MaximumPC 2007 06

12 MAXIMUMPC JUNE 2007

quickstart THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL

W

e wrote this review using a smarphone and

G½techàs Bluetooth fabric keyboard, can yu

tell¿ Between keystrkes noregisering (or register-

ing twice and common symbos tat result in unex-

pected characers (getting ¿ instead of a real questin

mark , Itàs a good thing itàs made from clothº no

got hurt when we threw i across he rom in disgust.

$80, http://www.g-techworld.com

20 MILLION VISTA LICENSES SOLD

Microsoft is proudly touting the latest sales fig-

ures for Vista as proof that the OS will “become

the fastest-adopted version of Windows ever.”

Indeed, 20 million is an impres-

sive number, even if the

comparison to XP’s 17

million copies sold in

the same time frame is

somewhat disingenu-

ous. Not only is there a

much bigger PC market

now than when XP was

released, but the Vista sales fig-

ures include boxed copies as well as bundled

licenses and the free “Express Upgrade”

offered to consumers who bought PCs with XP

late last year.

ONECARE CRASHES AND BURNS

In other Vista news, an independent study of

17 top antivirus programs conducted by AV-

comparatives.org found Microsoft’s OneCare to

be the worst in all categories. The study by the

Austrian group was limited to apps with a mini-

mum 85-percent detection rate. Based on the

results of the tests, the apps received ranked

certification—all except OneCare, that is, which

the group didn’t see fit to certify. The products

with the highest total detection rates were AVK,

TrustPort, and AVIRA.

BROADCAST FLAG WON’T FLY

Despite the RIAA’s best efforts, the FCC will

not mandate a broadcast flag in its newly

published rules for digital audio broadcast

(DAB). The rules set certain guidelines for the

way radio stations proceed with the adop-

tion of digital broadcasts, but enforced signal

encryption is not one of them. The RIAA and

others are concerned that the enhanced qual-

ity and improved reception of the digital sig-

nals will incite rampant music thievery.

FLASH FORWARD

While Seagate, Hitachi,

and Samsung have

all gone public about

their work on hybrid

hard drives, it looks like

Samsung will be the first

to ship a product. The

company has announced

the imminent release

of three MH80 models

(80GB, 100GB, and 120GB) that use integrated

flash memory in place of the cache buffer on

traditional drives. The flash memory consumes

less power and decreases boot times.

FUNSIZENEWS

Patent Office

Weighs in on

P2P

A recently released report by

the U.S. Patent and Trademark

Offi ce (USPTO) warns that

peer-to-peer fi le-sharing

software poses a threat

to personal privacy and

national security. The report

states that certain default

features in P2P software,

namely BearShare, eDonkey,

LimeWire, and Morpheus,

cause users to automati-

cally “share” all the fi les they

download, even those that

might be of a sensitive nature,

hence the potential threat to

man and country. The asser-

tions are alarming, but so too

is the USPTO’s involvement in

national security matters.

Alas, the allusions to

identity theft and terrorist

acts is merely a segue into

the subject of copyright

law—specifi cally, whether

these threatening features

were put in place by the

software’s authors to vilify

copyright holders. Huh? The

report posits that P2P

software “dupes” unsophis-

ticated users into sharing

all of their fi les, many of

which are presumed to be

copyrighted media fi les. This

would “ensure that attempts

to enforce copyrights against

those infringers who upload

hundreds or thousands of

fi les would tend to target

young or sympathetic users,”

the report states. Thus the

RIAA and MPAA end up look-

ing like the bad guys.

While the report “does not

purport to determine whether

any particular distributor

intended to dupe users by

deploying a feature with a

known propensity to cause

inexperienced users to share

fi les inadvertently,” it does call

for further investigation into

the matter, as well as debate

over P2P software regulations

and issues of liability.

G-Tech Smart-Fabric

Wireless Keyboard

HP Pulls Plug on Media

Center PCs

Once a major partner in Microsoft’s move into the living

room, HP is now going its own way

W

hen Microsoft launched its Media Center Edition

OS, HP was at the forefront with its Digital

Entertainment Center (DEC) line of PCs. HP’s

DEC machines sported features and formfactors that made

them a natural fi t for the living room, where they could fully

extend MCE’s media recording and playback capabilities.

But HP is abandoning that effort and is dropping its DEC

business unit altogether.

While HP comput-

ers that come with

Vista Home Premium

and Vista Ultimate

Edition will naturally

still feature MCE, HP is

pushing its own solu-

tion for entertainment

functions. HP’s line of

MediaSmart TVs come

bundled with software

for media playback and

Internet streaming, ren-

dering a PC in the living

room unnecessary.

In the end, HP’s Media Center PCs, like this

Photosmart, failed to win many followers.

&

DIS