After banning the troops from YouTube in 2007 for bandwidth and security issues, the Military is attempting to turn a quagmire into something positive.

The attempt, better known as the US Military’s new video sharing site, aptly named TroopTube, is already up and running. Potential members can register as a member of one of the three braches of the armed forces, a family member, or a civilian. Once registered, users can upload personal videos. But instead of being simply processed, this time the video is screened by a Pentagon employee to ensure that there isn’t anything naughty.

“A lot of people are excited … to be doing something for the people who make sacrifices,” said Alex Castro, the Chief Executive on the project. “We're proud of this.”

Dell has decided to pass on releasing their MP3 player this holiday season. With no real reason cited for the delay, it looks like Apple can sit back and let their iPod dominate the sales charts once again.

While the release of the MP3 player has been put on pause, their work on the planned entertainment software, Zing, has continued and is expected to release sometime this fall. Zing is purported to organize downloaded music and movies on PCs.

With any luck, this will give Dell more time to finely tune their product. Jumping into an Apple dominated market isn’t something that… anyone has succeeded at. But with 2003’s DJ Ditty failure behind them, perhaps Dell has learned their lesson.

Arizona-based Hyperion Power Generation is looking to take what was once a mammoth-sized power generator and shrink it down to a fraction of that size, thanks to some technology licensed from the U.S. government. They call it the Hyperion Hydride Reactor.

The Hyperion Hydride Reactor is a self-operating nuclear powered reactor that will output 27MW of power (enough to power 20,000 homes), won’t have any movable parts, will be self-operating and other than refueling, won’t require any maintenance. And unlike normal nuclear reactors, the need for water-cooling has be eliminated. This gives it the unique option to be placed anywhere.

According to Hyperion’s CEO, John Deal, their goal is “…to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world.” And with the technology behind it, they’ve even managed to garner interest from the oil and electricity industries, as well as developing nations.

The reactor’s uranium hydride core is surrounded by hydrogen gas will only need to be refueled every 7-10 years. Other than that, it will remain completely undisturbed.

For many, supercomputing seems like something that’s out of reach. At the most, we’ll usually just contribute our spare processor cycles to a project that involves it. But Purdue University is looking to change all that with their latest venture, Rack-A-Node.

Rack-A-Node is a flash-based game that requires you to become the network admin, and set up each rack so that they hold a solid cluster of servers that are good at tackling a variety of different tasks. From chemistry to physics, it’s all up to you to figure out if you’ll need more CPU power, more RAM or a wicked fast connection.

While the game isn’t meant to actually turn the average man into a supercomputing whiz, it is meant to let us get one step closer to it. “This is a dry and boring topic even for geeks,” claimed Gerry McCartney, the chief information officer at Purdue. “So, we wanted a way to get people excited about these things.”

Evidently they’ve been asked to create a more sophisticated version of the game that would be designed as a learning tool. “It is not stupid right now, but it’s way too simple,” Mr. McCartney said.

While we’re very aware of Wolf Blitzer’s use of holograms in this last election, the Army is looking to make his attempt seem foolish. Recently the Army has gotten themselves in deep with some futuristic technology that could lead to quantum computing, holograms and even the ability to hunt evil in Azeroth.

Dr. John Parmentola, the Director of Research and Laboratory Management with the Army’s science and technology office said that they’re working on turning “science fiction into reality.” They’re doing so by creating holographic images that are supposedly photorealistic. They’ve even got one lined up to be the greeter at next month’s Army Science Conference.

They’re doing so by using what they’re calling “quantum ghost imaging.” This is a process where images are rendered by pairing photons that do not reflect or bounce off an object, but off of other protons that have.

Using this technology, they’re hoping to create realistic looking and acting human beings. “I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them questions and they’re responding,” said Parmentola.

And as it turns out, their means of testing out the virtual humans is through World of Warcraft. “We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they’re good enough to convince humans that they’re actually human,” stated Parmentola.

Some might argue that the mouse is currently a great tool for playing games of just about any genre, but Mgestyk Technologies politely disagrees. With the first (planned) public sale of a gesture control system, they seek to bring the Minority Report-like action straight to you.

Using only what’s been described as an “affordable 3D camera” and some proprietary software that will capture small hand gestures, they plan on challenging everyone’s favorite – the mouse. Understandably, some gamers might be reluctant to give up their Logitech or Razer in favor of holding their hands in front of a camera, there are undoubtedly some pretty notable foundations here.

In a video provided by Mgestyk there’s some pretty interesting footage demonstrating the technology that they've come up with. While yes, the reaction time between gesture and response may be a big higher than desired, there are plenty of people that have expressed interest. Mgestyk claims that they’ve got a waiting list for people looking to get their hands on the tech, and they aren’t willing to commit a release date or a price.

3D displays aren’t high on the list of things probable to be the next major form of home entertainment, but that hasn’t bothered JVC one bit. They’ve just announced their first 3D projector designed for home theaters, the DLA-RS2.

The projector won’t require any glasses; instead it uses D-ILA projection and stereoscopic video processing to present a 1080p 3D adventure.

Details are few and far between on the projector at the moment, but it has been confirmed that SENSIO 3D technology is at the heart, and it will provide a 30,000:1 contrast ratio. While the projector will require 3D content to make 3D images, it will be also compatible with DVD and Blu-ray discs until those become more common.

No word yet on the price, but it will be ready to take home sometime in 2009.

As it turns out, YouTube’s recent addition of their theater mode will be used for not only longer high-def videos, but full-length feature films as well. One of Hollywood’s biggest (and still unnamed) movie studios could be adding content to the site as early as next month.

Google has been in talks with major film companies for months about launching ad-supported movies on YouTube, and two unnamed executives stated that the deal wouldn’t be sealed immediately, “But it's going to happen. I would say you can expect to see it, if all goes well, sometime within the next 30 to 90 days.”

Currently Hulu is the leader in online hi-def video and YouTube is hoping to take a shot at the throne. Hulu has found an honorable halfway point between ads and content, but it remains unclear that YouTube will be able to replicate that. Google has yet to disclose any specifics, but a spokeswoman commented, “We are in negotiations with a variety of entertainment companies. Our goal is to offer maximum choice for our users, partners, and advertisers.” While blanket statements are fun, they leave much to be desired.

I suppose, with most deals like this one, we’ll have to wait and see what happens.

While the solid state drive market might seem like it’s sprawling, Seagate politely disagrees… for now. The world’s largest hard drive maker is planning to get into the SSD game in mid-2009, when there will be more possibilities to make money.

Seagate’s CEO Bill Watkins recently said in an interview, “The problem is you can't make money out of it [mobile flash memory]… I don't need to get into a market I can't make money out of. I can get into that market any time - all I have to do is show up with a product and price it. The problem is, I can't show up with a product that's any better or significantly better than what they're getting now so I have to match their price.” And, according to Watkins both Micron and Samsung (big names in the current SSD industry) are selling at a loss. “To do the product is not a big deal but to make money at it - it's important to us.”

Aside from mentioning Seagate’s will to do well financially in the flash market, some plans were finally outlined by Watkins as to just how they’ll break onto the scene. They plan to do so with a “combo” drive. The Seagate drive will feature both single layer chips and multilayer chips of flash memory. The combination of these two technologies will offset the pros and cons of each, providing both a reliable and reasonably priced drive.

Your eyes are great tools. Currently they’re reading these words on this screen (hi!), and they’re used to watch everything from paint drying to glorious movies. And while the movies are more fun to watch than paint drying, the latter of the two actually provides richer color.

The reason that movies aren’t giving your eyes the rich color that they so desperately crave is because of the range of color produced by current technology. The best digital theaters can only provide 50 percent of the range of color that your eyes can perceive (technical term: the gamut). While traditional film can give 60 percent, its decay makes it less desirable.

But, your eyes are on the verge of feasting on something fresh. New digital cinema projectors based on lasers offer the possibility of providing up to 80 percent of the gamut to your eyes. This is all thanks to a group of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and a firm named Phoebus Vision OptoElectronics Technology.

While the concept of lasers being used as a projection source dates all the way back to the 1960’s, the bulk and expense of lasers made them impractical. Laser light of yesteryear also “speckled,” meaning that it would scatter off any rough surface, creating a shimmering and sparkling pattern. Or, in laymen’s terms, it would create a dull image.

Lasers still have a pretty sizeable cost; currently one of these projectors will cost 20 times as much as a normal digital projector. But, as the cost of lasers continues to drop, so will these prices.

Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have created a method to calculate how different degrees of strain affect electronic structures in silicon. Sound confusing? Well, truthfully it is, but it could soon bring you new CPUs that produce much less heat and use less power.

Today’s strained silicon is very limited. This is mostly caused by the techniques that are in place to create it, and the physics of strain (which still haven’t been fully mapped out). But, thanks to a team of dedicated researchers led by Max Lagally, the Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at UW-M, this is all about to change.

The creation process, which previously didn’t always provide a uniform stretch of the silicon across the surface of the chip, has been drastically changed thanks to the research of Legally’s team. Having mapped out the effects of strain on electric structures in silicon, they finally understand why there are drastic increases and decreases in electron mobility from sheet to sheet. This will allow them a more uniform creation process that will produce more predictable results.

To produce their samples they stretched out films of silicon for research. “Imagine [attaching] a ring and a hook to all four corners [of a piece of thin film silicon] and pulling equally on all four corners like a trampoline,” said Legally, “it stretches out like that.”

Should this research come full circle, there’s no doubt that we’ll all reap the rewards.

November 1 quite literally marked the end of an era. Windows 3.x, which was released back in 1990, is now officially a part of the past. Microsoft finally stopped issuing licenses for the software, which originally brought them worldwide success on the platform of graphical user interfaces.

While 3.x lives in relative obscurity today, it still has some very sizeable tasks placed at its feet. Many cash registers and ticketing systems are still powered by the aging OS. Even in-flight entertainment systems on some Virgin and Quantas jets use 3.x as their platform of choice when bringing long-haul flight customers such cinematic masterpieces as Tim Allen’s, “The Shaggy Dog.”

This has everything to do with what’s under the hood of 3.x. Stefan Berka, who is responsible for the GUI Documentation Project stated that the important technical innovations in the software were its extended memory that could address more than 640KB and vast improvements to hardware support. Not to mention its 100 percent compatibility with older MSDOS applications.

The age ushered in by 3.x required at least an 8086/8088 processor (or better) with a clock speed of at least 10MHz. Along with that, it required a brawny 640KB of RAM and seven MB of HDD space to store it all.

3.x, you’ve served us well. We salute you on your service, and hope that others take after your example. You will be missed.

According to Chinese researchers, sheets made of carbon nanotubes will act like a loudspeaker when charged with a varying electric current. This discovery could lead to a new era of cheap, flat speakers.

Shoushan Fan of the Tsinghua University in Beijing and his team have been working alongside a team of researchers at Beijing Normal University (a name that truly inspires confidence), to create the first speaker sheet by aligning numerous 10-nanometer-diameter carbon nanotubes. When an audio frequency current was sent through the sheet they found that it acted as a loudspeaker. While the reaction causes the sheet to heat up to temperatures of 80°C, it’s expected that consumer use will only cause the sheet to rise slightly above room temperature.

According to Kaili Jiang, a member of Fan’s team, the speakers have a great deal of potential in them for uses that you wouldn’t see from a conventional speaker. The team has found that the flexible sheets can be stretched until they become transparent. They could then be attached to the front of an LCD screen to replace standard speakers. They even mentioned the possibility of singing and speaking jackets.

While Windows 7 is shaping up to be something fresh and new, this pre-beta isn’t anything to worry about. To spend the time, bandwidth (especially for Comcast and AT&T users) and electricity downloading this pirated version of the fledgling OS would be cheating yourself, because this pre-beta comes up low on the impressive meter. And plus, we can’t in all good consciousness condone pirating software.

While the accidental release of the build of Windows 7 came through the Pirate Bay and Mininova (in convenient 32-bit and 64-bit formats!), it was originally intended for an unnamed group of developers. The downloads of Microsoft’s OS of tomorrow have been off the charts as well, with one particular copy providing more than 1,000 uploaders, and roughly 7,000 downloaders.

The build that’s being sought so desperately is a notably incomplete version. It’s missing taskbar updates, as well as other large features. According to comment threads on the torrent sites, most users are unimpressed with what they’ve found. But with a pre-beta, what did they expect?

With some news straight out of the “didn’t we just hear about something like this?” file (we did), some groundbreaking research has revealed that a near perfect solar panel has been created.

Scientists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have allegedly found a process that allows them to trap nine out of ten photons that hit a solar panel, providing a 90 percent collection rate. A new anti-reflective coating for the panels provides grounds for creating solar panels that don’t have to change their angle in order to collect energy.

With current technology, the photon absorption rate stands at an already impressive 67.4 percent, with the variable of whether or not the sun is actually hitting the cells. But the new cells which according to Shawn-Yu Lin, the man responsible for the project, function like a “dense forest where sunlight is ‘captured’ between the trees.” This happens through a process that not only involves the new anti-reflective coating, but also the bending of the path of the sunlight to an angle that allows maximum capture of sunlight.

With all possible variables at their best, Lin claims that the cells can capture 96.21 percent of the photons that hit their surface.

While Apple may not be offering anything new this holiday season, there’s a good chance that Asus might. According to notebook component vendors, Asus may be planning to introduce a 12-inch notebook, similar to the high-end Eee PC S101.

Claims have been reported that the S101 was originally designed for Asus’ ZX series, but Asus decided to ultimately add it to the netbook line as the demand for a high-end Eee PC grew. The rumored 12-inch ZX is supposed to have similar functionality to the Eee, but with bonus screen real estate, packing a respectable 16:10 aspect ratio.

The rumored notebook is supposed to be launched by the end of 2008, with a price point lower than $1,000. So keep your eyes open in the coming weeks, the holiday season is just around the corner.

According to a recently filed lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Dell has been mighty selective about who they’ve been firing lately.

In May of 2007 Dell had announced that they would be eliminating approximately 8,800 of their employees. These layoffs apparently focused on women and older employees, resulting in a nearly 80 percentile of Dell’s upper management team being male, according to the lawsuit.

“While Dell publicly proclaims a commitment to diversity as ‘an essential element of our corporate values,’ the reality fails to live up to the rhetoric,” states Steven Wittels, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs. “At Dell, it is an understatement to say that women face a glass ceiling; Dell’s glass ceiling is made of concrete.”

According to alleged statistical data the plaintiffs maintain that they’ve lost more than $1 million in salary and other benefits as a result of the discrimination.

But, according to Dell’s web site, their workforce is one third women and 32 percent of their U.S. vice presidents are women or minorities. Perhaps once the plaintiff’s numbers arise we’ll really see what goes on behind closed doors.

For the first time in… ever, Apple has gone ahead and crushed a rumor. Specifically, about the possibility of there being new Macs before the holidays.

A (previously) circulating rumor about the chances of a new Mac mini or iMac being released before this upcoming holiday season has been debunked by Apple spokesman Bill Evans. Evans, clearly being a man of few words, simply stated, “our holiday lineup is set.”

Translation; this isn’t Apple pulling anyone’s chain. If you’re looking to buy someone a shiny new toy from the Cupertino giant, go right ahead. They’re not going to risk making the Apple faithful or new switchers mad by releasing a new version of a product right after they’ve finished their holiday shopping, so put your mind (but not your wallet) at ease.

For many of us, the idea of building your own laptop seems pretty farfetched. But OCZ is looking to change all of that with a recently announced 15” DIY gaming notebook. The notebook will be based on Intel’s Centrino 2 processor and ATI’s Radeon HD3650 integrated graphics. According to OCZ, these will “provide a premium gaming experience that lets gamers power through all of today's most advanced and graphic-intensive games and applications with DirectX 10.1 compatibility.”

“At OCZ, empowering the enthusiast end-user in the mobile gaming space is an exciting opportunity for us, and with the powerful technology found in our latest Intel Centrino 2 based notebook we are again at the forefront of this growing market,” states Ryan Edwards, Director of Product Management, in OCZ’s the press release. “With OCZ DIY notebooks, end-users have complete control of the cost/performance ratio of key components, giving consumers the opportunity to personalize a true gaming and multi-tasking powerhouse notebook by using a validated component list and our easy to follow step-by-step manual included with every DIY package.”

While the notebook isn’t one that you’ll be building from the ground up, there are plenty of great options to give it a DIY feel. In the box you’ll get the case of the machine, which features a 15” screen, optical drive, and motherboard while the HDD (or SSD), memory and processor are your call. Thanks to some conveniently placed covers, all it takes to install the components is a screwdriver a little bit of know-how. OCZ even provides a catalog of components that work in each slot, so you’ll have a short list of parts to choose from when deliberating on what to use.

For true DIY’ers, this isn’t much to concern yourself with. But if you’re someone looking for a way to get your feet wet in the DIY scene (and it truly is the place to be), this isn’t a bad place to start. Follow the simple instructions and the fundamentals of building a PC are all yours.

AMD’s logo isn’t the only green thing around their offices. For the eighth year in a row the chip maker has announced an Annual Global Climate Protection Plan to keep with their current trends of cutting down on their greenhouse gas emissions, and improving their manufacturing process.

AMD’s been keeping good on their promises too. They’ve been able to exceed their commitments from 2002-2007 by reducing their greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent and their normalized energy consumption by 30 percent. Not bad!

They’re even looking to report on their “Scope 3” gas emissions. Scope 3 emissions are any and all emissions that are associated with supply chain, product distribution and employee business travel. How they’re planning to do so isn’t detailed, but so far they’ve done a top-notch job, so there’s little doubt that they’ll have any issues with this.

According to Dirk Meyer, president and chief executive officer of AMD, “By continuing to expand and share AMD’s climate change strategy and performance metrics with the general public, governments, suppliers, industry groups, and the scientific community, AMD is enabling others to benefit from our experiences as we learn from theirs. Transparency and collaborative innovation are hallmarks of AMD’s approach to global climate protection, and represent a fusion of our efforts married to the industry’s best practices, such as supply chain accountability.”