While basic features of Intel’s next-generation desktop platform based on code-named Bloomfield processors are commonly known, more precise, but still rather general, specifications were kept under wraps. Apparently, the chipset that will enable Intel’s forth-coming high-end platform is called Intel X58 and will support one physical central processing unit (CPUs) as well as up to four graphics processing units (GPUs).

According to slides, which resemble those that come from Intel Corp., published by Expreview web-site, Intel’s next-gen high-end desktop Intel X58 chipset will consist of X58 PCI Express bridge as well as ICH10 input/output controller hub. The X58 is projected to feature four PCI Express 2.0 memory controllers to support two graphics cards with two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots or four graphics cards with four PCIe 2.0 x8 slots.

View: The full story @ Xbit Labs

Microsoft is aiming to capture 40 percent of the smartphone market with Windows Mobile by the year 2012, an executive said Tuesday. The target is ambitious considering the company's relatively small share of the market for smartphone operating systems today and stiff competition from the likes of Symbian, Apple's iPhone, RIM's BlackBerry, and newcomers such as Google's Android platform.

Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS went into around 11 million handsets in the company's fiscal year 2007, and it says it will reach nearly 20 million devices in fiscal year 2008, which ends June 30, said Eddie Wu, managing director of Microsoft's OEM Embedded Devices in Asia, on the sidelines of a news conference in Taipei. Handsets such as the new HTC Touch Diamond will help Microsoft achieve its goal, he added. High Tech Computer (HTC) is the world's largest maker of Microsoft-based mobile phones and has been for years due to an early partnership between the companies. The HTC Touch Diamond is a 3G (third generation mobile telecommunications) update to the company's popular Touch handset launched last year, an iPhone-rival that sports a large touchscreen.

View: The full story @ PCWorld

Sun Microsystems is now the latest vendor to use Advanced Micro Devices' quad-core Opteron chips in its rack-mount server and blade portfolios. Sun is offering eight systems that take advantage of the quad-core Opteron processors formerly code-named Barcelona. The one blade and seven rack-mount systems that are being released May 13 are part of Sun's x64 (x86, 64-bit) line of servers.

The launch includes four rack-mount systems and one blade—the Sun Blade x8440—that have been upgraded to support both dual- and quad-core Opteron processors, along with three systems—the Sun Fire x4140, x4240 and the x4440—that are new to the company's system portfolio. Sun now joins Hewlett-Packard and Dell, the other top-tier vendors offering commercial systems built around AMD's Opteron chip, which suffered from a series of delays related to a design flaw in the silicon that the chip maker disclosed in late 2007. However, Sun did complete its new supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing Center in February using an older version of the quad-core Opteron chip.

View: The full story @ eWeek

Mario Rivas, chief of AMD's computing solutions group, and Michel Cadieux, head of human resources, have parted ways with AMD, according to the chip maker. AMD has had some notable losses on the executive front in the past year. Rivas and Cadieux join former CTO Phil Hester, who left last month, and ex-sales chief Henri Richard and Visual Media Business chief Dave Orton, both of whom departed late last summer.

AMD has suffered losses in six straight quarters and last month announced layoffs of about 1,600 workers from 16,800 worldwide, to be completed by the end of the third quarter of this year. It was not clear whether Rivas' and Cadieux's departures would count towards the downsizing total. AMD has stated that Hester's exit was not part of the layoffs. Randy Allen, GM of AMD's server/workstation division, appears to be Rivas' successor as head of the computing solutions group. Allen, who last week delivered a major update to AMD's server roadmap, has been named senior vice president of the computing solutions group and will report directly to AMD president and COO Dirk Meyer. Allen Sockwell has been named head of human resources.

View: The full story @ CRN

In addition to its GPU production, AMD is planning to also outsource CPU production to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) in the second half of this year, according to industry sources.

Although Hector Ruiz, CEO of AMD did not mention any plans to outsource production during the company's recent investors conference, the industry sources revealed that TSMC has already started testing procedures for a SOI manufacturing process in order to land manufacturing orders for AMD's Fusion CPUs.

View: The full story @ DigiTimes

Regulators in the US are being urged to investigate any potential online advertising and search partnership between Google and Yahoo. The call by a coalition of 16 American civil rights and rural advocacy bodies comes despite the fact no firm deal has actually been announced.

"We all suffer in such mega mergers," Gary Flowers of the Black Leadership Forum told BBC News.

The justice department is examining a trial the companies did in April. It has been widely reported that it is looking into the anti-trust implications of last month's two-week test. However, the department says it has no comment on the coalition's demands because there is no definitive agreement between Yahoo and Google at the moment. But reports say that the two companies are presently hammering out the intricacies of a future potential advertising and search agreement, and are sharing their plans with antitrust regulators.

View: Full Article @ BBC News

With Windows 7 likely to be complete in Q4 2009, Microsoft's chairman Bill Gates hinted at what the company is planning for the next version of Windows last week.

In a speech at the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium (in Tokyo) last Wednesday, Gates hinted:

"We're hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I'm very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don't have a lot of work to move that data back and forth."

Gates also mentioned Windows Live services and the fact the company has 400 million users connected to these services. Also mentioned was the fact that Gates sees "a major new version of Windows every two to three years", noting that services that Windows connects up to would be updated on a regular basis.

Microsoft is currently in the middle of building Windows Live Mesh which plays on the idea of being able to sync data between multiple PCs and mobile phones.

View: Bill Gates Speech

Microsoft launched its WorldWide Telescope late Monday.

The free Web-based application allows users to zoom around the universe and browse through the galaxy on their own or take guided tours of different outer-space destinations developed by astronomers and academics.

The application itself is a blend of software and Web 2.0 services created with the Microsoft high performance Visual Experience Engine, which allows seamless panning and zooming around the heavens with rich image environments. Worldwide Telescope stitches together terabytes of high-resolution images of celestial bodies, and displays them in a way that relates to their actual position in the sky. People can freely browse through the solar system, galaxy and beyond, or take advantage of a growing number of guided tours of the sky hosted by astronomers and educators at major universities and planetariums

View: WorldWide Telescope

Microsoft Corp. and Research In Motion (RIM) today announced an agreement to provide Microsoft Windows Live services on BlackBerry® smartphones. As a result of this collaboration, BlackBerry smartphone customers will enjoy easy mobile access to Windows Live Messenger and an enhanced level of integration between Windows Live Hotmail and the BlackBerry platform.

The integration of Windows Live services into the BlackBerry platform will allow customers who use Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger on their BlackBerry smartphone to benefit from the BlackBerry platform architecture with the ability to communicate in real time using push technology, and an exceptional mobile communications experience. Customers will also be able to seamlessly access their Windows Live Hotmail and Windows Live Messenger account from their BlackBerry smartphone by simply entering their Windows Live e-mail address and password once.

“The BlackBerry platform is respected around the world for providing optimized messaging capabilities, and RIM continues to look for ways to provide customers with a wide range of communications options and the best possible mobile experience,” said Mark Guibert, vice president, Corporate Marketing at RIM. “Our relationship with Microsoft and the addition of Windows Live services to BlackBerry smartphones help us build on that strategy for our customers.”

View: Microsoft Press Release

Microsoft Corp has launched a new online service in 20 countries which will allow users to watch video clips at the same time as a network of friends and chat via Windows Live Messenger.

The new service called Messenger TV will offer a range of clips on MSN Video including MTV shows and music clips from providers such as Sony BMG.

The firm hopes the ability to watch clips with friends on different computers will create a new social experience and attract users who already spend hours on social networks.

"Online video has exploded in popularity over the last year, but to date it has been something people watch on their own. Messenger TV is set to change all that," said John Mangelaars, the vice-president, EMEA, of consumer and online for Microsoft.

View: Reuters News

Amid swirling rumors about the impending announcement of a 3G iPhone, Research in Motion today introduced its slickest, speediest, most powerful, and most connected BlackBerry to date: the BlackBerry Bold 9000.

Equipped with support for tri-band HSDPA and quad-band EDGE (which means that it will support the highest-speed GSM-family data networks wherever they are available worldwide), 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi, stereo Bluetooth, and both assisted and autonomous GPS, the Bold could prove a formidable challenger to Apple's next-gen iPhone on connectivity alone.

It even looks a bit iPhone-esque, with its glassy display area, generally flat profile, and rounded corners. Still, the Bold comes configured with a hardware QWERTY keyboard, and it retains the general dimensions of its predecessors, so it's much shorter and somewhat thicker than the iPhone.

View: Photo
View: Full Article @ PC World

It'd be absolutely spectacular to actually see one of these admittedly ambitious municipal WiFi projects actually work out every now and then, but instead, we're seeing the nails start to sink into yet another citywide WiFi coffin.

This go 'round, the network blanketing most of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is on the verge of sending out its last signals unless the city can devise a plan in short order to take it over from EarthLink, who unsurprisingly wants out on the double. Unfortunately, we don't have a great feeling about the system's future -- history has a way of forecasting, you know?

News Source: Engadget

As some of you might have faced problem with Windows Live Messenger blocking some of the URLs, now the problem has been fixed and this is what Messenger Team had to say :

"Greetings Messenger fans –

As some of you noticed, we had a problem from Friday night to Saturday morning where our Messenger service was incorrectly blocking some legitimate IP addresses. We sincerely apologize for any difficulties this caused our users. And we want to thank those of you that reported this problem to us so that we could quickly fix it. Because of your help, the incorrect block was only in place for a few hours.

As you can imagine, we are very serious about our efforts to block virus, malware and other harmful URLs from being passed on to our users. And we're continually working to improve this process so that we can keep our users safe without having a negative impact on your Messenger service.

The release of Windows Vista Service Pack 1 not only heralded a long-awaited update of the operating system, it also meant the end of two common Windows Vista anti-activation exploits - the Grace Timer exploit and the Paradox OEM BIOS activation crack. But those who think they can escape by not updating to Service Pack 1 would be sadly mistaken.

That's because Microsoft has surreptitiously released an anti-hack detection update via Windows Update. Those who chose to have Windows Vista install updates automatically would have this update installed and running by now. If you chose to manually select updates to be installed, you should find this update listed.

View: Full Article @ Tech ARP

As originally reported on the Neowin forums, Windows Live Messenger blocks sending YouTube links to other Windows IM users.

Speculation has grown throughout the web as to why this is. Monopolistic practices on Microsoft's part, or something else?

Today I discussed the issue with Rafael Rivera (maker of the Vista uxtheme patches on WithinWindows.com) who pointed out that a lot of sites are blocked, not just YouTube. For instance, deviantART, which doesn't compete with Microsoft in any way, is also blocked.

Our conclusion is that it's probably an unintentional, but stupid, mistake by Microsoft. But what do you think?