A new study reveals a drop in illegal file sharing in the UK while music streaming services such as Pandora, YouTube, and Groove Shark are on the rise. Music Ally teamed with sister consumer research company The Leading Question and determined that a third of music-loving teenagers in the U.K. have changed from illegal downloads to preferring legitimate streaming sites. Music lovers also seem to be purchasing more music from iTunes and other music retailers rather than obtaining them from file-sharing sites.

According to the study, the number of users who regularly shared files had dropped by a quarter between December 2007 and January 2009. This trend was particularly evident among 14 to 18 year-olds: In December 2007, 42% were sharing files at least once per month; by January 2009, only 26% were sharing files.

The report also seems to indicate that streaming could be replacing file sharing: “The move to streaming – e.g. YouTube, MySpace and Spotify – is clear with the research showing that many teens (65%) are streaming music regularly (i.e. each month). Nearly twice as many 14-18s (31%) listen to streamed music on their computer every day compared to music fans overall (18%). More fans are regularly sharing burned CDs and bluetoothing tracks to each other than file-sharing tracks.”

Although it’s unlike free music streaming sites will completely eliminate the desire to swap music using peer-to-peer networks, the news should be good news for music executives and record companies who have fought against peer-to-peer networks. The increased appeal of streaming services is also good news for the music streaming sites who recently reached an agreement with SoundExchange over royalty payments for playing music online.

As for raw horsepower, you can expect the core clock to hum along at 1GHz, while the massive heat pipe system should keep things at least relatively cool. Outside of the highly touted SuperPipe system, the card also employs MSI’s new solid state clock, which supposedly increases the maximum current value and offers 3x more current value than a traditional state clock. The point? To keep stable when “extreme overclocking” ensues.

Sadly, it seems as if MSI is keeping mum on a price or release date, but those who like to push the envelope should definitely be on the lookout.

Cyclone Thermal Design
The cooling system of MSI R4890 Cyclone series equips 10 cm PWM fan which is the biggest on HD 4890 in the industry. Because of the bigger fan, large amount of air flow takes away the heat with lower fan rotation rate. Cooling efficiency can be increased and operation noise can be reduced. Moreover, MSI R4890 Cyclone carries 4 heat pipes to quickly take away the heat. With an extra large 10 cm PWM fan, MSI R4890 Cyclone series provides the coolest operating environment for system to achieve the best performance.

SuperPipe Technology
Heat pipe is one of the most important components in graphics card which transfers the heat from chip to fins of the cooler. The thicker the heat pipe, the faster the cooling speed. MSI unique SuperPipe technology uses 8mm heat pipe which is 60% thicker than traditional ones and increase 90% of cooling efficiency. Therefore, MSI R4890 Cyclone series is equipped with the best cooling solution.

Military Class Components – SSC (Solid State Chock)
MSI R4890 Cyclone series carries brand new all-in-one solid state chock which effectively reduces high frequency noise under heavy system loading. Meanwhile, SSC can increase the maximum current value and provides three times current value than traditional state chock. Therefore, SSC can provide stable current when under extreme overclocking.

Military Class Components – Solid CAP
Capacitor is one of the most important power supply components. Good capacitor plays a critical role in system stability. Liquid and solid capacitors are the two main capacitors in the market. Solid capacitor has longer life span than Liquid. Under the high frequency and high temperature operating environment, solid capacitor provides even more stable power supply. Moreover, solid capacitor contains no liquid, leaking accident will not occur. To ensure best product quality, MSI R4890 Cyclone series adopts Solid CAP.

Problem is, you’re not gonna put anything too sensitive on it for fear of losing it.

Which brings you back to square one, getting access to important files on the go.

Check this out: IronKey S200 has pretty high federal security validation: “FIPS 140-2, Level 3 Validation.” Oh, FIPS 140-2? Why didn’t you say so sooner? FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standard and the 140-2 refers to the publication that details what this means. And Level 3? That’s the second-highest level of security the feds validate. So while folks from the Pentagon might not put launch codes on one of these flash drives, they might be willing to put, oh, everyone’s lunch orders on there.

It works with Windows XP, 2000 and Vista, as well as Mac OS and Linux. And it’s waterproof to military specs.

But seriously, here’s what the drive has in the way of security:

• AES 256-bit hardware encryption in CBC mode automatically protects files — no software to install; uses the algorithm required by DoD for storing Top Secret data
• Security Level 3 FIPS 140-2 validated tamper-resistant and tamper-evident design that includes:
  • Hardened epoxy potting compound completely encasing the chips
  • Secure key management – encryption keys are born on the device in the Cryptochip and bound to the device
  • Hard-wired encryption key self-destruct defenses and electromagnetic shielding of the Cryptochip

• Active malware defenses include:
  • AutoRun protection – secures against AutoRun worms
  • Read-Only mode – enables the device to be unlocked to read files but prevents malware on untrusted hosts from infecting the drive
  • Trusted Network restriction – prevents the drive from mounting on uncontrolled PCs
  • Optional antivirus/anti-malware scanning cleans the device in the background

• Remote management software — enterprise-class management capabilities, including remote policy enforcement, remote data destruct, secure device recovery and self-service password recovery

Its Mac support even allows remote data wiping and tracking, in case the Soviets should get their mitts on it.

According to Reuters, a survey carried out by ScriptLogic Inc. shows that 6 out of 10 businesses will pass over upgrading to Windows 7 – mostly in an attempt to save a buck and avoid any loss of productivity due to software issues. With a tightening budget and Vista’s track record, this is all too expected, and will have Microsoft reworking its upgrade policy in no time.

The 20,000 admin-wide survey showed that about 60 percent of respondents would shy away from deploying Windows 7 altogether, with 34 percent promising to deploy it by the end of 2010. Only 5.4 percent of respondents planned on deploying it by years-end. The survey carries on to explain that a rather unsurprising 35 percent of admins had already skipped upgrades this year due to budget constraints.

A more marketeer-panicking 39 percent were worried their business apps wouldn’t work correctly under Windows 7, something we’re sure Microsoft will come back to very, very soon.

Possibly Microsoft’s greatest merit has been to successfully erradicate the blemish left by Vista, but ultimately it’s been focusing on drawing end-users back into the fold while neglecting to point out that 7, contrary to Vista, won’t wreak havoc with your admin suites (or will it?). On the other hand, History tells us that if Microsoft was worried about it they’d have bombarded everyone with benchmarks on how productivity will skyrocket as soon as you remove upgrade the offending operating system and replace it with something that weighs less than a metric tonne Windows 7.

It does seem that Microsoft’s marketing has its job cut out as, given the current state of affairs, cash-strapped businesses are disregarding the opportunity to buy news PCs now and save a wad of cash later on upgrades because most OEMs are offering free or next-to-nothing Windows 7 upgrades from Vista. Upgrading later will cost admins anywhere between $80~$100 extra per SKU, unless they get into a volume licensing deal.

You can find the full U.S. Windows 7 pricing here on the Windows Team Blog.

As the

Industry tracker ComScore found that around 87 million US Internet users visited online video game sites in May, which is a 22% increase from the same month last year. We’d heard that the economy was forcing more users to remain planted at home, but wow–22% percent! According to ComScore, the “continuing surge in online game play was attributed, in part, to people opting for cheaper entertainment alternatives in grim economic conditions.”

Edward Hunter, ComScore gaming solutions director, noted that the “amount of online play is growing 10 times as fast as the overall US Internet population, with nearly one of every two users getting in the game.” To no one’s surprise, Yahoo! Games was ranked the top spot for online play, with the unique number of visitors surging to 19.4 million in May, a 6% increase from the same month last year. Similar spikes were seen across the web, hinting that more individuals were staying home to find entertainment rather than going out.

It’s somewhat interesting to think how the gaming sector has benefitted from a recession; at first glance, it’s easy to assume that folks would put away gaming during times where money was tight, but on the contrary, folks have taken the opportunity to put away the Frequent Cinema Viewing cards and focus their dollars on at-home entertainment, video games included. Lucky for you, Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo!

Tero Ojanperä, Executive Vice President, Nokia Services, seemed pretty stoked about the opening: “Ovi Store is open for business and we’ve stocked the shelves with both local and global content for a broad range of Nokia devices. Ovi Store makes shopping for content and applications easy and fun for feature phone and smartphone owners alike.“

Unfortunately, the details surrounding the AT&T arrangement remain murky. All we’re told is that it’ll launch “later this year,” though we wouldn’t be surprised to see that slip. Thankfully, AT&T already understands the pressures that accompany hosting a high-profile mobile app store, so hopefully it’ll be fully prepared within the next few months. So now we’ve got the Ovi Store, BlackBerry App World and Apple’s App Store — anyone else thinking of joining the bandwagon while it’s still picking up steam?

According to a new report up at The Mac Observer, the company — which engineered stylish PCs that were sold with Apple’s OS X operating system — filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Florida late last week. If you’re wondering why all the hubbub, it’s that no third-party PC maker is allowed to sell hardware with Apple’s OS X operating system. Only Apple is allowed to sell machines with OS X, and Psystar went ahead and did so knowingly. The two companies have been at each other’s throats for months on end, and while Psystar did manage to ship a few machines to a few lucky users, we never heard that it was shipping products en masse.

In a meeting with irony that would only be fitting here, this filing has actually slowed down Apple’s legal case against it, and honestly, we have all ideas the tussle will end with Psystar shutting its doors for good. After all, if it can’t pay to keep the lights on, how will pay for lawyers?  We’re told that a Florida court will hold a hearing on June 5th where its equity creditors will be revealed, which may in fact may be the most interesting part of this whole scenario. If fat-walleted backers have been keeping the company afloat, it’ll sure be interesting to see who they are.

At present time, Psystar is still offering Mac clones for sale on its website, but take it from us — don’t whip out your credit card.

In recent months, Microsoft’s ads have tried to convince us that Apple computers are expensive and not worth the high price. Now, Microsoft is targeting Google’s search engine with its latest marketing campaign. The software giant is preparing to launch an $80 to $100 million ad campaign for Bing (previously known as Kumo). Bing is the company’s new search engine that Microsoft hopes will help it grab a larger portion of the online ad market.

An $80 to $100 million ad campaign is very sizeable. By comparison, Google spent only $25 million on all of its advertising last year according to TNS Media Intelligence; about $11.6 million of that budget was focused on recruiting. Generally speaking, $50 million is considered a sizable budget for a national consumer-product rollout. JWT will be working on the campaign which will include online, TV, print, and radio advertisements.

According to sources familiar with the project, the ads will not go after Google or Yahoo! by name. Instead, the ads will attempt to plant the idea that today’s search engines don’t work as well as consumers previously thought. By convincing consumers there could be something better out there, Microsoft hopes to entice users to consider switching search engines.

Convincing a user to switch search engines is no easy task. Research data has shown that about 65% of people are satisfied or very satisfied with online search. Microsoft’s search data suggests a potential opportunity however, since 42% of searches require refinement and 25% of clicks are for the back button.

Showing customers what they could be missing is a tactic that worked well for Apple with the iPhone. Before the iPhone was introduced, many people didn’t know what they were missing without a multi-touch screen or without an application that let them detect what song was playing. Through Apple’s ads, the company was able to show users how different the experience was and create a new standard for phones in the process.

While some may argue that only the product, or in this case the quality of search results, is what truly matters, that’s not necessarily true anymore. Today, the quality of search engines has approached parity. Even though there are no switching costs associated with changing search engines, many consumers have a distinct brand loyalty towards one engine over another. Google has even verified this with its own internal tests. During the tests, Google put its logo and treatment on another search engine’s results. In the end, users still preferred the Google-branded site even though the results displayed weren’t Google search results.

You may recall that Ask.com made its debut in 2007 with a glowing review from The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg. Mossberg even went so far as to say that Ask.com beat Google on some searches. Even with this positive press and the quality search results, Ask.com is not as strong as Google is today.

Of course, that’s not to say that results don’t matter. You still have to have a product that backs up its claims. People who have seen Microsoft’s latest search engine say it is useful and has some valuable filtering tools. We don’t know how this one will end, but it will be interesting to see how this latest battle between Microsoft and Google in the search engine wars ends.

Craig Hampel, Rambus Fellow, gloated quite heavily about the largely secretive announcement: “Product advancements in multi-core computing, virtualization and chip integration put ever-increasing demands on the memory sub-system, a key performance limiter in today’s performance computing systems. This collection of breakthrough innovations from Rambus allows for memory systems that are better suited for the bandwidth and workloads of these throughput-oriented multi-core processors, increasing the design and solution space for future main memory to enable a new generation of computing platforms.“

The full list of highlights are below, but we’re still left to wonder what this means for the future of memory. Are higher-speed DRAM modules just around the bend? How will they overclock? Will they fix us supper when they’re done handling Office save files? The world waits in tense anticipation.

The Rambus key innovations to advance the main memory roadmap include:

• FlexPhase™ Technology — introduced in the XDR™ memory architecture, can enable higher data rates compared to direct strobing technology used in DDR3;
• Near Ground Signaling — supports high performance at greatly reduced IO power, allowing operation at 0.5V while still maintaining robust signal integrity;
• FlexClocking™ Architecture — introduced in Rambus’ Mobile Memory Initiative, reduces clocking power by eliminating the need for a DLL or PLL on the DRAM;
• Module Threading — increases memory efficiency and reduces DRAM core power, and when combined with Near Ground Signaling and FlexClocking technology, can cut total memory system power by over 40%;
• Dynamic Point-to-Point (DPP) — provides a path for capacity upgrades without compromising performance through robust point-to-point signaling.