Which Google Services Are Still Available in China?

With the news that Google is redirecting traffic to Google.cn to Google.com.hk, many people are wondering just which Google services are available from Google China. While Google admits that China can block access anytime, the company has set up an apps dashboard that shows what services are available to users in Mainland China at any given time.
At the moment, it looks like half of the services listed are operating without interruption. Blocked services make up 25 percent and the last 25 percent of services are partially blocked. Completely blocked services include YouTube and Blogger, while Google Docs and Picasa are both partially blocked. Check out the full list below.
Hit up Google's Mainland China service availability page to see a more current version of the list.

University to Give iPad, MacBook to Every Student

Seton Hill University, a school in Greensburg, Pennsylvania has announced that it will be presenting all new undergraduate students with a 13-inch Macbook and an iPad as part of its Technology Advantage program.Students will be provided with a new Macbook and iPad in the fall and then, in two years time, the Macbook will be replaced with a new one that they can take away with them when they graduate. The university says students will have access to the computers inside and outside of school hours to ensure they can get in touch with professors, advisers, and classmates and work on their studies at any time of the day.

Several of the major text book publishers have partnered with Apple to bring content to the iPad so that will be one major plus for this scheme; the students won't have to carry around those heavy text books. However, a similar program was introduced in schools when the Kindle DX launched and a lot of the students didn't like it.

Asus Preparing Windows and Google Tablets

Speaking to Forbes on a recent trip to the U.S., Asus chairman, Jonney Shih, said his company is working on at least two tablets that it plans to unveil in the coming months. Similar to the HP's plans for two versions of its Slate, Asus is planning a Windows version of the device, as well as one with Android or Chrome.
Asus is credited for bringing about the netbook revolution with the launch of the Eee PC in October of 2007 but the focus on tablets doesn't mean the company will be abandoning netbooks. Shih says the tablets will be very media-centric, particularly the Google one, and insists there's room for tablets among the crowds of netbooks, smartphones and ereaders.

"Netbooks are the best combination of personal computing and cloud computing," Shih told Forbes. "But between netbooks and smartphones and e-readers, we think there will be a space for something like a tablet or slate PC."

Australian Scientists Create Bionic Eye Prototype

Bionic Vision Australia has developed the first prototype of a bionic eye that could restore rudimentary vision to blind people by 2013. But unlike the Six Million Dollar Man, recipients won't get to zoom in on evil plots from afar. Instead, the imagery the device currently produces is blocky and low-res at best. Still, anything is better than nothing, and probably beats seeing with your tongue as we reported earlier.
The bionic eye is comprised of several parts: a pair of glasses with a mounted camera, a processor, and the ocular implant. The glasses record footage and pass along the imagery to the processor seated in the user's pocket. The processor then sends the wireless data to the implant mounted against the user's retina. The implant thus stimulates the surviving retinal neurons electronically-- these neurons send the visual information to the brain.
"We anticipate that this retinal implant will provide users with increased mobility and independence, and that future versions of the implant will eventually allow recipients to recognize faces and read large print," said Professor Anthony Burkitt, Research Director of Bionic Vision Australia and Professor of Engineering at the University of Melbourne.
Gizmag expands on the story and details how the entire process works. The site reports that the overall problem is not in getting the signal to the brain, but to improve the resolution and detail of that signal. While the advanced first prototype can produce rough imagery for unaided navigation, the group wants to fine-tune the technology so that face and emotion recognition is a possibility in the next prototype-- 20/80 vision at the very least-- in 2013.

Microsoft Confirms 64GB Zune HD, Price

In a short and sweet statement, Microsoft officially confirmed that a 64GB version of its Zune HD device is indeed hitting the market. Revealed via Zune Insider, the device costs $349.99 and will be available exclusively on the Zune Originals online shop starting April 12, 2010. Consumers will also have access to all colors (platinum, black, blue, red, green, purple, and magenta) and custom etching "to create the ultimate Zune HD to your liking."
Microsoft added that the new 64GB model allows consumers to carry up to 16,000 songs, or 20 hours of high definition video from Zune Marketplace, or 25,000 pictures.
The Zune Insider also confirmed $20 price drops of the two previous models: the Zune HD 16GB for $199.99 and the Zune HD 32GB to $269.99.
Additionally there was also mention of the upcoming 4.5 firmware update. Although no specific date has been set, project manager Nate Muller is scheduled to discuss the update during Friday's Zune Insider podcast.

Toshiba Crams 1TB Into Your Pocket

On Sunday Toshiba revealed its solution to ease consumer burdens of losing "digital memories" by offering its new line of Canvio pocket-sized external drives. Toshiba said the Canvio drives are an easy-to-use backup solution that offers storage capacities of up to 1 TB. Surprisingly, the company spent more time coughing up data loss statistics than promoting hardware details surrounding the new Canvio line.
"Women, in particular, are concerned about the security of family memories-- 78 percent of women respondents indicated they are primarily responsible for maintaining family records and memories to pass down to future generations," the company said. "These "chief memory officers" say that family videos and photos, as well as ancestor photos, are the most precious memories they have."
On a hardware level, Toshiba touts the 6-ounce Canvio as smaller than a postcard. The new line will also come in five colors: Liquid Blue, Komodo Green, Rocket Red, Raven Black, and Satin Silver. All five will be preloaded with Windows-based NTI Backup Now EZ software that features "extensive backup options, advanced restore functionalities, and an ability to overwrite specific original files." The drives are Windows 7, Vista, and XP compatible, and connect via a USB 2.0 port.
As for storage capacities, Toshiba is offering four variants: 500 GB ($119.99), 640 GB ($139.99), 750 GB ($159.99), and 1 TB ($199.99). The company also added that it reduced the physical size of the Canvio line by 25-percent while delivering a 35-percent reduction in total volume by using 100-percent recyclable materials.

GeForce GTX 480: Is it Hot Enough to Fry an Egg?

But can it... make breakfast?
you'll know that it's a hot card in multiple senses of the word. But can it… fry an egg?
Legit Reviews decided to give it a shot as it found that using two monitors resulted in higher-than-expected temperatures that hovered around 86 degrees Celcius.
Does that mean that the card under load would be hot enough to fry an egg?

Seems like the answer is no – using a frying pan would be more effective. Although after 45 minutes of use, the egg white was starting cook just a little.

Report: XFX Not Making GeForce GTX 480, 470s

As we approached the Nvidia GTX 480 launch, one of the early vendors that we saw boxes and cards from was XFX. That meant, naturally, that we'd have GTX 480 and GTX 470 cards from XFX, right? It doesn’t seem that way.
According to various sources, XFX is skipping right over this initial family of Fermi-based GPUs from Nvidia. That means that there will not be any GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 cards from XFX, though the vendor will continue selling its current Nvidia products.
Although XFX may have axed its plans to roll out GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 cards, we expect the company to sell Fermi-based products eventually down the line.
Interestingly, Legit Reviews relays its conversation with XFX, where it mentioned that the card maker have "yet to see whether the fermented launch will reach an inglorious anti-climax" and mentioned it wants to "Ferm up to who really has the big Guns."

Microsoft Releases Out-Of-Band Patch for IE

Tuesday Microsoft said that it released MS10-018 "out-of-band" due to an increase in attacks against its two older browsers, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. Normally Microsoft releases updates via its customary "Patch Tuesday" roundup. However, this rare move served an urgent response to a zero-day, drive-by download vulnerability that has been heavily exploited by attackers over the last several weeks.

According to Microsoft, the patch will address the publicly disclosed vulnerability first revealed on March 9. The problem is caused by an invalid pointer reference located within the two older browsers that can be accessed after an object is deleted-- this can allow attackers to swoop in and initialize remote code execution attacks. At the time, Microsoft claimed that the problem was limited to "targeted" attacks, however that has since changed.
"The most severe vulnerabilities could allow remote code execution if a user views a specially crafted Web page using Internet Explorer," Microsoft said weeks ago. "Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights."
In addition to the zero-day exploit, the latest patch also addresses nine other vulnerabilities that even effect Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft's Jerry Bryan said that many have asked Microsoft if Tuesday's patch addresses the vulnerability that was used in the Pwn2Own contest at the CanSecWest security conference last week. Apparently that's a negative.
"We are still investigating that issue at this time so we do not have an update available," he said. "In accordance with the contest rules, the vulnerabilities used are responsibly disclosed so that the respective vendors can produce updates to protect their customers before the vulnerabilities can be used by criminals. Microsoft continues to encourage responsible disclosure and we are a sponsor of the CanSecWest conference because we believe in working closely with security researchers to protect customers and the entire computing ecosystem."

AMD launches its HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 card

AMD has officially announced its AMD HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 card, or simply an HD 5870 with support for six displays and with double the frame buffer. The card does have some cool features but the bezel problem and the fact that a single HD 5870 GPU can struggle with games at ultra-high resolutions leaves a lot to be desired.

Most AMD partners have also launched their cards and the rest will probably follow up soon. A lot of sites have also come up with their own reviews and most of them share the opinion that the HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 is indeed cool, but with a lot of drawbacks.

The card uses the same specs as the regular AMD HD 5870 but features 2GB of GDDR5 memory. The TDP rose from 188W on the regular HD 5870 to 228W which means that the Eyefinity 6 card needs both 8-pin and 6-pin PCI-Express power connectors. The price also rose from around US $390 to $420 for the regular HD 5870 1GB to a suggested price tag of US $479 for the Eyefinity card.

The aforementioned price tag wouldn't be a problem unless you consider the main advantage of an Eyefinty 6 Edition card, which is support for up to six screens. When you add to that the cost of getting six displays, it's clear that this is reserved for those with deep pockets.

You can check out some of the reviews below.

- AnandTech
- TweakTown
- PC Perspective
- HotHardware
- FiringSquad
- Hexus
- Neoseeker