Today In Tech

Will You Sponsor Me For A 100km Ride for Refugees Fund Raising Event?

Dr. Byte — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 03:50:50 +0000

I’m posting this to you to ask for your help because, this year on October 14th I am going all the way and riding full 100kms in the third annual Ride for Refugees fund raising event. I am looking for sponsors to make it all worth it. I am training for the challenge as I have never ridden that far but with God’s strength, he will carry me to the end. This cycling event is held each fall near Elmira and I am joining a growing group of cyclists who are raising support and awareness for refugees being served through International Teams Canada

I volunteer at our Welcome Home facility here in Kitchener/Waterloo and getting to know the refugees there has been very eye opening. The challenges involved with a 100km ride dwarfs in comparison of the challenges faced by a refugee. Imagine in a moments notice, force to leave everything you have and know to travel the refugee highway in hopes of a new future.

The event goal is $150,000 and I am looking to raise my share of that good goal. This year my personal goal is to raise $1000 and any amount you give will help reach or exceed it. Please help me reach my goal and help these people, in giving you too will ride with me that day.

Would you sponsor me?

There are over 35 million refugees in the world. Many are coming to Canada and they need support as they adjust to our Canadian way of life. Imagine snow for the first time. Imagine if the letters all ran backwards to what you were familiar with reading. Imagine being alienated from your friends and family. They need our support and International Teams (www.iteams.ca) has been serving refugees for over 25 years.

Don’t hesitate to sponsor me today!

You can go directly to my personal page to sponsor me by clicking on the link below;
https://secure.e2rm.com/registrant/personalPage.aspx?EventID=6694&LangPref=en-CA&RegistrationID=219228

You can also go online to www.rideforrefugees.ca and click on sponsor a rider. Once there you can donate with any credit card to my personal fundraising goal.

Thank you so much and God bless

TiVo, DirectTV Extend Partnership

Dr. Byte — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 12:42:52 +0000

TiVo and satellite provider DirectTV said Wednesday that they will continue their relationship for another three years.

TiVo, whose PVR boxes compete with those offered by rival carriers, such as Comcast’s cable business, will continue to offer the DirectTV TiVo service to existing DirectTV TiVo subscribers. The two companies also agreed not to file a patent suit against the other for the duration of the agreement.

“We are pleased to have reached an agreement with DIRECTV that will allow us to continue to provide our service to the more than 2 million DIRECTV TiVo households,” said TiVo chief executive Tom Rogers, in a statement. “As the pioneer in the DVR market, we have created a service that is highly valued by consumers because of our technology, the wide range of our unique features and the unparalleled ease of our user experience. This agreement reflects TiVo’s popularity among DIRECTV subscribers and importantly respects the value of our intellectual property as well.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the companies said that the “recurring monthly economics” would be about the same as the existing deal.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1948798,00.asp?kc=ETRSS02129TX1K0000532

The Real Da Vinci Code

Dr. Byte — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 00:40:48 +0000

MILAN, Italy — The Codex Trivulzianus, one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s oldest notebooks, is out from under lock and key, offering the world a rare look into the mind of a genius.

Normally hidden away in a library at Sforzesco Castle and reserved for scholars’ eyes, the 55-page collection of sketches and writings is on public display for the first time in nearly a decade. It includes character studies, drawings of church domes and military machines, and even a self-improvement guide.

For all the larger-than-life ideas it contains, the Codex Trivulzianus is actually quite small. It measures 8 inches by 5.5 inches — about the size of an average paperback — and looks every bit its 519 years old.

The ongoing success of Dan Brown’s powerhouse potboiler The Da Vinci Code (a movie based on the novel is scheduled for release later this year) may have helped convince Milan to break out the slim volume.

Ever since the 2003 publication of Brown’s best seller, tourists have flocked to the city to gaze at Da Vinci’s painting of The Last Supper and see for themselves whether the figure depicted in the painting sitting just to the right of Jesus is Mary Magdalene or an effeminate apostle John.

Once a series of 62 unbound pages, the Codex Trivulzianus dates from Da Vinci’s first stay in Milan between 1487 and 1490. Some of the pages were lost for a time; once found, they were numbered and bound. What you’ll see at the exhibit depends on the curator’s choice of the week.

- Nicole Martinelli

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70537-0.html?tw=rss.index

Fujitsu brings the biggest 2.5in HDD capacity first

Dr. Byte — Sun, 02 Apr 2006 19:40:50 +0000

I know that on my laptop I’m always looking for more disk space. What a sweet prospect Fujitsu is bringing to the table, a 200GB drive.

Fujitsu has launched a 200GB Serial ATA 2.5in hard disk drive designed for notebook computers, the most capacious of its kind, the company claimed today. It said the drive’s size makes it ideal for vendors who want to equip their laptops with PVR functionality, or for anyone producing “digital home appliance” products.

The MHV2200BT spins at 4,200rpm and provides average read and write times of 12 and 14ms, respectively. It’s got 8MB of cache memory. The drive can withstand 300G of operating shock and 900G of non-operating shock, Fujitsu claimed.

The drive typically consumes 1.6W, the manufacturer said, falling to 0.5W or even 0.13W in its two ’slumber’ modes. Fujitsu said the drive complies with Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations.

The drive is due to ship around the world at the end of May.

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2006/03/28/fujitsu_200gb_notebook_drive/

Microsoft Outlines Its Windows Live Developer Strategy

Dr. Byte — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 13:57:06 +0000

LAS VEGAS—Microsoft is beginning to articulate a concrete plan for turning Windows Live into a developer platform.

Here at Microsoft’s Mix 06 conference on March 20, Microsoft officials explained in a session on Windows Live how the company is thinking about making Windows Live appeal to third-party developers, not just to Microsoft’s own product teams.

Microsoft has been mulling how best to articulate its Windows Live developer story for several months, as noted on the LiveSide.Net Web site. To help simplify its message, Microsoft has consolidated its content and tools for Windows Live developers on a single Microsoft Developer Network site.

“We are opening the Windows Live platform to third parties to create a virtuous ecosystem” for users, developers, partners, advertisers and Microsoft, said Brian Arbogast, corporate vice president for the MSN Communications Platform with the MSN and Personal Services Division.

Arbogast outlined for session attendees the set of programming interfaces that Microsoft now considers the core of its Windows Live developer platform.

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/article2/0,1995,1940334,00.asp?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535