Snow Leopard screenshots leaked

ABOVE:Mac OS X Snow Leopard will let you return files wrongly placed in Trash to their proper home.

A new set of leaked screenshots of Apple's upcoming Mac OS X release, Snow Leopard, appears to confirm that the most sweeping changes to the operating system won't be visible.

World of Apple has screenshots up on its site, along with a video, of Mac OS X Snow Leopard Build 10A261, the latest version released for testing. When Apple announced plans for Snow Leopard in June, it said that Mac OS X 10.6 would focus more on improving the performance and stability of the operating system, rather than adding features.

And that seems to be the case, judging by the minor enhancements shown in the latest build. The Stacks interface will now let you navigate through folders within the Stacks view, rather than opening Finder if you selected a folder from that view. And the Trash window now has a "Put Back" feature for returning inadvertently deleted files to the original folder, apparently bringing back a feature that got left behind with the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X.

More significantly, Apple has reduced the footprint associated with its applications in the early versions of Snow Leopard, which should improve performance. The company is also expected to have come up with new ways to exploit graphics processor technology with the release, although details on that capability were not addressed in the new screenshots.

World of Apple also notes that based on the progress of the build it doesn't think Apple will be able to release Snow Leopard by the end of March, which had been rumored following a presentation by an Apple developer that identified a Q1 release for the operating system. That would have an early release as compared to Apple's official guidance that Snow Leopard would ship "about a year" from last year's early June Worldwide Developers Conference.

Google Can’t Grasp

PICTURE ABOVE:At the University of Utah, Prof. Juliana Freire is working on DeepPeep, an ambitious effort to index every public database online.

As the major search engines start to experiment with incorporating Deep Web content into their search results, they must figure out how to present different kinds of data without overcomplicating their pages. This poses a particular quandary for Google, which has long resisted the temptation to make significant changes to its tried-and-true search results format.

“Google faces a real challenge,” said Chris Sherman, executive editor of the Web site Search Engine Land. “They want to make the experience better, but they have to be supercautious with making changes for fear of alienating their users.”

Beyond the realm of consumer searches, Deep Web technologies may eventually let businesses use data in new ways. For example, a health site could cross-reference data from pharmaceutical companies with the latest findings from medical researchers, or a local news site could extend its coverage by letting users tap into public records stored in government databases.

This level of data integration could eventually point the way toward something like the Semantic Web, the much-promoted — but so far unrealized — vision of a Web of interconnected data. Deep Web technologies hold the promise of achieving similar benefits at a much lower cost, by automating the process of analyzing database structures and cross-referencing the results.

“The huge thing is the ability to connect disparate data sources,” said Mike Bergman, a computer scientist and consultant who is credited with coining the term Deep Web. Mr. Bergman said the long-term impact of Deep Web search had more to do with transforming business than with satisfying the whims of Web surfers.

Intel of fighting innovation with lawsuit

A legal dispute between two chip giants turned bitter on Thursday when NVIDIA characterized a recent lawsuit from Intel as a low-blow effort to save its "decaying" CPU business by squeezing its competitors out of the market.

In a statement sent to AppleInsider, NVIDIA took Intel's allegations head-on and attempted to recast the issue as a transition between old and new technologies, insisting that a patent license agreement it signed with the chipmaker back in 2004 affords it the right to develop chipsets for both current and future generations of Intel processors.

"We are confident that our license, as negotiated, applies," said NVIDIA president and chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang. "At the heart of this issue is that the CPU has run its course and the soul of the PC is shifting quickly to the GPU."

"This is clearly an attempt to stifle innovation to protect a decaying CPU business," he added.

Intel, which sued the graphic technology leader in Delaware Chancery Court earlier this week, begs to differ. The world's largest chipmaker maintains that the 2004 agreement does not cover chipsets compatible with its forthcoming line of 'Nehalem' processors that incorporate integrated memory controllers, for which it believes NVIDIA is planning a new round of supporting chipsets.

For its part, NVIDIA claims to have tried for over a year to resolve the dispute between the two Santa Clara, Calif.-based firms "in a fair and reasonable manner." It chalks the lawsuit up to an act of desperation now that GPUs have gained prominence at the expense of traditional processors, such as those manufactured by Intel.

"Since signing the agreement, NVIDIA has offered innovations such as SLI, Hybrid power, and CUDA parallel processing. ION, the most recent innovation, integrates a powerful NVIDIA GPU, north bridge and south bridge into one compact die," NVIDIA said. "When combined with a CPU, ION enables a two-chip PC architecture for Intel processors two years ahead of Intel’s own solution."

NVIDIA also pointed to Apple'sembrace of its new MCP79 chipset platform for its entire new line of notebooks including the MacBook Classic, MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro. The Mac maker was the first mainstream vendor to drop chipsets developed by Intel for those manufactured by NVIDIA. The move is believed to be a long-term technology shift on Apple's part, one which would be placed in jeopardy should Intel ultimately prevail with its lawsuit.

"Today, companies like Acer, Alienware, Asus, Dell, Falcon Northwest, Fujitsu, Gigabyte, HP, Lenovo, MSI, NEC, and Toshiba all ship exciting innovations created by NVIDIA as a result of its agreement with Intel," Huang said. "[G]iven the broad and growing adoption of NVIDIA's platform innovations, it is not surprising that Intel is now initiating a dispute over a contract signed four years ago."

In the one shred of common ground surrounding the matter, both companies agree that their respective and current products are not part of this dispute. An Intel spokesperson told AppleInsider that the company hopes the two tech giants can continue to do business together going forward.

HTC Hacks Windows Mobile, Introduces Two New Phones

Windows Mobile 6.5 is brand new, but HTC is already making it look primitive.

The leading Windows phone firm announced major extensions to Windows Mobile 6.1 and 6.5 that make it much easier to see who a user has contacted, and when; a way of pre-caching Web pages for extra speed; and two new smartphones that are almost sure to come to U.S. carriers in 2009.

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HTC has been tweaking Windows Mobile for two years now; their TouchFLO 3D interface, seen on several of their smartphones, replaces the traditional Windows Mobile 6 home screen with a carousel of large, interactive icons. HTC's new software takes the changes much deeper into Windows Mobile.

A feature called "People-Centric Communication," according to HTC, enhances a phone's address book application so a user can smoothly slide over to see all of the e-mails, text messages, or phone calls you've sent to a particular person without leaving the contact book. You can then jump to a specific message without having to go through Windows Mobile's several levels of menus.

"Today we try to fit our life into silos of applications," said John Wang, HTC's chief marketing officer, in a press conference here. "We have an address book application, a calendar application, a phone application ... since when did our lives become applications?"

Another feature, dubbed "Straight Talk," kicks business calls up a notch. That software lets you call people directly from emails, create conference calls immediately from mass emails, and call into conference bridges very easily from a calendar alert.

"Ten minutes before the conference call, a huge green button just shows up on the screen with the conference bridge number already embedded," Wang explained. "And wouldn't it be great if it has the PIN code and the agenda information embedded? They are!"

HTC's "push Internet" is a way of pre-caching Web pages so you can view them without downloading them on demand. According to Wang, you can tell a new HTC phone to download your favorite Web sites on a set schedule, and then view the pre-cached versions extra quickly. HTC didn't give many details, such as whether you can cache several layers of pages.

Together, these three technologies take HTC's version of Windows Mobile way beyond the standard Windows Mobile experience.

HTC showcased them on two new phones, the Touch Diamond2 and the Touch Pro2, both new versions of popular phones from US carriers.

The Touch Diamond2 is a slab-style, all-touch-screen Windows phone with a 3.2-inch, 800x480 touch screen. It's running a 528 MHz Qualcomm processor, and has 288 Mbytes of RAM and a MicroSD memory card slot supporting up to 16-GB cards. It connects to the Net using Wi-Fi 802/11b/g, Bluetooth or 3G cellular. There's a 5-megapixel camera on the back, a VGA camera on the front and an FM radio. The phone also has 50 percent longer battery life than the existing Touch Diamond, Wang said.

The model that HTC announced today is technically not for the U.S., but considering the success of the Touch Diamond on Sprint, we're pretty sure a version of this will come to the U.S.

The Touch Pro2 is even more sure to come to the US -- AT&T, Sprint and Verizon all have versions of the original Touch Pro. This Windows phone has a 3.6-inch, 800x480 screen that tilts up for better viewing and a large slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Like the Touch Diamond2, it's got 288 MHz of RAM, a memory card slot, an FM radio, a Qualcomm 528 MHz processor, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. The camera here is only 3.2 megapixels, though. When you place the Touch Pro2 face down on a table, it becomes a conference speakerphone with dual speakers and a big mute button on the top.

Annoyingly, neither phone has a standard headphone jack.

The Touch Diamond2 will appear in "early Q2," according to Wang, and the Touch Pro2 will come "in the end of Q2." Both phones will come out with Windows Mobile 6.1, but 6.5 will be a free upgrade for both devices, HTC chief executive Peter Chou said.

Windows Mobile was in fine form at HTC, but Android was nowhere to be seen. Chou said that HTC was still committed to Android and would possibly have more news later in the show.

so are you ready for Intel's next server chip?

pic above:Intel's Developer Forum featuring Gordon Moore

Intel has delayed a high-end server chip, billed as the world's first 2 billion transistor microprocessor, originally expected as long ago as 2007.

Tukwila is a quad-core update to the Itanium processor, which has had a less-than-promising run since the original version was announced back in 2001. The chip's architecture--based on explicit instruction-level parallelism--is a radical departure from the x86 design used in PCs today. It was believed at one time that Itanium would replace x86 chips in many Intel-based computers.

So, what's delaying it this time? Intel has "made some engineering enhancements to the Tukwila platform," according to a statement Thursday from Intel. As one enhancement, Tukwila and its follow-on processors on the Itanium roadmap, Poulson and Kittson, will be socket compatible. Intel is also introducing a technology called "scalable buffered memory" to Tukwila platforms. Scalable buffered memory enables higher memory capacities and uses newer DDR3 (Double Data Rate, third generation) memory.

The number of CPU pins that can be dedicated to a memory interface is limited. Scalable buffered memory acts as a memory expander by connecting to multiple DDR3 RDIMMs (Registered Dual In-line Memory Modules) for each CPU memory interface, thus increasing the total memory capacity compared to natively attached memory configurations, according to an explanation provided by Intel.

"Validation testing of the Tukwila processor with the new memory will move the Tukwila platform launch from early '09 to mid '09," and Intel spokesperson said.

Current and past users of Itanium processors include Hewlett-Packard, SGI, NEC, Fujitsu, Unisys, and Hitachi.

The processors are targeted at high-end enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems.

Microsoft Windows 7 (out on 3 Oct 2009)

The road to Windows 7 for Vista-shy customers who want to jump straight from XP to the upcoming operating system won’t be an easy one.

Microsoft confirmed yesterday that Windows XP fans would be able to purchase a licence and media to “upgrade” to the new OS once it lands.

But this being Redmond there is a caveat: XP customers have to perform a clean install of Windows 7. This means wiping their computer hard drive’s data first, which doesn’t sound much like an upgrade to us.

Unsurprisingly, the transition from Vista to Windows 7 will be much more straightforward because customers will get an “in-place upgrade” of the OS that should mean their data and programs will remain intact.

“I can confirm that customers will be able to purchase upgrade media and an upgrade license to move from Windows XP to Windows 7 - however, they will need to do a clean installation of Windows 7,” a Microsoft flack confirmed to The Register.

“This requires the user to back up their data, install Windows 7, re-install the programs and restore their data. For PCs running Windows Vista customers have the option of an in-place upgrade of Windows 7 keeping their data and programs intact or to perform a clean install of Windows 7.”

Microsoft is remaining quiet on how much lighter an XP customer’s wallet will be following the “upgrade”, but Windows plebs can presumably expect a cheaper price tag than if they simply walked into a store and bought the OS off the shelf.

The software giant revealed earlier this week that Windows 7 will come in six different flavours: Windows 7 Starter Edition, Home Basic, Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate.

Many are predicting the OS will rock up at some point in 2009, but MS has declined to offer a date when it thinks Windows 7 will ship. ®