Intel Capital Gives Shot of Green to Chinese Solar Venture

Intel has made its first green tech investment in China with a $20 million position in Trony Solar Holdings, which makes solar and wind power equipment. The investment comes from Intel Capital's $500 million second China technology fund.

Intel's investment, its first in clean technologies in China, will be used by Trony to enhance its production and research and development, the Chinese company, based in the southern export hub of Shenzhen, said in a statement.

Trony, set up in 1993, has sales in more than 20 countries.

The two companies did not provide details on the size of Intel Capital's equity stake or other terms of the investment.

"Investing in 'clean-tech' is relatively new for Intel Capital," said Stephen Eichenlaub, Intel Capital's managing director. "Clean technology area will take on a large strategic significance for Intel's future."

Escaping Oil
In addition to its investment in Trony, Intel Capital also announced plans to invest in NPH Holdings, a Chinese company specializing in electricity storage systems for renewable energy. But no details were provided.

China's renewable energy industry is growing quickly, as the country attempts to shift away from heavily polluting coal and oil-fired power generation to cleaner, more efficient energy sources.

It's not a question of surging oil prices but of long-term sustainability, Eichenlaub said.

"Our challenge as investors is to find technologies where we should be supporting innovation where the price of oil doesn't matter, because we can't control it," Eichenlaub said.

For more information, visit the Original Article

Sony Announces Pro-Photographer Program

Sony unveiled its professional photographer program at the PhotoPlus Expo tradeshow.

Based on synergies between their unique styles of photography and Sony’s line of α (alpha) cameras, Sony hand-selected five professional photographers to be included in its first-ever professional photographe program. These pro-photographers—Andy Katz, David McLain, Christina Mittermeier, Brian Smith and Matthew Jordan Smith—have recently been using the alpha (model DSLR-A900) camera and an assorment of lenses.

By following their unique visions, each of the photographers created the images in a gallery that is on display today at the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Sony Electronics also added two new models to its family of S-Frame digital photo frames—including the company’s first 10-inch model here at the PhotoPlus Expo trade show.

The new 10-inch and 8-inch digital photo frames (models DPF-D100 and DPF-D80) have high-quality SVGA resolution (800 x 600 pixels) LCD screens. They are Sony’s first digital photo frames that offer a 4:3 aspect ratio.

This apect ratio eliminates borders around the digital photos and allows pictures to fill up the screen. Photos appear larger on theses frames’ displays than digital photo frames with the 16:9 aspect ratio.


Visit Sony’s news and information site (www.sony.com) to find out more about the professional photography program, digital photo frames and SnapLab™ products unveiled at PhotoPlus.

Original Article 1 and Original Article 2Photo Source

HP's Mini Notebook is a Real Deal Eee PC Killer

In my opinion, Apple is my favorite. But I decided to look upon other brands for laptops. Like the HP's Mini Notebook. I actually found this review about the HP's Mini Notebook being a real deal Eee PC Killer. It's been less than a year since Asus first sprinkled its Eee PCs with magical miniaturizing dust, yet these low-cost, diminutive laptops have already taken off like an F/A-18 catapulted from an aircraft carrier. In the past nine months alone, the industry has produced a spate of "mini-me-too" offerings, including Cloudbooks, Airs, Winds and other ebulliently named subnotebooks.

Seriously, it was only a matter of time before the big boys of computing decided to get in on this burgeoning and potentially lucrative category. Dell has already announced plans to release a cheap (and derivatively named) E mini notebook for $300 in August. And then there's HP with its new 2133.

Despite beating Dell to market by a few months, it's clear the company put a substantial amount of thought into its initial offering. Price-wise, the 2133 remains competitive with other itty-bitty notebooks, coming in at $600 for the Vista Business version. A Linux OS is available for $100 less while a Windows XP "upgrade" will cost you $100 more.

Unlike many of its tiny compatriots, this is one of the few mini notebooks that didn't feel cheap and flimsy in our hands, due in no small part to its fetching brushed aluminum and plastic outer shell. That casing does add slightly more to its overall weight, which is 2.8-lbs sans battery and 3.7 with the power source attached, but rest assured, you won't have any trouble toting around 2133.

Even more impressive is the fact that HP flat-out nailed the QWERTY keyboard on its first try — something other manufacturers are still struggling to perfect. In fact, we found the (almost) full-size keyboard to be one of the most responsive and comfortable we've used on a mini notebook thus far.

While these standout features make the 2133 competitive with the MSI Wind and Asus Eee PC 900, this category is all about hitting the right balance of features. The importance of those features will vary depending on the user, but in general the big three are: price, battery life and weight. One can argue that screen size, processor power, storage capacity and keyboard size can also make or break a mini notebook experience. Amazingly, the 2133 tends to shine in most of these areas as well — with a few exceptions.

The one big drawback — especially when compared to other ultraportable notebooks — is the processor. While other manufacturers have already started cramming Intel's power-efficient yet highly capable Atom processor into their dwarf notebooks, the 2133 comes with a decidedly feeble 1.2-GHz Via processor. While it looks good on paper, we found that web pages still tended to render at a snails pace, and most multitasking were mind numbingly slow. Granted, that may have a lot to do with running Vista, but it was still annoying. Similarly, battery life was also an issue for us. We squeezed a little more than two hours out of 2133, and while that's not much different from other mini notebooks, it is by no means acceptable.


Original Article

Best Buy’s Geek Squad Gets Extended-Service Program

Effective Sept. 14, all Best Buy extended-warranty plan names were changed to Geek Squad Black Tie Protection to reflect increased service and coverage options and other benefits not found in traditional retailer service plans, the company said.

The program offers coverage for hundreds of products across the home theater, PC, car, digital imaging, mobile and portable CE categories, and is designed to provide options in scope and term of coverage to suit the varying needs of customers.

“Geek Squad Black Tie Protection delivers the support our customers tell us they want to safeguard their gear, a level of support that only Best Buy is able to provide,” said Best Buy president/COO Brian Dunn. “By listening to our customers, we’re evolving service and reliability to a whole new level.”

The service plans are available exclusively on products purchased at Best Buy, are backed and administered by AIG WarrantyGuard, and leverage the retailer’s fully owned Geek Squad services infrastructure for support.


“We have a responsibility to be there for our customers, and a unique capability in Geek Squad to serve them,” said Jeff Severts, Best Buy’s services VP. “The combination of Best Buy product support with Geek Squad service has produced one of the best protection and service plans available anywhere.”

For more information, visit the Original Article
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Recycle Your Electronics

Global Warming, what could we do to help prevent it from happening? Of course, we recycle our cans, plastic bottles, and much more things. But what most people don't know, is that you can actually recycle your electronics! This could help out with global warming tremendously. People don't realize that every little thing can benefit our children's future and much more.

When recycling, you can do the following:
Search For An Electronics Recycler in Your Area
Important Considerations:

* Reuse is Preferable, but Don’t Dump Your Junk!

The NCER encourages reuse of working, newer equipment as the first option for used electronic equipment, and has listed several non-profit and other reuse programs below. However, many of these programs are unable to handle broken or severely outdated equipment. It is always advisable to call ahead to see if your used equipment meets that program’s needs.

*

Protect Your Data

If you are reusing or recycling a laptop or desktop computer, your personal data could still be on your hard drive. Most recyclers have hard drive wiping policies, but it is always in your best interest to protect your personal information by erasing or destroying your hard drive. There are many hard drive wiping software programs available. You can read more about the importance of hard drive erasure as well as do a comparison of some of the more popular software programs by going to Tech Soup’s website at: http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/software/page5726.cfm

*

Call Ahead

Many recyclers are not set up to take small loads of computer and electronic equipment – many deal strictly in e-cycling on a commercial level. As a result, you should contact recyclers ahead of time to ensure that they can receive your equipment. A few handy search engines for electronics recyclers are included on this page.

How to Choose an Electronics Recycler:



Sometimes it’s not easy to tell who is a responsible recycler and who is not. One of the best ways to choose a recycler is to rely on the recommendations of credible environmental groups. For example, several recyclers have signed the Computer Take Back Campaign’s Electronics Recycler’s Pledge of True Stewardship, formally committing them to responsible electronics recycling practices. Go to http://www.ban.org/pledge/electronics_recycler_pledge.pdf to view a list of these recyclers.

Original Article

Start Selling HP Smartphones

HP has announced an agreement with Vodafone in Europe to resell the HP iPAQ Voice Messenger and the HP iPAQ Data Messenger, starting in the UK, with other European countries to be announced.

The HP iPAQ Voice Messenger and HP iPAQ Data Messenger are the latest additions to the HP smartphone portfolio, and both support Windows Mobile 6.1. The HP iPAQ Voice Messenger is a 3G smartphone with an integrated 20-key keypad. The HP iPAQ Data Messenger is a 3G smartphone with a large touchscreen display, full slide-out alphanumeric keyboard and built-in GPS capabilities.

HP is taking mobile computing beyond borders and boundaries to something truly global as a result of our relationship with Vodafone,” said David Wright, vice president and general manager, Personal Systems Group, HP UK&I. “Our new HP iPAQs will enable people to stay connected seamlessly on Vodafone’s high speed networks to the information, content and people that matter most to them.”

Both smartphones feature a unique five-way optical navigation button that provides a “gliding” sensation when scrolling through menus, and intelligent predictive text capabilities that learn user’s vocabulary and style from messages and emails for progressively faster and easier message composition.

Both devices feature ample memory to access important Microsoft Office Mobile files and store photos and music with up to 8 gigabytes of micro secure digital (SD) storage.

Will this be better than the iPhone? Well, I guess we just have to see. Pricing will be announced it November, so if HP really want to compete with Apple then they should have a similar price.

Original Article

T Mobile's G1 MOST OBNXIOUS FLAWS

I still think that the iPhone is number one with all of the touch screen phoens made out there. I found this article about the major flaws of the G1. Which I still don't get.. is it called Android or G1?! Apple has contacts and syncing which comes in handy if your phone ever fails on you.. but the G1 doesn't have that.. basically it's being supported by a cloud. This article also claims that the connection could be slower than EDGE network. So many companies attempt to make a better phone that the Apple iPhone, but yet have to succeed in such a hypothesis. While I was more impressed by the T-Mobile G1 than I thought I'd be, the list of catches for Android and the phone are quickly piling up—some that might very well be dealbreakers. Topping the list, it's tightly integrated with your Google account—so tightly that you can only use one Google account with the phone. If you want to switch to another account, you have to do a whole factory reset. Update: T-Mobile has patched up some of them—the 1GB cap is gone, and they'll unlock the phone for you after 90 days.

Contacts and Syncing: As mentioned, there is no desktop syncing app. It's all about the cloud—your Google contacts and cal are considered the masters. So if it's all on your desktop or god forbird, MobileMe, you've gotta move it over to your Google account.

Video: There's no video playback at all right now, except for YouTube. The expectation is that developers will create video playback apps and the requisite support.

Hardware Inadequacies: No multitouch on the G1 and there never will be, since the panel itself doesn't support it.

Miscellaneous: You've gotta have an SD card for any kind of music or video playback, once the latter arrives—there's no internal storage for media playback.

Bonus T-Mobile obnoxious flaw: If you're lucky enough to live in one of the markets sprinkled with 3G, after you've used 1GB of data, T-Mobile will slow you down to 50Kbps for the rest of the month. That's slower than EDGE, which is theoretically capable of 384Kbps, though in real world it's closer to 100Kbps.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The Apple iPhone: Significant Shortcomings

The intriguing features and natural freshness of the iPhone, had everyone running to the stores to purchase one. But that the phase is dying down. Many are seeing the negative outcomes of the iPhone. Yes it might have been cheaper than the first but the cost to have it operating may not be a great investment.

1. EDGE-only, and limited Wi-Fi: Cingular's rapidly rolling out HSDPA across the country, with other carriers making similar high-speed data services infrastructure investments. Yet the Apple iPhone only handles comparatively archaic and slow EDGE.

2. No removable battery: Long-time readers know this is a frequent sore point of mine. Manufacturers claim that by going with a completely enclosed battery they can make their systems thinner, smaller, lighter and otherwise more aesthetically pleasing than they'd otherwise be.

3. High price, and high profit margin: $500-600 for the phone. Plus a roughly $100-month voice-plus-data service plan, with two-year minimum duration.

With this being said and the new iPhone 3G already out, has Apple redeemed themselves?

Original Article

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Microsoft Vista = Problems

For all the computer owners out there, most of us have Microsoft installed in their pcs. The lucky ones are the ones who owns an Apple computer of some kind. Microsoft XP, was doing fine for everyone, until they tried to upgrade their software. And I think that it just went down hill from there on out. I put an emphasis on how much Microsoft tries to be like Apple just because they CAN'T! ever! I don't think that it's possible for them to beat Apple. Apple is just too high equipped for that. Although I am only one person, and I am entitled to my own opinion...I have found an article that might you think just like me! With that article, I was really more informed about Microsoft. Microsoft basically says that Vista is a winner, when in actuality.. it's the complete opposite! I think that people who purchased Vista is going back to XP just because it's not user friendly and it's just too damn different from Windows XP!

Revenue from the company’s so-called client division — PC operating systems mainly — came in at a bit under $4.03 billion. That was about $300 million less than most analysts had expected.
He said that Microsoft’s programs to combat piracy of Windows, which had bolstered sales in the previous couple of quarters, did not generate revenue-increasing gains this time.

Mr. Liddell dismissed claims that some customers were reluctant to buy Vista machines. “There are no Vista-related issues at all,” he declared.

Perhaps. But even if there were issues with Vista, no Microsoft executive would say it publicly.


Original Article

Apple introduces 2 new MACS

What's next for APPLE!? Apple always comes out with great technology that always seizes to amaze us. And they aren't stopping just quite yet! Everyone thought that the rumor was, Apple was going to come out with a MacBook touch. Not quite yet! Although that the new Macbook is not touch screen, Apple promotes that there are features that will surprise us with new engineering. Apple has once again beaten Windows (Vista especially) without even hurting their own company. Apple is apple, and it will always be a favorite to all of us. haha
The announcements also serve as a reminder that Apple's top and bottom lines are still driven largely by sales of its computers even though the company has become more associated with its iPhone mobile telephone over the last two years.

In the company's fiscal third quarter ended July 31, nearly a 30% of Apple's revenue came from sales of its notebook computers, and 42% from sales of notebooks and desktops.

Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook said the company was also hoping to take advantage of public dissatisfaction with software giant Microsoft Corp.'s ( MSFT) Vista operating system, which hasn't caught on with either corporate clients or consumers. Apple said it now has 18% of the U.S. retail computer market.

"I think it's fair to say that Vista hasn't lived up to everything Microsoft hoped it would," Cook said at the event. "Apple has been the beneficiary of this."

Original Article

Warnings on MP3 Players

Have you seen someone using their MP3 player as an fashion accessory? Not only have it around them, but listening to it every moment of the day? Well listen up because European scientists have sounded the alarm about the dangers of using digital music players, warning that listening to them too long and too loud can cause permanent hearing loss.

Europe has already restrict noise levels from such MP3s to 100 decibels, but the European Commission said that there was growing concern about excessive exposure to such devices, especially among youths.

MP3 players are so valuable and very convenient to people. Many listen to their personal choice when they are at the gym, walking their dog, doing homework, or even just relaxing. But now that they are causing health problems, it will be extremely hard to separate MP3s from society.

The European Union's executive arm estimated that there are roughly 50 to 100 million people who may be listening to portable MP3 music players on a daily basis. So, the only way from lowering the risks to MP3s will be lowering decibels requirements to manufacturing companies.

Original Article

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Intel details PC graphics-aimed 'Larrabee'

Intel said its first Larrabee-based product, not expected until next year or 2010, will target the PC graphics market and will be what the company said is the industry’s first many-core x86 Intel architecture. The company also expects Larrabee to spur efforts to create and optimize software for the dozens, hundreds and thousands of cores that will power computers in the future.

Santa Clara, Calif-based chip giant Intel Corp will present a paper at the Siggraph 2008 conference being held next week in Los Angeles that details features and capabilities for its forthcoming multi-core “Larrabee” architecture which includes a new approach to the software rendering 3-D pipeline, a many-core programming model and performance analysis for several applications.

The chip giant reminded that it has a number of internal teams, projects and software-related efforts underway to speed the transition to multi-core, with its tera-scale research program garnering the single largest investment in its technology research and has partnered with more than 400 universities, DARPA and companies such as Microsoft and HP to move the industry in this direction. Initial product implementations of the Larrabee architecture (an overview drawing of which is pictured below) will target discrete graphics applications, support DirectX and OpenGL, run existing games and programs, and support a range of highly parallel applications including scientific and engineering software that will benefit from the Larrabee native C/C++ programming model, Intel continued.

Further, the Larrabee architecture has a pipeline derived from the dual-issue Intel Pentium processor, which uses a short execution pipeline with a fully coherent cache structure in order to allow enhancements such as a wide vector processing unit (VPU), multi-threading, 64-bit extensions and pre-fetching, which should allow a massive increase in available computational power combined with the familiarity and ease of programming of the Intel architecture, the company explained.

Original Article

Politics in the airwaves

Airwaves now being used for wireless services may also now be used for offering internet services without government licensing, the Federal Communications Commission ruled. This decision came after opposition by wireless providers such as T-Mobile USA (which has spent $4.2 billion in lobbying efforts in 2006), contending that allowing internet on the "wireless spectrum" without operating licenses would cause problems in their services. The FCC decided that thre is no such interference. This spectrum, also known as "the white space", exist "between TV channels as buffers to ensure that TV channels don't interfere with each other. (http://tech.yahoo.com)" The use of these airwaves will start in February when the mandate for Digital TV transition comes into effect. Major companies such as Google and Microsoft had been behind efforts to convince the FCC to allow such use of airwaves.

Whether this was a good decision by the FCC or not is beyond me. But "lobbying" is a flagged word to me. Whenever I hear it, I grow ten times more skeptical. Political favors do not necesarily translate into good policies. Airwaves have been considered a public domain by the government and as such assumed responsibility for regulating it. The FCC should stay to its core goals of policing traffic on the air objectively and not wield its power to please the individuals and groups with the most lobbying money.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/cnet/20081011/tc_cnet/8301103531006386694

Sony to reorganize after going solo

Sony Corporation and Bertelsman AG has broken up and Sony Corp. is getting custody of the offspring of their relationship. According to Yahoo Tech News, Sony bought out Bertelsman AG for 900 million dollars, effective October 1. This deal gives Sony the full rein on the operations of prominent recording company Sony BMG, which have unfortunately incurred some losses in the past years because of a decline in CD sales. Yahoo Tech News also reported that this move will allow Sony to "to harmonize its consumer electronics and its music, a duo that was badly out of sync". Bertelsman AG, meanwhile, will venture off to another direction, and will focus on its "growing TV, magazines and book publishing businesses."

This break off, I think, is a risky move for both companies, although there are obvious benefits. At a time of declining consumer spending, I do not know if a break up between two companies is really a smart move. As we have seen lately, the market has been trending more towards consolidation. However, this could also be a good move for Bertelsman AG and Sony Corp as it would allow both companies to operate independently and give them the free rein to specialize and improve their products.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081010/ap_on_hi_te/sony_bertelsmann

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.24x7updates.com/newsimages/Sony_BMG_Recalls_Affected_CDs_Offers_Exchange.jpg

Apple Vs. Microsoft

Do you think that Microsoft Vista really could add up to Apple? I think that Microsoft is trying way too hard to be in the future. It's all in the sense that Apple is always at least 3 technological gadgets of what they sell out. With Apple, they simply focus on the program knowing that it will be good and then they know that if they have a good product that will continue to amaze their customers, then they have a product that will sweep the whole country once again. It's very hard to top Apple with its high technology. Microsoft has a state of mind that quantity is more important than quality. I believe that they should have tested the program out rather than just putting the product out there hoping that it wouldn't give anyone any problems what-so-ever. And I bet you right now that Apple already has another program that will wipe the floor with microsoft all together.

"I agree with you that Vista will double Apple’s market share, but I think it’s going to be bigger than you realize. For an awful lot of customers, Vista is Microsoft’s last chance. They’ve waited for six years, every feature that was supposed to make Vista worth the wait has been punted, and we know that they’re not even going to deliver a securable product.

My own prediction is that Vista is going to be remembered as the start of Microsoft’s slide to 20% market share or less. In the next decade or so, Apple will gain the most from Microsoft’s losses, but the cracking of the monopoly will be a major opportunity for Linux as well. I think we will also see the emergence of several entirely new operating systems, now that Microsoft will lose their ability to prevent new alternatives from reaching customers, as they did to Be."

Original Article

Dish Loses Final Appeal Of TiVo Ruling

I can admit, can you? I can admit that I cannot live without my DVR. If my favorite show comes on, but I'm stuck at work or school, I want to be sure that when i come home I can watch it, and skip through those commercials too. On Monday, The Supreme Court denied Dish Network’s appeal of a $74 million judgment it lost for violating a patent held by TiVo on DVR technology.

The denial of the appeal was issued without comment, and it essentially confirms a ruling last January by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that upheld a lower court ruling that Dish’s DVRs violated some of the intellectual property used in the TiVo software, but overturned the lower-court’s finding that Dish also infringed on Alviso, Calif.-based TiVo’s hardware design. Responding to the decision, Dish issued a statement saying the Supreme Court decision "does not impact our software design-around, which has been placed in Dish DVR subject to the district court’s injunction, and our customers can continue using their Dish DVRs. We believe that the design-around does not infringe TiVo’s patent and that Tivo’s pending motion for contempt should be denied. We look forward to that ruling in the near future."

The statement also said, "Because of the Supreme Court’s decision, we will pay TiVo approximately $104 million (the amount the jury awarded in 2006 plus interest). The money is in an escrow account and will be released to TiVo in the next few days." TiVo originally sued EchoStar (now known as Dish) in 2004, alleging that the satellite-TV service infringed on TiVo's patents on technology that enables viewers to record one program while watching another. Originally, the lower court ordered 3 million offending Dish DVRs be shutdown, but the action was put on hold while Dish appealed the ruling.

Original Article
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Spam '08

Is it a good or bad thing that even spammers are getting involved in this year's elections? Well I guess it is to some extent. The candidates have fanned the flames of democracy so well that even spammers are getting a piece of the action in this year's electoral debate. So who's getting most of the spam attention?

According to data gathered by Yahoo News Tech from a firm called Secure Computing, Sarah Palin gave his fellow Vice-Presidential candidate a drubbing. The ratio of spam mail related to Gov. Palin compared with those of Sen. Joe Biden is 7:2. But the Democrats are not on the losing end. In fact the, the spam contest is pretty even. Obama is way ahead of McCain with regards to spam related to each of them. If that were actual electoral polls, maybe we would see more of McCain's cheap attack ads.

Secure Computing said that the spam mails were usually "nonsensical" and "shallow", dealing with trivial matters. Obama-related spam mails, for instance, discussed "race, disputes with Clinton, messianic oratory, and FOX news smears", while McCain was nailed for his "age and wealth".

This story probably has no significant relevance to anything, but its certainly fun to find out about these little details. I mean, if you look at it, the insight contained in these spam mails is a good satire of how the elections are conceived by individuals and the media. Most ideas contained within these emails are said to be inane, but hey, if you think about it, is the media's coverage of this election really that different?

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/zd/20081003/tc_zd/232721

PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.guilderlandschools.org/farnsworth/PTA/Images/BS00107_.jpg

Xbox wins on rival's turf

In an effort to keep the Xbox competitive in Japan, the game console's mother company Microsoft has decided to do some price cuts on its product. The result is that the Xbox eclipsed the sales o Japan-based Sony's Playstation 3 last September. Yahoo News Tech reported that 53,547 Xbox 360 units were sold, while only 33,071 PS3 consoles were sold. The price cut was specifically done for the Xbox Arcade and Elite models by 8000 yen or $76. Yahoo New Tech that a new RPG called "Infinite Undiscovery", which was released in Japan for the Xbox also helped the console get the boost it needed in the market. Sony seems to have had a tough month as it's other competitor, Nintendo, outsold the Playstation Portable with the Nintendo DS. Nintendo was also the top game console maker in the market, as there were more Wii units sold than Xbox and PS3 consoles.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20081003/tc_nm/us_microsoft_sony_game