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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

GE Demos 500GB DVD Size Disk

GE announced they had discovered a way to fit 500GB on a single DVD sized disc.

The technology works by imprinting chemical changes in the form of patterns (or holograms) within the disc. Those holograms are then read by lasers, similar to the ones in Blu-ray players.

The holographic disc uses the entire volume of the disc rather than just the metal layer that a traditional CD or DVD uses, said Brian Lawrence. The goal is to develop a disc that holds 1TB of more information. GE said it will initially focus on the commercial archival industry followed by the consumer market for its micro-holographic storage technology.

A GE spokesman said the following regarding pricing and retail availability: “We are targeting 2012 to introduce our micro-holographic discs and drives to market. It will be introduced to the commercial archival industry first, followed by the consumer market at the retail level. In terms of pricing, we plan to introduce this technology to market at less than 10 cents per gigabyte. We expect that price to drop gradually as media sales volumes increase.”

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Windows Sales Off 16% As Microsoft's Reports Sharp Profit Decline

Faced with a slumping economy, new sources of competition, and a staple product that turned out to be a dud, Microsoft reported one of the worst financial quarters in its history.

The company said total revenue for its third fiscal quarter fell 6% year-over-year, to $13.6 billion, while net income, including $710 million in restructuring and investment charges, sank 32% to $3 billion. Earnings per share came in at 33 cents, compared to 47 cents in the year prior.

Microsoft earlier this year said it would cut 5,000 jobs to reduce costs. But it's more than market conditions plaguing the software maker's balance sheet.

Vista, the current edition of the company's core Windows operating system, has been met with jeers by corporate and home computer users alike. Surveys show that only a handful of large enterprises have upgraded their PCs from the older Windows XP OS to Vista.

Microsoft also didn't fare well in other areas during its third quarter. Revenue from Internet services fell 14%, to $721 million—a sign that the company is losing more ground to Google in the race for eyeballs on the Web and associated sales.

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Monday, April 20, 2009

Adobe Flash to move into living rooms

Adobe has said that its online Flash technology would be integrated into devices for television sets. Putting Flash into living room entertainment systems will allow customers to view videos associated with computers on television sets that are linked to the Internet.

Adobe said viewers would be able to watch high definition Web videos on their televisions without the need for a Web browser.

"Adobe Flash Platform for the Digital Home will dramatically change the way we view content on televisions," said David Wadhwani, general manager and vice president of Adobe's Platform Business Unit.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Twitter worm writer gets a job

A Web application developer confirmed he has hired the teenager who admitted attacking Twitter with several different worms.

Travis Rowland, of Hammond Or. said that he had offered a job to Michael Mooney, a 17 year old who said he had written at least two of the worms that struck Twitter starting on April 11.

Mooney came to his attention because of the Twitter worms, Rowland acknowledged. "I contacted him and saw his Web site, and thought it was interesting," said Rowland. "Then I talked to him and found out he did it all by hand, so I asked him if he wanted to work as a programmer." Rowland said that Mooney would also be involved doing "security analysis for us, to make sure our applications are as secure as they can be."

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said Monday that Twitter had had to scrub about 200 infected accounts and delete 10,000 tweets carrying links to JavaScript attack code.

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Monday, April 13, 2009

Twitter Visited By Worms

Over the weekend, a computer worm attacked the Twitter messaging service in three distinct attacks, generating almost 10,000 spam tweets -- as online posts are called in Twitter's twee terminology -- and compromising at least 190 accounts.

The infection appears to have started when the worm's creator opened four new Twitter accounts containing the infectious code. The worm spread when Twitter users viewed the user profiles of the infected accounts.

The worm can be blocked by disabling JavaScript in your Web browser or by using the NoScript plug-in for Firefox.

According to online news site BNOnews.com, a 17-year-old from Brooklyn, N.Y., identified as Mikeyy Mooney, claimed responsibility for creating the Twitter worm to drive traffic to his Web site, StalkDaily.com.

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Monday, April 06, 2009

Is Conficker Finally History?

Conficker gained so much attention in part because of the sheer number of computers it was able to infect. But nobody knows for sure what Conficker can accomplish. However, at the time of this writing no Conficker-related catastrophes have surfaced and some think the threat never will.

The general consensus seems to be that approximately 3 million computers are infected on any given day. The number 15 million gets thrown around a lot as well, but that number includes computers that were infected and then scrubbed clean of the malware.

The world's biggest problem areas for Conficker infections are in Asia, Eastern Europe and South America, although there seems to be some disagreement on which countries are the hardest hit.

Microsoft allows both pirate and genuine Windows users to download critical security updates. However, most pirate users have Windows' automatic updates turned off to avoid Microsoft's piracy detection tool. Pirate users could get the software from Microsoft's download center, but it's unknown how many users are actually doing that.

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Thursday, April 02, 2009

Is Android On Netbooks Microsoft's Worst Nightmare?

Now that Hewlett-Packard has confirmed that it's considering using Google's Android operating system in its netbooks, the 10% share of the netbook market that Linux currently enjoys looks poised to grow.

Although many early netbooks shipped with Linux, Microsoft has since slashed the price of Windows XP Home -- the version that most commonly ships with netbooks -- and taken a commanding share of the netbook OS market. The fact that many netbook buyers are unfamiliar with the various Linux distributions that ship with netbooks also has hampered adoption.

"Android-based netbooks would start tapping into the Google 'cool factor,' and more people would be exposed to a brand name in which they've already developed trust," said Bernard Golden, CEO of Hyperstratus, a San Carlos, Calif.-based solution provider.

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