Whatever your opinion of the company may be, you have to admit that this is a great commercial and never once mentions the product by name. I wonder if Santa gives Bill Gates a big old lump of coal in his stocking? :D
John Carter (of Mars) is based on Edgar Rice Burroughs' classic sci-fi adventures, telling of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom and its people rests in his hands. John Carter is directed by Pixar alum Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-E) from a screenplay by Mark Andrews, Michael Chabon & Stanton. Disney is bringing John Carter to theaters in 3D eveywhere starting March 9th, 2012 this spring.
Seagate is cutting most Barracuda and Momentus warranty periods down to
one year with others moving from five-year warranties to three.
Following on from Western Digital cutting some of its warranty periods
to two years, we learn that Seagate is going further. In a letter to
its authorised distributors, dated 6 December 2011, the company writes:
Effective December 31, 2011, Seagate will be changing its
warranty policy from a 5 year to a 3 year warranty period for Nearline
drives, 5 years to 1 year for certain Desktop and Notebook Bare Drives,
5 years to 3 years on Barracuda XT and Momentus XT, and from as much as
5 years to 2 years on
Consumer Electronics.
The details of the new warranty periods are:
Constellation 2 and ES.2 drives: 3 years
Barracuda and Barracuda Green 3.5-inch drives: 1 year
Barracuda XT: 3 years
Momentus 2.5-inch (5400 and 7200rpm): 1 year
Momentus XT: 3 years
SV35 Series - Video Surveillance: 2 years
Pipeline HD Mini, Pipeline HD: 2 years
Mission-critical and retail products are not affected by this change.
The new warranty periods will apply to shipments from 31 December.
Microsoft is also planning to introduce visual level password protection in Windows 8.
By using gesturing on screen pictures, tapping designated areas will
translate into a secure password:
Microsoft dictates the set of three different gestures after research
showed that login time was cut from 17 seconds using free form gestures
to 4 seconds using preset gestures. Users don't have to be 100 percent
accurate with the placement of the gestures as the image is broken up
into a grid and the combination of replicating the three gestures is
assigned a percentage score each time the login process is attempted
through an algorithm. If the score is 90 percent or above, the user
gains access to the system.
Microsoft also outlined how security is increased with the Picture
Password method. For instance, if a user creates a six-character text
password with at least one uppercase letter and one number, there would
be 7 billion combinations available. However, if a user creates a
picture password with six gestures using only taps, that number
increases to 1.3 trillion combinations. Even further, reducing the
amount of gestures to five and including at least one circle and one
line gesture within the group increases the number of combinations to
approximately 70 trillion. The Windows engineering team has just
started building the Picture Password functionality and hopes to
include it within the final version of Windows 8 likely released during
2012.
Jack the Giant Killer tells the story of an ancient war that is reignited when a young farmhand unwittinglyopens a gateway between our world and a fearsome race of giants. All content copyright Warner Bros Pictures.
Intel is reportedly preparing a refresh for its popular Core i5 2500K. Branded Core i5 2550K, it features a 100 MHz speed bump over 2500K - up to 3.4 GHz base and 3.8 GHz turbo.
In every other way, the features and specifications are identical to the Core i5 2500K - 4 cores without HyperThreading, 6MB L3 cache, HD 3000 graphics, unlocked multiplier 95W TDP. However, it is not known whether this is a direct replacement to the Core i5 2500K or a new complementary product at a higher price point (similar to the relationship between Core i7 2600K and 2700K.
Interestingly, the Core i5 2550K did not feature in the latest official roadmaps and has only recently been conceived. A possible explanation is that it is a last minute response to AMD's FX-series refresh, due in Q1 2012. We can expect the i5 2550K release around the same time. Core i5 2550K will surely be the last Sandy Bridge CPU before Ivy Bridge / Core ix 3000 releases in April 2012.
Microsoft has announced that it will automatically upgrade old versions of its Internet Explorer web browser, addressing one of the big security problems facing many business users. The plan will involve a trial run in Australia and Brazil in January, where obsolete versions of Internet Explorer will be upgraded to the latest version that will work on their computer, which will be IE9 for Vista and Windows 7 users, and IE8 for XP users.
In a new print and video interview for the Sydney Morning Herald, Gates states flat out that he is working full time with his charitable organization the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He states in the interview he will be doing that job full time for "the rest of my life."
That's not to say that Gates isn't still involved in Microsoft's affairs. Indeed he states, "I'm part-time involved with Microsoft, including even being in touch this week to give some of my advice but that's not going to change the foundation requires all of my energy and we feel we're having a great impact."
The request asked for "manuals, documents or other written guidance used to access or analyze data gathered by programs developed or deployed by Carrier IQ."
Muckrock's Michael Morisy says he plans to appeal the FBI's decision: "What is still unclear is whether the FBI used Carrier IQ's software in its own investigations, whether it is currently investigating Carrier IQ, or whether it is some combination of both."
Carrier IQ came to public attention after threatening a security researcher who reported on the functionality of its software, which is installed on cellphones by some carriers and handset manufacturers. The software, described by Google chairman Eric Schmidt as a "keylogger", is capable of logging and transmitting everything typed by users, though Carrier IQ insists that it does not do so.
The researcher, Trevor Eckhart, spotted suspicious logging activity and demonstrated how the software reacts when users interacted with their cellphones. Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T all acknowledge using Carrier IQ for diagnostic purposes, but say that they do not use it to maintain records of individual users' activity.
Over the weekend, Lookout Mobile Security released a new, free Android app, Carrier IQ Detector, that is designed to help consumers sniff out the Carrier IQ mobile diagnostic software, which has lit up security flags lately as a possible tracker of phone user information and location.
This ridiculously hot celeb model is just one advanced work of genetic awesome that defies all known laws of flesh, the very flesh on amazing display in this mini-pictorial. Enjoy!
Researchers have developed a new form of light-emitting crystals, known as quantum dots, which can be used to produce ultra-thin televisions. The tiny crystals, which are 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair, can be printed onto flexible plastic sheets to produce a paper-thin display that can be easily carried around, or even onto wallpaper to create giant room-size screens. The scientists hope the first quantum dot televisions like current flat-screen TVs, but with improved colour and thinner displays will be available in shops by the end of next year. A flexible version is expected to take at least three years to reach the market.
MaximumPCreports that Hitachi has reportedly become the first such hard drive maker to create an internal PC hard drive with a whopping 4 TB of storage space. The new world record holder on internal hard drive space was spotted on sale in Japan by a local web site, Akiba PC Watch, but so far the company itself has yet to officially announce the product. The hard drive itself, which is part of Hitachi's Deskstar line, has a SATA 6Gbps interface along with 32 MB of cache. It also has the company's proprietary CoolSpin technology which is supposed to allow the hard drive to run both quieter and with less heat. The price for the new Hitachi Deskstar 4 TB hard drive? If you buy it in Japan it will set you back 26,800 yen, or about $345
Recent severe flooding in Thailand has raised havoc with the hard disk drive supply chain with manufacturer Western Digital being the hardest hit. The situation was so dire that last month analysts were predicting the situation would last well into 2012. Now, analysts at research firm IDC are pushing that out into 2013. While the worst of the situation is expected to ease up after February 2012, things are now predicted to return to normal sometime in 2013. Lenovo is now informing its corporate customers it is out of 7,200-rpm drives and will be forced to begin substituting alternative models such as 5,400-rpm drives. It is estimated that Western Digital lost an estimated 75% of its production capacity due to the flooding. Some of the flooded production facilities have been drained and are starting to come back online with others, mostly in the south of Thailand, are still underwater.
Hobbit House - In a remote valley in Northwest Montana visitors will find the Hobbit House of Montana. More than a bed to sleep in and a stove to cook on, the Hobbit House of Montana offers visitors a luxury lodging experience full of imagination, magic and yes, a truly unique retreat away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
A fleet of ships is forced to do battle with an advanced armada of unknown origins in order to defeat them. Universal produced this with a budget of over $200 million. Battleship is currently set to sail on May 18th next summer.
In the near future, humanity has disappeared, leaving behind a large megalopolis devoid of natural life. From the destruction awakens ROSA, a robot in the KERNEL project, mankind's last attempt to restore the earth's ecosystem using recovered samples of long-extinct plant species. Wandering among the ruins of the lifeless city, Rosa soon discovers that she is not the only part of Kernel that has awakened.
A article from Fortune surfaced just today (12/8), discussing the possible rumor of Bill Gates returning to the helm of Microsoft. According to Fortune a prominent chief executive heard from someone close to Gates that he might be contemplating such a move.
The company's stock price has been a thorn in Ballmer's side for a decade. At the end of 1999, Microsoft's best year for market price, shares were at almost $60. When Ballmer took over as chief executive in January 2000, the stock was still over $50. With the burst of the tech bubble, Microsoft's stock dropped steeply and hovered around $25 area through much of the decade, excepting a short rally above $35 in late-2007 and a dip under $20 during the 2008 financial crisis. Ballmer dumped much of his stock during the decade and Bill Gates gradually left daily operations. (Gates' last full day was in June 2008.) During that time, the stock stayed flat as competitors such as Oracle (ORCL) and Apple (AAPL) saw huge gains in their share price.
Could Gates goose the moribund stock price? Possibly. Any CEO turnover tends to jumpstart improvement in a company's stock price, says Jarrad Harford, finance professor and chair at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business in Seattle. According to Harford, investors anticipate the company's value under new management even before the executive actually takes over. (New CEOs have about a year before his or her imprint needs to be visible to investors.) "There's a lot of frustration among investors with Steve Ballmer," adds Ed Maguire of CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. "Some is merited, some may not be. But there's certainly a perception that Ballmer is responsible for the under-performance of the stock."
Analysts say that whoever is in charge at Microsoft will face serious headwinds -- even Gates. Under Ballmer, the company picked itself up after the disastrous Windows Vista, launching Windows 7 successfully. Now, it is preparing Windows 8, which the company hopes will launch it into tablets. But it must draw developers to its platforms and duke it out with with Amazon (AMZN), Apple and Google. "There are very few examples of where returning founders had to come from behind in their certain market," warns Kirk Materne of Evercore Partners, which carries out investment banking services for Microsoft. "Gates was great at Microsoft when Microsoft was the dominant player." Even Gates, Materne warns, would face challenges.
Update:AllThingsD.com reports that Larry Cohen, Gates's chief of staff, has officially denied that Gates is thinking about such a move. It's also important to realize that while Gates may not be in in his office at Microsoft every day (he officially stopped working full time in June 2008), he still works part time at the company and still has an influence over Microsoft's business. Indeed, Gates himself admitted that he was a big supporter of Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype earlier this year. He stated at the time, "I was a strong proponent at the board level for the deal being done."
OnLive's cloud gaming service has finally come to tablets and smartphones. Released first for the PC and then on a separate, TV-friendly console, OnLive apps can now be downloaded for iOS and Android devices. While you'll have to shell out $50 for wireless controller, the OnLive apps are supposed to be free. If you download now, OnLive will throw in free access to Lego Batman, too. Other games will have to be purchased through the app on Android or on a separate PC for iOS devices.
Airsoftgi's Tim and his pals put together a live-action film based on Left 4 Dead. What follows is merely the teaser for their full video which they promise will be released soon.
This is production footage from my forthcoming debut film, "TimeScapes," a portrait of the American Southwest. This video was filmed and edited at 4K (4069x2304) resolution, four times greater than regular 1080p HD.
One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won't suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products.
The overall conclusion of the study is that the current copyright law, under which downloading copyrighted material for personal use is permitted, doesn't have to change.
Their report begins with noting that when it comes to copying files, the Internet has proven a game-changer. While the photocopier, audio cassette tape and VCR allowed users to make good quality copies of various media, these devices lacked a in-built distribution method. The world-wide web changed all that.
Distribution method or not, the entertainment industries have opposed all these technological inventions out of fear that their businesses would be crushed. This is not the right response according to the Swiss government, which favors the option of putting technology to good use instead of taking the repressive approach.
The report further states that it is questionable whether a three-strikes law would be legal in the first place, as the UN's Human Rights Council labeled Internet access a human right. The Council specifically argued that Hadopi is a disproportionate law that should be repealed.
Other measures such as filtering or blocking content and websites are also rejected, because these would hurt freedom of speech and violate privacy protection laws. The report notes that even if these measures were implemented, there would be several ways to circumvent them.
The overall suggestion the Swiss government communicates to the entertainment industries is that they should adapt to the change in consumer behavior, or die. They see absolutely no need to change the law because downloading has no proven negative impact on the production of national culture.
Just thought some of you iOS peeps might be interested in taking a look at the trailer for Call of Duty: Black Ops Zombies for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Black Ops Zombies features 50 levels and voice chat for true multiplayer. You can snag it from the App Store.
In the newest entry in the official Windows 8 blog site, Microsoft's Bryan Matthew, one of the program managers on the Storage and File System team, writes about how Windows 8 will handle what the company calls 'very large capacity' disk. Here's an excerpt:
Designing for large sector disks
Learning from some issues identified with prior versions of Windows, AF
disks have been a key design point for new features and technologies in
Windows 8; as a result, Windows 8 is the first OS with full support for
both types of AF disks 512e and 4K Native.
To make this happen, we identified which features and technology areas
were most vulnerable to the potential issues described above, and
reached out to the teams developing those features to provide guidance
and help them test hardware for these scenarios.
Issues we addressed included the following:
- Introduce new and enhance existing API to better enable
applications to query for the physical sector size of a disk
- Enhancing large-sector awareness within the NTFS file
system, including ensuring appropriate sector padding when performing
extending writes (writing to the end of the file)
- Incorporating large-sector awareness in the new VHDx file
format used by Hyper-V to fully support both types of AF disks
- Enhancing the Windows boot code to work correctly when
booting from 4K native disks
This is just a small cross section of the amount of work done to enable
across-the-board support for both types of AF disks in Windows 8. We
are also working with other product teams within Microsoft and across
the industry (e.g. database application developers) to ensure efficient
and correct behavior with AF disks.
The malicious mischief/terrorism threat is high, according to Professor Stolfo. In a demo he sent unauthorized remote commands to a printer, which caused it to heat up its fuser element, the hardware element used to apply heat to the toner. The paper turned brown and began to smoke before the built-in temperature sensor shut off the printer to prevent a fire.
But other designs lack the temperature safeguard and could face full-blown fires -- a remote self-destruct sequence -- if attackers figured out a similar exploit.
Similar battery exploits have been revealed in the past.
PCI-SIG, which is responsible for developing the PCI Express spec, has announced some preliminary details about PCIe 4.0.
After technical analysis, the PCI-SIG has determined that 16 GT/s on copper, which will double the bandwidth over the PCIe 3.0 specification, is technically feasible at approximately PCIe 3.0 power levels. The data also confirms that a 16GT/s interconnect can be manufactured in mainstream silicon process technology and can be deployed with existing low-cost materials and infrastructure, while maintaining compatibility with previous generations of PCIe architecture. In addition, the PCI-SIG will investigate advancements in active and idle power optimizations, key issues facing the industry.
The final PCIe 4.0 specifications, including form factor specification updates, are expected to be available sometime in the 2014-2015 timeframe.
Microsoft: Operating system seller, Xbox 360 game developer ... TV show creator? That's the newest rumor out of Hollywood. According to a story on Deadline, citing unnamed sources, the company has been using a headhunting agency to look for someone that could take over the role of a new executive position: head of scripted TV programming. The story doesn't go into any more details.
It looks like software giant Microsoft is looking to get into the scripted TV business. I hear that the company has hired a headhunter to search for an experienced executive to serve as a head of scripted. Microsoft has dabbled into original series before. Several years ago, the company's music and entertainment service Zune partnered with MEAN Magazine to produce Cinemash, a digital comedy series that took on classic scenes from popular movies. Microsoft recently has been exploring the scripted TV territory for its video-game console XBox. After a decade of growing pains, original content has finally become the new frontier for big Internet companies, though none has gone as far as to produce high-end series for online distribution, and Prospect Park's failed attempt to do it with canceled soaps One Life To Live and All My Children proves just how economically challenging that is. Netflix is betting heavily on scripted series through straight acquisitions of drama House Of Cards and comedies Orange Is The New Black and Arrested Development. And Google's YouTube recently announced the launch of as many as 100 channels with premium original content.
Young adventurer Sean receives a distress signal from a mysterious island where no island should exist - a place of strange life forms, mountains of gold, deadly volcanoes, and more than one astonishing secret. New Line/Warner Bros will be bringing Journey 2: The Mysterious Island to theaters in 3D everywhere on February 10th next year.
The fascinating thing about this unlocking method is that you don't need to use any specialized software or get any specific hardware to do the hack. You just need the original AT&T SIM and a target (T-Mobile) SIM, though the latter has to be cut to micro-SIM size to fit the slot in the iPhone 4S. It will reportedly also work with the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS from AT&T too.
1. Insert original carrier AT&T SIM card
2. Dial 611 for AT&T customer service hotline and drop the call
3. Turn on Airplane Mode
4. Take out AT&T SIM card
5. Insert T-Mobile SIM card
6. Make sure WiFi is off ( also tap on Forget this Network to make sure it doesn't connect automatically later)
7. Switch off Airplane Mode and iPhone will search for network. This is followed by the Apple splash screen appearing.
8. Activation Required will be displayed on the screen
9. EDGE network will activate automatically notice the E' on the top left corner of the screen
10. Wait for about 20-30 seconds and turn off the phone
11. Turn on iPhone and the same Activation Required screen will be displayed
12. When you see one signal bar, tap on Use Cellular Connection
13. Eject SIM card
14. Activation Required screen will be displayed the second time
15. Insert SIM card
16. Unlocked!
Not many reports of this being successful are coming in. It sounds very similar to the old xbox disc swap trick. But the only way to have a real jailbreak at this time is with a software carrier unlock or Gevey SIM.
Elder Scrolls Skyrim
New in Catalyst 11.11b: Delivers AMD CrossFire performance
scaling for AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series
AMD Radeon HD 5000 CrossFire support will be supported soon
in an updated driver
Improves performance 2-7% on single GPU configurations
Resolve corruption seen when enabling Multi-Sample
Anti-Aliasing on the AMD Radeon HD 6970 Series
Assassin's Creed: Revelations
New in Catalyst 11.11b: Delivers AMD CrossFire performance
scaling
Batman Arkham City
Improves DirectX 11 performance for single GPU configurations
Rage
Delivers AMD CrossfireX performance scaling
Resolves a number of image / stability issues seen with the
title:
Fix geometry corruption, sometimes seen in Bash TV entrance
Fix issues with Low-memory conditions on 32bit systems.
Fix issue with extreme corruption with missing textures on
32bit systems.
Fix memory leaks when deleting/reusing sync objects.
Fix hitching and pausing, especially noticeable on some Quad
Core systems when doing races and Stanley Express runs.
Fix some missing shadows
Battlefield 3
Resolves intermittent corruption seen when playing the game
at specific camera angles
The ad puts most of the emphasis on the "Circles" feature that lets users of the social networking service arrange their various friends into custom groups (family, best friends, work associates) with the tag line, "Sharing, but like real life; that's a plus."
Officially Google has said that Google+ has about 25 million users, but that was a number of weeks ago and it's likely that number has increased quite a bit since then. It has also expanded Google+ to allow businesses and other organizations to sign up for accounts.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)