NEW NET Issues List for 11 Nov 2008

Below is the final list of issues for the TUESDAY, 11 November 2008, NEW NET (Northeast Wisconsin Network for Economy and Technology) 7:00 - 9:00 pm weekly gathering on Veteran's Day 2008. For all the veterans who served, you have our respect and thanks for keeping our country safe. This week we're upstairs at Tom's Drive In, 501 N Westhill Blvd, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA.

The ‘net

1. LinkedIn Events http://blog.linkedin.com/2008/11/07/announcing-linkedin-events/ “…LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Answers cater to two of the three most important activities professionals engage in to further their career and starting today, we’re launching the third and most important piece of that puzzle - LinkedIn Events… Now all LinkedIn users should be able to find events and conferences that are most suitable for your career based a combination of your professional network and information culled from your LinkedIn profile…”
2. Ben Huh of I Can Has Cheezburger on tech, cats and more http://tinyurl.com/5a86as (TechFlash) “…Ben Huh has built a pretty nice business around wasting other people's time. Huh's network of odd-ball humor Web sites -- a cat picture blog called I Can Has Cheezburger, a site devoted to mishaps called Fail Blog and six others -- attract more than 4million page views per day…Those numbers, not to mention the company's profits, put Huh's startup in a select group of Internet companies that are actually making money from online advertising…The Chief Cheezburger -- yes, that's his official title -- admits that he runs one of the more unusual Seattle area startup companies. After all, not many startups make their money relying on fans to submit photos of cats and dogs with captions in an unusual language known as LOL speak…”
3. Drop.io adds API, sample apps to "digital switchboard" http://tinyurl.com/6epjv4 (Ars technica) “…Drop.io is one part blogging and one part file sharing, but focused entirely on simplicity, anonymity, and accessibility. Creating a "Drop," the webpage where anything you post will live, requires absolutely no login credentials (not even an e-mail address), and drops expire after a customizable period of inactivity. You can add security layers like admin and guest passwords, but Drop.io's real appeal from a file sharing standpoint is its broad support for rich media and the unique ways you can add new content to a Drop…Drops can handle typical text notes, photos, and videos just fine, but they can also accept faxes, phone calls (posted as audio notes) via a unique number created for each Drop, and e-mails. You can allow guests to add and delete content, charge a small fee to users when they visit, or even use a Drop's phone number as a Skype-busting conference hub…”
4. MapQuest Customized Directions http://blog.mapquest.com/2008/11/06/drag-your-way-to-customized-directions/ “…we are introducing a new draggable route feature. This is a great way to quickly modify your route to avoid traffic or construction, explore a scenic route, or simply use roads you know you prefer…”
5. Remotely Accessing your home PC using Zoho Meeting (Free) http://tinyurl.com/4zeccn (Zoho) “…Did you know that you can remotely access your home PC using Zoho Meeting? Apart from using Zoho Meeting for Web Conferencing and Remote Assistance, you can use it to access your home PC remotely using just the browser…”

Security, Privacy & Digital Controls

6. AVG update cripples some non-English WinXP systems http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10093875-83.html “…On Tuesday an update for AVG 8 suggested that a Windows system file is a Trojan horse, and users who delete the file form the system could leave their Windows XP systems endlessly rebooting or unable to reboot at all. The problem only affects users of AVG 8 products running the Dutch, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish language versions of Windows XP. AVG immediately sent out a corrected update to its customers, including those using the free editions of AVG…”
7. Security expert talks Russian gangs, botnets http://news.cnet.com/8301-10789_3-10086352-57.html “…Unlike a lot of bots and botnets, most of which exist primarily to relay spam, Stewart says Coreflood has a different agenda. "Its goal is to steal the data directly from users."…Coreflood has a real financial impact… Stewart and SecureWorks were able to gain cooperation from a Wisconsin-based provider of one of the command and control centers for CoreFlood. What Stewart found was not only the bot's source code but also 50 gigabytes of compressed data, searchable in a MySQL database…the time-stamped lifecycle--from infection to removal--of each compromised computer. Stewart found the average to be about 66 days… Coreflood would enter a network via a drive-by browser exploit, download a copy of the installer, then run PcExec, a legitimate Windows administration tool available from Microsoft. "It could happen to anybody," he said, "any user who happened to go to the wrong site…CoreFlood seems to have only targeted banks… They do that, he said, so that after running the test they have a picture of what are the highest dollar amounts. "I don't know whether they steal from all of them. We don't have access to the accounts; the bank is not going to tell us how much was stolen out of any given account. We're not going to get that information, but we know they're actively logging and checking accounts to collect the balance data…”
8. Seagate powers self-encrypting Dell PCs http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10086954-1.html “…According to credible sources, a notebook computer is stolen every 53 seconds and 97 percent are never recovered…To address this issue, Seagate, Dell and McAfee teamed up on Monday to announce a data encryption solution for PCs that works without you even having to know about it. The solution includes new self-encrypting hard drives, a software managing system and a computer that implements the two… Unlike software-based solution, the hardware-based encryption engine used in Seagate's Momentus FDE hard drives delivers security without the overhead - no bootup delays, no system slowdowns - and the BIOS automatically authenticates the user for transparent security…”
9. Broad Web Hack Hits Thousands of Servers http://tinyurl.com/553ht8 (TechnologyExpert) “…hackers have launched a huge Internet hacking effort, posting malicious links on as many as 10,000 servers… Visiting one of the sites results in a secret redirect to a malicious server called vvexe.com which is located in China. Exploits are then used to launch an attack on the user’s machine. If your machine is vulnerable to even one of these exploits, then it’ll be infected by another malicious program, Trojan-Downloader.Win32.Hah.a. This Trojan is able to download yet more malicious programs…Trojan-GameThief.Win32.WOW.cer – a Trojan designed to steal account data from World of Warcraft accounts, Trojan-Spy.Win32.Pophot.gen – another spy program which steals data and also tries to delete a whole range of antivirus solutions, Trojan.Win32.Agent.alzv – this Trojan downloads yet more Trojan spy programs…”

Mobile Computing & Communicating

10. Shazam! A Projector Is Shrunk http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/technology/personaltech/05pogue.html “…the Optoma Pico Projector ($430 list price)…projector about the size of a cellphone: 2 by 4.1 by 0.7 inches, weighing 4.2 ounces… the Pico can run on battery power. Each charge lasts for about 90 minutes — longer if you use the lower brightness setting or when you’re playing video without sound. You can recharge the projector either from its power cord or from a computer’s USB jack. A spare battery comes with the projector, and so does a little drawstring carrying bag. A pocket-size, self-contained projector changes all the rules. An iPod and a Pico — that’s the entire setup… The Pico manages 9 lumens…compared with, for example, 2,000 lumens for a $900 tabletop projector. That may not sound like much, but it’s plenty bright at the Pico’s shorter distances and smaller “screen” sizes. The minimum distance for this projector is eight inches from your “screen”; the maximum is 8.5 feet away, at which point you get a 65-inch image. And it really, really helps if you dim the lights or use a properly reflective movie screen…”
11. iSkoot gets $19M warchest to launch Web services platform for AT&T http://tinyurl.com/5aosww (VentureBeat) “…ISkoot, the company that lets you make Skype Internet calls from your mobile phone, has raised $19 million in a third round of venture capital to build an ambitious mobile platform for AT&T…will let the giant operator offer an array of Web services to users of its low-end phones — the majority of its phones, which don’t have the iPhone’s powerful features. The services will include things like social networking, email, RSS feeds and eventually services like Twitter… iSkoot has managed to integrate the Skype application deeply into the phone software “stack” — namely in the form so-called “Skype phones,” where your Skype contacts are integrated right into your address book for example. If it can do that for Skype, it can do that for a range of other Web services — theoretically everything from Twitter to Facebook…”
12. Apple in second place as smartphones surge http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10084008-37.html “…Apple's blowout quarter for iPhone 3G sales lifted it into second place among all smartphone vendors worldwide…Nokia is still the leading vendor by a comfortable margin, holding 38.9 percent of the market…Apple was the big story in the smartphone market…vaulting over Research In Motion to take second place, with 6.9 million shipments, or 17.3 percent of the market. And RIM had an excellent quarter, increasing BlackBerry shipments by 83 percent and picking up five points of market share…RIM is in good shape to regain the second-place spot with the pending release of several new BlackBerry models, including the Bold, Storm, and clamshell Pearl…”
13. Logmein to come to iPhone http://reviews.cnet.com/8300-13549_7-30.html “…It's great to be able to log in your computer remotely. It's convenient, it saves gas, hassle, and most importantly, time. Personally I've used Logmein for a long time and loved it. The company has actually been cooking up an application for the iPhone (and iPod Touch), too, called LogMeIn Ignition. I tried out the preview version of the app on my iPhone 3G and was impressed overall…I was able to log in to any Windows machine where I have the Logmein client installed and view its desktop on my iPhone's screen. The app allows for viewing the entire scaled-down screen of the remote computer or zooming in to a potion of it, just like you would view a photo or a Web page on the iPhone. While viewing is easy, interacting with the remote computer is a different story…”
14. Dash Charts a New Course, Cuts 50 Jobs http://gigaom.com/2008/11/03/dash-charts-a-new-course-cutting-50-jobs/ “…Dash Navigation, whose platform marries Web 2.0 services with a GPS-based navigation system for cars…changing its business model from consumer-focused to business-to-business…it will stop making and selling its hardware…it will license its platform to makers of automobile on-board navigation systems, smartphones, netbook-style mobile Internet devices and other consumer electronics…”

Open Source

15. Five Tweaks for Your New Ubuntu Desktop http://lifehacker.com/5076585/five-tweaks-for-your-new-ubuntu-desktop “…Disable or throttle back Tracker indexing…Disable atime to speed up your hard drive…Switch to mirror servers for updates…Upgrade to OpenOffice.org 3…Back up your home folder…”
16. How to Use Your Free CrossOver Product http://tinyurl.com/5wtvx2 (HowToGeek) “…Once you have downloaded the file (install-crossover-pro-7.0.0.sh) open a terminal window go to the directory where you have downloaded install-crossover-pro-7.0.0.sh and execute the following command: $ sh install-crossover-pro-7.0.0.sh… Now, we'll see how to install Windows software using Linux CrossOver Pro. Start the installation by clicking Applications->CrossOver->Install Windows Software…can either select the software listed or you can choose to install unsupported software…”
17. Supercharging a home network with Amahi http://www.linux.com/feature/152264 “…Many network-attached storage (NAS) devices, in addition to offering network storage, offer features such as VPN access, calendaring, wikis, and even an iTunes server. The open source Amahi Linux Home Server provides all of that and more in a complete NAS box integrated with a Fedora 9 base. Amahi's Web 2.0 interface provides the power home network user with a complete set of services; it is essentially an intranet server…”
18. Winemaker wears a Joomla! developer hat http://www.linux.com/feature/152267 “…Dave Whiting, the principal at Red Newt Cellars winery in upstate New York, was tired of chasing vendors to try to get them to support clunky custom content management systems on his site at RedNewt.com. The independent winemaker decided to branch out and teach himself site development skills, with the help of some popular open source applications. The happy result is a full-featured interactive ecommerce site that Whiting says is flexible, scalable, and secure…Whiting considered other CMS applications, including WordPress and Drupal, before he switched to Joomla! "It's one of the easiest interfaces. It seems to be more oriented toward managing and scheduling content. I can write it ahead of time and schedule when things appear." He likes how easy it is to "manipulate" the templates and layouts. "However, when we started doing more blogging, getting user feedback and registering users, Joomla! was not quite as easy as it would be with something like WordPress. But with WordPress, from what I can see, it's trickier to do raw content management. So there are different advantages to each…”
19. Access remote network services with SSH tools http://www.linux.com/feature/152460 “…Once you've set up the appropriate port forward and have configured a dynamic DNS service you should be able to go to your favorite coffee shop with Internet access and use ssh to connect to the host and domain that you've set up. Log out, and this time use ssh -D 1080 to connect. This sets up a SOCKS proxy on port 1080 between your client and the machine that's running your SSH server…The traffic between the client and the remote server will be "tunneled" through the proxy connection…the traffic between the machines travels through the encrypted SSH connection…There's one more thing to do before you can use Firefox to browse your remote private network. In the Firefox location bar, type "about:config". In the resulting window type "network.proxy.socks_remote_dns" in the Filter box to see the value of that configuration setting. If it's presently false, double-click on it to turn it to true. This will force Firefox to use the remote server for its DNS requests…”

SkyNet

20. Google launches video chat for Gmail http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10093175-2.html “…Google is rolling out video and voice capabilities for the chat function that is embedded in the Gmail interface. It's a bare-bones voice and video-conferencing service, but it's simple to install and use and is a very good addition to Gmail. It's no Skype, though. Gmail Video and Voice, as it's called, can't connect to the plain phone network, as Skype's paid service can. And there are plenty of other optional features missing, like a voice call recorder…”
21. Google Still Can't Deliver YouTube Without Stuttering & Buffering http://tinyurl.com/6dp2f6 (StreamingMedia) “…While we know the sheer volume of bits that Google is delivering for YouTube content is massive, you would think that by now they would have figured out how to do it without all the buffering, stuttering and terrible user experience…I'm talking about simply being able to deliver a video without having to wait 15, 20 or 30 seconds for it to start up. Most of the videos on YouTube are short-form and only a few minutes in length. Yet regularly, I have to wait 20-30 seconds for a clip to buffer, even though the clip itself might only be 30 seconds in length…YouTube is not streaming. All YouTube content is delivered progressive download, via HTTP, and is not being delivered from a Flash Media Server (FMS). Delivering and scaling video via HTTP is much easier and cheaper than using a streaming media server and streaming protocol. So what's Google's excuse?…”
22. Google exec crafts quite a story http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-mon-path-1110-nov10,0,4019477.story “…he left the law firm to join a tech company in business development. Now at 37, he is Chicago-based director of industry strategy and marketing for the Americas at Google…One of my journalism professors was Ed Diamond, New York Magazine's media columnist. He introduced me to so many people to help me develop my interests. He set up a lunch with Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter and helped me get jobs, like the "Good Morning America" internship. Today, my guidance comes from David Bell, former chairman of Interpublic Cos. When you're at a company like Google, working at light speed, you have to make decisions quickly and not question yourself. David helps me not only with business judgment but also with leadership…I pitched a deal to Google and went to New York to meet with Tim Armstrong. At the second meeting, Tim said he liked my concept but my company was too small. If I was interested in doing my proposal as a Google employee, he said to come back to see him…”
23. Google-enabled government starts with Obama's CTO http://tinyurl.com/5rxhbn (ComputerWorld) “… President-elect Barack Obama's plan to build a Google-enabled government began modestly this week with the new Change.gov Web site, which includes the means to apply for a job in the new administration…One thing that Obama does want is what has been called a Google-enabled government. That involves improving the transparency and access to the vast oceans of government data, in part, by moving the data into universally accessible formats. Many federal agencies have put data online but use different formats…”

General Technology

24. CNN goes Star Wars, debuts live holograms http://www.tgdaily.com/html_tmp/content-view-40044-113.html “…This year’s…elaborate technology to explain polls and other election events…started with fancy Surface tables and a “Magic Wall”, but if there was one technology that completely stood out form everything else, it was certainly CNN’s holograms… that allowed the company to virtually “beam” a person from a distant location into the studio to talk with Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper… That person (CNN’s Jessica Yellin and singer Will.I.am had the honor of being the first persons to testdrive the technology) was located in a tent with dozens of HD cameras that shot video of the person from any angle and transmitted that video to the CNN studio, where the image of that person was rebuilt…there seemed to be a more natural conversation between two people rather than between a host and a person on a screen…”
25. CNN's Fake Hologram Could Become Real in Future http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nf/20081106/tc_nf/62885 “…Although CNN dubbed the image of Yellin a "hologram," it really wasn't. But experts suggest it may not be long before a host like Blitzer could in fact see a holographic image in the studio…it may only be another decade before it will be possible to purchase holographic television sets that will bring life-sized, 3-D scenes into the home, or make it possible to watch a holograph of Monday Night Football on a tabletop… In order to be commercially viable, such a display would have to have a refresh rate measured in fractions of a second, but Peyghambarian is confident the technical issues will be resolved. "It took us a while to make that first breakthrough," he told CNN, "but as soon as you have the first element of it working, the rest often comes more rapidly…”
26. Honda wearable device helps you walk http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20081107/ap_on_hi_te/as_tec_japan_honda_walker “…Imagine a bicycle seat connected by mechanical frames to a pair of shoes for an idea of how the new wearable assisted-walking gadget from Honda works. The experimental device…is designed to support bodyweight, reduce stress on the knees and help people get up steps and stay in crouching positions…the machine is useful for people standing in long lines and for people who run around to make deliveries. "This should be as easy to use as a bicycle," Ashihara said at Honda's Tokyo headquarters. "It reduces stress, and you should feel less tired…”
27. The end of an era - Windows 3.x http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7707016.stm “…Windows 3.x has come to the closing moments of its long life. On 1 November Microsoft stopped issuing licences for the software that made its debut in May 1990 in the US… Microsoft maintained support for Windows 3.x until the end of 2001, and it has lived on as an embedded operating system until 1 November 2008. As an embedded system, it was used to power such things as cash tills in large stores and ticketing systems. One of its more glamorous uses as an embedded operating system is to power the in-flight entertainment systems on some Virgin and Qantas long-haul jets… Windows 3.x required an 8086/8088 processor or better that had a clock speed of up to 10MHz. It needed at least 640KB of RAM, seven megabytes of hard drive space…By comparison, the Home Basic version of Windows Vista requires a 32-bit 1GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, 20GB of hard drive space…”
28. SanDisk claims hundredfold flash speed boost for writes http://tinyurl.com/6e2g3q (Ars technica) “…new technology from SanDisk, however, claims to boost flash's random write speeds by up to 100 times under certain conditions… in order to write data to a nonempty flash sector, you must first erase that sector and then write to the newly empty spot. This erase-before-write requirement means that on a basic level, flash writes are slow because they often take two operations to complete… In addition to the erase/write issue..flash's speeds are also affected by the amount of software that it takes to actually manage the physical aspects of the technology…most operating systems and filesystem drivers expect for a mass storage device to be structured like a hard disk, i.e., addressable using cylinders and sectors. Flash, however, is arranged in the typical RAM grid structure, which means that on a basic level there must be a mechanism for mapping the OS model of filesystem locations onto the physical flash hardware…”

Leisure & Entertainment

29. Songbird taxis to the runway http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10084567-2.html “…Music jukebox and Web browser mash-up Songbird has begun to pull away from the beta gate… Audiophiles should appreciate that Songbird has switched over to Gstreamer as their playback engine across all platforms. This means that Songbird can play MP3, FLAC, and Vorbis files on all platforms, WMA tracks on Windows, and AAC on both Windows and Mac…”
30. Music-themed videogames on high note http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081107/ennew_afp/lifestylegamesinternetmusic “…Much as music-themed reality shows have swept television, music-themed videogames are multiplying so quickly editors are being forced to come up with games that sing to new audiences…MTV Games is having the game developed by US studio Harmonix, the maker of the hot-selling "Rock Band" videogame in which players using mock instruments as controllers win by keeping in tune with music and on-screen note cues…With the launch of "Wii Music", due for release in Europe November 14, Nintendo has taken a more educational approach that follows on the companies new mass market thrust, already heralded by "Wii Sports" and "Wii Fit"... Having chosen one of 60 different instruments, players, who can be accompanied by a maximum of three friends, simulate the movements of a real musician with the help of the Wiimote and Nunchuk…To complete the "Wii Music" set up, a Wii Balance Board, already sold with "Wii Fit", allows you to take control of the drum pedals…"Guitar Hero" takes a more direct approach…The latest version, called World Tour, allows players to form a group using guitar, drums and microphone, thanks to newly designed software…The game's Rock Meter rates the performance based on the number of correct notes sounded by players. If it falls into the red, the song ends and the player is booed offstage...”
31. Rock Band Creators Score $300 Million-Plus Payday http://tinyurl.com/6nvdy9 (AlleyInsider) “…When Harmonix founders Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy -- the guys behind mega-hit games Guitar Hero and later, Rock Band -- sold their company to Viacom's (VIA) MTV for a reported $175 million in 2006, the deal didn't end there. Turns out there was also an earnout agreement, where the pair gets a bonus if Rock Band did well. And Rock Band did very well. Viacom paid the pair a bonus of $150 million this year under the agreement…And the Harmonix founders have another payday due in 2009…”

Economy and Technology

32. Alice.com: $4.3 M 1^st round funding http://flywheelblog.com/2008/11/alicecom-announces-43-million-in-first-round-funding/ “…Brian and I are really pleased to have raised over $4 million dollars in common stock financing. We were able to do this by utilizing a couple of great local angel funds and a number of individual angel investors, many of which also invested in us at Jellyfish.com back in 2006-07. I chalk up our success in raising large rounds of angel money (here and at Jellyfish) to the following three things, in order of importance: 1) a track record of success; 2) a disruptive model and clear path for executing on the opportunity; and, 3) a passionate team that effectively communicates the business…This was a big debate in the company, as we had several VC funds at the table…”
33. Man Charged in $1B Intel Trade Secrets Case http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10083671-83.html “…The FBI in August charged Biswahoman Pani with theft of trade secrets after allegedly finding more than 100 pages of sensitive Intel documents, including 13 "top secret" files with designs for future processor chips, inside Pani's home. The information Pani obtained reportedly was worth more than $1 billion in research and development costs. Pani resigned from Intel in May, stating he would continue working there through June 11, according to the FBI. However, he began working for rival chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices on June 2, while he still had access to his Intel laptop and the company's computer network…Intel asked the FBI and the Justice Department to intervene after learning about Pani's job at AMD from another Intel employee. The FBI said there is no evidence that AMD knew of or encouraged Pani's actions or ever received the confidential Intel files. Pani is no longer employed by AMD…”
34. Apple boosts payroll 48 percent in fiscal 2008 http://tinyurl.com/59mu8p (TechFlash) “…The maker of the Mac, iPhone and iPod reports that it had the equivalent 32,000 full-time employees as of the Sept. 27 end of its fiscal year, plus another 3,100 temporary workers, according to this morning's filing. That compares with 21,600 full-timers the previous year, plus 2,100 temporary workers back then…The trend comes at a time of big growth for Apple's business, as it has expanded beyond on its core Mac business into iPods and iPhones…”
35. Circuit City files for bankruptcy http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7720047.stm “…US electronics firm Circuit City has filed for bankruptcy protection, one week after saying it would close about 20% of its stores… It has lost money in five of the last six quarters…”

Civilian Aerospace

36. Space communication patent spans solar system http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/081105-tw-spacecom-patent.html “…Mobile Satellite Ventures was issued the first-ever U.S. Federal Communications Commission license in 2003 for its concept of creating hybrid satellite and ground-based communications systems…25 of about 100 inventions have been approved by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the most recent of which includes a hybrid communications system for multiple rovers - or eventually humans - exploring the Moon or Mars… the idea was hatched in 2004 after a visit to NASA and a discussion about the Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars in January that year. "When we got back to the office, we imagined a future architecture that would enable communications as we expanded our presence on a planet…”
37. Otero County nixes tax hike, but Spaceport America will move forward http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10907760 “…Otero County's rejection Tuesday of a tax to support Spaceport America will result in a loss of about $6.6 million…In the short term, the $198 million budget for the spaceport may have to be adjusted, though other funding options to make up the difference may be available, said Steve Landeene, executive director of the New Mexico Spaceport Authority…All but about 3 percent of funding for the spaceport is in place, Landeene said. The state Legislature has already set aside much of the funding, and gross receipts tax referendums of 1/4 of 1 percent have been approved by voters in Sierra and Doña Ana counties…”

Supercomputing & GPUs

38. NVIDIA Announces 2009-2010 Fellowship Program http://tinyurl.com/6xbtrq (HPCwire) “…NVIDIA Corporation, the world leader in visual computing technologies, announced it is accepting applications for the NVIDIA Fellowship Program for the 2009-2010 academic year…The NVIDIA Fellowship Program is designed to stimulate and support excellence in visual and parallel computing research in universities worldwide, and to promote communication between NVIDIA's R&D team and outstanding students and professors…” [applications due 03 Feb 2009]
39. Games need to be taken seriously http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/459bee2e-aadc-11dd-897c-000077b07658.html “…Mr Huang, then, is not one to stand still. Born in Taiwan, he lived in Thailand as a child, then moved with his uncle and aunt to the US. He went to a boarding school in Kentucky before moving to Oregon, where he went to high school in the suburbs of Portland. He followed that with a degree in electrical engineering from Oregon State University…he believes we are about to reach a tipping point in computing… We noticed that students were programming in languages such as Open GL on our GPUs to generate numbers instead of colours. On their own they had discovered the 'general purpose' GPU…As a result, Nvidia adapted its GPUs to run a modified version of the C programming language, which the company calls CUDA. "That made it possible for these processors to become general purpose," says Mr Huang. "These hundreds of processors are now collaborating to run a C program and to output numbers….CUDA is now taught as a system for parallel computing at more than 50 universities…”
40. PowerDirector 7 Optimized for NVIDIA CUDA http://tinyurl.com/6bcnon (MarketWatch) “…HD video editing software CyberLink PowerDirector 7 -- optimized with NVIDIA(R) CUDA(TM) Technology is now available… delivers up to five times faster video previewing and rendering performance by using NVIDIA CUDA technology to utilize the power of…CUDA-enabled NVIDIA GeForce(R), NVIDIA Quadro(R) and NVIDIA Tesla(TM) graphics solutions…provides an improved user experience in HD video processing by dramatically reducing video processing time and lowering CPU utilization…”
41. First 4GB Graphics Card http://tinyurl.com/6kkpln (PRNewsWire) “…The Quadro FX 5800 graphics card offers unprecedented performance and scalability to rapidly visualize and interpret massive datasets that until now were unattainable on a workstation graphics board. Offering up to 240 CUDA(TM) programmable parallel cores and the industries first 4GB of graphics memory, the Quadro FX 5800 graphics card is ideally suited for oil and gas exploration, medical imaging, styling and design, and scientific visualization…’
42. Multicore [CPU] Is Bad News For Supercomputers http://spectrum.ieee.org/nov08/6912 “…Engineers at Sandia National Laboratories, in New Mexico, have simulated future high-performance computers containing the 8-core, 16‑core, and 32-core microprocessors that chip makers say are the future of the industry. The results are distressing. Because of limited memory bandwidth and memory-management schemes that are poorly suited to supercomputers, the performance of these machines would level off or even decline with more cores. The performance is especially bad for informatics applications—data-intensive programs that are increasingly crucial to the labs’ national security function…At the heart of the trouble is the so-called memory wall—the growing disparity between how fast a CPU can operate on data and how fast it can get the data it needs…”

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