China has built its latest supercomputer based entirely on homegrown microprocessors, a major move towards breaking the country’s reliance on Western technology for high-performance computing. China’s National Supercomputer Center in Jinan debuted the computer last Thursday, according to a report from the country’s state-run press. The supercomputer uses 8,704 “Shenwei 1600″ microprocessors, which were developed by a design center in Shanghai, called the National... 

YouTube will begin offering a set of new channels next month with original programs, as the video site beefs up its offering of exclusive, professionally-produced content. These new channels are meant to complement YouTube’s core user-generated amateur videos and the non-exclusive, professional movies and TV shows it redistributes. The strategy is intended to attract more viewers to YouTube, already the web’s most popular video site, and offer advertisers new opportunities for marketing... 

China has denied involvement in hacking US environment monitoring satellites. Last week the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission released a draft report about several incidents where US satellites were interfered with in 2007 and 2008. The Commission did not say that the attacks were traced back to China, but it did cite China’s military as a prime suspect, due to the similarity of the techniques used with “authoritative Chinese military writings” on disabling satellite... 

Customers who purchase two BlackBerry PlayBooks will get a third one free, in what one analyst says is an effort by Research In Motion to spur flagging sales of its tablet device. The offer is valid until Dec. 31 from authorized resellers, RIM said on its website. Buyers also get a free accessory with each tablet. Such offers are usually a sign that a product isn’t selling well, said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. It’s probably an attempt by RIM to lower its inventory,... 

Travis Lanier at Qualcomm has revealed a few more details on the company’s upcoming 28nm Krait processor. He mentioned a few obvious things, such as compatibility with the old ARM instruction set, that new Krait processor is going to be 28nm and that dual-core comes first, with quad-core to follow. The S4 MSM 8960 dual-core should be first to market with 28nm, this is what Travis told analysts at the conference call yesterday, so it better be true. Qualcomm claims the lead in both processing... 

Wokkawokkawokka … chomp! A new view of the “Pacman” nebula reveals a gaping mouth and a set of sharp-looking teeth taking a bite out of space. The Pacman nebula is a giant cloud of dust and gas located approximately 9,200 light-years away within our own Milky Way galaxy. It’s official name is NGC 281, but the nebula earned a more popular nickname because of its resemblance to the character from the hugely popular Pac-Man video game that was first released in 1980. When the nebula... 

Electronic Arts has revealed the first third-party publishers which will feature games on its Origin download service, naming THQ, Warner Bros. and Capcom for the service. As of November, the service will feature Batman: Arkham City, Saints Row: The Third and further, undisclosed titles. Third-party games will continue to be added to the service. “Since launch, we’ve had overwhelming support from both publishers and developers across the gaming industry, recognizing Origin as an... 

Intel has asked a US federal judge to dismiss a number of claims made against it in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the attorney general’s office. Intel faces antitrust charges for allegedly paying computer manufacturers to ensure that Intel microprocessors were chosen over those of rivals such as AMD, allegedly creating unfair competition and artificially inflated prices that were handed on to customers. Intel’s lawyers claim that the US attorney general’s office, which is taking... 

Hewlett-Packard Co. has decided to retain its PC division after all. So says its newly appointed CEO Meg Whitman. In its announcement, HP said it conducted a “data-driven evaluation” of the impact of cutting off its Personal Systems Group (PSG) and concluded that it was just too important to its supply chain, procurement and overall brand. “HP objectively evaluated the strategic, financial and operational impact of spinning off PSG. It’s clear after our analysis that keeping... 

Suspected Chinese hackers illegally gained access to two U.S. satellites on four separate occasions in 2007 and 2008. On one occasion, the attackers had enough access to take complete control of one of the satellites but decided against it, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek story that cites a soon-to-be published report by a congressional commission. According to Bloomberg, a Landsat-7 earth observation satellite managed by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey and a Terra AM-1 satellite managed... 

Samsung Electronics said Friday that it is planning on launching mobile phones with flexible displays next year, with tablets and other portable devices to have these displays shortly thereafter. The company said it was hoping to replicate the success of its Galaxy S II smartphone, which has now sold 10 million units in five months. The comments came as the company discussed its earnings for the three-month period through September. Samsung said its overall profit fell 23 percent from a year ago... 

Any intelligent extraterrestrial life that exists probably won’t announce itself by blowing up the White House, or win over the hearts of children as a lovable alien with a glowing finger. Many scientists simply hope to find evidence of them by scanning the skies for a radio signal from a distant star’s alien civilization. But such efforts may also risk overlooking clues of past alien activity right here on Earth. If aliens did leave their mark on Earth by some wild chance, we could search... 

Dell will offer a new Latitude tablet for enterprise customers with Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system, and it is also preparing to bring the OS’s successor, Windows 8, to tablets. The Latitude ST has a 10.1-inch screen and is designed for use in business environments, said Kirk Schell, executive director and general manager for Dell’s Business Product Group. The tablet has provisioning, security and management features aimed at enterprise customers. Dell has put its consumer... 

Freshmen in a Chicago-area school district now have a new reason to be excited about going to school: Free Apple iPads. Township High School District 214, located in Cook County, Illinois, has been moving ahead on several technology upgrades in recent years, including cloud computing initiatives, server virtualization and, yes, free tablets for incoming freshmen. Keith Bockwoldt, District 214′s director of technology, says the district has purchased around 850 tablets that students are now... 

Sprint Nextel and Clearwire plan to make their future LTE networks work together and are putting the finishing touches on a commercial agreement under which Sprint would use Clearwire’s network for extra capacity. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse discussed the non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) during a conference call on Wednesday to discuss Sprint’s third-quarter financial results. The news cleared up some of the confusion around Sprint’s relationship with Clearwire, which provides...