The new form factor has been addressed with security as a top priority, along with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt ports, according to Intel.

Intel has also worked to improve the user experience, making it more seamless by increasing the performance of the solid state drive and calling for the use of more hybrid SSD/hard disk drives.

This will deliver more storage capacity, at the same time giving users a faster over all experience. Intel has built a layer of protection into the hardware that will be needed as the devices go mainstream in the coming years.

Asus has married the world of design and top-end performance on its Zenbook. The Zenbook UX31E has an excellent look with a stunning 13-inch LED backlit display with a pixel resolution of 1600×900. It is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor, boasts 128GB and 256GB SSD hard disk and runs on Windows 7 operating system.

Acer unveiled its Aspire S5 model, supporting the faster data transfer speeds with Thunderbolt, two USB 2.0 ports, a USB port 3.0, HDMI, audio and mic ports, webcam, integrated gigabit LAN and Bluetooth v3.0. Powered by Intel’s Ivy Bridge Processor, it offers 8GB of RAM, runs on Windows 7 operating system and features a 13-inch LED backlit display.

There’s no pricing at the moment, but Acer expects to begin shipping the Aspire S5 in the second quarter of this year.

HP’s Envy Spectre sports a 14-inch Radiance LED backlit display, Intel i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 graphic cards, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD and runs on the Windows 7 OS. The device comes pre-installed with full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements.

Samsung announced the latest update to its Series 9 laptop at the show, making the stylish machine thinner and promising a whole new batch of hardware. The new Series 9 is less than half an inch thick. High-end aluminium covers the frame, which still manages to expose a few connectivity ports on the side in the name of utility.

The ASUS Zenbook features an ultra slim 13-inch design, SonicMaster audio technology and all-in-one multimedia functions.

The Z330 is the most compact product in LG’s newest Super Ultrabook Series. In terms of performance, LG’s proprietary Super Speed Boot technology enables rapid booting _ roughly three times faster than other 13-inch notebooks in the market. Powered by an Intel Core i7 processor, the Z330 requires less than 10 seconds to complete booting, while it requires a mere 2 seconds to recover from stand-by mode.

The Z330 is equipped with the latest SATA3 Solid State Drive (SSD), which is more than 11 times faster than an ordinary hard drive. The device is light, weighing a mere 1.21kg.

Lenovo is expanding its Ultrabook portfolio with the IdeaPad U310 and U410. Powered by the Intel Core Processor family, these thin and light laptops include Ultrabook versions with 64GB SSD drives for caching data, and versions with up to 500GB HDD storage. Both versions feature ultra-responsive performance with fast boot times and quick resume from sleep. The PCs also features other smart elements including automatically updating the mailbox, instant messaging and social media messages even in sleep mode, with up to 8 hours battery life.

Dell introduced its new XPS 13 Ultrabook _ a 13.3-inch high definition model running on Intel’s second-generation Core i5 or i7 processors. Intel HD 3000 graphics and Intel Rapid Start technology are highlights of the new device, while Intel Smart Connect technology is also included, allowing the XPS 13 to “wake up” periodically to update calendars and email. Battery life is slightly under 9 hours. Dell took strides to ensure the new XPS 13 would appeal to both consumer and corporate markets.

Sony’s Ultrabook concept was protected in a glass case without disclosing any specs.

Sony so far has not launched an Ultrabook. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Sony showcased a concept device but did not disclose any specifications. The concept, however, should feature one of Intel’s Ultrabook guidelines: ultra-low voltage (ULV) Sandy Bridge, or the upcoming Ivy Bridge, processors as well as SSD or hybrid storage.

Both Toshiba and Asus agreed that the Ultrabook segment has acceptably responded to a group of users who require the light and thin form factor with performance.

Last year Toshiba Thailand introduced the Portege Z830 at 39,000 baht. Takon Niyomthai, country manager for IT of Toshiba Thailand, noted that the market feedback has been very promising. Toshiba plans to launch its second model in the segment under its consumer Satellite brand, with a lower price and more mainstream features. The new Satellite will be some 10,000 baht lower than the Portege.

AsusTek Computer managing director Pornthep Watchara-Amnouy noted that the performance of the Ultrabook is not inferior to MacBook Air, in fact some are even better. “Price is not a concern if the device fulfills ones’ needs,” he said, pointing out that there will be more variety of Ultrabook models on the market during the second quarter, while the average price will be around 30,000 baht.

At present, Ultrabooks accounts for less than 1% of the PC market in Thailand and most of the models introduced so far have been high-end and expensive. Starting from the second quarter of this year, many brands are going to launch new series giving consumers a wider variety of choices at competitive prices.

Source:http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/computer/278625/ultrabooks-refresh-laptop-category

Leading IT experts agree that the single best tool to have in your disaster-recovery arsenal is Superman’s cellphone number. Armed with this simple tool, you’re covered against pretty much anything.

Superman will just make a few hundred loops around the planet at hyper-Newtonian speeds. The Earth will reverse its rotation just long enough to cause time to flow in reverse, and then you’re free to make sure that The Terrible Thing That Happened will never have happened to begin with.

All in all, it’s even better than the Genius Bar at the Apple Store.

Sadly, this Superman feature was terminated during DC Comics’ “New 52” reboot event in September. So we all need to go back to the complicated and boring process known as “planning ahead.”

I mention this because I’m about to recommend a tool that will help you to recover lost or stolen electronics. It’s called “Prey” and it’s truly what spyware would be like in the Bizarro World.

(Second Superman reference in as many paragraphs. I lean back in my chair, level a critical eye at what I’ve written so far, and ponder a third. “Well, not in a row,” I conclude. “But I sense an opportunity for a third, later in the piece.”)

Conventional spyware is a piece of code that invisibly tracks a user’s movements and habits without his or her knowledge, and silently reports what it learns back to an evil enterprise (which we can define as anything from “A Russian crime syndicate” to “Facebook”). Prey is a special kind of “white hat” spyware that lies dormant and never tracks a device’s legitimate user. But when your hardware is stolen, you can remotely activate Prey and it’ll begin to invisibly and regularly report the hardware’s location, and the thief’s activity, back to you. Prey isn’t designed to make your life miserable; it’s designed to help you get your gear back.

Oh, and incidentally: the definition of the word “thief” also includes “someone who finds a lost device and thinks ‘Ooo, cool . . . free iPad!’ instead of arranging for its return.” Who the hell does that? Every time I hear about this, it irks me more and more.

It seems insane to voluntarily install tracking software on your computer. And installing Prey does require a measure of faith. Rest assured that when Prey is in its dormant mode, it does only one thing: from time to time, it spends a few microseconds checking in with a central server to find to see if its owner has reported it as “missing.” If not, Prey goes back to sleep.

The magic happens only after you realize that your computer has disappeared. You leap to a web browser, access Prey’s web-based control panel, mark the device as missing, and tell Prey what kind of information you’d like to receive. Soon enough, the Prey code on the machine will go into “full ungodly fury of vengeance and justice” mode, and lots of interesting information will begin to appear in the control panel. You’ll see location information (based on GPS and WiFi/network data), screen captures of what the thief is doing, and even photos of the eggsucking weasel themself, via your device’s chat cam.

I installed Prey on my MacBook and then reported it as “missing” via my iPad. Then I kept right on working. The first report showed up about twenty minutes later. It included a photo of me (do I really scowl like that when I’m writing?), a screen grab of the file I was working on, and my location, determined via my network address and marked on a Google Map. It was so accurate that if my laptop really had been stolen, I could have told my band of vicious armed mercenaries — many of whom have diplomatic passports and are far beyond the reach of any mortal law — to begin their search at the Boston Public Library and to head specifically to Bates Hall.

Prey is silent and devious when it’s in Ungodly Fury mode. After reporting my MacBook missing, I didn’t honestly know for sure that the software was working until the first report arrived. The MacBook has a green LED that illuminates whenever the camera is active, but it illuminated so briefly that I didn’t even notice that it was taking my picture. The only “tell” of any kind was the briefest stutter during the instant Prey was taking a screen capture. Even then, I only noticed it because I was typing at full speed, and I knew better than to attribute it to some other system process or hiccup.

Prey does leave footprints behind, but it’s fairly well-hidden and a thief would need to be specifically looking for Prey before he’d discover it. Assuming, of course, you did the smart thing and deleted the Prey download package after installing the software.

So long as your device is switched on and it can find any kind of connection to the Internet-proper, it’ll start sending reports. The thief doesn’t even need to willingly open a connection; Prey can independently detect the presence of an open WiFi hotspot and silently exploit it.

What do you do next? It’s up to you. Prey is a flexible tool. Your first instinct will probably be to strike out on the path of vengeance. The longer you allow the thief to use your laptop, the more evidence he’s going to unwittingly send you. Ultimately, you’ll have enough to unequivocally prove where your property is and who has it. You can have Prey quietly block access to your browser cookies, system-stored passwords, and Outlook data, to minimize the privacy breach. Or you can go for broke and have Prey blast an alert sound and display a message to the user.

If you value the privacy of your data over the recovery of your device, Prey can simply render the device inoperable until it receives your remote password. This will, of course, encourage the thief to stop using your device and thus it’ll probably halt the flow of usable information.

Alas, Prey can’t remote-wipe your hard drive, which is the ultimate defense against theft of your personal documents and information. If that’s a concern, there are plenty of utilities that can automatically keep all of the data on your hard drive encrypted.

And what happens after what happens next?

We’ve reached the end of the range of solutions that can be provided by technology. You’re now forced to rely on the actions of improbable and imperfect flesh. The Internet is loaded with stories about what happens when the owner of a stolen laptop or device gets in touch with local law enforcement and provides them with a boatload of evidence furnished by Prey or another “track my missing hardware” utility. Responses range from “We wish we could solve all stolen-property cases as quickly and easily as we closed this one” to “Contrary to all logic, there’s absolutely nothing we can do for you.”

Mark Waid — writer of the “Superman: Birthright” limited series and an obvious finalist in any legitimate Greatest Comic Book Writer Of All Time competition ever held — left his iPad behind on an airplane in Los Angeles. He activated Apple’s “Find My iPad” feature and tracked it to a hotel in Indianapolis. The Indy police couldn’t do anything about it unless the LAPD filed a report, and the LAPD claimed they were too busy. “Final score: Crooks 1, Waid -$916.75” he Tweeted, closing out a daylong drama.

Nothing can absolutely ensure that you’ll get your property back. But it’s damned-certain that your chances are far better with Prey installed. Prey has only one operational weakness: you need to actually install the software while the device is still in your physical possession.

I now refer you back to my opening comments. If Superman was unwilling to turn back time to allow Waid — who also wrote the seminal Elseworlds future-Superman crossover “Kingdom Come” — to go back to that plane and retrieve his iPad he’s certainly not going to do it so you can install Prey on your MacBook before your car was broken into.

Why Prey, and not any of the other “recover my stolen laptop” services? Because it’s free. You can visit preyproject.com right now, install it, and then forget it exists without spending a penny. “Pro” Prey plans (which start at $5 a month) add additional services. Instead of tracking just a three device and retaining only 10 reports (old ones vanish as new ones are collected), Pro accounts can track multiple devices, retain 100 reports, and can collect them as frequently as every 2 minutes. That’s great if you see that the perp is actually at your machine, and you want to catch information from his Facebook, Twitter, or email windows that will confirm his identity.

Also, Prey is available for just about every device you own. Editions are available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, and Android, though the iOS edition is still awaiting approval from Apple before it can appear in the iTunes Store.

Is Prey safe? I’ve been hammering at this question for months and I’m convinced Prey is about as safe as this kind of tool can be, given that (from a paranoid, stark perspective, at least) the software is designed to secretly do things and to evade detection.

Unlike commercial alternatives, Prey is open software. The source code can be downloaded and examined by people much, much more savvy and cynical than you or I. It does use external code modules that aren’t part of Prey’s core library, but the modules themselves are used by just about everyone, so their behavior and limitations are well understood by the security community. If Prey itself was designed to prey upon its users, that would have been discovered long before now; from that perspective, it’s safe.

Which isn’t to say that Prey isn’t without controversy. Because it’s been scrutinized so closely, potential weaknesses in Prey’s methodology have been identified. Its primary problems are that Prey runs on your computer as a root system process; it does its business via shell scripts; and it seems to communicate with its servers in a manner that could be intercepted by a man-in-the-middle attack. All of the security experts I consulted agree that Prey could go about its work in a far more secure fashion. The concern isn’t that Prey could do something to harm your system or your privacy, but that a third party could exploit these weaknesses to attack your system.

Nearly all of the experts I spoke with agree that the potential rewards that Prey presents far outweigh its risks. An attack on your computer that targets Prey’s weaknesses would require custom code that’s never been spotted in the wild, running on a machine with proximity to your system (that is, a machine on a nearby network that’s looking for Prey-equipped computers). Greg Martin is one of the experts I spoke with. Last summer, he used Prey to successfully recover his MacBook Pro and he continues to recommend it.

The objections to Prey are nicely outlined here and here.

My own conclusion is that if you have reasonable fears about your devices being lost or stolen, not using Prey is riskier than using it. I’m convinced that the added security risks are minimal, and that potential rewards of installing it are monumental.

What if you don’t install Prey, and your hardware is stolen? Can you do anything to locate it?

You might have a chance to locate your property if you’ve installed Dropbox. Dropbox’s servers log the IP addresses that your computers use to access the service. You can view that address by logging in at Dropbox.com, clicking on the link for your account settings, and then clicking the “My Computers” tab. An IP address is usually enough to get at least a rough fix on the computer’s location. It’s nothing like the comprehensive set of data mined by Prey, but it’s better than nothing.

I’m not insisting that you rush out and install Prey this instant. I’m not even insisting that you install it all all. But if you’re now convinced that Prey is a good idea, don’t wait. Do it now, before you forget. You can install Prey in less than ten minutes.

I’m telling you to do this because whether you install Prey or not, you’ll never think of this software ever again. Until your computer gets stolen. Then, you’ll either think “Thank God, I actually have a shot of getting my laptop back” or “I’m such an idiot! Why didn’t I install Prey right away, like Andy told me to?”

I promise you that under no circumstances would I ever point and laugh and mock you for ignoring my advice. But you’ll be imagining that I am. And unlike the real me, Imaginary Andy also has access to your memories of all of your past mistakes and will use all of this information to devastating effect. Is that what you want to happen?

Source:http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/10467526-452/prey-takes-over-your-devices-to-keep-thieves-under-surveillance.html

There are some common misconceptions with respect to whether or not it is better to have a custom built computer instead of one manufactured by a major manufacturer. There are some things you should consider when faced with this decision. Some reasons your computer guy may have told you you would be better off with a custom built computer:

True or False: “I (your computer guy) can build a computer cheaper than you can buy one from a major manufacturer!

Really? How many custom built computers does your computer guy build a year? 10? 100? 1000? Is your computer guy suggesting that they have some secret “In” with computer component manufacturers that they can secure these parts at great cost savings? Does it make sense that a computer guy building a few hundred (if that) computers a year can get a better deal on parts than a company like HP or Dell? If that’s true, why are there not more stores just specializing in custom built computers? A good business person needs to make a profit with their business. In order to do so they have to charge more than they pay for the products they sell. To make a reasonable profit they either have to sell a large volume of computers making a few bucks each, or a small number of computers making many more bucks each.

True or False: “It’s better to have a custom built computer because I (your computer guy) know every part that is installed in the machine is the best on the market.”

Be wary of someone suggesting some parts are better than others in the same breath they suggest they can build something cheaper than a major manufacturer can produce. Does it make sense that a guy building computers in Midcoast Maine can get a better deal on high quality parts than a company like Dell or HP? Probably not. Furthermore, if you were in charge of operations at a major manufacturer and you knew you were going to offer a three year warranty on parts for a computer, would you buy low quality parts to install in that machine? Again, probably not. It’s going to cost the company more money to carry through the warranty on those parts. They know this so they make sure all the parts installed in their machines meet their standards. Yes the company is in business to make money, but like most businesses, they probably believe in doing so by providing a great product with great service instead of ripping everyone off every chance they get. And keep in mind… some of these large companies have shareholders to answer to as well. Selling a bad product isn’t going to instill great confidence in the masses.

True or False: “Your computer guy is a genius because he can build a computer from a bunch of parts?”

It doesn’t take a genius to follow directions. With the amount of information available on the Internet, and a bit of patience, anyone with the ability to read and follow directions could build a computer. It may not be the fastest, or the best computer in the world, but a computer nonetheless. Computer hardware is built based on certain standards. That’s part of the reason there are so many manufacturers and it is such a wide spread industry. Everything is standardized to meet certain specs, thereby working with everything else. They are just like automobiles and with enough money, the right tools and enough patience, one could even build an automobile from parts.

Generally, for an estimated 95% of the computer using population a computer built by a major manufacturer is going to be a better value for your money. That doesn’t mean your computer guy is ripping you off, it just means he can’t produce enough volume to lower the cost of the machine to compete with a major manufacturer on an apples to apples basis. Not only can you get a computer from a major manufacturer for a reasonable price, but you typically can get an extended warranty on the hardware for a little extra as well. Does your computer guy offer you an extended warranty?

And don’t think you can’t get what you specifically want with a major manufacturer. Some companies produce thousands of computers all with the same specs and software installed and ship them to department stores and other outlets to be sold to the masses. Others have developed the ability to build a computer specifically for your needs, providing you with options on hardware and software configurations, and still provide it to you at a reasonable price.

When is a good time to get a custom built computer? When you have a special situation, Marine Navigation computers, for instance. Typically these are built using specialized hardware to withstand the environment they will be subjected to. Computers that interact with specific machinery may also require special equipment. If your business has proprietary software that requires certain hardware and that hardware can’t be bought from a major manufacturer. Computer gaming can sometimes benefit from a custom built machine, although usually you can get a comparable machine for a comparable price from a major manufacturer.

Source:http://waldo.villagesoup.com/business/brief/business-services/true-or-false-you-should-buy-a-custom-built-computer-instead-of-one-from-a-major-manufacturer/483223

Smartphones outsold computers for the first time in 2011 according to data from marker research firm Canalys.

Full year shipments for smartphones totalled 487.7 million units, higher than the total number of PCs which is 414.6 million units.

Total smartphone shipments rose 63 percent in 2011, up from 299.7 million shipped in 2012. The PC market only grew by 15 percent, despite an increase of 274 percent in the tablet PC subcategory.

The PC category included desktops, netbooks, notebooks and tablet PC devices.

Fourth quarter shipments were part of the driving force behind the impressive smartphone sales, with smartphone vendors shipping 158.5 million units. This was up 57 percent from 2010.

Canalys expect the smartphone market growth to slow in 2012 as manufacturers start to focus on profitability.

Source:http://mybroadband.co.za/news/quick-news/42839-smartphones-overtook-pc-shipments-in-2011.html

Open source hardware is increasingly making the news, as Ford partners with Bug Labs to “advance in-car connectivity innovation”, thousands of US Radio Shack stores start stocking Arduino, and Facebook releases the plans for energy-efficient data centre technology via Open Compute. But could it change the world? Andrew Back takes a look at five projects which just might.

RepRap
Imagine a machine that could manufacture the components of your next gadget, and all you had to do is download 3D computer models and it would make them by joining materials together. This manufacturing process is known as rapid prototyping (RP) and has been around since the late 1980s, but up until recently machines that use it have been costly, with prices starting in the tens of thousands of pounds.

In 2004, Bath University’s Adrian Bowyer wrote an essay entitled Wealth without Money in which he proposed an RP machine that would “self-copy, but not self-assemble”, going on to state that the design must be provided with it so that it can be copied and improved upon. These details were a master stroke and meant that one machine would be able to print out parts to make another, or new parts based on an improved design and that would be used in its own upgrade.

Bowyer had intended simply to put an idea out there but fortunately colleagues persuaded him to run a project to develop the machine. By early 2007 the first replicating rapid prototyper, RepRap for short, was born. With parts printed using a commercial RP machine, it was only a matter of months before a second RepRap had been assembled from parts printed using the first. Only four years later the size of the RepRap population was estimated at around 4,000 machines, not including derivatives such as the 3,500 or so that had been produced by MakerBot Industries alone.

The total cost for the materials required to build a RepRap is quoted as being an incredible €350, but in practice this is dependant upon you being able to find someone to provide you with a set of the printed parts at cost. Even if you have no option but to pay a premium for these, the RepRap still meets its goal of being highly affordable, and as the number of machines in existence grows the market price for a set of printed parts should come down.

It must be pointed out that the current generation RepRap is only capable of printing plastics, but most of the non-printed components used in its build are commonly available items such as steel threaded rod, bearings and stepper motors. Control electronics are also required, but these are reasonably simple and various options are available. And although it’s very early days, work is under way to develop support for printing circuit boards and even electronic components.

RepRap’s open source design laid the foundations for a vibrant community developing modifications, enhancements and derivative machines. Such as a version that makes use of laser cut parts and that can be used as a “bootstrap system” in the absence of access to an existing 3D printer. Sites such as Thingiverse host a mind-boggling selection of user-contributed 3D designs for everything from anime figures and sculpture, to the body for a quadracopter and a case for an Arduino.

Arduino
Now that you’ve printed out the mechanical components of that gadget, you’ll need some electronics to bring it to life, and what better way than with an open source computer designed for prototyping and embedding in larger projects. Arduino takes the form of a compact circuit board providing easily programmed hardware that enables control of all manner of inputs and outputs, such as sensors and actuators and buttons and displays, and is low cost and extremely versatile.

On paper the Arduino hardware is nothing special and an entry-level board comprises little more than a reference design for an 8-bit processor. There is no shortage of “development boards” of a similar nature, so how did something AVR-based gain so much ground over boards built around long-established hobbyist favourites such as PIC and BASIC Stamp?

The key to Arduino’s success lies not in the choice of processor but in its price point, and the fact that it is very easy to use and highly-extensible. At around £20 for a basic board it’s not the end of the world if by accident you apply too high a voltage to an input or short circuit an output. Upon installing the IDE you can be up and running in no time, and receiving almost instant gratification as you compile example code and have the Arduino perform simple actions such as blink an LED or read an input. The modular nature of the system and its open source design has led to the creation of a rich marketplace for add-ons and compatible designs, with an incredibly enthusiastic community of developers contributing tutorials and video blogs, and example code and circuits for every imaginable application.

An Arduino can be connected directly, or with minimal support components, to a wide variety of devices. These include light sensors, buttons, dials, LEDs, LCD displays and buzzers. For applications with more complex requirements it can be extended via Arduino “shields” – add-on modules that are provided with power and access to the Arduino’s inputs, outputs and peripheral bus. These are based on a simple, stackable format that is easy to design for, and shields are available that add everything from Ethernet or a GPRS modem, to a Geiger counter.

You don’t have to use the Arduino IDE to develop applications – a combination such as Eclipse and avr-gcc can be used instead. However, the official IDE provides a turnkey solution and one that is far less daunting for those that are new to software development. The language used is Wiring-based and is essentially a simplified version of C++ with bundled libraries that provide a selection of easy to use functions for things such as maths, communications and I/O. Drop-in libraries accompany many shields to provide generic capabilities such as networking, and add new functions which bring ease of use to the additional hardware.

Opencores
Some engineers are not drawing the line at circuit boards and are extending open source all the way down to the level of chip design. Modelling digital integrated circuits using hardware description languages (HDL), members of the Opencores community are designing everything from RISC microprocessors and Gigabit Ethernet controllers, to multimedia and cryptographic hardware. The resulting intellectual property cores – so-called due to the copyright in the design’s source code – are then made available under a licence such as the LGPL or BSD, and are often modular in nature and so can be combined to create a system-on-a-chip.

Fragment of the OpenRISC 1200 Processor Verilog (HDL) Source Code
You may wonder why anyone would do this when the start-up costs associated with having your own chip manufactured are so high, but designs are mostly implemented using off-the-shelf reconfigurable devices called field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These contain logic blocks that can be configured to provide something as simple as an AND gate, or as complex as the combinational logic used in an ALU, along with reconfigurable interconnects that are used to wire the blocks together. Configuration of the device takes place on power up when it loads a binary file that has been generated from the HDL design, and this is stored in a small amount of flash memory; this can be replaced with ease, thereby making it trivial to test and upgrade designs.

The price/performance of a general purpose computer built using FPGAs wouldn’t be great when compared with commodity gear, but the technology excels in many niche and specialist applications, such as in areas of computing that make use of dedicated hardware to bring high performance to tasks such as signal processing, encryption and networking. Since you can program many hardware paths in an FPGA they are well suited to jobs that can be broken down and processed in parallel, and some of the more powerful devices pack millions of logic blocks and have a transistor count well into the billions, with a blisteringly fast serial bandwidth that is measured in terabits/second. The fact they are easily reconfigured means that they’re also well suited to prototyping designs before a custom application-specific chip is manufactured, and they make an ideal platform for use in learning digital integrated circuit design.

OpenRISC is heralded as being the flagship project of the OpenCores community and is developing a “family of 32- and 64-bit processors with optional floating-point and vector processing support”. While much end use of these processors will be via FPGA, the project has seen them employed by Samsung in custom chips manufactured for digital televisions, and has raised over $20,000 towards the cost of having its own system-on-a-chip manufactured. It plans to make this device available to the community at low cost, with the aim of providing an alternative to “semiconductor giants who only provide cost efficient prices to large multinational companies”. The world’s first ever community designed ASIC, this could be used in anything from a prototyping platform similar to Arduino, to a TV set top box or a tablet computer.

Global Village Construction Set
What would it take to build a sustainable civilisation with modern comforts from the ground up? This is a question that a network of farmers, engineers and supporters going by the name of Open Source Ecology (OSE) hope to answer with the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a collection of open source designs for 50 industrial machines that are low cost, simple to construct, modular and user-serviceable.

The GVCS is organised into categories of Habitat, Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Materials and Transportation, with designs ranging in complexity from something as simple as a nickel-iron battery to an industrial robot. Likened to “life-size lego”, these are woven into “product ecologies” which illustrate how the 50 tools will work together. For example, the Power Cube can be used as the energy source for the Car or Tractor, and the CNC Circuit Mill can produce circuit boards for any machines which have electronics.

Development of the GVCS is informed by a list of core values that stipulate things such as how machines must be user friendly, have industrial efficiency, use proven techniques and be capable of being recycled. There are 49 values in all and these form part of even more comprehensive specifications covering everything from materials sourcing and systems design, to economics and business models. As you might expect, OSEs provide a position on patents (deemed unnecessary) and licensing as part of these specifications, along with guidance on how to go about documenting designs in a way that makes them easily reproducible.

OSE has set itself the ambitious target of releasing all 50 designs by the end of 2012 and within an extremely modest budget of $2.4 million. At the time of writing, advance orders were being accepted for four machines: the Soil Pulverizer, Compressed Earth Block Press, Power Cube and Tractor. The Bulldozer, CNC Torch Table and five others are currently in the prototyping stage, and the remainder are either in or awaiting the start of development. The web site suggests that additional subject matter expertise is currently required in areas such as mechanical engineering, power electronics, machine design, metallurgy and precision engineering.

OSE’s stated core message is “Creating tools for building modern off-grid resilient communities that can be reproduced by anyone at low cost”, and the GVCS could equally be put to use by developing nations or by those in the developed world who aspire to live “off-grid” and independent of large-scale manufacture.

Perhaps one of the most exciting GVCS concepts is the idea of product ecologies where there is a clear symbiotic relationship between tools. This is something that is also evident in projects such as RepRap, where one machine can print the parts for another, and an Arduino can be used for the RepRap control electronics which can in turn print an enclosure for an Arduino. But the GVCS takes this to the next level by encompassing a great many more technical disciplines and by putting an ecology of machines at the very heart of its design.

OpenPCR
Humankind has long sought to truly understand the building blocks of life and to be able to manipulate them for its own purposes, and genetics is an area of intense research and development with potentially huge rewards for those who make significant advances.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a key technique employed in genetics whereby small pieces of DNA are amplified by several orders of magnitude. This is fundamental to processes such as DNA cloning and sequencing, the analysis of genes for hereditary and infectious diseases, and to identify genetic fingerprints. The reaction requires a piece of specialist laboratory apparatus which can accurately control and cycle the temperature of DNA samples, and these are typically expensive, costing thousands of pounds. But this changed with the arrival of OpenPCR, a personal PCR machine that is available as a kit for $599 and with a design that has been made available under the GPL v3 licence.

Assembling the kit is quoted as taking around five hours, small hex wrenches are included and the only additional tools required are screwdrivers and pliers. The machine’s enclosure is made from laser cut wood and snaps together, with brackets, nuts, bolts and various other simple fittings being provided. Temperature control is achieved via a ceramic Peltier device and large heatsink of the sort found in a desktop computer. A PC power supply provides the DC current for a fan, the Peltier and control electronics. Like all good open source projects OpenPCR stands on the shoulders of giants, and makes use of an Arduino for control and to provide a USB interface. This in turn plugs into a custom Arduino shield which provides connections for the power supply, Peltier, temperature sensors and an LCD display. The shield and a “PCR block” with sample wells being the only components which could be considered to be specialist.

The completed OpenPCR machine can hold up to 16 sample tubes and the temperature of these can be cycled from 10°C to100°C, with a ramp rate of 1°C/second and an accuracy of 0.5°C. Since control is via an attached PC complex, “thermocycler protocols” can be programmed, with a virtually unlimited memory for storing the configuration of temperature steps and their cycling.

The OpenPCR blog suggests that the machine could be used to expose fraud at a sushi restaurant, diagnose diseases such as HIV and H1N1, or to explore your own genome. But this is only the beginning as far as possible applications are concerned, and as they succinctly put it, “DNA is now DIY”. Now that such equipment is becoming affordable it should come as no surprise that intrepid amateurs are getting in on the action, and the motivations of these “bio-hackers” are varied, ranging from doing it for fun and as a hobby, to starting a business in the hope of making a highly profitable breakthrough.

Conclusion
Arduino is without a doubt the poster child of the open source hardware movement and its versatility, low cost and increasingly widespread availability will help to drive the movement mainstream in a manner similar to the way Linux did with open source software. Its ecosystem of derivative, compatible and extending technologies demonstrate how the open source principle of standing on the shoulders of giants can be mapped onto hardware development. This is further exemplified by projects such as RepRap and OpenPCR which in turn make use of Arduino for their control electronics.

As RepRap makes low cost desktop manufacturing a reality and inches towards being able to self-replicate, it hints at a future that would not be out of place in a science fiction novel – where designs are developed online, shared in an instant and produced locally at the push of a button, and with machines that are able to replicate and upgrade themselves.

The Global Village Construction Set offers promise to those who, for whatever reason, desire to live off-grid and be technologically self-sufficient, and has potential for use by developing nations and in disaster relief. With its novel industrial ecology for things such as materials production, manufacture and machine relationships, it opens up exciting possibilities for unprecedented scaling and efficiency in hardware: technology is optimised for reuse, and recycling is taken to the point where closed-loop manufacturing becomes a possibility and there is minimal waste and environmental impact.

OpenCores and OpenPCR have demonstrated that even areas of technology such as chip design and genetics, which many might consider to be the reserve of large organisations with deep pockets, are not off-limits to resourceful communities of interest and are within the grasp of those with very modest budgets.

Finally, it is important to note that these projects are real, they exist and most of them have been around for some years. This is not about the future – it’s about what’s happening right now, bubbling away just under the surface, and with the potential to change our relationship with technology, our lives or even the world.

Source:http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Five-open-source-hardware-projects-that-could-change-the-world-1428043.html

Advanced Micro Devices has loosened its commitment to the x86 architecture, announcing a new design strategy that could pave the way for using ARM technology in future AMD chips.

AMD said last week it will allow the integration of third-party intellectual property in future processors, as part of a new plan to design purpose-built chips for customers. If a customer needs another architecture besides x86, AMD will combine its own intellectual property with that of a third party, AMD CTO Mark Papermaster said in an interview.

[ Also on InfoWorld, ARM's CEO says: We will impact servers in 2014. | Keep up on the day's tech news headlines with InfoWorld's Today's Headlines: Wrap Up newsletter. ]

“The new AMD is about nailing customer requirements,” he said. “We will work with all of the ISA [instruction set architecture] providers.”

Papermaster didn’t say directly that AMD will use ARM technology, but the company is open to using other instruction-set architectures, examples of which include ARM, MIPS and PowerPC.

The new strategy comes amid sweeping changes in the computing landscape. Tablet and smartphone use has expanded dramatically, but x86 chips from AMD and Intel have yet to make their mark in those devices. Microsoft’s Windows 8 OS for PCs and tablets, due later this year, will run on both x86 and ARM.

The flexibility to include outside IP will allow AMD to adapt quickly to the fast-changing landscape, Papermaster said. Device makers want specialized chips for particular tasks, and AMD has a trove of IP in areas like graphics and display with which to build products. For example, AMD’s graphics processor can be mixed with third-party IP for multimedia devices.

“The dynamics of the chips are changing,” Papermaster said.

AMD’s attempts in the tablet market have fallen flat so far, fueling speculation that it will sign a license to use ARM’s chip designs. AMD and ARM have a common relationship around OpenCL, a standardized set of programming tools for handling parallel task execution. OpenCL potentially could enable programs to interoperate across AMD and ARM graphics and processor cores.

While alternative architectures are now an option, AMD’s business revolves around x86, and the company remains committed to that architecture, Papermaster said.

“That’s a good business for us today, and in 2014 and beyond,” he said.

AMD ships around 20 million x86 processors a quarter and has a long history with that architecture, and it would be hard for the company to move quickly to a new design, said Dean McCarron, principal analyst of Mercury Research.

AMD’s real prize is its graphics technology, which is hard for rivals to reproduce, McCarron said. AMD wants to extend that technology to a wider range of devices, including potentially TVs.

The size of any deal would affect AMD’s decision whether to employ ARM technology, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight 64. If a customer as big as Apple were to ask AMD to include ARM in its chips, the company would surely consider the option.

“What are they going to do with ARM? If anything, it remains to be seen,” Brookwood said. “For smaller customers, one-off, I don’t see them going in that direction.”

AMD’s openness to other architectures is a sign it wants to shift the competitive landscape with Intel, analysts said. The two companies have competed head-on for many years in the x86 business, and Intel still dominates the PC and server markets.

“One thing is that they don’t want to focus on the duopoly nature of x86,” Brookwood said. “They are going to do their own thing.”

Source:http://www.infoworld.com/d/computer-hardware/amds-move-could-pave-the-way-arm-in-future-chips-185743

B&H Photo Video has long been known as a powerhouse in the world of photo and video. Considered by many as the ‘titan’ of the (pro photo, video and audio) industry, B&H caters to a broad range of consumers, from the most discriminating professional photographers, to the simple enthusiast looking for a great deal.

However, what one may not know is that B&H has also garnered an excellent and well deserved reputation as an Authorized computer service provider for companies like Apple, ASUS, HP and Sony.

B&H has an onsite staff of the most experienced IT professionals with A+ Apple certifications, all of whom have extensive background and experience in troubleshooting the most difficult computer problems.

In fact, each and every one of the expert B&H computer consultants has completed hundreds of hours of training and is completely versed in all forms of computer diagnostics (including all hardware and software problems) and other related issues.

Furthermore, the expert staff at B&H will personally guide the customer each and every step of the way, with an unrivaled level of customer support and care. Every customer will be treated as an individual and every computer question and concern will be answered in a detailed and comprehensive manner which is intended to empower and educate.

B&H wants one to understand exactly what the problems are and what they will do to correct and fix your computer issues.

Finally, the B&H prices for all computer diagnostics, service and repair, are extremely competitive in terms of price and value.
Here is a partial list of the many computer services offered by B&H

PC Care – B&H service technicians will install up to two pieces of productivity or anti-virus software for new or used computers. This work includes all associated upgrades to optimize the computer for peak performance.

Data Migration – B&H technicians understand that the customer’s needs are constantly evolving and growing and they are prepared to meet these increased demands by transferring all of the stored personal data (only) and files.

Windows for MAC setup – B&H will partition the hard drive on any Intel-based Mac and install specialized software which will allow one to run the Apple OS or Windows on startup.

Component Installation – B&H service technicians will install and configure all of the hardware components and internal memory and hard drives, to suit one’s specific and individual needs.

System Restoration – B&H service technicians will restore your discs and your computers’ hard drive to its original purchased state.

Diagnostics – When it comes to properly diagnosing a computer problem, nobody does it better than the service technicians at B&H. A proper diagnosis of a computer related issue is the crucial first step in fixing the problem. B&H technicians have the skill and expertise in being able to get to the root of the problem right away.

Diagnostics & Labor – After properly diagnosing the computer related problem, the technicians at B&H have the knowledge and hands on experience to get the customer’s computer up and running in the most efficient and expeditious manner. B&H understands that time is money and is sensitive to the customer’s need for a quick turnaround time on their service order.

Virus & Spyware Removal Have a bug in your system? No problem, B&H service technicians are ready to help with an array of tools to detect, quantify and eradicate all spyware and malware. The computer will be humming along again in no time!

Data Recovery One of the most frustrating and often costly experiences is to lose important and sensitive (personal) data stored on the computer. B&H is intimately familiar with all of the nuances and techniques in properly recovering important data and information. The B&H technicians will ensure that all of your information is recovered and accessible once again.

Corporate Accounts are Welcome B&H makes no distinction between personal and corporate accounts. Whether you have an issue with your home computer or you are a small or large business in need of service on an array of office computers, B&H has the desire to help you out.

In the final analysis it is important to note that the B&H Photo Video business model extends well past their obvious strengths in the world of professional photo and video sales. B&H is also your source for all of your computer servicing and troubleshooting needs.

Source:http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/2/prweb9165782.htm

Since 2006, Vermont has laid out more than $18 million for a Department of Motor Vehicles computer system that barely works.

The system was once touted as a state-of-the art solution. Instead, the state is largely relying on a 40-year system that lacks the ability to provide the immediacy needed in the world of driver records and auto registrations.

State officials said they are working to recoup the costs from the vendor, Hewlett Packard, the fourth company to hold the contract.

“We’ll try to get our money back starting with a settlement conversation, and if that’s not fruitful, the lawyers will take over,” said Rob Ide, state Department of Motor Vehicles commissioner. “We’re looking for a big check.”

“This is outrageous,” said Gov. Peter Shumlin, whose administration inherited the contract when he took office in 2011, but he was a member of the Senate Transportation Committee that oversees motor vehicle matters before becoming governor. “It’s unacceptable.”

Ide and Shumlin attribute the problem to the frequent change in vendors as each one is bought out by another.

Hewlett Packard officials contend the company expects to deliver a successful system

“HP is fully committed to the successful completion of the VT Drives project. The delay is unfortunate; however it is necessary to deliver a high-quality customized system and to implement additional changes as well as functionality that have been requested by the state,” Hewlett Packard spokeswoman Ericka Floyd said. “HP is fully focused on addressing the remaining technical issues, implementing the additional functionality requested and testing the application to bring the project to completion.”

Ide said the state considers the system that has been created to be fatally flawed, though a few of the new functions are working. “We do not believe the code as written will ever work as advertised,” he said.

Whether the state will recover its money or end up with a working computer system remains to be seen. The issue raises questions about the state’s antiquated computer network and its ability to keep pace with technology.

In the meantime, the Department of Motor Vehicles will maintain its old system, Ide said, with the worry that it could give out and leave the state without access to driver and auto registration records.

Though the system functions, Ide said, there are also consequences to its slowness. Recently, he said, a driver received new license plates on a Thursday, went to Montreal for the weekend and upon returning discovered at the border that the registration information hadn’t been updated in the computer.

The state signed a $10 million contract for a new Department of Motor Vehicles computer system in 2006 with Covansys Corp., the low bidder for a system that was dubbed VT DRIVES, or Vermont Driver and Registration Information and Verification Enterprise System.

In the ensuing six years, the state has spent another $8.5 million of staff time, consultants, hardware and software on the system, Ide said. The total comes to $18,553,047, he said, with the state’s last payment to Hewlett Packard in April 2011.

The state has also seen three more companies come through the door.

Covansys’ was bought out in short order and the contract was transferred to Saber Corp. in 2006, said Ellen Hemond of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Saber was then sold to Electronic Data Systems, which took over the contract in 2007.

EDS was bought out by Hewlett Packard in 2008, and the contract remained with EDS as a division of Hewlett Packard, but then in 2010, Hewlett Packard itself took over the contract, Hemond said.

Bonnie Rutledge, who retired in 2009, was commissioner of motor vehicles when the contract was signed in 2006. She recalled that the state was conscious of not being the lone guinea pig for a new system, and so contracted with a company that was working with other states.

Those states have had some of the same troubles with the vendors.

A 2011 article in the publication GoLocalProv reported, “Rhode Islanders have been paying millions of dollars for a new Department of Motor Vehicles computer system since 2007, but it has yet to even go on-line. ”

Revenue Director Rosemary Booth Gallogly said, “There were continuity issues (with the vendor).”

Finding a computer system that does everything a motor vehicle department needs is a challenge in every state, said Rutledge, who served as board chairwoman with the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators. The demands are complex as a wide variety of frequently changing data must be instantly accessible by police, courts, other state agencies and other states.

“I don’t know any state that has put in a completely new system,” Rutledge said.

Rutledge said some pieces of the new system are working. Some DMV transactions can be completed online because of it, she said.

Ide characterized the working portions as “tiny” compared with what is expected.

Vermont’s contract with Hewlett Packard expires Feb. 28, the date by which the state is supposed to have a fully functional, tested system. That won’t happen, Ide said.

“The code is deeply flawed. We have had numerous conversations with HP about this code,” Ide said. “We told them it’s fatal. They act as if it’s not so.”

The state has other contracts with Hewlett Packard, including for the purchase of many of its desktop computers and servers, said Richard Boes, state commissioner of the Department of Information and Innovation.

“Hewlett Packard has been largely a good vendor,” Boes said.

The predicament over the Department of Motor Vehicles system raises questions about the state’s overall computer operations.

Does it make sense for an individual department to go off in search of its own system, or should the state have one big system?

Boes, who joined Vermont state government last year, said it does make sense for the department to have its own system.

The Department of Motor Vehicles’ needs are unique, so it needs a system tailored to those needs. The key is to make sure it also integrates with other state agencies.

“You buy things in pieces,” Boes said. “If you bite off too much, sometimes you bite off more than you can chew.”

Not long after the state signed the contract for the motor vehicle system, it also contracted for a Tax Department computer system. That contract, for $7.8 million with CGI Group Inc. and Oracle, was signed in 2007 and the system went live in 2010, Tax Commissioner Mary Peterson said.

Though the system works, it also has had flaws, Peterson said. There were glitches in recording some collections, but the department was able to work with the vendors and consultants. Notably, the vendors did not change during the process.

Boes said he has advised Ide that if the Department of Motor Vehicles ends up having to pursue a new computer system that it wait until another state has found a successful one.

He said, though, that he still hopes Hewlett Packard will come through on this one.

Shumlin said on a more long-term basis, he wants the state to move to “cloud computing,” where the state no longer houses the servers but contracts out for that to be hosted elsewhere.

“It’s my belief state government should do what the Navy does,” Shumlin said. “Get out of the technology business and contract out to the cloud.”

Rep. Patrick Brennan, R-Colchester, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, which approved the contract and has monitored it since, said he believes changes in personnel with the vendors created a problem the state could not have foreseen.

“There’s no way we could have known those companies would be sold,” Brennan said.

Brennan and Senate Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Mazza, D-Grand Isle/Chittenden, said they would pressure the state to recoup its money, viewing $18 million as a sizable amount.

“We’ve got to continue to pursue this,” Mazza said.

If Vermonters were counting on their elected leaders to watchdog government spending, when it comes to computer systems, legislators bring little to the table. No single House or Senate committee has jurisdiction over computer purchases, and therefore, no committee develops expertise or a sense of the big picture.

“There is no oversight,” said Sen. Vince Illuzzi, R-Essex/Orleans. “It’s been done on an ad hoc basis.”

Sitting at a computer where he was struggling to learn to use Twitter, Illuzzi acknowledged many lawmakers are limited in their computer know-how, more so than with some of the more traditional functions of government.

“You can’t critically judge what you’re being sold,” he said.

Source:http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20120206/NEWS03/202060302/-18-million-computer-system-fails-DMV?odyssey=nav%7Chead

If you have ever wondered just how robust your computer is under the hood, Microsoft has a built-in feature in Windows Vista and Windows 7 that measures the hardware’s capability. Called the Windows Experience Index, the tool analyzes several of the computer’s hardware components to generate a “base score.” Microsoft says these base scores can be taken into consideration when buying new programs to run on the machine.

To see how your computer ranks, go to the Start menu to Control Panel. In the Control Panel’s search box, type “performance” and click the resulting Performance and Information Tools link. Microsoft has more detailed information on evaluating base scores and improving the computer’s performance at bit.ly/9eA8K5.

Source:http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_19899935

Taiwanese companies in the cloud computing industry, including Quanta Computer, Inventec and Chunghwa Telecom, will pool resources to build up a comprehensive hardware, software and applications supply chain to facilitate cooperation with China in the cloud computing technology and foray into a variety of global markets, local media reports said Monday.

The project, code-named “Cloud Valley,” will be launched at the end of this month, the reports said, adding that the project, similar to China’s “Cloud Base” pilot project, will provide integrated research and development, testing and certification, display, manpower incubation and business mediation services.

More than 20 local companies in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector have agreed to join the “Cloud Valley” project initiated by the Taiwan Clouding Computing Association (TCCA), according to the reports.

The following are excerpts from the local media coverage of the cloud computing supply chain development project:

Economic Daily News:

Under the “Cloud Valley” project, the cloud computing association will actively push for cooperation with China in cloud computing services and technology standardization.

Association staff said China is also working hard to boost its cloud computing technology and has set up over 10 cloud bases in Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and Shenzhen to accelerate application and innovation in cloud computing products, technologies, solutions and specific cases.

“There should be ample room for the two sides of the Taiwan Strait to cooperate in the cloud computing field,” said an association spokesman.

Cloud computing industry executives and engineering experts from Taiwan and China are scheduled to meet in July to discuss feasible cooperative programs, according to the spokesman.

At least 25 local companies, including Quanta, Chunghwa Telecom, Invectec, Asus and Wistron, have signed up for the “Cloud Valley” project to jointly explore mainland China’s cloud computing market which is worth an estimated 1 trillion Chinese yuan (US$158.3 billion), he said.

Noting that the government attaches great importance to cloud computing applications and innovation, the spokesman said Chunghwa Telecom Chairman Lu Hsueh-chin who concurrently heads TCCA and Invetec Chairman Richard Lee gave Vice President-elect Wu Den-yih a briefing on the “Cloud Valley” project last Friday. (Feb. 6, 2012).

Commercial Times:

Steve Chang, chairman and founder of Trend Micro, a leading computer security company, said in a recent interview that cloud computing will influence technology industry for at least 30 years.

“Cloud computing is still in an infant stage and both hardware and software business maps will be reshaped in the years ahead,” Chang said, adding that Taiwan must speed up development in hardware, software and applications in the cloud race.

He also predicted that Microsoft could benefit from the heated competition between the two information and communications industry giants Apple Inc. and Google Inc. (Feb. 6, 2012).

Source:http://focustaiwan.tw/ShowNews/WebNews_Detail.aspx?ID=201202060045&Type=aTOD

The Government Procurement Service has advertised for suppliers to join a wide-ranging £4bn ICT framework.

The framework will be open to public sector organisations for two years, according to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, and covers the following lots:

• Desktop client devices: which will include desktop computers, keyboards, mice and computer memory. The GPS says it expects three suppliers to be awarded agreements.

• Laptops equipment: including notebook devices, port replicators/docking stations, and associated equipment, for which four suppliers will be signed up.

• Tablet/slate devices: five suppliers will be awarded contracts.

• Monitor device equipment: to include wall brackets for monitors; desk stands for monitors and speakers, and three contractors are expected to be signed up.

• Thin client devices: contract awarded to three companies.

• Servers: to include tower, rack and blade servers, server chassis/standard racks, power supply units, server hard disks, hard disk arrays and server memory. Three suppliers will be signed up.

• Storage devices: delivered by three suppliers.

• Network switch devices: delivered by three suppliers.

• Desktop printers: to include printer memory, paper trays and power cables and delivered by five suppliers.

• ICT peripherals: awarded to three suppliers.

• Non-standard products related to desktop hardware, services and solutions, which will be awarded to five suppliers.

• Non-standard infrastructure hardware, services and solutions, for which eight companies are sought.

The framework will be open to include central government departments and their arm’s length bodies and agencies, non-departmental public bodies, NHS organisations and local councils.

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2012/feb/06/gps-four-billion-ict-framework?newsfeed=true

How can you make sure you’re getting the best picture on your computer monitor? There are a couple of ways you can go about this, depending on how serious you are about color calibration. If you’re an average computer user and just want your colors to match up approximately, there’s an easy way to go about this. If you do any photo or video editing, you may need to drop some cash into this process, but we’ll get to that in a moment. Let’s start with the basics.

Familiarize yourself with your display’s controls

Before you begin, make sure your display has been on for at least a half-hour (so it’s properly warmed up) and is set to its native screen resolution. Even if you use it at a different resolution (and we can’t imagine why), set it back to its native resolution while you calibrate it. Then, make sure you know your way around the controls for your display. This shouldn’t be difficult to do — just take a look at the front of the panel. You’ll likely see buttons near the power button to do things like switch inputs and open and navigate the on-screen options menu. These menus vary across display manufacturers, so there’s no one way to open these menus and navigate them, but you want to find your color, contrast and brightness controls. Once you find them, you’re ready to get started.

The quick and dirty method: Use the built-in calibration tool

First, reset your display to its default values. Even if you’re played with the on-screen controls in the past, you don’t want any errors of the past to change how you use your monitor today. Use the on-screen menus to reset the display to the manufacturer’s defaults. Then you can use your computer’s built-in calibration tool to tweak the display to your liking.

Mac OS and Windows both have built-in display calibration utilities that walk you through a series of steps to build and save a calibration profile. In Windows, the display calibration tool is in the Display Control Panel, and in Mac OS, if you open the Display System Preferences and click the Color tab, you’ll see the button to calibrate. The calibration tool will walk you through configuring your computer’s contrast and brightness, color temperature, and gamma correction, and will adjust the image from your computer’s graphics card on the fly as you make changes.

The pricier, more accurate method: Buy a calibration tool

Going by sight should be enough for people who just want to be able to watch a YouTube video or browse their photo library without everything looking weird, but professionals need a level of accuracy that by-sight calibration may not offer. If you do any kind of photo editing, video editing, or rely on the color accuracy of your displays for your work, you may want to take calibrating your monitors a step further and spend a few bucks on calibration software and a colorimeter. A colorimeter is a device that attaches to the front of your display and “sees” the color levels generated by your display and adjusts your OS to compensate. Some of them even support multiple displays, and can walk you through adjusting the settings for each display to get the best possible color values.

The Spyder4Pro from Datacolor will set you back about $170 retail, connects to your computer via USB, and mounts on the face of your monitor to automatically calibrate it for you. The Spyder4Pro is designed primarily for people who need to calibrate their display against color prints, so if you’re more concerned with the way images look on-screen, you can get by with the Spyder4Express for $119 retail, which still offers instant and automatic calibration, even though it’s missing a few features from the Pro model (most notably the ability to adapt to ambient light levels.)

You may also consider the SprectraCal CalPC, another tool specifically designed for computer displays, even though it’s a bit pricier ($299 retail.) CalPC even has the ability to control your monitor’s display settings directly, so you don’t have to fiddle with the display’s on-screen menu at all. Just adjust the settings in the app, and your display will adjust itself to match.

For multi-monitor setups: Test patterns on both displays

If you have more than one display connected to your computer, you’ll need to use a combination of your OS’s tools and the on-screen settings. Start by using your computer’s calibration utility, the way we described above. When you’ve finished building a color profile, it’s time to take the OS out of the equation and make adjustments using the panel’s display settings.

First, you’ll need some test patterns. You can find some great ones at the Lagom LCD monitor test pages, or you can walk through the steps at DisplayCalibration.com to get started.
Open the test patterns on both displays. Open two browser windows to the same patterns, or open two image viewers with the same pattens in both. Maximize them on both displays and take a look at the differences.
Make subtle changes on the second display to try and match the first. The steps you’ll follow here are very similar to how you calibrate your HDTV. You’ll need to adjust the contrast and brightness against black and white gradient patterns, and you’ll need to adjust the color levels (red-green-blue) against some color test patterns. Since you calibrated your OS against the first display, that monitor should look the way you like. The goal now is to make the second one look just like the first one. You may need to make some subtle changes to the primary display, but don’t go overboard — the first display is supposed to be your control, and if you adjust it too much you won’t have a point of reference.
When you finish, bring up a photo on both displays. Make sure your test photo looks the same on both displays. If you can, set both displays to the same wallpaper and examine them that way. You’re just using your eyes, but it’s a good way to make sure that your colors and contrast look the same. If you see something off, open up the on-panel display controls and tweak them.

You can try to just set both displays to the same color settings and walk away, but even though color temperatures are supposed to be the same across all devices, manufacturing and design differences in different manufacturer’s panels can mean that 6500k on a Sony display can look significantly different than 6500k on a Dell display. Using test patterns first, and then validating using images or photos that you’d actually spend time viewing is a much better option.

Whatever you do, do something

You don’t need to spend a lot of money on color calibration for your LCD display unless you need color fidelity between printed materials and your image and video editing tools, or you’re just a video and graphics fanatic and need to make sure that everything is just right. Like we mentioned, for most people, the on-board calibration tool or spending a little time with some test patterns will be enough to make sure your friends don’t look like aliens when you open their Facebook photos.

Still, even if you haven’t noticed any issues with your LCD display, it’s worth calibrating it at least once. The process is especially useful if you have multiple displays that are different sizes or from different manufacturers, or if you’re upgrading to a new one. The only thing you have to lose is a few minutes, and you’ll get a much better picture from your monitors as a result. Good luck!

Source:http://gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/06/10333091-calibrate-your-computers-monitor-for-the-best-picture

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) launched a two-year product roadmap in which the company will shift toward making system-on-a-chip products for narrower market segments, such as cloud-powering datacenters and ultra-thin laptops that Windows PC makers hope will grab share from Apple’s MacBook Air.

What will not be available from AMD until 2014 are chips that can compete against ARM and Intel in the tablet market, which grew quickly last year at the expense of desktops and mainstream laptops. While tablets are in its sights in the future, the company has not released plans for smartphones, another fast-growing segment of the computer industry.

AMD laid out its roadmap at its annual meeting with financial analysts at its Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters. In describing their strategy to drive profits, executives said the company would not try to match Intel product for product. “You do not have to be the best at everything, but you have to be the best at a few things,” Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Global Business Units, AMD, said.

Those things include Trinity, AMD’s second-generation accelerated processing unit targeted at ultra-thin laptops. APUs is what AMD calls its combined CPU and graphics processor on the same die. AMD is shipping Trinity to computer makers, which are expected to start selling product at midyear. During her presentation, Su showed a reference design of an ultra-thin notebook from Taiwanese computer maker Compal Electronics. The system was seven-tenths of an inch thick.

An advantage Trinity will have over Intel’s competing Ivy Bridge processor is price, according to AMD. The company believes computer makers who use its chip can ship ultra-thins in the $600 to $800 range, which is $100 to $200 less than systems currently in the market.

Trinity’s successor in 2013 is code-named Kaveri, which will include elements of a new chip design called heterogeneous systems architecture. HSA, which is not expected to reach maturity until 2014, will boost performance through more internal bandwidth and by having a shared memory pool between the graphics processor and CPU. In addition, both processors can be used to run a common software application.

Besides ultra-thin computers, AMD’s roadmap reflects a focus on low-power processors for mainstream laptops and servers. For notebooks, AMD is shipping this year its second-generation Brazo APU and the ultra-low-power Hondo APU. Next year, the company plans to ship their successors, Kabini and Temash, respectively. These two products will be AMD’s first system-on-a-chip, which means they will include AMD’s Fusion Controller Hub chipset on the same die. FCH powers interfaces for devices that support high-speed connectors, such as USB 3.0.

In 2013, AMD plans to move all its desktop and notebook processors to 28 nanometers. Today, AMD has chips that are 40 nm, 32 nm and 28 nm. The smaller the chip architecture, the better the performance at lower power.

Missing from the lineup is a processor capable of running at 2 watts, while delivering the same or greater performance than the ARM chips used in tablets. AMD is not expected to have a product for that space until 2014. “We are going to go after that with a vengeance,” Su said of the tablet market.

AMD will focus on low power within its server product line. The company is aiming for datacenters that power today’s cloud environments, which typically have lots of processors on a single server running a variety of applications on virtual machines. Such systems require low power chips to reduce heat and lower cooling costs.

AMD is shipping this year Valencia, the code name for AMD’s energy-efficient server chip for one- and two-processor servers, while Zurich is for one processor systems used in Web hosting and Web servers. Their successors next year will be “Seoul” and “Delhi,” respectively. The latter chips will introduce new processor cores, codenamed Piledriver.

A key element to AMD’s overall strategy is getting developers to build software for its future SoCs. The goal is to provide the tools, so developers can write applications in C++, a common coding language, and run them on the graphics processor and CPU. Today, graphics processors require a different set of development tools.

“It’s really going to unlock developers to take advantage of the full compute capability,” Mark Papermaster, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, AMD, said.

AMD is hoping to attract third parties to work with it in building technology platforms for computer makers, freeing it from having to build everything on its own. This is a key difference with the much larger Intel, which controls everything from design to manufacturing. AMD’s chips are built by Globalfoundries, which took over the company’s former manufacturing operations.

Whether AMD can build an eco-system with developers and partners to compete with Intel, which has the money to acquire companies with the technology it needs, remains to be seen, Sergis Mushell, Analyst, Gartner said.

“Intel will buy pieces of the pie. AMD most likely will be partnering … the market will decide which strategy sounds more compelling,” Mushell said.

In August 2011, AMD named Rory Read, a Lenovo Executive, President and Chief Executive. Read replaced Derrick Meyer, who resigned in January. In November, Read cut 1,400 jobs, or about 10 percent of the company’s workforce, as part of a restructuring.

In the fourth quarter of last year, AMD reported a $177 million loss, due mostly to a write-down caused by manufacturing problems at Globalfoundries that left some chips in short supply. That problem, according to AMD executives, has been corrected.

Overall, there are indications that the company is stabilizing. Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services recently placed AMD on watch for a ratings increase, saying the company has shown higher and more stable levels of profitability over the last two years. AMD currently has a B-plus rating, which is four levels below investment grade.

Read assured analysts Thursday that the company was ready to execute on its strategy and win back market share. “This is our time. This is a different AMD,” he said.

Source:http://www.crn.in/Hardware-003Feb012-AMD-Restructures-Around-System-On-A-Chip-Roadmap.aspx

There’s a new tablet in town (well, on its way to town, at least) called the Spark. The Linux-based tablet, based on the Zenithink C71, was announced several days ago, but the fellow behind the project, KDE developer Aaron Seigo, released more details on his blog in a convenient Q&A format.

He revealed that the tablet (about $265 USD) will be available for pre-order this week and will start shipping worldwide in May. In terms of specifications, the 7-inch (800×480) multi-touch tablet will run a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor and Mali-400 GPU and sport 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage (with a microSD slot for expandability), 802/11b/g WiFi, a pair of USB ports, a front-facing 1.3MP webcam, and an audio jack.

There are plans to add 3G and GPS functionality in later versions of the tablet, as well as beefed-up hardware specs. The UI of choice is Plasma Active, and there will apparently be a content store where developers can peddle their wares and users can snag software.

The Spark project isn’t just some cheap tablet being churned out half-heartedly by a company looking to cash in on the latest tech craze. This looks to be a labor of love for Seigo and others behind Spark, and it’s rooted in their ideology.

“The people who get to use these tablets will have in their hands a device that is more than an application bucket that sees them as a consumer,” said Seigo in the original blog post announcing Spark. “They will have a device that places value on who they are and what they are doing. This lies at the heart of Activities in Plasma Active and the open software stack will drive that trend further. Perhaps best of all: there’s no walled garden to get locked into or which can be taken away.”

Spark isn’t likely to suddenly glom tablet market share away from Apple and Google, but competition of any kind is good for consumers, and this particular project presents an attractive tablet alternative to those who chafe at what industry behemoths offer.

Seigo also noted that the tablet will indeed blend, although that would void the warranty.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Details-Emerge-About-the-Spark-LinuxBased-Tablet/

Windows-based Skype users have reason to be enthused with the unveiling of version 5.8. New features include full HD video calls, Facebook audio and video calling, push to talk functionality, and group screen sharing.

Assuming you have a capable webcam such as the Logitech C920 (so suggests the blog announcement), users can now make video calls in HD. Though still in beta, the Facebook calling feature should appeal to a wide range of users; it enables you to make audio or video calls to your Facebook friends, even if they aren’t Skype users. The new push to talk feature is designed for (nay, requested by) gamers who want to be able to use a hotkey to switch the mic on and off while Skyping.

The group screen share, available only with Skype Premium, is function primarily aimed at business users who need to be able to show multiple parties a documents, slide presentation, Excel sheet, and so on. Of course, it’s also a nice feature for family and friends to share photos and the like.

Below is the complete list of new features, and below that is a list of all the issues version 5.8 should fix.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Skype-Rolls-Out-New-Features-With-Version-58-for-Windows/

Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of NAND flash solutions, today announces their Quadra series, overclocked, quad-channel DDR3 memory kits, targeted at the extreme enthusiast market.

Gamers and enthusiasts already know about Intel’s i7-3960X 6-Core processors and now they are scrambling to find DRAM worthy of their new rig. The Quadra, DDR3 Quad-kits, come in 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz and pairs perfectly with the i7 processors, which now handles 4 channels of memory. By fully populating all 8 slots of memory with Super Talent’s 4GB DIMMs, users will experience reduced loading times with all their high-system-requirement programs. Now more time can be spent using a computer than waiting on it.

Validated using the X79 chipset, the 1600 MHz and 1866 MHz overclocking DDR3 DIMMs are now available either individually or as a kit of four modules. Visit www.supertalent.com to learn more or call us to see how you can experience an amazingly responsive system using the latest technology today!

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Super-Talent-Outs-Overclocked-QuadChannel-DDR3-Memory/

There are applications that benefit from the tablet form factor, but they may also include so much data entry that a keyboard is mandatory. So why not combine the two in some sort of flexible, multi-purpose design? That’s the thought behind convertible notebooks. They look like regular laptop computers, but thanks to a special display hinge, the screen part can be rotated so that the device can be used as a tablet. This concept has been around for quite some time, but usually only with relatively small screens (10.4 or 12.1 inches). The Samwell Group has been offering one with a larger 13.3-inch screen for several years, and the product has now undergone a major tech update, one large enough to warrant a new name. So those familiar with the RUGGEDBOOK SR858, welcome the new RUGGEDBOOK 970.

Before I go into the various tech upgrades in the new unit, here’s what this platform is and represents. It is a full-size notebook with a 13.5 x 10 inch footprint and a large 13.3-inch display. That’s a larger display than either Panasonic or Getac offer in their convertible notebooks. The machine is no lightweight at about nine pounds and it’s over two inches thick, but that’s par for the course for this class of rugged machines. The display uses the “wide” 16:10 aspect ratio format that has been a standard in consumer laptops for several years, and is gradually also becoming the new standard in rugged notebooks. 1280 x 800 pixel WXGA resolution provides enough screen real estate for complex work, and the display is sunlight readable. A resistive touch screen comes standard with the machine, but there is no conventional Tablet PC electromagnetic digitizer.

First and foremost, you get a lot more punch. The SR858 was powered by a 1.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7500 processor, a chip that provides good benchmark performance and has a very low thermal design power of just 10 watts. But it’s also a processor design that dates back to 2006 where slow clock speeds and low voltage designs were needed to enable fanless construction and decent battery life. Since then, hardware and software power management have come a long way, and it’s now possible to use much faster chips with no penalty on battery life or heat generation. What this means is that Samwell could switch to a processor with almost twice the clock speed (and almost three times in Turbo mode) without having to add a fan and without any loss of battery life.

So under the hood of the new 970 is no longer a lowly one gigahertz processor, but a much more powerful and sophisticated 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7-620LM. We have not benchmarked the 970 yet, but we’ve tested other machines with this chip, and overall performance should be twice to triple that of the SR858. Yet, Samwell still claims the same battery life of “5+ hours in normal use.” How is that possible? In part because the new Core processors, combined with Windows 7’s much better power management, result in much more economical operation. We measured a minimum power draw of 12.8 watts in the old SR858, but benchmarked the i7-620LM chip in similar packages at only around 9 watts. So since Samwell also increased battery capacity from 86 to 93 watt-hours, we wouldn’t be surprised if the 5+ hour estimate were on the conservative side.

That said, there is one change in the new 970 that will use extra battery, and that’s the new superbright 1,000 nits sunlight-readable display. 1,000 nits compares to only about 200 nits in a consumer notebook. The SR858 was already quite readable outdoors, and the significantly brighter display of the 970 will be much more so (and will also match the rugged competition), but having it on full bright all the time would be a battery drain.

Compared to the new processor, other changes are comparatively smaller. The machine now uses the Intel QM57 chipset and employs the Core-i7’s integrated graphics. Maximum RAM is up from 4 to 8GB, and it’s of the faster DDR3 1066 variety. Storage is still via a shock-mounted 2.5-inch 250GB hard disk. A media bay accommodates a SuperMulti DVD-ROM drive.

The 87-key keyboard is full-scale, waterproof, backlit, and special keys for screen rotation, the virtual keyboard, wireless, brigtness, and the LED keyboard light.

The computer offers good connectivity with three USB 2.0 ports (we’d like to see USB 3.0), video (HDMI would be nice) and audio, gigabit RJ45 LAN, an RJ11 modem jack, as well as a legacy RS232 serial port and a docking connector. The PC Card slot has been replaced with an Express card 34/54 slot, and there are SD Card, SIM and Smart Card slot. On the wireless side, there is Bluetooth Class II, Version 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, 802.11a/g/n WiFi, and also optional GPS and wireless wide area network functionality in various flavors.

The 970 is a very rugged platform with a sturdy magnesium alloy housing and ample protection both inside the unit (via shock mounting) and outside (via rubber bumpers and impact and scratch-resistant materials and surface treament. Samwell successfully tested the 970 per MIL-STD-810G for drops, temperature, thermal shock, vibration, humidity and altitude, and also claims IP65 level sealing, where the “6″ means the device is totally dustproof, and the “5″ that it can handle low-pressure water jets from all directions.

Security is always an issue, and Samwell addressed that by including a TPM 1.2 module, several levels of password protection, a finger print reader, and, for physical protection, a Kensington standard lock slot. An optional vehicle mounting case and VESA arm allow for deployment in various settings.

While there are a few other ruggedized notebook convertibles, as of this date still none offer the RUGGEDBOOK 970’s combination of a large, wide-format display, fanless design, and full-size keyboard. And the switch to an Intel Core i7 platform greatly boosts performance compared to the predecessor SR858 model.

Source:http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_ruggedbook_970.html

Sony’s New CEO Sees a Tough Road Ahead. As reported earlier this week, Sony’s current Executive Deputy President and Chairman of its Computer Entertainment (SCE) arm, 51-year-old Kazuo Hirai, will serve as President and CEO of Sony Corporation starting April 1. He now admits that taking the reigns of Sony is a much tougher, bigger challenge than when he took the reigns of SCE back in 2006.

“I thought turning around the PlayStation business was going to be the toughest challenge of my career, but I guess not,” he told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. “It’s one issue after another. I feel like ‘Holy s—, now what?’”

He said the company will be in serious trouble if it doesn’t make adjustments, if it doesn’t set aside past successes in manufacturing and focus on the user experience itself. That means shaking up the corporate structure which he blames as the reason behind the lack of product innovation and for keeping with prior tradition. That also means cutting costs like he did with the PlayStation business four years after Sony reported a horrid multi-billion loss.

“Sony cannot continue walking on the same path,” Hirai said on Thursday. “Sony needs to find new business areas, such as medical. We also need to select and narrow our business portfolio.” He added that the key questions for hardware in production at Sony should be “What can you do with the product? What are your services? What kind of content do you have?”

“It’s not just about the hardware product, it’s about the user experience,” he said.

Hirai joined the company back in 1984 by signing on with Sony Music. In 1995, he was assigned to run SCE America (or SCEA) where he played a vital role in the original PlayStation console’s success. Then in 2006 he replaced Ken Kutaragi as SCE President with orders to restore profits after Kutaragi revealed that the PlayStation 3 would lose more than $2 billion in its first year.

One of the changes Hirai plans to make will be the way Sony itself develops products. Previously different business groups mapped out products independently — a method Hirai said lead to a bloated and disjointed portfolio. “We’re going to tell you what you are going to make—not the other way around,” Hirai said. “This is a complete sea change.”

On Thursday Sony said it expects to make a loss of $2.9 billion in the year ending March 31. That’s more than double its previous estimate. Yet Sony shares rose as much as 8.9-percent in Tokyo trading, the biggest daily gain since 2009.

Source:http://www.sananews.net/english/2012/02/sonys-new-ceo-sees-a-tough-road-ahead/

Google first helped us to find stuff and then communicate with its Gmail services. Amazon sold us stuff, first books and then pretty much everything. Facebook let us find out whether our friends were or . Apple sold pretty devices for listening to songs and watching films. Each of these companies was happy doing its own thing and left the others alone.

Now those divisions are breaking down. The big tech firms are on a cybercollision course. Thanks to new hardware, notably tablet computers and smartphones, new software and apps and a world blanketed by wi-fi and 3G (and soon 4G), we work, rest and play online more and more.

We read newspapers on our tablets, listen to music on our iPods or MP3 players, book a restaurant table or a cinema ticket on our smartphones, store our photographs on Flickr and look at our personal and professional email, documents and calendars online.

As the market for digital stuff expands, doing only one thing, however well, is no longer so attractive for tech firms because it’s no longer so lucrative.

What Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Larry Page want to do is to become the sole caterer to all our burgeoning digital needs.

The more services they can offer, the more users they can attract, the more services they can sell us and the more advertising revenue they can generate. The battle to become chief executive of the web is on.

Zuckerberg’s initial public offering is a key part of his attempt to run the web. Facebook may have more than 800 million users but it is small. Last year it had revenues, largely from selling advertisements, of $US3.7 billion ($3.4bn), as against Google’s $US38bn in 2010. To expand, Zuckerberg needs cash and plenty of it.

In May, after the IPO, he will have a war chest of $US5bn. That will enable him to join his rivals in the fab four as each spends big to try to digitise and revolutionise every corner of our lives, taking a slice out of each transaction that results.

How will they do this? Being successful in Silicon Valley means being good at keeping secrets, but here are some of the products that insiders say each firm has hidden up its hoodie sleeves.

Facebook will offer better social networking and communication. It has copied some of the most lauded features of Google’s new social networking service Google+. It promises a broader, more social email-style system that Facebookers insist will replace what they call “old-fashioned” Gmail.

Facebook is flirting with the idea of taking on Google’s core business with its own search service. Not one based on results in cyberspace, however well sifted by algorithms, but on the data provided by you, me and our friends.

A Facebook phone, with photos and status updates uploaded to a Facebook page with a single click, is on the way.

Facebook is joining movie website Netflix, music streaming service Spotify and games maker Zynga to bring us Facebook TV, Facebook movies, Facebook music and Facebook games based on our own preferences and our friends’ recommendations.

There are even Facebook credits, a virtual currency bought with real money that Facebookers use to play computer games. The goal is to make us live wholly inside Facebook’s walled garden, a place Zuckerberg insists with boyish enthusiasm “is going to be really, really good”.

Sadly for Zuckerberg, he has competition from the neighbours and they have an even bigger stash of cash. Apple, which has $US98bn to spend, almost as much ready cash as the US government, has the most popular smartphone model on the market, the iPhone, and the most popular tablet computer, the iPad.

Cook, who took over Apple after Steve Jobs resigned from the chief executive job not long before his death last year, is determined to make them even better. He has, for example, integrated Twitter throughout Apple’s line-up, enabling us to tweet from any app, a feature clearly aimed at dulling Facebook’s mobile growth.

Cook is also working on iPad, iPod and iTunes services that he believes will trump Facebook’s music, movies, TV and games offerings. He wants to sell us e-books through the iBooks part of iTunes, to lure us away from Amazon. Apple’s new iCloud service enables us to write and store our documents, spreadsheets, email, contacts and calendar on Apple’s servers and access them on any device we want, even ones we do not own, in a direct challenge to Google’s online computing services.

Cook is also readying a web-enabled Apple TV. The idea is that we will buy programs and films using iTunes. Television is the most important mass medium yet to be breached by the digital world.

Just down the road from Facebook, Google’s whizzo brains have stopped lounging on beanbags and crunching granola bars while lecturing the world on the virtues of not being evil and started knuckling down to the gritty business of grinding Zuckerberg’s and Cook’s noses into the techno-dirt.

Google has its own version of the iPhone. It’s not a single phone but any handset that runs its Android software. Android phones comfortably outsell iPhones, accounting for almost half of all smartphones sold worldwide. Google has launched a web-based Google TV service, offering programs streamed via the web. It is using Google+ to make its search results more social, to combat Zuckerberg’s social search ambitions. It has launched Google Music, to offer songs, and it owns YouTube, where we can now watch or rent TV programs and films.

In development in Mountain View, Google’s headquarters, is Google Wallet, an online payment program that will enable us to buy stuff by waving our phone at a shop’s paypad.

Google already makes mobile phones in partnership with HTC and Samsung, and recently it spent $US12.5bn snapping up Motorola’s consumer division. It is readying its first own-label, Motorola-built mobile phones and tablet computers to tackle Apple head-on and is even flirting with becoming a telephone service provider.

“We’re still at the very, very early stages of what technology can do,” Page says.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost auto-magical.”

And what of Amazon, that other West Coast behemoth that nearly doubled in size between 2008 and 2010 and hit almost $US50bn in annual revenues last year? It has new hardware, the Kindle Fire, which helpfully comes loaded with the account details of Amazon users, making it easier than ever to buy stuff. The Fire also boasts social networking that connects Amazon users with others who share tastes in books and films, a direct challenge to Facebook.

Amazon offers a new app shop, a new online payment system, TV and movie streaming and cloud computing for individuals and businesses.

As they jostle for position, each of the tech titans is as busy talking down the opposition as it is talking itself up.

Apple has vowed to “destroy” Google’s Android mobile phone and tablet computer operating system, which senior executives dismiss as “theft” of Apple technology. Apple is suing manufacturers of Android devices all over the world for patent infringement.

Google’s response? “Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures.”

Facebook hired the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to plant negative stories about Google. When it got caught, it said sorry.

This is what happens when an entire industry reboots itself. The great tech war of 2012 marks the start of the third age of computing. In the beginning, firms battled to sell us hardware. It was IBM vs Apple vs whatever beige box we liked the look of. Then hardware became a commodity and firms competed to sell us better software — Microsoft Windows v Apple OS v Google’s online services.

Now, in the mobile internet age, firms are battling to create the best online platform, offering a vast, seamlessly connected suite of anytime, anywhere services that we use all day, every day and that become as much a part of our lives as the air we breathe. Creating the dominant platform matters so much because it will give the winning firm the lion’s share of the world’s eyeballs. More eyeballs means more direct sales of hardware, software and services, and advertising. But eyeballs offer something even more valuable, something tech firms prize more than anything else: data.

Every time you or I log on to Google, Facebook, Amazon or iTunes, we leave digital fingerprints. With our search queries, our “likes”, the songs we listen to, the TV programs we watch, the books we buy and our tweets, we reveal who we are. Thanks to our computer’s IP address and location-based technology in mobile phones, we also disclose where we are.

This accurate, real-life, real-time information is an invaluable treasury. It enables Google and Facebook to offer advertisers the chance to reach their target market and even to advertise to them at particular times of the day and in places where they are most likely to respond. Facebook, whose data is even more valuable because we tell it more about ourselves and it knows who our friends are, is desperate to start using it to ramp up its ad sales to Google-like proportions.

Analysts think the digital advertising sector could be worth $US200bn by 2020.

There’s a problem here, of course. Apart from Apple’s natty hardware and all the big players’ software and apps, critics say the fab four create little or nothing. What they do is make all the money in the world by exploiting other people’s stuff.

Most of the content we find when we do a Google search is created by others, but Google sells ads against the search. The content creators do not receive a share of the ad revenue.

Google points out that its search engine sends users to the content creators’ websites, where each can try to make money itself.

Amazon sells books at prices lower than publishers and booksellers say is fair. Facebook does not create the data it uses to sell advertising. We agree to hand the data over when we sign up and we do not get to opt out.

Apple pays record labels for the music it sells through iTunes but keeps a big chunk of sales revenue for itself: iTunes now in effect runs the music industry.

With an eye to the bottom line, the fab four bitterly resist any attempt to stop them exploiting one another’s content. Each spends billions on lobbying politicians to drive home their case that any regulation of the internet would impinge on free speech and free trade. Who could object to freedom, right?

Well, more and more of us. Newspapers, including this one, have set up paywalls to ensure readers pay for high-quality journalism rather than simply getting it free. Hollywood studios, which are battling piracy, are backing the (now shelved) Stop Online Piracy Act in America, which aims to make internet service providers do more to respect copyright. Facebook is facing a backlash from users over its decision to publish all their posts in a timeline that creates a permanent online diary of its users’ lives for all to see.

In her new book, I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy, Lori Andrews, an American law professor, calls for a new constitution governing how web firms can exploit our data and the content generated by traditional businesses.

How do the hi-tech firms respond to critics? They don’t care much, and since they are making more money than god, who can blame them? For now, regulators show little interest in clipping tech firms’ wings. Most consumers seem pretty happy, too.

Polls — and sales — show that our desire for a connected future vastly outweighs any concerns we may have that we will become slaves to the machine.

Ultimately, it is you and I who will decide the victor of the great tech war of 2012. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have gone from being the dreams of the young and the obsessions of the stubborn to a place in the dictionary because almost everyone reading this article uses them. Whichever we keep logging on to will keep growing. Whichever we lose interest in won’t.

Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/race-to-win-cyber-world/story-e6frg6z6-1226263165917

On Thursday Google revealed a new security feature for the Android Market store that’s designed to protect Android users from malware. But does the service go far enough?

The new service, called ‘Bouncer,’ is designed to quietly and automatically scan the entire Android Market (and all new apps uploaded) for malware.

Hiroshi Lockheimer, VP of engineering for Android, explains how it works:

The service performs a set of analyses on new applications, applications already in Android Market, and developer accounts. Here’s how it works: once an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analyzing it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags. We actually run every application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulate how it will run on an Android device to look for hidden, malicious behavior. We also analyze new developer accounts to help prevent malicious and repeat-offending developers from coming back.

Lockheimer also revealed hat this service has already been operational ‘for a while now’ and that between the first and second halves of 2011 Google saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market.

But is this enough? BitDefender’s chief threat researcher Catalin Cosoi doesn’t think so, and believes that malware writers will find a way to circumvent the screening mechanism:

Also, based on our experience with malware analysis, malware writers will seek a way around security. For instance, in the PC malware world, we use virtual machines to analyse behavior of different samples we discover. Obviously, in time, malware writers added different routines to detect if the virus runs in a real computer or in a virtual environment, and they modified their software to act legit when running in a control environment. We might see the same phenomenon here, as Bouncer is a service that will emulate all apps uploaded on the Android Market. Not to mention that the Android API offers the possibility to detect if the app runs in an emulator or directly on the devices. So there is a high chance that we’ll see apps behaving correctly when used on a simulator and turning malicious when used on the mobile device.

Another more immediate problem with ‘Bouncer’ is that the service doesn’t scan for what’s known as ‘greyware,’ a category that includes hings such as spyware, adware, and aggressive ad platforms. This stuff isn’t technically malware, but it’s also not desirable to have it installed on your handset either (it’s annoying and can suck bandwidth).

I see ‘Bouncer’ as a small step in the right direction. Google could (and in my opinion, should) do more to protect Android users from the ever increasing number of threats that they face.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/googles-android-market-bouncer-does-it-offer-enough-protection/17981