Technology

Not entirely impressed with that BlackBerry Storm you picked up earlier this year? Well, don't get too depressed -- BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) recently revealed that a new version of the multimedia device is already in the works. RIM ... co-CEO Jim Balsillie (the prominent executive known for his attempts to move American hockey teams north of the border) recently confirmed to Reuters that a new version of the Storm is already in development. According to Balsillie, sales of the Storm were strong enough that the company believes there's a big market for devices that employ ... (view more)

Malware (a portmanteau of "malicious software") is any software program developed for the purpose of causing harm to a computer system, similar to a virus or Trojan horse. Malware can be classified based on how it is executed, how it spreads, and/or ... what it does. The classification is not perfect, however, in the sense that the groups often overlap and the difference is not always obvious, giving rise to frequent flame wars. Overuse of the term 'Virus' Because viruses were historically the first to appear, the term "virus" is often applied, especially in the popular media, to all sorts of ... (view more)

Release Candidate (RC) The term release candidate (RC) refers to a software version with the potential to be a final product, ready to be released to the public for final testing. In this stage of product stabilization, all product features have ... been designed, coded and tested through one or more Beta cycles with no known software bugs (defects). During the 1990s, Apple Inc. used the term "golden master" for its release candidates, and the final golden master was the general availability release. Gamma, Delta, Omega, Zenith Release Candidates Other terms include gamma (and occasionally also ... (view more)

A kill switch (also called an e-stop) is a security measure used to shut off a device (usually in an emergency situation) in which it cannot be shut down in the usual manner. Unlike a normal shut down which shuts down all systems naturally in a ... progressive manner, a kill switch is designed to completely abort the operation at all costs. Often, kill switches are used to protect people from sustaining an injury or being killed, in which case damaging the machine may be considered to be acceptable. Physical World Applications Treadmills often use a safety key (essentially a kill switch) that the ... (view more)

Cybercrime (or "computer crime") consists of specific crimes dealing with computers and networks (such as hacking) and the facilitation of traditional crime through the use of computers and technology infrastructure. (Source: gc.ca ) Although the ... terms computer crime and cybercrime are more properly restricted to describing criminal activity in which the computer or network is a necessary part of the crime, these terms are also sometimes used to include traditional crimes, such as fraud, theft, blackmail, forgery, and embezzlement, in which computers or networks are used. Types of ... (view more)

A Service Pack (SP) is a collection of updates, fixes and/or enhancements to a software program delivered in the form of a single installable package. Many companies (such as Microsoft) typically release a service pack when the number of individual ... patches to a given program reaches a certain (arbitrary) limit. Installing a service pack is easier and less error-prone than installing a high number of patches individually, even more so when updating multiple computers over a network. Service packs are usually numbered, and thus shortly referred to as SP1, SP2, SP3 etc. They may also bring, ... (view more)

In computer science, a virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a machine (computer) that executes programs like a real machine. System Virtual Machine vs Process Virtual Machine A virtual machine was originally defined by Popek and ... Goldberg as "an efficient, isolated duplicate of a real machine". Current use includes virtual machines which have no direct correspondence to any real hardware. Virtual machines are separated into two major categories, based on their use and degree of correspondence to any real machine: a System Virtual Machine and a Process Virtual Machine. A system ... (view more)

A netbook (or mini-notebook) is a small portable laptop computer designed for wireless communication and access to the Internet. The word netbook is a portmanteau of the words Internet and notebook. Primarily designed for web browsing and emailing, ... netbooks rely heavily on the Internet for remote access to web-based applications" and are targeted increasingly at cloud computing users who require a less powerful client computer. As of the start of 2009, the established definition of a netbook was a notebook computer with a low-powered x86-compatible processor (compatible with PC standard ... (view more)

Researchers have developed a system that adapts a Windows-based smartphone to act as an ultrasound scanner. The device could be revolutionary in developing nations and might also have military uses. The system is based on existing portable ... ultrasound wands, which scan using soundwaves to produce an image of the inside of a body. The technique is best known for scanning images of fetuses, but has a wide range of medical uses. The problem with the existing system is that the wands then had to be plugged into an Internet-connected computer via a USB cable in order to share the results instantly ... (view more)

Will astronomers some day find an unspoiled planet where we can all move when this dying rock is kaput? It seems scientists are getting closer, having discovered a planet very close to earth's size -- and it's only 20 light years away. The discovery ... was recently announced at a conference at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK, with more details submitted in a paper to the journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics. The planet in question lies way, way off in the distance, orbiting around a dim red star called Gliese 581 in the Libra constellation. The new planet, now dubbed Gliese 581e by ... (view more)