Feed: Tech guy - AggScore: 83.4

If you haven't heard about Wolfram|Alpha, you need to check it out at wolframalpha.com. It's online on and off right now and will officially be up on Monday. What is Wolfram|Alpha? Well... it's a little heard to explain. The site, which is available to everyone, makes "it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything." How can it do that? It's not easy. I'll let them explain how it's done: "As of now, Wolfram|Alpha contains 10+ trillion of pieces of data, 50,000+ types of algorithms and models, and linguistic capabilities for 1000+ domains. Built with Mathematica—which is itself the result of more than 20 years of development at Wolfram Research—Wolfram|Alpha's core code base now exceeds 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code. Running on supercomputer-class compute clusters, Wolfram|Alpha makes extensive use of the latest generation of web and parallel computing technologies, including webMathematica and gridMathematica."
The only way you'll understand what the site does, is to check it out. So go there now.

I'm starting to have serious doubts on how good the new Windows 7 will be. Firstly, it's not like Windows Vista was that popular. Then they announced that everything that will have Windows 7 preinstalled, will be easily able to be downgraded to older version of Windows. Now they're letting everybody try it out for free. Starting Tuesday, May 5, you can use it free until June of 2010. That's about 13 months. I'm thinking this is a trick. I'm sure once you install it, they'll make it a huge pain to switch to something else. I also bet they'll make you give them some personal information so they can bug you about buying it nonstop. Stooping to these tactics may be their best way for them to get customers. I mean seriously though, if Windows 7 was any good would they really need to do anything like this.

Sony is planning on showing their new PSP gaming system at the E3 conference in June. The hand-held unit will be available in two configurations, with either eight or 16 GB of built-in flash memory. The system which may or may not be named PSP Go! is set for release in Japan this September, with US distribution slated to begin in late October or early November. It is said that the new unit will have a screen on the top that will allow the button section to slide out from underneath to the front. Many, believe that Sony is "clearly attempting to assert their relevance in the wake of the DSi's release and success of the iPhone as a gaming platform."

From time to time one of our government sites gets hacked into. Most of the time that this happens, fingers get pointed to China. The most recent reported is they were trying to hack into information about our F-35 joint strike fighter. Supposedly there are reports that claim the Chinese military has made "steady progress" in developing online-warfare techniques in an attempt to compensate for an underdeveloped military. Of course the Chinese are saying they are opposed to Internet crimes and they would never do anything like that. Most of the time we are able to trace the hacks right to well known Chinese IP addresses, yet China says we keep making up these stories up.

RealDVD is set to go the court today. The Motion Picture Association of America filed a lawsuit to stop the sale of RealNetwork's RealDVD software. This software allows users to copy DVDs onto their hard drive. The MPAA says this violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act because the software bypasses the copy protection built into the DVDs and would allow people to rent DVDs, rip them onto their hard drive, and return the DVDs. They don't want this kind of software developed because it makes it easy for anyone to break anti-piracy laws. Real says consumers have the right to make personal copies of their DVDs. The MPAA says that consumers don't own the right to crack encryption to make copies.

I can see both sides on this one. The thing is, there's plenty of software like this available already on the Internet although it's illegal. Real is making legal software that has many good purposes but can also be used for the wrong purposes. The MPAA knows that having more of the software out there will cause more people who break laws. It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

AMD introduced the latest member of its Phenom II X4 family of high-performance quad-core CPUs. Out of the box the new X4 955 Black Edition runs at 3.2GHz which is similar to Intel's fastest desktop chip but 10% cheaper. During some extreme overclocking test they've been able to achieve speeds well over twice that speed. Don't expect to be able to do this at home. Speeds that high can only be achieved with help liquid nitrogen or even liquid helium. To run at that speed for an hour it would take about 50 gallons of liquid helium cooling it to -400 degrees Fahrenheit. Do you still want to try this at home? If you want to use conventional fan cooling, you'll be safe running it to 3.8GHZ. AMD has said the X4 955 will cost $245.

Are you one of the many that thought HD DVDs were going to win the battle with Blu-Ray over formats? Did you buy any HD DVD movies? If so, this will come as good news. Warner's new Red2Blu program allows you to trade in any of your Warner HD DVD movies for the Blu-Ray equivalent. Just send the cover art and $4.95 for each video and pay a shipping and handling fee. They do limit you to 25 Warner trade-ins and only one of each title. But hey, that's more than a good deal, it's more like a gift from Warner because they feel sorry for you. Blu-Rays are definitely not cheap.

AT&T's contract with iPhone will end next year. Right now iPhone is leading the market on smart phones. This is really good for AT&T and they need to keep their exclusive right to sell the iPhone. Three quarters of new AT&T subscribers during last quarter were iPhone customers. My bet is, most of those people would not have been customers if it weren't for the iPhone. So AT&T needs to extend that contract no matter what it takes. If iPhone knows that they will probably ask for a lot more money. My guess is they will work something out and you will see iPhone sticking with AT&T for at least a couple more years. I think it's good for both of them.