Is Skynet nearly upon us?A Japanese program has been created that finishes people’s sentences, according to a report in New Scientist.A team from the National Instititute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Tsukuba developed it and they claim it’s virgin territory. There have been plenty of speech recognition software programs in the past, and they’ve gotten a bad rep, though the technology has improved immensely in recent years.This however, takes a step past simple speech recognition and finishes

MSI, one of the world’s leading mainboard manufacturers, today announced its most affordable X58 based mainboard, the X58 Pro. It offers an innovative new architecture adopting the latest Intel® X58 Express chipset that supports Intel® Core i7 processors along with an ultra-high bandwidth QPI (Quick Path Interconnect) transmission system and high-speed 3-channel DDR3 memory. X58 Pro also utilizes the Gen.2 DrMOS, which was introduced exclusively by MSI in the P45 series, improving its power efficiency

Nikon is refreshing its COOLPIX line with eight new point and shoot models. Of the eight new cameras, four are Style Series models, one is a Performance Series camera, and the final three are Life Series models. All eight COOLPIX models feature Nikon’s NIKKOR lenses and Nikon’s EXPEED digital image processing concept. The COOLPIX line also gets a handful of new features with these announcements, including a Smart Portrait System that captures smiling faces without blinks; an Enhanced Face-priority Auto Focus

Video:Two ATI Radeon HD 4830s against One ATI Radeon HD 4870 @ XbitLabsMotherboards and Chipsets:NVIDIA ION Platform Review: Death (and Life) of the Netbook @ PC PerspectiveASUS P6T Deluxe OC Palm Motherboard Review @ Legit ReviewsProcessors:AMD Phenom II X4 920 Review @ XbitLabsMemory and Storage:Corsair Dominator 6GB DD3 Memory Kit TR3X6G1600C8D @ BmRAccordance ARAID 2200-GP @ TechwareLabsIcy Dock MB671SK Internal SATA HDD Enclosure Review @ TweaknewsSystems:ASUS N10Jc – VR-Zone.comCases, Cooling & Misc.:Evercool

Microsoft has announced that When Windows 7 is released, it will be available in six different versions, ranging from Windows 7 Starter up to Windows 7 Ultimate. The different versions are somewhat similar in name and function to the different versions of Windows Vista. While many were hoping that Microsoft would abandon this tiered approach, that is obviously not going to happen. Each higher version will include the complete feature set of all versions below it.Windows 7 Starter permits up to three concurrently

IBM Raises the Bar on Security TestingIBM Internet Security Systems Challenges the Security Industry to Support Monthly Testing for Consistent, Pre-Emptive Security Against Evolving ThreatsATLANTA, GA – 03 Feb 2009: IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today it is the first vendor to commit to monthly testing to measure the security effectiveness across its entire product portfolio. The testing will be conducted by NSS Labs, a leading global independent testing lab that focuses on security product testing and certification.

Toshiba is no stranger to Windows Mobile; back in the PDA / Pocket PC days, Toshiba made some of the most popular Windows Mobile devices – including the pioneering VGA e805.  But the company stopped making PDAs and moved away from Windows Mobile shortly into the smartphone revolution. 

Now Toshiba is getting back in the Windows Mobile game in a very big way with the upcoming TG01.  The slab-style, touch-centric smartphone boasts a blazing 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, the first handheld to feature a processor that breaks the gigahertz barrier.  Other features include a 4.1-inch WVGA touchscreen display, onboard GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a microSDHC memory card slot and HSDPA 3G mobile broadband.

Additionally, all of this mobile goodness comes in a sleek and slim device measuring just 9.9mm thick (that’s 0.39 inches for our metrically challenged readers).

The Toshiba TG01 will launch in Europe in the summer with a U.S. release hopefully very short behind.

For a better look at the TG01, take a look at our TG01 Gallery.

Google is having a bad few days. First it labeled the entire Internet as malware, then it sent legit mail to the Spam folder as a side effect of the first issue. But things continue to go wrong for Google, as last night users of the SMS Search feature received message after message … after message in return. The SMS Search feature allows you to text a query and receive an SMS response in return. According to threads (e.g., 1, 2, 3) in their Mobile Help forum, users were getting multiple text messages in response,

Seven months after IBM delivered the world's fastest supercomputer, it has announced an even speedier one with the computing power of 2 million laptops. IBM said on Tuesday it is developing the technology for its new Sequoia computer, with delivery scheduled in 2011 to the Department of Energy for use at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Sequoia will chug along at 20 petaflops per second and is one order of magnitude quicker than its predecessor. The earlier machine, delivered in June to the Energy Department, broke the 1 petaflop barrier.

Sequoia, and a smaller computer called Dawn, are being built in Rochester, Minnesota, for use in simulating nuclear tests. IBM says they can also be used for complex tasks like weather forecasting or oil exploration. IBM says Sequoia will be highly energy-efficient for the job it does but even so will occupy 96 refrigerator-sized racks in an area the size of a big house — 3,422 square feet (318 square meters).

The huge economic recovery bill likely to emerge from Congress in the next two weeks will give a boost to high-speed broadband deployment around the nation long a goal of technology and telecom companies. The bill passed by the House last week includes $6 billion in grants for broadband and wireless services in underserved areas, and the Senate will take up a similar recovery plan this week that includes $9 billion.

Tech leaders say the pitch for stimulus money for broadband has become easier to make, and it enjoys the strong support of the Obama administration. Several studies show spending on broadband means a short-term increase in jobs, and better high-speed access pays long-term economic benefits. From the health care industry to the home office, few businesses can be competitive today without a high-speed, always-on connection to the Internet.