Ever wondered where you old mobile phones end up? Check this out ... millions upon millions of old mobile phones end up in Dexter, MI (US).

Technology Review

"More than half a billion cell phones were swapped for newer models in 2007, according to a study by the research firm Gartner. In the past, these phones might have been tossed in the garbage or just stashed in a drawer, but an increasing number of cell-phone vendors are promoting take-back programs, which make recycling an easier option for consumers. "

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BBC

"A computer virus is alive and well on the International Space Station (ISS). Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the ISS in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG. The worm was first detected on earth in August 2007 and lurks on infected machines waiting to steal login names for popular online games.

Nasa said it was not the first time computer viruses had travelled into space and it was investigating how the machines were infected. Space news website SpaceRef broke the story about the virus on the laptops that astronauts took to the ISS.

Nasa told SpaceRef that no command or control systems of the ISS were at risk from the malicious program. The laptops infected with the virus were used to run nutritional programs and let the astronauts periodically send e-mail back to Earth.

The laptops carried by astronauts reportedly do not have any anti-virus software on them to prevent infection. "

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Dailytech

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Techreport

"Asus created a new category of portable computers last year when it unveiled the Eee PC—the first of the much ballyhooed netbooks. What started as a bit of a cash-in on the hype surrounding the altruistic OLPC project has grown into a pretty attractive little business. Asus has since filled this category to the brim with a variety of Eee models designed to appeal to an ever-wider audience. As Asus seeks to consolidate its position as the netbook market leader, its rivals are crashing the party hoping to get a slice of the pie before Asus hoards it all.

Chief among those rivals is Acer, whose new value-priced Aspire One netbook is springing up at almost every retailer that has an interest in computers. At this rate you'll probably be able to buy one at your local gas station before long, and it might even be cheaper than a full tank of gas by then. Retailers like a product with buzz, and here the One has the successful Eee PC's coat tails to ride in on. Unlike some of the more recent entries in the netbook market, the One is quite affordable, allowing retailers to lure in shoppers during the busy back-to-school season.

Acer recently cut its netbook prices, and the One is now turning up at a lot of resellers for as little as $329. To the untrained eye that looks like a heck of a bargain for a system with an Atom processor, a 1024x600 display, and solid-state storage. Read on to find out if it is."

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CNet

"In his inaugural keynote--this is first Nvision conference--Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang reminded the audience that the graphics processing unit (GPU) has come a long way. In short, the GPU has evolved from the simple fixed-function graphics accelerator (e.g., the IBM 8514 that debuted in 1987) to the modern graphics chip, a computing engine capable of almost one teraflop of processing power. (A teraflop is equal to one trillion floating point operations per second.)

Huang, responding to an email query, made it clear that the GPU is complementary to the CPU, or Central Processing Unit. "It is not about replacing the CPU at all," he said. "We don't believe that replacing the CPU is a good strategy. Supplementing the CPU is far better." Intel is the world's largest supplier of CPUs.

In the keynote, Huang cited Stanford University's Folding@home program, a distributed computing project that uses about 2.6 million PCs--for a total of 288 teraflops of computing power--to study protein folding and misfolding. This is expected to deepen researchers' understanding of diseases like Alzheimer's and cancer.

Nvidia has released a version of the Folding@home program based on its CUDA development environment using more than 24,000 GPUs. Though this number represents less than 1 percent of the total processors in the Folding@home project, it provides 1.4 petaflops of performance, or nearly five times the processing power of all the CPUs in use by Folding@home. The researchers at Stanford hope that GPUs will significantly accelerate the time to discovery for the cures for many diseases. "

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MSI Announces X58 Motherboard For Core i7 (Nehalem) Processors

Taipei, Taiwan – MSI, a leading manufacturer of motherboards, announces its latest high-end motherboard "Eclipse" which is based on Intel® X58 Express chipsets. MSI has developed the motherboard with "DrMOS" which delivers the highest efficiency, zero noise, less heat and the best performance from the P45 series; now on new "Eclipse" X58 motherboards. MSI expanded the usage of DrMOS to bring a much more power efficient platform to the desktop motherboard.

The Coming New Desktop Era for Enthusiasts
MSI's X58 Eclipse is equipped with the Socket B (LGA1366) to support the next generation Intel Core i7 processors (codename: Nehalem), also it will replace the current FSB and adopt the QPI (QuickPath interconnect) structure to enhance the bandwidth up to 25.6GB/s (twice that of the FSB1600 standard). Eclipse will be the first 3-channel memory structure ready motherboard to support 6 DIMM DDR3-1333+ up to 24GB capacity, it also provides enhanced bandwidth up to 32GB/s (higher than DDR3-1600 standard).

DrMOS– The Most Power-Efficient Parts for Power-Saving and Performance
MSI developed its existing P45 award-winning motherboards with Gen.2 "DrMOS", and now MSI has expanded the DrMOS usage to cover the QPI and Northbridge power supply, to provide superior power-saving, ultimate low temperature operation, and extreme performance gain. The Eclipse will be equipped with up to 10 DrMOS with APS (Active Phase Switching) technology to build up the most solid power design ever.

BBC

"A computer containing a million bank customers' personal data has reportedly been sold on an internet auction site. The Daily Mail says an ex-worker for archiving firm Graphic Data sold it for £35 on eBay without removing sensitive information from the hard drive.

The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and its subsidiary, Natwest, have confirmed their customers' details were involved. RBS said Graphic Data had told it the PC had apparently been "inappropriately sold on via a third party".

It said historical information relating to credit card applications for their bank and others had been on the machine. The information is said to include account details and in some cases customers' signatures, mobile phone numbers and mothers' maiden names.

It is thought the problem came to light when Andrew Chapman, an IT manager from Oxford, bought the computer, noticed and raised the alarm. "

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Digitimes

"Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) Mini-Note PC is seeing strong global monthly shipment growth, while sales in Asia including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore markets are seeing the best sales, according a Chinese language Apply Daily report citing sources at HP Taiwan.

The product was release in April of this year and its monthly sales have been growing at a 50% rate, the report noted

However, the markets with consumers still focusing on buying their first PC, such as China, were not showing great acceptance for the Mini-Note PC, added the paper."

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ComputerWorld

"August 25, 2008 (Computerworld) The quad-core chips that have sat atop the microprocessor heap for the past two years are about to start being replaced by bigger, burlier six-core processor technology.

In a keynote address at Intel Corp.'s annual developer forum last week in San Francisco, Patrick Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of the chip maker's digital enterprise group, announced that a six-core Xeon server processor will ship in September.

Code-named Dunnington, the X7460 Xeon chip is built with Intel's 45-nanometer Penryn technology.

Moving beyond quad-core processors is a major step -- and one that keeps Intel well ahead of rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc., said Dan Olds, an analyst at Gabriel Consulting Group Inc.

"This is a big deal," said Olds. "What we don't know is how much power the chips consume and how much heat they will dissipate, and those are key concerns."

AMD isn't slated to release its first six-core chip, code-named Istanbul, until the second half of 2009.

Intel executives last week also disclosed that the first offering in the new Nehalem processor family, a quad-core server chip, is expected to ship this fall. The other members of the Nehalem family -- desktop, dual-core, eight-core and additional quad-core chips -- are slated to ship over the next year.

Jim McGregor, an analyst at In-Stat, said the lengthy rollout schedule could indicate that the technology is more complex than Intel engineers had expected."

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MarketWatch

"ViewSonic(R) Corp., a worldwide leader in display technologies, has once again demonstrated display leadership with the unveiling of its first 120Hz desktop LCD technology at NVIDIA's NVISION 08 event in San Jose, Calif. ( http://www.nvision2008.com). The 22-inch 120Hz prototype delivers rich, colorful, blur-free video performance on traditional gaming, entertainment and graphic applications, while also delivering eye-popping stereoscopic 3D when used with NVIDIA's GeForce Stereoscopic 3D gaming technology.

The 22-inch 120Hz display coupled with 3ms gray-to-gray response time provides much better Motion Picture Response Time (MPRT) than the typical "fast-response" displays on the market today, virtually removing the appearance of motion artifacts and ghosting. This makes it the LCD of choice for extreme gaming, entertainment, computer animation, precision graphic work and traditional computer applications. Features, such as integrated 2Wx2 stereo speakers and Dual Link DVI digital input, combine to expand entertainment options and make the monitor the must-have display for 3D gaming.

The display offers excellent front-of-screen performance, including Professional Color Certification, 1680x1050 resolution, 300 nits of high brightness and 1000:1 contrast ratio, as well as wide viewing angles for getting the most out of fast action games, downloaded video content and full-length movies. When coupled with NVIDIA's GeForce Stereoscopic 3D technology, the ViewSonic 120Hz display provides game enthusiasts with realistic depth, intense motion, rich graphics and detailed images that literally leap off the screen.

"ViewSonic continues to deliver innovative technology that leads and supports the growing trends and demands in digital entertainment," said Jeff Volpe, vice president of Global Brand and Emerging Technologies, ViewSonic. "The 120Hz technology will deliver superb front-of-screen performance and will drive new standards in desktop entertainment igniting the next evolution in digital viewing capabilities."

The first displays with ViewSonic's 120Hz technology are expected later in the year at select resellers, retailers and etailers. Pricing is not yet available."

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