Coming Soon: Virtual Earth at Google and MSN

Having scoped my neighborhood with the overheads provided by Keyhole, recently acquired by Google, I can tell you that digital overhead photography on the Internet has gotten way better in the past five years. With better commercial satellites, desktop software and the desktop power to run it, and cheap storage for all those terabytes of territory, digital geogpaphy is better than ever.

Microsoft and Google will soon introduce new products, partly aimed at delivering a geographic context to retail storefronts.

Oh, and beware of lying naked in the privacy your backyard on a clear day. A few years ago, you'd be a pixel to a satellite. Maybe. Not anymore.

-- Peter S. Kastner

Real Time, Online Hunting Experience

Tired of playing first person shooters on your game console? Step right up and shoot live ammunition at targets via the Internet.

OK, target shooting remotely is not my cup of tea, but it's not controversial either.

What is controversial about this site is shooting live game over the Internet. You will be hearing more about this web site as soon as (fill in the blank from a very long list) finds out about it and a Congressman calls a press conference covered on the nightly news.

Hey, you heard it here first.

-- Peter S. Kastner

First Digital Mop Debuts

If you have any doubts that twenty years from now our lives will be fundamentally changed by digital consumer products, read this article. No, you may not want to buy a digital robot mop this afternoon. But think about the very smart people with Stanford MBAs who did market research which shows that there really is a market for robot mops.

Go figure!

-- Peter S. Kastner

Dell, HP, Lenovo Roll Out Dual-Core Desktops

As we posted on May 26th, Intel's aggressive pricing for the new Pentium D dual-core microprocessors gets immediate attention from the big PC OEMs.

HP announced the dc7600, a small-form factor desktop. Moving up to a dual-core 2.8GHz Pentium D from a single-core Pentium 4 costs $81 based on my use of HP's constantly changing configurator.

Dell's XPS 9100 is not as price attractive as the HP dc7600, but they are aimed different audiences.

Lenovo (aka IBM's former PC division) will deliver the A52 and M52 next month. you won't find it mentioned at the (IBM domain) web site yet.

-- Peter S. Kastner

Pod Guides, Another Creative Use for iPods

I have been watching the ecosystem build around Apple's iPod for about a year. It is truly impressive what human invention can do.

With the link above, you can get a free software template for podguides, a hodge-podge of HTML text, JPEG photos (including maps), and MP3 audios that can create a walking tour of a city, a demo run through, or any number other creative uses. With a photo iPod, you can take the text, photos, and audio with you on you iPod alone. The rest of us will have to print out the text and photos to view while listening to the audio walk-through.

One variation, pPod, is available for the loos of London. (Click on the link if you don't get it).

With tools like this, individuals can create localized or even highly personalized content and publish it for basically nothing. Podguides, a great idea. Four stars.

-- Peter S. Kastner

The Next IT Revolution

Remember that guy who said a couple of years ago in a Harvard Business Review article that IT added no value to enterprises? Yes, Nicholas Carr is the man.

I disagreed vehemently with his conclusions two years ago. This time, we are in agreement: technology and Internet business processes are converging in a way that favors the emergence of an IT utility. Users plug into it, like a wall power outlet. It's there, 24/7. It expands capacity on demand (to use IBM's name for this game).

Anyway, it will take ten or more years to play out. Historians looking at this blog can decide whether Mr. Carr and I are right. I have no doubt on the direction. It's the timing that's hazy -- and any tech marketer will tell you that timing is everything.

-- Peter S. Kastner

Microsoft Windows Server Takes Half the Loaf

For all the ink about the growth of Linux in the enterprise, the fact is that Microsft has executed methodically but without inspiration for the past five years (since Windows 2000). As a result of this hard work, Microsoft has now achieved parity with all other server operating systems platforms based on IDC's Q1 market research. Gartner reached a similar conclusion.

Microsoft should be pleased, as I see the trend continuing towards more Microsoft market share in servers. That is also good news for the hardware ecosystem, especially Intel and AMD.

-- Peter S. Kastner

Via Offers More Performance, Less Power With C7 Chip

The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Via's C7 will challenge Intel's mobile Centrino (Pentium M) with mid-range performance at only 15 watts of power. Based on my personal experience with past performance claims by Via, I will stand firmly in the "show me" column.

EU Gives Microsoft June 1 Deadline

Crunch time for Microsoft, the European Union, and litigants such as Real Networks. It will be interesting to see who bluffs, who folds, and who gets the pot. What are we talking about?

The EU is on the verge of deciding that Microsoft has not complied with its monopoly findings of some two years ago, which verdict Microsoft is appealing.

• Microsoft was ordered, and delivered, a version of Windows XP Home without Media Player 9, a bundling no-no according to the EU. Real Networks wants a crack at getting its own player on some OEM machines. Microsoft charges exactly the same price for the media player-less version, which none of the OEMs have ordered. The EU is mulling what the price difference should be, and if it really wants to get into the price setting game, let alone the technology price setting game. My take is Microsoft is right; the value is zero as anyone in the world can download the latest Media Player free at Microsoft.com.
• Licensing terms for third-parties who want to look at Microsoft source code and develop Microsoft-compatible interfaces. This is a big deal for companies like Apple and the Unix/Linux crowd, who need to tie into Microsoft client and server networks. Microsoft has proposed a few thousand dollars a day to look at the source code and from $100 to $800 a server for run-time licensing. The EU is mulling whether this is too stiff a tariff and non-compliant with the EU's directives.

How big is the pot? Well, the EU is blustering about 5% of Microsoft's global revenues. Before you go running for Microsoft's financials, that makes the fine over $5 million -- a day.

My bet is the EU will fold. There is no way the U.S. (president and Congress) will let the Europeans fine a U.S. company $5M a day for this situation.

-- Peter S. Kastner

10 tips for improving your wireless network: Extend the range and the strength of your wireless network

Sometimes we forget that when it comes to Windows, Microsoft is the expert. They offer a wide range of information. This article was published in February, but was recently featured from a link on the Microsoft home page. I think it gives some good advice overall, though I personally have had excellent results with "mixed" vendor networks. Still, in some cases -- expecially with some of the exotic wireless "G" variants, sticking with one vendor can be important.

Cohen disputes UK registry's legitimacy | The Register

Cohen disputes UK registry's legitimacy | The Register: "The company that runs the UK's Internet registry is not officially recognised by the government and as such has no right to decide what should be done with the millions of domains that it sells each year."
Who owns that domain? And who decides?
Joe

BT cracks down on rogue diallers | The Register

BT cracks down on rogue diallers | The Register: "BT is bragging that it's 'winning the fight against unwanted internet diallers' following the launch of its modem protection software at the beginning of May."
What will the porn sites do if that can't make your computer call off shore?
Joe

CIA plays cyberwar game | The Register

CIA plays cyberwar game | The Register: "The CIA is running a cyber wargame this week designed to test how effective authorities would be in withstanding an orchestrated hacking attack. "
Now they are playing real war games! :(
Joe

ZombieMeter keeps track of hacked PCs

If we've got to live with this stuff, we might as well have some fun with it. Now we have the ZombieMeter, a flash-based, graphical representation of the Zombie computers that plague the internet.

After looking at it, it sorta makes me want to go out and change the world, one computer user at a time. Oh yeah, that's what we are already trying to do.

Most popular downloads of the week from PCWorld.com

Most popular downloads of the week from PCWorld.com RSS feed.

http://rss.pcworld.com/rss/downloads.rss?period=week

Since I'm now a big RSS feed nut. Thought this might be of interest to the rest of you RSS feed nuts out there. You know who you are :-)
So copy and paste the above URL and start downloading.

SpywareBlaster Update Available

I'm not exactly sure when this update was released, but if you use Spywareblaster and haven't checked lately, go update to version 3.4.

Phishers get personal

Sometimes this endless war with the bad guys just gets tiring. But knowledge is power. So here's the latest information about how phishers work to ensnare you.

Microsoft security guru: Jot down your passwords

Okay, it's official now. It's okay to write down your passwords if you need to. (Unless your company disallows that). I mean for your personal computer at home or if your workplace allows. Use bettter passwords, and write 'em down so you don't forget them. It's okay. Really.

Intel Quietly Launches Dual Core Mainstream Processors

One of the bigger tech launches was made in virtual stealth mode today. I couldn't even find the press release on Intel's web site. The "Smithfield" dual core Pentium D microprocessors are out the door.
Pentium D uses two Prescott cores without Hyperthreading technology. The Intel Pentium D processors 840, 830 and 820 are priced at $530, $316 and $241, respectively, in 1,000-unit quantities. I expect machines based on the 820 chip, with dual 2.8 GHz processors, to be available in the $800 range for the fall back-to-school season. That's a lot of multi-tasking horsepower for the money.

A new Prescott Pentium 4 aimed at single-task business power users, model 670, was also introduced. The Intel Pentium 4 model 670 is priced at $851 in 1,000-unit quantities.

The Pentium D processors also harness the new 945 chipset. In various combinations, the feature set includes:

• 1066, 800, 533 MHz front-side bus speeds
• PCI Express with x16 in 1 or 2 slots
• a new graphics accelerator, the GMA 950
• High-definition digital audio
• RAID support for RAID 5 and RAID 10 joins the current RAID 0,1
• 3 Gbps SATA 3 disk drive support
• Business desktops can get out-of-band management, which alows a remote tech to diagnose and re-boot a blue screen or dead machine
• DDR2 memory, with new support for mis-matched memory chips. You won;t lose dual-channel performance if, for example, you use a 256 MB and 512 MB DIMMs in the same channel

25 new Intel motherboards were released today as well. A cursory analysis of the product sheets indicates:

• You can run a dual core 860 Extreme Edition chip in any of the 25 motherboards. All 25 mobos are LGA 775 pin-out with support for 1066, 800, and 533 MHz front-side bus speeds; SATA 3 and ATA 100 disks, 8 USB 2.0 ports, one parallel ATA slot with two ports, and "instantly available PC" technology that allows, say, a DVD to be played without booting an OS.
• ATX, microATX, and BTX form factors are all well represented. Pergaps BTX will now get off the ground.
• The value mobos support the older GMA 900 graphics. Buyers would do well to look for the GMA 950 with twice the performance, since graphics requirements are going nowhere but up, and the price difference is trivial.
• Half the boards have two PCI-E x16 slots. This means nVidia's SLI technology, which uses two graphics boards to deliver superior (and costly) gaming performance, will be widely supported by Intel -- and presumably other OEMs.
• A minimum of 10/100 Ethernet, with options for 1 GHz and the new iAMT management technology
• Ten boards have matrix disk technology, with built-in RAID 0, 1, 5, and 10.

If you would like my spreadsheet on the above features, e-mail peter(at)oncomputers(dot)info You know the drill.

OEM motherboard support from the usual Taiwan suspects is expected immenently with comparable features.

Pentium D will more than meet the requirements, including graphics, for Microsoft's Longhorn operating system, when that arrives in a year or two.

I do not know why Intel is not blowing its horn about Pentium D? Maybe they are miffed at the less than stellar reviews of the dual-core 860 HT chip against arch-rival AMD. My take is dual core is great for power users -- like those who follow On Computers -- who want the much better (e.g., less hour glass) performance that only comes from having two CPUs ready to handle the juggling from all the processes we have going all the time. My next desktop will definitely be dual-core. The pricing is aggressive, implying Intel wants to quickly get Pentium D into the mainstream price bands, and can meet a steep volume ramp.

-- Peter S. Kastner

Microsoft advises IE users to uninstall Netscape 8

I have no idea who is really at fault. There are suggestions that it is IE and there are suggestions that it is Netscape. In time, we will get a clearer picture of what is really going on.

So this is just a heads up. If you are using the new Netscape, you know the one that needs IE in order to work, then you may have problems with XLST files. If you have a problem with these files appearing blank, then you may want to look to this as the reason.