By Sylvie Barak
Thursday, 2 July 2009, 11:13

WITH THE ADVENT of Windows 7 and just before delivering its first DX11 GPU to the world, AMD is also preparing a brand new integrated GPU, according to certain mainboard partner roadmaps. Designated the RS880, the device will sport AMD's new Radeon HD 4200 graphics core, which is almost 15 per cent faster than anything comparable that's currently available.

Support for AMD's ever evolving Stream technology will purportedly also be included, for all that's worth, considering the paltry number of Stream partners at present. With all of the chest thumping between DAAMIT and the Green Goblin over discrete graphics, it's sometimes easy to forget that the global market for integrated graphics parts is actually much larger. So large, in fact, that the sheer volume of those hardworking integrated graphics chips is enough to put Intel, rather than either Nvidia or AMD/ATI, at the top of the global graphics pyramid.

AMD's new integrated DX10.1 chipset is set to launch sometime in the last week of August. It's noteworthy that, as AMD shoves DX10.1 out to all of its platforms and readies itself for the big push on DX11, Nvidia is still somewhat struggling to hit the DX10.1 spec. And Intel, we're told, is still in the design phase and unlikely to have anything to show in DX11 for at least six months.

by Ed Bott
July 1st, 2009 @ 9:40 pm

In two recent posts (Windows 7 versus Snow Leopard: How much do upgrades really cost? and Do you need more than Windows 7 Home Premium?), I took a closer look at the differences between Windows 7 editions and their counterparts from Apple. In the Talkback section of both posts, several commenters noted that Microsoft is still far behind its archrival in Cupertino.

Until Microsoft comes out with a Family Pack license, they say, Apple will continue to have the upper hand. Well, maybe the wait is over. Thanks to a tip from Kristan Kenney, I took a close look at the agreements embedded in the License folder of the latest leaked builds of Windows 7. This is no longer a beta license agreement and is presumably very close to the final agreement that customers will accept. The agreements for retail copies of Windows 7 Home Premium contain this eye-opening clause: Family Pack Clause

If you can’t read the screen shot, here’s the relevant section: “If you are a ‘Qualified Family Pack User’, you may install one copy of the software marked as ‘Family Pack’ on three computers in your household for use by people who reside there.” (And a proofreading note to Microsoft Legal: Fix the typo in the last sentence of that clause before RTM.) When I first wrote about Windows 7 pricing last month, I speculated that Microsoft was likely to have a program like this up its sleeve:

What else can we expect to see? Back in early 2007, Microsoft offered a so-called Family Discount for Windows Vista, which allowed anyone with a Vista Ultimate license to purchase two Home Premium upgrades for $49.99 each. I expect to see an improved version of the Family Discount this time around. If Microsoft wanted to aim directly at its archrival Apple, it could sell three Home Premium upgrade licenses (to be used only in a single home) for $199 or less.

by Stephen Shankland
July 1, 2009 2:17 PM PDT

Yahoo has released a test version of a Delicious social bookmarking extension for Chrome, one of the strongest indications so far that the technology foundation is coming to fruition in Google's browser. Extensions still must be specifically enabled through a command-line switch on the developer version of Chrome, and Google recently broke extensions compatibility through an update, so the technology clearly is immature.

But Google is steadily addressing the concern that its browser lacks one of Firefox's notable features--called add-ons in the Mozilla browser. "Delicious extension (alpha version) for Google Chrome is now available," said Amit Papnai of the Delicious team in a mailing list posting Tuesday. "This is a light version of the extension and allows you to sign in and post bookmarks to your Delicious account."

Extensions can be powerful tools to customize a browser's interface or add significant features. In an effort to ease programming difficulties, Chrome's extensions technology uses the same interface techniques as Web pages, a method Mozilla as adopted for its Jetpack Firefox extensions project at Mozilla Labs. Delicious lets people store, tag, describe, and share bookmarks, and the add-on simplifies use of the service directly through the browser.

In addition, Nick Baum released a Chrome-based Twitter extension called Chritter on Tuesday. I found both the Delicious and Chritter extensions easy to download and install, though Chritter isn't terribly useful at this stage because it only flashes recent tweets in a status bar. Update 2:57 p.m. PDT: Google has added a rough but workable interface for managing Chrome extensions, including uninstalling them, by typing "chrome://extensions/" into the address bar.

By Ryan Paul
July 1, 2009 7:15 PM CT

A Linux developer has published a new kernel patch that provides a workaround to avoid Microsoft's patents on the FAT filesystem. The patch, which has undergone extensive legal review by patent lawyers, could make it possible to use FAT on Linux without having to pay licensing fees to Microsoft.

Microsoft's recent lawsuit against TomTom, alleging infringement of filesystem patents, has left many questions unanswered about the legal implications of distributing open source implementations of Microsoft's FAT filesystem. A new Linux kernel patch that was published last week offers a workaround that might make it possible to continue including FAT in Linux without using methods that are covered by Microsoft's patents.

The patent dispute erupted in February when Microsoft sued portable navigation device maker TomTom. Microsoft claimed that TomTom's Linux-based GPS products infringe on several of its patents, including two that cover specific characteristics of FAT, a filesystem devised by Microsoft that is widely used on removable storage devices such as USB thumb drives and memory cards.

The dispute escalated when TomTom retaliated with a counter-suit, but it was eventually settled in March when TomTom agreed to remove the relevant functionality. The outcome of the lawsuit created ambiguity around the legal status of the Linux FAT implementation. Microsoft contends that the suit was a largely isolated incident and that there are no plans to pursue litigation against individual Linux users. For commercial Linux adopters, however, the situation is murkier.

By Sylvie Barak
Wednesday, 1 July 2009, 15:47

THE OLD COBBLERS that Nvidia is busily chipping away trying to adapt its Cuda technology to AMD's GPUs has emerged yet again, seemingly over some confusing comments made by the Green Goblin's chief scientist, Bill Dally. In a roundtable discussion, Ben Hardwidge of Techradar asked Dally about Cuda, mentioning that it currently works only on Nvidia GPUs.

"If you're a developer who wants to reach as wide an audience as possible, wouldn't it be better just to go with OpenCL?" probed Hardwidge, only to be told "In the future you'll be able to run C with CUDA extensions on a broader range of platforms." Dally went on to cryptically add "I'm familiar with some projects that are underway to enable CUDA on other platforms." He didn't elaborate further.

Surprised by this, the INQ decided to ask Nvidia outright whether it was indeed fiddling about with Cuda to allow developers to use it on both NV and AMD GPUs, making money off AMD's products. The answer, when it finally arrived after hours of waiting, was evasive. Nvidia PR told us Dally had probably been referring to something else entirely, like a Linux-based tool designed to compile the CUDA programming model to a CPU architecture, or running C on anything from PCs, to handhelds, to servers and Playstations.

"So, nothing to do with AMD GPUs then?" *Cough, ehem, cough* "Er, we'll get back to you, but don't think so" - or something to that effect - came Nvidia's response. When that response half heartedly did come back to us, it stutteringly read "he [Dally] was giving a hypothetical....technology wise it could....both companies would have to do some work..." Aha. A hypothetical, eh? Hypothetically we could all be living on the moon by 2020 too.

by Larry Dignan
July 1st, 2009 @ 9:23 am

Oracle on Wednesday launched its Fusion 11g middleware family and the effort is aimed at linking the technological underpinnings of all of the company’s acquired applications, owning the market, creating one fundamental software stack for the enterprise, laying the foundation for a cloud strategy as well as a few other things we’re probably forgetting.

At this juncture, the big picture behind Fusion has yet to emerge—especially with the cloud computing angle, according to Dana Gardner. To say there are a few moving parts in Oracle’s Fusion day is a bit of an understatement (Techmeme, Twitter). The company launched Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g, Oracle SOA Suite, WebLogic Suite, Web Center Suite and Identity Management.

Gardner has the recap and the statements abound (see all Oracle Fusion content, whitepapers and posts), but let’s zoom out a bit. What does this Fusion fiesta really mean? That question has historically been difficult to answer. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Fusion for at least four years now and it still doesn’t click most of the time.

In a nutshell, Fusion is the glue that ties everything together and perhaps provides a path to some uber suite. In the meantime, Oracle will support your existing software under current licensing arrangements and charge you maintenance forever. Gardner argues that the Fusion Middleware 11g will ultimately be about the cloud.

by Ina Fried
July 1, 2009 4:00 AM PDT

There's a reason the first thing in Windows 7 that Microsoft chose to show publicly was its support for touch input. That built-in ability to use two fingers to rotate, scroll, and zoom offers tangible proof that the operating system is different from its predecessor, not to mention being something not found on a Mac.

However, many say that comparatively few Windows 7 PC owners will actually be reaching out to touch their screen. That's because, to use one's fingers in such a manner requires a screen that can support the technology--something that often adds $100 or more to the cost of a PC. As a result, many expect touch-capable computers to be just a tiny fraction of the market for desktop and notebook computers, even after Windows 7 arrives on store shelves on October 22.

"We're thinking like 5 percent to 10 percent of shipments for 2010," said IDC analyst Richard Shim. And Shim said that, unless circumstances change, the rate isn't likely to climb significantly in the coming years. Part of the problem is that there really isn't a killer application for touch on the PC, despite the fact that putting ones fingers on the screen has become the de facto measure of cool in the cell phone market.

It's not that there isn't interest in selling touchscreen devices. Hewlett-Packard introduced its TouchSmart all-in-one in 2007. The company now has several touch models, including both desktop and notebook machines. Dell has a Latitude notebook aimed at businesses and has also added an all-in-one with a touchscreen option.

By Jacqui Cheng
July 1, 2009 6:00 PM CT

Microsoft's Bing made gains on Google and Yahoo during the month of June, according to stats from StatCounter. Though the increase is only one percentage point, the trend is definitely a positive one for Microsoft. Microsoft's recently relaunched search engine, Bing, has managed to win the company some market share during its first month of operation.

According to numbers gathered by StatCounter, Microsoft gained a full percentage point during the month of June, stealing bits and pieces from both Yahoo and Google. The firm says that Microsoft's share of the search market increased from 7.21 percent in April of this year to 8.23 percent in June. Comparatively, Google's share was at 79.07 percent in April and 78.48 percent in June—a drop of just over a half a percentage point.

Yahoo had 11.04 percent of the market in June. The Bing spike isn't entirely due to people checking out the new and improved search engine, either. StatCounter says the search engine's market share peaked at 9.21 percent during the week of June 1 through 7. The search engine dipped back down into the high 7s for a couple weeks before coming back to 8.45 percent during the last week of the month, showing that new users are sticking around.

"At first sight, a 1 percent increase in market share does not appear to be a huge return on the investment Microsoft has made in Bing but the underlying trend appears positive," StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen said in a statement. "Steady if not spectacular might be the best way to describe performance to date." Bing was recently rolled out for public consumption at the end of May after months of rumors that Live Search would be undergoing a major makeover.

By Gregg Keizer
June 30, 2009 07:30 PM ET

Mozilla's Firefox 3.5 browser had been downloaded more than 2 million times by late afternoon, Pacific time, according to a company counter. The new browser, which was released earlier today, was being downloaded between 30 and 63 times per second worldwide at about 3:35 p.m. Pacific.

At about noon Pacific, Firefox director Mike Beltzner said that a million copies of Firefox 3.5 had already been downloaded, and that the download rate was close to 80 per second. "We didn't do as much outreach this time," said Beltzner, comparing the low-key approach Mozilla took in the days preceding today's launch to last summer's promotion for the then-new Firefox 3.0. "But it looks like we're not too far off Download Day's numbers," Beltzner said.

Last year, Mozilla said that more than 8.3 million copies of Firefox 3.0 had been downloaded in the first 24 hours of its availability, in part because of the aggressively promoted Download Day, an attempt by Mozilla to set a single-day download record that it hoped would be sanctioned by the Guinness World Records organization. In October 2006, Mozilla said it recorded 1.6 million downloads of Firefox 2.0 on that version's launch day.

Today, the U.S. led all countries on Mozilla's real-time download counter, with nearly 600,000 by 3:35 p.m. Pacific, followed by Germany with more than 260,000, France with 110,000, and the U.K. with nearly 90,000. Internet metrics firm Net Applications may be able to confirm Firefox 3.5's growth, if not its numbers, tomorrow. The California-based company releases its monthly browser market share numbers on the first of every month.

by Jason Hiner
June 30th, 2009 @ 11:00 pm

Comcast will partner with Clearwire to offer a new Internet package that will bundle Clearwire’s WiMAX mobile broadband with Comcast’s cable Internet, according to a report from CNET’s Maggie Reardon. This isn’t a surprise.

Last year, Comcast was part of the consortium of companies that invested in the big Sprint-Clearwire WiMAX deal, so lots of commentators (including this one) have assumed that part of Comcast’s deal would be to help bring WiMAX to market in bundled Internet deals. Clearwire has launched WiMAX in four markets: Portland (OR), Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Baltimore (which originally launched under the Sprint Xohm brand). Comcast will launch its WiMAX bundle in Portland first and then in the other three cities by the end of the year.

Reardon explains how Comcast will be selling the bundles: Comcast will be selling 4G [WiMAX] wireless access as part of an Internet bundle to Comcast subscribers. To entice new subscribers, Comcast is offering the new 4G wireless with its 12 Mbps download cable modem service, plus a free 802.11g router for $50 a month for the first 12 months. The data card used for the 4G wireless, which fits into a laptop, costs $99. But subscribers who sign up for the package with a two-year commitment get the data card for free.

After the first 12 months, subscribers will then pay $43 per month for the 12 Mbps broadband service and $30 extra per month for 4G wireless service. The 4G wireless service is only available in Comcast’s cable territory, but subscribers who travel to other cities where Clearwire’s network is operational will be able to access the network at no additional cost. New customers signing up for Comcast’s triple play bundle of TV, phone, and Internet can add the 4G wireless component for $30 extra a month. .....

by Tom Krazit
June 30, 2009 12:28 PM PDT

Yahoo thinks its plan for a new data center could eventually help the company achieve carbon-neutral status without having to resort to the purchase of carbon offsets. Yahoo designed its forthcoming data center to let outside air cool the servers at all times, borrowing the idea from the design of a chicken coop, according to Yahoo co-founder David Filo.

The company joined New York officials such as Governor David Patterson and Senator Charles Schumer Tuesday to unveil plans for the data center, the design of which Yahoo is attempting to patent. Data centers are vital to huge Internet businesses such as Yahoo, and companies throughout this industry have started paying more and more attention to the amount of energy consumed by facilities that can have thousands of servers running all day, every day.

Google has talked up its own push for greater efficiency in its data centers, and Microsoft just announced plans for two new data centers geared around energy efficiency. As part of the announcement of the new data center in Lockport, N.Y., just outside of Buffalo, Yahoo also revealed that it will no longer purchase carbon offsets as part of its energy strategy. Carbon offsets have been controversial in some quarters, but they allow companies to claim they are "carbon neutral," in that purchasing offsets diverts money to green projects.

Yahoo plans to focus its green strategy on projects such as the Buffalo data center rather than the purchase of offsets, which means it will take them some time to return to the carbon-neutral goal set in 2007. "We believe creating highly-efficient data centers will have a greater long-term, direct impact on the environment and gives us the best opportunity to play a leadership role in addressing climate change," Filo wrote.

By John Timmer
June 30, 2009 6:29 AM CT

A study making the rounds suggests that Wikipedians may feel at home online, in part because they're grumpy introverts. But the results need to be interpreted very cautiously, as they were based on only 69 contributors from a single nation, a tiny drop in the Wikipedian ocean.

Behavioral studies of specific populations are extremely challenging things, as recruiting a set of participants that represent a true cross-section of the larger population is never easy. The mere willingness to participate in a study involves a necessary degree of self-selection within this population, which can seriously complicate behavioral studies—after all, it's entirely possible that a willingness to take surveys is the product of one of the behavioral traits under examination.

That's why, even though a small survey can produce results with a high statistical confidence, it still may represent nothing more than a robust result within a non-representative group. All of that should serve as a precautionary background on a new survey of Wikipedia participants. The short publication that describes these results is entitled, "Personality Characteristics of Wikipedia Members," and the news isn't especially good.

Those contributing online feel that their true personality comes across better in the virtual environment; they also scored lower on a measure of agreeableness, and aren't especially open to new ideas. It's easy to rationalize the first of these findings: if someone is more comfortable online, they're more likely to contribute to an online community. The other two, however, require a bit more in the way of mental gymnastics, given Wikipedia's relative newness and its focus on building a consensus about what constitutes relevant, unbiased information. In one press report on the findings, an author suggests that Wikipedia might provide a way for these individuals to compensate for real world inadequacies.

By Paul Taylor
Tuesday, 30 June 2009, 13:05

MOTHERBOARDS.ORG has a go at the Asus P6T7 WS Supercomputer mobo. It supports Core i7 or Xeon (Bloomfield) processors and has seven (!) PCIe x16 slots. Octo-or-more-core GPU processing is possible with this monster, as is SAS storage. This is a $500 motherboard, after all.

Tech Gage is testing the Asus Eee PC 1008HA “Seashell” netbook. Glossy and sleek, the Seashell attempts to make the netbook as clean looking as possible, and nails it. As a mate of mine would put it “frickin’ cool”. Driver Heaven tests MSI’s GX 723 gaming notebook. Slightly underpowered compared to some gaming notebooks out there, the GX 723 is a 17-incher (1680x1050) with a P8600 Core 2 Duo processor 4GB or DDR2-800 and 500GB of storage.

It’s driven by a Geforce 130M mobile GPU… *cough*. Rucksack and gaming mouse included. As Ion-based devices start flooding the market, Benchmark Reviews takes the time to test the Zotac IONITX-A-U Atom N330 WiFi N Motherboard. 100% passively cooled, this DIY kit will get you started on your HTPC project. Earphone Audio Processors are a bit new to us, but Thrusted Reviews, well got a Tension Labs EAP 03 Earphone Audio Processor to test.

This is essentially a headphone amp that plugs in the middle that costs an arm and a leg. Hot Hardware got some (video) hands-on time with a load of Nvidia kit, namely Lenovo’s S12 Atom+Ion netbook. Tegra also makes a showing in case you just can’t help yourself… Yes, Core 2 Quad is going the way of the dodo, but in the meantime some nice chaps at Tom’s Hardware found the time to do some memory scaling tests on the processors.

by John Morris @ 2:06 pm
June 30th, 2009

Laptops have long since overtaken their desk-bound brethren in terms of revenues, and more recently unit sales. In the first quarter, desktop unit sales dropped 23 percent, while notebook sales actually increased 10 percent compared with the same period last year, according to iSuppli.

Gizmodo even penned an obituary for the desktop this week. But rumors of the desktop’s demise are premature. Take a closer look at iSuppli’s numbers: Desktops still accounted for 47 percent of all PCs sold worldwide–more than 30 million units–in the first quarter. Desktops are still big business. Over the past week or so, PC makers have been rolling out their Back to School boxes.

The laptops and netbooks get more coverage, but these new desktops are still worth a look, especially to see the sort of features you can get in systems ranging from $300 to $900. HP has announced several new models. As usual, all of the HP-branded desktops have an AMD-based configuration at the low-end as well as slightly high-priced configurations with Intel processors.

The Slimline s5000 is a small form factor desktop that currently starts at $290 (s5100z) with a 2.8GHz AMD Athlon LE-1660 single-core processor, 2GB of memory, Nvidia GeForce 6150 integrated graphics, and a 320GB hard drive. The $370 s5110t has a 2.50GHz Pentium E5200 dual-core processor, 3GB, and a 320GB hard drive; the $450 s5150t has a 2.60GHz Pentium E5300, 4GB, and a 500GB hard drive.

by Stephen Shankland
June 30, 2009 4:00 AM PDT

A funny thing to happened to Firefox on the way to vanquishing Internet Explorer: the Mozilla browser's success opened the door for a host of its other competitors.

Even as Internet Explorer's market share has slipped--down a dramatic 8 percentage points to 65.5 percent in about the last year--Firefox programmers face a surprising question: should they be more worried about the programmers in Redmond, Wash., or about those working on Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and Opera?

Firefox has gained about 3 percentage points to 22.5 percent in market share, according to Net Applications' statistics since July 2008, and Firefox backer Mozilla doubtless hopes for more gains with Tuesday's release of Firefox 3.5. But Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome each gained 2 percentage points, to 8.4 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, indicating a growing appetite for alternatives to Internet Explorer that's not completely met by Firefox.

Opera stayed flat at about 0.7 percent. In short, Firefox isn't the only scrappy underdog in town, and Firefox fans' easy us-versus-them polarization is transforming into a more complicated multilateral equation. Having other IE challengers helps legitimize Firefox, because the idea of straying from the IE fold appears more legitimate, but the alternatives also collect some of the new users venturing farther afield.