211517
submission
MsManhattan writes:
Sony has filed for a U.S. patent on a liquid-filled airbag that cushions hard disks in portable electronic devices from heavy shocks. 'The liquid used could be water or silicon oil,' and 'the electronics would of course be in a liquid-tight case.' Sony expects to use the technology in mobile devices such as cameras, media players, smartphones and laptops.
202673
submission
MsManhattan writes:
Microsoft security executive Jeff Jones has disclosed that in the first six months of Vista's release, the company has patched fewer than half of the operating system's known bugs. Microsoft has fixed only 12 of 27 reported Vista vulnerabilities whereas it patched 36 of 39 known bugs in Windows XP in the first six months following its release. Jones says that's because "Windows Vista continues to show a trend of fewer total and fewer high-severity vulnerabilities at the six month mark compared to ... Windows XP," but he did not address the 15 unpatched flaws.
187191
submission
MsManhattan writes:
High Tech Computer Corp. (HTC) has unveiled a touch-screen mobile device that offers many of the same features as the iPhone but with an emphasis on business applications vs. entertainment value. The HTC Touch is based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 Professional OS and features a 2.8-inch touch screen offering access to emails, contacts and appointments. But unlike the iPhone, which will feature large internal flash memory capacity for music and movie storage, the HTC Touch offers a microSD drive, and a 1G-byte microSD card comes with the handset.
182385
submission
MsManhattan writes:
TurboLinux will attempt to lure Windows users over to the Linux operating system in baby steps this June when it starts selling its Wizpy media player worldwide. The pocket-sized device, which plays audio and video files, is really a Linux carrot, of sorts, in that it also allows users to store a complete Linux desktop in its memory. You can plug the Wizpy into a PC's USB port and boot up the Linux system with all its user settings, passwords, bookmarks, etc. It originally launched in Japan, where TurboLinux marketed it to "early adopters who are curious about using Linux but either don't want to or can't install the operating system." The company will now target the same crowd around the globe, starting in the U.S., the U.K., Australia, India and Singapore.
177015
submission
MsManhattan writes:
The Zune development team at Microsoft is apparently offering amnesty to employees who give up their iPods in favor of using the Zune MP3 player. An MSNBC employee has posted a photo on Flickr of the company's "iPod Amnesty Bin," which sports an image of a bitten green apple and the words "Bite me." Whether it's to be taken seriously or is a joke to boost employee morale is anyone's guess, and naturally no one at Microsoft was available for comment. From what can be seen in the photo, only a few early-model iPods have been deposited.
159749
submission
MsManhattan writes:
VMWare Inc. today is slated to introduce a new version of its workstation virtualization software that supports Windows Vista. The upgrade, VMWare Workstation 6, enables users to run Vista as a host or a guest operating system. Additionally, it allows users to store a virtual machine setup on a portable device — like as a USB drive — and transfer the set-up to another computer. Virtualization, an old concept that has gained new momentum, can help organizations optimize their infrastructures but it can also create expensive management headaches. IT organizations should resist vendors trying to sell them on third-party management of their virtualized data centers, notes Thomas Bittman, a Gartner analyst. "There are still [problems] with virtualization in support and software licensing and not everything can be virtualized," he says. On a positive note, "This will clear-up over the next two to four years," Bittman adds. Gartner predicts that three millions virtual machines will be in use by 2009, up from today's 500,000.
158871
submission
MsManhattan writes:
A year after announcing its plans, Sun Microsystems has made most of the core technology in Java available as open-source software under the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2). However, some of the code remains "encumbered"; that is, Sun doesn't have sufficient rights to release it under GPLv2, and the company is requesting the open-source community's help in resolving these issues. Rich Sands, community marketing manager for OpenJDK community at Sun, would not say what percentage of Java's 6.5 million lines of code are encumbered, but explained that it is largely Java 2D graphics technology, such as font and graphics rasterizing.
