Intel experiments with silicon replacement

Intel is trying new materials to boost chip performance in the next decade, eWeek reports, and researchers have made strides in finding replacements for silicon in computer chip manufacture.

Intel says its research into new materials for transistors it is designing for introduction in 2015 could result in higher-performing, power-efficient chips.

The latest experiments with the new compound, dubbed Indium Antimonide, have shown that it has the potential to increase future transistors` performance by as much as 50%, while reducing power consumption by a factor of 10 against current transistors.

An angry Chicago consumer has filed a class-action lawsuit in an Illinois federal court, alleging that Microsoft`s Xbox 360 is a "defectively designed" product, reports Tech Tree.

The lawsuit claims that Microsoft was so intent on releasing the Xbox 360 before competing products from Sony and Nintendo that it released a defectively designed product resulting in the hardware overheating and freezing during game play.

The report says other gamers who bought the 360 have also complained about similar problems on Internet sites since the console went on sale on 22 November in the US, but Microsoft has denied there are any inherent design faults in the product.

SunnComm Technologies, whose software was bundled with Sony BMG music CDs in a bid to keep them from being duplicated, has issued a software update to fix a dangerous security hole in roughly six million CDs, reports the Washington Post.

Last month, security researchers discovered that anti-piracy software installed by at least 52 Sony BMG music CD titles contained security flaws that could let attackers infiltrate computers running the software, which was installed automatically when users inserted the CDs into their Windows PCs.

Although Sony later issued a software patch to fix the problem, the patch itself was found to pose some serious security problems to affected machines. SunnComm has now issued a software update engineered to help users rid themselves of the SunnComm software altogether.

Microsoft is to unveil a beta version of Windows Live Local, which is based on its Virtual Earth aerial image application that integrates local search, mapping, driving directions and yellow pages with a bird`s-eye view of major US cities.

According to News.Com, the service will offer a 45-degree bird`s-eye view covering cities such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle and Las Vegas.

The images captured by low-flying planes will be integrated with road and satellite maps to simulate 360-degree panoramas. Users can switch between the aerial view and the birds-eye view of a map and choose between directional views to see the front or back sides of buildings, or zoom closer.

The New Oxford American Dictionary has named "podcast" as word of the year, reports BBC News.

Defined as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar programme, made available on the internet for downloading to a personal audio player", the word will be added to the online version of the New Oxford American Dictionary early next year.

Words like "sudoku", "bird flu" and "rootkit", however, were not considered worthy of inclusion.