sideshow2004 writes "EETimes is reporting this morning that IBM and Georiga Tech have demonstrated a 500 GHz Silicon-germanium (SiGe) chip, operating at 4.5 Kelvins. The 'frozen chip' was fabricated by IBM on 200mm wafers, and, at room temperature, the circuits operated at approximately 350 GHz."

ChelleChelle writes "Chief scientist of ZeroC, Michi Henning, has an interesting look at the story behind CORBA a once-promising distributed computing technology. Henning provides more than a brief history, in addition to several reasons pinpointing why CORBA fell short, focusing specifically on the OMG's technology adoption process itself. Most interesting is the final discussion on what we can learn from CORBA's decline, particularly in reference to web services."

Aryabhata writes "It might sound like a bad flashback to the dot-com days, but news is that Amazon is planning to test the waters with an old idea; the online grocery store!. To its defense Amazon is only attempting this with nonperishables like peanut butter, potato chips, and canned soup implying that there's no refrigeration required--ordinary warehouse shelves will do fine."

WinEveryGame writes "The Economist is running an article on the state of the competition for Internet Search. While Google clearly dominates, and continues to have positive momentum, its leadership is still vulnerable. The search-engine battle is not over yet." From the article: "In terms of momentum — mass times velocity — Google's lead indeed looks daunting. It has by far the most mass, with an American market share of 43% as of April, which reaches 50% counting AOL, an internet property that uses Google's search technology. This compares with 28% for Yahoo!; 13% for MSN, which belongs to Microsoft; and 6% for Ask, which is owned by IAC/Interactive Corp, a conglomerate of about 60 online media brands. Google also has velocity: its market share grew by 17% in the four quarters to this spring, whereas Yahoo! and MSN both lost share. Only Ask has more velocity — its share grew by 35% — but then again it has little mass."

evileyetmc writes "It seems that the EU has taken the next big step in promoting the concept of Internet for All, by attempting to 'ensure that the most Web-disadvantaged groups can get online.'" From the article: "The EC has now pledged to increase broadband coverage across the continent to 90 percent by 2010. Rural areas are still underserved, according to the Commission, with about 60 percent penetration. Urban areas fare better and are already at the 90 percent mark. The EC has also committed to putting new measures in place to halve exclusion rates in skills and digital literacy by 2010. "

An anonymous reader writes "Good news for those who like both coffee and alcohol. In a recent study of more than 125,000 people an Oakland, CA medical team found that consuming coffee seems to help protect against alcoholic cirrhosis. The study was done based on people enrolled in a private northern California health care plan between 1978 and 1985." From the article: "People drinking one cup of coffee per day were, on average, 20% less likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis. For people drinking two or three cups the reduction was 40%, and for those drinking four or more cups of coffee a day the reduction in risk was 80%."

conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on how pornography is again leading the way and showing Holywood how to fight back against piracy. From the article: 'Some producers of porn are starting to share revenues from online movies with the distributors of their DVDs, who might otherwise feel endangered by digital distribution online. Bolder yet, one large studio is allowing fans who buy movies online to burn them from their computers onto DVDs, with some protections included, of course.'"

Sony has announced that their first model of Blu-Ray player will release in August, not later this month as originally announced. The BDP-SP1, retailing for $1000, will now ship on or about August 15th. Bad news for fans of the new format, and even worse news for the PS3. Since Sony's lackluster E3 showing, a string of bad news has seemed to conspire against the company's next-gen console. From the Gamers with Jobs article: "With the PS3's high-end model coming it at a whopping $400.00 less than a stand-alone Blu-Ray player, Sony needs to release these players as soon as possible. If they wait too long, the PS3 will begin looming on the horizon, causing even devout early adopters to question the intelligence of buying a stand-alone Blu-Ray unit. Sony also needs the largest possible installed base, come launch-time for the PS3. For the Blu-Ray player to be the PS3's version of the PS2's DVD player, casual technophiles need to be able to see the virtues of the Blu-Ray format. If there are few players, and few titles, this might not happen."

timmit was one of many readers to point out the story of a stolen Sidekick, writing with this excerpt from the site: ""When my friend realized that she had left the Sidekick in the taxi she asked me to immediately send a message to the phone saying that we would give a reward for the phone. There was no response. After a day of waiting, she had to go to the store and spend over $300 on a new Sidekick. When she put her SIM card in, she saw that the person(s) that had taken the phone had not only signed on to AOL leaving their name and password in the phone, but they had taken pictures of themselves." I can sympathize, after someone with the address Rmluckyguy@aol.com tried to sell me back the Visor Deluxe stolen from my car last year in Philadelphia. I hope Evan has better luck.

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft Corp. acknowledged Wednesday that it needs to better inform users that its tool for determining whether a computer is running a pirated copy of Windows also quietly checks in daily with the software maker. The company said the undisclosed daily check is a safety measure designed to allow the tool, called Windows Genuine Advantage, to quickly shut down in case of a malfunction." The EULA is suppose to disclose this daily call-in feature. Lauren Weinstein, who is co-founder of People for Internet Responsibility, was one of the first people to notice the daily communications to Microsoft. Report from Yahoo.com"

uncleO writes "The New York Times tells the story of today's arrest of Edwin Andres Pena, 23, who 'hacked into computers run by an unsuspecting investment company in Rye Brook, N.Y., commandeered its unprotected servers, and re-routed his phone traffic through them,' then 'used more than $1 million he received from his customers to go on a spending spree, buying real estate in south Florida, a 40-foot Sea Ray Mercruiser motor boat, and luxury cars including a BMW and a Cadillac Escalade.'"

jar writes to tell us Bruce Perens has a short editorial on why DRM could have an impact on much more than just our record collections. From the article: "Within the last century, electronic communications have increasingly become the vehicle of democratic discourse. Because radio and television broadcasting are expensive with limited frequencies available, the wealthy have dominated broadcasting. The Internet and World Wide Web place into the common man's hands the capability of global electronic broadcasting. [...] In order to protect democratic discourse in the future, the Internet must remain a fair and level playing field for the distribution of political speech. The full capability of the Internet must remain available to all, without restriction by religious, business, or political interests."

Devil's BSD writes "At a Windows Vista reviewers conference, Microsoft platform president Jim Allchin told a rather amusing story about Steve Ballmer. Apparently, a friend asked him to rid his computer of the spyware and malware that had accumulated over the years. As the story goes, neither Ballmer nor Microsoft's top engineers could fix the infested computer. The article goes on to discuss and compare Microsoft's new security offering, Windows Live OneCare."

AWhiteFlame writes "IPAction.org is reporting on a section of the Reform Act of 2006 that's very shocking and surprisingly not that publicized. From the article: 'This will be a busy week in the House -- Congress goes into summer recess Friday, but not before considering the Section 115 Reform Act of 2006 (SIRA). Never heard of SIRA? That's the way Big Copyright and their lackey's want it, and it's bad news for you. Simply put, SIRA fundamentally redefines copyright and fair use in the digital world. It would require all incidental copies of music to be licensed separately from the originating copy. Even copies of songs that are cached in your computer's memory or buffered over a network would need yet another license.'"

An anonymous reader writes "This is a pretty good insight into some of the dangers of social networking and website customisation -- marketing and loss of privacy. When marketeers know who your friends are and what you are all into, it makes their advertising a lot more effective. From the article: "Why are the companies worth so much money? Why is MySpace worth over half a billion dollars without a proper revenue model? Why is Digg allegedly pitched at over $20m (at the last count) without any idea of where money is going to be pulled from? The answer is - data. Information. Marketing. Every detail about you and me. That is where the money is."