Nvidia offers Quadro FX 4800 graphics card for Mac
Aimed at high-performance computational analysis and professional 3D visualisation
Nvidia on Monday announced that their high-end Quadro FX 4800 graphics card is now available for the Mac. The card is coming in May, 2009 and will be available for $1800 (UK pricing to be announced) from Apple and select Mac resellers and workstation integrators.
 |
 |
Microsoft looking to cut even more jobs?
Section: Business News, Communications, Cellphones, Smartphones, Computers, Desktops, Laptops, Gadgets / Other
Back in January when Microsoft announced their earnings for second quarter, things were not going well for them. As a result, they were forced to enact job layoffs over an 18 month period totaling 5,000 job cuts. At that time, this was already a lot of jobs to be lost for the suffering company. Today, an analyst, Sid Parakh, at McAdams Wright Ragen, predicted Microsoft to cut even more jobs as they are not able to gain a profit.
Even though Microsoft outlined an 18 month plan to cut jobs, Parakh predicts the job cuts would be occur sooner, rather than later. In addition, he predicts that Microsoft will be performing even worse than what most major analysts are saying right now. The Wall Street consensus is that Microsoft will be earning around $14.1 million, however due to lack of good sales and profit, Microsoft will most likely not even reach a global revenue of that figure. If this is all true, then it is likely that Microsoft will make more job cuts in efforts to shrink the payroll and increase efficiency.
At this time, Microsoft has not made a comment on this matter, so it will be interesting to see what will happen in the near future.
Via [TechFlash]
Full Story » | Written by Natesh Sood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Most federal agencies doing nothing to fight phishing attacks
Section: Communications, Email / IM, Computers, Security
A new report is revealing that most federal agencies aren’t following security protocols that could prevent phishing attacks. The report by the Online Trust Alliance, a group of security companies working to fight email and Internet fraud, found that 56% of the 25 agencies it studied did not authenticate emails or domain names, leaving themselves open to phishing attacks.
Phishing is an epidemic these days. Government agencies and financial firms are common targets. Scammers send out fake emails that look like they came from them, often with links to spoofed sites that often look disturbingly legit. Anyone who falls for the scam has their personal info (social security numbers, credit card and banking info, log ons and passwords, etc) stolen. Some scammers simply clean out the victim’s bank account and run up huge charges on their credit cards. Others sell the info to other criminals for big bucks.
14 federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Treasury, the FBI and the White House, earned failing grades in security, while the Bureau of Veterans Affairs, the Census Bureau and the IRS were among the agencies that passed. The IRS is one of the most popular targets of phishers, who send thousands of fake emails claiming the user is owed a substantial tax refund or stimulus payment.
Anyone else find it incredible that the Department of Homeland Security was found to have little or no computer security protocols in place? That doesn’t make one feel particularly secure about their ability to protect the company, does it? Hopefully the report will lead them to put those protocols in place.
Read [Nextgov]
Full Story » | Written by Sue Walsh for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Oddball Tech: The $500 mouse, Pirate Bay hits a museum, and Ashton Kutcher’s a Gadgetell fan
Section: Peripherals, Mice / Keyboards, Web, Web 2.0, Websites
The $500 mouse?
Nope, it’s not one of those genetically altered super-mice that they are engineering in the Alkali Flats. This is a mouse that is really pushing the definition of what a mouse is. The device looks like something that belongs in the dashboard of a vehicle and has a LCD color screen so you can read your email on it.
Its name is “The SpacePilot PRO.” The $500 mouse is really specialized and is meant for people who use programs like Maya and other 3D applications. According to Tom’s Hardware, “The mouse can actually move in all three dimensions (X,Y,Z) simultaneously, using 3Dconnexion’s ‘six-degrees-of-freedom’ technology.” If you’re not going to use it for that specific purpose, maybe you’re better off using that $500 to get a $50 mouse and a $450 monitor (or a netbook). [Source]
A piece of the Pirate Bay is in a museum
And you thought that you had to discover something important or star on a television show to get something in a museum. Nope. If you run a torrent tracking service, perhaps your server could end up in a museum one day. Sweeden’s National Museum of Science and Technology has purchased a Pirate Bay server for a little under $250. (So if you’re keeping track at home, 1 Pirate Bay server = 1/2 Space Pilot Pro). The plan is to put the device in the “Inspiration Imitation” exhibit which is about intellectual property and to stir conversations on ownership. If they really want to get people talking, they should host their own torrents from that server. [Source]
Ashton Kutcher likes Gadgetell
We always liked that Ashton Kutcher guy. Earlier this week, he tweeted a story from Gadgetell. If you aren’t aware, Ashton Kutcher was in a race with CNN to get one million followers on Twitter. Kutcher beat CNN early this morning (April 17, 2009) around 2AM Eastern. When he tweeted the “13 year old racks up $5000 phone bill for 20,000 texts in a month” post, a bunch of folks discovered Gadgetell.com. Welcome aboard, glad to have you. Would you like to win a free Hava Gold? It lets you watch your TV through the Internet.
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
5 Questions with Wil Harris
Section: Web, Web 2.0, Websites, Online Music/Video, Features, Interviews
You might know him as “The English guy on TWiT.” You may know him from “ChannelFlip Tech.” You might even be following him on Twitter. He’s been named one of Think Vitamin’s most interesting people to follow on Twitter. Get to know Wil Harris.
1. Who are you?
I run a website called ChannelFlip.com, which is a portal for some really cool video content and podcasts about the latest technology, comedy, video games, movies and websites. I also appear regularly on a podcast called This Week in Tech with Leo Laporte, which is probably how most people know me. Before that I started a website called bit-tech.net, which was (and still is) geek mecca here in the UK.
2. Facebook, Twitter, or something else and why?
The phone. The phone has to be the most underrated communications tool around. I have friends that own an iPhone and never use it to make a damn phone call. Twitter is great for just staying connected to people that you otherwise wouldn’t talk to, though, particularly for guys. I’m never going to call up a buddy and just ask how it’s going, that’s a total girl thing to do. But with Twitter, I can secretly check in on them.
3. Gadget you couldn’t live without (and why)?
iPhone. Since getting one at launch (I got one from New York and hacked it to work in the UK) it’s now become inseparable from me. It runs my calendar, contacts, email, phone calls, news, games, travel information, everything. If someone took it away from me tomorrow, I would have no idea what I was doing. Things (which is an awesome Mac app for todos and project management) syncs onto my iPhone, so between that and my email, I never have to be disconnected. I left the house without it once, about 9 months ago, and I was practically in cold sweats all day. What are my friends doing? What email do I have? What’s the latest sports score? What’s the weather like on the other side of the world? All crucial questions that I need answered NOW.
OK, on a really serious note, the iPhone does a few things really well. 1) I always have up to date contact and calendar information because it syncs with my Mac on a push basis. 2) I can always get at my email and that syncs flawlessly with IMAP on Gmail. 3) I always have my Todos thanks to Things (although this is dying for the 3.0 update to do push syncing). 4) I always have my latest music and podcasts to listen to. These are the things that I do most each day and having one device - rather than a PDA, iPod and phone - makes my life so much easier.
4. Most regrettable piece of tech you own [mine’s an original Sony Reader].
Hmm. I’m going to say Gamecube. I bought it, played Super Smash Bros to death, and then could never find anything else worth playing. Bleh.
5. If you could wish a gadget into existence, what would it be?
An auto-expanding laptop screen. So a screen that was thin and light and attached to the MacBook Air, but which actually unfolded into a 24” display when you set it up. Portable and practical. That would be uber.
Find Wil around the web:
ChannelFlip.com
Twitter
Full Story » | Written by Iyaz Akhtar for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Google puts new spin on the CAPTCHA to beat bots
Google hopes to keep bots out of Web services such as Gmail
Google has put a new spin on the CAPTCHA, a way of helping Web sites distinguish between human visitors and bots: It wants people to tell it which way is up in a series of randomly rotated images, a task that humans find easy and computers difficult.
|
|
Apple leads, Dell lags in customer satisfaction
Apple’s overall customer satisfaction rating was at 80 per cent
Market research firm Forrester on Friday released a report measuring customer’s overall overall satisfaction with their computer manufacturer. Apple not only topped the list, they blew away the competition.
|
|
Four founders of Pirate Bay found guilty in file sharing trial
Section: Business News, Web, Websites
The Swedish courts handed down a landmark decision by finding the four founders of the wildly popular torrent site Pirate Bay guilty of hosting copyrighted material on their website. Along with being sentenced to one year in prison each, the company will have to pay an estimated $3.5 million to several defendants in the case, including Sony, Warner Bros, EMI, and MGM.
The Pirate Bay founders, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Carl Lundstrom used as their defense the fact that they don’t post copyrighted material on the site, but instead point users in the direction of places that they can download movies, TV shows, applications and music. However, the court ruled that the quartet was in violation by “providing a Web site with sophisticated search functions, simple download and storage capabilities, and through the tracker linked to the Web site.”
The founders of Pirate Bay have stated prior to the conviction that they plan to appeal if found guilty.
Read: [Yahoo News]
Full Story » | Written by Heather Wood for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
Who’s on Crack: SMS avoidance Myths and Hacks
Section: Communications, Cellphones, Cellular Providers, Email / IM, Smartphones, Mobile, Features, Originals, Columns, Who’s On Crack
Normally, this is my place to poke fun at the idiocy that comes out of our tech industry, but today I’m going to poke holes at telecoms that find it appropriate to charge us $20,000 in our monthly phone bill without so much as a courtesy call. SMS has become a cash call and unsuspecting folks are finding the surprise bill too much to handle. Assembled here is how you can stick it to the SMS man.
And really, you big fat-cat telecoms, you’ve brought this on. The price you’ve charged for delivering this stuff has increased over time, not decreased like most things in tech. Now, as you cling to squeezing another $20 out of me per month, I am going to strike back . Here is how you can reap the free stuff. Kinda, sorta.
SMS without the phone:
- via email
- via GMail chat
- via the web
- SMS with the phone:
- Get a plan
- Got Data?
- Stuff you don’t have, yet.
Off Phone SMS
These are some of the ways you can shift your texting need off your phone onto free methods. The experience is different but the results might just work for you.
SMS via email
Did you know you can send SMS messages through email? It’s true. All you have to do is know the email address the carriers set up and you are good to go. This seems to work for many, but not all, carriers.
How To: Simply send an email to the carriers gateway and it will show up on your recipients phone as an SMS. Check out this page for the @carrier.net address as they’ve assembled a pretty good list for many different countries. Simply choose the carrier then enter their number and hit “go.” The email address will be displayed directly below the button. Nice and easy.
SMS via chat
Or GMail has this feature integrated into its chat function. According to Google, “send SMS text messages right from Gmail. You chat from your comfy computer and reach your friends on the go; they get your messages as texts and can peck out replies on their little keyboards.”
Even better: if your friends use GMail, when you log on you’ll see if they are active and if so you you can just IM them through GMail Chat. If they go offline (and GMail will tell you that) you can switch to SMS and continue the conversation. The conversation also becomes searchable, something SMS is sorely lacking.
How To: First go into Labs setting and enable “Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat”. The SMS will come from a (406) number and replies will pop up in your chat box, just like a chat. I’ve used this service and it works well after the initial confusion over the (406).
Spies like us
Want to be even more anonymous? Need to keep it uber simple for yourself or maybe a grandparent that can’t handle playing the CD you sent? Just direct them to one of the many websites that will send your SMS for free.
How To: visit a site like gizmo.com, enter the country and phone number and message. The site takes care of the nitpicky stuff like gateway address. It doesn’t get much easier.
With a phone
Get a plan. It is key to avoiding the $0.15 per SMS fee they’ll charge you if you go over your limit, so choose a plan wisely. Most companies offer an unlimited plan for up to $20 per month (or $30 on a family plan) to allow you to send 700 texts per day. Do you really have the time though?
Got Data?
If you’ve got a data plan, you can trade your SMS for IM’ing. Apps like Facebook, Google’s Talk,AOL, Meebo and others support IM. You can set a time to all get online and send messages this way, without running up a bill.
How To: simply agree on a platform, agree to a time and type away.
Stuff you can’t use, yet
Then there is stuff you probably don’t have yet. With the help of Google Voice, you can send SMS from the Google Voice website, or better yet, from an App like GV Mobile, you send a text right from your iPhone. The only catch here is you probably have GV forwarding texts to you so you’ll get hit with the incoming. But hey, you’ve just cut your texting habit in half.
How To: Wait it out.
Summary
Texting doesn’t seem to be going away. These days, I get texts from schools about closings and early dismissals, I get texts on info on when practices are, and then there are the random texts I get like “get milk.” For many of us, throwing money at it isn’t that good a solution. These are just some of the solutions.
Got more suggest? Let us know in the comments!
Full Story » | Written by JG Mason for Gadgetell. | Comment on this Article »
WSJ offers paid content free on new iPhone news app
iPhone app comes free compared to $103 per year online, or $140 for the print edition
The Wall Street Journal has jumped on the mobile content bandwagon and released an application for the iPhone. The financial newspaper set the price point at free - ironic, given that the Journal’s online content comes at a price of $103 per year, or $140 for the print edition.
|
|
