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OCAU News |
Windows 7 build 7000 has apparently slaughtered both Windows XP and Vista in real word performance tests. The results are definitely positive for Windows 7, but don't walk away with the idea that installing Windows 7 on your current PC will make it fly. This is beta code; things will definitely change by the final release. The changes will be probably for the better, mind you, but it's still possible that Microsoft might need to make tradeoffs somewhere along the way.
Oversupply and the global financial crisis have had a severe impact on the Flash Memory industry and the outlook isn’t about to get any better. Taipei-based DRAMeXchange has lowered its outlook for 2009 NAND Flash bit growth from 108.2 percent to 81 percent. The market intelligence company cites weakened demand for flash memory as the source, stemming from a decrease in forecast demand for flash memory-based consumer devices in 2009.
According to a story on The Inquirer, Nvidia is allegedly trying to sell old products under a new name. A FEW MONTHS AGO, we told you that Nvidia had a plan to flog its parts that people normally wouldn't buy at a premium. How? By renaming them to catch the stupid unaware. Thanks to reader Ray, we have the first evidence of this, so these retreads will likely be 'out' at CES. The official proof comes in a PDF from the German retailer Mediamarkt, here. As you can see, they are listing a GeForce G100, GT120, and GT130. We guess the green goblin didn't have the guts to say 8800GS, er... 9600GSO and 9500GT anymore. Luckily Nvidia didn't forget the first rule of marketing: if your products suck, spin.
Rumour time. Apparently Microsoft is about to cut 17 percent or 15,000 from its workforce worldwide. The latest to report on the possibility of layoffs at the software giant is the blog Fudzilla, which puts the number of job cuts at 15,000, or nearly 17 percent of Microsoft's worldwide operations. The January 15 date is a week before Microsoft's second-quarter earnings report, scheduled for January 22.
Wikipedia passes $6 million donation goal. Mere days after Wikipedia put up its new and improved plea for donations, the company has already met its goal of raising $6 million. The campaign, headed up by Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, asked users to dig deep into their pockets and couch cushions to help the Wikimedia Foundation keep the site running.
US music sales are up by 10.5 percent. The music industry finished 2008 with positive sales growth numbers overall, but the grim CD death march continues apace. Overall unit purchases of music in the US increased by 10.5 percent year-over-year since 2007, according to new data released by Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen BDS, and Nielsen RingScan, but the growth is coming completely from downloads—and from vinyl.
IPv4 address stockpile figures show that in 2008 we have seen nearly 200million new IP addresses served, meaning that we are getting ever so closers to the full capacity (currently at 75%) of IPv4 addresses. Currently there are only 0.027% of IPv6 address in use. We started 2008 with 1,122.85 million unused addresses left and we ended it with 925.58 million. So the world used up 197.27 million IPv4 addresses in 2008, increasing use of the total address space from 69.7 percent a year ago to 75.3 percent now.
Whilst Sony's PS3 new virtual Home service isn't a huge hit with the gaming community, Ernst & Young is apparently spear-heading an initiative to test out Sony's social community service for live digital meetings. Why meet in a virtual space? The tests are being conducted as part of a green-minded project being pushed by Dr. Nipan Maniar and Manish Malik from the UK's Portsmouth University. The intent of the project is to reduce costs and the carbon footprint of in-person meetings for big, international companies.
Apple has filed a patent application for an iPhone Glove. Apple's patent application 20090000010 (hat tip to AppleInsider), filed on June 28, 2007 and published January 1, 2009, describes "a glove system for operating an electronic device." Apple describes a glove that has both an inner liner and an outer shell, and the shell "may include at least one aperture through which the inner liner may extend to operate the input mechanism of an electronic device." In other words, Apple's working on some kind of fancy system for exposing one's fingertips through a glove to create the electrical feedback that the iPhone's capacitive touchscreen needs to operate.
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