Posted 09/11/09 at 08:40:20 PM by Ryan Whitwam

Spotify is the sort of streaming digital music service you’ve probably been waiting for. Unless you also happen to be European, you’ll have to wait a while longer. The desktop and mobile apps can only be downloaded and used in several European countries at this time.

Spotify is scheduled to launch in the US later this year, or early 2010, but the details of how it will work stateside are still up in the air. In Europe the free version is ad supported, and the ad-free version runs €10 (about $16.60) per month. Due to the competition Spotify faces in the US from services like Pandora, the London based firm is considering a single “freemium” service. Users would be able to pay for specific features.

The service allows users to browse and play any of over 6 million tracks. It even supports offline caching for those times when an Internet connection isn’t available. There is no word yet on the fate of these details for a US release. Licensing negotiations are currently all that stand in the way of US access.

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Posted 09/01/09 at 02:26:14 PM by Andy Salisbury

Thanks to a prominently featured 24-inch touchscreen, the Medion X9613 HTPC promises to be a welcome addition to anyone’s home theater.

The X9613, which has currently only been announced for Europe, will come with Windows 7, a Core 2 Quad Q9000 processor, Nvidia GT240M graphics, 4GB of RAM, a Blu-ray drive and a second Slideshow monitor (speculated to be the small screen in the middle of the sensor bar). All in all, pretty generous stats for an all-in-one.

The expected price is anywhere from $2,100 to $2,700 – but that’s after conversion. No idea if/when it’ll be made available to us here in the states. If you’re interested in seeing more though, check out a video if it in action here.

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Posted 08/24/09 at 07:40:15 PM by Pulkit Chandna

As the upgrade version of Windows 7 is unavailable in Europe, Microsoft is offering the full version for the price one expects to pay for the upgrade version.  The price at which the full version is currently available in Europe has had everyone wondering how long it will last. Last week, an Amazon spokesperson told Cnet.co.uk to “treat this pricing as indefinite.” But when it comes to Windows 7 pricing, what Amazon says is of very little import compared to official word from Microsoft.

Microsoft blogger Brandon LeBlanc today made some key announcements concerning Windows 7 versions and pricing for Europe. According to his post on the Windows Team Blog, an upgrade version of Windows 7 will finally be available in Europe beginning September 1. The availability of an upgrade version in Europe will have a bearing on the price of the full version, with the latter’s price to be hiked when the upgrade version arrives. Till then, however, European consumers can continue to make the most of current Windows 7 pricing.

Microsoft has also announced that the Windows 7 Family Pack will also be available in eight European countries – apart from US and Canada- for a limited span of time. The eight European countries to have been promised a family pack option are UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Netherlands and Sweden.

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Posted 06/12/09 at 09:30:22 AM by Paul Lilly

When it comes to handing out fines, the European Commission doesn't mess around. Just last month the EC ____ slapped Intel with a record setting $1.45 billion after finding the chip maker guilty of anticompetitive practices, while in 2004, the EC slammed Microsoft with what today would amount to about a $790 million fine.

The aforementioned incidents no doubt weighing on Microsoft's mind, the software maker will release a version of Windows 7 in Europe with Internet Explorer 8 stripped out.

"To ensure that Microsoft is in compliance with European law, Microsoft will be releasing a separate version of Windows 7 for distribution in Europe that will not include Windows Internet Explorer," Microsoft said in a memo. "Microsoft will offer IE8 separately and free of charge and will make it easy an convenient for PC manufacturers to preinstall IE8 on Windows 7 machines in Europe if they so choose."

Probably a good move, as European regulators earlier this year warned that bundling a browser in Windows would likely violate European antitrust law.

Much more on the topic here.

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Posted 05/02/09 at 08:14:58 PM by Justin Kerr

Let it not be said that the European Union is playing favorites when it picks on Microsoft. The powerful antitrust regulators have now set their sights squarely on Intel, and the fines could be much worse. The commission began investigating Intel’s sales practices in late 2000 when AMD filed its initial complaint. Both chip makers are US based, but European regulators are historically much more aggressive at punishing monopolistic behavior than their American counterparts.

The chip maker has allegedly been accused of giving large rebates to computer manufacturers and retail chains to carry Intel exclusively, or in some cases, to downplay the AMD offerings. In some situations, Intel is even accused of offering server chips below cost to help corner the market. Intel denied any wrong doing and according to Intel spokesmen Robert Manetta, “Over all, Intel’s conduct is lawful, pro-competitive and beneficial to consumers.”  Intel has every right to be concerned over the investigation however, since the fines imposed are rumored to dwarf those faced by Microsoft. In the 2004 EU antitrust verdict against Microsoft, the software giant faced a fine of close to $663 million US. Intel on the other hand could be facing a penalty of $1.3 billion or more according to experts.

Intel currently controls around 81.9 percent of the global market for CPU’s, while AMD scrapes by with only 17.7 percent. A guilty ruling could put Intel into further hot water after being found guilty of anti competitive practices in South Korea less than a year ago. They are appealing the $19.5 million fine, but this is chump change compared to the $3.6 billion penalty the European union is capable of leveling.

Is Intel abusing it’s power?

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Posted 02/18/09 at 02:29:20 PM by Pulkit Chandna

The first Android-based device, the T-Mobile G1, might have not pronounced iPhone’s death warrant - just like numerous other so-called iPhone-killers before it failed to, but it has done a decent job as a “commercial prototype.”

A reasonable number of people may be keenly awaiting the advent of future Android devices after the steady start provided by the T-Mobile G1. However, nothing is known about upcoming Android devices with the exception of the HTC Magic.

It is now official that HTC Magic will be the world’s second Android phone. But the phone will be a Vodafone exclusive.  It will soon become available in UK, Germany, Spain, France and Italy (won’t be tied to a particular operator in Italy), though it’s not known exactly when.

The Magic has a 3.2-inch QVGA touch screen and, barring its lack of a physical QWERTY keyboard, closely mimics the G1.  The phone has a 3.2-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and HSDPA/WCDMA (900/2100MHz).

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Posted 02/16/09 at 09:27:53 AM by Paul Lilly

With IBM having recently announced it was building a supercomputer with 1.6 million cores capable of 20 petaflops of computing power, its hard to get too jazzed over a single petaflop. But for Europe, breaking the petaflop barrier is something that hasn't been done, but soon will be.

IBM and German research center Forschungszentrum Juelich are collaborating to build a new Blue Gene/P System supercomputer for Europe. It will mark the first time that a supercomputer capable of delivering petaflops of performance will be located outside of the U.S.

"With speeds over a Petaflop, this new Juelich-based supercomputer offers the processing ability of more than 200,000 laptop computers," explains Professor Thomas Lippert, lead scientist of the Juelich supercomputing center. "In addition to raw power, this new system will be among the most energy efficient in the world."

The Blue Gene/P System  will house 294,912 processor, 144TB of memory, and 6PB of hard drive storage contained within 72 server racks. Adding to the historical significance, it will also be IBM's first watercooled supercomputer. IBM says the use of watercooling will result in a 91 percent reduction in air conditioning units that otherwise would have been required to cool the data center.

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Posted 02/09/09 at 06:45:56 PM by Pulkit Chandna

Although Microsoft is concerned about the likelihood of EU requiring it to bundle other browsers with Windows, Firefox architect Mike Connor isn’t exulting. He, personally, despises the idea of other browsers, including Mozilla Firefox, being packaged with Windows. Connor told PC Pro in an interview,” The choice [when installing Windows] would be weird. There's no good UI [user interface] for that.” Connor’s views on this particular issue are his alone and should not be construed as Mozilla’s official line.

He then proceeded to take Opera to task for having complained to the EU about Microsoft’s bundling of IE with Windows. Connor thinks that the quality of the product is paramount and bundling doesn’t necessarily lead to market share. He labeled Opera – based on other people’s feedback – a “geeky browser” that is difficult to use.

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