Still using Windows Vista? XP? Why? Well, whatever the reason, Microsoft has clarified some of their end-of-life dates for older versions of Windows, including XP. This is mostly about support on the business side but it could be useful if you’ve got an old machine that’s acting up (or you refuse to upgrade).

Ed Bott found the actual dates in a Japanese Microsoft blog post:

As he explains, this doesn’t mean you can buy a copy of XP right now for any money but you can get “Mainstream and Extended” support for implementations of the OS. Good to know if you have something mission critical running on an old Compaq.

photo credit: @Doug88888 via photopin cc

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Microsoft Nails Down Windows End-Of-Life Dates

Multiple class action lawsuits filed over the iPhone 4’s antenna design flaw have been settled, with those that suffered from reduced reception being offered their choice of a free iPhone Bumper case or $15. The settlement is essentially identical to the free case Apple offered all iPhone 4 users in 2010.

A controversy over the iPhone 4’s unique antenna design erupted after it began shipping in July 2010. Apple had designed the device’s stainless steel bezel to serve as antennas for its WiFi, Bluetooth, and cellular radios. It moved the antennas outside of the phone, allowing Apple to make it thinner while gaining improved reception. While the design did increase overall reception for the iPhone 4 compared to previous iPhones, a weak spot was discovered on the bottom left area where a small gap existed between two antenna segments. Some users bridged that gap with their hand, which could significantly attenuate cell reception and result in poor call quality or frequently dropped calls.

Apple tried to show how other cell phones suffered from similar attenuation, but the unique design of the iPhone 4 antenna resulted in a sharper drop for a certain percentage of users. Steve Jobs famously said that users were holding it wrong, but later the company admitted that it was a real problem for some users and offered a free case to any iPhone 4 buyer.

Though a case mitigated the problem, some users decided to sue instead. Multiple lawsuits were filed claiming that Apple misled users about the antenna problem, and those suits were later combined into a single class-action case. According to CNET, a preliminary approval of Apple’s proposed settlement was reached on Friday afternoon. Any US resident that bought an iPhone 4 can make a claim to receive either a free iPhone Bumper case or $15. (Ironically, those same consumers could have gotten a free case almost two years ago.)

The “Antennagate” issue never slowed sales of the iPhone 4, and Apple claims that the problem was isolated to a small percentage of users. “This settlement relates to a small number of customers who indicated that they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4, and didn’t want to take advantage of a free case from Apple when it was being offered in 2010,” an Apple spokesperson told CNET.

Apple resolved the flaw with the iPhone 4S by using dual cell antennas that can be switched on the fly to whichever one is currently receiving the strongest signal.

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iPhone 4 antenna lawsuits settled with choice of free Bumper or $15

There are something like a bazillion apps in the App Store. Do you know what that means? A lot of craptacular apps that should never be put on your iPhone. But sometimes you download an app not knowing it sucks or doesn’t work or is buggy or isn’t what you thought. Can you get a refund from the App Store? Yes! Here’s how. More »

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How to Get a Refund from the App Store [Apple]

It’s little notches like these that could eventually carve out a big Intel-shaped niche in the mobile universe. What you’re looking at is a prototype chip codenamed ‘Rosepoint’ that somehow crams a digital WiFi radio and a dual-core Atom CPU onto the same piece of silicon. Interference would normally make such proximity impossible, but Rosepoint incorporates new anti-radiation and noise-cancelling shielding to prevent the components from corrupting each other. The aim isn’t just to shrink everything, but also to deliver “state of the art power efficiency” by removing unnecessary circuitry. Intel even claims it can fit the RF antenna onto a chip too, but it doesn’t want to show that off just yet. Too many prying eyes.

Intel puts CPU and WiFi radio together on same chip, with proper shielding of course originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:02:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel puts CPU and WiFi radio together on same chip, with proper shielding of course

1sockchuck writes “Google is seeking permission to place satellite antennas on land near its data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The 4.5 meter antennas could be used to receive content feeds from broadcast networks that could be bundled with a high-speed fiber service. The FCC filings were made by Google Fiber, which is currently laying fiber for a high-speed network in Kansas City that will provide Internet connectivity ‘at speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have today.'”

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Google Seeks To Plant Antenna Farm In Iowa

Silk screen printing is a bit intimidating at first, but it’s easier than it looks and it’s possible to set up a printing area in your own home for cheap. We’ll show you how you can do it with a minimum amount of materials. More »

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A Simple Guide to Screen Printing Your Own Shirts [Video]

Dominic Ludlam writes, “Promise.TV has launched the world’s first Promiscuous TV recorder! Working on the UK’s Freeview platform, it records every programme on every TV and radio channel and stores them for a whole week.

And for all Boing Boing readers who visit the site, we have a daily draw running this week to get a new Promise recorder half price!”

This was originally commissioned as an internal BBC project, and the Ludlams and their partners have been productizing it ever since. It really does what it says on the tin: records the whole Freeview multiplex for a week at a time, which means that you don’t have to program your PVR with the shows you like: you always have the last week’s TV on tap (this’d be especially cool for when scandalous material is broadcast from Parliament — if you find out about it after the fact you can go back and check). The Promise.tv folks have worked out several ingenious ways of navigating all this stored material as well.

I’ve written about this before, and I’m awfully glad to see it finally come to market.

The Promise Home is a recorder that connects four additional televisions in other rooms around the home.

All connected TVs can play any of the stored or saved programmes independently, and in they can also share bookmarks. This lets you start watching a programme in one room, set a bookmark and carry on watching from the same point in another room.

Promise.TV

(Thanks, Dom!)

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Promise.tv: a PVR that records EVERYTHING on TV for a whole week

Silk screen printing is a bit intimidating at first, but it’s easier than it looks and it’s possible to set up a printing area in your own home for cheap. We’ll show you how you can do it with a minimum amount of materials. More »

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Simple Guide to Screen Printing Your Own Shirts [Video]

The Xbox 360 and Wii are, if you want to stay under warranty, locked entities. You can’t upgrade them at all. The PS3, though, lets you swap out a hard drive, and with the coming of the age of solid state drives (SSD), this can result in big performance gains. More »

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Want Your PS3 Games to Run Faster? Buy an SSD [PS3]

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician, cryptographer, and logician, plus the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. He also worked in biology, and now, 58 years after his tragic death, science has confirmed one of his old biological hypotheses. More »

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Scientists confirm Alan Turing’s 60-year-old theory for why tigers have stripes [Biology]