Console yourself these holidays!!

Before the buying spree gets seriously curbed by Uncle Tito, check out the latest advances in console technology, coming to a retailer near you soon. Or in the case of the Xbox 360, right now…

Every Christmas there has to be some sort of must-have which is foisted upon the unwitting world. As things get more technology-oriented, and as we become more accustomed to being connected, it’s not a bicycle, a scale-electric or Airfix which is dominating the minds of our kids (it’s always handy to blame these fixations on the kids). No, this holiday, it’s console wars that we have to look forward to.

The contenders are Microsoft with its Xbox0, on which it got first-mover advantage with a pre-holiday launch, Sony with its long-awaited Playstation 3, and Nintendo with its bizarrely monikered Wii. (I’m just popping out for a Wii, darling).

Which to choose may depend on your (I mean your KIDS, of course) existing collection of games, your affinity or lack thereof for the vendor, and of course, on the vitals of the console. That includes specs, pricing and capability for connectivity.

PlayStation 3:

Sony was ‘the Boss’ with the PlayStation 1 and 2. PlayStation 3 moves closer to being a proper PC, with the premium edition equipped with an internal 60 GB Serial ATA 2.5" hard drive (20 GB in the standard package), IEEE 802.11b/g and Bluetooth connectivity and wired gigabit Ethernet.

As implied, this means online gaming to snaffle up yet more bandwidth. It is powered by a Cell processor, developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, which is vaunted as a leap forward for supercomputing. Since Sony is advocating its Blu-Ray DVD technology, PS3 includes this as well.

It is also backwards-compatible, able to handle your old favourites from the PS 1 and 2, and has at present, some 15 new titles to choose from. Pricing on release in some (mainly Asian and Pacific) countries in November was around US$800; expect the PS3 here around March 2007. This, then, is some consolation for the post-party blues.

Microsoft Xbox:

Microsoft has a habit of making lucrative markets its own, or trying to in any event (with the notable exception of the information security field, to date.) So it is that it entered the console market with its Xbox, which is Khoisan for ‘Watch Out Sony’.

While PS3 has just been launched, The Beast of Redmond has already sold over 10 million consoles and has reached our shores well in time for the madness of the holidays. It is specced with a 20GB HDD, a serious 3-core processor also made by IBM, packs a progressive scan DVD drive, a 100 Mb/s RJ45 Ethernet port and three USB 2.0 ports.

Being Microsoft, the Xbox is supported by Xbox Live Marketplace, where you can download plenty of additional stuff, while the machine integrates nicely with your MS-powered home PC network for video or audio streaming. Doing that wirelessly will require the purchase of an additional adapter, though – but you can buy the Xbox today for around R3500.00. A fair library of titles is available.

Nintendo Wii:

Wii aren’t too sure when this console will arrive, but as of now it seems it is a case of ‘coming soon’ to South Africa – suffice to say, it is, ahem, all systems go in most other parts of the world.

The Wii follows on from the GameCube; the intention with Wii Willie Winkie is that it will ‘break down the barriers between the gamer and the non gamer.’ – so it promises easier to play and more generally appealing games. It’s a lot cheaper than the Sony and Microsoft consoles at around US$250, has around 33 titles available at present (and most games are priced around $50..).

Spec-wise, the wee (it is the size of three DVD boxes) Wii shows that it is in a different market segment to the heavyweights – it packs a processor which, again, is from IBM, takes proprietary 8 or 12 cm disks and does not have a hard drive. It does offer Wifi connectivity, however, and two USB 2.0 ports.

Do you care who will ‘win’ the console race? Probably not as much as you care that you will have some super cool options for your, ahem, for Sonny Jim’s stocking.


For More info>>
http://www.mybroadband.co.za/nephp/?m=show&id=5200

Skype to Target Businesses

Version 3.0 offers more business features; company plans to work with third parties to adapt service to enterprise uses.

Skype will continue to aim at the business market, adding functions for specific business needs, executives said last week at the company's development center in Tallinn, Estonia.

The company's most recent 3.0 version of its software allows system administrators to configure and control Skype use across an enterprise and Skype will build on that. Its software provides Internet telephony service as well as messaging, video conferencing, and file transfer.

Skype for Business
In the short to medium term, Skype will rely on the growth of an "ecosystem" of third parties to adapt and integrate Skype for specific enterprise uses, executives said. "My opinion is that it is better to provide good information and let [other] people build the Skype ecosystem," said Chief Security Officer Kurt Sauer, adding that "the best ideas are somewhere else."

Skype 'Worm,' Bandwidth Concerns
Speaking to journalists at Skype's development center, Sauer also addressed the issue of an alleged worm recently said to have propagated in the Skype network as well as claims that corporate networks using Skype could become overloaded "supernodes."

Skype May Penetrate Firewalls
The Skype executives were somewhat evasive when asked whether Skype penetrated company and personal firewalls. He said that when both parties to a Skype call have firewalls, it is impossible to form a peer-to-peer link, so a system of "relays" using other nodes is used. "This relaying is what is understood as punching holes in firewalls," Sauer said.

Jackson and Sauer's meeting with Baltic IT journalists also provided a rare look at Skype's low-profile Estonian development center, where more than 200 programmers from 32 countries work on three floors of an open-office environment. The small number of separate conference rooms and cubicles all have Estonian names so that "employees learn a little of the language" according to Skype spokesman Villu Arak.

For more info>>
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128325-pg,1/article.html

Toshiba Plans HD DVD Push

Toshiba is planning an aggressive push for the HD DVD format at next month's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a senior executive said last week.

A group of companies supporting the HD DVD format will hold a news conference on January 7 on the eve of the massive consumer electronics exhibition to announce their plans for 2007, Yoshihide Fujii, president and chief executive officer of Toshiba's digital media network company, said Thursday.

Toshiba, which is the biggest backer of the format, will join the news conference and plans an announcement, but Fujii wouldn't disclose what it will be.

The company launched its first HD DVD players at CES in January 2006. One player, the HD-A1, was priced at $500 and a second player, called the HD-XA1, cost $800. Two second-generation players, the HD-A2 and HD-XA2, hit shelves this month at $500 and $1000, respectively.

Samsung Electronics develops new mobile memory chip

SEOUL, South Korea: Samsung Electronics Co. said Wednesday it has developed a new mobile memory chip that is thinner and uses less power than its predecessor.

The one-gigabit mobile DRAM is at least 20 percent thinner than the existing product, which stacks up two 512-megabit chips, and uses about 30 percent less power than the predecessor, Samsung said in a release.

The new product can be used for a wide range of advanced handset applications as well as for digital still cameras, portable media players and portable gaming products, the company said.

"Samsung plans to mass produce the new device beginning in the second quarter of 2007 at a time when demand for high-density 1-gigabit mobile DRAM is expected to be very high," it said.

DRAM stands for dynamic random access memory. DRAM chips are most widely used in personal computers.

Samsung is the world's largest memory chip maker and a top producer of consumer electronics, including flat-screen televisions, mobile phone handsets, MP3 players and laptop computers.

Intel Core 2 Duo Vs. AMD AM2 X2—Top to Bottom

Choosing the right CPU for your needs isn't always an easy task. If we all had bottomless wallets, it would be easy just to pick the ultra-high end CPUs and be done with it. But most of us have to budget our purchases, and it's always a delicate dance to figure out what's the best fit for what you do. Also, the CPU isn't the only piece of the puzzle. Rather, it's a shifting matrix of choices we make. If I'm a gamer, do I step down one notch in CPU power and pick up a slightly faster graphics card? If I'm a video editor, will running a faster CPU make up for somewhat smaller storage? If I'm an average PC user, would more memory be more useful than a faster CPU?

This balancing act is difficult to perform in the absence of data. Today, we're taking a look at the CPU side of the equation. We vary the processor, but keep everything else in the system as constant as possible. The key difference is core logic and processor, which are inseparable.

We took a look at the performance of the high-end processors in our initial review of Intel's Core 2 Duo back in July. Later, Jason Cross went in-depth on the gaming side, pitting the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ against Intel's Core 2 Duo E6600 in our Real Gaming Challenge. Now we dive back into our comprehensive benchmark suite, running a wide array of performance tests across the entire range of Intel Core 2 Duo and AMD Athlon 64 X2 AM2 processors. AMD has the price edge, but is that enough to overcome Intel's performance lead? How well do the various CPUs scale across the product line? We try to address those questions.

The Intel and AMD CPU Contenders

Let's compare the offerings from Intel and AMD. As it turns out, each manufacturer's official product line contains exactly the same number of processors. The prices don't precisely correlate, which is part of the problem when you're trying to choose which processor works best for you. Note that these prices were taken from several Internet sites, and the lowest one picked.

Intel Core 2 Duo	Frequency	Price	AMD Athlon 64 X2 AM2	Frequency	Price
E6300	1.83GHz	$190	3800+	2.0GHz	$152
E6400	2.13GHz	$230	4200+	2.2GHz	$187
E6600	2.40GHz	$360	4600+	2.4GHz	$253
E6700	2.67GHz	$559	5000+	2.6GHz	$346
Core 2 Extreme X6800	2.93GHz	$1,075	FX-62	2.8GHz	$825

As you can see from the table, there really isn't a clean correlation in pricing between the two vendors' models. Within the mainstream part of the line, you could say that the E6600 occupies the same pricing space as the Athlon 64 X2 5000+. But Intel's E6700 is cheaper than the FX-62, while the Core 2 Extreme E6800 is more expensive. Also, Intel only has one processor under the $200 price point, while AMD has two. Still, it's useful to look at these side-by-side.

AMD has also just launched the Athlon 64 X2 5200+, which wasn't available at the time we tested these CPUs. The only difference between the 5200+ and the 5000+ is that the 5200+ offers 2 × 1MB of L2 cache (2MB total), compared with the 2 × 512KB of the 5000+. Both processors clock at 2.6GHz, so it's unlikely you'd see much difference in most applications. AMD's pricing for the 5200+ is $403 in quantity 1,000.

Note that there are some key differences among the various CPUs. On the AMD side, only the FX-62 sports 1MB of L2 cache per core. The rest of the product line offers 512KB of L2 cache per core. That's the official story—currently. You can still find the Athlon 64 X2 4000+ CPUs, which clocks at 2.0GHz (same as the 3800+) and has 2 × 1MB of L2 cache, but that product isn't being manufactured currently. Since the 4000+ is being phased out, we didn't include it in our roundup. AMD's processors are built on the company's 90nm SOI process.

On the Intel side, the two lower-end CPUs—the 1.83GHz E6300 and 2.13GHz E6400—offer only 2MB of shared L2 cache, while the E6600, E6700, and X6800 have 4MB of L2 cache. All of Intel's Core 2 Duo products are currently manufactured on 65nm technology.

Availability

Intel's Core 2 Duo lineup is now widely available, both in OEM versions and full, retail boxed products. We've seen the entire product line sitting on a shelf in one Silicon Valley reseller; they're also readily available online.

The same can't be said for the entire range of Athlon 64 X2 products. Most are easy to find, include the top-of-the-line FX-62. The one bleak spot in AMD's picture is the seeming lack of 5000+ parts. Almost all the sites we checked had long lead times, and the one site that had some in stock was charging over $600—nearly double AMD's official price.

We contacted AMD, and they were adamant that the issue wasn't yield of the 5000+ CPUs, but rather a "temporary supply chain problem." While AMD's spokesperson wouldn't admit it, we suspect that Dell is eating up all the Athlon 64 X2 5000+'s AMD can supply. Once pent-up demand for "AMD" Dells subsides, the scarcity of retail 5000+ CPUs will likely ease.


The Test Systems

We configured two systems as identically as possible, except for motherboard and CPU. Now that AMD has shifted to supporting DDR2, even the memory is the same.

Component	AMD X2 Socket AM2 System	Intel Core 2 Duo System
Motherboard	ASUS Crosshair	ASUS P5W DH Deluxe
Chipset	Nvidia nForce 590 SLI	Intel 975X
Memory	2 × 1GB Corsair XMS2 6400 (CAS 4-4-4-12) at DDR2/800	2 × 1GBMB Corsair XMS2 6400 (CAS 4-4-4-12) at DDR2/667
Graphics card	Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX Reference (91.33 drivers)	Nvidia GeForce 7800GTX Reference (91.33 drivers)
Hard drive	Seagate 7200.8 200GB	Seagate 7200.8 200GB
Optical storage	16x ATAPI DVD +/- RW	16x ATAPI DVD +/- RW
Sound card	Sound Blaster Audigy 2	Sound Blaster Audigy 2
Display	Dell 2001FP (LCD flat panel, 1600x1200)	Dell 2001FP (LCD flat panel, 1600x1200)
Operating system	Windows XP Professional SP2, all updates installed	Windows XP Professional SP2, all updates installed

The ASUS Crosshair is built on Nvidia's top-of-the-line nForce 590 SLI chipset, a two-chip design that fully supports Socket AM2, and adds some new features. The ASUS P5W DH Deluxe used for the Intel processors supports Intel's Core 2 Duo lineup, and uses Intel's 975X core logic. The AMD system has a slight edge in overall memory bandwidth, while the Core 2 Duo runs with a 266MHz front-side bus clock. Note that an Athlon 64 doesn't really have an FSB, but the AMD CPU's base memory clock is 200MHz. So as Intel's product line advances, each subsequent jump is a multiplier of 266MHz, while AMD's increment is 200MHz.

Each system had a clean install of Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2 and all updates installed. The hard drives were defragged prior to each benchmark session. Before we ran each benchmark, we executed the command

rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

This immediately executes all background idle tasks to completion, including tasks such as the Windows prefetcher.

We also used the Nvidia 84.21 drivers for the GeForce 7800 GTX, which have added support for multithreading, thus improving performance on dual-core CPUs. The newer 91.47 was not yet officially released at the time of our testing.

Final Thoughts: Your Needs


It's clear that Intel's Core 2 Duo lineup offers superior performance across the product line when compared with AMD's Athlon 64 X2. In some applications, even a lower-cost Core 2 Duo can outperform some of the higher-end Athlon 64 X2s.


In other applications, it's not so clear. For many users, adequate performance is "good enough," and the lowest-cost solution may be optimal in those cases. AMD's Athlon 64 X2 3800+ certainly offers great value, at under $160, and even the 4200+ can be found for under $200. However, the overall "sweet spot" seems to be the two midrange Intel CPUs—the Core 2 Duo E6400 and E6600. The E6600 offers a higher clock rate and larger L2 cache, while the E6400 can be found for well under $250. At the rarified high end, the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 is simply in a class by itself. If you're willing to blow over $800 for a processor, then going a couple hundred bucks more doesn't seem quite so extreme.

For More Information or to Review Benchmarks tests....
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2014649,00.asp

How Can Anti-Virus Software Keep My Data Safe?

It’s getting harder everyday to protect your data from the dangers posed by computer viruses. These malicious programs have evolved into multiple forms and can be contracted through a variety of ways, including opening email attachments, clicking on spam or by visiting corrupt websites.
Fortunately, just as viruses have grown in strength and complexity over the years, so also have the tools used to combat them. With the latest generation of anti-virus software, you can give your computer a level of protection never before possible.

Today’s best anti-virus software come with multiple virus scans, allowing you to schedule scans in advance, giving you access to a variety of location-specific scans and even real-time scanning, which scan your computer every few minutes for viruses—stopping them before they can do damage.

And, since new viruses are being created everyday, the most effective anti-virus programs offers convenient virus updates. Some software even offer automatic updates, which regularly and automatically check back with the manufacturer for information on new viruses, providing you the highest-level of protection at all times.

However, undeniably, the most valuable thing that today’s anti-virus software brings to its consumers is plain, good-old-fashion peace of mind.

Further, i will give the detailed comparision about different Antivirus softwares...

Nokia E50...

Full Aluminum Body...

Class: smartphone, Edge, business smart phone

eGSM 850/900/1800/1900
Battery type 970 mAh Li-Ion (BL-5C)
talk mode from 3.2 up to 6.4 hours
standby mode from 6.8 up to 8.3 days
Full recharging takes 2 hours
colours (TFT), the resolution of 240x320 pixels
5D navi button
Symbian OS 9.1 (Platform 60 ver 3.0 interface)

Weight: 104 gramms
Memory: 70 MB shared
microSD card slot
Polyphonic call melody, True Tones, supported formats AAC, eAAC+, MP3, RealAudio, WAV
Support for mp3, AAC, WAV, NB-AMR, WB-AMR
Voice dial doesn't depend on the pronunciation, no need in preliminary recording of tags
Speakerphone

13Mp Camera

Connectivity via:
WAP 2.0
Bluetooth v.2.0
IrDA
GPRS class 10
EDGE (Class B, Multislot class 10)
Support for HTML, xHTML, cHTML
E-mail protocols: SMTP, POP3, IMAP4
E-mail services: Intellisync Wireless Email from Nokia, BlackBerry Connect, Visto Mobile, Altexia and Microsoft ActiveSync.
MMS
Synchronization with PC via Bluetooth
SyncML
SMIL
USB 2.0 via Pop-Port

Blackberry

Comment for more info>>

Online Ad Prices Keep Going Up, But Is It Sustainable?

Perhaps one of the bigger signs that another bubble is growing is the persistent reemergence of companies and ideas that didn't survive the first bubble, such as the "free stuff (with ads)" business model.
Seeing this sort of thing become pretty commonplace again points to the growing strength in online advertising for publishers and content owners: plenty of technological and commercial advancement (like Google AdSense) has been made in the space since the last bubble, while advertisers are throwing more and more money at online ads. However, with ad prices rising, some are wondering if web site owners and publishers might overestimate that strength and jack up their prices even more -- a move that could presage a correction or collapse of the ad-driven business model. Questions are already emerging about the amount of traffic sites are claiming to advertisers, and without solid data to back up online advertising, ever-increasing prices may not be sustainable. In some sense, advertising is to this bubble what VC money was to the last one, and if the massive inflow of money gets cut off, for whatever reason, things could get ugly.

Real robots?

Researchers move ever closer to making mechanical versions of us..

Which one is android???

From the moment the robot walked on screen in Lost in Space one question has haunted the watchers of bad science-fiction television dramas: When do we get our robots, our mechanical soulless friends?
They're getting closer.

Japan leads Korea in producing the most realistic, human-like robots. A World Robotics Survey published in 2004 said that 600,000 household robots were in use by 2003 across the globe – most being simple robots like the automatic vacuum Roomba. Four million robots are expected to be in service around the world by the end of 2007.

But don't expect to be able to purchase one on sale today. When assistant androids will hit the mainstream market is still anybody's guess as robototics is in its pre-Atari stage. We can make a robot that moves and talks and walks. But it cannot yet function in the intuitive, unpredictable human world – except as a sideshow act.

Yet most researchers can envision functional robots within a decade, even if they're only available to the very rich. They'll be able to open our doors, prepare our meals, answer the phone. They'll be able to care for the sick, clean up toxic waste, fly military aircraft and search for mines. They'll work for us.

"We need a robot that can truly be useful in our world," says California's Stephen Keeney, one of the project leaders for Honda's cutting edge ASIMO project (more at the website world. honda.com/ASIMO).

[FOR MORE INFO]-http://www.thestar.com/Life/article/164480

Russia remains leader in spacecraft launches - space agency

MOSCOW, December 26 (RIA Novosti) - Russia conducted 45% of the world's spacecraft launches in 2006, maintaining its leading position, the head of the Federal Space Agency said Tuesday.

"Russia's current share in the spacecraft launch market is about 40%, and counting joint Russian-Ukrainian launches from the Sea Launch platform it totals about 45% of all launches conducted in the world," Anatoly Perminov said at a year-end news conference.

In 2006, Russia already conducted 24 launches, and plans to launch a Soyuz-2-1B carrier rocket with a Fregat booster and a French Corot satellite December 27, Perminov said, adding that in 2007 the number of launches will be reduced to about 20.

Perminov said Russia will allocate 24.04 billion rubles ($912.3 million) for the Federal Space Program in 2007.
"The budget for the Federal Space Program in 2006 totaled 23 billion rubles ($873 million), and in 2007 it will reach 24.04 billion rubles, without additional revenues," the official said.
The head of the space agency also said the United States was in second place in spacecraft launches, with 18 launches conducted in 2006, while Japan and China shared third place with six launches each.

The U.S. will use Russian spacecraft to fly its astronauts to the International Space Station after 2010, he said.
"Until 2010, the U.S. will use its space shuttles [to bring astronauts to the ISS], but after 2010 and until 2015-2020 they [the Americans] will fly to the station on board the Russian spacecraft," Perminov said, adding that Russia will start building its own space shuttles, the Clipper, in 2012.

[FOR MORE INFO]-

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20061226/57833667.html

Security flaw found in Microsoft's Vista..

Microsoft's security experts had an uneasy Christmas after a security flaw was discovered in Windows Vista, the software company's new operating system - the first since its official release four weeks ago.

The flaw is a symbolic blow to Microsoft, which has spent five and a half years developing Vista. The software, which was launched two years later than originally planned, is the biggest upgrade to the operating system since the release of Windows 95 and Microsoft focused heavily on improving security.

The company on Friday confirmed the vulnerabilities, which were first reported by independent third parties, but pointed out that no malicious programmes taking advantage of the flaws had yet appeared.

The flaw allows a user with standard system privileges to gain wider access to system tools and settings without the approval of a network administrator. This potentially disables a key security feature of Vista but attackers would first need to gain access to a computer through some other means before exploiting the vulnerability. A vulnerability in the new web browser Internet Explorer 7 was reported at the same time.

[FOR MORE INFO]-

http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=FT&Date=20061226&ID=6301941

Wikipedia Founder Plans Search Engine (Update)

The search engine, code-named Wikiasari, would combine open source technology and human intervention to deliver more relevant results than the algorithm-based systems used today.

Jimmy Wales, founder of online encyclopedia Wikipedia, is planning to build an online commercial search engine that would compete with Google and Yahoo.

The search engine, code-named Wikiasari, would combine open source technology and human intervention to deliver more relevant results than the algorithm-based systems used today, Wales said Tuesday. "Human intelligence is still the best thing we have, so let's let humans do what they do best, and computers do what they do best." Wikiasari combines the Hawaiian word for quick, "wiki," with the Japanese word "asari," which means "rummaging search."

Relevance remains a challenge in online search, since machines can only take a roundabout approach in determining the ranking of results delivered to people's queries. For example, Google's automated system considers the number of links to a Web site in determining whether it's closer to the top or bottom of results.

Wales plans to combine the user-based technology behind nonprofit Wikipedia with open source Web-search software called Nutch, which is part of the Apache Lucene project. The latter has developed a full-featured text search engine written in Java.

{FOR MORE INFO & DISCUSSION}-

http://www.informationweek.com/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196701966

Japan's Elpida begins mass production of DDR2 SDRAMs using 70nm technology

TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - Elpida Memory Inc said it has begun mass production of 1-gigabit and 512-megabit DDR2 SDRAMs using 70-nanometer process technology at its main plant in Hiroshima in western Japan.

The company said in a statement that shipments of the computer memory chips will start in the first quarter of 2007.

The chips can be used in appliances such as high-end servers which require processing of large amounts of data, high-performance mobile equipment, high definition digital TVs and next-generation DVD recorders, Elpida said.
(1 usd = 118.95 yen)

Wikipedia Founder To Create User-Driven Search Engine

Wikia, a for-profit corporation created by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, is preparing to launch a search engine that will leverage the user-driven model that has contributed to the massive success of the Wikipedia.

The Wikia corporation plans to launch the search engine with financial backing from online retailer Amazon (some sites are erroneously reporting that Amazon is involved in the development process, but please note that they are just providing financial resources for Wikia at this point) and a handful of other technology companies, but Wales hopes to generate profit from the service with advertising. In an interview with Times Online, Wales says that "the revenue model for search is advertising," a truism demonstrated by competitors Google and Yahoo. Does Wikia have what it takes to beat the best at their own game? Wales is hoping that the reputation of Wikipedia and the transparency of the user-driven approach will be enough to attract users.