Western Digital Corp. today(June 9),released its biggest consumer external hard-disk drive targeted at Mac users with a whopping 4TB of capacity.
The drive's $650 price tag may turn some off, but if you need space to fit 1,540 DVD movies, 800,000 digital photos or one million MP3 music files, then this may be the drive you.
The My Book Studio Edition II drive comes in 1TB, 2TB and 4TB capacities and is designed with WD's GreenPower Technology, so the system uses about 30% less energy than standard WD drive systems and runs quietly because it doesn't need a fan.
The drive comes with a four ports, ultra-fast eSATA and FireWire 800, and FireWire 400 and USB 2.0, along with the accompanying cables.
It is compatible with Apple's Time Machine and includes software and instructions for reformatting to Windows operating systems. The system supports Mac OS X 10.4.10+, 10.5.2+ Windows 2000/XP/Vista: The 4TB version works with Windows Vista only because Windows XP does not support hard drives with capacities above 2TB.
The new My Book Studio Edition II two internal drives can be configured for RAID 0, which affords users the full 4 TB of capacity, or RAID 1, which mirrors the two drives to protect data in case of a drive failure but reduces storage capacity by half.
The new drive comes with a 5-year limited warranty.
Brilliant computer scientist who was crucial to the development of the Google search engine
Motwani was best known for mentoring Sergey Brin and Larry Page in their student days at Stanford University in California, where he was professor of computer science. As their search engine took shape, Motwani became their technical adviser and guided several other computer-based companies including PayPal, in which he was an early investor. A shrewd businessman as well as an acclaimed computer scientist, he also owned an undisclosed amount of stock in Google.
At Stanford University, where Motwani was one of the youngest professors, he started the Mining Data at Stanford project (MIDAS), a group that helped develop data-management concepts. The author of several papers in esoteric subjects like randomised algorithms and data streaming, his research spanned many areas in computer science, including databases and data privacy, web search and information retrieval, robotics, computational drug design, and theoretical computer science.
Asked to explain how Google's technology works, Motwani offered a typical illustration. "Let us say that you wanted information on 'bread yeast' and put those two words in Google. Then it not only sees which documents have these as words mentioned but also whether these documents are linked to other documents. An important page for 'bread yeast' must be having all other pages on the Web dealing in any way with 'bread yeast' also linking to it.
"In our example there may be a Bakers' Association of America, which is hyperlinked by most documents containing 'bread yeast', then it implies that most people involved with 'bread' and 'yeast' think that the Bakers Association's web site is an important source of information. So Google will rate that web site very high and put it on top of its list. Irrelevant documents which just mention 'bread' and 'yeast' will not be given any priority in the results.
In spite of his achievements, Motwani cheerfully conceded that the Google search engine did no more than a humble librarian – and was less intelligent. But he also pointed out that automatic software trumped the old technology in coping with the exponential rise in information.
Rajeev Motwani was born in New Delhi, India, on March 26 1962. His father was in the Indian Army and he spent a nomadic childhood following his father's postings to various parts of India. Young Rajeev wanted to be a mathematician, like his hero Carl Friedrich Gauss. "This was partly shaped by the books I had at home. My parents for some reason had a lot of these books – 10 great scientists or five famous mathematicians – their life story and so on. As a child, whatever heroes you read about you want to become."
He left St Columba's school in Delhi still hoping to be a mathematician, but his parents were sceptical about his prospects of making a living. Instead he joined Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, which had just started an undergraduate programme in computer science. He obtained his bachelor's degree in computer science there in 1983 and his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1988.
He wrote two books, Randomized Algorithms, published by Cambridge University Press in 1995, and an undergraduate textbook published in 2001. A kind, approachable man, Motwani was still active as a professor and was teaching a couple of classes as recently as last year, despite his financial success with his internet start-ups.
His awards include the Godel Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in theoretical computer science, the Okawa Foundation Research Award and the Arthur Sloan Research Fellowship, the National Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Kanpur, the Bergmann Memorial Award from the US-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and an IBM Faculty Award.
Rajeev Motwani, who was found dead in his swimming pool on June 5, was a non-swimmer and had been considering taking lessons. He had apparently drowned after a party to celebrate the end of the academic year.
Nokia today unveiled the N97 phone in Bangalore; the latest addition to Nokia’s popular N-series lineup. At the press conference today addressed by Regional General Manager-South, Nokia India, TS Sridhar and Head of Design, Nokia N-series, Axel Meyer, the focus was on the new Nokia’s ‘personalized home screen.’ This essentially means that users can choose from a number of widgets that will rest on the home screen and keep users updated thanks to constant online feeds.
Another feature highlighted during the press conference was the N97’s integration with the Ovi Store, Nokia’s answer to Apple’s app store, and according to a press release, “a full catalog of applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, and web and location-based services.” Also, Nokia claims that the N97 will be optimized for social networking since Facebook, Twitter and MySpace widgets are also available.
Features of the phone include a 3.5-inch screen that supports 16:9 widescreen display, a slide-out QWERTY keypad, 32GB of in-built storage, expandable to 48GB. Nokia claims that the phone boasts of a battery life of 1.5 days during constant music playback. The imaging features include a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a dual LED flash. Plus the phone is 3G ready and supports HSDPA and Wi-Fi.
Although Nokia was unwilling to give us the exact pricing, we did manage to get a Rs. 30,000 to Rs. 35,000 estimate. Expect this new Nokia in stores within two weeks.
Apple has unveiled the Mac OS X Snow Leopard, a refined version of the Mac OS X Leopard, and will ship as an upgrade in September 2009 for $29.
"We've built on the success of Leopard and created an even better experience for our users from installation to shutdown," said Bertrand Serlet, Apple's senior vice president of Software Engineering. "Apple engineers have made hundreds of improvements so with Snow Leopard your system is going to feel faster, more responsive and even more reliable than before."
To create Snow Leopard, Apple engineers refined 90 percent of the projects in Mac OS X - so users will now notice a more responsive Finder; Mail that loads messages 85 percent faster and conducts searches up to 90 percent faster; Time Machine with up to 50 percent faster initial backup; a Dock with Exposé integration; a 64-bit version of Safari 4 that boosts the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent and is resistant to crashes caused by plug-ins.
Snow Leopard also includes an all new QuickTime X, with a redesigned player that allows users to easily view, record, trim and share video to YouTube, MobileMe or iTunes. It is half the size of the previous version and frees up to 6GB of drive space once installed.
System applications including Finder, Mail, iCal, iChat and Safari are 64-bit and Snow Leopard's support for 64-bit processors makes use of large amounts of RAM, increases performance, and improves security while remaining compatible with 32-bit applications.
Snow Leopard builds support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 right into Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal. Exchange information works seamlessly within Snow Leopard so users can take advantage of OS X only features such as fast Spotlight searches and Quick Look previews.
It features Apple's Multi-Touch trackpad integrated with the VoiceOver screen reader so users can hear and navigate different parts of a window or the desktop by moving a single finger around the trackpad as if it were the screen. Snow Leopard also introduces built-in support for wireless bluetooth braille displays and the connection of multiple braille displays simultaneously to one Mac.
Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard will be available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard in September 2009 through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The Snow Leopard single user license will be available for a suggested retail price of $29 (US) and the Snow Leopard Family Pack, a single household, five-user license, will be available for a suggested price of $49 (US).
For Tiger users with an Intel-based Mac, the Mac Box Set includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09 and will be available for a suggested price of $169 (US) and a Family Pack is available for a suggested price of $229 (US).
The Mac OS X Snow Leopard Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller between June 8, 2009 and the end of the program on December 26, 2009, for a product plus shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US).
Suppose you are sitting in a public place like a cafeteria or in the airport and working on your laptop. You feel like having a cup of coffee. What do you do? You will be away only for a few seconds so you don’t want to carry it along. But then, could you leave your laptop lying around and hope that it would still be there when you return back with your coffee? This is a very common but difficult situation.
However, there is one tool that could help you in situations like these. Laptop Alarm.
Laptop Alarm is a free software tool that monitors unusual behavior when you’re away, setting off an alarm whenever it detects a possible theft. Laptop Alarm sounds an alarm whenever your laptop’s power cable is unplugged, the mouse is moved, or the laptop is shut down. This can be enough to deter a thief from running off with your laptop
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It seems that the worst international financial crisis in decades has not affected everyone. While many US companies struggle to survive, some technology companies have plenty of cash piles. Still, how are they planning to use them? Let us see some of these rich tech companies:
Cisco Systems Inc is the most cash-rich tech company with $29.5 billion in hand, putting it just behind Exxon Mobil Corp’s $31.4 billion, despite having a market value less than one-quarter of the oil giant’s. Bankers and analysts think it may make a move on virtualization software maker VMware Inc.
Another tech company with some of the largest cash piles includes Apple Inc with $25.6 billion. In spite of spending about $2bn a year on R&D and capital investment, Apple’s $26bn in cash has left it with the biggest cash pile in the technology world. The company’s stock price too has rebounded from its low of $78.20 in the week when Steve Jobs announced his leave. The fact that Apple’s cash can be a big strength during recession has quieted critics, who in the past have called on the company to buy back shares or offer a dividend.
Microsoft Corp too sits on a huge cash pile of $20.7 billion. The rich software giant, however, announced rather disappointing quarterly results recently, unlike IBM. Microsoft recently announced that its 2009 first quarter profit sank from $4.71bn a year ago to $4.17bn, a loss of 12 percent. Total revenue was $16.63bn, a 2 per cent rise from year before. This was only possible thanks to higher server, tools and entertainment sales.
The search giant Google Inc too sits very well with a cash reserve of $15.9 billion. The Mountain View, California-based company had almost $16 billion in cash at the end of the recent-announced fourth quarter. According to Google CFO, Patrick Pichette, the cash reserves provided Google with sufficient flexibility “for the right deal at the right price.”
International Business Machines Corp too has a huge cash pile. In January, the company disclosed its full-year financial results for 2008: record revenue of $103.6 billion; record pre-tax profit of $16.7 billion; record earnings per share of $8.93; and record free cash flow of $14.3 billion, up $1.9 billion, excluding global financing receivables. IBM also announced an earnings’ forecast for this year at $9.20 a share, well above Wall Street’s $8.75 call.
The enterprise software giant Oracle too sits on a $7.4 billion pile of cash. Little doubt that the Redwood Shores-based company is quietly going on a shopping spree. Recently, the company bought mValent Inc, a small software company that helps configure other software. The deals put Oracle in amongst the cash-rich companies. Oracle made sales of $22.4 billion in fiscal 2008.
Sun Microsystems might be a little bit affected by the recession. However, the high-end computer and software maker remains among the companies with a relatively large amount of cash, even if its stock has been faced considerable hammering in the past few months further accentuated by fears of weakening global tech spending. The company carries a cash balance of $2.6 billion and a market cap of $3.8 billion.
Intel has announced the successor to Intel Core 2 Quad (codename Yorkfield) to be Intel Core i7 (codename Nehalem).Intel Core i7 is the successor to Core 2 architecture. All the newly available chips have 4 cores inside. Core i7 microprocessor represents a major advance in computing to enable chips to handle more data
Difference between Intel Core i7 and Intel Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors
Intel Core i7
Codenamed: Bloomfield - Nehalem
Fabrication: 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.2
Socket: LGA 1366
Bus: Quick Path Interconnect
RAM: DDR3
Chipset Support: X58
Intel Core 2 Duo
Codenamed: Conroe, Allendale, Wolfdale - Core 2
Fabrication: 65 nm / 45 nm
Instruction set: X86, X86-64, MMX, SSE 4.1
Socket: LGA 775
Bus: 1333 MHz FSB
RAM: DDR2
Chipset Support: 965, P3x, G3x, P45, X48
Explanation:Difference between Intel Core i7 and Core 2 Duo
The Core i7 is a completely new architecture which is much faster and more efficient than the Core 2 Duo. Currently only the Core i7 920, 945 and 965 XE versions are available. Of that the Core i7 920 is available at just $284 which makes it a great buy. It offers better performance than almost all Core 2 Duo processors.
Native Quad Core, More Cache and Hyper Threading:
All the Core i7 processors are Native Quad cores (4 cores), which means that they actually have 4 cores on a single die, while the older Core 2 Duo processors like the Q6600 (2×2 = 4 cores) had two cores on a single die, and two such dies merged together. This increases the processing speed greatly. They also have 256 KB L2 cache per core and a shared 8 MB L3 cache which has proven to be much better than any cache configuration in Core 2 Duo.
It also has HyperThreading support which means that each of the 4 cores can process 2 threads simultaneously, so you get 8 virtual cores. This helps in running many applications parallely and also in gaming.
Quick Path Interconnect (QPI) and On Die Memory Controller:
The Core i7 processors sport the new Quick Path Interconnect technology which replaces the FSB (Front Side Bus) to connect the various components in a computer. QPI is much faster than FSB and hence improves the overall performance. It is even faster than AMD’s similar HyperTransport 3.0 standard.
The Core i7 have an On Die Memory Controller which means that it can access memory much faster than the Core 2 Duo processors which had an external memory controller. Intel has borrowed this feature from AMD. All the four cores, memory controller, cache are on the same die which improves the speed and performance greatly.
This world map shows a list of countries that are considered least affected by the global economic crisis
Australia takes the top spot followed by China with India and Singapore in equal third place. Qatar is the only gulf nation that figures in this "relatively" recession-proof list.
The data is based on the results of a business confidence survey that was done on international business people of 24 nations to identify which countries they believe are surviving the crisis the best.
The countries perceived to be surviving the economic crisis the best, as voted by international businesspeople are:
