- Qualcomm Launches Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 Mobile Platform
- AMD Launches Ryzen PRO 7000 Series Mobile & Desktop Platform
- Intel Launches Sleek Single-Slot Arc Pro A60 Workstation Graphics Card
- NVIDIA Announces Latest Ada Lovelace Additions: GeForce RTX 4060 Ti & RTX 4060
- Maxon Redshift With AMD Radeon GPU Rendering Support Now Available
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Fedora 6 Hits 2 Million Downloads
There was a new update on the Fedora Wiki page the other day stating that 2 million downloads of FC6 was hit on the 5th. On average, there has been 10.4 new IPs downloading the ISO each minute, and 104K per week. Congrats to the FC devs for a great milestone!
Source: Fedora Project
Adult Spam Hits All-Time Low
Of all the spam filtered by Symantec’s e-mail security tools in February, only 3 percent could be classified as adult spam, the company said Tuesday. Adult spam, according to Symantec, contains or refers to “products or services intended for persons above the age of 18” and is “often offensive or inappropriate. Examples: porn, personal ads, relationship advice.”
Impressive. Not that it matters though… spam in general must be at an all-time high to counteract that decline.
Source: News.com
MS Promotion Site Flagged By MS Anti-Phishing
Microsoft has launched a marketing campaign that lets any student at an Australian university buy the Ultimate edition of Office 2007, usual price $1,150, for only $75 — a discount of about 93%. But when students go to the promotion site, Microsoft Live OneCare pops up a warning that the site may be a phishing scam.
This doesn’t surprise me. IE7 nags about the same things when you first try to hit up Microsoft.com, unless you change the options. Funny nonetheless.
Source: Slashdot
Internal Turmoil at Sony Uncovered
In the past year, Sony as a company has been defined greatly by two events: the delayed launch of its PlayStation 3 gaming console and the battery recall that affected millions of customers. According to an interview with the Wall Street Journal, a lot of the negativity surrounding both is the result of internal strife in the company and a cultural disconnect between Sony CEO Howard Stringer and his Japanese executive team.
Internal turmoil is not hard to believe given all the mishaps they have encountered in the past year alone. But hey, at least Blu-ray is doing well, right?
Source: Daily Tech
Nikon Announces D40x, New Zoom VR Lens
Mississauga, ON, March 6, 2007 – Nikon Canada Inc. today introduced the Nikon D40x Digital SLR, the sister camera to Nikon D40. The D40x offers many advanced digital technologies found in Nikon’s professional digital SLR (D SLR) models, but is incredibly easy to use and affordable, making it ideal for first-time D SLR buyers.
A new D40, already?! This isn’t a direct replacement, since it’s priced $200 higher than the original. Current D40 owners can breathe a sigh of relief. Its upgrades are pushing it closer to D80 quality though, with a 10 megapixel CCD, 3FPS continuous shooting and ISO 100 capabilities. DPReview has the first preview available to those interested.
For those interested in a cheap VR lens, they also announced a new 55-200mm 4-5.6 AF-S Zoom-Nikkor. At $250, it’s only $80 more than the non-VR version. Not a bad deal at all.
Source: Nikon Press Release
Stop Telling People You’ll Live In Vancouver In Winter 2010
A Canadian minister has introduced a bill that would give Olympic organizers an almost unbelievable amount of control to restrict the use of not just its trademarks, but a host of other words, including “winter, gold, silver, bronze, sponsor, Vancouver, Whistler, 2010, tenth, medals, and games”.
This is ridiculous! I can’t see this bill being passed… how words like “Vancouver” and “Winter” could possibly be banned from use is be beyond me. Screw the Olympics. Who’s with me?
Source: Tech Dirt
Fujitsu Announces World’s First 160GB 7200RPM SATA Notebook HDD
Fujitsu has unveiled the world’s first 160GB 7200RPM SATA hard disk drive (HDD) for notebook computers. The new MHW2160BJ notebook HDD will be available for high-performance notebooks beginning in May of this year.
This is great news if you have a newer laptop or plan to buy one. I wish they released an IDE version as well, but we can’t have everything I guess.
Source: Daily Tech
Indian State Gets Dual-Boot Win-Linux Desktops
The Indian state of Tamil Nadu has finalized a tender for 40,000 Lenovo desktops which can be installed with both Novell’s Suse Linux and Microsoft’s Windows XP Starter Edition. According to C. Umashankar, managing director of Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot), the desktops will be deployed across schools and government departments in the state. Elcot is Tamil Nadu’s state-owned IT supplier.
This is a big win for Linux in India, and in general. The machines cost just under $500 each and include both SuSE and Windows Starter Edition.
Source: ZDNet India
Microsoft Wanted To Drop Mac Office To Hurt Apple?
The email complains at poor sales of Office, which it attributes to a lack of focus on making such sales among reps at that time. It describes dumping development of the product as: “The strongest bargaining point we have, as doing so will do a great deal of harm to Apple immediately.”
I must have underestimated the usage of Mac Office. If it’s enough to even remotely maim Apple, then it must have a large user base. The small article goes on to mention that the documents prove Microsoft used the Mac version of Office to test new features, since any mishaps would affect only a few people.
Source: Mac World
30 Days with Linux
Many people, daunted by Vista’s hardware requirements and product activation issues, claim on various boards how they plan to “switch to Linux.” We spend 30 days using nothing but Ubuntu Linux to find out if this is truly a viable alternative for the consumer.
Kudos to the folks at HardOCP for giving Linux a chance. Their conclusions are somewhat expected, but most of it I agree with. Gaming is a big issue, but so is general ease. If game developers ever pull their heads out of their… well you know… then we might actually see more reason to move the masses over to the light side ;-)
Source: HardOCP Consumer
So Much Data, So Little Space
The report, assembled by the technology research firm IDC, sought to account for all the ones and zeros that make up photos, videos, e-mails, Web pages, instant messages, phone calls and other digital content zipping around. The researchers also assumed that on average, each digital file gets replicated three times. Add it all up and IDC determined that the world generated 161 billion gigabytes — 161 exabytes — of digital information last year.
It’s no surprise that we have a huge number, but 161 billion gigabytes is mind boggling.
Source: Business Week
Open Source Image De-Noising
GREYCstoration is an open-source tool able to de-noise, inpaint, or resize 2D color images. This is a command-line program developed by the IMAGE team of the GREYC Lab in France and is available for Unix, Mac, and Windows systems under the CeCILL license. The algorithm is based on anisotropic diffusion partial differential equations. These equations are able to smooth an image while preserving its main structures.
If you don’t have Photoshop or some specialty tool, this is one you will want to add to your photo-editing arsenal. It’s command-line based, so you will have to get your hands a little dirty. I gave it a quick test though and actually found it to do a better job on my high-ISO night photos than Photoshop and Neat Image.
Source: Slashdot
NVIDIA Releases G80 Derived Quadros
Differentiating the Quadro FX 4600 and Quadro FX 5600 is the amount of memory. The lower Quadro FX 4600 features 768MB of video memory – similar to NVIDIA’s GeForce 8800GTX. A whopping 1.5 GB of video memory is available on the Quadro FX 5600; besting ATI’s 1GB of graphics memory endowed FireGL V7350. Both Quadros have 384-bit memory interfaces though.
If you are a hardcore 3D designer and want the best, the top-end FX 5600 will only set you back a smooth $2,999. Don’t fret though. The slightly feature reduced FX 4600 costs only $1,995.
Source: Daily Tech
Intel And AmberWave Systems Corporation Announce Settlement
SALEM, New Hampshire and SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 5, 2007 – Intel Corporation and AmberWave Systems Corporation have settled all patent infringement suits pending between them related to AmberWave Systems strained silicon patent portfolio. Under the agreement, Intel has received a license to all AmberWave patents and patent applications either existing today or filed during the agreement’s ten-year term. The companies also have agreed to continuing discussions and evaluation of AmberWave’s ongoing technology research and development efforts. Intel will make license payments to AmberWave over the term of the agreement. All other terms of the agreement are confidential.
Source: Intel Press Release
Super Talent Ships 10 Millionth USB Flash Drive
San Jose, California – March 5, 2007 — Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of DRAM memory modules and flash products, will ship its ten millionth (10,000,000) USB Flash Drive in mid-March, 2007.
Source: Super Talent Press Release
Olympus Unveils Two New D-SLRs
The E410 features a 10MP image sensor and a 4/3 lens mount system. Other features include a 2.5″ HyperCrystal LCD, TruePic III image processor, 32 shootings modes, 3FPS burst mode, xD and CompactFlash card slots, Supersonic Wave Filter for dust removal and a USB 2.0 interface. Not be left out is the E-410’s Live MOS sensor which allows photographers to frame their shot using the 2.5″ LCD screen — a rarity in the D-SLR arena.
Olympus looks to have a good thing going with these new releases. They seem perfectly suited to those who are just wanting to jump into the DSLR world. The LCD uses a live view with a lot of people who use point-and-shoot digital cameras will appreciate. Image Stabilization is also found in the body, so any lenses that are used will have that capability. Great looking kit lens as well.
Source: Daily Tech
Collection of 404s
Seeing as how today is rather slow for news, you might enjoy a huge collection of 404 pages. If you are not familiar with the 404, then you must be a perfect surfer ;-)
Source: 404 Research Lab
Dell 2407WFP vs. 3007WFP
Our primary focus is going to be on Dell’s current 24″ and 30″ models, the 2407WFP and 3007WFP. How well do these LCDs perform, where do they excel, and where is there room for improvement? We aim to provide answers to those questions.
Personally, I’d opt for a 24" for the sole fact that I doubt the 30" would fit on my desk. Both are gorgeous monitors, though.
Source: AnandTech
Game Developers Conference Expands.. But Too Much?
“It’s gotten so big,” Pizer said. “It used to feel more like a community of my peers, and now it feels more like a frat party. On the other hand, it has also gotten more corporate. It’s a funny contradiction. It will continue to get progressively more commercial and less academic.”
It’s no surprise that this has happened. Even before E3 there were complaints of this, but this year should prove to be even worse. Where are you “E3 Killer”?
Source: News.com
More ASUS XG Station Details Unveiled
Notebook users rejoice: ASUS is set to produce its XG Station external graphics card for notebooks. ASUS previously pulled the wraps off the XG Station at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year. The XG Station will not have retail availability, however, ASUS plans to ship the XG Station to OEMs and channel partners. ASUS will not sell the XG Station as a barebones external graphics card enclosure.
Greg and I saw this at CES earlier this year, and left impressed. They had a direct comparison of a notebook with and without the XG and the difference was amazing. It’s too bad they will not be available without a bundled GPU though…
Source: Daily Tech
Hardware-Based Rootkit Detection Proven Unreliable
Rutkowska, an elite hacker who specializes in offensive rootkit research, has found several ways to manipulate the results given to hardware-based solutions (PCI cards or FireWire bus). At this year’s Black Hat DC conference, Rutkowska demonstrated three different attacks against AMD64 based systems, showing how the image of volatile memory (RAM) can be made different from the real contents of the physical memory as seen by the CPU.
So there you have it… yet another piece of technology that’s entirely “hackable”.
Source: ZDNet Blogs
Can Apple Take Microsoft in the Battle for the Desktop?
Some analysts are nostalgic for the days when they could appear intelligent merely by gushing about everything from Microsoft. They felt safe in recommending everything the company released, knowing that there were no real alternatives, and that anything the company could deliver would more or less have to be purchased.
You can see where this article is going, and it gets quite interesting. It’s hard to ignore the fact that Apple is rising quick, even though Microsoft still dominates. Vista was a chance to prove to the world that they still have what it takes, but it doesn’t seem to be impressing anyone.
Source: Roughly Drafted
The Pentagon Wants TiVo (to Watch You)
To counter these new threats, technology exists, or could be developed, to provide new levels of spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution and diversity. Furthermore, the ability to record terabyte and larger databases will provide an omnipresent knowledge of the present and the past that can be used to rewind battle space observations in TiVo-like fashion and to run recorded time backwards to help identify and locate even low-level enemy forces.
Quick! Burn that TiVo! Seriously, it took them how long to come up with this idea?
Source: Wired
It’s Official: Pirates Crack Vista At Last
Unlike cracks which have been floating around since Vista RTM was released in late November, this crack doesn’t simply get around product activation with beta activation files or timestop cracks – it actually makes use of the activation process.
The process simply emulates a BIOS of a pre-built computer that Microsoft has approved to have pre-activated versions installed. I admit, this is one tempting download. Even if you own a legal version of Vista, activation will prove a pain in the ass if you try to switch motherboards. This crack would ease that pain.
Source: APC Mag
Top 10 Funniest Gadgets
TechEBlog has yet another top 10 list, but this is one of the stranger ones. Included in the list are the “funniest” gadgets, but I find them far more bizarre than funny. You can find the DVD Rewinder, head bath cap, 3D panoramic camera, USB BBQ and more.
Source: TechEBlog