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Monthly Archives: February 2009

iOops!

Saturday, February 28, 2009

A report intending to portray the iPhone as “hated” in the Japanese market turns out to have been built upon fake quotations from industry writers and observers who were misrepresented by remarks attributed to them that they never made. Their actual comments on the iPhone’s prospects in Japan are far more interesting. A Wired article [...]

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Check My Shorts

Saturday, February 28, 2009

The argument over whether an outcrop of rock in South West Greenland contains the earliest known traces of life on Earth has been reignited, in a study published in the Journal of the Geological Society. The research, led by Martin J. Whitehouse at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, argues that the controversial rocks “cannot [...]

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Sony: We Had a Gun, We Aimed At Our Foot, We Fired!

Saturday, February 28, 2009

In one of the most shocking and bizarre comments ever made by a company chief, Hirai, the brains behind the entire PlayStation empire, explained to the Official PlayStation Magazine in its February issue that Sony didn’t want to make it easy on [software] developers. “We don’t provide the ‘easy to program for’ console that (developers) [...]

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Can’t You Read a Map?

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Ahoy, GPS-stranded motorist. Stop banging the dashboard, and consider this timely reincarnation of dead reckoning to help you find your way out of “GPS-denied environments,” or at least alert others to where you can be found. Seer Technology is offering a miniature, self-contained, electronic navigation unit called NaviSeer that mixes GPS and DR in a [...]

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Samsung NetNotebook NC20

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Samsung has become the first netbook maker to unveil a machine based on VIA’s Nano processor – as predicted. VIA has often said the Nano is aimed at full-size laptops, leaving the new chip’s predecessor, the C7-M, for netbooks, and to be fair, the Samsung NC20 – follow-up to the popular NC10 – does come [...]

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WozBook

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Looks like Apple Employee #1′s old 17″, maxed-out PowerBook is for sale on eBay, remarkably devoid of Cheetos fingerprints. But who acquired it from Woz to begin with? The answer might surprise and disappoint you. More

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On the Cheap

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Asustek Computer and MicroStar International are expected to become one of the first suppliers of notebooks, which utilize Intel Corp.’s inexpensive processors in ultra-thin mobile computers. Asus and MSI are projected to make their products available in the channel before June this year, according to the report. In total, there are 20 CULV configurations in [...]

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Gefen Wireless HDMI Extender

Saturday, February 28, 2009

In recent years, we’ve been getting rid of cables on our phones, Internet, and even on (some) PCs, and now the rush to nix the cable clutter in home theaters is on. The Gefen Wireless HDMI Extender ($999 direct) utilizes ultra-wideband (UWB) radio technology and advanced video compression to stream HD video across a room. [...]

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AMD: Goodbye Netbooks, Hello Neatbooks?

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Advanced Micro Devices is known for its negative attitude towards netbooks, ultra low-cost personal computers in sub-notebook form-factor with low-performance microprocessor. The company’s chief executive officer said in a recent interview that netbook category will be forgotten in a year from now. “I hate to say netbooks because a year from now people won’t say [...]

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NASA Gets a Boost, Shuttle Gets Bupkis

Friday, February 27, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed a funding boost for NASA that provides more support for Earth sciences missions and aviation, while keeping the agency’s three space shuttles on target for a 2010 retirement. NASA would receive $18.7 billion for the 2010 fiscal year under the budget proposal released by the White House on Thursday. [...]

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Sometimes Perfect Is Just Good Enough

Friday, February 27, 2009

As you probably already know Internet Explorer 8 is going to be more standards compliant than previous versions of the web browser. While that sounds great to us geeks that understand what that means it also poses a problem for casual computer users who only care whether a site works or not. Thousands and thousands [...]

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Microsoft Puts Its FAT in the Fire

Friday, February 27, 2009

Microsoft filed a patent infringement action against a vendor of Linux-based personal navigation devices (PNDs), and for the first time appears to target open-source Linux components. The company listed eight patent violations found in TomTom’s Linux-based PNDs, three involving the device’s use of the FAT filesystem. More

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No Dancing in the Dark

Friday, February 27, 2009

At Greener Gadgets in New York today, Freeplay Energy gave a sneak peek of a solar-powered radio with a 30-hour battery life and cell phone-like status bar. Unannounced until now, the radio with the ultra long battery life will sold starting next year in the US and a number of other countries for about $100, [...]

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AMD Missed a Clock Cycle

Friday, February 27, 2009

AMD flash-mem spin-off Spansion has been hit with two separate employment lawsuits after unexpectedly laying off 35 per cent of its workforce earlier this week. Both suits – Refuerzo v. Spansion and Rubaker v. Spansion – were filed yesterday in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Both accuse the company [...]

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Resurrection on Mars

Friday, February 27, 2009

NASA engineers and programmers today started repowering the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter after the spacecraft shut itself down earlier this week. The restarting process may take almost a week, said Jim Erickson, project manager for the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The scientists will be turning on one system at a time, and [...]

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