Dell cures some Nvidia GPU woes with BIOS update
Dell has issued a BIOS update to prevent its notebooks equipped with faulty Nvidia graphics cards from overheating.
Notebooks equipped with certain Nvidia GPUs were reportedly failing at abnormally high rates by the graphics company itself in an SEC regulatory filing. At the time, however, the company did not list which configurations were failing, saying only that it was one sold in significant quantities.
Usernames and passwords to San Francisco network exposed in court docs
San Francisco again has control of its own FiberWAN network, but as it compiles evidence to keep distraught network administrator Terry Childs in jail, the city could have opened itself up to a slew of new security problems.
The San Francisco District Attorney's office entered up to 150 usernames and passwords into Exhibit A of the ongoing legal case against Childs. Each account is said to be sensitive and private, and the city has gone through a lot of work to get the accounts back, only to enter them into the public domain through the courtroom filings.
AT&T complains to FCC about Sprint-Clearwire 4G wireless pact
In a bid to quash a proposed merger between Sprint-Nextel and Clearwire around WiMAX, AT&T has now submitted a petition to the FCC.
Sprint announced in May that it would renew its efforts to partner with Clearwire to bring together both companies' WiMAX holdings to build a nationwide broadband wireless network. Valued at about $14.5 billion, the proposed network has financial backing from Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner, and Bright House Networks.
End of an era: Gateway stops selling PCs directly to customers
Computer maker Gateway has moved entirely to an indirect sales model in which it will stop selling PCs online through its own Web site, only offering PCs through retail channels.
After being founded in 1985, Gateway pioneered direct-to-customer computer sales, and enjoyed big success until the dot-com era began to erode. It quickly lost ground to competitors like Dell and HP. The Gateway brand, which is now a subsidiary of Acer, launched its own stores in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the retail channel was not receptive of the stores.
Ex-Googler creates 'Cuil' search engine, but results fall short of rivals
New search engine Cuil has opened to the public, and with it, the requisite comparisons and challenges to Google, former employer of Cuil's engineering team. But the site is experiencing much downtime in its first day.
Built with $33 million in venture capital from Greylock Partners, Madrone Capital Partners, and Tugboat Ventures, Cuil is made up of an all-star team of Web technology veterans. The husband and wife founders are Tom Costello, creator of Xift, and Anna Patterson, creator of Recall, a technology now used by Google. Rounding out the team are ex-Google engineers Russell Power and Louis Monier, also the ex-CTO of AltaVista.
Verizon launches 100 HD channels on FiOS in New York City
"Make no mistake about it. This isn't cable," said Virginia Ruesterholz, president of Verizon Telecom, in announcing today the immediate start of FiOS services with 100 high-definition channels in parts of New York City, plus the availability of 150 HD channels by the end of this year in sections of New York City and some other areas of the US.
Because nearly 60 percent of New York City residences and businesses are located in multiple dwelling units (MDUs), Verizon is putting an early focus on apartment buildings. More than 100 MDUs will go live with 100 HD-channel TV today, according to Maura Breen, Verizon's general manager for New York.
Apple: Oops, some MobileMe e-mail lost forever
In its recently created status blog for MobileMe, which has struggled with downtime since its launch earlier this month, Apple admits it lost some e-mails during a four-day period at the height of the outage.
A poster identifying himself as "David G." continued to stress that restoring full e-mail access to the 1% of users who had lost connectivity was Apple's first priority. Web access for 40 percent of that 1% was turned on Saturday, and feedback was said to be "positive."
FCC likely to punish Comcast for blocking P2P file sharing traffic
On Saturday, the Associated Press cited "an agency official" reporting that the majority of FCC commissioners had voted in favor of punishing Comcast for blocking subscribers from engaging in certain activities -- namely, peer-to-peer file sharing.
The likely punishments were first reported to be sanctions, but at a press conference shortly thereafter, Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin said a policy change will be the outcome.
Sirius+XM is official as FCC approves merger
On a 3-2 party-line vote, the Federal Communications Commission approved the merger of Sirius and XM, although the satellite radio companies had to make some key concessions.
The final commissioner to vote on the deal was Deborah Taylor Tate, who held her vote pending XM and Sirius agreeing to certain limitations. The two sides did so late last week, and Tate gave her blessing late Friday.
After pirate lands in prison, software group hints at eBay lawsuit
After convicted software pirate Jeremiah Mondello pulled a 48-month federal prison stretch on Wednesday, an industry anti-piracy group announced six more lawsuits against individual piracy suspects -- also reportedly hinting that eBay could be the next one to get hauled into court.
"Mondello is a whiz-kid who used his smarts and savvy to rip off software makers and consumers. We are fortunate that he has been stopped, but there are hundreds more like him running illegal operations on eBay and other sites," according to Keith Kupferschmid, SVP of intellectal property policy and enforcement for the Software Industry Information Association (SIAA).
Microsoft cozies up to open source, donates $100,000 to Apache
As part of a renewed embrace of open source, Microsoft will contribute $100,000 annually to join the Apache Software Foundation, as well as pledging new protocols to the Open Specfication Promise and contributing a patch for ADOdb.
The annual investment in Apache will bring the company on board as a "Platinum" sponsor, the foundation's highest level. At that level, it joins competitors Yahoo and Google in supporting the effort.
Scientists turn car exhaust into electricity, twice as efficiently
Scientists from Ohio State University have created a new material called thallium-doped lead telluride, which has been designed to convert car engine exhaust heat into electricity.
The research team led by Joseph Heremans said the material could also be used to help power generators and heat pumps. The new material is reportedly able to convert the wasted heat into energy without causing pollution, and do so more efficiently than was previously possible.
Nearly 7 years after original, a new Windows XP goes gold
On August 24, 2001, Microsoft released to manufacturing the final version of Windows XP. 6 years and 11 months later, a new version of XP has gone gold, this time for the OLPC XO computer, also known as the "$100 laptop."
Originally designed to run Linux, the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) XO laptop is targeted at developing nations and those too poor to afford proper computers for education. The device, which went on sale publicly in November for $200, features wireless connectivity, a built-in camera and a keyboard designed to change languages.
After legal fight, 11-year-old ordered to turn over Narnia.mobi domain
An 11-year-old Scottish boy who received a dream birthday present that later turned into a legal quagmire must now turn over his narnia.mobi domain name back to the estate of C.S. Lewis.
Comrie Saville-Smith, who lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, is a fan of the C.S. Lewis Narnia novels, and his parents decided to give him the narnia.mobi dobmain once it became available in September 2006.
Beta release of Office Outlook Connector adds calendar syncing
A beta release of Office Outlook Connector 12.1 adds syncing between Windows Live Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.
As with previous versions, the connector will sync a user's Hotmail account and contacts with Microsoft's Office productivity suite. The addition of calendar support rounds out the service, and offers functionality akin to Apple's MobileMe (although its more meant for desktops in this case, not mobile phones).
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