Light bulbs used in Times Square New Year’s Eve ball to be listed on Ebay to benefit the Red Cross

Still on the Times Square New Year's ball...

Marking the switch from traditional lighting to advanced, environmentally responsible solid-state lighting (SSL), Royal Philips Electronic will usher in 2006 by sponsoring a charity auction of the light bulbs used to illuminate the New Year’s Eve Ball above Times Square. All proceeds will benefit the Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund. The charity auction, part of the company’s “Next Year is brought to you by Philips” advertising campaign, will take place from Dec. 30, 2005 to Jan. 6, 2006. Consumers can place bids at www.philips.com/newyears.

For the past five years, Philips has been supplying the light bulbs for the Waterford Crystal Ball. Philips Halogena Brilliant Crystal light bulbs, exclusively engineered for the New Year’s Eve Ball, illuminate the exterior. The interior of the ball is lit by several colors of Philips bulbs, including clear, red, blue, green and yellow, along with high-intensity strobe lights. All listed bulbs will be authenticated with a production number etched in the bulb and will be shipped to the winning bidders with an accompanying letter of certification. [Philips]

Times Square ball to switch to LED

Beginning in December 2006, Philips will light the Times Square New Year’s Ball with solid-state or LEDs.

For the New Year Eve 2006/07 celebration, lighting giant Philips Electronics will outfit the ball with an interior of more efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs). By 2007/08, the entire sphere will be redesigned and completely illuminated by LEDs, making it an even brighter and sparklier beacon for the throngs in Times Square and the millions of TV viewers around the globe.

"We think it is fitting to bring the best and brightest technology to the New Year's ball," said Govi Rao, vice president and general manager of solid-state lighting at Philips North America. [MSNBC]

GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest Winner Announced

The winner of the GIMP 10th Anniversary Splash Contest is Dialed In, a submission by ix. You can check the splash screen here. You can view all the submissions here. The splash screen will be the the splash screen of the 2.2.10 anniversary release:

Opera Software chooses Google as search partner

Norwegian Opera Software has agreed that Google Inc. will be the default partner for its mobile Internet browsers, Opera said on Thursday.

"Google will be the default search partner for the mobile browsers: Opera Mobile and Opera Mini," Opera Software ASA said in a statement. "Under the one-year contract, Opera will make Google Search a major part of the browsers home screen."

Oslo-based Opera Software is a tiny competitor of Microsoft in the Internet browser market, but the fast-growing part of its business is in browsers for mobile phones and other mobile electronic devices. [Reuters]

SRS Labs Intros WOW HD at CES 2006

Analog Devices' SigmaDSP is the First WOW HD Television and Consumer Electronics Audio Processor

SRS Labs, Inc. a leading provider of audio technology solutions, announced today that the new SRS WOW(TM) HD audio enhancement technology for televisions and consumer electronics products will debut at the International Consumer Electronics Show ("CES") from January 5-8th at the Las Vegas Convention Center in room N-218. SRS WOW HD provides consumers, for the first time, the ability to adjust the mix of the phantom center image relative to the background audio. Consumers can now easily position the dialog and vocals to their taste and playback environment. It also features high definition audio enhancement for added clarity of high frequency content along with advanced bass processing for superior low frequency sound quality. SRS Labs will be
demonstrating WOW HD on Analog Devices' SigmaDSP(R) audio processors at CES. [prnewswire]

Pioneer To Release Blu-ray Disc Computer Drive

Another Blu-ray news...

Pioneer Electronics plans to ship in the first quarter of next year a Blu-ray Disc computer drive for storing high-definition video content.

The Pioneer BDR-101A is the company's first optical disc drive launched in the midst of an industry split over future standards for high-definition storage discs. Dell, Apple Computer and Pioneer are the heavyweights supporting Blu-ray, while Microsoft, Intel, Toshiba and NEC back the HD DVD standard.

The BDR-101A will read standard DVDs, as well as Blu-ray discs. [Techweb]

BluRay Region Coding Announced

Japanese IT Media has announced some details on the Blu-Ray region coding and it holds a nice surprise. Japan, North America, and East Asia will all be sharing one region code.

This potentially means that American gamers will be able to import Japanese PS3 Blu-Ray games, and will definately be able to import Japanese Blu-Ray Anime/Movie titles without any hassle. Europe unfortunately will be sharing a region code with Africa.

The new region codes are:
* Region 1: North America, South America, East Asia except for China (India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Malaysia etc.)
* Region 2: Europe and Africa
* Region 3: China, Russia and other countries

[cdrinfo]

GALILEO - European Satellite Navigation System

The first experimental satellite, part of the so-called Galileo System Test Bed (GSTB) will be launched on 28 December, a second platform will follow in the New Year.

Galileo will be Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. It will be inter-operable with GPS and GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems.

The fully deployed Galileo system consists of 30 satellites (27 operational + 3 active spares), positioned in three circular Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) planes in 23616 km altitude above the Earth, and at an inclination of the orbital planes of 56 degrees with reference to the equatorial plane. [ESA]

'Mother of All Bombs' Designer Dies at 67

Albert L. Weimorts Jr., a civilian engineer for the Air Force whose designs included a satellite-guided weapon known as the "mother of all bombs," has died.

The Air Force Research Laboratory honored Weimorts after he retired in 2003 for his role in developing two powerful bombs as chief engineer for the lab's Munitions Directorate at Eglin Air Force Base.

One was the 5,000-pound GBU-28 "Bunker Buster," created and deployed in a record-setting 28 days to target fortified bunkers during the first Gulf War.

The other was the 21,500-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast, the largest satellite-guided, air-delivered weapon in history and nicknamed the "mother of all bombs." It was developed for the second Iraq war, but never used. [Yahoo]

Grapefruit 'may cut gum disease'

Lately, grapefruit is emerging as a health food where from a study says that it can help loss weight, heal stomach ulcers and the latest 'may cut gum disease'.

Eating grapefruit could help fight gum disease, a study suggests.

Researchers found people with gum disease who ate two grapefruits a day for a fortnight showed significantly less bleeding from the gums.

They believe this is due to an increase in blood levels of vitamin C, known to promote wound healing and cut damage by unstable free radical molecules. [BBC]

NORAD marks 50 years of tracking Santa

Web site had 912 million hits last year

For half a century, the military agency dedicated to detecting threats against the United States and Canada has reported Santa's sleigh ride to curious youngsters around the world.

According to NORAD lore, the tradition began in 1955 when Sears-Roebuck placed an ad in The Gazette in Colorado Springs telling kids to dial a number if they wanted to talk to Santa.

But the number was one digit off. When the first call came to NORAD's predecessor, the Continental Air Defense Command, Col. Harry Shoup told an eager child he would check the radars for Santa. [CNN]

U.S. Naval Observatory to Add Leap Second to Clocks

On December 31, 2005 a “leap second” will be added to the world’s clocks at 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). This corresponds to 6:59:59 pm Eastern Standard Time, when the extra second will be inserted at the U.S. Naval Observatory. This marks the 23rd leap second to be added to UTC, a uniform time-scale kept by atomic clocks around the world. Although you normally don’t think about it, for most conventional uses the “civil” time you use is based on UTC. At the U.S. Naval Observatory, time is determined by averaging the time signals from cesium beam atomic clocks and hydrogen masers (the last being an improvement over the tried and true cesium clocks for short periods of time). [USNO]

The future of OS/2 - Open source or not?

I have tried installing OS/2 on my computer when I was trying and discovering the different operating system available and it was a success..but it did not last long and I replace it with linux.

Yesterday saw IBM cease the sale of the OS/2 Operating system. Come the 31st of December, standard support for the OS will end also. However, a significant number of companies and people continue to use it, and they are finding ways for OS/2 to live on.

Back in April of this year, OS/2 website OS2 World started a petition. It's aim was to get IBM to release OS/2 as an open source piece of software, so that existing users could continue to use and develop it, should they wish. In November, after nearly twelve thousand signatures had been collected, the petition was sent to IBM's CEO, Sam Palmisano. As of yet there has been no response from IBM. [HEXUS.net]

Pooh celebrates his 80th birthday

Winnie the Pooh, one of my favorite cartoon character is turning 80..

Winnie the Pooh, one of the world's best loved characters, is celebrating his 80th birthday.

Pooh - based on the bedtime stories by Alan Alexander (AA) Milne - first appeared in the London Evening News on Christmas Eve 1925 in a story called The Wrong Sort of Bees.

The honey-loving bear's many adventures - along with his friends Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore - have since been translated into more than 40 languages. [BBC]

Merry Christmas

I would like to wish everyone a Happy Holidays, and for those that celebrate tomorrow as I do, a very

Merry Christmas!

NetBSD 3.0 released

NetBSD 3.0 the eleventh major release of the NetBSD operating system, has been released with binary distributions for 53 architectures.

NetBSD 3.0 continues our long tradition with major improvements in file system and memory management performance, major security enhancements, and support for new platforms and peripherals.

NetBSD 3.0 now features PAM (OpenPAM), TCP SACK, TCP MD5, pf(4), IPsec ESP/IKE over NAT, IPv4 PIM, tap(4) and much more hardware support than before.

Detailed info about the release here:

Real-time texting for deaf people

Software has been developed which enables deaf people to have real-time text conversations using a mobile phone.

But the charity that has created the service says some mobile operators have yet to fulfil a legal obligation to make their services accessible.

The Royal National Institute for Deaf people (RNID) says only Vodafone has a relay service that uses the technology. [BBC]

Google’s founders named Men of the Year - FT

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who are on Friday named as Men of the Year by the Financial Times, harbour hopes that reach well beyond their search engine business to “make the world a better place”, a promise made at the time of Google’s initial public offering last year.

The Men of the Year recognition reflects the effect the company created by Mr Brin and Mr Page only seven years ago has had on internet users, as well as the worlds of business and technology, in the past 12 months.[FT]

X11R6.9 and X11R7.0 Officially Released

Landmark version X11R7.0 released today with X11R6.9 by the X.Org Foundation

The first major version release of the X Window System in more than a decade, X11R7.0 is the first release of the complete modularized and autotooled source code base for the X Window System. X11R6.9, its companion release, contains identical features, and uses the exact same source code as X11R7.0, but with the traditional imake build system.

Announcement here:

Singapore introduces two-dollar plastic notes

More Singapore money is going plastic.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), the central bank, said that two-dollar polymer, or plastic, notes will be issued from January 12.

Their introduction comes after the first batch of 10-dollar plastic notes began circulating in May last year.

Since the introduction of polymer notes last year, Singapore has joined countries including Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia which already use plastic money.
[Yahoo News]

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 RC2 Available

Scott McGregor writes: "The second release candidate of Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 is now available for download. Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 RC2 is intended to allow testers to ensure that there are no last-minute problems with the Thunderbird 1.5 code. "

"RC2 contains several key bug fixes that were identified during the RC1 testing cycle. There are no new features or enchancements from RC1. Users of Thunderbird 1.5 RC1 will be offered RC 2 through the software update system."

Release notes here:
Download here:

Canada adopts cell-number portability

Canadian regulators this week determined that wireless companies must implement number portability by March of 2007.

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission said March 14, 2007, was the earliest feasible date for wide-scale portability that allows wireless customers to keep their cell-phone numbers when they change providers.[UPI]

DTS to Demo DTS-HD Master Audio At CES 2006

First Public Demonstration Of High Definition Video Content Played With 7.1 Channels Of High Definition Audio

At the 2006 CES (Consumer Electronics Show), DTS, Inc. will premiere DTS-HD Master Audio, the company’s high definition surround sound solution for next generation high definition media. This marks the first public demonstration of high definition video content shown in conjunction with 7.1 discrete channels of surround sound that is bit-for-bit identical to the master soundtrack. Previously announced as DTS-HD, DTS-HD Master Audio has been selected as an option in the standards for the upcoming Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD media formats. The company will be holding demonstrations of DTS-HD Master Audio throughout CES, January 5-8, 2006 at the Las Vegas Convention Center, North Hall Room #N242.[DTS Press]

OpenOffice.org 2.0.1 Available

Eight weeks after 2.0, our first update remedies minor bugs and brings new features. For example, it is now possible to disable and hide particular application settings, which comes in handy for central administration in networks. Plus, a new keyboard shortcut permits the user to return to a saved cursor position. The bullets and numbering feature has been expanded, and a new mail merge feature is available.

Release notes here.
Download here.

Siemens Somatom Definition -Most Advanced Scanner

A new generation of CT scanner is about to revolutionise medical diagnoses. World’s most advanced CT scanner illuminates the body’s hidden structures.

The Siemens Somatom Definition, the most advanced scanner of its kind in the world, scans faster than a human heartbeat. This means patients can be scanned without the need for beta blockers to slow their hearts, and with up to 50% less radiation than a traditional scan.[Siemens]

PC, CE companies develop next-gen display standard

A replacement to an aging VGA analog standard!

Leading PC and consumer electronics companies announced Tuesday they are developing a specification, the unified display interface (UDI), that would serve as the next-generation PC digital display interface standard and be compatible with consumer electronics devices.

UDI is expected to replace the aging VGA analog standard and provide guidelines to ensure compatibility with today's DVI standard. Further, as planned, the UDI specification will be fully compatible with HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface), the standard digital interface for High Definition TVs (HDTVs) and advanced CE displays.[EETimes]

Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (Sarge) updated (r1)

This is the first update of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 (codename ‘sarge’) which mainly adds security updates to the stable release, along with some corrections to serious problems. Those who frequently update from security.debian.org won't have to update many packages and most updates from security.debian.org are included in this update.

Please note that this update does not produce a new version of Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 but only updates a few packages in it. There is no need to throw away 3.1 CDs but only to update against ftp.debian.org after an installation, in order to incorporate those late changes.[Debian News]

Wreckage of Beagle 2 found on Mars

Two years after it was last seen shooting towards Mars, the British-built Beagle 2 lander may have been spotted in images taken from a NASA orbiter. They suggest the lander crashed on the wall of a small crater and now lies broken at its centre, with its air bags splayed open around it.[New Scientist]

Detailed analysis and photos here.

Qt 4.1 Now Available

Trolltech has released Qt 4.1. The first feature release since Qt 4.0 includes new features which will make it into KDE 4 such as integrated support for rendering scalable vector graphics (SVG) drawings and animations, a PDF backend to the Qt printing system and a lightweight unit testing framework.

Qt is a complete C++ application framework, including a class library and tools for cross-platform development.

SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta Released!

Today, the SeaMonkey Council announces a new developer release, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta. Compared to the Alpha version released in September, SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta enhances the product with new features like tab drag and drop, but also is the first release branded with the new SeaMonkey logo, which was unveiled earlier this month. While much of the core code is shared with the popular Firefox 1.5 browser, SeaMonkey comes with the the look and feel familiar to users of its ancestors, the Mozilla Application Suite and Netscape Communicator packages.

SeaMonkey consists of a state-of-the-art web browser, a powerful mail and news client, a WYSIWYG HTML editor, and an IRC chat application. It also includes tools for web developers, such as the DOM Inspector and the JavaScript Debugger.

Fedora Core 5 Test 2 Delayed 1 month

Attention Fedora Core users and testers!

Ok, it won't be a full month, but due to the recent upgrade of gcc and the subsequent full rebuild of everything that does (and doesn't, whoops!) get built with gcc, including java stuff with gcj, and the need to further test package selection windows in Anaconda, system-config-packages for upgrades, and the development tree in general once we settle down the rebuilds, we have decided to delay test2.

Announcement here:

Filipina wins "First Time Mobile Filmmakers Award"

This year's "First Time Mobile Filmmakers Award" organized by Discovery Networks Asia, and mobile phone manufacturer Nokia announced the winners of the award-winning mobifilms. Filipina Janice Yu won the grand prize for her personal travelogue of one of the country's top dive sites. Another Filipino Noel Osting, won the "Best Editing" award for a short documentary on Filipino farm life. Thai Ndol Lerkwsirisuk won the Best Visualization award.

Nokia's World Wide Wish site

Do you have a wish to share this holiday season? Then go to Nokia's World Wide Wish site for people that share Holiday Wishes around the world.

Note: It's in Flash!

Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0.1 (aka Konfabulator) Released

Yahoo! released a new version of their Widget Engine 3.0.1 (aka Konfabulator) with some bug fixes (Windows, Macintosh and Widgets) and changes in the Engines.

Download Yahoo! Widget Engine today and enhance your desktop!

'Porn On The Go' for the iPod Video and Sony PSP Launched

iPod Video and Sony PSP owners rejoice! Sorry, for adults only..

Adult DVD Empire, two-time winner of the AVN Award for Best Retail Website, is proud to announce the launch of "Porn On The Go" - the ability to download XXX adult scenes for the iPod(R) Video and Sony PSP with exclusive rights to scenes from industry heavyweights Digital Playground.

Adult DVD Empire and Digital Playground have partnered on the project that will launch with 12 scenes, each up to 20 minutes in length, to download for the iPod(R) 30 GB and 60 GB video models as well as for the Sony PSP.

Read the rest here.

HP to Support HD-DVD High-definition DVD Format

To join HD-DVD Promotions Group but it will maintain neutrality in Disc Format Debate

In order to provide consumers with the best possible high-definition experience, HP today announced it will support the HD-DVD high-definition DVD format, in addition to the Blu-ray Disc format, and join the HD-DVD Promotions Group.

Previously, HP supported the Blu-ray Disc format exclusively. The company had requested the Blu-ray Disc Association adopt two customer-friendly technologies, Mandatory Managed Copy and iHD, which are already included in the HD-DVD format.

Read the rest here.

Gmail Mobile - Gmail for Cell Phones

Get Gmail on the go! Google has launched a mobile version of Gmail. You can now access Gmail messages from the web browser on your mobile phone or handheld.

Read and reply to your Gmail messages any time, anywhere.

* It's free. (But your wireless plan might still charge, so you might want to check with your provider first.)
* It's smart. It can handle attachments like photos and .pdf files.

Gmail Mobile

Computer finds Mona Lisa 'Happy'

How about the picture on the right.

A computer has been used to decipher the enigmatic smile of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, concluding that she was mainly happy.

The painting was analysed by a University of Amsterdam computer using "emotion recognition" software.

It concluded that the subject was 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry, New Scientist magazine was told.

Source: BBC

Plasma Display Coalition Launched

Top Consumer Electronics Companies Launch Plasma Display Coalition. To promotes Plasma TV's Outstanding Image Quality and Consumer Benefits

Five leading plasma TV panel manufacturers have formed the Plasma Display Coalition to further promote the growth of plasma TV in the U.S., encourage understanding of the benefits and future potential of plasma TV and dispel lingering misconceptions about plasma TV. The Coalition's founders are Hitachi Home Electronics, LG Electronics USA, Panasonic Corporation of North America, Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc. and Samsung Electronics USA. Membership is open to enterprises that manufacture,
market and sell plasma TV panels.

Source: PRNewswire
`

Internet Explorer 7 to use Firefox's RSS Icon

According to a Microsoft Team Blog:

I’m excited to announce that we’re adopting the icon used in Firefox. John Lilly and Chris Beard from Mozilla were very enthusiastic about allowing us (and anyone in the community) to use their icon. This isn’t the first time that we’ve worked with the Mozilla team to exchange ideas and encourage consistency between browsers, and we’re sure it won’t be the last.

GNOME 2.13.3 Development Release

GNOME 2.13.3 has been released. This is our third development release on
our road towards GNOME 2.14.0, which will be released in March 2006.

To compile it, you can use the jhbuild modulesets available here:

[Gnomedesktop]

High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance (HANA) Launched

Industry Leaders Announce High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance

Charter Communications, JVC, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, Inc., NBC Universal, Samsung and Sun Microsystems today announced the formation of HANA, the High-Definition Audio-Video Network Alliance. HANA members are working together to create a design guideline for secure high definition audio visual networks that will speed the creation of new, higher quality, easier to use HD products.

In addition to the founding members, ARM, Freescale Semiconductor and Pulse~LINK have joined HANA as contributing members.

Press release here.

Novell Secures Major Enterprise Linux Agreement with Swiss Government

More than 3,000 servers across Switzerland to run Novell's SUSE Linux

Novell today announced a breakthrough agreement with the Swiss Federal Government that will see the introduction of Novell's enterprise Linux* technology across Switzerland's public sector IT infrastructure . Novell was selected following a formal tender process during which the company conclusively demonstrated it can provide the strongest Linux solution for public sector environments. As a result, more than 3,000 servers operated by the Swiss Federal Government will now run on Novell's SUSE® Linux platform.

Announcement here.

Honda Debuts New ASIMO

Office workers and receptionists, time to think of your career, a replacement is coming..

Honda Motor Co., Ltd. debuted a new ASIMO humanoid robot which features the ability to pursue key tasks in a real-life environment such as an office and an advanced level of physical capabilities. Compared to the previous model, the new ASIMO achieves the enhanced ability to act in sync with people – for example, walking with a person while holding hands. A new function to carry objects using a cart was also added. Further, the development of a “total control system” enables ASIMO to automatically perform the tasks of a receptionist or information guide and carry out delivery service. In addition, the running capability is dramatically improved, with ASIMO now capable of running at a speed of 6km/hour and of running in a circular pattern.

Press release here.

TDK commences shipments of "bare" type (cartridge-less) Blu-ray Disc

The enthusiasm for Blu-ray disc and players is building up..

TDK Corporation has commenced shipments of mass-production samples of so-called bare-type (i.e., cartridge-less) versions of its BD-R (write-once type) and BD-RE (rewritable type) Blu-ray Discs. The four new products include the BD-R25 (single-side, single-layer, 25GB) and BD-R50 (single-side, dual-layer, 50GB) write-once types and BD-RE25 (single-side, single-layer, 25GB) and BD-RE50 (single-side, dual-layer, 50GB) rewritable types.

Read the press release with full description here.

Toshiba to delay HD DVD player launch

Another setback to the HD DVD supporters..

Japan's Toshiba Corp. said on Tuesday it will delay the year-end Japan launch of its next-generation HD DVD players to address copy protection issues, potentially undermining its advantage as the first supplier to put such machines on the market.

The Japanese company had said in September the domestic launch might be postponed until after December. A spokesman for Toshiba said it would continue to push for a U.S. launch in the first quarter of 2006, most likely some time between February and March.

Toshiba said in a statement it would not launch the products until the last details on copy protection management systems, called AACS, or advanced access content system, were finalized.

Full story here.

Architects plan kilometre-high skyscraper

The urged to go higher never stop. Another mega structure in the drawing board..

Blueprints for a kilometre-tall skyscraper have been drawn up by UK architects, who hope to see the record-breaking structure commissioned in Kuwait.

At 1001 metres, the enormous tower would be almost twice the height of the world's tallest building today, the Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which stands at 509 metres. The new building would also dwarf the Burj Dubai, a building under construction in Dubai that is expected to stand 700-800 metres tall once completed in 2008.

Architecture firm Eric Kuhne and Associates, based in London, UK, has drawn up plans for the skyscraper. Although the designs have yet to be made public, the company is reported to be in talks with the Kuwaiti government about construction.

Full story here.

Stereophile 2005 Product of the Year Awards

The latest to come out with the list of this year's award in the world of audio and hi-fi is Stereophile. The Stereophile 2005 Product of the Year Award, check it out.

These winners, then—these "Products of the Year" for 2005—are the components that we think will have a lasting influence on the world of high-end hi-fi, not simply because each has set a new standard of performance within its category, but because they remind us of the basis of our enthusiasm. That is, they give us beautiful music.

TIME'S - 50 Coolest Website 2005

TIME Online has the list of the 50 Coolest Website for 2005.

First, a caveat. This is not a directory of the 50 greatest website. Rather, it's a tally of the best sites that launched - piqued our interest in some way - since last year's list. Think of it as our round-up of 50 nifty links we think you should check out. So get clicking!

Complete list.

Foresight Desktop Linux 0.9.2 is out !

Foresight Desktop Linux is a GNOME based Linux distribution that showcases some of the latest bells and whistles. It currently sports GNOME 2.12 as the preferred desktop environment.

It has been a long hard road, but 0.9.2 ISOs are now posted. I will say they aren’t perfect, but a huge jump from the previous ISOs released. What has changed?

* The gtk theme has been hacked to use colors that match our look better.
* Default icon set is tango.
* Stripped out stuff that folks won’t even miss, which shaved 120MB off the 2nd CD
* Added laptop-tools, which includes some nice wireless drivers, NetworkManager, GNOME Power, and ndisgtk (GUI for configuring windows wireless drivers)
* Convert back to using GNOME Systems Tools
* Package selection in the installer
[Link]

Go download it !

RollingStone - 500 Greatest Albums of All time

Want to know the Greatest Albums of All time, RollingStone has the list the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It is presented in Flash.

Denon's AVR-4306: 7.1 CH Home Theater/MultiMedia A/V Receiver

I want one. He he, just joking. This A/V Receiver is a CES Innovations 2006 Awards Honorees in Home Theater.

Denon's AVR-4306 is a multi-source, multi-zone IP addressable audio/video receiver, with a full complement of advanced audio and video processing capabilities, and includes connectivity to many digital music players.

Full specs here.

Siemens Joins Open Source Development Labs (OSDL)

Global electronics and engineering giant to contribute to initiatives of world’s leading Linux advocacy consortium.

Siemens, one of the world’s largest electrical engineering and electronics companies, today announced it has joined the Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux&reg. Siemens will participate in the Lab’s Carrier Grade Linux (CGL), Mobile Linux Initiative (MLI) and Data Center Linux (DCL) working groups.

Press release here.

A/V Rev.com Top 100 A/VProducts of 2005

Audio/Video buffs, AVRev.com's Top 100 A/V Products are back for 2005 with the absolute best gear money can buy for home theater and beyond. Topping the list as no. #1 is Sonos Digital Music Server. Enjoy reading the reviews..

Full list here.

Mobile WiMAX Standard Approved

The WirelessMAN standard has gone mobile! The IEEE-SA Standards Board approves Mobile WiMAX 802.16e standard.

Announcement here.

Intel Announces Chip Technology Breakthrough Using New Materials

New Material Could Help Chips Run Cooler, Use Less Energy

Intel Corporation today announced development of a new, ultra-fast, yet very low power prototype transistor using new materials that could form the basis of its microprocessors and other logic products beginning in the second half of the next decade.

Intel and QinetiQ researchers have jointly demonstrated an enhancement-mode transistor using indium antimonide (chemical symbol: InSb) to conduct electrical current.

Read the rest here.

CES 2006 Innovations Honorees Chosen

The 2006 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES®) today announced its Innovations 2006 Design and Engineering Awards Honorees. Sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®), the producer of the International CES, and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the International CES Innovations Awards highlight product advancements in technology design and engineering.

Full List here.

Panasonic Starts Pilot Production of 50-GIGABYTE Blu-ray Discs

Another + for the Blu-Ray Disc Supporters.. New Dual-Layer Spin Coat Technology Doubles Disc Capacity.

Panasonic has modified its existing pilot production line for single-layer Blu-ray Discs, called BD-ROM, so that it is able to replicate dual-layer BD-ROM discs with 50 gigabytes (GB) of storage capacity.

The doubling of BD-ROM disc storage capacity is enabled by spin coating technologies developed by Panasonic that create two recorded layers on a single side of a Blu-ray Disc. In the process, readily available inexpensive UV curable resins are used in the creation of the space layer, cover layer and hard-coat, resulting in a reduction in disc replication costs. Video and other data is then embedded in the layers for playback later using a blue laser-equipped Blu-ray Disc player, recorder or BD-ROM drive-equipped PC.

Press release here.

Nissan develops self-healing “Scratch Guard Coat” paint

Attention car owners...

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has developed the world’s first clear paint that repairs scratches on painted car surfaces, including scratches from car-washing machines, off-road driving and fingernails.

“Scratch Guard Coat” contains a newly developed high elastic resin that helps prevent scratches from affecting the inner layers of a car’s painted surface. With “Scratch Guard Coat” a car’s scratched surface will return to its original state anywhere from one day to a week, depending on temperature and the depth of the scratch.

Press release here.

"Podcast" named word of the year 2005

The word 'podcast' has been selected as Word of the Year by the editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary.

Podcast, defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," will be added to the next online update of the New Oxford American Dictionary, due in early 2006.

Runners-up include rootkit(made famous by Sony), bird flu, lifehack, IED (improvised explosive device, such as a car bomb).

Press release:

Code Name for Firefox 2.0: Bon Echo!

Firefox fans and users...

Continuing the tradition, Firefox 2 will use a pre-release code name taken from a public park. Bon Echo Provincial Park is located in Ontario, Canada. The name literally translates to "good echo", and reflects how it is our goal echoes that of Firefox 1, once again focusing on improving the browsing experience for our users, making it simple, effective, fast and useful. [Link]

Singapore to promote use of grid computing in schools

Singapore is unleashing the power of Grid Computing into its schools and industries.

It is believed to be among the world's first to offer such high-speed super-computing capabilities beyond research institutes.

And the first to benefit will be some 76 students and teachers at the launch of SG@Schools or the PC Grid Computing for Schools programme.

Full story here:

Sun Microsystems Launches OpenSPARC Project

Welcome to the world of 64-bit computing, and 32 threads. Massive multithreading goes open source.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has announced the OpenSPARC project.

Annoucement here:

Xen 3.0 released

Version 3.0 of the Xen hypervisor - an open source virtualisation system that allows you to run many 'virtual' OSes on one machine, has been released. New release of open source hypervisor supports 32-way SMP, 64-bit guests, and Intel® Virtualization Technology.

Announcement here:

Beagle 0.1.3 released

[Via mail.gnome.org]

Jon Trowbridge says:
I'm pleased to announce the release of Beagle 0.1.3.

Our focus continues to be on fixing bugs and reducing the Beagle daemon's memory usage. This release also contains our new Python bindings, courtesy of Raphael Slinckx. With them, you can easily access Beagle search results from any Python program. Let the hacking begin.

Remember, Beagle now requires Mono 1.1.10. But you are already running 1.1.10, because you are nobody's fool. You are also extremely well-dressed, and people enjoy your company.

Beagle is a search tool that ransacks your personal information space to find whatever you're looking for. Beagle can search in many different domains.

Macromedia website Update

The Macromedia name is fading slowly.. Check out its website.

The Volvo Ocean Race 1st Leg Result

ABN AMRO ONE sailed to victory in the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, while its sister boat ABN AMRO 2, sail second into Cape Town. Brasil 1 takes third and Ericsson Racing Team fourth. On overall points, ABN AMRO 1 is in first place with 11.5 points, Brasil 1 and Ericsson are equal third on 10.5 points, with ABN AMRO 2 fourth on 9.5 and Sunergy and Friends fifth on 4.5. 2nd leg will start on January 2, 2006 from Cape Town to Melbourne.

Website

The Second Annual Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards - for 2005 is OUT

Attention all audiophiles and audio geeks, The Second Annual Positive Feedback Online's Writers' Choice Awards - for 2005 is now online. You can check it here. Check out the best in audio products, people, recordings, events, groups, etc.

New Logo For SeaMonkey

From the The SeaMonkey Project:

After months of submissions and selection processes, the SeaMonkey Council is announcing a new logo for its project and application.

The new artwork centers around an abstract figure resembling a "Sea Monkey", colored in a light, cyan/blue color, standing out from a dark blue circle with a wave pattern in the middle. This design, created by Alex Butin, not only looks professional and polished, but also fits perfectly as an icon on a modern computer desktop and is easily recognizable even in small sizes.
Read the rest here:

R.I.P Macromedia

Adobe's multi-billion dollar takeover of rival software developer Macromedia is final.

Adobe Systems Incorporated and Macromedia, Inc. today announced they have either received or been notified they will receive all regulatory clearances necessary to complete Adobe's pending acquisition of Macromedia. The companies expect to close the transaction on December 3, 2005.
[Link]

Will Fireworks and Freehand go also or they just fade away..

Apache 2.2.0 Released

From the Apache HTTP Server Project:

The Apache HTTP Server Project is proud to announce the release of version 2.2.0 of the Apache HTTP Server ("Apache").

This version of Apache is a major release and the start of a new stable branch. New features include Smart Filtering, Improved Caching, AJP Proxy, Proxy Load Balancing, Graceful Shutdown support, Large File Support, the Event MPM, and refactored Authentication/Authorization

Download here:
New Features here:
Changelog here:

Apache is the most popular web server on the Internet. The Apache HTTP Server is a project of the Apache Software Foundation.

Firefox 1.5 is HOT

According to Asa's blog:

Wow, in just one day, Firefox 1.5 has already been downloaded more than 1.5 million times. That smashes our 1.0 first day downloads by half a million.

So what are you waiting for.. Grab it while it's HOT..

GMail Adds Virus Protection

The popular web based email service by Google, Gmail has added virus protection.

Each time you send and receive attachments, Gmail automatically scans them for viruses.

If a virus is found in an attachment you've received, our system will attempt to remove it, or clean the file, so you can still access the information it contains. If the virus can't be removed from the file, you won't be able to download it.

If a virus is found in an attachment you're trying to send, you won't be able to send the message until you remove the attachment.

GARNOME 2.12.2 Released

As, I said in my previous post, here it is GARNOME 2.12.2.

[Via Gnomedesktop]

The "walk a mile in another man's shoes" release.

We are pleased to announce the release of GARNOME 2.12.2. Incorporating the GNOME 2.12.2 Desktop and Developer Platform, together with a host of third-party GNOME packages, Bindings and the Mono(tm) Platform -- this release irons out yet-more bugs, hopefully adds yet-more stability and ships with the latest and greatest stable releases.

Tarball:
GARNOME 2.12.2
MD5: 6c7de7e62dc5e746fc91a0472f3b28a4

Website: Garnome

GNOME 2.12.2 Development platform is out

Via Gnome-announce-list:

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of The GNOME Desktop and Developers platform version 2.12.2

This is the second point release of the stable 2.12 series of GNOME and a lot of hard work has gone into making it more enjoyable for our users and developers. A list of news can be found below.

The tarballs can be found here:
Platform:
Desktop:
Bindings:

Expect Garnome and Freerock GNOME to follow..

Singapore to start trial service of HDTV by mid 2006

Via Channelnewsasia:

Singapore will begin a trial service to test high definition TV services or HDTV by the middle of next year.

The Media Development Authority will work with MediaCorp and industry players to start the test trials. The HDTV trials are expected to cost $20m to $30m.

PlayStation 2 tops 100 million units

The PlayStation 2 has set a new record, with more than 100 million units shipped since its launch in March 2000. Sony said 40.65 million units have been shipped to North America, 37.14 million to Europe and 22.22 million to Asia, including Japan.

The original PlayStation took nine and a half years to reach that number.

GRIN - Great Images in NASA

The Great Images in NASA (GRIN) system provides a database of photos documenting NASA. Photos include: aircraft structures, aircraft design, aircraft models, wind tunnel tests, materials research, space programs, astronaut training, robotic planetary exploration and images taken by NASA spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope and Mars Global Surveyor. GRIN contains many, but not all of the most popular images from NASA’s history. It also contains important historical images that you may not have seen before.

GRIN website.