The war rages on with the open source OpenGL and Microsoft’s DirectX. OpenGL is working on version 4.0 to bring its features up to par with the newest DirectX 11. The battle has been going on since the start of DirectX, with both sides having advantages.

OpenGL 4.0 adds more support for using a graphics processing unit (GPU) for other computing chores and for tesselation, which subdivides a region on a graphics object into many smaller patches for more detailed imagery. The technology got its start as a graphics library at pioneering Silicon Graphics but has grown into a standard that works on many different computer systems and overseen by the Khronos Group.

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The search engine, and everything else company, Google is starting to lose more market share to the new Microsoft search engine, Bing. What will Google do to up the ante and get some of those converts back? Who knows… Personally, I think a lot of it is based on demographics. I know a lot of older people use Yahoo search, as it is what they know. The younger crowd uses Google, and the in-betweeners use Bing. They do share a lot of similarities, but it’s that little extra that makes people switch. Anyone can make a search engine, but it takes talent to make one that improves your daily life (maps, phone numbers, pricing, images, etc.). You aren’t just looking for sites that list the terms in the search, you’re looking for information on the terms. Search Engines have a lot of room to grow and improve, and the competition is breeding a lot of new innovation in the market.

Microsoft’s Bing online search service gained usage share in the United States for the ninth straight month in February, according to market researchers at Hitwise and comScore. Google still dominates the market, with about 68 percent of all searches. But Bing now accounts for over 10 percent of searches and, unlike with Google, its share is actually rising. (In second place, Yahoo controls about 15.7 percent of the market.)

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Starting next year, a new standard in hard drive technology will hurt some XP users. While it’s not really a new technology, it is a different way of doing things. Hard drives format using 512 byte sectors, whereas the new format will use 4K sectors. This means that there will be less unused space on hard drives, helping increase capacity over time. Windows Vista and 7 are already set up to use the new 4K hard drives.

Because XP was coded in a time before this standard switch was under consideration, the Windows OS could see compatibility problems at worst, and speed drops at a minimum. Some advanced drives will be able to emulate the older sector sizes for compatibility, but still, those building their own computers or trading up on hard drives may see notable performance problems. If you’re a devoted XP user facing down the future of storage, tell us how you plan to adapt in the comments

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It seems like the shift to 64-bit may take a bit longer than expected. Microsoft has been slowly migrating from 32-bit to 64-bit with its operating systems, Exchange Server, and now with Office 2010, its applications. All is not great Wonderland, however. Microsoft itself has recommended that users not upgrade to the 64-bit version if they use Office add-ons.

I have been using the 64-bit version of Office 2010 for some time now, and have had no issues with any of the applications. I do not use many add-ons, though.

This quote came from the Microsoft Office 2010 Technology Guarantee FAQ page.

Yes, 64-bit Office 2010 product upgrades will be available. However we strongly recommend most users install 32-bit version of Office 2010 on both 32 and 64-bit Operating Systems because currently many common add-ins for Office will not function in the 64-bit edition. The 64-bit installation of Microsoft Office 2010 products will be available for users who commonly use very large documents or data set and need Excel 2010 programs to access greater than 2GB of memory. There may be technical issues with the 64-bit version and in order to install a 64-bit version of Office 2010 product users must have a 64-bit supported operating system on their PC.

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Most IT departments skipped over Vista, but are now looking at upgrading their old XP machines to Windows 7. Finally, IT departments are waking up to the new technology. Vista wasn’t that bad, but it sure did fail in the enterprise market. Windows 7 has improved quite a bit, not only on the consumer front, but in the corporate front as well. There are a lot of reasons to upgrade from Windows XP, the major one being the age and relatively insecurity compared to the new OS.

Thomas, CIO at Pella Corp., says his IT team began beta testing Vista’s successor a year ago as an upgrade path from Windows XP. By October, just two months after Windows 7 launched, the Pella, Iowa-based window and door manufacturer had 225 Windows 7 clients up and running