Business

Intel's Core 2 Duo microprocessor launched this past week, and the event was appropriately sensational for the chip's highly anticipated release. In what might be considered the most significant occurence in Intel's history, a glitzy show with the ... theme "believe the hype" whipped anxious techies into a fury at the company's Santa Clara headquarters. And, according to many insiders, Intel's chip actually lives up to its billing. The 2 Duo features some massive spikes in speed while at the same time managing to significantly decrease power consumption. In comparison with its previous chips, ... (view more)

Is the FBI poking around your e-mail? Randall C. Ashby II used his Google Mail (Gmail) account to distribute hate speech -- and that was all the feds needed to investigate him. On May 22nd, 2006, Ashby signed up for Gmail and sent a threatening ... message to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The NAACP immediately forwarded the offensive letter to the FBI. Here's a transcript of Ashby's e-mail: Warning: The following quote contains disturbing content! "You are no match for our numbers and our power. We will come out of the night and rise from the dirt to ... (view more)

Now that Microsoft knows you want it, Office 2007 Beta 2 downloads are no longer a gratuity. Since its release two months ago, the extremely popular program has been downloaded a total of three million times, leading the Redmond-based company to ... start charging $1.50 USD, beginning August 2. According to Microsoft, the beta program -- 550 MB for the basic version, 2GB for the full suite -- and its explosive popularity have put a fantastic strain on the company's networks. Even Microsoft itself has been caught off guard by the intense downloading of the Office beta, stating that the 3 million ... (view more)

In the last few years -- perhaps even decade -- the cost of wages has forced many technological jobs to a place in our galaxy far, far away. Manufacturing as a whole has exploded in China and the Far East, but in recent years, the boom has expanded ... to include other nations in the near-Pacific theatre with a workforce capable of technological achievement. The most recent market for manufacturing outsourcing has been India, but as its wage rates increase, its appeal to the North American and European tech industry decreases. Outsourcing is most widely known as the delegation on internal duties ... (view more)

The first question that pops into this writer's head is: What is Lars going to complain about now? Metallica and most publicly, drummer Lars Ulrich, were one of the first and most vocal opponents to online music downloading. Their most sensational ... events were open and often angry speeches against Napster, the Internet's first massive peer-to-peer service. Since then, the bell has long since tolled for Napster, but others have picked up the torch, leaving a few veteran bands like Metallica shaking their fists at technology. However, the recent demise of downloading giant Kazaa (not that it ... (view more)

Even with massive revenues through a number of initiatives, the cost of meeting demand for the Xbox 360 console has left the Microsoft Home and Entertainment division with a posted operating loss of $414 million for Quarter 4, 2006. Similar losses ... were felt last year in anticipation of the 360 launch, but despite promises that a number of concepts would force a profit, such explosive revenue has yet to materialize. Luckily for Microsoft, its SQL server (the language used to retrieve and manipulate database materials) has exploded in recent months, making up for the growing pains of raising ... (view more)

In a pair of recent surveys on brand power and popularity in Britain and the United States, Microsoft dominated and dropped out of the top ten in each, respectively. In a public survey by consultant agency Superbrands and research group YouGov, ... Microsoft launched into first in the hearts of British voters. The poll, conducted by a group considered "industry experts", asked 2,373 members of the public what brand they felt was the most reliable, distinct, and routinely showed the best quality. In the provided list of some 500 companies, Microsoft, to the astonishment of many UK tech insiders, ... (view more)

In response to its main competitor's participation in of the tech industry's biggest-ever acquisitions, NVIDIA Chief Executive Officer Jen-Hsun Huang is surpisingly positive. In a recent interview, the CEO of ATI's long-time rival called the merger ... a "gift" for NVIDIA, claiming his company's position as the only stand-alone graphics card producer would ensure success in the future. For those not following the news, processing chip producer AMD recently announced its purchase of leading graphics-card producer ATI, for a reported $5.4 billion. For AMD, it could be the gamble that gets it out of ... (view more)

In a quarter that proved disastrous for the makers of the processing chips that power its software, Microsoft has reported strong earnings for the second financial period of 2006. So strong, in fact, that the Redmond-based company has pledged to buy ... back $40 billion of its own stock, with at least half of that within the next month. Normally, it takes years for a company to buy back just portions of its stock. In the past, much of Microsoft's pledge in doing so has been no different. It pledged three years ago to buy back $30 billion, and has only recently completed this purchase. The second ... (view more)

Google has just unveiled Accessible Web Search , a search engine for the visually-challenged. Here's how it works: Regular Google sorts search results primarily by how relevancy, but Accessible Search takes it a step further by also listing pages ... will that will be easy for the blind to navigate. To meet Google's Accessible Web Search criteria, a web Site has to be "visually simple." That means it should contain few images, work well even if those images are turned off, and can be navigated primarily with a keyboard. (Source: google.com ) Before Google Accessible Web Search, searching the ... (view more)