Americanfreak’s look at Tech

Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today new OWC Mercury SuperDrive Internal Upgrade Kits for MacBook 13" and MacBook Pro 15" notebook computers. The new OWC Mercury SuperDrives offer faster burn speeds than factory – up to 8X DVD, 6X DVD-DL (Dual-Layer 8.5GB), 5X DVD-RAM, and 24X CD burn speeds with support for DVD+/-R/RW, DVD+/-R DL (Dual-Layer), DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW media. OWC Mercury SuperDrive Upgrade Kits add the fastest optical drive performance available to new and existing MacBook/MacBook Pro notebooks.

“The new OWC Mercury SuperDrive Internal Upgrade Kits offer faster read/write performance than our previous upgrade kits, as well as burning several media types (including the widely popular Dual Layer DVDs) faster than the factory installed drive,” said Larry O’Connor, President, Other World Computing. “Whether you have an original MacBook or MacBook Pro from 2006 or a non-“Unibody” from 2008, our Mercury SuperDrive Kits will make your Mac’s optical drive provide higher performance and more media support too.”

New OWC Mercury SuperDrive Internal Upgrade Kits for MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks available immediately:

• OWC Mercury SuperDrive Dual-Layer Internal Drive Kit for MacBook 13" and MacBook Pro 15” (Non-“Unibody”):  features up to 8X DVD+/-R burn, 6X DVD-R DL burn, 5X DVD-RAM, 24X CD-R burn, and 1 year OWC warranty. Priced at $147.99.

• “Value Bundle” of this same SuperDrive Kit, priced at $159.99, also includes 10 pieces of 8X DVD-R media in jewel case, Prosoft Data Backup 3 software, and NTI DragonBurn CD/DVD authoring software.

The new OWC Mercury SuperDrive Internal Upgrade Kits have been fully tested for compatibility with Apple and Windows built-in and third party DVD/CD tools and players, including Apple iTunes, Apple Disc Burner, Apple iDVD, Apple DVD Studio Pro, EMC Retrospect Express, NTI DragonBurn, Roxio Toast, Roxio Easy Media Creator, and Nero Burning. Printed instructions and online installation videos show how easy it is to install and use OWC Mercury SuperDrives.

For more information on the new OWC Mercury SuperDrive Upgrade Kits for the specific Apple notebook model you have, visit: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/optical-drives/superdrives/

SuperDrive Upgrades for Almost Every Mac Desktop, Tower, & Notebook Introduced in the Last Decade – Priced Starting at $28.99

In addition to the new SuperDrive upgrades for MacBook 13" and MacBook Pro 15” notebooks announced today, OWC also offers internal and external SuperDrive upgrades for nearly every Mac desktop, tower and notebook computer introduced over the last decade, including Mac Pro, PowerMac G3/G4/G5, iMac G4/G5, Mac mini, eMac, PowerBook G4 Titanium 15", PowerBook G4 12/15/17" Aluminum, and iBook G4. If you would like to upgrade from a factory-installed CD, CDRW,  and/or DVD read-only drive; replace a slower or inoperative SuperDrive; or expand drive capabilities, OWC has the best solutions with prices starting at $28.99 for Internal SuperDrives and $69.99 for External FireWire+USB 2.0 SuperDrives. OWC SuperDrive upgrades feature faster read/write DVD, Dual-Layer DVD, and CD burn speeds up to 22X for DVDs and 48X for CDs. In addition to support for DVD+/-R/RW, CD-R/RW, DVD-DL formats, OWC SuperDrives are also available with new features, including support for Blu-ray, LightScribe laser labeling, DVD-RAM, and more.

Rebates up to $25 for Old Optical Drives

OWC offers rebates of up to $25 to users who send in any older working Apple or Apple compatible optical drive after upgrading to a new, faster SuperDrive purchased from OWC. Complete rebate details are available at:  http://www.macsales.com/rebatecenter.

Eastman Kodak Company today announced the EAMER(1) launch of KODAK Capture Desktop Software, a state-of-the-art, all-in-one application for distributed capture scanning needs. Extending Kodak's presence in the document capture market, KODAK Capture Desktop Software provides basic document capture capabilities and offers incredibly easy-to-use features for small and medium-sized organisations to capture, index, edit and distribute their documents to reduce the amount of paper they need to manage.

KODAK document scanners bundled with Capture Desktop provide a high performance, cost efficient platform for any business needing to digitise documents into highly usable information that can be quickly and easily shared throughout an organisation to increase customer responsiveness and significantly lower operating costs.

Built on KODAK Capture Pro Software, Capture Desktop provides basic scanning and indexing functionality, including features such as real-time image viewing and indexing with “key from image” data entry capabilities.

Features such as the new drag and drop optical character recognition (OCR), provide users with the easiest way to index documents effectively. Output formats include JPEG, TIFF and PDF, as well as integration into Microsoft Sharepoint all managed via KODAK ‘s Smart Touch feature, which enables single-touch shortcuts and procedures to further enhance ease of operation.

The software supports Kodak's renowned Perfect Page image processing technology, which dramatically improves quality of low contrast and otherwise difficult-to-scan documents.

Unlike KODAK Capture Pro, a leading batch capture application software which provides advanced and fully-automated high-volume production-level batch scanning capabilities, KODAK Capture Desktop is designed for single user, single scanner and basic batch scanning needs typically required by small and medium-sized businesses. Capture Desktop comes bundled with KODAK i100, i1200, i1300 and i1400 Series Scanners.

Hauke Fast, EAMER Product Manager, Document Imaging, Business Solutions and Services, Eastman Kodak Company, said, “KODAK Capture Desktop enables customers to get up and running with a complete batch oriented scanning solution right out of the box. Its ease of use shortens the learning curve for all users and with its seamless upgrade path to KODAK Capture Pro’s advanced productivity features, companies can significantly save the time and money typically associated with software training.”

KODAK Products are backed by KODAK Service and Support. KODAK Service and Support is made up of more than 3,000 professionals reaching more than 120 countries.

It is a leading multi-vendor integrated services provider, delivering consulting, installation, maintenance and support services for the commercial printing, graphic communications, document imaging and data storage industries. KODAK Service and Support professionals are uniquely qualified to provide services that control costs, maximize productivity, and minimise business risk.

Ventrilo, a product of Flagship Industries and the premier group voice communications program used in tournaments and multiplayer games, announced today that it is the primary sponsor of the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra at Kansas Speedway, Bristol Motor Speedway and Gateway International Raceway for the 2009 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season. Veteran NASCAR racer, Todd Bodine, is the driver of the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra of Germain Racing.

“As a racing enthusiast, I am thrilled about our partnership with Germain Racing this upcoming NASCAR season,” said Brian Knapp, president, Flagship Industries. “This is the perfect opportunity to expand the Ventrilo brand beyond the traditional user in the online computer gaming industry.”

Crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. is anxious to get to Kansas and show Flagship Industries how much fun it is to be a part of a top-ranked, highly competitive race team.

“We are excited to partner with Flagship Industries and make the Ventrilo Tundra part of their ongoing marketing efforts.  We know that our No. 30 team will create expanded visibility and interest in Ventrilo,” said Hillman Jr.  “The Flagship Industries headquarters are just outside of St. Louis, so the Kansas and Gateway races are very important to them.  We’ve been to victory lane at both tracks and I know Todd and I would like nothing more than to get the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra into victory lane at Kansas – the track where we earned our first win together.”

Bodine opened the 2009 Truck Series season with a record-setting fourth-consecutive win on a superspeedway by capturing a repeat victory at Daytona International Speedway. He has earned a combined total of 31 victories in both the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and NASCAR Nationwide Series. Together with Hillman Jr. at Germain Racing, Bodine has pushed the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra to the forefront of the Toyota Tundra lineup by earning more wins than any other Tundra team.  Team sponsor Ventrilo is the industry standard by which all other group communication software is measured and the No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra is the truck all the competition wants to beat each race weekend.

“Obviously to carry the logo of a Midwest company to race at Kansas Speedway, Gateway and again at Bristol is a big honor. I’m very excited about our new relationship with Ventrilo and Flagship Industries,” said Bodine who is currently second in the Truck Series championship standings heading into the Kansas race weekend. “The No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra was very fast last year at Kansas. We have a win there and with all we’ve learned this season, I’m looking forward to giving the folks at Flagship Industries a great performance and a lot of exposure for the Ventrilo brand.”

Germain Racing’s No. 30 Ventrilo Tundra team has collected 16 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victories and four pole awards.  Look for the Ventrilo Tundra to debut at Kansas Speedway on Saturday, April 25th.
Racing action begins at 6:00 PM ET and can be heard on your local MRN affiliate or seen live on SPEED Channel.

Capcom®, a leading worldwide developer and publisher of video games, today announced that three of its blockbuster hit console games of 2009 will be coming to the PC beginning this summer. Bionic Commando®, Street Fighter® IV and Resident Evil® 5 will all be coming to the PC, beginning in July with Street Fighter IV and Bionic Commando, while Resident Evil 5 comes later in the year. All three games will be optimized for the PC platform and will have new PC-specific features added to the already great games. Street Fighter IV has been rated T for Teen by the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB), while Bionic Commando and Resident Evil 5 are both rated M for Mature. All three games will be available both at retail and via various digital distribution methods, including Capcom’s own e-store.

Street Fighter IV features a mix of returning favorites such as Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and Guile along with new characters created for this game, such as Crimson Viper, Abel, El Fuerte, and Rufus. Characters and environments are rendered in stylized 3D, while the game is played in the classic Street Fighter® 2D perspective with additional 3D camera flourishes. Instantly familiar six-button controls are the hallmark of the game, with a host of new special moves and features. Mixing classic genre-defining game mechanics the franchise is known and loved for with all-new, never-before-seen gameplay systems, Street Fighter IV brings a brand new fighting experience to fans the world over. The PC version of Street Fighter IV will feature online play, higher screen resolutions and three new shaders based on three of the “artistic” trailers released in 2008 that will change the visual appearance of the game: “watercolor,” “posterization” and “sumi-e ink” styles.

The first true sequel to the classic 1988 Nintendo Entertainment System® original, Bionic Commando sees the return of the bionically-enhanced Nathan "Rad" Spencer. Time has not been kind to Spencer: 10 years after his heroic defeat of the Imperials, he has been betrayed by the government he swore to serve, imprisoned for crimes he didn't commit, and sentenced to death. Bionic Commando transposes the swing-and-shoot gameplay of the 8-bit original onto a stunning 3D environment of towering buildings, suspended roadways and monorails, deep canyons and sheer rock faces, where every environment is scalable using swinging, scaling, climbing and wall-walking techniques. The PC version of Bionic Commando will support higher resolutions than the console version, remappable controls including mouse and keyboard support, support for both DirectX®9 and DirectX® 10 and online connectivity for multiplayer sessions.

In Resident Evil 5, returning hero Chris Redfield is sent to Africa to investigate a biological weapon that is transforming the populace into aggressive and disturbing creatures. Joined by another local BSAA agent, Sheva Alomar, the two must work together to solve the truth behind the frightening turn of events. Featuring a revolutionary new co-op mode of gameplay, Resident Evil 5 will let players experience fear together as terror moves out of the shadows and into the light of day. The PC version of Resident Evil 5 will feature online play for co-operative play sessions over the internet and will also take advantage of NVIDIA®’s new GeForce® 3D Vision technology (wireless 3D Vision glasses sold separately).

According to research of the Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) conducted as part of the ITIS project, shipment volume of the Greater Chinese notebook PC industry in the full-year 2009 is forecast to reach 114 million units, while worldwide notebook PC shipment volume in 2009 is forecast to reach 123 million units. There are still many variables in current global economic development. Even though some markets have shown signs of rebounding demand, branded vendors are still cautious. For ODM (Original Design Manufacturing) companies, although their outlook has improved somewhat, lead times continue to shorten. Therefore, they also tend to be cautious in dealing with the current industry environment. Meanwhile, CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) platform notebook PCs could stimulate market demand starting in the second quarter.

According to MIC Industry Analyst Nicole Huang, "due to the impact of the global financial crisis, brand-name vendors and contract manufacturers faced a lack of confidence in the global market in the fourth quarter of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, and many companies tended to be conservative. In the fourth quarter of 2008, end-market inventory levels had declined to low levels, but from January rush orders emerged which stimulated shipment. As a result, shipment volume of the Greater Chinese notebook PC industry in the first quarter of 2009 is estimated at 24.99 million units, falling 17.9% sequentially, which was better than the originally expected sequential decline of 18.1%."

Reasons for the emergence of rush orders include: first, inventory levels started to rebound, showing that end-market demand was not as weak as expected. Second, shipment in the fourth quarter of 2008 was below expectations. Some branded vendors faced the end of their fiscal year in the first quarter of 2009, and they stepped up their efforts to reach their annual shipment goals and gave orders to contract manufacturers.

ASP (Average Selling Price) of the Greater Chinese notebook PC industry continued to decline in the first quarter, falling below the US$500 mark to US$495. Ms. Huang stated: "mainstream notebook PC vendors pushed low-price products to deal with the continued impact of netbook PCs. Meanwhile, demand in Japan and Europe was not strong, and the industry's high-end product shipment share declined. Demand for enterprise models was also weak, further reducing the shipment share of high-priced products. Also, prices of some components continued to slide, including panels." Shipment value of the Greater Chinese notebook PC industry in the first quarter of 2009 is estimated at US$12.37 billion, declining 19.2% sequentially.

With weak demand in the enterprise market, and the netbook PC wave in the consumer market, notebook PCs continued to move towards lower prices. The shipment share of products priced below US$800 was close to 90% in the first quarter. This trend is expected to slow down in the second quarter. Although ASP of many products is still moving downward, prices of some components are rising, new back-to-school models will hit the market, and some models will see price increases. These developments are expected to continue to the third quarter. With many new products hitting the market and the economy possibly rebounding, the low-price trend is not expected to further intensify.

MediaTek Inc., the world’s seventh-largest chip designer, and Ali Corp. are leading Taiwan’s chip-design industry out of a slump that impacted the global technology industry starting in the third-quarter last year.
MediaTek’s first-quarter 2009 sales rose by 16.4 percent to NT$17.7 billion (US$522 million) from the same period in 2008, based on information the company released to the Taiwan stock exchange authorities. Ali Corp.’s sales gained by 7.6 percent to NT$728 million during the same period, according to statements released by the company to the Taiwan stock exchange.
Taiwan has the world’s second-largest chip design industry after the United States. Some of Taiwan’s chip designers have bucked the global economic slump by tapping emerging markets such as China. For about five years, MediaTek has been supplying chips for mobile phones to handset makers in China, which has the world’s largest cellphone market.
“Mobile phone market volume in China and India is expected to continue to grow at a steady pace in 2009 and thereafter,” Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) analyst Joyce Chen said in a March 2009 report. “Mobile phone market volume in Europe and North America is expected to continue on its downward trend in 2009.”
MIC is headquartered in Taipei and has a research network spanning Asia.
Overall sales for Taiwan’s chip designers during the first quarter this year declined more than 15 percent from the same period a year ago, and MediaTek and Ali are the only companies out of 10 in Taiwan that have posted sales growth so far this year. Still, the first quarter decline for the Taiwan chip designers is an improvement from the 25.8 percent drop in their sales during the fourth quarter last year, when the global recession had its greatest impact, and even sales for MediaTek and Ali declined.
In February this year, MediaTek announced a new chip for mobile phones that integrates more of the functions previously performed by several chips, thereby helping to lower manufacturing cost for handset makers and allowing them to produce more compact and feature-rich phones. The new MediaTek chip is called the MT6253.
“To better address the needs of emerging markets, where handset manufacturers care about the cost/performance ratio more than ultra low cost, the MT6253 provides perceptual peripheral support to bring down costs and reduce space requirements greatly,” said MediaTek Executive Vice President JiChang Hsu. “MediaTek’s MT6253 sets a new standard for cellular systems on a chip.”
MediaTek, which counts on mobile phone chips for most of its revenue, had sales growth that outpaced gains in the overall handset industry during the third quarter last year.
Robust demand in China after the Olympic Games last year together with handset customers’ production increases has helped MediaTek expand market share, the company said.
MediaTek’s largest competitors in the handset chip business are Qualcomm Inc. and Texas Instruments Inc., both based in the U.S., which has the world’s largest chip-design industry.
Ali Corp. makes chips for set-top boxes and portable media players. Ali is a spinoff from the Acer Group, the world’s third-largest maker of personal computers. MediaTek is a spinoff from United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) of Taiwan, the world’s second-largest chip foundry. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) is the world’s largest chip foundry. TSMC and UMC provide chip manufacturing services to chip designers and other chip companies around the globe.
MediaTek and Ali are among the 24 chip designers that are listed on the Taiwan stock market and are selling chips under their own brand names. The companies, which make chips for everything from personal computers to mobile phones and electronic games, are part of an industry that earned about $5 billion in revenue during 2008.
Taiwan accounts for about a quarter of the world’s chip production.
To promote the island’s industry, the Taiwan government has made the development of branding the key task for raising the competitiveness of Taiwan’s economy. There are two ultimate goals of the Branding Taiwan program. The first is integrating resources to assist the establishment of brands and create a favorable environment for development; the second is to aid Taiwan enterprises in brand development and increase the value of Taiwan’s international brands.

By Traci Patterson
CedMagazine.com - March 05, 2009

Cisco has announced the WET610N Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge with dual-band, the WRT400N simultaneous dual-band Wireless-N Router, and the dual-band Wireless-N Gigabit Router – the WRT320N.

The company said that the WET610N Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge can add high-speed Wireless-N connectivity to Ethernet-enabled devices such as set-top boxes, game consoles and televisions for on-demand broadcast, online gaming or media streaming throughout the home.

According to Parks Associates, 8 million households in the U.S. have entertainment devices connected to the network in the home. That number is expected to grow to more than 30 million households by year-end 2013.

With the WET610N:

• Consumers can get better range and speed for streaming video and gaming applications by connecting Ethernet-enabled devices to their high-speed Wireless-N home network without running new cables.
• Entertainment content can be sent over the less-crowded 5 GHz spectrum, separating it from other network traffic that transmits in the 2.4 GHz spectrum.
• Users can reduce video glitches with enhanced quality of service (QoS) functionality, providing faster and more reliable video streaming and network performance.

Both the WRT400N and WRT320N dual-band routers allow consumers to use the 5 GHz wireless spectrum to connect their devices to the network with a lower price of entry. The WRT400N offers connectivity in both the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz spectrums at the same time, while the WRT320N allows the user to select which band they prefer to use, according to Cisco.

With the WRT400N:

• Users get Wi-Fi Protected Setup, a push button feature that simplifies the process of setting up and configuring security for new network devices.

With the WRT320N:

• Users get four Gigabit ports for quicker transmission of data when using a wired connection to a device within the home.

"As a number of top consumer electronics and game console manufacturers continue to bring to market Ethernet-enabled products, there is a clear need for a high-performance wireless solution that enables these devices to access the most demanding content and applications, such as HD video streaming and online gaming,” said Greg Memo, vice president and general manager of products for Cisco’s Consumer Business Group. “The WET610N Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge provides for an easy and reliable way for consumers to get the most out of these entertainment device purchases and further demonstrates the evolution to a media-enabled home, where a number of consumer devices are accessing rich media and Internet services beyond just PCs."

The WET610N is available now in the U.S. at an estimated street price of $99.99. Availability in other regions is anticipated later in 2009. Also available now in the U.S., the WRT400N and WRT320N have estimated street prices of $149.99 and $129.99, respectively. Availability in other regions is anticipated later in 2009.

Hitachi Displays Ltd., agreed to plead guilty and pay a $31 million fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of TFT-LCDs sold to Dell, the U.S. Department of Justice announced today.

A one-count felony charge filed today in U.S. District Court in San Francisco charges Hitachi Displays Ltd., a subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd., with participating in a conspiracy to fix the prices of TFT-LCD sold to Dell for use in desktop monitors and notebook computers from April 1, 2001, through March 31, 2004. According to the plea agreement, which is subject to court approval, Hitachi Displays has agreed to cooperate with the Department's ongoing antitrust investigation.

"Hitachi joins three other multinational companies who have admitted to their involvement in fixing prices for LCD panels sold to U.S. companies and that have already paid criminal fines totaling more than $585 million," said Scott D. Hammond, acting assistant attorney general in charge of the department's antitrust division.

The department's ongoing antitrust investigation into the TFT-LCD industry has resulted in to date, more than $585 million in criminal fines have been imposed as a result of this investigation, and four individuals have pleaded guilty and have been sentenced to serve jail time.

This is the fourth plea agreement by a company charged with participating in conspiracies to fix the prices for TFT-LCD. The other companies are LG Display Co., Sharp Corp. and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd.

DisplayFusion will make your dual monitor (or triple monitor or more) experience smooth and painless. With DisplayFusion you can add a taskbar to every monitor that works and looks just like the Windows Taskbar. Or take advantage of advanced multi-monitor wallpaper support, Flickr integration for image searching and fully customizable window management hotkeys. These are just a few of the many things that DisplayFusion can do.

DisplayFusion

Like most of us power users and over the top PC people we trend to have a few PC's running at the same time. One of the problems is that you have to have a keyboard and mouse hooked up to the extra unit, but not with Synergy. This easy to install and easy to use program is a huge help in keeping your workspace clutter free...well for the most part.

As easy as moving you poitner from one screen to the next.

With synergy, all the computers on your desktop form a single virtual screen. You use the mouse and keyboard of only one of the computers while you use all of the monitors on all of the computers. You tell synergy how many screens you have and their positions relative to one another. Synergy then detects when the mouse moves off the edge of a screen and jumps it instantly to the neighboring screen. The keyboard works normally on each screen; input goes to whichever screen has the cursor.

You can arrange screens side-by-side, above and below one another, or any combination. You can even have a screen jump to the opposite edge of itself. Synergy also understands multiple screens attached to the same computer.

Running a game and don't want synergy to jump screens? No problem. Just toggle Scroll Lock. Synergy keeps the cursor on the same screen when Scroll Lock is on. (This can be configured to another hot key.)

Do you wish you could cut and paste between computers? Now you can! Just copy text, HTML, or an image as you normally would on one screen then switch to another screen and paste it. It's as if all your computers shared a single clipboard (and separate primary selection for you X11 users). It even converts newlines to each computer's native form so cut and paste between different operating systems works seamlessly. And it does it all in Unicode so any text can be copied.

Do you use a screen saver? With synergy all your screen savers act in concert. When one starts they all start. When one stops they all stop. And, if you require a password to unlock the screen, you'll only have to enter a password on one screen.

If you regularly use multiple computers on one desk, give synergy a try. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Download Synergy here!