Scientists create card-sized solar-powered "leaves" that could produce enough energy to power a house.

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=d2a21176c659aa827f639d009f27ba17

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Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 late March 14. For anyone who's toyed around with the beta or Release Candidate, there's nothing wholly unexpected in the browser's final version. The bigger question now is whether its features--including a stripped-down interface and fairly deep integration with Windows 7's user interface--can entice users who would otherwise drift in the direction of Google Chrome and Firefox.

The first thing you notice about IE9 is its absences. With this release, Microsoft has stripped out from the interface pretty much everything nonessential to power users and reduced the size and prominence of the remaining widgets. This helps bring Web content front-and-center, and it also invites comparisons to Chrome and its similarly less-is-more design.

In keeping with Microsoft's recent focus on integrating its various software assets to work together, IE9's most eye-popping features come in conjunction with Windows 7. These include the ability to drag-and-drop a Website tab to the Windows 7 taskbar, transforming it into an icon that can, when right-clicked, open up a "jump list" full of one-click links to that Website's most vital content.

Windows 7 users can also "Aero Snap" their browser windows to the left or right of the screen, which comes in handy when organizing multiple Websites or trying to view two Web pages side-by-side. I've played around with IE9 through multiple builds, on multiple PCs, and I've found that Aero Snap comes in particularly useful with a widescreen monitor; your own mileage, as always, may vary.

IE9 also leverages your PC's GPU and CPU, along with a revamped JavaScript engine named Chakra, to help speedily render rich Web content. Whether benchmarks and independent testing support Microsoft's claim that IE9 is their fastest browser ever, it certainly feels fast in practice, especially when displaying Websites thick with rich content.

IE9 might work great with Windows 7, but its incompatibility with Windows XP effectively shuts off a wide swath of users from downloading the browser. In turn, those users will either gravitate toward a rival, such as Firefox, or stick with one of the antiquated versions of Internet Explorer that Microsoft is trying so desperately to kill off. Microsoft evidently hopes that Windows 7's adoption will continue at a fast enough pace to prevent this from becoming a major issue, although with 55.09 percent of PCs still running XP (according to analytics firm Net Applications), it could be some time before it's negated entirely.

IE9 is also compatible with Windows Vista, from which users are fleeing like first-class passengers from the Titanic.

This newest browser also comes with some nifty security features designed to assuage the paranoid and match its rivals' capabilities. InPrivate Browsing allows for Web surfing without leaving any traces that can be discovered later. The baked-in SmartScreen Filter evaluates potentially suspect Websites based on their reputation and notifies the user accordingly with pop-up windows and lists of suggested actions. Tracking Protection lets users decide which types of information they want viewable by third parties.

IE9 hits the market at a somewhat odd time for Microsoft. According to Net Applications, the company's share of the browser market currently stands at 56.77 percent, followed by Firefox at 21.74 percent, Google Chrome at 10.93 percent and Safari at 6.36 percent. For the Internet Explorer franchise, that represents a significant decline from the 68.46 percent it held in March 2009.

In other words, Microsoft is facing a slow but steady erosion in market share. Whether IE9 can help halt or even reverse that slide remains to be seen, but it's definitely a browser capable of going toe-to-toe with the latest versions of its rivals.

Source: http://feeds.ziffdavisenterprise.com/~r/RSS/MicrosoftWatch/~3/lN06KTTGD3Q/internet_explorer_9_speedy_google_chrome_competitor.html

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The new Logitec (not Logitech) LAN-WH450N/GR offers four Gigabit Ethernet ports, 802.11a/b/g/n wireless networking that maxes out at a theoretical 450Mbps, and just about the wildest router design we've yet seen. Yes, it's justified by improved wireless throughput as a result of having three antennas sprouting out of the thin-bodied device, but who is Logitec trying to kid? It's a futuristic, desktop-straddling robocopter and everyone at that company knows it. Should you or the geek in your life be interested in obtaining one, the new routers are going on sale in Japan in mid-April for ¥19,000 ($230).

Logitec's new wireless router is crazy-looking, crazy fast originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 09:55:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/31/logitecs-new-wireless-router-is-crazy-looking-crazy-fast/

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LightSquared has begun planning for GPS interference tests that will determine whether it can roll out a combination satellite-LTE mobile data network and issued...

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=ee223cf93ae4bafb0f563390c515b4f6

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Tickets to Apple's World Wide Developer Conference, to be held in San Francisco in June, are hot. Some would-be attendees seem to be willing to pay thousands to get in on the event -- a quick search on eBay showed tickets being offered at prices ranging from $1,600 to $4,500 each. Many of them had multiple bids. What would be worth $4,500 to an app developer?

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72171.html

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It's now official: Everything that the Federal Communications Commission has ever told us about the safety of cellphones is almost certainly wrong. When the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse recently reported that simply holding a turned-on cellphone next to the ear for 50 minutes caused significant changes to brain chemistry, many stalwarts in the scientific community were stunned.

Source: http://www.technewsworld.com/rsstory/72160.html

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Editors’ Note: Each week the Macalope skewers the worst of the week’s coverage of Apple and other technology companies. In addition to being a mythical beast...

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=c49ddb37bbdbae8766d7bfa7f59dae7f

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President Obama seems to understand the role that startups play and the contribution that skilled immigrants make to U.S. economic growth. He has talked a lot about the importance of science and engineering, and expressed fears that, unless we improve our game, China and India will out-innovate us. He even visited Silicon Valley recently to talk to its elite. And he has had his Chief Technology Officer, Aneesh Chopra, make several trips here to the Valley. I commend the President for putting a spotlight on entrepreneurship with his Startup America initiative; but I can?t help wondering whether this is just a giant press release. It needs more substance: a way for foreign-born entrepreneurs to start companies here and a leveling of the playing field for entrepreneurs wanting to solve government problems. I debated this with Aneesh Chopra, at the Economist Innovation Summit in Berkeley, last week.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/VSVr8NjxgHY/

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As you'll recall from yesterday, there was one small detail that stood out in Microsoft's announcement of a new preview program for the Xbox 360 -- namely, word that the latest system update would bring with it an "updated Xbox 360 disc format." That naturally prompted plenty of speculation, and Eurogamer now says it has heard from a "highly placed development source" who has confirmed that the new disc format actually adds 1GB of storage space to Xbox 360 discs. As the site notes, the Xbox 360's current disc format tops out at just 6.8GB, which still leaves some room to play around with on a standard dual-layer DVD. That would also explain the free copy of Halo: Reach that Microsoft is giving out to everyone accepted into the preview program -- can't really test a new disc format without some new discs now, can you?

Microsoft's 'updated Xbox 360 disc format' to add an extra gigabyte? originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/30/microsofts-updated-xbox-360-disc-format-to-add-an-extra-gigab/

AMERICA MOVIL AMKOR TECHNOLOGY AMPHENOL ANIXTER INTERNATIONAL APPLE COMPUTER

An unlikely pair of robots and opera singers teamed up for the U.S. debut of "Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera" in Boston Friday night.

Source: http://feeds.pcworld.com/click.phdo?i=3694eca97f811ad4f5e76e9b5a686f35

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