Technology News

Tech Stocks: Tech stocks take tentative steps forward

Stocks in the tech group struggle near the close to turn back the day’s losses.

Facebook could sue The Daily Mail newspaper over bogus sex pest claims?

The Web’s most popular social networking site could be about to go head-to-head with one of the most popular newspapers in Britain. The Daily Mail falsely claimed that a young girl on Facebook was subject to predatory behavior by older men, when in fact it was another social networking site altogether.
The Daily Mail is known [...]

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1. Storm Worm e-mail virus reaches record proportions
2. British teen becomes first jailed cyberbully for Facebook threat
3. Yahoo Mail now lets you send text messages to mobile phones

JooJoo tablet gets a facelift before first shipments

It seems that Fusion Garage is taking the extra time before its first JooJoo tablets ship to make some upgrades to the operating system in both functionality and looks.
The JooJoo has had a long, torrid story leading up to its release.  It started off life as the CrunchPad, a tablet device that TechCrunch wanted to [...]

Related posts:

1. JooJoo tablet misses ship date, no update as to a new one
2. JooJoo goes into production despite TechCrunch legal action, iPad threat
3. Fusion Garage rebrands the CrunchPad as the JooJoo and defends itself

Rumor: iPhone OS 4.0 to support multitasking

If the rumors are true, the fourth version of the iPhone operating system could finally bring support for multitasking.
One of the biggest criticisms of the operating system (OS) that runs the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad is that it doesn’t offer any multitasking capabilities.  This is to say that if you want to listen to [...]

Related posts:

1. Rumor: Microsoft courting iPhone developers to work on Zune HD
2. Android leapfrogs past iPhone with Flash support
3. Rumor: AT&T may lose iPhone exclusivity this week

After Hours: NatSemi, videogames in after-hours sights

Earnings reports from National Semiconductor Corp. and Aeropostale Inc., as well as the latest figures on videogame sales are expected to highlight after-hours trading Thursday.

Intel Previews New ‘Gulftown’ Six-Core Processor

Intel’s first 32-nanometer, six-core processor is ready for prime time. It’s clunky moniker aside, the chip called the Core i7-980X Extreme edition will offer some serious artillery for gamers and heavy multimedia users looking for a faster processor.

The chip is based on Intel’s platform codenamed “Gulftown” and will include features that improve on computing speed and power efficiency.

Intel launched the first of the Core i7 chips in November 2008. The family of Core i7 chips will be almost four to six times faster than the earlier platform, says Intel.

The first of the Core i7 chips were based on the 45-nm circuitry, a step ahead from the previous 65-nm generation. The latest chip takes it to the next level with a 32-nm process so Intel can pack in more computing power and manufacture the CPUs more cheaply.

The new Core i7 chips are based on a newly designed Intel microarchitecture called Nehalem, which includes major design changes in areas such as power management and integrated memory control.

The chips use “hyperthreading” technology, which gives the chips the ability to execute 12 threads simultaneously on six processing cores, greatly increasing their speed.

The Core i7-980X chip will be available at the same price as the i7-975 chip released last year. The i7-975 chip can simultaneously process eight threads on four cores.Intel hasn’t said exactly when we will see the latest chips in high-end gaming desktops though it is expected to be in the next few weeks.

See Also:

• Intel Shows 48-Core Processor for Research
• Intel Launches New Desktop Processor
• A Quick Guide to Intel’s Chips, From Arrandale to Yorkfield
• Intel’s New Convertible Classmate PC Doubles as E-Reader

Photo: Core i7 chip/Intel

Movers & Shakers: Thursday’s biggest gaining and declining stocks

Among the companies whose stocks were seeing active trading on Thursday were Huntington Bancshares, FuelCell, Gymboree and Men’s Wearhouse.

Carlos Slim Helu dethrones Bill Gates as world’s richest

Some are surprised, but they shouldn’t be. Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, 70, has taken the title of the “World’s Richest Man” from Bill Gates, 54, on the Forbes Billionaire List.

Review: Jawbone Icon adds much, but omits A2DP

San Jose Technology Examiner rates this: The Jawbone series has always been touted as the best, hands-down, when it came to noise-cancellation. However, it’s also been a pain to wear, at least through the first versions.

It’s Not Easy to Make a Tablet, Stantum Slate PC Proves

The Slate PC, from French multi-touch company Stantum, is essentially a Dell Inspiron Mini 10 netbook with the keyboard chopped off and a multi-touch screen grafted on. It runs Windows 7. It is also proof that a desktop OS should never be forced onto a tablet computer.

I tested an early, proof-of-concept model. But even in this early version, you can tell that Stantum is headed down the wrong path.

The first thing you notice is the odd section missing from the long edge, just where the hinge would be on a normal netbook. This is the top edge of the battery, and the gap is indeed the gap left by the old flip-open screen. In fact, the computer is the base of the donor Dell with the touch-screen fitted where the keyboard would be. Cheap, but inelegant.

Then you fire it up. I handed it off to the Lady, as we were eating breakfast in bed (she has to deal with gadgets before morning coffee. It’s a part of the glamorous gadget lifestyle). First she was flipping it around and around: On boot, if you hold the machine label-up, the boot screen is upside down. Of course, you turn it, but then the display flips again.

Once it was actually on, she asked me “Are you supposed to hold it like this?”, while holding like it a book. “It’s too heavy. Here, take it back.”

And it is heavy, at a touch over 1kg, or 2.2 pounds. By comparison, the heaviest iPad will be 0.73kg, or 1.6 pounds. It is over an inch thick, too, or double the depth of the iPad.

But the real problem comes in use. Windows 7 is a desktop OS, built with small buttons and scrollbars that are designed for the pixel-accurate tip of a mouse pointer, not a fat finger. It is so frustrating to control that I started using the pen of my Wacom tablet instead. I then gave up on that and plugged in a mouse and keyboard, at least for the initial setup of Wi-Fi passwords and the like.

To be fair, this is a proof-of-concept, so some of the design oddities may be smoothed over in the future. And the included test applications — which are actually designed for multi-touch use — work fine. They’re simple games and drawing programs, but they show that the resistive touch-screen actually works and is responsive.

The real problem here is Windows 7. And lest you think that I’m singling out Microsoft, it would be equally bad with OS X. These operating systems just aren’t made for tablets.

How bad is it? The on-screen keyboard, for one, needs to be popped up manually when you need it (usually –- sometimes it is automatic). Once it appears, the keyboard is almost impossible to type on. It’s actually a lot harder to use than the iPhone’s tiny QWERTY. And what if you want to use the browser in full-screen mode, say to use the new Google Reader Play news reader? Good luck with that. You can enter full-screen mode just fine, with the instruction to hit F11 to get back to the normal view. The problem? Once you’re in full-screen mode, there is no F11, and there’s no other way back. You have to either plug in a keyboard or yank the battery to restart.

This might explain why Bill Gates said that the iPad could do with “voice, the pen and a real keyboard.”

The hardware is also rather poor. I’m not sure why, but it runs a lot slower than my hackintoshed MSI Wind, a machine over a year old. The Dell has trouble with video (stuttery in YouTube and crashy in the media player) and even flipping between the one or two open applications is slow. Again, this isn’t the fault of the Stantum mod, but if you’re going to send out a test machine, better to send one that works.

These aren’t yet for sale, although hand-made prototypes can be ordered for around ,000. As the Dell it is based on costs 0, that seems like a steep markup for the mere addition of a touch-screen and a few simple apps.

The slate market isn’t going to move anywhere without custom designed software. Until we get proper Chrome OS netbooks or Android-based tablets, Apple is about the only company doing custom tablet software right now.

To finish, I’ll leave you with a word from the Lady. I told her I was writing this review today. She said “Good. The sooner you review it, the sooner you can send it back.”

Slate PC [Stantum]

Photo: Charlie Sorrel