holo-storage

Holographic storage sure has a lot of potential, but so far all those promises have resulted in nothing more than broken dreams. Now we have some new promises, promises that we’ll report with due skepticism. Romanian scientist Eugen Pavel is pledging that his company, Storex Technologies, can create a “Hyper” CD-sized disc (120mm diameter, 1.2mm thickness) capable of absorbing a whopping 1,000,000GB. Yes, a petabyte on a disc. This could (in theory) be achieved thanks to the company’s expertise in “glass-ceramics compositions as well as read/write mechanics and optics concept(s) applicable to high-density data storage.” You know, the ability to fit lots of stuff into small crevasses. Pavel also claims a 5,000 year disc lifetime, which is interesting, because back in 2000 he talked to PC World about another disc that could last 5,000 years — one that would store a whopping 10TB. There is, apparently, no expiration date on his optimism. Ours, however, is getting a wee bit stale.

Source: Storex Technologies

AdMob Google

It’s clear that mobile advertising is becoming a much larger part of our clients’ and partners’ strategies and with this acquisition, it’s now a central part of our own business,” the search giant wrote on its blog. “In continuing to invest in this highly competitive area, we’ll be bringing together our technology, resources and expertise in search advertising with AdMob’s innovative solutions for advertising on mobile websites and in mobile applications.”

The search giant scooped up AdMob away from Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) for about $750 million late last year and it was an interesting move because AdMob was dominant in mobile app ads on the iPhone. Google sees the mobile space as incredibly important in the future of computing – it said smartphones will make desktops “irrelevant” within as few as three years – and this deal could help it bring its lucrative online advertising juggernaut to these smaller screens.

The federal government was concerned this deal would give Google too much power in the nascent mobile advertising market and the Federal Trade Commission launched an investigation into the deal. Things were looking pretty grim until Apple introduced its iAd platform with iPhone OS 4.0, which looks to be a strong counterbalance. The FTC agreed with this line of thinking and cleared the acquisition last Friday. The search giant wasted no time in completing the deal.

It’s clear that mobile advertising is growing incredibly fast with lots of businesses innovating at great speed. Every day, more marketers are looking to take advantage of the mobile-specific capabilities, extended reach, great returns and value that mobile advertising provides. Advertisers are now starting to see mobile as an essential part of their overall campaigns, not just a silo-ed experiment on the side.

We want to unleash agencies’ and advertisers’ creativity on all mobile devices and deliver them better results from their campaigns, drive better returns and more choice for publishers and developers, and help people get better ads and more free mobile content.

We believe that mobile advertising can play a significant role in every single marketing campaign. We’re passionate about the unlimited possibilities in this space. Today, with AdMob, our work to make them a reality begins.

source : Google blog

Apple and Dell comment

On an 84-degree day (29 C) at a Chinese factory housing some 400,000 workers, at least 2 of them were enjoying the Foxconn swimming pool. We know this because the notoriously secretive Foxconn CEO, Terry Gou, was showing off some of the workers’ facilities to the press to assure the world that he was not operating a sweatshop. Foxconn has received a great deal of attention lately after a rash of suicide attempts this year left 2 workers seriously injured and 9 people dead. While these numbers are relatively low compared to World Health Organization data showing a suicide rate of about 14 deaths per 100,000 Chinese, Foxconn contends that there were only one or two suicides a year previously at its Shenzhen factories. Today Gau announced that Foxconn has 70 psychiatrists and 100 voluntary workers trained to help prevent suicide. Great, problem solved.

As you probably know, Foxconn is behind the assembly of many major consumer electronics brands including HP, Nokia, Dell, and Apple — the latter two have come out with statements expressing their respective concern. Apple had this to say:

“We are saddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn. We’re in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously. A team from Apple is independently evaluating the steps they are taking to address these tragic events and we will continue our ongoing inspections of the facilities where our products are made.”

And Dell this:

“We expect our suppliers to employ the same high standards we do in our own facilities. We enforce these standards through a variety of tools, including the Electronics Industry code of conduct, business reviews with suppliers, self-assessments and audits.”
During today’s press event, Tang Wenying, a young Foxconn line supervisor said, “This is a good place to work because they treat us better than many (other) Chinese factories.” And that may be the most worrisome aspect of this: Foxconn, by all accounts, provides some of the best conditions for the Chinese workers it employs. What does that say about the anonymous (and thus, invisible) chain of small suppliers and secondary assembly facilities nobody reads about?
Update: HP says that it is also investigating “the Foxconn practices that may be associated with these tragic events,”

Source: Reuters

Google-TV

What is google tv ? is it just tv or  HD tv or .. ? Today at Google I/O, the company made the announcement that everyone was waiting for Google TV. While some glitches in the demo (with the Bluetooth keyboard) prevented it from being a “wow” moment, the implications are pretty clear what Google is going for. That is, the 4 billion TV users worldwide. Or rather, advertising to the 4 billion TV users worldwide. All it requires is to hook up the your existing cable or satellite set top boxes to the Google set top box and you’ll be able to use a wireless keyboard, mouse or even an Android mobile handset as a remote control.
Partners of google TV, Google’s not going into the living room alone — the company’s launching Google TV with an impressive array of partners, each of whom has a different spin on the platform. Here’s the list:

-Sony plans to build BRAVIA Internet TVs and Blu-ray players that run the platform, all expected to launch this fall.
- Logitech is building a Google TV “companion box” that can control your entire A/V rack using Harmony technology, using and Android phone or an iPhone as the remote.
-Dish Network was actually the beta test partner, but we don’t specifically know what its plans are — there’s no hardware right now, and Google demoed the platform using a custom IP protocol to control a Dish receiver. We’re guessing that means there’s no custom hardware coming, but look for Google TV-ready Dish boxes sometime in the fall as well.
-Adobe’s obviously building Flash 10.1 for the platform.
- Intel’s making the Atom CE4100 chip that’s used in all these devices — it’s actually kind of a burner. More on it later on.
-Best Buy has partnered to sell Google TV devices in its stores, so there’s going to be a big retail push.

Launch dates Google TV, devices will be coming this year: Sony says it’ll have Internet TVs and Blu-ray players in the fall, and Dish Network has made similar statements about supporting the platform around then, although with less specificity about hardware.

Hardware for google TV, Google’s laid out a series of baseline hardware specifications for the Google TV platform, which every piece of gear will share. The heart of the system is the Intel Atom CE4100, which launched at IDF last year. It’s an Atom-based SoC with some additional silicon for decoding dual 1080p video stream, MPEG-4 support, and 3D graphics capabilities. That’s joined by some custom DSPs, and things like WiFi, HDMI, and Bluetooth are all required.
The potential pitfalls for Google TV are many, and while some of them will be familiar from mobile Android devices, the far more mature TV market will prove even more difficult to crack than the young, often upgrading mobile scene.

Google has also partnered with Dish Network — there will be an enhanced Google TV experience with it. And they have a retail partnership with Best Buy.

These will all launch in Fall 2010. But the platform won’t launch for developers until 2011.

Google TV

GoogleTV

Google TV

source : engadget , Techcrunch