Deus EX OC PC

A very shiny gaming PC from Deus Ex that, though pricey, is hard not to like.

You know you're in for something special when a PC arrives not in a standard cardboard box, but a heavy wooden shipping crate. Opening Deus Ex's new system was not unlike one of those scenes in a movie where the hero opens some long lost crate, searching for rare antiquities or stolen treasure. We only wish the thing was nailed shut, not conveniently latched, so we could get the full crowbar experience!

In fact, 'full experience' is probably the phrase we used more than any other while getting to know this system, as Deus Ex has not only delivered a kick arse, pre-overclocked PC with a smooth custom paint job, but it's nailed the customer service aspect down better than any other manufacturer we've come across.

But first, just what's in this beast?

When, the specs above tell the tale pretty thoroughly, but we have to say that this is pretty much a near perfect mix of components. In fact, it's very nearly identical - down to the case - to our own Justin Robinson's home rig! Even the choice of hard drives is well thought, with a faster system drive that also has enough room for games, and a larger storage drive for larger files that don't necessarily need such speedy access. The aftermarket cooler is a lovely copper Zalman sink and fan combo, very popular amongst vendors that sell OCed gear, and the RAM is well considered two sticks of 2GB Corsair DDR3. This means there's space to upgrade, and you still get the immediate benefit of the 64-bit OS.

And all that great gear has been lovingly cabled to within an inch of its silicon life. All cable slack has been neatly stored away behind the mobo back plate. In fact, it's so tightly stored there that you remove that side-panel at your own risk - it's hard to get back on! The HDD's SATA cables are nice and long, meaning you never put them under strain when sliding the drives out of their bays, too.

As to the custom spray job? Well, that's a matter for personal taste - it's certainly striking, though whether it's worth it to you enough to lay down a shade over $400 for... well, at least it's one saving you might be able to make. We can say the quality of the job is superb, though, and the mirror finish has to be seen to be believed.

But all the looks in the world won't save a system from our wrath if it can't perform. Thankfully, Deus Ex has that department covered too.

One of the fastest - and most expensive - systems we've looked at recently was the Pioneer DreamVision, in issue 92. It topped 22,000 3Dmarks in the 06 version of the program, and could handle our Crysis benching with near disdain. It also cost over $6,000.

Deus Ex's effort is of course below that stupendous effort, but its 20,149 3DMarks is not far off, and at a significant cost saving. It's faster than ScorpionTech's system from the same issue, too, though that is a complete system (monitor and all) for only a few hundred more. Then again, if you ditch the paint job and the Three Year Onsite warranty of this particular unit, you'd knock about $600 off the price.

Suddenly, this becomes a very competitive system.

Finally, there's also the excellent customer service to consider. Not only was the case shipped in a secure wooden crate, but in the bundle was a folder of documents for the 'new owner'. This includes a letter with the name of the engineer who built your system (plus his email), similar details for the airbrushing, full benchmarking results at stock and overclocked specs, plus a guide to reloading the overclocked settings if you should happen to suffer some BIOS related disaster. Even Deus Ex's overclocking is explained! Anyone who bought this machine could not help but feel looked after by the vendor. Even we felt kinda chuffed, and we're just reviewing it!

We think this machine hits the perfect sweet spot of performance to price, of bling to functionality. The art may not be your thing, but that's something you can easily tweak to your own liking, or ditch entirely to save some money. For the overall package, we can't help but call this the best PC we've seen from a builder this year.

Intel's Core i9 "Gulftown" Six-Core Processor Pictured

Getting bored with Core i7 already? That's okay, because word on the web is that Intel plans to release its six-core Gulftown processor sometime in the first half of 2010, and possibly by Q1.

What's believed to be the first product shots of the six-core part have been leaked to the web. Likely to be called Core i9, the pictures show off the new chips in a dual-socket motherboard that's either an existing Xeon-based socket LGA1366 mobo or a next-gen Skulltrail platform. Either way, that's 12 cores of processing power, and 24 cores with hyperthreading enabled.

According the alleged screen grabs, the engineering sample spied in the photos comes clocked at 2.4GHz courtesy of a 133MHz bus speed and 18X multiplier, along with 12MB of L3 cache.

Nokia Booklet 3G mini laptop unveiled

Nokia has just whipped the dust sheet off the Nokia Booklet 3G. A brand new breed of portable device for Nokia, this mini laptop PC sees the company step foot on freshly cut turf, and we’re a little dumb-struck with excitement at the prospect of the experience that this bite-size Booklet promises to deliver when it arrives. Not to mention what it means bigger picture, and how this product could affect the entire mobile landscape for the better (we’ll save that for another story), but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.

First, let’s get down off our tip-toes, take a deep breath, and soak up all the initial details on what the upcoming Nokia Booklet 3G mini laptop is set to deliver when it lands on laps. Read on for every shred of info currently available on this landmark new product, and get the first close-up look at the Nokia Booklet 3G mini laptop in our photo gallery.

The new Nokia Booklet 3G will be a Windows-based machine, supported by an efficient Intel Atom processor that promises the performance of a full-function PC. It’s efficiency credentials are boldly punctuated with battery life that stretches up to 12 hours (with normal daily use, of course – don’t expect a 12-hour Quake-fest off a single hit of juice).

Turning our attention to mini matters of a tape-measure nature, the Nokia Booklet 3G comes toting a glass 10.1-inch HD display (it has an HDMI port for HD video out). This lives within its smart aluminium shell which measures in at just 2cm thin and tips the scales at around a kilogram to ensure it’s extremely portable.

Connecting at speed is crucial with a product of this nature, so the Booklet 3G has been designed with fast downloading and uploading front of mind – it’s 3G/HSPA ready for rapid mobile broadband anywhere-access on the move. Wi-Fi has also been wedged into it’s slim body. Plus, it supports hot-swappable SIM card functionality.

It’s talents don’t end there, with Nokia’s mini laptop PC also featuring onboard assisted-GPS with Ovi Maps neatly sat in the passenger seat. There’s a single front-facing camera nestled above the 10.1-inch HD screen for video chat, with Bluetooth and a built-in SD card reader also making appearances.

You may be wondering why Nokia is adding to its range of products with an ultra portable laptop PC? Well, Nokia’s Executive Vice President for Devices, Kai Oistamo, summed it up simply as follows:

“A growing number of people want the computing power of a PC with the full benefits of mobility. We are in the business of connecting people and the Nokia Booklet 3G is a natural evolution for us. Nokia has a long and rich heritage in mobility and with the outstanding battery life, premium design and all day, always on connectivity, we will create something quite compelling. In doing so we will make the personal computer more social, more helpful and more personal.”

There’s already a lot of info to digest here, but there are still more details to come at Nokia World 09 on 2 September – expect official word on where the Nokia Booklet 3G will be available, news on how much it’ll cost, along with a detailed list of specs for the number-hungry among us.

In the meantime, share your opinions on the new Nokia Booklet 3G in the comments section below, and be sure to follow all our coverage of Nokia World 09 right here on Conversations.

Google Android Claws at Microsoft Soft Spot

Android is the newest flavor of Linux-based PC operating systems, and if it tasty enough, it could curb the appetite for Microsoft (MSFT Quote) Windows.

Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote) confirmed late Tuesday that it is studying the Android system for some of its netbooks. H-P is the No. 1 PC maker and eager to find an entry point in the low-cost sub-$400 netbook race. No. 2 player Dell is also expected to make its own push into netbooks facing the same cost concerns.

The economics of netbooks favor Android over the more expensive Microsoft Windows option.

Google's Android on netbooks "is the single biggest competitive threat to Microsoft ... beyond the rise of Apple in recent years," Collins Stewart analyst Sandeep Aggarwal wrote in a research note Wednesday.

To date, Linux-based netbooks have not significantly dented Microsoft Windows XP's popularity. But if Google's version catches on, it will have a measurable impact on Microsoft's bottom line, Aggarwal wrote.

"Every 10 million netbooks shipped without Windows translates into $230 million in lost revenue and $0.015 in lost earnings per share for Microsoft," Aggarwal estimates.

Microsoft's best hope to sustain its operating system leadership lies in its upcoming Windows 7 system. The Windows Vista successor is expected to work on a range of systems, including netbooks.

Microsoft can't afford to lose its grip on the growing netbook segment, given the threat Android already poses to its mobile phone software. In January, Motorola (MOT Quote) announced it was building all its new smartphones with Android operating systems this year.

With the Chrome OS, Google's software stack is revealed; Shrapnel everywhere

Google is planning to launch lightweight operating system dubbed the Chrome OS that’ll target netbooks and Web apps. With the move—clearly targeted at Microsoft—Google’s software stack has come into sharp focus in just the last 24 hours. It should be noted, however, that Google’s stack is still being formed.

Let’s be clear: Every tech vendor wants to sell you a stack of stuff. Microsoft’s stack is the best known and includes Windows, Office, Exchange, Sharepoint, Dynamics and other items. SAP has its stack encompassing every business process you can think of. Oracle will sell you everything from the database up to the middleware and apps. IBM has its middleware stack that rides shotgun with business intelligence, hardware and services. Security vendors play the same game. The list goes on and on.

With the Chrome OS announcement Google is entering the software stack game and it’ll have implications for Linux, the enterprise, the cloud and Microsoft (albeit much less than you’d think). Coupled with Google’s long overdue move to remove the “beta” tag from Google Apps the move into the operating system business all begins to add up.

Google’s stack looks like this (Techmeme):

* The Chrome OS;
* The Chrome browser;
* Google Apps (an office suite sans the beta tag);
* Android for mobile;
* The ad monetization model (search based obviously and focused on ‘free’ services);
* The cloud.

Dennis Howlett counterpoint: Google ChromeOS: have people given leave of their senses?

In a blog post, Google said that the open source Chrome OS will run on both x86 and ARM chips and will be in netbooks in 2010. Hardware partners include: Acer, Adobe, ASUS, Freescale, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments. The Chrome OS will focus on Web apps. Google said:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

If Google is successful it’ll find an audience readily, but enterprises will ask a lot of questions going forward. For instance, how secure will Chrome be? Can it run legacy apps? Where does it fit in my existing stack of stuff? Will consumers drag this OS into my infrastructure? will the Chrome OS be free? And can the Chrome OS be used as leverage against Microsoft?

Meanwhile, the Chrome OS announcement is largely a preannouncement. There won’t be anything to see for a year.

Also see: Microsoft, hoist by a Chrome petard

* Google Chrome OS is a game changer
* Google goes after Windows with launch of Chrome OS
* Google Chrome OS announced, It should just work

Google will be writing the Chrome OS from the ground up and it’ll be very interesting to see what the company cooks up without any legacy shackles. For instance, Windows can’t exactly sever 20 years worth of apps at the drop of a hat.

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The Chrome OS story will play out over the next year or so. Here’s a look at the items hit by Google OS shrapnel.

* Current desktop Linux players. Ubuntu who? Consumer open source operating systems like Ubuntu have received some interest, but mostly from hard core geeks. If Linux is losing the battle on the netbook to Microsoft now just imagine what’ll happen when Google enters the picture. Netbook operating systems will boil down to Google and Microsoft. Everything in the middle will be squeezed out. The Chrome OS is built on the Linux kernel, but if you’re a developer Google will begin to equal Linux. Why? Distribution and the cool factor.
* Hardware vendors. Suddenly netbook makers will have a lot more operating systems to offer. These offerings and configurations can be used more to sell more. The risk: Consumers may get confused.
* Web applications. Google Chrome will target Web apps initially and that’s great news for that intersection between rich Internet and desktop applications. Rest assured the Chrome OS-Google Apps bundle is coming.
* Microsoft. The Chrome OS isn’t likely to ding Windows 7 initially. Given Chrome’s limited scope in the beginning there may be a sliver of margin pressure on Microsoft. The battle in the long run will be interesting though.

If the operating system wars turn out to be as competitive as the browser showdown we could be en route to a nice innovation phase.

Google Docs now supports translation into 42 languages

Google Docs translate
Google has added a "translate document" option to the tools area of Google Docs. This lets you translate the text of any document to 42 languages. You can either replace the original file with the translation or copy the translation to a new document which you can share with collaborators or export as a DOC, HTML, PDF, RTF, TXT, or OpenOffice.org file.

You could also use the tool to import documents written in another language and translate them to one that you speak. Of course, the machine translations won't be any better than what we've come to expect from the Google Translate web service. But garbled machine translation is better than no translation... usually.

Translation is available for documents, but not for spreadsheets or presentations.

Apple, Google, Palm rule smart phones

Draw a line from Cupertino to Mountain View to Sunnyvale and then back to Cupertino, and you get what one technology analyst calls the Golden Triangle for smart phones.

These are the respective headquarters of Apple, Google and Palm, and collectively, they're pushing the pace of innovation for smart phones, creating a new center for mobile development and raising the bar on what consumers are coming to expect from the mini portable computers in their pocket.

Apple set the world on fire in 2007 with the iPhone, a powerful and slick mobile computer that was fun and easy to use. Google's Android operating system premiered last fall in the G1 from T-Mobile to strong reviews and will make its way onto 18 phones this year. And on June 6, Palm released the Palm Pre and its webOS, which many critics claimed was the closest competitor to the iPhone.

These companies, keep in mind, don't make the best-selling smart phone platforms; Nokia with its Symbian OS is the worldwide leader, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry OS leads in the United States. But the three valley companies, with their brand-new operating systems, are redefining the smart phone space with more intuitive interfaces, Internet integration and a focus on software that is forcing their more established rivals to scurry to catch up.

The gold standard

"Each of these organizations has raised the standard in their own individual way," said analyst J. Gerry Purdy of Frost & Sullivan, who coined the Golden Triangle term for the three companies. "Palm has multitasking and synergy, while with Android, you have a flexible and customizable user interface, and with Apple, you have a tightly integrated product. But they all have a user interface that is fluid and flexible. It's like three renditions of a piece of music expressed in different ways."

This is in contrast to competitors such as Research in Motion, Nokia and Microsoft, who all are riding legacy operating systems. The platforms have provided stable foundations for strong growth over many years but are having trouble living up to the more user-friendly and Web-intensive requirements set down by the Golden Triangle, analysts said.

In some ways, the emergence of these companies and their approaches to smart phones shouldn't be too surprising. Apple makes great hardware and software. Google is a power on the Internet, which is increasingly what these devices are all about. And Palm, despite stumbling in recent years with its aging Palm devices, has regained its sense of innovation in mobile devices, which helped put it on the map with the Palm Pilot personal digital assistants.

Full-blown computers

As smart phones have evolved from communication and e-mail devices into full blown computers, these three have drawn upon their natural strengths, learned from each other and pulled from the valley's history of software and Internet leadership to craft operating systems and devices that are becoming the new standard for smart phones.

"The minute the phones became real Internet devices, the valley took over," said Peter Yared, founder and CEO of San Francisco's Transpond, which helps companies develop applications for the Palm Pre and soon the iPhone. "When the phones were for communications and did e-mail, then a Canadian company could play. But once they moved beyond communications to computing, it's game over. The big boys are coming to take their candy away."

Andy Rubin, Google's senior director of mobile platforms, doesn't quite put it that way. But he says the latest operating systems offer a chance to build a new mobile experience from the ground up, focusing on ease of use, customization and the Internet.

"If you have a legacy operating system, you're hauling a lot of years of baggage, and that slows you down," Rubin said. "Because of rapid innovation today, you need to be agile to be on the train that's adopting the next trend of the Internet."

Rubin said a number of enabling technologies have fallen into place to make smart phones a big focus for the valley. He said improved device processing power and 3G data networks have turned the devices into powerful connected computers. And he said that bigger touch displays and better data pricing plans have opened up the opportunity for the valley to do what it does best: innovate.

"When all the pieces fall into place, the valley executes very well," he said.

While each platform is different, they share a number of similarities. They all have the ability to do multi-touch using more sensitive capacitive touch screens, they incorporate browsers built from the same WebKit technology, and they all host application stores for program downloads. And by and large, they all are simple enough to use without consulting a manual.

"At each of these places, you find a very rare individual who can look at computer interfaces and figure out how to make them work how you think they should work with a great deal of consistency and obviousness," said Ken Dulaney, an analyst with Gartner.

Playing catch-up

Nokia, Microsoft and RIM are not sitting still. Nokia started releasing touch-screen phones last fall and also formed the Symbian Foundation last year to open up the platform and encourage outside innovation. RIM started selling its first touch-screen device, the BlackBerry Storm, to mixed reviews last year and recently hired a user interface guru.

Microsoft is preparing to release phones with a new Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system, while a more robust 7.0 version is expected next year. And all three have launched or announced new mobile application stores.

"While Windows phones continue to be a popular customer choice, Microsoft is aggressively investing to make a smart phone work seamlessly with the Web and PC," said Scott Rockfeld, director of Windows Mobile.

Still, analysts believe they will have a harder time catching up to the innovation of the three valley companies. And as the iPhone, Palm Pre and Android devices win over more converts, they further tilt the marketplace in their favor.

"It's sort of a virtuous circle," said Forrester analyst Charles Golvin. "These devices appeal to audiences that are more attached to the Net and give them an experience that is better and that just accelerates this process."

Opera's Unite Is One Incredibly Bad Idea

I really don't know what the Opera folks are thinking. Peer-to-peer file-sharing services are the scourge of corporate networks everywhere, and now Opera wants to turn its browser into a platform for—well—file sharing.

It's not entirely clear what Opera is trying to do here. According to reports, the company's tech preview will allow users to share file, images, music and more from within their Opera browsers (Version 10, when it ships). The browser will have a little app that turns each PC into a Web server.

Of course, when every PC is a Web server, there will be traffic coming in and going out of desktop PCs that corporate networks are not really equipped to or want to handle.

Then there are the security implications. Unite lets users set permission levels for who can access their files, but one of these levels appears to be "completely open." That doesn't sound good. Ostensibly, you're sharing files with people you know, but I could envision someone setting up a link to their Opera Unite service that leads people to a file that's really malware. There's also music streaming. Again, I can't tell if Opera is planning to let Unite users aggregate and search for freely available files so someone can look for the Black Eyed Peas' latest single and stream (maybe download?) it from an open Unite server. Sounds really cool, except when that song is really a piece of malware.

I have to wonder if this will even work on most systems with effective security software. It has to access open ports to allow the two-way communication between a distant PC and the Opera Unite—enabled browser. I know this has been done before; Microsoft FrontPage used to install a Web server as part of its general installation. The thing was a pain in the neck that never worked really well. The whole concept of anyone serving Web content directly from their home and office PCs is rife with difficulties and pitfalls.

Even so, Opera folks say this is a game changer. I'd say they haven't been paying attention. For one thing, file sharing is not exactly the darling of the industry. For another, why would Opera do this now, when it has a golden opportunity to grow its minuscule market share? Microsoft just agreed to start selling a Windows 7 version this fall without Internet Explorer baked in, resulting in a golden opportunity for second-, third-, and fourth-tier browser manufacturers, who might finally have a chance to ship with new Windows 7 PCs—at least in Europe. Businesses certainly won't want to buy a PC that comes complete with file-sharing software built in. Teenage consumers will, but their parents won't (or at least shouldn't).

Opera has a good browser. I've used it quite a bit, though I treat it like the crazy cousin whom I can only stand to be around for a few days. Now, though, Opera's about to turn into the dangerous relative whom I never want to see. Please Opera, keep file sharing where it belongs, out of my laptop and off my business PCs.

Did I mention I think this is all a really bad idea?

CrossOver 8 Virtualization Software Released

Codeweavers has announced the release of CrossOver 8, a new version of its virtualization software for Intel-based Macs. Free for users with active support entitlements, CrossOver 8 comes in Standard and Pro versions for $40 and $70, respectively.

Based on the popular open-source WINE virtualization project, Crossover enables Intel-based Mac users to run Windows application software without needing Windows to be installed first. In this way, it's distinctly different from other virtualization software like Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, which requires an operating system to be installed as well.

New application support in CrossOver 8 includes Quicken 2009, Internet Explorer 7 and Photoshop CS2. A number of fixes have been made for MS Office 2003, MS Office 2007, QuickTime 7, Outlook 2000, FrameMaker and other applications. Other improvements include better dual-monitor support, improved copy and paste and more.

The Standard version lets Macs run all CrossOver-supported Windows apps. The Pro version includes CrossOver Games, enhanced deployability features, multi-user support and more.

Mac News: Daz 3D Releases New Version of Animation Program

Daz 3D announced a new free version of its 3-D art and animation package Tuesday while rolling out an enhanced version of the application featuring professional-level tools.

The free Daz Studio 3 promises improved OpenGL preview display with new camera and light pointer tools, depth of field, and support for version 8.5 of Pixar's RenderMan-compliant 3Delight render engine. Compatible with Mac OS X 10.4 and later, Daz Studio 3 is free to registered Daz 3D members.

Daz Studio 3 Advanced, which targets 3-D animators, designers, and illustrators, features advanced render effects and shaders, Collada import/export, animation keyframe editing, figure mixing, and support for 64-bit systems. The $150 application comes pre-configured with Daz 3D content that can be loaded and rendered at the push of a button.

The company also announced a Daz Studio Advanced Bundle. The $500 bundle combines Daz Studio 3 Advanced with a suite of advanced content creation plug-ins.--Philip Michaels

Monitoring app DutyWatch gets performance boost

ActyMac's DutyWatch is now at version 1.2. With the update, the application is now up to ten times faster, with a new database engine, warnings with SMTP support and bug fixes.

DutyWatch is employee monitoring software; it records keystrokes typed and Web site visits, chats, employee e-mails and screenshots. The software features charts and graphics showing applications and keyboard usage, exports to other formats and more. Compatible with OS X 10.4 and 10.5, DutyWatch costs $100.

Quartz filter support, menu commands highlight Combine PDFs update

The PDF merger-and-split tool Combine PDFs now supports Quartz filters, sports improved memory usage for combining larger files, and adds several new menu commands. The changes are part of the Combine PDFs 4.3 update released by Monkeybread Software on Tuesday.

Combine PDFs is a $30 program that lets users merge PDF files and images into a single PDF file; the application also splits a PDF file into a new file with interleaved pages from two different PDFs.

Support for Quartz filters lets users apply effects to content while writing the PDF file. Combine PDFs provides a preview panel that shows a selected page looks with when a filter is applied.

New menu commands let Combine PDFs users reorder pages for duplex 2-on-1-page book printing and remove blank pages. What's more, version 4.3 adds German and French localization.--PM

Pages Clipart 4.0 adds 100 more images

Jumsoft's Pages Clipart 4.0 expands the developer's selection of illustrations for presentations, invitations, Web pages, posters, and other documents with 100 new additions to the existing 200 images.

Image themes vary from office stationery to food, with the additions touching on vacation and leisure themes, as well as miscellaneous items. Jumsoft says there are more colors in this batch, aimed at enhancing users' documents.

Pages Clipart 4.0 runs on OS X 10.4.3 and later and is compatible with iWork '06 and later. The software costs $39; users of version 3.0 can upgrade for $19.--PM

New Version of Google Maps for Android Released

Google has released an upgrade to the mapping software built into Android-powered phones. This includes some new features and fixes a few bugs.

The latest version of Google Maps for Android offers voice search, making it easier to look up places while on the go. When searching for a business, the listings now include content such as store hours, prices, ratings, and reviews.

The new version also adds transit and walking directions. This allows users to get directions using public transportation in over 250 cities, including New York City and San Francisco.

In addition, Street View has been integrated it more tightly into Google Maps for Android, Users can now check out Street View directly from any search result where imagery is available. They can also long-press any point on the map, in map view or satellite view, and see a Street View thumbnail wherever imagery is available.

Latitude Improvements
Many of the improvements in the new version on in the Latitude service, which allows users to share their location with their friends. A bug that caused background location updates to periodically stop for some people has been fixed.

It also has an experimental feature called Updates that lets users easily send messages to friends when they're at interesting locations.

Downloading Instructions
Unlike past Android software updates, the new Google Maps release isn't being automatically pushed to the T-Mobile G1 or HTC Magic. Instead, the upgrade is available for download in the Android Market.

To find it, search for "Google Maps" in the on-device software store, and install the update.

New Technologies Showcase IT's Importance

IT managers can make a difference as they adopt new IT management and provisioning technologies. There's much to get right -- or get wrong.

NEW YORK -- Gartner's cloud expert and infrastructure guru Thomas Bittman said that IT departments' use of cloud and virtualization technologies will enable their companies to succeed or fail.

"IT is a differentiator. IT does matter," he said in a presentation at the Wall Street Tech Association's seminar "Cost Effective IT-The Power of Virtualization." Bittman's theme played off that of Nicholas Carr's book Does IT Matter? which claimed that IT expertise is a commodity that will not determine a company's success or failure.

Bittman said that there's one bottom line metric that IT organizations can use as a self-assessment: What percentage of the budget is spent on maintaining existing infrastructure versus spending on new projects. He said that he had talked to one organization that was spending 80 percent of the entire IT budget just to stay in the place. The norm, he said, is closer to 60 percent, and such organizations have room to innovate and can eventually reach 40 percent.

Although companies can get better, the laggards risk falling behind in a permanent way. "The gap between the well managed and the badly managed is growing," he said.

Gartner has a more complex self-assessment tool called the Infrastructure Opportunities Maturity Model, or IOMM, that Bittman said Microsoft has adopted.

The virtualization factor

Infrastructure maturity starts with virtualization. Bittman said that although only about 15 percent of servers are virtualized now, he expects that to grow to over half by 2012. This change will certainly affect the virtualization market. "It will change from one vendor in 2008" he said, undoubtedly referring to market leader VMware), "to a competitive market with one vendor that had a very good foot in the door," he said.

However, he admitted, some business managers resist the idea of virtualization. Bittman said he knows of at least one case of a company that has implemented virtualization but pretends to the line of business managers that their applications still reside on one server. "They implemented virtualization without telling their customers. They left the stickers on the servers and did not tell the line of business," he said.

Virtualization certainly makes some things more complex. For example, it breaks software licensing. Bittman warned that some companies will tout virtualization-friendly licensing but that IT managers should avoid these new pricing models as they are likely to cost more. "You cannot price software based on the power of the box it runs on if that software is flying around the datacenter," he said.

Anyone who subscribes to these new pricing models will be subject to the whims of software providers who do not yet know how to price in the new market and are offering the models as an experiment. "Be a scientist, not a subject," he said.

The adoption of virtualization will also hurt hardware sales at first. But as organizations finally begin to fully utilize the servers they have, it will eventually drive demand in the x86 server market to heights unseen before, he said.

That's because virtualization produces greater demand for servers from businesses. In fact, server demand rises so fast that IT administrators will need to keep a very close eye on usage and will need to understand costs.

He said that IT administrators should try to bill the lines of businesses for the costs of services used, but acknowledged that it might not be a practical idea. "Managers are worried about virtual sprawl and need to create friction to prevent it. The decision to deploy a virtual machine must be a business decision."

He warned that those that fail to control virtualization sprawl will see virtual environments cost more than the client-server deployments they replace.

Be on alert for 'cowboy activity'

Indeed Howard Fingeroth, vice president of infrastructure architecture at XL Capital (NYSE: XL) said that he brings in his virtualization vendor regularly for periodic health checks to ensure that there's no "cowboy activity" in his company's deployment -- which consists of 500 virtual machines (and 1,100 physical servers sitting outside the virtual environment) supporting 70 offices in 27 nations.

Bittman said that those that succeed will adopt virtualization for the cost savings but keep deploying it for the agility it delivers. Fingeroth said that virtualization has enabled him to deliver high availability for applications that are not cluster aware and that it had reduced the time required to provision a server from 4 weeks to 2.5 days.

Fingeroth added that virtualization has enabled him to better use storage (his operation includes iSCSI, NAS, and SAN technologies) and better use servers, increasing their life from 4 years to 5 years. Finally, it has allowed him to cut infrastructure costs and reduce the number of system administrators he employs.

PDF Flaw Patched -- But Does Anybody Know?

As expected, Adobe patched a zero-day vulnerability in its popular Adobe Reader software last week, marking the second time in three months that it delivered an update on the same day Microsoft issued its monthly fixes.

But while Microsoft's PowerPoint patch received lots of attention, the Adobe update should be at the top of people's to-do list, a security expert said today.

"Adobe's is more important than Microsoft's," said Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer at Qualys. "Even though Microsoft's had more visibility, if you have to choose between the two, you should patch Adobe. [Reader] is pretty much everywhere, attackers are increasing exploiting it and [PDF] is a widely-used corporate format."

The Reader vulnerability has been patched for all platforms in the free Reader 8 and 9, as well as in the corresponding versions of Adobe Acrobat, the for-pay PDF creation and editing application, the company said Tuesday.

Adobe's security advisory did not spell out the nature of the vulnerability, but earlier the company's security team had recommended that users disable JavaScript, indicating that the flaw was another bug in those applications' implementation of the scripting language.

Lack of detail is nothing new for Adobe's advisories; in March, when it patched another JavaScript bug in the same software, it also refused to provide anything more than general information because, while it had issued some updates, it had not managed to patch every version.

This week, Adobe updated Reader and Acrobat 9 to version 9.1.1, Reader and Acrobat 8 to version 8.1.5, and Reader and Acrobat 7 to version 7.1.2. But just as Microsoft did with its PowerPoint patch, Adobe stiffed Mac users. "Adobe expects to make available Adobe Reader 7 and Acrobat 7 updates for Macintosh before the end of June," the company said.

Adobe has staged updates in the past; in March the company said that waiting until all patches were ready for the February bug "just didn't make sense."

According to data from Finnish security company F-Secure, patching PDF bugs is critically important. So far this year, of the 663 targeted attacks F-Secure's uncovered -- targeted meaning attacks aimed at specific organizations or companies, or even individuals -- nearly half of them have relied on exploits of Adobe Reader vulnerabilities.

In the first four months of 2009, 48.9% of all targeted attacks involved a malicious PDF file attached to a legitimate-looking e-mail, said F-Secure, a dramatic change from 2008, when PDFs made up just 28.6% of target attacks. Previously, exploits of bugs in Microsoft Office's applications -- Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- made up the bulk of attacks.

"Why has it changed? Primarily because there have been more vulnerabilities in Adobe Acrobat/Reader than in the Microsoft Office applications," said Patrik Runald, chief research advisor at F-Secure, in a post to the company's blog last week.

Links to the Reader and Acrobat updates for Windows, Mac and Linux have been posted on Adobe's site.

Cisco Intros Latest Version of Network Magic Suite of Network Management Software for Home Networks

Cisco, a communications company, recently announced that it has updated its ‘Network Magic’ suite of network management software, which includes useful tools that enables consumers to easily setup, manage, and help secure their home networks.

A recent home networking survey conducted by ABI Research (News - Alert) indicates that one in three consumers experience difficulty setting up their home network. In this regard, Cisco developed Network Magic suite of network management software that - allows users to add new computers and devices; shares music, photos, files, and printers; manages and troubleshoots Internet and network connections; and helps block intruders from accessing the user’s wireless network.

The updated suite offers a new dynamic, interactive network map along with more intuitive navigation features, support for more types of networked consumer devices, support for 33 languages, an updated user interface (UI), comprehensive parental controls, and simplified access to printer and file sharing (from within Network Magic).

The latest release of Network Magic includes Network Magic Basic, Network Magic Essentials, and Network Magic Pro.

The Network Magic Basic features network mapping capabilities, guided wizards, viewable device details, centralized dashboards, wireless connection wizard, network device addition, wireless security setup, network intruder detection, Internet connection repair, and support for up to eight computers. A 30-day trial of Home Network Defender and 7-day trial of Network Magic Pro will be offered, said the company.

The Network Magic Essentials is for users who require the basic functionality. This software helps in solving issues with routers or utilizing the file and printer sharing capabilities and more. It can support a maximum of three computers and includes most of the features of Network Magic Basic.

The Network Magic Pro is a set of software applications for managing and securing the network with ease. It includes all the functionalities of Network Magic Essentials along with support for network attached storage devices, Internet access controls, real-time screenshot capabilities and daily usage reports that help in monitoring computer on the network.

In addition, Cisco (News - Alert) also announced that its Network Magic Basic will now be included with all Linksys by Cisco wireless routers, thereby making Network Magic Basic as the default network management tool of allLinksys ( News - Alert) by Cisco wireless routers. Users of Linksys by Cisco routers can download the software for free from networkmagic.com.

The new interactive network map along with more intuitive navigation feature present in Network Magic suite allows -- simplified access to printer and file sharing; adding wireless devices easily; and support for a broader range of devices than earlier generations of Network Magic. Al these features make the updated version more consumer-friendly, says company.

Additionally, new regional server support is provided for better measurement of local services via Network Magic SpeedTest function. Even Network Magic Mac add-on is provided that offers easy setup for cross-platform sharing of files and printers by PC and Macs on a home network, said the company.

Seattle tech firms anticipate Windows 7 opportunities

Tacoma-based software company IdentityMine Inc. has developed a niche in the underlying technology for “natural user interfaces,” as they’re known in the industry — betting, for example, that PC users will increasingly control their computers by touching their screens.
And it’s banking on Microsoft Corp.’s Windows 7 to help make it happen.
The strategy isn’t without risk, as evidenced by the troubled tenure of the current Windows Vista operating system. But the industry is looking at Windows 7 as a fresh start, and IdentityMine isn’t the only one hitching its business to the new version of Microsoft’s flagship program.
Windows 7’s upcoming release is creating a glimmer of hope in an otherwise gloomy technology market. PC makers, chip manufacturers, retailers, software companies, technology service providers and others have begun to gear up for the release — particularly following Microsoft’s announcement May 11 that Windows 7 will debut this year, in time for the critical holiday shopping season.
“It’s going to bring a huge amount of awareness,” said Lu Silverstein, IdentityMine’s senior vice president of products and services, discussing Windows 7’s new touch technologies. Silverstein, who came from Microsoft last year, cited the marketing blitz that accompanies a big Windows release.
Other companies are thinking along the same lines. The potential business benefits of Windows 7 have come up repeatedly in recent conference calls, news releases and regulatory filings from such companies as PC maker Dell; business technology firms Citrix Systems and FullArmor; sound company Dolby Laboratories; and chip makers Cypress Semiconductor, Nvidia, and AMD; among others.
In many cases, the expected benefit comes from improved technologies under the hood in Windows 7 that will work with advanced software or components from those companies.
For example, better graphics technologies in Windows 7 could boost demand for dedicated graphics processors by generating new interest in a better visual experience, AMD executive Bob Rivet told Wall Street analysts in April, according to a transcript of the conference call.
Similarly, IdentityMine expects to benefit from Windows 7’s support for multi-touch technologies — the ability to use multiple fingers on a screen, as a supplement or replacement for a traditional keyboard and mouse. IdentityMine’s expertise in that area began with early work on specialized applications for Microsoft’s Surface tabletop computer.
It’s now working with other companies and software developers, offering its “Gesture Engine” to build touch features into Microsoft Surface and Windows 7 programs.
The company hasn’t been adding staff in anticipation of Windows 7’s release, but the related business has helped keep its employment levels steady this year — which is increasingly rare in the down economy. IdentityMine has 68 full-time employees, 38 of them in Washington .
Some in the industry hope interest in Windows 7 will fuel PC sales. Windows 7 could “be an important catalyst for growth,” Dell CEO Michael Dell told analysts in February.
That would put the new operating system somewhere ahead of Windows Vista but still well behind the blockbuster Windows 95 in terms of impact on the personal-computer market.
The big wild card is the economy. Worldwide PC shipments were down 7 percent in the first quarter, as the difficult economy put a crimp on purchases, according to market-research firm IDC .
And not everyone is convinced Windows 7 will lift PC purchases.
“I do not think there is any pent-up demand with respect to the (Windows 7) release, and so it is not having any effect on our business whatsoever,” said Kristin Rogers, vice president of marketing for catalog retailer PC Mall Inc., during a May 6 conference call with analysts.
“A new operating system hasn’t moved the market for a long time,” agreed Matt Rosoff, an analyst at the Kirkland-based Directions on Microsoft research firm, saying he generally doesn’t expect Windows 7 to make people buy new computers at a faster rate than they otherwise would have.
Among computer enthusiasts, there does seem to be demand for Windows 7, said Jon Bach, president of Puget Systems Inc., an Auburn-based custom computer maker. Many of them want a modern operating system that can work effectively with 64-bit microprocessors, which can handle far more memory than 32-bit chips. But because of Windows Vista’s negative reputation, many computer users and companies have avoided it, sticking with Windows XP for now.
Windows 7 will probably be a “trigger point” for many tech enthusiasts to buy machines with the new operating system pre-installed, Bach said.
For Microsoft, at least, Windows 7 offers a chance at redemption. After a series of delays, Windows Vista fell flat upon its January 2007 retail launch — experiencing widespread software and hardware compatibility problems that kept many businesses and consumers from upgrading.

H-P Tries to Revive PC Sales With Touch Screens

Hewlett-Packard Co., seeking to revive the sagging desktop-computer business, has tried to woo consumers with sleek personal computers with glossy, touch-sensitive screens.
But the touch-screen PCs, which can cost twice as much as typical machines, have been slow to catch on. H-P only sold about 400,000 of its TouchSmart desktops last year, compared with 54 million traditional desktops and laptops, estimates research firm IDC.
So H-P is embarking on a new strategy to find commercial uses for the technology. Last month, H-P installed 50 touch-screen PCs in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport for travelers to access online maps and restaurant listings.
Hewlett-Packard
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, left, and H-P's Stephen DeWitt test a touch-screen PC at O'Hare Airport in March.
In Michigan, H-P's touch screens are being put into luxury boxes in the Detroit Pistons' arena, where basketball fans can use them to access player statistics and see instant replays.
The commercial touch-screen effort is key to generating growth, since companies will "buy 10 TouchSmarts at a time" and not just one like an individual would, said Phil McKinney, an H-P chief technology officer overseeing the touch-screen project.
H-P's PC business will be closely watched when the Palo Alto, Calif., giant reports quarterly earnings on Tuesday. Desktop sales, which accounted for 38% of the $8.8 billion in revenue for H-P's PC division in the quarter ended Jan. 31, have been hit hard by the recession and a consumer shift towards laptops.
Desktop prices have also been falling. While it has fared better than rivals, H-P sold 15% fewer desktops last quarter than the same period a year earlier, and desktop revenue was down 25%.
The deteriorating desktop PC market is a problem for H-P Chief Executive Mark Hurd, who revived the company's once money-losing PC division and helped H-P solidify its spot as the world's largest PC maker in terms of shipments.
Still, H-P's PC division saw its operating margin, a measure of profitability, shrink to 5% in the January-ended quarter, down from 5.8% a year earlier.
Touch screens can help H-P combat that profit decline, analysts say. The average consumer desktop, excluding machines from Apple Inc., sold for $531 in March, down 6.7% from a year earlier, according to NPD Group, which tracks retail sales. In contrast, H-P's cheapest TouchSmart model has a list price of $1,200.
Uniguest Inc., a Nashville-based company that provides PCs with Internet access to hotels, began in January installing TouchSmart PCs in about two dozen hotels like the Nashville Airport Marriott.
"We're really pushing the new touch-screen technology," said Shawn Thomas, Uniguest's CEO. He said his company is paying between $1,200 and $1,600 per TouchSmart, but is in talks with H-P to place a large order and hopes to get a discount.
H-P isn't the only PC maker trying to boost falling desktop sales. Dell Inc. has introduced desktops in compact cases made of materials like bamboo and clear plastic, and earlier this year it also released a touch-screen desktop. Taiwan's Asustek Computer Inc. also entered the touch-screen market last year.
H-P is offering the assistance of hardware and software consultants from its services division to help customers come up with new uses for touch technology.
The strategy pits H-P against rivals like International Business Machines Corp., which has long sold touch-screen computers to do things like print out airline boarding passes. IBM is also putting public computer kiosks into restaurants and retail stores.
Norma Wolcott, vice president of IBM's kiosk business, said IBM has tailored its touch screens, software and services for business use, arguing H-P's TouchSmart is more suited to consumers.
"It's what you want in your kitchen" and not in a high-traffic place like an airport, she said of the TouchSmart.
Bob Ducey, an H-P executive who is leading the TouchSmart's commercial marketing, said competitors like IBM are selling computers that do a single task -- such as printing out movie tickets -- rather than access a range of information over the Web. In contrast, Mr. Ducey said, the TouchSmart can be used to access information much like a home PC.
At the Palace in Auburn Hills arena near Detroit, a small company called Konsyerzh LLC plans to install 35 new TouchSmart machines by June. Gregory Nasto, the company's CEO, said Konsyerzh has developed programs that let fans access instant replays and order food and merchandise.
Mr. Nasto said he could end up spending up to $1,200 per machine but he's trying to negotiate additional discounts. He expects touch-screen PC prices to drop further in the next year as more competitors enter the field.
Recently, he said, Dell salespeople made a pitch for him to buy a competing touch-screen PC.

DisplayLink Releases Linux Source Code for Its USB Graphics Processors

LGPL Library Allows For the Development of Big Screen Connectivity for Linux devices
Interop Las Vegas 2009
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today DisplayLink is taking steps to bring its USB display technology, formerly only available on Windows and Mac, to Linux. DisplayLink’s chips enable one or more high resolution displays to be connected via the standard, universal USB 2.0 connector. The library released today enables the creation of Linux software – X Servers, drivers, and other applications – which will work with the growing universe of products using DisplayLink technology.
The library is provided under the GNU Lesser General Public License v2 (LGPL), enabling software to be ported by the community to cover the widest possible range of processors, platforms, and applications. This ultimately enables companies to create products which will work on the full variety of Linux devices like netbooks, notebooks, mobile Internet devices, mobile phones, embedded displays, embedded devices, digital signage, and more.
“We are enabling those in the Linux community to take DisplayLink USB graphics technology and apply it to new and exciting range of applications,” said Jason Slaughter, director of marketing at DisplayLink. “DisplayLink technology can be found in many USB connected monitors, universal docking stations, and projectors, and there are thousands of Linux-based devices that could benefit greatly from the plug and display simplicity of USB graphics.”
In order to encourage the development of the best possible support for USB displays in Linux, DisplayLink has partnered with Novell, developer of SUSE Linux. “Novell works with hardware partners, like DisplayLink, to provide support for a wide range of devices in SUSE Linux Enterprise,” said Carlos Montero-Luque, vice president of business and product management at Novell. “Support for DisplayLink USB graphics devices will build on the broad hardware support already available in SUSE Linux Enterprise for notebooks, netbooks, and desktops and will give customers greater flexibility in choosing which device they use.”
DisplayLink has also partnered with the Linux Driver Project (LDP) in an effort to accelerate the development of Linux drivers for DisplayLink USB devices. “The LDP started out as a single place for hardware manufacturers to contact in order to get drivers written for their devices for free,” said Greg Kroah-Hartman, Linux kernel developer and head of the Linux Driver Project, “We are now a group of more than 200 Linux kernel developers committed to improving Linux support for new hardware devices, like DisplayLink USB graphics.”
For companies building unique products on top of Linux, technology consulting companies such Endurance Technology in the UK, and InoScope in Poland are also available to provide paid development and support services for DisplayLink devices, also building on the DisplayLink LGPL library.
“By providing the widest possible support for DisplayLink devices under the LGPL license, we combine the ubiquitous connectivity of USB and the kind of universal device coverage only possible with Linux to creating an ideal breeding ground for innovation on DisplayLink’s hardware platform,” added Slaughter.
For more information about the DisplayLink LGPL Library project or to download the source code, go to www.displaylink.org.
About DisplayLink
DisplayLink Corp. (www.displaylink.com) is a chip and software company that enables easy connectivity between computers and displays over standard interfaces like USB, Wireless USB, and Ethernet. Its innovations make it easy to incrementally expand the desktop visual workspace at significantly lower cost and power than traditional solutions. DisplayLink technology can transmit graphically rich content between a single device and multiple displays over relatively low-speed busses and networks. Leading global manufacturers have integrated DisplayLink USB graphics – a 2008 PC Magazine Technical Excellence Award winner - into an array of PC accessories including monitors, docking stations, display adapters and projectors. Shop DisplayLink enabled USB graphics products at www.displaylink.com/shop.

Microsoft's Software Pipeline Set to Burst

LOS ANGELES -- If there was one revelation at this week's Microsoft TechEd conference it was that the company's product pipeline is stuffed with new software timed for release in the next seven to 12 months that will force corporate IT to deftly plan and strategize how it wants to deal with the onslaught.

Four of Microsoft's major platforms are queued up to be released near the end of 2009 or early 2010.

Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010 are all slated to ship by year-end, as is the company's new identity federation platform, Geneva.

On the heels of all that is another granddaddy Microsoft platform -- Office 2010, which is slated to ship early in 2010 and includes the wildly popular SharePoint Server under the Office product family banner.

Behind that heavy-hitter lineup of software, each one individually capable of providing IT with an upgrade cycle that extends well past 12 months, is a new version of SQL Server and an appliance version of the database for massively parallel processing that will come in the first half of 2010

Users trying to make sense of it all can add to the mix a handful of code-named projects that includes new Application Server technology for Internet Information Server (Dublin); a client console for Forefront security software (Stirling); a distributed cache system for clustering technology (Velocity); and a componentized version of Windows Embedded for devices (Quebec). All that software will be available in late 2009 and throughout 2010.

This week's TechEd agenda was jammed with sessions centered on no fewer than 10 code-named future products.

"In the tech sector there is a lot of planning and strategy going on," says Karen Hobert, principal analyst at Top Dog consulting. "When the dust settles, people may strategize around all this and figure out how to balance cost with operational innovation."

Hobert says the economy is forcing CIOs to take a collective inhale and a wait-and-see attitude. She says IT is doing more strategy and planning these days because gaffes are difficult to overcome.

The Department of Labor's February jobs report statistics show some evidence of that thinking. Technical consulting jobs were up nearly 3% in February 2009 as compared with the same month in 2008.

Other evidence is coming directly, and loudly, from Microsoft, which is offering planning advice that has never been clearer.

Stop Testing Vista, Microsoft Says

At TechEd, keynote presenter Bill Veghte, senior vice president for the Windows business, said companies testing Vista should stop and move to testing Windows 7. The same advice was repeated for users who have not yet moved to Exchange 2007; they were told to skip it and wait for 2010.

The advice is a marked change from Microsoft's typical straddling act in which users are rarely publicly encouraged to abandon one upgrade plan for the impending release of the new version of a product.

"[Microsoft] is being brutally honest," Top Dog's Hobert says.

Users who have sifted through the haze say a strong focus in needed going forward.

John Ritter, IT manager in the School of Business at the University of Vermont, says the school is actively testing Windows 7 in its lab.

"We want to leverage XP Mode for a financial services app we have that doesn't run on Vista," he says, noting that Windows 7 solves a need the school has now.

Ritter says the department has a high tolerance for trying new technology, but that attitude doesn't eliminate strategy.There are also plans to roll out Windows Server 2008 R2 to take advantage of new group policy features that will help with power management and cost cutting. And he says Exchange 2010 is under the microscope because users won't have a migration option and will be forced to do more difficult upgrades when moving from Exchange 2007.

The same issue was on the top of the list for another IT manager from a state government agency who asked that his name not be used.

"We are going to have to carefully plan out the upgrade because we don't have any budget to get another machine, which we would need," he says.

Clearly, with all the software released by Microsoft in the next year, choices will have to be made and the clearest indication of what those choices are could come in July when Microsoft reports its earnings, including the depth of corporate renewals on Enterprise Agreement (EA) contracts. Those volume licensing agreements run for three years and give users licenses for software, most notably Windows and Office. And a significant portion of those contracts historically expire in Microsoft's fiscal fourth (April to June).

With Windows 7 shipping in the next seven months, volume-licensing customers will likely renew EA contracts, which would give users the rights to the new client operating system.

In addition, generally favorable user reviews coming out of TechEd on Windows Server 2008 R2 could lead companies to cover Core Client Access Licenses on their EA contracts. With those client access rights, users would be inclined to look at the new version of Exchange and SharePoint Server 2010.

The results could either be a perfect storm for Microsoft with major product releases carefully planned to coincide with an important milestone in the IT buyer's upgrade cycle, or a roar that falls on nearly deaf ears and severely deflated corporate wallets.

Yesterday Lenovo revealed its IdeaPad S10-2 netbook, featuring 3G connectivity and Dolby headphone technology.

Yesterday Lenovo said that its IdeaPad S10-2 netbook will be available by the end of May, with models starting at $349 over on Lenovo's website and other "business partners." The company designed the new netbook for entertainment buffs looking for a device capable of streaming online TV while providing social networking, digital photography, and more multimedia goodness on one device. With models offering 3G and Dolby headphone technology, consumers can experience music and movies usually reserved for laptop devices.

According to the company, the new IdeaPad S10-2 is thinner and lighter than the previous IdeaPad S10 netbook currently listed on the website. The new model also sports an "expressive, colorful new ring pattern design" printed on the top cover (in a choice of grey, pink, white, or black) so the device looks hip and cool, and not quite as nerdy as the hardware Tuan drags around the office. Weighing just over two pounds and measuring just under an inch thick, the netbook doesn't feel like luggage, or hog up excessive desktop space.

Although Lenovo slimmed down the netbook (compared to the previous model), the company managed to retain a keyboard that's 90-percent the size of a standard keyboard, making it easier for consumers to comfortably chat online or flame writers on the Tom's forum without having to condense keystrokes. In addition to the keyboard, the IdeaPad S10-2 provides additional improvements over the previous model such as three USB ports, a 4-in-one card reader, and a battery that can hold a six-hour charge thanks to the netbook's battery saving software, achieving up to 30-percent more life than before. But while the new model features a lighter, slimmer figure, the weight loss comes with a price: a slightly smaller display, now 10.1-inches compared to the IdeaPad S10's 10.2-inch display.

What caught our eye in regards to this netbook is that it offers a 3G connectivity (on certain models). The company made many references to "on demand," whether it's connecting the netbook anywhere with a wireless connection, to using Lenovo's QuickStart feature to launch applications on the fly. The netbook even saves time when logging in, using VeriFace facial recognition technology to grant users access to the netbook without the need for typed passwords. VeriFace actually uses the netbook's built-in web camera to scan and approve the user's face, however the camera isn't locked by the software, and can be used for other applications such as Skype calling, video message recording, or to launch one of those kinky "Live Cam" websites Marcus likes to frequent.

“With the netbook scene rapidly changing, consumers are telling us they want to merge the capabilities of their most commonly used sources of electronic entertainment, such as digital photographs, online TV, music and social networks all into one portable and affordable device,” said Dion Weisler, vice president, Business Operations, Idea Product Group, Lenovo. “We’ve incorporated that feedback into our new IdeaPad S10-2 netbook, giving consumers around the world more ways to connect with options for wireless connectivity, a more portable and expressive design and entertainment-packed features.”

Unfortunately, Lenovo didn't bother to send any hardware specs outside the meager helpings found here. The company did offer a few tidbits, saying that the IdeaPad S10-2 uses the latest Intel Atom processor, a 10.1-inch LED screen, and "plenty of hard drive storage." The netbook also offers Dolby headphone technology, allowing consumers to plug in any headset and hear surround sound audio from 5.1 channels of sound. Other than this handful of clues, we're not exactly sure what each model with provide until Lenovo launches the product page by the end of the month. Still, this netbook shows promise, and with a (starting) pricetag of $349, the IdeaPad S10-2 doesn't seem to have any ideas of trageting the low-end netbook market.

The Reasons Behind Google and IBM Being Ahead of the Competition

Steve Mills, SVP of IBM Software (left), and Dr. John Kelly, SVP of IBM Research, view Stream Computing technology.
A huge population of red ants has bedeviled Texas farmers for years. By some estimates the insects cost state businesses close to $1 billion a year due to crop and machinery destruction. Killing the ants and their nests has not proven easy.

Texas A&M researchers have discovered that the phorid fly from South America will lay eggs on the fire ants and the maggots which are hatched eat away at the ant's brains, eventually causing their heads to fall off. Someone at the university was willing to underwrite the work to solve a problem. That investment was almost certainly much less than the $1 billion a year that fire ants cost businesses in the state. (See pictures of bug cuisine.)

A recession does not stop advancements in technology. It just makes companies so frightened of risk that they choose not to make the investment in the fire ant projects.

In the last week, the two most successful technology companies in the world, IBM (IBM) and Google (GOOG) have announced major new products. These are developments that will probably help the firms take business away from their competitors. The scope of the products' applications is broad enough that the R&D investment to create them must have been extensive.

IBM released "stream computing" applications that allow businesses to look at and analyze huge amounts of data in real time. Describing the product, IBM said "System S is built for perpetual analytics — utilizing a new streaming architecture and breakthrough mathematical algorithms, to create a forward-looking analysis of data from any source — narrowing down precisely what people are looking for and continuously refining the answer as additional data is made available." The ability to have access to that kind of information will undoubtedly be valuable to governments, the financial industry, and large multinationals with thousands of retail outlets. The new software is unique and does not appear to have any direct competition.

Google also announced a new set of products. The most important one allows the company's customers to take very large amounts of search data and organize it into spreadsheets. As it released the new tools and several other innovations, Google said they would "open up whole new ways of searching that haven't previously been available." Yahoo! (YHOO) does not have anything to compete with the new technology. Microsoft (MSFT) does not either, despite its unparalleled access to capital and software engineering talent. (See pictures of Bill Gates: The Early Years.)

The shares of Google and IBM have handily outperformed those of all the other large tech companies based in the U.S. such as Hewlett Packard (HPQ), Microsoft (MSFT), Cisco (CSCO), and Oracle (ORCL). Each of the companies is blessed with substantial earnings and technology staffs in the tens of thousands. But, the firms are not all viewed the same, at least by investors who trade tens of millions of their shares each day.

In most ways, IBM and Google are not like one another at all. IBM makes its money selling expensive hardware, client services, and software to companies, most of which are very large, and to governments. Google has millions of customers who pay nothing to use its services. It has millions of advertisers who spend money to reach people who look at search results and most of these marketers are very small. (See pictures of Google Earth.)

What the companies do have in common is a willingness to take risks, probably risks with long odds in order to launch new products. These products may be failures, but they are well enough researched and designed that they have a good chance of keeping IBM and Google ahead of the competition even if that does not immediately involve significant new revenue.

The fire ant problem never goes away. Unsolved problems in every industry cost companies money. Sometimes companies do not even know that their problems can be solved. The phorid fly is an obscure species. So is software that can analyze huge amounts of data in real time.

— Douglas A. McIntyre

New version of Windows ready for the holidays

If a new PC operating system is what you want for the holidays, Microsoft hopes to have just the thing.

The software giant says the next version of Windows will go on sale just in time for the holidays.

Microsoft published a nearly final version of Windows 7 last week for developers.

Windows 7 is intended to be the replacement for the much criticized Vista, which was launched too late for the 2006 holiday season.

The timing of the release could help give a much needed lift to PC sales, which have been slowed by the recession.

Google showcases new search technology

"Search options" will let people narrow a search to specific time periods, such as the past 24 hours.

"Squared" will compile subject matter in a spreadsheet-like display with facts given in columns. It is a useful format, for example, for someone checking various breeds of small dogs.

Google's use of mathematical algorithms is getting more sophisticated for sifting through web site data.

"Something is something, different tables, different structures, and then corroborating the evidence around whether or not something's a fact by looking at whether or not that fact occurs across pages," Vice President of Search Marissa Mayer said.

Google is also rolling out the "wonder wheel." It is a graphic way to suggest related searches.

Even with all these new tools, Google says it is trying to get information to people as quickly as possible. Nielsen NetRatings, a research company, says that people spend less time on Google than they do on MSN or Yahoo for searches, and Google says that is a badge of honor.

"Speed is the key; to us, speed is the most important thing, in fact, we measure ourselves in many different ways based on speed, how fast people get the answers," engineering Vice President Udi Manber said.

Google says search on mobile devices is the real growth area, and it is creating search displays that are easy to see and use on small screens with tiny keyboards.

"You type in a number -- your flight, you get the information right there, or you get the option to call the restaurant, right there on your phone because it is a mobile device, so let's take advantage of the hardware, pretty smart," David Needle of Internetnews.com said.

The next cool project Google working on? Skymap displays the stars over people's location, adjusting the view as the mobile device moves.

Cloud computing — simple and cost-effective IT

CHENNAI: When Netscape launched its Internet browser, nobody anticipated the kind of changes Internet would bring about in human behaviour and the interface with the external world. The much talked about “cloud computing” promises to change the way Information Technology people look at delivering IT and the way business people look at IT.

Consumers using the Internet are not aware of the location of the server or the delivery of information/service to them or the route taken by the data to travel. As technologies developed, vendors have started offering the entire range of services required by an organisation over the Internet safely and securely. This in a way refers to cloud computing.

In cloud computing, the user need not own the technology platform, technology infrastructure or required software. They become available like power at the press of a switch. In a way, much of capital expenses (hardware, infrastructure cost, etc) is converted into revenue expenses with cloud computing.

Today, IT vendors such as Sun, IBM, HP, Microsoft and Google swear by the cloud computing architecture. They say it will bring a new level of efficiency and economy to deliver IT resources on demand. In the process, it opens up new business models and market opportunities.

“If you want to slash your IT spending, maximise the flexibility of your systems, and be able to run your business from almost anywhere, then it’s time to jump on the hot new IT trends: cloud computing, and software-as-a-service (SaaS). You are probably already using some SaaS tools such as Gmail, Hotmail and YouTube, which are all free examples of SaaS delivered via the cloud,” says an IT analyst.

“The pay-per-use” model of cloud computing allows maximum IT efficiency with minimum cost. However, the real benefit comes from business agility to exploit opportunities leading to maximum returns. The recent emergence of massive network bandwidth and virtualisation technologies has enabled this transformation.

Cloud computing does not imply that one discards the entire existing infrastructure and embraces the cloud. One can complement the existing infrastructure with required parts from the cloud. “Actually, an IT organisation can increase hardware utilisation rates dramatically and to scale up to massive capacities in an instant — without constantly having to invest in new infrastructure, train new personnel or license new software. It also creates new opportunities to build a better breed of network services, in less time, at a lower cost,” says S. Madhavan, founder of GQuotient.

Services for all

The common perception of state-of-the-art IT infrastructure is the cost and that only big players can afford it. But cloud computing makes services available to all irrespective of size. “While big businesses are leading the way in the use of cloud and SaaS tools, experts argue, the benefits are probably the biggest for small and medium-sized companies which often cannot afford to hire IT staff to build, manage and maintain their systems. Under the cloud computing model, these functions are effectively outsourced.”

The pay-as-you-go model behind cloud computing and SaaS allows smaller companies to increase (or decrease) their IT investment in systems as their firms grow. In the current economic development, SMEs will be attracted towards cloud computing, SaaS and virtualisation. These models can help smaller businesses deliver new products and services quicker and at a lower cost, says a recent report by consulting group BroadGroup.

The SaaS model is gaining a lot of traction in the business world, with most large software vendors and application service providers, including HP, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce.com, now offering business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM), databases, knowledge management and web development software as web-based utilities.

Analyst Gartner estimates that typically organisations have a project savings of 25-40 per cent by deploying SaaS-based CRM applications. SaaS is particularly attractive to the SME sector because it removes the high entry costs associated with some business applications.

But who owns the “cloud”? What is the security? What is the percentage of external and internal cloud one should own? These are the some of the commonly asked questions. In the current trend, SUN, IBM, HP, SAS and others have started outsourcing cloud computing. They have started setting up cloud computing facilities to provide on-demand services.

With IT budgets under pressure, the corporates could use cloud computing selectively, and some of the challenges like security will be resolved as this industry matures.

New Google software will identify stars and planets via mobile phone pictures

Stargazers will soon be able to identify stars and planets in the night sky via their mobile phone and Google.

The search engine is pioneering software which can identify distant planets and galaxies from a photo taken on a mobile.

The Google Earth technology, called Star Droid, will use GPS mapping systems which are now in most new handsets, to identify the position of the user and compare it with existing maps of space.

It will then automatically attach name tags to the stars and planets that can be seen through the viewfinder.

Carolin Crawford, of Cambridge University’s institute of astronomy, said: 'We find many members of the public have a real enthusiasm about stars and planets, but I’m afraid this is often not matched by much knowledge.

'This innovation sounds like it could be really useful to help people learn what they are looking at. It will be interesting to see how much the camera on the phones will be able to pick up.

'The night sky is pretty crowded. Whereas Venus can appear bright in the sky, many stars appear very dimly and may be difficult for a camera-phone to spot.'

Experts believe the growth of street lighting and pollution over the past century have left urban dwellers struggling to identify even the best-known constellations, such as the Plough or Orion.

The application, which could be launched as early as this week, is also likely to identify the object’s distance from Earth and its position within a constellation.

Apple Moves Closer to Snow Leopard Release

Apple's operating system developers are hard at work pushing to get out the next major version of the Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, as evidenced by the recent pace of test builds the company has released to external developers. The company also looks to bolster its enterprise presence by tying iPhones to Mac OS X servers as remote-access devices.

Apple's operating system developers are hard at work pushing to get out the next major version of the Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, as evidenced by the recent pace of test builds the company has released to external developers, among other things.

Moreover, with the next big release of its operating system platform, Apple is showing signs of beefing up its enterprise presence, particularly regarding integration with the iPhone as an enterprise supporting device, AppleInsider indicates.

In addition to delivering a new test build of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard version of its flagship operating system, Apple introduced a new build of the next incremental update to the current "Leopard" version of Mac OS, which will be 10.5.7. The current Mac OS X 10.5 family release is Mac OS X 10.5.6, which was released in December 2008.

Apple released build 10A335 of Snow Leopard to developers on April 23. This build comes just three weeks after the previous test release. Apple also released Build 9J56 of Mac OS 10.5.7, which features "Bluetooth compatibility and stability fixes," according to one report.

Apple watchers say the company is pushing to get Snow Leopard out this summer. Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) will run June 8-12 in San Francisco.

Meanwhile, Apple also released a new build of the server version of Snow Leopard with improved certificate management, Podcast Producer, Mail Server and Calendar Server, according to reports.

Indeed, an AppleInsider report on the new test build said:

"The Cupertino-based company reportedly made no mention of any significant changes in Thursday's beta but continued encouraging developers to start working on and testing any 64-bit kernel extensions that their third-party products will require under Snow Leopard.

"Apple did list a handful of bugs affecting build 10A335, people familiar with the matter say. Among them were crashes in QuickTime X player, application crashes under Rosetta, problems with Migration Assistant and odd errors being spit out by the new version of Disk Utility."

The AppleInsider team did some sleuthing through the WWDC 2009 agenda and came across a session that indicates that Apple will provide remote access to enterprise servers, particularly Mac OS X servers, via the iPhone.

According to the AppleInsider report, the WWDC agenda touts a session that says :

"The Mobile Access Server provides a path through a corporate firewall for IMAP, SMTP, HTTP, and CalDAV without using VPN. Learn about the features of, and deployment tips for, this powerful new service in Snow Leopard Server."

If Apple can pull off this effort, the company will be able to further capitalize on its hot iPhone mobile platform to make inroads against Research In Motion's BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows Mobile in enterprise environments.

Said AppleInsider:

"Users will be able to access internal network resources from their iPhone or iPod touch with the same level of security that banks and online merchants use to provide SSL-encrypted website access. And because Apple designs both the server and the mobile client software, it can make the setup and configuration for using Mobile Access secured resources nearly invisible to end users.

"That strategy may likely help tie the growing popularity of iPhones among corporate and government users to increased sales of Snow Leopard Server, and draw more attention toward Apple's Mac Server offerings as a much less expensive alternative to Microsoft's combination of Windows Server, Exchange Server messaging, SharePoint collaboration, and Exchange Active Sync for supporting remote access to mobile devices."

A separate report indicates that Apple will deliver screen recording features in Snow Leopard via the QuickTime X Player that is set to ship with Snow Leopard when it is released this summer.