Facebook Plays Nice

By Taylor Buley

The social network reaches out to members to help create a privacy policy.

After receiving enormous criticism for changing its terms of service policy recently, Facebook is reaching out to members to help it run the company.
“Beginning today, we are giving you a greater opportunity to voice your opinion over how Facebook is governed,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post Thursday.

As part of its new plan, the social network released a set of documents that include a statement of principles and the rights and responsibilities of Facebook and its users.

Going forward, Zuckerberg says Facebook will form a counsel to oversee revisions to these documents and will alert users about any changes.

In a conference call, Zuckerberg called Facebook’s move “unprecedented,” but said the sense of ownership displayed by its members warrants a drastic change to operating procedure. He said the company has come to learn that an open process is the only way to move forward with policy changes.

“When we amend the document, or propose an amendment, we’re going to notify anyone on Facebook who wants to be notified,” Zuckerberg said “In the event where a certain threshold of people comment, then there’s going to be a vote. Openness and transparency isn’t just an end state; it’s also a process.”

Facebook’s process change acknowledges the ongoing role users have asserted for themselves and formalizes a townhall-like process that members have advocated in the past. Prior efforts to amend Facebook policy followed the introduction of its Beacon service and changes to the way it broadcasts user activity via news feeds.

Facebook revised it terms of service policy on Feb. 4, but the change sparked such a heated privacy discussion on blogs and other sites that the company reverted back to its original policy a week later.

Source : Forbes.com

The Presidential Portrait Goes Digital

Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

Barack Obama's election to U.S. president has already brought a string of firsts, and on Wednesday there came another. The official presidential portrait was shot on a digital camera for the first time.

The picture was taken by the White House's new official photographer, Pete Souza, and issued by The Office of the President Elect through its Web site. It was taken on Tuesday evening at 5:38 p.m. using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, according to the metadata embedded in the image file.

The switch to digital isn't a surprise. In the eight years since George W. Bush became U.S. president, the digital camera market has progressed in leaps and bounds.

In early 2001, Nikon's D1 was typical of the digital SLR cameras professionals were using. The 2.6-megapixel camera debuted in 1999 and cost about US$5,000 for the body alone. In contrast, the EOS 5D used for Obama's portrait has a 12.8-megapixel resolution and costs about $2,000.

Consumer-class digital cameras have progressed at a similar pace, with competition so intense among vendors that low-end digital SLRs are now within the grasp of many shoppers.

AMD Plans Dual-core Neo Chips Later This Year

Agam Shah, IDG News Service

Advanced Micro Devices said Wednesday that it will release dual-core Neo processors in the second half of this year.

The dual-core Neo chips will be part of the Congo platform, which will deliver better performance and integrated graphics capabilities to ultraportable laptops, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. He couldn't provide an exact release date for the Neo chips.

The first single-core Neo processor was announced by the company last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. The chip was part of the new Yukon platform, which includes a chipset and ATI graphics controllers.

Neo chips are power-efficient processors designed for sub-notebooks that can provide a full PC experience, according to AMD. AMD fits Neo into a new category of PCs it calls "ultrathin" laptops, which falls between the ultraportable and netbook laptop segments. Ultraportables are too expensive, while netbooks, though cheap, provide a limited PC experience, AMD contends.

The Neo chip consumes a maximum of 15 watts and AMD plans to develop more chips in the same cost and power profile in the future, said Randy Allen, senior vice president of the computing solutions group at AMD. Users can expect to see ever-increasing performance and improved battery life as AMD develops future chips and power management features.

AMD is not focusing on reducing the power consumption of its chips for netbooks, which are small, low-power laptops designed to enable basic PC applications like Web surfing and productivity software.

Netbooks are attractive for certain uses -- like in the kitchen or living room for Internet browsing -- but won't be part of mainstream computing market because the form factor limits display and keyboard size as well as processor performance, Allen said.

The company wants to deliver chips and platforms that provide an effective combination of graphics, processor and chipset for a balanced computing performance, Allen said. The chips might use more power than chips used in netbooks like Intel's Atom processor, but they will deliver a full PC experience.

AMD could dabble in what it calls the "higher-end netbook" space with Neo chips, which use higher-power chips that could degrade the battery life of netbooks, but deliver better overall performance.

Higher-end netbooks could blur the lines between netbooks and ultraportables as thin and light laptops, and AMD prefers to remain at the crosshairs of the segments, Allen said.

"What's going to happen over time is you'll see the emergence of platforms ... like the ultraportable. I think that's going to become a more dominant part of the market. I think it's going to suppress the growth rates on the netbook because more and more people will figure out 'I'm willing to spend $699 to get [an ultraportable] rather a couple of hundred dollars less to get a netbook.

source : pcworld.com

GeForce 3D Vision: Gaming Goes Stereo

By Chris Angelini

When you read a review of AMD’s latest graphics card or Intel’s latest CPU, there’s a fair chance you want to know, first and foremost, how that product performs. At least, that’s why we run the most exhaustive battery of tests possible. You take those performance figures and factor in pricing, availability, and the competition to arrive at a decision: is this worth my money or not?

Other products are evaluated far more subjectively, though. Mice, keyboards, remotes—for many of those devices, you consider look, feel, interface, and setup. It’s much more difficult to lay down a decisive judgment on an item that might just feel better in your hand than it does in mine. Hence, the challenge in reviewing Nvidia’s new GeForce 3D Vision glasses, which incite very personal opinions, depending on who wears them.

If you’ve been around long enough, then you probably remember Elsa’s 3D Revelator glasses circa 1999. The shades came bundled with Elsa’s Erazor cards, worked with DirectX games, and required a minimum 100 Hz refresh rate. Naturally, that meant you were using a CRT display. Once the world started shifting to lcd running 60 Hz, the active technology Elsa used simply wouldn’t work—the refresh rate in each eye was too low for flicker-free game play.

Besides, while the 3D glasses were cool in concept—and indeed looked impressive in a number of games—there were some downsides. First of all, the Nvidia TNT2 cards of the day took serious performance hits when they were used for stereo viewing. Back then, 800×600 was about all you could ask for. There were also a handful of driver settings that needed to be configured, depending on the game you were playing. Finally, eyestrain became a problem over time. We’re so used to playing 3D games on a 2D panel, that adding depth takes some getting used to. Nevertheless, because the Revelators were part of a hardware bundle, it didn’t hurt to try them out.

Now, LCD panel technology has come far enough along that the idea of active stereoscopic glasses is once again viable, and Nvidia is out to show that a lot can happen in 10 years. Its GeForce 3D Vision glasses were first showcased at NVISION in the fall of 2008. And they’re now ready for retail (the company can’t yet say which brick and mortar will carry them, but we’re going to go out on a limb and guess Best Buy will have them on offer).

Having played with Nvidia’s new shades for the past several days, it’s safe to say that they’ll fundamentally change the way you experience 3D. However, we’re not quite ready to call the technology bullet-proof. Onward for more about what you’ll need in order to run a set of 3D Visions and what you can expect to see with the setup purring.
Source : Tomshardware.com

AMD to Bring HD Gaming and Movies to Mobile Phones

Agam Shah, IDG News Service

Advanced Micro Devices CEO Dirk Meyer on Thursday said the company will deliver high-definition gaming and movies to devices like smartphones in an attempt to bring more usability and interactivity to the devices.

To deliver the content, AMD announced that it would build a supercomputer that will host the high-definition games and movies.

Technologies like HD gaming and movies will change the way content is created and how people will interact with their smartphones and PCs, Meyer said during a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. A visual experience could add more usability to the devices, Meyer said.

People will only need a Web browser on a smartphone and a decent broadband connection to access the supercomputer to instantly play games or watch Blu-ray movies, Meyer said. The supercomputer, which will be called the Fusion Render Node, will change the way games and movies are delivered to mobile devices, Meyer said.

It will deliver a petaflop of performance, matching other supercomputers and making it the "fastest graphics supercomputer" in the world, Meyer said.

The Fusion Render Node also has many inherent advantages over a supercomputer, Meyer said. It will consume a tenth of the power of a supercomputer while fitting in a room, rather than halls like some other supercomputers.

The "graphics supercomputer" is essentially a rack of high-performance desktops with ATI 4800 series graphics cards and Phenom II processors connected to each other and crunching tasks simultaneously. The GPUs and CPUs will work in a coherent fashion, but the petaflop performance is based primarily on the GPUs' floating point capabilities, said John Taylor, an AMD spokesman. The system can be expanded by adding more gaming rigs to the rack.

In an on-stage presentation, Jules Urbach, founder and CEO of Otoy, showed multiple ATI graphics cards from multiple PCs working together to deliver a first-person shooter game over a wired connection to a client device. Otoy is a software company that helps deliver graphics content from a server farm to client devices, and is working with AMD on creating the HD graphics delivery technology.

"All of a sudden we are taking one of the world's most complicated games and we're putting it in a Web page. It's huge," Urbach said.

The server will be ready by the second half of the year. "All you need is an iPhone.... [or] a laptop to use it," AMD's Taylor said.

AMD is fitting the graphics delivery technology into the cloud computing model, where programs are hosted on servers and delivered to consumers over a network. This technology is easily accessible and simple to use, Meyer said.

"Mobile computing is never going to be the same, and cloud computing really has the opportunity to open up new vistas both for the film and game industries," Meyer said.

"Now we're poised for a great leap forward in visual computing as well as mobile computing," he said.

Known for his processor innovations, Meyer did not talk about CPUs, instead trying to focus on AMD's attempts to add realism to gaming and entertainment on PCs.

"I promised I wouldn't reference Moore's Law during the presentation, and I didn't," Meyer said.

from : pcworld.com

The Ultimate Laptop to Replace a Desktop: What We Want

Danny Allen, PC World

What would the ultimate full-size laptop need to include to convince you to ditch your desktop for good? Our dual-screen laptop concept merges some of the best tech from Apple, HP, Intel, Lenovo, Toshiba, and others, along with some old-fashioned "if only" whimsy. Read on for the full parts list, and let us know what you think.

TWIN, SLIDING SCREENS: These bright, glossy-coated, OLED wide screens support hover and
HP TouchSmart PC-style multitouch input; plus full high-def. The left display slides across and closes over the right screen to pack down. Tilt and swivel adjustments are also possible. Back in the real world: Lenovo just announced its ThinkPad W700ds laptop, a desktop replacement with a 17-inch primary display, plus a 10.6-inch secondary screen.

KEYBOARD AND TOUCH SCREEN: An Optimus Maximus-style keyboard (each key has programmable OLED displays; pictured) is paired with an Apple-inspired full-width, multitouch, pressure-sensitive glass screen for the touchpad, widgets, and more. The keyboard and screen can also be removed to sit on your desk or even swap positions.

INSIDE: Intel's mobile Core i7 CPUs should hit in early 2009; its next-gen "Calpella" platform is expected by year's end.

DUAL WEBCAMS: Able to support multiparty, HD-capable video chat, and optimized for low-light situations.

SPEAKERS: Harman/Kardon stereo speakers with underside subwoofer--like those found in Toshiba's Qosmio notebooks. We'd also take the SLI graphics, HDMI port and S/PDIF interface from recent Qosmio models, such as the X305.

BLU-RAY SLOT DRIVE: Able to burn BD-R and BD-RE discs at 8X;supports DVD±RW, too.

source : Pc world.com

Intel Core i7 Desktops Dominate PC Charts

Danny Allen, PC World

ntel's new quad-core Core i7 processors were only launched in late November, but desktop systems featuring the CPUs--from the likes of Dell, Falcon Northwest, Micro Express, and others--have already made an impact on PC World's Top 10 charts.

As explained in "Getting to the Core of Intel's New Core i7 CPUs," these new processors are the company's first to be based on its long-previewed "Nehalem" architecture. The Core i7 family doesn't just mean new CPUs, they use a new chipset, a new system bus, and a new socket structure; Intel's first major technology jump since mid-2006, when Core 2 CPUs showed up on the scene.

Mainstream Desktops

Three of the six PCs to debut in our newly refreshed Top 10 Power Desktop chart boast Core i7. The Micro Express MicroFlex 92B (our Best Buy) and our fourth-ranked Dell Studio XPS use the midrange 2.93-GHz Core i7 940 CPU, which costs about $580 on its own. Though both machines are competitively priced at less than $2000 (without monitor), each returned performance results only just behind the fastest system we've seen in the category: Poly

well's $3950 Poly X4800-Extreme (ranked fifth). That system's 3.2-GHz X9770 processor, 4GB of speedy DDR3-1625 RAM, and two 10,000-rpm VelociRaptor hard drives (in a RAID 0 configuration) propelled it to a WorldBench 6 result of 141. By comparison, the Micro Express (3GB of DDR3-1333 RAM) and Dell (6GB of DDR3-1066 RAM) achieved WorldBench 6 performance scores of 138 and 136, respectively. Not too shabby at all. Polywell's newer, Core i7-equipped Poly X5800i desktop currently ranks 8th on our Power Desktop chart.

Gaming Desktops

Meanwhile, the Best Buy on our new Top 5 Gaming PCs chart goes to Falcon Northwest's Mach V. Equipped with a high-end 3.2-GHz Core i7 Extreme 965 processor (about $1050 on its own) that's been overclocked to 3.8-GHz, a whopping 12GB of DDR3-1600 RAM, and two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 graphic boards, the Mach V prevailed in almost every graphics test we threw at it. Even so, both the Xi MTower HAF-SLI and the Hardcore Computer Reactor (which rank second and fifth, respectively, on the chart) equaled the Mach V's record WorldBench 6 result of 163.

More On The Way

We're also in the midst of testing more Core i7 desktops. Reviews and benchmark results of systems from Gateway, Alienware, iBuyPower, CyberPower and AVA Direct will be featured on our Desktops Product Center over the next few weeks.

And just to keep things interesting, reports suggest that AMD's upcoming Phenom II CPUs--and desktops with them--could arrive as soon as early January. Like you, we're looking forward to see how they might compare.