Occ News: This Week's News In Brief, 17th - 23rd June

[Nemo]

OCC News Post

 

After the flurry of news the past couple of weeks as a result of Computex 2007, this week seemed relatively slow by comparison. Last week saw the conclusion of Apple's WWDC and it seems that the news this week was dominated by Apple-related items.

 

The hype and frenzy surrounding the iPhone continues to build leading up to its release on June 29. Apple announced it had improved the battery life of the iPhone, increasing talk time from 5 to 8 hours. That should make the 19 million people that are reportedly ready to buy an iPhone relatively happy. Some of that extra battery life might come in handy if you're planning on watching YouTube videos using the integrated player. Not convinced you need a $600 iPhone yet? Don't miss the 20-minute infomercial on Apple's web site.

 

 

It looks as if it didn't take long for a beta version of Apple's Leopard OS to leak out. Distributed to developers at last week's WWDC, copies have already surfaced at PirateBay and are being downloaded. Look for news next week about Apple's lawyers. PirateBay also made the news for its new image hosting service.

 

In other hardware news, Seagate and Samsung began shipping 1TB desktop drives. Samsung also announced it will begin shipping its first hybrid drives to users next week. NVIDIA announced the Tesla general purpose computing platform.

 

 

AMD's woes continue to be the subject of news and speculation. Analysts are not expecting any near-term improvement and wonder if Barcelona is going to be the answer AMD needs. Meanwhile, speculation arose around the release date of the Phenom CPUs with November being the consensus with more to follow in 2008. Meanwhile, Biostar announced the release of its T-Series TF560 A2+ motherboard which supports AMD's upcoming socket AM2+.

 

 

Game maker Take-Two was left reeling this week after its Manhunt 2 game was banned in the UK and awarded an adults-only rating in the US. Still gasping for breath from the double body blows, Take-Two announced it was suspending plans to distribute the game.

 

 

In the notebook world Dell agreed to replace displays on nine laptop models and Gateway announced a voluntary recall of 14,000 batteries. Apple meanwhile is reportedly selling one of every seven notebooks moving it into fourth place.

 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, hackers continued their assault on the Internet starting with a "phenomenal attack" early in the week and finishing the week by attacking computers at the Pentagon. Nestled in all this mess is a report that a hacker allegedly stole the contents of the final Harry Potter book.

 

 

For a more complete view of the week's news, you can read over the stories on the OCC Frontpage.