iPhones mandatory for freshmen in Missouri University

Wanted to enroll into the University of Missouri's journalism schoool? Then, first thing you need to do is to buy a iPhone or iPod touch. Already, 99.5% of the university journalism students have macs, and incoming freshmen have now been told they will need an iPhone or iPod Touch as well. And the reason behind these devices becoming mandatory, according to Associate Dean Brian S Brooks, is to make the students to play back lectures in their free time.

iPhone 3G Finally Available In US Contract-Free

Engadget is reporting that the iPhone 3G is finally available contract-free if you are willing to pay a much higher premium. Without a contract consumers are looking at $599 for an 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB. AT&T has the added restriction that you must be an existing AT&T customer, but Apple will sell one to anyone willing to pay the premium. This change brings the model much closer to the prevailing European model where phones are sold as hardware and the plans are handled completely separately.

iPhone 3G Finally Available In US Contract-Free

Engadget is reporting that the iPhone 3G is finally available contract-free if you are willing to pay a much higher premium. Without a contract consumers are looking at $599 for an 8GB model and $699 for the 16GB. AT&T has the added restriction that you must be an existing AT&T customer, but Apple will sell one to anyone willing to pay the premium. This change brings the model much closer to the prevailing European model where phones are sold as hardware and the plans are handled completely separately.

US Military Issuing iPod Touches To Soldiers

The iPod Touch and the iPhone are being adapted as general purpose handhelds for soldiers in the field. Apple gadgets are proving to be surprisingly versatile. Software developers and the US Department of Defense are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight, made by the Florida firm Knight's Armament for the iPod Touch and iPhone. Army researchers are developing applications to turn an iPod into a remote control for a bomb-disposal robot (tilting the iPod steers the robot). In Sudan, American military observers are using iPods to learn the appropriate etiquette for interacting with tribal leaders.

Microsoft Raises $3.8B in Bond Sale

Microsoft is sitting on $25 billion in cash, so the company doesn't need the bond proceeds "unless they have something big in mind," says Reena Aggarwal, professor of finance at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business.' Microsoft quietly, or not so quietly, raised some cheap cash in bond sales.  For a company that already has a huge cash war chest and doesn't carry debt, what is the incentive to sell nearly $4 billion in bonds?

Funding For Automotive Fuel Cells Cut

The US will stop funding research on automotive fuel cells and redirect the work towards stationary plants, because of slow progress on the research. Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration's budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects that would bear fruit more quickly. The industry and the National Hydrogen Association criticized the decision and declared their intention to fight for funding. Dr. Chu also announced that funding for a coal gasification pilot project, cut by the Bush administration, will be reinstated. The Obama administration will also drop spending for research on the exploration of oil and gas deposits because the industry itself has ample resources for that, Dr. Chu said.

Hackers steal UC Berkeley health records

The University of California at Berkeley started warning students and alumni on Friday that online thieves infiltrated the school's restricted servers and stole medical records on more than 160,000 individuals.

The breach lasted from October 9, 2008 to April 9, 2009 (corrected), when campus administrators performing maintenance on the systems detected the intrusion. Early evidence uncovered in the investigation suggests the attack came from overseas and accessed the secured databases by compromising a public Web site run on the same server.

The data stolen from UC Berkeley includes health data of the school's students and alumni — and their parents or spouses, in many cases — who received benefits through University Health Services as well as approximately 3,400 students of Mills College in Oakland, Calif., who were eligible to receive benefits.

EU fines intel $1.45 billion

The European union on wednesday fined intel Corp. a record euro 1.06 billion($1.45 billion), saying the world's biggest computer chip maker used illegal sales tactics to shut out smaller rival AMD. The fine exceeded a euro 899 million monopoly abuse panelty for microsoft Corp. last year. Intel called the decision "wrong" and said it would appeal.

EU says, intel broke EU competition law by exploiting its dominant position with a deliberate strategy to keep AMD out of the market that limited choice.

Company to appeal:

Intel president and CEO Paul Otellini said the company would appeal to the EU courts because "the decision is wrong" and "there has been absolutely zero harm to consumers".

Microsoft to launch Windows 7

Software giant microsoft is gearing up to release the next version of it's operating system, Windows 7, by the end of the current year and has the plans to release the final products of Windows server 2008 R2, already available as release candidate, in the same time frame. Microsoft also lines up other products including Azure services platform and VSTS 2010.

Mr. Ballmer claims that unlink Windows Vista which is well talked but not quite popular, the new system would be more talked and more popular.

Mr. Ballmer, co-founder of IP gaint along with Bill Gates, expressed concern over the economic recession, which he preferred to call as economic reset, something of contraction in technical terms.

Apple may manufacture it's own chips

There are some reports from here and there that Apple is building a team to design its own chips, with an eye towards reducing power consumption on iPods and iPhones.