AOL leverages tech publications with new network
AOL will aggregate its tech-oriented sites through a single portal, attempting to cash in on an already broad user base accessing those blogs.
Switched will now become the hub for the company's efforts, and draw in content from various blogs already under AOL's tech umbrella. Additionally, the site will lose prominent AOL branding.
Circuit City tries a turnaround in a bad economy
Struggling consumer electronics giant Circuit City pulled a big surprise Wednesday by posting a profitable first quarter, which is amazing considering its sales margins are still sounding alarm bells with investors.
Circuit City's overall sales numbers were down for the fourth quarter of its fiscal year just ended, but it also opened or relocated 22 US superstores and enjoyed gains across Web sales, international sales, and revenues from LCD TVs, video gaming products, GPS, and PC Firedog and home theater services.
AMD quad-core Opteron servers claim performance records
The return of AMD to any kind of dominant position in the CPU market depends on its ability to be perceived by systems analysis personnel as the performance leader. Today, the company obtained some much-needed ammunition in that battle.
The question prospective customers have been asking recently about AMD is whether its reticence to produce a 3.0 GHz+ quad-core CPU will hurt it, not only in head-to-head matchups against Intel Xeon but with respect to its perception as a potential performance champion. Today, AMD claimed leading scores among turned in by three separate x86-based servers, all of them HP ProLiant models.
Free version of Microsoft's robotics platform available now
Microsoft has released its first preview of Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 2008, a re-named and re-designed version of its 2006 robotics studio software.
Microsoft Robotics Studio 06, according to the company, had over 200,000 copies downloaded and over 50 companies in the partner program. Today's update was unveiled at the Robobusiness Conference and Exposition in Pittsburgh, the same conference that hosted the premiere of the earlier version.
Yahoo to test running Google ads alongside its search results
In what appears to be a very carefully considered, strategically phrased statement this afternoon, Yahoo said it will actually test carrying Google's ads on its own pages, calling the test a "strategic alternative." Microsoft isn't happy and quickly responded.
For an upcoming two-week period, the date of which was not announced, Yahoo said that it will imbue up to three percent of readers' search queries with ads generated using Google's AdSense for Search service. That service was intentionally created to give other Web sites a mechanism for its users to search the Web using Google, with AdSense ads appearing next to the results, and with sites sharing in Google's revenue.
Apple, Adobe address security flaws in QuickTime, Flash
Both companies on Tuesday released rather significant security updates addressing a wide range of security holes in their products.
11 issues are fixed in Apple's update for QuickTime, version 7.4.5. The updates affect both Mac OS X and Windows, although not all security fixes are for both operating systems.
ASP.NET AJAX makes its way to Linux via Java
A newly released update to Mainsoft's Java EE software product promises to let programmers use Microsoft's ASP.NET AJAX Web application framework on Java-supported platforms outside of Microsoft Windows, including Linux and Mac OS X.
Mainsoft's original claim to fame is its technology that allows programmers to run .NET code on the Java platform. The company reportedly invested $14 million in research to unchain Microsoft's approach to AJAX from .NET and Windows, letting it become a true full-fledged, cross platform that can be used with any Java Virtual Machine.
Sun's new UltraSPARCs boast 32x the computing density of x86 servers
Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu today jointly announced two new UltraSPARC T2 Plus servers: The SPARC Enterprise T5140 and T5240 represent the third generation of Sun's CMT multithreading, whose key selling point remains energy efficiency.
"We have seen CMT [chip multithreading technology] expanded to the processor level," a Sun spokesperson told BetaNews. "Sun really created CMT technology with the original 'Niagara' architecture and continues to lead in the CMT space with the UltraSPARC T2 processor."
Nokia to pay $314 million to German workers, $0 to government
Outraged Germans are getting some but not all of what they want from Nokia, now that the Finnish cell phone maker has agreed to pay a severance package worth $314 million USD to workers displaced by its upcoming factory move to Romania.
Under the final pact announced this morning, Nokia will continue plans to close its plant in Bochum, Germany on June 30. But after that date, the phone manufacturer will establish a "transfer company" that will employ the displaced German workers for up to one year.
Literature 2.0: Collaborative book authoring goes beta on WEbook
The horribly overused "2.0" tag has made its way to the authoring community in a new online book publishing community called WEbook, which launched in public beta today.
Claiming to be a sort of open source approach to authoring literature, WEbook is a forum where new books can be composed by an individual wishing to "sandbox" his work, or by communities who submit content on a given subject which can then be voted into a book. The site's founders say they hope it does for publishing what Linux did for software and Wikipedia did for information.
Motorola gets veteran AT&T dealmaker as board chair
As Motorola sets about splitting off mobile phones from the rest of its business, the struggling wireless vendor has chosen a new interim chairman: David Dorman, the architect of an earlier reorganization at AT&T.
As the new chief of Motorola's board, Dorman brings experience with both company restructuring and acquisitions, having already achieved mixed results at AT&T and elsewhere.
iPhone Software 2.0 provides clues to 3G model
Hackers who have diligently worked to keep the iPhone unlocked have recently discovered something buried in the code which reveals the chipset of the 3G model.
An entry used to refer to the phone's chipset is listed as "SGOLD3," which is the nomenclature used by Infineon to refer to their third-generation chips. Teardowns have revealed the current iPhone uses the SGOLD2, the predecessor to this model.
After an 11-year holdout, Iomega agrees to a buyout
It's the end of another great technology brand that came to light, shot like a comet, and then started blinking out all during the 1990s. Iomega held out as long as it could, and in the end, a nearly quarter-billion-dollar buyout may not be all that bad.
When my ten-year-old daughter asked me the other day why there was no "A" or "B" drive on any PC she had ever used, I gave her the short and sweet answer that the older drives that used to have those letters are now too small to be significant. The real answer, of course, was Iomega.
Adobe Media Player 1.0 goes live with clear, high-def content
The Flash manufacturer's move at taking content-protected video off of the browser and moving it onto its AIR platform, no longer has the luxury of being able to excuse any remaining bugs.
It could soon become one of the most ubiquitous examples of the AIR platform in popular use: Adobe today formally published its Adobe Media Player 1.0 software, which is designed to be both a delivery system and stand-alone console for Flash video, including high-resolution media.
Flickr gets video, but for 'pro' members only
Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing site has added the ability for users to upload videos to their photo collections, but only if they're "pros."
Flickr users paying $24.95 a year for the Pro account upgrade have gotten the additional privilege of uploading their videos to the site. Videos must be under 90 seconds in length and under 150 MB in size to be converted to Flash and hosted on Flickr. Acceptable original formats include AVI, WMV, MOV, MPEG1, 2, and 4, and 3Gp, with various proprietary codecs unconfirmed.
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