London 2012: Powered By Acer

We have known for some time that the London 2012 Olympics will be in part powered by Acer. What we are just now finding out is the details on how they are going to supply the athletes, in house functions and guard stations. It looks like Acer will be providing some 11,000 computers to be used next summer, as well as providing the scanners that the security gates are using. This should provide a big boost to the Acer name and the company as a whole.

A more recent report is showing that Acer will be providing around 10,000 desktop PC’s, another 1,000 laptops, and a little under a thousand servers. Acer will be sticking with their Veriton L670Gs, which is not exactly a powerhouse computer by any means. At the highest tier these PC’s only come with Windows Vista (which will be loaded for the games), Intel’s Core 2 Quad, 4 GB of DDR2, and a serial ATA. The laptops, on the other hand, are their TravelMate 6593Gs running Windows 7 but still stuck with the dual core chips. Sure Usain Bolt can run 100 meters in 9.58, but the technology he is using is from 2007.

It is also worth mentioning that Acer will be sporting anywhere from 300 to 400 employees on staff to help with all technical issues. Among those staff members only a small margin of them (3% or less) will be from outside of Britain, but most are extremely well trained, with a majority even working on the Vancouver 2010 games.

Good luck, fellow techies working the games, good luck.

Sources:

Itpro.co.uk - Going for Gold - IT at the London Olympics

Theregister.co.uk - London 2012 Olympics: 17000 athletes, 11000 computers

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Napster to be Acquired by Rhapsody

One of the oldest internet subscription music services on the web, Rhapsody, has finally, and officially, acquired Napster subscribers as well as a host of other assets from Best Buy. However, Best Buy will retain a minority stake in Rhapsody according to a joint statement from both companies.

The acquisition is expected to close on November 30 according to the companies. Best Buy is unloading a music service that really struggled before being acquired by Rhapsody and seemingly disappeared afterwards. Financial terms of the deal have not officially been released though it does not appear that Best Buy's investment in Napster has paid off.

The electronics retailer acquired a revamped version of Napster back in 2008 which allowed the company to officially enter into the online music sector. Napster started off as the pioneer file-sharing service back in the day. The service allowed users to share songs with each other via the internet. However, lawsuits filed by multiple recording companies nearly destroyed the company, eventually leading to the selling of the trademark and brand.

Three years ago Best Buy launched an all-cash tender offer for outstanding Napster shares priced at $2.65 per share; the full acquisition was valued at $121 million. That number represented a $54 million net of approximately $67 million in cash and short-term investments. Napster recognized that it had 700,000 members when Best Buy acquired the service though it is unclear as to how many the company has now.

Despite Napster's failure, Rhapsody appears to be years ahead of its time. Over the past ten years Rhapsody worked on getting consumers interested in subscription music services. Now the entire music industry is attempting to make that business model work.

Rhapsody was owned, in part, by RealNetworks and Viacom, though those companies spun off the service back in April 2010. Since then, managers for Rhapsody have been trying to prevent upstart "all-you-can-eat" services from taking all the credit. Spotify, MOG and some other digital music services are just some of the many services that charge a monthly fee for premium services, just like Rhapsody.

Source: CNET - Rhapsody to acquire Napster (scoop)

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Microsoft's IE9 Strategy Fails to Produce Results

As the rise of other browsers, like Google Chrome, begin to show, so does the demise of others, namely Internet Explorer. The web browser, designed by Microsoft, continued to lose members last month, losing the largest number of users since December 2010.

During September, Internet Explorer lost nine-tenths of a percentage point of share, dropping to 54.4%, a new record low for the browser. The drop experienced last month was the seventh straight decline and the largest decline since December of last year where Internet Explorer fell by 1.1 points. Causing the decrease was, of course, Google Chrome, which saw shares increase by seven-tenths of a point. Adding to the decline was Apple's Safari browser, which saw an increase of four-tenths of a percentage point.

Chrome ended the month with a 16.2% share with Safari accounting for 5% of all browsers used worldwide. Microsoft, on the other hand, focused on looking at the brighter side by plugging the success of Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7. Head of Internet Explorer's Marketing Roger Capriotti used data from Net Applications to highlight the gains of IE9 by pointing out that the browser version owned 21% global share of browsers running on Windows 7.

Internet Explorer 9 is the second-most popular internet browser on Windows 7 with a 21% compared to Internet Explorer 8's leading 31.6%. Firefox 6 and Chrome 13 came in third and fourth place, respectively, with 13.9% and 13.1%. Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't outlined an alternate strategy for stopping IE defections. While the focus on Internet Explorer 9 may pay off in the long run, it has failed to slow down the number of defectors heading to Safari, Chrome or Firefox. Since its debut, Microsoft has lost 4 percentage points of share with Internet Explorer 9.

Source: Computer World - Microsoft's IE9-first strategy fails to stem browser slide

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Popular Industries for Computer Rentals

There are several industries that take advantage of technology rentals like computers, laptops, projectors, temporary office equipment and audio visual rentals. Many business industries can benefit from them in a wide variety of ways.

For instance, Small to Medium Business Industry Computer Rentals occur on a regular basis. They are perfect for when a computer or laptop malfunctions or breaks down. A small to medium business usually needs a replacement rental so that business continues smoothly, even while their own equipment is damaged. It can give a business time to repair their equipment or get new equipment.

Small and medium businesses are not the only type of industry to commonly rent computers or audio visual equipment. Fortune 500 Industry Computer Rentals are also popular when one of these businesses needs to accommodate a growing staff or is expanding. Technology rentals are also convenient when gearing up for presentations, conferences, trade shows or an event for product launching.

Computer rentals are becoming more of a trend as more companies and businesses are seeing the many benefits they can provide for their specific industry. Find out more Computer Rental Industries

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Mozilla Debating a 5-Week Release Schedule for Firefox

I think it is safe to say that the new six week rapid release cycle for Mozilla's Firefox internet browser has drawn a lot of controversy since it was announced and put into effect. However, it seems as if Mozilla likes the negative press because it seems as if there could be more to come from this rapid release cycle.

In a recent thread noticed on a developer mailing list, anybody and everybody involved in the effort has been debating the possibility of shortening the cycle even more. These developers are considering shortening the already short six week cycle to a five week cycle or even shorter than that.

According to Mozilla Software Engineer Josh Aas, "Our transition to releasing every six weeks went really well. We're getting fixes to users much more quickly than we used to, but can we get fixes to users even faster? Moving to a five week cycle would mean a fix going into mozilla-central would get to users three weeks faster."

So shortening the short cycle that people are already complaining about sounds like a good idea? To Aas it does. "That's a big deal," Aas added. "It's an upgrade in responsiveness that we can't afford not to pass on if we can pull it off. I suspect the only way to know if we can do it is to try - we can always back off if it doesn't work out."

However, not everybody is objecting to the idea of shortening the cycle. Firefox Release Manager Christian Legnitto stated, "Yes, I absolutely think in the future we will shorten the cycle--but it won't be soon. We have some work to do to make six weeks smooth from a process, tool and product side. When we get six weeks down to a science, we can shorten as needed."

Source: PC World - Mozilla Mulls a 5-Week Firefox Release Cycle

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A Walk in the Clouds to Unlimited Storage

Do you get tired of constantly having to upgrade to a bigger hard drive? Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could have unlimited disk space? What if you could access your files from anywhere and any device? As a photographer I can’t tell you how invaluable this would be! Photos take up lots and lots of space. To get a good quality print just one photo can take 5mb of space and when you are dumping 150 photos onto your hard drive after every shoot, it doesn’t take long to fill it up.
A new beta software just might be the solution. It’s from a startup called Bitcasa; when you install it, the capacity of your computer's hard drive becomes, essentially, infinite! It is currently only available for Apple computers but a Windows version is in development; and plans of apps for mobile devices are in the works as well.

Bitcasa creates the illusion of unlimited hard drive space but the files are kept on a cloud server. Your computer will respond to opening any file as if it is local and there would be no wait for downloads, even videos!

Using a storage service is not a new concept. Dropbox, SkyDrive, Google Docs, Amazon and countless others have been offering online storage for some time. But Bitcasa is not like any of those services. It doesn’t move files around or sync. Bitcasa doesn’t know what the file is, what the name is, what the contents are or anything about the file itself. It only deals in bits and bytes, the 1′s and 0′s of digital data. Data is encrypted on the client side. This is kind of like contemplating the universe for me because I am amazed that my photos can go from a picture to zeros and ones and back again.

Bitcasa is only $10.00 a month! Ten dollars for unlimited space? How can that be? Bitcasa CEO Tony Gauda says $10/month still gives the company large margins. The fact is, 60% of data is duplicate. For example, if I have an MP3 of the Foo Fighters new single and someone else has it too, those would be made up of the same zeros and ones. I think that’s amazing! Also times are hard so if $10.00 a month is hard to squeeze from your budget, a less than unlimited free version is on its way. Bitcasa will be free while in limited beta trials. You can sign up for access here.

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Windows 8 Developer Preview

Windows 8, the highly anticipated followup to the hugely successful Windows 7 operating system from Microsoft, was displayed, albeit briefly, way back at D9. However, Anaheim is where the new OS is really going to kick off. Microsoft is starting its Build conference with a full-on developer preview of the new OS, code-named Windows 8 at the moment.

According to Microsoft's President of Windows and Windows Live Division Steven Sinofsky, Microsoft has been completely re-imagining the Windows operating system. In doing so the company has brought a lot of new capabilities that coders will be able to dive into sooner rather than later.

The new "Metro-styled" user interface is right up front and brings new graphical elements of the Windows Phone 7 to your desktop, laptop or tablet. In addition to that, Windows 8 will also come with Internet Explorer 10 pre-installed as well as a more intense focus on apps that have the ability to communicate with each other.

If you have been using Windows 7 for a while now and you are used to it, you should have no problem making the switch to Windows 8. Windows 8 is built primarily on the same foundation as Windows 7 though the retooled Task Manager and Windows Explorer should tease your interests a little more.

The new Windows Store will allow developers to present their apps to any country that has availability to Windows 8, and support for ARM-based chipsets is also proudly included along with x86 compatibility. What this basically means is that every device from a small tablet to a large custom PC will be able to easily handle everything Windows 8 has to offer.

Microsoft has also confirmed backwards compatibility with "devices and programs" that support Windows 7. In addition to that it has also been said that developers will be able to download the Windows Developer Preview from the new Windows Dev Center later on in this week, though no official date has been specified.

I don't know about you but I am thoroughly excited for Windows 8. I can't wait to get my hands on this new operating system and start exploring all the new features it has to offer!

Source: Engadget - Microsoft launches Windows 8 developer preview, downloads coming 'later this week'

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