Is Tablet Computer Apple's Next Big Thing?

By Rex Crum

Figuring out what Apple Inc. (AAPL) has in store for its next big product launch has become as popular a game as gathering to pick fantasy football drafts every fall.

And with holiday shopping season approaching, speculation is growing about what will be the next must-have device that Apple hopes will wow consumers and lead to a boom in sales.

Since the company only recently has upgraded the iPhone, and revamps its Mac PC models throughout the year, it follows that something involving the iPod could be next. And Apple historically holds an event in September or ...

source:WSJ

Tax-free computer questions answered

ASHEVILLE — North Carolina's annual tax-free weekend, which begins today and runs through Sunday, comes as a welcome event for parents who need to buy a new computer for their children — and anyone else who needs to purchase a desktop, laptop or printer.

Consumers will save at least 6.75 percent in sales tax during the holiday, amounting to $67.50 on a $1,000 computer. Many will save much more by scoping out the weekend's many sales.

“A lot of people have significantly less discretionary income this year, and if they have a child going to college and they need a computer, they may buy it during the holiday,” said Thomas Beam, a spokesman with the N.C. Department of Revenue.

But computers are not just for college students. Monty Fuchs, director of technology for Buncombe County Schools, said having a computer is becoming a necessity for public school students.

“If there is anything out there that is worthy to get this weekend when taxes are free, a computer would be on the top of my list,” he said. “Maybe even two.”

Local retailers are gearing up for the weekend. Best Buy on Tunnel Road has a plan in place and extra salespeople to deal with the increased number of computer shoppers during the tax-free weekend, said Mason Sprinkle, the store's computer supervisor.

“We see tons of people,” he said. “It's different from any other day here.”

Smart consumer

Here's what to know about buying a computer for the student in your life or for yourself:

• Computers with a sales price of $3,500 or less are covered under the rules of the tax-free weekend. For purposes of the exemption during the sales tax holiday, a computer may include a central processing unit, monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers, if sold together. All those accessories are subject to taxation if bought separately..

•
Printers, along with computer storage media, hand-held electronic schedulers, personal digital assistants and printer supplies priced at $250 or less are covered, even if you don't buy a computer to go with them. Any device that's also a mobile telephone will be taxed, however.

Mike Honeycutt, a computer consultant at UNC Asheville, recommends college students also check with their school to see if it offers any discounts on certain computers. He said consumers should expect to spend around $1,000 for a laptop, printer and software, or about $700 for a desktop computer, printer and software.

• For students of all ages, experts recommend buying a laptop over a desktop computer. Although desktops are generally less expensive, laptops have come down in price and are now just as powerful as their immobile counterparts, they said.

“If you are going to be in the dorms, it is pretty much laptop, laptop, laptop,” Honeycutt said. “I see very few students carrying them to class, but there is such limited space in dorm rooms, laptops have pretty much become a necessity.”

original post:http://www.citizen-times.com

Minister lends support to hacker

Welsh Secretary Peter Hain has suggested that British computer hacker Gary McKinnon should face trial in the UK rather than be extradited to the US.

He told the Daily Mail the offence was committed "on British soil" and should be "assessed in a British context".

Mr McKinnon's mother Janis Sharp said Mr Hain's words were "refreshing", but the Lib Dems called on the government to do more to prevent the extradition.

The 43-year-old is accused of hacking into US military computers in 2001/02.

Denies malice

Authorities in the US say Mr McKinnon accessed 97 government computers belonging to organisations such as the US Navy and Nasa.

They also claim he caused damage costing $800,000 (£487,000).

Mr McKinnon, who has Asperger's Syndrome, admits hacking, but says his actions were not malicious or damaging, and he was actually looking for information on UFOs.

He could face 60 years or more in prison if convicted.

Last week, he lost his latest appeal against extradition when two High Court judges ruled it was "a lawful and proportionate response" to his offence.

Mr Hain told the Mail the law was "just following its course," but said he "would have preferred it if I had been in the position to have a say on this".

"We could then have had a position where it could have been assessed in a British context - after all, he was sitting in his bedroom by a computer, as a kind of computer geek zapping the American defence system and therefore he was committing an offence on British soil," he said.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson said last week Mr McKinnon was accused of "serious crimes... immediately following the 9/11 attacks".

But Mr McKinnon's mother told GMTV: "I was so upset when the home secretary spoke about 9/11, spoke about the people who died and mentioned Gary's name.

"It was almost like he was trying to incriminate him in some way, so for Peter Hain to stand up and talk from the heart was so refreshing."

Leading lawyers

Mr Johnson has said it would be illegal for him to intervene in Mr McKinnon's case, but the Lib Dems claim he does have the power to do so.

Home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: "Now that leading lawyers have made it clear that they believe Alan Johnson has the power to stop the extradition of Gary McKinnon, the Home Office can't persist with its claim that he is powerless to act.

"Even Cabinet ministers like Peter Hain are concerned about the home secretary's claim.

"The Home Office must now publish the legal advice on which he is making this claim or find a different set of lawyers."

Lawyers for Mr McKinnon say his Asperger's Syndrome means the stress of extradition could result in psychosis and suicide.

original post: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8181830.stm

Zii Egg – new Android handheld computer could beat out the Apple iPod Touch

The Zii Egg is a rather swish new handheld computer which comes with lots of very smart technology built in. There’s 1080 HD video output for a start, a fast multimedia processor to match, twin cameras (one HD), a 10 point multitouch capacitive screen, GPS/WiFi/Bluetooth on-board and an SD memory card slot. Oh and did we mention the 32 GB of on-board RAM (and support for another 32 GB SD card). And all Android ready. Neat. It’s at times like this you realise Apple’s soon going to have its work cut out trying to stay ahead of the pack. $399.00 on offer. Video.

The Zii EGG is an energy efficient handheld StemCell Computer based on the powerful ZiiLABS ZMS-05 media-rich applications processor. Besides its multi-touch 3.5-inch LCD screen, it can also output HD video at up to 1080p. The ZMS-05’s 24 floating-point processors deliver up to 8 GFLOPS of raw processing power, while the StemCell Computing’s flexible architecture allows stunning display of 3D graphics on a small handheld battery powered device.

credit: http://www.redferret.net

Microsoft says computer buyers will receive free upgrades to new software

If you are a parent who has hesitated to buy your child a computer for the coming school year because you thought that you should wait until after Microsoft releases Windows 7 in October, hesitate no longer.

Microsoft has announced that free upgrades to Windows 7 will be available for computers purchased between now and Jan. 31 that have any of the most popular versions of Vista installed - Home Premium, Business or Ultimate.

Exactly how consumers will obtain that upgrade depends on where they buy their computer.

Electronics retailer Best Buy will provide the upgrade by way of a download from its Web site, at www.bestbuy.com/windows7/upgrade.

At computer maker Dell's Web site, buyers are encouraged to register for the upgrade when they order a new machine. When Windows 7 becomes available, the company will send each registered user a Windows 7 upgrade DVD, along with a CD containing updated drivers for that user's particular system. Spokeswoman Anne Camden said that there would be no shipping or handling charge for users in the U.S. to receive the materials, which the company expects to send out "within a couple of weeks" of the Oct. 22 release date.

Even those who buy a Dell machine at a retailer need to register online, at www.dell.com/windows7, to receive the free upgrade, she said.

Business supply stores Office Depot and Staples are taking differing approaches. At www.officedepot.com/win7upgrade, Office Depot customers can fill out the forms needed to receive their upgrade via mail, while Staples' Web site sends visitors to Microsoft's page, www.microsoft.com/windows/buy/offers/upgrade-option.aspx.

With Windows 7, Microsoft will continue the pattern, established with Windows XP, of offering multi-tier versions of its operating system: Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Ultimate.

For users who would like to upgrade computers they already own, a Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade package will retail for $119.99, and the full package for $199.99. The Windows 7 Professional upgrade will sell for $199.99, and the full version for $299.99. Windows 7 Ultimate will be priced at $219.99, the full version at $319.99.

The company also plans to release a Windows 7 family pack licensed for use on up to three computers, but has not yet revealed its pricing.

The release of Windows 7 brings to an end the troubled reign of Vista as the monarch of Microsoft's software kingdom. Released to business users Nov. 30, 2006, with consumer versions released Jan. 30, 2007, Vista quickly gained a reputation as bloated, slow and untrustworthy. Despite a series of patches to improve the system, that reputation persisted among enough people that Microsoft's plans to ditch Vista's predecessor, Windows XP, generated widespread protest and were repeatedly put on hold.

Indeed, Windows XP gained a new lease on life last year, with the surging popularity of an entirely new type of computer, the mini-laptops popularly known as netbooks. Designed primarily for working over the Internet, the lightweight machines lack the resources to handle Vista well, and Windows XP became the default operating system for the category.

The system requirements for Windows 7 are scarcely changed from those for Vista -- a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM, and 16GB of available hard disk space. But those requirements are not nearly as demanding now as they were two and a half years ago -- today, even a budget laptop will carry 2 GB of RAM and a 160GB or larger hard disk.

For Windows XP users, upgrading to Windows 7 will require upgrading to Vista first, according to the Microsoft Web site. Those who buy a packaged copy of Vista now will be able to receive the Windows 7 upgrade directly from Microsoft when it is released.

The release of Windows 7 comes at a time when Microsoft needs a hit. Last week, the software giant said net income for the quarter ended June 30 showed a 26 percent drop from the year-ago period, to 34 cents per share from 46 cents. It was the third consecutive quarter of year-to-year declines, as the industry is hammered by ongoing weakness in spending. Meanwhile, the company continues with a program, announced in January, to reduce expenses by laying off up to 5,000 employees.

Microsoft profit down 29 pct in weak computer market

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft on Thursday reported that its latest quarterly earnings sagged 29 percent as revenues were dragged down by a weak global computer market.

Microsoft said its net profit for the quarter ending June 30 was 3.05 billion dollars, or 34 cents per share of stock, in what amounted to a 29 percent drop from the same period last year.

"Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets," said Microsoft chief financial officer Chris Liddell.

"In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over 750 million dollars of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter."

Microsoft reported that its revenue in the recently-ended quarter dropped 17 percent to 13.1 billion dollars as compared to the same three months in 2008.

Microsoft stock's price quickly slid more than eight percent to 23.47 dollars in after-hours trading following the release of the earnings figures.

The quarter marked the end of Microsoft's fiscal year and the US software giant reported that its annual profit dropped 18 percent from the prior year to 14.57 billion dollars, or 1.62 dollars per share of stock.

Revenue for the year was 58.44 billion dollars, a three percent dip from the previous year, according to Microsoft.

"While economic conditions presented challenges this year, we maintained our focus on delivering customer satisfaction and providing solutions to our customers to save money," said Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner.

"I am very excited by the wave of product and services innovations being delivered in this next fiscal year."

On Wednesday a finished version of Microsoft's next-generation operating system Windows 7 was made available to electronics makers for installation on new computers and other "smart" hardware.

Windows 7 is to be publically released on October 22.

Microsoft has also released Windows Server 2008 software to makers of business computer servers.

Intel chief: Computer attacker still a mystery

WASHINGTON — The top U.S intelligence official says the U.S. still has not figured out who was behind the July 4 cyberattacks that took down a series of government Web sites.

Dennis Blair, the national intelligence director, says the attackers covered their tracks by temporarily hijacking a network of computers, which were used to spawn the cyber offensive. The U.S. is working with other countries to identify the perpetrators.

The South Korean government says it has evidence of North Korean involvement but has not yet assigned blame.

The attacks, in which hundreds of computers tried to connect to a single Web site at the same time to overwhelm the server, caused outages on prominent government-run sites in both the United States and South Korea.