Technology in your hands.

You may not have noticed, but technology has passed a significant, if little-recognised, milestone. The news emerged only this week, but late last month a supercomputer built for the United States Government performed what is known as a petaflop, or one quadrillion calculations per second.

Few of us know what a quadrillion looks like (in Europe it’s known as a billiard), so, if you’re curious, here’s one you can study in private: 1,000,000,000,000,000. Big, isn’t it?

Mathematicians have calculated that a quadrillion-high stack of five-cent coins would reach Saturn, but that’s probably not much easier to visualise. Or spend…

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Greenpeace says the world’s most popular electronic game consoles contain high levels of toxic chemicals, though they do not pose an immediate danger to gamers.

A report by the environmental watchdog group says Nintendo’s Wii, the Sony Playstation 3 and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 use varying degrees of bromine, PVCs and other potentially harmful chemicals, including phthalates, which can affect human hormones.

Greenpeace acknowledged the level of toxic material does not violate European regulations, although some are banned from use in toys meant for small children. Though not harmful in the amounts used, some chemicals are released into household dust, inhaled and pile up in the body over time.

“Nobody will drop dead tomorrow,” Greenpeace campaigner Zeina AlHajj said today. “But these products are used by kids … They are persistent and they are accumulating through our life.”…

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Now these may look like normal AA batteries, but the magic is revealed when you pop the top open to reveal a USB plug. Instead of needing a bulky recharger you plug them into any powered USB port and they’re fully recharged in only 5 hours. Just think, you have so many potential chargers in your home. From PCs and laptops to keyboards, hubs, games consuls, even some monitors.

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In article introduces you to four built-in tools you can use to track down and fix performance problems.

Quote “I believe you have every right to expect excellent performance from Windows Vista, and I’m going to back that conclusion in today’s post, the latest in my Fixing Vista series, with details on how to use Vista’s built-in tools to find and fix the problems that stand between you and an excellent Vista experience. ”

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Futuremark (www.futuremark.com) brings users one step closer to understanding the performance potential of their personal computers with the launch of 3DMark® Vantage. Gamers, media and OEMs now have a modern gaming performance benchmark to measure native DirectX 10 and multi-core CPU performance with large amounts of physics, AI and graphics.

3DMark®Vantage is composed of four full-bore benchmarking tests (2 different CPU tests and 2 different GPU tests) and 6 feature tests. Four presets, a groundbreaking new feature, vastly augment the variety of PCs that can be tested with the product. Presets range from value through performance to high end cinematic rendering resolutions and features. By creating a new set of high end presets, 3DMark®Vantage is future proofed for the new multi-core CPU and Graphics Processing Unit products as well as supporting the Physics Processing Unit to expand the range of technology, testing and prevent the benchmark from being bottlenecked for its users.

Microsoft and India’s HCL Infosystems said they would work together to develop a Windows-based laptop PC that will be the cheapest available in any market worldwide.

The system, called the MiLeap H Series, will run Windows XP Home and will sell for 17,000 Indian rupees, or about $425 (U.S.). The MiLeap H features a 30-GB hard drive and is “broadband ready,” the companies said in a statement Friday.

Microsoft chief operating officer Kevin Turner, at a launch event in Mumbai, said the offering is meant to “empower Indian consumers and businesses with the latest and best that technology has to offer.”

Microsoft, along with a number of other vendors, is eyeing the low-cost PC market as a major growth opportunity — particularly in emerging markets where average incomes pale compared with the West. The company recently announced that it would extend the life of its Windows XP operating system, but only for deployment on low-cost systems…

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Asustek Computer Inc. yesterday launched its biggest low-cost Eee laptop yet and, as expected, will offer it with either Linux or Microsoft Corp.’s Windows XP Home.

The Eee PC 900, which the Taipei-based computer maker unveiled Tuesday, packs an 8.9-in. display running at a native resolution of 1,024 by 600 pixels, a significantly higher resolution than the older, smaller Eee PC 701, which sports a 7-in. display running at 800 by 400 pixels.

Users can select either Windows XP Home or Linux as the 900’s operating system. This is the second line of ultralight notebooks from Asustek that offers XP as an option; it currently sells a pair of 7-in. Eee PC models running Microsoft’s operating system that it has dubbed the “Surf XP” and “4G XP.”

The Eee PC 900 is equipped with 1GB of system memory, a 1.3-megapixel camera, an Apple MacBook Air-esque multi-touch trackpad, and either a 12GB or 20GB solid-state drive (SSD) for storage. When XP is installed, the 900 comes with the smaller SSD…

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The latest firmware for Sony’s Playstation 3 has added powerful audio features. In addition to an updated interface, the firmware 2.30 adds DTS-HD Master Audio and DTS-HD High Resolution Audio features for Blu-ray movies.

“We are extremely pleased that Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) is adding the full spectrum premium DTS-HD Master Audio codec into the PS3 so that more than 10 million owners of one of the best selling computer entertainment systems can have the best sounding, most efficient and flexible audio technology available system as well. DTS-HD Master Audio is fast becoming the must-have feature for high definition entertainment enthusiasts,” said Brian Towne, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Consumer Division at DTS.

In late February, Sony announced two new BD-Live (Profile v2.0) ready Blu-ray players, priced at $400 and $500. The BDP-S350, which will ship sometime in the summer for $400, will feature 1080p24/60 output via HDMI, one Ethernet port and decoding of 7.1 Dolby Digital Plus and Dolby TrueHD…

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Having conquered HD DVD, the Blu-ray camp is now bumping up player prices as it capitalises on its position as the only successful high definition disc format in the market.

Figures from market-watcher GfK, which monitors sales and market trends across all major retailers, show average Blu-ray player prices rose five per cent in February compared to January…

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Nintendo’s Wii game console outsold Sony’s PlayStation 3 by 3-to-1 in Japan in March but its DS handheld machine fell behind the PlayStation Portable for the first time in six months, a game magazine publisher said.

Nintendo, creator of such game characters as Mario and Zelda, sold 265,542 units of the Wii in the five weeks to March 30, compared with 81,579 units of the PS3, Enterbrain said on Friday…

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