New In The News

Asustek Computer is planning to launch notebooks featuring a touch panel in the first or second quarter of 2009, according to sources at panel makers, in addition to Eee PCs as previously reported.

Asustek’s new touch panel notebooks are expected to take advantage of Windows 7, said the sources. Asustek showed concept notebooks featuring two touch panels during Computex 2008.

AU Optronics (AUO) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) are planning to launch 11.6-inch notebook panels in February next year, which along with 12.1-inch make possible candidate sizes for the upcoming touch panel notebooks, noted the sources, adding that Asustek has not yet decided what size its notebook will be.

source: Digitimes

T-Mobile will be the first carrier to offer a mobile phone powered by Google’s Android software, according to people briefed on the company’s plans. The phone will be made by HTC, one of the largest makers of mobile phones in the world, and is expected to go on sale in the United States before Christmas, perhaps as early as October.

The high-end phone is expected to match many of the capabilities of Apple’s iPhone and other so-called smartphones that run software from Palm, Research in Motion, Microsoft and Nokia to access the Internet and perform computerlike functions.

The HTC phone, which many gadget sites are calling the “dream,” will have a touch screen, like the iPhone. But the screen also slides out to expose a full five-row keyboard. A video of the phone has been posted recently on YouTube. A person who has seen the HTC device said it matched the one in the video.

The phone’s release date depends on how soon the Federal Communications Commission certifies that the Google software and the HTC phone meet network standards. Executives at all three companies are hoping to announce the phone in September because they would benefit from holiday season sales. The people briefed on the discussions declined to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the project.

Apple’s iPhone has shaken the cellphone industry, partly because of its design, but mostly because AT&T and Apple have allowed owners to download any number of applications to their phones. That freedom to individualize a phone’s functions has helped increase the popularity of the iPhone.

Phones using Google’s software will do the same thing. Google is making the Android operating system software available free to an alliance of companies, including cellphone carriers and manufacturers who have agreed to provide devices which, like personal computers, allow users to decide which applications run on them.

Google thinks that many consumers will want to personalize their mobile phones with unique applications and services, including those made by Google.

Google is eager to get the Android platform on phones quickly because it thinks that the mobile Web is vital to the long-term growth of its digital advertising business.

“We can make more money on mobile than we do on the desktop, eventually,” Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said in an interview on CNBC this week.

But carriers have their own reasons for wanting devices that are more Internet friendly. For one, they can charge more for data plans than typical voice plans. And some carriers, like AT&T, are creating their own mobile applications that they hope will also be revenue generators.

“The launch of Android is an important milestone in the industry,” said Richard Wong, a venture capitalist at Accel Partners, which invests in mobile start-ups. But, he warned, it was only one of several platforms being developed or upgraded today. He said that what he found most exciting was that Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone “forces others to innovate faster.”

Executives for T-Mobile, the nation’s No. 4 wireless carrier, declined to comment on the new phone except to say it was on track to offer it in the fourth quarter. HTC, which is based in Taiwan, also declined to comment, although executives there have said they expected to deliver their phone by the end of the year.

While other carriers and manufacturers have plans to offer phones based on Google’s software, the T-Mobile-HTC phone is expected to be the only Android phone available in the United States this year, according to a person briefed on the discussion.

Sprint, the third-largest carrier and also a member of the Google-led Open Handset Alliance, has been working closely with Google, too, but does not have a confirmed date for offering an Android phone, said Kevin Packingham, vice president for wireless product management. So far AT&T and Verizon Wireless, the two biggest carriers, have not committed to selling mobile phones sold with Google’s software.

The chip maker Qualcomm, another member of the alliance, said the company was working on Android phones with more than five phone manufacturers.

Google executives have confirmed that phones based on Android will be available this year, but have refused to reveal details. The company said it was testing the software on several devices.

“This process ensures we have an opportunity to receive feedback from users,” Google said in a statement.

Some makers of mobile software programs have complained that creating applications for Android has been difficult, as Google has continued to make changes to the operating system and has at times been too busy to provide support to developers. Some of those software makers have chosen to focus their development efforts, at least for now, on phones that are already on the market like the iPhone or the BlackBerry, made by Research in Motion.

Take it with a grain of salt, or many grains of sand, if you want, when the young volunteers say that every one of the 60 or 70 people helping to put on Wikipedia’s annual convention here (called Wikimania) is active on Facebook.Not one exception? No. The young women in head scarves who patiently explain what can or cannot be done on Friday, according to Islam? Absolutely.

Then there is the young man who is part of the Facebook group devoted to the TV show “Friends.” “Facebook for me is just a way to keep in touch with friends,” said Yehia Hassaan, 18, a medical student. “Some of my friends, they are addicts. Always updating their status, changing their photos.”

Ahmad Belal, a 23-year-old medical student who came from Cairo to attend the conference, is one of those particularly enthusiastic users with hundreds of friends.

“For Egyptians the visa procedure for any country is very difficult,” he said. “You need a visa to visit any country in the world. Facebook and Wikipedia connect us to the outside.”

In the spring, a protest against rising food prices and the government took root on Facebook, with a page that had more than 75,000 members. The Facebook movement overlapped with a textile workers strike, and the government response was swift and severe.

The main organizer was arrested, and according to The Washington Post, said he was stripped and beaten by the security services in Cairo. Another organizer, Israa Abdel Fattah, a 27-year-old human resources administrator with no political experience who helped administer the Facebook page, was also arrested. A Free Israa group quickly emerged - she was called the Facebook Girl - with, at one time, tens of thousands joining up.

The young people at Wikimania were not afraid to talk about those recent events. Some said they had feared that Facebook would be shut down, but Kareem Mohamed, 20, a student of engineering in Alexandria, stated matter-of-factly, “that is not possible.”

Perhaps it is this context that explains the enthusiasm for building a stronger Arabic Wikipedia among the young people here, and the evangelism about contributing articles in their native language.

Among the Arab attendees, who were not exclusively from the world of computer science - many are medical students, others in engineering and architecture - the woeful shape of the Arabic Wikipedia has been the cause of chagrin. It has fewer than 65,000 articles, and ranks 29th among the various Wikipedias, just behind Slovenian, and well behind the artificial tongue Esperanto.

Among the problems, less than 10 percent of the 80 million Egyptians are thought to have Internet access. And those with access tend to know English and prefer to communicate that way.

Elsewhere, writing articles for Wikipedia can appear to be a quirky obsession or mere hobby - other Wikipedia conferences have had a bit of a Star-Trek-convention feel to them. In Egypt, writing for Wikipedia is something more like a national priority.

“It is more important to spread free knowledge here,” said Mohamed Ibrahim, 22, who was born and raised in Alexandria, and just completed a degree in architecture. He said one of his fellow organizers had made a good point: “The gap between the Arab world and the Western world is not about money or politics. It is about knowledge. There are many examples of Egyptians who travel to Europe or the U.S. and become successful. If people had access to the same knowledge …, ” he said, trailing off.

Ahmed Tantawy, the technical director of IBM in the Middle East, spoke in the convention center of the new Alexandria Library and said, “Arabic content today is nothing,” holding his fingers close together. “Do kids chat with each other in English or Arabic? Most likely Arabic, I think.”

Into that vacuum enters Wikipedia. Ismail Serageldin, the director of the library, which is built on the site of the ancient treasury of manuscripts, said that Wikipedia could make up for the absence of a reliable, regularly updated encyclopedia, along the lines of Brittannica. “When intellectuals got around to transforming our country, in the 19th century, they were tackling other issues,” he said.

Material on Wikipedia is something that may be quickly ignored in the West, he said, but in Egypt, “it brings knowledge to the poor.”

“We have a generation gap that is huge,” Serageldin said. “Scholars in Egypt don’t use computers, and the younger people are very Internet savvy. We need to get young people involved.”

Nahla Ghoneim, a 23-year-old computer engineer at IT Works, said at the conference that young people in Egypt need to get involved in information technology “not just as consumers.”

“That is one of the problems here in Egypt,” she said. “We are consumers instead of contributors to technology. Wikipedia is a first step to getting involved.”

source: International Herald Tribune

The personal computer industry is poised to sell tens of millions of small, energy-efficient Internet-centric devices. Curiously, some of the biggest companies in the business consider this bad news.

In a tale of sales success breeding resentment, computer companies are wary of the new breed of computers because they sell for a low price that could threaten the PC makers’ already thin profit margins.

The new devices, often called netbooks, have scant built-in memory and are intended largely for surfing Web sites and checking e-mail accounts. The companies that pioneered the category, like Asus and Everex, both of Taiwan, are small, and so is the price. Some sell for as little as $300.

Despite their wariness of these slim machines, Dell and Acer, two of the biggest PC manufacturers, are not about to let the upstarts have this market to themselves. Hewlett-Packard, the world’s biggest PC maker, recently sidled into the market with a hybrid of a notebook and netbook that it calls the Mini-Note.

Several makers are taking the low-powered PCs one step further. In the coming months, they are expected to introduce “net-tops,” low-cost versions of desktop computers intended for Internet access. A Silicon Valley start-up called CherryPal says it will challenge the idea that high-powered machines are required to allow basic computing functions in the Internet age. It is bringing out a $300 desktop PC that is the size of a paperback and uses 2 watts of power, compared with the 100 watts of some desktops.

It wants to take advantage of “cloud computing,” in which data is managed and stored in distant servers, not on the actual machine.

Industry analysts say that the emergence of this new class of low-cost, cloud-centric machines could threaten titans like Microsoft, Intel, HP and Dell, because they have built their companies on the notion that consumers want more power and functions built into their next computer.

Some of the big computer companies put a positive spin on the low-cost machines, saying they welcome new categories. But they would just as soon this niche did not take off, given the relatively low profit margins.

“When I talk to PC vendors, the No. 1 question I get is, how do I compete with these netbooks when what we really want to do is sell PCs that cost a lot more money,” said J.P. Gownder, an analyst with Forrester Research.

Even as some PC vendors are jumping into the fray, others say they are resisting. Fujitsu, one of the world’s top 10 personal computer makers, said that it believes the low-cost netbook trend is a dangerous one for the bottom line.

“We’re sitting on the sidelines because even if this category takes off, and we get our piece of the pie, it doesn’t add up,” said Paul Moore, senior director of mobile product management for Fujitsu. “It’s a product that essentially has no margin.”

Stan Glasgow, chief executive of Sony Electronics, said, “We are not looking at competing with Asus.” But he said the company was investigating what consumers wanted in a second PC.

It is a market that caught the major computer companies - both hardware and software - by surprise after Asus brought out the $300 Eee PC. The company thought it would be used primarily in education, or as a starter laptop for adolescents, but the interest has turned out to be broader.

With an emphasis on Internet-based applications like Google Docs, the Linux-based Eee PC sold out its 350,000 global inventory. It has been in short supply ever since, said Jackie Hsu, president of the American division of Asus. Everex has sold around 20,000 of its CloudBook, which sells for about $350.

The sales are a veritable drop in the bucket compared with the 271 million desktop and laptop PCs shipped globally last year.

But IDC, a research firm, predicts that the category could grow from fewer than 500,000 in 2007 to nine million in 2012 as the market for second computers expands in developed economies.

Intel, meanwhile, is projecting that by 2011, the market for the netbooks will be 40 million units a year, which is why it is jumping in with low-powered chips for netbooks and  net-tops.

Intel’s new Atom chip is competing against upstarts including Via, a Taiwanese company that has a chip called the C7. The C7 is showing up in netbooks and is being used in the Everex models and in HP’s $500 Mini-Note.

William Calder, an Intel spokesman, said that the cost of the Atom for PC makers was around $44, compared with $100 for a state-of-the-art chip. Intel executives think the market for low-cost PCs is too big to pass up, he said, though it raised a potential threat to more powerful and more profitable computing lines.

source: International Herald Tribune

On July 23 Livescribe Inc. announced its national retail rollout for the Pulse™ smartpen, with availability at Target, Target.com, Amazon.com, and major college and university bookstores supported by The Douglas Stewart Company.

“Our partnerships with Target, Amazon, and Douglas Stewart will greatly expand the availability of Pulse smartpens and accessories to consumers across the country,” said Byron Connell, chief marketing officer at Livescribe. “At Target stores, consumers will be able to see the Pulse smartpen first hand and learn more about its capabilities through an interactive video demonstration.”

the SmartPen will be available July 1st and will sell for 1 gb/$149 US and 2 gb/$199 US.

If you want to buy the Pulse SmartPen please click here.
If you want to check the videos please visit http://www.livescribe.com/smartpen/videos.html

Pulse SmartPen Technical Specs:

With the iPhone still setting the standard for touch-screen phones, challengers to the throne all seem to be trying to out-elegance one another–witness the new Samsung Armani, for instance. Now along comes the HTC Touch Diamond, “a new benchmark for phone sophistication,” the company crows.

Central to the phone is the company’s TouchFlo 3D interface, which HTC says provides “animated access” to people (by calling, we presume), messaging, e-mail, photos, and more. There’s also a touch pad alongside the screen. Under the hood is the Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system.

Sony’s boasting that the new Grand Theft Auto was “meant to be played” on the PS3, while Microsoft is touting the exclusive downloadable content—including, perhaps, a new city—that’s on tap for the Xbox 360 version of GTA:IV. PS3 vs. Xbox 360…fight!PS3 pros: From what the Rockstar developers are saying, the PS3 might have an ever-so-slight edge in terms of graphics, although that could me more a factor of aesthetics than anything else. “I like the way [the PS3] renders,” Rockstar founder Sam Houser told 1UP.com. “There’s a certain kind of softness without being blurry—some warmth to it—and then there’s a certain more clinical element to how the 360 looks.” That said, Houser thinks the differences are pretty subtle: “As far as I’m concerned, they’re neck and neck now.” 

There’s also talk that the PS3 will get Sixaxis “tilt” control for helicopters, boats, and motorcycles—which could be a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view. Luckily, Sixaxis control is reportedly optional.

PS3 cons: For now, at least, there’s no word of any additional downloadable content on the scale of what Xbox 360 users can expect. Then there’s the initial install time: five minutes, compared to—well, zippo for the 360—and longer load times thanks to the PS3’s Blu-ray drive.

Xbox 360 pros: Number one of the list, of course, is the promised downloadable expansion packs for later this year. Details are sketchy, but according to some rumors, we could be seeing entire new cities (although Kotaku, for one, calls the rumor “a bit tough to swallow”). Anyway, just the promise of significant new content—exclusive to the Xbox 360, for now—is a big plus for the 360 version of GTA:IV.

Then there’s the Xbox Live factor—and especially the draw of winning Xbox Achievement points, a concept that doesn’t exist in the PlayStation universe. 

Xbox 360 cons: On paper, the 360 should have a tougher time than the robust PS3 in rendering GTA:IV’s dense graphical world—but I wouldn’t take that to the bank quite yet. So far, I haven’t seen any side-by-side comparisons, and Rockstar seems to think the two consoles are “neck and neck,” at least in terms of GTA’s graphics. Still, I can imagine many 360 users wondering if they’re getting the shorter end of the visual stick.

On a different note, Rockstar has publicly complained that the Xbox 360 “create[d] limitations” because of its relative lack of storage (just a DVD drive compared to the PS3’s Blu-ray drive, and games must be built without depending on the 360’s optional hard drive). In other words, the Xbox 360’s “limitations” may have held back both the PS3 and 360 versions of the game.

OK, so who’s the big winner?: Not having played either version of GTA:IV myself yet, I can only rely on the bullet points—and on that basis, the Xbox 360 gets the edge. The promise of the 360-exclusive downloadable content alone must be making PS3 gamers green-eyed with envy.

That said, here’s my plan: As several of you have requested, I’m gonna march down to my local gaming store on Tuesday, snag both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Grand Theft Auto IV, and fire up my consoles for some side-by-side comparisons. (Tough life, I know.) Once I’ve had my fill, I’ll weigh in with a verdict.

Alright gamers, let’s hear it: Which version of GTA:IV—PS3 or Xbox 360—do you think will be better, and why?

Sony’s LCD TV panel supply this year will still chiefly come from S-LCD and Taiwan-based makers despite its recent deal with Sharp to build a 10G line, according to company president Ryoji Chubachi.

Chubachi maintained that the 10G joint venture will not be established until 2009, and therefore Taiwan and Korea remain Sony’s major source of LCD TV panels in 2008.

The president said that for 2008 Sony aims to take a 15-20% share of the worldwide LCD TV market, which is estimated will reach a size of 100 million units for the year.

Chubachi declined to reveal figures concerning Sony’s panel purchases from Taiwan for 2008. He said that the company saw an increase of 10-20% in its panel procurement from Taiwan in 2007 and expects further increases in 2008.

Chubachi made the remarks in Taipei as the company kicked off the annual Sony Fair in Taiwan. It is the fifth year that the Sony Fair has been held in Taiwan to showcase the company’s products and reinforce its brand image.

source: DigiTimes

Intel unveiled a new design of the Intel-powered classmate PC at the Intel Developer Forum in Shanghai. The second-generation Intel-powered classmate PCs have wireless capability, longer battery life, water resistant keyboards and are more shock resistant if dropped. Intel is calling this category of PCs “netbooks.”

source: DigiTimes

I love anything Nano (except the ipod =P). Here is some amazing Nano-Art I’ve come across online. Take a long look and admire their beauty.

   

The wires are made of a material called silicon carbide, and researchers hope to use these wires to develop the next generation of electronic devices.

 

The flowers were made and photographed by Ghim Wei Ho, a graduate student at the Nanoscale Center at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

 

 Failed oxidation of a piece of silicon, which went south because not enough chromium was used

 

This image of a nanowire octapus, by Zhengwei Pan

“T4 Bacteriophage” is a virus-like robot in the living body. Made of carbon, it was fabricated by FIB-CVD on a Si surface and is about ten times as large as the real virus
Magnification: 25,000X by Reo Kometani & Shinji Matsui

Educators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have used rapid prototyping to create plaster models of nanostructures.

 

Ruptured blood vessel by Anne Weston

Red Blood Cells by Annie Cavanagh

 

Breast Cancer Cells by Annie Cavanagh

And lastly, my favourite…. 

Nano-explosions by Fanny Beron

 

This may perhaps change the way we use any objects ever again, allowing us the embed circuitry into the tinyiest of places. Check out the article below!

The stretchy circuits could be used to build advanced brain implants, health monitors or smart clothing.

The complex devices consist of concertina-like folds of ultra-thin silicon bonded to sheets of rubber.

Writing in the journal Science, the US researchers say the chip’s performance is similar to conventional electronics.

“Silicon microelectronics has been a spectacularly successful technology that has touched virtually every part of our lives,” said Professor John Rogers of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, one of the authors of the paper.

But, he said, the rigid and fragile nature of silicon made it very unattractive for many applications, such as biomedical implants.

“In many cases you’d like to integrate electronics conformably in a variety of ways in the human body - but the human body does not have the shape of a silicon wafer.”

Read the rest of this article on BBC Technology

Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.

source: Google 

Asustek Computer has announced its Splendid HD1 video enhancement card, which is able to increase picture quality for HD content to deliver sharper, more vividly colored visual outputs. It can also enhance lower-resolution inputs by recovering image clarity when viewing legacy content for viewing on LCD TV or monitors as well as provide true HDMI with audio and HDCP.

The Splendid HD1 is able to automatically select the best possible display modes to deliver exceptional quality visuals in photos, video and games, according to Asustek.

source: DigiTimes

Microsoft Corp. will release Windows XP Service Pack 3 during the second half of April, according to a report from a Web site that has correctly predicted recent Windows ship dates.TechARP.com, a Malaysian Web site that nailed Vista SP1’s release-to-manufacturing (RTM) date last month as well as its release to Windows Update last week, said that Microsoft will wrap up work on XP’s third and final service pack next month. The site pegged RTM for Windows XP SP3 as “second half of April 2008″ for seven languages, with a follow-on RTM of the remaining supported languages “approximately 21 days” later.

By TechARP’s account, Microsoft will first finish work on the Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Korean and Spanish versions of the service pack.

Microsoft declined comment, other than to repeat an earlier statement about the service pack’s timing. “We are targeting 1H [first half] 2008 for the release of XP SP3 RTM, though our timing will always be based on customer feedback as a first priority,” a spokeswoman said in an e-mail.

The last time Microsoft made a public move with Windows XP SP3 was a little over a month ago, when it posted a second release candidate to Windows Update.

About two weeks ago, however, XP SP3 caused a minor stir when what was purportedly the newest build leaked to the Internet and hit BitTorrent search sites such as The Pirate Bay. Although Microsoft initially refused comment, last week it acknowledged that the build — designated 5503 — was real and had been released to a portion of the invitation-only beta test group.

It also warned users away from any download. “This build was not intended for public release and anyone who has that build and is not part of the private beta is working with bits that Microsoft can’t verify,” a company spokeswoman said in an e-mail last week. “It’s possible the bits may have been modified with malware or other bad code that Microsoft hasn’t tested.”

Multiple versions of XP SP3 build 5503, including English- and Russian-language editions, are available via BitTorrent.

Once SP3 ships, the next major milestones for Windows XP are June 30, when the popular operating system is slated to fall off the reseller and retail availability list, and Jan. 31, 2009, when it will be taken out of all distribution channels, including system builders.

source: Computer World

Microsoft Corp. is offering free support to any Windows Vista user experiencing problems with installing Service Pack 1 (SP1), according to a company spokesman.”[Anyone] needing technical support regarding your installation of Windows Vista SP1, please go to the following URL and choose the bottom option that says, ‘Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (All Languages),’” said Brandon LeBlanc, a Microsoft employee who posted several comments to the company’s Vista blog. The link LeBlanc pointed users to led to a Vista SP1-specific support site.

“You have a variety of options you can choose for support, all of which will not cost you any support fee,” said LeBlanc. “I repeat: Support for SP1 will not cost you anything.”

“That’s a good move on their part,” said Michael Cherry, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft.

The SP1 site offers support via e-mail, online chat and telephone, and it lists hours of operation for the last two options. Free phone support, for instance, is available from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. Pacific time on weekdays and from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. Pacific time on weekends. The free support will be available for one year, and it covers installation and compatibility issues.

Normally, Microsoft offers no-cost support only to users who bought Windows at retail. Users who obtained the operating system already installed on a PC are referred to the computer manufacturer or reseller; the company’s for-fee support runs $59 per request unless the user or business has a prepaid support plan with Microsoft.

That policy, as well as the wording of the Vista SP1 support site as late as last Friday, confused one user commenting on the same thread. “You cannot get free support from [Microsoft] if Vista came preloaded on your HP. At least, that is what the Web site indicates,” said “romroyer.”

LeBlanc quickly replied. “You are incorrect. We are offering free-of-charge support to anyone who is having issues installing Windows Vista SP1 — even folks like ‘pat’ [an earlier commenter on the thread] who may be using a [reseller] copy of Windows Vista that came with their HP laptop,” he said. “Again, anyone can get free support for installation issues of SP1.”

By Sunday, Microsoft had modified the Vista SP1 support site and removed references directing users to contact their resellers if they had acquired Vista on new computers. The site’s wording had been altered to read: “No charge: Unlimited support requests.”

That’s Microsoft’s standard support policy for service packs, a spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “The no-fee support is actually part of our Windows Service Pack policy, not something specific to Windows Vista SP1,” she wrote.

Microsoft, however, has done little to broadcast news of the free SP1 support. The home page for the Windows Vista Solution Center, the operating system’s help and support starting point, makes no mention of it, nor does Microsoft’s main Windows Vista SP1 site.

source: Computer World