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NEWS, ETC.
November 2002
Thursday, 27 November 2002
"Hammer" to
Hold 100 Million Transistors. Hammer
is a "100 million transistor machine," AMD CEO Hector Ruiz
said in a recent interview. The chip will debut at around 2GHz
and come out with a performance rating number in the mid-3,000s... Or,
a little faster than the current Intel P4? Yes, but it's the first one...
MSI
Introduces New Dual-channel DDR Motherboards. The GNB Max series
is able to support the latest Hyper-Threading Technology, AGP 8x graphics
and dual-channel DDR memory.
New
Worm, Winevar, Damaged but Dangerous.
Could delete all the files
on a computer's hard disk drive... may contain the subject "Re:
AVAR (Association of Anti-Virus Asia Researchers." Vulnerability
allows attachments in HTML-format e-mail messages to be opened without
user interaction.
Microsoft
Unveils Licensing Discounts To Counter Linux. Microsoft has unveiled
a licensing discount policy to discourage its business customers from
switching to Linux or other open source alternatives. Microsoft
Bends on Small Business Software Licenses.
17-inch
and Larger TFT LCD Prices Falling
Tuesday, 26 November 2002
Economy
Grows at Brisk 4 Percent Rate. Economy's 3rd-quarter pace is
better than expected. Consumer Confidence Rises in November
Conexant,
Jungo Team on CableHome Platform. Under
the agreement, the companies will build a joint reference design using
Conexant's recently announced HomePlug chipset and Jungo's Linux-based
OpenRG software suite. The CableHome project
is developing the interface specifications necessary to extend high-quality
cable-based services to network devices within the home.
ISP
Download Caps to Slow Swapping? High-speed
Internet service providers are considering adopting new pricing plans
that if widely adopted could take a bite out of file swapping.
Linksys
Seeks Norton 'Protection'. Burned
by well-chronicled security
flaws within its products, Linksys on Monday announced it would use
software from Internet security specialists Symantec on its line Cable/DSL
routers sold in the U.S.
Feds
Crack Huge Identity Theft Ring. Federal
investigators have uncovered a massive identity theft scheme that is
thought to have spanned nearly three years and involved more than 30,000
victims.
Monday, 25 November 2002
What
Can You Squeeze Into a USB Pen Drive? Vendors
of the key chain-sized drives get creative, cramming music, biometric
locks, tiny cameras and other extras into the storage devices.
Controller
Pushes Ethernet Into Everyday Equipment. Motorola
has introduced a 32-bit microcontroller with an Ethernet interface. Fast-food
restaurants could monitor dishwashers, ovens and refrigerators featuring
the chip, experts said.
How
to Choose Your Bells and Whistles. Industry
jargon attempts to distract the buyer from a plain truth: Computers these
days are largely commodity products, built from third-party components
and stuffed with mostly identical programs.
Affordable
MP3 Players
Top
10 LCD Monitors
Friday, 21 November 2002
Future
of the Notebook. Yes,
portable PCs will get smaller, lighter, faster. But you're also in
for some surprises, like an organic display that bends or even folds.
Nvidia
Unveils K8-supporting Single Chip. The Crush K8 for the Upcoming
AMD 64-bit processors will be a single chip solution with the AGP controller
interface integrated into the south bridge chip (media communications
processor, MCP).
Taiwan's
Electronics Exports Surge. Exports
of notebook PCs, handsets and PDAs surged to a record monthly high, totaling
$2.84 billion, up 28.0% from October 2001. Semiconductors, flat panel
components, and consumer electronics products rose 12.6% to $2.64 billion.
Thursday, 21 November 2002
New,
'Nimda-like' Microsoft Vulnerability Found. Microsoft
has issued a software patch for what it described as a "critical" new
security vulnerability affecting most versions of its Windows operating
systems. Internet
Explorer versions 5.01, 5.5 and 6.0 are also affected by the new vulnerability.
Hewlett-Packard
Rises on Strong Quarter
Intel
Launches 2.2 and 2.1GHz Celerons
Wednesday, 20 November 2002
AMD
and Epic Demonstrate Power 0f 64-Bit Gaming. At
Comdex, AMD today demonstrated a 64-bit developmental version of Unreal
Tournament 2003 from Epic Games on a system based on the upcoming AMD
Athlon 64 processor.
U.S.
Broadband Growth Steady. 28 percent of U.S. online households connect
to the Internet via broadband connections.
Internet
Use Booming Globally. Internet users could total 655 million by the
end of 2002, a year-on-year increase of 30%.
Why
Red Hat Owns Linux. Every so often,
someone will state that Red Hat is "the Microsoft of Linux."
Comdex
2002 - Day 2: Intel's CPU Roadmap & Hammer Performance
FPD
TVs to Completely Replace CRT TVs in 10 Years
Chance
Discovery Could Dramatically Increase the Efficiency of Solar Cells
Robot
Repairs Heart Without Opening Chest
Tuesday, 19 November 2002
AMD
Lists Latest Athlon XP Prices. AMD
recently released its new pricing list for the Athlon XP line, slashing
prices of its Athlon XP 2100+, 2000+, 1900+, 1800+ and 1700+ processors
by more than 40%.
AMD
Announces “AMD Athlon 64” As Brand Name For Next-Generation Desktop
And Mobile Processors. At Comdex,
AMD (NYSE:AMD) today announced it has selected “AMD Athlon 64” as the
brand name for its next-generation processor for desktop and mobile
PCs, formerly code named “Clawhammer.”
Intel
changes Springdale specifications. Intel on November 15 notified
its motherboard clients that it has decided to change its Springdale
chipset’s FSB (front-side bus) speed from 667MHz to 800MHz and its memory
architecture from dual-channel DDR333 to dual-channel DDR400, motherboard
company sources said.
SuSE
Makes Bold Move on Linux Desktop. SuSE
plans to announce in January an effort to bring the open-source Linux
operating system to desktop computers, an attack on Microsoft that
will be bolder than similar initiatives from Red Hat and Sun Microsystems.
Philips
Builds Bridge Between TV and PC. The
company's connectivity group demonstrated its Wireless Home AV Platform
device at the Comdex ... product is designed to allow wireless access
of content stored on a PC via a consumer-electronics device such as
a television or home stereo.
Supercomputer
Speed Race on Again. IBM will deliver a 130,000-processor monster
by 2005, with a raw speed 10 times that of the Japanese record holder.
Scientists
Identify "Master" Molecule That Controls Action Of Many Genes
Monday, 18 November 2002
Nvidia
Rolls High-end Graphics Processor. Nvidia
rolled out its long awaited GeForceFX graphics processor at Comdex today. Also,
there are a bunch of product announcements on Nvidia's
web site.
Agere
Demos WLANs at 162Mb/s. Agere
Systems is demonstrating at Comdex this week a wireless LAN technology
capable of transmitting data at 162Mb/s in the 5GHz frequency band,
three times the throughput achieved from an 802.11a device.
Springdale
and K8-based Motherboards to Appear Quietly at Comdex Fall. Motherboards
using Intel’s Springdale chipset and the K8-platform from Advanced Micro
Devices (AMD) will be at the top of Taiwanese board makers’ exhibition
lists.
Lindows
Unleashes New OS. Lindows's
new OS is compatible with file types such as Microsoft Word, Excel,
and PowerPoint, as well as Flash, Real Audio and most graphic file
types.
Show
Report: See Comdex for Yourself
Red
Hat Rival UnitedLinux To Debut at Comdex
Friday, 15 November 2002
CompactPCI
Gets Serial-fabric Spec. The
PCI Industrial Manufacturers Group unveiled a specification describing
a high-speed serial-backplane fabric this week. Hours later, Motorola
rolled out a hardware platform that complies with the new standard.
Nvidia
First and Perhaps Only User of DDR II Until 2004. Nvidia
will become the first mainstream user of DDR II memory when it announces
its NV30 PC graphics processor at Comdex in
Las Vegas on Monday... DDR II will come to PC main memory in 2004 with
256 and 512 Mbit parts running at 400 and 533 MHz...
DDR
Memory Prices Moderate as Production Output Ramps-up. A
five-month surge in DDR SDRAM prices may now start to level off.
What
to Expect at Comdex
Thursday, 14 November 2002
Intel
Intros HyperThreading on 3GHz Pentium...
Claiming HT boosts performance by up to 25 percent.
AMD
to Cut Work Force by 15%. AMD
announced that it will reduce its global work force by approximately
2,000 positions by the end of the second quarter of 2003.
Nforce2
Motherboards Finally For Sale
Gas
Powered Batteries Becoming a Longer Life Reality.
Want a laptop that runs for days?
Taiwan
DRAM Makers to Ramp up DDR Ratios to 90% by January. The much-acclaimed
DDR shortage of recent months may be fading out, as Taiwan DRAM makers
gear up to pump DDR ratios to 90% by the end of this year or the beginning
of next year.
FTC
Drawing the Line on Spammers. An
FTC-led investigation led to warnings being sent 100 alleged spammers,
telling them to stop immedidately. Plus, it identifies the most likely
targets.
Nforce2
Motherboards Finally For Sale
Beyond
the Floppy: The evolution of portable storage
Wednesday, 13 November 2002
Under
the Hood of Apple's OS X Operating System. Linux
enthusiasts considering OS X will be happy to know that Jaguar now
ships with the default shell for most Linux distributions, the Bourne
Again Shell, better known as bash. Athlon-powered
Apple Boxes.
AMD
Postpones 90nm Products to 2004.
Due to problems in the back-end
verification of SOI technology and minor changes in design, AMD’s K8
processors will not hit the market until the first half of 2003, thus
affecting the launch schedule of its 90nm products.
Seagate
'Gets Vertical' And Demonstrates Record Storage Areal Density And Performance... demonstrating
areal densities of over 100 gigabits per square inch (Gb/in2) using
perpendicular recording technology... record data rates of up to 125
MB per second.
VIA
Said to Push Back KT400A and P4X600 Production to 2003.
VIA Technologies has reportedly decided to delay volume production of
its KT400A and P4X600 motherboard chipsets from the fourth quarter to
early 2003...
World
Telecom Market Set for 6 Percent Growth.
Global telecommunications revenue are growing at 6 percent per year and
will rise from around US$1 trillion this year to $1.3 trillion in 2007,
according to a report to be published next week by Pyramid Research Inc.
Intel
Confirms Desktop Chip Price Cuts
Memory:
DDR SDRAM Share Skyrockets, SDRAM Share Rapidly Decreases and RDRAM
Becomes Invisible
Tuesday, 12 November 2002
Stocks
Surge on Fed Official's Comments.
Stocks surged in afternoon trade on Tuesday following upbeat comments
about a U.S. economic recovery by a Federal Reserve official that boosted
investor sentiment on the heels of three straight days of losses. Cisco's
Order Backlog Boosts Markets. Cisco
said its order backlog is rising, boosting hopes among investors that
the technology bellwether's sales may be stronger than expected.
PC
Makers Rev-up 3 GHz Releases. Intel's newest
Pentium 4 chip, due this week, should soon let loose a torrent of new,
high-performance desktop PCs. But they won't be cheap.
33,000
Developers Building Linux-based Apps for IBM Software.
The program has helped corporate and commercial developers create more
than 4,200 new Linux-based applications using IBM software.
States
to Vote Today on Internet Sales Tax Plan. Revenue-hungry
states today are likely to take the first step toward building a national
framework for taxing items sold over the Internet.
Infineon
Drives RF CMOS to 40Gb/s. Researchers are now
developing a two-to-one multiplexer/demultiplexer chipset using 0.13-micron
CMOS technology that achieves a transmission rate of 40 Gbit/s.
Nvidia
nForce2 Faces Delays. The version of Nvidia's
latest chipset that comes with integrated graphics should be available
by now, but motherboard manufacturers say they are still waiting.
W3C
Advances XForms 1.0.
Nearly 10 years after the introduction of HTML forms revolutionized transactions
on the Internet, a new specification is set to reshape the nature of
Web-based forms.
AMD
Cuts Athlon XP Prices. Following Intel’s lowering
of Celeron processor prices the day before, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)
cut the prices of its low-end and medium-range Athlon XP processors on
November 11, a source at the company’s Taiwan office confirmed.
Milky
Way's Black Hole on Starvation Diet.
New study shows that the hole can only consume less than 0.1 per
cent of the Earth's mass per year.
Friday, 8 November 2002
Nvidia
Experienced Losses in Fiscal 3Q. Graphics chip designer Nvidia on
November 7 posted US$430 million in revenues for the third quarter of
its 2003 fiscal year (ended October 27, 2002), rising slightly from US$427
million in the previous quarter. Nvidia
Helps Drive Sales Growth at TSMC.
Developer's
Dilemma: Perl or PHP? Perl has been around much longer than
PHP, and is by all accounts more flexible. In fact, PHP actually started
out as a Perl application and was designed specifically for Web work.
Perl is not specifically tailored to working with Web sites, but it
has other advantages.
First
Look: Sony's All-in-One Desktop. The Sony VAIO PCV-W10 combines a
stereo system, a video player, and a surprisingly good software bundle
into a very sleek design.
Thursday, 7 November 2002
Microsoft,
Computer Makers Launch Tablet PCs. Microsoft
Corp. Chairman Bill Gates, flanked by top executives
from major computer makers, on Thursday launched the Tablet PC, which
allows users to write on the screen of a flat, notebook-style computer. Microsoft
Unveils More Than a Product at Tablet PC Launch. The
Tablet PC Strives to Redefine.
DVD
Burners Hit Prime Time. Though the format wars continue, rewritable
DVD finally has mass appeal. 13 drives, starting at $250, are tested.
Fiber
Optics vs. Gigabit Ethernet. Fiber's
share of the horizontal market is still very small -- probably less
than 10 percent -- but it eventually may eclipse or even displace twisted
pair.
TI
Pushes Ferroelectric RAM Forward in Memory Race. Texas
Instruments (TI) is pushing ahead with ferroelectric memory as other
leading chipmakers, such as Motorola, Philips, Infineon, and IBM are
lining up behind magnetic RAM (MRAM). Intel, the world's largest chipmaker,
is known to be researching non-volatile phase-change and plastic memory
technologies.
Quantum
Encryption Secures High-speed Data Stream. A
quantum encryption system developed by two Northwestern University professors
can encode entire high-speed data streams and could potentially encrypt
data sent at Internet backbones speeds...
Study:
Lengthy Computer Use Saps Energy. In a three-year study of more than
25,000 workers, Japanese researchers discovered that people who sat in
front of computer screens were more likely to experience physical pain
such as eye and shoulder strain, and to suffer from motivational symptoms
such as lethargy.
AMD
Sees Big Job Cuts Layoffs Could Reach Up to 20%. After losing more
than $439 million during the past two quarters, Advanced Micro Devices
will cut its workforce by as much as 20 percent as part of an effort
to restructure the struggling chipmaker, according to the company's chairman.
Open
Source Community Gloats Over Leaked Microsoft Memo.
Open source software advocates have concluded that a leaked Microsoft
memorandum detailing a survey it conducted of IT professionals on their
views of open source software shows that Microsoft's public relations
tactics on open source are failing and, to win out against the software
giant, open source software advocates just have to "stay the course." The
memo.
Is
Your Company Ready for the Open (Source) Road? Mainstream
businesses are now seeing that Linux is maturing as a credible alternative
to other operating environments from the cost, resource and control perspectives.
Improved "Pixie
dust" for Double the Magic in Hard Disk Drives.
The new Travelstar 80GN breaks current areal density records by allowing
up to 70 billion bits of data to be written on each square inch of disk
space.
Stores
Post Higher Than Expected Sales. U.S.
retailers reported mostly higher October same-store sales on Thursday,
alleviating fears of a disastrous holiday season, and prompting apparel
chains and department stores to hike their profit targets.
How
to Keep The Wireless Snoops Away. A
wireless network is like hundreds of network cables floating in search
of a rogue computer...
Why
Does My Typing Appear on My Neighbor's PC?
Tuesday, 5 November 2002
High-Tech
Voting Going Smoothly. Although
some devices crashed or need to be reprogrammed, touchscreen and other
high-tech voting machines experienced few problems Tuesday as they made
their full-scale debut in more than 200 counties nationwide.
DVD
Burners Bypass Format Wars. Sony, LG Electronics rewrite the rules
on DVD recording. One of the most exciting newcomers is Sony's
groundbreaking $349 DRU-500A...
Chip
Sales Grew 8% in Third Quarter. The
recovery of the semiconductor industry has picked up breadth and strength
as the year has progressed.
Radioactive
Isotopes Fuel Microscopic Battery. Cornell professor Amit Lal used
microelectromechanical-systems (MEMS) technology to create a millimeter-size
battery that can run for decades.
Can
WirelessUSB Bite Bluetooth? Cypress Semiconductor is introducing
a new technology that it says could leapfrog Bluetooth and other standards
to create a standard for wirelessly linking peripherals such as mice
and keyboards to a PC.
Bride
of Funlove Virus Getting Around. The
new worm, named W32/Braid.A or I-Worm.Bridex, arrives in an e-mail
message without a subject and is contained in an attachment named README.EXE...
Monday, 4 November 2002
Linksys
Vulnerability Puts Home Users at Risk. The
vulnerability affects BEFSR41 routers using a version of the router firmware
earlier than version 1.42.7.
VIA,
SiS Enjoyed Strong October Sales. Encouraged
by continuing strong demand from motherboard clients, VIA Technologies
posted NT$2.529 billion in October revenues, its second-highest monthly
figure for the year, while SiS broke its monthly record for the third
consecutive month, reporting sales of NT$1.803 billion.
Intel
Ships New Xeon Chip. Intel
has begun shipping the next generation of its Xeon Processor MP designed
for multiprocessor servers. Code-named Gallatin, the new chip boasts
twice the integrated Level 3 cache memory and provides a performance
boost of 19 to 38 percent.
IBM
Technologies to Make PCs Think for Themselves. All
point toward a future landscape in which PCs diagnose and fix themselves... Sure!
MS/DOJ:
Judge Accepts Most of Settlement Agreement. U.S.
District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly Friday approved most of the
provisions of a settlement deal between Microsoft Corp. and the U.S.
Department of Justice and nine states that sued the software maker in
a landmark antitrust lawsuit. In doing so, she brushed aside harsher
remedies proposed by nine states that had refused to sign on to the agreement. Microsoft's
Trials Not Over Yet. Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s
antitrust ruling may have gutted many pending private lawsuits against
Microsoft, but cases in California and Europe still pose a danger.
Win
XP Service Pack 1--Ignore at Your Peril. Microsoft
confirms that SP1 fixes the little-known flaw, which proved trivially
easy to exploit when tested. It allows files on an XP system to be deleted
simply by the user's clicking on a link--which could be distributed by
e-mail or on a Web page. XP users having trouble installing SP1 are plugging
the hole using
a utility from Gibson Research.
Job
Cut Announcements Up in October; Tech Sector Hit Hard
A new Challenger, Gray & Christmas
study says the number of planned job cuts jumped last month, as companies
announced plans to shed more than 176,000 jobs.
Ready
to Work, Nowhere to Go. Laid-Off Telecom Workers Stranded by Industry's
Fall. The U.S. communications sector lost 109,400 jobs from June 2001
to June 2002.
Why
Microchips Weigh Over a Kilogram
IBM
SiGe Transistor Hits 350 GHz
Friday, 1 November 2002
Judge's
Settlement Approval Is Win For Microsoft
DRAM
Price Hikes and Shortages Expected in November. The
seasonal demand for PCs and other products have recently caused a jump
in the average selling prices for memory, especially DDR memory.
Microsoft
Tunes Windows Media Software. Microsoft
will release a near-final version of its Windows Media Player 9 software
today and announce the availability of a new version of its digital home-movie-making
application.
Key
to Tech Success: Don't Overspend. Companies that spend the most on
technology don't necessarily perform the best in their industries, according
to new research.
Intel’s
Price Reduction on the 10th of November is Confirmed
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