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Sunday, September 28, 2008

Google Smart Phone Launched

Google and the Open Handset Alliance launched a smartphone that would rival that of Blackberry and Apple's iPhone. The T-Mobile HTC G1, also known as the Google Phone, is the first mobile handset running the new Google-backed Android software.

The G1 smartphone, manufactured by HTC and marketed by T-Mobile, has a 3.2-inch touch display that flips out to reveal a full keyboard and trackball navigation. With Google closely involved, the G1 has tight integration with many of the search giant's offerings, including free push Gmail, wireless syncing with Google's calendar, and support for YouTube.

The phone also has integrated Wi-Fi, and users can hop on to T-Mobile's expanding 3G network for mobile Web access. There's a GPS chip that can use cellular data for assisted GPS services, such as location-based searches, and a full HTML browser is built on the same technology as the recently released Chrome desktop browser. The handset has a multimedia player, preloaded with an Amazon.com application that lets users shop from more than 6 million DRM-free music tracks.

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Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Windows 7 to Replace Some Apps with Live Services

Microsoft said that several services currently found within Windows XP and Windows Vista will be dropped for Windows 7, and replaced with similar versions of its Live services.

Starting with the next release of Windows, Windows Mail, Windows Calendar, Windows Contacts, Windows Photo Gallery and Windows Movie Maker will no longer be available in the Windows operating system," a spokesman for Microsoft said. "Similar functionality for email, contact, calendar, photo and movie making will be available for free from Windows Live, removing the duplication of functionality for our consumers between Windows and Windows Live."

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Friday, September 19, 2008

Palin Hackers May Dodge Feds via DOJ Loophole

Palin Hackers May Dodge Feds via DOJ Loophole

Could the hackers who infiltrated Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin's personal Yahoo account avoid prosecution thanks to a Department of Justice policy statement?

Though federal law prohibits the unauthorized access of someone's e-mail account, the DOJ's interpretation of one particular case might only hold the Palin hackers accountable for accessing unopened messages, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The hackers changed the governor's password, took screen shots of the account's contents, accessed personal photographs, and sent all the data to the Wikileaks Web site.

Under DOJ's interpretation, the Palin hackers might only be prosecuted for accessing e-mails the Alaska governor had not yet opened. Based on the data leaked by the hackers, it is not clear if they opened any unread messages.

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Thursday, September 11, 2008

New Sony Vaio comes with a 18.4 inch Screen

Sony announced the Vaio AW notebook will come with a 18.4 inch screen, RGB color fidelity, and even the 3LCD backlighting Sony includes on its LCD TVs.According to Sony, the new Vaio AW provides the experience of a desktop plus an HDTV, and it is priced similarly: the base model costs about $1,600, while adding the upgraded 3LCD backlight will raise the price to about $2,000.

The Vaio AW contains a 2.8GHz processor, 4 GB of PC2-6400 DRAM, a 500 GB hard drive, an optional 128 GB Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT and wireless. The optional 3LCD display is the first time an HDTV-quality backlight has been placed inside of a laptop.

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Monday, September 08, 2008

Google Launches Mapping Satellite

Google has expanded its reach into space with the successful launch Saturday of a new satellite that will provide the company with exclusive images for its maps. The satellite launch was coordinated by terrain mapping company GeoEye. Although GeoEye did not mention Google in any of its announcements regarding the satellite, the search engine giant's name appeared on the satellite.

It will collect 0.41-meter ground resolution black and white images and 1.65-meter color images simultaneously. It can show objects as small as 16 inches. U.S. licensing restrictions limit commercial images to a half-meter ground resolution. The satellite can capture the images from 423 miles above the Earth and travel about 4.5 miles per second.

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Friday, September 05, 2008

Sony recalls 438,000 laptops

Sony has launched a voluntary recall of 438,000 Vaio portable computers, citing a potential hazard that could cause the machines to overheat or possibly burn a user.

Sony received 15 reports of overheating, including one of a consumer who suffered a minor burn. The flaw, in Sony's VGN-TZ100, VGN-TZ200, VGN-TZ300 and VGN-TZ2000 series computers, is related to "irregularly positioned wires near the computer's hinge and/or dislodged screw inside the hinge" that can cause a short circuit and overheat, the agency said.

"This poses a burn hazard to consumers," the agency added. "Sony has initiated a voluntary program to perform a free inspection and, if necessary, a repair to ensure these units meet our high quality standards."

Monday, September 01, 2008

Google Browser Will Be Available soon

Google is launching a beta version of its own Web browser in more than 100 countries. The open source browser, called Chrome, first appeared on an unofficial Google blog in the form of a comic book. The blog posting was by Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management, and Linus Upson, engineering director.

The browser window is "streamlined and simple," they said, describing in words what can be seen visually at the unofficial blog, Google Blogoscoped. "To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff -- the pages, sites and applications that make up the Web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go," the blog posting said.