Posted 09/15/2009 at 11:35:20pm

Making like a good social network and copying its competitors more successful aspects, Facebook has taken the liberty of using the @ symbol to tag friends in posts and status updates, a method that was popularized by Twitter.

Currently, while on Twitter you can use the @ symbol to refer to, or directly respond to a friend (ex: Hanging out with the coolest guy ever, @asalisbury). And, exactly as it’s done on Twitter, Facebook will reportedly auto-generate names with you enter part of a friend’s name. Don’t worry though, if the status update is too embarrassing you will be able to untag yourself.

The new feature is available now, so feel free to go give it a whirl.

Posted 11/20/2008 at 05:48:24pm

While Intel’s Atom processor is meant for low-power demand machines, such as netbooks, it’s found a new use with a not-so-likely candidate – a supercomputer.

Silicon Graphics (SGI) has started exhibiting a new concept for a supercomputer that could pack almost 10,000 Intel Atom processors into one rack. SGI is planning to name it the Molecule.

The Molecule could reportedly offer the horsepower and memory bandwidth of more than 750 high-end desktop PCs, and consume only half the power. It would also occupy a meager 1.4 percent of the physical space.

Posted 11/20/2008 at 04:53:40pm

As it stands, the PC gaming industry is estimated to be worth a massive $20 billion today, and it is predicted to enlarge to $34 billion by 2012.

While many have claimed that PC gaming is dying, they don’t take into account the sales of gaming-oriented PCs. According to Ted Pollak, one of the two men behind this robust estimation, “Retail software figures are not an accurate barometer for the health of the PC gaming industry. The retail numbers don’t capture the casual and digitally distributed games, either.”

Pollak goes on to state that PC gamers don’t really buy that many games to begin with. “Enthusiast PC gamers often latch onto one or two games that offer multiplayer options and stick to these titles for years. Hardware is where they spend the big bucks.”

And yes, it is noticeable that a good amount of the sales went to complete PCs, but there’s also a large market of you that buy your own parts. Many of the sales come from upgrade pieces such as improved graphics cards and memory. And for this, we at Maximum PC salute you.

Posted 11/19/2008 at 05:31:48pm

So you’re looking to get your hands on a tiny projector, but that Pico just isn’t small enough? Well, it looks like the folks at Konica Minolta have heeded your call, and are currently in the process of making a projector that’s no bigger than the average thumb dive.

The new projector is reportedly going to be a mere 1.6 inches long, .79 inch wide and a paltry .3 inch thick. What’s more, is the projector will be able to put up a 20-inch XGA color image from a distance of about two feet.

What makes it all possible is the use of laser beams and vibrating mirrors, as opposed to the traditional light bulb and lenses. Sadly though, you’ll have to wait until at least 2010 to pick up one of these bad boys. Konica Minolta is stating that they’ll be on the market in two or three years.

Posted 11/19/2008 at 04:09:55pm

Just last week the RIAA commemorated the signing of an absurd new law in Tennessee that states:

"Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has student residential computer networks shall:

[...]

[R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources, if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year."

In short, if you’re going to school in Tennessee you’re boned. Since the entertainment industry was unable to get a solid framework for universities in the Higher Education Act passed by Congress just earlier this year, the RIAA has decided to attack universities by using infringement notices.

What’s worse is that the law will cost the fine folks of Tennessee a whopping $9.5 million in new software, hardware and personnel, with an annual cost of $1.5 million for the personnel and maintenance. None of this money will go towards artists or record labels represented by the RIAA.

Posted 11/19/2008 at 03:33:32pm

At a series of press events over the past few days Adobe has unveiled a brand new version of flash aimed directly at smartphones. The new version of Flash is optimized to work with ARM processors (like the one used in the iPhone).

So long as your smartphone has a processor clock speed of at least 200MHz and 16MB of RAM, it should be able to run the new Flash. It’s also mentioned that a “completely capable browser” is required, but given the phones that it’s meant for, there shouldn’t be any issues.

Google’s G1 is expected to get the update soon, among others. Whether it’ll be simply downloaded by the phone itself or updated in-store is yet to be revealed.

While many other smartphone vendors are prominent when it comes to excitement about the possibility of Flash on their phones, Apple isn’t. Steve Jobs has mentioned that Flash “performs too slow to be useful” on the extremely popular iPhone. To many this seems like a match made in heaven, but Apple has politely snubbed that notion.