Cool GooDies

News courtesy CNN

CNN) -- Gmail experienced problems on Thursday, with some users reporting slowdowns and service outages.

The popular Web-based e-mail service from Google Inc. has crashed several times in recent months. That's led to a bit of anger and sarcastic sighs of despair on tech blogs and on the micro-blogging site Twitter.
Google posted a note Thursday morning saying it is aware that some people are experiencing an e-mail outage. The Mountain View, California, company said all e-mail service was working by 11 a.m. ET, and that the problems caused e-mail to slow down but did not crash the site.

"A problem with Google Contacts caused many Gmail users to experience slowness and degraded service for about an hour today," the company said in a statement. "We're sorry for the inconvenience. As usual, we'll provide an incident report on the Apps Status Dashboard, where we also gave ongoing status updates as this issue progressed."
Gmail lets Internet users write e-mail messages, archive documents, chat online and store contact lists. Millions of people around the world use the free service.

As with previous service problems, the online community is complaining the service break disrupts office work and personal lives. As more computing power moves "into the cloud," storing information online rather than on home computers, online applications like Gmail become important parts of people's lives.
The most recent Gmail outage occurred September 1. Some tech writers seemed genuinely disturbed by the crash. Others mocked how addicted some people have become to online-only forms of communication.
Mashable, a blog that covers social media, posted a list of five things to do while Gmail is down.
One of the recommendations:
"Go outside! There's nothing left for it. Our cozy technosphere bubble has been burst by this point. Go look for someone to harass on the street in person and ask them what URL shortener they use."
Another recent Gmail crash occurred in February.
At the time, blogger Ron Schenone wrote that people put a lot of faith in big tech companies like Google.
"It seems to me that people want to believe that Google is infallible," he wrote on the Lockergnome blog network. "Though Google may be the king of search, their equipment is man made and their technicians are human."
Check out these Tweets from Google 

Intel Corporation has introduced several high-performance desktop and server processors today, bringing the next level of integration and intelligence to computers.

The new Intel Core i5 processor series, two new Intel Core i7 processors and the Intel Xeon processor 3400 series bring Intel’s latest Nehalem microarchitecture to mainstream desktop and entry server markets.

Formerly codenamed "Lynnfield", these new chips are based on Intel’s  Nehalem microarchitecture and are designed for consumers who need top-notch performance for digital media, productivity, gaming and other demanding applications. These processors, along with the new Intel P55 Express Chipset, are available today.

All processors are lead- and halogen-free and feature Intel Exclusive Turbo Boost Technology. The top-of-the-line Core i7 processors also support Intel Hyper-Threading Technology

.

The new chipset brings the most revolutionary design changes since the invention of the PCI bus in the early 1990s and sets the stage for Intel’s forthcoming 2010 compute platform. The Intel P55 Express Chipset will be the baseline building block component for motherboards worldwide, delivering new levels of performance and scalability for everyone from the retail buyer to the technically savvy do-it-yourselfer.

The new Core i7 and i5 processors are the first Intel processors to integrate both a 16-lane PCI Express 2 graphics port and two-channel memory controller, enabling all input/output and manageability functions to be handled by the single-chip Intel P55 Express Chipset. Previous Intel chipsets required two separate chips. A new Direct Media Interface (DMI) connects between the processor and chipset. The chipset supports 8 PCI Express 2.0 x1 Ports (2.5GT/s) for flexible device support. Dual graphics cards are supported in a "2x8" configuration. The chipset also supports 6 SATA 3 Gb/s Ports with Intel Matrix Storage Technology providing RAID levels 0/1/5/10. Up to 14 USB 2.0 Ports can be supported with the chipset’s integrated USB 2.0 Rate Matching Hub, along with Intel High Definition Audio for premium digital sound. The new processors are the first to be supported by the new Land Grid Array (LGA) 1156 package and socket technology.

 Intel has also announced the Uber Gamer Championship in association with Zapak to mark the launch of the new Core  i5 and i7 processors. The championship starting on the 11th of September will see India’s best gamers play knock out games of NFS Most Wanted, Crysis and FIFA 09.  Click here for more details.

The world's top cellphone maker Nokia will start to make laptops, entering a fiercely competitive but fast-growing market with a netbook running Microsoft's Windows operating system

. 

Nokia had earlier this year said it was considering entering the laptop industry, crossing the border between two converging industries in the opposite direction to Apple, which entered the phone industry in 2007 with the iPhone

. Nokia has seen its profit margins drop over the last quarters as handset demand has slumped, and analysts have worried that entering the PC industry, where margins are traditionally razor-thin, could hurt Nokia's profits further. "We are fully aware what has the margin level been in the PC world. We have gone into this with our eyes wide open," Kai Oistamo, the head of Nokia's phone unit, told Reuters. "There's really an opportunity to bring fresh perspective to the PC world," he said, adding that Nokia would introduce extended battery life and continuous connectivity. Nokia has produced PCs before, but divested the unit in 1991 when it started to focus on the mobile phone industry. But Nokia's first netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G, will use Microsoft's Windows software and Intel's Atom processor to offer up to 12 hours of battery life while weighing 1.25 kilograms. Netbooks are low-cost laptops optimised for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions. Pioneered by Asustek with the hit Eee PC in 2007, netbooks have since been rolled out by other brands such as HP and Dell. "The question is: How will Nokia differentiate? This is already a crowded market. If they manage to differentiate it's going to give them competitive advantage," said Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi.
Research firm IDC expects netbook shipments this year to grow more than 127 percent from 2008 to over 26 million units, outperforming the overall PC market that is expected to remain flat and a phone market which is shrinking some 10 percent. "Nokia will be hoping that its brand and knowledge of cellular channels will play to its strengths as it addresses this crowded, cut-throat segment," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight. "At present we see Nokia's foray into the netbook market as a niche exercise in the context of its broader business." Nokia's choice of Windows software surprised some analysts who had expected the company to use Linux

in its first laptop. Analyst Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics said the technology choices were a good win for the U.S. companies. "We believe ARM and Symbian are among the main losers from the Nokia Booklet announcement," he said. Shares in ARM were 0.2 percent lower at 1400 GMT, underperforming slightly firmer DJ Stoxx European technology shares index. Shares in Nokia were 1.6 percent stronger at 8.91 euros, while Microsoft was 0.6 percent firmer. Nokia said it would unveil detailed specifications, market availability and pricing of its new device on Sept 2.


A source close to Nokia said the new netbook would use the upcoming Windows 7 operating system. Microsoft says a stripped-down version of Windows 7 will be introduced to netbooks the same time as its general release on Oct. 22. Local media reports in Taiwan have said that Compal, the world's No. 2 contract laptop PC maker, has pitched netbook models to Nokia, but there has been no official confirmation from either side. Nokia declined to comment on the manufacturer it uses. Most of the world's top electronics brands typically do their own design work, but outsource the manufacturing process to contract manufacturers such as Compal and its larger rival Quanta.