Intel Is Cooking a 96 GB/s QuickPath Interconnect

The upcoming International Solid-State Circuits Conference is set on taking us by surprise. Rumors are slowly leaking about wonderful innovations in the processor world, from the small, fragile and extremely
energy-friendly from Intel, the Silverthorne, to impressive monoliths that suck up more power than two halogen bulbs and dissipate enough heat for a barbecue feast in the open.

The latter processor is the one that caught my eye (you cannot miss a 170-watt behemoth that easy). This is impressive in its technical specifications, with all its 30 MB of L2 cache, but it is also the first processor to be built with a new, powerful and revolutionary technology. Nicknamed the "Tuckwilla", Intel's behemoth features the brand new QuickPath interconnect, a technology that will surely replace the obsolete front side bus that's been around for years.

The International Solid-State Circuits Conference show program reads that Intel will detail upon its upcoming Itanium processor (those who claimed that it's slowly dying will have quite a surprise). The processor is implemented in 8M 65nm CMOS and features huge sizes ( 21.5×32.5 square millimeters). It also comes with four dual-threaded cores, a system interface and 30 MB of L2 cache pool.

"It looks like Tukwila's QPI links are running at 4.8GHz, which is about the same speed as Hypertransport 3. Realistically, Intel will pack quite a bit more bandwidth on - because they are using 4+1 QPI links, compared to the 4 HT3 links that AMD will be using in future MPUs. What's most impressive about Tukwila is the memory bandwidth - it has the same bandwidth as a full 4 socket Opteron system, all in one socket," claims Real World Technologies analyst David Kanter.

The four processor cores will be linked by the QuickPath interconnect, that would allow data peak processor-to-processor bandwidth of 96GB/s, with a peak memory bandwidth of "only" 34GB/s. The QuickPath is formerly known as CSI (common high-speed serial interconnect) and is Intel's response to AMD's Hypertransport 3.0 that can only carry 41.6GB/s in both directions.

ISPs Blamed for Piracy All Over the World

The French President’s initiative, to consider blaming the Internet Service Providers (ISP) for whatever copyright infringement happens in their networks, has caught on big time all over the world. The final step that was expected for all to start pointing fingers was last week’s International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s opinion, and they said that ISPs "allowed copyright theft to run rampant on their networks, causing a massive devaluation of copyrighted music."

No sooner said than done, when the British Phonographic Industry caught
wind of that happening, it instantly turned the stand-by phase it was in into full scaled offensive. The BPI’s Chief Executive, Geoff Taylor, told Webuser that "The time has come for ISPs to stop dragging their feet and start showing some responsibility, by taking reasonable steps to counter illegal music freeloading. Their failure to do so until now is extraordinary - and it can't be allowed to go on."

I’m not sure why the providers are to police their networks, it is clearly the easier road to take, but the effectiveness of this could have serious consequences on the overall Internet life. First and foremost, the music industry must understand that it’s not the tracks that should bring in the most cash, but concerts and other merchandise. It looks like the future of music is free, online and ad supported. Second, if the penalties are applied to those sharing files, it would bring an uprising, in my humble opinion. The culprits to be found are too many and we’re not in the Middle Ages, to punish an entire community and leave three or four standing.

"We have been negotiating with ISPs to implement reasonable procedures under which they would advise customers if their account is being used to distribute music illegally, and then, if the advice is ignored, enforce their own terms and conditions. But UK ISPs refuse to do even that on any meaningful scale," Taylor told the cited source.

Microsoft Launches Dynamics CRM 4.0

Dynamics

January 30, 2008, marks the release of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 on international markets around the world. The global launch of Dynamics CRM 4.0 is synonymous with the customer relationship management solution's availability in no less than eight languages. But today is also the debut of a Microsoft 12-week global launch tour that will permit companies across the world to test drive Dynamics CRM.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 is positioned as a key component of the company's Software plus Services business srategy. In this regard, Dynamics CRM is no longer limited to an
on-promise solution. Customers deploying version 4.0 will find that they can enjoy the full advantages of a Web-based on-demand solution. And of course that Microsoft also provides a bridge between Software and Services, allowing for a cocktail of on-promise software and on-demand services. The Redmond company even provided a few examples of its partners starting rolling up the update from 3.0 to 4.0, almost immediatelly after the product initially shipped back in December 2007. Case in point: Increase Ltd..

"The first upgrade for our on-demand Microsoft Dynamics CRM customers was completed just four hours after Microsoft delivered the new 4.0 release," said Neil Benson, director of Increase. "I’ve been very impressed by the quality of the product, as well the extensive training and tools that accompanied this release. Customers are impressed with the rapid deployment — in fact, it now takes longer to send the contract and receive the signature than it does to deploy the customer’s hosted system."

Microsoft has also emphasized that the new multilanguage and multicurrency, as well as its multitenant architecture, make it an ideal solution for companies with worldwide operations. Dynamics CRM 4.0 is now available in Danish, English, Finnish, Dutch, French, German, simplified Chinese and Spanish with support for Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Hong Kong Chinese, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, traditional Chinese and Turkish coming in the following 90 days.

"We selected Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0 because it had the global capabilities to support the large-scale rollout to our company’s 12 business units," said Mark Lasswell, CRM executive sponsor and president of the Civil Infrastructure Client Group at CH2M HILL. "With the ability to leverage our existing IT infrastructure — largely Microsoft-based — we have a single global view for managing accounts and opportunities across the enterprise."

Google Bringing the 2000's 2D Back

Google has its mind set to be the reigning champ of advertising. Fair and square, it is probably going to become that, now that the DoubleClick deal is about to go through, and with the newspaper ad sales that it is eyeing, it might break the barrier that held the Mountain View-based company in check this far.

The Internet company has decided to introduce printed barcodes in newspapers, in an attempt similar to that of Digital Convergence,
that tried to strike rich with it in 2000. The response received then wasn’t positive, but it wasn’t negative either: it was indifferent, and many know that it hurts the most. The big disadvantage that the project had at the time was that people, in order to use the barcodes, had to buy a reader from the company and a handheld barcode scanner. Google is now taking advantage of the technology available and it is trying to resurrect the idea, because all you’d need to use of that now is a phone that has a camera and zooming options. That and a web connection with it, but that’s currently defaulted with most handheld mobile phones.

Another big problem that the late 90s startup Digital Convergence had to overcome was the privacy issue, back then, when everybody was afraid of doing almost anything in order to prevent personal data collection online. Google already has the data, so that shouldn’t concern it at all.

If you don’t remember the campaign back then, or if you cannot figure out what good any printed barcodes can do, here’s what Google thinks about them: "2D barcodes are a way to encode information, just like conventional barcodes – but 2D barcodes can encode significantly more. This information can be read by devices with cameras, such as cellphones. For advertisers, using 2D barcodes in newspaper ads can be an effective and flexible way to engage with potential customers. The benefit to readers is an easier, quicker way to get more information about businesses that interest them."

Interested?

Googlebombs Half Defused

About a week ago, the Google Webmaster’s Guild (ok, Blog, but it sounds like a secret organization) brought back into attention the Googlebombs, saying that they have been defused after a prolonged and sustained effort from their dev team. The algorithm they came up with actually works… some of the times.

Not familiar with the term "Googlebomb"? Also called
a "linkbomb" because it’s not always connected to Google, it is actually a sort of a prank that has people attempting to cause someone else’s site to rank for an obscure or meaningless query, in an attempt to lower its credibility and create an overall embarrassing effect.

Ryan Moulton and Kendra Carattini both wrote about the way that they had dealt with the problem and about what they put together to be their "defusing kit." Apparently, the algorithm they developed worked like a sort of deeper inquiry, trying to match the words in the query to those on the site. In plain words, if it ain’t there, it’s not going to show, and that should usually be enough.

Philipp Lenssen of blogoscoped.com found an interesting Googlebomb still ticking: searching for "dangerous cult" will find the website of Scientology.org. This case is interesting because the site actually contains the word "dangerous", but "cult" is not there. And as the Webmaster’s Guild said that they weren’t looking for a manual resolve of any problem, they’ll be looking at some more work to come up with a solution. I would be the first to remove the result from the query’s search results page and then figure out what went wrong, but they seem to want to do it by the book.

Luckily, the bombs have been pretty much defused. Unfortunately for us, the solution to partly include in the "funny" URL that pranksters sent, in order to create one such bomb, words on the site means that they will still continue, perhaps at an unmodified scale. Long live the Bomb Squad!

Nvidia to Work on the First Mac GPGPU Architecture

The General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) is a new class of graphics processor that can perform the same logical operations that were reserved for a system's primary CPU
.

These GPGPUs allow the system speed up processing of non-graphics applications and got into the spotlight with the advent of ATI's R600 GPU. Nvidia could not stay away from the boiling pot, so it invented the CUDA (Computer Unified Device Architecture) architecture, currently compatible with the new graphics cards in the GeForce 8 series.

The main idea that lies behind the GPGPU is to use the GPU computing power for non-graphics related actions. These general-purpose processing units are built following a parallel design, so they are the perfect tool for calculations.

Moreover, they can face higher workloads than the common CPUs, such as ray-tracing, scientific computing applications, database operations, cryptography, physics-based simulation engines, and video, audio and digital image processing. The two competing graphics companies figured out that the GPGPU technology can unleash incredible powers, that allow the GPU perform new and (probably) useful tasks.

Nvidia is allegedly working on a GPGPU system to suit Apple's Mac Pro workstations, since these processors boost digital video and audio professionals in sound effects processing, video decoding and post processing. This feature will tie the knots between Apple and Hollywood even tighter than before. Well, this does not mean that just any Mac owner will be able to direct their own version of Star Wars at home, but they will surely be a performance booster.

"In science applications, calculations have seen speed boosts from a 45 times to as much as 415 times in processing MRI scans for hospitals. Increases such as this can mean the difference between using a single system and a whole computer cluster to do the same work", the company says.

There is no word on when the GPGPU-enabled graphics cards will kick in, but it is supposed that Nvidia is working at full load now. We'll have yet to see how capable the Apple – Nvidia affair will be to give birth to a compatible Mac OS X driver to work with the cards.

Nvidia to Work on the First Mac GPGPU Architecture

The General-Purpose Graphics Processing Unit (GPGPU) is a new class of graphics processor that can perform the same logical operations that were reserved for a system's primary CPU
.

These GPGPUs allow the system speed up processing of non-graphics applications and got into the spotlight with the advent of ATI's R600 GPU. Nvidia could not stay away from the boiling pot, so it invented the CUDA (Computer Unified Device Architecture) architecture, currently compatible with the new graphics cards in the GeForce 8 series.

The main idea that lies behind the GPGPU is to use the GPU computing power for non-graphics related actions. These general-purpose processing units are built following a parallel design, so they are the perfect tool for calculations.

Moreover, they can face higher workloads than the common CPUs, such as ray-tracing, scientific computing applications, database operations, cryptography, physics-based simulation engines, and video, audio and digital image processing. The two competing graphics companies figured out that the GPGPU technology can unleash incredible powers, that allow the GPU perform new and (probably) useful tasks.

Nvidia is allegedly working on a GPGPU system to suit Apple's Mac Pro workstations, since these processors boost digital video and audio professionals in sound effects processing, video decoding and post processing. This feature will tie the knots between Apple and Hollywood even tighter than before. Well, this does not mean that just any Mac owner will be able to direct their own version of Star Wars at home, but they will surely be a performance booster.

"In science applications, calculations have seen speed boosts from a 45 times to as much as 415 times in processing MRI scans for hospitals. Increases such as this can mean the difference between using a single system and a whole computer cluster to do the same work", the company says.

There is no word on when the GPGPU-enabled graphics cards will kick in, but it is supposed that Nvidia is working at full load now. We'll have yet to see how capable the Apple – Nvidia affair will be to give birth to a compatible Mac OS X driver to work with the cards.

What’s New in Microsoft Land: 21-25 January 2008

Virtualization nowadays is the latest thing to be interesting to the crowds and the most forward step that is available for them. Microsoft stomped its foot and said that as of Monday it will try to pioneer the adoption of virtualization at a broader level. In order to do that easier, the Redmond-based company acquired Calista Technologies Inc. for the improving of end-user experience, expanded an alliance with Citrix Systems Inc. for help with the client and server virtualization. Some more of the things mentioned in the press release related to the event numbered new tools for deploying Microsoft virtualization software and more flexible licensing options if the process is to be done using Vista.

"We estimate that less than 5 percent of companies are utilizing virtualization technology because it is simply too cost-prohibitive and complex. We believe Microsoft’s comprehensive approach — from desktop
to datacenter — is unique to the industry by delivering solutions that address virtualization at the hardware, application and management levels. Our approach is not only one of the most comprehensive in the market today, but we believe it is also one of the most economical. This combination brings a big strategic advantage and cost savings to customers," said Bob Muglia, the senior Vice President of the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft.

There are still some very important problems to be sorted through before the whole thing comes to be, like the high cost and the complexity associated with it, but the first stroke of the bigger painting has been drawn.

Being the giant that it is, Microsoft Corp. knows the importance of growing up its future experts, so on Tuesday it announced that some additional five years would be committed to its Partners in Learning. The program, which provides the necessary resources and training to the education community, has so far reached and influenced 90 million students in 101 countries since it was launched, back in 2003.

The award for Partner in Learning

The main areas that the impact of the program is to be maximized are three at the core of it: Innovative Teachers, Innovative Students and, the liaison, Innovative Schools. "Actively integrating technology into the classroom takes more than just PCs; it requires the cooperation and input of those with expertise, vision and strong experience in all aspects of the educational process," said Cristian-Mihai Adomnitei, minister of education, research and youth in Romania. "Microsoft’s continued partnership and guidance through Partners in Learning has been instrumental in the success of our programs to achieve better education through IT and in forming talents for a competitive economy."

Besides the obvious education related perks that being a part of the program comes with, Microsoft also is making efforts to work with the governments in the respective 101 countries to deliver expert guidance in the entire school reform.

Wednesday saw the announcement made by Microsoft Corp that former Disney CIO Tony Scott joining the company as the new technology chief. The hiring has taken place, but Scott will be taking office at the beginning of February 2008. The Redmond company looked like it was on a hiring lucky streak, as it also added Todd Peters, the new corporate Vice President of marketing for Microsoft’s mobile communications market group.

"This is an exciting journey for Microsoft’s mobile business; with Todd’s winning combination of technology and consumer experience, he’s absolutely the right person at the right time as we expand in appeal to a broader audience," said Pieter Knook, senior vice president of the Mobile Communications Business at Microsoft.

And if you know that’s it, two major hirings a day, you must keep in mind that Bill Gates’ company is a giant. When it does something, it does it properly: Stephen Elop, a former CEO at Juniper Networks will be replacing Jeff Raikes in the position of President of the Business Division.



Cha-Ching! The counters at Microsoft went on Thursday. There was serious reason for joy as the quarterly results were released and they noted a growth of about 30 percent. The numbers have grown enormously compared to the previous year. The 30% above is the revenue increase, but some other figures showed that the operating income has grown by 87 percent, to a high of 6.48 billion dollars and that the diluted earnings per share have risen by 92 percent, respectively 0.50 bucks.

Chris Liddell, the CFO at Microsoft, said that "Revenue of over $16 billion this quarter exceeds our previous record by $2 billion. We are extremely pleased by the broad based strength of our business performance and field execution. Throughout the first half of our fiscal year, all of our businesses met or beat our expectations."

The rise in numbers are attributed mostly to the new consumer focused offerings like Windows Home Server, the new versions of the Zune player or the next generation of Windows Live Online Services. Don’t stop now with the money, there’s room for more!

As I've noticed in the past weeks, if there’s an important update to be released, it will be coming on Friday. I know I’m not inventing the wheel, but bare with me. New builds for the service packs for both Vista and XP have been made available. Not to everybody, unfortunately, they were given to a select few testers, numbering 15 thousand.

Everybody else will have to wait most likely until February, seeing that the two service packs are synced with Windows Server 2008. Now, knowing that WS 2008 will RTM next month, the thought pops into mind without any problem.

Samsung, Hynix to Create Nett-Gen Memory Joint-Venture

World's largest memory chip providers, Samsung and Hynix, announced that they will collaborate for achieving the next generation of semiconductors. Both chip manufacturing companies will invest a share
of $9.46 million, as part of a South Korean research and development program that is backed by the South Korean government and the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, this investment is more than an educational or a research initiative. It is primarily aimed at helping South Korean firms to fend off the Japanese challenge and the rivals in the next generation memory market.

This kind of market is based on commodities, meaning that the memory chip manufacturers are charging only a few cents above the production costs for each sold chip. The profits are made through volume sales and not through higher selling prices.

Such markets are prone to frequent crashes out of the blue. Moreover, huge profits can only be achieved by the companies who are fast enough to deliver the firs working units of newer technology. After the market is saturated by multiple players offering the same product, the companies are less likely to post profit.

The program will run for seven years and will help South Korea design and produce spin torque transfer magnetic random access memory (STT-MRAM) as well as some other non-volatile memory devices. The South Korean government has announced that it will invest 28.45 billion won in order to use the new technologies for snatching 40 percent of the non-volatile memory chip market until 2012.

As for the technological aspects, the new memory type will play a significant role in the flash memory development, by helping researchers to overcome the nowadays' current capacity limits. At the same time, the initiative is extremely important, as Japan's Toshiba, NEC and Fujitsu have signed an agreement too in order to jointly develop STT-MRAM devices.

Sony VAIO TZ Notebook: Steve Job's Idea of Portability

The Sony Vaio TZ model has been mentioned several times during Steve Jobs’ MacWorld 2008 keynote, when the Apple founder unveiled the ethereal MacBook Air notebook. Sony's notebook was quoted
almost each time Jobs needed a reference for ultra-portability.

He was not wrong in his choice, as the Vaio TZ model is Sony's flagship ultra-portable laptop PC. This is understandable, since Sony has become famous for its notebook designs. Apart from its portability, the notebook features an impressive hardware specifications set that perfectly reflects its pretty consistent price tag.

The Sony Vaio TZ weighs less than 1.3 kilograms and comes with a 11.1-inch LCD-backlit display with XBRITE-HiColor that can display a maximum resolution of 1366×768. It is built around an Intel ULV U7500 Core 2 Duo processor with a core clock of 1.06GHz, and comes with 1GB DDR2 (that can be expanded up to 2GB), 100 GB of storage on a 1.8-inch Toshiba hard disk drive, but the users can opt for a more expensive, SSD-enabled version. The notebook comes with a built-in DVD+-RW optical drive.

The built-in optical drive makes it the favorite among the other high end ultraportables, such as Toshiba’s R500 and Panasonic’s W7. Its neat and cool design is another strong point: the notebook is extremely thin, almost ethereal, and features spaced-out keys, just like the MacBook air model. The green LED on the side power button adds a plus of elegance to the already-good looking notebook.

The notebook, however, has some limitations. The 1.8-inch disk would offer lower performance than a standard 2.5-inch notebook hard-disk. Replacing it with a 64 or 32 GB of solid-state drive will help a lot, but will blast the buyer's budget way beyond the already-high price tag. Moreover, the Vaio TZ model comes with a single DDR2 memory slot that allows the user to enjoy a maximum of 2 GB (which is not quite enough if you plan to run Windows Vista, for instance).

The eXPerience (XP SP3)... The Wow (Vista SP1)... and the Seventh (Windows 7)

Windows XP (Service Pack 3 imminent), Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 just around the corner) and Windows 7, still on the distant horizon, but at the same time becoming increasingly palpable... The good, the bad and the still-to-be-determined. Essentially, the three operating systems mark almost a decade of Microsoft history, starting in 2001 with XP RTM, jumping to 2004 with SP2, then to 2006/2007 with Vista and in the future, an estimated 2009/2010, with Windows 7. There is also a more subtle, underlying evolution to Windows in the past 10 years.

Microsoft has shifted its strategy of building Windows, moving from XP codename Whistler and from eXPerience to SP2 codename Springboard, then to Vista codename Longhorn and to the Wow, then to Windows version Next codename Vienna. From XP to Windows 7 via Vista, the Redmond company traveled from Whistler, made a short pit stop at the Longhorn watering hole, and moved on to Blackcomb. The Vienna codename for the Windows version to follow Vista indicated the first signs of an oscillation in the Windows development process. One that was complete with the stepping down of Jim Allchin from the role of Co-President, Platforms & Services Division in January 2007, shortly after the consumer launch of Vista, and with Steven Sinofsky taking on the position of Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group.

The eXPerience

It all started with Whistler. Windows XP is cozy, comfortable. XP is an integral part of the Windows
landscape, more than any other version of the Microsoft operating system, at this point in time. With the worldwide install base for Windows flirting aggressively with the 1 billion milestone, XP can largely take almost all the credit. The operating system debuted back in 2001 and climbed to a market share of over 85% just before Vista was shipped. The largest impediment in Vista's way, XP's market share was slowly eroded throughout 2007 as Vista increased its audience.

At the end of 2007, according to statistics provided by Net Applications, XP still enjoyed the lion's share of the operating system market with over 76%. But of course that what made a success out of XP was by no means the RTM version of the operating system. XP RTM was just as badly received as Windows Vista and a true security faux pass. The turning point, however, was XP SP2. Back in 2004, Microsoft even offered XP SP2 as an excuse for further postponing Longhorn, saying that it had to shift resources to the service pack, and away from the upcoming Windows operating system.

Ahead of his retirement from Microsoft, Jim Allchin looked at XP SP2 as full release of Windows, and by no means just a service pack delivering an incremental upgrade. And Allchin was not far from the truth. XP SP2 turned XP around and made it what it is today, an operating system that can go head to head against Windows Vista and still hold its own. At this point, XP is so deeply rooted in the IT landscape that it will take more than Vista to dislodge it.

eXPiring...

Windows XP is not expiring, no matter how many hundred million Vistas Microsoft throws at it. Without a doubt, XP is on its way out the door. But it is still a long way before Microsoft will be able to boast that XP has left the building. An illustrative example in this context is the fact that we are now at just one week from the moment that would have signaled XP's end. Initially, January 31st, 2008 was marked as the end of availability date for Direct OEM and Retail Licenses. However, at the end of September 2007, Mike Nash, corporate vice president, Windows Product Management announced that the Redmond company would extend the Direct OEM and Retail License availability end date until June 30, 2008 due to customer demand and OEM pressure. It still remains to be seen if Microsoft will cave in yet again in mid 2008 and further prolong offering XP preloaded on OEM machines, or as boxed copies.

But OEM and retail channels aside the XP Starter Edition will survive on emerging markets until June 30, 2010, while System Builders will be able to sell it until January 31, 2009. On top of this, mainstream support will only be retired in April 2009, while extended support will last until 2014. The sole factor that can contribute decisively to the expiration of XP is the hardware and software environment orbiting around the Windows platform that will slowly shift its focus on Vista nudged in the right direction by Microsoft's evangelism efforts.

And do not forget the third and final service pack for Windows XP. Officially planned by mid 2008, with more realistic deadlines estimates pointing to February 2008, XP SP3 will serve to breathe additional life into XP. The service pack debuted into testing in mid 2007, and at the end of December of the past year, was made available for the general public. XP users can still access XP SP3 Release Candidate, and an additional 15,000 selected testers can even grab the XP SP3 Release Candidate Refresh 2 via Microsoft Connect starting this week.

The Wow

During his last keynote address at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, on January 6, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates applauded an install base of over 100 million for Vista. The latest Windows operating system may not be pushing twice the volume of licenses compared to its predecessor, but it is selling, and selling well. So much in fact that it contributed to increasing Microsoft’s revenue for the Client-division by over 70%, in the second quarter of the 2008 Fiscal Year, compared with the same period of the past year. Net Applications puts Vista at a market share of over 10% at the end of December 2007. The $500 million Wow is gone by now, but Vista is still here and going strong.

Wow-less

In the end, Microsoft jumped too far with the vision of Longhorn, and simply landed too far off with what it delivered in Vista. But the soil is now fertile for the evolution of the latest Windows client. Microsoft started cooking Vista Service Pack 1 back in 2007. In mid December, the Redmond company even made available to the public Vista SP1 Release Candidate. Opening up the testing process of Vista SP1 brought with it the Vista SP1 Refresh, also a public release in early January 2008, and Vista SP1 Refresh 2 this week. There are no more traces of Wow in Vista SP1, but with compatibility, support, reliability and performance problems associated with the debut of the platform largely out of the way, the service pack has a shot of capturing more audience, and to convert more XP users. Microsoft claims that SP1 will drop by the end of the first quarter of 2008, but otherwise all other indications point to February.

The Seventh

No more codenames, no more big expectations, no more transparency... Sinofsky's perfect recipe for Windows 7. Namely a product number, a modest evolution of the Windows operating system, and translucency (which essentially means that Sinofsky will only talk Windows 7 when he's good and ready, not a whisper before that). But there is a lot of anticipation building around Windows 7. Especially now that Microsoft has started shipping the first Milestone of the next Windows operating system. Coming with the promise of a closer integration with Windows Live, with a new core – the MinWin kernel, and with an overhauled graphical user interface, along with the growth of the components fitted into the platform's fabric from Windows Media Center to support for EFI (Extended Firmware Interface), Windows 7 has pushed XP SP3 and Vista SP1 just a little into the background.

There are now leaked screenshots of Windows 7, and even leaked videos of Windows 7, both offering previews of Windows 7 Ultimate edition Milestone 1 version 6.1 (Build 6519.1.x86fre.winmain.071220-1525). But this is all that end users are supposed to get. Just a taste of Windows 7. Milestone 1 is time-bombed to expire in May 2008, By this time, the Redmond company will deliver M2. M3 will follow in the third quarter of 2008. The release dates for the Beta, RC and RTM versions have not been set as of yet, but the official launch of Windows 7 is apparently planned for the second half of 2009.

With XP SP3 and Vista SP dropping just two years ahead of Windows 7, the real question is in which direction will end users swing. With the proximity of Windows 7, those running XP SP3 will be tempted to stick with what they got. Moving to Vista, SP1 or no SP1 will mean staring in the face Windows 7 beta releases as yearly as the debut of 2009, just a year from now. According to the official Microsoft clock for Windows 7, the operating system will ship 3 years after the release of Vista. But the actually releases of Vista stretch from November 2006 (the RTM and business launch) until the end of January 2007. In this context, it is a much more plausible scenario that Microsoft will target the 2009 holiday season with Windows 7.

ATI to Dismiss PCI-Express 2.0 Compatibility Issues

ATI, the graphics division of Advanced Micro Devices aggressively dismissed the rumors alleging the fact that its graphics cards do not and will not have compatibility issues with older platforms. While Nvidia's
GeForce 8800 graphics cards experienced some problems on the old platforms, the ATI Radeon HD 3000-series of graphics cards did not encounter any problems.

Last year, Taiwanese PC manufacturer and vendor Asustek Computer claimed that some of the Canadian company's PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards may experience compatibility problems when seated on motherboards that only support PCI Express 1.0a and 1.1 2.5GHz transfer rates.

On the other side on the fence, many of Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT-based graphics cards that come with PCI-Express 2.0 support, could not correctly work on Intel 925 chipset-based systems, although they should have been backwards compatible.

"There were potentially compatibility issues with PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards and certain PCIe 1.0/1.1 platforms. We asked Asustek to double check if there were any issues with ATI Radeon HD 3800-series as we believed there shouldn’t be. Asustek carried out that test and verified that, indeed, ATI Radeon HD3000-series cards do work with no compatibility issues," said David Baumann, a technical marketing manager at AMD’s graphics product group.

AMD spokespersons claimed that the ATI Radeon HD 3000-series initially starts up as a PCI-Express 1.0 device, and then "expands" to higher modes if they are supported by the host motherboard. "This way ensures that there shouldn’t be any compatibility issues with pre-PCIe 2.0 platforms," Baumann added. Further tests did not reveal any compatibility issues in the Radeon HD 2000 and HD 3000-series running on PCI-Express 1.0 or 1.1 motherboards.

Interactive Learning of Javascript for Free

The importance of Javascript as client side programming language is well known. Since the beginning of the Internet, Javascript has been defined as a robust, easy and flexible
programming language.

The scripts based on Javascript codes have many practical applications, for example in improvement of content management systems functionalities on the client side or in development of standalone AJAX applications which allow the refreshing of web page content without the need of reloading it.

Due to the extensive usage of Javascript codes as composing part of various web applications, the basic notions regarding Javascript coding techniques should be known if you need to customize certain aspects of Javascript based components or standalone programs. In order to learn Javascript or to solve a specific coding related problem, there are many resources available over the Internet for free, like tutorials, books, code examples and complete applications with full source code.

Marijn Haverbeke had the idea to publish an interactive online book which covers many topics related to Javascript programming language. The book is entitled " Eloquent JavaScript " and has the interactive character due to the presence of a console that allows users to test and modify the code examples from the book or to create new ones. The alert()Javascript function can be substituted (only on the console) with a new defined function print(), which does not create pop-up windows. In this way, the output of any script can be seen directly on the console.

The content of the book provides intuitive Javascript examples that come to demonstrate various definitions of concepts regarding variables flow control, data structures (objects and arrays), errors handling, OOP (object oriented programming) and more. As a useful remark for Javascript beginners, the semicolon (;) punctuation mark is not needed at the end of the lines in a Javascript code. In this book it is used (this is not a mistake), but it is not really necessary, because JavaScript will automatically perform the semicolon insertion.

In ensemble, the content of the book is well structured in presentation strategy, from the basics to advanced concepts. The Javascript scripts examples are objective relative to the discussed topics. The user interaction with the console will determine the perception and understanding of presented information to be performed in a more intuitive manner. If you want to read this book from your own computer, you can use a free offline web browser, like HTTrack to download it.

Mozilla marks 10th birthday, warns of Firefox bug

The Mozilla Foundation is celebrating what it regards as its 10th anniversary this week.

On 22 January, 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation announced its plans to make the source code for the Netscape Communicator client software available with free licensing on the Internet. The Communicator 5 source code was made available on 31 March, 1998. The code became the basis of the Mozilla Suite, which comprises the Firefox Web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail application.


Mozilla, originally the codename for the Netscape Navigator browser code, became the name of both Mozilla's red lizard mascot and the open-source community that was created to develop the open-source Netscape suite.

The outgoing chief executive officer of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker, has asked the Mozilla community for ideas on how to celebrate Mozilla's 10th year. Mozilla.org, the organization launched to co-ordinate Mozilla developers' efforts, will celebrate the event on 23 February.

Meanwhile, Mozilla's head of security, Window Snyder, warned on Tuesday of a flaw in Firefox's user interface, which is called "chrome". Following the notification of the flaw by vulnerability researcher Gerry Eisenhaur, Snyder confirmed on Tuesday that the flaw would affect users who had installed "flat" Firefox extensions--add-ons, such as Download Statusbar and Greasemonkey, that do not store files in a Java archive .

Insufficient security validation of input file names in the Firefox header lets an attacker order the browser to access files it is not supposed to be able to access, a technique known as directory traversal.

Mozilla has assigned a "low" severity rating to the flaw, and the vulnerability is being investigated by Firefox developers.

Mozilla marks 10th birthday, warns of Firefox bug

The Mozilla Foundation is celebrating what it regards as its 10th anniversary this week.

On 22 January, 1998, Netscape Communications Corporation announced its plans to make the source code for the Netscape Communicator client software available with free licensing on the Internet. The Communicator 5 source code was made available on 31 March, 1998. The code became the basis of the Mozilla Suite, which comprises the Firefox Web browser and the Thunderbird e-mail application.


Mozilla, originally the codename for the Netscape Navigator browser code, became the name of both Mozilla's red lizard mascot and the open-source community that was created to develop the open-source Netscape suite.

The outgoing chief executive officer of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker, has asked the Mozilla community for ideas on how to celebrate Mozilla's 10th year. Mozilla.org, the organization launched to co-ordinate Mozilla developers' efforts, will celebrate the event on 23 February.

Meanwhile, Mozilla's head of security, Window Snyder, warned on Tuesday of a flaw in Firefox's user interface, which is called "chrome". Following the notification of the flaw by vulnerability researcher Gerry Eisenhaur, Snyder confirmed on Tuesday that the flaw would affect users who had installed "flat" Firefox extensions--add-ons, such as Download Statusbar and Greasemonkey, that do not store files in a Java archive .

Insufficient security validation of input file names in the Firefox header lets an attacker order the browser to access files it is not supposed to be able to access, a technique known as directory traversal.

Mozilla has assigned a "low" severity rating to the flaw, and the vulnerability is being investigated by Firefox developers.

iPhone 1.1.3 Jailbreak Released for Mac!

Not long after the Windows version of iPhone 1.1.3 jailbreak (by Nate True) was thrown in the wild, the Mac version too made its appearance on the web. It's already available for download, but keep in mind that this particular jailbreak may be hazardous to your iPhone, as the cre.ations.net themselves note in the statement of risk.

As all upgrades are risky, this one is doubly so. You may have to restore your
phone using iTunes and start again if it fails. Make sure to back up first!

Backup can be performed on iTunes, while 1.1.3, just like like the 1.1.2 jailbreak, comes as an upgrade which means that you need to have a 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 jailbroken phone already, before you can begin.

If you're the owner of an unlocked phone, it seems to make little to no difference, since an update on the cre.ations website confirms that unlocked phones appear to remain unlocked and work properly after the update. This information is reportedly scattered across several reports.

You'll need to start with a 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 jailbroken phone with Installer.app installed,Plug in your phone via USB to your computer, download, extract, and run iBrickr Special 1.1.3 jailbreak edition (ibrickr.exe in the archive). iBrickr will confirm what firmware you are running on your phone, thus making sure you can run the update.

Next, iBrickr will start guiding you through the process of obtaining and modifying the 1.1.3 firmware, uploading the new firmware image to your phone. iBrickr should do its job in about 10 minutes, after which it would allow to finally run the installer for the "1.1.3 soft upgrade" package.

That as far as we go with cre.ations.net's how-you-do-it, the rest you can check out for yourselves. Remember that this particular jailbreak may be hazardous to your iPhone. If you proceed with installing it, you're doing it at your own risk.

How to Turn an Old HDD Into an External USB Drive: Just $11

Remember the times when a 40 GB of HDD was enough for a laptop computer? These days are long gone and people tend to shrug when it comes to notebooks with less than 160 GB of storage space
. Older laptops came with low-capacity drives that need to be changed in order to take advantage of the home theater capabilities: high definition television, lossless audio files and so on.

If you have already considered upgrading the hard-disk drive, you now have a spare, low-capacity disk that you could send back into production. Just plug it inside an external 2.5-inch HDD enclosure and you're ready to go. I know this would squeeze some extra money, but there is an extremely cheap and rugged offering from Meritline. The producer is giving away their aluminum SATA to USB external enclosure for as much as $11.

The device is compatible with all 2.5-inch IDE and SATA drives and comes with both IDE and SATA external interfaces. Meritline is bundling everything you would need during its assembly (apart from the HDD, of course). Inside the package you will find a carrying case, the USB cable and a little screwdriver that makes the removing of the enclosure's protective casing really easy. Since the drive is powered through the USB cable directly from the computer's USB port, there is no need for an external AC adapter.

The enclosure is just a little larger than the notebook drive itself, and the lack of a brick-like power adapter makes it extremely portable. All you have to do is remove the USB cable from the computer and the HDD enclosure, then put the latter into a pocket. It goes without saying that the Meritline enclosure does not come with any kind of data protection or encryption technology, so you'd better watch out your drive should you have stored important data on it.

MSI to Announce the R3870X2, R3600 & R3400 Series

Micro-Star International unveiled its latest series of graphic cards, the ATI R3870X2, R3600, and R3400, built on AMD's 55-nanometer GPUs in the Radeon HD 3000 series. The graphics cards
come with industry-leading HD quality and improved gaming experience with life-like 3D graphics.

The ATI R3870X2 graphics card mixes high-definition with 3D processing performance. The card comes with full support for the upcoming version of Microsoft's DirectX, the 10.1 that will arrive with the Windows Vista SP1. The dual ATI R3870 GPUs can deliver a GPU computing power of over 1Teraflops. Moreover, the graphics performance can be scaled thanks to the included ATI CrossFireX multi-GPU technology.

The ATI Radeon HD 3600 series of graphics card are aiming at the mainstream computer users. The new 55-nanometer graphics processors are made of 378 million transistors and feature the second-generation integration built-in rendering framework.

"The new ATI Radeon HD 3600 family core has 256 bit ring-bus memory control capabilities, with high-speed GDDR3 512MB, and other ultra-realistic graphics memory particles, and efficiency is superior to the same price competitors products. This mid-range product gives user adequate multilateral geometry, color rendering, and high-speed image pixels, and other computing support, it can be said that this product has all the cost-effective advantages," said Vincent Lai, MSI global marketing director.

The MSI R3400 series graphics cards are built around the ATI Radeon HD 3400 family of graphics processors. Just like the above-mentioned chips, the R3400 is also built on the 55-nanometer process node. The GPU is a scaled-down version of the R3600 and comes with less stream processors, texture units and ROPs. The MSI R3400 is fully compatible with the upcoming DirectX 10.1 and also allows performance scaling via the ATI CrossFireX link. The low-end and mid-range card offerings include ATI Hybrid Graphics, that is based on the CrossFireX multiGPU technology.

PlayStation 3 Hacked ... Almost

Be advised that we don't encourage piracy, but we're surprised to see that the homebrewers have (almost) finally made it, after such a long research. Word goes that Team ICE has found a way of running SELF files in GamesOS on the PS3's 2.10 firmware. Translation: they managed to run an unsigned code on a retail PS3 through a Resistance: Fall of Man exploit, surfaced on the latest
firmware.

There's a video proof of this major breakthrough for homebrewers and you can check it out below. The Resistance: Fall of Man exploit allowed homebrewers to hack into the PS3 GameOS and run the above-mentioned unsigned code. The release of the files and apps needed for this exploit to work was followed by numerous attempts of taking down the site hosting them plus many fake files appearing on the Internet, claiming that they can hack your PS3.

Since these homebrewing wars are still going on, we advise you not to download apps or files used in the process of exploiting the PS3, because they might be fake. Such initiatives were also seen when Dark_Alex released his PSP hacked firmwares and various fake files were made available bricking many consoles. These are the times when you can't trust a homebrewer, specially because his software gets tempered with and put up for download, in search for cheap fame, by various individuals who only want to have a good laugh and destroy a couple of PS3 consoles.

Hacking your console is obviously your choice, but you probably know that the PS3's not doing as good as Sony wanted it to, so a mod is the last thing they need right now. Imagine Sony having to retire from the game biz because of this issue...

BREAKING: Windows 7 M1 Ultimate Edition Lives! - Video Proof!

Windows 7 Milestone 1 Ultimate Edition is alive, kicking and as real as they get! Although it's but one year away from the moment Windows Vista hit the shelves, and despite being in the final stages of development of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and Windows XP Service Pack 3, Microsoft is also building Windows 7. At this point in time, Windows 7 is being dogfooded inhouse by Microsoft. However, the successor of Windows Vista was also shipped in an early stage to a select pool of the Redmond company's key partners.

On January 24, you were able to feast your eyes on the first ever leaked screenshots from Windows 7 Ultimate edition version 6.1 (Build 6519.1.x86fre.winmain.071220-1525), courtesy of ThinkNext. Because of numerous
accusations that the images had been tampered with, and were fake, the Chinese blog posted the video embedded at the bottom of this article. Yes, this is Windows 7 Milestone 1 Ultimate edition 6519.1.071220-1525.

"I was about to share something interesting about Windows 7 in my last post, Windows 7: The Real Thing. The ISO image, installation, evaluation and the screenshots are all real. I mean there is no Photoshop or anything like that involved," reads a fragment from ThinkNext. "I’m not a person who makes himself complacent by faking something hot, neither will I be unhappy if someone denies the real information I posted. I don’t mean to draw much attention, especially from those suckers. When I post images, there is Photoshop, when a piece of video, there is something called Premiere, or DreamWorks?"

In the video, you will be able to see the boot screen of Windows 7, as well as the desktop and a presentation of the new Windows Media Center that comes as a component of the next iteration of the Windows operating system. Users that are running Windows Media Center under Vista Home Premium and Ultimate SKUs will undoubtedly notice differences when it comes to the WMC running in the Ultimate edition of Windows 7. While the interface is approximately the same, the text size has changed, and so has the number of categories.

Windows 7 M1 comes, as all software under development from Microsoft, with an expiration date. Windows 7 M1 is time-bombed for May 2008. This only confirms the fact that the Redmond company will deliver Windows 7 Milestone 2 by May of this year.

"I don’t think there is anything wrong, disappointing or weird that Windows 7 Milestone 1 isn’t greatly different from Vista. It’s only Milestone 1 so lots of code may be reused. Besides, even we can’t see much visual changes (say, user interfaces), that doesn’t mean Win7 internals don’t change greatly. Here from the release notes, I read: 'the software will stop running on May 7, 2008. You may not receive any other notice. You may not be able to access data used with the software when it stops running'," added ThinkNext.

The New Toshiba Portege Handsets Officially Presented

The Italian division of Toshiba recently presented, in Milan, the new Portege handsets announced a few months ago: Toshiba G910 / G920 and Toshiba G710,
plus Toshiba G450 – a USB modem with phone functionality.

It seems that the G920 and G910 names hide the same device, and its naming will differ depending on the market it's launched for. Since in Italy (hence Europe) the handset was just presented as G910, the US will probably get it as G920.

The official specifications for Toshiba G910, as presented in Italy, are: 3 inch touchscreen TFT display with a 480 x 800 pixel resolution, 2 Megapixel camera, 3G/HSPDA, built-in GPS receiver, GPRS, Bluetooth, VoIP (via Wi-Fi), Media Player, Java (MIDP 2.0 and JSR179), Mobile Outlook and ActiveSync. The handset measures 117 x 64 x 19,8 millimeters, weighs 183 grams, packs a full QWERTY keyboard and can offer up to 6 hours of talk-time and up to 460 hours of stand-by time. Toshiba G910 runs on Windows Mobile 6 Professional and will be available in Europe starting April 2008 for a retail price of about 600 Euros ($880).

Toshiba G710 is the second handset from the Portege series that got an official presentation, and it's a compact-form GSM/EDGE smartphone that runs Windows Mobile 6 Standard. The device offers a full QWERTY keypad, GPS receiver, a 2.4 inch TFT display with QVGA resolution, photo camera with 2 Megapixels, stereo Bluetooth and microSD card support for up to 2GB of extended memory. Toshiba G710 measures 115 × 62 x 13 mm, weighs 130 grams and will hit the market in March 2008 for an estimated price of 300 Euros (about $440).

Toshiba G710

Both Toshiba G910/G920 and Toshiba G710 are created mainly for those who need devices with business functionality.

The third Portege device that was unveiled by the Japanese company is Toshiba G450, which is a USB modem, a MP3 player and a mobile phone – all in one case that measures only 98 x 36 x 16 millimeters. The handset supports GSM, GPRS, EDGE, UMTS and HSDPA connectivity, comes with a USB mini interface and can provide 3 hours of talk-time and about 300 hours of stand-by time. The interesting aspects about Toshiba G450 are its unusual rounded design, unusual rounded split-keypad and its more than unusual tiny OLED display with the 96 × 36 pixels resolution.

Toshiba G450

Aside from the interesting aspects about Toshiba G450, there's a strange one too. About a week ago, at the CES 2008, UTStarcom showcased the UTStarcom HSM 180 device which, in my eyes at least, looks exactly the same as the G450 exposed by Toshiba. Moreover, the HSM 180 was presented with the same functions the G450 is said to have, which makes me wonder what in the name of mobility is going on? I searched the web for references regarding the device's resemblance and I haven't found anything except some info on two Russian sites, but they're as confused as I am. I believe many other mobile users will be confused too, so either Toshiba or UTStarcom should say something about the matter.

Dell UltraSharp 3008WFP 30-inch LCD With DisplayPort

Like high-end graphics cards setup in multi-GPU configurations, terabyte desktop drives, and 3GHz quad-core processors, 30-inch wide screen LCDs cater to what we like to call the "enthusiast" niche. And though this niche obviously drives lower volume demand versus the mainstream, you have to remember that the enthusiast end-user is a very influential segment of the market, often times assisting in the definition of what will become mainstream technology tomorrow. Not to mention 30 inches of screen real-estate is a professional workstation designer's nirvana, so perhaps this niche isn't as small as it would appear on the surface.

Regardless, though there are fewer in our audience who might find it practical to justify the cost of a 30" monitor, the undeniable allure of a panel of this size makes these products easily one of our most popular areas of coverage here at HotHardware.com. There's just something about them. Maybe it's a size thing. We've got people buzzing over tiny, little Eee PCs and they're also in a tizzy at the other end of the spectrum about huge LCDs. Sexy is in the extremes we would surmise, though the ever-present "newness" factor is obviously a head-turner for these products as well.

It's easy to see where Dell was going with the introduction of their new UltraSharp 3008 WFP 30" LCD. Calling upon the input received from previous 30" panel incarnations and marrying these feature requests in with new technologies like a wider color gamut and the bleeding-edge of display interface technologies. As the first DisplayPort-enabled LCD from Dell, the 3008 WFP is claiming that sexy is back. No Justin, not you -- she's getting a Dell?





Dell UltraSharp 3008 WFP 30" Widescreen LCD
Specifications and Features
Viewable Image Size 30 inches
Diagonal Size 30 inches
Display Type Active Matrix - TFT LCD
Color Gamut 117%
Image Scaling Built in image scaler/processor
Depth 9.35 inches
Height
18.98 inches compressed
22.52 inches extended
Width 27.43 inches
Weight (with stand) 34.36 lbs.
Stand Adjustability Tilt, Swivel, Height Adjustable
Horizontal Viewing Angle 178o (typical)
Vertical Viewing Angle 178o (typical)
Color Support 16.7 million colors
Contrast Ratio 3000:1
Response Time
8 ms (grey-to-grey)
Brightness 370 cd/m2
Resolution 2560x1600 (max)
Pixel Pitch (Dot Pitch) 0.2505 mm
Ports
Analog, DVI-D (dual link) with HDCP x2, S-Video, Composite, Component, HDMI, DisplayPort
USB 2.0 (4)
9-in-2 Media Card Reader
Kensington security port
Power Consumption
250W(max)
Less than 2W switched off

Taking what we know of Dell's previous 30" LCD product, the 3007 WFP HC, you'll note that there are more than a few upgrades provided with this newer 3008 version. Specifically, the 3008 WFP now has a 117% color gamut, in addition to having a 3000:1 contrast ratio versus the 1000:1 performance of its predecessor. The panel also comes with the same pixel response time of 8ms but now has enhanced brightness capability at 370 cd/m2 (or nits if you prefer) versus 300 for the previous 3007 model. Finally, Dell also heard our plea back when they introduced the 3007 WFP, and saw fit to adding significantly more connectivity to the panel, with not only two DVI-D inputs, but also HDMI, Composite, Component, S-Video and the new DisplayPort interface. In short, anything you could want to hook up now or in the future, can be hooked up to this new Dell 30" panel. Bravo, Dell, bravo.

Dell Assures Users They're Safe With The Jolting XPS Notebooks

Dell has finally issued a response regarding its notebooks that have been reported to give their users frequent electrical shocks. Users previously complained on the manufacturer's forums
that they either receive a continuous electrical tingling, or they suffer brutal electrical discharges whenever they touch the aluminum casings of the XPS M1330 and XPS M1530 notebook models.

The company finally acknowledged in a Knowledge Base ticket that "a tingling sensation may be noticed when connecting devices to Dell notebook computers or printers and touching exposed metal parts of the devices being connected or the parent device."

However, the company refused to admit that these electric jolts might be dangerous for the human operator. According to previous evaluations, the electric discharges are the result of a two-pronged connection between the main lead and the power adapter, which is not grounded because there is no available third pin on the power adapter. The jolts occur due to the electrical potential that accumulates between the laptop's aluminum coating and the earth.

According to the company, "the voltage does not present any risk of injury to the user," but I strongly doubt that some user paid for this kind of "bonus" feature, as well as I doubt that any sane user would find pleasure in this "side effect". One more thing: although Dell states that there is no risk of injury, a voltage test shows that the notebook's case may give off more than 100 volts of power, which totally contradicts the company's statements.

The simplest solution to solve the problem is to provide the users with three-pronged power adapters that would connect the notebook case to the ground. However, the manufacturer has been shipping two-prong (unearthed) power adapters with the majority of its systems worldwide for some time and thus it cannot immediately provide such a great number of customers with the proper, three-pronged adapters.

Dell is currently looking for a solution to sell properly-earthed adapters to its laptop customers at a discounted price.

What Your U3 Shouldn't Be Without

Although U3 technology has been on the market for some while and it has already been adopted by many users, I still get questions from friends of mine asking me to explain the difference
between a regular USB drive and a U3 Smart one. At the end of the explanation they are pretty disappointed that the U3 is not that smart to cook or do laundry and that the only difference is ease of management via the LaunchPad it comes with and the security program that protects the key via a password.

Surely, these do not seem like much, but to tell you the truth, Launchpad makes things a whole lot easier as you do not have to appeal to application launchers (I imagine you do not dig for the executable manually each time you want to start an app) and installation files no longer mix with personal data as there is a delimitation between the two (just like Program Files on a PC. Only on U3 these are hidden from view).

I have a list of applications installed on my U3 I can't do without. This is a software that makes moving to a new computer as easy as plugging in my U3 Smart drive. The basic apps a regular user needs include an email client, and for this Mozilla Thunderbird's capabilities are great and if you are willing to shell out some money, The Bat! Professional and Voyager make an extraordinary team. Not a single email is missed and everything is securely stored on your U3 smart drive.

If you are looking for easy navigation on your computer or another one you stick your USB into, my recommendation goes for Total Commander. This is a tool that makes an installed version portable for all memory sticks while this one is specially tailored for U3 Smart drives. But the Real U3 installation McCoy can be found here. They both work great, although for U3 installation I would pick the second link.

With email and file managing problems down, I say we stick with keeping things organized and make some order in our lives as well. Essential PIM also has a portable form for U3 drives which maintains the same ease of use and flexibility as the desktop version of the application. The only downside is that it will create a folder right in the middle of the drive for storing created database.

Web browsing is a constant need of today and the tools to do this are plenty and various, providing a myriad of options, ease of use and low computer resource footprint. In the case of portable devices, there is another aspect to consider and that is security. If a portable web browser does not delete the temporary files, cookies and web forms before ejection and they remain on the host computer, there goes your privacy. Mozilla Firefox however does take this thing seriously and its portable version will not leave a trace.

Staying in the same field of web navigation and security of sensitive data, the portable side of Roboform 2 Go just has to be mentioned. Thanks to U3 equipment it can start whenever the stick is stuck into a computer, helping you to easily complete username and password fields as well as web forms with your data, in an absolute jiffy.

Staying in touch with your friends from absolutely any computer is no longer a desire as it turned as real as you and me. Chatting with your close ones, be it in writing or in speech is a long forgotten issue due to the release of Skype and Trillian in portable form. They can both be installed on U3 easily and hassle free and with Trillian you will have access to AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN and Yahoo networks (sure, for all of them there are web alternatives like Meebo or KoolIM so this can be covered by your web browser).

An office suite is an element that should not be left out on a memory stick as you never know when you need to create a new spreadsheet or quickly make a presentation or simply write a letter. I remember in my younger age going to Internet Cafes just to write a final page of a paper and how tough it was for me to find a computer with a text processor that would provide the same choice I had home. Nowadays, a simple copy of OpenOffice would totally eliminate the problem.

Besides all these, I also have some apps I need in my line of work, but as they are specific to my daily activities, I will spare you from presenting them as well (plus not all of them are U3 compliant). Sure you can customize the U3 with whatever apps you want, thus obtaining a flexibility of the memory stick that fits your needs perfectly.

But, if you are not a U3 fan or simply do not want to put your money into a new memory stick, I suggest you to try the regular USB drive customized with MojoPac. This little fellow here is as portable as can be, and contagious also, because it permits you to make absolutely any application portable. The reason is that MojoPac is a portable virtualization software that mimics perfectly Windows XP environment and permits you to "carry" XP on a stick.

Although U3's advantages over the regular thumb drive are not overwhelming, it does make your life easier and comes with innate capability of securing all data it carries. The handy LaunchPad provides access to more U3 compliant software from different categories.

AMD to Start Launching Low-Power Phenom Processors

Chip manufacturer Advanced Micro Devices has begun the process of reconstruction after a tough year that spelled disaster. After having failed to launch two important quad-core processor lines that were
to ensure the company's survival (the Phenoms and the Barcelonas), the company gets back on track and will finally unveil a new line of low-power quad-core Phenom and dual-core Athlon CPU.

The launch is scheduled for the first quarter of 2008, but delays might occur, and therefore, AMD is considering an early Q2 release, too. The first processor in the low-power lineup is the Phenom 9100e, slated for release during February or March.

It will feature a core frequency of 1.8GHz, DDR2 1066 memory controller and a thermal envelope of 65W. Sources at the motherboard manufacturers' labs are reporting that AMD will discontinue the 9100e during the second quarter and replace it with the 9150e. It seems that the 9150e version is based on the fixed B3 stepping silicon.

The 9100e and 9150e low-voltage quad-cores will be accompanied by thee low-power dual-core processors in the Athlon family: the Athlon 4850e, the Athlon 4450e and the Athlon 4050e. The 4850e will come with a core clock speed of 2.5GHz, 1 MB of L2 cache and DDR2 800 support. The 4450e will be a lower-clock version, running at 2.3GHz, while the rest of the specs are unchanged. Athlon 4050e will be the slowest in the series, with a core clock of only 2.1GHz. There is no word about their thermal envelope yet.

AMD will also launch two single-core CPUs with a thermal design power of 45W: the Athlon BE-1640 running at a core frequency of 2.7GHz with a L2 cache of 512KB, and the Athlon BE-1660 running at 2.8GHz. The former CPU is slated to arrive later this month, while the slower part will emerge in the second quarter.

When the launch is complete, AMD will start phasing out some of its older architecture, including the dual-core Athlon X2 BE-2400, BE-2350 and BE-2300, as well as the single-core Athlon BE-1620, Athlon 64 4000+ and 3800+ processors.

Seagate: Laptop HDDs to Sell Better than Desktop Ones by 2011

Storage specialist Seagate Technologies published a second-quarter revenue of $3.4 billion, with a net income of $403 million. Laptop sales had a tremendous impact over the final sales figures as they have
continued to grow for some years now.

The quiet battle between the notebook and the desktop PC segments is about to end with the mobile segment taking over. It is the logical result of progress, as more and more people want to have access to their data wherever they might roam.

More powerful portable PCs can easily compete with their desktop counterparts, but at the same time they can be easily carried into a laptop bag, a purse or, more recently, directly into a pocket. These are the main reasons that should slow down and even stop desktop PC sales and make their mobile rivals bloom.

The hard drive industry expects a further increase in the near future, and Seagate estimates that laptop hard disk drives shipments have increased about 20 percent from 2000 to 2007, from 25 million to almost 100 million last year. Seagate managed to push 50 more million hard disk drives on the market in three months alone.

"During the quarter, Seagate achieved record shipments and experienced some capacity constraints, underscoring the phenomenal growth of digital content in both the consumer and commercial markets," said Bill Watkins, Seagate's CEO. " The storage industry remains one of the world’s most important and exciting industries. We are confident Seagate’s vision, technology, and operational excellence will drive us to continued strong financial and operating performance in the March quarter and double-digit year-over-year growth."

Seagate estimates that notebooks and mobile devices will be the future, and will treat them accordingly. The company tipped the market that it is already working on a 500GB notebook drive that will arrive in the second quarter of 2008, while some other "consistent" surprises, such as the 750GB and 1TB drives, are slated to arrive in the late-2010 – early-2011 interval.

What’s New in Microsoft Land: 14-18 January, 2008

With all the talks surrounding security that have been going on recently in all domains, the Redmond giant couldn’t have neglected this category and decided to invest in it some serious money in order to keep its users and clients happy. That being said, Monday saw Microsoft announcing a series of initiatives that have at heart the continuing of help given to its partners, for designing effective and profitable business models, at the same time striving to stay on top of the security landscape.

A little boasting was in order if the job was to be started on the right foot, so the corporation had research firm IDC conduct a survey that had as subject 349 (why not 350?) resellers in the United States and Britain and, of course, the conclusion drawn was that Microsoft security partners were "often more profitable than partners that sell other vendors’ security partners", as the press release did not fail to mention.

Mark Hassall, the Microsoft Forefront Security Partner Marketing Director, gave an interview to the corporation’s PressPass, in which he mentioned the size of the program he was involved with: "We have over 6,000 partners enrolled in the Security Software Advisor program, which allows partners to earn up to 30 percent
in advisor fees when they help drive deployment of Forefront-based security solutions. And we have over 1,000 partners in the Security Solutions Competency, which is now the fastest growing competency in the Microsoft portfolio. We are committed to continued investment in our security partner programs with partner profitability as the focus."

Not too bad, I might say, it’s definitely a window of opportunity worth exploring for Microsoft, the enlarging of its partner base by having a survey say that it is the best.

The box of the product

Mac and Windows aren’t the closest friends to the best of my knowledge, but if it’s profitable, it’s going to be delivered no matter how much stepping on pride is involved. That’s why the Mac users were given the best present on Tuesday, the official launch of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac. The Macworld Conference & Expo 2008 was the site where the announcement was made. The second "location" where Mac users had to have felt like kings was the web page dedicated by the Redmond based company to their needs, Mactopia.

"We developed Office 2008 for Mac as a comprehensive productivity suite that also helps people simplify their work. […] To complement the deep set of new and improved features, we redesigned the interface so that it is truly easier to use. Even Office beginners can create great-looking documents very quickly. And, at the core, we focused on delivering reliable compatibility so that users can confidently share documents across platforms", said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft.

There are three versions of Office 2008 for Mac to be made available by the end of the first quarter of the year: the standard Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, priced somewhere between $239.95 for the upgrade from a previous version and $399.95 for the full retail version. The second option is Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition, priced at $149.95, and the last one to be available will be Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition, at $299.95 for the upgrade version and $499.95 for the full retail version.

A very profitable deal was set up on Wednesday between Microsoft Corp. and EDGAR Online, in order to bring relevant advertising to the latter’s audience and content to the MSN portal. March will be the first month to see the Microsoft advertising displayed on the EDGAR site and MSN Money will most likely receive its share later in the year, a date was not mentioned for the event.

"EDGAR Online attracts a highly targeted audience with its deep business and financial content, and coupling that audience with Microsoft’s advertising technologies is going to be a winning combination for advertisers", Brian McAndrews, senior vice president, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft said. "The inclusion of EDGAR Online as a syndicated advertising partner site and the addition of its content to MSN Money will add value for our users and will help advertisers reach an even broader audience in this highly attractive financial vertical", he continued for Microsoft’s PressPass.

EDGAR Online is overall a premier source of information in the financial and corporate intelligence field and a leading provider of XML and XBRL tagged data and information.

Regardless of that, how would Alcatel-Lucent, Microsoft and MTS Allstream joint venture for introducing enhanced broadband Internet and TV services sound? Thrilling? I’m sure it does and I’m sure it will be just that, as Thursday they signed the deal that has them aboard the same ship. Unfortunately for MTS Allstream, the deal is limited only to 2008, but the set of services should be able to be continued if the project proves to be a success.

The upsides of the deal are better definition offerings (HDTV), functionalities that include personal and digital video recorders, improved guide features and a few others.

"As the television becomes connected to the broadband network and powerful software is added, new connected TV experiences become possible, so people can connect with their favorite content, services, devices and people. […] Together with Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft, MTS Allstream is very well positioned to offer a way for its customers to experience the next generation of television, featuring entirely new connected TV services", said Christine Heckart, general manager of marketing for Microsoft TV at Microsoft Corp.

The numbers for all the players in the game

Friday turned out to be a bleak day for Microsoft’s MSN Video site, as the figures for November 2007 were released by comScore and they did not paint a pretty picture at all. Google thrashed the Redmond based company’s video service in the worst way possible. It received about 1.9 percent market share, meaning 181 million videos out of the total of 9.5 billion. "In total, 138 million Americans – approximately three in four U.S Internet users – viewed online video in November. Google Sites also captured the largest online video audience with 76.2 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 46.3 million and Yahoo! Sites with 37.3 million. 74.5 million people viewed 2.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (39 videos per viewer)", comScore said in the press release accompanying the data.

Samsung Access Comes to AT&T With MediaFLO Support

Samsung Access, also known as Samsung A827, will be released by AT&T in the near future, being the second device from the US carrier to support the MediaFLO-based mobile TV service.
The other phone that comes with MediaFLO support is LG Vu (or LG CU92), unreleased because the MediaFLO service is not available yet. This although AT&T announced it for the end of 2007, but some unrevealed difficulties made the mobile carrier postpone the service's release.

Back to the announced handset, Samsung Access is a quad-band 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 MHz GSM device with few known specifications. However, it is a mid to low-end phone, since it packs a not so fancy 1.3 Megapixel camera (with digital zoom and video recorder) that can only take photos at an inferior quality. While it doesn't look bad, Samsung Access doesn't look out of the ordinary either, and its small display (seems to be a 176 x 220 pixels one but I might be wrong) doesn't really make it a true Mobile TV handset. Other specifications include MP3 Player (with AT&T Music), E-mail and chat capabilities (AOL, Yahoo!, Windows Live) and J2ME games. There are no details about the phone's dimensions or its Operating System but, regardless of those aspects, Samsung Access will most probably have and affordable price to compensate for its drawbacks.

Verizon Wireless, the second largest US mobile operator after AT&T, already offers MediaFLO services from March 2007, branded under the VCAST TV name, and AT&T now tries to catch-up. There are high chances for the MediaFLO from AT&T to be available until the end of 2008's first quarter, so Samsung Access and LG Vu should hit the market by then, when we'll get to find out more specs about both handsets.

Dell, HP to Face Lawsuits Claiming Exploding Laptops and Monitors

PC Vendors Dell and HP have been called in front of the United States Court of Justice to account for a series of malfunctions in their IT equipments that have led to severe physical injuries.
The lawsuits are unrelated to one another but claim that faulty computers started to spark fires and finally explode.

Dell is accused of having sold a faulty monitor that caught fire during normal operation. The monitor burnt within a lube shop, and set the owner's business on fire. "The computer monitor was unfit for its intended purpose in that it was assembled in such a way as to cause the electrical system to malfunction and cause a fire," attorneys for Big Sky Battery of Williston, North Dakota, allege in court papers.

The fire caused quarter million dollars in property damage, but there were no deaths or injuries. The ex-owner of the Dell monitor is now seeking property damage as well as other damages. The case was moved to the North Dakota federal circuit upon Dell's last week request.

A similar incident took place in Arkansas, where a HP Compaq Presario PC burst into flames and set a whole house on fire. Moreover, the notebook owner's daughter suffered severe injuries, as she was forced to jump from an upstairs window in order to save her life. The lawsuit papers claim that she suffered "burns and physical injuries" and permanent disfigurement.

Neither of the companies took blame for the allegations and refused to comment upon the incidents. However, there is a close relationship between Dell's products and those manufactured by Hewlett-Packard: they both use LG Chem's notebook batteries. Almost 80 percent of LG Chem's notebook battery production is used by HP and Dell for their notebook units. These batteries are made of six lithium cells, but larger models can have as much as 12.

LG Chem alleges that the battery tests the company usually performs include drop tests, internal short circuit testing, and even overcharging and overheating to 130º C. Neither of the batteries exploded during these extreme tests, says the company. However, these assumptions have had a negative impact over the LG batteries, and worldwide owners express alarm and distrust. "How can I dare put that bomb on my lap again," asked one notebook user. "My notebook always seems to be too hot anyway, how can I possibly tell when it's getting dangerous?", states another.

What’s New in Microsoft Land: 7-11 January, 2008

Just one of the games launched this far

The 2008 International CES gave Microsoft a chance to announce the new titles it added to the Games for Window initiative on Monday. Based on the success that it had in its first year, the Redmond-based giant decided that it was a worthy investment to continue it, so it will continue the momentum for Windows based gaming in 2008 as well.

"Games for Windows truly thrived in 2007. We went from two titles in 2006 to a continually growing portfolio of over 60 titles here at CES 2008. […] We delivered on our promise one year ago to reinvigorate the PC gaming space and bring the best portfolio of games to Windows. And this is just the beginning. With our partners, we will continue to drive the resurgence of Windows-based gaming", said Kevin Unangst, senior global director of Games for Windows, in the Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft.

The CES attendees will be delighted to be able to play some of the most expected and most important games of 2008 like "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures" (Funcom, Eidos Interactive), "Conflict: Denied Ops" (Eidos Interactive), "Frontlines: Fuel of War" (THQ), "Space Siege" (SEGA), "Turning Point: Fall of Liberty" (Codemasters). I know how difficult the wait must have been, but bare with me, it get's better: renown publishers Atari Inc., Capcom, Eidos Interactive,
LucasArts, Microsoft Game Studios, SEGA and Stardock bring the new over 60 titles to the table. If you want a sneak peak at the titles, here are some of the bigger ones: "Alone in the Dark" (Atari), "Bionic Commando" (Capcom), "Conflict: Denied Ops" (Eidos Interactive), "Empire: Total War" (SEGA), "LEGO Indiana Jones" (LucasArts), "Microsoft Train Simulator 2" (Microsoft Game Studios), "Sins of a Solar Empire" (Stardock), "Space Siege" (SEGA) and "Tomb Raider: Underworld" (Eidos Interactive).

"Games for Windows-branded titles were among the most popular Windows-based games purchased as gifts this holiday", said Bob McKenzie, senior vice president of merchandising for GameStop Corp. "Microsoft’s efforts to revive Windows-based gaming have helped grow the category."

I’m certain that all that gaming left you craving for the good old controller, but try to pull yourselves together and see what Tuesday had to offer: enterprise search power like few have seen before. Microsoft announced on the 8th of January that it would make an offer to acquire the Norwegian Fast Search & Transfer ASA at a price of about 1.2 billion US dollars overall, or 19 Norwegian kroner per share.


"Enterprise search is becoming an indispensable tool to businesses of all sizes, helping people find, use and share critical business information quickly", said Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. "Until now organizations have been forced to choose between powerful, high-end search technologies or more mainstream, infrastructure solutions. The combination of Microsoft and FAST gives customers a new choice: a single vendor with solutions that span the full range of customer needs."

Wednesday Microsoft explained in detail what the Windows XP SP3 changes would be and mentioned that there was more to a release than what met the eye. The basic "everything released so far will be included" was backed with the announcement and the full disclosure of the modification impacting the Distributed Computing Environment/Remote Procedure Call, or DCE/RPC in short. It’s true, if you were to look at it while not working in the domain and with a hefty background information to help you, you’d most likely be looking at it like you’d be looking at the insides of an alien, or at a book written in Aramaic.

"We have received a few inquiries about the full disclosure posting [over Windows XP SP3 - DCERPC Changes], where a range check was added in Windows XP SP3 for the Terminal Server RPC function RpcWinStationEnumerateProcesses. The speculation stated that this change was to hide an overflow condition, potentially leading to an exploitable vulnerability in previous Windows versions. In reality, this update to the Terminal Service RPC interface definition was made to better adhere to our own RPC best practices", explained a member of the Security Vulnerability Research & Defense team.

Thursday saw Microsoft Corp. sign a cooperative agreement with the Library of Congress that will fundamentally change the way the latter’s visitors will experience U.S. history. According to sources at Microsoft, the technology innovation effort of the two will electronically expose the Library’s immense collection of artifacts, dating back to the early days of the pilgrims and even beyond that, to those that will choose to visit the Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington, DC, and will allow some immersive interactive experience to them.

The joint effort’s result will be revealed through interactive kiosks in the Jefferson Building and on the Internet, through applications delivered through a well-defined web infrastructure. "Microsoft is helping to put a vast array of the Library’s unparalleled educational resources literally at the fingertips of students and lifelong learners alike, both onsite at the Library of Congress and virtually through the Web", said Librarian of Congress, James H. Billington. "The Library of Congress and the causes of inspiration and creativity will benefit immensely from this act of generosity and expertise."

Jeff Raikes

Friday had some bad news brought to the world, with the public announcement of the retirement and transition plan for Jeff Raikes, the President of Microsoft Corp.’s Business Division. The transition is to be lasting nine months, so he will be completely retired in September 2008 and, by that time, he will have had every opportunity to transfer the management of the division to his successor.

"Since 1981, I’ve had an incredible journey here at Microsoft. Given the success of our business and the depth of leadership we have in place today, the time is right for me to leave the MBD business in the capable hands of our new generation of leaders. I remain committed to Microsoft and will work full time between now and September when I retire. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to working closely with Stephen and the MBD leadership team to ensure a smooth transition", Raikes revealed. The successor mentioned is Stephen Elop, the former COO at Juniper Networks. Best of luck to him, he’ll have big shoes to fill.

Will Google Docs Pose a Serious Threat to MS Office in 2008?

Updates are like well wrapped candy that you find in the Christmas tree of the person you’re visiting. He / she asks you to get some, but you never know if they’re expired or not or whether you’ll like his / her taste in sweets. It’s something that you must try on your own, if you’re curious on whether you might like it or not.

Like I said, updates are exactly the same, they
might make the world of difference in improving your user experience, or they might come with a feature that will send you plummeting to the darkest depths of the abyss, if the new feature is wrongly implemented or it brings new problems (see the December 17th Google Reader update).

Google Docs is now flexing its tiny muscles in an attempt to look like the Big Bad Wolf that’s going to scare away Microsoft Office from the computers of its users. It’s back (from outer space) with that sad look upon its face that says "MS, you’re going down!" Is that the case? Let’s see what they bring to the table and perhaps after that, a picture will be presented more clearly.

The Google Presentations have been worked most upon, just to kick off the new year in a lucrative manner. Embeddable presentations have been added (see the "Publish" tab for the code), you can now import slides from other presentations (a huge time save if you ask me), you can drag and drop images from other sites to be inserted in the respective presentation, the background is finally changeable, the toolbar looks like it’s Toolbar 1.1, not so rough on the eye as before, and the option to rearrange slides has been made available. Doesn’t sound like much? It is! Is it enough to challenge MS Office? Not yet, but if they keep things up with the updates coming every two months and having the proportions of this one, it won’t be long until they are ready to put on the gloves and be in the same weight category.

I've almost forgot about the other Google Docs updates, like the adding of a feature that allows users to create sub-folders and rename the documents from the homepage of the service mentioned above, without having to open it and save it as… One thing that I’ve noticed is still not there is the option to upload OpenOffice presentations, and this brings me to a question I asked you last year: forcing users to Google-made products only and thus losing them slowly or opening up to other contenders on the market, thus encouraging them and giving them the traffic?