Google Releases ‘Dream’ Gadget
Google released an iPhone competitor with the name, Dream Phone. The phone combines functionality and affordability. Gphone, or “Dream” appears as a modern, sleek gadget which does hurt buyers pocket much.
The said phone is Google’s attempt to offer the communication market its own version of the iPhone. Like iPhone, Gphone is a smart phone equipped with touch screen and hidden keyboard. Although with the same basic smart phone attributes, the Google’s prototype boasts many unique features.
The improved web browsing capabilities of the phone was said to be one of Google’s promised attention grabbers. This was made possible in coordination with several renowned phone carriers to date like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless. Also, other Google-related applications like the Google search engine and Gmail (email application) is also conveniently included in the phone’s software package.
There will no one to question its price tag at $150. The said price will be available to pre-existing T-mobile users. On the other hand, another version of the phone will soon be released at $399. According to Google, free subscriptions will also be available to consumers in return for advertising favors. This is in line to their marketing strategy that will focus profit generation from advertisers rather than consumers who would be purchasing the phone units.
Gphone is now available to T-mobile users. An independent version will be released this October.
Source: MercuryNews
Cray Launches Deskside Wintel Supercomputer
Cray launched the “most affordable supercomputer” to hit the market. The CX1 Supercomputer is an Intel-Microsoft based super PC that runs on standard office power.
Both Cray and Microsoft boast that their new supercomputer caters the mainstream market. The two giants combined the old CX1 supercomputer system and Windows HPC Server 2008 to come up with a cheap and affordable supercomputer.
The CX1 can accommodate up too 8 nodes and 16 Xeon DP 5200/5400-series processors (LGA771). Both these are available in dual-core and quad-core types, 1.86 to 3.40 GHz and TDP power consumption levels of 40 to 150 watts. A high-end CX1 would include 64 Xeon cores, 4 TB of internal storage and 512 GB of memory (64 GB per node).
CX1 is structured as a deskside computer which means that it can be stacked up to three cases high. The system can have up to 192 Xeon cores and still save some valuable office space.
The CX1 basic configuration requires 1600 watt power supply. It has 10/100/1000 Mb/s UTP ports as well as a 12- or 24-port Infiniband switch. The configuration can also include storage and visualization blades, mimicking Intel’s very own Larrabee system.
CX1 is the first serious involvement of the HPC Server 2008 in supercomputing.
The new system has a price range of $25,000 to $60,000.
Source: TGDaily
Apple Ditches Buggy Driver and Re-releases iTunes 8
After Apple’s support got plagued with “blue screen of death” crash complaints, Apple finally re-released iTunes 8 for Windows to roll back a very big bad buggy driver.
The “blue screen of death” crash bug infected computers running on Windows Vista only. And according to reports it was all due to an incompatible driver.
Apple earlier instructed Vista users to first uninstall both iTunes and an Apple-provided device driver. Only after then they can download and reinstall the 75MB fix.
Apple urged their users to download the new iTunes 8 version from www.apple.com/itunes/download.
Vista users reported the bug as early as Tuesday. Users who experienced the crashes said that plugging in an iPod or iPhone caused Vista to crash. After this a display of the “blue screen of death” (BSOD), a Windows critical error screen best known for its blue background is seen.
The critical error message pointed — “usbaapl.sys” in the 32-bit version of Vista, “usbaapl64.sys” in the 64-bit edition of the operating system — as the culprit. The buggy files were just replaced with the July 10 version of iTunes.
Source: ComputerWorld