The next iPhone

There have been loads of rumours and speculations about the next iPhone, the iPhone 4S or the iPhone 5. The usual leaks, losing the prototype at a bar. It was pretty routine.


So, what exactly do we know about the next iPhone? Well, for starters, it's supposed to be a bit larger than Apple's current offerings. Large in terms of length and breadth but not in thickness, mind you. The iPhone5 (Yupp, that's what I've chosen to call it!) is supposed to be thinner than the current iPhone4. This would seem kind of obvious as it's direct competitor, the Samsung Galaxy SII, is remarkably thin and light, while similtaneously offering loads of power.

Display, Camera and the Processor

The iPhone5 is said to have an edge to edge screen, which would be pretty epic, an 8 megapixel camera manufactured by Sony themselves, definitely a faster processor, and hopefully, a better front facing camera.

Storage

The next iPhone won't have any memory upgrades. It will be available in regular 16GB and 32GB models.

OS

iPhone 5 is going to be loaded with Apple's much awaited version of it's mobile operating system, iOS5! iOS5 has everything(almost) that won would need to make everyday usage much easier.

Battery and Carrier

iPhone5 is said to have pretty much the same battery as it's predecessor, the iPhone4.

The iPhone5 is supposedly going to be available on Sprint too, as suggested by their blackout between the end of September and the first week of October, suggesting that Apple might launch the next iPhone in this period.

Two devices?

Rumours that spread around are hinting that Apple might release two iPhones during October, one of them being a cheaper 8GB version of the iPhone4 and the next being the iPhone5.

So if you were planning on buying an iPhone now, I suggest you wait, because even if you don't like the iPhone5, prices of the iPhone4 will drop down when the iPhone5 is launched.

The only thing I'm hoping for now, is that Steve Jobs manages to get back to good health and launches this iPhone himself!

Yahoo Lets Microsoft's Deadline Pass Without Acting

Yahoo let Microsoft's deadline for a response to its $40 billion-plus offer for the Sunnyvale Internet company pass without a word on Saturday, putting the ball back in Microsoft's court.

Now, the stage is set for what could be a dramatic week.

Most analysts expect Microsoft to take its offer directly to shareholders at Yahoo's annual meeting by proposing its own slate of directors for Yahoo's board and letting stock owners decide then whether they want to accept Microsoft's offer.

But there are other possibilities: Microsoft could withdraw its offer, at least for the time being, figuring it could always come back at Yahoo later. Or it could extend the deadline hoping to still hammer out a deal. And finally, Yahoo could announce it has a deal with another partner.

"We'll see what next week brings," Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Christopher Lidell said Friday.

If there's no move from Yahoo, Lidell said, the company can either go directly to Yahoo shareholders or "walk away."

The passing of the deadline prolongs a standoff that began Feb. 1 with Microsoft's offer of $44.6 billion, or $31 a share, and Yahoo insisting it was worth far more. But the value of the half-cash, half-stock deal has actually fallen since it was first announced, as shares of both companies have declined. Yahoo shares closed Friday at $26.80; Microsoft's at $29.83, down from $30.50 the day the deal was announced.


Yahoo has been scrambling without much success to find alternatives to a Microsoft deal, after postponing its annual meeting to give itself more time to weigh its options.

It has not set a date for the annual meeting and has until mid-July to hold one under the law in Delaware, where the company is incorporated. The deadline for nominating outside directors is now an unspecified date sometime later this year but before the meeting.

At this point, the issue is largely price. Yahoo is holding out for considerably more, and Microsoft has been holding firm at $31 a share.

Industry observers expect a deal to be struck, possibly for as much as $34 a share, but it's possible that the issue won't be resolved until the summer and Yahoo's annual meeting.

Bernstein Research analyst Jeffrey Lindsay predicted in a note Friday that the acquisition would be over before the end of July at a "slightly improved price."

"It will be a good, old-fashioned proxy fight," Lindsay said in an interview, using the term for a battle for control of a corporate board. "At any time up to then, Yahoo can throw in the towel and negotiate."

Microsoft has been growing impatient. The company's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, complained in a letter to Yahoo's board April 5 that despite "some limited interaction" between the companies, "there has been no meaningful negotiation to conclude an agreement."

And Lidell said Thursday that Yahoo appeared to have "unrealistic expectations of value."

As the next step, Microsoft would file to nominate its slate of directors. Yahoo will accept nominations up to 10 days after it announces its next annual meeting.

Yahoo spent weeks after Microsoft's offer trying to come up with alternatives to the deal with Microsoft. Though its board and top executives explored possible deals with Google, America Online and Time Warner and News Corp., little concrete came of it. Yahoo did announce a test in which Google would handle Yahoo's search advertising on a limited basis, but otherwise no other options have panned out.

Meanwhile, many Yahoo shareholders favored a sale at $31 or more.

Each company has been showing signs of age as the newer, nimbler Google dominates the lucrative business for Internet search advertising and begins to move into the area where Yahoo is strong: Internet display ads.

After years in denial, insiders say, Microsoft realized it had to catch up with Google before Google became the next Microsoft -- so entrenched that no competitor could dislodge it.

The Internet advertising market "is increasingly dominated by one player," Ballmer observed when he announced the offer for Yahoo on Feb. 1.

Both companies have been overtaken by Google, which had a better way of reaping revenue from ads placed on its search results pages. It rapidly outstripped Yahoo in online search advertising.

Yahoo has slumped badly in the past couple years. The day before Microsoft announced its offer, Yahoo closed at $19.18 a share -- half what it sold for two years earlier.

Microsoft has projected $1 billion in cost savings from combining the companies' two Internet operations. Analyst Sandeep Aggarwal of Collins Stewart in San Francisco, assigning a 90 percent probability that Microsoft will acquire Yahoo, said he thinks Microsoft will absorb "a large portion" of Yahoo's employees.

In any case, such a deal would remove a storied corporate headquarters from Silicon Valley and end an entrepreneurial saga that began in 1994 when two Stanford University graduate students created the search and Web directory technology that made Yahoo an Internet giant.

The students, Jerry Yang and David Filo, soon were attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors. They incorporated the following year and began charging for advertising on Yahoo's Web site.

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Microsoft Surface in AT&T stores

AT&T became the first retail store to showcase and utilize the Microsoft Surface.

The Microsoft Surface is a hardware and software combination technology that allows a user or multiple users to manipulate digital content by use of hand gestures, natural motions or physical objects.

AT&T is using the Surface in five locations in four different cities which are Atlanta, San Antonio, San Francisco and New York. A total of 22 devices have been sent to AT&T's stores.

Customers are allowed to place devices on the surface which in turn will read the devices such as a cell phone and give the customers information about the device.

If there is a good response AT&T might start using the Surface for purchasing ringtones, graphics, video content and the like using the Surfaces's multi-touch gestures. Customers can also view interactive coverage maps and use touch and hand movements to determine the
coverage areas for their wireless service.

The stores with the Surface have got many customers compared to before, most of them who just came to get a hands-on on the device.

Adobe launches free Web version of Photoshop

The maker of the popular photo-editing software Photoshop on Thursday launched a basic version available for free online.

San Jose, Calif.-based Adobe Systems Inc. says it hopes to boost its name recognition among a new generation of consumers who edit, store and share photos online.

While Photoshop is designed for trained professionals, Adobe says Photoshop Express, which it launched in a "beta" test version, is easier to learn. User comments will be taken into account for future upgrades.

Photoshop Express will be completely Web-based so consumers can use it with any type of computer, operating system and browser. And, once they register, users can get to their accounts from different computers.

Web-based software is increasingly popular, and Adobe knows it's got to get on that train, said Kathleen Maher, an analyst at Jon Peddie Research.

Many kinds of software are available for use online in a trend known as "software as a service," or "cloud computing." The earliest were e-mail programs, but they now include services to create and manage content and even whole operating systems. And they don't require time-consuming upgrades because they're maintained by the service provider.

Google Inc. provides a host of such services, as do Microsoft Corp. and others.

"This is the battlefield where Adobe and Microsoft and Google are going to fight some pretty big battles," Maher said.

Photoshop enters the online photo-management arena many years after such services first appeared. Some companies have already made a big name for themselves, like 9-year-old storage solution Shutterfly Inc., photo-editing service Picnik or image-sharing site Photobucket Inc.

Adobe says providing Photoshop Express for free is part marketing and part a strategy to create up-sell opportunities. It hopes some customers will move from it to boxed software like its $99 Photoshop Elements or to a subscription-based version of Express that's in the works.

Ron Glaz, a research analyst at IDC, says the move was necessary for Adobe to keep pace. Users are less likely to switch to a software they aren't familiar with, he said.

"They have a whole market that they are missing out on, and they need to make sure that the market is aware there is a Photoshop solution for them. As that market grows and becomes more sophisticated, hopefully it will generate money," Glaz said.

"It's one of those things, if you can't beat them, join them," Glaz said. "If they don't join them, the long run could be really painful."

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NASA Budget Cuts Will Deactivate Mars Rover

Following a $4 million NASA budget cut, one of the twin Mars rovers will be deactivated while the other limited in its activities, mission team members announced Monday.

The budget cut was announced in a letter delivered Wednesday to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, which manages the rovers. JPL plans to appeal the cut.

It costs NASA about $20 million a year to keep the rovers going, and both are now in their fourth year of exploration. The crafts were initially planned for three-month missions at a cost of $820 million.

The report comes on the heels of budget cutbacks at NASA headquarters, which is struggling to manage both the Mars exploration and projects to study the rest of the solar system.

The twin, solar-powered rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have impressed scientists and the public alike, with discoveries of geologic evidence that water once flowed at or near the surface of Mars.

Steve Squyres, principal investigator from Cornell University, told the Associated Press that last week’s NASA directive to cut $4 million means Spirit will be put to sleep in the coming weeks.

“It’s very demoralizing for the team,” Squyres added.

Prior to the budget cuts, Spirit was due to gather atmospheric measurements as it sat on sunny slope during the Martian winter. But now, it will stay in hibernation mode for most of the winter and halt all gathering of measurements.

The cut comes amid an extensive exploration campaign by the robots, according to deputy principal investigator Ray Arvidson of Washington University in St. Louis.

“We’re not done. There is still a lot to explore,” Arvidson told the Associated Press.

Besides deactivating Spirit, scientists will likely also have to reduce Opportunity’s exploration, which is currently probing a large crater near Mars’ equator. Instead of sending up daily commands to Opportunity to drive or explore a rock, its activities may be limited to every other day, said John Callas, JPL’s Mars Exploration Rover project manager.

“These rovers are still viable, capable vehicles in very good health,” Callas told the Associated Press. “Any cut at any time when these rovers are healthy would be bad timing,”

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On the Net:

Mars rovers: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/

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Replacing Wire With Laser, Sun Tries to Speed Up Data

Sun Microsystems is gambling on using beams of light to connect processor chips, eliminating a bottleneck.

Sun Microsystems is trying to do for computing what all the king’s horses and men failed to do for Humpty Dumpty. For decades, the semiconductor industry has broken silicon wafers into smaller chips to improve manufacturing yields.

Now Sun has found a way to reconnect the chips so they can communicate with each other at such high speeds that computer designers can build a new generation of computers that are faster, more energy-efficient and more compact.

The computer maker, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., plans to announce on Monday that it has received a $44 million contract from the Pentagon to explore the high-risk idea of replacing the wires between computer chips with laser beams.

The technology, part of a field of computer science known as silicon photonics, would eradicate the most daunting bottleneck facing today’s supercomputer designers: moving information rapidly to solve problems that require hundreds or thousands of processors.

Processor and memory chips are currently made by etching hundreds or thousands of identical circuits onto a single wafer of silicon and then slicing that wafer into fingernail-size chips. That manufacturing process ensures that if there is a defect at a single spot on the giant wafer it will not ruin the entire batch of chips.

The drawback in the approach is that wires have to connect the chips in a computer. This causes a fundamental limit in processing power because data moves between chips at lower speeds, creating significant bottlenecks.

The wires that connect chips are analogous to the on and off ramps that cars use to move between freeways — just as cars slow down as they move onto city streets from multilane highways, electrical signals run more slowly between chips. The bottlenecks also generate additional electrical current and heat.

“All of a sudden it’s better to have an optical superhighway,” said Greg Papadopoulos, chief technology officer and executive vice president of research and development for Sun.

Computer scientists have long sought a way to make faster and cheaper computers by making larger chips on a single wafer of silicon, a manufacturing process called “wafer scale integration.” If the Sun researchers’ idea can be proved technically feasible and manufactured commercially, it would be possible to create more-compact machines that are a thousand times faster than today’s computers, the company said. Each chip would be able to communicate directly with every other chip in the array via a beam of laser light that could carry tens billions of bits of data a second.

The Sun researchers acknowledge that their project is a significant gamble.

“This is a high-risk program,” said Ron Ho, a researcher at Sun Laboratories who is one of the leaders of the effort. “We expect a 50 percent chance of failure, but if we win we can have as much as a thousand times increase in performance.”

Silicon photonics has become hot recently with major semiconductor and computer companies as well as start-ups investing heavily in efforts to build optical networking directly into processors to replace electrical wires.

Last week, the NEC Corporation, the Japanese supercomputer maker, announced that it had made an advance in optical connections between chips that will pave the way for a supercomputer able to reach speeds up to 10 petaflops, or 10 million trillion instructions a second. That is about 20 times faster than the world’s fastest computer.

Sun’s partners on the project are Stanford and the University of California, San Diego, and two silicon photonics firms, Luxtera and Kotura. The Sun bid was chosen over three competing teams from Intel and Hewlett-Packard; I.B.M.; and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The five-year program is being financed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and it builds on a Sun research project that was intended to interconnect chips electrically by stacking them edge to edge.

In 2003, a group of Sun researchers led by Ivan Sutherland, a computer industry pioneer, reported that they were able to transmit data inside a computer much more quickly than current techniques allowed. In an interview at Sun’s research laboratory last month, Jim Mitchell, a Sun vice president, said that the original technology was now moving closer to commercialization.

However, the new approach, which is based on the company’s ability to accurately align chips with high precision making it possible to transmit beams of light across the surface of the chips in ultranarrow channels called wave guides, could have a much bigger impact.

The Sun researchers refer to their new system as a “macrochip.” They said that the technology would make it possible for computer architects to completely rethink the organization of circuitry on a computer.

“It’s like the difference between having someone next door and having to get on an airplane to fly across the country,” said Alan Huang, an optical networking designer at the Terabit Corporation in Menlo Park, Calif. “This would be a way of breaking Moore’s Law.”

Moore’s Law is an observation by Intel founder Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles roughly every two years.

The Sun researchers said they believe that their alignment technique, which they plan to describe in a scientific paper, will make their systems more compact and easier to manufacture than their competitors’.

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Microsoft, Intel give US$20M for multi-core research

Microsoft and Intel are donating $20 million to two U.S. universities for parallel-computing research.

Imagine a man you know but whose name you can’t remember approaches you, and your mobile phone uses face-recognition capability to give you his name and information about him before he says hello. This is the kind of application that researchers hope will be developed from US$20 million Microsoft and Intel are giving two U.S. universities for research on parallel computing.

The companies are donating the money to Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRCs) at the University of California Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, they announced at a news conference on Tuesday. The centers are aimed at tackling the challenges of programming for processors that have more than one core and so can carry out more than one set of program instructions at a time, a scenario known as parallel computing.In addition to the $20 million, the University of Illinois will provide $8 million to fund its center, and UC Berkeley has applied for $7 million in grants for its research.UC Berkeley quietly opened its Parallel Computing Lab in January, according to aUC Berkeley Web site. The lab was born out of research done there and published in a white paper by researchers at Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences department in 2006.

In the paper, they said the current evolution of programming models from single-core to the dual-core and quad-core processors available today from Intel and AMD won’t work for a future where processors could have as many as 16, 32 or hundreds of processors. They set out to find a better way to develop programming models to meet the challenges of multi-core chips.

UC Berkeley’s David Patterson, a professor of computer science and director of the UPCRC, described the problem as one of designing programs to take advantage of parallel computing’s ability to divvy up workloads across different processors. On Tuesday’s conference call, he compared the scenario to dividing the work of writing one story between 16, or even hundreds, of reporters. While the work could potentially be done 16 — or even hundreds of times — faster, “we won’t get to deliver on that performance without balancing the work well,” he said.

Microsoft’s and Intel’s interest in parallel computing is not merely altruistic — both companies already are doing their own research so they can take advantage of the computing power that comes with multi-core technology, and thus gain a competitive advantage in their respective software and processor markets. The agendas of the research centers will align closely with Intel’s Tera-scale Computing Research Program and Microsoft’s Technical Computing Initiative, the companies said.

As for some of the real-world applications of parallel computing, Patterson and Marc Snir, professor of computer science at the University of Illinois, said if researchers can use programming to harness the capabilities of multi-core machines, it will give mobile devices the computing performance that today comes only from supercomputers.

Patterson described the scenario in which a mobile phone might use face-recognition technology to save someone — he used himself as an example — from an embarrassing situation of not knowing a person’s name. “I’d personally be excited to buy a cell phone that has that technology,” because this is a situation he often encounters as a university professor, Patterson said.

Fourteen members from the UC Berkeley faculty, as well as 50 doctoral students and postdoctoral researchers, will staff the UPCRC, while the center at the University of Illinois will be led by Snir and Wen-Mei Hwu, professor of electrical and computer engineering. Twenty additional faculty members and 26 graduate students and researchers also will participate in research at the Illinois center. Both centers will make software available to the technology community for additional development.

While there are only dual-core and quad-core processors available today, Intel plans to release a six-core processor, code-named Dunnington, in the second half of this year, and an eight-core processor, called Nehalem, at some point in the future.

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