Our mother always used to tell us, “you’d lose your head if wasn’t screwed on,” but we’re sure that had she grown up in this decade she’d say, “you’d lose a USB key carrying sensitive data if Microsoft didn’t patent a technology to counteract the problem.” Or something like that. As you might’ve guessed, Microsoft has a new patent, and this one is to help that hapless soul charged with setting up a wireless home network, who, Microsoft admits, “faces a daunting task” at such a prospect. See, Windows can load network set-up details onto a CD or other form of removable storage, but if the user loses the item, they also compromise their network security. We figured this could be solved by some sort of “don’t be an airhead” message on the box, but Microsoft put its brain to the task and came up with self-destructing USB memory keys, with enough juice in them to power the key for one hour, after which the data disappears fuhevah. The keys are brightly colored so the user doesn’t slap anything important on them, but it seems like an interesting solution to a completely ridiculous interesting problem.

[Via New Scientist]
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from engadget

If you haven’t heard of a Triple Play yet — you know, where some service provider tries to shove TV, internet and phone service onto one pretty little contract for supposed cost savings and convenience to you — then we applaud you for your apparent skill at avoiding the incessant advertising of such services from the major media companies. Unfortunately, it seems the US Patent Office possesses just such a skill, since they’ve granted a patent to Cisco Technology for the concept of “providing integrated voice, video, and data content in an integrated service.” Now, Cisco did apply for this patent way back in 2000, before the idea had quite gotten so pervasive, but we’re still a bit miffed that something this common-sensical can be patented at all. No word yet on what Cisco plans to do with the patent, but there are a whole lot of “infringing” services out there that they could potentially go after if the mood strikes. Luckily, Cisco has some pretty neat ideas of their own for a Triple Play network offering listed in the patent, so we’ll remain cautiously optimistic — safe underground, of course, in our tin-foil shielded bunker.

[Via Slashdot]
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from engadget

Our good friends in Santa Clara, California have been very busy as of late — Intel‘s working on getting lasers into silicon and getting its Core 2 Duos into everything under the sun (but sometimes not). But Moore and Noyce’s baby isn’t stopping there, no sir: DigiTimes is reporting that Intel’s first quad-core “Kentsfield” chip, the 2.66 GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6700, will be officially called the Quadro and should be available starting in mid-November. Meanwhile, Reg Hardware chimes in that while Intel is also ramping up its Merom-based Celeron M series for budget laptops, the more interesting news is that the first low-voltage Core 2 Duos will hit the streets in January 2007. According to the Reg, the next generation of low-voltage Centrino chips, the L7200 and the L7400 (code-named the “Santa Rosa”), will feature Core 2 Duos running at 1.33 GHz and 1.5 GHz, priced at $284 and $316, respectively. Speaking of low-voltage chips, we haven’t decided if trying to overclock one would be an incredibly brilliant or an incredibly foolish idea — but we’ll find out soon enough.

Read – DigiTimes [Photo courtesy of Tom's Hardware]
Read – Reg Hardware

From engadget

Aight everybody, we’ve got a fresh one comin’ through here. Sony’s faulty cells apparently made their way into Toshiba Satellite and Dynabook machines — apparently about 340,000 units in all — which are being recalled. (For reference, thus far we’ve racked up Apple, Dell, and Panasonic.) The upshot is that according to Toshiba, no one’s been hurt and no explosions have been caused by their machines (yet). Unfortunately not much other information is readily available at this time, but we’ll be sure to hit you back with the exact models, dates, cell identification numbers, and the rest before somebody’s Satellite falls out of orbit and we get massive guilt complexes for not doing our duty as servants to the battery-using public.

[Thanks, Dave]

Update: Thanks to everybody for the submitted link on Toshiba’s site, but it looks like the company has still yet to get together a page outlining how the recall will work and which batteries it will affect. Stay tuned!

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Continuing their skyrocket beyond ODM-dom, HTC’s buyout bid for Taiwanese Dopod has moved into the final stages. Having signed a memorandum of understanding, the only thing left in the estimated $150 million deal is approval from the Taiwanese government. Assuming HTC chairwoman and Dopod controlling shareholder Cher Wang, daughter of petrochemicals billionaire Y.C. Wang and wife of HTC boss-man Peter Chou, has enough influence to push this through (read: she does), then HTC is about to find themselves in direct competition with their own customers O2, i-mate and HP. HTC already confirmed their decision to self-brand phones in Europe, now the Dopod deal could result in HTC designs being sold exclusively under the Dopod branding outside of Europe. In fact, HTC has already cut ties with both O2 and i-mate in Australia, New Zealand, and India. So if Dopod’s claim that HTC manufactures 80 percent of Windows Mobile phones is true, well, O2, i-mate, and HP best be looking for fresh design and manufacturing blood on the quick.

[Thanks, Ash]
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from engadget

Two of our favorite companies (well, more like two companies that we’ve heard of) have just announced that they’ll be getting nice and cozy in the next few months, with cellphone giant Motorola agreeing to buy barcode-scannin’, RFID-taggin’ Symbol Technologies for about $3.9 billion. Besides handsets, Moto also has a significant foothold in the mobile enterprise market, and Symbol’s RFID, barcode, and ruggedized PDA products will supposedly double its presence in inventory management while at the same time “being accretive to earnings,” according to analyst Lawrence Harris of Oppenheimer & Company. The deal will reportedly be completed later this year or in early 2007, at which time Motorola will change the name of its new acquisition to SMBL.

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