During its four-hour Financial Analyst Day presentation today, AMD revealed new elements of its processor roadmap spanning the next couple of years, as well as its plans to scale beyond the current multi-core model. Intel talked about processors with “tens to hundreds of cores” at IDF earlier this year, but AMD believes the core race is just a repeat of the megahertz race and that adding more cores isn’t the best way to go about scaling processor performance in the future. Instead, AMD is cooking up what it calls “Accelerated Processing Units”.

Accelerated Processing Units, or APUs, will be multi-core chips that include any mix of processor cores and other dedicated processors. Fusion, AMD’s integrated CPU and graphics processor, is AMD’s first step in that direction. However, the company eventually intends add more specialized cores that can handle tasks other than general-purpose computing and graphics. AMD didn’t give any specific examples, but one could easily imagine future Fusion-like chips with cores for physics processing, audio/video encoding, and heck, maybe even AI acceleration.

Source: The Tech Report

Someone by the nickname of Dr. Chang has managed to permanently activate Windows without buying it! I’m not sure about this because I have not tried Windows Vista and the crack yet. However, Dr. Chang has included screenshots to proof that it’s true that he managed to crack Windows Vista activation. Dr. Chang tried pushing the date to Year 2016 (ten years ahead) and restarting several times, then moved the date back to 2006, the only thing that expired is his Antivirus. No more 180 days expiration problem and able to successfully receive Windows Updates for Windows Vista.

Source: raymond.cc

Google Inc. on Friday will join the crowded field of services registering Web site addresses in a move aimed at encouraging more usage of the online search leader’s free software products.

The Mountain View-based company is offering its latest service in a partnership with GoDaddy.com and eNom, two of the many administrators that help Web sites officially register their names under domains like “.com” and “net.”

Google’s service will charge a $10 annual fee and only handle addresses ending in four suffixes - “.com,” “.net,” “.biz” and “.info.” There are more than 250 other suffixes in the Internet’s master directories.

Source: AP

Nintendo said Friday it will replace 3.2 million straps for its popular Wii computer game controllers after receiving a rash of reports that the devices flew out of the hands of overzealous players.

The recall is a bittersweet development for Nintendo - a costly hitch in its three-way battle with Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360, but also confirmation of the enthusiastic reception worldwide.

The Wii’s signature wand-like remote controller is used to mimic the motions of a tennis racket, golf club or sword, depending on the game. But soon after the Wii went on sale last month, people started reporting cases of the controller’s strap breaking as they waved it about vigorously.

Nintendo will allow customers to exchange the old straps, which have a 0.024 inch diameter, for a beefed up strap that has a diameter of 0.04 inch, company spokesman Yasuhiro Minagawa said. The worldwide recall is expected to cost the company several several million dollars.

Source: AP

Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser edged up slightly in usage at the expense of Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer, commanding nearly 11 percent of the U.S. market on a typical weekday, according to research by WebSideStory.

On Dec. 7, Firefox had a 10.7 percent share on computers running Microsoft’s Windows operating system, an increase from 9.84 percent seven weeks earlier.

By contrast, IE usage dropped to 88.2 percent, from 89.1 percent.

Opera Software ASA’s Opera and other browsers made up the rest.

Firefox’s relative usage is often higher on weekends because many businesses have only IE installed on their machines, boosting Microsoft’s share.

Source: AP