Daily Cup of Tech

Shades of 2006: Lenovo recalls 200000 batteries - Digital Home
Lenovo in association with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission today announced a recall of over 200000 laptop battery packs which are a potential fire hazard.

Phil Harrison gives figures for PS3 BC - GameSpot
Sony Worldwide boss says that software emulation will mean over 1000 PS2 games will be playable on PS3s on EU launch day, says people are “over-reacting”.

Photoshop to Go Online. Who’s Next? - PC World
CNET broke a big story today: Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen says that the company will release a free, basic version of Photoshop as a Web-based application in the next six months.

New Graphene Transistor Promises Life After Death Of Silicon Chip - Playfuls.com
Researchers have used the world’s thinnest material to create the world’s smallest transistor.

Sony Promises PS3s Aplenty by May - TechNewsWorld
Sony exec Jack Tretton promised Tuesday that his company will relieve retailers’ shortages of PS3 video game consoles by May; however, questions remain whether there is any shortage at all — and whether full shelves really mean …

New AMD Chipset Integrates ATI Logic - BetaNews
When AMD acquired graphics card producer ATI last year, the immediate expectation was that the two companies would converge toward a common platform.

Symantec sizes up security in Windows Vista - CNET News.com
Windows SideBar and gadgets could pose security threats. But the greatest risk is third-party applications, security firm says.

Corel guns for Google - Inquirer
ONCE MIGHTY processor of words, WordPerfect will take on a new downloadable format today, as Corel posts up a free beta of WordPerfect Lightning on its website.

What Google Apps Gets Wrong … And What It Gets Right - PC Magazine
Some people think Google Apps are a direct competitor to Microsoft Office. See here and here. That makes for a great story, but I’m not sure the real competition is ready yet.

SimCity for DS - Eurogamer
EA has been squashing cities this afternoon, and has announced that SimCity will appear on DS sometime this summer.

World’s first robot-controlled bird - People’s Daily Online
The Robot Research Center at Shandong University of Science and Technology recently developed a robot-controlled pigeon that “understands” and follows human-directed computer commands.

Andreesen’s Ning.com takes on MySpace - CNET News.com
In Marc Andreesen’s vision of the future, MySpace is going to face stiff competition from a million mini-MySpaces. One of the cofounders of Netscape and a symbol of the technology revolution of a decade ago is now backing a company called Ning, …

Stephen Hawking Plans Prelude to the Ride of His Life - New York Times
Stephen Hawking, the British cosmologist, Cambridge professor and best-selling author who has spent his career pondering the nature of gravity from a wheelchair, says he intends to get away from it all for a little while.

RIAA Opposes ‘Fair Use’ Bill - PC World
A new bill in the US Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would “legalize hacking,” the Recording Industry Association of America said.

Mobile TV War Begins - Red Herring
Verizon Wireless and Modeo initiate a battle to determine if Americans want TV on the move. By Cassimir Medford. The mobile TV market in the United States went from scheme to substance in the last 24 hours as both Crown Castle and Verizon Wireless …

Sound decisions: EA on iTunes, Warner nabs Halo - GameSpot
Electronic Arts puts parts of its music catalog on Apple’s store; Warner Music buys publishing rights to Microsoft’s game tunes.

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Electronic Arts Brings the SimCity Series to Nintendo DS - Playfuls.com
The fastest selling gaming system in the world, the Nintendo DS, is getting the best selling game in the world, the Sims series.

AMD releases first ATI graphics integrated chipset - DigiTimes
AMD has released its 690 series chipset, the company’s first chipset to bring together the combination of the AMD CPU platform and the graphics capabilities of the ATI Radeon X1250 GPU.

Sony Responds to PS3 Backwards-Compatibility Critics - PC Magazine
As you may recall, Sony got a few people excited last Friday after they announced that European PS3s would no longer be sporting an Emotion engine chip — aka, “the thing that lets you play older games on your PS3″.

Symantec Vista White Paper Links to PatchGuard Crack - BetaNews
In a curious decision on the part of a security software company, a white paper released today on the Web site of Symantec

Details on Sony’s $600 Blu-ray Player - PC World
At Sony’s Open House event today in Las Vegas, the company showed its second-generation Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-S300, due out this summer.

RIAA Opposes ‘Fair Use’ Bill - PC World
A new bill in the US Congress aimed at protecting the fair use rights for consumers of copyright material would “legalize hacking,” the Recording Industry Association of America said.

Corel’s WordPerfect Lightning beta thunders across the web - iTWire
The latest entrant into the word processing world is a bolt out of the blue, offering 200Mb of free online storage, collaboration tools, a file and ideas organizer, a PDF viewer and more

World’s first robot-controlled bird - People’s Daily Online
The Robot Research Center at Shandong University of Science and Technology recently developed a robot-controlled pigeon that “understands” and follows human-directed computer commands.

Google Adds Security to Hosted Applications - PC World
Google’s enterprise collaboration suite unveiled last week includes security options that let companies tie it into their existing corporate directories and extend single sign-on to the online provider’s hosted applications .

Ning is Neat - PC World
Until last week, I was only vaguely aware of the Web service known as Ning–and the main thing I knew was that it had been co-founded by Marc Andreessen, the man without whom the Web as we know it might not exist.

BitTorrent’s Big Play - Red Herring
BitTorrent had to work hard to convince movie and television executives that it could shed its image as a tool for pirates and become a legitimate online video-downloading destination.

Americans Still Lagging Behind Europeans in Mobile Web - Playfuls.com
A new study shows that 34% of all American internet users have accessed the Web using wireless connections, like Wi-Fi or 3G broadband.

IBM Links Google Gadgets to WebSphere Portal - eWeek
Google gained a major new ally in its campaign to extend its applications and information services deeper into the enterprise with IBM’s Feb. 28 announcement that it has integrated Google Gadgets with its WebSphere Portal.

HID denies RFID demo threat, hackers worry - ZDNet
Black Hat Diary: IOActive’s decision to cancel its RFID hacking demo is the main topic of conversation here as white hat hackers ponder the ramifications of a vendor using patent infringement claims to thwart legitimate security research.

It’s only an atom thick, a film that defies the laws of physics - Times Online
Scientists have created the thinnest material in the world and predict that it will revolutionise computing and medical research. A layer of carbon has been manufactured in an independent film so thin that it is only one atom thick and defies the laws …

Will iPhone halt a drop in NAND flash pricing? - DigiTimes
There is a chance that the persistent drop in NAND flash contract pricing may ease, as the leading two players

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Sony Slices Its Blu-Ray Price, Cheaper Model Confirmed - Carib Journal
The world’s largest consumer electronics maker, Sony Corp said today that it is planning to sell a cheaper Blu-Ray player model to consumers this summer.

Corel releases beta of WordPerfect Lightning - CNET News.com
Corel introduces its free, downloadable WordPerfect Lightning public beta, designed to serve as a key component in its online services model.

Youths Confess: They Tracked MySpace Users - ABC News
Defendants Shaun Harrison, right and Saverio Mondelli, appear in a Los Angeles courtroom Monday, Feb. 26, 2007. The New York computer programmers have been accused of plotting to extort money from the operators of MySpace.

Going backwards - The Age
The outrage and disappointment surrounding the removal of hardware-based backward compatibility from the Australian and European PlayStation 3 is understandable.

Google set to challenge Microsoft’s office monopoly - Register
By Robin Bloor, Hurwitz & Associates → More by this author. Comment Google is now head-to-head with Microsoft in the Office Apps market, as you may have guessed from the recent Google Apps announcement.

An Apple TV a day is only a few weeks away - iTWire
Expected to ship in February, last-minute delays to Apple’s TV set-top box should now see it launch in mid-March instead to genuine worldwide interest.

Conan Game Confirmed For PlayStation 3 And Xbox 360 - Playfuls.com
by Stokky. The Conan gaming franchise has a long history that goes way back to 1984, and yet over the last two decades only three games have taken advantage of Robert E. Howard’s barbaric character]

Wi-Fi Access Increases Time Spent Online - ClickZ News
Americans increasingly access the Web via Wi-Fi from work, home, and elsewhere. Roughly 34 percent of Internet users have gone online wirelessly, according to a report on wireless Internet access released by The Pew …

Dell Starts Selling Linux-Powered Desktops and Laptops - Playfuls.com
by Dan Nicolae Alexa. After last year’s estimated $1 billion deal with Google, Dell is now providing customers with another type of pre-installed software on its desktops and laptops: the Linux OS.

Sony Brings High-Definition Photo Viewing to the Living Room - Playfuls.com
Designed to make photo-viewing crystal clear, Sony today announced a new line of digital cameras featuring a high-definition component output.

File-sharer that plagued Hollywood goes legitimate - Independent
BitTorrent, the file-sharing technology company which unleashed a wave of illegal downloading of music and video, has gone legitimate, with the launch of its own Hollywood-approved film store.

Parallels updates virtualisation suite - ZDNet.com.au
Virtualisation software vendor Parallels has released an update to its Parallels Desktop virtualisation software for Intel-based Apple Macs.

Flaws in tech support tools open PCs to attack - ZDNet
Multiple flaws in commonly used technical support tools can open Windows PCs to cyberattack, security experts have warned.

Firefox, IE7 open to URL spoof - Computerworld
Although Mozilla Corp. patched one more Firefox bug last week than first reported, the researcher whose work has plagued the open-source browser for weeks has released details about another flaw.

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Sony Plans Cheaper Blu-ray Disc Player - PC World
Sony plans to launch a Blu-ray Disc player this year that will cost $400 less than many current models. Sony plans to launch a Blu-ray Disc player in the middle of this year that’s significantly cheaper than many current models on the market.

Conan confirmed for release on Xbox 360 and PS3 - HEXUS.gaming
THQ have today confirmed that Conan will be make its debut on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in early 2008. “The strength and diversity of the Conan brand lends itself extremely well to the interactive format,” said Jack Sorensen, executive vice president, …

Americans Still Lagging Behind Europeans in Mobile Web - Playfuls.com
A new study shows that 34% of all American internet users have accessed the Web using wireless connections, like Wi-Fi or 3G broadband.

Microsoft probes IE 7, Vista bug reports - CNET News.com
Two recently disclosed vulnerabilities that affect Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Vista could let hackers nab user data.

HP takes on Dell/EMC in SMB storage - Computerworld
Competing with Dell Inc. for small business users who needs to back up their data, Hewlett-Packard Co.

Apps Premier intended to complement, not compete: Google - eChannelLine
Google Inc. says the launch of a business version of its hosted communication and collaboration services is more about helping meet customer needs than competing with vendors that have similar offerings.

Relive the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time from today - iTWire
The Nintendo Wii Virtual Console now has one of video gaming’s all time favourite titles available for download.

Dell to Add Linux-Certified Desktops, Laptops - PC Magazine
On Feb. 23, the company announced that, as a result of “the community’s interest in open-source solutions like Linux and OpenOffice… we are working with Novell to certify our corporate client products for Linux…” …

BitTorrent Opens Online Store - PC World
BitTorrent rolled out a paid music and movie download service today, leveraging its fast distribution system infamous for the massive piracy it facilitated when it debuted in 2001.

Apple delays Apple TV - MacNN
Apple has delayed until March the launch of its living room device for streaming video and other content from computers to televisions, but the company would not explain why, according to The Associated Press.

Myspace hackers avoid jail - Inquirer
TWO NEW YORK MEN who developed code that tracked visitors to the online social site MySpace have cut a deal with prosecutors to keep themselves out of prison.

The Online-Video Takedown Smackdown - BusinessWeek
Amateur filmmaker Matt Hawes thought his video spoof of MTV’s The Real World was sufficiently funny to get noticed on YouTube.

IPhone TV Commercial Debuts During Oscars - PC World
Apple began what figures to be a heavy advertising blitz for its iPhone Sunday night, with a 30-second spot that aired during ABC’s telecast of the Academy Awards.

Samsung almost doubles graphics memory speed - iTWire
Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronicsclaims to have increased the data transfer speed of the world’s fastest graphics memory

EA announces Wii & DS MySims - iTWire
Not satisfied with dominating PC sales charts around the world, Electronic Arts today announced MySims for the Nintendo Wii and DS hand held.

Pro golfer sues over Wikipedia vandalism - TG Daily
Professional golfer “Fuzzy” Zoeller Jr. is suing a Miami company over alleged false Wikipedia entries. Zoeller claims a computer at Josef Silny & Associates was used to add allegations of drug and alcohol abuse to Zoeller’s Wikipedia entry.

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Wii Play the best way to get a 2nd Wii-mote - iTWire
The ideal game to teach family members how to use all the features of the Nintendo Wii’s motion sensing remote control, the Wii-mote.

Get with the programme - Financial Times
About five years ago I bought a Compaq Presario laptop PC. It cost the best part of £800 and at the time seemed a bargain.

Google Apps Premier Edition: Another Way to Get Things Done - Playfuls.com
by Iuliu Blaga. Google Apps has taken the step forward from a non-commercial application, geared towards individual users, to a business software package: Google Apps Premier Edition, which is being offered primarily to small and medium businesses for …

Apple TKOs Cisco in iPhone Bout, Analysts Say - PC World
Some analysts say Cisco got the short end of the stick in this week’s iPhone name deal. Although Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.

Pay to play - The Age
At last week’s Australian media launch of PlayStation 3, Screen Play sat down with Sony Computer Entertainment Australia’s Managing Director Michael Ephraim to explore issues surrounding PS3’s unprecedented price.

Wikipedia entry causes pro-golfer Fuzzy Zoeller to sue - iTWire
Prevented by law from suing Wikipedia, pro-golfer Fuzzy Zoeller is suing the owner of an IP address from where allegedly defamatory remarks were posted onto Wikipedia alleging that he abused drugs, alcohol and his family in what …

Microsoft considered banning virtualizing all versions of Vista - ZDNet
Over on the Seattle PI website is an interesting article which looks at why Mac users won’t be able to get their hands on Vista unless they buy the more expensive versions of Vista.

Samsung Speeds up Graphics Memory - PC World
Samsung Electronics is using a more advanced production method to push graphics memory chips to a higher speed. Samsung Electronics Co.

Q&A/Hands On: EA’s Sean Penney On Wing Commander’s Comeback - Gamasutra
The Kilrathi are coming to Xbox Live Arcade, with Electronic Arts’ latest news that it will be bringing Wing Commander Arena to Microsoft’s digitally downloadable gaming marketplace.

Survey: Only 1 percent willing to buy iPhone at $500 - Ars Technica
The iPhone’s $499 and $599 price points are still a hot topic of debate in the geek world, and many Maclots have somehow justified to themselves that they can (and will) spend the money on it.

IBM not ready to say Oracle’s Linux compatible - CNET News.com
If Big Blue’s software is incompatible with Oracle Enterprise Linux, it will be up to Oracle–not IBM–to resolve the issue, IBM says.

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