How to Use Windows

Virgin Media has announced that Film4 HD will launch first on its platform – with the cable giant also adding E4 HD to its burgeoning lineup of high definition channels. With the launch of Freeview HD and satellite giant Sky’s focus on high definition channels, Virgin Media appears keen to remind people that it is not being left behind. The launch of Film4 HD will be a major boon to the platform, with the popular free movies channel making its HD debut in this summer.

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Samsung on Thursday said it plans to launch a new line of multimedia “powerhouse” R80 series notebooks at Best Buy, both online and offline, on March 7th. The sub-$1,000 notebook line will come with Blu-ray capabilities and Nvidia GeForce graphics. “Best Buy continues to be an important retail partner for Samsung, and we’re excited to offer a range of notebook and netbook options to our customers that deliver exceptional craftsmanship and performance,” said Todd Bouman, director of product marketing at Samsung Electronics Information Technology Division. “True to Samsung’s unique, customer-focused design aesthetic, these mobile PCs are flexible enough to be used as mobile devices or desktop replacements for all-day use.” There will be three models in all — R480 ($730), R580 ($830), and R780 ($930) — all of which come built around Intel’s Core i3/i5 platform. The flagship 17-inch R780 unit will include 4GB of RAM, Nvidia GeForce GT 330M graphics, a 500GB hard drive, DVD burner, 1.3MP webcam, Wi-Fi, and Windows Home Premium 64-bit.

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Microsoft has revealed that its latest operating system, Windows 7, has sailed past the 90 million sales mark, prompting much celebration from the company. The announcement came at the Morgan Stanley Technology Media & Telecom Conference, where Chief Financial Officer Peter Klein relayed the fact that 90 million licences for the product had been shifted. Humbled and excited The news was also put into a blog , with Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc noting that the company was “humbled and excited that people are responding so positively to Windows 7 – our customers have made it the fastest selling operating system in history”. The blog also went on to big up PCs, saying that there’s a number of hardware innovations coming to the high streets soon, including the Sony Vaio X which is so small “it could fit inside a MacBook Air”. Released back in October 2009, Windows 7 has been a great success for Microsoft – both critically and commercially.

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Following the ‘better late than never’ motto, Plextor today announced it will try its hand in the SSD market with a pair of high performance offerings, the PX-64M1S and PX-128M1S . “We’re excited to leverage Plextor’s expertise in optical storage and enter the SSD market as it continues to grow,” said Esteban Kim, Director of New Business Development at PLDS. “PCMark, SYSmark, and HD Benchmark industry utility tests scored Plextor SSDs high and we’re proud to have the new lineup available to our customers.” With the recent spate of SSDs boasting read and write speeds well above 200MB/s, Plextor may be stretching things a bit in classifying these as “high performance.” The 64GB PX-64M1S comes rated at up to 110MB/s sequential reads and 65MB/s in sequential writes, while the 128GB PX-128M1S sports 120MBs and 70MB/s read and write speeds, respectively. Both drives are available now for $225 (64GB) and $400 (128GB)

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Virtualization security startup HyTrust has plenty of reason to celebrate – 10.5 million reasons, one for each dollar Cisco and several other investors have handed over to the company,  InfoWorld reports . HyTrust, winner of VMworld’s “Best in Show” last year, already had $5.5 million in venture capital work with. This second round of financing almost doubles that initial infusion of cash it received from Trident Capital and Epic Ventures.  “HyTrust continues to demonstrate the importance of this emerging market,”  said Eric Chiu , president and CEO of HyTrust.

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Alaska Airlines on Wednesday announced it will offer Aircell’s Gogo InFlight Internet service on all of Alaska’s aircrafts, effectively joining the mile-high Wi-Fi club. “With more than 730 systems already flying, Aircell has a proven track record of deploying affordable inflight Wi-Fi services to airline customers,” said Steve Jarvis, Alaska’s vice president of marketing, sales, and customer experience. “Their reliable, lower-cost equipment can be installed quickly, allowing Alaska Airlines to introduce Gogo service to our customers as soon as possible.” Once fully implemented, passengers will be able to surf the Web, listen to streaming music, play games, listen to podcasts and webcasts, send and receive email, and connect to virtual private networks (VPNs), Alaska said. The airlines also promised that speeds will be “similar” to wireless mobile broadband service on the ground. The cost to use Gogo will start at $4.95 and ramp up from there, depending on the length of the flight and device being used.

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Bloom Energy has unveiled its 100KW Energy Saver fuel cell at eBay’s Silicon Valley HQ, attended by many notaries, including State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Energy Saver is a solid oxide fuel cell that converts almost any fuel source into electricity, according to the company. Each Energy Saver unit contains thousands of fuel cells, and even when burning fossil fuel is 67 per cent cleaner than a coal-fired power plant. The device was originally developed for the NASA Mars space programme

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Sometimes relationships just don’t work out, and that’s the case between Cisco and Hewlett Packard. As InfoWorld reports it , Cisco was the one breaking things off, saying it will not renew its systems integrator contract with HP, effectively ending HP’s status as a certified reseller and service partner. “Over the last few years, our relationship with HP has evolved from a partner to companies with different and conflicting visions of how to deliver value to our customers,” Keith Goodwin, senior VP of Cisco’s Worldwide Partner Organization, said during a Webcast. “We’ve already reached out to HP to begin the discussion around a new agreement that ensures business continuity for existing customers but better reflects the current state of our relationship.” Cisco said it would continue to make good on its current customer service contracts with HP until they expire, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any animosity between Cisco and HP. During the Webcast, Goodwin threw a jab at HP, saying the company no longer “aligns” with its “network-centric vision.”

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Comcast has announced a new online backup system will be made available to their customers. The so called Secure Backup and Share system is being offered in partnership with Mozy online backup. Existing customers can get 2GB of space for free. There are also paid versions with 50GB and 200GB of space. The price isn’t bad actually, and we can’t argue with the free 2GB of space

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Several phone networks, including Orange, O2 and T-mobile are forming an alliance to rally against the rise of the app store model. With Apple, RIM, Android and Nokia all offering different, incompatible services, there is some fear about the increasing segmentation of the market. Not only that but, according to the Guardian , the networks “fear they are in danger of becoming little more than ‘dumb pipes in the air’”, while the individual store fronts eat up all ofthe money being generated by the apps. The aim of the Open API initiative is to provide an inviting environment for developers, with the apps that result from the scheme being paid for directly on the customers’ phones bills

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