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Japan Takes 1st Place On Supercomputer List
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A Japanese computer has earned the number one spot on the Top 500 supercomputer list, ending China’s short reign of just six months. At 8.16 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point calculations per second), the K computer is more powerful than the next five systems combined.
The K computer’s performance was measured using 68,544 SPARC64 VIIIfx CPUs each with eight cores, for a total of 548,352 cores, almost twice as many as any other system on the Top500 list. The computer is still being put together, and when it enters service in November 2012 will have more than 80,000 SPARC64 VIIIfx CPUs according to its manufacturer, Fujitsu.
Japan’s ascension to the top means that the Chinese Tianhe-1A supercomputer, which took the number 1 position in November last year, is now in second spot with its 2.57 petaflops. But China continues to grow the number of systems it has on the list, up from 42 to 62 systems. The change at the top also means that Jaguar, built for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), is bumped down to third place.
Yahoo Creates Search Tools For Smartphones
June 19, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Yahoo wants to aid in smartphone owners finding mobile applications and information about them.
On Thursday, the company is debuting a feature in its search engine called App Search, as well as application search tools for Android and iPhone devices named AppSpot.
Both the new App search feature and the mobile search tools can be used to seek applications for iPhone and Android devices, although the company expects to expand that scope in the future.
For now, Yahoo has indexed the mobile application catalogue of the Android Market and of the Apple App Store, and is convinced that it can do a better job than the search tools of those two online shops.
Finding information about mobile applications, like descriptions, ratings, reviews and recommendations, is at a rudimentary stage similar to web search in the mid-1990s, Seth said.
The way Yahoo sees it, many people today struggle to find the right mobile application among the hundreds of thousands available for Android and iPhone devices.
Chinese Government Questioned About Cyber-attack
June 18, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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The U.S. State Department questioned the Chinese government regarding an attack that had temporarily shut down the website Change.org after the site hosted a petition urging Chinese authorities to release artist Ai Weiwei from custody.
U.S. deputy assistant secretary Daniel Baer raised concerns about the attack in April with China’s foreign ministry, according to an official letter sent from the State Department to U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.). Change.org obtained a copy of the letter and released it Tuesday.
The nature of those talks is still somewhat vague. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing said it had no current information on the matter and deferred to the State Department. China’s foreign ministry has yet to respond to a request for comment.
Change.org, an online petitioning platform, was the victim of a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack originating from China on April 17. The attacks nearly brought down the site for days.
DDoS attacks can do this by using hundreds or thousands of hacked computers to drive traffic to a website. The data will become so overwhelming that the site will become inaccessible to users.
Change.org said the DDoS attacks from China continue to bring down the site intermittently. The FBI is investigating the case, said Benjamin Joffe-Walt, an editor with Change.org.
AMD’s Bulldozer Will Be Late
AMD has confirmed that their Bulldozer chip-set will be delayed until later in the summer.
The FX Series which is codenamed Zambezi is based on the Bulldozer architecture. Unfortunately, AMD didn’t provide an official date they just said that the FX Series is coming in “late summer”, which means do not expect to the chip until probably late August.
Nokia Expects Windows Phone Before EOY
June 3, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Nokia has “increased confidence” that the first of its smartphone devices to run on the Windows Phone platform will ship by the fourth quarter, the company said on Tuesday.
Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop is putting his full weight behind getting a Windows Phone-based product out for the important end-of-year holiday shopping season, in order to help turn around the company’s smartphone fortunes. The company’s teams are aligned around that goal, he said in a statement.
The company won’t reveal ship dates until closer to when the first phones arrive, but the pressure is on to deliver the devices this year, Elop said when the company announced its first quarter results.
Nokia will have several more opportunities to divulge more information shortly. On June 21, Elop will give a presentation at the Connection 2011 Conference, which is organized in conjunction with CommunicAsia 2011 in Singapore. He will give an update on the company’s partnership with Microsoft, and set the stage for a number of product and service launches, according to the program.
Sony Hacked Again
May 29, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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More than 2000 users of Sony Ericsson’s Canadian Website are impacted by the latest hack attack to hit a battle worn Sony. Sony Ericsson is joint mobile phone venture between Sony and Ericsson. According to Sony hackers made off with e-mail addresses, passwords and phone numbers–but no credit card details. Sony has now shut down the affected site. Around 1000 of the stolen records from the Sony Canadian Website are already online, posted by Idahc, a “Lebanese grey-hat hacker”.
“Sony Ericsson’s Website in Canada, which advertises its products, has been hacked, affecting 2000 people,” a Sony spokesperson told AFP. “Their personal information was posted on a Website called The Hacker News. The information includes registered names, email addresses and encrypted passwords. But it does not include credit card information.”
“Sony Ericsson has disabled this e-commerce Website,” Sony detailed to IDG News. “We can confirm that this is a standalone website and it is not connected to Sony Ericsson servers.” For security, Sony has shut down the Canadian Sony Ericsson eShop page, which currently reads: “D’oh! The page you’re looking for has gone walkabout. Sorry.”
Verizon To End Unlimited Mobile Data Plan
May 24, 2011 by admin
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If you have a smartphone with an unlimited data plan on the Verizon Wireless network, get ready to mourn the end of those good times.
Verizon will put the kabash on its unlimited smartphone data plan some time this summer, according to comments made by the carrier’s chief financial officer. Speaking at the Reuters Global Technology Summit on Thursday, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo stated the company will soon roll out new tiered pricing plans and altogether eliminate the current $30-a-month unlimited option.
According to Reuters, which reported the news, the move is designed to “force heavy data users to pay more for mobile data.”
Microsoft Rebukes Intel
Microsoft is pouring water on Intel’s assertions that legacy Windows current programs won’t operate on Windows 8 for ARM processors. Yesterday, Intel made the claim and Microsoft’s Steven Sinofsky came to the rescue of Microsoft and said that Intel’s statements were “factually inaccurate and unfortunately misleading.” Mr Sinofsky went on to say that Microsoft’s development goals were clear and that the technology was still in its demonstration stage. That was an extremely vague statement right? So Microsoft is still working out the kinks.
We also need to say that Sinofsky never gave any hard-core specifics and there was never any clarification as to what Intel’s error was in their statement.
Microsoft To Discontinue Vista SP1 Support By July
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Microsoft reminded users on Monday that it intends to stop supporting Windows Vista Service Pack 1 on July 12.
“From that date onward, Microsoft will no longer provide support or free security updates for Windows Vista Service Pack 1 (SP1),” the company stated in a blog entry on its TechNet website.
The company recommended users upgrade to Vista Service Pack 2 or Windows 7 to receive continued support and patches. Vista SP2 also includes operating system updates such as a new version of Windows Search, and drivers to support new hardware.
Users can install Vista SP2 using Windows Update, or by manually downloading the 32-bit edition or 64-bit edition of the service pack.
Users must have Windows Vista SP1 installed prior to applying SP2. Further instructions on installing SP2 are available on Microsoft’s website.
Google Facing DOJ Probe
May 13, 2011 by admin
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Google is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice concerning practices within its advertising program, and has set aside $500 million for a potential resolution fund, the company said in a regulatory filing on Tuesday.
In its quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Google said that in May it accrued $500 million for the three-month period ended March 31, 2011 in connection “with a potential resolution of an investigation by the United States Department of Justice into the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers”.
Although it cannot predict the ultimate outcome of the matter, Google said that it believes that it will not have a material adverse effect on its business, consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows.
The company did not explain why the charge had been taken retrospectively on its first quarter earnings. It is also not clear to whom Google would have to make the payment in the event of settlement.
Google declined to comment, stating that it was a legal matter. The company has updated its first-quarter results press release on its web site, to reflect the new charge.