Archive for the ‘Tech’ Category
Solar start-up squeezes more juice from silicon cells
September 14th, 2009 | 
Author: 1366 Technologies, a spinoff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it can produce a very efficient solar cell from silicon which will be in the market in two years.
The Lexington, Mass.-based company on Monday plans to disclose the details of its Self-Aligned Cell (SAC) architecture, a set of technologies it has developed to convert 18 percent of sunlight to electricity with polysilicon, the most common solar cell material. Engineers forecast that they will be able to hit 19 percent efficiency in the next nine months without adding significant cost to existing processes, said Ely Sachs, chief technology officer.
Full Story :
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10350957-54.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Heads up Apple, the Intel Netbook is unstoppable
Friday night at a Best Buy in Southern California. Maybe not the hippest place to be but some interesting dynamics were at work.
HP ‘Mini’ promo: more than a few of the newer Netbooks are not low quality
(Credit: Hewlett-Packard)
A typical flow of people passed through the laptop section in the 20 minutes I was there. Towards the end, all of the remaining customers (a few men and women, each) were marveling at all the cute, inexpensive laptops. Cute, inexpensive laptops to them, Netbooks to us in the media who like cut-and-dried categories.
I was mildly shocked to see these people ignore the 50 or so standard laptops behind them and focus solely on Netbooks. So, I began querying the sales guy and one of the customers. It came down to essentially two things: price and selection (surprise, surprise). Best Buy now has a large selection of Netbooks–10 or so on display. A far cry from the Best Buy display of six months ago: a single, tiny, neglected Asus Eee PC pushed into a corner.
And I visited a second Best Buy. The sales guy there gushed about Netbooks. “They’re extremely popular,” he said, adding that “almost all of my customers” just want to do e-mail and surf the Web.
That is circuitous way to get to my point. The Intel Netbook is not going away and is just getting more popular as this marketing research report indicates. Apple’s Tim Cook dissed Netbooks back in April for what seemed like acceptable reasons: cheapness equates to downmarket, shoddy products. But that Apple reasoning needs an update–the fall 2009 version: a lot of the newer Netbooks coming out now are not shoddy nor cheap feeling. (And I am hereby updating my previous pessimistic take on Netbooks too per this post.)
People like cute, light, and cheap–especially in a laptop. This sentiment won’t be overcome, as Intel believes, by the emerging ultrathin laptop category, which ranges from about $500 to $1,000 (formerly called CULV or consumer ultra-low-voltage). Certainly not this year. Ultrathins are not different enough in appearance from a standard laptop and not cheap enough. (And recent reports indicate that the ultrathin category is not taking off as expected.)
Intel will never admit in a thousand years that it has created a Frankenstein monster of sorts. Intel will of course take credit (which it should) for the creation of a new category of computing devices but my sense is that the company is not head over heels about the Netbook business model–and this is also a reason for Apple’s very conscious decision not to make a Netbook. And, as many people are predicting, its reason for pursuing a more upscale tablet-like touch device.
Best Buy has a large Netbook selection
(Credit: Best Buy)
Intel’s sales chief Sean Maloney has intimated in the past that Netbooks are not huge money makers. Speaking about the expected emergence of the ultrathin laptop category back in May he said that this is “an opportunity for upsell. We don’t need to give this stuff away. The industry doesn’t need to give this stuff away. We can reach new price points and we can also get paid for it.”
But there is just too much marketing momentum now behind Netbooks at large PC makers–and in retail. Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Acer all are pushing Netbooks. And in Japan, easily one the largest PC markets in the world, the Netbook is a hit–despite initial resistance from Japanese PC makers–for all of the same reasons cited above: small, light, inexpensive–and add fashionable. Major Japanese tech Web sites (such as ASCII) and large retailers (like Yodobashi Camera) have a significant Netbook focus now because that’s what readers and consumers are demanding.
And I just don’t think performance is that much of an issue for many consumers. Some will of course return a Netbook because their expectations were too high (I heard this from a sales person at Frys Electronics) but a lot of people across all consumer segments (kids, students, business people) will continue to buy these things by the boatload (unless Intel intentionally sabotages the category–which I hope Intel is savvy enough not to do.)
Apple’s products and marketing are good but not infallible. And the lack of a Netbook may come back to bite Apple at some point. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But maybe next year. One of the Best Buy customers eying a Netbook made a comment that was a powerful counterpoint to all the Apple Mac-PC ads. To paraphrase: “You have to pay an arm and a leg for Apple (pointing to the Apple corner), I’m trying to make a practical business decision here.”
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10351387-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
802.11n Wi-Fi standard finally approved
As predicted last month, the IEEE has finally approved the 802.11n high-throughput wireless LAN standard.
Finalization of the new wireless networking standard–which is capable of delivering throughput speeds up to 300 megabits per second (and even higher)–took exactly seven years from the day it was conceived, or six years from the first draft version. The standard has been through a dozen or so draft versions.
News of the ratification broke via a blog post displaying an e-mail sent by Bruce Kraemer, longtime chairman of the 802.11n Task Group, to task group members. There has been no public announcement yet. Update 5:49 p.m. PDT: A press release has been issued.
(The 802.11n Task Group is part of the 802.11 Working Group, which oversees WLAN (wireless local-area network) standards. Task group members include the majority of Wi-Fi chipmakers, software developers, and equipment OEM vendors. Meru Networks, one of the members, posted the blog that broke the news.)
It’s likely, however, that final approval of the standard will be publicly announced by September 15, the date when Meru Networks puts on a public Webcast to provide answers about the ratification.
According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, the group that tests and certifies wireless products to ensure their interoperability, all existing Wi-Fi Certified Draft N wireless products will still work with the final standard.
802.11n offers much higher speeds than the previous, already-ratified 802.11g, which caps at only 54Mbps. Due to the compelling higher speed, most wireless vendors haven been offering 802.11n-based (also known as Wireless-N) products during the past six years and calling them Draft N products. Now the Draft is no more.
According to the Wi-Fi Alliance, most, if not all, of the existing equipment can be upgraded to the final specification via a firmware update. Finally, all future wireless networking products will be compatible with today’s products that have been Wi-Fi-certified.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10351215-94.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in Communication, Entertainment, Internet, Tech, wireless | 
Tags: 802.11n, IEEE, wireless Lan | 
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Microsoft sets up open-source foundation
Microsoft has created the nonprofit CodePlex Foundation to target increased communication between open-source communities and software companies.
Citing an under-representation of commercial software companies and their employees in open source, the CodePlex Foundation aims to work with particular projects to bridge the gap between the open-source and commercial worlds.
The Redmond giant has contributed $1 million to the foundation and has filled out its board and advisory panel with many Microsoft staffers, including Sam Ramji, who is leaving Microsoft as its open source point man but is also becoming CodePlex Foundation’s interim president.
Unlike other open-source foundations, such as the Mozilla Foundation and GNOME Foundation, the Foundation said on its Web site that it intends to address the full spectrum of software projects.
This is an unexpected and interesting move from Redmond. Don’t think that this is completely like other open-source foundations that you may be used to, though.
Take this line from the Codeplex Foundation FAQ: “We wanted a foundation that addresses a full spectrum of software projects, and does so with the licensing and intellectual property needs of commercial software companies in mind.”
Add to this that the About page states that companies will contribute code, not patents, and that is what I think will stop the existing open-source community from going anywhere near the CodePlex Foundation.
I can’t see any patent-encumbered CodePlex project being accepted into, or contributing code into, any large existing open-source project while still having the patent specter looming overhead–it’s something that the open-source community has tried to avoid whenever possible.
But this is probably not that audience that the Foundation is aiming for–it’s more likely to target purely Microsoft companies/developers and attempt to get them to open up a little. Allowing these companies to keep their patents will make it easier for them to engage in the Microsoft ecosystem but not in the wider open source world.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10350671-75.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Posted in Microsoft, Open source, open source software, software, Tech |
Tags: CodePlex, Microsoft, Open source |
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Peripherals that changed gaming
This week marks the latest release in the Rock Band series (see our hands-on). It features one of the biggest names in music–The Beatles. It also features pack-in instruments that continue to look more and more like their real-life counterparts.
Rock Band was definitely not the first video game to necessitate special hardware, nor will it be the last. Below we’ve put together a list of some of the most innovative peripherals and hardware that have helped change the way we play games. Some went on to become big, while others failed or were martyrs to future incarnations that proved successful.
In creating this roundup, one thing became clear: Nintendo’s made great efforts to bring new ideas to the table every few years. And in that process, the Wii has proven to be one of the company’s great successes. But there were also failures along the way. Those, along with winners from Nintendo’s competitors and third parties, are all chronicled.
Disclaimer: This list is, of course, neither completely comprehensive nor as far reaching as it could be, but (we think) it does a pretty good job at painting a picture of how far gaming peripherals have come. Feel free to add your own favorites, or ones we missed in the comments.
