By Jason Cross Sep 30, 2009

A press release from AMD today announces the development of an Open Physics Initiative, together with Pixelux Entertainment. Pixelux is the developer of the Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) physics system used first in LucasArts’ Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The period of exclusivity with LucasArts is over, and now Pixelux will license its technology to others. As part of this agreement, Pixelux will integrate its proprietary technology with Bullet, a free and open-source physics engine (used in recent games like Trials HD and Free Realms) According to the press release, AMD is actively persuing the development of the Bullet phsysics library on OpenCL and DirectX 11′s DirectCompute. On top of this, Pixelux is persuing development of its finite element physics simulation software on OpenCL and integrating it with Bullet. Note that this doesn’t mean that Pixelux’s software will be free or open-source as Bullet is, but that it will allow licenses to use a the free and open-source Bullet library for a base level of physics and then to license and layer Pixelux’s DMM engine on top of that – and all of it accelerated on any GPU with an OpenCL driver.

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By Tony Bradley, September 30, 2009

Microsoft unveiled the details of the Windows 7 logo program today. The requirements for earning the Windows 7 compatibility label are stricter this time around–partially to boost support and acceptance of 64-bit systems, and partially to avoid the pitfalls Microsoft encountered with the Vista logo program. The Windows 7 logo program beefs up the testing requirements, while reducing the red tape and expense it takes for partners and vendors to certify their products as compatible. Products that achieve the Windows 7 logo certification should perform optimally and experience minimal crashes, reboots or other issues. There is a key change from past Windows compatibility programs. According to this Windows 7 blog post, “To be granted the Logo, products are tested to work with all versions of Windows 7 including 64-bit. This is an important change since 64 bit systems are becoming more mainstream.”

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by Mark Hachman 09.30.09

Nvidia launched its second-generation GPU computing architecture on Wednesday, code-named “Fermi”. Oak Ridge National Laboratory will design a supercomputer based on the Fermi, an executive said. The “Fermi” announcement kicked off Nvidia’s GPU Technology Conference, which will run the remainder of this week in Silicon Valley. Fermi will serve as next generation of CUDA, a programming architecture Nvidia developed in 2006 in conjunction with the GeForce GeForce 8800 architecture, which included a unified compute processor that could either perform graphics-specific tasks or could be programmed in C to be used for general-purpose computing. Because they do specialized tasks – computing graphics – extremely quickly and efficiently, scientific applications that do a number of tasks over and over again could take advantage of the DSP-like graphics-chip architecture. The GT200, announced in 2008, added dual-precision floating point technology, which the GeForce 8800 lacked, according to Nathan Brookwood, an analyst with Insight64.

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By Paul McDougall September 30, 2009

Microsoft won a significant court victory Tuesday when a judge overturned a jury’s finding that the company was liable for $388 million in damages for patent infringement. But the ruling could be reversed on appeal. Uniloc, of Singapore, sued Microsoft in federal court in Rhode Island in 2003, claiming its products were being used illegally in the Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office productivity suite. A jury ruled in favor of Uniloc and earlier this year imposed a penalty that is a record amount for a patent case. Uniloc can take the case to a higher court to attempt to have the jury’s decision reinstated. A spokesperson said the company plans to do just that. “Uniloc will continue to protect its intellectual property and appeal the Judge’s decision to override the jury’s verdict to the US Court of Appeals,” the spokesperson said. “We are confident that Uniloc will ultimately prevail,” the spokesperson added. A Microsoft spokesman said, via e-mail late Tuesday, that the company is “pleased that the court has vacated the jury verdict and entered the judgment in favor of Microsoft.”

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by Stephen Shankland September 28, 2009

You’ve probably heard about fiber optics for years–some kind of exotic technology used to carry gargantuan quantities of data across continents. But in the not-too-distant future, you might be plugging these tiny glass strands straight into your computer. That’s if Intel gets its way. At its Intel Developer Forum last week, the chipmaker demonstrated fiber-optic technology called Light Peak for connecting many devices to PCs with fiber optic lines. Intel secured major Light Peak endorsement from Sony and now it’s has begun trying to make it into an industry standard. But bringing optical technology to the masses will require more than Intel Chief Technology Officer Justin Rattner taking the stage to connect a thin white Light Peak cable into the back of a prototype PC. According to sources familiar with the situation, the most likely mechanism to carry Light Peak out of the R&D lab to the edge of your laptop will be the venerable Universal Serial Bus, and Intel has begun pounding the pavement to try to make that happen.

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By Eddie Wrenn 28th September 2009

A mobile phone is due out at the end of this year which could boast unrivalled features and power – although it might look slightly familiar. The phone will contain all the usual high-end features, including GPS and Bluetooth, a 4.8inch touch screen, WiFi, and a huge amount of storage – and it will run a full version of Windows XP. The smartphone, created by Chinese company In Technology Group, could usher in a new life for the eight-year-old operating system, which has now been surpassed by Vista and next year’s Windows 7. It will be able to do everything a computer can do – and may end up giving competitors like the iPhone a run for its money. The ‘xpPhone’ contains an AMD Super Mobile CPI, with up to 1GB of RAM, which in layman’s terms means it should cope with most tasks thrown at it.While it might struggle with some high-end programs that require extra juice, such as advanced image-editing software like Adobe Photoshop, it should be able to handle programs such as Microsoft Office and video and music playback.

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Will give you 43 cents for each smug scalp
By Nick Farrell, 28 September 2009

A BUNCH of Russian hackers are offering 43 cents for each Mac that their partners in crime can infect with bogus video software. The move has been cited by insecurity experts at Sophos as a sign that Mac users’ security by obscurity days are coming to an end. While 43 cents is not much, the idea is that it will encourage hackers to target Apple’s PCs for recruitment into botnets. Any Ibotnet will probably want a lot of victims, so 43 cents for each smug scalp will work out to a lot of dosh. In a presentation (PDF) at the Virus Bulletin 2009 security conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Sophos researcher Dmitry Samosseiko spoke of his interactions with the Russian “Partnerka.” This is a group of web affiliates who rake in oodles of cash from spam and malware, mostly from phony drug sites. Apparently there are affiliates dedicated to the sale and promotion of fake Mac software. One group operating a few months ago was offering 43 cents for each install and offered various promo materials in the form of Mac OS ‘video players’. Symantec said that Samosseiko’s evidence shows Mac users, who often believe that only Windows users suffer from malware, are increasingly at risk on the web.

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By David Colker September 24, 2009

At long last, details about a super-secret computer tablet have emerged, complete with pictures and even a video showing how it works. But it’s not the long-awaited tablet that Apple Inc. has been rumored to be developing. This prototype reportedly comes from deep inside Apple’s archrival, Microsoft Corp., where its development has supposedly been so blanketed in secrecy that many high-ranking company executives didn’t know it existed. If it’s real, that is. The device, code-named Courier, showed up on the popular technology blog Gizmodo.com under the headline “First Details of Microsoft’s Secret Tablet.” Microsoft neither confirmed nor denied its existence. “We do not comment on unreleased products,” company spokesman Doug Free said. He wouldn’t even say whether Microsoft was working on a tablet, which is a type of computer on which information can be input by touching fingers and/or a stylus directly to the screen.

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