Archive for May, 2008
StyleTap announces Palm OS emulator for iPhone
If you are one of the countless citizens that condemn the iPhone for its inability to emulate the Palm OS, next it may be day for you to take another look at Apple’s wonder device. StyleTap has announced that they plan to bring that capability to the iPhone in the near future, whats more the iPhone runs the Palm OS better than most Palm devices, so that is a very interesting feature to add to the towering list of things that the iPhone already excels at.
You will be able to grab the software needed starting in July, when more info is released by StyleTap. When the knowledge comes forward, they will plus announce price points, how to get it, and how the software will be marketed. StyleTap plus said that they will have members from their team attending WWDC. They will be available for interview, and hopefully a demo.
The question really though is how well does the device’s capacitive touch screen work for the resistive touch driven OS? After all, Palm’s OS was designed for a stylus. Though the smallest parts of the interface may be a little hard to use with your finger, the reply is surprisingly well. Check out the demo video to see the software in action.
[Via SlashPhone]
Orginal post by Chase Higgins
Android Innovations manufacture a Splash at Google I/O
An Android demonstration took center stage that week at the Google I/O event in San Francisco attended by 2,900 developers. The latest version of the mobile platform was introduced amid nearly 100 in-depth technical sessions about Google’s developer products and general Web application development.
“The demo was very impressive in terms of showing off yet again a completely new user interface than what we’ve seen previously,” said Avi Greengart, a wireless analyst at Current Analysis. “There are some nice innovations, such as a bar at the top which could be expanded to give you control by the notifications. You can touch the notification bar and jump to whatever you were being notified about.”
Speeding Up Smartphone Innovation
The Open Handset Alliance promises Android will deliver a complete set of software for mobile devices: an operating system, middleware and key mobile applications. The alliance’s 34 companies first released an Android software development kit last November.
The alliance is betting Android will better position developers, wireless operators and handset manufacturers to bring to market innovative new products faster and at a much lower cost. The end aftermath, the group pledged, will be a mobile platform that makes way for wireless operators and manufacturers to give their customers better, more personal and more flexible mobile experiences.
One of the platform innovations that could live up to that promise is a new way to unlock phones by drawing a specific shape on the touchscreen. That would do away with the need to enter a password. Android additionally makes room for bookmarks for favorite Web sites on the device’s home page. And a compass tool automatically roams with the phone’s user.
“For all practical aims they showed a live view of the mapping engine tied to what direction you are actually standing in, and that was really cool,” Greengart said….
Orginal post by Mike
Via Launches More-forceful Nano Processor Family
Via Technologies has introduced a new VIA Nano processor family that offers as much as four times the performance within the same potential range by the company’s previous-generation C7 processor lineup.
In specific, Nano paves the way for notebook manufacturers to deploy Via’s chips in computer designs optimized for Blu-ray Disc video playback and more demanding PC games. Moreover, Nano offers aggressive ability and thermal management capabilities that Via Technologies CEO Wenchi Chen said are critical requirements for OEMs designing thin and light laptops as well as mini-notebooks.
“‘Small is Beautiful’ is more than a design strategy; it’s our vision of where the PC market is heading, and our new processors will help the market realize that dream,” Chen said. “Via Nano processors represent the next generation of x86 technology, providing the fundamental building blocks for a new genre of optimized computing solutions.”
Aimed at Emerging Markets
The new Nano processors are pin-compatible with existing VIA C7 processors, which means they will supply OEMs an easy upgrade path, noted Matthew Wilkins, a principal analyst at research firm iSuppli.
“That’s certainly an advantage for OEMs in terms of the motherboard design and the layout,” Wilkins noted. “It cuts down on the amount of effort that some of Via’s OEM partners in Taiwan will have to compose to bring new products more quickly to market.”
Wilkins additionally said it is significant that Via is targeting lower capability consumption with the launch of its latest chip family. “It fits in very well with the low-cost PCs that are getting a lot of attention right now,” he said.
For example, Asus now offers a mobile computer called the Eee PC that is quite significantly lower in price than other similar products. “It has received enthusiastic reception with the press and tends to sell out very quickly in…
Orginal post by Mike
Intel, Micron Ready to form SSDs with Higher Capacities
Intel and Micron Technology announced Thursday that they have developed the first under-40-nanometer NAND flash-memory device, which could assemble possible smaller, higher-capacity solid-state drives.
At 34nm, the 32-gigabit multilevel chip is the smallest NAND available. The companies said the new NAND chip is the only monolithic device of that density that will fit into a standard 48-lead thin, small-outline package (TSOP), which means it could supply higher densities for existing devices.
Smaller Than a Thumbnail
The new chips will be manufactured on 300-millimeter wafers, which each yield about 1.6 terabytes of NAND each. The chip was developed and will be manufactured by IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture of Micron and Intel. The two companies announced in February a new flash-memory technology that offered data-transfer speeds as much as 500 percent greater than conventional NAND technology.
Customer samples will start shipping in June, and the chips will start mass production later that year.
Pete Hazen, directory of marketing at Intel NAND Products, said the new chip and the introduction of 34nm technology “will expand the value proposition and accelerate the adoption of solid-state drive (SSD) solutions in computing platforms.”
The new chip, less than the size of an average thumbnail, can enable high-density solid-state storage in small profile factors. A 32Gbit chip, for instance, could hold more than 2,000 high-resolution digital photos or up to 1,000 songs on a portable music player. whether utilized in two, eight-die stacked packages, the storage could reach 64GB, decent space to record up to 40 hours of high-definition, digital video.
SSDs Larger Than 256GB
The new chip was specifically designed for SSDs, whose disadvantages compared to conventional hard-disk drives have included a higher per-gigabyte cost and lower overall storage capacity.
With the 34nm 32Gbit chip, Intel and Micron said more cost-effective SSDs are possible, with storage capacities that could double the current…
Orginal post by Mike
Brazil, India Join Appeals of OOXML Approval
Despite the approval of Microsoft’s Open Office XML standard by two worldly standards bodies, the document format is not yet on stable ground. India and Brazil have joined South Africa in contesting the approval, standards officials revealed.
“By the deadline last night (Thursday), we had received three appeals, from Brazil, India and South Africa,” said Jonathan Buck, spokesperson for the universal Electrotechnical Commission. The IEC, along with the universal Organization for Standardisation, is responsible for the technical committee that approved OOXML.
“The (Brazilian) appeal was not lodged in the exact procedure — it was not sent to the CEOs of the two organizations — but nonetheless it has been received,” Buck said, adding that it will be treated in the same way as the Brazilian and South African appeals.
Process Criticized
The process in which the Joint Technical Committee approved OOXML has been roundly criticized, particularly by countries with strong open-source communities. OOXML was approved in a “fast track” process in which a ballot-resolution meeting is called when a proposal is rejected on the technical merits. At that meeting, the criticisms are discussed and improvements made.
At the February ballot-resolution meeting, delegates had just five days to address more than 1,000 complaints about the proposed standard. The changes were voted on without discussion, but since that rushed approval the JTC has delayed publishing the approved spec. Now, a month after the deadline, the final draft is still not published.
Technology lawyer Andy Updegrove, who writes about standards on the Standards Blog, reported that Brazil and South Africa are both objecting to the failure to publish the reconciliation draft. “Despite the fact that that release has been requested by many different parties representing multiple viewpoints, no public or private explanation has thus far been given for the failure to follow rules calling for the release of…
Orginal post by Mike
BioShock coming to the iPhone
Gaming on the iPhone is going to be huge, game developers just can not keep their hands off of the iPhone, and for good reason. The device has a ton of horsepower, and has already proven it is more than capable of playing games, as well as perform all sorts of other functions. that is a very complex game, and is very telling of the iPhone’s abilities.
For those of you that have not heard of it, BioShock is a first person shooter that was released last year for the PC and on the Xbox 360. whether systems like that are due to play that thing, than the iPhone must have some serious untapped potential. The game has not been ported to any mobile at all, and it will be interesting to see how it interacts with the touch screen.
The iPhone will be receiving the real deal. It will get a full 3D, high resolution, memory hogging monster of a game, and that’s the way we like it. There will additionally be a 2D lower quality version released for devices that can not handle 3D graphics, which will be pretty much anything not an iPhone.
[Via The iPhone Blog]
Orginal post by Chase Higgins
Comcast Hijackers Expose Flaws in Net’s DNS
Teenage hackers temporarily hijacked and defaced several Comcast Web sites and redirected user e-mail in an exploit that appears to expose fundamental weaknesses in the Internet’s Domain Name System. The hackers, known as Defiant and EBK, apparently used “social engineering” — persuading insiders to hand by detail data — to break into Comcast’s history at domain registrar Network Solutions.
Comcast.net — Comcast’s main Web site — was down for more than two hours, sporting a pink-on-white notice that “KYROGENIX Defiant and EBK RoXed COMCAST sHouTz To VIRUS Warlock elul21 coll1er seven.”
In addition, the WHOIS database of domain ownership spewed out a stream of obscenities when queried for data on Comcast sites.
Domain Jacking
Andrew Storms, director of safety measure operations at nCircle Network shield, explained the nature of the exploit in an e-mail. “While we haven’t seen all the details on precisely what did transpire, more than likely the hackers performed what would be considered a well-known and understood attack called domain hijacking,” Storms said.
“The persons who maintain control by the centrally housed domain-name knowledge with a registrar have the ability to control the DNS knowledge for that domain. Once you have control by DNS, it’s quite simple to propagate knowledge into the World Wide Web, telling computers where a Web site can be found.”
In essence, the hackers could reroute the proper IP address for comcast.net to some other IP address — and every moment Comcast corrected the data, the hackers were able to reroute the domain.
‘Really Bad’
It doesn’t seem that the hackers did much more than deface Comcast’s Web site and interrupt users’ access to e-mail. With the level of control they had, “they could have done a lot worse,” Storms said. “Instead of displaying a defacement, they could have just as easily used their control to set up a fake Webmail site…
Orginal post by Mike
