Tech with a twist of lime! & FLHybrid Club.

Nick White at The Windows Vista Team Blog reports: 2/1

Original post quoted in full.

The Windows Mobile Device Center team is happy to announce the official launch of Windows Mobile Device Center (WMDC) for Windows Vista.  Thank you to all our customers for downloading Beta 3 and sending the team feedback.   The link to the download site is here.  The RTM build will also be available as an update via Windows Update by the end of the week. 

Please read the instructions on the download site carefully.  It is recommended that you uninstall any previous version of WMDC and the WMDC driver update before installing WMDC RTM.

I just checked and the program was not pushed through Windows Update.  Hopefully when I get my last system upgraded it will receive the program through Windows Update instead of having to be installed manually.  Finally ActiveSync is dead!  All that's left is for my PocketPC Phone to be able to get firmware flashes from the WMDC instead of ActiveSync.

One of my coworkers Mike Lemire (Theeternal) has a brief review, from a gamers perspective, of the copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition he received from The Windows Vista Coach Tour. You can find his review at the CAG forums.

 I have been running Vista for about 2 days now after owning it for 6, Vista bus team member Brandon strongly advised that Ultimate is the only way to go. After questioning him of the pricing structure and any student pricing. He noted that *Student discounts are a topic of concern* and that Ultimate was "a lot." Afterwards he gave me the only copy given out during this visit to Gainesville.

I'll have my report up shortly after I get the pictures back.

I received several products from the tour members, including a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate Edition and a Microsoft Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 desktop set (keyboard and mouse).  The reviews will be up after my report from the tour.

Another big thanks to Nick White, Sidebar Geek, and Terri.

Kacey Green
www.GRLT.com
'Tech with a twist of lime!"

BetaNews reports: 1/30

We reported on BN's report on Saturday about how Intel is planning to use hafnium to build the gates of the 45nm scale chips.  Well IBM has done the same thing, IBM processes are also tied to AMD and the Cell processors.  They are also using hafnium.

On the very same day that Intel announced to the world it had developed the critical formula for the material that will replace silicon dioxide as the dielectric gate in transistors for metal oxide semiconductors, its biggest arch-rival in the research and development field, IBM, announced the very same thing.

The still secret material, for years considered the "Holy Grail of semiconductor science," will enable transistors to scale down to the seemingly impossible levels Intel requires to feed the monster that is Moore's Law.

Kacey Green
www.GRLT.com
"Tech with a twist of lime!"

f AutoblogGreen reports: 1/28

AutoblogGreen has an extensive review of the Saturn View Green Line, while I don't think GM went far enough with this vehicle its a great start. They've come a long way from thinking that Toyota would loose their shirts selling hybrids. For the technology used this vehicle gets decent gas mileage at a fraction of the price. Though my Prius still gets better mileage at the drag strip than this vehicle gets in the EPA lab conditions. I think that GM likes to try out new propulsion technologies with the Saturn brand, remember the EV1? I'm still dumbfounded that GM has taken such large steps backward, you would think that after creating a vehicle like the EV1 you'd use the lessons learned to get ahead of the competition.

People have a variety of reasons for buying hybrid vehicles, one of which is saving money on fuel – they go green to save some green. For others, there's the sincere motivation of environmental stewardship. And for others still, though they may be loath to admit, there's an undeniable ego aspect – think of that hybrid badge as the automotive equivalent of a polo pony on a collared shirt.

The one "problem" with hybrids is that they cost more than non-hybrid cars – you pay a premium for the technology. That added cover charge may be enough to keep some from getting past that green velvet rope. To try and address this, General Motors has developed its Green Line "light" hybrid system.

GM was obviously watching closely as other companies like Toyota, Honda, and Ford made waves and grabbed headlines with their high-profile hybrid vehicles. In response, GM earmarked Saturn to be the brand to offer a mass-market hybrid, and it would go after customers by marketing an inexpensive alternative to other, more costly hybrids. The result is the 2007 Saturn Vue Green Line.

Crave reports: 1/25

With all the popularity of our recent Wii posts I present this to the community to gauge interest in further gaming posts.

Wow, you really can do just about everything with your Wii. You can play tennis or baseball, check the weather, fight bad guys...and now, stay informed on what's going on in the world. On Saturday, the "Wii News Channel" will be launching, available on all Wii consoles that have Internet-browsing capabilities through the downloadable Opera browser. News will be supplied by the Associated Press, which has inked a two-year deal with Nintendo. So far, it's just news stories and photographs, but you never know what they might add next. This way, you can take a break from Wii Tennis, check the results of the latest high-profile tournaments, and see how you match up to Roger Federer.

I wonder if this feature will be clogged with commercials just like regular TV news.

News will be delivered in the same manner that Nintendo delivers The Weather Channel to Wii customers. The picture quality with most televisions is awful, I've hooked my computer up to my television on a few occasions, standard definition televisions (SDTV) are horrible for viewing text. The only way to get legible text on SDTV is to make the text huge, most news articles from the Associated Press are wicked long, I'm wondering how much time will be wasted scrolling in this news app, will it be quicker just to go to the computer or pick up the newspaper?

What do you think, will people actually use this feature more than just testing it out? Or has Nintendo wasted valuable resources on a useless feature when they could have been fixing bugs or writing new games?

Kacey Green
www.GRLT.com
"Tech with a twist of lime!"