Episode 0002, 02/19/2007
Welcome to Course Technology's Coursecast of the Week, Episode 2, for February 19th, 2007.
This is Ken Baldauf with more technology news and information targeted at college students.
This Coursecast is brought to you by Course Technology. Check out www.course.com for innovative textbooks and creative electronic learning solutions for higher education.
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Microsoft Vista is Here at Last
After years of anticipation and numerous delays, Microsoft Vista has finally arrived. Reviewers agree that Vista is the best version of Windows yet. The new Aero interface that incorporates translucent effects featuring dynamic reflections and smooth animations is the most noticable and attractive feature of Vista. Under the hood, Vista is more stable and secure than Windows XP. Users claim that there are literaclly thousands of small advances and improvements in Vista.
Even with all of the effort Microsoft invested in Vista, its release was not the grand event that previous versions of Windows have enjoyed. This is primarily due to Vista's demanding system requirements that require most users to buy a new PC in order to enjoy its maximum benefits.
There are three versions of Vista designed for home use: Vista Home Basic, Home Premium, and Ultimate. They range in price from $99 to $293 for the upgrade editions, with the most expensive, Ultimate providing all of the new features. PC's that were purchased more than a year ago, will probably only be able to support Vista Basic which many reviewers find is not much of an improvement over Windows XP. Go to micorosft.com and use the Vista Upgrade Advisor to see which version of Vista will run on your PC. You can even purchase and download Vista directly from Microsoft.
Windows Vista is receiving mixed reviews from the press. Individuals that were expecting Vista to completely transform their computing experience are feeling let down. But, even the most negative reviews point out that Vista is a significant improvement over its predecesor, and is worth moving to, even if you have to wait until your next computer purchase to run it. With PC sales up significantly since the Vista release, it is clear that many are doing just that.
Don't Forget Office 2007!
With all the hoopla surrounding Microsoft Vista. Microsoft's new Office 2007 has gotten much less noteriety than it deserves... but almost all of it is good. Reviewers love Office 2007's "radical makeover" as CNET calls it. No more searching through a maze of menus to find a command. In fact no more menus at all! Office 2007 uses ribbons in place of menus. Contextual tabs are displayed to offer only commands that relate to your present activity. The new interface is intended to be much more intuitive and to "give beginners the same power as experts" says PC Magazine. The Office 2007 Home and Student edition is priced at $149.
Sources
Vista Arrives With Limited Fanfare: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/31/technology/31vista.html?ex=1327899600&en=b780157e5aced348&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
Office 2007 sales off to faster start than last release: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9011237&source=rss_news10
PC sales jump in Vista's debut week: http://news.com.com/PC+sales+jump+in+Vistas+debut+week/2100-1045_3-6157709.html
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Have you Heard About Web 2.0?
Someday, maybe soon, you won't have to bother installing software like Microsoft Office on your computer. More and more applications and services are becoming available online. Think about how you spend your time on the computer. You probably spend more time on the Web than on any other activity. Social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook provide online forums for meeting and sharing information. Websites like Youtube, Wikipedia, Flickr, as well as numerous blogs, and podcasts provide us with the power to share our insite, opinions, photos, recordings, and videos, with the world. Recently productivity software has become available on the Web as well. Google Docs and Spreadsheets provide Web-based document editing and numerical analysis that support most common needs. The Web is being used increasingly to create, edit, store and share documents, and media.
This trend to move computing activities, software, and documents from your PC to Web-based services is what techies call Web 2.0. Web 2.0 makes use of the Internet as a platform for computing and colaboration. Moving our computing operations and data to the Internet simply makes sense in a world where we access our data from numerous Internet-connected devices. Consider how convenient it would be to be able to store your entire music collection online to access from your apartment, your car, and your cell phone. As connections to the Internet become more pervasive, this scernario become inevitable.
Experience Web 2.0 for yourself! Google has just made Gmail available to the general public. Sign up for your free Gmail account at mail.google.com and enjoy Google's many online applications and services. You may not be able to store your entire music collection online yet, but with the 2.5 GB of storage and the software that Google provides, you can store, edit, and share your calendar, photos, notes, documents, spreadsheets, and lots more.
Google Gmail Service Ready for All: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=03300316GAZL
What Is Web 2.0: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
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Are you Ready for the "Era of Tera"?
You've heard of dual core processors like Intel's Core Duo line . They are called dual-core because they house two CPUs in a single integrated circuit. Intel and AMD have both been working on quad-core processors, with four CPUs, as the next step to increased processing power. This week Intel surprised the tech world when it unveiled and demonstrated an 80-core chip, capable of carrying out trillions of floating point operations per second, commonly called Teraflops. The new super-chip sets the stage for what Intel is calling the "Era of Tera".
The chip's design exploits Intel's latest manufacturing technology based on a new transistor design that makes it possible to shrink transistors to sizes that require much less power while providing much faster processing speeds. The new technology allows Intel to keep pace with Moore's Law which states that "the number of transistors on a chip doubles about every two years". Look for Intel's Teraflop chips in PCs within the next five years.
Intel's 80-Core Chip Marks Era of Tera: http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=50034
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Steve Jobs Ignites Debate Over DRM
Apple's Cheif Executive Steve Jobs is known for making waves. Consider the iPod and the soon to come iPhone as evidence. This week he created a stir when he called on the big four record labels to discontinue the use of DRM. DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, a technology used on music sold by online services such as iTunes and Napster that prevents consumers from freely sharing copies of the music files.
Jobs sited the inconcistancy within the industry where 90 percent of music sales are on CD's which have no DRM while online sales are harnessed with the restrictive technology. In a statement posted on the Apple Web site Jobs said that "If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies" he said.
The day after Steve Jobs posted his statement, the recoding industry responded with a suggestion that rather than doing away with DRM, Apple share its Fairplay technology with its competitors. Fairplay is Apple's DRM that is used by iTunes. Fairplay is the reason that music downloaded from iTunes can only be played on iPod players. Jobs said that approach would only complicate enforcement of digital rights management, as myriad companies would have to coordinate software and hardware updates. Meanwhile, it has been reported that record label EMI is in negotiations with some of the leading music stores to offer a substantial portion of its music catalog without DRM. Could it be that the music industry is finally ready to meet consumers half way?
Apple's Jobs calls on music industry to drop DRM:
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyid=2007-02-07T122651Z_01_WEN3678_RTRUKOC_0_US-APPLE-ITUNES.xml&src=rss
EMI decision to go DRM-free imminent: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070209-8803.html
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Well that's it for this months Coursecast. Links to this month's stories and many more news and information resources are provided at the Coursecast Web site accessible from www.course.com. Until next time have a great month and be sure to take advantage of the Power -- of Technology!