MSI has announced a new high-end graphics card, the N480GTX Lightning-L, with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX480 GPU onboard, as well as MSI’s own GPU cooling system, termed “Twin Frozr III” – which provides a wide margin for overclocking and overvoltage experiments. Currently on sale.
Honda has just unveiled the all-new Fit EV Concept electric car and the platform for a midsize plug-in hybrid. Honda is preparing to release Fit EV all-electric cars in the US and Japan in 2012, and these designs are a sure indicator of what is coming down the line. The Honda Fit EV is designed for urban commuters and follows the typical 5-passenger layout of the Fit hatchback. The consumer release of Fit EV will be powered by a lithium-ion battery and coaxial electric motor and will have an approximate driving range or 100miles per charge in its most efficient mode. Check all the details at nihoncar.com.
Mouse Computer keeon chugging with the announcement today of its new series of micro desktop gaming computers, the NEXTGEAR-MICRO series. They will offer four configurations with graphics cards from two companies: NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX460, one model with one card and another with two cards in SLI configuration (NVIDIA’s two-or-more-graphics-cards solution); and an ATI Radeon HD5850, also with one single-card model and one double-card model with CrossFire (AMD’s same). The single-GPU models both come with 6GB of RAM, with the two-card ones packing double that. All four models have Intel Core i7-950 processors, 1TB hard drives, a DVD super multi drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium x64. This tower comes with a grand total of four fans – two in the front, one each in the top and rear – to keep those hot GPUs running smoothly, behind easily-removable grille panels for easy maintenance; as well as three 3.5-inch hard drive bays and two underslung space-saving bays for 2.5-inch hard drives.
All four models are available now.
In an ideal world, old versions of Windows would roll off Microsoft’s list of supported products and be replaced by new ones at regular, predicable intervals. That upgrade cycle has been anything but smooth and predictable in recent years, however. Microsoft’s support policy is still returning to normal after XP was allowed to live well past its normal retirement date and then got multiple extensions to placate customers who just said no to Vista.
I was reminded of this confusion earlier today when Matt Gardenghiasked a great question via Twitter:
Where would I find a list of supported MS OS versions? Trying to determine what’s in support and what’s out of support.
Microsoft product lifecycle policy is actually quite coherent and easy to understand, at least on paper. I wrote this two years ago in How long will Microsoft support XP and Vista?:
Microsoft has a well-documented support lifecycle for its software products. It’s part of the agreement that the company makes with everyone who installs Windows, especially business customers who want some assurance that they’ll be able to get updates and support for operating systems and applications even if they choose not to upgrade to the latest and greatest.
Now that Windows 7 is firmly entrenched in the marketplace, I’m starting to get questions about its life span (and it doesn’t help when high-profile web sites and bloggers get the facts dead wrong, as they did last month with the bogus “XP in 2020″ story). To help clear the air, I’ve put together a chart listing all of Microsoft’s supported operating systems. The calculations start with the general availability (GA) date for each product. Consumer operating systems are supported for five years after their GA date, and business OSes are supported for 10 years (with the last five years classed as “extended support”). The official date of retirement for support is the second Tuesday in the first month of the quarter following that anniversary (which also happens to be Patch Tuesday), which means each support cycle typically gets a few weeks or months of extra support tacked on at the end.
For Windows 7, you can do the math yourself. The GA date for all Windows 7 editions was October 22, 2009. Five years after that date is October 22, 2014. The next calendar quarter begins in January, 2015, and the second Tuesday of that month is January 13. So, that’s when mainstream support is scheduled to end. Extended support for business editions goes an extra five years, until January 14, 2020 (the second Tuesday of the month).
For Windows XP, however, those calculations don’t work, because Microsoft has extended XP’s life artificially. To find XP’s end-of-support date, you should use the Microsoft Product Lifecycle Search page to get the official answer. Enter the name of the OS and click Search, and you get back a table that shows the general availability date, the retirement dates for mainstream and extended support, and retirement dates for service packs, which are governed by a separate set of rules.
Here’s the set of search results for Windows XP:
The one date that matters most on this chart is the one I’ve circled in red—April 8, 2014.
Service Packs 1 and 1a were retired back in 2006. Service Pack 2 rode off into the sunset last month, on July 13. And Service Pack 3 will be retired along with all editions of Windows XP on Patch Tuesday, April 8, 2014.
By that time, Windows 8 will probably be well past its first birthday, and Microsoft will (at least for a short time) be supporting four separate Windows versions. Here’s a table that summarizes the support policy for all of the current Windows desktop versions:
The point of having a predictable release cycle—a new Windows version every three years—is to encourage upgrades. That’s especially true for consumers, who can skip one version but not two. Even so, full support will be available until the beginning of 2015. For businesses, anyone considering a Windows 7 migration can take comfort in knowing it will be supported for nearly another decade more—until January 14, 2020.
Update: My Windows 7 Inside Out co-author, Carl Siechert, asks another good question: “What, exactly, is ’support’?”
For the answer, I defer to the Microsoft Support Lifecycle blog:
Generally, the minimum bar for something to be considered supported is that we provide at least one type of assisted support option and no-charge security updates. This means that, at a minimum, the customer will have some avenue to contact Microsoft for assistance and Microsoft will continue to provide security updates through channels like Windows Update and the Download Center.
The rest of their FAQ is worth reading as well.
The action was an overhang at last week’s ASF North America conference in Atlanta, which I attended, but it was surprising to see it happen so soon.
As noted by ASF president Jim Jagielski in my interview with him last week, Apache believes it has no choice here but that it also has a strong hand.
Java’s acceptance as a standard is based on its being open source. Much of that credibility comes from various Java projects initiated by the ASF. The ASF representative was recently re-elected to the Java Community Process (JCP) executive committee (EC) with 95% of the vote while an Oracle nominee was rejected.
Google can no longer support Java given that Oracle is suing it, and they were “the money” behind a lot of what was going on. The ASF was the muscle.
With no money and no muscle, Oracle could be left with a proprietary technology everyone has abandoned, as Unisys found when it sought to assert its rights to the .gif file format in the 1990s.
The official statement is couched in the passive and careful language Apache is known for. There’s also an FAQ for those who need some background on the controversy.
But here’s the money quote:
The ASF will terminate its relationship with the JCP if our rights as implementers of Java specifications are not upheld by the JCP Executive Committee to the limits of the EC’s ability. The lack of active, strong and clear enforcement of those rights implies that the JSPA agreements are worthless, confirming that JCP specifications are nothing more than proprietary documentation. (Emphasis mine.)
Mr. Ellison, your dice.
Google gave all of its employees a $1,000 holiday cash bonus for 2010 and at least a 10 percent salary increase 2011. Bottom line: That raise is going to cost Google some operating margin in the fourth quarter and next year.
The move, first reported by Henry Blodget, has spurred concerns about a Silicon Valley talent crunch. Indeed, Google’s move appears to be at least partially designed to keep employees from jumping to Facebook. However, human resources always tells us that it’s not about the money in most cases. As a manager, that fact is generally true.
So now we have Google floating more money to employees to keep them around. However, it’s quite possible that employees at Google find themselves at a big outfit with a bunch of processes and want more of a startup vibe. These folks may want a shiny new object to employee them. A 10 percent raise isn’t going to change that equation.
What’s the financial hit to Google? In the grand scheme of Google’s profit machine the fourth quarter expense is negligible. For 2011, the sum makes you gulp a bit.
Barclays Capital analyst Douglas Anmuth runs the numbers:
Based on our year-end full-time headcount estimate of 23,391, a $1,000 bonus would amount to more than $23 million in 4Q costs on an EBITDA estimate of $3.7 billion. This is not a big deal and Google often has to catch up on bonus accruals at year-end.
However, the 10% across-the-board salary increase in 2011 could have a much bigger impact. Assuming an average salary of $150,000 per employee and average fulltime headcount in our model of 25,756 for next year, a 10% increase would possibly suggest $400 million more in compensation costs in 2011. This could theoretically impact our EBITDA by 2.6% and PF EPS by roughly $1, or nearly 3%.
Meanwhile, Anmuth’s numbers may be too conservative. He made his calculations on full-time employees. The pay increase will go to part-timers too.
This news shouldn’t be all that surprising. Google executives have hinted that employee retention has been more challenging as the company matures. Anmuth also likes the fact Google is investing in its workers. In addition, Google has warned in regulatory filings that it could take a margin hit keeping employees. The company said:
We continue to invest in systems infrastructures, increase our hiring, and adjust our compensation programs as required to manage our growth and develop and promote our products and services, and this may cause our operating margins to decrease.
The packaging of the MT4G (myTouch 4G) is similar to what we have seen before with the myTouch devices with a nice zippered case that can be used to carry around devices and accessories. In the bed of foam on the left you find the A/C adapter, stereo headset, and USB cable. On the center flap you will find several pamphlets and guides in the net pocket. The MT4G is placed in a foam insert in the right side of the case and everything is well protected and presented.
I have tried out myTouch devices in the past and while they were decent devices they all had a feel to them that they were cheaper than the high end smartphone. I think this was mainly due to the glossy plastic and weight of the devices more than anything. This is definitely NOT the case with the MT4G and this baby is rock solid. My plum one has soft touch colored areas around the device and on the back while my wife’s white one is glossy plastic. The MT4G has awesome curves and angles around the edges and feels awesome in your hand. They physical hardware buttons and back metal cover give the device more quality touches and you will not be disappointed with the hardware.
Specifications for the T-Mobile myTouch 4G include the following:
This is just the second HSPA+ smartphone for T-Mobile and IMHO is the better of the two (the G2 being the other one). The front facing camera and fast processor are stand out specifications for T-Mobile too.
Unlike other devices where the display takes up nearly all of the front, you will find some rather large areas above and below the 3.8 inch display. The top has a funky looking headset speaker with the front facing camera to the right of it and myTouch branding below this. The proximity sensor and light sensor are located in this upper area too.
Below the display you will find five phyiscal buttons for Home, Menu, Back, Genius, and an optical trackpad. Most every Android device I have been using lately has touch sensitive areas and I am actually really liking these physical buttons that I can press and know they were activated.
I am not having a lot of luck with the Genius button and software. You are supposed to be able to press it and then have the software send text messages, call people, search the web, find addresses, and more with your voice. Every time I press the button it tells me to wait as it voice activates my contact list. It should be able to do this once and then work fine after that and I am trying to find out how to stop it from attempting to make this voice activation so if you have any tips on this feel free to let me know.
The only thing on the right side is the physical camera button which is used to launch the camera software and focus/capture photos and video. I personally am a big fan of these buttons and having this pleased me wife as well.
A mic opening is on the bottom while the power button and 3.5mm headset jack are found on the top. A volume button, microUSB port, and three connection pins are placed on the left side.
The back is dominated by a large metal battery cover that has some styling with the T-Mobile and HTC logos. The metal cover was quite difficult for me to remove with short fingernails and I resorted to placing a coin under the opening and flipping the metal cover off. Underneath the metal cover you will find the battery, SIM card slot, and microSD card slot.
The 5 megapixel camera and flash are located at the top of the back. The camera protrudes out a bit, but is also protected by a built up area of the back casing around the camera lens.
I cannot say it enough, but the MT4G feels absolutely fantastic in your hand and is extremely carressable. The 3.8 to 4 inch display may be the perfect sweet spot for these high end smartphones.
The MT4G comes preloaded with the Android 2.2 (Froyo) operating system and a special flavor of the HTC Sense user interface. Thus, you will find support for Exchange email, calendar, and contacts with HTC widgets and apps, such as Friend Stream, HTC Sense launcher, HTC weather, myModes, Media Room, News, Peep, and Stocks. There are just a few bloatware games and apps that cannot be removed, such as Asphalt 5, T-Mobile TV, Qik Video Chat, and Monopoly Classic. I find the new T-Mobile TV and Qik Video Chat to be useful though so the customization is pretty minimal for a US wireless carrier and I am satisfied with what was done here.
I actually installed and am now using Launcher Pro since it lets me hide some of the extra apps I do not want to use or see on the application launcher screen.
There are a few additional apps included on the myTouch 4G, such as the DLNA-powered Screen Share application. I do not have any DLNA devices to test this with though so it might be a bit ahead of its time.
You will also find an app called Media Room and tapping on this brings you to a central hub for your media that includes music, video, FM radio, and even Slacker. This is an awesome way for an Android device to finally show it can handle and help you manage multimedia on your smartphone.
The MT4G has the new WiFi Calling utility that lets you take and receive calls via a WiFi router. Keep in mind this is different from the UMA technology found in previous devices and in the BlackBerry Bold 9700 as UMA automatically transferred calls between WiFi and the carrier connection. This WiFi Calling is simply calls made over WiFi and if you get out of range of your router the call will drop. WiFi Calling is free, but does consume plan minutes so if you do not have unlimited keep this in mind. This feature is designed to make sure you have a good signal in your home to place calls and since we already have a very good T-Mobile signal I do not see using this often.
The MT4G is the first device to launch with the WiFi Hotspot utility and it is exactly like the one on my HTC EVO 4G. This service costs just $15 per month (compared to Sprint’s $29.99 per month) and turns your MT4G into a portable WiFi hotspot, similar to a MiFi, where you can share a connection with up to five other devices.
I am a big fan of the Android operating system and use Google Maps Navigation all of the time. I like the multi-tasking, support for all the apps I like to use, customizable home screens, widget support, and so much more.
The myTouch 4G is available now on T-Mobile for $199.99 with a $50 mail-in rebate for those who want a 2-year contract or extension. The full Even More Plus (no contract) price is $449.99.
The MT4G has performed reliably since I bought it last week with the battery lasting me a full day, phone calls sounding quite good through the headset and speakerphone, and download speeds screaming even in areas where I thought the signal would be weak. This size device is just about perfect for your shirt or pants pocket and has been a pleasure to use so far.
I REALLY like the rock solid feel and functionality of the MT4G. It is one of the best Android phones I have tried and I am now trying to decide if I keep it and get rid of my EVO 4G on Sprint or return the MT4G and keep my new HTC HD7. There are too many excellent devices on T-Mobile and I need more lines 
First desktops, now networking. Saying that energy usage from networking technology could rise by as much as 6 percent per year as more computing devices before networking, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative has created a workgroup tasked with creating energy efficiency targets for companies designing routers, switches and other “connected devices.”
To be specific: the group believes it can squeeze $5 billion in electricity costs out of the sector over the next five years, the equivalent of about 51 billion kilowatt hours in energy or 38 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Many workplaces can cut their energy use by 10 percent simply through conservation measures and efficiency initiatives, according to Climate Savers.
Lorie Wigle, general manager of the Eco-Technology Program Office for Intel and president of Climate Savers, has this to say in the group’s press release:
“Climate Savers Computing continues to identify new areas for increasing energy efficiency in IT equipment. Our expansion into networking is designed to address and reduce the environmental and economic impact of the devices and systems by developing and deploying global standards that will provide enhanced design, delivery and adoption of high efficiency electronics.”
The workgroup includes Cisco, CompTIA, Emerson Network Power, Finisar, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Juniper Networks and Sony Electronics. They have been charged both with developing best practices to do this, as well as pushing for commercial awareness and adoption of higher efficiency standards. No word on timing.
No word, either, on the role that Energy Efficient Ethernet could play in the energy reduction equation. The protocol, which was just ratified, is designed to let networking routers, switches and other devices operate in a low-power consumption mode when they are not doing something useful, but in a way that doesn’t interfere with visible network performance.
Because that is, after all, what it is all about. Making sure that you reduce power, but don’t interfere from the general public’s need for instant gratification when it comes to receiving email, text messages or whatever manner of communications happens to float your boat. Get in the way of that, and you are asking for trouble. Seriously, most businesses haven’t even figured out that it is beneficial to manage the power consumption of desktops and notebooks and now we want them to mess with their network? I think it needs to be done, but it’s going to take a radical mindshift.
Several of the companies within the working group already have technologies emerging to address energy consumption. The one with which I am most familiar is Cisco EnergyWise, although its focus is more on managing the power of stuff attached to the network. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about more soon, so watch this space.
First desktops, now networking. Saying that energy usage from networking technology could rise by as much as 6 percent per year as more computing devices before networking, the Climate Savers Computing Initiative has created a workgroup tasked with creating energy efficiency targets for companies designing routers, switches and other “connected devices.”
To be specific: the group believes it can squeeze $5 billion in electricity costs out of the sector over the next five years, the equivalent of about 51 billion kilowatt hours in energy or 38 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Many workplaces can cut their energy use by 10 percent simply through conservation measures and efficiency initiatives, according to Climate Savers.
Lorie Wigle, general manager of the Eco-Technology Program Office for Intel and president of Climate Savers, has this to say in the group’s press release:
“Climate Savers Computing continues to identify new areas for increasing energy efficiency in IT equipment. Our expansion into networking is designed to address and reduce the environmental and economic impact of the devices and systems by developing and deploying global standards that will provide enhanced design, delivery and adoption of high efficiency electronics.”
The workgroup includes Cisco, CompTIA, Emerson Network Power, Finisar, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Juniper Networks and Sony Electronics. They have been charged both with developing best practices to do this, as well as pushing for commercial awareness and adoption of higher efficiency standards. No word on timing.
No word, either, on the role that Energy Efficient Ethernet could play in the energy reduction equation. The protocol, which was just ratified, is designed to let networking routers, switches and other devices operate in a low-power consumption mode when they are not doing something useful, but in a way that doesn’t interfere with visible network performance.
Because that is, after all, what it is all about. Making sure that you reduce power, but don’t interfere from the general public’s need for instant gratification when it comes to receiving email, text messages or whatever manner of communications happens to float your boat. Get in the way of that, and you are asking for trouble. Seriously, most businesses haven’t even figured out that it is beneficial to manage the power consumption of desktops and notebooks and now we want them to mess with their network? I think it needs to be done, but it’s going to take a radical mindshift.
Several of the companies within the working group already have technologies emerging to address energy consumption. The one with which I am most familiar is Cisco EnergyWise, although its focus is more on managing the power of stuff attached to the network. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about more soon, so watch this space.
Gaming has driven the high-end PC hardware market for over a decade, but the gaming landscape is evolving at break-neck speed and the PC, once considered the apotheosis of gaming power, is fast becoming a casual gaming platform.
I used to have a saying - new game, new graphics card. I remember a time when hardware could barely keep up with the demands being placed on it by games, and I was buying new graphics cards almost as fast as I was buying games simply to keep at the cutting edge. This furious pressure on hardware came to a head with the hit first-person shooter Crysis. Here was a game that you could throw all the available high-end hardware at it, and it would still laugh at you. If memory serves me right, it took about a year before there as a graphics card powerful enough to allow you to play the game on a large screen with all the dials and sliders turned up to the max.
But …
As you can imagine, creating and releasing a game that no PC could play to the max (and that many PCs - even quite powerful mainstream systems couldn’t play at all) isn’t a recipe for commercial success. Hardcore gamers loved it because, well, we like tinkering ad spending money on hardware, but regular gamers found it frustrating.
But things don’t stand still.
For all the talk of Apple saving newspaper and magazine publishers with the iPad, Amazon may be the one to actually give the struggling print media industry a lift.
Late Monday, Amazon announced a new revenue split for publishers as long as they make their periodicals available on the e-commerce giant’s apps. The revenue split—70 percent for publishers—is a nice increase from the previous terms, which varied but were roughly 30 percent or so.
That 70 percent carrot is available to publishers if customers can read a periodical on all Kindle devices and apps. And customers can read a title in all geographies where the publisher has rights.
Add it up and you have a nice carrot to entice publishers to put their titles on Kindle’s cloud. In addition, Amazon launched a new publishing tool that makes it easier to add newspapers and magazines to the Kindle Store.
So why is this a big deal? Amazon’s Kindle effort isn’t about the device. It’s about the store, the selection and the portability of content.
Amazon’s format may be proprietary, but the key point is that the Kindle is across multiple devices. With the new revenue split, a newspaper, say the New York Times, can sell its content on the Kindle store online and then make it available via Amazon’s app on Android devices, the iPad, the BlackBerry and a Windows Phone 7 smartphone.
For publishers, Amazon’s Kindle split may be a nice excuse to get off the app merry-go-round. Amazon gets selection for sure, but publishers may have a nice way to write once and push content out everywhere. There are plenty of folks who buy from the Kindle store, but don’t actually have the e-reading device. Reaching that audience in a streamlined way can be a boon to publishers.
