Singapore - ASUS today announced the release of the U36 model notebook, the world’s thinnest notebook with a standard-voltage Intel processor. ASUS has developed a unique thermal design reducing notebook thickness to a mere 19mm while still packing a powerful Intel Core i3 or Core i5 processor. Together with ASUS’ Super Hybrid Engine technology and an NVIDIA® graphics card with Optimus technology, the U36 has a super long battery life, lasting up to 10 hours.

Slim Size, Powerful Performance

While most ultra thin notebooks on the market use a low voltage CPU because of cooling and power consumption benefits, the ASUS U36 breaks the mold and offers a standard voltage Intel Core i3 or Core i5 processor for powerful performance. This is possible thanks to ASUS’s dual heat pipe design which effectively dissipates heat from the CPU without adding any extra bulk. As a result, users who create rich media content, play intensive games, or engage in heavy multitasking are able to carry around a notebook that meets their needs, yet measures just 19mm thick.

Read more …

A computer hacker briefly hijacked Twitter.com on Thursday, redirecting users to a website and claiming to represent a group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army.
Twitter, which in June became a key communication channel for Iranian protesters disputing the country’s election results, said it was disrupted for a little more than an hour.
Twitter’s home page was replaced with one whose headline read “This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army” and an anti-American message.
“The motive for this attack appears to have been focused on defacing our site, not aimed at users,” Twitter said on its blog. “We don’t believe any accounts were compromised.”
Security experts said it was the first time attackers have succeeded in hijacking a major social-networking website.

Read more …

The new 802.11n/Bluetooth combo add-in card for Netbooks and laptops.

Generally, wireless functions–such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular data, and so on–are added to your portable computer via add-in cards. These cards share the same PCI standard as other PCI add-in cards found in desktop computers, but they are much smaller in size.
Though small, there are only so many add-in cards a laptop, and especially a Netbook, can accommodate. For this reason, what Atheros, a known maker of wireless solutions, introduced Tuesday is a significant development.

Read more …

Search engines have access to tons of valuable information, treasure troves full of clues to human behavior and what their millions of search engine users are up to. That is why the big search engines have great power even beyond their new role as brokers of advertising spaces on the Internet.

Every day search engines analyze our behavior and collect data we generate, and which they then store in databases. I have often wondered what data they have exactly and what they’re using them for. I’ve also known that professionals from dozens of industries are working at Google, for example, but what does an economist at Google do other than helping the company’s management make better business decisions?

Read more …