Yahoo Restructure Looming

by Taylor Flatt on February 22nd, 2009 at 2:51 pm EDT - 1,865 views

Carol Bartz, the new Chief Executive, is said to begin reconstruction of Yahoo sometime next week. From sources within Yahoo, Carol is supposedly placing a traditional structure on Yahoo much like the one she employed at Autodesk. From another prominent source,

Most expect Bartz to do a C-level style set-up, with executives like a chief operating officer, chief technology officer and also a new, more powerful chief media officer (who will also head PR), all reporting to her.

After losing many of their executives to Microsoft including Larry Heck (VP of search and advertisement sciences) and Qi Lu (VP of engineering for search and advertisement sciences), it looks like there might be a tough task ahead of Ms.Bartz.

Read the full post »

- 285 Comments

IBM’s Ambition: 20X Performance Leap

by Nathaniel Ed on February 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 pm EDT - 670 views

Seven months ago IBM created the most powerful supercomputer. Now IBM seeks to create an even more powerful computer; one that has the computing power of two million laptops.

You heard me right. Two million laptops. Equal to 20 petaflops. Much larger than the supercomputer that they build last year, which was the first computer to break the one petaflop barrier, pulling in at 1.105 petaflops.

They have codenamed it the Sequoia computer, and they schedule it to finish in 2011 for use at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, being built for the purpose of simulating nuclear tests. IBM says that it can also be used for weather forecasting or oil exploration. It will take up the same space as 96 refrigerator-sized racks in an area of 3422 square feet.

Read the full post »

- 0 Comments

House Says “No” to DTV Delay.

by Chris Willhite on January 29th, 2009 at 2:38 pm EDT - 731 views

After the Senate passed a bill with the intention of delaying the switch to ditigal television on February 17th, the House of Represenatives shot it back down. The Senate passed the bill unanimously to delay the switch with the reasoning that “our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time” as Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller put it.

The House needed to have 2/3 majority to pass the bill but fell short which means the switch to all digital may still go through in February. It all depends on if the House attends a debate on the matter and changes its’ mind.

I honestly can’t wait for the digital switch. Not because I enjoy digital television over the air (I rarely watch our satellite let alone broadcast TV) but because freeing up the airwaves of analog signals could lead to newer, faster, and better wireless technologies. How long have we been using 2.4Ghz now? Yah, America can go without a little TV for a bit. After all, it’s their fault if they didn’t prepare.

Source: ArsTechnica
Image courtesy of Schoolhouse Rock.

- 9 Comments

ACES Studios shut down

by Nathaniel Ed on January 24th, 2009 at 11:13 am EDT - 508 views

Microsoft announced Friday that ACES Studios, the creator of the Flight Simulator series, will be closing it’s doors, as an implication of Microsoft’s 5,000 worker layoff.

Is this the end?
Apparently it isn’t. A Microsoft spokeswoman Kelda Rericha said that Microsoft remains committed to it’s long running franchise.

We are committed to the Flight Simulator franchise, which has proven to be a successful PC-based game for the last 27 years. You should expect us to continue to invest in enabling great Live experiences on Windows, including flying games, but we have nothing specific to announce at this time.

Well, Flight Simulator is probably the longest running Microsoft franchise, since it’s first Flight Simulator was shipped in 1982. I find it hard to believe that they would just kill off a gem like Flight Simulator. Apparently they will keep Flight Simulator alive in some form or another. Only time will tell the true future of Flight Simulator.

Source: PC Magazine
Image courtesy of Cnet

- 0 Comments

Hackers Rumor Steve Jobs Death

by Taylor Flatt on January 24th, 2009 at 11:05 am EDT - 537 views

Hackers made their way into the world renowned Wired.com and posted an article that Steven Jobs had died after going into cardiac arrest in his California home. The story was then leaked to multiple social networks which only makes the embarrassment worse. However, the article was posted under a writer, John Abell, who is known to write about Steve’s health. John had this to say about the article,

A widely-circulated URL… that purports to be a Wired.com story about Steve Jobs’ health is a hack job. I’ve written a number of stories about Jobs health hoaxes… but the true author of this crude fake, which hit far closer to home, remains a mystery.

With all the rumors running their courses around the internet, it is no surprise that something like this would come up. However, it was a cruel joke that was completely unethical. No matter who you are for, PC or Mac, everyone has to agree that both Gates and Jobs are great men with powerful ideas and smooth preserve.

Read the full post »

- 1 Comment

Obama’s Plan to Broaden Broadband

by Chris Willhite on January 23rd, 2009 at 10:00 pm EDT - 459 views

We all know by now all about Obama’s stimulus package that he’s proposing, you know the one that asks for trillions of dollars to get the economy kick started. Well, as it turns out, parts of the plan contain net neutrality proposals. The whole point of net neutrality is the idea that imposing limits on how much content a user can download from the internet is a violation of free speech, wether it’s filtering content or just buckling down download caps.

Well on Thursday the House of Representatives started working on the $37 billion plan to stimulate technology related portions of the economy. About 25% of the funding will go to rural areas that do not have broadband service, the other 75% will go to helping underdeveloped areas that have broadband but services that lagg behind.

What the plan really calls for is that instead of internet service providers limiting access to their networks, they will instead get a good boost of funding if they increase their broadband services and capacity. You can think of it as an interstate that’s quite busy and instead of having a law where people can only drive so often on that road, you just put in more lanes.

Read the full post »

- 2 Comments

Microsoft Stalked By EU

by Taylor Flatt on January 18th, 2009 at 1:26 pm EDT - 330 views

Microsoft has just been notified this Thursday that they will be required to appear in court due to the fact that they have been violating antitrust laws passed down by the EU.

However, this is not the first time the EU has pursued Microsoft and ask for money. Years ago, the EU fined Microsoft 1.35 billion because they were overcharging software manufactures. I’m not surprised one bit that the EU is seeking out more money from their best friend Microsoft. Microsoft also released a lengthy statement saying they are going to comply with EU’s regulations,

Read the full post »

- 0 Comments

Intel’s Uphill Struggle for 2009

by Chris Willhite on January 17th, 2009 at 12:49 pm EDT - 392 views

It looks like the economy is hitting even the biggest of giants. Intel reported that during the last few months of last year, sales were down about 23%.  If the figures and predictions turn out to be true then Intel will also have a gross profit in the lower 40’s. The shrinking demand of processors from the consumers really hits Intel hard, and right in the kisser. Especially considering that desktop CPU’s contribute to ~80% of their sales.

PC demand is sinking fast, which takes its toll on Intel because Intel owns 80 percent of the market for microprocessors, the brains of personal computers. Market research firms IDC and Gartner Inc. reported this week that PC sales growth in the fourth quarter was the worst it’s been in six years, with the slump expected to drag out until possibly 2010. -Jordan Robertson

This isn’t to say that AMD is doing any better however, the current state of the economy just makes consumers shy away from shiney new electronic delacacies. If I were one of these companies i’d stop releasing new chips and rev up R&D to get some new innovation ready for when the economy gets back on track, but I’m no buisinessman.I don’t think Intel or AMD will be going away anytime soon, they’re the only real players in the CPU scene today, but they will have some hard roads ahead of them…Let’s just pray they don’t end up like the auto companies.

Read more here at Wired.com
Image courtesy of Intel

- 0 Comments

Facebook Slams Burger King App

by Taylor Flatt on January 17th, 2009 at 12:44 pm EDT - 4,325 views

- 6 Comments

IBM Remains US Patent Leader

by Taylor Flatt on January 14th, 2009 at 8:32 pm EDT - 521 views

IBM, for 16 straight years, has dominated in most patents per year. This year, they have topped off at over 4,000. IBM managed to beat out their challenger Samsung by 671 patents. IBM said this in their official release, “IBM’s 2008 patent issuances are nearly triple Hewlett-Packard’s and exceed the issuances of Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, Apple, EMC, Accenture and Google – combined.” However, HP fired back saying they are seeking quality of the patents, not quantity.

While IBM grabbed 11.5 technical patents per day last year, they are looking to increase their technical production by upwards of 50%. This seems pretty odd to me that IBM is the leader in patents. I would think that companies like Microsoft or even Sony would be towards the top of this list. It just seems that many people have forgotten about the hero of old that rivaled Microsoft in the beginning.

Read the full post »

- 0 Comments