First look at latest OpenOffice merits a second
The Games for Learning Institute wants to grow a new geek crop
Microsoft's partnering with a number of New York colleges and schools to work math- and science-friendly video games into middle-school classrooms. Wait, you say -- don't middle-school kids already have enough love for videogames?
Sure they do. It's love for science, math and computer science that begins to ebb among the middle-school crowd. That's the bridge the Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) hopes to build -- compiling data about how effectively games work as learning tools for the early-teen set and developing titles that re-engage their interest just as they're beginning to study more complex math and science concepts.
OpenSource World steps into LinuxWorld's more constrained shoes
In announcing this week that a new event, OpenSource World, will now usurp the long-standing, LinuxWorld extravaganza held annually in August, conference organizers IDG World Expo are continuing down a path mapped out back in 2005.
Like the late LinuxWorld, the newly born OpenSource World will take place in San Francisco. Meanwhile, O'Reilly & Associates is moving its own open source fest, OSCON, from Portland, Oregon to San Francisco.
Just the facts, please: Apple announces a Mac notebook event
Apple and wildly speculative rumors about the company are practically inseparable. Today, the company emailed invitations to an October 14 event in its hometown of Cupertino, CA.
As usual, it needs to say very little to get the public talking a lot. The ad shows the ubiquitous, titanium aluminum notebook lid with the glowing white Apple trademark and the epigraph: "The spotlight turns to notebooks."
Time for a 'Patch Tuesday' just for Apple?
In an advisory published by Apple this afternoon, Mac users and admins are being advised of the availability of the seventh major security package this year, which will include some 20 patches for both the System and Mac applications.
The last major Apple security update came on September 15, and the one before was issued on the last day of July. So security updates are getting to be a monthly affair with Apple, just as they've been with Microsoft for quite some time.
Motorola dashboard computer uses Windows Mobile 6
Motorola today introduced an all-in-one in-car computer system that runs on Windows Mobile 6, thrusting the mobile OS into the turf where Windows XP and CE reigned.
Motorola has introduced its VC6096 dash-mounted mobile computer, designed especially for vehicle-based workforce applications. Emergency and police vehicle systems, though differing from state to state, most frequently run either Windows XP and XP Embedded (PDF available from Glacier Computer for one example) or Windows CE.
Analysts: iPhone users annoyed by mobile Web sites
Much as they might love their iPhones, a lot of folks find it frustrating to try to find and read online news stories using Apple's devices, especially on Yahoo's mobile Web site, a new survey says.
Users of Apple's iPhone who frequently surf to some popular news sites face aggravations ranging from cluttered pages and excessive scrolling to search engine glitches, according to a new study from analyst firm Keynote Systems.
Here's looking at you, kids: GeoEye-1 releases its first image
A high-resolution commercial satellite launched in September returned its first ultra-sharp image this week.
Upon opening its various eyes on Tuesday at noon (EDT), the first thing the GeoEye bird saw was the campus of Pennsylvania's Kutztown University, where the day was bright and clear and your best hope of finding a parking spot was out by the stadium.
The AMD split: Can two companies fare better than one?
It was obvious that AMD's current financial status, and its competitive situation with Intel in the multi-core era, were both untenable. Drastic action had to be taken. But can AMD come back without owning its own processes?
Faced with a critical decision about how it could finance the expansions it needed in order to build processors that can help it regain its competitive footing against Intel, AMD made a decision that would make Solomon weep: It sold a majority stake in its most treasured possession, its fabrication facilities, to an entirely new company called ATIC, comprised of foreign interests that have agreed to place former AMD personnel at the head of its new managing company.
Best Buy launches collectively customized 'Blue Label' laptops
How would you describe your 'ideal laptop'? Starting with new Toshiba and HP models, Best Buy is now offering an exclusive line of CE products -- based on people's answers to questions like these -- under its new 'Blue Label" program.
Retail giant Best Buy has rolled out new Toshiba and HP laptops as the first results of Blue Label, a new effort to work with computer vendors on building products that directly reflect consumers' wishes.
Microsoft preps gamers for the Xbox Experience
At last July's E3, Microsoft first announced its concept of an avatar-based community for online gaming, along with the ability to install games to the hard drive. At the Tokyo Game Show, the experience got a launch date: November 19.
With what's now being called the "Xbox Experience," gamers will be able to create customized avatars (similar to, but more tweakable than Nintendo's Miis) that can host "Live Parties" or engage in one-to-one chats with other users. These avatars will also be fixtures of new massively multi-player social games that are expected to arrive by the holidays like Scene It? Box Office Smash and Lips, a multi-player Karaoke game not unlike Singstar.
First Asus WiMAX notebook ships, others from Lenovo, Acer to come
Now that the long promised faster speeds of WiMAX are starting to rev up into reality, PC makers are rolling out the first WiMAX-enabled networks. At least one model -- from Asus -- is already shipping, but it'll cost you a cool $1,399.
Sprint's launch in Baltimore of the first WiMAX network in the US drew support this week from a long list of PC vendors that are either planning or already selling WiMAX-enabled laptops, including Asus, Lenovo, Acer, Toshiba, Dell, Panasonic, Samsung, and Sony.
What crisis? IBM spoils the bears' day with good Q3 news
Usually when a company these days gives advance warning to the press about earnings numbers that aren't due for another week, it's to help diffuse a negative backlash. Not this time, as IBM handed the market a rare gift.
In an SEC filing this morning, IBM went out of its way to bring good tidings of great earnings for a market that could really use a little Christmas cheer even two months early. Total revenues for the third quarter of this year for the company will be up 5% annually to $25.3 billion; and with margins rising, its net income will likely be up as much as 20% on the year, to $2.8 billion.
Record label EMI to launch new music portal
"Big Four" major label EMI has plans to launch a dedicated Web portal, but contrary to what many are reporting, it will not be a competitor to other online music shops.
A source familiar with proceedings told BetaNews this morning said that the forthcoming EMI.com is not an attempt to compete with, or displace iTunes, Amazon, or any other digital music store.
Keepers of .info TLD move to clean up its act
The much-abused .info top-level domain may be making a renewed bid for respectability with policy changes announced this week, in an effort that may make the TLD a little less meaningless.
It's reasonable for the well-traveled reader to feel that it's the net, not the .info TLD, that's the much-abused party here. One of the vaunted TLD class of 2000, .info has over its eight years of existence fallen down the spam-and-scam rabbit hole.
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