Mobile phones are as cancerous as HPV, engine exhaust, says WHO
The World Health Organization on Tuesday reclassified radio frequency electromagnetic fields generated by radio, television and wireless telecommunications as being possibly carcinogenic to humans.
A working group for The International Agency for Research on Cancer met over the last four days in May to assess and classify RF electromagnetic fields as a potential carcinogen, and the group found there to be positive, but limited causality between exposure to RF electromagnetism and glioma (glial cell tumors) and acoustic neuroma (intracranial tumor).
It's tablet overload at Computex
At Computex in Taiwan this week, it seems like every manufacturer is set to jump on the tablet train. By some counts, as many as 50 new tablet devices have already been announced at the show -- and many more previously announced entrants are on display.
We'll attempt to work through the clutter here and show you what's caught Betanews' eye -- trust us, it's difficult. We're noticing Honeycomb is playing a big part in these tablet announcements, and many seem to be trying gimmicks in order to grab consumer's attention. After all, Apple's leaving little of the current tablet market to fight over. Being different is certainly a positive.
Perhaps Microsoft didn't overpay for Skype after all
According to Pew Internet, nearly one quarter of American adult Internet users have placed phone calls online. That works out to 19 percent of U.S. adults. Hell, this is but one country -- with huge built-up telephony infrastructure. What about the world?
"On any given day 5 percent of internet users are going online to place phone calls," according to Pew. That may seem like a small number, but it's part of a big trend. The chart above -- and the steep climb in number of people who call online -- is graphic enough. The number of Internet users making online calls since April 2007 climbed from 8 percent to 24 percent three years later.
Test CyberLink PhotoDirector 2011 beta, get final code for free
There are few news stories I get to write that are more appropriate for Betanews readers than this one. Today CyberLink released PhotoDirector 2011 beta with a simple promise: Any tester offering "valid feedback" before June 20 will receive the software for free. Doh. Why aren't more software developers making such offers?
It's a no-brainer for you geeks and digital media enthusiasts living on the bleeding edge -- download the software, test it and offer CyberLink feedback. It's also no-brainer that more developers should look to so enticingly engage the beta software/service elite. As I've expressed for years, enthusiasts are any company's best marketers. But in the 2000s, unlike the 1990s, they haven't received much reward for their loyalty.
SanDisk unveils 128GB mobile tablet module
Currently, a mobile tablet is likely to offer on-board storage in one of three sizes: 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB. At Computex in Taipei today, SanDisk revealed a new SATA III SSD for mobile tablets and ultraportables that bumps storage up to the 128GB generation.
Sandisk's i100 drive is part of the company's integrated storage device series (iSSD) especially designed for tablets and ultrathin notebooks, which debuted last year. Claiming to be the world's smallest, fastest 128 GB SATA III BGA SSD, SanDisk says these units require as little as 10mW of power when their parent device is in sleep mode.
You hack us, we bomb you -- what's the right way to respond to cyberattacks?
Today's Wall Street Journal discusses the Pentagon's first formal cyber strategy. The interesting part is that it takes the position that some acts of computer sabotage ("cyberattacks") --shudder! I hate that term -- are "acts of war" and may be dealt with through conventional military force.
This is both obvious and frightening at the same time. The idea that you respond with literally lethal bombs in an attempt to shut down civilian or military infrastructure facilities is going to strike many as "disproportionate." There's something to proportionality, but you can take it too far. Recently, Palestinians in Gaza fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli school bus. Would the proportional Israeli response have been to fire an anti-tank missile at a Palestinian school bus? If you feel you've been attacked wrongly you have every right to hit back hard, is there no good reason to limit yourself to the weapons of the enemy?
Nokia gives 3 reasons 2011 won't go as well as hoped
Finnish mobile telecommunications giant Nokia on Tuesday said it has lowered sales projections for its Devices and Services division, and because of this it has dropped its prior full-year projections altogether.
Nokia gave three clear reasons for dropping its net sales outlook to a figure "significantly lower" than its original EUR 6.1 billion to EUR 6.6 billion projection for the second quarter 2011.
Apple looks to steal Computex and D9 thunder with iCloud
In a simply unprecedented announcement -- well, since founder Steve Jobs' return as chief executive 15 years ago -- Apple tipped off a new product coming next week. Before Wall Street's opening bell this morning, the company dropped a press release explaining that Jobs would present next week's Worldwide Developer Conference keynote and that the new iCloud service would be announced. Jobs and team also will unveil Mac OS X "Lion," which was expected, and the next version version of iOS.
From a competitive buzz perspective, surely Apple is looking to steal some thunder coming from Computex, which opened earlier today in Taipei, and the D9 conference, which starts tonight here in California. Both venues will produce major news ahead of WWDC. Intel kicked off Computex by announcing new chips, a new tablet platform and Ultrabook, a portable category competitively aimed at Apple's MacBook Air and iPad. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt will be D9's first-day headliner. Apple has little to no direct presence at either event.
Get hands on with Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7
Equipping yourself to deal with all your graphics needs typically requires an entire library of programs: a drawing tool, photo editor, desktop publishing application, web graphics package, Flash animation tool, and so on. Or alternatively you could just install Xara Photo & Graphic Designer 7, which crams all this functionality -- and more -- into a single, easy-to-use package.
Would you like to correct a few photos, for instance? Open the Photos toolbar and you can crop, rotate or resize an image; tweak brightness, contrast, saturation, temperature, blur or sharpness; fix red-eye; adjust levels; apply perspective correction; and more.
What's the big deal about Intel Ultrabook?
With the new Ultrabook, Intel seeks to bring together the best qualities of laptops with those of tablets. It's an evolution long-time coming. Finally, near Instant-On and all-day battery life capabilities may reach the masses.
Wake on Resume?
Intel tries to redefine mobile computing (again) with Ultrabook
Computex kicked off today in Taipei, with Intel looking to open a new mobile computing category. Now that iPad and other tablets are killing off the netbook category, Intel is looking to start another -- Ultrabook. Intel is pitching Ultrabook as a laptop with tablet-like features, which based on size, features and performance looks lots like Apple's MacBook Air.
Ultrabooks will be thin and light, measuring less than 20 mm (0.8 inches) thick and selling for less than $1,000. By thickness (16.3mm), the Samsung Series 9 fits the category definition but costs considerably more, starting at about $1,300. The laptop is available now.
Lagarith codec: Preserving video file quality like it was lossless
Video editing can be a destructive business, especially when carried out over multiple sessions. Every time you save your movie with a regular lossy codec, the quality degrades just a little, and it'll only get worse over time.
You could get around this by saving the videos uncompressed, of course, but the resulting files would be huge, and slow to load and save. It's a much better idea to install and work with a lossless codec, instead -- and Lagarith is one of the best.
Mac Guard assails teen girl's computer
Lots of people are dismissing blogs and news stories about Mac Defender, and the Mac Guard variant, as frivolous reporting. Reasoning: There are hundreds of thousands of Windows PC viruses and Trojans and just the one for the Mac. I disagree. This Trojan is the first Mac malware to widely spread in the wild. That makes it news.
Early this afternoon, Eastern Daylight Time, I had my first encounter with someone whose computer was infected by the Trojan. That's personal confirmation about the malware being in the wild. One of my daughter's friends called saying that she had received pop-warnings about her vintage-2008 15-inch MacBook Pro being infected with virus. She had been presented with option to purchase MacGuard to fix it. I gave her the laptop about six months ago.
Software Assurance makes Microsoft less competitive
Seventh in a series. Microsoft's volume-licensing upgrade plan locks Microsoft in as much as it does customers. Businesses choosing Software Assurance commit to paying for upgrade rights typically in three-year contracts. They're obligated to pay Microsoft 29 percent of the software's value annually. While Microsoft benefits from getting this money upfront, Software Assurance makes it difficult to reduce prices in response to competitors.
Software Assurance is a Drug
Safely save drive space with Auslogics Duplicate File Finder 2.1
Just how fast does your hard drive appear to be filling up these days? It doesn't matter if you purchase the latest terabyte monster or are running a more humble 80GB drive, it's amazing how quickly all that space can quickly disappear.
If you're the kind of person who finds himself or herself making multiple copies of files for whatever reason, a lot of that space can be reclaimed simply by searching for, and deleting, those redundant files. But it can be a risky business. What if you delete the wrong file? That's where Auslogics Duplicate File Finder comes in, bounding to the rescue. Version 2.1 of the program, released May 27, promises improved stability, an end to memory leaks and better memory optimization.
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