Did Facebook break Google's heart when it chose Microsoft?

DailyTech yesterday covered news that Microsoft and Facebook had entered into an exclusive relationship, after Microsoft beat out Google in courting Facebook.

Now Google is sharing its feelings, though it is trying not to talk too much about Facebook, which seems to be a sensitive subject.

Google spoke to reporters on Wednesday, but the event was overshadowed by Google's defeat at the hands of Microsoft in wooing Facebook. The company indicated that Microsoft overbid in wooing Facebook, and feels its own relationship with Myspace.com is much stronger. Microsoft's $240 million investment gives the company a 1.6% share -- a 51% stake in Facebook would cost just over $7 billion.

Google CEO Sergei Brin waxed, "We have a great relationship with MySpace. We probably partner with on the order of 20 different social networks."

He added, "We don't feel, at a higher level, that we need to own every successful company on the Internet. We can partner with these companies."

However, Google was unable to partner up with Facebook, likely due to the fact that it forked over $900 million to secure an exclusive advertising deal with competitor MySpace last Summer.

Perhaps Google is already deep enough in the social network scene. It has its own social network even, Orkut, which is very popular, though chiefly in Brazil and India.

Google is looking to increase advertising in its high profile customers. It gives the example of one of its top accounts, which only advertises 1 percent of its products via Google. That leaves 99 percent left to grow into, Google advertising sales president for North America, Tim Armstrong, says.

He says Google's point-and-click offerings are gaining increasing success with corporate brands. He states, "We are getting real traction for multiple reasons. Brand and search [advertising] are moving closer together."

The company could not be clearer about where it sees Facebook in the long run. Jonathan Rosenberg, Google's senior vice president of product management, explained, "At Google, we constantly feed the winners and starve the losers."

Despite losing the hand of Facebook it still looks like Google is a winner, for the most part, with an aggressive business plan which has pushed out many new services and will continue to do so. With such plans and products as Google News, the Unity Project trans-pacific cable line, and possibly even a new GPhone, Google should see continued success.

www.dailytech.com

Microsoft Records Sharp Increase In Q1 Profits

We've heard from three major tech companies regarding third quarter performance over the past two weeks. Intel and Apple were both up, while AMD reported its third straight quarter of losses.

Today, it's Microsoft's turn and its results for fiscal Q1 2008 were quite impressive. The Redmond, Washington-based company recorded operating income of $5.92 billion USD and net income of $4.2 billion USD on revenues of $13.76 billion USD. Microsoft's revenue for Q1 represented a 27 percent increase from fiscal Q1 2007 and marks its best fiscal Q1 performance since 1999.

"This fiscal year is off to an outstanding start with the fastest revenue growth of any first quarter since 1999," said Microsoft CFO Chris Liddell. "Operating income growth of over 30% also reflects our ability to translate revenue into profits while making strategic investments for the future."

Not surprisingly, Microsoft also attributed a good portion of its growth to the success of Windows Vista which launched in late November 2006 for OEMs and late January 2007 for consumers.

"Customer demand for Windows Vista this quarter continued to build with double-digit growth in multi-year agreements by businesses and with the vast majority of consumers purchasing premium editions," said Kevin Johnson, remarked Microsoft Platform and Services Division at Microsoft President Kevin Johnson.

On a division-specific basis, Microsoft's Client, Server and Tools, Business, Online Service and Entertainment and Devices divisions reported Q1 2008 revenue growth of 25 percent, 16 percent, 20 percent, 25 percent and 91 percent respectively compared to fiscal Q1 2007.

The big jump in the Entertainment and Devices division can be attributed to none other than Halo 3. Halo 3 generated $170 million USD within a 24-hour period and raked in over $300 million USD during its opening week.

The release of Halo 3 also allowed Microsoft's Xbox 360 to outsell Nintendo's Wii console for the first time during the month of September. The company managed to move 527,000 Xbox 360s during September compared to 501,000 Wiis. This marks a dramatic improvement from the Xbox 360's August numbers of 276,000 units -- itself a big jump from July's tally of 170,000 units.

Halo 3's release was so profound that Hollywood blamed that lackluster box office debut of The Heartbreak Kid on Master Chief's third adventure.

Halo 3's financial impact was also enough to lift Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division from a loss of $142 million USD during fiscal Q1 2007 to a $165 million USD profit.

Thanks to Microsoft's strong fiscal Q1 2008 performance, it's raising its outlook for fiscal 2008 performance. Its revenue forecasts are being adjusted from the $57.3 billion USD to $59.2 billion USD range. Operating income forecasts are also being raised to $23.5 billion USD from $22.45 billion USD.

info : www.dailytech.com

MySpace To Launch Casual Gaming Space

MySpace, the Internet’s largest aggregator of casual users, today announced a partnership with games company Oberon Media to in hopes of making a collection of casual games. The two companies will launch in early 2008 “MySpace Games,” which will enable MySpace users to choose from hundreds of online casual games to play with friends in the community.

After implementation of the new feature, MySpace users will be able to add games to their profile pages as well as challenge friends to multi-player games, invite them to play the same single player game or socialize via chat services within the game.

“Bringing entertainment in the form of fun, social, casual games will enhance our user experience,” said Amit Kapur, VP of Business Development for MySpace. “Our goal is to provide our members with an easy way to play with their friends and give them with additional ways to interact.”

“We’re very excited to be partnering with MySpace to provide the best social networking casual games experience to its growing audience. Our white label casual gaming solution is allowing us to create a customized games platform that delivers a great experience to MySpace users,” Tal Kerret, Co-Founder and Chairman of Oberon Media commented. “We’re looking forward to responding to users’ needs and to involving the best game developers to create the greatest online entertainment experience. The opportunity to give MySpace users the chance to share the fun and socialize within this rapidly growing media segment is thrilling.”

The two companies said that there will be “further community initiatives” resulting from the partnership to be announced in early next year. Interestingly, the press release asks budding game developers to submit their ideas for new social gaming titles to myspace@oberon-media.com. Development will supposedly be supported by a specially created software development kit, perhaps in a move that could lead to community-created casual games.

A recent study concluded that casual gaming is the most popular online entertainment activity, ahead of streaming video and even social networking.

At present time, the games.myspace.com page states that MySpace is launching a new games section, and asks users to stay tuned for updates.

info : www.dailytech.com

ASUS Motherboard P5N32-E SLI Plus

- Support Intel® next generation 45nm Multi-core CPU
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ready for 1333MHz FSB)
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Power Design

The P5N32-E SLI Plus is the best Quad-SLI™ ready motherboard with excellent gaming performance. But what we care is not only performance, it´s also about realistic. Extreme HD gaming with the highest resolution that feels like the enemy jump out of the screen, the supreme audio with a stand-alone card-SupremeFX, induce a better Signal-to-Noise Ratio, features with DTS surround sound, sounds like the enemy is just around. The unique 3 PCIex16 slot, reserved one additional slot for GPU Physics card when running Quad-SLI™, the experience can´t be more real. This board is also of AI Lifestyle descent, quiet thermal solutions increase the stability and reliability when running resource demanding games or applications, EZ DIY features enhance the DIY experience and make PC much more interesting.

Loca Area Network (LAN)

A local area network (LAN) is a computer network covering a small geographic area, like a home, office, or group of buildings. The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to Wide Area Networks (WANs), include their much higher data transfer rates, smaller geographic range, and lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines.

Ethernet over unshielded twisted pair cabling, and Wi-Fi are the two most common technologies currently, but ARCNET, Token Ring and many others have been used in the past.

History

In the days before personal computers, a site might have just one central computer, with users accessing this via computer terminals over simple low-speed cabling. Networks such as IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture) were aimed at linking terminals or other mainframes at remote sites over leased lines—hence these were wide area networks.

The first LANs were created in the late 1970s and used to create high-speed links between several large central computers at one site. Of many competing systems created at this time, Ethernet and ARCNET were the most popular.

The development and proliferation of CP/M and then DOS-based personal computers meant that a single site began to have dozens or even hundreds of computers. The initial attraction of networking these was generally to share disk space and laser printers, which were both very expensive at the time. There was much enthusiasm for the concept and for several years, from about 1983 onward, computer industry pundits would regularly declare the coming year to be “the year of the LAN”.

In reality, the concept was marred by proliferation of incompatible physical layer and network protocol implementations, and confusion over how best to share resources. Typically, each vendor would have its own type of network card, cabling, protocol, and network operating system. A solution appeared with the advent of Novell NetWare which provided even-handed support for the 40 or so competing card/cable types, and a much more sophisticated operating system than most of its competitors. Netware dominated the personal computer LAN business from early after its introduction in 1983 until the mid 1990s when Microsoft introduced Windows NT Advanced Server and Windows for Workgroups.

Of the competitors to NetWare, only Banyan Vines had comparable technical strengths, but Banyan never gained a secure base. Microsoft and 3Com worked together to create a simple network operating system which formed the base of 3Com's 3+Share, Microsoft's LAN Manager and IBM's LAN Server. None of these were particularly successful.

In this same timeframe, Unix computer workstations from vendors such as Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard, Silicon Graphics, Intergraph, NeXT and Apollo were using TCP/IP based networking. Although this market segment is now much reduced, the technologies developed in this area continue to be influential on the Internet and in both Linux and Apple Mac OS X networking—and the TCP/IP protocol has now almost completely replaced IPX, AppleTalk, NBF and other protocols used by the early PC LANs.

info : wikipedia

NVIDIA Corporation

NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) (pronounced IPA: /ɛnˈvɪdiə/) is a U.S. corporation specializing in the manufacture of graphics processors (graphics processing units, GPUs) technologies for workstations, desktop computers, and handhelds. The company, based in Santa Clara, California, is a major supplier of integrated circuits (ICs) used for personal computer motherboard chipsets, GPUs, and game consoles. NVIDIA's most notable product lines are the GeForce series for gaming and the Quadro series for Professional Workstation Graphics processing, as well as the nForce series of integrated motherboard chipsets.

Company history

The word NVIDIA is a mixture of n —a mathematical variable meaning "to the highest degree"— and video —which comes from Latin videre, "to see"—, implying "the best visual experience."^{[citation needed]} The company name is represented in all caps in company technical documentation, although marketing materials and other collateral are not consistent.

The name NVIDIA suggests "envy" (Spanish envidia or Latin/Italian invidia; furthermore, the GeForce 8 series slogan is "Green with envy") and is also designed to sound like the word video.

It was co-founded in 1993 by Jen-Hsun Huang, the present CEO, Curtis Priem, and Chris Malachowsky.

In 2000 it acquired the intellectual assets of one-time rival 3dfx, one of the biggest graphics companies of the mid to late 1990s.

On December 14th, 2005, NVIDIA acquired ULI Electronics, which at the time was supplying third-party Southbridge parts for chipsets to ATI, NVIDIA's competitor. In March 2006, NVIDIA acquired Hybrid Graphics and on January 5th, 2007, it announced that it had completed the acquisition of PortalPlayer, Inc.

info : wikipedia

GOOGLE HISTORY

Google began as a research project in January 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California. They hypothesized that a search engine that analyzed the relationships between websites would produce better results than existing techniques, which ranked results according to the number of times the search term appeared on a page. Their search engine was originally nicknamed "BackRub" because the system checked backlinks to estimate a site's importance. A small search engine called Rankdex was already exploring a similar strategy. Convinced that the pages with the most links to them from other highly relevant web pages must be the most relevant pages associated with the search, Page and Brin tested their thesis as part of their studies, and laid the foundation for their search engine. Originally the search engine used the Stanford University website with the domain google.stanford.edu. The domain google.com was registered on September 15, 1997, and the company was incorporated as Google Inc. on September 7, 1998 at a friend's garage in Menlo Park, California. The total initial investment raised for the new company eventually amounted to almost $1.1 million, including a $100,000 check by Andy Bechtolsheim, one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

In March 1998, the company moved into offices in Palo Alto, home to several other noted Silicon Valley technology startups. After quickly outgrowing two other sites, the company leased a complex of buildings in Mountain View at 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway from Silicon Graphics (SGI) in 2003. The company has remained at this location ever since, and the complex has since become known as the Googleplex (a play on the word googolplex, a 1 followed by a googol zeros). In 2006, Google bought the property from SGI for $319 million.

The Google search engine attracted a loyal following among the growing number of Internet users, who liked its simple design and usability. In 2000, Google began selling advertisements associated with search keywords. The ads were text-based to maintain an uncluttered page design and to maximize page loading speed. Keywords were sold based on a combination of price bid and clickthroughs, with bidding starting at $.05 per click. This model of selling keyword advertising was pioneered by Goto.com (later renamed Overture Services, before being acquired by Yahoo! and rebranded as Yahoo! Search Marketing). While many of its dot-com rivals failed in the new Internet marketplace, Google quietly rose in stature while generating revenue.

The name "Google" originated from a misspelling of "googol," which refers to 10¹⁰⁰ (the number represented by a 1 followed by one-hundred zeros). Having found its way increasingly into everyday language, the verb "google", was added to the Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006, meaning "to use the Google search engine to obtain information on the Internet."

A patent describing part of Google's ranking mechanism (PageRank) was granted on September 4, 2001. The patent was officially assigned to Stanford University and lists Lawrence Page as the inventor.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG and LSE: GGEA) is an American public corporation, specializing in Internet search and online advertising. The company is based in Mountain View, California, and has 15,916 full-time employees (as of September 30, 2007). Google's mission statement is, "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." Google's corporate philosophy includes statements such as "Don't be evil", and "Work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun", illustrating a somewhat relaxed corporate culture.

Google was co-founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford University and the company was first incorporated as a privately held company on September 7, 1998. Google's initial public offering took place on August 19, 2004, raising $1.67 billion, making it worth $23 billion. Through a series of new product developments, acquisitions and partnerships, the company has expanded its initial search and advertising business into other areas, including web-based email, online mapping, office productivity, and video sharing, among others.

info : wikipedia

BLU-RAY DISC

A Blu-ray Disc (also called BD) is a high-density optical disc format for the storage of digital information, including high-definition video.

The name Blu-ray Disc is derived from the blue-violet laser used to read and write this type of disc. Because of its shorter wavelength (405 nm), substantially more data can be stored on a Blu-ray Disc than on the DVD format, which uses a red (650 nm) laser. A single layer Blu-ray Disc can store 25 gigabytes (GB), over five times the size of a single layer DVD at 4.7 GB. A dual layer Blu-ray Disc can store 50 GB, almost 6 times the size of a dual layer DVD at 8.5 GB.

Blu-ray was developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association, a group of leading consumer electronics companies. The standard is covered by several patents belonging to different companies. As of March 2007, a joint licensing agreement for all the relevant patents has not yet been finalized.

As of 2 October 2007, 336 titles have been released on Blu-ray Disc in the United States (32 of these titles have since been discontinued). Since January 2007, new releases on dual layer disc have represented about half of all new releases approximately 75 titles and 2.5 mm discs. As of 9 October 2007, 179 titles have been released in Japan, with 55 titles planned for release.

The Blu-ray standard is currently in a format war with its rival, HD DVD (which also uses a blue-violet laser), to determine which (if either) of the two formats will become the leading carrier for high-definition content to consumers.

info : wikip

Sony To Ditch Cell Chipmaking Facilities

Last month, a report from a Japanese news publication claimed Sony will sell its chip making business to Toshiba. Specifically, the facilities used to manufacture the Cell Broadband Engine – the CPU powering every PlayStation 3 console – would be sold to Toshiba in a deal that would complete sometime in 2008.

The day following the initial report, both Toshiba and Sony publically denied such a deal. Sony’s been restructuring its chip business for months, but Sony spokesman Tomio Takizawa said “nothing concrete has been decided,” regarding its Cell Broadband Engine plant. Toshiba spokesman Keisuke Omori also said nothing has been decided on such a deal.

Today, just a month after the initial report, Toshiba and Sony announced intent to establish a joint venture that will produce high-performance semiconductors, which not only includes the Cell Broadband Engine but also the RSX graphics engine. The deal also includes the transfer to Toshiba from Sony Group the 300mm wafer line fabrication facilities installed in Fab 2 of Sony Semiconductor Kyushu Corporation's Nagasaki Technology Center (SKC) by the end of March 2008.

The new joint venture company, which has yet to be formally named, has a planned establishment date of April 1, 2008. Ownership of the joint venture will comprise of 60 percent Toshiba Corp., 20 percent Sony Corp., and 20 percent SCEI. Planned capitalization for the venture will be approximately 100 million yen ($857,000).

According to the joint statement, the facilities will continue to use the 300mm wafer line fabrication, with focus on 65nm process semiconductors. Toshiba and Sony Group will together target migration to 45nm process mass production, which will also logically extend to chips used in the SCEI’s game console. Current PlayStation 3 chips are built on the 90nm process.

Even with Toshiba’s majority control of the new company, the manufacturing plant will still serve regular orders for the production of chips used by Sony’s games machine. Toshiba says it will also use the facilities to expand and enhance its system LSI business.

The joint venture will move Sony back closer to its core business of consumer electronics, while Toshiba will gain another foothold on the semiconductor business. Toshiba recently announced a new chip called SpursEngine, which is based on the Cell architecture that is aimed primarily at graphics applications. The new facilities opened to Toshiba give the company greater flexibilities in its chip design and production, such as in the case of the SpursEngine.

info : www.dailytech.com

AMD Records $396 Million USD Net Loss For Q3

Earlier this week, DailyTech reported that were things were looking rosy for the Intel folks in Santa Clara, California. The company reported that its profits were up 43 percent on revenues of $10.1 billion USD.

Today, it was AMD's turn to report its Q3 earnings results. AMD recorded revenue of $1.632 billion USD -- this represented an 18 percent increase from Q2 2007. However, AMD reported an operating loss of $226 million USD and a net loss of $396 million USD -- this compares to a $611 million USD net loss for Q1 and a $600 million USD net loss for Q2.

Part of AMD's losses during Q3 can be attributed to its acquisition of ATI Technologies in 2006. The company is still reeling from the purchase and recorded a $78 million USD charge as a result. The ATI-related charge involved costs related to integration and severance packages. Another $42 million USD charge was recorded in relation to Spansion.

On a more positive note, the introduction of ATI's Radeon HD 2000 series GPUs resulted in a 29 percent increase in graphics revenue to $252 million USD. AMD also noted that its Radeon HD 2000 series GPUs are now featured in desktop and notebook systems from Dell, HP, Lenovo and Toshiba.

During 2007, AMD has racked up enormous debt and experienced losses in every quarter. Former ATI president CEO Dave Orton left in July after successfully leading the charge to integrate the two tech companies. AMD also lost executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer Henri Richard in late November. The following month, AMD vice president of worldwide sales Rick Hegberg packed his bags and headed for the door.

AMD still has room for improvement in the form of its new quad-core 65nm Barcelona architecture. The company launched its Barcelona-based Opteron server processors in early September with speeds up to 2.0GHz. 2.3GHz models are in the pipeline for Q4 2007.

Quad-core desktop Phenom 2.2GHz (Phenom 9500) and 2.4GHz (Phenom 9600) processors will launch late next month, while a 2.6GHz (Phenom 9700) processor will be ready for December. AMD will later tackle the high-end desktop market with the Phenom FX-82 during the first half of 2008.

AMD also threw a bit of a curve ball with the announcement of a triple-core Phenom processor family. The triple-core processors logically fit between AMD's dual-core and quad-core offerings and will bring "true multi-core technology to a broader audience," according to the company.

The next few months won't be easy for AMD, however. Although it has a new CPU architecture on tap, Intel is not standing still. Intel is always one step ahead of AMD when it comes to process technology and its 45nm Penryn-based Xeon processors will launch November 12, while its Penryn-based desktop processors should be available before the end of the year.

In addition, Intel will refresh its 45nm architecture in the summer of 2008 with Nehalem, while a 32nm refresh called Westmere will be in place for 2009.

info: www.dailytech.com

PC MOTHERBOARD PART AND FUNCTION

The motherboard of a typical desktop consists of a large PCB. It holds electronic components and interconnects, as well as physical connectors (sockets, slots, and headers) into which other computer components may be inserted or attached.

Most motherboards include, at a minimum:

• sockets in which one or more microprocessors (CPUs) are installed
• slots into which the system's main memory is installed (typically in the form of DIMM modules containing DRAM chips)
• a chipset which forms an interface between the CPU's front-side bus, main memory, and peripheral buses
• non-volatile memory chips (usually Flash ROM in modern motherboards) containing the system's firmware or BIOS
• a clock generator which produces the system clock signal to synchronize the various components
• slots for expansion cards (these interface to the system via the buses supported by the chipset)
• power connectors and circuits, which receive electrical power from the computer power supply and distribute it to the CPU, chipset, main memory, and expansion cards.

The Octek Jaguar V motherboard from 1993. This board has 6 ISA slots but few onboard peripherals, as evidenced by the lack of external connectors.

Additionally, nearly all motherboards include logic and connectors to support commonly-used input devices, such as PS/2 connectors for a mouse and keyboard. Early personal computers such as the Apple II or IBM PC included only this minimal peripheral support on the motherboard. Additional peripherals such as disk controllers and serial ports were provided as expansion cards.

Given the high thermal design power of high-speed computer CPUs and components, modern motherboards nearly always include heatsinks and mounting points for fans to dissipate excess heat.

Integrated peripherals

Diagram of a modern motherboard, which supports many on-board peripheral functions as well as several expansion slots.

With the steadily declining costs and size of integrated circuits, it is now possible to include support for many peripherals on the motherboard. By combining many functions on one PCB, the physical size and total cost of the system may be reduced; highly-integrated motherboards are thus especially popular in small form factor and budget computers.

For example, the ECS RS485M-M, a typical modern budget motherboard for computers based on AMD processors, has on-board support for a very large range of peripherals:

• disk controllers for a floppy disk drive, up to 2 PATA drives, and up to 4 SATA drives (including RAID 0/1 support)
• integrated ATI Radeon graphics controller supporting 2D and 3D graphics, with VGA and TV output
• integrated sound card supporting 6-channel audio and S/PDIF output
• fast Ethernet network controller for 10/100 Mbit networking
• USB 2.0 controller supporting up to 8 USB ports
• IrDA controller for infrared data communication (e.g. with an IrDA enabled Cellular Phone or Printer)
• temperature, voltage, and fan-speed sensors that allow software to monitor the health of computer components

Expansion cards to support all of these functions would have cost hundreds of dollars even a decade ago, however as of April 2007 such highly-integrated motherboards are available for as little as $30 in the USA

info : wikipedia

THE PENTAGON WANTS SPACE SOLAR POWER FOR U.S.

The Pentagon has never shied from developing expensive and controversial plans for new military technologies. Over the past few decades it has engaged in many research programs, including the controversial strategic defense initiative/missile shield, which is finally seeing some measure of success according to a recent article by DailyTech's Michael Asher.

Now the Pentagon has issued a new report that calls for a technology effort, which may leave some scratching their heads, while raising many a cheer from some space flight advocates.
The Pentagon seeks to eliminate U.S. dependence on foreign oil, including imports that come from the conflict laden Middle East -- something which it sees as a critical "strategic energy vulnerability." In order to eliminate this dependence, it proposes a radical alternative energy strategy.
The Pentagon's National Security Space Office (NSSO) proposed collecting solar rays in space and beaming it back to Earth. It stated in the report that it feels that this is a "near-term" solution, which could be realized very quickly.
Such a move it says in the report, would allow U.S. forces deployed around the world to eliminate the long logistic chain needed to deliver fuel to vehicles and other generators, by beaming power directly where needed. The NSSO labels the technology Space Solar Power (SSP) and has issued a press release (PDF) on a blog it is publishing with the Space Frontier Foundation.
The plan also states that by developing SSP, the U.S. Armed Forces can reduce the risk for large scale commercial development of the technology. What this means, if the plans succeeds, is that industries may eventually see the technology at an affordable price, while the military will pay a premium to become the early adopter.
"The business case still doesn't close, but it's closer than ever," Marine Corps Lt. Col. Paul E. Damphousse of the NSSO states in the report.
Charles Miller, CEO of Constellation Services International, a space technology start-up, and director of the Space Frontier Foundation, hopes that the government chooses to follow the report and adopt the technology. By installing a power plant in geostationary orbit, the government can effectively "buy down" the risk for industry start-ups such as his company, he says.
Such a move could allow the U.S. and its allies to commercially eliminate oil dependence, and meet the energy needs of the developing world, ushering in an era of clean energyJohn Mankins, president of the Space Power Association and technical expert in the field of SSP, had this to say on the proposal, "This is not a 50-year solution--the kinds of things that are possible today say a truly transformational demonstration at a large scale is achievable within this decade."

Mankins points to how solar cell efficiency has increased from once having a goal of 20-25 percent efficiency, to having successfully achieved efficiency rates of over 40 percent. Mankins suggests using the International Space Station (ISS) as a possible platform to build the power plant around. He says that Japan's Kibo module, set to launch in the first half of next year, would be the perfect place to test exotic materials for the solar cells, and eventually to begin mass construction of a solar array.

The panel of experts which helped publish the report suggests that the Pentagon front the costs of the technology to industry. It also suggests aggressive tax breaks and other policies to encourage SSP development and adoption.
Lt. Damphousse also indicated that SSP development could give a boost to other space industries. He stated in the report that development of a reusable launch vehicle was critical to making SSP viable.

While this report certainly indicates an interesting proposal from the Pentagon, it is questionable how much funding or serious attention it will receive. Then again, from some of the other expensive and outlandish technologies such as laser pulse and strobe light weapons, which the Pentagon has been developing, nothing should be ruled impossible. SSP may soon provide a new alternative energy option.

info : www.dailytech.com

Researchers Develop Quantum Device To Control Single Electron Spin

Quantum computing is still out of reach for most mainstream industries, but continuing research in the field is making the technology more accessible. A team of engineers at the University at Buffalo have developed a semiconductor that can trap, detect and manipulate the single spin of an electron.

"The task of manipulating the spin of single electrons is a hugely daunting technological challenge that has the potential, if overcome, to open up new paradigms of nanoelectronics," said Jonathan P. Bird, Ph.D., professor of electrical engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and principal investigator on the project.

The research paper (PDF) detailing the advancement is featured in this week’s Physical Review Letters. "In this paper, we demonstrate a novel approach that allows us to easily trap, manipulate and detect single-electron spins, in a scheme that has the potential to be scaled up in the future into dense, integrated circuits," added Bird.

The system developed at UB steers the electrical current in a semiconductor by applying voltage to nanoscale gaps on select metallic gates that are fabricated on its surface.

"As we increase the charge on the gates, this begins to close that gap," explained Bird, "allowing fewer and fewer electrons to pass through until eventually they all stop going through. As we squeeze off the channel, just before the gap closes completely, we can detect the trapping of the last electron in the channel and its spin."

"It was recently predicted that it should be possible to use these constrictions to trap single spins," added Bird. "In this paper, we provide evidence that such trapping can, indeed, be achieved with quantum point contacts and that it may also be manipulated electrically."

While prior efforts to trap a single spin using nanoscale semiconductors were proven successful, they had to operate at extremely cold temperatures – below 1 kelvin. According to UB researchers, cooling apparatus required to lower the temperature to such levels is not easily attainable. On the other hand, the device developed at UB is capable of performing at 20 kelvins – a temperature that the researchers believe makes their technology a more viable alternative.

Other recent advancements in quantum computing include the discovery of a "hidden" order in a quantum spin liquid, paving the way for a large number of electron spins can be coupled together to yield a quantum mechanical state with no classical analog. Scientists were also able to use pulses of light to accelerate quantum computers. Most recently, scientists at the NIST have successfully transferred data from one qubit to another by means of a microfabricated aluminum cable.

Such advancements are slowly but steadily leading up to the commercialization of quantum computer technology. Canadian firm D-Wave Systems unveiled and demonstrated earlier this year its own quantum computing technology that it aims for the commercial market – though D-Wave’s claims were met with some scepticism from the scientific community.

info : www.dailytech.com

RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM)

Random access memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a type of computer data storage. It takes the form of integrated circuits that allow the stored data to be accessed in any order — that is, at random and without the physical movement of the storage medium or a physical reading head. RAM is a volatile memory as the information or instructions stored in it will be lost if the power is switched off.

The word "random" refers to the fact that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data.^[1] This contrasts with storage mechanisms such as tapes, magnetic discs and optical discs, which rely on the physical movement of the recording medium or a reading head. In these devices, the movement takes longer than the data transfer, and the retrieval time varies depending on the physical location of the next item.

Originally, RAM referred to a type of solid-state memory, and the majority of this article deals with that, but physical devices which can emulate true RAM (or, at least, are used in a similar way) can have "RAM" in their names: for example, DVD-RAM.

RAM is usually writable as well as readable, so "RAM" is often used interchangeably with "read-write memory". The alternative to this is "ROM", or Read Only Memory. Most types of RAM lose their data when the computer powers down. "Flash memory" is a ROM/RAM hybrid that can be written to, but which does not require power to maintain its contents. RAM is not strictly the opposite of ROM, however. The word random indicates a contrast with serial access or sequential access memory.

"Random access" is also the name of an indexing method: hence, disk storage is often called "random access" because the reading head can move relatively quickly from one piece of data to another, and does not have to read all the data in between. However the final "M" is crucial: "RAM" (provided there is no additional term as in "DVD-RAM") always refers to a solid-state device.

Many CPU-based designs actually have a memory hierarchy consisting of registers, on-die SRAM caches, DRAM, paging systems, and virtual memory or swap space on a hard-drive. This entire pool of memory may be referred to as "RAM" by many developers, even though the various subsystems can have very different access times, violating the original concept behind the "random access" term in RAM. Even within a hierarchy level such as DRAM, the specific row/column/bank/rank/channel/interleave organization of the components make the access time variable, although not to the extent that rotating storage media or a tape is variable.

info : wikipedia

Hitachi develops new hard drive storage capacity to 4TB

Hitachi recently announced that it has achieved a breakthrough in hard drive read-head design.

This breakthrough has produced read-heads in the 30-50 nanometer range, approximately 2,000 times smaller than the width of an average human hair. This new technology is called current perpendicular-to-the-plane giant magnetoresistive heads.

Giant magnetoresistance principles won scientists Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg the 2007 Nobel Prize for Physics.

These new heads will allow Hitachi to expand storage capacity in standard 3.5-inch desktop hard drives to 4TB and extend 2.5-inch laptop hard drives to 1TB of capacity. Hitachi says that it plans to integrate these new heads into hard drives starting in 2009 and that the technology will reach maturity in 2011.

The first products to reach market in 2009 will use recording heads of 50nm and products with recording heads of 30nm will hit market in 2011. Hitachi representatives believe the new heads will allow for storage densities of up to 500GB per square inch. The current highest capacity drives from Hitachi can only pack in 200GB per square inch.

Another benefit of the significantly smaller heads is that the hard drives will product less noise. Test products using 50nm heads produced 40dB of sound while the 30nm heads produced 30dB. Large capacity hard drives that produce less noise will be a welcome addition to digital video recorders.

info : www.dailytech.com

Intel records Q3 revenue of $10.1 billion USD

Things are looking pretty good in Santa Clara, California these days. Intel today announced that its third quarter revenue reached new records as result of its strong processor portfolio.

The company recorded revenue of $10.1 billion USD -- an increase of 15 percent from Q3 2006. Operating income was also up 64 percent year-over-year to $2.2 billion USD, while net income increased 43 percent to $1.9 billion USD.

"A combination of great products, strong and growing worldwide demand, and operational efficiency from our ongoing restructuring efforts led to record third-quarter revenue and a 64-percent year-over-year gain in operating income," said Paul Otellini, Intel's President and CEO. "Looking forward, we see each of these elements continuing to improve into the fourth quarter. We are very pleased with the results and optimistic about our business."

Intel reports that its microprocessor set new records during the quarter while the average selling price (ASP) remained relatively flat. Intel shipped more than two million quad core processors during Q3.

In addition, chipset and flash memory sales also set new records during the quarter, while motherboard shipments were down.

Intel's third quarter was quite profitable and it expects to record revenue of $10.5 billion USD to $11.1 billion USD during the fourth quarter. The company will have help thanks to its new 45nm-based Penryn desktop/server processors which are due to launch November 12.

Intel will follow-up in the first half of 2008 with new 45nm Menlow platform along with Penryn-based quad core mobile processors during the second half of 2008.

Intel will then crank things up even further with its 45nm Nehalem processors in the summer of 2008.

Intel’s good fortunes during the quarter still weren’t enough to stop job cuts. The company announced in late September that it would cut 10 percent of its IT staff worldwide to “stay agile and stay efficient."

info : www.dailytech.com

INTEL FINALLY HITS LAUNCH DATE FOR X38 EXPRESS CHIPSET

Intel today launched its X38 Express chipset, which DailyTech has been covering for a while now. The chipset was previously known by its codename, Bearlake, and first surfaced last year.

In October 2006 DailyTech broke the news that Intel would release six versions of its Bearlake chipset and that one of those six versions, the Bearlake-X, would be the X38 Express.The story behind the Intel X38 Express has been one of numerous missed launch dates. At first, it seemed that X38 would launch in time for Computex Taipei in June. Intel then set an official launch date of September 23 for the chipset. That launch date, however, was pushed back yet again.Engineers at the time cited problems with vendor microcode support as major contributors to Intel's decision to slide the date back even further. The launch date for the X38 Express chipset was then changed to October 10th, and today Intel was finally able to hit its launch target.

ASUS, Gigabyte and MSI all have X38 Express-based offerings. ASUS announced today its P5E3 Deluxe, which comes with the option of an embedded install of Linux. MSI launched the X38 Diamond, which features a new Circu-Pipe cooler design; and Gigabyte launched its GA-5BXWV-RH mainboard.

The main features of the Intel X38 Express chipset include support for DDR3 RAM, next generation dual 16x PCI Express 2.0, and Intel Extreme turning. The chipset has support for all current and some future Intel processors like Penryn with front side bus speeds of 800, 1066 and 1333MHz. Other interesting features include the ability to disable SATA and USB ports as needed.

info:www.dailytech.com

MICROSOFT RELEASES NEW BUILD OF IE7, PIRATES WELCOME

In a surprise move, Microsoft has issued a new build of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) to customers that can be installed on any machine running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 -- IE7 is already included in Windows Vista operating systems.

IE7 was previously reserved for customers using genuine copies of Windows-based operating systems and was protected by Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) validation software.

"Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users," remarked IE7 program manager Steve Reynolds on the IE Blog. "With today’s 'Installation and Availability Update,' Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users."

Microsoft is likely using this move to makes IE7 available to the broadest range of customers worldwide. Mozilla's Firefox browser has gained a lot of traction recently, and this move would give Microsoft some additional ammunition.

In addition to the removal of WGA, the latest version of IE7 brings updates to the menu bar, online tour and a new MSI installer for IT administrators.

info : dailytech.com

GOOGLE'S PHONE PROJECT AIMS AT MICROSOFT

Google, the internet media giant, has had a large group of engineers working on a secret project for nearly two years now. Rumors had leaked that Google was planning to manufacture a next generation of cell phones, which some observers creatively dubbed the "GPhone." Now as a new report indicates Google's true intentions, it appears that the company has not only done a good job keeping the wraps on its secret project, but that the project is much more complex than expected.

Google has been working on developing a software platform for cell phones, which it hopes will create a new business sector. It begins with the phone operating system (OS). The OS that Google has been working on is a modified version of Linux, the open source OS. Atop the OS, Google is modifying its Office suite, organization tools, maps, messenger, and email, along with the rest of its programs to run in cell phone environments. The final piece of the puzzle is what Google hopes will make the phone truly profitable -- advertising.

Currently cell phone advertising is a fairly small and specialized business. Google hopes to expand and transform this niche into a thriving new market sector.

To demonstrate its technology, it turns out that Google did build phone prototypes, which it has shown to manufacturers. It has given no indication that it will put these designs into production, though. Analysts think that such a move would be unlikely, due to Google's lack of hardware expertise.

Karsten Weide an analyst for IDC spoke to the possibility of them developing phone hardware. “Running a Web site and a search engine is one thing, but developing a phone is a whole different game. It will not be easy for them,” said Weide.

While no definitive word has been released by Google at this time, it seems clear that developing hardware was not the focus of its project.

Rather than competing with the iPhone, these developments reveal that Google intends to challenge Microsoft for mobile phone OS dominance. Google has one clear advantage when it comes to its OS: the software comes at no cost, while Microsoft charges cell phone companies for use of its Windows Mobile OS.

Some see deeper motives to Google's moves than simply gunning for Microsoft. They see Google's moves as an attempt to loosen the control that cell phone carriers have on their services and software on their network.

This may trouble some carriers such as AT&T and Verizon who have poured millions into developing proprietary network services. As a resulth, they are unlikely to jump at Google's new technology until they see returns on their own.

Few have voiced opinions on Google's move, but the move is being criticized by one of Google's own partners. Arun Sarin, the chief executive of Britain’s Vodafone Group, which currently carries Google Service on its phones, said it is unclear what compelling functions Google's platform would offer that are not currently available.

Sarin elaborates, “What is it that is missing in life that they are going to fulfill? It is not a no-brainer. You can reach Google already through a number of devices. You don’t need a Google phone to do that."

Google’s actions over the past few years seem to confirm speculation that it is looking to cut control that carriers have over their network software and services. The company recently successfully lobbied the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to impose a set of rules on any carriers that win wireless spectrum bids in the upcoming auction. The rules state that winning bidders who use their spectrum must open their phones to software and handset applications from any company. Google may even bid for part of the spectrum according to recent reports.

Google's mobile phone team was built largely around Android, a small mobile software company it acquired in 2005. Andy Rubin, co-founder of Android, had founded Danger, which produced the popular T-Mobile Sidekick. Rubin is currently working on the mobile phone projects at Google's Mountain View headquarters.

Its chief competition, Microsoft, has released multiple versions of the Windows Mobile OS and is currently on its sixth iteration. Microsoft currently has distribution agreements with 48 handset makers and 160 carriers around the world. Microsoft does not have a huge market share, though. This year 12 million phones have been sold that are based on Microsoft’s software, giving it only 10 percent of the smartphone market, according to IDC. This leaves much of the market up for grabs, which is where Google hopes to muscle its way in.

Richard Doherty, director for the Envisioneering Group consulting firm, thinks small carriers will be among the early adopters as they will jump at Google's free software offerings. If these are well received, carriers may be forced to adopt Google's platform. “No one wants to be the last carrier to endorse Google,” Mr. Doherty said.

Yet another possibility is that if the software platform is easy to download and install on a majority of phones, individuals who enjoy Google's online offerings may download its OS for their phones. Such a system would be highly dependent on user effort, but users’ ability to unlock the iPhone has demonstrated that they can have the willingness and the ability to modify their phones, as long as helpful software is provided. If Google goes this route, carriers like AT&T and Verizon with proprietary technologies may try to lock their phones from Google's software or "brick" phones that carry it, similar to Apple and AT&T's latest move to "brick" unlocked iPhones.

The developments from Google are intriguing. While it becomes clear that its focus is on providing a software platform, the possibility of a Google-backed iPhone smartphone competitor remains. Perhaps the party that should be most worried, however, is Microsoft, as Google looks to provide an OS with similar capabilities to Microsoft's free of charge. Furthermore, Google's new advertising based business dynamic is set to provide the latest chapter in an ongoing move to provide media content for free, funded by advertising.