Dell plans a new set of artistically customized laptops
Dell has touted the concept of personalized PCs ever since it began business as "PCs Limited." But now, it's experimenting with taking that philosophy to new levels, offering a peek at new laptops with custom artwork on their cases.
NEW YORK CITY (BetaNews) - "'One' is the number we eventually envision," said Anne Camden, during a Dell press event in New York City yesterday. Dell's senior PR manager was referring to plans by Dell to use the Special Art Edition Inspiron 1525 laptops rolled out this week as a launchpad for offering totally customized, build-to-order laptop covers at some point down the road.
Opera browser now has its own alternative to Firefox' Firebug
Recently, Opera's developers have been touting it as the most compliant browser with Web standards. Now they're using that as leverage to help introduce Dragonfly, a tool they hope will promote Opera as a kind of standards watchdog.
Easily among the most useful and well thought-out extensions to Mozilla Firefox has been Firebug, an add-on by independent developer Joe Hewitt which instantly converts any active Web site into a fully-fledged JavaScript/XHTML/CSS/DOM diagnosis studio. You can see why an element is parsed and laid out the way it is by pointing at it, and letting Firebug take you to the code in question. Up until now, no tool with similar functionality and reliability has existed within the browser context; Microsoft's Web development tools are centered around Visual Studio and Expression.
Qtrax nabs Universal for its legit P2P music service
Universal Music Group has confirmed that it has agreed on terms with file-sharing site Qtrax to make its catalog available at no charge to the site's users.
Qtrax originally had hoped to launch in January, and claimed it would carry legal downloads from the major labels. However, the content owners pulled back on the reins and said that while in negotiations, no deals had been reached.
Report: Comcast considers usage caps and overage fees
Broadband Reports posted information yesterday provided by an "insider" claiming that Comcast is in the early development stages of a 250 GB-per-month bandwidth cap that will charge users a fee when passed.
For every 10 GB over the 250 GB limit they consume, Comcast would charge $15, says the source. Early tests could begin in as little as one or two months, and would have an appreciable effect only the top one percent of downloaders. This one percent amounts to about 14,000 customers of Comcast's 14.1 million.
New Word add-in helps convert documents into 'talking books'
Last year, Microsoft reaffirmed its support for DAISY, the "talking book" standard developed for the visually impaired. Today, the ability for Word to save files in that enabling format has been unveiled.
Developed as an open-source collaboration project on SourceForge.net, the "Save as DAISY XML" add-in allows any Open XML-based file to be saved into the standard. It can be downloaded for free on Sourceforge.
Fake music, video files spread malware on P2P, says McAfee
McAfee is warning file-sharers that they may be at risk due to a Trojan horse posing as an MP3 or MPEG file.
The security firm said Tuesday that it had detected a half million instances of the malware since Friday, dubbed "Downloader-UA.h." It is calling the incident the most significant malware outbreak in three years.
Sony says PS3 outselling Xbox 360 in Europe
Sony is touting European sales figures which have surpassed those of Microsoft, even though the Xbox 360 was released some 16 months before the PS3.
About five million PS3's have been sold in the region, with the console consistently outselling the Xbox on a month-by-month basis since October of last year. The news is somewhat shocking, considering the significant lead time Microsoft enjoyed.
Iomega gets ready for war with its rugged, quarter-terabyte Camo
Adding another product to the ever-growing mix of portable hard drives, Iomega Corporation today introduced its new eGo USB 2.0 Camo, designed with a military camouflage theme and a promise of withstanding punishment.
The 250 GB 2.5-inch HDD measures .91" x 3.84" x 5.56", weighs just 0.6 lbs., and is compatible with Windows 2000 and later, and Mac OS X 10.1.5 and later. Iomega chose to make the HDD powered by USB only, so no power supply is required, thus radically increasing portability -- you don't have to lug around a power adapter.
Red Hat releases software for Windows, Linux management
In an effort to scale middleware from its $420 million JBoss buyout upward to the enterprise, Red Hat this week released its JBoss Operations Network (JBoss ON) 2.0 management platform for applications running on Linux and other clients.
First announced earlier this year as part of Red Hat's Enterprise Acceleration initiative, JBoss ON 2.0 is being enthusiastically embraced by some developers.
Hitachi GST plans for the works: 320 GB at 7,200 RPM
As shipments of notebook PCs are expected to eclipse those of desktops sometime in the second half of 2009, manufacturers are becoming more concerned about making up for the capacity and performance gaps in their hard drives.
To that end, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies today introduced the Travelstar 7K320, a fourth-generation 2.5-inch notebook drive that pushes the boundaries with several key distinguishing features.
GTA IV earns half a billion for Take-Two in one week
Grand Theft Auto IV, Take-Two Interactive's crown jewel of the sandbox game series, reportedly sold over 6 million copies of the game for Xbox 360 and PS3, earning the company over $500 million dollars in the first week alone.
Sales of the Grand Theft Auto games have historically been very swift, with composite NPD and VGcharts sales data ranking GTA: San Andreas and GTA: Vice City for PlayStation 2 the #3 and #5 all-time fastest selling games, falling only behind Microsoft's Halo series and Nintendo's recent Super Smash Brothers: Brawl.
Sprint/Clearwire WiMAX launches with $3.5 billion in funding
Sprint today renewed its WiMAX relationship with Clearwire in a very commanding way, raising the distinct possibility that they could surprise the rest of the industry by leapfrogging over AT&T and Verizon in the 4G wireless space.
Under a deal unveiled this morning, Sprint and Clearwire will combine their WiMAX holdings in a new wireless broadband company to be dubbed Clearwire, funded by $3.2 billion in investments from Google, Intel Capital, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks.
MySQL tries twice to clarify its commercial software stance
You actually need a reliable database to keep track of the multitude of permutations deriving from MySQL executives' recent comments defending their company's right to make money off of its product.
The perennial problem among corporations that do business using an open source business model has been spelling out for its customers whether they mean "free as in 'speech,"' or "free as in, 'The global economy has collapsed, anarchy is rampant, and looting is widespread."' Since its absorption into the realm of Sun Microsystems, MySQL has had more and more difficulty appeasing a growing number of open source community proponents who worry that its commercial endeavors will divert the division's attention from adhering to the tenets of the General Public License.
Sprint's new pact with Google stresses openness
In addition to Google investing in the Clearwire joint venture upon which the future of Sprint's communications plans may rest, today Sprint says Google will be its valued partner for mobile services as well.
Sprint and Google today announced the two companies will share their properties with one another, mentioning numerous times the value of openness. The Mountain View search company becomes Sprint's default mobile search provider, and new Sprint handsets will offer Google's local search (for GPS-enabled devices), Google Maps Mobile, and YouTube accessibility.
Parsing Bill Gates: Is he saying Microsoft wants to be left alone?
While touring Asian countries this week, Gates gave reporters a bone to chew on: a suggestion that Microsoft will now pursue an "independent" strategy in the wake of the Yahoo deal's failure. But independent of what, exactly?
There may not be many opportunities left in history to draw extrapolated conclusions on something Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates says about the future of his company, or of anything else related to technology. So a single phrase containing a key word uttered by Gates during a press conference in Tokyo yesterday has once again drawn the wolves into a feeding frenzy.
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