Intel : New Technology "we will put a computer inside your TV" New 2009

The dream of taking Internet TV to an actual TV seems a no-brainer to consumers: a screen's a screen, and a monitor's just another screen, after all. However, there's more to the technology than meets the eye or fits the couch potato's view. Even so, Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) made a huge step toward plugging the Internet TV play on Thursday when it unveiled Atom processor CE4100 (code-name "Sodaville") -- its 45nm System-on-Chip for Internet TV.

The CE4100 processor is the first 45nm-manufactured consumer electronics SoC based on Intel architecture. It supports Internet and broadcast applications on one chip, and has the processing power and audio/video components necessary to run rich media applications such as 3-D graphics.

Is this remarkable advancement enough to make a real change in TV?

"It's an incredibly powerful product -- and at 45nm, it's far closer to what the industry needs," John Barber, a research analyst at Gartner (NYSE: IT) , told TechNewsWorld. "But it's still questionable in terms of industry adoption, simply because current architectures are under tremendous price pressures from box manufacturers."

Intel will "make a significant impact in Internet TV in scale and market share when it reaches 32nm and below," added Barber.

Cracking the Navigation Nut

One could also make the argument that the cable industry, in particular, is badly in need of some oomph in its sagging numbers during this recession. Normally, cable subscriptions increase during a recession; people seek more in-home entertainment since they can't afford to go out. Not this time.

Instead, Netflix (Nasdaq: NFLX) and other alternative competitors are cleaning cable companies' clocks and cleaning out their coffers. It is conceivable, then, that cable could pressure box manufacturers to turn out the Intel chip at supersonic speed. Maybe. It's also possible that alternative competitors may beat cable to the punch once again. This time, it might even be a TKO.

"Navigation is the No. 1 challenge for today's television viewers," said George Schweitzer, president of CBS marketing. "Intel's CE technology and our new TV Widget platform are designed to help people find the shows they want and discover new programs that are relevant to their interests. What's more, the TV Widget gives us another platform to connect and interact with our audience while delivering an exciting new television experience."

Intel is working with the industry to expand Widget Channel, in order to provide consumers with a range of services such as movies, music, games and personal videos.

"Web content to the TV will evolve and come via many types of devices," Mary Ragland, spokesperson for Intel, told TechNewsWorld. "Consumers will see connected CE devices coming to market -- like advanced set-tops and Blu-ray Disc players powered by Intel media processors -- to bring Web content and entertainment to their TVs. As business models and products evolve, this will eventually come to HDTVs."

Chicken, Egg, Rooster

"Eventually" may be the operative word, however.

"Internet TVs are a long way from making inroads in consumer households, and it's not just because they don't have an Intel chip inside," James L. McQuivey, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester, told TechNewsWorld.

"It's mostly because TV makers have been trying to use their own silicon to keep costs down while they wait to see if connected TVs will even sell. It's not just a chicken-and-egg problem," McQuivey explained, "it's a chicken-egg-and-rooster problem -- by which I mean that TV makers are waiting to see if consumers want these TVs; consumers are waiting to see if there will be any valuable content on these TVs from content providers; content providers are waiting to see if consumers are going to want these TVs. Basically, everybody's waiting to see what everyone else will do."

Any TV maker that decided to incorporate Intel chips now would be making a "big leap," McQuivey continued, and that's not likely to happen unless there's some strong indication consumers would be willing to pay a premium price for them.

"If Intel can get its TV chips down in form factor and therefore at a better price point, it will obviously help," said McQuivey, "but will it happen fast enough so that TV makers don't commit to some less effective but less expensive alternative? That's the big question right now."

Google Operating System New Pictures 2009 And soon Download

Google Operating System New Pictures 2009 And soon Download

Here is some pictures for google operating system

Techno-way

Enjoy

Busniss case for windows se7en ! By microsoft

SAN FRANCISCO--Microsoft trotted out some of its biggest customers on Tuesday to make its case that it still makes sense to spend money on software in a tough economy.

The gathering of invited corporate IT users here is designed to serve as the beginning of the business push for Windows 7, which is already available to larger businesses and goes on sale to consumers and small businesses on October 22.

A panel of Microsoft executives and customers talked about the pending launch of Windows 7 at an event in San Francisco on Tuesday.

(Credit: CNET News)

Among those already trying out Windows 7 is Intel. The chipmaker did a lot of work to make Windows Vista work, but like many companies, it decided not to put it on its own desktops.

By contrast, Intel is adopting Windows 7 rather quickly. Already about 500 employees from throughout the company are testing the software, said CIO Diane Bryant. Of those workers, 97 percent said they would recommend the operating system.

"It's a very strong pull," Bryant said.

Although a good business case can be made for upgrading our machines, it can still be a tough sell, said IDC analyst Al Gillen.

CEO Steve Ballmer presided over an event that was, effectively, the business launch of Windows 7.

(Credit: CNET)

"The problem is it costs money to save money," Gillen said.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, who earlier Tuesday sent out an e-mail to customers arguing for "the new efficiency" driven by software, is slated to speak shortly at the event being held at the at the University of California, San Francisco's Mission Bay campus.

Update 9:55 a.m.: The panel has wrapped up and Ballmer has taken the stage. So far, we're hearing familiar talk about doing more with less and his case that technology is at the early stage of its influence on business.

10 a.m.: Ballmer starts his pitch for Windows 7.

Ballmer said his hope is that, once the new operating system hits the market, that individual workers will be going to businesses asking them to put Windows 7 on their corporate computers. "I think we are going to see a lot of that kind of demand," Ballmer said.

But, he acknowledged that alone won't sway businesses. "Even with that swell of interest, you are still going to have to confront the new efficiency."

There, he said, it will come down to whether Windows 7 really can make business workers more productive, something he clearly believes it can. 10:20 a.m. Ballmer has switched into the full-on sales pitch, highlighting the cost savings that can be achieved. Customers can expect to save $90 to $160 in costs each year per computer that they move onto Windows 7, largely from lower support and management costs. (It wasn't clear if this was as compared to a PC running XP or one running Windows Vista.)

Windows 7 can also make it cheaper to deploy new software, though Ballmer acknowledged that skeptics will point out the cheapest thing is just not to deploy new software at all. "I got that," Ballmer said.

Still, he said, it's a "very good place in the product cycle" to embrace Windows 7," Ballmer said, noting that businesses that move now would be early adopters, but not the first companies to do so, pointing to a list that included Ford, Fiat, BMW, Bombardier, Continental Airlines, Intel, Halliburton and Starwood.

Ballmer said he expects most companies will start moving to Windows 7 as they add new PCs, but won't do large-scale upgrades of existing machines and probably won't rush out to replace all their PCs either.

10:30 a.m.: On to questions and answers. Microsoft starts with a few written ones that came in over the Internet. First off: No, Ballmer is not free for golf next Monday--he'll be in London.

10:32 a.m.: Well, he took a couple more written questions but no live questions from the audience before the event wrapped up.

IP Address Location ,, How to find the locate from ip .. new technology

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Microsoft to open Windows cafe in Paris

Microsoft confirmed Wednesday that it plans to open a "Windows Cafe" in Paris where people will be able to try out the latest from Redmond while drinking a cup of coffee.
The cafe will open on Oct. 22--the day that Windows 7 launches, Microsoft said.
"This initiative expresses our intention to meet with the general public and show the new Windows experiences on PC, mobile and on the Internet," a Microsoft representative said in a statement to CNET News. "People will be able to discover Windows 7, the Windows phones and the Windows Live services."
Microsoft's statement comes after photos of the cafe appeared on a French technology Web site.
In the United States, Microsoft has announced plans to open a network of retail stores--with the first two opening this fall. More are slated to open next year.
For now, the Paris location is the only cafe planned, Microsoft said.
Others chimed in on Wednesday with some interesting tidbits. TechCrunch observes that, ahead of the opening, the cafe is already offering free Wi-Fi to those on the sidewalk, while Silicon Alley Insider notes that the location was previously home to an eatery called Wet Willie's.

Sony release a new motion-sensitive controller for its PlayStation 3

Sony announced it was working on a new motion controller at E3 last June in Los Angeles.(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)
Sony announced late Wednesday night from the Tokyo Game Show that it plans to release a new motion-sensitive controller for its PlayStation 3 video game console sometime during spring of 2010. The news came just hours after Nintendo's own announcement that it was cutting the price of its Wii console from $250 to $200.
The company originally announced that it was working on a new controller at E3 last June. That news seemed, at the time, to indicate that Sony was aiming at taking on the Nintendo Wii and its intuitive Wii-mote. Microsoft, too, unveiled a hot new controller system, code-named Natal, but revealed no substantial details about how it would be used, what it would cost or when it would be available.
As for Sony, it didn't say last June when its new device would hit the market. So Wednesday night's announcement marks the first time it has given any specificity about the date.
"The newly announced Motion Controller is equipped with two motion sensors, three axes gyroscope and three axes accelerometer that can detect the controller's angle and movement held in the user's hand," Sony said in a release. "Together with the PlayStation Eye camera for PS3 which can accurately track the absolute position of the controller, the controller can detect the natural and intuitive movement of the hand and reflect the precise movement on to the game."
Earlier Wednesday evening, Nintendo said it was slashing the price of the Wii from $250 to $200. Although both announcements were made during the Tokyo Game Show, the timing is notable given that with Sony's announcement, PS3 users and fans now have a better sense of when their favorite console will take on some additional Wii-like functionality. Nintendo may well have decided it couldn't waste any time in making its own move to protect its console.

Top technology news headlines

(Credit: Nintendo)
Nintendo has officially announced that the price of the Wii will drop to $199.99, effective on Sunday. The long-rumored $50 price cut comes in the wake of recent price drops for the PlayStation 3 ($299, with built-in Blu-ray player) and Xbox 360 ($299 for the 120GB version with built-in DVD player and Netflix support), which have boosted sales of the Sony and Microsoft consoles. (To date, the Wii remains the best-selling home game console of the three.)
Other than the price cut, there are no other changes to the current Wii bundle--you're still getting the console, along with the Wiimote and Nunchuk controllers and the bundled Wii Sports game. By contrast, there's at least one rumor that the U.K. will get a Wii package that adds the MotionPlus peripheral and Wii Sports Resort to the mix. Meanwhile, white remains the only color choice in North America (Japanese consumers can choose black as well).
Nintendo also took the opportunity to officially announce the release date for New Super Mario Bros. Wii, which had previously been slated for a vague "fall 2009" window. The multiplayer Super Mario game will hit store shelves on November 15.
So, what do you guys think? Does the price drop make the Wii more attractive? Would you prefer a more enticing bundle? Or are you holding out for the Wii HD? Share your comments below.

A nascent technology called WebGL for bringing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web

A nascent technology called WebGL for bringing hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the Web is getting a lot closer to reality.
Last week, programmers began building WebGL into Firefox's nightly builds, the developer versions used to test the latest updates to the open-source browser. Also this month, programmers began building WebGL into WebKit, the project that's used in both Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome.
Wolfire Games picked up on the WebKit move and offered a video of WebGL in action.
Overall, the moves stand to accelerate the pace of WebGL development by making it easier to try out. But the technology still has a ways to go before people will be able to play Web-based versions of a 3D software such as first-person shooter video games or Google Earth.
"All of these implementations are going to have some interoperability issues for the next little while, as the spec is still in flux and we're tracking it at different rates, but will hopefully start to stabilize over the next few months," said Vladimir Vukicevic in a blog post.
WebGL is one of a several efforts under way to make Web browsers into a more powerful computing platform, increasingly capable of rivaling what software running natively on a computer can do. Even the company with the most to lose from that direction--Microsoft--is embracing it with a Web-based version of Office.
The WebGL plan emerged in March from Mozilla and the Khronos Group, which oversees the venerable OpenGL standard to let software tap into a computer's hardware-based graphics power . WebGL's roots lie with an earlier Mozilla project called Canvas 3D, a cousin of the present two-dimensional Canvas technology for drawing graphics in Web pages.
Although Google is a WebGL supporter, it's also developing a higher-level 3D graphics technology called O3D for browsers. Google is working on building O3D into Chrome, but the fruits of that labor aren't yet available.
WebGL has a ways to go, as well, but developers eager to give it a whirl should probably start thinking seriously about it.
"The WebGL working group is targeting the first half of 2010 for release of the standard, but implementations will show up before that," said WebGL programmer Mark Steele in August.
Those wanting to try it not only have to download the Firefox nightly build, but also have to specifically enable WebGL through the Firefox "about:config" mechanism. Vukicevic has instructions on his blog.

Facebook confirms site Problems

No, it's not just you.
Facebook confirmed on Monday afternoon that there have been sitewide problems that saw log-in credentials turned down, status messages eaten up, and other various unpleasant occurrences over the course of the past few days. But the social network, which recently surpassed 300 million active users worldwide, hasn't yet disclosed the source of the problem.
"Some users are experiencing errors across a number of site features," a statement e-mailed to CNET News read. "This includes content occasionally disappearing, difficulty logging in or viewing profiles, and error messages when posting content. We are working to resolve these issues as soon as possible."
Outages at major social media sites have drawn particular attention since a massive distributed denial-of-service attack last month threw Facebook into flux and took down Twitter altogether.

Microsoft : eventually Xbox handheld coming

Shortly before the 2009 Electronic Entertainment Expo, rumors surfaced that Microsoft was on the verge of announcing the ZuneX. The ZuneX was purported to be a gaming handheld that integrated with Xbox Live Arcade and "ZuneX originals" and featured mobile-phone capabilities. That's a marked contrast from the current generation, which offers only a half-dozen games despite promises of titles that would be transferable from the Xbox 360.

The Xbox 360 may soon have a small, sleeker sibling.
With that rumor quickly marginalized as a phony by many industry watchers, Microsoft has now once again signaled that its portable gaming ambitions may extend beyond the struggling Zune. In an interview with gaming site Kikizo, Microsoft corporate vice president Shane Kim said that the Xbox brand is destined for the mobile platform.
"For us, it's a matter of focusing on 'when,'" said Kim, who transitioned from his role as head of Microsoft Game Studios to a strategic development position within the Interactive Entertainment and Devices division last year.
As for what's been holding up that "when," Kim said that the division has been focused on fleshing out the core Xbox 360 and Xbox Live experiences.
"If we chased after a mobile or handheld opportunity, we would not have the resources and ability to do things like instant-on 1080p HD, Facebook, Twitter, Project Natal," he said. "And so we've chosen to focus on the living room experience from a hardware standpoint, if you will, but we're building a service in Live that will...will extend to other platforms." [Emphasis in original.]
One other question facing the company is what form a mobile gaming device would take. "How do we enter into that market," pondered Kim. "Do we do our own device, do we create our own phone--that's a question for the company itself--do we continue to go down the Windows Mobile path, which is the path that we're on today, etcetera, etcetera."
Kim concluded by reemphasizing Microsoft's desire to be a player on all relevant platforms, whether that be consoles, desktops, or mobile devices.

Dell announced Monday that it will buy IT services provider Perot Systems for $3.9 billion

Dell announced Monday that it will buy IT services provider Perot Systems for $3.9 billion.
The two companies expect to provide a broad range of IT services and packages, expanding the global reach of Perot Systems and selling Dell computer systems to additional Perot customers. The move could be a shot in the arm for Dell, giving it a way to diversify beyond its bread-and-butter business of selling hardware.
"This significantly expands Dell's enterprise-solutions capabilities and makes Perot Systems' strengths available to even more customers around the world," said Dell CEO Michael Dell. "There will be efficiencies from combining the companies, but the acquisition makes such great sense because of the obvious ways our businesses complement each other."
Perot Systems, founded by one-time presidential candidate Ross Perot, provides IT services and business solutions to customers in health care, government, manufacturing, banking, and insurance. The company has built a large customer base in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Asia.
"Today's announcement is the next step in formalizing a relationship that has flourished for some time," said Perot Chairman Ross Perot Jr. "When my father founded Perot Systems he envisioned a global information-technology leader. The new, larger Dell builds on that promise and its own successes by taking Perot Systems' expertise to more customers than ever."
Under the agreement, PC and server maker Dell will acquire all outstanding common stock of Perot Systems for $30 a share in cash, a 65 percent premium over Friday's closing price. Subject to the usual government approvals, the deal is expected to close in Dell's November-January fiscal quarter.
In Monday morning trading, Perot Systems' shares were up by essentially that same margin, to $29.60. Dell's shares were down about 4 percent to $15.92.
Once the deal is completed, Perot Systems will become Dell's services unit, headed by Peter Altabef, current Perot Systems CEO. Ross Perot Jr. is expected to be considered for a slot on Dell's board of directors.
Dell and Perot Systems have worked together in the past. In April, for instance, they teamed up to get in on the ground floor of electronic health records, a field that is expected to grow substantially in coming years as hospitals and physicians increasingly digitize patients' medical records. The companies also talked about the ability to run some medical applications in a hosted, "private cloud" offering to help make costs more manageable.
One of the largest computer makers in the world, Dell has been hit hard by the global recession as its business customers hold off on upgrading their banks of servers and arrays of desktop and laptop PCs. In its most recent quarter, Dell's earnings were down 23 percent year over year to $472 million, on revenue of $12.76 billion, also down just over 20 percent.
Dell and Perot Systems say that over the past four quarters they have taken in a combined $16 billion in enterprise hardware and IT services revenue, with about $8 billion from enhanced services and support.

Google bought YouTube for $1.65bn !!!

Google buys YouTube for $1.65bn

YouTube is growing in popularity Google is buying video-sharing website YouTube for $1.65bn (£883m) in shares after a weekend of speculation that a deal was in the offing. The two companies will continue to operate independently, Google said as it announced the news on Monday. YouTube, launched in February 2005, has grown quickly into one of the most popular websites on the internet. It has 100 million videos viewed every day and an estimated 72 million individual visitors each month. 'Natural partners' "The YouTube team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," Google chief executive Eric Schmidt said in a statement. He said the two companies were "natural partners" to offer a media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers. Mr Schmidt also told investors that YouTube will be "one of many investments" Google plans to make in the video field. However, the company will keep operating its own Google Video as a separate operation. YouTube will retain its brand, and its 67 staff, including co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, will keep their jobs. "Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people consume media, creating a new clip culture," said Mr Hurley. "By joining forces with Google, we can benefit from its global reach and technology leadership to deliver a more comprehensive entertainment experience for our users and to create new opportunities for our partners." According to Comscore World Metrix, YouTube's audience has soared from 2.8 million unique users one year ago to 72 million users in August 2006. Music tie-ups The announcement came after a day of distribution deals drawn up by the pair. Universal Music Group has signed a distribution deal with YouTube, which will protect the rights of the music firm's artists. YouTube also says it has signed a deal with CBS, which will offer short-form video programming, including news, sport and entertainment on YouTube. Google has also signed distribution deals of its own, with Sony BMG and Warner Music to offer music videos. The Google deals should enable internet users in the US to view music videos, artist interviews, and other footage from the two firms on Google video for free from this month. The content is sponsored through a Google advertising-supported revenue-sharing agreement. Google also said that in addition to the advertising-supported video content, music videos from Warner would be available for purchase as downloads at $1.99 each. As part of YouTube's deal with CBS, the companies will share revenue from advertising sponsorship of CBS Videos.

The new 3d-tv Technology maybe come to home in 2010

Three-dimensional images are expected jump out of movie theaters and into living rooms by next year.

Panasonic demonstrates 3-D television at a recent technology expo in Atlanta, Georgia.

Sony and Panasonic say they will release home 3-D television systems in 2010; Mitsubishi and JVC are reported to be working on similar products.

"TV finally becomes real" in three dimensions, said Robert Perry, an executive vice president at Panasonic. "You're in it. It's the next frontier."

Perry compared the 3-D transition to the switch from black-and-white to color television and the shift from standard- to high-definition images. See what 3-D TV demos look like »

ESPN is test-recording some sporting events in 3-D, using cameras with two sets of lenses, which would make football players appear to jump out of home television screens during live 3-D broadcasts.

And, although television makers haven't released specifics, the price of 3-D TV -- which requires a new television, broadcasting content and 3-D glasses -- is not expected to be substantially higher than some high-definition televisions on the market now.

Still, there are skeptics who say that 3-D is not ready for prime-time home viewing.

There are concerns that 3-D broadcasts, which require twice the data, will gobble up an unworkable amount of television bandwidth. And some worry that 3-D glasses and graphics won't make a smooth transition to American living rooms.

Shane Sturgeon, publisher of HDTV Magazine, said some of the glasses give him a headache and will block some people from buying the new technology.

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"From what I've seen from most of the manufacturers, it's just not there yet," he said of 3-D TV technology. "I think right now, the technology -- whether you're talking about the refresh rate or the strobing or the glasses -- there are too many things right now that get in the way of enjoyment of the film for it to kick off."

All 3-D technology relies on the idea that if separate images are presented to the left and right eyes, the human brain will combine them and create the illusion of a third dimension.

TV makers go about this in different ways, though.

Panasonic and Sony, which demonstrated their products for CNN at a recent tech expo in Atlanta, Georgia, use "active glasses" and TVs with high refresh rates to achieve the effect.

Two images, one for the right eye and one for the left eye, alternate quickly on the TV. Shutters on the 3-D glasses swap the viewer's vision from right eye to left eye at the same rate: 120 hertz, or 240 hertz for the images together. The TV connects with the glasses through a sensor that's placed between the lenses on the glasses.

"It's like a little Venetian blind: open, close, open, close, open, close," John Wyckoff, a Sony content manager, said of the glasses.

The effect moves so quickly that it tricks the brain into merging the images and creates the perspective needed to see images in 3-D, he said.

Glance away from the TV, though, and you can see the lenses opening and closing, which irritates some people.

Those who saw the technology at the recent Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association Expo seemed wowed by Panasonic's 3-D footage of Olympic events and skiers who appeared to send snow flying into the laps of the audience.

David Lesch fidgeted with his 3-D glasses during Panasonic's demo but said the 3-D picture on the company's 103-inch plasma screen was excellent.

However, it may not be effective for all TV programming, he said.

"I cannot imagine that I will watch CNN in 3-D," said Lesch, sales director at AV Media, which sells electronics. "But for sports, yes. To watch soccer and ice hockey -- anything -- that would be great."

These next-generation televisions would be able to play shows in 2-D or 3-D. They also would be able to show video games in 3-D, which Sony demonstrated at the expo in Atlanta.

Sturgeon, of HDTV Magazine, said JVC is working on a type of 3-D technology that's different form the strobing glasses used by Panasonic and Sony.

JVC's version uses polarized glasses to separate the right-eye image from the left-eye image and is more pleasing to the eye, he said.

Aside from the kooky glasses, people who want to watch television that jumps off the screen will need something to watch. The process of making live television work in 3-D probably would involve a major conversion of broadcast equipment.

Also, Blu-ray is said to be working on a product that would play three-dimensional movies at home.

Panasonic and Sony said they're still working out some kinks in their 3-D entertainment systems. The TV makers hope to ride the wave of popularity of improved stereoscopic 3-D movies, such as recent hit "Up," that are being shown in theaters.

Perry, of Panasonic, said he expects 3-D TV to be common in homes within five to 10 years. Technology that will make 3-D TV possible without glasses should be ready in 10 to 15 years, he said.

Michael Bridwell, spokesman for Digital Projection, a company that makes high-end 3-D home theaters, said 3-D is the biggest technology coming to television and home movies in the foreseeable future.

Well, at least "until we get to holograms," he said

Zune HD and Microsoft hopes to turn it around with it

(Credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft will take another swipe at the iPod on Wednesday when it launches the latest version of the Zune media player.

After three years and untold millions spent on the line, Microsoft's hopes of cutting into iPod's big lead are now on the Zune HD, with its 3.3-inch multitouch screen, streaming-music feature, and the ability to playback video, with the help of an HDTV, in 720p. A 16GB Zune HD is available at retailers for $219.99 and a 32GB will cost $289.99.

But at this point in Zune's evolution there's plenty of skepticism that the Zune can close the gap on Apple. A Zune-iPod comparison has for too long resembled a late-round prize fight, the kind where the challenger is cut, swollen-eyed and wobbly legged but refuses to go to the canvas. Zune sales are falling, a top manager has moved on and what's perhaps most worrisome is that the category is becoming passe.

While Apple also tries to kick-start lackluster iPod sales--upgrading Nanos with such features as a video camera and voice recording--CEO Steve Jobs has steered consumer interest away from straight digital music players and into smartphones. Apple has sold more than 30 million iPhones over the past two years and seen more than 1.8 billion iPhone applications downloaded.

Nonetheless, this is still Microsoft, one of the biggest technology companies in the world and well known for its patience.

"You can make the argument this is Microsoft's first real shot to getting it right," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis for The NPD Group. "Remember, the bar doesn't have to be set all that high for them to be successful. Nobody is supposed to unseat iPod...and Microsoft now has a product that they seem to be more confident in."

That confidence may come in part from an upgrade that some have called the best Zune yet. (For more, see CNET's full review of the Zune HD.)

Zune HD features a new OLED (organic light emitting diode) screen and will send high-def video to a HDTV using a new Zune AV dock, sold separately.

"Consumers can buy or rent HD content from the Zune Marketplace," Microsoft said in a statement, "sync that content to a Zune HD and take it with them to play back on a large screen HD TV in the home or on the road."

The 16GB is available in black and the 32GB is available in "platinum" at retail locations. Customers can purchase Zune in red, green, or blue in both capacities from Zuneoriginals.net.

Zune HD will also play games, HD Radio, and offers music-recommendation software, called Smart DJ.

The new xbox 360 250gb !!! relased

"Infinity Ward announced at a press event in Los Angeles today that, to commemorate the release of the game, Microsoft will be releasing a brand new model of the Xbox 360 based on Modern Warfare 2."

windows games in the way for updates

In 2008, the global PC game software market reached $12.7 billion in revenue from a combination of retail sales, subscriptions, virtual item sales, advertising and digital distribution revenue according to the PC Gaming Alliance Horizons Software Report (click here to download the report). This was up 18% from 2007! PC gaming is hotter than ever!

So today we are announcing that we are revamping the Games for Windows Program. This revamp includes new technical guidelines, a self-certification option, and a set of 22 technical requirements which are designed to:

• Create an easier game installation experience.
• Support both 32-bit and 64-bit Platforms.
• Support Ratings and Parental Controls in Windows 7
• Game titles populated in the Game Explorer.
• Enhanced game update notifications for game titles.
• Stability, security and compatibility against commonly known issues.

The idea is to have more game developers participating with more game titles that pass a standardized set of technical requirements. Games that go through and pass these technical requirements will offer consumers a better gaming experience. Gamers can expect awesome high-quality gaming with Games of Windows titles going forward.

The new requirements for Games for Windows will also allow developers to take advantage of Windows 7 features and compatibility when Windows 7 is released on October 22^nd.

You get some of these improvements today with Games for Windows – LIVE titles. When you install the Games for Windows – LIVE 3.0 client on Windows 7, Games for Windows – LIVE is added to Game Providers in Games Explorer.

As you can see, I can receive the latest news on Games for Windows – LIVE in the right-hand pane directly within the Games Explorer in Windows 7. When I click on Street Fighter IV (which is a Games for Windows – LIVE title) I can see whether or not the game is up to date directly from Games Explorer.

You can download the Games for Windows – LIVE 3.0 client here.

I posted about many of the brand new enhancements to Games Explorer (and the gaming experience) in Windows 7 several months ago.

Starting today, the program will be available to all PC gaming developers and publishers.

Over the past few years, we have worked to improve the quality of PC gaming in Windows for consumers through the Games for Windows. We hope that the revamp of the program we are announcing today makes gaming in Windows and on a PC even better!

Mozilla’s move to nudge Firefox users into updating the browser’s Flash Player plug-in

Mozilla’s move to nudge Firefox users into updating the browser’s Flash Player plug-in is being hailed as a “phenomenal” success with about 10 million users clicking through to the Web page with Adobe’s patch.

Mozilla released some brief statistics to track the success of its new program, which serves up a visual warning to Firefox users if their version of the ever-present Adobe Flash Player plug-in is out of date. The program started last week with the releases of Firefox 3.5.3 and Firefox 3.0.14.

Here’s a chart tracking the traffic and click-through rates on the Flash security warning page:

From Mozilla’s Ken Kovash:

Beyond the total impact of 10,000,000 clicks, the most impressive pattern that stands out is the click through rate. While the Firefox whatsnew page generally sees a click through rate below 5%, the flash update link alone has generated a click-through rate north of 30%. Phenomenal!

The 30% click-through number might be something to celebrate but it means that a whopping two-thirds of all Firefox users may still be running a version of Flash Player that’s vulnerable to malware attacks.

Adobe’s software — especially Flash Player and Reader/Acrobat — have become a preferred target for malware attacks because they are usually unpatched on the majority of Windows desktops. By Adobe’s count, 99% of all Internet-enabled PCs are currently running Flash.

A wave of new devices powered by Google's Android

A wave of new devices powered by Google's Android platform look set to test the flexibility and appeal of the software.

Within the last week, LG, Motorola, and INQ Mobile all announced Android phones, which will join offerings from Samsung and HTC. Few details have been released about INQ's and LG's phones, but Motorola's device, known in the United States as the CLIQ, boasts an interface designed specifically for accessing social media.

The CLIQ's interface organizes information on the phone into "streams," weaving data from the phone's address book with information posted on social sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Users can respond to messages through a number of social channels without having to log in or out of accounts or switch applications.

Experts say that the new devices could give more clues about how manufacturers plan to use Android software. Ian Fogg, a principal analyst at Forrester Research who specializes in mobile technology, says that companies are taking one of two approaches to Android. Either they're using it to ship a broadly standard device that features integration with Google services as a main selling point, or they're using the platform to create devices, such as the CLIQ, with unique software designed to stand out in the marketplace.

Whichever approach a company takes, Fogg says Android offers some key advantages. Handset manufacturers "can get a leg up, a quicker start, because they're using Android as a base, they can still differentiate with software, and they get the advantage of having compatibility with all the applications out in the Android marketplace."

But though using Android as a foundation is quicker than building a mobile operating system from scratch, Kevin Burden, head of ABI Research's mobile-devices group, points out that it takes a lot of work for a device manufacturer to develop the Android framework enough to release a phone. This explains in part why it took some time for other devices to join HTC's early offering, the G1, which was released last year.

Google now with DoubleClick Ad Exchange

Google is about to launch its most potent weapon to date in the battle over the $15 billion market for display ads—the pictorial banners and videos that support most major Web sites. On Sept. 18 the search giant will launch its new DoubleClick advertising exchange, a sort of stock exchange for online ads it has been developing since early last year.

Google's (GOOG) exchange lets Web sites offer space that ad agencies and online brokers called ad networks can bid for in an automated auction system. Advertisers hope to get a wider choice of ad space and the ability to target ads more precisely to the most likely prospects. Publishers hope to net higher rates than they can from the hundreds of ad networks—which generally pay very low rates—and sell more of the ad space that today goes unsold. As BusinessWeek reported three months ago, Google's ad exchange has been widely anticipated because of the company's growing influence over online ads.

The goal for Google is to make display advertising, which currently requires a lot of time and effort to create and distribute on thousands of sites, much simpler to deploy so that many more advertisers and publishers can run the ads. Because of the existing complexity, as well as advertiser uncertainty over display ads' effectiveness, text search ads such as Google's have grown far faster than display in recent years. "The idea is to grow the overall display-advertising pie," says Neal Mohan, Google's vice-president for product management. "Display advertising is still not living up to its full potential."

It's far from certain that Google will succeed with its new exchange. The giant dominates the market for search advertising, garnering about half the industry's total revenues. But it has struggled to expand into new fields, such as radio and print advertising, and its efforts in display ads have seen little success so far. Search ads still constitute over 95% of Google's revenues. The company's display-ad exchange, an early version of which Google picked up early last year when it acquired online ad-placement firm DoubleClick for $3.2 billion, will face competition, too. Yahoo! (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT), and others already operate their own exchanges.

New Technology for blinds To map the world

Virtual reality used for blind to map real world

RALEIGH, North Carolina (Reuters) -

Virtual reality can let video game players escape from the real world but a group of researchers are using virtual reality to help the blind join the real world more, by navigating real places.

Researchers at the University of Chile and Harvard Medical School are using three audio-based PC games that allow players to navigate a labyrinth, a subway system and real-world buildings based on audio cues. "Essentially the games work by interpreting information generated by spectral sounds like footsteps and door knocks," said Lotfi B. Merabet, PhD of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School and co-author of "AER Journal: Research and Practice in Visual Impairment and Blindness."

"The player uses a keyboard to move and interact with the virtual world. By sequentially interacting within the virtual 3-D environment, the user learns to build a spatial cognitive map of their surroundings."

The goal was to develop audio-based gaming to help blind children develop spatial, cognitive and social skills.

"(We've) concentrated on developing the gaming software as a rehabilitation tool to allow blind users to survey unfamiliar buildings before actually navigating through them in real life, as well as conducting brain imaging studies to uncover how the brain of a blind individual accomplishes this task," said Merabet.

According to the World Health Organization, there are about 314 million visually impaired people worldwide and about 45 million of them are blind.

There are over 50 audio-based games for the blind currently available, according to Kelly Sapergia, who reviews games created by and for blind people for the American Council of the Blind's "Main Menu" radio program.

She said these vary from pinball to "Space Invaders"-style games to "GMA Tank Commander," which is a World War II game that lets you drive a tank and shoot various weapons at enemies.

Blind gamers also have access to the classic text-based games that preceded the video game explosion, including titles like "Zork" from Infocom. Sapergia said blind gamers can plug in an audio synthesizer and have the text-based adventure read to them.

There are even games that offer a level playing field regardless of sight. Since 2001, AllinPlay has offered subscription-based online community games like "Texas Hold-em," "Crazy Eights," and "The Anagram Game" that were designed for both blind and sighted people.

Previous research efforts have also become games for the blind. In 2005, the Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands developer a racing game called "Drive" in cooperation with the Bartimus Institute for the Blind. The game lets players drive a shuttle along a fixed track with a co-pilot named Bob. But compared to the millions of copies of PC and console games sold every week, the market for games for the blind is tiny.

"There's a community of blind gamers, but I think the main drawback has been that the big game publishers like Nintendo and Sony haven't created games that are more accessible for blind people," said Sapergia.

Merabet and fellow researcher Jaime Sanchez from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chile do not view audio-based computer games as a replacement for current rehabilitative techniques but they hope this research will provide a complementary technique.

Video games The best for you

Keen video gamers now have one more excuse to keep on playing.

Parents may not welcome the research

US scientists have found that regular players of shoot-em-ups, such as Half-Life and Medal of Honour, have much better visual skills than most of the population.

The researchers have shown that gamers were particularly good at spotting details in busy, confusing scenes and could cope with more distractions than average.

The two scientists also found that with a little game playing the visual skills of anyone can be improved.

Sight skills

Researchers Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier pitted keen players of computer games against people who never play in a series of psychological tests that measure basic visual skills.

The tests demanded that subjects match shapes appearing in a series of circles with ones displayed at the side of the screen.

Although video game playing may seem to be rather mindless, it is capable of radically altering visual attentional processing Daphne Bavelier and Shawn Green

Keen players were vastly better at this task, and completed it much faster, especially when the test was made more difficult by the circles being filled with distracting shapes.

Gamers also showed their skill in another experiment that measured "attentional blink" which captures how easy it is to catch someone's attention.

The test asks subjects to identify a symbol flashed up very soon after the appearance of a first one.

The second symbol appeared between two-tenths and half a second after the first symbol.

Gamers managed to correctly identify the second symbol correctly far faster than non-players.

"Video game playing enhances the capacity of visual attention and its spatial distribution," wrote the researchers in a paper published in the journal Nature this week.

Training day

To ensure that it was experience with computer games that was refining visual and attentional skills, the researchers trained subjects on a variety of games and then tested them again.

Crazy Taxi was a favourite of the gamers tested

The subjects were trained on two different games. One group played the WWII shooter Medal of Honor and the second group got to play the classic puzzle game Tetris.

After training for an hour per day for 10 days, the subjects were put through the tests again.

The players who had been wrestling with Medal of Honor showed a significant improvement in visual and attentional skills. By contrast, the Tetris veterans showed almost no change in these skills.

"By forcing players to simultaneously juggle a number of varied tasks, action video game playing pushes the limits of three rather different aspects of visual attention," wrote the researchers.

The added: "Although video game playing may seem to be rather mindless, it is capable of radically altering visual attentional processing."

The study was commissioned by the US Government's National Institute of Health.

Feds balk at Google book deal, hopes for changes

Enlarge

John Bivens, head of services and support for On Demand Books, demonstrates the printing of a book from an Espresso Book Machine at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

(AP) -- The U.S. Justice Department advised a federal judge Friday that a proposed legal settlement giving Google Inc. the digital rights to millions of out-of-print books threatens to thwart competition and drive up prices unless it's revised.

The brief filed in New York federal court marks the first time that the Justice Department has publicly shared its thoughts about Google's agreement with a large class of U.S. authors and publishers.

The nation's top law enforcement agency began looking at the Google book settlement earlier this summer amid a loudening outcry against an agreement affecting a reservoir of human knowledge.

"The breadth of the proposed settlement...raises significant legal concerns," the Justice Department wrote in its 28-page filing with U.S. District Judge Denny Chin.

Despite its misgivings, the Justice Department expressed confidence that Google and the author and publishers could negotiate changes so the settlement will adhere to U.S. copyright and antitrust laws.

The Justice Department told Chin it hopes an acceptable compromise can be worked out because the agreement "has the potential to breathe life into millions of works that are now effectively off limits to the public."

Even with those words of encouragement, the Justice Department's brief raises the biggest red flag about the settlement yet. The agency warned Chin it probably will conclude the deal breaks federal antitrust law unless changes are made.

While other critics such as Google rivals Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also have objected in recent weeks, the Justice Department's opinion presumably will carry more weight with Chin. His approval is needed before the $125 million settlement can take effect, a hurdle that could be more difficult to clear with the Justice Department's assertion that the agreement would violate several laws.

"We are considering the points raised by the department and look forward to addressing them as the court proceedings continue," Google said in a joint statement with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers, the groups that sued and then settled with the Internet search leader.

Critics seized on the Justice Department's brief as validation of their arguments urging Chin to block the settlement.

"The current settlement proposal would stifle innovation and competition in favor of a monopoly over the access, distribution, and pricing of the largest collection of digital books in the world," said the Open Book Alliance, a group that includes Amazon.com, Microsoft and another Google rival, Yahoo Inc. The alliance also includes authors and several nonprofit organizations.

The Justice Department's lawyers, as well as a long line of the settlement's opponents and supporters, will have an opportunity to elaborate on their arguments in a New York court hearing scheduled Oct. 7.

Mountain View, Calif-based Google conceivably could use the Justice Department's filing as a road map for navigating to new settlement terms before the hearing.

In its current form, the settlement would entrust Google with a digital database containing millions of copyright-protected books, including volumes no longer being published. The Internet search leader would act as the sales agent for the authors and publishers, giving 63 percent of the revenue to the copyright holders. Authors and publishers could either set their own prices for their books, or rely on a formula drawn up by Google - a provision that has raised fears of the partnership turning into a price-gouging cartel.

The Justice Department sided with those arguments, saying the settlement could lessen competition among U.S. publishers. The agency also expressed concern that Google would gain a monopoly on so-called "orphan works" - out-of-print books that are still protected by copyright but whose writers' whereabouts are unknown.

The arrangement "appears to create a dangerous probability that only Google would have the ability to market to libraries and other institutions a comprehensive digital-book subscription."

Hoping to ease those concerns, Google has promised to share its electronic index with its rivals - an idea that has drawn an icy response from Amazon.com, one of the world's biggest book merchants and the maker of the Kindle, an electronic reader.

Google already has gone into some of the nation's largest libraries to scan about 6 million out-of-print books into its electronic index. So far, though, it has only been able to show snippets of those digital copies. The settlement would clear the way for Google to sell all those out-of-print books and scan even more into its index.

The project has turned into a crusade for Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who have for years dreamt of making books collecting dust on library book shelves accessible around the clock to anyone with an Internet ambition.

That ambition has won Google broad support from librarians, disabled rights activists and big companies like Sony Corp., that wants to tap into the digital book index to feed its own electronic reader.

While the settlement's goals are admirable, the Justice Department said the deal doesn't do enough to protect the copyrights of orphan works and authors outside the United States.

The United States' top copyright cop and the governments in Germany and France also have raised objections about the settlement overstepping its bounds.

Consumer watchdogs are worried about the settlement opening a door for Google to collect too much information about the books that people are reading. Google has tried to address those concerns by promising to draw up a separate policy governing its digital library.

The Justice Department didn't address the privacy issues in its brief.

©2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Once it is finished, Mystery will contain a big Island

Crysis map Mystery (16) [Source: view picture gallery]

Once it is finished, Mystery will contain a big Island inhabited by enemy soldiers and Aliens. The player and a team have to make a force landing and find an alien artifact.

For Mystery the modder is working on new cut scenes, optimized Time of Day settings, individual targets and the A.I. for the opponents. According to the modder, it will take several weeks until the map is final and ready for download. To pass the time you can take a look at the screenshots in our gallery. More information can be found in the Crymod Forum.

the best UT3 Mods Unreal world

The Haunted WS [Source: view picture gallery]

The Make Something Unreal contest consists of four phases. The overall value of all prices, cash and hardware prices, adds up to 1 million US Dollar. Developers of UT3 mods have been call on sending in their creations. Now the third phase is over and the winners of the following categories:
- Best First-Person Shooter (FPS) Game Mod
- Best Non-FPS Game Mod
- Best New Character / Customization Pack
- Best Deathmatch or CTF Level
- Best vCTF or Warfare Level
- Best Level for a Game Mod
- Best Machinima
- Best New Weapon Set
- Best Graphics in Map
- Best Use of Physics

The complete rankings and the according downloads can be found at the Unreal website. PC Games Hardware introduces the best mods with screenshots in the gallery below. Which of the pictures do you like best? Give your opinion in the comments.

Nvidia Optix Ray Tracing engine The new technology

Nvidia: Examples for real-time ray tracing in movies [Source: view picture gallery]

Only recently PC Games Hardware reported that Nvidia introduced the Optix at the Siggraph 2009. The Ray Tracing engine has formerly known as NVIRT (Nvidia Interactive Raytracer). Currently the intended fields of operation are photorealistic rendering, visual simulations or scientific research.

Nvidia has released new material of the Optix Ray Tracing engine and the related software packages Complex and Scenix. Among the new releases are pictures of GPU Ray Tracing and impressive full body scans that have been calculated with several GPUs as well as Scenix shots that show some cars from Autodesk.

Windows 8 is in the road to come in 2012

A roadmap of the Italian Microsoft subsidiary reveals that the software company plans the release of Windows 8 for the year 2012. This apparently confirms that Microsoft wants to release a new operating system very two to three years.

Only recently Microsoft finalized the RTM of windows 7. Planning for Windows 8 is taking up speed, says the Blog that published the roadmap. Furthermore it seems that Microsoft sticks to the tactics of planning release dates on a conservative basis. Chief of development Steven Sinofsky introduced this with windows 7 in order to prevent such a disaster as it happened with Windows Vista. Therefore Microsoft might target an earlier release date internally.

Windows 8: Roadmap reveals release in 2012 [Source: view picture gallery]

Tables Now Turned on the hacker sites

Here's one to make you smile. An underground malware and hacking forum got a taste of its own medicine when it was itself hacked by a digital vigilante.

A post from F-Secure says the underground pakbugs.com forum drew malicious hackers who bought and sold malware, stolen credit card numbers and the like. That is, until someone going by "Catch Them" broke into the site and gathered the full list of registered users, including their forum passwords and e-mail addresses, which the vigilante then posted to the Full Disclosure security mailing list. The F-Secure post includes screen shots of the pakbugs site and the users list.

F-Secure says the site has been going up and down since the event, and it's not responding when I check it (from a Linux test machine, probably not a good idea to visit underground hacking sites using your Windows desktop). Let's hope the site stays down.

`Need for Speed' titles lead pack of racing games Updated news

LOS ANGELES -

The video game racing genre is gearing up for a traffic jam.

Nearly a dozen racing games are expected to drive onto store shelves before the end of the year, competing for the attention of gamers at a time when sales have tapped the brakes. "Forza MotorSport 3," "Dirt 2," "Blur," "MotorStorm: Arctic Edge" and "Gran Turismo" for the PlayStation Portable are among the titles plotting a course for release this year.

Electronic Arts has revved up new "Need for Speed" titles as part of its strategy to diversify the 15-year-old racing franchise for different platforms. EA Black Box, the Canadian developer that created the previous "Need for Speed" games, has taken a backseat while other developers have crafted three games aimed at three different audiences.

The first, developer Slightly Mad Studios' hardcore racing simulator "Need for Speed Shift," was released this week for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Portable, PC, iPhone and iPod Touch. "Shift" abandons the series' slick street style in favor of photorealistic action similar to the "Forza MotorSport" franchise. The focus is on recreating the sensation of being pulled by G-forces during high-speed cornering inside the game's 72 realer-than-real racing cars.

"It's something we euphemistically refer to as first-person driving," said "Shift" producer Jesse Abney. "First-person shooter games have done a great job over the last few years of creating an environment where players are really immersed in the action. What we've done with `Need for Speed Shift' is create that true driver's experience of being in the cockpit."

EA will venture down a different path with "Need for Speed Nitro," the arcade-style racing game developed by EA Montreal for the Wii and Nintendo DS set for release Nov. 17. Unlike "Shift," this "Need for Speed" edition will feature speedy police pursuits and the ability for racers to trick out their rides and tracks with customizable decals and colors.

"When I first came to EA, I thought it was a really interesting challenge to make a `Need for Speed' game on the Wii that can attract gamers and a general mass audience because the Wii is not a platform that's about graphics," said "Nitro" producer Gadi Pollack, who worked on "Prince of Persia" at Ubisoft. "It's about the gameplay and the handling."

The third "Need for Speed" title, "Need for Speed World Online," is a massively multiplayer online game being developed by EA Singapore. The free-to-play action-driving game, which will be released in Asia before coming to the U.S., will feature fully customizable cars and a matchmaking system that pits players against each other in multiple game modes.

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On the Net:

http://www.needforspeed.com/