"Eneloop Bike" Electric Hybrid Bicycle

Concidering on Sanyo News Realase,
They Announces the “eneloop bike” Electric Hybrid Bicycle. This bikeThe eneloop bike has been designed to be the industry’s first^*1 to conform to the newest standards^*2, offering a “Power-up Mode” assist ratio of up to 1:2^*2 making riding the bicycle more comfortable, a new “loop charge function”^*3 that generates electricity and charges the battery while in use, and a “two-wheel drive system” provide a safer, more stable ride.

The new eneloop bike will be on sale in Japan in early February 2009.

SANYO, based on its ‘Think GAIA’ brand vision and the eneloop concept stressing ‘looping energy’ or stressing a lifestyle of reusing and recycling, created the ‘eneloop universe’ in 2006. The eneloop bike announced today will become a part of this product series, as it accurately represents both looping energy and consideration for the environment in a reusable system. With this new product, clean and reusable energy is “Generated, Recharged, and Conserved” simultaneously. Energy is generated by the rider, recharging the auxiliary battery, and conserving the energy both from the main battery and the rider.

Main Features

1. Industry’s First^*1 to conform to the newest standards^*2 with “Power-up Mode” assist ratio of up to 1:2^*2 for more comfort

- Conforms to newly revised road traffic law enforcement regulations effective as of December 1, 2008 allowing motor to human power, assist ratio, to 1:2
- Power-up Mode offers riders more comfort by assisting more with its smooth assistance control
- New ratio allows riders to pedal up steep hills effortlessly
- SANYO’s proprietary ‘smooth assistance control’^*4 aids with balancing the bicycle when pedaling starts, and allows a smooth ride

*1 For power-assisted bicycles in Japan that are scheduled to be released at the beginning of February 2009.

*2 A Cabinet Office regulation to be enforced on December 1, 2008 that revises the drive assist ratio for the motor drive-assisted bicycles that is provided in the road traffic law enforcement regulations.
The ratio of motor power to human power (assist ratio) will become 1:2 in a low-speed area of less than 10 km/h.

*3 The “Loop Charge Function” is a generic name of the “Brake Charge” where the motor changes to the dynamo and the battery is auxiliarily charged by a left brake lever operation when the bike slows down on a downhill for example, and the function where the motor brake automatically works while the bike coasts downhill in “Auto Mode” and the battery is auxiliarily charged. Even with the use of “Loop Charge”, the battery needs to be charged daily with a dedicated charger.

*4 As of December 2008 for assist bicycles in Japan for the running mode automatically controlling the optimal recharging rate downhill and the assist “power-up” for uphill.


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How to Migrate data from PC to Mac

There are many ways to do this—some free (depending on the gear you own) and others not quite as free.

If you have a spare external hard drive with a USB interface you can use it to copy your parents’ files from the PC to the Mac. First, format the drive so that it can be used on the PC. To do so, plug the hard drive into the Mac, launch Disk Utility (found in the Utilities folder), select the drive in the left pane of the Disk Utility window, click the Erase tab, from the Volume Format pop-up menu choose MS-DOS (FAT), and click Erase. (And yes, this will erase all the data on the drive so be sure there’s nothing on that drive you want.) With the drive formatted for Windows, unmount it from the Mac, plug it into the PC, and copy the files you want from the PC to the hard drive. Unmount, drag it back to the Mac, plug it in, copy from hard drive to Mac, done.

This is a fine solution if you know where to find all the files on the PC and have the patience to archive email message, export bookmarks (termed Favorites in Internet Explorer), and sift through this corner or that to ensure you have all the files you need before setting fire to the PC.

If you’re without an external drive you can create a quick-and-dirty network between the two computers by stringing an Ethernet cable between them, switching on file sharing, and copying the files from Computer A to Computer B. Doing so requires that you know something about file sharing on both platforms (online help on each computer will explain how) and, again, you’ll need to know where to find the files you’re after.

A less-free-to-the-tune-of-$50 option is Belkin’s $50 Switch-To-Mac Cable. This is the solution I used because I had one and wanted to see how it worked. I’m pleased to say that it was a breeze. The gist is this:

You install Belkin's software on both the Mac and Windows PC (OS X 10.4 or later and Windows XP or Vista required). For the most part, the Mac software does the work. There you tell the application the kinds of files you want to copy from the PC to the Mac. You can choose music, photos, email, contacts, calendars, documents, wallpaper, and Internet Explorer Favorites as well as the contents of the PC’s Desktop and the contents of a folder you’ve chosen. Once you’ve set up the software, string the included cable between USB ports on each computer (transfer will happen more quickly over a USB 2.0 port on each computer but it works with USB 1.0 on a PC too). Then tell the Mac version of the application to work its magic and it does so by copying files from the PC to the Mac.

It doesn’t just fling files into a folder on your Mac but rather files them where they should be. Your Desktop files, for example, appear on the Desktop of your Mac in a folder labeled with the name of your PC. Music files are moved directly into iTunes. Photos are copied to iPhoto. Favorites become bookmarks in Safari. Outlook mail is shuttled to Apple’s Mail just as Outlook’s calendars appear in iCal and addresses show up in Address Book.

For a one-time job I can see how this $50 solution might be a little off-putting but, Great Googly Moogly, it is slick and easy. Were I required to do this thing more than a handful of times, I’d consider it money well spent. (Or I might just demand the necessary $50 from a relative or friend who requested my help for this kind of operation.)

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How to convert DVD and video to BlackBerry Storm

This article is will show you about how to rip DVD and convert video to BlackBerry Storm. First, you should know what video format is BlackBerry Storm supports.
Because DVD has CSS copyright protection, we need a program to rip DVD and convert video for BlackBerry Storm. The tool we use is BlackBerry Converter Suite, it includes two programs: DVD to BlackBerry Storm Converter and BlackBerry Storm Video Converter. This program not only supports BlackBerry Storm, but also BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry Bold series.

It supports audio and video format as follow:

Video:
DVD, ISO, AVI, MPEG, MKV, MP4, MP4-AVC, M4V, WMV, MOV, 3GP, 3G2, MPG, FLV, ASF, VOB

Audio:
WMA, M4A, MP3, AAC, AC3, WMA

For more info about this BlackBerry Converter Suite, you can refer to here.
And here is the free download link, about 10.9 MB.

Now, let’s start the guide about converting DVD and Video to BlackBerry Storm:

Step1. Download and install the BlackBerry Storm converter, and then run it.

Step2. Load DVD into the software by clicking “Add DVD file”.

Here we can load three kinds of DVD’s:

1. Real DVD, just put the DVD in your DVD drive and click load DVD, (you can find it by clicking the triangle on the right of ‘load file’ button.)

2. DVD ISO image, you can amount your ISO files in the daemon tools and then load the virtual DVD drive.

3. A DVD folder, sometimes you may store the DVD folder in your hard drive, it appears like “Video_TS” “Audio_TS” folders. You can load it by clicking the “load DVD folders” button.

Step3. Select Profile, Subtitle, Audio, output directory setting

After you load DVD into the software, click the Profile drop-down list to select the proper format according to your BlackBerry Type, this guide is mainly about how to convert DVD and video to BlackBerry Storm, so we select the “BlackBerry Storm series(*.mp4)” profile.
Regular DVD movies usually have several subtitles such as English, French, German, etc. You can select one you prefer. You can also delete the subtitle by selecting “No Subtitle”. Selecting Audio is the same. If you want to join all your DVD files into one video file, please select the option named “Merge into one file”. For more advanced setting, you can open the setting panel by clicking “Setting”.

Step4. Start the conversion

After all things done, you can click the “Start” to begin the conversion; it will take about 30 minutes for converting a regular two hours DVD movie. When the conversion finished, click “find target” to located the converted video on your computer, connect your BlackBerry Storm to computer, and then copy the video to your BlackBerry memory card, that’s all. Then you can enjoy your favorites DVD movies on your BlackBerry Storm.

For converting video to BlackBerry Storm, you can click “Video to BlackBerry” to run the BlackBerry Movie Converter, the operation steps are similar to DVD to BlackBerry Converter, So I’m not repeat here. But I want to add some tips to the BlackBerry Movie Converter.

1. The Video to BlackBerry Converter supports batch conversion, so you can add multiple video files at one time.
2. The Video to BlackBerry Converter embeds powerful video editing functions, you can use it to cut video, trim video, crop video, and you can even add a watermark to the video.
3. The Video to BlackBerry Converter can also help you convert video file to MP3, WMA, AAC, etc audio, so you can set it as your BlackBerry ringtone.

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Set Monitor disk arrays with sccli commands on UNIX

Clearly one of the best features of disk arrays is that they can continue working even when a disk has failed. One of the problems, however, is that you might not notice when a disk fails, and thus, fail to replace it in a timely manner. Let’s take a look at what you can do to facilitate monitoring your storage (StorEdge) arrays so that a bad disk doesn’t escape your notice.

First, there are two ways to determine that a disk in a StorEdge array has failed. You might notice that an amber LED on the front of the particular drive has lit up or you can use the sccli commands to view the disks contained in your array and their status.

To start sccli, log into the server to which the array is attached and type “sccli”. You should connect to the device and find yourself sitting at the sccli> prompt. To view the state of the disks on your array, type “show disks”. In the display below, one of the disks is reported to be “BAD”. The particular system was still running and still had one disk in “STAND-BY” mode, so the failure was not an emergency. Still, it’s a good idea to ensure that all disks in the array are working properly to steer clear of failures from which your array would not be able to recover without intervention.

On Screen Keyboard

Well it is this simple…

Click on the start button and select run.
Then type osk in the box and click OK.

See Help on On Screen Keyboard menus for more detail.

How to Extend Your Laptop’s Battery Life

Laptops tend to lose their charm quickly when you’re constantly looking for the nearest power outlet to charge up. How do you keep your battery going for as long as possible? Here are 15 easy ways to do so.

1. Defrag regularly - The faster your hard drive does its work - less demand you are going to put on the hard drive and your battery. Make your hard drive as efficient as possible by defragging it regularly. (but not while it’s on battery of course!) Mac OSX is better built to handle fragmentation so it may not be very applicable for Apple systems.

2. Dim your screen - Most laptops come with the ability to dim your laptop screen. Some even come with ways to modify CPU and cooling performance. Cut them down to the lowest level you can tolerate to squeeze out some extra battery juice.

3. Cut down on programs running in the background. Itunes, Desktop Search, etc. All these add to the CPU load and cut down battery life. Shut down everything that isn’t crucial when you’re on battery.

4. Cut down external devices - USB devices (including your mouse) & WiFi drain down your laptop battery. Remove or shut them down when not in use. It goes without saying that charging other devices (like your iPod) with your laptop when on battery is a surefire way of quickly wiping out the charge on your laptop battery.

5. Add more RAM - This will allow you to process more with the memory your laptop has, rather than relying on virtual memory. Virtual memory results in hard drive use, and is much less power efficient. Note that adding more RAM will consume more energy, so this is most applicable if you do need to run memory intensive programs which actually require heavy usage of virtual memory.

6. Run off a hard drive rather than CD/DVD - As power consuming as hard drives are, CD and DVD drives are worse. Even having one in the drive can be power consuming. They spin, taking power, even when they?re not actively being used. Wherever possible, try to run on virtual drives using programs like Alcohol 120% rather than optical ones.

7. Keep the battery contacts clean. Clean your battery’s metal contacts every couple of months with a cloth moistened with rubbing alcohol. This keeps the transfer of power from your battery more efficient.

8. Take care of your battery - Exercise the Battery. Do not leave a charged battery dormant for long periods of time. Once charged, you should at least use the battery at least once every two to three weeks. Also, do not let a Li-On battery completely discharge. (Discharing is only for older batteries with memory effects)

9. Hibernate not standby - Although placing a laptop in standby mode saves some power and you can instantly resume where you left off, it doesn’t save anywhere as much power as the hibernate function does. Hibernating a PC will actually save your PC’s state as it is, and completely shut itself down.

10. Keep operating temperature down - Your laptop operates more efficiently when it’s cooler. Clean out your air vents with a cloth or keyboard cleaner, or refer to some extra tips by LapTopMag.com.

11. Set up and optimize your power options - Go to ‘Power Options’ in your windows control panel and set it up so that power usage is optimized (Select the ‘max battery’ for maximum effect).

12. Don’t multitask - Do one thing at a time when you’re on battery. Rather than working on a spreadsheet, letting your email client run in the background and listening to your latest set of MP3’s, set your mind to one thing only. If you don’t you’ll only drain out your batteries before anything gets completed!

13. Go easy on the PC demands - The more you demand from your PC. Passive activities like email and word processing consume much less power than gaming or playing a DVD. If you’ve got a single battery charge - pick your priorities wisely.

14. Get yourself a more efficient laptop - Laptops are getting more and more efficient in nature to the point where some manufacturers are talking about all day long batteries. Picking up a newer more efficient laptop to replace an aging one is usually a quick fix.

15. Prevent the Memory Effect - If you’re using a very old laptop, you’ll want to prevent the ‘memory effect’ - Keep the battery healthy by fully charging and then fully discharging it at least once every two to three weeks. Exceptions to the rule are Li-Ion batteries (which most laptops have) which do not suffer from the memory effect.

Bonus Tip #1: Turn off the autosave function. MS-Word’s and Excel’s autosave functions are great but because they keep saving regular intervals, they work your hard driver harder than it may have to. If you plan to do this, you may want to turn it back on as the battery runs low. While it saves battery life in the beginning, you will want to make sure your work is saved when your battery dies.

Bonus Tip #2: Lower the graphics use. You can do this by changing the screen resolution and shutting off fancy graphic drivers. Graphics cards (video cards) use as much or more power today as hard disks - Thanks Andrew

Update 7/7/07: Bonus Tip #1 to give caution about turning off autosave, tip #8 to change information about discharging batteries - thanks to all who pointed it out. Added Bonus tip #2, Tip #1 to add in clause in regards to Mac OSX, Tip #1 about the spinning of hard drives - thanks to all who pointed it out.

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AMD Launches World’s Fastest Graphics Card

− ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 delivers up to 80 percent more performance than award-winning ATI Radeon™ HD 4870² −

Sunnyvale, Calif. -- August 12, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced the world’s fastest graphics card, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2, advancing visual computing ever closer to eye-definition computing gaming and cinematic experiences and delivering a whopping 2.4 teraFLOPS of processing power. Also announced today is the ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 X2 graphics card, delivering blistering performance at a compelling price point.

These cards comprise the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series, combining two ATI Radeon HD 4800 series GPUs with a more advanced cross-GPU connection based on the PCIe 2.0 standard, plus two gigabytes of memory – the most in any currently available consumer graphics card. These technologies combine to make the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series perfectly suited for the most demanding games, able to deliver astonishing frame rates at extreme resolutions and image quality settings.

The capabilities of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series were on display yesterday in New York City, where leading experts from the game development community and Hollywood joined AMD to discuss and demonstrate eye-definition computing computing. Eye-definition computing is the art and science of achieving visual computing experiences that seem optically real. The tremendous computational 2.4 teraFLOPS horsepower of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series makes computing experiences that approach eye-definition computing possible. The first application of eye-definition computing computing, demonstrated by AMD in New York yesterday, is Cinema 2.0, the fusion of digital people, places and things, rendered with real-time interactivity. Cinema 2.0 shows the power to digitally create interactive environments and characters that seem optically real in either a video game or digital cinema context. With the help of leading content creators, AMD demonstrated the first “virtual” actor to be rendered in real-time in perfect, lifelike detail, via the incredible processing power found in the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series.

Based on an advanced 55nm design and leading DirectX® 10.1 support, the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series delivers engineering elegance and the industry’s most compelling feature set. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is immediately available from e-tailers worldwide priced at USD $549 SRP, while the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 is scheduled to be available in September at an estimated price of USD $399.³

“The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series is proof that our graphics strategy is working. The response from OEMs, system integrators, game developers, press, and most importantly, from gamers regarding the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series products has been incredibly positive. Now, only a few short weeks after the launch of those products, AMD reclaims the ultimate performance crown and continues to deliver winning products to market in the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products Group, AMD. “The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series continues AMD technology leadership with support for DirectX 10.1, tessellation, and now 2GB of frame buffer. The new products join a line-up of stellar offerings, all of which are designed to give gamers experiences that approach eye-definition computing.”

ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 press and analyst reception
Initial product previews of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series highlight the superior performance and incredible image quality it delivers:

• “Our gameplay experiences with the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 were phenomenal, especially once we raised the antialiasing setting to high levels... Who would have thought we’d ever be seeing Oblivion at 2560x1600 with 24X AA? This means you can load up old games and set crazy high AA settings. AMD deserves huge kudos for really kicking AA up a notch,” said Brent Justice, HardOCP.⁴
• “The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is looking like it beat [the GTX280] as it spanked even the overclocked GeForce GTX 280 in our testing. AMD has pulled off another one with the Radeon HD 4870 X2,” said Nathan Kirsch, Legit Reviews.⁵
• “The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 proves AMD’s ability to scale their architecture and offer high performance at normal prices, and still stay within comfortable power demand,” said Jon Peddie, president and founder of Jon Peddie Research.

Driving the ultra-enthusiast experience
The ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series provides support for ATI CrossFireX™, enabling incredibly fast gaming PCs with unmatched performance at ultra-high settings. Enthusiast gamers can now run the most demanding games smoothly in at the highest settings, enabling modes that were not playable before.⁶ With the efficient use of all four GPUs in a dual ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 CrossFireX configuration, gamers will enjoy more than 3 times the performance of a single ATI Radeon HD 4870 card in many games.⁷

“AMD has regained the graphics performance crown with this launch,” said Patrick Cooper, Director of Product Planning, Alienware. “The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 is what gamers have been waiting for—blistering performance in DirectX 10.1 games backed by stable drivers for great scaling in ATI CrossFireX mode.”

“Gamers that buy Falcon Northwest PCs demand nothing but the best possible performance, and today the one that delivers the best gaming experience, is a quad ATI CrossFireX rig using two ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 cards, like those found in our Mach V,” said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest. “We’re committed to bringing the world the ultimate gaming PCs featuring the leading technology. With support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games, only ATI Radeon graphics let us do that.”

“As a premier provider of high-performance PCs, the stellar performance and leading technologies of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series makes it a perfect match for Velocity Micro,” said Randy Copeland, President and CEO, Velocity Micro. “AMD once again has the fastest card around, and with support for the latest DirectX 10.1 games, it makes it a natural choice for gamers wanting the latest and greatest technology in their Velocity Micro system.”

ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2: The world’s fastest graphics card
The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 delivers unsurpassed graphics horsepower, setting a new performance bar for visual computing with 2.4 teraFLOPS of processing power on a single card. It is also the world’s first graphics card to include 2GB of ultra-high bandwidth GDDR5 memory. The ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 features two GPUs based on a second generation 55nm technology and clocked at 750 MHz, with a combined 1600 stream processors.

Engineered to be the world’s fastest graphics card, the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 was built with efficiency, scalability and performance in mind, delivering four times the performance efficiency AMD high-end GPU offerings released just one year ago.⁶

ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2: New levels of performance under $400³
Setting a new performance standard in graphics cards priced under $400³, the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 provides the power to play today’s most demanding titles at ultra-high settings. Like its big brother, the ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 features 1600 stream processors, and two GPUs clocked at 625 MHz. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 X2 features 2GB of GDDR3 memory.

Ecosystem Support
The ATI Radeon HD 4800 series is supported by a dozen add-in-board companies offering custom designs of the products. Building high-performance versions of the ATI Radeon HD 4800 X2 series products are, ASUS, Club 3D, Diamond Multimedia, Force3D, GECUBE, GIGABYTE, HIS (Hightech Information Systems), Jetway, MSI, Palit Multimedia, PowerColor, SAPPHIRE Technology and VisionTek.

The ATI Radeon HD 4800 series press kit may be viewed at: www.amd.com/ATIRadeonHD4800/presskit.

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing and graphics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit www.amd.com.

© 2008 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Radeon, and CrossFireX are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

1. As of July 24th, 2008, the ATI Radeon™ HD 4870 X2 scores 17743 in 3DMark06, which is the highest recorded single-card score.
2. Based on comparing the performance of a single ATI Radeon HD 4870 vs. the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2, performance in games including Call of Juarez and Devil May Cry 4 at 2560x1600, 4xAA and 8xAF demonstrates gains of 80 percent.
3. Estimated street price at launch.
4. For more information please see http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTUzMSwxMCwsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=
5. For more information please see http://www.legitreviews.com/article/745/8/
6. AMD defines playable frame rates as those where the frame rate per second count is above 30. Dual ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 in CrossFireX allows games such as Crysis DX10 to be played at 2560x1600 at 4xAA and 8xAF and Lost Planet DX10 to be played at 2560x1600 at 8xAA and 16xAF above 30 frames per second.
7. Three times the performance noted in 3DMark Vantage v1.01 running at Extreme Preset, 1920x1200, 4xAA and 16xAF; Call of Juarez DX10 running at 1920x1200, 4xAA and 8xAF; FEAR running at 1920x1200, 4xAA and 8xAF; Half Life 2 running at 2560x1600, 8xAA and 16xAF; and Unreal Tournament 3 running at 2560x1600, 8xAA and 16xAF.
8. Data based on maximum power loads calculated by AMD comparing GFLOPS/watt of the ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 to the ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2.

Source

AMD and Blizzard Entertainment® Join Forces in Strategic Global Agreement

-- Collaboration helps ensure rich experience for World of Warcraft® gamers playing on new AMD ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series graphics cards--

SUNNYVALE, Calif. -- August 12, 2008 --AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that it has entered into an agreement with Blizzard Entertainment® that will allow AMD to bundle Blizzard’s best games across all ATI Radeon™ graphics products, to deliver a superior gaming experience. As the exclusive graphics sponsor for BlizzCon™ 2008 in Anaheim, Oct. 10-11, AMD will treat gamers to the unparalleled graphics capabilities of the ATI Radeon™ HD 4800 series in all PCs for game play at BlizzCon™.

“Blizzard Entertainment is responsible for the hottest titles in PC gaming and AMD is excited to be working closely with one of the top development teams in the industry to deliver exceptional gaming experiences for players around the world,” said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager, Graphics Products, AMD. “Gamers have a variety of choices when it comes to graphics cards, and those who choose ATI Radeon solutions can be confident their purchase will give them the visually rich, high-performance experience they expect.”

“Our collaboration with AMD is especially important to us because it provides us with early access to some of the latest graphics technology,” said Paul Sams, chief operating officer of Blizzard Entertainment. “Delivering a polished game experience is one of our top priorities, and this relationship helps us achieve that goal for Blizzard gamers who choose AMD graphics cards.”

AMD is committed to helping PC gamers around the world enjoy The Ultimate Visual Experience™. The collaboration with Blizzard Entertainment underscores the mission of its recently announced AMD GAME! initiative, which is dedicated to providing consumers the information they need to help them better understand gaming technology and thus purchase the right systems and components they need to best meet their high-definition gaming needs.

About AMD
Advanced Micro Devices (NYSE: AMD) is a leading global provider of innovative processing solutions in the computing and graphics markets. AMD is dedicated to driving open innovation, choice and industry growth by delivering superior customer-centric solutions that empower consumers and businesses worldwide. For more information, visit http://www.amd.com.

About Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.
Best known for blockbuster hits including World of Warcraft and the Warcraft®, StarCraft, and Diablo® series, Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. (www.blizzard.com), a division of Vivendi Games, is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software renowned for creating some of the industry’s most critically acclaimed games. Blizzard Entertainment’s track record includes ten #1-selling games and multiple Game of the Year awards. The company’s online-gaming service, Battle.net®, is one of the largest in the world, with millions of active users.

©2008 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. AMD, the AMD Arrow logo, ATI, the ATI logo, Radeon, The Ultimate Visual Experience and combinations thereof, are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Other names are for informational purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners.

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Intel Unveils Extensible Host Controller Interface Draft Specification to Support USB 3.0 Architecture

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Aug. 13, 2008 – Intel Corporation today announced the availability of the Extensible Host Controller Interface (xHCI) draft specification revision 0.9 in support of the USB 3.0 architecture, also known as SuperSpeed USB. The xHCI draft specification provides a standardized method for USB 3.0 host controllers to communicate with the USB 3.0 software stack.

Interoperability among devices from multiple manufacturers is important for consumer adoption of SuperSpeed USB products. The Intel xHCI draft specification revision 0.9 supports compatibility among various implementations of USB devices and will make it easier to develop software support for the industry.

This specification describes the registers and data structures used to interface between system software and the hardware, and are developed to be compatible with the USB 3.0 specification being developed by the USB 3.0 Promoter Group. The Intel xHCI draft specification revision 0.9 is being made available under RAND-Z (royalty free) licensing terms to all USB 3.0 Promoter Group and contributor companies that sign an xHCI contributor agreement; information is available online from Intel Corporation at www.intel.com/technology/usb/spec.htm.

"The future of computing and consumer devices is increasingly visual and bandwidth intensive," said Phil Eisler, AMD corporate vice president and general manager of the Chipset Business Unit. "Lifestyles filled with HD media and digital audio demand quick and universal data transfer. USB 3.0 is an answer to the future bandwidth need of the PC platform. AMD believes strongly in open industry standards, and therefore is supporting a common xHCI specification."

"Dell welcomes the availability of Intel's xHCI specification because it provides a single interface standard that will expedite the industry transition to next-generation USB 3.0," said Rick Schuckle, client architecture strategist. "This interface standard is important to ensure that our customers have interoperable USB 3.0 systems, devices and software drivers."

"Microsoft has developed driver support for the USB industry standard since its inception and is committed to supporting the latest hardware technologies on the Windows platform," said Chuck Chan, Microsoft general manager of Windows Core OS. "Microsoft intends to deliver Windows support for hardware that is compliant with the xHCI specification; this is a huge step forward in enabling the industry and our customers to easily connect SuperSpeed USB devices to their PCs for exciting new functionality and usages."

"NEC Electronics has supported Intel's EHCI specification for USB 2.0 and WHCI specification for Wireless USB 1.0, and developed solutions based on both of these standards," said Hiroshi Iguchi, NEC Electronics vice president of its 2nd SOC Operations Unit. "NEC Electronics will now provide USB 3.0 solutions based on Intel's xHCI specification to ensure interoperability of our solution with multiple products from various manufacturers. As we have done for USB 2.0, NEC Electronics would like to lead the USB 3.0 market with our discrete USB 3.0 host controller."

Intel plans to make available a revised xHCI 0.95 specification in the fourth quarter. The updated revision of the specification will also be released under RAND-Z licensing terms via an xHCI adopter's agreement.

About Intel
Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom and blogs.intel.com.

Intel is a trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
* Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.

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ADSL 2 GO

How It Works

ADSL is really very clever. It uses the spare capacity in normal telephone lines to transmit data between you and us and back again, whilst the line is used normally for voice calls. The technical wizardry behind ADSL has been available for a few years. We’ve been using it for most of this time and the performance this technology gives is excellent. Now with BT’s co-operation we deliver this service thoughout the country. There are two aspects of ADSL you might wish to understand – How the network works and what happens on your telephone line.

>The Network

(Figure 1) shows your premises (office or home), the BT network, our premises and the Internet. We are part of the Internet so any traffic through us feed onto or from the rest of the Internet – right across the globe. The ADSL service moves data between you and us, over BT’s network. Once you’ve signed up, we enable your account here, the service is installed, and then you log on. From that point the connection between you and us is permanently established. Data flows between us a bit like data flows round any computer network. That is what we mean by "Always On" it is there all the time unless you switch off. If you switch your PC off or there is a power failure or suchlike, you simply get everything working normally and log back on, to resume normal service. With this service you get access to e-mail, all the web sites across the world, and all the usual facilities on the Internet.

(Figure 1)

> The Telephone Line

The obvious question is "How does ADSL work over telephone lines, and what happens to normal voice or fax telephone calls?" Telephone lines operate a bit like a TV cable coming from your aerial, except that information moves in both directions rather than just one way for TV. The TV cable carries signals for all the TV channels which you can watch, of course. You select just one at a time to watch, but the TV still receives all the programmes down the aerial. To provide ADSL service, your telephone line operates similarly to the TV cable. Two of the channels are for normal calls: one for each direction to and from you; and two channels are used for ADSL internet traffic channel, up and down.


(Figure 2)

Figure 2 shows how the telephone line operates between your business or home, and the local telephone exchange. From there, the ADSL Internet traffic is taken back to us (over special phone lines) and normal telephone calls go out over the telephone network as before. There is no interference between ADSL and normal voice calls, or vice versa. You can use your telephone line for making and receiving telephone calls just as now.

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Sony Working On A New PS3 Wii-like Controller?

By Max Brenn
10:47, June 15th 2008






According to several news reports, Sony is working to create a new controller for its next-gen gaming platform, PlayStation 3. The big surprise (or maybe not so big) is that the new controller seems inspired by the already famous Wiimote.

The gaming site Gamesindustry.biz reported that the new controller will have the ability to “break apart” in two units, which with its own accelerometer.

Commenting about this rumor, another gaming site, Kotaku, said that is not about a “break apart” controller, but in fact Sony will created a device that can be attached to the gamers’ body.

Kotaku has quoted an unnamed source, who said that the controller will include two or four units, which can be attached to the hands and feet in order to move a character’s body. As you can imagine Sony denied commenting on the rumors.

In April this year, Sony launched in the United State its PlayStation 3's DualShock 3 controller with rumble capabilities. Kazuo Hirai announced the DualShock 3 controller last year at Tokyo Game Show. The controller is compatible with over 100 titles for PlayStation3, but many games will require a patch in order to enact the rumble feature.

Initially, Sony claimed that rumble capabilities are not “next-gen” features, but one of the main reasons for which Sony did not include rumble features into the current SIXAXIS controllers for PlayStation 3 was the patent lawsuit filed by Immersion, which owns the intellectual property over some key aspects of the technology integrated in PS2’s DualShock controllers.

After settling the lawsuit with Immersion in March 2007, Sony was quick to announce DualShock 3 that went on sale in Japan in November last year as a separately sold accessory. The non-rumbling motion-sensing SIXAXIS controller has been discontinued.

Two months ago there were some rumors that Microsoft is also working to develop a Wii-like controller for its Xbox 360.

According to the rumors, the new controller, code-named Newton, will have a design similar to the Wii remote, it will include a four face buttons, an analog stick, a microphone and even a gyroscope sensor that can detect tilt and motion. However, Microsoft also declined to comment about this issue.

A new controller could mean for both gaming consoles, Xbox 360 and PS3, a new method to fight against Nintendo Wii, which is dominating the hardware gaming sales.

For example, according to the latest figures released by the NPD Group, Nintendo Wii has sold 675,100 units compared to 186,600Xbox 360s and 208,700 PlayStation 3s.


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