Worldwide Telescope From Microsoft In Beta

Microsoft is never one to be outdone, and following news that they won’t be purchasing Yahoo to take on Google in the search engine industry, they have attempted to go one step further than the Google Earth (with the celestial add-on) application. Worldwide Telescope (how long before a full Google Galaxy is released?) is a downloadable piece of software that enables users to view images from land and space telescopes.

The Windows only software (who’d have guessed) then enables users to pan around the planets, zoom in and out, and locate an area relative to the rest of the sky. Not only does the software work according to current coordinates but can also be used to see how the sky looked in the past.

Aimed to bring out the astronomer in all of us, and provide some use to the professionals too, Worldwide Telescope has taken images from some major resources to create what looks an incredible bit of software. NASA has contributed substantial material and images are also provided by the Chandra X-Ray telescope.

Currently in Beta, the Worldwide Telescope which also includes tours around the galaxy by professional astronomers, has some hefty system requirements even by today’s standards. A 2GHz Processor and 2GB of RAM as well as up to 10GB of empty hard drive are required. Besides this you also need a graphics card with 128MB of dedicated memory so it’s not for the faint hearted but it does look incredible.

Microsoft XP Home Available For £13

Although, unfortunately, not to you and I. Microsoft announced several weeks back that it would continue supplying the XP operating system to all countries, but especially developing countries – it also announced at that time, that they would drastically reduce the price for those markets. However, the actual price and details have only just been released and they are quite impressive.

Microsoft is attempting to take on Linux and Unix based systems by ensuring that new computers include one of their operating systems. While higher specification computers in the developed world will not be privvy to any price cuts, and will be expected to offer Vista, lower cost PCs will still be able to offer XP, and manufacturers will be able to buy a copy for £16.

In order to limit the number of manufacturers and systems that will receive this price cut, Microsoft has stated that only computers with screens 10.2 inches or smaller (but not touch screens) and with a hard drive of 80GB or less will be able to benefit these surprisingly impressive prices. This news comes in the wake of the fact that many manufacturers are finding a way to continue supplying XP – they are doing this because it remains much more popular than the Vista system.

The Portable Camo Hard Drive – Don’t Put It Down In The Garden

It’s not often that a hard drive manufacturer has the cunning foresight to create camouflaged portable hard drives is it? And, if we’re being completely honest, there’s probably a damn good reason for that. But we’re not ones to shun the pointless because there will undoubtedly be somebody somewhere that has been keenly awaiting the introduction of a camo drive. Well, put your acrylic paint and brushes away, because Iomega has developed the hard drive that you can lose in your garden.

At £75 it isn’t that unreasonably priced and offers 250GB of storage and USB 2.0 connectivity. Clearly, it’s unlikely that you’re ever really going to have a need for a woodland camouflaged portable hard drive but if you just can’t get enough camo gear, or are sick of those boring, modern silver and black designs then the latest offering in the Iomega eGo line is definitely, possibly, for you.

Protected by an Iomega Power Grip, the drive is said to offer extra ruggedness and durability but it does lead you to question just what Iomega think you are actually going to do with a portable hard drive. There can’t really be any serious and legitimate uses for such covert periperals can there?

Iomega via Gizmodo

TorrentSpy Ordered To Pay $110m In Damages

TorrentSpy, the now defunct torrent sharing website, has been ordered to pay the equivalent of £56m to the Motion Picture Association of America. The site indexed millions of torrents of music, images, TV, and films but the site was plagued by court action throughout its life. Eventually, in a bid apparently designed to protect its users’ privacy, TorrentSpy closed its doors in March of this year.

Valence Media, the parent company of TorrentSpy, as well as its owners Justin Bunnell and Wes Park have filed for bankruptcy. Understandably, the MPAA sees this as being a major victory in their fight against online copyright laws. They began legal action against TorrentSpy in February 2006 and the site was later ordered to being tracking users and submit its findings to the MPAA. In order to prevent this from happening, American users were blocked from using the site.

Dan Glickman, chairman of the MPAA stated that “the demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios.” While the torrent sharing technology itself is perfectly legitimate and speeds up downloads by breaking data into smaller packets, the infringement of copyright laws obviously isn’t legal. Legal action is ongoing for many other Torrent index websites as the MPAA and other organizations attempt to stop the illegal downloading of content online.

100MB Broadband Coming Soon To Bournemouth Residents

I’m sure there are plenty of incredible reasons to live in Bournemouth, and H2O have released news that offers yet another. H20 intend to pioneer super fast broadband cables that run through the sewer system within the Dorset town with more towns to be announced in the near future. Companies have been toying with methods to deliver improved Broadband speeds to the country’s residents, and using the sewer seems one of the more viable and cost effective methods.

Work will begin on the network that is currently being offered to businesses, within the next 6 months. This means that residents will be able to enjoy super fast broadband (a term regularly thrown about by Broadband providers already) of up to 100MB.

Ofcom has been at the head of research to develop methods that offer improved Broadband. This action has been taken because the UK has one of the poorest Broadband options in Europe. In other European countries residents can already enjoy the kinds of Broadband connection that H20 wants to develop.

Increased Broadband, like this, will mean greater possibilities of on-demand HD TV and other services that are currently restricted by poor Internet connections. Virgin Broadband currently offers residents up to 24MB broadband and aim to increase their entire network to speeds of 50MB by the end of this year.

Source – BBC Technology News

9X Media Wins Multiple Monitor Peeing Contest

I didn’t really know one existed either but apparently so. The Masterplex started it all with a six screen multiple monitor rig. More entries subsequently joined the race, but all have been competely eclipsed by the 9X Media system. While it would work with as few as two monitors, it’s the bigger end of the boast that we’re particularly interested in.

The X-Top enables users to combine up to 64 screens in a multi tiled display spanning 1 to 3 rows. The screens on offer range in size from 19” to 40” and are high spec LCD monitors. 9X will completely customise your rig for you, and it’s a hardly surprise when you consider how much you would probably have to pay for this kind of set up.

I say “probably have to pay” because try as I might I can’t find any indication of a price, even for the “smaller” set ups. Again, though, if you have to ask… you know the rest. Incredible though it looks, I do tend to question the actual deployment of a 64 screen multi-tiled display using 40” monitors. I think you’d struggle to play GTA IV on a video wall that size. And another point, presuming you use 3 rows of monitors, that would require two rows of 21 monitors and a single row of 22 monitors. That’s just not symetrical.

Spam Reaches The Big 30 – Here’s Predicting Another 30

The scourge of the Internet has reached a major milestone in its life. The first ever unsolicited email was sent way back in1978, on 3^rd May, to 400 people. The email was advertising a company known as DEC, a computer manufacturer that is no longer in existence. Unfortunately, spam not only lives on but continues to grow in strength.

The BBC website has a cracking list of statistics to depress every email user on the planet. Email scamsters made more than £120m last year with more than three quarters of all successful scams being delivered by junk email. Nearly 85% of all email sent is spam, equivalent to more than 100 billion obnoxious messages every single day.

While unsolicited email has been around for 30 years, the term Spam was only coined in 1993 by a Usenet administrator, who took his inspiration from a Monthy Python sketch.

While spam is predominantly seen as being a major nuisance, it can and does often harbour more serious and underhand intent. Fraudsters and scamsters use spam email as a means to unlawfully gain information, or to perpetrate the downloading of infected files onto user’s computers.

3 Lowers Mobile Broadband Modem Price To £49.99

Mobile broadband dongles offer an excellent method of connecting to the Internet and bring truly wireless networks to reality. 3 has made the prospect even more appealing by reducing the price of their Pay As You Go dongle from the original £99.99 to £49.99 – an impressive price reduction no matter how you cut it.

Pay As You Go customers buy add-ons that range from £10 to £25 and provide the user with a one month download allowance. £10 buys 1GB, £15 buys 3GB, and £25 buys 7GB. Considering the technology is still relatively new, the prices don’t look that unattractive to those that have a real need to be able to connect to the Internet while on the move.

Alternatively, Pay Monthly deals are available, which include the dongle free of charge. The standard Pay Monthly tariff costs £15 per month and offers a 3GB allowance. The monthly costs are actually identical to the Pay As You Go costs but you do get the dongle for free.

And I’m sure you’ll all be pleased to hear that even though the USB Modems aren’t the ugliest thing introduced, you can also buy skins to customise them – skins are currently offered at two for the price of one.

MySpace Adds Karaoke To Its Features

MySpace – never a website to shy away from trying new things – is launching a MySpace karaoke service. The new site, released on Tuesday and found at ksolo.myspace.com enables users to sing along to any of their favourite hits. This move comes in light of the recent purchase, by MySpace’s parent company News Corp of the karaoke website ksolo.com.

The unique blend of the karaoke feature and MySpace music uploading means that registered users will also have the chance, should they desire that chance, to upload their efforts to the MySpace site where it can be viewed and laughed at by the community members.

MySpace is one of the largest social networking or social media sites on the Internet. It is largely geared around a community that listens to, creates, and shares music. With many an unsigned band using MySpace to highlight their own flavour of tunes, the site isn’t a stranger to bad music.

You might be surprised to learn (at least I was) that kSolo is only one of a large number of karaoke sites on the Internet. Electronic Arts owns SingShot and Yahoo! Owns Bix. However, this amalgamation of kSolo and MySpace will be the first time that avid sing-alongers will be able to upload their efforts directly to the site.

Is it really something we should applaud them for?

Home Networking Using Phone, Aerial, And Electrical Wires

Home networks aren’t exactly renowned for being intuitive to set up. In fact success can come at the price of family relationship breakdowns and years of trauma counselling. No matter how plug and play a new bit of kit claims to be, this is rarely the case unless you have the exact computer running the precise software on the appropriate platform with the necessary hardware.

Then, of course, there’s the wireless or ethernet debate. The fact is that wireless networks are more convenient unless you have one of those peculiar homes that uses walls as a form of partition between rooms.

In all honesty, the ways of wireless home networks have improved markedly in recent years and they look set to improve a little bit more. Four major manufacturers (Panasonic, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Infineon to be exact) have waged war on the current wireless networking setup.

The aim is to create a simple and enjoyable experience for everybody that wishes to network their home appliances. They want to do this by introducing a standard that uses the existing wires already installed in your home. Your aerial coaxial cables, electric wiring, and phone wires could take the place of precariously balanced wireless routers that are positioned in the optimal position away from electrical items, bluetooth devices, and elevated at a suitable height.

The new super group predict that the first items using this standard will be available for purchase some time next year.

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