Technology
Hello, and welcome to the Technology section of the newspaper!
You have all been anxious to see this edition's section so I'm proud to say that we have a good array of content in this section, three so to speak. Our traditional News in Brief and Web Watch are here, both of the articles being written by Stobbo. Additionally, R Anderson took a great amount of time to write the article Google Android. Remember, technology is all around you and you should make use of it! Have a good time, and I'll see you next month!
- Topdog
News in Brief - By: Stobbo
Dell to produce low cost laptop
Dell are the latest company to produce a low cost laptop, following OLPC with the XO Laptop, Asus with the Eee PC and Intel with the Classmate. Hewlett-Packard and Acer have also announced that they are to enter the low cost laptop market.
The low price tag is partially made possible with low cost chips manufactured by Intel and Via, and with Microsoft slashing the license cost of Windows XP to $32.
Details of the devices prices are expected soon.
IPv6 must speed up
According to the European Commission, work to migrate Europe to IPv6 must speed up, with the current pool of IP address expected to run out in the next few years. The commission has planned a target of getting 25% of EU net users migrated to the new system by 2010.
The current IP system, IPv4 has a pool of 4.3 billion addresses, with the amount of devices connected to the net expected to exceed this by 2011. In contrast, IPv6 provides roughly 6.5billion address per person, effectively infinite.
Other targets include governments upgrading their system to IPv6 and having the top 100 sites in Europe compatible with IPv6.
Microsoft announces HP search deal
Microsoft have announced a deal with Hewlett-Packard which will see all new HP computer shipping with Microsoft's Live Search installed as default, from new year.
Internet Explorer, which ships as part of the Windows operating system will have the Windows Live Search installed as a toolbar. Currently it is unclear whether the user will be able to change the search engine which the toolbar will use.
Students able to catch up on lectures through iTunes
Several British universities, including the prestigious University College London are to offer course material for free on iTunes.
Audio and video material from lectures will be available for students on iTunes, for free through Apple's education area, iTunes U.
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Web Watch - By: Stobbo
Urban Dictionary
http://www.urbandictionary.com/
Urban Dictionary is a free online dictionary with a difference, rather than being something similar to what your English teacher is likely to have which is full of proper English language dictionary definitions, it is dictionary of slang terms! Heard some slang you don't understand? Urban Dictionary provides the answers. Be warned though, it isn't for younger users as there are some strong sexual definitions and it contains a lot of swear words.
IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/
IMBD (Internet Movie Database) is a useful websites for anyone who watches movies. It basically does what it says on the tin, it is an internet database of movies. Each movie has it owns page with all the information you could want: cast, trivia, quotes, plot summary and synopsis, parental advisory, certification information, reviews, user comments, a discussion forum and much more. Also actors and actresses have their own pages with a list of films and tv programmes which they have been in, trivia, awards a discussion forum and more. IMBD is definitely a website for anyone who watches movies.
BugMeNot
http://www.bugmenot.com/
Tired of having to keep registering for websites to view the content? BugMeNot is for you! It is an online service which provide login details (username and passwords) to popular web sites like the New York Times, IMBD and YouTube . Not only does it save you from keep having to sign up to sites, it also means you don't have to provide your email address to sites, and reduces the risk of having your email sold to those pesky spammers.
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Google Android - By: R Anderson
Google has been working on an operating system for mobile phones. They have released several version of their open-source mobile operating system Android. Google based the Android system was built on Linux, and is open-source. It has a lot of support from the large cell phone companies, who have formed the Open Handset Alliance that is encouraging the development of open standards for mobile devices. The platform is technically being developed by the Open Handset Alliance but Google is the one that’s actually doing all the development. It looks like the first cell phone running the Android operating system will be released sometime later this year, both Samsung and LG plan to release a cell phone equipped with Android.
The first version of the system was released in November 2007. It was a preview release to show what was coming and was clearly not ready for mass production. The preview SDK or System Developer Kit was poorly documented and difficult to use. Regardless applications for Android starting popping up a week after it was released, the first to show up was a game of Snake. The SDK is available to anyone; it includes all the development and debugging tools necessary to create a complete application for the Android system.
Android is a feature-rich mobile platform. In many ways it’s the equal of Apple’s iPhone. It can have all the features that the iPhone has, a touch screen, the ability to play almost all kinds of audio and video, the web browser of Google is even based of the same platform as the iPhone’s. However, Android is not simply Google trying to copy the iPhone. It has many unique features of its own, such as being able to work with any network or cell phone company.
I think that Android is a very solid base for great cell phones. Android is not a cell phone, but is a platform for cell phones to be built upon. However, the success or failure of Android depends completely on the ability of the cell phones companies to use the capabilities of the Android platform well in the phones they make.
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