Google to Launch Its Operating System Next Week

– Linux-based OS prepared for release

A while ago, the Internet world talked about a potential GooglePhone, especially created to fight with the Apple iPhone. At that time, the Mountain View company avoided commenting on the speculation; the only thing mentioned was that Google will remain a software firm and not a hardware one. So no GooglePhone; but in the meantime, the search giant released several new mobile flavors of its products. Take the example of Gmail, Google Search, YouTube, Google Calendar. Now, what do you understand from this: Google remains a software company, but it develops mobile versions of its products? That’s right, Google wants to conquer the mobile software industry but how else can you do it if not through a mobile operating system?

The most recent rumors sustain that the Mountain View company prepares a mobile operating system that is scheduled to be released very soon, maybe sometimes next week. The folks from Engadget claim that it might be entirely based on a Linux platform, because several Googlers are quite experienced in this domain. “At Google, Andy’s team has developed a Linux-based mobile device OS (no surprise) which they’re currently shopping around to handset makers and carriers on the premise of providing a flexible, customizable system — with really great Google integration, of course,” Ryan Block from Engadget wrote.

Obviously, the entire operating system would be bundled with Google’s technologies such as search, YouTube or Gmail. Actually, I think it would probably contain all sorts of shortcuts to allow the handheld owner to access the Google services in a matter of seconds if an Internet connection is available.

But the main question is: which mobile companies will implement the operating system into their devices? As you might know, Google signed deals with some famous phone producers such as Samsung, but there is no evidence that the Mountain View company might bring the OS on their devices. In fact, the entire operating system might be only pure speculation

Speakers More Expensive Than Your Car: Snell Reference Tower A7

– Massachusetts audiophile excellence

So, you take pride in saying about yourself that you’re an audiophile. Well, now’s the time to ask you how much you are willing to spend on a pair of exquisite loudspeakers. $10K? 20 grands? How about $35,000? Yes, your eyes read well, thirty-five thousand US dollars, for a pair of loudspeakers… not that they are the world’s most expensive ones; as a matter of fact they are rather mid-ranged in this field… but what makes them great is the ultra-advanced technology, most careful hand-crafting and the 30 year-long audio excellence
heritage. At last, we’re speaking about the Snell Reference Tower A7 loudspeakers.

The Snell A7 is the new flagship product of the Massachusetts manufacturer and man, aren’t these loudspeakers looking swell? They come with massive rounded cabinets that instantly kill any stationary waves and whose finish will instantly raise the value of any room they’re in. The driver complement is rather massive itself and runs with two separated “blocks”.

First of all we’re talking about the dual array of 10-inch woofers with a rumbling 27Hz bottom end that are able to provide you with quite a shake when driven hard and will offer pristine bass performance in any conditions. The rest of the acoustic spectrum is reproduced by a d’Appolito array combining two magnesium 5.25″ drivers vertically aligned over and under a silk tweeter. The sensitivity response of these speakers reaches a dazzling 110dB.

Would you trade you car for this? Oh, sorry, your two cars…

The product sports extreme dynamics and a lifelike response that is most suitable for the most critical listeners and any style, from the bluesiest vocal parts to the shredding rock passages; these loudspeakers will grant you an impressive performance and it will seem that the artists you’ll be listening to are right in front of you. These units come with a cast aluminium base with four integrated feet and natural cherry with silver grilles or black-painted walnut with black grilles finishes, while other colors and finishes can be of course specially ordered for a certain price.

And once more, the Snell Reference Tower A7 pair sells for $35,000.

32-bit Windows Vista vs. 64-bit Windows Vista

– Vs. system memory

By: Marius Oiaga, Technology News Editor

One of the core differences between 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista is of course how much system memory the two variants of Microsoft’s latest operating systems can use. You have to understand that Microsoft alone limited 32-bit Vista to a maximum of 4 GB of RAM while taking the high-end editions of 64-bit Vista up to 128 GB of RAM. The fact of the matter is that the company could have tailor fitted both 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows XP to address well in excess of 4 GB of system memory, but didn’t. The best argument related to the possibility of introducing support for over 4 GB of RAM with x86 Vista and XP is the fact that Microsoft does feature alternative 32-bit Window operating systems with this characteristic. Case in point Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition (32 GB of physical RAM), Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1, Enterprise Edition(64 GB of physical RAM) and Windows Server 2003 SP1, Datacenter Edition (128 GB of physical RAM). All these server side Windows operating systems are 32-bit platforms.

So why hasn’t the same been done with Windows Vista? Well, just because the 32-bit server operating systems can support in excess of 32-bit of RAM does not mean that it is the ideal solution. Far from it in fact, it is something more of a hack. Introducing PAE… Physical Address Extensions. “PAE is an Intel-provided memory address extension that enables support of greater than 4 GB of
physical memory for most 32-bit (IA-32) Intel Pentium Pro and later platforms,” Microsoft revealed. Essentially processors with PAE permit access to no less than 36-bit addresses, via the built in 36 pins, in contrast to the 32-bit addresses of 32 pin CPUs. Simple, isn’t it? Well not quite! PAE also requires proper “wiring” with the chipset. And sometimes, more often than not, the motherboard simply does not come equipped to deal with 36 pins processors. The fact of the matter is that the PAE extension is an alternative to upgrading to 64-bit architecture, but it also is a temporary solution focused on the already obsolete 32-bit platforms.

“The consumer versions of 32-bit Windows XP and Vista have a stated limit of 4 GB RAM, but a practical limit of about 3.1 GB. [And] PAE doesn’t do anything to the virtual memory limit. Pointers are still 32 bits, so a process can only access 4 GB of address space at a time. However, using PAE, two or more processes could each access a different 4 GB of physical memory. With proper operating system support (i.e. AWE on Windows operating systems) PAE also allows a process to allocate additional memory outside its normal address space, then swap portions of that additional memory into its address space as needed. Another hardware limitation [in addition to the motherboard wiring] is the ability of the chipset to remap RAM. If you have 4 GB of RAM, and 600 MB of address space is used up by PCI/AGP reserved areas, the only way to access the top 600 MB of RAM is to remap it into the addresses above the 4 GB boundary. Not all chipsets are able to do this, so some systems will just waste any RAM that happens to be shadowed by a PCI/AGP reserved region,” revealed Doug Cook, a member of the Microsoft Platform Builder (”PB”) IDE team.

PAE doesn’t do anything to the virtual memory limit. Nothing! Keep this in mind. Does 64-bit Vista do something to the virtual memory limit? Well, yes. Actually judge for yourselves. The address space in x64 Vista is a whooping 8TB, that’s no less than 8.096 GB. Hmm… Compare 8TB of address space to… 4 GB and you will understand why 64-bit is the future. Even though Microsoft will support 32-bit platforms with Windows 7 (Seven), Vista’s successor, the future is still 64-bit. But maybe by 2010 the ecosystem of drivers and applications will get in line with the general trend.

“Windows XP originally supported a full 4 GB of RAM. You would be limited to 3.1-3.5 GB without PAE, but if you enabled PAE on a 4 GB system with proper chipset and motherboard support, you would have access to the full 4 GB. As more people began to take advantage of this feature using commodity (read: cheapest product with the features I want) hardware, Microsoft noticed a new source of crashes and blue screens. These were traced to drivers failing to correctly handle 64-bit physical addresses. A decision was made to improve system stability at a cost of possibly wasting memory. XP SP2 introduced a change such that only the bottom 32 bits of physical memory will ever be used, even if that means some memory will not be used. (This is also the case with 32-bit editions of Vista.) While this is annoying to those who want that little bit of extra oomph, and while I would have liked a way to re-enable the memory “at my own risk”, this is probably the right decision for 99.9% of the general population of Windows users,” Cook added.

Microsoft Virtual Earth Reveals Top Secret U.S. Ballistic Missile Submarine

– In a dry dock and in plain sight

There are little secrets left in the world and with Google Earth and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth mapping every nook and cranny of the planet’s surface, items that might have catalyzed an arms race during the Cold War become more and more everyday commodities. Top secret nuclear submarines for example are no longer classified data, but mundane information accessible via the browser, Google and Microsoft web-based mapping services and
a few clicks of the mouse.

It was the case with the Jin-class top secret Chinese nuclear submarine popping out on Google Earth in July and it is the case now with Virtual Earth. The image included in this article was spotted by Dan Twohig, deck officer on the ferryboat connecting Seattle and Bremerton in Washington U.S. on virtual Earth. It features no more and no less than an Ohio-class submarine, in plain sight on the Naval Submarine Base Kitsap-Bangor. As you can see the submarine is kept in dry dock and details are clearly visible. The photo itself has ended up on Microsoft’s Virtual Earth from Pictometry International Corporation, a leading company in aerial imagery.

Twohig revealed that he was doing nothing more than evaluating real estate properties on the Bremerton side of Puget Sound via Virtual Earth when he stumbled across the image. “My initial reaction was ‘oops.’ Then I looked around a while and looked at other things. If you look at the White House, it’s all blurred out. They protect that, but don’t protect what else is out there,” Twohig commented as cited by NavyTimes and then explained his action of making the image public. “My intention of bringing the prop photos to the attention of my readers was in no way malicious.”

The propellers are an integer part of the reason for the secrecy veil surrounding Ohio-class submarines, because they are a fragment of the hull design meant to give the vessel an invisible profile while underwater. “Yes, that is an Ohio-class submarine, either an SSBN or SSGN, in dry dock in the Pacific Northwest at the intermediate maintenance facility on the Naval Submarine Base Kitsap-Bangor,” admitted Cmdr. Chris Loundermon, submarine force public affairs officer.