IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 21/01/2010

Lenovo speeds up Adobe CS4 on ThinkPad workstations
Teaming up with Nvidia (which is still Fermi-less, just a reminder) and Elemental Technologies, Lenovo has announced that it will be loading the Elemental Accelerator software (a $250 value) onto select ThinkStation S20 and D20 workstations equipped with Quadro FX graphics cards. Why is that news worthy you ask? Because Elemental Accelerator taps into the power of Nvidia's GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) in order to increase video transcoding performance when using Adobe Creative Suite 4.

Elemental Accelerator can do GPU-powered H.264/AVC and MPEG-2 encoding and is easily accessible via the Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe Media Encoder application interface.

"Digital content creators require the highest level of encoding performance to produce cutting-edge products," said Peter Schrady, vice president, Software and Peripherals, Lenovo. "By pairing ThinkStation workstations with Elemental Accelerator and Nvidia Quadro FX GPUs, we are building computing solutions that deliver the fastest and highest quality video encoding experience available for Adobe Creative Suite 4 users."

For more info about this special ThinkStation offer see Lenovo's website.

Coolink releases the Corator DS CPU cooler
Coolink has now updated its product portfolio with a new CPU cooler, a model that goes by the name of Corator DS and features the Gapless Direct Touch (GDT) technology. GDT sees the cooler's four 8mm copper heatpipes making direct contact with the CPU, thus enabling a more efficient heat transfer. Other than this, the Corator DS boasts two stacks, each with 70 aluminum fins, and a middle-placed SWiF2-120P (120mm) hydro-dynamic bearing fan working at 800 to 1700 RPM that has a maximum sound output of 27.1 dBA.

"True to our vision of innovating instead of following, we worked hard to strengthen the advantages of direct contact cooling and to eliminate its drawbacks," said Timothy Chu, Coolink CEO. "Thus we're proud to introduce the Corator DS today, which is our first product based on Coolink's exclusive GDT-technology. Its innovative contact surface in combination with the other features allows us to offer a complete high-performance cooling solution at an attractive price point".

The 1040g Corator DS supports LGA1366, LGA1156, LGA775, AM2, AM2+ and AM3 processors and has a recommended price tag $59.90 / 49.90 Euro.

Bing may become the iPhone's default search engine
With just another week to go until Apple's big tablet announcement event, a report is claiming that Microsoft and Apple are at the negotiations table talking about the possibility of making Bing the default search engine for the iPhone. Currently Google is the search engine of choice for the iPhone and that gives the Mountain View-based company a big advantage in the mobile space. Naturally, Microsoft doesn't like this and since the mobile search market is growing like mad it wants to capture as much of it as possible.

Apple can consider both Google and Microsoft as major rivals in the mobile market but it now seems willing to be closer to Microsoft. If an agreement is reached then Bing could be made the default search engine of the iPhone and the Safari browser the smartphone is equipped with. To convince Apple to sign Microsoft would need to either offer a bigger percentage of the ad revenue generated from iPhone searches or more money on a regular basis than Google. The outcome of the negotiations is still uncertain but we may see Apple showing its love for Bing as soon as next week (at the tablet event).

Panasonic's first SDXC cards to reach Japan on Feb. 19
The 48GB and 64GB SDXC cards announced two weeks ago by Panasonic have been confirmed to begin selling in Japan on February 19, the rest of the world also being set to get them next month. Both cards are compliant with the SD 3.0 standard, feature the Super Intelligent Controller which prevents data damage, have a Class 10 rating, and provide transfer speeds of up to 22 MB/s.

According to their maker, the 48GB and 64GB SDXC memory cards will cost $450 and $600, respectively.

Opera acquires mobile ad firm AdMarvel
Opera Software seems to be growing some new teeth as it announced the acquisition of AdMarvel, a Californian company that will enable it to play with the big boys in the mobile advertising market. AdMarvel's offering, which is being added to Opera's mobile browser line, is designed to put publishers, developers and mobile operators in control of performance and enables ad networks, agencies and brands to deliver better results.

"In our fast-growing industry, mobile advertising represents an interesting long-term revenue opportunity. Every month, nearly 50 million people access the Web using Opera on their mobile phones and together with AdMarvel, we think we can play an important role in the evolution of mobile advertising," says Lars Boilesen, Chief Executive Officer, Opera Software.

Currently Opera has a pretty good position in the mobile browsing world thanks to Opera Mobile and Opera Mini so advertising should fit in nicely in the company's expansion plans.

Skype dominates international phone call market
Those who want to keep in touch with relatives abroad are increasingly turning to the use of Skype's internet telephony service instead of international plans and carriers from cellphone and landline providers, according to new data published by analytical research firm TeleGeography.

"Skype is now the largest provider of cross border communications in the world, by far," said Stephan Beckert, an analyst at the firm.

The technology, quality and availability of the service isn't actually anything beyond what is available from regular telephony providers, but what is by far an improvement is the cost- as users pay literally a fraction of a cent per minute to call abroad. This, combined with the availability of use via most modern cellphones, is a killer to the rest of the telephony industry.

According to the firm's data, over the past 25 years, international call volume from telephones have grown at a compounded annual rate of 15%, however, in the past two years alone it has dropped a staggering amount, to barely 8%.

"The volume of traffic routed via Skype is tremendous," said Beckert. "Demand for international voice has been remarkably robust, but it's clearly not recession-proof." TeleGeography added as a general statement.

The 7 year old company that was established and based in Luxembourg, Skype, has more than 520 million registered customers who use its free Web service for voice, video or text communication.

Skype say that they aim to reach almost double the current annual revenue within two years. Despite its current size, Skype's revenue is a relatively modest $551 million (in 2008) - largely in part to the company having had a difficult time getting users to pay for its largely free services.

Samsung settles case with Rambus for $900 million
For the foreseeable future Rambus is pretty much safe financially as it has reached an agreement with Samsung to settle a memory patent dispute for $900 million. The recently-signed deal will see Samsung pay Rambus $200 million up-front and another $25 million per quarter for the net five years, the former also pledging to invest $200 million in Rambus stock. In exchange for the money, Samsung is getting a license covering all of its products that use Rambus technology.

"We have a tremendous opportunity to renew a partnership which has created solutions that have benefited consumers worldwide," said Harold Hughes, President and CEO of Rambus. "Bringing together Samsung's market and technology leadership with our innovations for high-performance and high-efficiency memory architectures will make possible an exciting new generation of mobile, computing and consumer electronics products."

In addition to the settlement, the two companies have inked a memorandum of understanding regarding the development of new memory technologies that combine both Samsung and Rambus innovations. The first products to come out of this collaboration will target graphics and mobile memory solutions.

a-Squared Free version 4.5.0.24 update
Scans your computer for malicious software (Malware), including Trojan Horses, Dialers, Worms, Spyware, and Adware. A-squared Free is specialized in finding and removing them securely. The disk scan checks all files on your system disks for Malware. The scanner scans for Spyware Traces.

Changes include:

- Fine tuning and bug fixes.
- Added a second major scan engine: Ikarus Antivirus.
- More than 2.5 million signatures for best detection.
- Can be run from removable device, like USB Sticks, without the need to install the software.
- Plug in and scan!

Website: EMSI Software
Download: a-Squared Free 4.5.0.24

ION 2-powered Eee PC reported coming in April
Just last week it was revealed that Asus is preparing a ION 2-based nettop (the EeeTop PC ET2010PNT) and today a report is saying that the Taiwanese heavyweight is planning to introduce a ION 2 netbook in Q2.

The apparently April-bound ION 2 Eee PC is expected to have a 12-inch screen and will most likely have a single- or dual-core Atom CPU and a GeForce 310 graphics card. No price tag is rumored just yet but you can bet it will cost more than non-ION Pine Trail netbooks.

Gigabyte AMD 890GX motherboard pictured
After ECS and Asus, today is Gigabyte's turn to have exposed one of its upcoming AMD 890-based motherboard, namely the GA-890GPA-UD3H. Available in an ATX form factor, the blue board has support for AM3 processors, four DDR3-1866+ memory slots, DirectX 10.1 integrated graphics, and two PCI-Express x16 slots for CrossFireX or Hybrid CrossFire configurations.

Gigabyte's motherboard also includes eight SATA 6.0 Gbps ports, two USB 3.0 connectors, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1 channel audio, DualBIOS, and D-Sub, DVI, HDMI outputs. Expect the GA-890GPA-UD3H to come about in late Q1 or Q2.

Pictures courtesy of OCWorkbench.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

IT News HeadLines (TechConnect Magazine) 21/01/2010

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