Samsung’s New See’N’Search Technology Merges Google, Apple TV - A whole new way of delivering video content to your TV

The Internet is already one of the world's most important information and media delivery systems, but the role it plays into pushing entertainment programming into one's living room might become even more important on the future. And this is exactly why the Korean company Samsung has just unveiled its See’N’Search technology,
which allows users to retreive Internet information and media-related content onto their TV screens without the need for a PC/keyboard and or special content programming.

"See’N’Search technology will revolutionize how consumers will see and use the Internet in the living room in the next few years" said Alan Messer, director of connected consumer technologies of Samsung’s U.S. Research and Development Center. "By greatly minimizing the need to manually search for related content and special interactive content authoring, this technology enables consumers to directly watch or surf Internet content that is relevant to them."

Samsung’s See’N’Search set-top box uses TV guide-like information, in addition to the closed caption metadata that is present for most programming, to scour existing Internet content (HTML coding, Web video, etc.) and make recommendations that would appeal to the user. To do this, the system monitors the contents of the program being watched, using lightweight natural language technologies to determine the topics that are being discussed.

When the user presses the "More Info" button, the See’N’Search UI appears on-screen with related information or media that the system found on the Internet. The consumer simply selects a piece of content from any particular topic, and See’N’Search takes them directly to that content (somehow similar to Google search, don't you think?). Furthermore, See’N’Search information can also be transmitted from the TV or set-top box to any connected devices in the living room, such as Wi-Fi enabled phones, tablets or laptops.

Unfortunately, there's no word yet on just how expensive the new See’N’Search set-top box will be, but if it comes at a reasonable price tag it might actually prove to be quite a huge success, given the enhanced level of functionality.

AMD Dismantles Rumors Of Buggy Puma Platform - The company's stock, however, got a kick in the gut

A technological analyst published a note claiming that the upcoming Puma mobile platform from AMD has some technical issues that would prevent it from showing up in mid-2008. However, Wall Street analysts
said that the "Puma" is bug-free, but original equipment manufacturers are skeptical about its reliability.

Analyst Doug Freedman of American Technology Research issued the report claiming that there might be some alleged problems with the platform. However, immediately after a conversation with the AMD officials, Freedman dropped the rumor, yet kept a cautious attitude.

The Puma platform is expected to kick in during the mid-2008. It is more than a refurbished mobile platform; it is built from ground up with mobility in mind. The platform is comprised of Advanced Micro Device's Griffin processor, the accompanying RS780M chipset, as well as the AMD SB700 southbridge. The technology cocktail will directly compete with Intel's mobile platform, a refreshed version of "Santa Rosa".

Technical issues aside, a failed or poor launch will leave the company with almost no cash to make a second attempt. Moreover, Freedman claims that a successful launch runs the risk that original equipment manufacturers and computer vendors won't be able to get the chips they need.

"We believe OEMs have contingency in place in case they run into issues releasing new Puma based products," Freedman said in his note on Thursday. "We believe a successful Puma launch could create a double-ordering scenario as OEM contingency plans would be unfulfilled, and as a result demand would fall short of order rates. We believe our estimate revisions yesterday are still in-line with our expectation for a slower Puma launch."

The bad news, however, will have a negative impact over the company's stock value. Freedman also claims that, if the Puma fails on the market, then the AMD management will be forced to step down or even sell the whole company, which is already in debt, after the ATI acquisition back in 2006. Possible buyers for the chip manufacturer are either graphics expert Nvidia, or the more powerful IBM.

Montalvo Cooks Opteron and Cell Hybrid Processor, Takes Intel Down - The chip is the result of an unholy union

Montalvo Systems is secretly designing a new breed of energy-efficient multicore processor. The company has finished the design of a chip aimed at mobile computing. When it gets finished, it will be compatible
with all the x86 software that can run on both AMD and Intel chips.

Despite the software compatibility, the chips built by Montalvo systems will be radically different from any existing chip design. For instance, its cores won't be projected symmetrically, as standard processor designs do. Montalvo's bold design will implement a bunch of highly-performing cores, mixed with lower-performing ones. This approach is extremely similar to the Cell chip produced by IBM, Toshiba, and Sony.

This "core salad" on the same patch of silicon will allow the chip improve its power management and cut down power consumption according to the system workload. The applications that can run on lower resources will be directed towards the lower performing (and lower-power) cores, while the hardcore computing will be performed on the larger cores. Moreover, applications that require a lot of CPU resources during startup will be initialized in the big cores, then shifted to the lower ones.

Processor with asymmetrical cores are ideal for running multimedia applications if they are pre-programmed for this task. Let's not forget that the Cell processor is currently powering Sony's PlayStation 3 gaming console, which deals with multimedia content. For instance, the Cell chip has a primary microprocessor core and a cluster of "synergistic processing elements" that usually manage video streaming or networking management functions.

The Cell design can also be used for hardcore computing at the same efficiency as in multimedia processing. IBM has equipped its server blades with Cell CPUs, while Mercury has also implemented Cell chips inside its computers. Toshiba only uses fewer synergistic core versions of the chip to power its TV sets.

Montalvo has great plans with the chip, once it is finished. It is alleged to power mobile computing systems, handheld devices and even the next generation of smartphones.

Nvidia CEO Criticizes the Dual-GPU Graphics Cards - Is it because Nvidia's dual-GPU solution did not make it on the market yet?

Jen-Hsun Huang, the president and chief executive officer of Nvidia told financial analysts that AMD's Radeon HD 3870 X2 cannot be the highest-performing offering on the graphics market. Moreover, Huang criticized the very idea of joining two graphics processing cores on a single card. Nvidia seems to believe that the
classical, single-chip approach pays off best when it comes to high-end graphics products.

The statement is somewhat unexpected, given the fact that Nvidia has long been touting its upcoming dual-GPU chip offering, the GeForce 9800 X2 graphics card. However, Huang claimed that these dual-chip cards may exist, but not at the professional level.

Advanced Micro Devices' graphics division has released in late January its dual-graphics processing core solution, the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2. The graphics card is alleged to be the most powerful graphics card in the world, with a computing capacity of more than 1 TeraFLOPS. The graphics card is already on the market and sells for $499.

"If you want to put two GPUs on an add-in card and you deliver the absolute highest performance in the world, the enthusiast that uses that particular PC will certainly tolerate the fact that it’s a much larger solution. But if it’s not the highest performance solution in the world, as in the case of the X2, then it’s just really problematic. You know, there’s no market really for a product that’s larger, louder, and not as high performance. So, I think that GeForce 8800 GTX is still absolutely the best DX10 and highest graphics performance GPU in the world," said Jen-Hsun Huang, the president and chief executive officer of Nvidia Corp.

The existing benchmarks show that AMD's dual-GPU solution is faster than its rivals in some situations, but sometimes, the card fails in performance when the ATI driver fails to engage the second GPU in processing. The ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2 board might not be the highest offering when it comes to 3D graphics performance, but Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GTX, Ultra or GTS 512 get closer to perfection.

However, given the fact that Nvidia already has some hardcore graphics card offerings, the reason for releasing a dual-GPU solution is pretty unclear. However, Nvidia said that it would only offer a dual-graphics core card only if it offers the highest performance.

"We would do an [ATI Radeon HD 3870] X2-like product only if it delivers performance that is simply not possible anywhere with a single GPU. But there’s no question that a single GPU is a better approach. […] So you know my preference and you know we have a lot of evidence and certainly know for sure that a single GPU is the best approach, but if a double GPU can deliver the highest performance on the planet, it would be accepted," Huang explained.

Solid-State Drives Are Getting Larger and Better - Yet they stay as expensive as before

Solid-state storage is continuously gaining more and more attention from the mobile enthusiasts. Flash-based storage is thinner, more energy-saving and has better access timings than the conventional
hard-disk drives. They are the best pick for notebooks such as the ethereal MacBook Air or Lenovo's Thinkpad X300.

High-capacity solid-state drives are extremely expensive, and it is very likely that you would pay the price of a sports car for an 160 GB solid-state drive. For instance, the flash-storage option in the MacBook Air accounts for the $1,300 price difference as compared to the lower-cost hard-drive model that sells for $1,799. Moreover, solid-state drives have a limited lifespan when compared to the hard-disk drives, and allow for a certain number of write cycles (10,000 for multi-level cell flash or 100,000 for single-level cell).

SanDisk has introduced a low-power, high speed 1.8-inch solid-state drive that can provide a data transfer rate of 66MB/sec, with a random read rate of over 7,000 inputs/outputs per second. This performance easily surpasses the hard-disk drives' capacity multiple times. The company has not disclosed the pricing aspect yet, but it will surely go down until the device reaches the market. For instance, an 8GB SanDisk flash card now sells for about $80 at resellers, but some years ago, for $80 you could only get an 1GB pen-drive at most.

SanDisk will also join Toshiba in manufacturing 43-nanometer flash memory chips, that would allow solid-state drives reach higher capacities, ranging from 120 GB to 160 GB. Both SanDisk and Toshiba recently announced that they have achieved 32-Gigabit (Gb) density chips. According to Khandker N. Quader, SanDisk's senior vice president of flash memory design and product development, the 32 GB die is combined with multi-level cell technology in order to allow more bits to be stored, thus doubling the storage capacity for SSDs.

SanDisk is also working on a new technology, called the "X3", which will allow the company get 3-bit cell memory. "This is an important milestone (and) allows us to do 3bits/cell as opposed to 2bits/cell thereby providing improved manufacturing efficiency," he said. "So a combination of technology scaling (i.e., 56nm to 43nm) and the bit scaling (i.e. 2bits/cell to 3bits/cell) is extremely powerful for manufacturing efficiency and for increasing capacities of flash memories," claimed Quader.

Build Yourself a Cheap Solid-State Drive - Install Windows XP on it and unchain yourself from the spinning platters

Solid-state drives are not only sexy, faster or energy-aware, they are also expensive, and many times, getting such a drive will merely pierce through your budget. However, given the fact that everybody
is talking about the new frenzy in the storage world, you might want to give it a try.

While solid-state drives come with insane price tags for almost ridiculous capacities ($600 to $1,000 for sub-32GB versions), a cheaper alternative will be using high-capacity flash cards. However, the flash cards cannot be directly connected to the computer otherwise than using an USB multimedia card reader. Solid-state drives are able to connect via a SATA (or SATA-II) interface, which gives them a significant boost in data transfer rates.

The good news is that compact flash cards can be "convinced" to work via a SATA interface. All you need is to get a cheap Compact Flash to SATA adapter, then add a moderately priced memory card. You can have a solid-state drive setup for less than $100, which is far more affordable than a fully-fledged SSD device.

The good thing about such drives is that they do not ask for additional drivers; they just work out-of-the-box. However, in order to successfully install the above-mentioned SSD-wannabe into your computer, your motherboard must have a Serial-ATA connector. Moreover, the Compact Flash card must support DMA (direct memory access) modes. A compact flash card that offers 4GB of storage or even more will surely do the job.

Right after the physical installation inside your rig, you can proceed to install the operating system. 4GB of drive space will allow you to run any version of Windows XP. Microsoft's Windows Vista could also work on 4GB of drive space, but it requires additional efforts (you'll have to strip down all the unnecessary features, in order to fit it on 4GB). Using an 8GB compact flash card will allow you to install Vista without any problems.

The Compact Flash card is not quite as fast as single-level cell flash, and has slightly lower disk transfer rates than a normal, 7200 RPM hard disk drive. However, the compact-flash replacement will do just fine inside a laptop system, and would allow you to give it a serious shake while running without losing all your stored data.

There's Something in the Air: Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 - Both models share the same miniature Intel processor

Lenovo has just announced its ethereal ThinkPad X300 ultra-portable notebook. The newest addition to the ThinkPad series is as thin as Apple's MacBook Air, but at the same time, it comes with a whole new bunch
of features that the Air can't even dream of.

The X300 is the first competitor that attempts to take MacBook Air's crown. Lenovo's idea of mobility has a 13-inch widescreen display, a fully-fledged keyboard (unlike the cheap Linux-based ultra-mobile PCs) and comes with a 64 GB solid-state drive by default. Strange enough, these features were the main attractions to Apple's MacBook Air notebook.

However, Apple's notebook lacks some vital functionalities, such as a built-in DVD drive or a fixed battery that cannot be replaced unless you go to a specialized service. The connectivity options are also limited, given the fact that it offers a single USB port. Of course, you can use an USB hub, but this would cost some premium, and you have already paid some $3000.

The ThinkPad X300 comes to fix all the aspects Apple overlooked in their state-of-the-art laptop. It comes with a built-in DVD drive, a removable battery, three USB ports, and an Ethernet networking jack. Moreover, the user can choose between Windows XP and Windows Vista as operating systems.

The only aspect that makes the difference between the Mac and the X300 is weight. The Thinkpad X300 could is a little bit heavier than the three-pound weight that is the traditional limit for a sub-notebook. However, its 3.12 pounds allow the user to carry it as comfortable as a MacBook Air.

However, IDC's Doug Bell said that the two products cannot compete with each other, given the fact that they address to different markets. While Lenovo is pitching the ThinkPad at the enterprise market, Apple's MacBook Air is more consumer-oriented.

Moreover, Lenovo's device is priced a little too high ($2,500-2,800), which is a major drawback. The price easily exceeds the average price for this kind of computing systems.

Buffalo Brings 500GB of Storage in the Palm of Your Hand - The device is visually identical to the previous versions

Just as I thought that Buffalo's devices could never get better than they are now, the company has announced yet another product to complete its portable storage offering. The new drive comes with 500GB
of space and has arrived earlier than Seagate, Maxtor and Hitachi would have estimated.

Buffalo's half-a-terabyte disk is visually identical to the other products available in the MiniStation ultra-portable storage family. However, the HD-PS500U2 model, as it is called, managed to "compress" a considerable amount of storage, that can only be seen in a desktop case, into a miniature form factor, weighing just 200 grams.

The manufacturer has added quite some improvements to the PS500U2 disk. The drive's performance got a significant boost: the 4,200 rotations-per-minute drives have been replaced with faster, 5,200 RPM units which reflect in a data transfer rate gain of up to 64 percent.

The security aspect was not overlooked: given the fact that the Buffalo MiniStation PS500U2 disk is a portable solution that can always get lost, misplaced or even stolen, data security is a critical aspect, especially for corporate and enterprise users. Buffalo has implemented its proprietary Secure Lock Ware Encryption software suite for the Windows operating systems (2000, XP and Vista).

Backup operations are handled by the Memeo AutoBackup Software, that can perform regular system backup or scheduled backup and password-protect the data. Mac users have not been forgotten by Buffalo: the unit is fully compatible with Leopard's Time Machine.

The unit will be available from March and will come with an estimative price tag of about $407.

Nvidia's PhysX, Now Available Via Software Update - The GeForce 8 series is CUDA-ready

Rumor has it that Nvidia will not make its customers buy an Ageia card in order to enjoy all the benefits of its brand-new physics processor. The physics coprocessor is reported to make its way
on the graphics card's VGA chip.

Nvidia's fourth-quarter earnings report session came with further details about the future of the hardware physics processing unit from Ageia. According to Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia chief executive, the company will port the Ageia codebase to its GeForce graphics processors through the CUDA technology, which would allow them to run on a normal GPU.

"Physics processing and the AGEIA engine happens to be extremely computationally intensive," said Jen-Hsun Huang. "It requires just a lot of processors to deliver the type of real time performance that the games need. Our strategy is to take the AGEIA physics engine, which has been integrated into tools and games all over the world, and we're going to port the AGEIA physics engine onto CUDA," Huang added.

The CUDA technology has been shipped into more than 50 million graphics processors in the GeForce 8 series. According to the company's estimations, it will ship some hundred million more in the next years. If Nvidia manages to port the physics engine on top of the CUDA framework, then the accelerated physics will bring a lot of realism for the upcoming gaming titles.

"Our expectation is that this is going to encourage people to buy even better GPUs. It might and probably will encourage people to buy a second GPU for the SLI slot and for the highest end gamers, it will encourage them to buy three GPUs, potentially two for graphics and one for physics or one for graphics and two for physics, or any combination of -- you know, any dynamic combination thereof," Huang said.

Huang also stated that the physics technology developed by Ageia will be able to run on a number of cores inside a normal GPU as well as inside an idle graphics processor.

Samsung Starts Shipping Ultra-Fast SATA-II Solid-State Drives - The disk will add some extra power to the Dell and Alienware notebooks

Samsung Electronics announced today that it has begun mass producing 64 GB solid state drives (SSDs) with a new Serial-ATA-II Interface (SATA-II). The 64GB solid-state drive model has begun shipping in sampling quantities earlier this month.

The new interface will allow the disk to reach dazzling reading speeds
of 100 megabytes per second while reading and 80 MB/s while writing. The company's solid-state drive with SATA-II interface is almost 60 percent faster than the previous model equipped with the SATA I interconnect. It is also alleged to perform up to five times faster than the older hard-disk drives, at a 75 percent lower power consumption (it takes only 1.45 watts, while normal notebook HDDs take up 2.1 watts or more).

The 73-grams solid state drive is reported to represent a premium option for boutique computing systems, such as Dell and Alienware notebooks.

"While there will always be a market for HDDs, we see growing demand for our new SSDs, especially now that they are available with the SATA II interface," said Jim Elliott, director, flash marketing, Samsung Semiconductor. "SSD technology is especially viable for the business and high-end consumer notebook markets because of its outstanding performance, as well as the added value gained from virtually no downtime and faster operating speeds."

The Samsung SATA-II SSDs are extremely reliable and are primarily built using the single-level cell NAND flash technology, that boosts the drive's lifespan up to 100,000 write cycles. Given the fact that solid-state drives have no moving parts, they are more difficult to "kill" than the average hard-disk drives. Samsung's 64 GB SSD can take up shocks of 1500 Gs applied in half a millisecond, while HDDs usually "die" at 300 Gs.

There is no word on pricing yet, but since it is made of single-level cell memory, you'd better visit your bank before ordering it.

Ex-OLPC's Jepsen to Foresee $75 Laptops Until 2010 - The OLPC departure was smooth and friendly

The former ex-CTO of the One Laptop Per Child organization, Mary-Lou Jepsen, has left in order to start her own profit-company, Pixel Qi, in an attempt to create a $75 sub-notebook with the technologies she invented during her stay at
OLPC.

Jepsen claims that Pixel Qi still keeps some of the OLPC's philosophy and develops cheap products such as power-efficient LCD displays, but most important, the company pursues the $75 sub-notebook for the emerging markets. The small startup is now a month old, but it already has products that are ready for shipping, which is pretty unusual for such a young company.

The $75 notebook is not ready yet, and according to Jepsen, it won't be ready in the next year either. "I'm focused on getting the screens and power management into other people's small laptops and cell phones right now. I think the [$75 laptop] will happen pretty soon, but again, I'm not really focused on the $75 laptop right now, while the innovations that I'm working on can go into that," she claims.

Jepsen's statement leaves the impression that she left the OLPC charity in order to privatize the technology, rather than to follow the pursuit of cheap laptops for the developing countries. However, the ex-OLPC CTO says that the organization has been informed in due time, and all the details have been set up between she and Nicholas Negroponte before her departure.

"I arranged it with Nicholas [Negroponte]. My departure has been well planned and organized with OLPC. It was in place since spring of 2007, and I was committed to delivering the XO into high-volume mass production. But as somebody who ... invents, develops, and gets hardware into mass production, there wasn't much more for me to do at OLPC after ... that. "

The $75 notebook seems a difficult target, given the fact that Negroponte failed to produce a $100 machine by now. However, Jepsen's confidence is based on the fact that prices are continuously dropping. For instance, the cost of flash and DRAM, they go down 50 percent year over year, while LCD panels usually get 30 percent cheaper. Moreover, the market is full of $10 CPUs, that may not be the latest trend in computing, but they are able to do their job.

"It's not that hard. It will take about two years. Realistically, it does need that time because what you have to do first is make the components and then you put them together. At OLPC, it took three years because we had to start with the disbelief, but now people believe. Now cut that down to about two years, it's about reasonable. It's 2010 we're looking at," she concluded.

Dell's XPS M1730 Comes Now In Penryn Flavor - The next targets will be the Latitude laptops

It has only been a week since the Dell and AMD "online breakup", but Dell is determined to move along, or at least this is the general impression. However, what's bad for AMD seems to be extremely
profitable for the computer enthusiast.

Dell's 17-inch gaming laptop is the perfect example to illustrate the above affirmations. If you are one of the users that say nothing is better that an XPS M1730, you're wrong, because the ultra-popular notebook now comes with a Penryn update. The latest technology from Intel has arrived at a slow pace on the market. And it took it more than one month since it was first announced during the Consumer Electronics Show.

The Penryn CPU has replaced the old Core 2 Duo T7700 and T7800 Merom chips. The new offering from Dell now includes the T9300 and the T9500 Penryn chips, which should bring the user all the advantages of the 45-nanometer technology. The real good part is the fact that the processor upgrade won't add any price difference; they just come for free. That's no wonder, given the fact that the XPS M1730 is some sort of a premium notebook, that already comes with a pretty bulky price tag.

The XPS M1730 notebooks will list the two Penryn CPUs, namely the 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300 and the 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo T8300. The latter comes with half the cache of the T9300 chip (3MB only). Moreover, the Penryn processors cost even less than the Core 2 Extreme X7900 and Core 2 Duo T7800 options.

The XPS M1330 notebook model was rigged with Intel's Penryn processors earlier last week. It comes with three processor options, the T8300, the T9300 as well as the 2.6GHz T9500. According to Dell, the next notebooks to get the Penryn update will be those in the Latitude family.

Porn Studio Addresses Yahoo! and Google - Stronger barriers to protect children from viewing porn required

Vivid Entertainment’s co-founder Steven Hirsch, in a lecture to be given at Yale’s School of Management on the 16th of February as a part of the Ivy League university’s "Sex Week," plans to tackle the thorny problem of children being able to access pornography online with great ease.

He blames Yahoo! and Google in particular
for not doing anything to prevent that from happening. "This is not about First Amendment rights, it is about protecting children. None of the search engines and portals, but particularly Yahoo and Google, has taken any significant steps in this direction," Hirsch said in a written release. Furthermore, he offered his company’s help to any other Internet company that would have as goal to make it tougher for children to be exposed to adult material online, APF reported.

"We have made it a company priority to protect children online by creating tools for users to safeguard themselves and by supporting efforts to educate children, parents, and communities about safe online experiences. We have focused on protecting children from online pornography through our safe search feature, filters for offensive language, privacy preferences and parental controls," Yahoo told the cited source.

Google, in turn, has numbered the nonprofit groups it is working with in order to address the issue, Common Sense Media, Family Online Safety Institute and i-Safe, and has pointed out the safety features it has implemented, such as the safe search option and the flagging of videos on YouTube. "When it comes to child safety, we aim to empower parents with tools to make their own choices about what content they want their children to see and educate children on how to stay safe online."

China chose to ban pornography sites to prevent children from being exposed to possible life-scarring images, while other companies and countries deal with the problem in their own way.

Computer Intelligence Will Outpace the Human Brain By 2030 - Get ready, you mortal, the Matrix needs you!

The computers will become more intelligent than the human beings within the next 20 years, if the computer industry keeps up with the actual progress. Scientific futurologists claim that the next 50 years will bring 32 times more technical progress than the entire 20th
century.

One of the most important achievements of the next 20 years will be artificial intelligence that will reach the human capacities. American computer guru Ray Kurzweil claims that the machines will rapidly become more intelligent than humans. The apocalyptic scenarios are out of discussion, and Dr. Kurzweil claims that their intelligence will be put to work in order to solve some of the most challenging problems of the 21st century.

Kurzweil is one of the computing pioneers that could be called a technology prophet. He is deeply related to multiple fields of computing, such as optical character recognition, optical storage and automatic speech recognition. The future he described is made of machines that are able to learn how to communicate, teach and replicate among themselves.

"The paradigm shift rate is now doubling every decade, so the next half century will see 32 times more technical progress than the last half century. Computation, communication, biological technologies – for example, DNA sequencing – brain scanning, knowledge of the human brain, and human knowledge in general are all accelerating at an ever-faster pace, generally doubling price-performance, capacity and bandwidth every year," Kurzweil claimed.

While modern computing is based on two-dimensional chips built out of silicon. However, researcher are looking for viable alternatives that would allow them to achieve chips using biological molecules, as they are able to get miniaturized way beyond the metal-based processors.

"Three-dimensional, molecular computing will provide the hardware for human-level 'strong artificial intelligence' by the 2020s. The more important software insights will be gained in part from the reverse engineering of the human brain, a process well under way. Already, two dozen regions of the human brain have been modelled and simulated," he said.
It is true that the human brain cannot be compared to a, say, storage server, because it can not match the machine in memory speed and capacity, but it has the unique abilities of associating and interconnected pieces of information, to perform estimations and plan.

"Once non-biological intelligence matches the range and subtlety of human intelligence, it will necessarily soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge," Dr Kurzweil said.

Windows 7 Milestone 1 (M1) Ultimate Build 6.1.6519.1

Since Windows Vista was essentially Windows no. 6 – its successor is now Windows 7. The codename Vienna failed to survive long under the new head of the Windows project. Jim Allchin, the father of Vista and the former Co-President, Platforms & Services Division retired from Microsoft the same day that the latest Windows client hit the shelves, January 30, 2007.
His responsibilities were transitioned to Steven Sinofsky, as the new senior vice president for the Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group — the user experience of Microsoft Windows and Windows Live services.

Coming from the office, project with a strong reputation to meet strict deadlines and with the Office 2007 System receiving nothing but good reviews across the board, and outselling its predecessor Office 2003 by more than 2 to 1, Sinofsky is now building Windows 7. And not just Windows 7, but all Windows technologies from the graphical user interface to media and the next version of DirectX – DirectX 11. But also Internet Explorer 8, and Windows Live services from Windows Live Hotmail to Windows Live Messenger and to Windows Live Spaces. Sinofsky's position that spans over both the development of Windows 7 and Windows Live Wave 3 is a clear indication of Microsoft stretching the next Windows iteration into the cloud, and beyond the desktop, in tune with the company's Software plus Service business strategy implemented by Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect.

One year after Windows Vista hit the shelves, G. Michael Sievert, the now former Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing, responsible for no less than 100 million sold licenses of the operating system in the first year, announced that he was moving on, and will leave Microsoft as of February 2008. The Redmond company failed to associate Sievert's departure with the fact that Vista missed the initial goals set for it, to sell more than double the number of licenses compared to Windows XP. The new Corporate Vice President, Windows Product Marketing, and the man that will market Windows 7 starting with 2009 is as of February 2008, Brad Brooks, former general manager of product marketing for the Windows Business Group.

Windows 7 M1 Ultimate

Windows 7 M1 Ultimate
Busy Windows 7 Working Bees...

The first official sign of life Microsoft gave about Windows 7 was delivered on February 13, 2007, just two weeks after the consumer launch of Vista. "The launch of Windows Vista was an incredibly exciting moment for our customers and partners around the world, and the company is focused on the value Windows Vista will bring to people today. We are not giving official guidance to the public yet about the next version of Windows, other than that we’re working on it. When we are ready, we will provide updates," stated Kevin Kutz, Director, Windows Client, at the time.

In January 2008, although still unconfirmed by Microsoft, Windows 7 Milestone 1 shipped to key company partners for initial testing. Subsequently, a variety of details were leaked on the successor of Windows Vista, from Build version to components. One thing that is still missing is a full leak of Windows 7 Milestone 1. But, at this early stage in the development of Windows 7, Microsoft is keeping a close eye and the very few M1 builds that were made available for testing, and in this context, it is highly unlikely that any partner would be so irresponsible as to let more than a few details slip through its finger.

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"It's not a state secret that we're in the early stages of development for the next version of Windows (given the internal name of Windows '7'). The specifics of what comes next are always the subject of fevered and sometimes inaccurate speculation, but you can be sure that we're not resting on our laurels. Windows is one of the most complex and sophisticated pieces of software in existence, and since it's about the most widely-used piece of software on the planet, it's a pretty exciting project to be working on. (...) For obvious reasons, I'm not able to write anything about what's coming in Windows '7'," stated Tim Sneath, Microsoft group manager for client platforms, as he announced that Microsoft is hiring an Evangelist for Windows 7.

But perhaps the most open presentation of Windows 7 was delivered by Microsoft Distinguished Engineer Eric Traut during a public presentation of the core of the next Windows. After the first test of the Windows 7 kernel, understanding that there's no way to put the MinWin genie back in the bottle, Microsoft opened up a tad more on the future iteration of Windows. Mark Russinovich, Microsoft Technical Fellow confirmed the work being done on MinWin.

"The MinWin that we are talking about today is really [the work] done to analyze the dependencies and carve out the lowest, smallest, core component of Windows. A standalone, testable, slice of Windows. And that is analyzing the dependencies and cutting the lines, the cycles, from MinWin to higher level components, really making sure that MinWin doesn't depend on anything else. That is totally self-contained... so it can be built separately from the rest of Windows source tree and run independently from the Windows source tree", Russinovich stated.

Crumbs of Windows 7 from the Milestone 1 Feast

Window 7 M 1 Build 6.1.6519.1 comes as an ISO image weighing in at 2.7 GB and is designed to install on top of Windows Vista Service Pack 1. At this point in time Windows 7 M1 is not a standalone installer. The fact that it needs Windows Vista at its infrastructure explains many of the striking similarities between the two operating systems. Skeptics of the validity of the leaked Windows 7 details in fact used the similitudes between Windows Vista and Windows 7 as a way to dismiss the fact that Microsoft had indeed delivered the first testing build of the next version of Windows 7.

"As people who were 'in' early with Vista, the visual changes happen much later in the product lifecycle and under the hood changes can make a huge difference in things like performance, security and reliability while not being 'seen' by anyone," explained David Overton, ISV Partner Account Manager at Microsoft.

And because of being deployed on the Vista architecture, Windows 7 M1 Build 6.1.6519.1 inherently got the Ultimate label. But in the end, the truth of the matter is that nothing much has changed in Windows 7 M1 in comparison to Windows Vista. There are details that have been evolved here and there, but nothing significant, nothing that screams Windows 7 beyond any doubt. In addition, the modifications that were indeed introduced are superficial to say the least, so in the eventuality that you are expecting pure Windows 7 you will be disappointed.

So What Changed in Window 7 M 1 Build 6.1.6519.1?

Well, when talking Windows 7 M1 changes it's best to start on the surface. Namely Windows Aero. Scratch any trace of doubt from your minds if you think that Windows Aero will not make it into the final version of Windows 7. Microsoft has tweaked the transparent graphical user interface from the appearance of the translucent taskbar to the fact that window borders now retain Aero even in full screen mode. (Images courtesy of What's Next)

The Start menu has also been revamped with the introduction of pins. Items in the Start menu can be pined directly from the user interface, no need to go digging into the right-click contextual options. The second major modification of the Start menu is that, while performing searches, all the default items, including the components on the right hand side, are removed and query results are displayed on the entire area available.

Windows 7 M1 sports new versions of Internet Explorer 7, Windows Mail and Windows Media Center. No word yet from Microsoft on the integration of Windows Live Mail into the fabric of Windows 7. At the same time, although Internet Explorer 7.1.6519.1 is an evolved build compared to what Vista brings to the table, there has been no indication whether or not Internet Explorer 8, or above, will ship as a component of Windows 7. Similarly, although a new version of Windows Media Center is being developed under the codename Windows Fiji, the version of WMC in Windows 7 M1 is essentially the same as in Vista but with just a few extra tweaks.

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There is now a new application available, built into Windows 7, namely the XPS viewer. The program will allow Windows 7 users to manage XPS documents, XPS being of course the Redmond company's answer to Adobe's PDF. Additionally, the Calculator features new modes (Programmer and Statistics), the Control Panel comes with a small UI redesign making it easier to explore. The Search box in Windows Explorer is now flexible, offering the users the possibility to stretch it to adapt and improve visualization of larger queries. And there is even a new Backup and Restore center coming with the Wipe and Reload feature that "allows you to undo all changes made to your PC."

And believe it or not, Windows 7 contains a bit of the old Longhorn project. Windows 7 M1 now allows users to create their own HomeGroup. This feature is reminiscent of Longhorn Castle. The HomeGroup is designed to permit advanced sharing capabilities between computers in the same household, when it comes to digital content from photos to videos and music, but also to printers.



Here is a fragment of the official Microsoft documentation on Longhorn Castle: "the 'castle' feature allows users to have the networking functionality of the domain, including roaming the user's profile, machine trust and having a consistent user identity throughout the network. The main difference with Castle is that users do not have to setup a dedicated machine, such as a domain controller, to maintain the trust and identity relationship. It also makes it easy to share and access files on those computers. Each computer on the same subnet can discover and join an existing castle. Or, the user can create a Castle. To join an existing castle, you must know the login credentials of an administrator account already part of the castle. Only non-blank passwords can grant access. This helps ensure only authorized computers join the castle (use of strong passwords for administrator accounts is highly recommended). When a computer joins a castle, the accounts on that computer will be added to the list of accounts accessible from any computer in the castle. User specific data (e.g. their password, access rights, and preferences) will be replicated on each computer in the castle and kept in sync. In addition, the newly joined computer will inherit and respect all policies from the Castle."

Officially, Windows 7 is expected to be made available three years after the delivery of Windows Vista. Speculations currently point to the end of 2009 for the availability of the next iteration of Windows, with Microsoft itself having indicated the same in the documentation accompanying Windows 7 M1. And, as M1 is scheduled for expiration in March/April, the second milestone of Windows 7 is expected to drop in the coming couple of month. Milestone 3 is planned for the third quarter of 2008, and the first beta is expected to hit in early 2009.

The Kyoto University Has Ordered an AMD-Based Supercomputer - Powered by the latest Opteron processors

The Japanese University of Kyoto has just placed an order for an AMD Opteron-based supercomputer. The machine will be built using 416 HX600 high-performance computers built by Fujitsu. Each
computer is powered by four quad-core Opteron processors, which means that the cluster totals 1,664 processors and 6,656 Opteron cores.

"This new supercomputer system upgrade represents a significant departure from our past procurement practices. This time we laid out the basic concept of the new supercomputer along with general specifications based on the T2K Open Supercomputer Specification jointly created with the University of Tokyo and University of Tsukuba, and we asked vendors to develop systems and submit proposals to meet our requirements," said Hiroshi Nakashima, Professor at Kyoto University’s Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies.

The computing cluster will be primarily used for scientific calculations, genomic information processing, computer graphics and large archive searches. Moreover, the main cluster will be accompanied by a multiprocessing cluster consisting of seven SPARC enterprise Unix servers, powered by SPARC64 processors, and with 1T byte of memory.

"In this sense, I think it was more difficult this time to develop systems proposals that met our requirements, but this HX600 cluster exceeds our baseline requirements for performance and functionality, so we’re very pleased with the outcome. The SPARC Enterprise M9000 sub-system will be able to directly utilize our existing software assets, and the high-capacity storage system can also be configured to exceed our base requirements," he continued.

The new supercomputer will replace the previous computing cluster at Kyoto University, and will bring seven times more power than the latter. Apart from the obvious computing power boost, the new supercomputer will require only 15 percent of the watts per teraflop.

The supercomputer will deliver a peak performance of 61.2 Teraflops, which would bring it on the top 20 most powerful computers in the world.