By Jason Mick – June 24, 2009

Memory longevity is a touchy subject that most businesses, researchers, and consumers purposefully ignore. Magnetic drives, in theory, are thought to be corrupted in about 40 years due to the Earth’s magnetic field, though this has not been fully observed yet (hard drives have only seen widespread since the 80s). Optical discs, such as CDs and DVDs are expected to become corrupt in about 30-100 years, if not kept out of contact with moisture and oxygen. So if we wanted to store something for more than a century, there are few good current solutions. Until now, that is; Japanese researchers have come up with a new form of ultra-long term memory that they say can last over 1,000 years. They dub their memory the Digital Rosetta Stone, or DRS memory for short.

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By Todd Bishop on June 24, 2009

Gee, what were Bill Gates and Nathan Myhrvold doing when they dreamed this one up? Microsoft’s chairman and its former chief technology officer are among the inventors listed on a series of patent applications for “temperature-stabilized storage containers” — super-high-tech devices intended for use in the storage and transport of “water or flavored water, dairy product or fruit juice, carbonated soda, wine, beer or distilled spirits, for example.” OK, so they threw a bunch of other beverages in there, too, but why else would a bunch of geeks imagine a temperature-controlled liquid container if not for the noble purpose of keeping beer cold? As one of their patent filings explains, such a container “may store a beverage such as beer, for example, at a temperature appropriate for serving depending upon the type of beer.” In addition, the filings says, the container “may be used to store wine at an optimal storage temperature range, generally 50 to 55 degrees.”

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Still no support for the iPhone coming
By Shane McGlaun – June 23, 2009

Apple single handedly reinvigorated the smartphone industry and spawned a plethora of touch capable devices when it launched the iPhone. Since the original iPhone debuted, Apple has offered two more updated models of the device with the 3GS hitting the market last week. One of the major missing pieces in the iPhone for many users is the ability to run Adobe Flash technology. iPhone owners have been crying for Flash support since the iPhone launched and still there is no version of Flash for the iPhone. Adobe’s CEO Shantanu Naraye announced at an investors conference that the next version of Flash will be Flash 10 beta and it will hit in early October. The new beta version will support almost every smartphone platform out there including Android, webOS, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. Notice the lack of iPhone support. The availability of the beta coincides with the Adobe Max conference. The news is important for the newer Android and webOS devices that have lacked a good Flash player so far. Symbian and Windows mobile have been able to play Flash content for a while. Adobe doesn’t mention Flash support for the iPhone at all.

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By Frank J. Ohlhorst June 22, 2009

AMD hopes to fuel server upgrades with their latest Opteron CPU, code named Istanbul. Istanbul is designed to be a drop in replacement for previous generation Opteron CPUs and brings six cores and a 50% performance boost to the table. Follow along as we upgrade a server from a four-core Shanghai to a six-core Istanbul and determine if there is any “bull” in AMD’s Istanbul claims. “What if you could just increase performance with a CPU change?” AMD’s answer comes in the form of a Six Core Opteron processor, code-named Istanbul. While both Intel and AMD have offered the ability to upgrade CPUs in the past, other hardware was usually required to gain any significant performance improvement, sometimes necessitating a cooling fan or power supply upgrade as well. Istanbul is different, the CPU has the same power and thermal profile as previous Opterons (such as the four-core Shanghai and four-core Barcelona), which makes upgrading a much simpler endeavor. Those performing Opteron upgrades will not have to change cooling fans, power supplies, motherboards, or anything else for that matter—all that may be needed is a simple BIOS upgrade. Simply put, by just upgrading five servers in a data center, data center managers can eliminate the need to purchase an additional server to meet performance needs. It all comes down to simple math, where one has to consider the cost of the CPUs and the time needed to perform an upgrade to see if the return on investment is worthwhile. Most will find that in this case, it is—thanks to AMD’s straightforward technology and performance boost that reduces the need to upgrade other components.

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by Caroline McCarthy June 22, 2009

The Federal Trade Commission is planning to crack down on bloggers who review or promote products while earning freebies or payments, the Associated Press reported Sunday. This would, for the first time, bring bloggers under FTC guidelines that ban deceptive or unfair business practices. “New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers–as well as the companies that compensate them–for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts of interest,” the article explained. The rules could be quite strict, even extending to the practice of affiliate links–for example, a music blogger who links to a song on Amazon MP3 or iTunes that earns an affiliate commission in the process. The practice of free products for bloggers, most of whom are not bound by ethical guidelines that journalists have historically followed, has been making headlines for some time now. Microsoft, for example, created a wave of bad press a few years ago when it gave free Acer laptops preloaded with Windows Vista to several dozen bloggers.

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by Sascha Segan 06.22.09

The Palm Pre’s Mojo SDK still isn’t available to the public, and coders are champing at the bit. They’re so eager to program for the Pre that some folks have hacked into their Pres and are beginning to create the same sort of “jailbroken” community we’ve seen for years on the iPhone. Palm today made their SDK schedule clearer, and sent a surprisingly mild message out to rogue programmers. The SDK will become available “by the end of this summer,” Palm says, and they’ll ramp up their ‘early access program’ as quickly as they can before that. I was struck, though, by how conciliatory they are towards the Pre hackers. Instead of slapping them down, Palm is just saying that Mojo-based projects will be better than hacks. “We recognize that some developers will experiment in ways that cross official boundaries, but we believe that our formal offerings – and community efforts built around those offerings – will provide the best experience for the vast majority of webOS developers and users,” the company says.

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by Joseph F. Kovar June 22, 2009

The developers of the Blu-ray high-definition video format may have beat HD DVD on the technology, but both are losing the war for the hearts and minds of video consumers who look to cable, satellite and the Internet for video. In a new Harris Poll, the results of which were released on Friday, only 11 percent of Americans own a HD DVD player, while only 7 percent own a Blu-ray player. About 9 percent of Americans own a Sony PlayStation 3 gaming console, which includes the ability to play Blu-ray disks, while 3 percent have an external HD DVD drive for a Microsoft Xbox 360 gaming console. The slow adoption of both Blu-ray and HD DVD comes despite the growth in the adoption of high-definition televisions. Harris Interactive, which runs the Harris polls, found in its new poll that about 47 percent of Americans now report owning a high-definition TV, up from 35 percent in May of 2008.

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