Through the Looking Glass: 3D Everywhere
"What is the use of a book, without pictures or conversations?" That's the question Alice asks at the beginning of Lewis Carroll's classic adventure. Perhaps Mr. Carroll knew more than he realized. 3D Movies. Multitouch screens. iPads. Everywhere you look, consumers increasingly demand more of an "experience" when engaging with their content, be it a book, a movie or their computers. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0200
Apple Teaches Old iPods New Tricks
Apple put a charge in its iPod line Wednesday, but it remains a holdout in the "all you can ear" music subscription market. Apple revamped its flagship player, the iPod touch, so it's now essentially an iPhone without the phone. It also brought buttons back to the iPod shuffle and a touchscreen to the iPod nano. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:51:28 +0200
Sony's Shocking 'Other OS' Win and Suspect Distro Popularity Trends
Despite the best hopes of many of us in the community, the man suing Sony over the removal of the "other OS" feature from its PS3 has apparently lost his case. The bad news is that the man won't get the money he had requested to compensate for an upgrade to his newly crippled PS3; the good news is that he reportedly wasn't forced to pay Sony's legal bill to boot. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0200
HP Breathes New Life Into WebOS
HP on Wednesday announced a restricted beta release of webOS 2.0, the operating system it acquired when it purchased Palm earlier this year. This is open to developers belonging to Palm's Early Access program. The beta adds several new features, and apps built with it will be released to all carriers that offer Palm devices, Palm spokesperson Alex Hunter told TechNewsWorld. Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:22:02 +0200
Apple Reprograms TV
Apple on Wednesday made a host of announcements focused around music and entertainment. These included a revamped version of its Apple TV device, iTunes 10, a refreshed iPod family and new versions of its iOS mobile operating system. Overall, the announcements came as relatively little surprise, as most major points conformed with speculation and rumors that had arisen on the Web over the past few weeks. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:51 +0200
Residents in Wisconsin must recycle discarded computers, cell phones and other devices to prevent pollution as part of statewide recycling program that eases financial strain on local governments.
Georgetown County, S.C., brings 25 of the popular Kindle wireless reading devices to local libraries as part of ongoing push to adopt new technologies and improve youth literacy.
EU businesses investing in R&D despite economic crisis
Corporate investment in research and development (R&D) increased by 8.1% in the EU in 2008 in spite of the economic crisis, according to new figures published this week in the 2009 EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. The figures reveal that European companies outperformed their counterparts in the US and Japan, who increased their R&D spending by 5.7% and 4.4% respectively. Corporate R&D investment worldwide increased by 6.9%. Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:51:50 +0100
EU mishandled Intel case: ombudsman
The European Commission was guilty of maladministration in its its record-busting anti-trust action against Intel, the European ombudsman said on Wednesday. Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:58:39 +0100
EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard 2008
Worldwide corporate R&D investment increased by 6.9% in 2008, in spite of the economic crisis, according to the 2009 "EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard" published today. With an 8.1% increase, the R&D investment growth of EU companies', defined as companies having headquarters within the EU, is significantly higher than US ones for the second year, at 5.7%, and Japanese ones, at 4.4%. Two EU companies feature in the top ten: Volkswagen in the 3 rd place with an R&D investment of €5.93 billion and Nokia in the 8 th. The world's biggest investor in R&D was Toyota Motor, with €7.61 billion. The report also shows that companies from emerging countries have the highest R&D investment growth. Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:33:14 +0100
Oracle vows fight as EC objects to acquisition of Sun
The European Commission objected on competitive grounds Tuesday to the
proposed 7.4-billion-dollar acquisition of Sun Microsystems by US business software giant Oracle. Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:29:21 +0100
EU gets tough on climate change, intensifies energy investment
Growing concerns on climate change, energy supply and competitiveness weigh heavily on the minds of Europeans. The European Commission is determined to fight this escalating problem and has called on public officials, industry and researchers to pool their resources and develop key technologies that would address this nagging issue. The target date is 2020. Thu, 08 Oct 2009 23:48:14 +0200
Apple Unveils New iPods, iOS, Ping Social Network
In a jam-packed event full of new product details, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled new versions of all three iPod devices on Wednesday, introduced operating-system updates, and demonstrated a new social-media network designed to encourage more downloading from iTunes. He also unveiled a leaner version of Apple's less-popular Apple TV set-top box.
Apple's Ping is "Facebook and Twitter meets iTunes," said Jobs as he demonstrated a feature of the 10th version of Apple's online music store. The network allows users to "follow" friends as well as artists, just like Twitter, and exchange updates and playlists with them.
iOS Updates
Apple streamed the event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, Calif., live (with a slight delay) via its web site, but the stream was available only to those using iPads, the latest iPods and iPhones, or Mac computers running the most recent Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system.
Jobs announced that Apple has sold 120 million devices that run the Apple portable operating system, now called iOS. "We couldn't be happier about the progress of iOS," said Jobs, in a shot across the bow to Google's fast-spreading Android OS. "There are 230,000 new activations per day."
The newest version, 4.01, will be available next week and will fix a glitch in the iPhone 4 involving the proximity sensor (but not the much-maligned antenna that can encounter signal problems from a user's touch).
The next iOS version, 4.2, which is intended to make the iPad's applications run more like those of the iPhone, is just around the corner in November. That update will also include a feature called AirPlay that allows users to send media to other devices via Wi-Fi. Jobs said Apple customers are downloading 200 apps every second.
iPods 'Gone Wild'
But the stars of Wednesday's show were the new iPods. Boasting that the company... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:05:31 -0500
New VMware Products Advance 'IT as a Service' Vision
With cloud computing and virtualization growing by leaps and bounds, industry heavyweight VMware announced Tuesday a variety of new cloud-computing products and services to support its "IT as a Service" vision. The announcement was made at its VMworld 2010 event, now taking place in San Francisco, Calif.
The company said it intends to move beyond "IT as cost center." President and CEO Paul Maritz said that, just as the company set out two years ago "a vision to modernize the data center and transform IT," so it will now take steps to "bring this new world of IT as a Service and hybrid cloud computing to reality."
More Apps on Virtual Than Physical Servers
He noted a report from industry research firm IDC that, in 2009, the number of server applications on virtualized infrastructures surpassed the number on physical servers, and that the growth rate for virtual machines is 28 percent annually, worldwide.
IT as a Service is focused on outcomes, such as operational efficiency, competitiveness and rapid response, by using VMware's cloud-infrastructure solutions that span resources. The emphasis, the company said, is to "focus on the features our customers need," rather than focusing on "technologies needed to support IT."
With the new infrastructure model, the company said, IT can produce service in a "self-service model." The new cloud-infrastructure products and service utilize a "hybrid cloud model" that combines aspects of private and public clouds.
vCloud Director enables IT to create "virtual data centers," or VDCs, which are logical pools of resources with specified management policies, service-level agreements, and pricing. IT can then offer the VDCs, along with application services such as virtual appliances, VMs and OS images, to its users through self-service. IT teams, in essence, act as service providers to their own businesses.
vShield, vCloud Datacenter Services
Three new products -- vShield Edge, vShield... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:06:52 -0500
Like previous versions, the Nano has a built-in FM tuner and can display photos. But instead of buttons, controls for playing, pausing and selecting music are right on the screen. It will cost $149 for the 8 gigabyte version and $179 for 16 gigabytes.
In a refresh to the iPod Touch, Apple is adding video-chat features similar to the newest iPhone. It has a front-facing camera for conducting video chats with other iPod Touch and iPhone users over Wi-Fi using Apple's FaceTime program. A camera on the back can be used for taking snapshots and recording video. Prices range from $229 to $399.
Jobs also introduced a new iPod Shuffle, the lowest-end music player in Apple's line. Like the past generation, it can speak the names of playlists and songs. But unlike the most recent of the tiny music players, the new $49 device brings back the square shape and buttons of Apple's second-generation Shuffle.
Apple, meanwhile, is adding social features to its iTunes software. Jobs said iTunes 10 brings new ways for people to learn what their friends are listening to. The feature, called Ping, is likely based on the technology Apple acquired with the purchase of Lala.com last year.
The Ping section in iTunes lets people "follow" friends, musicians and others, similar to the way Facebook and Twitter work. Ping builds custom top-10 lists based on what the people someone follows are listening to.
Earlier, Jobs also said iPhone users will be getting a software update that offers the ability to upload high-definition video over Wi-Fi. And when people take photos, the new software will save three slightly different copies that, when combined, make for a sharper image.
The new... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:32:23 -0500
HP, Hynix Aim To Replace Flash Memory with ReRAM
As the 3PAR bidding war rages on, Hewlett-Packard is taking a deep breath and turning its attention to Hynix Semiconductor -- at least for a moment. On Wednesday, HP announced a joint development agreement with the memory supplier for a new circuit element.
Called memristor, the new circuit element will be integrated into a future generation of memory products -- but there is plenty of work to do to develop new materials and process integration technology that will bring memristor technology from the research phase to the commercial market. The result of the partnership is expected to yield resistive random-access memory (ReRAM).
ReRAM is nonvolatile memory with low power consumption that some industry watchers say could be the successor to flash memory in mobile phones and MP3 players. ReRAM could also serve as a universal storage medium because it can behave as flash, DRAM or even a hard drive.
Flash's Successor?
"The memristor has storage-capacity abilities many times greater than what competing technologies offer," said Dr. S.W. Park, executive vice president and CTO at Hynix. "By adopting HP's memristor technology, we can deliver new, energy-efficient products to our customers more quickly."
According to HP, memristors require less energy to operate, are faster than present solid-state storage technologies, and can retain information even when power is off. The memristor, short for "memory resistor," was postulated to be the fourth basic circuit element by Prof. Leon Chua of the University of California at Berkeley in 1971 and was first intentionally reduced to practice by researchers in HP Labs in 2006.
"When you are talking about new-generation memory technology, the opportunities are huge," said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT. "We are seeing memory expanding and becoming a critical element across a wide variety of IT products, including servers and storage. Enhancing memory has become an increasingly critical point... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:41:50 -0500
New Sony E-Readers Have Touchscreens, Higher Prices
Facing competition from Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble, Sony on Wednesday released updated models of its of e-readers. But Sony is taking a different approach from its rivals with touchscreen technology on all three of its e-readers, wireless connectivity on only the higher-end model, and prices higher than market leader Amazon for two of the readers.
The new models are the five-inch Pocket Edition PRS-350, the six-inch Touch Edition PRS-650, and the seven-inch Daily Edition PRS-950. The 350 will retail for $179.99, the 650 for $229.99, and the 950 for an estimated $299.99.
Infrared Touch Technology
Only the 950 has wireless, both 3G and Wi-Fi, which is raising eyebrows among e-reader watchers. Both Amazon's Kindle and the Barnes & Noble nook have models with built-in Wi-Fi and 3G, or just Wi-Fi. To download new books, the two lower-end Sony e-readers connect to a computer via USB.
In addition, the non-wireless Pocket Edition and Touch Edition cost more than the equivalent Kindle model. This also raises eyebrows, since the conventional wisdom has been that e-reader makers were competing to get the lowest cost, with some user surveys indicating the market would really take off when e-readers are available for under $100. The trade-off is the touch technology, with page turning by a finger swipe and a stylus, which all Sony's e-readers now have and which Amazon's do not. The Touch and Daily Edition models featured touchscreens in their earlier incarnations.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has told news media he is wary of capacitive touch technology because it adds another screen layer and increases glare. Sony is using infrared sensors on the edge to avoid adding another layer.
The Pocket Edition PRS-350, weighing 5.64 ounces, has 2GB of built-in memory, which can store up to 1,200 e-books. A single battery charge can handle two... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 10:30:35 -0500
Apple Teaches Old iPods New Tricks
Apple put a charge in its iPod line Wednesday, but it remains a holdout in the "all you can ear" music subscription market. Apple revamped its flagship player, the iPod touch, so it's now essentially an iPhone without the phone. It also brought buttons back to the iPod shuffle and a touchscreen to the iPod nano. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:51:28 +0200
In iTunes, All App Reviews Are Not Created Equal
I like walled gardens. They are safe and, for the most part, keep out the predators. However, when one sneaks over the wall, the results can be ugly, to say the least. With the iTunes App Store, one of the key supposed advantages for end-users is that it is a walled garden, and Apple is providing a safe, secure environment you can trust in. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0200
Apple Reprograms TV
Apple on Wednesday made a host of announcements focused around music and entertainment. These included a revamped version of its Apple TV device, iTunes 10, a refreshed iPod family and new versions of its iOS mobile operating system. Overall, the announcements came as relatively little surprise, as most major points conformed with speculation and rumors that had arisen on the Web over the past few weeks. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 00:00:51 +0200
Will Wednesday's Big Show Put More Spring in AAPL's Step?
Shares of Apple closed up 60 cents on Tuesday to hit $243.10. However, Cupertino is still smarting from the downward spiral of the past few weeks, when its stocks took a beating along with the rest of the market. The Dow on Tuesday recovered a fraction of what it lost after a Monday drubbing, and the Nasdaq fell nearly six points. Wed, 01 Sep 2010 14:00:00 +0200
Mac-Loving Engineers Can Have Their AutoCAD and iPads Too
AutoCAD, a popular design and engineering tool from Autodesk, is returning to the
Mac after an absence of some 18 years. Autodesk is launching a version that runs natively on Apple's Mac OS X. To be released in October, it will cost US$3,995 without a support
subscription, and $4,445 with one. Autodesk is also releasing a free version of the AutoCAD application for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:07:47 +0200
Memristor revolution backed by HP
A potentially revolutionary circuit component, once a laboratory curiosity, is to be mass-produced for the first time. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:33:44 GMT
Global broadband divide revealed
The global disparity in access to broadband around the world and the cost of a connection is revealed by UN figures. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:45:35 GMT
Samsung releases iPad competitor
Samsung has become the latest manufacturer to enter into the tablet computer market with its Galaxy Tab. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:15:53 GMT
Apple creates a social network
Apple launches a music-based social network called Ping as part of its latest upgrade to the iTunes music software. Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:48:35 GMT
US seeks input on net data rules
US net users are being asked for their opinions about what ISPs should be allowed to do with web traffic flowing through their networks. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:34:59 GMT
Google, Skype targeted in India security crackdown
(AP) -- India has widened its security crackdown, asking all companies that provide encrypted communications - not just BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion - to install servers in the country to make it easier for the government to obtain users' data. That would likely affect digital giants like Google and Skype. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:40:01 EST
Interview: UN says BlackBerry should share data
(AP) -- BlackBerry's Canadian manufacturer should give law enforcement agencies around the world access to its customer data, the U.N. technology chief said, adding that governments have legitimate security concerns that should not be ignored. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:24:08 EST
Dell cedes data-storage maker 3Par to HP
(AP) -- Dell Inc. is walking away from a bidding contest with rival Hewlett-Packard Co. for data-storage maker 3Par Inc. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:30:57 EST
AOL signs new search agreement with Google
(AP) -- Google Inc. will continue to provide the search results on AOL Inc.'s websites under a new, five-year deal the companies signed this week. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:01 EST
Human unconscious is transferred to virtual characters
Virtual characters can behave according to actions carried out unconsciously by humans. Researchers at the University of Barcelona have created a system which measures human physiological parameters, such as respiration or heart rate, and introduces them into computer designed characters in real time. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:00:01 EST
All it takes is a gentle nudge
Following on from our story about Ofcom asking UK ISP’s to be more clear when advertising their broadband speeds, it seems that 9 out of 10 consumers find the speed of broadband and the way it’s advertised confusing. In an act of … Continue reading → Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:12:13 +0000
Online TV and the overcrowded Taiwanese Job Centre
In a definite sign of the times MTV has launched the first ‘web-only’ drama which, as the name suggests, will be available exclusively online. The programme called Being Victor is a Scottish teen drama which covers all the ‘highly stressful’ … Continue reading → Thu, 12 Aug 2010 16:17:07 +0000
Instant coffee good… Instant broadband bad
A newspaper advert by BT has been banned by the advertising watchdog for misleading consumers with claims of “instant internet”. The advert showed a burst of light with large text stating “BT Infinity. The birth of the instant internet” as … Continue reading → Wed, 04 Aug 2010 11:15:11 +0000
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