IT-Code-News: IT News HeadLines (TechSpot) 04/06/2010

Kazaa founders open legal music service called Rdio
Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Kazaa (as well as Skype and Joost), have unveiled a new (entirely legal) music streaming service Â– an increasingly crowded market these days. Called Rdio, the startup will charge $5 to $10 per month for unlimited access across PCs and mobile devices. This same premise has long been available in services offered by Microsoft, Rhapsody, Napster and countless others.
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Microsoft reveals updated Windows Live Essentials suite
Microsoft has previewed a major refresh to its freely downloadable Windows Live Essentials suite, which includes Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Messenger, Mail, Sync and others. According to CNET, Redmond hopes the overhaul will make Windows more appealing to consumers during this year's holiday season since no significant updates are planned for the OS itself.
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Manufacturers push for USB 3.0 adoption, Intel holds it back
With Computex 2010 underway, several manufacturers have taken the occasion to launch new USB 3.0 peripherals in hopes of increasing sales as the new interface slowly gains traction. Among them is Iomega, which today revamped its eGo line of portable and desktop hard drives with a total of five new drive models, including a pair equipped with SuperSpeed USB 3.0. Kingston showed off an upcoming external SSD that hooks up to the next-gen interface, while SuperTalent continued to expand its USB 3.0 flash drive lineup with the new Express RAM Cache model.
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Google's Chrome OS to arrive "later this fall"
Following a slew of new netbook and tablet PC announcements at Computex 2010 -- and some rumblings about Windows' security -- Google has come forward with an update on its web-centric operating system for portable devices. Though still light on details, speaking at the Computex cloud computing forum yesterday, Google's VP of product management Sundar Pichai confirmed Chrome OS will be on the market in the fourth quarter of 2010.
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Western Digital strips Seagate of number one spot
In March, iSuppli released hard drive market share figures for the fourth quarter of 2009 which ranked Seagate as the industry's top drive manufacturer, selling 49.9 million units. At the time, Western Digital was right on Seagate's tail with 49.5 million units, but recent numbers suggest the Lake Forest, Calif.-based disk manufacturer has finally mustered up the might to trounce its longtime rival.
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Comparison Revisited, Methods Refined: Nvidia GeForce GTX 480/470 vs. ATI Radeon HD 5870/5850
Although the Nvidia GeForce 400 series has been out for about 2 months now, it'd seem the jury is still out on whether or not the series is a success. Some will tell you the GeForce GTX 480 is a power-hungry expensive GPU that failed to deliver, while others claim it lived up to the expectations as the worldÂ’s fastest single GPU graphics card and that power consumption figures are for sissies.
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Dell Streak coming to US in July for $500 unlocked
During the D8 conference, Dell finally disclosed the US pricing for its pint-sized Streak 5 tablet. The details come only a few days after the company finally revealed the 5-incher's specifications. The Streak 5 will grace US soil in July for $500 Â– a bit pricier than you might have expected.
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Valve cancels E3 Portal 2 event, promises a surprise instead
If you were hoping to attend the Portal 2 event scheduled during E3 at Los Angeles' Regal Theater, it seems you're out of luck. Valve has notified the press via email that the dark-humored physics puzzler's presentation has been cancelled. The developer's announcement isn't all bad news however, as it promises to reveal a "surprise" instead.
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Microsoft unveils Windows Embedded Compact 7 for tablets
Microsoft has unveiled a version of Windows 7 designed specifically for tablets and other specialized devices. The platform, dubbed Windows Embedded Compact 7, is expected to be released to manufacturing in the fourth quarter, but can already be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site in its preview form. Details are a bit slim at the moment, but it seems to be a compartmentalized version of Windows 7 compatible with non-Intel architectures.
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Wednesday tech deals: 35% off select desktops and laptops
Dell Home 48-Hour Sale: Up to 35% off select desktops and laptops
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News around the web: Capitalism makes Steve Jobs happy
Capitalism Has Made Steve Jobs Happy @ Forbes
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AT&T to roll out metered data plans, tethering on June 7
AT&T has announced sweeping changes to its mobile data plans that will introduce tiered pricing and mark the end of unlimited transfers. Starting on June 7 the carrier will replace its $30 unlimited data package with three new bandwidth-restricted plans called DataPlus, DataPro, and Tethering.
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AMD shows off Fusion APUs, on track for H1 2011 release
Nearly four years after first revealing plans for its next-generation Fusion processors, AMD has finally conducted the first public demonstration of its CPU-GPU hybrid, running Aliens vs. Predator in DirectX 11 mode and doing some hardware acceleration in Internet Explorer. The company was careful to reveal as few specifics about the chips as possible, but said two versions of Fusion are being prepared for release in the first half of 2011.
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OCZ unveils "affordable" PCI-Express SSD, RevoDrive
OCZ took the opportunity at Computex 2010 to showcase its latest additions to its already broad solid-state drives lineup. Dubbed RevoDrive, this new product is designed to slip into a PCI Express x4 slot and employs two SandForce SF-1222 controllers in RAID mode for maximum performance -- up to 540MB/s reads and 530MB/s writes, as well as 75,000 IOPS. It's a compact version of last year's Z-Drive for high-performance gaming PCs and workstations.
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Nvidia GeForce GTX 480/470 vs. ATI Radeon HD 5870/5850
Although the Nvidia GeForce 400 series has been out for about 2 months now, it'd seem the jury is still out on whether or not the series is a success. Some will tell you the GeForce GTX 480 is a power-hungry expensive GPU that failed to deliver, while others claim it lived up to the expectations as the worldÂ’s fastest single GPU graphics card and that power consumption figures are for sissies.

Friday, June 4, 2010

IT News HeadLines (TechSpot) 04/06/2010

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