Computer viruses just don’t get computers infected only on the earth but they can do so even in the space. So, who can escape? According to a recent report, laptop computers on the International Space Station (ISS) got infected in the space.

The virus is believed to transmit via USB drive used by one of the astronauts at the station.

The reports suggests that it’s not happening first time that the computer got infected in the space as there are some cases reported earlier and it’s not a serious threat as none of the command or control system of the ISS are at risk.

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By selling Mac desktop knockoffs, Florida-based Psystar has defied challenged Apple’s no-cloning rule. Rack-mount servers that have the ability to run Leopard Server operating system have been introduced by Psystar and it is a clear-cut defying to Apple’s Xserve system.

The OpenServ 1100 planned as a 1U server and the OpenServ 2400 as 2U system and both these systems have been launched this week. According to the company, both are well-matched with various operating systems like Windows Server 2003 and 2008, CentOS, Mac OS X Leopard Server and Ubuntu Server.

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Private testing of Windows 7 is poised to begin at any time to ship it till late 2009. To pass over Windows vista all at once or to wait for Windows 7 in its place, many business users are mulling over it.

It’s not surprising at all that Microsoft is recommending users against taking a pass on vista. Microsoft is supporting business users to migrate to Vista sooner as it is a part of a new white paper to influence business users who are considering when and whether to shift to Windows Vista.

The white paper “The Business Value of Windows Vista: Five Reasons to set up now” just repeats the business features Microsoft developed into Vista and emphasizes some of the new installed tools and case-study examples of the companies who moved to Vista, otherwise, it doesn’t comprise numerous new data.

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The Cuban government lifts ban from home computers on Friday. This is one of the various bans lifted recently by Cuban President Raul Castro. This ban lifting created an atmosphere of joy amongst the people and large crowds gathered outside computer shops and electronics stores. Most of the people came to see the computers and enjoy the joyful sight, while a few were there as customers.

Computers are a high priced commodity in Cuba. A tower style QTECH PC and monitor costs around $780 to $800. In a country where average daily wages fall below $20 (10 pounds) a month, computer becomes a thing that can be bought by only a few people. Only some Cubans can afford to buy them if they have some relatives abroad sending money. Read the rest of this entry »

As a drive manufacturer, Samsung Electronics is always looking for a way to outdo the competition. The company’s most recent accomplishment was when it became the first manufacturer to ship a 2.5 inch, 500GB hard drive. While this may not sound like a huge deal, they are moving into uncharted water, and an area where many other manufacturers are hoping to explore in then near future.

March 5, 2008 marked the first day that Samsung shipped these drives to both PC makers and OEMs. Even though this may be a bit much for everyday laptop users, it is safe to say that many will benefit from this high level of storage. With more and more notebooks offering the ability to support two hard drives, a 500GB drive allows users to have up to 1TB of available storage. This was previously unheard of, but is sure to become more of the status quo as 2008 move forward.

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A recent study from the Pew Internet Project highlights on the love and hate relationship that numerous Americans share with e-commerce. Results of the survey say that 78% of internet users in America agree that shopping online is convenient while 68% states that they can save a lot of time with it. However, 75% of the respondents stressed out that they hate the idea of disclosing their personal information such as their credit card number and details via internet.

These security concerns and issues prevent the potential of e-commerce from growing and developing as stated by John Horrigan, Pew Internet Project’s Associate Director and author of the said report. These risks remain to be questionable whether they are just perceived by the internet users or they are real, after all.

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Asustek, popularly known as the “Asus’, is planning to launch its Linux Desktop PCs in this year only. The company is presently also marketing the popular ‘Xandros Linux-powered Asus Eee PC 4G ultramobile PC’.

Asus will be introducing an all new exclusive range of ‘Linux-powered PCs: the ‘E-DT desktop PC’, ‘E-TV’, and the ‘E-Monitor’ within the year 2008 only.

The “E-DT” is expected to be hitting the markets sometime during mat this year. It will be an ‘Intel Celeron Processor’ based desktop PC in the beginning. Subsequent versions of this machine will also have Intel’s forthcoming ‘Shelton Architecture’. These future versions would be based on the ‘Diamondville Processors’ of the Intel. Intel is designing the ‘Diamondville’ specifically for the low-cost laptops. Intel is also designing its own “classmate PC” targeting the student community. The E-DT PC s will also be having the Intel’s 945 graphic chip set in the desktop PC.

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‘Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)’ introduced an innovative, advanced ‘two-chip graphics card’ exclusively for the gamers on Monday. The company expects that the new graphics card would help it taking a lead both in price as well as the performance over its archrival ‘Nvidia’.

The new graphics card,” ATI Radeon HD 3870 X2” is a combination of two different graphic processors on one board. This innovative attempt has helped in achieving the double performance of the single chip, the ‘Radeon HD 3870’, which was launched by AMD in the month of November last year.

According to AMD, this “latest graphics card tops a Teraflop, or 1 trillion floating point operations per second.” Such a high ‘operation-speed’ is almost equal to the speed of performing nearly one trillion mathematical calculations per second, the company claims.

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