Daily News Brief: AT&T to Offer Microsoft Surface

Posted 04/02/2008 at 1:49pm | by

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Microsoft Surface Surfaces in Stores

AT&T got the jump on Apple's iPhone, and now the communications giant will be the first to offer Microsoft's Surface with a launch scheduled for April 17. AT&T will roll out the 30-inch table-like display in select retail locations, including stores in New York City, Atlanta, San Antonio, and San Francisco, with plans for expansion across AT&T's 2.200 U.S. stores still to be determined. Maximum PC Windows blogger/guru Mark Soper has more on Microsoft's Surface technology and touch-sensitive table-top computing here.

New Videocards Launched

• Originally planned to debut a week ago, NVIDIA officially launched their 9800GTX videocard yesterday. Essentially a souped-up 8800GTS (G92), NVIDIA's new high-end card brings support for 3-way SLI to the table. To power the 9800GTX, you'll need two six-pin PCI-E power connectors. Street pricing currently hovers around the $330 mark.
• While NVIDIA's been keeping busy in the desktop market, AMD made waves among workstation warriors. The new FireGL V7700 comes equipped with a DisplayPort output, the first workstation videocard to include this feature. Based on the AMD RV670 core, the FireGL boasts 320 stream processors, Shader Model 4.0 support, 512MB memory, and PCI-E 2.0 support.

Microsoft Wins Standards Battle

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) said it would reveal on Wednesday their decision regarding Microsoft's bid to have its Office Open XML (OOXML) document format made into a global industry standard, but it appears Microsoft has won. The OpenDoc Society, who opposed the ratification, published results showing Microsoft's win, which could help the software giant land big government contracts. Read more here, including Microsoft's reaction to the news.

Pwn 2 Own Auction Pulled

Shane Macaulay successfully hacked a laptop running Windows Vista during CanSecWest's Pwn 2 Own contest, but he failed to auction off his prize on Ebay. Macaulay listed the cracked laptop on Ebay, which he won from the contest, claiming that the exploit code could likely be extracted by the winner. Ebay pulled the auction, but had it sold before the auction site managed to remove the listing, Macaulay would have violated his contract with TippingPoint and been disqualified from the program, forfeiting his $5000 prize in the process.

Creative Cautiously Backpeddles

After the massive backlash from angered customers and even a boycotting vendor, Creative softened their stance towards the now infamous Daniel_K and his modified soundcard drivers. Through Creative Labs moderator Dale-CL, Phil O'Shaughness, Creative's VP Corporate Communications, had strong words for Daniel, but today the original post sings a different tune. Rather than accusing Daniel of "stealing," Creative expressed a desire to work with third party driver developers, and specifically "hope to work out a mutually agreeable method for working with Daniel_K in supporting his efforts."

Text Shopping

If you found the notion of a Text Messagaing Championship absurd, stop reading. Creating the ultimate addiction for text messaging shopping addict, Amazon.com yesterday unveiled their TextBuyIt service, enabling textaholics to find and buy products using, you guessed it, text messaging. Look up items by name, keyword, or ISBN/UPC code. Read the FAQ here.