Western Digital My Book Studio Edition II hits 4TB

Western Digital has released its latest My Book Studio Edition II that will now come with 4TB worth of data, double from the previous version which had just 2TB capacity. This new My Book Studio Edition II dual drive storage system was specially built to play nice with Mac computers, bringing together a balance of high performance as well as power conservation. It works great with the Apple Time Machine automatic backup feature is specially formatted for Mac computers, targeting creative professionals, workgroups, small offices and folks looking for superior speed in data transfer courtesy of its dual-drive RAID 0 configuration and high-speed interfaces. Regardless of any system you use, the My Book Studio Edition II is able to hook up thanks to the four interfaces it offers - eSATA and FireWire 800 for maximum performance as well as FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 for maximum flexibility.

Not only that, since hard drives tend to sip up a pretty amount of juice off the grid, Western Digital has made sure that their My Book Studio Edition II will play nice with Mother Nature, featuring an eco-friendly system that complements WD GreenPower Technology for power savings and cool and quiet operation. According to Dale Pistilli, vice president of marketing for WD’s branded products group, “The new My Book Studio Edition II is the best choice for creative professionals who require massive capacity and extra-fast performance,” said . “With 4 terabytes of capacity, photographers, graphic artists, videographers, and home video enthusiasts alike will have the space they need to store hours of high definition videos as well as the performance they need for demanding video editing applications.”

Those who are interested in upgrading their backup storage solution can look to the My Book Studio Edition II dual-drive storage system that will retail for $649.99 a pop.

Stealth WPC-500F waterproof computer

We all know that electrical devices and water don’t make good friends, as whenever they meet, there tends to be flare ups as well as a possible explosive “argument” since both parties aren’t able to see eye-to-eye. Well, computers do fall under the electrical devices category, which is why the WPC-500F from Stealth Computer is different from the rest. After all, their WPC-500F is an industrial rugged machine that is waterproof, coming in a small footprint that does away with built-in fans to keep things cool. It is tough enough to operate in situations where regular computer hardware would have long ago given up the ghost. Definitely worth considering if you want something different in your home, as how many of your mates own a waterproof computer?

According to Stealth Computer, the WPC-500F offers the most environmental protection of any PC to date from the company, where it was specially created to completely sealed on all half dozen sides despite operating in the harshest of environments. This 100% water-tight computing machine is able to handle virtually anything thrown at it, including liquids, chemicals, dust and dirt intrusion, as it meets IP67/NEMA 6 environmental specifications. The internal processor will remain cool without the help of any cooling fans since it relies on advanced heat pipe technology. In addition, the rugged aluminum chassis also doubles up as a heat sink to dissipate internal heat and provide noise free operation.

Just in case you were wondering how small the WPC-500F is, it measures a mere 7.51″ x 11.37″ x 2.97″, and despite being this small, it is somewhat like one of those tiny breed dogs that tend to boast a superior bite compared to larger breeds. In fact, the WPC-500F is powered by the latest Atom processor from Intel, helping it surpass the performance of most other industrial and embedded PCs available today in the market. Prices start from $1,995 upwards when the WPC-500F hits the market later this July, and will go upwards according to the specifications you throw inside.

Magna, GM aim to sign Opel deal in July

U.S.-based carmaker General Motors Corporation and Canadian auto part maker Magna International have set July 15 as a target for reaching an agreement on the sale of a majority stake in GM subsidiary Adam Opel to the auto part group and its Russian partner Sberbank, sources close to the talks told news agency Reuters.






“There was an agreement that Magna and GM on July 15 should be far enough in their negotiations that they can reach a conclusion that serves as the basis for a contract,” one person familiar with the matter said, according to Reuters.

Magna co-CEO Siegfried Wolf said on June 3 that he expected a “final signing” in four to five weeks’ time. Then there would be another waiting period for regulatory approvals. The closing is expected by the end of September.

Two days after Wolf’s comments, GM Europe President Carl-Peter Forster confirmed Wolf’s rough plan of reaching a “definitive agreement” by July and a closing by September.

During the time that General Motors is operating under Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and until a sale to a new investor is concluded, 65 percent of Opel’s shares are formally held by a trust set up to ensure that a €1.5 billion (Kč 40 billion) bridge loan extended by Germany is not misappropriated.

The U.S. government has attempting to bail out GM, and the sale of Opel is part of the plan to streamline the auto giant. The restructuring “will mark the end of an old GM, and the beginning of a new GM; a new GM that can produce the high-quality, safe, and fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow; that can lead America towards an energy independent future; and that is once more a symbol of America’s success,” U.S. President Barack Obama said.

On June 1, 2009, GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, making it the fourth-largest filing in the U.S. history after Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, and Worldcom. Chapter 11 bankruptcy allows for a companies and individuals to reorganize and establishes a plan for resolving debt. GM stock was removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average on June 8.

Rival bidders waiting in the wings such as Fiat and Beijing Automotive Industry Corp (BAIC) are still hoping for a collapse in the talks in order to re-enter negotiations with GM.

Microsoft enters searching fray

Microsoft Corporation recently entered the search engine battlefield with a new search brand called Bing.




Its beta version has been online since June 3 on www.bing.com and the media is playing up the move as Microsoft’s attempt to take away some of search rival Google’s dominance of the sector. On the local market, Bing is set to start cooperating with Seznam.cz, according to Microsoft sources.

At the end of May Microsoft began releasing Bing, what the company refers to as a “decision engine” that goes beyond mere searching. Bing is predicated on helping people use the information they find online, and even if unstated, implies that Google is no longer enough to navigate the bewildering range of information available online.

“Bing is primarily something like a decision-making machine. It sorts information not only to provide users with logically sorted information, but also to help them make fast and instant decisions. In the first phase, we are targeting the solution of complex decisions in the areas of traveling, shopping and health,” said Tomáš Koška, Microsoft’s manager of online services for Central and Eastern Europe. “Searching itself is still no more than publishing a list of web pages, which don’t always come with some added value. Bing brings more relevancy by highlighting the best possible results. Part of the result is also [in obtaining] difficult to find information, like the telephone number of the customer service line or a suggestion of the traffic connection,” Koška added. Bing is also a very organized too, he said. “The content of the web is very dynamic today and users are often looking not only for a text but also for audio, video, pictures or news. Bing shows a result containing all these parts in one. From the new features I could speak about the search panel located on the left side of the screen, which offers everything that users need—search history, quick links, categories, etc.,” Koška added.

Of course technical details of the search engine have not been made available to the public and are being kept secret. Microsoft has also not disclosed any details regarding the investment into its new project. “I can only reveal that Bing contains very intelligent tools to support vertical decision making—about local information, traveling, air tickets, health, new car buying etc.,” Koška said. Bing has a fully functional Czech version.

Another factor behind Microsoft’s new product is the reported tendency of consumers to do price shopping over a number of different websites. At the beginning of June, Microsoft released Bing Travel to simplify the often long and tedious process where people spend weeks and even months comparing the prices of air tickets and hotels over a dizzying array of sites. With functions such as Bing’s price predictor and rate indicator, travelers will have their hotel search streamlined as well, he said.
“War” of the search engines
Google is the current leader of the Internet search world these days, both with its search technology and its search portal itself, which is accompanied by a number of other services such as e-mail, online document processing, blogs, groups, notebook and a news portal, among many other features. Google’s dominance has reached such heights that the perception has arisen that there is a need for a David to face off against this corporate Goliath. The media has been quick to latch onto the story of any potential competition coming onto the market although the company claims not to be threatened by the newcomer.

“It is natural that users are trying different search engines that are available on market. We are expecting them to try this new one, too, and that is a good thing. More possibilities to choose from means there is a need for improvement and development of the search engines,”said Janka Zichová, communication and corporate affairs manager at Google Czech Republic. “According to the latest data from Navrcholu.cz [from May 2009], Google is being used by about 32.7 percent of Czechs. This number is much higher than two and a half years ago when Google started on the Czech market,” she added.

Before Google, many people used search engine Yahoo. Many also remember the golden age of AltaVista, run by Overture Services, which introduced Babel Fish translation long before Google first provided its own well-known translation service. Babel Fish is currently owned by Yahoo.

Czech search portals divided

Google search technology is also a dominant presence on Czech search portals Centrum.cz and Atlas.cz, both owned by Centrum Holdings. “It is important to offer users a local gateway into the Internet services—that is called a portal. The portals Atlas.cz and Centrum.cz are among the most visited Czech portals. For search technology Google represents quality—the best on the market and that is why Centrum and Atlas are using it—they want to offer the best available local search,” said Jiří Hájek, corporate communications director at Centrum Holdings. Other users of Google search technology include publisher Mafra’s news portal iDnes.cz, social networking site Libimseti.cz and the active portal of Telefónica O2 Czech Republic.

On the other hand search portal Seznam.cz opted for an alternative and negotiations between the company and Microsoft are currently underway for the portal to use Bing’s search technology. Rita Gabrielová, spokeswoman for Seznam.cz, declined to comment on the negotiations because there are no details to specify at this time, but Microsoft’s Koška was more forthcoming. “Bing will be helping millions of Czech Internet users with information searching, and will offer them a new user environment connected to the access to advanced functions and actual information on the Internet. Bing services on Seznam will start in August this year,” he told CBW. Bing therefore could soon have a local test environment that will be a factor in the ongoing search engine competition.

The politics of Facebook

Online community is not only another new marketing buzzword heavily used in almost every industry from food to telecommunications. These communities really work.






And, as already proven by the egg campaign against ČSSD leader Jiří Paroubek, they seem to work quite well especially in political campaigns in the Czech Republic. U.S. President Barack Obama was admired for his sense for using trendy Internet communication tools in his presidential campaign. Czech political parties are also picking up on the trend and putting a lot of stock in them.

Facebook, still quite a new phenomenon to the Czech market, has already become a strong political tool in Czech political culture. It’s not only exploited by political parties themselves, but it’s being more and more used by voters, especially in organizing protests. Very shortly after the successful Paroubek egging campaign, young voters started to fight for the deferral of the new state high school graduation exams and guess what: politicians have realized the strength of Facebook and even before the official protest took the place, they almost instantly agreed with this Facebook community and swept the state graduation away. This is something that would just a year ago be absolutely unimaginable. And we can just ask why. Is it because Facebook after the egg campaign is currently “in” in Czech politics? Or is it just because 18- and 19-year-old people involved in the upcoming state exams are the new voters who might significantly affect the upcoming October elections?

Facebook has become a strong tool to influence thousands of Czech young people in a very short time and in a very strong manner. The simple fact that one of your Facebook friends believes in something, and makes that belief public by becoming a fan or a member of some Facebook group, makes you think about things that you didn’t care about before. That’s the reason why establishing any group declaring any strong political statement or point of view brings you several thousand sympathizers in a few days. And these sympathizers, unlike in other situations, are unafraid of showing their opinion not only in the virtual world,but in the real one, too. This means that the upcoming elections will be extraordinary not only in their term, but also in the tools that will be used by political parties.

EU Windows Users Must Upgrade with "Clean Install"

Europeans who purchase Vista-powered PCs starting Friday will have to do a "clean install" of the free Windows 7 upgrade they'll receive later this year because Microsoft has yanked Internet Explorer from the new OS, according to a Web site that regularly publishes accurate information about the company's plans.

TechARP.com, a Malaysian Web site that has frequently posted details about Microsoft's free Windows 7 Upgrade Option offer, said yesterday that users in Europe will have to overwrite the hard drive with Windows 7 when they receive the upgrade media this fall.

"The upgrade path from Windows Vista to the E or the N versions of Windows 7 will not support an 'in-place' upgrade," TechARP said, quoting from a leaked Microsoft memo to computer makers. "Instead, the upgrade must be performed as a 'clean installation.'"

An in-place upgrade retains all data and applications, replacing Vista with Windows 7. A clean install, on the other hand, wipes the hard drive -- erasing all data and applications -- before installing the new operating system. In a clean install, users must back up data, then later restore that data and manually reinstall all applications. Microsoft will ease some of the transition with a special utility designed to back up data and some Windows settings.

"It is very important that the end user understands the implications of a clean installation upgrade, and takes all necessary steps to retain their applications, files and settings, including backing up applications, files and settings prior to installation," TechARP added, again citing the Microsoft memo to OEMs.
The change to a clean install -- previously, Microsoft made it clear that Vista users would be able to do in-place upgrades -- was necessitated by Microsoft's preemptive move to remove IE8 from Windows 7.

Last January, European Union antitrust officials charged Microsoft with illegally bundling IE with Windows. The EU is reportedly considering requiring a ballot screen that would offer users several browser choices. Most analysts saw Microsoft's dropping of IE8 as an attempt to head off the ballot screen concept.

Because the clean install of Windows 7 E -- the designation Microsoft's given to its IE-free edition -- results in a PC without a Web browser, computer makers will have to provide one with the free upgrade. "Microsoft recommends that OEMs include a Web browser with Windows 7 upgrade media," said TechARP. If OEMs do not take Microsoft's advice, users will find it difficult -- some of them will find it impossible -- to download a browser, in effect crippling their computers after the upgrade to Windows 7.

In the next breath, however, Microsoft tells OEMs that they can install IE8 on the upgrade media they'll provide to customers after Oct. 22, Windows 7's launch date.

"Microsoft will license Windows Internet Explorer 8 for E and N Editions of Windows 7 Products (the 'IE pack') to OEMs as a royalty-free, standalone product under Desktop Operating System (DTOS) Agreement 12.0," TechARP said. "OEMs may use the IE pack to preinstall Internet Explorer 8 on E and N versions of Windows 7, including versions of those products installed on Program upgrade media."

In effect, what Microsoft is saying is that while it will yank IE8 from Windows 7, computer makers will have the ability to return it to the upgrade.

Microsoft and its OEM partners are expected to kick off the upgrade offer Friday, June 26, the date that both TechARP and a leaked Best Buy memo have pegged as the start of the marketing campaign.

Only EU customers will be affected by the clean install requirement of Windows 7 E upgrades. Users in the U.S., for example, who buy a Vista PC between June 26 and the launch of Windows 7 will be able to do an in-place upgrade.

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8 Races and race cars that rev auto innovation

Races and the engineering behind the cars gunning for the checkered flag are powerhouses of automotive technological innovation. Click the "Next" arrow above to check out eight places where races and race cars are making a mark on the future of the industry, from proving the viability of alternative fuels to cars piloted by robots. Here, ethanol-fueled Indy cars make a lap at the Indianapolis 500.