2009: Year of the SSD

Intel has released a new 160GB solid state hard drive (SSD), the X25-M in a 2.5-inch form factor, with a 1.8-inch 160GB version, the X18-M, following soon in the next month.

You may remember that Intel announced the 80GB X25-M and X18-M - its first SSD products - at its Developers Forum in August.

Intel's 32GB Intel X25-E Extreme SATA is based on Intel's single-level cell NAND flash memory in order to maximise the input/output operations per second. While the new X25M is a multi-level cell memory which means it has much greater capacity.

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Facebook 'pokes' can be used for court notification

Facebook grew to more than 100 million users by providing a way for friends and family to keep in touch with one another. But few, if any, probably expected that their Facebook accounts offer lawyers a handy new way to tell them that they've been sued.

It's already happened in Australia, where a court recently allowed a lawyer for a mortgage lender to use Facebook as a method of serving legal documents. The purpose of the suit: to let a couple know that they're about to lose their home through foreclosure after defaulting on a loan.

United States judges also have the leeway to authorize serving legal documents through Facebook, legal experts said on Tuesday. (Look for the IRS and state tax collectors to follow suit.)

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Send Free SMS via Gmail Accounts

Wednesday, December 10, 2008 4:32 PM

Posted by Leo Dirac, Product Manager

How often do you try to chat with somebody and they don't respond because they just walked away from their computer? Or maybe you're in the middle of chatting with them just as they need to leave. But you still need to tell them something -- something really important like you've moved where you're meeting...or ice cream! We need ice cream! This is why we built a way to chat with your friends even when they're away from their computers. Now you can keep the conversations going with a new Labs feature that lets you send SMS text messages right from Gmail. It combines the best parts of IM and texting: you chat from the comfort of your computer, and your friends can peck out replies on their little keyboards.

A few weeks back, we ran into a few snags when we first started rolling this out, but starting today you can turn on text messaging for chat. Just click on Settings, and go to the Labs tab. Scroll down until you see "Text Messaging (SMS) in Chat" and select Enable and Save Changes.

We're just trying it out for cell phones in the United States right now, but you can send texts to your friends with US phone numbers from anywhere in the world. You can start by just typing a phone number into the search box in the chat window on the left, then select "Send SMS." You can also select the contact you want to SMS first and then add their phone number.



Once you give us a name for that phone number, you'll be able to start chatting.



We'll save your friends' numbers in your Contacts, so next time you can just type their name in the chat box and select Send SMS.

On the receiving end, when you get a text message from Gmail on your phone, it will come from a number in the 406 area code. (The l33t folks in the crowd will note that this spells G0O.) You can reply to this text on your phone just like you'd reply to any other text. The reply gets routed back to our Gmail servers and shows up in your friend's Gmail chat window. Each of your friends' messages will come from a different 406 number so you can reply to any message and it will get back to the right person. Messages from the same person will always come from the same number, so you can even bookmark it in your phone.

If you get a message from somebody you don't want to chat with from your phone, just reply with the word BLOCK. If you don't want to get texts from anybody using Gmail, reply with the word STOP and we'll leave you alone. Keep in mind that all these text messages count as part of your regular mobile messaging plan and might incur fees. So unless you know your friends have unlimited text message plans, please be sensitive to their phone bills.

Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008

Article from readwriteweb.com

Sometimes, it's important to take a step back and realize that the apps to which we've grown so incredibly accustomed are just barely beginning to register with the general public.With the Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008, we've tried to select the apps that have burst onto the radar of the everyday user this year - or if not quite, then perhaps they will next year.This was a year - after years of build up - in which two major events had worldwide impact on the Web. These events focused the world's attention, had more consumers creating more online content, and had more people online searching for information than ever before: the Beijing Olympics and the US Presidential elections. Many of these apps have those events to thank for their exposure and adoption.With the Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2008, we've tried to select the apps that have burst onto the radar of the everyday user this year

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Desktop Robot Designed to Assist in Managing Daily Tasks

This is the definition of awesome. Mamoru-Kun (”Little Protector”) is a robot that is able to tell his owner where an object he or she lost or misplaced within a certain area is located. He can do it verbally or by pointing at the object. Alternatively, Mamoru-Kun is even kind enough to tell his bigger robot buddy get the object for his owner.

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Asus Laptop - 2.6 lbs, 1 inch thick and $500

Asus' Redesigned Eee PC 1002HA Netbook is Slimmer and Lighter with a lightweight package weighing just 2.6 pounds and measuring 1-inch thick. The Eee PC 10002HA is available now through the usual outlets with an MSRP set at $499.

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