TechMount

Look at Dell’s monumental keyboard screw up, discover the fourth missing electronic circuit element, read about Sony’s ultra-small hybrid fuel cell, code “Hello World” in 366 programming languages, learn if Microsoft can overcome Vista’s lingering image problem? Watch the BBC exposes Facebook flaw, find great bargains and more in today’s edition of the Daily Friction.

Hardware

• Sony Unveils Ultra-small Hybrid Fuel Cell - Sony Corp prototyped a fuel-cell system small enough to fit in one hand. The size of the system is about 50 × 30mm, which was realized by combining a fuel cell, Li-polymer secondary battery, control circuit and so forth.
• Dell’s new Vostro, crippled by monumental keyboard screw up.
• Scientists Create First Memristor: Missing Fourth Electronic Circuit Element - Researchers at HP Labs have built the first working prototypes of an important new electronic component that may lead to instant-on PCs as well as analog computers that process information the way the human brain does.

Information

• The “Hello World” Program, in 366 Programming Languages! - “Hello World” is the first program one usually writes when learning a new programming language. The first Hello World program appeared in chapter 1.1 of the first edition of Kernighan & Ritchie’s original book about C, “The C Programming Language”, in 1978.
• How can Microsoft overcome Vista’s lingering image problem? Microsoft and its hardware/software partners have done a lot in the past 16 months to make Windows Vista a better operating system. With Service Pack (SP) 1, Microsoft has addressed some of the performance and reliability problems that has made Vista the butt of so much bad press when it launched.
• BBC exposes Facebook flaw - The BBC’s technology programme Click has exposed a security flaw in the social networking site Facebook which could compromise privacy. (Video)

Wed Development

• XML in 10 points - XML, XLink, Namespace, DTD, Schema, CSS, XHTML … If you are new to XML, it may be hard to know where to begin. This summary in 10 points attempts to capture enough of the basic concepts to enable a beginner to see the forest through the trees. And if you are giving a presentation on XML, why not start with these 10 points?

Bargains

• Remember: Many of these bargains may be discontinued hours or less after they are announced, check the specified price to see if you arrived on time.
• SanDisk 4 GB Cruzer Titanium USB Flash Drive with U3 ($24.95).
• SanDisk 4 GB Cruzer Micro with U3 ($21.15).
• Nikon Coolpix S10 6MP Digital Camera ($322.22).
• Sony Alpha A100K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 Lens ($549.90).
• Panasonic DMC-FX50K 7.2MP Digital Camera ($299.22).
• Canon HV20 3MP High Definition MiniDV Camcorder ($829.99).

By writing about and linking to the articles/products/software on this page I do not endorse or testify to the reliability of them in any way or form.

Tags: Dell, Vista, Facebook+flaw, Bargains

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 4th, 2008 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Daily Friction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.