Ashish Patel

There have already been reports of faulty XBOX systems. Some would say thats expected since Microsoft make it (based on the history of Windows), but I would say just don’t ever let Microsoft make a car.

Now to the XBOX problem. It doesn’t seem to be a common problem, so I hope things get fixed with elegance (if possible)

Problems included screens going black and the appearance of a variety of error messages.

“So, the Xbox 360’s been available for, what, 15 minutes, and already the crash reports are streaming in,” a poster on Engadget said. The sites did not say how widespread the problem was.

O’Donnell, who declined to say how many reports the company had received, said calls represent a “very, very small fraction” of units sold. The number of calls was not unexpected, she said.

O’Donnell said the best way to resolve the issues is to call 1-800-4MY-XBOX for trouble shooting. If that does not solve the problem, she said, Microsoft will repair or replace the unit.

So who would think being a computer geek could mean helping the world fight AIDS? Usually when you think of the people fighting AIDS or Cancer you think of doctors and laboratory researchers. Times have change…

You may recall from a previous post that I became a contributor to the Human Proteome project on the World Community Grid. On the 1-year anniversary of the World Community Grid, which was sometime in the past week, the FightAIDS@Home project was launched.

UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, estimated that in 2004 there were more than 40 million people around the world living with HIV, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The virus has affected the lives of men, women and children all over the world. Currently, there is no cure in sight, only treatment with a variety of drugs.

Even more challenging, HIV is a “sloppy copier,” so it is constantly evolving new variants, some of which are resistant to current drugs. It is therefore vital that scientists continue their search for new and better drugs to combat this moving target.

Scientists are able to determine by experiment the shapes of a protein and of a drug separately, but not always for the two together. If scientists knew how a drug molecule fit inside the active site of its target protein, chemists could see how they could design even better drugs that would be more potent than existing drugs.

To address these challenges, World Community Grid’s FightAIDS@Home project runs a software program called AutoDock developed in Prof. Olson’s laboratory. AutoDock is a suite of tools that predicts how small molecules, such as drug candidates, might bind or “dock” to a receptor of known 3D structure. The very first version of AutoDock was written in the Olson Laboratory in 1990 by Dr. David S. Goodsell, while newer versions, developed by Dr. Garrett M. Morris, have been released which add new scientific understanding and strategies to AutoDock, making it computationally more robust, faster, and easier for other scientists to use. AutoDock is used on the World Community Grid to dock large numbers of different small molecules to HIV protease, so the best molecules can be found computationally, selected and tested in the laboratory for efficacy against the virus, HIV. By joining forces together, The Scripps Research Institute, World Community Grid and its growing volunteer force can find better treatments much faster than ever before.

I really love the whole idea of using idle time on a computer (ie. the screensaver) to do something useful for the rest of the world. I’ve been a member since 9/22/2005, so only a few months now. However, I’ve already racked up some major scores:

Activity Summary
	My Accumulated Points:	73,177
	My Team:	IBM Toronto Software Lab

Detailed Statistics
	Statistics Last Updated:	11/23/2005 12:06:02 (UTC) [1 hour(s) ago]–> Totals:     Total Run Time (y:d:h:m:s) (Rank) 0:086:19:24:09 (#21,418)   Points Generated (Rank) 73,177 (#15,694)   Results Returned (Rank) 394 (#12,033) Averages:     Avg. Run Time Per Calendar Day (y:d:h:m:s) 0:001:09:04:12   Avg. Run Time Per Result (y:d:h:m:s) 0:000:05:17:16   Avg. Points Per Hour of Run Time 35.12379   Avg. Points Per Calendar Day 1,161.53968   Avg. Points Per Result 185.72843   Avg. Results Per Calendar Day 6.25397 Miscellaneous:     Last Result Returned (UTC) 11/23/2005 10:27:23 [3+ hour(s) ago]   Device Installations 2 Team History and Statistics Team Name Status Joined-Retired Team Name (y:d:h:m:s) Points Generated Results Returned IBM Toronto Software Lab 09/22/2005 - Current 0:085:11:22:19 72,071 389

So everyone knows about the hype that the XBOX 360 has been creating. From a technical perspective, I think Microsoft did a great job in bringing in a custom Power5 processor for XBOX 360 over the old Intel Pentium III in the first edition of XBOX. As a result, games will be a lot better since the 360 will be able to render so many more polygons, giving graphics a more realistic touch.

However, from a business perspective, the XBOX product line may not be all what its made out to be. The first XBOX was a bloody disaster for Microsoft as it cost them approximately $4 billion in losses. Although the hype around XBOX 360 is huge, its only expected to rake in $1.5 billion in consoles, games, and accessories in just 3 months! Although this is hardly an uptake on the $4 billion loss, its quite impressive to see that Microsoft plans on puting 3 million XBOX 360 consoles into homes across North America.

Most people today see the 360 as just a gaming console in your home, however, this is Microsoft’s foot into your door. The Microsoft business will most likely use the XBOX 360 as a platform for delivering media to anyone’s home that is equiped with the XBOX hardware. - which is quite a smart move on their part. The good thing is that IBM will also benefit, since its their processor at the heart of this beast! Glad to see IBM and Microsoft doing good together.

If you have heard of Sun’s “Project Looking Glass” please give yourself a pat on the back!

Project Looking Glass is based on an open platform that experiments with 3D user interfaces. I’ve been quietly learning about this project in my spare time, and now that they have public demos I thought I’d express how cool I think it is. The project runs on Sun’s Java Desktop Operating System and allows 3D user interfaces to be controlled and handled in pure 3D. For example, if you are watching a video in the media player, you can take the window and “dock ” it along the side of the desktop. You can also turn windows “inside-out” so that they have a mirror effect. There are a tonne of other features too, I don’t have all day to write them out

The most impressive feature is the desktop wallpaper. When the desktop loads and when you move your cursor from one end of the desktop to the other, the desktop behaves as if you are actually walking around - that is it shows you the desktop wallpaper from slightly different perspectives. You really have to try out the demo to see what I’m talking about (REQ: J2SE 5.0 and Java Web Start).

Why do I think this is so cool? Well it really comes down to the “feel” in “look and feel”. I don’t see other operating system developers taking a similar approach to Sun’s approach. Check out the project here.

On November 17, 2005, I was astonished to find that Sun Microsystems is backing one of my favourite databases, PostgreSQL .

Sun announced that they are going to help tweak up the database to work with Solaris and for other “high-end” capabilities (whatever that means, but atleast they are starting to support it). Executives also said:

When it updates Solaris 10 next year, Sun will bundle PostgreSQL with its operating system. The pricing for database support will be included in the cost of the Solaris contract, executives said.

Good job!