Articles by Walaika Haskins

Microsoft on Monday announced a new student program Monday dubbed "DreamSpark." The new program will give college and high school students around the world access to the software giant's development applications at no charge DreamSpark is now available to millions of college students in Belgium, China, Finland, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switz...

Mozilla has been working diligently toward the upcoming final launch of Firefox Version 3.0. With the recent release of the browser's third beta edition, the company's engineers have wrapped up the major challenges and are focused on incremental changes. Now they're working at tweaking the browser in response to feedback from testers Part 1 of this...

Mozilla is up to its elbows in code as it works toward the final release of the third iteration of its Firefox Web browser With the launch last week of the browser's third beta version, the open source developer has given some 500,000 developers and testers the go-ahead to put the application through its paces....

The Wii once again took the top spot in console sales, according to January figures released by NPD Thursday The Nintendo console sold some 274,000 units in the U.S. last month. Sony's PlayStation 3 (PS3) had another month of strong sales, ringing up 269,000 units to beat out Microsoft's Xbox 360, which sold 230,000....

IBM announced a host of improvements to its line of storage offerings aimed at businesses large and small The enhancements provide greater efficiency in tiered storage infrastructures that bring businesses increased cost savings, integrated data security and enhanced archival solutions, according to IBM. They're aimed at helping companies meet comp...

Nokia unveiled a host of new smartphones Monday at the Mobile World Congress 2008 held in Barcelona, Spain. Among the handset maker's upcoming offerings is the N96, the follow-up to the phone maker's flagship N95 model Styled as a multimedia computer, the N96 sports a slightly larger screen at 2.8 inches versus 2.6 inches on the N95. The new model ...

Mozilla released an update Thursday that corrects several vulnerabilities in the Firefox Web browser Firefox 2.0.0.12 patches critical flaws that could result in Web browsing history and forward navigation stealing; privilege escalation that could allow cross-site scripting exploits; and crashes with evidence of memory corruption....

With a marked lack of fanfare, Microsoft lowered the price of its Xbox 360 add-on HD DVD player from US$179 to $129. Microsoft has also bundled five free HD DVDs with the player The price cut comes just a few weeks after Toshiba dropped the price on its three HD DVD standalone players to $149 from $299. That move followed a Warner Bros. announcemen...

In an effort to boost its market share in China, Google is reportedly in the final stages of a deal with Universal Music Group that would enable the Internet search giant to provide free music downloads to Chinese users Google, the No. 1 search engine in other large markets such as the U.S., significantly trails Chinese search site Baidu in China....

Graphics card maker Nvidia announced Monday it has agreed to acquire Ageia, creator of PhysX, technology that adds a higher level of real-world physics realism to video games Financial details of the deal were not disclosed....

Microsoft announced the first stage in the launch of its first service pack (SP1) for the Windows Vista operating system (OS) Monday The service pack -- filled with performance, compatibility and reliability updates for versions in English, French, Spanish, German and Japanese -- was released to manufacturing a move that enables Microsoft's OEM par...

Intel and Micron Technology have developed a high-speed NAND flash memory technology the two said is five times faster than conventional NAND The technology, jointly developed by the two companies as part of their IM Flash Technologies joint venture, will allow data to be transferred faster for computing, video, photography and other applications, ...

Dell announced Wednesday it will shutter its retail kiosks in shopping malls across the U.S. as it continues with its six-month-old retail store and direct-sales strategy Dell launched the Direct Store kiosks in 2002 as a way to give consumers who may have been unfamiliar with its computers the opportunity to touch and try out the systems before ma...

On Feb. 5, the MySpace Developer Platform (MDP) will go live, the social networking site announced Wednesday. Software developers interested in bringing their applications to the social networking site can preregister on MySpace "The MySpace Developer Platform will be the world's sandbox, allowing developers large and small to come together and eas...

On Feb. 2, leading presidential candidates will have one last chance to make their pitches to young voters before Super Tuesday with the final installment of "Closing Arguments: A Presidential Super Dialogue," a presidential candidate discussion hosted by MySpace and MTV Democratic contender Hillary Clinton and Republican candidate Mike Huckabee ha...

AMD announced the release of its Radeon HD 3870 X2 graphics card Monday. The company's latest offering, courtesy of its 2006 ATI acquisition, combines two ATI Radeon 3870 chips on a single graphics board, connected via an integrated CrossFire technology The double-barreled approach makes AMD the first graphics technology provider to "break the Tera...

The global mobile handset market ended 2007 with a bang, recording shipments of more than 300 million devices in the fourth quarter, according to a report released by IDC Friday. While year-over-year growth for 2007 slowed, the 334 million handsets shipped during the holiday season set a new industry record and was an increase of some 15 percent over the previous quarter...

Computer manufacturer HP has unveiled a new ultra-slim business desktop, the Compaq dc7800 desktop PC. The energy-efficient desktop features a 16 GB solid-state hard drive (SSD) and also meets the requirements of the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Gold registry, HP said The introductions of the dc7800 and the Compaq dc5800...

Information infrastructure solution provider EMC introduced the enterprise version of its Mozy online backup product Tuesday: MozyEnterprise, powered by EMC Fortress "Our strategy is focused on bringing new Software as a Service offerings to market, powered by EMC," said Tom Heiser, senior vice president and general manager of EMC's new Software-as...

Polymer Vision, a Philips spin-off, announced Tuesday the upcoming availability of a combination mobile phone and e-reader with a with a five-inch rollable display. Dubbed "Readius," the device provides users with the functionality of an e-reader in a highly mobile cell phone-sized package, the company said "People are demanding greater choice and ...