Items tagged with sky
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak isn't the only one envisioning a world where artificially intelligent systems rise up and rule over mankind. So Dr. Stuart Armstrong, an academic at the Future of Humanity at Oxford University. According to Armstrong, we're precariously close to creating computers that will ultimately wipe out mankind, though if it comes as any consolation, they'll have good intentions. "Humans steer the future not because we're the strongest or the fastest, but because we're the smartest," Dr. Armstrong told The Telegraph. "When machines become smarter than humans, we'll be handing them the steering wheel." You can take that statement both literally and figuratively. In a literal...
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AMD made a number of interesting announcements today at the Game Developers Conference, currently taking place in San Francisco, CA. In addition to talking about a new strategy centered on gaming, AMD revealed some new products and previewed another that we’ve been hearing about for quite some time. During their press conference, AMD revealed new Radeon Sky Series graphics products targeted at cloud gaming / computing applications, showed off the dual-GPU powered AMD Radeon HD 7990, and extended the “Never Settle: Reloaded” gaming bundle program to include “BioShock Infinite” and showed off a 30-second clip of the next Ruby tech demo, which is currently...
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Nothing is so hilarious as when a security vendor gets its site hacked. All right, we will admit that when ICANN was hacked that was also funny. In this case, Kaspersky, who many say (arguably) has the best security software around, had their Malaysian website hacked (yes, we probably could cut them some slack for the fact it was only their Malaysian site - nah).“The official Malaysian Kaspersky Antivirus’s website has been hacked yesterday by a Turkish cracker going by the handle of “m0sted”. Along with it, the same cracker hacked also the official Kaspersky S.E.S. online shop and its several other subdomains. The attacker reported “patriotism” as the reason behind the attack and...
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The folks over at Skype are hoping that you want to be a beta tester. Starting today, Skype 4.0 Beta 1 for Windows goes into public beta, and there are a number of significant changes in the new version. The most noticeable transformation from the existing client to the new beta is a much lager default video window for video calls. (Skype estimates that about 25 percent of current Skype users use the software's video calling feature.) The user interface is being reworked a bit as well to make it easier to "resize and move your own video window around the screen" and to position your IM conversation window next to the video window. Also, instead of spreading all of your conversations across a...
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On Monday Skype, announced new subscription plans that allow flat-rate unlimited calling to 34 countries. It should be noted that for Skype defines unlimited as 10,000 minutes / month; after that standard fees apply. Of course, 10,000 minutes equates to about 5 hours a day, so what the heck?The company said it was offering unlimited calls to landline and cell phones in the U.S. and Canada for $2.95 a month.It also offers unlimited calls to phones in 34 countries including Australia, China, Germany, Japan and the United Kingdom, for $9.95 per month, it said.Skype users in Europe can choose from unlimited plans ranging from 2.95 euros to 8.95 euros a month depending on the destination of...
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For those of you skinnies, meaning owners of PSP-2000s, Skype for the PSP has arrived. For you fatties, sorry. The program needs the extra memory of the PSP-2000.As well as enabling free calls between users, Skype will allow PSP owners to send and receive voice and text messages, and make paid for calls to landlines and mobile phones.“PSP can now claim to be a highly cost effective and accessible portable communications device, alongside its entertainment credentials,” says Sony.Users planning to access Skype will need to upgrade their PSP to firmware version 3.90, register, and will require a headset and remote control. Japan's launch of Skye for the PSP has been delayed, as the...
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Ah yes, as technology advances, so do surveillance techniques. So this should surprise no one - should it?Classified documents from September 2007, leaked last week by the German political "Pirate Party," show one particular system that Bavarian police could have in place by February, and its high operating cost.The system, provided by a company known as Digitask, is called a "Skype Capture Unit," and is essentially a malware client installed onto the surveillance target. It intercepts Skype voice and chat data, purportedly offering real-time streaming of hijacked content. Digitask also offered the police the ability to intercept and decrypt SSL-based communication with a "man-in-the-middle"...
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Promises, promises. Can it deliver?The technical trick of Skyfire is that it's a proxy browser. The Skyfire app itself isn't a full browser. Instead, big Skyfire servers elsewhere process Web pages, including all the media and browser formats -- like Flash, Java, and Ajax -- that a normal desktop browser would handle but that most phones can't. Then it streams data to phones, which the mobile half of Skyfire displays. To the end user, it looks like a browser, but the mobile app is just one part of the product.This means that Skyfire can do things on mobile phones that mobile browsers, including Safari and Opera, cannot, at least not without bogging down the phone. The danger is that the...
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No press release yet, but with CES upcoming companies are "slipping out" details on CES-specific pages on their websites. Sony is no different, and it looks like, according to their site, that Skype is finally coming to the PSP. Details are scarce at the moment (i.e., nonexistent), but the company makes clear mention of a Skype client for the handheld game system on its CES 2008 promo site, which is pretty official -- though we're gonna hold our breath a little till we see a press release. Of course, until there's a press release, they could always pull back on this (editing the page would be so easy!), but at least for now it looks like PSPs are finally going to get VoIP functionality....
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Today Skype and UK wireless carrier 3 announced the 3 Skypephone, a new mobile phone that allows Skype users to make free Skype to Skype calls while at the same time also functioning as a normal cell phone."Skype is now truly mobile. This new handset is incredibly easy to use and lets you make free mobile Skype calls to other Skype users all over the world no matter where they are," said Michael van Swaaij, acting chief executive at Skype. "Skype began by offering free PC-to-PC calling and now we are doing the same for mobile calls with 3."The phone will be available in stores on November 2, but is currently available for pre-order. The phone will be free with a contract....
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What's the number one problem plaguing the future of the Internet as we know (and love) it? If you guessed: spam, piracy, pornography, identity theft, or even video games you're somewhat close but still off. The answer might very well be routers.All the fiber optic lines in the world are 100% useless without the routers to figure out which data packets go in which direction. So how did we arrive at this point? The answer is surprisingly simple:“Due to the improvements in fiber technology, the cost of increasing raw bandwidth capacity has been decreasing about as fast as the traffic grows. Fiber, therefore, is no longer the problem. But now that fiber technology has advanced,...
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When Google stock first appeared, it seemed overpriced to many. It wasn't company valuation per se, but the price per share --- which basically meant it was difficult for the small investor to buy any large quantity of shares. Yet Google has not split its shares, and its price continues to soar. The Mountain View-based company's shares traded as high as $601.45 before slipping back to $600.33 in early afternoon trading, a gain of $6.28. It marked the sixth time in the past 12 trading sessions that the stock has reached a new peak, indicating investors are confident Google's third-quarter profit will be impressive. The results are scheduled to be released Oct. 18. The latest milestone served as...
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Straight out of Silicon Valley, and perhaps a Skype Exec's worst nightmare, a new startup calling itself Ooma is planning to offer a $399 device that will allow users to make unlimited free calls. Unlike Skype, which made its debut on computers before moving on to telephone-like devices, Ooma is simply a box that will sit between your phone and your broadband connection. Here's how it works:“Users plug a white machine smaller than a macaroni-and-cheese box between their home's broadband connection and a primary telephone. They can connect a secondary phone using an Ooma "Scout," to cost $39 each. The system relies on a patent-pending software code, but executives won't provide what they consider...
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No, it wasn't a bad Windows Update patch that caused the massive Skype outage that started last Thursday and continued into the weekend. It was the semi-synchronized massive reboot across the globe, which exposed a bug in the Skype Code. On Thursday, 16th August 2007, the Skype peer-to-peer network became unstable and suffered a critical disruption. The disruption was triggered by a massive restart of our users’ computers across the globe within a very short timeframe as they re-booted after receiving a routine set of patches through Windows Update. The high number of restarts affected Skype’s network resources. This caused a flood of log-in requests, which, combined with the...
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After troubles that caused users to be unable to log in to the peer-to-peer VoIP service for up to two days over this weekend, it looks like Skype has ironed out their software issue.What exactly was the problem? Other than knowing that it’s allegedly software related, Skype has been awfully tightlipped about the origin of the difficulty other than to say that they’d be releasing information today: “The company, a division of online auction company eBay Inc., said it would explain what caused the problem in more detail Monday.” The fact that they’re being so hush-hush about the issue might indicate that they may have done something embarrassing. What do you think happened?...
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Piling on the cores is nothing new. Intel demonstrated an 80 core processor last year. But there's always been a problem. The computing power of multiple cores has been like a huge boat you built in your basement. You could go sailing, but it won't fit out the door. In multicore chips, the too-small door is getting on or off-chip access to memory through which all data must pass. Well, MIT spinoff Tilera is expected to present a 64 core processor at Stanford's "Hot Chips" symposium today, and instead of a skyscraper of cores stacked on top of a tiny lobby, it's laid out like a grid of city streets. Intel, AMD and IBM, among others, will also be presenting papers at the symposium, but...
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Skype isn’t commenting just yet on the major outage that has befallen the service. Since the trouble began, Skype has ceased allowing users to download the client while they iron out what is believed to be a software issue.The problem started late on the 15th, when both log-in and connectivity issues struck the Skype. Current estimates are anywhere from 12-24 hours before complete restoration of all services. “In an update on its Heartbeat page last night, Skype said the outage was caused by a "software issue" and expects the problem "to be resolved within 12 to 24 hours."The company also said that downloads of Skype have been temporarily disabled and that users should simply leave their...
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The phone/mp3 player created by the bright boys at Cupertino is still a few months shy of release, but sadly that doesn't stop people from poking holes in it. Perhaps a rephrase is in order, people with some agenda, say providing more back-up for an article they wrote here. Here's a snippet from the Inq: "APPLE FANBOYS have really been going for hack John C Dvorak after one of his sources in Cingular told him the iPhone's batteries lasted just 40 minutes. During Episode 93 of the spodcast this Week in Tech (TwiT)Dvorak said he received information from "a guy at Cingular who's testing the product." The unnamed, male Cingular employee told Dvorak "there's lots of issues" with the iPhone."...
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Today is the day we're all supposed to turn our clocks ahead for Daylight Saving's Time, and if you listened to some tech. analysts, today is also supposed to be riddled by widespread computer problems, locusts, wildfires, and all sorts of mayhem. "This is nice for after-dinner strolls and might even save some energy (which was Congress' motive), but the computing industry has had to scramble. Many people only recently realized the change would even impact computers. "This has been a little bit of a sleeper issue," said Brian Mulford, chief technology officer at Regulus Group LLC, which handles payments and other transactions for...
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When eBay bought Skype a while back, I rushed out and picked up a few share of eBay because it just felt like a natural fit. With Skype's ever-popular and amazing VOIP client technology taking off like a rocket, it just seemed like a total home-run for eBay to integrate that functionality into their goliath-sized online auction services, giving buyers and sellers an opportunity to speak directly regarding transactions and deals. The stock made a nice run and I punched out quickly with a tidy gain on the smallish investment I made. Now, Niklas Zennstroem, co-founder of both Kazaa and Skype has his eyes on another prize. Bring it Nik, bring it my man... ...
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All kinds of goodies are showing up at this week's Consumer Electronics Show. Ars technica takes a look at Nokia's improvement on their 770 Internet tablet, the N800. The most impressive new features for the N800 were the video streaming and GPS capabilities. Using a wireless router, the N800 was able to play video streamed from a PC and act as a remote control to control video played on another device. GPS functionality comes courtesy of the Nokia Navigation Kit, which has been available in Europe for a few months now. Developed by Navicore, the GPS unit connects to the N800 via Bluetooth with the maps stored on an SD card. The interface...
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Skype, which has popularized Web telephone calling, on Monday marked progress in extending its low-cost calling services beyond computers to new types of phones. At the Consumer Electronics Show here, Skype, a unit of online auctioneer eBay Inc., said it was introducing 12 new phones and related phone accessories in conjunction with telecommunications equipment suppliers. The models include a dual-mode phone from Netgear Inc., the SPH200D, which enables users to place and receive both traditional phone calls and Skype Internet calls from a single cordless handset. The device connects both to a standard telephone wall jack and a broadband Internet router. Unlike many existing Skype-ready phones...
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