Techruler.com's Web Blog!

October 26th, 2005

Web-based software challenges Windows - NEW YORK (AP) -- A quiet revolution is transforming life on the Internet: New, agile software now lets people quickly check flight options, see stock prices fluctuate and better manage their online photos and e-mail.

October 22nd, 2005

McDonald's, Nintendo Team Up for Gaming Wi-Fi at Restaurants

3D Technology Aids Soldiers in War on Terror

September 26th, 2005

Games help young brains - WASHINGTON — The use of special computer games to train their brains improved healthy youngsters' ability to pay attention....

September 24th, 2005

More colleges offer gaming theory courses - TROY, New York (AP) -- Down the hall, college students study steel design and software engineering. In Shawn Lawson's classroom, they learn how to digitally animate a ball bouncing through a flaming hoop.

September 8th, 2005

iPod nano, iPod phone unveiled - SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Apple Computer Inc. has unveiled a pencil-thin "iPod nano" digital music player and a long-anticipated cell phone that plays music like an iPod, both aimed at extending its domination of the digital music market.

August 23rd, 2005

Report: Google ready to walk the walk with text, voice IMs - SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Google (GOOG) is planning to introduce its own instant messaging system, the Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday, marking the expansion by the Web search leader into text and voice communications.

August 20th, 2005

High school trades textbooks for laptops - VAIL, Arizona (AP) -- Students at Empire High School here started class this year with no textbooks -- but it wasn't because of a funding crisis.

August 16th, 2005

Using neighbor's Wi-Fi is hot topic

June 15th 2005

Spies will learn craft via games CIA - gamemakers team up to create virtual training simulations for USA's intelligence agencies.

Digital gizmos' abilities erupting - By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — Maurice Turner doesn't own a DVD or CD player, but he watches movies and listens to music all the time.

May 10th 2005

CEOs refuse to get tangled up in messy blogs - Considering how outspoken some CEOs tend to be, you'd think there must be some brave head of a major company out there itching to write a blog. Dell Computer's Michael Dell? FedEx's Fred Smith? Xerox's Anne Mulcahy?

British 'Robin Hoods' convicted of distributing stolen software ring - A group of British men prosecutors said was part of one of the world's largest software-piracy rings on the Internet was sentenced to jail Friday, the latest turn in a 3-year-old criminal probe.

April 30th 2005

'Tiger' roars into stores - Tired of waiting while your computer slowly scours its hard drive for a document you stashed somewhere six months ago?

April 26th 2005

MS takes bite out of Apple - Microsoft Corp.'s ambitious plan to keep data safe on PCs will make a scaled-down debut in the next release of Windows, though the operating system's most anticipated improvements in graphics appear to mirror what's now available from rival Apple Computer Inc.

Computer scientist sentenced to eight months for hacking - A former Los Alamos National Laboratory computer specialist was sentenced to eight months in prison Monday for hacking into and damaging the computers of several high-tech companies, including online auction giant eBay.

Border Surveillance System Prone to Breakdown - America's borders with Canada and Mexico stretch more than 6,000 miles. Border Patrol agents are often outnumbered by illegal immigrants and smugglers 100 to one.

April 22nd 2005

Google rolls out test of personalized search tool - SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — Google on Wednesday debuted a test service called My Search History that analysts said is a move closer to personalized search, which is widely considered the Holy Grail for the Web search leader and its rivals.

Return of 3-D — and no goofy glasses - The digital world is essentially flat. Computers, TVs, movie screens, even cell phones, display images in two dimensions. But several latter-day Columbuses are trying to chart a digital world in three dimensions. And they've made enough progress that 3-D imaging — once a laughable Hollywood experiment — is reaching new levels of realism.

April 20th 2005

Blogger bounced from Disneyland - NEW BOSTON, New Hampshire (AP) -- Jim Hill has been expelled from the Happiest Place on Earth. And that makes him ... well, unhappy.

Border Surveillance System Prone to Breakdown - LOS ANGELES — America's borders with Canada and Mexico stretch more than 6,000 miles. Border Patrol agents are often outnumbered by illegal immigrants and smugglers 100 to one.

Publishers put bloggers between the covers - Conventional wisdom would seem to suggest that bloggers — people who post personal stories and fiction on their Internet Web logs — would turn up their noses at the brick-and-mortar world of book publishing.

April 19th 2005

Pocket translator tackles conversations, not just words - If you're planning to travel abroad this summer, this $20 gadget could prove to be as valuable as your passport.
The 5-Language European Translator from Franklin Electronic Publishers can quickly translate 210,000 words from English to French, German, Italian and Spanish.

Verizon offers 'naked' DSL in Northeast - WASHINGTON (AP) — Verizon Communications said Monday that some customers who already subscribe to its phone and high-speed Internet service can drop their local calling plans but still keep their speedy Web connection.

GameStop buys rival in $1.4B deal - GameStop (GME), a retailer of video games and PC entertainment software, announced Monday a deal to buy competitor Electronics Boutique (ELBO) for $1.4 billion. The combined chain would rival Wal-Mart Stores in market share.

April 18th 2005

Adobe to buy Macromedia for $3.4B - NEW YORK (Reuters) - Computer document company Adobe Systems Inc. said Monday it agreed to buy multimedia software firm Macromedia Inc. for about $3.4 billion in stock, in a move designed to extend its lead in the market for creating and distributing digital documents.

April 15th 2005

Frozen polar waste gets Wi-Fi hotspot - Intel has rigged up a Wi-Fi hotspot just 80km from the North Pole, presumably so that Sir Ranaulph Fiennes and his ilk can check his email next time they take a little stroll across the ice-pack.

LED evolution could spell the end for light bulbs - If a time traveler from a hundred years ago were to visit a home today, much of the technology would be completely alien. The television, cordless phone and computer would probably leave him flabbergasted.

April 14th 2005

Internet2 is higher-tech version of regular Internet - More than 400 college students are being sued for allegedly swapping pirated music files over a super-fast computer network called Internet2. The Recording Industry Association of America, the music industry trade group behind the lawsuits, claims that the students have "hijacked" Internet2 and turned it into a tool for massive music piracy. (Related: College students face lawsuits) But few people have heard of Internet2. USA TODAY reporter Michelle Kessler explains this other Internet.

April 13th 2005

Borderless blogs foil Canadian press ban - A Canadian publication ban and an American blogger clashed last week. The court-ordered ban did not survive the impact. The blogger was overwhelmed with visitors.

Clarissa explains it all to ISS crew - Many tasks astronauts perform on the International Space Station (ISS) are tedious, long and too complicated to do from memory. Often an astronaut needs to be read instructions by another person, or constantly switch his attention from the task at hand to a laptop computer displaying a PDF of the instructions, to work.

April 12th 2005

Next generation Xbox to be unveiled May 12 - LOS ANGELES (Reuters) — Microsoft Corp. Monday said it would unveil the next generation of its Xbox video game console in a May 12 special on music and entertainment cable channel MTV.

Some schools go high-tech to make up for lost field trips - NORTH LIBERTY, Ind. (AP) — Jacy Borlik and her sixth-grade classmates watched as a curator for the Indiana State Museum showed how a 30,000-year-old dinosaur bone is excavated and then catalogued.

April 11th 2005

AOL, XM Satellite Radio announce partnership - XM Satellite Radio Holdings (XMSR) and America Online are planning to add some of XM Radio's programming to AOL's radio offerings in a bid to bring a sample of paid radio to a wider audience, while boosting AOL's traffic.

Rules aimed at digital misdeeds lack bite - Federal and state lawmakers, compelled by headlines of a computer-crime wave, are scrambling to introduce bills that would tighten cybersecurity and make it easier for prosecutors to file charges and impose stiffer penalties.

Fearless Traveler: Many hotel chains offering free wireless access

April 8th 2005

Philadelphia going wireless - PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The city of Philadelphia will become the largest U.S. Internet "hot spot" next year under a plan to offer wireless access at about half the cost charged by commercial operators, city officials said Thursday.

Simple hacks unlock unadvertised PSP capabilities - NEW YORK — In the PlayStation Portable, Sony has produced a magnificent piece of hardware. It's so fine that using it just for games seems a pity.

April 7th 2005

Sony patents technique of beaming info into brain - LONDON, (Reuters) — If you think video games are engrossing now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp. has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.

Sneak peek: E3 - NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – Calling this year's E3 the biggest video game show in the industry's history might sound like hyperbole run amuck. For once, though, it appears the hype might be justified.

April 6th 2005

Avoid getting fired for blogging - It was Merriam-Webster Online's No. 1 word of 2004, and Fortune magazine named it the No. 1 tech trend for 2005.

File-sharing war won't go away; it'll just go abroad - Last week, the Grokster case came before the U.S. Supreme Court, highlighting the entertainment industry's battle against unauthorized file-sharing over the Internet. But even if the music and movie industries stop Grokster and other file-sharing software — which lets users exchange songs and video over the Internet for free — they seem to be fighting a futile war. Every time the content holders knock out one threat, another pops up, over and over again.

April 5th 2005

MIT developing $100 laptops for children

Collaborative sites enable sharing of ideas, workload - There is a public Web site where people can find a Web log written by some prominent members of the government information technology community. Visitors can view a list of officials in the CIO Council's Communities of Practice and read ongoing revisions to a major government document, the data reference model. Members of the public also are contributing to the discussions.

April 4th 2005

Wi-Fi Blazing Trail for Onboard Convenience - In the near future, rail passengers will have a lot more options for how to spend their commute time.

Web Site Helps Patients Shop for Hospitals - WASHINGTON — The federal government unveiled a new Web site on Friday that is designed to help consumers do more comparison shopping when it comes to their local hospitals.

Computers obeying brain signals - ALBANY, N.Y. — Researchers and volunteers around the world are taking early steps toward a complex but straightforward technological goal: to use electrical signals from the brain as instructions to computers and other machines, allowing paralyzed people to communicate, move around and control their environment literally without moving a muscle.

April 2nd 2005

Google doubles e-mail space - SAN JOSE, Calif. — A year after unveiling a free e-mail service with a full gigabyte of storage, Google is doubling the capacity of each account and plans to keep bumping up the limit in the future.

Top 25: Technological breakthroughs - (CNN) -- Advances that transformed how the world communicates are among the top 25 technological breakthroughs of the past quarter century, according to a panel of experts assembled by CNN.

April 1st 2005:

Korean bloggers making a difference - SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- It's a typical newsroom in downtown Seoul: reporters rush to meet deadlines and editors eye copy for mistakes.

Internet study finished -- after 7 years - WASHINGTON (AP) -- Talk about turning in your homework late: The government just finished a report on Internet traffic that Congress requested seven years ago.