MODDING: blogs

If you own (or have been eyeing up) a Nokia N95 or N82 (or similar, e.g. the 6220 Classic) but also hanker for iPhone multi-touch and App Store goodness, then you might be interested in an editorial of mine over at All About iPhone (still no relation!) in which I muse on the possibility of letting both a camera-centric Nokia smartphone and Apple iPod Touch play to their strengths in order to complement each other nicely. Please use the comment thread over on AAI etc. if you violently disagree(!)

The Legit Reviews Folding Team (#38296) has reached another major milestone today as it has surpassed the 55 million point barrier. The team currently has 48 active members with 307 processors running daily, which is impressive. The team members have contributed over 142,000 work units over the past 4.5 years and every single one helps researchers. I remember that it took over a year to reach one million points back in 2005, but the team is cranking through roughly 6 million points a month! If you have some spare CPU or GPU cycles that you'd like to share with the team we'd love to have you as a member in 2009! head on to the forums to meet the team and figure out how to get started!

The influenza hemagglutinin protein performs several important functions, including attaching the virus to cells it will infect and releasing the viral genome into the interior of the cell. Most protective antibodies against influenza also bind to the hemagglutinin protein. We wish to understand how mutations to hemagglutinin affect viral function, including what keeps avian influenza (”bird flu”) from being readily transmissible between humans. In this paper, we have applied a technique from information theory known as mutual information to genetic sequence data to predict important mutation sites on the hemagglutinin protein. In follow-up work, we are combining this technique with other methods to refine these predictions and test some of them using Folding@Home.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y530 Notebook @ HotHardware.com and other reviews from around the web cab be found by visiting our forums!

Lenovo's IdeaPad series of notebooks is quite different than the company's popular line up of ThinkPads. Ideapads are currently available in three series of products. The “U” series designates an ultraportable style with 11.1″ or 13.3″ widescreen displays and Intel Core 2 Duo processors. The “Y” series is for family entertainment and is available with up to a 17″ screen and Intel 2.8GHz Core 2 duo processors. And finally, there is the super mobile “S” series netbook with its Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor and 10.2″ display. Within the “U” and “Y” series there are a lot of models to choose from.

I must have missed this story, but on Wednesday NVIDIA named the chairman of Stanford University's computer science department as its new chief scientist, a particularly important position for the world's largest graphics chip supplier as it wages a technological war with Intel. Bill Dally will replace David Kirk, a renowned scientist in his own right, who will become an Nvidia fellow. Good luck to both as they enter their new positions!

“Bill is legendary in the computer industry,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of Nvidia, in response to an e-mail query Wednesday. “He has made fundamental contributions, from parallel computing architectures to interconnects to low power designs to super fast I/Os” Huang said. “I expect him to contribute at all of those levels and more. And he will take forward David's work of building Nvidia research into one of the most regarded labs in the world.”

This afternoon I received an e-mail from Gilbert Fiorentino, the CEO TigerDirect, and he wanted to clear the air on the various reports regarding the reason that EVGA products are no longer being sold on TigerDirect.com. In the official statement below he states that TigerDirect pulled the plug on EVGA products due to a number of mitigating factors. It now looks like EVGA and TigerDirect both claim to be the party that called it quits. Not much else to report other than the fact that this subject has industry insiders all hot and heavy with ideas as to what it going on. As far as EVGA and TigerDirect are concerned in our books, both companies have moved on to greener pastures and neither wants to looked kicked to the curb.

TigerDirect constantly evaluates our vendor partners for maximum customer satisfaction while being able to meet the company's revenue and profit goals. While we have enjoyed a long relationship with EVGA, there are mitigating factors which make the ability to sell EVGA products prohibitive at this time and we decided to discontinue the relationship. The fact remains that we may sell EVGA products in the future. I can assure you that there is no 'mystery' beyond the above facts.

ELSA Japan and Lucidlogix have announced an an agreement to deploy Lucids HYDRA based chip in ELSA Japan High Performance products. The companies have teamed up to transform high performance computing in the Japanese marketplace. For the first time, a product based on Lucids HYDRA technology will be used in a new line of ELSA Japan high performance systems for the HPC, broadcast and medical markets.

We are pleased to partner with ELSA, which has the reputation for providing leading performance computing solutions to the Japanese market. ELSAs selection of Lucid products for graphics and high performance computing platforms demonstrates our commitment to deliver a unique and powerful parallel processing architecture, said Offir Remez, President of Lucid. HYDRA technology will allow ELSA to combine multiple GPUs on one device, for efficient, high performance in compute intensive, large scale visualization scenarios.

In the business world, that amorphous concept called “consumer confidence” is measured in dozens of metrics, algorithms, and white papers. In the real world, there are Super Bowl ads. So, unsurprisingly, if you look at the lineup of Super Bowl ads from tech companies this year, the outlook isn't sunny.

Virtually all the electronic and digital brands running ads at this year's game between the Arizona Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers have advertised at the Super Bowl in past years: domain giant GoDaddy, job search sites Monster.com and CareerBuilder, brokerage house E-Trade, and online auto marketplace Cars.com. There's a hype-filled new ad about “smart grid” innovation, but it's run by General Electric, parent company of this year's Super Bowl broadcaster NBC.

apanese electronics maker Hitachi Ltd. predicted it would post a massive net loss this fiscal year and said it will slash about 7,000 jobs as part of a global restructuring plan. Battered by plunging demand, the company forecast Friday a net loss of 700 billion yen ($7.7 billion) for the fiscal year through March 31, a stark reversal from the 15 billion yen profit it forecast in October.

Hitachi, which makes everything from home appliances and TVs to IT systems and medical equipment, also cut its operating profit projection by 90 percent to 40 billion yen. The company blamed sharply falling sales in most of its main businesses including electronic devices, power and industrial systems, and consumer products. “Economic stagnation is expected to persist for the foreseeable future, making revenue expansion unlikely,” Hitachi said in a statement.

Bought a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic? Before you do anything, read All About Symbian’s guide to your first steps with the phone. Tzer2 has written the article with ordinary people in mind and tried to keep jargon to a minimum, but hopefully even advanced phone users should find something useful in it.

Dell Inc is plotting a foray into the cell phone arena as early as next month, making and selling smartphones to revitalize a business walloped by crumbling PC sales and pitting the firm against Apple, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

The world's No. 2 maker of PCs, which has been designing prototypes for over a year, is focusing on smartphones — the class of high-end devices that encompasses Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's Blackberry, the newspaper cited people familiar with the matter as saying. If launched, the phones will be based on Google's Android operating system and Microsoft's Windows Mobile software, it said. One model will even feature a touchscreen, not unlike the iPhone's, the Journal reported.