You would have to be living underneath a rock if you hadn’t heard what is happening to the economy. Wall Street keeps managing to crash and burn. But not everyone is upset by this news.

Over the past few years since the 2001 dot-com bubble burst, university students have preferred careers in banking and finance to computer science related careers. "Many thought they could make more money in hedge funds, said William Dally, chairman of the computer science department at Stanford University.

Now, however, students are looking back at computer sciences as a way to earn a wage. John Gallaugher, associate professor of information systems in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, has already noticed a shift back to computer sciences amongst his students. "Students have commented to me and written on their course wikis that they're considering changing from finance, both based on the appeal of IS and concern over availability of finance jobs" in the future, Gallaugher said. ( www.dailygalaxy.com )

The government of Saudi Arabia is purchasing a hectoteraflopping megacomputer, called "Shaheen," for the country's newly founded King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The Daily Galaxy compares a teraflop with a Borg cube composed of a million desktop computers.

With its supercomputer the university looks forward to make a huge step towards the front position in the field of computational research. The name of the megacomputer "Shaheeen" from Arabic means falcon. Shaheen has good chances of being included in the list of ten most powerful processors on Earth. ( www.infoniac.com )

Consumer electronics makers may be looking at the bleakest U.S. holiday seasons in years. "This is about as bad as it has been in a very long time," said Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial. "There is less money for all the goodies you tend to buy during the holiday season."

Two Wall Street analysts warned on Monday that weakening consumer sentiment will hurt sales of Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Mac PCs, iPod music players and iPhone mobile phones. The tech sector had been largely spared the problems affecting the rest of the economy.

( www.reuters.com )

Global services firm Ernst and Young believes the Indian gaming market is turning its back on grey and black market trading, and now has all the elements in place for huge future growth.

The expansion of the Indian economy, increasing disposable incomes and a greater acceptance of gaming as a legitimate form of entertainment are just some of the reasons why the country’s video gaming scene is ready to explode, said the international firm. ( www.mcvuk.com )

Microsoft and Washington State officials announced a new partnership today aimed at fighting scareware in general and one specific vendor in particular. Today isn't such a good day for one James Reed McCreary IV, of The Woodlands, Texas. Mr. McCreary is the sole director of Branch Software, which created the Registry Cleaner XP program, and the CEO of hosting company Alpha Red. Scareware, it should be noted, isn't malware—at least, not technically. Instead of installing its own set of viruses, worms, or Trojans, a scareware program tricks the end user into believing he or she needs the program to correct a nonexistent error within the operating system.
( arstechnica.com )

GamesIndustry.Biz : Shares in videogames companies have plummeted in the past 24 hours as the wider financial community goes into meltdown, with markets across the world seeing huge amounts wiped off their value.

In the US, following the House of Representatives' voting down a USD 700 billion life raft package, the Dow Jones dropped by 770 points - 9.1 per cent - it's biggest ever one-day drop in history, while the FTSE in London had already slumped by 5.3 per cent on further nationalisation of financial institutions yesterday, with further falls expected today.

Although the sales of videogames have so far shown no signs of slowing, most listed companies displayed in the red today with Activision Blizzard losing USD 3 billion in value as its stock plummeting by 13.8 per cent.

Ubisoft also suffered a huge drop, losing almost a sixth of its value, as shares fell by 14.4 per cent over the day. ( www.gamesindustry.biz )

Nokia is reportedly preparing to launch a new touch-screen smartphone device. According to sources cited by Reuters, the handset will be launched at a special event on 2 October in London. Codenamed Tube, the handset will be the first touch-screen model from Nokia and will compete in the high-end market alongside the Apple iPhone and the latest models from Samsung and HTC.

( www.computeractive.co.uk )

Nintendo has commented again concerning the rumors but this time goes into more detail about where the rumor came from, but still no denial. Also a screenshot of the rumored DS may have just been leaked. ( www.ds-x2.com )

Apple is again in the crosshairs of Norway's Consumer Council over FairPlay DRM and music player compatibility. The company recently met with Norwegian officials in February, and it agreed that it wants to sell DRM-free music and that it shares Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon's goal of interoperable systems. But, says Thon, "iTunes [sic] has now had two years to meet our demands regarding interoperability. No progress has been reported by iTunes since our meeting in February." Thon today announced that Apple has until November to comply with the Consumer Council's demands or face official sanctions. ( arstechnica.com )

Next in line to give kudos to Cuda, digital video and audio software firm, Cyberlink, has announced it's working with Nvidia to make faster HD video editing software available, by using the GPU.

Cyberlink says that by making use of Nvidia’s Cuda technology, it can now provide much speedier video rendering performance and let users mess around with all kinds of visual video effects, including Gaussian radial blur and pen ink. ( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

Toshiba upped the ante for 2.5-inch solid state drives (SSDs), sampling a device packing 256GB of MLC (multi-level cell) NAND flash storage. The "THNS256GE8BC" has a 3.0 Gb/sec. SATA interface, and is joined by 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB SSD modules aimed at lower-cost devices, says Toshiba. ( www.linuxdevices.com )

TOSHIBA HAS RELEASED a 1.8-inch HDD drive that can store 250GB worth of data. The MK2529GSG 5,400rpm drive uses a SATA interface with a 3Gbps data transfer rate and has a seek time of just 15ms. Not only that, it is 8mm thin which makes it really handy for ultra-portable laptops and portable media players. ( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

Motorola is reportedly looking to hire hundreds of Android developers to cash in on the buzz around Google's Linux-based mobile operating system. Motorola's move to Android could be a dramatic shift for the struggling company, which has its own Java-Linux initiative. But an analyst says Motorola faces issues beyond technology. ( www.toptechnews.com )

With the winter nearing, people are getting more and more worried about their bills. Energy prices are up. Money is tight and likely to become tighter. Although spending on consumer electronics seems like the last thing any sane person should do, the judicious purchase of cash-friendly gadgets now could save you money in the long run.

That can only be a good thing, especially as our interest in environmental issues is on the wane – forecasts about a global economic downturn are apparently heightening everyone’s survival instincts, with the emphasis being on keeping afloat now rather than splashing out on organic vegetables or installing wind turbines in our gardens to safeguard the distant future.

In April, MySpace confirmed that it had agreed to create a joint venture with Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group. The music companies agreed to take equity stakes in the new business at a ratio that approximately reflects their respective market shares. This means Universal will have the largest stake.
( www.toptechnews.com )

For many years people knew that wind can be used to generate energy, but no one was aware of the quantity of energy it could actually produce. In 2005 two scientists at Stanford University, Cristina Archer and Mark Jacobson, performed a detailed estimation based on already known models of air movement. However, they calculated the energy that could only be produced from winds blowing at an altitude of 80 meters. Their results showed that under perfect conditions the total energy would be around 72 trillion watts.

It is worth mentioning that last year the full electrical generating capacity of the U.S. was slightly above 1 trillion watts. Scientists came to a conclusion that this number is way below the potential. The speed of wind increases with the altitude. The power increases at the cube of wind speed, which means that the electrical generating capacity could reach at least 72 trillion watts. If a turbine blade was located a few miles up, it could produce up to 250 times the energy that the turbine generates on the ground. ( www.infoniac.com )

Google cofounder Larry Page told an event sponsored by the Wireless Innovation Alliance that using TV white space for a nationwide high-speed wireless service is "a no-brainer." He wants the FCC to quickly approve the use despite TV-industry opposition, and he expressed confidence that wireless devices would not cause interference. ( www.toptechnews.com )

A report was released that stated that Nintendo will be releasing a revision of the DS later this year. And it’s not just little aesthetic changes (bigger screens, thinner), Nintendo is slapping a whole camera, music player, and increased wireless functionality on the little gaming handheld we’ve come to know and love.

So far, it has been unconfirmed whether or not this will device will be a Japanese exclusive and it would not be surprising if it was. Crazy gaming and media devices like this are usually only released in Japan. However, if this handheld does release worldwide, will it compete directly with the PSP and iPhone, will it make a new market of casual tech lovers, or will it fall flat on its face? ( secondstorygamer.com )

A very interesting rumor has been floating around today that suggests that Microsoft will be releasing an Xbox 360 that has gone through a harsh diet or a minor case of anorexia. Yes, that was my clever way of saying that Microsoft is rumored to be releasing a slim Xbox 360 next year.
( secondstorygamer.com )

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Now we’ve got a photo to go along with the announcement of Sony Ericsson's Greenheart concept phone — and if this is what saving the environment looks like, we approve. It looks sorta like a retooled W880, but you won’t find any brushed aluminum here; instead, the GreenHeart’s made with some crazy plastics that go easy on mother nature. It’s bundled with a new charger that shuts off when the phone doesn’t need any juice to save energy, but one think it’s not bundled with is a manual — the guide is entirely electronic to save paper. The granola candybar isn’t slated for production, but we’ll see a number of technologies developed for it come about in retail models over the next few years. ( www.gadgetcom.com )

In the world of wacky alarm clocks some clocks emit pleasant smells, roll on the floor, throw objects at you or even get as bright as daylight. This clock, however, will literally throw a tantrum in order to rouse you in the morning. Aptly named, The Tantrum Throwing Alarm Clock, this boxy humanoid looking clock starts tapping its little yellow arms when it is time to get up in the morning.
( www.geek.com )

Reuters : Japanese video game maker Nintendo Co Ltd plans to launch a new model of its DS handheld machine that can take pictures and play music by the end of the year, the Nikkei business daily said on Sunday.

The move would pit the top-selling portable game gear with Apple Inc iPod and camera-embedded cellphones in general.

The price for the new machine, which will also be equipped with advanced wireless communications functions, is expected to be below 20,000 yen ($189) in Japan, compared with 16,800 yen for the current model, the Nikkei said . ( reuters.com )

KDDI Corp will launch a fiber-optic communications service with upload and download speeds each of up to one gigabit per second on Oct 1. The new service will target people living in single-family homes and low-rise apartment buildings. The traffic speeds will be the fastest in eastern Japan, up drastically from the current 100 megabits per second. ( www.japantoday.com )

With each passing day, we are getting closer to the official unveiling of Intel's next-generation Core i7 processors, developed using the Nehalem architecture to deliver a never before seen performance level. Given all this anticipation, it’s only understandable why motherboard makers are lining up their own X58-enabled Core i7-supporting platforms, with which they hope to attract the attention of all computer enthusiasts out there who are craving for just a bit more performance juice. ( news.softpedia.com )

IK Multimedia is a name that needs no introduction among those who are at least a tad interested in what recording solutions, live sound processing, guitar processing and so on are. Products like AmpliTube, Simpletank, RiffWorks, Total Studio or T Racks are to be met almost anywhere around the world, from the living rooms of music enthusiasts and ending in the most sophisticated state-of-the-art professional studios where only the big names in showbiz have access.

One of the recent innovative products emerging from IK Multimedia's labs was the StompIO, a revolutionary way to process the sound of your guitar using the award-winning AmpliTube software. ( news.softpedia.com )

"Upconversion" is an extremely popular concept nowadays, as it allows users to enjoy an almost HD-grade cinematographic experience without actually using an HD signal source (such as a Blu-ray player). Several of the most important names on the consumer electronics market have already rolled out products embedding such a technology, the most famous of all being Toshiba, which used upconversion as its way of regaining some ground after the defeat of the HD DVD.
( news.softpedia.com )

The world of high demanding games widens every day. While the level of realism of games rises at a constant rate, graphics card manufacturers have to keep up with providing the powerful hardware support which can enable users to fully enjoy the game play. Both game developers and graphics solution makers have difficult tasks to fulfill in order to raise the performance bar with each and every new release.

And when it comes to playing a resource hungry game, users are interested in buying the hardware support that will enable a seamless gaming experience. Benchmarking may provide a guideline in this direction and that is why the guys from Hardspell thought it would be interesting to take a bunch of graphics cards, put them one by one on the same system, run Crysis WarHead and see the results. ( news.softpedia.com )

You need not be a billionaire to have already learned things about Europe's most extravagant luxury gadgets company, Russia's Gresso. Some of its best-known works have been seen in the field of turning mobile phones from simple communication devices into true pieces of technological art, priced accordingly, of course, and available only to a select few. It seems that Gresso's success has driven even more thoughts in the direction of the luxury technology and it's with a rather pleasant surprise that I now introduce to you the new line of USB flash memory sticks, the Enigma collection. In fact, "collection" might seem a bit exaggerated as we're talking about 2 different models: Labyrinth and Constellation.

These two gadgets are indeed useful, if we look at the tech specs: boasting a massive 192 GB of storage space flowing up and down with the USB 2.0 speed, these two sticks can really carry a lot of data. But the truly spectacular is yet to come, because, unlike most of the similar storage solutions, the Enigma pieces are made from actual wood. And as if common high-quality wood was not enough (and it seems that is really wasn't, not by far), both Labyrinth and Constellation sport a most intriguing African Blackwood casing, made from 200 year-old wood! Beat that... if you can. ( news.softpedia.com )

TQ Components released a 2.95 by 2.4-inch computer module with a Freescale i.MX31 SoC (system on chip) and Altera FPGA (field programmable gate array). The TQMa31 runs Linux, with 256MB of RAM, 1 GB of flash, plus CAN, I2C, SPI and serial interfaces, says TQ.
( www.linuxdevices.com )

The SimpleTech DuoPro Drive units come in three flavors for now: 1TB, 1.5TB and the biggest one summing up 2TB. Nevertheless, in case you still think that 2 TB is not enough for your current needs, you'll just have to wait one or two months more, because SimpleTech has already announced the 3TB version of the DuoPro Drive and it is expected to hit the shelves at the beginning of the winter season. As the very name of its producer (SimpleTech) says it, things are quite simple and fair with this new line of storage solutions, going by the name of DuoPro Drive. It's time to welcome three dual-hard-drive models that not only boast a whole lot of space but at the same time they come with a very extensive array of connectivity options sworn to integrate in pretty much any setting. ( news.softpedia.com )

The Portfolio Data Management System (PDMS) will focus on so-called social entrepreneurs, or organizations trying to bring about social change while also functioning like a business -- in some cases even trying to make money. Some social enterprises are nonprofits, while others seek a return on investment. ( www.toptechnews.com )

Avalue is shipping a module using Kontron's ETX "computer-on-module" form-factor, targeting industrial applications. The Linux-compatible ESM-910ETX supports dual-channel LVDS for simultaneous display from two sources, has an Intel Celeron M processor clocked at 600MHz, and uses dual-channel DDR2 memory, the company says. ( www.linuxdevices.com )

We're seeing a tremendous amount of criminal fraud perpetrated through the Internet, and much of it organized with an international reach. Things like credit card fraud and phishing for identity theft fall into this category. We're also seeing greater sophistication in theft of intellectual property by transnational organizations. ( www.toptechnews.com )

Recently, on-line media was alerted about the news that ATI based graphics chips were reported failing on the field at higher than expected rates. While some were probably expecting the situation to escalate, less than a week since we learned about the issue, the company involved seems to have already solved the problem. We are talking here about Diamond Multimedia and a lot of faulty chips delivered to Alienware.

The initial news stated that around 15,000 to 20,000 cards were suspected as being defective. These cards were not manufactured by Diamond itself, but by one of its partners, ITC, also known under the brand name GeCube. The suspicions cards included defective materials, a human mistake involving one of the engineers or a bad BIOS. Detailed research on the story unveiled the fact that only some 3800 cards were defective, namely those shipped to Alienware.

Diamond announced that it took the entire blame for the issue and that any owner of a defective card should contact the company right away to solve the problem. Of course that reports of failing cards surfaced right away. It seems that one user said that the card crashed even when idle and that it had to be underclocked to run specific games. ( news.softpedia.com )