Apple to roll out mapping service?

Placebase — a company that offers global mapping services similar to Google Maps — is now owned by corporate giant Apple.

But why is this big news? Gizmodo believes Apple intends to 1-up Google. The gadgeteers are confident Apple will be releasing their own satellite mapping service, as the company deftly makes use of the technology they buy (Coverflow, for example). It's also believed Apple is looking to further pull away from Google services as a whole — which actually makes sense, seeing as how Apple is becoming more of an independent company -- designing custom chips for the iPhone, instead of using the same generic chips available to everyone, for example. Not to mention, Apple has been keeping this purchase on the "hush hush" — the deal evidently went down last July.

So what is Apple's aim? Some bloggers speculate that Apple is simply trying to further itself from Google. Others believe the intent is less extreme, and falls along the lines of more revenue:

Whenever you run a Safari search, as opposed to a Google search, Apple profits. When you use Google, Google profits greatly — while Apple receives the minimum of what Google owes them for using its service (significantly less when you think about the number of Google searches made daily). Why is this? In a nut shell: advertising revenue — It's how search engines make money.

Whatever their intent, with Apple involved you can be sure this isn't the last you'll be hearing about the inevitable "Safari Maps".

The successor to the popular Twitter app makes its debut

iPhone tweeters rejoice! The successor to one of the most recognized Twitter apps is on its way to the App Store as you read this! If you're a tweeter (n. Somebody who uses Twitter) and you've been tweeting from your iPhone, chances are you've been using — or maybe you have used — Loren Brichter's Tweetie. There's something to be said about Tweetie; it's sleek, simple, easy to use, and it's a great way to harass your friends and family with a mass of Twitter updates on the go.

Tweetie 2 builds on the foundation that Tweetie laid, re-inventing the sleek, albeit simple, user interface mobile tweeters are accustomed to. At a glance, Tweetie 2 looks pretty similar to the original. All of you tweeters will be glad to hear the the application won't be inducing any headaches, as all of the functions are right where you're used to seeing them. Of course, Tweetie 2 aims higher than to simply provide iPhone tweeters with an updated interface. The real beauty of Tweetie 2 lies deep within its build.

By far the coolest new feature that Tweetie 2 offers is the ability to completely customize/update your tweet at whim. Tweetie 2 acts as an independent application, meaning that it allows the user to create, edit, and delete their tweets all within the client itself. Want to add a URL or photo to your latest tweet? It's as simple as tapping "add photo". You won't have to hassle with opening up Safari and copying image codes or long URLs, now that you can simply copy and paste directly into the comment area. Tweetie 2 gives the user full control over their tweets, allowing you to quote, translate, and even email your tweets to friends and followers — oh yeah, and you can edit your Twitter account profile too!

Another nifty thing that Tweetie 2 offers is full persistence. Let's say you get a phone call while you're tweeting it up. You can close out of the app and answer your call, and when you open the application back up continue tweeting right from where you left off. To tweet now, or tweet later? It's ultimately your call.

Tweetie 2 is chock-full of new features, most of which you probably won't realize are there until you've been using the app for more than a week.

Keep in mind that Tweetie 2 is a standalone purchase, and will set you iPhone tweeters back a whopping $2.99 — a small price to pay for the updated mobile-tweeting experience.

Twitter a good way to send out commands

A network security guy looking in to some recent cyber-crime found out something interesting: it turns out a botnet was being controlled through Twitter. Finally, it turns out, someone is getting some work done on the popular social networking service.

Twitter was being used as a message relay station to the botnets. So the few hundred infected computers were set up to surreptitiously read the Twitter tweets. The tweets were garbled code, that only the malware would understand.

The botnet was a fairly nefarious one: it would search host's computers for banking password. Remember folks: do at least monthly malware scans with effective programs (personally, I recommend Malwarebytes Antimalware scan or Dr.Web) to make sure you are hosting tons of trojans and other nasty stuff.

The security researcher got a hold of the Twitter overlords and had the account shut down. But Twitter is such a large service that it seems that it would be difficult to find the few Botnet Twitterers out of the all the regular, useful and socially redeeming Twitterer accounts. 

802.11n draft with enhanced bandwidth management capabilities

Today ASUS announced the release of the RT-N16 wireless-N Gigabit router that emphasizes what ASUS calls the three "S's" - speed, simplicity and security. In addition to the wireless-N capabilities, the RT-N16 offers four Gigabit Ethernet ports and two USB ports for connecting printers and external storage devices.

The RT-N16 conforms to the latest 802.11n draft specs with a theoretical maximum throughput of 300Mbps and also is backward compatible with 802.11 b/g devices. The unit's powerful CPU and 128MB of memory help ensure it can handle multiple simultaneous networking tasks with no lag.

Management of the router is accomplished through the EZ UI graphical user interface that incorporates a host of different connectivity features under a single interface. Bandwidth management is handled using the EZQoS function where you can easily allocate bandwidth according to individual user needs. To support network usage of a shared printer, the EZ All-In-One Printer function allows multiple users to simultaneously access a printer and use its print and scan functions. The AiDisk feature allows users to easily set up file-sharing via the web in minutes.

The unit also offers security features through the WPS (Wi-Fi Protected Setup) interface that allows users to set up secure Wi-Fi Networks within minutes and lock down the network to prevent potential intrusion by unauthorized outsiders. In addition to NAT and stateful packet inspection features, users can choose from different encryption protocols including WEP, WPA-PSK, WPA2-PSK, WPA-Enterprise, WPA2-Enterprise and RADIUS.

ASUS did not disclose availablity or pricing information.

Corza home servers offers up to 4TB storage

If you don't know what NAS means, odds are it won't be all that long before you do as network attached storage appliances become more common. Patriot Memory sees network storage as the next mainstream consumer product and is releasing its own home server named Corza. Designed to meet the storage needs of the home network, the Corza is a dual-bay unit that can accommodate up to 2x2TB hard drives. That translates into a maximum of 4TB of storage when configured in either a RAID 0 or JBOD volume. The Corza also offers RAID 1 for those looking for the protection of mirrored drives.

As multimedia becomes a greater focus of home networks, Patriot's new server can stream files over its gigabit Ethernet connection supports as many as three HD movies simultaneously. The Corza offers features such as a built-in FTP server making the files on the server accessible from anywhere an Internet connection is available.

Memory manufacturers have been branching out into other product lines such as cooling products and power supplies, but this is the first I've seen a memory company moving into the network storage market with a server based on hard drives. Let's hope Patriot can bring something extra to the table with the Corza. It'll be interesting to see additional specs on the Corza including processor and memory size. Those are two of the critical features that can set a unit above the rest of what is a fairly crowded field at this end of the market.

Digital Britain

Earlier this year Lord Cater proposed a Universal Service for broadband in the United Kingdom. Those plans have now been backed by the UK government, which means everyone should have access to 2Mb/s broadband by the year 2012. Speaking at the House of Commons, the chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said, "I am allocating extra funding for digital investment, to help to extend the broadband network to almost every community."

The backing of 2Mb/s plan was contained in the Budget Report released yesterday, and according to the Treasury the cost would be met in part by underspend from the BBC's promotion of Digital TV switchover.

While Lord Carter's plan may now be backed by the UK government, it still is not clear how exactly the Universal Service will be delivered; either through fixed line, satellite or wireless broadband access. This additional level of detail will be available this summer when the government releases the final version of the Digital Britain report.

New NAS servers offer up to 8TB of storage

Seagate is making a move into the small business market with a series of new network attached storage servers designed to support up to 50 users. Part of the BlackArmor product line, the NAS appliances will be offered as a complete package including hard drives and backup software.

Seagate introduced the BlackArmor line last year when it began offering a portable hard drive with built-in encryption. The NAS servers will come in three models with in both two- and four-bay arrangements. The NAS 220 is a two-bay, two-drive model while the NAS 420 and NAS 440 are four-bay models with either two or four drives included. The units offer RAID 0, 1, 10, 5, JBOD drive configurations and come with a 10-user license for Acronis backup software. Not surprisingly, the BlackArmor NAS units only support Seagate drives. Retail pricing is expected to range from $799 US for the 2TB NAS 420 to $1,999 for the 8TB NAS 440 model.

Fine and pricing restructuring may be in order

Microsoft isn't the only one getting slapped around by the EU Antitrust regulators (a.k.a. the European Comission) -- Intel is also on the bill for flexing its power a little too much, endangering fair competition. However, a bigger worry on the corporation's mind no doubt isn't a large fine (up to 10% of its annual revenue), but a forced new pricing model:

"Will the Commission impose something that would destroy their pricing model, open up the market to competition and new entrants or to AMD? That is what they would be worried about, more than their reputation or anything else," said Michael Tscherny, a former Commission official, now partner at European affairs consultancy Gplus Europe.

Part of the scheming, the Commission says, stems from Intel's rebates, which they cite as an attempt to suppress AMD's share in the industry. Turns out Intel agreed to give out the rebates to computer makers (Apple?) so long as they obtained most or all of their chips from the company. Intel has denied as such, saying its conduct has been law-abiding and beneficial to clients and customers.

A ruling will soon be made; analysts are leaning toward's the EU on this one, saying this fine could top the one laid on Microsoft for a similar offence in 2004 at $500 million. The figure isn't expected to slow down Intel much, but act more as a deterrent.

"They fined Microsoft. Yes, it hurt their image, but it didn't hurt their cash balance and their market share is still almost at the same level," said John Dryden, analyst at Charter Equity Research in San Francisco.

Of course, operating system choices are limited on the PC, whereas processors, motherboards and the like are plentiful. If people buy less Intel as a result, maybe reputation will become a big worry, despite what Tscherny thinks.

Our technological world 10 years from now

Microsoft is getting passionate. Their Office Labs division -- the one that "tests ideas by building prototypes and gathering usage data" -- has created an inspiring video which imagines our world and its relationship with technology ten years from now, in keeping with its "envisioning" series which offered some of the same concepts. Times like this it's good to be a nerd.

The video was presented last week at the Wharton Business Technology Conference by Microsoft’s Business Division president Stephen Elop; check it out:

Notice the lack of Windows logos, a step away from the corporation's "Windows Everywhere" campaign we saw not many years ago.

Fifty Atom-powered board server on display

One of the biggest issues of running servers is of course the tremendous electricity consumption, which can be a lot more expensive than the server itself.

Hence, Microsoft is now experimenting with Atom-powered servers as a possible solution for a more efficient energy use. The Atom N270 - used in most netbooks - has a thermal design power (TDP) of only 2.5W. This means keep a server cool becomes less of a concern. Jim Larus, Microsoft Research Director of Software Architecture, further explains:

Of course, the Atom is a lot less powerful than a Xeon, but a bunch of these Atom processors could achieve the same processing power for a lower power consumption. In terms of performance, a single-core Atom is comparable to a Pentium 4 clock-for-clock, but the power consumption is night and day. For a quick comparison, the average Pentium 4 has a thermal design power of 84W.  Since Atom is designed for netbooks, it can quickly switch between sleep and active state, unlike desktop processors.

Different variations of the Atom processor have interesting features for servers as well. For example, the Atom 230 and 330 are EM64T enabled. The dual-core Atom also benefits of Hyper-Threading Technology like all others so it has four threads, which can still offer a nice performance.  The Atom Z520, Z530 and Z540 are virtualization enabled.

Another advantage to Atom-based systems is lower cost.  To give you a quick idea, the average netbook costs around $400 to the end-user. Now, remove the screen, keyboard, touchpad and all other non-essential hardware in a server and the cost will decrease considerably.

However, Intel is not too enthusiatic with the Atom-core and prefer to continue selling the Xeon due to its higher cost.

I.E evolves

The official release of Internet Explorer 8 isn't too far off now, it appears. Microsoft, late last night, has offered the download of Release Candidate 1 of Internet Explorer 8.

Internet Explorer 8 offers the whole host of the usual browser improvements, including better performance, security and slicker U.I. New features include the oft-laughed at 'porn-mode' (private browsing mode where the cache is temporarily disabled), ability to better manage and save RSS feeds, and something called accelerators, which is sort of a advanced and adaptive auto-fill feature to access your commonly used websites quickly.

You can download it over here.

Even though it is a beta, it will probably be more on the stable side than the crashy-crashy side, as I.E is not exactly a new program. Share any of experiences of the new browser down below.

Update: Been using IE 8 RC1 for about an hour now. Seems good. I was wrong about the 'accelerators' feature though. Basically what it is, is sort of an advanced hypertexting. Like say you download an application on your computer, and then integrate into your shell, so whenever you right click a desktop shortcut, you have the option of opening it with that app. Accelerators is like the I.E browser equivalent; you can download 'accelerators' and then use them on any words on a website. So if there is an address on a web page, you can use an accelerator to automatically look up the address on Google maps. Or you can use a Wikipedia accelerator to quickly look up a word.

And so much more than a LAN party

This last weekend, the largest -- and definitely one of the best -- computer enthusiast parties got underway in Sweden. The event is called DreamHack -- have you heard of it? It is sort of hard to classify - DreamHack is a massive LAN party, a vital demoscene competition, and generally a big, massive party for people who love computers (other than Macs!) 

This is a serious event. A seriously fun event. A 40 gigabyte a second network was setup to support swarms of gamers from all over Europe, and the world.

Picture over 10,000 people gaming together, in a big dark colliseum. Then you got bands, and almost a rave-like atmosphere at times. All the big competitive games -- CS, DOTA, Quake 3 -- being played by top players. All sorts of crazy modified hardware adorns the tables. You got big screens and big lights -- and the best part, of course, is just having many thousands of people surrounding you that probably share many of your same interests. Debauchery and drinking aren't an attraction here -- people are just getting high on technology!

One of the many annual records DreamHack always breaks is for 'The biggest mess of Ethernet cabling.'

No official word yet on the attendance record for this DreamHack, but it looks like a success, judging from the pics of the event. DreamHack was started back in '94, just by a few friends, who rented a small local hall and got some dudes together to get some LAN games going. Now there are two huge events a year: DreamHack Winter, and DreamHack summer.

Below is a collection of media from the event. If you live anywhere near Sweden, maybe sometime you should make it out to this titillating event.

 So let me get this straight: you're Swedish, mutantly hot, and you like PC gaming? Oh my God. Babies?

That dude in the middle with the black shirt -- I think he's really getting into that band, big time. Good times.

Director of PSN virtual world development also explains Home's focus on community

Sony's PlayStation Home has come a long way since its announcement, being delayed for various reasons including a better focus toward gamers.  It's finally in beta testing in the hands of lucky Qore subscribers. Speaking to Gamasutra, Home director Jack Buser reassures the PlayStation Network virtual world should be on track for launch this year. Buser also reiterates Home's focus toward the gamer community, admist the usual push for third party spaces and advertising.

To recap, Home remains a "3D social gaming community" where users can customize their avatar and virtual space. However, another important feature is being able to set up and launch online multiplayer sessions for PS3 games straight from Home's virtual world, without needing to do so from the game itself.

The "social" and "community" part of Home should become apparent through communal areas outside of the personalized spaces for player avatars.  In these community spaces, players can congregate and shoot the breeze akin to the overglorified, literal chat rooms of Second Life. Buser sees these "neutral spaces" as the spiritual extension of the arcades which are popular meeting spots for like-minded gamers:

PlayStation Home gives you a neutral space where you can really get to know someone. Even in the real world now if you're a gamer and you want to get to know other gamers, there really is nowhere left to go... If you're a gamer, unless there happens to be an event in your town there is no place to meet like-minded people. Home is that place. It really leapfrogs the offerings on other game consoles.

Buser also clarifies how third party companies can get their own content into Home. Fortunately, quite a few developers and publishers are already on board.  The most obvious way is for third parties to create this content in-house through Sony's special HDK (Home Development Kit), though it appears Sony will also be on hand to "work with them on the concept". For companies who don't have the resources to leverage the HDK to create content, Buser describes a "managed vendor process" which is essentially their network of developers who can work with third parties to get their stuff into Home.

This commitment from third parties both during and after the release of their spaces will be important, as Buser forsees Home as a constantly evolving platform. Perhaps great change could take place even over the course of a few months.

Malicious spam increases eightfold in only three months.

Spam.  Nobody likes it, yet everybody gets to deal with it.  E-mail service providers such as Google and Yahoo also acknowledge that nobody likes spam and does the best they can to keep it out of your inbox where you can focus on the truly important messages from your friends, coworkers, or even those little reminders to yourself to make sure Buddy gets that bath he's been needing when you get home from work.  Unfortunately, those behind the spam e-mails get smarter and things slip through from time to time.  Worse still, not everybody is lucky enough to have (working) spam protection and so get many e-mails every day.

My spam box on Gmail

There is a new statistic floating about that makes those of us with spam protection breathe greater sighs of relief.  Security firm Sophos has released a new report stating that the number of malicious spam e-mails sent on average between the months of July and September was one in 416 normal messages.  This is approximately eight times the amount of spam that was sent just between April and June!  The main cause for the increase?  People aren't browsing safely.  The average Internet user rarely checks links out before clicking on them, thus exposing them to the dangers of inserting confidential information through a form where it goes somewhere completely different from where they assume it's going.  Social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace have also been getting hit pretty hard with spam lately, but it's doubtful that will die down any time in the near future as more and more people get in touch with each other.

Think before you click, or else you may find yourself wishing you hadn't clicked at all...

A good try that needs some work

Gizmodo has a pretty good review of T-Mobile's Android G1 phone.

The phone sure looks cool, but in the review they found some faults:

• the keyboard is a pain to use
• the touchscreen sometimes misses presses
• the battery only lasts about a day
• GPS is off by default
• no headphone jack
• no USB mass storage mode

There are also some features they liked:

• the trackball is great
• the screeen is great
• WiFi is good
• 3G is decent
• OS is solid - no hangs or crashes
• multi-tasking works great

'We play it all of the time'

Yessir, Goldeneye is influencing developers even today, and big ones no less, like Treyarch. The studio, who is currently working on the next Bond title, Quantum of Solace, says they use it as a measuring stick of sorts. When one if its developers Adam Gascoine (Gascoigne?) was asked if they wish it never existed, this was his response:

"I don't know. I don't know if it would. I think in hindsight some would say yes, I wish it had never existed. Actually it's beneficial to us, to be honest with you, because it's like a motivator. It might turn out bad, you never know right? But it's a motivator. You've always got this 500 pound gorilla in the room. We play it all of the time. We've got it up and running."

But like me, he feels it "might be" time for gamers to "get over" Goldeneye:

"I guess in that respect yeah it probably would be nice to have nothing to compare to. But you could also say the advantage is that people will look at this game and say 'oh my God! They got it! Another GoldenEye!'. And that's just going to be wonderful for us if we get that. But I think the actual content of our game does put it to bed."

A double-edged sword, it seems, Mister Gascoigne (I'm going with that, it makes him sound like he has an evil goatee). Personally (oh, I hear the fanboys stampeding already), I find Goldeneye to be to FPS' as Final Fantasy VII is to RPGs: overrated. Gasp! Sacrilege! Look, Goldeneye is a great and well-made game, it's just I think when the majority of gamers seem to hail it as "the greatest console FPS of all time", I think that's over the top. And also, at least from an objective top-down sort of perspective, I feel Perfect Dark did everything Goldeneye did and better, and gave us more, a lot more (kinda like I think FF VIII did). I'm not going to go off and say it's the greatest console FPS of all time, but it is one of my personal favourites. Other FPS' have different things to offer anyway, so I find it a little strange to hype a game up like that.

So, let's maybe move up and out and hope Quantam of Solace has its own greatness to give. Coming from Treyarch, and judging from the interviews, I doubt we should expect anything less.

(Oh, and despite certain inaccurate reports, it is possible they'll be working on the next Bond game, and they're very keen to do so.)

Some steal stationary, some steal secret stuff

Remember that sysadmin who refused to relinquish control over much of the government's networks in San Francisco after he was canned? Well it seems that he isn't much of an aberration: a recent surveyed done by security company Cyber-Ark Software turned up some interesting results. A full 88% of IT administrators surveyed said that they would not hesitate to take sensitive information with them if they were fired for whatever reason. The survey questioned 300 people.

It seems like the majority of sysadmins just felt like it was sort of their property to take with them -- much the same way as Jim or Dwight from The Office (TV show) would take stationary or pens if they found themselves canned. Unfortunately, the survey did not question the administrators as to what they would do with the "CEO's passwords, the customer database, R & D plans, financial reports, M & A plans, and most importantly the company's list of privileged passwords," -- or whether they would steal them just because they could.   

The most prized information to retain were network passwords. Presumably these would be all changed by the new, incoming system administrators of course, but in the interim, a devious and disgruntled sysadmin could wreck all sorts of havoc from home with these passwords. Or, on the flip side of the coin, if the sysadmin was unfairly fired for some hardly significant reason, the admin could use the passwords for leveraging a good reference, or a better severance package.

"Most company directors are blissfully unaware of the administrative or privileged passwords that their IT staff has access to which allows them to see everything that is going on within the company. These privileged identities, which lie on hundreds of servers and applications, very rarely get changed as it's often considered too much hassle," said Udi Mokady, of Cyber-Ark Software.

Another interesting tidbit turned up by the survey was that a full one third of network geek-lords surveyed admitted to leaving passwords around the office on Post-It notes and pieces of paper. This is alarming of course, because study after study have shown Post-It notes to be notoriously dangerous and frighteningly insecure. 

Computers and mobile phones to compensate teacher shortage

That eternal struggle between nature and technology always seems to be ongoing; when do we go too far? Sometimes though, you get a clearcut case like this, where the technology just plain benefits everyone: Tanzania and Zambia, two African countries, have started ICT projects which utilize mobile telephone messaging and computer-generated classrooms for primary and secondary schools. About 200 primary schools will benefit from the former's programme, which will launch early October. This will serve as a 'pilot project' before being copied in other schools that need it.

Training minister Professor Jumanne Mughembe told APA this is all mainly due to acute teacher shortages in the region; currently they're short of over 40,000.

"This IT project will also be using projectors, which would be operated from one control center manned by a few instructors in a bid to reach many students," he stressed.

The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has of course helped usher in these teaching methods in Africa, with many different countries ordering them in, following on the project's goals of putting one in the hands of each student. Going with these African government programmes (headed by the New Partnership for Africa’s Development's e-Africa Commission), learning materials will be posted regularly to a website, which students will then access through their OLPC computers.

The e-Africa Commission is based in Johannesburg, South Africa, and is set to equip roughly 16,000 African schools with computers and Internet access by 2015; hopefully they won't see the kind of censorship China has.

100 Mbps fast enough for you?

The largest communications service provider in the UK, BT, will be investing about $3 billion to improve network speeds for many Brits. The money will go to securing "superfast" broadband for up to 10 million homes by 2012.

How fast is superfast? The luckiest people (and generally, those with the newer homes) that are able to get on a fibre-to-the-premise network can theoretically achieve speeds up 100 Mbps (megabits per second.) Most people however, will be connecting to the new highspeed network through their homes' copper cabling, which leads to a speed cap around 40 Mbps. Though BT does hope to raise this cap eventually to around the 60 Mbps mark with some new technologies they will be rolling out.

BT will be making this network available to other ISPs, selling wholesale broadband to companies such as Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB.

The move by BT has been seen as some as a response to earlier announcements from the Virgin Media group, which also plans to deliver more extensive high speed broadband to UK customers.

Company making steady progress

Yet another reason to love "The City That Knows How": company Meraki is planning on having free Wi-Fi set up in all of the city by the end of 2008, with a service called Free The Net. Can you believe that? Heck yes. Last month, about 6,000 users were logged on, as of now it's 100,000.

The company is accomplishing this by installing repeaters (electronic devices which repeat a signal without degradation) on rooftops, going about it neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood, with the permission and assistance of the city. Here's a statement about the company released back in January:

After raising an additional $20 million from venture capitalists, Meraki decided it had enough money to set up free Wi-Fi in San Francisco's remaining 47 square miles. Meraki probably will have to give away 10,000 to 15,000 repeaters, estimated Sanjit Biswas, the Mountain View-based company's chief executive.

Hm, I guess venture capitalism can have its benefits. Aside from VCs, municipal branches also support Meraki, so as a result, it's completely free. I'm having trouble wrapping my head around this, I keep waiting to hear the scam; what a progressive city.

At the moment they're focusing on affordable housing areas, which is sweet, really. And more than that, in one of these places in particular, the Valencia Garden Complex, they've set up a computer lab where workshops and programs are hosted. Developed back in April, it allows people to utilize resume and academic services.

Honestly, the more I hear about this place the more I want to go. It's odd to know of a city that actually seems to really care about its people, especially the not so well off. More or less (I've moved around a lot), I'm from a small city myself, the province of which is built on that small town, everyone supporting everyone mentality, but even there most people just bitch about how much of their money those on welfare are taking from them. In SF they give them free Internet! Well, I'm oversimplifying the issue, but it is still a valid point I think.

Obviously, it's not a perfect system, bandwidth is shared and all, but I expect the service will only improve over time. There's talk of it being set up in other cities, as well. All things considered, would you like to see the same setup in your city or town?

Columbus does it again

Defying previous attempts, the first commercial Ethernet switch has been sent off in space successfully. Now 400km above Earth onboard the Columbus module research laboratory, the switch will create part of a half duplex 10Mbps local area network, sustained on the International Space Station (ISS). Up until now, a mixture of IT technology decades old was used.

Cisco, D-Link, Avaya, 3Com, NetGear, and Hewlett Packard switches underwent similar conditions before, but were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation. This time HP's ProCurve 2524 switch (which holds a 10 year lifespan) succeeded. In the dev, configuration and qualifications cycles for three years, HP says it was the "most unusual and demanding" project Procurve has endeavoured.

I am ashamed to own a Denon receiver, this is worse than Monster Cable!

Initially, I saw a post about this ummm.... "interesting" pricing at the Inq.

A $499 5' ethernet cable? I thought they must be kidding.

Unfortunately the Inq had it right; as visiting the Denon site brings us this:

Right now, I am ashamed to own a Denon receiver. Don't buy that Denon overpriced cable, go to a dollar store, and buy a $0.99 5' Cat-5 cable, or to a network equipment supplier and buy a $5 Cat-6 cable - you cannot possibly tell the difference.

Thanks, Bluetooth!

Bluetooth technology's usage in the medical field isn't new, but streamlining it is, and this is just what German communications development house Stollmann GmbH has done. Specifically, they've implemented a Bluetooth Special Interest Group's (SIG) Health Device Profile (HDP) into the profession.

What is a Bluetooth profile? Just like any other device profile you may have on your computer, really - it defines how different applications use the Bluetooth wireless technology, allowing the desired ones to communicate with each other and transfer appropriate data. Basically, it acts as a mediator between Bluetooth devices and whatever other devices (in this case, medical ones).

So what we have with the final result is a profile which should make virtually all medical devices compatible with the technology, and therefore, a virtually wireless field, something previously unfounded. According to a press release last year from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), this is a very important step:

"Thanks to its elementary values such as low power, low cost, high security and robustness, Bluetooth wireless technology is ideally suited for these applications. With the healthcare costs globally caught in a relentless upward spiral, the healthcare industry needs creative solutions to meet the ever-growing need for quality health services with wireless convenience while allowing patients, insurers, and governments to keep their budgets in check."

The endeavour has garnered a lot of support from various companies in various industries, which "foster applications related to patient monitoring." All of these companies are a part of Continua Health Alliance group, whose mission it is to  "establish a system of interoperable personal telehealth solutions that [foster] independence and [empower] people and organizations to better manage health and wellness." One of the most noticeable members: Intel.

New Linux Streamer promises to deliver "game streaming" from PCs to PS3s (running Linux) over local network; meanwhile remote streaming coming Q1 2008

StreamMyGame is preparing to deliver streaming of PC games over local networks, with plans to bring remote streaming access over broadband internet by "March 2008". With its 3MB "Streamer" plugin, gamers will be able to set up a Windows XP, Vista or Linux (natch) compatible PC to run as a server for their games, which client devices will then stream from.

The Game Stream can be recorded to a file, broadcast, transmitted over the home network and will soon be able to be sent over the internet and played on the remote computer. The encrypted keyboard commands from the remote computer are captured and transmitted back over the network and used to play the game.

The client can be a similar PC setup, or Linux-based device. Interestingly, StreamMyGame's official press release strongly emphasizes the PlayStation 3 (which supports optional Linux OS installations) as a possible client in this regard. Clients will need to run the Streamer Linux Player as well, though it doesn't need to have the game itself installed like the host streamer device does. Of equal interest (or even higher depending on your gaming priorities) is the Streamer's support for DirectX10 games, which should keep the application ready for the high end stuff down the road.

Gamers will need to register at StreamMyGame's homepage to download the free Streamer application. Registration itself is free at the "Standard" level, but interested parties can opt for either the "Premium" and "Unlimited" level memberships which do require a $9.99 USD and $19.99 USD annual fee, respectively. Those willing to go Premium or Unlimited can enjoy additional benefits like game streaming at 720p and 1080p resolutions, which shuld be very nice for PS3 owners with supporting displays, and even gameplay recording. More details can be found on the developer's website.

Members to www.StreamMyGame.com can;

• Register for our free Standard membership or subscribe for our Premium and Unlimited memberships
• Build gaming communities
• Record gameplay to video and upload these videos to the web
• Broadcast games live over networks and at LAN parties
• Stream games over their local network so they can be played on any computer in their home
• Stream games over their local network so PC games can be played on Linux PCs and the PS3
• Share their games over the internet so they can be played at remote locations by other gamers*
• Improve their game skills with dual play of single player games

* Broadband player released Q1 2008.

Hook up with other Skype users over PSP, and possibly dial landline and mobile phone numbers as well

Sony Computer Entertainment has always been planning VoIP (voice-over-IP) for the PlayStation Portable ever since it announced Go!Messenger for the UK last year. While Go!Messenger is set to launch in Europe this month, SCE may have something similiar in store for North Americans with Skype. Eagle-eyed readers visiting Sony's special CES (Consumer Electronics Show) website have caught onto a (very brief) blurb highlighting upcoming support for the popular voice/video chat client on the handheld:

Call friends, talk trash to fellow gamers or catch up with acquaintances via Skype for PSP system.

Skype definitely brings the PSP that much closer to being a mobile phone (though dialing landline and mobile phone numbers will probably require a fee as with the PC Windows version), despite SCE's denials over making an actual "PSP phone" thus far. It appears we'll have to wait until CES kicks off this weekend before we get more official confirmation, including further details on a launch date and features. Will phoning between PC and PSP users be possible as well?