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Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday introduced its first consumer-oriented multi-touch tablet PC. The TouchSmart tx2 tightly integrates hardware and software to offer an interface that lets people use their fingers or a stylus for on-screen manipulation of digital entertainment. The software foundation of the tx2’s multi-touch capabilities is HP’s MediaSmart 2.0, which makes it possible to use a variety of gestures, including swipes, pinches, double-taps, and finger rotations, to manipulate content in a way that’s similar to Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch. In addition, HP has entered into a partnership with MTV Networks to bring video in from MTV, Comedy Central, and Nickelodeon. The content is organized and automatically updated in MediaSmart.

The tx2 has a standard keyboard and a 12.1-inch screen that can be placed upright for use like a typical notebook. In addition, the screen, which has a resolution of 1,200 by 800 pixels, swivels and can be laid flat. Besides the multi-touch capabilities, the system’s stylus can be used to write or draw on the screen. The PC weighs 4.5 pounds and is available with either an Athlon X2 or Turion X2 dual-core processor from Advanced Micro Devices. The system is also available with an ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics processor, up to 8 GB of memory and a 500 GB hard drive. Other features include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi wireless technology, an integrated camera and a DVD burner. The tx2 is available for pre-order from HP and is scheduled to start shipping at the end of the month. Pricing starts at $1,149.

Source: InfoWeek

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With fewer consumers than hoped for signing up for all-you-can-eat music subscriptions, Microsoft and the record industry are trying to make the option more appealing. As of Wednesday, those who pay for the $14.95 a month Zune Pass subscription will start being able to permanently keep 10 tracks a month. The subscription already allows unlimited music downloads, but users have the ability to listen to the music only so long as they are subscribers.

Under the new plan, Zune Pass members will essentially get $10 worth of music to own each month, along with whatever subscription content they download. The move comes as much of the consumer enthusiasm in the digital music industry has been for music that is sold free of DRM (digital rights management) protections. Both Microsoft and music industry executives acknowledge that the uptake for subscriptions has not been what they’d hoped. For the record industry, subscription music represents an important potential revenue stream at a time where traditional music sales have continued to decline far faster than digital downloads have grown.

Source: Cnet

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Google Inc. has opened an online photo gallery that will feature millions of images from Life magazine’s archives that have never been seen by the public before. The new service, available at images.google.com/hosted/life, debuted Tuesday with about 2 million photos. Eventually, Google plans to scan all 10 million photos from Life’s library so they can be viewed on any computer with an Internet connection. About 97 percent of Life’s archives have not been publicly seen, according to Life.

The photos can be printed out for free as long as they aren’t being used as part of an attempt to make money. Time Warner Inc., Life’s parent company, hopes to make money by selling high-resolution, framed prints. The orders will be processed through Qoop.com. Life’s archives include photos from the Civil War as well as some of the most memorable moments from the 20th century, including the Zapruder film capturing John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Go check it.

Source: AP

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Microsoft Corp. said it will offer free software to protect PCs from viruses, in a move that could pose new challenges for independent makers of security software. The Redmond, Wash., company said it plans to introduce its security software, code-named Morro, during the second half of next year in an effort to persuade more users to secure their PCs against spyware, viruses and other forms of “malware.” Use of antimalware software is far from universal, especially in emerging markets.

There are two primary reasons consumers supply for not protecting their PCs, including a concern that the anti-malware software will bog down their PCs, said Amy Barzdukas, senior director of product management for the online services and Windows division at Microsoft. The other reason is the cost of security software, which can run $75 for the programs plus two years of updates. Morro will replace another security software program Windows Live OneCare, a broader suite of software and services. Microsoft will discontinue retail sales of that software, which costs consumers $49.95 a year, on June 30 of next year. The shift to a free security offering from Microsoft could be a problem for Symantec Corp., McAfee Inc. and other independent security companies that charge consumers for their products.

Source: WSJ

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A new CPU from Intel is big news around the PC enthusiast realm. Intel has introduced its latest Core i7 CPU that promises to deliver vastly superior performance compared to the previous generation of Intel processors. According to Intel, the Core i7 parts deliver 40% more performance in processing intensive applications compared to the previous generation of processors. The CPU features Turbo Boost Technology that accelerates performance to match a computer user’s needs and the workload of the system at the time.

The on-die power control unit uses power gate transistors to automatically adjust the clock speed of one or more of the cores inside the CPU depending on the needs of the system. The technology also allows sleep states that are normally common only on notebook systems. Available processors include the Core i7-965 Extreme Edition runs at 3.20 GHz at $999 and the i7-940 running 2.93 GHz for $562 and the i7-920 at 2.66 GHz for $284.

Source: SlipperyBrick

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Flash is around the corner for Google’s G1 and Nokia’s Symbian smart phones; Flash on Blackberries likely coming as well; Apple continues its apathy towards Adobe. The best selling phone in America, Apple’s iPhone, could be the last of the smartphones to get Flash.  At a slew of press events over the last few days, Adobe unveiled a new version of mobile version of Flash — a leaner, faster, smart phone-aimed version of Flash 10.  The new version is optimized for ARM processors like the one used in the iPhone. Any smartphone with a 200 MHz or better processor and 16 MB of RAM should be able to run the new version of Flash, opening many phones up to the software.  A “completely capable [Web] browser” is also required, implying support of typical standards.

Google’s G1 and future Android smartphones will likely soon be getting the update, either over the air or in Google’s store, although no official release date has been announced.  Flash was demoed fully working on a T-Mobile G1 phone, though. It seems like Flash and the iPhone would be a logical fit, but Apple doesn’t think so.  Adobe has tried to woo Apple first with ARM-support upgrades and now with even more ARM-processor optimization.  The iPhone’s processor clearly can support Flash, and can support it well, but Apple remains obstinate in its refusal to adopt the technology.

Source: DailyTech

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Revenue for the video-game industry in October, the first month of the critical fourth quarter that includes the holiday shopping season, grew by 18%, despite a significant decline in sales of portable players, a market research firm said. Sales increased to $2.2 billion for the month, keeping the industry on track to top $22 billion for the year, the NPD Group said. The 18% rise over October 2007, however, was less than the year-to-year increase of 26% in September. Despite the October growth, NPD said sales were “mixed” in the month.

“The console portion of the market made significant gains at 26% across hardware, software, and accessories, while the portable side of the market stalled, declining 14%,” NPD analyst Anita Frazier said in a statement released late Thursday. “Year-to-date the portable segment of the market is still up 7%.” On the hardware side, the greater supply of Nintendo Wii paid off with the console recording its best sales month since last November and December. Price reductions on Microsoft’s Xbox 360 resulted in a 7% increase in unit sales over September.

Source: InfoWeek

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Microsoft is expanding its Windows Live online services over the next several weeks, including adding social networking features that will make the portal for consumers more Facebook-like, such as new photo-sharing capabilities and links to other Web sites like Twitter and LinkedIn.The move may bring Windows Live into closer competition with Facebook — ironic, given that Microsoft invested $240 million in the popular online service last year. Microsoft said Windows Live has more than 460 million users. With the enhanced Windows Live, users will be able to add third-party sites like LinkedIn, Flickr, Photobucket and Twitter to their profiles through a new “What’s New” feed.

Microsoft is also upgrading the messaging and e-mail services in Windows Live. Windows Live Messenger will offer more personalization capabilities, drag-and-drop photo sharing, a favorites list for the most important contacts, group IM for chatting with up to 20 people simultaneously, and updates from contacts through the What’s New feed. Windows Live Hotmail, which has 375 million active customers, will be faster and offer spam filtering that is 80 percent more effective, according to Microsoft. The system will allow users to bring multiple e-mail accounts together and put multiple e-mail addresses onto one device. The amount of online data storage provided by the service is being increased from 5 gigabytes to 25 gigabytes.

Source: CRN

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Google is finally catching up to competitors Microsoft and Yahoo for once. It is rolling out a new application for the iPhone that allows users to conduct searches with their voice rather than typing. Nice of Google to catch on to the voice-activated search craze. Microsoft and Yahoo have offered voice-enable search for some time. Microsoft through its TellMe service and Yahoo through its oneSearch service. Both work pretty well at converting speech into text and delivering relevant results. This is a feature that Google’s services have lacked for too long.

First to get Google’s version of voice search is the iPhone. The New York Times reports that the application will be available through the iPhone Apps Store as early as today, though that is not confirmed by Google or Apple. The Times notes that, “The Google system is far from perfect, and it can return queries that appear as gibberish. Google executives declined to estimate how often the service gets it right, but they said they believed it was easily accurate enough to be useful to people who wanted to avoid tapping out their queries on the iPhone’s touch-screen keyboard.” The application will be free for iPhone users.

Source: InfoWeek

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The closure of a web hosting firm that is believed to have had spam gangs as clients has led to a drastic reduction in junk mail. Two US internet service providers have pulled the plug on the firm McColo following an investigation by the Washington Post newspaper. Anti-spam firm Ironport has seen junk mail levels drop by 70% since McColo was taken offline on 11 November. But, it warned, it will be a temporary respite from the menace of spam.

“It is an unprecedented drop but will be a temporary outage as the networks move from North America to places where there is less scrutiny,” said Jason Steer, a spokesman for Ironport. The Washington Post has been gathering data on McColo for the past four months and passed the information to its internet service providers, Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric. Both decided to pull the plug on the firm on Tuesday. It is believed that it hosted gangs running botnets - networks of computers that have been taken over by criminals to send malicious software and spam. According to MessageLabs, botnets are responsible for over 90% of spam.

Source: BBC

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With the launch of its latest quad-core Opteron processor, code-named Shanghai, on Thursday, Advanced Micro Devices is looking to rebuild confidence among customers after problems with its Barcelona chip earlier this year. Running at 75 watts, the Shanghai processors range in speed from 2.3GHz to 2.7GHz. The chip also includes improved hyperthreading for faster application performance. Manufactured using the 45-nanometer process, Shanghai chips are more power-efficient than Barcelona, which were manufactured using the 65-nanometer process. New CPU designs allow Shanghai to turn off unused functions or shift processing duties to save power. It also provides more power savings when servers are idle compared to earlier processors.

Shanghai is being aggressively priced for vendors to quickly adopt the chip, Patla said. The chips are 20 percent faster than Barcelona and can be easily plugged into the same socket that support Barcelona chips now. Shanghai-based systems are expected to be immediately available, Patla said. Vendors including Sun, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell and Verari Systems are expected to launch servers with the quad-core chip. Pricing for the Opteron 2000 series chips start at $377 for the 2.3GHz Opteron 2376, running to $989 for the 2.7GHz Opteron 2384. Prices for the Opteron 8000 series begin at $1,165 for 2.3GHz Opteron 8378, up to $2,149 for Opteron 8384, which runs at 2.7GHz. Shanghai chips running at 55 watts and 105 watts will be launched in the first quarter of 2009.

Source: PC World

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Fresh off several hot smartphone releases, device maker HTC on Tuesday unveiled the HTC Fuze, a touch-screen handheld that takes cues from the T-Mobile G1, without the Google Android guts.The Fuze, an AT&T exclusive in the U.S., takes what made the G1, also made by HTC, a swift seller and ups the ante with a host of new features and functions. Like the G1, the Fuze features a fill slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Where it differs is the touchscreen, which ties in HTC’s own TouchFLO 3D user interface for one-touch access. The smartphone, which runs on AT&T’s 3G BroadbandConnect network, is designed specifically for one-hand operation, using gesture-based navigation, meaning users can touch, hold and slide along the screen tabs. The 3-D touchscreen interface extends to the Opera Web browser, where users can zoom in or out to ease navigation.

Another striking difference between the Fuze and the G1 is the Fuze’s operating system — Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, which offers integration with Microsoft Outlook e-mail, contacts, calendar and to-do lists. It wraps in a unique business card application that lets users capture and save contact information using the built-in 3.2 megapixel camera. The device hosts a 262,000-color, 2.8-inch, 480-by-640 VGA touchscreen for touch-sensitive navigation control, with three-dimensional animated transitions. On the connectivity side, the HTC Fuze can connect to voice and data via AT&T’s 3G network, and also features built-in GPS, Wi-Fi access and Bluetooth 2.0. It also has a push-to-talk feature for instant communication. The HTC Fuze is available now starting at $299.99 with a contract at AT&T stores. Voice plans start at $39.99 per month with monthly enterprise data plans starting at $45 and personal data plans starting at $30.

Source: Cnet, CRN

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Today, the Gmail team at Google has expanded GMail capabilities by including video and voice chat. On the Gmail blog Justin Uberti, software engineer for Google, writes, “[T]oday we’re launching voice and video chat — right inside Gmail. We’ve tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video — all for free.” In order to access Gmail Video and Voice Chat, users have to install the voice and video plug-in, and, as the Uberti states it, Google “takes care of the rest.” Gmail Voice and Video Chat was designed using Internet standards such as XMPP, RTP and H.264, making the Google program able to interact with separate, third-party applications, assuming those separate voice and video applications decide to allow Gmail’s offering to interact with them.

Installation is easy and only takes a few seconds to download the plug-in. Once the browser is restarted, a “Video and more” menu will appear at the bottom of the Gmail page. Go to the menu and select “start video chat.” It will take a few moments for the video call to connect with your friend of co-worker. Once the video and voice session is initiated, users can pop the window out of the Gmail interface, just like an Gchat instant message window. Users are then given the option to go full screen with the chat, for an up close and personal experience with your chat partner. In order for Gmail Voice and Video to function on your machine a Web cam is required. The Gmail team guarantees that the functionality for MAC will be available to everyone in the next couple of days.

Source: CRN

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Hollywood is warming up to the Internet’s top video site. On Monday, YouTube will announce an ad-revenue sharing deal with MGM - home of James Bond, the Pink Panther and Rocky - that will let the site show full-length movies for the first time from a major Hollywood studio. Jordan Hoffner, YouTube’s head of content partnerships, called the agreement a “watershed moment’ for the company: “We are really happy about MGM. They have an incredible library.” It’s easy to understand why YouTube is excited. Founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen want the site to be more than just a destination for clips of skateboarding dogs, experiments involving Mentos and Diet Coke and the occasional Simpson episode that needs to be taken down immediately because of copyright infringement.

After all, there are only so many ads YouTube can put into a short clip like “Tiger vs. Bear.” A feature-length film like “Rocky IV” has room from many more marketing messages. The site is already showing full-length independent movies like “Harold Buttelman, Daredevil Stuntman.” Now YouTube can boast that it has the kind of big budget movies that people can watch on Hulu.com. There’s only one catch. MGM - owned by an investor group led by Providence Equity Partners, Sony and Comcast - will only be posting only a few of its 4,000 movies on YouTube at first.

Source: CNN Money

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Apple, Inc.’s popular iPhone 3G has become “the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S.,” according to the NPD Group. The Apple iPhone 3G dethroned Motorola’s RAZR, long the market leader, in the third quarter. NPD said the “watershed shift” to Apple’s iPhone 3G represents a move toward “fashionable functionality.” Apple’s iPhone 3G can add another trophy to its crowded shelf. On Monday, The NPD Group reported that the popular smartphone surpassed the Motorola RAZR in the third quarter as “the leading handset purchased by adult consumers in the U.S.”

The RAZR had reigned as the top-selling consumer handset for the past 12 quarters. The report by the market researcher is based on more than 150,000 online consumer surveys each month, projected to represent all U.S. consumers 18 years and older. Mobile phones are also seeing some features becoming more common. For instance, 30 percent of handsets sold in the third quarter had a QWERTY keyboard, resulting in the greatest year-over-year increase yet in sales for devices with that feature. A year ago, only 11 percent had QWERTY keyboards. Similarly, 83 percent of handsets purchased this year have Bluetooth, versus 72 percent last year, and 68 percent were music-enabled, compared to 49 percent last year.

Source: NewsFactor

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Headphones used with MP3 digital music players like the iPod may interfere with heart pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, U.S. researchers said on Sunday. The MP3 players themselves posed no threat to pacemakers and defibrillators, used to normalize heart rhythm. But strong little magnets inside the headphones can foul up the devices if placed within 1.2 inches of them, the researchers told an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans. Dr. William Maisel of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston led a team that tested eight models of MP3 player headphones, including clip-on and earbud types, in 60 defibrillator and pacemaker patients.

They placed the headphones on the patients’ chests, directly over the devices. The headphones interfered with the heart devices in about a quarter of the patients — 14 of the 60 — and interference was twice as likely in those with a defibrillator than with a pacemaker. So that means people with pacemakers or defibrillators should not place the headphones in a shirt pocket or coat pocket near the chest when they are not being used, drape them over their chest or have others who are wearing headphones rest their head on the patient’s chest, Maisel said. Most of the headphones had magnetic field strengths more than 20 times higher than the threshold for interfering with pacemakers or defibrillators, he said.

Source: Reuters

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I received few emails from our readers that Rapidshare changed their Users policy and it’s quite a significant change so I will write few sentences about it. Rapidshare continues to be one of the most popular filesharing services offering terabytes of data. You can find pretty much everything uploaded there, often just a few minutes after the pre time.

Anyway, the new policy affects mostly holders of Rapidshare Premium account: the main change is the download traffic limit to 80 GB per month, which is something as 2.66 gigabytes per day. Before the update, it used to be 10 gigabytes per day, so this is a pretty major limitation. Still, 80 gigabytes should be more than enough for you, unless you download all new video games and HD rips.

This change is valid only for new Premium accounts on Rapidshare, the holders of old accounts shouldn’t be affected unless they extend their account(s) after the policy change. The other important and actually very annoying change is that public, anonymous uploads will last only 10 downloads and then the data will be deleted. If you want to keep your files longer, you have to register a Collector’s account, which is free, but it’s still an extra hassle. Well, although these bad news may prevent few people from paying for Premium account at Rapidshare, I’m pretty sure the service will remain very popular nevertheless.

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Bethesda’s crowing this morning about record sales of its post-apocalyptic role-playing games Fallout 3. Probably justified. UK sales checker Chart-Track says Fallout 3 has already outsold every prior game in the franchise combined. That sounds slightly more illustrious than it is, because of course all those older Fallout games (except for what-was-Interplay-smoking spinoff Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel) were strictly computer-based. Console sales routinely trump PC sales nowadays, and of course there’s that thing about the market exploding since Fallout and Fallout 2 arrived in the late 1990s. But at least 90 percent illustrious, with Chart-Track stating the game has already outsold Bethesda’s Oblivion by 57%, pulling in sales of 55% on Xbox 360, 28% on PS3, and 17% on PC.

Bethesda dropped a note this morning stating it’s shipped approximately 4.7 million units of Fallout 3 for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, “representing retail sales in excess of $300 million.” The game went on sale at midnight on October 28 in North America, as some 2,000 retailers held special late night launch parties. I’m not sure if that’s a record midnight opening for a video game, but if it’s not, it’s got to be close. Also: That’s 4.7 million units shipped to stores, not necessarily sold-through. We’ll see best-guesses at the sell-through numbers shortly from NPD. More info about Fallout 3 in our post.

Source: PC World

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Foreign hackers infiltrated the networks of John McCain and Barack Obama during the US presidential campaign, according to reports. CNN and Newsweek cited sources within both camps as reporting that hackers from an undisclosed foreign location targeted each network over the summer in an attempt to acquire information. The report did not specify which group or nation was responsible for the attacks, but the target appears to be documents outlining the candidates’ policy proposals. The information would reportedly have been used in future policy negotiations with the winning candidate.

Following the attacks both camps reportedly hired outside consultants to seal up any security flaws, and the FBI and Secret Service are both said to be investigating the incidents. Hacking for political reasons has emerged in recent years as a companion to traditional espionage. In 2007, Chinese government officials were accused of hacking government sites in the US, France, Germany and the UK. Russian nationalists have also been thought to use cyber-attacks to supplement their political efforts. In the midst of conflicts with Estonia and Georgia, Russian hackers were said to be masterminding attacks on government and social infrastructure sites.

Source: Vnunet

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The future of storage is heading away from the spinning magnetic disks inside most of our computers and towards solid state drives. Besides the advantage of being much more reliable and durable, solid state drives (SSD) also have the advantage of being quicker to deliver data. SanDisk detailed today a new technology that it hopes to cement SSD as the performance choice, coupling it with new metrics. SanDisk explained its new file system technology for SSDs, which it calls the ExtremeFFS, at WinHEC 2008 in Los Angeles and boasts that it could boost random write speeds by up to 100 times over existing systems. The “FFS” in the brand stands for Flash File System (not the other use of the acronym) and the Extreme, of course, relates to SanDisk’s brand of premium flash products.

SanDisk appears to have geared its technology towards the needs of Windows Vista. ExtremeFFS operates on a page-based algorithm, which means there is no fixed coupling between physical and logical location. SanDisk explains that when a sector of data is written, ExtremeFFS puts it on the SSD where it is most convenient and efficient. This should result in an improvement in random write performance by up to 100 times in best case scenarios. SanDisk products with ExtremeFFS are expected to ship in 2009.

Source: Tom’s Hardware

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