HP celebrates 35th anniversary of HP-35: launches 35s calculator

Feel that? That's the unexpected stir of nostalgia welling inside your dorktic-loin. Rest easy, you're not alone. In fact, that picture aroused a deeply seeded HP fanboi-ism long obscured by thick slabs of drab computing plastic and opaque printer ink. The 35s marks the 35th anniversary of the industry defining HP-35 pocket scientific calculator (and death of the sliderule) -- a first to offer basic trig and exponential functions. While HP preserved the original's reverse Polish notation, gone is the single-line of red LEDs which illuminated the childhood wonder of so many budding engineers. The new 35s also introduces an algebraic entry mode for those who find RPN entry just a bit too, well, reversed. Of course, it's fully modern with 800 storage registers, 100 built-in functions, and a large 2-line alpha numeric display with adjustable contrast. Better yet, the 35s will only set you back $60 compared to the $395 it cost back in 1972 -- that's a lot more 8-tracks for your swank Ford Mercury Capri, eh Pops?

40Gbps internet connection installed in Swede's home

While we've seen all sorts of blazing feats over fiber here lately, it's not often that such wide open bandwidth gets piped directly to a home, but a 75-year old Swede recently changed all that when she had a 40Gbps connection installed in her domicile. 'Course, this fine dame is the mum of Swedish internet legend Peter Löthberg, and she's hoping to somehow "persuade internet operators to invest in faster connections." The trick behind the setup is a "new modulation technique which allows data to be transferred directly between two routers up to 2,000-kilometers apart with no intermediary transponders," and just in case you're wondering, she can download a full high-definition DVD in a painstaking two seconds.

Forget the OLPC XO: India working on $10 laptop

While Nick Negroponte and the crew over at OLPC struggle to offer the XO for its original target of $100 (it now costs around $175, before factoring in support costs), India's Ministry of Human Resource Development is planning to completely leapfrog three-digit price tags with a machine that is already spec'ed at $47 and may cost only ten bucks when manufactured in bulk. With two potential designs having already been submitted by a researcher and engineering student (neither of which is pictured above) and a critical meeting scheduled for later this month, the "TDL" project seems to be well underway, and officials hope to have a product out the door within two years. India's plans for uber-cheap hardware come almost a year after the country rejected the XO as "pedagogically suspect," and several months after yet another competitor in this space -- Intel's Classmate -- was loosed on Brazil. And so the race to charge absolutely nothing for computers continues unabated, foretelling a day in the not-too-distant future when we'll be churning through PCs like daily-wear contacts.

E3 2007: id Software gives us its take on Games for Windows Live

Quake Wars won't incorporate a Games for Windows Live element, so all of the voice chat and player matching will go through id's own in-game software. It cited the fact that Vista came out three years or so into the game's development as one reason, it wouldn't make sense to shoehorn Live support in at such a late point. We were told, though, that it can see for future titles that Windows Live support could be a good thing, because by adding the various Live features as supplied by Microsoft, it means the developer doesn't have to spend the time developing those things itself. In other words, like DirectX 10, it will probably be a while before we see broader adoption of Games for Windows Live.

The Most Successful Product Intro of the 21st Century

Apple's iPhone could emerge as the most succesful product introduction of the 21st century, new research suggests.

Lightspeed Research surveyed 39,000 people on its US online panel in the days following the launch of the device on 29 June - and the research findings are staggering.

Thirty-two per cent of those surveyed who do not currently own an iPhone stated that they do intend to purchase one, with 8 per cent planning to purchase in the next three months and 22 per cent planning to purchase "some time in the future", the researchers said.

Apple's iPhone is a marvel in Business Strategy!

What is Apple doing with iPhone? Lots of fancy footwork and getting away with it! why you say? Read on:

Apple is screwing and manipulating AT&T as they did in the case of the Motorola. Do you remember what Apple did with Motorola (the phone with iTunes built into it)? I have 99% assuredness that is is the same story. Apple got a lot of money to back / pay for the R&D of the iPhone and AT&T got the exclusivity. Apple also needed this backing not just about money but also for the network that they lack and since they new that Singular will buy the AT&T name and merge together, what could be better for them? Money for R&D and once the product was ready a network to support it! Sure - good and dandy for both, right? The answer is no. It is only good for Apple. Since Apple gave a locked iPhone to AT&T. Do you think that Apple is stupid not to understand that any Browser int he word that want to function in the internet must have Plug-ins like and I quote from the same Article:

"The version of Safari running on Apple’s iPhone shows the web without Flash, Windows Media, Real Player, or Java applets. It’s not just a case of few plugins gone missing. Here’s why Apple chose to cut proprietary content from the web, and what it means for Adobe, Sun, Microsoft, Real, and other mobile makers."

\Do you really think that Apple is stupid? All the things that are not supposedly there ARE INDEED there - but deactivated or not completely implemented. All that is left for version 2.0 and the NEXT Highest bidder! LOL! You know Apple - you know that little SOB Hitler! He is sharp and he is a TRUE BUSINESS man! He knows what he is doing. He Successfully R&D an important product for FREE (someone else money) and now will improve the product with the incoming profits of the iPhone 1.0 and will build the iphone 2.0 that then will be sold the the highest bidder or may be Apple will market the 2.0 in 24 months when it's exclusivity with AT&T is ended.

As for the fact that iPhone is closed that you can not devlop for it, is another sign of this matter. Onl;y Apple will decide what goes in it and Also Apple has made the secret deal with AT&T that it will not allow huge bandwidth to be used by the users of iPhone, hence EDGE and not EVDO - Hence great WIFI so the users use their own bandwidth and not AT&T's. Look at how they have closed and locked the damn BlueTooth! You can ot even build a wireless headset for the damn phone! Very very complicated product. I bet the battery makers can nor make replacement batteries for the damn thing.

All shows the Sharpness of Apple Business model! But there is oen case that Apple was wrong about and that is the fact that they omitted Flash! A high percentage of the Webs stuff are running under Flash. But I guess that fell in the domain of bandwidth protection deal that Apple made with AT&T. Flash also, in some cases compete directly with H.264 format of the QuickTime for delivering content. Of course, H.264 is of a very much higher quality than Flash with a heavier use of the bandwidth, but Flash distributes the content much faster and encoding to flash is much faster than to H.264. still, Apple sees that as an indirect competitor and since MacroMedia was bought by Adobe, this makes matters more difficult and makes the competition much more powerful, so Apple will do anything to deal with it, including locking them out of one of the most important items to hit the market like iPhone! Apple is following MS Standard! This is the same strategy that MS followed for killing Java when Sun refused to give them what they wanted.

There are other mitigating circumstances: Apple now is competing not only with MS ont he Deaktop, but with their entry to the world of Cell phones, they are also competing with MS Mobile 5.0-6.0 as well Symbian and Nokia Open and now enters the LUNIX based Smart Phones. So OS X has a big job ahead of it, and Apple has even a bigger job ahead of itself. One OS, competing with Several on two arenas of Desktop and Smart phones.

But If apple plays it's cards right, AT&T will get fed-up inside the 12-18 months and releases the Exclusivity of the iPhone in US (Rogers in Canada), and you will see that less than 6 months after that, OPEN iPhone 2.0 will hit the market with everything open and usable by any company to develop for it; software or hardware! LoL! This is my prediction.

But as you know, Jobs has something that he is famous for: Unpredictability! We have to wait and see what this little wannabe hitler has in mind and one thing is for sure: He is NO dummy!

Conclusion:
I will not buy an iPhone (as much as I want one and you know it is a long time I wanted one) until the version 2.0. Makes sense? yes? LoL!

While Microsoft is seemingly on a crusade to stamp out talk about the future (even going so far as to hire an acting legend to detect "MS-BS" with a $2 horn), that hasn't waned our enthusiasm for digging up evidence of the future anyways.

Microsoft has pulled some pretty dumb moves lately in the name of secrecy; the lid on SP1 and the press release about "Windows Seven" being the most obvious to come to mind. But mere days after someone spotted a running build of SP1 at WinHEC 07, Long Zheng has discovered the first written by none other than Microsoft itself.

AFAIK, SP1 is still on track to be delivered simultaneously with Windows Server 2008. It's far enough away from Vista's RTM and close enough away to shipping that Microsoft should confirm its existence. In fact, beta testers should be given builds in the next month or so to start testing. And since it's shipping in the next 5 months or so, Microsoft should start giving guidance for all those companies (Intel, I'm looking at you) who are holding off until SP1 to deploy Vista.

Hey Microsoft, we all know it exists. It's time to quit playing dumb before you start looking stupid. You're gonna have to let the cat out of the bag sometime. And June sounds like a good month to do it.

Yahoo co-founder Yang back in charge

Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer today and will hand over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang in the Internet icon's latest attempt to regain investor confidence.

Semel, 64, will remain chairman in a non-executive role.

Besides naming Yang as its new CEO, Yahoo appointed Susan Decker as its president. Decker, who had been recently promoted to oversee Yahoo's advertising operations, had widely been seen as Semel's heir apparent.

Microsoft fixes 15 flaws with six patches; four considered critical

Microsoft has released its June 2007 security bulletin, which includes six updates: four are designated Critical by the software giant. Two of the patches affect Windows Vista, with one Critical patch specific to Internet Explorer. One of the Important patches affects Microsoft Office. To keep your Windows XP SP1 system secure, update to Windows XP SP2 today. All Microsoft security patches for Windows and Office software are available via Microsoft Update or via the individual bulletins detailed below.

Microsoft nears Home Server release

Microsoft's Home Server software is one step closer to reality.

The software maker on Tuesday released a near-final "release candidate" version of Windows Home Server, a custom version of its Windows Server 2003 operating system. A final version is expected to come out later this year. Microsoft is pitching the software as an option for multi-PC households to manage burgeoning collections of media files.

Apple Safari On Windows Broken On First Day

An anonymous reader writes "David Maynor, infamous for the Apple Wi-Fi hack, has discovered bugs in the Windows version of Safari mere hours after it was released. He notes in the blog that his company does not report vulnerabilities to Apple. His claimed catch for 'an afternoon of idle futzing': 4 DoS bugs and 2 remote execution vulnerabilities." Separately, within 2 hours Thor Larholm found a URL protocol handler command injection vulnerability that allows remote command execution.

Safari for Windows Public Beta Downloads Top 1 Million in First 48 Hours

Apple® today announced that more than 1 million copies of Safari™ for Windows were downloaded in the first 48 hours since the free public beta was made available on Monday. Safari 3 is the world’s fastest and easiest-to-use browser, and is available as a free download at www.apple.com/safari.

Safari 3 is the fastest browser running on Windows, rendering web pages up to twice as fast as IE 7 and up to 1.6 times faster than Firefox 2, based on the industry standard iBench tests.* Safari 3 supports all modern Internet standards including HTML, CSS, JavaScript, SVG and Java. Safari updates are delivered seamlessly through Apple’s Software Update, and the first update for Safari for Windows Public Beta which fixes some early reported bugs was released last night.

iPhone Delivers Up to Eight Hours of Talk TimeApple® today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June

Apple® today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours—more than 10 days—of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.

“With 8 hours of talk time, and 24 hours of audio playback, iPhone’s battery life is longer than any other ‘Smartphone’ and even longer than most MP3 players,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity. There has never been a phone like iPhone, and we can't wait to get this truly magical product into the hands of customers starting just 11 days from today.”

Cutting Edge Robotic Exploration

Mexican Sinkhole May Lead NASA to Jupiter, Washington Ppst

"For the next two weeks, the fully autonomous robot, which bears an uncanny resemblance to a Volkswagen Beetle, will plumb the previously inaccessible microbial mysteries of the sinkhole -- or "cenote" -- El Zacatón.
Relying on an eclectic team of scuba divers, engineers, biologists and geochemists, NASA is hoping the mission will be the first leg on its journey to Europa."
An underwater robot, shaped like a flattened orange, maneuvered untethered and autonomously within a 115-meter-deep sinkhole during tests this month in Mexico, a prelude to its mission to probe the mysterious nether reaches of the world's deepest sinkhole.

Measuring the Success of Vista's First 100 Days

As Windows Vista reaches its first meaningful milestone--100 days of widespread availability, as measured from its January29 consumer launch--it's time to begin analyzing whether the product is truly successful. Back in March, Microsoft announced that Vista sales were record setting, with over 20 million licenses sold in its first 30 days, a rate that doubled that of its predecessor, Windows XP. And in April, when Microsoft announced record quarterly revenues of $14.4 billion, the company credited better-than-expected sales of Vista for the improvement.

Improvement on Microsoft's earnings mat be, but how hot is Vista on the User list of headaches? I place it on the Top of that list! When will Microsoft wake up and smell the coffee? Microsoft! Wakie Wakie!

Xbox 360 Spring 2007 Update Review

This week, Microsoft finally shipped the long-awaited Xbox 360 Spring 2007 Update, which overhauls the Xbox 360 user interface, or Dashboard, and provides other useful functionality, such as integration with Windows-based Windows Live Messenger (see my review) instant messaging. Microsoft's been talking up the update for quite a while now. Does the reality match the hype?

Installing the update:
To find out, you're going to need to install the update first. Fortunately, this is fast and painless. If you're running an Internet-connected Xbox 360 on which you've created an Xbox Live account (Silver or Gold), you will be prompted to download the Spring 2007 Update as soon as that account logs onto the service. Note that this is a required update. If you choose not to install it, you will be logged off Xbox Live until you do so. Amazingly, given the amount of functionality here, the update takes about 8 seconds to install. Then, the console reboots and you're presented with the new Dashboard, which at first glance looks an awful lot like the old version. Let's take a look at the new features, starting with the big changes.

Steve Jobs to Kick Off WWDC 2007

Apple has announced that Steve Jobs will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, June 11, 2007. At the five-day event, Apple plans to demonstrate a feature-complete version of Mac OS X Leopard (scheduled to ship in October) and provide developers a BETA copy for final testing.

Something comes to mind: What is he going to present to the Developers? Is there a new iPod in the works? For sure the iPhone is not ready! OS X 10.5 (code named Leopard) is delayed! A new iMac may be? Hmmmm.. a lot of questions! Not many good answers. Time to refer to one of the better rumor sites! LOL!

Apple “Most Innovative Company” Third Year in a Row

“For the third year in a row,” report the editors of BusinessWeek, “the design-driven masters in Cupertino, Calif., lead the pack of creative firms on our list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Apple manages to dominate any would-be contenders, beating out two-time runner-up Google with more than twice as many votes.”

Problem is, with all this innovation and great products, Apple still can not capture a bigger share of the computing world! Why is that?

Apple Introduces 8-Core! As though Quad was not Enough!

Professional velocity.

8-core or quad-core Mac Pro workstation

Meet the latest addition to the Mac Pro family: The world’s first 3.0GHz, 8-core Intel Xeon-based Mac Pro. Consider the bar officially raised. Eight cores or four Opt for the 8-core Mac Pro and you get the power of two Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors running at 3.0GHz. Or choose a quad-core Mac Pro featuring two Dual-Core Intel Xeon “Woodcrest” processors and decide how fast they fly: 2.0GHz, 2.66GHz, or 3.0GHz. At 3.0GHz, the quad-core Mac Pro runs up to 2x faster than the Power Mac G5 Quad. I guess we all want 1 or 2... LOL!

EFF Jumps in Against RIAA for Copyright Misuse

"Arguing that the RIAA and big record labels may be misusing their copyrights, the Electronic Frontier Foundation has jumped in on the defendant's side in a White Plains, New York, court conflict. The case is Lava v. Amurao, and the EFF will be defending Mr. Amurao's right to counterclaim for copyright misuse.