IBM raises the goalpost: 20 petaflops in three years
Typically, the reason a manufacturer helps a government agency build a supercomputer is to establish bragging rights. But this time, IBM plans to help the DOE put its latest creation to work with the nation's infrastructure.
It's been a long two seasons for Lawrence Livermore Labs, whose one-time heavyweight champion supercomputer BlueGene/L found itself stripped of its title belt, last time not only by Los Alamos Labs' up-and-coming IBM/AMD hybrid Roadrunner, but also by a Cray -- a name that until last year was synonymous in many circles with "dinosaur."
DTV delay bill may come to House floor tomorrow
The US House Rules Committee is scheduled to vote late this afternoon on whether to bring the DTV Delay Bill back to the floor of the House for full consideration. Should that measure be passed today, the bill may yet bypass a markup session in the House Commerce Committee, and could be voted upon by the full House as soon as tomorrow.
The new deal for Windows 7 testers
In what appears to be a deadly serious effort to expedite the rollout of its next operating systems, Microsoft has opened some of its developer support tools to a broader audience of partners.
One of the major shortcomings of Windows Vista that Microsoft has quietly, though plainly, acknowledged in recent months concerned the company's relative inability to engage partners in the development process. With a respectably long development cycle, there were too many third parties that complained that they couldn't get their drivers to work right, well after the operating system had already launched.
Vista promotional registration site now fully operational
Guests of recent Microsoft seminars and conferences who received copies of Windows Vista Ultimate will be delighted to know the Web site for registering their copies and receiving their product keys, is now fully operational.
In Betanews tests this morning, the registration site did require us to fill out a brief survey, which was understandable and not at all out of the ordinary. Upon entering our valid promotional code, which we received with a Vista Ultimate giveaway during a recent conference, we did immediately receive a product registration key via e-mail.
New Google Toolbar makes Firefox look more Chrome-ish
Download Google Toolbar for Firefox 5.0 for Windows from Fileforum now.
One of Google Chrome's signature features is a "New Tab" page that shows thumbnails of favorite Web sites. The latest IE has a similar feature, though now, Google Toolbar 5 for Firefox retrofits that browser with a similar feature.
Copps: 'We cannot have a seamless DTV transition'
Facing the prospects that US broadcast stations may make the switchover to all-digital on February 17 regardless of what Congress does, the acting FCC chairman told an advisory panel last week it may be too late to undo the damage.
The state of chaos regarding the US' national switchover from analog to digital TV broadcasting may not be something a delay can remedy. This from the man currently heading the FCC while a permanent chairman -- one emerging from an administration said to be favoring a delay -- has yet to be appointed, despite the likelihood of a nominee.
As Palm crawls back, the Centro gets another carrier
The smartphone that was supposed to save Palm last year has actually sold very well. The problem up to now has been pitifully low margins -- Palm can certainly sell Centros, but not enough to substantially profit from them.
While the world awaits the Pre -- a phone whose margins will hopefully be higher for Palm -- the Centro has finally made its way to one more Canadian carrier today: Bell. This will apparently end the phone's exclusivity with Rogers in the region, which has been selling the phone for $299 (with a three-year contract) since its introduction there last June. Bell's price has yet to be announced.
Who picks the badware? Dispute erupts after Google glitch
For about 40 minutes early Saturday morning, a URL with a single forward slash was inadvertently checked into a list of potential malware sites operated by Google, with some help...maybe...from StopBadware.org.
As a result, its search results partner, Google, was flagging nearly every Web site on the planet as a potential conveyor of malware, from about 6:40 am to 7:25 am PST.
Woolworths to be resurrected as an online retailer
If you're an American, imagine if you will the sudden disappearance of a retailer whose brand is as big as Target. The recent loss of Woolworths in Great Britain is at least proportional. The great five-and-dime retailer -- the namesake of an institution that was actually founded in Pennsylvania in 1879 -- filed for bankruptcy (administration) last November, and began shutting the doors on all its UK retail outlets soon afterward.
Now, that nation's largest online retailer -- which also happens to operate conventional retail stores -- is gearing up to resurrect "Woolies," at least for now as a direct online merchandiser.
Report: Panasonic may post an historic loss Wednesday
The press service AFP this morning is citing reports in the Asian press as stating that Panasonic will report an operating loss this past quarter of ¥350 billion (about $3.9 billion USD) on Wednesday, partly due to the bad economy and partly to its ongoing acquisition of Sanyo. This would be the first quarterly loss for the former Matsushita in about seven years.
However, the exact source of the AFP's news this morning is uncertain. In what could be a possible rewrite error, the name of the newspaper ("Shimbun") was attributed by the AFP to two different cities. The Asahi Shimbun and the Mainichi Shimbun are two different sources entirely, and the Web sites for neither paper are carrying any such news this morning.
Britain considers whether its citizens are entitled to 2 Mbps broadband
In a sweeping proposal yesterday, the UK's communications and technology minister, Lord Carter, has proposed a system whereby all citizens are guaranteed broadband Internet service with as much as 2 Mbps bandwidth, by 2012.
The interim report entitled "Digital Britain," published officially by the country's Department for Business, Enterprise, and Regulatory Reform (PDF available here), outlines a possibility for ministers in Parliament and the Prime Minister to consider. Just as the government mandated mail service to all citizens in 1840, and basic online data service to all citizens in 1984 under what the UK calls a universal service obligation, the report -- written with the blessing of Lord Carter -- suggests a similar USO be applied for broadband service.
The oldest trick in the book, literally, defeats UAC in Windows 7
Though the fellows sounding the warning today are the best in the business, it didn't take a lot of know-how to develop a proof-of-concept that the new User Access Control panel can be disabled by VBScript.
Windows 7 is still in the public beta process, and will be for some months to come. The purpose of true beta testing is to isolate and identify serious problems (we should know). So it's to any researcher's credit that a potentially threatening problem be brought into the open prior to Microsoft finalizing the code for everyday use.
Copyright Board begrudgingly adopts revenue-based streaming royalties
With explanatory language that made it clear its judges didn't particularly favor anyone at all involved in this whole process, the CRB announced this week it will apply royalties to streaming net services based on revenue.
Though the royalty schemes themselves may not be exactly what streaming broadcasters asked for, especially with regard to its phraseology and methodology -- which makes corporate tax law look like an episode of "Sesame Street" by comparison -- the US Copyright Royalty Board published in its weekly news bulletin (dated Monday but released today) its revenue-based royalties schedules for online services that provide streaming music, online music stores that provide downloads, and ringtone services.
Sony exec is visibly devastated by earnings news
In a special press conference this morning in Tokyo to update its financial condition, Sony CFO Nobuyuki Oneda literally looked ill. Associated Press cameras show Oneda physically struggling to present the news that final reports will likely show its net profit plunging as much as 95% annually in the quarter just ended.
"From the second half of September last year, there has been a sudden deterioration in the economy, and with the effects of foreign exchange it has had severe consequences on our business," the AP quotes Oneda as saying. A statement released to reporters at the same time read, "An operating loss was recorded due to factors such as the appreciation of the yen, deterioration of results at equity affiliates, slowdown of the global economy and intensified price competition."
U.S. News Weekly: Now how much would you pay?
This week, the publishers of U.S. News and World Report announced it's launching a publishing experiment that's been tried before: a weekly edition of its now-biweekly print news service in PDF format, for subscribers willing to pay about $20 per year.
Already, the concept has been given a lot of guff elsewhere on the Web. The prevailing word thus far appears to be that no one wants to pay for news any more, and why should they? Information, after all, "wants to be free."
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