Guess (good) things happen that way
 
Apple’s über-popular iTunes music service and its charismatic cofounder Steve Jobs celebrated milestones this week, with Jobs turning 55 and the 10 billionth song being downloaded from the iTunes site. The Cupertino based iPhone maker also announced the name of the person who won a $10 000 iTunes gift card, for downloading the 10 billionth track. Louie Sulcer of Woodstock, Georgia is the lucky music fan who snapped up the magically numbered download by purchasing “Guess Things Happen That Way” by Johnny Cash.
 
SA leading the way with its eye in the sky
 
The first live images from South Africa’s second satellite, Sumbandila, arrived during the week. Sumbandila means ‘lead the way’ in Tshivenda and according to mybroadband.co.za the satellite cost over R20 million to build and R12 million to launch. South Africa’s first satellite, SunSat, was launched in 1999.
 
Microsoft gets financially fat off exFAT
 
Microsoft and Panasonic have signed an intellectual property licensing agreement that sees the American software giant, providing the Japanese electronics manufacturer, with access to their successor to the FAT file system, Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT) technology. The new file system significantly increases the size of files that flash memory devices can cope with. According to Microsoft it “not only facilitates large files for use of audiovisual media, [but] it enables seamless data portability and an easy interchange between desktop PCs and consumer electronic devices [as well].”
 
Graphics giants announce new products
 
First out of the blocks to announce the launch date for its first Fermi-based cards, the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 470 GPUs, was Nvidia. On 26 March visitors to the PAX East 2010 gamer show, running from 26-28 March in Boston, will be the first to catch a glimpse of what Nvidia calls “[the] most advanced GPU computing architecture ever built”.
 
Not to be outdone, AMD launched its Direct X11 compliant ATI Radeon HD 5830 graphics card. The 5830 sports ATI’s Eyefinity technology that allows one ATI graphics processing unit (GPU) to support up to six monitor outputs at the same time, as well as ATI Stream capabilities, which allows for an improved overall gaming experience by enhancing aspects such as in-game Artificial Intelligence (AI).