Study claims Internet capacity growing faster than usage

Paul Mah — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:18:17 -0400

For those concerned that the Internet is running headlong into a monstrous traffic crunch, Internet monitor TeleGeography Research has released a report that should give some reassurance on this front. TeleGeography notes that while Internet traffic grew 53 percent between mid-2007 and mid-2008, Internet capacity grew faster, resulting in lower utilization on many Internet backbones.

However, utilization on the international links in the United States, Canada and Latin America rose as demand for the outpaced deployment of additional Internet bandwidth. Despite this fact, the findings could halt an effort in the U.S. that has put pressure on Internet Service Providers (ISP) to stop any form of bandwidth throttling. Then again, it could be argued that the only factor preventing even faster growth in Internet usage is the use of throttling.

For more on the growth of Internet traffic:
- check out this InformationWeek article

Dell looking at selling its factories

Paul Mah — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:14:07 -0400

Dell is attempting to sell its computer factories located around the world as part of an overhaul of its production strategy. Reports are coming in that Dell is in negotiation with "major contract manufacturers" to sell of most of its facilities. This could happen as early as within the next 18 months, according to reports. Other factories would just close.

The swift transition away from built-to-order PCs--or corporate customers ordering large numbers of desktop PCs--to laptops has left Dell, once the industry leader, lagging behind rivals. By outsourcing the manufacturing, Dell hopes to bring down manufacturing costs. Indeed, investors were left disappointed by quarterly profits that were reported as down 18 percent.

For more on how Dell is doing:
- check out this Wall Street Journal article

Sun releases second version of xVM VirtualBox

Paul Mah — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 11:10:17 -0400

The second version of xVM's VirtualBox desktop virtualization software has been released. VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware that is targeted for server, desktop and embedded use. This open-sourced software supports Solaris OS, OpenSolaris, Windows, Macintosh OS X, and Linux. Sun claims that it is finding traction, especially among Apple Macintosh users. According to the Steve Wilson, VP of xVM at Sun, "VirtualBox has deep integration with the Mac operating system's approach to networking." Round the clock support for VirtualBox is available for enterprise customers. Alternatively, you can download the code here, or visit its website for more information.

To read up more about this story:
- check out this InformationWeek article

Site owners complain about new search engine Cuil

Paul Mah — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:10:51 -0400

Barely more than a month after the launch of "Google Killer" Cuil, site owners are saying that its Twiceler indexing bot is causing mayhem on their sites with its overzealous indexing. One user even complained that the Twiceler robot visited "nearly 70,000 times" and in the process leeched off "nearly 2GB" of traffic prior to it being blocked. Others note that Cuil appears to repeatedly hit a site with pseudo-random URLs in attempts to find pages that are not linked directly to it. Cuil's Operational Engineer noted in defense of the search engine that Twiceler is an experimental crawler and it is important that robots.txt is obeyed. On a more sinister note, he also claimed that a number of crawlers appear to be masquerading as Twiceler. To be sure, site owners can consult the company's IP address page to verify that it really is Cuil.

To find out more about the Cuil search engine:
- check out this TechCrunch article

Intel adds low-cost quad-core processor to its lineup

Paul Mah — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:04:30 -0400

Intel has updated its processor lineup with low-cost quad-core and Core 2 Duo desktop processors. The quad-core Q8200 is listed at $224, and is the lowest-priced quad-core chip currently offered by Intel. The 45-nanometer processor comes with a clock speed of 2.33 GHz, 4MB of cache memory and runs off a speedy front-side bus of 1333 MHz. The new Core 2 Duo processor, the E5200, will be priced at $84 and come with a clock speed of 2.2 GHz, 512K of cache, as well as 800 MHz front-side bus. The new 2.2 GHz Celeron D processor is listed at $53.

For more on this:
- check out this CNET article

One-sided EULAs dealt a blow

Paul Mah — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:02:09 -0400

In a unanimous ruling, the Washington Supreme Court has affirmed that AT&T's service terms are "unconscionable." What that means is that the terms are such that no reasonable person would agree to them should they be aware of their full scope. The case came about when a customer who signed up for AT&T's long distance service was billed a monthly utility tax specific to the city of Wenatchee, even though the man himself lives outside the above-mentioned city. The man took AT&T to task by alleging violations of Washington's consumer-protection laws, triggering a string of events that resulted in the court ruling that the contract to be invalid in its entirety. Though the issues in this case apply only to the Washington State, and also rely on Washington's Consumer Protection Act, perhaps this could mark the beginning of the end of restrictive, one-sided service agreements.

For more on this legal case:
- check out this Ars Technica article

Microsoft patents 'page up' and 'page down'

Paul Mah — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 04:57:48 -0400

Microsoft was granted a patent on the ‘page up' and ‘page down' keystroke just a couple of weeks ago. As noted by ZDNet, US patent number 7,415,666 describes "a method and system in a document viewer for scrolling a substantially exact increment in a document, such as one page, regardless of whether the zoom is such that some, all or one page is currently being viewed." The patent was applied for by Microsoft in 2005, though I seem to remember seeing it on my first IBM-PC almost 15 years ago. Personally, I doubt Microsoft will be able to leverage this patent to milk any royalties. In all likelihood, the company is simply building up a war chest that it can use to mitigate patent litigation by other tech companies.

For more on this story:
- check out this ZDNet article