19, October, 2010 - Hardware News

WD Launches 3 Terabyte HD

"Today, Western Digital announced the world's highest density hard drive, as they reach the 3TB mark with their newest, 5th generation Caviar Green product. The Caviar Green 3TB serves up a super-sized combination of reduced power consumption, lower operating temperature, and a quieter operation. Unfortunately, if you're still using Windows XP, don't expect your system to make full use of any 3TB drive (yet). The problem is that older operating systems, in combination with a legacy BIOS and master boot record (MBR) partition table scheme, face a barrier at 2.19TB. Existing motherboards utilizing BIOS (non-UEFI), GPT ready operating systems like Windows 7 64-bit, and appropriate storage class drivers, can address the entire capacity of hard drives larger than 2.19TB. Another issue is that a number of host bus adapter (HBA) and chipset vendors don't offer driver support for these types of drives. To provide a solution for this compatibility issue, Western Digital bundles an HBA with the Caviar Green 3TB drive that allows the operating system to use a known driver to correctly support extra large capacity drives. This solution is reportedly just temporary until the rest of the industry catches up."

Antenna Arrays Could Replace Satellite TV Dishes 

"There was a time not so very long ago when people who wanted satellite TV or radio required dishes several feet across. Those have since been replaced by today's compact dishes, but now it looks like even those might be on the road to obsolescence. A recent PhD graduate from The Netherlands' University of Twente has designed a microchip that allows for a grid array of almost-flat antennae to receive satellite signals."

19, October, 2010 - MicroSoft News

Microsoft repackages its productivity services as Office 365

Microsoft today announced Microsoft Office 365, the company's latest cloud productivity package. Office 365 meshes Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online into a single always-up-to-date service. Office 365 lets users work together from anywhere while collaborating with others inside and outside their organization. Microsoft said Office 365 works with the most popular browsers, smartphones, and desktop applications people use today.
Office 365 for small businesses, professionals, and companies with fewer than 25 employees takes about 15 minutes to set up. It offers Office Web Apps, Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and an external website for $6 or €5.25 per user, per month.
Office 365 for enterprises starts at $2 or €1.75 per user, per month for basic e-mail. At the other extreme, organizations can get Office Professional Plus, e-mail, voicemail, enterprise social networking, instant messaging, Web portals, extranets, voice conferencing, Web conferencing, 24x7 phone support, and on-premises licenses for $24 or €22.75 per user, per month. The inclusion of Office Professional Plus marks the first time that Microsoft will offer the flagship desktop office suite on a pay-as-you-go basis. Both the small business and enterprise offerings will have a minimum buy-in of just one seat.
At 2pm CDT a limited beta program for Office 365 will launch at Office365.com. The beta will initially be available in 13 countries and regions "for a few thousand organizations," before expanding over the next few months. Microsoft aims to have Office 365 available in 40 regions next year.
After launching the service in 2011, Microsoft will eventually expand Office 365 to include Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The company will also launch Office 365 for education. This will give all organizations access to Microsoft's complete business productivity experience and will also give students, faculty, and school employees access to technology tailored specifically to their needs.
"Office 365 is the best of everything we know about productivity, all in a single cloud service," Kurt DelBene, president of the Office Division at Microsoft, said in a statement. "With Office 365, your local bakery can get enterprise-caliber software and services for the first time, while a multinational pharmaceutical company can reduce costs and more easily stay current with the latest innovations. People can focus on their business, while we and our partners take care of the technology."