Google Glass Exit from 'X' Research Lab Google

Despite a lot of fanfare & news coverage, the Google Glass Smart Glasses have largely been the but of a lot of good jokes

  Soon.however,it will be harder to have a laugh at the expense of a Glass wearer.Google announced on Thursday that the Glass project was graduating from the company's research division,called Google X, and would operate as a stand-alone division within Google. The company also said that, as on Monday, it would end its explorer program,which was a test version of Glass that cost $1.500 in its play store, and which was geared towards software developers and device aficionados.

This means, in essence, that regular people will n longer be able to buy Google Glass. The Company will still have its Glass at Work program,a pilot initiative to use the device in areas like hospitals and factories and the device will be available to "certified partners" who are developing software for it.

"After nearly two years, and an incredible amount of useful feedback about what works and what needs to be better, we're closing the program so we can focus on future versions of Glass," Google Said
 

Nokia's Digital Mapping may be its Secret Pearl

For the first time in more than three decades, Nokia faces the future without being a player in the global phone business. On Friday, the company completes the sale of its beleaguered handset business to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

The deal’s closing puts a spotlight on what remains of Nokia, which includes the Finnish company’s mobile networking business and a research and intellectual property unit. But it is Nokia’s efforts to map the entire world digitally that could prove to be the company’s hidden gem — or at least emerge as a compelling, multibillion-dollar takeover target.

Nokia’s goal with its mapping system, known as Here, is simple but ambitious: to build the world’s most detailed and up-to-date digital maps. As more companies connect their products to the Internet, analysts say that mapping services will become increasingly important to more businesses, including those in transportation, shipping and retailing.

In smartphones, Here is outgunned by Google Maps, which has an estimated one billion mobile users and is aided by being standard issue on phones using Google’s Android operating system. Here, which is the default mapping application on Windows phones, has only about 100 million smartphone users.

In automobile mapping, however, Here dominates, with more than 80 percent of the global market for built-in car navigation systems — a field in which Google and Apple are scrambling to catch up.

Nokia contends that its mapping products, which are updated 2.7 million times a day, are more accurate than its rivals’ offerings, and that its ability to customize its maps for different customers sets Nokia apart.

Google, for its part, counters that it makes tens of thousands of changes to its maps daily and that it uses complex algorithms and external information from the likes of the United States Census Bureau to build maps for 198 countries.

While rivals like Apple have tried to break into the global mapping business, they have so far been largely unsuccessful, leaving Nokia’s 29-year-old Here mapping system as the only contender for companies and consumers looking for an alternative to Google.

“Mapping is an expensive business,” said Annette Zimmermann, an analyst at the technology research company Gartner in Munich. “If you haven’t already built what these guys have built, it doesn’t make sense to start now.”

Despite the strong position, though, Nokia’s mapping unit last year generated only 7 percent, or $1.2 billion, of the company’s total revenue, excluding its handset unit, according to corporate filings. The division also reported an operating loss of $212 million over the same period, as the company continued to invest in the mapping operation, which has 6,000 employees, or around 11 percent of Nokia’s remaining work force of 55,000.

The weak financial figures have led many analysts to question whether the company has the deep pockets required to keep pace in mapping, especially since it has few existing connections to Nokia’s other businesses. Besides its auto clients, Nokia licenses Here to companies including Microsoft, for its Bing search engine; to Amazon, for the Kindle Fire tablet; and to Yahoo for its Flickr photo service. FedEx now uses Here mapping data to manage its fleet of delivery trucks worldwide.

Already, there is talk that Nokia could decide either to sell or spin off the division, so the company can focus on its core mobile networking business. The networking unit, which manufacturers cellphone towers and other telecommunications hardware for carriers, will generate almost 90 percent of the company’s annual revenue after the handset deal is closed. That means Here might be more valuable to someone else than to Nokia.

“There are only a few mapping businesses in the world,” said Ehud Gelblum, a Citigroup analyst in New York. “It’s a valuable asset.”

Microsoft fought hard to buy the unit as part of the recent handset sale. But it could not agree with Nokia on a price, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Analysts say that Nokia’s mapping division, whose price tag could reach more than $6 billion, might be attractive to the likes of Samsung and other large handset makers to reduce their dependence on Android for smartphones and tablets.

Mad Game Controller Marries Tablet

The Wii U is Nintendo’s capitulation to the screen, the tyrant of the digital age. As the follow-up to the original Wii the nearly 100 million selling, get-off your couch console that upended the video game industry six years ago the Wii U does not deliver the sensation that its predecessor unleashed, the sense that something new had been wrought upon this earth. It was not always routine for grandparents and grandchildren to gather in front of the television to wield plastic sticks and pretend to bowl.

Instead, the Wii U feels like an accommodation to the new mode of living that Apple’s iPhone and iPad have introduced. That lifestyle was evoked by a New Yorker cover this summer that featured family members posing for a beach vacation snapshot while engrossed in their personal devices.

 The Wii U, which is to be released on Sunday, works with the motion-control remotes you probably already own from the original Wii, and it plays most of the original games. What’s new — beyond high-definition graphics and some Internet-enabled features that won’t be turned on until Sunday — is the Wii U GamePad, a roughly 10-by-5-inch touch-screen controller. With a six-inch display surrounded by thumbsticks, buttons and triggers, the GamePad is the offspring of an iPad Mini and a traditional video game controller.

 In its marketing buildup to the Wii U introduction, Nintendo emphasized the benefits of two-screen gaming, particularly competitions in which the player with the GamePad sees something different from what the other players watch on the television. In so doing, Nintendo played down a simpler concept, one more easily understood by casual players and Apple fans: the touch screen.

 By merging touch-screen gaming with a video game system that is designed to live next to your TV set rather than be carried around in your pocket or purse, Nintendo is not merely acceding to the cultural tide. It is also trying valiantly, perhaps quixotically  to stem it. After creating a world in which we are no longer bowling alone (because we are all Wii-bowling together), Nintendo is seeking to invent a new way for us to commune with our screens. The company’s hope is that the Wii U will bring families together in their living rooms for touch-screen gaming rather than leave them isolated with their tablets and smartphones.

 Touch has always been a part of gaming, of course, because the physical interaction between player and device is central to the medium. But in recent years the growing complexity of the standard controller has become an obstacle for new players who did not grow up adapting to each iteration: the shift from one button to two buttons to four, or from one joystick to a directional pad to two thumbsticks and a directional pad  not to mention triggers and bumpers and start and select buttons. Easy, right?

 Simplicity was a large part of the broad appeal of the first Wii, and though playing with the Wii U is not quite as uncomplicated as standing up and waving your arms around, the touch screen is straightforward compared with the controllers used with an Xbox 360 or a PlayStation 3. Selecting songs in Sing Party, a karaoke game published by Nintendo, is done by swiping through tiles on the GamePad’s touch screen and then tapping the song you want. The same goes for Ubisoft’s Just Dance 4, with the added wrinkle that a player can use the touch screen to choose dance moves, midsong, for the other players to perform.

 In Balloon Trip Breeze, one of the mini-games bundled on the Nintendo Land anthology that comes with the $350 Wii U deluxe edition, the player uses a stylus to make quick swipes familiar to anyone who has played Angry Birds or Fruit Ninja  to make a character pop balloons on the television. In Takamaru’s Ninja Castle, another Nintendo Land game, similar swipes hurl martial arts stars at cartoonish cutouts. In Pikmin Adventure, from the same disc, enemies are defeated by tapping on them as they appear on the GamePad screen. In Yoshi’s Fruit Cart players scrawl a path on the touch screen and then watch a character follow it on television.

 The touch screen also allows the GamePad to morph swiftly into a TV remote control; you can adjust the volume on your set or quickly check the score of a football game without reaching for a separate device. And if you like what you see on cable, or if you want to allow someone else to watch TV in the same room, you can switch from playing a game of New Super Mario Bros. U on television to watching it unfold on your GamePad.

 As that last trick indicates, the GamePad is more than just a touch screen, and Nintendo Land provides a sketch of other possibilities. The camera inside the GamePad is used in the game Octopus Dance to project the player’s genuine, human face onto the television, a merger of the virtual with the corporeal that goes by the name “augmented reality.”

 Lightly blowing into the GamePad’s microphone in Donkey Kong’s Crash Course turns a windmill that moves a cart skyward. The GamePad can be used as a viewfinder in Metroid Blast and the Legend of Zelda: Battle Quest to target enemies for destruction. And in some other Nintendo Land games, characters can be moved by turning or tilting or lifting the GamePad into the air, another technique borrowed from mobile and tablet gaming.

 Equally promising, if not more so, are the possibilities the GamePad presents for intensive, single-player gaming. In Ubisoft’s ZombiU, the GamePad transforms, if not eliminates, some of the metaphors gamers are accustomed to: The map is no longer a tiny icon in the lower-right corner of your television, nor a menu that must be reached by punching a sequence of buttons. It is something you hold in your hands and look down at, something that draws your attention away from the world (of zombies) around you.

 Your inventory the items you carry also becomes less abstract as you peer into your GamePad to see what’s in your backpack and then physically move, say, a pistol into your hand by sliding it with your finger into an open slot. Similarly, digging through lockers, file cabinets and suitcases in the game world becomes closer to a genuine interaction.

 Then again, when the first Wii console felt new, as with Microsoft’s Kinect more recently, many decreed that motion controls would be swiftly and widely integrated into long, narrative games. Surely the intuitive interface of Wii Sports would be merged with storytelling ambition. By and large, that didn’t happen. So, spoiler alert: I have no idea what the Wii U augurs, or whether it will permanently alter how we play, alone or together.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0

Intel has optimized Intel Turbo Boost Technology1 to provide even more performance when needed on 2nd Generation Intel Core processor based systems. Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 automatically allows processor cores to run faster than the base operating frequency if it's operating below power, current, and temperature specification limits.


Dynamically increasing performance:

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 is activated when the Operating System (OS) requests the highest processor performance state (P0).

The maximum frequency of Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 is dependent on the number of active cores. The amount of time the processor spends in the Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 state depends on the workload and operating environment.

Any of the following can set the upper limit of Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 on a given workload:

Number of active cores

Estimated current consumption

Estimated power consumption

Processor temperature

When the processor is operating below these limits and the user's workload demands additional performance, the processor frequency will dynamically increase until the upper limit of frequency is reached.

Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 has multiple algorithms operating in parallel to manage current, power, and temperature to maximize performance and energy efficiency.

Sticky Bit: Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 allows the processor to operate at a power level that is higher than its rated upper power limit (TDP) for short durations to maximize performance.

Another Try by Google to Take On Facebook

Google has tried several times, without much success, to take on Facebook and master social networking. Now it is making its biggest effort yet.

Google introduced a social networking service called The Google+ On Tuesday(30-06-11).Which happens to look a lot like Facebook. The service, which is initially available to a select group of Google users who will soon be able to invite others, will let people share and discuss status updates, photos and links, much as they do on Facebook.

But the Google+ project will be different in one significant way, which Google hopes will be enough to convince people to use yet another social network.

It is meant for sharing with groups, Like colleagues, roommates or hiking friends — not with all of one's friends or the entire Web. It also offers group text messaging and video chat.

In social networking, Google finds itself in an unusual position, one that its competitors in Web search know all too well: playing catch-up with a service that dominates the market.

The debut of Google+ will test whether Google can overcome its past stumbles in this area and deal with one of the most pressing challenges facing the company. At stake is Google's status as the most popular entry point to the Web. When people post on Facebook, which is mostly off-limits to search engines, Google loses valuable information that could benefit its Web search, advertising and other products.

But Google+ may already be too late. In May, 180 million people visited Google sites, including You Tube, compared with 157.2 million on Facebook, according to comScore. But Facebook users looked at 103 billion pages and spent an average of 375 minutes on the site, while Google users viewed 46.3 billion pages and spent 231 minutes.

Advertisers pay close attention to those numbers — and to the fact that people increasingly turn to Facebook and other social sites like Twitter to ask questions they used to ask Google, like a recommendation for a restaurant or doctor.

Analysts say that Facebook users are unlikely to duplicate their network of friends on Google+ and post to both sites, but that they could use them for different types of communication. Google+ could also attract Facebook holdouts who have been uncomfortable sharing too publicly.

Handling Threads in quad core processor

This depends on the exact processor line and model.

Intel's Core i7, i5, and i3 series can handle 2 threads per core, so any quad-core model could handle 8 threads.

AMD's Athon, Phenom, Sempron, and Opteron chips, on the other hand, are designed around a 1-thread-per-core model.

At the other extreme end, are the SPARC Niagara series of server chips, which can handled anywhere from 8 to 16 threads per core.


All this isn't free. Thread count per core comes at a cost - the more threads per core, the lower performance each individual thread has. That is, using the same hardware, if I run one thread on a core, that thread will run faster than 2 similar threads, even if the threads are independent.

Intel Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition

Hardcore multitaskers rejoice. Fly through everything you do on your PC - from playing intense 3D games to creating and editing digital video, music, and photos. With the high performance platform capabilities of Intel® X58 Express Chipset-based motherboards, along with faster, intelligent multi-core technology that applies processing power dynamically when its needed most, PCs based on the Intel® Core™ i7-980X processor Extreme Edition deliver incredible performance with a rich feature set.

Wield the ultimate gaming weapon for greater performance in 3D gaming applications. Experience smoother and more realistic gaming made possible by distributing AI, physics, and rendering across six cores and 12 threads, bringing 3D to life for the ultimate gaming experience. And take digital content creation to a whole new level for photo retouching and photo editing. Unlock your full potential with Intel's top-of-the-line desktop processor and experience total creative freedom that's limited only by your imagination.

Product information:-

Intel® Core™ i7-980X processor Extreme Edition

3.33 GHz core speed

Up to 3.6 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology

6 cores and 12 processing threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading

12 MB Intel® Smart Cache

3 Channels DDR3 1066 MHz memory

32nm manufacturing process technology

Intel® Core™ i7-975 processor Extreme Edition

3.33 GHz core speed

Up to 3.6 GHz with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology

4 cores and 8 processing threads with Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology

8 MB Intel® Smart Cache

3 Channels DDR3 1066 MHz memory

45nm manufacturing process technology


FEATURES & BENIFITS:-

Get extreme with your gaming and advanced multimedia.

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in six-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:

Intel Turbo Boost Technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload-more performance when you need it the most.

Intel Hyper-Threading Technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.

Intel Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.

Intel QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.

Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.

Intel HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

AES-NI Encryption/Decryption Acceleration provides 6 new processor instructions that help to improve performance for AES encryption and decryption algorithms.

Core i5 Processor

Native quad-core structure. Single processor die contains four cores with 256 KB L2 cache each and shared L3 cache; Elimination of the processor bus in its traditional form due to relocation of the PCI Express 2.0 controller directly into the CPU. This controller integrated into the processor provides support for 16 PCI Express 2.0 lanes, which can be used for one (in PCI Express x16 mode) or two (in PCI Express x8 mode) graphics cards.
Memory controller integrated into the CPU that supports dual-channel DDR3 SDRAM. Each memory channel can work with three unbuffered memory DIMMs. 8MB shared L3 cache. Integrated PCU microcontroller that independently controls the voltage and frequency of each core and can automatically overclock individual cores in case the remaining ones are not fully utilized. New SSE4.2 instructions support. Core i7-800 and Core i5-700 are manufactured with 45 nm process and consist of 774 million transistors on a 296 mm2 die.

WiMAX Technology

WiMAX is the next-generation of wireless technology designed to enable pervasive, high-speed mobile Internet access to the widest array of devices including notebook PCs, handsets, smartphones, and consumer electronics such as gaming devices, cameras, camcorders, music players, and more. As the fourth generation (4G) of wireless technology, WiMAX delivers low-cost, open networks and is the first all IP mobile Internet solution enabling efficient and scalable networks for data, video, and voice. As a major driver in the support and development of WiMAX, Intel has designed embedded WiMAX solutions for a variety of mobile devices supporting the future of high-speed broadband on-the-go.

Driving standards and global networks for WiMAX

Laying the foundation for broad, cost-effective deployments, Intel is working to easily integrate Intel® WiMAX technology into complex designs and global networks, providing a standards-based foundation for ongoing product innovation.

WiMAX: Connect in more places, more often

Built for the future, Intel® WiMAX technology will allow you to connect in more places, more often, without being restricted to hotspots. When built into notebooks and mobile devices, you'll be able to extend your connected experience beyond Wi-Fi.

Connecting notebooks of the future with WiMAX

Intel is providing advancements in wireless mobile technology for the future of notebooks and a wide range of consumer devices. Intel® Centrino® wireless products provide great coverage and reliable connectivity while consuming minimal power.

Facebook veterans in venture capital spotlight

As Wall Street eagerly awaits signs that Internet sensation Facebook will offer shares to the public, the venture capitalists
that prowl California's Silicon Valley are keeping close tabs on another hot commodity: the employees leaving Facebook.

A handful of start-up companies founded by Facebook alumni are attracting attention and generating a good amount of buzz within venture circles, where competition is fierce to get a stake in the web's next hit product. On Monday, Quora, a start-up founded by four ex-Facebook employees, including former Chief Technology Officer Adam D'Angelo, raised a Series A round of funding from Benchmark Capital that the technology blog TechCrunch said valued the company at $86 million, citing an unnamed source.

Benchmark partner and former Facebook product management vice president Matt Cohler will sit on Quora's board. Quora, which operates out of a small, college-dorm-like suite in downtown Palo Alto, California, with cardboard crates of water-bottles stacked waist-high against the walls, had not planned to raise money so early, said D'Angelo, who is the CEO of Quora. "We weren't really shopping it around, but there was a lot of interest" from VCs, he said in a phone interview with Reuters after the announcement of the funding on Monday.

The company was started in April 2009, and the product which was launched in January 2010, can currently be used only by people who have received a special invitation. D'Angelo declined to comment on the financial terms of the deal, but said the funding will help Quora hire more staff and focus on a wider set of technical challenges underlying the product - an online question and answer service based on people's social connections.

The proliferation of start-ups with Facebook veterans, and the investor interest in them, follows a time-tested Silicon Valley pattern in which tech superstars from Google Inc to Fairchild Semiconductor have spawned innovative start-up companies, said Nick Sturiale, a general partner at JAFCO Ventures. "Any enterpreneur spinning out of Facebook is going to get attention," said Sturiale. "They're at the vanguard of how the Web is emerging."

Facebook, which counts 400 million active users and is the world's No.1 Internet social network, has yet to announce any plans for an initial public offering -- the traditional payday that allows early company insiders to cash-out and move on to new projects.

But the active secondary market for Facebook shares -- including more than $100 million in officially-sanctioned stock purchases of employee shares by Facebook investor Digital Sky Technologies last year -- has allowed Facebook employees to decamp at an earlier stage, say some VCs. "We've seen loads of people leave Google and now we're seeing loads of people leave Facebook.

Either because they're vested, or because they think the company's gotten too big," said Spark Capital's Todd Dagres. Dagres said he's looking at several startups founded by ex-Facebook employees, but he notes that a Facebook connection is not enough. "You definitely pay attention if somebody is leaving Google or Facebook. But then you've got to make sure that they really have built a track record, that they didn't just work there," said Dagres. A number of Facebook-related start-ups have already passed muster.

Asana, whose founders include Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, raised $9 million in December from Benchmark Capital and Andreessen-Horowitz. Cloudera, which features former Facebook, Google, Yahoo Inc and Oracle Corp veterans on its management team, raised $11 million from Greylock Partners and Accel Partners in two separate rounds of funding last year. Meanwhile, Path, a secretive project led by former Facebook employee Dave Morin and Shawn Fanning, the creator of music sharing service Napster, has piqued a lot of interest in tech circles though it's unclear if the company is looking to raise money.

Some entrepreneurs, like former Facebook director of international business development Net Jacobsson, say there's no overwhelming pressure to raise capital right away, thanks to the low cost with which Web start-ups can be created these days. Jacobsson, who advised social gaming firm Crowdstar after leaving Facebook in May 2009, recently set up his own social game start-up dubbed PlayHopper.

The game development is primarily taking place in China, he said, and the goal is to generate revenue as soon as the first game is released. Several VC firms have contacted him to check-in on his new project and in some cases to inquire about investing in the company, said Jacobsson, who noted that he was still thinking over whether he needed to take money from outside investors

Google searches trigger error messages in China

Searches on Google's Chinese-language site failed to return results on Tuesday from within China, but it was not immediately clear if
the site was blocked or if the problems were due to a service glitch.

Google last week said it would no longer bow to government censors in Beijing and effectively shut down its Chinese search engine, re-routing mainland users to its uncensored site in Hong Kong.

Searches for a range of non-sensitive terms on google.com.hk such as "China" and "America" in both Chinese and English resulted in error messages. The same searches had returned results in recent days.

The Google Maps section however appeared to be working, as was the music section of google.com.hk.

A Google spokeswoman was not immediately available for comment.

A page on Google's website summarizing service availability in mainland China says there are "no issues" with web searches.

Intel® Core i7 Processor Extreme Edition

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition.¹ With faster, intelligent multi-core technology that accelerates performance to match your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance.

But performance doesn't stop at gaming. You'll multitask 25 percent faster and unleash incredible digital media creation with up to 79 percent faster video encoding and up to 46 percent faster image rendering, plus incredible performance for photo retouching and editing.¹

In fact, you'll experience maximum performance for whatever you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which activates full processing power exactly where and when you need it most.

Product information

3.20 GHz and 3.33GHz core speed
8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology
8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache
3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory


Features and benefits:
Get extreme with your gaming and advanced multimedia

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:
Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload-more performance when you need it the most.


Intel Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.³
Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.
Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.

Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.
Intel HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

The Dozens of Computers That Make Modern Cars Go (and Stop)

The electronic systems in modern cars and trucks — under new scrutiny as regulators continue to raise concerns about Toyota vehicles — are packed with up to 100 million lines of computer code, more than in some jet fighters.

“It would be easy to say the modern car is a computer on wheels, but it’s more like 30 or more computers on wheels,” said Bruce Emaus, the chairman of SAE International’s embedded software standards committee.

Even basic vehicles have at least 30 of these microprocessor-controlled devices, known as electronic control units, and some luxury cars have as many as 100.

These electronic brains control dozens of functions, including brake and cruise control and entertainment systems. Software in each unit is also made to work with others. So, for example, when a driver pushes a button on a key fob to unlock the doors, a module in the trunk might rouse separate computers to unlock all four doors.

The evolution of automotive control electronics has been rapid. IEEE Spectrum, an American technical publication, reported that electronics, as a percentage of vehicle costs, climbed to 15 percent in 2005 from 5 percent in the late 1970s — and would be higher today.

The 1977 Oldsmobile Toronado had a very simple computer unit that was used for spark-plug timing, and the next year the Cadillac Seville offered an optional trip computer that used a Motorola chip.

For Apple, iPad Said More Than Intended

Apple has generated a lot of chatter with its newiPad tablet. But it may not be quite the conversation it wanted.

Many women are saying the name evokes awkward associations with feminine hygiene products. People from Boston to Ireland are complaining that “iPad,” in their regional brogue, sounds almost indistinguishable from iPod,” Apple’s music player.

Then there are more serious conflicts. Two other high-tech companies already market products called iPad and are laying claim to the trademark.

In the hours after the iPad announcement on Wednesday, “iTampon” became one of the most popular trending topics onTwitter. Apple’s communication team fielded a wave of queries on the subject but characteristically declined to comment.

“I care about words and their connotations, but you don’t have to be in junior high to make this leap,” said Robin Bernstein, a corporate speech writer on Long Island, who addressed the issue on her Facebook page on Wednesday. “A lot of women when they hear the word ‘pad’ are going to think about feminine hygiene.”

Michael Cronan, a naming consultant in Berkeley, Calif., whose company has helped come up with brands like TiVo and Kindle, said many naming experiments show that women tend to reflexively relate words like “pad” and “flow” to bodily concerns.

He is not sure Apple could have found an alternative that ties in as perfectly to its famous brands. “I think we’re going to get over this fairly quickly and we’ll get on with enjoying the experience.”

But the folks at Fujitsu, the Japanese technology firm, may not be quite so eager to forgive and forget. The company has applied for the iPad trademark in the United States and already sells an iPad — a $2,000 hand-held device that shop clerks use to check inventory.

STMicroelectronics, the Swiss semiconductor company, owns the iPad trademark in Europe and uses it as an acronym for integrated passive and active devices — which sounds less fun than playing games on a tablet. (A third company, MagTek of Seal Beach, Calif., makes a portable magnetic card reader of the same name.)

These kinds of naming conflicts have not stopped Apple before. In 2007, on the eve of the introduction of the iPhone, the technology giant Cisco Systems pointed out that it already sold an Internet handset called the iPhone. Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, led the negotiation for the name, peppering Cisco executives with calls at all hours, and telling them he was prepared to claim that Cisco was underutilizing the trademark.

Microsoft and Yahoo Are Linked Up. Now What?

The bumpy, marathon mating dance between Microsoft and Yahoo finally concluded on Wednesday, when the two companies announced a partnership in Internet search and advertising to take on the industry powerhouse Google.


But there was plenty of skepticism about whether the new partners could make a serious dent in Google’s dominance.


Even with the deal, the Microsoft-Yahoo search operation will be dwarfed by Google — with a 28 percent market share in the United States, versus 65 percent — and will face an uphill struggle to try to wean people away from Google’s simple white search page.


If Yahoo and Microsoft cannot persuade people to switch, they will not build the larger audience that will bring in more revenue from ads tied to searches.


“This battle is won or lost as the user sits at the keyboard,” said Peter S. Fader, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of its Interactive Media Initiative. “Google is winning for good, consumer-friendly reasons. You can’t just buy that.”


The Microsoft-Yahoo pact represents a pragmatic division of duties between the two companies, instead of the blockbuster deal Microsoft, No. 3 in the search market, was shooting for last year when it bid $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo, No. 2 in search.


That hostile offer was ultimately withdrawn by Microsoft, and its collapse led to lots of soul-searching at Yahoo and the replacement of its co-founder Jerry Yang with an outsider, Carol Bartz, in the chief executive role.


Under the pact, Microsoft will provide the underlying search technology on Yahoo’s popular Web sites. The deal will give a lift to Microsoft’s search engine, which it recently overhauled and renamed Bing. Its search ads will have broader reach and become more lucrative.


Bing, which tries to put search results in better context than rivals, has won praise and favorable reviews, after Microsoft spent years falling farther and farther behind Google in search.


For Yahoo, the move furthers the strategy under Ms. Bartz to focus the company on its strengths as a publisher of Web media sites in areas like finance and sports, as a marketer and leader in online display advertising.


“This deal allows Yahoo to invest in what we should be investing in for the future — audience properties, display advertising and the mobile Internet experience,” Ms. Bartz said in an interview on Wednesday. “Our vision is to be the center of people’s lives online.”


The terms of the 10-year agreement give Microsoft access to Yahoo’s search technologies. Yahoo will receive a lucrative 88 percent of the search-generated ad revenue from its own sites for the first five years of the deal, much higher than is standard in the industry.


After the takeover bid failed, the companies renewed talks about a partnership last summer. The talks included discussion of a large upfront payment from Microsoft.


But when Ms. Bartz joined Yahoo at the start of this year, the interest on the Yahoo side shifted. Ms. Bartz was more interested in steady revenue to ensure the longer-term financial health of Yahoo instead of a big payment, she said in a conference call Wednesday.


Shares of Yahoo fell 12 percent, to $15.14, after the deal was announced, apparently reflecting investors’ disappointment in the lack of a payment. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly.


“It feels kind of like a stab in the chest,” said Darren Chervitz, the co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns about 100,000 shares of Yahoo. “It certainly feels like Yahoo is giving away their strong and hard-fought share of the search market for really a modest price.”


Now, Yahoo’s financial fate will be inextricably linked with Microsoft for years. “My sense is that Yahoo will regret making this move,” Mr. Chervitz said.


If the deal is completed next year as planned, and after the partnership is fully in place in three years, Yahoo estimates that its operating income will increase by $500 million a year, based on the anticipated higher search traffic and ad revenue, and a substantial drop in its investment in technology development.


Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in an interview that Ms. Bartz had driven a hard bargain. “Look,” he said, “she got 88 percent of the revenue and none of the cost.”


But there was plenty of skepticism about whether the new partners could make a serious dent in Google’s dominance.


Even with the deal, the Microsoft-Yahoo search operation will be dwarfed by Google — with a 28 percent market share in the United States, versus 65 percent — and will face an uphill struggle to try to wean people away from Google’s simple white search page.


If Yahoo and Microsoft cannot persuade people to switch, they will not build the larger audience that will bring in more revenue from ads tied to searches.


“This battle is won or lost as the user sits at the keyboard,” said Peter S. Fader, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and co-director of its Interactive Media Initiative. “Google is winning for good, consumer-friendly reasons. You can’t just buy that.”


The Microsoft-Yahoo pact represents a pragmatic division of duties between the two companies, instead of the blockbuster deal Microsoft, No. 3 in the search market, was shooting for last year when it bid $47.5 billion to buy Yahoo, No. 2 in search.


That hostile offer was ultimately withdrawn by Microsoft, and its collapse led to lots of soul-searching at Yahoo and the replacement of its co-founder Jerry Yang with an outsider, Carol Bartz, in the chief executive role.


Under the pact, Microsoft will provide the underlying search technology on Yahoo’s popular Web sites. The deal will give a lift to Microsoft’s search engine, which it recently overhauled and renamed Bing. Its search ads will have broader reach and become more lucrative.


Bing, which tries to put search results in better context than rivals, has won praise and favorable reviews, after Microsoft spent years falling farther and farther behind Google in search.


For Yahoo, the move furthers the strategy under Ms. Bartz to focus the company on its strengths as a publisher of Web media sites in areas like finance and sports, as a marketer and leader in online display advertising.


“This deal allows Yahoo to invest in what we should be investing in for the future — audience properties, display advertising and the mobile Internet experience,” Ms. Bartz said in an interview on Wednesday. “Our vision is to be the center of people’s lives online.”


The terms of the 10-year agreement give Microsoft access to Yahoo’s search technologies. Yahoo will receive a lucrative 88 percent of the search-generated ad revenue from its own sites for the first five years of the deal, much higher than is standard in the industry.


After the takeover bid failed, the companies renewed talks about a partnership last summer. The talks included discussion of a large upfront payment from Microsoft.


But when Ms. Bartz joined Yahoo at the start of this year, the interest on the Yahoo side shifted. Ms. Bartz was more interested in steady revenue to ensure the longer-term financial health of Yahoo instead of a big payment, she said in a conference call Wednesday.


Shares of Yahoo fell 12 percent, to $15.14, after the deal was announced, apparently reflecting investors’ disappointment in the lack of a payment. Shares of Microsoft rose slightly.


“It feels kind of like a stab in the chest,” said Darren Chervitz, the co-manager of the Jacob Internet Fund, which owns about 100,000 shares of Yahoo. “It certainly feels like Yahoo is giving away their strong and hard-fought share of the search market for really a modest price.”


Now, Yahoo’s financial fate will be inextricably linked with Microsoft for years. “My sense is that Yahoo will regret making this move,” Mr. Chervitz said.


If the deal is completed next year as planned, and after the partnership is fully in place in three years, Yahoo estimates that its operating income will increase by $500 million a year, based on the anticipated higher search traffic and ad revenue, and a substantial drop in its investment in technology development.


Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, said in an interview that Ms. Bartz had driven a hard bargain. “Look,” he said, “she got 88 percent of the revenue and none of the cost.”


“If Microsoft and Yahoo are 30 percent and growing in search, then the dynamics of the market can shift,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.


Mr. Fader of Wharton said he was not sure the partners would be able to shake up the business. “Microsoft is buying some market share, but there is no evidence they are going to change the game in any fundamental way,” he said. “What the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership needs is real breakthroughs to deliver disruptive innovation in search.”


Advertisers and Web publishers say they will be looking to the combination to improve its search technology and service and put more pricing pressure on Google, which has turned the small text ads that appear next to search results into a multibillion-dollar business.


“It could be a more competitive marketplace, but that’s not certain,” said Bob Liodice, president of the Association of National Advertisers, a trade group. “Google still holds two-thirds of the market.”


Branding was one important consideration in the deal. Yahoo will still control the look of the search features on its sites and will determine how search technology may be tailored differently for, say, entertainment and finance sites. But Yahoo’s search will include a logo saying “Powered by Bing.”


And Yahoo will be able to tap into records of searches for its own purposes, like monitoring the online behavior of anonymous users to more efficiently place online display advertisements.


Throughout a conference call and the later interviews, Ms. Bartz and Mr. Ballmer emphasized that combining the No. 2 and No. 3 companies in search would not harm competition but enhance it. Google was rarely mentioned by name, but it was the subtext of the conversation and the deal itself.


Ms. Bartz pointedly said the partnership would “put choice back in the hands of consumers, advertisers and publishers,” all of whom, she said, were “increasingly concerned” about the rising power of Google.


Microsoft and Yahoo said they expected resistance from Google. But Microsoft’s general counsel, Bradford L. Smith, said he looked forward to explaining the details of the planned partnership to antitrust officials in Washington and Brussels.


The Microsoft-Yahoo stance, legal analysts noted, amounts to the assertion that Google is so dominant in Internet search and search advertising that the best way to foster competition and innovation is with a duopoly — with the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership creating a credible rival to Google.

Intel Server Processors

Intel server processors deliver enhanced, energy-efficient performance for data-intensive business applications. Powering a range of multi-core 64-bit servers◊, Intel server processors enable you to optimize and scale computing environments to maximize server utilization to workload, while providing you with headroom for growth.

Intel Xeon processor 5500 series

• Faster performance enabled by Intel microarchitecture, codenamed Nehalem

• Automatically increase processor frequency and utilize Intel Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel HT Technology) as needed

• Efficiently manage energy expense by scaling power consumption to workload, enabled by Intel Intelligent Power Technology

• Next Generation Intel Virtualization Technology enables best-in-class virtualization performance, superb scalability, enhanced flexibility, and simplified server management

• Intel Data Center Manager (Intel DCM) SDK provides power and thermal monitoring and management for servers, racks and groups of servers in data centers. Management Console Vendors (ISVs) and System Integrators (SIs) can integrate Intel DCM into their console or command-line applications and provide high value power management features to IT organizations.

Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition

Wield the ultimate gaming weapon

Conquer the world of extreme gaming with the fastest performing processor on the planet: the Intel® Core™ i7 processor Extreme Edition.¹ With faster, intelligent multi-core technology that accelerates performance to match your workload, it delivers an incredible breakthrough in gaming performance.

But performance doesn't stop at gaming. You'll multitask 25 percent faster and unleash incredible digital media creation with up to 79 percent faster video encoding and up to 46 percent faster image rendering, plus incredible performance for photo retouching and editing.¹

In fact, you'll experience maximum performance for whatever you do, thanks to the combination of Intel® Turbo Boost technology² and Intel® Hyper-Threading technology (Intel® HT technology)³, which activates full processing power exactly where and when you need it most.

Product information

• 3.20 GHz core speed

• 8 processing threads with Intel® HT technology

• 8 MB of Intel® Smart Cache

• 3 Channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory

Features and benefits

Get extreme with your gaming and advanced multimedia.

Intel Core i7 processors deliver an incredible breakthrough in quad-core performance and feature the latest innovations in processor technologies:

Intel® Turbo Boost technology maximizes speed for demanding applications, dynamically accelerating performance to match your workload-more performance when you need it the most.²
• Intel® Hyper-Threading technology enables highly threaded applications to get more work done in parallel. With 8 threads available to the operating system, multi-tasking becomes even easier.³
• Intel® Smart Cache provides a higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for industry leading multi-threaded games.
• Intel® QuickPath Interconnect is designed for increased bandwidth and low latency. It can achieve data transfer speeds as high as 25.6 GB/sec with the Extreme Edition processor.
• Integrated memory controller enables three channels of DDR3 1066 MHz memory, resulting in up to 25.6 GB/sec memory bandwidth. This memory controller's lower latency and higher memory bandwidth delivers amazing performance for data-intensive applications.
• Intel® HD Boost significantly improves a broad range of multimedia and compute-intensive applications. The 128-bit SSE instructions are issued at a throughput rate of one per clock cycle, allowing a new level of processing efficiency with SSE4 optimized applications.

Gigabyte, Intel Offer Update on Latest Technologies

Gigabyte Technology, a manufacturer of motherboards and graphics cards, held a joint press conference with Intel. The event saw the announcement of Intel's latest technologies delivered from the next generation chipsets, as well as a technical briefing introducing Gigabyte's Ultra DurableTM 3 Technology and upcoming technology trends.

The event kicked off with the opening speech from Henry Kao, WW Sales & Marketing Vice President of Gigabyte Technology Motherboard Business Unit. "Since 2006, Gigabyte's core strategy is to focus on delivering high performance motherboards. Gigabyte will continue to provide quality component motherboards with more innovative technologies," said Kao.

Following was an introduction of Intel's new generation processors and chipsets from Zane. A. Ball, Director of Microprocessor Product Marketing, Intel Business Client Group. "The Intel Core i7 with Intel X58 Express chipset unleashes Nehalem s performance potential with enormous bandwidth in the extreme edition platform. I would like express my appreciation to Gigabyte for being the first partner to launch their Intel X58 motherboards to align the with the Intel Core i7 processors, and I am looking forward to co-working with Gigabyte to bring out the next generation Intel 5 series chipset platform in 2009,"

Yahoo Shares Fall on C.E.O.’s Comments

Yahoo’s new chief executive, made at a companywide meeting Wednesday. After reports that Ms. Bartz wasn’t sold on the idea of selling Yahoo’s search business to Microsoft, investors sent Yahoo shares plunging 6.5 percent on Thursday.

Ms. Bartz, of course, did not say she was or would be opposed to a deal. And she also said she had held informal talks with Steven A. Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, since being tapped for the top job at Yahoo.

Analysts cautioned investors not to read too much into Ms. Bartz’s comments.

“I don’t get the sense that she is the kind of person who is dismissing things on her first day on the job,” said Ross Sandler, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. “She is going to assess the situation and decide what’s best for Yahoo.” Mr. Sandler said many traders and hedge funds had bought Yahoo shares in anticipation of a quick gain following Ms. Bartz’s appointment, and those traders may be responsible for the sharp sell-off.

Scott Kessler, an analyst with Standard & Poor’s, said Ms. Bartz might have simply been indicating that selling assets when the company’s value is near a historic low is not a good idea.

The companywide meeting itself was closed to outsiders. But Yahoo posted pictures the event on Flickr. There are several shots of Ms. Bartz in action, including one in which she walks on stage holding hands with Sue Decker, Yahoo’s departing president and a candidate for the chief executive job. Ms. Decker was quite emotional, according to a person who attended the event. Jerry Yang, back to his role as “Chief Yahoo,” also makes a couple of appearances in the photographs, including a shot with Ms. Bartz and Ms. Decker.

Inauguration Crowd Will Test Cellphone Networks

The cellphone industry has a plea for the throngs descending on the nation’s capital for the presidential inauguration: go easy on the mobile communications.

The largest cellphone carriers, fearful that a communicative citizenry will overwhelm their networks, have taken the unusual step of asking people to limit their phone calls and to delay sending photos. The carriers are also spending millions of dollars to temporarily and substantially upgrade their networks in Washington.

Dropped calls, lost photos or delayed text messages are always a risk during spikes from sporting events and concerts. People often feel compelled to share these events with others, and that takes bandwidth.

Cellphone cameras are taking better pictures all the time, and sending those high-resolution images quickly floods the airwaves. The Obama crowd — which could exceed two million — is expected to be mostly young, just the group accustomed to staying in touch by uploading photos, blog posts and tweets on Twitter.

Many news organizations, including The New York Times, are asking people to send photos of inaugural events via e-mail.

For those coming to pay homage to the BlackBerry-toting president, the inauguration has the potential to be a wireless Woodstock. If, that is, the networks can handle it.

“If some of these estimates come true, people should anticipate delays with regards to sending text messages or making phone calls or getting onto the Internet,” said Joe Farren, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, an industry trade group. It has asked people to send texts rather than make phone calls (text uses less bandwidth than speech) and to send photos only after the event.

“We can only bend the laws of physics so much,” Mr. Farren said.

To limit problems, the carriers are adding radios to the cell towers to pick up more signals and adding landlines to carry those signals from the towers to network centers. They are bringing in trucks costing hundreds of thousands of dollars that can transmit signals, some of which also have on-board generators in case of a power failure.

But some consumers and consumer advocates say the industry should not be patting itself on the back for its efforts; rather, it should be apologizing for charging consumers for a service that does not always work.

Gene Kimmelman, vice president for international affairs for the Consumers Union, the nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports, said people in Washington may not get seamless service, but they will invariably get a bill at the end of the month.

“It’s like paying for an all-you-can-eat buffet and discovering there are only scraps left,” Mr. Kimmelman said. He suggested another way the carriers might spend their millions of dollars: “Maybe they should offer a rebate if they cut usage on Inauguration Day.”

The inauguration, he said, “is indicative of a common problem that consumers are getting charged for a quality of service that isn’t being delivered.”

Cellphone service, while spotty at times, has certainly improved in recent years. The challenges are acute at major events, which push demand past what the networks are intended to process and transmit. But many such events have predictable crowd sizes, enabling the carriers to beef up capacity.

“We know how many people can pack into a race track or concert,” said John Johnson, a spokesman forVerizon Wireless. Given the enthusiastic crowds that Barak Obama has drawn throughout his campaign, Verizon cannot easily predict the call volume on Tuesday. “It’s unprecedented,” said Mr. Johnson.

Verizon has several mobile units in its reserve known by their animalistic acronyms: COWs and COLTs (for cells on wheels and cells on light trucks).

These trucks cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. But carriers also have “sat COLTs,” which carry satellite dishes to send signals independent of terrestrial networks and power supplies.

“You drive it where it needs to go, park it, push a couple of buttons, the mast will deploy, the dish will deploy and our generator and satellite ensures we’re fully self-contained and independent,” said Tanya Lin, manager of emergency response team operations for Sprint. The company is bringing in two such trucks, in part to be prepared for any emergency that could compromise the usual infrastructure.

Sprint Nextel, which said it had been planning for the inauguration since April, has also increased capacity of its cell sites and terrestrial transmission lines to prepare the network to sustain 10 to 15 times the number of users it would serve on its networks during a normal day.

The company is increasing coverage not just in the city, but also along the route that brought the Obama and Biden families from Philadelphia to Washington on a whistle-stop train tour.