Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corp. are partnering with academia to create two Universal Parallel Computing Research Centers (UPCRC), aimed at accelerating developments in mainstream parallel computing, for consumers and businesses in desktop and mobile computing.

Research will focus on advancing parallel programming applications, architecture and operating systems software. This is the first joint industry and university research alliance of this magnitude in the United States focused on mainstream parallel computing.

Parallel computing brings together advanced software and processors that have multiple cores or engines, which when combined can handle multiple instructions and tasks simultaneously. Although Microsoft, Intel and many others deliver hardware and software that is capable of handling dual- and quad-core-based PCs today, in the coming years computers are likely to have even more processors inside them.

“Intel has already shown an 80-core research processor, and we’re quickly moving the computing industry to a many-core world,” said Andrew Chien, vice president, Corporate Technology Group and director, Intel Research. “Working with Microsoft and these two prestigious universities will help catalyze the long-term breakthroughs that are needed to enable dramatic new applications for the mainstream user. We think these new applications will have the ability to efficiently and robustly sense and act in our everyday world with new capabilities:  rich digital media and visual interfaces, powerful statistical analyses and search, and mobile applications. Ultimately, these sensing and human interface capabilities will bridge the physical world with the virtual.”

Microsoft Aims to Create New Opportunity for Everyone Through Education. Company expands the impact of Partners in Learning program over the next five years, reaching up to three times as many students, teachers and schools.

BERLIN — Jan. 22, 2008 — Microsoft Corp. today announced a renewed commitment over the next five years to Partners in Learning, a program that provides the education community with resources and training to help students reach their full potential. Through Partners in Learning, Microsoft is leveraging the transformative power of software to create innovative educational experiences that remove limitations, create opportunities, and bring students and teachers closer. Since its launch in 2003, Partners in Learning has touched the lives of more than 90 million students, teachers and education policymakers in 101 countries. In the next five years, Microsoft is aiming to triple the impact of Partners in Learning’s three core programs: Innovative Teachers, Innovative Students and Innovative Schools. Partners in Learning is a key education initiative under Microsoft Unlimited Potential, the company’s commitment to creating sustained social and economic opportunity for everyone.

“Microsoft has always believed that education is the cornerstone of opportunity, and that investing in education is the best way to help young people achieve their potential,” said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft. “Partners in Learning is one of the ways Microsoft works with governments and schools around the world to help teachers use technology in the classroom to make learning exciting and relevant for the 21st century.”

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment is a tool that will find computers on a network and perform a detailed inventory of the computers using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). Through use of the detailed inventory data, the tool will assess and report whether the computers can run Windows Vista or the 2007 Microsoft Office system, where to find drivers for devices on the computers, and provide recommendations for hardware upgrades, where appropriate.

The Windows Vista Hardware Assessment 2.1 solution accelerator is localized in North American English, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Latin American Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese. It will display the language according to the operating system language of the PC where the tool is installed. This tool does not require the deployment of agent software on the computers being inventoried and assessed. It provides a secure, quick, and easy way to determine which computers, in a networked environment, are ready for Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system software.
 

For a business to survive, it must have a firm vision of where technology is headed. And one thing is clear: Laptops are redefining business computing. Today's business laptops offer the same fea-tures—if not more—as a powerful desktop, as well as mobility. The ability to telecommute or work remotely is vital in a modern business environment. People can literally run an entire business from their laps, saving valuable time while maximizing their productivity. But figuring out what you need in a business laptop is no longer as simple as choosing the right weight and screen size. Us-ers now face issues such as durability, security, features, and components to consider. . Machines arriving on the market blur the line between a business laptop and an ordinary one: Consider desktop replacements, ultraportables, tablet PCs, budget systems, and even rugged laptops. As always, we're here to offer buying suggestions and some sound advice.

Getting ready for Windows Vista, broadly available as a stand-alone product or pre-installed on new PCs on January 30, 2007, means choosing the edition that's right for you and ensuring that you have the right PC to enjoy the experiences you want.

When you start using Windows Vista, you will recognize familiar elements such as the Start menu, which is now faster, more streamlined, and more helpful than in previous versions of Windows. The Start menu features integrated desktop search through a new feature called Instant Search which can help you find and launch almost anything on your PC. Just type in a word, a name, or a phrase, and Instant Search can find the right file for you. But more than that, the new start menu makes it very easy for you to navigate across all of the installed applications on your PC. Eliminating the slow performing, cascading "All Programs" view, the new start menu can help you get something started more quickly than ever.

In today's economy, the financial results a company delivers are no longer the only defining measure of that company's strength. Increasing importance is being placed on each company's approach to corporate social responsibility and environmental sustainability. You might call it the "convenient truth": the information that currently resides in your ERP system might already be waiting to help. Find out how this untapped resource could help you make a positive impact—not only on your business and the community in which you work, but on the environment and the world.

See the link below for more details.

After a period of internal beta testing, Microsoft today released the Family Safety service to public beta. At the same time, Microsoft announced plans to move Family Safety into the OneCare brand, along with the free Safety Scanner and OneCare Advisor toolbar.

According to Dennis Bonsall, Director for Windows Live OneCare, initially the products will just be re-branded—for example, Family Safety becomes Windows Live OneCare Family Safety. Going forward they will be integrated into OneCare, with automatic updating like the existing OneCare features. This will effectively produce two tiers of OneCare subscription, a free version and a paid version. Windows Defender won't be part of this package; while it's installed along with OneCare it's not actually a part of OneCare.

• Faster Results
  A new Management Studio and integration with Visual Studio 2005 and the Microsoft .NET common language runtime helps you build, debug, and operate applications faster and more efficiently.
• Better Decisions
  A comprehensive business intelligence platform for data integration, analysis, and reporting that helps you turn insight into action and make better decisions, faster.
• Trusted Platform
  The highest performance, availability and security to run your most demanding applications with native data encryption, secure default settings, and password policy enforcement.

SEATTLE — May 23, 2006 — Speaking today at the Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2006, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced the immediate availability of beta 2 versions of Windows Vista™, the 2007 Microsoft^® Office system and the next version of Windows Server™, code-named Windows Server “Longhorn.” It is the first time that Microsoft has simultaneously released the test versions of all three of the company’s flagship products.

Speaking before a nearly sold-out crowd of over 3,500 hardware technologists and business planners, Gates outlined a vision for the future of the PC and hardware devices. He demonstrated how Windows Vista, the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Windows Server “Longhorn” will drive innovation across the industry and support the rich ecosystem of hardware manufacturers that continue to expand choices for customers in everything from computers to peripherals to mobile devices and entertainments systems.

“The release of these three betas is a significant milestone for Microsoft and a major step toward delivering the platforms that will drive the next decade of computing,” Gates said. “The combination of these innovative platform technologies and the new hardware and software being developed by our partners will make PCs and other devices more powerful, more useful and more intelligent for businesses today and into the future.”

The program helps to strengthen the partnership between USDA and the 1890 institutions; helps to increase the number of students studying agriculture and related disciplines; and offers career opportunities at USDA.

Learn more about the program on the USDA website. Click on the link for more....

In 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer led a small force of soldiers against an overwhelming force of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors at Little Bighorn. Reinforcements were on the way, but Custer thought he wouldn't need them. Everyone knows what happened to Custer. The moral of his story is that no force can succeed if it stands alone and outnumbered. The same is true of your business's data: Without a solid backup plan, you just might be making your last stand.

An effective data backup strategy means knowing what needs to be backed up, including regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA), which have specific backup requirements. You should also determine whether data should be backed up or archived. Most businesses do both. Backups are copies of active data for short-term use and are frequently overwritten with updated versions. The three types of backup are full (which backs up all files regardless of whether they have changed), differential (which backs up all files modified since the last full backup), and incremental (which backs up only files that have changed since the last backup of any kind). Archives, on the other hand, contain static data, such as inactive document files and old e-mails.

Most SMBs use tape for backup and archiving. Devices from Imation, Quantum, Sony, and others have become the standard to back up, recover and archive data. You can combine backup strategies to create a tape-rotation schedule.

Although tape is still reliable, backup to disk, CD, DVD, or to a remote storage facility can reduce cost and decrease backup and restore time. Traditional backup uses both software and backup media. Software such as Symantec Backup Exec runs about $500 plus the cost of agents for specific tasks.

Online backup services can be a powerful option for small businesses. The advantage is that your data is protected in a secure off-site facility in case your network is compromised or your office is damaged. You'll need high-speed Internet access, and the backup process will be much slower than local backup. Look to services that use file encryption during transmission and storage. Prices for such services are based on storage space and time­liness of backups, varying ­widely from $9.95 a month for 5 GBs of space to $995 for 2GB. You should choose this method if you need fast recovery and may have some extra money to spend. Some of the services here include Iron Mountain Digital's LiveVault InSync, @Backup, Iomega's IStorage Online, and Xdrive.

A method rapidly gaining ground is disk to disk (D2D) or its extension, disk to disk to tape (D2D2T). As the price of hard drive space decreases, this becomes a more attractive option, primarily because it's fast. Complete copies of data are created on another drive, and then you can create a traditional backup of that drive. You'll need an external or additional internal hard drive. You should also look to a network-attached storage device, such as the Buffalo TeraStation ($995 list), which lets you access your files on your company network.

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The beta version of Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems had been available to a small group of testers in a "technical beta" since October but is now available for anyone interested in trying it out through a customer preview program, said John Borozan, a product manager at Microsoft.

Microsoft expects tens of thousands of users to download the beta of the server software, which is unchanged since the release of the technical beta, Borozan said. Several hundred testers participated in the technical beta, he said.

"A lot of customers are using Opteron with 32-bit Windows. The release of this beta is the first time they can tap the additional power of that hardware using 64-bit Windows," Borozan said.

When it ships some time in the second half of this year, Windows Server 2003 for 64-Bit Extended Systems will be available in Standard and Enterprise editions. There are no plans for a separate beta for the Standard version, Borozan said.

At the same time that Microsoft ships the software for Opteron systems, the company plans to introduce a Standard edition of Windows Server 2003 for 64-bit Itanium-based servers. Microsoft already ships Enterprise and Datacenter versions of Windows Server 2003 for this Intel Corp. processor, which competes with AMD's Opteron.

Release of the Windows Server software for Opteron-based systems was pushed back about six months last October. Originally the company had said it would deliver the product in the first half of 2004.

Pricing for all 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2003 will be the same as for the comparable versions of the product's 32-bit entries: $999 for Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, which includes 5 client-access licenses (CALs), and US$3,999 for Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition, which includes 25 CALs.

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