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Sony

Submission + - Father of Sony PlayStation Steps Down

Submitted by Petersko
Petersko writes: The chief architect of Sony's PlayStation game console stepped down on Tuesday as the Japanese company struggles to defend its dominance in the video game industry and revive its reputation as an electronics pioneer... The PS3's hefty startup costs have weighed heavily on the company's fight to drive up profit in its core electronics division. Sony is not expecting to post a profit in its game business until the fiscal year ending March 2009.
Portables (Games)

Submission + - Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command to PSP and DS (mygamer.com)

Submitted by
SupraStan
SupraStan writes: "THQ announced today that they will be bringing Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command to the handheld Nintendo DS and PSP® (PlayStation Portable) systems, scheduled to be released in fall 2007. Taking full advantage of the unique capabilities of the Nintendo DS and PSP, Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command features a new and immersive single-player campaign, along with a robust global multiplayer component. "Bringing the Warhammer 40,000 universe to handheld systems creates exciting new game play options for fans across the globe," said Bob Aniello, senior vice president of worldwide marketing, THQ. "An all-new single-player storyline and the ability to battle head-to-head with anyone in the world make this an exciting addition to the Warhammer 40,000 library." For more read at: http://www.mygamer.com/index.php?platform=homepage &publisher=&developer=&game=&page=globalnews&mode= viewnews&id=2425"
Google

Submission + - Google pushing 100mpg car (cnn.com)

Submitted by Kram_Gunderson
Kram_Gunderson writes: Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org, is offering millions in grants to the development of a plug-in electric car capable of getting 70-100 miles to the gallon. Additionally, they hope to develop a system that would allow electric car owners to sell stored electrical power back to the national grid during peak usage. From the article:

"Since most Americans drive less than 35 miles per day, you easily could drive mostly on electricity with the gas tank as a safety net," Dan Reicher, director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org, wrote on the organization's Web site. "In preliminary results from our test fleet, on average the plug-in hybrid gas mileage was 30-plus mpg higher than that of the regular hybrids."
Software

Submission + - Users give support to revamped Net Backup

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Users give support to revamped Net Backup Although too late for some. Brian Fonseca, Computerworld 18 June 2007 Users of Symantec's revamped Veritas NetBackup software say its improved management capabilities and performance have solved the problems that were plaguing older users of the product. Symantec has introduced Version 6.5 of the backup and recovery software and said it offered users a range of new capabilities including native disk-based backup, simplified data de-duplication, support for VMware virtualisation, heterogeneous snapshot management and continuous data protection. The upgrade might satisfy some users who have been experiencing some problems but has come too late for some — like the government of Pennsylvania's Dauphin County. George Kuharic, manager of enterprise systems for Dauphin County, said he grew increasingly frustrated with NetBackup's performance early in the decade because it consistently caused problems during backups. "NetBackup might chug along and do 90 percent of a backup, and then we'd get a network error or something, and it would just kill the job," Kuharic said. The county dumped NetBackup in favour of CommVault Systems Inc.'s Galaxy backup product last year, and the move has paid big dividends, said Kuharic. "If I were talking to [Kuharic], I would say that we've gone leaps and bounds from where we were with NetBackup 4.5," said Peter Elliman, senior product marketing manager for NetBackup at Symantec. NetBackup 6.5 is equipped with a new SAN client that lets storage administrators perform SAN backups to a disk pool, the company said. Further, the upgraded backup tool can be married to Symantec's PureDisk de-duplication technology to minimise unnecessary file duplication and wasted storage space. NetBackup 6.5 also includes links to EMC's VMware Consolidated Backup centralised backup facility to offload backups from the primary VMware server onto a secondary backup server. This article was transcripted from Techworld : www.techworld.com The UK's infrastructure & network knowledge centre © 2007 : All rights reserved http://www.techworld.com/storage/news/index.cfm?Ne wsID=9182"
Censorship

Submission + - Yahoo says Beijing likely blocking photo site (sciam.com)

Submitted by
slashthedot
slashthedot writes: "In another instance of censorship against websites about anything anti-establishement in China, Flickr, popular among a growing class of digital photo enthusiasts in the world's second-largest Internet market, has not shown photos to users in mainland China since last week, amid rumors Beijing took action after images of the Tiananmen massacre in early June 1989 were posted.
"It is our understanding that Flickr users in China are not able to see images on Flickr, and we have confirmed that this is not a technical issue on our end," a spokeswoman for Yahoo Hong Kong said in an email in response to a Reuters inquiry."
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - NC man fined for using vegetable oil as fuel (newsobserver.com)

Submitted by
mdsolar
mdsolar writes: "The News and Observer reports on an Charlotte, NC driver who has been fined $1000 for not paying a fuel tax when he fills his tank with vegetable oil. Perhaps the funniest quote is this one:

"With the high cost of fuel right now, the department does recognize that a lot of people are looking for relief," said Reggie Little, assistant director of the motor fuel taxes division. "We're not here to hurt the small guy, we're just trying to make sure that the playing field is level."
since the field is so plainly tilted against Arab oil interests."
The Internet

Submission + - PayPal Down and Out (paypal.com)

Submitted by
nilbog
nilbog writes: "PayPal has been down most of the day. As a result, Ebay has come to a halt as people cannot pay for their won auctions, sellers cannot see if users have paid, and no money can be moved or accessed. Even people who get paid through paypal at the beginning of the month are now suffering during the outage.

Ebay has recognized the problem and issued two statements, claiming to be working on a fix.

This marks one of the rare occasions when a major website experiences a long-term outage. It has obviously effected some more than others, and serves as a healthy reminder of how much we have come to rely on Internet-based technologies."
Software

Submission + - Virtual Strategy Magazine - Virtualization's Dirty

Submitted by
vmnewsguy
vmnewsguy writes: "http://www.virtual-strategy.com/article/articlevie w/2042/1/2/ Netsys has sued Parallels' desktop virtualization distributor in Germany, Avanquest, for copyright violations claiming that Parallels' products are directly based on a line of products that Parallels developed on paid commission for Netsys, of which it says Netsys has been assigned all copyrights. The argument that the claimant makes is that all of the evidence suggests that Parallels has taken the product they had developed on paid commission for Netsys, enhanced it further and then ultimately began distributing it on their own. Netsys' initial goal with the lawsuit is to stop the sale and distribution of Parallels' virtualization software products in Germany."
HP

Submission + - The Top 5 Myths About Hardware Procurement

Submitted by
Steve Schlumbaum
Steve Schlumbaum writes: "Balancing the technology needs of state and local government and educational institutions against shrinking budgets is contributing heavily to the proliferation of false logic and expensive miscalculations by people involved in the government hardware procurement process. This article exposes the Top 5 Myths and misinformation that are causing state and local government and educational IT managers to spend more money than they need to. 1. Computer Hardware Prices Are The Biggest Contributors To The Total Cost Of Ownership (TCO). This one is easy to believe when you're specifying computers and network devices and sticker shock sets in. The real truth is that computer hardware is only a small part of the TCO. Repairs, labor, technical support, software and the hidden costs of downtime can easily exceed the initial hardware purchase price. 2. Cost-Savings Result When Generic and Low-Cost Hardware is Purchased. Just the opposite is true. High-quality equipment, such as HP servers, HP desktops, HP notebooks, HP storage, HP workstations, HP printers and other HP hardware used by state and local government or educational institutions actually lower the TCO due to longer mean-time-between-failure (MTBF) times, resulting in lower service costs, and higher resale prices which can lower the TCO come replacement time. 3. Direct-To-Government Pricing Is Always The Lowest Available Unless you work for a federal government agency that is buying off the General Services Administration (GSA) procurement list, direct-to-government pricing may not always be the lowest price available. It's not uncommon for companies like Hewlett Packard to have lower pricing schedules available to technology solutions providers that regularly produce large volumes of business that far exceed what most state and local government and educational institutions can generate on their own. 4. Going Through The Request For Proposals (RFP) Process Guarantees The Lowest Prices Like Myth #3, this one is often untrue as well. Remember that computer hardware purchase prices represent only a portion of the TCO. While it may be possible to find a hardware provider with an unusually low hardware bid price, the chances are that installation and configuration services, if they are even available, will be priced high enough to offset the initial perceived savings. 5. Purchasing Through Full-Service Solution Providers Is An Expensive Luxury This final myth can actually be the most financially devastating one for state and local government and educational institutions that do not understand the importance of value-added services that are available from companies who specialize in the procurement process. Hewlett Packard technology partners that specialize in the procurement process, for example, can actually lower the TCO by configuring your HP computer products and by providing both personalized account management and rapid support response even after the sale. The best HP computer partners can also assist you with developing your HP computer hardware specifications and submitting your HP quotes. Additional information on configuring technology hardware can be found at http://www.proconfigureit.com/ Before you make your next IT purchase, even if it's just for an HP notebook or HP printer, contact an HP state and local government and educational IT partner and discover how your agency can debunk the Top 5 Myths About Hardware Procurement for State and Local Government and Educational Institutions. You'll get access to the lowest possible pricing without sacrificing quality service and support."
Media (Apple)

Submission + - FCC approves iPhone

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "The Federal Communications Commission approved Apple Inc.'s iPhone, clearing the way for the combined phone and music player to hit the shelves. Apple expects to begin selling the phones in late June. Some of the FCC documents confirm a few features of the phone, including it will have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and will operate in the 1900MHz and 850MHz frequency bands. The phone uses GSM (Global System for Mobile Communications) technology and the low-speed GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) wireless data standard. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/051707-fcc-a pproves.html"
Businesses

Submission + - PayPal's Recent System Plagues User Accounts

Submitted by Tech_Maker_and_User
Tech_Maker_and_User writes: On Friday, May 11, I had funds from a customer deposit become unavailable to me from my PayPal account. When I called as to why I could not retrieve the funds I was informed by the customer service rep that there is a technical problem and that the problem would soon be resolved. After the weekend, I found that my funds were still unavailable to me for the one deposit. I decided to dig a little deeper and called back but this time spoke to a PayPal customer service representative named Kim. When I asked about the technical issue, she responded, "Do you mean the one plaguing PayPal?" She stated that PayPal recently applied a large system update which has produced this error. "We can see your deposit, but it doesn't reflect in your balance", said Kim. "We have a lot of developers working on this problem even over the weekend, but we cannot give an exact date as to when the problem will be resolved." Kim stated that they are not applying provisional credits because they chose to fix the problem and estimated that it wouldn't be long before the problem is resolved. She added my PayPal account to the "list" of other PayPal accounts that are experiencing this issue.
Space

Submission + - European GPS rival transmits first navigation data

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Galileo, a European project that aims to create a civilian global navigation infrastructure, has reached a major milestone as the European Space Agency (ESA) today reported that the Giove-A satellite has transmitted the first navigation message. According to the ESA, the message was uplinked to Giove-A on May 2 from the Guildford ground station and contained was similar to those that will be sent by the operational Galileo system.
The Courts

Submission + - Shocking Admission In Reiser Murder Case

Submitted by
saudadelinux
saudadelinux writes: "Wired magazine is carrying a story in which a Sean Sturgeon, a former lover of Reiser's ex-wife (and a former friend of his), admitted to killing eight people unrelated to the case. "(Deputy District Attorney) Paul Hora indicated that the court was ordering him to divulge this information," defense attorney Richard Tamor said last Friday." He also said that Sturgeon had confessed to a potential ninth murder, but that Sturgeon wasn't sure if the victim was fully dead when he left him.""

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