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NewsMozilla Plans 'BugDay' to Exterminate Bugs in Firefox 3.5

Posted 07/03/2009 at 05:45:33pm

After several delays and a lot of anticipation, Mozilla on Tuesday released Firefox 3.5, officially joining the next-generation of browser wars where heavy focus has been put on JavaScript performance. But is the new browser ready for prime-time?

Due to the number of complaints users have been posting -- ranging from longer load times to intermittent crashes believed to be a result of the TraceMonkey JavaScript engine -- Mozilla has issued a community "BugDay" set for July 7 to stomp out the bugs.

"We will try to narry down any important bugs that were missed, or were regressions from Firefox 3.5, and get them into a point update quickly," reads a post on quality.mozilla.org.

Some 55 known bugs exist in the latest release, some of which will be addressed in Firefox 3.5.1 expected to be released by the end of the month.

NewsRumor: Nvidia Ion 2 to Supercharge Graphics with Twice the Shaders of Ion 1

Posted 07/03/2009 at 05:30:32pm

Nvidia isn't saying much about its next Ion platform, but if recent rumors turn out to be true, the followup platform looks to be a doozie. According to news and rumor site Fudzilla, Nvidia will double up the number of shaders on the second generation of Ion.

That means Ion 2, as it will likely be called, would ship with at least 32 shaders, providing a big boost to gaming performance on netbooks and nettops built around the platform. And best of all, thermals aren't expected to rise very much, if at all, on the upcoming shrunken version of Ion.

Nvidia's first Ion has yet to really penetrate the market and cut into Intel's Atom platform marketshare, but that could change as more major manufacturers jump on board. Samsung recently announced plans to launch an Ion netbook this month, and Lenovo's Ion-based IdeaPad S12 is due out in August.

Nevertheless, Fudzilla says Ion 2 should launch by the end of this year.

NewsSymantec Releases Public Beta of Norton Internet Security 2010 and AntiVirus 2010

Posted 07/03/2009 at 05:19:54pm

Many of our readers were taken off-guard when we rated Norton Internet Security 2009 a 9/Kickass in last year's antivirus roundup, and we even admit to being surprised at Norton's transformation from a resource-heavy sloth to a lean and competent antimalware package. We hope the trend continues, and we'll have a chance to see if it does now that Symatec has released beta versions of its upcoming 2010 releases to the public.

The new version features a new protection model codenamed Quorum and will put a heavier focus on reputation-based malware detection. While it won't replace existing signature-based detection for known threats, Norton says the reputation model can detect zero-day malware that's never been seen before.

"Our new approach changes the rules by both enhancing traditional security techniques to make them more aggressvie and by making it dramatically more difficult for attackers to evade detection by simply changing their malware," said Rowan Trollope, Symantec senior vice president, Consumer Business Unit.

Other features include an overhaul to parental control and spam filtering, more detailed information provided by Norton Insight, which identifies known good programs for faster scanning, and a new feature called Autopsy, which is designed to help the user understand what just happened when Norton automatically removes an infection.

Norton Internet Security 2010 Beta
Norton Antivirus 2010 Beta

Had a chance to try either one of these out? Hit the jump and let us know about it!

NewsA-DATA's New USB Flash Drives Swivel and Lock

Posted 07/03/2009 at 05:05:33pm

A-DATA today unveiled a new line of colorful USB flash drives with a swivel design case the company claims will keep the USB connector free from harm.

"Unlike conventional swivel-designed USB flash drives, the unique asymmetric outer casing of C903 protects the USB connector and serves as a lock mechanism to prevent the connector from sticking out due to constant turning and wearing," A-DATA stated in a press release. "The same design enables users to turn and store the USB connector properly in place with much of an ease."

The case comes constructed with a glossy metallic finish wrapped around either a bright red or blue USB stick, with initial capacities available up to 32GB.

No word yet on price or availability.

NewsArchos 9 PC Tablet Comes to the U.S.

Posted 07/03/2009 at 10:09:02am

Already announced in Europe last month, Archos is bringing its new Archos 9 PC Tablet to the U.S. market. The ultraportable tablet weighs less than 22.29 ounces and measures just 0.63-inches thick.

On the hardware front, the Archos 9 boasts a full touch-sensitive 9-inch screen, an Intel Atom Z515 processor (1.2GHz, 512KB cache, 400MHz frontside bus), 1GB of RAM, up to 120GB of storage,  1.3MP webcam, and an optical track-point mouse.

On the software side of things, the new tablet will come pre-loaded with Microsoft's upcoming Windows 7 OS. It will also include Microsoft Office and a host of other apps, such as "Web TV & Radio, video conference, antivirus, parental control, photos and movies edition applications, and more."

The Archos 9 PC Tablet will go on sale sometime this fall for an as yet undetermined price.

NewsMicrosoft Gets Rid of Vomit Ad; Stomachs Everywhere are Relieved

Posted 07/03/2009 at 09:48:55am

Microsoft apparently has had second thoughts about associating vomit with Internet Explorer 8. As part of a new ad campaign designed to push IE8 onto the masses, one of the four new ads showed a woman barfing all over her husband and the floor after borrowing her hubby's laptop and seeing whatever site he had been viewing, a site so horrendous as to cause her to lose her entire breakfast, and then some. Maybe he was watching Failure to Launch.

The video, which garnered a ton of online media attention, has since been pulled from the IE8videos channel on YouTube, as well as from BrowsefortheBetter.com, a site that is part of the ad campaign. In its place is a tag that simply reads "coming soon."

"We make a point of listening to our customers," a Microsoft representative told CNet. "We created the OMGIGP video as a tongue-in-cheek look at the InPrivate Browsing features of Internet Explorer 8, using the same irreverent humor that our customers told us they liked about other components of the Internet Explorer 8 marketing campaing. While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it."

Or maybe it just hit too close to home for some. Either way, if you missed it the first time around, you can still catch ad here.

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POSTED COMMENTS
NewsLAN on
EVGA Launches X58 SLI Micro Motherboard

Posted 07/02/2009 at 11:37:56am

And for big kids looking to put together a more portable LAN gaming rig.

-Paul Lilly

NewsTypo! on
Barack Obama USB Drive Promises 8GB You Can Believe In

Posted 07/01/2009 at 03:31:43pm

I think the real story here is that no one caught the typo: phots = photos

-Paul Lilly

No BS PodcastBest Wishes on
No BS Podcast #107: Everybody Do the Google Wave

Posted 06/29/2009 at 03:59:29pm

Just noticed this farewell message. Sorry to see you go, Keith! Best of luck, and should you one day find a balance between family and the Internet, we'll look forward to seeing you be an active reader/poster once again.

-Paul Lilly

NewsBeta on
Chrome Update Fixes Critical Security Issue

Posted 06/24/2009 at 03:17:12pm

Because you downloaded/installed the beta release.

Stable Download
Beta Download

-Paul Lilly

NewsI'll take that bet on
Stealth Computer Releases Waterproof PC

Posted 06/22/2009 at 12:32:43pm

From Stealth Computer's press release:

"Stealth.com Inc. (Stealth Computer) a leading ISO 9001 manufacturer of industrial rugged computers and peripherals has released the new Model WPC-500F, a waterproof rugged, small footprint, fanless computer for environments where ordinary computer hardware won't survive."

-Paul Lilly

NewsLike a Two-Card Setup on
EVGA Releases Single-PCB GTX 295 Videocard

Posted 06/15/2009 at 12:41:28pm

It will act like a two-card setup allowing you to enable SLI, regardless of your motherboard's chipset.

-Paul Lilly

NewsPCB = Printed Circuit Board on
EVGA Releases Single-PCB GTX 295 Videocard

Posted 06/15/2009 at 09:35:47am

Nvidia's dual-GPU solutions -- including the GeForce GTX 295 -- consist of essentially sandwiching two videocards together into a single package. The new single-PCB version will put both GPUs on a single PCB, similar to what AMD has been doing with its ATI 4870 X2.

As for the GPUs on the GTX 295, they're basically the same as the semi-recently released GTX 275 (55nm, 240 stream processors).

-Paul Lilly

NewsNice Catch on
Motorola Launches First DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem

Posted 06/04/2009 at 02:16:05pm

Typo fixed - thanks.

As for availability, this came straight from the horse's mouth - Motorola issued the press release on Monday, which you can read here. I haven't paid attention myself, but I'm guessing the SB6120 was only available to ISPs prior to this week.

-Paul Lilly

NewsNot an Official Answer on
BFG Expands Trade Up Program to Include Power Supplies

Posted 06/02/2009 at 01:05:12pm

I would imagine they use the functioning, traded-in cards as replacements for defective cards. Remember that BFG offers a lifetime warranty as well.

-Paul Lilly

NewsGood catch on
Biostar Releases Hybrid DDR2/DDR3 TP45E Motherboard

Posted 05/26/2009 at 07:25:49am

It's LGA775 for Intel processors (P45 chipset).

-Paul Lilly

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