Technology News

NVIDIA Admits to Faulty Notebook GPU’s & MCP’s

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:11:30 +0000

NVIDIA announced today that they will be taking a $150 million hit in order to repair faulty graphical processing units (GPU) and media communications processors (MCP). The problem is apparently only an issue in notebooks where the unusually large amounts of concentrated heat causes the chips to fail. Even though NVIDIA has come forward they have yet to say exactly what systems are affected by this issue. The only thing they said in their investor-focused announcement was that it’s their “previous generation” that has the abnormal failure rates:

NVIDIA plans to take a one-time charge from $150 million to $200 million against cost of revenue for the second quarter to cover anticipated warranty, repair, return, replacement and other costs and expenses, arising from a weak die/packaging material set in certain versions of its previous generation GPU and MCP products used in notebook systems. Certain notebook configurations with GPUs and MCPs manufactured with a certain die/packaging material set are failing in the field at higher than normal rates. To date, abnormal failure rates with systems other than certain notebook systems have not been seen.

A quick fix that they are apparently trying to employ on computers with the “defective” chips is to force the fans to turn on earlier by pushing out a driver update. Adrian Kingsley over at ZDNet has thrown out his guess that the Dell m1330’s and m1530’s are among those affected. They are powered by the GeForce 8400M GS, and some have had to get their motherboards replaced due to overheating issues. I actually know someone that purchased a Dell m1530 about two months ago, and after a week of owning the system they had to get their motherboard replaced because the laptop wouldn’t even turn on. Dell didn’t say what the issue was, but they were quick to replace the motherboard without running any diagnostics.

It would be nice if NVIDIA came forward with what chips are affected by the problem, but I don’t think they want to take any more of a loss than they already have. Their stock has already fallen 30% since this morning (now at $12.49), and so they are probably going to do anything they can to keep it from going any lower.

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Google Maps with Voice (Experimental) on Your BlackBerry

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 20:34:46 +0000

If you own a BlackBerry 8110, 8120, or 8130, you can now use your device in a whole new way. Google has recently launched Google Maps with voice search that will work with the aforementioned devices. It’s an experimental thing, so if all goes well, they’ll probably expand the service and make it available for additional phones.

Now BlackBerry owners will be able to use their voice to search for locations or businesses on Google Maps. This means that people will no longer have to type out the business that they are looking for, and instead they can just speak what they are looking for and Google will perform the search.

Google put together a tutorial including images, but we’ll quickly just list out the steps here:

Hold the left-side key on your BlackBerry
Say the business type that you’re looking for (Gas Station, Pizza, etc.)
Release the left-side key when you’re done saying the business type
Google will start searching the map for matches in your area

Of course the alternative to this if you don’t have one of the supported phones is to call GOOG-411 which we’ve used on several occasions and it’s actually pretty nice. If you own either the BlackBerry 8110, 8120, or 8130, give it a try and let us know what you think.

Source

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Ask.com Chooses Microsoft for Online Map Provider

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:25:54 +0000

In a somewhat interesting move Ask.com ditched their own mapping service today, and has teamed up with Microsoft to use their Virtual Earth service. The switchover has already been made, and you can see the new service up and running over at Ask City. Most people, however, probably won’t notice the switch since nothing feels any different than it did.

I’m actually surprised that Ask.com went this route (no pun intended) because it was just a year and a half ago that they revamped their mapping service adding features like annotation. Those features appear to be non-existent now that Microsoft is the one serving up their maps and directions. Hopefully those things will wiggle their way back into the site in the future.

I’m guessing that Ask.com decided to go this route so that they can reap the benefits of Microsoft funding the advancement of the mapping service, without them actually having to fork out any money. I’d have to imagine paying for the satellite and bird’s eye view imagery isn’t very cheap. A penny saved is a penny earned, right?

Ask City Homepage [via Liveside]

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Firefox & Opera Users are the Most Apt to Update

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 18:11:23 +0000

Web browsers are probably among the most updated applications because of how important they are in our daily lives, and also because of how vulnerable they can make us to outside attacks. For example, Firefox 2 has had about 15 different versions since its release in October 2006, and all but three addressed security issues. I calculated out the average duration between new releases, and it works out to one every 39 days, or almost one every month.

I’m happy that these browsers are frequently getting updates because that means they are keeping up with any vulnerabilities and bugs that might arise. The bad news is that over 637 million users out there are surfing the net with an outdated browser. To break it down even further here are the percentage of users using the most current version on a per-browser basis:

Internet Explorer 7: 52.5% are up-to-date
Safari 3: 70.2% are up-to-date
Opera 9: 90.1% are up-to-date
Firefox 2: 92.2% are up-to-date

Just barely half of all Internet Explorer 7 users are running the latest release, which means many of them could be vulnerable to outside attacks. Firefox and Opera, on the other hand, are almost always updated to the latest release.

Naturally you would think that this is because Firefox and Opera users are more likely to follow when the companies release new versions of their browsers, but is that really the case? Half of the problem is that Internet Explorer gets updated through Windows Update, and so users aren’t notified of patches from within the browser like they are with Opera and Firefox. For that reason you’d be hard pressed to find someone who could tell you exactly what version of Internet Explorer they’re running, but a good chunk of Opera and Firefox users probably know the version number off the top of their heads.

You can read more about how the stats were collected, but overall I would say that all of this information is on-par to what I would expect. This makes me wonder how many people out there have expired antivirus subscriptions as well?

Understand the Web Browser Threat [via CNet]

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What Would You Do With One Outlet?

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:59:23 +0000

Imagine you only had access to one power outlet (and no splitter). How would you make the most of your situation?

For example, assume you have access to the one outlet here:

What do I have plugged in? My computer, of course.

After that, my next most important thing to power is my cell phone. However, I can do that off my laptop via USB, so that keeps me to one outlet.

I don't need a clock, TV, or radio since my computer covers all of that.

In a pinch, I could unplug my computer for an hour or so while using the outlet for other things. That would allow me to use the outlet to make toast. Life is good.

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Judge Says Google Has to Handover All YouTube User Data

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:41:44 +0000

There’s bad news today for privacy advocates with Wired.com reporting that a judge is ordering YouTube to provide Viacom with the hsitory of all of their users. They say, “Google will have to turn over every record of every video watched by YouTube users, including users’ names and IP addresses.” This is in regards to that lawsuit that Viacom filed against Google back in March last year for $1 billion over damages for copyright infringement.

In the past Google has been pretty good about fighting for the privacy of their users, and in this situation they said that turning over the required data would be invading on their users’ privacy, but the judge essentially said “too bad.” The logs of information are contained on four tera-byte hard drives which Google must hand over to Viacom. Google will also have to provide Viacom with a list of all of the videos ever removed from YouTube for any reason.

Now why on Earth would Viacom want all of the data of YouTube users? Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch says the Judge presiding over this, Judge Stanton is “a moron” because turning over this information will allow Viacom to sue those who have watched copyrighted content. Did you get that, those who have simply watched, and not uploaded the content, could get sued. I don’t know about you, but I could have easily watched a copyrighted clip without even know that it was illegal. How are we supposed to keep track of every legal and illegal video on YouTube?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, as you can imagine, isn’t too happy about this. They posted about the ruling already and said, “The Court’s erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users.” At this point it looks like it’s up to Google to take some serious steps to protect the privacy of their users, otherwise we could see users fighting back with a class-action lawsuit.

Image Source

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Google Talk for iPhone Works Well in Firefox/Opera Sidebar

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:13:51 +0000

The long-awaited Google Talk for iPhone is finally available, and it’s not in the form of an iPhone application. Instead, it’s simply a browser app which makes us wonder why it took Google over a year to make something for the iPhone. Perhaps they were too busy working on stuff for their own Android?

Anyway, Google Talk is available and was designed just for the iPhone. All iPhone users need to do is go to www.google.com/talk in safari, sign-in, and then they’ll be able to start chatting. Because we sold our iPhones on eBay so that we could upgrade to the iPhone 3G next week, we weren’t able to test this out first-hand, but from what others have said, it works exactly as it should. The one downside that we can see is that if you navigate away from the browser or open up a new window, your status is changed to “unavailable” and then when you return, your session will be restarted.

At first glance you may think that this doesn’t benefit you in any way because you don’t own an iPhone. Fortunately that isn’t the case, and there is actually a practical way that Opera and Firefox users can put this to good-use. Think Sidebar.

This new version of Google Talk for the iPhone fits really nicely in the sidebar of Firefox and Opera. Those of you who load sites in your sidebar already will know exactly what to do to get Google Talk up-and-running there. For those of you that don’t, you’ll want to reference this article here where we explain how it’s done for both browsers. Below are the links that you’ll need if you want to use Google Talk in your sidebar:

For a Google Account: http://talkgadget.google.com/talkgadget/m
For a Google Apps account: http://hostedtalkgadget.google.com/a/mydomain.com/talkgadget/m

(Credit to Digital Inspiration for providing the links)

Above is a screenshot of what Google Talk for iPhone looks like in the sidebar of Firefox. In no time, you’ll have a simple and clean version of Google Talk running in your sidebar. For those of you who prefer things simple, you’ll probably get a lot of using out of Google Talk for the iPhone, even if you don’t own an iPhone!

Source

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Daily Downloads: Flash, Skitch, and More

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:00:12 +0000

Welcome to Daily Downloads brought to you by CyberNet! Each weekday we bring you software updates for widely used programs, and it’s safe to assume that all the software we list is freeware (we’ll try to note the paid-only programs).

As you browse the Internet during the day, feel free to post the software updates you come across in the comments below so that we can include them the following day!

–Stable Releases–

The software listed here have all been officially released by the developers.

Opera 9.51 [Homepage] [Changelog] [Mirror] [Review]
Operating System: Windows; Mac; Linux
Type of Application: Web browser
Changes: Bug fixes
Vuze 3.1.1.0 [Homepage] [Changelog] [Mirror] [Review]
Operating System: Windows; Mac; Linux
Type of Application: BitTorrent client
Changes: Few new features and bug fixes

–Pre-Releases (Alpha, Beta, etc…)–

The software listed here are pre-releases that may not be ready for everyday usage.

Flash Player 10 [Homepage] [Changelog] [Mirror] [Review]
Operating System: Windows; Mac; Linux
Release: Beta 2
Type of Application: Rich media viewer
Changes: Bug fixes
Skitch 1.6b6.2 [Homepage] [Changelog]
Operating System: Mac only
Release: Beta
Type of Application: Screenshot capturing
Changes: Extends the Beta expiration

–Release Calendar–

July 1 - OpenOffice.org 3.0 Beta 2 [Review]
July 11 - iPhone 2.0 Software [Review]
July 11 - iPhone 3G [Review]
July 14 - WordPress 2.6 [Review]
August - Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 [Review]
September 2 - OpenOffice.org 3.0 [Review]
October 30 - Ubuntu 8.10
Late 2008 - Firefox 3.1 [Review]
2009 - Windows Mobile 7 [Review]
2009 - Paint.NET 4.00 [Review]
January 2010 - Windows 7 [Review]

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CyberNotes: Assign Driver Letters to Folders in Windows

dillseed — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:00:02 +0000

Tutorial Thursday

Windows only
On your computer there are probably just a handful of folders that you access everyday, and wouldn’t it be nice to make them even easier to access? One way to do that is to assign your most used folders to drive letters on your Windows machine, which puts them just a click away from your mouse. The good news is that Windows comes with the functionality needed to do this, but it’s buried in the command line.

If you’re new to using the command line in Windows you don’t have anything to worry about… this task will be about as easy as it gets. Being able to have your downloads folder, music, pictures, and more all assigned to different drive letters will definitely make this a well-spent two minutes.

–Assigning a Drive Letter to a Folder–

Note: If you’re familiar with how the command line works in Windows you can probably jump to the Command Prompt screenshot below to get the gist of what this section covers.

Open up the Command Prompt utility in Windows, which can be found in the Start Menu’s Accessories folder. Once the Command Prompt is open you’ll be able to start entering in commands. The format of the command you want to use is:

(more…)

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Confirmed: Mozilla Sets World Record with Firefox 3 Downloads

dillseed — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 22:04:54 +0000

About two weeks ago Mozilla made an attempt at a Guinness World Record shooting for the most number of downloads for an application in a 24-hour period. They managed to do it with Firefox 3, and the official number was 8,002,530 downloads! That’s about three million more than what Mozilla was hoping for, and six million more than Firefox 2 was downloaded in the first 24-hours. I think it goes without saying that they were successful.

The Spread Firefox site currently says that there have been more than 28 million downloads of the open source browser, and there are 160 million active users:

Thanks to the support of the always amazing Mozilla community, we now hold a Guinness World Record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours. On June 18, 2008 8,002,530 people downloaded Firefox 3 and are now enjoying a safer, smarter and better Web.

Ever since Firefox was launched in 2004 we’ve relied on our community to help us spread the word, and thanks to projects including crop circles, newspaper ads, giant stickers, videos, blogs and more we now have 160 million+ users in more than 230 countries.

I’ve had at least a dozen people ask me how many downloads Mozilla needed to set the record, and the short answer is that there was no record like this that had ever existed. So they would have probably made it regardless of whether it was 1 million or 8 million. What matters now is whether they will make it into the Guinness Book of World Records.

Either way Mozilla got what they wanted out of the record attempt, and that was to spread the word about the browser. Here we sit 28 million downloads later, and I don’t think there is much doubt that they succeeded in getting the word out about the new release.

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