Items tagged with Work
Employers typically frown on workers surfing the cyber highway when they should be working, but as long as it's in moderation, they may want to lighten up. A new study shows that browsing the Web from work actually rejuvenates employees and makes them more productive. Don J. Q. Chen and Vivien K.G. Lim of the National University of Singapore presented the eye-opening findings in their "Impact of Cyberloafing on Psychological Engagement," according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The study went like this: First, the researchers took 96 undergraduate management students and split them up into three groups, including a control group, a rest-break group, and a group free to surf the Web....
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When you think of Apple's iPad, you probably think of a large iPod touch, or maybe a portable e-mail machine for your couch. Or maybe you think of something that you'd love to have if it only supported Flash and Hulu. Or maybe you think it'd be a great replacement for a netbook. But would you consider it seriously for work? That's the question that a Sybase survey recently asked, and evidently more people than not consider that the iPad would be useful for helping them to get work done. That's sort of amazing to us; one of the biggest issues we saw on the iPad was the inability to multi-task, despite the fact that it has a 1GHz processor. We understand that some light-duty work tasks could be...
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For the business traveler (and the traveler in general, really), Wi-Fi is important -- crucial, even. But more important than sustenance? That's exactly what was found in a recent survey by American Airlines and HP, where some 47% of business travelers responded that Wi-Fi was the "most important airport amenity, outscoring basic travels needs such as food by nearly 30 percentage points." The online study gathered results from 1,500 frequent travelers who log more than 20 trips a year on three or more airlines, and it also found that the largest complaint wasn't delayed flights, cramped areas, endless fees or the lack of an AC outlet in coach -- no, it was dead PC batteries. Yes, dead batteries,...
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BOLD NEW DELL (PRODUCT)RED ARTWORK FOR STUDIO LAPTOPS EXPRESS PASSION FOR ART, DESIRE TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE Dell expands the palette of its Art House series with three exclusive (PRODUCT)RED designs Dell spotlights (RED)-inspired artists and their visions in global gallery on Dell.com For each Dell (PRODUCT)RED design purchased , Dell will contribute $20 to the Global Fund, helping to save lives and eliminate AIDS in Africa ROUND ROCK, Texas, Nov. 11, 2008 –Dell continues to celebrate a season of design and discovery with the unveiling of the (PRODUCT)RED artwork for the Dell Studio laptops. This artwork exemplifies the unique visions of artists passionate about fighting AIDS in Africa....
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T-Mobile sure isn’t wasting any time: The G1 has only officially been available in stores for just a few hours, and the company is already talking about an update, albeit a small one.Users who purchased via pre-sale should start seeing a notification alerting you to the availability of the over-the-air update tomorrow, with other users getting it around the 31st. People who receive their device after these dates should get it within 2-3 days of activating their phones, and new phones will come preloaded with the update. If you’re one of the unlucky soles who doesn’t get it right away, T-Mobile recommends waiting a bit longer or checking your software version to see if you got it (the new version...
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In an interview with Laptop, ASUS' CEO, Jerry Shen, confirmed that ASUS will introduce a new Eee PC sometime in the second half of 2009 that will have a touch screen and run Windows 7. Given that Microsoft has said it plans general availability of the new operating system around January 2010, there’s a bit of a discrepancy here. Promising more details in the first quarter of next year (we’re guessing CES), Shen also indicated that the company doesn’t plan on putting Vista on any of the Eee PCs.Other noteworthy snippets from the interview: The company has sold four million Eee PCs to date. Touch-enabled Eee PCs are coming in early 2009. ASUS is exploring a convertible mode and a regular laptop...
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Besides being a low-ranking Marvel Comics super-villain, Trapster is a free application that went live on the App Store last Friday, allowing users to share information real-time on speed traps.Besides the iPhone (naturally the highest-profile device in the bunch), the app runs on GPS devices like Garmin and TomTom, as well as on smartphones such including Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Nokia S60 and N95 and other Java/J2ME phones. How does it work? You click on button in the app or call a toll-free number to report a speed trap. Other user's phones will alert them as they approach the trap. Trapster learns the "credibility" of traps based on how many users agree with the report. Trapster...
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When you think of a high-powered graphics workstation, the first thing which typically comes to mind is a huge, bulky tower chassis, packed to the brim with multiple processors, high-end graphics cards, and multiple hard disks. For the most part, this assumption is still fairly accurate, as these are the components which designers and artists usually require, and they aren't available anywhere else. Thus, artists have more or less been chained to their desks and their big, perfectly calibrated monitors. This isn't to say that there aren't options for the mobile workstation user, however, they have never really been up to par with what you could accomplish with a full tower. Almost every...
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Since RealNetworks announced RealDVD (available today, if you are interested), it was obviously there would probably be some kind of legal action. After all, the product rips DVDs to your hard drive, though it purports to not just maintain the original DRM but in fact adds another layer of protection. Still, most would probably have expected the lawsuit to come from the other direction.Shortly after releasing the RealDVD product today (about an hour or so!) RealNetworks announced a lawsuit against a host of companies: the DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney Enterprises, Inc., Paramount Pictures Corp., Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., NBC Universal,...
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NVIDIA Announces Workforce Reduction SANTA CLARA, CA - SEPTEMBER 18, 2008 - NVIDIA Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) today announced a workforce reduction to allow for continued investment in strategic growth areas. As a result, NVIDIA expects to eliminate approximately 360 positions worldwide, or about 6.5 percent of the Company’s global workforce. The reduction is expected to be completed by the end of the third quarter of fiscal 2009 ending October 26, 2008. NVIDIA will provide employees affected by this reduction with severance packages, counseling, and job placement services."Our action today is difficult, but necessary considering current business realities. Despite our reduction, we will continue...
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Scientists in Pisa, Italy claim to have set a new world record for the fastest wireless data transmission. They report that during an uninterrupted 12-hour experiment, they were able to achieve throughput speeds above 1.2 Terabits per second; which they say beats the previous wireless data transmission speed record of 160 Gigabits per second by Korean scientists. The researchers claim that speeds of this magnitude can typically only be achieved using fiber optics. The technology that the Pisa scientists utilized to achieve such high bandwidth, actually shares a significant similarity with fiber optics: Both technologies use optical communications. Unlike Wi-Fi or microwave communications, which...
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If you think the contents of your work computer are your business and only your business, then think again. Applying federal rulings from other jurisdictions to help guide its ruling, the New Jersey State Appeals Court ruled in a recent case that "an employee has no reasonable expectation of privacy in personal files stored on a company-owned computer." This is a significant finding as it sets a precedent for the state of New Jersey, and adds to other similar rulings from the 4th and 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (U.S. v. Angevine and U.S. v. Simons, respectively). In fact, not only did the court rule that a employee of a company has no expectation of privacy of the contents of his work...
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A recent survey of IT professionals reveals that just under half of them (45 percent) were either "not confident or only slightly confident" that they were aware of all the endpoints connecting to their organizations' networks. Perhaps not surprisingly, half of the respondents were also concerned that a security breach on their organizations' networks could jeopardize their employment or that of some of their staff. The study was sponsored by Mirage Networks, a Network Access Control (NAC) provider, and included "194 respondents, representing a variety of IT functions and companies that ranged in size from small businesses with less than 100 endpoints to large enterprises with more than 10,000...
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There are some people whose opinions matter more than others. Take Vint Cerf, for instance. Cerf is often credited as being the "father of the Internet." While that might not be a technically accurate statement, it is safe to say that he played a very significant role in shaping what would become the Internet as we know it today--and he is certainly one of only about a half dozen people or so who can potentially even lay claim to that title. In his current role as Vice President and Internet Evangelist for one of the most important Internet companies presently doing business--Google--his opinion carries a lot of weight with the industry. So the industry should sit up and take notice when a man...
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Apple sent an e-mail out to its MobileMe service members today, apologizing for the hiccups in getting the $99 per month MobileMe service up and running, announcing that the service was now finally fully operational, and even offering a conciliatory, free 30-day extension to all current MobileMe subscriptions. Apple's e-mail (click the image to read the e-mail) MobileMe is an updated version of Apple's .Mac ("Dot Mac") subscription-based online service, which has been around since 2002 (or even as far back as 2000 if you count its original iteration as Apple's free, Mac-only, online service called iTools). The new MobileMe service rolled out at the same time as the release of the iPhone...
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Talk about cannibalizing sales from Windows Vista. It's bad enough Microsoft has to worry about XP doing that, but ... All right, all right, obviously we're just kidding. And yes, you read that right. Windows for Workgroups (WFW) 3.11 is still being sold. Microsoft is selling it in the Embedded Channel. However, in a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft announced that as of November 1st, that venerable old OS would go the way of the dodo.As John Coyne announced in the blog post: for those that were not aware, we recently announced that effective November 1st, 2008, OEM's will no longer be able to license Windows for Workgroups 3.11 in the embedded channel. Now we all know that it's been long gone...
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NVIDIA has been generating a lot of buzz as of late with all of the news regarding their PhysX implementation on GeForce 9800 and GTX 200 series GPUs. An interesting, and related, tid-bit arrived in our in-box this morning that's sure to illicit some curious responses, and wouldn't you know it, it has to do with ATI-accelerated PhysX... Unfortunately, we don't have many details regarding the screenshot above. What it is supposed to show is PhysX being accelerated on a Radeon HD 3800 GPU (reportedly a 3850). The folks that developed the infamous "SLI Patch" are working on this little app that ports NVIDIA's PhysX to ATI GPUs. Supposedly, it will only work on 3800 series cards...
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How fitting and appropriate for today, Father's Day 2008. Looking for that special gift, for a gadget-loving Dad that has everything and then some? Dubbed "a unique combination of art and technology", this product offers a "technological and ergonomical solution that enhances comfort, productivity and gaming experience". And you know we're all about the comfort and productivity around these parts at HH. All we can say is it better have enough horsepower under the hood because if it's all show and no go, you know someone with a big checkbook will be shelling out far too much money for a stylized geek Lazy-Boy.You've just got to see this...
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According to Intel, it gets no respect. The company has spent "gazillions of dollars and bazillions of engineering man hours" on co-developing the new USB 3.0 spec and the commensurate USB 3.0 Intel host controller spec; yet Intel is perceived as wanting to keep USB 3.0 all to itself. At least that's the story that Nick Knupffer, blogger and Global Communications Manager for Intel, tells on Intel's Technology blog. Knupffer chose to use the Intel Technology blog as an opportunity for dispelling a number of rumors swirling around the development of the USB 3.0 spec. First up was the rumor that Intel is creating the USB 3.0 spec on its own: "USB 3.0 is not an Intel specification; it is being developed...
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This week marks the beginning of Comcast's month-long experiment with protocol-agnostic network management practices in Chambersburg, PA and Warrenton, VA. Comcast has come under fire recently for throttling certain types of traffic on its network, such as with data for P2P clients. This alternative approach focuses purely on how much bandwidth is being consumed, and not the type of data being transmitted. "This new technique does not look at particular protocols or applications. Instead, it will focus on the bandwidth consumption activity of individual customers who are contributing to congestion on Comcast's network. The technique measures only aggregate bandwidth consumption, not the protocol...
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The good news is an online entity featuring lots of tech news and commentary is worth $1.8 billion. The bad news is that it isn't HotHardware. CBS announced today that they have acquired CNET Networks, which operates a host of Internet sites like CNET, ZDNet, Gamespot, Search.com, TV.com, and many more. "There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks," said Moonves. "CBS stands for premium content and unparalleled reach, and CNET Networks will add a tremendous platform to extend our complementary entertainment, news, sports, music and information content to a whole new global audience. Together, CBS and CNET Networks will...
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YouTube may rule supreme in the melded world of online video and social networking, but Microsoft has a new trick up its sleeve that it hopes might steal some eyeballs away from the competition. Launching today in 20 countries and 12 languages is Microsoft's Messenger TV service, integrating online video directly into Microsoft's Live Messenger application. "Watching online video is no longer about one person in front of their computer, it's now a social experience. Users can now share a selection of free content and watch it at the same time as their friends through Messenger TV."Microsoft has partnered with a number of popular content providers, such as MTV, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, National...
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