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Archive for February, 2008
EU Hits Microsoft with Record 899 Million Euro Antitrust Fine
Written by admin on February 28, 2008 under Internet, Microsoft, News | View Comments
BRUSSELS, Belgium – The European Union fined the software giant Microsoft Corp. a record $1.3 billion Wednesday for charging unreasonable amount for providing software information to its competitors.
Regulators of EU said that the company imposed “unfair prices” till last October to software developers, who wanted to develop products, which is well matched with the Windows operating system. This is the largest fine ever charged for an individual company.
Microsoft immediately responded to this issue by saying that the problem has been solved and the company was making its products more open to all.
The fine was imposed with in a week after Microsoft had announced that it is ready to share more information about its technology and products with a view to make it work better with competitor’s software and to meet the demands of European antitrust regulators.
Ford Sale of Jaguar, Land Rover to Tata Soon
Written by admin on February 26, 2008 under News | View Comments
CHICAGO – Indian Automobile major Tata Motors will announce its acquisition of British luxury car units Jaguar and Land Rover from the struggling US automobile manufacturer Ford Motor Co. on March 5 or 6, reported the industry press on Monday.
Land Rover’s Range Rover Sport
(Credit: Land Rover USA)
Top authorities of both Tata and Ford discussed with the British union leaders last week to take a final decision prior to drawing up a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for the sale.
“The sooner everything gets settled, the better,” said Roger Maddison, the national officer of Unite, the largest union in the UK auto industry. Tata has accepted to meet the demands raised by the Jaguar-Land Rover (JLR) union leaders, said Maddison.
An important question is that whether Tata would persist in obtaining the engines and other techniques from Ford’s manufacturing unit. Ford officials were not immediately available for comment.
Sony Ties Up With Sharp for LCD Panel Manufacturing
Written by admin on February 26, 2008 under News, Technology | View Comments
Tokyo - Sony Corp, which is the 2nd largest maker of consumer appliances in the world, said that it would acquire a 1/3rd stake in Sharp’s LCD panel plant expected to be complete by March 2010. This is an effort by Sony to cope with increasing demand for flat televisions.
This is the latest move in the list of alliances made by Japanese flat TV manufacturers in order to secure enough LCD panels while having initial investments under control to cope with greater price declines.
In addition to LCD panels, the joint venture will also manufacture LCD modules. LCD modules are display panels furnished with components like LCD driver chips and backlight unit.
The move decrease Sony’s dependence on chief supplier Samsung Electronics Co. of South Korea as LCD TV sales are expected to increase by 29 % this year. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and UBS AG forecast the shortage of LCD TV will continue in 2008.
” This will be a positive step for Sharp as it means a big buyer, which would keep the new factory engaged,” said Kazuharu Miura, analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research.
Nokia Develops Nano Based “Morph” Transformation of Future Mobile Devices
Written by admin on February 26, 2008 under News, Technology | View Comments
In a technical collaboration with the University of Cambridge, Nokia’s “Morph” concept was introduced on Monday. “Morph” is a specific nanotechnology based concept that will bring more flexibility in designing mobile phone devices with transformations in to various shapes in future.
“Morph” is a joint venture research and development concept of ‘University of Cambridge’ and ‘Nokia Research Center’. Nanotechnological concepts have been applied with the stretchable and flexible materials, transparent electronics, and self –cleaning surfaces in order to enhance the functionality of technological applications, according to Nokia.
Elasticity is the basic concept behind this technological innovation. It is more similar in principle with the “spider silk”. This extra-functional elasticity in mobile phone devices will provide an extended advantage and the devices can be easily transformed in to various shapes and designs befitting varied requirements.
Biofuel from Babassu Nuts Tested Successfully on an Aircraft
Written by admin on February 25, 2008 under News, Technology | View Comments
LONDON – British billionaire Richard Branson, the owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways, tested a Boeing 747-300 that was partly filled by a biofuel made from babassu nuts and coconut oil, first time of its kind for a commercial aircraft.
Babassu nuts, which were picked from Amazon rainforests, played an imperative role in making biofuel for a commercial airline flight for the first time. The flight successfully flew to Amsterdam from Heathrow Airport with one out of its four fuel tanks filled with a blend of biofuel made up of babassu and coconut oil and jet kerosene. The aircraft landed safely in Amsterdam after 40 minutes.
“This is a milestone in the history of entire airline industry,“ said Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Atlantic Airways in a press meet at Heathrow airport prior to the take off aircraft.
Mozilla Seeks Partnerships in China
Written by admin on February 25, 2008 under Internet, News, Technology | View Comments
Shanghai – Mozilla, the well known developer of the open source Web browser Firefox, which is the second most widely used web browser only after Microsoft Corporation’s Internet Explorer, has set its target to increase its market share in China by at least twofold this year. China is all set to become the largest Web market in the world.
Gong Li, chief executive of Mozilla Online, said that the California based company is expecting the venture to be hard in a nation where customers largely lack awareness of open source and businesses usually establish their services only on Explorer.
Mozilla Online which is known as “seek wisdom” or “mou zhi,” in Chinese at present has about 4.5 million regular users in China. “There are around 4.5 regular users in china,” said Gong Li, who formerly worked at Microsoft’s MSN unit and at Sun Microsystems Inc.
Sony to Sell Chip Facility to Toshiba for $835 Million
Written by admin on February 24, 2008 under News, Technology | View Comments
Tokyo:
Japanese company Toshiba announced that it had agreed to purchase high-performance semiconductor operations from its rival Sony for 835 million dollars, just a day after losing to its competitor in a tough DVD format war.
The new Playstation 3 control and box are displayed at a Sony Computer Entertainment America news conference in San Francisco, California, October 19, 2006. Sony Corp said on Wednesday it will sell its microchip production facilities in western Japan to Toshiba Corp for 90 billion yen ($835 million), in their latest move to focus on their core businesses. REUTERS/Kimberly White
In spite of being tough competitors both the companies announced that they had made up a deal to form semiconductor joint ventures were 60% is owned by Toshiba Corp. and 40% is owned by Sony Corp.
Toshiba will pay 90 billion yen to Sony for its operations in western region of Nagasaki to make high technology semiconductors, including its talent behind PlayStation 3 video game console, a joint statement said.
U.S. Missile Hits Disabled Spy Satellite
Written by admin on February 23, 2008 under News, Technology | View Comments
Honolulu – The U.S. war ship “Lake Erie” blasted a disabled spy satellite with a tactical SM-3 missile, which exactly strikes the school bus-sized satellite that was traveling at a speed of more than 7000 miles per hour. It had attained the ultimate target of exploding a tank of toxic hydrazine fuel at a height of 133 nautical miles above the Pacific Ocean, said the defense officials.
Demolishing the satellite’s hazardous fuel tank containing 1,000 pounds of hydrazine fuel was the primary goal, said a senior defense official on Thursday. He said it seems that the tank was totally demolished, and the pinpoint strike with a specially designed missile was an absolute success.
Many international leaders had protested against this as they see this incident as a thinly disguised attempt to test an anti-satellite weapon — one that could destroy rival country’s spy satellite and orbiting communications.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said. “China is always having a watchful eye over the possible harm that was created by U.S. action to outer space security and relevant countries.”
Google Launched “AdSense for Video” Program, Intends to Tap Video Ad Markets
Written by admin on February 22, 2008 under Google, Technology | View Comments
Google is now set to hit the video advertising markets with its latest launch of “Video Advertising Program” on Thursday. The company is visualizing for a great time ahead with its arms,”You Tube”, and the existing “Ad-Network”. It hopes to materialize huge capital from the exponentially growing video advertising and online video.
Long awaited “AdSense for Video”, this new initiative from Google, came after the start of ‘testing text links’ with the video advertisements side by side of the search results. It is in beta stage right now and advertisers have been offered an option for “placing their text-ads overlaid at the bottom of a video viewer”, according to Google. This will facilitate a viewer to click on the overlay in order to see the video advertisement.
Google’s idea of showing video ads is quite different from the regular television ads which show up before the start of a program. Google’s ads will not be obstructive in that manner. Google in fact has taken a different approach and this will not prompt viewers to put the ads off, says the company.
Intel Launched “Skulltrail”, a Dual-Socket Motherboard
Written by admin on February 21, 2008 under Computers, News | View Comments
There is good news for gamers and graphics professionals across the world. A dual- socket motherboard was launched by Intel specifically for the PC manufacturers who intend to facilitate the customers with gaming and graphics choices. Such manufacturers can now configure new machines with two quad-core processors and multiple graphics cards on a single motherboard.
“Skulltrail”, that was the code name given to this ‘Dual Socket Extreme Desktop Platform’ by Intel. The company took an advantage of the occasion of ‘Game Developers Conference’ in San Francisco and released this platform on Tuesday.
It consists of one Desktop board D5400XS along with two ‘Core 2 Extreme QX9775’ processors. This platform can also support ‘Crossfire’ of ATI and the ‘SLI graphics cards’ of Nvidia. Intel’s arch rivals ‘Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) owns the ATI.
