bMighty News Flash: Wednesday May 20, 2009

HARDWARE & SOFTWARE

• Unity Claims Game-Changing Memory Advancement -- Unity Semiconductor is hoping its technology will become a replacement for the flash memory used today in solid-state drives for laptops and smartphones like Apple's iPhone
• AT&T Expanding Its Netbook Offerings -- The carrier will offer discounted Acer, Dell, and Lenovo netbooks to customers who sign a two-year data contract
• Intel Unveils 'Pineview' Atom Chips, Moblin Operating System -- The processor's Pine Trail chipset with Tiger Point I/O controller is expected to find its way into netbooks and nettop PCs later this year
• Synology Launches New Storage Solutions For SMBs -- New 2-Bay Disk Station DS209+II is successors to DS209+ and includes 1.06 GHz CPU, 64 bit memory bus, floating point computing, 512MB DDRII RAM, a Gigabit LAN port, 3 USB2.0 ports, and an eSATA port

MOBILE

• T-Mobile Delays 'Cupcake' Android Update -- Android users will have to wait until early June to get Android 1.5, which will add a virtual keyboard, stereo Bluetooth, and video recording
• Sprint Predicts Pre Shortages -- The CEO of the third-largest U.S. wireless carrier says he expects early demand for the Palm Pre smartphone to outstrip supply

SECURITY

• The Social Media Security Threat -- Websense reports that 70 of the top 100 Web site, many of them social media, had hosted malicious content at some point, but 95% percent of businesses allow access to social media and 86% of IT managers report being pressured to expand social media accessibility despite security concerns.

SERVICES

• Yahoo Tries To Redefine Search -- The company hopes bolstering its semantic search capabilities will help it better compete with Google for ad dollars and happier customers
• Managed Services Model Helps Companies Weather Recession -- CompTIA reports that managed services providers are holding profits longer and recovering sooner than traditional product and support sales companies
• Google Adds Automatic Translation Powers To Gmail -- Feature automatically translates messages from the one it was written in to one you can understand
• GPS May Crash By 2010 -- Unless the U.S. Air Force is able to acquire new satellites soon, the Global Positioning System may crash by next year
• Microsoft Rumored To Be Launching Kumo Next Week -- Major upgrade to Live Search may come next week after two months of internal testing