General Gaming Article |
- Bethesda Drops 20 Minutes of Skyrim Footage, Shows Dungeons, Dragons, Yetis – Oh My
- US Prosecutors Begin Criminal Probe of eBay Employees
- First Look: Samsung Windows 8 Dev Tablet
- Turntable.fm Gets Funding, Releases iPhone App
- File Host Suing Warner Bros For Copyright Fraud
- Scoundrels or Saviors? 8 Notorious Nerds On Trial
- Post PC My Ass
- Google Agrees to Optimize Future Android Builds for Intel Atom Processors
- NBC News Twitter Hack Came Courtesy Of A Trojan Christmas Tree
- SanDisk Teams with Intel and Other Industry Heavyweights to Promote Low Power SATA Spec
| Bethesda Drops 20 Minutes of Skyrim Footage, Shows Dungeons, Dragons, Yetis – Oh My Posted: 13 Sep 2011 08:05 PM PDT If you're anything like the rest of the human race, you're probably chomping at the bit to get your hands on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. That in mind, Bethesda's latest tantalizing batch of Skyrim eye (and eye only) candy should be considered the most heinous of torture tactics. The new footage is stuffed to the brim with a bit of everything – swordfighting, dual-wielding, spells of all shapes and propensities for causing hilarious ragdoll deaths, murky dungeons, and, of course, dragons. So obviously, it looks incredible. Almost makes up for the heart-shattering news that Bethesda passed on the rights to make Videogame of Thrones. Almost. Check out the full 20-minute behemoth after the break. |
| US Prosecutors Begin Criminal Probe of eBay Employees Posted: 13 Sep 2011 02:53 PM PDT
The two companies have been battling it out in civil court for years after eBay launched a classified posting service very similar to Craigslist. A judge ruled last year that Craigslist was justified in removing an eBay employee from its board. Federal prosecutors apparently feel that the situation rises to the level of a criminal matter. "In February 2005, Pierre Omidyar requested information about Craigslist's approach to adding new cities as well as advance notice of plans to launch in new cities," the subpoena says. Right now, this is just a preliminary investigation aimed as collecting documents and records that will inform the eventual grand jury. It is unclear how many individuals could be caught up in the criminal case. |
| First Look: Samsung Windows 8 Dev Tablet Posted: 13 Sep 2011 02:41 PM PDT Samsung and Microsoft treat BUILD conference goers to large, powerful developer tabletToday, Microsoft announced the Developer Preview of Windows 8 at their BUILD conference for developers in Anaheim, CA. Conference attendees were also told they would be receiving tablet devices from Samsung with the Developer Preview pre-loaded, enabling them to get a head start on developing apps using the latest and greatest APIs and sensors. Here is a rundown of the device's features:
The right side of the device features the power button and sim card. USB, HDMI, headphone port, and volume controls span the left side. The top of the device holds the microSD slot, while the bottom is reserved for the dock port, which provides additional connectivity options. Samsung also included front and rear cameras as well as GPS, accelerometer, and NFC (Near Field Communication) sensors. After spending a few minutes with the device, we'd have to say that it's everything we want from a Windows tablet. Having a device that is thinner, lighter, or faster will always be desired, but Microsoft and Samsung have hit squarely in the size vs. performance sweet spot. Bottomline: you're going to want one when they become available. |
| Turntable.fm Gets Funding, Releases iPhone App Posted: 13 Sep 2011 02:33 PM PDT
Turntable allows users to gather in a virtual room where several users act as DJs and play tracks for the crowd. The audience can vote on each song, which awards points to the DJ. This social gaming aspect of music enjoyment has proven very popular so far. Since the service launched there have been more than 300,000 rooms created and 600,000 users have signed up. Keep in mind that this has all been done in a semi-private beta. Along with the iOS app, all users will now be able to get access to Turntable.fm through Facebook. Previously, only users that already had a friend on the service could get in. No word yet on other mobile platforms, but we can hope. |
| File Host Suing Warner Bros For Copyright Fraud Posted: 13 Sep 2011 01:58 PM PDT
Back in 2009, Warner approached Hotfile about making it easier to have infringing material removed from the service. Hotfile complied and developed the Special Rightsholders Account (SRA). This system allowed rights-holders to manually remove content that they owned the copyrights to. Hotfile now alleges that Warner committed fraud and abuse by removing thousands of files they did not hold the rights to. In the counter-suit, Hotfile points to numerous free and open source files deleted by the Warner SRA. It appears that instead of investigating a file, Warner used an automated search algorithm to remove anything that might be theirs. Hotfile is seeking damages from lost revenue and disruption of its business. If anything, these accusations should remind us that a takedown system with checks and balances is the best solution we have. |
| Scoundrels or Saviors? 8 Notorious Nerds On Trial Posted: 13 Sep 2011 01:01 PM PDT We decide: Scurvy dogs or merely edgy?Every hero is a villain, every villain a hero. Truth is that even the greatest people in history had at least a hint of the dark side within them. Today we look at an assortment of men inside—or merely tied to—the tech industry. Some are merely controversial, others are clearly of the bad seed variety. But do they deserve their status? How evil are they? We come to conclusions, from Assange to Zuckerberg. Come along for the ride. Julian Assange
Hero to many and villain to many more (he's been labeled a high-tech terrorist by the likes of Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell), Julian Assange is nothing if not incredibly controversial. Purportedly hacking computers by his mid-teens with a group calling itself "International Subversives," Assange had little interest in implanting viruses, annihilating data, or stealing cash. He instead felt the need to expose information - and even then only dicey corporate and government information he personally figured needed to be exposed. Whether that made him a truly bad guy depends very much on who's doing the judging. But in WikiLeaks, Assange has a far more formidable weapon—the subterfuge of others. Since its official launch in 2006, the "not-for-profit media organization" has gathered and released hundreds of thousands of anonymously submitted media bits—usually documents, but oodles of video and audio segments, too—often to the obvious detriment of the organizations from which the media was obtained. Through WikiLeaks, the world has seen footage of apparent civilian massacres, critical corporate and government cover-ups, documents that approve assassinations, confidential climate change information, and much more.
Today, Assange is both reviled and worshiped. He's been temporarily jailed, threatened with treason, and—it would appear—chased by the Pentagon. And let us not forget that whole allegations of sexual misconduct thing—a situation some say is a purposeful frame job. Yet he's also been handed numerous awards and distinctions and was selected as Time Magazine's Reader's Choice 2010 Person of the Year (third place went to—cough—Lady Gaga). Ultimately, it would seem Julian Assange is an imperfect man doing potentially perilous stuff that he believes is righteous work. Pompous? Yes. Questionable tactics? Yes. Villain? Er…maybe a wee bit. Gerald Blanchard
We've all seen those movies where the impossibly adept, impossibly intelligent, and often impossibly handsome master-thief plans and executes, with split-second precision, the most daring of escapades. He's not out to physically harm anyone, and he's just so damned…exciting that we can't help but pull for him as he so cunningly sticks it to The Man. A villain? Of course. He is a thief, after all. But a somewhat loveable villain just the same. Born in the cold Canadian prairie town of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Gerald Blanchard would become the real life manifestation of just that. He was a master of disguise, concealing his identity on countless occasions during the course of his travels. He was fearless—parachuting in total darkness into a Viennese castle to steal a priceless diamond-encrusted pearl, then later rappelling from the walls of that very castle. And he could slip from custody or even the oncoming threat of custody seemingly on a whim. Police cruisers, police stations, jails—to Blanchard, they were mere challenges. But more importantly for the purposes of this article, Blanchard was a high-tech whiz. His mother has since claimed that even as a kid, he "could take anything apart." And before he'd reached his teens, he was not only disassembling devices but building them too.
In time, Blanchard's passion for gadgetry only grew, as did his taste for thievery. He would learn how security devices work, then he'd set out to defeat them. In one instance, he surreptitiously installed pinhole video cameras and listening devices in a recently constructed bank to learn the lay of the land in advance of his theft. When the day came, he looted the ATM room, stole the hard drives containing incriminating surveillance footage, replaced the bank's camera equipment with his own, and did it all so carefully that investigators initially found nothing amiss. Described by Canadian police as one of the most sophisticated criminal masterminds they'd ever seen, Blanchard eventually served several years in a prison from which he could not escape, and is currently somewhere between a halfway house and his supposed new, legit career as a security consultant. To which we say, "Yeah, sure." Though Blanchard's generally high-tech exploits have a certain roguish charm, the fact remains that he's stolen a lot of money from a lot of people. Moreover, he's been loosely linked with terrorism. And for that, he is a mid-level villain, at the very least. Larry Ellison
Co-founded and Chief Executive of software giant Oracle Corporation, Larry Ellison is a ridiculously wealthy man. Indeed, he's currently ranked as one of the ten richest dudes on the planet, regularly pulling in an annual salary in the high eight-figure range. And he knows it. In fact, some might say he flaunts it. Ellison owns cars—a full blown stable that includes a McLaren F1. He owns aircraft—a whole bunch of aircraft, big and small. He owns boats, though he's recently sold the most famous—the 500-foot behemoth named Rising Sun—to fellow moneybags David Geffen. His principle home (one of many) is valued at a bazillion gazillion dollars, and features a concert-worthy sound system so incredibly powerful that it purportedly uses a drained swimming pool as its subwoofer. Good god, man, have you no shame? But seriously folks, when you're this rich and this, er…up front about it, you will get detractors. Yet Ellison is disparaged for more than his ability to attract gobs of money, spend gobs of money, and accumulate more high-end toys than perhaps any man before him. You see, he is, in a word, antagonistic. Ellison openly and creatively disses his rivals. He's the king of hostile takeovers. He regularly outspends his competitors and emerges unapologetically triumphant because of it. He stomps on the competition and comes away smiling, and he's regarded by many as an indiscreet womanizer. In the end, Ellison, like Charlie Sheen, enjoys "winning." But are we to vilify the guy for merely practicing the principles of capitalism to the nth degree? We think not. Certainly no saint, Ellison is merely marginally villainous. Bill Gates
Bill Gates has made a lot of enemies in his lifetime. His company has been accused, sometimes quite angrily, of monopolistic, anti-competitive business practices and heavy-handed tactics. It has also been criticized for assimilating technology, or at least assimilating the companies that create that technology, rather than innovating from within. Worse still, it has been unabashedly knocked for buying up new ideas and then extinguishing them—in essence acting as the schoolyard bully. And let us not forget that Microsoft's trump card, Windows, has long derided by end users, who grew weary in the 90s and the 00s of its security flaws and error-prone clunkiness, particularly when compared to the apparent smooth-sailing of Apple's competing operating system. Though Win 98, XP, and 7 have generally been pretty solid, most every other edition has justifiably received its fair share of criticism. As for the man himself, Gates is no stranger to searing condemnation. One need only Google his name and an appropriate adjective to feel the contempt by which this man is held in some circles. He's a nerd, sure, but is that reason enough to get the hate on? Not really. We attribute a lot of it to plain old jealousy, though he does seem a bit arrogant at times, and certainly rumors of his questionable inner business dealings abound, particularly in Microsoft's formative years.
That the guy is the subject of more memorable downbeat quotes than any nerd past or present clearly doesn't help. Sun Microsystems Scott McNealy once said Gates is "probably the most dangerous and powerful industrialist of our age." Columnist Dave Barry quipped "there was never a chip that Bill Gates couldn't slow down with a new batch of features." Our favorite? Dennis Miller and his "Bill Gates is a monocle and a Persian cat away from being the villain in a James Bond movie." And that's the question. Is he a mega-villain? We say no. Very few mega-billionaires assumed their place in life without stepping on a few toes along the way. But far more importantly, very few mega-billionaires give away so incredibly much of their fortune. This isn't some last-minute thing either - he's been at it since way back in 1994, and the guy hasn't let up since. Criticized even in his philanthropy for allotting money as he sees fit, Gates nevertheless has simply done too much good to be considered truly dastardly. A tincture of villainy notwithstanding, Gates is essentially a good guy with all-too human elements. Jonathan James
On May 18, 2008, Jonathan James wrote a five-page note telling the world he was no villain. He then picked up a gun, walked into his shower, and shot himself in the head. He was just 24 when he died. It had all seemed so…different eight years earlier, when a 15-year-old James showed off his hacking savvy by gaining access to key computers at high-level organizations such as BellSouth, NASA, and the Department of Defense. Among other transgressions, James downloaded environment control software from the International Space Station—a frightening development that forced NASA to temporarily suspend operation of its computers—and installed a backdoor into the DoD threat analysis system. Ultra-serious stuff to be sure, it resulted in a multi-pronged raid of his home and six months of house arrest, but villainy? Not entirely. James would later say he was "playing around," claiming his misdeeds were merely personal challenges. Indeed, in some circles, the still very young super-hacker was viewed as somewhat of a folk hero. James would not pop back into the spotlight until 2007, when he was investigated again, this time for potential involvement in a large-scale international identity and credit card theft operation that had apparently netted its participants tens of millions of dollars. And once more James' home was forcibly raided, as was that of his girlfriend. Though he was not taken into custody, James faced a stacked deck. He was friends with all who'd been arrested, and he knew circumstantial evidence would soon point his way. Two weeks later he learned the group mastermind, Albert Gonzalez, had been pulling double duty as a fed informer. Concerned over what would happen next, and, says his father, suffering from clinical depression, Jonathan put pen to paper. His last words: "I die free." Ultimately, Albert Gonzalez was sentenced to twenty years in the federal pen and ordered to repay 70 million dollars. Other members of the gang are likewise serving jail time and paying big bucks out of pocket. We'll likely never know if James was involved or to what level that involvement reached. Villain verdict: Incomplete. Joseph Konopka
How could we possibly loathe a dude who nicknames himself "Dr. Chaos" and assembles a collection of lackeys he dubs the "Realm of Chaos"? Why, even the thought of it conjured up images of Get Smart. But this chaos was no laughing matter. Born in De Pere, Wisconsin in 1976, the future Dr. Chaos, a.k.a. Joseph Konopka, was by most accounts the typically troubled, withdrawn child that later in life becomes a monster. Yet time has a way of mellowing personalities, and by his 24th birthday Konopka had seemingly ironed out some of his difficulties. He'd found himself employment in the tech world as a computer system administrator—clearly the very antitheses of chaos—and was apparently an upstanding citizen. Within him, however, burned the heart of a super-villain—at least according to court documents from his trial two years later. Konopka, you see, was secretly using the Internet to recruit a merry band of adolescent followers—some from the website "Teens for Satan"—to help him on his upcoming crusade. And together, Dr. Chaos and his Realm of Chaos began their campaign. By his 2002 arrest. Chaos and his misguided minions had not only pirated software and committed several instances of arson, but also disabled air traffic control systems, damaged multiple computers, disrupted television and radio broadcasts, caused 28 individual power failures, and carved nearly a half-million dollar trail of destruction throughout 13 Wisconsin counties. But that wasn't all. When apprehended inside a Chicago subway storeroom, Chaos was in possession of potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide, two substances critical to the manufacture of chemical weapons. Still in jail, Konopka/Chaos is, by his own admission, a villain, and we cannot disagree. William Shockley
Was one of the transistor's three inventors a villain? Maybe not of the Snidely Whiplash variety, but William Shockley was, nevertheless, far from angelic. Any study of the history of Silicon Valley will point to Shockley as one of its early high tech inhabitants. He was there decades before Intel and Apple and all the other Pirates of Silicon Valley. He was there, several years after discovering the transistor, returning to his childhood stomping grounds to set up a company he felt would revolutionize the way in which his invention was manufactured. And he was there, ultimately, to make a whole bunch of people angry. You see, Shockley was a brilliant yet heavily flawed man. Enamored with physics from childhood, he voraciously tore into it throughout his youth and eventually nabbed degrees and a PhD along the way. His passion would pay off in the invention of the transistor, for which he would eventually pick up a Nobel Prize. And that's when the cracks in his persona began to show. Not happy sharing Nobel credit, he sought to prove his place in history was more deserving than that of his peers. To say he became obsessed with doing just that is not an understatement; as time went on he succeeded only in alienating most everyone he'd ever dealt with. That reputation would follow him into the mid 1950s to the rented Silicon Valley fruit stand Shockley had renamed Shockley Semiconductor Labs. It was here he would attempt to alter the original transistor design into something better. Instead, he would meet his Waterloo. Shockley initially tried to hire former colleagues to join his crusade, but, quite simply, no one who knew him wanted to work with him. So he opted for a collection of young, bright engineers fresh out of school, eventually assembling a cracker jack staff that included several future Silicon Valley captains of industry—including eventual Intel boss Gordon Moore. The arrangement lasted all of one year, when eight of the engineers—now known as The Traitorous Eight—quit en masse. Accounts of Shockley's growing paranoia abounded. In one incident, he forced employees to take lie detector tests. In another, he accused his staff of placing sharp objects where people could cut themselves. He withheld information from team members so they rarely knew what they were working on. When Shockley retired from the electronics industry several years later, he seemingly grew even more malevolent, delving into eugenics (the study of racial differences in human intelligence), lauding extreme views, associating himself with concepts such as selective sterilization, and repeatedly making comments rife with xenophobic overtones. It is said he died alone, estranged from family and friends and a clear-cut villain. Mark Zuckerberg
In December of 2010, Time Magazine once again chose its Person of the Year. It also gave subscribers a chance to do the same in its Readers' Choice Person of the Year, and they overwhelmingly looked toward WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange. Facebook overlord Mark Zuckerberg, meanwhile, finished so far back he was a mere blip in the rear view mirror, with 18,000 votes to Assange's 380,000. Didn't matter. The Time editors had made up their minds. And Zuckerberg won the more prestigious award. Mark Zuckerberg has done a lot of winning in his relatively short life. Born to a wealthy family, he was a brilliant student, a computer whiz at a time when most kids are discovering TV, and a star of his school's fencing team. He founded Facebook in his dorm room in 2004, and has since increased his net worth by a cool 15 billion dollars. Not bad for a guy still in his twenties. Could this—the natural resentment of impossibly fast-rising success stories—be the reason Zuckerberg seems awash with haters? It's certainly a start. Add a movie that portrayed him as a mildly arrogant and somewhat treacherous social outcast, and it's no wonder the guy's image is less than stellar.
But an outright bad dude? For that we defer to official Man of the Year runner-up Assange, who now famously said after his non-win, "What are the differences between Mark Zuckerberg and me? I give private information on corporations to you for free, and I'm a villain. Zuckerberg gives your private information to corporations for money and he's Man of the Year." And that may well be it—the impression that Zuckerberg's Facebook tears away privacy, but holds so many of us so addicted that we…just…can't…escape. Targeted ads, data gathering—it's enough to make you wish for the good old days of generic McDonald's blurbs on that TV thing you keep hearing about. And please, do not get us started on Yoville and Farmville and all those other -villes some people seem to live for. Or pokes, "suggestions," and status updates for that matter. Grr. Mark Zuckerberg—total villain. |
| Posted: 13 Sep 2011 12:01 PM PDT Post PC my butt. I've been meaning to write about this for some time, but a few weeks ago Robert W. Baird analysts published the results of a survey that said tablets are not cannibalizing the PC as quickly as most pundits have said they would. In fact, 83 percent of those surveyed said they would still buy a PC. Of the 17 percent who said they could live without a PC, 11 percent said they didn't see that happening today and that "maybe" they could live without a PC in the future.
So, in reality, of the 1,114 people surveyed by Baird, 6 percent said they could live without a PC today. (To be fair, that 17 percent also said they had no plans to buy a new PC, so I imagine the 11 percent would continue to use their desktop or notebook.) I don't know about you, but that's a pretty dismal number, and that's not even considering that the PC is mutating (like it always has) to meet the challenge. I think Intel's push for the Ultrabooks within a very short amount of time could very well give the tablet a challenge. I spoke with Baird analyst Jayson Noland who said they were surprised that so few were ready to trade in their PC for a tablet today. He also said that a surprising amount of young people had absolutely no interest in a tablet. Why? He suspects lack of disposable income to be the primary reason. Also of interest, older folks tend to think they can get along without a PC.
Diving into the 11 percent who think the PC might be replaced in the future by a tablet, the features they want to see are: more storage, more accessories (really?), more performance, oh, and Windows. This, of course, brings up the other thorny question: is the tablet a PC? My frustration is not with the traditional definition of a consumer PC: keyboard/mouse/x86/Windows, it's how the mass media and analysts throw around the term. On one hand, you have analysts who will report that Apple is leading the world in mobile PC sales and then casually note that it's because the iPad is selling so well. Wha-, what? Is the iPad a PC or not? If it's a PC, then, well, PC sales are through the roof, man. If so, how can we be in a post-PC world? Well, no, pundits say. PC sales are not through the roof (400 million x86 chips will be sold this year alone), tablets have replaced them, as we live in a Post-PC world now. But the iPad gets counted as a PC sale for Apple?
The saddest aspect of the survey is how it got played. There were certainly some writeups that were fair. But the vast majority of reports seemed to miss the point—83 percent (and more) are still planning on buying PCs—instead concentrating on the fact that the iPad was still kicking all other tablets in the teeth. To be fair to the NYT writer, he did at least mention that the cannibalization was going very slowly. But which is actually news? That the iPad is selling gangbusters over BlackBerry, WebOS, and Android Tablets (duh!), or that the vast majority of consumers still need a PC on their desk and maybe all this post-PC talk is really a load of crap?
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| Google Agrees to Optimize Future Android Builds for Intel Atom Processors Posted: 13 Sep 2011 11:28 AM PDT
Yes, to be frank. This is exactly the sort of deal Intel needed to strong arm its way into a mobile space it doesn't yet dominate. There's still the hardware to figure out, but on the software side, this is a big deal. "Our collaboration with Google will bring a powerful new capability to market that helps accelerate industry innovation, adoption and choice," said Paul Otellini, Intel President and CEO. "I'm excited by the possibilities of this collaboration. It will enable our customers to bring exciting new products and user experiences to market that harness the combined potential of Intel architecture and the Android platform." Otellini made the announcement during a keynote at IDF in which he also shared some details about Intel's upcoming "Haswell" platform for Ultrabooks. As the successor to Ivy Bridge, Haswell is also built on a 22nm manufacturing process, but promises to reduce idle platform power consumption by more than 20 times over current designs without giving up any performance. According to Intel, this will make possible more than 10 days of connected standby battery life and will help advance always-on-always-connected computing. Haswell is slated for 2013. |
| NBC News Twitter Hack Came Courtesy Of A Trojan Christmas Tree Posted: 13 Sep 2011 11:15 AM PDT
NBC's social media director, Ryan Osborn, received a mysterious email as Hurricane Irene was barreling down on New York a few weeks back, MSNBC reports. Entitled "Hurricane Alert," the message was brief and hand-tailored: ""Ryan, You need to get off TWITTER immediately and protect your family from the hurricane. That is an order." Osborn replied to the email and asked who the sender was. In return, he received a message stating "I'm the girl next door," with an attachment included. Osborn, who apparently can't resist the allure of an attachment from "The girl next door" and obviously has never been explained the basics of email security – despite being NBC's social media director – opened the attachment. All it contained was an image of a Christmas tree -- and a keylogging trojan. Hope he enjoyed the gift! |
| SanDisk Teams with Intel and Other Industry Heavyweights to Promote Low Power SATA Spec Posted: 13 Sep 2011 10:59 AM PDT
"Mobile computing platforms such as Ultrabook devices and tablets are challenged to deliver the high performance and long battery life demanded by consumers," said Jeff Janukowicz, research director, solid state drives, IDC. "The intent of this initiative is to extend the SATA high-performance standard to better address these low power mobile applications. It's encouraging to see industry-wide support by key vendors in the mobile ecosystem and this is a big step toward widespread use of SSD solutions." According to SanDisk, today's best-in-class SSDs support low power consumption modes that sip just 50mW. Not bad, but the SATA DEVSLP spec would lower that number all the way down to 5mW, ultimately resulting in thinner devices with longer battery life, and without giving up performance. Image Credit: SanDisk |
According to a subpoena obtained by Reuters, US prosecutors are preparing a criminal case against eBay employees. At issue is the accusation that eBay abused its position on the Craigslist board to 
Turntable.fm instantly became the musical smash hit of the summer when it arrived a few months back. Now the New York-based start up has begun an expansion after 
File hosting and sharing service, Hotfile was sued earlier this year by a consortium of copyright holders including Warner Bros, Disney, and Fox. The MPAA recently scored a victory when it was ruled that Hotfile has to divulge user details. Now Hotfile is firing back, accusing Warner of 
Things are about to heat up in a big way in the handheld mobile space, a sector that's currently dominated by ARM. Intel has long said it plans to push its platforms into smartphones and tablets, and the Santa Clara chip maker took a gigantic step towards that goal by getting Google to agree to optimize future versions of Android for Atom processors. Should ARM be worried?
If you're a follower of NBC News' Twitter account, there's a good chance you crapped your pants last Friday evening. "Breaking News! Ground Zero has just been attacked!" the feed blared, followed by flight numbers and rumors of hijacking attempts. Ten minutes later, a group calling themselves "The Script Kiddies" came clean and announced that they'd hacked the account. NBC's been trying to figure out how the feed became compromised ever since, and now they think they've found the culprit: a Trojan Christmas tree.
SanDisk is pushing hard for a new SATA standard that will purportedly enable OEMs to offer solid state drives with SATA performance while consuming significantly less power than today's devices. The spec is called SATA DEVSLP, and SanDisk has the support of several tech giants, including Intel, Samsung, and Microsoft, all of which have a vested interest in reducing power requirements for mobile devices.| You are subscribed to email updates from Maximum PC - All Articles To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's 
