Tony's Cabin

Something big is brewing. We’ve just been informed that HTC is holding an event in London where they will be celebrating a GLOBAL announcement about the future of HTC design. A satellite event in New York City will also be taking place.

All signs point to the HTC Hero being announced and we would be absolutely ELATED if that were the case. But you can never be certain with these things and HTC could have more planned, less planned or anything in between or outside planned. Whatever they have planned you should definitely be excited because HTC has helped pave the Android way and we know every product they launch packs hotness.

Mark it down. June 24th. London. Circle it in red permanent marker.

by Rob Jackson on June 2nd, 2009
http://phandroid.com/2009/06/02/htc-announcement-june-24th-in-london/

Today, during Computex 2009, NVIDIA and its partners have announced no less than 12 new MIDs (mobile internet devices) based on the NVIDIA Tegra processor.

Leveraging on NVIDIA Tegra’s capabilities, the new devices (netbooks and tablets) provide desktop-like Internet browsing, supporting Flash, 1080p video playback, and animation acceleration.

Moreover, the MIDs come with “up to 5x the battery life of current netbooks”.

Those visiting the Computex 2009 fair (2 – 6 June, Tapei, Taiwan) can check-out the following Tegra-based devices:

Compal CN88 (netbook)
Inventec Rainbow (netbook)
ICD Ultra (tablet)
Mobinnova Mabo (tablet)
Mobinnova ViewBook N910 (netbook)
Pegatron Vivid (netbook)
Wistron M5 (netbook)

“These new Tegra-based products combine excellent Internet and media capabilities, always-on operation, and wireless connectivity for the un-tethered Internet experience consumers have been craving,” declared Michael Rayfield, general manager of mobile business at NVIDIA.

Via Press release


Posted on 02 Jun 09 by ilinca
http://www.unwiredview.com/2009/06/02/12-new-nvidia-tegra-devices-announced-at-computex/

A routine security update for a Microsoft Windows component installed on tens of millions of computers has quietly installed an extra add-on for an untold number of users surfing the Web with Mozilla's Firefox Web browser.

Earlier this year, Microsoft shipped a bundle of updates known as a "service pack" for a programming platform called the Microsoft .NET Framework, which Microsoft and plenty of third-party developers use to run a variety of interactive programs on Windows.

The service pack for the .NET Framework, like other updates, was pushed out to users through the Windows Update Web site. A number of readers had never heard of this platform before Windows Update started offering the service pack for it, and many of you wanted to know whether it was okay to go ahead and install this thing. Having earlier checked to see whether the service pack had caused any widespread problems or interfered with third-party programs -- and not finding any that warranted waving readers away from this update -- I told readers not to worry and to go ahead and install it.


I'm here to report a small side effect from installing this service pack that I was not aware of until just a few days ago: Apparently, the .NET update automatically installs its own Firefox add-on that is difficult -- if not dangerous -- to remove, once installed.

Annoyances.org, which lists various aspects of Windows that are, well, annoying, says "this update adds to Firefox one of the most dangerous vulnerabilities present in all versions of Internet Explorer: the ability for Web sites to easily and quietly install software on your PC." I'm not sure I'd put things in quite such dire terms, but I'm fairly confident that a decent number of Firefox for Windows users are rabidly anti-Internet Explorer, and would take umbrage at the very notion of Redmond monkeying with the browser in any way.

Big deal, you say? I can just uninstall the add-on via Firefox's handy Add-ons interface, right? Not so fast. The trouble is, Microsoft has disabled the "uninstall" button on the extension. What's more, Microsoft tells us that the only way to get rid of this thing is to modify the Windows registry, an exercise that -- if done imprecisely -- can cause Windows systems to fail to boot up.

When I first learned of this, three thoughts immediately flashed through my mind:

1) How the %#@! did I miss this?

2) The right way would have been to just publish the add-on at Mozilla's Add Ons page.

3) This kind of makes you wonder what else MS is installing without your knowledge.

Then I found that I wasn't the only one who had these ideas. Microsoft has heard these criticisms from others who long ago commented on this unfortunate development (see the comments underneath this post).

Anyway, I'm sure it's not the end of the world, but it's probably infuriating to many readers nonetheless. Firstly -- to my readers -- I apologize for overlooking this..."feature" of the .NET Framework security update. Secondly -- to Microsoft -- this is a great example of how not to convince people to trust your security updates.

By Brian Krebs | May 29, 2009; 7:40 AM ET
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2009/05/microsoft_update_quietly_insta.html

This may be the last CommunityOne event for Sun as an independent company, and if it is the company is going out with an open source bang.

Sun is putting everything it has into the new version of Open Solaris, dubbed 2009.06, and promising once again to unify the open source and paid versions of the operating system.

Director of product management Dan Roberts gave ZDNet a preview. The highlights are:

Project Crossbow, which puts networking into the operating system stack and reduces the need for networking hardware.

Project COMSTAR, allowing centralized management of storage, turning commodity servers into storage servers and moving the data used most often onto flash drives.

Virtualization built into the operating system, so that hypervisors like Xen can be run as containers.

Roberts said Sun is also reducing the cost of its Open Solaris support contracts, and unifying those prices with those of Solaris. There will now be three tiers of support — $324 for basic, $720 for standard and $1,080 for premium.

“That gives existing Solaris customers the option of running a collection of Solaris and Open Solaris under the same contract because there’s no price difference,” Roberts said.

Putting networking, storage management and virtualization inside the operating system kernel of a scaled, enterprise-class operating system is going to be a very big deal, Roberts added.

The moves seem aimed squarely at Sun’s newest rival in the hardware space, Cisco Systems. By putting controls normally associated with Cisco networking inside the Open Solaris kernel Sun hits Cisco where it lives. Or Oracle does.

Where Sun will be living in a few months is another story.


Posted by Dana Blankenhorn @ 6:00 am
http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=4271

HP today announced the launch of a new display technology for the personalization of consumer electronics products.

Electronic Skins, or eSkins, is a flexible reflective color film that can be applied to a variety of devices – including mobile phones, digital cameras, MP3 players, netbooks and notebooks. eSkins also can reflectively display icons and alpha-numeric characters.

HP eSkins technology offers brand manufacturers new ways to personalize their products with an electronically controlled color surface created using HP’s breakthrough roll-to-roll manufacturing platform. Designed to make fine-scale circuitry on plastic substrates, the platform processes flexible screens in rolls rather than individual sheets, offering the potential for more cost-effective manufacturing.

“Consumer electronics manufacturers who integrate HP eSkins technology into future products can benefit from HP’s expertise and innovation in ink technology and deliver print-like color performance,” said Ken Abbott, director, Emerging Technology, Technology Development Organization, Inkjet and Web Solutions Business, HP. “HP’s eSkins technology allows our partners in the consumer electronics industry to further differentiate their products by introducing a dynamic, durable and reflective digital surface to enable new design freedom.”

This new device architecture is compatible with roll-to-roll plastic circuits that can be combined with proprietary, electrically controllable “inks” to achieve print-like color performance, as well as transparency. Using a technology similar to color printing, HP is developing the capability to produce specific “ink” colors within the PANTONE MATCHING SYSTEM® range. The vibrant, print-quality colors have excellent visibility in direct sunlight and can electronically shift into a transparent state, revealing the surface below the eSkins film.

HP at Display Week 2009

At Display Week 2009, Tim Koch, research and development manager for the Technology Development Organization at HP, will offer a technical presentation on the HP roll-to-roll manufacturing platform on which eSkins technology was developed. The presentation will take place at noon on Thursday, June 4, in Room 217A/B. The conference, hosted by the Society for Information Display, is being held May 31 to June 5 at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio.

Additionally, HP will present two technical papers on Multicomponent Oxide Transistors, which are enabling a new generation of display technology with higher refresh rates, increased speeds and better stability:

***“Zinc Indium Oxide TFTs for Active-Matrix-Display Backplane” (session 21), by Randy Hoffman, senior engineer, HP, on Wednesday, June 3, at 10 a.m. CT in Ballroom C21

***“Fabrication of Zinc Tin Oxide TFTs by Self-Aligned Imprint Lithography (SAIL) on Flexible Substrates” (session 58), by Warren Jackson, senior researcher, HP, on Friday, June 5, at 9:40 a.m. CT in Ballroom C1



SAN ANTONIO, June 1, 2009
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/090601b.html?mtxs=rss-corp-news