American Airlines sues Google over keywords

Yes, another week, another tech lawsuit – this time it’s American Airlines suing Google for its keyword ad placement. American Airlines alleges that Google sells sponsored links on top and to the right of search pages that, according to American Airlines, dilutes the company’s good name and confuses the public.

American Airlines filed the massive 55-page complaint in the Northern US District Court of Texas and demands a jury trial. If it wins, the airline wants an injunction, treble damages and money to conduct a “corrective advertising campaign”.

In Google’s “AdWords” program, the company sells pay per click ads that are triggered by keywords. These ads are set along the sides and top of the search engine page and are distinctly marked as “Sponsored Links”. So a person searching for Los Angeles airline flights could get American Airlines in the center search window, but also Southwest and other airlines in the right side of the screen. Regular search engine placement is determined by Google and cannot be purchased, however many online companies attempt to boost their rankings by using search engine optimization techniques (SEO).

While Google believes the sponsored section of the search windows is distinct enough for consumers, American Airlines believes differently. According to the complaint, the airline thinks the links allows competitors to grab business from American and that they also violate trademark laws by confusing and diluting the American Airlines name. “They seek a free ride on the reputation and goodwill of another’s brand,” said American Airlines in the complaint.

A quick Google search of American Airlines currently brings up a set of sponsored links (the ones you see on the right side of the search screen) by Cheap Air Tickets and CheapnHotels. American Airlines has purchased the most prominent sponsored link location at the top center of the search window.

Google has faced similar lawsuits in the past, most notably from the GEICO auto insurance group in 2004. In that case, a federal judge ruled that the search engine company could continue selling Sponsored Links triggered by search terms.

Canon introduces EOS 40D digital SLR

With 6.5 FPS continuous shooting, a new auto focus feature and a 10.1 MP sensor, Canon's latest DSLR camera is ready to hit the market.

Canon's EOS 40D, the successor to the EOS 30D, takes significant advances over the previous model with new technology that Canon introduced earlier this year. For example, the 40D incorporates Canon's DIGIC III processor, which allows for nearly instantaneous camera boot-up and advanced color rendering.

Additionally, the 40D maintains image quality of up to ISO 1600 and a burst rate of 6.5 frames per second. According to Canon, the camera can handle up to 75 large JPEGs without pause.

The camera also uses a new auto focus system. The new platform has nine AF points, each of which can focus on horizontal and vertical planes. There's also a new button that enables auto focus immediately.

The 40D has a three inch LCD screen for image previewing, complete with grid overlays and a real-time histogram to simulate the exposure of the picture.

Canon also today launched the Wireless File Transmitter WFT-E3. Compatible with the 40D, the WFT-E3 lets users transfer pictures wirelessly to rmote FTP servers. Additionally, when connected to a GPS device, the image is tagged with its precise location.

40,000 MP3 files in your pocket

Samsung is getting more aggressive in the hard drive market: The company today announced a new 160 GB drive in a 1.8" form factor – which is often used in compact notebooks and some portable audio and video players such as the video iPod.

According to the manufacturer, the 4200 rpm Spinpoint N2 drive is targeting mainly consumer applications such as portable media players and hard drive-based camcorders (which typically top out at 60 GB today). The 2-disk, 160 GB drive has enough room to carry about 40,000 MP3 files or about 100 HD movies.

Samsung did not say when the new drives will be available and how much they will cost.

The hard drive industry is on fire these days, answering the apparent competition from flash-based solid state disk (SSD) drives, which are expected to hit capacities of 128 GB this year. Samsung is one of the key drivers in the SSD segment, but is becoming a more visible player in the hard drive market as well.

EA sends out four games for Macs

Delivering on its promise to bring more games to the Apple computer platform, Electronic Arts today shipped four new Mac titles.

Two of the titles, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, will be available to consumers tomorrow. The other two, Command & Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars and Battlefield 2142, will be held until their August 28 release date.

All four titles were released on the PC within the last year.

EA announced in June that it would begin bringing more titles to the Mac. However, the four titles announced today encountered delays beyond what EA originally expected.

EA also pledged to release Madden NFL 08 simultaneously on the PC and Mac. The Mac version is nowhere to be found. The same promise was made about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08, which is slated to come out later this month.

Initially, the new games will be exclusive to the Apple Store and Apple.com, while EA and Apple try to attain additional retail partners.

Paramount, Dreamworks go HD DVD

The HD DVD camp today received an exclusivity commitment from two major movie studios – a welcome commitment the group needs in its battle against Blu-ray.

According to the announcement, Paramount and Dreamworks will publish home videos in HD DVD only, including titles from Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks Pictures, Dreamworks Animation Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films. The program will begin with the release of Blades of Glory on August 28, followed by Transformers and Shrek the Third.

Today’s announcement does not include films directed by Steven Spielberg as his films are not exclusive to either format.

The HD DVD group said that its format has "emerged as the most affordable way for consumers to watch their movies in high definition" and "offers consumers the chance to personalize the movie-watching experience, to interact with their movies and even to connect with a community of other fans."

Treatment for Internet addiction suggested

Is your computer mouse your first thought when you get up in the morning? Are you obsessed with email, MySpace or YouTube? A psychiatrist said that such behavior should be put on the same level with other extreme addictive disorders and be treated as such.

According to Dr. Pinhas Dannon, a psychiatrist from Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, says that Internet addiction should be taken seriously and grouped together with gambling, sex addiction, and kleptomania. In a new report, he describes Internet addiction as a "pathological condition that can lead to anxiety and severe depression."

Internet addiction is currently classified by mental health professionals as an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a mild to severe mental health condition that results in an urge to engage in ritualistic thoughts and behavior, such as excessive hand-washing or, in the case of the Internet, Web surfing. This, however, needs to change, Dannon claims. “Internet addiction is not manifesting itself as an ‘urge.’ It’s more than that. It’s a deep ‘craving.’ And if we don’t make the change in the way we classify Internet addiction, we won’t be able to treat it in the proper way,” he said.

According to the psychiatrist, especially teenagers and empty nesters are at risk to suffer from Internet addiction disorder. Diagnosis of form this condition may be difficult, he said, but stated that it will reveal itself through loss of sleep, anxiety when not online, isolation from family and peer groups, loss of work, and periods of deep depression.

Dannon believes that Internet addiction can be treated effectively, if it is viewed as any other extreme addiction. This treatment, he suggests would include medication such as Serotonin blockers and Naltrexone, which are typically used in cases of kleptomania and pathological gambling.

According to Dr. Dannon, Internet addiction is an "inevitable" product of modernization: “They are just like anyone else who is addicted to coffee, exercise, or talking on their cellular phone. As the times change, so do our addictions,” he said.

Wii movie playback unlocked

Video converting specialist X-OOM Software has released a new application that allows users to format movies that will playback on the Wii without modifying the console.

X-OOM Movies On Wii takes virtually any video format and coverts it into a unique format that, according to the software publisher, can be played back on the Wii if the video is saved to an SD card. The Wii has an SD card reader and a "photo viewing" channel on the main menu.

There are existing console modification kits that allow the Wii to play back DVD movies. However, by modding the console it becomes vulnerable to inoperability and the warranty is voided. Nintendo has so far announced no plans to bring any sort of video playback to the Wii.

The software program also contains various basic video editing features. Currently it is available in the UL for £20 ($40).

Software bug took Skype out

Skype today provided a few more information pieces about the reasons behind its massive network outage last week.

According to the company, the network outage was initially caused by a "massive restart of [its] user’s computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they rebooted after receiving a routine software update." That high number of reboots was followed by an equally high number of log-in requests, which resulted in what Skype calls a "chain reaction."

On the Skype blog, a company representative wrote that this event revealed a "previously unseen software bug within the network resource allocation algorithm" which prevented Skype's "self-healing function from working quickly."

"The issue has now been identified explicitly within Skype," the representative wrote. "Skype has now identified and already introduced a number of improvements to its software to ensure that our users will not be similarly affected in the unlikely possibility of this combination of events recurring."

The company said that there were no malicious activities that impacted Skype.

Tilera announces 64-core processor

Silicon Valley startup Tilera today announced the Tile64, a processor with 64 programmable cores that, according to the company, houses ten times the performance and 30 times the power efficiency of Intel's dual-core Xeon processors.

Intel may be getting tired of hearing about products performing better than its dual-core processors targeting server and embedded, as the company describes dual-core processors, at least when it comes to performance, as last year's product. However, when there's a company claiming that it can beat Intel's last year's product by a factor of 10x and 30x, depending on discipline, it's certainly worth a look.

The Tile64 is a RISC-based processor clocked between 600 MHz and 1 GHz aiming for integration in embedded applications such as routers, switches, appliances, video conferencing systems and set-top boxes. Its manufacturer claims that the CPU solves a critical problem in multi-core scaling and opens the door to hundreds or even thousands of cores using this new architecture.

Other than for example Intel's Core architecture, which is expected to soon be running into a bottleneck caused by its centralized bus architecture (which acts as communication node between all cores), Tilera's cores can exchange data with all other cores through a "mesh" architecture. Each of the 64 tiles consists of a CPU unit, a cache unit and a switch, which can send information into four directions to neighboring "tiles". Each tile has a bandwidth of 500 Gb/s, with the Tile64's aggregate bandwidth topping out at 32 Tb/s.

Besides the fact that Tilera claims that it has untangled a data traffic mess that otherwise would have surrounded a central bus, the company has come up with an interesting and flexible cache architecture for the tiles, each of which is able to act as a fully functioning system that can run an operating system. Each tile integrates two 8 KB L1 caches (8 KB iL1, 8 KB dL1) as well as a 64 KB L2 cache. There is no L3 cache per se, but if required by the application, a software developer can utilize all L1 and L2 caches as one 5 MB L3 cache.

The result is a claimed performance that is ten times what a dual-core Xeon offers, while performance per watt is exceeding the Xeon by 30x. The manufacturer states that each tile consumes a maximum of 300 mWatt, which translates into a maximum power consumption of 19.2 watts per Tile64 chip. Still, there is enough horsepower to encode eight parallel standard definition video streams at 2 Mb/s per stream, two high definition 720p streams at 7 Mb/s each or one 1080p video stream at 20 Mb/s.

According to Tilera, programmers can get their application up and running on Tile64 "very quickly", while they mentioned that "fine-tuning" will optimize the software's performance.

Tilera said that the processor is available now. For a new entry into the market, Tilera priced its product with confidence: 10K-tray pricing is set at $435 for each Tile64 – which appears cheap, if it can replace ten Xeon processors. But in a real world environment, the processor is priced against a quad-core Xeon 5345 (2.33 GHz, 8 MB L2 cache), which currently sells for a 1K tray price of $455.

Initial customers using the processor in upcoming products include 3Com, Top Layer, Codian and GoBackTV.

Of course, every time a new processor company comes around, there is the question if there is really enough room for another player – in this case, a market where heavyweights such as Intel and Texas Instruments battle for market shares. Other than PA Semi, a relatively new microprocessor company that does not build its processor, but licenses its technology, Tilera is actually manufacturing the Tile64, which is reminiscent of the rise and fall of Transmeta.

If you have been around in this industry for some time, then you may remember that Transmeta was in "stealth mode" from 1997-2000 and reason for media reports mainly because of one famous employee, Linux inventor Linus Torvalds. Transmeta launched with great fanfare in January 2000, but never got a foot on the ground and today is struggling to survive with revenues from licensing its LongRun2 technology to companies such as NEC.

Companies such as Tilera are exposed to the problems that broke Transmeta's neck in CPU manufacturing: Microprocessor buyers today, for example, expect a track record of reliability that new companies cannot offer, buyers expect a support system, extensive manufacturing capabilities, a long-term roadmap that reveals what can be expected in terms of performance and feature set. Transmeta never made it much further than a presence in Asian markets, a few sub-notebooks on these shores as well as exotic computing solutions such as desktop clusters. Tilera, however, believes that it is competing in a different and "aggressively adopting" multi-core market in which it has the performance edge (which Transmeta never had).

During our briefing with Tilera, chief technology officer Anant Agarwal told us that he believes that the company has solved a "huge problem" of multi-core architectures and therefore has a substantial advantage: "We know how to get to hundreds of cores. This means that we are way ahead of the competition."

Playstation 3 kills HD DVD

Just a few months ago, the high-definition arena looked like we were in for a lengthy battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD. That impression surely has changed: Blu-ray is capturing the market where it counts – movie sales, which apparently are driven by Playstations making their way into the market. Will the game console break HD DVD's neck?

Well, let’s look at the market we have today.

From a general perspective, HD DVD seems to have all the pieces of the puzzle in its favor and it has a strategy that makes common sense. HD DVD (consumer electronics) players are less expensive than Blu-ray players, suggesting the technology should be adopted faster than the pricey rival. The group behind HD DVD is also pushing much more to bring new interactive features to the format.

The strategy has worked somewhat: When looking at standalone CE players, HD DVD has sold countlessly more units. Yet, some how the format continues to be trampled upon by Blu-ray in terms of movie sales. The latest estimate found Blu-ray movies outselling HD DVD by a factor of 2:1.

So, despite the fact that HD isn't quite mainstream yet, are these early numbers significant? Can it really be that a group of early adopting gamers with a console widely panned for its lack of games has dynamically shifted the home video format war? We here believe it did.

There was doubt earlier this year whether the PS3 could deliver an edge for Blu-ray or not. Now it turns out that Sony had its bet right and it looks like the PS3 could decide the format war much earlier than anticipated. HD DVD has become the struggling format that is losing supporters left and right these days.

It's a timely discussion because we're now in the very beginning stages of seeing more clues who could emerge as a winner. Target, Blockbuster, and other small chains have already cast their votes for Blu-ray, deciding not to devote retail space to HD DVD. For the average consumer, this says Blu-ray is the next format. There is no other choice. This is crucial because the long-term acceptance of a format relies heavily on the average consumer.

Movie Studio support also appears to be shifting with Disney being the latest to heavily invest into the format.

Recently revealed advantages of Blu-ray in movie sales are pretty substantial for a format war just one year in the making. However, Toshiba says standalone HD DVD players are outselling standalone Blu-ray players by a margin of four to one. That disparity raises a lot of questions, most of which can be answered with two words - Playstation 3.

According to a study commissioned by Sony in June, 72% of Playstation 3 owners have purchased a Blu-ray disc movie, and 87% said they intend to buy one in the next 12 months. Of those who said they watch BD movies on their PS3 frequently, 82% said Blu-ray is their preferred movie format.

There's some confusion about whether PS3 owners do actually make use of the console's ability to play Blu-ray movies. In stark contrast to the Sony survey, NPD released a study this week that found that 40% of next-gen gamers didn't even know the PS3 had a Blu-ray player.

However, the NPD survey included owners of any next-gen system, meaning the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360. It also included participants as young as six years old. This undoubtedly includes people who don't even care about high definition content. For die-hard PS3 fans, though, it seems there isn't even a question. They appreciate the Blu-ray functionality and probably don't even look at HD DVD.

However, HD DVD has always been ahead of the game in terms of interactive features. Some HD DVD titles can now access the Internet to download exclusive content. Users can also view picture-in-picture features for things like video commentary, storyboard comparisons, and street map overlays for car chase sequences. This is all exclusive to HD DVD. Meanwhile, there's a huge collection of Blu-ray movies that don't even have an interactive menu screen comparable to DVD.

There's no question in my mind that HD DVD is a fundamentally better product. If it were up to the true videophiles to decide, it probably would be gaining a lot more traction. However, for the first time in a heated format war, the core audience is not the video enthusiast group that's deciding. It's the much wider audience of video gamers. Even though the PS3 is the slowest-selling next-gen console, it still accounts for over three million Blu-ray players. That's a number HD DVD can't even dream of yet.

Because of the accessibility of it for people who are just barely curious of next-gen DVD formats, Blu-ray has gained steam - so much steam in fact that it has already left HD DVD in the dust.

So, what's next for HD DVD?

We believe, if the HD DVD group wants to keep any chance at a comeback is to pull back the hundreds of millions of dollars it currently pours into promotional campaigns and invest into a sweet spot in the hardware market instead.

The sales of the bare bones drive for the Xbox 360 certainly have been rather disappointing when compared to the Blu-ray/PS3 combination. The format already essentially lost its shot at adoption within a game console. Even big-name exclusive titles like The Matrix haven't really caused much of a stir for HD DVD.

So, aside from just sitting around and waiting, hoping for consumers to look its way, the only thing I can see is that HD DVD needs to expand on its other platforms. Bringing a killer app in the form of an HD DVD-based computer game, standard iuntegration into the Xbox, landing a partnership with TiVo to bring an HD DVD player to the high-definition TiVo box, or even incorporating built-in HD DVD players into a wide variety of HDTVs all could create more awareness for the format.

The clock is ticking, though, and HD DVD simply cannot just wait until the mainstream crowd decides they want to move into high definition. From today's view the battle could be decided much earlier – by video gamers. There's a lot of ground to cover, thanks mainly to Sony's foresight in combining Blu-ray with the PS3.

Yes, we also had our doubts whether Blu-ray was a good move or not. But as it looks right now, Sony got it right and the PS3 investment may pay off big time.

DriveSavers dispels common hard drive recovery myths

Freezing or hitting failed hard drives don’t work and can actually increase the damage, according to DriveSavers representatives. Known for successfully recovering data from thousands of drives a month, DriveSavers engineers have seen everything from burnt laptops to hairspray cemented floppy disks. Not wanting to pay for professional recovery, some people resort to urban legends that may sound good at first, but according to the company have no scientific basis for working.

We spoke with John Christopher, DriveSavers’ Director of PR at the SIGGRAPH convention in San Diego California. The average recover costs around $1700 and DriveSavers handles between 1300 and 1500 hard drives a month with a 90% success rate, according to Christopher. The success rate is phenomenal considering that many customers will often make thing worse before sending their drives to the company.

“Customers always do more harm. You’ve got one copy, one chance… why mess around?” said Christopher.

Hard drive head crashes and mechanical failures comprise approximately 60% of DriveSavers’ hard drive recoveries and many computer geeks have heard about freezing the drive to shrink the platters. Basically you pop the hard drive in the freezer overnight and in the morning you quickly attach it to the computer and grab all the data. The theory is that the platters will shrink while cold and become “unstuck” from the drive head or casing, but according to Christopher this is bogus.

“If anyone got it to work, it was pure luck, I can’t find any reasons why it would work and my clean room guys have never gotten it to work,” Christopher told us. He added that water can condense on the hard drive platters after it has been take out of the freezer. “Then you get water spots which is really bad,” he said.

Another myth is you can hit the hard drive when it is spinning up to force it back into working order. “Some people try smacking it on the side while the drive powers up,” said Christopher. That too doesn’t work he said.

And it doesn’t end there because some customers have tried buying identical drives on eBay and then replacing the platters in their bathrooms. “They think that their bathrooms are cleaner,” Christopher told us.

So what’s the craziest data recovery the company has ever done? Christopher said that was a loaded question because most of the drives come with unbelievable stories. The company handles drives that have been burnt in fires, drowned in floods and has even recovered the contents of a PowerBook that sunk in the Amazon River.

Christopher does remember one of the first recoveries which was a student’s only copy of her thesis from a floppy disk.

“She put the disk in her purse and sat down at a bench. She heard a hissing sound which was a Aquanet hairspray can discharging all over her floppy.”

Despite having a sticky cemented disk, DriveSavers fully recovered the document.

Speaking of floppies, the company still receives floppies for recovery. Christopher told us that people even send in ancient 20 to 30 MB RLL/MFM formatted hard drives.

Drive recovery procedures are constantly changing and Christopher told us that increasing drive capacities are making things somewhat more difficult for his engineers. One example is that people are buying computers with a terabyte or more of storage, but that space is actually spanned across two or more drives. This is a big danger is one of the drives dies and takes out the whole array.

“These computer companies don’t say that the drives are spanned. So now the customer has no clue and says ‘I didn’t know I had four drives’”

Incidentally, a very satisfied DriveSavers customer walked up to us during the interview and told us how the company saved his 160 GB hard drive. Jacob Pollack said he first took his drive to an Apple store and their reps botched the job.

“My drive had very important media files and the Apple store just reformatted my drive,” Pollack said. He added that the reps eventually referred him to DriveSavers.

GPS rival to integrate tech for global search and rescue system

Representatives of the Galileo project, Europe's effort to establish a civil global positioning system, have presented an ambitious plan to equip its satellites with a future worldwide search and rescue technology to be able to locate and communicate with individuals in emergency situations anywhere on the globe.

The new project was announced as part of the recent annual Joint Committee Meeting of COSPAS-SARSAT, an international initiative focused on a satellite system for search and rescue. Galileo representatives confirmed that their future satellite system will be equipped with transponders to relay distress signals to search and rescue organizations, as a key technology of MEOSAR (Medium Earth Orbit Search And Rescue), a future worldwide search and rescue satellite system.

What is fascinating about the Galileo system is that it promises to overcome many of the limitations satellite-based rescue systems have today.

COSPAS-SARSAT currently operates a total 12 satellites. Five "Geosar" geostationary satellites orbit in 1000 km altitude: These satellites remain fixed relative to the position of the Earth and have a relatively poor coverage of the polar regions. This deficiency is somewhat covered by seven low-Earth orbit (850 km altitude) "Leosar" satellites circling the Earth around the poles. The major downside of today's system, which went into operation almost 25 years ago on September 10, 1982, is that there can be a substantial delay in relaying distress signals, which currently can be received through beacons at 121.5 MHz and 406 MHz.

The system cannot monitor the complete surface of the Earth at any given moment and depends on a satellite passing a distress signal overhead. In addition, the satellites cannot relay a distress signal to the ground at any given time, but rather have to store the location of the emergency and send it to a base station once there is one in reach. COSPAS-SARSAT says that it can take up to one hour until a signal is received and sent back to the ground.

Also, distress signals need to have a direct line of sight to the satellites, which may not be possible in some situations, especially in accident situations where individuals are trapped in a deep valley and the surrounding terrain obscures the view to the satellite.

Galileo promises to solve these problems, providing a global coverage with about 20 – 30 satellites in medium-Earth orbit. The project promises that the system will be able to monitor even polar regions; the capability of multiple viewing angles is expected to tackle the problem of terrain blocking.

The Galileo search and rescue component will also provide a basic communication component that is absent in the current Geosar and Leosar system. While the "Forward Link Alert Service" is promised to be fully backward compatible with the current operational COSPAS-SARSAT components and interoperable with all other planned MEOSAR elements, detects activated distress beacons and notifies the appropriate rescue body, there is a second feature, called "Return Link Service". This component will allow the satellite to send a return message to the emergency beacon and let individuals know that their distress signal has been received and help is on its way.

Galileo representatives said that four satellites with search and rescue transponders will be used to demonstrate the Galileo MEOSAR services.

Activist group recommends more control over search privacy

Public policy organization The Center For Democracy & Technology (CDT) has released a report calling for an overhaul of search engine privacy policies.

Once a completely non-glamorous tool for finding content on the Internet, search engines have become the backbone for e-commerce, online advertising, and digital privacy concerns. A few snafus and an increasing desire for privacy have caused giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo to come under intense scrutiny.

Each of the three big sites has modified or announced plans to modify its privacy policy within the past year, but activists say there's still more work to do. Google and Microsoft, for example, plan to keep track of IP addresses that use their respective search engine for 18 months. Yahoo will keep this information for 13 months. Individual search terms on all three sites will remain in Google's history indefinitely, but will not link the searches to individual users after the user information is deleted.

As part of the report, CDT says search engines need to develop "new standards and policies that take privacy into account from the beginning."

CDT wants the government to step in because it says search sites cannot be trusted. "No amount of seul-regulation in the search privacy space can replace the need for a comprehensive federal privacy law to protect consumers from bad actotrs," writes the organization.

For the most part, CDT says long-term privacy is secured by all of the big search engines, as they delete unique identifiers to prevent linking search terms back to specific users. It's the short term that becomes worriesome, claims the organization.

Specifically, it says, search-based advertising must be closely monitored. CDT calls for search engines to offer more choices for how their data is stored and used, and that user privacy needs to come first before advertising revenue. This becomes more glaringly important when sharing data between multiple sites, owned by the same company, opens up new concerns.

"As it becomes possible to tie more and more information back to an individual user account, users should control the correlation of their account information with records of their online activities," writes CDT in its report.

Halo 3 hits one million pre-orders in record time

Microsoft's ultimate cash cow for the Xbox 360, Halo 3 has eclipsed one million pre-orders more than six weeks before the game is scheduled to be released.

The software giant announced today that it reached the one million pre-order milestone, counting all orders for Halo 3, Halo 3: Limited Edition, and Halo 3: Legendary Edition. The two special editions contain a bonus disc and physical Halo memorabilia. The $130 Legenday Edition also includes a Spartan Mjolnir Mark VI helmet and a second bonus disc. The Limited Edition title is priced at $70, with the standard version going for the standard Xbox 360 price of $60.

A million pre-orders for a video game is a rare occurrence, and Microsoft says Halo 3 has reached that mark faster than any other video game.

Halo 3, easily poised to be the top seller for the Xbox 360 this holiday season, is supposedly the final installment in the Halo series, which put Microsoft on the map with the original Xbox.

A huge promotional campaign will put Halo 3 on brand names around the country, including Burger King packaging, 7-Eleven Slurpees, and even a special edition Halo 3 G6 GXP street car from Pontiac.

The game is set to debut on September 25.

Fujitsu marching towards terabyte hard drives for notebooks

Fujitsu announced that it has developed a basic read/write capability of ideally ordered alumina nanoholes on a 2.5” magnetic disk on the way to achieve a recording density of 1 Tb per square inch.

According to a press release, Fujitsu claims to be first to have created an ordered alumina nanohole patterns, including a flying head on a rotating disk. The fabrication process uses perpendicular magnetic recording at a density of 100 nm pitch nanoholes, which is supported currently available head technology, the company said. The pitch is significantly wider than the 25 nm pitch that was announced by the company earlier this year and that is expected to be necessary to achieve a recording density of 1 Tb per square inch.

“Fujitsu is the first company to demonstrate read/write signals in individual ideally ordered alumina nanohole using a flying head for measurement," said David James, vice president, advanced product engineering, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, in a prepared statement. With the growing demand for hard drives with high capacities, especially in small form factors, one Tb per square inch would enable potential storage capacities of up to 1.2 TB on a 2-platter 2.5" drive. We expect this breakthrough to provide revolutionary changes for various IT and consumer applications.”

Fujitsu did not say when this technology will be available, however, it could provide the industry enough headroom for one more decade before the looming switch to a completely new hard drive technology may be necessary. Currently mass produced hard drives achieve densities of up to 205 Gb per square inch in Seagate's single-platter 3.5" desktop drive. Samsung recently announced a 3-platter 1 TB drive which records data at 241 Gb per square inch. At the time 1 Tb per square inch will be reached, 3.5" drives, could record data at 1.33 TB per platter and translate into 4-disk drives with more than 5 TB capacity.

Blu-ray, HD DVD topple VHS sales

High definition discs became the second most popular video medium in the first half of 2007, officially overtaking legacy format VHS.

According to a research piece from trade publication Video Business, sales of Blu-ray Discs and HD DVDs combined in the first half of 2007 beat VHS. During the last six months of 2006, the now-archaic format was still edging out the high definition newcomers.

By 2005%, VHS's market share in the home video market had fallen to around 15%, and has continued to fall ever since. Blu-ray and HD DVD overtaking the dying format was more or less expected, but through the end of 2006 the high-def competitors were still behind.

With the highly contentious battle between Blu-ray, fronted by Sony, and HD DVD, backed mainly by Toshiba and Universal, there was mounting concern that wary consumers would back off of both until a winner was decided.

However, both formats have already made significant marks in the home video market. Blu-ray's Casino Royale reached 100,000 units shipped in March, beating the 11 months it took DVD to reach that milestone. Meanwhile, HD DVD took a hold with the first high definition disc box set to be on Amazon.com's list of top five DVDs with the documentary series Planet Earth.

Warner's short-titled "300" is the most recent newsmaker, selling 250,000 copies on Blu-ray and HD DVD in a single week.

It's still a long way before the two formats really begin to chip into DVD, though. By comparison, over five million copies of the DVD version of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest were sold in its first 24 hours.

Blockbuster to buy Movielink

Though Blockbuster has flip-flopped on the idea of digital downloads in the past, it has now reportedly entered the market with a confirmed deal to acquire Movielink.

The AP reports that Blockbuster has finalized a deal to purchase the online video download site. At first, the rental chain will keep Movielink separate and run it as a standalone operation, but will eventually integrate it as part of Blockbuster Online.

Early this year, speculation of an acquisition rose when Blockbuster began preliminary talks with Movielink. Plans fell through, though, until Blockbuster named a new CEO a couple months ago, who expressed a greater interest in a stake of the online video market.

Blockbuster, which still has a logo in the shape of a VHS tape, went through enormous struggles with the transition to DVD and cheaper online alternatives. At one point it changed its nationwide rental policies three times in less than one year.

Blockbuster's main competitor is Netflix, an online rental service that began offering digital downloads earlier this year. However, the leader in the on-demand video market is the Xbox 360, which has a vast selection of movies and TV shows available on a "rental download" basis, where users have 24 hours to watch a purchased piece of content. It also offers more high definition video than any other digital download service.

Movielink is laced with DRM security, so much so that it has been widely panned by consumers and has failed to gain any more than a modicum of success. Its prices are also not competitive with services offered by iTunes and the Xbox 360, leaving consumers to pay more money for content that's more restricted. The online video site is owned by a conglomerate of movie studios who created it in 2002 as a legal outlet to combat illegal video sharing.

By 2006, however, there were significantly more sources offering video downloads legally, and movie studios became much more interested in digital downloads operated by third parties. In May 2006, Business Week reported that the five studios who invested in Movielink (MGM, Paramount, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros) were looking to sell the site. Blockbuster was the first to officially announce an interest in purchasing it.

Blockbuster will pay for the acquisition in cash, but exact financial terms were not disclosed.

Study: Gamers unaware, don't care about additional game console features

A new study shows that most gamers just want to play games and don't really care about all the extra expensive goodies packed into the multimedia consoles, according to a new survey from research group NPD.

Some of the most fundamental, basic features of the next-gen consoles went unknown by the 6,260 surveyed console owners in the US. For example, only 30% knew that the Xbox 360 has the ability to produce high definition graphics. Sony has done somewhat better in making that point with the PS3, but the NPD survey showed that one in two people were not even aware of the PS3's HD functionality.

Only 40% were aware of the PS3's built-in Blu-ray Disc player, and only 20% said they had watched a BD movie in the last 10 times they powered up their console.

The survey, which included people aged six to 44, also came back with only 37% knowing that the PS3 was backwards compatible with Playstation and PS2 titles. 50% were unaware of the multimedia features on Sony's portable system, the PSP, according to the survey results.

It also showed that handheld gamers are more likely to play online games on the Nintendo DS than on the PSP, and on the console side the most common online platform is the Xbox 360.

"To make headway in this 'next-gen' race, manufacturers still need to be primarily concerned with the quality and entertainment value of the games themselves," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Xbox 360 Pro gets new HDMI port

Along with a cheaper price, customers who purchase a new Xbox 360 Pro will get to make use of a newly implanted HDMI port, previously exclusive to the top tier Xbox 360 Elite.

Microsoft has begun shipping the new version of the $350 console to retailers. Customers will be able to differentiate the new console from older stock by an HDMI logo printed on the Xbox 360 box.

"Retailers are gradually introducing HDMI-enabled Xbox 360s into the channel to meet demand," said a Microsoft representative, according to Gamespot.

When it launched in November 2005, the Xbox 360's only high definition output capability was through component video cables. Since then, HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) technology has grown in popularity among HD enthusiasts for its combined audio/video functionality and its ability to produce the highest video output, 1080p. HDMI first came to the Microsoft console with the addition of the Xbox 360 Elite, a third console SKU (stock keeping unit) with a larger hard drive than previous versions of the system, along with an HDMI port.

The addition of more sophisticated hardware comes almost immediately after Microsoft lowered the price of the console by $50. In 2005 the software giant was reportedly losing more than $125 per console but has continuously worked on bringing its manufacturing cost down.

Defcon 2007 – Mayhem, mystery and marriage

This year’s recently completed Defcon convention started off with a bang and ended on a tender note. Almost 7000 people attended the convention and one of those was an “undercover” reporter from NBC Dateline. I put undercover in quotes because she wasn’t very good at staying hidden and was discovered even before setting foot at the Riviera Hotel.

All the Dateline drama happened on Friday, the first day of Defcon, and you can read all about it in this article . While this was the highlight of the convention, Defcon had several other notable happenings.

The Mystery Box challenge is a yearly contest that has attendees trying to break into a hardened-steel box. Protected by multiple sensors and locks, the box withstood attacks for 22.5 hours before a team of 20 finally broke in. During the contest, participants complained loudly about the deviousness of all the protections and called the boxes’ creator, “LoST”, a “very sick” man.

The Defconbots contest is another yearly contest that makes teams build automated guns that can shoot down paper targets. Teams modified plastic-pellet firing airsoft guns into robotic guns that automatically tracked white colored targets. Utah-based Team Octopi – the same team that won lost year – won this year’s contest by shooting 20 targets in 16.6 seconds. During the awards ceremony, the team told the audience that they knew nothing about computer vision when they started two years ago.

Defcon ended with some happy tears this year as two federal agents were married on stage in front of thousands of hackers. The Riviera’s minister presided over the ceremony and told the audience that he would love to do a group wedding for next year – that is if enough people are interested.

It’s interesting how the relationship between feds and attendees have changed in the past few years that I’ve been attending Defcon. Before 9/11 the feds were treated with a healthy bit of suspicion and a fed wedding would have never occurred back in the old days of Defcon. Some of the suspicion still exists today, but the feds have really tried to reach out to the community by conducting panels, answering questions and even offering jobs.

AMD offers $1.7 billion in notes to pay back ATI acquisition loan

AMD announced its "intention" to offer $1.5 billion worth of convertible senior notes, with the option of $225 million in additional notes to cover over allotments.

According to a press release distributed late Wednesday, the company expects to use the proceeds of the offering as well as some of its cash to repay the outstanding balance in a loan agreement with Morgan Stanley Senior Funding. AMD took out this loan in the amount of $2.5 billion on October 24 of last year in order to cover a substantial portion of the acquisition of ATI.

The purchase price of the former graphics chip maker was paid with $1.8 billion cash AMD had available, $2.5 million in cash through the Morgan Stanley loan as well as more than 57 million AMD shares. The total purchase price was $5.4 billion.

This new convertible senior notes offering follows close on the heels of an earlier offering AMD announced in April of this year. Back then, the company issued an offering that included an aggregate amount of $2 billion of convertible senior notes, plus an additional $200 million in notes to cover over allotments.

Siggraph 2007 Video: 2objet’s prototyping printer whips up wrenches in minutes

Three dimensional printers have grown up and are now popping out complicated objects in mere minutes. At the Siggraph convention in San Diego, we saw 2object’s Eden260 printer blaze away, making plastic wrenches in front of awed spectators. Watch our video to see the printer in action.

The Eden260 lays down layers of non-toxic photopolymer acrylic. Objects with walls as thin as .6 mm can be created and the printer has a resolution of 600, 300 and 1600 dpi in the x, y and z-axis respectively.

2-kilogram cartridges of resin are loaded into the front of the printer. Both opaque and clear plastic is available and the prototypes can be easily painted.

NCSA on track to build petaflop supercomputer

The National Science Foundation (NSF) received notice today that the National Science Board (NSB) has approved a resolution granting the NCSA receive funding to build a petaflop supercomputer at their facility in Urbana, Illinois.

If the NSF follows the NSB's suggestion, the new system will be called "Blue Waters" and will go online in 2011. It is expected to cost $208 million to build over 4.5 years. NCSA was one of several hopeful supercomputing centers to submit a proposal for this petaflop machine. The highest performing supercomputer at NCSA today was just launched on July 2, 2007. It's called "Abe" and operates at 0.091 petaflops. This new machine will be more than ten times more powerful than Abe is today.

Two resolutions were officially approved. The first is called "Track 1: A Leadership-Class System," and is the Blue Waters machine. The second is a lesspowerful machine intended "to bridge the gap between current high-performance computers (HPC) and even more advanced petascale systems under development": Called "Track 2: Mid-Range High-Performance Computing Towards the Petascale," it will be a $65 million 5-year project targeted at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville Joint Institute for Computational Science (JICS).

Neither award is final. The NSF has its own review process to go through and will be making the final announcement in September, 2007. However, the NSB's endorsement will likely weigh in very heavily. And having spent some time with the folks at NCSA earlier this year, I can tell you that everyone there is most likely running down the halls with great excitement.

Nokia, Sprint to offer N800 tablet with Wimax capability

Sprint is apparently preparing Nokia's N800 compact Internet device N800 to be available with support for Wimax next year.

According to a report published by Linux Devices, Nokia will be offering the N800 as Wimax-enabled device with a Linux operating at its core. Initially, the N800 is expected to support Mobile Wimax, with other Wimax variants following later on. According to Sprint, Wimax will be available in 19 U.S. markets by the end of the year, including major metropolitan areas, such as Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Salt Lake City, Seattle and Washington D.C.

The N800 comes close to what Intel recently described as "Mobile Internet Devices" – a new class of mobile computers that are much smaller than UMPCs and foremost serve as entertainment and communication devices and allow consumers to stay connected, especially to the Internet and Email. In comparison to Apple's iPhone, which is often cited to be an early member of this class of devices, the N800 does not have phone capability, but it has a larger screen (4.13") and Wimax-support certainly opens the door for VoIP telephony.

Compared the $400 N800 Nokia is offering today, such a device is likely to require much more memory to store information. The device currently has 256 MG of built-in flash memory, with a possibility to extend storage space via SD, MMC or micro SD cards with up to 2 GB capacity.

Virgin America kicks off with first US flight, under lousy conditions

North Amercia's newest airline, Virgin America, is now officially in the air as its first cross country flight took off this morning, although weather problems made for a bumpy debut.

The ceremony began this morning at JFK where Virgin CEO Richard Branson held a press conference. Area thunderstorms led to a slight delay in the flight's departure, and caused several passengers, including Virgin America CEO Fred Reid and Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, who was scheduled to christen the plane before it took off, to miss the event.

The inaugural flight, JFK to San Francisco, was timed to arrive at the same moment as Virgin's first flight from LAX. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom will greet the first passengers before they're escorted to a launch party in a local club.

The hoopla surrounding the airline's first day underlines what it plans to bring to the travel market. Virgin America brings several new features to the domestic travel market. Each passenger has an individual touch-screen video monitor to access live TV, on-demand programming, pay-per-view movies, e-books, video games, and over 3000 songs.

Passengers can also interact with each other through chat rooms and multiplayer games open to everyone on the flight. Additionally, they can communicate with people on the ground with the country's first approved in-flight e-mail and text messaging service, also done via the seat-back TV monitors.

The first flights are exclusive, invitation-only affairs. Virgin put up an auction for two tickets on eBay, along with tickets to the after party, which went for $5,400. Another auction for the LAX to SFO flight sold for around $2,100. All proceeds went to the KIPP Foundation.

However, on a normal day Virgin America prices should appeal to all travelers. Flights from LAX to SFO begin at around $44 each way, and round-trip jaunts between JFK and SFO are available for under $300, making the price competitive with the cheapest airlines and making it cheaper than its closest rival in terms of amenities, JetBlue.

The initial routes available for Virgin America include flights to and from New York City, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and San Francisco.

UK bans PS3 ad, warns Sony

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has issued a warning for Sony, forcing it to remove a controversial Internet ad.

The advert, which reportedly appeared on Yahoo's UK site, featured a bald man holding a knife and gun with on-screen text reading "You on my side? Listen up I've killed for less. The music plays Puccini in my head." It fits the cryptic style of other PS3 commercials that had customers scratching their heads in confusion.

Though the message was unclear, the ASA said the controversial overtones were unmistakable. It issued a statement saying the ad "could be seen to glamorise violence or anti-social behaviour. We asked Sony to amend future internet ads where the content could be seen to condone or glamorise violence or anti-social behaviour."

AMD to launch Barcelona quad-core on September 10

AMD today sent out emails inviting analysts, media and industry representatives to what the company calls "the most anticipated premiere of 2007".

Barcelona will not arrive one day too early: While the company does not explicitly mention the new quad-core as the proponent of its announcement, there is little doubt what will be announced on this day. Matching a report published by the Inquirer published in June, AMD will unveil its new quad-core architecture, which the company so desperately needs to restore its competitiveness in the 2P server market and prepare itself for the arrival of Intel's Tigerton processor in the 4P segment.

If the Inquirer is right, then Barcelona will arrive with clock speeds of up to 2.0 GHz, while faster versions with up to 2.4 GHz are expected to be available during the fourth quarter of the year. If AMD keeps its promise of avoiding a paper launch, then Barcelona-based systems should be available for purchase beginning at launch or the day right after it, September 11.

The question now is when AMD will be able to follow up and bring the Barcelona architecture to the desktop. We were told by AMD representatives that Phenom will follow 60 to 90 days after Barcelona, which puts the introduction of the chip into the mid-November to mid-December time frame.

The Barcelona launch event will be held in San Francisco's Presidio, beginning at 6:30 PM on September 10.

Study says Internet more popular than newspapers

Though newspaper advertising is still the biggest market in the ad world, a new study shows the traditional medium is taking a beating in cyberspace.

Although it might seem like the traditional newspaper medium collapsed years ago, up until last year it was more popular than the Internet for the country as a whole. In 2006, the two mediums were about equal.

Now, for the first time, Americans are spending more time online than they are with newspapers, according to a report from private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson.

In 2006, TV and radio counted for 70% of American media consumption, followed by music at 5.4%, newspapers at 5%, and the Internet at 5%, reports Reuters. However, the new report suggests the Internet will climb to 5.1% while newspapers fall to 4.9% by the end of the year.

The numbers are most important to advertisers, some of whom have had tremendous struggles with new media formats. The newspaper market still claimed the most advertising dollars last year with total ad spending of around $55.7 billion, according to the equity firm. Broadcast TV advertising was second at $48.7 billion. However, VSS projects Internet advertising will overtake both mediums by 2011, when it will take in an estimated $63 billion.

Another unusual trend tracked by VSS showed the total amount of time spent with media fell down last year, for the first time in 10 years. The study said the average American spent around 3,530 hours with media last year, a 0.5% drop from 2005. VSS attributes this to the fact that, instead of watching 30 minute TV shows viewers are watching 90-second YouTube clips.

OJ Simpson ordered to surrender money earned from video game

OJ Simpson will give up any cash he earns from his appearance in a new video game to the family of the man he was accused of killing, an LA Superior Court judge ruled yesterday.

Take Two Interactive's All-Pro Football 2K8 features the likeness of OJ Simpson, a former football icon, among the roster of professional players. Whatever the financial deal was between Take Two and Simpson is now essentially between Take Two and the family of Ron Goldman.

OJ Simpson was accused of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson along with her friend Ron Goldman. Though acquitted on both murders in criminal court, OJ was found liable in a civil case for the same crimes. He still owes the Goldman family around $38 million from the ruling in that case.

The judge also mandated that Simpson hand over all documents and contracts relating to his appearance in the game. The Associated Press reports that 100% of all revenue he earns from the deal must immediately be turned over to Fred Goldman, Ron's father.

Linspire launches Freespire 2.0 Linux

Open-source operating system developer Linspire today announced the availability of Freespire 2.0, a Linux OS based on Ubuntu distribution.

Freespire 2.0 includes out-of-the-box file support for MP3, Windows and Real Media, Java, and Flash, as well as support for ATI, Nvidia, and Wi-Fi applications.

It also has a built-in plugin for Linspire's own CNR Service, a destination for users to access thousands of open source applications, from video games to DVD playback to CodeWeaver's Crossover, which lets users run Windows-based applications on a Linux system.

Much of the technology in the new Freespire is proprietary, including software to optimize file support, codecs to expand multimedia capability, and drivers to take advantage of graphics and Wi-Fi potential. In addition, certain open source software, including Firefox and Thunderbird, has been modified to fit optimally with the Linux OS. Freespire also adds KDE, a GUI (graphical user interface) desktop application, which it says allows for an easy-to-use and "more comfortable" interface.

The new version of Freespire is the first to be based on Ubuntu distribution, but it goes beyond that. "Freespire 2.0 picks up where Ubuntu leaves off by adding proprietary software, drivers and codecs, to make for a more complete turn-key solution for mainstream desktop computing," said Linspire CEO Larry Kettler.

Palm Foleo gets Linux platform, remote PC access capability

Palm has announced two important components for its upcoming PDA extension device "Foleo". Wind River will be the open standard Linux platform for the device and LogMeIn will provide a fee-based service for the device to access a PC over the Internet.

Palm said that it has selected Wind River Systems as open standard Linux platform for future software releases for the Foleo "mobile companion" to serve as the development and deployment environment for software developers. Along with the platform, Wind River said that it will be providing its Workbench development suite, professional services and customer support to assist Palm and its development community.

Palm and Wind River said that the Linux platform will be built into the Foleo "over the coming months." Officially called " Wind River Platform for Consumer Devices, Linux Edition," the software is used as Linux development platform mainly by mobile handset, digital TV, and consumer electronics manufacturers, Wind River said.

“By building the Foleo on an open Linux-based platform and publishing the tools developers need, Palm hopes to establish a vibrant developer community to create new applications that extend the mobile companion’s built-in capabilities,” said Mark Bercow, senior vice president for business development at Palm, in a prepared statement.

So far, The Foleo was only described to be able to only access Treo handhelds and possibly other smartphone devices as an extension to simplify the authoring of emails and other tasks that require a full-size keyboard or a larger screen. A collaboration with LogMeIn now extends the Foleo's reach to a PC via a "secure" Internet connection. The companies said that this application will give users "the ability to quickly and securely access files and network resources on their home or work computers when away."

Pricing of the LogMeIn service was not announced, but it will not be a service that will be included for free with the Foleo. Palm said that "applications for the Palm Foleo mobile companion will be sold separately. U.S. pricing and application availability will be announced in conjunction with Foleo availability later this summer."

Panasonic says its 1080p plasma displays will last at least 42 years

How long long do you plan on keeping your next TV? Panasonic says that its 1080p plasma displays are good for a viewing time for about 42 years - that is, of course, if the rest has not fallen apart by 2049.

We picked up a somewhat interesting piece of news up today from Panasonic, which tries to make a point how durable its plasma TV displays are. The company says that it will take 100,000 hours of viewing time to degrade the brightness of the display to less than 50% of its original performance and to make the picture look washed out.

100,000 hours of viewing time translates to about 42 years, if we consider the average viewing time in a U.S. household of 6.5 hours per day; if you never turn the TV off and let it run 24 hours a day, it is guaranteed to last almost 11.5 years. If your TV watching habits are similar to those of this writer, which is less than 2 hours per day, then you will be able to hand down the TV to your children and most likely even one or two generations further (a total of 136 years) – assumed there is still a way to watch plain two-dimensional 1080p content through HDMI interfaces in 2143.

The 100,000 hour rating only applies to Panasonic's 1080p TVs. The 720p models are rated for 60,000 hours to half brightness or 25 years at 6.5 hours viewing per day.

Panasonic's 1080p plasma HDTV's are available in 42", 50", 58" and 65" (mainstream sizes).

New firmware update adds features to Wii Shop

The most rarely updated console of the big three, the Wii today received a new firmware upgrade to add a few tweaks to the system's Internet-powered features.

The firmware update was almost exclusively linked to the Virtual Console outlet in the Wii Shop channel, an outlet for users to buy emulated versions of games from classic Nintendo systems.

The digital download store now lets users search for games by publisher or genre, in addition to lists sorted by platform and most recent additions. Also, users can enter a text search that scans the entire library of over 100 Virtual Console games.

The other addition is a list of most popular games. At the time of the new firmware's debut, Mario and Zelda titles comprised eight of the spots in the top 10 list, with the Nintendo 64's Paper Mario taking the lead.

Users can now also add points from any menu in the Wii Shop by clicking the Wii Points link at the bottom of every page.

Additionally, the Wii Weather channel was slightly updated, letting users see current conditions directly from the console's main menu. The update also added a clock display at the bottom of the Wii menu.

Unlike the PS3, Xbox 360, and PSP, none of the Wii system updates have been mandatory. Users who want the new features can upgrade the firmware from the console's "settings" menu.

Apple gives 10 GB of online storage to .Mac users

Apple has updated its online network to allow more entertainment sharing features, giving each user up to 10 GB for an annual fee.

The Web service will interact with Apple's new iLife '08 software, which was introduced today. It allows editing and sharing of multimedia content and will come packed with any new iMac purchased, beginning today.

The .Mac (dot Mac) service carries a yearly fee of around $100. Users can also pay for an additional 10 GB of storage, which tacks on around another $50 per year. A "family pack" is also available for around $180/yr, which opens up 20 GB of storage and allows users to assign four different sub accounts in addition to the master account.

89% of Americans want text-and-drive ban, 57% say they do it anyway

Around nine in ten Americans think it's dangerous to text while driving, even though more than half say they have committed the offense.

A new Harris Interactive survey found that 91% of Americans said texting while driving was as dangerous as driving under the influence of a couple drinks. 89% said texting and driving should be illegal.

Even so, 57% of the 2,049 adults polled who drive and use text messaging on separate occasions said they have also done both activities at the same time. 66% said they have read messages while behind the steering wheel.

Of those who admitted to texting while driving, 64% were between the ages of 18 and 34, and 6% were over age 55.

Washington became the first state to officially outlaw the dangerous act when it passed a texting-while-driving ban in May. California, Florida, New York, and a handful of others have introduced similar legislation in the past but none have been signed into law so far.

Pinger, the company that commissioned the survey, offers hands-free voice-driven mobile messaging services.

First Vista Service Pack beta reportedly in circulation

Numerous PC testers claim they have received an early build of Microsoft's first Service Pack addition to Windows Vista.

Though some loose lips have come forward about the closed beta, specific information in nonexistant. Microsoft seems to be quite watchful of any leaks. ZDNet claims to have received tips from beta testers, each of whom claims to have a different build numbers, giving the notion that the numbers are really codes to track down anyone who spills information.

WinBeta has published images it claims were sent from a Vista SP1 beta tester. The images are mainly nothing more than on-screen text indicating the installation of Service Pack 1, but there is a screenshot of a new DirectX diagnostics tool.

In private discussions, according to ZDNet, Microsoft has said that the private beta would begin in mid July, with a public beta soon to follow, and a final release rollout beginning in November. However, it has never made an official statement regarding the release window of Vista SP1.

Update 2: Steve Jobs unveils new, glossy iMac design

During a press briefing at Apple's corporate campus, Steve Jobs lifted the curtain on the company's new mold for its desktop computer line.

The new iMac will be available with 20" and 24" displays, and will come standard with Firewire 400, Firewire 800, and a built-in iSight camera and microphone. Steve Jobs described the new computers as "glossy", citing that customers have said that's what they want.

Apple will continue using Intel's mobile Core 2 Duo processors with Merom core for the iMac. Processor choices will include CPUs from 2.0 GHz to 2.4 GHz, while users can equip their systems with up to 4 GB (1 GB standard)of memoryand up to 1 TB of hard drive space (250 GB and 320 GB standard). Wireless capability such as draft-n and Bluetooth 2.0 come as a standard feature. The new computers will also include a new and thinner wireless keyboard - resembling the keypad on a Macbook - with controls for display settings, CD/DVD eject, and volume.

Pricing will start at $1199 for the base 20" model, while the 24" version will cost at least $1799.

More details will be available as they break from Apple's event.

Update 2: Latest version of iLife debuts

Apple has just unveiled iLife '08, the company's catch-all software suite for entertainment applications.

The new package has all the same applications, iPhoto, iMovie, iWeb, and iDVD, that were seen in the last version of iLife, but the 2008 version expands on the scope of the entertainment functionality.

As part of iPhoto, Events organizes digital image collections by placing them into event categories. Basically, instead of manually grouping thousands of photos into different folders, Events lets users tag a photo as "birthday", "wedding", or even create a filter at a later date by searching a group of photos imported on a specific date.

The new version of iPhoto will also include integration with .Mac (dot Mac), Apple's Internet subscription service, allowing users to share images on the Web with a couple mouse clicks.

Additionally, iMovie has been completely overhauled to give users a more quick, user-friendly movie creation tool. Doubling as a video storage application, the video editing process is mainly drag-and-drop. It can take in virtually any video source and output in multiple formats, including one specific for iTunes and portable device playback, and a click-and-send tool for YouTube, automatically encoding the video for optimization on the video sharing site.

With iWeb, Apple wants to ease the process of creating a website with Web widgets, making it a one-click process to add things like Google Maps or Google AdSense to a basic page layout. Finally, in iDVD, Apple has added new encoding tools for users to burn their own DVD videos.

The new iLife will be included with all new Mac purchases beginning today. A standalone version is available for around $80.

80 GB Playstation 3 goes on sale

Sony said that the Playstation 3 with the upgraded 80 GB hard drive is available now, while the remaining, price-reduced 60 GB models deliver a healthy sales increase for the company.

The new console sells for the regular $599 (U.S., $659 CND) the company charged for the 60 GB version until a few weeks ago. Meanwhile, the Sony continues to clear out the inventory of its remaining 60 GB models, which apparently are selling like hotcakes – at least when compared to previous PS3 sales. The $100 price reduction to $499 has resulted in a 113% jump in unit sales at the company's top five retailers, Sony said.

Other than previously indicated, the inventory of 60 GB PS3s is expected to be depleted sometime this fall. SCEE president David Reeves told reporters in July that the consoles were expected be gone by the end of July.

The 80 GB hard drives does not come particularly cheap at a premium of $100 over the 60 GB model, but even if buyers are getting a more storage space for essentially the same price of the original PS3, the new model of has business objectives in mind. Sony is heavily promoting its online store and will be offering more than 100 games for download by the end of this year, according to information provided at the recent E3 Media Summit. And those games, of course, have to be stored somewhere.

At the time of this writing the 80 GB PS3 was unavailable through the website of major U.S. retailers. According to Best Buy, the console is expected to be become available between August 13 and 18.

Western Digital's disk maker reports a loss for Q2

Komag, which was recently announced to be acquired by Western Digital for $1 billion, reported a 20% decrease in revenues and a loss for the second quarter of this year.

The disk maker announced revenues of 187.2 million and a loss of $21.0 million, compared to revenues of $233.6 million and a profit of $40.3 million for the second quarter of 2006. The company said that market pressure on unit volumes and average selling prices were the main reason for the decline in revenues, but Komag also noted that a high cost of the initial ramp of perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) products had a negative impact on the operating result.

The manufacturer said it shipped 25.8 million disks in Q2. 40% of all disks went to Western Digital, 34% to Seagate and 18% to Hitachi GST. 55% of all disks manufactured were disks with a capacity of at least 160 GB, aiming for a use in hard drives for high capacity desktop and multi-platter consumer applications such as personal video recorders (PVRs), digital video recorders (DVRs), high definition television (HDTV), external storage, gaming and other home entertainment devices.

Western Digital expects to complete the acquisition of Komag within the current quarter.

Toshiba releases third-gen HD DVD players

Toshiba today released three new HD DVD players with prices ranging from $300 to $500.

With the new product family, Toshiba continues its strategy to offer a relatively affordable entry-level model, a mainstream product as well as one device that is designed to appeal to enthusiast users.

The HD-A3 has the lowest price of the the new HD DVD players and will sell for a suggested retail price of $300. As its direct predecessor, the device has a maximum output resolution of 1080i, which means there isn't much new other than a slightly revised look of the device.

The mid-level A-30 and the higher-end A-35 both can play videos in up to 1080p at 24 frames per second. The $400 A-30 adds support for HDMI-CEC ("Consumer Electronics Control"), which is included in the HDMI wiring and enable sthe user to control multiple CEC-equipped devices with one remote and allows CEC-enabled devices to control each other without user interaction. The $500 A-35 also offers support for HDMI deep color.

The A-3 and the A-35 are expected to be available in October, while the A-30 will hit retail shelves in September, Toshiba said.

Microsoft cuts price of Xbox 360

Microsoft will reduce the price of the Xbox 360 by up to $50. The Halo 3 edition of the console will sell for $400.

Coinciding with the release of Madden NFL 08 on August 14, Microsoft will drop the price of its game console. The core system without a hard drive will be sold for a suggested retail price of $280, the mainstream version with a 20 GB hard drive, a wireless controller and a headset will be priced at $350 and the black Elite model with a 120 GB hard drive will carry a $450 price tag.

Microsoft also announced the price for Spartan green and gold Halo 3 Xbox 360, which will be available this September: Including a matching wireless controller, a 20 GB hard drive, a headset and a play and charge kit, the console will cost $400.

Sun announces 64-thread processor UltraSparc T2

Sun today announced the UltraSparc T2, previously code-named Niagara 2, successor of the UltraSparc T1. Sun claims that the CPU will be the "world's highest performing microprocessor" that can run an operating system on each of its 64 supported threads.

Sun is not especially known for being modest with its claims, so it is not too surprising to actually hear that Niagara 2 is the world's fastest processor. However, Sun has put some features into the CPU, which could make it very attractive to potential UltraSparc customers.

Servers with the T2 processor will not be available until later this year and not all specifications have been revealed by the company. But we were told that there will be multiple version of the chip, with different numbers of cores and different power consumption specifications. Compared to its predecessor, it will aim for more applications than just servers, with Sun targeting storage devices, networking devices and set-top boxes as well.

On the higher-end, the T2 will integrate eight cores – like the T1 – but support 64 threads, up from 32 in the T1. According to Sun, the T2 is capable of running an operating system of each thread, up to eight per core and up to 64 per CPU. In terms of performance, Sun says that the CPU is about twice as fast as the T1, "without increasing the CPU clock frequency or quadrupling its cache sizes." T2 will include quad memory controllers with an aggregate bandwidth of more than 50 GB/s, according to Sun. The chip will also integrate eight cryptographic acceleration units to process security algorithms without performance penalty, eight floating point units, two virtualizable and multithreaded 10 Gb/s Ethernet ports and eight PCI Express lanes.

Sun also claims that the CPU has a better power efficiency than other, competing microprocessors. For example, the company said that a quad-core Xeon processor consumes about 30 watts per thread, or about 120 watts per processor, according to Sun. The T2 in comparison consumes less than 2 watts per thread, which puts the total power consumption of the processor into the 120 – 130 watt league.

Defcon 2007: The Wi-Fi honeypot from hell

Wireless security researchers are probably reaching for the digital Pepto-Bismol after they slurped down gigabytes of valuable traffic at the recently completed Defcon security convention in Las Vegas. A group of wireless hackers calling themselves the “Church of the WiFi” built a multi-router honeypot which captured gigabytes worth of port scans, man in the middle attacks and even some zero-day techniques.

The honeypot was made from eight Linksys wireless routers – the same kind you would find at the local retail store – along with Linksys switches. The routers were set to cover separate wi-fi channels and fed the data into the switches and out to a computer sniffer.

Security researcher Rick Mellendick built the honeypot as part of a wireless challenge that pitted participants against a heavily fortified web server. By hacking through tiers of security like WEP and WPA, Mellendick hoped that attendees could build up valuable hacking skills.

Mellendick told us that the attackers threw almost every attack in the book against his routers and servers. All the attacks were recorded and more than 60 GB worth of data was sniffed, according to Mellendick.

“It’s a lot of interesting data to go through. There were even attacks that I’ve never seen before,” he said, referring to so-called “zero-day” attacks that have no known defense.

Interestingly enough, even though the Linksys routers are designed to be stacked, Mellendick told us that he still had a lot of problems with heat. One of the routers even overheated into oblivion and had to be replaced.

“They’re getting real hot. Some of them reached 150 degrees,” he said. Thermo-regulated fans were placed on top of the routers to keep things cool. You can see the whole set up in our picture gallery link.

Mellendick hopes to improve his honeypot by adding a one-kilowatt battery pack and shrinking the setup to fit inside of portable cases. “These routers are great for penetration testing. I just need to get them into some Pelican cases,” he said.

Convicted con artist sues Apple over iPhone touch screen

A man recently convicted of healthcare fraud has filed a lawsuit against Apple on behalf of a company called SP Technologies, claiming the touch screen interface on the iPhone infringes on a patent he filed at the turn of the decade.

Peter Boesen says he filed a patent on behalf of SP for a "method and medium for readable keyboard display incapable of user termination."

The August 2000 patent includes claims like a "graphical keyboard on a touch screen display to receive input from a user" and a "graphical keyboard on the touch screen display such that the user cannot move, resize, remove, or close the graphical keyboard through the user interface while the input area remains and requires input."

The lawsuit, which was filed in a federal court in Texas, claims "the use, sale, and offer for sale of [Apple's] iPhone product and system" infringes on the company's patent.

SP also alleges that letters sent to Apple in February went unanswered. "Apple failed to investigate, respond to the letter...or take reasonable steps to avoid infringement," says SP in its lawsuit.

The backgrounds of SP and patent holder Peter Boesen may shed light on the legitimacy of the claim. Information Week reports that SP has filed patent infringement lawsuits against Canon, LG, and Kyocera in the past. Boesen also has a mark in his legal standing.

The Des Moines, Iowa surgeon was reportedly convicted of healthcare fraud in May. He was ordered to pay back more than $900,000 in fraudulent claims and was sentenced to 51 months in federal prison. He is currently free pending an appeal, but could well be incarcerated by the time the iPhone lawsuit hits the docket.

Apple has not yet commented on the lawsuit.

$1.5 billion patent suit overturned in favor of Microsoft

Microsoft is breathing a sigh of relief today, as a federal judge overturned an earlier ruling that would have forced the software giant to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent.

In a dispute over MP3 technologies, Southern California District Court Judge Rudi Brewster said Microsoft was not guilty of infringing patents owned by Alcatel-Lucent, and reversed the decision that Microsoft needed to pay over a billion dollars in damages.

Microsoft was ordered to pay $1.5 billion to Alcatel-Lucent in February as a result of a jury trial. The plaintiff claimed that Microsoft infringed on two of its patents.

Brewster said in one of the cases, the outcome was just wrong and Microsoft did not infringe on the patent, and in the other case the software giant got off on a technicality because Alcatel-Lucent failed to name a co-owner of the patent in the suit. Microsoft partner Fraunhofer, a European research firm, had a stake in the patent so the US court did not have jurisdiction in the case.

Alcatel-Lucent is understandably upset at this turn of events. "This reversal of the judge's own pre-trial and post-trial rulings is shocking and disturbing, especially since -- after a three-week trial and four days of careful deliberation -- the jury unanimously agreed with us, and we believe their decision should stand," said the company in a statement.

IDGNS reports Alcatel-Lucent has appealed this new ruling, which could lead to a change in the company's sought damages.

Lenovo to offer Suse Linux for its Thinkpad

Lenovo said that it will be offering its Thinkpad notebooks with Linux as well related support for the operating system.

According to an announcement from today, Novell will provide its Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 for Lenovo Thinkpad notebooks to commercial and individual customers, beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.

The two companies had made a similar announcement about one year ago, when Suse Linux was available on the Thinkpad T60p for the first time. New this year is an apparent expansion of the availability of a pre-installed Linux in terms of models and availability to different types of buyers as well as a different support model: Lenovo will provide direct support for both the hardware and operating system, while Novell will provide maintenance updates for the operating system directly to Thinkpad notebook customers.

Pricing of the notebooks has not been announced. Last year's Linux T60p, which is currently not listed on Lenovo's web site, was almost $1200 more expensive than a comparable Windows version of the device.

Lenovo to offer Suse Linux for its Thinkpad

Lenovo said that it will be offering its Thinkpad notebooks with Linux as well related support for the operating system.

According to an announcement from today, Novell will provide its Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 for Lenovo Thinkpad notebooks to commercial and individual customers, beginning in the fourth quarter of this year.

The two companies had made a similar announcement about one year ago, when Suse Linux was available on the Thinkpad T60p for the first time. New this year is an apparent expansion of the availability of a pre-installed Linux in terms of models and availability to different types of buyers as well as a different support model: Lenovo will provide direct support for both the hardware and operating system, while Novell will provide maintenance updates for the operating system directly to Thinkpad notebook customers.

Pricing of the notebooks has not been announced. Last year's Linux T60p, which is currently not listed on Lenovo's web site, was almost $1200 more expensive than a comparable Windows version of the device.

Nintendo reportedly updates Wii strap again

Preventing the risk of future problems with the Wii strap, Nintendo has reportedly made it even more secure.

Late last year, active gamers made headlines when it was shown that swinging around the Wii Remote could cause the strap to became detached, causing the controller to fly out of the user's hand. Plagued with possible lawsuits, Nintendo introduced a voluntary recall program for users to receive a new, more durable strap.

CVG Online reports that Nintendo has upped the strap safety again, and has begun shipping more secure fastenings with new controllers and consoles.

The new strap has a plastic clip that locks into place around the user's wrist, lessening the chance that the Wii Remote could fall off.

There was no recall announced in tandem with the new strap. Owners of the original Wii Remotes, which were manufactured during November and December 2006, can still request a strap replacement from Nintendo.

Microsoft DRM to hit Nokia phones

Nokia announced today that it has formed a partnership with Microsoft to add additional copy protection safeguards to mobile entertainment content.

The two companies hope the new partnership will bring a more secure, streamlined process to downloading and accessing music and video from a mobile phone.

Microsoft's PlayReady DRM technology will come to Nokia's Series 60 phones, its flagship line of smartphones. With Nokia's dominating market share and the licensing of its operating system to other handsets, the S60 platform is the most widely used mobile OS.

The deal will also include Nokia's lower tier Series 40 phones. The cell phone giant said it plans to begin shipping handsets with PlayReady technology next year.

PlayReady is a new technology from Microsoft, with backward compatibility supporting Windows Media DRM 10. Its partnership with Nokia helps Microsoft hedge its own stake in the mobile space with its proprietary Windows Mobile platform, a direct competitor of Nokia's operating system.

The news comes as speculation continues to build for a possible entry from Nokia into the digital music market. Analysts have been predicting for several months that the handset maker would create its own store as a mobile competitor to Apple's iTunes service.

Research firm Informa suggests that mobile entertainment downloads and services will grow to become a $38 billion industry by 2011. In 2006, the group estimated that associated revenues totaled around $18.8 billion.

MySpace obliterates security researcher’s profile page

MySpace gave a digital smackdown to a security researcher yesterday after he had disclosed security vulnerabilities in the popular social networking site.

Speaking at the Defcon computer security convention, Rick Deacon demonstrated a cross-site scripting attack that uses a combination of JavaScript, iFrames and a separate web server. By tricking users into clicking on a bogus link, he showed that it is possible to copy session cookies and log data into the victim’s MySpace page.

MySpace apparently had knowledge about the talk and almost immediately sent a Terms of Service violation notice via email and deleted Deacon’s MySpace profile page. “There was probably a MySpace rep in the crowd and I think he called into headquarters. By the time I got back to my room my account was deleted,” the 21-year-old Deacon told us, adding that it all happened within approximately five minutes.

According to Deacon, the email was generic, almost like a form letter that addressed having pornography or copyrighted music on a MySpace page. Hacking was not mentioned in the email, Deacon said.

“Cross-site scripting attacks are really easy", Deacon noted. He told us that the vulnerabilities have been known for months and that it only took five to ten hours of research to craft a workable attack on MySpace.

Deacon stressed that his cross-site scripting attack is not specific to MySpace and could be done to other websites. “Many of the Web 2.0 sites are vulnerable,” said Deacon.

MySpace apparently fixed the vulnerability a short time later and Deacon’s attack will now redirect to a Google page

Deacon’s MySpace page wasn’t the only high-profile page deleted over the weekend. You may remember the carnage that erupted after Michelle Madigan, the associate producer of NBC Dateline, was discovered and expelled from Defcon for secretly videotaping attendees. Coincidentally, her MySpace and LinkedIn pages were also deleted over the weekend; it is unknown if she deleted the pages herself.

Despite having his MySpace page deleted, Deacon told us that he doesn’t have any ill will towards the company. “I give them compliments for that because it shows that they can patch things quickly. I’d love to have my page back, but I don’t blame them.”

At the end of the interview, Deacon said that he would gladly help MySpace in exchange for reinstating his profile page. He apologizes profusely for disclosing the attack and summed everything up by saying, “Tell them I’m sorry.”

Tickets for Virgin America's first flight go for $5400

A seat on Virgin America's inaugural flight from New York to San Francisco did not come cheap for the winning bidder of an eBay auction that ended yesterday.

Virgin America is a new airline service that will begin operation on Wednesday, August 8. The first flight from New York's JFK airport to its hub in San Francisco was not open to the public. The invite-only flight will include live music performances, complimentary food and drinks, and will be filled with celebrities, including Virgin founder and knighted billionaire Sir Richard Branson.

In addition to two round-trip tickets, the eBay auction included an invitation to Virgin America's ground-level party in San Francisco and one night in a nearby hotel. After 64 bids, a bidder named "hppmceo" nabbed the package with a bid of exactly $5400.

Wolfenstein to smash its way to the box office

Throwing its name into the pot of video game-based slasher horror flicks, Wolfenstein is heading to a big screen debut, according to trade publication Variety magazine.

The magazine reports that writer Roger Avary and producer Samuel Hadida will team up for the film. The same duo also wrote and produced the recent Silent Hill movie based on the survival horror game series.

The picture has a tentative title of Return To Castle Wolfenstein, the same name as the most recent wave of games in the series, including an upcoming one for the PC and Xbox 360 that could potentially have a direct movie tie-in.

The flagship PC title, Wolfenstein 3D, celebrated its 15th anniversary in May. The game was introduced by Id Software, which also created the PC game Doom, inspiring the 2005 film of the same name.

Apache quickly surrenders web server market share to Microsoft, Google

Apache continues its rapid decline in web server market share. While Microsoft has reached a new record high in the segment, Apache also has to deal with advances of Google and has lost almost 10 market share points during the first seven months of the year.

According to Netcraft's August web server survey, 50.92% of the web's 128.0 million websites are currently running an Apache web server. This number is down from 52.62% last month. In the same time frame, Microsoft was able to gain almost 1.4 points from 32.84% to 34.28%, which is the highest share for the company recorded by Netcraft so far (surveys began at the end of 1995).

Since the beginning of this year, Apache has lost about 16% of its market share (9.72 points), which stood at 60.64% in January. Microsoft held 30.67% at that time. This development reveals that Microsoft gained a little less than half of the market shares surrendered by Apache. The lion's share of the other half can be found at Google, which becomes a more important force in the hosting market, mainly through its Blogger service. According to Netcraft, Google now hosts 5.70 million sites, or about 4.45% of all currently registered domains – a new record for Google. The remaining "lost" shares in this scenario were attributed to lighttpd, which is estimated to account for 1.17% of the market according to Netcraft.

Sun and Zeus hold a small portion of the market as this time. Sun has 1.72% and Zeus 0.44%, according to Netcraft.

Apache has seen several short term market share drops and recoveries over the past ten years, most notably a drop from close to 70% in May of 2001 to 57% in May 2002. The hosting market is especially vulnerable to strategy changes at large web hosting firms that can impact the web server software of hundreds of thousands of domains in a single month.

However, the current development is somewhat unusual, as Apache has been surrendering market shares over an extended period of time, a trend which began late in December 2005. In November of 2005, Apache recorded its all-time high of 70.98% (Microsoft: 20.24%). By January 2006, Apache had dropped to 67.11% and by January of this year to 60.64%. Microsoft increased its share in the same time frame to 20.64% and 30.67%.

Version 7 of Firefox Alpha 3 hits the scene

After a slightly sluggish delay, the latest preview build of Mozilla's next-gen browser is open to the public.

Expectedly, much of the update is technical in nature, adding things like cross-site XMLHttpRequest support. The big graphical change is the addition of backend support for full-page zoom. Also new is an extension for browser history from nine days to 180.

Other notes on the technical side include support for SVG lighting/tile filters and color management, and new XUL menus.

Firefox 3 Alpha 7 was originally planned for a late July release but was pushed back slightly due to development problems. The next alpha is expected to be available on September 18.

AMD increases Opteron clock-speed to 3.2 GHz

AMD has introduced two new Opteron processors with higher clock speeds and has dropped the power consumption of the preceding flagship models with 3.0 GHz.

AMD squeezes more clock speed out of its dual-core architecture as the company is putting the finishing touches on its new Barcelona quad-core processor, which is due for customer shipment during this quarter. The new dual-core top-of the line versions are the 2P 2224SE and the 4P 8224SE models are both clocked with 3.2 GHz and both rated with a thermal design power of 119 watts.

Compared to Intel's dual-core Woodcrest processors, AMD promises a performance advantage between 17 and 37%, depending on the benchmark. AMD did not provide performance comparison numbers to Intel's quad-core Xeon 5300 series, but AMD's pricing model shows confidence of the company in its capabilities: The 2224SE sells for $873 in 1000-unit trays, Intel sells its fastest Xeon X5355 (2.66 GHz) for $744. Intel does not provide pricing on the 3.0 GHz quad-core Xeon, which is still produced in limited quantities.

The 4P Opteron 8224SE is listed for $2149.

Besides the performance increase on the high-end, AMD has introduced mainstream models (i.e. without the "SE" add-on in the model name) of the 1222, 2222 and 8222 CPUs. The 2222 and 8222 are now rated at a thermal design power of 95 watts and the 1222 at 103 watts.

Also, pricing of other Opteron processors has been reduced: The 1200 series is now available from $103 (1210, 1.8 GHz), the 2200 series from $172 (2210HE, 1.8 GHz) and the 8200 series from $523 (8212HE, 2.0 GHz).

EA to pull down servers with older online game titles

Gamers still logging onto older versions of Madden, FIFA, Tiger Woods, and others don't have much more time until EA suspends all online gaming features for dozens of titles.

The massive online service shut down will take place in two phases. On September 1, EA will scrap multiplayer capabilities for all 2006 and previous entries in itss FIFA, Madden NFL, Nascar, NBA Live, NCAA Football, NCAA March Madness, NHL, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour franchises.

Additionally, Arena Football, Fight Night Round 3 (excludes PS2 and next-gen), Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects, MVP 07, and NFL Head Coach will all be cut off from the online world on 9/1.

No PS3 games will be affected by the move, but FIFA Soccer 06, Madden NFL 06, NBA Live 06, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 06 are all Xbox 360 titles that will be part of the online cut-off. The rest of the titles only affect the Xbox, PS2, PC, and PSP versions.

A second service cut-off will happen on November 1 for Burnout Revenge (Xbox, PS2), Need For Speed Underground (PS2, PC), and Need For Speed Most Wanted (PSP, Xbox).

Bluetooth spec updated to version 2.1+EDR

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has officially adopted the Bluetooth specification 2.1+EDR, which promises to improve the pairing process and the power consumption of Bluetooth devices.

According to a press release, pairing of two or Bluetooth-enabled products is getting much easier with the new spec. While the setup is relatively complex today, the new version will rely on selecting specific types of hardware to be added (such as “Add Headset”) and then wait until the device is found, connected with an encrypted link and paired. If required, the 2.1 spec can use a six digit passkey for eavesdropper protection.

New is also a feature called “sniff subrating”, which will improve battery life of devices such as mice, keyboards, watches, home sensor networks and medical devices by up to five minutes, the Bluetooth SIG said. The feature enables a Bluetooth device to increase the time that passes between connection confirmation, up from currently 1/10 of a second. The time frame is decided dynamically by the device – but the less confirmations the chip has to send the more power it will save.

The group expects silicon vendors such as Broadcom, CSR, Infineon and Texas Instruments to have Bluetooth v2.1+ EDR chips available as of now.

Microsoft, Adobe in the spotlight of a new patent suit

Unknown company Aloft Media has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft and Adobe, alleging the two giants infringed on a pair of patents it owns concerning graphical browser interfaces.

Aloft says the patents, which it described as a "network browser graphical user interface for managing web content" and a "network browser window with adjacent identifier selector interface for storing web content", contained ideas that were used in Microsoft's Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7.

Additionally, Aloft claims Adobe's Acrobat Standard, Acrobat Professional, and Acrobat 3D infringed on the same patents.

Aloft, a relatively new company that specializes in digital media, is seeking unspecified damages.

Pioneer introduces new Blu-ray Disc burner

Pioneer has announced a new Blu-ray Disc PC drive that can burn BD-R as well as rewritable BD-RE media.

The second generation BDR-202 drive from Pioneer has limited equalizer LSI and a liquid crystal tilt compensator, which help in playback and data reading of discs. Additionally, it incorporates ultra DRA technology, designed to reduce the vibrations when burning a disc, according to CDR Info.

The drive can also write and read all forms of blank DVD and CD media. Maximum writing speed is 2x for BD-RE, 4x for BD-R, 6x for DVD-/+RW, 12x for DVD-/+R, and 24x for CD-R/RW.

The BDR-202 is already available in Europe for around 490 euros, and is expected to launch in the US for between $600 and $700.

IRS employees fail computer security test

In a test to see how well its employees safeguard sensitive data, the IRS found that it was fairly easy for someone to gain access to system files.

The IRS ran a test by having someone pose as an internal technical support rep and call employees throughout the bureau. The caller said there were technical problems and asked the employees to give them specific data. Of the 102 people who got the call, 61 of them handed over their IRS user name and complied with the caller's request to change their password, according to a report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

This gave the caller access to sensitive computer files within the IRS databases. The report says the 61 employees did not question the caller's identity, which puts the data of virtually every taxpayer at risk.

Only eight of the 102 employees contacted security officials to validate the identity of the caller. The report urges the IRS to train its employees about these and other hacker tactics.

The IRS went through a similar test in 2001 and 2004. After each case, it was determined security measures needed to be updated. While it has added additional safeguards, the report said, "the corrective actions have not been effective."