Match.com Expands Mobile Online Dating Service

Are there people out there that are so desperate to find a date that they would need something like cell phone alerts or the ability to search for potential mates on your cell phone?

MatchMobile will first be made available in the United States, UK and Canadian markets, with plans to extend the service to nine more countries by the end of the year. The service provides subscribers with text messages to their phones when they have an e-mail from another Match.com subscriber and allows them to search for potential matches from their cell phones.

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Xbox 360 Overtakes Wii In U.S. Searches

The Xbox 360 has overtaken the Nintendo Wii as the most searched video game console. Who knew they even tracked that kind of stuff? The article does note that, while the Xbox 360 surpasses the Wii in overall sales volume, the Wii has posted the fastest growth in market share.

Based on search terms, the recent warranty extension issued by Microsoft due to an "unacceptable" number of repairs reported by Xbox customers wasn't the top driver behind the increase, Hitwise said. Xbox 360 led the list of top 10 search terms that included Xbox 360. Other top terms were "Xbox 360 games" and "Xbox 360 price drop."

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45nm Mobile CPUs Will Be Half of Intel’s Total Shipments in 2Q08

DigiTimes, citing anonymous laptop makers, claims that Intel plans to ramp up its 45nm mobile processors until they account for 50% of the company’s total notebook shipments in the second quarter of 2008.

45nm-based Penryn processors for Santa Rosa Refresh will launch in first quarter of 2008 and are expected to account for 20% of total notebook CPU shipments for the quarter. In the second quarter, CPUs supported by the Montevina platform will launch and account for 15% of shipments, while the proportion of Santa Rosa Refresh CPUs will increase to 35%.

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AMD Returns to the Crossroads with Eric Clapton

AMD announced that it will again chronicle Eric Clapton’s Crossroads Guitar Festival this year as it did in 2004, this time using multi-core AMD Opteron™ processor-based digital audio workstations (DAWs) and adding notebook PCs into the mix for smaller stages. The Crossroads Guitar Festival 2007 will be recorded on July 28, 2007 at Toyota Park in Chicago and will feature live performances by legendary guitar players including Eric Clapton, B.B. King, Jeff Beck, Willie Nelson, Vince Gill, Buddy Guy, Robert Randolph, Doyle Bramhall II, John Mayer, Jimmie Vaughan, Johnny Winter, Robert Cray, Sheryl Crow and many more artists.

Intel States Its Actions in Europe Benefit Consumers

Intel Corporation issued the following statement from Bruce Sewell, senior vice president and general counsel, in response to the decision by the European Commission's Directorate General for Competition to issue a statement of objections concerning the company's business practices. "We are confident that the microprocessor market segment is functioning normally and that Intel's conduct has been lawful, pro-competitive, and beneficial to consumers.

Man Burns Down House in Net Feud

In what may be the oddest story I’ve seen in some time, a man was convicted of arson after he drove over 1,300 miles to burn down the house of a man he had an argument with…over the internet.

The feud started when Anderson, who runs a haunted house near Waco, joined a picture-sharing Web site and posted his artwork and political views. After he blocked some people from his page because of insults and foul language, they retaliated by making obscene digitally altered pictures of him, he said.

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[H]ardware Round-Up II

Power Supplies

Gigabyte Odin GT GE-S550A-D1 550W @ JonnyGuru

Cases

Antec Sonata III Case @ Hardware Canucks

ETC

LapWorks Laptop Desk 2.0 @ Reviewstash

Squishy Super Mario Keychains from GizGeek @ DragonSteelMods

BBC Launches Free Internet TV

The BBC has finally launched their free TV download service for the citizens of Britain. At the present time there is copy protection as well as an automatic deletion of shows over 30 days old.

Viewers can choose from 400 hours of programmes, between 60 and 70 percent of the total TV output, including hit shows such as "EastEnders, "Doctor Who" and "Planet Earth".

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MySpace Worm Uses Fast-Flux to Dodge Detection

We have seen quite a few pieces of malware that have infected MySpace users, but the interesting thing about this one is that it actually uses technology that makes it almost impossible to catch.

"Bad guys will register badguy.com and the IP addresses that are being used as you resolve badguy.com actually change dynamically," he said. "You could do a lookup 1,000 times for the record for badguy.com, and it could resolve to 1,000 different PCs.

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Building the Real Transformers

The New York Times has a very lengthy piece about MIT and their work in the field of robotics. This is a great read for any science junkie.

I was introduced to my first sociable robot on a sunny afternoon in June. The robot, developed by graduate students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was named Mertz. It had camera sensors behind its eyes, which were programmed to detect faces; when it found mine, the robot was supposed to gaze at me directly to initiate a kind of conversation.

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MS Thinks Sony Needs Multiple SKUs

Folks at Microsoft believe it is an absolute necessity that Sony start creating a low-end package for the PS3 and get it out there quick. They believe if the Christmas season is less than stellar, you can stick a fork in the PS3.

The old 60 GB SKU is being cleared out for $499 as quickly as possible - as you might recall, this was the supposed "price cut" that Sony announced. In reality, once supplies are gone in the next couple of months it'll be gone forever. However, that doesn't leave Sony in a good place. A single, $599 SKU would be untenable; if they don't move significant hardware this holiday they'll basically be dead for this generation.

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Ebay Can Continue using Buy it Now

A federal judge has once again ruled in favor of Ebay over the Buy it Now feature.

U.S. District Court Judge Jerome B. Friedman denied a motion by MercExchange LLC for a permanent injunction against San Jose, Calif.-based eBay over the "Buy It Now" feature.

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