Dell E-Waste

The third world countries have to deal with a lot of discrimination at the hands of developed nations. Following these lines of discriminations, the developing nations are used as a disposal center for e-waste. Non-working electronic components are exported to developing nations in large quantities every year. Dell, a leading major has intended to curb this trend by banning the export of e-waste to developing nations.

Dell is the first major US computer manufacturer to make such a move. As per the new international policy opted by Dell, the company will allow for the export of working electronics and components. However, the non-working parts will be retained in the country for sale. These non-working parts would have to be recycled or disposed using appropriate and environment friendly methods.

The trend of exporting electronic waste has become rampant in the United States. 80% of the dead gadgets in the US are disposed off in developing nations. This is leading to numerous health concerns in developing nations, as they do not have proper means of disposal of these electronic wastes.

Dell has taken a major initiative to put an end to this trend. Hope other computer manufacturers also follow suite and devise better ways of disposing electronic waste.

Source: TechRadar

But according to a specialist from Amsterdam’s Smith & Jones Center, gaming is not an addiction and it must not be treated like that.

Keith Bakker, who is the head of first clinic to work with gamers in Europe, believes that compulsive gaming is a social instead of a psychological problem in the youngsters and kids.

In an interview with the BBC, Baker told that these kids showed some symptoms that were comparable to chemical dependencies and other addictions and they seemed addicted to MMOs.

“ But while working with these kids I found that we couldn’t call this addiction, as it was something like a social problem and many of them needed guidance from their school teachers and parents,” Baker said.

“We observed that almost 80% of these young kids were bullied at their schools and felt isolated. Their many symptoms can be treated just adopting the good old tool of proper communication.”

The research carried out by Smith & Jones Centre recommends that the feelings of powerlessness and anger in compulsive gamers preexist the craving for playing MMOs and other videogames full of violence.

Due to latest lower consumer spending globally, Intel warns that its revenues for October to December might be 14% down.

Now the company projects Q4 revenue of $9bn, while it was $10.5bn in its previous forecast.

The new figure is much worse than expected, analysts say.

John Dryden of Charter Equity Research says: “It is quite significant, consumers are basically shutting down for the holidays and it’s below what they were expecting.”

“We were expecting significantly weaker than expected demand in all regions and market segments.” Intel stated

Intel didn’t give a exact financial figure, but it told that its profits were also being affected.

Intel says that its gross profit have also dropped almost 55% from the previous 59% guidance.

There are worldwide weaker demands for PCs, as people are spending lower worldwide and it’s affecting many other big wigs of the tech industry as well.

The research was carried out by E-safe Education and it showed that average school triggered between 50 to 100 serious alerts every day.

Almost 30% of these serious alerts were due to nude pictures and hardcore pornography viewing while the others were related to cyber-threats.

40 schools in the Greater Manchester area and 60 schools from the other filed were looked in this survey that alerting the teachers every time when inappropriate content was being viewed or sent.

Head of Stretford High School, Derek Davies says: “We have updated our computer firewalls three times since I have joined here. We have banned MSN messenger and Facebook , but the students are quite inventive to find new ways around this.”

Cyber bullying has become a serious problem and particularly among some girls. It often feels quite hurtful, as the comments are heard by a few people. These comments are normally posted outside school, but still we take it very seriously.

The virus is believed to transmit via USB drive used by one of the astronauts at the station.

The reports suggests that it’s not happening first time that the computer got infected in the space as there are some cases reported earlier and it’s not a serious threat as none of the command or control system of the ISS are at risk.

The laptops at ISS are used to send emails from time to time and also help to control astronauts’ diet.
In previous cases, the viruses that were found on the space station were called no more than ‘nuisance’, but now Nasa is considering to improve the security systems in these laptops to avoid a repetition.

There isn’t any direct Internet connection that links ISS to the earth and all the emails are scanned first. Efforts have been made to develop freejack from broadband connections in Venus but the have consistently failed.

• Computer viruses
• International Space Station (ISS)

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The OpenServ 1100 planned as a 1U server and the OpenServ 2400 as 2U system and both these systems have been launched this week. According to the company, both are well-matched with various operating systems like Windows Server 2003 and 2008, CentOS, Mac OS X Leopard Server and Ubuntu Server.

After lauching its Open Computer Mac Clone two months ago, Psystar soon introduced another version that was named as OpenPro and it was shipped with an option of operating systems like Windows Vista, Windows XP, Ubuntu Linux, and Apple’s Leopard that is also called Mac OS X 10.5. The similar configured Apple-branded computer costs around $ 2,000 while this system has been priced at $805.

No public comment on Pystar’s mutiny has been made by Apple yet. According to Apple’s Leopard license agreement, third-party installation and sales has not been allowed.

On the other hand, Pystasr is quite vocal in regarding marketing intents of its products and vigorously claiming about low cost of the systems that comes as quarter of Apple’s systems.

There are dual Intel Xeon quad-core processors, double gigabit Ethernet and 16GB of memory in these latest Psystar systems. The storage of 1100 model is up to 4 TB and 6 TB of 2400 model. They price around $ 1,599 and $1,999 respectively.

With an improved metal frame plus “virtually silent” V2 box, the line of Mac clones was upgraded by Psystar during the last month. It was also announced by the company that it was going to ramp up its production capabilities. Support for its system is also being offered by Psystar.

Related links

• Mac-Clone Maker Sets Sights On Apple Xserve
• OpenPro
  

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It’s not surprising at all that Microsoft is recommending users against taking a pass on vista. Microsoft is supporting business users to migrate to Vista sooner as it is a part of a new white paper to influence business users who are considering when and whether to shift to Windows Vista.

The white paper “The Business Value of Windows Vista: Five Reasons to set up now” just repeats the business features Microsoft developed into Vista and emphasizes some of the new installed tools and case-study examples of the companies who moved to Vista, otherwise, it doesn’t comprise numerous new data.

According to Lee Nicholls, Director of Global Solutions with Getronics, “One can’t disagree with Microsoft’s compatibility warning”. Global Solutions with Getronics is Microsoft’s incorporate partner and sells a lot in the financial services and manufacturing industries.
Nicholls adds that “Based on what Microsoft finishes up providing in terms of new migration and operation tools, there can be still less compatibility in XP and Windows 7”
There can be a big gap between Windows XP and Windows 7 but from Vista to windows 7 this gap is fairly minor. Even if this Windows 7 is a superset of windows Vista, yet it is not something worth waiting for” Nicholls said.

Microsoft also gave a timing argument to induce business customers to have an upgrade now. In this connection, Microsoft also pointed to a Gartner Group’s report “Don’t Skip Windows Vista entirely”

It’s being recommended by Getronics to customers that it will not be worth spending their whole IT budget to pay to extend their support for Windows XP.

Related links

Waiting For Windows 7 

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Computers are a high priced commodity in Cuba. A tower style QTECH PC and monitor costs around $780 to $800. In a country where average daily wages fall below $20 (10 pounds) a month, computer becomes a thing that can be bought by only a few people. Only some Cubans can afford to buy them if they have some relatives abroad sending money.

They day has become a remarkable one in Cuban history. The tiny Havana electric shop was seeing so many crowds in front of its windows for the first time.

The only model available at present is the gray and black QTECHs, complete with DVD players, bulky CRT monitors and standard-issue black mice and keyboards.

These PCs have Intel Celeron processors with 80 gigabytes of memory and 512 RAM. They are equipped with Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system.

Both the specifications might come under the definition of violation of law, from US point of view, as US has forced embargo on Cuba. But luckily enough for Cubans, America can not do a thing as both the countries are having no diplomatic relations.

The clerks told that the computers were assembled by Cuban companies using parts imported from China, which is another set back for American government. In America, buyers spend less money and get a better equipped PC, having twice time more memory, an 80 GB SATA hard drive and a22 inch LCD flat-screen monitor.

Even after the ban lifting on computers, most Cubans are banned from accessing the Internet at home. Only a few state trusted officials and journalists are given this privilege. The government states that it is unable to connect to the giant undersea fiber-optic cables because of the US trade embargo. All online connections today are via satellite which has limited bandwidth and is expensive to use.

President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is an ally of Cuba and a harsh critic of US and its policies, is laying a new cable under the Caribbean. It is to be seen after the completion of the project, whether the Cubans will have the opportunity to access internet at home or not then.

Most of the people still think that many of the computers will not have the opportunity to get connected to the net. People though enjoying the ban lifting, are still waiting for more.

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March 5, 2008 marked the first day that Samsung shipped these drives to both PC makers and OEMs. Even though this may be a bit much for everyday laptop users, it is safe to say that many will benefit from this high level of storage. With more and more notebooks offering the ability to support two hard drives, a 500GB drive allows users to have up to 1TB of available storage. This was previously unheard of, but is sure to become more of the status quo as 2008 move forward.

Both Hitachi and Fujitsu have released 500GB hard drives as well. With that being said, these two companies are not approaching the industry in the same way. They are joining in on the action by increasing the size of the drive to 12.5 mm. This is up from the common 9.5 mm that is found in most consumer oriented laptops. As you can imagine, this will make it quite difficult for the mass majority of users to take advantage of their drives. In turn, they will instead rely on Samsung.

The new Samsung hard drive, known as the Spinpoint M6 spins at an impressive rate of 5,400 revolutions per minute. Although the hard drive has been shipped to PC makers and OEMs, it has yet to make its way onto retail shelves. Samsung is hoping that the Spinpoint M6 will be for sale in retail stores by the end of the month. Unless a late change takes place, the drive will sell for $299.

The new Samsung Spinpoint M6 has a lot to offer. This was the first 2.5 inch hard drive to be shipped to PC makers and OEMs, and is sure to turn many more heads when they hit retail outlets later this month.

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These security concerns and issues prevent the potential of e-commerce from growing and developing as stated by John Horrigan, Pew Internet Project’s Associate Director and author of the said report. These risks remain to be questionable whether they are just perceived by the internet users or they are real, after all.

Horrigan had stated that despite the level of maturity that e-commerce had gone through over the years, the confidence and trust of people with regards to this still remains an unresolved issue. He further stated that if only the internet users and potential online shoppers would stop worrying about security concerns, there would be a lot more people shopping online. Horrigan further estimated that the percentage of American consumers using the internet to do online shopping could go up by 7%. This can be achieved if worries about threats and loss of security would be lessened.

However, a lot of experts in payment security agree that credit card purchases done online are, generally speaking, more secured than purchases done in stores or shops contrary to what American people are thinking. Numerous brick-and-mortar retail sellers are behind the curve in terms of security of payments according to Rob Tourt, PCI Security Standards Council Chair. One reason is because a lot of traditional retailers still run old systems that do not have the security mechanism developed in the newly developed and more hi-tech e-commerce payment systems. Moreover, when the credit card is swiped by the cashier, the retailer actually captures a lot more information, Tourt disclosed to InternetNews.com. This is because a lot of data can be snagged via the credit card’s magnetic stripe. This can actually compromise the account in cases of breach.

Another data gathered from the research indicates that people use the internet in order to make researches about certain products rather than buying. Another finding is that Americans from the low-income households see a lot of risks in online shopping compared to Americans who are from the elite class. And finally, 39% of the people who participated in this research had claimed that they are doing online banking; this is in comparison to the 27% that resulted in the Pew study made last February of 2005.

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