Amazon's Cloud Allowing Windows Server to Run Free

If you are wanting to run Windows Server via Amazon's Cloud Service for free, the time has come for your wish to be granted. That's right, enterprise companies now have the ability to run Microsoft's Windows Server for as many as 750 hours in Amazon's cloud completely free using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Free Usage Tier according to a statement released by the website on Saturday.

This announcement will allow enterprise companies that already run applications on Windows Server to give Amazon's cloud service a test drive completely free of charge. Enterprise users will be able to select from a wide array of pre-configured Amazon Machine Images without Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2. The Windows Server images run on a Micro instance (virtual sever) that includes 613 MB of memory as well as 32-bit or 64-bit support.

The Free Usage Tier was launched back in 2010 but has only recently become available with Linux. Enterprise companies now have the opportunity to run both operating systems simultaneously for as long as 750 hours per month for one year. After that, these companies will have to pay regular fees that start as low as $0.02 per hour for Linux and $0.03 per hour for Windows.

If a company exceeds its usage limits, additional fees will be incurred. For instance, if you have two different server instances active for 400 hours a piece for the entire month, you have gone over your monthly usage by 50 hours. The first 750 hours will still be free, but you will have to pay the standard price for the 50 hours extra you used. In addition to that, the tier also includes limited use of Amazon's load balancer, storage services and the SimpleDB database.

Source: Computer World - Windows Server now runs for free in Amazon's cloud

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Upgraded Samsung Series 7 Gamer Laptop Set to Hit U.S. in April

Us laptop gamers here in the states have been pretty envious of our European brothers as they have had the privilege of buying the Samsung Series 7 Gamer notebook since last spring. Well, this spring (April, to be specific) that envy dies and becomes reborn as jubilation as Samsung will be shipping the Series 7 Gamer to us Yanks while giving it a nice increase in specs at the same time.

The 17" gaming laptop will still have the same aesthetics, as well as the same external features, as its European counterpart, including the 2.1 speaker setup with down-firing Subwoofer, super-bright screen and that big knob thingy that switches the device between power modes, like the Gaming Mode, which clocks up the CPU turbo mode, changes the keyboard backlighting, disables the Windows key and a few other things. The only real external difference is the lack of a 3D display option and the addition of a DisplayPort output.

Crack this bad boy open and you will be able to find the differences. On the inside the Series 7 Gamer gets a nice new set of parts. The second generation Intel Sandy Bridge Core i7 processor is gone, replaced by a quad-core third-generation Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 processor instead. In addition to that, the graphics have received an increase from the Radeon HD 6970M to the upcoming GeForce GTX 670M. You will still have a Blu-ray drive as well as the 2TB hard drive so nothing's new there.

You will be able to grab this mobile gaming giant when it is released in April for a reasonable $1,799, or whenever Intel's high-end Ivy Bridge chips and Nvidia's next-generation GPUs are ready to go, which we hope is by April because, honestly, we can't hold out on this laptop forever.

Source: PC World - Samsung to Bring Series 7 Gamer to the U.S., With Upgrades

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Quanta Sues AMD Over "Faulty" Chips

The world's largest contract maker of notebook computers, Quanta Computer Incorporated, has filed a lawsuit against Advanced Micro Devices Incorporated (AMD) for what Quanta is calling a breach of contract. Quanta is accusing AMD of selling the company defective products and thus seeks compensation.

AMD and its ATI Technologies Incorporated unit sold chips to Quanta that did not meet the company's tolerances and were unfit for particular purposes, the company noted in a federal court filing in San Jose, California. The chips Quanta purchased were used in notebooks Quanta manufactured for NEC which caused the computers to malfunction and crash according to the court filing.

In a statement from Quanta that is found in the court documents says, "Quanta has suffered significant injury to prospective revenue and profits." Quanta is seeking a trial by jury as well as damages for the faulty chips. AMD, which accumulates over $6 billion in annual revenue, is the second largest maker of computer processors, bested only by Intel, which has a staggering $50 billion annual revenue.

The lawsuit also claims breach of warranty, negligent misrepresentation, civil fraud and interference with a contract. "AMD disputes the allegations in Quanta's complaint and believes they are without merit," AMD spokesman Michael Silverman said in a statement. "AMD is aware of no other customer reports of the alleged issues with the AMD chip that Quanta used, which AMD no longer sells. In fact, Quanta has itself acknowledged to AMD that it used the identical chip in large volumes in a different computer platform that it manufactured for NEC without such issues."

In addition to NEC, Quanta makes computers on contract for HP, Dell and Acer. The company's shares increased 1.9% in Taipei today before news of this lawsuit went public, and the case has been filed as Quanta v. Advanced Micro Devices, 12-cv-12, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.

Source: Bloomberg - Quanta Sues AMD Over Allegedly Unsuitable Chips for NEC Notebook Computers

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