iZ3D has been shipping 19″ and 22″ 3D monitors for a while now mainly aimed at gamers.  How the 3D monitor technology works is better explained here.  The manufacturer has announcedprice cuts for their bottom line models but there’s quite a few glitches that will score negative points and chase away potential customers.  First and foremost, in order to get the iZ3D to work properly you must install the S-3D drivers which are compatible with all major ATI & Nvidia graphics cards.  But there are currently no 64-bit drivers so anyone using a 64-bit operating system is SOL.  Additionally, for you more hardcore gamers, these LCD’s will not work in SLI or Crossfire configurations.  If you use an Nvidia card, forget about using more than one monitor.  The 22″ iZ3D model had a $1,000 price tag but it has dropped down to $599.  Will this help this technology take off?  Personally, I think they should start making these for console(360, PS3, Wii) units.  Gamers are moving away from PC’s over to the console arena anyways so they’ll have better market share.

The battle between CPU and GPU rages on.  According to this article over at The Inquirer, the VP of Sales over at Nvidia has stated the CPU is dead.  He states numerous references from this TG Daily articlein his argument that Intel and AMD are crapping in their pants because CPU technologies are a dying breed.
Here’s what he had to say:

“I don’t know how much this will mean to you all but for those that don’t know a war has just started that will likely be written about for years and which will affect everyone who owns a PC. Everyone.

Basically the CPU is dead. Yes, that processor you see advertised everywhere from Intel. Its run out of steam.The fact is that it no longer makes anything run faster. You don’t need a fast one anymore. This is why AMD is in trouble and its why Intel are panicking. They are panicking so much that they have started attacking us. This is because you do still [need] one chip to get faster and faster – the GPU. That GeForce chip. Yes honestly. No I am not making this up. You are my friends and so I am not selling you. This shit is just interesting as hell.

Today your PC plays video (its our chip that makes that work), you play games (its our chip that makes that work), you rip movies (yup our chip again) – you get the picture?”

Although Roy does have a point, the video card takes on a lot of multimedia tasks, but the CPU is needed to execute and run these processes.  Unless Nvidia has something up their sleeve where a next generation GPU can also take on these tasks, these accusations and rants are null.

Nasa’s Ames Research Center has got into bed with m2mi to experiment with a new satellite network system.   According to a NASA press release, NASA and m2mi will work together to build a network of “nanosats” on a commercial basis.  These nanosat’s will be low orbit satellitesweighing between 11-110lbs and will be arranged in a cluster or constellation pattern.  They will provide a global, space-based, high-speed network for voice, data, storage applications, and Earth observations.  Being that they so small, they can be mass produced at reasonable prices and since they will be so close together(space wise), if one fails then the network will not suffer.  Could this be the future of the Internet?  The Reg reports.

Apparently Research In Motion (RIM) has delayed the launch of the 3G capable BlackBerry 8900 so it doesn’t run along side the launch of the next-generation iPhone.  The Reg reports this isn’t the only reason why it has been delayed.  Reports say that the company’s internal staff has complained about the products technical glitches and will delay its release from this June to August.  The BlackBerry 8900 is supposed to be the first 3G BlackBerry to appear on the AT&T network here in the United States.  Is delaying it past the iPhone’s release date a good idea?  Time will tell.

Microsoft’s Q1 2008 earnings report came out and saw a 24% drop in sales versus this time last year.  The culprit: Windows sales have shriveled up.  It’s no surprise with this lackluster economy and poor consumer acceptance of the new(er) operating system Windows Vista.  There’s still a big consumer fan-base for Windows XP that refuse to switch over.  Now, with XP Service Pack 3 just days away from official release(April 29th), all the reason for XP users to not even bother with Vista at all.  Quite possibly wait it out until the Windows 7 release in 2010.

On a lighter note, Microsoft Office is still doing fairly well, but has suffered a bit with the continued roll out of online applications such as Google Apps.  Additionally, the entertainment division(Zune & Xbox), is up 68%.  The bottom line for Microsoft’s total income is down 11% from the previous year.  Microsoft has its work cut out for them.  The market is shifting and they must change with it to survive.

If enough customers complain about the end-of-life cycle on June 30th.  Steve Ballmer announced at a news conference in Belguim today, “XP will hit an end-of-life. We have announced one. If customer feedback varies we can always wake up smarter but right now we have a plan for end-of-life for new XP shipments”.  Of course he also announced that Windows Vista sales are pumping right along and that customers are transitioning over slowly.  Consumers are still buying PC’s preloaded with Windows XP but that trend will soon stop as of June 30th as OEM’s will no longer be able to get new XP licenses.  If enough customers complain, this date could be extended further.  Windows XP Service Pack 3 has been released which may convince current XP users to stay longer and even hold out until Windows 7 is released in 2009 or 2010.  If that’s the case then the backlash from the consumer community may burst soon.  The Reg reports.

Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer announced late yesterday that they may turn their back on the Yahoo deal.  But is this a good decision to make this late in the game?  Think about it.  Ever since Microsoft started dropping hint bombs about their offer on Yahoo, it has made their management go into overdrive.  Struggling to the best of their ability they have revamped their services and bottom line.  Yahoo did something that no one thought they would do.  They actually got into bed with Google with a “trial” advertisement campaign to see if they could increase their value to stem Microsoft off.  At this point, Microsoft has woken the beast within and clearly Yahoo has shown they will not go down without a fight.  If Microsoft backs off, Yahoo is now stronger and possesses better leadership than it has in the past few years.  And Microsoft has brought this on themselves!  Either they follow through with it or Yahoo may very well continue to be a top contender along side Google.  Who knows, with this recent vigor, Yahoo may dump additional money into R&D and surpass Google one day all because of Microsoft.

Microsoft has revealed Live Mesh.  A new Windows Live platform that can sync all of your Applications and Data with all of your devices.  Cool feature but only limited to Windows operating systems, which we already assumed.  Mesh also allows you to setup a virtual desktop online and connect all of your computers to it.  This way you can copy or move files from one PC to another seamlessly.  Currently the platform only works with Windows XP or Vista but hopefully they’ll expand this to Apple and (doesn’t hold his breath) Linux.  This platform should of been made years ago but Microsoft is still on the offense with its interoperability conquest.  See the full article and additional details at TechCrunch.com.

Yikes.  The whole point of using Linux in the first place was to reduce costs and problems.  OLPC has announced that they might dump Linux from their XO laptops in exchange for Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.  It appears that Microsoft has gotten into bed with the OLPC and has rubbed someone the right way to make such a drastic change.  The OLPC has been praised for going with Linux in the first place.  I wonder how the OLPC fans will react.

The US Federal Communications Committee chairman Kevin Martin see’s that Comcast’s own definition of ‘delayed’ is hogwash.  Comcast swears on their mothers grave that they just delay this traffic but independent tests say otherwise.  Tests have shown that Comcast’s networks prevent users from “seeding” P2P uploads after they finished downloading content.  Comcast’s network then analyzes these data packets and uses a forged “reset flag” to break the P2P connections.  The tests have shown that this “delayed” technique, or so thy say, is used 24/7.

Electronic Arts has seen the rest of the industry shift into a mobile market.  Apple has been dominating since the introduction of the iPhone in this sector.  Google still has its Android platform in the works but it’s still sometime before they can release to the masses.  EA along with Hasbro have been working to push into the mobile gaming market.  They release the classic game Monopoly for mobile devices but do not enable the online multiplayer option.  They claim that the European market is ‘too fragmented’ to make this feasible.  The Inquirer reports.

Just when Google released better than expected Q1 08 earnings they get hit with a nice lawsuit.  The Plaintiff, David Almeida, who wants to make his case a class action lawsuit claims that Adwords customers that leave the “cost-per-click” content bid box blank when they filled in the CPC form were being erroneously charged.  The Adwords customers have control over how much they can set each CPC unit for but David says that if you leave it entirely blank you still get charged anyways.  He also claims that Google never mentions it anywhere on their website regarding this policy.

Most likely, Google probably has some sort of clause in the terms & conditions agreement regarding this.  If they don’t it’s a different story.  But I’m sure it’s stated some where in fine print.  They have teams of lawyers that look out for this sort of thing.

There’s a low blow to Microsoft today as the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the class action lawsuit appeal against them today.  The Class Action Lawsuit against Microsoft is now eminent.  The Plaintiff’s in the case, consumers that purchased PC’s during the 2006 holiday season, allege that Microsoft “artificially inflated” demand to increase PC sales for their Windows Vista operating system.

This is not a surprise as half of those “Vista Capable” PC’s didn’t have drivers supported for the Vista operating system.  Additionally, these PC’s mostly had between 256-512MB of system memory, far below the recommended settings for Windows Vista.  I personally would not recommend below 1GB of RAM as it’s a complete resource hog even with the most modern PC.  Some vendors, even to this day, are still having a difficult time with the Vista operating system.  For example, Sonicwall has yet to produce a fully functioning “non-beta” version of their 64 Bit Global VPN software.  Microsoft may be quick to dilute Windows Vista with a fast track release of Windows 7 but we won’t know this until the first beta versions surface to compare.

According to this articleover at The Inquirer, a Chinese Windows Enthusiast claimed to have gotten their hands on the latest milestone release of Windows 7.  They announced that the User Account Control(UAC) function has been toned down a bit and even added the ability to ignore tasks you’re doing for a few minutes so it doesn’t constantly bug you.  Its also been reported that the Vista appearance has been slightly tweaked and the Security Center is now known as the Health Center.

Microsoft has a long way to go before making a significant improvement over Vista, but so far they seem to be on the right track.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency(The Pentagon) announces three contenders that are racing in its Vulture project.  This “craft” is expected to fly unmanned in the stratosphere of the earth for 5 years.  Such a device can be used for surveillance, voice or data communications, or weather analysis. 

Here’s a concept video of what this wing ship is expected to do:

Now this idea is not new.  Another company called Sanswire Network, LLC. had a similar concept a few years ago.  They branded the concept called Stratellite’s.  Which are high altitude airships that would hover lower than an orbiting satellite(stratosphere), but far above the jet stream.  At approximately 13 miles above the earth, these units were supposed to be used for broadband Internet, mobile phones, digital television, and radio signals to a large region.  It was stated that 10-15 of these strategically placed around the United States would cover all the lower 48 states with all the said services.  Unfortunately Sanswire Network, LLC has since then suffered from a CEO change and an investigation from Securities and Exchange Commission for violations.

Here’s what the Stratellite looked like: