Concerned about using up oil-fuelled power and speeding up the destruction of the rainforests? If so, these solar-powered glasses to power up your iPod or PSP on-the-go may well be the solution for you! These SIG or "Self-Energy Converting Sunglasses" lenses contain dye solar cells, which suck up energy from the sun's rays and converts it to iPod-friendly power. Simple!Merely plug your iPod into the power jack at the back of the frame and you need never run out of entertainment on the beach ever again. ( www.techradar.com )
"Google Earth Bordering On Time Travel And Teleportation"
by Firzy | 7:36 PM in Internet News, News | comments (1)
Technology is amazing. It's so great, it's next to impossible to truly appreciate just how phenomenally, staggeringly, unbelievably indescribably great it is. Every day we play with the kind of power that would have medieval villages setting up pyres (or to be more accurate, gallows, since English witches were hanged rather than burned), and every day it becomes harder and harder to be impressed. Innovations become features, features become expectations and expectations become the status quo. And so, the world becomes another slice more cynical and blasé.
It's Google Earth that does it for me. Only a couple of years ago, the mere idea that we'd be able to load up one program and zoom from the atmosphere down to our own back garden in one more or less fluid pan was nothing short of sci-fi. Literally. That was one of the stock special effects when movies like Men in Black wanted to show off. Years of development later, it's bordering on time-travel and teleportation. Archaeologists use it to track ancient civilisations. You can visit distant lands at street level, and where once famous monuments like the Eiffel Tower were simply squat splats on a pixellated landscape, they now stand tall – admittedly, in the middle of flat fields – as proud hybrids of 3D models and photo-realistic textures. The most recent big release is the Ancient Rome layer, which tries to recreate the city at the height of its power. The graphics firmly smack of an educational project – all very clean, with simple textures – but speaking as an amateur classicist, I don't mind. You get museum-style explanations of what everything is, a few indoor scenes to explore and, of course, all the Google tools so you can find out whether there's now a Starbucks where once there was some great ancient relic.
( www.techradar.com )
The move comes after privacy groups and the European Union called for internet firms to reduce the period they store data associated with an individual's unique computer IP address. "Under the new policy, Yahoo! will anonymise user log data within 90 days with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations," said Yahoo! in a statement. Yahoo! said the new policy will apply to search log data, page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks, and "strengthens Yahoo!'s relationship of trust with its 500 million users worldwide". The move means Yahoo! will dispose of user data far earlier than Google, which stores it for nine months, and Microsoft, which has pledged to slash its data retention from 18 months to six months if other organisations follow suit.
Internet companies use the personal search data of web users in a variety of ways, including delivering targeted adverts designed to suit the needs of users based on perceived interests gleaned by identifying key terms in their surfing habits. The practice has raised concerns among watchdogs and privacy campaigners, who question the need to keep this information for such a long period of time. Anne Toth, Yahoo!'s vice president of policy and head of privacy, said the move set a new benchmark for the industry. "Responsible use of data is critical to establishing and maintaining user trust," she said. "Our users expect relevant and compelling content and advertising when they visit Yahoo!, but they also want assurances that we are focused on protecting their privacy. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )
Nvidia Details Netbook Plans For 2009
by Firzy | 7:30 PM in Computer Technology, Internet News | comments (0)
The rumours that Nvidia was planning on making moves into the netbook market in 2009 were bang on the money. Rene Haas, Nvidia's VP of World Wide Sales, told the Inquirer in a recent interview: "It's really about developing a platform which attaches to the Atom." According to that report, Nvidia plans to replace legacy 3 chip design with "a two chip marriage between the Geforce 9400M and Atom.""When you take that chip and combine it with Atom, you actually have a pretty interesting platform. You have, essentially, a very full function PC", said the Nvidia man.
( www.techradar.com )
There's been some rumours, hearsay and conjecture floating around the interwebs over the past week about the status of the then NVIDIA-only manufacturer, XFX. Until now, they've been sole manufacturers of NVIDIA products, and have been synonymous with the green graphics giant. Seems the time has come where NVIDIA's products are no longer sufficient to satisfy XFX, and they've formed a deal with AMD/ATI to begin producing ATI cards in early 2009. XFX's support and bundling is usually very good, so we're interested to see what they think they can bring to the game that isn't already out from someone else. While we're not sure why this move has happened, we can only assume that economic pressure coupled with ATI's current dominance of the graphics market meant that stress had been placed on the company, giving them reason and motivation to look to other arenas for increased profit. We've spoken with XFX reps, and they've been unsurprisingly vague about the reasons. The rep did say there are new cards on the horizon, however. XFX has done some great things with their bundles recently, offering top flight games instead of the usual budget-bin offerings. Hopefully the new ATI releases will follow this trend.( www.atomicmpc.com.au )
Source
A recent article by the Wall Street Journal said that even Apple is beginning to suffer in this year's dismal holiday season, as if it expected the outfit to be immune to the woes of the economy. With hushed breath it noted that sales of Macs had actually declined a year ago while sales of other brands of PCs managed to increase by two percent. How can that be? People always buy Apple don't they? Steve Jobs told them so. NPD analyst Steve Baker pointed out that there had been a 35 per cent drop in sales of desktop Macs although the outfit still did quite well in desktops, which bolstered the figures a bit. The WSJ said that the decline was a sharp reversal for Apple which it claimed had robust demand this year for its Macs, even as spending on Windows-based PCs slowed. The question is why are the US press so surprised that sales of Apple are declining. Apple is still the most expensive option if you want to buy a PC and, unlike many other companies in troubled times, is not discounting. Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey warned "some nicks have started to emerge" in Apple's cunning plan for the future. Bailey warned the company faces "a tougher environment" in the first two quarters of next year, when he believes consumer demand will rot faster than a milkshake in the Sahara. An Apple spokesman said the Cupertino outfit doesn't comment on monthly sales. But then it never comments on anything, particularly if it is bad. But it is starting to look as if the falling price of a Windows PC and the rise of netbook is actually gutting Apple. ( www.theinquirer.net )
Two new Get a Mac adverts have debuted on Apple's website, which sees the dastardly pair of computing miscreants getting up to festive shenanigans. Actually, they are not getting up to much at all, except for building snowmen and putting lights on a Christmas tree. It would all be rather boring if it wasn't for the fact that the pair have been animated! ( www.techradar.com )
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