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ASUS Shows Off 8.9" Eee PC 900

Asus shows off it’s latest incarnation of the Eee PC at CeBIT 2008:

The wait is nearly over for an Eee PC with a larger screen. Today, images and details are finally rolling out for the highly-anticipated update.

Engadget was able to fondle ASUS’s new Eee PC at CeBIT, but ASUS officials would not allow the publication to boot the machine up — likely for fear of spilling the beans on the Eee PC’s processor/chipset. However, we do know that the Eee PC 900 will feature 1GB of memory and will be available in storage capacities up to 12GB (up from 8GB max on the current Eee PC).

As previously reported, the 8.9″ display will have a 1024×600 resolution which is a welcome jump from the confining 800×400 display on the first-generation Eee PC. The increase in screen real estate made a minimal impact on the exterior dimensions of the device — the Eee PC 900 is slightly larger and thicker and features a larger touchpad. The keyboard looks to identical to the previous model.

According to Engadget, the larger display will have a negligible impact on battery performance with battery lifetime quoted at 2.5 to 3 hours.

We will have to wait until tomorrow to get the full specifications for ASUS’ Eee PC 900 — at that time, we’ll learn if the new model will use a traditional Mobile Celeron processor as its predecessor or one of Intel’s new Atom processors.

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The Eee PC 900 12G is due to arrive mid-2008 with a price tag of of €399 ($600).

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Facebook lets its users translate site into German

Facebook, the social network site that has enjoyed spectacular international growth in the past year, despite being published only in English until recently, said on Monday it was offering a German version.

More than 2,000 German speaking Facebook members volunteered to translate the site from English to German in under two weeks, the company said in a statement.

The German version of the site represents Facebook’s third language, as volunteers translated a version of the site into Spanish early in February. Facebook has also said it plans to release a French language site.

Roughly 60 percent of Facebook’s 66 million users live outside the United States.

Matt Cohler, Facebook’s vice president of product management, said in a statement that Facebook counts more than a million active users in German-speaking countries.

The Silicon Valley-based company was founded in 2004 as a social site for students at Harvard University and spread quickly to other colleges and eventually into workplaces. Its popularity stems from how the site conveniently allows users to share details of their lives with selected friends online.

Germany does not rank among the top 10 countries for Facebook users. After the United States, Britain is No. 2 with 8 million active users and Canada is 3rd with 7 million users. Turkey is fourth, followed by Australia, France and Sweden.

As the company releases new features, Facebook said it plans to rely on volunteers to help it translate the site into non-English languages, borrowing a strategy popularized by Wikipedia, the anyone-can-edit Web encyclopedia.

Facebook will soon release the translation application to independent software developers to allow them to translate their Facebook programs into German, the company said.

Users who added the Facebook translation application were allowed to submit translations online while browsing the site. Facebook users then approved all translations through a voting system, the Palo Alto, California-based company said.

Facebook members who wish to use the site in German can now change languages in their account settings to German or Spanish. Any one who signs onto Facebook from a German-speaking country will automatically see the site in German.

Facebook is playing catch-up on the international front to rival News Corp’s MySpace, which has national sites in more than 20 countries. MySpace offers versions of its site in Spanish, French, German and Italian, including a site for U.S. Spanish speakers and another for French Canadians.

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So Facebook is valued at US$15bn, made an estimated US$100 million in 2006, and needs to rely on volunteers to translate their website?

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U.K.'s fastest supercomputer unveiled

The largest and most advanced supercomputer in the U.K. has been unveiled in Edinburgh.

Hector–or the High-End Computing Terascale Resource–can handle 63 trillion calculations per second, which is the equivalent processing power of 12,000 desktop systems and four times faster than its predecessor. The amount of calculations the system can handle is equivalent to every person on earth simultaneously carrying out 10,000 calculations per second.

The supercomputer is based at the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Computer Facility near the Scottish capital and will cost $221.3 million (113 million pounds) over six years. The facility will be operated by the Edinburgh Parallel Computing Center (EPCC).

The EPCC claims Hector will take high performance supercomputing up “another gear” and will play a key role in allowing scientists to be at the forefront of research.

Work due to be carried out using Hector includes forecasting the impact of climate change, projecting the spread of disease epidemics, and developing new medicines.

Hector uses a Cray XT4 system with software and application support provided by Numerical Algorithms Group.

At present, the supercomputer has a peak capability of 63 teraflops, but this is due to increase to 250 teraflops in October 2009, with a further upgrade due two years later.

The procurement was managed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council on behalf of U.K. Research Councils with some of the money coming from the Department of Innovation, Universities, and Skills.

EPCC also runs a green supercomputer called Maxwell–unveiled early in 2007–which is 10 times more energy efficient than traditional equivalents.

Despite its vast power, it falls short of the world’s fastest computer, Blue Gene/L, which can reach speeds of 478 teraflops.

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Mobile broadband "will overtake fixed line by 2010"

Mobile broadband could overtake home connections in popularity as soon as 2010, according to a comparison site.

Top 10 Broadband started tracking mobile broadband sales six months ago, and has seen uptake increase by over 50% month-on-month since then. “It is absolutely taking off, people are loving the broadband dongles,” says Jessica Mcardle of Top 10 Broadband. “Lots of people are using laptops and wanting to have more flexibility.”

If the strong growth continues, then mobile broadband could overtake traditional connections within two years, the company claims.

Mcardle believes that mobile broadband has notable advantages over Wi-Fi hotspots for mobile users. “A lot of places are coming up with it [Wi-Fi], but outside of cafés and those places it is handy to know that you can have a broadband connection,” she says. “You can have that connection at just £10 per month. For that kind of pricing it’s very competitive.”

Yet while the price of mobile broadband packages may be attractive, their data caps certainly hamper their appeal. 3’s £10-a-month Broadband Lite package, for example, has a monthly download cap of only 1GB. Even its £25 per month package has a limit of 7GB, which compares poorly to ADSL and cable offerings of a similar price.

Speeds also suffer in comparison to fixed-line. The maximum connection speed in 3G areas is around 7Mb/sec, while cable connections will soon be capable of reaching 50Mb/sec. Overall, it seems more likely that people will use mobile broadband as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, their home connection.

Bulging bills

In recent months there have been several cases of people running up extremely large bills by using mobile phone data packages as mobile broadband connections.

In January a Vodafone customer was served with a bill for £27,000, after having downloaded “20 or 30″ television shows over his mobile data package, believing that it included unlimited data.

“The thing with any broadband is that you really need to read the terms and conditions and know what you’re signing up for. It’s just a case of knowing what you’re going to be using,” explains Mcardle.

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Dell unveils entry-level gaming desktop

Dell has announced a new entry-level gaming desktop, as it attempts to expand into the enthusiast market it inherited with the acquisition of Alienware.

The XPS 630 will begin at £849 for an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 2.66GHz, with a 250GB hard disk, 1GB RAM and Geforce 8800GT graphics card. While the modest specification won’t see it running Crysis at maximum frame rates, Dell believes it will be enough to appeal to an increasingly broad gamer demographic.

“Gaming is not just teenagers playing in their bedrooms anymore, it’s women, parents and grandparents - there’s no stereotypes now,” says Chris Shelton, senior manager for XPS at Dell.

When asked how the move would affect its luxury Alienware brand, Dell claims the two will ultimately dovetail.

“At the moment there is a certain overlap between the brands,” says Shelton. “But if you look at Alienware, we still think that brand is focused on really high-end gamers. We think the XPS is going to compliment that line, so that we can deliver anything from £800 to £6,000 machines.”

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Google to build new Trans-Pacific cable

Google recently announced it plans to build a new undersea cable linking the US and Asia, to boost international bandwidth:

The cable network will be called Unity, and run the 6,000 miles from Asia to the US under the Pacific Ocean.

It is expected that the connection will increase trans-Pacific bandwidth by 20% when it is completed in the first quarter of 2010.

Rather than one individual cable, Unity will consist of five separate fibre pairs. Each of these will be capable of carrying 960Gb/sec, providing a theoretical data transmission rate of 7.68Tb/sec.

Unity will be constructed by NEC and Tyco, and cost an estimated £150 million to complete.

This will be funded by a consortium consisting of Google and five telecoms companies; Bharti Airtel, Global Transit, KDDI Corporation, Pacnet and SingTel.

“The Unity cable system allows the members of the consortium to provide the increased capacity needed as more applications and services migrate online, giving users faster and more reliable connectivity,” says Unity spokesperson, Jayne Stowell.

Google has previously expressed an interest in investing in network infrastructure. Last year Google announced that it has set aside a budget of $4.6 billion to purchase a section of the US wireless sprectrum.

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Microsoft Says it Has Plenty of Jobs for Microsoft, Yahoo Employees

Microsoft today attempted to soothe fears after it’s announcement of plans for a hostile takeover of Yahoo.

Microsoft says it has incentives ready to retain its employees and Yahoo employees if the takeover goes through. Microsoft and Yahoo have been rivals in Internet search for years. While Microsoft has grown and maintained its profitability, Yahoo has seen a drop in stock prices and a loss in market share.

In February 2008 Microsoft made an unsolicited offer of $44.6 billion to purchase Yahoo. The $44.6 billion offer placed a premium of 62% on Yahoo stock breaking down to about $31 per share.

Yahoo’s board rejected the Microsoft offer saying that it undervalued the company. After Yahoo rejected the offer, Microsoft moved ahead with plans of a hostile takeover of Yahoo. The takeover made some employees within both Microsoft and Yahoo fearful for their jobs since an overlap of positions would be expected if the merger happens.

Reuters is reporting that Microsoft president of platforms and services division, Kevin Johnson, sent an email to employees in his unit saying that Microsoft will dedicate “significant rewards and compensation” to retain both Microsoft and Yahoo employees. According to Johnson, “While some overlap is expected in any combination of this size, we should remember that Microsoft … has hired over 20,000 people since 2005, and we would look to place talented employees throughout the company as a whole. We have no shortage of business and technical opportunities, and we need great people to focus on them.”

Yahoo issued a statement earlier this week that it put generous severance packages in place for any employees that might lose their jobs if the company was sold. The chance of Yahoo being sold must be increasing considerably for Yahoo to admit that such severance packages were in place already.

Reuters also reports that two pension funds have independently sued Yahoo and its board of directors for refusing Microsoft’s offer. According to the suit, Yahoo is pursuing other possible deals that are not as beneficial to shareholders as the Microsoft offer.

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Adobe AIR puts companies on desktops

EBay Inc.’s customers don’t need to open a Web browser to search the site or auction an item anymore.

After a quick download, the online auctioneer’s users can click the company’s logo on their desktop and launch an application that will allow them to do their business directly — no browser required.

EBay is one of several companies, including Nasdaq Stock Market Inc., Time Warner Inc.’s AOL, Nickelodeon and Salesforce.com Inc., that have created downloadable, desktop versions of their Web sites using software developed by Adobe Systems Inc.

Adobe is launching the application, called AIR, on Monday. Adobe says AIR will allow any company with a Web site to inhabit a permanent spot on people’s desktops.

It also reduces the wait time for downloading images and data, because the desktop is constantly updated while the computer is online.

Adobe says AIR runs on any operating system. It’s a more powerful version of widgets, the customizable little Web pullouts often provided by third parties like Google Inc.

The AIR application removes any kind of go-between, giving companies a direct, constant and versatile link to the consumer, said Adrian Ludwig, a spokesman for Adobe.

“The browser was in the way and the widget, in some instances, was in the way,” Ludwig said. “It’s the willingness to let the brand of the person providing the application to take front and center.”

See: Adobe AIR

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iPlayer "has tripled ISP bandwidth costs"

Yet more bleating from the world’s most two-faced organisations:

ISPs could face a sharp increase in bandwidth costs as internet TV services such as the BBC’s iPlayer continue to grow in popularity.

Data from one ISP, PlusNet, shows that its streaming costs tripled during January, the first full month in which iPlayer’s streaming service operated.

The cost per user rose from 6.1p per month to 18.3p, and as an industry analyst has calculated, if PlusNet is taken as representative of the whole UK broadband market, then iPlayer added £1 million to ISPs’ costs in the first month of 2008.

“The results should send shivers down the spine of any ISP currently offering an unlimited ‘all-you-eat’ service,” says the analyst for STL. “The option for the ISP is either to allow a degradation in performance or order more capacity.”

Since iPlayer and similar services bring ISPs no extra revenue, the likelihood is that most, like PlusNet, will rely on traffic shaping measures while trying to sell more of the higher price broadband services that guarantee higher service levels.

Not surprisingly, Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, insists that iPlayer has had a “negligible impact on the UK internet infrastructure”.

He too thinks it may help ISPs sell higher bandwidth service. “There may be a win-win for the industry where services like iPlayer drive demand from users for broadband access in the first place, and for higher bandwidth packages, and for (paid-for) quality-of-service guarantees from the ISPs,” he says.

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EU skeptical on Microsoft sharing plan

European Union regulators are expressing skepticism over Microsoft’s latest offer to share more information about its products and technology.

The EU said in a statement Thursday it has seen four other similar statements in the past from the world’s largest software maker.

Earlier Thursday, Microsoft announced it will be publishing technical information about its products to ensure interoperability with rivals’ offerings. It won’t make software developers obtain a license or pay royalties or other fees.

The EU also said it would welcome any move toward “genuine interoperability.” And regulators added they’ll continue to check if Microsoft is complying with antitrust rules.

Source

So the EU wants Microsoft to share technical information, but are skeptical about them announcing it? Or is Microsoft continuing to make false claims?

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