TechNudge › All the news that fit to read.

‹ Previous posts

The Happa

4:49 PM Thursday, May 17, 2012

Broadcast television executives came to New York this week, as they do every year, to talk up their new TV shows in front of advertisers. This year, they are having to talk about yet another technology trying to tear them down.

The disruptive technology at hand is an ad eraser, embedded in new digital video recorders sold by Charles W. Ergen’s Dish Network, one of the nation’s top distributors of TV programming. Turn it on, and all the ads recorded on most prime-time network shows are automatically skipped, no channel-flipping or fast-forwarding necessary.

Tipped through TechNudge Cras Commercialist Gyro

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

Iomega’s New Xeon-Packing NAS (px12-450r)

12:31 PM Thursday, May 17, 2012

As network-attached storage devices add more powerful processors and more RAM, and as manufacturers add applications and features to differentiate their products from the competition, the line between a NAS and a low-end server continues to blur.

Iomega’s new px12-450r is a 12-drive, 2U NAS that shares many features with the existing px12-350r, but adds a faster processor, more RAM, support for 4TB hard drives, and support for 10 gigabit Ethernet via PCI Express expansion slots.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

Say Goodbye to Hollywood Linux

12:28 PM Thursday, May 17, 2012

The battle to position Linux on the desktop has always been tenuous because the OEM relationships and marketing dollars will always promote the proprietary solutions. However, the advancement of mobile devices and the major shift to cloud based data storage and applications delivery means that the “desktop” space is perhaps no longer an area worth fighting to gain a share.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

GTX 670 Recall

9:04 AM Thursday, May 17, 2012

“EVGA has isolated this problem to an early batch of GTX 670 Superclock cards (P/N: 02G-P3-2672-KR) that were not properly screened during QA/QC procedure. We have already been working with our partners to retest this particular batch. In the meantime, our R&D has also done numerous tests, burn in and component quality verification to confirm that the EVGA GTX 670 Superclock is a well designed product.”

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

Anal Explosive

9:01 AM Thursday, May 17, 2012

For the first time in 18 years, millions of people can watch the moon pass in front of the sun, exposing a brilliant scorching halo for up to 4.5 minutes in an annular solar eclipse.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

The Power of the Apple

4:56 PM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Concern that Samsung could lose orders for dynamic random access memory from Apple caused the company’s stock to drop 6 percent on Wednesday.

Rumors from DigiTimes, the Taiwanese technology publication, suggested that Apple has placed huge orders with Elpida, a chipmaker in Japan. That caused concern that Apple was moving its DRAM business away from Samsung, and Samsung’s market value fell by $10 billion, according to Reuters.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

Contraceptive Foam

2:18 PM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

Don’t Want Crapware? Got Cash?

2:15 PM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Preinstalled trial versions of useless software have been slowing down new PCs for years, and Microsoft is finally offering a solution: bring your PC into a Microsoft Store and pay them $99 to install a clean copy of Windows.

The new program is an outgrowth of Microsoft’s “Signature” PC initiative, which sells bloatware-free versions of PCs from Microsoft’s partners in Microsoft stores. AllThingsD reports that Microsoft is now offering to change any computer into a Signature PC if customers bring it into the store and pay the requisite fee. Signature PCs also include Microsoft’s Windows Live Essentials programs; the ad-supported, Word and Excel-only Microsoft Office Starter edition; the Microsoft Security Essentials antivirus package; and the Zune media player software. Ninety days of free phone support is also included.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

So I’m Back at ZD Again

11:32 AM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Got a note yesterday that ZD, Inc has just swallowed Computer Shopper whole and unbroken. Let’s see, that makes my chain of employment with Ziff Davis 27 years (from Project Database in 1985 at PC Mag). I wonder if they rearranged the deck chairs?

Filed in General | Comments (3)
Back to the Top

Betting on the Great Unwashed

11:16 AM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Although General Motors has decided that social-media advertising is not right for its business, a new study seems to indicate that few other companies agree.

Local-media consulting firm BIA/Kelsey yesterday revealed that U.S. social-media ad spending is expected to hit $9.8 billion by 2016, up from $3.8 billion last year. This year, companies are expected to spend $4.8 billion on social-network advertising.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

How To Cook a Laptop

11:14 AM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

From Reddit:

Brought into our support center yesterday. The owner (who shall remain nameless) decided putting it into the oven was the most efficient way of drying it after he’d spilled water on it. This was a college student… I weep for the future. Amazingly the hard drive was unaffected.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

My Kind of Student Project

7:17 AM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Video

Filed in General | Comments (1)
Back to the Top

Rewiring Nerves

7:12 AM Wednesday, May 16, 2012

A 71-year-old man who became paralyzed from the waist down and lost all use of both hands in a 2008 car accident has regained motor function in his fingers after doctors rewired his nerves to bypass the damaged ones in a pioneering surgical procedure, according to a case study published on Tuesday.

Tingler

Filed in General | Comments (1)
Back to the Top

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon – But Is It Bulletproof?

5:47 PM Tuesday, May 15, 2012

While other ultrabook manufacturers strive to mimic the aluminum casing of Apple’s MacBook Air, Lenovo is sticking to its timeless ThinkPad design, but updating it to be thinner and lighter. The company on Tuesday unveiled its new 14-inch ThinkPad X1 Carbon, an updated X1 ultrabook made with carbon fiber underpinnings.

Lenovo’s latest ultrabook has a bigger screen than its predecessor, the 13-inch X1, but is actually lighter thanks to its carbon fiber “roll cage” — the skeletal chassis into which the notebook’s components are inserted. The X1 Carbon weighs 3 pounds compared to the 3.8 pounds of the X1. This also makes the ThinkPad X1 Carbon the lightest 14-inch, business-class ultrabook around, Lenovo says.

Filed in General | Comments (0)
Back to the Top

Tech Ketchup

10:23 AM Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Germany, June 1945. The Nazi regime has been toppled; the war in Europe is over. But the Allied victory is largely the result of sheer overwhelming force, not technological superiority — and the victors know it.