An anonymous reader writes "The Sony PSP is compatible with Xlink Kai (a multi-platform tunnelling application allowing users to play online for free). Team Xlink is reporting that the WiFi module of the PSP conforms to the recognized standards of wireless networking. This will allow them to add support to the PSP much more quickly than for the Nintendo DS . The team is reportedly working create arenas for the Sony PSP's JAP launch titles which support WiFi play."

thesun asks: "I'm a freelance writer and photographer and I'm wondering what Pro Photographers have done in regards to color matching and scanning under Linux, especially when going from slides to digital. I just can't get anything close to a good image when I scan a slide. They're blurry and the colors are so off that doing anything with my thousands of slides is proving to be prohibitively time-consuming. Are other Pros (or talented amateurs) having similar problems? Are there solutions out there I haven't found? (Sorry, I can't dump thousands into a piece of hardware---I'm looking for a way to make the most of my Epson Perfection 2400 with transparency adapter)."

dr-vjk asks: "I just bought a new *unlocked* HP iPaq h6315 PocketPC. This phone/PDA supports quad-band GSM, Bluetooth and Wifi. This is a huge improvement over my old travel kit (Sony P900, h4315 iPaq, and Apple iBook). I needed an unlocked unit as the standard h6315's are locked to the T-Mobile network which charges over a buck a minute to roam outside the U.S. I have tested it in Europe and Africa with pre-paid local SIM cards and it works great. It works out of the box with GSM networks around the world for voice and GPRS for IP Data. I loaded SJPhone in order to access my Vonage account over WiFI (Skype doesn't work on this unit yet). It was great talking as long as I wanted with friends back in the U.S. with no concern for long distance charges. They could also call my Vonage number in the U.S. and my PDA would ring in Europe."

pillageplunder writes "Businessweek is reporting on the upcoming Wireless Spectrum Auctions. Over the next two years (Starting in Jan 2005) the FCC will auction off enough spectrum that will more than double the amount currently available. Estimates range anywhere from 50 to 70 billion dollars will be raised by these auctions. Short term, it should improve the quality of Cell-phone, long term, it should open up opportunities for so-called 3G services to take off."

Mark Goldstein writes "Some exciting news today for everyone who loves the speed of Canon printers, but hates the fact that they don't have archival-quality inksets. PhotographyBLOG reader Phil Aynsley has sent me a translated version of a page from Canon Japan's website, which talks about a new ChromaLife 100 inkset using BCI-7 dye-inks, with promises of 30 years light-proofness under glass and 10 years antigas fading when used with Canon's "genuine photograph paper". Let's hope it leaves Japan and reaches the rest of the world soon. " The archival issue of printing is a big one for people thinking long term - this would definitely be cool.

yerdaddie writes "The cell processor will be introduced in graphics workstations before release in the Playstation 3, according to press releases by IBM and Sony. As previously discussed, IBM will be releasing more details in February 2005. However, apparently prototype workstations have already been "powered-on" and will be available in 2005. Since Windows on PPC was scrapped back in 1997, this leads to speculation that perhaps Linux, AIX, or BSD will be the operating system for cell workstations."

superfebs writes "Some day ago Samba4 reached a pretty serious test stage. Promises are beautiful: full SMB protocol implementation, Active Directory Domain Controller facility, and more; here's a full roadmap."

Roland Piquepaille writes "I bet most of you have never heard about Argo, an ambitious scientific project about the observation of our oceans. This project is endorsed by 18 countries and just reached a milestone: there are today more than 1,500 robotic floats reporting about salinity changes or predicting El Niño events, among other ones. This news release from the University of California at San Diego says that the Argo floats, which are autonomous ocean-traveling robots programmed to sink more than a mile below the ocean surface, are helping scientists all over the world to look at the future of our whole planet. And in 2007, when the deployment is completed, 3,000 underwater robots will help us to better understand the changes in our climate. You'll find more details, pictures and references in this overview."

caswelmo asks: "My company has recently moved from Solaris workstations to Windows workstations (Ohhh, the humanity). As an engineering focused company, we use our computers to run many in-house (command line) codes to analyze and design our products. We currently use NAS storage to store everything and use batch files and init scripts to run the correct codes over the network. This makes sure everyone is running the latest version. This also stinks. I know this isn't an original problem, so what are some other solutions for rolling out lots of simple codes like this?"

koreth writes "PalmOne's new Treo 650 smartphone is one of the season's most eagerly-anticipated gadgets. But it looks like they let it out of the gate too early. First there was the memory problem, which, to PalmOne's credit, they addressed quickly. That satisfied me and I bought one, only to find that while it's a great device in a lot of ways, as a phone it stinks. From the other end, it sounds like I'm inside a cardboard box, and lots of other people are complaining about the same thing. No word yet from PalmOne on this problem. Any other 650 owners having problems with their new units?"

RHLJay writes "-For the Road Warrior on the Go- If you have a laptop, desktop, and/or work PC keeping the information from Firefox and Thunderbird sync'd with each other is hard, not to mention the extensions. Not anymore - John Haller has packaged both Firefox and Thunderbird into 'Flash drive friendly' executables which can be run directly from a USB flash drive. Visit his site for more info. Portable Firefox and Portable Thunderbird."

An anonymous reader writes "Executives at Infineon Technologies plead guilty to an international conspiracy to fix prices in the DRAM market. Heinrich Florian, Günter Hefner, Peter Schaefer and T. Rudd Corwin, executives for Infineon Technologies, had a felony filed against them yesterday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Each executive could spend up to six months in prison and will have to pay a $250,000 fine. Under the plea agreement, they must also assist the government in its DRAM investigation. Infineon agreed in October to pay a $160 million fine for its role in the conspiracy, according to the Justice Department."

angryflute writes "Toyota has created a walker robot that the driver sits in and controls. It's meant for handicapped people to get around with, but you can easily see the potential for this technology to become the basis for a real-world version of an AT-ST Scout Walker or mobile suit Gundam -- just add guns!" Gizmodo has some more pictures.

Sidicas writes "Squaresoft has released a new version of the benchmark for Final Fantasy XI. The new version includes a preview of the Tavnazian Archipelago from the Chains of Promethia expansion pack. The benchmark is full of eye-candy and makes for one heck of a screensaver!"

An anonymous reader writes "Gentoo Linux may soon begin showing up in consumer gadgets, thanks to a new project creating an embedded version of Gentoo Linux. The year-old project has achieved preliminary releases on x86, MIPS, PPC, and ARM. The releases include native core system binaries, along with toolchains for native or cross-platform compiling. Native compiling, eh... considering it's Gentoo, how long would X take to compile on an iPAQ? :-)"

museumpeace writes "Tired of fixing your computer? What if your system broke down two billion miles from the nearest spare part or human? NASA has just held a colloquium where Ulster University computer science researcher Roy Sterritt was invited to present his ideas on Autonomic Computing. In the last few years,the leading system vendors have realized 'There is no less than a crisis today in three areas: cost, availability and user experience.' There has been a fair amount of academic research since customers like NASA see in it the potential to make remotely operated complex systems sustainable. It all makes for some very cool systems design work and there are lots of further research opportunities. Just don't forget what it may do to your job."

mw13068 asks: "As a part of a backup solution, I'm thinking of running a backup server in my unheated, unattached garage. I live in central New York State, and the temperatures very often drop below zero degrees Celsius. The computer is a Pentium III Celeron running at 733MHz. Has anyone else tried this sort of thing? If you have, please share your experiences."

Ant writes "Blue's News mentions a Far Cry Tech Demo/ATI & Crytek Tech Demo. I just watched it on my Athlon 64 3200+ system with 1 GB of RAM and an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AIW (128 MB) video card. Wow. I had to disable FSAA to keep the FPS up at 1152x864 screen resolution. There is also a video file format available for those who don't have a powerful system and/or video card."

valdean writes "When I was growing up (in the 80s), there were two kinds of computers that my friends (or, more specifically, our parents) had at home: Apple and the IBM-Compatible. IBM defined the PC at that time, and deserves a large share of credit for taking the PC out of the hobby shop and into the mainstream. Now it looks like IBM is getting out of the PC business altogether. CBS Marketwatch has another report."

nzgeek asks: "I've been managing with a pokey Windows notebook for a couple of years now, and am desperate to get a decent PC for development and gaming. Problem is, our house is tiny and we have a 1-year-old entropy generator running amok. What's the best recommendation for getting a full-power desktop PC installed in our house? My ideal setup would be a mini-tower case hidden in a cupboard, with a remote LCD monitor, mouse, keyboard, and headphones. The keyboard and mouse can be done via bluetooth, and there is no problem with cable length for headphones. The major stumbling block is VGA connection for the monitor. Any suggestions on how to overcome this problem?"