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Sony Loses $2.9 Billion, Makes New PSP Colors

2009-01-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

Brennon Slattery, PC World

What's the best way to recover after a $2.9 billion annual operating loss? Sony says: introduce new PSP colors!

The PSP-3000 is receiving a carnival makeover in Japan with the introduction of four new retina-melting colors: Radiant Red, Vibrant Blue, Bright Yellow and Spirited Green. The PSP hardware specs remain the same, and the ¥24,800 ($279) bundle includes a 4GB MemoryStick, a pouch and a hand strap.

These new colors hit the Tokyo streets in March. No word yet on whether these colors will make it over to North America, or if we'll be left out of the party.

AVG Free Edition 8.0.233

2009-01-27T10:50:00.000-08:00

AVG Free Edition is the well-known anti-virus protection tool. AVG Free is available free-of-charge to home users for the life of the product! Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high-level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy-to-use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements).

Highlights include:

* Automatic update functionality
* The AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run
* The AVG E-mail Scanner, which protects your e-mail
* The AVG On-Demand Scanner, which allows the user to perform scheduled and manual tests
* Free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product
* AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files

Download AVG Free Edition

Google Chrome 1.2.133.37

2009-01-27T10:44:00.000-08:00

Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier. Google Chrome combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

One box for everything

Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.

Thumbnails of your top sites

Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.

Shortcuts for your apps

Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

For information about alpha and developer builds, check out the Chrome dev channel here.

Download Google Chrome

Cisco to manage energy of tech gear and buildings

2009-01-27T10:43:00.000-08:00

Posted by Martin LaMonica

Cisco Systems on Tuesday introduced software for controlling energy use in networked computing equipment as well as building heating and cooling systems.

Called EnergyWise, the software is a free upgrade to Cisco Catalyst switches that can monitor and manage how energy is used on IP-connected devices, including phones and wireless routers. This summer Cisco will release a version, based on Verdiem's Surveyor PC management software, that reduces energy levels of PCs.

With EnergyWise, a company can set policies on energy use, allowing PCs or networking equipment to go into sleep mode after work hours, for example.

(Credit: Cisco)

Cisco's longer-term plan is to get beyond tech gear and into building-automation systems.

Early next year, EnergyWise will be able to manage building assets, including heating, ventilation, air conditioning, lighting, and employee badge systems.

On Tuesday, Cisco said it bought a company called Richards-Zeta Building Intelligence that makes software that translates information from building equipment, such as heating and cooling systems, into a format that can be read by EnergyWise and other software applications.

Other large IT vendors, like IBM, are making similar efforts to manage both IT equipment and building management systems.

Cisco is also working with Schneider Electric to tie its building management system to the EnergyWise software. But William Choe, director of Cisco's Ethernet switching technology group, told Light Reading that many of the energy savings for companies will occur by installing the software on smaller routers in a business.

"The majority of these switches in this application are in the wiring closet, touching the endpoints--the APs (access points) and the IP phones," Choe said.

CCleaner 2.16.830

2009-01-22T08:53:00.000-08:00

CCleaner (formerly Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less than a second to run) and Free.

Cleans the following:

Internet Explorer Cache, History, Cookies, Index.dat.
Recycle Bin, Temporary files and Log files.
Recently opened URLs and files.
Third-party application temp files and recent file lists (MRUs).
Including: Firefox, Opera, Media Player, eMule, Kazaa, Google Toolbar, Netscape, Office XP, Nero, Adobe Acrobat, WinRAR, WinAce, WinZip and more...
Advanced Registry scanner and cleaner to remove unused and old entries.
Including File Extensions, ActiveX Controls, ClassIDs, ProgIDs, Uninstallers, Shared DLLs, Fonts, Help Files, Application Paths, Icons, Invalid Shortcuts and more... Backup for registry clean.
Windows Startup tool.

Download CCleaner