Youtube rolling out new player design

Though an official announcement hasn’t been made by either Youtube or their parent company Google, the video sharing site has started to roll out a new design for its video player today.
Following this month’s earlier redesign which overhauled the overall look of the page, today’s new refresh concerns just the…

HP buys Palm

HP has just announced that it’s acquiring Palm to the tune of $1.2 billion, which works out to $5.70 per share of Palm common stock. The deal is planned to close by July 31, which marks the end of HP’s third fiscal quarter of the year. Current Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein is “expected to remain with the company,” though it’s not said in what capacity. Press release after the break. There’ll be a call to discuss the acquisition in more detail (well, we hope in more detail) at 5PM ET, so we’ll keep you abreast as we learn more.

Update: PreCentral‘s managed to grab a copy of Rubinstein’s letter to Palm employees.

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HP buys Palm originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TorrentFreak To Buy Pirate Bay For $11 Million

Following the announcement that Hans Pandeya is having a second shot at buying The Pirate Bay after last year’s failed attempt, it appears he has a rival bid. Media reports state that the GGF boss will now buy the site for $10 million, but TorrentFreak has managed to get $11 million together and will buy the site tomorrow afternoon at 3pm.

Chrome gets desktop notifications through WebKit

Through Webkit’s new draft notification API, Chrome now has support for text and HTML desktop notifications. 
Posted on his blog, Mohit Muthanna outlines how developers can now incorporate native desktop notifications into their web-based software. Specific usage examples include online email, instant messaging, calendaring, task management, monitoring systems, and…

Apple buys another mobile chip designer

The New York Times have confirmed with Apple that they have indeed finalized a deal to acquire mobile chip maker Intrinsity for $121 million.
Located in Austin, Texas, Intrinsity specializes in creating high performance chips with low power output for mobile devices. The company has previously partnered with Samsung…

Windows 7 Media Center coming to embedded devices

Windows 7 Media Center screen shot

We love Windows 7 Media Center, but at the end of the day we’d never give one to our mom and expect it to just work the way an embedded DVR like a TiVo or a Moxi would. But dependability isn’t the only concern about using a PC as a DVR, there is noise and how it looks in the living room to consider as well. The compromise before us might just be a thing of the past as Microsoft has announced that Windows 7 Embedded has been released to manufactures and includes many of the great features of the regular Windows 7 family, like Windows Media Center. At this point there aren’t any announcements from manufactures leveraging these new found features, but in the press release Microsoft is certainly bolstering the broadcast TV and other media features in a set-top box. AOpen is the only manufacturer mention by name that we’re familiar with, which also makes good small-form-factor PCs, but that won’t stop us from dreaming of the best, easy to use and dependable whole house DVR ever.

Update: Video of Media Center on an embedded device in action after the jump.

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Windows 7 Media Center coming to embedded devices originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AMD’s 3.2GHz hexacore Phenom II X6 1090T comes out for a review roundup

How’s your memory today? Specifically, can you remember the last time AMD had a legitimate claim to the desktop performance crown? Don’t hold your breath, the latest and greatest Phenom II still can’t steal the spotlight from Intel’s spectacular top-of-the-line Core i7-980X, but if prices actually matter to you, you’ll wanna read on. Whereas you’d need to shell out $999 to get six cores from Intel, AMD is offering you its flagship 3.2GHz 1090T model at a reasonable $285, or an even more affordable option with the 2.8GHz 1055T at $199. The T in those names stands for Turbo Core, which automatically downclocks half the cores in order to provide a little extra speed (up to 500MHz more) to the other three. Reviewers agreed that its inclusion helped significantly improve single-threaded performance, to the point where the faster (in default clock speed) 3.4GHz Phenom II X4 965 was falling behind in benchmarks. The general opinion by the typically jaded journalists was that AMD has finally regained some pep in its step and that these new 6-core CPUs are going to give Intel’s upper midrange offerings something to worry about. Lest we forget, the 1090T and 1055T also retain socket compatibility with current AM2+ and AM3 motherboards, making upgrades a cinch too. The full reviews await below.

Read – AnandTech
Read – HotHardware
Read – PC Perspective
Read – Hexus
Read – Legit Reviews
Read – TweakTown
Read – TechSpot

AMD’s 3.2GHz hexacore Phenom II X6 1090T comes out for a review roundup originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Apr 2010 03:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google Earth Comes to Google Maps

Google Maps now has a Google Earth button. Since 2008 Google Maps API developers have been able to provide a Google Earth view in their Google Maps mashups. Now it is possible to view Google Earth directly in http://maps.google.com/This means that Google Maps users can now enjoy the 3D buildings and terrain that users of the Google Earth standalone application have long enjoyed. It is even

Police Seize Jason Chen’s Computers [Lost Iphone 4]

Last Friday night, California’s Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team entered editor Jason Chen’s home without him present, seizing four computers and two servers. They did so using a warrant by Judge of Superior Court of San Mateo. According to Gaby Darbyshire, COO of Gawker Media LLC, the search warrant to remove these computers was invalid under section 1524(g) of the California Penal Code. More »







Microsoft Security Essentials Offers Fast, Powerful and Free Malware Protection

Microsoft Security Essentials Offers Fast, Powerful and Free Malware Protection

What it is:

Microsoft Security Essentials is a free anti-malware and anti-virus package, designed to compete with both commercial and free offerings like AVG and Norton.

What we like:

First, and most obviously, we like the price point; it’s hard to argue with free. But no matter how free an app is, if it sucks, there’s no reason to install it. Thankfully, there is plenty more to like about Security Essentials.

Unlike some other anti-virus suites, MSE (as it will be known from here on out) is light on its feet. In addition to using very little RAM, saving precious CPU power for more important things (like watching the Switched Video feature). MSE is fast; scans take significantly less time than they do with many free or paid options.

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Microsoft Security Essentials Offers Fast, Powerful and Free Malware Protection originally appeared on Switched on Mon, 26 Apr 2010 13:14:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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