AMD Catalyst 12.4 Windows update is released:

NEW FEATURES

Windows XP support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

- In addition to Windows 7 and Windows Vista support, Catalyst 12.4 now also introduces Windows XP (64-bit/32-bit) support for the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

Super Sampling Anti-Aliasing: Level of Detail (LOD) Image Quality enhancements

- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

- LOD Image quality enhancements have been improved when enabling Super Sample Anti-Aliasing and Adaptive Anti-Aliasing through the AMD Catalyst™ Control Center for DirectX® 10 and DirectX® 11 applications.

- Applications must support in game Anti-Aliasing for the feature to work (Forced on Anti-Aliasing through the Catalyst Control Center is not supported for DirectX 10 and DirectX 11 applications)

Morphological Anti-Aliasing (MLAA): Significant performance enhancements

- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series, AMD Radeon HD 6000 Series, and AMD Radeon HD 5000 Series

- MLAA now operates up to 80% faster than previous versions

Texture filtering quality improvements

- Supported on the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800, and AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series

- Improvements have been made to the texture filtering algorithm (for both DirectX9 and DirectX10/DirectX11 applications) to increase the quality of rendered textures, with no impact to performance

RESOLVED ISSUES

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 12.4 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

- Elder Scrolls: Skyrim : no longer hangs on single GPU configurations when used with AMD Catalyst 12.3 CAP1 and later CAP releases

- Elder Scolls: Skyrim : flickering square corruption is no longer observed.

- Rage : Vsync is no longer disabled after task switching.

- Enemy Territory: Quake Wars : no longer crashes when launched in High Performance Mode.

- Stalker – Call of Pripyat : flickering is no longer observed in trees with specific Catalyst Control Center settings.

- Tom Clancy HAWX 2 : no longer crashes on game launch.

- Windows Media Center: no longer crashes when run in Eyefinity mode and High Performance mode settings.

- AMD Steady Video: an error message is no longer displayed when enabling AMD Steady Video for the Microsoft Internet Explorer 9.0 plugin.

- Duplicating displays no longer generates random corruption.

- Tearing is no longer observed on the third screen in 3x1 and 1x3 Eyefinity configurations.

- A system crash is no longer experienced when enabling Crossfire in a 4 display configuration.

- The advanced video quality settings are now correctly displayed in the Catalyst Control Center.

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.4 software suite for Windows Vista. These include:

- The Catalyst Control Center now renders correctly when launched while playing a Bluray disc using WinDVD.

Resolved Issues for the Windows XP Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.4 software suite for Windows XP. These include:

- Dirt 3 : a system hang is no longer experienced when running game at maximum in game settings.

- Dragon Age 2 : visual corruption is no longer observed.

KNOWN ISSUES

Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:

- Blocky video corruption may be observed while using Windows Media Player to playback HD WMV content.

- The Catalyst Control Center may experience random crashes in specific configurations.

- A green screen may be triggered when playing back Flash content using Google Chrome and Firefox.

- The Unigine Tropics demo may experience random crashes when run with shaders=low and Vsync enabled.

Known issues under the Windows Vista operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst™. These include:

- Cyberlink PowerDVD may crash when enabling BOB de-interlace mode.

Known issues under the Windows XP operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst™. These include:

- The system may fail to resume from sleep/hibernate mode is some configurations.

IT security firm McAfee claims to have uncovered one of the largest ever series of cyber attacks.

It lists 72 different organisations that were targeted over five years, including the International Olympic Committee, the UN and security firms.

McAfee will not say who it thinks is responsible, but there is speculation that China may be behind the attacks.

Beijing has always denied any state involvement in cyber-attacks, calling such accusations "groundless".

Speaking to BBC News, McAfee's chief European technology officer, Raj Samani, said the attacks were still going on.

"This is a whole different level to the Night Dragon attacks that occurred earlier this year. Those were attacks on a specific sector. This one is very, very broad."

Dubbed Operation Shady RAT - after the remote access tool that security experts and hackers use to remotely access computer networks - the five-year investigation examined information from a number of different organisations which thought they may have been hit.

"From the logs we were able to see where the traffic flow was coming from," said Mr Samani.

"In some cases, we were permitted to delve a bit deeper and see what, if anything, had been taken, and in many cases we found evidence that intellectual property (IP) had been stolen.

"The United Nations, the Indian government, the International Olympic Committee, the steel industry, defence firms, even computer security companies were hit," he added.

China speculation

McAfee said it did not know what was happening to the stolen data, but it could be used to improve existing products or help beat a competitor, representing a major economic threat.

"This was what we call a spear-phish attack, as opposed to a trawl, where they were targeting specific individuals within an organisation," said Mr Samani.

"An email would be sent to an individual with the right level of access within the system; attached to the message was a piece of malware which would then execute and open a channel to a remote website giving them access.

"Once they had access to an organisation, they either did what we would call a 'smash-and-grab' operation, where they would try and grab as much information before they got caught, or they sometimes embedded themselves in the network and [tried to] spread across different systems within an organisation."

Mr Samani said his firm would "not make any guesses on where this has come from", but China is seen by many in the industry as a prime suspect.

Jim Lewis, a cyber expert with the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying it was "very likely China was behind the campaign because some of the targets had information that would be of particular interest to Beijing".

Experts warned that commercial espionage was a bigger threat to business than Lulzsec and Anonymous.

"Everything points to China. It could be the Russians, but there is more that points to China than Russia," Lewis said.

However, Graham Cluley - a computer-security expert with Sophos, is not so sure. He said: "Every time one of these reports come out, people always point the finger at China."

He told BBC News: "We cannot prove it's China. That doesn't mean we should be naive. Every country in the world is probably using the internet to spy.

"After all, it's easy and cost-effective - but there's many different countries and organisations it could be."

Mr Cluley said firms were often distracted by the very public actions of LulzSec and Anonymous, groups of online activists who have hacked a number of high-profile websites in recent months.

"Sometimes it's not about stealing your money or publicly leaking your data. It's about quietly stealing your information, which can have a very high political, military or financial value.

"In short, don't let your defences down," he added.

Source: BBC

Google launched a new service on Thursday that can automatically speed up a website's page load times. That's a good thing, as separate studies from Google and Aberdeen Group have shown faster-loading sites boost customer satisfaction and ad revenue.

3 days ago, Google released Page Speed Service, a paid feature that automatically optimizes websites so that their pages load faster. The feature should benefit users lacking expertise in things like Java and CSS coding, or lacking the time to constantly tweak their sites. "It's for people who either don't know how to make these changes or don't want to make these changes," explains Google engineering manager Ram Ramadi.

Google's growth depends on a faster Internet. For a meager 400 millisecond delay, Google's own experiment showed a 0.21% drop in searches (for billions of searches, that adds up quickly). According to the Aberdeen Group, a one-second delay in performance drops page views by 11%. After car review website Edmunds partnered with Google for fast load times, they saw an increase in ad revenue.

Google is, of course, also happy to remind potential customers that their coveted Page Rank system favors websites with faster load times, which might be a selling point to websites that see substantial traffic from Google servers.

For the web-curious, Google has set up a testing site that shows how much faster their site could be with Page Speed. According to webpagetest.org, CNN.com would see an 8.6% percent increase (.36 seconds), and Whitehouse.gov would get a 34% boost (or 4.4 seconds). Google's own tests show around a 25-60% increase for websites.

Currently, Google's Page Speed Service is only available to a limited number of webmasters free of charge, and will open to the public for a "competitive" pricing model later.

Visible light communication (VLC) or simply "Li-Fi" uses rapid pulses of light to transmit information wirelessly. Now, with a new generation of high-brightness light-emitting diodes, it may be ready to compete with conventional Wi-Fi.

VLC encodes data in the light by varying the rate at which the LEDs flicker on and off to give different strings of 1s and 0s. The LED intensity is modulated so rapidly that human eyes cannot notice, so the output appears constant.

VLC could solve some major communication problems caused by a looming spectrum crisis. Because our mobile devices are so data-hungry we will soon run out of radio-frequency bandwidth. Li-Fi could free up bandwidth, especially as much of the infrastructure is already in place. Regular incandescent bulbs could be replaced with LED ones that transmit data.

Some new experimental techniques could further increase VLC data rates, such as parallel data transmission using arrays of LEDs, where each LED transmits a different data stream, or using mixtures of red, green and blue LEDs to alter the light’s frequency, with each frequency encoding a different data channel.

Because it uses light rather than radio-frequency signals, VLC could be used safely in aircraft, integrated into medical devices and hospitals where Wi-Fi is banned, or even underwater, where Wi-Fi doesn’t work at all.

After banning many Google+ accounts over the weekend that they assumed weren't using real names, Google offers an explanation and some work arounds. The latest and fastest growing social media network has a strict policy to use their first and last name for those who sign up. This has created an identity problem for many users who are often known by nicknames, maiden names or internet handles they've used for years to post on various forums or blogs. It's also a headache for those whose real names often contain commonly offensive words. Those that have tried to manipulate the First and Last name fields in the sign-up process to accommodate those alternate identities have found their Google+ account suspended.

Google's VP of Google+, Bradley Horowitz, announced that the policy is currently under review. In the meantime, Google will be giving offending Google+ accounts a warning first, before suspending. If the account is suspended, it only applies to Google+ and not all Google products (i.e. Gmail, Google Docs, etc.) These new rules only apply to people who have made the mistake of trying to use nicknames when signing up for the service. Those who are using the naming process to spam or abuse the service will be treated more harshly.

Horowitz goes on to present some ways users can use nicknames so that others may find their Google+ account. You can add nicknames to the "Other names" section of your Google+ profile. To do this, click on the Profile icon at the top of your Google+ page. Then click the blue Edit Profile button to the right of your name. Scroll to the bottom to find the "Other names" section. Right below that you will see the option to allow your Google profile to be visible via search. Be sure to enable that so others can find you via the nickname you are entering.

The bigger question is if Google's stance on using you real name for Google+ is necessary. Google claims that insisting on real names makes it easier for others to find you and stops people from registering with offensive names or names meant to harass others. On the other hand, your real name may not be how you are primarily known so registering with it defeats the purpose for those users.

Source: Zdnet

We've been playing around with Google+ for a few weeks now, but until today the mobile options for the iPhone owners among us were limited to a clunky phone browser version of the G+ website. Today that changes with the launch of the official Google+ app for iOS devices. The app is currently up in the iTunes App Store, though it may take a while for it populate for you depending on your region.

The app features the now-familiar Google+ interface, including profile pages, Circles, and Huddles. Google went with a decidedly minimalist design for the app home page, which displays large icons for the various Google+ features and a large bottom notifications bar to sift through the recent social network goings-on.

Currently, Google+ remains in invite-only beta, and new users must obtain an email invitation from someone who is already using the service. But with the launch of the official app, we have to imagine that a public introduction of the new social network is right around the corner, as all the software is now in place to really let it thrive.

Source

The newest version of Apple's Mac OS X operating system is finally here, and Lion has brought with it both minor tweaks and some big changes, but is it all for the better? Apple's iPhone and iPad lines have been selling at a rate that puts hotcakes to shame, and while the Mac computer line has a thriving fanbase of its own, there's no question that the company hopes to turn iOS users into Mac users as quickly as possible.

To this end, Lion appears built from the ground up to make iPad users — who have perhaps never considered owning a Mac — feel as comfortable as possible with the foreign operating system. These changes make Lion feel more accessible to would-be Mac converts, but also throw a bit of a curve in the road for existing customers who have been using Apple computers since before the iOS craze.

The touchable trackpad

The most immediate change that Mac fans will notice is that scrolling has been reversed. That's right, moving two fingers up on the trackpad or Magic Mouse no longer causes a web page or document to scroll up, instead it scrolls down. This might seem like a completely nonsensical change — and if you're not an iPhone or iPad owner, it is — but it's just one of several changes that make Lion feel more like an iPad experience.

On the iPad, as well as the iPhone, you use the touch screen to navigate things like web pages. Placing a finger on the screen and pushing up moves the page itself upwards, effectively scrolling down. Now, when you touch your Mac trackpad or Magic Mouse and push up, the page scrolls down as well. It's a simple change that could go a long way to making iPad owners feel at home, but it might also make Mac diehards feel like the new OS is catered to someone else. Thankfully, the new "feature" can be disabled by visiting the options menu.

Launchpad is ready for takeoff

Launchpad is a new way to view all the applications installed on your Mac, and it's unapologetically iPad-esque. Clicking the new Launchpad button on the icon dock causes all other applications to fade from sight, leaving you with an out-of-focus view of your desktop with all of your computer's apps presented in a grid-like fashion.

From here you can launch whatever program you desire, and also organize your apps into folders just like on an iOS device. If you happen to have more apps than can fit on a single Launchpad screen, multiple screens will be created which can then be scrolled through. If you don't feel like using Launchpad, there's no reason you need to, as the original Finder menus can be used to locate applications just like always, but new users might benefit from the familiar look.

Bye-bye scrollbar

Another noticeable change is that a the typically static scrollbar is decidedly absent. Instead, a dynamic scroll bar takes it's place, and only appears on the screen when you're actively scrolling, disappearing quickly after you choose a new position on the page. Again, this is an option that can be disabled, but it is clearly aimed to make Apple's computer line feel just a tiny bit more like its portable devices — and vice versa.

Apps go fullscreen

Lion introduces the ability to make your applications dominate the screen. Up until now, apps like web browsers could only take up part of a Mac display, with the dock (if unhidden) and top menu bar remaining visible at all times. This limited screen real estate and could sometimes give a cramped feel.

Lion fixes this by allowing programs like the Safari browser and Mail app to go fullscreen by clicking a pair of arrows in the upper right-hand corner. This makes each app the star of its own show, and you can switch between your various fullscreen apps by swiping three fingers to the left or right on your trackpad. This feature is useful in its own right, but it should also provide iOS veterans the simple all-or-nothing feel they've come to expect when using apps on Apple's mobile devices.

These changes are already being met with mixed reactions from early adopters around the web. As could be expected, some feel that Apple is catering to the new breed of Apple user who have been introduced to the brand through its top-selling mobile devices. Others see it as the next step for an operating system that has always been about the user experience. If you've given Lion a try, be sure to let us know how you feel about the new features in the comments section.

Source: by Mike Wehner from Tecca

Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, is chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee that handles antitrust matters. He says the transaction would lead to higher prices and fewer choices for consumers by leaving just three national wireless carriers. He notes that two of those carriers — AT&T and Verizon Wireless — would control nearly 80 percent of the market.

He says that by eliminating T-Mobile, the merger would remove the one carrier offering less expensive prices and rate plans.

Thus, he says, the acquisition "would likely cause substantial harm to competition and consumers."

Kohl sent a letter to the Justice Department and the Federal Communication Commission on Wednesday.

Source: Yahoo By JOELLE TESSLER.

Some Netflix customers called it a slap in the face. Others a betrayal. Many threatened to drop the movie service.

On Wednesday, many of them vented on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, seething over Netflix Inc.'s decision to raise its prices by up to 60 percent for the millions of subscribers who want to rent DVDs by mail and watch movies online.

"I can definitely afford it but I dropped them on principle," said Joe Turick, a technology engineer in Monroe, N.C., who has been with Netflix for about a decade, cancelled his subscription within an hour of learning of Tuesday's price changes and plans to try competitors.

By Wednesday afternoon, more than 40,000 people had responded to a post on Netflix's Facebook page announcing the change, with some saying they would switch to rivals such as Hulu.com's paid service and to Redbox's DVD-rental kiosks.

Outrage bubbled on Twitter, and on Netflix's blog a posting about the new plans had garnered 5,000 comments — the limit allowed by the site's host, Google Inc.-owned Blogger — which included many seething customers.

Netflix said company executives expected the intense reaction.

"Everything Netflix does is with extensive research and testing and analysis, so we expected some people to be disappointed," spokesman Steve Swasey said.

While thousands complained on Facebook, Twitter and other websites, with 22.8 million customers in the U.S., it's clear that plenty of them are not upset about the change.

In online postings, a number of users concluded that, even at the higher price, Netflix is still a better deal than competitors.

On Tuesday, the company said it was splitting up its two services, which means that subscribers who want both streaming video and DVD-by-mail access will have to get separate plans that cost at least $16 per month total.

Netflix had been offering both services as a single package that was available for as little as $10 per month. The price changes took effect immediately for new subscribers, and will begin Sept. 1 for current Netflix customers.

With the new rates, Netflix isn't changing the $8 monthly price for an Internet streaming-only option.

However, instead of charging $2 more for a plan that also offers one DVD at a time by mail, the company will charge $8 for a comparable DVD-only plan. That brings the total to $16 for customers who want both services.

Customers who want to rent up to two DVDs at a time with streaming will pay $20 per month, or 33 percent more. Those wanting three DVDs at a time with streaming will pay $24 per month, or 20 percent more.

While the changes will help Netflix bring in more money to cover rising costs it faces to cover buying and shipping discs while licensing more content for its streaming library, they also put off a number of subscribers — at least in the short term.

Turick, the technology engineer, was paying $10 a month to have unlimited streaming and a single disc out at a time, and with the new plans he would be on the hook for $16 per month.

The change felt "like a slap in the face," he said, adding that he'll try renting movies from Redbox kiosks, ordering on-demand videos through his cable TV provider or using his Blu-ray player to stream videos from the Web.

Zach Olsen, who is vice president of a public relations firm in San Francisco and has used Netflix for about five years, canceled his subscription on Tuesday after receiving an email from the company announcing the price hike.

"I was fired up. And I wanted to put my electronic foot down," Olsen said.

Doug Baker, a software developer in Fort Collins, Colo., who has used Netflix since 2000, isn't cutting it off completely, but he is downsizing to a cheaper plan.

Since his bill for unlimited streaming and four DVDs out at a time would rise to $30 in September, he's opting instead to pay $16 for one DVD at a time and unlimited video streaming.

Baker thinks the company should have offered a smaller price increase to long-time subscribers, saying, "it would have been nice if they showed some appreciation" to them.

"It makes you wonder if they really want to serve their customers or just their stock holders," Baker said.

Swasey, the Netflix spokesman, would not comment about how many subscribers have actually cancelled their Netflix subscriptions, saying the company will discuss subscriber metrics during its quarterly earnings conference call on July 25.

Chris Caggiano, a professor at The Boston Conservatory, isn't planning to change his Netflix plan either, even though he'll pay $20 in September — up from $15 currently — to have unlimited streaming and two DVDs out at a time.

"Prices go up. I don't see the big deal. There's this huge hue and cry — it's like the end of the world," he said.

And Netflix, Caggiano pointed out, is a for-profit business. "This is not a public service," he said. "And, as many people are deciding to do, you can go elsewhere."

Source:Yahoo.