Software RSS Hardware RSSSometimes less really is more.
Take the solar-powered LG HFB-500 Bluetooth hands-free cell-phone kit, for example.
When you’re cruising down the highway, you don’t want to have to — and in many states, legally can’t — use one hand to hold a cell phone up to your ear.
Many companies have been marketing kits that let you talk on the phone without using your hands, but this is the first that needs no external power.
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Three major electronics manufacturers have agreed to plead guilty to a price-fixing conspiracy and pay $585 million in criminal fines for their roles in the pricing of LCD display panels, the Justice Department said Wednesday.
The department announced the charges following a settlement with Sharp Corp. of Japan; LG Display Co. (LPL) of South Korea and Chunghwa Picture Tubes of Taiwan.
The charges were filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Calif., and announced by the assistant attorney general for antitrust at the Justice Department in Washington.
The latest Studio 15 and Studio 17 notebooks, with covers featuring original artwork from Joseph Amedokpo, Siobhan Gunning, and Bruce Mau, also support the fight against AIDS in Africa.
Dell (Dell) on Tuesday launched a line of artsy notebooks for consumers looking for an unusual cover design and a way to contribute to the fight against AIDS.
The latest Studio 15 and Studio 17 notebooks are available with original artwork from Joseph Amedokpo, Siobhan Gunning, and Bruce Mau. With each purchase, Dell will contribute $20 to the Global Fund, which is combating the spread of AIDS in Africa.
AVG customers that unknowingly deleted the user32.dll file ended up with a PC that either wouldn’t reboot or would go into an endless reboot cycle.
The problem started on Sunday when the company released the signature that misidentified the user32.dll file, prompting the anti-virus software to ask users whether to delete the file. Those who chose to remove it ended up with a PC that either wouldn’t reboot or would go into an endless reboot cycle, according to people on AVG’s support forum. The problem appeared to only affect PCs running Windows XP.
AVG, which is best known for the free version of its anti-virus software, acknowledged the problem and quickly sent a fix of its virus signatures. The company also posted ways to fix the problem for those people unlucky enough to have deleted the file. One of the solutions was to download a utility created by the vendor, burn it to a CD and then use the disc to boot the damaged PC.
The incident was not the first time AVG, based in the Czech Republic, had released virus signatures with a false positive. The company’s software less than a month ago misidentified CheckPoint’s Zone Alarm as a Trojan, according to the U.K. tech site The Register.
Last December, the company filed subpoenas against Google (NSDQ: GOOG), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), and domain registrar GoDaddy, seeking the identities of search advertisers responsible for fraudulently promoting counterfeit AVG anti-virus products through sponsored text ads. The company also sought domain registration information associated with the advertisers in order to identify those behind the sites selling the software.
Tags: Google, Microsoft, PC, Software
YouTube took its first step towards a comprehensive movie service, reaching a deal with a big Hollywood studio to start showing full-length television shows and films.
The video-sharing Web site is set to announce that it will host TV episodes and movies from the archives of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its latest step to boost advertising revenue.
The deal is expected to be the first of many. It emerged over the weekend that the site, which is owned by Google, was in negotiations with other Hollywood studios. One report from the CNET news Web site suggested a YouTube movie service could be available within 90 days.
MGM will post videos from full-length action movies such as “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven,” and its decades-old “American Gladiators” program. They will be free to watch, with advertising running alongside the video.
In October, YouTube forged a similar partnership with CBS to run full-length archived TV shows, including “Star Trek” and “Beverly Hills 90210.”
The new partnerships put YouTube in more direct competition with Hulu, the online video site owned by News Corporation and General Electric’s NBC Universal.
Tags: GoogleAdam and Anita Paulk had a nice home outside Temple, Texas, with a big yard and a 10-minute commute to his job.
But in Internet terms, the house was on Slow Lane. There was no high-speed Internet connection available.
So the Paulks pulled up stakes in 2005 and built a home in a new subdivision. It was a little further from his job, but at least it could get broadband.
SSDs will apparently get a serious (extreme, if you will) upgrade in the coming year, with SanDisk’s announcement of a new technology dubbed ExtremeFFS (Flash File System). It is, as you can possibly guess, a new file system, but it’ll use page-based methods so that the data’s location on the drive won’t be tied to its physical space, as it is now. SanDisk says this means that random write speeds are going to be 100 times faster than they are on drives using current technology. The company hopes that this advance, coupled with other upcoming standards, will lead to widespread adoption of SSDs in PCs (and much, much more money in their pockets). That should fit in nicely with news we just heard that Microsoft’s Windows 7, unlike Vista, will include optimization for use with the drives. While actual drives that carry ExtremeFFS have yet to be announced, SanDisk expects them to ship in 2009. Fun times.
Tags: Microsoft, PC
