“Morph” A Cool Nanotech Mobile By Nokia

Morph

Morph, a joint Nanotechnology concept, developed by Nokia Research Center (NRC) and the University of Cambridge (UK) – was launched on 25th alongside the “Design and the Elastic Mind” exhibition, on view from February 24 to May 12, 2008, at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Morph features in both the exhibition catalog and on MoMA’s official website.

Morph is a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes. It demonstrates the ultimate functionality that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering: flexible materials, transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces. Dr. Bob Iannucci, Chief Technology Officer, Nokia, commented: “Nokia Research Center is looking at ways to reinvent the form and function of mobile devices; the Morph concept shows what might be possible”.

Dr. Tapani Ryhanen, Head of the NRC Cambridge UK laboratory, Nokia, commented: “We hope that this combination of art and science will showcase the potential of nanoscience to a wider audience.”

Elements of Morph might be available to integrate into handheld devices within 7 years, though initially only at the high-end. However, nanotechnology may one day lead to low cost manufacturing solutions, and offers the possibility of integrating complex functionality at a low price. Hopefully it won’t take that long.

source:tech2 

Google Ads Traffic Dropping?

G-Ads

A report by Internet market researcher ComScore detailing a 7 percent decline in the number of times U.S. consumers clicked on ads next to Google search results in January sent analysts scurrying to explain the decline.

Some analysts say the decline, the second straight for Google, shows that business on the Web is slowing down.

But rival Internet number cruncher Hitwise says there may indeed be no problem at all, and pointed to different data to support the idea that the amount of Web traffic going from Google to retail sites continues to rise.

“Google traffic to retail, on a monthly basis, is on the increase compared to previous years. If we focus in on daily data (year-over-year comparison) we see that Google traffic to retail is also up on a daily basis when we compare January/February 2007 with 2008,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Hitwise, in a blog posting.

source:pcworld

A New Critical Hole In Windows Vista

Vista

Just in time for spring, Microsoft has been busy tending to a new swarm of bugs, including a critical hole in Windows Vista and XP that could expose you to an early-season bite without your doing anything other than being online.

In an attack, a cracker could broadcast rogue TCP/IP packets to a range of addresses on the Internet, possibly including your PC’s. Sounds all too common, right? These rogue packets, however, are designed to trick their way past Windows’ security and hijack your PC, making your machine part of a botnet for sending out spam–or worse, a self-copying worm.

So far, no attacks have occurred. But proof-of-concept code is floating around, so don’t put off applying the patch. If you’ve enabled automatic updates, Microsoft will push the patch to you. Otherwise, you can grab it from Microsoft and install it yourself (Download).

 

source:pcworld 

New Lenovo ThinkPad X300

Lenovo

Lenovo has officially unveiled the ThinkPad X300 notebook PC, designed for most demanding “road warriors” with the asterisked claim of being the thinnest and lightest full-function notebook.

“Compared to major vendors offering 13-inch widescreen notebook PCs: Sony, Dell, Apple, Asus and Fujitus Siemens. Full featured defined as including technologies such as built-in DVD burner, selection of USB ports, Ethernet connection, replaceable battery and more”. Dig at Apple wethinks.

The ultra-thin, ultraportable has a 13.3-inch WXGA+ display, measures less than 1.85cm at its thinnest point and has a starting weight of 1.33kg.

The ThinkPad X300 combines a “number of leading technologies” such as solid-state drive storage, a LED backlit display, ultra-long battery life (up to 10 hours) and enhanced wireless connectivity.

Depending on what model users opt for, the ThinkPad X300 can offer an optional built-in 7mm DVD burner. It also includes stereo speakers, digital microphone and an integrated camera.

It offers “roll-cage” durability, integrated fingerprint reader, and comes equipped with a 1.8-inch 64GB SSD that provides more than twice the performance of a regular 2.5-inch hard drive – and with no moving parts – four times greater shock resistance than hard disk drives.

The notebook also comes with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processor technology, up to 4GB memory and Lenovo’s ThinkVantage Technologies.

ThinkPad X300 notebook price starts from £1700.

source:pocket-lint

PC-World’s Windows Server 2008 Revue

win Server 2008

Microsoft’s long-awaited Windows Server 2008 delivers advancements in speed, security, and management, but its virtualization and network-access control features come up short.

In Network World testing of Windows Server 2008 gold code — the product officially launches on Wednesday. Microsoft has made a number of improvements to its flagship server operating system.

For example, new server administrative role schemes boost security, the Server Manager program improves manageability, Internet Information Server (IIS) Web management functionality is revamped, Active Directory is easier to control, and Windows Terminal Services has been redesigned. Windows Server 2008 is also significantly faster than Windows Server 2003, especially when client machines are running Vista.

Unfortunately, a highly anticipated feature of Windows Server 2008, the Hyper-V server virtualization tool, is missing also compatibility between non-Windows (and older Windows) clients and Microsoft’s Network Access Protection (NAP) scheme, Microsoft’s version of NAC. Microsoft includes a beta version of Hyper-V with Windows Server 2008 editions, but it will not release final code until the third quarter of this year.

Continue reading at pcworld

New 500GB Laptop Hard Disks

 Hdd

Laptop computer storage is racing fast towards the 500G-byte level with Fujitsu becoming the third hard-disk drive maker to announce a drive at that capacity.

Fujitsu is accomplishing this capacity by combining three disk platters — the magnetically-coated disks on which data is stored — each with a 170G-byte capacity inside the drive. Hitachi, the first company to announce a 500G-byte drive, and Samsung Electronics are also using three platter designs.

The third platter increases the thickness of the drive to 12.5 millimeters versus most other laptop drives, which have just two platters and are 9.5 millimeters thick.

As a result the Fujitsu drive won’t fit into the drive bay on many laptop computers, so its availability doesn’t mean an instant capacity upgrade will be possible for all laptop users. Hitachi’s drive is also 12.5 millimeters thick, but Samsung said it has been able to keep the drive height at 9.5 millimeters on its Spinpoint M6 drive.

Fujitsu will begin selling its 2.5-inch drive in May. It will have a Serial ATA (SATA) interface and can transfer data at up to 300M bytes per second. The average seek time for reading data on the 4,200 rpm drive is 12 milliseconds and 14 milliseconds for writing data. Fujitsu didn’t announce pricing.

Hitachi said in January that it would ship its drive this month and Samsung announced a March shipping date. Both the Hitachi and Samsung drives spin the disk faster, at 5,400 rpm.

source:pcworld

eSATA, USB 2 Are Supported In G-Force MegaDisk Drive

 G-Force

Fantom Drives has introduced the G-Force MegaDisk eSATA+USB external hard disk drive. As the name implies, it features both external Serial ATA (eSATA) and USB 2.0 interfaces.

The G-Force MegaDisk comes in 1.0TB, 1.5TB and 2.0TB capacities, configured in multiple RAID options built in. Users can configure the drive in RAID 0 (disk striping) for maximum performance, RAID 1 (disk mirroring) for fault tolerance, as a JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) or spanned for simple large volume support.

The MegaDisk is housed in an aluminum enclosure designed to dissipate heat. The enclosure features a single eSATA port and a single USB 2.0 port. eSATA isn’t yet standard issue on the Mac; you’ll need a Mac Pro or Power Mac with an expansion card installed, for example, or a MacBook Pro with an eSATA Express/34 card installed.

System requirements call for Mac OS X v10.2 or later. It ships with USB and eSATA cables, power cord, user manual and backup software.

The G-Force MegaDisk is now available at prices starting at US$319.95.

source:pcworld 

New Multimedia Home Networking Device UNIT 2 By iRiver

Irviver

iRiver has recently introduced its new UNIT 2 Multimedia Home Networking device with an 7-inch (800×480 pixels ; 16:9 aspect ratio) touch screen interface. This multimedia device combines a GPS, CD/DVD player, FM tuner, TV tuner, VoIP phone, VoIP Video Phone, WiFi support as well as Web Browsing into a single machine, offering the ultimate all-in-one solution for integrating your personal digital content, which aimed to enhance your multimedia entertainment experience.

According to the company, the new iRiver Unit 2 multimedia station which comes with a Base Unit, Portable Unit and Remote Unit also includes both integrated 2GB NAND Flash and 30GB hard drive, with SD memory card slot to increase the memory storage.
No words on its price and launch date yet.

source: mydigitallife

Buttonless mouse Traveller 525 Laser

But-les-Mouse

The computer accessory market leader, Genius, has introduced its latest innovative buttonless mouse lately. This unique and innovative product, Traveller 525 Laser, does not have any visible buttons or scroll wheel which the conventional mouse used to has. In stead of clicking the traditional mouse buttons, Genius Traveller 525 Laser, adapted the unique float to click design idea which allows users to lightly tip the casing for executing the commands. It gives users a more relaxing mouse click feeling and reduces the tension on their fingers. The traditional scroll wheel has also been replaced with an OptoWheel. OptoWheel features an optical sensor on the mouse’s top which registers the user’s finger movements. Traveller 525 Laser has also taken into consideration on those users who are unable to give up the clicking sensation completely. Two custom buttons have been inserted in the middle of the casing to assist this group of people.

Summary of the features:
– inventive OPTO-wheel for effortless 4 way scrolling
– Turbo scroll function: lets you browse quickly through documents
– 1600 dpi laser engine for precision accuracy
– suitable for either hand
– port: USB

source:mydigitallife 

Use Of iPods in a War Zone

Ipod

As they prepare for their daily patrols around Baghdad, soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division sync up their iPods, not with songs and movies, but with a laundry list of missions and audio files containing pre-recorded phrases in Iraqi Arabic or Kurdish.

Loaded with special software, the music players help them communicate with the populace and learn the local culture, and they occasionally serve as handy tools in their tactical missions, such as searching for persons of interest. The gadgets have been so useful that troops are now finding new ways to employ the technology.

The Army so far has purchased 300 of the Vcommunicator Mobile LC devices. Since last fall, squad leaders from the 10th Mountain Division’s 1st and 4th Brigades have been using the product in Iraq.

PEO STRI plans to deploy a team to Iraq to evaluate how the devices are performing in the inhospitable environment and weather conditions.

“The nice thing is, because they’re commercial, they’re cheap to replace,” he said. Each device costs US$200 to $300.

Soldiers who are operating the iPods already have been inquiring about how to adapt the devices for other applications. One group in particular asked if it would be possible to connect the iPods to a plasma or LCD display at vehicle checkpoints so the images can be seen more clearly, said Youmans.

Bright said the company already is supplying the accessories to make that possible

This year Vcom3D plans to offer a commercial version of its software geared toward travelers, said Carol Wideman, president of the company. She said the company’s long-term goal is to make it available on the mobile device of choice.

source:technewsworld