IT News HeadLines (HardOCP) 30/08/2010

PC Industry's Woes Could Mean Bargains This Fall
Have you ever asked yourself the question; should I buy now or wait and see if the price goes down? Of course you have and now it looks like the time to wait is here. Prices are predicted to fall in the fall Barclays Capital analyst Ben Reitzes said another factor could cause PC makers to cut prices: In the past few months, the prices for parts such as hard disk drives and memory have fallen - to their lowest levels of the year in August. That gives PC makers the freedom to lower prices while maintaining profit margins. Comments
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Pentagon Chooses Two Companies to Build Flying Humvee
Well, here's to the future. The Pentagon has approved the further development of a flying, armed, armored Humvee. Here's the topperÂ…..Codename: Transformer. Maybe we will be in for a larger surprise than we expect. The two companies are still a ways away from building flying Humvees; the first stage of the DARPA project is merely working on conceptual designs. The total funding available for Transformer is about $40 million. Officials from both companies declined to comment on the record about the negotiations, and DARPA did not respond to request to comment. Comments
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No solution for BlackBerry in India
With only 3 days to go on the upcoming deadline of August 31st, it appears that both sides are at an impasse on negotiating the strong data encryption demands "These concerns have been addressed in other parts of the world, I see no reason why the Indian government and agencies should take any risk at all as far technology is concerned," Sachin Pilot, minister of state for communications and information technology, told reporters in New Delhi. Comments
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Boeing Moves Forward With Commercial Space Capsule
Boeing is developing a reusable spacecraft to transport astronauts to and from the International Space Station and future private ventures, replacing the retiring fleet of Space Shuttles. As one of the leading suppliers of human space systems and services, Boeing already has a strong heritage in the industry. "It was an enormous advantage," Reiley told SPACE.com. "A lot of the equipment we're looking at has ISS heritage. About half of our team were designers that came from ISS and had experience with the flight hardware. The other half were space shuttle designers." Comments
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USA Today to Digitally Remake Itself
Citing plunging circulation and loss of advertising revenue, USA Today will restructure its operation to focus on digital news operations. The paper's focus will now be on its digital operations. It will emphasize breaking news on its Web site, aiming to post articles within 30 minutes of a breaking news event. Comments
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Google Squashes Gmail Bug
You may not have noticed, but there was a bug in Gmail for about 3% of its users. The glitch allowed Gmail to resend messages multiple times. A little over two hours after the initial bug-warning post on the Google App Status Dashboard, Google reported that Gmail service had been restored for some users. By 10:27 p.m. (U.S. Pacific), the problem was fully resolved.. Comments
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Dark Matter Detector Poised for Shuttle Launch Next February
Scientists working out of the CERN Labs in Switzerland have transported the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer to NASA for preparation for space flight. The detector will aid the scientists in locating two elusive types of matter. When the space shuttle program's final flight launches next February, it will carry on board the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a device designed to scan space. Using the AMS as it's parked in orbit, scientists hope to find evidence regarding two types of mysterious matter about which they've hypothesized for years: dark matter and antimatter. Comments
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Commodore USA to Revive Commodore 64
A trip back in time is about to happen and the time machine is a Commodore 64. For those of us old enough to remember the original, this will look and feel like the real deal. The device will feature an exact replica of the original beige Commodore C64 chassis, but under the bonnet it will house more modern specifications that include a dual-core Intel Atom 525 CPU with Nvidia Ion2 graphics, 4GB DDR3 memory, 1TB hard drive and a CD/DVD drive. A Blu-ray drive is available as an optional extra. Comments
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Lenovo To Launch Chinese Gaming Platform Called Ebox
Lenovo will be manufacturing a new gaming console for the Chinese market. It is expected to debut in about 3 months and widely available on the Chinese market 1Q 2011. So far no images or video of the new platform have been provided. The Ebox will be targeting casual gamers rather than hardcore players, with particular emphasis on the so-called urban families which account for 120 million households in China Comments
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Research Experiment Disrupts Internet
If your internet connection was a little wonky yesterday, you can blame it on an experiment run by Duke University and RIPE NCC in Europe. It only lasted about half an hour, but shows the vulnerability and fragile nature of the internet as a whole. "Over 3,500 prefixes (announced blocks of IP addresses) became unstable at the exact moment this 'experiment' started," wrote Earl Zmijewski, a general manager with Internet security firm Renesys. "Not surprisingly, they were located all over the world: 832 in the US, 336 in Russia, 277 in Argentina, 256 in Romania and so forth. We saw over 60 countries impacted." Comments
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AMD's Upcoming Bobcat Mobile Architecture
AMD will launch a new series of products based on its new mobile technology, codenamed Bobcat, joining Intel in the two separate architecture family With the launch of products based on its new mobile architecture, codenamed Bobcat, AMD will finally join Intel in having two separate architectural families: one for servers and desktops, and another ultra-low-power design for mobiles. Bobcat, then, is AMD's answer to Intel's Atom, but instead of targeting where Atom is now, the company has chosen to target where Atom is likely to be in the not-so-distant future. Comments
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Steve Jobs Reintroducing Apple Computers
This is your shot at seeing Steve Jobs in his heyday rallying support and introducing the concept of the "Think Different" ad campaign back in 1997. You can see by the attire of shorts and sandals, Jobs is getting his point over to his audience. Be sure to check out the actual commercial at the end of the video. Times have really changed. Comments
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Best Buy Expands Game Trade-in Program to Stores
Best Buy is following the lead of Target Corp by expanding the trade-in program to include video games exchange for store credit. Best Buy plans to roll out the trade-in program to the rest of its 1,089 stores by October. The company also said it will start selling used video games in its stores soon, but it provided no specifics. Comments
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Video Game Addict's Lawsuit Moves Forward
The lawsuit against NCSoft, makers of the video game Lineage II, is moving forward in Hawaii despite petitions to dismiss the case entirely on grounds of lack of subject matter jurisdiction. At least they get credit for creative use of legalese. "People with compulsive-addictive personalities can get addicted to all kinds of substances and/or activities," she told the E-Commerce Times. "Anything that triggers the pleasure centers in the brain can become an addiction to someone with addictive tendencies." Comments
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