Nikopol writes "The venerable Macintouch site recently released the results and analysis of a survey on Apple laptop reliability." From the article: "Our survey spanned every laptop capable of running Mac OS X, encompassing 41 models sold over seven and a half years. A challenge in ascertaining the reliability of any device is that more time gives them more opportunity to break, so new devices should always look more reliable at first glance. Our survey asked participants when their laptop first needed a repair -- 'first year', 'second or third year', and 'fourth year or later.' These correspond to the duration of Apple's standard one-year warranty, the AppleCare extended warranty program, and any repairs that might happen outside any warranty coverage period. We also asked participants if they purchased AppleCare for their laptop."

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers have found several security holes in Blackberry handheld devices and the servers that power them, according to a story at Washingtonpost.com. The research points out serious flaws in the BlackBerry server, which could be exploited by convincing Blackberry handheld users to click on an image file attachment. From the article: 'Lindner's slides from his presentation -- which he agreed not to release until RIM has fully fixed this problem -- show that the Blackberry server which manages all of the encryption keys needed to unscramble e-mail traffic to and from all Blackberry devices registered on the network stores them on a Microsoft SQL database server in plain, unencrypted text. Lindner found that by convincing a Blackberry user to click on a special image attachment, that handheld device could be made to pass on malicious code to the Blackberry server, which could then be taken over and used to intercept e-mails or as a staging point for other attacks within the network.'"

dsginter writes "At this week's CES, Samsung Electronics is showing off a 3.6Mbps cellular phone. The device uses High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) to acheive such speeds. "

Tomo Hiratsuka writes "The imminent 10Gb 1-inch hard drives we've been hearing about have been well covered but the maker, Cornice, reckons its product could end up in over 70 million cellphones by 2009. Kevin Magenis, one of the company founders, isn't shy about pointing out that this is 30 million units more than predicted DAP sales."

JonathanGCohen writes "The SeattlePI is reporting that eMagin, a company that makes video display products for military and industrial uses, has a new headset accessory for the iPod that projects video on to a screen smaller than a quarter that is mounted in front of one eye. Its makers say this creates the illusion of watching a 105 inch screen from a distance of 12 feet." The only problem is that the expected retail value of the EyeBud is around $600, about $200 more than a 60 gigabyte iPod.

Harry Trotter writes "Gameparks GP2X Linux Based Console had a lot to live up to with Some amusing boasts from Gamepark, but it has lived up to its pre-billing rather well with great ports of commercial games and emulators such as Mame, Vice (Commodore 64), NeoGeo CD, Duke Nukem 3D, ScummVM and another 150 more releases so far, all of which can be followed at GP2X News & GP32 Xtreme. The Open Source Development of this console has ensured a following that will keep the console alive for years to come."

Sterling D. Allan writes "Some reflections and projections: The year 2005 saw large wind power installments come into a price range where they are now competitive with traditional grid prices. 2006 could see several solar designs do the same. Cold fusion was boosted with two, concurrent and independent sonofusion breakthroughs, though the stigma in the name is still deeply seated. 2006 could see floating wind turbines arrive on the commercial scene -- floating in the water like oil rigs, or floating high in the air, courtesy of helium. 2006 will see at least three companies offering after-market kits for adding Brown's gas (H and O from electrolysis, common ducted) to the air intake of vehicles for enhanced mileage and performance. Many other fuel economizing systems are slated to mature in the marketplace. Climate change evidence will continue to mount. It will yet be years before we harness lightning, but stable tornado systems prototypes that tap waste heat from power plants could arrive this coming year. Will 2006 be the year that clean energy becomes more the vogue than cool computer gadgets?"

tlhIngan writes "From a developer's blog, Windows Vista will no longer support DVD-ROM drives that do not handle region coding in hardware (RPC1 drives) - thus preventing playback of DVDs that are region/CSS encoded with those drives. Not a big problem, as RPC1 drives haven't been officially manufactured since 2000 (and Microsoft claims their drives are all broken), but for those with hacked drives (RPC2 with RPC1 firmware), or move the RPC1 drive to new computers, well, no more DVD movies for you!"

GeneOff writes "Just in time for Christmas, comes FA1, the fighting android from SDT (Self Defence Technologys.) I loved my Rock-Em, Sock-Em robots I got one year from Santa. But it was tough getting opponents. Well, no more. Here is a hackable real robot that won't whimp out on you." From the article: "... a robot that can jab, hook, and cross, but still keep the violence to a minimum with adjustable difficulty levels. The FA1 can also dodge your punches with "human-like" movements and he should be hanging out on the show floor at CES -- so we'll be sure to challenge him to a round of verbal barbs from a distance."

Steve from Hexus writes "Steering clear of jokes about overheating power supplies, one company is claiming to have constructed a watercooling kit for the XBox 360. HEXUS.gaming has obtained pictures of the product, seemingly attached to an XBox 360, though how it works and how it is installed remains something of a mystery."

Steve from Hexus writes "Dual core finds its way inside a laptop (albeit a not-so-portable DTR) in the form of Rockdirect's Xtreme64. The DTR features an Athlon 64 X2 4800+, two 7200rpm hard drives and a GeForce Go 6800 Ultra GPU. HEXUS.net has a review of the laptop, one of the most powerful we've seen hit the market to date." From the article: "Rather than change a formula that works, Rockdirect has opted to stick with the Clevo D900-based chassis that its other performance-based laptops use. The obvious downsides are bulkiness and weight, with the laptop sitting almost 5cm high and weighing in at 5.7kg. It's a desktop replacement in the truest sense of the words, and with an 8kg travel weight (including charger and supplied carrying case) and relatively poor battery life, it's about as portable as a concrete slab."

OctoberSky writes "We already knew that Intel was changing its slogan. The new tagline will be 'Leap Ahead', replacing the 10 year old 'Intel Inside'. The move was initially reported here on Slashdot yesterday. The official announcement includes the slogan's replacement." From the article: "Intel shares, up 7.2 percent this year, fell 37 cents to $25.07 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The change in Intel's brand is the first step in a $2.5 billion marketing campaign, BusinessWeek reported earlier, without making clear where it got the information. Intel spokesman Bill Calder declined to comment on the number. "

aralin asks: "I am building a new home server (web server, email, source code repository, ...) and don't really need that much performance, but would like to make it ultra quiet. I have found some quiet, one platter harddrives and can get a lower-end graphics card without a fan. I underclock the CPU so it never really needs cooling, besides the load on the computer will be quite low, most of the time. What I cannot get around easily is the power supply. They are quite noisy and the quiet ones are really expensive. I'm just not going to put half of my budget on a power supply. Do you know any company that manufactures PC cases with external power supply or do you know any other cheap solution to a quiet PC?"

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "The National Archives, entrusted to preserve America's official history, will have to handle roughly 100 million emails from the Bush White House, up from 32 million during the Clinton years, according to the Wall Street Journal. 'The rapid adoption of electronic communications technology in the last decade has created a major crisis for the Archives,' the Journal reports. 'For one thing, the amount of data to be preserved has exploded in recent years, thanks to the proliferation of high-tech tools such as personal computers and wireless email devices such as BlackBerries. At the same time, technology is becoming obsolete so fast that electronic documents created today may not be legible on tomorrow's devices, the equivalent of trying to play an eight-track tape on an iPod.' The director of the Electronic Records Archives Program tells the Journal, 'We don't want to turn into a Cyber-Williamsburg, a place that keeps old technologies alive.'"

Randall311 writes "The Inquirer is reporting that Intel is getting rid of its tagline 'Intel Inside' and plans to run a huge logo launch this January. Apparently the new logo has been seen in internal documents already. 'Intel Inside' has been with us since 1991. I guess now all thats left to update is the 'Idiot Outside' that doesn't know anything about using a computer."

dotwhynot writes "Molecular electronics, a realm once considered science fiction, could be heading for our computers and devices sooner than thought. A new report on the technology roadmap of the chip industry finds a growing confidence in new nanotechnology, and forecasts that the transition to the post-silicon era could happen by 2015. The development of nanoswitches has already reached a point where it will be possible to manufacture them reliably at low cost. Intels goal over the next decade is to build chips that hold more than one trillion switches."

CodeHog writes "Got socks instead of the new DVD writer you were looking for this holiday season? Tom's Hardware has a writeup on the latest DVD writers and their 'true speeds'. The conclusions may be surprising: higher speeds won't necessarily do any good as media availability continues to be a problem." From the article: "Despite the stagnation of write speeds for DVD-R and DVD+R at 16x, new DVD writers are regularly being marketed, since performance for other types of writing (RW and dual-layer) is still improving. But as is customary, manufacturers of writers have a lead on media manufacturers. For this article, we visited all the stores to see what types of media are actually available for sale, and once again the result was most enlightening. You can find 16x-compatible -R and +R discs, but in the other formats they simply aren't out there."

benr writes "According to an AP report, the earbud headphones that are so popular for ipods and other portable devices may lead to hearing loss. From the article: "The big culprits aren't the devices themselves, but the tiny 'ear bud' style headphones that the music players use. 'Unfortunately, the earbuds are even more likely to cause hearing loss than the muff-type earphones that were used on Walkman and portable CD players'""

JonathanGCohen writes "The U.S. Military has created the first ever prototype for an exoskeleton to be worn by soldiers capable of making its 100 pound weight and a 70 pound supply package feel like five pounds." From the article: "Bleex 1 consists of a pair of hydraulically powered leg braces, more than 40 electronic sensors, a control computer, and an internal-combustion engine providing power from an attached backpack. The plastic and carbon-fiber braces are affixed rigidly to the soldier through a customized pair of standard Army boots, with more compliant and giving connections at the chest and waist. These looser connections prevent blisters and abrasions."

Doctor Memory writes "The Register reports that several Japanese semiconductor manufacturers (Toshiba, Hitachi and Renesas, and possibly NEC and Matsushita) are in talks to create a "semiconductor superpower" to counter rivals in Taiwan, the US and China. The firms are in talks to create a shared foundry, which might set the stage for the creation of a 45-nanometer process well in advance of the competition."