IT News & Technology update

Fujitsu sells HDD business to Toshiba

Written by IT News on 12:02 AM

After a series of points, Fujitsu reported to have finally decided to sell its disk access business to Toshiba. The news comes after Wednesday Fujitsu has announced that it would cease its hard disk drive head business March 31, 2009, as part of a broader restructuring plan. This may mean that, according to data, Toshiba has purchased only a part of the Fujitsu hard drive and, more specifically, that does not include the hard disk head manufacturing.

Earlier this week, Fujitsu announced that the next HDD head manufacturing done in Nagano Plant. Therefore, the company will move 360 employees working at the site, to other operations within the Fujitsu Group. In addition to the hard drive head manufacturing, Nagano Plant is also involved in the production of printed circuit boards for servers and telecommunications equipment. These measures are expected to continue to plant, after the March 31 Fujitsu also said it would take a charge of $ 56 million in connection with the transition of 360 employees, a figure which could be attributed to the company the last quarter of 2008.

Currently, Fujitsu hard drive manufacturing operations include plants in the Philippines and Thailand. According to The Register, the company guided media Yamagata plant is not part of the agreement with Toshiba, which means that only the places in the Philippines and Thailand. But there are rumors that Toshiba does not require manufacturing in Thailand, which means that some 7000 new jobs could be reduced.

The official price is not yet revealed, but according to reports, the number may be in the range of 30 to 40 billion yen, or about $340 to $ 450. The transaction is expected to provide Toshiba with a profitable business, which makes the company, which is currently the fifth largest supplier of hard disk, to get a larger share of the market.

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| Posted in » Fujitsu, HDD business, Storage, Toshiba

AMD lowers prices of its Phenom II processors

Written by IT News on 2:14 AM

About a week after AMD formally presented its next-generation desktop processors, designed to take advantage of its new 45nm process technology, the Sunnyvale, Calif., chip maker has recently cut prices on its new Phenom processors II. The company has slashed prices by 17 percent, which means that the new CPU consumption to better compete with Intel's products, therefore, provides PC users with a cheaper alternative to a PC upgrade.

With the new price, AMD has reduced the cost of X II Phenom 940 from $ 275 to $ 235, while the price of lower spec'ed model, Phenom X4 II 920, has been reduced to $ 195 from $ 235. The new pricing system has been implemented, allowing users to immediately benefit from lower prices Phenom processors II. The price adjustment will also allow AMD to better compete with similar products sold in Santa Clara, California-based Intel files.

Although not able to compete seriously with higher performance Intel processors until now the core i7 the new AMD processors based on 45nm to handle the large competitors in ready Intel Socket 775 Core 2 Quad processors. More specifically, Phenom X4 II 940 is comparable to the Intel Core 2 Quad Q9400, while the Phenom X4 II 920 can provide a level of performance similar to Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300. Currently Intel has mentioned a price of $ 213 and $ 266 respectively. The Q9300 is expected to be removed, while the Phenom X4 940 II has a price slightly higher than its main competitor, but lower than the Core 2 Quad Q9550.

With the new price, AMD seems to offer the best price / value, which gives users an alternative to a high-performance desktop PC without having to pay a fortune in the components.

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| Posted in » Amd, CPU, Phenom II, pricing

The Monitor Audio R-One-HD, a new sound bar for your flatscreen on-wall TV

Written by IT News on 11:35 PM

It seems as if the sound bars are becoming more popular because more people know to add the latest generation of LCD TVs hanging on the walls of their homes. And what's more is that the audio technology to drive the new sound is more bars and better able to complete the picture of the industry forward. Now is the time to present to you a new bar-shaped sound system, RA-HD acclaimed producer of high-fidelity audio monitor.

This new audio device is a single cabinet LCR (left-center-right), which can easily be installed in almost any environment, under or over the screen directly on the wall or in a special booth.

One of the handiest things about the Monitor-R and audio-HD is something that will save him lead all the problems, eliminating long cable runs is always a mess and the real pain in the back when you go to fix up your room. At the same time, very small footprint of the M-Audio Monitor HD is perfect for a facility where space is scarce item. LCR system comes with a strong complement to the center channel driver composed of dual 4 "MMPII bass speaker and a C-CAM 1" gold dome tweeter, left and right channels is equipped with MMPII of a driver and a C HF-CAM each driver.

If you think the Monitor Audio R-HD is a pretty weak as it is very likely that you will be glad to know that this sound bar can be more effectively complemented with HD Radio HD Radio subwoofer and satellites, both audibly and visually. There are no exact specifications for Monitor Audio HD-R-One, with the exception of the announced prices, which extend about $800.

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| Posted in » home audio, Monitor Audio, Monitor Audio R-One-HD, soundbar audio system, TV speakers

The Google logo over the years

Written by IT News on 7:55 PM

Google Knol site recently had its 100000th Rule, known as Knol search was pleased to announce its official blog that it begins to go his way. The rapid expansion of the new site, which is only 5 months, is nothing but good news for Google and all expressed admiration for the thousands of users, which he wrote on the website, which contributes to the growing database. Bad mouth it is that Google is currently Wikipedia, trying to cultivate first returned result of the query position that the encyclopedia is the owner of the most one-or two-word search.

"The Knol interface is now available in eight languages (Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Korean, Portuguese and Spanish) and we are delighted that our users will help us to translate into other languages using Google in your language console" added to the official blog.

"Supporting people to contribute their knowledge on the web is particularly important for languages with a limited version of web content, and we are delighted that knols have written in 59 different languages so far. It was very exciting to people all over the world appeared to increase online content in their own language, "adds.

Knol articles are essentially the same as Wikipedia entries, which are written by experts in the field, and are supposed to be on-line "unit of knowledge", as they say, a description of the site. In contrast to his famous rival, Knol allows users to advertise their websites directly inside. Users also have the option to name the subject, however, at its discretion, and can completely ignore the ambiguity in the choice of name for their pieces in the wrong circumstances.

"We are pleased that most writers choose to accept changes moderated from its customers and that the proposed adjustments to the readers are constantly increasing. So if you are reading Knol and suggest improvements, continues to press the button and adjust it? You will be able to make the necessary changes in Knol and the author (s) will be able to examine and act on your suggestions. We look forward to this new way to use online collaboration to a greater extent," reveals blog.

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| Posted in » Google, Knol, social portal, Wikipedia

Biometric identification passports to be introduced in the EU

Written by IT News on 3:07 AM

The majority of the members of the European Parliament backed the bill proposed by the European Commission on the introduction of biometric passports within the Schengen area. Countries have until June to begin issuing new passports, with a deadline for completion of the implementation until 2012.

The basis for a new law requiring passports feature live fingerprint identification in the report Coelho released after negotiations with the European Commission, executive body of the European Union on the proposal. The report is named after Carlos Coelho, a Portuguese member of parliament for the central-right EPP-ED Group, which has.

Protection of children against cross-border trafficking or kidnapping is one of the reasons for this regulation. Agrees that children need their own passport, instead of traveling on their parents' documents.

But the new card for children is not part of biometric identification, Parliament Civil Liberties Committee that it is unnecessary, because their fingerprints are constantly changing as they grow up.

Countries that are members of the European Union, but not part of the Schengen Agreement, which the United Kingdom, Ireland or Denmark, are exempt from this policy, but is necessary for machine-readable passports with facial images instead. But Britain has already announced that it will introduce biometric data, even if he does not want his actions to be classified as 2nd class.

Furthermore, some countries such as France and Germany already use fingerprint ID cards embedded in their chips, although the last day to initiate the implementation of June 2009. People can travel with older passport until 2012, with certain exceptions.

Meanwhile, a number of civil liberties and security researchers strongly contested, both technical and ethical reasons. They claim to save as much as biometric data in a central European database is a security threat, or that the costs of implementation are not justified, compared with profits. Although the new passports may be more difficult to counterfeit, fingerprint identification is not soundproof, precedents exist for the false positive, security researchers maintain.

The relaxation of earlier identification techniques such as visual contact between the border area, officials and passengers is another possible side effect. Physical look at a person who can reveal more visual signals, such as adjustments or sweating, which gives an indication of agitation or anxiety, and can give people something.

People who do not have any fingerprints on the basis of disability or otherwise, because of their daily work, they will be able to travel with temporary passports with biometric identification, which will be valid for 12 months. For example, bricklayer constantly removes their fingerprints when working in conjunction with the constant stress on their fingers' skin.

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| Posted in » biometric passport, European Parliament, European Union, fingerprint identification, Schengen zone

iGoogle theme builder

Written by IT News on 2:42 AM

Google is in the process of doing new tool that enables users to design their own iGoogle themes. In this form, Mountain View-based search giant is kicking up to a certain level of personalization capabilities offered iGoogle. With a new instrument, as in this article was still live, users will be able to build their own themes for the next iGoogle adapted to their preferences in terms of visual style.

"Now you can capture memories and pictures to your iGoogle homepage building its own theme. We just released our new tools to create iGoogle themes. It is an easy way to spruce iGoogle users of its website, without having to know how to use XML, etc. "Kathleen Ko, iGoogle engineer said.

"All you need is a picture, and we will give you rest. The theme-building is a simple tool to transfer images from your computer, Picasa Web Albums, or on the Web."

In essence, the new alignment functionality provided by Google, revolves around the picture as the end user. Digital images can easily be improved and adapted to iGoogle head, while users can also customize the color of their liking website.

"When you have selected a picture Builder provides a basic set of tools to help you create your theme: Image Cropping - Crop your favorite photo to fit your iGoogle theme, color schemes - Choose colors that complement your images in real-time Preview - see immediate feedback on your changes quickly fine-tune the topic, public and private Publishing - Choose who can see your original motivation, whether it's just you, or if you want to share with the world" Ko added.

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| Posted in » Google, iGoogle, theme builder

HP's Pavilion dv2 wins Best Laptop at CES 2009

Written by IT News on 2:35 AM

One of the main great information at this International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada was HP's new Pavilion dv2 notebook, which is ultra-portable computer systems designed to take advantage of the recently released AMD Yukon platform. Company Athlon Neo-powered computer system was to capture the attention of those participating in the exhibition and also won awards for best notebook on the CES 2009, which was given to Laptop Magazine, one of the sponsors of the show.

"The rate of innovation we saw at CES this year was impressive," said chief Mark Spoonauer notebooks. "From a completely new smart phone that links the platform to the cloud notebook can slip in your pocket jackets, there is little evidence this year shows that the mobile and Wireless technology will continue to see steady growth throughout the year. "

Ultra Portable HP Pavilion dv2 has been designed for AMD's new Yukon platform that enables users to take advantage of the new single-core Athlon processors Neo. The new mobile processors are designed specifically for ultra-portable computer systems that offer an alternative to small form factor portable computers such as netbooks, but without sacrificing performance. The Neo Athlon processors are not to compete with Intel Atom processor is successful, as they were intended to provide the most basic of computing power.

HP Pavilion dv2 boasts a AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 processor running at 1.6GHz, and supports up to 4 GB DDR2 memory. It is equipped with ATI Mobility Radeon HD3410 graphics and packaging solutions to 500 gigabytes of storage space on 5400RPM SATA hard drive.

This notebook is less than an inch thick and weighs only 3.8 pounds, which is very close to the physical specifications of the most netbooks currently on the market. Moreover, despite overall improvements in the specifications, laptop comes with a starting price point just $599