from scratch with a new query if you don't find what you're looking for.
If Bing's "related categories" feature can offer results directly relevant to your query each and every time you hit the search button, then Microsoft may be able to peel off some, but definitely not all, of that Google mojo. However, Bing's competitors may already have features comparable to related categories in their arsenals. Google rolled out its own set of tools to help you refine your search at its recent Searchology event, and Yahoo will launch search refinement tools in the coming months.
Whether Bing's features are a huge jump forward over Google's new tools or Yahoo's upcoming overhaul is hard to know, since no one outside of Microsoft has had a chance to try Bing. This week, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to demonstrate Bing during the D: All Things D conference, which runs from May 26 through 28. It's not clear if Ballmer will announce a launch date for the new search engine from All Things D; however, once Bing is finally available to the public, I have no doubt many people will want to test drive the new search engine. But even if Bing can win over some early converts, the true test will be whether those users are still 'Binging' instead of 'Googling' a month or two later.
Service is not the only obstacle for a challenger to Google's dominance, either. To keep users coming back for more, Microsoft must dislodge the idea from the public consciousness that the name Google is synonymous with Internet search. Will 100 million greenbacks be enough to convince people that 'to Google' is not actually a verb? Microsoft may think so, but what do you say?
Google's Chrome 2.0: First Impressions
Chrome 2.0 promises to be a faster browser than its predecessor, but don't expect many new features.
Google Chrome is a browser whose only claim to fame (aside from being a Google product) is its speed and simplicity. In fact, some would claim that Chrome is simple to a fault, with version 1 of the browser lacking features that seem almost fundamental for a Web browser in 2009, such as form auto-fill, a full-screen mode, and extensions. With Chrome 2.0, Google has closed the gap a little bit, adding a full-screen mode, form auto-fill, and the ability to remove thumbnails from the “New Tab” page, along with a whole host of bug fixes and overall performance improvements.
Chrome 2.0 looks and acts exactly like the previous version; the new features are so subtle that without Google’s announcement, it’s likely they would have gone unnoticed by many of its users. Full-screen mode is easy enough to find; press F11 to invoke it, or select it from the wrench icon menu in the toolbar. But it’s also nearly useless--when in Full-screen mode, all of the browser controls disappear: no tabs, no toolbar, nothing. You can’t enter new addresses to visit. You can’t access your bookmarks, except from the Chrome start page. Everything must be done via keyboard shortcuts or the anemic right-click menu. Google says this mode is designed for viewing videos and presentations in full-screen, but any competent video or presentation player already provides full-screen support, so I have to wonder why this feature even exists in this state.
The other new features aren’t much better. Form auto-fill is a feature that other browsers have had for years. As you fill out a form field, Chrome will display possible choices below the field, and you can click to select one. It’s not pretty, it just works. The ability to delete thumbnails from the “New Tab” page is utilitarian at best. Click Remove Thumbnails, click the thumbnails you want to remove, and click Done. Oddly, if you have fewer than four thumbnails and you delete one, it will remove all of your thumbnails (this is presumably a bug). Also, you can't rearrange the thumbnails on the page. Both of these features seem so basic that it’s a wonder they weren’t there all along.
Where Chrome 2.0 shines is in its performance. It zips through the most complex Web applications with ease, and never seems to get bogged down. The browser is lightning fast, but then so was version 1.0, and while Google asserts that 2.0 is even faster and more stable, no one is going to notice the small increments in speed and stability.
Chrome is the Lamborghini of Web browsers. It’s built to be the fastest browser out there, and--like a Lamborghini--it does so by putting powerful technology under the hood and adding just enough on top to make it street-legal, but not much more. The regrettable car analogy aside, Chrome 2.0 maintains that reputation. It isn’t going to win any functionality awards or come out on top in feature comparisons, and the new stuff is completely unremarkable. But it will still get you to your favorite sites faster than anything else, and for existing Chrome users it’s worth downloading, if only to stay current. Newcomers to Chrome, however, will find it extremely lacking.
Super Talent launches worlds fastest laptop ram
In the world of computing, terms such as world’s fastest laptop ram seem so relative. What may be the worlds fastest notebook ram today will probably be obsolete in a years time. Anyways, for those power users looking for an extra boost in performance, Super Talent announced today the launch of DDR3 SO-DIMM. With transfer speeds up to 10,664 MB/sec, DDR3 SO-DIMM has a 66% higher bandwidth capacity then the former generation called DDR2-800 SO-DIMMS.
In addition to the improved performance, the new SO-DIMM chips utilize only 1.5V compared to 1.8V for DDR2, thereby reducing energy needs by 20%. Street price for the new 204 pin RAM (part number W1333SA1GS) will be just under $99.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Microsoft's 'Kumo' Search Engine Rebranded 'Bing'?
Microsoft's 'Kumo' Search Engine Rebranded 'Bing'?
Hot on the heels of Google's annual search technology update and a similar event held by Yahoo on Tuesday, Microsoft next week is expected join the search scrum with renewed vigor.
The company is expected to demonstrate Kumo, its new search engine, at The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.
Microsoft's old search engine, Windows Live Search, has been unable to gain ground against Google, despite innovative schemes like paying businesses and consumers to use its Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search, SearchPerks, and Live Search cash back.
In November 2007, Microsoft's share of U.S. searches stood at 9.8%, according to ComScore. At the end of April 2009, its share had dropped to 8.2%.
Microsoft's new search engine, whether it's named Kumo or something that sounds less like a vegan sandwich spread, aims to reverse that trend. The company remains coy about whether the Kumo brand will be kept.
"As for rebranding, it's something we're still considering," Live Search general manager Mike Nichols said in a blog post in March.
Danny Sullivan, of Search Engine Land, claims four names are in the running: Kumo, Bing, Hook, and Sift.
Hook seems unlikely, given that just as Google employees have come to be known as "Googlers," Hook engineers, or perhaps its users, might face the prospect of being referred to as "Hookers." Any continuation of Microsoft's previous payment schemes to solicit search-engine use would only make matters worse.
Sullivan predicts the new name will be Bing, based on Microsoft's ownership of the domain.
Microsoft has been testing Kumo internally and to date has not provided much detail about how its new search engine will differ from Windows Live Search. A screenshot of a Kumo search results page for the query "bose lifestyle 48" looks remarkably similar to a Live Search results page for the same query. The only significant difference in the screenshot is the presence of links representing the user's previous searches. The new design looks more colorful, too.
Kumo, or whatever it's eventually called, will likely feature search result categorization and other refinements designed to make general queries more specific. But it's unlikely to immediately put Google on the defensive. As the history of Ask.com has shown, innovative features don't always translate into market leadership.
Still, those worried about Google's search dominance may find a new start for Microsoft is just the excuse they need to jump ship and support the underdog, the largest software company in the world.
Hot on the heels of Google's annual search technology update and a similar event held by Yahoo on Tuesday, Microsoft next week is expected join the search scrum with renewed vigor.
The company is expected to demonstrate Kumo, its new search engine, at The Wall Street Journal's D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad, Calif.
Microsoft's old search engine, Windows Live Search, has been unable to gain ground against Google, despite innovative schemes like paying businesses and consumers to use its Microsoft Service Credits for Web Search, SearchPerks, and Live Search cash back.
In November 2007, Microsoft's share of U.S. searches stood at 9.8%, according to ComScore. At the end of April 2009, its share had dropped to 8.2%.
Microsoft's new search engine, whether it's named Kumo or something that sounds less like a vegan sandwich spread, aims to reverse that trend. The company remains coy about whether the Kumo brand will be kept.
"As for rebranding, it's something we're still considering," Live Search general manager Mike Nichols said in a blog post in March.
Danny Sullivan, of Search Engine Land, claims four names are in the running: Kumo, Bing, Hook, and Sift.
Hook seems unlikely, given that just as Google employees have come to be known as "Googlers," Hook engineers, or perhaps its users, might face the prospect of being referred to as "Hookers." Any continuation of Microsoft's previous payment schemes to solicit search-engine use would only make matters worse.
Sullivan predicts the new name will be Bing, based on Microsoft's ownership of the domain.
Microsoft has been testing Kumo internally and to date has not provided much detail about how its new search engine will differ from Windows Live Search. A screenshot of a Kumo search results page for the query "bose lifestyle 48" looks remarkably similar to a Live Search results page for the same query. The only significant difference in the screenshot is the presence of links representing the user's previous searches. The new design looks more colorful, too.
Kumo, or whatever it's eventually called, will likely feature search result categorization and other refinements designed to make general queries more specific. But it's unlikely to immediately put Google on the defensive. As the history of Ask.com has shown, innovative features don't always translate into market leadership.
Still, those worried about Google's search dominance may find a new start for Microsoft is just the excuse they need to jump ship and support the underdog, the largest software company in the world.
New iPhone could go on sale July 17
New iPhone could go on sale July 17.by Kent German (www.cnet.com)
Forgive us for repeating rumors, but when you're writing about future Apple products like the next version of the iPhone, rumors are all you have until the thoroughly tight-lipped company officially spills the beans.
Today's rumor--well, actually it's yesterday's rumor--comes courtesy of AppleiPhoneApps.com. Through its very own Deep Throat--aka a source who is "closely connected to Apple's hardware development team"--the Web site posted some details on just what the third-generation iPhone will offer. What's more, it names Friday, July 17, as the release date.
We can't verify anything right now, but some of the predictions make more sense than others. A July 17 release date is very plausible. Both the iPhone Classic and the iPhone 3G went on sale on Fridays (June 29, 2007, and July 11, 2008, respectively). Apple likes to respect tradition.
Here's a list of what the new iPhone could offer, along with my comments. AppleiPhoneApps is also predicting that the $199 and $299 price tags will remain.
A 32GB model--We've expected this for some time. What's more, it would be welcome.
Double the RAM and processing power--Ditto here.
A 3.2-megapixel camera with video-recording capabilities--We've been hearing about this for a while, as well. But while Apple is at it, we'd also like more camera editing features.
Ability to send a pictures and video via MMS--The iPhone 3.0 software update will add the ability to send photos with MMS so videos would make sense too.
Turn-by-turn directions--We'll also get this with the 3.0 update. The feature won't be native, but it will come through apps.
1.5x the battery life--The short battery life is one of the iPhone 3G's biggest flaws. I'd look forward to this improvement the most.
Apple logo on the rear side will light up--This one is random, indeed. Outside of the, "Look at me, I have an iPhone!" factor I can't imagine why you'd want this. Plus, I agree that it would be useless and annoying if it negatively affected battery life.
Built-in compass--This is a bit random, but anything is possible. You can get limited compass functionality through a compass app.
Built-in FM transmitter--This would be a first for Apple, so I'm suspicious. But I'd like it.
Other physical changes--AppleiPhoneApps says the metal border might go away and the new model could have a sleeker profile and a rubber tread on its backside. Personally, I think the iPhone is sleek enough already, but some CNET readers have said the opposite. The rubber tread would protect against falls, I suppose. The blog also mentioned an OLED display.
AppleiPhoneApps also promises a "revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, and Google maps" that will identify photos and photo locations. Now, while that sounds like just the sort of thing Apple would do, CNET News' Daniel Terdiman rightly pointed out when we chatted recently that it wouldn't be the first of its kind. Such an application is in development for the Android platform.
Monday, June 8, would be the earliest we'd learn the details on new iPhone models. That's when Apple Vice President Phil Schiller will open the company's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco with a keynote address.
One analyst has suggested that an announcement could come later in the month following the return of CEO Steve Jobs, but most informed eyes are looking toward July as the magic month for both a new model and the formal release of the 3.0 update.
Of course, we'll relay the details as soon as we know them. In the meantime, tell us what you think the new iPhone will have and what you'd like it to have.
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