In Memoriam: Randy Pausch, Innovative Computer Scientist at

Celebrated in his field for co-founding the pioneering Entertainment Technology Center and for creating the innovative educational software tool known as “Alice,” Pausch earned his greatest worldwide fame for his inspirational “Last Lecture.”

That life-affirming lecture, a call to his students and colleagues to go on without him and do great things, was delivered at Carnegie Mellon on Sept. 18, 2007, a few weeks after Pausch learned he had just months to live. Titled “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” the humorous and heartfelt talk was videotaped, and unexpectedly spread around the world via the Internet. Tens of millions of people have since viewed video footage of it.

Pausch, who had regularly won awards in the field of computer science, spent the final months of his life being lauded in arenas far beyond his specialty.

Read More

UpdateStar Packs Offer Comprehensive and Free Standard Software

It includes programs such as Firewall, Antivirus, Spyware remover, Web-surfing adviser, Encryption and many more must-have applications.+ The Browser, Player & Viewer Pack equips PC users with a variety of essential freeware applications they need for the optimum web surfing and multimedia PC experience.The UpdateStar Pack setup files are only a few kilobytes in size. They can be downloaded from the UpdateStar website and be imported into UpdateStar.Users can then easily install and try-out all the applications for themselves.Create and export your own optimal installation “Pack”Users can also export and backup their complete software setup locally using UpdateStar. This export acts as a “backup” of a user’s own software setup.Users can also recommend or pass on their own optimized software setup to friends and family.UpdateStar users can also add notes for each program within the program’s details section.

Read More

BizLawCentral: IP law: disclosing visitor logs

That programme, which someone split into six parts, has now been removed. The IP rights of its producers were clearly infringed. But if it was not for YouTube, the film would have received scant attention outside one of the UK’s secondary TV channels and PBS in the USA.

Producers are therefore in the same sort of dilemma as manufacturers of branded goods. In much of South East Asia, Von Dutch was an almost unknown brand until it started to appear in markets specialising in counterfeit goods. Then bags and shirts with the brand started to pop up everywhere. Within a very short time, the brand has become established with shops in for example Ocean Centre, Hong Kong specialising in their products. The counterfeit products established a brand faster than advertising and the traditional profile-building via counters in department stores could have done.

Read More

New computer- modelling program cuts down need for repeat ops

Called iPlan 2.6, the computer-modelling software merges images of the damaged area from X-rays with those from computed tomographic scans to build a 3-D virtual model of the patient’s skull when it was whole.

From this, surgeons can map out, ahead of the reconstructive surgery, how repairs can best be done.

The software also feeds the surgeon real-time data during the operation by comparing the measurements of the skull against those in the virtual model.

Associate Professor Lim Thiam Chye, who heads the National University Hospital’s division of plastic, reconstructive and aesthetic surgery, said the device has cut down on the need for repeated operations to correct misplacement of bones.

.

Read More

Stealing Software Is Still Stealing

The great IrfanView image editor, Avast’s antivirus program and the online Google Docs office suite are among those.

And while I spend time in Windows and OS X, more and more of my computing is done in free Linux-based operating systems. Again, another column for another day.

© 2008 Daily News, Los Angeles, Calif.. All rights reserved.
© 2008 NewsFactor Network. All rights reserved.
.

Read More

Got the Blu-ray blues?

Having said that, once you have compliant hardware and software to play BD movies, getting a Blu-ray movie to play on the PC is actually a lot more straightforward than it sounds.

Considering that the BC-1205PT only reads Blu-ray discs and doesn’t burn them I would have thought that at the very least Asus would have included some kind of software to playback Blu-ray movies out of the box.

In any case, playback was pretty much standard after completing the setup I tried BD copies of The Fifth Element, Blade Runner: The Final Cut and 300 and they all played okay. I found the spin-up times from initial click to actually starting the movie to be quite acceptable.

.

Read More

Intel retools

In fact, Intel’s sourcing engineers file hundreds of invention disclosures and patents each year.

And while commodity or category teams have had a global orientation for some time now, Brown is transitioning them to become less U.S. centric. “We have a goal over the next two years to shift six percentage points of headcount in the materials group to lower-cost regions, specifically Asia, because most of our suppliers and all our assembly/test facilities are located there,” he says. Now, the organization is 53% U.S.-based and 47% based in Central America, Asia and Europe. Brown says the shift to Asia will occur through attrition.

One challenge to hiring skilled purchasing professionals in the Asia region is a high turnover rate. While Intel likes to hire recent college graduates and train them for the posts, the company also needs more individuals with experience for senior management levels jobs in the region.

Read More

New models o er easy setup, speed and security

With this in mind, I sampled three wireless routers and three notebook computer adapter cards:TheD-Link DIR-625 Rangebooster N Router with the DWA-130 Wireless N USB Adapter; a Linksys WRT310N N Ultra Range Plus with the Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Network Adapter; and a Belkin N1 Wireless Router with the N1 Wireless Notebook Card.

The letter N seen on most new router models is the latest wireless protocol — think of it as the language the router speaks to the other devices in your home network — and follows the older A, B, andGprotocols. It’s got a range of 70 metres indoors (previous protocols were about half of that) and a theoretical speed of a blazing-fast 300 megabits per second (Mbps).

In practical use you’ll probably see a top speed of about 75 Mbps from the N protocol, which is still significantly faster than the previous standards and well-suited for things like wirelessly sharing high-definition video and huge files.

Read More

Why iPhone 2.0 won’t yet rule the roost in the enterprise

I can sync to Exchange’s public calendar, or I can sync to my computer’s personal calendar (iCal, in my case), but not both. I don’t put my personal business on the company’s shared calendar, so I need to be able to sync to both. Sure, iCal has my Exchange appointments, but when I’m traveling or commuting and don’t have my computer with me, if I sync with iCal (as I do), I can’t get any updates from Exchange wirelessly. I can sort of get around that if I get an e-mail invitation from Exchange — accepting the invitation puts it in my iPod Touch’s calendar — but that’s really a workaround.

4. Primitive calendar support, part 2. Like many execs, I have some standing meetings that are every three weeks or the on fifth of the month. But iPhone doesn’t support those — yet Exchange does.

Read More

Indiana Educational Nonprofit Keeps Data Safe with Walling Data

Distributor offering innovative high-value solutions to everyday computer security problems for corporate, education, and home technology users. Walling Data was named an Authorized AVG Distributor in 2004 and is the only source for unlimited toll free phone, “We-Do-It-For-You” remote control support, and more for their AVG customers in the United States and Canada, one reason why thousands of customers each month choose Walling as their supplier of choice for AVG products. More information at http://www.avg-antivirus.net

About AVG
Founded in 1991 and with offices in the US and Europe, AVG is a leading international developer of Internet threat protection solutions for consumers and SMBs. AVG is one of the fastest growing companies in the industry with more than 70 million active users around the world.

Read More