IT Masala

Samsung is claiming the fastest SSD data transfer rates to date.CNET site ZDNet Korea reports that Samsung announced the development of a 2.5-inch, 256GB solid state drive (SSD) at the fifth annual Samsung Mobile Solution Forum in Taipei, Taiwan.

Normal notebook PCs come with solid state drives with capacity of 64GB.This drive has a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second and sequential write speed of 160MBps.

Special feature of these SSD is they don't have any mechanical moving parts which separates them from other drives which have mechanical failures and delays. 

But there was no mention of price anywhere mentioned !

[ photo credit - samsung ]

These laptops are on the heavy side, but they're ideal replacements for desktop PCs.

Its been just a few months of the Vista release and there have been hell lot of problems. Even though some tried to increase the usage of Vista by giving out Free Windows Vista, still people don't use it. You should look at the minimum requirements for running Vista..its really crazy to run a system with such high requirements..instead run a gnu/linux system which takes only 1/100 of the resources of what Windows take.It has hell lot of security vulnerabilities which were seen right from the day it got released. 

Some of Microsoft's most important customers aren't happy with the battery life offered by notebooks running Windows Vista.

"It's a little scary," said John Wozniak, a distinguished technologist in Hewlett-Packard's notebook engineering department, referring to the work HP needed to do on making Windows Vista more suitable for notebooks.

When Aero is turned off, battery life is equal to or better than Windows XP systems. But with it turned on, battery life suffers compared with Windows XP.

Microsoft, for its part, will likely have to improve Vista's battery life performance over time through the release of service packs and other tweaks, Shim said. "The (PC companies) are getting pressure from consumers–who are the notebook adopters–who are saying their number one priority on a notebook is battery life."

Around a year ago, India pulled out its support from the ‘One Laptop Per Child’ (OLPC) initiative. Now Human Resources Development ministry in India is seeking ways to develop a laptop that would cost an unbelievable $10.

The Indian government has two options. The first design is from a student at Vellore Institute of Technology and another from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, according to the Times of India.

At present, none of the two devices has managed to get the price to $10; in fact $47 is the lowest they could reach. Till now, the Indian government has not got any company to agree to produce the device, since building it for merely $10 would most probably mean that the manufacturer would have to take a significant loss.

Don't you think its crap ?? or is it really possible to make a $10 laptop ?? I think we lack practical thinking !! anyway ..lets see what happens..put in your comments ! 

Canonical and Dell are pleased to announce a partnership to offer Ubuntu 7.04 on select desktop and notebook products. This is a great news for all Ubuntu users..

The idea of offering pre-installed Linux on more Dell systems initially started with a discussion and survey on IdeaStorm, Dell's popular online customer forum. In that month-long online survey, more than 70 percent of the respondents said they would use a Dell system with the Linux OS for both home and office use if it were available.

The Round Rock, Texas-based company said that it received more than 100,000 responses in the survey, which ended March 23.

Dell is now making Ubuntu Linux available through a partnership with Canonical, the commercial, European-based sponsor of this open-source operating system (OS).

For those who donna what Ubuntu is : Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'humanity to others' or 'I am what I am because of who we all are'. The Ubuntu distribution of Linux, their site proclaims, "brings the spirit of Ubuntu to the software world."

Check it out ! Dell has a placeholder for Ubuntu at dell.com/ubuntu.

Note : Dell has also decided that, as a matter of policy, open source drivers from kernel.org will be used whenever possible for Linux desktop and notebook computers.

PN : "Dell recommends Windows Vista™ Business." is pasted on almost every webpage of the Dell.com website.

[ Ubuntu ] [ Dell website ] 

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have developed a new series of robots that are simple enough for almost anyone to build with off-the-shelf parts, but are sophisticated machines that wirelessly connect to the Internet.

Illah Nourbakhsh is a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, which has one of the world's most prestigious robotics programs, and his research is funded by the likes of Google, Intel and Microsoft. But in the end, he says, he does it for the kids. 

Qwerkbot, a three-wheeled robot that can send images over the Internet, is one of several robots that can be built with the Telepresence Robot Kit (TeRK), a combination of a robot controller, commonly available parts and assembly instructions (recipes) developed by the CREATE Lab in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute. Photo credit: Ken Andreyo/CMU

"[TeRK] is not only open from a software perspective, but also from a hardware perspective," Legrand says. "That's something this industry has never seen." 

via [ scientific american ] 

The La Fonera router attaches to a Time Warner broadband Internet connection and becomes a FON Wi-Fi access point that supports 802.11b/g wireless. The La Fonera router has two separate wireless channels, one a secure channel for the owner, and the other an open channel for other Time Warner users that are part of the shared network.

what is FON ?  

According to founder Martin Varsavsky, „FON is a global community of people who share WiFi connections. We call these people "Foneros", as a tribute to our heritage as a Spanish company. In order to become a Fonero, you go to FON, to download software that you install in your router, you place your antenna by a window and you share bandwidth with other Foneros from anywhere in the world. You can also buy the FON Ready router from our web site, plug and play. FON creates a free WiFi roaming environment for those who contribute WiFi signals, namely those who have already signed up with a local ISP and downloaded our software into their WiFi routers.”

The users may sign up to FON in three ways:

they can be Bills, Linus or Aliens. Strange isn't it ? The explanation is quite simple:

- A Linus (who are called like this after Linus Torvalds) shares his/her bandwidth for free with other Foneros,

- Bills (of course named after Bill Gates) share their bandwidth for a small fee.

- Aliens who don't share their bandwidth at all.

La Fonera router is secure out-of-the-box and offers two distinct WiFi channels. One channel is for the exclusive use of its owner; the second channel is shared with other Foneros. The La Fonera increases security through an encrypted private network and Foneros decide how much bandwidth to share. Public users cannot access the private network and there is no anonymous usage.

Also see : [ Hacking the La Fonera ]

Who's the best Pac-Man player of all times? Certainly Billy Mitchell, who in 1999 played the world's first perfect game of Pac-Man, eating every fruit, all four ghosts with every power pellet and beating all 256 levels of the game without losing a life.

Microsoft and Namco Bandai have announced the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship (presented by Quiznos). The best-scoring players from seven regions around the world (as well as one particularly rabid Pac-fan) will be flown to New York City for a final showdown, with the eventual champion to be crowned by Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani.

If you haven't been paying attention so far, here's a complete timeline, as provided by Microsoft:

Gamers who want to start practicing can download Pac-Man"(400 Microsoft Points) now from Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox 360.

Starting April 25, 2007, at 12:01 a.m. GMT (April 24, 2007, at 5:01 p.m. PDT), gamers can visit http://www.xboxlivetournament.com to register and review full eligibility criteria, regulations and rules.

Also on April 25, 2007, at 12:01 a.m. GMT (April 24, 2007, at 5:01 p.m. PDT), the worldwide competition will officially kick off on Xbox Live Arcade.

Previous leaderboard scores for Pac-Man will be deleted to provide a clean and fair slate for all gamers participating in the Xbox 360 "Pac-Man" World Championship.

Concurrently, Pac-Man fans in the United States and Canada can also enter the Pac-Man FANatic contest and receive an invitation to compete in the finals in New York City. Starting April 25, 2007, they can visit http://www.xboxlivetournament.com for more information on how to submit a creative video that best illustrates their love for Pac-Man.

On May 9, 2007, at 11:59 p.m. GMT (4:59 p.m. PDT), the competition will officially cease and nine finalists from the identified regions, based on the top leaderboard scores,* will advance to the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship.

Before June 1, 2007, the top nine finalists will be announced.

The nine finalists will also be joined in New York City by the winner of the Pac-Man FANatic contest, and compete for the Xbox 360 Pac-Man World Championship title on June 5, 2007, in New York City.

  All the Best !

[ Xbox Live ]

As i have to buy a Laptop very soon , i was going through some tips on how to use it efficiently,mainly on battery back up .. etc and fumbled upon this article by Jeremy Toeman .

Some of his tips are : 

• Brightness: how low can you go?
• Don’t use any external devices.
• Single-task, not multi-task.
• Keep it cool.
• Shut down unused services.
• Do Hibernate, Do Not Suspend
• Tweak advanced settings.
• Choose Wisely.
• Watch That Hard Drive.
• Like a Boy Scout, Be Prepared.

via [ 10 Tips on Maximizing Laptop Battery Performance ]   

A major Linux Wi-Fi driver contains a bug that can allow an attacker to take control of a laptop–even when it is not on a Wi-Fi network.There have not been many Linux Wi-Fi device drivers, and this is apparently the first remotely executable Wi-Fi bug.

It Affects : 

It affects the widely used MadWi-Fi Linux kernel device driver for Atheros-based Wi-Fi chipsets, according to Laurent Butti, a researcher from France Telecom Orange.

Whats the threat ? 

The kernel stack-overflow bug lets an attacker run malicious code, and can be used even if the machine is not actively on a Wi-Fi network .

Note : "You may be vulnerable if you do not manually patch your MadWi-Fi driver," said Butti.

via [ pcworld ]