APH Networks - Unifying the source

Nokia extends its phone maps to the Web

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:07:38 -0500

From InfoWorld: Maps on Ovi, unveiled Monday at the Where 2.0 conference in Burlingame, California, builds on Nokia's next generation of mobile-phone navigation technology, Nokia Maps 2.0. It also signals Nokia's growing focus on software and services, even for use independent of its mobile phones.

Ovi is a Nokia Web portal for Internet services such as content sharing. Maps on Ovi will let people use and mark up maps on the Web and then upload their changes to a cell phone, said Michael Halbherr, vice president of context-based services at Nokia. For example, before traveling to another city, a user could pick out places to visit and the routes to those sites from his hotel. Once saved on Ovi, that information would be copied onto his phone automatically at the next synchronization, Halbherr said.

In addition, the user could walk or drive around the city and save his route on the phone, then upload that to his Ovi map. Sights along the way that he marked as interesting could be uploaded to the Web map, which eventually could provide a wealth of information about those places from a variety of sources. Nokia expects to deliver that information on the Web-based map through mashups with partners, which might include user-generated review sites such as TripAdvisor, Halbherr said.

Later, Nokia will let users of Ovi share their routes and tips with friends. For example, a company could put together a set of suggestions for employees visiting its headquarters city, Halbherr said.

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HP to acquire EDS for $13.9 billion

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:07:37 -0500

From CNET News.com: Hewlett-Packard said Tuesday it will acquire computer services firm EDS for $25 per share, or $13.9 billion, in a deal intended to boost HP's services revenue.

On Monday night, HP had confirmed that the two companies were in talks, following news reports earlier in the day.

The deal will create a computer services giant intended to rival IBM in the market for serving business customers.

HP said the deal, which has been unanimously approved by the HP and EDS boards of directors, will close in the second half of the year. HP expects that the addition of EDS will more than double HP's services revenue of $16.6 billion in fiscal 2007. At the end of 2007, HP and EDS had a collective services revenue of more than $38 billion and 210,000 employees, doing business in more than 80 countries, HP said.

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Microsoft Eyes 40 Percent of Smartphone Market by 2012

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:07:37 -0500

From PC World: Microsoft is aiming to capture 40 percent of the smartphone market with Windows Mobile by the year 2012, an executive said Tuesday.

The target is ambitious considering the company's relatively small share of the market for smartphone operating systems today and stiff competition from the likes of Symbian, Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, and newcomers such as Google's Android platform.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS went into around 11 million handsets in the company's fiscal year 2007, and it says it will reach nearly 20 million devices in fiscal year 2008, which ends June 30, said Eddie Wu, managing director of Microsoft's OEM Embedded Devices in Asia, on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei.

Handsets such as the new HTC Touch Diamond will help Microsoft achieve its goal, he added. High Tech Computer (HTC) is the world's largest maker of Microsoft-based mobile phones and has been for years due to an early partnership between the companies. The HTC Touch Diamond is a 3G (third generation mobile telecommunications) update to the company's popular Touch handset launched last year, an iPhone-rival that sports a large touchscreen.

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Nintendo Launches WiiWare With Six Games

Tue, 13 May 2008 08:05:47 -0500

From DailyTech: Wii owners with Internet-enabled consoles will be able to download new games priced between 500 to 1500 Wii Points ($5 to $15). Nintendo advertises that WiiWare provides a platform for game developers that is relatively inexpensive, allowing for “original ideas in the most democratic environment in industry history.”

“WiiWare is to the video game industry what independent films are to Hollywood,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America's executive vice president of sales and marketing. “WiiWare lets developers experiment with new ideas and experiences. Combined with our collection of classic Virtual Console games, Wii provides one-stop shopping for the greatest games of the past - and the future.”

Six WiiWare titles are presently available for download, including Final Fantasy Chronicles: My Life as a King, which challenges player to rebuild a kingdom as a young king. Other WiiWare launch titles, all of which are 1000 points or under, include LostWinds, Defend Your Castle, Pop, V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack and TV Show King.

Players may buy WiiWare games by browsing to the appropriate section in the Wii Shop Channel and spending Wii Points to download a specific title. Wii Points may be purchased directly from the Wii Shop through the use of a credit card, or they can be bought in the form of coded cards from retailers.

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Powerset unveils test version of Google-killer

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:10:14 -0500

From InfoWorld: The public will get its first chance Monday to test a search engine from start-up Powerset that eschews conventional keyword technology and instead is designed to understand the meaning of Web pages.

As such, Powerset's search engine holds the promise of fundamentally changing people's expectations for search engines by, in theory, offering a smarter, more efficient experience.

However, Powerset's beta version, while delivering impressive results, has a limited scope and index, leaving unanswered questions about its ability to work its magic at the massive scale of Google's keyword-based search engine.

"We're changing the way information is searched by doing a much deeper analysis of the pages we index," said Scott Prevost, Powerset's product director.

Keyword engines treat pages as word bags, indexing their content without grasping its meaning, he said. Meanwhile, Powerset's engine, applying technology developed in-house as well as licensed from Xerox's PARC subsidiary, creates a semantic representation by parsing each sentence and extracting its meaning. "Meaning is what we index," he said.

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RIM makes a Bold BlackBerry debut

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:10:13 -0500

From CNET News.com: You may know it as the RIM BlackBerry 9000, but on Sunday, Research In Motion officially took the wraps off the highly anticipated smartphone, complete with a new name. The "Bold" is in reference to the smartphone's gorgeous display, but it's also bold in that it represents a number of new moves for the company. Oh, BlackBerry Bold, how do we love thee? Let us count the ways.

As we just mentioned, the device gets its name from its screen. The BlackBerry Bold features a half-VGA (480x320 pixel resolution) and a 65,000-color display. During some initial product testing, research group participants repeatedly called the screen "bold" and "brilliant." The Brilliant moniker didn't really jibe with the company, thus the BlackBerry Bold was born.

There's a heaping of wireless options on the quad-band (GSM 850/900/1800/1900) BlackBerry Bold, but the most appetizing and notable item is the HSDPA/UMTS (850/1900/2100) support.

You also get integrated Wi-Fi (802.11a/b/g), Bluetooth 2.0 with full A2DP support, and built-in GPS (enhanced and assisted).

The RIM BlackBerry Bold is equipped with a 624MHz Intel PXA270 processor, whereas previous BlackBerrys had 312MHz processors, so technically, you should enjoy smoother and faster performance.

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AMD Refreshes Low-power Quad-Core Opterons Lineup

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:10:13 -0500

From PC World: Advanced Micro Devices is shipping B3 versions of its low-power Quad-Core Opteron processors.

AMD first detailed these processors in September 2007, when it unveiled the Quad-Core Opteron processor. However, earlier versions of the chips were affected by a bug discovered in December that reportedly forced AMD to suspend some processor shipments. The B3 version of the chips announced Monday fixed that bug.

The five chips run at clock speeds ranging from 1.7GHz to 1.9GHz. Three of the chips -- the 2344 HE, 2346 HE, and 2347HE -- are designed for servers with two processors, while the other two -- the 8346 HE and 8347 HE -- can be used in servers with four or eight processors. They are priced from US$255 to $873 in 1,000-unit quantities, a standard way of quoting chip prices.

The low-power Quad-Core Opteron chips have an average power consumption of 55 watts, AMD said.

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Microsoft Places Restrictions on Continued Sale of Windows XP Home

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:06:56 -0500

From DailyTech: In early April, Microsoft made a lot of OEM and consumers happy with the announcement that Windows XP Home would live on in ultra-low-cost PCs (ULPCs) until June 30, 2010. The rise of such low-cost machines as the ASUS Eee PC -- which primarily runs on a Linux-based operating system -- led to Microsoft's decision to offer Windows XP to OEMs past the already established June 30, 2009 cutoff date.

At the time of the announcement, the only restriction seemingly placed on the reprieve for Windows XP Home seemed to be that the operating system could only be sold on ULPCs. IDG News, however, came into possession of an internal document to OEMs which detail the full extent of the restrictions.

In an effort to protect its Windows Vista operating system, Microsoft is requiring OEMs to abide by the following rules:

* HDDs can be no larger than 80GB.
* The screen size for the ULPCs can be no larger than 10.2".
* Installed memory can be no greater than 1GB.
* Processors must use a single core and can be no faster than 1GHz. Processors which are severely handicapped by low-clock speeds (a la the VIA C7-M and Intel Atom) are excluded from this restriction.

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Did the high price of gas change your driving habits?

Sat, 10 May 2008 12:42:52 -0500

APH Networks Reviews: Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe 780a Motherboard

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:28:42 -0500

An Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe!? What's that? Hey, if you are asking that question, you probably forgot already that there's actually another manufacturer other than Intel that makes CPUs; which goes by the name of "AMD". It's interesting how quickly we forget about the days of glory for AMD and their Athlon 64 back in 2003. But the most important thing is that, AMD is still 'sort of' alive for some competition against microprocessor giant Intel to keep the CPU market 'just sort of' nice and fair. When I received the Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe motherboard for review last month (Which was still on NDA for the chipset), I was excited to see what kind of motherboards were produced currently on the AMD platform. Combined with NVIDIA's flagship 780a chipset, it certainly brought back memories of the whole NVIDIA-AMD combination that ruled back in the days of the MSI K8N-Neo2 Platinum, DFI LanParty Ultra-D, and the Asus A8N-SLI Premium. Driving down to a local computer store to purchase an AMD CPU to go with this review (I mean, I don't actually have an AMD AM2 CPU, haha), I was contemplating on whether I was going to buy a Phenom X4 or just some low cost Athlon 64 X2. Well, to be honest, if I was going to spend over $200 on a processor, it would probably be an Intel Core 2 Quad and not a Phenom X4. To make a long story short, I went with a mid-priced Athlon 64 X2 4400+. Let me tell you this -- I don't really find it funny to pay over $80 with tax for an AMD dual core CPU at this time, partially because I was forced to let Memory Express rip me off -- and really, everyone knows that they aren't the cheapest place to buy computer parts from. But hey, what the heck -- let's pop in this CPU and see how the M3N-HT Deluxe is worthwhile if you prefer the AMD route for your current AM2 computer or whatever your story may be.

View: Asus M3N-HT Deluxe/Mempipe 780a Motherboard review

Court Finds TorrentSpy Liable for $110 Million

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:27:46 -0500

From DailyTech: A federal judge court inflicted $110 million in penalties on shuttered BitTorrent tracker TorrentSpy.com, after the site defaulted on a court request to produce logs of its users’ activity.

The MPAA accused TorrentSpy of copyright infringement in early 2006.

The $110 million figure, one of the largest judgments ever entered for copyright infringement, was calculated by multiplying the site’s 3,669 “shown” infringements by $30,000, which is the maximum penalty available under certain conditions in the Copyright Act. U.S. District Court Judge Florence-Marie Cooper entered her ruling against the site and its parent company, Valence Media, for willfully and vicariously contributing to the infringement of copyrighted materials.

“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites,” said MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman. “The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios.”

It remains unclear as to whether or not the MPAA will be able to collect the $110 million: Valence Media announced that it will appeal the judgment, and court records indicate that owners Justin Bunnell and Wes Parker have filed for bankruptcy.

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Microsoft's Answer to Google Sky to Launch at End of May

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:26:38 -0500

From PC World: Microsoft will launch Worldwide Telescope, a tool for exploring images of the night sky, by the end of May, free to anyone who wants to use it, Microsoft's chairman said Friday.

Worldwide Telescope is software that allows people to gaze at the universe through the data collected by telescopes all around the world -- and above it: there's even data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope.

"This is taking data that's very complex, gathered over many years from many telescopes, and making it accessible," said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, at a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia.

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Four Microsoft security patches due next week

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:25:08 -0500

From InfoWorld: Microsoft plans to fix critical bugs in its Word, Publisher, and Jet database software next week.

The software vendor also plans to release a less-critical update for its antivirus products, fixing a flaw that attackers could use to launch a denial of service attack against products such as Windows Live OneCare and Microsoft Forefront Security.

The updates will be released Tuesday, the day set aside for Microsoft's monthly set of security patches. Microsoft provided some early details on the patches Thursday, in a note on its Web site.

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AT&T yanks iPhone free Wi-Fi info from site

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:23:44 -0500

From InfoWorld: Only hours after posting information that indicated iPhone owners would receive free access to AT&T's public wireless hotspots, the company pulled all references to the service from its Web site.

By 5 p.m. EDT Thursday, the page dedicated to AT&T's subscriber plans for Apple's iPhone has been stripped of all mention of Wi-Fi hotspot access.

Earlier in the day, the AT&T site noted that "Access to AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots" was included in all iPhone subscriber plans, with additional details that spelled out the extent of that access. "Unlimited Data (e-mail and Web), 200 SMS text messages and access to AT&T's more than 17,000 Wi-Fi hot spots, including Starbucks all for use in the U.S. Wi-Fi available at U.S. company operated Starbucks locations equipped with a hot spot."

Hours later, all of that WiFi info had been scrubbed from the site.

An AT&T customer service representative was unable to explain the change during a 15-minute telephone conversation, during which he repeatedly left the line to query his manager.

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Toshiba Eyes Fuel Cells, Cell-based TV by 2009

Fri, 09 May 2008 08:18:15 -0500

From PC World: Toshiba plans to begin mass production of Direct Methanol Fuel Cells by March next year and to have a television based on the powerful Cell microprocessor on sale before the end of the same year, it said Thursday.

The roadmap was revealed when Toshiba outlined an aggressive mid-term management plan that seeks to push sales to ¥10 trillion (US$96 billion) from last year's ¥7.7 trillion and propel operating profit to ¥500 billion from last year's ¥238 billion.

Toshiba has been developing the fuel cells and Cell chip for several years, and their readiness for commercial use coupled with continuing advances in the company's chip-making expertise are expected to be key drivers behind growth in Toshiba's digital products and electronic devices divisions. Toshiba is targeting annual growth of 12 percent in sales and profits for the businesses over the next three years, it said.

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