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Consumers Snap Up A Million iPhones
2007-09-10 21:45:00
he one millionth iPhone was sold over the weekend, just a little more than two months after the smart cell phone was introduced, Apple said Monday. The iPhone, which was introduced on June 29, is popular for its combination of a mobile phone, widescreen iPod, and Internet access. It operates by touch. "One million iPhones in 74 days; it took almost two years to achieve this milestone with iPod," said Steve Jobs, CEO of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple, Inc. Company executives recently came under fire for slashing the price of the iPhone by $200 on Sept. 5, enabling consumers to pick up one of the phones for $399 vs. $599 when rolled out amid heavy hype. The price was slashed in a move to drive sales during the upcoming holiday shopping season. "We've clearly got a breakthrough product and we want to make it affordable for even more customers as we enter this holiday ...
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AMD Takes Fight to Intel
2007-09-10 21:37:00
Reeling from an outpouring of red ink and a debilitating mountain of debt, AMD unveiled its best hope for any near-term salvation: the long-awaited Barcelona microprocessor. The chip is AMD's first major processor upgrade in years, and will finally give AMD a quad-core chip, nearly a year after rival Intel (INTC - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) introduced its quad core Xeon chip. The question now is whether Barcelona will prove to be too little, too late. Shares of AMD were up 13 cents, or 1%, to $12.74 in midday trading Monday. Intel shares were up 16 cents to $25.63. AMD will fete its new chip at the San Francisco campus of Lucasfilm on Monday evening, an event AMD has billed as "the most anticipated premiere of 2007." But launch party hyperbole notwithstanding, the release of Barcelona means the propaganda war of test results and specifications waged by both AMD and Intel for several months will now give way to real-world achievements. "The customers get the final say...
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First Look: Apple's 160GB iPod Classic
2007-09-10 21:31:00
This digital music player's huge storage bump and minor hardware and interface tweaks make for an impressive package, but it's not an essential update if your player still has free space.Is this the final stage of refinement for the hard-drive-based media player Apple now calls the iPod Classic ? Judging by the tiny changes in this sixth generation, it very well could be. This latest update is all about capacity, with the $249 model jumping from 30GB to 80GB, while the $349 flagship model leaps from 80GB to a whopping 160GB. What would you do with all that space? Well, that is the question, isn't it? After spending some quality time with a 160GB iPod Classic, I have a few ideas. A standard-def video library or a music collection stored entirely in Apple Lossless compression would work, but either approach has its flaws. More on that later. I won't be trading in my 80GB video iPod anytime soon, but I've really grown to like some of the minor tweaks Apple has made to the Classic...
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Capgemini Opens Google Apps Services Practice
2007-09-10 21:29:00
Capgemini announced Monday an alliance with Google to support enterprise deployments of Google Apps Premier Edition, marking one of the largest channel partnerships to date for Google's hosted, Web-based office productivity applications. A lightweight rival to Microsoft Office, Google Apps offers hosted e-mail, instant messaging, calendar, word processing and spreadsheet applications through the SaaS (software-as-a-service) model. Capgemini, which supports 1 million outsourced desktop users worldwide, will add the service to its portfolio of enterprise desktop offerings. Capgemini declined to say whether it's reselling and making margin on Google Apps Premier, which carries a list price of $50 per user annually. The financial arrangements around purchasing the service will vary for each customer engagement, according to Steve Jones, Capgemini's head of SOA (services-oriented architecture) for Capgemini's global outsourcing unit. But where Capgemini sees its real profit opportuni...
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Servers to offer built-in virtualization tools
2007-09-10 21:18:00
In a bid to bolster its domination of the server virtualization market, VMware Inc. will today unveil major new products and partnerships with major computer makers to build servers optimized to run VMware's virtualization software. "Virtualization belongs with the hardware," said Bogomil Balkansky, VMware's senior director of product marketing. By integrating it into the hardware, VMware hopes to attract thousands of business computer users who have not embraced virtualization. "It will definitely lower the barrier for entry," Balkansky said. Serve r virtualization lets one server computer do the work of multiple machines, by dividing its computing power into a number of software-based "virtual machines." Companies that virtualize need fewer computers and can sharply reduce their electricity consumption, as well. VMware, a California firm controlled by EMC Corp. of Hopkinton, is the leading maker of server virtualization software. But VMware faces growing competition from Microsof...
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Dell, Alienware offer expensive 64 GB SSD
2007-09-10 21:15:00
San Jose (CA) – Samsung has begun shipping 64 GB SATA in a 2.5" form factor. The NAND flash-based hard drives are expected to become available as storage options for Dell and Alienware consumer notebooks.According to Samsung, Alienware will be offering 64 GB and a 128 GB configuration (dual 64 GB RAID 0) as well as a single 64 GB SSD combined with a 200 GB 7200 rpm hard drive for its Area-51 m9750 notebook. Dell will be selling the SSD as an option for the XPS M1330 notebook.At the time of this writing, only Alienware was offering the new SSD – as a single-drive 64 GB option for the m9750. Customers will have to reach deep into their pockets to be able to enjoy the 64 GB SSD, as it comes at an additional cost of $1100, which is more than twice what the vendor charges for the 32 GB model ($500). The 128 GB option will cost another $300.When configured with the 64 GB SSD, the notebooks checks in at $3200; while it is already equipped with a 512 GB Geforce graphics chip, the upgrad...
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Baby questions? Check the Net for answers
2007-09-09 23:56:00
No more waking up your mother in the middle of the night to ask what to do with your bawling baby. These days, advice, hand-holding and understanding are just a mouse click away, thanks to an explosion of online resources that are helping new moms cope with some of the challenges of motherhood--the screaming babies, the stifling isolation. "Sometimes it's 3 a.m., and my baby is crying, and I want some advice," said Suzann Moskowitz, 30, mother of 1-year-old Jacob. "I know that if I log in, there are people who are going through the same thing. I don't feel as alone." From blogs and self-help Web sites to message boards and sites that drop moment-by-moment tips on what's happening during your pregnancy, Internet resources for parents have made the travails of motherhood slightly less terrifying. "What's happened over the last few years is the landscape has broadened," eMarketer senior analyst Debbie Williamson said. "There's a lot of mommy blogs, mommy blog ad networks, and soc...
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The exercise bike that races via the Web
2007-09-09 23:38:00
Now, U.S. cyclists can get trounced by some of the best riders in Europe without leaving home. With the Ergo Bike Premium 8i from Germany's Daum Electronics, riders from around the world compete against each other over virtual versions of some of the sport's storied race courses. Riders gather at a particular time, pick a course and go. In a ride I witnessed, riders from Germany and a few Americans went head-to-head on a simulated version of the bike segment of Hawaii's Ironman Triathlon. Video: Web-enabled exercise bike packed with tech Additionally, the bike--which closely mimics the feel of a real bike through a battery of sensors and processors--monitors the pulse rate, speed, distance and watts (a measure of current power output) of the riders and broadcasts these vital stats to each participant. The riders can also watch each other over video streams and speak over VoIP-enabled headsets, all so you can see who is about to crack. In a sense, it's full-contact s...
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HP gets in the game with Blackbird
2007-09-09 21:28:00
Hewlett-Packard is looking to cast a spell on the PC gaming industry with its first product developed with Voodoo PC. The HP Blackbird 002 is the first joint effort with Voodoo, the Canadian enthusiast PC maker that HP purchased a year ago. HP is expected to unveil the souped-up PC at a special event in New York on Wednesday evening. The Blackbird is an all-black, all-aluminum gaming machine that can be configured however the customer wants. The BIOS (basic input-output system) is completely open, and none of the inner components are proprietary, meaning the customer can buy replacement parts off the shelf of any PC supply store. The shape of the machine should catch some eyes too--the chassis hovers on an aluminum foot. Though it's a flashy design, it's actually a utilitarian measure: it's a sixth side of the box for air to flow out of, which helps combat one of the biggest problems with enthusiast PCs--overheating. The Blackbird also uses a full liquid-cooling system and iso...
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Guiffy 8 build 214
2007-09-09 21:20:00
Guiffy features include the Trustworthy 3-way auto-merge--"SureMerge", In-Line difference highlighting, integrated folder and filetree comparisons, command line interface and API for automation. Guiffy produces reports as HTML with support for color printing. File comparing options include folded views for support of large files. Supports over 150 file encoding formats such as UTF8, UTF16, MBCS, SJIS, and multi-lingual Unicode fonts. Guiffy SureMerge has been integrated with many SCM systems including: CVS, SVN, ClearCase, PVCS, Dimensions, Perforce, CMSynergy, MKS Integrity, StarTeam, AccuRev, and Team Foundation Server.Version 8 build 214 includes: Named Saved Settings, Auto Encoding format detection, Auto EOL format detection, Show Ignored differences option, Improved ClearCase integration, Performance improvements--2X Faster, Windows Vista support, and Java 6 support. Download Now
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Why Apple Got It Right
2007-09-09 20:55:00
Apple's (AAPL) CEO wants to return to you $100 of what you paid when you bought your iPhone too early -- provided, of course, you spend the $100 in one of his stores. Why do I get the feeling this is exactly what Steve Jobs had planned all along? Chances are that the extra $100 you would have saved, had the iPhone been appropriately priced to begin with, would have been spent outside an Apple store. Now it's staying in Apple's coffers, and Steve Jobs looks like a caring, responsive CEO who didn't mean to hurt anyone's feelings. So Apple wins again. Forget the news stories that say Apple cut its price because sales were sluggish. On Tuesday, iSuppli, a research firm, said that nearly one in 50 mobile phones sold in the U.S. was an iPhone, and that Apple was on track to sell 4.5 million iPhones this year. On Thursday, after the price cut news, iSuppli reiterated that view. "iPhone outsold all competing smartphone and feature-phone models in the United States i...
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New iPods and a 21st century bike
2007-09-08 20:33:00
Apple topped off the news this week with its announcements of new iPods and a cheaper iPhone. Apple CEO Steve Jobs headlined another much-hyped press event in San Francisco this week, where he unveiled what many people were hoping for--an iPhone without the phone. Lacking in some features, notably a camera and an e-mail client, the new iPod Touch should still be a very hot item once it hits the shelves later this month. And Webware's Rafe Needleman revisits the iPhone, this time during the Office 2.0 conference, where each attendee was handed a free iPhone just for showing up. He talks to developers and attendees about what they think about the gadget's role in business, both today and what may lie ahead in the future. CNET News.com's Michael Kanellos is a cyclist enthusiast. So when he heard about an exercise bike that lets you race people from around the world through an Internet connection, he had to check it out. Take a look at the bike in action. To see all of CNET News....
More About: Bike , Ipods , Century

Apple of my ire
2007-09-07 23:54:00
Apple dominated the technology headlines this week, as it typically does following highly anticipated product unveilings like the one held Wednesday. But this week's news wasn't just about the shiny new iPods and related features CEO Steve Jobs introduced in his polished presentation at San Francisco's Moscone Center. It was about the huge price cut Jobs announced for the 8GB iPhone--from $599 to $399, and the resulting anger expressed by those loyal fans who were first to buy the product at the higher price point. Following the uproar from customers--and in a rare admission of a mistake--Jobs on Thursday posted an open letter on Apple's Web site acknowledging the company shouldn't have treated its early adopters in such a fashion and offering them a $100 store credit. "We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple," Jobs wrote. Some commended Jobs and the company for what they considered a humble and fair ...
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Microsoft opening up on the Web
2007-09-07 23:48:00
News analysis On the PC, Microsoft may not be writing every program that people use, but by controlling the operating system, the company has maintained a dominant position. The company is in the early stages of trying to carve out a similar role on the Internet. To do that, Microsoft is not just branching out, but also reaching out to make itself more compatible with rivals. "When you talk to people who are heavy Internet users, they don't all use just one service from one company," Microsoft corporate vice president Chris Jones said in an interview this week. "They end up using a smattering of services." For sure, Microsoft would like to have people use its Web mail service, its instant-messaging software and its blog software, but what it wants most is to ensure that it has some central role for the vast majority of Web surfers. "When you talk to people who are heavy Internet users, they don't all use just one service from one company. They end up using a smattering of ser...
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For Linux Lovers: The Penguin Mouse
2007-09-07 20:23:00
A computer mouse is no longer a simple object as nowadays it may come in a variety of shapes and sizes, colors and tones, bigger and smaller and sporting exotic or more common features.Among the shapes that a computer mouse can take these days is the shape of a little happy penguin, looking especially for those Linux lovers out there.While this mouse is certainly cute and does not look half bad, I have to speak up my mind and say that it may be less than ergonomic or practical for that matter to the above average computer user. On the hardware side, leaving the design behind, the optical USB Penguin Mouse is using the high speed USB interface version 2.0 in order to connect to a host computer system and at least in this department is just like any other mouse that came to market in the last few years. It also features an USB to PS2 adapter so penguin and Linux fans can enjoy their mouse even when using older computers that have few or none USB ports.The mouse's motion sensor is opt...
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Microsoft: No Quick Fix to Software Piracy
2007-09-07 20:14:00
Microsoft Chief Research and Strategy Officer and one of the two successors of Bill Gates along with Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, revealed his perspective over the worldwide anti-piracy efforts, with a special focus on developing markets. Mundie expects by no means a quick fix to the piracy problem and made it clear that he expects Microsoft to be in the trenches for decades to come. The real issue is with emerging economies that prove to be markets where the software piracy phenomenon not only nestles but also digs in its roots. Mundie was referring especially to Asian markets where piracy of its own products is as high as 80% and even 90%.Microsoft, however is not ready to throw in the towel. Mundie stated that the Redmond company will work closely with the governments in emerging economies in order to set up legislative measures and to enforce anti-piracy efforts designed to reduce the volume of the practice. Still, in Mundie's view it will take at least one decade or ev...
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