Ketok NewsBlog

LimeWire Not as Popular as Recent Reports Suggest

2008-01-01T00:27:00.000-08:00

Today several news sources again reported that 36.4% of all PCs have Limewire installed. The reports are based on a press release published by Digital Music News, who misinterpreted their own data. The acual install base is less than 18%, 17.92 to be exact.

Ars Technica published an article in which they quote the press release from Digital Music News, and report that one third of all PCs have Limewire installed. This article was later picked up by Digg, Slashdot and several other news sources. However, as we have reported before, this figure is incorrect.

It turns out that Digital Music News report is based on data which was collected by PC Pitstop. Unfortunately Digital Music News has trouble interpreting their own data. They claim in their press release that it is 36.4%, but that is the market share compared to other P2P clients. This means that on all PCs that have a P2P client installed, 36.4% installed Limewire

The actual install base of Limewire is less than 18%, still impressive, but not even close to one third of all PCs. Nevertheless, LimeWire is still the P2P application that is installed on most desktop computers. In comparison, with an install rate of more than 5% on Windows PCs worldwide, uTorrent is now by far the most popular BitTorrent client.

TorrentFreak contacted Digital Music News’s Paul Resnikoff two weeks ago about this issue and he told us: “I think you’ve definitely caught an error in our reporting. We’ll be issuing corrections on this. Thanks for the assistance.” So far, the initial reports haven’t been corrected, and this blunder is published as fact over and over again.

For those who are interested, here you can find the raw data where the report is based on.

Microsoft releases Vista SP1 RC

2007-12-06T20:30:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, Microsoft announced the availability of the Release Candidate of Windows Vista Service Pack 1.

Initially, the release has only been made available to developers via Microsoft Connect, but will be available to MSDN and TechNet subscribers tomorrow and to the general public next week.

Microsoft has made a number of changes to Vista SP1 since the beta release, and they attribute many of these changes directly to feedback from SP1 beta testers:

The size of the standalone installer packages has decreased between 30% and 50%
The amount of disk space needed to install the service pack is reduced, and if there is still insufficient space the installer will inform the user of exactly how much is needed
All unnecessary files left behind in the beta are removed in the RC
Installation reliability has improved, based on bug reports and Windows Update logs supplied by beta testers
More detailed information on SP1 contained within this service pack

The service pack is still on track for release in the first quarter of 2008. The x86 and x64 packages for English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese installations will be released first, with packages for all other languages to be released eight to 12 weeks later.

Currently, standalone and Windows Update builds of SP1 are available, but administrators wishing to block SP1 RC in Windows Update can apply a blocker patch (more information here in a few days).

Slipstream builds will be made available within a few days so you can make your own Vista installation DVD with the service pack already integrated.

If you’ve got a Vista system with a pre-RC build of SP1 installed, you’ll need to uninstall it before playing with the Release Candidate. To do this go to Control Panel, Programs and Features, View Installed Updates. Then remove “Service Pack for Windows (KB936330)”.

Top selling phones in US: RAZR, iPhone

2007-11-23T21:03:00.000-08:00

Strategy Analytics posted its list of the top selling handsets in the U.S. market, which was dominated by Motorola and LG. The two handset makers had seven of the top ten selling phones:

Motorola RAZR V3

Motorola RAZR V3m

LG VX8300

Apple iPhone

LG Chocolate VX8550/8500

Motorola MOTOKRZR K1m

Samsung SGH-A707

LG VX5300

Sanyo Katana II

Motorola V323i/V325i

"Overall the average retail price paid for these top ten handsets was 19 percent higher than the market average; and we continue to see strong upgrade dynamics continue to supplement U.S. market growth," stated Barry Gilbert, Vice President of the ProductTRAX services at Strategy Analytics. "Motorola, however, despite selling four of the top ten models in Q3, realized an ASP of only $80, nearly 40 percent lower than the group average."

Oprah on YouTube

2007-11-06T19:15:00.000-08:00

On today’s episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the woman who should adopt me will have YouTube founders and billionaires Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. Alongside Oprah, they will help her create her own channel on YouTube. Harpo Productions president, Tim Bennett, said:

It provides another platform for people online to communicate with us and share in some of the one-of-a-kind experiences that occur behind the scenes at The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Sheeettt, I’m definitely gonna tune in for that! If you wanna read more, go here.

Intel to launch Eaglelake in 2Q08, Tylersburg-DT in 4Q

2007-10-25T21:12:00.000-07:00

Intel is planning to launch its Eaglelake series chipsets for mainstream desktop platforms in the second and third quarters of 2008, while the Tylersburg-DT platform for high-end systems will follow in the fourth quarter, according to sources at motherboard makers.

Eaglelake-G, the successor of the G35 and P35 targeting consumer mainstream platforms, will be paired with new ICH10 southbridges. The chips will be based on a 65nm process and come in versions with (G45) and without (P45) an integrated Intel GMA X4500 graphics core. In the third quarter Eaglelake-Q, for business platforms, will become available, noted the sources.

In the fourth quarter a high-end platform consisting of 45nm Nehalem-based processors (Bloomfield) and Tylersburg-DT chipsets will appear, according to the sources.

As with Eaglelake, Tylersburg-DT will pair with ICH10 series southbridges, added the sources.

Intel declined the opportunity to respond to this report saying it cannot comment on unannounced products.

Apple Says: Stop Unlocking "Our" iPhones!

2007-09-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

You may have seen a statement today from Apple saying that if you unlock your iPhone from AT&T, you'll probably destroy it. Well, yeah. What do you expect?

All the way back in January, an AT&T exec promised that Apple and AT&T would take steps to make the iPhone particularly difficult to unlock. Unlocking software directly attacks Apple's revenue model for the iPhone, which is to skim money off the monthly AT&T subscription fees. Apple's only getting monthly money from authorized AT&T users. Ergo, it's in their interest to make unlockers' lives hell.

But if you parse Apple's statement carefully, you notice they don't say all unauthorized software will brick your iPhone. Only unauthorized unlocking software.

Apple words things very carefully. Notice that they specify only unlocking software. Not any other unauthorized software. Only unlocking software. There are dozens of unauthorized programs out there for the iPhone, including IM clients, alternative mapping programs, and such.

Apple marketing honcho Greg Joswiak told me a few weeks ago that Apple is "neutral" on those kinds of programs. After I published that to Gearlog, Apple's PR machine went into fifth gear trying to take that statement back without taking that statement back. But look at how they very specifically phrased their quasi-retraction. Updates "will most likely break" other programs, but unlocking programs "cause irreparable damage" to the iPhone. Big difference there.

My interpretation: iPhone application developers, and those of us who love them, can continue to plow away. Yes, you'll have to generate new versions of apps after every iPhone update, but hopefully, eventually, Apple will release the golden SDK and we'll all be in clover.

Unlockers, however, are in much tougher straits. (Source: gearlog.com)

Microsoft Unleashes the Sidewinder Gaming Mouse

2007-08-29T16:44:00.000-07:00

Microsoft, purveyor of some of the best mice and keyboards available, has added a gaming mouse to its Sidewinder range. The word here is customization. From the cable thickness to the weight of the mouse itself, everything can be adjusted or swapped; there are three buttons dedicated to switching tracking resolution alone, with presets for 400, 800, and 2000 DPI (reprogrammable, of course).

The sidewinder's heft is changed by slide-in weights, there are three sets of mouse feet, all of different materials, to get the perfect "glide"; 7080 frames per second image processing; 20G max acceleration and a bewildering "9 million clicks" on each of the main buttons.

The sweet retro-Cylon (or is it KITT from Knight Rider?) styling means it'll look mean on the desk, too. Perfect for some LAN party intimidation. Yours for a reasonable $80 when it ships this October.

Intel Sheds Light on "Penryn" Enhancements

2007-08-06T12:55:00.000-07:00

There's more to Intel's next-generation processor family than the 45nm process node

Intel plans to unleash its Penryn family processors next quarter, shortly after AMD releases Barcelona. Penryn is the umbrella for all 45nm Core 2 micro architecture products, including quad-core Xeon Harpertown, quad-core Core 2 Yorkfield and dual-core Xeon, Core 2 Wolfdale processors.

On the surface, Penryn looks like die shrink of last year’s Conroe micro architecture, but Intel sought additional tweaks to the micro architecture to achieve greater performance at the same clock speeds as Conroe processors.

Intel improves existing Wide Dynamic Execution, Advanced Smart Cache, Advanced Digital Media Boost and Intelligent Power Capability, technologies that previously made its debut with Conroe and Merom.

Penryn enhances Wide Dynamic Execution technology with a fast radix-16 divider and improved Virtualization technology. With a fast radix-16 divider, the processor can process 4-bits per cycle instead of the 2-bits per cycle of Conroe – doubling the divide instruction capabilities. Intel VT technology receives enhancements that reduce virtual machine transition latencies by 25-to-75%.

Intel Advanced Smart Cache technology receives additional enhancements, besides the increased L2 cache. Penryn-based quad and dual-core processors will have up to 12MB and 6MB L2 cache, respectively. Intel reduces cache latency in addition to the larger sizes. Penryn features a 24-way associative cache, an upgrade from Conroe’s 16-way associative cache.

New to the Advanced Digital Media Boost technology is the inclusion of a new Intel SSE4 instruction set. SSE4 introduces 47 new instructions to improve performance of video accelerators, graphics building blocks and streaming load. Intel claims a 2x performance gain in video acceleration tasks. There are 14 new instructions for video accelerator performance enhancement. Intel improves compiler auto-vectorization performance with 32 new instructions.

Intel expects SSE4 optimizations to deliver performance improvements in video authoring, imagine, graphics, video search, off-chip accelerators, gaming and physics applications. Also new to Advanced Digital Media Boost is the Super Shuffle Engine. Intel’s Super Shuffle Engine allows for shuffling unpacking, packing, align concatenated sources, wide shifts, insertion and extraction, and setup for horizontal arithmetic functions. Intel claims a “2x faster SSE shuffle instruction execution,” according to briefing documents.

TrekStor Unveils 1TB (1000 GB) DataStation

2007-07-18T13:07:00.000-07:00

TrekStor has just revealed its highest capacity hard drive, holding up to 1TB of data in a single location. The DataStation from TrekStor is compatible with Mac, Linux, and Windows systems, and adopts a 3.5" external USB enclosure to keep all your data in a safe place. Features include Nero BackItUp 2 Essentials software for one-touch backup and archiving and a front panel On/Off switch. A high speed USB 2.0 interface is used to achieve speedy data transfer speeds. In addition, the software performs compression on-the-fly when backing up your data in order to store more on 1TB of space. Security measures include a password system. The TrekStor DataStation retails for $430, and if you haven't picked up a backup solution until today, what are you waiting for?

New AVG 7.5 Internet Security

2007-07-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

We invite you to join the 50 million users around the world who rely on AVG.

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Free virus protection for private and non-commercial use only.

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Free spyware protection for private and non-commercial use only.

Free versionAVG Anti-Rootkit Free
Free rootkit protection.

Free versionAVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5 for Linux/FreeBSD
Free virus protection for private and non-commercial use only. Designed for Linux/FreeBSD platforms.

Trial versionAVG Internet Security 7.5
Complete protection for home and office.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Now On Beta

2007-07-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

Mozilla Corp. has unveiled the latest update to Firefox 3.0 to beta.

Gran Paradiso also called as Alpha 6 of Firefox 3.0 includes an upgraded SQLite engine— the database that serves as the back end storage for places, a new history and bookmark manager. Other Alpha 6 upgrades include improved cookie performance; support for site-specific preferences, such as text size; and enhancements of the add-on and download tools.

"Gran Paradiso Alpha 6 is intended for Web developers and the Mozilla testing community only, with regular end users strongly advised to stick with the stable Firefox 2 for now," the company-hosted mozillaZine site said.

Mozilla plans to release the first public version of Firefox 3.0 Beta 1 on July 31. According to the updated rollout schedule, Beta 2 will appear in September, and the final release is due sometime before the end of the year. Firefox 3.0 is available for download from the mozilla website. (source: Indo-SDA)

AMD's Barcelona Processors Shown For The First Time

2007-07-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

AMD Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Henri Richard holds the industry's first "native" quad-core x86 server processor (below), demonstrated today, Nov. 30, 2006, in Berkeley, CA. Codenamed Barcelona, the processor will offer significant performance enhancements in addition to four processing cores integrated in one piece of silicon. For comparison, an Intel "Clovertown" server processor is shown on the right, which instead packages two separate processors to form four cores via a front side bus.

AMD quad-core technology was demonstrated on a reference server platform running 64-bit Windows Server 2003, but will not be available until mid-2007 and will be a native quad-core processor. The four-processor server was powered by native Quad-Core AMD Opteron 8000 Series processors and uses the same power levels as current Opteron processors.

According to the slide shown above that we took during the AMD Virtual IT Experience the estimated Quad-Core Performance of an unknown AMD Opteron processor was able to beat the Intel Xeon 5355 processor by what looks like 15%. It should be interesting to see the real numbers and I'm sure the numbers will leak out when samples are sent to the system builders.

Why is this important? AMD is demonstrating true, native quad core processors functioning in an Opteron platform. Four quad-core CPUs, to be exact, for a total of 16 cores in a single server? Looks like Opteron based servers are going to get a very nice performance boost come the middle of 2007. (Source: Legit Reviews)

What You Shot on Your Handphone Can Becomes Public Domain Viewing

2007-06-28T14:55:00.000-07:00

THIS is not new: A couple recording themselves having sex on video, promptly losing the recording and then reeling in horror as it is flashed all over the Internet. Think Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst, think Paris Hilton.

Asia Blogging: Place for Asia & Indonesian Blogger

2007-06-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

AsiaBlogging is a global new media network featuring more than 70 blogs (in the first phase) on a wide ranging of topics from movie and music to technology, sport and lifestyle. Based in Jakarta, Indonesia, AsiaBlogging invites bloggers, especially Asian bloggers to contribute their passionate postings.

Read more for Asia Blogging History

Toshiba intros Portege R500: first 12.1'' widescreen for indoors and out

2007-06-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

The press release just hit the wire today and so does the new Toshiba R500 Portege notebook. Toshiba indicates the R500 is the world's first 12.1-inch widescreen notebook available with an indoor/outdoor display, which sounds right to me. There's a few few more superlatives in case that's not enough: it's the world's first notebook with a 7mm optical drive and offers the world's longest battery life in the 12.1-inch widescreen class. The last point is debatable due to the footnote at the bottom of the page which has a laundry list of specifics to this class; still, it's nice to see the emphasis on battery life.

The order it now price of $1,999 includes all of the above world's firsts plus:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Intel U7600 Core 2 Duo: 1.2 GHz, 533 FSB; Intel 950 GMA
1 GB of RAM
120 GB hard drive, 5,400 RPM
WXGA resolution with an LED backlit panel
802.11 a/g/n and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR

An additional $150 upgrades your R500 to Vista Business. Between the LED backlight and power-efficient processor, the battery life should be quite good for this form factor which only weighs 2.4 pounds. Toshiba will be offering a 64 GB SSD option later in the year which will increase battery life further and reduce weight to 1.7 pounds. I'd love to see Toshiba then offer this as a Tablet PC with those specs.

Yahoo Releases Critical Security Patch for IM

2007-06-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Yahoo has issued a critical security patch for Messenger to address zero-day exploits that take advantage of vulnerabilities in its Webcam ActiveX controls.

The exploits to instant messaging surfaced Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the vulnerabilities were first reported to Yahoo by eEye Digital Security.

Messenger users' computers could be at risk if they visit malicious Web sites or view other malicious HTML code. The attackers could then exploit security flaws in the Yahoo Webcam ActiveX control, a software package that is downloaded with Messenger.

eEye Digital Security discovered the flaw and reported it to Yahoo earlier this week. eEye gave the problem its highest risk rating; fellow security company Secunia did the same, labeling it "extremely critical." Yahoo issued the patch in an update on Thursday.

Yahoo's advisory on the problem states that anyone using a version of Messenger obtained before Friday should download the update.

In December, Yahoo issued a "highly critical" update to address another ActiveX security flaw in Messenger. The vulnerability was found in the ActiveX control for Yahoo's services suite, which could be exploited to launch a buffer overflow attack. (Source: News.com)

Sony Drops 2 Camcorders

2007-06-11T12:54:00.000-07:00

Interestingly, Sony has launched a couple of HD-capable camcorders without even issuing a press release.

The HDR-SR8 appears to replace the SR7 announced in April. It boasts a 3.2-megapixel video sensor and 10X optical zoom. Right now, further details are short on this one, but expect more information as Sony ships the camera on July 9th for $1,600.

Offering far more information, the SR5C upgrades storage, and increases capacity from 40GB to 100GB. If you encode your video in H.264, you should be able to get about 36 hours of 1080i-resolution HD video onto the camera. Expect the SR5C to drop on July 9th as well for $1,300. (Source: Akihabara)

Google Buys Internet News Delivery Firm FeedBurner

2007-06-03T18:58:00.000-07:00

Google announced Friday that it bought FeedBurner, a firm specializing in delivering podcasts, weblogs, news and advertising to Internet browsers. Chicago-based FeedBurner is a "web feed" firm that lets online publishers constantly send updated news, commentary and other content directly to readers with tools such as Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

"We're constantly looking for ways to identify and offer new tools for content creators and website publishers," Google vice president of product management Susan Wojcicki said in a posting on the California firm's website. "Likewise, we constantly aim to give AdWords advertisers broader distribution to an even wider audience of users. For these reasons, we're very pleased to tell you that we've just acquired FeedBurner."

Financial terms of the deal were not immediately disclosed. According to some reports Google was to pay 100 million dollars for FeedBurner, which was launched in 2004.

GIGABYTE Ramp Up DDR3 To A Staggering 2080 MHz

2007-05-26T10:42:00.000-07:00

Early signs are already showing us that DDR3 based memory really stands its own ground as far as overclocking headroom goes. GIGABYTE have kindly forwarded on news that they've managed to ramp up some Micron DDR3 1066 modules to a blistering 2000MHz in dual channel mode on their new (and obviously very overclockable) P35T-DQ6DDR3 motherboard, then higher again at 2080MHz in single channel.

This feat actually puts them in a verified number 1 possy on the CPU-Z Hall of Fame.

Microsoft vs Google?

2007-05-22T11:36:00.000-07:00

This is funny picture - Who said Microsoft in cold war with Google?

Sony's Blu-ray-equipped Vaio AR laptop reviewed

2007-05-18T09:58:00.000-07:00

Surely one of the most highly-anticipated notebooks of the year, Sony's Blu-ray-sporting Vaio VGN-AR190G offers a lot of compelling features for HD buffs on paper -- 1,920 x 1,200 WUXGA+ Xbrite display, HDMI out (cable and DVI-adapter included), 200GB worth of storage, and of course that high definition optical drive -- but specs don't mean much if the machine can't perform in the real world. Thus we've been eagerly awaiting the first reviews of this 8.4-pound, 17-inch model, and much to our delight, it seems to work almost exactly as advertised.

Laptop magazine was lucky enough to get a pre-release unit for putting through the old benchmark torture test, and came away very impressed with the high resolution, anti-glare screen and video output quality, pretty impressed with the performance of the 2.0GHz T2500 Core Duo CPU and nVidia GeForce Go 7600 GT graphics, and not all that impressed with the 2-hour battery life, inconveniently-placed trackpad/mouse buttons, and pokey 1.0x Blu-ray burning speed.

Still, the simple fact that you can burn to an HD optical disc at all puts the AR190G in a class by itself and makes it more attractive than Toshiba's Qosmio G35-AV650 with read-only HD DVD, but Laptop still feels that even the burner and the better screen don't quite justify the extra $500 you'll have to thrown down for the Sony. (Source: Engadget)

Alleged Aussie software pirates raided

2007-05-15T11:14:00.000-07:00

Old-fashioned software piracy -- the kind that uses actual media rather than peer-to-peer networks -- is alive and well down under, it seems. Two brothers in Ballina on the NSW North Coast have been raided by police, who seized 5,000 CDs and DVDs featuring pirated software, games and music.

News of the bust came from a not-entirely-surprising source -- Microsoft, a vehement prosecutor of software pirates. The company's Windows and Office products were amongst those allegedly being duplicated. (No word on whether Vista was included, though given its lacklustre sales to date, we have our doubts.)

Allegedly, the criminally-minded pair were enjoying the beach lifestyle while selling their warez online. "Operators in a regional town, such as Ballina, can now impact honest resellers across Australia," MS Australia IP director Vanessa Hutley observed in a comma-laden statement from Microsoft.

While this afforded the brothers a relaxing lifestyle, that approach also made it easier for investigators from the Interactive Entertainment Association of Australia (IEAA) and Music Industry Piracy Investigation (MIPI) to make some covert purchases and then bust the duplicator who were apparently not aware that WHOIS exists, allowing anyone to see the original registrant of a website domain name.

We'll be hearing much more on the subject of piracy next week, when the Business Software Association releases its annual figures on global software piracy (which works roughly like this: estimate how many people have pirated software, multiply it by retail product price and scream a lot).

However, it seems clear that for many users, there's no ethical challenges involved in using pirated software.

At a packed seminar designed to spruik Adobe's Creative Suite 3 in Melbourne this morning, I overheard one attendee musing over a survey question asking where their Adobe software was purchased: "Can I just put that I downloaded it through LimeWire?"

If customers can happily show up to a free seminar for tips on using their illegitimate products, then clearly there's a lot of work to do. (Source: APCmag)

Dell joins Microsoft, Novell in Linux pact

2007-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:00

Microsoft Corp. said on Monday Dell Inc. had joined a business collaboration it had with Novell Inc. to allow open-source Linux software to work with Windows.

The move makes Dell the first major systems provider to join the Microsoft-Novell collaboration, which consists of a broad set of business and technological agreements to make their products work together better to serve corporate customers using both Linux and Windows computer servers.

Under the latest agreement, Dell will purchase Suse Linux Enterprise Server certificates, Microsoft said. Suse Linux is Novell's operating system.

Dell will also establish a services and marketing program to migrate existing Linux users who are not Dell Linux customers to Suse Linux, Microsoft said.

Linux is the most popular variant of open-source software. Unlike proprietary software, open-source software lets developers share code and add functions, and users only pay for custom features, maintenance and technical support.

Britney Spears Topless Picture

2007-05-10T11:01:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah. I don't even know what to say about these pictures of Britney Spears topless. What can you say about this girl that hasn't already been said? The desperate cries for attention. The ridiculous outfits?

So really, are pictures of Britney Spears topless, covering her breasts with her hands and flowers really that surprising? No, but they do reafirm that Brit Brit has gone totally bonkers. Now, if only Lindsay Lohan would follow her lead... But ditch those stupid flowers. (Source: egotastic)

Windows Vienna: Microsoft Next Project

2007-05-06T10:38:00.000-07:00

Previously known as Blackcomb, Microsoft™ next generation OS was renamed Vienna. With Vista (originally named Longhorn) still a few months away (we say few very lightly) it is surprising to hear talk of the next OS. This may stem from Microsoft™ announcement that some features have been cut from Vista because of limited development time, and are possibly being worked into Vienna.

“This does not reflect a big change for us; we have used city codenames in the past, which are derived from cities/locations in the world known for great ‘vistas’ - the kinds of places we all want to see, experience and that capture the imagination,” said Microsoft for TechWorld.com

FYI, Windows XP was called originally called Whistle. Microsoft did not disclose any details or a time frame for Vienna.