machines

The Eclipse Foundation, the open-source programming tool project that's had a sometimes-fractious relationship with Java creator Sun Microsystems, has joined the Java governance system Sun established years ago.

The foundation announced the move Friday, noting in a press release that Eclipse is used in several Java projects administered by that governance system, called the Java Community Process. Eclipse initially was established as a Java programming tool project by IBM, which has been a Java ally but didn't always see eye to eye with Sun about the technology's fate.

The move shouldn't raise eyebrows, said Mike Milinkovich, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--IBM will return to the Consumer Electronics Show in January, the first time it's had a presence at the Las Vegas convention in 10 years.

No, don't expect to see a Big Blue-branded digital media player to take on the iPod. Instead, the company will tout lower-level technology that gadget makers can use, such as technology for nearly instantaneous translation of speech into Arabic or Chinese, said Mike Fay, an IBM communications executive, in a gathering here with reporters on Thursday.

IBM makes most of its money selling business-oriented products such as servers and server software as … Read more

The public is invited to listen to and participate in a CNET News.com interview of Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's vice president of technical strategy and innovation, in the Second Life virtual realm.

The interview is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. PDT (and Second Life time) Tuesday, Dec. 12, at CNET's Second Life office. Second Life users can find the site by searching for "CNET Networks" and teleporting, or can click on this SLURL, which will bring up a browser offering teleport to the CNET Second Life office. The interview is in the auditorium on the … Read more

Pardon us--make that a washing system.

The KaionWAVE, from the design labs of Electrolux, is an appliance concept for the true germaphobe. Shunning mere soap and water, it uses ultraviolet light to penetrate fabrics and kill bacteria and viruses while presumably taking care of that ring around the collar. And it will do it all wirelessly, of course. (It would also be a perfect match for the WinePod.)

One problem: It's designed to work on "nano-coated" material, which Appliancist describes as "a durable and stain-resistant fabric that many hypothesize will be used to make the clothing … Read more

IBM is bringing Microsoft Windows into the fold of its high-end graphics visualization system, but plans more sophisticated network abilities for its current Linux-based product in 2007.

IBM's Deep Computing Visualization technology, which uses Linux today, will work on Big Blue's Windows workstations as well in December, the company told customers Tuesday. Specifically, IBM will release Windows support for its Remote Visual Networking (RVN) software that lets geographically distant co-workers collaborate by sharing graphical images over an encrypted network connection.

IBM already offers a separate Linux tool called the Scalable Visual Networking (SVN), which lets a cluster of … Read more

The idea of a fabric keyboard sounded kind of nutty to us until we saw the photos of this one on Engadget. jkOnTheRun reports that Glen Evans of PocketPC Solutions has tried out this working model from Eleksen, which doubles as protective case, and found it "very usable on a daily basis"--despite its decidedly weird look. It's not that we have anything against this concept, but what's with that electric lime color?

(Photo: jkOnTheRun)

Cell phones and MP3 players aren't the only things that can be gussied up. Yes, even the lowly washing machine can become a swan with the right wardrobe. Well, sort of.

Samsung is apparently taking a Vegas approach to domestic appliances with this red washing machine (or is it magenta?) by Korean designer Andre Kim. By the looks of this photo, he and Samsung apparently think the stainless-steel Viking-range look is out. (If this is the alternative, we beg to differ.)

But we're no experts. If Swarovski can do a fridge, why not do your laundry in style … Read more

Novell on Wednesday announced the availability of a product that bundles its Suse Linux Enterprise Server with several IBM software packages and is designed to run on IBM x86 servers. The product, called the Integrated Stack for Suse Linux Enterprise, includes Novell's operating system and IBM's WebSphere Community Edition, DB2 Express-C and Centeris Likewise Management Suite.

The software support subscription for the first year costs $349, Novell said.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--If there was any doubt that a chip's clock frequency is no longer the preeminent measure of the chip's worth, a senior Intel chip designer put the idea to rest Tuesday.

"We're not focused on gigahertz at all," Dileep Bandarkar, architect at large in Intel's Digital Enterprise Group, said in a speech at the Fall Processor Forum here. Performance matters, but only within the context of power consumption, and clock speed is just one way of boosting performance for the company's server chip lines, Xeon and Itanium, he said.

"… Read more