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Create a Nameless File/Folder In XP

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This trick will allows you to create files and folders without any name In XP.

Just follow these steps:
  • Select any file or folder.
  • Right click on it, press rename or simply press F2.
  • Press and hold the alt key. While holding the Alt key, type numbers 0160 from the numpad.
  • Press Enter and the nameless file or folder will be created.
Note :
Type the numbers 0160 from the numpad, that is, the numbers present on the right side of the keyboard. Don't type the numbers which are present on top of the character keys.

But what if you want to create another/More nameless file or folder in the same directory ?

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Just follow these steps :
  • Select file, press F2.
  • Hold alt key and type 0160 from the numpad.
  • Release the alt key. Now without doing anything else, again hold alt key and press 0160.
  • Press enter and you will have second nameless file in the same directory.
  • Repeat The Process to create as many nameless files or folders in the same directory.

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EA VP claims they have 'maxed out' the XBOX 360

In an interview with the Official Xbox Magazine during E3 last week, Patrick Soderlund, senior vice-president of EA games Europe, states that they have "maxed out" the XBOX 360 console, leaving very little or no headroom for future titles. He also added that they "haven't maxed out the PS3" and are "getting more power" out of Sony's console right now.

Soderlund was impressed with Microsoft's lineup at E3, especially Project Natal. He says he likes the Natal and calls it "cool" and "interesting". Project Natal, Microsoft's idea of "controller-free gaming and entertainment experience" may help spur newer ways of gaming, thus creating that little extra head room for game development on the 360. Soderlund feels that Microsoft's strong presence at E3 will keep competitors on their toes. Their showcase was strong enough to make the 360 Soderlund's "personal favourite console".

"I think Microsoft is on a roll right now. They're doing really well. If I was Sony, I would have a headache, to be honest."

But he hasn't completely written off Sony: "Sony has a lot of good games this year. If you go to their booth, there's a very consistent, high quality product line-up and that will help them."

Microsoft should take this matter seriously considering that they have pledged a ten year lifecycle for the XBOX 360, which is similar to Sony's plan for all of its consoles. Shane Kim, corporate vice-president for strategy and business development at Microsoft's game division, "firmly" believes that the 360 can last well into 2015.d

Source: 1

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Intel launches ultra-thin chips

SAN FRANCISCO: Intel Corp has launched a lighter, power-saving microprocessor intended for use in ultra-thin laptops, a move by the top chip maker to shore up its lead in mobile computing.

The new processor, dubbed the Pentium SU2700, comes amid investors' fears that cheaper processors such as the Atom, designed for use in ultra-cheap netbooks, are cannibalizing the market share for higher-margin, more expensive chips.

Acer and Asustek have said they will build laptops with the chip, and Microsoft will ensure its software supports it.

Intel expects that by the fourth quarter of 2009, about a fifth of its consumer shipments will be for the new-generation laptops, slimmer and more energy-efficient.

Intel is upbeat on the ultra-thin market and expects "explosive growth in 2009, very similar to the netbook growth," Intel's director of mobile platforms product marketing Uday Marty said on a conference call.

Asutek, which in 2007 pioneered the successful low-cost, no-frills netbook PC in 2007, is expected to unveil five new laptop models based on the technology this year.

Analysts say Intel's CULV platform may offer a cheaper - but virtually as powerful - alternative to the traditional processors it makes for laptops, while enabling laptops to begin to approach the diminutive size of netbooks.

Intel on Monday also released three new Core 2 Duo processors and a new mobile chipset.

source: 1

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Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 Released

Red Hat has announced the release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3.

The company has posted details about the latest version of their Linux-based operating system, noting that the latest version has been delivered to customers with a Red Hat subscription, via Red Hat Network.

Updated features, provided to customers through subscription model, deliver enhanced virtualization scalability, OpenJDK functionality and Intel Nehalem processor support to enable customers to run the most demanding workloads on more affordable platforms


Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 has many improvements over previous version, which include:

-- Virtualization enhancements: The number of physical CPUs supported has been increased to 126, whilst the maximum memory supported has been increased to 1TB.

-- Improved power management: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 has improved handling of low-level power management sleep states, which is an important feature as "green computing" is becoming very popular.

-- Security: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.3 has support for hard drive encryption, very important for today's laptops, but also important for desktop computers and servers.


Sources: 1 2 3

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Dell introduces Studio 14z Laptop

On the same day it was announced that Dells sales were down 64% when compared to last year, they announced a new Studio laptop, the Studio 14z which will feature a 14 inch HD screen and a 500 GB hdd.

Dell Studio 14z measures 1.2 inches at the thickest point, and weighs 1.95kg pounds. This 14-inch notebook has HD 720p video content supporting LED display with 1366x768 resolution. Equipped with 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors, Studio 14z supports using up to 5GB DDR3 1066MHz memory and offers up to 500GB 7200RPM storage support.

For graphics this notebook has the Nvidia GeForce 9400M integrated graphics that are also used in Apple s unibody MacBooks, Macbook Pro
and MacBook Air models.

Hooking Studio 14z to your HD set-up wouldn t be a problem since the notebook offers DisplayPort and HDMI for HD video output. For removable storage, Studio 14z offers three USB 2.0 ports and eSATA port with power share, Express Card Slot, FireWire port, and optional 8-in-1 media card reader.



Audio output is supported with 4-watt SRS-enhanced 2.0 integrated stereo speakers with discrete tweeters. Another interesting part is that Dell offers 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate as operating system
option.

The Studio 14z is available in 6 colors: Chain Link, Midnight Blue, Spring Green, Plum Purple, Ruby Red and Promise Pink (U.S. only). Dell will donate $5 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure from the purchase of each Promise Pink laptop. The six colors willl appeal to pretty much everyone.

The Studio 14z notebooks are available now directly from Dell via Dell.com or over the phone, the starting price is $649.

Source:1 2

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0-day Microsoft DirectX vulnerability discovered for XP

Microsoft warned yesterday that hackers are using QuickTime media files to exploit an unpatched 0-day vulnerability in DirectShow.

In a posting on Microsoft's security response center blog company officials confirmed the new vulnerability affects Microsoft DirectShow in Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, under limited attack.

After initial investigation Microsoft have confirmed that the vulnerable code was removed as part of their work building Windows Vista. This means that Windows Vista and versions of Windows since Windows Vista (Windows Server 2008, Windows 7) are not vulnerable.

An attacker would try and exploit the vulnerability by crafting a specially formed video file and then posting it on a website or sending it as an attachment in e-mail. While this isn't a browser vulnerability, because the vulnerability is in DirectShow, a browser-based vector is potentially accessible through any browser using media plug-ins that use DirectShow.

Microsoft have provided workarounds for the exploit available under the 971778 security advisory.


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Microsoft removes key limit for Windows 7 Starter

Microsoft confirmed on Friday that, with Windows 7, it will lift the limitation that the entry-level "Starter Edition" run no more than three applications at a time.

With Windows 7, Microsoft is for the first time allowing the product to be used globally, as opposed to just in emerging markets. In particular, Microsoft is positioning it as its lowest-cost Windows 7 option for Netbooks.

Initially, Microsoft said it would maintain that restriction that users run no more than three programs at a time, however speculation has been growing that it would lift that limitation.

"We believe these changes will make Windows 7 Starter an even more attractive option for customers who want a small notebook PC for very basic tasks, like browsing the Web, checking e-mail, and personal productivity," Microsoft said in a blog posting on Friday.

Although Microsoft is lifting the three-application limit, it notes that there are still a number of other differences between Starter and Home Premium, including the former's lack of support for Windows 7's cool graphics, multiple monitors, Windows Media Center or XP Mode, among other features.

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Bypass Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Check

Firstly, you have to terminate the process form running on your computer secondly you have to change the name of the files that are running the process. Then change your desktop back to what you where using before.






Here are the steps to remove it:

1.Lauch RegEdit.

2.Browse to the following location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\
Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Notify

3.Delete the folder 'WgaLogon' and all its contents9.Delete the folder 'WgaLogon' and all its contents

4.Restart Windows XP in Safe Mode & Log in as Administator

5.Lauch Windows Task Manager.

6.End 'wgatray.exe' process in Task Manager.

7.Delete 'WgaTray.exe' from c:\Windows\System32.

8.Reboot Windows XP.

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Making of ZOOZOO's

They are cute and funny!

Vodafone launched a new character named zoozoo to promote their value added services. Vodafone zoozoo character is getting more popularity among all kind of people.









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YouTube and Universal to launch premium music site

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Google's YouTube and Universal Music Group, the world's largest music company, said on Thursday they will launch a premium music video website as they bid to increase revenue from YouTube's huge usage.

The new advertiser-supported site, featuring professional videos, will be called Vevo and is expected to launch in coming months, the companies said.

The deal is a boost for YouTube, which has been under increasing pressure from music labels and publishers who are frustrated that the popular site has been unable to pay higher fees for rights to use their music and videos.

Talks broke down late last year between YouTube and the No.3 music company Warner Music Group. Last month YouTube was forced to block all music videos in the UK and last week it had to do the same in Germany in a similar dispute with song publishers over money.

Vevo is an attempt to address this disparity between YouTube's popularity, it has 100 million users in the U.S. alone according to comScore, and its relatively low advertising rate or CPMs (cost per thousand page views) as it is called.

The new site will be a music video hub wholly owned by Universal, a unit of French media group Vivendi.

It will feature higher-quality videos, as opposed to the typical grainy and often user-generated videos on YouTube.

The idea is for Vevo to attract big-name advertisers and other content-owner partners.

"The rationale is to help make Vevo a place that brands feel more comfortable," said Rio Caraeff, executive vice president of Universal's eLabs.

"Ultimately we think it will increase in effect the CPMs and drive more revenue to YouTube and more revenue to the music business than they can have today," said Caraeff.

YouTube and Universal Music will share advertising revenue generated by the site. Both sides are betting that building a premium site will help increase advertising rates. Many big brand owners have avoided advertising alongside YouTube's ad hoc mix of user-generated videos.

David Eun, Google's vice president of strategic partnerships, said the higher quality professional content would appeal to advertisers.

"As we continue to work more closely with advertisers and potential sponsors we have a good sense of the type of content that they're attracted to," said Eun.

Industry watchers will likely compare Vevo with Hulu, a high quality online video service jointly owned by NBC Universal and News Corp with about a third of the number of users of YouTube.

Hulu which features popular TV shows and some movies, has been more successful at selling advertising inventory to big brand owners than YouTube.

Vevo will also serve as a syndication platform called the Vevo Music Network which will power music videos on partner sites.

Universal Chief Executive Doug Morris is said to be in talks on bringing other music companies on board to give fans a comprehensive music site. Talks with EMI Group and Sony Music, which renewed its YouTube deal in February, will likely be more straightforward than talks with Warner Music. But Universal is hoping to have all four majors and others on board before launch.

"The feedback from the fan and advertiser is that ultimately they want all of the premium music content and not just Universal Music Group," said Caraeff.

Caraeff declined to comment on whether the other music companies could negotiate for a stake in Vevo. The music companies jointly own stakes in other ventures including MySpace Music.

Plans for Vevo come in addition to the renewal and extension of YouTube's existing recordings and publishing rights deal to feature video content from Universal artists such as U2, 50 Cent and Kanye West.


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Tech Mahindra Buys India's Scandal Tainted Information Technology Company

India's scandal-tainted Information Technology company, Satyam Computer Services, has been bought by a telecommunication firm, Tech Mahindra. The sale is expected to restore confidence in India's I-T services sector.

Three months after Satyam Computer Services was hit by a massive accounting fraud, Tech Mahindra won an auction for a controlling stake in the high tech giant.

On Monday, Tech Mahindra agreed to buy a 31 percent stake in Satyam for $351 million, edging out other bidders. The bid has to be approved by the government.

In January, Satyam's founder, B. Ramalinga Raju, shocked investors by admitting the company's profits had been overstated by more than $1 billion. The fraud had been going on for years, and it raised doubts about the survival of the I.T. giant, at that time India's fourth largest outsourcing company.

The country was rocked by its biggest corporate scandal, and the government moved quickly to protect the image of its booming Information Technology sector. It sacked the board of directors and appointed a new one, which set out to find a customer for the company.

Satyam Chairman, Kiran Karnik says the sale signals a new stage, and will restore customer confidence in the outsourcing company.

"We are very pleased," he said. "We think it is a very valuable company, we view this as a very successful event today."

The Satyam scandal has also raised questions whether accounting standards and corporate governance are adequate in India.

After Satyam's sale was announced, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave assurances that a similar scandal will not be repeated.

"I am confident that our regulatory system has the resilience and the strength to ensure that no such "Satyam" will ever take place," he said.

Satyam has about 53,000 employees and operates in nearly 70 countries. Its clients include some of the world's largest corporations like U.S.-based General Electric. Satyam is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and faces several lawsuits in the United States.

In recent months, India's I.T. sector has been reassuring customers that Satyam represents a "stand-alone" case. The $50 billion I.T. industry has grown massively in the last two decades.

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Google in talks to take over Twitter

WASHINGTON: US Internet giant Google is in negotiations to acquire micro-blogging sensation Twitter for over 250 million dollars, technology blog TechCrunch reported on Friday.

Citing two sources familiar with the matter, TechCrunch said Google would be making an offer below the $500 million Facebook proposed to Twitter a few months ago, and would pay in cash or publicly valued stock.

"Why would Google want Twitter? We've been arguing for some time that Twitter's real value is in search," said the blog's Michael Harrington.

"It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn't even have a horse in the game."

But a third source told TechCrunch, which is a partner of the Washington Post's website, that the acquisition discussions were still at an early stage and both companies were mulling working together on a Google real time search engine.

Twitter, which allows users to pepper one another with messages of 140 characters or less, has seen a dizzying surge in popularity since it was launched in August 2006, but has been unable so far to generate revenue.

But Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said last week that he expected finding ways to pump cash in the fast-growing free service, including possibly charging fees for commercial accounts used by businesses.

Stone said that Twitter remains focused on growth. The California-based company claims to have more than six million users and a "phenomenal growth rate" of 900 percent in the past year.

Harrington noted that if the deal goes through, it would be the second sale by Twitter's founders to Google. Five years ago, the micro-blogging site had sold the blog-making website "Blogger" to the search engine.


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Chinese mobiles to be useless by month-end

NEW DELHI: Around 30 million mobile phones - or about 8% of all mobiles in the country - will become useless by the end of this month. These are
unbranded Chinese mobiles that do not have IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) numbers and pose a serious security risk.

All mobile phone service users have been directed by the Department of Telecom (DoT) to disconnect these phones. In fact, two deadlines - January 6 and March 31 - have already been missed by the companies. Now they have undertaken to acquire the necessary equipment to track these phones by April 15 and discontinue their services thereafter - a process that is expected to take another 15 days, that is, by April 30.

Under law, all GSM phones are required to have a unique IMEI number that gets reflected at cell phone towers with which, if required, the location of a mobile phone user can be tracked. These Chinese phones, however, show up as a series of zeroes at cell towers or by their cloned IMEI number. Either way, they can’t be tracked.

The CBI first pointed out the risk to the Union home ministry which took up the issue with DoT. In turn, DoT has instructed service providers to disconnect all phones without IMEI numbers. The service providers, according to DoT sources, have dragged their feet "despite the obvious security risk to the country."

Service providers told TOI they needed to equip themselves with Equipment Identity Registers which would allow them to check if calls are from legal or fake phones. EIRs, they said, would be with all by April 15. The weeding-out will then begin.

8 lakh Chinese cells enter India every month

The security risk from unbranded Chinese mobiles, to be phased out by the end of this month, can be guaged from the fact that a number of bombs have been triggered by terrorists by these phones. Mobile phones are part of terrorists’ essential equipment, for getting instructions from their handlers or for passing on information. If they use legal phones, their location can be found by IMEI numbers.

To give an example, after the Mehrauli blast the terrorists melted away without a trace. However, assuming that they had mobile phones, it should have been possible to track them down by zeroing in on all the phones that started to move away from the blast site immediately after the bomb went off. Instead of blindly putting roadblocks across the city, the security forces could have pinpointed all suspicious post-blast movements and caught the terrorists.

Security forces believe that, as it appears in the Mehrauli case, terrorists have taken to these unbranded Chinese phones to mask their movements. Currently, about 7-8 lakh Chinese phones come into the country every month. This figure was much higher before the talk of their ban started - in September 2008, 1.5 million of these phones came into India.

Naturally, not all of them are used by terrorists (only their easy availability makes them readily available). These phones are popular with consumers because of their low cost, often less than half the price of branded phones. That’s why service providers are seeking time to inform these users to change their handsets.

Sources in the home ministry, which first took up the issue with DoT in August last year, said "the problem of combination of IMEI numbers" has forced DoT to recognise the security risk and order a blanket ban on them.

"Combination of IMEI numbers", or many phones with the same IMEI number, happen because the number is cloned in lots of 100, 1,000 or 5,000 phones by makers of unbranded Chinese mobile phones. This makes it impossible to trace a call or to locate a particular phone.

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How Facebook is taking over our lives

President Obama used it to get elected. Dell will recruit new hires with it. Microsoft's new operating system borrows from it. No question, Facebook has friends in high places. Can CEO Mark Zuckerberg make those connections pay off?

Facebook held no appeal for Peter Lichtenstein. The New Paltz, N.Y., resident had checked out so-called social networking sites before, and he wasn't impressed. ("MySpace," he recalls, "was ridiculous.")

A chiropractor and acupuncturist, Lichtenstein was already a member of a few professional web-based user groups. The last thing he needed was another message box to check.

Then a buddy posted a link to photos from a trip to Thailand and India on his Facebook page and flatly refused to distribute them any other way. The friend's assumption: Duh - everyone's on Facebook.

And so Lichtenstein, 57, recently became an official member of the Facebook army, 175 million strong and, Facebook says, growing at the astounding rate of about five million new users a week, making it a rare bright spot in a dismal economy. If Facebook were a country, it would have a population nearly as large as Brazil's. It even edges out the U.S. television audience for Super Bowl XLIII, which drew a record-setting 152 million eyeballs.

But these days the folks fervently updating their Facebook pages aren't just tech-savvy kids: The college and post-college crowd the site originally aimed to serve (18- to 24-year-olds) now makes up less than a quarter of users. The newest members - the ones behind Facebook's accelerating growth rate - are more, ahem, mature types like Lichtenstein, who never thought they'd have the time or inclination to overshare on the web. It's just that Facebook has finally started to make their busy lives a little more productive - and a lot more fun.

Try logging in to quickly check a message, and you may find yourself scrolling through new baby photos from that guy who used to sit next to you in Mr. Peterson's English class. How did such a goofball end up with such a cute baby? And how'd he find you here anyhow? Soon you're checking the friends you have in common. This addictive quality keeps Facebook's typical user on the site for an average of 169 minutes a month, according to ComScore. Compare that with Google News, where the average reader spends 13 minutes a month checking up on the world, or the New York Times website, which holds on to readers for a mere ten minutes a month.

The "stickiness" of the site is a key part of 24-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg's original plan to build an online version of the relationships we have in real life. Offline we bump into friends and end up talking for hours. We flip through old photos with our family. We join clubs. Facebook lets us do all that in digital form. Yet we also present different faces to the different people in our lives: An "anything goes" page we share with pals might not be appropriate for office mates - or for the moms and grandmas who increasingly are joining the site. Basic privacy controls today allow users to share varying degrees of information with friends, but when I recently met with Zuckerberg in Palo Alto, he waxed philosophical about eventually giving a user the ability to have a different Facebook personality for each Facebook friendship, a sort of online version of the line from Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself": "I contain multitudes."

His ultimate goal is less poetic - and perhaps more ambitious: to turn Facebook into the planet's standardized communication (and marketing) platform, as ubiquitous and intuitive as the telephone but far more interactive, multidimensional - and indispensable. Your Facebook ID quite simply will be your gateway to the digital world, Zuckerberg predicts. "We think that if you can build one worldwide platform where you can just type in anyone's name, find the person you're looking for, and communicate with them," he told a German audience in January, "that's a really valuable system to be building."


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Sniffing keystrokes via laser and keyboard power

VANCOUVER, B.C.--Presenters at the CanSecWest security conference detailed on Thursday how they can sniff data by analyzing keystroke vibrations using a laser trained on a shiny laptop or through electrical signals coming from a PC connected to a PS/2 keyboard and plugged into a socket.

Using equipment costing about $80, researchers from Inverse Path were able to point a laser on the reflective surface of a laptop between 50 feet and 100 feet away and determine what letters were typed.

Chief Security Engineer Andrea Barisani and hardware hacker Daniele Bianco used a handmade laser microphone device and a photo diode to measure the vibrations, software for analyzing the spectrograms of frequencies from different keystrokes, as well as technology to apply the data to a dictionary to try to guess the words. They used a technique called dynamic time warping that's typically used for speech recognition applications, to measure the similarity of signals.

Line-of-sight on the laptop is needed, but it works through a glass window, they said. Using an infrared laser would prevent a victim from knowing they were being spied on.

The only real way to mitigate against this type of spying would be to change your typing position and mistype words, Barisani said.

In the second attack method, the researchers were able to spy on the keystrokes of a computer which was using a PS/2 keyboard through a ground line from a power plug in an outlet 50 feet away.

"Information leaks to the electric grid," said Barisani. "It can be detected on the power plug, including nearby ones sharing the same electric line" as the victim's computer.

The researchers used a digital oscilloscope and analog-digital converter, as well as filtering technology to isolate the victim's keystroke pulses from other noise on the power line.

Their initial test, which took about five days to prepare and perform, enabled them to record individual keystrokes but not continuous data such as words and sentences, though they expect to be able to do that within a few months, Barisani said.

In addition to being used to sniff a neighbor's keystrokes in a nearby room, the attack could be used to sniff data from ATM machines that use PS/2 or similar keypads, Barsani said. The attack does not work against laptops or USB keyboards, he said.

The attacks are similar to other recent research that involves sniffing keystrokes through a wireless antenna.

And of course there is the big daddy of these types of remote sniffing attacks, TEMPEST, which allows someone with a lot of expensive equipment to sniff the electromagnetic radiation emanating from a video display.

The new attacks are easier and can be accomplished at lower cost, the researchers said.


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3D is coming to a living room near you

Three-dimensional TV is coming to a living room near you. But will the technology spur a consumer spending spree like digital and high-definition TV did before it? Or will 3D end up being the next big flop?

One thing is clear, TV manufacturers need something new to get people buying TVs. Over the last couple of years, TV manufacturers have experienced a sales boom as consumers upgrade to digital TVs in anticipation of the government's mandated switch to digital TV broadcasts in February 2009.

Eager shoppers have also been upgrading to high-definition TVs as movie studios, cable and satellite operators, and TV broadcasters have begun offering more programming in HD.

But as the economy worsens, the forecast for the TV market is looking grim. The LCD TV market is only expected to grow about 17 percent in terms of units shipped in 2009, according to research firm DisplaySearch. This is down from growth of about 29 percent in 2008.

Plasma TV growth is also expected to suffer with the market only expected to grow by about 5 percent in 2009 compared with a 24 percent rise in 2008, DisplaySearch said.

As a result, TV makers are looking for the next hot thing to attract new consumers. And some are hoping 3D TVs could be it.

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, four of the top selling TV manufacturers - Samsung Electronics, Sony, LG Electronics and Panasonic - showed off their latest versions of 3D TVs.

Panasonic set up a mini-home theater where its 103-inch, plasma 3D screen showed clips from New Line Cinema's Journey to the Center of the Earth and Walt Disney Pictures' animated film Bolt. They also showed high-definition 3D footage from NBC's broadcast of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

While some manufacturers, such as Mitsubishi, Phillips, Samsung, and Sharp, have already begun selling 3D-ready TVs, the top four manufacturers plan to have new, advanced 3D TVs on sale toward the end of 2009 and into 2010.

But the big question is whether consumers, particularly American consumers, will be willing to upgrade to a new TV just because it has 3D. Pricing for today's 3D ready TVs is comparable to other flat screen HDTVs. Samsung and Mitsubishi currently sell their 3D-ready TVs for between $1,000 and $2,800, depending on functionality. These prices are in line with average prices for HDTVs that don't offer 3D readiness.

Keisuke Suetsugi, a manager for the audio visual center at Panasonic, believes that even the newer, more advanced 3D TVs will not cost much more than TVs without 3D. So for consumers already in the market for a TV, adding 3D readiness might not add much cost. But will 3D be enough to compel cutting edge consumers to replace their two or three year old TVs? That's what TV manufactures are hoping.

Three-dimensional movies have been around since the 1950s. And for most of its lifespan the technology has been seen more as a gimmick than something that truly enhances the movie-going experience. But newer technology and advanced special effects are helping 3D movies break into the mainstream.

TV makers believe that much of the demand for 3D will come from Hollywood, which is pushing 3D in a big way. Last year, DreamWorks announced that all its films will be produced for 3D production beginning in 2009. The company has partnered with chipmaker Intel to build processors that will help make 3D in the home a reality.

Sports leagues have also been experimenting with 3D technology. Both the National Basketball Association and the National Football League have broadcast events and games in 3D to movie theaters.

From a technical standpoint, the technology is available and mature enough today to make 3D TVs available at a reasonable cost to consumers. But there are still a few drawbacks that could prevent 3D TV from becoming the next big thing in home entertainment.

For one, to get the really cool, immersive 3D experience without getting a massive head-ache, consumers will have to wear special glasses when they're watching TV in 3D. The glasses are needed because 3D imaging requires sending a different image to each eye. And the glasses help merge the images in the mind and trick the brain into thinking that it's seeing a single 3D image.

I checked out Panasonic's home theater in 3D. I must admit, the experience was phenomenal. I felt like I was on the floor at the Olympics opening ceremonies in Beijing right along side the hundreds of dancers and drummers. But without the glasses, the image looked fuzzy.

Panasonic's Suetsugi admits that in a perfect world, consumers should be able to have the immersive 3D experience without wearing glasses. But he said that it will be at least 10 years before the technology is advanced enough to provide a similarly robust 3D experience without glasses.

"Glassless 3D would be ideal," he said. "But it's just not possible to do that now and get the same quality experience. You would need at least 50 times more pixels to get a display to provide the same 3D experience that we provide with our TV. We are still 10 years away from that kind of technology."

Taesoo Park, a chief research engineer at LG, which makes 3D display monitors for advertising and digital signage, agrees. LG plans to start selling its 3D TVs, which require glasses, late in 2009 or in the beginning of 2010. It's glassless digital signs were also on display at CES.

"Glassless 3D is available today for digital signage and advertising," Park explained. "But the technology is not ready for TVs, because it would hurt people's eyes or give them a headache to look at today's 3D displays for any length of time. It will be at least a decade before we can get the technology to make glassless TV a reality."

That said, some manufacturers claim they have developed technology that doesn't require glasses. Phillips uses a technology it calls WOWvx. 3M and Toshiba also showed off glassless 3D screens at CES. 3M has created a thin film technology that can be used to beam light selectively to the viewer's right and left eyes.

But glasses aren't the only thing that could hold back 3D adoption. Currently, there's no standard way to get 3D footage from the movie studios or from a live broadcasts to the home. Companies, such as Panasonic, are already working on developing a standard. But industry watchers fear that competing standards could emerge and spur another "format" war like the one that pits HD DVD and Blu-ray against each other.

Panasonic's Suetsugi said he is hopeful that a common standard for 3D Blu-ray hardware, software and TVs will emerge sometime this year, paving the way for 3D TV sales to pick up in 2010.

In addition to the standards issue, another hurdle for 3D TV has to do with the high production cost of shooting movies and events in 3D, as well as, the high cost of transporting the video across networks. Three-dimensional video requires multiple cameras for shooting. And it also requires multiple high-definition streams for transporting the video over carrier networks.

Regular standard definition television broadcasts consume more bandwidth capacity than other types of traffic like audio or text. High-definition video eats up even more. And it would likely take at least two full high-definition channels to broadcast live just one game in 3D.

This means that service providers, such as cable or satellite operators, would have to upgrade their infrastructure to handle the high bandwidth demands. Verizon, which is deploying fiber directly to consumers' homes for its Fios service, is already in good shape. But others such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, are already finding it difficult to carve out enough bandwidth to regular HD video as well as Internet video on their networks.

"Transporting live high-definition 3D streams is very expensive," said Steve Hellmuth, executive vice president of technology and operations for the NBA. "So there has to be sufficient demand and a pool of content before satellite and cable operators will devote resources to delivering it. I really think that Hollywood will initially drive adoption of 3D in the home."

source: cnn.com

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Is Apple really prepping a games console?

Of all the months of the year, January is typically the one when rumours about new tech products keep the internet humming. That's probably something to do with the CES show and speculation surrounding it, both before and after.


click on image to enlarge

Among the most creative we've come across recently is a suggestion by respected technology website TG Daily that a recent Apple trademark filing suggests the company could be planning to re-enter the console gaming market.

No more Mac

That idea comes from Apple's multiple applications in various territories to have the term 'OS X' protected. That's notable because it doesn't include the word 'Mac'.

The thinking goes something like this – Apple is weakening the connection between OS X and Mac simply because the operating system powers platforms other than computers.

Play for games

That includes just the iPhone and iPod touch at the minute, but could equally apply to a future console or any other domestic device that needs an OS.

Since Apple is clearly intent on making the iPhone a powerful gaming device and will therefore have both the games and an online delivery system (the App Store), why not speculate that it could try to make a play for some of the cash Nintendo and Sony are raking in?

While we like the idea that anyone would challenge the current console giants, it's hard to believe that Apple will do so anytime soon.

Pippin redux?

Anyone with an unhealthy knowledge of the history of home gaming will know that Apple has already tried and failed spectacularly with something called the Pippin in 1995.

Still, Apple rarely does exactly what we expect, so we're not ruling anything out at this stage. Just don't read too much into this little bit of speculation.

By J Mark Lytle
source: techradar

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Microsoft launches XBox 360 Gold giveaway

Even with recent news that Microsoft is planning on laying off about 17% of it's employees, the software giant launched it's Lunar New Year promotion. From now until February 15th 2009, residents of Hong Kong will have an opportunity to win some golden XBox 360's. Although these consoles are not solid gold, they are worth a lot more than what participants will have to pay to enter the competition.

To enter the competition you need to purchase a XBox 360 with a 60GB hard drive or an XBox 360 elite. The last step is sending an e-mail to Microsoft explaining why you love your XBox. There has been no word if any other regions will also have a competition like this. The winners will be announced on March 1st 2009.

source: neowin

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Obama has high hopes for keeping BlackBerry


President-elect Barack Obama checks his BlackBerry while riding on his campaign bus in Pennsylvania last March.
(Credit: Pete Souza/ Rapport Press)


President-elect Barack Obama is sure to face his share of hurdles over the course of his presidency. But when it comes to one of them--the possibility that he might have to give up his beloved BlackBerry--he is waxing optimistic that he will overcome.

In an interview with CNN Friday, Obama expressed confidence that he would be able to keep his smartphone, despite well-publicized concerns over the possibility of eavesdropping by hackers and other digital snoops. While Research In Motion offers encryption, the U.S. government has stricter requirements for communications security.

Some handheld devices, such as General Dynamics' Sectera Edge, have been officially blessed as secure enough to handle even classified documents, e-mail, and Web browsing.
But Obama seems determined to hang on to his device of choice.

"I think we're going to be able to beat this back," Obama told CNN's John King. "....I think we're going to be able to hang onto one of these. Now, my working assumption, and this is not new, is that everything I write on e-mail could end up being on CNN. So I make sure that--to think before I press 'send.'"

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod told ABC News: "He's pretty determined."

The matter of the BlackBerry has been widely discussed in the media, not only because it represents security challenges specific to the BlackBerry era, but because Obama describes it as a symbol of his desire to stay in touch with the world outside the presidential bubble.

"I applaud that (desire)," Paul Begala, a CNN political contributor and former adviser to President Bill Clinton wrote in a commentary earlier this month. "And so I'm on his side in the Battle of the BlackBerry."

Research In Motion couldn't have paid for a better ad campaign.

Of course, the BlackBerry isn't the only consumer electronics device to share a headline with the president-to-be recently. Questions over whether Obama owned a Microsoft Zune had gadget watchers all aflutter late last year.

source: cnet.com

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Windows worm hits 8.9 million PCs in past week

Security researchers are reporting that in the past four days a worm has infected 3.5 million Windows computers.

The worm, dubbed Conficker, Downadup, or Kido, spreads via a vulnerability that Microsoft patched in October 2008. Once on a machine it sets up an HTTP server and resets a machine's System Restore point to stop administrators deleting it.


"The number of Downadup infections are skyrocketing based on our calculations," said F-Secure in its blog.


"From an estimated 2.4 million infected machines to over 8.9 million during the last four days. That's just amazing."

The worm contains the usual Trojan package that allows the controller to download new files from their own server. But in an unusual twist the malware generates hundreds of seemingly random domain names to scan for updates, making it much harder to track the one used by the malware writer.

"Our advice is to block all incoming and outgoing traffic on port 445 from those computers to ensure that
(a) they aren’t hit with exploits from the internet and (b) if they somehow are exploited, they aren’t able to infect the rest of the network via file shares," said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant for Sophos.

"Furthermore, if you have a group policy in place to lock out accounts after too many unsuccessful login attempts, the worm will probably cause many of these accounts to become locked out during the worm’s password cracking attempts. This can obviously be annoying, but at the same time it is a good indicator that you may have an infected computer on the network."

Servers in the US and Europe have had fewest infections due to regular updating by IT administrators. China, Brazil and Russia have been hit hardest according to F-Secure.

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YouTube TV site for Wii and PS3 consoles

It is no longer necessary to own Apple TV or TiVo digital video recorder or VUDU box to watch YouTube clips on TV. YouTube is joining MySpace, Yahoo and others in bringing the web based features to the TV screen.

YouTube blog reports that their TV Website offers a dynamic, lean-back, 10-foot television viewing experience through a streamlined interface that enables users to discover, watch and share YouTube videos on any TV screen with just a few quick clicks of remote control.

Users can browse and play videos from their PS3 or Wii based web browser by visiting YouTube TV site. This site cannot be opened from a PC's browser without installing a browser add-on like User Agent Switcher and is not useful for Xbox gamers due to the lack of an in-built web browser in Xbox 360's dashboard.

YouTube TV is currently in Beta.

source: neowin

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BlackBerry Curve 8900 listed on T-Mobile site

The BlackBerry Curve 8900 , also known as the BlackBerry Javelin, is now listed on T-Mobile's site , but buyers wanting to get their mitts on the long-awaited smartphone still have to wait.

The carrier, which will be the first to offer the long-awaited Curve 8900, has not yet made it available to pre-order. The site simply lists the device as "coming soon." AT&T also is expected to offer the Curve 8900 sometime soon.

T-Mobile last week officially announced that it will be offering the Curve 8900 sometime in February. The exact date is unclear, but according to several industry watchers, Research In Motion's (RIM) first major BlackBerry release of 2009 will hit stores on Feb. 11.

Currently, it appears the smartphone will run $199.00 with a two-year contract, though T-Mobile has yet to confirm that price. Without a contract, the BlackBerry Curve 8900 could hit about $500.

Business users, however, won't have to wait until next month to get their hands on a Curve 8900. According to gadget blog the Boy Genius Report, T-Mobile plans to release a limited number of Curve 8900s to business customers on Monday, Jan. 19. To take advantage of the deal, buyers must be employees of a company that has a business account with T-Mobile.

Business user pricing for the Curve 8900 is in line with consumer pricing: $499.99 for contract-free devices, $249.99 with a one-year contract and $199.99 with a two-year agreement.


click on image to enlarge

The Curve 8900 packs all the punch of most modern BlackBerrys, though it lacks 3G connectivity. The Curve 8900 is billed as the lightest and thinnest BlackBerry to feature a full QWERTY keyboard, measuring in at just over a half-inch thick. It also offers all of the features and functions BlackBerry users have grown accustomed to, including phone, e-mail, text messaging, browser, instant messaging, document viewing and editing and organizer applications. It also ties in a host of multimedia functions, such as a media player.

The Curve 8900 offers EDGE support with built-in Wi-Fi and GPS, a 512MHz next-generation processor, a 2.4-inch 480-x-360 high-resolution display, a 3.2-megapixel camera and BlackBerry OS version 4.6.

source: channel web

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Office 14 Alpha screenshots leak

Microsoft is currently developing the successor to Office 2007, Office codenamed "14".

Russian site Wzor has leaked some screenshots of the Office 14 alpha build that was handed out to select testers this week.

Some of the screenshots are posted below

click on images to enlarge











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Scientists Create Titanium-Based Structural Metallic-Glass Composites

Pasadena, CA -- Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have created a range of structural metallic-glass composites, based in titanium, that are lighter and less expensive than any the group had previously created, while still maintaining their toughness and ductility--the ability to be deformed without breaking.

A paper describing these breakthrough metallic-glass alloys is now online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Early Edition in advance of an upcoming print publication.

Earlier this year, the same Caltech group had published a paper in the journal Nature, describing new strategies for creating the liquid-metal composites. This research resulted in "alloys with unrivaled strength and toughness," notes Douglas Hofmann, visiting scientist and lead author on the PNAS paper that, along with the Nature paper, describes work he did while a graduate student at Caltech. "They are among the toughest engineering materials that currently exist."

Still, there were shortcomings to the alloys presented in Nature. Because they were created for use in the aerospace industry--among other structural applications--they needed to have very low densities. Ideally, the alloys would have had densities in or around those of crystalline titanium alloys, which fall between 4.5 and 5 grams per cubic centimeter (g/cc). The original alloys, made predominantly of zirconium, fell between 5.6 and 6.4 g/cc, putting them "in a no-man's-land of densities for aerospace structures," says Hofmann.

And so Hofmann and his colleagues--including William Johnson, Caltech's Ruben F. and Donna Mettler Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, and a pioneer in the creation of metallic glass--began tweaking the components in their composites, eventually coming up with a group of alloys with a high percentage of titanium, but which maintained the properties of the previously created zirconium alloys.

"Despite being based in titanium," Hofmann notes, "these alloys exhibit the same impressive properties as the zirconium alloys. They are still tough--in other words, they resist cracking--and they are still ductile. In fact, they are even more ductile than the alloys we'd created in the past."

This decrease in density also resulted in a reduction in cost, adds Hofmann, since zirconium is a more expensive metal than is titanium.

source: California Institute of Technology
credits: embeddedtechnology

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Photo of Hudson River plane crash downs TwitPic

The rapid-fire spread of a close-up photo of the US Airways plane that crashed in the Hudson River Thursday resulted in the service that hosted the picture going down.

TwitPic, an application that allows users to take pictures from their mobile phones and append them to Twitter posts, went down after at least 7,000 people attempted to view the photo of the airplane taken from a commuter ferry by Sarasota, Fla., resident Janis Krums.

According to Noah Everett, the founder of TwitPic, who still runs the service by himself, after the photo of the plane was re-tweeted by a large number of people and then picked up by several news sites, including Silicon Alley Insider, the resulting traffic was too much for the site's servers.

Everett called it a "snowball effect."

In fact, Everett said this wasn't the first time someone had used TwitPic to post a photo of an airplane accident. He explained that a passenger on a Continental Airlines plane that went off the runway in Denver in December used the service to post a photo. But that time, the service was able to stay up.

Perhaps because of the national interest in an airplane accident taking place in direct view of Manhattan, the traffic produced by Krums' photo was higher than in the case of the Denver accident, Everett suggested.

And while the circumstances of Thursday's accident were unfortunate--though, miraculously, no one died in the crash--Everett admitted that the fact that Krums' photo got so much attention was validation of the utility of TwitPic.

"We haven't gotten so much press coverage before," Everett said.

"It's shocking, and it's a good feeling--though (also) not a good feeling because it's bad news," Everett said.

He also said that he's got additional servers that are soon going to be in place.

"In a month's time (something like) this will not affect us anymore," he explained. "We're working to be able to handle our growth, but this is definitely a wake-up call showing the power of breaking news and TwitPic."

Everett said that there had been about 7,000 views of the picture before the site went down, and that there were about 500 additional requests to view it every 15 or 20 seconds.

He also said that while he couldn't be immediately sure, it was likely that Krums had used an Apple iPhone to take the picture, given that it was 600x800 pixels, the average size of an iPhone picture.

By 2:35 p.m. Pacific, about two hours after the photo was taken, TwitPic was back up.

Everett said, "I hope it stays up. I'll be working on this through the night."

source: news.cnet

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Vodafone hits 16Mb/sec in mobile broadband trials

Vodafone is preparing to launch mobile broadband connections with an actual speed of 16Mb/sec, following trials of the new HSPA+ standard.

HSPA+ offers a headline speed of 21Mb/sec, but Vodafone claims to have recorded actual speeds of 16Mb/sec in field trials of the technology.

The company predicts that HSPA+ will deliver a typical download speed of around 13Mb/sec in good reception areas, falling to a less impressive average of 4Mb/sec in "typical cell locations".

Nevertheless, it represents a marked improvement on today's HSDPA connections, which offer a headline speed of 7.2Mb/sec on the Vodafone network, but only achieve an average speed of around 2Mb/sec in our real-world tests.

HSPA+ achieves its higher download speeds by using the same kind of Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technology found on 802.11 Wi-Fi equipment. Both base stations and modems use multiple attenae to improve the chances of an uninterrupted signal reaching the user.

HSPA+ also uses a more advanced modulation technique, called 64QAM. The higher speed service will require users to upgrade their existing modem hardware.

Vodafone is continuing to test and validate hardware with its modem manufacturers, but says it "plans to make this technology available in selected commercial networks".
Barry Collins


source: pcpro.co.uk

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'Downadup' worm targets corporate networks

F-Secure has warned of a worm affecting corporate networks that is spreading rapidly. It is said to have already infected 2.5 million PCs worldwide.

F-Secure has issued alerts about new versions of the "Downadup" worm. This worm infects Windows workstations and servers, causing various problems.

The security firm has received several reports of corporate networks getting infected with variants of the worm.

Downadup (also known as Conficker) is a large family of network worms. They are unusually difficult to remove, especially in case of an internal infection inside a corporate network.

Downadup uses several different methods to spread. These include using the recently patched vulnerability in Windows Server Service, guessing network passwords and infecting USB sticks.

As an end result, once the malware gains access to the inside of a corporate network, it can be unusually hard to eradicate fully, said F-Secure.

Typical problems generated by the worm include locking network users out of their accounts. This happens because the worm tries to guess (or brute-force) network passwords, tripping the automatic lock-out of a user who has too many password failures.

Once this worm infects a machine, it protects itself very aggressively. It does this by setting itself to restart very early in the boot-up process of the computer and by setting Access Rights to the files and registry keys of the worm so that the user cannot remove or change them.

The worm downloads modified versions of itself from a long list of websites. The names of these websites are generated by an algorithm based on current date and time. As there are hundreds of different domain names that could be used by the malware, it is hard for security companies to locate and shut them all down in time.

Further technical information about the malware is available on F-Secure's blog.

What to do to avoid infection:

- Make sure latest Microsoft patches have been applied

- Make sure your organization is running the latest version of your anti-virus product

- Check that the anti-virus product has the latest updates

- Turn off AUTORUN and AUTOPLAY for USB sticks

- Make sure users domain passwords are strong

- Take extra care about the domain administrators' passwords


source: computerweekly

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Winners of High-performance computing project contest

Winners of high-performance computing project contest announced at Rusnanotech
(Nanowerk News)


A ceremony of awarding the winners of high-performance computing project contest held by the Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies (RUSNANO) and Intel took place today. The contest was aimed at fostering the teams of scientists using the supercomputing power in their work.



The ceremony was carried out in the framework of the Nanotechnology International Forum at the Central Exhibition Complex "Expocenter". The criteria of evaluation the projects submitted to the panel of judges were using the high-performance supercomputers for scientific needs, adequacy of the level of tasks being set to the high-performance computing capacity, paralleling efficiency and scaling ability, absolute performance required to achieve the desired results, ingenuity and complexity of application implementation.

Winners of high-performance computing project contest announced at Rusnanotech
The projects had been accepted for contest until November 10. The works of 33 teams were accepted from Moscow and Moscow Region, Saint-Petersburg, Volgograd, Vladivostok, Kazan, Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Yaroslavl (Russia), Lugansk and Kharkov (Ukraine), and other cities.
The panel of judges consisted of 12 representatives of research institutes and universities. The judges decided to award winners with five prizes.

The Intel Corporation is well used to popularizing the IT-industry. We hold various contests between students, young scientists and IT-professionals on a regular basis, which promote the high technologies in Russia and other CIS countries, - noted Dmitry Konash, regional director, Intel Russia & CIS. – By arranging the contest of projects in the field of high-performance computing we planned to discover the scientific teams which are able to realize effectively the potential of newest supercomputers. The panel of judges received 33 works and each one of them is worth to be represented on the international level. We consider the contest successfully completed with outstanding results. The Intel Corporation in Russia and CIS plans to hold such competitions each year.

Successful usage of the exact numerical calculations is a key tool which will allow our scientists, engineers and industrialists to earn an appropriate place on the market of nanomaterials and nanotechnologies – said Alexander Losyukov, RUSNANO deputy director general. – Due to the complexity of nanostructures all serious works require preliminary modeling and computations to evaluate the perspectives of practical implementation on further stages of the way down to mass production. We welcome the teams intensively using computational methods in their work and hope that more such crews will cooperate with our Corporation in future.

No valuable results can be expected without high-performance computing in many fields of modern science. It’s especially important in physics, chemistry, astronomy and nanotechnology – disciplines requiring in the first place processing of huge amounts of information within the multi-criteria models with unobvious cross coupling, – outlined Boris Chetverushkin, Director of Institute of Mathematical Modelling of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). – It wasn’t an easy task to select the winners of the contest. We are glad that Russian specialists can be proud of themselves in this case – both in Russia and worldwide.

Contest results

The first prize in the amount of 250 thousand rubles, was given to the work "FPIC3D – parallel code for modeling the processes of ion beams interaction with solid-state matter", submitted to the contest by Igor Lomonosov, professor of the Institute of Chemistry Physics Problems of RAS (Chernogolovka, Moscow Region). D.A. Grigoriev, V.V. Kim, A.V. Matveichev, A.V. Ostrik, V.G. Sultanov, A.V. Shutov also took part in the project.

Four more works were awarded special prizes:
The prize for the best project in the field of high-performance computing for nanotechnology and nanoindustry in the amount of 250 thousand rubles was awarded and split between two works:

Using supercomputers in constructing the nanomagnets was submitted by an international team of authors: A.I. Lichtenstein, (professor of the University of Hamburg, Germany), E.V. Gorelov (Institut für Festkörperforschung Forschungszentrum, Jülich, Germany), Yu.N. Gornostyrev (CJSC Institute of quantum materials science», Magnitogorsk), A.I. Poteryaev (Metal Physics Institute, Ekaterinburg), A.N. Rubtsov (Moscow State University Physics Faculty); and
Modeling the properties of nanomaterials using the methods of classical and quantum dynamics, submitted by the head of laboratory of the United Institute of High-Temperature of RAS (OIVTRAN) Vladimir Stegailov. The work was co-authored by members of OIVTRAN and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) G.E. Norman, A.Yu. Kuksin, A.V. Yanilkin, S.V Starikov, P.A. Zhil’aev, V.V. Pisarev, O.V. Sergeev.

The Intel prize in amount of 250 thousand rubles was split between the two teams: A.V. Frolov, R.M. Vilfand, E.D. Astakhova, Yu.V. Alferov, V.I. Tsvetkov, T.Ya. Ponomareva with the work “Numeric modeling of atmospheric processes aimed at forecasting the weather using the spectral method” from the State Computational Centre of Hydrometeorological Centre of Russia and Yu.G. Evtushenko, I.Kh. Sigal, M.A. Posypkin, A.L.Ignat’ev with the work “Library for solving the tasks of finite-dimensional optimization on the multi-processor computational systems” from the Dorodnitsyn computational center of RAS.

Every contest winner team also received the grant for one oral presentation at the international conference for supercomputing, the Intel software certificate for development of the projects in the field of high-performance computing and access to the largest Russian supercomputing facilities in the RAS Joint Supercomputing Center, Moscow State University and the Siberian Branch of RAS.

Source: Russian Corporation of Nanotechnologies

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Next big PS3 price cut set for April


No shocker: more talk of a price drop on the 80GB version of the PS3.
(Credit: Sony)


This rumor's a little dubious, but several blogs are reporting that Sony plans to cut the PlayStation's 3's price tag by $100 in April. That would put the 80GB PS3 at $300. The source: an analyst at Wedbush Morgan who's also saying that Microsoft will chop $50 off the Xbox 360 Pro around E3 2009 (in June), putting that system at $250.

When it comes to gaming systems, price drops are the equivalent of an economic stimulus plan, and breaking $300 would obviously make the PS3 attractive to a whole new batch of consumers, regardless of poor economic conditions. Price points are price points and things start getting pretty magical when you get under $300 (and in the case of the Xbox 360, $250 is even better).

Naturally, it doesn't take a rocket scientist--or an analyst at an investment firm--to figure any of this out. And giving yourself a nice four-month buffer to predict a price drop doesn't exactly impress. But people love to speculate on this sort of stuff, and with word that Sony will report a big $1.1 billion operating loss for 2007/2008 (its first operating loss in 14 years), the pressure's on Sony to rev up its Playstation 3 franchise for the health of the company and its Blu-ray platform (yes, the PS3 has a built-in Blu-ray player, lest you forgot).

The good news is Sony has a number of highly anticipated exclusive titles coming to the PS3 this year, including Killzone 2, Infamous, Heavy Rain, MAG, God of War 3, Uncharted 2, and MLB 09: The Show. Combine that with a $100 price cut and the PS3 should get a nice jumpstart--whenever it comes. But nothing's a given these days and clearly Sony has to balance taking a loss on the hardware to spur profits on the software (game) side.

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Google hopes to take on Microsoft using resellers


<People ride their bikes past Google Inc. headquarters in Mountain View, California, May 8, 2008. REUTERS/Kimberly White

By Yinka Adegoke

Web search leader Google Inc took another step on Wednesday toward direct competition with Microsoft Corp by recruiting IT resellers to market its Web-based applications to business clients.

From the end of March, authorized resellers will be able to sell, customize and support premium versions of Google Apps, which includes word processing, spreadsheets, calendars and email.

Google Apps is broadly similar to Microsoft's top-selling Office package except that Apps is completely Web-based and is part of Google's push into so called 'cloud computing' or software-as-a-service. Microsoft said in October it is also looking at adding Web-based features for its Office applications.

Since it launched Google Apps in February 2007, Google has only sold directly to business users over the Web. Analysts said the move to work with third parties is necessary if Google hopes to compete seriously with Microsoft or IBM.

Microsoft, which is the world's largest software company, sells more than 95 percent of its software through more than 440,000 third party resellers, according to Gartner Research, and intends to spend around $3 billion on managing those sales channels in 2009.

By comparison Google has so far only dipped its toe in the water, but sees a great opportunity after running trials with more than 50 resellers in 25 countries. It also has a 9-month old relationship with Salesforce.com Inc.

"We feel that Google has had limited success in winning customers with a singular sales channel," said Tiffani Bova, an analyst at Gartner Research, who estimates Google has around 200,000 Premier customers.

IT resellers typically sell services such as Web hosting, setting up servers and backing up data, as well as software to hundreds of thousands of end user businesses of all sizes.

"This is a chance for those types of companies to get into the cloud computing revolution," said Dave Girouard, president of enterprise at Google.

To win over new resellers, Google said partners will buy the Premier Edition at a 20 percent discount and keep the recurring revenue for the lifetime of their customer relationship.

The search leader already offers a basic package of Google Apps for free to consumers, prompting some industry watchers to see it as a major threat to Microsoft's profitable "Office" business.

But Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst at Nucleus Research, said Google is a long way from hurting Microsoft.

"We've seen in the applications space that Google is a strong email competitor, but so far it is only a complement to Office -- not yet a replacement," she said.

Google's move to offer applications is part of a wider drive to diversify its revenue base, which has been completely dominated by hugely profitable search advertising technology.

As the advertising market comes under pressure from a slowing global economy, investors will likely be paying more attention to Google's small but growing businesses.

credits: Thomson Reuters
source: portfolio.com


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Search Google and Yahoo - SearchBoth.com

SearchBoth.com today announces the ultimate search engine for students, doctors, lawyers, researchers, and anyone that searches multiple sites.


click on image to enlarge

SearchBoth.com became popular for enabling users to search both Google and Yahoo at the same time on one split screen. The company has now taken the site to the next level by enabling users to search all of the internet's most popular sites at the same time. SearchBoth.com users can search both Google and Yahoo or any of their two favorite search engines (MSN, Ask, Live, Alta Vista, LookSmart, WebSearch), or Wikipedia and Encyclopedia, AT&T's YellowPages.com and Verizon's SuperPages.com, or Monster.com and HotJobs.com, or Dictionary.com and Answers.com at the same time side by side on one split screen.

SearchBoth.com also provides relief for users that search travel sites, apartment rental sites and comparison shopping sites as well. With an exclusive relationship powered by YELLOWPAGES.travel, users can search all of the top travel sites at the same time on one screen with a click.

Users of apartment rental sites such as Apartments.com, Rent.com, Move.com, ForRent.com, CraigsList and more can now simply search once and get the results of all of the major rental sites on one screen, one click at a time powered by an exclusive relationship with RentCompare.com.

Users of comparison shopping sites will also be relieved to know that they can search the top comparison shopping and auction sites such as Shopping.com, eBay.com, PriceGrabber.com, Amazon.com, Buy.com, Overstock.com, PriceRunner.com, Shopzilla.com, WalMart.com, Target.com and many more at the same time on one screen with a single click with an exclusive relationship with DiscountMore.com.

SearchBoth.com is the nation's ultimate search engine making life easier for all internet users. SearchBoth.com is a non-profit 501 (3) (c) charitable organization which donates the revenue generated from searches performed to multiple charities.

source: SearchBoth.com


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YouTube launches platforms for Congress

President-elect Barack Obama embraced YouTube when he started broadcasting his weekly address in both audio and video form, so it may have only been a matter of time before the Congress followed suit.

YouTube in conjunction with Congress on Monday launched two new platforms, the Senate Hub and the House Hub, that provide easy access to congressional YouTube channels.

Visitors can find their senators' YouTube pages by clicking on a map or using a drop down menu. While Washington, D.C. has no members to boast in either chamber, clicking the capital city on the map will take visitors to channels dedicated to congressional committees. While the hubs are maintained by YouTube, each individual congressperson's channel is maintained by his or her office.

The pages feature playlists like "Got a Question?" and "Behind the Scenes." Videos featured allow visitors to watch clips of floor speeches, committee hearings, and other activities on the Hill.

While some members of Congress may enjoy futzing around on the Internet as much as the next guy (in this video, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio proves his Internet savvy on Facebook), the 111th Congress marks the first full session in which senators and representatives can officially use third-party sites like YouTube. Both chambers voted for the rule change in the fall of 2008.
"While we may not see eye-to-eye on everything," House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says in a welcome video, shown below, "one thing we can agree on is the importance of utilizing technology to communicate with constituents."




source: news.cnet

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Satyam customers warned to expect disruption

Analysts are warning Satyam's customers to prepare themselves against the risk of disruption of services from the troubled outsourcer.

It follows last week's admission by Satyam's founder and former chairman B Ramalinga Raju that its books had been inflated by nearly $1bn (£700m).

Analyst group Gartner warned that the ensuing investigation will hamper Satyam's ability to invest in client engagement, staff development and R&D and risks driving staff out of the company, limiting its attractiveness as a IT services vendor.

Gartner recommends that companies closely monitor their contracts with Satyam for disruption, prepare contingency measures and offer "retention bonuses" to keep key Satyam staff on critical projects.

The note said: "In the current economic environment, enterprises consider financial indiscretions by any business intolerable; we believe this will severely handicap Satyam when prospective customers are evaluating potential partners."

Satyam's clients include household names such as BBC Worldwide, Birds Eye Iglo Group, Fifa, General Electric and Nestlé.

A spokesman for Nestlé said it had assurances from Satyam over the continuation of its service but added it is examining its options: "Nestlé's own internal resources are in a position to provide the company with the necessary IT support.

"Alternative solutions are being considered and no disruption of Nestlé's IT operations is expected."

A spokesman for BBC Worldwide, which worked with Satyam on its BBC Blast VJ Masher video portal for young people and has an ongoing services contract with the outsourcer, said: "There is only a very small amount of work being carried out at this present time, which is reaching a natural conclusion, unconnected with recent events.

"If we were to enter into any future contract of work with Satyam we would obviously apply the appropriate due diligence and contractual terms to protect BBC Worldwide."

Fifa said it is "monitoring the situation relating to Satyam", which is the IT services provider for the 2010 and 2014 Fifa World Cups and two Confederation Cups.

Speaking from Satyam's headquarters in Hyderabad today, senior Indian banker and new Satyam board member Deepak Parekh said that on paper the company has enough money coming in to cover its debts but admitted that at the moment "nobody knows these numbers are correct".

Parekh said in the coming days the board will appoint accountants to verify the figures and go back over the firm's books for the past two or three years. "We have triple A clients and can request them to pay early rather than waiting 60 days.

"The company has a large amount of receivables due and the debt due is low so there is adequate liquidity but we need to get these figures verified."

Parekh added that the company may also ask for more time to state its third quarter results.

The company's shares jumped to end the day more than 40 percent up at 34.40 rupees (47 pence).

Parekh and two other senior figures were appointed to Satyam's board by the Indian government after it sacked the previous board on Friday.

There has also been much speculation about whether Satyam could be taken over or merge with another organisation, such as one of the other large Indian outsourcers.

But Manish Dugar, chief financial officer of one of the largest Indian outsourcers, Wipro, played down suggestions that it could be among the companies looking to take over Satyam. He said the two companies were so similar, any deal would be hampered by a doubling up of departments across the new organisation.

Dugar told ZDNet UK's sister site, silicon.com: "If you look at the business of Satyam and Wipro we are more or less comparable in service, the size, the kind of work that we do, customer base, etc. It is complementary but I don't know how synergistic it would be, because if we are out there doing something where they are then one plus one becomes 11."


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