AT&T won’t require a two-year commitment for iPhone 3G — but that freedom comes with a hefty price hike for the handset.
AT&T Mobility put some asterisks on its iPhone 3G pricing Tuesday but also revealed an interesting option coming in the future: an iPhone without a contract.
In the news release disclosing terms and monthly rates for iPhone 3G service plans, the carrier hinted at the upcoming offer without saying anything about when it will become available. Freedom will come with a price — $599 for an 8GB device and $699 for a 16GB — but this will mark the first time consumers in the United States are able to buy an iPhone without being tied down to a two-year contract.
Blizzard introduces a physical security token to help give gamers added peace of mind when playing World of Warcraft online.
To help keep gamers safe from possible account hijackings in World of Warcraft, Blizzard Entertainment has introduced a small electronic authenticator that will produce a six-digit security code that can be entered before a WoW player logs on.
Users who purchase the authenticator can register it with their WoW account. Each time they try to log into their account, they’ll need to provide their user name, password, and randomly generated code from the authenticator. The only way to have it removed from an account is to call Blizzard and have them manually remove the feature. The randomly generated code is good for one login, and will refresh if not used within 60 seconds.If lost, owners must provide personal information to Blizzard to have a new authenticator activated and mailed out.
Fabio Erculiani has announced the final release of Sabayon Linux 3.5: “Sabayon Linux x86/x86-64 3.5 stable release. Distribution features, updates, changes since 3.4: Linux kernel 2.6.25.9 with extended wireless, laptop (UMPC, like Eee PC), file system (Unionfs, Aufs, Squashfs, ext4, NTFS-3G) support; really fast boot time; out-of-the-box hardware detection, input devices, GPUs, wireless networks; easy-to-setup 3D desktop and gaming support, thanks to Compiz Fusion 0.7.6 and a set of free top-tier games; AMD/ATI Catalyst 8.6 and NVIDIA 173.14.05; X.Org server 1.4.2 (7.3), automatic input devices configuration through HAL; a set of ready-to-use applications and desktop environments - KDE 3.5.9, GNOME 2.22.2, Xfce 4.4.2, OpenOffice.org 2.4, Firefox 3.0, Google Earth 4.2 and Picasa 2.7, Flash 9, Java 1.6 (IcedTea), Innotek VirtualBox 1.5; Entropy, a fast, user-oriented, Sabayon Linux package manager….” Here is the full release announcement. Download: Sabayon-Linux-x86-3.5.iso (4,001MB, MD5, torrent), Sabayon-Linux-x86_64-3.5-r4.iso (4,214MB, MD5, torrent).
Microsoft Corp plans to cut the price of its best-selling Xbox 360 Pro model by $50, to $299 in the next few weeks, the Hollywood Reporter reported citing anonymous sources.
The price cut for the Xbox 360 model with the 20 gigabyte hard drive will come before the video game industry’s biggest trade show, E3, taking place in Los Angeles on July 15-17, the report said.
Rumors of the Xbox price cut swirled on popular gaming blogs Joystiq and Kotaku last week. The two sites received snapshots of Kmart and Radio Shack flyers advertising the $299 price.
Microsoft Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) Blocked from Deploying Security Updates
Microsoft is investigating public reports of a non-security issue that prevents the distribution of any updates deployed through Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0 or Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Service Pack 1 to client systems that have Microsoft Office 2003 installed in their environment. Microsoft is aware of reports from customers who are experiencing this issue.
Upon completing the investigation, Microsoft will take appropriate action to resolve the issue within Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0 or Microsoft Windows Server Update Services 3.0 Service Pack 1.
AMD hasn’t launched a new Phenom X4 processor since late last March, when the B3-based 2.5GHz Phenom 9850 hit the market. Today, the company is making up for lost time, debuting two new 65W energy-efficient Phenom X4s at 1.8GHz and 2GHz, while simultaneously releasing a new higher-end chip at 2.6GHz. This triple play is aimed at boosting the attractiveness of the company’s quad-core products in the eyes of both consumers seeking energy-efficient parts and enthusiasts who want top performance from an AMD solution.
Of the three chips launching today, we’ll focus the majority of our attention on the new 2GHz Phenom, the 9350e. At $199, AMD’s new 2GHz part isn’t the company’s cheapest quad-core, but the csehip’s 65W rated TDP is considerably lower than the X3 and X4 processors positioned at similar frequencies. The Phenom X3 8450 (2.1GHz), and Phenom X4 9550 (2.2GHz) are both 95W parts, which implies that we should see some excellent power consumption figures from the new CPU. The 2.6GHz Phenom X4 9950 does deserve a mention of its own; we’ll discuss the processor briefly before moving on.
Apple on Monday evening released Mac OS X 10.5.4, the latest significant revision to Leopard and a key part of its online strategy. Also, Security Update 2008-004 and Safari 3.1.2 for Tiger address security issues for earlier Mac OS X versions.
The update (59MB for 10.5.3 users) is considered an important precursor to Mac support for MobileMe, Apple’s imminent sync and hosting service.
In addition to laying the groundwork for the future replacement for .Mac, the update is also key to fixing a number of major bugs identified since the release of Mac OS X 10.5.3, including an Adobe CS3 corruption bug with remote file saves and a chronic shutdown flaw.
Also mended with the fix are reliability with AirPort when on 5GHz 802.11a and 802.11n networks, iCal stability, access to secure websites with Safari, and a number of fixes for Exposé and Spaces.
This week, AMD launched two new graphics cards that each give the Sunnyvale- based company two new firsts:. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 is the first teraflop graphic card, while the ATI Radeon HD 4870 is the first to feature GDDR5 memory.
Both cards in the 4800 series reportedly represents what AMD describes as a “2X performance jump” over the older Radeon HD 3800 generation; providing one trillion calculations per second, when the previous generation of cards could only offer up to half a trillion calculations. This marks one of the first times the speed of GPUs has been measured in teraflops.
The HD 3870 — whose throughput has retroactively been estimated at 500 gigaflops — previously was the fastest card in AMD’s lineup. Reaching the 1 teraflop level for under $200 is an impressive feat that has not been matched before. In 1996, the first teraflop PC was unveiled, but it required a whopping one megawatt to run; having a teraflop on a single GPU is an impressive feat.The bump up to GDDR5 from GDDR3 enables twice the amount of bandwidth for the next-gen AMD cards. The 512 MB of GDDR5 memory is connected over a 256-bit bus that provides 3.6 Gbps of bandwidth.
Arch Linux 2008.06 has been released. Arch Linux is an independently developed i686/x86_64-optimized community distribution, based on a rolling-release package model and targeted at competent GNU/Linux users. From the announcement: “Arch Linux 2008.06 ‘Overlord’. The Arch Linux 2008.06 ISO images are out. This release introduces many changes: ‘base’ category is always installed; use of UUIDs for persistent device naming; availability of USB disk images alongside traditional ISOs; true live Arch installation environment; inclusion of the beginner’s guide from the Wiki; documentation updates; includes the current stable kernel, 2.6.25.6.” Here is the very brief release announcement. Download the core installation ISO images from here: archlinux-2008.06-core-i686.iso (291MB, MD5, torrent), archlinux-2008.06-core-x86_64.iso (305MB, MD5, torrent).
Today, Microsoft reaches a significant milestone for customers and partners with the release of Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization feature included in select versions of Windows Server 2008. Those who have already deployed the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows Update beginning July 8, while new customers and partners can download Hyper-V later today (12:00 pm PT). The Windows Virtualization team will be counting down the days to download from Windows Update, so be sure to visit the Windows Virtualization Team blog to see daily spotlights on specific features and benefits of Hyper-V technology, as well as to read about customer stories and see postings from guests.
Since the beta release of Hyper-V in February, more than 250 customers have participated in Hyper-V’s early adoption program. Microsoft’s own deployment and results with Hyper-V is showcased today in Rob Emanuel’s guest blog and video on the Windows Server Division blog, specifically on customers using Hyper-V and partner benefits, visit the Microsoft PressPass site.
tech·nol·o·gy n. the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area
The Internet is the most important single development in the history of human communication since the invention of call waiting.
Dave Barry
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