Xu Lai was attacked and wounded in the stomach after an event at a Beijing bookshop where he read his own book to the public, according to an entry posted on his blog. His blog was one of many hosted on popular Chinese blog site bullog.cn which was closed in January as part of a government crackdown on "vulgar" content on the internet. It reappeared on bullog's successor bullogger.com which is based overseas. Mr Xu, who writes the "ProState in Flames" blog under the pseudonym Qian Liexian, was attacked in the second-floor lavatory of the shop. "Classmate Qian Liexian was badly injured by unknown assailants with evil intent. We express our strong indignation," read a message posted on his blog by a representative. "The latest news is that his operation was completed and he is resting peacefully." The motive of the attackers, who ran out of the shop, is unknown. Violent crime is relatively rare in Beijing. Police have not commented on the incident. Mr Xu's blog consists of humorous news stories, witty commentary, corporate press releases and announcements from obscure local government websites. China polices the internet intensively, quickly removing any content deemed subversive or overly critical of the ruling Communist Party. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

Source

Using inkjet technology for creating not just photographs and A4 prints, but physical objects is not a new idea, but the notion of printing computer memory in that way is certainly novel. Japan's Nissan Chemical Industries has developed a way to print memory from an inkjet device that uses nanoparticle-sized gold dust and polystrene. To make it work in an electronic circuit, Nissan Chemical has also managed to print tiny transistors that connect to relatively conventional electrodes in devices like IC tags. The resulting memory can be incorporated in just about anything, such as product packaging, making it an ideal replacement for the silicon-based memory in RFID chips. The researchers say that it's also just 10 per cent the cost of silicon memory. ( www.techradar.com )

Source

Microsoft has placed at $250,000 (£172,000) bounty on the head of the people behind a computer virus that infected more than 15 million machines. The worm, known variously as Conficker, Downadup and Kido, burrowed its way into an estimated 15 million computers worldwide, providing hackers, spammers and cybercriminals with a 'back door' into people's machines, and making Windows users vulnerable to identity fraud and ID theft. The virus takes advantage of a vulnerability in the operating system to burrow deep into the computer's files, folders and System Registry, which stores settings and options for Windows. Once installed, hackers and spammers are able to remotely download more malicious programs to the computer, or even use the worm to help install software that will enable them to track and steal security information, such as banking logins or credit card information. The software company is offering a reward for information that leads to the capture and conviction of the virus authors, because it views the worm as a criminal attack. ( www.telegraph.co.uk )

Source

Reports on Intel's Westmere 32nm plans contain one slightly disappointing piece of news. The six-core 12 MB cache Gulftown - the 32 nm successor to the current Core i7 high-end LGA1366 Nehalems - is now firmly a 1H 2010 entry, rather than the intro part for the 32 nm process. And that's from the mouth of our friend Stephen Smith, our favourite Veep at the Digital Enterprise Group. By extension, that would apply to its dual-socket equivalent that follows the soon-to-be-out Gainestown Nehalem EP. Another point, just confirmed today, is that the 45nm 8-core biggie, the 'Beckton' Nehalem EX - critical to Intel's recapture of the 4-8 socket enterprise and HPC performance lead - is seemingly also a 1Q 2010 part. We really hoped that this part, expected to roll over its competition (both X86 and otherwise) would be out this calendar year, but looks like it's not to be. Will the delay have any impact? If AMD doesn't suffer a premature death due to a possible Arab funding failure, it should have more than just a DDR3, HT3-enabled smoother-scaling flavour of Shanghai. Those six-corers like Istanbul, and even a 12-core MCM version - provided the socket is big enough - are possible, too.

If any of these come out at a time close to the first quarter of 2010, it will pose some competition to Beckton. How much? Depends on what AMD can deliver performance-wise. Whatever the monster multi processor update is from AMD then, it won't (or shouldn't) run at less than 2.8GHz clock-wise. Meaning that Intel may have to go above 2.66 GHz for the Beckton launch if it does happen in early 2010. As for the UP and DP, with an updated stepping past the most recent D0, Intel should be able to ratchet up the Gainestown on DP and Bloomfield on UP to 3.6 GHz by year end. It should keep it well ahead even of DDR3-enabled Shanghai, at least unless AMD decides to release the six-corer in UP and DP package before the Gulftown cometh. In summary, the 2010 (re)schedule of Gulftown and Beckton doesn't impact the Intel performance position in any meaningful way, but it does give AMD an opening to grab a head start, at least in the MP market, where its Shanghai MP Opterons do keep ahead of FSB'd Dunningtons in HPC stuff as of now. The DP and UP segments remain led by Intel, unless AMD pulls a naughty speed surprise out of the bag in the meantime. ( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

Source

NVIDIA has announced two bits of good (but unrelated) news for the firm, saying its ION platform had gained certification for Windows Vista Home Premium and that Intel is taking out an SLI license from the Goblin. Nvidia reckons its ION platform, a combination of Intel's Atom processor and NV's GeForce 9400M GPU, coupled with so called 'Premium' versions of the Vole's Windows, will give little lappies much bigger graphics capabilities. Mightysoft obviously agrees, having given Nvidia the green light to deliver 1080p video, support for Microsoft's DirectX 10 gaming, support for Vista's Aero Glass and Flip3D. Nvidia says it will immediately set to work with the Redmond Giant, as well as a merry band of PC manufacturers, software developers, and Windows eco-system partners. Vista Home Premium might also wind up in Ion-based desktop computers or bigger notebooks. Much-anticipated Vista replacer Windows 7 is also expected to work on ION-based machines and might even put in an appearance by the summer in mini notebooks which both companies swear blind will start at around the US$299 mark. As for Nvidia's other coup of the day, the firm said Intel has humbly asked to take out an SLI licence, which will allow Intel-based machines to use multiple graphics chips at the same time. The licence gives Chipzilla the right to use SLI in its chipsets, like on the DX58SO motherboard for the Intel Core i7 microprocessor. ( www.atomicmpc.com.au )

Source