Display Port Finally Cometh

Computer users will see VESA’s new video interface in shipping products (we mean it this time)

It’s been a long time coming, but once the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) approved the DisplayPort 1.1 specifi cation in April,it became all but certain the digital interface would replace DVI and VGA in computer products. After all, the interface standard—which is capable of meeting the demands of high-def video and copy-protected content—has the blessing of many PC industry heavyweights. Those companies are now stepping up with announcements about forthcoming products that will feature the new connector. First, there was word of Dell’s prototype half-inchthick LCD that uses DisplayPort and which is rumored to be shipping late this year. Now Samsung has stated its plans to use DisplayPort (as opposed to Dual-Link DVI) in its next 2560x1600 30-inch panel. And AMD, as well, says, “We will begin shipping native DisplayPort interfaces on our graphics products in early 2008.”

Program, Optimize Thyself

AMD proposes psychic extensions for CPUs

AMD is floating a set of new instructions that could make it easier for programs to tune themselves. Called Lightweight Profiling (LWP), the new instructions would become part of AMD’s AMD64 instruction set.
LWP would add little overhead yet give applications direct feedback from the CPU on how a process for the application is running. If the process is generating excessive cache misses, branch mispredictions, or thread locks, the app—with real-time feedback from the CPU—would, in theory, correct the problem and run faster. LWP could help programmers in the daunting task of optimizing for the increasing number of execution cores in PCs. That number is predicted to reach from eight to 16 within a year or two. AMD hasn’t said when LWP will be integrated into its CPUs, but it will apparently not be available in upcoming quad-core Opteron and Phenom FX CPUs.

Game /Art

“Games are not art.” I said as much, rather pompously, in this spot many years ago. It generated as much reaction as I ever received, oddly enough. Gamers want to believe their passion is more than just a diversion—that it could aspire to greatness, even transcendence. A friend of mine, a game designer, insisted that games were merely awaiting their Orson Welles. In other words, the medium merely needed an auteur to come along to create and refine a new vocabulary for this form that would lift it to the realm of capital A Art. The games-as-art debate got a bit of a jump start recently with a back-and-forth between film critic Roger Ebert and author/director Clive Barker. Ebert made the case that games can’t be “high art” and Barker said that they can. Ebert was a bit of snot, but he’s right for the wrong reason. He claims that interactivity, what Barker called the “malleability” of the forms and narratives of games, removes it from the realm of high art.
That’s only half right, and BioShock made it a little clearer to me just why that’s the case. If any game can make a claim to be Art, its BioShock, which deals with weighty issues, is beautifully stylized, and breaks the bounds of the medium. Even its use of Randian Objectivism as the source of its dystopia is strikingly original and persuasive. It is clearly the product of artists: writers, visual artists, musicians, sound artists, and designers. But it’s not, in the aggregate, Art, for a simple reason. Gamers are not lining up to play BioShock for its Objectivist discourse: They are lining up to play, to explore, to solve puzzles, to shoot things. The main purpose of a work defines it as Art, not the incidentals. The main purpose of a game is to be played, like football or poker or kick the can. However rich a narrative, whatever depths of philosophy or human nature or character are explored along the way, these are not the point of the game. They may be central concerns of the creator (artist?), but they are incidental to the gamer: fine wallpaper for the abattoir.

JOURNALISTS SUE HP

It’s been a year since Hewlett-Packard officials were caught spying on company board members and journalists to root out a media leak, but the issue is getting renewed attention. Several journalists from the Associated Press and News.com are filing suit against HP, citing invasion of privacy and violation of California’s business code. HP had earlier offered the affected parties a financial settlement, which they rejected.

LIMEWIRE GOES LEGIT

Following the leads of Napster and BitTorrent, LimeWire is looking to put its peer-to-peer prowess toward the service of good. The company, whose eponymous P2P software has been popular with content pirates, hopes to gain a more wholesome following with a new online portal that offers only legal content. A stand-alone website, which will eventually be accessible via the LimeWire software, will connect people to legitimate DRM-free music for a competitive price. So far, LimeWire has struck deals with two indie music publishers.

ABC.COM STREAMS HD

ABC.com is stepping up its online strategy by now streaming many of the network’s shows in HD. The site’s HD channel is still in beta, but theoretically, a person with a monitor capable of high-def resolutions (at least 1280x720), a broadband Internet connection, and the affiliated media player by Move Networks can view entire television shows, such as Lost, Ugly Betty, and Grey’s Anatomy, in HD for free over the web.

Universal Tests DRM-Free Tunes

Could DRM be making an exit? Universal Music Group recently announced that it will sell DRM-free MP3s through a variety of vendors, including Amazon, through January 2008, as an experiment. One place you won’t be able to get the unencumbered music tracks, though, is iTunes. Universal says it’s using Apple’s store as a control group, but we think the test could prove whether it’s possible to break Apple’s dominance over digital distribution. Universal will use digital watermarks to identify songs that have been downloaded via the service; the watermarks won’t contain a unique user identifier but will presumably be used to see which of the songs are shared by P2P users.
We hope Universal’s experiment will convince the company that it’s more profitable to ensure fair use than it is to treat its customers like criminals.

Malicious Wiki Edits Exposed!

WikiScanner reveals who’s been cleaning up their own pages and slamming the competition someone at the BBC seems to think Dubya’s middle name is Wanker. A new program called WikiScanner (http://wikiscanner.virgil.gr/), which automatically matches Wikipedia edits to the IP addresses they came from, reveals instances of vandalism, whitewashing, and trickery by everyone from the FBI to the Vatican to the BBC. While most of the edits are mild and quickly rectified, others are more insidious. Users from Exxon, Microsoft, and the Turkish government have been caught removing references to, respectively, the ecological impact of the Exxon Valdez spill, Xbox 360 failure rates, and the Armenian genocide. WikiScanner, which was written by grad student Virgil Griffith, shows that not all users of the peer-edited encyclopedia have transparency in mind. Thankfully, finding these conflict-of-interest edits just got a whole lot easier.

The Future of CPU Integration

For years now, AMD has been crowing about the integrated DDR controller in its processors— something Intel’s chips don’t have. Integrating the memory controller with the CPU definitely has performance advantages, but what’s the next step in CPU integration?
For clues, consider Sun Microsystems’s new server processor, the UltraSPARC T2 (code-named Niagara 2). The first thing everyone notices about this “server on a chip” is that it has eight 64-bit processor cores—twice as many cores as the best server processors from AMD and Intel. In addition, each core can simultaneously run eight threads of execution—four times as many threads per core as the best Hyper-
Threading processor ever shipped by Intel. With eight processor cores per chip and eight threads per core, the UltraSPARC T2 can simultaneously execute 64 threads. Using Sun’s virtualization extensions, a single chip can run 64 different operating systems (or 64 instances of the same operating system) at the same time. Because each core runs at 1.4GHz, Sun likens the chip’s aggregate CPU performance to a singlethreaded chip running at 89.6GHz—a stretch of the truth, but impressive nonetheless. However, I consider the chip’s other integrated features even more impressive. The UltraSPARC
T2 has four integrated memory controllers, two 10-gigabit Ethernet controllers, an eight-lane PCI Express controller, and eight cryptography accelerators. Each dual-channel memory controller supports Fully Buffered (FB) DIMMs. The Ethernet controllers are multithreaded independently of the processors, so their actual throughput should handily beat an external Ethernet solution. The PCI Express interface runs at 2.5GHz, nearly twice as fast as the processor cores. The eight crypto engines support the most common security algorithms (such as DES and AES) and are much faster than general-purpose CPUs at this kind of number crunching. Sun isn’t exaggerating much by calling the
UltraSPARC T2 a server on a chip. And despite its unprecedented level of integration for a server processor, it consumes less than 100W and starts at less than $1,000. But the most interesting thing about the UltraSPARC T2 is what it foretells about x86 PC processors in terms of multicore integration, massive multithreading, and peripheral integration. Eventually, I believe, AMD and Intel will go with the flow of this Niagara.

Symphonies of Destruction

One fringe benefit of having a hardcore gaming laptop for a few months is that I’ve been able to dig deeply into the new generation of multiplayer action games with all the settings cranked up to the max and enjoy some truly spectacular hours of online homicide. And do it without being tied to my desktop. There’s something about playing Quake Wars in bed that’s just so wrong, yet so right. Four CPUs, one man, a bed: It’s like some kind of über-geek fetish fantasy. The real pleasure, however, comes from just how solid this generation of multiplayer action is. With Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Team Fortress 2, and Unreal Tournament 3 forming the core of dedicated multiplayer action, and Call of Duty 4 and Crysis holding the flanks, we are positively swimming in top-flight game design for the online frag crowd. To an outside observer, these games might all seem like more of the same in different wrappings.

But to gamers who truly love online action, you couldn’t have asked for three more radically different approaches than Quake Wars, TF2, and UT3. Each is like a musical composition in a different key. In terms of pure personal appeal, Quake Wars is at the top of my list, since its use of classes and multiple fluid objectives manages to capture some of the feel of an ever-shifting battlefield. If the old Strogg/GDF matchup has grown a little tired, it’s a minor complaint within a system that handles classes and their functions so well. What Team Fortress 2 lacks in objectives and complexity it more than makes up for with its fresh style, focused team play, and outstanding unit balance? And though I haven’t logged time with the final version of Unreal Tournament 3, the material Epic has been showing certainly takes its work on Gears of War to the next level and places UT3 at the fast-and-frenzied instaspawn end of the pectrum. It’s simply wonderful, this late in the life span of the multiplayer action game, to see three teams wind up with such radically different approaches to the same concept. Only people who don’t know the genre would see these titles as mere interchangeable carnage. That’s like saying Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms all sound the same because they wrote symphonies.

ASUS BC-1205Pt

With Asus’s BC-1205PT you get to read high-def discs, but only if they’re of the Blu-ray variety, so you’ll want to have a strong affinity for that format (and its affiliated movie studios) to take the plunge because while you do save money by forgoing the ability to write to Blu-ray, the BC-1205PT still isn’t cheap. Its a couple hundred dollars more than a high-performance standard DVD drive and its DVD burn performance is far from top-notch. The BC-1205PT is rated at 12x for DVD+/-R write speeds—a good deal slower than today’s top DVD burners, now at 20x, and not surprisingly, burn times take a hit. It took us 7:12 (min:sec) to fill a Single-layer DVD+R with the BC-1205PT, compared to the 5 minutes flat it took our favorite drive, Samsung’s SH-S203B (Reviewed October 2007) Burning to a double-layer DVD, the Asus drive maintained a 3.96x average speed and filled the disc in 27:09, more than twice the time it took our Samsung. Only when burning to DVD-RW media did the Asus and Samsung perform on par, writing 4.38GB to a single layer disc at 15:07 and 14:31, respectively. When reading data from all of our test discs, Asus’s drive had notably slower seek times than both the Samsung and the LG GCC-H20L reviewed here. Middling performance aside, the BC-1205PT offers a SATA interface, the CyberLink BD Solution suite for playback and burning chores, and a simple, black face plate.

Great Expectations!

No one could now oppose the fact that you could make money out of your own blog; Why? Because - I had been maintaining this blog for the past four weeks and heard many times at several sites about making money out of your own blog, but didn’t really get what they really meant, till I heard from my friend that he was earning lots and lots of money from PPP (PayPerPost) for simply doing his own job – Blogging.

For beginners, Blogging is an online journal. You maintain a blog (like a journal) online and post whatever you feel, think, like etc. Like in this blog you may find several interesting information about some cool gadgets, new technologies and latest buzz that’s going around. Not only you could share your views, ideas and thoughts with the online community but also earn money by maintaining a blog. Just follow these simple and easy steps in order to become a blogger.
Step 1: Log onto blogger.com and create an account and start a blog.

Step 2: Give an attractive title and find an appealing blog URL.
Step 3: Maintain the blog by posting useful information and attract more people to visit your blog.
Step 4: After a month, if you feel that your blog has some decent number of visitors, create an account at PPP (payperpost.com) and submit your blog and wait for approval of your blog.
Step 5: Once approved, you can make money through your blog.

Things to remember:

->Maintain an attractive blog so that you get more visitors, since more the number of visitors more the opportunities you will get in PPP.
->Before applying your blog, see to that your blog has been one month since the first post was made and you have written more than ten posts with some ORIGINAL content.

Google Unleashes an Android

After months of speculation, Google recently announced its entry into the crowded mobile market. However, instead of designing the long-rumored Gphone, the search giant released Android, a Linuxbased mobile OS. Google developed Android in conjunction with the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of mobile service providers, handset manufacturers, chipmakers, and software developers, and the company has recently made a free, downloadable development kit available. To help spur innovation, Google is also offering $10 million in prizes to developers, in awards ranging from $25,000 to $275,000. While the OS itself is open, Google has placed no restrictions on how the platform is utilized, so service providers could, for instance, remove VoIP capabilities from Android handsets in order to tie users to income-generating voice minutes. In the United States, Android-based devices will initially be available on Sprint’s and T-Mobile’s networks, with numerous handset manufacturers planning to release devices in early 2008. AT&T, which has a major stake in Apple’s iPhone, is not
a member of the OHA; as to whether the service provider would ever offer Android-powered phones, a spokesperson stated, “AT&T does not comment on what it might or might not do in the future.”
While Google hasn’t directly explained how it plans to generate revenue from Android, the OS will make it easy to use Google’s entire suite of apps on mobile devices, bringing an almost PC-like experience to cell phones—and more mobile users on the web almost certainly means more eyes on the search giant’s Ad Sense-generated advertising.

Related Articles:

Google Ponders Spectrum Plans
Fly Me to the Moon!
Google Desktop Search as default in Vista
Google just got better
Virtual Lunar Trip
Google sets its sight on Wikipedia with “Knol”

OCZ Buys Hypersonic

RAM vendor branches out into the PC market

In a buyout that has raised some eyebrows, RAM and PSU vendor OCZ will buy boutique PCmaker Hypersonic to help diversify its business.
Hypersonic will operate as a separate division, but some competing PC vendors are concerned about buying components from what is now a competitor. OCZ officials told reuters that PC vendors shouldn’t feel any threat, as the company has no plans to give preferential treatment to Hypersonic on RAM or other components. OCZ’s main purpose with the acquisition is to grow Hypersonic by giving it access to new markets and platform vendors that OCZ has relationships with. In the long term, it will help protect OCZ’s business from the mercurial swings of the RAM market. In May, the company purchased PC Power and Cooling for $13 million.

AMD’s Odd Phenom

Soon after AMD announced its new triple-core Phenom processor, the jokes began. Some people think a multicore processor with an odd number of cores is...well, odd. Others ridiculed AMD for making triple-core chips by disabling one core on a defective quad-core die. Intel CEO Paul Otellini cracked, “We see a distinct advantage in having all the cores on our dies work.” Actually, there’s nothing odd about an odd number of processors. For 30 years we’ve had PCs with only one processor, and that’s an odd number. But seriously, there’s no technical reason, a multicore chip can’t have any number of processor cores. Sometimes it’s easier for chip designers to lay out an even number of cores because the die will be nearly a true square, which fits more efficiently on circular silicon wafers. However, different layouts are possible and often desirable. Designers can surround an odd number of cores with caches, buses, and other logic to achieve a square die. Indeed, such layouts are becoming more common as microprocessors
integrate more components. Remember that AMD’s processors have on-chip memory controllers and soon will integrate graphics cores, too.
The slap that AMD is merely converting defective quad-core Phenoms into triple-core Phenoms hits closer to home. Rumors abound that AMD’s production yields—especially for the new 45nm fabrication process—are terrible. These rumors are hard to verify because semiconductor manufacturers closely guard their yields as trade secrets. Although poor yields are definitely bad, there’s
nothing wrong with salvaging chips by disabling the defective logic and relabeling the product. In the 1990s, Intel sold 486 processors either with (486DX) or without (486SX) an integrated FPU. Early 486SX chips were found to be 486DX chips with disabled FPUs. More recently, some massively parallel processors have the ability to route around defective cores and keep working. One example is a 430-core chip from PicoChip Designs that’s found in cellular and wireless-network base stations. Should PicoChip scrap an otherwise functional die because it has “only” 429 working processor cores? As PC processors integrate large numbers of cores, inevitably some cores will be defective. It will become commonplace to salvage those chips by disabling the bad cores. And that’s fine, as long as the chips are honestly labeled.

The Home Is Going Digital

High tech is moving into the living room—and the kitchen, bedroom, and garage, too


So many attempts to bring the worlds of PCs and consumer electronics together have failed that the word “convergence” prompts snickers from journalists. But the market is poised for explosive growth, according to a new market study published by Parks Associates and EHX Publishing. Oddly enough, it’s not the PC that’s driving this train, according to the authors of this study; it’s the rapid adoption of flat-panel displays. The study predicts the size of this market will grow to $17 billion within the next five years—and that number doesn’t take into account consumers who build their own networks. Computer manufacturers such as Sony and HP clearly want a piece of this pie, but they’re taking very different roads to get there.
Sony’s not using the C word, but Xavier Lauwaert comes close when he describes the market for the digital home. Sony retreated from the desktop PC market several years ago, but its VAIO brand remains strong in the notebook arena, and according to Lauwaert, the company sold a significant number of its CableCARD and Blu-ray-equipped VAIO XL3 media center PCs in 2007. HP is taking a different approach. We DEC line because the PC doesn’t have to be in the living room anymore.” HP now seems to be taking a three-pronged approach to the market, with its innovative TouchSmart PC, entertainment-oriented Pavilion HDX notebook, and headless MediaSmart Server running Microsoft’s Windows Home Server. But we see the digital home encompassing more than entertainment—and so does Logitech. The company followed up its 2004 acquisition of Intrigue Technologies (best known for its innovative Harmony remote controls) and 2006 buyout of Squeezeboxmaker Slim Devices by snapping up WiLife in November. WiLife designs and manufactures the LukWerks video-surveillance system, which operates on a powerline network and can stream video to remote clients via the Internet. New wireless technologies such as Z-Wave and ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4) are enabling do-it-yourselfers to add extensive observation and command features to their homes and apartments, allowing them to monitor and control their lighting, appliances, temperature, and more. Motion and moisture sensors can even alert homeowners to break-ins and leaks via email or MMS. It’s an exciting time to be a geek.

AMD Alleges Benchmark Cheating by Nvidia

AMD and Nvidia have been engaged in a veritable pissing match over the HQV HD video benchmark, with AMD accusing its rival of cooking its Forceware drivers in order to achieve higher scores than its product deserves. Nvidia, in turn, has accused AMD of engaging in a disinformation campaign. The issue stems from beta Vista drivers (Forceware 163.11) that Nvidia provided to reviewers testing HD-video performance with videocards based on its GeForce 8600 GTS graphics processor. AMD’s Aboubakeur Nacef ran the benchmark and took photographs that he says reveal ghosting caused by overly aggressive use of noise-reduction in Nvidia’s PureVideo HD decoder. “My feeling,” Nacef told reuters, “is that Nvidia was in panic mode and needed to release something quickly.” Nvidia’s Rick Allen, countered that Nacef was “using an older driver and overly aggressive driver settings to cause the problem.” Nacef responded that Forceware 163.44 had the same problem but that he hadn’t tested version 163.69, the latest version available at press time.     

AMD to Try Tri-Core

Are there folks who want something better than dual core but less extreme than a quad solution? That’s what AMD is hoping as it prepares to release a tri-core Phenom in 2008. AMD is positioning the three-core chip as something that will help differentiate PCs that use it from their dual-core brethren. But Intel’s further slashing of its quad-core prices—already at the $200 mark—could lessen a tri-core’s appeal. More troubling is how AMD is producing these chips. The tri-core is likely to be based on the same quad-core die as Phenom, so is AMD disabling one core or is it trying to fi nd a market for its defective quad-core chips?

Spy vs. Spy— Cyber Style

A diplomatic brouhaha has coincided with a recent spate of cyber warfare, with representatives from a number of governments claiming their nations are the victims of coordinated attacks on their computer infrastructure. Systems in England, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States have all been attacked in recent months, and while governments in those countries have not directly accused the Chinese government of coordinating the attacks, intelligence agencies have noted that the attacks do seem to be originating from China. The Chinese government, however, denies any involvement in the incidents, and, in fact, says it has been the victim of cybersleuthing from Western governments. Lou Qinjian, vice minister of Information Industry, stated that 80 percent of the recent attacks have come from computers based in the United States, although he did not directly state that the U.S. government was coordinating the intrusions.

Fly Me to the Moon!

Google is hoping to inspire private space exploration by ponying up $30 million to fund the X Prize Foundation’s latest challenge, the Google Lunar X Prize, which tasks entrants with building and launching an unmanned lunar rover. Google will give $20 million to the first group to land a craft on the moon that can roam
500 meters and transmit a video back to Earth. It will kick in another $5 million if the team completes additional tasks such as photographing man-made objects or discovering water or ice. If your team is slow to launch, don’t worry. The second-place fi nisher will pocket $5 million, but you’d best get to work; the grand prize drops to $15 million after December 31, 2012 and the competition ends on December 31, 2014.

Related Articles:

Google Ponders Spectrum Plans
Google Unleashes an Android
Google Desktop Search as default in Vista
Google just got better
Virtual Lunar Trip
Google sets its sight on Wikipedia with “Knol”

Holmes is back!

A sinister cult is trying to awaken the Great Old One Cthulhu from his watery slumber, and only Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson can stop it from happening! No, it’s not a description of my high school fan fiction (well, actually, it is, but let’s not talk about that); it’s the premise behind Frogware’s latest Holmes game: Sherlock Holmes—The Awakened. Recruiting Holmes into the Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft is a popular geek pastime that sometimes actually works. With The Awakened, the exercise gets a solid 3D presentation and narrative that reminds us of the more sedate pleasures of the puzzleadventure game. Adventure gaming never quite dies but continues to dwell in a shadow realm, on the fringe of the mainstream. Each time I play a new example of this genre, it reminds me of a time when the puzzle-adventure was the dominate PC genre, in the golden days of Sierra and LucasArts. The ascendancy of 3D action gaming signaled the decline of the narrative adventure, and it has never—and likely will never—recover its position. Yet these games still reward the person who adjusts to their slower pacing. As always, I only really understood that when seeing such a game through the eyes of another. My son sat by my side for about an hour as I played through The Awakened. Since the environments are in 3D, he assumed it was another action game. When we’d approach a character, he’d say, “Can you shoot him?” “No, I have to talk to him,” I explained. When he saw that Holmes carried a knife, he asked, “Can you use that as a weapon?” “No, but I can use it to cut this rope in order to open the trap door,” I said. At that, he began to get it. He began suggesting places to search, items to combine, ways to test and examine objects back at 221B. And slowly, he got caught up in the story, the puzzles, the process. He adjusted his expectations and took the game on its own terms. Sometimes, we need to step away from the latest 3D adrenaline rush, slow down, light a pipe, pick up a magnifying glass, and let pure story take us where it will.  

Google Desktop Search as default in Vista

Starting with Service Pack 1, Vista users will be able to set a third-party desktop search engine, such as Google’s Desktop Search, as their Windows default, replacing the OS’s integrated search. Microsoft released documentation in September detailing the syntax and other commands that will let third-party apps use the search functions in the Start Menu and Explorer windows and enable users to set them as their default search applications. The change was prompted by Google’s accusations earlier this year that Microsoft’s search was too tightly integrated into Vista. Google saw this as a violation of the 2002 antitrust settlement in which Microsoft agreed to make it easier for customers to choose third-party software in Windows. SP1 does not, however, allow users to disable Vista’s indexing service, another one of Google’s gripes.

Related Articles:

Google Ponders Spectrum Plans
Google Unleashes an Android
Fly Me to the Moon!
Google just got better
Virtual Lunar Trip
Google sets its sight on Wikipedia with “Knol”

Make money out of your blogs !

Now that blogging took the online world by storm, every individual has started creating his own blog. What’s blog exactly? – Online Journal, publication of personal thoughts, to catalog someone's personal life or what . . . . In fact you can’t find a single precise definition for it, as there is no exact definition for a blog. A Blog is whatever you do. Ok, you have created a blog; you have shared your experience and provided the world with some useful information, now what?
Get paid for what you have done so far. Log on to some blog advertising sites, post your opinion or review it and make money. Blogsvertise.com is one such site, which offers some cool plans for making some serious money! So what are you waiting for? Jus log onto the blog advertising sites and make money now!

HD on DVD?

DCA Inc., the specialists in mastering have for the first time, saved 135 minutes of HD film on a traditional double-layer blank DVD. The format officially approved by the DVD forum bears the name "3X-DVD-ROM" and is a part of the HD-DVD standard. VC1 and H.264 are used as codecs as in case of HD DVDs, but then, longer films generally fit on the disk only in the low 720p-resolution.
The disks play on any HD-DVD player as well as in PC DVD drives with a minimum of 3X speed. Its special feature is that 3X DVD-ROMs can be burnt without a problem on any PC using an appropriate burning program and a DVD burner. With this, the disk could become what the VCD was to the DVD--a cheap entry in the new technology, till HD-DVD burners and blanks become cheaper. So, sounds like just the perfect thing for the Indian market which is always looking for cost effective measures and simulations of the real thing!

Cheers to the beyond!

While we hear about the rave parties going bust all over, this is one with more than a fairly legitimate reason. A reason that surrounds each one of us and our most gorgeous beyond space Rave parties are usually about all things psychedelic and there's nothing that can really be compared to the high-saturation purples, pinks, blues and all colors fluorescent that we fins in each inch of our vast solar system.
To commemorate Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight in 1961, NASA opened up a hangar at the Ames Research Center in Mountain View. They called it 'Yuri's Night World Space Party' and it happened on the same day in 126 events across 35 nations across the globe. It was NASA's tribute to 'global heritage of space exploration' which was celebrated with techno-rave music, futuristic dances and mind-blowing psychedelic light shows.
To give the party a rather good boy image, NASA had also put up science-imagery program called World Wind (software) besides a telescope aimed at Saturn. There was also an exhibit by artist Pierre Comte of how it feels to paint in low gravity. Besides, all of this there were some great dancers and other space monuments splashed in every nook and corner of the venue, and to say this was just one of the 126 events!

The Sage

McAfee, Inc. recently announced its second issue of sage, a semi-annual security journal designed to update and inform technical personnel and security executives on cutting-edge topics that can help them make better informed security decisions. the new issue of Sage includes articles from an all-star cast of McAfee researchers, managers and evangelists, on topics including cybercrime, Microsoft Windows Vista security, spyware, spam, cell phone security, data leakage and security risk management.
Sage is available for download through the McAfee Threat Center. You can access it at http://www.mcafee.com/us/threat_center/default.asp.
Sage examines the near-term future of the security business--the threats, defenses and issues security professional will face over the next five years. Today, the majority of cybercriminals target PC users, but we can expect more attackers to branch out to other areas of technology, such as voice over Internet protocol and radio frequency identifications (RFID), as those technologies become more widely adopted. This journal also gives insight on the future of securing applications which is one of the biggest concerns of the manufacturers and the consumers.

Although programmers add some security measures during development, new spyware technology often far surpasses the best planning of even the most diligent engineers, opening new fronts of attacks. Spyware will follow us into new technologies, such as Bluetooth and RFID. This has also been taken into consideration in Sage besides topics like Vista and its security in the near future which is actually a great concern as more and more hackers will try to disrupt it as time goes by.

LivePC

The brainchild of a faction of PhD graduates and their professor Dr. Monica Lam, all from the University of Stanford, is a virtual PC which they have tagged moka5. This is based on the platform of VMware Player and is available as freeware! Their objective was to radically evolve the consumer's experience of personal computing and simplify it and make it as easy and comfortable as watching television! Their research which has spanned five years has resulted in moka5 which is a platform that is apparently free of all troubles of security, maintenance and can run software without installations on the host system and simplify computing as far as possible for the end user. Although, there are many similar virtual PCs around, moka5 seems to have taken the lead in terms of the features, security and ease of use beating its competition hands down. If you don't believe us, try it out for yourself on www.moka5.com and get easy.

Cyber Sleuths

India's first regional cyber security and research centre was inaugurated in Chandigarh recently. This state-of-the-art organization called the Regional Cyber Security and Research Centre (RCSRC) is a joint project of Chandigarh Administration, Punjab Engineering College and NASSCOM and has been set up at the Punjab engineering College itself. The centre's mission will be to encourage, promote, facilitate, and execute interdisciplinary research in areas related to the nexus of the society and the digital world. It holds a lot of promise to cut down on cyber crime and its backing by the distinguished Board of Mentors from the IT industry, academia, and administration and defense services proves its mettle.

Closer look

Technology in sports has been constantly making groundbreaking equipment to take you as close to the sportsperson and their experiences across sports. With the craziest of angles and analysis technology, sport technology has been in the lead lately. Be it a game of cricket or extreme sports, bull fighting or river rafting, each sport has now found new insight in presentation thanks to miniature cameras which can be mounted just about anywhere. It's not novel to find cameras on the helmets of sky divers or on the headlight of extreme bikes to give you a thrilling perspective. This trend has been further enhanced with a new eye! Sports broadcasts could appear more realistic to TV viewers in the recent future.

A mini camera developed by the Fraunhofer-Institut for Integrierte Schaltungen can transmit receptions taken from the view of a Formula-1 racing driver or a ski jumper in HDTV quality, yes HDTV quality! With a size of 4x4x8 centimeters, the camera is small enough to find its place in the F1 cockpit or on top of a helmet and yet give an HD quality output. According to Stephan Gick, researcher at the Fraunhofer-Institut(IIS), this innovation has became successful with two main principles: The dissipation of the electronics and thus the heat generated was maintained very low for the mini casing and the highly integrated. All its camera settings can be controlled through the web -- because finally the sportsperson cannot be the cameraman as well!

Don't quite know and would not prefer where all inventors are planning or projecting to put wee little HD quality cameras but then again it's a boon!

Inkless Printing

Printing is on its way to be revolutionized and how! ZINK is a breakthrough technology which promises to utilize zero ink, yes NO ink at all! It generates the required color images and photos without using ink, ribbons or toner! The ZINK technology enables a new category of color printers and paper that work as an integrated system to print with a unique technique. The key to this process is the patented ZINK paper, an advanced composite material with dye crystals embedded inside and a protective polymer overcoat layer outside. Before printing, the embedded dye crystals are colorless, so ZINK paper looks like regular white photo paper.

The ZINK printer uses heat to activate and colorize these dye crystals. The printing process is now radically simple. Just add paper and press "print". The result is high quality, long-lasting, durable, and affordable images and no the paper is pretty affordable and highly durable! Because Zink doesn't use most of the components of normal printers it can be miniature in size and according to the claim on their website it will be portable and highly compatible with other consumer electronic devices making all of these capable of executing a print. So, this leaves the printer with only requirement of paper and you are through with the finest quality print! The advantages of ZINK include the compression of space because it does not use ink cartridges besides it is not affected by gravity! The ZINK printing process leaves no waste stream. The photo itself is the only artifact of the printing process. We are waiting and watching for now!

Google just got better

Recently, Google announced its critical first steps toward a universal search model that will offer users a more integrated and comprehensive way to search for and view information online. The company also introduced an updated homepage design with several new navigation features that make it faster and easier to users to find the information they are looking for. Google's vision for universal search is to ultimately search across all its content sources, compare and rank all the information in real time, and deliver a single, integrated set of search results that offers users precisely what they are looking for.

Google is also in the process of deploying a new technical infrastructure that will enable the search engine to handle the computationally intensive tasks required to produce universal search results. The new navigation includes dynamically generated links. For example, a search for "python" will now generate links to Google Blog Search, Google Book Search, Google Groups, and Google Code, to let user know there is additional information on his or her query in each of those areas. Search seems to be getting more and more advanced and this is only going to make it much easier for us!

Related Articles:

Google Ponders Spectrum Plans
Google Unleashes an Android
Fly Me to the Moon!
Google Desktop Search as default in Vista
Virtual Lunar Trip
Google sets its sight on Wikipedia with “Knol”

Watch out!

Beware of images with the file extensions BMP or PNG! This is because an error in thes formats enables hackers to smuggle in the desired damaged codes. Users of Photoshop CS2,CS3, Elements of 5.0 and Paintshop Pro 11.2 are advised to open only those images which have reliable sources. These loopholes were reproduced in XP as well as Vista in a test. The attack was detected because the program crashed. The attacker only has rights for starting the photo editor. And yet this is all the hackers need to penetrate deeper into the system.

Security experts from various security films are already issuing warnings that more and more loopholes are being used in applications to dive into systems to corrupt them. The main reason for this is hackers turning to more neglected programs such as Photoshop since the improved security mechanisms in Windows Vista thwart many attack attempts.

Free SMS

You never liked the idea of e-mail using your cellphone and have always been more comfortable with sending those info-packed short SMS? Well, here's news for you and it's free!

Webaroo, a leading content firm recently announced the launch of SMS GupShup, a free group messaging service for users in India. SMS GupShup offers a simple way to create groups of any size and communicate with them. Messages sent by the group creator are forwarded by Webaroo to all members of the group. Using a single SMS message, users can join any group as an SMS on their phone. Similarly, users can use SMS messages to create their own groups, invite friends and post messages to the group. Additionally, users can also run a poll, rating and quiz within their group. Groups and messages area archived online at www.smsgupshup.cmo, except for private groups. And here's the best part--the service is absolutely free to users and will be supported by advertising. Users can join groups to stay connected with friends, to receive alerts and notifications, to stay updated with news and current events and even to receive weather updates or sports scores from their favorite sources, etc., this service can benefit a huge range of users for mass communication. Using SMS GupShup movie fans can publish quotes and reviews, music lovers can share trivia, colleges can notify their alumni of forthcoming events, bands can announce upcoming performances, and such innumerable possibilities of information can be distributed to groups.

No Country for Old Men (2007) - Info

No Country for Old Men (2007)

User Rating: 8.6/10 (49,605 votes)

Overview

Directors:
Ethan Coen
Joel Coen

Writers (WGA):
Joel Coen (screenplay) &
Ethan Coen (screenplay)

Release Date:
21 November 2007 (USA) view trailer

Genre:
Crime / Drama / Thriller

Tagline:
There Are No Clean Getaways

Plot Outline:
Violence and mayhem ensue after a hunter stumbles upon some dead bodies, a stash of heroin and more than $2 million in cash near the Rio Grande.

Plot Keywords:
Milk / Coin Toss / Rifle / River / Car Accident

Awards:
Nominated for 8 Oscars. Another 69 wins & 31 nominations


Cast: (Cast overview, first billed only)
Tommy Lee Jones ... Ed Tom Bell
Javier Bardem ... Anton Chigurh
Josh Brolin ... Llewelyn Moss
Woody Harrelson ... Carson Wells
Kelly Macdonald ... Carla Jean Moss
Garret Dillahunt ... Wendell
Tess Harper ... Loretta Bell
Barry Corbin ... Ellis
Stephen Root ... Man who hires Wells
Rodger Boyce ... El Paso Sheriff
Beth Grant ... Carla Jean's Mother
Ana Reeder ... Poolside Woman
Kit Gwin ... Sheriff Bell's Secretary
Zach Hopkins ... Strangled Deputy
Chip Love ... Man in Ford

Cloverfield (2008) - Info

Cloverfield (2008)

User Rating: 7.9/10 (38,720 votes)

Overview
Director:
Matt Reeves

Writer (WGA):
Drew Goddard (written by)

Release Date:
18 January 2008 (USA) view trailer

Genre:
Action / Mystery / Sci-Fi / Thriller

Tagline:
Some Thing Has Found Us

Plot Outline:
Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.

Plot Keywords:
Yuppie / Exploding Building / Mountain Dew / Stairwell / Lizard

Cast: (Cast overview, first billed only)
Lizzy Caplan ... Marlena Diamond
Jessica Lucas ... Lily Ford
T.J. Miller ... Hud Platt
Michael Stahl-David ... Rob Hawkins
Mike Vogel ... Jason Hawkins
Odette Yustman ... Beth McIntyre
Anjul Nigam ... Bodega Cashier
Margot Farley ... Jenn
Theo Rossi ... Antonio
Brian Klugman ... Charlie
Kelvin Yu ... Clark
Liza Lapira ... Heather
Lili Mirojnick ... Lei
Ben Feldman ... Travis
Elena Caruso ... Party Goer

Untraceable (2008) - Info

Untraceable (2008)

User Rating: 6.1/10 (1,773 votes)

Overview

Director:
Gregory Hoblit

Writers (WGA):
Robert Fyvolent (screenplay) &
Mark Brinker (screenplay) ...

Release Date:
25 January 2008 (USA)  view trailer

Genre:
Crime / Thriller more

Tagline:
A cyber killer has finally found the perfect accomplice: You. more

Plot Outline:
FBI agent Jennifer Marsh is tasked with hunting down a seemingly untraceable serial killer who posts live videos of his victims on the Internet. As time runs out, the cat and mouse chase becomes more personal. more

Plot Synopsis:
This plot synopsis is empty. Add a synopsis

Plot Keywords:
Cyberspace / Snuff / Violence / Serial Killer / Acid more

Cast: (Cast overview, first billed only)
Diane Lane ... Jennifer Marsh
Billy Burke ... Detective Eric Box
Colin Hanks ... Griffin Dowd
Joseph Cross ... Owen Reilly
Mary Beth Hurt ... Stella Marsh
Peter Lewis ... Richard Brooks
Tyrone Giordano ... Tim Wilks
Perla Haney-Jardine ... Annie Haskins
Tim De Zarn ... Herbert Miller
Chris Cousins ... David Williams
Jesse Tyler Ferguson ... Arthur James Elmer
Trina Adams ... Female Cop #3
Brynn Baron ... Mrs. Miller
John Breen ... Richard Weymouth
Dan Callahan ... Trey Restom (Spoiled Preppie)

Rambo (2008) - Info

Rambo (2008)

User Rating: 8.1/10 (13,879 votes)


Overview
Director:Sylvester Stallone

Writers (WGA):
Art Monterastelli (written by) and
Sylvester Stallone (written by)
 
Release Date:
25 January 2008 (USA) view trailer

Genre:
Action / Thriller

Tagline:
Heroes never die.... They just reload.

Plot Outline:
In Thailand, John Rambo joins a group of mercenaries to venture into war-torn Burma, and rescue a group of Christian aid workers who were kidnapped by the ruthless local infantry unit.

Plot Keywords:
Warlord / Shot In The Back / Person On Fire / Explosion / Bomb


Cast: (Cast overview, first billed only)

Sylvester Stallone ...
John Rambo
Julie Benz ... Sarah
Matthew Marsden ... School Boy
Graham McTavish ... Lewis
Reynaldo Gallegos ... Diaz (as Rey Gallegos)
Jake La Botz ... Reese
Tim Kang ... En-Joo
Maung Maung Khin ... Tint
Paul Schulze ... Michael Burnett
Cameron Pearson ... Missionary #4 (Jeff)
Thomas Peterson ... Missionary #2 (Dentist)
Tony Skarberg ... Missionary #3 (Videographer)
James With ... Mission #5 (Preacher) (as James Wearing Smith)
Kasikorn Niyompattana ... Snake Hunter #2
Shaliew Manrungbun ... Snake Hunter #1

27 Dresses (2008) - Info

27 Dresses (2008)

User Rating: 6.6/10 (3,312 votes)

Overview

Director:
Anne Fletcher

Writer (WGA):
Aline Brosh McKenna (written by)

Release Date:
18 January 2008 (USA) view trailer

Genre:
Comedy / Romance

Tagline:
This January, always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Plot Outline:
After serving as a bridesmaid 27 times, a young woman (Heigl) wrestles with the idea of standing by her sister's side as her sibling marries the man she's secretly in love with.

Plot Keywords:
Cabbie / Female Nudity / Digital Camera / French Fries / Slide Show


Cast: (Cast overview, first billed only)
Brian Kerwin ... Hal
Charli Barcena ... Young Tess
Peyton List ... Young Jane (as Peyton Roi List)
Jane Pfitsch ... Cousin Lisa
Alexa Gerasimovich ... Flower Girl
Katherine Heigl ... Jane
Jennifer Lim ... Bridal Salesgirl #1
Krysten Ritter ... Gina
Brigitte Bourdeau ... Salesgirl Olga
Judy Greer ... Casey
Danielle Skraastad ... Bride Suzanne
Anne Fletcher ... Rude Taxi Stealer
Marilyn L. Costello ... Bride Suzanne's Minister
James Marsden ... Kevin
Michael Ziegfeld ... Taxi Driver Khaleel

The Eye (2008/I) - Info

The Eye (2008/I)

User Rating: 5.4/10 (575 votes)

Overview

Directors:

David Moreau

Xavier Palud

Writer:

Sebastian Gutierrez (screenplay)

Release Date:

1 February 2008 (USA) view trailer

Genre:

Drama / Horror / Thriller

Tagline:

How can you believe your eyes when they're not yours?

Plot Outline:

The remake of the Hong Kong film "Jian Gui", a woman who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world.


Plot Keywords:

Remake Of Chinese Film / Eye Transplant / Corneal Transplant / Ghost / Remake


Cast: (Cast overview, first billed only)

Jessica Alba ... Sydney Wells

Alessandro Nivola ... Dr. Paul Faulkner

Parker Posey ... Helen Wells

Rade Serbedzija ... Simon McCullough

Fernanda Romero ... Ana Christina Martinez

Rachel Ticotin ... Rosa Martinez

Obba Babatundé ... Dr. Haskins

Danny Mora ... Miguel

Chloe Moretz ... Alicia Millstone

Brett Haworth ... Shadowman

Kevin K. ... Tomi Cheung

Tamlyn Tomita ... Mrs. Cheung

Esodi Geiger ... Nurse

Karen Austin ... Mrs. Hillman

Ryan J. Pezdric ... Nurse Room Attendant


                   

Zeus Trojan: The father of them all

The newly discovered Zeus Trojan is a blackmailer, robber and spy—all in one. Zeus has become widespread only recently though. Investigations by antivirus specialists at Kaspersky Labs have revealed it to the public. It was detected as “gpcode.ai”, a Trojan which encodes files on affected computers and releases them again only after a ransom is paid. Some details struck the experts, who discovered more to this Trojan than first met the eye: gpcode.ai marks its presence with the “_SYSTEM_64AD0625_” String in the RAM. This string is suspected to be in many of the latest Malware programs. The Trojan gets installed in the system as ntos.exe and downloads the file zeus.exe and zupa.exe and connects to the network of infected “bots” already in existence. Zeus.exe is an aggressive snooper. Zupa.exe communicates with the botnet center and receives instructions. According to Kaspersky, one of the Zeus networks that got shut down comprised of more than 100,000 zombie PCs before it was detected.

Hackers will target the Olympics, US presidential elections in 2008

High-Profile events will be the biggest targets for malicious hackers in the year 2008, says online security news provider Network World. In Particular, the 2008 Olympics to be held in china will be used to propagate malware and carry out fraud and identity theft. Websites and online networks will be potential sources of infection in case of such attacks.

The firm also stated that a rising number of compromised websites would quietly attack unsuspecting visitors. “Parasitics”, or worms that target specific files on users’ machines and then embed themselves there to spread their payloads.

Indian Cricket league matches broadcast online

Cricket fans had a unique treat last month, with the ICL's recently concluded T20 tournament broadcast live on its website, http://www.indiancricketleague.in.Visitors steamed footage of each match from multiple angles. The online video player is powered by ORMUX, a rich media content delivery framework developed by Pune-based Spadeworx Software Services.

"The richness, agility and personalized viewing experience that we are able to offer are breathtaking. The experience is spreading virally, and viewership is increasing exponentially each match" said ICL Manager, Strategy and Research, Vijay Bharadwaj.

95 percent of all corporate email is spam

Email and web security vendor Barracuda networks has released its annual spam report, in which it claims that between 90 and 95 percent of all email sent in the year 2007 was unsolicited. The company analyzed over a billion email messages sent to its 50k clients every day in preparing the report.
A related study of 261 business professionals found that 57 percent of respondents viewed spam as the worst form of junk advertising, more so than postal junk mail and telemarketing. While 50 percent received five or fewer spam emails each day, 13 percent reported receiving over 50 such messages each day.

Good News for Mid-Range Gamers

Nvidia confirms the release of 8800 GS series. I had a sneak peek of it at evga and XFX site.
Here are some pics of it

You can get the details of this card from he official site of EVGA or from XFX

It will be priced between the 8600 GT and the MIGHTY 8800GT series (i.e., around $180). Hope that this card (like its elder brother) becomes the best card for the buck!

Features:

Full DX10 support – Full Direct X 10 and Shader Model 4.0 support delivers uparalleled levels of graphics realism and film-quality effects.

Unified Shader Architecture - Combines vertex, pixel and geometry shaders for an overall more efficient architecture.

Second Generation Purevideo HD – High-definition video decoder and post-processor delivers unprecented picture clairty, smmoth video and accurate color for movies and video.

128-bit HDR with FSAA – Realistic High Dynamic Range lighting, now with support for anti-aliasing!

Built for Microsoft Windows Vista – Fourth generation GPU architecture gives Windows Vista users the best possible experience with Windows Aero 3D user interface.

$100,000 cell phone

The Prada and Giorgio Armani phones are one thing, but this.... well this is quite another. Japanese mobile company Softbank Mobile is teaming up with Tiffany & Co to create a nearly $100,000 cell phone (exact price tag is 10 million yen or $94,000 USD). This luxury mobile phone is adorned in 400 diamonds for a total of 20 carats. Ask any girl you know - if there is anyone that knows diamonds, it's Tiffany's!

Well at least it's pretty. SIKE! My eyes, my eyes! That thing is OOOOGALAY!

As if the rich folks really need another gadget to tote around and leave the rest of us bitter about. This is truly insane!

Anticipated launch date between Feb and March of this year. I wonder if it'll come in the little blue box?