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Note to Phone Manufacturers

I want a phone with no external buttons. If you have to put external buttons on it, at least recess the bloody things! Perhaps two: one to shut the alarm clock off, and one to snooze it. The same two could answer the speakerphone and reject it.
Other than that, forget […]

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Gates Says G’Bye to Microsoft

Billy G. heads out the door, and pundits wonder: will there be any real changes or will the 800-lb. gorilla continue to lose weight?
As the company prepares for Gates’ departure this Friday, a host of analysts and tech experts waxed practical and philosophical about the future of Microsoft and the legacy of the man behind […]

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First processor to top 1 Teraflop

AMD’s FireStream 9250: first processor to top 1 Teraflop - Engadget
AMD’s second generation FireStream 9250 just broke the single-precision teraflop barrier at the International Supercomputing Conference in Germany.

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The Wired Generation Takes It One Step Farther: Techno-Nomadism

Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don’t even bring laptops. Many engineers at Google, the leading internet company and a magnet for nomads, travel with only a BlackBerry, iPhone or other “smart phone”. If ever the need arises for a […]

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Fred buys a first-class monitor from the refrigerator guys

I ended up at Best Buy, and got a 22″ LCD (with zero dead/stuck pixels) for $229. Picture’s bright and gorgeous, excellent text clarity, good contrast (1000+/1) so photos look good, etc.
The big surprise to me was the brand: Fred Langa: What comes next?: an old brand returns to high tech

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Technology’s Trailing Edge

Electronics obsolescence—also known as DMSMS, for
diminishing manufacturing sources and material
shortages—is a huge problem for designers who build
[…]

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Apple buys PowerPC designer P.A. Semi

P.A. Semi was founded in 2003 by veterans of a number of successful chip design projects, including DEC’s Alpha and StrongARM processor families. Correctly guessing that power use would become an increasingly significant factor due to rising energy prices and an increasingly mobile world, the company designed an impressively efficient chip, the PA6T-1682M. The dual-core […]

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Sheesh!

I just downloaded a 1.5 MB .exe file from Microsoft to validate my many-times-validated copy of XP SP2, so that I could download a 524KB hotfix because the geniuses who programmed SP2 didn’t have enough imagination to consider that SD cards might someday hold more than 4GB.
And Microsoft thinks we ought to just roll over […]

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Intel Plans for Ultra-Small Chips

The company will use the name Atom in marketing a new microprocessor line that has two variants. One chip, previously known by the code name Silverthorne, is designed to be the calculating engine for pocket-sized gadgets that Intel calls MIDs, for mobile Internet devices. The other chip to carry the Atom brand, code-named Diamondville, is […]

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Encryption Vulnerabilities Folks Don’t Think About

“Most disk-encryption systems can be defeated if the computer is stolen or accessed while it is in sleep mode or in a password-protected screen saver,” Felten wrote. Vista’s BitLocker “is also sometimes vulnerable even when the computer is completely off.”
Cold-Boot Attack Can Crack Disk Encryption @ Sci-Tech Today

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Toshiba announces HD DVD surrender

It’s official: Toshiba announces HD DVD surrender | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
The two-year war between HD DVD and Blu-ray officially ended Tuesday morning as Toshiba waved the white flag and declared it would stop producing HD DVD products.

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Taps for HD DVD

Taps for HD DVD as Wal-Mart Backs Blu-ray - New York Times
“SAN FRANCISCO — HD DVD, the beloved format of Toshiba and three Hollywood studios, died Friday after a brief illness.
“The cause of death was determined to be the decision by Wal-Mart to stock only high-definition DVDs and players using the Blu-ray format.There […]

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Lawsuit will ask judges to decide propriety, constitutionality of electronic searches at borders

“… At least two major global corporations, one American and one Dutch, have told their executives not to carry confidential business material on laptops on overseas trips, Gurley said. In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with “blank laptops” whose hard drives contain no data. “We just […]

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Why Kindle is a hit

Redeye VC: Why Kindle is a hit…
When Amazon announced their Kindle last year, I bought one. I wasn’t too optimistic, as I had read a lot of bad reviews.However, to my surprise, I’ve really enjoyed my Kindle experience.

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2008’s most desirable eco-gadgets

From EcoStreet:
2008’s most desirable eco-gadgets at EcoStreet - Raising Green Consciousness since 2002