SUNNETmedia

2012-05-14T00:08:00.002+05:30

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 review: Dual-core in a quad-core world

The Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 launches with ICS and a dual-core processor for $400. A couple months ago this would have made an appealing package for Android tablet shoppers. Now, not so much.

While the Tab 2 10.1 uses a PLS screen, its color accuracy unfortunately isn't up to standard.

(Credit: Josh Miller/CNET)

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 was one of the premier Android tablets when it launched in 2011, with specs that, at the very least, matched top tier Android tablets of the time.

Unfortunately, the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1 feels almost like a disappointing prequel, rather than a full-fledged "we've improved on every feature!" sequel.

I mean, when a premium tablet gets a follow-up, it's not a crazy thing to expect a lot from said follow-up; however, Samsung went the "budget" route with the Tab 2 10.1, limiting its advances. The problem is, since the Tab 2's announcement, two Tegra 3 tablets (from Asus and Acer) have been released at very similar (or in Asus' case, lower) prices than Samsung's offering.

Still, the Tab 2 10.1 includes an IR blaster, its unique Touchwiz UX interface, and comes with 50GB of free Dropbox storage for a year.

Check out the full review to see whether that's enough to be worthy of your consideration.

Intel’s Atom D510 And NM10 Express

2009-12-21T18:09:00.000+05:30

Intel’s Atom D510, And NM10 Express -
Down The Pine Trail With D510MO -

When I buy something new, I want it to be bigger, better, faster, and stronger than what I had before. That’s why the idea of small form factor boxes, while visually appealing, doesn’t usually work out well for me.

It wasn’t much of a surprise, then, when the first Intel Atom-based desktop platform landed in my lab and failed to impress. Shuttle’s X27 had the deck stacked against it though; I tried to get it running smoothly with Windows Vista, and that was an exercise in disappointment. I was a little more shocked when Nvidia launched its Ion chipset and I still couldn’t stomach the Atom-powered configuration as a daily driver, to borrow from automotive parlance. Perhaps the concept underlying Atom was completely lost on me. Maybe “good enough” performance in a diminutive package just wasn’t good enough in a world so used to embracing the fastest of everything.

Intel's dual-core Atom D510Intel's dual-core Atom D510

Where the mobility-enabled platform does stand out as a decent little performer is in the netbook space. We recently included HP’s Mini 311 in our Holiday Gift Guide. I’ve been using the thing for a little over a month, and it’s remarkably responsive for such a small system. The Mini’s integrated Ion graphics are even quick enough for a little World of Warcraft.

Ion Gets Competition

But Intel is setting Ion up with a little competition. Today, the company launches its second-generation Atom-based platform called Pine Trail, which addresses some of the most stinging criticisms leveled at its Diamondville-based predecessors. Gone is the power-hungry 945GC chipset that punished Intel’s energy efficiency story when Atom first emerged. Moreover, integration is in vogue, as the memory controller and GPU migrate their way into the processor die. And the dual-core CPU no longer consists of two separate pieces of silicon on one package. The new Atom D510 is a monolithic chip.

Taken all together, this means we should be looking at a leaner, meaner Atom that’s better-suited to a desktop environment than the CPU/chipset combinations we’ve tested previously…at least, that’s the theory.

Intel's single-core Atom D410Intel's single-core Atom D410

But Who’s This Really For?

The true purpose of Pine Trail isn’t to wow power users with a penchant for environmentally-friendly technology. Rather, it’s to hit a market that is just coming online. According to figures cited from internetworldstats.com, there were 361 million people using the Web back in 2000. In 2009, that number had jumped to 1.66 billion—still only a quarter of the world’s population.

In the same vein, Intel claims (via research done by Morgan Stanley) that a broadband Internet connection is one of the least economically vulnerable luxuries we enjoy today. More people would rather give up cell phones and new clothes before they pulled the plug on their cable or DSL line. Think about that for a second. It's true, isn't it?

As netbooks and small form factor desktops continue to pick up steam, Intel says its new Atom designs are the engines driving the platforms that those extremely cost-sensitive customers will buy as they join the rest of us online.

Intel is actually debuting a handful of components today: two of what it considers desktop-class processors (the Atom D510 and D410), one netbook-class processor (the Atom N450), and a new chipset (NM10) that follows in the footsteps of such concepts as P55, shifting from Intel’s usual three-chip platform to a more elegant two-chip design already popular in some of Nvidia's chipsets. Today we’re looking at the D510MO motherboard—a mini-ITX platform with an Atom D510 soldered on.

Atom chip for Netbooks

2009-12-21T15:38:00.000+05:30

Intel launches redesigned Atom chip for Netbooks

Intel is launching the biggest makeover of the Atom processor since the seminal chip debuted in the spring of 2008, and consumers can expect a crush of new Netbooks to follow.
Dozens of Netbooks are now offered at this Fry's Electronics store in Southern California.

Dozens of Netbooks are now offered at this Fry's Electronics store in southern California
(Credit: Brooke Crothers)

As previously reported, Intel's latest N450 processor and NM10 Express chipset--technology that had been previously referred to as "Pine Trail"--will be used in a new raft of Netbooks that will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. Hewlett-Packard, Acer, Dell, Asus, Toshiba, Lenovo and others are expected to either announce new systems before the show or exhibit new models there.

Intel said there will be more than 80 new Netbook designs--typically priced around $350--on the way, with systems coming available by January 4.

The Pine Trail design squeezes the graphics function, previously on a separate chip, onto the central processing unit, or CPU, a first for Intel. The result--by decreasing the number of chips from three to two--is a reduction in the overall chip package size by 60 percent.

"This is the first monolithic processor with the graphics built in and the memory controller built in," said Anil Nanduri, director, Netbook Marketing at Intel, in an interview. The size of the accompanying NM10 "I/O" chipset has also been reduced, Nanduri said.

To the consumer this means better battery life and thinner designs. "We'll see sleeker designs coming into the market and longer battery life," said Nanduri, adding that average power consumption has dropped 20 percent over the previous generation of Atom technology.

"We got more than eight hours of battery life out of this system," said CNET Review's Dan Ackerman, after testing the new Asus Eee PC 1005PE Netbook, which is equipped with the updated Atom silicon.
Intel has integrated the graphics function onto the CPU, resulting in lower overall power consumption

Intel has integrated the graphics function onto the CPU, resulting in lower overall power consumption
(Credit: Intel)

Atom-based systems will be sold primarily with Windows 7 Starter or Home Basic. "These are the ones that hit the right price points," Nanduri said. "The kind of applications you load up as you go into Home Premium--with a much more richer experience--more performance is needed for that," Nanduri said, referring to higher-price Windows Home Premium.

Windows XP Home and Intel's Moblin Linux operating systems will also be supported. Moblin offers some benefits over Windows. "You will get a very snappy experience on Moblin and faster boot times because it's very purpose-built for this category," Nanduri said.

Intel expects robust growth ahead for Netbooks. Nanduri cited numbers from ABI Research that show Netbook annual shipments reaching 100 million units sometime in the next three years. Since introduction, Intel has shipped more than 40 million Atom chips for Netbooks to major PC makers.

Intel is also launching a new Atom processor with two processing cores, the D510, which it is targeted at entry-level desktops and replaces an existing dual-core Atom. Also, a new single-core D410 design is being introduced.

New Atom processors:

* N450: 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, DDR2-667, TDP: 5.5W
* D510: 1.66GHz, 1MB cache, DDR2-800/667, TDP: 13W (2 cores)
* D410: 1.66GHz, 512KB cache, DDR2-800/667, TDP: 10W

(Note: the DDR2 number suffix refers to memory speed; TDP = Thermal Design Power; W = watt.)

Though radically redesigned, the gigahertz ratings and cache memory specifications of the new Atom chips have not changed from the previous generation. The N450 runs at the same 1.66GHz speed as the current N280 Atom and cache memory sizes are the same.

Nvidia claims consumers will need its Ion chipset coupled with the new Atom processor to get a mainstream laptop-like experience.

"We offer a 'premium' Windows experience, whereas with Pine Trail (the new Atom) you will only be able to get a 'Starter' (experience)," said David Ragones, product line manager at Nvidia, referring to the Windows Home Premium and Windows Starter editions, respectively. Ragones said that with the chipset, video sites like Hulu will run better, and Ion also allows more game playing.

Pricing and availability for the new Atom will be announced in January as systems become available from Netbook suppliers.

Christmas Shopping Online - Take a Little Care While

2009-12-21T12:42:00.000+05:30

Take a Little Care While -
Christmas Shopping Online -

Legitimate businesses use encryption that protects your credit card data as it travels from your computer to the merchant. This means the Web address for sending in the order will begin with https instead of the familiar http. The change from http to https may not happen until you move to the page that actually processes your order.

I once gave a vacuum cleaner as an anniversary gift.

Despite my good intentions that proved to be an ugly mistake.

My judgment isn't the only shaky thing. My gift-wrapping skills are so bad that, when I'm done with the paper and ribbons, the finished product often looks as if it has been attacked by a large dog.

So today we'll talk about a shopping topic where I can truly help -- showing you how to dodge some of the hazards of shopping online. This is the peak time of the year for online shopping and, for those of us who get a little dizzy just thinking about navigating mall crowds, online shopping can be an attractive notion.

There are ways to do it that reduce the chance of broken hearts and busted bank accounts.

Do not be creative: This is not the time to try out odd little Web sites -- places with names like Crazy Ivan's Incredible Bargains. While some might end up being great finds, you also take the very real risk of poor customer Relevant Products/Services service Relevant Products/Services, products that only slightly resemble what you see online and outright fraud. So, especially this time of the year, stick to brand name stores and Web sites where you've had success in the past.

Give yourself credit: Using a credit card gives you protection Relevant Products/Services under the federal Fair Credit Billing Act. Checks and some debit cards do not. By paying with your credit card you have the right to dispute mistakes by the merchant and, if the card ends up in the hands of crooks, you're only responsible for the first $50 of the charges.

Look for a bit of security Relevant Products/Services: Legitimate businesses use encryption that protects your credit card data Relevant Products/Services as it travels from your computer to the merchant. This means the Web address for sending in the order will begin with https instead of the familiar http. The change from http to https may not happen until you move to the page that actually processes your order. You also should look for a link that explains the site's privacy policies. And look for an icon of a closed padlock that should show on the bottom part of the Web browser. A closed lock means the site is using encryption.

Use a unique password: Before your order can be placed, you may be required to create a user name and a password for the site. When it comes to passwords, one size does not fit all. So don't recycle a password that you use to log on to other shopping sites or to check your bank account. It's perfectly OK to write down a password and user name and store it away.

Be patriotic: Only shop sites and businesses that are located in the U.S. If the business or Web site is located in another country, you may lose the protection of consumer protection laws in your state and the U.S. Besides, you will have little or no clout when dealing with a business located in another country.

Do the math: Shipping charges, taxes, handling fees and insurance charges can greatly increase what you are actually paying. What may seem like a bargain can turn into an over-priced purchase. On many sites you don't get all this information until you actually fill in the order blank. If that's the case, take a long pause and tote up the numbers before pressing the button that sends in your ordering information.

It's also smart to check out the site's return policy. For instance, if you need to return an item, will you be responsible for paying the cost of shipping it back? And will you face even more shipping charges when a replacement item is sent to you?

There might be a surprise in store: While online prices and products can be great, it's not a given that you'll find the best deal online. Don't assume local stores can't match or beat the price. That's why it's smart to start your shopping early. Give yourself enough time to check prices online and then compare the total cost from the online merchant to what you'd pay at a store.

There are many times when -- especially after you factor in shipping and handling costs -- the best deal may be located just down the street at a local store. Shopping locally also eliminates the fear that the item won't arrive in time for the holiday.

For more tips on safe online shopping, check out this Web site: www.bbbonline.org/OnLineShopTips/

Meanwhile, a last bit of advice. Avoid vacuum cleaners as a holiday gift. While, to my eyes, there's nothing more romantic than a fine piece of machinery, I have discovered that not everyone holds that same view.

Nokia's Music Plan ## Too Little Too Late

2009-12-21T12:39:00.000+05:30

Nokia's Music Plan -
Too Little Too Late

The high upfront cost and confusing array of Nokia's packages have turned consumers away. Comes With Music is available from 25 carriers on more than 20 devices. The price of the music is rolled into the handset price or monthly bills, making it difficult to see how much the music really costs. The unlimited downloads end after 12 to 24 months.

Nokia Oyj Chief Executive Officer Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo said this month he's "really bullish" about the company's "Comes With Music" package, a phone bundled with unlimited songs. Analysts say it leaves them cold.

Services like Comes With Music from Nokia, the world's largest mobile-phone maker, to take on Apple Inc.'s iPhone are too little too late, said Tero Kuittinen, an analyst at Greenwich, Connecticut-based MKM Partners.

"The time to really push for a premium service Relevant Products/Services to compete with Apple was two to four years ago," said Kuittinen, who has a "sell" rating on Nokia. "I give it a year before they close it."

The offering is part of Kallasvuo's push into mobile services, which is aimed at stemming Nokia's market-share declines. With dozens of ways to stream, rip or pirate tracks, the service faces consumers reluctant to pay for music access. Other hurdles include Apple's stronghold on audiophiles with its pay-per-song model, the popularity of streaming services such as Spotify and carriers pushing their own offerings.

Analysts view the service, unveiled about 14 months ago and touted as a strong offering by Kallasvuo at the investor meeting Dec. 2, as a test of Nokia's ability to respond to consumer demand. Nokia's share of the smart-phone market, the industry's fastest-growing segment, fell to 35 percent in the third quarter from 41 percent, while Apple's iPhone gained. Nokia has tumbled 86 percent on the Helsinki stock market since it peaked at 64.88 euros [$95.06] in June 2000.

Crowded Market

Sold in 15 countries, Nokia's Comes With Music has clocked more than 10 million downloads in both Mexico and Brazil, two of its most successful markets. Spokeswoman Arja Suominen declined to provide overall numbers. Apple had 100 million downloads after iTunes had been open for about the same time, and has sold more than 8.5 billion tracks since starting in April 2003.

Espoo, Finland-based Nokia is counting on music, maps, e- mail and media to increase the appeal of its smart phones. In addition to Apple's iPhone, Nokia faces competition in this segment from Research In Motion Ltd.'s BlackBerry, Samsung Electronics Co.'s devices and Motorola Inc. Google Inc., the most popular Internet search engine, is also developing a mobile phone that uses its Android operating system, making the market even more crowded.

Nokia is rolling out more phones with bundled services, aiming to get 300 million service users by the end of 2011. As of Dec. 11, it had 79.4 million. Nokia last month began shipping the X6, its first phone sold only with a Comes With Music package. Its next phone with the package will be the 5235, with a suggested price of 145 euros.

"We have received some great user feedback for the service," said Liz Schimel, head of global music at Nokia. "We take a long-term view of Comes With Music rather than seeing it as a short-term promotion."

Nokia says downloading the top 100 albums on Apple's iTunes would cost 934 euros plus the cost of the device, compared with an all-inclusive 450 euros for the X6.

Still, the high upfront cost and the confusing array of Nokia's packages have turned consumers away, analysts said. Comes With Music is available from 25 carriers on more than 20 devices. The price of the music is rolled into the handset price or monthly bills, making it difficult to see how much the music really costs. Also, the unlimited downloads end after 12 to 24 months, although users can keep the tracks on their devices.

"It's a complicated message to send to consumers," said Paul Brindley, chief executive officer of Music Ally in London, which researches the digital music industry. "Buying access to the service is quite complex and quite hard to understand."

'A Disaster'

Nokia undermined the service in its first year with poor handsets and confusing marketing, said Ben Wood, an analyst with market researcher CCS Insight. Advertising for the service was "colorful but oblique," he said, adding that Nokia should have shown someone buying a truckload of CDs for next to nothing.

Nokia also stumbled in requiring customers to buy specific handsets to get the unlimited music downloads, analysts said.

"It's been nothing short of a disaster," said Steve Mayall, a director at Music Ally. "It was poorly executed and there was also a general level of disbelief of having unlimited music on a handset for one price."

Universal Music Chief Executive Officer Doug Morris said while building the cost of music into the product is a good idea, Nokia may not have been as good as Apple with the device.

Carrier Competition

"Proper hardware Relevant Products/Services and interface are what users want to pay for," said Thomas Langer, an analyst with WestLB who says Nokia's high-end product portfolio is still disappointing. "You can get music at Wal-Mart or Amazon."

Nokia's music service was trumpeted in May by France Telecom SA's Orange unit. Seven months later, Orange isn't advertising Comes With Music on its Web site. It's selling its own streaming music and video packages, and gives away 10 hours a month of free listening with prepaid top-ups.

"People haven't been willing to pay for music," said Yves Maitre, Orange's chief of devices and multimedia. "Customers want music as part of an entertainment package including TV and videos, and they want transparency about what they are paying."

Vodafone Group Plc's 360 suite duplicates most of Nokia's service offerings including music. Specialized music phones and bundles have had their day, said Patrick Chomet, Vodafone's devices chief.

Consumer Behavior

"Music is becoming something like what the camera has been," said Chomet, whose company doesn't offer Comes With Music. "People expect a mid-tier to high-end mobile phone to have it."

As much as 95 percent of digital music downloads are illegal copies, according to the London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

"Research with young people in 10 countries showed virtually none of them were willing to pay for music," said Stephanie Baghdassarian, a Gartner Inc. analyst in Paris. Kids copy music from CDs and the Internet just as adults do, they share tracks from mobile-to-mobile using Bluetooth, she said.

When they do pay for music, they prefer to stick with the Apple model.

"If people are really interested in music they'll probably choose an iPhone or a separate Apple device for the purpose," said Michael Schroeder, an analyst at FIM Bank in Helsinki with a "reduce" rating on Nokia shares. "Apple attracts a kind of user that's ready to pay a bit more for the phone and a bit more for applications. The average Nokia user is looking for the last dime."

Tipzzz To Raise Your Smartphone , Buying IQ

2009-12-21T12:34:00.000+05:30

Tipzzz To Raise Your Smartphone ,
Buying IQ

Apple's iconic iPhone 3G S has yet to be topped in the coolness department, thanks to its gorgeous 3.5-inch touchscreen, iPod functionality, integrated Wi-Fi and GPS -- and more than 100,000 downloadable "apps." The iPhone has also morphed into a hot gaming platform. On a budget? The older model iPhone 3G is available for $99.

Giving someone a smartphone is like giving them a mini computer, with scads of downloadable applications.

If you're shopping for one, you'll first want to see what's available from your preferred carrier, says analyst Michael Gartenberg at researcher Interpret. Then decide what features are important -- do you want a touch-screen? And prioritize what you'll use the device for -- e-mail, music, games, Web browsing and so on.

Nearly 20 percent of all mobile phones are now "smart," up from 14 percent in 2008, according to a study by J.D. Power and Associates.

If you're ready for your first (or next) smartphone, or are shopping for someone else, here's a guide:

A Tasty Pick

Apple's iconic iPhone 3G S ($199/16 gigabytes or $299/32 GB with two-year AT&T Relevant Products/Services contract; apple.com) has yet to be topped in the coolness department, thanks to its gorgeous 3.5-inch touch-screen, iPod functionality, integrated Wi-Fi and GPS -- and more than 100,000 downloadable "apps." The iPhone has also morphed into a hot gaming platform Relevant Products/Services. On a budget? The older model iPhone 3G is available for $99. The "S" model, which stands for speed, is faster and has a video camera.

Messaging Marvel

Research In Motion's new BlackBerry Bold 9700 (from $199 with two-year AT&T or T-Mobile contract; rim.com) is powered by a peppy processor, multiple wireless options (3G, Wi-Fi, GPS and stereo Bluetooth) and reliable and fast "push" e-mail that delivers messages straight to your in-box. Navigate through the Bold's features -- high-resolution Web browsing, 3.2-megapixel camera and music playback (stored on memory cards) -- with a touch-sensitive trackpad and traditional keyboard.

Google-icious

Bring on the power of Google-to-go with the thin Motorola Droid ($199.99 with two-year Verizon Wireless contract; motorola.com), an Android-powered phone with integrated Google search, Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Maps and more. The 3.7-inch touch-screen glides open to reveal a keyboard for messaging and Web surfing. Music lovers can use the standard headphone jack or stereo Bluetooth (for wireless headphones), along with support Relevant Products/Services for the Amazon Music Store. Other features of this Wi-Fi-enabled phone include a 5-megapixel camera (with DVD-quality video capture), access to apps from the Android Market and a pre-installed 16-GB microSD memory card. Another hot Android phone is the Motorola Cliq with T-Mobile ($199.99 with a two-year contract).

Imagio That

"Windows Relevant Products/Services phones" powered by Microsoft Relevant Products/Services's new Windows Mobile 6.5 are offered by multiple manufacturers and carriers, such as the Samsung Intrepid from Sprint, HTC Tilt2 from AT&T and HTC Imagio from Verizon Wireless. The Imagio ($199.99 with a two-year contract; htc.com) is a powerful world phone with a 3.6-inch touch-screen, 5-megapixel camera (with auto focus and camcorder) and the ability to edit Word and Excel documents. Synchronization with Windows PCs is smooth. Similar to Apple's MobileMe feature, data Relevant Products/Services on Windows phones can be backed up on the Web.

Two new smartphones are available from the folks who kick-started the PDA (personal digital assistant) revolution more than a decade ago: the Palm Pre ($149.99 with a two-year Sprint contract; palm.com) and Palm Pixi ($99.99 after rebate, with a two-year Sprint plan) both run Palm's new operating system. Run multiple apps at once and, when you're finished with a function, simply flick it to the top of the screen to close it. Both include a touch-screen and traditional keyboard, but the Pre is a "slider" design, while the Pixi is "candy bar" style. Other differences are a 2-megapixel camera in the Pixi compared with a 3.2-megapixel camera in the Pre. The Pre has Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity..

Climate Science Not Faked, - But Not Pretty -

2009-12-21T12:32:00.000+05:30

Climate Science Not Faked,
But Not Pretty

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method.

E-mails stolen from climate scientists show they stonewalled skeptics and discussed hiding data Relevant Products/Services -- but the messages don't support Relevant Products/Services claims that the science of global warming was faked, according to an exhaustive review by The Associated Press.

The 1,073 e-mails examined by the AP show that scientists harbored private doubts, however slight and fleeting, even as they told the world they were certain about climate change. However, the exchanges don't undercut the vast body of evidence showing the world is warming because of man-made greenhouse gas emissions.

The scientists were keenly aware of how their work would be viewed and used, and, just like politicians, went to great pains to shape their message. Sometimes, they sounded more like schoolyard taunts than scientific tenets.

The scientists were so convinced by their own science and so driven by a cause "that unless you're with them, you're against them," said Mark Frankel, director of scientific freedom, responsibility and law at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He also reviewed the communications Relevant Products/Services.

Frankel saw "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data, although concerns could be raised about some instances of very 'generous interpretations.'"

Some e-mails expressed doubts about the quality of individual temperature Relevant Products/Services records or why models and data didn't quite match. Part of this is the normal give-and-take of research, but skeptics challenged how reliable certain data was.

The e-mails were stolen from the computer network Relevant Products/Services server Relevant Products/Services of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia in southeast England, an influential source of climate science, and were posted online last month. The university shut down the server and contacted the police.

The AP studied all the e-mails for context, with five reporters reading and rereading them -- about 1 million words in total.

One of the most disturbing elements suggests an effort to avoid sharing scientific data with critics skeptical of global warming. It is not clear if any data was destroyed; two U.S. researchers denied it.

The e-mails show that several mainstream scientists repeatedly suggested keeping their research materials away from opponents who sought it under American and British public records law. It raises a science ethics question because free access to data is important so others can repeat experiments as part of the scientific method. The University of East Anglia is investigating the blocking of information requests

"I believe none of us should submit to these 'requests,'" declared the university's Keith Briffa. The center's chief, Phil Jones, wrote: "Data is covered by all the agreements we sign with people, so I will be hiding behind them."

When one skeptic kept filing FOI requests, Jones, who didn't return AP requests for comment, told another scientist, Michael Mann: "You can delete this attachment if you want. Keep this quiet also, but this is the person who is putting FOI requests for all e-mails Keith (Briffa) and Tim (Osborn) have written."

Mann, a researcher at Penn State University, told The Associated Press: "I didn't delete any e-mails as Phil asked me to. I don't believe anybody else did."

The e-mails also show how professional attacks turned very personal. When former London financial trader Douglas J. Keenan combed through the data used in a 1990 research paper Jones had co-authored, Keenan claimed to have found evidence of fakery by Jones' co-author. Keenan threatened to have the FBI arrest University at Albany scientist Wei-Chyung Wang for fraud. (A university investigation later cleared him of any wrongdoing.)

"I do now wish I'd never sent them the data after their FOIA request!" Jones wrote in June 2007.

In another case after initially balking on releasing data to a skeptic because it was already public, Lawrence Livermore National Lab scientist Ben Santer wrote that he then opted to release everything the skeptic wanted -- and more. Santer said in a telephone interview that he and others are inundated by frivolous requests from skeptics that are designed to "tie-up government-funded scientists."

The e-mails also showed a stunning disdain for global warming skeptics.

One scientist practically celebrates the news of the death of one critic, saying, "In an odd way this is cheering news!" Another bemoans that the only way to deal with skeptics is "continuing to publish quality work in quality journals (or calling in a Mafia hit.)" And a third scientist said the next time he sees a certain skeptic at a scientific meeting, "I'll be tempted to beat the crap out of him. Very tempted."

And they compared contrarians to communist-baiting Sen. Joseph McCarthy and Somali pirates. They also called them out-and-out frauds.

Santer, who received death threats after his work on climate change in 1996, said Thursday: "I'm not surprised that things are said in the heat of the moment between professional colleagues. These things are taken out of context."

When the journal, Climate Research, published a skeptical study, Penn State scientist Mann discussed retribution this way: "Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal."

That skeptical study turned out to be partly funded by the American Petroleum Institute.

The most provocative e-mails are usually about one aspect of climate science: research from a decade ago that studied how warm or cold it was centuries ago through analysis of tree rings, ice cores and glacial melt. And most of those e-mails, which stretch Relevant Products/Services from 1996 to last month, are from about a handful of scientists in dozens of e-mails.

Still, such research has been a key element in measuring climate change over long periods.

As part of the AP review, summaries of the e-mails that raised issues from the potential manipulation of data to intensely personal attacks were sent to seven experts in research ethics, climate science and science policy.

"This is normal science politics, but on the extreme end, though still within bounds," said Dan Sarewitz, a science policy professor at Arizona State University. "We talk about science as this pure ideal and the scientific method as if it is something out of a cookbook, but research is a social and human activity full of all the failings of society and humans, and this reality gets totally magnified by the high political stakes here."

In the past three weeks since the e-mails were posted, longtime opponents of mainstream climate science have repeatedly quoted excerpts of about a dozen e-mails. Republican congressmen and former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin have called for either independent investigations, a delay in U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulation of greenhouse gases or outright boycotts of the Copenhagen international climate talks. They cited a "culture of corruption" that the e-mails appeared to show.

That is not what the AP found. There were signs of trying to present the data as convincingly as possible.

One e-mail that skeptics have been citing often since the messages were posted online is from Jones. He says: "I've just completed Mike's (Mann) trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (from 1981 onward) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."

Jones was referring to tree ring data that indicated temperatures after the 1950s weren't as warm as scientists had determined.

The "trick" that Jones said he was borrowing from Mann was to add the real temperatures, not what the tree rings showed. And the decline he talked of hiding was not in real temperatures, but in the tree ring data which was misleading, Mann explained.

Sometimes the data didn't line up as perfectly as scientists wanted.

David Rind told colleagues about inconsistent figures in the work for a giant international report: "As this continuing exchange has clarified, what's in Chapter 6 is inconsistent with what is in Chapter 2 (and Chapter 9 is caught in the middle!). Worse yet, we've managed Relevant Products/Services to make global warming go away! (Maybe it really is that easy...:)."

But in the end, global warming didn't go away, according to the vast body of research over the years.

None of the e-mails flagged by the AP and sent to three climate scientists viewed as moderates in the field changed their view that global warming is man-made and a threat. Nor did it alter their support of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which some of the scientists helped write.

"My overall interpretation of the scientific basis for (man-made) global warming is unaltered by the contents of these e-mails," said Gabriel Vecchi, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist.

Gerald North, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, headed a National Academy of Sciences study that looked at -- and upheld as valid -- Mann's earlier studies that found the 1990s were the hottest years in centuries.

"In my opinion the meaning is much more innocent than might be perceived by others taken out of context. Much of this is overblown," North said.

Mann contends he always has been upfront about uncertainties, pointing to the title of his 1999 study: "Northern Hemisphere Temperatures During the Past Millennium: Inferences, Uncertainties and Limitations."

Several scientists found themselves tailoring their figures or retooling their arguments to answer online arguments -- even as they claimed not to care what was being posted to the Internet

"I don't read the blogs that regularly," Jonathan Overpeck of the University of Arizona wrote in 2005. "But I guess the skeptics are making hay of their (sic) being a global warm (sic) event around 1450AD."

One person singled out for criticism in the e-mails is Steve McIntyre, who maintains Climate Audit. The blog focuses on statistical issues with scientists' attempts to recreate the climate in ancient times.

"We find that the authors are overreaching in the conclusions that they're trying to draw from the data that they have," McIntyre said in a telephone interview.

McIntyre, 62, of Toronto, was trained in math and economics and says he is "substantially retired" from the mineral exploration industry, which produces greenhouse gases.

Some e-mails said McIntyre's attempts to get original data from scientists are frivolous and meant more for harassment than doing good science. There are allegations that he would distort and misuse data given to him.

McIntyre disagreed with how he is portrayed. "Everything that I've done in this, I've done in good faith," he said.

He also said he has avoided editorializing on the leaked e-mails. "Anything I say," he said, "is liable to be piling on."

The skeptics started the name-calling said Mann, who called McIntyre a "bozo," a "fraud" and a "moron" in various e-mails.

"We're human," Mann said. "We've been under attack unfairly by these people who have been attempting to dismiss us as frauds as liars."

The AP is mentioned several times in the e-mails, usually in reference to a published story. One scientist says his remarks were reported with "a bit of journalistic license" and "I would have rephrased or re-expressed some of what was written if I had seen it before it was released." The archive also includes a request from an AP reporter, one of the writers of this story, for reaction to a study, a standard step for journalists seeking quotes for their stories.

Next-generation Atom Netbook Processor

2009-12-21T12:25:00.000+05:30

Next-generation Atom Netbook Processor
Intel Launches

Intel on Monday launched its next-generation Atom netbook processor, saying it will bring longer battery life and improved system performance to low-cost laptops.

The single-core Atom N450 chip is 60 percent smaller than existing Atom processors, and consumes close to 20 percent less power, said Anil Nanduri, director of netbook marketing at Intel. The chip draws about 5.5 watts of power, according to an Intel specification sheet.

The small footprint of the chip could also lead to new device designs, like thinner netbooks and tablets, Nanduri said. Netbooks with N450 chips will be shown by major vendors at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show to be held in Las Vegas Jan. 7-10.

The company has about 80 netbook design wins based on the latest processor, Nanduri said. The company did not immediately release pricing for the chip, but said new PCs will be available at existing netbook price points.

Netbooks are low-cost PCs characterized by small screens and keyboards, and are designed to surf the Internet and run basic applications like word processing. The category took off when Asus introduced the Eee PC in 2007, and today top vendors including Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Acer and Lenovo offer netbooks.

The Atom N450 will run at a clock speed of 1.66GHz, which is the same as an existing Atom N280 netbook chip. However, the improvements in the N450 come from the smaller chip size, achieved by integrating the graphics and memory controller into the CPU. The N450 will process multimedia faster and free up bandwidth for the processor to communicate with other components. Previously, the graphics and memory controller resided outside the CPU.

The graphics improvement will come as relief to netbook users who have criticized the chipset in current Atom netbooks for its limited graphics compared to Nvidia's Ion platform, which plugs a GeForce graphics core into an Atom chip to deliver full 1080p graphics.

The integrated graphics processor in N450 is capable of 720p high-definition graphics natively, but Nanduri insisted the N450 processor is meant to consume Internet content, not to play graphics-intensive games or view high-definition movies.

"These are not meant for hooking a Blu-ray player to it," Nanduri said. However, Intel is validating technology from companies like Broadcom that vendors can integrate into systems with the Atom processor to let users view full 1080p high-definition content.

Netbooks powered by Atom N450 will run Windows 7, Windows XP or the Linux operating systems, Nanduri said.

Netbook shipments totaled around 17 million in 2008, with the number expected to more than double by the end of this year, according to research firm DisplaySearch. Many netbook purchases were driven by the economic downturn late last year and earlier this year when consumers clamped down on spending.

"People thought this was a recession-oriented business, but we believe... this is a category here to stay," Nanduri said.

Nanduri acknowledged netbooks could be threatened by ultrathin laptops being offered at competitive price points. Ultrathin laptops are lightweight laptops that are as portable as netbooks, but provide performance to run most applications such as high-definition multimedia or casual gaming. Intel supplies chips under the Celeron, Pentium and Core brands for ultrathin laptops.

Intel also launched two Atom processors for low-cost, small form factor desktops. The single-core Atom D410 and dual-core D510 operate at clock speeds of 1.66GHz and include 512KB and 1MB of cache respectively. The D410 draws around 10 watts of power, while the D510 draws 13 watts. Intel has about 50 design wins for entry-level desktops, Nanduri said.

Comcast Unveils Online Viewing of Cable TV Shows

2009-12-19T14:08:00.000+05:30

Comcast Unveils Online Viewing of Cable TV Shows

Comcast, which announced the service in July before reaching a deal for majority control of NBC Universal, becomes the first cable TV operator to offer cable content online at no additional charge. Until now, programs available for free online have been generally limited to shows from the over-the-air broadcasters or to older movies.

Comcast Corp. customers can now watch several cable TV shows and movies over the Internet, a move aimed at helping the cable TV operator manage the flight of viewers to online video.

Comcast hopes that by making the service Relevant Products/Services available starting Tuesday exclusively to subscribers, it can keep them from defecting to rival TV providers or the Internet.

Comcast, which announced the service in July before reaching a deal for majority control of NBC Universal, becomes the first cable TV operator to offer cable content online at no additional charge. Until now, programs available for free online have been generally limited to shows from the over-the-air broadcasters or to older movies.

Other subscription-TV operators with similar plans in the works include Time Warner Cable Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc.'s FiOS service.

The Comcast service, renamed Fancast XFinity TV from On Demand Online when first announced, will initially be available only to those who buy both Comcast's TV and Internet services. Those customers will be able to access the programs on computers anywhere, even at a friend's house using a rival broadband service.

In six months, Comcast said cable TV customers who use another Internet service provider will have access as well.

Customers can authenticate up to three devices -- for now PCs, but mobile devices are possible next year -- to access the cable content.

All told, Comcast is making thousands of hours of programming available from 27 cable and broadcast channels. But what's actually offered will vary by cable channel, with such channels such as TBS offering shows the day after they appear on cable TV and others offering past seasons.

Channels offered are HBO, Cinemax, Starz, A&E, History, CBS, BBC, E!, Style, G4, Hallmark, MGM Impact, Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, Univision, Music Choice, C-SPAN, Travel Channel, Ovation TV, AMC, WE, IFC, Sundance, TNT, TBS and Mi Cine. Networks such as CBS already make some shows available for free; more programming from them will be offered through the Comcast arrangement.

As is the case on cable TV, premium channels such as HBO won't carry ads. But other cable channels will have ads within the show itself and on the Web page on which it appears.

And what each customer Relevant Products/Services can watch depends on the cable TV package subscribed.

Comcast said it will be adding more programmers to the lineup.

Comcast itself owns such cable channels as The Golf Channel and E!, and if regulators approve a deal to buy a 51 percent stake of NBC Universal from General Electric Co., it'll also have control of Bravo, CNBC and other popular channels.

Comcast's own cable entertainment channels, but not the sports networks, are being offered through the new service. NBC Universal's cable channels aren't included.

Some cable channels are concerned that if they make shows available online, audiences will watch it there instead of on television, yet they won't get credit for the online viewership in the Nielsen ratings, which help set advertising rates. Comcast said it's working with Nielsen to address those concerns. Comcast declined to say which cable channels were worried about ratings.

Subscribers can log on through Comcast.net and Fancast.com. Comcast said it's working with other cable channels to provide access through their own individual Web sites.

Some programs are available in high-definition and more HD content will be added. Comcast said there's enough bandwidth Relevant Products/Services to handle HD. Its Internet customers on average use about 2 gigabytes to 4 gigabytes of their 250 gigabytes monthly allotment.

Neon Targets IBM with Unfair-Competition Suit

2009-12-19T14:05:00.000+05:30

Neon Targets IBM with Unfair-Competition Suit

IBM is being sued by Neon Enterprise Software for mainframe software anticompetitive practices. Neon says IBM is blocking its zPrime software, which it says can save IBM System z mainframe users 20 percent of their annual mainframe costs. Another company also challenged IBM on its mainframe business with a similar antitrust lawsuit in August.

On Monday, IBM Relevant Products/Services came under legal fire from Neon Enterprise Software. The company filed a lawsuit alleging that Big Blue is blocking System z mainframe owners from using its zPrime software.

Neon Enterprise Software filed its suit in the Austin division of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. The company claims IBM is violating the Lanham Act and state unfair-competition laws, and that Big Blue is liable for business disparagement and tortious interference with prospective contracts.

Neon is also seeking a declaratory judgment with respect to claims IBM made concerning the characteristics of zPrime. Specifically, Neon is seeking actual and enhanced damages, disgorgement of IBM profits, a declaratory judgment, and reasonable and necessary attorneys' fees.

Understanding zPrime

Neon zPrime is a proprietary software product that makes it possible for IBM System z business application workloads, such as IMS, DB2, CICS, TSO/ISPF and batch, to run on Big Blue's lower-cost zIIP and zAAP specialty processors. As Neon sees it, consumers would benefit from dramatic cost reductions in processing workloads on mainframe computers by using zPrime -- if IBM would allow it.

Neon points to rigorous testing conducted by nearly 50 organizations that has validated that zPrime can save System z mainframe users 20 percent or more of their annual mainframe costs under conventional-use pricing structures. The company held a webinar in October to emphasize the need for competition in the mainframe market with products such as zPrime.

"zPrime can safely and significantly reduce IT Relevant Products/Services costs while optimizing legacy application investments. It does so without sacrificing functionality or disrupting mainframe environments in any way," said Richard Ptak, principal and analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates. "The innovative features in zPrime make it even easier for organizations to benefit from the significant cost savings to be achieved by taking advantage of specialty processor capacity."

Neon said zPrime is legal to use, free of any intellectual-property infringements, and, based on customers' legal reviews, has not jeopardized any standard contracts customers have with IBM. If a zPrime user ever loses the primary zPrime benefit of saving money, the company offers the option of cancelling the contract and receiving a prorated refund from Neon for any unused license fees.

Comparing IBM To Apple

"Neon's claims have no merit, and its product offers no innovation Relevant Products/Services," said Steve Eisenstadt, an IBM spokesperson. "Neon's software deliberately subverts the way IBM mainframe computers process data Relevant Products/Services. This is akin to a homeowner tampering with his electrical meter to save money. IBM has invested billions of dollars in the mainframe this decade, and we will vigorously protect our investment."

Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT, said Neon isn't the first -- and probably won't be the last -- company to challenge IBM's mainframe business. T3 Technologies filed a similar antitrust suit against Big Blue in August.

"IBM is not the only company that is telling users what software they can or can't run on its hardware Relevant Products/Services, and they are not the only company telling application vendors what they can do on their hardware," King said. "You don't have to look much further than Apple computer to see a vendor that's engaged in a similar sort of behavior."

"I personally think that Neon's claims are verging on the hysterical," he said. "It's a fact of life in the IT industry that vendors with proprietary hardware and software tend to make very loud statements about the way that those products should and shouldn't be used."

High-Speed Wireless Could Be in Products Next Year

2009-12-19T14:01:00.000+05:30

High-Speed Wireless Could Be in Products Next Year

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance has completed a new specification that makes possible wireless LANs 10 times faster than today's Wi-Fi. The new WiGig spec is backward compatible with existing Wi-Fi hardware and may appear in products in the first quarter of 2010. But consumer adoption of the WiGig specification may be slower.

The Wireless Gigabit Alliance, or WiGig, has completed a new specification that makes possible high-performance Relevant Products/Services wireless display and audio with rates 10 times faster than current-generation wireless LANs. The new spec works to extend Wi-Fi technology Relevant Products/Services and supports backward capability with existing Wi-Fi devices. WiGig members will have access to the spec to provide faster wireless in new products in the first quarter of 2010.

"When we launched the WiGig alliance in May, we announced our plan to complete the industry's first unified 60-GHz specification by Q4 2009, and we are proud to deliver on this promise to the industry," said Dr. Ali Sadri, president and chairman of WiGig. "We're rapidly paving the way for the introduction of the next generation of high-performance wireless products -- PCs, mobile handsets, TVs and displays, Blu-ray Disc players, digital cameras, and many more."

Getting into the Consumer Ecosystem

Craig Mathias, a principal with the wireless and mobile advisory firm Farpoint Group, said WiGig has reached a milestone by completing its specification as promised by year-end. "By complementing Wi-Fi and enabling multi-gigabit speeds, he said, "the versatile specification is a very significant achievement on the road to the next generation of wireless LAN Relevant Products/Services products."

Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret, is also impressed with the new spec. When it comes to wireless, he said, faster is always better. But there remains an important question to be answered: How do you get consumers to keep upgrading their gear?

"Consumers have to upgrade everything if they are going to get the total benefit. That means it's not only my router, but it's my routers and my computers and my phones and my media players and all the other gadgets that are out there," Gartenberg said. "As the consumer ecosystem gets larger every year, it takes longer and longer for these standards to really become standard for use."

Is Fast Too Fast?

WiGig members seem prepared to cross that bridge when they come to it -- and the group is attracting new members. Four new companies joined WiGig in the fourth quarter, giving the group nearly 30 industry leaders under its banner. Nvidia has joined the organization's board of directors, and AMD, SK Telecom, and TMC have joined as contributor members.

"Nvidia recognizes the general market trend toward wire-free interfaces. Today, display interfaces are at an inflection point where the next-generation solutions will feature wireless display connections for PCs, game consoles, notebooks and mobile devices with PC monitors and TVs," said Devang Sachdev, technology marketing manager at Nvidia and a WiGig board member. "Nvidia supports open standards for wireless transmission of data Relevant Products/Services for display and interfaces such as PCIe, USB, etc., and we see this as aligned with WiGig's work."

Still, there is the time factor when it comes to marketplace adoption. It takes time, for example, for new routers to become available. It takes time for the technology to make its way into laptops and iPods and smartphones.

"We are not even at the point where I can get 802.11n on every device, even if I wanted to, because they haven't quite adopted it across the board, and yet we are already on to one generation beyond n," Gartenberg said. "This may be a case where fast may be too fast and it's going to take a little time for consumers to catch up."

iPhone Outage? There's an App for That

2009-12-19T13:57:00.000+05:30

iPhone Outage? There's an App for That

AT&T has unveiled AT&T Mark The Spot, an iPhone app that allows users to pinpoint the exact locations of spotty coverage. AT&T recognizes that its future growth in the wireless market will require network improvements, and the AT&T Mark The Spot iPhone app can help it fulfill that goal -- as well as pacify AT&T's coveted iPhone users.

AT&T Relevant Products/Services has launched a new app for the iPhone that will enable the carrier's most coveted subscribers to report locations where their handset coverage is problematic or nonexistent. Called AT&T Mark The Spot, the location-aware application is available as a free download from Apple's iTunes store.

Last week AT&T dropped its legal dispute against rival Verizon Wireless over advertising claims that AT&T's 3G coverage is spotty. Now the wireless carrier is turning to technology Relevant Products/Services in order to boost the iPhone's performance Relevant Products/Services over its broadband wireless network Relevant Products/Services.

AT&T's new iPhone app should help the carrier become more proactive with respect to complaints about its network coverage, noted Lisa Pierce, an independent wireless analyst at the Strategic Networks Group.

"When it comes to coverage, they have been getting beaten to death in ads from Verizon Wireless," Pierce said. "And as we all know, Apple users have not been satisfied with AT&T's 3G network and often use Wi-Fi instead."

A Call Center Cost-Cutter

Mark The Spot provides iPhone users with an easy way to report the precise locations where problems occur -- such as dropped or failed calls, no coverage, data Relevant Products/Services failure or poor voice quality. The new app automatically maps the precise latitude and longitude of the place where the user's problem was experienced.

Pierce noted that Mark The Spot allows AT&T to appear more responsive to customer Relevant Products/Services concerns, while simultaneously helping the carrier reduce its internal contact center costs.

"One of the issues with smartphones in general is that they have driven a huge amount of help center requests," Pierce explained. "With an iPhone or devices like that, more than 25 percent of the calls to customer care centers are because the device won't connect to the Internet."

Though there is "no one best way" for carriers to approach solving their coverage problems, if it helps to drive their network investment decisions, then that would be an important development, Pierce noted.

"There is merit to using this type of technique to augment the work that network engineers do -- to help direct wireless capex to where it will have the greatest good," Pierce said. "This would be a good tool to have right across the industry and not just at AT&T."

However, the effectiveness of the tool will depend on what is done with the data at the receiving end of the link. "If this is just going into a black hole, then it's no good," Pierce said.

A Diagnostic Tool

Keeping its iPhone subscribers happy has to be at the top of AT&T's list of priorities. Of the 4.3 million postpaid 3G devices that the carrier added to its wireless network in the third quarter of 2009, 3.2 million were iPhone activations.

AT&T also said its wireless data revenues grew 33.6 percent to $3.6 billion in the third quarter, driven by growth in data plans and increased customer usage of Internet access, messaging and related services. However, AT&T recognizes that its future growth in the most lucrative niche of the wireless market will require network improvements.

AT&T Mark The Spot neatly helps the wireless carrier fulfill two of its key goals. "As the economy works to regain its footing, we are keenly focused on cost improvement as well as continued leadership and investment in key areas that will drive future growth," said AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson.

iPhone - Learn how to Use an Iphone

Windows 7 leaving Redmond's help desk less busy

2009-12-19T13:54:00.001+05:30

Windows 7 leaving Redmond's help desk less busy

There are many ways to measure how Windows 7 is doing. There are reports on new PC sales, tallies of boxed copy sales, and surveys of planned enterprise adoption, to name a few.

But one of the most encouraging signs for Microsoft is the lack of phone calls it is getting from people with problems. Overall, Microsoft said the volume of calls to its support lines is half of what it expected.

"Overall we are finding our call center volume is down significantly more than we expected," said Barbara Gordon, vice president of customer support for Microsoft.

The drop in calls isn't just due to the fact that Windows 7 appears less problem-plagued than its predecessor, though. In the weeks leading up to and following the operating system's release, Microsoft also added two new ways to get help--through an online forum called Microsoft Answers and via the Microsoft Helps feed on Twitter.

"What we have found is we are seeing far more take-up of self-service...forums and Twitter to get responses," Gordon said in an interview this week.

With the Microsoft Answers forums, which launched late last year, users submit questions and experienced community members offer answers that Microsoft workers later validate to make sure they are correct.

So far, Microsoft has validated some 60,000 solutions. The company says that 83 percent of English-language queries are answered within seven days. Those in other languages have a slightly lower rate, but even of those 78 percent are taken care of within a week.

Meanwhile, Microsoft went live with its Twitter help site in October. Users can post a tweet with "@microsofthelps" in the message and Microsoft will respond. A team of seven employees dedicated full time to the project work with the broader support organization to respond to the many tweets. The goal is to either answer simple questions or to point people to a place where they can get a more detailed answer.

"It's hard to answer (most questions) in 140 characters," Gordon said.

But, she said, social networks like Twitter, Gordon said, allow the company to realize a problem that could be affecting thousands of people via a single short message.

"It's really like a customer megaphone," Gordon said.

Gordon hopes the new online options will not only cut down on call center expenses, but ultimately improve overall customer satisfaction with Windows. Customer satisfaction an area where the Mac has traditionally outpaced the various PC brands.

But Gordon says she hopes to see Windows gain ground. "We are really working on this," she said.

Although Apple touts its personal touch with its stores, Gordon suggests Microsoft's high-tech approach might ultimately win it more fans. "If I can help myself without having to go to the mall and sit at a geek bar I will be happier," she said.

Nonetheless, one of the main features of Microsoft's two retail stores is an answer desk very similar to the "Genius Bar" found in Apple stores.

As for the questions people ask on Twitter, they range from the expected range of bugs and problems to inquiries about future versions of products. This week, for example, one user asked when to expect Windows 8. Although vague, the answer was at least as direct as anything a reporter would get by asking Redmond.

"It will be a few years until the next official version comes out," Microsoft replied on the Twitter feed. "Keep an eye out on microsoft.com for future updates."

In addition to building goodwill and cutting costs, the online forums also allow Microsoft to quickly see when a problem is affecting a significant number of users. Such mechanisms helped Microsoft to recognize and then solve a video driver problem that was causing some users to have their systems hang when they reached 62 percent completion on an upgrade to Windows 7.

Within a week, Microsoft had a solution on its Website and shortly thereafter it posted an automated "Fix It," essentially a script that a user can click on to have the proper steps done automatically. The Windows 7 upgrade fix has already been used more than 35,000 times, Microsoft said.

"We're getting people able to meet their needs themselves," Gordon said.

When Power Supplies Attack!

2009-12-19T13:51:00.000+05:30

When Power Supplies Attack!

Where there's smoke, there's usually fire—except inside your computer's case. There, things may get dangerously heated without your ever glimpsing a flame.

When we were testing out a power supply in PC Labs the other day, our noses knew right away that something was up—specifically, the temperature of one or two of the components we were working on, judging by the not-so-lovely overheated-metal odor we couldn't escape.

Normally you'd expect a computer emitting wisps of gray smoke and sinus-offending miasmas to not boot. But ours did—and perfectly well, which is why it took us several seconds longer than it usually might to figure out the problem.

One of the cables attached to the system's modular power supply had malfunctioned. And, when that happened, the components to which it attached, shall we say, did not react well. The SATA data connector fused itself to the system's optical drive, but came apart with enough tugging—taking the entire connector with it. The hard drive, attached to another connector on the same cable, looked completely unscathed, but steadfastly refused to boot in any of the three systems we tried it in.

In addition, the SATA data cable connecting both the optical and hard drives to the motherboard had been affected as well, melting and blowing out two of the motherboard's SATA jacks. This is probably because the residual heat from the power cable needed somewhere to go. Still, we were more than a little surprised to see just how bad the damage was to a cable that had no direct contact with the PSU.

We're still trying to track down the exact cause, but it's not as easy as we thought it would be. Given the complete and utter annihilation of the cable, and the fact that the other, non-modular power cables from the PSU still work just fine, it may have been some sort of really unfortunate mismatch—this cable and this PSU just didn't know how to communicate with each other and thus had a literal blow-up.

We contacted representatives from two major power supply manufacturers, Antec and Thermaltake, to see what they had to say. Antec told us that its tech support reps have "found . . . exactly one other reported case of this happening the past three years." According to Thermaltake, it may be a case of miswiring, which only happens in one out of about every 10,000 PSUs. The Thermaltake rep also recommended using a multimeter to test the PSU beforehand to avoid any problems, however rare, that might crop up.

At least the motherboard itself wasn't irreparably damaged. The system was able to boot before and during the incident—and it worked without any noticeable problem once the smoke had finally cleared. (Although, of course, we tested it with the barest-bones setup we thought we could get away with.) And, thankfully, though those two SATA data jacks on the motherboard are gone, the other four work, so the board is still usable. Just a bit more... charred than it was last week at this time.

Check out the slideshow for photos of the wreckage. Have you had incinerated any of your PC's components—just by turning on your computer? Send us your photos and stories.

Intel Releases Details of New Processors: Core i3, Core i5, Integrated Graphics

2009-12-19T13:47:00.000+05:30

Intel today released a few official details about some of what it intends to unveil at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas the first week of January.

The 17 new processors Intel plans to introduce will extend the Nehalem microarchitecture
through the desktop and laptop PC lines, with the Core i3 CPUs the new
entry-level family, and Core i5 christened as the midrange. Core i7
will remain the high-end CPU option.

The Core i5 CPUs will support Turbo Boost, which allows for dynamically overclocking the CPU's clock speed if there's the proper headroom to do so, and Hyper-Threading, the ability to run more than one thread per core, for increased performance.

Also of particular note is that the Core i3 and Core i5 processors will
contain Intel HD Graphics—the first time Intel has included integrated
graphics on the processor instead of in a separate chip. (Core i7 CPUs,
intended more for gamers and enthusiasts who will need or want discrete
graphics, will not include integrated video.)

The new graphics capabilities can decode two HD streams in hardware.
The accompanying "GMCH" chipset can also decode Dolby True HD and
DTS-HD sounds, including support for the 7.1 surround sound found in
Blu-ray discs.

Stephen Smith, Intel's vice president and director of PC clients and
enabling, said at a press conference on Thursday that the HD audio and
video in the chipsets are "[g]ood enough that a home theater vendor
would use them for their high end consumer products."

Prices, clock speeds, and details about OEMs using the new processors were not announced today.

Seagate Plans Ultrathin Drive for Netbooks

2009-12-19T13:45:00.000+05:30

Seagate Plans Ultrathin Drive for Netbooks

At the Consumer Electronics Show this January, Seagate plans to announce Momentus Thin, a disc drive only 7mm high that the company will use to attack the netbook market.

Current drives are 9.5mm in height—not that much of a difference from the 7mm drive Seagate will offer, but enough that the drive may be able to squeak into a netbook or an ultrathin portable.

Seagate will offer the Momentus Thin in two capacities: 160GB and 250GB. Each drive will spin at 5,400 rpm and include an 8MB cache.

"Momentus Thin promises to help computer makers differentiate on mobile-computing form factor and better compete in the fast-growing markets for thin laptop PCs and netbooks," said Dave Mosley, executive vice president of sales and marketing at Seagate, in a statement. "Seagate is committed to helping its OEM and system integrator partners meet market demand for thinner laptop PCs and plans to expand storage capabilities for thin laptops as demand for these slimmer models continues to grow."

Seagate's argument is that the drives will now fit into the tight spaces reserved for storage inside netbooks, that some have reserved for SSDs—which are typically faster and more rugged, but more expensive, than hard disk drives. But the Momentus Thin also lacks a free-fall sensor that some of Seagate's other Momentus drives include, meaning that the drive may be less rugged than other rivals. It does consume 1.54 watts on average while seeking, however, on par with Seagate's other Momentus drives.

The 20 Dumbest Questions on Yahoo Answers

2009-12-18T16:59:00.000+05:30

The 20 Dumbest Questions on Yahoo Answers

From startlingly ignorant PC questions to appalling displays of sexual confusion, people have some pretty strange problems--and the depth of their cluelessness is nowhere more evident than on the pages of Yahoo Answers.

JR Raphael, PC World - Dec 18, 2009 7:30 am

God bless the Internet. Where else can you assume a fake identity, pose the most inane question imaginable--like "Why can't I see my reflection in the mirror on a television?"--and then sit back and watch the answers pour in?
Crowd-source advice sites like Yahoo Answers have become a bit of a magnet for the maladjusted. Sure, there are plenty of average Joes just looking for ordinary information. But among the sites' many mundane queries, there's a sea of jaw-droppingly dumb discussions guaranteed to amaze and entertain.
I spent some time surfing through Yahoo Answers to find the worst of the worst, and boy did I find it. The spelling, grammar, and punctuation are all as found in the original queries--because why put lipstick on a dodo?
So let's take a look at the vital questions of our time, as posed by some of the deepest thinkers out there, along with the best answers I could come up with...

1. Backward Thinking

"I sold my only car to help pay for gas money, but now gas has come down in price. How do I get my car back?"
I tried to contact this guy, but it turns out that he also sold his computer to help pay for his Internet connection.

2. It's Caps Lock--Capisce?

"HOW DO I TURN OFF CAPSLOCK? I ACCIDENTALLY TURNED IT ON YESTERDAY AND I DONT KNOW HOW TO TURN IT BACK OFF."
Note to self: Register howtoturnoffcapslock.com; make millions.

3. Credit Crunch

"I wanted to see if my computer would read my credit card so i put it in the cd rom and it got stuck, how do i get it out?? I tryed toothpics but lost them in the process?? also the drive is making noises"
Oh, that's normal. Your system is just waiting for you to pay the required $1 processing fee for scanning the card. Simply fold a greenback into a tiny square and insert it into any USB port.

4. Mousin' Around

"My mouse stop working every time i lift it up from the table why is this? this is not just OS .i have linux and vista both same thing so its not drivers"
Yeah, no big deal there, either: Insert your credit card into the CD-ROM drive and tell your computer--slowly and distinctly--that you need the Air Mouse 3000 upgrade. You'll be good in no time.

5. Technical Difficulties

"I've been asked to write an application in my own handwriting....? is there a computer programme that will do this for me? they also want original ideas. do you know any?"
This reminds me of a letter to the editor I once read years ago: "Are there any undiscovered islands left in the world?" The response: "Not that we know of."

6. It's All in the Details

"I have an assignment about computer.. What is unimportant details about computer?"
Wait a minute--does this assignment also require original ideas?

7. Unknown Nuptials

"Am i married in any state? have i been divorced?"
I'll take "questions asked after a night in Vegas" for $500, Alex.

8. A Sticky Subject

"Where can i buy a really big jar of peanut butter?"
If this is from the same guy who asked the previous question, I'm getting concerned.

9. Fruit Frets

"I have ate two whole tangerines in about two hours what will happen to me?"
That all depends on whether you swallowed any seeds. If you did, be very careful not to eat any dirt or drink any water for the next two weeks.

10. Fat Chance

"How do i become obese fast? I want to look good by the end of the year."
You can start by eating two tangerines in two hours. Then run around in circles until you figure out what "obese" means.
Next: Ten more mind-bending questions, including whatever happened to the horned Arizona cantaloupe, where do babies come from, and what is the relationship between turtle bites and orange juice.

11. Cantaloupe Hunting

"I thought cantelope was an animal!? i always thought that a cantaloupe was that animal that has the horns and they live in Arizona and stuff, but i was shopping for groceries yesterday and i saw they had cantaloupe meat on sale. so i was like yeah sure i'll try it, but what i saw, wasn't a cantaloupe. it was some white and green fruit thing! whats up with this?"
The store is guilty of mislabeling. The term it was looking for is "jackalope"--which is a cross between a jackfruit and a manilla envelope.

12. Hey, Babby

"How is babby formed????? how girl get pragnent?"
On the one hand, I kind of hope you never figure it out. On the other, maybe your parents don't know either--and it obviously didn't stop them.

13. An Academic Inquiry

"Why are there school? is a point to it?"
There are school so you can learn how is babby formed, silly.

14. Canine Law

"Is it illegal to name a dog after a movie?"
Only if that movie is Air Bud 2. As a practical matter, though, you might want to avoid calling out to your pooch on a crowded bus if you decide to name it "Bang Bang You're Dead" or "I'm Going to Explode."

15. Lost in Space

"What is the best place to ask questions online? i mean, or there any QA forums like on yahoo or anything?"
Hmm...a forum-like place to ask questions on Yahoo. Nope, haven't heard of anything like that. But if you find something, be sure to let us know.

16. Mathematical Matters

"Is there any possible way of making 2+2=5?"
The easiest way is to flip the positions of 4 and 5 on the number line. Another method is to use LSD (Least Sequential Denominators).

17. Sandwich Sensations

"Is it possible to feel like a sandwich?"
Sure. It's called LSD (Lettuce, Succotash, and Dill-pickle). It feels, like, weird...

18. About Those Drugs...

"How do you ask a question on yahoo answers?"
Hey, don't ask me. I'm still trying to find out if there's a forum-like place to pose questions there. Anyone? Anyone?

19. Spelling 101

"How do you spell government?"
Most of the time.

20. Turtle Trouble

"I was bitten by a turtle when i was a young lad, can i still drink orange juice?"
This is why old lads should be barred from Yahoo Answers. Seriously--where do they come up with this stuff?

Additional Reading

In the land of the complete idiots, the halfwit is king. PCWorld has examined and documented evidence of this phenomenon from time to time, with remarkable scientific success. For further explorations of high-tech hijinx and online foolishness, consult these dispatches

Intel Introduces Next-generation Laptop, Desktop Chips

2009-12-18T16:06:00.000+05:30

Intel Introduces Next-generation Laptop, Desktop Chips
Agam Shah, IDG News Service - Dec 18, 2009 1:10 am

Intel on Thursday introduced its next-generation of PC chips that could make laptops and desktops faster and more power efficient.

New chips, including Core i3 and Core i5 processors, are already in mass production and shipping to PC makers, said Stephen Smith, director of PC client operations at Intel at a press event in San Francisco. The company is shipping 17 new CPUs to PC makers, and systems based on the new chips could reach stores "early" next year, Smith said.

Prices of laptops and desktops based on the new chips will depend on PC makers, though buyers can expect affordable price points, Smith said in an interview.

The upcoming chips offer improved application and graphics performance compared to the prior generation of Intel processors, which includes the Core 2 Duo processors that go into current laptops and desktops. The new chips integrate CPU and graphics processor in a single package, which could improve graphics performance while drawing less power.

"We are able to process two high-definition [video] streams at the same time," said Uday Marty, director of notebook marketing at Intel. Interest in high-definition video is growing, and the graphics chips inside the CPUs will also be able to decode Blu-ray movies. That frees the CPU to focus on processing other tasks, Marty said.

Better performance is also achieved on the new chips by running more threads on each core, Marty said. For example, a dual-core Core i5 chip will be able to run four threads simultaneously, compared to two threads on existing Core 2 Duo dual-core desktop and laptop chips.

A new technology called Turbo Boost technology will also enable faster processing and power savings. Depending on tasks, the processors can ratchet up the speed of a processor core, or even shut off a core when not needed to save power.

The performance and power benefits will be partly realized from an advanced manufacturing process Intel is using to make the chips. The new laptop and desktop processors are made using the 32-nm manufacturing process and are code-named Arrandale and Clarkdale respectively. Westmere chips should deliver performance and power benefits over existing Intel chips made using the 45-nm process, Intel officials said.

Westmere is based on the same micro-architecture underpinnings as Nehalem chips, which are made using the 45-nm process. The Nehalem chips include Core i5, Core i7 desktop and Xeon 5500 server chips. Nehalem integrates a memory controller with the CPU and provides a fast pipeline for processors and system components to communicate.

Company executives did not talk about specific clock speeds or pricing information, saying those figures would be released at the Consumer Electronics Show, which will be held in Las Vegas between January 7 and 10. However, Intel executives in the past have said that clock speeds on the chips could be similar to those in existing laptops, but offer better performance by running more threads on each core while drawing less power.

However, a Canadian retailer, A-Power, earlier listed the Core i3-530 chip running at 2.9GHz, which has been pulled off the Web site. The dual-core chip has 512KB and 4MB of L3 cache, and is priced at around US$150.

Will more govts go universal Net access?

2009-12-17T17:28:00.000+05:30

Will more govts go universal Net access?

Some European governments have in recent months stipulated that telecommunication operators in their countries were to make broadband access available to all citizens. At the same time, more countries, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, have plans to deploy next-generation broadband networks or improve existing infrastructure in the coming years.

In October, Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications passed a law requiring telcos in the country to provide Internet connection speeds of at least 1 megabit per second (Mbps) to some 5.2 million Finnish by July 2010. Last month, the Spanish government announced it was also targeting to offer affordable broadband with speeds of at least 1 Mbps to residents by 2011.

Meanwhile, Germany is on track to achieve full nationwide coverage of basic broadband services that would give users a minimum of 1 Mbps bandwidth by 2010, according to the country's Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. By 2014, at least 75 percent of the population should have access to a bandwidth of 50 Mbps, a spokesperson said in an e-mail interview with ZDNet Asia.

She added that the current status for basic broadband services is "close to 97 percent" coverage. As for the deployment of fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and fiber-to-the-building (FTTB) for high-speed Internet access, while less than 1 percent of households are currently connected, she believed that this will soon change as "[the] segment is about to sufficiently gain momentum".

According to Ovum's research director David Kennedy, the worldwide developments in high-speed broadband implementation and instituting access as a legal right will lead to "increasing pressure on governments to address digital divide issues in the near future". Particularly as these advanced networks are rolled out in urban cities, there will be a widening service gap between rural and urban areas, he noted.

Kennedy said that such pressures will partly be generated due to "internal political pressure" as well as "competitive pressure between different countries to attract investments".

Yet, not all countries are ready to mandate Internet access for all citizens.

Mark Lim, head of intellectual property of media and entertainment at Singapore-based law firm Tan Peng Chin, pointed out "it would be a bit of a stretch to characterize Internet access as a basic human right, at least not at this point of time."

In the case of Singapore, Lim said the local authorities encourage all of its residents to be connected to the Internet, and "many" of the countries policies, such as in education, support the vision.

Quickening NBN adoption in APAC
According to an Ovum study of next-generation access in the Asia-Pacific region, the region "is the world leader in next-generation access development" and "leads the world in the amount of fiber being deployed". The study attributed the rapid deployment to government initiatives, a highly competitive environment and the keenness of providing IPTV (Internet Protocol television) and other content services over their infrastructure.

Fiber installations typically refer to FTTH, FTTB and fiber-to-the-node (FTTN), the report released in October said.

Singapore is one such country in the region hoping to tap on ICT as a strategic enabler to spur its economy in the future.

Following Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's 2006 Budget Speech, which outlined plans to build a new national broadband network (NBN), the nation's ICT regulator the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) further defined a roadmap to realize the Intelligent Nation 2015 (iN2015) vision. According to IDA's blueprint, the NBN is expected to be available across the island by 2015, providing households and businesses with Web access speeds exceeding 1 Gbps (gigabit per second).

Progress has been made toward that goal, with OpenNet, the appointed consortium to build Singapore's NBN, announcing in August that it has connected the first home with dark fiber.

The Ovum study reported that Singapore had approximately 1.1 million broadband subscribers, with household penetration reaching 94.8 percent at the end of the first quarter of 2009,. The analyst firm said it expects FTTH and FTTB subscriptions to reach 390,000, or 35 percent household penetration rate, by 2012.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan, the global leader in FTTH deployment, both in terms of subscribers and low price according to the report, is on pace to achieve its targets of providing 100 percent broadband access to its citizens, and 90 percent FTTH coverage by 2010. These objectives were set out in its 2010 Next-Generation Networking strategy announced in 2006, said the report. According to statistics dated June 2007 by Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication, broadband penetration was 95.6 percent, while FTTH hit 84.1 percent.

China, said to be one of the fastest growing broadband markets in the world in the Ovum report, is relying on its "local governments" to spur its NBN project. Many of these local administrations have been signing agreements with provincial offices of local telcos such as China Mobile and China Telecom, to build up its broadband infrastructure throughout 2009, said the report.

Cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, for example, have plans to build "smart cities" based on FTTH and FTTB access technologies. The fiber-based networks are expected to boast 100 percent coverage by 2012, Ovum noted in the report.

The Ovum report also said that Australia is currently working on developing a "wholesale only" FTTH access network to reach 90 percent of its population over seven to eight years, with the remaining 10 percent serviced by "wireless and other technologies". The Australian government has indicated that it will invest A$4.7 billion (US$4.3 billion), and is looking to raise more funds through private investments, according to the study.

Golden ratios' for female facial beauty - Beauty - Life - The Times of India

2009-12-17T17:25:00.000+05:30

Golden ratios' for female facial beauty - Beauty - Life - The Times of India

'Golden ratios' for female facial beauty

A new study has helped researchers from the University of California, San Diego and the University of Toronto discover ‘golden ratios’ for Woman

They have found that the distance between a woman’s eyes and the distance between her eyes and her mouth are key factors in determining how attractive she is to others.

For the study, Pamela Pallett and Stephen Link of UC San Diego and Kang Lee of the University of Toronto tested the existence of an ideal facial feature arrangement.

They successfully identified the optimal relation between the eyes, the mouth and the edge of the face for individual beauty.

In four separate experiments, the researchers asked university students to make paired comparisons of attractiveness between female faces with identical facial features but different eye-mouth distances and different distances between the eyes.

They found two ‘golden ratios,’ one for length and one for width. Female faces were judged more attractive when the vertical distance between their eyes and the mouth was approximately 36 percent of the face’s length, and the horizontal distance between their eyes was approximately 46 percent of the face’s width.

These proportions correspond with those of an average face.

"People have tried and failed to find these ratios since antiquity. The ancient Greeks found what they believed was a ‘golden ratio’ – also known as ‘phi’ or the ‘divine proportion’ – and used it in their architecture and art,” Pallett said.

“Some even suggest that Leonardo Da Vinci used the golden ratio when painting his ‘Mona Lisa.’ But there was never any proof that the golden ratio was special. As it turns out, it isn’t.

“Instead of phi, we showed that average distances between the eyes, mouth and face contour form the true golden ratios," Pallett added.

Lee said: "We already know that different facial features make a female face attractive – large eyes, for example, or full lips.”

"Our study conclusively proves that the structure of faces – the relation between our face contour and the eyes, mouth and nose – also contributes to our perception of facial attractiveness. Our finding also explains why sometimes an attractive person looks unattractive or vice versa after a haircut, because hairdos change the ratios," Lee added.

New Blu-ray Titles for Showing Off Your Home Theater

2009-12-17T17:20:00.000+05:30

New Blu-ray Titles for Showing Off Your Home Theater

Ready to enjoy a classic? Each of these ten titles demonstrates how Blu-ray's high-definition image and sound can re-create a bygone cinematic experience, from epics designed for 80-foot-wide curved screens to a comedy originally accompanied by live music. This list is in reverse chronological order of when the films were released. Half of them come from the 20-year period starting in the early 1950s--when Hollywood saw television as a threat instead of a market, and the industry created new film formats that TV couldn't match. Today, with Blu-ray, your TV can at least come close.

Chrome for Linux: Good Browsers Come to Those Who Wait

2009-12-17T17:17:00.000+05:30

Chrome for Linux: Good Browsers Come to Those Who Wait

bout a year after it first appeared as a Windows application, Google's Chrome browser is finally available in beta for Linux. Google had to limit its compatible distro list to a handful of popular Linux versions, but those who can use it will likely enjoy its speed, features and the hundreds of extensions Google has made available.
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) finally released a beta version of its Chrome Web browser for Linux on Dec. 8, slightly more than one year after releasing its Chrome browser for Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows. The wait was worth it, especially given the more than 300 extensions already available to customize the new browser.

Because Linux distributions are numerous, Google ported the Chrome code to a select handful of the most popular distros. Chrome for Linux is so far only available for the Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSuse distros.

Similar to Google Chrome for Windows and Mac (also just released), Google focused on speed, stability Take the worry out of managing your enterprise applications. Click to learn how. and security in building the Linux version. However, Google also wanted a high-performance browser that integrated well with the Linux ecosystem, according to Brian Rakowski, product manager.

"This includes tight integration with native GTK themes, updates that are managed by the standard system package manager and many other features that fit in natively with the operating system where possible," Rakowski said.
True to Its Roots

In developing the Linux version of the Google Chrome browser, company officials decided not to keep the project exclusively in-house. Instead, it sought help from the open source community that was already well-versed in the Chromium Project, said Rakowski. More than 50 open source contributors that worked on Chromium were helpful in delivering the Linux version of Google Chrome, he added.

Chromium is an open source browser project with a goal of building a safer, faster and more stable way for all Internet users to experience the Web. Like the Windows version, Google's Chrome browser for Linux is fast, secure, stable, simple, extensible and embraces open standards like HTML5, according to sofware engineers Dan Kegel and Evan Martin.

"Google Chrome works well with both Gnome and KDE and is updated via the normal system package manager. It has also been developed as a true open source project, using public mailing lists, IRC channels, bug tracker, code repository, and continuous build and test farm -- following in large part the trail blazed by Mozilla," they wrote.

Where they noticed problems in system libraries, the Chrome developers pushed fixes upstream and filed bug reports. This open approach to development seems to be working, noted Kegel and Martin.
Hands-On Account

Google Chrome Beta for Linux has much of the look and feel of the established Windows version. However, under the hood are telltale signs that the code is carefully tuned to integrate with the Linux architecture.

I use Chrome for Windows on several of my PCs. Thus, my first exposure to the Linux version of the Chrome Beta on my Ubuntu desktop and Ubuntu-based netbook was a simple venture into familiar territory. The user interface (UI) is largely the same.

Installation, as expected, was fast and sure. Browser settings and bookmarks were imported from my Firefox browser painlessly.

I thought I had lucked out in being able to port the Google Chrome Beta over to my two computers that run the Puppy Linux distribution. One of the Puppy community members recompiled the binary code to convert the .Deb package of Google Chrome into a .Pet package for Puppy Linux. However, a key library was missing, causing Google Chrome to flash on the screen and then disappear.
Extensions Galore

Speedy, tabbed browsers are becoming the standard today. So a new browser candidate needs some extra oomph to give users enough reasons to switch from their current browser of choice. Google accomplishes this with its gallery of extensions.

The vast array of extensions available in the Firefox and the Seamonkey browsers push their usefulness high up on the browser list. Google Chrome jumps to the top of that list with its more than 300 browser extensions developed specifically for Chrome.

I found Chrome versions of many of my favorite Firefox add-ons. This makes it much easier to switch my work routine from one browser to the other without missing anything.

When Google first launched the Windows Chrome version in September 2008, the plan was to make it easy to customize the browser with extensions. Google also wanted to make extensions easy to create and maintain, while also preserving Google Chrome's speed and stability, noted Rakowski.

Mostly, Google met that goal. Each extension runs in its own process to avoid crashing or significantly slowing down the browser.
Other Notable Features

Google Chrome beta for Linux has a lot of nice features. It did not take me long to find my favorites.

For instance, the pin tab feature locks a Web site in place with a right click. It reduces the size of the tab for the pinned URLs so they are quickly found among a growing list of opened browser tabs.

Another gem is the ability to preselect URLs to open when the browser loads. Sure, a few other browsers have a similar feature, called a "personal tool bar." But Chrome lets me do it with a right click of the mouse.

I also like the ability to use the system title bar and borders within the browser by right clicking on tab bar.

Obama Techs Find Missing Pieces of Bush-Era Email Puzzle

2009-12-17T17:16:00.000+05:30

Obama Techs Find Missing Pieces of Bush-Era Email Puzzle

Millions of Bush-era White House emails have been recovered, although it will be several years before any of their contents can be revealed. Obama administration IT specialists are attempting to clean up the record-keeping mess left by their predecessors, who seemed as though "they just didn't want the emails preserved," according to Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW.
Computer technicians have found 22 million missing White House emails from the administration of President George W. Bush, and the Obama administration is searching for dozens more days' worth of potentially lost email from the Bush years, according to two groups that filed suit over the failure by the Bush White House to install an electronic record-keeping system.

The two private groups -- Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the National Security Archive -- said Monday they were settling the lawsuits they filed against the Executive Office of the President in 2007.

It will be years before the public sees any of the recovered emails because they will now go through the National Archives' process for releasing presidential and agency records. Presidential records of the Bush administration won't be available until 2014 at the earliest.
Poor Choices

The tally of missing emails, the additional searches and the settlement are the latest development in a political controversy that stemmed from the Bush White House's failure to install a properly working electronic record-keeping system. Two federal laws require the White House to preserve its records.

The two private organizations say there is not yet a final count on the extent of missing White House email and there may never be a complete tally.

"Many poor choices were made during the Bush administration, and there was little concern about the availability of email records despite the fact that they were contending with regular subpoenas for records and had a legal obligation to preserve their records," said Meredith Fuchs, general counsel to the National Security Archive.

"We may never discover the full story of what happened here," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "It seems like they just didn't want the emails preserved."

Sloan said the latest count of misplaced emails "gives us confirmation that the Bush administration lied when they said no emails were missing."
94 Missing Days Restored

The two groups say the 22 million White House emails were previously mislabeled and effectively lost.

The government now can find and search 22 million more emails than it could in late 2005, and the settlement means that the Obama administration will restore 94 calendar days of email from backup tape, said Kristen Lejnieks, an attorney representing the National Security Archive.

Sheila Shadmand, another lawyer representing the National Security Archive, said the Obama administration is making a strong effort to clean up "the electronic data mess left behind by the prior administration."

Records released as a result of the lawsuits reveal that the Bush White House was aware during the president's first term in office that the email system had serious archiving problems, which didn't become publicly known until 2006, when federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald disclosed them during his criminal investigation of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

A Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) document on the Bush White House's email problems states that Microsoft was called in to help find electronic messages in October 2003, more than two years before the problem surfaced publicly.

October 2003 was the month that the Justice Department began gearing up its criminal investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of Plame, the wife of Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson.

FTC pursues Intel on new front: Graphics chips

2009-12-17T17:07:00.000+05:30

FTC pursues Intel on new front: Graphics chips

The Federal Trade Commission's complaint against Intel for alleged anticompetitive practices has a new twist: graphics chips.

To date, the antitrust actions of regulators worldwide toward Intel have focused on sale practices for central processing units, or CPUs, a market over which the company has fought heavily with Advanced Micro Devices. On Wednesday, however, the FTC spelled out a litany of allegations about Intel's alleged anticompetitive behavior in the market for graphics-processing units, or GPUs, in which Nvidia is a major player.

Nvidia is the world's leading supplier of "discrete," or standalone, graphics chips but takes a distant second place in overall market share to Intel, which supplies "integrated" graphics built into the chipsets that accompany all of its processors. Mercury Research estimates the total market for graphics chips, including integrated graphics, at almost $10 billion in 2009.

Why graphics, and why now? "It would be really hard to sell the public on expending resources to take Intel through administrative proceedings when it had already paid over a billion dollars to AMD," said Joshua D. Wright, a professor at George Mason University School of Law and a scholar in residence at the Federal Trade Commission until 2008.

"[The FTC] needed to be seen as doing something new," Wright said.

"[Nvidia] becomes the remaining star witness, now that AMD has left the field," said Roger Kay, principal at Endpoint Technologies. "And the FTC's focus, which begins to look toward the future, has to take into account how graphics will fit in as computer technology develops," Kay said.

Intel General Counsel Doug Melamed asserted in a statement that the FTC complaint "is based largely on claims that the FTC added at the last minute and has not investigated," referring to the GPU allegations. And Melamed added in a conference call that some of these GPU allegations were made as recently as December 8.

One of the areas the FTC case zeroes in on is the burgeoning competition for chipsets in Netbooks--small, inexpensive laptops that are typically priced around $350. Netbooks are powered by Intel's Atom processor--and integrated graphics silicon built into the chipset. In this market, Nvidia also sells its Ion chipset, which competes with Intel's integrated graphics product.

"To combat [Atom] competition, Intel charged [PC makers] significantly higher prices because they used a non-Intel graphics chipset or GPU. Intel would offer the bundled pricing only to OEMs that would then use the Intel chipset in the end product--and not use a competitive product," the FTC said.

Nvidia CEO Jen Hsun Huang on Wednesday chimed in with a statement. "Today's filing is sorely needed to stop Intel from using unlawful tactics to lock out the GPU and block consumers from its revolutionary benefits," he said.

And he provided more detailed allegations to CNET last month. "A customer can't even choose to resell the chipset and use Ion instead. What's the point of Nvidia getting an Intel bus license, if it's impossible to overcome Intel's pricing bundles?" Huang said in a statement provided to CNET.

Specifically, Huang accused Intel of offering the Atom bundle (a total of three chips) for $25; but if vendors switched to an Nvidia solution (which requires only one Intel chip) based on the Ion chipset, Intel would charge $45, according to Huang.

Intel says what it is doing is legal. "It's all above cost. And that meets the legal standard worldwide," Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said.

In Netbooks, Nvidia has made some headway this year: its Ion chipset has been used in Netbooks from Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, among others, and Huang concedes this.

On top of the charges related to the Atom processor, there's a second major front in the FTC complaint, which stems from an Intel legal action filed in February that forced Nvidia to halt development of chipsets for Intel's new "Nehalem" processor technology (marketed as the Core i series of chips).

"Intel now has reversed its previous course of allowing Nvidia integrated GPU chipsets to interoperate with Intel CPUs, thereby foreclosing Nvidia's integrated GPU chipsets from connecting to Intel's future CPU platforms," the FTC complaint alleges.

Intel said in its motion for a declaratory judgment that the 4-year-old chipset license agreement with Nvidia does not extend to Intel's future-generation processors with "integrated memory controllers," which includes Intel's newest Nehalem Core i processors. Intel contends that it discussed the matter with Nvidia for more than a year and that the two sides simply couldn't reach an agreement.

LED lights creep toward mainstream in 2010

2009-12-17T17:04:00.000+05:30

LED lights creep toward mainstream in 2010

The first contact many consumers have with LEDs is when stringing lights on the Christmas tree. But improvements in the energy-efficient lighting technology mean that more people will start screwing in LEDs for general lighting next year.

Semiconductor research company iSuppli on Tuesday forecast double-digit sales growth in the next three years for all types of LED lights, which are increasingly used in everything from street lights to flat-screen TVs. Although LEDs are still mostly used for other lighting applications, LEDs have started to penetrate the residential market as a replacement for incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs, it said.

A recent Sylvania survey shows that three-quarters of Americans have tried different energy-saving light bulb technologies, such as halogen (left), compact fluorescent (center), or light-emitting diode (right).
(Credit: Osram Sylvania)

"While the retail prices for LED light bulbs are still about an order of magnitude higher than those traditional incandescent lamps, customers increasingly are becoming aware of the power savings and long life benefits of solid-state LED lights," according to iSuppli.

LED manufacturers have already released 40-watt replacement bulbs with the traditional Edison shape while some, such as Lemnis Lighting, are marketing a 60-watt replacement that consumes only 6 watts.

Not surprisingly, high upfront costs are a significant barrier to broad adoption. The Lemnis 60-watt replacement costs about $50 and a 40-watt replacement from Osram Sylvania costs about $35.

Still, consumers are considering their options. Osram Sylvania on Wednesday released results from a survey that found 74 percent of consumers changed to a more efficient bulb this year, with 12 percent using LEDs.

The company anticipates that consumers will increasingly consider LEDs for efficient lighting because of the 2007 law to phase out incandescent bulbs in the U.S. by 2012. Nearly two-thirds of people will consider lower-energy options for replacements, although more than half said the price is a "key consideration," according to company representative Stephanie Anderson.

Osram Sylvania plans to introduce a 60-watt replacement in the spring of 2010, which is a more popular lighting choice that could draw more consumers. The cost will be in the same range as its 40-watt replacement, Anderson said.

"There is an appetite for new technologies. Consumers are not mourning the loss of the 100-watt incandescent," she said.

The Department of Energy hosts the Lighting Facts Web site, where it lists manufacturers and offers a volunteer labeling system with information on light output and efficiency, expressed in lumens per watt.