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Eleven Years of Goog11e

On Sunday September 27 2009, Google, the number 1 search engine in theworld, celebrated its 11th birthday with a new logo, featuring an extra“l” to the name Google (anyone saw it?).PCWorld has an article discussing the search and advertising giant’s eleven year history.For most users out there, Lycos, eXcite and Yahoo was probably thesearch engine of choice before Google made its debut in 1998. Googlehas certainly come a long way (thanks to 2 men, Larry Page and SergeyBrin) since its inception as a Stanford University research project in1998, to the global, multi-billion dollar company it today is. Google’sa classic “rags to riches” fairytale if you ask me.

A brief look at Google’s 11 years:

Early Days: 1998
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin dropped the original BackRubmoniker in favor of Google, a play on the mathematical term "googol"Google.com domain registered and with a healthy $100,000 investmentfrom Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim, the two Stanford students rentedout a $1,700 a month garage space in California's Menlo Park Growth & Expansion: 2000
Google reached a milestone of one billion pages indexed, and alsoexpanded to support over fifteen languages including Chinese, French,German, Japanese and moreYahoo! revealed that they will be using Google as their default search provider The Written Word: 2003
Google acquired Pyra Labs, creators of the Blogger service, whichallowed the masses to publish their thoughts online with ease Google Print was launched: Now known as Google Book Search, the serviceallows users to view excerpts from thousands of books in digital form Email, Google Style: 2004
Google introduces Gmail Google moved to its Mountain View, California "Googleplex" headquarters, where the company still resides today Mapping The World: 2005
Google released Google Maps and subsequently Google EarthRelease of the iGoogle customizable home page, Google Reader RSS feed manager and Google AnalyticsOptimized mobile versions of Gmail, Blogger, and Search were also released A Message From Chad & Steve: 2006
Google acquired online video site YouTube in a massive $1.65 billion stock transaction The Growth Continues: 2007
Google Maps made its way to Australia and the Google Docs suite of tools being made available in several additional languages Gmail made available to all, no longer requiring an invitationGoogle introduced Google Street, an addition of street level photography to Google Maps Going Full Circle: 2008
Google celebrated its 10 anniversary
Google announced open source Google ChromeGoogle released Android, an open-source mobile OS Google At Present: 2009
Google unveiled its Wave service in May this yearGoogle announced plans to release Google Chrome OS News via [PCWorld]

Dell UltraSharp U2711 release soon

Wefound a driver released by Dell themselves (DELL_U2711-MONITOR_A00-00_R247058.exe) , dated 30th November 2009 on their own Support site.

Upontaking a look atthe driver files,it isnoted that the U2711 has:

- VGA output
- DVI output
- HDMI output
- DisplayPort output

And the resolutions of the panel:

[1920]
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"1920,1080"

[2048]
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"2048,1152"

[2560]
HKR,,MaxResolution,,"2560,1440"

It's probably firm that the panel on the U2711 would be the same one found in the 27-inch iMac.

That display isa LG LM270WQ1 16:9 IPS panel with LED backlight, andhas amassive 2560 x 1440 resolution.

AMD's next generation CPU features multi-threading

AMD's next generation architecture, codenamed Bulldozer, will feature amulti-threading system, Xbitlabs reports.

However, AMD claimsthat Bulldozer's multi-threading is different from the simultaneousmulti-threading (SMT) available with Intel's HyperThreading.

Thefirst Bulldozer desktop CPU, Orochi, is expected to be a 6/8 core CPUwith >8MB cache, supporting DDR3 RAM, manufactured on 32nm. It is dueto hit stores in 2011. The Fusion CPUs or APUs (Accelerated ProcessingUnits), as AMD calls them, are also part of the Bulldozer architecture. Bulldozer is expected to support up to 16 cores.It is expected to be the most significant change in AMD's CPUarchitecture since K8, back in 2003.

The next CPU on AMD'sroadmap is the 12-core server CPU "Magny Cours" based on a Multi-ChipModule, which packages two 6-core "Istanbul" dies in one package. TheMagny Cours CPU is designed for the elongated Socket G34, and willlaunch in Q1 2010. It is also expected to be the last AMD CPU tillBulldozer, according to AMD's current roadmap. In the desktop arena, thePhenom II/Athlon II products may have to fight all the way through 2010, according to AMD's current roadmaps.

Reference: Xbitlabs

Apple Announces New MacBook Air And Upgrades To iPhoto, iMovie And GarageBand

Angeline Tan, product marketing manager, portables and wireless, Apple Asia Pacific, says that in Singapore, according to IDC, the PC grows 21% as compared to the Mac, whichgrows 41.5% year-on-year.

"The Mac business is very important to us and we have spent a lot of focus and investment in this segment. Today we have the new MacBook Air which is Apple's thinnest and most portable and compact Mac. And for the first time, it has two configurations, the 11-inch and 13-inch," Tan said.

The baseconfiguration for the 11-inch MacBook Air starts from S$1,488, and the 13-inch MacBook Air starts from S$1,948.

Sam Leung, manager for applications product marketing, Apple Asia Pacific, talked about the new upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand on iLife'11 and demonstrated how easy it is to create a slideshow, photo album, movie trailer and learn to play the guitar and piano.

The iLife '11 is availablein Novemberat a suggested retail price of S$78
through the Apple Store (http://store.apple.com/sg) and Apple Authorized Resellers.
The iLife ’11 Family Pack includes five licenses and is available for S$128 and the Mac
Box Set which includes iLife ’11, iWork and Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard is
available for S$278.

Antec Launches Continuous Power Facts Website

A new website by Antec explains the differences between “continuous power" and "peak power". The website also highlights the consequences of buying mislabeled power supplies. The website’s pretty educational if you ask me, so folks, click here to find out more.

"Many brands on the market use misleading power efficiency labels or model names to confuse consumers. To make things crystal clear, Antec, the global leader in PC components and accessories, always uses “Continuous Power” on all our power supply labels."

Article via [Antec]

Le FPS XCOM deviendrait un TPS

Le temps passe et l'on se dit que nous avons eu la chance exceptionnelle de voir XCOM lors de l'E3 2011 dans une version plus qu'alléchante. Pourtant, le fameux FPS tactique s'est vu depuis maintes fois repoussé et ses équipes changées. Si nous ne connaissions pas les raisons des déboires de ce volet, c'est désormais chose faite grâce à un lecteur de Kotaku.

Le bougre signale en effet avoir participé à un sondage marketing concernant XCOM, lequel présenterait le jeu comme un jeu de tir à la troisième personne gardant toutefois un large aspect tactique. Mais ce n'est pas tout puisque l'étude laisse penser que la version PC ne serait plus d'actualité, tandis que les versions consoles seraient relayées à de simples versions téléchargeables sur le Xbox Live et le PSN. A ce rythme, XCOM sera un hack and slash en 2014, date à laquelle le jeu est censé nous dévoiler ses charmes.

· Forum XCOM