News

Microsoft has announced that they are getting rid of the Metro name for the Windows 8 “start screen”.  The sudden shift on the eve of the launch (the final version has been released to OEM partners and other manufacturers) is unusual and Microsoft’s answers for this change are not adding up. The original term Metro can be dated back to the UI used for the Zune players and in particular the ZuneHD. This style of slimmed down icon-free user interface that many people liked about the now discarded media player. After receiving good feedback on the Zune (and with many comments asking for a “Zune Phone”) Microsoft pushed some elements of the Zune UI into their Windows Phone product.

We have said this before and we will say it again; we Love Judge Richard Posner. It is not just his no-nonsense behavior in the courtroom or his disgust with the way companies are abusing the patent system; it is for the fact that he actually uses common sense and good judgment. We have seen far too many judges that either do not have, or do not use, sound judgment in their findings. Far too often they seem to feel that they need to side with the big corporations. This time Poser’s ruling may have massive and far-reaching effects as it becomes precedent.

Although to many the Anonymous collective is anything but a protector or a hero there are many times when the faceless group has come to the aid of others and punished members (or people pretending to be members) of the group. Although we have heard of more than a few of these internal disciplinary actions, there are a few that stand out. One recent incident was when someone who claimed to be part of Anonymous hacked Sesame Street’s YouTube account and replaced a few Videos with Porn. Another was when a group released names and addresses of police informants and also home addresses for police officers to the public. In both of these cases the guilty parties found themselves on the wrong end of a collective that knows how to not only find you, but make you feel very helpless indeed.

Last week Mosaid showed off a prototype of their new solid state drive which boasts a massive 2TB capacity. The new Solid-State Drive (SSD) is able to do what conventional solid state drives are able to do only in a more cost effective way. Mosiad has managed to reduce the number of controllers and channels per drive while increasing the capacity and throughput of the drives. If they are able to push this out into the market it will be a big hit in many high-performance systems and no we are not talking about your gaming box.