Skype Now Available for PSP Slim & Lite

Talk on Skype through the new PlayStation Portable

Making good on a promise made earlier this month, Skype is finally available on the PlayStation Portable through the latest system software update. Users interested in adding Skype and other latest features for the PSP will have to perform a network update to obtain the 3.90 firmware.

The new Skype feature is only available for owners of the slimmer, lighter PSP-2000 model. The original PSP-1000 model is unable to run Skype due to insufficient RAM specifications.

PSP-2000 owners will be able to use all the main features of the Skype software, such as free voice calls between Skype users, calls to phones using SkypeOut and receiving calls with SkypeIn.

Those already with Skype accounts will be able to access their existing contact lists, as well as add new contacts using the PSP’s interface. New Skype users will also be able to sign up for the service directly on the PSP.

The only other change to firmware 3.90 is added support for PlayStation Network titles. Full details and a download link to the update may be found at the official site

info:dailytech

Yahoo Cuts 1,000 Jobs as Profits Fall 23%

Making choice cuts, Yahoo struggles to stay afloat amidst plummeting profits


Yahoo, despite owning the most visited set of properties on the Internet, has been forced to make big changes to deal with losing ground to its hungry competitors like Google. Yesterday, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang confirmed fears with an announcement that profit had significantly dipped from the previous year.

Yahoo experienced profit dips for several quarters, and now has another to add to the list. The fourth quarter saw profit fall to $206 million USD, down from $269 million USD from the previous year, a drop of approximately 23.5%. This comes despite revenue increasing $113 million USD to a total of $1.83 billion USD.

Profit for the year sunk to $660 million USD, from $751 million USD only a year ago. Revenue increased over the year, but could not help the sinking profit margin.

The end result is that Yahoo will lay off approximately 7% of its workforce, trimming 1,000 of its 14,300 jobs.


more info:dailytech

Sony Develops Smaller, Cheaper Blu-ray Disc Laser Unit

New 3mm laser helps pave way for more compact, 9.5mm
In the spirit of continuous improvement, Sony Corporation announced on Thursday a new design of the blue-violet laser unit that measures just 3mm thick. The laser unit is a crucial component of Blu-ray Disc drives and players.
Developed in part with Nichia Corporation, the new blue-violet laser is now small enough for practical integration of Blu-ray Disc playback and record functions into mobile applications, such as laptop computers and in-car entertainment systems. Sony said that its less-than 3mm thick laser unit will enable Blu-ray Disc drives measuring in 9.5mm thickness.
Besides improvement in packaging, the new laser unit also features more stable reading of dual-layer media and new reading capabilities, such as the ability to read organic media.

info:dailytech

Google: Wiping out Evil, One Negative Political Campaign at a Time

Google extends "do no evil" into the 2008 election campaign

Google's open policy of "Don't be evil," may get one of its first tests in the 2008 campaign with online advertisements through its AdWords network.

The political mudsling and personal attacks against one candidate by another seem to get worse each year. Politicians and their campaign managers know that one of the best and easiest ways to reach potential voters is online. One of the most effective forms of online advertisement is Google AdWords.

Google recently laid down the law when it comes to political ads placed on its massive ad network. Peter Greenberger from the Google Elections and Issue Advocacy Team posted the policy for political ads on the Google Public Policy Blog.

Google says it will accept any political ad from any candidate regardless of the political views they represent. The caveat is that the ads must meet Google Editorial guidelines and Google can terminate ad campaigns at any time as usual.

Where Google steps in to limit the political mudslinging from candidates is in its policy of no attacks on an individual’s personal life. Google says:

Stating disagreement with or campaigning against a candidate for public office, a political party, or public administration is generally permissible. However, political ads must not include accusations or attacks relating to an individual's personal life, nor can they advocate against a protected group. So, "Crime rates are up under Police Commissioner Gordon" is okay, but "Police Commissioner Gordon had an affair" is not.


info:dailytech

Greenpeace Gives Macbook Air "B-"

While getting better, Greenpeace feels Apple has a long way to goApple Inc. founder and CEO Steve Jobs is a self-proclaimed environmentalist and experiencer of nature. He has a warm relationship with famed Nobel-prize-winning environmental activist and former Vice President Al Gore, and has always been labeled as overly environmentally oriented by his critics. Still, Apple Inc.'s processes rely on conventional cost-effective, but sometimes mildly toxic, solutions found in much of the rest of the industry. This has led to harsh words between Jobs and environmental activists, such as Greenpeace. At last Macworld Expo Greenpeace protesters disrupted the Apple-loving festivities with a vocal rally against the company's production logistics. This led to Jobs sardonically remarking that the activists should, "get out of the computer business [and] go save some whales."Apple subsequently ejected Greenpeace from the Macworld Expo grounds.Greenpeace lost no love with Apple when it late last year slammed them with a report claiming their iPhone and iPod lines were "toxic". Apple predictably fired back, firmly denying that its products were harmful.This year's Macworld Expo showcased a possible cooling of tensions between Apple and Greenpeace. For a change, there were no Greenpeace demonstrators to be seen, and Jobs for the first time focused on environmental specs in his keynote address. The keynote's primary focus is in Apple's laptop market "killer-app," the Macbook Air, one of the world's thinnest laptop designs. When presenting the Macbook, Jobs noted that the thin aluminum casing is not only good looking, but also fully recyclable, with aluminum being one of the most easy to recycle materials.He went on to proudly announce that the Air will sport the company's first mercury and arsenic free display and all Apple circuit boards (which due to the form factor are the majority of components) will be free of brominated flame retardants (BFRs) and poly-vinyl chloride (PVC). The use of BFRs and PVC are still relatively abundant in the consumer electronics industry, but their use was among the factors that Greenpeace ripped Apple's iPhone on. PVC is a plastic used for casings and moldings, while BFRs are used as a flame retardant to protect circuit boards from fires upon overheating. Several major manufacturers had already heeded environmental concerns and began removing these substances from their manufacturing processes.
info dailytech

Microsoft forces IE7 onto business customers

Been avoiding deploying IE7 in your business environment? Well, if you're a WSUS user, Microsoft is about to force you into compliance.
On October 4th 2007, Microsoft released an Internet Explorer 7 installation packaged which contained no WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) anti-piracy checks. Known as the “Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability Update”, at the time it was only made available via Microsoft Downloads, but on February 12th it will be pushed out to corporate customers via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS).
Businesses customers who have enabled automatic approvals of Update Rollup packages within WSUS will find their distribution servers pumping out IE7 to all connected clients.
This particular version of IE7 has a number of features automatically enabled, such as the menu bar and the “first run” experience, where users are prompted to choose a search provider, phishing options and so on.
While the first run experience is relatively harmless on a home PC, I can testify that it’s an absolute pain in a corporate environment. Users often don’t know which options to select and if you’re running a proxy server or firewall with user restrictions, or users have restricted rights to the machine, it’s a whole world of pain. Additionally, the IE7 installer requires user interaction, makes any Windows XP machine run like an absolute dog (for a short period), takes up quite a lot of local bandwidth – especially when it’s distributing to multiple users, and also requires even more security patches post installation.
If you want to update your users to IE7, either use a scripted installation package or build into an SOE – don’t use WSUS.
So what are the options for opting out of this update? Not much, as it happens. WSUS admins who don’t want the update to be automatically approved simply have to disable automatic approvals (as detailed here). You can disable automatica approvals temporarily, pick up and unapprove the update and then turn automatic approvals back on. However, if there’s a future update to the package then there’s a good chance it will slip through the cracks.
Although it’s slightly time-consuming, I make sure that automatic approval is disabled on my WSUS systems. Apart from having the luxury of checking what’s coming through, you can also reject updates not appropriate for your environment, such as those for Itanium platforms. This has the advantage of avoiding downloading unnecessary files and chewing up expensive bandwidth.
On a slightly friendlier note, on January 22nd Microsoft will push out Silverlight – again via WSUS. This is presumably the 1.0 version of Silverlight, and again WSUS admins will have to disabled automatic approvals to avoid picking up the update. At present it isn’t clear which WSUS product classification Silverlight will appear in, although it’s probably not Update Rollup.
info:apcmag

Vista successor, Windows 7 to be released next year?

A recently-release roadmap for the next major Window release – Windows 7 – indicates that Microsoft is planning to release the new operating system in the second half of 2009, rather than the anticipated release date of some time in 2010.
There are apparently three “milestone” builds planned for 2008, and the first one – M1 – has already shipped to key partners for code validation. M1 is for the English language build only, but is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 will most likely be the last Windows operating system available in 32-bit, and given the rapid advances Windows Vista is making in the 64-bit computing market, this seems a sensible decision.M2 should ship around April/May, and M3 some time in the third quarter of 2008. There’s no available roadmap information about further milestone, beta or release candidate builds, except the updated RTM release date of H2 2009.
If Windows 7 is released in the second half of 2009, this will be three years after Windows Vista which went RTM in November 2006. A three-year major product cycle would take the Windows operating system out of cycle with Windows Server, which is on an approximate four-year cycle.
The big question is who the market will respond to an early release. The transition to Windows Vista seems to have caused a lot of angst amongst users, but I think has far more to do with moving out the Windows XP comfort zone, rather than any indication Vista’s quality or stability. In which case, perhaps a shorter product cycle from here on in will get users and businesses thinking ahead much quicker, not to mention the hardware vendors who were the major contributors to Vista’s shaky start.

info:apcmag

Seagate: Notebook Disk Sales to Overshadow Desktop Market by 2011

The number one hard drive manufacturer predicts the future of the desktop and notebook hard drive marketsThere has been a quiet battle between the desktop and notebook PC markets the last few years, a battle that will no doubt end with the mobile market taking over the desktop scene. Technological advances in computing are producing faster, more powerful components in smaller packages and manufacturing these parts are becoming cheaper due to improvements in processes.It's also no secret that the average consumer wants everything in the palm of their hands, ready to go wherever they need to go, and able to fit in the smallest of spaces while still being able to perform like their desktop counterparts. For this reason we can expect to see a decrease in desktop sales while notebook and mobile computing products are taken off the shelves more quickly.

info:dailytech

iPhone Gets Down to Business, Rumored to Deal With IBM

After making a splash in the consumer smart phone industry, Apple releases new business targeted plans for the iPhone
DailyTech recently covered the iPhone making inroads with the business community. The phone draws many business users with its flexible and attractive interface which supports many useful business applications. Despite email limitations, the fun factor of the phone converts many business users to iPhone aficionados. While Apple still has a ways to go before being the next Blackberry in terms of business customer volume, it does surprisingly well in this sector.Eager to cash in on this trend, AT&T today released a set of corporate data plans, designed to lure business users over to the iPhone. The plans do not include voice, but are designed to supplement users' voice plans with competitive rates on data.Users who currently have a voice plan, who adopt any of the plans, will get a $25/month credit. This promotion only applies to activations which occurred before March 31, 2008. The credit will last through December 31, 2008, so if you sign up for a plan in February, you can get credits for 11 months, for a grand total of $275, a sweet offer that is sure to please many.Three basic data plans exist. All included visual voicemail and unlimited domestic data (web and email). The lowest level plan is $45/month and includes 200 SMS messages. The next up is $55/month and includes 1500 messages while the top plan is $65/month and includes unlimited messages. Additional business aimed plans for data transfer are also available. For $25/month, you can get 20 MB of data transfers a month, good in 29 countries. For $60/month you get 50 MB of data transfers.Knowledgeable sources at electronics giant IBM have more potential good news for business users; IBM is allegedly set to debut an iPhone version of business e-mail client Lotus Notes at the Lotusphere conference in Orlando this week. The move is in conjunction with IBM's introduction of Lotus Symphony, a business leaning office suite, which will be released for OS X Leopard.At Macworld 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs highlighted the iPhones success. It has sold over 4 million units to date, or 20,000 phones a day, capturing by Apple's estimations approximately 20% of the U.S. smart phone market.

info:dailytech

Microsoft Offers Free Apology Token for Xbox Live Downtime

Xbox Live game "Undertow" free of charge as compensation
While Microsoft’s Xbox Live online system is generally reliable, Xbox 360 gamers found throughout the holidays less than satisfactory service. Gamers widely reported problems using Xbox Live, which Microsoft said was caused by the influx of new subscribers.
“As a result of this massive increase in usage we know that some of you experienced intermittent Xbox LIVE issues over the holiday break,” said Marc Whitten, general manager for Xbox Live, earlier this month. “While the service was not completely off-line at any given time, we are disappointed in our performance.”
Microsoft promised all Xbox Live users, both new and old, compensation for the downtime in the form of a full Xbox Live Arcade game that will be available for download free of charge.
Today, Microsoft’s Gamerscore Blog revealed that the free game available to all Silver and Gold Xbox Live members will be Undertow. Developed by Chair Entertainment, Undertow is an aquatic shooter with story driven-single player campaign, on and offline co-op, and multiplayer for 2-16 player

info:dailytech

GeForce 9600GT Benchmarked Out in the Wild

NVIDIA's upcoming 9600GT graphics card lives up to the company's performance claimsEarlier this month DailyTech reported details of the next generation of GPUs from NVIDIA -- specifically the mid-range GPU codenamed D9x. Recently, the GeForce 9600GT was spotted in the open and Chinese review site PC Online was able to put the new reference card to the test to see what it's made of.As far as the technical specifications are concerned, little has changed from our report earlier this month. The 9600GT will come factory configured with a core clock speed of 650 MHz, a unified shader clock speed of 1625 MHz, and an 1800 MHz memory clock. From the photographs it looks like 512MB of GDDR3 1000 MHz memory is connected to the GPU by way of a 256-bit bus with a memory bandwidth of 57.6 GB/s. The G94 chip will also offer 64 unified stream processors; double the number on the 8600GT and half the number on the 8800 series.
info:dailytech

Toshiba Launches HD DVD Player Fire Sale

Toshiba fights bad news with lower prices

DailyTech brought you steady coverage over the past week concerning the latest news in the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray wars. Unless you've been living under a rock, you by now already know that Warner Bros. made the decision to back Blu-ray exclusively.

The move by Warner Bros. was followed by similar actions from New Line Home Entertainment and HBO Home Video. Recent stories have even suggested that Paramount is also tossing around the idea of supporting the Blu-ray disc standard.

Toshiba apparently doesn't want to go down without a fight and is instead slashing the prices on its HD DVD players. Toshiba's second generation HD-A2 players previously dipped down to the sub-$100 mark during November -- but that was during the traditional holiday buying season and not truly indicative of regular retail pricing.
info:dailytech

New ASUS Corporate Structure Zeroes Employee Pensions

At the heart of ASUS's new corporate structure hides a little secret

Six months ago, ASUS quietly announced it would split the company into three separate entities.

An ASUS employee, speaking on conditions of anonymity, thinks change is for the better. "I think the motherboard market has reached its ceiling," he states.

ASUS management certainly feels the same. Effective immediately, the corporation is now three entities. Pegatron is the name of the new component manufacturing company. All motherboards and PC-related products are now part of this company. Unihan, a second company, will handle all chassis and sub-component manufacturing. ASUS proper, a third company, will focus entirely on notebooks and systems.info:dailytech

San Francisco Startup to Build Floating Data Centers

No word on how company plans to deal with pirates

While Sun may have pioneered the "Datacenter in a shipping container" concept some time ago with "Project Blackbox," and alternative uses for shipping containers discovered before that by enterprising architects, a San Francisco area startup company is planning on taking the concept of portable servers one step further -- by floating the loaded containers on the cargo ships from whence they came.

International Data Security (IDS) plans to open its first portion of available space at the beginning of April 2008 on a container ship docked at San Francisco Bay's Pier 50, according to Kenneth Jamaca of Silverback Migration Solutions. Standard connections for power and network will be run to the ships.

According to the company sales brochure and further information from IDS, IDS will be deploying 50 "server ships" worldwide, with 22 docked in North America. Each ship will have facilities similar to landed data centers, with additional ship-specific features such as overnight accomodations and a galley instead of a cafeteria -- and over 200,000 square feet of available server space per ship.info dailytech

Apple Upgrades iPhone to 1.1.3, Charges iPod touch Owners $20 for New Apps

For months following the release of Apple's revolutionary iPhone, the news came fast and furiously. In recent times, however, news on the iPhone has been pretty spotty at best (likely to the jubilation of many).

Steve Jobs put an end to the lull in iPhone news today with the introduction of the new 1.1.3 software update. The new update, which is available for free for all iPhone users, adds an upgraded Maps application (which can now triangulate your position using Wi-Fi or cell towers), the ability to text message multiple people at once, Web Clips support, the ability to customize the home screen, and lyrics support within iTunes.

"iPhone doesn’t stand still -- we’re making it better and better all the time," said Jobs, Apple’s fearless leader. "We’ve delighted millions of users with this revolutionary and magical product and it’s great to share these improvements with them."

iPod touch owners will be glad to know that the 1.1.3 software update is also available for them as well. Another big plus is the addition of Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes applications from the iPhone.

Users may not be glad, however, when they learn that Apple is charging $19.95 in order to download the application update (separate from the 1.1.3 firmware update). Some contend that these five features should have never been stripped from the iPod touch in the first place, but Apple is now adding in the functionality -- albeit at a price.

All currently shipping iPod touch music players will have the five new apps already installed with no bump in price.

"These amazing new mobile applications make iPod touch not only the best iPod, but the best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world," continued Jobs. "With its revolutionary touch interface and software, plus its stunning 3.5 inch screen, iPod touch is evolving into the first mainstream Wi-Fi mobile platform of the 21st century."

The 1.1.3 update for the iPhone and iPod touch can be downloaded from within iTunes. iPod touch users wishing to receive the new apps, however, will have to get through a payment screen first before proceeding with the software update.
info:dailytech

Vista Service Pack 1(RC)

Microsoft continues to put the finishing touches on s Vista Windows Service Pack 1 (SP1) and the steady stream of updates reinforces its actions. Microsoft late Wednesday night released a SP1 Release Candidate (RC) refresh to 15,000 beta testers.
Testers have two ways of downloading the update: they can download a single SP1 installation package from the Microsoft Connect website or they can download a redirection script which will allow them to download the update via Windows Update.
Unfortunately for current SP1 beta testers that simply want to jump in and upgrade to the latest build of SP1 right away, the existing SP1 installation must be uninstalled first before proceeding.
"We are still on schedule to deliver SP1 RTM in Q1 CY08," said Microsoft in a statement. "The final release date is based on quality, so we will continue to track customer and partner feedback from the beta program before setting a final date."
For testers that choose to download Windows SP1 from the Microsoft Connect website, the download will ring in at 725MB for the x64 version and 436MB for the x86 version.
Microsoft last issued a build of Vista SP1 back in early December 2007. Fortunately for non-beta testers, that version was available to the general public.

Everex CloudBook

The ASUS Eee PC has had the market to itself for the past few months when it comes to sub-$400 sub-notebooks. The two-pound Eee PC 4G comes with a 7" 800x480 widescreen display, 630Mhz Celeron M processor, 512MB of DDR2 memory, a 4GB solid-sate disk (SSD) running Xandros Linux.
The Eee PC, however, is finally getting some competition in the form of the two-pound Everex CloudBook (formerly known as the NanoBook). The CloudBook also retails for $399 and comes with better specs than ASUS' popular Eee PC.
The CloudBook features a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M ULV processor, 30GB (4200RPM) HDD, 4-in-1 media reader, two USB 2.0 ports, DVI output, a 1.3MP webcam, 4-cell battery (good for 5 hours of battery life) and the gOS V2 "Rocket" operating system. Like the Eee PC, the CloudBook has a 7" 800x480 widescreen display, 802.11g wireless and a 10/100 network port.
"The overwhelming success of our gPC desktop generated countless inquires from customers seeking additional Open Source mobile platforms," remarked Everex General Manager John Lin. "With the launch of the new CloudBook our vision remains the same: Provide mainstream users with their favorite applications wrapped in a no-compromise, low-cost, consumer friendly product."
ASUS had better get on the ball with its second generation Eee PC because Everex is definitely upping the ante with comparison to the Eee PC -- especially when it comes to storage space. The Eee PC maxes out at 8GB of storage space and that is with the $499 8G model. The Eee PC might have the advantage of faster response times with its SSD, but it’s really hard to ignore 30GB of storage space in a device of similar dimensions – even if the HDD only spins at a mere 4,200 RPM.
Everex was able to incorporate a 30GB HDD and longer battery life in a form-factor that mirrors the Eee PC (9.06" x 6.73 x 1.16" for the CloudBook vs. 8.9" x 6.3" x 1.3" for the Eee PC) -- even the weight for the two devices is exactly the same.
The first shipments of Everex CloudBooks are already on their way for sale on Wal-Mart.com. Wal-Mart.com sales will begin on January 25; however, there is no indication that Wal-Mart brick and mortar stores will carry the CloudBook.
The introduction of the CloudBook marks another missed opportunity for Microsoft to win over an expanding portion of the computer market. If the Everex CloudBook turns out to be as popular as the Eee PC (with Wal-Mart’s backing, that shouldn’t be a problem), Microsoft might find itself in the position of trying to rethink its strategy on inexpensive, lightweight operating systems for ultra-mobile devices

mcdonald comes wifi access

When it comes to fast food, McDonalds dominates the market. Likewise, Starbucks has grown to the point where you can't throw a rock without hitting someone carrying a grande Carmel Frappuccino with extra caramel or a tall Café Au Lait.
In its never-ending quest to expand its horizons and try new avenues to grow its business, McDonalds has in recent years gone directly after Starbucks with its own line of espresso coffees, iced drinks muffins and cakes. McDonalds offers the drinks and tasty treats in its slightly more "upscale" McCafe locations.
McDonalds' new line of coffees has received quite a bit of praise in recent times when compared to Starbucks offerings in taste tests -- and McDonalds' pricing not surprisingly undercuts the ever-escalating Starbucks prices.
Not content on topping Starbucks for flavor, McDonalds is now looking to tackle Starbucks when it comes to WiFi access. Coffee patrons often like to walk into Starbucks, place their notebook on a table and browse the Internet while listening to Carole King or Michael Bolton albums. Starbucks offers T-Mobile WiFi access in its 13,000 U.S. stores, but you of course have to pay to play.
McDonalds is also expanding the availability of WiFi access to its customers. McDonalds already offers WiFi access in half of its 30,000 retail locations across the country. The company has also committed to adding 14,000 more McCafe coffee bars to its restaurants -- all will feature WiFi access.
In an effort to further boost the appeal of its McCafe locations and WiFi access, McDonalds and Sony have partnered up to offer free WiFi service to Mylo COM-2 users in 9,000 McDonalds locations.
The expanded availability of WiFi access in McDonalds is surely a welcome addition, but it'd be interesting to see how many people actually want to sit in a McDonalds for an extended period of time.
info:dailytech