New US Cybersecurity Office Confirmed Today

President Obama confirmed today that the White House is creating a new office that will be responsible for coordinating the efforts to secure government networks and US critical infrastructures. The head of the office, dubbed the "cybersecurity czar" by media outlets in love with alliteration, will report to the National Security Council.

Obama was quick to add that the new White House cybersecurity office would include an official whose job is to ensure that the government’s cyber policies don’t violate privacy and civil liberties of Americans. He also reaffirmed his support for the principle of net neutrality.

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HDMI Spec Updated to 1.4

Ars Technica took a look at the new HDMI spec, 1.4, and didn’t like the added complexity that was added to the system. Check out the article for the details on the new capabilities introduced by the specification, including support for 3D formats and even dual-stream 1080p. An automotive connection system was also added to the spec, making in-car HD a distinct possibility.

Marketing hyperbole aside, the new specification now includes a total of 5 different cable types: standard, "high-speed"—which handles the higher data rates for 3D and digital cinema resolution, Ethernet-capable versions of both of the previous two, and an automotive-specific variant. Further, as Venuti said, in addition to the standard HDMI port and the already small mini-HDMI port, the spec adds a 19-pin micro-HDMI variant that is compatible with up to 1080p resolutions for portable devices.

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[H]ardware Roundup

Cooling

13 Core i7 LGA 1366 CPU coolers compared @ Legit Reviews

Noctua NH-U12P SE1366 CPU cooler @ Virtual-Hideout

Systems

Kobalt Apache Ice X58 system @ DriverHeaven

Shuttle XS29 SFF system @ ViaArena

Hulu Deskop Launched

Big fan of Hulu? You may be pleased to know that a beta desktop client for Hulu was just released. It integrates with Windows Media Center or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s library with the remote. Check out the main page for more details, including system requirements and a FAQ section. I’m going to try it out on my media PC this weekend, I hope.

For users without remotes, the application is keyboard and mouse-enabled. Hulu Desktop is a downloadable application and will work on PCs and Macs. It will initially launch as a beta product during which we plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service.

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Live TV Coming to Xbox in UK

UK Xbox 360 owners rejoice! Live TV is coming to your system via broadband and the Sky Player in the fall. TechRadar put together an FAQ for you so that you know what you need to do. No pricing details have been released yet.

So if you want to know the expected minimum connection rate, the potential for future growth or if a non-UK version is in the pipeline then read on as we look to give you a little more information about Xbox's Sky Player.

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Wikipedia Bans Scientology IPs

Neowin reports that Wikipedia’s arbitration board "ArbCom" handed down a project-wide ban on all IP addresses owned by the Church of Scientology for what they call "disruptive editing". Follow the jump for more.

This is the first time that an entire organization's IP address block has been banned from editing Wikipedia, despite individual IPs being blocked in the past from other organizations, such as the US DoJ in 2008.

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Time Warner to Spin Off AOL

Time Warner has decided to cut its losses and run by spinning off AOL. Back in 2001, AOL picked up TW for $147 billion in dot-com inflated stock. TW owns 95% of AOL and will buy the other 5% from Google before sending AOL on its merry way as a separate entity at the end of the year. You’ve got fail!

AOL co-founder Steve Case, the other main architect of the 2001 deal and the founder and CEO of investment company Revolution LLC, wrote Thursday on the short-messaging site Twitter that he is glad to see AOL set loose. He said it "has been a long, tortuous journey" and now is "time to open a new chapter."

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Intel Lynnfield Processor to Ship in August

Next week is going to be a busy in regards to product announcements, with E3 and Computex going on at the same time. Intel will be showing off its Lynnfield CPU at Computex and release is planned for late August. Intel still hasn’t officially called Lynnfield the Core i5, though many other media outlets have done it for them.

The pictures, posted on Chinese-language hardware site XFastest, showed an Intel processor marked "Confidential" installed on an Intel motherboard. Screenshots that accompanied the photos of the processor and motherboard described the chip as a 2.67GHz Core i5 processor called Lynnfield.

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Semiconductor Sales to Fall 22% in 2009, Gartner & IDC

Let the good times roll. Gartner and IDC agree that worldwide semiconductor revenue will drop by over 1/5 compared to 2008. Analysts are forecasting sales to go from $255 billion in ’08 down to $198 billion in ’09, a 22.4% decline. IDC doesn’t expect year-over-year growth until 2Q of 2010.

"First quarter PC shipments came in better than expected, which led to an improved outlook for microprocessors, but we believe most of this improvement was due to the fact that inventories had been run down too far, rather than true demand returning," said Gartner research vice president Bryan Lewis, in a statement on the new data.

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Thermaltake, BMW, AMD to Show Chassis of the Future at Computex

Thermaltake exclusively work[sic] together with the renowned design consultancy BMW Group DesignworksUSA and the prime manufacturer of processors and graphics solutions Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) on a chassis project called Level 10. Level 10, the Extreme Gaming Station chassis, reflects the vibrant and pioneering vision of DesignworksUSA which results from their work in the automotive area as well as for diverse industries from lifestyle to aviation, yachting or IT. Level 10 entirely breaks with traditional case architecture conventions and explores a daring and futuristic concept in which most components are compartmentalized, making the case an open and modular structure, allowing for most convenient access to and exchangeability of the most important components.

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IBM, Syracuse University to Build Energy-Efficient Data Center

IBM, Syracuse University and New York State have entered into a multiyear agreement to build and operate a new computer data center on the University's campus that will incorporate advanced infrastructure and smarter computing technologies to make it one of the most energy-efficient data centers in the world. The data center is expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center today, making it one of the "greenest" computer centers in operation.

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Gmail in Real-Time: Google Does The Wave

What exactly is Google Wave? According to this article, it is an attempt to "combine conversation-type communication and collaboration-type communication." Still confused? It’s supposed to be an all-in-one service that is a little Twitter, a little Facebook and allows real-time communication, photo and document sharing. It’s the everythingamajig!

Later on Thursday, Google plans to publicly demonstrate Google Wave for the first time at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. Billed as "the e-mail of the future," Google Wave is the result of a multiyear project inside of Google to reinvent the inbox, blending e-mail, instant messaging, photo sharing, and perhaps, with input from developers, connections to the world of social networking.

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