03
January
2008
|
07:21 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Newswatch 1.3.08: Watch Netflix on TV

Netflix, LG deal: Watch Instantly on your TV

[WSJ] The partnership between Netflix, Los Gatos, Calif., and South Korea's LG represents another gamble by technology companies that video from the Internet, which is commonly downloaded to personal computers, will go mainstream when users can easily access it from TV sets.

Cell phones cause traffic jams

[NYT] Motorists talking on the phone drive about two miles per hour more slowly than people who aren’t on the phone, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Utah. And while hands-free devices often are touted as safer alternatives, the scientists found that people using them also putter along, which suggests that it’s the talking, not the cellphone, that distracts the brain.

Suit: IBM dumped chemicals

[Reuters] 90 residents of the upstate New York towns of Endicott and Union say that from 1924 to 2002, IBM dumped chemicals including trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene near the Endicott plant where the computer giant was born.

Hitachi boasts 500GB hard drive for notebooks

[CRN] The Travelstar 5K500, the 2.5-inch mobile hard drive sets a new benchmark for capacity and, according to Hitachi, will usher in a new era of slim desktops, full-featured notebooks, gaming consoles and other advanced applications for mobile consumers.

Gates, MSFT exec give $30m for telescope

[Seattle PI] The Gates and Simony money will pay for three large mirrors now in the first stages of production at the University of Arizona in Tucson. The telescope will be built on a mountain in northern Chile and start operating in 2014 with a digital camera with 3,200 megapixels.

MSFT shuts off older Office formats

[ComputerWorld] Service Pack 3 (SP3) for Office 2003, said Viral Tapara, a U.K.-based IT evangelist for Microsoft, blocks old file formats for security purposes. "Some older file formats, including some from Microsoft, are insecure and do not satisfy new attack vectors that hackers can use to execute malicious code."

AAPL files patent for notebook docking station

[Macworld] A U.S. patent granted to Apple on Thursday seems to support reports that the company is working on an ultramobile PC to compete with Microsoft and its hardware partners in that market. The patent filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office defines “a docking area configured to receive a portable computer,” according to the filing.