Sylvie Barak the Inquirer, Friday 26 September 2008. 14:14:00
It’s harder with paper and pen
PEOPLE FEEL it much easier to lie via e-mail than by handwritten communication according to studies at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University. Liuba Belkin, assistant professor of management at the University’s faculty of Business and Economics reckons that not only do people find it easier to lie using email, but feel justified in doing so. Belkin’s study involved giving a group of MBA students $89 each and telling them to divide it between themselves and an imaginary person as they saw fit. The students had to write either an email or handwritten note to the fictional other half, telling them how much money was in their possession and how it would be divided….
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Sylvie Barak , Friday 12 September 2008. 22:24:00
Sony, Fujitsu Siemens and Benq flip chips
SONY, FUJITSU Siemens and Benq have announced notebooks using hybrid graphics that allow users to “dynamically switch” between Intel’s Centrino 2 integrated graphics and a discrete Nvidia Geforce GPU. The switch can be made without the need to reboot, giving the user the choice of whether to burn up the battery in 3D mode, or idly noodle about in 2D on the Interweb. According to Nvidia, all its Geforce 9M Series GPUs support the hybrid graphics feature, but notebooks have to be specifically designed. Four firms have joined the bandwagon, after guinea pig Acer tested the water. Sony’s new Vaio Z series, Fujitsu Siemens’ Amilo XI 3650 and Benq Joybook’s S42’s all have the feature….
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Sylvie Barak , Friday 12 September 2008. 14:54:00
The game’s up
QUANTA COMPUTER saw its revenues take a dive this August, something the company is apparently blaming on increased sales in netbooks. Sound Paradoxical? More units shipped, but less revenue coming in. This is a predicament which many a computer company is finding itself in lately as, increasingly, people pass up on spending a fortune on super fast quad-corePCs to buy little crotch-warming netbooks instead. The irony is that whilst Quanta’s revenues plunged some 18.5 per cent from last year, its netbook shipments are on the increase. In August the firm managed to dispatch some 3.1 million units, which is up a whole 0.2 million from the previous year….
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Sylvie Barak the Inquirer, Wednesday 24 September 2008. 12:25:00
Arrrrrr!
SWASHBUCKLING MICROSOFT is slashing the price of its Office suite in China by over 70 per cent, in a move aimed at cutting piracy. Finally figuring out that if it doesn’t make its software affordable, it runs little chance of selling much of it, the Vole has decided to cut the price of Office Home and Student 2007 in China from $103 down to just $29. Microsoft China first halved prices back in June. These price cuts apparently made for “very good pick-up” in licensed programme sales according to general manager for business operations and marketing in Greater China, Garth Fort, encouraging the Vole to slash prices further….
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Sylvie Barak , Thursday 10 July 2008. 09:17:00
Computer, heal thyself
FUJITSU SIEMENS have announced what sounds like a ‘magic button’, software which proactively identifies and fixes computer problems and glitches as they arise. The company reckons its new ‘wonder software’, which will be available as of September, uses an application suite called Questra which performs online remote monitoring and automatically fixes any problems it finds – something of a digital IT service desk, the company claims. Fujitsu Siemens is boasting that the software will mean more uptime and PC productivity, fewer calls to the support desk and less time waiting for faults to be fixed. Richard Schlauri, Executive Vice President of Infrastructure Services at Fujitsu Siemens explained, “reporting problems via phone or email to a helpdesk agent becomes an outdated practice, as today’s machine-to-machine communication is more efficient and can even prevent future problems from arising.” He added: “Today, this technology is an innovation but we are sure that it will quickly become a standard in the IT services business.” CEO at Questra, Emil Wang, claimed the digital Service Desk, “will have already identified, interrogated and resolved problems by the time rival helpdesk service organisations receive their first traditional help desk call”….
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Sylvie Barak the Inquirer, Friday 5 September 2008. 10:10:00
Unexplosive, hopefully
SONY YESTERDAY decided to announce three new all-in-one, Blue Ray inclusive PCs at Denver’s CEDIA show. The three new Vaios, the JS, LV and RT, seem to have been designed with three specifically different usage models in mind, with the JS acting as ‘ye old bog standard PC’, the LV aimed at replacing the TV in the living room, and the RT focused on multimedia fanatics who want to edit their own epic movies on their computers. Sony’s main selling point for its new baby Vaios, of course, is the screen. Whilst the lower ended JS comes with a 20.1 inch Xbrite-Eco display, the LV gets a diagonal 24 inch Wuxga display and the yuppy magnet RT comes complete with a ginormous 25.5-inch diagonal LCD….
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Sylvie Barak the Inquirer, Friday 5 September 2008. 10:10:00
Unexplosive, hopefully
SONY YESTERDAY decided to announce three new all-in-one, Blue Ray inclusive PCs at Denver’s CEDIA show. The three new Vaios, the JS, LV and RT, seem to have been designed with three specifically different usage models in mind, with the JS acting as ‘ye old bog standard PC’, the LV aimed at replacing the TV in the living room, and the RT focused on multimedia fanatics who want to edit their own epic movies on their computers. Sony’s main selling point for its new baby Vaios, of course, is the screen. Whilst the lower ended JS comes with a 20.1 inch Xbrite-Eco display, the LV gets a diagonal 24 inch Wuxga display and the yuppy magnet RT comes complete with a ginormous 25.5-inch diagonal LCD….
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Sylvie Barak , Friday 5 September 2008. 10:10:00
Unexplosive, hopefully
SONY YESTERDAY decided to announce three new all-in-one, Blue Ray inclusive PCs at Denver’s CEDIA show. The three new Vaios, the JS, LV and RT, seem to have been designed with three specifically different usage models in mind, with the JS acting as ‘ye old bog standard PC’, the LV aimed at replacing the TV in the living room, and the RT focused on multimedia fanatics who want to edit their own epic movies on their computers. Sony’s main selling point for its new baby Vaios, of course, is the screen. Whilst the lower ended JS comes with a 20.1 inch Xbrite-Eco display, the LV gets a diagonal 24 inch Wuxga display and the yuppy magnet RT comes complete with a ginormous 25.5-inch diagonal LCD….
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Sylvie Barak the Inquirer, Thursday 25 September 2008. 18:13:00
Easy money becomes addictive
AN OVERSENSITIVE e-commerce rights group called NetChoice has demanded an apology after a National Retail Federation veep told Congress online retailers were turning ordinary folk into addicts and criminals. Joseph LaRocca, vice president for loss prevention at the NRF was speaking at a congressional hearing on crime, terrorism, and homeland security when he noted that today’s thieves were often forced into a life of crime by the ” addictive qualities” of online shopping. LaRocca also reckoned it was so easy to sell things anonymously on the net that many criminals had become “hooked”. He dramatically added: “Before they know it, they quit their jobs, are recruiting accomplices and are crossing state lines to steal-all so they can support and perpetuate their online selling habit.” Taking the melodrama to a whole new level, advocacy group NetChoice then threw a strop and demanded both LaRocca and the NRF issue immediate apologies to anyone who has ever sold anything online….
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