Game Booster Hones Your System's Gaming Edge

Game Booster Hones Your System's Gaming Edge
Ian Harac
timestamp(1243743180000,'longDateTime')
May 31, 2009 10:13 am




Back in the 1980s, gamers would laboriously hand-edit autoexec.bat files to squeeze every kilobyte of RAM they could from their cutting-edge 80286 boxes. Today, we have computers to do that for us. The free Game Booster frees you from special boot floppies, by looking for unnecessary processes (such as a tablet driver when you don't have a tablet PC) and turning them, temporarily, off. You can easily turn them on again by exiting "Game Mode."





There's really not much more to it than that. You have control over which processes to turn off, and Game Booster also checks for programs which do not seem to be essential for running games. I verified that the processes selected terminated and started as expected. As to how much of a boost you will get... that depends on how close to the edge your system runs. I regained some 300 meg of memory, a fair chunk, but on a 4 gig system, I rarely end up page swapping when running games, unless I very deliberately try to fill up RAM. Those on lower end systems may find the effect to be quite noticeable.
Note: I have had no problems with this program or with other, similar, "performance tuners". Other users sometimes report issues with performance-tweaking software . While it is very unlikely this program's actions could cause any problem that couldn't be solved with a simple reboot, as with any program which changes running processes, use it cautiously. Make a system restore point before trying it out, just in case.

Source: pcworld.com

Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo: Feature Smackdown

Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo: Feature Smackdown We compare top features of three search engines-Bing, Google, and Yahoo--in the ultimate search engine battle royale. Tom Spring, PC World timestamp(1243641900000,'longDateTime') May 30, 2009 6:05 am



























Bing vs. Google vs. Yahoo

In the arena of world-class search, can Bing bring the hurt to Google and Yahoo? Microsoft's newest search engine comes packed with search tools such as an Explorer Pane for refining searches, Quick Previews for sneaking a peek at a site before visiting it, and Sentiment Extraction for making sense of product reviews.
Google and Yahoo, meanwhile, are no chumps. Google has outwitted its competitors by delivering solid search results and cool tools such as Street Views. Yahoo has done a masterful job of integrating search results with its rich network of Yahoo content. Search for the musician Sting within Yahoo, and presto--you're watching Yahoo music videos or listening to streaming audio of Sting singing "Desert Rose" from within your search results.
How do these services stack up against each other? Bing targets four categories of search: shopping, local, travel, and health. In a highly subjective comparison, I tested Bing, Google, and Yahoo in these areas and in others.


Source :pcworld.com

Dell Building up Its Cash Reserves for Acquisition

Dell Building up Its Cash Reserves for Acquisition
Sumner Lemon, IDG News Service

Thursday, May 28, 2009 11:00 PM PDT

Dell plans to grow its business by acquiring another company, a senior executive said Friday.
"Michael [Dell] did talk about our desire to increase activity for inorganic growth. We have established a healthy cash position and strategically we will be looking for opportunities to do that," said Steve Felice, president of the company's small and medium business unit, during a conference call with reporters.
"Obviously we won't share those details, because we can't disclose what companies or when, but we are looking at opportunities to expand the business," Felice said.
Dell had US$9.7 billion [B] in cash and equivalents on its balance sheet at the end of its fiscal first quarter, which closed on May 1. That represents an increase of 16 percent since January 30, when the company ended its last fiscal year.
The increase in Dell's cash reserves is particularly notable for the difficult business environment that the company faced during the first quarter. Revenue fell 23 percent compared to the same period one year earlier, from US$14 billion during the first quarter of 2008 to US$10.2 billion.
There's no shortage of speculation as to what companies Dell might be interested in buying.
Some see Palm as a logical target since buying the company would give Dell immediate access to a line of smartphones -- a segment of the market that Dell officials, including CEO Michael Dell, have expressed interest in.
If Palm is a target, the upcoming Pre handset may be a principal reason. Scheduled to go on sale next week in the U.S., the Pre uses a new operating system and is seen as a potential rival to Apple's iPhone and handsets based on Google's Android operating system.
Others see rival Acer as a possible acquisition target for Dell. The Taiwanese PC maker has grown quickly in recent years, taking PC market share away from larger rivals. Buying Acer would increase Dell's share of the PC market, although there would be a fair amount of overlap across computer product lines. In addition, Acer is also building its own line of smartphones, based largely on its acquisition of Taiwanese handset maker E-Ten Information Systems last year.
While acquisitions can help companies expand into new markets or increase their market share, they are fraught with risks -- as Lenovo Group found with its 2005 acquisition of IBM's former PC division.
That acquisition was meant to vault Lenovo into a leading position in global PC markets. Instead, after seeing sales to large companies sink in North America and Europe, Lenovo instead turned its focus back to China in a bid to cut its losses.

source: pcworld.com

3G Auction a Priority for India's Communications Minister

3G Auction a Priority for India's Communications Minister
John Ribeiro, IDG News Service

Friday, May 29, 2009 12:20 AM PDT

India's auction of 3G licenses will be a priority, A. Raja, the country's minister of communications and information technology, told the Press Trust of India news agency on Thursday after he was sworn in to the post.
Raja did not specify a timeline for the auction.
The auction has been frequently postponed because of differences between the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on the floor price for the auction. The Ministry of Finance favored an increase in the floor price to raise more revenue from the auction, according to sources.
Elections to the federal parliament, started in April, further delayed the auction.
Raja, who was minister of communications and information technology before the elections, was sworn in again on Thursday after the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was re-elected this month.
No longer dependent on communist members of parliament for its majority in parliament, the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is expected to push through economic reforms in a number of sectors, including communications.
The communications ministry announced in December plans to auction 3G licenses and spectrum by January 16. Both Indian and foreign bidders were to be allowed to bid, though the foreign winning bidders would be limited to a 74 percent stake in companies operating 3G services.
One block of spectrum in each of the service areas was reserved for use by two government controlled telecommunications companies -- Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. (MTNL). However, the government said that these companies would have to pay license fee for the spectrum at the highest bid in each service area.
In addition, the government allocated spectrum to the two companies that have already introduced 3G services in some parts of the country.

source:pcworld.com

Microsoft 'Bing' Would Bring New Life to Old Domain

Microsoft 'Bing' Would Bring New Life to Old Domain
JR Raphael, PC World

May 27, 2009 2:42 am

Microsoft's planning to relaunch its Live search engine under the name "Bing," a recent report suggests. Bing will debut with a massive ad campaign costing upward of $100 million, the folks at AdvertisingAge claim, putting both the "Live" brand and the "Kumo" codename into Microsoft's big brand graveyard.
But what is "Bing," anyway? Its definitions vary from "a heap or pile" to "a blackish sweet cherry." Its Web site, though, has a slightly more colorful palette. Sure, bing.com is coming up mainly blank as of now -- but not too long ago, someone else had a thing for Bing.
Bing.com: The Early Years
The bing.com domain name was first registered in late January 1996, just one year after yahoo.com and a year before google.com. (Microsoft snagged its own dot-com identity in 1991.) In its early incarnation, the name Bing belonged to a Colorado company trying to sell a "personal notification device" it described as "the first practical solution to personal and discrete cell phone ring notification."

So what was this "practical" and "discrete" solution? It was evidently a small contraption that would vibrate remotely when your cell phone rang. "Bing allows a person to keep their cell phone in a pocket, purse, briefcase, heavy coat, in another room, or anywhere up to a few hundred feet away, and be notified of a cell phone call without attracting attention and without having to 'wear' a clunky phone on his or her hip," an early version of bing.com explained.
Hmm. Guess the introduction of the smaller cell phone with built-in vibrate mode kind of killed that idea.
Bing's Next Thing
By 2006, the Bing notification device had buzzed out of existence and bing.com had gone back to being a parked domain. Toward the end of that year, though, someone else snatched up the domain and tried to put the "cha-ching" back into Bing.

"Bing is a new project started by Eric Hahn and funded by Benchmark Capital and Matrix Partners," the revamped bing.com proclaimed. "We're building a B2B CRM pen-computing AI P2P groupware product with great SMB ROI. No, not really (we're still in stealth mode)."

Within a couple of months, bing.com had morphed into a portal for a mail service known as "EasyMail." Billed as a "new era in postal mail," the next-generation bing.com allowed Aussies to electronically send documents into a "Bing post office," which would print and fold the papers, place them in an envelope, then send them out via the postal service. That site existed in some form at bing.com through at least the beginning of 2008. What appears to be the same company is still using the "Bing" name, though now operating at the domain bingmail.com.au.
The Future of Bing
The bing.com domain records were last updated this past March and now indicate the site is owned by "Microsoft Corporation" at One Microsoft Way in Redmond. A tiny blue, orange, and white logo has appeared in the site's favicon -- that little square box that pops up next to the URL in your browser -- on and off during the day. It shows a lowercase "b" with a white-outlined orange circle inside.

So what's next for Bing? Microsoft has yet to say much, although CEO Steve Ballmer is expected to demo the company's updated search product sometime at this week's D: All Things D conference in Carlsbad, Calif. Maybe then, we'll see if Bing's the thing to put the spring back in Microsoft's swing -- or if its launch will sting worse than an ill-fated fling. (Zing.)

Source: pcworld.com

Is This What the Next-Gen iPod Will Look Like?

Is This What the Next-Gen iPod Will Look Like?
Jeff Bertolucci, PC World
timestamp(1243375140000,'longDateTime')
May 27, 2009 2:59 am
















We’ve been hearing a lot lately about Apple’s alleged plans to add an iPhone-like camera to its next-generation iPods, and now iLounge has posted its rendition of what the 5th generation iPod might look like. The “artist’s rendition” is based on rumors, gossip, and other scuttlebutt culled by the site’s editors, and it’s probably a pretty good take of what the 5th-gen iPod nano may look like -- assuming iLounge’s sources are accurate. Here it is:

At first glance, the imaginary next-gen iPod (above) looks pretty much the same as its predecessor (below), except for the wider screen ratio that stretches to 1.5:1 from 1:33:1. The Click Wheel is slightly smaller and positioned a bit lower on the nano’s body, and a digital camera is placed at a seemingly awkward spot on the nano’s backside.

While iLounge’s mockup iPod is impressive, the camera placement does seem out of whack. Still, the marriage of iPod and digital camera is likely. Recent reports have Apple buying 3- and 5-megapixel camera CCDs from Omnivision for its embedded devices, and many sources expect to see a camera-equipped iPod later this year.

Soruce:pcworld.com

Read Outlook Express E-Mail...Without Running Outlook Express

Read Outlook Express E-Mail...Without Running Outlook Express
Preston Gralla
timestamp(1243377840000,'longDateTime')
May 27, 2009 3:44 am

Got a need to view Microsoft Outlook Express 4, 5, or 6 e-mail without having access to Outlook Express? Want to view Windows Vista Mail and Windows Live mail message databases? You'll want MiTeC Mail Viewer. This free program lets you view those message stores, as well as message stores in any standalone .EML files, used by some e-mail programs.

Simply run MiTeC Mail Viewer, point it at the location of the file, and then select the folder you want to view. You'll then be able to browse through the e-mail, and save individual files as well as attachments. It's also nice that you can view not just the e-mail itself, but also the source code as well. This can come in handy for tracing suspicious e-mail or checking for phishing scams.
The program does have some problems, though. It didn't properly read HTML messages; I could decipher the content, but it didn't look like the original message. Aside from that, MiTeC Mail Viewer is free and simple, so worth a try if you need to view Outlook Express e-mail without having access to Outlook Express.

Source: pcworld.com

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Make Professional Photo Books With AsukaBook Maker

Make Professional Photo Books With AsukaBook Maker
Sally Wiener Grotta and Daniel Grotta timestamp(1243031040000,'longDateTime')
May 23, 2009 3:24 am

When professional photographers shoot a wedding or other events or projects, one of the products they offer their clients is a top quality photo book. And one of tools that some pros like to use for creating these coffee table-type books is AsukaBook Maker. AsukaBook Maker is a free layout program that generates an Acrobat PDF file. Its primary purpose is to help Asuka clients prepare the files needed to order books from Asuka, but you can also output the generated PDF to your desktop printer


















Though the software is free, you must register with Asuka to obtain the activation code, which can take up to two days to arrive via email. If you want to just check out the software, you don't need to register. But if you want to generate a PDF or order a book, you'll need the activation code.
On startup, you have the option of creating a book using Auto Layout or Custom Design, working on a book you've already created, or using the Organizer. Since AsukaBook provides the software for professional photographers who order books from the company, the first step is to define the type of book in terms of what AsukaBook offers for sale - the type of cover, style, page finish, size and so forth.
Laying out the actual book is mostly a drag and drop affair: select your page templates, photos, photo edges and masks, and place them on the page. You can add a handful of special effects (such as drop shadow, fade or monochrome styles), move and resize photos, add text and so forth. Once you develop styles that you like, you can save your own custom design templates. AsukaBook Maker is integrated with Photoshop CS2 and CS3 (but not CS4) for editing and fine-tuning placed photos.
The entire program is focused on the business and creative needs of pros. So, in addition to generating the high resolution PDF and an order form for the book, it can save a low resolution file of the book layout, so clients can see exactly what the book will look like and give their approval or feedback. .
Once you understand the program, it is generally easy to use, while still providing a good amount of creative flexibility. But it does not follow some common interface conventions, such as drop-down menus, and it isn't entirely intuitive. What's more, the online manual is well-organized but shallow, offering little help for the user in choosing among various options. Nor does it have a search option. So, there is a learning curve involved. But the result can be a beautiful photo book of the type you'd expect from a professional photographer--especially if you decide to pay to order your book from Asuka rather than print it out yourself. However, Asuka says that they will accept book orders only from registered professionals, and prices vary.

Source:pcworld.com

Google to Give Libraries Say on Prices for Scanned Books

Google to Give Libraries Say on Prices for Scanned Books
Nancy Gohring, IDG News Service
timestamp(1243033215000,'longDateTime')
May 23, 2009 4:00 am

The University of Michigan has become the first library to amend its book scanning deal with Google, following a proposed settlement that Google reached last year with authors and publishers that sued it.
As part of the amended deal, other institutions can pay a subscription to access the University of Michigan's digitized books. Since Google will set those fees, the University of Michigan will be able to challenge the fee and the parties will settle any disagreements in arbitration.
The agreement follows the proposed settlement deal reached in October between Google and the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, which sued Google for copyright violation for scanning books without always getting permission from the copyright owners of the books.
The fees for accessing the digitized books will be determined on a tiered basis, so an institution like Harvard might pay more than a small public library, said Jennie Johnson, a Google spokeswoman.
Any public or college library will also be able to let patrons view the entire catalog of the university's scanned books for free from one computer. If they want to allow broader access, they'll be required to pay the subscription.
Google will also donate at least US$5 million to the University of Michigan and others that sign new book scanning agreements, to support the kind of research enabled by such a large catalog of digital books. "It provides academics, computer scientists, linguists with tremendous research opportunities," Johnson said.
If Google's settlement with the authors' groups is approved by the court, it will offer the University of Michigan a free subscription to access all the books Google has digitized from 29 libraries around the world.
The deal also includes more support for allowing people with disabilities to access the books and will enable improved digital copies. It also stipulates safeguards so that even if Google were to go out of business, the digital copies of the books will still be available. In addition, it leaves the door open for Google to display advertising alongside the books, in a similar way that it does with books submitted by publishers in Book Search.
The settlement, which must still be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, has its critics. Pamela Samuelson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, argues that the proposed settlement is in essence a way to monetize so-called orphan works, and that it is questionable whether the deal represents the best interests of the authors of such works. Orphan works are those for which no one claims ownership, either because the author is dead or the publishing house no longer exists.
Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit group, argues that the proposal gives Google special protections against lawsuits over the orphan works. Those special protections would discourage other potential Google competitors from entering the digital book business unless they could negotiate a similar protection, the group argues.
The group urged the U.S. Department of Justice to examine the settlement. While the DOJ does not discuss matters it is looking into, a person close to the matter recently confirmed to IDG News Service that the DOJ is in the early stages of seeking information about the proposed settlement but has not launched a formal inquiry.

Source: pcworld.com

Huawei Moves up in Networking's Big Leagues

Huawei Moves up in Networking's Big Leagues
Stephen Lawson, IDG News Service
Friday, May 22, 2009 4:00 PM PDT

Huawei Technologies became the third-biggest seller of mobile infrastructure in the world in the first quarter, further expanding its worldwide role on the strength of sales both inside and outside its native China.
The huge communications vendor displaced Alcatel-Lucent to take its place behind global leader Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks in quarterly revenue, according to market research company Dell'Oro Group. Alcatel-Lucent had the fourth biggest sales in the quarter, followed by ailing Nortel Networks. In the top three, Ericsson had 33 percent of the market, followed by Nokia Siemens at 20 percent and Huawei at 15 percent. A year earlier, Huawei had been ranked fourth, with just 8 percent.
The biggest development in the quarter was a set of contracts signed for 3G networks in China, the first such deals in that country. Biggest among these was China Unicom's US$5 billion [b] tender for WCDMA (Wideband Code-Division Multiple Access) base stations. Huawei took the biggest share of this revenue, 30 percent. But the company isn't relying only on contracts in China, nor on low prices, to gain on its international competitors, Dell'Oro analyst Scott Siegler [cq] said.
The majority of Huawei's mobile infrastructure sales have been in Europe, where the company grew dramatically in 2008 and counts Vodafone, Telecom Italia and Deutsche Telekom among its customers, Siegler said. The company also plays in Latin America, though it has yet to make significant inroads into North America.
"It's good technology, and it's a fantastic price," Siegler said.
The competition has adjusted to meet the challenge, according to Siegler. In China as well as India, the world's other huge, fast-growing market, Ericsson has been able to match Huawei's prices through volume, he said. In some recent showdowns for deployments in India, Ericsson came in with the lowest bid. Other Western manufacturers are also starting to match Huawei, Siegler said.
China will dominate 3G spending over the next few years, with three national operators planning $60 billion [b] of tenders after the government delayed the issuance of 3G licenses for several years. That figure includes TD-SCDMA (Time-Division Synchronous CDMA), a technology specific to China that Dell'Oro does not track, Siegler said. Beginning in 2011, Chinese carriers plan to start deploying 4G mobile data networks, with all three operators committed to LTE (Long-Term Evolution). Mobile phones still have less than 50 percent penetration in the world's most populous country, he said.
Foreign equipment vendors aren't being left out of the Chinese bidding, Siegler pointed out. In fact, until recently they dominated infrastructure buildouts at the national carriers, he said. Now both Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese vendor, are picking up steam at home as well as in other countries.

Despite network construction continuing in China and India, the twin juggernauts of the cellular world, equipment makers aren't bringing in as much money, according to Siegler.
"Competition is really driving down prices," Siegler said. Dell'Oro forecasts compound annual growth in revenue of just 1 percent between 2008 and 2013.

Source: pcworld.com

Microsoft to Give Its First JavaOne Keynote

Microsoft to Give Its First JavaOne Keynote
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Friday, May 22, 2009 4:10 PM PDT

Here's a first: Microsoft will be giving a keynote address at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco next month.
Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have come a long way since their bitter split over Java in the late 1990s, but until now, Microsoft has never been on the big stage at Sun's annual developer conference.
Microsoft's vice president of strategic and emerging business development Dan'l Lewin will speak on June 4, providing an update on Sun and Microsoft's effort to make Java interoperate with Microsoft's .NET programming environment.
The two compnaies have been on friendlier terms since they settled a lawsuit over Microsoft's use of Java in 2004. And Microsoft has attended JavaOne in recent years.
Microsoft has been working to shed its image as a go-it-alone monopolist in recent years as it struggles to compete in a world increasingly dominated by Internet companies such as Google.
In a statement, Microsoft said its customers need more openness. "We continue to intensify our efforts in several areas, as evidenced by our recent agreement to use the SAML federation standard in both the Sun OpenSSO Enterprise federation solution and the forthcoming Microsoft "Geneva" Server federation solution," Microsoft said.

source:pcworld.com

Help a Medium Solve Supernatural Mysteries in The Blackwell Legacy

Help a Medium Solve Supernatural Mysteries in The Blackwell Legacy
Kim Saccio-Kent timestamp(1243039080000,'longDateTime')
May 23, 2009 5:38 am


What's more important to you in a game--slick special effects, or a compelling story line? If you're more interested in a good story than fancy animation, then give The Blackwell Legacy ($15, free demo) a try

Rosangela Blackwell is a bright young journalist who lives in New York, and she's got some issues. After her aunt's mysterious death in a mental institution, Rosa discovers that both her aunt and her grandmother were mediums in touch with the spirit world--and both went insane as a result. Unluckily for Rosa, she's inherited the family spirit guide. Assisted by tough-talking (but deceased) Joey Mallone, her mission is to assist wayward spirits and investigate supernatural crimes, and you get to come along for the ride.
The folks at Wadjet Eye Games clearly put a lot of thought into the narrative, and they recruited talented voice actors to bring the characters to life. However, the graphics are blocky and the game plays out in a small box on screen. More important, the interface is less than intuitive and there's no Help file (at least in the demo). For example, a dossier concerning Rosa's aunt is delivered. Click on the package, however, and it disappears. It took me a while to figure out that I had to mouse to the top of the window to get to the inventory, and then right-click the item to open it. At one point Rosa says that there are photos within the dossier, but I never did figure out how to access them.
The Blackwell Legacy demo is a stand-alone executable file that gives you a good idea of what the game involves, but it is more of an advertisement than a game. If you enjoy a good mystery, though, this demo may well convince you to shell out $15 for the download.
Note: The demo ran fine on my Windows XP machine, but the vendor does not provide compatibility info.
--Kim Saccio-Kent

source:pcworld.com

Why You Don't Want Windows 7s XP Mode

Why You Don't Want Windows 7s XP Mode
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Thursday, April 30, 2009 8:40 AM PDT
Windows 7 will feature a Windows XP mode that will allow applications to run in an XP virtual box so they will run without problems, but will appear as if they're running natively on Windows 7. It's a great tool for businesses and may end up killing Windows XP. But there are five reasons that it's not ideal for consumers.
XP Mode isn't targeted at consumers; instead it's primarily for small and medium-sized businesses who have applications that won't run well on Windows 7. Using it allows those businesses to upgrade to Windows 7, but still be able to run their old XP applications.
For small and medium-sized businesses, it's a great deal -- you get the flash and productivity improvements of Windows 7, while still running Windows XP apps. And you won't have to pay extra for running XP --- it will be free.
Consumers, though, may not be so pleased with XP mode. Here are five reasons why.
The file system may be a kludge
The file system in XP mode will be separate from the file system in Windows 7. So sharing files between the two environments will be a challenge. There will be ways to share files and folders between the two of them, but Microsoft says that it won't be one hundred percent seamless. In other words, prepare to be confused.
It's not for gamers
Are there games that run on XP but don't run well on Vista, and you don't expect them to run well on Windows 7? Don't expect XP Mode to help. It's not designed to run games, and so won't be a viable solution for you.
You won't get the full Windows 7 experience
Individual windows in XP Mode will look like XP, even though they're running inside Windows 7. But they won't run like Windows 7 windows, and won't have all of Windows 7 features. For example, they won't work properly with Aero Peek.
It won't ship as part of Windows 7
Windows XP mode will primarily be provided by computer makers or system integrators directly to businesses --- companies will buy machines with XP mode already installed and ready to go. IT staff will also be given tools to install XP mode on Windows 7 machines, and manage them.
Consumers, though, will be on their own. They'll have to download software, and do the installation themselves. In the ideal world, this will be easy. Few of us live in the ideal world, and usually it takes a bit of hit-and-miss to properly install virtual machines. Don't expect it to be a walk in the park.
You most likely won't need it
Microsoft is targeting small businesses with XP Mode. Older applications that typically might have problems with Windows 7 are connectivity-related applications, and custom-built ones. Most other applications should work fine in Windows 7. For that reason, most consumers will never feel the need to give XP Mode a whirl.
None of these caveats apply to small and medium-sized businesses --- for them XP Mode will most likley work very well, and be a very good deal. But most consumers shouldn't expect much from it.

Source: pcworld.com

Windows 7: Already Slipping in the Polls?

Windows 7: Already Slipping in the Polls?
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
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Just over a week after Microsoft handed Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) to the public, the new operating system's market share gains have started to slow, according to data from Web metrics vendor Net Applications.
As of Thursday, Windows 7's overall share of the operating system user base was 0.39%, an increase of 18% over the same day the week before.
Microsoft delivered Windows 7 RC to the general public late on May 4, saying it would not limit the number of downloads and would make it available until at least the end of July.
Since its release, Windows 7 RC's market share crept up from 0.27% to finish the May 4 workweek at 0.36%, then jumped to 0.47% last Saturday and up again to 0.5% Sunday before slipping back to 0.39% Monday.
Its week-over-week gains, however, show that Windows 7 RC's pace has slowed after an initial surge. Monday's week-over-week increase of 44.4%, for example, was followed by Tuesday's 40.7%, Wednesday's 25.8% and yesterday's 18.1%.
Microsoft has declined to comment on the number of copies of Windows 7 RC that have been downloaded this week, or to characterize the pace or volume of RC downloads.
The larger share Windows 7 enjoys on weekends is no surprise, since it's much more likely that users have installed it on their home computers -- which comprise a much higher percentage of the systems in use on weekends -- than on company PCs and laptops. Even so, last Saturday's and Sunday's week-over-week gains were relatively modest -- 20% and 20.5%, respectively -- and smaller than the increases seen May 2-3 compared to April 25-26, when users were still running the Windows 7 beta released in January.
In comparison, Windows 7's seven-day average share of 0.41% was less than half that of Linux during April (1%) or the ancient Windows 2000 (1.2%), and just a fraction of the 62.2% owned by Windows XP, which Windows 7 hopes to replace.
Net Applications measures usage share by identifying the operating systems running on computers used to surf to the 40,000 sites it monitors for customers. The company has published Windows 7 daily share data on its Web site.

Source: pcworld.com

Windows 7 by the Holidays: Here is Microsoft's Game Plan

Windows 7 by the Holidays: Here is Microsoft's Game Plan
JR Raphael, PC World
timestamp(1242081180000,'longDateTime')
May 12, 2009 3:33 am

Windows 7 will be here by the holidays, Microsoft has revealed. The company officially announced the operating system would become available "in time for the holiday shopping season" on Monday, making reports of an October Windows 7 release appear all the more reliable.
The date may only be months away, but for Microsoft engineers, the work is far from finished. Here's a look at what'll happen behind-the-scenes between now and the release date, and what could still change within the Windows 7 software.
The Windows 7 Game Plan
Windows 7 is currently available for download as a public release candidate. Its next step is transitioning into release-to-manufacturing (RTM) mode. That's the final phase before the software will become generally available for customer purchase.
So, what's that really mean? Basically, the Microsoft team will now spend its time looking for serious flaws or compatibility issues. The look and feel of the software itself, though, isn't likely to shift any further.
"We will not be changing the functionality or features of the product at this point," explains Steven Sinofsky, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows Engineering Group. "That’s the sort of thing we’ll save for a future release."
That doesn't mean everything will necessarily stay stable. Key areas that could lead to code changes include issues within installation, security, stability, device compatibility, and software installation. Updated builds are being released daily as such tweaks are made.
"We have a lot of engineers changing a very little bit of code," Sinofsky says. "We’re being very deliberate with every change we make."
What's Still in the Works
Some aspects of Windows 7 are still under general development, too: Multilanguage support is currently being programmed, and supporting materials -- a new Windows Web site and updated resource kits, for example -- are also being created.
One area just being tested this week is Windows 7's integrated update system. Microsoft is planning to send out blank updates to Windows 7 RC users starting this Tuesday. The empty updates, Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc explains, will be used to "verify [Microsoft's] ability to deliver and manage updating of Windows 7 in certain real-life scenarios."
Windows 7: What Now?
The Windows 7 RTM process is expected to start wrapping up by mid-August. As for the final release date, Microsoft is holding off on getting any more specific than "the holiday season" thus far.
In the meantime, you can see if your computer is Windows 7-ready, perhaps check out the release candidate for yourself, and check out some of PC World's other recent Windows 7 coverage:
• "Windows 7 RC Adds New Remote Media Streaming, Virtual Windows XP Mode"
• "Speed Test: Windows 7 May Not Be Much Faster Than Vista"
• "Is Jumping from XP to Windows 7 too Complicated?"
• "Microsoft Mum on Vista Plans After Windows 7 Launch"

Source: pcworld.com

Windows 7 Speeds on Solid State Drives

Windows 7 Speeds on Solid State Drives

Microsoft Corp. on Tuesday gave a strong, though qualified, endorsement for running Windows 7 on PCs equipped with solid-state disk (SSD) drives, saying it has tuned the upcoming operating system to run faster on the still-emerging storage technology.
At the same time, Microsoft admitted that it has not solved two lingering problems that can cause SSDs -- mostly lower-end, older ones -- to perform sluggishly or even worse than conventional hard drives.
Out of the box, Windows 7 should install and "operate efficiently on SSDs without requiring any customer intervention," Microsoft distinguished engineer Michael Fortin wrote in a posting at the Engineering Windows 7 blog.
Users of Windows 7 -- the Release Candidate 1 became available for public download today -- will experience the full benefit of SSDs in areas where the storage technology shines.
Small chunks of data can be read about 100 times faster from an SSD than a hard drive, since an SSD doesn't require a rotating disk head to be physically repositioned, Fortin wrote. SSDs will also read large files such as videos up to twice as fast as a hard drive, wrote Fortin. Many SSDs will also write large files more quickly than a hard drive, especially when the SSD is new or empty.
The first generation of SSDs introduced mostly via netbooks two years ago were largely a disappointment, as they were slower and pricier than expected. But performance gains, as well as falling prices, have many PC makers excited anew about SSDs. Asus Inc. has debuted its S121 netbook with a 512-GB SSD that will run Windows 7 when it becomes available.
However, Fortin said that Windows 7 users could experience freeze-ups while writing small files and see overall performance slow down over time, depending on the quality and age of the SSD they're using. The freezing problem is caused by the "complex arrangement" of memory cells in flash chips, he said, as well as the fact that data must be erased from cells before new data can be written to them. And few SSDs today include RAM caches that can speed up performance, as most hard drives do. As a result, "We see the worst of the SSDs producing very long I/O times as well, as much as one half to one full second to complete individual random write and flush requests," Fortin wrote. "This is abysmal for many workloads and can make the entire system feel choppy, unresponsive and sluggish."
That is despite improvements Microsoft made in Windows 7 such as resizing partitions to better fit SSDs and "reducing the frequency of writes and flushes," wrote Fortin.
Even features such as ReadyBoost, which was created by Microsoft to take advantage of USB flash drives using solid-state memory to accelerate performance of Windows Vista or 7, will actually slow down when run with most SSDs, wrote Fortin. As a result, Windows 7 will turn off ReadyBoost for SSDs.
Meanwhile, performance degradation over time is caused, again, by the need to erase data before it can be written, and the increasing fragmentation of data on SSDs as they fill up.
Some vendors such as Intel Corp. say they have mitigated the problem on their SSDs, but none claim to have solved it.
Unlike with hard drives, automatically defragmenting SSDs is not recommended because it can prematurely wear them out. Windows 7 turns off defragging by default.
Fortin said the performance degradation is not as serious as the freeze-ups. "We do not consider this to be a show stopper," he wrote. "We don't expect users to notice the drop during normal use."
Disk compression is also not recommended for heavily-written data such as Web browser caches or e-mail files, Fortin said, because of the potential for a slowdown on SSDs, though it is fine for non-heavily written data. However, some features, such as Windows Search and Bitlocker encryption, should work identically well or better on SSDs, Fortin said.
Computerworld's Lucas Mearian contributed to this story.

Source : pcworld.com

Keep Kids Safe Online: The KIDO'Z Browser

Keep Kids Safe Online: The KIDO'Z Browser
Rick Broida
timestamp(1242936600000,'longDateTime') May 22, 2009 1:10 am

Yesterday we looked at Quintura, a search engine designed with kids in mind. Today let's turn our attention to the browser itself, which is not only a potentially confusing environment for kids, but also an unintentional (for them, anyway) gateway to the Web's seamy underbelly.
For most kids under the age of 10, the main attractions of a computer are games, videos, and Web sites. (PBSKids.org is particularly popular destination around these parts.) KIDO'Z is a specialized browser that serves up exactly those items, all within a safe, colorful, kid-friendly interface.
KIDO'Z requires Adobe Air. With that in place, it takes just a few clicks to install Kido'Z and set up a free account, which requires little more than a username and password.
The interface resembles a TV, with colorful icons for switching between the Games, Websites, and Video "channels." Within each channel: pages and pages of preselected content, with each item represented by a colorful, recognizable thumbnail (Dora, Curious George, etc.).
There's also a Favorites button so your kids can easily return to their preferred games, videos, etc., without having to search through all the pages again.
KIDO'Z has a password-protected Parental Controls page where you can manage content, adding new videos and Web sites or blocking material you may find inappropriate.
In short, KIDO'Z is a slick, well-designed app that's perfect for parents who want to let young kids have a little fun online, but who don't want to worry about inappropriate content. Though it's designed for ages 3-7, I think 8- and 9-year-olds would enjoy KIDO'Z as well

source: pcowrld.com

Underworlds Action RPG Released for IPhone, IPod Touch

Underworlds Action RPG Released for IPhone, IPod Touch
Peter Cohen, Macworld.com
timestamp(1240351236000,'longDateTime')
Apr 22, 2009 3:00 am


source:youtub.com

Pixel Mine on Tuesday announced the release of Underworlds, a fantasy adventure game for the iPhone and iPod touch. It's available from the App Store for US$5.
Underworlds is a classic "> You gain experience and learn powerful offensive maneuvers, collect health potions and vitality boosts, and upgrade your existing capabilities or add new ones. You can focus on becoming a powerful warrior, improve your dexterity, add to your intelligence and more.
The game features four difficulty settings, thousands of unique armor and weapons items, hidden traps and treasures, two different control schemes, the ability to save at any time, and a random generator that guarantees you that you never play the same way twice.
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Source:pcworld.com

Hindu Leader Criticizes Sony Video Game

Hindu Leader Criticizes Sony Video Game
John Ribeiro, IDG News Service
timestamp(1240310415000,'longDateTime')
Apr 21, 2009 3:40 pm

A video game released by Sony Computer Entertainment has come in for criticism from Rajan Zed, a Hindu leader in the U.S., who has urged Sony to withdraw the game.
"Hanuman: Boy Warrior", a video game for the PlayStation 2, trivializes Lord Hanuman, a highly revered deity of Hinduism, Zed said in an e-mail.
Sony said on Tuesday that it does not plan to withdraw the game from the market.
In a video game format, the player would control the destiny of Lord Hanuman while in reality, believers put their destinies in the hands of their deities, Zed wrote.
Controlling and manipulating Lord Hanuman with a joystick, button, keyboard, or mouse is "denigration", he added.
Lord Hanuman is a key deity in the Indian religious epic, the Ramayana, and is described as leading a monkey army to fight demon King Ravana.
The game has been described by Sony on its web site as a "growing up" story of Lord Hanuman, who starts as a powerless being and regains his powers through the game.
The game, which is currently only available for sale in India, was developed with inspiration from Hindu mythology, and prominent Indian scholars were consulted at every step, said Atindriya Bose, country manager for Sony Computer Entertainment, in an email.
The aim of the game is to encourage young Indians to celebrate the stories of Lord Hanuman and to help bring the key lessons to life, he said.

Source:pcworld.com

Specialized external hard drive by Seagate

Specialized external hard drive offers automated set-and-forget backups.

The Seagate Replica external hard drive has lots going for it: Slim design, a nifty docking base (only with the $200 500GB multi-PC version; a $130 250GB version is available, too), and super-simple software for continuous system backups. In some scenarios, the Replica can perform backups with ease. But unfortunately, in my tests the Replica fell short of its promised simplified backups.

Would You Buy This?17Yes 10No Seagate Replica 500GB Test Scores
Overall 73
Before You Buy
How to Buy a Hard Drive
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Got a Hot Tip?
Seen news about this product? Send us a link. Backup remains the chore that many of us don't make time for. The premise behind Replica is straightforward enough-attach the Replica drive to your PC, and it will install some software on your PC, and then on its own begin making a "replica" of your drive's contents, including system files. (If you want to use Replica for system recovery, the system you're recovering the data to will need to be of the same configuration as the one the Replica is tied to.) After this initial backup finishes, the Replica drive continues to protect your data in real time, as long as the drive remains connected.

The Replica is no ordinary hard drive: It does not act as typical mass storage devices do, and you can't just use it for random storage tasks. Instead, it simply lives in the background, backing up your files as invisibly as it can. And it uses its own, albeit subtle interface within Windows Explorer to allow you access to your files. That said, Replica is no PC answer to Apple's Time Machine/Time Capsule one-two punch.

Replica takes a minimalist approach: It has no buttons, and requires little babysitting. It has no buttons, just an inch-plus blue LED status light that flashes to show when the drive is in use, and a mini-USB port at back (the USB port plugs into the dock so the unit stands vertically; however, the dock requires two USB ports instead of just one for power). The simple design extends to the software: You don't launch software or a menu to view the Replica or see what the drive's status is; instead, simply right click on the drive's icon in the System Tray to view the handful of options available to you (Open, Safely Disconnect, Help, Select Password, Remove a PC, Select Drives to Backup, Properties, Check for Update). A pop-up window hovers over the System Tray icon when you mouse over the area; this is how you can check on the drive's status.

Your initial backup-which could take a long time, depending upon how much content your have-begins without any intervention. But here's where Replica's minimalism begins to go awry: Had I been given an indication of what Replica was doing, and what it was backing up, I may have caught on far earlier that Replica was experiencing a hiccup. I've raised this issue with Seagate, and await the company's response to this specific issue: On my MSI Wind U100 netbook, the Replica only sees, and backups, the primary C: partition. The 106GB D: partition, which is how the 160GB unit came configured, simply would not get backed up by the Replica. The Replica's manual says you can go into the Select Drives to Backup menu to confirm and select which attached drives will get picked up for backup, but for some reason, this didn't work with my netbook configuration.

That said, Replica worked fine for me when backing up a single-partition hard drive on a different notebook; it only seemed to have issues with the dual-partition config. I'll update this review when I hear more from Seagate.

Seagate's attempts at minimalism fall short in other ways, too. For example, since the Replica is not a standalone hard drive, it doesn't appear in Windows Explorer as a drive letter device. Instead, it shows as its name, simply Seagate Replica. Click on that icon, and you'll see icons representing the volume names of each PC you've backed up. The Replica software's reliance on a system's volume name is annoying, given that users rarely get to change the system's volume name. For example, Replica picked up my netbook's name as "YOUR-DC685EFCD2;" and since Replica has its own software, even though I viewed the name and content through Windows Explorer, I didn't have Windows Explorer niceties like "rename" available to me. Within the system volume, you see the C: drive, plus shortcuts to your content in Desktop, and My Documents. While I appreciate what Seagate was trying to do, this approach could get confusing fast, especially given that it doesn't quite mirror what you might see on your system's Explorer view.

Seagate tries to convey that you're viewing an atypical hard drive by imprinting "Replica" in the Explorer screen; but this tweak is so understated that its meaning is easily lost. And meanwhile, I found I often chafed at the inability to check file properties as I was used to in Windows Explorer-I understand Seagate's desire for simplicity, but the Replica environment is so similar to Explorer that it's hard not to expect such capabilities. One nicety in the Replica Explorer view: Hover over a file, and Replica shows not just the usual info of file size, but also how many versions are backed up and when the last Replica backup occurred. Right-click on a file to open or copy it.

One final annoyance about Replica: The status LED never seemed to go off on my system-even when I wasn't using it and actively creating files I'd have expected to need backup. As annoying as the near incessant flashing was, I was even more perturbed that its ongoing, no-interference necessary backup had no manual pause, which in turn led to issues with disconnecting the Replica (I got messages saying the device was still in use and couldn't be safely ended at that moment).

Conceptually, Seagate is on the right track. PC backups need to get simpler, and more hassle-free. Replica comes close, but it's a bit too simplified to truly be effective. (For more drives that assist with backups, see "Hard Drives With Pizazz.") In other ways, it's like a jewel in the rough, a solid premise waiting to be polished so it can shine. Hopefully, some of my issues will be resolved in future firmware updates; I'll update this review if the situation changes.

Source: pcworld.com

Latest Bluetooth headset from Aliph

Latest Bluetooth headset from Aliph
The new Aliph Jawbone Prime makes priorities of both audio quality and comfort. This $130
model (as of April 23, 2009) upholds the high standards set by the previous Jawbone, but it goes to greater lengths to increase your comfort.



source:youtube.com

Got a Hot Tip?Seen news about this product? Send us a link.
If you don't like headsets that attach via loops over your ears, you'll be happy to learn that you can wear the new Jawbone Prime without a hook--or with one, if you wish. The unit comes with a generous array of earwear: six earbuds and an optional ear hook. So whatever your preference, you'll probably be able to achieve a fit that feels pretty comfy, snug, and secure. I did.
The new Jawbone Prime is exactly the same size as its predecessor, last year's Jawbone. However, the Jawbone Prime's outer shield introduces a slightly recessed portion that is designed to aid navigation. The texture of the shield is different, as well.
I tend to dislike loopy contraptions around my ears, both because I wear eyeglasses and because my hair is long. Consequently I was pleased to be able to insert the Jawbone Prime into my ear with one hand and adjust the position as needed to ensure that the unit faced down toward my mouth.
To keep the Jawbone in your ear without a hook, you select one of the earbuds that has a stabilizing ring. (The box includes three of these--small, medium, and large.) The bulkier end of the earbud sports a tiny spout, which helps secure it in the user's ear. Overall, the fit felt reasonably comfortable, and I didn't have to do much twiddling to position the earbud farther into my ear canal. The headset did not slip when I rolled my head around.
I also tried the Jawbone Prime with the optional hook, and the fit felt identical to that of the older Jawbone. After a quick maneuver to affix the loop to my ear, I arrived at a fairly comfortable fit, which stayed put.
Like its predecessor, the Jawbone Prime conceals its function buttons below the surface. But to access the Talk button (for instance) on the earlier Jawbone, you had to know where to press--because the surface had no visible indicators. With the Jawbone Prime, as you glide your finger down the headset, you can feel a slight dip or dimple on the surface. Bingo; you've reached the Talk button. (Pressing this button answers a call, or turns the Jawbone on or off, depending on the device's status when you press it.) The groove helped me find the right spot to press quickly. All is not yet perfect, however: When I tried pressing the dimpled area during my first few calls, the feedback felt so undefined that I wasn't sure I had pressed the button properly. Eventually I got used to this low-key feedback, but I would have preferred a multifunction button with a firm response mechanism.
The previous Jawbone's call quality set a high standard for future members of the Aliph family to meet, but the Jawbone Prime does not disappoint in this department. My test calls sounded very impressive: Clear voices at both ends, no annoying echoes, no choppiness. One party commented on how much better my voice sounded while I was using the headset compared to what my phone handset had delivered in a call immediately before. Quality went south during only a handful of calls: In those instances, folks at the other end complained that I sounded a bit muffled. Also, during one range test, crackling sounds became distracting when I was only about halfway to the headset's 33-foot limit.
The Jawbone Prime does an especially fine job of background noise cancellation. During some calls, when the stereo at my desk or in my car was belting out tunes, call recipients couldn't hear the music at all. And even when extreme noise levels arose in the background--including a grunting bus and screeching kids--folks listening for them said that they heard only vague sounds that were not at all distracting.
Aliph touts the headset's detection and handling of wind during calls. During my limited testing period, alas, I didn't encounter sufficiently windy conditions to give the Jawbone Prime much of a test on this score. But even with the car windows rolled down and the breeze swirling about, my voice sounded good--though slightly muffled.
Finally, a word about the headset's appearance: To my mind, the Jawbone Prime is sleek and robust looking. The outer shield is composed of a subdued-textured pattern, a bit like a honeycomb in miniature. You're spoiled for choice if you're the color-coordinating type, with seven colors to choose from: black, silver, brown, green, scarlet, lilac, and yellow.
If you're in the market for a Bluetooth headset, Jawbone Prime sets the new standard for others to try to match. Aliph reports that consumers will be able to buy the Jawbone Prime starting May 2, 2009.

Source:pcworld.com

'How to Build a PC,'

'How to Build a PC,'

David Murphy
timestamp(1239722340000,'longDateTime')
Apr 14, 2009 8:19 pm

Building a PC isn't always something that you can learn from an instruction manual, or even a comprehensive article. Sometimes, you just need to see what's going on with your own two eyes.
But not everyone is of the same experience level when it comes to creating a living, breathing PC from scratch. Maybe you know how to get your CPU into the motherboard socket, but the concepts of wiring elude your grasp. Or worse, you can't tell a processor from a stick of RAM. But that's not a value judgment--every geek has to start somewhere!
That's why we haven't just created a YouTube video to show you how to construct a PC. No, we've gone one step further and split this video up into segments that each relate to an individual portion of the PC build. We've tied these all together in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure format so you can guide yourself thorough the experience based on your individual background with PC building. Go for the Full Monty or piecemeal your way through your PC build at whatever pace you'd like to go!
To get the full, annotated effect, be sure to click on the video (or this handy link) and watch it though YouTube's page!

Source:pcworl.com

Intel tests chip design with 80-core processor

'Teraflops research chip' provides tremendous horsepower for designing and testing future PCs



Source:youtube.com

Following their march from standard processors to dual-core and quad-core designs in 2006, Intel researchers have built an 80-core chip that performs more than a teraflop of operations (trillions of floating point operations per second) while using less electricity than a modern desktop PC chip.
First described by Intel executives at a September trade show, the chip fits 80 cores onto a 275-square millimeter, fingernail-size chip and draws only 62 watts of power--less than many modern desktop chips.
The company has no plans to bring this "teraflop research chip" to market, but is using it to test new technologies such as high-bandwidth interconnects, energy management techniques, and a tile design method to build multicore chips, said Jerry Bautista, director of Intel's tera-scale research program. He spoke in a conference call with reporters on Friday before presenting technical details of the research at the ISSCC (Integrated Solid State Circuits Conference) trade show in San Francisco. Intel has discussed the 'era of tera' before.
Other Uses
Intel engineers are also using the chip to explore new forms of tera-scale computing, in which future users could process terabytes of data on their desktops to perform real-time speech recognition, multimedia data mining, photo-realistic gaming, and artificial intelligence.
Until now, that degree of computing performance has been available only to scientists and academics using machines like ASCI Red, the teraflop supercomputer built by Intel and its partners in 1996 for U.S. government researchers at Sandia National Laboratories, near Albuquerque, New Mexico. That system handled a similar amount of computing as the new chip, but demanded an enormous 500 kilowatts of power and 500 kilowatts of cooling to run its nearly 10,000 Pentium Pro chips.
Shrunk onto a single chip, that power would allow average consumers to use their PCs in new ways. They could use improved search functions on the vast amounts of digital media stored on home desktops, searching large photo archives for specific attributes such as all the shots where a certain person is smiling, or where that person is posing with a friend, Bautista said.
Specs
Running at 3.16 GHz, the new chip achieves 1.01 teraflops of computation--an efficiency of 16 gigaflops per watt. It can run even faster, but loses efficiency at higher speeds, performing at 1.63 teraflops at 5.1 GHz and 1.81 teraflops at 5.7 GHz.
The processor saves power by shunting idle cores into sleep mode, then instantly turning them on as they're needed. Each modular tile has its own router built alongside the core, creating a "network on a chip."
Despite using such an efficient grid, the researchers found they could actually hurt performance by adding too many cores. Performance scaled up directly from 2 cores to 4, 8, and 16. But they found that computing performance began to drop with 32 and 64 cores.
"If we simply added more than 16 cores, we would get diminishing returns, because the threads and data traffic would not be used properly, so the cores get in the way of each other. It's like having too many cooks in the kitchen," said Bautista.
To solve the problem on the new chip, they used a hardware-based thread scheduler and faster on-chip memory caches, optimizing the way data flows from memory into each core. To improve the design, Intel researchers plan to add a layer of "3D stacked memory" under the chip to minimize the time and power required to feed the cores with data. Next, they will create a mega-chip that uses general purpose cores instead of the floating-point units used in the current design.
Source:pcworld.com

Bug Danscing on Monitor

source:bookmarks.oneindia.in

Amazing computer Casings

Source:slightlymordant.com

Amazing Computer Casings

Source:slightlymordant.com

Amazing Computer Casings

Source:slightlymordant.com

Amazing computer Casings

Source:slightlymordant.com

Amazing Computer Casings

Source:slightlymordant.com

Amazing Computer Casings

Source:slightlymordant.com

Screenshots point to compass in new iPhone

Screenshots show what is purported to be a digital compass built in to the newest version of Apple's phone.
(Posted in Crave by Erica Ogg)
Source: news.cnet.com

'News games' put public in charge of hot topics

The proliferation of Flash games that allow players to kill the swine flu virus, throw shoes at George W. Bush or run a Ponzi scheme test the limits of good taste. But millions are playing them.
(Posted in Geek Gestalt by Daniel Terdiman)

Source: news.cnet.com

Study: Bioelectricity bests biofuels

Researchers find that using crop land to make electricity to power a plug-in electric vehicle is more efficient and less polluting than running a comparable car with ethanol.
(Posted in Green Tech by Martin LaMonica)
Source: news.cnet.com

Universal, YouTube pick chief for music video site

Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of Universal Music Group's eLabs, will head up Vevo, a joint music video project led by YouTube and Universal Music.
(Posted in Digital Media by Jennifer Guevin)

Source: news.cnet.com

Google Chrome ads coming to TV

After placing an online ad Friday promoting Chrome on the front page of The New York Times, Google plans to advertise its Web browser on television this weekend.
(Posted in Digital Media by Tom Krazit)

Source: news.cnet.com

Friday Poll: Best Mother's Day gift for a geeky mom?

Quick, what are you getting for the dear woman who birthed/raised you?
(Posted in Crave by Erica Ogg)
Source: news.cnet.com

Report: State AGs looking into Google Books deal

Google's settlement with publishers over the digital rights to certain books has attracted federal attention, and might prompt state scrutiny as well.
(Posted in Digital Media by Tom Krazit)

Source: news.cnet.com

YouTube slowly building ad-friendly content

One analyst believes YouTube might be able to sell ads against 9 percent of its videos this year. That's not much, but it's up from 3 percent last year.
(Posted in Digital Media by Tom Krazit)

Source: news.cnet.com

UC Berkeley computers hacked, 160,000 at risk

Attackers access public health center Web site then break into secured databases on the same server, stealing some 97,000 Social Security numbers. • Report: Hackers broke into FAA air traffic systems
(Posted in Security by Michelle Meyers)

Source: news.cnet.com

Kachingle to 'sprinkle' dollars to online publishers

Start-up will help people distribute, say, $5 a month automatically among favorite Web sites, hoping the idea will catch on now that content providers are "desperate enough."
(Posted in Webware by Mats Lewan)

Source: news.cnet.com

Pirate Bay attorney outlines appeal arguments

Peter Althin, an attorney for a defendant in the high-profile case, tells CNET News that his appeal is about more than just the judge's alleged conflict of interest.
(Posted in Digital Media by Erik Palm)

Source: news.cnet.com

Riding a flying armchair

Ahead of its new film, "Up," Pixar hosts a "cluster ballooning" event that involves a flying armchair and lots of carabiners. • Photos: Getting an armchair off the ground(Posted in Geek Gestalt by Daniel Terdiman)

Source: news.cnet.com

Microsoft Release

Windows 7 RC goes out the door, along with a few thousand employees. Also, Amazon unveils Kindle DX, while Google gets grief for book scanning. • Images: Windows 7 RC • Photos: Kindle DX

Source:news.cnet.com

Solar power you can see through

Konarka teams up with window maker Arch to put its transparent solar cells between panes of glass for power-generating windows. • Photos: Flexible solar cells

Source:news.cnet.com

Dell XPS 730x

Another season, another iteration of the Dell XPS 700. As the "mid-level" version of Dell's high-end gaming system, The XPS 730x ($3,809, direct) is positioned somewhere between the $1,700 base model and the top-of-the-line XPS 730x H2C, which can top $6,000 with all the bells and whistles. At its price point, the 730x retains the massive chassis and power while giving up a little performance in order to save some of your hard-earned dollars. Think of it as the luxury sports car with the "stock" V8 motor: Sure, you won't have the full power of the turbocharged V10, but you'll still have all the looks and most of the cachet.


Source : http://www.pcmag.com

Falcon Northwest FragBox 2 (Core i7)

Falcon Northwest's new FragBox 2 (Core i7) ($8,895 direct) ramps up the insanity on both pricing and gaming performance. When the folks at Falcon NW asked me how I wanted them to equip its latest FragBox, I told them to wow me. Wow me they did, with a top-of-the-line Core i7 quad-core processor, two Nvidia GeForce GTX 285 graphics cards, and an insane 1 terabyte of solid-state storage distributed among four solid-state drives (SSDs). Now you might think it's crazy to talk about an $8,900 PC in today's economy when perfectly usable gaming systems start at around $1,100, but you have to remember that Rolls-Royce, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Tiffany & Co. were able to sell their luxury items successfully during the Great Depression. Yes, you can configure a Core i7-powered FragBox 2 with decent gaming performance for about $2,000, but I wanted a system with ultimate bragability. Read on to see how well this FragBox fills the bill.



Source : http://www.pcmag.com

HP Compaq Business Desktop dx2400

The HP dx2400 Microtower delivers powerful business PC performance at an entry-level price. Packed with all the essential features and industry standard components to help you compete in today's business world, the HP dx2400 offers professional level quality without the high pricetag.



Source : http://www.pcmag.com

Acer AspireRevo

We just received an early engineering sample of the Acer AspireRevo with the Nvidia ION platform. So far, the ION seems to do well in the AspireRevo, as Nvidia had claimed it would.

Nvidia's ION is a platform consisting of an Intel Atom processor paired with an Nvidia GeForce 9400M chipset. The GeForce 9400M chipset is the same one found in notebooks and desktops like the Apple MacBook Air and the iMac.

The Ion platform's first real implementation is in the Acer AspireRevo, a small, inexpensive nettop designed to go after the market segment occupied by systems like the ASUS Eee Top 1602 and MSI Wind CS120. The AspireRevo is also designed to be a competitor that performs better than the "really cheap" $299 desktop PCs you'd find in your local big-box stores like WalMart or Costco.

The Acer AspireRevo I looked at is close to the final version you'll see later this year, and it is promising. It's being touted as a small PC that can be mounted behind a large-screen LCD monitor (like a 24-inch monitor), with the power that your family needs for mainstream computing tasks. Since it's built around an Nvidia chipset, the AspireRevo is aimed squarely at besting Atom and Celeron-powered systems with Intel integrated graphics.

The AspireRevo's styling is somewhere between the ASUS Eee Box's tilted box and the Mac mini's minimalism. The AspireRevo is squat, about three-fourths the thickness of the Apple Mac mini. This is understandable, considering that the AspireRevo lacks an internal optical drive. I like the fact that it has six USB ports and an eSATA port, the better to connect all your peripherals like a digital camera and external hard drives. If you mount it behind a LCD monitor, it can give you an all-in-one PC's look for less money.

The AspireRevo has built-in 802.11g wireless networking, a necessity in the connected household. I was able to hook up to our WPA2 secure network in seconds, and was on the Internet before you could say "Twitter." Downloading the inevitable Vista and PowerDVD upgrades took longer than the initial setup, but at least I was using the system on a fast connection.

I hooked up a LiteOn Blu-ray drive to the AspireRevo, and Kung Fu Panda was nice and smooth, with only a slight delay as the disc first started up. The colors popped and the visuals were stunning when displayed on our Gateway FHD2400 monitor, just like being in the movie theater. Watching other Blu-ray titles like X-Men 3 and U2: Rattle and Hum were just as enjoyable. Watching a Flash HD video on YouTube was quite a bit jerkier, since the flash video player hasn't been optimized for the GeForce 9400M chipset. Surfing on the AspireRevo was about what you'd expect from an Atom-powered system: occasionally slow, but faster than on a sub-1GHz Pentium III PC.

Source : http://www.pcmag.com

ASUS EeePC 1000HE

ASUS is well into double digits in the number of netbook variants it has launched, and this seasoning has finally paid off with its best one yet. What's more, the ASUS EeePC 1000HE ($400 street) dethrones the MSI Wind as the leader of the pack of pint-sized laptop wannabes. What puts it on top is not its use of the first-ever Intel Atom N280 processor or its elegantly tucked-away six-cell battery, or even its revamped keyboard. In a category where price sensitivity is paramount, the 1000HE is the new Editors' Choice because it delivers all of these things at a low price. For a limited time, you can even knock an additional $25 off by subscribing to ASUS's Facebook group, or by preordering the 1000HE through an e-tailer.


Source : http://www.pcmag.com

HP TouchSmart TX2z

Building on the success of its TouchSmart IQ816, an all-in-one desktop with a massive touch screen, HP decided to make a mobile version. Since the HP Pavilion tx2000z already had touch and tablet features built in, it was the obvious candidate to inherit the IQ816's intuitive interface. The HP TouchSmart TX2z takes its touch capabilities further. It's the first Windows-based multitouch (responsive to specific gestures made with more than one finger) tablet, trumping the IQ816's single-touch functions. Being the first to market, however, does not guarantee success. Its fan noise is almost unbearable, the multitouch functions are buggy, and a bloated software suite is crippling.


Source : http://www.pcmag.com